- Predictions of a loss for John Mahama and the NDC have emerged, following his constant criticisms of the Free SHS programme

- It has been claimed that Mahama could score only about 20% of the votes in the 2020 elections because of his attacks on the policy

Some Ghanaians have predicted that former president John Dramani Mahama, will lose the 2020 elections.

This, they explained, is because Mahama has consistently spoken against the Free Senior High School (SHS) programme being implemented by the current government.

Sharing their opinions in a vox pop by Daily Guide, some of them explained that they are not happy with Mahamas constant condemnation of the policy.

READ ALSO: Anas speaks for the first time after releasing Kennedy Agyapong's video

For that reason, they went on, he would only win about 20% of votes because of his chronic attacks.

Some also stated that he is nothing more than a nation wrecker who doesnt want the best for Ghana.

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that Mahama called on supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) after losing the 2016 elections.

He added that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) promised the moon but are yet to honour their campaign promises.

This did not go down well with the minister of education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, who reacted to Mahama's comments.

Ghanaian musician, Lucky Mensah, in a video, also mocked Mahama for failing to implement the programme during his time as president.

READ ALSO: Kennedy Agyapong reveals Ahmed's suspected murderer

Some Ghanaians resident in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, have also expressed their anger at Mahama for his recurrent attacks on the programme:

According to Kwadwo Kwarteng of Asafo, Mahama and the NDC will get less than 20% of votes during the 2020 presidential elections because of his hatred for the free SHS programme.

This is a policy that has benefited every Ghanaian and we are surprised that Mahama hates this policy.

Lydia Opoku of Atasemanso, on her part, said Mahama is digging his own grave by kicking against the free SHS policy; this policy has come to stay.

Kennedy Otchere of Santasi also noted that the free SHS is the best social intervention policy ever in Ghanas history and he was surprised Mahama hated the policy.

Afua Fofie of Krofrom also said, I will personally campaign so that Mr. Mahama loses the 2020 polls. Mahama doesnt have Ghanas interest at heart.

READ ALSO: You have one week - Ahmed's family tells police

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The number of home loans continued to decline in November as the value of investment housing commitments dropped to 2013 levels.

The figures recorded over the period generally show that, in trend terms, the number of owner-occupied finance commitments decreased by 0.2%marking the fourteenth consecutive month of decreases. If refinancing is excluded, in trend terms, the number of owner-occupied finance commitments dropped by 0.2%, which is the lowest level since October 2014 and also the fourteenth consecutive decline month-over-month.

Slumps were recorded in Victoria, New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland, with NSW reporting the largest decrease at 0.7%.

Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory posted increases, with ACT (2.2%) leading the upward trend.

The overall drop was driven by another sharp fall in the value of investor finance, down by 1.5% and currently at par with 2013 levels, according to Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) President Adrian Kelly.

REIAs report showed that the number of established-dwelling purchase commitments decreased by 0.1%, while the purchase of new dwellings slid by 0.6% and new-dwelling construction fell by 0.9%.

The proportion of first-home buyers, as a part of total owner-occupied housing-finance commitments, rose in November to 18.3% from 18.1% in October. The number of loans to first-home buyers, meanwhile, climbed by 3.5%.

Kelly said that continued decline in housing finance mirrors the slowing market, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) restrictions on investors, the consequences from the Royal Commission into Banking, and the concerns about changes to property taxation and its impact should there be a change in government.
If you think home values in some of Australias housing markets are getting worse day by day, you have not seen anything yet. The housing market of Sambuca, an Italian town located in the island of Sicily, is on a middle ground, with dozens of homes on sale for just over a dollar, according to a report by CNN.

The move is intended to boost population in the rural community, which, like many other small towns in Italy, has lost residents to larger cities in recent years. To combat that, the city fathers have started selling homes for one euro  about a buck-fourteen US as of Wednesday.

Other Italian towns have tried to lure outsiders with similar programs, but Sambuca officials say that theyve done away with much of the red tape that usually comes along such deals, CNN reported.

As opposed to other towns that have merely done this for propaganda, this city hall owns all 1 houses on sale, said Giuseppe Cacioppo, deputy mayor and tourist councilor of Sambuca. Were not intermediaries who liaise between old and new owners. You want that house, youll get it in no time.

Of course, there is a catch. New owners must promise to refurbish their home within three years, at a cost starting at about 15,000 ($17,200), CNN reported. They must also pay a 5,000 security deposit, which will be returned once the refurbishment is complete.

But buyers will find the outlay worth it, Cacioppo said.

Sambuca is known as the City of Splendor, he told CNN. This fertile patch of land is dubbed the Earthly Paradise. Were located inside a natural reserve, packed with history. Gorgeous beaches, woods and mountains surround us. Its silent and peaceful, an idyllic retreat for a detox stay.

Sambuca is an ancient town, founded by Greeks and conquered by the Saracens around A.D. 830. The city is a patchwork of architectural styles, with a heavy Arab influence. But with the population shrinking, Cacioppo told CNN that the town needed fresh blood.

We cant afford to lose our lovely Arab heritage, he said. Luckily, foreigners are lending a hand in this rescue crusade.
By RICHARD JENKINS

[email protected]

Michigans two senators are looking for answers regarding whether any Great Lakes projects could be impacted by President Donald Trumps effort to build a wall on the southern border.

Citing a National Public Radio story that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been asked to identify projects that could be canceled or delayed to free up funding for a border barrier, Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters wrote a letter to R.D. James, the assistant secretary of the Army (Civil Works) on Monday.

We write to request an update on any intentions by your agency to change the spending levels outlined in the work plan for Fiscal Year 2019, the letter reads. Namely, we write to receive assurances that the Army Corps is not considering reallocating funding away from the Soo Locks, and other agency projects critical to the safety and wellbeing of Michigan and the entire Great Lakes.

Both Democratic senators are on the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, with Stabenow serving as co-chair.

The work plan includes $32.38 million to begin the process of building a new lock and over $15 million to ensure the existing lock continues to operate, according to the letter.

Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency if he is unable to reach a deal with Democrats in Congress over the $5.7 billion requested to fund his border wall, NPR reports, which would activate special powers that would allow the president to redirect funds without additional approval from Congress.

Along with the Soo locks, the letter identifies two other spending priorities the senators are seeking reassurance wont be redirected  dredging projects around the Great Lakes and combatting the spread of Asian carp.

The 2019 work plan outlines $48 million in approved spending on 26 dredging projects around the Great Lakes, according to the letter, including five new dredging projects and three projects with additional funding.

Maintenance of these harbors is critical to commercial and recreational navigation, public safety and the economies of our state and local communities, the letter reads.

One of the dredging projects awarded money for 2019 work is Ontonagon Harbor.

The Army Corps awarded King Company, Inc., $1.1 million in December for maintenance dredging of the harbors federal channel, something locals say is key to allowing the return of shipping to the harbor.

The Army Corps Detroit office  which oversees much of the Great Lakes, including Lake Superior  referred any question regarding border wall funding to the Department of Defense, where a spokesman declined to comment beyond saying the department is looking at options.

No decisions have been made on Department of Defense funding for a border wall, but the department is reviewing available authorities and funding mechanisms to identify options. As there has not been such a decision made, it would be inappropriate to comment further on those efforts, Capt. Bill Speaks told the Daily Globe in an email.

One local project that doesnt require worry is Saxon Harbor.

Iron County Forestry and Parks Administrator Eric Peterson said the Army Corps spending there wont be impacted by any diversion of funds, as the work there has already been completed and paid for.

Roen Salvage was awarded a $993,000 contract for dredging the marinas channel as part of the rebuilding effort following Saxon Harbors destruction during the July 2016 storm. The company completed its work over the summer.

A spokesperson for Stabenows office told the Daily Globe she wasnt aware of the office receiving a response to the letter as of Thursday.
By RICHARD JENKINS

[email protected]

Hurley  The Iron County Board of Supervisors will decide whether to ban deer farms for the time being after the countys planning and zoning committee recommended imposing a temporary moratorium on importation and raising of cervids in the county Tuesday.

Just to remind you, this doesnt mean no deer farms ever. This is a one-year block on deer farms for us to figure out what we want to do, zoning administrator Erika Roeder said in December. It can be increased to two years at the the time of expiration, and then we can decide to create an ordinance that says no deer farms, or we can create an ordinance that says by conditional use.

She explained the county would be able to impose rules on any farms if they were under conditional use.

The move is an attempt to prevent chronic wasting disease from entering Iron Countys deer population.

The fatal brain disease affects deer, elk, reindeer, sika deer and moose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is no known cure once animals are infected, and symptoms include weight loss, stumbling, drooling and aggression.

There are no reported cases of humans being infected with CWD.

Wisconsins first CWD-positive deer was tested in 2002, according to the states Department of Natural Resources, after being killed in the November 2001 hunting season.

There are at least 55 CWD-affected counties in the state, according to the WDNR, meaning they either have had a deer test positive within their borders or are within 10 miles of a positive deer.

Iron County is one of the few counties in the state without an active deer farm, and while the county is unaware of any plans to open one, the moratorium is an effort to be proactive.
For kids a bit too old for picture books, The Getaway by Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid series book 12) topped Kilgores juvenile fiction selections. In The Getaway popular protagonist Greg Heffley and his family heads for a tropical location. As in most Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, things dont exactly go as planned.

While popular authors seem to rule the top-circulated titles, there has been a slight shift in some Kilgore patrons reading preferences. Our young adult and graphic novels have grown in popularity this past year, Robertson said. These titles have appeal for all ages.

In 2018 fans of young adult fiction at Kilgore seemed to gravitate towards House of Darken by Jaymin Eve. In this new series (Secret Keepers), Emma moves to Astoria, Oregon. She intends to follow rules given to her, but once her guardians disappear, she cant help herself. Emma finds out Astoria hides a secret world going beyond the one she knows.
The IDF reported Friday that it arrested a Hamas member who crossed the Gaza Strip border into Israel unarmed.

The suspect approached the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip said the IDF statement, then, under constant IDF surveillance, he crossed the security fence and subsequently surrendered himself to the troops who arrived at the scene.

Following an initial investigation by security forces, the suspect appears to be a member of the Hamas terror organization, said the statement.
The organizing committee of the March of Return protests, that take place weekly at the Gaza Strips border, warned Israel Friday that it should lift the siege on the strip.

We call upon Egypt and the international community to interfere urgently and end the siege and the occupation. We won't hesitate to resist, and are will to stand against Israel and its policy, they added.
Iran's foreign minister has mocked the U.S. national security adviser's calls for a strike on Iran, in a play on the viral 10-year challenge meme on social media.

In a tweet Friday, Mohammad Javad Zarif posted the titles of two separate articles by John Bolton from 2009 and 2019, both calling for strikes on Iran.

"Same bull. Same bully. Same delusion," Zarif wrote.

Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Bolton asked the Pentagon in September to prepare military options for attacking Iran after attacks on U.S. diplomatic sites in Iraq.

Social media users taking the 10-year challenge are comparing their profile photos from 2009 and 2019.
The suspect arrested Friday for the murder of a 21-year-old Israeli student in Australia has been named as Cody Herrmann, 20.

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Aiia Maasarwe, originally from Baqa al-Gharbiyye near Haifa, was brutally murdered on Tuesday night near Melbourne university campus.

Victoria police arrested Herrmann early Friday morning in Bundoora, a suburb of Melbourne.

Cody Herrmann, suspected of murdering Aiia Maasarwe

Herrmann is known as an aspiring rapper. He used several different names and was described by some who knew him as strange and a problematic teen.

Herrmanns acquaintances said he was peculiar, and that he was suffering from depression. Several days before the murder, the suspected killer wrote a Facebook post in which he said he was fighting with the devil.

A week prior to the murder, Herrmann wrote a Facebook post saying International girl of mystery, you know who you are. In other posts, he wrote about mental issues he was dealing with and said that the world teaches men to hide their feelings.

Sa'id, Aiia's father, who burst into tears as he visited the murder scene (Photo: AFP)

Said Maasarwe, Aiias father, flew to Melbourne in order to identify his daughters body and take care of funeral arrangements. Accompanied by supporters to the scene of his daughters murder, Maasarwe cried as he expressed his shock.

I hope we can find the person who did this, if he can even be called a person, he said. What he did to Aiia wasnt human. She was always smiling, she loved people. She had an open mind and wanted to learn about new cultures.

I wanted to be with her for longer, but now thats impossible. I pray that she is with God in heaven, the father said.
For the 43rd week in a row, thousand of Palestinians protested at the Gaza Strip border fence Friday, as part of the March of Return campaign.

Several confrontation broke out between the crowd and IDF forces, who sporadically used riot dispersal methods.
High-ranking diplomats from the United States and North Korea are currently holding talks in Sweden, a diplomatic source told Reuters on Friday.

"They are meeting over the weekend," the source said.

The source said the delegations included North Korea's vice foreign minister, Choe Son Hui and Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shakeds meeting with Druze activists ended abruptly, after Shaked told them that the Nation State Law will not be changed, since it defines Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.

Several activists who attended the meeting turned their backs on Shaked and left, thus ending the meeting.

During the meeting, Shaked clarified that in order to heal the wound, we can definitely push for legislation defining the status of the Druze community.
US President Donald Trump stops House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi from using a military plane for an overseas trip, in a tit for tat after the Democratic leader's suggestion he postpone the State of the Union address during the partial government shutdown.

Republican Trump tells Pelosi in a letter that her trip to Belgium, Egypt and Afghanistan, which he derided as a "public relations event," would be postponed, citing the shutdown that has entered its 27th day.

It is not clear what trip Trump was referring to. Lawmakers often do not publicize foreign trips before they occur for security reasons, particularly when the trips involve a war zone as in this case.

"Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed," Trump's letter says.

Trump also tells Pelosi she could make the trip by flying commercial.

The US House Speaker normally uses a military plane for overseas travel and it was on that basis that Trump, as commander in chief, appeared to be acting.

Pelosi's spokesman says in response that she had planned to visit US troops in Afghanistan and receive security and intelligence briefings.

"The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation & thanks to our men & women in uniform for their service & dedication, & to obtain critical national security & intelligence briefings from those on the front lines," Drew Hammill, Pelosi's deputy chief of staff, says on Twitter.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- She is largely unknown in the United States. But the American anchorwoman for Iran's state-run broadcaster, detained last weekend by US authorities, is a familiar face on its English-language channel.

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As a newscaster for Press TV, Marzieh Hashemi has been conducting interviews and reading the news as written by government loyalists in the Islamic Republic. It's a long way from New Orleans, where she was born Melanie Franklin in 1959 to a Christian family.

In college in Louisiana, encounters with Iranian students in the wake of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution saw her convert to Islam. A marriage brought her to Iran, where she learned fluent Farsi and began working for the country's state broadcaster 25 years ago.

Marzieh Hashemi

Her journalism and her public comments mirror her host country's official ideology.

"When I got familiar with Islamic Revolution in Iran, and I saw it was a political and religious revolution, I was attracted to this," Hashemi once told an interviewer in Farsi. "I saw this as a political movement to the revolution."

Now, after her apparent arrest by the FBI, her family is questioning why the 59-year-old grandmother was imprisoned by the US. Her detention comes at a time of escalating US-Iran tensions, including President Donald Trump's maximalist approach to Iran after pulling America out of its nuclear deal.

Hashemi was detained Sunday in St. Louis, where she had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area. She was then taken to Washington by the FBI on a material witness warrant, according to her elder son, Hossein Hashemi.

The FBI said in an email that it had no comment.

American-born news anchor Marzieh Hashemi and her son in Tehran

Federal law allows judges to order witnesses to be arrested and detained if the government can prove their testimony has extraordinary value for a criminal case and that they would be a flight risk and unlikely to respond to a subpoena. The statute generally requires those witnesses to be promptly released once they are deposed.

Hashemi studied journalism at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. A yearbook photo shows her smiling with other colleagues at WPRG, now KLSU, the student-run radio station.

"When we were in school together, that was during the Iran hostage crisis. LSU had a sizeable number of Iranian students who were going to school there," said radio newsman Jim Engster of Baton Rouge, who was also in the photograph.

"The time we were in school was less than 25 years from LSU being an all-white school. So Melanie was a trailblazer too as a black female journalist. There were a few others but not many."

Hashemi said that's where she learned about Iran's revolution, which saw Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi replaced by an Islamic Republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiite cleric who had final say on state matters as the country's supreme leader.

"I started to ask them about the revolution, because there were many demonstrations by pro-Khomeini demonstrators and also against the revolution in that university," she later recounted. "I wanted to know that what they are doing and find out who is the Ayatollah Khomeini, and it was very interesting for me as an activist."

Hashemi ended up in Iran working at Iran's state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB.

There are no private television or radio stations in Iran. Satellite dishes, while widespread, also are illegal. That leaves IRIB with a monopoly on domestic airwaves.

Since the revolution, IRIB has been in the hands of hard-liners who back Iran's government. Their broadcasts mirror those of other state-run channels across the Mideast, with direct criticism of leaders incredibly rare.

Press TV, launched in June 2007, is IRIB's English-language service. While airing in Iran, it focuses predominantly on international affairs through the lens of how leaders in the Islamic Republic see the world. The hashtag "FreePalestine" accompanies stories on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Fierce criticism of British and American foreign policy is common.

Its broadcasts have drawn Western criticism.

In 2012, the Anti-Defamation League described the channel as "one of the world's leading dispensers of conspiratorial anti-Semitism in English."

Marzieh Hashemi at the Press TV studio in Tehran

The channel was pulled from the air in Britain in 2011 after a complaint by Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist for Newsweek who was imprisoned by Iran after the 2009 disputed re-election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the Green Movement protests. Bahari said the channel aired an interview that had been scripted by his captors, who threatened to execute him unless he cooperated.

For her part, Hashemi both helmed newscasts critical of the West and offered her own criticisms as well.

In 2009, she said she believed Western media exaggerated popular support in Iran for Mir Hossein Mousavi, a reformist who was later put under house arrest, where he has languished for years after challenging Ahmadinejad in 2009 and leading the Green Movement protests.

"What is shown many times in the West, for example, when people saw that there was a very large demonstration supporting Mr. Mousavi, people got the feeling that the country was falling apart and that the majority of Iranians actually supported Mr. Mousavi," Hashemi told NPR. "No, the majority of them did not, and the other side of the spectrum has not been shown as much, I believe."

It remains unclear why Hashemi was arrested. However, it isn't the first time she's been questioned by US authorities, her son said.

For the past decade, "she has been harassed on a regular basis when she goes to airports," he said. "Whenever she boards a plane, prior to it she will have interviews or interrogation, if we might call it that-- things that are not very typical is what she's had to deal with for some time."
When the State of Israel was established, the heads of all the political parties of the time demonstrated national and democratic responsibility for the country - more than some of the politicians and Knesset members do these days.

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The Declaration of Independence is the foundation on which Israel's democracy is based, and its values and principles have led the country so far. Two of these principles are the guarantee of freedom and justice for all, and full equality in social and political rights for all citizens  regardless of religion, race or gender.

Druze protests aginst the Nation State Law (Photo: Yariv Katz)

But the Nation-State Law deprives Israel's non-Jewish citizens of these rights, which affirm that Israel is their country too. Therefore, as we approach the elections for the 21st Knesset on April 9, all parties must put the issue of the Nation-State Law on the table.

The law passed in July with a slim majority of 62 Knesset members, slightly more than half of the plenum, and the legislative process sparked heated debate over the cornerstones of Israeli identity. The elected officials who supported the law proved that they were less worthy of appreciation - and of election - than the leaders of the past.

Not only is the law fundamentally unacceptable because of the lack of equality, but also because of the harm it does to the sense of belonging felt by citizens from the Druze community or other minorities, who have tied their fate to Israel's, and who now feel that their affiliation to the state has been legislatively severed.

The Druze are partners in the building of the state: They fought for its establishment in the War of Independence and to this day perform compulsory military service. They are equal citizens in all responsibilities, but the Nation State Law came along and took from them and others their equality and their Israeli identity. Druze citizens have no problem with the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people - neither with its symbols nor with its anthem. But when proposals were made to amend the Nation-State Law in order to restore equality to all citizens, the supporters of the law were not prepared to accept them.

What does it mean for us? It means that if this is not our state, then you have turned us into mercenaries who have died for a state that is not ours. And there is one fundamental question that must be asked of the supporters of this law who refuse to amend it: Why are you so unwilling to guarantee equality for all? Not only did the supporters of this law decide to alienate us - now they are also attacking the very concept of a Jewish and democratic state. Do they wish to see Israel turn into South Africa?

To all those who argue that the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty already guarantees the foundations of democracy - this is a law that deals with individual rights and not with the nature and definition of the state's identity. The law actually deals with civil rights, and protects, among other things, the tourist, the migrant worker and even the terrorist. It is unreasonable to tell an Israeli citizen that the state recognizes him or her as a human being too - but nothing more than that.

The Druze citizens and their supporters who believe the Nation-State Law must be amended will keep fighting. This law has grave implications for our shared destiny, and therefore we will act in every democratic way at our disposal until this wrong is righted. But this is also a moral obligation shared by every political party competing in the elections. These parties must now have public debates on the Nation-State Law and clarify their positions on the matter. For those of us who oppose this law will make our feelings known at the ballot box.
Japan is turning increasingly to Israel for technological solutions in a bid to collaborate on innovative new business projects, industry experts and officials revealed. Hoping to remain at the forefront of the competition, Japanese investors, government agencies and senior members of the private sector are shifting resources more and more outward towards international business opportunities.

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This week, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hiroshige Seko is touring Israel with Tokyos largest business delegation to the Jewish state to date. Some 150 representatives from 90 companies are taking part, including executives from Mitsubishi, Hitachi and Toshiba.

PMs Netanyahu and Abe in Jerusalem, May 2018 (Photo: GPO)

Seko, who is visiting Israel for the second time in his capacity as economy minister, is slated to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as well as his Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen. The tour also includes visits to top Israeli businesses in the fields of cybersecurity, digital health, and artificial intelligence and is being led by the Japanese Economy Ministry and the Japan Israel Innovation Network (JIIN), an international platform established in May 2017 aimed at facilitating economic relations between the two countries.

Tomohiro Yoden, Managing Director at the Japanese External Trade Organization (JETRO) in Israel, a Japanese governmental agency that also helped organize the event, said there was a lot of enthusiasm on the part of Japanese businesses to cement ties with their Israeli colleagues.

There is absolutely a trend in Japan to try to discover technological solutions (outside) and Israel is one of the countries we are looking to, Yoden said. We hope to find more and more good business partners in the future who have capabilities we dont so that we can have a mutually beneficial relationship.

Israels Economy Ministry meanwhile pointed to the imminent signing of an agreement in the field of digital health that will help spearhead new research and business prospects.

Until a few years ago Japanese companies developed technologies internally, Sabin Sterenberg, a spokesperson for Israels Economy Ministry told The Media Line. However, today the discourse has moved towards open innovation: locating technological innovations in places that are external to the company.

The Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has encouraged innovation as an important part of his economic policy, which is aimed at reviving the Japanese economy, Sterenberg said, noting the country was hoping to become a world leader in technological innovation by 2020.

Since Israel is already well on its way in this endeavor, the Japanese government and businesses view the country as an important source of pioneering technologies.

Economy Minister Eli Cohen

The Israel Innovation Authority, a government body responsible for allocating resources to tech companies and fostering industrial research and development, was also involved in setting up meeting for the Japanese delegation.

This is another milestone in relations between Israel and Japan, said Avi Luvton, Senior Director of Asia Pacific Operations at the Innovation Authority. There is no doubt that since 2014 we are seeing a permanent growth of ties, following agreements between the economy ministries in both countries.

Aside from the intergovernmental agreements likely to arise from the visit, Luvton noted that he expects many deals will be inked separately in the private sector as well.

Were seeing more and more Japanese companies screening and exploring Israel for opportunities, he said. At least 10 of them opened a branch or R&D center in Israel  and we are expecting 2019 will have even better results.

One expert on Japan-Israel relations pointed to other factors behind Tokyos most recent economic push, most notably its fear of losing out to other Asian nations on lucrative Israeli tech deals.

One of the biggest drives for Japan is competition with Korean and Chinese companies, which have been investing heavily in Israel over the past half-decade or so, said Prof. Nissim Otmazgin, Director of the Hebrew Universitys Institute of Asian and African Studies. He stressed that the first research agreement Jerusalem and Tokyo signed in 2014, as well as Abes highly publicized visit to Israel in 2015, marked important turning points in ties.

Benjamin Netanyahu greets Shinzo Abe on his first visit to Israel in 2015 (Photo: GPO)

China however is more interested in infrastructure projects and strategic investments, while Japan is more intent on software development and new ideas that can match their huge production capabilities, Otmazgin said. South Korea is also looking for new companies (to work with).

Japanese companies have shown a growing interest in the Israeli market in recent years. According to the Tel Aviv-based IVC Research Center, Japanese investors were behind 3 percent of all capital raised by Israeli companies between 2013 and 2018, amounting to some $3.5 billion.

Some of these major deals include the Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharmas acquisition of Israeli company NeuroDerm for $1.1 billion in 2017, as well as the sale of Israeli messaging mobile application Viber Inc. to Japanese e-commerce mogul Rakuten Inc. in 2014.

Israeli exports to the East Asian island nation have also seen a 46% increase in 2018 over the year before, while imports from Japan reached $1.51 billion during the same period.

Article written by Maya Margit
The Gaza Strip has been experiencing mass emigration in recent months, with almost half of those leaving the Palestinian enclave choosing not to return. Most of the Gazans who chose to emigrate are young and educated.

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Some 36,000 people left Gaza between May and September of 2018, in the first four months after the permanent opening of the Rafah border crossing between the Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Of that number, however, just 17,000 returned.

The Rafah border crossing (Photo: MCT)

Leaving Gaza is expensive, particularly for the residents of the impoverished coastal enclave. Every day, anywhere from several dozen to several hundred people leave the Strip, depending on a quota set at the crossing by the Egyptian authorities. The demand is high, and the waiting list to leave is long.

Those wishing to cut short their wait must pay for a place on a special list, which is run by a private firm in Gaza that works with Egyptian border officers. The price for a place on this special list is $1,500a fortune for the average resident of Gaza, where the unemployment rate is at 53 percent and the average daily wages are no more than NIS 62 ($16.85).

A Palestinian who recently emigrated from Gaza said that getting on the list was his only way out of the Strip. "I paid more than $1,000 and got on that list to save myself months of waiting. To get priority, you have to be either be a very sick person in need of treatment or a student. If you're neitheryou have no other choice," he said.

Palestinians at the Rafah border crossing (Photo: AFP)

Hassan Nassir, a Gaza resident in his 20s with a master's degree in economics, was one of those who chose to leave. "My contribution to my state and my people would always be my first priority, but the situation is difficult and Gaza's unclear future has led me to think of my life and those of my family. We deserve more than a life of poverty and suffering," Nassir said.

'Abbas is to blame'

It appears, however, that the most problematic and controversial emigration from Gaza is that by doctors. The health system in the Strip is permanently on the verge of collapse, and there is a serious shortage of doctors. The situation is being exacerbated as some doctors in the Strip choose to leave Gaza for the sake of their own future and that of their families.

According to reports, 82 doctors left the Strip between May and November of last year and haven't returned.

Rafah border crossing (: )

X

Muntasser Ismail, a surgeon who worked at the European Gaza Hospital and was considered one of the senior physicians in the Strip, took advantage of the opening of the Rafah crossing and emigrated a few months ago.

Ismail blames Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the situation, due to his refusal to transfer funds to Gaza as part of his efforts to pressure the Hamas terror group that controls the enclave.

"The economic situation in the Strip has gotten worse because of the Palestinian Authority's sanctions, particularly the unjust decision that cut 60 percent of our wages. It left us with a salary too low to meet our needs," Ismail told the Arab media. "I could keep on living like this, but what drove me was the future I want for my children."

Palestinians at the Rafah border crossing (Photo: AFP)

Emigrants normally leave Gaza and head to Cairo, where they either travel west by land through North Africa and then illegally reach Europe through the sea, or take a flight from Cairo to Turkey or Greece and from there make their way to Western Europe or North America.

The mass exodus of educated young Palestinians from the Strip has recently led Khalid Khaldi, a history professor at the Islamic University of Gaza, to call on authorities in the enclave to legally bar the departure of those with high and indispensable qualifications for fear they won't return.
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Two principles have defined William Barrs 42-year legal career: adherence to law and order, and dogged defense of a powerful presidency. The question hanging over the Senate hearings beginning on Jan. 15 on Barrs nomination to be the next Attorney General was how the plainspoken Washington lawyer would reconcile those twin pillars of his professional philosophy if they came into conflict.

If confirmed, Barr would take the job under extraordinary circumstances, with multiple Justice Department investigations swirling close to President Donald Trump. Special counsel Robert Muellers probe into possible collusion between Trumps 2016 campaign and Russiaand whether the President obstructed that investigationis ongoing. The Justice Departments Manhattan office is looking at potential campaign finance violations in Trumps hush-money payments to women alleging affairs. And the New York Times reported on Jan. 11 that the FBIs counterintelligence division opened a probe in May 2017 into whether Trump was acting as a foreign agent for Russia. All of those investigations would answer to Barr, who may ultimately be forced to reckon with the question of what to do if the evidence indicates a sitting President has broken the law.

That in turn could place Barr, 68, at the center of an unprecedented test for the Constitution and American democracy. Barr, who previously served as Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush, made one thing clear during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee: If confirmed, hell be the one making the final call. Im in a position in life where I can do the right thing and not really care about the consequences, Barr said at his hearing. I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong.

I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt. William Barr, Trumps nominee for Attorney General, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 15

That confidence comes from being in the twilight of a career that included close interaction with Mueller. When Barr was Attorney General from 1991 to 1993, Mueller served under him as head of the DOJs criminal division. Barr described them at his hearing as good friends and said Mueller is absolutely fair-minded. I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt, Barr said, invoking Trumps criticism of Muellers work.

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On the surface, Barrs robust support for Mueller seemed to spell trouble for Trump, who has demanded a quick, quiet end to the investigation. Barr promised that Mueller would be allowed to finish under his leadership. And he said Muellers final reportwhich according to DOJ guidelines will be submitted to the Attorney General firstshould also be widely released. My objective and goal, Barr said, is to get as much of the information as I can to Congress and the public.

But there were subtle signs that Barrs adherence to the rules, and his defense of the presidency, might end up protecting Trump. Barr acknowledged that the information shared with Congress could be limited by existing Justice Department regulations, especially if Mueller declines to prosecute the President. Barr also said he believes a sitting President cannot be indicted. For 40 years the position of the Executive Branch has been you cant indict a sitting President, Barr said, adding that he had not read the DOJ opinions in some time but saw no reason to change them.

Taken together, those two positions could curtail what the public learns about Trumps involvement in any of the matters under investigation. Some Trump allies liked what they heard. He gave deference [to investigators] where he should have, says Victoria Toensing, a Washington lawyer who once discussed the possibility of joining Trumps legal team. But he also would not give up or acquiesce, as [former Attorney General] Jeff Sessions did.

Beyond the investigations, Barr sketched an expansive view of executive power and thoughts on other key issues that could shape many areas of American life. He said he supports a physical barrier along the southern border and that, though he has some misgivings about harsh drug-sentencing rules he formerly championed, overall the system treats black and white people equally. Barr also said he thinks Congress should pass a federal law barring recreational marijuana nationwide but would not roll back legalization experiments already under way across the U.S. In total, his testimony heartened the White House and increased the likelihood that Barrwho requires 50 votes for confirmationwould be approved for the job by the Republican-controlled Senate.

If he is, all signs point to his playing a crucial role well beyond the Mueller probe, however it turns out. Even if Barr never faces the hardest questionwhat to do if Mueller finds Trump committed crimesas Attorney General he could help determine the outcome of the multiple congressional investigations launched by Democrat-controlled House committees. Barr would control how much of Muellers evidence Congress sees, which could provide the basis for impeachment proceedings. Which is why the fate of Trumps presidency might rest with William Barr.
Harare (AFP) - The men wearing police and military uniforms came in the middle of night, forcing their way into the home where Brighton, 35, lives with his young family outside Harare.

First his wife was beaten, then they turned on him, kicking him and hitting him with sticks after dragging the couple -- who have a one-month old child -- out of their bed.

The attack was just one of dozens of testimonies depicting a brutal crackdown after protests erupted this week over the government's decision to more than double petrol prices.

"I was sleeping around 02:00 am and they were banging at the door," Brighton said, as he waited in a Harare hospital for treatment for bruising on his face.

"They first beat up my wife. When they realised that she was carrying a baby, they stopped and ordered her to come out to watch while they beat me.

"I was the only man there. All the other tenants were out. They said 'we will beat you on behalf of the other men absent'.

"They told me to stoop and then they started beating me, kicking me," he said, recalling the assault in the early hours of Thursday morning.

"I don't know why they beat me," said Brighton, who is employed by a engineering company, adding he had been busy at work on Monday, the main day of the protests.

- Witness accounts suppressed -

Doctors' groups say they have treated hundreds of casualties this week.

Information has been scarce after authorities cut the internet in an apparent attempt to suppress details and halt accounts spreading on social media of police and soldiers indiscriminately raiding homes.

For some critics, the repression echoes the grim brutality of Robert Mugabe's era.

The UN's human rights office on Friday urged Harare to "stop the crackdown".

It voiced alarm over the security forces' "excessive use of force," which included reported use of live ammunition.

"They broke a window to the spare bedroom where my children were sleeping, the kids started screaming and ran to our bedroom," truck driver Rogers, 40, told AFP.

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"They said if we refused to open up, they would fire teargas.

"I was beaten by three soldiers and one policeman -- they beat me with thick sticks and batons, while one of them poured water all over my body."

Another victim, Somandla, 19, who is unemployed, spoke softly and was visibly in pain, with a cotton bud in his ear.

"My ear got it worse as they used a gun to beat me there. It was hard for me to hear in the morning.

"They were saying 'you are guys that were starting fire in the streets'. I believe they were soldiers because they were wearing camouflage uniforms."

Human Rights Watch accused the police of shooting people in broad daylight, while Amnesty criticised Zimbabwe to end its "repressive measures".

- Echoes of Mugabe era -

The crackdown has spread from Harare's residential districts to provincial towns.

In the northern city of Chinhoyi, one pregnant woman was attacked and suffered a miscarriage, according to a neighbour.

Some victims said they avoided seeking treatment at public hospitals in case they were asked to sign affidavits. Activists have put the death toll at between five and 16.

"They beat up my brother's son and they beat me on my buttocks after they saw (opposition leader) Nelson Chamisas poster in my dining room," said one 44-year-old mother. "They said I must tear it up."

One doctor told AFP that the scale of injuries was far worse than when security forces shot dead six protesters in Harare on August 1, two days after the election.

He compared it to the 2008 election when then opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the presidential run-off against Mugabe as hundreds of people were killed.

The government has denied any wrongdoing.

Home Affairs minister Cain Mathema has praised security forces for the "joint efforts to ensure that peace is restored."
Geneva (AFP) - The United Nations said Friday it was "extremely alarmed" by the forced return by Cameroon of thousands of refugees to northeast Nigeria, where Boko Haram Islamists pose a continuing threat to civilians.

"This action was totally unexpected and puts lives of thousands of refugees at risk," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said in a statement.

Cameroon forced "several thousand" refugees back to Nigeria this week, including 267 on Wednesday, the UN refugee agency said.

"I am appealing to Cameroon to continue its open door and hospitable policy," Grandi said, while calling on the government to "halt immediately any more returns" and meet its obligations under international law.

Cameroon is currently hosting 370,000 refugees, 100,000 of whom are Nigerians, according to the UNHCR.

Earlier this month, more than 9,000 people fled to Cameroon after an attack on a military base and aid buildings in the town of Rann in northeast Nigeria's Borno state.

The attack was blamed on the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction of Boko Haram, which has carried out similar raids against troops since July last year.

The upsurge in violence has forced tens of thousands of people to flee, including internally displaced people who have returned home after previous attacks.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The United Nations is planning to organize a national conference in Libya in the coming weeks to pave the way for elections in the strife-torn north African country, a UN envoy said Friday.

Ghassan Salame did not announce a date or venue for the conference and stressed the meeting must be held "under the right conditions, with the right people" capable of producing an outcome that will be accepted by the majority of Libyans.

Addressing the Security Council by video-conference from Tripoli, Salame said a "key outcome of the national conference must be to spell out the electoral path ahead."

Elections in Libya are meant to turn the page on years of chaos following the 2011 overthrow of Moamer Kadhafi that has seen a bitter rivalry emerge between two governments scrambling for control in the oil-rich north African country.

The United Nations supports the government in Tripoli but is working toward holding elections, possibly this year, to unite the country.

A French-backed plan for a vote last December fell apart when the United States, Russia and other powers at the Security Council refused to endorse the timetable.

Salame said the national conference would be aimed at building support for holding credible elections.

"Fundamentally, there must be genuine political support for whatever election is conducted and guarantees that the results will be accepted and respected by all," he said.

Salame addressed the council following a visit to volatile southern Libya -- the first trip by a UN envoy to that region since 2012.

The United Nations will re-open an office in the eastern city of Benghazi at the end of this month and plans to establish a presence in southern Libya this year.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed lifting some or all tariffs imposed on Chinese imports and suggested offering a tariff rollback during trade discussions scheduled for Jan. 30, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the internal deliberations.

But Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has resisted the idea, and the proposal had not yet been introduced to President Donald Trump, according to the Journal.

U.S. stocks advanced on the news even as a Treasury spokesman working with the administration's trade team denied the report. [.N]

"Neither Secretary Mnuchin nor Ambassador Lighthizer have made any recommendations to anyone with respect to tariffs or other parts of the negotiation with China," the spokesman said. "This an ongoing process with the Chinese that is nowhere near completion.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will visit the United States on Jan. 30 and 31 for the latest round of trade talks aimed at resolving a bitter trade dispute between the world's two largest economies.

In December, Washington and Beijing agreed to a 90-day truce in a trade war that has disrupted the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars of goods.

Mid-level U.S. and Chinese officials met in Beijing last week to discuss China's offers to address U.S. complaints about intellectual property theft and increase purchases of U.S. goods and services.

Lighthizer did not see any progress made on structural issues during those talks, Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley said earlier this week.

The Trump administration is scheduled to increase tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent on March 2 from 10 percent.

The timeline is seen as ambitious, but the resumption of face-to-face negotiations has bolstered hopes of a deal.

China has repeatedly played down complaints about intellectual property abuses, and has rejected accusations that foreign companies face forced technology transfers.

Industrial stocks (.SPLRCI), which have been sensitive to trade developments, jumped 1.4 percent after the Wall Street Journal report.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)
By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives backed legislation on Thursday to keep sanctions on companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, including aluminium firm Rusal, but the Trump administration is expected to lift them as soon as Friday.

The Democratic-led House voted by an overwhelming 362 to 53 in favour of a resolution of disapproval of the U.S. Treasury Department's decision last month to lift sanctions on the core businesses of Deripaska: Rusal, its parent, En+; and power firm EuroSibEnergo Plc.

But the vote was only symbolic, after a similar measure failed in the Republican-led Senate on Wednesday, in a victory for President Donald Trump.

Later in the day, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tried to have the Senate vote but Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked it.

Amid questions about Trump's relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, many members of the U.S. Congress - both Democrats and some of Trump's fellow Republicans - have been questioning the administration's plan to water down the toughest penalties imposed on Russian entities since the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Some lawmakers from both parties have said it is inappropriate to ease sanctions on companies tied to Deripaska, a Putin ally, while Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigates whether Trump's 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Moscow.

"We are dealing with the enemy. We are in an investigation," Representative Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, said before the vote as she exhorted House members to support the resolution.

The No. 2 House Democrat, Steny Hoyer, wrote to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday and asked him to wait to lift the sanctions saying Congress still had many questions about the decision. Treasury officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump administration officials, and many Republicans who opposed the resolution, said they worried about the impacts of the sanctions on the global aluminium industry and that Deripaska had lowered his stakes in the companies so that he no longer controls them, a sign the sanctions were working.

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"Adjusting sanctions on companies that help us punish and isolate Russian bad actors like Oleg Deripaska will encourage more companies to cooperate with America to severely hobble Russia," Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees trade, said in a statement. Brady opposed the resolution.

Under the administration plan, Deripaska himself would remain under sanction.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Sandra Maler)
Ankara (AFP) - Turkey on Friday insisted Syrian regime forces should not be allowed in Manbij as US troops withdraw, as proposed by a US-backed Kurdish militia viewed as terrorists by Ankara.

The strategic northern city has been held by the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia since 2016 after they recaptured the territory from Islamic State jihadists.

But Ankara, who says the YPG is a "terrorist offshoot" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has repeatedly called for the militia to leave the city.

"The YPG's efforts to stick the regime in Manbij must absolutely not be allowed," Turkish Foreign Ministry Hami Aksoy said during a press conference in Ankara.

Backed by Washington, the militia has spearheaded the fight against IS but was taken aback when President Donald Trump made the shock decision to pull out 2,000 American ground forces from Syria.

Four Americans, including two US soldiers, were killed this week in Manbij in a suicide attack claimed by IS.

Turkey has repeatedly threatened to attack the YPG and said it would set up a "security zone" in northern Syria following a suggestion by Trump.

Last month, the YPG called on the regime to "assert control" over areas the militia was to withdraw from, including Manbij, to stop a "Turkish invasion" and fiercely rejected a "security zone".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that the Syrian regime must take control of the country's north.

Turkey, which supports Syrian rebels and has called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's ouster, has conducted two previous offensives in Syria against IS and the YPG in 2016 and 2018.

In March last year, Turkish military forces supporting Syrian rebels recaptured the YPG's western enclave of Afrin in Syria.

Turkey-US relations have been rocky in recent years over Washington's support to the YPG as well as the US failure to extradite a Pennsylvania-based Muslim preacher accused of ordering a failed coup in 2016.

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Aksoy said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu would go to Washington for a meeting of the US-led coalition against IS on February 6.

And one day before Cavusoglu's visit, a Turkish delegation led by deputy foreign minister Sedat Onal will go to the US for discussions on Syria.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a loyal Trump supporter, was in Turkey on Friday for meetings with Turkish officials including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Cavusoglu.
President Donald Trump will meet for the second time with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un around the end of February, the White House said Friday, after a top general from Pyongyang paid a rare visit to Washington.

Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to the North Korean strongman, met the embattled president at the White House for an unusually long 90 minutes as the countries seek a denuclearization accord that could ease decades of hostility.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that Trump -- who has opined that he and Kim Jong Un fell "in love" after last year's landmark first summit -- would again meet the North Korean leader "near the end of February" at a location to be announced later.

The flurry of diplomacy comes little more than a year after Trump was threatening to wipe North Korea off the map, with Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests rattling nerves in East Asia.

Sanders praised North Korea's efforts to reconcile but ruled out, for now, a key demand of Pyongyang -- a lifting of sanctions.

"The United States is going to continue to keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea until we see fully and verified denuclearization," Sanders told reporters.

"We've had very good steps in good faith from the North Koreans in releasing the hostages and other moves and so we'll continue those conversations," she said.

She was referring to Pyongyang's quick deportation last year of an American. In 2017, a US student returned home comatose from North Korea and died within days after what a US judge said was torture.

- Results or photo-op? -

Kim Jong Un and Trump first met in June in Singapore, where they signed a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work toward the "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

But progress stalled soon afterward as Pyongyang and Washington -- which stations 28,500 troops in South Korea -- disagree over what that means.

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Critics say that the Singapore summit was little more than a photo-op. The second round with the young and elusive North Korean leader will again offer a change of headlines for Trump amid a barrage of scandalous allegations and a political deadlock that has shut down the US government.

"Let's hope the second summit produces real results, but don't hold your breath as we wait for episode two of the Trump-Kim show," said Michael Fuchs, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress who worked closely with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Abe Denmark, director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said the Singapore summit had thrown into question the security of US allies with little in return.

"With another summit in the making, I hope for tangible progress and fear for a repeat: little movement from Kim, major concessions from Trump," he said.

But Trump has pointed to the halt in missile launches by North Korea and recently said there would have been "a nice big fat war in Asia" if it were not for his efforts.

Kim Yong Chol is the first North Korean dignitary in nearly two decades to spend a night in Washington, staying at a fashionable hotel a short drive from the White House.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed Kim at the hotel, posing briefly for pictures near a shelf with a framed portrait of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., and later invited the delegation to lunch.

The State Department said that Stephen Biegun, the US special representative on North Korea, would carry on discussions at a conference in Sweden starting on Saturday that will involve Pyongyang officials.

- Vietnam ready to host -

While no decision has been made on location, a Vietnamese government source told AFP that "logistical preparations" were under way to host the summit, most likely in the capital Hanoi or coastal city of Danang.

Vietnam's cooperation with the United States has been growing for years as Hanoi -- much unlike Pyongyang -- sets aside memories of war.

US-North Korea tensions began to abate a year ago with the encouragement of South Korea's dovish president, Moon Jae-in. Moon's office Saturday said the new summit could be a "turning point" in bringing peace to the Korean peninsula.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that the second summit should set a clear roadmap on how to scrap North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missiles.

The Singapore summit marked the first-ever meeting between sitting leaders of the United States and North Korea, which never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

The United States expects Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arsenal, doggedly built by the Kim dynasty despite sanctions and famines.

Kim, whose family has ruled North Korea with an iron fist for three generations, is seeking guarantees of the regime's survival as well as relief from biting UN sanctions.

North Korea sees the denuclearization goal more broadly, seeking an end to what it sees as US threats on the peninsula.
A top North Korean official left for Washington on Thursday, reports said, for talks with his US counterpart ahead of an expected summit between President Donald Trump and Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong Un.

Kim Yong Chol, Kim's right-hand man and the counterpart to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in denuclearisation talks, was seen getting into a vehicle at Beijing airport after flying in from Pyongyang, pictures showed.

Hours later, he left the Chinese capital on a United Airlines flight which is expected to land in Washington at 6:50 pm local time, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, adding that he was accompanied by two North Korean officials.

He was expected to meet Pompeo on Friday before paying a courtesy call on Trump, it said, and appeared to be carrying another letter from his leader for the US commander in chief.

Kim's trip comes as expectations grow for a second US-North Korean summit after Kim Jong Un last week went to Beijing, long Pyongyang's key ally, for talks with President Xi Jinping.

The summit, which observers say will probably be held in either Vietnam or Thailand, is expected despite a lack of progress in denuclearisation negotiations.

At their first meeting in Singapore in June the two leaders signed a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula".

But progress has since stalled with the two sides disagreeing over what that means.

Pyongyang is seeking sanctions relief and rejects demands for what it calls its "unilateral" disarmament, while Washington insists that the punitive measures must stay in place until it gives up its nuclear arsenal.

Another North Korean official, Choe Son Hui, travelled through Beijing earlier this week en route to Sweden, where she could meet the US special representative on North Korea, Stephen Biegun.
Stockholm (AFP) - After months of political wrangling, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has managed to cling to power for a second term, swallowing a bitter pill by agreeing to cooperate with the centre-right.

Keeping one of Europe's last centre-left governments in power is seen as a major victory for the 61-year-old Lofven, a former welder and union leader with the square build and nose of a boxer.

And the feat is even more exceptional given Sweden's splintered political landscape after the September 9 legislative elections, when the left wing scored just one more seat in parliament than the right and the anti-immigration far-right came in third, looking set to be kingmakers.

Going into the election, Lofven appeared more isolated than ever, roasted on the right for leaving the country's door open to asylum seekers and lambasted by the left for later slamming it shut.

But the rightwing opposition failed in repeated efforts to form a government that didn't have to rely on the support of the far-right, nationalist Sweden Democrats.

Lofven, with a reputation as a talented tactician and negotiator, emerged the winner after he cemented a deal with two centre-right parties, the Centre and the Liberals, to support his minority coalition government comprising of the Social Democrats and the Greens in parliament.

The Centre and the Liberals had until now been part of the four-party, centre-right Alliance that challenged Lofven in the election.

"Lofven has reached his strategic goals: to remain in power and to split up the non-socialist Alliance opposition," political scientist Olof Petersson told AFP.

- Liberal reforms -

But that victory may come at a price, namely, the risk of a backlash in the next election in 2022, analysts said.

To secure his collaboration with the centre-right, Lofven signed a 15-page policy document that reflects large parts of the rightwing's election platform -- and which will undoubtedly alienate part of his party base.

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"In exchange for the position of prime minister, the Social Democrats are paying the price with liberal reforms," Sweden's paper of reference Dagens Nyheter wrote.

Sometimes called a "rightwing socialist", Lofven will now have a hard time improving his image among his old socialist friends.

Lofven has already lost points in his own camp by shutting Sweden's borders to immigrants at the end of 2015, after welcoming more than 240,000 asylum seekers since 2014.

On November 24, 2015, he announced Sweden was aligning its asylum policy with the European Union's minimal levels and cracking down on family reunifications.

"It pains me to say that Sweden can no longer take in asylum-seekers at the same high level... Sweden needs some breathing room," Lofven told a news conference, his Green Party deputy prime minister Asa Romson at his side, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Just two months earlier he had said: "My Europe doesn't build walls, my Europe takes in refugees."

"Even Angela Merkel in Germany had to do a U-turn on immigration. But no leader in Europe did as brutal an about-face as Stefan Lofven," wrote Dagens Nyheter in May.

Lofven's detractors had said his stance on immigration and integration was "naive" and "irresponsible".

To counter that image, he took a hard line during the election campaign last autumn, repeatedly stressing that new arrivals in Sweden have both "rights and responsibilities".

- 'Genuine' -

Born in Stockholm in 1957, poverty forced his mother to give him up when he was 10 months old to a foster family in Solleftea, 500 kilometres (310 miles) north of the capital, where his foster father was a factory worker.

He became a welder and spent 15 years working in a defence factory, joining the union in the early 1980s and ending up as head of the metal workers' union Metall from 2006 to 2012.

Seen by some as a poor orator who lacks charisma, he is nevertheless popular with many Swedes who see him as "genuine".

A Skop poll last year showed a majority of Swedes would rather break bread with him than with the leader of the opposition, conservative Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson.

After governing Sweden through a long period of growth and favourable economic conditions from 2014 to 2018, Lofven is now likely to have to contend with a downturn in the domestic and international economy, as forecast by experts.
Madrid (AFP) - Spain said Friday it had reached a deal with Britain allowing citizens living in both countries to keep voting in local elections as the prospect of a no-deal Brexit looms.

"This agreement will prevent these rights from disappearing for British people who live in our country and for Spanish people living in the United Kingdom," Spanish government spokeswoman Isabel Celaa told reporters.

"There will be municipal elections in Spain and in the United Kingdom in May," she added.

The local polls in Britain and Spain, on May 2 and May 26 respectively, will be held after Britain's planned exit from the European Union on March 29.

The British parliament's massive rejection of Prime Minister Theresa May's EU divorce deal with Brussels earlier this week has raised the prospect of Britain crashing out of the bloc without any deal in place.

The bilateral agreement announced on Friday comes as part of a series of other measures touted by the Spanish government to try and guarantee the rights of Britons living in Spain and vice-versa in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Spain is the number one destination for British nationals living outside Britain, ahead of France and Ireland.

Officially, just under 241,000 Britons are registered as residing in Spain, but many have not formally signed up and it is estimated up to 800,000 live in the country.

In December, the European Commission also announced it had taken measures in sectors most exposed to a so-called hard Brexit.

The aim is to avoid chaos on March 29 that would cause problems for citizens and companies in Britain and the EU, particularly in financial services, air transport and customs.
Moscow (AFP) - Russian investigators said Friday that a New Year's Eve blast that killed 39 people was likely the result of a gas explosion, dismissing reports that the Islamic State group was behind it.

The Investigate Committee said it was still investigating the explosion that ripped through an apartment block in the Urals city of Magnitogorsk, killing 39 people.

On New Year's Day, three more people died when a minibus exploded not far from the affected building in the city.

On Thursday, an article in the Islamic State's weekly Arabic-language newspaper al-Naba said the group was behind the blasts.

It said the Islamic State group did not claim responsibility earlier for "security reasons".

IS claimed the operation was carried out by members of its Caucasus branch, the media outlet said.

The Investigative Committee said it was too early to draw any conclusions as a probe was still under way.

"Conclusions about the circumstances of the tragedy in Magnitogorsk will be made following a set of investigative measures," spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement.

She said a gas explosion was still the investigators' main line of inquiry, even though they were considering all possibilities.

She said media should not trust "reports of terrorist organisations which -- as we know -- take credit for all high-profile accidents in various countries."

A spokesman for the FSB said the security service would not comment. "All information will be published shortly," he told AFP.

Immediately after the apartment blast, President Vladimir Putin and top ministers rushed to the scene of the tragedy, while the FSB quickly ruled out foul play.

Shortly after the explosions two local media outlets, citing law enforcement sources, said the apartment block blast was likely the result of a terror attack.
One day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi essentially disinvited President Trump from delivering his State of the Union in the U.S. Capitol, he responded by informing her he would cancel the private government plane she was using for her trip overseas because of the partial government shutdown.

Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven day excursion when the shutdown is over, he wrote in a letter to Pelosi which communications staffers promptly circulated on Twitter. In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.

Pelosis office had not publicly announced that trip, which is standard procedure for lawmakers and public figures flying to conflict zones. A bus holding the Congressional lawmakers scheduled to attend the trip was outside the Capitol Thursday afternoon.

Pelosi deputy chief of staff and spokesman Drew Hammill wrote on Twitter that the trip included a stop in Brussels to meet with NATO officials and did not include a stop in Egypt.

The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication and to obtain critical narional security and intelligence from those on the front lines, Hammill wrote. He also noted that Trump himself had taken a trip to Iraq during the shutdown.

The President does have the authority to ground military planes, which is why he noted in the letter that she was welcome to fly a commercial airline.

Pelosi had sent Trump a letter Wednesday morning telling him that the State of the Union, which he has been slated to deliver on Jan. 29, should be either provided to Congress in writing or postponed until the government is re-opened because the workers implementing the tight security would be doing so without pay. (The State of the Union is a National Special Security Event requiring the full resources of the federal government).

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The U.S. Secret Service was designated as the lead federal agency responsible for coordinating planning exercising and implementing security for [NSSE], Pelosi wrote. However, both the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security have not been funded for 26 days now  with critical departments hamstrung by furloughs.

As of this morning, she had said she had not heard from the White House.

Trumps decision was immediately greeted with skepticism by one member of his own party. One sophomoric response does not deserve another, said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. Speaker Pelosis threat to cancel the State of the Union is very irresponsible and blatantly political. President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate.

Rep. Adam Schiff, who was slated to go on the trip, emerged from Pelosis office late Thursday afternoon, telling reporters the Presidents decision was completely and utterly irresponsible.

He also noted that, while the President was condemning Pelosi for traveling during the shutdown, he had no problem sending a delegation to Davos.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday excoriated her political nemesis, President Donald Trump, for "outing" her commercial trip to Afghanistan after barring her from using a military aircraft, forcing her to scrap it entirely over security concerns.

The brawl between the no-nonsense Republican leader and the take-no-prisoners Democrat -- who is now just two heartbeats away from the presidency -- is the latest round in their shutdown showdown.

The federal government has been shuttered for four weeks over Trump's insistence that a wider budget measure include billions of dollars for a wall on the border with Mexico -- and Pelosi's refusal to do so.

Their spat spilled into the diplomatic arena on Thursday when, after Pelosi suggested that Trump postpone his State of the Union address until the government reopens, the president grounded her military flight.

Pelosi accused Trump of being "very irresponsible" in breaching security protocol.

"We had a report from Afghanistan that the president outing our trip had made the scene on the ground much more dangerous because it's just a signal to the bad actors that we're coming," she told reporters.

The administration strongly denies that it "leaked" any plans about the trip to a war zone.

"The idea we would leak anything that would put the safety and security of any American at risk is a flat-out lie," a senior White House official said.

- Tit-for-tat -

The US government shutdown, which has left about 800,000 federal workers without a paycheck, is now the longest in the country's history -- and there is no sign of a compromise.

The Office of Management and Budget reportedly issued a memorandum saying that "under no circumstance during a government shutdown" can a congressional delegation use government aircraft for travel.

However, Republican Representative Lee Zeldin led a delegation to Iraq and other countries since the shutdown began.

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Pelosi's office sounded off on the administration's handling of her trip, which had not been announced for security reasons.

The State Department released an updated assessment stressing that Trump's announcement of the Pelosi travel "had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops," her spokesman Drew Hammill said.

"This morning, we learned that the administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well."

Democratic lawmakers have expressed outrage.

"As a former member of the Intelligence Committee who has traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan, disclosing ANY Members' travel into a war zone is disgraceful and dangerous," tweeted House Democrat Jan Schakowsky.

"This is unprecedented."

Trump lashed out at Pelosi once again on Twitter, asking why she and other Democrats would leave the country "on a seven day excursion when 800,000 great people are not getting paid."

And then his re-election campaign team released a tongue-in-cheek shutdown-related campaign fundraising request.

For a contribution of $20.20, a reference to the next election year, the campaign told supporters it would send a fake red brick to Pelosi and Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer -- to build a wall.
LONDON (Reuters) - The University of Oxford said on Thursday it has stopped accepting funding from China's Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL], the leading global supplier of telecoms network equipment, after scrutiny over the company's relationship with Chinas government.

"Oxford University decided on January 8 this year that it will not pursue new funding opportunities with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd or its related group companies at present," the university said in a statement.

"The decision has been taken in the light of public concerns raised in recent months surrounding UK partnerships with Huawei. We hope these matters can be resolved shortly."

A Huawei spokesman said they had not been informed of the Oxford decision and only found out when it was reported in the media.

(Reporting By Andrew MacAskill; editing by Stephen Addison)
Lagos (AFP) - Nigeria's main opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar has put paid to rumours that he is unable to travel to the United States because of corruption allegations, by jetting to Washington for meetings with US counterparts.

The wealthy businessman, who is standing against President Muhammadu Buhari at next month's election, arrived in the US capital on Thursday night, his media team announced.

The trip, which was shrouded in secrecy, effectively ends speculation that he could not obtain travel documents or feared being arrested over the graft claims.

"Former Nigerian Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has arrived in the United States," his media team said in a short statement.

The 72-year-old Abubakar and his delegation were later seen in photographs at the airport and arriving at the Trump International Hotel, a stone's throw from the White House.

Among those travelling with him was Senate leader Bukola Saraki, who is Nigeria's third-most senior politician behind Buhari and his deputy Yemi Osinbajo.

Like Abubakar, Saraki defected from Buhari's ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), after strained ties with the government.

Meetings are planned with "a high-powered, bi-partisan delegation of US congressmen who are deeply concerned and troubled about the future of democracy in Nigeria", the statement said.

- 'Harassment of opposition leaders' -

Abubakar, Saraki and Nigerian senator Ben Murray-Bruce were later pictured dressed in Western business suits with Republican party politician Chris Smith.

Smith, who chairs the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, last month said he was "very concerned by the current trajectory in Nigeria" and Buhari's "apparent crackdown on non-violent protests and harassment of opposition leaders".

He said the assets of Abubakar's running mate Peter Obi had been frozen and the home of two of Abubakar's sons had been raided.

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Abubakar has also alleged the ruling party has intimidated opposition candidates and claimed the APC is looking to rig the result.

Smith has previously spoken out on extremist violence in Nigeria.

Abubakar's visit will also see him meet "business leaders, high ranking US government officials" as well as member Nigerian in diaspora," his media team said.

Abubakar has faced repeated claims of corruption from his time as head of Nigeria's customs service and as vice-president to Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007.

He has never been charged and denies all allegations.

In 2010, a US Senate investigation cited him in a money-laundering case.

Between 2000 and 2008, his fourth wife, a US citizen, helped Abubakar funnel $40 million in suspect funds to the United States via offshore accounts, the report said.

Abubakar earlier this week pledged to fight corruption, which has been a key plank of Buhari's administration since his election in 2015.

Buhari, 76, has pledged to recover what he said were "mind-boggling" sums of looted public funds, leading to the arrest of dozens of former government officials.

But his fight against graft has been criticised as a political witch-hunt against the PDP.

Nigerians go to the polls to elect a new president and parliament on February 16. Governorship and state assembly elections follow two weeks later.
Ciudad Hidalgo (Mexico) (AFP) - Hundreds of Central Americans entered Mexico illegally as the latest migrant caravan trying to reach the United States began crossing the Mexican-Guatemalan border en masse Friday.

Not content to wait five days for the humanitarian visas Mexico is offering them, several hundred migrants took to make-shift rafts to cross the Suchiate River, which forms the frontier, or snuck across the loosely guarded border bridge overnight, AFP correspondents said.

Their advance could trigger a new Twitter firestorm from US President Donald Trump, who has urged Mexico to halt such caravans, and who tweeted early Friday: "Another big Caravan heading our way. Very hard to stop without a Wall!"

Hundreds more of the 2,000 migrants in the caravan gathered patiently on the border bridge, trickling into Mexico as the authorities processed them.

The authorities will set up checkpoints in southern Mexico to make migrants who snuck into the country register for visas, said Alejandro Encinas, under-secretary for migration.

"We are informing all of them that they must comply with our country's laws," he said.

- Fuel for wall debate -

Caravans of migrants seeking safety in numbers have taken center stage in the raging debate in the United States over Trump's proposed border wall, which has led to a government shutdown that is now the longest in history.

The latest caravan is smaller than the one that swelled to 7,000 migrants late last year, leading Trump to warn of an "invasion" by "hardened criminals" and send thousands of troops to the US-Mexican border.

Mexican authorities are urging the migrants to arrive legally and offering expedited "visitor cards" that let them work and access basic health care in Mexico.

So far, 969 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua have registered under the program, receiving bracelets that they can exchange for visitor cards in five days.

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But hundreds more ignored the offer.

"A lot of us aren't interested in waiting five days. Our goal is to reach the United States," said Alma Mendoza, a nurse and single mother making the trip with her three children.

"We don't have food, much less money. We want to reach our destination," she told AFP.

Other migrants said they would consider staying in Mexico.

"My goal is to reach the United States, but if I can't I'll stay in Mexico and work. They're giving us an opportunity," said Christian Medrano, 33, an industrial technician.

Mexico meanwhile announced a fresh policy under which Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence with the intention of reaching the United States may remain in Mexico for a year.

The decision "recognizes the importance of our relationship with Central America," especially El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, said Tonatiuh Guillen, commissioner of the Mexican National Institute of Migration.

- 'AMLO' walking fine line -

The caravan set out Tuesday from San Pedro Sula, in northwestern Honduras, and has grown along the way.

The migrants are mostly fleeing poverty and crime in Central America's "Northern Triangle" of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Brutal street gangs have made the three countries among the most violent in the world.

Another caravan of about 200 migrants set out Wednesday from El Salvador and is now in southern Mexico, possibly poised to join up with the first.

Many of the migrants are traveling in families, often with small children.

They have covered about 700 kilometers (435 miles) so far, and have roughly 4,000 kms to go if they take the same route as the last caravan, to Tijuana, across from San Diego, California.

When that caravan reached Mexico in October, the authorities tried to stop it with riot police. But the migrants stormed in anyway, tearing down border fences and crossing the river illegally when police refused to let them through.

Since then, Mexico has gotten a new government, led by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an anti-establishment leftist.

"AMLO," as the new president is widely known, has promised to treat migrants more humanely than previous administrations. But he has also sought to stay on Trump's good side with talk of reducing migrant flows.

The October caravan largely dispersed after reaching Tijuana.

US Border Patrol agents fought back two attempts by the migrants to rush the border, firing tear gas to disperse them.

Some have since found work in Mexico, some crossed the border and filed asylum claims, and many returned home. About 400 remain in a shelter set up for them in Tijuana that is slated to be closed on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Mexican foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard will host his U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo at the end of this month to work on development projects in Central America and southern Mexico.

Mexico's ambassador to the U.S. Martha Barcena said Thursday that the goal of the meeting will be to identify infrastructure and energy projects that are viable in southern Mexico and could be financed by the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

The ministerial meeting will be the first since the United States pledged $5.8 billion in aid and investment last month for strengthening government and economic development in Central America, and another $4.8 billion in aid for southern Mexico.

Barcena did not provide a date for the meeting.
Jean-Claude Juncker has been exchanging text messages with prime minister Theresa May about Brexit. Photo: Getty Images.

When Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker promised recently to stay in touch, it was presumed that meant the prime minister and European commission president would meet in person or speak by phone.

But it has been revealed that the senior politicians, both in their sixties, have in fact been trying to solve the Brexit stalemate by text.

Juncker has been in touch with practically all political leaders since the Brexit deal was defeated in the Commons on Tuesday night, a European commission spokesperson said.

Asked specifically whether he had spoken to May, he added: I can tell you that they havent spoken but they are in contact  they are texting.

Juncker also broke with convention at Christmas by sending his festive greetings to the prime minister by text messages instead of in a card.

READ MORE: Juncker hasnt sent May a Christmas card because the Brexit deal is a better gift

One reason for the unusually short form of communication was put forward by an EU official on Wednesday.

At this stage there is nothing more that the EU can do, they said. We are now waiting to hear from the UK on the intended next steps.

While Juncker waits for a smiley emoji, May is holding face-to-face meetings with opposition parties at Westminster in a bid to find consensus on how to avoid a no-deal scenario.

Newsnight reported that Cabinet ministers in favour of a no-deal Brexit are pushing for a one-year extension to Article 50 in order to give the UK more time to prepare.

Prime minister Theresa May and European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels last month. Photo: Getty

Any request to extend Article 50 requires the unanimous support for all 27 other EU member states.

And a commission spokesperson stressed that the UK government would have to set out the reasons for such an extension.

Negotiations over a closer relationship, a general election or second referendum are seen as the only possible circumstances in which an extension would be granted.

Meanwhile, the EU is pushing ahead with its preparations for a no-deal scenario.

French prime minister Eduoard Philippe has announced he has already implemented the countrys no-deal emergency plan.

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READ MORE: Barnier: EU ready to renegotiate Brexit deal if UK shifts red lines

The commission has also dispatched its deputy secretary general on a tour of member states to coordinate no-deal preparations.

We are taking this very seriously now as the possibility of no-deal Brexit is becoming more possible after Tuesday night, said a spokesperson.

We have prepared a significant package on preparedness work in December and we are now sending the deputy secretary general, who is in charge of this work, to discuss with the member states how this will proceed also combining our own preparations with the ones our member states are enacting.

So, this work which is ongoing and its developing fully. Were not taking any chances.

READ MORE: EU ready for new talks with May after Brexit deal defeat




Prague (AFP) - A Czech man set himself on fire Friday in central Prague where the student activist Jan Palach self-immolated 50 years ago to protest the Soviet-led occupation of the then Czechoslovakia.

The man was put into an artificial coma and hospitalised with burns to his head and hands after setting himself alight at Wenceslas Square, officials said.

"The man born in 1964 set himself on fire around 3:00 pm using a flammable substance," Prague police said on Twitter, adding that passersby put out the flames with clothing and a fire extinguisher from a nearby coffee shop.

"Rescuers put the patient with burns covering 30 percent of his body in an artificial coma," Prague emergency services spokeswoman Jana Postova added on Twitter.

Police spokeswoman Andrea Zoulova told reporters "there is no evidence the act had been a protest or politically motivated."

According to a witness quoted by local media, the man had two signs, one in Arabic and another using the Latin alphabet, as well as Christian crosses and a loudspeaker playing music.

"I thought he was a religious fanatic," one passerby who saw the man before the incident told the news site www.lidovky.cz.

"I saw him, he was muttering something, like a prayer," another passerby told public radio CRo1.

The Czech Republic marked 50 years since Palach's self-immolation earlier this week with official ceremonies and a torch-lit march through Prague.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis said on Thursday he would run for the country's presidency in an election due in May, but would not resign from his current post unless he is successful. Lithuania's president has a semi-executive role with a say in the appointment of key officials such as judges, the chief prosecutor and head of central bank. The president can veto laws and, in tandem with the government, sets foreign and security policy. (Reporting by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - The forces of Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar said they killed on Friday three jihadists including a senior Al-Qaeda member in the south of the country days after launching a security operation.

Ahmad al-Mesmari, a spokesman for Haftar's self-proclaimed Libyan National Army, described the three as "terrorists" and identified them as Abdel Monem al-Hasnaoui, also known as Abu Talha al-Libi, Al-Mahdi Dengo and Egyptian citizen Abdullah al-Dessouki.

He said they were killed during "a special operation... Friday in Al-Qarda al-Chatti region of southwestern Libya".

Abu Talha -- a Libyan whose death was reported on several past occasions including in an 2016 air raid by unidentified aircraft -- is said by Libya to be a senior operative of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Mesmari gave no further details on the other two suspects.

Libyan authorities use the word "terrorists" to refer to jihadists.

Libya has been gripped by chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, with rival administrations and multiple militias vying for control of the oil-rich country.

Jihadists and people-traffickers have taken advantage of the chaos to gain a foothold in the North African country.

Haftar supports an administration in the east of the country that is opposed to the internationally backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

On Wednesday his self-style LNA forces announced they had launched a military operation to "purge" jihadists and criminal gangs from the south of Libya.

Mesmari said at the time that the operation was aimed to assure security "for inhabitants in the south-west from terrorists, be they the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda, as well as criminal gangs".

The LNA said it was also looking to secure petroleum facilities and tackle flows of clandestine migrants heading northwards to the Mediterranean coast.
Beirut (AFP) - Lebanon's foreign minister on Friday called for the Arab League to readmit Syria ahead of a regional economic summit in Beirut, more than seven years after it suspended Damascus' membership.

"Syria is the most notable absentee at our conference, and we feel the weight of its absence," Gibran Bassil said.

"Syria should be among us... without us having to wait for a permission for it to return," he added at a meeting with other ministers from Arab League nations.

The Arab League suspended Syria in November 2011, as the death toll rose in the regime's brutal repression of anti-government protests.

But in recent years, President Bashar al-Assad's forces have gained the military upper hand against rebels and jihadists, and efforts to bring his government back into the Arab fold appear underway.

In December, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir made the first visit by any Arab leader to the Syrian capital since 2011, and the United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus after closing it in 2012.

On Thursday, the head of the Arab League, Ahmed Abul Gheit, said member states have not reached a consensus on Syria's return to the 22-member bloc.

"When there is an Arab consensus, and when we are sure there is no objection from one side or the other, it will be as simple as putting it on the agenda of a meeting" of Arab foreign ministers, he said.

Syria's war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since it started with anti-government protests.

Only the presidents of Somalia and Mauritania are expected to attend the Arab Economic Summit on Sunday.

Lebanese newspapers ran despairing headlines on Friday.

"The Beirut shock... a summit without heads of state," the country's oldest Arabic-language newspaper An-Nahar said.

The conference is set to discuss the digital economy, as well as a long-suggested project for an Arab free trade zone.

Lebanon also hopes to put forward an initiative calling on countries in the region to help spread the burden of 1.5 million refugees living on its soil.
Washington (AFP) - A prominent US law firm agreed Thursday to pay $4.6 million to settle charges it lobbied illegally for Ukraine, in a case linked to Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

The US Justice Department said that Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP had failed to register as a foreign agent when it contributed to a public relations campaign in 2012 aimed at defending the Ukrainian government's prosecution of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Skadden was recruited by Manafort, who worked for the Moscow-backed government in Kiev, and the law firm was ultimately paid $4.66 million for its work, mostly through a Cypriot bank account controlled by Manafort.

That work included passing a legal report it made for the Ukraine government to US journalists to help burnish the government's image.

The Justice Department said the company knew that amounted to illegal lobbying, and that company officials had lied to investigators when asked about it.

Manafort was convicted of multiple charges including bank fraud and money laundering in two separate cases last year, mostly involving the millions of dollars he earned during the decade to 2014 that he worked for the Ukraine government and pro-Russia political parties there.

Manafort has become a key figure in the Russia election meddling investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

A London-based Skadden lawyer who was involved in the Ukraine work, Dutch national Alex van der Zwaan, was the first person sentenced in Mueller's probe.

Van der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in jail in April 2018 for lying to investigators about his contacts with former Russian intelligence officials and Richard Gates -- Manafort's partner in Ukraine and on the Trump campaign.

Also investigated by Mueller, Gates last year pleaded guilty to reduced charges of false statements and conspiracy in exchange for a pledge to cooperate in the investigation, including providing evidence against Manafort.
The Telegraph

Hong Kong police arrested five directors at the Apple Daily newspaper early on Thursday morning, including its editor-in-chief, local media reported, in the latest blow to the newspaper's jailed owner Jimmy Lai. Hong Kong Police's National Security Department said in a statement that five directors of a company had been arrested on suspicion of collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security. It said only that the five included four men and a woman aged b
By John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Jordan's King Abdullah and the foreign ministers of France and Iran made separate visits on Monday to Iraq, an ally of Tehran, amid U.S. attempts to rally allies against the Islamic Republic as Washington starts withdrawing troops from neighboring Syria. King Abdullah's visit, his first since 2008, follows a week after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stopped off in both countries at the start of a Middle East tour meant to mobilize Arab countries against Iran and reassure them over the planned U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria. The Jordanian king was greeted by President Barham Salih on a red carpet at Baghdad airport before heading to meet Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. Salih welcomed the visit as strengthening "joint interests and security". Pompeo, who was in Riyadh on Monday, promoted a planned Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) that would include Gulf Arab states, Jordan and Egypt. Washington is seeking to weaken Shi'ite Muslim Iran, Israel's arch-foe in the region, with renewed sanctions and the support of Sunni Arab allies. In Iraq, Washington has made overtures to officials with vague pledges of greater economic cooperation and has pressured Baghdad to stop importing Iranian gas. But the planned withdrawal from Syria of 2,000 U.S. troops, announced by President Donald Trump last month, alarmed U.S. allies across the region, including Israel, which worries that the move could embolden Iran. Pompeo's tour came weeks after the announcement, and after a surprise trip by Trump to a U.S. military base in Iraq that included no meetings Iraqi leaders, prompting criticism from politicians. Iraq's government and many state institutions have been dominated by Iran-aligned figures and groups since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein. Iran-backed Shi'ite militias which helped defeat Islamic State in 2017 are increasing their sway over territory and politics in Iraq. Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met Abdul Mahdi, Shi'ite Muslim political leaders and other officials on Sunday and Monday and said a visit by President Hassan Rouhani would follow in March, Iranian state news agencies reported. The U.S. troop withdrawal has also alarmed Western allies who still see Islamic State as a threat, including France whose Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian met Abdul Mahdi on Monday. Le Drian said the U.S. withdrawal "raised questions", adding that IS had not been completely destroyed in Syria yet and threatened to return in Iraq. France had agreed a 1 billion euro loan for reconstruction in Iraq after the 2014-2017 battle to defeat the Sunni jihadists. Iraq has signaled it could become more military involved against IS in neighboring Syria. It has carried out several air strikes against IS in Syria in agreement with Damascus. (Editing by William Maclean)
Tokyo (AFP) - A rocket carrying a satellite on a mission to deliver the world's first artificial meteor shower blasted into space on Friday, Japanese scientists said.

A start-up based in Tokyo developed the micro-satellite for the celestial show over Hiroshima early next year as the initial experiment for what it calls a "shooting stars on demand" service.

The satellite is to release tiny balls that glow brightly as they hurtle through the atmosphere, simulating a meteor shower.

It hitched a ride on the small-size Epsilon-4 rocket that was launched from the Uchinoura space centre by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on Friday morning.

The rocket carried a total of seven ultra-small satellites that will demonstrate various "innovative" technologies, JAXA spokesman Nobuyoshi Fujimoto told AFP.

By early afternoon, JAXA confirmed all seven satellites had successfully been launched into orbit.

"I was too moved for words," Lena Okajima, president of the company behind the artificial meteor showers, told the Jiji Press agency.

"I feel like now the hard work is ahead."

The company ALE Co. Ltd plans to deliver its first out-of-this-world show over Hiroshima in the spring of 2020.

The satellite launched Friday carries 400 tiny balls whose chemical formula is a closely-guarded secret.

That should be enough for 20-30 events, as one shower will involve up to 20 stars, according to the company.

ALE's satellite, released 500 kilometres (310 miles) above the Earth, will gradually descend to 400 kilometres over the coming year as it orbits the Earth.

- Worldwide meteor shower shows -

The company plans to launch a second satellite on a private-sector rocket in mid-2019.

ALE says it is targeting "the whole world" with its products and plans to build a stockpile of shooting stars in space that can be delivered across the world.

When its two satellites are in orbit, they can be used separately or in tandem, and will be programmed to eject the balls at the right location, speed and direction to put on a show for viewers on the ground.

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Tinkering with the ingredients in the balls should mean that it is possible to change the colours they glow, offering the possibility of a multi-coloured flotilla of shooting stars.

Each star is expected to shine for several seconds before being completely burned up -- well before they fall low enough to pose any danger to anything on Earth.

They would glow brightly enough to be seen even over the light-polluted metropolis of Tokyo, ALE says.

If all goes well, and the skies are clear, the 2020 event could be visible to millions of people, it says.

Okajima has said her company chose Hiroshima for its first display because of its good weather, landscape and cultural assets.

The western Japan city rose from the ashes after the 1945 US atomic bombing and faces the Seto Inland sea where the floating gate of Itsukushima Shrine is.

ALE is working in collaboration with scientists and engineers at Japanese universities as well as local government officials and corporate sponsors.

It has not disclosed the price for an artificial meteor shower.
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday urged Romania and other EU countries to follow Washington's lead and move their embassies to the disputed city of Jerusalem.

Netanyahu made the call during talks in Jerusalem with Viorica Dancila, the prime minister of Romania, which this month took over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.

"I hope you will act to stop the bad resolutions against Israel in the EU, and also of course to move your embassy and other embassies to Jerusalem," Netanyahu told Dancila in comments relayed by the Israeli premier's office. "We wait for you in Jerusalem."

Last year the Romanian government, supported by the speaker of its parliament, adopted a draft proposal to move the country's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

That came after US President Donald Trump recognised the city as capital of Israel in May and moved Washington's embassy there, breaking with decades of diplomatic convention that the final status of the city should be the outcome of peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

But Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, who has frequently clashed with the government, opposed the Romanian move in the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, and called for Dancila's resignation.

During a visit to Jerusalem in April 2018, Dancila said she favoured moving the embassy but had insufficient domestic support to do so.

Guatemala was the first country to follow in America's footsteps, and Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office on January 1, has said his country will also move its embassy to Jerusalem.

Australia in December recognised west Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but said it would not shift its embassy from Tel Aviv until a peace settlement is signed.

The status of the city, holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, is one of the thorniest of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel claims Jerusalem as its "undivided" capital, while Palestinians view Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

Most countries agree that Jerusalem's status can only be settled through wider Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Hebron (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Israeli forces demolished the West Bank home on Friday of a Palestinian accused of the fatal September stabbing of an Israeli-American.

Residents of the town of Yata, near the flashpoint city of Hebron, said that troops arrived at the home of Khalil Jabareen and were met by stone-throwing Palestinians.

The Israeli army said the structure destroyed was an apartment where Jabareen lived.

"During the operation, several violent riots were instigated with the participation of dozens of Palestinians who hurled rocks at soldiers," it said. "The troops responded with riot dispersal means."

There were no reports of casualties on either side.

Ari Fuld, 45, was a father of four who lived in the Israeli settlement of Efrat, near the shopping mall in the occupied West Bank where he was stabbed.

Jabareen, 17 at the time of the incident, was shot and moderately wounded near the scene after a brief chase and placed under arrest.

He was allegedly identified as the assailant from footage on security cameras outside the mall at Gush Etzion Junction south of Bethlehem.

There is frequent friction between Israelis and Palestinians at the junction, which lies near a major Israeli settlement bloc and has been the site of numerous lone-wolf Palestinian attacks.

Fuld, was a right-wing activist who had appeared regularly on television.

Police have said there was no indication he was targeted for that reason, although they classified the stabbing as a "terrorist attack".

Israel has a policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinians accused of deadly attacks against Israelis, saying it acts as a deterrent.

Critics denounce it as a form of collective punishment that makes families homeless and can provoke further violence.

The demolitions often spark clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces.

In 2005, Israel halted the policy but in 2014, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that demolitions would resume after a wave of attacks.
DUBAI (Reuters) - An American journalist working for Iran's state television channel Press TV who Iran says has been detained in Washington will appear in a U.S. court on Friday, the channel reported on Friday. Iran has called for the immediate release of TV anchor and documentary film maker Marziyeh Hashemian, whose employer, the English-language channel Press TV, said was arrested on Sunday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at St. Louis Lambert International Airport. The FBI has not commented on the case. "Marzieh Hashemi, detained by the FBI on unspecified charges, is due to appear in a Washington, DC, court on Friday," the state-run Press TV reported, without elaborating. The broadcaster on Wednesday quoted Hashemi's son as saying that the 59-year-old journalist, who had been living in Iran for more than a decade, was detained as a "material witness" to a criminal case and no formal charges had been made against her. U.S. Federal law allows the government to arrest and detain a witness if it can prove that their testimony is material to a criminal proceeding and that it cannot guarantee their presence through a subpoena. According to Press TV, Hashemi was born Melanie Franklin in the United States and changed her name after converting to Islam. She had traveled to the United States to visit her family, the channel said. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned the arrest a "violation of freedom of speech and unacceptable". "She is the wife of an Iranian citizen and we see it as our duty to defend the rights of our citizens" Zarif told Iran's Arabic-language state broadcaster Al-Alam news channel. In a statement on Friday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the Justice Department to disclose the reason for Hashemi's arrest. CPJ said in the statement that "Iran routinely jails journalists, with at least eight behind bars in relation to their work when CPJ conducted its annual global prison census in December." Tensions have been high between Iran and the United States since U.S. President Donald Trumps decision to pull out of an international nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran. Several Iranian dual nationals from the United States, Britain, Austria, Canada and France have been detained in the past years in Iran and are being kept behind bars on charges including espionage and collaborating with hostile governments. (Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
By Pawel Goraj GDANSK, Poland (Reuters) - Hundreds gathered at the coffin of murdered liberal mayor Pawel Adamowicz in the port city of Gdansk on Thursday as it lay in state in the museum of the Solidarity movement that helped bring down communism in Poland. Adamowicz's coffin was draped in Gdansk's scarlet coat of arms as about 2,500 people, according to police, queued after dark amid freezing wind to pay their respects. Candles placed in the shape of a giant heart stood in front of the museum. Adamowicz, a critic of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and its anti-immigrant policies, was stabbed on Sunday evening by a man who rushed the stage during a charity event. He died the following day. Police detained at least 10 people in recent days over calls on social media to murder and acts of aggression made in the wake of Adamowicz's death. The incidents reflect the charged political atmosphere in a number of European countries, including Poland and Hungary, where populist leaders have fanned nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment. Critics have said Poland's politicians have been cranking up hate speech and aggression in public life, and blamed the ruling PiS party for not reacting earlier. Adamowicz was one of 11 Polish mayors who were the target of fake death certificates by a far-right group called All-Polish Youth in 2017 after they signed a declaration to welcome refugees against the government's anti-migration policies. The prosecutor's office decided not to pursue the case further at the time. Support for PiS fell to 30 percent in the wake of Adamowicz's death, according to a poll conducted by Kantar Millward Brown for Gazeta Wyborcza daily, from 33 percent in November, while the biggest opposition grouping Koalicja Obywatelska has 25 percent. Thousands of people gathered in vigils earlier this week in Polish cities to mourn the death of Adamowicz, who had been mayor of Gdansk for 20 years and espoused liberal causes at odds with the conservative nationalist government. Polish authorities have arrested a 27-year-old former convict named Stefan W. in connection with the murder. His full name has so far been withheld. (Reporting by Pawel Goraj and Marcin Goclowski, Edited by Joanna Plucinska, William Maclean)
The head of Goldman Sachs on Wednesday apologized to Malaysia for a Goldman partner's role in the 1MDB scandal even as he defended the firm as a whole.

Goldman Chief Executive David Solomon reiterated during an earnings conference call that the investment bank was cooperating with authorities on the probe of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund as he expressed regret over a scandal that has roiled the Asian country.

In November, the Justice Department announced that former Goldman partner Tim Leissner had pleaded guilty to violating US anti-bribery and money laundering laws and agreed to pay $43.7 million in restitution.

"It's very clear that the people of Malaysia were defrauded by many individuals including the highest members of the prior government," said. "Per Leissner's role in that fraud, we apologize for the Malaysian people."

But Solomon also defended the bank as a whole, saying it had been misled by Leissner and senior officials in the Malaysian government about the role of a key intermediary in the scandal, Low Taek Jho.

Goldman helped arrange $6.5 billion in bonds for 1MDB. Kuala Lampur has filed criminal charges against Goldman and two former employees for alleged theft.

A Justice Department indictment of Low Taek Jho and Ng Chong Hwa, another ex-Goldman banker, that identified Goldman as "Financial Institution #1" said the firm's business culture at times emphasized dealmaking "ahead of the proper operation of its compliance functions."

Solomon said employees at Goldman were "extremely angry" about Leissner's role but that morale was good on the whole due to the bank's strong financial performance.

Goldman has suffered a "reputation dent" tied to the scandal, Solomon acknowledged, but added that the effect on clients had been "de minimus."
BERLIN (Reuters) - No vendors should be excluded from Germany's fifth-generation mobile networks if there is no evidence against them, the BDI industry association said, responding to calls to bar China's Huawei Technologies on national security grounds.

The Handelsblatt daily reported earlier that the German government was actively considering stricter security requirements and other ways to exclude Huawei from the buildout of 5G mobile networks.

U.S. officials warned that Huawei's network equipment may contain "back doors" that could open them up to cyber espionage. The BDI said accusations that Huawei was jeopardizing security needed to be proved.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Douglas Busvine)
Moscow (AFP) - German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Friday called on Russia to destroy a controversial missile system Washington says breaches a key arms control treaty.

"We believe Russia can save this treaty," Maas said after talks with Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov, referring to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF).

"It affects our security interests in a fundamental way."

Tensions have raged between Russia and the United States over the fate of the INF agreement signed in 1987 by then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

US President Donald Trump has promised to walk away from the agreement and Russian leader Vladimir Putin threatened a new arms race, saying Europe would be its main victim.

Washington says Moscow's 9M729 missile system violates the treaty and warned it would withdraw from the agreement if Russia does not get rid of it.

Russia denies the claim, accusing the United States of violating the treaty which forbids ground-launched short- and intermediate-range missiles.

"Like other NATO members, we believe that there is a missile violating this treaty and it should be destroyed in a verifiable manner to get back to the implementation of this agreement," Germany's Maas told reporters.

Maas commended Moscow for trying to salvage the agreement and expressed hope that talks between Russian and US negotiators would resume in the near future.

Last month Washington gave Russia a 60-day deadline to dismantle missiles that it claims breach the INF treaty or the US would begin the six-month process of formally withdrawing from the deal.

Lavrov for his part said Washington provided no evidence that Russia's tests of the missile violated the INF treaty.

He said Washington's demands to destroy the missiles and have regular access to Russian sites were just "a pretext to exit the treaty."

"During official contacts on arms control and disarmament issues back in October the United States said the decision is definitive and their announcement of the withdrawal from the INF treaty is not an invitation to dialogue. This is a quote."

Earlier this week, talks between US and Russian officials in Geneva to salvage the deal led nowhere. Moscow said Washington did not appear to be in the mood for more talks while a US official said Russia was just paying "lip service" to transparency.

Russian officials said US representatives had confirmed Washington's intention to begin withdrawing from the treaty from February 2.
BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government is debating whether to follow the United States and allies like Australia in restricting China's Huawei Technologies from accessing its next-generation mobile networks on national-security grounds.

Some Western countries have barred Huawei [HWT.UL] from their markets after U.S. officials briefed allies that Huawei is at the beck and call of the Chinese state, warning that its network equipment may contain "back doors" that could open them up to cyber espionage. Huawei says such concerns are unfounded.

While no concrete steps have been decided upon, business daily Handelsblatt reported on Thursday that Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration was actively considering stricter security requirements and other ways to exclude Huawei.

Officials were discussing setting security standards that Huawei could not achieve, effectively blocking its participation. Changes to the German telecommunications law were also under consideration as a last resort, the paper said, citing government sources.

No decisions have yet been taken, according to a written answer by the Interior Ministry to a question from lawmaker Katharina Droege of the opposition Greens party.

"The process of reaching a common view on concrete steps has not been completed," said the Interior Ministry's response, which was seen by Reuters.

Europe has become a crucial battleground in a struggle between Beijing and Washington that analysts say could determine which of the two superpowers achieves technological supremacy in the 21st century.

Huawei, once a fast follower of Nordic firms Nokia and Ericsson, is now a $93 billion global market leader in an industry where there is no U.S. champion.

U.S. LEGISLATION

In Washington, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced bills on Wednesday that would ban the sale of U.S. chips or other components to Huawei, ZTE Corp or other Chinese telecommunications companies that violate U.S. sanctions or export control laws.

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Germany's Deutsche Telekom announced in December that it would review its vendor strategy and France's Orange said it would not hire the Chinese firm to build its next-generation network in France.

Tensions have been heightened by the arrest of Huawei's chief financial officer in Canada for possible extradition to the United States.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, in a rare public appearance this week, said his company had never received a request from a government to transmit information in violation of any regulations.

The deliberations in Berlin mark a shift from the German government's position in October, when it told lawmakers it saw no legal basis to exclude any vendors from an upcoming 5G auction following warnings from Washington.

In a statement, Huawei welcomed Berlin's push to verify and standardize technology solutions which it has supported by opening an information lab in Bonn to help regulators scrutinize its gear.

"We are very optimistic that we can completely fulfill all security requirements for 5G networks," Huawei said. "We see no rational grounds to exclude Huawei from the construction of 5G networks in any country around the world."

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Sabine Siebold and Nadine Schimroszik; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Elaine Hardcastle)
By Michael Nienaber BEIJING (Reuters) - Germany and China on Friday signed agreements to strengthen coordination in banking, finance and capital markets, and pledged to further open market access and deepen cooperation to broaden economic ties. The agreements were reached after a two-day visit to Beijing by German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz for talks with Vice Premier Liu He, who is President Xi Jinping's top economic adviser. Both sides reaffirmed that "they will strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination and pragmatic cooperation in the fiscal and financial fields and expand strategic cooperation," according to a joint statement after the talks. Trade between the two nations has softened amid uncertainty caused by the U.S.-China trade war, but both have shown a willingness to demonstrate that the world remains multilateral. They agreed to work to improve international economic governance, maintain the global multilateral system, fight trade protectionism and support a rule-based multilateral trading system through the World Trade Organization. "It is important that, contrary to recent trends that we can observe elsewhere, we are seeing progress in our cooperation," Scholz told reporters before the talks at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in the Chinese capital. A level playing field in terms of market access for banks and insurers is important, added Scholz. Liu also noted the importance of strengthening trade ties. "As the world economy slows, market volatility rises, creating greater risks," he told reporters. Berlin has stressed its "close and advantageous" trade ties with China, the world's second largest economy compared to number four Germany. It wants to protect and strengthen sensitive German and European business sectors as China makes state-backed acquisitions in strategic industries overseas. "If you work closely together, you learn to appreciate similarities, but also to know differences," Scholz said. "And we have a lot of common interests in financial matters, and then we need to bring different perspectives together. I believe that is the very important task of this financial dialogue," he added. German-Chinese cooperation benefited their economies, Liu and Scholz said, adding they are committed to ensuring open market access and easing investment barriers in both countries. "The two sides conducted in-depth, pragmatic, efficient and fruitful discussions, and formed a series of fruitful results and consensus," Liu told reporters. FINANCIAL COOPERATION Both sides recognized the potential for cooperation in the financial sector and are open to financial firms deepening their cooperation in third countries, according to the statement. German insurers can set up wholly-owned insurance holding firms in China, whose insurers and reinsurers are welcome conduct reinsurance business in Germany, it said. "China commits to continued granting of national treatment for foreign insurance companies and a level playing field for domestic and foreign insurance companies," it said. German banks can apply to become a primary dealer in the open market operations of the People's Bank of China (PBOC). The two countries will also support efforts to find areas of cooperation between China's Belt and Road initiative and the EU's strategy for linking Europe and Asia, as well as European infrastructure planning. "I am very happy that we have succeeded in agreeing concrete, very concrete steps today," Scholz said. "There must be a level playing field, reciprocity is the key." (Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Darren Schuettler)
Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's top diplomat on Thursday praised Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei for trusting the Canadian legal system as his daughter fights extradition to the United States.

Meng Wanzhou, also a Huawei executive, was arrested in Vancouver last month on a US warrant over Iran sanctions-linked fraud charges -- a move Chinese ambassador to Canada Lu Shayne branded "backstabbing" earlier in the day.

"I think those were very gracious comments he made," Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said. "I think it's very natural that he would be concerned about his daughter."

"And I was glad to hear directly from him that he feels his daughter has been treated fairly by the Canadian judicial system and with kindness, and certainly the objective of the Canadian government is that our judicial system should treat everyone impartially, fairly and indeed with kindness."

In a rare meeting with reporters this week, Ren had said: "I trust that the legal systems of Canada and the United States are open, just, and fair, and will reach a just conclusion."

He also thanked Meng's cellmates "for treating her kindly" before she was granted bail, days after her arrest.

Ottawa and Beijing remain locked in an escalating row.

In a move widely seen as a counterstroke, Chinese authorities arrested former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor last month, accusing them of endangering national security.

Ottawa insisted they had been "arbitrarily" detained and that interrogations of Kovrig breached the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations -- allegations Beijing flatly rejected.

Former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler went further, accusing China in an email to The Canadian Press of "hostage diplomacy."

On Thursday, ambassador Lu Shayne warned of "repercussions" if Canada joins intelligence-sharing allies in barring Huawei from its 5G networks -- and urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to back off recruiting international support in the feud.

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Australia, Britain, France, Germany, the European Union and the United States have all backed Canada's demand for its citizens' release.

Trudeau has also raised their plight in recent calls to the leaders of Argentina, Finland, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore.

Next week, Freeland will lead a Canadian delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where they will press Canada's case to world leaders and business executives. Lu also warned against this.

Freeland has called Beijing's recent behavior "a threat to all countries."

Meanwhile Canadian ambassador to China John McCallum, back home to brief lawmakers, said Thursday: "I think we have to engage the senior Chinese leaders and persuade them that what they are doing... it's not good for the image of corporate China in the world."
Guatemala City (AFP) - A new caravan of Central American migrants trying to reach the United States made its way across Guatemala Thursday, with the first members crossing into southern Mexico.

Bundled up in the early morning cold of the Guatemalan capital, hundreds of mostly Honduran migrants set out on the next leg of their trek, hitching rides on passing trucks or walking toward the Mexican border, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) away.

Guatemalan authorities said around 2,000 migrants were taking part in the caravan, which set out Tuesday from Honduras with about half that number and has grown along the way.

It is smaller than the caravan that made international headlines last October and November. That group swelled to 7,000 people and triggered a firestorm of tweets from US President Donald Trump, who said it was full of "criminals" and "thugs" and deployed thousands of troops to the US-Mexican border to stop them.

A first group of some 200 migrants from the latest caravan entered Mexico around midday, filing across the bridge over the river that divides Tecun Uman, Guatemala from Ciudad Hidalgo, in southwestern Mexico.

There was no repeat of the chaos and violence that exploded when the October caravan crossed the same bridge. Then, migrants broke down border barriers and jumped into the Suchiate River to swim across when the Mexican authorities tried to stop them from entering en masse.

On the Guatemalan side, Mexican immigration officials broadcast a message to the hundreds of migrants gathered in a park waiting to cross: enter the country legally and we will let you continue on your way.

"The Mexican government has decided to give a humanitarian 'visitor card' to all individuals who enter the country in an orderly fashion," Mexican migration official Hector Aleman said into a microphone -- drawing applause from the migrants.

Such cards normally take 30 days to process, but Aleman said Mexico would issue them in just five days so the migrants could continue their journey.

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Mexico's new government -- headed by anti-establishment leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office last month -- has vowed to treat Central American migrants more humanely than in the past.

But it has also insisted they enter the country legally, reinforcing security along the southern border.

- Long way to go -

Another caravan of about 200 migrants set out Wednesday from El Salvador and is poised to join up with the one from Honduras.

The migrants are mostly fleeing poverty and crime in Central America's "Northern Triangle" -- El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Brutal street gangs have made the three countries among the most violent in the world.

Political upheaval has also played a part in the exodus, particularly in Honduras, where President Juan Orlando Hernandez won re-election in 2017 in a vote that was widely condemned as fraudulent.

"We're going through a tough crisis in Honduras. The politicians are all crooks," said 52-year-old farmer Genaro Hernandez, explaining his decision to leave.

Many of the migrants are traveling in families, often with small children.

Those who reached Mexico's southern border have covered about 700 kilometers so far. They have roughly 4,000 kilometers to go if they take the same route as the last caravan, to Tijuana, which sits across from San Diego, California.

Trump has cited the latest caravan in arguing for the wall he wants to build on the US-Mexican border. His dispute with Congress over the $5.7 billion he wants for the wall has led to the longest government shutdown in US history.

The October caravan largely dispersed after reaching Tijuana.

US Border Patrol agents fought back two attempts by the migrants to rush the border, firing tear gas to disperse them.

Some have since found work in Mexico, some crossed the border and filed asylum claims, and many returned home. About 400 remain in a shelter set up for them in Tijuana.

Local authorities said that shelter would be closed next Wednesday. Remaining migrants will receive help finding housing, they said.
Ottawa (AFP) - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau renewed calls for the release of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi after meeting his wife on Friday, calling the issue "a priority" for him and all Canadians.

Trudeau said Canadians' view of Saudi Arabia had been defined in part by its treatment of Badawi, who was jailed for 10 years for insulting Islam and has received 50 lashes of 1,000 to which he was sentenced.

Badawi's wife and three children have lived in Canada since being granted asylum in 2013, a year after his jailing.

"Freeing Raif Badawi is a priority not just for me and for his family but for all Canadians," Trudeau said.

"We continue to try to convince the Saudis and apply pressure on them both behind the scenes and in public to liberate Raif Badawi," including asking for a pardon, he said.

Trudeau said he had raised the case in conversation with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, highlighting Badawi's status as the face of Canada-Saudi relations.

The two leaders met at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires in early December.

"It's the same message that I delivered a few months earlier to the King of Saudi Arabia when we spoke" by telephone, Trudeau added.

Canada-Saudi relations soured last August after Ottawa demanded the "immediate release" of jailed human rights campaigners, including Badawi's sister Samar.

The kingdom reacted with fury, expelling the Canadian ambassador and severing all trade and investment ties in protest.

Canada's granting of asylum last week to a young Saudi woman, Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, who fled her family, was widely expected to further strain relations with the kingdom.
Nairobi (AFP) - An East African summit scheduled for December 27 to help broker an end to Burundi's political crisis has been postponed for a second time, according to a regional bloc organising the talks.

Burundi has been caught up in crisis since President Pierre Nkurunziza sought a third term in office in 2015, provoking civil unrest that left at least 1,200 dead and displaced over 400,000 people.

The East African (EAC) bloc of countries is seeking to broker a political deal between the government and the opposition to hold elections.

The EAC said on its Facebook page that consultations were underway to set a new date.

"The decision to postpone the summit on December 27 was taken because most of the heads of state were not available during the holiday period," said a senior official from one of the countries involved.

The summit had been originally planned for November, but Burundi's government had said it could not attend.

The government has refused to hold talks with some opposition groups that it brands terrorists, despite mediation efforts by the regional countries under former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa.
A trip to China by lawmakers from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's party has stirred anger in the far-right leader's entourage, partly because of his wariness of the Asian power but also because of the group's stated mission.

The delegation of eight members of Bolsonaro's ultraconservative Social Liberal Party (PSL) said it was on the visit to check out Chinese facial-recognition technology, with a view to it maybe being used in Brazil to combat crime.

A Brazilian writer regarded as part of Bolsonaro's brain trust, Olavo de Carvalho, slammed the trip as "craziness" and the lawmakers taking part as "hayseeds," "semi-illiterates" and "idiots."

Bolsonaro himself was reported to be "surprised" by the trip.

That fury stemmed from fears that the lawmakers -- who are to take up their seats in Brazil's new congress from next month -- were naively being used by Beijing, and that sensitive data generated by the facial-recognition technology could end up in Chinese hands.

Underlying that was Bolsonaro's scepticism of China, which is Brazil's biggest trading partner and foreign investor.

He has accused China of wanting to "buy Brazil" by taking control of strategic companies, raising friction with Beijing but alarming his economic team.

There is also the fact that China is governed by its Communist Party -- and that Bolsonaro is ferociously opposed to all leftwing ideology.

In a video posted on social media on Wednesday, Carvalho -- nicknamed "Bolsonaro's guru" -- ranted against the traveling lawmakers.

"You are handing Brazil over to China.... Are you going to let these guys hand Brazil over the Chinese system in this way?" he said.

A PSL deputy, Daniel Silveira admitted the trip was being paid for by the Chinese government, but stressed the goal was simply a fact-finding mission to learn more about a technology "we want to apply in Brazil."

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He added that it was in Brazil's interest to maintain open channels with other countries, even those with different ideologies, such as North Korea where Brazil has a diplomatic mission, so it can seek to "improve" those countries.

Another PSL deputy, Soraya Thronicke, tweeted: "Who is going to bear China withdrawing from the (Brazilian) market? The 'hayseeds' here have a lot to learn from them (the Chinese)."

A PSL colleague, Carla Zambelli, was quoted in Brazilian media saying that the brouhaha was due to a "big communication error" and that, in any case, the lawmakers were not qualified to sign any technology deal with China.
By Jake Spring and Anthony Boadle BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil should open indigenous land to commercial farming, Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias said on Friday, while also seeking to soften many of President Jair Bolsonaro's controversial stances on native people and the environment. Farmers form a key base of support for right-wing firebrand Bolsonaro who since taking office Jan. 1 has placed pro-agribusiness policies at the center of his agenda. Activists warn his government's positions would strip away protections for the environment, the Amazon rainforest and indigenous peoples. Reservation land covering roughly 12 percent of Brazil's territory is currently off limits for commercial farming. "They could plant there ... and maybe have income for their community," Dias told reporters. "They cannot do this today. That needs to be changed in Congress." Reservations should still be required to preserve a minimum percentage of native vegetation, as all farmers currently are, she said. Bolsonaro has given control over indigenous land designations to the Agriculture Ministry, after arguing on the campaign trail that no new indigenous reservations should be created. But Dias struck a more moderate tone, saying Bolsonaro did not favor new reservations in areas that have long been settled by farmers. "Small farmers that have been there 50 years and have deeds issued by the state or federal government, if you kick them out, there aren't conditions there for indigenous people to hunt and fish and have their lives," she said in a press briefing. "When the president says he doesn't want more demarcations, he's talking about this type of contested areas." But the Amazon deserves completely different treatment, and tribes with little contact with the outside world should be protected, she said, a position that is shared by Brazil's new rights minister who will be responsible for indigenous affairs. Bolsonaro has suggested Brazil may exit the Paris Agreement on climate change and appointed a foreign minister who calls global warming a leftist fabrication. But Dias said she is fine with staying in the accord, as the country is on track to meet its climate change goals. As for a campaign promise to end the "industry" of environmental fines, Dias told Reuters prior to the briefing that Brazil must end "indiscriminate" fines levied by multiple agencies without working with the farmers to resolve misunderstandings. (Reporting by Jake Spring and Anthony Boadle; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Addis Ababa (AFP) - The African Union called Thursday for the final announcement of last month's disputed presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo to be suspended due to "serious doubts".

Meeting in Ethiopia, the AU agreed to urgently send "a high-level delegation" to Kinshasa in a bid to find a way out of the political crisis.

"The Heads of State and Government attending the meeting concluded that there were serious doubts on the conformity of the provisional results, as proclaimed by the National Independent Electoral Commission, with the votes cast," the AU said in a statement.

As a result, it has "called for the suspension of the proclamation of the final results of the elections".

The provisional results of the long-awaited election announced last week are being challenged in court, in a country that has never known a peaceful transfer of power since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960.

The electoral commission last Thursday declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi the winner of the December 30 vote with 38.57 percent of the tally against chief rival Martin Fayulu's 34.8 percent.

Fayulu who launched the court action said it was an "electoral coup" forged in backroom dealings between Tshisekedi and outgoing President Joseph Kabila, who has been in power since 2001.

"Even if the situation on the ground has been fortunately calm so far, it obviously remains a cause for concern," AU chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat told African leaders including from South Africa, Zambia and the Republic of Congo gathered to discuss the vote dispute at AU headquarters in Ethiopia.

Earlier this week, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a bloc that includes Angola and South Africa, called for a recount of the vote and a unity government in DR Congo.

But in a communique issued on Thursday, SADC made no mention of those demands, instead calling on Congolese politicians to "address any electoral grievances in line with the Democratic Republic of Congo's Constitution and relevant electoral laws".

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It also asked the international community to respect the DR Congo's "sovereignty" and "territorial integrity".

The vote dispute has raised fears that the country's political crisis, which erupted two years ago when Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional term in office, could worsen.

The vast and chronically unstable country became a battlefield for two regional wars in 1996-97 and 1998-2003, and the last two presidential elections, in 2006 and 2011, were marked by bloody clashes.

The country's top court is due to rule on the court action later this month.
CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AP)  Foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Friday hewed to the group's practice of reaching the least provocative consensus possible in discussions of such divisive issues as Myanmar's Rohingya crisis and China's territorial claims in the South China Sea.

A two-day Foreign Ministers' Retreat was the regional group's first meeting since Thailand took over its annual chairmanship.

The host's summary of the meeting emphasized the humanitarian role ASEAN members could play in Myanmar's Rakhine State, where more than 700,000 members of the Muslim Rohingya minority fled from a brutal government counterinsurgency campaign.

Standard ASEAN practice is to avoid criticizing what are considered each country's domestic affairs. But Myanmar's Rohingya crisis is also a regional problem, because of the hundreds of thousands of refugees it has generated, justifying discussion by the group.

ASEAN has plans to send a team to Rakhine, but Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai at a closing news conference said its mission had been delayed because of a stalemate on the ground.

"Once things are cleared, then you will be seeing more visibly the presence of the collective ASEAN efforts in Myanmar and Rakhine State," he said.

Don said the group suggested that Myanmar should "address the root causes of the conflict" and create "a conducive environment" so that affected communities can rebuild their lives.

Myanmar has previously acknowledged similar suggestions but done little to act on them.

ASEAN offered to act as a coordinator with U.N. agencies on the planned future repatriation of the Rohingya currently sheltering at camps in Bangladesh, Don said.

Many Rohingya are reluctant to return without more guarantees of safety and the prospect of obtaining citizenship, which is generally denied to them.

Myanmar was represented at the meeting by Minister for International Cooperation Kyaw Tin. Its foreign minister is Aung San Suu Kyi, but she is also the country's executive leader and often delegates foreign minister duties to others.

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The ministers also claimed progress on concluding a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, long touted as a way of avoiding volatile confrontations in the disputed waters.

Several ASEAN countries, especially Vietnam and the Philippines, have the territorial interests directly threatened by Chinese claims in the sea, while others, either nervous about offending their giant neighbor to the north or maintaining vital economic ties with Beijing, are less concerned.

The meeting statement gave a nod to China's critics by saying the ministers "took note of some concerns on the land reclamations and activities in the area." By extending the size of reefs and islands and establishing military and civilian facilities on them, Beijing strengthens its claims to the adjacent waters.
Nicosia (AFP) - Rights group Amnesty International called on Sudan Friday to halt a crackdown on anti-government protests after a doctor and child were among three shot dead in fresh demonstrations.

"Sudan's security forces must stop their ongoing deadly onslaught on protesters and medical personnel," the London-based group said in a statement.

Demonstrations have rocked Sudan since December 19, when the government raised the price of bread. They have escalated into broad demonstrations against President Omar al-Bashir's three-decade rule.

Bashir has defied calls to step down, and rights groups say security forces have responded with deadly force.

A doctors' committee linked to the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) that is spearheading the protest movement said a child and doctor were killed by live ammunition Thursday during demonstrations in the capital Khartoum.

An SPA spokesman said later that another protester had also died during the day.

Sudanese officials have not confirmed the three deaths, but earlier said 24 people had died in protest-related violence since December.

Amnesty said last week that over 40 people have been killed in the unrest, with more than 1,000 arrested.

Sarah Jackson, Amnesty's deputy director for East Africa, said Friday it was an "outrage that Sudanese security forces continue to use lethal force on protesters and key service providers like doctors".

She accused security personnel of "killing people in an unbridled spree that is even affecting children".

Amnesty has reported repeated raids on medical facilities by the security forces, saying they have fired teargas and live bullets inside hospitals as well as arresting and beating doctors.

"By participating in these protests, the people of Sudan are exercising their legitimate rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly," Jackson said Friday.

"Instead of trying to curtail these rights, the government should address the root causes of the economic crisis that has driven the people to the streets."

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In a separate statement Human Rights Watch also called on the government to "immediately release or charge those detained in relation to the ongoing protests".

"Those arrested include protesters, journalists, doctors, lawyers, and opposition party leaders," a statement said.

The group said the number of people detained was "most likely far greater" than the official figure of 816 given on January 7.

"Many of those arrested remain in incommunicado detention, without access to family or lawyer visits," it said.
Algiers (AFP) - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika issued a decree on Friday calling a much anticipated presidential election for April 18 but without saying whether he will seek a new term.

The ailing 81-year-old, who uses a wheelchair and is rarely seen in public, completes a fourth term of office on April 28.

Despite his advanced age and poor health, there have been calls from his supporters for him to stand for a fifth term but he has yet to make his intentions clear.

By law, would-be candidates now have until March 4 to register with the constitutional court.

Uncertainty over whether Bouteflika will stand for re-election has frozen Algerian politics for months.

No candidate of note has thrown his or her hat into the ring while the president's intentions remain in doubt.

For the last presidential election in 2014, Bouteflika left it until just days before the deadline to register.

Algerian politics is notoriously opaque with the winner of every multiparty presidential election pre-selected by a shadowy elite, beginning in 1995 with victory by retired General Liamine Zeroual.

For this year's election, the membership of the kingmaking elite has changed.

During his fourth term, Bouteflika finally made good on a longstanding pledge to reduce the power of the traditional powerbrokers by disbanding the DRS intelligence agency in 2016.

But under his watch, business networks have become increasingly entwined with the political structure, leaving it difficult to judge with confidence who will be put to voters as the regime's anointed candidate.

The president's brother and special adviser Said has been widely seen as Algeria's de facto ruler since Abdelaziz suffered a stroke in 2013 that severely impaired his speech.

But many believe Said will wish to remain in the shadows behind the throne, rather than be the public candidate.
Photo credit: WPA Pool - Getty Images

From Oprah Magazine

For her second appearance of the day (and her third of 2019), Meghan Markle attended Cirque du Soleil with Prince Harry on Wednesday in a gorgeous floor-length navy blue Roland Mouret sequined gown (you can shop it here). The Duke and Duchess are attending the circus-yes, the same one your mom has likely urged you to buy tickets for at some point in your life-to support Prince Harry's Sentebale charity, which gives hope to young people affected by HIV in Lesotho and Botswana.

Meghan's gown is very different from the $35 H&M maternity dress she wore that morning to The Mayhew, a charity that promotes animal welfare. And it wasn't just the sequins that caught royal fans' eyes-her outfit was clearly inspired by Princess Diana when her late mother-in-law attended the Diamond Ball in 1990 and the previous year in 1989.

[asset removed due to syndication rights]

Photo credit: WPA Pool - Getty Images

Photo credit: WPA Pool - Getty Images

The Duchess is also wearing Diana's bracelet, which means she definitely dug through the archives to show her respect for Harry's mother.

[asset removed due to syndication rights]

It's such a sweet tribute.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Shop Meghan's dress, below.
If it weren't for Instagram, Young wouldn't have permanently inked a lemon wedge onto my right shin in a Bushwick, Brooklyn, tattoo shop last November. We don't have any mutual friends, and my travels haven't taken me to her hometown of Seoul just yet. Without Instagram, her colorful, abstract work under the name 02percentof02 would never have popped up on my radar. And I never would have discovered she'd be traveling to the States to work as a guest tattoo artist at studios in Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City.

Instagram has been instrumental to Young's career, too. Without the social media platform, she wouldn't be in America to tattoo  and she wouldn't have the majority of her clients in Korea without it, either. "I'm not the kind of person to like SNS," the 23-year-old admits as she cleans up her station, using the colloquial Korean abbreviation for social network services. "But we need to do SNS to promote ourselves." She is, however, the kind of person to effortlessly pull off poppy-red cargo pants and laugh off a bird pooping on her head, which happened to occur on the day of our interview.

Instagram is Young's storefront  mostly because her home studio in Seoul doesn't have one. "We don't have a sign," she explains. "It's a very random place." Like most tattoo shops in Korea, Young's is hidden away on the third floor of a five-story building. You can't round a busy corner and happen upon it like you can with Gristle Tattoo, the shop she has a guest spot at on the New York City stop of her U.S. tour. Her home studio doesn't have its name painted on the front window in large black-and-white gothic script. You can't peek inside to see people trying not to wince in pain as tattoo artists run buzzing needles over their skin. It finds you the way it found me: through Instagram. From there, her customers slide into her DMs to book an appointment.

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"Only doctors can tattoo in Korea. It's stupid."

This incredibly modern approach to tattooing is shrouded in antiquated, stigmatized ideas, though. In Korea, tattoos have been historically associated with gangs, Young tells me as she blots away fresh blood from my newly inked lemon tattoo. K-pop stars like G-Dragon and Hyuna adorning their arms and legs with body art have helped defy this stereotype. However, the industry is still literally underground because tattooing without a medical license is illegal in Korea.

"Only doctors can tattoo in Korea," Young explains. This revelation is baffling to me. "It's stupid," Young laments.

Without thinking, I ask if she has a medical license. She shakes her head from side to side. "Nobody does," she adds. Young mentions more than once that she hopes tattooing will be legalized soon. Not only will it allow her certain protections that she doesn't have now, but it will also help regulate an industry that currently has no rules.

Despite all this, Young has been able to support herself enough as a tattoo artist that her parents no longer care that her job is essentially illegal. She didn't tell her dad about it until 2017, though. By the time he found out she was a tattooist, her Instagram follower count was growing, and clients were streaming in. "So my father said, 'You're doing great now, so do what you want,'" Young recalls. "My whole family is historians, actually, so they couldn't have expected me to be a tattoo artist."

"Someone getting a tattoo and giving a tattoo at the same time is art. Its eternal art for someones eternity."

Young always knew she wanted to be a tattoo artist, though. The idea of tattoos attracted her because "someone getting a tattoo and giving a tattoo at the same time is art," she explains. "It's eternal art for someone's eternity." Although she doesn't pinpoint which age the desire to be a tattoo artist came to her or when she wanted to pursue the dream, Young started a bit earlier than she planned.

At 17, she was suffering from depression, and drawing became her coping mechanism. "At first, I wanted to draw stories, feelings, and emotions," she says. Around the same time, she got her first tattoo: a heart-shaped peace sign on her neck. "[It's a] little bit classic," she laughs. Like most of the U.S., the minimum age to get a tattoo in South Korea is 18, so Young lied and told the tattoo artist she was 20.

By the time she was actually 20, Young was in college studying fashion. Her depression became too much for her to go to class, so she stopped going. Drawing became her escape once again. "I just couldn't lie at home all day," she says, "so I was drawing and drawing." From there, Young realized she wanted to be a tattoo artist someday and decided to seize the moment. "In Korea, if you want to learn how to tattoo, you pay a tattoo artist for lessons," she explains. So Young asked her favorite artists, one at the time, to help her learn.

When the time came to do her first tattoo, Young called upon her ex-boyfriend. "He made a promise when we were dating that he'd be the one to get my first tattoo, and he kept it, even though we broke up." As sweet as this story sounds, Young adds that she heard he covered up the tattoo last year.

"Each piece has their own stories and feelings. But I want people to see their own experiences from each drawing."

Three years later, hundreds of people all around the world are wearing her work loudly and proudly on their bodies. Unlike many Korean tattoo artists gaining popularity Stateside, nothing about Young's art is dainty or realistic. Her tattoos are as bold and unapologetic as Young. Even amongst the artists who work full-time at Gristle, her style stands out. One of them declared she was one of the most colorful people working there. (If beloved hand-poke tattooist Git B hadn't traveled to the U.S. from Seoul with Young to do the same tour, then Young would have hands-down taken the title for herself.) Other than Git B, Young is usually surrounded by other tattooists like her. "At my home studio, they all use color and do illustrations," she says.

Although some of her work, in particular, may seem random, Young insists that "each piece has their own stories and feelings." However, you don't have to know which stories or feelings she's trying to convey. "I want people to see their own experiences from each drawing," she adds. Young's style takes cues from fine art, which she plans to study in Berlin later this year. Her work features the bold lines of Basquiat, the primary colors of Mondrian, and the abstract aesthetic of Picasso  all combined through the lens of a 23-year-old Korean woman. This is an important element to point out, as she believes being a woman in Seoul's tattoo scene is an advantage for her.

With an estimated 70 to 80 percent of her clients being women, "I think being a man is [harder] because when the customer is a woman and they get tattooed here or here," she explains, pointing to her ribcage and chest, "they feel uncomfortable when the tattoo artist is a man. I think being a woman is better."

I definitely felt that energy the second I pulled up my pant leg to show her where I wanted my tattoo to be and remembered I rarely shave my legs. When she didn't flinch or make any snide remarks, I immediately felt more at ease, despite feeling intimidated by how impossibly cool she is.

After she gives my new tattoo one last wipe-down, I stand up and Young takes a picture of the lemon. She tells me to leave my jean jacket on the ground behind me because it looks cool. (She was obviously right.) By the time I get home, her favorite shot is already posted on Instagram and has been liked by hundreds of people. I'm sure it popped up on several people's Explore pages, continuing the cycle.

Read more about tattoos:

Learn more about the history of tattoos in America:

Follow Devon Abelman on Twitter and Instagram.
2019 will see another royal baby. Here's what we know so far, from the due date, to possible names and titles.

In October 2018, the day before their whirlwind tour of Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Tonga, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made a big announcement: they were expecting their first child.

"Their Royal Highnesses have appreciated all of the support they have received from people around the world since their wedding in May and are delighted to be able to share this happy news with the public," their statement read. And just like that, royal news in 2019 just got that much more exciting.

But what does the public know so far about baby Sussex-to-be? All the news thats emerged so far, below.

The Due Date

In the original statement, Kensington Palace said that Meghan Markle was due in the spring. During an appearance in January, the Duchess clarified that its late April.

Which means baby Sussex will be in good celebratory company: both great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth and cousin Prince Louis have April birthdays.

A Royal Title?

According to a Times of London report, Harry and Meghan may not give their child a royal title in hopes of normalizing his or her childhood. That word normal looms very large for Harry and Meghan when it comes to their childs future, a source said.

The decision is unusual, but not unprecedented. Princess Annes childrenZara and Peter Phillipsdo not have royal titles either.

They Will Raise Their Child in Windsor

While their offices will remain at Kensington Palace, the Sussex familys home base will be 45 minutes outside of London in Windsor. This fall, the Palace announced Harry and Meghan will live at Frogmore Cottage, a Grade II white stucco home on the grounds of Windsor Castle.

Its rare for a senior royal to live outside the capitaljust another example of Harry and Meghan doing things their own way.

Meghan Likely Wont Give Birth at St. Marys Hospital

While sister-in-law Kate Middleton had her three children at St. Marys Hospital in London, The Daily Mail reports Markle is considering other options. (Which makes sense: theres likely a hospital closer to Frogmore than one in the center of London.) Its said that Frimley Park Hospital, in Surrey, could be a possible option. Prince Edwards wife, Sophie, gave birth there.

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Royal Baby Names

Meghan Markle stayed mum when a royal fan asked about potential baby names in Australia. "We've been given a long list of names from everyone, we're going to sit down and have a look at them," she said.

With the gender unknown, its tough to predict possible namesbut, British royals do tend to stick to traditional family monikers. Popular guesses with British betting agency Betfair? Diana if its a girl, Arthur if its a boy.
President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un to hold second summit next month: White House originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will hold a second summit near the end of February, the White House announced Friday.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders put out a statement confirming the summit after Trump met with North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Yong Chol Friday in the Oval Office.

It wasn't immediately known whether he carried a message from the North Korean leader as he did when he visited the White House in June before the first Trump-Kim summit in Singapore.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump gestures as he meets with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un at the start of their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore, June 11, 2018. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images, FILE)

President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization," Sanders said in the statement. Sanders said they discussed "a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date.

Prior to meeting with the president, Kim Yong Chol met Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the administration pushed ahead with plans for a second summit between Trump and Kim.

(MORE: Vice President Mike Pence: North Korea taken no 'concrete steps' ahead of reported meeting with nuclear negotiator )

The two men did not make any statements or answer reporters' questions.

The meeting comes amid a stalemate in nuclear talks, with North Korea demanding the U.S. first ease sanctions and the U.S. saying there will be no relief until North Korea takes steps to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

(MORE: North Korea warns US over stalled nuclear negotiations )

Kim Yong Chol, the regime's former spy chief, arrived in Washington late Thursday night, staying at a hotel just blocks north of the White House.

PHOTO: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomes North Korean Vice-Chairman Kim Yong Chol to a meeting in Washington, Jan. 18, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol have met several times before, including in New York last May just before Trump and Kim Jong Un met in Singapore. In that meeting, Pompeo and his counterpart hashed out plans for a summit.

Friday's meeting in Washington was key to taking the North Koreans' temperature ahead of a second summit and see if such a meeting would be productive, a U.S. official told ABC News.
Pelosi cancels effort to continue Afghanistan trip after Trump revealing travel plans 'significantly increased danger,' official says originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday accused President Donald Trump and his administration of endangering the lives of Americans, including her own, by publicly revealing a congressional delegations plans to travel by commercial aircraft to Afghanistan.

We had the prerogative to travel commercial and we made plans to do that until the administration leaked we were traveling commercially and that endangers us, Pelosi told reporters in the U.S. Capitol at midday Friday. They were her first public comments since Trump blocked her and the delegation from using a military aircraft on Thursday, saying in a letter she could fly commercially instead. We weren't going to go because we had a report from Afghanistan that the president outing our trip had made the scene on the ground much more dangerous because it's just a signal to the bad actors that we're coming.

Pelosi had tried to salvage aspects of a congressional delegation to Afghanistan blocked by Trump, but was unable to continue the trip on commercial aircraft due to increased" danger to officials on the trip, her spokesman said Friday.



In what was becoming an increasingly personal feud in their political standoff over Trump's demand that congressional Democrats agree to pay for his proposed border wall, the president on Thursday torpedoed plans at the last minute for the delegation to utilize a military aircraft to make the trip, citing the government shutdown as the reason. The day before, Pelosi had called for a delay in Trump's State of the Union address, scheduled for Jan. 29, until after the government shutdown ends.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders made Trump's letter to Pelosi public in a tweet.

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Pelosi, who said the trip would have been her ninth to Afghanistan, admonished the president, cautioning that you never give advance notice of going into a battle area.

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You just never do. Perhaps the president's inexperience didn't have him understand that protocol. The people around him, though, should have known that. That's very dangerous, she said. But the more important thing is the people who we would be meeting with, our civilians there. Our own troops first and foremost, again, they take so many risks for us. We didn't want to heighten the risk for them.

Pelosi said that by publicly releasing the letter, the president heightened the danger on the ground. As the lawmakers considered whether to fly commercially, Pelosi said the State Department doubles down and says we don't think you should come because the president's statement has made it dangerous.

The fact that they would leak that we were flying commercial is a danger not only to us but to other people flying commercially. It's very irresponsible on the part of the president, Pelosi said. We'll go again. We'll go another time.

Pelosi declined to explain why she believes the White House leaked word of her commercial travel plans, telling reporters I rest my case.

Asked if she believes the move was in retaliation of her letter to Trump asking the president to schedule a new date for the State of the Union after the shutdown ends, Pelosi laid on thick sarcasm.

I would hope not, Pelosi quipped. I don't think the president would be that petty, do you?

Pressed on her accusations that Trump endangered the lives of Americans and U.S. troops, Pelosi answered: That's what the State Department reported to us.

This is a fact, this isn't even an opinion. Anyone in the presence of a high level or any level of a congressional delegation in a region, you heighten the danger, Pelosi said. a

PHOTO: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi talks to reporters after signing a bill requiring that government workers receive retroactive pay after shutdown ends, at the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 11, 2019. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP, FILE)

(MORE: Trump postpones Pelosi's trip 'due to shutdown' after she called for State of the Union delay )

Overnight, before the rescheduled commercial flight, the State Departments Diplomatic Security Service provided an updated threat assessment, detailing that the President announcing this sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security, and other officials supporting the trip, according to a statement from Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.



A U.S. official familiar with the trip's logistics told ABC News that security planners voiced concerns about the idea of the speaker and her delegation flying to Afghanistan outside of typical military-travel arrangements.

Hammill said that the White House also leaked plans for the delegation to continue on commercial travel.



"This morning, we learned that the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well, Hammill noted. In light of the grave threats caused by the Presidents action, the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to further endanger our troops and security personnel, or the other travelers on the flights.



A senior Pelosi aide pointed to multiple administration sources telling reporters Friday morning that the delegation would continue on commercial aircraft. ABC News was among those contacted.

The White House denied that the administration leaked word of the commercial travel plans.

"When the Speaker of the House and about 20 others from Capitol Hill decide to book their own commercial flights to Afghanistan, the world is going to find out," an administration official who refused to go on the record told ABC News. "The idea we would leak anything that would put the safety and security of any American at risk is a flat out lie."

PHOTO: An Air Force bus parked on the plaza of the Capitol for the congressional delegation that had planned a trip to Afghanistan, Jan. 17, 2019, in Washington. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Pelosi was still in her office in the U.S. Capitol when she received a letter from the president Thursday afternoon, where Trump announced he was postponing the excursion due to the shutdown. Trump suggested Pelosi fly commercially if she wished to continue her travel.

The delegation had loaded onto a bus operated by the U.S. Air Force for the drive out to Joint Base Andrews. Instead, the bus drove lawmakers to the East Plaza of the Capitol, where members disembarked from the bus and walked into Pelosi's office.

After huddling with Pelosi for hours behind closed doors, Reps. Adam Schiff, Eliot Engel, Stephen Lynch and Mark Takano -- who all had planned to join the trip - quietly left the Capitol, declining to comment as they rolled suitcases through the basement of the Capitol. Reps. Susan Davis and Elaina Luria were also members of the delegation.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump appears at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention, Jan. 14, 2019, in New Orleans. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Friday morning, Trump continued to criticize Pelosi for scheduling the trip during the shutdown.

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PHOTO: A letter from the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget. (OMB)

Later Friday morning, the White House released a memo from the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, to the "heads of all executive Departments and agencies, blocking any congressional delegation from using military aircraft.

"In light of the current partial government shutdown, the President has asked me to directthe heads of all executive departments and agencies of the Administration on new policies insupport of Legislative Branch travel," the memo reads. "Under no circumstances during a government shutdown will any government owned, rented, leased, or chartered aircraft support any Congressional delegation, without the express written approval of the White House Chief of Staff."

The partial government shutdown is now in its 28th day. The House of Representatives returns to session next Tuesday, likely ensuring the shutdown will continue through the long Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend.

ABC News' Josh Margolin and Jordyn Phelps contributed to this report
Royal Caribbean Bans Passenger for Life After He Jumps Off 11th Story of Cruise Ship

A passenger who attempted a shocking stunt during a recent Royal Caribbean cruise was banned from the cruise line for life.

Nick Naydev, a 27-year-old passenger who went on a Symphony of the Seas cruise with his friends, was admonished after he video-taped himself jumping off the 11th floor of the boat and into the ocean while the ship was docked in Nassau, Bahamas.

This was stupid and reckless behavior and he and his companions have been banned from ever sailing with us again, the manager of Royal Caribbeans corporate communications tells PEOPLE.

In the video, which now has over 85,000 views on Instagram, Naydevs friends can be seen helping him stand on the railing of the ship before he leaps into the ocean. According to Fox 13, Naydev estimated the drop was around 100 feet.

RELATED: Nightmare at Sea: Norovirus Outbreak Sickens 277 Passengers and Crew on Royal Caribbean Cruise

Full send, he captioned the video.

After he landed in the ocean and was discovered by Royal Caribbean staff, he was told he could not re-board the ship and they would not cover the expenses to get him home from the Bahamas.

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Royal Caribbean says his friends were also banned from cruising on their ships for life.

According to Fox 13, Royal Caribbean informed local police in Nassau, but Naydev says they did not press charges because, fortunately the police thought the whole situation was amusing.

WATCH THIS: RHONY Cast Thought They Were Going to Die During Dangerous Boat Trip on Colombian Getaway

Since the incident, Naydev says he did not consider the impact the video would have.

I just hope I dont inspire anyone to try this, because I dont want to feel responsible for any injuries, he told the local news outlet.

I am truly astonished at how this video has spread throughout the Internet, Naydev added. I did not think this through before I jumped. My idea was this would be a good laugh for my friends and I would just swim back to shore and continue my vacation.

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The video still remains on Naydevs Instagram page, and one of Naydevs friends says he is known for attempting stunts similar to this one.

RELATED: The Best Celebrity Theme Cruises to Book Now: Property Brothers, Adam Rippon, Oprah and More

Hes jumped from those kind[s] of heights before, and we didnt really care about the consequences with the cruise company, Konstantin Kryachun, the friend who filmed the jump, told Yahoo! Lifestyle. We just wanted to get a video of it and make it go viral.

Royal Caribbean tells PEOPLE they will be exploring legal action against Naydev and his friends.
Two seasons of the hit Chinese animation series Boonie Bears have been licensed for release in South Korea. The deal was struck by animation studio Fantawild with content distributor Media to Media.

The broker has acquired IPTV and VOD rights to Boonie Bears: Four Seasons and Sunsational Summer and Snow Daze, a total of 104 episodes. It has arranged for them to play on SK Broadbands SKBTV from May, and SK Broadbands Oksusu OTT platform.

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China's 'Boonie Bears' to Get U.S. Release (EXCLUSIVE)

It is the first time that the hit series has played on Korean TV, though three feature movies (To the Rescue!, A Mystical Winter, and The Big Top Secret) have previously been released. So, too, have two TV movie spinoffs: Homeward Journey and Robo-Rumble.

Fantawild also struck a Korean distribution deal for Fantastica, the fourth theatrical movie in the franchise. It was bought by distributor Activers, which plans to release it in theaters this year.

The sixth installment of the movie franchise Blast into the Past is set to open in mainland Chinese cinemas in early February, at Chinese New Year. Fantawild says the film will open with some 7,000 screens. It expects it to beat the franchise record of $97 million, set last year by The Big Shrink.

Fantawild, which is also a leading theme park operator, creates 52 or 104 episodes per year of the Boonie Bears series, as well as a feature movie. The franchise now totals more than 700 TV episodes and about $310 million of theatrical revenue.

Things moved really fast. We first met with (Media to Media) at ATF (in December), and they loved our shows at first sight. Its strange that it hadnt happened earlier, but sometimes you just need to hit the right note at the right time. said Daniel Bort, head of international at Fantawild Animation.

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Tighe Fagan, Chad Willett, Kirsten Malm , Brendan Ames, Sam Weinstein, Kim Withers, Jim Walter and JJ Chen, who all represent the leads of the eight initiatives of Forward Greater Cheyenne, stand for recognition during a reception at the Atlas Theatre on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019. Forward Greater Cheyenne is made up of the Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce, Cheyenne LEADS, the Downtown Development Authority and Visit Cheyenne. Jacob Byk/Wyoming Tribune Eagle
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MACON, Miss. (WTVA) - Two Mississippi Department of Corrections employees were arrested over the weekend at the Noxubee County Community Work Center.

Keyshun Smith was found in possession of marijuana, Sheriff Terry Grassaree confirmed. Smith has been charged with possession of a controlled substance on MDOC grounds.

Meanwhile, Shanteria Tate was charged with possession of an alcoholic beverage on MDOC grounds.

The two had their bonds set at $10,000.

Tate posted a picture of her arrest warrant to her Facebook page, claiming this was a routine check and that a liquor bottle was found in her truck from a party she went to the night before.

WTVA 9 News has reached out to MDOC about the arrests, but we are still waiting to hear back from them at this time.
BELDEN, Miss. (WTVA) - Tupelo police worked with Itawamba Community College Friday in a mock active shooter drill.

The drill was held from approximately 9 a.m. to noon Friday, Jan. 18, on the Belden campus.

Police participated in a mock drill on ICC's Belden campus. Police participated in a mock drill on ICC's Belden campus.

This type of drill allowed police and ICC officials to test their readiness if such a situation was to ever occur.

The drills scenario was of a hostage-barricade situation with an active shooter.

Even though this was just a drill, officials looked at it as a way to learn and better themselves.

The college works hard to make sure that were prepared for any type of emergency that arises, said ICC President Jay Allen.
Following the 2017 ousting of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe finds itself in even more political turmoil than in the weeks leading up to the coup which removed the longtime president from political power. Current president Emmerson Mnangagwa, having survived an assassination attempt in 2018, finds himself at the head of a government that is increasingly viewed with hostility by the Zimbabwean population.

After protests saw the death of several civilians in 2018, the Zimbabwean government has ushered in the new year by once again cracking down violently on protests against the current economic malaise in the country.

Al Jazeera reported Tuesday that dozens of people had been injured and five killed after protests broke out across the country during the second day of a three-day national strike. Hundreds have been arrested. Many Zimbabweans stayed home during the strike, resulting in the closure of many schools.

Protests have been met with violent reprisals by government forces and the arrest of hundreds across the country. The government also shut down the internet, a move which Doug Coltart, a lawyer who spoke to detainees in Harare, explained to the Guardian was clearly being [used] to cover up a massive operation of repression against the Zimbabwean population.

The demonstrations come in response to a 150 percent fuel price increase announced by the Mnangagwa government last weekend. The hike in fuel prices makes Zimbabwe the country with the worlds most expensive petrol and diesel prices, adding even more fuel to an already explosive situation.

As Derek Matyszak a political analyst at the Institute for Security Studies told CNN: This unrest was a slow train that has been coming for some time ... and the fuel price hike was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The ousting of Mugabe, which was sold as the dawn of a prosperous new Zimbabwe, has instead ushered in violent reprisal and repression by the Mnangagwa government.

That this is so, however, should not shock the politically astute. The rise to power of Mnangagwa, who was himself a crucial cog in the wheel of the Mugabe government, simply amounted to a changing of the guard as opposed to a formidable revolution of the working classitself the social force most concerned and affected by the steep rise in fuel prices and the other effects of the economic crisis.

The three-day national strike, which was called from Monday by the unions, signifies the growing consciousness of the working class to its individual interests and the acute danger of the situation. These strikes, however, will only be met with more repression and austerity by Mnangagwa who, after all, declared that Zimbabwe is open for business, a statement which can only mean the further suppression of wagesergo a drop in living standards, in order to make Zimbabwe more attractive for investmenta call to the rapaciousness of international capital.

A growing shortage in food and basic necessities dictates an even deeper dive into martial law by Mnangagwas government.

Amid all this, the fatal casualties being tallied by the violence of the police and military repudiates any hope that Mnangagwa, and indeed the entire ruling elite of the ZANU-PF, has any intention to hear the cries of the protesting Zimbabweans.

The disproportionate use of violence by Mnangagwa, and indeed the ZANU-PF leadership, is not out of scope. The penchant for violence in this layer of the ruling elite is only beginning to rear its ugly head in these killings. Mnangagwas own history in ZANU-PF is a reminder of the ability for the Zimbabwean ruling elite to use tremendous violence to suppress popular opposition.

Between 1983 and 1987, while he was minister of national security, Mnangagwa was one of the ZANU-PF leaders responsible for what is now known as the Gukurahundi massacre. The massacre, which was largely undertaken to suppress opposition and dissidents both within the party, but mainly outside it, against Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU), was undertaken to secure an unchallenged victory in the 1985 electionfive years after Zimbabwean independencefor Robert Mugabes ZANU-PF.

As Stuart Doran, an independent historian, commenting on recently discovered documents that point to the direct complicity of Mugabe and the leaders of ZANU-PF in the massacre, notes, [t]he documents point to internal killings neither provoked nor sustained by outsiders, suggesting that the atrocities were driven from the top by Zanu-PF in pursuit of specific political objectives.

Viewed across a period of several years, the documents appear to provide evidence that the massacres were but one component of a sustained and strategic effort to remove all political opposition within five years of independence. Zanu-PF leaders were determined to secure a victory against a non-existent opposition in elections scheduled for 1985, after which there would be a mandate from the people to impose a one-party state.

The Gukurahundi, sustained over a period of five years, resulted in the deaths of nearly 20,000 people by conservative estimates.

In a recent statement on the protests that have shaken the country over the past few days Owen Ncube, the minister of state for national security, claimed that [t]he prevailing security situation in the country is a culmination of a well-orchestrated series of events by the MDC Alliance, working in cahoots with NGOs, civic society, youth organisations, pressure groups and individuals.

The interests of the working class are directly hostile to the MDC, itself a bourgeois party.

However, the grave implications of the statement by Ncube, point in clear viewconsidering the history aboveof the mindset, and, one might cautiously add, intentions of the leadership of the ZANU-PF. They intend once again to violently and forcibly suppress opposition and cover this over either as being a conspiracy of the west or a justified response in opposition to one.

The willingness to use extreme violence and force by the ZANU-PF leadership to consolidate its rule and retain power has been borne out in history. One mustnt take the historical nature of these events and see them as things only capable in a backwater and backward past. The same motivations for wanton state violence still exist today as they did during the Gukurahundi massacre. The danger is real and imminent.

The Zimbabwean working class must make haste, therefore. Ominous dark days may be just over the horizon.
US and Canadian autoworkers are voicing support for striking maquiladora workers in Matamoros, Mexico who are in rebellion against the companies and their union over low wages and sweatshop conditions. The striking workers include many employed by US and global auto parts suppliers who rely on their labor to fuel their massive profits.

An industry paper in Matamoros said the strike is costing sweatshop owners $23,000 a minute as it continues.

News of the powerful walkout by Mexican workers is being blacked out by the North American media conglomerates. The action is producing fear in ruling circles over the possibility of workers in the US and across Mexico and North America following the lead of the Matamoros workers who are breaking out of the straitjacket imposed by the pro-corporate unions.

On Thursday a WSWS Autoworker Newsletter reporting team visited the General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck plant, one of five factories in the US and Canada targeted for closure as part of management plans to axe some 15,000 hourly and salaried jobs.

Reporters spoke to autoworkers about the Matamoros strikes as well as the February 9 demonstration at GM headquarters in Detroit called by the Steering Committee of the Coalition of Rank-and-File Committees against plant closings and layoffs. The demonstration has been called to promote a united fight by US, Canadian and Mexican workers in defense of jobs.

Cherie is a worker at the GM Detroit-Hamtramck plant with 15 years' seniority. When told that workers in Matamoros, Mexico had struck and formed their own committees, independent of the corrupt official unions, she replied, That sounds good. The UAW doesnt help us. They work for the company. If you start something like that here, I am sure a lot of people would join it.

Speaking of the impending plant closures, she added, The UAW acts like they are mad, but they are just waiting it out. A lot of people are transferring or retiring. They [management and the UAW] want the older ones out. Who can go back to working on the assembly line?

I resent the UAW taking $75 a month out of my check. They arent helping us a bit. They dont need it. They are looking out for themselves.

A younger GM worker was very enthusiastic when told about the strike by Mexican workers. I feel they are just doing what they have got to do. GM doesnt care about us. We should strike too!

A GM worker with seven years at the company added, They are fighting for what they believe in. It is the same thing for us. I lose money every day I work here.

A worker with three years at GM said he would be likely laid off as a result of the closure. It is slave work here.

He said he was glad to hear that the Steering Committee of the Coalition of Rank-and-file Committees had called for a demonstration February 9. We need to fight back, period. They are going to stick it to us, $15$16 an hour will be the top pay; and we are building $50,000 to $80,000 vehicles. We are the ones that they are making them all that money.

Another GM worker said she understood why the media and the UAW were blacking out all news about the strikes in Mexico. They dont want us to strike too. Those workers are setting an example. They are starting a movement. They dont want us to know anything about it.

In an effort to create the impression of a fait accompli, the UAW and GM management are encouraging GM workers facing plant closures in Detroit and Lordstown, Ohio to put in for transfers to other plants. Many Detroit-Hamtramck GM workers with sufficient seniority have already applied for transfers to plants as far away as Texas.

Another Detroit GM worker said, I agree with you that there needs to be a fight against the shutdown, but workers are under a lot of pressure. Hundreds have signed away their rights and are now scheduled to work at other plants in Flint and different cities. They know that we are living from paycheck to paycheck and need to take care of our families.

I am encouraged by the fight of the Mexican and French workers, and eventually we will need to do the same thing here.

In a press briefing at the Automotive News World Congress Wednesday, GM CEO Mary Barra shed crocodile tears over the announced plant closings and 15,000 job cuts, but she reiterated the companys decision to close all of the targeted plants. She boasted that the cuts would provide $2.5 billion in cost savings for the company, money that will undoubtedly be quickly funneled into the pockets of wealthy investors.

Last week, workers at the Oshawa, Ontario factory, one of the five targeted for closure, staged a sit-down strike after hearing reports that Barra would not reconsider plans to shutter the facility. The response of the Unifor union was to step up its nationalist demagogy, attempting to foster hostility against workers in Mexico for supposedly taking the jobs of Canadian workers.

A Canadian autoworker at one of the feeder plants supplying the GM Oshawa plant in Ontario, John, who asked that his real name not be used, said he opposed the anti-Mexican nationalism promoted by Unifor. He said of Mexican workers, They are not our enemy. We support all autoworkers."

We are constantly lied to and held at bay by our union too, he continued. This storm in Mexico was inevitable.

Its brutal that these corporations dont even hide how much they have made on the backs of their workers, yet they cry poor in the same breath! Its time for it to change, for sure, and Mexico has set the stage for that change. Bravo.

Reporters for the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter also spoke with auto parts workers at French-based auto parts supplier Faurecia in Saline, Michigan about uniting the struggles of all autoworkers. Workers at Faurecia have widely shared articles exposing the sweatshop conditions in the auto parts industry.

When WSWS reporters told Dante that the Mexican workers had kicked out their union and elected their own committees, he replied, Good. Can we kick ours out?

Jamal, another Faurecia worker said, Good for them! Its also bad here. Its the same thing. You cant use the bathroom without letting somebody know.

We work seven days a week, 12 hours. You cant miss a day or youre fired.

Sally said to the Matamoros workers, We need to unite! Stay strong.

Mark said, 70,000? Damn, thats a lot! We need to unite with the Mexican workers to become one. That would be good. I dont like the union either. Its the exact same as what they are dealing with in Mexico.

When asked what he thought about the anti-Mexican rhetoric by the UAW and Trump, Mark said: The Hispanics in the US just come here to work, not to do harm.
Eight years after the ouster of Tunisian dictator President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, renewed mass struggles are shaking the countrys government.

Yesterday a one-day general strike involving close to 700,000 public service workers brought the country to a standstill. According to media reports, all flights in and out of Tunisias main airport were canceled. Schools were closed and ports, hospitals, public transport and other public services disrupted.

Called by the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT), the strike was the largest since the mass demonstrations following the assassination of prominent opposition leader Chokri Belaid in February 2013.

In the capital Tunis, tens of thousands of protesters rallied at the national union headquarters and marched through the citys main thoroughfare with signs reading Get Out! and The People Want the Fall of the Regime. Demonstrations also took place in other important cities, including Sidi Bouzid, where the first mass protests broke out in December 2010 after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi.

The general strike follows nationwide protests and clashes with police after another self-immolation, by 32-year-old journalist Abderrazak Zorgui, in the industrial city of Kasserine at the end of December.

The renewed mass protests and strikes demonstrate, once again, that none of the grievances that sparked the mass revolutionary uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and throughout the Middle East have been resolved. The core demands of the 2011 revolution were employment, the betterment of the Tunisian economy and an end to corruption. However, none of these demands have been met. This is why today we are here, one protester, Lassad Hamdi, told the National.

The government of Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and President Beji Caid Essebsi, who served under Ben Ali, is continuing the anti-working class, pro-imperialist policies of the old regime. In December 2016, Tunisia struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), pledging to impose drastic austerity measures and cut the public sector wage bill to 12.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2020 from the current 15.5 percent.

Chahed warned that the strike would result in a considerable cost for the Tunisian economy and might force the government to seek further foreign loans with even tougher conditions. Speaking on public television Wataniya 1 on Wednesday night, Chahed said: We did everything possible to avoid the strike in presenting proposals that improve purchasing power while at the same time taking into account the countrys capabilities. He invited the trade unions back to the negotiating table after the end of the strike.

The UGTT, long a central pillar of the Ben Ali dictatorship and now a key ally of the ruling Nidaa Tounes party of Essebsi and Chahed, called the strike to control the explosive anger in the working class, while continuing to work hand-in-glove with the regime. In an interview with Jeune Afrique, UGTT secretary general Noureddine Tabboubi complained that the government had no respect for the agreements ... and decisions made. However, he stressed, a solution will be found.

Tabboubi announced that the UGTTs administrative commission would convene on Saturday to make decisions up to the expectations of Tunisian workers who have campaigned for their rights.

This is a transparent fraud. The UGTT is essentially in agreement with the IMF reform agenda and seeks to find a modus operandi with the government to implement it without provoking another revolution. In his speech on the 8th anniversary of Ben Alis ouster, Tabboubi warned: We hope that the government will realize, before it is too late, its reluctance ... to initiate the necessary reforms in the fields of education, health care and take bold measures to resist tax evasion.

The UGTT is being assisted by the Popular Front (PF), a petty-bourgeois left alliance that does everything in its power to subordinate the working class to the unions and their nationalist and pro-capitalist agenda. In a January 16 statement, the PF complained that the government bears full responsibility for the failure of the negotiations and pledged its support for the UGTT in all the steps to be taken in defense of its perspectives  and the independence and sovereignty of the country.

This confirms the perspective advanced by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) immediately after Ben Alis ouster. In its statement, The mass uprising in Tunisia and the perspective of permanent revolution, the ICFI insisted that the only viable program for the working class and oppressed masses of Tunisia and the entire Maghreb and Middle East is the program [] of socialist revolution. Only through the independent struggle of the working class, leading all of the oppressed sections of society against both the native bourgeoisie and imperialism, can democratic and social rights be won and social equality established as the foundation of political life.

As a new powerful eruption of the class struggle is underway in Tunisia and throughout the region and internationally, the lessons of the 2011 uprising are decisive. The struggle for social equality and democratic rights requires a clear revolutionary perspective, program and leadership. Trotskyist parties must be built throughout northern Africa and the Middle East to unite the working masses under the banner of the United Socialist States of the Middle East and the Maghreb, as part of the fight for world socialist revolution.
Although the SPD continues to officially dispute its complicity in the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht a century ago, Wolfgang Thierse, former president of the federal parliament, recently explicitly declared: We would do it again. The two revolutionary socialists and co-founders of the German Communist Party were brutally murdered one hundred years ago, on January 15, 1919, by Freikorps soldiers who were in close contact with the SPD Reichswehr Minister Gustav Noske.

Thierse gave an interview to the Leipziger Volkszeitung on January 14 about the commemoration of Luxemburg and Liebknecht, which he described as a dishonest honour.

Asked whether the Social Democrats bore a portion of the blame in January 1919, Thierse answered, There were radicalised elements among the workers. They had to be defeated by force of arms. It remains a painful episode, also in retrospect, but we know that the path that was then taken was the better one.

According to Thierse, Germany after the November Revolution was divided between radical forces who wanted something like the Bolsheviks in Russia, a revolution, and the moderate Majority Social Democrats, who said, we first need to win peace, we must ensure that the people dont starve, that some sort of orderly relations exist. In retrospect, one can say that the moderate forces were right in not relying on a brutal revolution that would have resulted in a dictatorship, but instead working for democracy, the rule of law, and the social state.

In summary, Thierse is saying that the suppression of uprisings by revolutionary workers, which claimed thousands of victims, and the execution of their leaders were necessary steps to secure democracy, the rule of law, and the social state. This is an incredible falsification of history, which can only lead one to conclude that Thierse and the SPD, confronted with similar conditions, would do exactly the same today as they did then.

The SPD government of Friedrich Ebert, Philipp Scheidemann, and Gustav Noske from 191819 did not defend democracy, but rather the authoritarian state, militarism and capitalist private property. They protected from the raging revolution all of the social forces that would assist Hitler to power 14 years laterthe military caste, the big landowners, the industrialists Stinnes, Flick and Krupp, the Deutsch Bank, and the authoritarian judiciary and police apparatus. To this end, they organized the Freikorps, which carried out several coup attempts in subsequent years and went on to serve as the basis for Hitlers paramilitary Stormabteilung (Storm Detachment, SA).

The concessions the SPD was forced to make in the processa bourgeois constitution, universal suffrage, the eight-hour day, etc.were purely tactical and were withdrawn at the first opportunity. The Weimar democracy was never more than an empty shell, which collapsed at the first signs of social unrest. Numerous serious historians, including those who oppose a socialist perspective, therefore explicitly describe the policies of the Ebert government as counter-revolutionary.

As the well-known publicist Sebastian Haffner wrote in his book on the November Revolution published in 1979, The German revolution was a Social Democratic revolution that was put down by the Social Democratic leaders; an episode that is virtually unparalleled in world history.

In his new book on the 1918 revolution, Joachim Kappner comments on this remark: Had the Ebert SPD used the mass movement instead of fearing it, driven the old military to the devil instead of allying with it, the Republic probably wouldnt have collapsed in 1933, or at least wouldnt have fallen into the hands of the Nazisaccording to Haffners train of thought, and it is difficult to disagree with his logic.

Leon Trotsky summed up the character of the November Revolution in the concise formula, As to the German Revolution of 1918, it was no democratic completion of the bourgeois revolution, it was a proletarian revolution decapitated by the Social Democrats; more correctly, it was a bourgeois counter-revolution, which was compelled to preserve pseudo-democratic forms after its victory over the proletariat.

In the founding programme of the German Communist Party, Luxemburg noted that the Hohenzollerns overthrown on November 9, 1918, were no more than the front men of the imperialist bourgeoisie and of the Junkers. The class rule of the bourgeoisie is the real criminal responsible for the World War, she continued. The capitalists of all nations are the real instigators of the mass murder.

On this basis, she concluded that the world war had confronted society with two alternatives: socialism or barbarism. She went on, The World War confronts society with the choice: either continuation of capitalism, new wars, and imminent decline into chaos and anarchy, or abolition of capitalist exploitation. Her warning was to be tragically confirmed by Nazi rule, the Holocaust, and the Second World War.

The 75-year-old Thierse is a powerful voice in the SPD. He grew up in East Germany, and began his political career as a civil rights activist during German reunification with the New Forum. Shortly before reunification, in the summer of 1990, Thierse became leader of the SPD in East Germany. He was subsequently deputy leader of the German SPD until 2005, and a member of its commission on basic values until 2013.

Between 1998 and 2005, Thierse played an important role as president of parliament in enforcing the agenda of the SPD-Green Party government, including foreign military interventions, the Hartz social welfare reforms, and the Agenda 2010. The bearded Catholic and spokesman for the Christian Working Group within the SPD was capable of bestowing a lofty moral aura on the reactionary policies of the Schroder-Fischer government.

The fact that Thierse has now openly attacked Luxemburg, instead of trying to distort or co-opt her as others have done, is an unmistakable sign of the SPDs further shift to the right. Despised by workers and reduced to 14 percent in the polls, the SPD is preparing once again to brutally suppress social opposition in alliance with the most reactionary forces.
Narbonne goes on a late charge to pull out a victory over the Poly boys, while the Poly girls advance to the regional semifinals.
As the partial federal government shutdown, now in its fourth week, drags on, its effects on large sectors of the US population are intensifying and the resulting anger and reaction continue to grow.

On Wednesday, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) was forced to openly acknowledge what has been widely known for some time, noting in a statement that many employees are reporting that they are not able to report to work due to financial limitations.

TSA workers are among the lowest-paid federal employees, living paycheck to paycheck. The impossible situation to which they are subjectforced to work without any incomeis prompting growing resistance going beyond the initial form of individual sickouts. A TSA representative reported that increasing numbers are explicitly stating that their refusal to come into work is due to financial hardship. These frank statements, by workers who are legally prohibited from striking, are a gauge of their rising level of anger.

The TSA reports that on Tuesday and Wednesday, 6.1 percent of the workforce was absent. So far, three major airportsAtlanta, Houston and Miamihave been forced to implement contingency plans due to the lack of necessary staff, causing increasing delays for passengers. The situation will only worsen and spread as the lack of pay drives growing numbers of workers to stay home.

TSA and other unpaid federal employees are being forced to turn to food banks or donations from the public to provide meals for themselves and their families. At the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, for example, an unused room has been turned into a collection point for donations for the workers. Food banks across the country are expressing alarm that the demand will rapidly outstrip their resources.

The partial government shutdown is also impacting aircraft safety. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is forcing over 2,200 furloughed inspectors back to work, without pay. These are professionals who are responsible for ensuring the airworthiness of aircraft and for conducting accident investigations. Air traffic controllers have already been required to work without pay.

The wife of an air traffic controller in Chicago told the World Socialist Web Site, Chicago has been working understaffed for a very long time. Even before the shutdown began, her husband, who has been there for 20 years, typically worked six days a week, averaging 48 hours.

Now, she said, theyre on short breaks and staying longer on position. Are they losing sleep? Yes, even more now.

The new guys are having a hard time. One paycheck with no pay is bad, but wait until the second one comes with no pay.

Despite this, when asked by the New York Times whether the union would organize any sort of job action, Trish Gilbert, executive vice president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, replied that they would not condone or endorse any kind of activity like that.

Federal workers around the country are protesting against the shutdown and its devastating effect on their lives. They are expressing a growing determination to break out of the constraints imposed on them by the government and the unions.

Dozens of federal workers participated in a rally in front of the federal building in downtown Manhattan Wednesday. WSWS reporters spoke to a furloughed Environmental Protection Agency worker participating in the protest. This is the second rally weve had, he said. Today is bigger than the one last weeka fraction of the press though. They must be losing interest.

Im still furloughed now, but theyre calling back most of the IRS in our building. If I was them, I dont know if Id go back. Its hard to stick your neck out when youre by yourself, but its getting to the point, especially if we miss next weeks paycheck too, that a lot of people will be fed up and desperate.

They keep saying that striking is illegal for federal employees. But I took an oath to uphold the constitution. What about the 13th amendment? Isnt slavery supposed to be illegal? We didnt ask for this fight, but what are we going to do? We cant just sit back and keep getting pummeled.

One of the more than 46,000 furloughed IRS workers being forced back to work without pay, Meeka Katherine, an IRS tax examiner, expressed her outrage in a Facebook post:

The IRS workers can end this shutdown if we all refuse to work until we get paid they will have no choice but to give in and why shouldnt we fight? We have been used as pawns long enough we should stand up united and give this guy a taste of his own medicine if hes gonna hold out our checks and not care if we can even make it to work yet we are expected to be there thats ridiculous... We need to come together or this could last a long time. We are not disposable and if we go along with this we are just making it easier for it to continue.

Another federal worker posted her experience, faced by many who are about to lose their homes:

So I spoke with my leasing office who is under the lincoln property management corporation they are a national leasing management corp. I was informed they have not received any direction from the corporate office. So if rent is not paid by the third of the month they will proceed with the eviction process. I was also advised if u know you cant afford next month rent turn in your keys by the last day of this month and we will work you on remaining balance of lease. So if you rent from lincoln property management please contact their corp office about the effects of the government shut down. Maybe if they hear from enough people they will grow a heart.

The average federal worker is estimated to have lost about $5,000 so far since the shutdown began.

Federal employees are not the only workers whose lives are being severely impacted by the shutdown. Many jobs are done under contract. Unlike federal workers, the more than one million people working as contractors are not likely to receive back pay once the shutdown ends. These workers range from janitors employed by companies with contracts to clean federal buildings to professionals in large consulting companies. As invoices to the government go unpaid, growing numbers of workers will be laid off, and some companies will go out of business.

Bloomberg estimates that these losses could amount to as much as $200 million per day. The ripple effects of this alone will have major impacts on the US economy, even after the shutdown ends.

A growing number of commentators are raising concerns that effects of the partial government shutdown could push the US economy into recession. Estimates vary, but the combined cost of the shutdown is already in the billions. The direct and ancillary effects could well trigger a crisis in the already fragile US and world economy.

Behind the fears of a loss of business and consumer confidence due to the shutdown lies the reality of the extreme social inequality that has developed over decades, which is rapidly hollowing out any confidence that workers and young people may once have had in their prospects under capitalism.

The way forward is indicated by the Yellow Vest protests in France, auto parts workers in Mexico and recent teachers strike in the US in which the workers are moving to free themselves from the treacherous control of the unions and social democratic parties and their pseudo-left supporters. Workers must form their own workplace action committees and fight to replace capitalism with a socialist society dedicated to the fulfillment of human needs rather than private profit.
On January 10, eight organizationsthe National Congress of American Indians, Native American Contractors Association, National Indian Health Board, National Council on Urban Indian Health, National Indian Education Association, National American Indian Housing Association, National Indian Child Welfare Association, and the Self Governance Communication and Education Tribal Consortiumsent a joint letter to President Donald Trump and to the Congress calling for an immediate end to the shutdown of the federal government. Citing the trust relationship between the federal government and the tribal nations, the letter calls the shutdown an abrogation of US treaties with Indian nations.

The letter outlined the wide-ranging impacts the shutdown is having upon the Native American population, approximately three million people, and underscores the fact that the closure of services for Native Americans effectively violates the trust relationship between the federal government and Indian tribes and abrogates the terms of the governments treaties with native tribes.

The economic effects that the shutdown has had upon Native Americans have already been vast. The prolonged furlough of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Indian Health Services (HIS) employees, many of whom are members of tribal nations, affects more than just the individual employees. Dependents of federal employees are also impacted by the inability to pay for health insurance, housing, or food, and the social safety nets such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid are also constrained by the shutdown.

Speaking to City Lab, 64-year-old Deanna Lubarsky, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation living in New Mexico, reports that she has been on furlough from her job at the Bureau of Indian Education since December 21. Lubarsky, who relies on medication to regulate diabetes and high blood pressure, is concerned that her health insurance will lapse in February if she is unable to pay the premium.

A winter storm earlier in January saw members of the Navajo Nation, which spans three different states, trapped inside of their homes for days by snow. BIA employees were furloughed during the winter storm; roads were finally cleared by unpaid employees.

The economic impacts are not limited to the furlough. Federal contractors work closely with federal and tribal agencies. Since the shutdown, tribally-owned enterprises that contract with the government have reportedly lost an estimated $200,000 to $250,000 per day. Many of these companies have laid off over 300 people. Unlike workers employed directly by the federal government, these employees will not receive back pay when the shutdown is over.

Even prior to the shutdown, the lack of nutritious and affordable food was well-documented among Native populations. The incidence of nutrition-related disease in this population is disproportionately high. The US Department of Agricultures (USDA) Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) provides food assistance for between 90,000 and 100,000 tribal citizens, most of whom are children or elderly. The FDPIR is in danger of exhausting its funds by the end of January. Also endangered are school nutrition services, which could run out of funds by March.

BIA schools have already been funded for the year, however, due to the shutdown, schools do not have personnel to address emergency facility repairs. Moreover, Department of Education (DOE) furloughs have stalled negotiations on standards and systems under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The Education Department had already given the Bureau of Indian Education a deadline of fall 2019 for implementing ESSA standards, threatening to withhold Title funds if the deadline is not met.

The health disparities between Native Americans and other populations have been well-documented over decades. The life expectancy for Native Americans is 5.5 years less than the national average; in some states, it is a staggering 20 years less. The shutdown threatens the already fragile and underfunded systems that deliver healthcare for this population, both on tribal lands and in urban areas. Indian Health Service programs have had no funds appropriated yet for Fiscal Year 2019.

While 78 percent of American Indians live in urban areas, healthcare programs for tribal citizens in these areas are criminally underfunded. Kerry Hawk-Lessard, a National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH) board member and the Executive Director of Native American Lifelines for Baltimore and Boston, provided a written testimony to the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee and the House Committee on Natural Resources. Hawk-Lessard testified that Native American Lifelines receives less than $1 million annually from IHS to split between two facilities.

Hawk-Lessard wrote in her testimony, We have thus far had to deny purchase of care requests that are critical to chronic care management insulin, blood pressure medication, thyroid medication, antibiotics. We have had six clients overdose on opioids in the last two months. Two-thirds of these overdoses were fatalities.

Hawk-Lessards organization was forced to shut its doors on January 12, by which time funding had run out.

In addition to the economic, educational, nutritional, and health ramifications, the shutdown has effectively stalled any applications for USDA housing programs or home loan guarantee programs for Native Americans.

An investigation by Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 2017 revealed that housing conditions among Native Americans are significantly worse than the national average. Overcrowding, insufficient plumbing, lack of heating, and deficient electrical systems are just a few of the recurring issues uncovered by HUD. The shutdown has made it impossible for many to escape these conditions; moreover, it has done so in a season that is particularly harsh in many tribal lands.

As the joint letter to Trump and Congress wryly points out, the Americans most affected by immigration over the last 500 years continue to be the most heavily impacted by the shuttering of multiple federal agencies. Educational, health, nutrition, and housing services for Native Americans are not handouts given benevolently by the United States; to the contrary, they were granted in return for the federal governments confiscation of tribal lands.

Native Americans are more likely than any other section of the population to be killed by police; Native American mothers are more likely to die giving birth, and Native American children are more likely to die before their first birthdays. Well before Trump shut down the government to demand funding for a border wall with Mexico, the United States had already abrogated the terms of its treaties with tribal nations. Today, the Trump administration is assaulting the rights of Native American workers, along with those of all other workers. It is crucial at this time for American workers, regardless of national origin or ethnicity, to reject the separation of workers on the basis of nationality and to stand in firm solidarity with their fellow workers worldwide.
The political battle within the US ruling elite is reaching a new peak of intensity, with an ongoing media campaign portraying Trump as a Russian agent, Democratic Party demands to cancel the State of the Union address, and Trumps response Thursday afternoon, blocking a planned foreign trip by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would have included a visit to US troops in Afghanistan.

While the anti-Russian campaign against Trump escalates, spearheaded by the New York Times and the Washington Post, with nearly daily exposes depicting Trump as a puppet of Vladimir Putin, Trump answered with a fascistic rant against the supposed radical left takeover of the Democratic Party, delivered to a military audience at the Pentagon. The party has been hijacked by the open borders fringe, he claimed.

The mutual vilification takes place under conditions of a partial shutdown of the federal government that will reach the one-month mark next Tuesday, with 800,000 federal workers going without paychecks. More than 300,000 are furloughed and nearly 500,000 are forced to work without pay.

The United States has clearly entered into a major political crisis, which cannot be reduced to the personalities involved, or the seeming accident of Trumps presidency. Like any significant political phenomenon, this crisis has deeper socioeconomic and material roots, which have produced an unprecedented degree of dysfunction in the US political system and disorientation in the ruling elite.

There are two main historical factors at work, one of them developing over many decades, the other of more recent origin.

The first is the absolute failure of the conceptions and policies adopted by the US ruling elite in response to the crisis and breakdown of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc as a whole. Beginning with the administration of George H. W. Bush, Washington was emboldened to use military force on a far wider scale than at any time since World War II.

Bush hailed the prospect for a new world order defined by American military supremacy, freed of the pressure from the Soviet Union that had set definite limits to US military intervention throughout the Cold War. He hoped to put an end to the Vietnam syndrome, the deep popular opposition to overseas military adventures after the debacle in Southeast Asia. Imperialist strategists called for seizing the unipolar moment. Some even proclaimed the end of history, and envisioned a long succession of American administrations dominating the world, like the emperors of ancient Rome.

But after 30 years of virtually unbroken military conflictDesert Storm, Somalia, the Balkans, Panama, Haiti, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the bombing of Libya in 2011, the US-backed civil wars in Syria and Yemenwhat is there to show for it? American bombs and missiles have wrought devastation over a vast expanse from North Africa to Central Asia, killing millions, displacing tens of millions, destroying entire societies.

But despite the expenditure of trillions of dollars, to say nothing of the human cost both at home and abroad, American imperialism is in a weaker position in the Middle East than before the first Persian Gulf war, while its main regional target, Iran, and its global antagonists in China and Russia have grown stronger. The relative economic decline of the US, particularly in relation to China, is a major factor in the United States' loss of global hegemony.

A recent analysis in the National Interest was headlined, There is no Military Victory in Afghanistan. It came to the gloomy conclusion that the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) and the kleptocratic Islamic republic they protect will not survive without generous Western aid, adding that these forces, 314,000 strong on paper, are unable to defeat a Taliban force less than a fifth their size and are also fiscally unsustainable, absorbing nearly the entire national income of Afghanistan.

A scathing analysis published last week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a leading imperialist think tank, blasts the failure of both Republican and Democratic administrations to develop a viable strategy in the Persian Gulf region, particularly in relation to Iraq and Iran, while calling the current debate over Trumps call for a pullout of American forces from Syria a meaningless sideshow. The real problem, argues Anthony Cordesman of CSIS, is that Iraq is effectively bankrupt, unable to serve US interests in the world oil market or maintain domestic stability.

Nor have Trumps efforts to shift the focus of US intervention from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region borne fruit. Foreign Policy magazine critiques the ongoing US naval engagements with China over the South China Sea as largely for show, provoking Beijings anger while failing to reassure potential allies like the Philippines. For all its tough talk on China and increased activity in the South China Sea, the Trump administrations credibility in Southeast Asia is eroding, the report concludes.

While the decline in the global position of American imperialism has been a protracted process, the second major factor underlying the political crisis in Washington is of more recent vintage: the growth of the class struggle and pro-socialist sentiment in the United States.

The most alarming aspect of the 2016 presidential campaign, as far as the US ruling elite was concerned, was not the election of Trump. He is one of them, and, media hysteria to the contrary, his class loyalty is not in doubt. What struck fear into both factions of the ruling elite, Democratic and Republican, was the revelation that there was mass support for socialism among a broad swathe of working people and youth, with more than 13 million votes cast for Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator is not, of course, a genuine socialist, only a liberal who used socialist phrases to bolster his left credentials. The popular response, however, shocked the entire US ruling class and all its political representatives, including Sanders himself.

This has been followed, beginning in 2018, by an upsurge in the class struggle, with tens of thousands of teachers joining in statewide strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona, organized through social media and outside the unions, and a wave of other strikes and struggles by auto workers, public employees, utility and telecommunications workers. This is part of a broader radicalization of the working class internationally, a political awakening with revolutionary implications.

Both the failure of its long-term geopolitical strategy and the emergence of working class opposition at home have profoundly disoriented the American ruling elite. In the wake of US failures abroad, bitter recriminations have led to the hunt for scapegoats. The question of Who lost China? played a major role in the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s. The new McCarthyism of the Democratic Party poses the question Who lost Syria?

The eruption of significant class battles at home is even more disturbing, even terrifying, to the ruling class than setbacks abroad. Now it is a question of the most vital interests of the bourgeoisie, the defense of its wealth and property in the face of the developing challenge from below. Each side within the ruling elite plays at pro-worker demagogy, whether in the form of Trumps vicious immigrant-baiting, combined with trade war, or the Democrats more traditional, but completely phony, posturing as the friends of labor. But both factions are utterly hostile to any genuine assertion of the independent interests of the working class.

There is a mounting sense that neither bourgeois faction can find a way out of the current crisis, and that the answer has to come from the intervention of the working class. This realization produced a rare moment of truth on NBC News Thursday evening, when Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, asked how the federal government shutdown could be ended, said that the only thing that could force the opposing camps to abandon their posturing would be an all-out strike by TSA passenger screeners and air traffic controllers, which would close down the entire air travel system.

The emergence of the working class is fundamental to changing the political situation, not only in the United States, but throughout the world. One year ago, in a commentary on the beginning of the year 2018, WSWS Editorial Board Chairman David North wrote: This new year of 2018the bicentenary of Marxs birthwill be characterized, above all, by an immense intensification of social tensions and an escalation of class conflict around the world. This assessment has already been vindicated in the events of the past year. Going forward, the central task facing the working class is the building of a new revolutionary leadership, committed to the struggle for a socialist perspective.

The bicentenary of Marxs birth, socialism and the resurgence of the international class struggle

[3 January 2018]
The eruption of yellow vest protests in France late last year outside the grip of the unions has unmasked the reactionary role of the petty bourgeois organizations that have long claimed to embody the left.

At its December 8-9 congress, the Lutte ouvriere [LO, Workers Struggle] group came up with a statement on the French political situation that laid out its fear of and hostility toward the revolt of workers against the unions, that is to say, against the social layers from which LO members themselves are drawn.

LOs statement, titled Revolutionaries and the yellow vest movement and published in their journal, Lutte de classes [Class Struggle], admits that the yellow vest protests have blown apart the authority of the union bureaucracies, under whom LO has developed its work over a period of decades.

LO wrote, The striking aspect of these protests is their determination. Those who are fighting for the first time in their lives seem much more determined than all the union leaders combined. The traditions involving protests that the union organizations have taught the workerslike telling the police in advance the route of demonstrations, holding meetings where union leaders no one ever sees show up and say the right wordall these habits simply serve to channel anger behind the union apparatuses.

Lutte ouvriere explains at length that the habits and organizations LO itself has worked to impose on the workers in fact only serve to strangle opposition: Even when rank-and-file workers disagree with what the trade unions are proposing or not proposing, it is hard for them to act without them. And so, currently, it is the sections of the working class who are the farthest from the control of the unions that are the most combative.

By noting that the unions act to channel anger behind union leaders no one on the ground ever sees, LO is involuntarily confirming the assessment of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). A break with the union bureaucracies defended by LO is the precondition of all real opposition, and the formation of rank-and-file organizations independent of the unions aiming to unify workers struggles in France and internationally. This also requires building the Parti de legalite socialiste to oppose the anti-Marxist charlatanry of parties like LO.

LOs cynical line reflects diametrically opposed class interests. While the state and big business buy off the union bureaucracies with multi-million-euro subsidies to strangle the workers, the union bureaucrats making up LO drone on that they are the vanguard of the struggle. After first admitting the unions suppress workers, these bureaucratic Tartuffes pretend a few lines later they are intervening in the unions to advance a Marxist line.

The unions role in demobilizing the workers, LO writes, does not contradict the fact that our factory comrades, activists or leaders, fight against the timid policies of the union confederations, discussing and taking initiatives as militants of the class struggle.  Workers have extraordinary resources, when they get started, they learn quickly. If the organized labor movement could be inspired by all this, it would already be a start!

This is a pathetic lie: It is the yellow vests whose demands for social equality are popular among workers, while LO defends conservative bureaucracies working with President Emmanuel Macron. The unions are empty shells, financed and controlled by the financial aristocracy to carry out social dialogue and impose austerity. They are financed by big business to strangle the workers, a reality that is confirmed periodically in the press. (See: How the French state and big business finance the unions)

Thus, the struggle in 2013 against automaker PSAs [Peugeot S.A.] shutdown of the Aulnay plant, on the northern edge of Paris, was led into a dead end by leading LO official Jean-Pierre Mercier, the top union official at Aulnay and campaign manager for LO presidential candidate Nathalie Arthaud.

Mercier led the Stalinist General Confederation of Labor (CGT) in isolating the strike and blocking the mobilization of broader layers of workers against the shutdown, allowing PSA to shut down the site. For services rendered, Mercier was then rehired at PSAs Poissy factory and greeted with due honors, as PSA management wrote.

LOs claim that the labor movement, that is to say, the union bureaucracies strangling the workers, could be inspired by the yellow vests to become more militant is a political fraud. The pseudo-left group unreservedly supports the financing of the unions by the government and big business, because these forces are thereby financing the privileges of LO members themselves. They then collaborate in plant shutdowns, mass layoffs and the planning of social austerity policies.

The attempts of this nationalist and anti-worker organization to posture as Marxist collapse into absurdities. In the name of the struggle against petty bourgeois influences on the working class, the petty bourgeois LO calls for intervening to break up the yellow vest movement, toward which it is profoundly hostile.

LO claims that the defense of workers interests requires intervening to extract the latter from the yellow vest movement, where small businessmen are also present: In other words, we do not call for  uniting the struggles, we aim to separate them. We want to separate the class dynamics represented, on the one hand, by exploited workers, and, on the other, by small businessmen.

This policy of division, aiming to smash up the movement has nothing to do with Marxism. The yellow vest struggle, driven by the sentiments of broad masses of workers, has attracted many self-employed or small businesspeople, whose living standards are closer to those of workers than of the upper-middle-class elements represented by LO. These more oppressed layers of the middle class, in this stage of the struggle, accept an alliance with the workers against capitalism.

A Marxist struggle for the political independence of the working class does not begin with trying to smash up opposition to Macron, as LO claims, but by fighting for an international socialist program and leadership in such a movement and establishing the independence of the workers against the unions and petty bourgeois parties like LO. The working class can draw behind it broader layers of the middle class only by demonstrating its capacity to lead a genuine struggle for power.

As Trotsky wrote in Whither France, To bring the petty bourgeoisie to its side, the proletariat must win its confidence. And for that it must have confidence in its own strength. It must have a clear program of action and must be ready to struggle for power by all possible means.

The alternative to LOs nationally based defense of pro-capitalist union bureaucracies is the building of an international network of committees of action. In such organizations, the sections of the International Committee will have to explain that the only way to satisfy the demands that are driving workers into struggle is to transfer political power to these organs of the working class.

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An interview with LOs Arlette Laguiller: Were happy [the trade unions] are waking up

[9 April 2016]

Frances Lutte Ouvriere group covers for Syrizas betrayal in Greece

[25 July 2015]
The strike by 33,000 Los Angeles teachers has brought to center stage the fight against the dismantling of public education by powerful corporate interests that enjoy the full backing of both big business parties. LA teachers are fighting not only to improve their wages, which have been frozen for a decade, but to beat back the drive to privatize public education, which has gone further in California than in most other US states.

While the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) has made rhetorical criticisms of the billionaire privatizers, the fact is the UTLA, like other unions across the country affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), long ago dropped any opposition to corporate-backed school reform and the expansion of for-profit charter schools, which siphon off funding and students from traditional public schools.

On the contrary, the chief concern of the AFT, NEA and their state and local affiliates has been to preserve and expand the financial and institutional interests of the union apparatus during this process of school privatization. This includes expanding the franchise of the unions into the charter school industry in order to gain access to a new source of dues income as the unions collude in shutting down public schools and laying off teachers.

On Thursday, the UTLA resumed talks with officials from Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) under the mediation of Mayor Eric Garcetti. UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl has presented the intervention of Garcetti and other Democrats, such as Governor Gavin Newsom and state school superintendent Tony Thurmond, as a gain for teachers that is bringing them closer to winning their demands.

While Garcetti has tried to distance himself from his Democratic predecessor, Antonio Villaraigosa, whose failed bid for governor was backed by the California Charter Schools Association, Garcetti has also received contributions from billionaires Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg.

During a press conference the first day of the strike, Garcetti said that, despite the rhetoric by the UTLA and LAUSD superintendent Austin Beutner, the two parties were close to an agreement but still differed on what role the union would play in Beutners reorganization of the school district. The plan, which is clearly backed by Garcetti, would break up the LAUSD into dozens of smaller districts, accelerating the replacement of traditional public schools with charter business operations.

The Los Angeles Times posted a revealing article Thursday, titled, What would a deal to end the LAUSD teachers strike look like? The Times education reporter wrote, Already mistrustful of Beutner, the union is particularly anxious about his confidential reorganization plan for the nations second-largest school system. Garcetti said this strategic plan should become a vehicle for collaboration. Beutner should back up, the mayor said, and bring the union into the planning process. The union then should participate in good faith, not just to tear Beutner down, Garcetti said.

This should be taken as a warning by every teacher: the UTLA is preparing to sell out the strike and agree to a deal that will pave the way for the faster destruction of public education. On the eve of the strike, the UTLA abandoned the teachers most critical demands opposing charter school expansion and endless standardized testing. Now the UTLA is preparing to give up the ship in exchange for being a partner in Beutners restructuring plan.

Far from leading any genuine struggle by teachers across the state, who would demand that schools be funded by attacking the private fortunes of Californias 144 billionaires and other super-rich residents, the UTLA is preparing to join efforts by the Democrats to push through more regressive school taxes, which will hit working class and lower middle class residents the hardest.

As the Times article noted, Current school board member Nick Melvoin, a Beutner supporter, and former board member David Tokofsky, who is closer to the unions, have independently suggested a middle path forward: linking long-term funding of the new positions to a campaign for a local parcel tax in 2020. A joint project like that, with the union, could help usher in a new era of partnership, Melvoin said.

As far as the UTLA executives are concerned, striking teachers are little more than movie extras in their efforts to preserve their selfish interests at the expense of teachers. As the Times reported, Caputo-Pearl has called on students, teachers and parents to remain on the picket line and show up for a rally Friday in Grand Park to send the bargaining team into what could be a full weekend of negotiations leading up to Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

But teachers are not pawns in someone elses chess game. They are fighting an historic battle to defend the right to high-quality public education for current and future generations.

This underscores the importance of the call by the WSWS Teacher Newsletter for teachers to form rank-and-file strike committees to take the conduct of the struggle out of the hands of the UTLA. These committees should prepare teachers to reject any sellout deal and instead fight to expand the strike to Oakland and other cities in preparation for a statewide walkout and a general strike of all workers across the US. This is inseparably bound up with developing a new political strategy based on the fight to mobilize the working class in opposition to both big business parties and based on a socialist program.

The claim by Caputo-Pearl that Democrats like Garcetti, Newsom & Co. are pro-teacher and pro-public education is a cynical lie. Nowhere has this claim been exposed more than in California, where the Democrats have a lock on political power and have long spearheaded a ruthless attack on public education.

Once admired for the quality of its public-school system and free public universities, California is now 43rd in the nation in per-pupil spending, just barely above Missouri and Arkansas. But California has the highest number of charter schools (1,300) of any state, while Los Angeles has the highest (244) of any city in America.

Like New York City, Los Angeles has also been a central laboratory for co-location, a scheme that allows charter schools to use portions of traditional public school facilities for their privately run operations. There are total of 102 charter schools co-locating in the district, operating like parasites on a host, and grabbing up music and art rooms and other facilities.

Teachers picketing at Westchester High School said there were five charter schools operating on their campus. Lauren, a teacher with four years, explained that the school district had an incentive to pile up 39 students or more in traditional schools in order to make room for charter school students. They are building up these charters, giving them public resources to make them look beautiful.

Lauren continued, We are fighting for public education, and weve been getting messages of support from Norway, France and other countries. We are fighting for our students, and we cant fight alone. This is a Democratic state, and theyre attacking public education.

The Democrats, no matter what the pretensions of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others, represent the same corporate and financial interests that want to loot the public schools and get their hands on the education market, which will be worth an estimated $2.3 trillion over the next few years.

Unlike the Republicans, which generally seek to undermine the unions, the Democrats have long seen the utility of propping up the unions to suppress the opposition of the working class to the relentless demands for austerity and ceaseless funneling of money to the super-rich.

That is why the struggle of LA teachers, which must be linked up with the fight in Oakland, throughout California, the US and the world, pits educators against the Democratic Party and their front men in the UTLA and other unions.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis government has announced that it is planning to introduce even more intrusive social media censorship and internet surveillance laws.

The new measures, which are in still in draft form and open for public comment until January 31, were announced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on December 24. The laws are in response to widespread popular opposition, particularly amongst young people, to the escalating anti-democratic attacks and austerity measures by Modis Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP)-led government.

Under Delhis planned laws, social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and others, must remove within 24 hours any unlawful content that might impact on the sovereignty and integrity of India. In other words, anything expressing its opposition to the political establishment could be banned, a clear sign that the Modi government is preparing a wider crackdown against its political opponents.

Indias telecommunication authorities also want Facebook, and other social media, to allow them to trace and read encrypted messages. WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has more than 200 million users in India.

The Indian governments attempt to police the internet is in line with laws by governments everywhere to censor and monitor millions of internet and social media users. The US government, particularly since early 2017, has collaborated with tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter, transforming them from tools for communication and the free exchange of information into massive data dragnets for policing what their users say, do and think.

India, which has nearly 500 million internet users, has been in the forefront of internet crackdowns that target political dissidents. Previous measures taken by Indian Internet Service Providers (ISPs), following demands from government authorities, included filtering systems that block the web pages of human rights organisations, feminist groups and political activists.

According to a recent report by Freedom House, a US-based internet monitoring agency, India leads the world in internet shutdowns with federal, state and local authorities ordering service providers to restrict cellphone, messaging and other services at least 96 times, between January and mid-August last year.

On December 18, Kishorechandra Wangkhem, a journalist in Manipur, was jailed for 12 months under the preventive detention clauses of the National Security Act, 1980. He had been arrested on November 21 for sedition and attempts to create enmity between groups after he posted a video on social media criticising the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Manipur state government and Prime Minister Modi.

Two days later on December 20, the Modi government authorised ten law enforcement, intelligence and tax agencies, as well as the Cabinet Secretariat, the Delhi commissioner of police and the Directorate of Signal Intelligence, to intercept information, generated, transmitted, received or stored on any computer, smartphone, tablet or other computing device.

In a crude attempt to deflect widespread opposition to the announcement, the minister of home affairs claimed no new powers had been given to these agencies in the December 20 order. Each case of interception, monitoring, decryption is to be approved by the competent authority, i.e., Union Home Secretary. In others words, the surveillance of any perceived opponent can be determined at any time by the government.

As one unnamed senior government bureaucrat admitted in an interview with the NDTV network: For the first time, powers of scanning data at rest have been given to various agencies Earlier, only data in motion could be intercepted. But now data revived, stored and generated can also be intercepted because the powers of seizure have been given.

The draft law also compels the subscriber or service provider and any individual in charge of the computer resource to extend all facilities and technical help to government agencies if requested. If they fail to do so they face seven years in jail and a fine.

Arun Jaitley, Indias finance minister, attempted to deflect criticism by pointing out that computer monitoring regulations had existed since 2009 and were authorised by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

Notwithstanding the fact that the UPA introduced this anti-democratic legislation, Congress Party politicians have hypocritically denounced the current governments new measures and postured as champions of democracy.

Congress Party spokesperson Anand Sharma told a December 21 press conference that the Modi government was converting India into surveillance state and that the draft laws were an assault on the fundamental rights and the Rights to Privacy. Sharma did not say a word about Congresss duplicitous political record on internet surveillance.

No less hypocritical has been the response of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPM, to the proposed censorship and surveillance laws. On December 21, the CPM issued a statement denouncing the planned measures as a blatant attack on fundamental right to privacy given to every citizen by our constitution and called for them to be rescinded immediately.

The CPM kept its mouth shut about the fact that it was a partner of the UPA government from 2004 to 2008. The Stalinist party is currently working for an electoral understanding with Congress in the next general elections to be held in April-May.

Indias ruling elite, which confronts growing working-class opposition to government attacks on jobs, wages and working conditions austerity, is determined to establish a massive censorship and surveillance regime. The posturing of Congress and the CPM over the new laws is entirely tactical and centres on how best to control and dissipate this rising mass movement.
While Germany, Austria, Serbia and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe face one of their coldest Januarys in recent years, the Australian continent is experiencing record heatwaves. Scientific evidence indicates that global warming is exacerbating the extreme conditions around the world.

The extended period of high temperatures in Australia is having serious impacts on peoples health, as well as agriculture and wildlife. On January 16, for example, some towns recorded temperatures just below 50C (122F).

Tarcoola in the middle of South Australia had the highest temperature at 49.1C. Swathes of central Australia, New South Wales (NSW) and northern Victoria recorded temperatures of around 46C.

The intense heat is expected to continue across the continent into this weekend, with Canberra, the national capital, suffering four consecutive days above 40C (104F), a record.

Certainly the duration of this event and the spatial extent of the heatwave across the southern half of Australia seems to be quite significant, Weatherzone senior meteorologist Jacob Cronje told the media. By the end of the week, we should see many records broken across NSW.

The heatwave started on December 25, when Marble Bar in the Pilbara mining region of northwest Western Australia reached 49.3 degrees. According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), this was the third-highest December temperature ever recorded anywhere in the country.

The BOM said the heatwave emanated from the Pilbara and extended across the country. The severe heat was intensified by the failure of monsoonal rains, making the region extremely dry. These weather systems moved east across the country. According to Cronje, temperatures may exceed 50C as the heatwave continues.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported a spike in cardiac arrests and people presenting to emergency departments and ambulance callouts.

NSW Health warned of heightened levels of ozone, resulting from pollution from vehicles and air conditioners interacting with sunlight. Ozone is known to be an irritant to people with respiratory conditions such as asthma.

Heatwaves are one the biggest killers in Australia. People suffering chronic conditions, such as heart disease and asthma, are the most vulnerable. The elderly and very young are at very high risk also. Medical researchers estimated that over 430 people died from the extreme heat during the JanuaryFebruary 2009 heatwave, when temperatures climbed to 46C.

Stone fruit farmers are losing their crops as the heat literally cooks the fruit in their skins. Dried Tree Fruits Australia chairman Kris Werner told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The stone burns them, which means they burn on the inside, they become squashy and you cant use them.

In December the BOM and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) issued their joint biennial assessment of Australias climate. The State of the Climate 2018 report pointed to the increasing impact of global warming on the worlds climate.

This year was the third warmest on record in Australia, with the annual mean temperature 1.14 degrees above average. Globally, 2018 was the fourth warmest on record. Eight of Australias hottest years on record have occurred since 2005.

The shift to a warmer climate in Australia is accompanied by more extreme daily heat events, the report stated.

The drying of southern Australia is one of the most important shifts in climate, impacting on agriculture and lengthening the bush fire season. Weather patterns are changing, with a reduction in the number of cold fronts and a decrease in the number and intensity in cut-off lows in south-eastern Australia. Such systems bring most rainfall to the region.

The El Nino, La Nina and the Indian Ocean dipole weather systems are variations in ocean temperatures in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans that influence Australias climate. El Nino and La Nina are currently very weak, with little impact on climate, while the Indian Ocean dipole is producing drier conditions across Australia, particularly in spring.

Scientists now understand that ocean temperatures have an enormous effect on climate. Measurements show that the sea has heated by one degree since 1910, similar to the warming taking place on land. Preliminary data for 2018 show the sea surface temperature around Australia was the tenth highest on record. Intense heatwaves have been measured in the Tasman Sea off southeast Australia and Tasmania. Such heat is also known to be a significant cause of the Great Barrier Reefs bleaching events.

The State of the Climate 2018 report indicated that the worlds oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the extra energy from greenhouse warming. The rate of heating on the earths land surfaces has slowed as a result of this warming of the oceans, although what is occurring at deeper levels is not very well known.

Global warming is driven primarily by the increase in greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. There are three key global monitoring stations located around the world where the air is cleanest, with the Australian station located at Cape Grim on the northwest tip of Tasmania. These stations have been continuously monitoring for 42 years. Cape Grim has shown an upward trend, passing 400 parts per million of air (ppm) in May 2016 and remained above this level ever since, with 2017 levels at 402 ppm.

The State of the Climate 2018 report warns that the last time carbon dioxide levels were at this level or higher was during the Pliocene epoch, 5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago, when temperatures were generally 10 to 20 degrees hotter than today.

The report assessed that emissions from fossil fuels continued to rise during 20142016. It concluded that the amount of climate change expected in the next decade or so is similar under all plausible global emissions pathways. However, by the mid-21st century, higher ongoing emissions of greenhouse gasses will lead to greater warming and associated impacts, and reducing emissions will lead to less warming and fewer associated impacts.

In the measured language used by scientists this amounts to a stark warning that time is running out.

Significantly none of the leaders of Australias major political parties have uttered a word on these scientific reports.

Liberal-National Coalition Prime Minister Scott Morrison, an advocate of the coal industry, rejected calls by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last October for the phasing out of coal.

Asked if Australia would be held to its target to reduce emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent from 2005 levels, Morrison contemptuously replied: No, we wont  Nor are we bound to go and tip money into that big climate fund. Were not going to do that either. Im not going to spend money on global climate conferences and all that nonsense.

Both the Labor Party and the Greens claim they will cut greenhouse gasses but when Labor was last in office greenhouse emissions continued to rise. The Greens falsely insist that the problem of global warming can be resolved without tacking its underlying source, the capitalist profit system.

Climate scientists understand the measures needed to drastically cut greenhouse gasses and curb global warming. The resources necessary for this, however, cannot be mobilised unless the profits of the banks and super rich are expropriated and used for the needs of humanity.

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Record climate warming recorded in Australia for 2016

[12 January 2017]
Marzieh Hashemi, an anchor and reporter for Press TV, the English-language station of Irans state-run broadcasting system, was arrested Sunday at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, transported to a Washington detention facility in manacles and chains and has been held ever since without charges or any public explanation from either the US Justice Department or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Hashemi was in the United States to visit her family, including a brother suffering from cancer, and was working on a documentary film on Black Lives Matter.

The arrest of Hashemi, a 59-year-old US citizen married to an Iranian, who has worked as a journalist in Iran for 25 years, has all the characteristics of the kind of forced disappearances executed by fascist-military dictatorships. It has been carried out in flagrant violation of constitutional rights to freedom of the press and freedom from arbitrary arrest, as well as the basic right of habeas corpus.

Hashemi was allowed to call her family to inform them she was imprisoned only two days after she was seized at the airport. US authorities have provided no information to her children as to the reason for her detention, saying only that she is a material witness in an undisclosed investigation.

Her son, Hossein Hashemi, a research fellow at the University of Colorado, said that he and his siblings have also been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Washington.

Hashemis children have reported that their mother has been subjected to cruel and degrading treatment by the US authorities. She is locked in a cell in manacles at an undisclosed detention facility. A Muslim, she has been denied food she can eat and offered pork by her jailers in a blatant attempt to ridicule her religion. She told her son she had only pretzels to eat since her arrest. She was stripped of her hijab and given only a T-shirt to wear.

Born Melanie Franklin in New Orleans, Hashemi studied journalism at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where she came into contact with Iranian students who supported the 1979 revolution against the US-backed dictatorship of the Shah. Marrying an Iranian, she moved to Tehran and pursued her journalistic career, working for the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB.

She is a prominent figure on Press TV, anchoring the English language news for the Iranian broadcaster, conducting interviews and producing documentary films.

Her son, Hossein, noted that in her on-air commentary his mother had been critical of a lot of the domestic policies of the United States government, as well as the wars abroad and the regime change policies that the United States enforces all the time and puts major budgets behind.

Hashemis arrest has been largely ignored by the corporate media, as well as by the pseudo-left outfits that orbit the Democratic Party.

All the pundits and editorial boards that postured as defenders of freedom of the press in the face of the Saudi monarchys assassination of former regime insider and journalist Jamal Khashoggi have maintained a stony silence in the face of this grossly unjust imprisonment of the American-born Iranian journalist.

One can only imagine their furor had Iranian authorities dragged Christiane Amanpour, the Iranian-raised and US state-connected ABC News anchor, away in chains and imprisoned her without charges.

Their silence in the face of the Hashemi affair is no accident. Her jailing is in line with the attempt by the US ruling classwith the full support of the corporate mediato intimidate, censor and silence all critical and independent journalists and media organizations around the world.

The treatment meted out to her is precisely what the US authorities hope to inflict upon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange if they are able to pry him out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he has rather tenuous sanctuary.

The brutal abduction and detention of Hashemi are also bound up with the increasingly bellicose and provocative American imperialist offensive against Iran, which has escalated steadily since the Trump administration abrogated Washingtons commitment to the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and began the imposition of increasingly punishing sanctions aimed at starving the Iranian people into submission.

The US ruling establishment has been conducting a bitter internecine struggle over President Donald Trumps announced decision to withdraw troops from Syria, with leading administration officials, including National Security Adviser John Bomb Iran Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, walking back Trumps promise of a swift pullout and redoubling US threats against Iran.

Whether Hashemi is being held as part of a wider pseudo-legal plot to discredit Iran and stoke the war drive remains to be seen. Such an attempt was made under the Obama administration with the fabrication of a case based upon ludicrous allegations that supposed Iranian agents (one of them a DEA informant) had attempted to hire a Mexican drug cartel to blow up the Saudi ambassador to the US in a Washington restaurant.

Whatever the case, the imprisonment of Hashemi and the brazen violation of her basic democratic rights constitute a deadly serious warning. As they lurch toward war and are driven by mounting fear of the developing opposition and mass struggles of the working class from below, the US government and the capitalist oligarchs who rule America are turning ever more openly toward dictatorial forms of rule.

The World Socialist Web Site calls on all working people, students and youth in the US and internationally to demand the immediate and unconditional release of Marzieh Hashemi.
Europe

Public sector strike and protests in support of Greek teachers

On Thursday, hundreds of striking teachers and their supporters marched through Athens. The action was part of a 24-hour public sector strike called by civil servants union Adedy.

Teachers have held two recent protests, which were attacked by riot police using tear gas. They are protesting the hiring of teachers on temporary contracts. Over the last 10 years, around 30,000 teachers are laid off each June. They then move around the country, often working away from home, to secure another temporary post for the next year.

The pseudo-left Syriza government claims it will hire 15,000 full-time teachers over the next three years, beginning in the autumnbut temporary teachers are unlikely to qualify. There is also a teacher shortage of 30,000.

On January 11, riot police attacked protesting teachers who marched to the Greek parliament and attempted to enter the building. An MP and a teachers union leader were admitted to hospital as a result of the police violence. Such was the excessive force used by the riot squad it forced an investigation to be called. Kathemerini reported Citizens Protection minister Olga Gerovasili describing the action unacceptable and politically dangerous acts by certain members of the riot police.

On January 14, primary school teachers in the DOE union went on a 24-hour strike while the secondary teachers in the OLME union walked out between 11am and 2 pm. A demonstration in Athens attracted around 3,000 teachers; some carrying banners reading, Permanent Hirings Now! It was again attacked outside the parliament building with riot police firing tear gas canisters into protesters.

Thursdays strike and protest coincided with discussion on the bill to hire additional teachers taking place in the Greek parliament.

Arriva North rail workers in England to hold further strikes

Rail guards working for Arriva North in northern England are to strike on Saturdaytheir 45th day of action. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) members are opposing the introduction of driver only operated (DOO) trains.

DOO threatens passenger safety and 6,000 guards jobs.

Twenty-four-hour strikes are taking place each Saturday throughout January. Last Saturdays picket swelled to 200, after the picket line the previous week was threatened by far-right-wing thugs.

The RMT has limited action against the private rail franchises to regional, short-term strikes, isolating and dissipating struggles. It has already sealed DOO deals with rail franchises at ScotRail and Greater Anglia.

Scottish rail contract staff in Edinburgh to strike

Workers at the Edinburgh-based ISS rail contractor are to hold a 24-hour strike on January 27. The RMT members at Edinburgh Waverley station are taking the action over the ISSs failure to improve staff accommodation facilities and install air conditioning as they had promised.

Drivers at Arriva bus company plan further pay strikes in northern England

Around 650 bus drivers at Arriva in northern England are planning a further stoppage over pay parity. The company serves County Durham, Teesside and parts of North Yorkshire.

The Unite members are to hold a 10-day strike beginning January 27. According to the union, the drivers working for the company are the second lowest paid within the Arriva group.

Lecturers at 16 UK colleges to strike

Staff at 16 UK colleges are to hold a two-day strike beginning January 29. The University and College Union (UCU) members are demanding a pay increase. They have seen 25 percent erosion in pay over the last decade. College lecturers earn around 7,000 less than secondary school teachers.

Lecturers at six colleges went on strike for improved pay in November.

In another dispute, 70,000 UCU members at universities across the UK are currently being balloted for strike action over pay. The ballot is due to close February 22. Last year, the UCU betrayed a strike by 50,000 university lecturers and administrators in defence of their pensionsthe largest such strike in history.

Strike by public sector workers in Jersey

Civil servants on the island of Jersey struck on Monday and Tuesday. Strikers included custom and immigration staff, health and community services staff and teaching assistants.

The Unite and Prospect union members are seeking a pay rise.

On Tuesday, striking civil servants gathered in Royal Square as members of the Jersey parliament held their first meeting of the year.

National Education Union (NEU) members on the island voted by a 97 percent majority to strike over pay. The NEU is proposing a series of limited rolling strikes by teachers, but has yet to announce final details.

UK protest by London minicab drivers

Around 1,000 minicab drivers held a protest in central London on Monday. The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain members were protesting the imposition of the congestion charge on private hire drivers, such as those working for Uber. The charge is to start in April.

Drivers say the 11.50 a day charge would mean a 25 percent cut in their earnings. They pledged to repeat the demonstrations each Monday.

Strike by staff at UK Ministry of Justice announced

Outsourced staff providing security, cleaning and receptionist services at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) building in London are due to begin a 48-hour strike on January 21.

The United Voices of the World union members are demanding to be paid the so-called London Living Wage of 10.55 an hour. Cleaners at the MoJ went on strike in August, winning a 12 percent wage rise bringing them up to their current 9 an hour.

In a separate dispute, outsourced staff at the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy department will hold a 24-hour strike on January 22. The Public and Commercial Services union members demand to be paid the London Living Wage.

Care workers in northwest England to vote on strike action

Around 600 low-paid care workers employed by the charity Alternative Futures Group (AFG) voted this week to strike. They will initially hold a 48-hour stoppage.

The Unison members are opposed to AFGs plans to cut the rate for sleep-ins, which could leave them up to 40 a night short.

Many organisations paid carers a lump sum to cover the period when they were sleeping in. However, in 2016 a court ruled that workers carrying out sleep-ins were due the minimum wage rather than a lower lump sum rate. A recent court of appeal overturned this, and many organisations are now returning to paying a minimal lump sum.

Following intervention by the Unison public sector union, AFG increased its proposed lump sum payment from 40 to 55 a night beginning in March, but this still represents a 15 a night cut.

German security staff strike at eight airports

Security staff at eight German airports held an 18-hour strike Tuesday. The airports affected were Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Hanover, Bremen, Leipzig, Dresden and Erfurt.

The Verdi union members are demanding 20 an hour pay.

The strikes affected flights of passengers and cargo, with nearly 500 flights cancelled at Frankfurt alone.

The dispute is ongoing, with strikes at Berlin, Cologne-Bonn, Dusseldorf and Stuttgart last week, cancelling over 800 flights. The next negotiations are due January 23.

Strike by Belgian telecommunications workers

Workers at the Belgian telecommunications company Proximus held a one-day strike Tuesday. The CSC Transcom union members are protesting plans by the company to make 1,900 redundancies, including compulsory ones, as part of a restructuring plan.

Around 2,000 pickets gathered outside the Brussels-based Proximus headquarters during the strike.

Strike by dockers at Cypriot port

Dockers at the Cypriot port of Limassol were to hold a 24-hour strike Wednesday. The strike, called by the PEO union, is over the introduction of an arbitration panel to conduct negotiations between the union and management over the renewal of a collective bargaining agreement.

There have been a series of disputes since the port was privatized in 2017.

Nationwide demonstrations planned in Hungary over forced overtime

Nationwide protests are planned tomorrow in Hungary against legislation passed by the right-wing government of Victor Orban. It extends enforced overtime from 250 to 400 hours a year. In addition, the period for delayed payment of overtime has been extended from 12 months to three years.

Irish nurses to strike in pay dispute

A series of 24-hour strikes planned by Irish nurses is due to begin at the end of the month. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses Association members are seeking a 12 percent pay rise to bring them in line with physiotherapists.

The unions met with the Irish Health Executive on Tuesday but made no progress. The Irish government public spending oversight committee is to meet today to discuss the issue. The government may go to the Workplace Relations Committee and the Labour Court to avert the stoppages.

Strike threat by Dutch photojournalists

Around 300 Dutch photojournalists are threatening to strike on January 25. The NVJ/NVF union members are seeking a 14 percent rise in the rates paid to them for photos.

In 2014, the average paid per photo was 80, and today it is around 42. The union has written to six major media outlets calling for talks.

Middle East

Strike across Palestinian West Bank

Thousands took part in a strike across the occupied Palestinian West Bank on Tuesday, and businesses also closed. Hundreds attended protests in Ramallah.

They were protesting the introduction of social security legislation by the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian workers will have to contribute to the scheme, with public sector workers paying 10 percent of their salaries. Many workers fear the funds will be mismanaged.

Tunisian public sector workers strike

Tunisian public sector workers were set to strike Thursday over pay. A meeting on Tuesday between the UGTT union and the Tunisian government failed to agree a pay raise for 670,000 civil servants.

The sectors to be affected include staff working in ports, airports and government offices. The Tunisian government is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to freeze public sector pay.

Moroccan month of anger protests

Workers in Morocco have planned strikes and protests in January in a so-called month of anger. The CDT union members planned a protest and motor convoy in Tangiers on January 11. The UMT federation members were scheduled to take part in protests, strikes and marches between January 10 to 20.

The protests are to highlight the high cost of living, unemployment, lack of opportunities for young people and deteriorating social conditions. They are also demanding the government respect union rights as agreed in an April 2011 memorandum.

Africa

Zimbabwean striking workers shot by state forces; unions call off doctors strike

Workers in Zimbabwe on a three-day general strike were shot at by state forces using live ammunition. At least two workers died and many more were wounded.

Members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) came out after fuel prices were doubled over the weekend. A ZCTU spokesman said a worker travelling to work typically spends $260 a month on fares whereas average pay is $300. Many workers cannot afford travel costs.

Many civil service workers were already on strike over starvation wages and the collapsing economic and social system. Greyhound buses into Harare were cancelled on Monday.

The ZCTU are demanding the government pay workers in US dollars as the Zimbabwe national currency is becoming worthless. A currency shortage, however, is making it impossible to acquire foreign exchange to pay all workers in dollars. Some small businesses lack dollars to buy imports, threatening further job losses.

The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry, cited in the New Zimbabwe said, Industry is facing imminent collapse. The house is burning.

On January 10, the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association called off the 40-day doctors stoppage, despite the doctors disapproval because it did not address their demand for a salary review.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care pledged to improve drug distribution, health facilities in the hospitals and the issue of outstanding promotions.

Zimbabwes hospital system, once the best in Africa, now needs $8 billion just to return to where it was. This is the equivalent of Zimbabwes total budget.

South African Sibanye platinum miners to join gold miners stoppage at Sibanye Stillwater Gold

South African platinum miners at Sibanye are threatening to join gold miners at Sibanye Stillwater Gold on strike January 21.

Fifteen thousand Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) members have been on strike for eight weeks, demanding a pay increase of R1,000 each year over three years.

Sibanye Gold agreed a deal with three other unions including the National Union of Mineworkers, which AMCU called a slave labour agreement.

The company claims that AMCU represents less than 50 percent of the workforce, which under employment law would mean the settlement applies to all workers at Sibanyes three South African gold mining operations.

AMCU has a majority membership in the platinum mines, particularly at Lonmin Platinumthe company Sibanye is bidding to take over in February. The company said it would not increase its offer agreed with the other unions, even if the strike is extended.

Mali workers in three-day general strike

Workers in all sectors in Mali went on three-day general strike Wednesday last week over pay, bonuses, retirement and other grievances.

National Union of Workers of Mali (NUWM) members including public sector workers and miners came out on strike December 18. Some of the workers, including railway employees have not been paid for many months, went on hunger strike.

Malis Radio and Television were able only to play pre-recorded music and national news coverage was largely paralysed.

NUWM claimed 95 percent of workers adhered to the strike call.

Elections in Mali were cancelled in the middle of last year and a year-long extension of an existing state of emergency was imposed October 31.

Nigerian government/unions agree another deadline for minimum wage

On January 8, during a day of protest by workers demanding a minimum wage, Nigerias federal government agreed to put a minimum wage bill to parliament.

Members of the National Labour Congress (NLC) and two other federations are in an ongoing struggle against starvation wages. Workers had wanted a monthly minimum wage of N56,000 to N65,000, but the NLC settled for N30,000, last September.

The government missed an earlier implementation deadlineagreed after strike threatsfor December 31.

President Muhammadu Buhari was reported asking how the NLC expects the federal and state governments to pay N30,000 when they cannot pay the present minimum wage of N18,000.

Nigerias Kwara state doctors and nurses begin wages strike

An indefinite strike by doctors and nurses in Nigerias Kwara state began Monday. Workers are demanding the implementation of a 10 percent wage increase agreed with employers.

The Joint Council of Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria and the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives called for the strike to be extended January 21 to all health facilities, hospitals and the Agricultural and Environment Ministries.

Nigerian academic staff strike enters week 11

Nigerias university lecturers are into week 11 of strike action after members rejected a government offer.

Academic Staff of University Unions members describe the government university education bill offer made January 7 of N15.4 billion as tokenism.

The government promised a university revitalization fund valued at N1.1 trillion. Workers are demanding the government release N220 billion for this quarter, which would include their outstanding allowances.
A report published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in December invokes explicitly, for the first time, the shift to great power conflicts in making a case for the growth of military funding.

Explaining the ever-escalating military budget, it states, the most recent Nuclear Posture Review, released in 2018, concludes that the geopolitical environment has deteriorated markedly since the last Nuclear Posture Review in 2010 and that the world has returned to a state of Great Power competition.

While the document provides suggestions for massive cuts in social programs to address the $778 billion US debt, Options for Reducing the Deficit: 2019 to 2028 makes the case that any reduction to military funding would potentially undermine the American ability to conduct war.

It warns, the Army has soldiers in more than 140 countries, all four military services are buying highly sophisticated military weaponry to fight against Russia or China, and DoD [Department of Defense] is modernizing all elements of its nuclear forcesinitiatives which they opine could be compromised by any infringement on military spending.

The CBO, which claims to be above politics, states that in line with the increasing assertiveness with which Russia and China conduct foreign relations, the world appears to be entering an era of renewed competition between major powers. The CBO is rehashing the incessant US propaganda proclaiming Russia to be a military juggernaut menacing its neighbors although the country spent $66.3 billion on its military in 2017, little more than one-tenth what the US spends every year. In fact, Russias military spending has dropped by nearly 20 percent in the last period. China reportedly spent $146 billion in 2016, about a quarter of the US.

Nonetheless, global military spending has already hit a record $1.7 trilliona clear indication of the worldwide breakdown of the capitalist system and the growing threat of World War III.

The Trump administration has consistently demanded increased military spending at the expense of domestic programs. His budget last year called for dismantling 62 different federal agencies and his proposed 2018 budget called for over $9 billion in cuts from education. The CBO report should be taken as a sign that even more draconian proposals are in the works.

The CBO report enumerates, Almost all components of the United States nuclear forces are scheduled to be modernized (refurbished or replaced by new systems) over the next 20 years. Current plans call for developing and purchasing 12 new SSBNs [nuclear-powered, ballistic missile-carrying submarines], 642 new ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles primarily designed for nuclear weapons] (of which up to 450 would be fielded in existing silos after the silos were refurbished, and the remainder would be spares and test stock), and 80 to 100 B-21 bombers, the next-generation long-range strategic bombers now under development. Through the mid-2030s, modernization is expected to nearly double the amount spent annually on nuclear forces (currently about $30 billion).

Reprising the arguments of the military planners in ruling out any reduction of nuclear weaponry, the CBO writes, In that international atmosphere a new arms control agreement would have little chance of being reached, so a decision by the United States to reduce its stockpile to 1,000 warheads would be unilateral, which some analysts argue could reduce strategic stability.

The nonpartisan CBO purportedly advises federal lawmakers on budgetary options and debt reduction in an objective manner. All official frugality is off the table, however, when it comes the US military which absorbs the vast bulk of US discretionary funding and is responsible for the squandering of resources on a scale never before seen by humanity.

The baseline appropriation for the Department of Defense (DoD) in 2019 is a massive $616 billion, with an increase of about $34 billion projected for future years through 2023. This is just a portion of the vast sums allocated to the endless wars conducted by the US which receive overseas contingency monies and other massive transfusions of cash, not including those earmarked for medical care and veteran services or the vast network of US spying agencies.

The even-handed tone of the CBOproviding pro and con positions on every line itemdisguises its propaganda and political role. For example, while appearing to entertain the suggestion that the DoD budget could be reduced to levels which prevailed at the height of the Cold War, the CBO rejects this ever-so-modest adjustment out of hand. It states that should the US slow the rate at which it modernizes weapons systems, that it could negatively affect the capability of the military to fight and win wars.

At various points, the CBO report appears to be providing helpful analysis for slightly differing interests within the military-industrial-intelligence complex, no doubt related to the allocation of vastly lucrative military contracts to specific companies.

Considering the advisability of spending on a particular line item, the CBO will present for and against arguments. For example, the argument for buying more aircraft carriers: ceasing production of aircraft carriers could hamper the Navys fighting ability. Since World War II, the aircraft carrier has been the centerpiece of the U.S. Navy. According to the Navy, each of its 10 older Nimitz class carriers can sustain 95 strike sorties per day and, with each aircraft carrying four 2,000-pound bombs, deliver three-quarters of a million pounds of bombs each day. That firepower far exceeds what any other surface ship can deliver. The new Ford-class aircraft carriers will be able to sustain even more sorties each day.

The projected cost of the USS Gerald Ford, the countrys 11th supercarrier, is at least $13 billion. The combined price tag of the ship and its air wing of F-35c fighters, at $30 billion, is roughly equivalent to what the United Nations estimates for the annual cost of ending world hunger.

Alternatively, the argument against buying more aircraft carriers: it would save $18 billion over 10 years. Further, the CBO points out, that If national security interests made additional carriers necessary in the future, the Navy could restart production. However, doing so would be more expensive and complex than building new carriers is today, and it takes years to construct such large ships. Building new designs of small warships is a challenge; relearning how to build the largest warship ever produced would pose much greater challenges. In other words, such a course of action is inadvisable from the standpoint of pursuing global hegemony.

The CBO is traditionally cited as an authoritative source above politics on all government funding matters. It was created in 1974 as a result of the conflict between the Congress and the Nixon administration over his impoundments or refusal to release billions of dollars for water pollution control, education, health programs, and highway and housing construction because he opposed these programs. The resulting flurry of lawsuits and a full-fledged Constitutional crisis was averted through the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, the creation of the CBO as well as the subsequent resignation of Nixon.

The underlying cause for the creation of the CBO was the decline of the US as a world power, expressed in its defeat in Vietnam and, financially, by the catastrophic growth of the US balance of payments deficit and national debt. The CBOs purpose was to help keep a lid on the growing debt. Its pseudo-objective approach served to mask its fundamental objectives including dismantling the Great Society and the war on poverty programs. Historically, it has also played a significant role of providing statistical ammunition against any possible expansion of social rights. One of its directors was Peter Orszag, the Obama White House budget director, instrumental in pushing through the national slashing of healthcare costs through the Affordable Care Act.

In other words, the CBO plays a highly political role in framing US spending decisions. Their nonpartisan [read bipartisan] reports tend to reflect the minor tactical differences between Democrats and Republicans as they mutually work to protect the oligarchy and maintain US hegemony through the use of military firepower. For these reasons, the military continues to have a blank check, whereas any actual reform budget proposalssuch as making early education available to every youngster in America or forgiving all student loan debtare never even broached.

Precisely the opposite. Part 2 will examine the potential budget cuts outlined by the CBO. Among those most breathtaking in their sweep and implications for society outlined in Options for Reducing the Deficit 2019 to 2028 are the complete elimination of Head Start (a projected savings of $92 billion between 2020-2018) and restricting or eliminating federal loan subsidies for higher education ($7-$21.6 billion).

To be continued
The campaign for a second referendum on Britains exit from the European Union (EU) is now in full-swing, after the failure of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyns motion of no confidence in the Conservative government of Prime Minister Theresa May.

Mounting pressure is being placed on Corbyn to champion a so-called Peoples Vote. Earlier this week, giving a speech at an Another Europe is Possible event, Shadow Treasury Minister Clive Lewis said, A public vote is something that the Labour Party should be getting behind and I am here to talk about the preparations we need to start thinking about to make that happen.

On Wednesday, on the morning of the no-confidence vote, 71 Labour MPs, claiming the support of a further 26, published an open letter calling on the Labour leadership to back a Peoples Vote.

Leading Blairite Remainer Chuka Umunna said Tuesday, We need to move to the next stage in the Labour Partys confidence motion, and that is to without delay commit to a peoples vote as the way out of this, and to do that by the end of this week.

Anti-Corbyn coup plotter Luciana Berger attacked Corbyn for allegedly ignoring party policy, after a speech he made Thursday morning which suggested more no confidence votes might precede any move to supporting a new referendum. Corbyn added that Labour would also seek parliamentary agreement on its own Brexit negotiating position of seeking a customs union and Single European Market access and would not take part in discussions with May unless she ruled out a no-deal Brexit.

More pressure was added by announcements from Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party), Vince Cable (Liberal Democrats), Caroline Lucas (Greens) and Adam Price (Plaid Cymru) that their parties will not support Labour no confidence votes in the Tories in future, unless Corbyn backs a second referendum.

A letter published in the Times Thursday, calling on Parliament to organise a second referendum, was signed by 170 business leaders. UK business overwhelmingly favours a close relationship with the EU, on which much of its trade depends, and fears the instability of a hard or no deal break. The Remain campaign, stripped of its cynical posturing over democracy and European values, is a vehicle for these concerns.

Corbyn has likewise repeatedly stated his commitment to the interests of British capitalism. However, he and his leadership team hope to be able to pursue them from government. They fear that to give full support to a second referendum would be to forego any chance of getting Labour elected.

The Blairites are opposed to a general election and aim to block Brexit without letting what is nominally their own party under Corbyn anywhere near power. Corbyn agreeing to support a second referendum will allow them to deepen their collusion with Tory Remainers, the SNP and Liberal Democrats to secure Britains relationship with the EU.

Hence the collective anger which met Corbyns refusal to discuss Brexit options with Theresa May, unless a no deal outcome was taken off the table. Tony Blair led the chorus of denunciations, saying, If, in a moment of national crisis, the Prime Minister asks the Leader of the Opposition to come and talk, of course he should.

Labour MP Chris Leslie tweeted in support, Every opportunity to influence Brexit policy ought to be taken 

Fellow right-wing backbencher Mike Gapes took this as an opportunity to reprise one of the many Blairite and media hit campaigns against the Labour leader, tweeting, Apparently Corbyn is prepared to hold talks with Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad and Iran without preconditions. But not with the UK Prime Minister. Why?

Regardless of what Corbyn chooses to do or not do, a cross-party regroupment of Remain MPs is taking shape. On Wednesday, Conservative MP Dominic Grieve brought forward plans for new legislation that would provide for a second referendum. A Conservative campaigning group, The Right to Vote, has been established.

Labour MPs Hilary Benn and Yvette Cooper, both ardent Blairites, went to the Cabinet office on Thursday to hold talks with Conservative ministers, making a mockery of Corbyns impotent request that Labour MPs not participate in Mays Brexit discussions. Stephen Kinnock and Lucy Powell are to follow suit.

By the evening May was declaring that she would not accept Corbyns conditions for talks of ruling out a no-deal Brexit.

According to the Independent, strongly pro-Remain Labour MPs are preparing to make their move early next week, when the governments new EU exit motion is put up for amendment. An anonymous senior backbencher said, Labour wont get a Peoples Vote unless we make one. If we just wait for Jeremy Corbyn we are never going to do it.

EU officials have endorsed this realignment. Member of the European Parliament and former Belgium prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, was most explicit, stating, There is a need for cross-party cooperation so that we know what Britain wants and that theres a majority in the House of Commons backing that proposal. And if that proposal goes in the direction of a deeper relationship with the EU then we are ready to do so. We are not against this. On the contrary.

European Commission President Donald Tusk and chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier suggested that the EU was open to cancelling the Brexit process, or renegotiating a much closer post-Brexit relationship. Tusk tweeted, If a deal is impossible, and no-one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?

Barnier stated, If the UK chooses to shift its red lines in the future  and go beyond a simple free trade agreement  then the European Union will be immediately ready to go hand in hand with that development and to give a favourable response.

Summing up the role Labour, and Corbyn, would be expected to play, Greek MEP Giorgos Kyrtsos explained, We all know that the Tory party is traditionally divided, which is why those of us who feel it is of great strategic importance to the EU that the UK remains are now looking to the Labour Party.

The issue to be decided is whether this role is compatible with Corbyns continued leadership, or whether moves will be made once again to remove or bypass him. This depends upon his agreeing once again to do as he is told by his right wing, using his support among workers and the younger generation to sell EU membership as a way of overcoming austerity. Should he accede to these demands, whether in or out of government, he would be charged politically with excluding the working class from any independent intervention in this crisis by suppressing the class struggle in alliance with the trade unions and insisting on the absolute sovereignty over decision making in the den of thieves that is Britains parliament.

However, it is not so clear cut as the Blairites maintain whether Corbyns caution does not more accurately express the interests of the ruling class in trying to manage the fallout from any reversal of the 2016 referendum in a country that remains deeply divided over the issue.

The staunchly pro-EU Guardian reported yesterday that it had contacted several senior shadow ministers from constituencies that voted to leave the EU who say they would consider their positions if Corbyn conceded to pressure to back a second referendum. It cited backbench MPs who have been canvassing opinion, claiming that there are just as many Labour MPs opposed to a second referendum as supporting it and named Labour chair, Ian Lavery, Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon and Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite trade union, as sceptical or opposed to a Peoples Vote.
MURFREESBORO, TN (WSMV) - Last month, Tamara Milford couldnt figure out why she was experiencing headaches, nausea and the inability to breathe.

Even when her doctor prescribed her antibiotic, it didnt help.

Picture of mold taken in Dec 2018 Mold found inside a room at The Pointe of Raiders Campus in Murfreesboro.

Then, she opened the blinds in her room at The Pointe at Raiders Campus, the popular off-campus housing complex.

It was super black, all over, Milford said.

She then told her roommates to open their blinds as well.

We all had mold in every room, Milford said.

Mold picture taken in May 2018 Mold found inside a room at The Pointe of Raiders Campus in Murfreesboro.

Last May, Chloe Creel documented the black mold growing on her window at the Pointe after she too started getting sick.

I would get nosebleeds, I would get bad headaches, Creel said.

The News4 I-team found in 2018 four different complaints were filed in four different buildings about black mold at The Pointe with the codes department with the city of Murfreesboro.

Inspectors found the mold growing on windows.

Creel said she didnt file a complaint last year, so she believes many other students are suffering without reporting it to the city.

Because of the small size and configurations of the room, beds are placed by the windows, which means the students are sleeping directly next to the mold.

Just to see what I'd been breathing in for the last few months, it was scary, Creel said.

When the News4 I-Team examined the windows in Milfords apartment, we found water pooling on the window sills.

News4 repeatedly called and emailed Peak Living, the complexs out-of-state management company, asking if there were issues with the windows or how they sealed.

Our questions were not addressed in an email and a voicemail left for the I-Team.

Whenever issues of concerns are raised, we endeavor to address them quickly and completely in order to ensure the continued health and safety of our residents, Peak Living Regional Vice President Stacy Walton wrote in an email.

Not long after the News4 I-Team showed up at Milfords apartment, a cleaning crew showed up to wipe away the mold.

But Milford pointed out that the large amount of black mold was cleaned in December and it is already starting to grow back.

They think because we're college students, we're just going to complain, and it will blow over. They're not taking our concerns seriously at all, Milford said.

The News4 I-Team will be checking in with the students to see if their mold complaints are being addressed.
A C-17 military plane flew low over downtown Nashville as part of training exercise, according to the Tennessee Air National Guard.

The training exercise on Friday and Saturday, which has now been canceled, was to be as part of the inauguration of Bill Lee.

The large military plane flew low over the downtown area.

The Air National Guard said that when the inauguration was moved indoors tomorrow because of weather, it decided to continue with the exercise on Friday and canceled Saturday's exercise.

The Air National Guard did not comment on why there was no advance notice of the exercise.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam granted executive clemency to 23 current or former Tennesseans on Friday, his last full day as governor.

Bill Lee will be sworn in at Tennessees 50th governor on Saturday at 11 a.m. at War Memorial Auditorium.

Gov. Haslam grants executive clemency to 11, Cyntoia Brown not included on list Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam granted executive clemency to 11 people on Thursday. However, the much-debated case of Cyntoia Brown was not included.

These individuals receiving pardons have made positive contributions to their communities and are worthy of the forgiveness that may help them restore their rights or obtain employment. Those receiving commutations will gain another chance to become contributing members of society, Haslam said in a news release. Clemency requires attempting to balance mercy and justice, and my legal team and I have taken this responsibility seriously during a thorough review of many cases.

Tennessee governor grants executive clemency to 4 Gov. Bill Haslam has granted executive clemency to four people and is considering more requests.

Pardons were issued to the following individuals:

Lebanon man exonerated by Governor for 1970s conviction Gov. Bill Haslam exonerated a man who was falsely imprisoned for 31 years on a charge of rape and burglary, according to a statement from the Governors office.

Gerald Canada for his 1978 burglary of an automobile and larceny convictions in Dyer County as an 18-year-old. He has since led a productive life and served his community as a public employee.

Joseph Todd Davis for his 1995 possession and DUI convictions in Williamson County. He now operates his own business.

Jonathan Andrew Forsythe for his 1998 theft, forgery, and burglary of an automobile convictions in Hamilton County. He has since pursued and obtained higher education degrees and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

Leah Margaret Foy for her 2003 theft conviction in Shelby County. She has been recognized for her signification involvement with military-related and childrens charities and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

Ben M. Frizzell III for his 2003 conviction for maintaining a dwelling for the use of controlled substances in Sullivan County. He has been committed to helping others, including those in recovery from substance abuse issues, and is an officer of a large multi-state company.

Gary Lee Hill for his 1974 marijuana sale conviction in Roane County as an 18-year-old. Community leaders attest to his character, dedication to his family, and community contributions.

Kenny Lee Lambert for his 1983 attempt to commit burglary conviction in Sullivan County. His citizenship rights were restored in 2011 and he received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

Shea Langs for his 1992 drug-related conviction in Shelby County. He has obtained higher education degrees and works as a veterans justice outreach coordinator.

David Ralph Ledford for his 1991 conviction for 2 counts of bribery in Davidson County. He has since made positive contributions in the Roane County community and received a positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

Ryan Christopher Love his for 2010 convictions for reckless aggravated assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, criminal trespassing, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in Washington County. He has completed vocational training and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

John J. Manikas for his 2002 convictions for theft. He has contributed positively to his community though professional and civic organizations for many years.

Patrick McDuff for his 1984 drug-related conviction in Blount County. He has become a business leader and entrepreneur and serves others through a church ministry.

Daniel Johnson Moss for his 1999 theft conviction in Knox County. He later served in the Tennessee Army National Guard and was deployed to Bosnia and Afghanistan.

Dennis Ervin Nunley for his 1982 convictions for offering to pass a forged instrument and concealing stolen property in Sullivan County. He works with others to overcome substance abuse issues and has significant community support.

Jeffrey Wayne Perry for his 1984 and 1986 grand larceny convictions in Sumner County. Since then, Perry has been gainfully employed in various trades, and he received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

Michael Lee Ridley for his 1972 drug-related conviction in Shelby County. He is a decorated Vietnam veteran and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

Robert C. Sherrill for his 2002 escape (leaving a Department of Childrens Services home), 2002 simple possession of marijuana, and 2003 and possession with intent to sell less than 0.5 grams of cocaine convictions. Sherrill was named a Most Admired CEO in 2018 by the Nashville Business Journal and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

Pamela Spindel for her 2002 forgery and possession of drug paraphernalia convictions in Blount County. She is now a licensed alcohol counselor and nationally certified drug addiction counselor that helps others in recovery and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

Rachael Tanner-Smith for her 2003 conviction for facilitation of manufacture of marijuana plants in Davidson County. She is now a licensed counselor pursuing additional higher education degrees. She volunteers extensively and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

David Vandergriff for his 1973 drug-related convictions in Knox County. He has since obtained masters degrees and works in public service while maintaining active involvement in agricultural and horticultural organizations.

Commutations were issued to the following individuals:

Jeremy Michael Ingrams life sentence for his 1995 murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and attempted murder convictions in Hamilton County were commuted to parole supervision beginning January 17, 2020, to last for the remainder of his sentence. Ingram, who was 18-years-old when the crimes were committed, will be subject to additional supervision conditions. He has undergone a transformation during 25 years of incarceration, earning four higher education degrees and actively participating in rehabilitation and faith-based programs and earning the respect of numerous volunteers and prison officials.

Teresa Kay Joplins sentence of parole supervision for a 2013 drug-related conviction in Davidson County was commuted, releasing her from active supervision. She lives out-of-state, has complied with parole conditions, and is limited by a debilitating physical condition. Joplin received a positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

Thomas Edward Reddick received a commutation to make him eligible for parole consideration by the Tennessee Board of Parole. He is serving a 28-year sentence for his 2002 murder conviction in Knox County, which expires in 2024, and has demonstrated substantial rehabilitation while incarcerated, in addition to suffering from serious health conditions.

Executive clemency is an act of mercy or leniency by the governor after a criminal conviction. A commutation is a reduction of the length or type of sentence imposed for a conviction, while a pardon is a statement of forgiveness that may assist with restoration of rights or expungement of a criminal record by a judge or overcoming the collateral consequences of a conviction with respect to obtaining housing and employment.

While in office, Haslam has granted a total of 9 commutations, 35 pardons, and one exoneration.
Multimedia Producer

Kara is an Emmy Award-winning digital producer. She is a Cincinnati native and an alumna of the University of South Carolina. She previously worked at WRDW-TV in Augusta, Ga., before moving to Nashville five years ago to work at WSMV-TV.
LEBANON, TN (WSMV) - A Wilson County home was destroyed in a massive fire Friday morning.

Flames engulfed the home in the 9200 block of Hartsville Pike in Lebanon.

The fire started around 4 a.m. The family was able to make it outside safely.

Firefighters had trouble getting water to the home because they had to shuttle water from 2 to 3 miles away because there were not any fire hydrants nearby.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Stay with News4 for updates on this developing story.
Syrians who have taken refuge in Turkey say they "feel human" in their host country and that they are hopeful about the future.

Tens of thousands of refugees, whose humanitarian needs have been taken care of by the Turkish government and NGOs for years at modern facilities, pray for the end of the war and a safe return to their homes in Syria.

Shuhaida Osman, one of the Syrians who have been taking shelter in a refugee camp in Turkey's southeastern Sanliurfa province, told Anadolu Agency that she was rescued last minute by Turkey, and that the shock and trauma of the civil war were still not over.

She said: "Syrian women are very happy to be in Turkey, where there is life. Despite being in a camp environment, we have very good conditions and a very good life here."

"Many Syrians have gone to Lebanon and Jordan where they don't have these conveniences and suffer greatly.

"Syrians feel human in Turkey. At a time other countries have shut their doors to us, Turkey provides education to our kids, vocational courses to women and supports all Syrians," Osman said, adding: "May Allah be pleased with all Turks, be it seven year old or seventy."

Gayidah Najat, another refugee who lost her husband and two children in a bomb attack on their home by terrorist YPG/PKK in northern Syrian city of Ayn al-Arab, also expressed her gratitude, stressing that it was her only option was to take refuge in Turkey with her remaining seven kids.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- has been responsible for the death of some 40,000 people, including many women and children.The PYD/YPG is its Syrian branch.

"We couldn't have survived in the middle of the war, had to leave. We always heard all the good things from other Syrians who went to Turkey before us," said Najat.

"[President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the protector of all oppressed, he takes good care of us," she added. "We hope we will return to our countries one day, with wonderful memories."

She also said her children have been going to school thanks to Turkey, one of them was about to graduate.

Zaliha Badr, who came as a refugee five years ago after a long and painful journey from northeastern Syrian city of Ras al-Ayn, said she saw Turkey for the first time and got used to everything very fast.

"We fled the war and came here without expecting any of this good treatment. Thank God, we are very happy here," she said.

"There is peace and security in the Turkish-controlled cities of Syria near the border. We look forward to the end of the war that has been ravaging our country for years. We will go back," Badr added.

Turkey hosts over 3.5 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country in the world.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.
Also known as the Amazigh or simply Berber, the Berber language refers to a branch of the Afroasiatic language group. The language consists of a number of related dialects that are spoken by a group of people known as the Berbers who are native to the northern part of Africa. Initially, the language was written in an old Libyco-Berber script, which is the present day script of Tifinagh. Based on the native location of the Berber people, it is not surprising that this language is mostly spoken in North Africa in countries such as Morocco, Libya, and Algeria. Other countries where it is popular include Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Egypt. Some of the major varieties of the language (which account for 90% of the speakers of the Berber languages) include Shilha, Kabyle, Central Atlas Tamazight, Riffian, Shawiya, and Tuareg. Each of these languages has at least two million speakers globally.

Status of the Berber Language

Most of the countries in the Maghreb region were under the colonization of the French. After gaining their independence, most countries sough to get rid of all the traces of the French in all aspects, including the language, and embrace Arab culture fully. To this effect, these countries also discouraged the use of the Berber language. In some countries, the discouragement was an outright ban while others simply suppressed its use. Naturally, the Berber people in Algeria and Morocco came out in opposition to this move.

Eventually, in 2011, Morocco caved to the pressure and amended the constitution to recognize Amazigh as an official language of the nation together with Arabic. In the constitution, the variety of the language that is recognized is Tamazight. The Parliament of Morocco first used the language on April 30, 2012.

Algeria adopted Berber as a national language earlier than Morocco in 2002. However, the recognition was not made official until February 7, 2016, after the Algerian parliament approved of the motion. Together with Arabic, Berber has official status in Algeria.

Some countries like Libya use the language widely but it has not been granted official status as is the case with Morocco and Algeria. In Niger and Mali, Tuareg languages are taught in class by a few schools.

Number of Speakers

The exact number of speakers for this language is unknown because most North African nations do not keep track of this information while conducting censuses. Therefore, any figures are mostly estimates and most likely not up to date. In Morocco, estimates place the number of speakers at about 7.5 million people. Of these speakers, most of them speak Shilha (8 million speakers), Central Atlas Tamazight (4-5 million), and Riffian (3 million).

In Algeria, data suggests that Kabyle is the most popular variety with about 2.5 million speakers. Shawiya and Shenwa varieties have about 2 million and 56,300 speakers respectively. Algeria also has about 25,000 speakers for the Tuareg variety.

In other countries, estimates indicate that the numbers are low. Perhaps the most notable of these other countries is Libya, which has about 162,000 speakers (about 3% of the population) of Berber. The two most popular varieties in Libya are Nafusi (184,000 speakers) and Tahaggart (17,000 speakers).
Pakistan is an independent state located in South Asia and ranked as the worlds 55th country with the largest factory output. The country's industrial output is approximately 4% of the country's GDP and has cotton textile production and apparels manufacturing as the largest industry in the country accounting for 66% of all export items and employs approximately 40% labor force in the industry. The use of cotton has increased by about 5.7% in the country over the last five years, and the economic growth has been averaging about 7%. As of 2010, the spinning capacity in Pakistan had 10 million spindles, and textile exports were valued at $15.5 billion, and some of the major industries in the country include fertilizer, cement, edible oil, steel, sugar, chemicals, tobacco, machinery, and food processing among others.

Mining Industry

Pakistan has fast deposits of numerous minerals and other natural resources, and some of the most important minerals in the country include limestone, chromite, gypsum, iron ore, gold, silver, rock salt, copper, precious stones, coal, gemstones, marble, graphite, fireclay, sulfur, and silica among others. The province of Punjab has the worlds largest deposits of salt, while the province of Balochistan is an area with rich deposits of oil and gas, although it has not been fully exploited or explored. The government of Pakistan has recently pursued policies to develop the region so that it can exploit the vast resources found in the region. Other deposits of minerals such as zinc are found particularly in the southern part of the country, while the western part has deposits of gold.

Oil and Gas Industry

Oil was first discovered in Pakistan in 1952 at Suo Sui in the province of Balochistan and in 1960 a the Toot oilfield in Islamabad in Punjab province with production increasing steadily. Similarly, natural gas was also discovered 1952 at the giant gas field Sui in the province of Balochistan. The country also is a major producer of bituminous coal, lignite, and sub-bituminous coal. Pakistan started coal mining way back during the colonial period, and it has been used in the country in different industries since independence in 1947. In 2005, a Canadian based company signed an agreement with the state-owned Oil and Gas Company of Pakistan to explore the Toot field. Natural gas in Pakistan is substantially large and the levels of the remaining reserves are thought to so huge, and they are expected to last for at least 20 years because of heavy use in the country.

Manufacturing Industry

Pakistan is one of the largest manufacturing countries in the world, and it is ranked as the 30th largest. Manufacturing industry accounts for approximately 20% of the total output in the country, and over the last five years, the manufacturing industry has experienced an average growth of 3.4% annually. Manufacturing in the country can be categorized into two; that is large scale manufacturing, which is valued at $28 billion and the small scale manufacturing sector, which is valued at $653 billion. Manufacturing industry in Pakistan has been growing steadily, and in the 2001-2003 financial years the growth in the industry was about 7.7%, and for the twelve months that ended in June 2004, the countrys large-scale manufacturing experienced growth of above 18% in comparison to other years. The garment and textile industry together with its related products is by far the single largest industry in Pakistan, and it is made up of 453 textile mills which are composed of 403 spinning units, 50 integrated units having 9.33 million spindles and 148,000 rotors.

Prospects and Challenges Facing Pakistan

The current economic outlook of Pakistan presents some opportunities however the country is also facing different challenges particularly in the long term where it could severely affect the prospects of growth, and therefore the economy would only experience some sporadic bursts of the growth as opposed to having a sustained upward trajectory. Some of the challenges facing the Pakistanis economy include increasing public debt, reducing exports and increasing imports, lack of political consensus, low taxation and low investment, low savings and high consumption-oriented society, and the shrinking share in world trade among other major challenges.
The US state of New Hampshire is located in the northeastern part of the country, within the New England region. With an area of only 24,214 square km and an estimated population of 1,342,795 people (2017), it is the 5th smallest US state by area and the 9th least populated. New Hampshire is subdivided into 10 counties, 221 towns, and 13 cities. Manchester is the largest city in the state by population, followed by Nashua, Concord, Derry, and Dover.

The Five Most Populated Cities in New Hampshire

1. Manchester

Manchester is the most populated city in New Hampshire, with a population of 109,565. It is northern New Englands biggest city and serves as one of the two county seats of Hillsborough County. Manchester is located along the banks of the Merrimack River and is included in the northern portion of the Northeast megalopolis, which has a population of more than 50 million and encompasses cities such as New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Baltimore. The city has been considered one of the most liveable and affordable cities in the US.

2. Nashua

With a population of 86,494, Nashua is the second biggest city in the state. It is located in the southern part of Hillsborough County, which is the states most populous county. Nashua was initially founded during the expansion of the region's textile industry and is currently regarded as one of the most liveable cities in the nation. Money magazine ranked Nashua as the "Best Place to Live in America in 1987 and 1998, making it the countrys only city to top this list on two occasions.

3. Concord

Concord has a population of 42,695, ranking as New Hampshires third largest city. Additionally, Concord serves as both the state capital and the county seat of Merrimack County. Several institutions of higher learning, such as the University of New Hampshire's School of Law and NHTI, Concord's Community College, are based in the city.

4. Derry

With a population of 33,109, Derry is the fourth most populated municipality in the state. Located in Rockingham County, Derry is classified as a town rather than a city. Derry is nicknamed "Spacetown" since it was the birthplace Alan Shepard, who was the first US astronaut to travel to space in 1961, and later walked on the Moon in 1971. The service industry forms the backbone of Derrys economy.

5. Dover

Located in Strafford County, Dover is the fifth biggest city in New Hampshire, with a population of 29,987. It is the most populated city in the Seacoast region of the state.

Governance of New Hampshires Municipalities

Both towns and cities in New Hampshire are subject to the same state laws. Prior to 1979, towns were often governed through a town meeting form of rule, while cities were governed by either a council-manager or council-mayor form of government. However, towns and cities can now create a new charter, and if approved by voters, change the form of government.
Kim Divan, 66 years old, of Woodward, OK passed away at his home on Saturday, June 12. He was born in Nebraska but spent his childhood and most of his adult life in Palmdale, CA until moving to Oklahoma in 2005. Kim liked to have a good time and enjoyed his motorcycles and fishing. He will b
Isaiah Gardenhire is accused of stabbing a 13-year-old girl to death and committing other crimes while out on bond. He is in the Isabella County jail on a litany of felony charges and was out on bond in a case in Mason County.
"ASU and Southwest Decision Resources held several initial meeting with the Forest Service and Cooperating Agencies in developing plans and protocols for the Working Group, ensuring that this independent process would be consistent with, and complementary to the Forest Service's broader objectives of developing an management plan for the Territory."

Michael Schoon, Assistant Professor

ASU School of Sustainability

Pull Quote
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) - Interstate 65 makes Tippecanoe County an ideal location for human trafficking. In 2017, there were nearly one hundred cases throughout the state. Purdue University is looking to decrease that number with an upcoming event this Valentine's Day.

Purdue students Sid Chowdhury and Kayla Rux are entering the competition.

"I know it goes on in Indiana and I know it's a serious topic but I don't know much more than that," said Rux. "So, I'm hoping from the event I learn much more."

"I'm probably going to read a bunch about it," added Chowdhury. "I'm going to look at stats and trends and look at solutions people have come up with."

However, it's not all about the students. Organizers want to include the whole community.

"What we really want to do at this point is just draw attention to the topic," said co-organizer Dr. Chad Laux.

"This isn't just happening in other countries, but it's happening in our own backyard," added other co-organizer Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar.

They hope more local community and business leaders will volunteer to mentor students during the competition.

"We've already spoken with the Lafayette Chief of Police, Chief Flannelly is going to be involved, he will be mentoring a team," said Spellar.

Chowdhury said he loves the concept of the event.

"Brainstorming for ideas and trying to come up with concepts and solutions has often led to really creative and not mainstream answers to questions" said Chowdhury.

He's looking at it as a networking opportunity but also a chance to actually help the problem.

"Because there will be people listening to this who can actually make change," said Chowdhury.

The event is officially called "Purdue's 150th Event on Mitigating Human Trafficking" and is sponsored by Purdue Polytechnic along with Discovery Park, Data Mine, and Purdue Peace Project.

It's free to the public and you can register online.

If you're interested in mentoring students or just attending the event on Feb 14, you can register here.
LAFAYETTE/WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI)  Another round of heavy snow is on it's way back to our viewing area. The street departments in Lafayette and West Lafayette are getting ready to clear the roads and keep everyone safe.

The West Lafayette Street and Sanitation Department is preparing for the heavy snow this weekend. When it does, the street department needs to be able to do their jobs effectively.

Street Commissioner Ben Anderson asks people to not park in the roadways. He said trying to avoid these vehicles slows down their efforts to clear out snow and ice. Also, a mound of snow is left behind once the car is moved which the department comes back to clear.

Anderson said their number one goal is public safety and he is asking for patience and understanding. It takes about seven hours after the last snow fall to clear and push everything off roads. So, unless you absolutely have to go somewhere, he advises people to stay home.

"We hear a lot of times when we're pushing people out of snowdrifts, "Well we just wanted to get out and see how bad it was." It's bad so if it's bad, there are travel advisories just adhere to them and stay home," said Anderson.

Anderson said he put 189 miles on his truck last weekend plowing the snow. He said that's a lot of miles when you never leave town.

The West lafayette street department needs to clear 236 lane miles of roadways and neighborhoods. Anderson said out of the 73 cul-de-sacs in the city, only one was missed last weekend.

"The big trucks are really hard to do in a cul-de-sac because they don't turn," Anderson said. "There are limited places to put the snow and you have to do those with pickup trucks and we have three pickup trucks.

Anderson said it takes the same about the same amount of time to clear three miles of roadway as it does to clear one cul-de-sac.

The department just received the green light from Board of Works to purchased a multihog tractor. It's compact and powerful and Anderson hopes this will improve snow removal in cul-de-sacs.

In Lafayette, city employees want people to be aware of the snow emergency plan. This means certain streets around the city needs to be clear.

People are asked not to park on those streets so plows and salt trucks can get through. If the Mayor declares a snow emergency, the message will be shared on social media and through the Nixel alert system.

Any vehicle parked on an emergency snow route will be towed 12 hours after the emergency is declared. But if possible, avoid parking on these street whenever it snows said Marketing and Communications Director Patty Payne.

"It's not always possible, we understand that," Payne said. "We never want to tow people, but there are times when it's unavoidable."

"
Wind is breaking this widespread dense fog up now. There may be some patchy fog that linger in some places to tomorrow morning, but it will not be as widespread as a bit earlier. With temperatures falling into the mid to upper 20s & some patchy light freezing drizzle & fine, grainy flurries around & wet pavement, watch for a few slick spots tonight & tomorrow morning.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Take the top 15 analogs or storms that are most similar to Saturday's, as well as the most-similar model set-ups & blend them. This is what you get for this winter storm for snowfall totals. No computers, just an average of the analogs. 6-8" still seems reasonable with +12" northwest of the area & big-time +18" totals in the Northeast.

This is courtesy of St. Louis University CIPS.

72-hour snowfall January 17, 7 a.m. to January 18, 7 p.m.:

72-hour snowfall January 18, 7 a.m. to January 19, 7 p.m.

The storm last weekend dropped 5-8" over much of the area with lesser amounts of 4-5" in the far north & a few isolated +8" amounts in a couple of bands over the area.

This storm should bring 6-8". Not much of a difference in accumulations. So, what's the difference?

Gusts with last storm reached 22-28 mph.

Gusts with this one will run 35-40 mph with a couple isolated 40-45 mph gusts possible with a big decrease in the temperature Saturday evening-night.

1. Light snow could move in Friday night near 11 p.m. to midnight into Newton, Jasper, Benton, White & Pulaski counties. However, it will really begin to increase & overspread the rest of the viewing area after 2 a.m.

2. Snow, heavy at times, will be with us through morning & afternoon before tapering in the early evening. So, it is speeding up a bit.

3. Heaviest snow appears to be centering on morning to early afternoon with rates of 0.5-1" per hour.

4. East to northeast winds will gust 35-40 mph with a few isolated gusts of 40-45 mph. It will be windy late Friday night & all of Saturday, but the strongest gusts look to occur late afternoon to early evening.

5. 6-8" of snow is likely with widespread, significant blowing & drifting snow. After 25-27 Saturday morning, highs will reach 28-32 before falling to 21-25 in the late afternoon-early evening.

6. Some sleet & freezing rain could mix in along & south of I-74 for a bit. If it lasts too long, it could cut snowfall totals there just a bit.

7. Interestingly, as our snow tapers, a secondary wave of heavy snow may develop on the backside of the strong storm. This could bring heavy snow to parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi & then right up through Kentucky & southern Indiana.

8. Why is this important to us? IF, this would happen to track a bit more to the northwest, then organized, accumulating snowfall in a second round could return Saturday night. That currently DOES NOT look to happen, but does bear watching. It would cause our totals to be increased.

9. Otherwise, blowing & drifting snow will continue through Saturday night & into Sunday morning with northeast to north wind gusts to 30 mph. Some lake effect flurries & snow showers are possible over parts of the area Saturday night to Sunday with some sun appearing at times Sunday. 0.5-1" of fluff or dryer lint-type snow is possible in some places.

10. It will be COLD Saturday night & Sunday with wind chills Sunday morning to -13.

Wind gusts:
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI)  Indiana State Police have submitted a preliminary investigative report to the Montgomery County Prosecutor's Office about the shooting death of Glenn Rightsell. It's the latest update into the Dec. 28 incident where Trooper Daniel Organ shot Rightsell on U.S. 231.

Organ told investigators Rightsell was carrying a firearm and grabbed at his weapon when Organ fired.

Sgt. Kim Riley said as of Friday, the Montgomery County Prosecutor's Office had report. The prosecutor's office will now see if any follow-up investigation is needed. The results of an autopsy are expected in the next several weeks, according to ISP.

State police said on Dec. 28, Organ tagged an abandoned black 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe shortly after 4 p.m.

The car was located on the side of northbound U.S. 231 near Montgomery County Road 550 North. That's near North Montgomery High School, about 15 miles south of Lafayette.

Afterwards, Organ continued his normal patrol.

State Police said that at around 6:35 p.m. that day, he drove past car again when he saw a white 2018 Dodge car had pulled up in front of the Tahoe. Rightsell was at the front of the vehicle with the hood open.

The Trooper Organ reportedly saw a handgun on the Rightsell's waist as the trooper pulled his vehicle behind the Tahoe and parked with his emergency lights and spotlight on to investigate why the car was there.

"As the trooper approached from the drivers side of the Tahoe, he identified himself as a law enforcement officer and gave verbal commands to Mr. Rightsell. Mr. Rightsell failed to comply with the directions and allegedly grabbed the gun on his waist, at which time the trooper drew his sidearm and fired upon Mr. Rightsell, striking him at least once," said State Police in a press release.

A video was recorded by Kenneth Steen, who lives across the street from where the incident took place.

After the shooting, Organ used his radio to indicate shots were fired and request help. Montgomery County Sheriff's Office deputies say they arrived to secure the scene and give first aid to Rightsell before he was taken to the hospital.

Rightsell later died at Franciscan Health Crawfordsville.
LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Great Harvest Bakery Co. is providing a helping hand to federal government workers in the Greater Lafayette area who have been affected by the shutdown.

"Not sure how many people in this community that impacts, but if there are people around her then we want to help out," said Jerry Lecy, owner of the shop.

Great Harvest Bread Company is giving away free loaves of bread to government workers with what they're calling a 'shutdown shelf.'

The bakery posted on their facebook page yesterday about starting the shelf. 24 hours after posting and it already has more than a million shares.

Lecy said they got the idea from another grocery store on the east coast. He said it's important to the business to give back to the community.

"Bottom line is that we are in this community and we're commited to this community and we want to help those who are in need," he said.

Lecy said you need to have your government worker I.D. to be able to take from the shutdown shelf. They will have the bread available as long as the shutdown continues, and will probably even have it up after the shutdown ends to help get those affected back on their feet.
If recreational marijuana is legalized in New York state, what happens to all the law enforcement K9s that are trained to detect it? Like the Oneida County Sheriff's Department's beloved 'Natalie.'

If recreational marijuana is legalized, law enforcement personnel can't just tell a drug detection dog not to sniff for pot anymore.

Now local police agencies who have K9s, to state police, are trying to decide to repurpose or retire those dogs trained to detect marijuana. As well as bracing for the expense of buying and training new dogs.

State police have been preparing for this. Of their 56 narcotics K9s, nine who graduated last fall, were not imprinted with marijuana; Februarys K9 academy won't be either.

The Oneida County sheriff says, in addition to an added financial burden, legalization could mean a temporary period of vulnerability.

"Our concern is the gap, said Oneida County Sheriff Rob Maciol. "We may have a gap of a few months before we actually have a dog in service, and that's the same predicament most other agencies are going to be in. What do we do in the meantime?

The sheriff's department's chocolate lab, Natalie, who didn't make the cut in service dog school, but distinguished herself as a drug detector might be going to jail  but not as in inmate.
HERKIMER, N.Y. -- State Senator James Seward is laying out his priorities in 2019, calling for a "real solutions" budget and an upstate summit.

Seward is incorporating three basic principles.

The first is balancing the budget without any new taxes or fees and providing real and significant relief to hardworking taxpayers.

The second is fixing what he calls the affordability crisis for the middle class.

The third is revitalizing the state's economy so residents can find good-paying jobs, and raise their families here.

We can get beyond the politics and get serious about addressing the needs of people of the state of New York. What can we do to make our state more affordable, create more economic opportunities for people and those types of things? So not only will people stay here, but it will attract people to upstate New York, said Seward.

He also says he will fight for broadband service for every region of the state.

This is his 17th term as a state senator.
On Tuesday, Governor Cuomo pitched a number of ideas to try and curb the use of tobacco and e-cigarette products. The proposals start with raising the minimum buying age for tobacco and e-cigarette products from 18 to 21. This is aimed at keeping tobacco out of high schools.

Pharmacies would be prohibited from selling tobacco and e-cigarette products to reduce the availability.

All retail stores that are not adult-only would be prohibited from displaying tobacco products and packaging, including e-cigarettes in an effort to reduce marketing practices aimed at youth.

The Health Department would be able to ban certain flavored e-cigarette liquids such as sweet tart, toffee, and bubble gum. Flavors that are more appealing to youth.

E-cigarette retailers would be required to be licensed so that law enforcement can keep a closer eye on sales to minors.

New York already has the highest cigarette tax in the country, and the government wants to keep that money, so the governor is proposing restrictions on tobacco discounts like buy one get one free promotions.

New York received an estimated 2 billion dollars in tobacco settlements and taxes just last year, and yet New York only spends around 40 million on tobacco prevention. If you do the math New York is pulling in one billion nine hundred and sixty million in tobacco money.

While these proposals all seem like an effort to keep youth from smoking, it doesnt explain the Governors push to legalize marijuana. A product typically smoked. Well have much more on that subject as we learn about regulations being proposed.
UTICA, NY - Governor Andrew Cuomo plans to eliminate cash bail for certain types of crime, but some local authorities believe it would create even more problems.

"One of the biggest charges that we have in this county and many other counties that have the Thruway running through it, or other major interstates, is driving with your license suspended," said Scott McNamara, Oneida County District Attorney. "I really don't think that's what they intend to do is to charge people with driving without a license, suspended without bail, pending a trial. But now we're going to get rid of cash bail so we have no way of keeping that person or connected to that court, so to say, or come back to the court."

The governor's plan would do away with cash bail for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies. Cuomo said cash bail discriminates against people who cannot afford it.

Herkimer County Sheriff Chris Farber said eliminating cash bail could have a positive impact on many jails.

"We have quite a few people in our jail pending trial or court action that are on bail," Farber said. "Sometimes it's not a lot of bail. I see it and other sheriffs see it, as dropping population in the jails."

Farber said there is a possibility of someone fleeing the area and not reporting for their court date.

"If they don't appear in court they're going to come to jail, because there will be a warrant issued for them," he said.

McNamara said Oneida County doesn't have have an overpopulation of inmates.

"It's disingenuous - the argument that the jails are full - it just isn't true. at least not in Oneida County," he said. "When I was the president of the DA's association I requested a compete survey of the whole state. Not every DA's office could expend the time and energy to do it. But the ones that did, we did not see this overwhelming population of inmates being held for substantial periods of time on low-level crimes with low bail. Everybody in Oneida County that was in jail belonged in jail."

McNamara said advocates for bail reform use information that doesn't consider what the person is being held on instead of the crime they were arrested for.

"Sometimes people get arrested on a misdemeanor, but they're actually not being held on the misdemeanor. They're being held on a parole violation," he said. "People show up in on bail on a low-level or on a non-violent crime, when in reality they're in jail because they violated the terms of their drug court conditions."

McNamara added that some people steal for a living. He said he believes ending cash bail would make the state open to more criminal activity.

"It's going to make New York State a target for certain criminal activity by out of state," he said. "When people say 'oh that won't happen'... there's a picture of a man right outside my hall that died getting a group of people who came to this area to rob a jewelry store, that's what they did. So it happens all the time."

McNamara referred to Joseph Corr, a New Hartford Police officer who was shot and killed on Feb. 27, 2006 as he chased a jewelry store robbery suspect into a wooded area off Route 5 in the town of Kirkland.

But McNamara said there are already other options in place that could be used instead of ending the cash bail system.

"There are other things a judge can do that they don't do," he said. "One of them is they make the person sign what's called a signature bond, which means no money exchanges hands, no insurance, or bail bondsman is involved, basically the person signs a note and says 'if I don't show up then I will owe the court $500 bail.'' So basically instead of putting the money upfront they would lose the money at the end, to me that would be very powerful."

The bail proposal still needs to be voted on in the state legislature.
ONEIDA COUNTY:

City of Utica - Based on current forecasts, the City of Utica is declaring a Snow Emergency which will go into effect at 6:00 pm Saturday, January 19, 2019 and will remain in effect until further notice.  All vehicles must be off the streets by 6:00 pm (Saturday) to facilitate safe passage for snow removal and emergency services. The Snow Emergency applies to all city streets and roadways with no exceptions.

 Overnight parking permits are not applicable during a Snow Emergency.

 The city urges no unnecessary travel on city streets as we anticipate dangerous road conditions. The city also urges caution as there may be damage to tree limbs and potential power outages due to the anticipated heavy snow.

 If anyone requires assistance they should call 911.

 Vehicles left on city roads after 11:00 pm tomorrow (Saturday) evening are subject to ticketing and towing at the owners expense.

 Effective 6pm Saturday, January 19, 2019 Centro will suspend all bus service. Centro will resume its regular service on Monday, January 21

City of Rome - The Rome Police Department along with the Department of Public Works is asking all residents of the city to please have their vehicles off the roadway no later than midnight on Sunday January 20, 2019. They ask for all vehicles to remain off the roadway until 6am on Monday January 21, 2019, to help make snow removal efforts easier. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.

Village of Yorkville - The Village of Yorkville has issued a snow emergency with the approaching winter storm. The Yorkville Police Department is requesting all vehicles to be off the village streets by 9:00pm Saturday and the emergency will remain in effect until Monday morning at 7:00am. If you have any questions I can be reached at 315-796-5186, thank you.

Village of Whitesboro - The Village of Whitesboro has declared a snow emergency from 7pm Saturday to 7am Monday. All vehicles are to be removed from village streets. No unnecessary travel.

City of Sherrill - Sherrill City Manager Brandon Lovett and Sherrill Police Chief Robert Drake have issued a Snow Emergency for the City of Sherrill beginning at 12:00pm (noon) on Saturday January 19, 2019 until Sunday January 20, 2019 at 11:59pm.  During this Snow Emergency parked cars must be removed from from the city's streets and City off street parking areas by 1 p.m. on January 19th until the snow emergency is lifted. This rule is in addition to the no overnight parking on city streets, November 1 - April 30, between the hours of 2:00am  7:00am.

 The Sherrill Community Activity Center (CAC) will close at 4:00pm on Saturday 1/19/19.

 Trash Collection Monday 1/21/19 for the Northside, Prospect and Commercial Collections will be performed on Tuesday 1/22/19.

Village of Oriskany- Snow Emergency starting at 8 p.m. Saturday and ends 7 a.m. Monday. All cars must be removed from the streets during these times.

Village of Oriskany Falls- Snow Emergency starting at 7 p.m. on Saturday and last until, Monday January 21 at 7 p.m. All cars must be removed from the streets.
ROME, N.Y. -- Congressman Anthony Brindisi has been appointed to two committees -- agriculture and veterans affairs. Friday he held a press conference to go into details about what his goals are to help local farmers and veterans.

The press conference was held at the Harry P. Smith American Legion Post in Rome, and the congressman was accompanied by some local veterans, and some local farmers.

Brindisi says he will work across the aisle to make sure local farmers and veterans have the support they need.

In the ag-committee he says he will work to help get a fair price for farm products, which will help farmers succeed financially, and help them make an honest living.

Brindisi says he will also work to help the 46,000 veterans in the 22nd Congressional District. He says the House Veterans' Affairs Committee oversees federal programs for veterans including health care, veterans' hospitals, education programs, job counseling, and transition from service to civilian life.

Brindisi says he's also in support of funding for a military cemetery in the area. Right now, the closest one is about two hours away in Saratoga.

"Thats awesome, with the amount of veterans that we have in this area, we unfortunately all where we're going to go and Ive been to Saratoga. I have friends that are there and it's definitely a plus to have one closer, said Michael Grogan, the post's chaplin.

"It has been such a long time to be honest with you. I don't even know how long it's been since we've had a voice directly from the 22nd Congressional District or even Oneida County Health Department. A direct voice in Washington on our committee," said Oneida County Farm Bureau member Ben Simons.

Brindisi says he is setting up two advisory councils made up of folks from the district  the Agriculture Advisory Council and a Veterans Affairs Advisory Council.

He says he and his team will meet the council to hear directly from those on the frontlines about the challenges they're facing and what they would like to see done.

To apply to be on Congressman Brindisi's Veterans Advisory Council, you are asked to email ny22vets@gmail.com or to be on the Agriculture Advisory Council, email ny22ag@gmail.com. You are asked to apply by Friday, February 1 expressing interest.
Imperial Oil Limited explores for, produces, and sells crude oil and natural gas in Canada. It operates through three segments: Upstream, Downstream, and Chemical. The Upstream segment explores for and produces crude oil, natural gas, synthetic oil, and bitumen. As of December 31, 2020, this segment had 138 million oil-equivalent barrels of proved undeveloped reserves. The Downstream segment is involved in the transportation and refining of crude oil, as well as blending, distribution, and marketing of refined products. It also transports crude oil to refineries by contracted pipelines, common carrier pipelines, and rail; maintains a distribution system to move petroleum products to market by pipeline, tanker, rail, and road transport; and owns and operates fuel terminals, natural gas liquids, and products pipelines in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario. In addition, this segment markets and supplies petroleum products to motoring public through approximately 2,400 Esso and Mobil-branded sites. Further, it sells petroleum products, including fuel, asphalt, and lubricants for industrial and transportation customers, independent marketers, and resellers, as well as other refiners serving the agriculture, residential heating, and commercial markets through branded fuel and lubricant resellers. The Chemical segment manufactures and markets various petrochemicals and polyethylene, such as benzene, aromatic, and aliphatic solvents; plasticizer intermediates; and polyethylene resins. The company was incorporation in 1880 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Imperial Oil Limited is a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corporation.

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. operates as a financial services company worldwide. It operates in four segments: Consumer & Community Banking (CCB), Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB), Commercial Banking (CB), and Asset & Wealth Management (AWM). The CCB segment offers deposit and investment products and services to consumers; lending, deposit, and cash management and payment solutions to small businesses; mortgage origination and servicing activities; residential mortgages and home equity loans; and credit card, auto loan, and leasing services. The CIB segment provides investment banking products and services, including corporate strategy and structure advisory, and equity and debt markets capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication; wholesale payments and cross-border financing; and cash securities and derivative instruments, risk management solutions, prime brokerage, and research. This segment also offers securities services, including custody, fund accounting and administration, and securities lending products for asset managers, insurance companies, and public and private investment funds. The CB segment provides financial solutions, including lending, investment banking, and asset management to small business, large and midsized corporations, local governments, and nonprofit clients; and commercial real estate banking services to investors, developers, and owners of multifamily, as well as to office, retail, industrial, and affordable housing properties. The AWM segment offers multi-asset investment management solutions across equities, fixed income, alternatives, and money market funds to institutional clients and retail investors; and retirement products and services, brokerage, custody, trusts and estates, loans, mortgages, deposits, and investment management products. The company also provides ATM, online and mobile, and telephone banking services. JPMorgan Chase & Co. was founded in 1799 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

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The following companies are subsidiares of American International Group: AGC Life Insurance Company, AIG APAC HOLDINGS PTE. LTD., AIG Advisors S.r.l., AIG Aerospace Insurance Services Inc., AIG Asia Pacific Insurance Pte. Ltd., AIG Asset Management (Europe) Limited, AIG Asset Management (U.S.) LLC, AIG Assurance Company, AIG Australia Limited, AIG Brazil Holding I LLC, AIG CIS Investments LLC, AIG Canada Holdings Inc., AIG Capital Corporation, AIG Capital Services Inc., AIG Claims Inc., AIG Egypt Insurance Company S.A.E., AIG Employee Services Inc., AIG Europe (Services) Limited, AIG Europe Holdings S.a.rl., AIG Europe S.A., AIG Federal Savings Bank, AIG Financial Products Corp., AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd., AIG Global Asset Management Holdings Corp., AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp., AIG Global Reinsurance Operations, AIG Holdings Europe Limited, AIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, AIG Insurance Company China Limited, AIG Insurance Company JSC, AIG Insurance Company of Canada, AIG Insurance Company-Puerto Rico, AIG Insurance Hong Kong Limited, AIG Insurance Limited, AIG Insurance Management Services Inc., AIG Insurance New Zealand Limited, AIG International Holdings GmbH, AIG Investments UK Limited, AIG Israel Insurance Company Ltd, AIG Japan Holdings Kabushiki Kaisha, AIG Kenya Insurance Company Limited, AIG Korea Inc., AIG Latin America I.I., AIG Latin America Investments S.L., AIG Lebanon SAL, AIG Life Holdings Inc., AIG Life Insurance Company (Switzerland) Ltd, AIG Life Limited, AIG Life South Africa Limited, AIG Life of Bermuda Ltd., AIG MEA Holdings Limited, AIG MEA Limited, AIG Malaysia Insurance Berhad, AIG Markets Inc., AIG Matched Funding Corp., AIG PC Global Services Inc., AIG Philippines Insurance Inc., AIG Property Casualty Company, AIG Property Casualty Inc., AIG Property Casualty International LLC, AIG Property Casualty U.S. Inc., AIG Re-Takaful (L) Berhad, AIG Resseguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., AIG Shared Services Corporation, AIG South Africa Limited, AIG Specialty Insurance Company, AIG Technologies Inc., AIG Travel Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., AIG Travel Assist Inc., AIG Travel Assist Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., AIG Travel EMEA Limited, AIG Travel Inc., AIG Uganda Limited, AIG Vietnam Insurance Company Limited, AIG WarrantyGuard Inc., AIG-FP Pinestead Holdings Corp., AIG-Metropolitana Cia. de Seguros y Reaseguros S.A., AIGGRE EOLA LLC, AIGGRE Europe Real Estate Fund I GP S.a r.l., AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I GP LLC, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I LP, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund II GP LLC, AIU Insurance Company, AM Holdings LLC, Ageas Protect, AlphaCat Managers Ltd., American General Corporation, American General Life Insurance Company, American Home Assurance Co. Ltd., American Home Assurance Company, American Home Assurance Company Escritorio de Representacao no Brasil Ltda., American International Group Inc., American International Group UK Limited, American International Overseas Association, American International Overseas Limited, American International Realty Corp., American International Reinsurance Company Ltd., American International Underwriters del Ecuador-Holding S.A., American Security Life Insurance Company Limited, Arthur J. Glatfelter Agency Inc., Avondhu Limited, Blackboard Customer Care Insurance Services LLC, Blackboard Insurance Company, Blackboard Services LLC, Blackboard Specialty Insurance Company, Blackboard U.S. Holdings Inc., Chartis Takaful Enaya B.S.C. (c), Commerce and Industry Insurance Company, Crop Risk Services Inc., Eaglestone Reinsurance Company, Ellipse, Fortitude Group Holdings LLC, Fortitude Life & Annuity Solutions Inc., Fortitude Reinsurance Company Ltd., Franklin Life Insurance Company, Fuji Fire and Marine, Glatfelter Insurance Group, Globe and Rutgers Insurance Group, Grand Isle SAC Limited, Granite State Insurance Company, Group Risk Services Limited, Group Risk Technologies Limited, Illinois National Insurance Co., Jefferson Eola Venture LLC, Johannesburg Insurance Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, Laya Healthcare Limited, Lexington Insurance Company, MG Reinsurance Limited, Mt. Mansfield Company Inc., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh Pa., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Vermont, New Hampshire Insurance Company, PT AIG Insurance Indonesia, Pine Street Real Estate Holdings Corp., Private Joint-Stock Company AIG Ukraine Insurance Company, Risk Specialists Companies Insurance Agency Inc., SA Affordable Housing LLC, SAFG Retirement Services Inc., Service Net Warranty LLC, Stratford Insurance Company, SunAmerica Affordable Housing Partners Inc., SunAmerica Asset Management LLC, Talbot Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Ltd., Thai CIT Holding Company Limited, The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York, The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, Travel Guard, Travel Guard Group Canada Inc./Groupe Garde Voyage du Canada Inc., Travel Guard Group Inc., Tudor Insurance Company, VALIC Financial Advisors Inc., Valic Retirement Services Company, Validus Holdings, Validus Holdings (UK) Ltd., Validus Holdings Ltd., Validus Reinsurance (Switzerland) Ltd, Validus Reinsurance Ltd., Validus Ventures Ltd., Volunteer Firemen's Insurance Services Inc., Western World Insurance Company, and Western World Insurance Group Inc..
Surge Energy Inc. explores for, develops, and produces oil and gas in western Canada. The company holds interest in the Greater Sawn Lake assets located in Northern Alberta; Valhalla/Wembley property located in northwestern Alberta; Sparky assets located between Provost and Wainwright in eastern Alberta and western Saskatchewan; and Shaunavon properties located to the southwest of Swift Current, Saskatchewan. It holds an average working interest of approximately 83% in approximately 109,941 net developed acres and approximately 92% in approximately 152,344 net undeveloped acres in Greater Sawn area; approximately 70% in approximately 16,032 net developed acres and approximately 74% in approximately 8,208 net undeveloped acres in Valhalla area; and approximately 76% in approximately 80,213 net developed acres and 96% in approximately 58,598 net undeveloped acres in Sparky area; and approximately 61% in approximately 88,178 net developed acres and approximately 39% in approximately 10,483 net undeveloped acres in Edmonton and other minor areas. As of December 31, 2020, it held interests in 316 net oil and 13 net gas wells in Greater Sawn area; 56 net oil and 4 net gas wells in Valhalla area; 466 net oil and 10 net gas wells in Sparky area; 176 net oil wells, as well as an average working interest of approximately 100% in approximately 23,409 net developed acres and 13,698 net undeveloped acres in the Shaunavon properties; and 28 net oil wells and 7 net gas wells in Edmonton and other minor areas. The company was formerly known as Zapata Energy Corporation and changed its name to Surge Energy Inc. in June 2010. Surge Energy Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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Ryder System, Inc. operates as a logistics and transportation company worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Fleet Management Solutions (FMS), Supply Chain Solutions (SCS), and Dedicated Transportation Solutions (DTS). The FMS segment offers full service leasing and leasing with flexible maintenance options, as well as maintenance services, supplies, and related equipment for operation of the vehicles; commercial vehicle rental services; and contract or transactional maintenance services of trucks, tractors, and trailers, as well as fleet support services. This segment also provides access to diesel fuel; offers fuel planning and tax reporting, cards, and monitoring services, and centralized billing; and sells used vehicles through its 59 retail sales centers and Usedtrucks.Ryder.com website. The DTS segment offers equipment, maintenance, drivers, administrative, and additional services, as well as routing and scheduling, fleet sizing, safety, regulatory compliance, risk management, technology and communication systems support, and other technical support services. The SCS segment comprises distribution management services, such as designing and managing customer's distribution network and facilities; providing e-commerce services; coordinating warehousing and transportation for inbound and outbound material flows; handling import and export for international shipments; coordinating just-in-time replenishment of component parts to manufacturing and final assembly; and offering shipments to customer distribution centers or end customer delivery points, as well as other value added services, such as light assembly of components. This segment also offers transportation management services, such as shipment optimization, load scheduling, and delivery confirmation services through technological and web-based solutions; and knowledge-based professional services. Ryder System, Inc. was founded in 1933 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida.

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The following companies are subsidiares of The Procter & Gamble: "Procter & Gamble Services" LLC, "Procter & Gamble" LLC, Agile Pursuits, Agile Pursuits Franchising, Arbora, Arbora & Ausonia, Arborinvest, Billie, Braun (Shanghai) Co., Braun GmbH, Braun-Gillette Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, Celtic Insurance Company, Compania Procter & Gamble Mexico, Compania Quimica S.A., Corporativo Procter & Gamble, Cosmetic Products Pty. Ltd., Detergent Products B.V., Detergent Products SARL, Detergenti S.A., Eurocos Cosmetic GmbH, FPG Oleochemicals Sdn. Bhd., Fameccanica Data S.p.A., Fameccanica Industria e Comercio Do Brasil LTDA., Fameccanica Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Fater S.p.A., Fountain Square Music Publishing Co., Gillette (China) Ltd., Gillette (Shanghai) Ltd., Gillette Aesop Ltd., Gillette Australia Pty. Ltd., Gillette Canada Holdings, Gillette Commercial Operations North America, Gillette Diversified Operations Pvt. Ltd., Gillette Egypt S.A.E., Gillette Group UK Ltd, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland GmbH & Co. oHG, Gillette Holding Company LLC, Gillette Holding GmbH, Gillette India Limited, Gillette Industries Ltd., Gillette International B.V., Gillette Latin America Holding B.V., Gillette Management LLC, Gillette Nova Scotia Company, Gillette Pakistan Limited, Gillette Poland International Sp. z.o.o., Gillette Poland S.A., Gillette U.K. Limited, Gillette del Uruguay, Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc., Hyginett KFT, Industries Marocaines Modernes SA, LLC "Procter & Gamble Novomoskovsk", LLL "Procter & Gamble Distributorskaya Compania", Laboratorios Vicks, Liberty Street Music Publishing Company, Limited Liability Company 'Procter & Gamble Trading Ukraine', Limited Liability Company with foreign investments Procter & and Gamble Ukraine, MDVIP, MERCK KGAA NPV, Marcvenca Inversiones, Modern Industries Company - Dammam, Modern Products Company - Jeddah, New Chapter, New Chapter Canada Inc., Olay LLC, Oral-B Laboratories, P&G Distribution Morocco SAS, P&G Hair Care Holding, P&G Industrial Peru S.R.L., P&G Innovation Godo Kaisha, P&G Israel M.D.O. Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. China, Procter & Gamble (L&CP) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble (Shanghai) International Trade Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Acquisition GmbH, Procter & Gamble Administration GmbH, Procter & Gamble Algeria EURL, Procter & Gamble Amazon Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Amiens S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Argentina SRL, Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Australia Proprietary Limited, Procter & Gamble Azerbaijan Services LLC, Procter & Gamble Bangladesh Private Ltd., Procter & Gamble Blois S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Brazil Holdings B.V., Procter & Gamble Bulgaria EOOD, Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company, Procter & Gamble Canada Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Chile , Procter & Gamble Chile Limitada, Procter & Gamble Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Commercial LLC, Procter & Gamble Commercial de Cuba S.A., Procter & Gamble Czech Republic s.r.o., Procter & Gamble DS Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Danmark ApS, Procter & Gamble Detergent (Beijing) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Deuttschland GmbH, Procter & Gamble Distributing (Philippines) Inc., Procter & Gamble Distributing New Zealand Limited, Procter & Gamble Distribution Company (Europe) BVBA, Procter & Gamble Distribution S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Eastern Europe, Procter & Gamble Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Procter & Gamble Egypt, Procter & Gamble Egypt Distribution, Procter & Gamble Egypt Holding, Procter & Gamble Egypt Supplies, Procter & Gamble Energy Company LLC, Procter & Gamble Espana, Procter & Gamble Europe SA, Procter & Gamble Export Operations SARL, Procter & Gamble Exportadora e Importadora Ltda., Procter & Gamble Exports, Procter & Gamble Fabricacao e Comercio Ltda., Procter & Gamble Far East, Procter & Gamble Finance (U.K.) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Holding Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Management S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Financial Investments LLP, Procter & Gamble Financial Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Financial Services S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Finland OY, Procter & Gamble France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH, Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH & Co. Operations oHG, Procter & Gamble GmbH, Procter & Gamble Grundstucks-und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Investment Company (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment GmbH, Procter & Gamble Italia, Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea, Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble Lanka Private Ltd. Sri Lanka, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc..
PetDesk, a San Diego-based pet care communication company, raised $12m in funding.

Silicon Valley-based firm PeakSpan Capital made the investment.

The company plans to use this funding to expand from the veterinary industry into the pet grooming industry in North America. The players in the pet grooming industry usually focus on products like shampoos, brushes, clippers and grooming stations etc.

Led by Taylor Cavanah, CEO, PetDesk provides an online pet health management platform for veterinary practices and a free app for pet parents to communicate information about appointments, reminders, confirmations, health records, and other health concerns.

Over 1,500 veterinary practices currently use the companys dashboard and mobile app to manage reminders and confirmations, online scheduling, targeted messages, online reviews, and loyalty programs.

FinSMEs

18/01/2019
The following companies are subsidiares of Mohawk Industries: A&S Energie NV, A&U Energie NV, Aladdin Manufacturing Corporation, Aladdin Manufacturing Of New York LLC, Aladdin Manufacturing of Alabama LLC, Alsace Logistique S.A., Avelgem Green Power CVBA, Avon Pacific Holdings Ltd, B&M NV, BGE Mexico S. de R. L. de C.V., Berghoef GmbH, Berghoef-Hout B.V., Bienes Raices y Materiales del Centro S. de R.L. de C.V., C.F. Marazzi S.A., Canterbury Spinners Ltd, Carpet Foundation Ltd, Cevotrans BV, Ceramus Bahia S/A  Produtos Ceramicos, DT Mex Holdings LLC, DTM/CM Holdings LLC, Dal Italia LLC, Dal-Elit LLC, Dal-Tile Chile Comercial Limitada, Dal-Tile Colombia S.A.S., Dal-Tile Distribution Inc., Dal-Tile Group Inc., Dal-Tile I LLC, Dal-Tile Industrias S. de R.L. de C.V., Dal-Tile International Inc., Dal-Tile Mexico Comercial S. de R.L. de C.V., Dal-Tile Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Dal-Tile Operaciones Mexico S. De R.L. De C.V., Dal-Tile Peru SRL, Dal-Tile Puerto Rico Inc., Dal-Tile Services Inc., Dal-Tile Shared Services Inc., Dal-Tile Tennessee LLC, Dal-Tile of Canada ULC, Daltile, Daltile, Dekaply NV, Durkan, Dynea NV, Eliane Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Eliane S/A - Revestimentos Ceramicos, Emilceramica India Pvt Ltd., Emilceramica S.r.l, Emilgermany GmbH, Emilgroup Asia Ltd, Explorer S.r.l., F.I.L.S. Investments Unlimited Company, Feltex Carpets Ltd, Feltex Carpets Pty Ltd, Feltex New Zealand Ltd, Fibremakers Australia Pty Ltd, Flooring Foundation Ltd, Flooring Industries Limited S.a r.l., Flooring XL B.V., Floorscape Limited, Godfrey Hirst & Co Pty Ltd, Godfrey Hirst (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Godfrey Hirst Australia Pty Ltd, Godfrey Hirst Group, Godfrey Hirst NZ Ltd, Hytherm (Ireland) Limited, IVC BVBA, IVC Far-East Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., IVC France S.a r.l., IVC GROUP LIMITED, IVC Green Power NV, IVC Group, IVC Group GmbH, IVC Luxembourg S.a r.l., IVC Rus OOO, IVC US Inc., International Flooring Systems S.a r.l., International Vinyl Company - Vostok OOO, KAI Group, KAI Keramica Ltd, KAI Mining EOOD, KERAMA CENTER OOO, Kerama Baltics OOO, Kerama Export OOO, Kerama Marazzi OOO, Kerampromservis (LLC), Khan Asparuh - Transport EOOD, Khan Asparuh AD, Khan Omurtag AD, Koninklijke Peitsman B.V., Kraj Kerama OOO, MG China Trading Ltd., MI Finance SRL, MUD (Holding) Brazil Ltda., Management Co EAD, Marazzi Acquisition S.r.l., Marazzi Deutschland G.m.b.H., Marazzi France Trading S.A.S., Marazzi Group, Marazzi Group F.Z.E., Marazzi Group S.r.l., Marazzi Group Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Marazzi Iberia S.L.U., Marazzi Japan Co. Ltd., Marazzi Middle East FZ LLC, Marazzi Schweiz S.A.G.L., Marazzi UK Ltd., Mohawk Assurance Services Inc., Mohawk Australia Pty Ltd, Mohawk Canada Corporation, Mohawk Capital Finance S.A., Mohawk Capital Luxembourg SA, Mohawk Carpet Distribution Inc., Mohawk Carpet Foundation Inc., Mohawk Carpet LLC, Mohawk Carpet Transportation Of Georgia LLC, Mohawk Commercial Inc., Mohawk ESV Inc., Mohawk Europe BVBA, Mohawk Factoring II Inc., Mohawk Factoring LLC, Mohawk Finance S.a r.l., Mohawk Foreign Acquisitions S.a r.l., Mohawk Foreign Funding S.a.r.l, Mohawk Foreign Holdings S.a r.l., Mohawk Foreign Investments Inc., Mohawk Global Investments S.a r.l., Mohawk Holdings International B.V., Mohawk Industries Inc., Mohawk International (Europe) S.a r.l., Mohawk International (Hong Kong) Limited, Mohawk International Capital N.V., Mohawk International Financing S.a.r.l, Mohawk International Holdings (DE) LLC, Mohawk International Holdings S.a r.l., Mohawk International Luxembourg S.a r.l., Mohawk International Netherlands B.V., Mohawk International Services BVBA, Mohawk KAI Luxembourg Holding S.a r.l., Mohawk KAI Luxembourg S.a r.l., Mohawk Luxembourg Capital S.A., Mohawk Luxembourg Financing S.a r.l., Mohawk Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Mohawk Luxembourg Investments S.a r.l., Mohawk Luxembourg Pacific S.a r.l., Mohawk Marazzi International BV, Mohawk Marazzi Russia BV, Mohawk New Zealand Limited, Mohawk Operaciones Mexicali S. de R.L. de C.V., Mohawk Operations Luxembourg S.a r.l., Mohawk Pacific Investments S.a r.l., Mohawk Resources LLC, Mohawk Servicing LLC, Mohawk Singapore Private Limited, Mohawk Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Mohawk Unilin Luxembourg S.a r.l., Mohawk United Finance B.V., Mohawk United International B.V., Mohawk Vinyl Financing S.a r.l., Molber Beheer B.V., Monarch Ceramic Tile Inc., P.F. Onroerend Goed B.V., PF Beheer B.V., Pergo, Pergo (Europe) AB, Pergo Holding BV, Pergo India Pvt Ltd, Polcolorit S.A., Premium Floors Australia Pty Limited, RR Apex LLC, Rata International Pty Ltd, Recubrimientos Interceramica S. de R.L. de C.V., Riverside Textiles Pty Ltd, S.C. KAI Ceramics SRL, Sibir Kerama OOO, SimpleSolutions USA LLC, Soft Step (Australia) Pty Ltd, Spano Group, Spano Invest BVBA, Spano NV, Stroyagromekhzapchast ChaO, Stroytrans OAO Orelstroy, Summit Wool Spinners Ltd, The Flooring Federation Ltd, Tiles Co OOD, Unilin (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Unilin ApS, Unilin Arauco Pisos Ltda., Unilin BVBA, Unilin Beheer BV, Unilin Distribution Ltd., Unilin Distribution Ukraine LLC, Unilin Finland OY, Unilin Flooring India Private Limited, Unilin Flooring SAS, Unilin GmbH, Unilin Holding BVBA, Unilin Insulation BV, Unilin Insulation SAS, Unilin Insulation Sury SAS, Unilin Italia S.R.L., Unilin North America LLC, Unilin Norway AS, Unilin OOO, Unilin Panels SAS, Unilin Poland Sp.Z.o.o., Unilin SAS, Unilin Spain SL, Unilin Swiss GmbH, Unilin s.r.o., World International Inc., Xtratherm, Xtratherm Limited, Xtratherm S.A., and Xtratherm UK Limited.
The following companies are subsidiares of TE Connectivity: 999 Arques Corp., ABB ENTRELEC terminal block business, ACC Telecommunications, ADC Chile Limitada, ADC Communications (SEA) Pte. Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Holding Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Ltd., ADC Communications Hong Kong Limited, ADC Telecommunications Equipment (Shanghai) Co., AMP Amermex, AMP Products Pacific Limited, AMP Taiwan B.V., AMP Trading B.V., AMP de Venezuela, Acalon Holdings Limited, Advanced Fiber Products LLC, Advanced Fiber Products Limited, Advanced Tube Technologies, AdvancedCath, AdvancedCath Technologies, Alpha Technics, American Sensor Technologies, Betatherm (R&D) Limited, Brantner Holding Company, Brantner and Associates, Butterfly Management SAS, C.S. Tyco Decisive Inc., C.S. Tyco Dependable Inc., C.S. Tyco Durable Inc., C.S. Tyco Reliance Inc., C.S. Tyco Resolute Inc., C.S. Tyco Responder Inc., CII Guardian International Limited, Cablotec GmbH, Carrier Kheops Bac SAS, Catheter and Disposable Technology, Celis Eletrocomponentes Ltda., Cima de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Clarebury Pty. Ltd., Codenoll Technology Corporation, Communication Expert International Investments Limited, Compagnie Deutsch Distribution SAS, Compagnie Deutsch SAS, Comtec Systeme GmbH, Connecteurs Electriques Deutsch SAS, Corcom, Corcom West Indies Limited, Cotsworks LLC, Creganna, Creganna Captial Holding Ireland Unlimited Company, Creganna Finance (US) LLC, Creganna Finance Ireland Limited, Creganna Luxembourg SARL, Creganna Medical Devices, Creganna Medical Pte. Limited, Creganna Medical Technology Unlimited, Creganna Medical s.r.l., Creganna Regulatory, Creganna Solutions Limited, Creganna Solutions Unlimited Company, Creganna Tactx Singapore Limited, Creganna Unlimited Company, Cregstar Bidco Limited, Critchley Group Limited, Crompton Instruments (South-East Asia) Pte. Ltd., Deutsch, Deutsch Connectors Hong Kong Limited, Deutsch Connectors Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Connectors Trading (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Finance SAS, Deutsch GB Limited, Deutsch Group SAS, Deutsch India Power Connectors (Pvt) Ltd, Deutsch Israel Ltd., Deutsch SAS, Deutsch Servicios S. de R.L. De C.V., Deutsch Subco Limited, Deutsch UK, F.A.I. Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, First Sensor, Grangehurst Enterprises Pty. Ltd., Hirschmann Car Communication, Hong Kong Sensors Technologies Limited, Howard A. Schaevitz Technologies, Intercontec Connector System (Shanghai) Co., Intercontec Produkt GmbH, Intercontect Pfeiffer Industrie-Steckverbindungen GmbH, Jaquet North America, Jaquet Technology Group AG, Kemex Holding Company, Kenabell Holding Limited, LADD Distribution LLC, LADD Distribution Limited, LSA, MEAS Asia Limited, MEAS Europe SAS, MEAS France SAS, MEAS Ireland (Betatherm) Limited, MEAS Norway AS, MEAS Shenzhen Limited, MEAS Switzerland S.a r.l., MEAS US Holding, MP&E, Measurement Specialties, Measurement Specialties (Chengdu) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd. Production Branch, Measurement Specialties Foreign Holdings LLC, Measurement Technology (Chengdu) Ltd., Medical Engineering & Design, MicroGroup, Morlynn Ceramics Pty. Ltd., Nikkiso-Therm Co., PT KRONE Indonesia, PT. Tyco Electronics Indonesia, Pfeiffer GmbH & Co KG, Pfeiffer Verwaltungs GmbH, Polamco, Polamco Limited, Potter & Brumfield de Mexico, Precision Interconnect LLC, Precision Subsea AS, Precision Wire Components, Precision Wire Holding Company, Produxx, RAYCHEM-RPG Private Limited, Raychem (HK) Limited, Raychem (Shanghai) Trading Ltd, Raychem China Limited, Raychem Dominicana S.A., Raychem Industries BVBA, Raychem International LLC, Raychem International Manufacturing LLC, Raychem Juarez, Raychem Limited, Raychem Ltd., Raychem Pacific Corporation, Raychem Saudi Arabia Limited, Raychem Shanghai Cable Accessories Ltd, Raychem Technologies Limited, Rochester Wire and Cable LLC, SEACON Advanced Products LLC, Seacon (Europe) Limited, Seacon Global Production, Seacon Produtos e Servicos Opticos e Eletricos Ltda., Sensitive Object, Servo Interconnect Limited, Shanghai CII Electronics Co., Shenzhen Century Man Communication Equipment Co., Sibas Electronics (Xiamen) Co., TCN Holding (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., TE Connectivity (Barbados) SRL, TE Connectivity (Denmark) ApS, TE Connectivity (HKZ) Holding Limited, TE Connectivity (Kunshan) Company Limited, TE Connectivity (Netherlands) Holding S.a r.l. - Irish Branch, TE Connectivity (Schweiz) Management AG, TE Connectivity (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Argentina S.R.L., TE Connectivity Australia Pty Ltd, TE Connectivity Colombia S.A.S., TE Connectivity Connectors (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Distribution (Thailand) Limited, TE Connectivity EMEA Holding GmbH, TE Connectivity Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity HK Limited, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen E-Finance branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. (Ireland Branch), TE Connectivity Holding International S.A., TE Connectivity Inc., TE Connectivity India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A., TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Ireland Limited, TE Connectivity LATAM Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM I S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Limited, TE Connectivity MOG Europe S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Inc., TE Connectivity MOG Sales GmbH, TE Connectivity Manufacturing (Thailand) Company Limited, TE Connectivity Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., TE Connectivity Morocco SARL, TE Connectivity Nederland B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Poland II) Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Turkey) B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Phoenix Optix Inc., TE Connectivity Seacon Phoenix Inc., TE Connectivity Sensors Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity Services India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Solutions GmbH, TE Connectivity South Africa Proprietary Limited, TE Connectivity Spain, TE Connectivity SubCom S.L.U., TE Connectivity SubCom Spain Holding S.L.U., TE Connectivity Technology Solutions Limited, TE Connectivity Tunisia Sarl, TE Connectivity ULC, TE Connectivity US Group Holding Inc., TE Connectivity Vietnam Holding Company Limited, TYCO Electronics Polska Sp.z.o.o., TYCO SUBMARINE SYSTEMS INC., TacPro, Tactx Medical, Taicang Speed & Spin Sensors Co., Taliq Taiwan Limited, Tappat Engineering Pty Ltd, TechDevice Costa Rica Limitada, TechDevice Holdings, TechDevice LLC, The Whitaker LLC, Transoceanic Cable Ship Company LLC, TyCom Holdings II SA, TyCom Networks (Peru) S.A., Tyco Electronics (AMP Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Dongguan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Holding Limited, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics (Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Kunshan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Tyco Electronics (Qingdao) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Schweiz) Holding II GmbH, Tyco Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Tyco Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Suzhou) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Zhuhai) Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Guangdong Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Italia Products S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Italia S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Korea Co., Tyco Electronics AMP Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Qingdao Ltd., Tyco Electronics AMP Shanghai Ltd., Tyco Electronics Austria GmbH, Tyco Electronics Belgium EC BVBA, Tyco Electronics Brasil Ltda., Tyco Electronics Canada ULC, Tyco Electronics China (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Componentes Electromecanicos Lda., Tyco Electronics Corby Limited, Tyco Electronics Corporation, Tyco Electronics Czech s.r.o., Tyco Electronics Del Peru S.A.C., Tyco Electronics EC Trutnov s.r.o., Tyco Electronics EC Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Tyco Electronics Eta Limited, Tyco Electronics Finance Alpha GmbH, Tyco Electronics Finance S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Finland Oy, Tyco Electronics France SAS, Tyco Electronics Germany Holdings GmbH, Tyco Electronics Group S.A., Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (French Branch), Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (Ireland Branch), Tyco Electronics H.K. Limited, Tyco Electronics Hellas MEPE, Tyco Electronics Holding Corp., Tyco Electronics Holding France, Tyco Electronics Holding S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited, Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited Taiwan Branch, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 1 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 2 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 3 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hungary Termelo Kft, Tyco Electronics Idento, Tyco Electronics India (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Industrial Y Comercial Chile Limitada, Tyco Electronics Integrated Cable Systems LLC, Tyco Electronics Ireland Limited, Tyco Electronics Israel Ltd., Tyco Electronics Italia Holding S.r.l., Tyco Electronics Japan G.K., Tyco Electronics Lambda, Tyco Electronics Latin America Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics Manufacturing Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Mexico, Tyco Electronics Middle East FZE, Tyco Electronics Motors Ltd, Tyco Electronics NZ Limited, Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Germany Holding) S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar China) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands Holding B.V., Tyco Electronics Norge AS, Tyco Electronics Philippines, Tyco Electronics Precision Engineering Ltd., Tyco Electronics Printed Circuit Group LP, Tyco Electronics RIMC Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics RUS OOO, Tyco Electronics Raychem GmbH, Tyco Electronics Raychem Korea Limited, Tyco Electronics SIMEL SAS, Tyco Electronics Saudi Arabia Limited, Tyco Electronics Services GmbH, Tyco Electronics Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications LLC, Tyco Electronics Svenska AB, Tyco Electronics Svenska Holdings AB, Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Co., Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Ltd., Tyco Electronics Tecnologias S. de R.L. de C.V., Tyco Electronics UK Holdings Ltd, Tyco Electronics UK Ltd., Tyco Electronics UK Ltd. (Kenya Branch), Tyco Electronics Ukraine Limited, Tyco Electronics Uruguay S.A., Tyco Electronics Verwaltungs GmbH, Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems B.V., Tyco Electronics de Venezuela, Tyco Elektronik AMP Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Tyco Global Networks Ltd., Tyco Iberia, Tyco International Services GmbH, Tyco Networks (Argentina) S.R.L., Tyco Networks (Italy) Srl, Tyco Networks (Netherlands) B.V., Tyco Networks Iberica, Tyco Submarine Systems, Tyco Submarine Systems C.A., Tyco Submarine Systems de Argentina S.A., Tyco Telecommunications Ltd., Wema Americas LLC, Wema Automotive System Private Limited, Wema Environmental Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies Ltd., Wema System AG, Wema System AS, Wema System Hong Kong Limited, Wema System Production and Distribution HK Limited, Xiamen Delixing Electric Equipment Businesss, and motec Montage GmbH.
OpenGate Capital, a global private equity firm, announced that Mr. Paul Bridwell joined the firm on November 5th, 2018, as Managing Director.

Based in Los Angeles, Bridwell He is leading operations and portfolio management for the firms North American-based investments.

He joins the OpenGate senior leadership team as a member of the firms Investment and Portfolio Committees. Bridwell immediately assumes the senior leadership role overseeing operations for the portfolio companies in North America acquired through OpenGates first institutional fund including Power Partners, Energi Fenestration Solutions, Hufcor and Mersive Technologies.

Prior to joining OpenGate, Bridwell was Partner and Managing Director  Head of Operations at a major private equity investment firm in New York City, where he established the firms first operations-focused group and developed a comprehensive operations approach compatible with that firms investment strategy.

He was also previously with Platinum Equity for 12 years, where he held several key roles first as an interim CEO for platform investments, then as Chief Restructuring Officer for the San Diego Tribune and American Commercial Lines. In his final three years at Platinum, Bridwell served as Chief of Staff, where he was integral in raising $3.75 billion for that firms third institutional fund.

Led by Andrew Nikou, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, OpenGate Capital is a global private equity firm specializing in the acquisition and operation of businesses to create new value through operational improvements, innovation and growth. Established in 2005, the firm is headquartered in Los Angeles, California with a European office in Paris, France.

To date, OpenGate Capital, through its legacy and fund investments, has executed more than 30 acquisitions including corporate carve-outs, management buy-outs, special situations and transactions with private sellers across North America and Europe.

FinSMEs

18/01/2019
Wall Street analysts have given Invesco Financial Preferred ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but Invesco Financial Preferred ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Citizens Financial Group, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Citizens Bank, National Association that provides retail and commercial banking products and services in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Consumer Banking and Commercial Banking. The Consumer Banking segment offers traditional banking products and services, including checking and savings accounts, home and education loans, credit cards, business loans, mortgage and home equity lending, and unsecured product finance and personal loans, as well as wealth management and investment services to retail customers and small businesses. This segment also provides indirect auto finance for new and used vehicles through auto dealerships. The Commercial Banking segment offers various financial products and solutions, such as loans and leasing, trade finance, deposit and treasury management, cash management, and foreign exchange and interest rate risk management solutions; and loan syndications, corporate finance, merger and acquisition, and debt and equity capital markets capabilities. It serves government banking, not-for-profit, healthcare, technology, professionals, oil and gas, asset finance, franchise finance, asset-based lending, commercial real estate, private equity, and sponsor finance industries. Citizens Financial Group, Inc. operates approximately 2,700 ATMs and 1,000 branches in 11 states in the New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest regions, as well as through online, telephone, and mobile banking services; and maintains approximately 130 retail and commercial non-branch offices. The company was formerly known as RBS Citizens Financial Group, Inc. and changed its name to Citizens Financial Group, Inc. in April 2014. Citizens Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1828 and is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island.

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Guyana Goldfields Inc. provides exploration and production of gold. It engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, production, and operation of gold mineral properties. The company also owns and operates gold drilling rights. The company was formerly known as Chiboug Copper Company Limited and changed its name to Guyana Goldfields Inc. in January 1995. Guyana Goldfields Inc. was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. As of August 25, 2020, Guyana Goldfields Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Zijin Mining Group Company Limited.

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First Data Corporation provides commerce enabled technology and solutions for merchants, financial institutions, and card issuers in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates through three segments: Global Business Solutions, Global Financial Solutions, and Network & Security Solutions. The Global Business Solutions segment provides solutions to merchants, such as retail point of sale merchant acquiring, e-commerce, and mobile payment services, as well as cloud based point of sale operating system that include a marketplace for proprietary and third party applications. The Global Finance Solutions segment provides technology solutions for bank and non-bank issuers, such as credit, retail private label, commercial card, and loan processing, as well as licensed financial software systems; suite of account services that include card personalization and embossing, customer communications, and professional services; and call center solutions and back office processing. The Network & Security Solutions segment offers EFT network, stored value network, and security and fraud solutions, as well as other value added solutions to its clients in GBS and GFS segments, smaller financial institutions, and other enterprise clients. First Data Corporation was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Royal Bank of Canada operates as a diversified financial service company worldwide. The company's Personal & Commercial Banking segment offers checking and savings accounts, home equity financing, personal lending, private banking, indirect lending, mutual funds and self-directed brokerage accounts, guaranteed investment certificates, credit cards, and payment products and solutions; and lending, leasing, deposit, investment, foreign exchange, cash management, auto dealer financing, trade products, and services to small and medium-sized commercial businesses. This segment offers financial products and services through branches, automated teller machines, and mobile sales network. Its Wealth Management segment provides a suite of advice-based solutions and strategies to high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals, and institutional clients. The company's Insurance segment offers life, health, home, auto, travel, wealth, annuities, and reinsurance advice and solutions; and creditor and business insurance services to individual, business, and group clients through its field sales force, advice centers, and online, as well as through independent insurance advisors and affinity relationships. Its Investor & Treasury Services segment provides asset, cash management, transaction banking, and treasury services to institutional clients; correspondent banking and trade finance services for financial institutions; and short-term funding and liquidity management services. The company's Capital Markets segment offers corporate and investment banking, as well as equity and debt origination, distribution, sale, and trading services for corporations, institutional investors, asset managers, governments, and central banks. Royal Bank of Canada has a strategic partnership with Royal College Of Physicians & Surgeons Of Canada to support the needs of Canada's medical specialists. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

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Emergent BioSolutions Inc., a life sciences company, focuses on the provision of preparedness and response products and solutions for civilian and military populations that address accidental, deliberate, and naturally occurring public health threats (PHTs). The company's products address PHTs, which include chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives; emerging infectious diseases; travel health; and emerging health crises and acute/emergency care. It offers ACAM2000, a smallpox vaccine; BioThrax, an anthrax vaccine; Vaxchora, a cholera vaccine; and Vivotif, a typhoid vaccine. The company also provides NARCAN for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose; and Reactive Skin Decontamination Lotion Kit, a medical device to remove or neutralize chemical warfare agents from the skin. In addition, it offers raxibacumab for the treatment and prophylaxis of inhalational anthrax; Anthrasil to treat inhalational anthrax; Botulism Antitoxin Heptavalent for treating botulinum disease; vaccinia immune globulin intravenous that addresses complications from smallpox vaccination; and Trobigard a combination drug-device auto injector product candidate. Further, the company is developing COVID-EIG and COVID-HIG potential treatments to COVID-19 disease; and FLU-IGIV for the treatment of Influenza A infection in hospitalized patients. Additionally, it provides contract development and manufacturing service that comprises development services, drug substance manufacturing, and drug product manufacturing in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, as well as the governments and non-governmental organizations. The company has collaboration agreements with Novavax Inc.; and Johnson & Johnson. Emergent BioSolutions Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

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HyperScience, a NYC-based edge machine learning company offering enterprise-grade solutions for automating office work at scale, raised $30m in Series B funding.

The round, which brought total funding to $50m, was led by Stripes Group, with participation from existing investors FirstMark Capital and Felicis Ventures as well as new investors Battery Ventures, Global Founders Fund, TD Ameritrade and QBE.

The company intends to use the funds to further invest in engineering and product development, sales and marketing, and expand the team across all functions.

Led by CEO Peter Brodsky, HyperScience provides large organizations across industries such as Insurance, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government with solutions for automating the transcription of human-readable documents into machine-readable data easing such works as data entry, invoice processing, and data reconciliation.

Last year, the company announced an investment and partnership with QBE, whereby QBE entered into a multi-year commercial use agreement to roll out HyperScience solutions across the company globally. TD Ameritrade also signed a multi-year commercial agreement with HyperScience in 2018 and subsequently participated in the round.

FinSMEs

18/01/2019
Tapestry, Inc. provides luxury accessories and branded lifestyle products in the United States, Japan, Greater China, Other Asia, and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman. The company offers women's accessories, including handbags, such as wallets, money pieces, wristlets, and cosmetic cases; novelty accessories comprising address books, time management and travel accessories, sketchbooks, and portfolios; and key rings and charms. It also provides bag collections, including business cases, computer bags, messenger-style bags, backpacks, and totes; small leather goods, such as wallets, card cases, travel organizers, and belts; and footwear, watches, sunglasses, novelty accessories, and ready-to-wear for men. In addition, the company offers women's footwear; sunglasses; bracelets, necklaces, rings, and earrings; fragrances and watches; women's seasonal lifestyle apparel collections that include outerwear and ready-to-wear, and cold weather accessories, which comprise gloves, scarves, and hats. Further, it provides ready-to-wear and footwear items for kids; fashion bedding and tableware; and stationery and gifts. Additionally, the company licenses rights to market and distribute its eyewear, watches, fragrances, and tech accessories under the Coach brand; and fashion beddings, tableware, eyewear, watches, stationery and gifts, and tech accessories under the Kate Spade brand. It sells its products to consumers through a network of 958 Coach stores, 420 Kate Spade stores, and 131 Stuart Weitzman stores, including the Internet and concession shop-in-shops; and wholesale customers, as well as through independent third party distributors. The company was formerly known as Coach, Inc. and changed its name to Tapestry, Inc. in October 2017. Tapestry, Inc. was founded in 1941 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

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Motorola Solutions, Inc. provides mission critical communications and analytics in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Products and Systems Integration, and Services and Software. The Products and Systems Integration segment offers a portfolio of infrastructure, devices, accessories, and video security devices and infrastructure, as well as the implementation, optimization, and integration of systems, devices, software, and applications for government, public safety and first-responder agencies, municipalities, and commercial and industrial customers. Its LMR and video security and analytics devices include two-way portable and vehicle-mounted radios, fixed and mobile video cameras, and accessories; radio network core and central processing software, base stations, consoles, and repeaters; and video analytics, network video management hardware and software, and access control solutions. The Services segment provides repair, technical support, and hardware maintenance services. This segment also offers monitoring, software updates, and cybersecurity services; and public safety and enterprise command center software, unified communications applications, and video software solutions. It serves for government, public safety, and commercial communication networks. The company was formerly known as Motorola, Inc. and changed its name to Motorola Solutions, Inc. in January 2011. Motorola Solutions, Inc. was founded in 1928 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Prudential Financial: 210-220 E. 22nd Street SSGA Owner LLC, 49-51 avenue George V Holdings SAS, 49-51 avenue George V SCI, AIG Edison, AIG Star, AREF Cayman Co Ltd., AREF GP Ltd., ASPF II - Feeder Fund GmbH, ASPF II - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, ASPF II Management GmbH, ASPF III (Scots) L.P., ASSURANCE, AST Investment Services Inc., Adlerwerke CB Investment LLC, Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones Habitat S.A., Administradora de Inversiones Previsionales SpA, Aoba Life Insurance Company, Asia Property Fund III GP S.a.r.l., BSC CP LP, Braeloch Holdings Inc., Braeloch Successor Corporation, Broad Street Global Advisors LLC, Broome Street Holdings LLC, CB German Retail LLC, CLIS Co. Ltd., COLICO INC., Campus Drive LLC, Capital Agricultural Property Services Inc., Chadwick Boulevard Investment Holdings Co. LLC, Cibecue LLC, Coconino LLC, Colico II Inc., Columbus Drive Partners L.P., Commerce Street Holdings LLC, Commerce Street Investments LLC, Coolidge LLC, Coral Reef GP, Coral Reef L.P., Coral Reef Unit Trust, Cottage Street Investments LLC, Cottage Street Orbit Acquisition LLC, DHFL PRAMERICA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, DHFL Pramerica Asset Managers Private Limited, DHFL Pramerica Trustees Private Limited, Don Cesar Investor LLC, Dryden Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Dryden Finance II LLC, EUROCORE MARTY PROPCO SCI, EVP II GP S.a r.l., Edison Place Senior Note LLC, Essex LLC, EuroCore GP S.a r.l., EuroPRISA Management Company S.A., European Value Partners GP S.a.r.l., Everbright Pramerica Fund Management Co. Ltd., Flagstaff LLC, GA 1600 Commons LLC, GA 333 Hennepin Investor LLC, GA Bay Area GP LLC, GA Bay Area Investor LLC, GA Belden LLC, GA CLARENDON LLC, GA Cal Crossings LLC, GA Collins LLC, GA E. 22nd Street Apartments Holdings LLC, GA East 86 Street LLC, GA JHCII LLC, GA MENLO PARK INVESTOR LLC, GA Manor at Harbour Island LLC, GA Metro LLC, GA Mission LLC, GA TRITON INVESTOR LLC, GA W Paces LLC, GA/MDI 333 Hennepin Associates LLC, GIBRALTAR BSN HOLDINGS SDN BHD, GIBRALTAR INDIA SOLUTIONS LLP, Gateway CDE LLC, Gateway Holdings II LLC, Gateway Holdings LLC, German Retail Income CP LP, Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad, Gibraltar International Service LLC, Gibraltar Reinsurance Company Ltd., Gibraltar Universal Life Reinsurance Company, Glenealy International Limited, Global Portfolio Strategies Inc., Graham Resources Inc., Graham Royalty Ltd., Green Tree GP, Green Tree L.P., Greenlee LLC, Halsey Street Investments LLC, Hirakata LLC, IVP Fund GP LLC, Impact Investments Bridges UK S.a.r.l, Inversiones Previsionales Chile SpA, Inversiones Previsionales Dos SpA, Ironbound Fund LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Kyarra S.a r.l., Kyoei Annuity Home Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Kyouei Nenkin Home), Kyoei do Brasil Companhia de Seguros, LINEUP LLC, Lake Street Partners IV L.P., MC GA COLLINS HOLDINGS LLC, MC GA COLLINS REALTY LLC, MC Insurance Agency Services LLC, Manor at Harbour Island LLC, Maricopa LLC, Market Street Holdings IV LLC, Mulberry Street Holdings LLC, Mulberry Street Investment L.P., Mulberry Street Partners LLC, Mullin TBG Insurance Agency Services LLC, MullinTBG Insurance Agency Services, New Savanna, Orchard Street Acres Inc., PAI Bayrock Groves LLC, PAI Delano 1500 Ranches LLC, PAI Good Hope Farm LLC, PAI Holly Hill Groves LLC, PAI Hunt Farm LLC, PAI Lake Placid Groves LLC, PCP V Cayman AIV GP L.P., PEREF II Co-Invest 1 GP S.a r.l., PEREF II GP S.a r.l., PEREF II PV S.r.l, PFI IBH (UK) Holdings Limited, PG Business Service Co. Ltd, PG Collection Service Co. Ltd., PG Insurance Service Co. Ltd. (PG Insurance Service Kabushiki Kaisha), PGA Asian Retail Limited, PGA European Limited, PGIM (Australia) Pty Ltd, PGIM (Hong Kong) Ltd., PGIM (Scots) Limited, PGIM (Shanghai) Company Ltd., PGIM (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., PGIM AVP IV GP S.a r.l., PGIM Agricultural Investments GP LLC, PGIM Agricultural Investors LP, PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Fund L.P., PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Partners LLC, PGIM European Financing Limited, PGIM European Services Limited, PGIM Financial Limited, PGIM Foreign Investments Inc., PGIM Fund Management Limited, PGIM Holding Company LLC, PGIM ITH (UK) Holdings Limited, PGIM Inc., PGIM International Financing Inc., PGIM Investments LLC, PGIM Japan Co. Ltd., PGIM Korea Inc., PGIM LTIF GP S.a.r.l., PGIM Limited, PGIM M Campus GP S.a r.l., PGIM Management Partner Limited, PGIM MetaProp Investor LP LLC, PGIM Netherlands B.V., PGIM Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Company Ltd, PGIM REF Europe GP LLP, PGIM REF Europe L.P., PGIM REF Europe Member LLC, PGIM REF Intermediary Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate (Japan) Ltd., PGIM Real Estate Asia Value Partners IV SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Brazil Investimentos Imobiliarios Ltda., PGIM Real Estate CD S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest L.P., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Co-Invest Holdings LLC, PGIM Real Estate European Core Diversified Property Fund, PGIM Real Estate Finance Holding Company, PGIM Real Estate Finance LLC, PGIM Real Estate France SAS, PGIM Real Estate Germany AG, PGIM Real Estate Global Debt GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles S. de R.L. de C.V, PGIM Real Estate Luxembourg S.A., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Management Luxembourg S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Mexico S.C., PGIM Real Estate S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate U.S. Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Strategic Financing LLC, PGIM Strategic Investments Inc., PGIM USPF VI Manager LLC, PGIM Warehouse Inc., PGLH of Delaware Inc., PIFM Holdco LLC, PIM KF Blocker Holdings LLC, PIM KF Blocker V Holdings LLC, PIM USPF V Manager LLC, PLA Administradora Industrial SRL, PLA Administradora LLC, PLA Administradora S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional II S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional S.de R.L. de C.V., PLA Co-Investor LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager I LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager II LLC, PLA Mexico Residential Manager I LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Limited Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Blue LP, PLA Retail Fund I LP, PLA Retail Fund I Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Red LP, PLA Retail Fund II Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LP, PLA Retail Fund II Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II U.S. Carry/Co-Invest LP, PLA Services Manager Mexico LLC, PMCF Holdings LLC, PMCF Properties LLC, PPPF General Partner LLP, PR GA SCP Apartments LLC, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP (SCOTS FEEDER) LLP, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP LLP, PRECO ACCOUNT III LLC, PRECO ACCOUNT PARTNERSHIP III LP, PRECO Account IV LLC, PRECO Account Partnership IV LP, PRECO III GP LLP, PREFG Hanwha Manager LLC, PREI Acquisition I Inc., PREI Acquisition II Inc., PREI Acquisition LLC, PREI HYDG LLC, PREI International Inc., PRIAC Property Acquisitions LLC, PRICOA Management Partner Limited, PRISA Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Fund Manager LLC, PRISA III Fund GP LLC, PRISA III Fund PIM LLC, PRREF II Fund Manager LLC, PRU 3XSquare LLC, PRUCO LLC, PRUDENTIAL CAPITAL ENERGY PARTNERS MANAGEMENT (FEEDER) LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP MEMBER LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP REIT LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE 2 LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE LLC, PT Asuransi Jiwa Mega Indonesia, Passaic Fund LLC, Pine Tree GP, Pine Tree L.P., Pramerica (Hong Kong) Holdings Limited, Pramerica (Luxembourg) CP GP S.a.r.l., Pramerica (Scots) CP GP LLP, Pramerica Business Consulting (Shanghai) Company Limited, Pramerica EVP CP LP, Pramerica Europrisa Feeder GP LLP, Pramerica Financial Asia Headquarters Pte. Ltd., Pramerica Financial Asia Limited, Pramerica Fixed Income Funds Management Limited, Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Pramerica General Partner LLP, Pramerica Holdings Ltd, Pramerica Life S.p.A., Pramerica Marketing S.r.l., Pramerica PRECAP I GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP II GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP III GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP IV GP LLP, Pramerica Pan European Real Estate (Scots) LP, Pramerica Property Partners Fund (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital II (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital III (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Limited, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Netherlands) GP LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital VI (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica SGR S.p.A, Pramerica Systems Ireland Limited, Pramerica of Bermuda Life Assurance Company Ltd., Preco III (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Preco IV (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pricoa Capital Group (Ireland) Limited, Pricoa Capital Group Limited, Pru 101 Wood LLC, Pru Alpha Partners I LLC, Pru Fixed Income Emerging Markets Partners I LLC, Pruco Assignment Corporation, Pruco Life Insurance Company, Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Pruco Securities LLC, Prudential 900 Aviation Boulevard LLC, Prudential Affordable Mortgage Company LLC, Prudential Agricultural Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc., Prudential Annuities Holding Company Inc., Prudential Annuities Inc., Prudential Annuities Information Services & Technology Corporation, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Captive Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Universal Company, Prudential Asset Resources Inc., Prudential Bank & Trust FSB, Prudential Brasil Servicos de Consultoria em Gestao Empresarial Ltda., Prudential Capital Energy Opportunity Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners Management Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Group L.P., Prudential Capital Partners Management Fund IV L.P., Prudential Capital and Investment Services LLC, Prudential Chile II SpA, Prudential Chile SpA, Prudential Commercial Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Customer Solutions LLC, Prudential Equity Group LLC, Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, Prudential Fixed Income Global Liquidity Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Fixed Income U.S. Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Funding LLC, Prudential General Services of Japan Y.K., Prudential Gibraltar Agency Co. Ltd. (Prudential Gibraltar Agency Kabushiki Kaisha), Prudential Global Funding LLC, Prudential HYDF Carry/Co-Invest L.P., Prudential Holdings of Japan Inc., Prudential Home Building Investment Advisers L.P., Prudential Home Building Investors Inc., Prudential Huntoon Paige Associates LLC, Prudential IBH Holdco Inc., Prudential Impact Investments Mortgage Loans LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Debt LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Equity LLC, Prudential Industrial Properties LLC, Prudential Insurance Agency LLC, Prudential International Insurance Holdings Ltd., Prudential International Insurance Service Company L.L.C., Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, Prudential International Investments Cayman, Prudential International Investments Company LLC, Prudential International Investments LLC, Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, Prudential Japan Holdings LLC, Prudential Latin American Investments Ltd., Prudential Legacy Insurance Company of New Jersey, Prudential Life Insurance Company of Taiwan Inc., Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 1 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 2 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Capital Asset Holding Company LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Funding LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Holdings LLC, Prudential Multifamily Mortgage LLC, Prudential Mutual Fund Services LLC, Prudential Newark Realty LLC, Prudential Private Placement Investors Inc., Prudential Private Placement Investors L.P., Prudential QOZ Investment Fund 1 LLC, Prudential Real Estate Management Co. Ltd. (Prudential Real Estate Management Yugen Kaisha), Prudential Realty Securities Inc., Prudential Retirement Financial Services Holding LLC, Prudential Retirement Holdings LLC, Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company, Prudential Securities Secured Financing Corporation, Prudential Securities Structured Assets Inc., Prudential Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., Prudential Seguros S.A., Prudential Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Prudential Structured Settlement Company, Prudential Systems Japan Limited, Prudential Term Reinsurance Company, Prudential Trust Co. Ltd., Prudential Trust Company, Prudential U.S. Real Estate Debt Fund GP LLC, Prudential Universal Reinsurance Company, Prudential Workplace Solutions Group Services LLC, Prudential do Brasil Seguros de Vida S.A., Prudential do Brasil Vida em Grupo S.A., Prudential/TMW Real Estate Group LLC, Pruservicos Participacoes Ltda., Quantitative Management Associates LLC, Quartzsite LLC, Residential Services Corporation of America LLC, Rio CP LP, Rock City MC LLC, Rock European Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock George V S.a. r.l., Rock Global Real Estate LLC, Rock Hamburg North S.a r.l., Rock Kensington Limited, Rock Marty GP S.a r.l., Rock Marty Holding S.a r.l., Rock Marty PropCo A S.a r.l., Rock Marty PropCo B S.a r.l., Rock Marty SCSp, Rock Meguro LLC, Rock Oxford S.a r.l., Rock Rhine S.a r.l., Rock Rossmarkt S.ar.l., Rock UK Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock UK Real Estate II S.a.r.l., Rockstone Co. Ltd., Rosado Grande LLC, Ross Avenue Energy Fund Holdings LLC, Ross Avenue Minerals 2012 LLC, SCP Apartments LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERS VI GP LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP FUND VI GP LLC, SHP IV Carried Interest LP, SHP V Carried Interest L.P., SMP Holdings Inc., SVIIT Holdings Inc., Sanei Collection Service Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Sanei Shuuno Service), Senior Housing Partners IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partners V LLC, Senior Housing Partnership Fund IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partnership Fund V LLC, Sterling Private Placement Management LLP, Stetson Street Partners L.P., Strand Investments Limited, TBG Insurance Services Corporation, TENSATOR HOLDINGS LTD, TMW ASPF I Verwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, TMW ASPF Management GmbH, TMW Management LLC, TMW Real Estate Group LLC, TMW Realty Advisors LLC, TMW USPF Verwaltungs GmbH, TRGOAG Company Inc., The Gibraltar Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Assigned Settlement Services Corp., The Prudential Brazilian Capital Fund LP, The Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Home Mortgage Company Inc., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, The Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd., The Prudential Life Insurance Company of Korea Ltd., The Prudential Real Estate Financial Services of America Inc., The WMF Group, Thurloe Commercial Guernsey Limited, Times Square Center Associates, USPF V - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, USPF V Carry LLC, USPF V Co-Invest LLC, USPF V Investment LP, United States Property Fund VI GP S.a r.l., Vailsburg Fund LLC, Vantage Casualty Insurance Company, Wabash Avenue Holdings V LLC, Wabash Avenue Partners V L.P., Yamato Life, and Yavapai LLC.
Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. provides financial products and services in South Korea and internationally. The company operates through five segments: Banking, Credit Card, Securities, Life Insurance, and Others. It offers retail banking services, including demand, savings, and fixed deposit-taking; checking accounts; mortgage and home equity, and retail lending; electronic banking and automatic teller machines (ATM); and bill paying, payroll and check-cashing, currency exchange, and wire fund transfer services. The company also provides corporate banking services, such as investment banking, real estate financing, overseas real estate and development project financing, infrastructure and structured financing, equity/venture investments, mergers and acquisitions consulting; securitization and derivatives services comprising securities and derivative products, and foreign exchange trading; and working capital loans and facilities loans. In addition, it is involved in treasury and investment activities in international capital markets consisting of foreign currency-denominated securities trading, foreign exchange trading and services, trade-related financial services, international factoring services, and foreign banking operations. Further, the company offers trust account management, securities brokerage, and asset management services, as well as leasing and equipment financing, savings banking, loan collection and credit reporting, collective investment administration, private equity investment, and financial system development services. As of December 31, 2020, it operated a network of 859 service centers; 5,472 ATMs; 12 cash dispensers; and 37 digital kiosks. Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.

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Eyeware, a Martigny, Switzerland-based 3D eye tracking startup, closed its first venture funding round of CHF 1.9M.

The seed round was led by High-Tech Grunderfonds (HTGF), in partnership with TRUMPF Venture GmbH, Swiss Startup Group, and Zurich Kantonalbank.

The capital will be used by to bring the 3D eye tracking development kit ready for integration into consumer applications. Eyeware is also looking to expand its corporate partnerships in the US and China.

Created in September 2016 by Dr. Kenneth Funes, CEO, Eyeware is an expert in computer vision that develops software enabling consumer devices, cars and robots with 3D cameras to sense and analyze the attention of users.

The company, a spin-off of Idiap Research Institute and EPFL, has collaborated with multiple industrial partners to prototype and develop innovative eye tracking applications. One of the projects presented publicly is the BionicWorkplace: a concept for a futuristic factory workplace containing a collaborative robotic arm developed by the German corporate Festo and presented at the Hannover Messe 2018.

More recently, the technology was presented as part of an automotive solution during CES 2019. The software can use autograde time-of-flight cameras to estimate attention of drivers for in-cabin monitoring and infotainment systems. The proposed system can contribute to reducing the number of road accidents caused by drivers who lose attention at the wheel.

FinSMEs

18/01/2019
The Charles Schwab Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides wealth management, securities brokerage, banking, asset management, custody, and financial advisory services. The company operates in two segments, Investor Services and Advisor Services. The Investor Services segment provides retail brokerage and banking services, retirement plan services, and other corporate brokerage services; equity compensation plan sponsors full-service recordkeeping for stock plans, stock options, restricted stock, performance shares, and stock appreciation rights; and retail investor, retirement plan, and mutual fund clearing services. The Advisor Services segment offers custodial, trading, banking, and support services; and retirement business and corporate brokerage retirement services. This segment provides brokerage accounts with cash management capabilities; third-party mutual funds, as well as proprietary mutual funds, plus mutual fund trading, and clearing services to broker-dealers; and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including proprietary and third-party ETFs. It also offers advice solutions, such as managed portfolios of proprietary and third-party mutual funds and ETFs, separately managed accounts, customized personal advice for tailored portfolios, and specialized planning and portfolio management. In addition, this segment provides banking products and services, including checking and savings accounts, first lien residential real estate mortgage loans, home equity lines of credit, and pledged asset lines; and trust services comprising trust custody services, personal trust reporting services, and administrative trustee services. The company serves individuals and institutional clients in the United States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The Charles Schwab Corporation was incorporated in 1971 and is headquartered in Westlake, Texas.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, 2nd Road Pty Ltd., ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Ltd, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Innovation Singapore Holdings Pte, ?What If! Limited, ?What If! Shanghai Co. Ltd, ?What If! USA LLC, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD Dialeto Agencia de Publicidade SA, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co Ltd, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co Ltd, Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (South Africa) Pty Limited, Accenture (UK) Ltd, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Azerbaijan Ltd, Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BV, Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A, Accenture CAS GmbH, Accenture Canada Holdings Inc., Accenture Capital DAC, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd., Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SAS, Accenture Customer Services Limited, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Delivery Poland sp. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital France Holdings SA, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance (Gibraltar) III Ltd, Accenture Finance GmbH, Accenture Finance GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II GmbH, Accenture Finance II GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II Ltd, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services Srl, Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Ghana Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Ltd., Accenture Global Services Ltd, Accenture Global Solutions Ltd, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services Ltd, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc., Accenture Holding GmbH, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holding GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SAS, Accenture Holdings plc, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazylym Cozumleri Limited irketi), Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazlm Cozumleri Limited Sirketi), Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture Insurance Services SAS, Accenture Insurance Services SpA, Accenture International BV, Accenture International Capital SCA, Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture International Sarl, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea BV, Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Managed Services SpA, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Middle East B.V, Accenture Middle East BV, Accenture Minority I BV, Accenture Minority III Ltd, Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi (Pty) Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Newco LLC, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations Sp. z o.o., Accenture Outsourcing SRL, Accenture Outsourcing Services, Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations BV, Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru S.R.L, Accenture Peru S.R.L., Accenture Post Trade Processing SAS, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process Ltd, Accenture Product Lifecycle Services, Accenture Properties, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture S.A., Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture SAS, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sendirian Berhad, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Ltd, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.r.l., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services Sp. z o.o., Accenture Services Sp. z.o.o., Accenture Services and Technology Srl, Accenture Services fur Kreditinstitute GmbH, Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Servicos Administrativos Ltda, Accenture Servicos de Suporte de Negocios Ltda, Accenture Solutions Co Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Sp. z o.o., Accenture Sp. z.o.o., Accenture SpA, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc., Accenture Sub Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag KFT, Accenture Technologia, Accenture Technologia Consultoria e Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Technology Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions SAS, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn. Bhd., Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures BV, Accenture Technology Ventures S.P.R.L., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co., Accenture Vietnam Co. LTD, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Limitada, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Customer Insight Limited, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Agave Consultants Limited, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, Allen International Consulting Group Ltd, Alnova Technologies Corporation S.L., AlphaBeta Advisors, Altima, Altima Asia Ltd., Altima SAS, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Appaloosa Technology SAS, Arca, Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Avanade, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade (Thailand) Co Ltd, Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Denmark ApS, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Ltd, Avanade Europe Services Ltd, Avanade Federal Services LLC, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SAS, Avanade GZ Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd. (SH), Avanade Guangzhou, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy SRL, Avanade KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Netherlands BV, Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland Sp. z o.o., Avanade Poland Sp. z.o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain SL, Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Ltd, Avanade do Brasil Limitada, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, AvantBiz Consulting Limited, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Boomerang Pharmaceuticals Communications Ireland Limited, Bow & Arrow, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brand Learning LLC, Brand Learning Ltd, Brand Learning Partners Limited, Brand Learning Pte Limited, Bridge Energy Group LLC, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CadenceQuest Inc., Capable Marketer Limited, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc., Certus Solutions Consulting Services Ltd, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cimation UK Limited, Cirruseo, Cirruseo SAS, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas (SN) (PTE.) Limited, Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Ltd., Cloud Talent Limited, Cloudsherpas, Cloudsherpas Inc., Codagenic Pty. Ltd., Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda., Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda., Context Information Security, Coritel S.A., Corliant Inc., CreativeDrive, CustomerWorks Europe SL, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, D5 Global Holdings LLC, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd., DMA Solutions Limited, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (Australia) PTY LTD, DayNine Consulting (Deutschland) GmbH, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting France SAS, DayNine Consulting Japan K.K., DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings, Declarative Holdings LLC, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digiplug SAS, Digital Consulting & Software Services LLC, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Ltd., Duck Creek Technologies, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Deja Vu Security LLC, ESR Labs, Elcurator SAS, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting L.P., End-to-End Analytics, Energuia Web, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Ltd., Energy Quote Private Ltd., EnergyQuote JHA, EnergyQuote JHA Ltd., EnergyQuote Trading Ltd., Enimbos, Enkitec, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V. , Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enterprise System Partners PR LLC, Enterprise System Partners S.A.S., Epylon, Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Fairway Technologies Inc, Fairway Technologies LLC, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, First Annapolis International, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Focus Group Europe Limited, Formicary, Formicary Holdings Limited, Formicary Limited, FusionX, FutureMove Automotive, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, Genfour Limited, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gestion Altima Canada Inc., Global Public Firm S.L., GlobalView SAS, GoodFilm GmbH Filmproduktion Stuttgart, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., Hagberg Consulting Group, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Hytracc Consulting UK Limited, Hytracc Holding AS, I-Faber S.p.A., IBB Consulting, IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INCAD, INSITUM, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Imagine Broadband (USA) Ltd, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Industrie&Co, Infoman AG, Infoman Schweiz AG, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Infusion Development Inc., Infusion Development UK Limited, InfusionDev LLC, Innoveer Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria Brasil LTDA, Insitum Consultoria Colombia SAS, Insitum Consultoria Europa SL, Insitum Consultoria Peru SAC, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., Intrepid, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Advertisement (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inventor Technology Limited, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, Javelin Group (Bulgaria) EOOD, Javelin Group Limited (UK), Javelin Group SASU, K Comms Group Limited, KCS.net AG, KCS.net AG West, KCS.net Deutschland GmbH, KCS.net Holding AG, KCS.net Osterreich GmbH, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Ltd, Kogentix Singapore Pte. Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kunstmaan NV, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon UKI, Kurt Salmon UKI Ltd., Kurt Salmon US LLC, LINKBYNET, LabAnswer, LabAnswer Government, LemonXL Limited, Logistics Market Place Limited (UK), Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Corporation, Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte. Ltd., Mackevision UK Ltd, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd., Maihiro, Matter, Matter Llc, Maud Corp Pty Limited, Maxamine International, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing Corporation, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mindtribe Product Engineering LLC, MobGen, MobGen Technology S.L, Moonrise NV, Mortgage Cadence, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, N3 LLC, NBS Marketing Inc., NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile, Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Chile SpA, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda., New Energy Aborda, New Energy Associates Ltd, New Energy Group, New Energy S.r.l., NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage China Ltd., NewsPage Pte Ltd, Nice Agency Limited, Northstream, Northstream AB, Northstream Holding AB, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology LTDA, Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Octo Technology SPRL, Octoman SAS, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium Consulting Ltd, Orbium GmbH, Orbium Holding AG, Orbium Inc., Orbium International AG, Orbium International sp. z o.o., Orbium Licences AG, Orbium Limited, Orbium Pte. Ltd., Orbium Pty Ltd, Orbium Services sp. z o.o., Orbium Sarl, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PCO Innovation Canada Inc., PCO Innovation EURL, PIXO PUNCH Limited, PLM Systems S.r.l, POC Holdings, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, Pach Invest SARL, Pach Invest SAS, PacificLink Group, PacificLink iMedia Ltd., Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald Inc., Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Partners Technology Mexico Holdings BV, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production K/S, Perseroan Terbatas. Accenture, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Ltd, Pragsis Technologies S.L, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Ltd, Procurian Germany GmbH, Procurian Inc., Procurian International I LLC, Procurian International II LLC, Procurian LLC, Procurian Singapore Pte. Ltd., Procurian Switzerland GmbH, Procurian USA LLC, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co Ltd, Radiant Services, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Limited, Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (Asia) Pte Ltd, Redcore (India) Private Limited (India), Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Renacentis IT Services, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Rothco, Rothco Holdings Designated Activity Company, Rothco Unlimited Company, S.C. EnergyQuote S.r.l., S3 TV Technology Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SALT Solutions GmbH, SEC Servizi, SEC Servizi S.p.A., SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Sagacious Consultants LLC, Sanchez Capital Services Pvt Ltd, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Airline Planning Group, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace Asia (Hong Kong) Limited, Seabury Aviation Consulting LLC, Seabury Cargo Advisory B.V., Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Human Capital LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Seabury Structured Finance LLC, Search Technologies BPO, Search Technologies BPO Inc., Search Technologies GmbH, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LATAM, Search Technologies LATAM S.A., Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Sente Partners LLC, Sentelis, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Shackleton, Shackleton Barcelona S.L., Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton Madrid S.L., Shackleton S.A., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., Silveo, Simian Pty Limited, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Commerce GmbH, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., SinnerSchrader Swipe GmbH, Sinnerschrader, Sistemes Consulting S.L., Solutions IQ, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Storm Digital, Storm Digital B.V., Structure Consulting Group, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Systor AG, TQuila Limited (UK), Tadata Creative Unlimited Company, Tara Insurance DAC, Tara Risk DAC, TargetST8, TargetST8 Consulting LLC, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica Ltd., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Limited, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Total Logistics Supply Chain Consultants Limited, Tquila, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Verax Solutions, Verax Solutions Corporation, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong, Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd., Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Weblinc Pty Ltd, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wire Stone Sarl, Wolox, Yesler, Zag, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines, Zenta Global Philippines Inc., Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc., Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, and solid-serVision.com GmbH.
The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. operates as a diversified financial services company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Retail Banking, Corporate & Institutional Banking, and Asset Management Group. The Retail Banking segment offers brokerage, insurance, and investment and cash management services; checking, savings, and money market accounts; certificates of deposits; and lending products, which includes residential mortgages, home equity loans and lines of credit, auto loans, education loans, and personal and small business loans, and credit cards to consumer and small business customers through a network of branches, ATMs, call centers, and online and mobile banking channels. The Corporate & Institutional Banking segment provides secured and unsecured loans, letters of credit, and equipment leases; payables, receivables, deposit and account, liquidity and investments, and online and mobile banking products and services; foreign exchange, derivatives, securities underwriting, loan syndications, and mergers and acquisitions and equity capital markets advisory related services; and commercial loan servicing and technology solutions for the commercial real estate finance industry. The Asset Management Group segment offers investment and retirement planning, customized investment management, private banking, and trust management and administration solutions; and multi-generational family planning products, such as estate, financial, tax planning, fiduciary, investment management and consulting, personal administrative, asset custody, and customized performance reporting services. This segment also provides outsourced chief investment officer, custody, private real estate, cash and fixed income client solutions, and fiduciary retirement advisory services. As of December 31, 2020, it operated 2,162 branches and 8,900 ATMs. The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. was founded in 1852 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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Birdies, a San Francisco-based footwear brand, secured $8m in Series A funding.

Norwest Venture Partners led the round, which brought total funding to $10M, with participation from Forerunner Ventures and Slow Ventures.

The brand will use the new funding to support inventory (it currently has an over 30,000 person online wait list), expand the product line, grow the team over the next 12 months, expand its retail presence with key partners like Nordstrom, and continue to evolve its social impact efforts.

Launched in 2015 by Bianca Gates, CEO, and Marisa Sharkey, President, Birdies is a footwear brand creating a new category combining style and comfort. It is primarily a direct-to-consumer company that sells through its website, physical flagship store in San Francisco and limited wholesale partnership with Nordstrom.

FinSMEs

18/01/2019
Chubb Limited provides insurance and reinsurance products worldwide. The company's North America Commercial P&C Insurance segment offers commercial property, casualty, workers' compensation, package policies, risk management, financial lines, marine, construction, environmental, medical, cyber risk, surety, and excess casualty; and group accident and health insurance to large, middle market, and small commercial businesses. Its North America Personal P&C Insurance segment provides affluent and high net worth individuals and families with homeowners, automobile and collector cars, valuable articles, personal and excess liability, travel insurance, and recreational marine insurance and services. The company's North America Agricultural Insurance segment offers multiple peril crop and crop-hail insurance; and coverage for farm and ranch property, and commercial agriculture products. Its Overseas General Insurance segment provides coverage for traditional commercial property and casualty; specialty categories, such as financial lines, marine, energy, aviation, political risk, and construction risk; and group accident and health, and traditional and specialty personal lines for corporations, middle markets, and small customers through retail brokers, agents, and other channels. The company's Global Reinsurance segment offers traditional and specialty reinsurance under the Chubb Tempest Re brand to property and casualty companies. Its Life Insurance segment provides protection and savings products comprising whole life, endowment plans, individual term life, group term life, medical and health, personal accident, credit life, universal life, and unit linked contracts. Chubb has collaboration with Marsh to secure insurance coverage for the COVAX no-fault compensation program. The company was formerly known as ACE Limited and changed its name to Chubb Limited in January 2016. Chubb Limited was incorporated in 1985 and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland.

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M&T Bank Corporation operates as a bank holding company that provides commercial and retail banking services. The company's Business Banking segment offers deposit, lending, cash management, and other financial services to small businesses and professionals. Its Commercial Banking segment provides deposit products, commercial lending and leasing, letters of credit, and cash management services for middle-market and large commercial customers. The company's Commercial Real Estate segment originates, sells, and services commercial real estate loans; and offers deposit services. Its Discretionary Portfolio segment provides deposits; securities, residential real estate loans, and other assets; and short and long term borrowed funds, as well as foreign exchange services. The company's Residential Mortgage Banking segment offers residential real estate loans for consumers and sells those loans in the secondary market; and purchases servicing rights to loans originated by other entities. Its Retail Banking segment offers demand, savings, and time accounts; consumer installment loans, automobile and recreational finance loans, home equity loans and lines of credit, and credit cards; mutual funds and annuities; and other services. The company also provides trust and wealth management; fiduciary and custodial; investment management; and insurance agency services. It offers its services through banking offices, business banking centers, telephone and Internet banking, mobile banking, and automated teller machines. As of December 31, 2020, the company operates 716 domestic banking offices in New York State, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia; a full-service commercial banking office in Ontario, Canada; and an office in George Town, Cayman Islands. M&T Bank Corporation was founded in 1856 and is headquartered in Buffalo, New York.

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The state highway travel map is showing no major areas of bad conditions Friday morning, but the map should change later as the snow starts moving into the state from the west.

The high temperature is expected to reach 24 on Friday in Madison, but highs will drop on Saturday as arctic air moves in behind the snowstorm.

Highs are only expected to reach 19 on Saturday and 14 on Sunday, with overnight lows down to the low single digits both nights, and wind chills in the below zero range.

Sunday should be a sunny day, but clouds move in again on Monday, with chances for light snow later in the day. The high should top out at 20.

Snow could continue Tuesday with a high of 31, then sun comes back on Wednesday with a high of 21.

Another batch of snow is in the forecast on Thursday and next Friday, with highs in the low 20s.

Thursday's high of 31 was 5 degrees above normal and 23 degrees below the record high of 54 for Jan. 17, set in 1894.

The low of 22 was 11 degrees above normal and 48 degrees above the record low of 26 below for the date, set in 1982.
MADISON  Federal employees in Wisconsin can apply for unemployment benefits to help meet their financial needs while they wait for work to resume.

"We are ready to assist any federal employee that is facing a lack of work and income due to the partial shutdown," said Department of Workforce Development Secretary Caleb Frostman. "Furloughed federal workers are dislocated workers, unemployed through no fault of their own and can apply for unemployment."

Federal employees can apply for unemployment through DWD's online UI benefit system at my.unemployment.wisconsin.gov.

Because many federal offices are currently closed, furloughed workers should be prepared to provide wage verification in the form of pay stubs or a W-2 form as DWD may be unable to verify wages through the employer.

Federal workers that are working full time but are not being paid during the partial shutdown are not eligible for unemployment benefits.

There are more than 29,000 federal employees in Wisconsin. Per preliminary counts, DWD's unemployment division fielded roughly 426 total initial and continued unemployment compensation claims between Jan. 7 and Jan. 11, 2019.

As required by law, workers who receive back pay should plan to repay any unemployment benefits received.
Columbus City Council invites city residents to a listening session at 6 p.m., Jan. 22, at Columbus Public Library Annex, 251 W. James St., to share ideas, concerns and participate in open discussion with elected city representatives.

Aldermanic District 1 residents are encouraged to attend as no one is on the ballot in the spring election.

To suggest topics, contact City Administrator Patrick Vander Sanden at 623-5900 or via pvandersanden@columbuswi.us.
Jeff Knitter, director of planning for wholesale energy at WPSCs parent company, WEC Energy Group, said customers in general  including those of WPSC  have an interest in replacing coal and natural gas generators with renewable energy based on reports in the news media, trade publications and protesters outside our offices.

There were no public comments made at Fridays hearing. The PSC received two written comments on the utilities proposal. One was a letter from Madison Mayor Paul Soglin in support of the utility plans; the other referenced a different issue.

It will be up to the three-member PSC to determine whether purchasing the solar farms will impair the utilitys efficiency, exceed their future needs or increase the cost of service without also increasing the value or quality of service.

Earlier this week Newmark heard evidence in a parallel case to consider whether to allow the private developers to build the solar farms. Under the proposed arrangement, the utilities would take over the project once the commission approves it for the developers.

In an unusual step, the commission has scheduled a March 6 hearing for oral arguments where utilities and other parties can make their case and commissioners can ask questions of the applicants.
My father had a saying, No man is rich enough to make an enemy. Winston Churchill once said, You have enemies: Good. That means youve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Tuesday is the 46th anniversary for the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Since then, more than 60 million women have been told that abortion is OK. It is not OK.

Back in the early 1970s abortion supporters, like Dr. Bernard Nathanson, made up fake opinion surveys to sway the public, the media and the Supreme Court. They also used religious bigotry against the Catholic Church on this issue. Nathanson was influential in legalizing abortion.

He later became pro-life and worked to restore the right to life for the unborn. He later became a Catholic before he passed away.

Since then, the liberal media and the Democratic Party have used multiple euphemisms to cover up the reality of abortion. They are still promoting it and will label you as an enemy.

Silence on this issue gives your consent. Pray for your enemies, Jesus said.

Join the March for Life at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Wisconsin Capitol.

Herb Lehner, Beaver Dam
Audrey was born May 10, 1938, in Waupun, the daughter of Garret and Minnie Stelsel Hull. She pursued a career as an office assistant/bookkeeper and completed her schooling in New York state. She then received a position at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where she worked for two years. Audrey then returned to Waupun, where she married Kenneth Salzman, which led them on a journey to Wabeno, Minnesota, where Ken was in the U.S. Air Force. They eventually made their way back to Waupun where Audrey worked as a bookkeeper/office manager at the shoe factory, Maly Implement, and Badger Pallet. Audrey ended her career at Subway in Waupun where she was known as the sandwich queen. Audrey knew exactly what you wanted when you came in. Audreys 25-year marriage ended and she met David Tousey. They were married for 32 years and they had a love to travel the state of Wisconsin. Audrey enjoyed many things. She was an avid reader, reading the book of Psalms. She enjoyed singing hymns, playing cards, going to the casino and spending time with family and friends. Audrey and Dave had a very special place, the cabin, that they slipped away to, which gave them much peace and relaxation. Audrey had many Packers and Badgers parties at the cabin but her favorite was enjoying a roaring bonfire.
A social media post about someone being followed in the Baraboo Walmart prompted police Thursday to post tips on how to not become a victim of human trafficking.

Because of some concerns, we just wanted to put out some pointers, Baraboo Police Chief Mark Schauf said.

In a post that was widely circulated on Facebook, a woman said two well-dressed men in their 30s or 40s followed her around the Walmart Supercenter in Baraboo on Tuesday.

She said the men did not have carts or any items in their hands, and followed her from one end of the store to the other. She wrote that she was so frightened she immediately checked out, told a cashier what happened, and had someone walk her to her vehicle.

The woman warned others to be mindful of their surroundings.

Schauf said he could not confirm that the incident occurred because his department was not notified. We never received a report on it, he said.

The woman who wrote the Facebook post did not immediately respond to a direct message on Thursday.
Winona County Sheriffs Office

Wednesday

9:33 p.m.  A Winona man reported that 25 pills were missing from a bottle of medication he ordered through the mail, and that the bottle looked as if it had been tampered with.

Thursday

12:00 a.m.  Mark McRae Dingee, 31, Winona, was arrested on suspicion of driving while impaired and his passenger in the vehicle, Jessica Mae Sobotta, 34, St. Louis Park, was arrested on a warrant from Wisconsin after the two were stopped when the officer noticed Sobotta ducking to avoid being seen by the marked squad car.

Winona Police Department

Wednesday

12:40 p.m.  Eddie Lee Stinson, 27, Winona, was arrested on suspicion of violating a harassment restraining order after he allegedly pounded on the door of a person in the 1100 block of Sugar Loaf Road.

Thursday

1:44 a.m.  Daniel Ryan Bohnstengel, 31, Winona, was ticketed for possession of a small amount of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia after the officer stopped him for a muffler issue at Lake Park.

3:23 a.m.  A Winona man reported an Xbox and Xbox games missing from a residence in the 250 block of Lee Street.

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During the past two years, Ive had the great fortune to work with a group of 25 presenters, artists, agents, and managers through the Association of Performing Arts Professionals Leadership Fellows Program. Throughout our time together, one of the topics we often discussed was community, particularly what makes a community and how to work in community with our neighbors.

Last week, while attending APAPs annual conference, I got to see a preview performance of ODC/Dances Path of Miracles, which the Page Series will present next week at Wesley United Methodist Church. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the music, the strength of the dancers, and the way the piece washed over me  despite sitting in a small New York dance studio. But before the performance even started, choreographer KT Nelson spoke about the piece, and her words landed right in the middle of the conversations Id been having with my colleagues. Nelson talked about the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route across Northern Spain that, along with Joby Talbots music, served as the inspiration for Path of Miracles. Nelson walked the Camino before choreographing the piece, and she saw a community come together over the 500-mile journey. Each of the works four movements corresponds to one of four main stops along the Camino, and while introducing each section, Nelson described the different ways this community laughed together, shared with each other, and even physically supported each other in times of exhaustion.
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They were convinced IBR Group would be able to make that happen.

Through it all, Ledebuhr hasnt completely lost hope.

We certainly need this kind of service in the area, he said. My hope is to find another buyer so they can bring it back.

The Ledebuhrs still own the building and property in Goodview, he said. The equipment, however, was sold to the new owners.

Some of the equipment is still there, he said. My hope is that what is there I can still get back ... but its too early to tell.

Ledebuhr said he cant make it happen by himself. Hes not at the age to be able to put the business back on its feet again, he explained, so hes looking for someone with meat processing experience who could somehow continue the legacy.

What Ive heard now is that people are saying that it was good while it lasted, he said.

But unfortunately, things dont last forever, he said.

Its too bad that people get old, he said. We just wanted to have a life before we couldnt any more.

Reach out to Tesla by calling 507-453-3501 or emailing tesla.mitchell@winonadailynews.com

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Steve Schild has released another collection of poetry.

Schild, an associate professor in the Saint Mary's University Communication Department and Winona Area Public Schools Board of Education member, released "These Humans" through Shipwreckt Books in December.

Schild's poetry has appeared in a number of literary magazines and four anthologies. His collection "Eros in Autumn" won a silver medal for excellence in poetry from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association as well as awards from Viterbo University and the League of Minnesota Poets.

"'These Humans' is a symphonic presentation of us as a species," said Ken McCullough, poet laureate of Winona. "The responsible and articulate public witness becomes more personal, sharing our fears and vulnerabilities, our moments of joy and quiet delight. There is a balance in this book  of citizen and next-door neighbor, of husband, son, grandson and father, of fellow traveler, of journalist and poet. And always the poetry exhibits an unerring ear."

The book is available on Amazon.

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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said he'll be making a "major announcement" on the government shutdown and the southern border on Saturday afternoon as the standstill over his border wall continues into its fifth week. Democrats are now proposing hundreds of millions of dollars for new immigration judges and improvements to ports of entry from Mexico but nothing for the wall, a House aide said, as the party begins fleshing out its vision of improving border security.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

United States Department of Agriculture employee Lori Lodato, of Wilmington, Mass., display placards during a rally by federal employees and supporters, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, in front of the Statehouse in Boston, held to call for an end of the partial shutdown of the federal government. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said he'll be making a "major announcement" on the government shutdown and the southern border on Saturday afternoon as the standstill over his border wall continues into its fifth week. Democrats are now proposing hundreds of millions of dollars for new immigration judges and improvements to ports of entry from Mexico but nothing for the wall, a House aide said, as the party begins fleshing out its vision of improving border security.

After days of bitter clashes between Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it was unclear if the twin developments represented serious steps toward resolving the nasty partisan fight or posturing. But they were the first tangible signs of movement in a dispute that has caused a partial government shutdown, which Saturday was entering its record 29th day.

Trump's refusal to sign spending bills that lack $5.7 billion he wants to start constructing that wall, which Democrats oppose, has prompted the shutdown.

The White House declined to provide details late Friday about what the president would be announcing. But Trump was not expected to sign the national emergency declaration he's been threatening as an option to circumvent Congress, according to two people familiar with the planning.

Instead, Trump was expected to propose the outlines of a new deal that the administration believes could potentially pave the way to an end to the shutdown, according to one of the people. They were not authorized to discuss the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Snow falls on the Capitol as the partial government shutdown continues in Washington, Thursday night, Jan. 17, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The move, amid a shutdown that has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without paychecks, represents the first major overture by the president since Jan. 8, when he delivered an Oval Office address making the public case for his border wall. Democrats have said they will not negotiate until the government reopens, raising questions about how Trump might move the ball forward.

Democrats were proposing $563 million to hire 75 more immigration judges, who currently face large backlogs processing cases, and $524 million to improve ports of entry in Calexico, California, and San Luis, Arizona, the Democratic House aide said. The money is to be added to spending bills, largely negotiated between the House and Senate, that the House plans to vote on next week.

In addition, Democrats were working toward adding money for more border security personnel and for sensors and other technology to a separate bill financing the Department of Homeland Security, but no funds for a wall or other physical barriers, the aide said.

It was possible Democrats would unveil that measure next week as the cornerstone of their border security alternative to Trump's wall, the aide said. Earlier Friday, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., who chairs the House Appropriations Committee's homeland security subcommittee, said in an interview that some Democrats were asking leaders, "What is our plan?"

The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the details publicly. The Democrats' spending plans were first reported by The New York Times.

In a video posted on his Twitter feed late Friday, Trump said both sides should "take the politics out of it" and "get to work" to "make a deal." But he also repeated his warnings, saying: "We have to secure our southern border. If we don't do that, we're a very, very sad and foolish lot."

Internal Revenue Service employees Brian Lanouette, of Merrimack, N.H., center right, and Mary Maldonado, of Dracut, Mass., right, join with others as they display placards during a rally by federal employees and supporters, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, in front of the Statehouse, in Boston, held to call for an end of the partial shutdown of the federal government. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said only that Trump was "going to continue fighting for border security" and "going to continue looking for the solution" to end what the administration had repeatedly referred to as a "humanitarian and national security crisis at the border."

While few would argue that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the demand for entry by migrants and the Trump administration's hardline response overwhelm border resources, critics say Trump has dramatically exaggerated the security risks and argue that a wall would do little to solve existing problems.

Trump will be speaking from the Diplomatic Room at 3 p.m.

Trump's Friday evening tweeted announcement came after Pelosi, D-Calif., on Friday cancelled her plans to travel by commercial plane to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan, saying Trump had caused a security risk by talking about the trip. The White House said there was no such leak.

It was the latest turn  and potentially the most dangerous  in the high-stakes brinkmanship between Trump and Pelosi that has been playing out against the stalled negotiations over how to end the partial government shutdown.

And it showed once again the willingness of the former hard-charging businessman to hit hard when challenged, as he was earlier this week when Pelosi suggested postponing his State of the Union address until after the shutdown.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., takes questions from reporters, Friday, Jan. 18, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

It was an unusually combative week between the executive and legislative branches.

Tensions flared when Pelosi suggested Trump postpone the annual State of the Union address, a grand Washington tradition  and a platform for his border wall fight with Democrats  that was tentatively scheduled for Jan. 29.

Trump never responded directly. Instead, he abruptly cancelled Pelosi's military flight on Thursday, hours before she and a congressional delegation were to depart for Afghanistan on the previously undisclosed visit to U.S. troops.

Trump belittled the trip as a "public relations event"  even though he had just made a similar stop in a conflict zone during the shutdown  and said it would be best if Pelosi remained in Washington to negotiate to reopen the government.

Pelosi, undeterred, quietly began making her own preparations for the overseas trip.

But on Friday, Pelosi said her plan to travel by commercial plane had been "leaked" by the White House.

"The administration leaked that we were travelling commercially," Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol. She said it was "very irresponsible on the part of the president."

She said the State Department told her "the president outing" the original trip made the scene on the ground in Afghanistan "more dangerous because it's a signal to the bad actors that we're coming."

The White House said it had leaked nothing that would cause a security risk.

Denying military aircraft to a senior lawmaker  let alone the speaker, who is second in line to the presidency after the vice-president, travelling to a combat region  is very rare.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California slammed Trump for revealing the closely held travel plan, calling it "completely and utterly irresponsible in every way."

Some Republicans expressed frustration. Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted, "One sophomoric response does not deserve another." He called Pelosi's State of the Union move "very irresponsible and blatantly political" but said Trump's reaction was "also inappropriate."

For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. government shutdown: https://apnews.com/GovernmentShutdown

Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann, Kevin Freking, Jon Lemire, Matthew Daly, Andy Taylor, Mary Clare Jalonick, Matt Lee, Lolita C. Baldor and Alan Fram contributed to this report.
On Sept. 8, 2018, #RiseforClimate encouraged people around the world to demonstrate their concern over inaction on climate change. The demonstrators urged governments and others to do what needs to be done if we are to avoid a catastrophic climate future.

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This article was published 18/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

On Sept. 8, 2018, #RiseforClimate encouraged people around the world to demonstrate their concern over inaction on climate change. The demonstrators urged governments and others to do what needs to be done if we are to avoid a catastrophic climate future.

The response was mostly a shrug from anyone who noticed. A 15-year-old girl in Sweden started her own strike on Fridays against the inaction of the Swedish government. Yawn  though she got some media coverage because of the novelty.

Protests against the Trans Mountain pipeline, Line 3 and Keystone XL continued to pop up, with small numbers and little money. It was nothing that a few slick (taxpayer-funded) ad campaigns from Alberta or executive orders from U.S. President Donald Trump could not counter. Double yawn  though there was some brief consternation when Elizabeth May, leader of the federal Green party, was arrested and charged.

When the Wetsuweten checkpoint in British Columbia was overrun by RCMP  more considerately, it seems, than how Indigenous land protectors are treated in other countries  Winnipeg was on the list of cities across Canada in which protests were staged afterward in support.

Portage and Main, and during rush hour, no less. That made some people notice. Fewer noticed the kids who joined the global student climate strike the next day and took their protests to the steps of the legislature.

If you are still shrugging or yawning, you might want to rethink your attitude. You can move a mountain by carrying away small stones.

When the fossil-fuel divestment protest movement began, it was ignored, too. Yet the campaign is now global and growing by leaps and bounds. The Irish government just followed through on its promise to sell off its investments in fossil-fuel companies. Churches, municipalities and universities have done the same.

Shamefully, this has not happened here. We should not fund our educational institutions, our communities or our pensions by investing in the very industries that make a livable future impossible.

But as the climate heats up, if our institutions really represent the Canadian public, when will their voices be heard?

As Canadians, we believe in the rule of law, what Abraham Lincoln described as "government of the people, by the people, for the people" in his Gettysburg Address. Setting aside the irony that these words were said by a Republican president who demonstrated eloquence, wisdom and strong moral character, I am afraid that the small things happening today could also add up to big trouble down the road.

Canada has a mostly peaceful history, in comparison to the violence, upheaval and deprivation that led so many people from other places to settle here over the past 400 years.

If we were not so peaceful, and if we did not agree to that "rule of law," however, there would be no good alternative. In fact, there are not enough armed combat troops in the whole of the Canadian Armed Forces to control or suppress an active insurgency just in the city of Winnipeg.

We agree to the rule of law because we believe it is for our collective good, whether we agree with that law all the time or not. But as protests spread, as the idea of government for the people is undermined or overturned by riot squads, it starts to look as if we are being governed by and for elite groups in our society instead.

There are dangerous currents in our lives together these days, currents that we ignore at our peril. A few years ago, the #Occupy movement waxed and waned. It gave us the language of "the one per cent," the elites who have most of the wealth, and the 99 per cent, who have hope, democracy and the rule of law on their side, at least in places like Canada, but nothing much else.

Over the next two years, provincial and federal political campaigns will appeal not to our better nature, but to our worst. They will play on our fears and anxieties. They will not deal with the mountains that need to be moved.

So when the government talks peace and reconciliation, but then sends in the police; when we are told to obey the law, but the government refuses; when the government buys and builds pipelines instead of finding another, more sustainable way, there is trouble ahead.

When real steps toward a sustainable future are dismissed as impractical or inconvenient, all we can do is carry away one small stone at a time. Each of us.

One way or other, we will move that mountain. Someday, we will have a just and sustainable society.

Whether it resembles the Canada we know today depends on whether our government really is for the people, or not.

Peter Denton is an author, activist and teacher. He chairs the policy committee of Manitobas Green Action Centre.
If you live long enough, almost anything is possible. It is now possible, for example, to hear the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, describe a former KGB agent and avowed atheist as a miracle of God.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

If you live long enough, almost anything is possible. It is now possible, for example, to hear the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, describe a former KGB agent and avowed atheist as a "miracle of God."

The miracle in question, Vladimir Putin, made his career in the Soviet secret police before the collapse of the Soviet Union, which meant he had to be a member of the Communist party. As a loyal Communist, he had to struggle against the evil influence of religion, the "opium of the people," and as an ambitious careerist, he did just that.

But the regime changed in 1991, and Putin had to carve out a new political career in a post-Communist Russia. So he got religion, or at least pretended to, and made an alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church. Thats why he is now warning that there may be bloodshed if the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is allowed to break away from the Moscow patriarchate.

The president of Russia got the best education the Soviet state could provide, and his private opinion about the Russian Orthodox Church is probably not far from that of the protest-punk group Pussy Riot (although they would agree on little else). But the church has always served the interests of the Russian state if it is allowed to, and as the embodiment of the Russian state, Putin feels obliged to return the favour.

What has upset Patriarch Kirill and his colleagues is that earlier this month, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople granted a "tomos of autocephaly" to Metropolitan Epiphanius of the newly formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Which probably needs a bit of translation.

The Ecumenical Patriarch is the head  or rather, the "first among equals"  among the heads of the various national Orthodox Christian churches. "Constantinople," actually now Istanbul, is still the headquarters of Orthodox Christianity, although it has been under Muslim control for more than 500 years.

The Ukrainians had asked Patriarch Bartholomew if they could have their own church back, and after due consideration, he decided that they should. The tomos of autocephaly (independence) was the document that contained his decision. He was just putting things back the way they were.

Kyiv, now the capital of Ukraine, was the first capital of the Russian state, and naturally the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church as well. But Kyiv was destroyed in the Mongol invasion of 1240, and for centuries afterwards, the new centres of Russian civilization were in the forests far to the north.

In 1686, when Muslim slave-raiders from Crimea were operating regularly in the vicinity of Kyiv, the patriarch in Constantinople officially transferred the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church from Kyiv to Moscow. All thats really happening now is that Kyiv is getting its own patriarch back.

The people who live in this area now are called Ukrainians, speaking a language somewhat different from Russian. Normal Orthodox rules say that each national group is entitled to its own national church, so whats the problem? Politics, of course.

For three centuries after 1686, Ukraine was part of the Russian empire and its successor, the Soviet Union. It was the Russian Orthodox Church that made the religious decisions for everybody, and received the revenue from the 12,000 Orthodox parishes in Ukraine. But since Ukrainian independence in 1991, all that has been in question.

The question became more urgent with Russias unilateral annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its military support for separatists in eastern Ukraine since then. Moscow wanted to keep control of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, since it was a way to influence Ukrainian opinion in Russias favour. But for the same reason, it was a priority for Ukrainian nationalists to expel the Russian influence.

Ukraine won, and Ukraines president, Petro Poroshenko, thanked Patriarch Bartholomew last weekend "for the courage to make this historic decision... Finally, God sent us the Orthodox Church of Ukraine." (Is Poroshenko really a believer? Maybe, but hes certainly running for re-election in March.)

Putin and Poroshenko are both using religion for their own purposes, but Bartholomew just did what was right. That has a cost: the Russian Orthodox Church accounts for almost half of the 300 million Orthodox Christians in the world, and the hierarchy in Moscow has now broken off relations with the patriarchate in Constantinople. This is a schism that may take a long time to heal.

But Pussy Riot should have the final word. As they said in their famous "punk prayer" in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow in 2012 (for which two of them did serious jail time):

The Church praises rotten leaders

The march of the cross consists of black limousines

Patriarch Kirill believes in Putin,

Would be better, the bastard, if he believed in God!

Virgin birth-Giver of God, drive away Putin!

Drive away Putin, drive away Putin!

Gwynne Dyers latest book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).
A United States congressional report revealed last year that five opioid manufacturers made more than $10 million in payments to patient advocacy groups and professional societies between 2012 and 2017.

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This article was published 18/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

A United States congressional report revealed last year that five opioid manufacturers made more than $10 million in payments to patient advocacy groups and professional societies between 2012 and 2017.

Initiatives from these advocacy groups and professional societies often echoed and amplified recommendations to increase opioid use. For example, they promoted opioid for chronic pain, minimized the risk of addiction and criticized the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines to limit opioid prescriptions.

In addition, opioid manufacturers used these groups to lobby Congress to change laws directed at curbing opioid use. This, according to the report, "may have played a significant role in creating the necessary conditions for the U.S. opioid epidemic."

Patient advocacy groups play an important role in democratic societies, giving voice to vulnerable populations, shaping health policy debates and acting to influence public policies to promote their members interests and needs.

When funded by the industry, however, they often serve merely as a marketing tool  promoting corporate interest.

To date, there has been no attempt to systematically investigate the relationships between opioid manufacturers and patient advocacy groups and societies in Canada. However, evidence shows that, similar to the U.S., opioid manufacturers fund such organizations in Canada.

Advocacy groups echo corporate interest

In Health Advocacy Group Inc: How Pharmaceutical Funding Changed the Breast Cancer Movement, bioethicist Sharon Batt explores the alliance between patient-group advocacy and pharmaceutical companies in Canada. She suggests that this relationship can distort policies that have been put in place to protect public health.

Batt questions the ability of such groups to speak on behalf of people who need help, and shows how advocacy groups today echo the demands of pharmaceutical companies that are often counter to its members interests.

For example, in 2005 the Canadian Pain Society arranged a pain management event, supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Purdue Pharma Canada, the manufacturer of OxyContin. A conference held by the same society in 2007 included a Purdue Pharma symposium.

In another case, the Chronic Pain Association of Canada received money from several pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue Canada.

A blog post on the associations website contains messages favourable to increased opioid use and criticizes arguments questioning opioid effectiveness, calling it "anti-opioid hysteria and propaganda" caused by prominent "anti-opioid activists."

Two years ago, Purdue donated just shy of $1 million to Canadian health-care organizations, some of which could have been patient groups. (The way the information is reported doesnt allow us to identify which health-care organizations received money.)

All payments should be disclosed

We believe this marketing tactic is undesirable and might have contributed to the opioid epidemic in Canada as it did in the U.S.

Furthermore, using the vulnerability and the suffering of patients as a tool for maximizing profit is morally wrong.

Lack of transparency surrounding the advocacy groups is a real problem. Neither the industry nor advocacy organizations are required to fully and routinely disclose their financial ties.

Indeed, some patient organizations question why they should disclose sources of donations in the first place. Two such groups commented: "We do not see the purpose of asking how much money has been contributed by any entity that may have an interest" in a recommendation about whether a drug should be funded by a provincial drug plan.

We call for the Canadian government to examine and disclose all payments from pharmaceutical companies to non-profit patients advocacy groups and societies.

Itai Bavli is a PhD candidate in interdisciplinary graduate studies (public health and political science) at the University of British Columbia. Joel Lexchin is professor emeritus of health policy and management at York University, and emergency physician at University Health Network, and associate professor of family and community medicine at the University of Toronto.

This article was first published at The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca.
The Progressive Conservative government has signalled its willingness to support three years of pay increases for provincial judges, while insisting on pay freezes for other publicly compensated workers.

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This article was published 17/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Progressive Conservative government has signalled its willingness to support three years of pay increases for provincial judges, while insisting on pay freezes for other publicly compensated workers.

The PC-dominated legislative affairs committee voted Thursday to endorse the recommendations of an independent panel. The measure would boost the pay of 42 provincial court judges by 1.9 per cent in the first year of a three-year contract. There would be adjustments in the second and third years based on average weekly earnings in Manitoba.

Judges would earn $259,000 effective April 1, 2017, with yet-to-be disclosed pay boosts taking effect on April 1, 2018 and April 1 of this year.

As recently as this week, the government made it clear to the province's doctors that it intended to freeze their pay for two years and allow increases of no more than 0.75 per cent in the third year of any deal  as set out in Bill 28, passed by the legislature in 2017. The bill has yet to be proclaimed.

The acceptance of the judicial compensation committee's (JCC) report comes as a bit of a surprise because the government argued strenuously in hearings in 2017 that judges shouldn't be exempt from its public-sector wage policies.

"When the government has a policy of restraint, which it does, it is not proper to treat judges in a different manner than employees in the public sector," said a summary of the government's position in the JCC report, which was tabled in the legislature last fall.

The issue of judges pay in Manitoba has been highly contentious for decades. The former NDP government balked at implementing the JCC recommendations more than once, but was forced to live by them when the judges appealed to the Manitoba Court of Appeal.

The support for the JCC recommendations Thursday indicates the Pallister government won't challenge the independent panel.

Finance Minister Scott Fielding said while the government argued strongly that judges' compensation should be in line with other public-sector workers, the JCC disagreed. He later said the "vast majority" of the panel's recommendations are binding on government.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Finance Minister Scott Fielding

NDP MLAs, while supporting the recommendations, said the government's stance on judges' pay amounted to a "flip-flop."

Finance critic Matt Wiebe, picking up on statements by Fielding that the provincial economy is doing well, said the government should allow public-sector unions to bargain for wage hikes.

"Why is it that the minister is prepared to treat judges in a different manner than he has all other Manitobans...?" Wiebe asked.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Matt Wiebe, NDP finance critic

The JCC had three members: one chosen by government, one chosen by the judges and a chair  lawyer Michael Werier  who was agreed upon by the two parties.

Susan Dawes, lawyer for the Provincial Judges Association of Manitoba, urged the legislative committee before its vote to accept the JCC's recommendations, which must be approved by the legislature.

"We urge you to respect the need to protect judicial independence and to depoliticize the setting of compensation," she told MLAs. "And you can do that by accepting, in full, the recommendations of this highly experienced independent and objective panel," she said.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Susan Dawes, a lawyer representing the Provincial Judges Association of Manitoba

Dawes noted that the panel's decision was "unanimous," meaning the government's nominee, Robert A. Simpson, was also in accordance with its findings. In it's report, the JCC said while its decision was unanimous, it was a "collective decision reached through much discussion and some compromise."

Judges had been seeking a salary of $263,000 for 2017 from $254,263 in 2016. Dawes said acceptance of the committee's recommendations would still leave Manitoba judges "at the low end of judicial salaries" in Canada.

Generally, judicial pay in Manitoba is based on the average wage of provincial judges in Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The comparative numbers cited in the JCC report had Saskatchewan judges at $290,848, Nova Scotia judges at $236,151 and New Brunswick judges at $252,240 for an average of $259,746.

Manitoba law says if the JCC recommendation is equal to or less than that tri-province average for the first year of a contract, it is binding on the government.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
Jurors are sequestered and deliberating in the case of two men accused of manslaughter in the March 2017 shooting death of 29-year-old Jeanenne Fontaine.

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This article was published 18/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jurors are sequestered and deliberating in the case of two men accused of manslaughter in the March 2017 shooting death of 29-year-old Jeanenne Fontaine.

Justice Gerald Chartier gave the jury complex legal instructions Friday. He reviewed the evidence from 10 witness testimonies and explained the positions of the Crown and defence lawyers in a case that drew mentions of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

FACEBOOK Jeanenne Fontaine

Jeanenne Fontaine was a cousin to 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, whose body was found in the Red River in August 2014. Tina's accused killer was acquitted after a jury trial in February 2018.

Crown prosecutors say Christopher Matthew Brass and Jason Michael Meilleur should be found guilty of manslaughter because they went to Fontaines home at 457 Aberdeen Ave. with a plan to commit robbery over a methamphetamine debt her boyfriend owed to Meilleurs girlfriend.

Defence lawyers say theres no evidence of a plan to commit robbery with a firearm. In order to find the two men guilty, jurors need to believe there was a robbery plan and Meilleur and Brass intended to help commit that offence, Chartier told the jury.

The trial took place over the course of two weeks. The jury was sequestered just after 1 p.m. Friday.

Jurors, however, did not hear Chartier reject a request to order the jury to acquit Brass.

Brasss defence lawyer, Tara Walker, launched a motion for a directed verdict, arguing there was not enough evidence to support the prosecutions theory Brass was the lookout by the door during the plot to rob 457 Aberdeen Ave., where Fontaine lived with her mother and brother.

Fontaines boyfriend, Monte Bull, was selling meth out of the house. However, Walker argued there was no evidence Brass knew about the debt Bull reportedly owed to Meilleurs girlfriend and no evidence that clearly establishes Brass as one of the three men who showed up at the house the day Fontaine was shot.

"Theres no evidence that Mr. Brass even knew there was a debt. Theres no evidence before the court from any witness that there was any planning of a robbery," Walker argued in the absence of the jury Jan. 15.

"We suggest that there just is no evidence in this case and the inferences that my learned friends (the Crown prosecutors) are going to ask are so tenuous and weak that, in this case, a directed verdict should be put in place."

Walker argued a properly instructed jury acting reasonably could not possibly convict Brass and should be instead directed to acquit him.

Chartier disagreed. He decided the jury could consider the evidence from a woman (whose identity is protected under a publication ban) who knew Brass and testified he showed up at her residence looking upset and high and talked about a shooting and a fire. (457 Aberdeen Ave. was badly damaged by fire by the time first responders located Fontaine.)

Fontaines brother, Chuck, who was home at the time of the shooting, didnt identify Brass, but provided a description of a thin, 5-10, "Native" man wearing black-framed glasses. Crown prosecutors argued the description matches Brass.

"In my view, all of this evidence taken together, if believed, could reasonably support an inference of guilt on the element of identity," Chartier said.

On the morning Fontaine was shot, three men showed up at her house looking for her boyfriend. Chuck Fontaine testified he heard one of them say, "Monte f---ed up." One of the men, who jurors heard was Mitchell, had a pocket knife in hand when he went through the house looking for Bull, and he later "masked up" and brandished a gun.

The Crown said it was "entirely foreseeable" someone would get hurt as a result of the alleged robbery plan, which it said implicated Meilleur and Brass -- even though a third man, Malcolm Mitchell, fired the gun that killed Fontaine.

She was shot in the back of the head before the two-bedroom bungalow was set on fire.

Defence lawyers for both accused have argued only Mitchell is responsible for the homicide and there is no evidence of a robbery plot. During his statement to police, Meilleur told them he, Brass and Mitchell were at the house that day, and he saw Brass give a gun to Mitchell.

He said he didnt ask the other two men to come with him when he went looking for Fontaines boyfriend, there was no plan to rob or hurt anyone, and he was outside when he heard a gunshot.

Jurors cant use Meilleurs statement to police as evidence against Brass, and they cant use testimony from the woman who knew Brass against Meilleur. She testified Brass told her "Jay was supposed to" start the fire.

Jurors didnt hear Mitchell had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for killing Fontaine. He was sentenced to life in prison after he admitted he pointed the gun at her and it went off while he was trying to steal a necklace from around her neck.

Brass was also sentenced to life in prison for the February 2017 murder of Bryer Prysiazniuk-Settee in Winnipeg.

He and Mitchell were co-accused in the May 2017 killing of 51-year-old Daniel DiPaolo in Regina. Brass pleaded guilty in that case, and is currently ineligible to apply for parole for 40 years.

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Twitter: @thatkatiemay
The Rural Municipality of Springfield took the first step this week toward giving its council a 20 per cent pay increase.

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The Rural Municipality of Springfield took the first step this week toward giving its council a 20 per cent pay increase.

The first reading of a bylaw hiking pay for the reeve and five councillors passed 5-1 at Tuesday's meeting, after residents in the gallery voiced concerns about the size of the raise and the speed with which it was being introduced.

The base rate for councillors would increase to $36,000 from $30,000.

"Twenty per cent seems to be quite excessive," said the first person to speak during a 15-minute question-and-answer session.

"What is the all-consuming rush to get this passed?" asked one woman. "I'd prefer to see more research and more discussion put into it."

They shouldn't have run for office if the compensation wasn't adequate, said another resident.

"What has changed since you ran (in the October 2018 municipal election) that has now created a need for a 20 per cent increase in salary and compensation?" he asked in an official audio recording of the meeting.

RM SPRINGFIELD Rural Municipality of Springfield council: Back row (Left to Right): Coun. Rick Wilson, Coun. Valerie Ralke, Coun. Howard Bredin. Front row (Left to Right): Coun. Glen Fuhl, Reeve Tiffany Fell, Coun. Peter Williams

What's changed, officials said, are new Canada Revenue Agency rules coming into effect in 2019 on claiming home office expenses as a deduction.

At a Jan. 8 committee meeting, council asked administration to review the eligibility of employment expenses for a councillor's home office and the overall impact of a 20 per cent pay increase to offset the loss of the deduction.

At Tuesday's meeting, administration presented its report, after consulting with a municipal auditor.

"It would be difficult for a councillor to meet the CRA requirements to justify 'home office expenses,'" the administration report said.

The proposed pay hike would cost the RM an approximate total of $48,500 (its councillors haven't had a raise in eight years) -- a 0.2 per cent increase to the municipal expenditure budget of $23.4 million, the administration report said.

During the meeting, Coun. Rick Wilson said he's opposed to hiking councillors' pay without first consulting with a tax accountant and other experts to check out the municipality's options.

"There could be other things possible instead of reaching into the taxpayer's pocket," said Wilson, who urged the council to defer the vote until it had more information. "There could be some opportunities we could look at that would offset the CRA withdrawal of this non-taxable benefit."

He said other municipalities across the country will be in a similar situation, and asked what kind of advice Springfield could get from the Association of Manitoba Municipalities and its ilk.

Reeve v. mayor The Rural Municipality of Springfield wants to change the title of its top job to mayor. In a 5-1 unrecorded vote at Tuesday's council meeting, the name-change bylaw passed first reading. Reeve Tiffany Fell said at the meeting most other capital region municipalities have made the switch to mayor from reeve, and Springfield following suit would be "consistent with neighbouring municipalities." click to read more The Rural Municipality of Springfield wants to change the title of its top job to mayor. In a 5-1 unrecorded vote at Tuesday's council meeting, the name-change bylaw passed first reading. Reeve Tiffany Fell said at the meeting most other capital region municipalities have made the switch to mayor from reeve, and Springfield following suit would be "consistent with neighbouring municipalities." One council member voiced opposition. "I think we should stick with term of 'reeve' for council," said Coun. Rick Wilson. "I think it's more of a unifying factor than the alternative -- both from that point of view and from long usage in the RM. Reeve is an appropriate title for the head of council." Fell said other RMs have switched to the title of mayor for two reasons: "Businesses don't know what a reeve is... and it is consistent with neighbouring municipalities." He said other municipalities across the country will be in a similar situation, and asked what kind of advice Springfield could get from the Association of Manitoba Municipalities and its ilk. Close

The AMM executive director said the Federation of Canadian Municipalities lobbied against the rule change announced in 2017 that reduced the one-third allowance councillors could claim for home office expenses. The federal lobbying efforts failed.

"It was brought in fairly quietly," Joe Masi said Thursday, and it will start hitting people trying to make things better for others. "A lot of elected officials do a lot of good work for their communities.

"A hike in their pay is a way of adjusting for the one-third that was lost," said Masi. "You've got to look at the whole picture."

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities prepared a guide with options for dealing with the new tax rules, Masi said. The AMM distributed it to members some time ago. Now that it's 2019, and the change is taking effect, municipalities have to deal with it.

"I think everyone knew it was coming," said Masi.

Neither Springfield Reeve Tiffany Fell nor Wilson responded to a request for comment Thursday.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Rosenberg, TX (77471)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. Hot. High 93F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear skies. Low around 70F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.
A rookie councillor hopes to build bridges by having the city rename a bridge.

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A rookie councillor hopes to build bridges by having the city rename a bridge.

Vivian Santos believes the 106-year-old Arlington Bridge  a link between the North End and the rest of the city separated by the CP Rail yards  should become Reconciliation Way in a gesture to Winnipeg's Indigenous community.

She will take a motion to Tuesdays meeting of the Lord Selkirk-West Kildonan community committee to formally change the name.

"It spans the centre of Winnipeg, connecting the north and the south," she said Thursday.

The motion is a continuation of reconciliation initiatives she worked on with her Point Douglas ward predecessor Mike Pagtakhan after city hall implemented its Indigenous Accord.

Santos was executive assistant to Pagtakhan  who decided not to run in October's municipal election after 16 years as the ward councillor  and worked with him in the efforts to rename the North Centennial Recreation and Leisure Centre to Sergeant Tommy Prince Place.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES New councillor Vivian Santos thinks the Arlington Bridge should become Reconciliation Way.

She was also involved in honouring local Indigenous activist Leslie Spillett, using her spirit name  Giizhigooweyaabikwe (Painted Spirit Woman)  as the official name of a Logan Avenue park.

The plan to rename the bridge has to be reviewed by two committees and city council before it becomes official.

"Once it goes through council, I want the unveiling event to include a smudging ceremony," Santos said.

Damon Johnston, president of the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg, was pleased to hear another landmark could soon be renamed in an effort to reach out to the Indigenous community.

Changing the name would be an important symbolic gesture of what's taking place and a reminder that reconciliation efforts must continue.

"When you change the name of a street or bridge or whatever, it becomes a constant reminder of the journey of reconciliation we are on now with all Canadians," he said. "In that respect, its helpful. Things like this are important, but they are just one piece of a bigger effort to imbed reconciliation in our hearts and our minds. Im supportive of that."

However, the name change, if approved, could be short-lived unless it's transferred to a new structure. It's expected the long-deteriorating two-lane span, regularly closed for repairs, will be demolished and replaced within the next few years.

TREVOR HAGAN/ WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The Arlington Bridge is 106 years old.

A $2-million engineering study is leading up to a final design and cost estimate for a new bridge, which Santos said is supposed to be ready by the end of March. Early estimates put the cost of a new bridge around $300 million.

Bridge bites Click to Expand  Arlington is the third oldest overpass bridge in Winnipeg, behind Redwood and Louise.  The bridge was first proposed in 1906 as a way to connect Brown Street north of the CPR tracks and Brant Street south of the CPR tracks  City council changed the names of Brant and Brown streets to Arlington Street in 1910  Arlington Street bridge was completed on Feb. 5, 1912

However, the replacement project has not been prioritized and no money has been set aside for a new structure.

Santos stated her support for a new bridge was among her campaign commitments and she said shes been holding discussions with other members of council in the hopes funds can be set aside, starting with the upcoming 2019 budget, for a replacement structure.

"Im committed to working with the province and the federal government and this council to find some funding for it," she said. "I believe we need to show the other levels of government that this bridge is a priority."

A replacement bridge is one of several competing infrastructure projects on the citys agenda, including widening of Kenaston Boulevard/Route 90, a new Louise Bridge, the eastern transit corridor, and the extension of the Chief Peguis Parkway from Main Street to Route 90.

"I recognize that there are other priorities in other wards," Santos said. "A new Arlington Bridge is definitely important and all councillors know that. I hope with this council we can all work together."

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
Tesla will cut 7 per cent of its workforce as it tries to lower prices and break out of the niche-car market to produce an electric vehicle that more people can afford.

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FILE - In this Jan. 9, 2019, file photo, Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Electric car and solar panel maker Tesla said Friday, Jan. 18, 2019 it plans to cut its staff by about 7 percent. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool, File)

Tesla will cut 7 per cent of its workforce as it tries to lower prices and break out of the niche-car market to produce an electric vehicle that more people can afford.

Tesla's cheapest model right now is the $44,000 Model 3, and it needs to broaden its customer base to survive.

"Looking ahead at our mission of accelerating the advent of sustainable transport and energy, which is important for all life on Earth, we face an extremely difficult challenge: making our cars, batteries and solar products cost-competitive with fossil fuels," CEO Elon Musk said in a letter to staff. "While we have made great progress, our products are still too expensive for most people."

Tesla had boosted its payroll significantly to meet production goals, but then cut its staff by 9 per cent in June. The company delivered more than 245,000 electric cars and SUVs last year, nearly as many as all previous years combined. But it still fell far short of a goal set nearly three years ago of manufacturing 500,000 vehicles for the year.

Musk said in October that Tesla Inc., based in Palo Alto, California, had 45,000 employees. The 7 per cent cut would mean that about 3,150 people will lose their jobs.

Tesla posted a $311 million quarterly profit in October, only its third profitable quarter in eight years as a public company.

Musk acknowledged that the profit was driven by its ability to sell higher priced vehicles in North America. Tesla dominates that market, but it wants to make electric vehicles for the masses.

And while preliminary numbers indicate another profitable quarter ahead, Musk said it appears to be a smaller.

FILE - In this March 31, 2016 file photo, Tesla Motors unveils the new lower-priced Model 3 sedan at the Tesla Motors design studio in Hawthorne, Calif. Tesla, recognizing as imperative its ability to produce a cheaper electric car, told employees Friday, Jan. 18, 2019 that it must cut 7 percent of its workforce. TeslaAos cheapest model right now is the $44,000 Model 3, and it needs to broaden its customer base to survive. (AP Photo/Justin Pritchard)

Shares tumbled 11 per cent Friday.

It has been Tesla's long-held goal to get a less-expensive, mid-range Tesla Model 3 on the road.

"Starting around May, we will need to deliver at least the mid-range Model 3 variant in all markets, as we need to reach more customers who can afford our vehicles," Musk said in the letter.

The key for Tesla is producing an entry-level car in the mid-$30,000 range, which would put it in direct competition with major automakers.

Even as Tesla struggles to produce a more mainstream vehicle, many industry analysts still see the company as the one to beat, even with the world's biggest automakers now fully engaged in the pursuit of an electric car.

"While EV competition is accelerating, we believe Tesla continues to lead the industry as it moves Model 3 price point towards $35k while most competitors remain engaged in an EV negative margin sum game at higher price points," wrote Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois.

Yet producing a more affordable car has only grown more difficult.

The U.S. had put into place a $7,500 tax incentive for people to buy electric cars, but President Donald Trump and other Republicans consider the credit a waste of taxpayer money and want it eliminated. That incentive was reduced to $3,750 this month and it will be cut to nothing by the end of the year.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who introduced legislation in October to abolish the tax credit, said it would save about $20 billion over the next 10 years.

He has argued the market for electric vehicles is already established and "no longer needs the crutch of government assistance."

Gas prices, however, have been inching closer to $2 per gallon as oil prices fall, which makes the hurdle for electric car makers that much higher.

To counter the fading tax incentive, Tesla this month cut the price on each of its three models by $2,000.

Its shares tumbled.

"Tesla has only been producing cars for about a decade and we're up against massive, entrenched competitors," Musk said Friday.

The average price for a vehicle in the U.S. is around $37,000, and Musk set the goal of getting into that range early in his tenure, said Maryann Keller, a veteran auto analyst and principal at Maryann Keller and Associates.

"That's what the expectation is for people that were buying the Model 3, that it would be somewhere between $35-45,000," Keller said. "The only way he can get that price to that affordable level is by addressing the cost issues."

And Tesla has been doing so in a number of ways.

This week, Musk said Tesla is shutting down its customer referral program, which offered at least six months of free charging for a new car.

"As Tesla attempts to transition from a niche brand to a volume, mainstream automaker, it is facing the same hurdles every other established car company must clear, said Karl Brauer, executive publisher, Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. "First and foremost among those, a right-sized, efficient workforce that can produce vehicles at a consistent, sustainable profit."
Gymboree Group Inc. will shut down after going bankrupt a second time, the victim of falling mall traffic and cheaper online sources of kids clothing. About 10,000 people could lose their jobs.

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Gymboree Group Inc. will shut down after going bankrupt a second time, the victim of falling mall traffic and cheaper online sources of kids clothing. About 10,000 people could lose their jobs.

The retailer filed for protection from creditors owed about US$212 million in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, according to a statement late Wednesday.

The San Francisco-based company, which operates 945 stores under three brands in the U.S. and Canada, plans to close its Gymboree and Crazy 8 chains after failing to find anyone willing to buy them, court papers show. A unit of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is leading bids for Gymborees higher-end Janie and Jack business.

The company said its Gymboree, Crazy 8 and Janie and Jack stores and online platforms remain open at this time and will continue to serve customers. There are two Gymboree stores in Winnipeg, one at CF Polo Park and the other at St. Vital Centre.

Gymboree Play & Music, which provides play, music and art classes for parents and newborn children and kids up to five years old, split from Gymboree Group Inc. in 2016 and those locations will not be affected by the Gymboree Group Inc.s bankruptcy filing and store closures.

However, for customers with Gymboree gift cards, time is running out to use them.

The company said it has "sought authorization from the court to continue to honour customer gift cards for 30 days."

The chains popular GymBucks and Gymboree Rewards programs have been discontinued "effective immediately," according to a release.

The decision came less than a year and a half after Gymboree emerged from an earlier Chapter 11 bankruptcy that cut debt, overhauled operations and enabled it to launch a rebranded clothing line.

"We are saddened and highly disappointed that we must move ahead with a wind-down of the Gymboree and Crazy 8 businesses," chief executive officer Shaz Kahng, appointed in November, said in the statement. An auction of company assets is expected by Feb. 25.

Going-out-of-business sales are being planned to dispose of inventory, raising about US$155 million in net proceeds, chief restructuring officer Stephen Coulombe said in court papers. The company expects the sales and store closings will continue through April.

The bankruptcy comes at a time of weakness for the childrens apparel industry, with sales at childrens and infant-wear stores falling 5.8 per cent in November and 5.9 per cent in December, according to First Data.

Gymboree was acquired by Bain Capital for about US$1.8 billion in 2010. The buyout saddled the company with more than US$1 billion in debt, leading Gymboree to cut costs and defer investments before filing for court protection in June 2017. It emerged with less debt and fewer stores.

But competition was still robust from Childrens Place, the Gap, discount stores, internet retailers and big-box retailers that sold clothing at cheaper prices to get shoppers into the store.

Margins shrank and Gymborees net retail sales dropped 27 per cent to US$573 million during the nine months ended Nov. 3, court documents show.

"The decline in revenue and rise in merchandising costs outpaced Gymborees ability to reduce its fixed-cost structure composed largely of store rent, labour costs and corporate general and administrative expense," court documents show.

The staff includes 10,100 people on a full- and part-time basis, according to the filings. The vast majority, 9,600, are hourly workers.

Gymboree said the US$212 million in total obligations include US$79.1 million under a senior secured asset-based revolving credit facility, US$44.5 million of outstanding letters of credit under the ABL facility and around US$89 million under its senior secured term loan.

 from the wire services
MONTREAL - Unifor's Quebec director Renaud Gagne is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to follow in Ontario Premier Doug Ford's footsteps by pledging support for General Motors workers faced with a looming plant closure.

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The Oshawa General Motors car assembly plant is seen in Oshawa, Ont., Monday Nov 26 , 2018. Unifor's Quebec director Renaud Gagne is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to follow in Ontario Premier Doug Ford's footsteps by pledging support for General Motors workers faced with a looming plant closure. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Eduardo Lima

MONTREAL - Unifor's Quebec director Renaud Gagne is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to follow in Ontario Premier Doug Ford's footsteps by pledging support for General Motors workers faced with a looming plant closure.

"Mr. Ford, the premier of Ontario, joined Unifor this week to say he will support our move to save Oshawa. I would like to hear the prime minister of Canada say the same thing, that he will join the efforts, that he will ask Canadians to put pressure on GM to make sure they change their minds," Gagne said.

Some 300 Unifor members, including about 60 retirees from the now-demolished GM plant in Sainte-Therese, Que., showed their support for Oshawa GM workers on Friday, taking advantage of the Montreal Auto Show now underway.

Demonstrators were visible throughout the exhibition. Many wore blue T-shirts with the slogan, "GM to sell here, build here," and chanted the slogan, "Say-say-say-save GM," both in French.

The General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ont., is slated to shut down at the end of 2019, resulting in an expected 2,600 job losses at the factory.

Gagne cited a union-commissioned study that forecasts that by 2025, the closure will have prompted 14,000 job losses in Ontario and 10,000 in the rest of Canada.

Gagne noted that some 10,000 people work in the auto parts sector in Quebec.

"We saved that company $10.3 billion in 2008-09. Then to thank us, they close the doors and go to Mexico to make everyone work at $2 an hour. This is unacceptable," Gagne said, shouting.

He called on Canadians to sign an online petition, but added there is no plan to ask them to boycott the auto maker.

"We are not at this stage. But I think that if we want to go all the way, it may be a solution that we will eventually have to consider," Gagne said.
LOS ANGELES - California has finalized its rules governing the nation's largest legal marijuana market, a milestone coming more than a year after the state broadly legalized cannabis sales for adults.

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FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2018, file photo, an employee stocks cannabis at a store shortly before its first day of recreational marijuana sales in San Francisco. California has endorsed a rule that will allow home marijuana deliveries statewide, even into communities that have banned commercial pot sales. The rule finalized Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019, by state officials was opposed by police chiefs and other critics who say it will create an unruly market of largely hidden pot transactions and encourage potential criminal activity. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

LOS ANGELES - California has finalized its rules governing the nation's largest legal marijuana market, a milestone coming more than a year after the state broadly legalized cannabis sales for adults.

But a dispute over home deliveries into communities that ban pot sales could end up in court. And the hundreds of pages of dense regulations are unlikely to resolve other disputes, including how purity and potency tests are conducted for infused cookies and other products.

Even if imperfect, the rules were welcomed by many in the industry who have been contending with shifting temporary regulations since California kicked off broad legal sales last year.

"Love it or hate it, California has regulations for commercial cannabis. There are no asterisks," said Hezekiah Allen, chair of cannabis growing co-operative Emerald Grown and former executive director of the California Growers Association, an industry group.

Meanwhile, the regulations that deal with the minutia of running a legal pot business do not address other broad challenges in the industry, from a lack of banking access for pot companies that will likely need to be resolved in Washington to what to do about a thriving illicit market that is undercutting legal sales.

"Do these solve every problem that exists in the cannabis business regulatory regime? Absolutely not," said Assemblyman Ron Bonta, a Democrat from Oakland who said the rules nonetheless create a strong foundation for a market that has gotten off to a shaky start.

By far the biggest dispute focused on deliveries. The rules released Wednesday will allow home marijuana deliveries statewide, even into communities that have banned commercial pot sales.

The regulation by the state Bureau of Cannabis Control was opposed by police chiefs and other critics who predict it will create an unruly market of largely hidden pot transactions, while undercutting control by cities and counties.

The League of California Cities said the rule conflicts with Proposition 64, the law approved by voters in 2016 that opened the way for broad legal sales, which says local governments have the authority to ban nonmedical pot businesses.

"This decision puts the public safety needs of communities across the state at risk," league executive director Carolyn Coleman said in a statement.

Many cannabis companies and consumers had pushed for the change, since vast stretches of the state have communities that banned commercial pot activity or not set up rules to allow legal sales. That means residents in those areas were effectively cut off from legal marijuana purchases.

"The public spoke loud and clear in favour of statewide delivery," cannabis bureau spokesman Alex Traverso said in a statement.

Bonta said he supports statewide deliveries for medical patients, regardless of local bans, but not recreational users. He suggested legislation may be needed to deal with the dispute.

Kenny Morrison, president of the California Cannabis Manufacturers Association, said the state failed to examine the experience in other states, which in turn has created costly problems for California companies with labeling and testing.

Industry officials have complained that the state rules force growers and manufacturers to hit too tiny a target when gauging levels of THC in products, the psychoactive chemical that causes marijuana's high.

Rules require the THC concentration come within 10 per cent of what is advertised on a product label. Company executives say some products are being rejected after landing outside the margin by tiny amounts, and that hitting that required range is even more difficult with low-dose products.

Colorado allows a more sensible 15-per cent range, Morrison said. He said the state also should be mirroring rules set by the federal government, which could eventually oversee the national pot market. Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level.

"Nobody cares more about the quality of the product than the manufacturer," he said.

Ruben Honig, executive director of the United Cannabis Business Association in Los Angeles, said the state's biggest challenges remain cutting hefty tax rates that can approach 50 per cent in some communities and cracking down on widespread illegal sales.

Blood is a member of AP's marijuana beat team. Follow him on Twitter athttp://twitter.com/MichaelRBloodAP

Find complete AP marijuana coverage here: apnews.com/tag/LegalMarijuana
Canada's wheat exports to China jumped nearly 200 per cent from January to November 2018 as the Asian country stopped buying from American farmers amid a tariff dispute.

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Winter wheat is harvested in a field near McCracken, Kan.on June 15, 2018. Canada's wheat exports to China jumped nearly 200 per cent from January to November 2018 as the Asian country stopped buying from American farmers amid a tariff dispute. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Charlie Riedel, File

Canada's wheat exports to China jumped nearly 200 per cent from January to November 2018 as the Asian country stopped buying from American farmers amid a tariff dispute.

Statistics Canada data released Thursday shows total Canadian wheat exports grew nearly 13 per cent during that time from about 15 million tonnes to roughly 17 million tonnes.

Wheat exports to China grew from about 436,000 tonnes between January and November 2017 to nearly 1.3 million tonnes in the same months of 2018.

Data for December is not yet available.

The U.S. Wheat Associates says on its website American farmers have been shut out of the Chinese market since March 2018 after China announced it would impose a retaliatory 25 per cent import tariff on American wheat.

The group put out a statement in July saying the ongoing trade conflict is already hurting farmers, adding that over the past three years Chinese customers purchased an average 20 million bushels of wheat from March to June compared to no new purchases since March 2018.
PARIS - One by one, European Union nations are spending millions, hiring thousands of workers and issuing emergency decrees to cope with the increasingly likely possibility that Britain will leave the bloc on March 29 without a plan.

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PARIS - One by one, European Union nations are spending millions, hiring thousands of workers and issuing emergency decrees to cope with the increasingly likely possibility that Britain will leave the bloc on March 29 without a plan.

A no-deal Brexit could shake up the rest of the continent in ways that many Europeans haven't yet fathomed, from snarled air traffic to paralyzed ports and millions of workers in legal limbo.

France is spending 50 million euros ($57 million) to beef up security at airports and the Eurotunnel, and hiring hundreds of extra customs officers.

Portugal is opening special airport lanes for British travellers, the nation's main source of tourists. The Netherlands is scouring for qualified veterinarians to carry out new checks on live imports. Germany is fast-tracking a debate on solving bureaucratic problems if there is no Brexit deal.

Governments from Europe's Atlantic Coast to the Black Sea are preparing rules for British citizens to live and work in their countries once they no longer enjoy EU residency rights  and hoping that Britain is doing the same for their citizens.

Britain, which would face by far the biggest disruption, has devoted thousands of civil servants and several billion pounds (dollars) on measures to mitigate the worst effect  although officials can only speculate about what will actually happen on March 30 if Brexit happens without a deal.

After the British parliament overwhelmingly rejected British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit divorce deal this week, other governments are bracing for chaos, too.

"We strongly believe" Britain will leave with no exit deal, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced Thursday, unveiling a raft of emergency measures to cope with that prospect. "Under these conditions, our responsibility ... is to ensure that our country is ready, that the interests of our citizens are preserved and defended."

The French government will build new infrastructure and hire new staff at airports and ports  and the tunnel beneath the English Channel. The company that operates the Eurotunnel says a quarter of all U.K.-EU trade passes through the tunnel, which could be a major chokepoint in a no-deal Brexit.

France's emergency decrees will temporarily let British companies transport goods in France, and allow certain British insurance and other financial activities to continue in France despite Britain's loss of access to the EU financial market. The exceptional transfer of military equipment between the two countries will also be allowed.

In Berlin, German lawmakers debated a bill Thursday that aims to solve bureaucratic issues arising from Brexit.

"We want to keep the damage  and there will certainly be damage from Britain's departure  as small as possible," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday. "That's why we will of course do everything to find an orderly solution, but we are also prepared if there is no orderly solution."

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said Thursday that 80 per cent of British tourists arrive at airports in Faro, the Algarve and Funchal in the Madeira Islands, where dedicated lines for them will help prevent delays.

Dutch authorities say they are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. The customs service is hiring some 900 new staff. The food and animal welfare authority is scouring southern and eastern Europe for qualified vets to carry out checks on live imports.

The government has set up an online Brexit counter and checklist for Dutch companies doing business with Britain  some 35,000 of which have no experience of dealing with countries outside the EU single market.

Romanian leaders have sought to reassure the estimated half a million Romanians living in Britain that they won't be left in the lurch  but haven't provided specifics. Romania currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia are working on legislation to deal with the short-term rights of British citizens in a no-deal Brexit, while the Dutch will let British citizens living in the country remain for 15 months and offer them the chance to apply for residency permits.

In Britain, the government announced Thursday it's putting military reservists on standby for permanent service in the event the country leaves without a divorce deal. It's also recruiting hundreds of extra customs officers and border staff and has passed laws to help cross-border trade continue to flow, such as permits for long-distance truckers. Many businesses are taking things into their own hands, and stockpiling goods .

Britain says EU citizens will be able to stay temporarily despite a no-deal Brexit.

A high-level EU official is now touring all the capitals of the 27 countries remaining in the bloc, to assess Brexit preparations and provide help where needed, EU Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said Thursday.

The EU has produced 88 notices how specific sectors should deal with possible Brexit emergencies.

"We're not taking any chances," said Schinas.

Jill Lawless in London, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Frank Jordans in Berlin, Raf Casert in Brussels, Mike Corder in The Hague, Alison Mutler in Romania and Karel Janicek in Prague contributed.

Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit
Written by ACM



*Strasbourg/EU Parliament/Angelo Marcopolo/- While EU is currently shaping its Digitalisation Strategy, a Debate in EU Parliament on "Education in the context of Digital Age", gave "Eurofora" an opportunity to raise the nowadays practical Issue of the Need, for EU's Education, Medias, Debates, Elections, etc., to use developed OnLine Automatic Translation Tools, in order to use EU's MultiLingual Potential. Organized, with the Participation of University Professors, and MEPs from the Biggest Political Groups, that Debate's panel included also "Pan-Europa International" movement's Secretary General, Professor Pavo Barisic, a twice former Minister for Science and Education, from the University of Zagreb, who Replied to a relevant "Eurofora"s Question on a transversal Topical Issue :



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- "Eurofora" observed that MultiLinguism had been evoked as an interesting factor for Nowadays Education in Europe, and we added that this also goes often for Medias, Politics, Debates, Elections, etc. In this regard, wouldn't it be important for Europe to Develop New Technologies of Automatic Internet Translation ?", we asked.



Naturally, this should Facilitate, not hinder, European Education's traditionally "Holistic" and Humanist dimension, (since the Ancient Greek Civilisation's times, with Aristote, etc), aiming to "Speak to the Heart and the Mind" of the People, "Eurofora" added, referring to relevant observations by both Professor Barisic and Austrian MEP Lukas Mandl, President of EPP's "PanEuropa" Working Group, earlier Today, (See also Infra).



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- "Automatic Translation is a very Important point", acknowledged in Reply to "Eurofora"'s Question, the German MEP Sabine Verheyen, the competent vice-President of the ChristianDemocra/EPP Group, also as its Spokesperson on Education and Culture, (as well as vice-Chair of EU's Delegation to South Afrika). - But, we also Know how "Difficult" it still is, to have Automatc Translation, she warned, at least for the Time being. Certainly, Education in English language coud cover almost everything, But we need also Education f.ex. in German, Verheyen added, particularly f.ex. in Training, and/or in an Holistic approach of Education, in order to Convay the right Values, by Speaking to People's Heart, she pointed out.



- Since Communication is the 1st Basic Competence, in this regard, "I am Grateful to you for Raising this Issue", because "MultiLinguism, particularly in Europe, is a Pivotal Requirement", stressed with emphasis "PanEuropa"s Secretary General, Professor Pavo Barisic, turning to look straight towards "Eurofora" who had put the above mentioned Question. Just to take 1 Example : one of the most Important works in Education in Europe was conducted by Alexander von Humbolt, (the famous German Explorator). He worked with more than 8 Languages ! Because Communication is where you Start including Communication through Languages", in this kind of activities.



- Digital "Technology can, of course, Help us, including Automatic Translation", Professor Barisic acknowledged.



- "But, what Human Beings do is really UnImitable ! It canNot be Replaced", he warned.



- And, "People can be Motivated, if they are provided with the Basic Skills, during all their Lives", (i.e. with Life-Long-Learning", etc), he concluded on MultiLinguism. And "Motivation is the Key", Pavo Barisic underlined in fine.



Naturally this Fits quite well, inter alia, also with Humbolt's Paper "on the Diversity of Human Language" and "its Influence on the Mental Development of the Human Being". There he stresses that "The bringing-forth of Language is an inner Need of Human beings, ...a thing lying in their own Nature, indispensable for the Development of their mental powers ..., to which man can attain only by bringing his Thinking to clarity and precision Through Communal thinking With Others".



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=> Further Discussions between "Eurofora" and some other key Members of the "PanEuropa" Group, on the above-mentioned issues, Added, from a Practical point of view, the empirical Observation that current on-line Automatic Translation tools' Imperfections, certainly canNot replace a really Human and well-made Translation, but it can considerably Enlarge its overall Scope, Europe-Wide, (particularly by using also a spontaneously triggered, and proven efficient, practical Method of coming and going from the Automatically Translated vesion to the full Original Text, using at least a Basic Knowledge of the Languages to translate from, in order to Rectify most inaccurancies provoked by the Insufficient yet development of the currently available On-line Automatic Tanslation Tools. After all, the Need to Boost Innovations able to considerably Augment those Digital Tools' Efficiency on MultiLinguism, was, right from the Start, a Main point in "Eurofora"s Question (Comp. Supra).


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Joseph and Denise Sipe (left and right, respectively), recipients of this years Wingate Mackay-Smith Land Conservation Award, receive congratulations from Mackay-Smith following the award ceremony Thursday afternoon.
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North Korea is getting increasingly angry at the US, as talks are deadlocked and tensions between the two countries are on the rise, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN.
Amazon investors are urging the company to halt sales of its facial-recognition software to government agencies over fears the technology could be used to violate people's rights.
Sure, its mid-January. The new year  the last of the 2010s  is cruising along. There are just 341 days until Christmas.

Still, its not too late to peer into our crystal ball. We may not know what the rest of the 2019 will bring. Yet, just as we have no idea what exactly Donald Trump will tweet about each morning, but we know it will be about something absurd he just heard on Fox & Friends  Westporters can predict general outlines of whats ahead.

All we have to do is look backward. So dont be surprised if you see these headlines and first paragraphs in the coming year.

Late January: Pickleballers Vow to Stop South Beach Bathrooms. Despite a failed petition drive, a group of determined pickleball enthusiasts have not given up their fight. Chanting Do the right thing  dont make doo-doo, and chaining themselves to stalls in Town Hall, they say they wont stop until there is a new place for beachgoers to go.

February: New Affordable Housing Proposed for Post Road Median. There is not much unused space left in Westport. But a Stamford development firm has found what it claims is the most suitable spot for a new apartment complex: the grass strip dividing Post Road East, between New Country Toyota and stores like Calises Market and Torno Lumber on the other side. A proposal for 188 one- and two-bedroom apartments  38 of them classified as affordable under state 8-30(g) regulations  has been filed with the Planning and Zoning Commission.

March: Major Storm Knocks Out Power to Thousands of Westporters. Winds roaring up to 60 miles an hour  and over four inches of rain  played havoc with the town yesterday. Nearly 10,000 customers remain without electricity  for the third time in two weeks. Officials called the odds of three 500-year storms in just 14 days astronomical. But that was no solace to residents facing toppled tree limbs, drenched basements, and the possibility of one more storm on the way this weekend.

April: Neighbors Sue to Block Aquarion Water Towers. Pleas and petitions to lawmakers failed. So did chaining themselves to a fence surrounding the Aquarion water tank on North Avenue. So a group of residents has gone to court to force the utility to stop construction of two large water towers directly opposite Staples High School. The reasons: fears of increased traffic, brought about after the Board of Educations recent decision to construct a sixth grade academy, by adding a fourth floor to Staples High School across the street from the Aquarion property.

May: Democratic Presidential Candidates Flock to Westport For Funds. Its not yet Memorial Day, but already 19 of the 27 Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination have come to town for private fundraisers. Like Willie Sutton said about banks, this is where the money is,  explained Hillary Clinton, a resident of nearby Chappaqua, N.Y., as she embarked on her third bid for the highest office.

June: Despite Controversy, South Beach Bathroom Finally Opens. A woman pushing 6-month-old triplets in a stroller was the first person to use the new Compo Beach bathrooms yesterday. She had to push her way past nearly a dozen pickleball players, who had chained themselves to the outside of the controversial structure.

July: Despite Heat, Art Show a Great Success.  EMTs were busy over the weekend, tending to dozens of attendees who collapsed on the broiling pavement during the annual downtown Arts Festival. But as Westport endured its third straight week of 100-plus temperatures, organizers noted, No one died. The artists had plenty of water. And the art itself was really, really spectacular.

August: Hurricane Ignatius Moves Offshore. After battering Westport with 115-mile an hour winds and more than 10 inches of rain, Hurricane Ignatius has finally moved on. Workers moved quickly to restore power to some of the 14,188 customers who lost it, though officials warned that full restoration could take up to three weeks. The worst damage was at Compo Beach, where the roof of the new South Beach bathroom ended up on the pickleball court.

September: New 8-30(g) Application Sought for North Avenue Site. Developers moved quickly, after Aquarion abandoned its quest to construct two new water towers across from Staples High School. A Stamford development firm announced plans to build 339 studio, and one- and two-bedroom apartments, at the North Avenue site. Of those, 82 would be affordable, under state 8-30(g) regulations.

October: Early Snow Stuns Area. Ten inches of heavy, wet snow brought down hundreds of trees early yesterday. The Oct. 1 snowfall  the earliest on record  closed schools and business throughout the East.

So thats some of what will happen this year. As for November and December  hey, who do you think I am? Nostradamus?

Dan Woog is a Westport writer, and his Woog's World appears each Friday. He can be reached at dwoog@optonline.net. His personal blog is danwoog06880.com.
Contributed / Contributed Photo

WESTPORT  A Brooklyn, N.Y., man allegedly failed to appear in court, police said.

On Jan. 15 around 10 p.m., Wandy Cruz, 19, turned himself in at police headquarters on two outstanding warrants.
WESTPORT  Three months after a judge ordered two fired Matsu Sushi chefs reinstated, and the duo are still fighting for their old jobs back.

The boss has no intention to solve the problem, so we are very angry. We ask that the boss recognize his own illegal behavior and reinstate me and Liguo (Ding), said Jianming Jiang while protesting with a group of six supporters outside the downtown restaurant on Jan. 14.

In October, a judge with the National Labor Relations Board ordered two chefs fired for refusing to complete a 36-hour shift at Matsu Sushi be reinstated immediately. However, the workers have still not been restored in their old positions and vow to protest the sushi shop more frequently until the judges orders are met.

Jiang and Ding, both residents of Queens, N.Y., were fired from Matsu Sushi in December 2017 after the restaurants owners  Ziqiao Cao and Kim Ming Cheng  allegedly fired them for refusing to complete a 36-hour shift to finish a large lunch order from Bridgewater Associates.

Bridgewater, a Westport-based investment management firm, periodically put in larger lunch orders to Mastu. This prompted the restaurants owners to force Matsu employees to work from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. the following night, according to testimony before the National Labor Relations Board in July.

Ding and Jiang, who both worked at Matsu for over a decade before their termination, said the 36-hour shifts harmed their health and told the restaurants manager they would work normal hours, but not the full 36 hour shift and were subsequently terminated, the testimony reads.

Judge Kenneth W. Chu wrote in his Oct. 26 decision that Cao and Cheng discriminatorily fired Ding and Jiang, and ordered the owners to immediately reinstate Ding and Jiang to their positions, and also provide the fired workers with backpay and other expenses related to their loss of employment.

As of the Jan. 14 protest, Ding and Jiang had not been reinstated and Matsus owners could not be reached for comment. Matsu was granted an extension to appeal the decision until Dec. 22.

The judge made a decision to reinstate the workers and compensate the workers backwages. What theyre doing is dragging it out and wasting money on layers and an appeal they wont win, Sarah Ahn, a Flushing Workers Center organizer that helped Ding and Jiang submit their case to the labor relations board, said at the protest.

Jiang said he was aware of correspondence between his lawyer and the restaurant about a Jan. 1 return date for the workers, but that Matsu allegedly reneged on the decision.

Jiang and Ding and their supporters, including two other workers who were fired from Matsu for refusing to work the 36-hour shift, said they plan to protest more often until reinstated.

Everyone should be concerned about this, said resident Sal Liccione, the sole Westport resident who protested with the workers on Monday. Liccione said he found out about the labor case when driving past the protest one day and called on all residents to get involved in the workers plight.

When asked for comment on the case and what the town can do to enforce the decision, First Selectman Jim Marpe said its not appropriate for him to comment on the specifics of litigation that is likely still being appealed.

All employees deserve to be treated fairly and paid fairly in accordance with the law, he said.

svaughan@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2638; @SophieCVaughan1
The Jewish refugee survivors of the SS St. Louis will participate in a program to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the 80th anniversary of the SS St. Louis, at the Chabad of Wesport on Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m.

The program will include the screening of the award-winning documentary film Complicit and will feature St. Louis surviving passengers Judith Steel, Sonja Geismar and Eva Wiener, who will participate in the post film question-and-answer session led by the films creator andproducer Robert M. Krakow.

Turned away by the United States on June 6, 1939, while they were within sight of the palm trees of Miami Beach, these Jewish refugees of the SS St. Louis made their way back to America, becoming exceptional citizens and making extraordinary contributions in medicine, science, law and human rights

After having been denied entry by Cuba, the ship carrying over 900 Jewish refugees escaping Nazi terror were denied safe haven by Secretary of State Cordell Hull. They pleaded to the government of Canada and again refused political asylum.

Cost is $25 for adults, $18 for students.

Arts center launches

new project

Westport Arts Center, in partnership with Westport Arts Advisory Committee, has launched Tete-a-Tete, a new project that combines exhibition, competition and placemaking.

Call for entries is open through Jan. 25 at westportartscenter.org/cfe.

The exhibition will be on view March 8-16, with an opening reception March 8, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Westport Arts Center.

Jurists for the project are John Edelman, CEO of Design Within Reach; Patricia Kane, curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery; and Paul Goldberger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American architecture critic and educator.

The exhibition will feature artists that reimagine and reinvent the Victorian-era conversation bench  also known as a tete-a-tete, courting bench, conversation bench, kissing bench and gossips chair. This unique piece of French furniture emerged in the 19th century, and translates to head-to-head-describing the early functionality of these seats during the Victorian era.

The project is envisioned as a symbolic way to encourage conversation and civility within the community. The exhibition aims to foster dialogue in these polarized times-as people sit, talk and listen, their understanding and tolerance of each other will organically improve.

Awards will be given in fantastical, functional and collaborative design categories. Artists, furniture designers, architects, industrial designers, and creative thinkers are encouraged to participate and to collaborate with others.

Ultimately, the winning bench design may be fabricated and find a home along the Saugatuck River, be an installation piece that travels around town, or become part of Westports Permanent Art Collection.

Sheffield Island Lighthouse fundraiser set for Saturday

The Norwalk Seaport Association will host Ring in the New Year at the Unitarian Church in Westport as part of its effort to raise funds for Sheffield Island Lighthouse preservation.

The event will take place Jan. 19 from 7 to 9 p.m., and includes champagne, beer, wine and appetizers provided by Simply Delicious caterers of Norwalk.

Tickets for this tax-deductible event are $100 each and available online at www.Seaport.org or by calling 203-838-9444.

St. Thomas Aquinas to expand pre-K program

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School will expand its pre-kindergarten program for the 2019-20 school year, the school announced in a news release.

The new program will include children who turn 3 years old on or by Aug. 31.

Principal Jo Ann Mathieson said the development of a two-year pre-school program was by popular demand.

The emphasis of a two-year preschool is to build on, expand the childs experiences, and ultimately prepare for kindergarten. We are making this change to best accommodate the needs of families working or living in Fairfield, Westport and the surrounding area. The expanded program hours mirror the hours of our regular school day. All pre-K children will also have the additional option to arrive as early as 7:30 a.m. and stay until 5:30 p.m.. Flexible schedules and shorter options are also available, she said.

St. Thomas will hold a schoolwide open house on Jan. 27 between 10 a.m. and noon. Families living or working in Fairfield, Westport and surrounding towns are encouraged to stop by, take a tour, and speak to the administration, faculty and other parents. The school is located in the heart of downtown Fairfield at 1719 Post Road.
GREENWICH  With the government shutdown lasting nearly a full month, furloughed federal workers across the country who are going without paychecks are looking for help.

And a Greenwich-based food bank is now stepping up. Nancy Coughlin, executive director of Neighbor to Neighbor, said the food bank is providing temporary assistance to Greenwich-area furloughed government workers and contractors who are experiencing hardships as a result of the shutdown.

No walk-ins are accepted, but affected residents who need food can call Neighbor to Neighbor for assistance at 203-622-9208 between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. weekdays and from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The shutdown has caused a lot of anxiety for furloughed federal workers, said Coughlin, who wants to spread the word about Neighbor to Neighbor. The nonprofit food bank offers fresh produce, eggs, frozen meat and other nutritious items.

About 1,200 to 1,500 federal employees in Connecticut are currently working without pay, Gov. Ned Lamont estimated. Its not known how many live in lower Fairfield County, but Coughlin said she has already been contacted by a furloughed worker.

The big unknown is we dont have a good count of the number of federal employees who are living in the area, Coughlin said. So far people are not banging down our door. But whats important right now is that they know were here if they need assistance.

Furloughed federal employees may not know what they can do to make ends meet as they wait for the shutdown to end, Coughlin said.

The tendency is for people to wait until things get really bad for them to reach out to a food bank, she said. We want them to know that we are here as a resource, and they dont have to be going to the grocery store to get healthy food for them and their families because we can help provide that to them. We want to make sure they are conserving their resources for things like rent and heat and transportation, which are areas they may not be able to get assistance for.

Neighbor to Neighbor offers both food and clothing to residents in need and helps thousands of Greenwich residents prepare nearly 360,000 meals each year. It also provides 19,000 shopping bags of gently used and in season clothing, shoes, linens and household items to residents.

The announcement from Neighbor to Neighbor comes as concerns over the shutdown continue to grow. President Donald Trump has insisted he will not reopen the government until he gets money for a proposed border wall, and several bills passed by the House of Representatives to reopen the government have not gotten Senate votes because they do not include the border wall money Trump has demanded.

On Tuesday, the state legislature will meet to act on legislation to allow federal workers in the state to receive unemployment benefits. Nonessential federal workers who are on furlough and those working without pay will also be eligible for interest-free loans backed by the state of Connecticut.

The legislation is also expected to include language that would allow people who are affected by the shutdown to defer paying local property taxes. Greenwich property and vehicle taxes are due on or before Feb. 1.

Others in the area have reached out to help workers who are not receiving paychecks. A private citizen paid for a delivery of a free lunch of lasagna for air traffic controllers at Westchester County Airport this week. These essential workers must report to work but have not received a paycheck in nearly a month.

For Coughlin, she said she wanted to make sure furloughed workers know there are options available to them.

A lot of federal workers are not aware of the resources that are out there because they have been getting steady paychecks until now, she said. They might not know what is out there for them if they fall into an emergency situation. People are often not aware that there is a food bank in Greenwich and that there are people in this town who do need assistance. I want people to know that were here and were ready to help. We are ramped up and ready to go.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
(WGGB/WSHM) -- School officials with the Amherst-Pelham Regional Public Schools confirm that an eighth grader has died. A GoFundMe page for the students funeral expenses explained the child was found unresponsive after participating in the blackout challenge on social media.
Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis recently traveled to Brussels, Belgium, to hold bilateral talks with high-ranking officials of the European Commission.

The government's press release advised that "...Attorney General Carl Bethel; Viana Gardiner, chief operating officer of the Prime Ministers Delivery Unit; Stephen Coakley-Wells, advisor to the minister of finance; Wendy Warren, CEO, Caystone Group; Michael Paton, partner, Lennox Paton; and a team of advisors would accompany the prime minister to Brussels." but former Minister of Foreign Affairs and former PLP MP for Fox Hill has taken umbrage. More...

Mr. Mitchell has accused the Prime Minister and his entourage of being little more than beggars - grovelling beggars at that - by going to visit the unelected bureaucrats making demands on The Bahamas internal laws and banking procedures. More...

He was also quite emphatic that the country was not informed of the reasons for governments visit.

Those are strong words coming from the ex Minister of Foreign Affairs that loved to travel to meet with all and sundry, including unelected officials, without providing details of his trips nor expense reports.

But hey, trying to gain political mileage beats integrity in politics every time.

Mr. Mitchell suggests in the world of foreign affairs Prime Ministers do not meet with unelected bureaucrats to stake out a position leaving that to ministers and ambassadors and the like.

Maybe Dr. Minnis thinks more might be accomplished for The Bahamas if he is directly involved in a possible resolution to what appears to be a major issue with the EU moving the goal posts on compliance each year.

Genuine debate including offering ideas to resolve the issue of international pressure being applied against the banking sector would be much more useful than insulting name calling commentary right now.

There will be plenty time for caterwauling when the campaigning for the next election starts but when the chips are down we should all be serious about solutions not noise pollution.
Yarmuth calls for Trump's impeachment if he directed Cohen to lie to Congress
Rand Paul's attorneys move to have evidence excluded from jurors in upcoming civil trial against neighbor
A driver in Kentucky was in for a rude awakening when they seemingly tried to run over a snowman  only to hit the tree stump underneath. (Cody Lutz Media via Fox News)
Reporter

I cover a range of stories for WDRB, but really enjoy tracking what's going on at our State Capitol. I grew up on military bases all over the world, but am a Kentuckian at heart. I'm an EKU alum, and have lived in Louisville for 30 years.
Blaze Pizza to hold 'Stuff the Cruiser' fundraiser for the family of LMPD Det. Deidre Mengedoht
Fremantle will play host to nationwide crisis talks aimed at tackling a range of issues in the fishing industy, including the Western Rock Lobster debate, next month.

Peak-body Seafood Industry Australia will meet with local and interstate fishing councils in the port city on February 6.

Seafood is coming under heat as industry leaders question how long before the government wipes it out. Credit:WAFIC

SIA chief executive Jane Lovell said the meeting was called to deal with a "nervousness" felt in almost every state's fishing industry.

In WA, youve got the rock lobster 17 per cent ordeal happening, she said.
Saeed Maasarwe on the steps of Parliament House at a vigil for his daughter Aiia. Credit:Justin McManus "She liked everything in Australia, she had a good time here. Really I appreciate all the people, the five months she was here. She enjoyed and had a good time here. But then this has come, the very worse. The most worse this can be," he said. "When I see people here like this, huge people to support us and give us good feeling here about Australia and the community here in Australia. "Its not good my feeling [about Australia]. But when I see people like this it makes me to feel, maybe change my mind." Mr Maasarwe held a candle, as mourners approached him to pay their respects.

More than 1000 people gathered on the steps of Parliament House on Friday night for a vigil for Aiia Maasarwe. Credit:Justin McManus His wife Khitam and two youngest daughters Ruba and Lena remained in Israel, mourning Aiia in their home in Baqa al-Gharbiyee, surrounded by extended family. His Shanghai-based daughter Noor was on her way back home to join them, he told reporters. I wish here can release Aiia's body as soon as we can to be back, to be with my family, with my society." He'd planned to visit Melbourne in February with Noor to have a holiday with Aiia. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video

"We want to go to many places here in Australia. Before maybe one month, I tell [Aiia] 'maybe you can go to Sydney to enjoy it and to see more', and she said 'father no, I will wait for you. When you come, we will go together.'" Weeping, he continued: "But I wait for her. I still wait. I dont know how long I need to wait." His daughter was "all the time smiling," he said. On Friday afternoon, Saeed Maasarwe laid flowers near where his daughter was killed. Credit:Paul Jeffers "She had very big opinions, her mind open for everything. She liked to study different cultures, different nationalities.

"She doesnt come with closed mind, closed idea from another culture, she respect all the people, she respect all the culture. Loading "This is also all the time I try to teach my family, my daughter, to go with open mind. If something is different ... the difference also makes the life colourful. Look with respect to another culture or another people." Mr Maasarwe said he had been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and grief for his daughter from the people of Melbourne. "I appreciate everybody who supports us and help us," he said.

"It was very, very helpful for us, for this... we very very deeply suffer now during this time." Asked about the cards and flowers that surrounded a framed photograph of his daughter, he was generous: This has given me good feeling." But it was also painful, he said: "This is the last place my daughter was here." He lauded the tireless effort of local police to catch her killer, calling them "the best police in the world". "I feel very, very sad from one side but from another side when I hear this support and this help from the people, from the community, from the police, this is makes the suffering feel at least a little more better," he said.
All across Western Europe, leaders are in a seriously bad way. Angela Merkel is walking wounded, and neither her Christian Democrat successors nor their Social Democrat coalition partners have any effective response to the nativist forces that have weakened Germanys body politic. The violent French backlash against the proposed fuel-tax hike is undermining Emmanuel Macron  possibly terminally. In Italy, the populist right-left government has no answer to the skyrocketing debt and double-digit jobless figures that have led to widespread dissatisfaction. In Spain, youth unemployment is just under 35 per cent. Despair is fashionable, but it is worth putting Australias present-day angst in a broader historical context. Since we retired John Howard from power, many people think the nation has developed a certain political bloodlust. After all, in less than a decade, four prime ministers have been defenestrated and our two major federal parties have run through eight leaderships. However, although the political churn in Canberra looks exceptional, it is hardly a new development. From our independence in 1901 to the outbreak of World War One in 1914, we had 10 prime ministerships. From 1966 to 1972, at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the country had six national leaders. Even Bob Hawke, Labors greatest PM, was toppled in a ruthless party coup. In recent times, our political class has been widely denounced as out of touch and utterly bereft of conviction and substance. Kevin Rudds belief that he could be all things to all people cost him power and should have disqualified him from any right to a second chance. Dramatic flip-flops left Julia Gillard lacking in credibility, just like the man she replaced. Tony Abbott was rhetorically challenged. Malcolm Turnbull showed an ignorance of his partys core beliefs and his own arrogance.

For now, Scott Morrison is in office but not in power. However, the quality of our political leaders since federation, with rare exceptions (such as Howard, Hawke, Robert Menzies and John Curtin), was arguably about as good as that of  well, the politicians we disparage today. Shortly after Bill McMahon knifed John Gorton in 1971, for example, there was widespread gloom and despondency across the nation. In Tiberius with a Telephone, Patrick Mullins quotes Liberal MP Bert Kelly: I must admit that I am becoming acutely despondent about the standard of leaders that we get nowadays. I never thought much of John Gorton as leader and I dont think much of McMahon either. There is too much of the politician in him and too little of the statesman. In 1971, a party room confidence vote in John Gorton, right, was tied. He stepped aside to be replaced by William McMahon, left. Credit:Ted Golding Things hardly improved after Gough Whitlams election. Menzies reflected the public mood in 1973 when he wrote to his daughter Heather: The present political situation in Australia is so crazy that one would need to be a highly skilled psychiatrist to understand it. We are all too often told that Australian politics has become inordinately abusive; and there is no question that some of the allegations being tossed around by politicians are unfair or exaggerated.

But political vitriol is a familiar enough characteristic of Australian history. Just think of the bitterness and rancour over conscription in 1916-17, communism in the mid-1950s and the constitutional crisis of 1975.

In Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-75, the distinguished British historian Max Hastings observes that our commitment to Vietnam divided Australia more deeply than any other issues in its modern history  at times almost as painfully as the war racked the US. He highlights the violence of anti-war protests that rose in a crescendo. After one infantryman was killed, protestors telephoned his parents and said: He got what he deserved. Loading Bear all this in mind when you hear complaints about the unprecedented negativity of todays public discourse. In the cyclical universe of Australian politics, it really is true that the more things change, the more they stay the same. We still face serious public-policy challenges in Australia. What The Economist has called our miracle-economy status seems to induce a level of complacency that is very worrying; the euphoria over the long boom is wearing off, to be replaced by sharp-edged realities. Our leaders need to put in place policies that can drive productivity growth and attract investment in the face of slowing Chinese growth and unwinding housing booms. Somebody has to make an effort to stop the relentless growth of government.

The proliferation of digital technology and the increasingly poll-driven nature of the political climate also complicates the business of governing. Social media sometimes coarsens the public debate and, taken together with the relentless cable and internet news cycle, fosters the growth of infotainment in political news. That makes it very difficult for any political leader to implement thoroughly thought-out, reformist policies. All true. My point, though, is that Australia still enjoys a prosperity and relative stability matched by few nations. While wage growth has stalled, all Australians have gained from the 28-year economic expansion. Although the big banks are in the doghouse, there is no evidence, as The Australian Financial Review notes, that they irresponsibly lent to down-and-out borrowers who had little prospect of repaying their loans. Notwithstanding the controversies on Nauru, our border-protection policies boost the kind of public confidence in our immigration system that Europeans crave. All this is why we should count our blessings. As bad as things are now, we have seen worse in this country and come out the better for it. And as angry we are about our politics, they are a heck of a lot worse elsewhere. Compare this week in Canberra with Washington and Westminster.
Managing Editor

Delphine Luneau is a veteran journalist with more than 20 years of experience. She was the editor of Suburban Life Media when its flagship was named best weekly in Illinois, and she has worked at papers in South Carolina, Indiana, Idaho and New York.
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Brian Gregory Robling of Washington, 23, passed away Monday, June 7, 2021. Brian was born July 11, 1997, in Washington, to Amber (Robling) Whiteman and Michael Bernard. He graduated from Washington High School in 2016. Brian is survived by his parents; his son, Zyler Mehrer of Washington; da
I sat, but pretty soon I started to pace. I ended up spending a lot of time in that cell walking back and forth. I was so confused, and so unprepared, but still optimistic that this thing, whatever it was, was going to go away. I would be out in a couple of days. I have things working in my favor. But I was very afraid for Yegiwhere she was, what they might be doing to her, what she was going through.
In 2013, the Justice DepartmentsFARA Unit inquired about the firms activities for Ukraine. The firm in reliance on the lead partner, made false and misleading statements  including by claiming it had released a copy of the report only in response to media requests, when in fact it had leaked the document ahead of the official release, the Justice Department said. The department did not name the organization to which the document was given, but described what appeared to be an article in the New York Times. A Times spokeswoman confirmed it was the organization referenced.
The Pentagon presented the plan as a necessary step because of the proliferation of missile threats around the globe, including North Koreas tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can hit the United States and Russian and Chinese advances in hypersonic glide vehicles that can travel many times the speed of sound. The United States currently does not have any systems designed to track and stop those vehicles.
The status of the fight against the Islamic State has come under renewed scrutiny after President Trumps surprise Dec. 19 withdrawal announcement. Initially, the president declared that the group had been defeated and said U.S. troops would be coming home immediately. But senior officials, facing widespread criticism from allies and lawmakers, have since softened that characterization and said troops will exit in a manner that allows them to ensure the militants are fully beaten.
My biggest concern is theres going to be an agent who is not going to be focused on his job, Catura said. Hes going to be out on the street doing some enforcement of something, and hes going to get hurt. Heaven forbid theres an agent who gets killed because his mind isnt on the job.
We are certainly aware that as we constrict and destroy the last remnants of the caliphate that ISIS has moved toward an insurgency, one official said, using an alternative name for the Islamic State. As that insurgency develops, well be a prime target for that as we withdraw. Everyones aware of that, and its part of our planning. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide insight about what remains a sensitive military operation.
The African Union statement was particularly surprising because it was issued after a meeting of African leaders, many of whom have been in power for decades and openly suppress democracy in their countries. The meeting that produced the announcement was chaired by Rwandan President Paul Kagame and included Ugandas Yoweri Museveni, Chads Idriss Deby and the Congo Republics Denis Sassou-Nguesso. Those four leaders combined years in power come to more than 100.
The driver  Jose Aldemar Rojas, who went by the nom de guerre El Mocho  had spent more than 25 years as an ELN militant, leading some of its armed fronts and heading up its explosives operations, according to Botero. He is believed to have lost his right hand a decade ago while working on the groups bombmaking operations. Although Rojas had no criminal record, he had been investigated for his role in the ELN. Fingerprints from his left hand were used to identify the body, according to government officials.
In the past two years, China has established a network of indoctrination centers in Xinjiang that operate outside its courts and have systematically interned up to 1 million people, according to the United Nations. The detentions have been accompanied by efforts to dilute Uighur language and culture as well as all-encompassing digital surveillance and collection of DNA on a practically unprecedented scale.


Portman and a number of other senators of both parties have been working behind the scenes to try to find a bipartisan way forward, including a letter to the president that would ask him to reopen the government for three weeks while they negotiate over his requests for border funding, which include money for various security and humanitarian measures, in addition to the wall. But Trump has rejected this approach, with administration officials telling senators that the president would lose leverage if he agreed to reopen the government without getting his wall.
Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.) are discussing how to potentially expunge the records of people who were convicted of drug crimes before minimum sentencing requirements were reduced and to restore their eligibility to apply for certain jobs, both lawmakers said Thursday. Even in cases where people have served their time, criminal records can often keep them from rejoining the workforce, and the change could let people really reset and restart their lives, Jeffries said.
Given his stature, Kansas political roots and ties to Trump, Pompeo would be heavily favored to win if he entered the race. He served in the House for six years before Trump tapped him to head the CIA. Not long after Rex Tillersons departure from the secretary of state job last year, Pompeo won confirmation by the Senate to fill the post.
Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) said: One of the reasons we picked him for leader is we think hes the right guy to lead us out of this. Hes not someone who is going to be comfortable being in the minority. Hes someone who is going to every day wake up and think, How do we get back to the majority? 
In a video that accompanied the story, the rancher acknowledged that she never seen any Middle Easterners herself. She did not explain how she knows the blankets she says she has discovered are prayer rugs nor did the video show any such rugs.
Half of my Democrat colleagues are now running for president, Lankford said. If one of them is elected in 2020, theyre going to want to put a government together in 2021. If they spend the next two years blocking us, there is zero chance that Republicans are going to let them put a government together in 2021.
At the State Department, officials want the North to start treating the American envoy for the talks, Stephen Biegun, seriously. The North has repeatedly turned down meetings between him and his counterpart in the talks, Vice Foreign Minister Choi Sun Hee. Biegun was present at Pompeos meeting with Kim Yong Chol, and he will travel to Sweden on Saturday to meet Choi for follow-up negotiations in Stockholm, the State Department said Friday.
The strategic consequences of Trumps decision are already playing out: The more Turkey expands its reach in Syria, the faster our Arab partners in the region move toward Damascus. Its not a coincidence that Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates reopened embassies there shortly after Trump said we were leaving. These countries, as well as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, believe that engaging Damascus can help dilute Russian, Iranian and Turkish influence in Syria, and they are discounting contrary views from Washington. The SDF, recognizing that it may soon be on its own and surrounded by hostile forces, has accelerated its talks with Bashar al-Assads regime. Turkey, a NATO ally, turned to Russia within days of Trumps decision, dispatching senior officials to Moscow to work out next steps in Syria. Israel, our closest ally in the region, confronted a new reality with America soon absent from the field in Syria. Only Russia and Iran hailed Trumps decision. Whatever leverage we may have had with these two adversaries in Syria diminished once Trump said we would leave.
Death qualification operates with the Supreme Courts blessing. In 1968, the court decided that a prospective juror cannot be excluded simply because she has general objections to the death penalty, but it authorized disqualification of those who would automatically vote against death, regardless of the evidence. (Judges had been disqualifying jurors for anti-death-penalty views before the 1968 decision, but in an ad hoc way.) Later, in 1985, the court made it even easier to exclude death penalty opponents, permitting the removal of any prospective juror found to be substantially impaired in the ability to fairly consider capital punishment, where legally authorized. Since then, the court has become increasingly lax in allowing for-cause strikes, approving the exclusion of jurors who voiced concerns about the death penalty, even when they expressly claimed they could still consider it.
The union, casting the impasse as a struggle over the future of public education, has taken direct aim at the charters, largely non-union, which enroll about 1 in 5 of all L.A. public school students. The union wants a cap on their growth, along with stricter regulation. Trotted out is the now-familiar and phony trope about charters draining or siphoning money from public schools. Charters are public schools. In California, they are operated by nonprofit organizations, and the money they receive is public per-pupil funding that follows students. It is not the districts money, nor the unions money; it is the students money. In Los Angeles, 88 percent of these students are Latino and black, and 82 percent are low-income. A 2015 Stanford University study found that students at charters in Southern California are learning more than their counterparts in traditional public schools. No question that charters must be held accountable, as all schools should be. But whose interest would be served by capping their growth and inhibiting their operations? Not the childrens.
As you consider these bright snapshots of a city that, with U.S. help, emerged from darkness, you may understand why U.S. soldiers and civilians serving there have been so passionate about their jobs. They could see every day, in nearly every face, the difference they were making. It has been troubling that President Trump never seemed to appreciate how much the United States was accomplishing in northeastern Syria, with so few resources, but maybe hell understand better now.
Then theres the trade war with China, which economists in an earlier Journal survey had identified as the biggest threat to the U.S. economy in 2019. The temporary truce agreed to in December still left existing 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods in place. If there isnt a deal by March 1, tariffs on Chinese imports will rise to 25 percent, which would be even more painful for the universe of U.S. firms that rely on Chinese inputs to manufacture their own products.
Its hard to say exactly what would happen next, but two worrying possibilities immediately present themselves. The first is business as usual. The passive managers of index funds dont earn enough in fees to justify spending time on corporate oversight, so theyve generally left that to active managers. As active management declines, that might leave corporate managers free to get up to all sorts of mischief  especially since the rules of indexing mean that investors wont sell unless you run things so badly that the company implodes and drops out of the index.
She is also seizing the initiative in the trench warfare over Trumps government shutdown and his imaginary border wall, audaciously telling the president that the State of the Union address should be postponed, or perhaps forgone altogether, for reasons of security. It would be both unfair and unwise to ask Secret Service agents and other officers to protect the VIP-packed event, she contends, while they are not being paid their salaries. Trump retaliated Thursday by denying Pelosi military aircraft for her planned trip to Brussels and Afghanistan.
There are many problems with the system and the lack of true, effective resources, but what it comes down to is that we keep trying to treat the symptom (and not doing a good job) rather than the cause. We need to prevent addiction in the first place. Something to start with is medical privacy laws. My son became addicted to oxycodone after being given multiple prescriptions by multiple doctors. Because of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, I actually helped him. I paid for his prescriptions. I took him to the doctor. I shopped around for doctors with him. Under HIPAA, I was not allowed to know what the doctors were giving him. I was feeding his addiction.
Once the federal locus of the nations quest for racial reconciliation, todays White House is a source of racial divisiveness and a beacon to the prejudice-warped fringes of American society. Its no surprise that the FBI found hate crimes in America rose 17 percent in 2017, the third consecutive year that such crimes increased. In Kings day, racially loaded, hateful rhetoric could be heard across the length and breadth of the Deep South. Now, mean, disgusting and inflammatory words come out of the mouth of the president of the United States.
Part of Rischs strategy to restore the relevance of the committee and to accommodate his members is to elevate the role of the subcommittees, giving them more support to hold hearings and craft legislation on a range of issues. The effects of this approach should be at their most visible in the case of China, which will be one of the committees top priorities.
Perhaps most striking is the essay in the current issue of Foreign Affairs by former Pentagon official Mara Karlin and Tamara Cofman Wittes, who during the Obama administration headed a State Department office created to promote democratic change across the Middle East. That change cannot be driven by the United States without far more carrots and sticks than Washington is prepared to deploy, they conclude. Pulling back . . . will be painful and ugly for the Middle East, but compared with staying the course, it will be less so for the United States.
Lebanon reportedly holding U.S. citizen: Lebanon's army intelligence has reportedly detained a U.S. citizen on suspicion that he crossed into Lebanon from Israel. Lebanon and Israel are in a state of war and each bans its citizens from visiting the other country. There are no border crossings at the tightly controlled frontier. A military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said that the man was being questioned and that once the army had information it would release a statement. Lebanese media reported that the detainee is a U.S. citizen. The U.S. Embassy said it had seen those reports and was ready to provide all appropriate consular services. It added that because of privacy considerations, "we have no further comment."
It is an outrage to think that any hard-working, dedicated public servant in this country would ever have to make a decision between paying their mortgage and buying groceries, Bowser said. The federal government must rethink this decision and allow us to offer federal employees the same support they are offering our nation.
The FDA is funded by both congressional appropriations and user fees paid by various industries. Many FDA staff members whose activities are financed by appropriations have been furloughed, though some, such as food inspectors, have been brought back without pay because their work involves a critical public health issue. Drug reviewers are not permitted to work unpaid like the food inspectors. Thats because a lack of drug reviews is not considered a threat to human safety, officials said.
Two injured by avalanche at ski resort: An avalanche rushed down a mountainside at a New Mexico ski resort on Thursday, injuring two people who were pulled from the snow after a roughly 20-minute rescue effort, a resort spokesman said. The avalanche near the highest peak of Taos Ski Valley happened about 11:30 a.m., initially spurring fears among authorities that more may be buried before witnesses told them they had not seen any others on the slope when the slide began. The extent of the injuries for the two men was not immediately known. They were taken to hospitals in Albuquerque and Taos.
I believe there are certain people in history we should honor that way in the Senate . . . and I dont believe that he is one of them, Fairfax, a descendant of slaves, said in an interview afterward . I think its very divisive to do what was done there, particularly in light of the history that were now commemorating  400 years since the first enslaved Africans came to the commonwealth of Virginia.
After leaving the club, she walked a few blocks to her home in the 2200 block of 12th Street NW. As she was trying to put her key in the front door, a man carrying a knife rushed up behind her and demanded money. She had none, but offered her credit cards and promised not to report the cards stolen, if he would just let her go. The stranger dragged her to the front lawn of her neighbors house where he sexually assaulted her.
Although few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward, poet and novelist Stephen Dobyns wrote in the New York Times, reviewing New and Selected Poems. Her work, he argued, was centered on the question of how to love the world when it is intrinsically unlovable, when nature is neither pretty nor nice and life is mostly a matter of dying.
At a public meeting, one protester pulled two dead fish from her handbag and gave them to Mr. Costle. Supporters of the power plant, on the other hand, said the EPA was saying fish were more important than electricity for the people of New England. After two years of findings, Mr. Costle approved the Seabrook nuclear plants open-ocean cooling system in 1978 and said his agencys limited role was to determine whether the water heated by a nuclear reactor would damage fish and plant life.
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Stessel said the station was shut down for about 15 minutes while police were there. The incident happened near the stations bus bays.
Elk Grove, CA (95624)

Today

Plenty of sunshine. Record high temperatures expected. High 109F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Low 62F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.
Her son Hossein Hashemi, a research fellow at the University of Colorado, told The Washington Post Friday that he, his mother and two of his siblings had been subpoenaed to appear at U.S. District Court in Washington, but said he did not know the subject matter. He said that neither his mother nor any of his family had testified and that we dont anticipate her getting out today.
One key question is what triggers compliance reviews, said Lewis Bossing, senior staff attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. He said he was encouraged that the department was looking at the problem systemically, given its rollback of other systemic civil rights investigations. It is welcome news if this actually results in findings where there are violations of the law with regard to the inappropriate use of seclusion and restraint, he said.
If you stand on Trg Republike Hrvatske  or Republic of Croatia Square  looking at the sharp rise of the old city, Sibenik appears tall and proud, echoing this golden age. But what speaks volumes about its grandeur is St. James Cathedral, a domed triple-nave basilica built between 1431 and 1535; UNESCO declared it a World Heritage site in 2000. Marking the transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance period, it was constructed entirely of stone by the builder and sculptor Juraj Dalmatinac . The remarkable frieze on its outer walls, adorned with 71 carved faces of men, women, and children, is said to be modeled after his contemporaries.
Alma and Ken W. in Los Angeles: I looked into this, and yes, there is an increase in the baggage fees. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the airlines collected approximately $2.4 billion in baggage fees in the first half of 2018, but apparently this was not enough to offset the cost of fuel price increases. With the ever-increasing cost of air travel, maybe a road trip is in order.
Wines from an arc extending from eastern Spain through the Pyrenees Mountains and the Mediterranean coast of France share a common soul. They are generally made of grenache (garnacha in Spain), carignan (carinena), mourvedre (monastrell) and, more often just in France, syrah. Moving from west to east, Spain to France, they also tend to show exuberance to increasing sophistication. This weeks selections include three wines, ranging from $16 to $20, that show the range and variety of this Mediterranean crescent. It would be a fun evening for wine nerds to parse the subtle differences among these three wines.
He is different from leaders of the Communist Party who at least had to pretend they were following some kind of ideology, Urnov says. Maybe there is this one idea: some kind of image of the great Russia and the magic knights of the KGB who are protecting this beautiful entity from dirty Western hands. But even that, for me, seems exaggerated. He is very practical, tactical, goal oriented.
To support a show about Gauguins spiritual leanings, the curators would have needed to borrow more of his works that directly engage spiritual matters and focus less on the dialogues they suggest between Pacific and Maori art and Gauguins oeuvre. The latter claim  that Gauguin was inspired by the art he discovered both on his travels and in international expositions he saw while still based in Europe  is easily made, but also a bit of a dead end. The correspondences are obvious, and, for a moment, intriguing. However, as with some many juxtapositions billed as a conversation or dialogue, there isnt, in fact, much back-and-forth after one notices superficial similarities. Tiki figures from the Marquesas Islands seem to recur with some kind of demonic power in Gauguins work, but little is made of that connection. Other carved figures are lovely to look at but feel, at best, tangential to the larger themes of the exhibition.
Incised into stones or painted on cave walls, images of nature are the oldest known artistic subjects. Forty or so millennia later, flora and fauna remain popular motifs, but a new sort of nature art has arrived, at least in the Washington area. Local exhibition spaces  some, but not all, connected to scientific institutions  are displaying work that depicts worlds too small or too big to be perceived by the unaided human eye.
When South Africa was invited to host the International Amateur Radio Unions Youngsters on The Air (YOTA 2018) summer event there were several challenges. The main one was: What could South Africa offer young people, aged between 16 and 25, coming from all over Europe and Africa that was different and something they had not experienced before? The ultimate decision for the South African host team, under the leadership of South African Radio League (SARL) president, Nico van Rensburg, turned out to be an easy one: build a number of pseudo CubeSats and launch them into near space on a high-altitude balloon. It was a great idea but in a short period of time a lot of water had to flow under the bridge, including designing a portable antenna that could be used to track the balloon.

The Secunda Amateur Radio Club offered their expertise in devising a pseudo CubeSat, now named BACARSat (Balloon Carrying Amateur Radio Satellite), and arranged the launch. The Makerspace group, BinarySpace, 3D printed components to make up space frames and a number of volunteers guided the young people, assembled in five teams, through the process of designing the payload with a number of sensors and the software required to encode and decode the output of the sensors. The next challenge was an antenna that could be used with their dual band (2 m/70 cm) handheld transceivers to track the balloon. The antenna had to be portable and be able to be taken apart so that it could be packed in their luggage when flying home.

After much research, it was decided to develop a local version of the design of an open sleeve antenna by German radio amateur, Martin Steyer (DJK7ZB), incorporating design enhancements made by US amateur, Larry Brown (WB5CXC).

The open sleeve is a unique design on a Yagi antenna which places the director very close to the driven element. The driven element is sized for 2m with an impedance of 50 ohm. When operating on 70 cm the open sleeve acts as part of the driven element on 70 cm (third harmonic of 2m).

The original concept was developed in 1946 by Dr J T Bolljahn of the Stanford Research institute but was not introduced into amateur radio until the 1950s. Many radio amateurs have used this concept in the design of high frequency (HF) multiband antennas where by adding additional elements near the driven element, the antenna is resonant on several other frequency bands.

The first South African version supplied to the YOTA 2018 participants was a collaborative design by Guy Eales (ZS6GUY) and Dr Gary Immelman (ZS6YI).

The same evening after the young people had assembled their antenna, they were searching the sky for amateur satellites and it was not long before they made contact through several amateur radio satellites with other radio amateurs. During their week in South Africa, YOTA participants also received a very high frequency (VHF) dongle sponsored by MultiChoice and could be seen during their free time looking for other signals from space. The antenna was a winner!

After YOTA, the mechanical structure was redesigned by Dr Immelmann. A choke around the boom was added to isolate the antenna from the coax and reduce the effect human contact has on the antenna. A handle was added on the boom end which makes it more comfortable to hold and further isolates the antenna from the handler.

Now called the AMSAT SA dual band Yagi, it is manufactured in one of Dr Immelmans factories in Vereeniging. It has two elements on 145 MHz and three elements on 435 MHz. He has donated 200 antennas to AMSAT SA to generate funds for their two satellite projects KLETSKOUS and AFRIcube. He also attached the condition that the antenna had to be made available at a very low price. I like to contribute to the development of the AMSAT SA satellite projects but I also would like to encourage more radio amateurs and in particular the younger generation to become involved in space activities, he said.

For its size the antenna has excellent gain:

145 MHZ: 4.12 dBd or 6.3 dBi

435 MHz: 6.23 dBd or 8.4 dBi

The Yagi is broadband with measured SWR almost flat over the entire bands as follows:

145,800: SWR 1.1

435,000: SWR 1.12

The antenna is plug-and-play. No tools are needed except for soldering on a connector to suit the application. It comes complete in a carry bag with full instructions. This antenna can be assembled and dissembled in minutes.

The Yagi has taken South Africa by storm with over 150 units already in use. AMSAT SA has received enquiries for the antenna from the USA, Europe and the Far East. Currently individual export is not feasible due to the high international courier cost but AMSAT SA is exploring bulk shipping to local distribution centres in other countries. Currently the main focus remains on South Africa.

The antenna has various applications which will be discussed in a paper to be presented at the annual AMSAT SA Space Symposium to be held in Midrand on 16 March 2019. More details can be found on www.amsatsa.org.za

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The city council has a good plan. The narrower lanes will slow traffic.

Narrower vehicle lanes will make it too difficult for larger vehicles.

A separate pedestrian solution should be constructed away from any vehicular traffic.

Widening the sidewalk could work best if a barrier is put up between the sidewalk and vehicular traffic.

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In a panel on trade, I walked into the room to see all men sitting at the table at the front of the room. I was surprised, because a female economist was listed as one of the speakers. As the session started, one of the men informed the audience that there wasnt room for her at the table. Her male co-author would present the paper, and she would field questions later. The panel ran out of time and she never spoke. She declined to comment about what happened.
But, as with the letter above, whats normal is less relevant than what makes sense in the big picture. If hes moving from one finished short-term project to the next, with a lot of repeat business and referrals from happy clients, that sounds reasonable. Some workers thrive on constant variety, and thats fine, provided they can keep up the pace and follow through on delivery. If, however, he is constantly leaving half-finished projects, or if the clients are all idiots and the bosses are all jerks, or if this is a recent change, then that may be a sign of a diagnosable and treatable condition.
Many federal employees were sent home without pay once the shutdown began, because Congress did not authorize the payment of their salaries. There are rules, however, that allow agencies to retain some staff, without pay, during a shutdown. Those workers are traditionally seen as ones essential to protecting public safety or government property, but the Trump administration also has activated workers it views to be essential to carrying out core agency operations. The White House Office of Management and Budget has some legal flexibility to determine who is essential and who must stay home, though some have argued that the agency is going too far.
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Rome's mayor Virginia Raggi has almost a million Facebook followers.

With over 927,000 followers on Facebook and 180,000 fans on Instagram, Rome's first citizen Virginia Raggi is the mayor with the largest social media following in the world.

The figures are doubly significant given that Rome has far fewer inhabitants (about 2.8 million) than many of the cities of Raggi's "competitors" in the social media stakes.

In second place after Raggi is Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London (a capital with almost nine million inhabitants), with 721,660 followers, followed by Ada Colau Ballano, mayor of Barcelona, with 378,009 followers (in a city of 1.6 million inhabitants).

Bill De Blasio, mayor of New York (8.6 million residents) is in fourth place with 253,173 Facebook followers while Anne Hidalgo - first citizen of Paris (2.2 million inhabitants) - has 201,438 followers.

The Italian mayors with the most following on Facebook after Raggi are Luigi De Magistris in Naples, with 395,880 followers, and Chiara Appendino in Turin with 209,440.
Decatur, IL (62521)

Today

Partly cloudy early with increasing clouds overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 76F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy early with increasing clouds overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 76F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.
WAHOO  The dusting of snow area residents woke up to this morning was just a calling card for more winter weather on the way.

The National Weather Service in Valley put out a map Thursday afternoon showing Saunders County on the northern edge of ice accumulation Friday morn-ing. NWS is predicting freezing drizzle to stick to surfaces between 6 a.m. and noon tomorrow, possibly adding up to .01 to .05 inch across most of southeast Nebraska.

Snow will then push across the region for the rest of the day.

Meteorologist Cathy Zapotocny, who works out of the Valley office of the National Weather Service, said snow is expected to start falling around noon in the Omaha and Lincoln areas. But the biggest impact, she said, will come during the afternoon and evening hours, affecting the afternoon commute.

The total snow accumula-tion looks to be in the range of 2 to 5 inches by Saturday, she said.

The latest NWS map on Thursday afternoon showed Saunders County 3 to 4 inches.

Wind gusts of 20 to 30 mph are expected to lead to blowing snow and reduced visibility Friday evening.
Costly mistake

Citizens of Waco: You have a piece of property purchased many years ago adjacent to the current city landfill in West Waco and designated as the next landfill. If the city of Waco started putting garbage or trash at that property tomorrow, probably no one would even notice. There would be no change in the environment or lifestyle of people living in the area. People commuting would notice no change from what they have observed every day since they moved to that area. It would be business as usual. The current landfill and designated property right next to it were there when most residents made the decision to settle there.

Citizens, your City Council has spent approximately $6 million buying land and collecting information needed in an attempt to get a permit for a landfill from the Texas Commission on Environmental Qualify. According to figures printed by this newspaper, you will spend some $2 million more each year to transport your trash to a site near Axtell than it would cost to continue operations next to the current landfill. Your garbage fees will increase $3.23 per month.

Think of how many city streets that $6 million could repair. You would also have the $2 million saved each year to use for maintenance that needs to be accomplished in your city.
Empower Texans has a very different agenda and strategy. Unlike legitimate news media, it uses cold, hard cash to financially back politicians who support political stances important to Midland oilman Tim Dunn. To Republican lawmakers who dare resist, Empower Texans represents a force that can bankroll primary election opponents. It has kept scorecards of how lawmakers performed in bowing to Dunns standards (or those of Michael Quinn Sullivan, president and CEO of Empower Texans and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility). For some Republicans, this group is more feared than respected.

All this begs another question: If a right-wing lobbying group masquerading as the press is to be given a press pass, how about groups on the left wing of the political spectrum? It would seem only fair in the political arena. How about other lobbying groups that defy easy political categorization but produce, say, a newsletter online? Is that a news operation, too? Or has Lt. Gov. Patrick simply caved to a powerful lobbying group that donated big-time to his reelection campaign and might even help him discipline senators at a time when Democrats are making gradual inroads at the State Capitol.

To make all this more absurd, Empower Texans is backing a bill to end taxpayer-funded lobbying of legislators by cities and counties on the rationale that they advocate against their own taxpayers. Interesting theory, considering that, for instance, our elected Republican officials in McLennan County are currently trying to battle unfunded mandates passed along to both the county and we the county taxpayers by  you guessed it  the Texas Legislature.
Its a new year. Or so our Gregorian calendar tells us. Should we believe it? Are we really in 2019 or is it fake news? After all, the calendar we use in much of the modern world isnt all that modern and its not tied to actual events of the solar system, the ultimate timekeeper. Perhaps we should start a new year at the winter solstice like the Persians whose calendar is accurate to one second per year. Or follow the Mayans version, twice as accurate as our drug-store calendars.

Though introduced by Pope Gregory XIII way back in 1582 C.E. (A.D. in Oldspeak), we know other, earlier calendars are more precise because, for one, astronomer Carl Sagan told us so. At least a billion times.

In 1978: The genius of those crafty Mayans stone-carved calendars escaped me while climbing Tikal temples in Guatemala during lither days. Maybe theres something to all those Chariots of the Gods theories. On holiday, sipping Coronas con lima on Cancun beaches, ancient astronauts taught chronological technology to Mesoamericans. After our own adventure in the ruins and a night spent in huts on stilts, my expedition party (ex-wife and her cousins) had an issue with our own sky chariot. The port engine on the aged Aviateca DC-3 wouldnt start. After the pilot and mechanic consulted the manual stowed in the forward coat rack, the engine finally shuddered to life.
Billy Lee Crawford, age 73, of Mosheim, Texas, passed away Monday, January 14, 2019, in Houston, Texas. Funeral services will be 10 a.m., Saturday, January 19, 2019, at the Top Hand Cowboy Church, Valley Mills, Texas, with Pastor Greg Moore officiating, under the direction of Foss Funeral Home and Cremation Center. Interment will follow at Terrell Cemetery with full military honors. Visitation will be 5 to 7 p.m., Friday, January 18, at Foss Funeral Home.
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The Declining Fortunes of Chinas Tech Giants Tencent & Alibaba $BABAAfter years of stellar growth, 2018 sawand $BABA cut back down to size. The FT explains what's behind their fall. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Jan 15, 2019.Tencent Holdings LtdAlibaba Group Holding LtdChinese exports - looking behind the numbersThe FT's Asia news editor Joe Leahy looks at whether the fall in Chinese exports is down to the trade war with the US or a broader economic slowdown. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Jan 14, 2019.
Waco-McLennan County Emergency Management Coordinator Frank Patterson still remembers the haze hanging over the city of West when he arrived on the night of April 13, 2013 after an explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. shook the small northern McLennan County city.

The magnitude of what had happened didnt hit me until I came in the back way to West and I had a conversation with a (Texas Department of Public Safety) trooper and a parks and wildlife captain, Patterson said. I looked around, there was debris everywhere and the haze was still in the air.  Through the haze, I saw flashing lights and injured people were coming out all over the place, and that is when I realized how bad it was.

Patterson oversaw the response to the explosion that left 15 dead and about 200 injured, one of three disasters declared by the state and six declared by U.S. presidents during a 20-year tenure as emergency management coordinator that will end March 15. Patterson recently announced he will step down to take a job as emergency and risk management coordinator at McLennan Community College.
Allinbloom is presently on a visit to El Salvador, but said she intends to take the oak wood to the Wichitas next month.

The Wichita president could not be reached for comment this week, but cultural program planner Gary McAdams said he had not heard of Allinblooms offer to the tribe. He did say a longtime resident of the reservation still builds drums by hand.

That resident, 77-year-old Stuart Owings, said he had not heard of Wacos oak tree offer but that white oak is among the species he works with.

Ive used mahogany, pecan, white oak  its the least expensive, he said.

Owings has made drums for about a half-century, teaching himself the craft but under his fathers critical eye. He builds hand drums and larger powwow drums, the latter usually 14- to 16-inches tall and 28- to 36-inches in diameter with bullhide or cowhide heads. Customers include drum collectors, tribal leaders or members and organizations.

Rheumatism and complications from diabetes have slowed his drum building down, but he continues to assemble them from wooden staves bound in place around a wooden or plywood ring by leather thongs, Owings said.
A 1989 flood that submerged apartments and swept vehicles down Waco Creek would pale in comparison to flooding a storm of the same scope would bring if drainage issues associated with a plan to widen Interstate 35 are not addressed, officials said Thursday.

The Waco Metropolitan Planning Organization has been debating whether to boost its $80 million contribution to the project by $8 million, and the MPO Policy Board delayed the decision again Thursday after learning of the potential drainage issues.

Given the information that (Walker Partners President) Jed (Walker) has presented to us that the construction of this highway will cause additional significant flooding, I find it to be concerning enough that we should push pause and try to get resolution as to what our plan can be, said Dillon Meek, a member of the MPO board and Waco City Council.

Officials are considering options to improve drainage in the area north of 12th Street along I-35 that is dominated by fast-food restaurants, but it remains unclear whether the city or state would be responsible for covering the cost. One option would cost an estimated $20 million and cause major disruptions along Clay Avenue through downtown.
I think the resolution is unnecessary, Stem said. I think its inappropriate for this purpose, and I think its inappropriate for this board because there is a method described to bring these recommendations before the council.

He said the board should instead give its conclusions to the council through an annual report. Stem has previously raised concerns that the proposal would ask the city council to dictate budget details in a way that would limit future councils flexibility. As city manager, Stem is responsible for compiling a recommended budget each year.

Waco advisory board weighs proposal to commit city to renewable energy A city advisory board has started discussions on a proposal to commit Waco to using exclusiv

John Kinnaird, the city councils liaison to the board, said the proposed resolution would be a non-starter because of its language stating that all sectors of the city should set a goal to commit to renewable energy by 2050. He said the proposal, which calls for exclusively renewable energy used for municipal purposes by 2025, is laudable but unenforceable and legally dubious.
Fort Payne Police are asking the public for help in finding a suspect, Brandy Lynn Hairston, who is wanted in connection to thefts and vehicle break-ins. Police say she has several alias names and targets credit cards, debit cards and identifications.

Police say evidence shows that Hairston uses the stolen cards immediately and fraudulently uses victims' identities for person gain, while destroying their credit and image. Video shows she frequents the Shallowford/Gunbarrel business area, but she is also facing charges in relation to an auto-burglary from Northgate Mall in Hixson, according to police.

If you come into contact with the suspect, Fort Payne Police urge you to not get involved with her. Instead, contact your local law enforcement agency immediately.

Hairston has active warrants out for her arrest, and police say she is reported to be homeless and staying in different hotels.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump is calling for an expanded missile defense program to better protect the United States.

During an appearance at the Pentagon, he says "our goal is simple: that we can detect and destroy" any incoming missile.

Part of the new strategy is to create a level of sensors in space.

The president says that America's adversaries are "increasing their lethal strike capabilities" and that his "first duty is defense of our country."

The administration's Missile Defense Review is the first such program since 2010. The strategy pushes for studies. No testing is mandated, and no final decisions have been made.

The goal is to better defend the U.S. against potential adversaries who are developing and fielding a much more expansive range of advanced offensive missiles.
Huntsville Police Department is asking the public to help it identify suspects tied to recent business burglaries in the city and also potentially in Madison County.

Lt. Michael Johnson, Huntsville police spokesman, said the suspects in these four incidents are a thin black male wearing all black with a black and white bandana over his face, and a heavy-set black male with a yellow symbol on the left side of his pants with a blue bandana on his face.



Huntsville police say this vehicle could be tied to recent business burglaries. Huntsville police say this vehicle could be tied to recent business burglaries.

About 10 p.m. Tuesday, an officer noticed that the side door to Dollar Tree, 503 Jordan Lane, was open as he was driving by so he stopped to investigate. The store manager, responded to assist in the investigation. It appears, once inside, the offenders attempted to find cash in the office but were unsuccessful, Johnson said.

About 11:25 p.m. Tuesday, officers were dispatched to an alarm call at Subway, 414 Jordan Lane. Johnson said it appears two offenders forced entry into the business through the drive-thru window. The offenders grabbed the entire cash register before exiting through the same window.

About 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, an officer who was checking Subway at 414 Jordan Lane heard glass fall from the front door at Wings To Go, located next door at 418 Jordan Lane. Additional officers responded to investigate. The manager responded to the store and advised that the offenders took money as well as the cash register. The investigation is ongoing.

About 12:52 a.m. Wednesday, officers were dispatched to an alarm call at Hooters, 4729 University Drive. Officers located a broken window on the south side of the business that the offenders used to make entry, Johnson said. The offenders left the same way they came in. The investigation is ongoing.

Johnson said that while officers were still working the burglary at Hooters, Madison County Sheriffs Office received two alarm calls in their jurisdiction on Jeff Road. They confirmed that the two alarms were both burglaries with same style of forced entry. The vehicle in these two cases is possible a 2002-2009 GMC Envoy that is black or dark grey, Johnson said.
People who worked for the man who was killed inside a Huntsville IHOP are remembering him as not just a great guy, but a leader. Roy Brown was killed by a customer that police said was angry over his carryout order.

Former employees stopped by IHOP to pay their respect on Thursday.

"He was one of those managers that you would want to get up out of bed and work for every day," said Megan Ingram a former employee.

Ingram told us she worked for Brown until six months ago. Her boyfriend, Josh Strange, used to work for Brown as well. Strange told me he couldn't believe when he heard what happened at the restaurant he worked at for years, and when he found out his beloved manager Roy Brown had died it just didn't seem real.

"He was the guy that everyone knew when they came in. He would be the one behind the counter, smiling and behind the grill, smiling no matter how busy it was," Strange said.

Ingram told me she last saw Brown about six months ago when she quit her job for a better opportunity. She shared her final memories with him.

"He told me that he loved me and he was proud of me, and if I ever needed anything to pick up the phone and call him," Ingram said.

Both employees told me they are working to find comfort in knowing a man they loved and is loved by so many is at peace.

"He is missed and he is loved, and I know he is at peace. I know that God got an angel in heaven last night," Ingram added.
On Thursday at approximately 4 p.m., State Trooper Michael Vernon, 32, was arrested at the Lauderdale County Courthouse.

Florence Police say he is facing two charges of violating a protection from abuse order. He is booked in the Lauderdale County Detention Center.



Michael Vernon Michael Vernon

Vernon was previously arrested on January 9 and charged with two misdemeanor counts of third degree domestic violence. For more information about this previous arrest, click HERE.

It's unclear what Vernon's bond will be at this time, but his personnel file shows he was on administrative leave two days before his domestic violence arrest. He is currently under investigation by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

In an exchange between state employees, Vernon's situation was called, "soap opera material." Vernon was suspected of having an affair with another state trooper's wife and was asked by the family to stay away from her, documents show.

A complaint was filed against Vernon accusing him of taking a picture of a court clerk, showing the trooper's wife and telling her that it was her late husband's mistress. Vernon was placed on administrative leave and stripped of his equipment on January 7. Two days later, Florence Police were called to his home where his wife said he became physically abusive.

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Vernon's personnel file is below:
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey's options for replacing state prisons could include leasing facilities built by a private firm.

Ivey in her inaugural address Monday said that she would be announcing a prison plan in the coming days.

Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton wrote in a Friday email that the department is evaluating the possible construction of three new regional men's correctional facilities.

Horton said the analysis will evaluate the best approach for constructing the facilities "either through a bond issue, or a build-lease option."

Legislators in 2017 rejected a prison construction bill because of concerns about the price tag and job losses when existing prisons closed.

State Sen. Cam Ward said one option before Ivey is to contract with a company that builds prisons and "lease it back."
This seasons penultimate The Good Place chapter is titled Chidi Sees the Time-Knife, which is a pretty apt description  of one scene, anyway. About halfway through the episode, while the gangs sitting inside an Inter-dimensional Hole of Pancakes that Judge Gen has refashioned to look like a corporate boardroom, Chidi accidentally steps through a gap in space-time, and is reduced to a tiny version of himself, zipping through the meta-planes of existence. When he returns, he gasps that on his journey he saw trillions of realities folding onto each other like thin sheets of molten metal. Yeah, yeah, the time-knife, Michael shrugs. Weve all seen it.

A better title of this episode, though, mightve been Rule of Three, named for the comic principle that says jokes are funnier when delivered in the tried-and-true tripartite list format: mention an expected thing, add another expected thing, then throw in a big switcheroo. The Good Place has always leaned heavy on the Rule of Three, because its a good way to give context to the shows many mind-bending science-fiction and philosophical concepts. (Like, yknow, the time-knife.)

This week, though, the characters return repeatedly to the Rule as a way of clarifying the mundane awfulness of our world. Describing the relative paradise of Michaels original neighborhood, Eleanor and her pals suggest that maybe they became better people after they died because in the afterlife theres no rent, and no racism or sexism  and no awards-show gift-suite publicist infighting. (That last ones Tahanis contribution.) Later, considering the kind of people whod be a good fit for another one of Michaels neighborhoods, Gen insists, No serial killers, no dictators  no one who managed a boy band. In a variation on this, Eleanor identifies the worst of the worst as murderer, war criminal  Instagram DJ.

Look, this kind of gag just works, pretty much every time. Its the Rule of Three: bing, bang, boom. But here, it also suits what this shows really about. One of The Good Places major points is that we dont need to go to Hell to be tortured. We do it to ourselves every day: with how we treat each other, and what we subject ourselves to voluntarily. We dont always notice how crummy Instagram DJs can be until someone like Eleanor casually files them next to murderers.

In Chidi Sees the Time-Knife, Michael makes a last-ditch bid to Gen to reconsider how modern humanity gets judged, arguing that the world today is so lousy and so complicated that even people trying their best still get sucked into the muck. With the help of Jasons anecdote about his friend, Big Noodle  who was always late to dance team practice because he had three jobs supporting four grandparents  Michael makes the case that nobody has time anymore to figure out what the most cruelty-free tomato in the supermarket might be. (Besides, Jason adds, in Jacksonville its illegal to possess a non-fried vegetable.)

The Judge is only fully persuaded, though, once she spends some time on Earth herself. With mounting horror, she describes how down on the mortal plane she immediately Googled big juicy natural tomatoes and was directed straight to porn. She says our planet is hot and crowded  but also somehow cold and lonely. (Also, I guess Im black? They do not like black ladies down there.) She did enjoy Hawaii  although I barely left the resort  and agrees with Eleanor that its unfair to blame anyone for indirectly supporting homophobia by eating Chick-fil-A sandwiches, because theyre delicious.

The end result of all this politicking and fact-finding is that the forces that govern the universe  including, reluctantly, the Bad Places Shawn  decide to try another experiment, testing to see if a different random batch of newly dead humans will improve when removed from a broken society, in which, as Michael puts it, there are plenty of awful people, and thoughtless jerks, and I guess Nazis again, somehow. (Rule of Three!) A fully powered Janet uses her Derek-building skills to create neutral residents for a new Neighborhood, in the backyard of Mindy St. Claires Medium Place. Meanwhile, the stress of this project begins to overwhelm Michael, as Shawn taunts him with his plans to let Vicky  in a Michael costume  torture Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani when the new Neighborhood fails.

Chidi Sees the Time-Knife is a busy episode, setting up the finale with a plot that ranges from the outer reaches of the universe (which, according to an appalled Tahani, looks like a Diane von Furstenberg pattern  from spring 2013!) to a semi-ordinary exurban backyard. But this chapter also finds time for some quiet moments. Jason asks Janet if shell date him if I dont double-die. Janet tells Jason not to feel threatened by Derek, who she created as her combination son and rebound booty call. Eleanor has Janet recreate her old, hideous clown house in the new Neighborhood, so she and Chidi can re-experience the place where they fell in love.

Because The Good Place always has so many different potential avenues to explore  a whole time-knifes worth, really  ending such an eventful time- and space-hopping season by simply returning to the Neighborhood may seem like a cop-out. But the softer romantic scenes between the characters are a reminder of the larger story being told in this ambitiously offbeat sitcom. Eleanor and her friends may be headed straight to perdition once Michaels new plan flops. For now though, theyre still together, and realizing more and more how friends make it easier to endure the universes ridiculousness.

In the Neighborhood

 Not every list gag in this episode strictly follows the Rule of Three. Shawn only needs two examples to prove humanitys terribleness: Limp Bizkit. Slavery. (Solid rebuttal, Gen nods.)

 Michael calls on another classic comedy construction  the chiasmus  when he tells Shawn that rather than torturing humans with penis-flatteners and bees with teeth, he should try teeth-flatteners and bees with penises. Shawn scoffs  then writes those ideas down.

 The universe is a dangerous place! Even leaving aside Shawns many bothersome Bad Place bees, just traveling from one dimension to another leaves Tahani with a slimy green creature called a need-noggle draped around her neck. Gen helpfully alters Tahanis perception of the beast, though, making it look like a cute little scarf. But she still shouldnt touch it.

 Michael warns the humans that at this IHOP, If you eat anything, you will literally explode, to which Jason says, Yeah, I know, its IHOP. High fives all around.
Photo: Merrick Morton/Netflix

Netflixs Bird Box once again finds itself at the center of controversy. Earlier this week, the movie sparked a change in YouTubes guidelines after people started posting videos of themselves doing potentially dangerous things (like driving) blindfolded. Today, the streaming giant came under fire for using real footage in Bird Box from a 2013 rail disaster in Lac-Megantic that killed 47 people  and refusing to remove the clips involving the real-life disaster from the film.

Residents of the Quebec town expressed outrage at the way the use of the images minimizes the impact of the tragedy. In an interview with CBC, the deputy city manager of Lac-Megantic expressed frustration with the use of the images as a device to show a fake disaster, when, for locals, the images are instantly recognizable as their own tragedy.

CBC reported that the images were purchased from a stock-footage company, and noted that this is the second Netflix production allegedly using images from the Lac-Megantic disaster. Travelers is the other, and the shows parent company is already working to replace the footage. But a spokesperson for Netflix told the AP that the clip will stay in the movie.

Bird Box cant seem to stay out of the headlines (or memes) these days. After its December release, the movie inspired a treacherous social-media challenge where people film themselves doing everything from walking outside to giving tattoos to spending an entire day blindfolded. The videos caused Netflix to issue a statement asking people to stop, but earlier this week, the challenge even prompted YouTube to update its community guidelines to ban dangerous challenges and pranks. So  voluntary choking (the cinnamon challenge), blood-vessel popping (the Kylie Jenner challenge), burning (the salt-and-ice challenge), and binge-drinking (neknominate) werent enough, but a blindfold meme is what finally did it?
Mary Oliver. Photo: Mariana Cook

The acclaimed and wildly popular poet Mary Oliver died yesterday. Lindsay Whalen, whose authorized biography of Oliver is forthcoming from Penguin Press, remembers her subject, and the importance to Oliver of meeting fellow writers and poets on the page.

Mary Oliver wrote the poet James Wright for the first time in 1963.

She was 28 years old and unknown, and she had never met Wright. But she had taken his two collections with her when she left Ohio for the U.K. the previous year, and they saw her through a lonely, difficult period.

In London, Mary lived in a series of guest rooms and boarding houses during one of the citys coldest winters, the same year Sylvia Plath ended her life. Her first book, No Voyage and Other Poems, had been accepted by J.M. Dent & Sons, and was published in September to little notice.

Her future was uncertain when she picked up her special-ordered copy of Wrights most recent collection, The Branch Will Not Break, from Foyles bookstore in November. She read the poems immediately and wrote to Wright that evening: Tonight, in a room the size of a cupboard, I am broke, I am getting a cold, intermittently I am thinking of someone who never comes anymore, and nothing really matters. I am radiant with happiness because James Wright exists.

So much of what I know of Mary Oliver is reflected in that simple page to Wright  the willingness to be direct, the understanding of despair, and the insistence on joy. So, too, the instinct to look for a friend between the pages of a book. I never met any of my friends, of course, in a usual way  they were strangers, and lived only in their writings, she wrote, in an essay about her insufficient childhood and its consolations. Whitman was the brother I did not have.

I had been reading Mary Olivers books closely for years when I wrote her a letter in the spring of 2016. I was not in the habit of writing to authors I admired, but I had a reason: I believed that the time to tell her story was now, and I was the one to do so.

To my surprise, she agreed to meet, and I flew to Florida to visit her some weeks later.

Our interviews began soon after, but by then I knew we had already met in the way that mattered most: on the page.

As arranged, I called from the airport, but when Mary came to the phone she sounded surprised to hear from me. It would no longer be possible for us to see each other. The reason had nothing to do with me, she said, but that was difficult to believe.

I spent the next four days in Florida, hoping my luck would change. I called as often as I had the courage, and made sandwiches from peanut-butter packets left out in the hotels breakfast buffet. During the day, I distracted myself with driving, walking, and reading, over and over again, the same ubiquitous signage about the areas nesting sea turtles.

Back home in New York I prepared to move on, and I almost had, when Mary asked to see my writing. I sent her the biography proposal I had taken over a year to research and write, and I waited.

Mary knew something about waiting. It took James Wright almost two years to respond to her first letter. By then Mary had returned from London, and settled in Provincetown. Finding an American publisher for No Voyage was a struggle, but the book was released by Houghton Mifflin in 1965.

I have loved your poems for a long time, but until I found and read your book I hadnt realized how much they had come to mean to me, James Wright wrote Mary that summer. It is an extraordinarily beautiful book that youve written, and it haunts me in some secretly desolated place in myself where I had not hoped to see anything green come alive again.

The week after I sent her my proposal, Mary left me a voice-mail inviting me to return to Florida in the coming weeks. What I was interested in is your writing, she said. And youre wonderful. Our interviews began soon after, but by then I knew we had already met in the way that mattered most: on the page.

Marys correspondence with James Wright would continue until his death, in 1980. They would never meet in life, but Mary would dedicate her collection American Primitive to him, in memory. It won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

There is a beauty, and a purity, to that kind of connection, but I wouldnt trade it for the chance to know Mary Oliver as I have, in person and in earthly time.

On one of my last visits to Florida, in December, we sat in her bedroom talking, and I noticed that there was a page in her typewriter. By then illness had made life in the body difficult, and when I moved closer to the desk I saw that the page was hammered with letters, not all of them decipherable. In the center were the words on the page that I believe are her message to all of us: Keep trying.
Anne Hathaway on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Photo: ABC

As Stephen Colbert said this week, the shutdown has been going on for so long that were running out of jokes about it. We had that egg and the hamberders and the dueling Fyre Fest docs, but the main story yet again was about something not happening. So how do you put on a late-night show without it seeming like Waiting for Godot? Big, nasty stunts. For starters, Kirsten Gillibrand announced her presidential candidacy on The Late Show.

Somehow I escaped the entire Al Franken and Kavanaugh news cycles without knowing that Gillibrand is pronounced with a soft G, like the way the guy who invented gifs says you should pronounce gif. (Hes wrong, by the way.) Announcing your candidacy on a late-night show is a rarer move than youd think. Last election cycle, candidates mostly announced at rallies or in self-published YouTube videos. Gillibrand chose to announce on the second highest-rated late-night show, with arguably the most political host. To many people, Colbert still represents a shiny, Obama-era political literacy. If you want to tap into the people who are young enough to vote Democrat but old enough to vote consistently, you go to Colbert. You used to go to The Daily Show, but Trevor Noah is too impish to be the person you announce something with.

The Daily Show announced its primary coverage moniker this week, World War D. And during that coverage, Noah ran through the studio to celebrate getting a groan for a Hillary joke. Thats not where you go to announce your candidacy. Noah falls more into the comedy is saying stuff you shouldnt vein of late-night host than his counterparts. The jokes are there to push. And sometimes when the goal is pushing, being funny kind of falls to the wayside. This week, Noah did the best famous-egg joke, then followed it with the laziest General Tsos joke. Thats what happens when your focus appears to be provocation and not quality.

What is Jimmy Fallons ultimate goal? Its certainly not to provoke. Is it to be liked? Fallon went to Puerto Rico this week and basically made a glorified tourism video. Thats fine. Puerto Rico seems to feel like tourism and investment in small business are a safer route to recovery than relying on federal funding, and thats probably the case. Very little of Fallons trip to P.R. was funny, but maybe being funny wasnt the point. Maybe as the host of the Ur-late-night show, Fallon feels he has to set Americas talking points. That role has so much cultural baggage. In an early Kids in the Hall sketch, Touch Paul Bellini, Mark McKinney announces the winner of the Touch Paul Bellini contest by standing behind a suit on a mannequin. He never wears the suit, he merely hides behind it. Thats what any host does on The Tonight Show: They stand behind the show; they dont wear it. The main way Fallon distinguishes himself is his willingness to be the omega dog on his own show. Hes willing to let Jose Andres roast him for six minutes. Carson would not.

Also doing what other hosts would not: Busy Philipps. Her voice is singular in the late-night sphere because its both (1) female and (2) Extremely Online. And those two spheres overlap most fully in the pimple-popping subreddit. Actually, the most female and online sphere is any Facebook group that warns each other about multilevel marketing schemes, but pimple-popping is No. 2. Busy had Dr. Pimple Popper herself on to teach good extraction techniques, and they used cupcakes. It was the only stunt this week that evoked genuine body horror in host and viewer alike.

But the most audacious stunt and the best performance of the week goes to Anne Hathaway for reinventing the Matthew McConaughey impression.

(Second place goes to Seth Meyers for listing all of the Trump administrations connections to Russia in one breath. Dang, girl.)

As Jimmy Kimmel pointed out, most people dont go beyond the all right, all right, all right of McConaughey. But Hathaway manages to get to the thrown-away aphorisms  the Zen, almost motivational-poster patter of his speech. The secret to a great impression isnt accuracy, its having a thesis statement. Before Hathaways impression, I hadnt thought about what a good cult leader McConaughey would make. Now Id happily join.
Danny Lempert. Photo: Arin Sang-Urai

Danny Lempert (@danlempert) is an improviser, stand-up, and actor who can be seen performing in New York City on UCBs Lloyd and Maude nights at the monthly show he hosts with Sarah Lazarus (Tight Ship) and all around town. If youre in New York, check him out February 28 at Carolines on Broadway and find more shows on his website.

This week, Lempert talked with me about using Twitter to hone his comedic voice and help develop longer material.

I had a sex dream about Miles Teller and it's just so frustrating to see a straight actor stealing another gay role.  Dan(ny) Lempert (@danlempert) July 21, 2017

I despise the fact that straight actors are still being celebrated for playing gay roles and its frankly something I think we should outlaw (Robin Williams in The Birdcage being the one exception). And the most insidious part is that now my subconscious has been infiltrated by straight favoritism, so this tweet was born from a real frustration. Side note: My sex dreams are all like 90s rom-coms in that theres never any sex, we just kiss in a bed and then it cuts to the next morning where  despite my not having breasts  Im covered by a sheet up to my chest. Thats normal, right?

How would you describe your online voice to someone whos never read it before?

Id describe my voice as an old gay man in a young mans body whos trying to make the most out of life (but keeps getting trapped in his chunky knit cardigan).

What does your newsfeed look like?

The majority of my feed is comedians, lots of friends, or people Ive embarrassed myself in front of at shows or social gatherings. Mainly women/LGBTQ/people of color. Thats probably 75 percent. Then maybe 10 percent friends from life/10 percent news outlets. The rest is a mix of food writers and those accounts that tell you fun facts about history (Abraham Lincoln is the only U.S. president with a bartending license!).

Gay punk cover bands I will start:

- Twink 182

- Cum 41

- Green Gay

- OK, Charlotte! GOOD  Dan(ny) Lempert (@danlempert) May 15, 2018

My friend and I went to a Sum 41 concert last summer and were ultimately turned away from the door because our tickets had already been used (thanks StubHub), and as we watched all these lame straight couples stream into Terminal 5 (I know) I realized theres a real hole in the gay community for gay punks. This is mostly a joke but if a gay Blink 182 cover band existed Id be at every show.

How have your tweets changed over time, if at all?

When I was a teen and in my early 20s, social media was more amorphous, and I treated it like a fun depository for inanities. Now Im more focused on sharing jokes or things I genuinely care about. I also enjoy seeing how jokes benefit from the medium of Twitter and what really hits for people who are reading on their phones (or on their computer  hi Mom!). Im also inspired by comics who stretch the conventions of Twitter and create jokes in novel ways (mixing text/video/memes, etc.) so Im trying to experiment more, which is scary!

I wouldnt mind if my nudes ever leaked but if someone got their hands on the security footage of me perusing foundation in Walgreens while fully eating a panini Id saw off my arm to bury it  Dan(ny) Lempert (@danlempert) December 20, 2018

I spend a lot of the day in my head worrying about things, so when I do surface to check in Ill realize that Im standing in Walgreens on my lunch break nibbling a panini and asking if LOreal is good for sensitive skin (it is!). I often relish being insane in public, but Im also glad no ones following me around with a camera. And my nudes are honestly pretty tasteful.

Are you on other social-media platforms as well? How do you use Twitter differently from them?

I mostly use Facebook to share shows Im in. That audience for me is pretty fragmented (teachers from high school, family, Girl Scouts I met as a teen on a cruise to the Bahamas) so it doesnt feel like the best place to share my takes on being a bad slut. Ill post maybe once a month on Instagram, which I like. But in general, social media actually puts me in my head and feels like candy in its instant gratification, so I try to temper myself. If Im not in the right headspace, something not being well-received on social can put me in an existential spiral. Twitter has a clearer intent of purpose for me: Make jokes. So I try to stick to that and keep honing my comedic voice and see what people respond to.

At a one night stand this weekend I pulled out my back and the next morning as I was sneaking out I felt compelled to wake the guy up and say thanks for having me. A+ end to slut summer Im 1000 years old  Dan(ny) Lempert (@danlempert) September 25, 2018

This is less of a joke and more of an observation at my expense, which is a genre I deeply love. I was never much of a slut in high school or college, so for the sake of playing catch-up Ive attempted to fill that gap in my mid-20s. Ive been okay at it (I enjoy a challenge) but I often undermine myself by feeling the need to wake up a stranger and thank them for their hospitality like we just did book club.

Do you ever take your tweets and develop them into something longer?

Totally! I enjoy seeing how something transitions from online to the stage as a joke or character. Like the original Hello, Dolly! moving from D.C. to Broadway, with a few tweaks some jokes make the jump beautifully and others are First Wives Club and never make it out of Chicago (this joke is for my theater queens!  hi again Mom). Twitter gives me confidence knowing that something has legs at least in some regard, which helps me try something for the first time live onstage.
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Apex Council chairperson Cecilia Alexander addresses the press after rejecting government offer for cost of living adjustment in Harare on Friday.
Some ruling ZANU PF leaders have appeared in court facing charges of violence and arson during nationwide protests that left several people dead, hundreds injured and others displaced.

Zanu PF youth leader for Ward 40 in Whitecliff Benson Bhobho appeared in court Wednesday together with his colleagues Charles Bengeza, Shylock Chihuri, Emmanuel Chari, Cassim Muzhingi, Noleen and Rumbidzai Dulana.

The state claims that they set on fire a state-owned bus belonging to the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company on Monday.

They then allegedly went to Whitehouse Shopping Center along the Harare-Bulawayo Road where they barricaded the highway with boulders, burnt tyres and threw missiles at motorists.

The accused stopped a ZUPCO bus which they set on fire.

Thousands of Zimbabweans heeded a call by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions to stage a three-day protest over the high cost of living in the country.

Some people looted shops and destroyed property worth millions of dollars.

Reacting to the protests, the Zimbabwean government deployed soldiers and the police in Bulawayo, Harare and other cities where protesters staged barricaded main roads.

The ruling Zanu PF party claims that the protests were led by the Movement for Democratic Change led by Nelson Chamisa in an effort to unseat a constitutionally-elected government.

The MDC has dismissed the claims saying people were forced by circumstances beyond their control to stage the protests.
JOHANNESBURG - The human rights issues of 2018 have spilled over into current events, particularly in two African nations, rights advocates said as they launched the annual Human Rights Watch Africa roundup Thursday in Johannesburg.

This year's report was meant to be released in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, but was moved after a terror attack on a luxury hotel this week that left more than 20 people dead.

The report raises concerns about violence and suppression in several African nations, including Burundi, Mozambique and eSwatini, the former Swaziland.

Several hundreds of people demonstrate, Dec. 27, 2 FILE - Several hundred of people protest their exclusion from the presidential election in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec. 28, 2018. FILE - Several hundred of people protest their exclusion from the presidential election in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec. 28, 2018.

But two countries  the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, both of which had troubled elections in 2018  stood out, experts said.

"We have received reports of serious human rights abuses, including beatings, abductions, torture and the involvement of ZANU-PF, the ruling ZANU-PF Party, groups beating up people in the high-density suburbs around Harare," said Dewa Mavhinga, the rights' group's Southern Africa researcher.

UN to Zimbabwe: Stop Violent Crackdown Against Protesters The U.N. human rights office is calling on Zimbabwean security forces to stop their violent crackdown on people protesting the government's economic austerity measures at a time when commodity prices continue their upward spiral.U.N. rights officials say Zimbabwe is in a socio-economic crisis, a situation that will not be resolved by violently repressing large-scale protests.Since the protests began Monday, the U.N. human rights office says violence on both sides has increased. The U.N. human rights office is calling on Zimbabwean security forces to stop their violent crackdown on people protesting the government's economic austerity measures at a time when commodity prices continue their upward spiral.U.N. rights officials say Zimbabwe is in a socio-economic crisis, a situation that will not be resolved by violently repressing large-scale protests.Since the protests began Monday, the U.N. human rights office says violence on both sides has increased.

Mavhinga said he's disappointed to report that the new administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, elected last year, has not brought improvement to Zimbabwe.

"Initially, in terms of pronouncements and talks by the new president, Mnangagwa, there were promises that things would improve, that the new dispensation would be respectful of human rights. But that has not been with the case, beginning with the post-election violence of the 1st of August, 2018," he said. "And there has been no accountability for past abuses and also, the serious abuses of the last few days involving the state security forces have really undermined any efforts at improving human rights in Zimbabwe."

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, rights officials say a chaotic, delayed election has raised fears of politically motivated human rights abuses. Carine Kaneza Nantulya, the group's Africa advocacy director, pointed to a recent U.N. report alleging nearly 900 people were killed in rural eastern Congo.

UN: 900 People Killed in DRC Ethnic Violence Nearly 900 people were killed in ethnic violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-December, the United Nations Human Rights office said Wednesday. "The U.N. Nearly 900 people were killed in ethnic violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-December, the United Nations Human Rights office said Wednesday. "The U.N.

"So, you have an environment where elections were held but marred with, obviously, violence, voter suppression, etc., that has just heightened the tensions within communities which were, obviously, tense before the election," Nantulya said.

These two African nations, the rights experts said, share certain worrying characteristics: Free speech has been clamped down on; citizens are angry; and politics are bitter, divisive and increasingly authoritarian. And this, they cautioned, is a worrying global trend.
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Vietnams tough stance against China over sovereignty of the South China Sea will put Beijing on the defensive during regional talks on easing the regional maritime dispute, people who follow the process say.

Officials in Hanoi have suggested establishing a code of conduct that, among other things, would bar construction on artificial islands in the South China Sea and ban militarizing disputed features, said Carl Thayer, a University of New South Wales emeritus professor, in an online commentary about a preview of a draft code text written last year. Vietnam, he added, wants to ban any blockades of vessels and nix the possibility of any single countrys air defense identification zone.

Vietnam also would deem unacceptable any agreement excluding the seas Paracel Islands, which it claims but China effectively controls, according to a report posted by Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative think tank project in the United States.

FILE - Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly se FILE - Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Fiery Cross Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this still image from video taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the United States Navy. FILE - Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Fiery Cross Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this still image from video taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the United States Navy.

?China's island building

Analysts say China has landfilled and militarized more of the 3.5-million-square-kilometer sea than any of the other five claimants. It will oppose the Vietnamese agenda, further setting back the 23-year-old code of conduct process but keep it at the bargaining table to show its a good neighbor, they expect.

Chinese hegemony of the South China Sea is not accepted by any of the states within the region, said Stephen Nagy, senior associate politics and international studies professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.

The problem is, their asymmetric capabilities basically mean that they cant push back, he said. The only way they can push back is to try to forge consensus on code of conduct or at least raising awareness that these issues still remain a core challenge to security and territorial sovereignty within the region.

ASEAN leaders and delegates pose for a photo durin ASEAN leaders and delegates pose for a photo during a working lunch on the sidelines of the 33rd ASEAN summit in Singapore, Nov. 14, 2018. ASEAN leaders and delegates pose for a photo during a working lunch on the sidelines of the 33rd ASEAN summit in Singapore, Nov. 14, 2018.

?Code of conduct

After 23 years of on-again, off-again efforts, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China decided in 2017 to restart talks on a code of conduct aimed at preventing accidents while leaving sovereignty issues aside. China has said a final code should be signed by 2021.

Four association countries and Taiwan dispute Chinas claims to about 90 percent of the sea. China and Vietnam have gotten into three clashes there since the 1970s.

Vietnams suggestions for the code, if they carry forward, would affect China the most because of its reach over the sea valued for fisheries, shipping lanes and energy reserves. China has reclaimed about 1,200 hectares of land to build out tiny islets and placed military hardware such as aircraft on some, maritime scholars believe.

The wording from Hanoi would spotlight Chinas expansion at sea, a trend Beijing seldom publicizes. It might also serve as a bargaining chip during later stages of talks about the code of conduct, they say.

Vietnam is in a difficult position as perhaps the country that is pushing back most vociferously against the gradual expansion of Chinese control over the South China Sea, said Denny Roy, senior fellow at Honolulu-based research organization the East-West Center.

Hanoi must draw the attention for playing the role of standing up to China, Roy said. Otherwise China will meet less resistance from ASEAN. In that sense Vietnamese pushback might make a difference.

China Expected to Court SE Asia, Resist Western Allies in Major Maritime Dispute China held what has been widely characterized as upbeat talks this year with Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam even though all three contest Chinese claims to a vast, resource-rich ocean. China held what has been widely characterized as upbeat talks this year with Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam even though all three contest Chinese claims to a vast, resource-rich ocean.

Hanoi lost control of the Paracel chain of some 130 islets to China in the 1970s. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam vie with China sovereignty in the Spratly Island chain.

Chinese reaction

China would oppose Vietnams ideas for the code, experts say. Beijing is unlikely to show foreign policy weakness this year before celebrations of its 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule, said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

I expect if the Vietnamese government continues to insist (on) putting language that the Chinese cannot tolerate, it would be more like a kind of bargaining chip, he said. Its going to touch the nerve of the central leadership.

South China Sea Territorial Claims South China Sea Territorial Claims South China Sea Territorial Claims

China bases its maritime claims on fishing records it says date back some 2,000 years.

But China will keep negotiating the code of conduct because its under tremendous pressure to reduce tensions in Southeast Asia so it can focus instead on ties with the United States, Nagy said. The U.S. government helps train troops in the Philippines and periodically passes ships through the sea to show its open to all.

Despite historical jousting between China and Taiwan over territory, the two countries communist parties regularly discuss maritime issues. They have agreed the Paracel dispute should stay between them, said Termsak Chalermpalanupap, fellow with the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

Vietnams conditions for the code would delay code negotiations, he said.

I think it will be slow, because the Chinese side already said three years time frame, so they will just go through the motions of having meetings, Chalermpalanupap said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed lifting some or all tariffs imposed on Chinese imports and suggested offering a tariff rollback during trade discussions scheduled for Jan. 30, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the internal deliberations.

But Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has resisted the idea, and the proposal had not yet been introduced to President Donald Trump, according to the Journal.

U.S. stocks advanced on the news even as a Treasury spokesman working with the administration's trade team denied the report.

"Neither Secretary Mnuchin nor Ambassador Lighthizer have made any recommendations to anyone with respect to tariffs or other parts of the negotiation with China," the spokesman said.

5i eii eiiiiii iie i FILE - U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer speaks during a news conference in Mexico City, Mexico, March 5, 2018. FILE - U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer speaks during a news conference in Mexico City, Mexico, March 5, 2018.

"This an ongoing process with the Chinese that is nowhere near completion."

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will visit the United States on Jan. 30 and 31 for the latest round of trade talks aimed at resolving a bitter trade dispute between the world's two largest economies.

In December, Washington and Beijing agreed to a 90-day truce in a trade war that has disrupted the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars of goods.

Mid-level U.S. and Chinese officials met in Beijing last week to discuss China's offers to address U.S. complaints about intellectual property theft and increase purchases of U.S. goods and services.

Lighthizer did not see any progress made on structural issues during those talks, Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley said earlier this week.

The Trump administration is scheduled to increase tariffs March 2 on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent from 10 percent.

The timeline is seen as ambitious, but the resumption of face-to-face negotiations has bolstered hopes of a deal.

China has repeatedly played down complaints about intellectual property abuses, and has rejected accusations that foreign companies face forced technology transfers.

Industrial stocks, which have been sensitive to trade developments, jumped 1.4 percent after the Wall Street Journal report.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. withdrawal from Syria may bring to a close an open-ended and strategically unclear military commitment and likely put at risk vital national security interests, according to some analysts.

I guess the problem is that whereas our involvement doesnt necessarily make things better, our lack of involvement doesnt either, said Mark Katz, a Russia and Middle East scholar and professor of politics at George Mason University in Virginia.

U.S. President Donald Trump surprised allies and adversaries with his decision in December to bring home the approximately 2,000 U.S. forces in Syria to help local militias defeat efforts by the Islamic State militant group to establish an Islamic extremist state.

An image grab taken from a video obtained by AFPTV An image grab taken from a video obtained by AFPTV, Jan. 16, 2019, shows U.S. troops gathered at the scene of a suicide attack in the northern Syrian town of Manbij. An image grab taken from a video obtained by AFPTV, Jan. 16, 2019, shows U.S. troops gathered at the scene of a suicide attack in the northern Syrian town of Manbij.

US withdrawal

Trumps justification for a U.S. military withdrawal from Syria is that IS has been defeated or at least no longer controls any significant territory in Syria or Iraq; however, a deadly IS attack in Syria on Wednesday that killed four Americans, two service members and two civilians in Defense-related jobs, showed that the militant group remains active.

Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday reiterated the Trump administrations reassurance that the Syria withdrawal does not mark the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement in the region.

We will protect the gains that our soldiers and our coalition partners have secured; but, this president has often spoken about his desire to bring an end to endless wars in America, said Pence in a speech to diplomats at the State Department.

Critics worry the decision to leave Syria will undermine key U.S. strategic objectives: to prevent the threat of terrorism at home, to deter Irans growing military influence and power, and to defend U.S. ally Israel.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks to members o Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks to members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, after his meeting with President Donald Trump, Dec. 30, 2018. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks to members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, after his meeting with President Donald Trump, Dec. 30, 2018.

?Terror threat

The IS attack does demonstrate that pockets of militants in Syria are still a threat. Without the American military presence, there is great concern that Islamic extremists could regroup and renew efforts to export terror attacks in Europe and the United States.

My concern by the statements made by President Trump is that you have set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we are fighting, said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Wednesday in response to the attack.

At the same time, the limited U.S. commitment in Syria is seen by many security analysts as insufficient to completely root out insurgents hiding within the civilian population in dysfunctional regions of Syria. A significant surge of military forces and expensive nation building efforts would likely be needed to pacify the country and deny IS any havens.

A new Syria is required if you really want to get rid of ISIS, and that is well beyond our capacity to achieve. We are not going to spend $200 billion reconstructing Syria and certainly not in this administration, said Aaron David Miller, the Middle East program director at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. He was using an acronym for Islamic State.

An image grab taken from AFP TV, Jan. 17, 2019, sh An image grab taken from AFP TV, Jan. 17, 2019, shows Russian army vehicles on patrol in the area of Arimah, just west of Manbij, the northern city near the Turkish border where a day earlier a suicide attack on a restaurant killed four Americans. An image grab taken from AFP TV, Jan. 17, 2019, shows Russian army vehicles on patrol in the area of Arimah, just west of Manbij, the northern city near the Turkish border where a day earlier a suicide attack on a restaurant killed four Americans.

?Allies and adversaries

U.S. adversaries Syria, Russia, Iran, as well as American ally Turkey would likely continue military efforts to target ISIS militants.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies would also be free to brutally crush moderate opposition to his authoritarian rule that was aiding the U.S. in Syria. And Turkey may confront the Syrian Kurdish militia that it sees as fighting for an independent Kurdish homeland that would include parts of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

Trump, in a Tweet, threatened to impose crippling economic sanctions on Turkey if it attacked the Kurds.

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis stands in front of FILE - Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis stands in front of a map of Syria and Iraq, while speaking to the media about the Islamic State group at the Pentagon, May 19, 2017. FILE - Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis stands in front of a map of Syria and Iraq, while speaking to the media about the Islamic State group at the Pentagon, May 19, 2017.

The Trump administration has come under strong criticism for abandoning American allies in Syria. Former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resigned over the Syria withdrawal, and in a letter to the president said the U.S. standing in the world depends on maintaining its alliances and commitments.

We cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies, Mattis wrote.

A U.S. Syria pullout would also pose a major threat to American strategic interests by ceding territory and influence to Iranian forces and allied militias, from which to launch attacks against Israel, creating the potential for a wider military conflict.

Maybe this is the strategy, in other words, that let other people do the fighting. And then, you know, either theyll want us back to calm things down, or they wont, and they can just fight amongst themselves, Katz said.
ISTANBUL - A day after meeting with Turkey's president, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said that he hopes U.S. President Donald Trump would not completely withdraw from Syria until the Islamic State is crushed.

Graham said Saturday in Ankara, "The goal of destroying ISIS is not yet accomplished."

The U.S. lawmaker said a U.S. withdrawal from Syria without a plan would lead to chaos and an "Iraq on steroids."

The meeting Friday between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Graham in Ankara was the latest effort to defuse bilateral tensions over Syria.

FILE - U.S. forces are seen at the Kurdish People' FILE - U.S. forces are seen at the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria, April 25, 2017. FILE - U.S. forces are seen at the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria, April 25, 2017.

Turkish forces remain massed on the northeast Syrian border, poised to launch an offensive against the YPG Kurdish militia, a critical American ally in the war against Islamic State. Ankara deems the YPG terrorists linked to an insurgency inside Turkey.

Differences over Syria saw Erdogan shun U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton earlier this month when he visited Ankara. Graham met not only with Erdogan but with Turkey's defense and foreign ministers and intelligence chief.

Ahead of his visit, Graham appeared to reach out to Ankara by addressing key Turkish concerns.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham gestures as he spea Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham gestures as he speaks to reporters in Ankara, Turkey, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019, a day after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials. Graham says a U.S. withdrawal from Syria without a plan would lead to chaos and an "Iraq on steroids." Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham gestures as he speaks to reporters in Ankara, Turkey, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019, a day after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials. Graham says a U.S. withdrawal from Syria without a plan would lead to chaos and an "Iraq on steroids."

"I have long contended that there are elements among the Syrian Kurds that represent a legitimate national security threat to Turkey. Turkey's concern regarding YPG elements must be addressed in a real way to ensure that Turkey's borders are secure and are protected from any threats," wrote Graham.

The meeting Friday marks the senator's second with Erdogan in six months. Graham is a member of four powerful Senate committees: Foreign Relations, Budget, Appropriations and chairman of the Judiciary. Analysts suggest the senator's relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump explains Ankara's warm reception.

"He is very close to Donald Trump, he is a man of confidence to Trump," said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara's Middle East Technical University. "He is more politician than John Bolton who is considered more a diplomat. So Graham's visit is a higher level of meeting in Ankara's eyes, so it's welcomed in Ankara. I am sure Trump has sent him," Bagci added.

Analysts point out Erdogan sees Trump as his only trusted interlocutor, blaming U.S. officials for the current bilateral tensions. Erdogan welcomed Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria; however, the Turkish president condemned what he said were attempts by senior U.S. officials to delay the withdrawal and link it to conditions including guaranteeing YPG security.

Erdogan says Discussed Turkey Setting up Safe Zone in Syria with Trump President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he had discussed a safe zone which Turkey would set up inside Syria along the length of their border, during a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump which he described as positive.Trump, who announced he was pulling U.S. President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he had discussed a safe zone which Turkey would set up inside Syria along the length of their border, during a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump which he described as positive.Trump, who announced he was pulling U.S.

Graham has criticized Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria, claiming it was premature in the war against Islamic State. The senator's talks in Ankara reportedly focused on America's Syria withdrawal and Ankara's threatened military operation in Syria.

Ankara is seeking common ground with Trump's proposal to create a buffer zone in Syria between the Kurdish militia and the Turkish border.

Erdogan welcomed the proposal but maintains that Turkish forces will create the 30-kilometer deep zone into Syria. The YPG leadership is strongly opposed, warning it would resist.

Turkish pro-government media are filled with reports of American conspiracies. "Their steps with respect to forming a 32-kilometer safe zone on our Syria border is a new distraction trick," wrote columnistTamer Korkmaz in Turkey's Yeni Safak newspaper, Friday. "They want to delay Turkey's possible military operation, and if possible, prevent it. Would they accept the kind of buffer zone Turkey wants?" he continued.

Since Trump has proposed the Syrian buffer zone, no details have been provided by Washington on how it will be created or enforced. Graham reportedly discussed the zone during his talks in Ankara.

Analysts warn Ankara could also face pushback from Arab countries in the region if it acted unilaterally.
GENEVA - The U.N. human rights office is calling on Zimbabwean security forces to stop their violent crackdown on people protesting the government's economic austerity measures at a time when commodity prices continue their upward spiral.

U.N. rights officials say Zimbabwe is in a socio-economic crisis, a situation that will not be resolved by violently repressing large-scale protests.

Since the protests began Monday, the U.N. human rights office says violence on both sides has increased. It says some protesters reportedly have burned tires, used rocks to barricade roads, and looted shops and businesses. However, it says these actions pale in comparison to the crackdown by the government's security forces.

Zimbabwe Fuel Protests FILE - Protesters gather near a burning tire during a demonstration over the hike in fuel prices in Harare, Zimbabwe, Jan. 15, 2019. FILE - Protesters gather near a burning tire during a demonstration over the hike in fuel prices in Harare, Zimbabwe, Jan. 15, 2019.

Spokeswoman for the High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina Shamdasani tells VOA the forces have been using live ammunition to quell the protests, resulting in deaths.

"We do not have verification of the exact number of people who were killed or injured, but there are doctors' associations that are putting numbers out there," she said. "Like more than 60 people were treated in hospitals for gunshot wounds. This is not the way to react to the expression of economic grievances by the population."

Shamdasani says there are worrying reports of security forces mounting night raids in peoples' homes, beating them up, and generally intimidating and harassing them. She says the minister of national security reports more than 600 people have been arrested across the country, including opposition leaders and prominent civil activists.

The U.N. agency is calling on the government to set up a national dialogue to find solutions to the economic challenges. It says state authorities must allow people to exercise their right to freedom of expression and to protect their right to peaceful assembly.

It is urging the government to carry out investigations into all reports of violence and to make sure those guilty of a crime are held accountable.
A U.N. team overseeing the truce in the Yemeni port of Hodeida came under fire Thursday.

No one was injured when bullets struck an armored vehicle carrying chief monitor Patrick Cammaert.

The Yemeni government and Houthi rebels blamed each other for the shooting.

A shared responsibility

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said both sides needed to make sure everyone with the U.N. was safe.

"It is important to add that all the parties in Yemen are also responsible for the safety of all U.N. personnel. ... We are dealing with a highly volatile environment in Hodeida."

Thursday's shooting came a day after the Security Council approved sending as many as 75 U.N. monitors to Yemen to strengthen last month's cease-fire agreement for Hodeida. The deal also calls on both sides to withdraw their forces in the city.

The deal has generally held, despite occasional skirmishes, but both the rebels and Yemeni government have been slow to fully implement it.

Iran denies charges

Hodeida has been under rebel control. Nearly all food and humanitarian shipments come through the port. Yemen says the Houthis also get Iranian weapons through the port  a charge Iran has denied.

The fighting in Yemen between government forces and the Iranian-backed Houthis has killed thousands of civilians.

Saudi-led coalition airstrikes targeting the rebels have been indiscriminate, wiping out entire neighborhoods and hospitals.

The fighting has made a dire humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen even worse.

U.N. officials say about 80 percent of Yemeni civilians lack enough food, medicine and clean water.
The U.S. Navy's top officer says he urged China to follow international rules at sea to avoid confrontations and insisted that ships should be able to pass safely though disputed areas of the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.

Chief of U.S. Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson told reporters Friday China should not see U.S. naval operations in the area as a threat.

Richardson, who held meetings in China earlier this week, said he stressed to Chinese officials that communication channels are useful in de-escalating tensions.

He said U.S. Navy ships will continue to operate freely in international waters, including the possibility of an aircraft carrier navigating through the Taiwan Strait.

A new Pentagon report saying China's growing military capabilities could pose a threat to Taiwan has angered Beijing.
The storm that pummeled much of California for three days began moving east Thursday after causing at least six deaths, forcing wildfire victims threatened by floods to flee their homes and plunging nearly 300,000 utility customers into darkness.

The winter storm is forecast to bring heavy rain, snow and high winds to Colorado and will be slamming the East Coast by Sunday, National Weather Service forecaster Steve Anderson said. From Maine to Florida.

Anderson said most of California should be dry and sunny by Friday.

Three days of rain dent drought

The three-day drenching put a dent in Californias drought. Government and university researchers who maintain the U.S. Drought Monitor map now classify most of the state as abnormally dry or in moderate drought. Only about 6 percent is in severe or extreme drought, compared to nearly a quarter of the state last September.

Rain and snow fell from one end of the state to the other, canceling flights, uprooting trees, knocking down power lines and causing localized flooding.

In Malibu, a 57-year-old woman was in critical condition after authorities say a boulder struck her while she was hiking Thursday.

In Orange County, firefighters rescued 12 homeless people stranded on an island in the Santa Ana River bottom, while 25 other transients were evacuated from the riverbanks.

Workers remove branches from a tree on Mission Str Workers remove branches from a tree on Mission Street in San Francisco, Jan. 17, 2019. Heavy rain, snow and wind pummeled much of California Thursday, causing at least six deaths, leaving thousands without power and forcing wildfire victims to flee their homes under threat of flooding. Workers remove branches from a tree on Mission Street in San Francisco, Jan. 17, 2019. Heavy rain, snow and wind pummeled much of California Thursday, causing at least six deaths, leaving thousands without power and forcing wildfire victims to flee their homes under threat of flooding.

Falling trees deadly

In San Francisco, fallen trees blocked the citys iconic cable car tracks for hours Thursday and similarly delayed other commuter trains in region.

A 200-year-old oak tree towering 100 feet (30 meters) over James Holmes suburban San Francisco home toppled over in the wind Wednesday night.

My family lived under it in our house for 70 years, he said.

In the Marin County community of Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco, a man was killed when he jumped into the street to dodge a falling tree Wednesday night and was struck by a van, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Earlier Wednesday, a branch from a falling tree killed a 42-year-old homeless man in Oakland. The man may have been just trying to stay dry under the tree, CHP officer Herman Baza said.

CHP reported that four people were killed in separate Northern California crashes caused by rain-slickened roads this week, including a 1-year-old who was among three people in a vehicle who died Tuesday from a crash in the Sierra Nevada foothill town of Placerville.

Evacuations after wildfires

Southern California authorities concerned with rising streams and excessive runoff ordered evacuations in parts of Malibu and other areas scarred by wildfires. Malibu schools canceled classes. Santa Anita racetrack canceled its slate of horse races Thursday.

In the Southern California hillside community of Oak Park, where residents used pumps and sandbags to hold off rushing storm water, longtime resident Diane Starzak said her neighborhood kind of dodged the bullet as the storms began to taper off.

We actually had our suitcases in the car and were ready to leave, said Starzak, who is volunteer coordinator for Oak Parks communitys emergency response team.

Instead the family used pumps to divert water cascading down a hillside behind their home.

We are really, really happy, really excited, she said.

Authorities warned of possible floods and debris flows in the wildfire-ravished city of Paradise and the surrounding region denuded of protective trees and vegetation.

Snow in the high Sierras

Meanwhile, blizzard conditions blanketed the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada and the regions ski resorts with as much as 4 feet (1.2 meters) of snow just in time for the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

So much snow accumulated on the tail of an executive jet parked at the Tahoe Truckee Airport that it caused the planes nose to tilt skyward in a stationary wheelie.

Pacific Gas & Electric said 280,000 customers lost power at some point since Wednesday. PG&E spokeswoman Mayra Tostado said 26,432 customers remained without power Thursday afternoon.
WHITE HOUSE - The White House has announced that a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be held at the end of February, at a place to be announced "at a later date."

The announcement was made after Trump met Friday with Kim Yong Chol, North Korea's top nuclear envoy in the Oval Office, which the White House said was to "discuss efforts to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program."

Trump's meeting with the former North Korean spymaster, who often is referred to as Kim Jong Un's right-hand man, lasted 90 minutes.

Talks Between US, NKorea Take Place in Sweden A North Korean diplomat has arrived in Sweden to take part in an unannounced meeting in Stockholm, officials said Friday.Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Vilhelm Rundquist said Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has landed in Sweden to take part in talks in a minor format where international experts take part.He declined to give further details. Swedens TT news agency said Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom would also attend the event.  A North Korean diplomat has arrived in Sweden to take part in an unannounced meeting in Stockholm, officials said Friday.Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Vilhelm Rundquist said Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has landed in Sweden to take part in talks in a minor format where international experts take part.He declined to give further details. Swedens TT news agency said Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom would also attend the event. 

After the meeting, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters the administration is continuing "to make progress" on this front.

"The United States is going to continue to keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea until we see full and verified denuclearization," Sanders said, adding they have seen "good faith from the North Koreans in releasing the hostages and other moves."

Earlier on Friday, Kim Yong Chol met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Washington hotel. The meeting's aim was to revive nuclear negotiations, which have been postponed for months over what U.S. officials say is Pyongyang's refusal to meet Washington's demand for a detailed inventory of its nuclear and missile programs.

Pompeo/ Kim Yong Chol U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo escorts Kim Yong Chol, North Korea's lead negotiator in nuclear diplomacy with the United States, into talks at a hotel in Washington, Jan. 18, 2019. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo escorts Kim Yong Chol, North Korea's lead negotiator in nuclear diplomacy with the United States, into talks at a hotel in Washington, Jan. 18, 2019.

The latest announcement is being met with some skepticism by analysts about whether enough progress has been achieved in the negotiations to justify a second summit.

There is a "missing ingredient," said Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea Studies at the Council for Foreign Relations. "Is there some kind of understanding behind the scenes, even at the framework level, that provides a basis or justification for going forward that simply can't be seen based on public evidence today?"

Snyder said that from Trump's perspective, a second summit is to be expected because the first summit generated "good ratings." He noted, however, that in order for a second summit to be successful, "the bar will be higher."

Denuclearization

On several occasions Trump has expressed his confidence about North Korean denuclearization.

"With North Korea, we have a very good dialogue," the president said Jan. 6, adding that it's "very special" and that with "anybody else but me, you'd be in war right now."

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Nort FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island, Singapore, June 12, 2018. FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island, Singapore, June 12, 2018.

But critics point out that Pyongyang has not taken measurable steps toward disarmament since the first Trump-Kim historic summit in Singapore last June.

At the United Nations on Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres encouraged both countries to continue talks.

"We believe it's high time to make sure the negotiations between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea start again seriously and that a road map is clearly defined for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Guterres told reporters. "We won't advocate for any anticipation of other measures before a clear negotiation is put in place, aiming at denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula with a road map."

The White House has not confirmed the location of the next Trump-Kim summit, but American media reports have quoted sources as saying that Danang, Vietnam, is being discussed as one of the likely venues.
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - The South Korean government continues to struggle to reverse the trend of declining birth rates in Asias fourth-largest economy, where the fertility rate is one of the worlds lowest.

The countrys total fertility rate, the number of children a woman is projected to have within a lifetime, fell to 0.95 in 2018s third quarter.

It was the first time the rate dropped below 1 and is far short of the 2.1 needed to maintain stability, according to demographers.

Situation extreme

Seoul Womens University professor Dr. Jung Jae-hoon labels the current situation extreme.

Comparing South Koreas birth rate with other OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, South Korea is the only country showing an FTR (total fertility rate) below 1.30, Jung said.

Its a rate that remains the lowest on record for the nation since 2001.

Along with this, he said, South Korea society radically changed into aged society.

Children release butterflies during an event to wi FILE - Children release butterflies during an event to wish for a successful inter-Korean summit, near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea, April 25, 2018. FILE - Children release butterflies during an event to wish for a successful inter-Korean summit, near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea, April 25, 2018.

?Two factors

Cho Sung-ho, associate research fellow at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, links South Koreas downward trend to two factors: an increased number of South Koreans choosing to remain single, and the decline in the number of births by married couples.

The increasing number of single individuals contributes more than 80 percent of the factors, Cho said.

He states that from 1990 to 2010, the number of marriages in South Korea also decreased.

The current situation may have arisen for several reasons, including the high cost of raising a child, limited daycare options, and long hours at work.

A number of no kid zones have also popped up across the country.

Jung said that contributes to the creation of a discriminatory culture toward families with children and something that must be addressed.

It is not about overcoming low birth rates, but the overcoming of the social systems which triggered the low birth rates, Jung said.

FILE - Elderly women wait to cast their ballots in FILE - Elderly women wait to cast their ballots in local elections at a polling station in Nonsan, South Korea, June 4, 2014. In South Korea, 100 working-age people fund the social benefits for 37 citizens. FILE - Elderly women wait to cast their ballots in local elections at a polling station in Nonsan, South Korea, June 4, 2014. In South Korea, 100 working-age people fund the social benefits for 37 citizens.

?Impacts on society

The ongoing trend of declining births in South Korea is affecting the nation. Schools are closing because there are not enough students to fill them and businesses that cater to children will need to be reformed or collapse, Jung said.

Another impact, he said, that may be manifest if the current birth rate crisis isnt averted is what he refers to as the dependency ratio.

Currently, 100 working-age individuals provide the funds for 37 citizens receiving social benefits, Jung said. However, projections indicate that could jump to a 100:100 ratio by 2060, if not sooner.

If things are not turned around, Jung said, things will worsen between those people supporting those via tax, culture and more, and the countrys economic growth will be inactive, making it hard to maintain a sustainable society.

Efforts to promote births

The South Korean government has spent about $121 billion in the past 13 years to increase the nations birth rate, but theyve largely been unsuccessful. Cho sees a high probability that the trend could continue.

The Korean government started to plan against the low birth rate in 2005 with Basic Plans on Low Birth Rates in Aging Society, Cho said.

He said the plan is in a third stage and focuses primarily on supplementing child care services.

South Korea recently announced monthly subsidies of up to $270. This offer has been extended to the countrys richest 10 percent as well, who have been excluded from previous subsidies.

In September, Seoul also began a subsidy system giving about $88 a month for parents of children younger than 5. The South Korea Welfare Ministry estimates that 94.3 percent of all South Korean children up to 5 years of age will benefit from the program.

The ministry said it will also increase the number of day care centers across the country, with the goal of being able to serve 40 percent of South Korean children.

Another effort starting in late 2019 will allow parents with children younger than 8 to spend one less hour at work each day to take care of their kids.

Children play in a fountain to cool down on a hot FILE - Children play in a fountain to cool down on a hot summer day in front of the General Lee Soon-shin statue in Gwanghwamun, Seoul July 28, 2014. FILE - Children play in a fountain to cool down on a hot summer day in front of the General Lee Soon-shin statue in Gwanghwamun, Seoul July 28, 2014.

Finally, paid paternity leave will cover 10 days instead of three. Roughly 13 percent of South Korean men take advantage of the benefit. Those opting out may fear taking the time off places their careers in jeopardy or indicate they arent dedicated to their employers.

Another plan the government has put in place, Cho said, revolves around career training of single individuals.

Jung sees that effort as a way for the government to ensure a strong social welfare system in the future.

Lee Ju-Hyun contributed to this article.
A prominent American-born anchorwoman on Iranian state television who has been jailed in the U.S. will not be released yet, her son said outside a federal courthouse Friday.

Marzieh Hashemi was taken to court in Washington to testify before a grand jury, her son Hossein Hashemi told The Associated Press. It wasn't clear if she had testified or not, and he did not say outside court.

He has said she's been jailed as a material witness, though it's unclear for which case. She hasn't been charged with a crime. He said he couldn't comment further; the family is under subpoena.

"We're hoping that it would be complete and she would be out this week. It doesn't look like that's going to happen," he said outside court. "So we're just waiting to hear more."

Marzieh Hashemi, who worked for the Press TV network's English-language service, was detained by federal agents on Sunday in St. Louis, where she had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area, her son said. She was then transported to Washington and has remained behind bars since then.

Hashemi, 59, is a U.S. citizen and was born Melanie Franklin. She lives in Tehran and comes back to the United States about once a year to see her family, usually scheduling documentary work in the U.S., her son said.

Witnesses and the law

Federal law allows judges to order witnesses to be arrested and detained if the government can prove that their testimony has extraordinary value for a criminal case and that they would be a flight risk and unlikely to respond to a subpoena. The statute generally requires those witnesses to be promptly released once they are deposed.

Hossein Hashemi said he, his brother and his sister also have been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury. Asked whether his mother had been involved in any criminal activity or knew anyone who might be implicated in a crime, Hashemi said, "We don't have any information along those lines."

The FBI has declined to comment.

U.S., Iran tensions

Marzieh Hashemi's detention comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. after President Donald Trump withdrew America from a nuclear deal. Iran also faces increasing criticism of its own arrests of dual citizens and other people with Western ties.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement early Friday expressing concern over Marzieh Hashemi's case and asked the Justice Department to disclose the reason for her arrest. The group's statement noted that "Iran routinely jails journalists."
U.S. President Donald Trump is reported to have directed his attorney to lie to Congress about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

The late Thursday account on BuzzFeed News said two anonymous federal law enforcement officials were the sources for the report about the president and his former lawyer Michael Cohen.

The sources say Cohen told special counsel Robert Mueller that the president told him to lie to Congress about Trumps dealings with Russia.

BuzzFeed says the anonymous officials are also involved in an investigation of the matter.

According to the BuzzFeed account, Trump and two of his children, Ivanka and Donald Jr., received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project.

FILE - Michael Cohen, former lawyer to President D FILE - Michael Cohen, former lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves his apartment building in New York, Dec. 7, 2018. FILE - Michael Cohen, former lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves his apartment building in New York, Dec. 7, 2018.

Russia negotiations

At the same time Cohen was providing the Trumps with news about the negotiations with Russia, Trump was engaged in his successful presidential election and denying that he had any business deals with Russia.

The allegation that the president of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business deals with Russia is among the most serious to date Representative Adam Schiff of California said via Twitter. We will do whats necessary to find out if its true.

Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas posted on Twitter that if the BuzzFeed story is true, then Trump must resign or be impeached.

BuzzFeed says it learned about Trumps effort to have Cohen lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.

FILE - Rudy Giuliani speaks at the 2018 Iran Freed FILE - Rudy Giuliani speaks at the 2018 Iran Freedom Convention in Washington, May 5, 2018. FILE - Rudy Giuliani speaks at the 2018 Iran Freedom Convention in Washington, May 5, 2018.

?Giuliani on collusion

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, one of Trumps lawyers, has acknowledged that some officials with Trumps 2016 campaign may have colluded with Russia to help him win, but says that Trump himself did not.

I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or between people in the campaign, Giuliani, a former New York mayor, told CNN late Wednesday.

I said the president of the United States, he added. There is not a single bit of evidence the president of the United States committed the only crime you can commit here, conspiring with the Russians to hack the opposition Democratic National Committee.

On Thursday, Giuliani sought to clarify his remarks, saying, I represent only President Trump not the Trump campaign. There was no collusion by President Trump in any way, shape or form. Likewise, I have no knowledge of any collusion by any of the thousands of people who worked on the campaign.

Giulianis comments during the CNN interview about Trump campaign involvement with Moscow were sharply at odds with what Trump himself has tweeted at least 13 times, that his successful campaign for the White House did not collude with Russia.

Most recently, last month, Trump said on Twitter:

Democrats cant find a Smocking Gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comeys testimony. No Smocking Gun...No Collusion. @FoxNews Thats because there was NO COLLUSION. So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution,...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2018

Russia has rejected the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that Moscows agents meddled in the election to help Trump win, although President Vladimir Putin acknowledged at last Julys Helsinki summit with Trump that he wanted the then-real estate mogul to defeat his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors have been investigating Trump campaign links to Russia for 20 months and also whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe.
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has identified three of the four Americans killed in a suicide bomb attack claimed by the Islamic State group in Syria this week.

They are Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida, who was based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, from upstate New York and based at Fort Meade, Maryland; and a civilian, Scott A. Wirtz, from St. Louis.

The Pentagon hasn't identified the fourth casualty, a civilian contractor. The four were killed in the northern Syrian town of Manbij on Wednesday. The attack also wounded three U.S. troops and was the deadliest assault on U.S. troops in Syria since American forces went into the country in 2015.
CAPITOL HILL - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cancelled plans Friday to fly commercially to Afghanistan after her office said President Donald Trump announced the sensitive travel plans, significantly increasing the security threat on the ground according to a State Department assessment.

A spokesperson for Pelosis office said in a statement "the administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well."

Trump revoked the use of a military plane for Pelosi and Democratic members of Congress planned trip to Afghanistan and Brussels late Thursday, the latest maneuver in a bitter political battle over the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

AP Explains: Can Trump Ground Pelosi's Plane? President Donald Trump canceled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's planned trip to Belgium and Afghanistan just hours before the congressional delegation, known as a CODEL, was set to depart. Can he do that? Yes, and not just because he's the commander in chief. The military maintains a fleet of converted passenger jets used by the president, vice president, Cabinet officials and other officials, from the iconic modified Boeing 747s known as Air Force One when the president is on board to smaller, President Donald Trump canceled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's planned trip to Belgium and Afghanistan just hours before the congressional delegation, known as a CODEL, was set to depart. Can he do that? Yes, and not just because he's the commander in chief. The military maintains a fleet of converted passenger jets used by the president, vice president, Cabinet officials and other officials, from the iconic modified Boeing 747s known as Air Force One when the president is on board to smaller,

In a letter to the speaker of the House, the president denied Pelosi and members of Congress the use of a military plane to meet with NATO allies in Brussels and U.S. troops in Afghanistan, writing in light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.



A spokesperson for Pelosis office said the trip would have provided critical national security and intelligence briefings as well as served as an opportunity for Pelosi to thank the troops.

The speakers office said in light of the grave threats caused by the presidents action, the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to endanger our troops or security personnel.

Trump, Pelosi Trade Taunts Over Border Wall, Government Shutdown U.S. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traded taunts Thursday, but there was no end in sight for a partial federal government shutdown soon to enter its fifth week amid a continuing standoff over wall construction along the U.S.-Mexican border."While many Democrats in the House and Senate would like to make a deal, Speaker Pelosi won't let them negotiate," Trump said in a speech at the Defense Department. U.S. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traded taunts Thursday, but there was no end in sight for a partial federal government shutdown soon to enter its fifth week amid a continuing standoff over wall construction along the U.S.-Mexican border."While many Democrats in the House and Senate would like to make a deal, Speaker Pelosi won't let them negotiate," Trump said in a speech at the Defense Department.

The presidents letter did not directly address Pelosis call Wednesday for Trump to delay his scheduled Jan. 29 State of the Union address until government funding is restored and the shutdown ends.



This is completely inappropriate by the president, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told reporters outside Pelosis office Thursday. Were not going to allow the president of the United States to tell the Congress it cant fulfill its oversight responsibilities.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the FILE - Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, takes questions from reporters at the Capitol in Washington. FILE - Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, takes questions from reporters at the Capitol in Washington.

The back-and-forth between the White House and the speaker of the House meant there is no end in sight for a partial federal government shutdown, which will soon enter its fifth week. The shutdown was triggered by a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over funding for construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

New Caravan of Honduran Migrants Crosses Into Mexico A group of Honduran migrants entered southern Mexico on Friday, joining more than 1,000 people who departed Central America in recent days headed to the United States and putting to the test Mexico's vows to guarantee the safe and orderly flow of people. The cohort crossed into southern Chiapas state before dawn without needing wrist bands that migration officials the day before told migrants to wear until they could register with authorities, several migrants and an official told Reuters. "The road A group of Honduran migrants entered southern Mexico on Friday, joining more than 1,000 people who departed Central America in recent days headed to the United States and putting to the test Mexico's vows to guarantee the safe and orderly flow of people. The cohort crossed into southern Chiapas state before dawn without needing wrist bands that migration officials the day before told migrants to wear until they could register with authorities, several migrants and an official told Reuters. "The road

"While many Democrats in the House and Senate would like to make a deal, Speaker Pelosi wont let them negotiate," Trump said in a speech at the Defense Department. "Hopefully, Democrat lawmakers will step forward to do what is right for our country, and whats right for our country is border security at the strongest level.



Democrats insist they will negotiate stronger, more effective border security measures once the government reopens, but that a border wall would be wasteful, ineffective and a blight on Americas image.



Pelosi, the top-ranking congressional Democrat, said Trump's "insistence on the wall is a luxury we can no longer afford."

Trump Cancels Pelosi-led Trip to Afghanistan, Brussels U.S. President Donald Trump forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cancel a planned trip to Afghanistan and Brussels on Thursday, the latest maneuver in a bitter political battle over the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.In a letter to the speaker of the House, Trump denied Pelosi and members of Congress the use of a military plane to meet with NATO allies in Brussels and U.S. U.S. President Donald Trump forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cancel a planned trip to Afghanistan and Brussels on Thursday, the latest maneuver in a bitter political battle over the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.In a letter to the speaker of the House, Trump denied Pelosi and members of Congress the use of a military plane to meet with NATO allies in Brussels and U.S.

Later Thursday, Trump also canceled a planned trip by a U.S. delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The delegation, consisting of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer and assistant to the president Chris Liddell, was scheduled to travel next week.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the president wanted to make sure "his team can assist as needed" during the government shutdown.

Faye Smith, a furloughed Smithsonian contract work Faye Smith, a furloughed Smithsonian contract worker who has not been paid during the partial government shutdown, holds an unpaid electric bill to present to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Jan. 16, 2019. Faye Smith, a furloughed Smithsonian contract worker who has not been paid during the partial government shutdown, holds an unpaid electric bill to present to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Jan. 16, 2019.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers missed a paycheck last week and are set to miss another next week.



"Not only are these workers not paid, they are not appreciated by this administration," said Pelosi, who leads the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. "We should respect what they do for their country."



Pelosis move on the State of the Union drew sharp criticism from Senate Republicans.



By disinviting POTUS for SOTU, Pelosi erased any pretext for her unwillingness to negotiate an end to the shutdown. It is personal, petty, and vindictive, Senator John Cornyn from Texas tweeted Thursday.



Trump has called for more than $5 billion in taxpayer funding for the wall, while Democrats have offered $1.3 billion in new money for border security, but none specifically for a wall.
OSLO - Norway's minority centre-right government has struck a deal with the small Christian Democratic Party to form a four-party majority coalition, it said on Thursday, confirming earlier reports.

The agreement fulfils a long-standing goal of Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg, in power since 2013, who hopes ruling in a majority will provide stability and help ease her path to re-election in 2021.

"We had tough negotiations," Solberg said, celebrating the pact alongside leaders of her existing partners the Progress Party and the Liberal Party as well as the Christian Democrats.

She said the government would focus on a "sustainable welfare society", help combat climate change, reduce taxes for small and medium businesses, strengthen family and children's rights, and ensure stronger security for all.

The three parties also agreed to slight changes in abortion laws at the demand of the Christian Democrats.

Recent opinion polls have shown a majority of voters backing the Labour-led center-left opposition.
MEDIA With Civil War monuments in the news recently, particularly those situated in the South, it is interesting to reflect on local monuments in our area. One of these, Delaware Countys Memorial to the Civil War, known as the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, features a Union soldier leaning on his rifle atop a 30-foot column and is located on the east side of the Delaware County Courthouse facing Olive Street. The story of its creation is of particular interest during these times.
A North Korean envoy arrived in Washington on Thursday for expected talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a possible encounter with President Donald Trump aimed a laying the groundwork for a second U.S.-North Korea summit.

The envoy arrived on the same day Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy that singled out North Korea as an ongoing and "extraordinary threat," seven months after he declared after his first summit with leader Kim Jong Un that the North Korean threat had been eliminated.

Trump Unveils Space-Based Missile Defense Strategy President Donald Trump unveiled the militarys long-delayed Missile Defense Review (MDR), the first overhaul of U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled the militarys long-delayed Missile Defense Review (MDR), the first overhaul of U.S.

Kim Yong Chol, Pyongyang's lead negotiator in denuclearization talks with the United States, was due to meet Pompeo and could also go to the White House on Friday, a person familiar with the plan said, a sign of potential movement in a diplomatic effort that has appeared stalled for months.

The North Korean visit could yield an announcement of plans for another summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There has been no indication, however, of any narrowing of differences over U.S. demands that North Korea abandon a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States or Pyongyang's demand for a lifting of punishing sanctions.

Kim Yong Chol, a hardline former spy chief, arrived in Washington on a commercial flight from Beijing, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Pompeo had planned to meet his North Korean counterpart to discuss a second summit last November, but the meeting was postponed at the last moment.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives at Sun FILE - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives at Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, July 6, 2018. FILE - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives at Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, July 6, 2018.

Diplomatic contact was resumed after Kim Jong Un delivered a New Year speech in which he said he was willing to meet Trump "at any time," South Korea's ambassador to the United States, Cho Yoon-je, told reporters last week.

Kim Yong Chol was last in Washington in June, when he delivered a letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump that opened the way for the June 12 summit in Singapore.

That meeting yielded a pledge from the latter to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and Trump declared the next day that there was "no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."

There has been little obvious progress since, however, which was underlined by the Missile Defense Review unveiled Thursday.

Introducing the report, acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan noted that North Korean missiles remained a "significant concern." Trump himself only mentioned North Korea in passing at the same event, saying negotiations he had conducted should have been done years ago.

'Concrete steps'

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged on Wednesday that efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal had not made headway.

"While the president is promising dialogue with Chairman Kim, we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region," Pence said in an address to U.S. ambassadors and other senior American diplomats at the State Department.

Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the Global FILE - Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Department of State in Washington, Jan. 16, 2019. FILE - Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Department of State in Washington, Jan. 16, 2019.

Trump said on Jan. 2 that he had received a "great" letter from Kim Jong Un and would probably meet him again in the not-too-distant future, but there was no rush.

Pyongyang had stopped missile and bomb testing and if it had not been for his administration "you'd be having a nice big fat war in Asia," he said.

CNN quoted a source familiar with the U.S.-North Korea talks as saying that Kim Yong Chol would be carrying a new letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump.

Kim Yong Chol will be the first top North Korean official to stay overnight in Washington since the late Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok did so ahead of talks with then-President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000.

Communist-ruled Vietnam, which has good relations with both the United States and North Korea, has been widely touted as the most likely venue for a second meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un.

The Washington Post quoted people familiar with recent diplomatic activity as saying that if announced soon, the summit would probably take place in March or April, with the coastal city of Danang the most likely venue.
Almost 1,000 Central American migrants entered southern Mexico Thursday in a test of the new governments pledge to manage an ongoing exodus fueled by violence and poverty that has strained relations with the Trump administration.

Mexicos National Migration Institute said 969 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua crossed into Ciudad Hidalgo just days after new U.S.-bound caravans of people set off from Central America.

Caravans from Central America have inflamed the debate over U.S. immigration policy, with U.S. President Donald Trump using the migrants to try to secure backing for his plan to build a border wall on the frontier with Mexico.

Ciudad Hidalgo Mexico Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico

?Humanitarian approach

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is pursuing a humanitarian approach to the problem, vowing to stem the flow of people by finding jobs for the migrants. In exchange, he wants Trump to help spur economic development in the region.

Migrants from Honduras, part of a new caravan from Migrants from Honduras, part of a new caravan from Central America trying to reach the United States, wait to be processed in an immigration facility in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Jan. 17, 2019. Migrants from Honduras, part of a new caravan from Central America trying to reach the United States, wait to be processed in an immigration facility in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Jan. 17, 2019.

The U.S. government has been partially shut down for more than three weeks as Democrats resist Trumps demand that Congress provide $5.7 billion to fund his planned wall.

Mexican officials put wristbands on the migrants as they entered the country to monitor the flow of people. The bands must be kept until the migrants register with authorities.

Once registered, migrants who met the requirements to stay would be issued humanitarian visas, allowing them to work in Mexico or continue to the U.S. border, said Ana Laura Martinez de Lara, director general of migratory control and verification.

Those who entered Mexico at the official border crossing had done so in a very orderly and respectful manner, in contrast to clashes that took place at the frontier in October when a larger caravan began crossing from Guatemala, she said.

Some of the migrants expected to stay in Mexico to find work but it was too early to say how many, she said.

Hundreds waiting to cross

Martinez de Lara said about 700 people were still waiting to cross into Mexico from Tecun Uman on the Guatemalan side of the border. She could not say if any people had tried to cross into Mexico illegally.

Mexicos government said Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard planned to meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo soon for talks on their efforts to address the migration challenge. No date was yet set for the talks, a ministry spokeswoman said.
With a single deadly blast Wednesday, the Islamic State group did more than rattle the calm in the northern Syrian town of Manbij. The terror group also rekindled the debate over its much-heralded demise.

Moments after a suicide bomber was sent into a patrol of U.S. troops and their Syrian counterparts, four Americans and five U.S.-backed fighters lay dead or dying, while images of bodies and blood-splattered walls were being shared across social media, finding their way into news articles and broadcasts.



But to officials and analysts who have been studying the collapse of the self-declared caliphate, the attack, while brutal, likely was not shocking.

Manbij Manbij Manbij

"ISIS maintains the capacity to pursue opportunistic attacks and present itself as an enduring security challenge in Syria," said Nicholas Glavin, formerly a researcher at the U.S. Naval War College's Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups, using an acronym for the terror group.



For more than a year, U.S. intelligence and defense officials have warned publicly that IS was finding ways to adapt to its mounting losses, sustaining enough manpower and resources to do damage.



IS in Iraq



In Iraq, where the caliphate had collapsed, IS cells carried out attacks on critical infrastructure, targeting water supplies, power lines and cell towers.



Local officials said other cells carried out campaigns of assassinations and kidnappings.



"They have deep, in some cases, familial links," Christopher Maier, the director of the Defense Department's Defeat ISIS Core Task Force, told VOA. "It's going to be fundamentally, I think, hard to see what these threats look like until they manifest."



U.S. officials have yet to confirm Wednesday's deadly attack in Manbij was indeed the work of IS, though they believe it likely was.

Syrians check the site of a suicide attack targeti Syrians check the site of a suicide attack targeting U.S.-led coalition forces the day before in Manbij, Syria, Jan. 17, 2019. Syrians check the site of a suicide attack targeting U.S.-led coalition forces the day before in Manbij, Syria, Jan. 17, 2019.

Yet they worry that the way in which it was carried out and the way in which IS moved to capitalize on it could be a sign the group's network of family, friends and sympathizers are well-placed for a long fight in Syria as well.



For example, despite having been kicked out of Manbij in 2016, IS knew when and where to strike, targeting the patrol near the restaurant where U.S. troops were known to stop to meet with their coalition counterparts.



"There's a good chance the group had spotters engaged in surveillance in the immediate vicinity who informed Islamic State's local intelligence and security officials in real time to dispatch the suicide bomber," said Jade Parker, a former counterterrorism analyst in support of U.S. military activities.



"If this is the case, it appears as though the Islamic State intelligence and security services have not been as thoroughly degraded as some have claimed," Parker added.



Abilities of IS



The ability of IS to quickly claim responsibility, sharing details such as the name of the suicide bomber and the U.S.-backed coalition's immediate response, also indicates its propaganda machine is still dangerous.



"Propaganda-wise, ISIS remains extremely intact," said Raphael Gluck, co-founder of Jihadoscope, a company that monitors online activity by Islamist extremists.



"They may not be releasing the amount of videos they once were, and perhaps content might not be lingering on social media as it used to, but a very steady flow of Islamic State media remains," Gluck said.

An image grab taken from AFP-TV on Jan. 17, 2019, An image grab taken from AFP-TV on Jan. 17, 2019, shows Russian army vehicles on patrol in the area of Arimah, just west of Manbij, Syria, where a day earlier a suicide attack on a restaurant killed four U.S personnel. An image grab taken from AFP-TV on Jan. 17, 2019, shows Russian army vehicles on patrol in the area of Arimah, just west of Manbij, Syria, where a day earlier a suicide attack on a restaurant killed four U.S personnel.

It is those types of indications of the Islamic State's resiliency that have long worried defense and intelligence officials, who have repeatedly argued that no one should confuse the collapse of the terror group's caliphate with its lasting defeat.



"We're under no illusion that we're dealing with a long-term challenge," Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a conference on defeating IS in October. "We know from previous experience that when you relieve pressure on the threat, they will take the ability to reconstitute."
Israel has been conducting military operations against Iran on Syrian soil for more than two years.

Many missions have been shrouded in secrecy, but this week the Israelis offered rare confirmation of an airstrike on an Iranian weapons cache located near Damascus' international airport.

And Israel's outgoing military chief, General Gadi Eisenkot, went into greater public detail about the conflict before handing off to his successor, General Aviv Kochavi, a 54-year-old former paratrooper.

With Syria's long-running civil war winding down and Israel determined to thwart Iran from entrenching militarily near its borders, the unusual admission about the air raid last Sunday and the readiness of Eisenkot to discuss how Israel has been striking at Iran inside Syria highlights the risks of escalation, say analysts.

FILE - Israel's Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot deliv FILE - Israel's Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot delivers a speech at the Prime Minister's Jerusalem offices, Feb. 16, 2015. FILE - Israel's Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot delivers a speech at the Prime Minister's Jerusalem offices, Feb. 16, 2015.

Eisenkot, who retired Tuesday after 40 years of service in the Israeli Defense Force, told Britain's Sunday Times, "In January 2017 we began attacking the infrastructure the Iranians were building in Syria. The critical mass was from mid-2017. We began attacking systematically a number of times each week. Without making any statements. Beneath the radar."

Both Israel and Iran, Russia's partner in propping up the government of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, are maneuvering as they draw up their strategies to secure their national interests for dealing with post-civil war Syria. Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, an influential research institute with Tel Aviv University, argued this week in its annual assessment that "Israel needs to prepare for the possibility that its battle to keep Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria may have to be expanded to Lebanon or to Iran directly."

"Most of the fronts facing Israel are very volatile: Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. In all three, despite the existence of mutual deterrence between the sides, there is a potential for escalation toward a broad confrontation and a general war, more than one front at a time," the institute said.

According to the institute's report, which was released at the official residence of Israel's prime minister, the most serious threat facing Israel would be an all-out war in the north that would include Iran, Hezbollah and Syria.

"Such a confrontation would also likely spill over to the south, and Israel would additionally find itself battling terrorist organizations from the Gaza Strip," it warned.

Israel's strikes against Iran inside Syria began around 2013, when Israel bombed convoys carrying Iranian weapons to its ally Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite militia which fought a bloody war with Israel in 2006. Eisenkot acknowledged that Israel had also supplied some anti-Assad rebel groups with small arms, something long suspected but not confirmed by Israeli officials.

Russia's role

The airstrikes since 2017 have directly targeted Iranian bases. One air raid in May was mounted on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Moscow to visit Russian leader Vladimir Putin, a trip designed to gain from the Kremlin a promise to try to restrain Iran from establishing permanent bases in Syria.

9i eiie eei e ee eiei FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a military parade in Red Square, Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2018. FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a military parade in Red Square, Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2018.

Putin agreed to try to ensure that Iranian forces would stay at least 15 kilometers away from Israel's border with Syria. His foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, publicly announced that "only representatives of the Syrian Arab Republic's army should stand at Syria's border with Syria."

Most analysts say the Kremlin, which has done much to woo Israel, has limited influence on Tehran and that Russia's balancing act among Israel, Assad and Iran is likely to test even Putin's diplomatic agility. In September, Russia ignored longstanding Israeli objections and announced the delivery of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Syria.

Israel's intentions

In the meantime, Netanyahu's public confirmation of last Sunday's airstrikes near the Damascus international airport and Eisenkot's outlining of operations are clear indications that Israel has no intention of letting up.

Netanyahu Admits to Conducting Airstrikes in Syria Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a recent Israeli airstrike in Syria targeted Iranian weapons. Speaking Sunday at an Israeli Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said: "Just in the last 36 hours the air force attacked Iranian warehouses containing Iranian weapons in the Damascus international airport." Israel's acknowledgement of a recent Israeli attack on Syria is rare. However, Israel's outgoing military chief of staff Lieutenant-General Gadi Eisenkot revealed in a recent New York Times Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a recent Israeli airstrike in Syria targeted Iranian weapons. Speaking Sunday at an Israeli Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said: "Just in the last 36 hours the air force attacked Iranian warehouses containing Iranian weapons in the Damascus international airport." Israel's acknowledgement of a recent Israeli attack on Syria is rare. However, Israel's outgoing military chief of staff Lieutenant-General Gadi Eisenkot revealed in a recent New York Times

Eisenkot said Israel has "carried out thousands of attacks without taking responsibility and without asking for credit." He said Israel dropped 2,000 bombs on Iranian targets inside Syria in 2018 alone. Missile strikes have also been launched and he acknowledged some special forces ground operations have been conducted.

Israeli officials say they hope Syria's Assad may want to restrain the Iranians, too, once he has consolidated his grip on the country, even though Iran will seek strategic returns for its backing of him. Regardless of what Assad does, Netanyahu emphasized at a Cabinet meeting this week that Israel would continue with airstrikes as long as an Iranian presence remains in Syria.

That drew a chorus of public threats from Iranian military commanders, including from Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who warned, "Know that you are playing with the tail of the lion. Fear the day Iran's precision missiles land on your head."
WASHINGTON - U.S. political leaders and the media have ignored us long enough.

Thats the message thousands of international indigenous activists will be bringing to Washington Friday for the first ever Indigenous Peoples March. They are seeking to bring national attention to injustices endured by Indigenous people across the globe.

The event, coming a day before the third annual Womens March, is organized by the Indigenous Peoples Movement (IPM), an international grassroots collective seeking to unify tribes and indigenous peoples from North, South and Central America, the Pacific, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.

Our main goal is to send a message that we are still here, we are organized, and we are growing, said IPM media coordinator Darren Thompson, an Ojibwe and member of the Lac du Flambeau tribe in Wisconsin. We are looking not only to empower each other but share important information with the American public about the legacy of colonization.

YouTube screengrab of Deb Haaland speaking to supp YouTube screengrab of Deb Haaland speaking to supporters after her historic win in New Mexico's primary vote, June 5, 2018. YouTube screengrab of Deb Haaland speaking to supporters after her historic win in New Mexico's primary vote, June 5, 2018.

As many as 80 speakers and indigenous performers will participate in the event, which is hash tagged #IPMDC19 on social media. They include Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), a member of the Laguna Pueblo and one of the first two Native American women elected to the U.S. Congress, and Ruth Buffalo, recently elected first Native American Democrat to the North Dakota Legislature.

Also speaking will be Ashley Callingbull, a Cree First Nations woman from the Enoch Cree Nation in the province of Alberta, Canada, and a former Miss Universe who works to empower indigenous youth through relating stories of her own experiences with physical and sexual abuse.

A small group of indigenous protesters blocked a G A small group of indigenous protesters blocked a Gold Coast road, bringing a temporary halt to the Queen's baton relay before the opening ceremony for the 2018 Commonwealth Games at Carrara Stadium on the Gold Coast, Australia, April 4, 2018. A small group of indigenous protesters blocked a Gold Coast road, bringing a temporary halt to the Queen's baton relay before the opening ceremony for the 2018 Commonwealth Games at Carrara Stadium on the Gold Coast, Australia, April 4, 2018.

They will address a wide range of issues and injustices impacting indigenous communities, including the environment, voter suppression, police brutality and a global epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW).

Historic marginalization and racism, the legacies of colonization, have left indigenous women particularly vulnerable to violence. Statistics are hard to come by, owing to spotty reporting by victims and police. The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) reports that 84 percent of Native American and Alaska Native (NA/AN) women have experienced violence in their lives, and more than half of them are survivors of sexual violence. Ninety-six percent of victims of rape or sexual assault are attacked by non-native assailants, and NA/AN women in the United States are murdered at a rate ten times higher than the national average.

In this July 14, 2018, file photo, Kenny Still Smo In this July 14, 2018, file photo, Kenny Still Smoking touches the tombstone of his 7-year-old daughter, Monica, who disappeared from school in 1979 and was found frozen on a mountain, as he visits her grave on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning In this July 14, 2018, file photo, Kenny Still Smoking touches the tombstone of his 7-year-old daughter, Monica, who disappeared from school in 1979 and was found frozen on a mountain, as he visits her grave on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning

In addition, a 2015 National Congress of American Indians study of four sites in the U.S. and Canada found that about 40 percent of women involved in sex trafficking identified as an AI/AN or First Nation from Canada.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (Igorot, from the Philippines), reported in 2015 that indigenous women worldwide are vulnerable to rape, enslavement or murder, particularly during military conflicts.

FILE - A motorcyclist rides past a mural of slain FILE - A motorcyclist rides past a mural of slain environmentalist and indigenous leader Berta Caceres in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. FILE - A motorcyclist rides past a mural of slain environmentalist and indigenous leader Berta Caceres in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

IPM organizers say they are looking to advocate policies to strengthen indigenous rights and to encourage solidarity among global indigenous groups across borders imposed by European colonizers.

They expect to draw a crowd of 10,000 from as far away as Australia, Guatemala, Papua New Guinea, and the Caribbean.

Though since we are piggybacking on the Womens March on Saturday, that number could be much, much higher, said Thompson.
As Sitabh Malik prepares to harvest his winter crop and plant wheat, he is apprehensive. The 36-year-old spends much of the day patrolling his farm in Abupur village in Uttar Pradesh state to chase stray cows that intrude into his fields and eat his crops.

Whatever crop I planted, such as rice, they did not leave anything, rues Malik as he walks around his fields on a chilly winter morning. Then I planted mustard, hoping they wont eat it, but they ate that up also. Now they are destroying the fodder I have grown. Even as he speaks, he spots two calves that have wandered in and rushes to chase them out.

Maliks problems intensified after the states Hindu nationalist government, elected nearly two years ago, imposed tough restrictions on the cattle trade to protect cows that Hindus consider holy. Stricter implementation of laws that include prison terms and a crackdown on what the government says were illegal slaughter houses have virtually shut down a thriving trade in aged animals that were previously sold for meat or hides.

?WATCH: India's Farmers Threatened by Swelling Numbers of Stray Cows

?5 million stray cattle

The result: Farmers quietly abandon their aged animals under the cover of darkness in neighboring villages or roads resulting in a massive spike in the number of stray cows. By one estimate more than 5 million stray cattle roam the countryside in India. The problem is more intense in states in the north of the country where the Hindu nationalist governments that rule several states have made protection of cows a top agenda.

In states such as Uttar Pradesh that ban cow slaughter, the animals usually had been transported to states where laws were less restrictive. But that movement has virtually stopped as bands of aggressive cow vigilantes patrol highways and stop trucks they suspect of transporting cows. The vigilantes have been blamed for several violent attacks.

Villagers say the stray cows have emerged as a greater threat to their crops than weather uncertainties. Economists warn that the cows pose the latest challenge to a rural economy already reeling under the pressure of low crop prices.

Across thousands of villages like Didoli in Uttar Across thousands of villages like Didoli in Uttar Pradesh, people are seeking assurances from the government that their fields will be protected from cows that maraud their fields. Across thousands of villages like Didoli in Uttar Pradesh, people are seeking assurances from the government that their fields will be protected from cows that maraud their fields.

?Farmers devastated

Just a few kilometers from Abupur, another village, Didoli is also coping with the havoc caused by stray cows.

In the last six months, this problem has intensified by 90 percent. It has increased because everybody is letting loose their animals, according to Ram Kumar Tyagi. Farmers have been devastated, says the aged farmer and points out that the chill of winter nights makes it difficult to patrol the fields after darkness, when cows emerge in large numbers.

These villages are among thousands across the state where farmers are complaining of heavy losses. As anger runs high, in some places farmers have locked up stray cows in village schools to protect their fields.

Some are stringing barbed wire to save their crops, but most farmers who have small patches of land cannot afford sturdy enough fences. Others try low cost solutions: They are tying strips of silver ribbon on the fields periphery, whose glare they say, distracts the cows.

Arun Kumar in Didoli village is a relatively well-off farmer. His 16 cows include male calves and some aged ones that have stopped giving milk. He continues to take care of these animals, but says smaller farmers cannot afford to feed unproductive animals because it adds to the burden of poor rural households.

We have told officials, leaders, whoever we meet that this is the biggest problem we face today, he says. But no answers have been forthcoming. They say, We will think about it, but so far there is no solution.

This cow shelter in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh run This cow shelter in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh run by a charity looks after aged cows, but such shelters are too few in number to take care of stray cows that many farmers abandon when they turn unproductive. This cow shelter in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh run by a charity looks after aged cows, but such shelters are too few in number to take care of stray cows that many farmers abandon when they turn unproductive.

?No easy fix

There are no quick fixes. Although Hindu charities and the government run shelters for aged cows across the country, they are too few in number to accommodate the millions of stray cows. The closest shelter to Abupur and Didoli village lies in Ghaziabad town, but it is overcrowded with 1,250 cows. Supervisor Ashok Pandey has to turn down frequent requests to house more animals.

We are already short of space. We have taken in as many as possible, Pandey said.

The threats from stray cattle have led the Uttar Pradesh government to impose a special cow welfare tax this month that it says will be used to build more shelters.

But economists say that it is still financially unviable for one of the countrys poorest states to fund enough shelters to house the strays.

I know every government has the right to follow policies on the basis of faith and belief for social reasons, but the government should be aware of the cost implications, says Amitabh Kundu at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, a think tank in New Delhi. You cannot put the burden on the farmers. You cant take the burden on yourself because then your allocation for other social sectors will come down so I find absolutely no rationality in moving in that direction.

The government has vowed not to compromise on its goal of protecting cows. But with general elections just months away and anger growing in the countryside, analysts say it must also move quickly to assure rural communities that their labor and livelihoods too will be protected.
Editor's note: We want you to know what's happening, and why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

Remember the wall?

The noise surrounding the U.S. government shutdown is increasing as workers face a fifth week without pay. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested President Donald Trump forego the annual State of the Union address to Congress because of security concerns and Trump canceled her trip to Afghanistan. Remember what it is all about? Funding for a wall on the border between U.S. and Mexico. By week's end, Trump tried to bring attention back to the wall by tweeting about the advance of another migrant caravan.

Another big Caravan heading our way. Very hard to stop without a Wall!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2019

"Only a wall will work," Trump had tweeted earlier in the week.

But it is hard to see that the $5.7 billion he wants for the wall is anything but an arbitrary figure.

Where are the children?

The Department of Health and Human Services inspector general reported that thousands more children may have been separated from their parents by U.S. immigration officials than previously reported and that the practice was implemented sooner than was publicly announced.

Not welcome here

The human rights group Amnesty International is slamming European states that bar migrant ships from docking at their ports. Calling the practice "shameful," Amnesty's Matteo De Bellis says Europe is "outsourc(ing)" border security to Libya by relying on the Libyan coast guard to not only intercept migrant ships at sea, but to direct them back to Libya. "But it is forbidden by international law to disembark people in a place where they are going to be exposed to torture," De Bellis said. In Britain, the arrival of boat migrants has sparked debate.

Welcome here

A new bipartisan bill in the U.S. House of Representatives would offer Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans fleeing the country's economic crisis. If the bill passes both houses of Congress and is signed by Trump, Venezuelans could temporarily live legally in the U.S. and work.

Counting noses

A federal court has blocked the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to its 2020 Census questionnaire. Plaintiffs argued that the question would discourage non-citizens from responding and skew the results in ways that would advance Republican priorities. The ruling may stand. On Friday, the Supreme Court took the census issue off its February docket indicating the high court will not take up the case.
NAIROBI, KENYA - Seven people have been arrested following Tuesday's terror attack at the DusitD2 complex in Nairobi that killed at least 21 people, Kenyan media reported.

Five suspects appeared in court Friday, and Kenyan security agencies are seeking more suspects in the attack claimed by al-Shabab. Officers requested the four men and one woman be detained for 30 days while an investigation is completed.

Suspects, left to right, Osman Ibrahim, Oliver Mut Suspects, left to right, Osman Ibrahim, Oliver Muthee, Gladys Kaari, Guled Abdihakim and Joel Nganga stand in the dock inside the Mililani Law Courts where they appeared in connection with the attack at the DusitD2 complex, in Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 18, 2019. Suspects, left to right, Osman Ibrahim, Oliver Muthee, Gladys Kaari, Guled Abdihakim and Joel Nganga stand in the dock inside the Mililani Law Courts where they appeared in connection with the attack at the DusitD2 complex, in Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 18, 2019.

Authorities searched a house northwest of Nairobi on Thursday, where one suspect is believed to have lived.

Neighborhood butcher Paul Kariuki was shocked to find out the suspect  Salim Guchunge  had visited his shop many times.

"I could not believe he did that," Kariuki said. "I am surprised."

But not all Guchunge's neighbors are rushing to judgment.

"It's quite uncertain," said one woman, who did not wish to be identified. "It's quite shocking. It was very unexpected.  he was also on our WhatsApp group for the estate [and] has made a contribution toward some of the activities and projects we have."

The suspect's last message to the group was a comment on improving neighborhood security.

Sleeper cells

Somali terrorist group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack.

Security analyst Mwenda Mbijiwe says the militant group is changing tactics to use so-called sleeper cells within Kenya.

"They were able to camouflage and hide to stay among that community without anybody ever detecting that these people are living in our midst," Mbijiwe said.

Nairobi's Eastleigh neighborhood, which has a large ethnic Somali population, is sometimes vilified as a haven for terrorists. But on Friday, Nairobi's Somali community rallied in a show of solidarity against terrorism.

Crowds chanted "We will defeat them!" and shops closed their doors for an hour to honor victims of the attack.

"We feel that we stand together with the rest of Kenyans. We are part and parcel of Kenya," said Yusuf Hassan, a Somali-Kenyan lawmaker. "The problems of Kenya [are] our problems, the successes of Kenya are our successes. And we cannot be separated as a community and, therefore, the community is here to say no terrorism, no to extremism."
The International Criminal Court (ICC) Appeals Chamber granted a prosecution request that ex-Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo remains in custody until a new hearing in February, the court said Friday in a statement.

Earlier this week, judges acquitted Gbagbo and a top aide, Charles Ble Goude, of crimes against humanity stemming from 2010 election violence.

Prosecutors immediately appealed Tuesday's verdict and argued the pair may refuse to return to The Hague for trial if the not guilty verdict was overturned.

The three-judge panel called the prosecution's case "exceptionally weak."

ICC Orders Ex-Ivory Coast President to Remain in Custody The International Criminal Court has ordered former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and his top aide to remain in custody, even after judges acquitted them of crimes against humanity.Prosecutors immediately appealed Tuesdays verdict and argued the pair may refuse to return to The Hague for trial if the not-guilty verdict is overturned.The three-judge panel called the prosecutions case exceptionally weak.Gbagbo and Charles Ble Goude had been on trial for alleged crimes against humanity The International Criminal Court has ordered former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and his top aide to remain in custody, even after judges acquitted them of crimes against humanity.Prosecutors immediately appealed Tuesdays verdict and argued the pair may refuse to return to The Hague for trial if the not-guilty verdict is overturned.The three-judge panel called the prosecutions case exceptionally weak.Gbagbo and Charles Ble Goude had been on trial for alleged crimes against humanity

Gbagbo lost to his bitter rival, current President Alassane Outtara, but refused to concede. The standoff led to violence that killed 3,000 people and sent thousands of others fleeing the country for their lives.

Opponents and prosecutors blamed Gabgbo and Ble Goude for the deadly unrest. But the three-judge panel ruled Tuesday there was not enough evidence they were responsible to convict the pair.

Gbagbo's daughter told reporters her father planned to return to Ivory Coast when he was finally released.

But if he went back, he would face 20 years in prison on charges of misusing funds from a West African central bank.

An Ivorian court convicted him in absentia last year, but the government has not said if it will enforce the sentence.
MILAN - An array of crises will keep several world leaders away from the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos next week, which takes place against a backdrop of deepening gloom over the global economic and political outlook.

Anxieties over trade disputes, fractious international relations, Brexit and a growth slowdown that some fear could tip the world economy into recession are set to dominate the Jan. 22-25 Alpine meeting.

The WEFs own Global Risks Report set the tone this week with a stark warning of looming economic headwinds, in part because of geopolitical tensions among major powers.

FILE - A Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018 file photo of US FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump meets with British Prime Minister Theresa May at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 25, 2018. Neither will attend this year. FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump meets with British Prime Minister Theresa May at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 25, 2018. Neither will attend this year.

?No Trump, Macron or May

Some 3,000 business, government and civil society figures are scheduled to gather in the snow-blanketed ski resort, but among them are only three leaders of the Group of Seven most industrialized countries: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte.

Donald Trump, who stole the Davos limelight last year with a rare appearance by a sitting U.S. president, pulled out of this years event as he grapples with a partial U.S. government shutdown.

On Thursday, the White House said Trump had also canceled his delegations trip to Davos because of the shutdown, now in its 27th day. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been expected to lead the U.S. team, according to two senior administration officials.

French President Emmanuel Macron is also skipping the meeting as he seeks to respond to the yellow vest protests, while British Prime Minister Theresa May battles to find a consensus on Brexit.

China's President Xi Jinping speaks at the World E FILE - China's President Xi Jinping speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 17, 2017. FILE - China's President Xi Jinping speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 17, 2017.

?No Xi, either

Outside the G7, the leaders of Russia and India are shunning Davos, while China whose president, Xi Jinping, was the first Chinese leader to attend the elite gathering in 2017 to offer a vigorous defense of free trade  is sending Xis deputy instead.

That will leave the likes of British Finance Minister Philip Hammond, Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan and a host of central bankers with the task of trying to reassure business chiefs.

Davos will be dominated by a high level of anxiety about stock markets, a slowdown in growth and international politics, said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit. The leadership presence is lower than last year but those who are going ... will be seeking to impart a sense of confidence and calm business and investors nerves.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gestures as he FILE - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2014. FILE - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2014.

?Forum still has its glitz

Before the U.S. cancellation, a Trump administration official had said the U.S. delegation would also discuss the importance of reforming institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Trump has harshly criticized globalization and questioned U.S. participation in multilateral institutions such as the WTO, calling for a revamp of international trade rules.

Davos watchers said the absence of so many top leaders this year did not mean the glitzy forum had lost its status as a global stage for top politicians to present their agendas.

Abe is going to Davos not just as Japanese prime minister but also as chair of the G20. It will be a perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork of upcoming G20 meetings, said a Japanese government source familiar with international affairs.

Of course there may be inconveniences such as missing opportunities to hold bilateral meetings, but that wont undermine the importance of Davos, he said.

A Chinese official who has attended Davos regularly but will not go this year said China had never expected to make progress at the meeting on the trade dispute with the United States.

Its just an occasion for making a policy statement, he said.

Construction workers build a temporary pavilion in Construction workers build a temporary pavilion in front of Hotel Belvedere in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 12, 2019. Construction workers build a temporary pavilion in front of Hotel Belvedere in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 12, 2019.

?Networking opportunities

The low turnout among major Western leaders may also give more prominence to political personalities who may otherwise be upstaged. Davos will be the first major international outing for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, elected on a wave of anti-establishment and conservative nationalism also seen elsewhere.

He said on Twitter he would present a different Brazil, free of ideological ties and widespread corruption.

For business chiefs, the value of Davos lies not so much in the public sessions but in the networking and deal-making opportunities on the sidelines of the main conference.

Its the best place to pitch for ideas, build connections and get your brand known, said Chen Linchevski, chief executive of Precognize, an Israel-based start-up developing software that prevents technical or quality failures at manufacturing plants.

Its the kind of place where in a few days you meet people you wouldnt easily meet otherwise, said Linchevski, who is paying 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,495) to attend the event.
WASHINGTON - Several Democrats have taken steps in recent days to get an early jump on the 2020 presidential race. Democrats expect a large field of candidates will compete to take on President Donald Trump when he runs for re-election next year. But many analysts believe that as of now there is no clear front-runner in the Democratic field.

Democrat Elizabeth Warren was among the first out of the starting gate with trips to the early contest states of New Hampshire and Iowa, focusing on finding ways to help middle- and lower-class Americans.

Today a minimum wage job in America will not keep a mama and a baby out of poverty. Think about that difference, because for me that is what this is all about, Warren said during a recent campaign tour.

Joining Warren on the campaign trail this month was former Housing secretary Julian Castro, who announced his candidacy in his home state of Texas.

Together we will show that hope can be bigger than fear, that light can be bigger than darkness and that truth can be bigger than lies, he said.

FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Rep. Tuls FILE - Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, greets supporters in Honolulu, Nov. 6, 2018. Gabbard has announced shes running for president in 2020. FILE - Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, greets supporters in Honolulu, Nov. 6, 2018. Gabbard has announced shes running for president in 2020.

?Surge in women candidates

Warren is one of several Democratic women either in the race or about to join, including New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Hawaiian Representative Tulsi Gabbard, California Senator Kamala Harris, and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.

But many other contenders could join the crowded field, including former Texas congressman Beto ORourke, who lost a close Senate race to Republican Ted Cruz.

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and former Vice President Joe Biden could also join the race soon. Biden was a fixture on the campaign trail last year during the midterm elections where he emphasized the need for Democrats to counter President Trump.

The only thing strong enough to tear America apart is America, he said. We have seen it start, and we have to stop it now! Right now!

FILE - Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks to t FILE - Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks to the media in Cincinnati, Ohio, June 29, 2018. FILE - Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks to the media in Cincinnati, Ohio, June 29, 2018.

?No clear front-runner

Biden may be the best known, but at the moment most analysts believe that no Democrat has a clear advantage.

Even Biden is not a heavy front-runner, said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato via Skype. He has been showing up at the 30, 35, 40 percent mark (in the polls). That is not nearly as good as some front-runners like Hillary Clinton in 2016 at this time in the race.

But Biden does seem to have an advantage in name recognition and approval among Democrats in recent polls. A recent George Washington University Poll found Biden at the top of the list of potential Democratic contenders for 2020.

Biden was seen favorably by 51 percent in the GWU survey, while 42 percent held an unfavorable opinion of him. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was next at 48 percent favorable, 46 percent unfavorable. Warren was third. Her rating was 38 percent favorable, but 45 percent unfavorable.

Last month, a Quinnipiac University poll had similar findings. Biden had a favorable rating of 53 to 33 percent in that poll. The breakdown on Sanders was 44 positive to 42 percent unfavorable. And for Warren it was 30 percent positive, 37 percent unfavorable.

In terms of raw support among Democrats, a Morning Consult/POLITICO poll from November found Biden on top with 26 percent support, followed by Sanders at 19 percent and ORourke at 8 percent. Warren placed fourth with 5 percent support followed by Harris at 4 percent.

Long battle ahead

Many more Democrats could toss their hats into the ring in the coming months, suggesting a very competitive and length primary battle.

I think what is going to be clear in this nominating process is that it is not going to be a coronation, like youve seen Al Gore over Bill Bradley (in 2000) and with Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders (in 2016). I think it is going to be hotly contested, said analyst Jim Kessler of Third Way, a center-left public policy group in Washington.

Ohio Governor and former presidential candidate Jo Ohio Governor and former presidential candidate John Kasich speaks to the press in Concord, N.H., Nov.15, 2018. Ohio Governor and former presidential candidate John Kasich speaks to the press in Concord, N.H., Nov.15, 2018.

?Primary challenge for Trump?

On the Republican side, some are wondering if President Trump might get a primary challenge next year. Trump remains popular within the party even though his overall public approval rating is on the decline of late.

Among those considering a challenge to Trump from within the party is former Ohio governor John Kasich.

I would be running to be somebody to try and bring the country together, he said. That is what it would be about.

Trumps re-election focus so far has been to shore up his political base, and so far his core supporters are generally hanging with him, even on the government shutdown.

That loyalty to Trump could make it difficult for any Republican to mount a serious challenge to the president from within his own party.
Chinese tech giant Huawei is facing a growing backlash overseas and increased scrutiny of the company is putting its efforts to dominate emerging fifth-generation network markets increasingly at risk.

Over the past few weeks, Huawei has faced a landslide of allegations, all of which it has denied.

The companys chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, has been released on bail in Canada and is awaiting possible extradition to the United States to face charges of alleged Iran sanction violations.

An employee in Poland has been accused of spying. Britains Oxford University has placed a ban on donations and sponsorships from the company. The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. prosecutors are investigating allegations that Huawei stole trade secrets from T-Mobile and other American businesses.

WSJ: US Investigating Huawei for Alleged Trade Secret Theft Federal prosecutors are investigating Huawei Technologies, the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker, for allegedly stealing trade secrets from U.S. businesses and could soon issue an indictment, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said that one area of investigation is the technology behind a device that T-Mobile U.S. Inc used for testing smartphones. Federal prosecutors are investigating Huawei Technologies, the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker, for allegedly stealing trade secrets from U.S. businesses and could soon issue an indictment, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said that one area of investigation is the technology behind a device that T-Mobile U.S. Inc used for testing smartphones.

A growing number of countries have voiced concern about the company and have decided or are considering whether they will ban Huawei from next generation or 5G networks.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban the sale of U.S. chips or other technologies to Huawei or other companies that violate U.S. sanctions and export control laws.

Chinas Foreign Ministry called the legislation hysteria, arguing that the bill was just another attempt to suppress and block out Chinese high-tech companies.

The criticism and suspicion, however, is likely to only get worse, analysts said.

Fifth generation technology will dramatically increase interconnectivity and is about more than just downloading films faster on your smartphone. The technology has both commercial and military applications.

Its about enabling more devices to be connected and lower latency and those two things enable autonomous driving and other Internet of things applications, including industrial applications such as fully automated factories, said Jeroen Groenewegen an analyst at the research firm China Policy in Beijing. So that means, of course, that there is also a much larger security risk.

He adds that while it still remains to be seen if 5G can live up to its high-expectations, the connectivity and access to data it promises to provide is poised to have a revolutionary impact.

Poland Arrests 2, Including Huawei Employee, Over Spying Allegations Poland has arrested a Chinese employee of Huawei and a Polish national involved in cyber business on allegations of spying, Polish media reported on Friday, deepening the controversy over Western criticism of the Chinese telecoms equipment maker. U.S. intelligence agencies allege Huawei Technologies Cos Ltd is linked to China's government and that its equipment could contain "backdoors" for use by government spies. No evidence has been produced publicly and the firm has repeatedly denied the claims.  Poland has arrested a Chinese employee of Huawei and a Polish national involved in cyber business on allegations of spying, Polish media reported on Friday, deepening the controversy over Western criticism of the Chinese telecoms equipment maker. U.S. intelligence agencies allege Huawei Technologies Cos Ltd is linked to China's government and that its equipment could contain "backdoors" for use by government spies. No evidence has been produced publicly and the firm has repeatedly denied the claims. 

And more than any technological networking advance previously, China has positioned itself to be a leader in 5G. And Huawei has been at the forefront of that effort, backed by government funding. Just how much support it has received is unclear.

Questions remain about the companys ownership. Huawei is a privately owned company; one that critics argue is complex and opaque, allowing the company to hide government connections. The company has repeatedly brushed off such concerns and recently offered to allow journalists to review the names of its shareholder list.

But more than longstanding concerns about the company and its origins or the invisible hand of support it receives from the government, moves by Chinas leader Xi Jinping to exert the Communist Partys control over all enterprises, including high-tech firms, has heightened concerns about Chinese companies, state-owned or private.

And further cemented the view that there is really no such thing as a private company in China.

If Huawei dominates the world's 5G markets, that means, the global 5G markets will be controlled by the Chinese government, said Lin Tsung-nan a professor of engineering at National Taiwan University. The security risks that that would bring with it are unimaginable.

The growing tussle with Huawei is taking place too against a broader backdrop of shifting views toward the worlds second largest economy and that is impacting perceptions of Chinas technological developments and companies as well. Hopes that China would become a more liberal state or responsible stakeholder are increasingly being replaced by a view of the country as a strategic adversary.

As the competition between the U.S. and China heats up and takes on not just simply economic, but really strategic implications, there is a tendency to look at all of this stuff as potentially harmful, said Richard Bitzinger, a senior fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies under Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.



In a rare meeting with foreign journalists earlier this week, the companys billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei tried to set aside some of those fears. He said that Huawei would never harm the interests of its customers and denied suspicions that the companys hardware could be used to spy on Americans.

When it comes to cybersecurity and privacy protection, we are committed to siding with our customers, Ren said. We will never harm any nation or any individual.

Critics, however, argue that given the communist partys dominance over all aspects of society, Huawei has little choice but to comply.

Visitors look at a display for 5G wireless technol FILE - Visitors look at a display for 5G wireless technology from Chinese technology firm Huawei at the PT Expo in Beijing, China, Sept. 26, 2018. FILE - Visitors look at a display for 5G wireless technology from Chinese technology firm Huawei at the PT Expo in Beijing, China, Sept. 26, 2018.

And while the company has sought to distance itself from the government, China's arrest of Canadian citizens in an apparent response to the detention of Huawei CFO Meng Wangzhou is sending a different message.

Following Mengs arrest, China detained two Canadian citizens and earlier this week retried a Canadian man who had previously been found guilty of drug smuggling and sentenced him to death.

Beijing denies there is a connection between Mengs arrest and the cases, but many see it as retribution. For some, such actions only further confirm the view that Huawei is an extension of the Chinese government or at the very least obliged  now perhaps even more  to do its bidding.

In an editorial earlier this month, Chinas ambassador to Canada Lu Shaye called such actions self-defense. On Thursday, at a news conference, he warned that Canada would face repercussions if it joined other countries in banning Huawei equipment from its 5G network.

Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
Canada's government on Friday dismissed China's warning of repercussions if Ottawa banned Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from supplying equipment to 5G networks, saying it would not compromise on security.

China's ambassador to Canada issued the threat on Thursday as relations between the two nations continued to deteriorate after a senior Huawei executive was arrested in Vancouver last month on a U.S. extradition warrant. China has also detained two Canadians.

Canadian officials are studying the security implications of 5G networks, the latest generation of cellular mobile communications, but their report is not expected in the immediate future, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

Some Canadian allies have already imposed restrictions on using Huawei equipment, citing the risk of espionage. Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, asked at a cabinet retreat about the Chinese ambassador's remarks, said Ottawa had already made clear it would not cut corners on national security.

"We understand that those sorts of comments will be made in the process, but we will make our judgment based on what is right for Canada and not be deterred from making the right decision," he told reporters.

"We are determined to stand our ground based on what is right for Canada ... this is a tough and turbulent world." Goodale noted that China had made similar comments after Australia banned Huawei from supplying 5G equipment last year.

Western intelligence agencies have for years raised concerns about Huawei's ties to China's government and the possibility its equipment could be used for espionage.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump canceled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's planned trip to Belgium and Afghanistan just hours before the congressional delegation, known as a CODEL, was set to depart.

Can he do that?

Yes, and not just because he's the commander in chief. The military maintains a fleet of converted passenger jets used by the president, vice president, Cabinet officials and other officials, from the iconic modified Boeing 747s known as Air Force One when the president is on board to smaller, modified Gulfstream jets. They're based at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington. The assignment of the jets is at the discretion of the White House Military Office and, ultimately, the president.

How is this supposed to work?

There are a limited number of planes available for travel and a large number of potential travelers. The assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs signs off on CODEL requests for military flights. The office of the assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force, Special Air Missions Division, is responsible for matching the request with the appropriate aircraft, prioritizing those from the White House, the defense secretary's office and others.

Has this happened before?

If no aircraft are available, lawmakers can be accommodated on a cargo aircraft if available or declined travel on a military aircraft altogether. In such cases, the trip may be canceled or carried out on commercial planes. It is not uncommon for there to be jockeying and lobbying of the White House among members of Congress and even Cabinet secretaries to secure the best aircraft. What is extraordinarily rare is for the president to personally intervene, and to announce in writing that he was denying an official a plane for nonoperational reasons, especially after it normally cleared channels.

Can Pelosi do anything about it?

Not really. She could try to secure other commercial or private air travel to make the trip, but a stop in a war zone by the second person in the presidential line of succession is traditionally carried out in secret  likely taking a stop in Afghanistan off the table.
Actor Anthony Rapp said he came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Kevin Spacey because he feared assaults could "keep happening" if he said nothing.

The younger actor spoke about the incident Thursday in New York on the red carpet for the second season of his streaming series, Star Trek: Discovery. He said he hoped he did his part to "change the culture."

In 2017, Rapp alleged that Spacey made an unwanted sexual advance during a house party in 1986 when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. Rapp sought legal counsel at the time, but no charges were filed.

Actor Kevin Spacey arrives at district court, Jan. FILE - Actor Kevin Spacey arrives at district court, Jan. 7, 2019 in Nantucket, Massachusetts, to be arraigned on a charge of indecent assault and battery. FILE - Actor Kevin Spacey arrives at district court, Jan. 7, 2019 in Nantucket, Massachusetts, to be arraigned on a charge of indecent assault and battery.

The incident was dormant until a flurry of sexual misconduct allegations surfaced about Harvey Weinstein, prompting Rapp to come forward. Spacey responded that he did not remember such an encounter but apologized if the allegations were true.

More than year later, Rapp is proud of the decision to tell his story. "I know that it's something that needs continued movement forward and I'm going to keep doing my best to be a part of the movement forward," Rapp said.

"I was just concerned that that it would be something that could keep happening, so if I could do something that could make a difference, I was eager to."

His Star Trek: Discovery co-star Wilson Cruz said Rapp was being humble.

"What he did was incredibly brave, and he really allowed countless men to be able to tell their stories. You know, for the most part we were hearing stories about women and those are important stories to tell," Cruz said. "But there's a lot of stigma around abused men, sexually abused men and sexual harassment of men, and it was going to take a brave person to be able to start that conversation."

Frank Underwood is Dead but Looms Large in Final 'House of Cards' Season In the final season of Netflix's "House of Cards," Frank Underwood is physically gone, having died unexpectedly in his sleep. But the ghost of the win-at-all-costs politician played by Kevin Spacey haunts his wife and her young presidency. Writers of the acclaimed drama had to rework the story after Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct a year ago and dropped from the show that made Netflix a player in premium television. The ending of the Underwoods' story, which the producers called a "season of In the final season of Netflix's "House of Cards," Frank Underwood is physically gone, having died unexpectedly in his sleep. But the ghost of the win-at-all-costs politician played by Kevin Spacey haunts his wife and her young presidency. Writers of the acclaimed drama had to rework the story after Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct a year ago and dropped from the show that made Netflix a player in premium television. The ending of the Underwoods' story, which the producers called a "season of

More than a dozen accusers came forward after Rapp's allegations, causing Spacey to lose his starring role on the Netflix series House of Cards.

Earlier this month, Spacey was arraigned on felony indecent assault and battery charges after a Massachusetts man alleged that he was assaulted inside a Nantucket bar in July 2016. He was 18 years old at the time.
LONDON - Human rights group Amnesty International has described as shameful the decision by several European states to block NGO migrant rescue ships from docking in their ports. The group says Europes migrant policy is putting lives in danger, both at sea and in Libya, where most of the asylum seekers set out from to try to reach Europe.



After 19 days at sea, close to 50 migrants were finally allowed ashore in Malta earlier this month after the NGO ships that rescued them had repeatedly been refused permission to dock in European ports. Report: Morocco Foils 89,000 Illegal Migration Attempts in 2018 Morocco stopped 89,000 people from illegally migrating in 2018, up 37 percent compared to a year earlier, the interior ministry said Thursday, as the country became the main launchpad in the Mediterranean for Europe-bound migrants. Morocco, which other Africans can visit without visas, has become a major gateway for migrants into Europe since Italy's tougher line and EU aid to the Libyan coast guard curbed the number of people coming from Libya. In 2018, Moroccan authorities dismantled 229 migrant Morocco stopped 89,000 people from illegally migrating in 2018, up 37 percent compared to a year earlier, the interior ministry said Thursday, as the country became the main launchpad in the Mediterranean for Europe-bound migrants. Morocco, which other Africans can visit without visas, has become a major gateway for migrants into Europe since Italy's tougher line and EU aid to the Libyan coast guard curbed the number of people coming from Libya. In 2018, Moroccan authorities dismantled 229 migrant

Amnestys Matteo De Bellis says it stems from Europes decision to, in his words, outsource border security to Libya.



This has led European governments to rely on the Libyan coast guard not only to intercept ships of refugees and migrants at sea, but also to coordinate the rescues," De Bellis said. "The only thing that the Libyan coast guard can tell NGOs is to go back to Libya and disembark people there. But it is forbidden by international law to disembark people in a place where they are going to be exposed to torture.



Many European countries, notably Italy, have ended their own rescue missions in the Mediterranean, so NGO boats have stepped in. Many southern EU states say it is unfair that under EU law, they must host the refugees.



There is no mechanism enabling European governments, European states, to share responsibility among them for the assistance of those asylum seekers," De Bellis said.





Spain this week blocked the Proactiva Open Arms rescue vessel from leaving port  action that drew praise from Italys Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

Plight of Migrant Children in Spain Prompts Alarm No one is sure about how many migrant children are living in Spain without their parents  and that's part of the problem.Three months ago, Spanish officials estimated there were 10,000 unaccompanied minors living in the country  70 percent of them Moroccan. But more than 11,000 migrant children were recorded having arrived in Spain in 2018 alone, and previous migrant influxes had already swept in at least 4,000, say civil-society groups."The registry of unaccompanied minors is not working properly," No one is sure about how many migrant children are living in Spain without their parents  and that's part of the problem.Three months ago, Spanish officials estimated there were 10,000 unaccompanied minors living in the country  70 percent of them Moroccan. But more than 11,000 migrant children were recorded having arrived in Spain in 2018 alone, and previous migrant influxes had already swept in at least 4,000, say civil-society groups."The registry of unaccompanied minors is not working properly,"

Salvini said the If the European Union and the other European countries will follow up words with actions, Europe will be rescued. But if words will not be followed by actions, Europe doesn't exist.



The EU says the flow of migrants to Europe is down 92 percent from its peak in 2015. The populist narrative of Europe threatened by migration is simply false, says Amnesty.



And rather than challenging this on the basis of the real data, many governments seem to favor this kind of perception, this kind of fake news environment, in which constituencies believe they are under siege," De Bellis said.



With populist, anti-immigration governments in power in several EU member states, Brussels appears a long way from agreeing to a permanent mechanism of refugee quotas.
An airstrike hit militants and civilians trying to flee the last area controlled by the Islamic State group in eastern Syria on Friday, killing at least 20, the country's state media and opposition activists reported.

The airstrike on the IS-held village of Baghouz comes as the offensive against the extremists by U.S.-backed fighters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has intensified over the past few weeks. It also comes as the United States begins the process of withdrawal from Syria.

Thousands of civilians have fled from the area near the Iraqi border recently as IS has steadily lost ground.

Baghouz Syria Baghouz, Syria Baghouz, Syria

State news agency SANA said 20 people were killed in the airstrike on Baghouz, while the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 23 people were killed. It said 10 IS members were among the dead.

Both blamed the U.S.-led coalition that has been providing air cover to the SDF in their monthslong offensive to capture the area from the extremists.

"Most of those killed were Syrians displaced from nearby areas," said Europe-based activist Omar Abu Layla of the DeirEzzor 24 monitoring group. He added that the dead included three families who were trying to flee the IS-held area to districts controlled by SDF.

Erdogan, Graham meet

Meanwhile in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to discuss the situation in Syria as the U.S. begins the withdrawal process.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, an Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham shake hands before a meeting in Ankara, Turkey, Jan. 18, 2019. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham shake hands before a meeting in Ankara, Turkey, Jan. 18, 2019.

Graham was also expected to speak with Erdogan and other Turkish officials about a proposal for the creation of a "safe zone" in northeast Syria.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York on Friday that any solution on Syria's northeast border with Turkey needs to take into account three principles  the unity and territorial integrity of Syria, legitimate security concerns, and recognition of Syria's diversity "to allow for a voice to be given to the different components of that population."

The visit by Graham, who has a prominent voice on U.S. foreign affairs, comes days after a suicide bombing, claimed by IS, killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians in the northeastern town of Manbij.

Graham has said he is concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump's troop withdrawal had emboldened Islamic State militants and created dangerous uncertainty for American allies.

3 American victims identified

The Pentagon identified three of the four Americans killed in the suicide bomb attack in Manbij  Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida, who was based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, from upstate New York and based at Fort Meade, Maryland; and civilian Scott A. Wirtz, from St. Louis.

Syrian boys look at the destroyed grills outside a FILE - Syrian boys look at the destroyed grills outside a shuttered restaurant that was the site of a suicide attack targeting U.S.-led coalition forces in Manbij, Syria, the previous day, on Jan. 17, 2019. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. FILE - Syrian boys look at the destroyed grills outside a shuttered restaurant that was the site of a suicide attack targeting U.S.-led coalition forces in Manbij, Syria, the previous day, on Jan. 17, 2019. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Pentagon hasn't identified the fourth casualty, a civilian contractor.

In northwest Syria, the observatory also said an explosion outside an office belonging to an al-Qaida-linked group killed another 11 people Friday, including seven members of the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or Levant Liberation Committee. Smart news agency, an activist collective, said 12 people were killed, many of them militants.

Both said the blast occurred on the southern edge of the rebel-held city of Idlib.

A week ago, members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took control over wide parts of Idlib province and the surrounding countryside after forcing rival insurgents to accept a deal for a civil administration run by the militants in their areas.
President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen is reconsidering his plan to testify publicly to the U.S. Congress next month because of intimidation by the president, an adviser to Cohen said Thursday.

Lanny Davis, an attorney who has been advising Cohen on his media strategy, said in an interview with MSNBC that some remarks made by the Republican president about Cohen amounted to witness tampering and deserved to be criminally investigated.

"There is genuine fear and it has caused Michael Cohen to consider whether he should go forward or not, and he has not made a final decision," Davis said.

Trump's Ex-Lawyer to Testify Publicly Before Congress Michael Cohen, U.S. Michael Cohen, U.S.

Last week Cohen agreed to appear before a congressional panel on Feb. 7, as U.S. House of Representatives Democrats began kicking off numerous investigations of Trump, his business interests and his administration.

Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in prison for his role in making illegal hush-money payments to two women to help Trump in 2016 in violation of campaign laws and for lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Russia.

In a Fox News interview on Saturday, Trump suggested he had damaging information on Cohen's father-in-law. "That's the one that people want to look at," Trump said in the interview.

Davis said: "There is no question that his threatening and calling out his father-in-law, who  quote  has all the money, is not only improper and unseemly for a bully using the bully pulpit of the presidency, but the very definition of intimidation and witness tampering."

He said Trump's remarks "could be obstruction of justice."

Trump called Cohen a "rat" in a tweet last month for cooperating with prosecutors. Cohen had been Trump's self-described longtime "fixer" and had once said he would take a bullet for the New York real estate developer.

At a hearing in federal court in New York in August, Cohen testified that Trump had directed him to commit a crime by arranging payments before the 2016 election to two women who said they had engaged in extramarital affairs with Trump.

Cohen said on Thursday he had paid a firm to manipulate online polling data "at the direction of and for the sole benefit of" Trump.
Cambodian community activists from the United States and Canada will gather in Washington, DC, Saturday to protest the Cambodian governments unwillingness to make peace with the countrys banned opposition party.

Demonstrators are demanding the release of the Cambodia National Rescue Party president, Kem Sokha, who was detained on treason charges in September 2017 and remains under house arrest in Phnom Penh.

They are also calling for all politically motivated charges against other CNRP officials and activists to be dropped and the CNRP, which was banned two months after Sokhas arrest, to be reinstated.

The demonstration is being organized by a CNRP offshoot, the Cambodia National Rescue Movement, which was founded by the CNRPs former president Sam Rainsy and has been labeled a terrorist movement by the Cambodian government.

Ive observed that the government does not seem to soften their heart or position, said Ratana Seng, a protest organizer from New Jersey.

The ruling Cambodian Peoples Party of Prime Minister Hun Sen won a landslide victory in a general election in July following the CNRPs dissolution. Independent media outlets, civil society groups and activists have also been targeted by the courts and government bodies.

The United States and European Union have responded by threatening to remove Cambodia from preferential trading schemes and by placing sanctions on senior officials they say are responsible for human rights abuses and the democratic decline.

Hun Sen recently threatened the EU, saying a decision to remove Cambodia from current trade arrangements would make the former opposition dead.

Phay Siphan, government spokesman, said Cambodia cannot follow the wishes of foreign countries.

Under international pressure, the government has amended the political parties law to allow 118 former CNRP officials who were banned from political activities for five years when the party was dissolved to return to political life if they apologize to the prime minister.

Two officials have so far taken up the offer: Kong Korm, a former party adviser, and his son, Kong Bora, a former lawmaker.

Its simply a decoy that does not follow the international communitys conditions, said Seng.

US Senator Patrick Leahy said that Cambodia had forgotten what the image of democracy was.

There is nothing thats satisfying because the government doesnt seem to listen to any advice, said Chendavy Vann, an activist from Vancouver, Canada. They only focus on the idea of their group, nepotism, and dictatorshipthey are only afraid of losing power. They dont pay attention to the concerns of the people.
Neel Bhatt, a UW assistant professor of otolaryngology, specializes in treating patients with voice problems. Through his work, he began to realize people did not like the sound of their own voices. With the transition to school over Zoom, many students can relate to the discomfort of hearin
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File photo of Britain's Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, during the wedding ceremony of Princess Eugenie of York and her husband Jack Brooksbank at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, in Windsor, on Oct 12, 2018. (Alastair Grant/POOL/AFP)

A palace spokeswoman told AFP that the duke was driving near the monarch's Sandringham Estate when the crash occurred but declined to confirm that it overturned in the incident.

"The Duke of Edinburgh was involved in a road traffic accident with another vehicle this afternoon," the palace said in a statement.

"The Duke was not injured. The accident took place close to the Sandringham Estate. Local police attended the scene."

The spokeswoman said he saw a doctor "as a precaution" who confirmed he was not hurt.

Norfolk Police said in an update on Thursday night that, in accordance with policy in collisions, it breathalysed both drivers.

"We can confirm both drivers were breath tested and provided negative readings," the force added.

It said officers were called to the estate shortly before 3.00pm (11.00pm Singapore time) "after a Landrover and Kia were involved in a collision".

"The male driver of the Landrover was uninjured," it added.

"The female driver of the Kia suffered cuts while the female passenger sustained an arm injury, both requiring hospital treatment".

They were later discharged from a local hospital, police said.

The BBC reported that Prince Philip's vehicle flipped on its side after pulling out of a Sandringham driveway onto a main road and colliding with the other car.

Eyewitnesses told the British broadcaster they helped the duke out of the vehicle and he was conscious "but very, very shocked and shaken".

An image from the accident scene published by a local radio station showed two cars by the side of the road, one on its side with a smashed windscreen and another a few yards away in bushes.

The Press Association reported a passenger in the duke's vehicle was likely his close protection officer.

CARRIAGE DRIVING

The royal couple spend most of the winter at the residence in Norfolk, south east England, which continues to operate as a sporting estate.

Philip, known for his forthright manner and off-colour jokes, formally retired from public life in 2017.

He has been seen behind the wheel on numerous occasions over the decade, including with world leaders and dignitaries as his passengers.

In 2016, alongside the Queen he drove former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle around Windsor Castle in a Range Rover after they landed nearby in the presidential helicopter.

Meanwhile the duke continued to compete in demanding carriage driving competitions into his 80s, and has previously pulled muscles in his back while driving his horse-drawn carriage.

After announcing his retirement, Philip described in an interview how he took up carriage driving when he gave up polo aged 50, helping to establish it as a sport in subsequent years.

Born a prince of Greece and Denmark, he married then princess Elizabeth on Nov 20, 1947 at Westminster Abbey in London.

On their golden wedding anniversary in 1997, she said of him: "He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years."
By embracing new trends and combining the online-offline experience, the retail sector is discovering a new development orientation

Catching up with new trends, Lazada Supermarket has just been launched on Lazada.vn last week to offer essential goods at competitive prices, and expects to become the largest online supermarket in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Under this supermarket system, Lazada will maintain a warehouse for its vendors goods where it can inspect quality and vendors certifications.

To put concerns over increasing prices and fake goods to bed, customers can now pick up authenticated essential goods from Lazada Supermarket. This will help them enjoy safe shopping while saving time on going to real stores and supermarkets, said Tran Thi Hoang Uyen, director of Fast Moving Consumer Goods of Lazada Vietnam.

Lazada Electronic City and Lazada Supermarket are part of Lazadas long-term development strategy in Vietnam to bring diversified products from leading local and international brands. In the near future, we will develop these two online stores to become the leading destination for all consumers by shortening purchase times while continuously increasing the number of products and brands. For Lazada Supermarket, we set the goal to become the largest online supermarket in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, said Max Zhang, CEO of Lazada Vietnam.

However, Lazada is not the first e-commerce supermarket. Tiki.vn and Shopee.vn have also been making moves in the market for a year or so.

Talking with VIR about this new model, a Lazada representative said that the quality of every item on Lazada Supermarket is guaranteed. The items are stored in Lazadas warehouses and delivered to customers in 10 cities and provinces for free. The list of cities and provinces where delivery is free will be expanded in the near future, he added. With the application of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data analytics, Lazada could personalise the purchasing process for individual customers on its platform, to provide the best shopping experience as well as recommend high-quality items in the searching tool and customers homepage.

" The first results are very positive. Meanwhile, the number of customers making purchases on their smartphones has doubled every month. " Jeong Seong Won Chief financial officer, Lotte Vietnam Shopping JSC

Retail titans see further growth

Even two of the worlds largest e-commerce giants Amazon and Alibaba are looking to break into real retail. Amazon opened its first book store three years ago in the US Seattle, followed a year later by Alibaba in China. These stores increase costs and reduce profit, however, they also serve as experience spaces to link retailers and customers. This shows that the combination of online and offline retail is emerging as a key solution among retailers.

In the last two years, Jack Ma, the owner of Alibaba, has been pioneering this new retail model. Alibaba has conducted a lot of deals in the traditional retail segment, including a buy-in to Suning.com, one of the largest non-government retailers in China, and the acquisition of the Intime department store chain.

Meanwhile, Amazon released a new shopping concept called Treasure Truck, which combines online and offline methods, and has deployed it across the US. This confirms that businesses see further growth and sustained development in this direction, where they can earn from e-commerce platforms and use stores as experience spaces to provide hands-on experience to lure in customers.

Online-offline combo

According to HSBC, one of the largest banking and financial services institutions in the world, Vietnam has been emerging as a dragon in the retail segment.

According to the Vietnamese governments master plan by 2020, there will be around 1,200-1,500 supermarkets, 180 trade centres, and 157 shopping centres in locations throughout the country. Meanwhile, according to the General Statistics Office, total retail sales and consumer service revenue in 2018 is estimated at nearly VND4.4 quadrillion ($191.3 billion), up 11.7 per cent on-year.

Notably, technology has been altering consumer behaviour. The results of PwCs survey on the retail market showed that 49 per cent of consumers make purchases via their smartphone at least once a month.

This trend enables retailers to shift to online sales and learn about consumer behaviour to improve performance and save costs. E-commerce is an inevitable trend in the retail industry not only in Vietnam, but also over the globe.

Currently, supermarket and convenience store chains are paying more attention to online-to-offline (O2O) solutions to salve the pressure from hundreds of e-commerce platforms operating in Vietnam.

Last October, Auchan Retail Vietnam, one of the leading retailers in Europe, and Lazada Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic co-operation with regard to the launch of their O2O model. Accordingly, customers could visit Auchans online store on Lazada.vn featuring thousands of high-quality authenticated goods and hundreds of private label products.

Some 2,000 orders have been made after two months of operation. Moreover, items from Auchan have received positive feedback from Vietnamese customers, most of whom gave the shop four or five stars, Nguyen The Dong, digital director of Auchan Retail Vietnam, told VIR.

O2O helps in-store purchases

Numerous other supermarkets have been deploying online sales. For example, VinMart can now be accessed from Adayroi.com, which is Vingroups e-commerce platform, while Co.opmart developed its own private website. Others like AEON, Lotte Mart, and 7-Eleven have all created smartphone apps.

Jeong Seong Won, chief financial officer of Lotte Vietnam Shopping JSC, told VIR about the Lotte app, saying that the first results are very positive, with the value of each order from the app being around VND500,000 ($21.7), much higher than the VND200,000 ($8.7) customers usually spend in person at the stores. Meanwhile, the number of customers making purchases on their smartphones has doubled every month.

In the future, we are going to pour $50 million into e-commerce development in Vietnam, Won said.

Meanwhile, according to the representative of 7-Eleven, there are a multitude of ways to apply the O2O model in the retail segment. For example, using the app of this convenience store chain, customers will get one drink for free after ordering six drinks through the app, which they can pick up at the shop in person, where they can buy other items. This means the app can increase revenue from walk-in customers.

Earlier, in 2016, Nguyen Kim Trading JSC, one of the leading electronics retailers and whose 49 per cent stake is held by Thai conglomerate Central Group, acquired Zalora.vn, an e-commerce fashion platform. However, the company seems rather sluggish in its application of the O2O model in its retail chain.

Talking about the challenges faced with this model, retail expert Tran Anh Tuan said, Last mile delivery is a key part of retail supply chains, and businesses need to forge seamless collaboration between offline and online operations to provide the best services. The wide coverage of local retailers is one of their advantages, but with their rich experience, foreign players will likely do better and step faster in the O2O race.

Retail experts said that multi-channel sales, including online and offline, have become an inevitable trend in Vietnam, contributing to the development of the e-commerce segment to reach the $10 billion forecasted by experts by 2020.

Under statistics of the Vietnam E-Commerce Association, O2O retail is one of the most spectacularly growing segments in e-commerce, growing 35 per cent in 2017, a whopping 10 per cent higher than the whole Vietnamese e-commerce industry.
Mergers and acquisitions propagate more long-term partnerships for all involved, Photo: Le Toan

Last week, VinaCapital became the latest financial firm to strike a deal with a South Korean asset manager, continuing the slew of such partnerships in recent years.

As part of this deal, VinaCapital and Kiwoom, which manages $40 billion of assets, will design new products that cater to South Korean investors in Vietnam and vice versa. Kiwooms Vietnam office, which opened last year, is also the first branch in Southeast Asia for the fund.

Nguyen Thi Thai Thuan, CEO of VinaCapital Asset Management, said that the firm is very excited about the growing interest from South Korea. According to her, the two parties will work to develop a multi-asset fund, an index fund or a real estate fund in both nations.

Just over a year ago, South Korean conglomerate Samsung Securities acquired 10 per cent of the stake in Dragon Capital, the largest overseas investor in Vietnam with more than $1.3 billion of assets under management. Following the deal, Samsung appointed one representative to Dragon Capitals Management Board.

Other segments such as insurance, consumer finance and stock brokerage are also witnessing a slew of strategic handshakes from the two countries. For instance, late last year, VietinBank sold 25 per cent stake of its insurance arm to Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance, the second-largest insurer in South Korea.

Lotte Finance introduced its first consumer finance product after buying out Techcombank Finance, and KB Securities launched a new branch following a takeover of Maritime Securities.

In an interview with VIR, Dragon Capital executive chairman Dominic Scriven noted that after years of direct investments in Vietnam in the form of factories and manufacturing plants, South Korean investors are now looking into Vietnams financial markets as a form of indirect investment. This includes partnerships with Vietnamese-based financial institutions like Dragon Capital.

This is the logical next step for overseas investors and for Vietnams development path. Direct capital often comes first, thanks to Vietnams low labour costs and vast natural resources, followed by indirect investments into the Vietnamese financial markets, Scriven said. The next step is mergers and acquisitions (M&A) with domestic businesses, which signals confidence in the Vietnamese market because this tends to be a long-term partnership.

The trend is amplified thanks to the New Southern Policy announced by the South Korean government in 2017. The policy aims to promote partnerships within Southeast Asia, including trade, investment, and M&A.

Companies are also tempted by Vietnams fast-growing economy, which expanded by 7.08 per cent in 2018 compared to the lacklustre 2.8 per cent of South Korea. Their brands in general are viewed favourably by Vietnamese consumers, thanks to their affordability and trendy designs.

Strong business ties between the two mean that financial businesses from both sides have great opportunities for growth and collaboration, ranging from transactions, foreign exchange, and investments to credit, insurance, and consumer finance. Instead of setting up their own subsidiary in Vietnam, many South Korean investors choose the M&A route.

For example, Shinhan Bank, which already has a wholly-owned subsidiary in Vietnam, still chose to buy the Vietnamese retail business of ANZ. After the buyout, Shinhan Vietnam is striving to boost its consumer finance business, leveraging the current consumer base and branch network of ANZs retail team in Vietnam.

Young-sup Joo, former Minister of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Startups in South Korea, expressed his belief that businesses there can share technologies with Vietnamese partners, and in return, the domestic partners can offer strong brand presence and a dominant market share in Vietnam.

The upcoming partnership between Vietnams BIDV and South Koreas KEB Hana is one example. The $800 million investment from KEB Hana, in exchange for 17.65 per cent of the stakes, will help BIDV beef up its capital reserves and prepare for Basel II. The strategic partner is also expected to transfer technologies and provide market expansion for BIDV.

Kim Hyeong Soo, managing director of the South Korea Venture Capital Association, said that he has been busy organising meet-ups between businesses in different industries. According to him, M&A between the two countries are poised to grow in both quantity and quality, thanks to mutual interest and support from the two governments.
New legislation means procedures have been relaxed in terms of drug imports, which could lead to foreign companies reaping the benefits, Photo: Le Toan

Late last week the Ministry of Health (MoH) officially introduced Decree No.155/2018/ND-CP, amending a number of regulations on the business conditions that pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies faced under the controversial Decree No.54/2017/ND-CP.

Decree 155 has many positive changes towards cutting procedures, thus creating favourable conditions for businesses in tenders, drug imports, and others, said Truong Quoc Cuong, Deputy Minister of Health.

One of the important features of the move is the cut in the number of procedures in pharmaceutical imports which had attracted concern among international pharmaceutical companies. In terms of licensing the import of drugs without a circulation registration paper, the new decree requires label models and drug descriptions in the country of manufacturing or country of export, except for cases with a certificate of pharmaceutical product (CPP).

" The decree includes many positive changes towards cutting procedures, thus creating more favourable conditions for businesses. "  Truong Quoc Cuong Deputy Minister of Health

This requirement is simpler than those set out by the previous decree which asks for label models and descriptions of drugs being actively marketed in the countries producing the CPP, except for cases with the CPP.

Furthermore, importers are exempted from the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certificate under Decree 155 if manufacturing facilities have been recognised to have met the GMP or the CPP. In contrast, the old decree asks importers to have the GMP certificate of all manufacturing facilities if the proposed imported drugs were produced by from many units.

In regard to clinical records of proposed imported drugs, under the new legislation, importers are exempted from clinical records for the pharmaceuticals that were once licensed to import through the same import mode as regulated in the decree. The exemption is allowed as long as no changes were made in relation to information about indications, dosage, and instruction for use. This is in contrast to Decree 54 where importers had to submit clinical records for proposed drugs as regulated by the MoH.

According to a representative from the MoHs Drug Administration of Vietnam, the new decree also eases the criteria to consider the volume of imported drugs.

Article 5 of the decree states that the number of imported pharmaceuticals is based entirely on the demands of the importers. While the grounds for the import volume ruled in Article 91 is dependent on the scale and development of fatal diseases, dangerous, and emerging epidemics.

Another positive change in is drug registration working towards reducing the time to appraise the manufacturing facilities in terms of review, recognition, and appraisal of dossiers. In particular, the time for dossier appraisal will be cut to 40 days, rather than the 60 days stated by Decree 54 and to 20 days for dossier recognition from 30 days as regulated by Decree 54.

The implementation process of the legislation will be extended to January 1, 2021 for manufacturing facilities and materials for drug production, while the process will be extended to June 30 this year for drug trading units.

Drug registration and drug imports to Vietnam have been among the top concerns for international pharmaceutical firms from the EU and ASEAN for years. Many have complained that regulations in Decree 54 have caused difficulties for their operations and put up barriers to improving patient access.

With the new decree, many of these concerns have been addressed, thus creating more favourable conditions for businesses to practice imports.

In spite of the improvements, industry insiders have raised concerns about the possibilities of pharmaceuticals imports to Vietnam increasing. It is thought that foreign companies could take advantage of the loose rules to cash in on the countrys growing demands amid an increase in diseases, especially non-communicable diseases (NCDs). According to global healthcare company Norvatis, NCDs account for over 70 per cent of the total incidences of diseases and health-related deaths in Vietnam.

In the meantime, domestic and international drug makers are expanding local production to reap the incentives from the countrys plan to prioritise domestically-produced pharmaceuticals.

With a possible increase in the volume of drug imports and a growing volume of locally-made pharmaceuticals, new competition in the local market will begin to take shape.
Photo (from left to right): Kerry Fernandes, head of BIS Hanoi's Mathematics, Hai Ha, Hang Giang, Sang Yun and Tim Webb, head of secondary

In December 2018, Cambridge Assessment International Education announced the Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards in Vietnam for the June 2018 examination series, the list of awards included Top in Vietnam of all subjects, Best across IGCSEs, AS levels and A Levels, High Achievement, and the most remarkable is Top in the World.

Out of five students who were awarded the Cambridge Top in the World, three students from BIS Hanoi, Sang Yun (Year 12), Hai Ha (Year 11) and Hang Giang (Year 11), were awarded for achieving the Highest Mark in the world for their IGCSE Mathematics papers with an amazing achievement of scoring 100 per cent.

Their hard work, dedication, perseverance and self-motivation throughout the school year really did pay off and our Maths Department are extremely proud of them, said Kerry Fernandes, head of Mathematics.

At BIS Hanoi, we want every one of our students to achieve to their full potential, we want to see them challenge themselves and have the drive to be the best they can possibly be, she added.

After only one year of studying, Hai Ha and Hang Giang entered the IGCSE exam which normally takes two years

The IGCSE is known as the worlds most popular international curriculum for students aged from 14 to 16 (Year 10 and Year 11), developed by the University of Cambridge. Subject matter for the examinations is taught over a two-year period. The qualifications are widely accepted and recognised by higher education institutions and employers across the globe.

Two of the students, Hai Ha and Hang Giang, presented for IGCSE Mathematics after just one year of study and achieved the highest mark in the world, despite global competition from other students entering these internationally recognised Mathematics papers.

For Hang Giang, this achievement is evidence of her hard work and the support she received from her teacher, Mrs Fernandes in particular. Her advice was practical and the amount of mental support we got from her really helped me overcome my exam stress, said Giang.

The biggest part of why I could achieve 100 per cent was definitely my teacher, Mrs Fernandes, because she was the one that guided us through the course despite the time constraints, as she was still able to teach us everything needed while giving us time to practice and revise. Her support was the reason why our class did so well, said Hai Ha.

Hai Ha (middle) doing experiment with her classmates in the Science class

Joining BIS Hanoi in 2017, Sang Yun opted to take eight IGCSEs in a single year

Relocating from Korea without any experience of the international curriculum, Sang Yun, joined BIS Hanoi in the academic year of 2017  2018 when he was in Year 11. Normally IGCSEs are studied over two years (Year 10 and Year 11). His ambition drove him to take eight IGCSEs in a single year and achieved seven A* grades and one A, including the highest mark in the world in Mathematics.

When I was offered to take the IGCSE course at BIS Hanoi, I was a bit worried because I had only one year to complete the course. However, with the encouragement and support of the teachers, I was determined to push myself further to see what I was actually capable of, said Sang Yun.

This achievement was very meaningful to him as he had no experience with the international curriculum before joining BIS Hanoi, not to mention pursuing IGCSEs in a shorter period.

Achieving the highest mark is one thing, but the fact that the subject was Mathematics really meant a lot to me because Mathematics had never been one of my strong subjects back in Korea, he added, the constant support from the teachers to help me catch up is one of the main reasons for my results, so a big thank you to our teachers here at BIS Hanoi!

IGCSE tips from the Top in the World students

IGCSE is a balanced curriculum and a flexible course of study. There are five subject groups in IGCSE with several subjects to choose from, in each group included:

Group 1: Languages (First Language, Second Language, Foreign Language)

Group 2: Humanities and Social Sciences (Geography, English Literature, History)

Group 3: Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics)

Group 4: Mathematics (Mathematics, Additional Mathematics)

Group 5: Creative, Technical and Vocational (Accounting, Business Studies, Computer Studies, Music)

Most subjects offer a choice between standard curriculum and extended curriculum. This gives students of all ability levels the freedom to choose subjects that are right for them and to get good grades. Students receive grades for each subject ranging from A* to G, with A* being the highest.

When it comes to selecting the subjects for IGCSE and revision for the IGCSE papers, the three Top in the World students shared three tips below:
Vietnam is becoming a magnet to foreign investors in the life sciences sector thanks to its strategy to raise healthcare access

Having been working as country president of AstraZeneca Vietnam for several months, Nitin Kapoor last week announced a partnership with Plan International Vietnam to bring the award-winning Young Health Programme (YHP), a global disease prevention initiative set up in 2010, to the country.

We go beyond innovative medicines, and offer holistic healthcare solutions for patients. We work with regulatory authorities to seek viable solutions in balancing payments and ensuring the quality of medical care in Vietnam, while constantly bringing our innovation, said Kapoor.

The YHP follows many life science programmes that AstraZeneca has been implementing in Vietnam for years, aiming to contribute to healthcare advancement for local patients while enabling the firm to make long-term and sustainable profits.

The YHP is being brought under a three-year programme to Vietnam, a country where common non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and respiratory disease take a heavy toll on patients, caregivers and the healthcare system.

They are estimated to account for 73 per cent of the total deaths each year. The current target of the project is young people between 10 and 24 years of age in the Hai Ba Trung and Dong Anh districts of Hanoi.

The YHP targets young people as they make up a quarter of the countrys population. Moreover, Hanoi is a city with a growing middle-income class who are willing to spend more on pharmaceuticals and services to raise their health conditions.

Thus far, AstraZeneca has been conducting a number of life science programmes in Vietnam. Last year, they signed a pact with the Ministry of Health (MoH) to implement the Healthy Lung programme in the country.

In this, AstraZeneca targets people who suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), who account for about 4.2 per cent of the Vietnamese population.

Interest pushes ahead

" We work with regulatory authorities to seek viable solutions in ensuring the quality of medical care in Vietnam, while constantly bringing our innovation, "  Nitin Kapoor President, AstraZeneca Vietnam

According to the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham), the country continues to attract great interest from leading international businesses in the life sciences sector thanks to the nations strategy to increase healthcare access, affordability and quality for rural people.

The successful conclusion of international free trade agreements (FTAs), including the EU-Vietnam FTA and Vietnams regional integration through the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), has put Vietnam in the spotlight.

Moreover, the countrys development of a legal framework also sends a positive signal to multinational corporations, and helps pave the way for a new era for Vietnams healthcare landscape.

Novartis Social Business is generating sustainable profit in Vietnam by supporting public health through novel and sustainable business models.

Its activities are rooted in local communities where it works with partners to provide affordable high-quality medicines against infectious and chronic diseases for low-incomers, while strengthening healthcare capacity.

For example, the Cung Song Khoe programme, a public-private partnership (PPP) between Novartis and Vietnams Services of Health, has been developed at the commune level since 2012. By providing health awareness, education, and affordable quality medicines, the initiative has so far reached more than 930,000 people.

In this way, Novartis produces value and makes a profit by selling public goods. We provide social values through medicines, Herald Nusser, head of NBS, told VIR.

Novartis is now working with the MoH on the possibilities of carrying out a PPP project in Vietnam in a move to increase its footprint in the country.

In similar moves Medtronic, one of the largest medical technology companies in the world, is offering a broad range of therapies across four areas: cardiac and vascular solutions, minimally-invasive therapies, restorative therapies, and diabetes care.

It views Vietnam, where locals spend around $2-3 billion on healthcare services abroad, as one of the most important emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region.

We intend to launch specific programmes in which we will invest to improve overall healthcare in Vietnam, said Omar Ishrak, CEO of Medtronic. One such programme is STEMI, which is a method that helps save the lives of people suffering from heart attacks, in the proper manner.

Spending over $2 billion on research and development activities annually, Medtronic is now cooperating with the Vietnam National Heart Institute to pilot the STEMI programme in the central province of Nghe An, and to train local doctors there.

Smart strategies

These latest moves by AstraZeneca, NSB, Medtronic and others prove how attractive the innovative life sciences sector in Vietnam is, and how smart their approach is amid stiffening competition from local and international drugmakers who are expanding local production to reap the incentives from the countrys plan to privilege domestically-produced pharmaceuticals.

A government strategy to foster growth in innovative life sciences development would also set a strong foundation for PPPs which could develop over time and expand into areas building on other strategic priorities for Vietnam, such as ICT and e-health, said EuroChams Pharma Group.

According to 2017 figures from health information provider IQVIA, 78 per cent of medicines by volume and 34 per cent of medicines by value are locally produced. In order to achieve the governments objective of 80 per cent local production by 2020, it will be important to increase the value of products manufactured locally, and this is where innovative, high-quality, and high value-added medicines can play a key role.

Unlocking the potential

According to Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien, there are a number of shortcomings, including underdeveloped infrastructure, lack of staff and finance, and low healthcare access among people in rural and remote areas. Therefore, the sector needs to carry out many similar programmes in the future, and seek international co-operation within these schemes.

According to industry insiders, Vietnam needs to focus on two key elements: a viable and sustainable legal framework to attract investment and enable partnership, and a continued strengthening of ethical standards to enhance trust and integrity.

It needs to be a holistic approach, which combines a clear legal framework to establish operations and protect investors through all phases of development. Consequently, there is a need for a clear roadmap with different levels of incentives, to allow for the natural development of the industry, said EuroChams Pharma Group.

The Republic of Ireland is an outstanding example of how to develop the innovative biopharmaceutical sector. Thirty years ago, the country was in a similar socio-economic situation to Vietnam, predominantly focused on agriculture. Today, the country is recognised as a best-practice in incentivising progress in innovative biopharmaceuticals, by having a clear roadmap for pharmaceutical sector development.

Consequently, pharmaceuticals currently generates over half of the countrys exports, contributing to making Ireland the largest net exporter of medicines globally with a total of $65 billion worth of exports annually. Furthermore, Ireland manufactures five of the worlds top 12 medicines and employs over 24,500 people, over half of which are third-level graduates, and another 24,500 people employed in provision services to the sector.

Vietnams economic journey mirrors that of the Republic of Ireland, and hence understanding their progress, especially in the space of biopharmaceuticals, can provide important insights to policymakers and other stakeholders as they are work towards an accelerated economic roadmap, EuroChams Pharma Group added.

With a clear roadmap, it would provide companies like AstraZeneca Vietnam with strong arguments to convince their global headquarters to invest in Vietnam, at a time when ASEAN member states are trying to position themselves as the regional manufacturing hub of the AEC.
Some Kenyan University students donating blood for the first time at the August 7 Memorial part (AFP or licensors)

The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops has offered condolences and prayers to families who lost loved ones during this weeks terror attacks at DusitD2 Hotel located at 14 Riverside Drive in Nairobi. The Bishops also wish a speedy recovery to the wounded and traumatised.

English Africa Service  Vatican City

Reacting to the terror attacks suspected to have been carried out by the Somali-based al-Shabaab militants, Archbishop Philip Anyolo, the newly inaugurated Kisumu prelate and President of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) has praised Kenya security agencies.

Kenya's security agencies praised

We commend our National Police Service and all security agencies for their effective response, tireless efforts to ensure the safety of affected persons in the DusitD2 Hotel incident and quick restoration of order. We pray that the almighty God protects and gives them strength to soldier on with dedication in providing their much-needed services for a safe and secure Kenya, Archbishop Anyolo said.

Health care workers, volunteers, parishioners exhibited patriotism

The Archbishop also paid tribute to volunteers and health care workers who provided vital First Aid and urgent medical attention to save the lives of the affected persons. The Archbishop is further encouraged by the spirit of patriotism that Kenyans exhibited by spreading messages of hope on social media and for the overwhelming response to calls for blood donations.

As the Catholic Church, we appreciate our local parishes located near the scene of the incident, namely Holy Trinity-Kileleshwa, St. Austin and Consolata Shrine, who mobilised Christians to provide food, soft drinks and water to the rescue teams, the Archbishop said.

Bishops saddened by young people who embrace violence

Nevertheless, Archbishop Anyolo said the Kenyan Bishops are saddened that some young people have turned to violence and killing. He said the Church will continue to collaborate with the government in encouraging the youth to shun violence.

Spiritual support for the wounded and traumatised

Aware that healing takes a long time, we call upon all religious leaders and citizens to continue providing spiritual support to those affected and their families. We affirm our commitment to work with the Government to preserve the common good, support the innocent and promote peaceful co-existence, said the Kisumu prelate.
Recent government shutdowns are not affecting the campus ROTC programs. The ROTC allows students to serve in the U.S. Army Reserve or Army National Guard at the same time. It provides students the opportunity for additional training and experience. On Thursday, January 17, 2019, at the College of Media & Communication building.
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New UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen will discuss the creation of the Syrian constitutional committee during his visit to Moscow next week, and he will return to Damascus after his trip to Russia, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told reporters in a press conference on Friday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th January, 2019) New UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen will discuss the creation of the Syrian constitutional committee during his visit to Moscow next week, and he will return to Damascus after his trip to Russia UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told reporters in a press conference on Friday.

"Mr. Pedersen had the first visit to Damascus.

The visit was very constructive," Guterres said. "He is meeting today the [Syrian Negotiating Committee] ... What I could from this contact obtain was also that discussion are being very constructive. From there he will be going to Moscow. He'll be coming back to Damascus and of course the creation of the constitutional committee will be central in the agendas of discussion of my special representative."
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ALEPPO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th January, 2019) The Russian military has delivered another batch of humanitarian aid to a village near the recently retaken city of Manbij, located in the northeast of the Syrian province of Aleppo, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides said.

"Today, we have carried out another humanitarian action at a school in a local village to help the people of the Syrian Arab Republic. We handed out 500 humanitarian food sets, which became a sort of a trademark [for the Russian military]; we also distributed bread, since there is no bakery in the area," Pavel Matreninsky said.

He noted that the village residents received packages comprising more than 1 tonne of flatbread.

According to the spokesman, it was the third humanitarian action carried out by the Russian military in the Manbij area, and more will be carried out in the future.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) left Manbij at the end of last year amid fears that Ankara would launch a military operation there against them. The city is controlled by Damascus at the moment. Apart from carrying out humanitarian missions, the Russian military helps the Syrian government forces ensure security in the area.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th January, 2019) Representatives of the Russian Embassies in Benin and Nigeria told Sputnik Thursday that they did not have any new information on the Russian sailors who were captured by pirates from the MSC Mandy ship in the Gulf of Guinea.

Earlier in the day, a coordinator of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) in Russia, Sergey Fishov, told Sputnik that the sailors were alive, but the kidnappers demanded a ransom, and negotiations were ongoing.

"We have no information on whether the kidnappers have contacted anyone and whether negotiations have begun ... Information on the condition of abducted sailors is not available to the Beninese authorities," Albert Dyabin, the first secretary of the Russian Embassy in Benin, told Sputnik.

Meanwhile, Russian Council in Nigeria Olga Dmitrieva told Sputnik that the embassy had no information on the condition of the Russian sailors.

"As for the ransom and the relationship with the shipowner, the shipowner does not confirm such information [that the kidnappers have reached out]. Therefore, we cannot give you any comments," Dmitrieva said.

On January 2, pirates attacked container ship MSC Mandy off Benin's southern coast as it was sailing in the Gulf of Guinea. They looted the ship and took the captain, his chief mate, and six Russian sailors captive. In total, there were 23 Russians and a Ukrainian citizen on board. The ship then docked at the port city of Cotonou, Benin's largest city.
Brian Harris, CEO and Founder of MedRhythms, spoke on behalf of the School of Visual and Performing Arts. The 2019 Performance Innovation Speaker Series took place 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 17 at the Overton Hotel and Conference Center.
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The UAE Embassy in the Kingdom of Morocco has distributed food and humanitarian aid to underprivileged people in Morocco's mountainous region as part of the brotherly relations and humanitarian cooperation between both countries

RABAT, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 18th Jan, 2019) The UAE Embassy in the Kingdom of Morocco has distributed food and humanitarian aid to underprivileged people in Morocco's mountainous region as part of the brotherly relations and humanitarian cooperation between both countries.

Ali Salim Al Kaabi, the UAE Ambassador to Morocco, affirmed that this initiative is aimed at alleviating the suffering of needy people due to the difficult climatic conditions.

He added that it also falls under the series of initiatives carried out by the UAE Embassy under the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the follow-up and support of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.

He pledged that the embassy will carry out more charitable and humanitarian initiatives during the coming period in various parts of Morocco, thus enhancing the spirit of solidarity between the two brotherly countries.

The beneficiaries, in turn, expressed their thanks and appreciation for the UAE initiative, expressing their hope to strengthen cooperation between the UAE and Morocco in social and developmental fields.

The launch ceremony was attended by a number of senior officials from both sides.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain has condemned the terrorist attack on a police academy in the city of Bogota, Colombia, which resulted in the death and injury of a number of people

MANAMA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 18th Jan, 2019) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain has condemned the terrorist attack on a police academy in the city of Bogota, Colombia, which resulted in the death and injury of a number of people.

In a statement, the Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed "deep condolences to the families of the victims, wishing those injured a speedy recovery."

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms the solid position of the Kingdom of Bahrain, which rejects all forms of violence, extremism and terrorism, and calls for intensifying international efforts to eradicate this dangerous scourge, which is aimed at destabilising peace and security," the statement carried by the Bahrain news Agency added.
(@FahadShabbir)

Russian railroad company RZD International signed a contract worth 230 million euros ($262 million) with Serbia's Infrastrukture zeleznica Srbije to upgrade the latter's railroads, the press service of the Serbian government said Thursday

BELGRADE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th January, 2019) Russian railroad company RZD International signed a contract worth 230 million Euros ($262 million ) with Serbia 's Infrastrukture zeleznica Srbije to upgrade the latter's railroads, the press service of the Serbian government said Thursday.

The deal was signed in the presence of Serbian Minister of Construction, Transportation and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlovic and RZD International CEO Sergey Pavlov.

The document envisions the construction of a single dispatch center for 127.

4 million euros, electrification of the Stara Pazova-Novi sad railroad section for 91.9 million euros, as well as the development of a project to rebuild 210 kilometers (131 miles) of lines running to Montenegro for 10.7 million euros.

According to Mihajlovic, Serbia was able to pay for projects to revamp Serbia's railways in the amount of one billion euros as well as renovate 205 kilometers of railroad lines over the past four years with the help of a Russian loan.
A celebration of the life for John Robert "Bobby" Brown, 72, will be held at his residence on Wednesday, June 16, 2021, at 10 a.m. Bobby was born in Dublin, but his home was Baldwin County. He was predeceased by his parents, John Preston "Pete" Brown and Virginia Watson Brown. He was retired
A couple of tarnished  and now former  Manchester cops wont face criminal charges as a result of their actions last year. But neither are they likely to work in law enforcement again.
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The existence of the investigation into Ochsenreiter was first reported on January 17.

Berlin prosecutors are investigating a far-right German journalist who was implicated by a defendant in a Polish court of involvement in the firebombing of a Hungarian cultural center in western Ukraine last year.

The preliminary investigation into Manuel Ochsenreiter, a vocal supporter of Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine who has been interviewed numerous times in Russian state media, is based on "suspicion of serious arson," a spokesperson for the Berlin prosecutor's office told RFE/RL on January 18.

The existence of the investigation into Ochsenreiter was first reported on January 17 by the German newspaper Die Zeit, which cited its own "information."

Read alsoThree Poles on trial for attacking Hungarian center in Uzhgorod

The confirmation of the probe comes four days after a Polish defendant, one of three currently on trial for the February 2018 firebombing in the Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod, told a Krakow court that Ochsenreiter had directed and financed the attack.

The incident, in which no one was injured, and a similar attack weeks later fanned tensions between Budapest and Kyiv over a Ukrainian law that Hungary says infringes on the rights of ethnic Hungarians to receive education in their native language in Ukraine.

The suspects allegedly intended to make it look as if Ukrainian ultranationalists were responsible for the incident, which included the painting of Nazi symbols on the headquarters of the Hungarian Cultural Association in Uzhgorod, the capital of the western Zakarpattia region.

The three Polish defendants currently on trial all have had previous links to far-right political movements.

Ochsenreiter, who had worked for a member of Germany's parliament from the anti-immigration AfD party, denied earlier to RFE/RL that he had any involvement in the attack.
Mr. Yanukovych, a major client of Mr. Manafort and an ally of the Kremlin, had been accused of political motives in the prosecuting and jailing of one of his leading political rivals.

A global New York-based law firm has agreed to pay $4.6 million to settle a U.S. Justice Department investigation into whether its work for a Russia-aligned Viktor Yanukovych government in Ukraine violated lobbying laws.

The investigation stems from work that the firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, did with Paul Manafort, President Trumps former campaign chairman. The case overlaps with the investigation of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian interference in the 2016 election, The New York Times reports.

As part of the settlement, the law firm agreed to register retroactively as a foreign agent for Ukraine in addition to paying the government $4.6 million, representing the money it earned from its work in Ukraine.

The settlement between the firm and the Justice Department, which was made public on Thursday, is the latest indication that Mr. Muellers inquiry and related investigations are fundamentally challenging the lucrative but shadowy foreign-lobbying industry that has thrived in Washington.

Read alsoPaul Manafort: Robert Mueller team details accusations of lies to void plea deal  media

Mr. Yanukovych, a major client of Mr. Manafort and an ally of the Kremlin, had been accused of political motives in the prosecuting and jailing of one of his leading political rivals, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, on charges of abusing her position as prime minister in negotiating a natural gas deal with Russia.

Skadden Arps was hired to conduct a purportedly independent analysis of her prosecution and trial, and to advise the Yanukovych government on a potential future prosecution. The firm was paid more than $4.6 million, partly through the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice and partly through offshore accounts controlled by Mr. Manafort.

A Skadden Arps team led by Gregory B. Craig, a former White House counsel for President Barack Obama, produced a report concluding that, while the trial violated some of Ms. Tymoshenkos rights, her conviction was supported by the evidence presented at trial. And the report found no evidence that the prosecution was politically motivated.

Read alsoManafort discussed "Russia-Ukraine peace plan" with Kilimnik believed to be linked to Russia intel

Mr. Craig, who maintained deep connections to Washingtons Democratic establishment and its press corps, worked to shape the public relations strategy for the release of the report, according to a Justice Department filing released with the settlement.

The filing, which identifies Mr. Craig as Partner 1 but does not name him, indicates that he arranged for a journalist to receive a copy of the report, then discussed the report with that journalist. The journalist, who is not named in the filing, is David E. Sanger of The New York Times, which published an article in December 2012 about the report quoting Mr. Craig.

Mr. Craig and Skadden Arps should have disclosed that activity under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA, which covers both lobbying and public relations on behalf of foreign political interests, the Justice Department said. But Mr. Craig misled both his colleagues at Skadden Arps and officials in the Justice Departments FARA unit about his interactions with the news media, leading the Justice Department to conclude that the firm was not obligated to register under the act, the settlement filing said.

The settlement puts law firms on notice that they cant hide behind their identity as lawyers. If they are doing lobbying work on behalf of foreign countries, they need to register under FARA, said Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School who specializes in legal ethics. It also shows that the government will not tolerate false statements by lawyers.
The terrorist organization has provided no evidence of its involvement.

Via its weekly newspaper, al-Naba, the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization claimed credit for the apartment building explosion and a commuter bus bombing in the Russian city of Magnitogorsk, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on Dec 31, 2018, a section of an apartment block in the Russian city of Magnitogorsk collapsed in what the authorities reported was a utility gas explosion.

A total of 39 bodies were found at the site.

Read alsoHoping for Russian help against Turkish army, Kurds spread Moscow's narratives on Ukraine-ISIS ties  expert

The next day, Jan 1, 2019, a commuter bus exploded in the city's district where the affected building is located.

Certain media outlets in Russia reported that the two incidents were interconnected and that a house explosion was in fact a terrorist act. Russia's Investigative Committee has refuted allegations.

At the same time, Ukraine's deputy minister of information policies Dmytro Zolotukhin noted it was the GRU-controlled media who disseminated information about the "terrorist" version as part of what he calls an ongoing feud between GRU military intelligence and the FSB security agency. The official suggests that the "terrorist" plot is aimed at framing the FSB in the eyes of the Russian president.
The expert doubts that he will enjoy overwhelming public support in Russia.

Russian sociologist and publicist Igor Eydman believes Russian President Vladimir Putin may appoint as his successor a purely formal figure like Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev or Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.

If Putin appoints his successor during his lifetime, he will still try to control things from behind the scenes, the expert said during an online Q&A session with readers of a Ukrainian news outlet Glavred.

"Whom could Putin appoint his successor if he suddenly decided to step back? I think, while Putin is alive, if he appoints a successor, this will be a purely formal figure like Medvedev or Shoigu...," the analyst said.

Read alsoChain reaction: Russian politician explains how Russia could implode

"Frankly speaking, I doubt that the Russians will support Putin's successor," said the sociologist.

Eydman said the situation with public opinion in Russia had recently changed: "According to all polls over the past six months, we're clearly seeing that the ratings of major government institutions in Russia are dropping, including those of the president," he concluded.
A search and rescue operation is underway why the fate of the crew remains unclear.

A pair of Su-34 fighter-bomber jets collided mid-air over the Tatar Strait in Russia's far eastern Khabarovsk Territory.

"Two Su-34 aircraft flying from the sea collided mid-air. The crew of one aircraft ejected. The fate of both crews is unknown yet," a source in the regional law enforcement agencies told TASS.

According to the source, the incident occurred in the morning hours of Friday, Jan 18.

Read alsoReuters: Russian-made fighter plane crashes in Egypt  RIA

A search and rescue operation is underway why the fate of the crew remains unclear.

"The version is being checked that the pilots failed to properly calculate the safe distance between the two aircraft, or there was a technical malfunction, and two planes could supposedly collide," writes Interfax.

As reported earlier, on December 20, an An-26 cargo plane with Russians on board crashed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Putin promised to invest $1.4 billion in gas transport infrastructure in Serbia, which now buys all its natural gas from Russia via a pipeline over Ukraine, and hopes to be hooked up to the TurkStream gas pipeline being built from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic staged a lavish welcome for Vladimir Putin on Thursday - even presenting the visiting Russian leader with a puppy - in what critics called a bid to deflect attention from weeks of anti-government protests.

Serbia has been performing a delicate balancing act between its ambition to join its biggest trading partner the European Union, and its historical ties with Russia, which shares its Orthodox Christian faith and backed it diplomatically during a 1999 NATO bombing campaign, Reuters reports.

Displaying his close relationship with Putin is particularly important for Vucic, a former ultranationalist who abruptly switched sides to become a leading advocate of closer relations with the EU but who still relies on rightwing support.

Vucic has faced weeks of protests against his rule by supporters of both the liberal and nationalist camps. Demonstrating his warm ties with Russia could help him counter accusations of selling out Serbias interests to the West.

Read alsoNord Stream 2 kills Ukraine  Poland's Foreign Minister

Putin promised to invest $1.4 billion in gas transport infrastructure in Serbia, which now buys all its natural gas from Russia via a pipeline over Ukraine, and hopes to be hooked up to the TurkStream gas pipeline being built from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea.

Although today Russia is only Serbias fifth largest trading partner, Serbs have looked to fellow Orthodox Christian Russia as a patron and ally throughout centuries of history in a Balkan region also home to Catholics and Muslims.

Putin said Moscow will fully support Serbia in finding solutions for unresolved issues with its former province Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008.

Serbia withdrew its troops from Kosovo after the 1999 bombing campaign by NATO, which accused Belgrade of carrying out abuses during a campaign against ethnic Albanian insurgents. Belgrade has not recognized Kosovos independence but has accepted the EU requirement that it normalize relations in practice with the former province in order to join the bloc.
No Ukrainian army casualties have been reported.

Russia's hybrid military forces have violated the ceasefire in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, twice since Friday morning.

"They attacked our defenders' strongholds twice, using grenade launchers of various systems, large-caliber machine guns," the press center of the Joint Forces Operation said on Facebook in an evening update on Friday, January 18.

Read alsoKremlin assesses scenarios for "conflict" in Donbas

The area near the village of Hnutove was under enemy sniper fire.

No Ukrainian army casualties have been reported for the period from 00:00 to 18:00 Kyiv time on Friday.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Russian-led forces mounted 13 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas on January 17, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as wounded in action.
The images show an Iskander compound, with a few bunkers and another compound of hangars.

Satellite images shot Thursday and obtained exclusively by Fox News have revealed a new Russian deployment of Iskander missile batteries and launchers near the border with Ukraine.

The intelligence report by Imagesat International showed the new deployment in Krasnodar, 270 miles from the border with Ukraine, Fox News reports.

The images show an Iskander compound, with a few bunkers and another compound of hangars.

The Iskander ballistic missile has a range up to 310 miles, and can carry both unconventional as well as nuclear warheads.

The second deployment is near the border with Mongolia, in Ulan-Ude in Sothern Russia, where there are four launchers and another reloading vehicle.

Earlier this week, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russias Security Council, said authorities of the former Soviet republic are being controlled by the West, warning it stands to lose its independence and identity as a consequence.

Last November, three Ukrainian vessels and 24 Ukrainian soldiers were fired at and captured by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea, exacerbating tensions between the two countries.

The incident marked the most dangerous direct clash in years between the neighbors.

Read alsoFox News: Russia building up forces near Crimea amid tensions with Ukraine, satellite photos show

Fox News has reported of further Russian troops deployment and S-400 Surface to air missile days after the escalation started, hinting Russia might have orchestrated the naval incident.

On Thursday, President Trump called to expand the U.S. defense program. During an appearance at the Pentagon, he said "our goal is simple: that we can detect and destroy" any incoming missile.

Part of the new strategy is to create a level of sensors in space.

The president says that America's adversaries are "increasing their lethal strike capabilities" and that his "first duty is defense of our country."

On Wednesday, Jan 16, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for arms control and international security, Andrea Thompson, confirmed the U.S. intention to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, after a failed meeting with the Russian delegation in Geneva.
The enemy employed anti-tank missile launchers, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and small arms near the village of Pivdenne.

Russia's hybrid military forces mounted 13 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past day, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as wounded in action.

"One Ukrainian soldier was wounded in the past day. According to intelligence reports, three occupiers were killed," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an update published on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on January 18, 2019.

Russian occupation forces opened fire from automatic grenade launchers, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms, attacking the defenders of the town of Krasnohorivka, and the villages of Pisky, Nevelske, Vodiane, Slavne, Opytne.

Read alsoOSCE monitors report nearly 300 explosions in Donbas  report

Also, the enemy employed anti-tank missile systems, automatic grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and small arms near the village of Pivdenne, as well as 82mm mortars and small arms  near the village of Krymske.

"Since Friday midnight, Russian-led forces haven't attacked the Ukrainian positions yet," the report said.
Ukraine and the United States are discussing the strengthening of the Ukrainian defense capabilities.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said on Friday that arms negotiations were ongoing with the United States.

Asked about the prospect of the U.S. selling lethal weapons to Ukraine, Klimkin said: "We are now conducting such negotiations. I cannot talk about individual systems. This is a confidential issue," Reuters reported.

Read alsoUkraine's army to be able to act under NATO standards in 2020, Poroshenko says

"We are talking about a very serious strengthening of the defense capabilities of both our armed forces and our defense sector as a whole," he told reporters at a press conference.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, on January 17 passed bill No. 9122 to amend certain legislative acts regarding the procurement of imported products, works and services for defense purposes.

In particular, the bill says that if the purchase of products, works and services under the defense order constitutes a state secret, they can also be purchased from foreign business entities.
"The Kerch Strait is currently free  that's what everyone involved says," Maas said.

It is widely acknowledged that ships can pass through the Kerch Strait - a body of water shared between Russia and Ukraine - is now free, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Friday.

Read alsoPutin agrees to allow access of French, German experts to Kerch Strait area

"The Kerch Strait is currently free  that's what everyone involved says," Maas said during a visit to Moscow, as reported by Reuters.

Ukraine imposed martial law in November, citing the threat of a full-scale invasion after Russia captured three of its vessels in the Kerch Strait.
The Russian foreign minister added that today, his German counterpart submitted a proposal "that 'packs' this simple trip into a certain document that must be agreed with Ukraine."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to the proposal of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to allow access of experts from Germany and France to the Kerch Strait area.

"I can only say one thing. Over a month ago, Chancellor Merkel asked President Putin to allow German specialists to come to the Kerch Strait area and see how the passage through this water area is being carried out, given that safety standards must be observed  whether the pilotage is present, etc.  and President Putin immediately agreed," Lavrov said at a joint press conference with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Moscow on Friday, an UNIAN correspondent in Russia reports.

Read alsoRussia continues creeping offensive not only in Azov, but also in Black Sea  Poltorak

Lavrov noted, "after a while, Chancellor Merkel asked him to allow German specialists to come along with the French ones, and he also agreed to that."

According to Lavrov, over a month has passed, but "we're not seeing any visits."

The Russian Foreign Minister added that today, Maas handed him over a proposal "that 'packs' this simple trip into a certain document that must be agreed with Ukraine."

"We honestly said that, if our counterparts are interested in what President Putin promised to Chancellor Merkel, this can be done today, tomorrow, or any time. If the idea is to put all this into some kind of political procedure, where the Ukrainian side is to make some decisions, we risk finding ourselves in the same situation as we have in the 'Normandy format' with the 'Steinmeier formula'," Lavrov added.
The president insists he will do everything needed to "preserve religious peace" and ensure an exclusively peaceful process of transition of parishes.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said Moscow continues provocations aimed against the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine: the enemy seeks to incite conflicts on religious grounds.

"I would like to emphasize there have been provocations on the part of Moscow regarding the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church and, unfortunately, they are continuing now. The enemy goal is to incite conflicts around the transition, make communities stand up against each another, and test our unity, again," he said during a ceremony opening the monument to Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivskiy in Cherkasy, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

Read alsoAnother attempt by Russia to discredit Ukraine's new church fails  media

According to Poroshenko, the autocephalous, local Orthodox Church of Ukraine emerged as equal among other Orthodox churches.

Poroshenko insists he will do everything needed to "preserve religious peace" and ensure an exclusively peaceful process of transition of parishes.

"They were waiting for someone to finally begin seizing the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. No, we come with love and peace. They were really waiting for some nationalists to start seizing the temples, but they will not see this happening. We have already learned our lessons well," the president said.
A lot of energy and money is being invested in this, according to the official.

Russia's use of historical issues to antagonize Poland and Ukraine are "very well prepared," according to Marek Szczygie of Poland's Department of Security Policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"Russia's actions regarding the use of certain historical issues to antagonize Poland and Ukraine are very well prepared. They invested a lot of energy and a lot of money," he said, speaking at a two-day Polish-U.S. conference on cybersecurity organized by the Atlantic Council in Warsaw on Thursday, according to Niezalezna.pl.

Szczygie, who is responsible for coordination of cyber security policy with foreign partners, indicated that one of the strategies pursued by Russia to undermine the unity of the Western world is to induce and deepen divisions between individual countries.

An example of such actions is, in his opinion, Russia's attempt to "exploit certain historical issues, e.g. as regards the Poland-Ukraine relations".

Former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried noted the fact that the feature of Russian disinformation is the use of the already existing divisions, like the issue of racism in the U.S.

The diplomat said Russia had been doing the same thing in the UK as well as Spain (it was not Russia who invented Catalan nationalism), and France (it was not Russia who created the National Front movement).

Russia exploits the existing divisions intentionally, aiming to weaken western countries, according to the diplomat.

At the same time, Szczygie argues that Western democracies are not powerless against the risks associated with disinformation, including those coming from Russia.

Read alsoGazeta Wyborcza: Russian trolls, propagandists intensify attacks on Ukraine ahead of elections

One of the important elements of an effective policy of defense against disinformation is sanction policies, he believes.

"The U.S. has set a path here and we are currently preparing a specially designated sanctions mechanism in the EU where it comes to cyberattacks," said the official.

He noted that this initiative was launched in response to the Russian attempt to penetrate the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons - ed.) in The Hague. "

Among conditions for stronger resistance to disinformation, he also noted support for high quality journalism and education of internet users, especially the younger generation.

Read alsoFacebook removes pages, groups, accounts engaged in "coordinated inauthentic behavior"

"We should prepare social media consumers, raise their awareness and teach them some kind of internet hygiene, how to avoid certain risks, but also teach them to think critically, make a distinction between manipulation, disinformation, and real facts," said Szczygie.

According to Szczygie, the actions of Western countries should also be more proactive and more attention should be devoted to actions in the Russian-language infosphere, including to supporting independent Russian-language media.

"If we are unable to fully protect our own territory, let's try to move some of the activity into the territory of our opponent," he said.

As emphasized by the diplomat, the threat of Russian disinformation has existential significance for the West and its unity.

Read alsoPro-Russian German journalist implicated in arson attack on Hungarian Center in Ukraine  media

"If they manage to influence the election results and lead to the creation of a pro-Russian government in one of the NATO countries, this will mean they have won, and at the same time, our ability to respond to future Russian activities will be very limited," he said.

Szczygie spoke at the same time for a "more coordinated approach" to these issues - including concerning the exchange of information and good practices - within NATO, as well as for the support of Western institutions for the countries most threatened by Russia's activities, such as Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova.
A new mural decorates the streets of Tapachula, the busiest town on the Mexican side of the border with Guatemala. In vivid earthy tones, it depicts a woman holding a baby in her arms, sprinkled with the names of the two dozen women from north Central America who painted it and profound words capturing their aspirations: love, trust, freedom, safety.

This mural represents our daily fight to keep going, it tells our stories, says Manuela*, a 48-year-old woman from El Salvador, pointing at the words she decided to paint on the mural: Lets raise our voice.

Manuela has been escaping from the Salvadoran criminal gangs for five years. When she could not afford to meet the extortion fee they demanded  US $170 each week  she and her mother were harshly beaten. In one of those frightful visits, Manuelas mother died of a heart attack.

Alone and desperate, Manuela moved to another town. The gangs found her six months later and threatened to kill her. She fell into a nightmarish never-ending exodus within El Salvador, spending no longer than one week in each location.

There is no safe place in El Salvador, Manuela says.

I have found a family I did not know before.

Despite feeling terrified, Manuela decided to join the caravan of over 7,000 people from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala heading north on foot looking for safety at the end of October 2018.

Another caravan departed from Honduras on January 14 and over 1,100 refugees and migrants crossed the Guatemala-Mexico border this week, including 145 children.

29,600 people have asked for asylum in Mexico in 2018  more than a ten-fold increase over the last five years. They are mostly fleeing violence and persecution from Honduras (46 per cent), Venezuela (22 per cent) and El Salvador (21 per cent), some of the countries with the highest murder rate. Of all the asylum requests received by Mexican authorities, 56 per cent were processed in the southern state of Chiapas, where Tapachula is located.

The women who painted the 14-meter-long mural are mostly from Honduras and El Salvador. Some fled alone, others did it with their families or joined the caravan, like Manuela. They were threatened by gangs, raped, family members were killed in front of them  their life is at risk and they cannot go back to their country.

Janeth shows the tomb she painted in the mural to express her grief. Her 17-year-old son was killed by a criminal gang in El Salvador in 2017 because he refused to join.  UNHCR/Marta Martinez

Janeth, 45, and Alma, 13, fled El Salvador after Janeth's 17-year-old son was killed by a criminal gang in El Salvador and the group threatened to kill her daughter Alma as well.  UNHCR/Marta Martinez

Two dozen asylum seeker women from north Central America painted a mural in Tapachula, Mexico marking the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.  UNHCR/Marta Martinez

Luisa presses her hands against each other as she explains the traumatic experience of sexual abuse she suffered in Honduras.  UNHCR/Marta Martinez

Two dozen asylum seeker women from north Central America painted a mural in Tapachula, Mexico marking the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.  UNHCR/Marta Martinez

Over the course of two weeks, the women got together in early December to conceptualize, draw and paint the mural in a gender-based violence project supported by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

UNHCR is working with different groups of asylum-seekers and refugees to allow them to have spaces where they can find safety, express their feelings and work through their trauma, says Kristin Riis Halvorsen. Many of these initiatives are focused towards women who are survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, which is widespread among the girls and women who come from Northern Central America.

In the framework of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, UNHCR organized a number of activities in Tapachula to raise awareness and improve networks for women to speak about their experiences. Because the issues the women have gone through are very complex and difficult to talk about, artistic projects were designed so that the women could have a different vehicle to express their feelings and, through a collective creation, reach a new level of confidence and finally start leaving their trauma behind.

There is no safe place in El Salvador.

As they learned how to use a brush and play with color, the women started trusting each other and realizing they were not alone in the abuses they had endured.

We were able to relax, we laughed together, we forgot the problems in our countries, says Janeth*, 45, from El Salvador.

Combined with art lessons were sharing exercises, where the women reflected on their traumatic experiences and became more aware of their rights. Most of them did not know they could ask for asylum until they reached the Mexican border.

We thought that what our partners told us was because they loved us, says Luisa*, a victim of sexual abuse from Honduras. Now we know we have rights and we do not need to suffer.

Janeth, 45, points at a hidden corner of the mural, near the floor. She painted a small tombstone with a big gray cross surrounded by flying birds. It has her 17-year-old sons name on it.

I wanted to capture my grief, she says with reddened eyes.

Back in El Salvador, Janeths son could not escape the criminal gang who wanted to recruit him. His refusal to join cost him his life. When Janeth heard the gunshots from home one night in November 2017, shortly before going to bed, she knew.

El Salvador is one of the deadliest countries for young people in the world, especially young men. In 2015, 207.5 per 100,000 young people died, mainly due to homicides. This is significantly above the global average of 149, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Secondary school enrollment is less than 38 per cent, well below the Latin American average of 74 per cent.

Janeth is still struggling with her sons death, but she could not let depression overcome her  she needed to protect her daughter Alma*, who is 13 years old. The same gang who killed her son wanted to forcibly recruit Alma to become a gang members girlfriend, for what would have amounted to sex slavery.

The mural makes us feel that we are human beings, that we are willing to survive regardless of what comes.

The family fled to another town, where Alma had to switch schools every two months to remain in hiding. The gang found her six months later and she could not leave home.

They arrived in Tapachula less than a month ago. All the family wanted is to find a safe, stable place where Alma can continue her studies and become a nurse.

I do not want to go to the United States, I want to study here, Alma says.

See also: Helping refugees to thrive in Costa Rica

When reflecting on the art project, the women stress how helpful it has been for all of them.

The mural makes us feel that we are human beings, that we are willing to survive regardless of what comes, Luisa says. But we wouldnt be able to do it without the support of the institutions.

When Luisa sees tattooed men on the streets, her body still shakes reliving the trauma she went through back in Honduras, when she was raped by two hooded men. But in Tapachula she feels safe.

I have found a family I did not know before, she adds.

Excited and proud about the results of the art project, the women look forward to continue learning skills that can help them find jobs in Tapachula, like performing beauty treatments, tailoring or baking.

Smiling, Luisa adds: After this, we might become artists.



*Names changed for protection reasons.
A South Sudanese refugee teaches a class at a primary school in Kule refugee camp, Ethiopia, March 2016.  UNHCR/Petterik Wiggers

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, welcomes Ethiopias historic new refugee law which will now allow refugees to obtain work permits, access primary education, obtain drivers licenses, legally register life events such as births and marriages and open up access to national financial services, such as banking.

Ethiopias parliament adopted revisions in its existing refugee law on Thursday (17 January 2019), making it one of the most progressive refugee policies in Africa.

The passage of this historic law represents a significant milestone in Ethiopias long history of welcoming and hosting refugees from across the region for decades, said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. By allowing refugees the opportunity to be better integrated into society, Ethiopia is not only upholding its international refugee law obligations, but is serving as a model for other refugee hosting nations around the world.

Ethiopias revision of its refugee law comes just weeks after the UN General Assembly agreed to the Global Compact on Refugees on 17 December 2018. At the heart of this innovative new framework is a more comprehensive response to displacement in which refugees are included in national services like health and education, rather than setting up parallel systems. It also focuses on ensuring refugees have the opportunity to be self-reliant and can contribute to local economies in a way that also benefits their hosts.

UNHCR was involved in the drafting process of the refugee law revision, which was led by Ethiopias Agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs, ARRA. It replaces the 2004 Refugee Proclamation which also upheld the key principles of the 1951 Refugee Convention as well as the 1969 OAU Convention, which restricted some refugee rights, like freedom of movement and access to education, and made no mention of integration.

Ethiopia currently hosts over 900,000 refugees, primarily from neighbouring South Sudan, Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea, as well as smaller numbers of refugees from Yemen and Syria.

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Refugees from northern Nigeria rest after arriving at Minawao camp in Cameroon, in December 2016.  UNHCR/Alexis Huguet

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is extremely alarmed by reports of the forced return by Cameroon this week of several thousand refugees into violence-affected Borno State in northeast Nigeria. This follows the forced return of 267 Nigerian refugees on 16 January. They had crossed into Cameroon in 2014. We are gravely concerned for the safety and well-being of all these people.

An estimated 9,000 Nigerians fled across the border into Cameroon earlier in the week after militants attacked and ransacked the small border town of Rann in Nigerias Borno State. The militants went on a rampage by targeting military installations, civilians and humanitarian facilities. At least 14 people are reported killed.

This action was totally unexpected and puts lives of thousands of refugees at risk, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. I am appealing to Cameroon to continue its open door and hospitable policy and practices and halt immediately any more returns and to ensure full compliance with its refugee protection obligations under its own national legislation, as well as international law.

Cameroon is currently home to more than 370,000 refugees, including some 100,000 from Nigeria.

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| By Patricia Fanning

The University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) this month celebrated the launch of the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices. With support from both universities and the state of Maryland, the institute brings together engineers, clinicians, scientists, and students working to design and build biomedical devices that address many of todays most pressing human health challenges.

The Fischell Institute will take cutting-edge research and create new products with the expectation that new businesses will be created potentially from this research and development, Maryland Deputy Secretary of Commerce Benjamin Wu said at the Jan. 3 event in College Park, noting that Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News recently named the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region among the top five biopharma clusters in the nation. These new businesses will create new jobs that will sustain our states economy and continue to make us one of the leaders in the nation, and certainly in the region, for job growth.

(View a photo gallery on Facebook.)

University of Maryland, Baltimore Provost Bruce Jarrell and, from left to right, Jarrell with Fischell Institute Director William Bentley; Clark School Dean Darryll Pines; University of Maryland, College Park Provost Mary Ann Rankin; Robert E. Fischell and Susan Fischell; School of Medicine Dean E. Albert Reece; and Maryland Deputy Secretary of Commerce Benjamin Wu. Photo by Thai Nguyen, UMCP.

In 2005, scientist and engineer Robert E. Fischell, MS 54, ScD 96 (honorary), and his family made a $31 million gift to the University of Maryland to establish the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and later the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices. Fischell is known for inventing lifesaving medical devices and pioneering the modern era of space satellites. He holds more than 200 patents and was a leading contributor to many crucial inventions, including coronary stents, the implantable heart defibrillator, the implantable insulin pump, and a device to prevent migraine headaches.

More than 100 faculty members, researchers, and industry representatives gathered for the celebration at A. James Clark Hall, home of the Fischell Institutes main office and labs. The afternoon event kicked off with a medical device symposium that highlighted several research initiatives supported in part by the Fischell Institute.

Since the establishment of the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices, weve seen the convergence of health information technology, consumer electronics, and manufacturing industries. This has been reflected in similar changes in the medical device realm, said Mary Ann Rankin, PhD, senior vice president and provost at UMCP. This evolution spells new opportunities for human health advancements, but it also presents unique challenges for innovators who have to navigate the changes in technology and the changing regulatory landscape associated with them in order to deliver medical devices to patients who need them.

Bringing together driven engineers and driven physicians means problems will be solved, said Bruce Jarrell, MD, FACS, UMB executive vice president, provost, and dean of the Graduate School.

Gifts like [the Fischell familys contribution] create more opportunities for our students, faculty, and researchers to collaborate across the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the University of Maryland, College Park, he said. Additionally, the Fischell Institute enables researchers from both campuses to get involved with the rich environment that the state of Maryland has to offer.

Throughout the day, faculty from the two campuses highlighted projects ranging from cutting-edge diagnostics tools to the use of drones for emergency delivery of organs to patients awaiting transplants.

It is clear that the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices serves as a conduit for innovation and a melting pot of many disciplines and fields, said Fischell Institute Director William E. Bentley, PhD, MEng. We bring together not only thought leaders in medical science and technology, but also in the practice of health care, and we are all inspired by Dr. Fischells call to improve quality of life for others.

The institute's namesake said the sort of work being done there is crucial for the health of people everywhere.

So much of the good in the world today  all the conveniences we have, the advancements in health from which we benefit  are in large part the result of contributions made by scientists and engineers, Fischell said. And that is why the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices is so important.

The Fischell Institute receives funding support through the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State, which leverages the strengths and complementary missions of the Baltimore and College Park campuses to grow Marylands innovation economy, advance interdisciplinary research, create opportunities for students, and solve important problems for the people of Maryland and the nation.

At UMB, the Fischell Institute is housed at the Grid, the Graduate Research Innovation District, located in the renovated Lion Brothers Building at the University of Maryland BioPark.
Militants launched 13 attacks on Ukrainian positions in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) area in Donbas over the past day.

In particular, the enemy fired antitank missile systems, automatic grenade launchers, machine guns and small arms on Ukrainian troops near Pivdenne (40km north-east of Donetsk), 82mm mortars and small arms  near Krymske (42.5km north-west of Luhansk), the JFO Headquarters press center reports.

In addition, militants used grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms to shell Ukrainian positions near Pisky (12km north-west of Donetsk), Nevelske (18km north-west of Donetsk) and Vodiane (16km north-west of Donetsk). Also, the enemy fired grenade launchers on Ukrainian troops near Slavne (25km south-west of Donetsk), heavy machine guns and small arms  in the area of Krasnohorivka (29 km west of Donetsk), grenade launchers and machine guns  outside Opytne (11.5km north-west of Donetsk).

Over the past day, one Ukrainian serviceman was wounded.

Today, the enemy has not opened fire yet.
With Angus Eve now in the hot seat, and that too a time when T&T football is in shambles, the former player has come in for praise for accepting the job.
He sees it as a public reminder of the Founding Fathers mandate for the commission to represent the people aggressively against big companies.

The Oklahoma Constitution devotes more words to the powers and responsibilities of the commission than are contained in the entire U.S. Constitution, he pointed out.

In that language is a great deal of power to protect ordinary citizens, he said.

The state constitution charges the commission with regulating a whole host of big corporations, correcting their abuses and preventing unjust discrimination and extortion.

Its a job that is only done right, of course, if its done honestly. In 1992, Anthony was the key prosecution witness in a federal bribery case that sent another corporation commissioner and a utility attorney to prison.

It was a critical moment in the history of the Corporation Commission, and it made the career of Anthony. Whatever else we know about him, we knew these things: He is honest, and he is on the peoples side.
When people with opinions similar to Kings open their mouths, they damage not only the Republican Party and the conservative brand but also our nation as a whole. They want to be treated with fairness for some perceived slights but refuse to return the favor to those on the other side.

Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism  it is because of our silence when things like this are said. Immigration is the perfect example, in which somehow our affection for the rule of law has become conflated with a perceived racism against brown and black people.

I do support border security not because I want to keep certain ethnicities out of our nation, but because I support enforcing our laws. I do not care if you come from Canada, France or Honduras, if you break our laws, there should be consequences. But it has become almost impossible to have a reasonable conversation along those lines. Thats in part why I laid out my agenda on civility, fairness and opportunity on Thursday on the floor of the Senate.
OKLAHOMA CITY  Congress has been anything but tranquil as Democrats and Republicans have rushed to cast blame upon each other and have failed to pass even bipartisan measures. On Wednesday, the House Rules Committee declined to pass an amendment authored by Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Westville, to fund the Indian Health Service during the shutdown. Democrats said the amendment was received late and was not vetted.

This is a big problem that, frankly, we ought to find a way to deal with, said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, who co-sponsored the Mullin legislation. This isn't the appropriate way or the appropriate vehicle, I certainly understand that, but we want to keep our focus and get this (IHS funding) out of politics.

The House could still consider Mullin's legislation, which is co-sponsored by several Democrats, including Rep. Kendra Horn of Oklahoma City. Cole, who is a Chickasaw Nation member, said the federal government will have a lot of lawsuits because it is not fulfilling its treaty obligations to tribes during the shutdown.
OKLAHOMA CITY  The Oklahoma Department of Securities waited a month to report a significant server vulnerability that exposed 3 terabytes of sensitive information despite a 2013 state law that requires immediate notification of authorities.

The notification to affected individuals must be made without "unreasonable delay," the law says. Oklahoma's CIO must be told immediately.

A cybersecurity firm warned the Securities Department about the exposed server on Dec. 8. A spokeswoman for the CIO said the department reported a personal computer and firewall "misconfiguration" 27 days later, on Jan. 4.
It is the states third largest industry, Pinnell said.

State tax collections from tourism jumped more than 20 percent since 2010, he said.

The advertising that we have done not just in Oklahoma but across the country and across the world is working, Pinnell said.

Tourism is a form of economic development, Pinnell said.

If we can get people off our roads and bridges in Oklahoma, they fall in love with the state, Pinnell said. They fall in love with the people. We know that.

Pinnell said the branding campaign will be across state agencies.

He said he hopes the brand is more than the twitter bird on the states license plate.

Pinnell is a graduate of Oral Roberts University. He is the former chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party. He also served as director of state parties for the Republican National Committee.

Pinnell and his wife, Lisa, live in Tulsa with their four children, who attend Jenks Public Schools.

Stitt said he has four cabinet posts yet to fill.

Barbara Hoberock 405-528-2465 barbara.hoberock@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @bhoberock

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Im honored, but theres a lot of other teachers that do similar things, so it could have been any one of them, he said.

Still, what Lanning has accomplished cant be taken lightly. About 30 students attend his camp every summer despite not receiving any extra credit. They do it to prepare for East Centrals rigorous AP calculus courses, which help with college.

One student, whose parents were refugees from El Salvador, earned a full ride to the University of Tulsa and is majoring in cyber defense. That story also made Strattons speech.

So why does Lanning sacrifice precious family time to stay in school and teach for free? For the students, of course.

I like helping students see that they can achieve more than what they believe they can, he said. Thats why I like teaching the AP. You can take a student that doesnt believe they can be successful in the course and show them that they can be. A lot of it is about making students believe in themselves.

Overall, Lanning doesnt mind the attention if it means supporting Strattons call for Oklahoma teachers to receive fair pay and work in well-equipped classrooms that arent overcrowded.

Our goal is to recruit and train the best teachers, and the only way thats going to come about is with funding. So he nails it, Lanning said. He sees exactly what the issues are. If we have the resources and we have the classroom materials to teach our students, then theyre going to perform better.

Kyle Hinchey 918-581-8451 kyle.hinchey@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @kylehinchey
Johnson is a defendant in a multicounty grand jury indictment for racketeering and pandering along with Sells and Sells sister, Chelsea Nance, which the attorney generals office filed in November and had unsealed on Monday. Connor is charged in a separate indictment with pandering and solicitation related to the same group of businesses.

In text message conversations dating back to 2015, Connor and Cousino mention the acquisition of a business that would be used as a front for prostitution. Connor, according to the document, also wanted to connect with a woman about an old case in which he represented her so he could close her file.

That woman, an employee of Sells for nearly a decade, testified before the grand jury that Connor was treated differently than other clients by being allowed to get into the businesses through back entrances. She said that ensured he was not seen by anyone not directly involved in his appointment.

The same woman paid Connor to represent her in a child custody matter. In lieu of meetings at his law office, Connor met with the woman at the Swedish Relaxation Center for sex services on a weekly basis, according to the search warrant.
A big block of (public) money is going to a management company, Stanislawski said. Were going to pull the curtain back on the management company.

Lastly, Stanislawski said he wants to address one of the chief complaints he has been hearing from superintendents  that students who transfer back from virtual charter schools are credit deficient.

He said his bill would require the sending school to report how credit deficient a kid is to the Oklahoma State Department of Education so youre not held accountable for someone elses deficiencies, adding, Ive heard it from too many districts over the last several years.

Schreiber applauded the ideas, saying, Transparency measures are super important ... Parents need to know (if they leave), theyre not getting out of it, and number two, you know what youre getting when you go there.

Gist said sharp declines in student enrollment at TPS is chief on her mind at this time. She said she thinks the district needs to do a better job of correcting public perception about its schools and students.
But Stitt on Thursday said he didnt anticipate seeking an additional appropriation.

I dont think we are going to need any more net dollars, but we are trying to be as transparent as possible, he said. We might need to shift it around to show it really coming out of the governors office instead of borrowing from other agencies. And those are the things we are working through as a staff.

Stitt said he was elected to run the executive branch and state agencies.

So we have to have the appropriate staff to make sure I can hold them accountable and that is what I am taking very, very seriously, Stitt said. If we need it, I will come back and tell Oklahomans or tell the Legislature here is what we need and here is the outcome when we get that.

In the past, governors have released some details of their executive budget and platform in increments before the session starts.

But Stitt said Thursday that he will wait until his Feb. 4 state of the state address to unveil details.

It is going to be exciting and we are going to go big, Stitt said.

Education, criminal justice reform and agency accountability will be his priorities, Stitt said.
The government shutdown has stopped new beer labels from being approved, but that hasnt stopped breweries from releasing beer with seasonal and pre-shutdown labels.

Stillwaters Iron Monk Brewing Co. was lucky enough to get an approval more than a year ago for its latest beer release.

Iron Monk will be releasing its hazy IPA, The NINE, on Friday, Jan. 18, as a yearly offering.

Here is the description of the beer:

In Norse mythology, Aegir was a friendly giant that lived in a great hall under the ocean. In his spare time, he brewed tasty ales and shared them with the Gods and his nine beautiful daughters. In their honor, we used nine different hop varieties to craft this one-of-a-kind IPA. With a powerfully juicy hop aroma and low bitterness, wed like to think it would be a hit with Aegir and his buddies.

At 7.2 percent abv, (alcohol by volume) and 55 ibus (international bittering units), The NINE is no hop-bomb; ridiculously smooth and tasty, this juicy IPA will leave you thirsting for more again and again. We brewed it as a one-off about 18 months ago, and the public has been clamoring for its return ever since.
Dave Ress Staff writer

Dave Ress covers the military. He's been a reporter in Virginia since 1990 and before that for Reuters in Canada, Britain and Africa. Dave has a PhD in history from the University of New England (Australia) and is the author of 4 books on U.S. and Australian history.
This year brings many changes to our great state as its one of the largest classes of new statewide elected officials as well as state House and Senate members. Monday was the inauguration of statewide elected officials including Gov. Kevin Stitt. Gov. Stitt gave an inspiring inauguration speech filled with determination and hope. Im even more anxious for the legislative session to start and hear his State of the State address and executive budget proposal. I certainly respect his can-do attitude and energy.

Oklahoma is second in wind energy production and third in oil production but as for health care, education, etc. were lacking and regularly rank near the bottom in studies. The legislature has been working hard in recent years to improve certain areas but it requires substantial funding; and after facing billion dollar revenue shortfalls caused by the national recession and the collapse of the energy sector, its been near impossible for the legislature to invest additional funds in many areas.
Greater collaboration between educational institutions and employers will be among the keys, as well as focusing on home-grown resources.

Perhaps no city or university in the country is better positioned to take advantage of graduating people for cyber-related jobs than Tulsa, thanks to the efforts of TU and the world-class cyber program they have developed, Stratton said. As one of the top programs of its kind in the country, TU helps make Tulsa an attraction for the estimated 350,000 jobs in this country that are open today in just that area. These kinds of jobs are truly the jobs of tomorrow, as well.

He told the audience the the city mustnt rest on its laurels when it comes to downtown development, urging stakeholders to help agencies such as the Downtown Coordinating Council shape the area.

Downtown cannot just be a place we go to work, Stratton said. It must be a place where we eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, where we entertain ourselves, and where we spend time out with friends and family. This will lead to greater success of our existing downtown businesses, which in turn will create the business case for more development in the future.
- Babu revealed how humble he was to have been given the opportunity to serve his people

- The politician urged his rival to join him in helping Embakasi East constituents

- Babu made the announcement hours after the Supreme Court upheld his election

- The High Court had dismissed his victory but the Court of Appeal upheld it on Friday, June 8, 2018

Embakasi East MP Babu Owino has urged his bitter rival Francis Mureithi to join him so they can work together in helping Embakasi constituents.

Babu spoke barely hours after the Supreme Court upheld his election on Friday, January 18, stating he was validly elected.

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The vocal politician made his plea to the former Embakasi East parliamentary aspirant through social media as he thanked the Supreme Court for the win.

READ ALSO: Supreme Court upholds election of Babu Owino, another ODM MP loses seat

READ ALSO: High Court nullifies election of Babu Owino as MP for Embakasi East constituency

Taking to Instagram on Friday, January 18, Babu revealed how humble he was to have been given the opportunity to serve his people.

''I am deeply humbled by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kenya that has today upheld my election as Member of Parliament for Embakasi East," Babu wrote in part.

''Now that the matter has been resolved, in the spirit of building bridges, I welcome my brother Francis Mureithi to join hands with me to deliver for the people of Embakasi East. I acknowledge that he had his supporters and I want to serve everybody not just those who voted for me," he added.

READ ALSO: Babu Owino finally walks free but risks being re-arrested

Supreme Court upheld the decision initially made by Court of Appeal and dismissed all appeal grounds by Francis Mureithi who contested against Babu .

As reported by TUKO.co.ke earlier, Mureithi moved to court to contest Babu's win citing irregularities and violence during election.

Mureithi had moved to court to contest Babu's win. Photo: UGC

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Babu Owino has not been charged for insulting Uhuru and his mum and we have the charge sheet

The High Court had on Friday, March 2, dismissed the victory of Babu but the Court of Appeal upheld his victory on Friday, June 8, 2018.

According to the latest Supreme Court's verdict, Mureithi will bear all costs involving the matter including amount which Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and Babu had been ordered to pay by the lower courts.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Witness Narrates His Experience After 14 Riverside Terror Attack | Tuko TV

Source: Tuko.co.ke
- The vehicles were donated in a bid to boost the countrys capability to deal with terrorist

- The donation comes after Somali government promised to work with Kenya in fighting terrorist

- This was also a day after al-Shabaab conducted an attack at dusitD2 Hotel killing 21 people

Barely two days after Kenya experienced a horrific attack at the dusitD2 hotel and Somalias government promising to join Kenya in fighting al-Shabaab, Somalia has received a major boost.

This was after Qatar donated 68 armoured vehicles to the Federal Government of Somalia in a bit to boost the countrys capability in fighting Islamist militia group, al-Shabaab.

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READ ALSO: Violet Kemunto, wife of key terror suspect in 14 Riverside attack has degree in journalism

Qatar has donated 68 armoured vehicles to Somalia to help fight al-Shabaab.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: 14 Riverside Drive attack: Businesses in Eastleigh to close in remembrance of attack victims

A report by Citizen TV indicted officials from Doha handed over the vehicles to Somali Defence minister Hassan Ali Mohamed and chief of the general staff, General Dahir Adan Elmi Indho.

The handing over ceremony was held at the Mogadishu port in Somalia.

The donation was preceded by a top-level meeting between Doha and Mogadishu officials that reinforced Qatar as a partner to Somalia in it's quest for stability and fighting terrorism.

READ ALSO: Police arrest 9 people in Mombasa, Nyeri and Isiolo in connection to DusitD2 attack

Reports indicate Stark Motors revealed the vehicles are armoured to CEN B6 level protection.

This covers the engine, sidewalls, roof, windshield, underbody, doors and the floor is protected against two DM 51 German ordnance hand grenades.

The vehicles have a weapon station for a machinegun or automatic grenade launcher above the troop compartment.

READ ALSO: Qatar donates 68 armored vehicles to Somalia as government promises to fight terrorism with Kenya

Somalia's President Mohamed Farmaajo sent his message condemning the attack and promising to stand in solidarity with Kenya

Source: UGC

TUKO.co.ke earlier reported Somalia's President Mohamed Farmajo condemned the attack and promised to stand in solidarity with Kenya in the fight against terror.

"I strongly condemn the terrorist attack in Nairobi. Our thoughts and prayers are with the government and the people of Kenya at this tragic time. Kenya is an important ally and a brotherly neighbour. Such heinous acts only serve to embolden our joint quest to vanquish terror," said Farmajo.

On Wednesday, East Africa's bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) also condemned the attack and called for joint efforts to eliminate terrorism from the region.

READ ALSO: CJ Maraga's condolence message to families of dusitD2 attack victims sets Twitter ablaze

The IGAD Executive Secretary, Mahboub Maalim,, also expressed confidence the perpetrators, organisers and sponsors of the attack will be brought to justice as soon as possible.

Such barbaric attacks must not be allowed to weaken our collective determination to eliminate the scourge of terrorism from our region, Maalim said in a statement

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

President Uhuru Kenyatta speech following 14 Riverside terror attack - On Tuko TV

Source: Tuko
- KNEC boss says consolidation of constituent colleges could help offer better education

- Mogoha says some of the challenges that a majority of the universities are facing could be managed through consolidation

- According to him, most of them rely on the national government for financial support and it was becoming a challenge to pay their staff

Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) chairman George Magoha has expressed concern over the proliferation of universities in the country which he says has contributed to poor quality education.

Mogoha has argued consolidation of the several constituent colleges into one institution could offer better education than having them set apart throughout the country.

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READ ALSO: Police arrest 13 people in Mombasa in connection to DusitD2 attack

George Magoha says consolidation of constituent colleges can help them tackle several problems facing the institutions. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: United States denies knowledge of DusitD2 complex terror attack before it occurred

Speaking during inspection of Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital on Thursday, January 17, the KNEC boss said consolidation could help a majority of colleges that were experiencing several challenges and fully relying on the central government for financial support.

"I am of the opinion that those universities should be consolidated. For example, there is no reason for us to have four universities within a 60 km radius, it is not intelligent at all," said Magoha.

"It is only better that all those constituent colleges be consolidated into one institution so that we are able to pull all faculties together so that we are able to produce better students," he added.

READ ALSO: DP Ruto shares light moments with ailing Kisumu Governor Anyang' Nyong'o in hospital

Mogoha observed consolidation had helped other universities across the world and it was the best option to help a majority of them that are even struggling to pay their staff.

The quality of university education came under scrutiny early 2017 after the then CS of Education Fred Matiang'i ordered for audit of courses offered in the institutions.

The implementation of the report's recommendations is yet to take place after it was suspended due to the 2017 General Elections.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news

Kenyans Angered by New York Times Coverage of 14 Riverside Attack | Tuko TV

Source: Tuko.co.ke
Kenya is now staring at the risk of losing some of its most valuable assets to China should it fail to pay back loans borrowed to construct the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) linking Mombasa and Nairobi and then Nairobi and Naivasha.

The country could lose not just the Port of Mombasa as was earlier alleged, but also some of its strategic assets abroad should Nairobi violate its contractual arrangements with Beijing regarding settlement of the SGR debts.

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READ ALSO: Auditor General dismisses report Kenya could lose Mombasa port to China over debt

The President Uhuru Kenyatta-led Jubilee government spent a whopping KSh 320 billion borrowed from China to complete the first phase of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project. Photo: Railway Gazeti.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: We are slowly selling Kenya to the Chinese - Senator Mutula Kilonzo

Reports seen by TUKO.co.ke on Monday, January 14, revealed Kenya attached a number of strategic assets both locally and abroad as collateral for the multi-billion SGR loans.

The said assets, Daily Nation reported, would be surrendered to Beijing in the event that Kenya fails to meet its end of the bargain as per the first contract signed on March 11, 2014, and which relates to the loan that was taken to construct the Nairobi-Mombasa railway.

READ ALSO: Jubilee government dishonest to Kenyans about economic viability of SGR - David Ndii

The properties would not be protected by the Kenyan laws because Kenya waived its sovereign immunity when it inked the March 2014 contract with China. This basically means the SGR contract would be governed by Chinese laws.

The agreement is deemed to be biased against the borrower (Kenya) because any non-performance or disputes that may arise between the two parties would be referred to arbitration in China (lender), whose fairness in resolving the dispute is not guaranteed.

Neither the borrower nor any of its assets is entitled to any right of immunity on the grounds of sovereignty or otherwise from arbitration, suit, execution or any other legal process with respect to its obligations under this Agreement, as the case may be in any jurisdiction, reads part of the Preferential Buyer Credit Loan Agreement signed by the National Treasury CS Henry Rotich and former President of China's Exim Bank Li Riogu.

Rotich reportedly denied knowledge of the said document.

READ ALSO: Kenya Railways initiates investigations into mistreatment of SGR staff by Chinese bosses

Beinjing was also generous enough to offer another loan for the construction of Phase Two of the SGR linking Nairobi and Naivasha in a related deal involving undisclosed Kenyan assets.

The mega Naivasha-Nairobi SGR deal is said to be a closely guarded secret that can only be revealed with a written permission from Beijing.

The contract further dictated Kenya would import goods and services from China as one of the conditions for the SGR loans.

READ ALSO: Why Standard Gauge Railway Is A Grand Corruption Scheme

A leaked report by the Auditor General had raised similar concerns regarding the contract Kenya signed with China to receive loans for construction of the SGR.

According to the initial report, revenue generated by Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), named as the borrower, would go towards clearing the debts owned to China's ExportImport Bank.

"The payment arrangement agreement substantively means that the Authority's revenue would be used to pay the Government of Kenya's debt to China Exim Bank if the minimum volumes required from consignment are not met as per schedule one," the report seen by TUKO.co.ke on December 19, 2018, read.

READ ALSO: Yes, it costs KSh 1 billion every month to run Standard Gauge Railway - DP Ruto

The controversial report further stated China's Exim bank would become the new manager of KPA should Kenya Railways Corporation (KR) defaults in its loan obligations.

"The KPA assets are exposed since the Authority signed the agreement where it has been referred to as a borrower under clause 17.5 and any proceeding against its assets by the lender would not be protected by sovereign immunity since the government waived the immunity on the Kenya Ports Assets by signing the agreement," the report indicated.

However, the Auditor General Edward Ouko later distanced himself from the report saying it had not released any such document.

"Our attention has been drawn to reports that OAG_Kenya has released an audit report on Kenya_Ports for FY 2017/18. This is to clarify that the Office has not released any such report," he tweeted.

READ ALSO: Section of angry Kenyans claim Kenyas judiciary has failed under Maraga

President Uhuru Kenyatta had also rubbished claims that Kenya could lose Mombasa port to China over debts when he was challenged by journalists to comment on the disturbing reports.

Kenya, which is ranked among the wealthiest countries in Africa, would nevertheless not be the first country to lose its assets to China over unpaid debts.

The world has not forgotten Sri-Lanka was in December 2017 forced to hand over Hambantota Port to China after the South Asian country failed to pay back a loan estimated at more than KSh 800 billion owed to Beijing, the New York Times reported.

Zambia also had to hand over its international airport to China in September 2018 after it failed to pay its debt to China.

In Kenya, there has been growing concern over the Jubilee government's insatiable appetite for Chinese loans.

The country's total debt owed to China had risen to over KSh 479 billion, about 66% of the countrys bilateral debt, as of 2017.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

When Uhuru, Ruto and Raila Met at State House - On Tuko TV

Source: Tuko.co.ke
May I first apologise for inflicting these thoughts on your good selves, and explain that Im sending them to the newspapers not in order to gain wider notoriety but in acknowledgment that two out of three may very, understandably, have far better use for their space.
Our colleagues returned with stories about how the Ukrainian press  and the countrys military, and citizens in general  are learning to identify with the countrys hard-earned independence from Russia. Its not something they can take for granted, especially with Russian President Vladimir Putin still attempting to exert its will on the Ukrainian people. We are inspired by the dedication of our new friends as they show their readers what a free press can mean to a citizenry.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill yesterday which gives the public the right to access a sex offender website providing names, photographs and date of birth of convicted sex offenders.

All present in the chamber supported the Sexual Offences Amendment which was passed 28 for, none against.
THE legislative road has been paved for the decriminalisation of pepper spray in Trinidad and Tobago.

The Firearms (Amendment) Bill 2021 was passed yesterday in the House of Representatives with no objection.
THIRD Horizon Film Festival in Miami celebrates an exciting new wave of cinema and creativity emerging from the Caribbean and its Diaspora.

Deemed one of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World by MovieMaker magazine in 2019, the Third Horizon Film Festival returns for its fifth edition. This year the festival will be hosted hybrid style with a thoughtfully curated mix of in-person and virtual screenings beginning June 24, 2021, through July 1, 2021, in Miami, Florida, USA.
PEOPLE are finding it difficult to cope with the pandemic, far more so for parents of children with special needs, says Kelvin Thomas. The husband, father and graphic artist ought to know. Thomas and his wife Patricia are the parents of 12-year-old Kinaya-Joy who was diagnosed with Down syndrome and autism. Kinaya-Joy is non-verbal and also in remission from leukaemia. Due to the cancer treatment she received, Kinaya-Joys oesophagus has been reduced to three millimetres which means that she can choke on something as small as a rice grain, therefore her parents must puree all her meals.
THE COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the world to maximise the use of digital platforms. One supermarket that is making good use of this is SuperQuality.

With locations in the Trincity Industryal Estate, Couva and Chaguanas, the supermarket has launched its e-commerce store, where customers will be able to access goods and services with the click of a button from the comfort of their home.

Director of of e-commerce at SuperQuality, Dion Khan told Express Business that technology and innovation have always been his main focus for the groups supermarkets.
sanjiv@tribunemail.com

Washington, January 17

The Trump administration will roll out a new strategy for a more aggressive space-based missile defence system to protect against existing threats from North Korea and Iran and counter advanced weapon systems being developed by Russia and China.

Details about the administrations Missile Defence Review  the first compiled since 2010  are expected to be released during President Donald Trumps visit to the Pentagon with top members of his administration.

The new review concludes that in order to adequately protect America, the Pentagon must expand defence technologies in space and use those systems to more quickly detect, track and ultimately defeat incoming missiles. Recognising the potential concerns surrounding any perceived weaponisation of space, the strategy pushes for studies. No testing is mandated, and no final decisions have been made.

Specifically, the US is looking at putting a layer of sensors in space to more quickly detect enemy missiles when they are launched, according to a senior official.

The US sees space as a critical area for advanced, next-generation capabilities to stay ahead of the threats, added the official.

The administration also plans to study the idea of basing interceptors in space, so the US can strike incoming enemy missiles during the first minutes of flight when the booster engines are still burning.  PTI
sanjiv@tribunemail.com

LONDON, January 17

Britains last-minute scramble to shape its exit from the EU, its biggest policy upheaval in half a century, hit the rocks on Thursday as Prime Minister Theresa May and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn dug in their heels for competing visions.

After Mays two-year attempt to forge an amicable divorce with an independent trade policy was crushed by Parliament in the biggest defeat for a British leader in modern history, May asked party leaders to forget self-interest to find a solution.

Yet there was little sign on Thursday that either of the two major parties, which together hold 88 per cent of the 650 seats in Parliament, were prepared to compromise on key demands.

Corbyn said May had sent Britain hurtling towards the cliff edge of a sudden exit on March 29 with no transition period, and urged her to ditch her red lines. But he repeated his own condition for talks: a pledge to block a no-deal Brexit.

The government confirmed that she would not take no-deal off the table, Corbyn said in a speech in Hastings, scene of a battle in 1066 that ushered in the Norman conquest of England.

So I say to the Prime Minister again: I am quite happy to talk, but the starting point for any talks about Brexit must be that the threat of a disastrous no-deal outcome is ruled out, Corbyn said.

But the further May moves towards softening Brexit, the more she alienates dedicated Brexit supporters in her own Conservative party who think the threat of a no-deal exit is a crucial bargaining chip and should anyway not be feared.

If May fails to forge consensus, the worlds fifth-largest economy will drop out of the European Union on March 29 without a deal or will be forced to delay Brexit, possibly holding a national election or even another referendum.

Corbyn said that, under certain conditions, he would look at options including another referendum - a remark that increased expectations in financial markets that the political chaos would ultimately delay or stop Brexit.

May has refused to countenance another election, having lost her parliamentary majority in a snap poll in 2017 that left her reliant on the support of a small Northern Irish pro-Brexit party.

She has repeatedly said another referendum would corrode faith in democracy among the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU in 2016. I believe it is my duty to deliver on the British peoples instruction to leave the European Union. And I intend to do so, she said in a televised address.

Her spokesman said Britain had not raised the idea of delaying Britains exit with the EU, though former prime minister Tony Blair said a delay was now inevitable.  Reuters

What happens next?

Jan 21: May gives her proposal

As Parliament is at an impasse after lawmakers rejected Mays deal, she has said she would meet with lawmakers from all parties to try and find a deal that could command the support of Parliament and was genuinely negotiable. May will make a statement and put forward a motion in Parliament on her proposed next steps on Brexit. Parliament will not debate the motion at this point.

Jan 21-29: MPs propose alternatives

After May has published that motion, lawmakers will be able to propose amendments to it, setting out alternatives to the PMs deal. Parliament is deeply divided over Brexit, with different factions of lawmakers supporting a wide range of options including leaving without a deal, holding a second referendum and seeking a customs union with the EU.

Jan 29: Parliament debates

Parliament will hold a whole day of debate on Mays proposed steps, and the alternatives put forward by other lawmakers. They will not be asked to vote to approve a revised Brexit deal at this stage, but votes on the alternatives proposed by lawmakers should give an indication of whether there is any way forward which is supported by a majority in Parliament.

labour sets no-deal block as condition for talks

We are firmly of the opinion that the starting point for any talks about how to break the Brexit deadlock must be that the threat of a disastrous no deal outcome is ruled out. With no-deal on the table, the prime minister will enter into phony talks just to run down the clock and try to blackmail MPs to vote through her botched deal on a second attempt by threatening the country with the chaos that no-deal would bring. Jeremy Corbyn, labour leader
Architects showed a plan for new apartment and retail buildings in vacant lots near Jefferson Avenue and 28th Street to create a gateway into the transformation area. The building in the plans was four stories tall, with the ground floor reserved for business space. Behind the apartments would be single-family duplex homes.
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Washington, January 18

President Donald Trump, who cancelled his visit to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum, has now called off the US delegations trip to the annual meeting, citing the partial government shutdown.

The shutdown entered its 27th day on Thursday, the longest in US history.

Last week, Trump cancelled his planned trip to the World Economic Forum (WEF meeting), citing the intransigence of the Democrats on his funding request to build a controversial wall along the US-Mexico border.

The five-day summit is slated to begin at the Swiss resort town of Davos from January 21.

Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has cancelled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Thursday.

The cancellation of the US delegations visit to the WEF meeting came on a day Trump postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosis trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, citing the shutdown.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was due to lead the five-member presidential delegation to Davos which also included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

The other members of the presidential delegation to Davos are United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination Chris Liddell.

The longest-ever shutdown in US history has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government, including Security and State department.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divide over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House have refused to approve a legislation approving USD 5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protecting the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.

The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.

The ongoing shutdown on January 12 broke the previous record of 21 days of US government shutdown under the Bill Clinton administration from December 16, 1995 to January 5, 1996. PTI
sanjiv@tribunemail.com

Islamabad: Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar, who tried to cultivate the image of being the peoples judge and known for his judicial activism, retired on Thursday. The outgoing chief justice passed several landmark judgements during his tenure as top judge, including one which disqualified ex-PM Nawaz Sharif in 2017 in a corruption case and the verdict in the blasphemy case against Christian woman Asia Bibi. Justice Nisar was sworn in as the top judge on December 31, 2016. Justice Asif Saeed Khosa will take over the reins of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Friday. Justice Nisar has been a judge of the apex court since February 18, 2010. PTI

Model claiming Trump secrets deported from Thailand

Bangkok: A Belarusian model who claimed she had evidence of Russian efforts to help Donald Trump win office was deported from Thailand on Thursday after being convicted of participating in a sex training course. Anastasia Vashukevich was held with several others in a police raid last February in the sleazy seaside resort of Pattaya. In a case that veered between salacious and bizarre, Vashukevich said she had travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in a political scandal with Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska. Vashukevich was put on an Aeroflot flight for Moscow, bringing to an end the Thai side of a baffling case. AFP

Ambidextrous robots may speed up e-commerce

Los Angeles: Scientists have developed a novel ambidextrous approach that allows robots to grasp a diverse range of objects without training and could dramatically help speed up processing in e-commerce. To rapidly fulfil the enormous volume and variety of orders, e-commerce companies such as Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba are investing heavily in new warehouses. To address the shortage of workers, many companies are considering robots. However, reliably grasping a diverse range of products remains a challenge for robotics. An ambidextrous robot can learn which type of arm gripper to use when picking up objects. PTI

Greek PM wins confidence vote after Macedonia row

Athens: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Wednesday survived a confidence vote after a row over a landmark name deal with Macedonia sunk his four-year coalition. A total of 151 lawmakers supported Tsipras government out of 299 present, including several independent MPs, the official count showed. Parliament today gave a vote of confidence to stability (and) the effort to regain the countrys international credibility, Tsipras told reporters after the vote. Despite the victory, the subsequent fate of Tsipras government-and whether he will complete his four-year term which ends in September-is far from certain. AFP
shalender@tribune.com

IF the nations to be assembled at the Peace Conference will form the nucleus of the future League of Nations, then already in that nucleus are included not only most of the minor nationalities of Europe, but at least three great nations in Asia, three in America, and one or more in Africa. A League thus constituted would clearly be a very different thing from the sort of League of which European statesmen and thinkers had from time to time dreamed both in the eighteenth and earlier centuries, though its constitution would necessarily remain incomplete until every people claiming nationhood in every part of the world had been included in it.
editorial@tribune.com

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 17

Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, a credit war was seen between alliance partner leaders  Union MoS Vijay Sampla and SAD Anandpur Sahib MP Prem S Chandumajra  over the flagging off of the Jaijon-Amritsar train today.

While Sampla performed the ceremony at Jaijon (which falls in his Hoshiarpur LS constituency), Chandumajra took the credit of the project by flagging it off from the next station  Nawanshahr (which falls in his Anandpur Sahib LS segment). In separate functions and separate photoshoots, both claimed that the train had started because of their individual efforts.

Accompanied by BJP national vice-president Avinash Rai Khanna at Jaijon, Sampla said, It is a day of accomplishment of my dream. It is possible due to my persistent efforts and continuous follow up at the Centre. The train which earlier used to ferry Jaijon residents up to Jalandhar will now be reaching Amritsar. My next mission will be to expand this route to Ropar and further to Chandigarh.

Chandumajra, through whose constituency the train will pass, claimed, My endeavour after getting elected from Anandpur Sahib has been to provide good railway connectivity to this region. Today, I have fulfilled my election promise. The train was also reportedly flagged off at the next halt at Phagwara by BJYM leaders. Phagwara, too, is a part of the Hoshiarpur LS segment.

The project was announced in March 2015 by the then Union Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu on his visit to Khatkar Kalan at the martyrdom day function of Bhagat Singh.

Congress MLA Raj Kumar Chabbewal, in whose constituency Jaijon falls, called it a jumlebaazi.
editorial@tribune.com

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, January 17

Even though the Union Government has waived GST on langar items, the Municipal Council (MC) here is charging fee from langar organisers in the name of waste management.

In the ongoing Maghi Mela here, MC officials collected Rs 2,000 each from langar organisers under the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.

A langar organiser, showing a receipt, said this was for the first time that they had to pay the fee for holding langar.

Notably, a large number of langars are organised here on the occasion of Maghi.

When asked, Bipan Kumar, Executive Officer, Muktsar Municipal Council, said, The fee has been collected from nearly 15 langar organisers. This has been done as per the Solid Waste Management Rules. There is nothing illegal in it. It has been collected keeping in view the number of people who partook of the langar. Further, the fee is not for holding langar but for solid waste management. If the langar organisers manage the waste as per rules, then the fee is refundable.

He further said the fee was also charged from the political parties which organised the conferences on the occasion of Maghi.
editorial@tribune.com

Abohar, January 17

Government school teachers Manish and Manjit Singh and latters daughter Mandeep Kaur (15) were hurt as the car they were travelling in to go to Dalmirkhera village collided with another vehicle due to dense fog on Thursday. Visibility was reduced to less than 10 m on the city bypass here. The trio was shifted to the civil hospital, but doctors later referred the girl to Faridkot.

Businessman Naresh Singla (41) was hurt as the car he was travelling in collided with a truck due to thick fog near a brick-kiln located outside Kheruwala village on the Abohar-Sadulshehar road on Thursday. He was shifted to the civil hospital in Sadulshehar.

In another mishap, a private school van that was on the way to pick up students from rural area rammed into a canter after colliding with a Lok Sewa Parivahan bus on the Padampur road near Sriganganagar. The driver escaped with minor injuries even as iron rods loaded onto the canter pierced the windshield of the van.

In another case, three college students were hurt as a tempo they were travelling in collided with a truck due to poor visibility near Jorawarpur village in Hanumangarh. They were shifted to a government hospital.  OC
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Washington, January 18

The Trump administration has discussed a potential missile defence cooperation with India as part of its effort to deepen the bilateral strategic partnership, the Pentagon has said, asserting that New Delhi is a key element in Americas Indo-Pacific strategy.

The Pentagons announcement in the 81-page Missile Defence Review report released by President Donald Trump gains significance in view of India placing a USD 5 billion order to purchase S-400 air defence system from Russia, for which the US has publicly expressed its displeasure.

Noting that the threats posed by offensive missile capabilities are no longer limited to a few regions around the world, the Pentagon in its report said there were now a number of states in South Asia that are developing an advanced and diverse range of ballistic and cruise missile capabilities.

Within this context, the United States has discussed potential missile defence cooperation with India. This is a natural outgrowth of Indias status as a Major Defence Partner and key element of our Indo-Pacific Strategy, said the Pentagon report on Thursday.

The report, which identifies missile development projects by Russia and China as major threats to the US, did not give any further details about its potential missile defence cooperation with India.

The US has shown reluctance to offer its missile defense system to India.

Given the tough neighbourhood that India is in, New Delhi several years ago had approached the US and expressed its desire to acquire a missile defence system from it, particularly the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system popular as THAAD.

The previous Obama administration was not very forthcoming in sharing its advance missile defence system with India, following which New Delhi went ahead to procure it from Russia.

As part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, the Trump administration now seems to be more than inclined to let India procure its missile defence system with talks between the two countries having already started.

We will deepen our strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region, said the 2017 National Security Strategy of the US, which has been mentioned in the Pentagon report.

The Missile Defence Review report said the cornerstone of US security and diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific region is its strong bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea and Australia, and emerging security relationships with others such as India.

Japan and South Korea are working with the US to build missile defence systems that are increasingly interoperable with American defences and increasingly capable against regional offensive missile threats and coercion.

This cooperation includes bilateral missile defence training exercises with the US.

Australia participates in a trilateral discussion on missile defence with the US and Japan. The US and Australia meet annually to discuss bilateral missile defence cooperation. New areas of focus include joint examination of the challenges posed by advanced missile threats, it said. PTI
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 18

The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Kerala Government to provide security to two women who recently entered Lord Ayyappa Temple at Sabarimala in the state despite protests by Hindu groups.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi directed the Kerala Government to give security to Kanak Durga and Bindu after senior advocate Indira Jaising contended they were being hounded and one of them was assaulted by her mother-in-law.

The Bench, however, rejected her plea to tag this petition with the petitions seeking review of the Constitution Bench verdict lifting age restrictions regarding entry of women into Sabarimala Temple.

The Kerala Government counsel told the Bench that 50 women had entered the Sabarimala Temple since the top court's historic verdict allowing entry of women irrespective of their age.

The petitionera had sought round-the-clock security to both the women due to threat to their life. The plea sought directions to all authorities to allow women of all age groups to enter the temple without any hindrance.

The petitioners have also sought a direction to the authorities to ensure that no purification rituals are conducted after entry of women. Such rituals were conducted by the Temple priests after women in the age group of 10 to 50 years entered Sabarimala under police protection.

But the Bench refused to go into it.
gspannu7@gmail.com

Yash Goyal

Jaipur, January 18

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Friday announced that his government will bring in a proposal (Bill) for 33 per cent reservation for women in the state legislative assembly.

The Congress-ruled states have decided to pass the 33 per cent women quota, and his Cabinet meeting held last night decided in principle to introduce the proposal and get its Bill passed in the Rajathan Assembly, Gehlot told media here.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi wanted this, and earlier the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had struggled for this Bill in the Lok Sabha, and it was passed but it is still stuck in Rajya Sabha, Gehlot said.

However, Gehlot did not clarify whether it will be a Bill or proposal on 33 per cent quota to be adopted in the House.

Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, who was accompanying him, said the Bill granting reservation to women was introduced in Parliament and Congress is committed to get it passed in the Upper House.

Last nights Cabinet meeting to have a consensus on it was one of the poll manifestoes of the Congress party in recently held assembly polls, he added.

On opposition BJPs demand to waive the crop loan of farmers in toto and disrupting the assembly proceedings since morning, Gehlot said, BJPs issue and uproar in the House is unnecessary and unwarranted because the previous Raje government had announced a meagre amount of Rs 5000 crop loan waiver scheme, and of which it made payment of only Rs 2000 crore out of Rs 8000 crore. The BJP left a burden of Rs 6000 on new Congress government.

After taking over the reign, we have done this in two days with a package of Rs 2 lakh crop loan waiver to farmers who took loans from any bank and it will take time to take reports from all banks to finalise the roadmap.

They (BJP) are trying to take political mileage on farmers issues which is just a face saving exercise, and they would not succeed. The Congress has heard grievances of other opposition parties such as the CPM, RLP, independents and allowed them to speak on this matter in the House today. And it was the Raje government when Congress MLAs were not heard and they held overnight protest on the floor of the House on this very demand, Gehlot said in reply to a question.
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 18



Still not back home after his UAE trip, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday wrote a Facebook post extending support to Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees opposition rally in Kolkata on Saturday.

Gandhi, who is likely to skip the rally, said he supported Mamata Di on the show of unity and hope that the opposition can send a powerful message of a united India together.

The Congress has deputed veteran Mallikarjun Kharge to represent it in the rally led by Banerjee.

In his Facebook post, Gandhi said, I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together.

He said that across India, there were powerful forces afoot, forces that are fanned by the anger and disappointment of hundreds of millions of Indians who had seen through the false promises and lies peddled by the Modi government.

These forces are moved by the hope of a new tomorrow; a tomorrow filled with the idea of an India in which the voice of every man, woman and child will be heard and respected, no matter what their religion, economic status or region.

The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Mr Modi are intent on destroying, Gandhi said, adding that he commended the great people of Bengal who had historically been in the forefront of defending our ideals.

Bengal Congress has been urging the party leadership to maintain distance from Banerjee, who has said across rallies that her party TMC will contest all 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal.
editorial@tribune.com

Ramakrishna Upadhya

Bengaluru, January 17

Even as the Karnataka BJP appears to have temporarily aborted its Operation Lotus 2.0 to lure disgruntled Congress MLAs to its side, the Congress Legislature Party will be meeting here on Friday for take a headcount of its flock and to isolate those still hobnobbing with the BJP.

At least five Congress MLAs, led by former minister Ramesh Jarkhiholi, are holed up in a five-star hotel on the outskirts of Mumbai for the past one week, being the guests of Maharashtra PWD Minister Chandrakanth Patil. Whether they will travel back to Bengaluru in time for the CLP meeting remains to be seen. Already, CLP leader Siddaramaiah has issued a warning that those who skip the meeting will face disciplinary action.

Fearing reverse poaching by the Congress-JD(S) alliance in Karnataka, state BJP legislators (104 in all) have been lodged at a luxury resort in Gurugram, Haryana. They have been there for the past six days. Only three seniors led by BS Yeddyurappa left for Bengaluru today to call on revered Lingayat pontiff of the Siddaganga Mutt, who is seriously ill.

The Congress-JD(S) coalition suffered a setback on Wednesday with two Independent MLAs  R Shankar and H Nagesh  writing to the Governor and withdrawing their support to the Kumaraswamy government, declaring they would go with the BJP. However, there is no immediate threat to the government which still has 118 members on its side in a House of 224.

The BJP needs at least six MLAs to resign their seats to reduce the government to a minority. Unlike in 2008, when the BJP government led by Yeddyurappa got 8 JD(S) and Congress MLAs to quit and re-contest on the BJP symbol, Operation Lotus this time is not going to be easy.

Ramesh Kumar, the Speaker (from the Congress) could simply stall the process by indefinitely withholding his consent to the letters of resignation.

Apparently, the central leadership of the BJP is not too keen on bringing down the coalition immediately and forming an alternative government for the fear of it having an adverse impact on the upcoming LS polls. But, it seems, they wouldnt mind giving it periodic shocks to keep it on the tenterhooks and demonstrate its instability.

More Congress MLAs return, pledge loyalty
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Kolkata, January 18

Two days after the Jadavpur University barred professor Kanak Sarkar from entering the campus for a misogynist social media post, its Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das has said he was mulling legal action in the case to ensure such incidents do not occur again.

Sarkar, a professor at the university's international relations department, had extolled women's virginity, comparing it to the seal of a bottle, in a Facebook post.

Although he had deleted the comment soon after, screenshots of the post went viral on social media, triggering outrage and widespread condemnation.

Das told PTI Thursday that strict action would be taken against the professor as per university statute.

"Sarkar has been barred from entering the campus till the time a university-appointed committee files its report for thorough examination. We are mulling strictest legal action against him.

"Additionally, the National Commission for Women (NCW) and West Bengal women's commission are also probing charges against him," he said.

The vice-chancellor also said that he will do his bit to cooperate with NCW representatives if and when they visit the campus next week.

Students of the international relations department had boycotted classes on Monday and Tuesday, demanding Sarkar's immediate ouster.

One of them told PTI on Friday that classes resumed following the issuance of a notification on Sarkar's dismissal by the university.

"We have been regularly attending classes since Wednesday as a notification issued by our departmental head clearly stated that Sarkar has been divested of his teaching duties," she added.

The notification, signed by departmental head Prof Omprakash Mishra, said, "in view of the recommendation of the department of International Relations Prof Kanak Sarkar is divested of his teaching duties with immediate effect..."

Mishra also said that several students have filed written complaints of alleged inappropriate conduct against the professor following the outrage over his Facebook post.

The department received around 35 written complaints against Sarkar, based on which action was taken against him, he said.

Sarkar had written in a Facebook post on Sunday, "Are you willing to buy a broken seal while purchasing a bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits? It is the same case with your wife. A girl is biologically sealed from birth until it is opened. A virgin girl means many things accompanied as values, culture, sexual hygiene. To most boys, virgin wife is like angel (sic)."

Facing outrage and criticism, the professor, who has been teaching in the university for over two decades, tried to justify his comments by saying it was "intended for fun in a social media group of friends and not for public consumption".

"Someone took a screenshot of the post and forwarded it in the social media, which triggered the response. I did not intend to hurt anyone's sentiment or insult any woman," he had told PTI on Tuesday.

Despite multiple efforts, Sarkar could not be contacted for his reaction on Friday. PTI
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Jerusalem, January 18

Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat visited India earlier this week and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss issues related to bilateral relations, including the advancing of security deals, according to an official statement here.

NSA Ben-Shabbat, who was in India on the invitation of his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, also held a series of meetings with senior officials of the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and security organisation, a statement from the Prime Ministers media adviser here said.

Prime Minister Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke over phone during the visit of the Israeli NSA to New Delhi.

Ben-Shabbat returned to Israel on January 15, on the Air India flight that flies through the Saudi Arabian airspace, the statement said.

During his visit, the Israeli NSA discussed issues related to bilateral relations, including the advancing of security deals, it said.

Additional measures were agreed to on advancing security, technology and civilian-economic cooperation between Israel and India, it said.

Ben-Shabbat is said to have briefed his interlocutors on regional issues, including Irans efforts to entrench itself militarily in Syria and its actions that undermine regional stability.

He was accompanied by Israeli Ambassador to India Dr Ron Malka and Defence Attache Colonel Efraim Defrain in the meetings. PTI
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Kolkata, January 18

Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, who quit the BJP after a four-year association earlier this week, on Friday said he will form a new political party.

Asserting that he will not join any other party, Apang said, I will float a new party.

The 69-year-old leader arrived here to attend Saturdays mega opposition rally at the invitation of West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee.

He praised Banerjee as a great leader and expressed support for her initiative to defeat the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Apang has been the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh for 22 years in two stints - from January 1980 to January 1999 and again from August 2003 to April 2007.

Apang resigned from the saffron party in a letter sent to party president Amit Shah on Tuesday. He had left the Congress and joined the BJP ahead of the 2014 general election. PTI
harinder@tribunemail.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 17

A day after the Centre allowed eight-month extension in service to Punjab DGP Suresh Arora, he has expressed unwillingness to continue even as the state government has asked the Home Department to set up a panel of five officers to be sent to the Centre for approval as per Supreme Court orders.

The DGPs extension ruffled many a feather, especially the CM office, as no fresh proposal for extension was sent to the Union Home Ministry.

The government was awaiting a Supreme Court decision on the matter. The court had in June last year authorised the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to recommend three out of a panel of five officers for the post to the state government.

Sources said the Chief Ministers Office held a series of meetings and found the Centre gave extension on a previous letter seeking Aroras extension by the state government. In the afternoon, Arora informed the government that he had not sought a fresh extension.

Raveen Thukral, Punjab CMs spokesperson, said the government was studying the SC order and the extension to the DGP.

The Home Department would send the panel of five officers tomorrow, said sources, adding either Mohd Mustafa or Dinkar Gupta could get selected for the post.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to modify its directions prescribing norms for selection of directors general of police (DGPs) and minimum two-year fixed tenure for them, saying its 2006 verdict on police reforms and subsequent orders aimed to insulate police from political and executive interference.
The food distribution was the first in Virginia for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents some 500 transportation security officers at airports across the state. With no end to the shutdown in sight, Thursdays giveaway promises to be repeated outside of Hampton Roads, said Scott Robinson, president of AFGE Local 448.
harinder@tribunemail.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 17

The Supreme Court collegiums move to elevate Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Delhi High Court Judge Sanjiv Khanna as judges of the top court has created a storm in legal circles, with former judges and bar bodies questioning the decision to ignore many senior judges.

The names were recommended for elevation to the Supreme Court on January 10 and President Ram Nath Kovind signed their warrants of appointment on Wednesday. They are likely to take oath on Friday.

Edit: Judiciary in a spot

While Justice Maheshwari is at serial number 21 of all-India seniority list of judges, Justice Khanna is at 33.

Former Chief Justice of India RM Lodha said though the all-India seniority list was not followed in elevation to the top court, seniority of a judge in the high court from where he or she was to be elevated was important.

Justice Lodha wondered how three judges from the Delhi High Court who were senior to Justice Khanna were ignored, particularly when two of them were already working as chief justices (of Rajasthan HC and Jammu and Kashmir HC).

The seniority principle so far as parent high court from where the elevation is taking place must be followed, unless there are cogent reasons justifying deviation from it, Justice Lodha said, adding that no such justification has been given by the collegium.

Senior counsel Meet Malhotra said the decision has upset the time-honoured tradition on elevations. Further, had such a bypass been attempted at the behest of the executive, there would have been hysterical outpouring of interference in working of judiciary and subversion all around, not least from the superior judiciary itself. To see the judiciary do this to itself, is, therefore, all the more puzzling, Malhotra said in a letter to the CJI.

He requested the CJI to reconsider it, saying it has the potential of being massively disruptive and demoralising to the judiciary and liable to be misused in the future.

Earlier, former Delhi High Court Judge Kailash Gambhir had written to President Kovind, questioning the supersession of several senior judges.

On Wednesday, the Bar Council of India had taken exception to the collegiums decision to ignore several senior judges, saying it was being viewed by the Bar and the common man as unjust and improper.

A five-member collegium headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had on January 10 recommended the elevation of Justice Maheshwari and Justice Khanna to the top court after reviewing its earlier deliberations held on December 12, 2018, in which Delhi HC Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Rajasthan HC Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog were said to have been considered for elevation.

Justice Sanjiv Khanna is the nephew of the legendary Justice HR Khanna, who is known for his famous dissenting verdict in the habeas corpus case during the Emergency. Justice HR Khanna had resigned after being superseded by Justice HM Beg as CJI.

Earlier, it was reported that Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who was consulted by the collegium on Justice Khannas elevation, had objected to the sidelining of Justice Nandrajog, saying he was the senormost among the judges in the zone of consideration.
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Thrissur/Thiruvananthapuram, January 18

As many as 35 people were detained on Friday after a scuffle broke out between members of the Orthodox and Jacobite denominations of Christian community at Mannamangalam Church in Thrissur, police said.

We have registered a case against over 115 people. We are examining CCTV visuals of the scuffle, a senior police officer of the district told PTI.

Yuhanon Mar Meletius Metropolitan, Bishop of Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, had also been arrayed as the prime accused in the case, he said.

Fifteen people have been injured in the scuffle.

The Orthodox faction, which have been camping outside the church for the last few days, allegedly entered the Mannamangalam church, resulting in stone-pelting and a minor scuffle early on Friday morning.

Recently, a famous church in Piravom, controlled by the Jacobite faction, had witnessed high tension as police entered the premises to implement last years Supreme Court order giving control of the church to the Orthodox faction.

In its order, the apex court had ruled that 1,100 parishes and their churches under the Malankara Church should be controlled by the Orthodox faction, as per the 1934 Malankara Church guidelines. PTI
shalender@tribune.com

Jasmine Singh

Famous Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen once said in an interview that it was possible to remarry his ex-wife! Interestingly, The Punjab and Haryana High Court, by setting aside a decree of mutual divorce in a path-breaking judgment, has made it clear that there is always a scope for a U-turn in marriage, even after a couple has parted ways. There are many examples of celebrities who remarried their exs, walking the aisle with them happily and making a new set of vows.

Known Bollywood filmmaker Sanjay Gupta first married his wife Anuradha in 1997; the couple, however, got divorced in 2004, and later re-married again five years after the spilt. In a similar situation like this, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk married English actress Talulah Riley in 2010. They ended their relationship in 2012. Musk and Riley remarried again in 2013 and later got divorced in 2014!

Tricky situation

Dr Vaneet Bains, sociologist, calls it a tricky situation, Marrying the same person again doesnt guarantee a life-long companionship. It is more of an emotional happening; in mutual separation, partners still have a degree of love and respect for each other, which is why they decided to settle the case amicably. This means there is always a small window for getting back together, and if there is a kid in between, chances obviously increase.

This formal resurrection of marriage is no guarantee that what happened earlier wouldnt be repeated though. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are a fine example of this situation. Elizabeth was first married to Richard from 1964-74 and then again from 1975-76. Bollywood actress Pamela Andersons story is no less interesting. Pamela married her ex-husband Rick Salmon in 2014 and asked for a divorce the same year, and later asked the judge to toss out her request. In 2015, she filed for a divorce for a third time.

Once again

Anurag Singh Tagra, advocate at Punjab and Haryana High Court and co-opted member, Vigilance Committee, Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana adds, Cooling period gives them time to think and this reignites their love. During divorce, they generally repent. I have seen cases where couples divorced are now married again.

On & off

American rapper Eminem was first married to his wife, Kim Scott, from 19992001. The couple got remarried and then divorced again in 2006.

American television host Larry King was first married to Alene Akins from 19611963, and then again remarried her, and stayed together from 1967 to 1972.

It also rumoured that Aditya Pancholi and his wife, actress Zarina Wahab, parted ways but later got together.

Bollywood actor Om Puri apparently went back to his first wife Seema Kapoor, after separating from his second wife Nandita Puri.

American actress Melanie Griffith was first married to Don Johnson for six months in 1976, and then again from 19891996.

jasmine@tribunemail.com
editorial@tribune.com

Vikram Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, January 17

Union Minister of State in Prime Ministers Office Jitendra Singh on Thursday denied adopting the flood-hit Saddal village of Udhampur district after The Tribune carried a report on Wednesday on the lack of civic amenities in the hamlet even four years after the minister publicly took it under its care.

While official records as well as media reports authenticate the report about Jitendra Singh having adopted the flood-ravaged village four years ago, the minister has now denied making such a public declaration.

In an official statement issued on behalf of the Union Minister, the state BJP today clarified that Jitendra Singh, Lok Sabha member from the Udhampur-Doda-Kathua parliamentary constituency, had never officially adopted this village. The party, however, claimed that the minister had contributed nearly Rs 80 lakh from his voluntary sources for the reconstruction of this village, and for that he deserves exclusive credit.

However, a Press Information Bureau release dated March 29, 2015, on the subject reads: Dr Jitendra Singh said he was particularly pleased to know that he had himself, with the help of an NGO, adopted the flood-ravaged village of Saddal in Udhampur to be developed as a smart village...In Saddal, nearly 40 hutments had already been allotted to locals and the whole project is likely to be completed by mid-2016.

His Facebook account also contains a post on February 1, 2015, about the press conference convened by him on Saddal, adopted by him to be developed as a smart village.

Supporting the minister, the BJP spokesperson said: It is not the MP but the Jammu & Kashmir Bank which has adopted this village and has so far spent Rs 1 crore to construct houses for the poor and genuinely deserving families.

Although the Union MoS claimed that the village was owned and not adopted by him, in his earlier visit to state while addressing a press conference he had categorically used the word adopted for Saddal village and had promised to develop it as a smart village.

Talking to The Tribune, Jitendra Singh said that owning a village did not mean adopting it. We had owned it for voluntary assistance and not owned it officially, said Jitendra Singh.

He further said that owning the village did not mean that it was adopted officially under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.

On September 6, 2014, at least 40 persons were buried alive after Saddal village was hit by landslides following incessant rains. The bodies of four persons are yet to be traced.

What minister claims now

Talking to The Tribune, Jitendra Singh said that owning a village did not mean adopting it. We had owned it for voluntary assistance and not owned it officially, said Jitendra Singh. He said owning the village did not mean that it was adopted officially under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.

Press Information Bureau reported in 2015...

Dr Jitendra Singh said he was particularly pleased to know that he had himself, with the help of an NGO, adopted the flood-ravaged village of Saddal in Udhampur to be developed as smart village...In Saddal, nearly 40 hutments had already been allotted to locals and the whole project is likely to be completed by mid-2016.
editorial@tribune.com

Our Correspondent

Rajouri, January 17

A civilian was injured on Thursday when Pakistani troops resorted to heavy mortar shelling in the Nowshera and Keri sectors of Rajouri district.

Around 2 pm, Riyaz Mohammad of Pukhrani received critical splinter injuries when a mortar shell hit the area. He was taken to the Nowshera hospital and was later referred to the Rajouri district hospital.

Earlier, the Pakistani troops resorted to heavy shelling and firing at forward posts in the Mulie Mohra and PB areas in the Keri sector.

The Army has been retaliating effectively and strongly in all sectors, said Davender Anand, defence public relations officer. On Sunday, Rifleman Gurpreet Singh was injured in a sniper attack in the sector and was airlifted for treatment. On Monday, Border Security Force Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was killed in a sniper firing by the Pakistan Rangers along the International Border (IB) in the Hiranagar-Samba sector of Kathua district.

On January 11, Major SV Nair and Rifleman Jiwan Gurung attained martyrdom in two serial IED blasts in Pukhrani, while other two had received injuries.
editorial@tribune.com

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, January 17

Even as political groups are brazenly trying to reap political benefits of the horrific rape and murder of a minor Bakerwal girl at Rasana village of Kathua district, the victims family is confident of getting justice despite politicisation of the ghastly incident that shocked the country.

We are hopeful of getting justice as the trial of the case is going on in the Pathankote court, the father of victim told The Tribune, maintaining a year had passed since the gruesome incident. He said they were rigorously following the trial, which was going on a day-to-day basis.

On January 17 last year, the body of the minor was found in the forests of Rasana. According to the chargesheet filed by the Crime Branch in the case, the girl was killed on January 14. Ultimately, the truth will prevail and my daughter will get justice, said the victims father.

While the biological parents of the girl live in Samba, the family which had adopted her is living in Rasana.

We are living peacefully here in Rasana without any fear, said her father.

When asked whether they received any threats from locals, he said there was no enmity with the local community. We have cordial relations with the locals here, said the father. He also said he had actively participated in the recently held panchayat elections and exercised his right to franchise.

Strongly denying any threat to the victims family, Ranjana Sharma, newly elected sarpanch of Rasana, said some outsiders were desperately trying to create a division between the Dogras and Bakerwals, who had been living with amity and brotherhood for decades. Being a woman, I am well aware of the pain and trauma being faced by the family. The victim was our daughter and we will not allow outsiders to pursue divisive politics over this ghastly incident, she said.

Poll cemented relations

The differences created between the Dogras and Bakerwals  two ethnic minorities of J&K  after the Kathua incident were cemented during the recently held panchayat elections as both the communities supported each other. The victim belonged to the Bakerwal community and all accused are Dogras. During the elections, Bakerwal supported Dogra candidates.

Mehbooba rakes up case to corner BJP

Former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday raked up the Kathua incident to corner the BJP. "Today marks a year since the horrific rape and murder of an eight-year-old Kathua girl. Sadly, instead of condemning the gruesome incident, BJP lawmakers staged protests in favour of the rapists. Even a crime like rape was communalised and passions were stoked to justify it," Mehbooba tweeted.
editorial@tribune.com

ibune News Service

Srinagar, January 17

Four policemen, including an assistant sub-inspector, were injured in a grenade attack by militants near the venue scheduled for the Republic Day parade in Srinagar on Thursday, officials said.

Militants hurled a grenade towards a police outpost near the Zero Bridge in Rajbagh around 2 pm. The attack site is near the Sher-e-Kashmir Stadium, the venue for the official Republic Day function.

The grenade explosion injured four policemen, including two from the traffic police and an assistant sub-inspector, a security official said. All injured were rushed to hospital and are now out of danger.

Militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad has claimed responsibility for the grenade attack.

A case has been registered and the circumstances of the incident are being established, read a statement issued by the police.

Soon after the incident, senior security officials reached the spot. The forces also launched a search operation in the area to trace the attackers. Sources, however, said the militants managed to escape after carrying out the attack.

This is the second grenade attack in the last six days in the city. On January 11, militants targeted a CRPF bunker in the Lal Chowk area of the city. No one was injured in the attack, which was also owned up by Jaish.

Second strike in six days
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Panipat, January 17

Members of Child Welfare Committee (CWC) on Thursday rescued a minor girl who was reportedly married to a 22-year-old youth in Virat Nagar.

Kiran Malik, a member of the CWC, said in her complaint to the police that a social worker in a telephonic conversation had informed her about the marriage of a minor girl in Virat Nagar here.

I and CWC member Mukesh Arya raided the house in Virat Nagar and rescued the girl. She is 13 years of age, she added. The team also nabbed the father-in-law of the minor girl and the mother of the girl from her house at Jatal road.

During counselling, the girl disclosed that her marriage was solemnised around 10-12 days ago with Bhupender of Virat Nagar, Kiran added.

It was disclosed during preliminary inquiry that they belong to Nepal. Her parents had demanded Rs 2 lakh for marriage from her in-laws. The deal was finalised for Rs 1.5 lakh. The in-laws had paid Rs 22,000 to the girls parents, she asserted. A complaint has been lodged with the police and the girl has been sent to the open shelter home, Malik said.

Meanwhile, the Model Town police produced the girls husband Bhupender and her mother before Rajni Gupta, District Women Protection and Child Marriage Prohibition Officer, in the evening where their statement was recorded.

SI Kiran, incharge, Model Town police post, said that the matter has been sent to the Child Marriage Prohibition Officer for further action. No age proof of the girl was produced before us, she said.
editorial@tribune.com

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, January 17

CBI Special Judge Jagdeep Singh did not consider the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati as rarest of rare case to attract death penalty, but said it is the journalist in the traditional mould - the one who is inspired by idealistic fervour to serve the cause of truth - who becomes casualty.

Praying for ordering the punishment in murder case to run concurrently with the earlier 20-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) in the rape case, Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on Thursday told the judge that he has been involved in various social, religious and other welfare activities like blood donation, tree plantation, drug eradication to more than six crore people, cleanliness, fight against female foeticide as well as help to the needy at the time of natural calamities. He claimed that he had a permanent trouble of severe backache and is also suffering from acute diabetes for the last more than nine years.

He added that his entire family is free from any criminal record except the present spate of cases after 2002 which is the handiwork of forces against and opposing welfare activities done by him and Dera Sacha Sauda.

But the judge said, Known as Fourth Estate in a modern state, press is ideally the watchdog of the democracy. Because of its vast potential for influencing the public opinion, it is generally acknowledged that it has the power to make or mar the career of any individual or organisation. Journalism is a serious business, which ignites the desire to seek and report the truth and as such facilitates a better society and world. There is little glamour to the job, no big reward and in the traditional mould, it is predominantly a public service in the sincerest sense.

The judgment added, Any honest and dedicated journalist has always an uphill task to report the truth, especially concerning a powerful person enjoying political patronage across party lines. Some time a journalist finds himself or herself present with an offer to choose either the carrot or the stick. Those who refuse often face the consequences, sometimes even to the extent of getting eliminated. If he submits to the powerful, he loses credibility; if he defies, he gets killed.

Regarding Ram Chander Chhatrapati, he said, In the instant case, life of an innocent citizen and an upright, idealistic journalist was snuffed out simply because he dared to write about the activities of a powerful head of some dera. However, mobocracy and violent attacks on innocent citizens have no place in a democracy like ours which is governed by rule of law and sound constitutional norms. The pillars of democracy cannot be allowed to be crushed.
editorial@tribune.com

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Jind, January 17

Electioneering has picked up momentum in Jind byelection where a multi-corner contest is being witnessed between the ruling BJP, the Congress, the INLD and the newly launched Jannayak Janata Party (JJP).

Giving a boost to the poll campaign of Congress nominee Randeep Surjewala, former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Thursday joined canvassing along with his MP son Deepender Hooda and a number of party MLAs and ex-MLAs.

On the other hand, former MP Surender Barwala, who was sulking after denial of ticket by the BJP, today announced his support to party nominee Krishan Middha,

Barwala had contested the Assembly poll in 2014 on the BJP ticket and had lost to Middhas father Hari Chand Middha who was an INLD nominee.

Addressing a meeting of party workers in Kundan Cinema Hall, Hooda asked his supporters to fan out in the constituency to seek votes for Surjewala.

Launching a scathing attack on the state BJP government, Hooda said that the saffron party came to power by making 154 promises to people, but not even a single had been fulfilled.

Calling the INLD as B team and the JJP as C team of the BJP, Hooda said the result of the bypoll would make it clear which party the people trust could ensure their development.

He reminded the people of the police firing on agitating farmers at Kandela village in 2002 in which nine farmers were killed during Om Prakash Chautala regime and said he was the one who held a foot march in support of the farmers.

Later, Hooda addressed public meetings in Jalalpura, Jajwan and Julani villages.

Justifying his candidature from Jind despite being MLA from Kaithal, Surjewala said that the top leadership of the Congress had decided to field him because this bypoll was to pave the way for exit of Manohar Lal Khattar government from the state.

Once the bypoll result is declared on January 31, the BJP government would not be able to last for even a month, claimed Surjewala.

Meanwhile, a complete chaos prevailed on roads in the town as hundreds of vehicles from across the state have come here for the bypoll.

Traffic management by the police was put to test as over 1-km jam was witnessed on the Safidon road where Hooda addressed a meeting of his workers.

Leader of Opposition Abhay Chautala resumed his campaign onThursday after a day off. He addressed meetings in Jalalpur, Ikkas, Sangatpura, Intal Kalan, Intal Khurd, Jajwan, Dhandakheri, Dariyawala and Julani.

Meanwhile, statements of Jat leaders like Hawa Singh Sangwan, who advocated Haryanavi verses non-Haryanavi in the bypoll, is making the division sharper.

Jat quota violence in February 2016 when 30 people were killed and public and private property worth crores was set on fire is casting its shadow on this bypoll, said Randhir Singh, a Dalit youth at Intal Kalan village.
Locally, Fort Monroe will be busy as Ground Zero. Fort Monroe is the site of the Old Point Comfort, where the first Africans arrived. A 1909 library building is being renovated and will open in August as the Fort Monroe Visitor and Education Center. It looks at the expanse of history from those first Africans to the slaves who escaped to the fort during the Civil War.
shalender@tribune.com

A year after the nation witnessed an unprecedented press conference by four top judges of the Supreme Court, the judiciary is in the eye of a storm again. The elevation of Delhi High Court judge Sanjiv Khanna and Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari to the Supreme Court, as recommended by the apex courts collegium, has raised many eyebrows. Justice Khanna stands at No. 33 on the combined seniority list of High Court judges on an all-India basis, while Justice Maheshwari is at No. 21.

The five-member collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, revoked its earlier decision, wherein the names of the Chief Justices of the High Courts of Rajasthan and Delhi had been recommended for elevation to the Supreme Court. No satisfactory explanation was given for the flip-flop. Ironically, Justice Gogoi was among the quartet that had gone public against then CJI Dipak Misra on January 12, 2018, over alleged anomalies in the allocation of cases and other issues plaguing the top judiciary. However, opinion is divided over the impact of the historic presser. According to former CJI RM Lodha, it has failed to serve its purpose as things have not changed on the ground.

The blatant supersession of senior judges has sparked an outrage, drawing flak from the Bar Council of India, a sitting SC judge (Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul) and some retired judges. The fresh controversy has again shaken peoples faith in a vital pillar of democracy. The prevailing state of affairs would further enfeeble the justice delivery system, which is already reeling under high pendency of cases. Not for the first time, the functioning of the collegium has come under a cloud. Reforms are the need of the hour to restore the collegiums credibility and relevance. The process of selection and appointment of judges should be reviewed thoroughly, besides putting in place a self-corrective mechanism for the judiciary. Such steps can go a long way in helping the court reign supreme.
Maj Gen Ashok Mehta (Retd)

Maj Gen Ashok Mehta (Retd)

Former GOC, IPKF, Sri Lanka

Gen Bipin Rawat has a penchant for hitting the bulls eye, making headlines and retaining the spotlight. Its one of the avoidable hazards of his job where he can, like most of his predecessors, choose to remain mum. But Rawat  one of the most fearlessly articulate Army Chiefs in recent memory  is made of sterner stuff, which he demonstrated at the 4th edition of the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi recently. A disparate session alliteratively titled Amoebic, Asymmetric and Anarchic: Counter Terrorism as it evolves saw the heavily bemedalled General seated among three senior counter terrorism experts being quizzed by BBCs blue-blooded Afghan Yalda Hakim. Afghanistan, the regional hotspot, dominated the Raisina discourse, given the surfeit of Afghanistan experts and Afghan luminaries  former President Hamid Karzai, Gen David Petraeus (retd) and the latest American (Afghan Pashtun) to have a crack at the peace process with Taliban, the firebrand former envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad.

Answering the question from Hakim on whether India should talk to the Taliban, Rawat  contradicting the official stand of the Indian Government  replied in the affirmative with the proviso that the Taliban do not place pre-conditions. He cited the example of Pakistan, which considers Afghanistan as its backyard, adding: they would want a situation in Afghanistan that is more favourable to them even if it means speaking to the devil. Rawats stand was perfectly valid, but it stirred a hornets nest. Indias position on Taliban has waxed and waned. To start with, New Delhi rejected the reintegration and reconciliation policy of US/Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul in 2001. Subsequently, reintegration was accepted, though the distinction between good and bad Taliban was rejected. Later, India found the reconciliation process kosher as long as it was within the parameters of the Afghan constitution, the Taliban shunned violence, and the peace process was Afghan-owned and Afghan-led. To this, India has now added Afghan-controlled.

Rawats advocacy of a dialogue with the Taliban has not come a day too soon. The talking to Taliban analogy to Kashmir, though, is not acceptable to him. He rejected unconditional talks with militants and separatists, emphasising that any talks on the Valley would be on our terms. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Still, his justification for contact with the Taliban is perfectly valid, though former Army Chief Gen VK Singh, now a junior minister in the Ministry of External Affairs, on the sidelines of the Raisina, passed off his comments as a personal view. India has inexplicably tied itself in knots over engaging the Taliban even as two retired government officials joined the Moscow format of the peace process as observers. At least three countries attending the Raisina dialogue unequivocally asserted that India should engage with the Taliban and offered to facilitate a conversation.

Karzai advised India to talk to the Taliban, saying that it should have done this a long time ago. Unlike the Americans, New Delhi has not fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban have appreciated Indias developmental assistance which US President Donald Trump comically compared with building a library and like five hours of what we spend. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergev Ryabkov said it was Moscow that invited India to the peace talks. He said, We are ready to help India start direct talks with the Taliban. Not to be left behind, Irans Foreign Minister Javed Zarif admitted that his country has influence over the Taliban and would be happy to facilitate engagement with India. It is a mystery, therefore, that when all regional and extra-regional players have direct or back-channel contact with the Taliban, India has persisted with the policy of maunvrat (vow of silence).

Under CinC Trumps watch, Khalilzad is engaged in the most comprehensive direct talks with the Taliban without any signs that he would persuade the latter to talk with Kabul any time soon. India should firm up its contingency plans in the event of a sudden and accelerated exit of the US and foreign forces before 2020 just as then President Barack Obama did before the elections in 2016. Protection of its strategic assets, including 5,000 Indian citizens, prevention of destabilisation of the Kabul regime and conversion of its goodwill into influence are key Indian missions. Any large-scale law and public order problem could lead to spillover of the Taliban into Jammu and Kashmir, which would be a nightmarish situation. Along with regional partners and members of the international community, notably the US and EU/NATO, financial commitments of $12-15 billion annually will be required for the Afghan government and security forces to keep their heads above water. An increase in Indias security assistance package will need to be adjusted against developmental assistance. Additional ITBP personnel for the protection of strategic assets at Chabahar and the consulates at Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif (after maybe closing down Jalalabad and Kandahar) will be needed. Further, India could establish a training depot and a military field hospital in nearby Tajikistan which will please Trump more than India building another library.

In the event of a deal, the Taliban will be a key component of any future Kabul government and hugely indebted to Pakistan. Either way, it is imperative that India, to start with, opens a back channel with the Taliban, followed by joining the official Peace and Reconciliation Process, in its national interest. Rawat is spot on in recommending India engage the Taliban in unconditional talks.
Rajeev Dhavan

Rajeev Dhavan

Senior Advocate, Supreme Court

The Indian Constitution has its political democratic texts (from election to power) and rule of law texts (from fundamental rights to review of all aspects of governance). The custodians of the political texts are elected politicians and custodians of the rule of law texts, including fundamental rights and constitutional principles, are the judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts. Indias governance requires political texts to ensure democracy. Without the rule of law there would be tyranny. Our political custodians lack institutional morality. Our judicial custodians are in danger from constitutional amendments and executive interference.

Elections enable political selection, but inappropriate judicial selection can demolish the rule of law. During the Nehru era, in 1959, Home Minister GB Pant reported that 210 out of 211 judges were made on the advice of the CJI. Nehru wanted Chagla as CJI but it fizzled out. Indira Gandhi wanted committed judges but her appointments turned out distinguished judges. Between 1983 and 1993, seven out of 547 appointments were not in consonance with the CJIs advice. From 1993 to 2018, there have been good, and doubtful, appointments on the basis of seniority and exceptional ability. Till 1978, the ratio of Chief Justices of High Court (CJHC) to non-Chief Justices (known as puisne judges) was almost 50:50. In 1978, a controversy arose on the appointment of DA Desai, who was No. 4 in seniority. His seniors in Gujarat resigned. In recent years, it has been rare to appoint non-CJHC. There was no controversy over puisne judges, notwithstanding some murmurs. If the government or the collegium is interested in a judge for the SC, they transfer him to another court to bring him in the zone of Chief Justices. Even then, some are ignored, and others waiting in the gallery, until selection. It cannot be said all appointments are whimsical.

On a doubtful interpretation of the Constitution in 1993 and 1998, using political pressure as an underlying excuse, the SC took over the appointments to create a collegium of senior judges. In 2015, the SC rejected the constitutional amendment of 2014 to create a National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), because it was structured in a way that did not obviate untoward influences. The corresponding statute was also struck down. This reinforces the collegium. Political pressure did not stop. CJI Thakurs attempts to fill appointments were obstructed. In some cases, the PM took his own time. Justice Josephs appointment was not acceptable to the government and was delayed because he struck down Presidents rule in the Uttarakhand High Court. A consensus system between the government and the collegium is inevitable. But it can become controversial in the procedure followed, and the actual selections. It needs scrutiny. Between 2014 and 2019, or earlier, we need to know how many saffron-inclined SC and HC judges were appointed, or those with questionable ability.

This is a crisis, not controversy. Full court and collegium meetings are sometimes acrimonious. In January 2018, four judges rebelled against CJI Misra. The present crisis started in 2018. A judge who praised the regime was appointed to the SC. But at its meeting on December 12, the collegium recommended Justice Menon, CJ, Delhi High Court, and Justice Nandrajog to the SC. On December 30, Justice Lokur retired from the SC, to be replaced by Justice Arun Mishra. On January 10, these two names were scrapped and replaced by Justice Maheshwari (Karnataka CJ and No. 21 in all-India seniority) and Justice Sanjiv Khanna (No. 4 in Delhi and No. 33 in all-India seniority).

According to the 1998 SC judgment, the test is seniority and/or exceptional ability. Justice Khanna is the nephew of Justice HR Khanna, who dissented in the 1976 Emergency detention case. CJIs are appointed by seniority. Justices Ahmadi and Kuldip Singh were appointed to the SC on the same day, but Ahmadi was sworn in a few minutes earlier to become CJI. If seniority is maintained, Justice Chandrachud will retire on November 11, 2023, and Justice Khanna will be CJI from then to May 14, 2024, if the practice of appointing CJI for short terms is practised (as with CJs Sarkar, Shah, KN Singh). Justice Khanna will also become an influential member of the collegium earlier.

Former CJI Lodha asks if six weeks earlier Justice Maheshwari was not suitable, how did he become eligible in 2019! Of the judges who did not approve in 2018, four were the same in the collegium in 2019. Ex-CJI Balakrishnan calls the appointments a sad thing and former CJI Khehar (who decided in favour of the collegium system in 2015) feels wider consultations are needed.

Politicians must be watching with glee, because they want the power of making judicial appointments back. The easier solutions are: (i) full transparency on what is being considered, which should be properly minuted, (ii) consultation with full SC, (iii) consultation within the high court, and (iv) full declaration of interaction with the government. But even this is not enough. The real solution is a proper NJAC, with open hearings. Nothing short will do.

How will it happen? Transparency and consultation are immediately possible if the SC so wishes. The real solution is a constitutional amendment and a law which will make framework changes and incorporate the easier solution. The fate of the Constitution and governance depends on this.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 17

With rebel candidate Satish Kainth refusing to withdraw his nomination despite efforts by senior leaders of the BJP, the election for the post of Mayor has become a major challenge for the ruling party.

Though the Congress has fielded a candidate for the post of Mayor, the real battle is likely to be witnessed between the BJPs official candidate, Rajesh Kalia, and Satish Kainth, who filed his nomination as an Independent defying the partys decision.

Of the 26 elected councillors, the BJP has a majority in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation with 20 councillors. However, the infighting has made the election interesting. The BJP also has the support of an SAD councillor. Member of Parliament Kirron Kher also has a vote being an ex officio member of the House. The Congress has only four councillors, one councillor is an Independent.

To become the Mayor, a candidate needs 14 votes of the 27. This time, the nine nominated councillors do not have the voting right. With two of the candidates from the BJP, cross-voting cannot be ruled out. The Congress has not revealed its plan yet. Pradeep Chhabra, president of the Chandigarh Congress, said the party would decide its strategy tomorrow.

Though the BJP leadership today convinced one of the two rebel councillors, Farmila, to support Kalia, Kainth is adamant on fighting the election. Kainth said most BJP councillors were not in favour of Kalia, who had a criminal past. The BJP held a meeting of all councillors today at the party office, Kamlam, and told them to ensure Kalias win. Kirron Kher and Dinesh Kumar, organising secretary of the party, also attended the meeting. BJP councillor Farmila had signed the nomination papers of Kainth as the proposer. However, her decision to support Kalia at the last moment has provided a huge relief to the BJP leadership. Kainth met Kirron Kher today, but nothing came out of the meeting. Former Mayor Arun Sood expressed the hope that Kainth would withdraw his nomination tomorrow in favour of Kalia.

Independent candidate Dalip Sharma, a former BJP member, has already extended his support to Kainth.

This time, the BJP has given the post of Senior Deputy Mayor to its ally SAD, which has fielded Hardeep Singh, while Kanwarjeet Rana has been fielded for the post of Deputy Mayor. Nominated councillor Ajay Dutta has been designated as the presiding officer, who will hold the election at 3 pm.

The elections for the post of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor will be conducted by the newly elected Mayor. The Congress has fielded Sheela Devi as its candidate for the post of Mayor. For the post of Senior Deputy Mayor, it has fielded Gurbax Rawat, while for the post of Deputy Mayor, it has fielded Ravinder Kaur.

Gives Post to ally

This time, the BJP has given the post of Senior Deputy Mayor to its ally SAD, which has fielded Hardeep Singh, while Kanwarjeet Rana has been fielded for the post of Deputy Mayor.

Know the candidates

Rajesh Kumar Kalia (BJP)

He represents Ward 7 in the MC. He was elected to the House for the first time in the 2016 elections. He had lost the first MC election on the BJP ticket from Dadu Majra in 2011. His involvement in criminal cases has been highlighted recently, but he has claimed he has been given a clean chit in all cases.

Satish Kumar Kainth (BJP rebel)

He represents Ward 11 in the MC. He won the election in 2011 on the Congress ticket and was made the Deputy Mayor twice, in 2012 and 2013. However, he joined the BJP in 2015 after he developed differences with the Congress leadership.

Sheela Devi, Congress

She represents the MC from Ward 5. She has been elected to the MC twice earlier and is a senior member of the Congress.
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Gandhinagar, January 18

Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps to end increasing data colonisation by global corporations, saying Indians should own and control their own data.

Speaking at the 9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit here, Ambani drew parallels to Mahatma Gandhis movement against political colonisation to call for a revolution against data colonisation.

Data is the new oil (in the new world order). And data is the new wealth. Indias data must be controlled and owned by Indian people  and not by corporates, especially global corporations, the Reliance Industries chairman said.

The comments come amid a debate over balancing user protections with support for the fast booming digital economy. Foreign giants and hundreds of home-growth startups have flourished amid a dearth of regulation.

Today, we have to collectively launch a new movement against data colonisation. For India to succeed in this data-driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India - in other words, Indian wealth back to every Indian, he said. Honourable Prime Minister, I am sure you will make this one of the principal goals of your Digital India mission.

This is the second time within a month that Ambani has backed Indian authorities efforts to get companies to store data locally.

The government wants companies doing business in India to store all customer data locally. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in April 2018 ordered companies to store the the entire data relating to payment systems operated by them... in a system only in India so as to ensure unfettered supervisory access for better monitoring.

The government is considering a draft data security law that requires data centres for all companies be physically located within India. Also under consideration is an e-commerce policy that requires the storage of customer data in the country.

The draft data privacy bill recommends restrictions on the transfer and storage of information by global giants from Facebook to Google.

An e-commerce policy last month tightened rules to disallow foreign-owned online retailers from pushing merchants to sell exclusively through their platforms. It also barred them from selling products via companies in which they own equity.

Ambani, who had himself supercharged internet adoption by helping crash data prices with the launch of his telecom venture Jio in 2016, had last month in Mumbai stated that data colonisation is as bad as the previous forms of colonisation.

He is also planning to create an online-to-offline platform that would take on the likes of Amazon and Walmart, which are both betting big on Indias e-commerce market.

Speaking at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit Friday, he outlined plans for his online shopping platform.

Without giving timelines, he said Jio and Reliance Retail, which has over 9,000 stores across 6,500-plus towns in the country, will launch a unique new commerce platform to empower and enrich our 12 lakh small retailers and shopkeepers in Gujarat - which are part of over 3 crore community in India. Ambani had previously spoken of leveraging the Jio network for launching some sort of an e-commerce venture.

Jio has over 280 million subscribers with internet access. PTI
"When I started, we still were dealing with smoking in the bathrooms, but the good news was that smoking had come down by the time I retired," he said. "Vaping growth is really so explosive ... I think it is (becoming) one of the top problems within school."
Terre Haute, IN (47803)

Today

Mainly clear. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Folks including Maryland fishermen and park advocates say access to vital information has been jeopardized and could reduce participation in state outdoor activities.

Through a Maryland Department of Natural Resources directive, dozens of park, and other, social media accounts are being eliminated.

Duane Bailey is vice president and social media director for the Western Garrett County State Park Volunteers group that provides support and funding for programs and activities at Deep Creek Lake and Sang Run state parks.

He said he was surprised to learn the 11-year-old Facebook page, largely maintained by volunteers, for the Discovery Center at Deep Creek was recently removed by state officials and merged into a general Maryland parks network.

They could have asked us, Bailey said and added the Maryland park service headquarters doesnt communicate directly with us.

When the page was merged, countless posts including photos were lost, he said.

Bailey said volunteers had planned to use much of the lost content to promote the Discovery Centers upcoming 20th anniversary celebration.

But  it all disappeared, he said. And we cant get it back.

The elimination of social media sites isnt limited to state parks.

Shawn Kimbro, an avid recreational fisherman and author of books about fishing, said the Twitter account for Eyes On The Bay is set to be removed later this month.

They closed the Facebook account completely, said Kimbro  a Kent Island resident.

While state officials tweeted that information will be posted on eyesonthebay.dnr.maryland.gov, Kimbro said the quick Facebook updates, which provided scientific data such as satellite images and water oxygen levels, are now difficult to find.

The social media accounts are just critical to us, he said of recreational and commercial fishermen. It seems odd  that they would take that tool away.

DNR spokesman Gregg Bortz said the department reviewed and decided to streamline its social media accounts.

Customers will be following our most viewed accounts, said Bortz via email. Content is expected to stay the same and remains mostly generated by front-line staff, but to a larger audience with greater engagement.

Deep Creek Lake Discovery Centers Facebook account was being managed as a state account and merged into the park services main account, he said.

Our staff apologizes for a breakdown in communications that occurred prior to that happening, but the department greatly values our volunteers and looks forward to our continued partnership, Bortz said.

The departments digital outreach includes website engagement of seven million unique users, email subscription lists and mobile app downloads to 91,000 users, he said.

Our goal is always (to) get more useful content to more people, Bortz said.

Some folks say the meaning of useful content is debatable, however.

During a 40-year career as outdoor editor for the Cumberland Times-News, one of my more important tasks was to tell readers in Maryland about legislation in the General Assembly that would have an impact on hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation, said Mike Sawyers, who retired from the paper a few months ago.

Sawyers said that after the states current administration took office, he was told agency personnel would no longer comment about pending bills.

Under this new regime  people, with whom I had spent decades establishing a trusting working relationship, could no longer tell me and thus the readers their professional opinions about the effects of a proposed bill, Sawyers said via email.

One year, a bill proposed cutting the cost of a fishing license in half, he said.

Of course that meant the Fisheries Service would get half the money they were used to getting, Sawyers said. I wanted to know what impacts that would have on fish management, but nobody was allowed to talk to me.

Sawyers described quality natural resources professionals who knew what they could say and not say without somebody editing their responses.

So, I'm not surprised that individual social media accounts are being eliminated, he said. It actually started a few years ago when the Maryland Wildlife & Heritage Service and the Black Bear Twitter accounts were killed.

Candy Thomson talked of her four decades as a journalist that included 25 years as a reporter, editor and columnist. She took a buyout from The Baltimore Sun in 2013 and went to work as the public information officer for Maryland Natural Resources Police.

Most folks are interested in a few parks and follow those, but they will be required to shuffle through the posts from 72 parks once this occurs, she said of the elimination of individual social media sites. And instead of the posts coming from each park, the information will be curated by four regional managers, who have other duties.

Government needs to provide more information to the tax-paying public, she said.

Outside of personnel matters, certain real estate negotiations and law enforcement investigations, there should be little that is closed off or hidden by slight of hand by those who find the release of that information inconvenient or embarrassing, Thomson said.
@IsaacAvilucea on Twitter

Isaac Avilucea is The Trentonians main municipal scribe. A two-time prior restraint winner and testicular cancer survivor, he relishes his reputation as the "Mean Girls" reporter that followed his 18-day stay at the now-defunct North Adams Transcript.
Eli Waller and his sisters, in this family photo taken in the months before his death in 2014. The fifth annual gala supporting the charity his parents started soon after, the First Day of School Foundation, will be holding it's annual gala fundraiser on Feb. 1.
Eastin Easy Aishwarya Talegaon Celebrates Its First Anniversary



(TRAVPR.COM) INDIA - January 15th, 2019 - Cheers to One Year: Eastin Easy Aishwarya Talegaon Celebrates Its First Anniversary

Eastin Easy Aishwarya Talegaon located 20 minutes from Lonavala announces a series of special offers in honor of the one-year anniversary of its opening and celebrates 15th Jan  15th Feb 2019 as anniversary month on this celebratory occasion. The 3-star luxurious hotel with a total rooms/suites capacity of 90 offers wholesome facilities with delicious breakfast and extracurricular activities including fitness center and swimming. Apart from these, Eastin Easy Aishwarya Talegaon also hosts banquets, conference space, and a lawn area for all kinds of events.

As part of our anniversary offer, Eastin Easy Aishwarya Talegaon is welcoming travellers with big discounts and lucrative offers. 30% discount on rooms and a night free on booking room for two nights, the stay period for these offers is 15 Jan  31st May 2019 and booking period until 15th Feb 2019.

Apart from the stay packages, we have big discounts on food and beverages for the walk-in guests: 30% off on lunch and dinner buffet as well as buy one and get one on starters and drinks.

For more information:

Visit: https://www.eastineasyaishwaryatalegaon.com

Contact: 911-220-0807 / 911-220-0821

Email: fomgr@eastineasyaishwaryatalegaon.com

Address: Malwadi, Talegaon Dabhade, Talegaon Chakan Road, Pune - 410507, Maharashtra, India

About Eastin Hotels & Residences www.eastineasy.com

THAILAND I VIETNAM I INDONESIA I OMAN I INDIA

Eastin Hotels & Residences is a deluxe commercial hotel brand created to base on relevance to market and the needs of targeted customers. We provide you hotels throughout Asia. We provide value and consistency through flexible venues, rates and services with added value to serve the needs of business and leisure travelers. If you're travelling to South East Asia or Middle East, seek for Eastin Hotels & Residences or Eastin Easy, our budget brand hotel. The whole purpose of our being is for you to fully enjoy your stay with us anywhere anytime. Facilities & services include no reservation fee, flexible cancellation, free Wi-Fi, no fuss breakfast, fairly priced minibar in each room, gym and approachable services.

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TUI company, one of the biggest tourism organizations in the world, honored Anemos Luxury Grand Resort with 4 TUI Awards: the TUI Holly 2019 Award, the TUI Top Quality 2019 Award, the Family Champion 2019 Award and the TUI Environmental Champion 2019 Award.



(TRAVPR.COM) GREECE - January 18th, 2019 - The TUI Holly is the highest accolade that can be accorded a TUI Hotel. It stands for everything that makes a TUI holiday perfect: Great attention to detail, superb service and outstanding cuisine. The hotels guests are the jury. With their response to the question How do you rate your hotel/accommodation overall? in the TUI guest survey they decide which hotels can adorn themselves with the TUI Holly. The TUI Holly is the premium prize for the 100 most popular TUI hotels worldwide.

In addition to the TUI Holly, TUI is awarding Anemos Luxury Grand Resort another quality label: TUI Top Quality 2019. This label highlights all hotels that earn a minimum of 8.7 out of 10 possible points in response to the question "How do you rate your hotel/accommodation overall?". Anemos Luxury Grand Resort scored an exceptional customer satisfaction rating, therefore received this additional certificate of quality.

Also, Anemos Luxury Grand Resort has been distinguished with the TUI Family Champion award for the second consecutive year, which proves that the hotel provides excellent facilities for children.

Finally, Anemos Luxury Grand Resort won the TUI Environmental Champion accolade, which is awarded to hotels that are particularly committed both to the protection of the environment and socially responsible management.

The ceremony of the TUI Holly 2019 Awards will be held on 5 March 2019 in Berlin. The management of the Anemos Luxury Grand Resort will attend the event in order to receive this important accolade.

Contact Details:

Contact Number +30 28250 62550

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Positions will oversee maintenance and engineering; inflight; and labor relations

The Alaska Airlines board of directors has elected three new company officers: Constance von Muehlen, senior vice president of maintenance and engineering; Ron Calvin, vice president of inflight; and Jenny Wetzel, vice president of labor relations.

Beginning Jan. 21, von Muehlen will lead Alaska's maintenance and engineering employees, and all safety, compliance and operational performance of the airline's mainline Boeing and Airbus fleet. Most recently, von Muehlen led Horizon Air's operational performance strategy as the airline's chief operating officer, where she oversaw the customer service, inflight, pilot, maintenance and system operations control teams. Prior to Horizon, von Muehlen was Alaska's managing director of airframe, engine and component maintenance.

"Constance is a strong leader who brings nearly 30 years of industry experience with her to our maintenance and engineering division, along with extensive knowledge of both the Airbus and Boeing fleets," said Ben Minicucci, Alaska's president and chief operating officer. "Her focus on safety, operational excellence and our people places Constance in a strong position to lead the division."

Before joining Alaska, von Muehlen spent 20 years in aviation maintenance leadership roles at Pratt and Whitney and Air Canada. She received her initial leadership training as a captain in the U.S. Army serving tours of duty as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot in Germany, Iraq, Turkey and South Korea. She holds a bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University and a certificate in Executive Leadership Training from the Darden School at the University of Virginia. She recently completed an executive MBA at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.

Calvin is an Alaska Airlines veteran with more than 32 years of service. In his new role, he'll provide strategic and operational leadership for the inflight division, working with our outstanding flight attendants who  day after day  make our guests' journeys remarkable with the genuine, caring service Alaska is known for.

Calvin joined the company in 1986 as a customer service agent. Over the following years, he was promoted to various positions at the airline in California, Seattle and Washington, D.C. He became Alaska's managing director of inflight operations in 2012, responsible for nearly 6,000 flight attendants and overseeing a leadership team of 60 employees.

"Ron has a strong operational background. He has invested a sizeable amount of his professional career at airports across the country while working for Alaska, which will be an asset in his new position," said Minicucci. "He also embodies the Alaska spirit and our values as we continue creating an airline people love."

Calvin holds a bachelor's degree from San Jose State University, and an executive master's degree from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. He transitioned into his new role on Jan. 16.

As vice president of labor relations, Wetzel will serve as the strategic executive advisor on all labor relations efforts. She will be responsible for all labor matters at Alaska Airlines and lead the collective bargaining process for the airline. She joins Alaska Airlines from Kaiser Permanente and before that Group Health in Seattle where she was the vice president of employee and labor relations since 2015.

"We're excited to have Jenny join the Alaska leadership team. She not only has nearly 13 years of experience working effectively with represented employee groups, she brings a style that emphasizes positive relationships, trust and transparency with labor leaders and employees that matches seamlessly with Alaska's philosophy on labor relations," said Shane Tackett, executive vice president planning and strategy.

Wetzel has a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington, and a law degree from Gonzaga University School of Law. She is licensed by the Washington State Bar Association. She begins her new role Feb. 11.

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 2021 Travel Industry Wire
Sometimes its baffling to see automakers ignore cars in its line up that need a little care and attention to become the cash cows. The Frontier is a classic example of that. Midsize trucks sell well on the market today, but Nissan has been lousy with development for the Frontier. However, things might change soon as a new Frontier may hit the roads very soon.

The Midsize Pickup Truck Market Is Booming

The Nissan Frontier has been the same since 2005, other than a few tweaks and updates here and there. Despite the same old design being carried on for almost 15 years now, nearly 80,000 copies of the Frontier were sold in 2018, showing that the truck still has a lot of life and potential left in it. But, when compared to the Toyota Tacoma and the Chevy Colorado, Nissan is still far behind as the Japanese brand sold 245,000 units of the Tacoma and Chevy sold some 135,000 examples of the Colorado in the same timeframe.

The Nissan Frontier is begging for an upgrade to grab a bigger share of the pie, and it looks Nissan finally realized this.

The company is all set to bring the new Frontier much sooner than expected  well, not exactly sooner because it should have been here at least six years back. Nissans senior vice president for global design, Alfonso Albaisa, told Autoblog a new Frontier is "almost finished." Ivan Espinosa, Nissans vice president of product planning, said, "it is something we are actively working on, and will soon be coming into the market."

What The Current Frontier Offers

The current Nissan Frontier is one of the most affordable pickup trucks available on the market today. At $19,000 a pop for the base trim, you cannot really complain much; but this cheap tag is visible inside out.

The Frontier lacks the safety that competition offers, it delivers pathetic fuel economy, and it is not refined by any means.

The towing and payload capacities make matters worse. While the 2.5-liter, four-cylinder engine that develops 152 horses is mediocre at best, the top-of-the-line engine offers some consolation. It is a 4.0-liter, V-6 engine that churns out 261 ponies and 281 pound-feet of torque.

Conclusion

Apart from the confirmation from the bosses, we dont have any other news or updates about the new Frontier. Given that the market has survived with the same face for 15 years, Nissan better offer an entirely new truck. Do you think Nissan can still capture the market with the Frontier? Will the new iteration have enough to give a stiff competition to the Toyota Tacoma and the Chevrolet Colorado? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2016 Nissan Frontier.

Source: Autoblog
Raytown police say Kenneth E. Cornwell Jr., 42, was last seen Jan. 15, 2019. Raytown police are asking for help in finding a missing 42-year-old man. Police said Kenneth E. Cornwell Jr. is a witness in a pending homicide case. He was last seen Tuesday night at 8915 East 67th Street in Raytown.
KCI Partnership, a consortium of companies led by AECOM that was not selected to build a new terminal at Kansas City International Airport, said in a letter Thursday that they can beat the current price for the project by more than $1 billion.
KCK police officer bitten during altercation KANSAS CITY, KS. (KCTV) -- A Kansas City, KS. police officer was bitten by a suspect while he was taken in custody on Thursday. KCK police chief Terry Zeigler said officers reported to a disturbance in the area of 6th and Central Avenue.

The suspect has been charged with felony battery on an law enforcement officer as crime across the State Line continues to trend upward along with KCMO. Read more and check the EPIC ouchie:
Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas' 3rd District had been in office for less than 24 hours when Republicans came out swinging with an attack ad. "With her very first vote in Congress, Sharice Davids caved to the party bosses and voted to support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker," says a female narrator, with chilling music in the background.
After 33 Years In Its River Market Space, The Kansas City Artists Coalition Needs A New Home The Kansas City Artists Coalition, an organization of more than 400 artists, will leave the space at 2nd and Wyandotte where it's been since 1986. In October, the building was sold to an outside investor who "is looking to utilize the space in a different way," said Executive Director Marissa Starke.

Moving news on these Kansas City culture vulture thought leaders and their search for new digs better than their parents basements. The reality is that rents are now to high in the Midtown Crossorads for the bohemian class who helped to create the eclectic community sold to empty-nesters and developers looking to launder foreign investment cash . . .Read more:
If you are a Verizon subscriber, you will be able to use free spam alert and call blocking tools starting in March.

(Image credit: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com)

The free tools, which were part of a previous $3-per-month Call Filter option in current plans, promise to stop robocalls once and for all.

As Engadget reports, Verizon also wants to use the STIR and SHAKEN technology to authenticate the origin of any call, thus fending off robocallers miserable efforts to interrupt our daily lives with their spamming. STIR/SHAKEN is capable of analyzing if the incoming call is trying to mask its origin, alerting their users or directly blocking such calls.

The move follows a 2018 FCC call for carriers to adopt the technology and better protect the American public against this swine. The company also claims that it will enact the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act  aka TRACED  to hunt down robocallers so the FCC can nail them down to the bottom of the sea.

This news comes in the wake of T-Mobiles STIR and SHAKEN announcement on January 10 but thats ok. Well done, Verizon. Only two hundred more things to go to make up for all your manywrongdoings.
Verizon's first major sale of the year is here and for most families and couples  this one is a no brainer.







For a limited time, Verizon is offering a BOGO  buy one, get one free  promo on multiple flagship smartphones from Apple, Samsung, and Google. The deals are as follows:

In order to qualify for the BOGO sale, you'll have to activate a new line of service and purchase your phone via a monthly payment plan. And that's it. The credits for your second phone are applied over the span of 24 months, so you'll be tied to Verizon for at least 2 years.



But here's one more perk, sign up for Verizon's Beyond Unlimited ($50/line) or Above Unlimited ($60/line) and you'll get Apple Music for free. Previously, Verizon was only offering a 6-month Apple Music trial.
2019 has barely begun, and I'm already exhausted by the parade of samey-looking smartphones we'll probably see this year. Alas, if only one of them could be this clever concept for a Nintendo-branded handset that is currently making the rounds on Twitter.

(Image credit: Lee Huang via Behance)

Nintendo would probably never lend its name to a smartphone. But if it did, it should really be this proposal from Shenzhen, China-based industrial designer Lee Huang. Huang has functionally re-imagined the Switch as an even more compact handset that can optionally be used with controllers for a complete gaming experience on the go. And I love literally everything about it.

Today, phone makers appear to be expending all of their efforts into exactly one thing  finding a way to cut out speakers, cameras and bezels to deliver a truly full-screen experience. It's a neat idea, but they simply don't quite have the manufacturing capability yet to deliver that featureless slab of glass they're so convinced customers want.

Mercifully, Huang takes a different approach. If a smartphone can't just be this ethereal, formless window to content, why not make the most out of those physical constraints? Tech companies are running away from their limitations, offering awkward, unpleasant half measures like notches, in-display fingerprint sensors that don't work reliably and janky stabs at flexibility. But Huang's concept doesn't reject the realities  it embraces them.

For example, take a look at the bezels on this mockup. The desperation to disguise bezels on modern smartphones has led to a variety of approaches with ugly consequences, from weirdly misshapen displays to, more recently, holes in screens for front-facing cameras. Yet Huang's device isn't ashamed of its bezels at all. In fact, they're softly raised  almost like the screen is sitting comfortably in a tiny pillow.

(Image credit: Lee Huang via Behance)

Presumably, this wouldn't only make the phone more rounded and therefore easier to hold, but would also ensure the glass wouldn't get scuffed when placing the device face down. Plus, it looks fantastic. I'm in love with the quartet of drilled holes at the top for the earpiece, and the ultra-slim home button at the bottom that also, cunningly, accommodates just enough room to fit the display driver.

We haven't even touched on the back yet, which equals the front in its elegance yet also offers the freedom of customization. Here you'll find not two, three or four cameras but only one  because if you build your camera right, that's all you need. The Nintendo logo is stashed vertically along the bottom left, a keen branding trick that fosters interest, and a trend Huawei arguably started with the P20 Pro. It looked great then, and it looks fantastic now.

(Image credit: Lee Huang via Behance)

The right two-thirds is dominated by a splash of solid color that presents a refreshing change of pace from the status quo of unambitious black slabs or gaudy and obnoxious eye-searing gradients. Theoretically, this component could even be swapped out and exchanged for other plates as well, like the Pokemon art in some of the renders. (A good portion of Huang's background for the device is handwritten in Chinese, so it's unclear whether he intended for this aspect to be modular or not. Nevertheless, I think it'd be pretty cool if it were!)

Finally, three circular buttons on the right edge for volume and power complement the handset's bright and pleasant motif. It's yet another playful touch Huang has added here that feels very Nintendo, and rebels against the convention that everything must be so sleek and so flashy all of the time.

(Image credit: KDDI)

Huang's concept is endearing in a way phones rarely are these days. Though it does remind me of one device in particular that always piqued my interest: the Japan-exclusive Infobar A03. Manufactured by Kyocera and exclusively sold on the nation's KDDI network, the Infobar A03 was a designer handset that, much like what Huang's produced here, borrowed more cues from modern art than tech circles. Now, at a time when enthusiasm for smartphones has dwindled to its nadir, perhaps the industry could use something like that again.
In a world where the iPhone, Galaxy and Pixel slug it out for smartphone supremacy, that doesn't leave a lot of oxygen for other high-end phones. And LG in particular has found itself scrambling for mind share, as it tries to find an audience for its flagship phones.

(Image credit: LG could soon have a successor to the LG G7 ThinQ pictured here. (Credit: Tom's Guide))

Take the G series, which has introduced a number of innovations over the years  a modular design in 2016, a wider aspect ratio in 2017, an AI-powered camera last year  only to see other phones adopt those features and steal some of LG's thunder.

LG may be ready to try again with the LG G8, which will debut at this month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Rumors about the next LG phone are all over the map, though we've gotten our best view yet at what the phone might look like. Here's what we've heard so far about what LG could be planning for its next big smartphone release.

Latest News (Updated Feb. 17)

LG has said that the G8 will feature an OLED screen that doubles as an audio amplifier.

Leaker Evan Blass has posted an image of the 5G-enabled LG V50 ThinQ, which will reportedly be announced alongside the G8 at Mobile World Congress next week.

LG G8 release date: When will we see it?

LG sat out Mobile World Congress in 2018 after using the annual mobile industry trade event to launch both the G6 and G5 smartphones the previous two years. The LG G7 ThinQ eventually debuted later in the spring, part of LG's apparent strategy to makes its flagship phone updates more about introducing new features and less tied to set annual occurrences.

If LG's sticking to that strategy, the company must have something to introduce, as LG has announced a Feb. 24 event in Barcelona via a teaser video touting the touchless controls in an upcoming phone. (More on that below.) Mobile World Congress kicks off the next day in Barcelona. LG has subsequently confirmed that the G8 will make its debut at that event.

LG G8 price - What it might cost

We've gotten a potential glimpse at what the G8 could cost, and if you were hoping that LG would hold the line on prices, you could be disappointed.

The leaked pricing comes courtesy of a Reddit user in Canada, who claims that price for the upcoming phone now appears in a retail system at the store where he works. According to a screenshot the user included in his post, the phone will cost $1,199 Canadian. For context, the G7 ThinQ debuted at $999 to $1,049 Canadian, so this would be a price hike. The Reddit user expects the U.S. price for the G8 to come in at around $900.

(Image credit: Reddit)

If you want to hold out hope that the G8's price will be closer to the $750 starting price for the G7, the screenshot seemingly indicates the $1,199 Canadian price applies to a 128GB version of the phone. It's possible there could be a model with less storage and a lower price tag.

What will the LG G8 look like?

After early conflicting rumors about the G8, we've got a better sense of what the phone might look like, courtesy of serial leaker Evan Blass, who posted an image of the upcoming phone to Twitter. It shows off a notched display, with multiple cameras up front and two cameras on the back of phone.

(Image credit: Evan Blass/@evleaks)

That leaked image is fairly consistent with an earlier render from Twitter user OnLeaks and highlighted at the 91Mobiles site. That render shows a phone that looks an awful lot like the G7, right down to the notched display up front and the dual cameras on the back. According to 91Mobiles, you're looking at a 6.1-inch screen with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio.

(Image credit: @OnLeaks/91Mobiles)

That should put a pin in the more fanciful speculation about the G8, including a January report out of Korea that claimed the phone would be foldable. The report said LG's folding phone would use a hinge-based approach similar to the ZTE Axon M where the device will fold out into one with a larger screen, a description in line with LG patents about a foldable design that surfaced last year.

MORE: MWC Preview: All the New Phones, 5G and More

However, a conflicting CNET report cites a source familiar with LG's plans who claims that the company will instead release a smartphone that will let you add a second screen via an attachable case. According to that report, LG hasn't decided whether whether that phone will be the G8 or another device entirely. Blass's leak seems to suggest the latter option, if that phone is even close to being ready for prime time.

What new features should we expect from the LG G8?

LG has tipped us off to a couple features coming to the G8. One of those front cameras will be a time-of-flight sensor capable of performing 3D scans. That's raised the possibility that the LG G8 could introduce a FaceTime-style feature for unlocking your phone with a quick facial scan. An ETNews report had suggested a 3D camera was coming to LG's next flagship, though it had claimed the sensor would be on the back of the phone, reminiscent of the Honor View 20.

(Image credit: LG)

On the audio front, LG is following up the G7's Boombox speaker which used the inside of the phone as a resonance chamber. The G8's display will be an OLED panel  a change from the LCD screens used in previous G series phones  and the panel will vibrate to produce sound. This Crystal Sound OLED technology replicates a feature included in LG's TVs, the company says. We'd been tipped off to the possibility of the display incorporating audio features from both OnLeaks and Android Police.

With a sound-on-display feature included with the G8, LG can squeeze in more real estate by shrinking the bezels needed to house speakers. That's a goal for many phone makers these days.

LG's offered one other clue about possible G8 features in a teaser video for its Feb. 24 MWC event. That video strongly implies that you'll be able to control the G8 using touchless gestures like swipes and flicks.

LG G8 Specs: What will it offer?

Qualcomm has already announced its new Snapdragon 855 mobile processor, and as a leading Android flagship phone, the LG G8 would seem to be in line to run on that chipset. The timing of the phone's release could complicate that, though.

Typically, Samsung negotiates a window of exclusivity for Qualcomm's best mobile processor in the U.S., and it's expected to unveil the Galaxy S10 on Feb. 20  four days before LG's MWC event would take place. If Samsung has the same exclusive window on the Snapdragon 855 as it's had for past flagships, that would mean LG would either have to delay the release of the G8 or opt for another processor. With 2017's LG G6, the company went the latter route, opting for a Snapdragon 821 instead of the newer Snapdragon 835.

What about 5G?

Here's one area where the rumor mill is pretty united  the LG G8 is not expected to offer support for faster 5G wireless networks. But that's not to say that LG won't have a 5G phone to show off at Mobile World Congress this month.

We already know that LG has committed to releasing a 5G phone in the U.S. with Sprint. And in January, LG definitely committed to showing off a 5G phone at Mobile World Congress. The device, which could be a different phone from the G8, would feature a Snapdragon 855 processor, a 4,000-mAh battery and a Vapor Chamber cooling system, according to LG. One possibility: LG shows off this 5G device at MWC alongside other phones including the G8, but ships the 5G phone later in the spring.

And that mystery phone could be the LG V50 ThinQ, at least according to ETNews. If true, it would certainly be a fast turnaround for the latest phone in LG's V series  the LG V40 ThinQ just arrived last October.

(Image credit: Evan Blass/@evleaks)

We have some idea of what the phone will look like, thanks to Evan Blass, who posted a leaked image of the V50 with Spring branding over the weekend.
INVESTOR ALERT: Law Offices of Howard G. Smith Announces Investigation on Behalf of Nordstrom Inc. Investors (JWN)

Law Offices of Howard G. Smith announces an investigation on behalf of Nordstrom Inc. ("Nordstrom" or the "Company") (NYSE: JWN) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws.

The investigation concerns whether the Company issued materially misleading business information to the investing public. On November 15, 2018, the Company announced poor same store sales results, weakening sales growth, and that credit card holders carged incorrect interest amounts. On this news, shares of Nordstrom fell sharply in value on November 16, 2018, thereby injuring investors.







If you purchased Nordstrom securities, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Howard G. Smith, Esquire, of Law Offices of Howard G. Smith, 3070 Bristol Pike, Suite 112, Bensalem, Pennsylvania 19020 by telephone at (215) 638-4847, toll-free at (888) 638-4847, or by email to howardsmith@howardsmithlaw.com, or visit our website at www.howardsmithlaw.com.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005529/en/
[January 18, 2019] Learn How to Maximize Data Center ROI with Intelligent PDUs

Companies are continuing to invest in technologies to support the rapid growth of their information and communications technology networks, but are these investments being used to their fullest potential? Chatsworth Products (CPI) will outline ways to make the most of intelligent power distribution units (PDUs) on Feb. 21, 2019, at 10 a.m. CST / 4 p.m. GMT during its next Drive Forward webinar. As data center environments become more complex, user requirements and solutions for rack power distribution are changing and intelligent PDUs are taking the front seat in investments. This presentation will cover the benefits of intelligent PDUs and describe important capabilities that help boost the return on investment (ROI) in the short and long term. Join CPI Power Engineer, Matt Burkle, as he describes how you can: Simplify cabinet-level power management in complex environments

Maximize savings and optimize operations by integrating hardware and software into a single platform

Consolidate IP requirements for significant savings and streamline management

Monitor power usage, environmental conditions and physical access remotely using DCIM software

Dscover the benefits of outlet monitoring and switching capabilities



visit the CPI Drive Forward Webinars page. About Chatsworth Products (News - Alert)

At Chatsworth Products (CPI), it is our mission to address today's critical IT infrastructure needs with products and services that protect your ever-growing investment in information and communication technology. We act as your business partner and are uniquely prepared to respond to your specific requirements with global availability and rapid product customization that will give you a competitive advantage. At CPI, our passion works for you. With over two decades of engineering innovative IT physical layer solutions for the Fortune 500 and multinational corporations, CPI can respond to your business requirements with unequaled application expertise, customer service and technical support, as well as a global network of industry-leading distributors. Headquartered in the United States, CPI operates from multiple sites worldwide, including offices in Mexico, Canada, China, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. CPI's manufacturing facilities are located in the United States, Asia and Europe. CPI is listed with the General Services Administration ( GSA (News - Alert) ) under Federal Supply Schedule IT 70. Products are also available through GSA Advantage and through Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), including GSA Connections and NITAAC-ECS III (www.chatsworth.com/gov). While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of all information, CPI does not accept liability for any errors or omissions and reserves the right to change information and descriptions of listed services and products. 2019 Chatsworth Products, Inc. All rights reserved. Chatsworth Products, Clik-Nut, CPI, CPI Passive Cooling, eConnect, Evolution, GlobalFrame, MegaFrame, Motive, OnTrac, QuadraRack, RMR, Saf-T-Grip, SeismicFrame, SlimFrame, Secure Array, TeraFrame and Velocity are federally registered trademarks of Chatsworth Products. CUBE-iT, EuroFrame and Simply Efficient are trademarks of Chatsworth Products. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005520/en/

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[January 18, 2019]

Bitcoin PR Buzz Announces January PR Sale With $200+ Discounts

BELIZE CITY, Belize, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- To celebrate the start of another year for crypto, Bitcoin PR Buzz are offering up to $200 off all PR packages, during January 2019. With over 5 years experience and over 600 clients, Bitcoin PR Buzz has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry including ARK, LISK, and UTRUST.

Bitcoin PR Buzz's upgraded Bitcoin press release services include guaranteed publication of not just press releases, but also featured articles on BitcoinNews.com, CCN.com, The Merkle, Coinspeaker, Oracle Times, The Bitcoin News, Cripto Noticias, Criptomoedas Facil, ZYCrypto.com, Bitcoin News Latin America, Brazil, Arabia and Indonesia, and PR publication on 200-400 other online news outlets including Yahoo Finance, Marketwatch, Reuters.com, NBC, Fox, WND.com, Digital Journal, International Business Times, San Diego Tribune, Boston Globe, and much more.

New Services

During the winter of 2018, Bitcoin PR Buzz announced two new services, which join their pre-existing offerings:

Social Media Managemen Services  Covering Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, a university-trained, native English speaking Social Media Manager will provide analytics and take fortnightly conference calls to keep one's message and strategy as impactful as possible.

Professional Copywriting Service  Research driven, emotive and engaging copy is Bitcoin PR Buzz's specialty, and a highly experienced team of writers ensure that work is to the highest of standards.







January Discounts

At the end of 2018, Bitcoin PR Buzz reduced package prices by up to $800 and added 200 new sites including Yahoo Finance. In January 2019, Bitcoin PR Buzz is giving clients a further 5% discount on all packages and services which can be paid for in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. This means that some packages now carry a $1,000+ lower price tag than this time in November.

For more information please visit the website, or to speak to a London-based Account Manager today, contact the team at contact@bitcoinprbuzz.com.

Follow Bitcoin PR Buzz on Twitter  https://twitter.com/BitcoinPRBuzz

Keep up to date on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/BitcoinPRBuzz

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitcoin-pr-buzz

Media Contact Details

Contact Name: Alex Thurston, Bitcoin PR Buzz COO

Contact Email: contact@bitcoinprbuzz.com

Bitcoin PR Buzz is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.

Related Links

Bitcoin PR Buzz

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bitcoin-pr-buzz-announces-january-pr-sale-with-200-discounts-300780971.html

SOURCE Bitcoin PR Buzz
[January 18, 2019] Pennsylvania American Water Kicks Off 2019 Stream of Learning Scholarship Program

Pennsylvania American Water today announced that applications are being accepted for its 2019 Stream of Learning Scholarship Program to provide financial assistance to high school seniors who are planning to pursue careers in the water and wastewater industry. The program is designed to support outstanding students living in Pennsylvania American Water's service territories who are charting a course of study in specific fields, ranging from engineering to environmental science. The company will award scholarships of $1,000 each to 10 students who are selected through the program's application process. Applicants must meet the following criteria: Students must currently live in Pennsylvania American Water service area. (Students can attend a learning institution outside of the company's service territory.)

Students must plan to attend a two- or four-year college or technical school, and must plan to study environmental science, engineering, biology or chemistry.

Students must be high school seniors. (Current college students are not eligible.) "The Stream of Learning Scholarship Program is an opportunity to assist our best and brightest students who are interested in pursuing a career in the water and wastewater industries," said President Jeff McIntyre of Pennsylvania American Water. "By attracting scholars to those fields that are vital to the future of our business, we hope to develop and tap their talent for the long-term benefit of our communities and the environment." Winnes will be selected by a panel of judges and will receive their awards in May. Family members of Pennsylvania American Water employees are not eligible.



This month, the company sent scholarship brochures and applications to high school guidance counselors throughout its service territory. Applications can also be downloaded from the company's website at https://amwater.com/paaw/news-community/community-involvement and must be postmarked by March 22, 2019. Pennsylvania American Water, a subsidiary of American Water (NYSE: AWK), is the largest investor owned water utility in the state, providing high-quality and reliable water and/or wastewater services to approximately 2.4 million people. With a history dating back to 1886, American Water is the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. publicly traded water and wastewater utility company. The company employs more than 7,100 dedicated professionals who provide regulated and market-based drinking water, wastewater and other related services to an estimated 14 million people in 45 states and Ontario, Canada. American Water provides safe, clean, affordable and reliable water services to our customers to make sure we keep their lives flowing. For more information, visit amwater.com and follow American Water on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005484/en/

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[January 18, 2019] Ringing in 2019: U.S. Army Veteran Surprised with Mortgage-Free Home in Charleston From Operation FINALLY HOME and Lennar

Operation FINALLY HOME and Lennar are pleased to announce a new project to provide a mortgage-free home for a wounded veteran in Charleston, South Carolina this year. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005389/en/ U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Matthew Weise and family were surprised New Year's Eve Day on FOX & Friends with the news they are receiving a mortgage-free home from Operation FINALLY HOME and Lennar in 2019. Joining the Weise family on set were FOX & Friends guest-hosts Dean Cain, Rachel Campos Duffy and Todd Piro; Operation FINALLY HOME founder Dan Wallrath and Executive Director Rusty Carroll; and Lennar Division President Jason Byham. The home will be built in Charleston, S.C., this year. Photo Courtesy of Operation FINALLY HOME U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Matthew Weise and his family were surprised with the news during a live segment on FOX & Friends on New Year's Eve Day. The Weise family thought they were in New York City to interview with a builder and were asked to appear on FOX & Friends to talk about Matthew's invisible disabilities. Matthew was injured during three of his combat tours and suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). During the segment, Operation FINALLY HOME founder, Dan Wallrath, and Charleston Division President for Lennar, Jason Byham, surprised the family with the news that they were selected to receive the mortgage-free home (see video here).



Tweet This "Operation FINALLY HOME and Lennar have drastically changed my family's life and my outlook on the future. None of this would have been possible without them. The unimaginable gift of a house will have a huge everlasting effect on our lives," stated Matthew following the Surprise.

Operation FINALLY HOME has completed 151 mortgage-free homes and 18 home modifications to date. This will be Lennar's fifth project partnering with Operation FINALLY HOME with plans for additional projects in the future. "On behalf of Lennar, our associates, and all our trade partners, we are thrilled to provide the Weise family with this mortgage-free home in Charleston," said Jason Byham, Division President of Lennar. "As a father of three kids myself, I couldn't imagine a more welcoming location for Matthew and his family. The community is ecstatic to welcome this family home." Lennar anticipates the home being complete this summer in time for the family to enjoy the amenities and get to know their new community and home. About U.S. Army SFC Matthew Weise | U.S. Army SFC Matthew Weise joined the army two weeks after graduating high school in Stone Mountain, Ga. He dedicated more than 15 years of his life to serving his country with six deployments, including Afghanistan and Iraq. Matthew was injured during three of his combat tours. His first injury was caused when insurgents dropped mortar bombs on the building he was in, and again when his truck drove over an underbelly improvised explosive device (IED) that knocked him unconscious. His third major injury occurred in Afghanistan when he stepped on a dismounted IED. Matthew suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) as well as depression, migraines and vertigo along with seizures, neck, knee, wrist and back problems. His injuries, both mental and physical, are severe, and he describes himself as a "changed person" since medical retirement. His pain affects him daily, and he is unable to participate in many activities he used to enjoy. However, Matthew says he is looking to the future, and he loves doing volunteer work. Matthew was presented with many honors for his service including two Purple Heart Medals, two Bronze Star Medals, two Valorous Unit Awards, Combat Infantryman Badge plus many more. Matthew enjoys spending time with his family and focusing on his hobbies, such as hunting, swimming and hiking. He is looking forward to moving back to South Carolina to spend time with family and be near the beach. He also volunteers at a local food bank and counsels other veterans by reminiscing on war stories. Talking to other veterans has been therapeutic, Matthew says, and he finds it very fulfilling. His wife Saray and their children look forward to moving back to South Carolina and are all optimistic for the future. About Operation FINALLY HOME | Based in New Braunfels, Texas, Operation FINALLY HOME was established in 2005 as a nonpartisan/nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. The mission of Operation FINALLY HOME is to provide homes and home modifications to America's military Heroes and the widows of the fallen who have sacrificed so much to defend our freedoms and values. Operation FINALLY HOME partners with corporate sponsors, builder associations, builders, remodelers, developers, individual contributors, and volunteers to help these Heroes and their families by addressing one of their most pressing needs - a place to call home. For more information about Operation FINALLY HOME, visit OperationFINALLYHOME.org, follow @OpFINALLYHOME on Twitter (News - Alert) and find us on Facebook. About Lennar | Lennar, founded in 1954, is one of the nation's leading builders of quality homes for all generations. Lennar builds affordable, move-up and active adult homes primarily under the Lennar brand name. Lennar's Financial Services segment provides mortgage financing, title insurance and closing services for both buyers of Lennar's homes and others. Lennar's multifamily segment is a nationwide developer of high-quality multifamily rental properties. For more information about Lennar, please visit www.lennar.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005389/en/

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[January 18, 2019] Photo of Cigna Building Blessings in a Backpack in Nashville Available on Business Wire's Website and the Associated Press Photo Network

A photo is available on Business Wire's website and the Associated Press (News - Alert) photo network of Cigna and Express Scripts employees in Nashville celebrating the combination of their companies by filling backpacks with food for children at the Shwab Elementary School in Nashville. The event marks the beginning of a new global $25 million program, Healthier Kids for Our Future, and demonstrated the newly combined company's commitment to communities. The local event is part of a nationwide Cigna initiative that is the largest-ever in Blessings in a Backpack's 10-Year history. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005461/en/ Cigna Builds Blessings in a Backpack in Nashville. Cigna and Express Scripts employees in Nashville celebrated the combination of their companies by filling backpacks with food for children at the Shwab Elementary School in Nashville. The event marks the beginning of a new global $25 million program, Healthier Kids fo Our Future, and demonstrated the newly combined company's commitment to communities. The local event is part of a nationwide Cigna initiative that is the largest-ever in Blessings in a Backpack's 10-Year history. (Photo: Business Wire)



For more about the Cigna/Blessings in a Backpack event:

Cigna Employees Kick Off $25 Million Healthier Kids for Our Future Initiative by Combatting Childhood Hunger Globally

About Cigna Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI) is a global health service company dedicated to improving the health, well-being and peace of mind for those we serve. Cigna delivers choice, predictability, affordability and quality care through integrated capabilities and connected, personalized solutions that advance whole person health. All products and services are provided exclusively by or through operating subsidiaries of Cigna Corporation, including Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Life Insurance Company of North America, Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York, Express Scripts companies or their affiliates. Such products and services include an integrated suite of health services, such as medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, supplemental benefits, and other related products including group life, accident and disability insurance. Cigna maintains sales capability in over 30 countries and jurisdictions, and has more than 160 million customer relationships throughout the world. To learn more about Cigna, including links to follow us on Facebook (News - Alert) or Twitter, visit www.cigna.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005461/en/

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[January 18, 2019] Photo of Cigna Building Blessings in a Backpack in Orlando Available on Business Wire's Website and the Associated Press Photo Network

A photo is available on Business Wire's website and the Associated Press (News - Alert) photo network of Cigna and Express Scripts employees in Orlando celebrating the combination of the two companies by filling 1,500 backpacks with food for children at the Metrowest and Westpointe Elementary Schools in Orlando. The event marked the beginning of a new global $25 million program, Healthier Kids for Our Future, and demonstrated the newly combined company's commitment to communities. The local event was part of a nationwide Cigna initiative that is the largest-ever in Blessings in a Backpack's 10-Year history. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005460/en/ Cigna Builds Blessings in a Backpack in Orlando. Cigna and Express Scripts employees in Orlando celebrated the combination of the two companies by filling 1,500 backpacks with food for children at the Metrowest and Westpointe Elementary Schools in Orlando. The event marked the beginning of a new global $25 illion program, Healthier Kids for Our Future, and demonstrated the newly combined company's commitment to communities. The local event was part of a nationwide Cigna initiative that is the largest-ever in Blessings in a Backpack's 10-Year history. (Photo: Business Wire)



For more about the Cigna/Blessings in a Backpack event:

Cigna Employees Kick Off $25 Million Healthier Kids for Our Future Initiative by Combatting Childhood Hunger Globally

About Cigna Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI) is a global health service company dedicated to improving the health, well-being and peace of mind for those we serve. Cigna delivers choice, predictability, affordability and quality care through integrated capabilities and connected, personalized solutions that advance whole person health. All products and services are provided exclusively by or through operating subsidiaries of Cigna Corporation, including Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Life Insurance Company of North America, Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York, Express Scripts companies or their affiliates. Such products and services include an integrated suite of health services, such as medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, supplemental benefits, and other related products including group life, accident and disability insurance. Cigna maintains sales capability in over 30 countries and jurisdictions, and has more than 160 million customer relationships throughout the world. To learn more about Cigna, including links to follow us on Facebook (News - Alert) or Twitter, visit www.cigna.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005460/en/

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[January 18, 2019] The Trustees of Mesabi Trust Urge Unitholders to Vote in Favor of its Nominee for Successor Trustee at Adjourned Special Meeting

The Trustees of Mesabi Trust (NYSE: MSB) today re-affirmed their unanimous support for successor trustee nominee Robin M. Radke to be appointed by unitholders at its adjourned Special Meeting of Trust Certificate Holders, which is scheduled for 11:00 A.M. Central Time, on Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at the offices of Fox Rothschild LLP, 222 South Ninth Street, Suite 2000, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402 (the "Special Meeting"). The Trustees of Mesabi Trust are continuing to solicit proxies from its Trust Certificate Holders requesting that holders vote "FOR" approval of Proposal 1 for the appointment of Robin M. Radke as an individual trustee of Mesabi Trust to succeed Richard G. Lareau, who is retiring. Key factors noted by the Trustees are Ms. Radke's understanding of the intricacies of Mesabi Trust from a legal, compliance, internal controls, corporate, governance and trust law perspective, which she gained from her eleven years of experience in working on a broad range of projects for the Trust. Based on a thorough diligence process reviewing biographical information and professional resumes of other potentially interested candidates, including conducting interviews of the top candidates, ensuring no conflict of interest exists and identifying the skills, experience and diversity profile the Trustees were seeking to address in a candidate, the Trustees unanimously concluded that Ms. Radke is the most qualified candidate to serve as Trustee of Mesabi Trust. The Trustees also selected Ms. Radke recognizing that evolving regulatory and corporate governance standards are beginning to establish guidelines for the promotion of women on corporate boards and agree that a diverse and inclusive board promotes a broader range of viewpoints and independent thinking. Some unitholders have communicated their opinion that the Trust needs an executive with industry experience, yet this ignores that the Trustees already include two individuals with extensive iron ore industry experience and deep understanding of iron ore mining and production operations, including many years working with Cleveland-Cliffs, Inc. and Northshore Mining Company, which the Trustees have seen as a positive for the Trust. As previously disclosed, the Trustees also emphasize that two leading independent proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass, Lewis & Co.1 have also recommended that Mesabi Trust unitholders vote "FOR" Proposal 1 for the appointment of Robin M. Radke. The Trustees of Mesabi Trust remind unitholders that every vote is important and urge all unitholders to vote "FOR" the adjourned Special Meeting proposals TODAY. Proposal 1 is described in further detail in the proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 9, 2018. No changes have been made in the proposals to be voted on by unitholders at the Special Meeting. The Trust's proxy statement and any other materials filed by the Trust with the SEC (News - Alert) remain unchanged and can be obtained free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Only holders of record of units of beneficial interest of Mesabi Trust at the close of business on November 9, 2018, the record date, are entitled to notice of, and to vote at, the adjourned Special Meeting. If a unitholder has previously submitted its proxy card and does not wish to change its vote, no further action is required by such holder. The Trustees encourage all unitholders that have not yet voted to vote their units by 11:59 p.m., Eastern Time, on Tuesday, January 22, 2019. If you have not voted, or have misplaced your proxy materials or are uncertain if you have voted all the shares you are entitled to vote, please see "How You Can Vote" below. Every single vote counts. ________________ (1) Permission to reference these reports was neither sought nor obtained.







How You Can Vote If your Units are registered in your name, you may vote your Units in person at the Special Meeting by one of the following methods: Vote by

Internet: www.proxyvote.com Use the Internet to transmit your voting instructions and for electronic delivery of information. Vote by 11:59 P.M. ET on January 22, 2019. Have your proxy card in hand when you access the web site and follow the instructions to obtain your records and to create an electronic voting instruction form. Vote by

Telephone:

1-800-690-6903 Use any touch-tone telephone to transmit your voting instructions. Vote by 11:59 P.M. ET on January 22, 2019. Have your proxy card in hand when you call and then follow the instructions. Vote by

Mail: Mark, sign and date your proxy card and return it in the postage-paid envelope we have provided or return it to Vote Processing, c/o Broadridge, 51 Mercedes Way, Edgewood, NY 11717.

If your Units are held in "street name," you may receive a separate voting instruction form with this proxy statement or you may need to contact your broker, bank or other nominee to determine whether you will be able to vote electronically using the Internet, telephone or mobile device. THE TRUSTEES UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMEND THAT TRUST CERTIFICATE HOLDERS VOTE "FOR" THE APPOINTMENT OF MS. RADKE AS AN INDIVIDUAL TRUSTEE OF THE TRUST. EVERY VOTE IS IMPORTANT. Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 This press release contains certain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on Mesabi Trust's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. The forward-looking statements may include statements regarding actions to be taken by the Trustees of Mesabi Trust, as well as the Trust's expectations for the outcome of the votes at the upcoming Special Meeting. Mesabi Trust undertakes no obligation to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Forward-looking statements should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect Mesabi Trust, particularly those mentioned in the risk factors in Item 1A of our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2018 and in our periodic reports on Form 10-Q. Important Additional Information and Where You Can Find It The Trustees may be deemed to be participants in a solicitation of proxies in connection with the matters to be considered at the Special Meeting. Information regarding the names of Mesabi Trust's Trustees and their respective interests in the Trust is set forth in the Trust's definitive Proxy Statement for the Special Meeting, filed with the SEC on November 9, 2018 and other reports filed by the Trust. These documents are available free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov and on the website of Mesabi Trust at www.mesabi-trust.com. THE TRUSTEES URGE MESABI TRUST UNITHOLDERS TO CAREFULLY READ THE DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT ACCOMPANYING THE WHITE PROXY CARDS AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS THAT THE TRUST MAY FILE WITH THE SEC, BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. Copies of the definitive proxy statement, any solicitation materials and any other documents filed by Mesabi Trust with the SEC are available free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. These documents will also be made available free of charge by contacting the Trust's proxy solicitor, Georgeson LLC, toll free at 1-866-628-6079. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005447/en/

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[January 18, 2019] Navitus Launches a New Website and Refreshed Brand to Further Its Mission to Make Prescription Benefits More Affordable

Navitus Health Solutions, a full-service prescription benefit manager (PBM), is pleased to announce the launch of its new website and refreshed brand at www.navitus.com. The new site features a modern design, improved functionality and easy access to essential information to help benefit purchasers make well-informed prescription benefit decisions. The site will also more effectively convey the company's mission and capabilities as it continues to make prescription benefits more affordable. "We are excited about our new website launch and the robust information it provides for potential customers as well as the easy access it offers members, pharmacies, prescribers and others to their portals," said Byron Mickle, Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing. "We believe this new website will allow our guests to have a very informative experience where they can learn more about our unique approach to prescription benefits and make a more educated decision when it comes to selecting a PBM." The new website offers robust resources to assist benefit purchasers as they evaluate complex PBM contracts, business models and pricing. Resources range from informative e-books, webinars and podcasts to in-depth reports and client case studies. The refreshed branding, featured on the new website, positions the company as a modern, alternative solution to traditional PBMs and demonstrates its ability to meet today's rapidly changing healthcare needs. The brand's story capitalizes on the cmpany's strengths to deliver a unique, client-centric experience. When combined with its 100 percent pass-through model, lowest-net-cost philosophy and clinical care model, clients receive a substantial savings, while improving member health. The overall experience in working with Navitus is captured through its vibrant brand imagery and new tagline: Pharmacy Benefits Reinvented. Although the tagline is new, as a pioneer in pass through, Navitus has been reinventing pharmacy benefits for over 15 years.



"We believe we offer a better, more affordable solution and we simply want more plan sponsors to know about it and realize there's an alternative to traditional PBM business models -and our new rebranding and website help us do that," added Mickle. "Like any PBM, we work with pharmacies and manufacturers to secure the best drug pricing and rebates possible for our clients. However, we're reinventing pharmacy benefits with our full pass-through model and focus on delivering the lowest-net-cost medications. We pass 100 percent of all money, including rebates we receive, directly back to our clients. As a result, our clients experience lower year-over-year drug spend, typically 10-15% lower, which shows up in decreased PMPM expenses and reduced overall costs. For example, in 2017 we provided substantially lower costs for our clients, achieving an industry leading net cost per-member-per-month (PMPM) of $76.56 across our commercial business, which is 15.5 percent lower than the industry average of the largest PBMs at $90.66 PMPM." Navitus' new website will be updated regularly to provide the latest news and perspectives on prescription benefits, insightful tools and informative events. Guests are encouraged to peruse the new website at www.navitus.com and sign up for blogs and email alerts.

About Navitus Navitus Health Solutions, LLC, a division of SSM Health, is a full-service, URAC-accredited pharmacy benefit management company. As a zero-spread, full pass through pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), Navitus aligns performance with plan sponsors' benefit goals to deliver comprehensive clinical programs and cost-saving strategies that lower drug trend and promote good member health. Navitus provides its flexible services to government entities, self-funded employers, coalitions, labor organizations, third-party administrators, and health plans, including managed Medicaid, Exchanges, and Medicare Part D. For more information about Navitus' tangible solutions to the rising cost of pharmaceutical care, visit www.navitus.com or call 877-571-7500. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005388/en/

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[January 18, 2019] Photo of Cigna Building Blessings in a Backpack in Phoenix Available on Business Wire's Website and the Associated Press Photo Network

A photo is available on Business Wire's website and the Associated Press (News - Alert) photo network of Cigna and Express Scripts employees at the Cigna Norterra office celebrating the combination of the two companies by filling 1,500 backpacks with food for children at the Nevitt Elementary School in Tempe, Arizona. The event marked the beginning of a new global $25 million program, Healthier Kids for Our Future, and demonstrated the newly combined company's commitment to communities. The local event is part of a nationwide Cigna initiative that is the largest-ever in Blessings in a Backpack's 10-Year history. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005393/en/ Cigna and Express Scripts employees celebrated the combination of their companies by filling backpacks with food for children in Phoenix. (Photo: Business Wire)



For more about the Cigna/Blessings in a Backpack event: Cigna Employees Kick Off $25 Million Healthier Kids for Our Future Initiative by Combatting Childhood Hunger Globally

About Cigna Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI) is a global health service company dedicated to improving the health, well-being and peace of mind for those we serve. Cigna delivers choice, predictability, affordability and quality care through integrated capabilities and connected, personalized solutions that advance whole person health. All products and services are provided exclusively by or through operating subsidiaries of Cigna Corporation, including Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Life Insurance Company of North America, Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York, Express Scripts companies or their affiliates. Such products and services include an integrated suite of health services, such as medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, supplemental benefits, and other related products including group life, accident and disability insurance. Cigna maintains sales capability in over 30 countries and jurisdictions, and has more than 160 million customer relationships throughout the world. To learn more about Cigna, including links to follow us on Facebook or Twitter (News - Alert) , visit www.cigna.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005393/en/

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[January 18, 2019] Photo of Cigna Building Blessings in a Backpack in Franklin Lakes, N.J. Available on Business Wire's Website and the Associated Press Photo Network; Food Going to Bronx, N.Y. School

A photo is available on Business Wire's website and the Associated Press (News - Alert) photo network of employees at the Express Scripts office in Franklin Lakes, N.J. celebrating the company's combination with Cigna by filling backpacks with food for children at Public School 20 in the Bronx, New York. The event marked the beginning of a new global $25 million program, Healthier Kids for Our Future, and demonstrated the newly combined company's commitment to communities. The local event was part of a nationwide Cigna initiative that is the largest-ever in Blessings in a Backpack's 10-Year history. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005380/en/ Employees at the Express Scripts office in Franklin Lakes, N.J. celebrated the company's combination with Cigna by filling backpacks with food for children at Public School 20 in the Bronx, New York. The event marked the beginning of a new global $25 million program, Healthier Kids for OurFuture, and demonstrated the newly combined company's commitment to communities. The local event was part of a nationwide Cigna initiative that is the largest-ever in Blessings in a Backpack's 10-Year history. (Photo: Business Wire)



For more about the Cigna/Blessings in a Backpack event:

Cigna Employees Kick Off $25 Million Healthier Kids for Our Future Initiative by Combatting Childhood Hunger Globally

About Cigna Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI) is a global health service company dedicated to improving the health, well-being and peace of mind for those we serve. Cigna delivers choice, predictability, affordability and quality care through integrated capabilities and connected, personalized solutions that advance whole person health. All products and services are provided exclusively by or through operating subsidiaries of Cigna Corporation, including Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Life Insurance Company of North America, Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York, Express Scripts companies or their affiliates. Such products and services include an integrated suite of health services, such as medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, supplemental benefits, and other related products including group life, accident and disability insurance. Cigna maintains sales capability in over 30 countries and jurisdictions, and has more than 160 million customer relationships throughout the world. To learn more about Cigna, including links to follow us on Facebook (News - Alert) or Twitter, visit www.cigna.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005380/en/

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[January 18, 2019] Universite Laval and Intact Financial Corporation team up to study big data in insurance

QUEBEC CITY, Jan. 18, 2019 /CNW Telbec/ - Universite Laval and Intact Financial Corporation (IFC) are establishing two new chairs to advance research in the fields of artificial intelligence and actuarial science: The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)/Intact Financial Corporation Industrial Research Chair in Machine Learning for Insurance; and, the Educational Leadership Chair (ELC) in Big Data Analysis for Actuarial Science  Intact. The two chairs are supported by a $2 million contribution from Intact Financial Corporation. Some 30 students from Universite Laval's Faculty of Science and Engineering will participate in the research. Consumers' expectations are changing rapidly. Software and data are transforming the way we interact, gather and share information, and how we live. IFC is leading through this change by developing partnerships with academic and research institutions, accelerating its core competencies; and adapting its product offerings. "At Intact, we are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to design relevant products and services for customers and we aspire to be the best insurance AI shop in the world. That is why we are building unique partnerships with leading institutions like Universite Laval," said Charles Brindamour, Chief Executive Officer of Intact Financial Corporation. "Our collaboration with Universite Laval is aimed at building a leading talent pipeline of actuaries and data scientists, developing cutting-edge products and positioning Quebec and Canada at the forefront of AI and machine learning.'' Universite Laval rector Sophie D'Amours emphasizes the importance of research and education in the rapidly emerging field of artificial intelligence,explaining that "advances in research and training will strengthen Canada's position as a world leader in artificial intelligence, while expanding the scope of our expertise in machine learning and big data. Such advances will speed up the adoption of machine learning methods in the insurance industry and foster the development of applications in many other sectors, such as medical diagnostics."



The new ELC will train future actuaries in the digital, computing, and statistical methods they need to make the most of big data in the insurance industry. "The ELC will help improve big data capabilities among actuaries and insurance firms," said chairholder Marie-Pier Cote, an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering. "This new paradigm of big data creates unprecedented possibilities for insurance companies, including better segmentation of customer profiles; greater accuracy in estimating the real cost of products, resulting in improved pricing; closer tracking of customer satisfaction, and more," she said.

Backed by the NSERC, the second chair will focus on interpretable machine learning. Including IFC's contribution and government funding, the research program expects to receive up to $6.5 million. "The research chair will work with Intact to develop new technology tools to tackle the big data revolution and gain a more granular understanding of customer needs," explained chairholder Francois Laviolette, the founding director of Universite Laval's big data research centre, CRDM. "NSERC's Research Partnerships support collaborations that allow new scientific evidence to be applied to a broad range of new applications. This project could lead to the creation of new services and to the enhancement of existing services, which will directly affect the overall insurance experience of many Canadians. It will also provide the next generation of innovators with invaluable practical experience and a skill set that will be in high demand in Canadian services industries," mentioned Dr. Marc Fortin, Vice-President, Research Partnerships, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. About Universite Laval

Driven by innovation and the pursuit of excellence, Universite Laval is one of Canada's leading research universities, ranking 8th with $356 million in research funding last year. It has 3,730 professors, lecturers and other academic and research staff who share their knowledge with over 43,000 students, 25% of whom are enrolled in graduate studies. The oldest francophone university in North America, Universite Laval has so far trained more than 300,000 people who each contribute in their own way to the advancement of society. www.ulaval.ca About Intact Financial Corporation

Intact Financial Corporation (TSX: IFC) is the largest provider of property and casualty (P&C) insurance in Canada and a leading provider of specialty insurance in North America, with close to $10 billion in total annual premiums. The Company has approximately 14,000 full- and part-time employees who serve more than five million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada and the U.S. In Canada, Intact distributes insurance under the Intact Insurance brand through a wide network of brokers, including its wholly-owned subsidiary BrokerLink, and directly to consumers through belairdirect. In the U.S., OneBeacon Insurance Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary, provides specialty insurance products through independent agencies, brokers, wholesalers and managing general agencies. SOURCE Intact Financial Corporation

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[January 18, 2019] k-eCommerce, a rapidly growing business, invests in its cloud infrastructure

The Government of Canada awards $250,000 in funding to this Laval-based eCommerce management solutions provider LAVAL, QC, Jan. 18, 2019 /CNW Telbec/ - Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) k-eCommerce develops innovative management solutions in the rapidly growing eCommerce sector for Canadian and international businesses. The SME will receive a $250,000 repayable contribution from Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) to enhance its competitiveness and support its growth. With the help of this funding, announced today by Eva Nassif, MP for Vimy, k-eCommerce will be able to acquire state-of-the-art computer equipment, including high-performance servers. The objective of this project is to increase the capacity of k-eCommerce's cloud infrastructure and support the strong growth of the business. k-eCommerce plans to create 30 new jobs over the next two years. k-eCommerce has grown rapidly and has become one of the leaders in the development of customized eCommerce management solutions. The company constantly invests in research and development in order to offer products that are higher performing and more competitive. Its solutions have already won over more than 600 business clients in North America and Europe. The Government of Canada is committed to supporting innovative Canadian businesses. A driving force of the economy, innovation is the key to success because it generates growth that benefits both businesses and communities. This is why we are committed to ensuring that businesses are able to rely on adequte resources to create and market innovative products.



Quotes "By helping businesses such as k-eCommerce grow and invest in order to enhance their performance and be able to hold their own in a highly competitive global market, the Government of Canada is standing by its commitment to foster expansion and innovation and help grow exports. Furthermore, by creating quality jobs, this project will generate real benefits for Laval."

Eva Nassif, MP for Vimy "I am pleased with CED's support for k-eCommerce, a Canadian business that has come up with innovative solutions to improve the efficiency of eCommerce operations, and has also found ways of ensuring its growth for almost 20 years now." The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister responsible for CED "CED's support is vital, as it allows us to add high-performance equipment to our world-class cloud infrastructure. eCommerce is expanding rapidly in both the business-to-business (B2B) and retail sales (B2C) models. More and more businesses are turning to the Web to boost their sales, improve the quality of their services and reduce their operating costs. Whether accessed from a mobile device, tablet or computer, our clients' transactional websites must be available at all times and have the capacity to respond instantly. This new equipment will help us not only improve the quality of our services for our existing clients, but also support the growth of our company while serving more clients." Laurent Allardin, CEO and founder of k-eCommerce Quick facts Today's announcement was made on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister responsible for the Innovation, Science and Economic Development portfolio, which is made up of 17 federal departments and agencies, including CED and the other five regional development agencies.

The funding was awarded through CED's Quebec Economic Development Program. For more information about CED and its priorities, refer to the 20182019 Departmental Plan or visit www.ced-dec.gc.ca.

For 50 years now, the Government of Canada has been actively involved in regional economic development in Quebec : half a century of concrete action targeting the growth of Quebec's regions and businesses. Stay connected Follow CED on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube

Follow k-eCommerce on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook SOURCE Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions

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[January 18, 2019] DeepBlue Technology Hits The Urban Roadway With The Debut Of The "Smart Panda Bus"

SHANGHAI, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- On January 18th, DeepBlue Technology's Smart Panda Bus, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) driving bus, made its debut at the "New Generation Artificial Intelligence Future Development Summit" in Shanghai and is looking to redefining public transportation. The Smart Panda Bus is a multi-functional AI-based autonomous vehicle that incorporates eight different core technologies from DeepBlue Technology, working together to solve various pain points for commuters all over the world. The Smart Panda Bus leverages the latest AI technologies all in one product. Some features are: AutoPilot, Finger ein Recognition, Voice Interaction, Precise Advertising Push, Vehicle Monitoring Robot, Intelligent Unmanned Retail System, Abnormal Behavior Monitoring System and Intelligent Escape Emergency Handling System, which has never been implemented in a public commuter transport until now.



On the Smart Panda Bus, passengers can take the bus and go shopping by swiping their hands through the accurate biometric identification system, while an on-board robot monitors and records any suspicious behavior in real time, makes timely broadcast at the back-end for early warning and activates the intelligent escape emergency system. It heralds a big step towards the development of smart cities of the future, something that many AI industry elites, companies, and even China's city officials and overseas guests from the Belt and Road countries gathered together to discuss. The Smart Panda Bus received enthusiastic support and will land in Asia and Europe this year. Countries such as Germany, Luxembourg, Italy and Greece have shown great interest in this product. It is expected that Smart Panda Bus will be available to Europe in 2019. City officials in Bangkok has already approved the BRT, another autonomous driving vehicle of DeepBlue Technology, to start trials around the middle of this year.

Shanghai-based DeepBlue Technology aims to be a global company that will be able to serve people all over the world. At present, the company is active in Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and so far, has signed smart city cooperation agreements with Greece and Italy. Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20190118/2351123-1 SOURCE DeepBlue Technology

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[January 18, 2019] Wipro Limited Announces Results for the Quarter ended December 31, 2018 under IFRS

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) today announced financial results under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for its quarter ended December 31, 2018. As stated in our last quarter's earnings release, we have carved out the India State Run Enterprises (ISRE i.e. Public Sector Undertakings and Government business in India) from our IT Services segment into a separate segment effective quarter ended December 31, 2018. Highlights of the Results for the quarter ended December 31, 2018 Gross Revenue was Rs 150.6 billion ($2.2 billion 1 ) and grew 3.6% QoQ and 10.2% YoY

) and grew 3.6% QoQ and 10.2% YoY Non-GAAP 3 constant currency IT Services Segment Revenue grew by 2.4% QoQ. Adjusted 2 Non-GAAP constant currency IT Services Segment Revenue grew 7.0% YoY

constant currency IT Services Segment Revenue grew by 2.4% QoQ. Adjusted Non-GAAP constant currency IT Services Segment Revenue grew 7.0% YoY IT Services Segment Reported Revenue was at $2,046.5 million and grew 1.8% QoQ

IT Services Operating Margin 4 for the quarter was at 19.8% and expanded by 480bps QoQ and 496bps YoY

for the quarter was at 19.8% and expanded by 480bps QoQ and 496bps YoY Net Income for the quarter was Rs 25.1 billion ($360.8 million 1 ) and grew by 29.6% YoY

) and grew by 29.6% YoY EPS for the quarter was Rs 5.57 ($0.08 1 ) per share and grew 38.2% YoY

) per share and grew 38.2% YoY Wipro declared an interim dividend of Rs 1 ($0.01 1 ) per equity share/ADS

) per equity share/ADS Wipro's Board of Directors recommended issue of bonus shares to shareholders (including stock dividend to ADS holders) in the ratio of 1:3 (One equity share for every Three equity shares held), subject to approval of shareholders. Performance for the Quarter ended December 31, 2018 Abidali Z. Neemuchwala, CEO and Executive Director said, "Our strategic investments, backed by strong client relationships and client spends towards enterprise modernization and digital transformation have enabled us to deliver a very satisfying quarter." Jatin Dalal, Chief Financial Officer said, "Relentless focus on the quality of revenues and operational improvements have led to the expansion of IT Services Operating Margins to 19.8%. Our Operating Cash flows grew by 19.5% on YoY basis and was at 142% of Net Income."







1. For the convenience of the readers, the amounts in Indian Rupees in this release have been translated into United States Dollars at the certified foreign exchange rate of US$1 = Rs 69.58, as published by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on December 31, 2018. However, the realized exchange rate in our IT Services business segment for the quarter ended December 31, 2018 was US$1= Rs 71.66. 2. YoY growth rates for Q3'19 have been computed by adjusting revenues for Q3'18 for the impact from the divestment of our hosted data center services business. 3. Constant currency revenue for a period is the product of volumes in that period times the average actual exchange rate of the corresponding comparative period. 4. IT Services Operating Margin refers to Segment Results Total as reflected in IFRS financials.

Outlook for the Quarter ending March 31, 2019 We expect Revenue from our IT Services business to be in the range of $2,047 million to $2,088 million*. This translates to a sequential growth of 0.0% to 2.0%. * Outlook is based on the following exchange rates: GBP/USD at 1.27, Euro/USD at 1.14, AUD/USD at 0.72, USD/INR at 71.11 and USD/CAD at 1.32 IT Services Wipro continued its momentum in winning large deals globally as described below: A leading foods distribution company has selected Wipro as its technology modernization and digital transformation partner. Wipro will provide a range of services that will include digital, data science and infrastructure services

An Australasian government agency has selected Wipro as its cloud transformation partner. The engagement, which will leverage Wipro's cloud migration expertise and the Wipro HOLMES artificial intelligence and automation platform, will migrate the client's existing applications to hybrid cloud, and provide applications development and infrastructure support

A leading global financial services firm has chosen Wipro to be its workplace modernization partner. This multi-year engagement will leverage Wipro's VirtuaDesk solution and partner ecosystem and will help the client enhance their user experience in an outcome-based model

Wipro has won an end-to-end managed security services contract from a leading American global telecommunications company Digital & Cloud Application Services Highlights We continue to see increasing traction in digital oriented deals as illustrated below: As banks recognize the opportunity to turn large volumes of data within their organization into actionable insights, Wipro has been chosen as the exclusive partner by a global financial services company to improve decision making and customer and employee experience by tightly integrating data across their IT stack and within a full portfolio of applications

The strength of our technology expertise, digital framework for transformation and experience-led design has been recognized by a North American healthcare provider who has hired Wipro Digital to enable the design, development and launch of their new healthcare marketplace. We are their partner for a new brand, platform and service, bringing agility and new ways of working to them Wipro Digital has been selected by a Middle Eastern telecommunications company to improve the customer experience of their digital self-service channels

A North American chemicals company has selected Wipro Digital to develop an artificial intelligence-based search solution that will transform decades of digitized information into actionable insights for their plant operations

A North American telecommunications company has awarded an IT development engagement to Appirio, which will leverage Appirio's strengths in user experience, applications and testing services Analyst Accolades and Awards Wipro was recognised as a Leader and Star Performer by Everest Group in Digital Services - PEAK Matrix Assessment and Market Trends 2019

Wipro was recognised as a Leader by Everest Group in Cloud Enablement Services - Market Trends and Services PEAK Matrix 2019

Wipro was recognized as a Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide DevOps Services 2018 Vendor Assessment, Doc #US41235417, November 2018

Wipro was ranked among the HFS Top 10 Digital Change Management Providers & Digital Technology Strategy and Consulting Services 2018

Wipro was recognised as a Leader and Star Performer by Everest Group in IT Security Services - Market Trends and PEAK Matrix TM Assessment 2019

Wipro was recognized as a Leader in Magic Quadrant for Application Testing Services, Worldwide by: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Application Testing Services, Worldwide, Susanne Matson et al, 21 November 2018 Disclaimer: Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. IT Products IT Products Segment Revenue for the quarter was Rs 3.1 billion ($45.2 million 1 ).

). IT Products Operating Margin for the quarter was 6.7%. India business from State Run Enterprises (SRE) India SRE Segment Revenue for the quarter was Rs 1.7 billion ($24.6 million 1 ).

). India SRE Operating Margin for the quarter was -40.0%. Please refer the table at the end of the release for reconciliation between IFRS IT Services Revenue and IT Services Revenue on a non-GAAP constant currency basis. All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. About Non-GAAP Financial Measures This press release contains non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of Regulation G and Item 10(e) of Regulation S-K. Such non-GAAP financial measures are measures of our historical or future performance, financial position or cash flows that are adjusted to exclude or include amounts that are excluded or included, as the case may be, from the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS. The table at the end of the release provides IT Services Revenue on a constant currency basis, which is a non-GAAP financial measure that is calculated by translating IT Services Revenue from the current reporting period into U.S. dollars based on the currency conversion rate in effect for the prior reporting period. We refer to growth rates in constant currency so that business results may be viewed without the impact of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, thereby facilitating period-to-period comparisons of our business performance. This non-GAAP financial measure is not based on any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles and should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated in accordance with IFRS and may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies. In addition to this non-GAAP measure, the financial statements prepared in accordance with IFRS and the reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures with the most directly comparable IFRS financial measure should be carefully evaluated. Results for the quarter ended December 31, 2018, prepared under IFRS, along with individual business segment reports, are available in the Investors section of our website www.wipro.com Quarterly Conference Call We will hold an earnings conference call today at 07:15 p.m. Indian Standard Time (08:45 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time) to discuss our performance for the quarter. The audio from the conference call will be available online through a web-cast and can be accessed at the following link- http://services.choruscall.eu/links/wipro190118.html An audio recording of the management discussions and the question and answer session will be available online and will be accessible in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.wipro.com About Wipro Limited Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company. We harness the power of cognitive computing, hyper-automation, robotics, cloud, analytics and emerging technologies to help our clients adapt to the digital world and make them successful. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, we have over 160,000 dedicated employees serving clients across six continents. Together, we discover ideas and connect the dots to build a better and a bold new future. Forward-Looking Statements The forward-looking statements contained herein represent Wipro's beliefs regarding future events, many of which are by their nature, inherently uncertain and outside Wipro's control. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Wipro's growth prospects, its future financial operating results, and its plans, expectations and intentions. Wipro cautions readers that the forward-looking statements contained herein are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results anticipated by such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, complete proposed corporate actions, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, Annual Reports on Form 20-F. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf. WIPRO LIMITED AND SUBSIDIARIES INTERIM CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION (Rs in millions, except share and per share data, unless otherwise stated) As at March 31, As at December 31, 2018 2018 2018 Convenience

translation into US

dollar in millions

(unaudited). Refer

Footnote 1 on Page 1 ASSETS Goodwill 117,584 123,192 1,771 Intangible assets 18,113 15,445 222 Property, plant and equipment 64,443 70,208 1,009 Derivative assets 41 93 1 Investments 7,668 7,461 107 Investment in equity accounted investee 1,206 1,262 18 Trade receivables 4,446 4,179 60 Deferred tax assets 6,908 7,496 108 Non-current tax assets 18,349 20,550 295 Other non-current assets 15,726 19,598 282 Total non-current assets 254,484 269,484 3,873 Inventories 3,370 3,923 56 Trade receivables 100,990 100,044 1,437 Other current assets 30,596 25,829 371 Unbilled receivables 42,486 24,322 350 Contract assets - 16,847 242 Investments 249,094 212,103 3,048 Current tax assets 6,262 7,818 112 Derivative assets 1,232 5,543 80 Cash and cash equivalents 44,925 142,769 2,052 478,955 539,198 7,748 Assets held for sale 27,201 - - Total current assets 506,156 539,198 7,748 TOTAL ASSETS 760,640 808,682 11,621 EQUITY Share capital 9,048 9,050 130 Share premium 800 1,183 17 Retained earnings 453,265 516,604 7,425 Share based payment reserve 1,772 2,352 34 Other components of equity 18,051 17,927 258 Equity attributable to the equity holders of the Company 482,936 547,116 7,864 Non-controlling interest 2,410 2,563 37 TOTAL EQUITY 485,346 549,679 7,901 LIABILITIES Long - term loans and borrowings 45,268 49,984 718 Derivative liabilities 7 - - Deferred tax liabilities 3,059 2,535 36 Non-current tax liabilities 9,220 8,917 128 Other non-current liabilities 4,230 4,452 64 Provisions 3 4 - Total non-current liabilities 61,787 65,892 946 Loans, borrowings and bank overdrafts 92,991 53,863 774 Trade payables and accrued expenses 68,129 79,271 1,138 Unearned revenues 17,139 26,316 378 Current tax liabilities 9,417 14,674 211 Derivative liabilities 2,210 1,245 18 Other current liabilities 16,613 17,092 246 Provisions 796 650 9 207,295 193,111 2,774 Liabilities directly associated with assets held for sale 6,212 - - Total current liabilities 213,507 193,111 2,774 TOTAL LIABILITIES 275,294 259,003 3,720 TOTAL EQUITY AND LIABILITIES 760,640 808,682 11,621 WIPRO LIMITED AND SUBSIDIARIES INTERIM CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF INCOME (Rs in millions, except share and per share data, unless otherwise stated) Three months ended December 31, Nine months ended December 31, 2017 2018 2018 2017 2018 2018 Convenience

translation into US

dollar in millions

(unaudited). Refer

Footnote 1 on Page 1 Convenience

translation into US

dollar in millions

(unaudited). Refer

Footnote 1 on Page 1 Gross Revenues 136,690 150,595 2,164 407,185 435,782 6,263 Cost of revenues (95,976 ) (103,971 ) (1,494 ) (287,781 ) (306,091 ) (4,399 ) Gross profit 40,714 46,624 670 119,404 129,691 1,864 Selling and marketing expenses (11,073 ) (11,889 ) (171 ) (31,086 ) (33,516 ) (482 ) General and administrative expenses (9,991 ) (6,978 ) (100 ) (24,340 ) (29,282 ) (421 ) Foreign exchange gains/(losses), net 125 911 13 931 2,899 42 Other operating income - - - - 2,798 40 Results from operating activities 19,775 28,668 412 64,909 72,590 1,043 Finance expenses (1,231 ) (1,627 ) (23 ) (4,266 ) (4,845 ) (70 ) Finance and other income 6,160 5,362 77 19,196 15,695 226 Share of profit /(loss) of equity accounted investee 10 7 - 14 (26 ) - Profit before tax 24,714 32,410 466 79,853 83,414 1,199 Income tax expense (5,355 ) (6,966 ) (100 ) (17,775 ) (18,178 ) (261 ) Profit for the period 19,359 25,444 366 62,078 65,236 938 Profit attributable to: Equity holders of the Company 19,371 25,103 361 62,053 65,198 937 Non-controlling interest (12 ) 341 5 25 38 1 Profit for the period 19,359 25,444 366 62,078 65,236 938 Earnings per equity share: Attributable to equity share holders of the Company Basic 4.03 5.57 0.08 12.85 14.47 0.21 Diluted 4.03 5.56 0.08 12.83 14.45 0.21 Weighted average number of equity shares used in computing earnings per equity share Basic 4,802,285,697 4,504,546,939 4,504,546,939 4,830,841,298 4,504,645,092 4,504,645,092 Diluted 4,809,300,296 4,515,503,476 4,515,503,476 4,838,385,830 4,515,105,097 4,515,105,097 Additional Information Three months ended December 31, Nine months ended December 31, Segment Revenue 2017 2018 2018 2017 2018 2018 IT Services Business Units BFSI 36,849 45,979 661 106,364 129,219 1,857 HEALTH 18,450 19,241 277 55,577 55,793 802 CBU 19,580 22,875 329 58,238 65,646 943 ENU 16,491 18,996 273 51,221 54,202 779 TECH 18,630 19,104 275 54,789 58,189 836 MFG 11,358 11,981 172 34,434 34,945 502 COMM 8,422 8,480 122 25,824 24,394 351 IT SERVICES TOTAL 129,780 146,656 2,108 386,447 422,388 6,071 IT PRODUCTS 4,498 3,145 45 13,829 9,553 137 ISRE 2,566 1,713 25 7,844 6,757 97 RECONCILING ITEMS (29 ) (8 ) (0 ) (4 ) (17 ) (0 ) TOTAL 136,815 151,506 2,149 408,116 438,681 6,305 Segment Result IT Services Business Units BFSI 6,777 9,095 131 18,293 24,182 348 HEALTH 2,360 1,973 28 7,798 6,698 96 CBU 3,496 5,291 76 9,676 12,112 174 ENU (1,164 ) 3,613 52 5,810 4,294 62 TECH 3,740 4,177 60 10,963 12,885 185 MFG 1,937 2,391 34 5,268 6,065 87 COMM 1,330 1,578 23 3,985 3,411 49 UNALLOCATED 830 976 14 2,167 1,981 28 OTHER OPERATING INCOME - - - - 2,798 40 TOTAL IT SERVICES 19,306 29,094 418 63,960 74,426 1,070 IT PRODUCTS 195 212 3 314 (954 ) (14 ) ISRE 284 (686 ) (10 ) 330 (1,054 ) (15 ) RECONCILING ITEMS (10 ) 48 1 305 172 2 TOTAL 19,775 28,668 412 64,909 72,590 1,043 FINANCE EXPENSE (1,231 ) (1,627 ) (23 ) (4,266 ) (4,845 ) (70 ) FINANCE AND OTHER INCOME 6,160 5,362 77 19,196 15,695 226 SHARE OF PROFIT/(LOSS) OF EQUITY ACCOUNTED INVESTEE 10 7 0 14 (26 ) (0 ) PROFIT BEFORE TAX 24,714 32,410 466 79,853 83,414 1,199 INCOME TAX EXPENSE (5,355 ) (6,966 ) (100 ) (17,775 ) (18,178 ) (261 ) PROFIT FOR THE PERIOD 19,359 25,444 366 62,078 65,236 938 Segment result represents operating profits of the segments and dividend income and gains or losses (net) relating to strategic investments, which are presented within "Finance and other income" in the statement of Income. The Company is organized by the following operating segments: IT Services, IT Products and India State Run Enterprises service segment (ISRE). IT Services: The IT Services segment primarily consists of IT Service offerings to customers organized by industry verticals.

Effective April 1, 2018, consequent to change in organization structure, the Company reorganized its industry verticals. The Manufacturing (MFG) and Technology Business unit are split from the former Manufacturing & Technology (MNT) business unit. The revised industry verticals are as follows: Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), Health Business unit (HEALTH) previously known as Health Care and Life Sciences Business unit (HLS), Consumer Business unit (CBU), Energy, Natural Resources & Utilities (ENU), Manufacturing (MFG), Technology (TECH) and Communications (COMM). IT Services segment also includes Others which comprises dividend income relating to strategic investments, which are presented within "Financial and other Income" in the interim condensed consolidated statement of income. Key service offerings to customers includes software application development and maintenance, research and development services for hardware and software design, business application services, analytics, consulting, infrastructure outsourcing services and business process services. Comparative information has been restated to give effect to the above changes. IT Products: The Company is a value added reseller of desktops, servers, notebooks, storage products, networking solutions and packaged software for leading international brands. In certain total outsourcing contracts of the IT Services segment, the Company delivers hardware, software products and other related deliverables. Revenue relating to the above items is reported as revenue from the sale of IT Products. ISRE: India State Run Enterprises represents the business from Public Sector Undertakings and Government in India. Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Constant Currency IT Services Revenue to IT Services Revenue as per IFRS ($MN) Three Months ended December 31, 2018 IT Services Revenue as per IFRS $ 2,046.5 Effect of Foreign currency exchange movement $ 10.3 Non-GAAP Constant Currency IT Services Revenue based on previous quarter exchange rates $ 2,056.8 Three Months ended December 31, 2018 IT Services Revenue as per IFRS $ 2,046.5 Effect of Foreign currency exchange movement $ 38.3 Non-GAAP Constant Currency IT Services Revenue based on exchange rates of comparable period in previous year $ 2,084.8 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005312/en/

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[January 18, 2019] Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP Announces Investor Securities Fraud Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Tenaris S.A.

The law firm of Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP reminds that an investor securities fraud class action lawsuit has been filed against Tenaris S.A. (NYSE: TS) ("Tenaris") on behalf of purchasers of Tenaris securities between May 1, 2014 and November 27, 2018, inclusive (the "Class Period"). Tenaris investors who purchased securities during the Class Period may, no later than February 11, 2019, seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class. Investors who wish to discuss this securities fraud class action lawsuit or request additional information about the lawsuit are encouraged to contact Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check attorneys James Maro, Jr. or Adrienne Bell at (888) 299-7706 or online at: www.ktmc.com/tenaris-securities-class-action. According to the complaint, Tenaris produces and sells seamless and welded steel tubular products and related services for the oil and gas industry and other industrial applications. Tenaris has a significant investment in Ternium S.A. and, as of December 31, 2017, held 11.46% of Ternium's share capital (including treasury shares). Ternium was created in 2005 by the consolidation of Siderar of Argentina, Sidor of Venezuela, and Hylsa of Mexico. In 2008, Venezuela ordered the transformation of Sidor, a Venezuelan steel company, into a state-owned enterprise. On May 7, 2009, Ternium sold its 59.7% stake in Sidor to Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana, a Venezuelan state-owned entity. Ternium agreed to receive $1.97 billion for the sale of its interest. It took several years, from 2009 to 2012, for Terium to receive the money.



The Class Period commences on May 1, 2014. On April 30, 2014, after market hours, Tenaris filed a Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013 with the SEC (News - Alert) , which provided Tenaris' year-end financial results and position. The Form 20-F stated that Tenaris was "committed to conducting business in a legal and ethical manner in compliance with local and international statutory requirements and standards." According to the complaint, on November 27, 2018, Bloomberg (News - Alert) reported that Paolo Rocca, who served as Tenaris' Chairman and Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") throughout the Class Period, was indicted for his role in a graft scheme. Specifically, the article stated that an Argentine judge indicted Mr. Rocca after he testified that one of his company's executives paid an undisclosed amount of cash to government officials in monthly installments from 2009 to 2012 to speed up a compensation payment from Venezuela's Hugo Chavez for the nationalization of Sidor.

Following this news, Tenaris' stock fell $2.64 per share, or nearly 10%, to close at $24.36 per share on November 27, 2018. The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, the defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Tenaris' CEO and Chairman, Paolo Rocca, knew that one of his company's executives paid cash to government officials from 2009 to 2012 to speed up compensation payments for the sale of Sidor; (2) this conduct would lead to Mr. Rocca being charged in a graft scheme, and subject Tenaris, its affiliates, and/or executives to heightened governmental scrutiny; and (3) as a result, Tenaris' public statements were materially false and/or misleading at all relevant times. Tenaris investors may, no later than February 11, 2019, seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, or other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of all class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed as a lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class member's claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check prosecutes class actions in state and federal courts throughout the country involving securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duties and other violations of state and federal law. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check is a driving force behind corporate governance reform, and has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of institutional and individual investors from the United States and around the world. The firm represents investors, consumers and whistleblowers (private citizens who report fraudulent practices against the government and share in the recovery of government dollars). The complaint in this action was not filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check. For more information about Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, please visit www.ktmc.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005017/en/

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[January 18, 2019] REX Homes Launches Services in Portland

REX Homes, the most effective and least expensive way to buy and sell residential real estate, is now open for business in Portland. Now in its fourth year, REX is the only licensed full-service real estate agency to use AI and big data to circumvent the antiquated MLS-listing model to provide a superior outcome for both buyers and sellers, saving them up to 70 percent in fees. REX is able to offer substantially lower fees than other brokers by using data modeling and machine learning to match sellers and buyers of homes as accurately and quickly as possible on Zillow, Google (News - Alert) , Facebook and more. On the sale of a home, REX charges a two percent total fee compared to the traditional agent commission of six percent. It also provides customers unparalleled peace of mind with a 30-day money back guarantee on any home purchase. "We've chosen Portland as our first market in the Pacific Northwest because of its tech-savvy and well-informed consumers," said Jack Ryan, co-founder and CEO of REX Homes. "Consumers want the lower costs, great service and incredible convenience brought about by the technology that has transformed so many other industries. We are seeing a lot of the sellers we work within California moving to the Portland area, so it is a natural next step." From its home base in California, REX has already expanded to Colorado, Texas, New Jersey and New York and, after receiving expansion funding from its investors, has turned to Oregon. ortland is among the most attractive U.S. urban real estate markets with a median listing price of $453,000 for a home, which is now rising by an estimated one percent annually. There are around 7,300 listings in the market with volume increasing by an impressive 33 percent year-over-year.



Unlike traditional brokers, REX licensed agents are salaried and incentivized to satisfy customers rather than to just close transactions in pursuit of a fast commission. Uniquely, REX also simplifies the home transaction process by offering its customers mortgage and insurance services. In 2018, REX increased listings by 300 percent year-on-year, representing homes cumulatively valued at over $1 billion and in the process, saved customers over $12 million in fees they otherwise would have paid traditional brokers.

REX is backed by a who's who of prominent American business investors, including Scott McNealy, co-founder and CEO of Sun Microsystems (News - Alert) , Dick Schulze, founder of Best Buy, Gordon Segal, founder of Crate and Barrel, Amit Singhal, former SVP of search at Google, Diana Nelson, chair of Carlson, Jack Greenberg, former CEO of McDonald's and Muneer Satter, chairman of Satter Investment Management. To list a home with REX, visit: rexhomes.com ABOUT REX: REX is the first licensed residential real estate brokerage that uses AI and big data to circumvent the antiquated MLS listing model to provide dramatically better outcomes and experiences for both buyers and sellers at dramatically lower cost. To find out more about how REX saves consumers money and hassles in what's typically the most stressful transaction of their lives visit rexhomes.com and follow REX on Twitter (News - Alert) @rex_change, Facebook, or Instagram. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005087/en/

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[January 18, 2019] Plant Nanny2 Helps Users Keep Hydrated This New Year With Updated App

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Fourdesire, an innovative mobile design studio, today announced the launch of the second version of their popular mobile app, Plant Nanny. Plant Nanny combines health with fun to remind users to drink water regularly. The cute plant keeps users company every day by living in their phone. Fourdesire, a forward-thinking mobile-app developer, is on a mission to help its users achieve their new year's resolutions to drink water and stay healthy with its updated app, Plant Nanny. The application's gamification features create a rich engaging experience that makes health and self-improvement fun rather than tedious. According to Hackernoon, 81% of American adults own a smartphone and spend about 86 hours per month on their device. Fourdesire acknowledges the importance of smartphones and works to incorporate beneficial mobile apps into people's everyday lives. According to the latest Quench Survey, nearly 80% of working Americans say they don't drink enough water. Fourdesire is positively impacting the lives of people by incorporating the excitement of a mobile game with the action of drinking more water. Water is essential for health but drinking enough of it is also one of the easiest things to neglect. Plant Nanny keeps track of how much water users drink  each glass also waters the app's plant, so both can thrive. The first version of Plant Nanny has received a total of 10 million installations worldwide to help users live healthier and hydrated lives. "It's easy to neglect getting enough water throughout our busy day-to-day lives. It's a good thing people these days love to use their phones. We can use apps to actively promote the issue and remind people about the health benefits of drinking water," said Wu Ying-Jung, Doctor of Philosophy in Food Science andNutrition of National Taiwan University, Taipei (NTU). "People need plenty of water, just like plants. Plant Nanny uses plants as a symbol to remind users that drinking water can be a cute and fun thing to do. In addition to just opening up the app to take care of your plants, the active reminder you receive about your plants' need for water will be linked in your mind with the need to drink enough water in your own life."



Users can expect all the great features that made them install Plant Nanny in the first place, along with various enhancements: Each glass of water users drink also waters the plants, so both can grow and thrive together.

Customizable ways users manage their water consumption goals.

Simple charts and interfaces at a glance.

Sleek new design: blending the fastest game engine with the latest design elements.

Extraordinary interfaces: new user interface incorporates interactive and experimental design.

Vivid animation: elegant animation with beautiful artwork.

Creative artwork: unique, original art designed completely in-house by Fourdesire. Plant Nanny is only available on the Apple App Store (iOS) for free at: http://onelink.to/tgxvcd

The company's CEO, Wei-Fan Chen, hopes to motivate people to live fuller, healthier lives through fun and useful mobile applications. "People start off with many new year resolutions, but they often lack the tools to complete them," said Mr. Chen. "At Fourdesire we strive to create engaging mobile apps that help people better their lives. With Plant Nanny, users will be encouraged to drink water every day and in turn, lead healthier lives." About Fourdesire Founded in 2013, Fourdesire is an app developer with more than 20 million users worldwide. Publications such as Business Insider, Buzzfeed, and The Washington Post have reported on the company's products and developments. The firm has three apps: Plant Nanny, Walkr, and Fortune City, in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. For more information, visit Fourdesire.com. Fourdesire has been creating revolutionary mobile applications since 2013. Plant Nanny won Best App 2013 of the App Store and Fortune City is the winner the winner of the Best App 2017 of Google Play in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, and India. Fourdesire's Walkr mobile application has won Best of 2014 App Store recipient, winner of a "Best of 2015 of Apple Watch App" award along with a couple "Best Indie" app awards in 2015. Media Contact: Cara Huang

207885@email4pr.com

+886 912-988-668 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/plant-nanny2-helps-users-keep-hydrated-this-new-year-with-updated-app-300780224.html SOURCE Fourdesire

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[January 18, 2019] REX Homes Launches Services in Sacramento

REX, the most effective and least expensive way to buy and sell a home, announced today it is open for business in Sacramento. REX is the first licensed residential real estate brokerage to successfully circumvent the antiquated MLS real estate agent model by using AI and big data to provide home buyers and sellers a dramatically better outcome at lower fees. "Sacramento is the natural next step for REX in California after successful launches in Southern California and the Bay Area," said Jack Ryan, co-founder and CEO of REX. "It is the fastest growing big city in the state and an increasingly attractive one, given the affordability of housing." On the sale of a home, REX charges a two percent total fee for its exceptional service compared to the traditional agent commission of six percent. On the purchase of a non-REX home, REX gives a rebate of half of the buyer agent commission, saving buyers thousands of dollars. REX also offers a 30-day money back guarantee to provide customers peace of mind. REX is able to offer low fees by using data modeling and machine learning to match sellers and buyers of homes as accurately and speedily as possible on Zillow, Google, Facebook (News - Alert) and more. Unlike traditional brokers, REX licensed agents are salaried and incentivized to satisfy customers rather than to just closetransactions in pursuit of a fast commission. Uniquely, REX also simplifies the home transaction process by offering its customers escrow, mortgage and insurance services.



Over the last year, REX has expanded to Colorado, Texas, the Bay Area and New Jersey from its roots in Southern California and New York. In 2018, the company increased listings by 300 percent year-on-year, representing homes cumulatively valued at over $1 billion and in the process, saved customers over $12 million in fees they otherwise would have paid traditional brokers. REX is backed by a who's who of American business investors including Scott McNealy, co-founder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems (News - Alert) , Dick Schulze, founder of Best Buy, Gordon Segal, founder of Crate and Barrel, Amit Singhal, former SVP of search at Google, Diana Nelson, chair of Carlson, Jack Greenberg, former CEO of McDonald's and Muneer Satter, chairman of Satter Investment Management.

To list a home with REX, visit: rexhomes.com. ABOUT REX: REX is the first licensed residential real estate brokerage that uses AI and big data to circumvent the antiquated MLS listing model to provide dramatically better outcomes and experiences for both buyers and sellers at dramatically lower costs. To find out more about how REX saves consumers money and hassles in what's typically the most stressful transaction of their lives, visit rexhomes.com and follow REX on Twitter (News - Alert) @rex_change, Facebook, or Instagram. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005084/en/

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Hot Topics Recap: Government Shutdown

Following are the latest Government Shutdown news releases and story ideas for reporters, bloggers and media outlets. These recaps, curated by Business Wire, provide reporters and bloggers around the globe instant access to the latest news releases, providing relevant and trending content to share with their audiences. Discover more news via Business Wire's Hot Topic recaps or create a custom news feed specific to your needs here. This service is provided at no charge to members of the media and financial communities.

ORLANDO, Fla.--IZEA Offers Payment Acceleration to Creators Affected by the Government Shutdown Source (News - Alert) : IZEA Worldwide, Inc.

JERICHO, N.Y.--JFK Travel Plaza's 7-Eleven is Helping Federal Employee's During Partial Governmental Shutdown Source: JFK Travel Plaza

WATERTOWN, Mass.--Sick Over the Government Shutdown? 74% of Primary Care Physicians Report Their Patients Are Affected by It, According to Data from InCrowd Source: InCrowd

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--United for U.S. Coalition Grows Source: United Way Worldwide

SEATTLE--Washington Federal Announces a Quick 90-Day Interest-Free Loan to Help Americans During the Federal Government Shutdown Source: Washington Federal, Inc.

DALLAS--Baron & Budd Accepting Cases from Federal Contractors Who Worked without Pay Source: Baron & Budd, P.C.

NEW YORK--OneMain Financial Extends Relief to Customers Impacted by Government Shutdown with Borrower's Assistance Program Source: OneMain Financial

SAN FRANCISCO--Wells Fargo Supports Customers and Communities During Federal Government Shutdown Source: Wells Fargo (News - Alert) & Company

PITTSBURGH & CHICAGO--Kraft Opens Grocery Store to Support Government Workers Source: The Kraft Heinz Company

LOS ANGELES--In the Midst of the Government Shutdown, Economic Optimism Dips Slightly According to Latest IBD/TIPP Poll Source: Investor's Business Daily

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--Government Shutdown Has No Impact on Romaine Safety as Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement Works Even Harder to Prevent Future Outbreaks Source: California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement

DALLA--Baron & Budd is Accepting Cases for Federal Employees Who Worked During the Shutdown without Being Paid on Time as They May Be Owed Additional Money beyond the Regular Wages Source: Baron & Budd, P.C.







NEW YORK--OneMain Financial Extends Relief to Customers Impacted by Government Shutdown with Borrower's Assistance Program Source: OneMain Financial

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--United Way Worldwide Launches 'United for U.S.' Coalition to Help Those Impacted by Government Shutdown Source: United Way Worldwide

CHARLOTTE, N.C.--Bank of America Contacts Clients Affected by Government Shutdown Source: Bank of America

MINNEAPOLIS--U.S. Bank Launches New Low-Rate, Quick Loan for Customers Needing Assistance During Federal Government Shutdown Source: U.S. Bank

BOSTON--Indigo Ag, Inc. Shares January Corn and Soybean Yield Forecasts for the Americas to Help Global Grower Community Navigate Market During US Government Shutdown Source: Indigo Ag, Inc.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--Iraq War Veteran Pledges to Hire Government Employees, Veterans Affected by Shutdown Source: Two Marines Moving

PHOENIX--APS Announces Bill Assistance for Federal Employees Affected by Shutdown Source: APS

PARKVILLE, Mo.--Park University to Assist U.S. Coast Guard Students During Federal Government Shutdown Source: Park University

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill.--Roadrunner Revises Timing of Rights Offering; Change in Timing Due Entirely to Partial Government Shutdown Source: Roadrunner Transportation Systems, Inc.

CHICAGO--ComEd Reminds Customers of Important Energy Assistance Options Source: ComEd

NEW YORK--KBRA Releases Report: Federal Shutdown Opens the Door to Greater Fiscal Risk for Municipalities Source: Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA)

FORT WORTH, Texas--First Command Will Cover Coast Guard Pay During Government Shutdown Source: First Command Financial Services, Inc.

VIENNA, Va.--Navy Federal Extends Paycheck Relief to Those Affected by Government Shutdown Source: Navy Federal Credit Union

FORT WORTH, Texas--First Command Will Cover Federal Pay During Government Shutdown Source: First Command Financial Services, Inc.

NEW YORK--Chase to Assist Federal Employees Affected by Government Shutdown Source: Chase

RESTON, Va.--Access National Bank Offers Support to Businesses Affected by Potential Government Shutdown or Disruption Source: Access National Bank

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South Africa: Forum to address health challenges in mining communities

The North West Health Department, together with mining houses that operate hospitals in Bojanala District, have established a Health Forum to attend to healthcare challenges in mining communities.

This emerged during a meeting called by Health MEC Madoda Sambatha in Rustenburg on Thursday.

The meeting was attended by representatives from Impala, Royal Bafokeng Administration, Sibanye Still Water, the Mineral Council and Standard Bank.

The Health Forum will work out a proper cooperation amongst ourselves to intervene in the challenges we are faced with, especially the availability of beds.

The reality is the mines are concerned with the health of their employees and the public health system has to cater for their dependents, said Sambatha.

The meeting was convened to discuss how mining houses can assist to ensure availability of beds to accommodate all patients.

Job Shimankane Tabane Hospital (JST) in Rustenburg is overburdened as a result of the growing population in Rustenburg due to mining related opportunities.

We need to find a solution to relieve the pressure from JST Hospital with available beds in mining hospitals, said the MEC.

There are three mine hospitals in Rustenburg with a total of 472 hospital beds.

Dr. Kebalepile Mokgethi, Acting Group Chief Operating Officer of Royal Bafokeng Administration, welcomed the initiative taken by Sambatha to meet with stakeholders in mining.

We are open to working with the Department of Health to deliver healthcare services for all. Royal Bafokeng commits to building an academic hospital in Phokeng, said Mokgethi.

Sambatha welcomed the commitment made by the Royal Bafokeng Administration.

The commitment by Royal Bafokeng Adminstration to build an academic hospital is good news for the province.

It is important for all mining companies to work with government to improve the health status of people of this province, he said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
[January 18, 2019] nFusz to Launch In-App Video Template Marketplace and Content Creator Ecosystem

HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- nFusz, Inc. (OTCQB: FUSZ ), a leader in business-focused interactive video, and the pioneer of Augmented Sales Intelligence software, announces today that it has begun implementation of an expansive video eco-system platform where video content creators can sell, and nFusz users can buy, sales and marketing template videos to which users can add nFusz trackable, interactive, clickable tags.

Access to the in-app marketplace will be free to browse, but use of the videos will be on a paid subscription basis. nFusz will share revenue from the sales of the videos with the content creators whose videos are accepted into the marketplace after a quick review and approval process. nFusz plans to make the video template marketplace available in most nFusz interactive video applications. nFusz expects to have over 750,000 template videos available for sale in the marketplace at launch during the second quarter of 2019, providing users the high-quality video content they need to boost their sales and marketing initiatives.



nFusz application subscribers will be able to download marketplace videos directly to their nFusz video manager and simply, easily and intuitively add their choice of numerous trackable, interactive, clickable video tags. The initial release will include video content oriented towards education, healthcare, direct sales, financial services, and much more. Video is no longer optional  it has become a requirement  table stakes  for any sales or marketing initiative. But many companies do not have high quality sales or product videos to which they can add our interactive video tags, and many people are not comfotable being on camera creating their own sales and marketing videos, stated Rory J. Cutaia , CEO of nFusz. As we scale our business we look to identify all points of friction and eliminate them. Our upcoming video marketplace not only eliminates these friction points, but it also creates an entirely new and potentially very large revenue stream for our company. This is among the many ways we intend to increase shareholder value throughout 2019 and beyond. Its going to be a very exciting year for nFusz stockholders.



About nFusz

nFusz, Inc. (OTCQB: FUSZ) is a recognized leader in business-focused interactive video and the pioneer of Augmented Sales Intelligence software. The companys flagship product, notifiCRM, is the first interactive video-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that allows anyone to create, distribute, post, track, and measure interactive videos that increase engagement and conversion rates by up to 600 percent. Video viewers can respond to one or more calls to action by clicking within a video while its playing  and no download is required. nFusz products are cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), available by subscription for individual and enterprise users, and accessible on all mobile and desktop devices. The companys newest products, also based on its interactive video technology platform, include notifiMED, for the healthcare industry, notifiEDU, for the education industry, and notifiNGO, for non-profit organizations. For more information, please visit: www.nFusz.com

CONTACT INFORMATION

Please address media inquiries to: info@nFusz.com

855.250.2300, extension 7 Please address investor inquiries to: investors@nFusz.com

855.250.2300, extension 2 Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements

This press release may contain "forward-looking" information within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In accordance with the safe harbor provisions of this Act, statements contained herein that look forward in time that include everything other than historical information, involve risks and uncertainties that may affect the Company's actual results. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and there are a number of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by the Company, including, but not limited to, plans and objectives of management for future operations or products, the market acceptance or future success of our products, and our future financial performance. The Company cautions that these forward-looking statements are further qualified by other factors including, but not limited to, those set forth in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017, and other filings with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (available at www.sec.gov). The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any statements in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

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[January 18, 2019] CPI Aerostructures to Participate at the Noble Financial Capital Markets' Fifteenth Annual Investor Conference

EDGEWOOD, N.Y., Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CPI Aerostructures, Inc. (CPI Aero or the Company) (NYSE American: CVU) today announced that management is scheduled to present at NobleConXV - Noble Capital Markets Fifteenth Annual Investor Conference at the W Hotel, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Monday, January 28, 2019 at 3:00 PM ET. Management will also hold one-on-one meetings with investors throughout the day.

Investors will be able to download management's PowerPoint presentation and access a high-definition, video webcast of the presentation the following day via the Event Calendar section of CPI Aero's corporate website . The webcast will be archived on the company's website, the NobleCon website and on Channelchek.com for 90 days following the event. About CPI Aero CPI Aero is a U.S. manufacturer of structural assmblies for fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and airborne Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance pod systems in both the commercial aerospace and national security markets. Within the global aerostructure supply chain, CPI Aero is either a Tier 1 supplier to aircraft OEMs or a Tier 2 subcontractor to major Tier 1 manufacturers. CPI also is a prime contractor to the U.S. Department of Defense, primarily the Air Force. In conjunction with its assembly operations, CPI Aero provides engineering, program management, supply chain management, and MRO services. CPI Aero is included in the Russell Microcap Index.



The above statements include forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, which are described from time to time in CPI Aero's SEC reports, including CPI Aero's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, and Form 10-Q for the three-month periods ended March 31, 2018, June 30, 2018 and September 30, 2018. CPI Aero is a registered trademark of CPI Aerostructures, Inc. For more information, visit www.cpiaero.com, and follow us on Twitter @CPIAERO. Contact: Vincent Palazzolo

Chief Financial Officer

CPI Aero

(631) 586-5200

www.cpiaero.com Investor Relations Counsel:

LHA

Sanjay M. Hurry/Jody Burfening

(212) 838-3777

cpiaero@lhai.com

www.lhai.com



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[January 18, 2019] Gopher Protocol Implements Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) Within Avant! AI System

Designed to Significantly Improve AI Processing Speeds and Capabilities

San Diego, CA, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Gopher Protocol Inc. (OTCQB: GOPH) ("Gopher), a company specializing in the development of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence enabled mobile technologies, including a global mesh network technology platform for both mobile and fixed solutions, announced today it is implementing distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) methodologies within its Avant! AI system. Gopher Protocol has completed its distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) working model for its Avant! AI system and is now in the implementation stage. The implementation of DAI will be a key block to enable dynamic learning, planning, and fast decision making. It will also enable greater computation power and spatial distribution of Avant! computing resources. This system is planned to coordinate and synchronize between Avant! mobile app and its web application. Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) is a predecessor of the field of Multi-Agent Systems and is typically used for self-organized systems. Avant! DAI system is targeted to include interacting intelligent agents in order to solve problems that are highly difficult for an individual agent to solve. Gopher is scheduled to test its DAI system in mid-May 2019. Danny Rittman, Ph.D., Gophers Chief Technology Officer, stated, "This type of technology is important in order to enable Avant!'s parallel processing when necessary. In multi-user environment, a large scale computation and resources distribution is needed in order to provide vast solutions and answers. Avant! DAI is a smart system and will be activated only when needed in certain situations. We completed Avant!'s DAI working model, which we believe to be robust and elastic. It is built to be adaptive to problems and information. Avant! DAI objectives are to enable vast computing power, when necessary, and to assist with reasoning, planning, learning and perception topics, particularly with very large data, by distributing the data to its autonomous processing agents. Another key advantage of Avant! DAI is to be able to provide information redundacy in case of system's nodes overload."



The implementation of DAI is a key component to enable dynamic learning, planning, and fast decision making. It will also enable greater computation power by exploiting the spatial distribution of Avant! computing resources to solve problems over integrated communication among processing nodes. This infrastructure also enables synchronization between the Avant! mobile app and its web application. DAI is a predecessor of the field of Multi-Agent Systems and is typically used for self-organized systems. Avant!s DAI system is targeted to include interacting intelligent agents in order to solve problems that are highly difficult for an individual agent to solve. Dr. Rittman added, "This technology is important in order to enable Avant!'s parallel processing when necessary. In multi-user environment, a large-scale computation and resources distribution is needed in order to provide vast solutions and answers. Avant! DAI is a smart system and will be activated only when needed in certain situations. Avant! DAI system is a robust and elastic and built to be adaptive to problems or information. Avant! DAI objectives are to unlock the vast computing power of a collective network of processors and to assist with reasoning, planning, learning and perception topics, particularly with very large data sets. Another key advantage of Avant! DAI is to be able to provide information redundancy in case of system's nodes overload."

About Gopher Protocol Inc. Gopher Protocol Inc. (OTCQB: GOPH) (Gopher) (http://gopherprotocol.com/) is a development-stage company which considers itself a native IoT creator, developing Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled mobile technology platforms. Gopher has a portfolio of Intellectual Property that, when commercialized, will include smart microchips, mobile and security applications and protocols, and supporting cloud software. Gophers system envisions the creation of a global mesh network. The core of the system will be its advanced microchip technology that can be installed in any mobile or fixed device worldwide. Gopher envisions this system as a low-cost, secure, private mesh network between any enabled devices, providing shared processing, advanced mobile database management/sharing and enhanced mobile features as an alternative to traditional carrier services. https://www.avant-ai.net Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission located at their website (http://www.sec.gov). In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, governmental and public policy changes, the Companys ability to raise capital on acceptable terms, if at all, the Companys successful development of its products and the integration into its existing products and the commercial acceptance of the Companys products. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Contact: Dr. Danny Rittman, CTO Gopher Protocol Inc. VM Only 888-685-7336 Media: press@gopherprotocol.com

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[January 18, 2019] Manjula Nair, a Leading Marketer all set to Bring Affordable and Effective Marketing Solutions for Individuals and Organisations

PUNE, India, January 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Real Buz Zone, an Indian marketing organization announces the addition of four new services to their leading marketing service provider firm The Real Buz Zone is an eminent Indian marketing firm with the spread across the globe. With the determination and dedication to work with real process and advanced strategies, the Real Buz Zone assists the client's business with the effective and real results. The firm serves their clients with various growth services like digital marketing services, branding, web development, and app development which earned them the global clientele and reputation. With the recent announcement made by Manjula Nair about venturing into three new services, and expanding their marketing organization made many heads turn. Manjula Nair is the founder of Real Buz Zone recently announced the addition of new services to their marketing services. Addressing the fact in detail she stated, "To offer trustworthy, high quality and affordable digital marketing services, which deliver the tangible results and help the newbies in the market to scale to their highest potential we proffer various services, and today we are extending our range of services with three more services in the array namely leadership profiling, sales and pre-sales training and Public relations." Further explaining about the latest marketing services and their plans about benefitting startups she says, "We are venturing into the Leadership profiling, sales and pre-sales training, and public relations for the startups and small businesses. These new services may benefit individuals at different levels in marketing industry." The briefs of the Real Buz Zone's latest services are Leadership Profiling - The leadership profiling service will enable the customers to sustain their leaders hip position, assist them to buil an individual profiling and branding that will make them visible and start out. This service is for C - Levels & leaders aspiring to reach the C level, within large scale, mid-scale and startups Industries .

. Sales and Pre-S ales training - Sales and pre-sales training will involve the development of skills and techniques that will help the startups and explore the new opportunities and grow accordingly with the market standards and is for large scale, mid-scale, and startups.

Public Relations - The Public Relations services are most focused to providing the efficient and effective yet affordable solution for SMEs and startups. The firm now provides the PR reach to India media houses and US too. US specially for Indian Companies wanting to do business in US market.

Digital marketing now become most affordable for professional services like Doctors, Lawyers, Corporate Trainers, Mentors, and also to the micro businesses or hobby based professions like Daycare Preschools, Small Restaurants, Fashion Designers, Chefs, Caterers, Bakers, and others. Get starter pack @7500/- per month.



About Real Buz Zone:

Inspired by making marketing more affordable to SME, Startup community, Real Buz Zone was started on 15 August 2015. The company aims to assist Start-Ups, SMEs & Micro Businesses with effective 'Go to Market' strategy. It also helps organizations with end-to-end consulting to enable them in creating a mark in the targeted market space. The company's team operates as Consultants engaging with clients as their own Branding & Marketing function, providing services within the space of Brand Consulting, Digital, Public Relations & Content marketing Services. The company's Consulting-to-Solutions expertise help companies engage with angel funders & Venture Capitalists and gear-up to take over the market. Manjula Nair, founder of Real Buz Zone and an awarded marketing professional with more than 20 years of experience in marketing and communication led the functions like handling corporate crisis management in major MNCs like Satyam Computers (BPO). She formed Real Buz Zone with a vision to make the process of digital marketing easy and affordable. Awards 'Women Chief Marketing Officer of the Year 2016' by Indian Women Empowerment & Leadership Summit

'Most talented Marketing professional Award' @Corporate Excellence Awards 2014 of World Marketing Congress

Nominated for Nari Shakti Award 2019. (Scheduled on 8th March) The motive behind the addition of the new services called leadership profiling, Sales and pre-sales training, Public relations, affordable digital marketing services is to provide organizations and individual professionals an enhanced support to flare up in the market. To know more details about the Real Buz Zone and its services visit http://www.realbuzzone.com/ Reach us on Marketing@realbuzzone.com Media Contact:

Anshita

marketing@realbuzzone.com

+91-8999932700

PR lead, Real Buz Zone





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[January 18, 2019] BitDeer.com Experiences Massive Growth With Over 50,000 Daily Average Users

SINGAPORE, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- BitDeer.com, the world's leading computing power-sharing platform is announcing the launch of its Russian site on Jan. 18, 2019, alongside the partnership with the largest crypto exchange in Russia and the number one exchange in Eastern Europe - EXMO. The new partnership enables BitDeer.com and EXMO to provide new users the opportunity to participate in the mining of cryptocurrency without the need for technical acumen or investing largely into server infrastructure. In addition, both companies will help with the popularization of the time-honored tradition of mining. Both parties will actively participate in the development of the cryptocurrency market, and explore further cooperation in offering the public different payment models as well as collaborative customized product offerings. Celine Lu, CEO of BitDeer.com, believes that launching the platform's Russian site and the new partnership with Russia's largest crypto exchange is a significant milestone for BitDeer.com's new venture in Eastern Europe. "Officially launched one month ago, BitDeer.com has gained immense popularity amongst the Russian-speaking cryptocurrency community, covered by various blockchain media outlets and YouTube mining influencers. Currently, about one-third of our users are from Russian-speaking mining communities. Through the new partnership with the region's largest crypto exchange and the launch of a localized website, BitDeer.com has geared up to bring the best service to local as well as global individual miners." EXMO announced this new partnership with a banner on its website on Dec. 29, 2018, and immediately shared the news throughout community channels. "EXMO identifies a reliable, transparent and convenient computing power-sharing platform like BitDeer.com as a valued business partner. We are excited about the forthcoming customized product offerings for our users," said Sergey Zhdanov, CEO of EXMO. BitDeer.com and EXMO will also join forces together to provide an easier and more simplified solution to payment processing to better serve the global crypto community. BitDeer.com Achieved Explosie Global Growth after Launch



Even within the trenches of the crypto bear market, BitDeer.com has achieved explosive growth with website traffic surpassing 1.2 million visits and over 50,000 daily active users. The leading computing power-sharing platform now has customers from over 165 countries, and more than 40 percent of purchase orders were placed by users originating from the U.S. Here are more interesting statistics about BitDeer.com:

Website traffic of BitDeer.com has more than 1.2 million visits

The platform has over 50,000 daily active users

BitDeer.com now has customers from 165 countries all over the world

The highest single purchase order on BitDeer.com is over $150,000

Current user satisfaction rate is 97 percent

Repeat purchase rate is averaging 71 percent

The 360-day plan accounts for 58 percent of total orders placed

40 percent of purchase orders were placed by users from the U.S. Completely selling out all current short-term plans, BitDeer.com is now offering several mid to long-term plans, among which many are taking pre-sale orders due to the huge demand. Diverse Product Offerings and Competitive Pricing In order to satisfy the ever-growing demands from customers, BitDeer.com has deployed more than one-hundred-thousand high-performance mining hardware, ready to fire them up for the upcoming pre-sale orders. In addition to its original S9 plans, the platform has launched 11th-generation miner plans and 15th-generation miner plans. The 15th-generation plans based on the high-performance S15 and T15 mining hardware are considered to be one of the most efficient product offerings in the market. The price of $0.0283/T/day and maintenance fee of $0.1/T/day results in higher mining results at a lower price. According to the computing power and mining difficulty data from BTC.com on Jan. 15, combined with the current Bitcoin price, outputs of $0.1523/T/day would be possible. Since BitDeer.com is offering plans with flexible terms and more discounts on higher computing power purchase, users can experience the opportunity to pocket greater rewards. CPS Plan BitDeer.com is now presenting an exciting opportunity for affiliate marketers to join the platform's Cost-Per-Sale (CPS) Program. Interested parties should contact contact@bitdeer.com for more details. About BitDeer.com BitDeer.com is the world's leading computing power-sharing platform, enabling global users to mine cryptocurrencies in a transparent, reliable and convenient way. It saves users from the complicated process of purchasing, installing, and hosting mining machines. Individual miners can enjoy the service with just one click. For more information, please visit https://www.BitDeer.com or connect on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and VK. About EXMO Founded in 2013 with offices in London, Kiev, Barcelona, and Moscow, EXMO is number one exchange in Eastern Europe considered to be one of the world's largest global exchanges in volume and liquidity. Currently, the exchange has over 1.5 million users, hundreds of thousands of active traders, 315,000 daily visitors, 87 trading pairs, and 6 fiat currencies (USD, EUR, RUB, PLN, UAH, TRY). For more information, please visit https://exmo.com. Media Contact Stephen Ip

MagicFew

Email: steve@magicfew.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bitdeercom-experiences-massive-growth-with-over-50-000-daily-average-users-300780731.html SOURCE BitDeer.com

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[January 17, 2019] PharmaHopers Explains How to Earn Profit in Pharma Franchise Business

PANCHKULA, India, January 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Pharmaceutical Industry is growing at the moderate pace of 7-9% over FY2018 to FY2021. The growth trajectory of 2018 was a better year than 2017 when GST had a major impact on Pharma business. Well-run small cap pharma companies with good franchises emerged as a pleasant surprise in the year 2018. Many new pharma professionals are entering the pharmaceutical industry with the vision to earn the profit and PCD Pharma Franchise provide ground level access business opportunities that can produce tremendous wealth if everything went in the right direction. PharmaHopers 'B2B Pharmaceutical Business Portal' suggests that by understanding the landscape, it becomes easy to choose where to invest. Healthcare sector will always grow with the rising population of aging people, increase in the economy, awareness of people, changing lifestyle, etc. Pharma Franchise business acts as a bridge between the pharmaceutical companies and patients, thus, growth of the pharmaceutical industry means the growth of Pharma Franchise business. Both pharma companies and their business partners are looking for new ways to earn more. Some of the most common methods which pharma companies opt for a successful business are: Advertising - Nothing can beat the well-planned and executed advertisement. If a company wants to grow and earn more, it needs to pay good attention to the advertisement. It is important to know the target audience. Good advertisement not only creates brand awarenes and value, but it also directly affects the sales of both manufacturers and franchises. Pharma Companies mostly provide the promotional support to its franchise partners.



Marketing - Along with the right advertisement it is important to back it up with the good marketing strategies and plan. Mike Volpe once said, "Don't be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing." This will help the marketing managers of the manufacturer or prime seller need to guide the franchise units in the right way and eventually help with the sales. Expansion - Like James Cash Penney, Founder, JC Penney said, "No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow, if it doesn't." To earn more in the pharmaceutical sector, expansion of business is required. With the steady growth of a business, it is good to think about expanding it. Both medicine manufacturer and the franchise holders should think about growing together and to reach out to more. This will eventually help both parties to earn more from their expanded business.

Other Ways to Earn More in Pharma Franchise Business The Pharma Professionals who are planning to take PCD Pharma or Monopoly Pharma Franchise from the Pharma Companies need to pay good attention towards the process of selecting the right company for their business investment. Here are some key points which pharma professionals should take into consideration for better growth and profit: Choose the Pharma Company which provides the medicine one wants to deal in

Most of the companies provide free of cost promotional support which will reduce the advertisement cost.

Look for the unique and beneficial monopoly rights

Compare the product price list of the selected company with other pharma companies

Check on the profit margin on the products

Know the market demand and work accordingly.

These are basics to earn more in Pharma Franchise Business. It is a business that needs proper maintenance. Having one's own Pharma Franchise is a lucrative and satisfying business option these days. About PharmaHopers PharmaHopers is an online marketplace for Pharmaceutical Companies and pharma professionals. This B2B (Business to Business) portal has more than 250 plus pharma companies registered on it which deals in PCD Pharma Franchise and Pharma Manufacturing. With the motive to bring both Pharma Companies and pharma professionals on the same platform for business, PharmaHopers is providing business opportunities to importers, exporters, manufacturers, traders, distributors and wholesalers. Media Contact:

Sidharth Kaistha

info@pharmahopers.com

+91-9056855559

WebHopers Infotech Pvt. Ltd.



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[January 17, 2019] 5G Technology Market 2018 Global Share, Trend, Segmentation and Forecast to 2023

Market Highlights: The global 5G technology market is expected to be highly competitive owing to the presence of a large number of small and big domestic and global players who are marking their presence in the 5G technology market. Rapid advancements in technology in the field of sensors and semiconductors are all expected to drive the growth of 5G technology market. Steep increase in the development of 5G infrastructure is another major factor contributing to the growth of 5G technology market.







5G is the up-coming fifth-generation wireless broadband technology which is based on the IEEE 802.11ac standard. 5G connectivity is going to provide better speeds and coverage than other connectivity. The technology operates with a 5 GHz signal and offers a speed up to 1GB per second. The signal technology also provides better coverage and signaling efficiency. The 5G technology is expected to launch by 2020.



The factors contributing to the growth of the 5G technology are the shift toward new broadband technology, growing demand for high data speed, huge network coverage, and stable growth in the mobile data traffic, increasing demand for machine-to- machine communication in organizations and the increasing demand for broadband services over other mobile networks. The continuous demand from subscribers for better mobile broadband experiences is encouraging the growth of the 5G technology market. The market is expected to grow at a fast pace in 2020.





Request a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2988 Major Key Players  Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (China),  Nokia Networks (Finland),  NEC Corporation (Japan),  Ericsson (Sweden),  Qualcomm (U.S.),  Verizon Fios (U.S.),  Orange (France),  Broadcom Corporation (U.S.),  Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) (Russia),  AT&T Inc. (U.S.)  Cisco Systems, Inc (U.S.) Telstra (Australia), TeliaSonera (Sweden), Telefonica (Spain), Vodafone Group (U.K.), Singtel (Singapore), China Unicom (China), and Deutsche Telekom (Germany) among other are some of the prominent players profiled in MRFR Analysis and are at the forefront of competition in the Global 5G Technology Market.



Other players in the market include China Mobile (China), Korea Telecom (South Korea), Nokia Networks (Finland), Samsung (South Korea), Turkcell (Turkey), SoftBank (Japan), NEC Corporation (Japan), Huawei (China), Verizon (U.S.), AT&T (U.S.), T-Mobile USA, Inc., LG (South Korea), and China Mobile (China).



According to MRFR, The global 5G Technology Market is expected to reach approximately USD 73 million by the end of 2023 with 21% CAGR during forecast period 2017-2023.



Industry/ Innovation/ Related News: December 21, 2018  Nokia Corporation (Finland), a multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics company and Ooredoo QSC (Qatar), an international telecommunications company announced their collaboration to set up the first 5G-ready Technology Centre in Myanmar.



The Nokia Technology Centre is equipped with end-to-end radio, any haul transport, and a core network solution supporting the latest 5G technology in addition to 4G/3G/2G.



Competitive Analysis The highly competitive global 5G Technology market appears to be fragmented characterized by the well-established players with their strong presence in the international market adorn alongside the small-scale players and new entrants forming a competitive landscape in the market.



Key players operating in the market are investing substantially in transforming the consumer and business landscape in the future. Matured players incorporate strategic initiatives such as collaboration, partnership, acquisition, product & technology launch, and expansion to gain a competitive edge staying ahead in this market.



Regional Analysis North America region dominates the global 5G technology market with the largest share owing to the increasing number of subscribers and assessment of the allocation of 5G frequencies by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Moreover, the rise in application areas of this technology coupled with its large-scale adoption in telecommunications is driving the market in this region. The US leads the regional market, backed by the high per capita income.



The 5G technology market in the European region is flourishing mainly due to the proliferation of smartphones led by the resurging economy in the region. Also, the growing investments in the development of technology are paying off well driving the growth of the regional market. Also, the presence of prominent players and the investments made by them in R&D activities, in turn, foster the growth of the market to an extent.



The Asia Pacific region is growing steadily, emerging as a promising market. Factors such as the technical expertise rendered by the existing key players coupled with increased industrialization are driving the growth of the regional market. Moreover, the rising demand for technology in emerging countries such as China, Taiwan, and India is propelling the 5G technology market in the APAC. Also, factors such as large consumer base and ongoing initiatives and developments on 5G technology act as a tailwind pushing the growth of the regional market.



Browse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/5g-technology-market-2988 Intended Audience:  Device manufacturers  Network Operators  Distributors  Suppliers  Research firms  Software Developers  Commercial Banks  Vendors  Semiconductor Manufacturers  End-user sectors  Technology Investors LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY USABILITY TABLE 2 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY TECHNOLOGY TABLE 3 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY APPLICATION TABLE 4 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY GEOGRAPHY TABLE 5 NORTH AMERICA 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY USABILITY TABLE 6 NORTH AMERICA 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY TECHNOLOGY TABLE 7 NORTH AMERICA 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY TECHNOLOGY TABLE 8 U.S 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY USABILITY TABLE 9 U.S. 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY TECHNOLOGY Continued...



LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY FIGURE 2 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY USABILITY (%) FIGURE 3 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY TECHNOLOGY (%) FIGURE 4 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY APPLICATION (%) FIGURE 5 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY REGIONS (%) FIGURE 6 NORTH AMERICA 5G TECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY USABILITY (%) Continued.



For More Information Visit @ https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/5g-technology-market-2018-global-industry-analysis-by-size-share-growth-factors-competitive-landscape-with-regional-forecast-to-2023-2018-12-14 https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/5g-technology-market-2019-share-size-key-company-recent-trends-segmentation-and-regional-forecast-till-2023-2019-01-08 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.



MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.



Contact: Market Research Future +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com As a community-building service, TMCnet allows user submitted content which is not always proofed by TMCnet editors. If you feel this entry is of inferior quality or wish to report it for some reason, please forward the URL to "webedit [AT] tmcnet [DOT] com" with your comments.

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A Navy sailor originally from Dutchess County was among the three Americans killed when a suicide bomber triggered a an explosion Wednesday in northern Syria, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported.

Chief Cryptologic Technician Shannon M. Kent, 35, was an honor student at Pine Plains Central Schools District.

"She graduated in 2001," said Tara Grieb, Stissing Mountain Junior and Senior High School principal. "We are proud of her and her service. We support her family 100 percent."

The Pentagon's statement said Kent was from upstate New York but didn't give a hometown. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Friday that she was from Pine Plains and was the daughter of State Police field commander Col. Stephen Smith, the agency's third-highest position.

"We owe her our eternal gratitude for her selfless dedication and sacrifice," Cuomo said while ordering flags on state government buildings to be flown at half-staff in Kent's honor.

Kent, who lived in Maryland with her husband and two children, was assigned to the Cryptologic Warfare Activity 66 based at Fort George Meade.

According to Stars and Stripes, Kent was the first female U.S. service member killed in action in the four-year-old American-led campaign against ISIS.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the morning attack, which local groups said killed 16 people in the U.S.-patrolled town of Manbij.

The claim calls into question Trump's claim that IS has been defeated in Syria  his stated reason for pulling 2,000 American troops out of the country.

"We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency," Trump tweeted in December in announcing his intention to bring back U.S. troops "NOW."

Kent was one of two members of the military to die in the attack.

Dutchess County Executive and former gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro shared a statement about the death on Twitter.

"May her light shine on through her friends and loved ones, and may her family find peace during this difficult time. Dutchess County will long remember Shannon's service to our nation and her ultimate sacrifice."

The others killed were Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida, who was based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; and a civilian, Scott A. Wirtz, from St. Louis.

An Associated Press report was included in this article.
HOOSICK FALLS  A second man has been arrested in a Hoosick Falls burglary that involved stolen weapons, jewelry and tattoo equipment.

Hoosick Falls Police arrested 22-year-old Dylan Gibson, of County Route 68 in Eagle Bridge, and charged him with four felony counts of criminal possession of stolen property.
ALBANY  Albany High School has been removed from the state Education Department's receivership list, while two elementary schools in the district were flagged for the list, based on a new federally mandated performance rating rubric that went into effect this fall.

After two years on the receivership list, Albany High School met 100 percent of the metrics to be marked in "good standing," including bringing its graduation rate up from 50 percent in 2010 to 65 percent in 2017, according to Albany schools Superintendent Kaweeda G. Adams.

She attributed the turnaround to targeted data-based interventions, reinforcing English Language Learner services, additional staff training, and investment in social services.

Capital Region school receivership update Low performing schools are placed in state receivership by the state Education Department. After two years on the list, they risk being taken over by the state. Placed in receivership: Giffen Memorial Elementary, Albany Sheridan Preparatory Academy, Albany Keane Elementary, Schenectady Remaining in receivership: P.S. 2, Troy Removed from receivership: Albany High School Source: New York State Education Department See More Collapse

"A lot of our students come with problems from the community... we work very hard to create that family and community engagement," Adams said.

Receivership schools are granted two years to improve outcomes or they risk state takeover.

The district has seen strides in performance across the board, school administrators say. Albany has nine schools in good standing, the most the district has had since 2010.

Adams acknowledged challenges with two elementary schools marked for receivership, Sheridan Preparatory Academy and Giffen Memorial Elementary.

The district has absorbed an influx of about 1,000 refugee and immigrant students in the last five years, which may have played a role in performance levels, noted Ron Lesko, director of communications at City School District of Albany.

"Albany has historically been a sanctuary city," he said. "We have 57 different languages that are spoken in our schools. But we have also seen some strong gains in our ELL students. We have focused a lot of resources to serve immigrant and refugee students."

In Schenectady, Keane Elementary was also identified for receivership, while a fourth school, Troy's P.S. 2, remains on the list from last year.

The new evaluation formula is based on the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act, which was passed by Congress in 2015, and was intended to diversify the criteria for evaluating school performance.

Under the state's previous performance rating system, math and English standardized tests were the main determinant of a school's grade.

In addition to academic performance, the new formula accounts for student growth and school progress, the progress of English language learners, chronic absenteeism, and for high schools, graduation rates and preparing students for college.

NYSED has also embraced new terminology, instead of marking struggling schools with "focus" and "priority" labels, the categories have become "targeted support and improvement" (TSI) and "comprehensive support and improvement" (CSI) for schools that fare more poorly.

The state uses the metric to identify its lowest-performing schools and those with exceptionally poor graduation rates. Those schools will be subject to evidence-based interventions designed by their district to turn them around.
ALBANY  The change demanded by New Yorkers at the ballot box is unfolding fast.

In November's "blue wave" election, voters purged more than a quarter of the state Senate and handed Democrats control of the Legislature, effectively bringing Albany's era of gridlock and dysfunction to an end.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, frequently paints New York as a liberal beacon, but due to the GOP's stronghold in the Senate, California has historically led the charge on issues like marijuana decriminalization, gun control, environmental protections and LGBTQ rights.

But judging from the pace of the 2019 legislative session, in many ways, life in New York may mirror the Golden State by year end.

In two days of the session this month, the Democratic Legislature overhauled New York's arcane electoral system, making it exponentially easier to vote, closed a campaign finance loophole and passed historic equality measures for the LGBTQ community.

Cuomo this week unveiled an executive budget that, he hopes, will leave California in the dust.

"I believe we can have the most productive first 100 days in state history," he said in his budget address. "The time for talking is over. It is the time for doing."

From a proposed plastic bag ban, to legalizing marijuana, here are eight ways daily life in New York is about to change:

E-bikes and scooters

New York City is looking to legalize electric bikes and scooters, jumping on a fad that has stormed West Coast cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, but the vehicles remain illegal in New York.

Cuomo signaled support for the idea in his 2019-2020 budget proposal, introducing legislation that allows municipalities to approve the use of the e-bikes and scooters.

E-scooter companies like Lime and Bird  which have dominated the California market  are paying attention.

"Gov. Cuomo's push to take advantage of the micro-mobility revolution will help make New York a state where residents can easily commute, run errands and enjoy their communities regardless of their zip code, bank account or background," Phil Jones, Lime's senior director for the East Coast, said in a statement.

Marijuana legalization

Weed dispensaries may soon be as common as Dunkin' Donuts franchises in the Empire State.

As states bordering New York move towards legalization, New York's governor, who previously saw the recreational marijuana as a "gateway drug," has taken a 180-degree turn on the issue.

Cuomo's proposal, announced Tuesday, which would restrict access to those under 21, and set a process to review whether to seal a person's conviction for certain marijuana offenses. It is projected to generate about $300 million in new tax revenues annually when fully implemented, he said.

While the proposed plan does not allow New Yorkers to grow their own marijuana for recreational use  and notes law enforcement would still investigate and file charges in those cases  it allows home growing for medical use.

There is some debate over where the revenue should be directed, but there seems to be support for communities of color, which have been disproportionately targeted by law enforcement agencies, benefiting from cannabis-related business opportunities or receipt of the revenues.

"Let's create an industry that empowers the poor communities that pay the price and not the rich corporations who come in to make a profit," Cuomo said in his budget address.

Criminal justice reform

On a related note, New York's criminal justice system, which has had a disparate impact on minority communities, is expected to see an overhaul this session.

Measures on the table include bail reform, speedy trial improvements, pre-trial discovery reform and prompt access to legal counsel. The measures were proposed in last year's executive budget but apparently did not move forward due to Republican control of the Senate.

California implemented sweeping criminal justice reforms in 2018.

Plastic bag ban

Like California, where grocery shoppers use canvas totes, New York may soon ban single-use plastic bags, as proposed by Cuomo in his executive budget.

The idea was explored by the Legislature last year, as the New York City Council sought to implement a citywide ban, but ultimately Albany stepped in and blocked the measure from happening over questions about a five-cent plastic bag charge on consumers that some argued would burden the poor.

Cuomo's ban does not include paper bags, which are expensive for retailers and, according to environmentalists, may carry a larger carbon footprint than plastic. The governor's proposal does not provide the option of using plastic for a small fee.

California has banned single-use plastic bags, and mandates that stores charges a 10-cent minimum to sell consumers recycled paper bags, reusable plastic bags or compostable plastic bags. The fee is intended to ensure the cost of shopping bags are not subsidized by consumers who use their own bags.

In-vitro and surrogacy access

Access to reproductive assistance will change dramatically if certain bills advance this session.

The Reproductive Health Act, which enshrines federal abortion protections in state law, and its sister bill, the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act, have gotten the most buzz, but two other proposals on the table would be game changers for people seeking in-vitro fertilization to conceive.

One bill, backed by the governor, would require insurance companies to cover in-vitro fertilization, which can be prohibitively expensive, and ensure equal access to the services.

Cuomo also supports reforming New York's restrictive requirements for surrogacy, which has many seeking third-party pregnancy arrangements outside the state.

First introduced in 2012, the Child-Parent Security Act would provide for both surrogacy agreements and compensation in New York, and would establish a pathway for expectant parents to obtain custody of their child prior to birth.

"We have more work to do in terms of educating our colleagues," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan.

Hoylman and his partner, David Sigal, sought surrogates to carry their two daughters in California due to New York's onerous requirements.

"What's good is there's a road map that New York can follow," Hoylman said.

NY DREAM Act

New York will follow California, Washington and Texas in allowing undocumented immigrant college students who were brought to the U.S. as minors to access college aid.

The NY DREAM Act has been renamed the Jose Peralta DREAM Act, after the state senator who championed the bill, but died suddenly in November. It is expected to pass this session.

Gun control

If lawmakers get their way, it will soon be harder to obtain a gun in New York.

The state is poised to extend the waiting period for purchasing a gun from three days to 10 days and pass the Red Flag Law, which enables firearms to be temporarily taken from someone who is deemed a danger to others or themselves.

Numerous other states have similar regulations. New York will also join about a dozen states in banning bump stocks, a device that a mass shooter used to kill 58 people in Las Vegas in 2017.

Justice for abuse victims

Many victims of sexual violence, including those who experienced abuse as children, will be granted the opportunity to have their day in court.

The Child Victims Act, which extends the statute of limitation for survivors of childhood abuse, has been debated in the legislature for 13 years, and now has support from leadership in both houses and the governor.

For years, religious and educational organizations objected to the bill, opposing a look-back window that has allowed decades-old legal claims be brought for a one-year period. Similar legislation in California, which included the one-year window, dispelled fears that bill would result in a deluge of frivolous claims.

Cuomo, in his executive budget, has also proposed ending the statute of limitations for all victims of rape who wish to bring a claim. While New York removed the statute of limitations for rape in the first degree, restrictive statutes of limitations remains for second and third degree rape.

It remains unclear whether the legislation would apply to public institutions, which have a narrow window for someone to file a civil claim.
Washington

Thousands more migrant children may have been split from their families than the Trump administration previously reported, in part because officials were stepping up family separations long before the border policy that prompted international outrage last spring, a government watchdog said Thursday.

It's unclear just how many family separations occurred at the U.S.-Mexico border; immigration officials are allowed under longstanding policy to separate families under certain circumstances. Health and Human Services, the agency tasked with caring for migrant children, did not adequately track them until after a judge ruled that children must be reunited with their families, according to the report by the agency's inspector general.

Ann Maxwell, assistant inspector general for evaluations, said the number of children removed from their parents was larger than the 2,737 listed by the government in court documents. Those documents chronicled separations that took place as parents were criminally prosecuted for illegally entering the country under President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy.

Maxwell said investigators didn't have specific numbers, but that Health and Human Services staff had estimated the tally to be in the thousands.

Most of the tens of thousands of children who come into government custody cross the border alone. But the report found that in late 2016, 0.3 percent of children turned over to Health and Human Services had crossed with a parent and were separated. By the summer of 2017, that percentage had grown to 3.6 percent, officials said. The watchdog did not give exact numbers, but the total number of migrant children who passed through the agency's care during the 2017 budget year was 40,810. The separated children had already been released to sponsors, who are generally parents or other close relatives.

The inspector general did not say why the children had been separated before the zero-tolerance policy. Immigration officials are allowed to take a child from a parent in certain cases  serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns.

Katie Waldman, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security, said the report reinforced what officials have long said. "For more than a decade it was and continues to be standard for apprehended minors to be separated when the adult is not the parent or legal guardian, the child's safety is at risk" or there's a record of a "serious criminal activity by the adult," she said.

In some cases, Homeland Security said a parent had a criminal history but did not offer details on the crimes, the watchdog reported.
Washington

President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Thursday walked back comments from the night before in which he maintained that he had "never said there was no collusion" between Russia and members of Trump's 2016 White House campaign.

Giuliani issued a statement aimed at clarifying a Wednesday night CNN interview that appeared to leave open the possibility of improper contacts during the campaign, in light of court filings in the past year that have detailed ties between Trump aides and Russia.

"I represent only the president, not the campaign," he told The Associated Press in an interview. "And I can only speak of what I know, and that is that I have no knowledge that anyone on the campaign illegally colluded with Russia. But I can only speak definitively about the president, as he is my client."

In a separate statement Thursday, he said that "there was no collusion by President Trump in any way, shape or form" and that he had "no knowledge of any collusion by any of the thousands of people who worked on the campaign."

That was an apparent reversal from the television appearance in which he said, "I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign." He had previously denied any collusion.

It was not clear whether Giuliani in the television interview was reflecting a new position or talking point from the Trump legal team or was making a strategic attempt to get ahead of potentially damaging findings from special counsel Robert Mueller, who has been investigating potential coordination between Russia and the president's campaign.

Either way, the comment reflected a stark turnabout from long-standing denials by the White House and Trump advisers of improper collusion, and it underscored how the president's lawyers have adapted their message and defenses as additional revelations have emerged.

In November 2016, for instance, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said, "There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign." Trump himself has repeatedly insisted there was no collusion during his successful White House run.

In a Fox News interview last May, Giuliani described the idea of Russian collusion as "total fake news" and said, "Unfortunately, it has become the basis of the investigation. Mueller owes us a report saying that Russia collusion means nothing, it didn't happen."
Mark Button, a candidate for the position of dean for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, presents during his speech at the Nebraska Union Auditorium on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Five years after Jonathan Schaff vanished on the Vermont border, his case file remains at the front desk of the Granville police station in the hopes someone comes in with a new lead.

People rarely do.

"The solvability factor of the case is tough at best," Police Chief Ernie Bassett said.

Friday marks half a decade since Schaff was last seen, walking on Route 149 in Washington County toward Vermont. Police have scoured the area  searching wooded and residential swaths on foot, and diving deep into the Mettawee River and nearby quarries  but found nothing.

"We don't really have good, solid answers as to where Jonathan Schaff is or what happened to Jonathan Schaff," Vermont State Police Sgt. Todd Wilkins said. "But we're much closer today than we were five years ago."

Schaff, who lived a few miles north in Fair Haven, Vt., left the Riverside Pub in Granville at about 5 a.m. on Jan. 18, 2014, shortly after getting into a fight inside the bar. Two people saw him walking along Route 149 toward Vermont and offered him a ride, which he refused. Bassett said the pair watched Schaff round a corner  and then he was gone, just a few days shy of his 24th birthday.

His father, John Schaff, had been at the bar earlier in the evening. When he was ready to go home, Jonathan told him he was going to stick around.

"He said, 'Dad, I'm having a good time.' So I said, 'OK, baby, call me if you need me,'" John Schaff said Wednesday. "I thought he'd be safe there in Granville."

He has been haunted by that choice ever since.

"Five years later, he hasn't called me, hasn't texted me," John Schaff said. "I'm shaking now. But I'd rather have people know about my boy. Maybe there will be some leads."

Sgt. Wilkins worked Schaff's case for two years, and recently handed the case files over to two other detectives so Wilkins could take on a management position. He said his goal as the lead investigator was to run down as many leads as possible. Hundreds of people have been questioned over the years.

"You're looking for leads to solve it, but you're also looking to disprove some rumors," Wilkins said. The case has been dogged by persistent, often horrifying rumors  most are untrue, he said.

Police have no evidence to suggest Jonathan Schaff killed himself or accidentally drowned but are still investigating whether he befell foul play or  a less likely scenario  simply walked away from his life in Fair Haven, Wilkins said.

"Jonathan was a very kind, giving person. If he saw someone stranded on the shoulder, he would stop to help," said his older sister Billi Jo Rathbun. "Family was very important to him, which is why we know he didn't decide to disappear on his own."

Weeks before he vanished, Rathbun recalled that Jonathan told her, "Do you know what my New Year's resolution is? To spend more time with you."

Holding back sobs, Rathbun said Jonathan loved being an uncle to her daughter, who is seven years younger than him. On his days off from work at the Walmart in Rutland, he would visit his niece and take her on late-night Taco Bell runs, his sister said.

"The world needs more people like Jonathan," she said.

Investigators' strongest lead right now is a quarry in Poultney, Vt., just north of where Jonathan vanished. Wilkins said a tip and several interviews led police there years ago, but he declined to give more detail on why police suspect Schaff's body is in the quarry or how he would have gotten there.

Loose rocks made the search particularly dangerous for State Police divers, who couldn't see anything in the cloudy water, Wilkins said. Sonar also didn't work: The water is so filled with debris that "you can't tell if (an object) is a rock, a human being or a tree," Wilkins said.

So the quarry will have to be searched again, this time by hand.

But before the State Police send in divers, Wilkins said investigators want to better investigate the tips that led them there in the first place.

Police recovered only one piece of physical evidence at the scene: Schaff's cell phone. It was found inside a truck parked in the Loomis Trucking Company lot, close to where Schaff vanished.

Investigators examined the phone but didn't find any clues. After repeated interviews, no one at the trucking business is considered a suspect, Wilkins said.

More for you News What to do when a loved one goes missing

The man Jonathan argued with that evening is also not a suspect. He was cleared after police spotted him on dashboard camera footage taken by a officer patrolling the man's neighborhood.

Their fight "was a misunderstanding by an intoxicated individual" and no one was hurt during the disagreement, the sergeant said.

Police have followed hundreds of leads on the case but, "time and time again, we ran into roadblocks or the trail just went cold," Wilkins said.

"As time goes on you lose tangible evidence. Our main evidence right now is people," he said. "There is an individual out there who knows what happened to Jonathan Schaff."

Schaff was wearing a sweatshirt, brown Carhartt jacket and jeans when he vanished. He has two tattoos: a spider web on his left hand and an eagle on his calf.

The family continues to offer a cash reward for information that leads to police locating Jonathan.

"Whoever knew him, loved him," his father said. "And a lot of people still care for him. They're always asking, 'Have you heard anything? Have you heard anything?' And I can't tell them yes."

Anyone with information is asked to call the Vermont State Police at 802-773-9101, submit an anonymous tip to www.vtips.info or text the keyword VTIPS to 274637 (CRIMES).
Albany

Just because Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo believes former vice president Joe Biden has the "best case" to be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, doesn't mean he's ready to endorse him for 2020.

The governor explained to WNYC host Brian Lehrer on Thursday morning that his assertion earlier this month that Biden has the most "credibility" among a crowded field of contenders was simply a "statement of fact."

The parsing of his language came when asked about New York's junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, officially entering the race this week.

"I said what I said about Joe Biden before Sen. Gillibrand said anything," Cuomo said on Thursday.

He described Gillibrand as a long-time friend and noted that they worked together in the federal government. "I'm a big fan of Senator Gillibrand," he added.

"I haven't endorsed anyone," Cuomo explained. "What I said about Joe Biden was not an endorsement, it was a statement of fact. Let's see who gets into the race."

Gillibrand was asked about Cuomo's contention that Biden had the most credibility for the office during a campaign stop in Brunswick on Wednesday.

"I intend to try to change everybody's mind," she told reporters.

She added that Biden is "an amazing guy" and that a lot people "love and respect him," including her.

In advance of his gubernatorial primary with Cynthia Nixon this summer, the governor was endorsed in May by Biden at the state Democratic Convention.

Biden and Cuomo also rallied together in 2016 for the state's paid family leave program, and in 2014 the vice president visited New York to highlight rebuilding effort's under the governor's leadership.

David.Lombardo@timesunion.com - 518.454.5427 - @poozer87
ALBANY -- A Connecticut man convicted of the rape and sodomy of a 14-year-old girl in a Guilderland motel room was sentenced Friday to six years in prison -- more time than Albany County prosecutors requested.

Christopher Green, 32, of Hartford, who met the girl on a dating app, committed the sex crimes inside the Days Inn on Western Avenue in December 2017. Acting Supreme Court Justice Roger McDonough imposed one more year in prison than the five-year term requested by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer McCanney.

Green's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Beau Melita, complained about the word "brutal" being used in the probation department's pre-sentencing report on Green. Melita suggested the arresting officer and probation officer who wrote the report were editorializing. Melita requested the words be redacted. The judge rejected the proposal.

In November, a jury found Green guilty of second-degree rape and three counts of criminal sex act, the legal term for sodomy. Melita, joined by Assistant Public Defender Angela Kelley, noted the victim had claimed to be 18 on the dating app.

Melita said his client was homeless for a long period of time but was working to get his life together. He said Green was planning to get involved in a business to help the homeless.

When given a chance to speak, Green told the judge he did not think his remarks would matter to the court.

"It matters immensely to the court what you have to say," the judge cut in, telling Green he was very interested in hearing him speak. Green told the judge he believed the officer who wrote the pre-sentencing report was incorrect. He also said he needed to take responsibility for what "happened to me," which did not sit well with McDonough.

"What happened to you? ... not what happened to the 14-year-old girl?" the judge asked Green incredulously.

The judge said he read a letter from Green which "speaks entirely about the inconvenience" the case had on Green and makes no mention of the victim of the crimes.

"And when I say crimes, we're not talking about some sort of jostling in the street or some sort of inappropriate harassment," the judge told Green. "We're talking about rape in the second-degree and three counts of criminal sexual act in the second-degree."

McDonough said the girl was "effectively brought into the defendant's hotel room and immediately forced into the bathroom, shoved into the bathroom" where she was subjected to Green's abuse.

The judge also sentenced Green to 10 years of post-release supervision.
ALBANY  Police Chief Eric Hawkins is preparing to meet with residents next week as one of the past year's most contentious issues continues to linger.

Just what he'll be able to offer about the August police shooting of now-paralyzed Ellazar Williams remains to be seen, as he had few answers for Common Council members Wednesday night.

Even though months have passed, even after a grand jury declined to charge the detective who shot Williams, even after prosecutors dropped charges against Williams  and even after two key police officials have since retired, the case is still at the forefront for many in the community. They continue have questions about the incident, investigation and discrepancies in the video surveillance of the shooting.

"I think the healing process starts when questions from the community can be answered," Council President Corey Ellis said. "And at this time they can't."

Hawkins has said he was briefed about the investigation less than 24 hours before the findings were presented that said the officer's actions were justified.

"I think people feel strongly about what they saw and what they heard," Second Ward Councilman Derek Johnson said to Hawkins Wednesday. "They have questions and they want answers."

Williams, 19, who allegedly had a knife, was shot by Detective James Olsen on Elk Street after a disturbance. As a result Williams was paralyzed from the chest down. There were conflicting reports from Albany police on whether Williams was running toward Olsen when the detective shot him.

An internal investigation was conducted over a span of two and a half weeks. The conclusion, which determined Olsen's actions to be justified, were presented on Hawkins' second day in the department. Hawkins did not present the results but instead turned the news conference over to Commander Michael Basile, who had been acting chief during the time of the shooting.

"I wasn't necessarily, at that point in time, making value judgments about what this officer did because I just didn't have enough information," Hawkins said at Wednesday's meeting."I left the value judgment piece to those who had been here well before me -- to the acting police chief who had been here and all the other folks who investigated this incident. I was there to determine whether or not the process was correct and from my experience, that process itself was sound."

Johnson said some community members are bothered by Hawkins' use of the phrase "procedurally sound," which he has used multiple times when talking about the investigation.

"I probably should have done a better job at explaining what I mean by saying 'procedurally sound,'" Hawkins said. "What I meant by that phrase is the process itself --not the conclusion, not the valued judgments or what this officer did and whether it was right or wrong -- but the process."

Hawkins described the process as evidence being properly collected and preserved, interviewing witnesses and figuring out where the case would go following an internal investigation.

"In my opinion, that process was correct," Hawkins said.

A grand jury earlier this month declined to charge Olsen.

Williams faced charges of felony menacing a police officer and misdemeanor weapons possession, which were dropped by District Attorney David Soares earlier this month following public outcry.

Williams is suing the city, accusing Olsen of using excessive force.

Olsen retired this year, as has Basile, who led the department during most of the police-shooting investigation, Hawkins confirmed.

Hawkins said at Wednesday's meeting that because of Williams' lawsuit he has been advised by the city's lawyers not to discuss specifics.

"I understand there are some questions and concerns as to some aspects of the internal investigation and whether or not things match with video  things like that.," Hawkins said. "And I understand that piece of it. It is inappropriate for me to comment on that piece right now."

Hawkins said he plans to attend neighborhood association meetings next week to hear some of the concerns from community members about policing, but reiterated that he has been advised not get into specifics of the Williams case.

The next upcoming meeting he plans on attending is Albany's South End Neighborhood Association meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 22, at the John A. Howe Library, 105 Schuyler St. Hawkins is invited to speak between 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misquoted Police Chief Eric Hawkins description of the Albany Police Department's investigation of a police shooting. Hawkins said the internal investigation of Ellazar William's shooting by Detective James Olsen was "procedurally sound."
ALBANY  Albany Law School has received $15 million, the largest gift in school history from an anonymous donor whose support will help the school continue providing free legal services.

Alicia Ouellette, president and dean of the nearly 168-year-old law school, revealed the gift Thursday night in New York City at the launch of Albany Law's new campaign to raise a total of $30 million by 2021. So far, more than $22 million of it has been raised.

Ouellette said the donor wished to remain anonymous.

"That's the kind of gift that doesn't happen very often. ... It's a real showing of faith that we're doing something right," Ouellette said during a Wednesday visit to the Times Union's editorial board. (She discussed the gift on the condition it would not be reported before the school's announcement.)

Ouellette said the donation would be noticed around the world, though she conceded some people might wonder why a donor gave $15 million to a smaller upstate law school.

"We realized as we talked among ourselves that we are really one of the best-kept secrets in the Capital Region," Ouellette said, "and it makes perfect sense that someone would look at us as a place to leave a legacy gift like this."

She said the school was "reinventing legal education in order to meet societal need," and a "little bit of a unicorn"  an independent law school thriving at a time when similar institutions are failing.

Between 2014 and 2018, the number of first-year juris doctorate students at the school has increased every year. Total juris doctorate enrollment is now 465. The school jumped 32 spots over the past three years in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of law schools to No. 106, school officials note.

Albany Law  whose eminent alumni include President William McKinley and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo  has students from Iceland, Brazil and Puerto Rico, among other areas, Ouellette said.

The $15 million is expected to significantly bolster the school's free legal services for eligible clients. The school's Law Clinic and Justice Center, which provides the clinical and pro bono (free of cost) work, will be renamed The Justice Center at Albany Law School.

Last year's graduating class, the school's smallest ever, provided 42,000 pro bono hours for clients, Ouellette said.

Ouellette and Jeffrey Schanz, the school's vice president for institutional advancement, explained the school contains a public interest law firm in which faculty and students represent clients through different project areas. Immigrants, entrepreneurs, domestic violence victims, hospice patients and veterans have all been represented, she said.

In a school-led transportation initiative, more than 300 migrants who were detained at the U.S. border with Mexico were brought to the Albany County jail. Ouellette said Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, who runs the jail, would not have agreed to the transportation of the detainees to the facility if not for the school's law center.

The school, which has an endowment of about $65 million, is launching its fundraising effort with the motto "We Rise Together." School officials said the intent of the campaign is to build a robust scholarship endowment, create innovative programs and improve technological infrastructure and academic facilities.

Ouellette said she found it remarkable the donor did not want credit.

"I just have immense respect for this kind of gift  where you're quietly just saying, 'I just make the world a better place and I'm going to do it through the law school,'" she said. "So let's do it."
Making movies is a lot easier if you're good at it. But if you're terrible, it's a genuine achievement. You have to compensate for what you lack in ability with lots of persuasive power, not only to get financing, but to find actors actually willing to be in your stuff. And then, once the movie is made, you have to make it through entire interviews while keeping a straight face. Thinking in this way, we can appreciate M. Night Shyamalan's achievement in "Glass." He comes right out of the gate, as if laying down a marker: Worst movie of 2019! Boom! Try to top that! Another filmmaker might be worried that no one will remember come December. But no, when you make a movie this ghastly you have to know it: Forgetting "Glass" would be like forgetting pain.

This year will mark the 20th anniversary of "The Sixth Sense," Shyamalan's debut, a borderline great film that, in the light of his movies ever since, seems almost Biblically miraculous  or at the very least as mysterious as the building of the Pyramids. His latest combines elements from two previous films, "Unbreakable" (2000) and "Split" (2017), in a story that's at its best in the very beginning, when it's cryptic enough to seem promising.

Four high school cheerleaders have been abducted and are being kept, in chains, in an abandoned warehouse. Law enforcement is in search of a kidnapper, but David (Bruce Willis), a vigilante known as the Overseer, has the best chance of finding them. He has a superhero-like ability to read the minds of people he brushes up against. And he's very good at grazing people as he walks down the street. They don't seem to mind.

One that doesn't mind is James McAvoy, as a mentally disturbed man suffering from multiple personality disorder. He has 10 or 12 personalities, it's hard to count, but what's impossible not to notice is that McAvoy seems to have picked the wrong movie for which to win an Oscar. His performance is so strenuous, detailed and conscientious, so full of detail and nuance for each character, that it's like the sight of someone opening up a suitcase full of money only to have the wind blow it all away. The work is openhearted yet wasted, to the point that it's faintly depressing to watch him.

Shyamalan's usual pattern is to start with a huge idea, one with global implications, and then to reduce the story to a confined space, usually a single room, with a handful of characters freaking out about what's outside. My sense of this, only a guess, is that this tendency is the result of a flaw in Shyamalan's process, in which the minute his imagination gets an idea, his intellect smothers it  confines it, as it were  by appending a message to it and by hammering out a structure to accommodate it.

But in "Glass," Shyamalan outdoes himself by confining his characters no more than 20 minutes into the movie! The cops show up, and not only is the multiple personality fellow put into a padded room, but so is The Overseer. And in the same mental hospital, we find the title character, Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), who is biding his time, making believe he's drugged and out of it, waiting for his chance to escape.

Most of the rest of the movie, believe it or not, consists of Sarah Paulson, as a psychiatrist specializing in superhero delusion syndrome, trying to make these men, who in fact do have modest superhero powers, believe that they don't have powers after all. There are some long conversations on this subject, all of which contain very long pauses. Make sure not to fall asleep during the pauses, because you'll wake up the second someone starts talking again, and there's nothing more exhausting than dozing off and jolting back awake, two or three times in a single minute, as if flying the red-eye cross country. Shyamalan's dramatic instincts are so bizarre that he promises, several times throughout, that the big climax will take place at the unveiling of the world's tallest building ... but then he never brings the movie to the building. And his story sense is so bizarre that the climax hinges on an event's being recorded by hidden cameras, when in real-life such cameras would be redundant. Any public event, of any interest, would be recorded on multiple cell phones.

Considering how undramatic, misguided and scaldingly boring "Glass" is, it seems superfluous to add that it's also about 15 years late to the party. Pleas on behalf of genetically mutated superheroes have been a recurrent staple since the first "X-Men" movie in 2000, with "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" sounding the same notes three summers ago. So "Glass" is unoriginal, except in the ways that it's bad.
Albany

Rensselaer County still isn't giving up on its dream to land the new $750 million Wadsworth Center.

Wadsworth is the state's public health lab and employs 800 people. Due to aging and outdated facilities spread throughout Albany County, the state Department of Health wants to build a new Wadsworth Center campus that has already been funded.

The only remaining decision has been where to put it  and Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday at his budget address that he wants it built at the Harriman State Office Campus.

But for years now, Rensselaer County officials have been pushing for Wadsworth to be built at the University at Albany's Health Sciences Campus in East Greenbush. UAlbany had hoped for that location as well.

Even though UAlbany changed course and is now supporting the Harriman site, elected officials in Rensselaer County haven't given up on asking Cuomo that Wadsworth be built at the UAlbany site, which is owned by the University at Albany Foundation.

The letter, which is signed by Assemblyman Jacob Ashby, state Sen. Daphne Jordan, Rensselaer County Executive Steven McLaughlin and others, expresses "disappointment" in Cuomo's decision to build Wadsworth at Harriman.

Wadsworth currently has buildings at Empire State Plaza, next to Albany Medical Center and in Guilderland.

"Locating the consolidated Wadsworth Laboratory adjacent to the University at Albany's Health Sciences Campus in East Greenbush will continue to leverage the practical skills and expertise of Wadsworth researchers with breadth and depth of the UAlbany's School of Public Health's academic programs," the letter states. "In addition to the outstanding results the partnership between The Wadsworth Center and the University at Albany's Health Science Campus have yielded, the physical site is perfectly situated to both house the entire facility and provide room for additional expansion in the future."

A study of potential sites said that Harriman, the UAlbany East Greenbush campus and land near Albany Med would be the best three potential sites for a new Wadsworth. The Albany Med site is considered unfeasible due to the cost of acquiring private land.

"The governor's decision to build the new Wadsworth Center at the Harriman State Office Campus in Albany was disheartening," Jordan said in a statement. She went on to say she and others remain convinced the East Greenbush location is best.

However, UAlbany appears to no longer be on board with that scenario, which could pose a problem for Rensselaer County's vision. Harriman is located next to UAlbany's main campus, and UAlbany is building its new Emerging Technology and Entrepreneurship Complex at Harriman as well.

"We are excited that Gov. Cuomo is proposing to build New York's new, state-of-the-art Wadsworth Center next to the University at Albany's uptown campus," said UAlbany spokesman Jordan Carleo-Evangelist. "This is a powerful opportunity to build on the successful, 33-year partnership between Wadsworth and UAlbany's School of Public Health as well as explore new collaborations involving UAlbany's world-leading atmospheric science and homeland security researchers, who will be based nearby in the university's new Emerging Technology and Entrepreneurship Complex."
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Dorothy Eleanor Mercer passed away on June 9, 2021 at Archbold Memorial Hospital. She was born on December 18, 1932, in Pavo to the late Early Byrd Wood and to the late Nellie Deen Wood. She was married to Eugene Mercer who precedes her in death. Survivors include her children, Leon David Mc
Photo courtesy of UGA CAESPride Roads hibiscus jelly was a finalist in Flavor of Georgias 2018 Jams and Jellies category. The University of Georgias Food Product Innovation and Commercialization (FoodPIC) Center in Griffin, Georgia, helped the Smyrna, Georgia, company dry the fresh flowers and then make them into a range of hibiscus products: jelly, jam, tea and chutney. Pride Roads owners (center) are shown at the 2018 Flavor of Georgia contest with members of the FoodPIC staff.
Local

barre city council

Council tables surveillance cameras

BARRE  City councilors have pulled the plug on the possibility of asking voters to approve funding to install surveillance cameras along a half-mile stretch of North Main Street.

An idea that was first floated five months ago in response to results from a Facebook poll posted by Councilor Michael Boutin was undone by cost estimates that even Boutin agreed were excessive.

Police Chief Tim Bombardier told councilors this week acquiring cameras and associated hardware for the citys two busiest intersections and six locations in between would cost just over $163,000. He said the estimate reflected the cost of the equipment on the street and didnt include installation, storage or any additional equipment that might be needed for monitoring what the cameras were capturing.

According to the estimates Bombardier obtained at the councils direction, the cost of equipping the intersections around City Hall Park with 10 cameras would exceed $75,000. Buying eight more cameras for the intersection of North Main Street and Route 62 would cost roughly $23,000.

The estimates indicate acquiring two cameras for the intersection of the North Main Street and Depot Square would add more than $11,000, and five more strategically placed cameras that would pick up vehicle and pedestrians moving through the heart of downtown Barre would collectively cost almost $54,000.

Thats all Boutin needed to hear, but before he could suggest the issue be tabled, Councilor Sue Higby weighed in.

This is a more significant proposal than I was under the impression you were working on, Higby told Bombardier, openly wondering what fueled the perceived need to install cameras in the citys central business district.

This wasnt Tim Bombardier project, this was my responding to a request from the council, Bombardier replied.

In August, Boutin sought and received a thumbs-up from the council to explore the initiative, which enjoyed the support of over 90 percent of the more than 1,000 people who participated in his Facebook poll.

At the time, Boutin said he didnt believe the council could unilaterally decide to install surveillance cameras downtown and wanted a rough cost estimate before proposing a ballot question that could be considered by voters in March.

On Tuesday night, Boutin said he was prepared to shelve the proposal based on a price that was significantly more than he anticipated.

Mayor Lucas Herring said the exercise was useful  if only because it provided councilors with better information about the cost of an idea that has occasionally been proposed over the years.

Higby offered a different perspective, arguing this week it was a poor platform for making public policy decisions.

I tend to be more focused in on needs assessments than wants assessments, so a poll on Facebook isnt as striking to me as a statement from the chief that there is a need, she said.

Boutin bristled at the suggestion he was bypassing Bombardier, who was part of the conversation from the outset, and recounted a process that started with the poll, proceeded with the blessing of the council and was solely focused on gathering information needed to evaluate whether to give voters the opportunity to weigh in on Town Meeting Day.

Based on the costs quoted by Bombardier, Boutin said he was prepared to move on.

Im just going to end it right there, he said. I say we just table this conversation for some other time in the future.

There was no formal vote, but councilors, led by Boutin, generally agreed the estimates presented by Bombardier were cost-prohibitive and the camera question shouldnt be added to the ballot.

david.delcore @timesargus.com
Tillamook, OR (97141)

Today

A few passing clouds. Low near 50F. NNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low near 50F. NNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Walker & Dunlop, Inc., through its subsidiaries, originates, sells, and services a range of multifamily and other commercial real estate financing products and services for owners and developers of real estate in the United States. The company offers first mortgage, second trust, supplemental, construction, mezzanine, preferred equity, small-balance, and bridge/interim loans. It also provides multifamily finance for manufactured housing communities, student housing, affordable housing, and senior housing properties under the Fannie Mae's DUS program; and construction and permanent loans to developers and owners of multifamily housing, affordable housing, senior housing, and healthcare facilities. In addition, the company acts as an intermediary in the placement of commercial real estate debt between institutional sources of capital, including life insurance companies, investment banks, commercial banks, pension funds, CMBS conduits, and other institutional investors, as well as owners of various types of commercial real estate. Further, it advises on capital structure; develops the financing package; facilitates negotiations between its client and institutional sources of capital; coordinates due diligence; and assists in closing the transaction. Additionally, the company offers property sales brokerage, underwriting and risk management, and servicing and asset management services. Walker & Dunlop, Inc. was founded in 1937 and is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.

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Valero Energy Corporation manufactures, markets, and sells transportation fuels and petrochemical products in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Refining, Renewable Diesel, and Ethanol. The company is involved in oil and gas refining, marketing, and bulk selling activities. It produces conventional, premium, and reformulated gasolines; gasoline meeting the specifications of the California Air Resources Board (CARB); diesel fuels, low-sulfur and ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuels; CARB diesel; other distillates; jet fuels; blendstocks; lube oils and natural gas liquids; and asphalts, petrochemicals, lubricants, and other refined petroleum products. As of December 31, 2020, the company owned 15 petroleum refineries with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3.2 million barrels per day. It sells its refined products through wholesale rack and bulk markets; and through approximately 7,000 outlets under the Valero, Beacon, Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock, Ultramar, and Texaco brands. The company also produces and sells ethanol, dry distiller grains, syrup, and inedible corn oil primarily to refiners and gasoline blenders, as well as to animal feed customers. It owns and operates 13 ethanol plants with a combined ethanol production capacity of approximately 1.69 billion gallons per year. In addition, the company owns and operates crude oil and refined petroleum products pipelines, terminals, tanks, marine docks, truck rack bays, and other logistics assets. Further, it owns and operates a plant that processes animal fats, used cooking oils, and other vegetable oils into renewable diesel. The company was formerly known as Valero Refining and Marketing Company and changed its name to Valero Energy Corporation in August 1997. Valero Energy Corporation was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.

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Lebanon is often associated with death and destruction.

But a series of stunning images shows a very different side to the Middle Eastern country  that its a land of cascading waterfalls, beautiful forests, mesmerisingly rugged coastlines and even epic ski resorts.

It also captures little known towns and villages and the countrys more famous sites.

Boats line up in the marina, left, in downtown Beirut. Beirut is the capital of Lebanon and is thought to have a population of just over two million. Pictured right is the rugged coastline of Jounieh, which is a city north of Beirut. Many tourists flock there as it is the starting point of a gondola lift, which takes tourists up to the Our Lady of Lebanon statue in Harissa

The deep blue waters off the west coast of Lebanon in the district of Keserwan, which is north east of Beirut

The incredible pictures were snapped by Lebanese photographer Rami Rizk last year as he travelled the length and breadth of his home nation.

Rami told MailOnline Travel: 'I have always been triggered by the curiosity to discover new places and their specialties.

'Over the past few years, I began to wander in my own country, and this led me to unveil hidden gems that only a few people knew about.

People relax and enjoy drinks at The Frozen Cherry Sky Lounge at Club Zaarour, which usually operates as a ski resort in winter

A lone building stands on the side of the valley in the Lebanese town of Bsharri, left, which is the birthplace of influential poet Kahlil Gebran. Pictured right are the terracotta roof houses in the village of Douma. The village has been part of the ancient Greek, Rome, Turkish and Ottoman Empires

The sun begins to rise above the clouds and shine across the lush green forest in Bkassine located in the Al Janub region of Lebanon

'I decided to capture the beauty of every place I visited, not only to satisfy my hobby, but also to highlight the hidden landmarks for the locals, with the dream of reaching the world.'

His photographs certainly paint a country whose recent history includes civil war and constant eruptions of sectarian violence in a more tranquil light.

From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon was at war after conflict broke out between Christians and the Muslim-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) alliance.

Trees stand in the foreground of the stunning hills in Bkassine, left. One person commented that the trees almost look like broccoli. Pictured right are rays of sunshine poking through the branches of a tree in the Al Shouf Cedars Nature Reserve on the slopes of Barouk mountain in the north of the country

The famous Mohammed Al Amine Mosque, which is sometimes also called the Blue Mosque, thanks to its distinctive colouring, which stands in the downtown area of Beirut, which used to be known as the Paris of the Middle East

An aerial shot taken from the top of the Our Lady of Lebanon shrine in Harissa, left. Pictured right are houses that are just visible through the clouds in the village of Ehden in the heart of the northern mountains of Lebanon

An incredible image showing the huge Horsch Park in Beirut, which is the biggest urban park in the city. It covers 300,000 m of green space and had to be reconstructed at the end of the Lebanon Civil War

An estimated 120,000 people were killed in the 15-year war and almost one million people fled the country.

After it started to rebuild, tourists began to return, but in 2010, the outbreak of war in neighbouring Syria had a knock-on effect on visitor numbers, and they reportedly fell by 38 per cent.

Perhaps Ramis pictures will help to reverse this trend.

The grand statue of Jesus, left, which stands next to the Yasou El Malak church in the coastal town of Jounieh. Pictured right is the Our Lady of Lebanon statue, which looms over Harissa on the west coast. The small town of Harissa has become one of the most important Christian pilgrimage sites in the East

An aerial shot of the coloured parasols and the deep blue water along the coastline of the town of Anfeh. It is one of the top tourists destinations on the northern coast

Three girls soak up the sun in a swimming pool among the hills of the village of Hamat in northern Lebanon. The village is home to the historic shrine and monastery of Our Lady of Nourieh, where one of the first Christian communities was set up

An overview of the southern city of Tyre, left, which is the fourth largest city in Lebanon after Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon. Pictured right is one of the incredible buildings in Tyre, which was once dubbed the 'best-kept secret of the Mediterranean'

Skiers race down one of the runs at Mzaar Kfardebian, which is a ski area in Lebanon and the largest ski resort in the Middle East. It is located an hour north-east of Beirut

The bright lights of Mzaar can been seen from the top of one the ski runs. There are a total of six ski resorts in Lebanon

The statue of St Charbel is the largest in Lebanon and was installed in 2017 in the village of Faraya on top of the Mount of the Cross. St Charbel was a Maronite monk and priest from Lebanon, who was thought to have healing powers and was pronounced a saint by Pope Paul VI in 1965

Man-made lakes, pictured left, which have been formed to collect rain water, which can then be used to irrigate the crops in the drier summer months. Rami took the snap in the village of Falougha in central Lebanon. Pictured right is the incredible waterfall in the town of Jezzine, which is also known as the 'City of Falls'

He has uploaded them to his Facebook and Instagram pages and tells MailOnline Travel that hes on a mission to change perceptions about his country.

He said: The fact that it is a Middle Eastern country strengthens the misconception of Lebanon being a desert.

'The ideas spread to the world by mass media visualise Lebanon as a country of war and havoc, which once again hinders its actual beauty.

'For this reason, I've decided to make it my mission to prove the opposite to foreigners and even Lebanese who have fled the country.'

And his favourite image so far?

He replied: Undeniably that of Jezzine, my hometown, and the place where I was born and raised.'

The Litani River, which flows through the fertile Beqaa Valley and eventually into the Mediterranean Sea close to the town of Tyre. It flows entirely through the borders of Lebanon

The church bell, left, which still remains close to Chouwen Lake Nature Reserve in the north of the country. Pictured right is another view of the St Charbal statue in the village of Faraya on top of the Mount of the Cross in summer time

The leaves on the trees have turned to their autumnal orange and brown colours in Laqlouq, a small mountainous village in the north of the country

Fields stretch for miles around the quiet village of Ammiq in central Lebanon. The village is known for having fertile land and home to a number of rare species of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles
A warning on the future of advertising from a major investment bank sent ITV's shares into the red.

Adrien de Saint Hilaire at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said the fall in the number of viewers watching traditional TV channels, combined with the loss of advertising that this will bring, made broadcasters like ITV look vulnerable.

The likes of ITV are also having to spend increasing amounts of money to develop their online products  such as on-demand service ITV Hub  in the race to catch up with rivals including Netflix and Sky's Now TV.

Saint Hilaire added that TV watching is declining by 8 per cent every year among the younger generation which was brought up surrounded by modern technology.

These individuals will, by 2020, represent around 50 per cent of the workforce and be the direct target audience of advertising.

ITV slumped 5.9 per cent, or 8.15p, to 129.1p as Bank of America recommended investors reduce their stakes in the company. Making up for some of ITV's losses on the FTSE 100, technology company Sage Group climbed 5.4 per cent, or 32p, to 625p.

It raked in 465m in revenue for the three months to December 31, a 7.6 per cent increase on the same time a year before.

Sage, which makes accounting software for businesses, has desperately been trying to improve its products and move from one-off sales to subscriptions to pull more money through the door.

The shake-up saw chief executive Stephen Kelly abruptly depart last August. Steve Hare, Sage's finance head, replaced him in November.

Shortly after he took up the role, Hare dropped the firm's medium-term revenue growth target of 10 per cent. In the last three months of 2018, only Sage's North American division delivered revenue growth above 10 per cent. The UK and Ireland's revenue growth was 5.9 per centc, which Sage said indicated 'strong signs of recovery'.

The Footsie ended the day down 0.4 per cent, or 27.76 points, at 6,834.92 points. John Wood Group, which helps oil and gas businesses to build their rigs, weighed on the index as it slid 4.7 per cent, or 26.4p, to 541.2p following a downgrade from a broker.

Shares in takeaway business Just Eat rocketed as US investor The Capital Group Companies, one of the world's oldest investment firms, ramped its stake up from 5.1 per cent to 10 per cent.

The deal occurred on Tuesday and, taking Just Eat's closing share price that day, would have cost Capital Group around 209m. Shares in Just Eat climbed 5 per cent, or 31.4p, to 663p yesterday.

Super Noodle and Paxo owner Premier Foods also crept higher as investors chewed over its update for the 13 weeks ending December 29.

Sales of its Mr Kipling products were up 5 per cent, which helped investors stomach a 2.2 per cent decline in group sales as a warehousing and distribution reshuffle hit sales of unbranded sweet treats.

Change was afoot elsewhere at Premier as finance head Alastair Murray was appointed temporary replacement for outgoing boss Gavin Darby until a permanent successor is found.

Premier added it was still in talks with potential buyers for its Ambrosia custard and rice pudding brand. Shares climbed 2.8 per cent, or 1p, to 35p.

Homeware manufacturer Portmeirion, owner of the Royal Worcester and Pimpernel brands, jumped 6 per cent, or 60p, to 1060p as it said 2018 revenue would be ahead of expectations, at a minimum of 89.2m. Sales in the UK, US and South Korea were credited with driving the strong performance, and the home fragrance business did particularly well.
Animal print skirts and faux sheepskin coats helped Primark shine in the High Street's Christmas gloom.

Sales at the bargain chain, which is owned by Associated British Foods and sells its products online, climbed 1 per cent in the UK in the 16 weeks to January 5.

The figures were a relief for investors following an earlier warning that trading had been tough in November.

Wearing it well: Sales at Primark climbed 1 per cent in the UK in the 16 weeks to January 5

ABF posted a 1 per cent rise in revenues, sending shares up 7 per cent, or 152p, to 2330p.

Sales across all of ABF's divisions grew apart from in sugar, where they fell 14 per cent as the business continued to suffer from the impact of lower prices across the EU.

ABF is one of Britain's biggest food producers with brands such as Ovaltine, Ryvita, Twinings and Jordans.

It also owns major sugar, agriculture and ingredients businesses. Primark accounts for around half of ABF's annual revenues and profits. Sales at its grocery business rose 2 per cent, while agriculture was up 5 per cent and ingredients up 1 per cent.

John Bason, finance director, said sales of leopard print clothing and so-called 'teddy' jackets, were a hit with Primark's customers.

The retailer's Christmas success comes as High Street firms battle to attract customers through their doors.

THE 1 SHOPPING CENTRE A shopping centre in Scotland owned by investment giant Columbia Threadneedle has been put up for auction  starting at just 1. The Postings in Kirkcaldy has 21 stores but more than half sit empty. It was bought by Columbia Threadneedle more than 15 years ago for a reported 4.2m but is said to be more expensive to run than it is profitable. The firm is selling the centre as a development opportunity likely to involve demolishing and building the site from scratch. But one source suggested crippling business rates and the cost of demolition meant the purchase was too risky.

Stores including Debenhams, Marks & Spencer and Mothercare are all facing falling sales as they struggle to remain relevant.

Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: 'Growth may be slightly slower than we've seen in recent updates, but the fact is positive sales growth is a feat many stores simply aren't managing at the moment.

'All-in-all, Primark's in a position some of its rivals can only dream of.'
Campaigners and businesses are demanding a guarantee that new homes across the country will get decent broadband.

After the Mail revealed one in eight new properties are getting sub-standard internet speeds, calls are growing for the Government to introduce laws more quickly that will ensure families get a good connection.

Frustrated: Kevin Pratley and his family have been plagued by slow internet speeds

'ONLY ONE OF US AT A TIME CAN USE THE INTERNET' Engineer Kevin Pratley says the broadband in his home is so poor it cannot be used by more than one person at a time. The 54-year-old and his family moved into their 185,000 three-bedroom detached house, built by Persimmon, in 2012. But they have been plagued by slow internet speeds ever since and have yet to be told when they can get an upgrade. Mr Pratley, who is married to Lisa, 43, said his ten-year-old daughter, Katie, needs to go online to do homework. He often works from home for Jaguar Land Rover as well. But he and his daughter must take turns to use the internet or it becomes too slow to use. Mr Pratley said: 'We also try to download programmes on the TV but just give up because it is impossible. 'Persimmon said we needed to contact Openreach, and they said fibre isn't available in our area yet,' he said. 'The sooner someone fixes it the better but at the moment it seems like everyone is dragging their feet.'

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) warned broadband was a basic requirement and that a lack of action could hurt Britain's economy.

Consumer group Which? and the Countryside Alliance also rounded on penny-pinching developers, saying it was unacceptable for families paying hundreds of thousands of pounds to be lumbered with homes that had poor connections.

Ministers have vowed to pass laws that will guarantee every new home is equipped with good broadband  but no legislation has been proposed.

Felicity Burch, the CBI's director of innovation, said: 'All new properties must have full fibre or other gigabit cables installed when they're built, and new laws must give permission to firms to install connections in existing homes for private tenants.'

Mike Cherry, chairman of the FSB, said a lack of decent broadband was holding back firms in rural areas particularly.

He added: 'As it stands, the UK lags behind several European nations to provide a fully operating fibre optic service, which means businesses and those who work from home are being left behind, further hampering the economy.'

Alex Neill, managing director of home services at Which?, said: 'A decent broadband connection is a modern essential for most households so it is unacceptable that some property developers do not seem to be treating connectivity as a priority.'

And Sarah Lee, head of policy at the Countryside Alliance, said: 'Communities in rural areas are often treated as second-class citizens when it comes to broadband connectivity. It is unacceptable in this modern age that developers are failing to include this essential service when they build new homes.'

On Tuesday, the Mail revealed thousands of properties continue to be built that cannot even receive download speeds of 10 megabits per second, which the Government says should be a minimum. And even though ministers have proposed all new homes should get fibre optic connections  the best available  around four in ten homes are still built without these. A Government spokesman this week vowed to tackle the problem but was unable to say when new laws would be brought forward.

He said: 'We've recently consulted on making full fibre mandatory for new homes and will outline next steps in due course.'
Netflix last night revealed profits of more than 103m for the end of 2018  taking its full year haul to more than 930m.

The video streaming giant also added a record 8.8m paying subscribers, beating its forecast of 7.6m and taking the global total to 148.2m.

For the first time, the US company also detailed viewing figures for its shows, which include hits such as The Crown and House of Cards.

Royal performance: Olivia Colman will star alongside Tobias Menzies in The Crown

Netflix claimed its share of TV-viewing time in the US was 10 per cent  or around 100m hours a day.

It said suspense thriller Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, had been watched by 80m households in its first four weeks.

However shares fell by as much as 5 per cent after its revenues came in below analyst estimates, with the company reporting revenue of 3.23 billion compared to an expected 3.24 billion.

The firm, led by boss Reed Hastings, is facing a pivotal year as America's biggest media companies try to steal its lead.

It has reaped huge success and glitzy awards with its original shows but it is now preparing to battle new services being launched by well-resourced rivals.

Setting the pace: Netflix is led by boss Reed Hastings

Disney and Warner will debut their own streaming services this year, with Apple also thought to be readying its own competitor.

And NBCUniversal, whose parent company Comcast bought British broadcaster Sky last year, said last week it would launch a streaming service in 2020.

The moves will pit Netflix up against some of the oldest media brands in the US. Disney, founded 95 years ago, boasts the Star Wars and Marvel superhero franchises, while Warner owns premium cable service HBO, featuring dramas True Detective and Westworld, as well as the DC superhero franchise.

At the same time, it is also fighting off growing competition from Amazon's Prime Video service and others such as Hulu.

Analysts say Netflix has a head start over its competitors. It also hiked prices in the US last week to boost its spending power.

But some of its most popular shows are licensed from rivals that are now entering the streaming market, with analysts saying these are likely to start disappearing from its service.

For example, American sitcom Friends, which it reportedly paid up to 62m to keep for 2019, is owned by Warner.

As part of efforts to bolster its own content warchest, Netflix has been producing its own content and buying up the rights to shows around the world to boost its international audience.

It is also banking on drawing more subscribers with the return of some of its most popular in-house titles in 2019, with new seasons of The Crown and Stranger Things on the way.

The third season of The Crown will star Olivia Colman  who is tipped to win an Oscar in February  as a younger Queen Elizabeth II and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret.
Hostilities between two warring boardroom factions at Altona Energy moved into a new phase this week, wiping 60% off the value of the AIM-listed mining business.

In fact, matters turned almost farcical when a bid by chief executive Nicholas Lyth and non-executive director Robert Hales to remove directors Zhang Qinfu and Ma Chi failed.

The top-level squabble appears to have been precipitated by a split over strategy and, specifically, whether to pursue a waste-to-energy venture in Spain.

The hostilities between two warring boardroom factions at Altona Energy moved into a new phase this week, wiping 60% off the value of the AIM-listed business

Zhang, in a statement read out what can one can only assume was a feisty shareholder meeting on 14 January, said he wanted to focus on developing Altona's coal assets on South Australia.

Investors beat a path to the exit this week as 26.5p was wiped from the shares, which are currently changing hands for 17.5p.

Oh, and there is another element of jeopardy for unfortunate enough to still hold stock.

Altona's shares will be suspended on February 1 if it can't find a replacement for Northland Capital, its erstwhile nominated advisor.

Investors probably don't know whether to laugh or cry.

On that theme, backers of Boohoo were far from ecstatic this week with the shares edging 6.3% lower to 181p.

In a 'curate's egg' sort of a statement, it upgraded revenue forecast but narrowed its profit margin guidance.

Bringing some sunshine to the junior market was Elegant Hotels Group after an increase in revenues and pre-tax profits boosted shares by 11% to 75p.

The owner and operator of seven upmarket hotels and a beach-front restaurant on the island of Barbados said revenue in the year to the end of September was up 5% to US$62.9mln from US$59.9mln the year before, while profit before tax nudged up to US$9.5mln from US$9.2mln.

Elegant Hotels Group, owner of hotels and a beach-front restaurant on Barbados, saw an increase in revenues and pre-tax profits that boosted shares by 11 per cent to 75p

There was also pain being felt by Arena Events after a profit warning for 2018 caused shares to dive 31% to 39.4p.

The firm, which builds temporary structures such as seating stands and ice rinks, said higher costs from operational issues in its UK structures and scaffolding business and delayed cost savings from warehouse integration had all led to a material reduction in profitability.

The AIM All-Share was up around 0.5% in the week at 908 points, while the FTSE 100 was up 0.7% at 6,903 points.

Elsewhere, MC Mining shares surged 12% to 64p over the week after it confirmed the acquisition of the Lukin and Salaita properties, a vital transaction for its Makhado hard coking and thermal coal project in South Africa.

MC said the purchase would allow it to begin the final geotechnical drilling it needs to finalise siting of the mine's infrastructure.

Another miner, Keras Resources, was also on the up with shares jumping 19% to 0.38p after assay results from metallurgical testwork at its Nayega manganese project in Togo returned average grades of 41.15%, substantially in excess of budget.

There was less good news in the oil & gas sector with Upland Resources shares plummeting 40% to 2p after it plugged and abandoned its Wick exploration well in Scotland following unsuccessful drilling results.

Ground engineering firm Van Elle added to the misery after a sharp fall in its first half profits and revenue sent shares tumbling 17% to 65p.

Underlying earnings (EBITDA) fell 38.1% to 5.2mln in the six months to 31 October 2018 and revenue decreased 18.4% to 42.9mln as sales to the housebuilding and infrastructure sectors fell.

At the other end of the scale investment firm Challenger Acquisitions soared 43% to 0.1p after agreeing to sell its US$300,000 investment in the giant observation wheel project in Dallas back to the developers.
EMILY ST. LAWRENCE, Chariho girls lacrosse, senior: St. Lawrence scored the 100th goal of her career in a 16-1 win against Lincoln. St. Lawrence finished her career with 104 goals, eight short of the school record. The team did not play last season due to the coronavirus pandemic.

JOSH MOONEY, Stonington track & field, sophomore: Mooney scored in three events at the State Open meet. Mooney was second in the 110 hurdles, fourth in the javelin and fifth in the 300 hurdles. He scored all 17 of Stoningtons points.

ALEX STOEHR, Westerly softball, freshman: Stoehr hit three triples and a double in a doubleheader sweep of Barrington. For the week, she was 7 for 13 with four doubles, two triples and three RBIs. Stoehr is hitting .333 for the season.

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New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) In an alleged case of celebratory firing, a bride was injured after she was hit by a bullet at her wedding ceremony in east Delhi's Shakarpur area, the police said Friday.

The incident took place on Thursday when the bride and the groom were getting off the stage, they said.

A wedding guest standing nearby opened fire and the bullet hit the woman near her knee, they added.

She was taken to a hospital and after her treatment, the wedding was solemnised, Pankaj Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (east) said.

Prima facie, police said it appears to be a case of celebratory firing.

The accused was identified as Rinku and efforts are on to catch him, they said. PTI AMP RHL
Bhadohi (UP), Jan 18 (PTI) A 10-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a neighbour in the residential quarters of a primary health centre in Nai Bazar locality here, police said on Friday.

The minor, whose mother is a nurse, was raped by the husband of another nurse living in the same residential quarters when she was alone at home on Wednesday, Satya Narain Misra, Kotwali police station in-charge, said.

He said the girl narrated her ordeal to her mother on Thursday after persistent questioning, following which an FIR was lodged against the accused, Yogesh Yadav.

Police are trying to nab Yadav, who is on the run, Misra said.

The girl has been sent for medical examination, he said. PTI CORR SAB MAZ DIV

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Ambala (Haryana), Jan 18 (PTI) A relative of a bride was stabbed to death after he tried to stop some relatives of the groom from dancing, police said Friday.

The incident occurred when the wedding procession reached the site here at around 10 pm on Thursday. Vikas, a relative of the bride, tried to stop some relatives and friends of the groom from dancing, saying the marriage ceremony was getting late, the police said.

It led to an argument and a scuffle broke out between the two sides. One of the relatives of the groom, Sanjay, allegedly attacked Vikas and stabbed him to death, the police said.

A murder case has been registered against Sanjay, the police added. PTI COR CHS

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Hamirpur (HP), Jan 18 (PTI) Research scholars of the National Institute of Technology here boycotted their classes on Friday in protest against the detention of their counterparts in Delhi during a dharna outside the Human Resource Development ministry office two days ago.

The NIT Hamirpur students also staged dharna in the campus demanding an increase in their scholarships.

The scholars said they also held a candle march in the institute on Thursday night and said they would continue with the agitation till all of their demands were met with. PTI CORR DJI

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Amaravati, Jan 18 (PTI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu Friday said the country is witnessing dictatorship in the form of BJP and "autocracy" in Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Telugu Desam Party, hence, is fighting a 'just war' against the BJP, he said and asked the party cadre to gear up for the ensuing general elections that were 100 days away.

Addressing a teleconference of the TDP rank and file on the occasion of party founder N T Rama Rao's 23rd death anniversary, Naidu said NTR taught them how to fight dictatorship and autocracy.

"We are now witnessing dictatorship in the form of BJP, and autocracy in Narendra Modi. So, we launched a dharma poratam (just war) against them," he added.

Referring to the anti-BJP parties' rally in Kolkata scheduled for Saturday, the chief minister claimed that the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the YSR Congress were in the pro-Modi front as they were not attending it.

"There are only two fronts in the country now. One is pro-Modi and the other is anti-Modi. Since they are not attending the Kolkata rally (being organised by Trinamool Congress), it is clear where the TRS and the YSRC stand," the TDP chief said.

Paying tributes to the TDP founder, Naidu exhorted the party's rank and file to re-dedicate themselves to the service of the society.

He said winning over poverty would be a true tribute to NTR as the doyen always strove for elimination of poverty and removal of economic inequalities in society.

Noting that elections to the state assembly and Lok Sabha were just 100 days away, Chandrababu asked the cadre to strive for the party's victory so that it could play a key role in national politics.

"We all should work with team spirit and work to fulfill the state's interests," he added. PTI DBV SS RCJ
New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) The Supreme Court directed the Kerala police on Friday to provide round-the-clock security to two women who had entered the Sabarimala temple.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices L N Rao and Dinesh Maheshwari said it was only going into the aspect of security to the two women and would not like to entertain any other prayer.

The bench also refused to tag the matter along with the pending petitions in the Sabarimala case.

Earlier this month, the two women -- Kanakadurga and Bindu -- had stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by the police, more than three months after the apex court's historic judgment lifting the ban on the entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. PTI MNL ABA RKS LLP RC
SC directs Kerala Police to provide round-the-clock security to 2 women who had entered Sabarimala temple. PTI MNL ABA RKS LLP SMN
New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) The Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS)-- a corridor between Delhi, Ghaziabad and Meerut-- is "absolutely necessary" and cannot be at the "mercy" of the Delhi government, the Supreme Court said Friday.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta said the project was "essential" for people of Delhi as it would help in de-congesting the roads of the national capital and curbing pollution.

The top court was told that the estimated cost of the project was Rs 31,902 crore and the Delhi government's share was Rs 1,138 crore, which it wants the Centre to pay as it has no funds.

Of the 82.15 kilometre long corridor, Delhi will have a 13 kilometre section with stations at Sarai Kale Khan, New Ashok Nagar and Anand Vihar.

Advocate Aparajita Singh, assisting the apex court as an amicus curiae in the air pollution matter, told the bench that the "stalemate" continues as the Delhi government wants the Centre to pay their share.

"RRTS is one of the most important projects. This project will help in de-congesting Delhi. No attempt has been made on the part of Delhi government to solve the problem," the amicus said.

The counsel appearing for Delhi government told the court that they have "problem of funds" for the project.

To this, the bench said, "The project cannot depend on your (Delhi government) mercy. It is essential for Delhi. You are bound to give it. You cannot act like this. These are your duties".

"Budgetary allocation cannot come in the way of this project. This affects right to life also," the bench told the Delhi government's lawyer.

The lawyer said that Delhi government was not agreeable to the "revised alignment" of the Delhi-Meerut RRTS corridor due to change of station at Sarai Kale Khan from 'underground' to 'elevated'.

"What study have you (Delhi government) done on this?," the bench asked, adding, "You cannot say you do not want elevated station. It is not for you or the court to decide. It is for the experts to decide. Underground project will cost more".

"In our opinion, this project is absolutely necessary," the bench said.

The court asked Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) to convene a joint meeting of all the concerned stake holders within a week so that these issues could be sorted out.

It said that court should be informed about the outcome of the deliberations and posted the matter for further hearing on February 1.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General A N S Nadkarni, appearing for the Centre, told the bench that RRTS project is important as it would help in solving problem of traffic decongestion in Delhi.

In its affidavit filed in the top court, Delhi government said that change of plan by national capital region transport corporation (NCRTC) on revised alignment of the RRTS station "would seriously delay the redevelopment of Sarai Kale Khan ISBT

(inter state bus terminus)".

"Once the NCRTC reverts back to its original plan of alignment having underground RRTS station at Sarai Kale Khan, the same will be duly considered by the government of Delhi in a time bound manner," the affidavit said.

During the hearing on Friday, the bench also dealt with the issue of parking policy.

The Delhi government's counsel told the bench that the "Delhi Maintenance and Management of Parking Rules" were formulated and its draft was notified on January 24 last year.

"After considering the suggestions/objection received, the draft notification was further revised and proposal for obtaining approval of the competent authority for the issuance of notification of these Rules has been submitted to the Minister of Transport, Government of Delhi," the affidavit said.

The bench observed that a decision should be taken by the concerned minister within 10 days in this regard.

These issues have cropped up before the court when it was hearing a matter relating to air pollution in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR). PTI ABA MNL RHL
Nainital (U'khand), Jan 18 (PTI) The Uttarakhand High Court on Friday stayed the arrest of former state BJP general secretary Sanjay Kumar, accused of sexual harassment by a woman.

Justice N S Dhanik also directed the state to file a reply within four weeks, after which the matter will be listed for final hearing, said Kumar's advocate, Aditya Singh.

A woman, who worked at the state Bharatiya Janata Party office, approached the police accusing Kumar of sexually harassing her for months by sending obscene text messages and behaving inappropriately with her.

She had also accused the party leadership of not acting in the matter despite repeated complaints. The BJP had removed Kumar from the post after the incident came to light last year.

Kumar had applied for anticipatory bail in the case. PTI CORR ALM

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New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) The Forward Bloc has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to celebrate the birthday of its founder Subhas Chandra Bose as "Deshprem Divas", more than eight years after the demand was rejected by the then Congress-led government.

Bose had quit the Congress and floated the All India Forward Bloc in 1939.

Calling Modi an "ardent admirer of Netaji", the Left party, in a letter to the prime minister, requested that the day be renamed as soon as possible as January 23, 2019 would be the 123rd birth anniversary of Bose.

"His supreme sacrifice and love for his country are rare instances of noble quality that are found in the history of our freedom struggle. Gandhiji himself once paid the highest tributes to Subhas by mentioning him as the 'patriot of patriots'.

"We have made many representations to the government of India and our MPs have raised the demand several times in Parliament to declare January 23 as 'Deshprem Divas'. But the government of India is suspiciously reluctant to accept this people's demand," the letter written by the general secretary of the Forward Bloc, Debabrata Biswas, said.

In fact, last year, former Left leader Ritabrata Banerjee had raised the issue and demanded that "Netaji Jayanti" be declared a national holiday.

The demand was first raised in the Rajya Sabha in 2008 by Forward Bloc MP Barun Mukherjee, who had said the declaration of January 23 as "Deshprem Divas" would instill a sense of patriotism among the youth of the country.

However, in a letter written to Mukherjee in 2010, the then parliamentary affairs minister V Narayanaswamy had rejected the demand, saying many leaders had contributed significantly to the freedom movement and comparing them would be unfair.

The Modi government has recently gone the extra mile to claim the legacy of Bose.

It celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Azad Hind government founded by Bose in Singapore on October 21, 1943 by hoisting the tricolour at the Red Fort last year.

During his recent visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Modi had renamed three islands in the archipelago as Netaji, Shaheed and Swaraj.

"As you are an ardent admirer of Netaji, I earnestly request you to take immediate steps to declare Netaji Jayanti as 'Deshprem Divas' as his 123rd birthday is falling on January 23, 2019," the letter dated January 18 to the prime minister said. PTI ASG RC
Jammu, Jan 18 (PTI) National Conference president Farooq Abdullah Friday reiterated that his party was committed towards ensuring regional autonomy in Jammu and Kashmir as it will assuage the aspirations of the people of all the regions.

The former chief minister sought a massive mandate for his party in the ensuing elections, saying a strong and stable government alone can steer Jammu and Kashmir to peace, progress and development.

"On being given absolute majority in the ensuing elections, National Conference will bring legislation in the first assembly session with regard to regional autonomy," Abdullah said while interacting with various deputations besides welcoming new entrants into the party fold.

The people, he said, have realised the crucial need of a strong and stable government to meet various challenges confronted by the state.

Abdullah said a comprehensive blue print had already been drawn by the NC after extensive deliberations with an avowed objective of empowering the regions under the overall superintendence of the state government.

He said due care had been taken towards the distinct needs and urges of the people of various regions and hoped that it would go a long way in satiating their aspirations.

The veteran leader further said regional autonomy will build mutual trust between the regions and result in harmonious growth of the state, with people getting equal opportunities of progress and development.

On the occasion, senior Peoples Democratic Party leader from Poonch Peer Nissar Hussain Shah joined the National Conference.

Welcoming him, Abdullah said the National Conference was a mass movement devoted to the service of the people of the state.

Hussain, who is also the Sarpanch of Sawjian Poonch pledged to work for the betterment of the people and stressed the need for a single party government in the state.

"A government with absolute majority is the answer to all the challenges confronting to the state," he said.

Abdullah also said that political empowerment of women was necessary by reserving seats for them in democratic institutions.

On being given absolute majority, the NC will have 33 per cent reservations in the assembly for women, he said. PTI AB RHL
New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) Lt. Governor Anil Baijal on Friday reviewed the air pollution situation in Delhi and asked agencies to direct field officers to visit hotspot and heavily penalise instances of burning of waste, polluting units and dust-generating activities.

Baijal also asked the Delhi government to ensure greening of areas where waste has been lifted to control dust pollution.

"To control air pollution, night patrolling need to be conducted by teams comprising representatives from MCDs, revenue department, DPCC. Industrial associations/market traders associations, citizen groups are to be sensitised," he said in a statement.

Baijal chaired a meeting convened by chairman, EPCA, on Friday at Raj Niwas to review air pollution, waste management and sealing of industries operating in non-conforming areas like Narela, Bawana, Mundka and adjoining areas.

The meeting was attended by Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain; Bhure Lal, Chairman, EPCA.

The LG directed DJB to ensure drinking water supply in industrial areas.

Baijal was informed that 41,580 MT solid waste/industrial waste has been collected from Narela and Bawana areas. Also, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) has issued 230 show-cause notices in Narela and Bawana areas and imposed Rs. 1.825 crore of penalties and received an amount of Rs. 82.50 lakh.

The Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) has inspected 3,817 units in Narela and Bawana areas and issued notices to 867 defaulters.

It was also informed that 21,960 non-permissible industries operating in residential and non-conforming areas have been closed in StepI by municipal bodies. In StepII, 30,000 similar units operating illegally in residential and non-conforming areas will be closed.

It was further informed that out of 1,467 industries, 1,297 industries have been converted into PNG and 170 industries have been closed for non-conversion to PNG. Environmental marshalls have attended 15,556 no. of incidents and settled 14,310 incidents at site. PTI UZM ABH

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New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) The Delhi University Teachers' Association Friday protested outside the vice chancellor's office against the varsity's provision to have 10 per cent of permanent positions as contractual appointments.

The protest was "against the total apathy of the varsity administration towards teachers who are waiting for their promotion for more than a decade," the DUTA said.

It said contractual jobs of any kind was unacceptable as thousands of young teachers are already working in "extremely exploitative and uncertain conditions".

Our protest is to highlight the issues related to denial of promotion to more than 2,500 teachers, the DUTA said.

It demanded that the matter be discussed in the Executive Council of the varsity.

The other demands are the inclusion of Physical Education as a teaching discipline (as recognised in the UGC Regulations), the fulfilling of the promise made by the VC to make provision for one month's maternity leave to ad-hoc teachers and the decision regarding immediate disbursal of revised pension to the retired teachers, it said.

The DUTA alleged that the varsity had been converted into a fortress with the presence of police and the Rapid Action Force.

"Instead of resolving the issues of teachers which have been pending for years, the administration has resorted to such means revealing their indifference to the plight of all sections of teachers," it said.

Meanwhile, sources said an Executive Council meeting was held in the afternoon where some members moved a resolution against the use of police force against the protesting teachers, alleging that it was done at the behest of the varsity administration.

A discussion ensued on it for three hours and later the issue of having 10 per cent permanent positions as contractual appointments was taken up for discussion, they said.

The Academic Council had on Wednesday passed the proposal to have 10 per cent of permanent positions as contractual appointments despite opposition from certain members, the sources claimed.

In a statement, the varsity appealed to its members to maintain peace and harmony.

"University of Delhi strongly believes in freedom of speech and expression. The university appeals to all members in various departments/colleges/institutes to maintain peace and harmony during the course of exercising their freedom of speech and expression," it said.

Meanwhile, police said the protesting teachers tried to scale barricades and they had to resort to the use of mild force to control the situation. PTI SLB AMP SLB AQS

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New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) A tribe of Jammu and Kashmir's Ladakh region has demanded that the Centre make serious interventions to help it preserve its cultural heritage, which, experts say, is under threat due to rapid "modernisation, migration and religious conversion".

Members of the Dard Aryan tribe submitted a charter of demands to Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Sudarshan Bhagat on Friday.

The tribe, inhabiting Dha, Hanu, Beema, Darchik and Garkone villages in Leh and Kargil districts, claims to be the descendants of "pure Aryan race". Many researchers believe they are the descendants of Alexander, an official of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) said.

"The villages are together called the Aryan valley. The people of the region are completely different from those in other parts of Ladakh. The community prohibits marriage with outsiders to keep the gene pool intact. Of late, the Dard men are marrying outside the tribe," the official said.

The tribe is considered "threatened" due to their depleting numbers, which, at present, is around 4,000. They are mainly dependent on agriculture and are "educationally and economically backward", he said.

The Dard Aryans do not document their history and they have carried forward their cultural legacy orally. Most of them have embraced Islam or Buddhism and modernisation has had a negative impact on their traditions, he claimed.

Members of the tribe -- participating in a six-day festival, 'Celebrating Dard Aryans of Ladakh', here -- claimed that there were only three high schools in their villages and very limited resources of livelihood.

As such, they have no option but to migrate to cities. They demanded that the government set up a tribal hostel in the region and declare the Aryan valley a heritage village.

"So far, the government has not been able to anything for the Dard Aryans. Its policies and programmes have failed to reach them. Not many people in the country know about the tribe, which is considered threatened," Virendra Bangroo, an INGCA scholar, said.

"We are making an effort to help these people preserve their culture and tradition, which is under threat due to modernisation, migration, and conversion," Bangroo added. PTI GVS

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Jaipur, Jan 18 (PTI) Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for increasing procurement price of moong beans under MSP by 25 to 40 per cent and for extending the procurement period till January 31.

The state government has procured 2.36 metric tonne moong beans against the target of 2.39 lakh metric tonne during the procurement period of 90 days from over 1.67 lakh farmers, officials said.

After the 90-day period, procurement from 52,308 registered farmers was still pending, Gehlot said in the letter addressed to the prime minister on January 16.

Rajasthan has recorded a high yield of moong beans in the kharif season and farmer organisations in the state have demanded an increase in procurement price from 25 to 40 per cent under Centre's MSP scheme, the letter read.

Yesterday, RLTP leader Hanuman Beniwal had raised the issue of farmers and procurement of moong beans, saying farmers were suffering. PTI AG IND

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\R New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) Congress president Rahul Gandhi made a fervent appeal to the Meghalaya government on Friday to make as a first priority the rescue of the people who are trapped in a coal mine for more than a month.

"I am very pained at learning about the news of the death of a trapped miner in Meghalaya's coal mines. Many of our labourers are struck there.

"I appeal to the government to make this their first priority. The families of the trapped labour force are waiting for their safe return. I pray to God for their safe return to homes," Gandhi said in a Facebook post in Hindi.

Navy divers had found a body of one of the 15 trapped miners and also spotted several skeletons in the flooded rat-hole coal mine in East Jaintia Hills district on Thursday, weeks after a multi-agency search operation was launched to rescue them, officials said.

Around 15 miners remain trapped in the mine since December 13 after water from a nearby river gushed in. The rescue efforts picked up days later when several agencies were roped in as the rescuers were struggling to pump out water from the mines. PTI SKC

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New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) India and Malta discussed the possibility of enhancing trade and commercial ties between the two countries during a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat.

The Maltese prime minister is on his maiden visit to India from January 17 to 19 for attending the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2019.

He is accompanied by Malta's Minister of Economy, Investment and Small Businesses Christian Cardona, senior officials of his ministry and a large business delegation.

Modi invited greater academic cooperation from Malta, including the possibility of offering training courses for Maltese professionals at the Forensics University in Gujarat, an External Affairs Ministry statement said.

Realising the importance of renewable energy for sustainable and low carbon-imprint growth, the two leaders hailed the initiative of International Solar Alliance and committed full cooperation to upscale solar technologies and harness the full potential of solar energy, it said.

The Maltese PM and his delegation were received by Gujarat Governor O P Kohli.

During his bilateral meeting with Modi on the sidelines of the summit, Muscat fondly recalled the visit of the vice president of India to Malta in September last year and appreciated growing exchange of visits and strengthening of the bilateral relationship.

He welcomed Indian Pharma and IT industry to make Malta a potential hub for African and European markets.

He also invited India to cooperate with the country on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and financial technologies.

Malta has brought in a formal legislation on blockchain technology and sees the role of Indian IT companies as system monitors, the statement said. PTI SKC AAR
New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday accused the government of compromising national security and asked why it bought only 36 Rafale fighter jets instead of 126 required by the Air Force.

His comments come in the wake of fresh revelations on the Rafale deal in a media report which claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to but 36 aircraft instead of the 126 asked for by the Air Force pushed the price of each jet up by 41.42 per cent.

"In the light of new facts and revelations in THE HINDU, the question gains greater urgency: why did the government buy only 36 Rafale aircraft instead of 126 aircraft required by the Air Force?," Chidambaram asked in a tweet.

"The Government has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needs," he said.

Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia also took to Twitter to demand answers from Modi on the increased cost of aircraft.

"The PM's unilateral decision to buy 36 Rafales resulted in a price escalation of 41.42% per jet. When will the prime minister answer? he asked. PTI SKC DIV

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New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) Firing a fresh salvo on the Rafale issue, the Congress on Friday alleged that the NDA government has wronged the country by reducing the number of aircraft bought under the deal as it "denied" the IAF the fighter jets it "desperately" needed and gave a "windfall" to Dassault Aviation by paying more per aircraft.

Addressing a press conference, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the government did not buy the 90 more aircraft needed by the Air Force and paid Rs 186 crore more to French firm Dassault, maker of Rafale, for 13 India-specific enhancements in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).

The former finance minister reiterated his party's demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale jet deal, saying the decision is not amenable to court but to a parliamentary panel.

The Congress has alleged earlier that the prime minister increased the Benchmark Price of Rafale deal from 5.2 billion Euros to 8.2 billion Euros and that the NDA government paid over Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft against UPA's negotiated price of Rs 527 crore per aircraft, demanding answers as to who is responsible for the loss to the state exchequer.

Chidambaram's press conference came in the backdrop of a media report claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 aircraft instead of the 126 asked for by the Indian Air Force pushed the price of each jet up by 41.42 per cent.

"The government has wronged the country in two ways - firstly, it has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force 90 fighter aircraft that they desperately need.

"Secondly, it has purchased two squadrons that will cost about 25 million more per aircraft. At the 2016 exchange rate, Euro 25 million is equal to Rs 186 crore. India will pay Rs 186 crore more per aircraft," Chidambaram told reporters.

"There is no doubt any longer that Rafale aircraft deal deserves to be examined thoroughly by a joint parliamentary committee. The Congress reiterates its demand for constitution of a JPC," he said.

The Congress leader said he feels that Dassault "is laughing all the way to the bank", as the NDA government gave a "gift" to the French firm over amortization or recovery on the cost of 13 India-specific enhancements sought in the aircraft that cost 1,300 million Euros.

He said the cost of these enhancements have been recovered by Dassault in 36 aircraft and the same should have been recovered by it for 126 aircraft instead.

"That is a windfall for Dassault. That is the gift that the NDA government has given to Dassault and that is why I said that Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank....The windfall to Dassault was a deliberate decision of NDA government and is highly questionable," he said.

"The increased price per aircraft is a gift to Dassault that the NDA government gave between April 2015 to August 2016," he also said.

Chidambaram earlier said that in the light of new facts and revelations, "the question gains greater urgency: why did the government buy only 36 Rafale aircraft instead of 126 aircraft required by the Air Force?.

"The government has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needs," he tweeted earlier.

Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia also took to Twitter to demand answers from Modi on the increased cost of aircraft.

"The PM's unilateral decision to buy 36 Rafales resulted in a price escalation of 41.42% per jet. When will the prime minister answer?" he asked.

Chidambaram said serious issues are being raised in media reports about the process of decision-making in the NDA government and alleged that "the man who got away was Mr Manohar Parrikar who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security. Clever man."

"We will not comment on the process today. However, it is necessary to compliment the three officers of the Indian Negotiating Team who stood up to pressure and forced a vote of 4-3 on every issue," he said, adding that he has never seen such a decision on a defence deal happening in any government so far in the country. PTI SKC RT
New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) The AAP on Friday said it will not go for an alliance with the Congress in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, accusing the Grand Old Party of being "arrogant", and added that it will field candidates on all the parliamentary constituencies of Delhi, Punjab and Haryana.

Senior AAP leader and the party's Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai said the decision came in the wake of the recent statements of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit, opposing an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

"In the interest of the country, we were ready to drink the poison of the Congress, but the statements show that the Congress is still seeped in its arrogance. The AAP will contest all the Lok Sabha seats in the three states on its own," Rai said.

He added that the names of the candidates for the Lok Sabha polls will soon be announced by the party. PTI VIT RC
New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) Initiating fresh action, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued summons to four people, including IAS officer B Chandrakala and a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader, in connection with an alleged illegal mining case in Uttar Pradesh, official sources said on Friday.

The central probe agency had filed a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after taking cognisance of a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR filed to probe illegal mining instances in the Hamirpur area between 2012 and 2016.

The CBI has said it is probing the role of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav in the case as he had held the mining portfolio during this period.

The sources said Chandrakala and SP MLC Ramesh Kumar Mishra had been summoned by the ED to appear before the investigating officer of the case in Lucknow next week.

Two more officials were similarly summoned under the PMLA, they added.

The ED is probing the money trail and whether the alleged illegal funds received as kickbacks in these cases were laundered by the accused.

It will also look for assets, both immovable and movable, of the accused that can be attached under the anti-money laundering law.

The CBI had carried out searches at 14 locations earlier this month in connection with its FIR against 11 people, including Chandrakala, Mishra and Sanjay Dixit (who had unsuccessfully contested the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on a BSP ticket), to probe the alleged illegal mining of minor minerals in Hamirpur district during 2012-16.

The role of the then mining ministers during the said period might be looked into during the course of the investigation, the CBI FIR had said.

Yadav, who was the chief minister of the state between 2012 and 2017, held the mining portfolio during 2012-13, apparently bringing his role under the scanner, according to the FIR.

He was succeeded by Gayatri Prajapati, who took charge as the mining minister in 2013 and was arrested in 2017 following a complaint of rape by a woman residing in Chitrakoot.

Others named in the CBI FIR include SP MLC Mishra's brother Dinesh Kumar Mishra, Ram Ashrey Prajapati (then a mining clerk), Ambika Tiwari, Sanjay Dixit's father Satyadev Dixit, Ram Avtar Singh (a retired mining clerk), Karan Singh (a lease holder) and Adil Khan, an alleged illegal excavator. PTI NES RC
BJP defers WB campaign, Amit Shah to address rally on Jan 22

Kolkata, Jan 18 (PTI) The scheduled rallies of BJP in

West Bengal has been deferred by two days to January 22 owing

to its national president Amit Shah's ill health, party

officials said Friday.

"As he (Shah) is not well, we have decided to change

dates (of the rallies) so that he can attend them. There has

been change in dates. Amit Shah will address the first rally

on January 22 in Malda," Dilip Ghosh, president of the West

Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party said.

Shah, who has been admitted to the All India Institute

of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, with swine flu, is doing well

and will be discharged in a day or two, the party had said

Thursday.

On January 23, Shah will address two rallies at Suri

in Birbhum district and Jhargram district. On January 24, he

will address rallies at Krishnanagar in Nadia district and

Jaynagar in South 24 Parganas district, Ghosh said.

The BJP has identified West Bengal as a priority state

for the upcoming general elections and Shah has set a target

of winning 22 of the state's 42 Lok Sabha seats.

The party is also looking to host a few rallies of

Prime Minister Narendra Modi although the dates have not been

confirmed yet, Ghosh said.

In the last few years, the BJP has emerged as the

main opposition in the state with a commendable show in rural

polls and by-elections.

Shah's rally will come just days after TMC's mega

opposition rally.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday had asked the West Bengal

government to allow proposed public meetings and rallies of

the BJP under its "Ganatantra Bachao Yatra".

In a show of strength ahead of the national polls,

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has organised a massive rally

in Kolkata on January 19, which is likely to see participation

of lakhs. Leaders of all major opposition parties have been

invited to the rally to be held at the Brigade Parade ground

in the heart of the city. PTI PNT

JM JM
Sena hits out at Maha govt over Shivaji memorial delay

Mumbai, Jan 18 (PTI) The Shiv Sena Friday hit out at

the BJP-led Maharashtra government over the construction of

the Shivaji memorial and asked why it was unsuccessful in

putting its stand on the issue before the Supreme Court.

This, the Sena said, was despite the fact that the

government never failed on other issues like "buying wins" in

elections.

The Sena said the apex court has once again stopped

the construction of the Shivaji memorial, adding that it was

happening again and again which raised questions on whether

the government was serious about building of the memorial.

The party, an ally in the BJP-led governments in

Maharashtra and at the Centre, added that Sardar Vallabhbhai

Patel's statue was successfully constructed on the banks of

Narmada in Gujarat without any environmental or technical

issues cropping up to stop work.

The Sena said while the government made amendments in

the Constitution to give 10 per cent quota to economically

weaker sections of the general category and solved the triple

talaq issue similarly, the issues of constructing a Ram temple

in Ayodhya and Shivaji memorial in Mumbai remain unresolved.

"Is the court coming between the construction of

the memorial or is it that somebody, who does not want the

construction to take place, is using the judiciary as a

shield?" it asked in an editorial in party mouthpiece

'Saamana'.

The Sena said the project was worth Rs 3600 crore but

the government was not serious about it from the start.

"Some ask what is the use of memorials for Chhatrapati

Shivaji and Balasaheb Thackeray. Had Shivaji not been there,

Pakistan's boundaries would have come to your doorstep and had

Balasaheb not been there, even Hindus would have had to offer

namaz," the Sena claimed.

It termed as "shameful" the issue of Shivaji memorial

construction languishing in court.

"Why has the government been unsuccessful in putting

its stand before the Supreme Court? The government is never

unsuccessful in issues like buying wins during elections. Then

why on this issue? On other issues, the government takes

political decisions swiftly. However, it is being a laggard in

this," the Sena editorial said.

The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Centre

and Maharashtra government on a plea challenging a Bombay High

Court order which had refused to restrain authorities from

taking steps regarding the proposed Chhatrapati Shivaji

Maharaj Memorial project in Arabian Sea.

Advocate Nishant R Katneshwarkar, who appeared for

Maharashtra, had on Wednesday said that while issuing notice

on the plea, the bench orally told him to ask the authorities

not to proceed with the construction activity.

The petitioner NGO, Conservation Action Trust, had

moved the high court challenging a February 23, 2015 order of

the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change

(MoEF&CC) granting environmental and coastal regulation zone

clearance to the Rs 3,600 crore project in Mumbai.

It had sought interim relief that stay should be

granted on the order and the authorities restrained from

taking further steps with regard to the project. PTI MM

BNM BNM
Vanuatu turns the Corner LETS USE THIS AS A SPRINGBOARD FOR THE FUTURE
(Eds: Updating with statements of Pelosi's, Sarah Sandars)

Washington, Jan 18 (PTI) US President Donald Trump has postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to meet military officials and troops in Afghanistan and Brussels, saying she was needed here for negotiations to end the partial government shutdown.

Trump's move came Thursday a day after the House Speaker urged him to reschedule his annual State of the Union address slated for January 29, citing security concerns triggered by the shutdown that has entered its 27th day.

"Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over," Trump said in a letter to Pelosi, a copy of which was released to the press.

The president also said postponing this "public relations event" was totally appropriate.

The longest-ever shutdown in US history has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including Security and State department.

In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that, Trump said.

However, Pelosi's spokesman Drew Hammill said the visit's purpose was to express appreciation to US troops and obtain "critical" briefings from them.The trip did not have Egypt as a stop, he said.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divide over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House have refused to approve a legislation approving USD 5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border.

"I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the strong border security movement to end the shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative, Trump said.

The president said: I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!

Trump's letter to Pelosi came soon after the House Speaker told reporters at the US Capitol that the president has been silent for more than 24 hours on the issue of rescheduling his annual State of the Union address.

We haven't heard. It was a very silent more than 24 hours, to your question that you ask me every time I step out of the office, have you heard? No, we haven't heard yet. Pelosi said taking a dig at the president.

The House Speaker's spokesman, Hammill, said the Congressional Delegation to Afghanistan included a required stop in Brussels for pilot rest.

In Brussels, the delegation was scheduled to meet with top NATO commanders, US military leaders and key allies - to affirm the United States ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance. This weekend visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt, the spokesman said.

The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines, Hammill said.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said, We want to keep her (Pelosi) in Washington. If she leaves, she guarantees that the second round of paychecks to 800,000 federal workers won't go out. The deadline to make that deal is midnight on Tuesday."

She wasn't scheduled to be back until Wednesday. The president wants her here to negotiate," she said.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.

The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.

The ongoing shutdown on January 12 broke the previous record of 21 days of US government shutdown under the Bill Clinton administration in December 16, 1995 to January 5, 1996. PTI LKJ

ANB

ANB
Bogota, Jan 17 (AFP) A car bomb attack on a police cadet training academy killed 10 people and wounded 65 on Thursday in Bogota, making it the worst such incident in the Colombian capital in 16 years.

The defense ministry said the "terrorist act" was carried out using a vehicle packed with 80 kilograms (around 175 pounds) of explosives.

"All Colombians reject terrorism and we're united in fighting it," President Ivan Duque tweeted.

Vowing to bring those responsible to justice, Duque added: "COLOMBIA is sad but will not bow to violence." The bomber -- who authorities confirmed was killed in the attack -- struck at the General Francisco de Paula Santander Officer's School in the south of Bogota during a promotion ceremony for cadets.

No group has claimed responsibility, but public prosecutor Nestor Humberto Martinez named suspect Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez as the "material author of this abominable crime." Martinez said Rojas Rodriguez entered the school compound at 9:30 am (1430 GMT) driving a grey 1993 Nissan Patrol truck, but gave no details about the explosion.

He said the truck underwent an inspection in July in the Arauco department on the border with Venezuela -- a traditional stronghold of ELN Marxist guerrillas.

The defense ministry said an investigation had been opened "to find those responsible for this terrorist act." Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno said one of the dead was an Ecuadoran cadet, while a second suffered light injuries.

"The brutal act of terrorism in Bogota took the life of a compatriot," Moreno said on Twitter.

"My sincerest thoughts go to the family, friends and companions of Erika Chico." Meanwhile, Panama's President Juan Carlos Varela that 45 Panamanian cadets were present during the attack, with two injured.

Fanny Contreras, the Colombian armed forces' health inspector, told local radio that the truck "entered (the school compound) suddenly, almost hitting the police, and then there was the explosion."

Carol Oviedo said her brother Jonathan, a cadet, told her on the phone he had been injured, before the connection was cut.

"In two years since he joined the police, he's never had to face a situation like this," she said.

Like other families, she was lingering in the vicinity of the academy hoping to hear some news.

United States assistant secretary of state in charge of Latin America, Kimberly Breier condemned the attack and said: "Our condolences and sympathies go to the victims and family members of those killed." The US embassy in Bogota offered its "help in investigating this reprehensible attack." Rosalba Jimenez, 62, was opening her confectionary store near the school when the bomb went off.

"When we turned to look at the school the sky was grey with smoke. People were running, sirens... horrible, horrible, it seemed like the end of the world," Jimenez told AFP.

Authorities sealed off the area to the press and increased security service patrols in the south of the city, AFP reporters said.

Right-wing Duque, who assumed power in August, has peddled a tough line against Marxist rebels and drug traffickers in the largest cocaine producer in the world.

Peace talks with ELN guerrillas -- who in the past have claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on police -- stalled before Duque replaced Juan Manuel Santos as president, and have not been restarted.

Duque has made several demands, including the release of all hostages, as prerequisites to kick-starting the peace process, but the ELN has dismissed those as unacceptable.

After the 2016 peace accord signed by Santos and FARC guerrillas, turning the former rebels into a political party, the ELN is considered the last active rebel group in a country that has suffered more than half a century of conflict.

That cycle of violence has also involved paramilitaries, drug traffickers and other Marxist rebels, including FARC dissidents.

A year ago, six police died and 40 were injured in an attack on a police station in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla that was claimed by the ELN.

In February 2017, the ELN claimed responsibility for an attack on a police patrol in the Macarena neighborhood of Bogota that left one officer dead and several seriously wounded.

In June, three people -- including a Frenchwoman -- were killed and nine others wounded in an attack on a Bogota shopping mall that authorities blamed on a fringe left-wing group called the Revolutionary People's Movement (MRP). (AFP) ANB

ANB
Washington, Jan 18 (AFP) US President Donald Trump is meeting Friday with North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol to discuss negotiations on the country's pledge to denuclearize, the White House said.

The meeting in the Oval Office at the White House was due at 12:15 pm (1715 GMT), Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

"They will discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Korea's final, fully verified denuclearization," she said. AFP

NSA

NSA
Washington, Jan 18 (PTI) President Donald Trump has cancelled the US delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week, due to the partial government shutdown, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday.

The announcement comes as the shutdown entered its 27th day.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sanders said in a statement.

The longest-ever shutdown in US history has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including Security and State department.

Earlier, Trump postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, citing the shutdown.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divided over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House have refused to approve a legislation approving USD 5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling. The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table. PTI LKJ









ANB

ANB
New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 2000 hours:



FGN8 US-INDIA-DEFENCE

US discusses potential missile defence cooperation with India :Pentagon

Washington: The Trump administration has discussed a potential missile defence cooperation with India as part of its effort to deepen the bilateral strategic partnership, the Pentagon has said, asserting that New Delhi is a "key element" in America's Indo-Pacific strategy. By Lalit K Jha.



FGN9 ISRAEL-NSA-INDIA

Israeli NSA calls on PM Modi; discusses bilateral issues

Jerusalem: Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat visited India earlier this week and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss issues related to bilateral relations, including the advancing of security deals, according to an official statement here. By Harinder Mishra.



FGN17 PAK-AFGHAN-ENVOY

US envoy on Afghanistan Khalilzad holds talks with Pak Foreign Minister

Islamabad: US special envoy on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad Friday held talks with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and discussed efforts to speed up the Afghan peace process by involving the Taliban. By Sajjad Hussain.



FGN21 US-TRUMP-LDALL PELOSI

President Trump cancels Speaker Pelosi's foreign 'excursion' amid government shutdown

Washington: US President Donald Trump has denied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a military plane for an "excursion" to Brussels and war-torn Afghanistan, a tit-for-tat retaliation that deepened the divide between the two leaders amidst the longest-ever federal government shutdown.By Lalit K Jha



FGN11US-MISSILE-DEFENCE

US announces new missile defence system to counter threats from Russia, China

Washington: The US has announced a new missile defense policy aimed at addressing the challenges posed by Russia and China, which seeks to displace America in the Indo-Pacific region and has adopted an assertive posture in disputes over territorial boundaries with its neighbours. By Lalit K Jha.



FGN22 UK-DUKE-2NDLD ACCIDENT

Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip escapes unhurt in major car crash

London: Britain's Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, miraculously escaped unhurt in a terrifying accident when a Land Rover the 97-year-old duke was driving flipped onto its side after a collision with another car carrying two women and a baby.



FGN15 PAK-SC-LD KHOSA

"Poetic Justice" Asif Khosa takes oath as new Chief Justice of Pakistan

Islamabad: Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, known for adding lyrical flair in his judgments, Friday took oath as the 26th Chief Justice of Pakistan in a simple ceremony held here at the President's House which was also attended by foreign legal luminaries, including from India. By Sajjad Hussain.



FGN13 US-TRUMP-2NDLD DAVOS

Trump cancels US delegation's visit to Davos amid shutdown

Washington: President Donald Trump, who cancelled his visit to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum, has now called off the US delegation's trip to the annual meeting, citing the partial government shutdown.



FGN12 PAK-COURT-GILGIT

Pak SC orders govt to give more rights to people of Gilgit-Baltistan

Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court has ordered the federal government to promulgate a new law within a fortnight to grant more rights, including fundamental human rights, to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. By Sajjad Hussain.



FGN24 US-POMPEO-NKOREA

Pompeo, NKorean official to meet about possible Kim summit

Washington: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is to meet former North Korean spy chief Kim Yong Chol on Friday for talks aimed at finalizing a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.(AP)



FGN14 COLOMBIA-2NDLD BOMBING

21 dead in car bomb attack on Colombian police academy

Bogota: Colombia' s government declared three days of mourning Thursday after at least 21 people died in a car bomb at a Bogota police cadet training academy, and 68 were wounded -- the worst such incident in the city in 16 years.(AFP)



FGN23 WORLD-MARKETS

Stock markets rebound on China-US trade breakthrough hopes

London: Stock markets rebounded more than one percent Friday, buoyed by hopes of a breakthrough in the US-China trade war. (AFP)



FGN19 FRANCE-ATTACK-LD TRIAL

France to try 14 people over Jan 2015 Paris attacks: judicial source

Paris: French anti-terror judges have recommended that 14 people be tried in connection with the January 2015 jihadist attacks in and around Paris, a judicial source told AFP Friday.(AFP).

RUP

RUP
Brussels, Jan 18 (AFP) Prime Minister Theresa May will talk by telephone to EU president Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday at the British leader's request, EU officials said.

May and Juncker have only been in touch by text message since Tuesday, when the British parliament rejected their Brexit divorce deal.

"President Juncker will talk to Prime Minister May today early afternoon at her request," European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said.

"I don't know how decisive or not this will be." British politicians are now wrangling over how to get out of the impasse, which could see Britain crash out of the union without a deal on March 29.

EU leaders have so far ruled out renegotiating the agreement, but have signalled they could postpone the withdrawal if May comes up with a plan. (AFP)

PMS

PMS
New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 hours:



FGN8 US-INDIA-DEFENCE

US discusses potential missile defence cooperation with India :Pentagon

Washington: The Trump administration has discussed a potential missile defence cooperation with India as part of its effort to deepen the bilateral strategic partnership, the Pentagon has said, asserting that New Delhi is a "key element" in America's Indo-Pacific strategy. By Lalit K Jha.



FGN9 ISRAEL-NSA-INDIA

Israeli NSA calls on PM Modi; discusses bilateral issues

Jerusalem: Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat visited India earlier this week and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss issues related to bilateral relations, including the advancing of security deals, according to an official statement here. By Harinder Mishra.



FGN17 PAK-AFGHAN-ENVOY

US envoy on Afghanistan Khalilzad holds talks with Pak Foreign Minister

Islamabad: US special envoy on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad Friday held talks with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and discussed efforts to speed up the Afghan peace process by involving the Taliban. By Sajjad Hussain.



FGN16 US-TRUMP-3RDLD PELOSI

President Trump cancels Speaker Pelosi's foreign trip citing government shutdown

Washington: US President Donald Trump has denied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a military plane for an "excursion" to Brussels and war-torn Afghanistan, a tit-for-tat retaliation that deepened the divide between the two leaders amidst the longest-ever federal government shutdown. By Lalit K Jha.



FGN11US-MISSILE-DEFENCE

US announces new missile defence system to counter threats from Russia, China

Washington: The US has announced a new missile defense policy aimed at addressing the challenges posed by Russia and China, which seeks to displace America in the Indo-Pacific region and has adopted an assertive posture in disputes over territorial boundaries with its neighbours. By Lalit K Jha.



FGN15 PAK-SC-LD KHOSA

"Poetic Justice" Asif Khosa takes oath as new Chief Justice of Pakistan

Islamabad: Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, known for adding lyrical flair in his judgments, Friday took oath as the 26th Chief Justice of Pakistan in a simple ceremony held here at the President's House which was also attended by foreign legal luminaries, including from India. By Sajjad Hussain.



FGN13 US-TRUMP-2NDLD DAVOS

Trump cancels US delegation's visit to Davos amid shutdown

Washington: President Donald Trump, who cancelled his visit to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum, has now called off the US delegation's trip to the annual meeting, citing the partial government shutdown.



FGN12 PAK-COURT-GILGIT

Pak SC orders govt to give more rights to people of Gilgit-Baltistan

Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court has ordered the federal government to promulgate a new law within a fortnight to grant more rights, including fundamental human rights, to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. By Sajjad Hussain.



FGN14 COLOMBIA-2NDLD BOMBING

21 dead in car bomb attack on Colombian police academy

Bogota: Colombia' s government declared three days of mourning Thursday after at least 21 people died in a car bomb at a Bogota police cadet training academy, and 68 were wounded -- the worst such incident in the city in 16 years.(AFP)



RUP

RUP
Peshawar, Jan 18 (PTI) Pakistan's first women's bicycle rally, scheduled to take place here on Saturday, has been postponed after religious parties threatened to protest against the event, which they said, will spread obscenity.

Zama Jawandoon, an organisation working for women's rights, had organised the 'peace rally' that was scheduled to begin from Peshawar's Hayatabad neighbourhood on Saturday, the Dawn reported.

At least 35 women were slated to participate in the rally and people from the transgender community were also invited, said the event's lead organiser, Wafa Wazir.

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam  Fazl (JUI-F), Jamaat-i-Islami, and other religious parties on Friday announced they would stage a protest against the rally in Hayatabad.

"The women's bicycle rally is spreading obscenity," JUI-F's Maulana Rafiullah Qasmi said at a meeting held on Friday.

He announced that they would contact the relevant departments to have the event cancelled and if that is not done, a demonstration will be held against the rally on Saturday, the daily reported.

The threat of the protest led the organisers to cancel the rally a day before it was scheduled to take place.

The lead organiser of the rally said they had approached the Peshawar district administration before announcing the event and were subsequently issued a no-objection certificate (NOC) to hold the rally.

But she said they had decided to postpone the event after the protest call by religious groups because they did not want the rally to take place in a state of any unrest.

Police, however, told the daily that the organisers of the event had not approached them to obtain an NOC or seek security.

"After receiving information about the (planned) protest against the race, police contacted the organisers and they revealed that the rally had been postponed," SP Cantt Wasim Riaz said.

He said it was the responsibility of police to provide security to any events in the city, adding that organisers must first obtain police clearance.

According to Riaz, police had not received any directions from the district administration or any other department for the provision of security to the women's bicycle rally.

Pakistan is the fourth worst country for women according to recently released rankings of the Women, Peace and Security Index.

Women's average years of schooling in the country stands at only five years, while only 33 per cent of Pakistani women have been found to use cellphones. Only 24 per cent of Pakistani women are employed. PTI PMS AKJ PMS

PMS
Islamabad, Jan 18 (PTI) Pakistan will host the next round of talks between the US and Afghan Taliban in Islamabad, it was decided on Friday during a meeting between Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, according to a media report.

Quoting diplomatic sources, GEO News reported that Pakistan decided to extend an invitation to the Afghan Taliban representatives to come to Islamabad and hold talks.

It is expected that Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar would also be part of the peace talks, it said.

The decision to hold the next round of talks between the US and Afghan Taliban in Islamabad was taken on Friday during a meeting between Qureshi and Khalilzad, the report said without giving a date for the negotiations.

US President Donald Trump has been pressing Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to facilitate Afghan peace talks, with Washington reportedly making it a condition for a future summit between the two leaders in Washington.

During the meeting between Qureshi and Khalilzad, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, the Foreign Minister said that the Taliban were not willing to sit with the Afghan administration nor were they willing for a ceasefire, the report said.

Khalilzad requested that Pakistan should play its role to make the dialogue successful, it said.

Khalilzad, who arrived in Pakistan on Thursday from Kabul, as part of his four-nation tour, told Qureshi that the US leadership values Pakistan's efforts for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.

Khalilzad has held three round of talks with the Afghan Taliban to reach a settlement that would allow the US to withdraw its army and end a 17-year-old war  America's longest.

Qureshi assured Khalilzad that Pakistan will continue its efforts to facilitate the Afghan-reconciliation process to bring peace and stability to the region.

"We have a shared responsibility to work towards bringing peace in Afghanistan," the minister said.

A US-delegation comprising the representatives of the State Department and Defence and National Security Council also attended the meeting.

Khalilzad is on his fifth visit to the region for Afghan reconciliation since he assumed office.

On Thursday, the US envoy met with Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and discussed progress on the Afghan peace process.

Khalilzad has already visited India and met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on January 10.

India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and has committed aid worth USD 3 billion to the war-ravaged country.

New Delhi has also been pressing for an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace initiative to bring peace and stability in the war-ravaged country.

The Afghan peace initiative has been moving at a snail's pace due to refusal of the Taliban to sit for talks with the Afghan government officials.

Pakistan last year released senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar from imprisonment in an attempt to woo the militant group to engage in talks.

Baradar was deputy to the late Taliban supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar.

The report of Pakistan may host the next round of Afghan peace talks came hours after a US Congressional report said that Islamabad may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong and unified one.

"Pakistan may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong, unified Afghan state (particularly one led by a Pashtun-dominated government in Kabul; Pakistan has a large Pashtun minority)," the report prepared by the Congressional Research Service said.

"Pakistan sees Afghanistan as potentially providing strategic depth against India, but may also anticipate that improved relations with Afghanistan's leadership could limit India's influence in Afghanistan," said the report titled, "Afghanistan: Background and US Policy in Brief". PTI AKJ AKJ
Mumbai, Jan 18 (PTI) Bollywood has largely been silent about the sexual assault allegation against filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani and actor Richa Chadha believes that is because they are not aware of the facts of the case.

Hirani is the latest name to be called out for sexual harassment with a woman "assistant" alleging in an article in HuffPost India that he sexually abused her more than once between March and September 2018 while working on "Sanju".

When asked if the industry was quiet about Hirani as he is a powerful director, Richa told reporters, "It isn't power structure. I think everyone is tentative because they don't know the facts of the case. Legally, a publication is allowed to run a story because they vet it with their legal team.

"But it's an anonymous allegation. I'm not defending him or the girl either. I've learnt it the hard way. A friend of mine was falsely accused. This is the only reason why I feel people are tentative."

The actor said her upcoming film "Section 375" debates about consent and said if survivors come out and share their stories, they must be supported.

"If there's a survivor willing to come forward and say 'this happened to me' and confide in people, we must support her. Which is why I vocally supported Vinta Nanda.

"He (Hirani) is one of the directors with the cleanest image, you must not forget that. There have been others who were accused but nobody said anything," she added.

The actor was speaking at a special event of her upcoming "Shakeela" where she launched calendars of the film.

Richa said she has understood that the best thing to do in #MeToo movement is to take the legal route.

"The press also plays a role. When you print a hearsay, the powerful will suppress the story but many people get caught up in rumours. It has to be looked at from both sides."

The "Masaan" actor said a bad date, a relationship gone sour or vendetta is not #MeToo.

"We are talking about 2019, if exploitation has happened, you should definitely go to the police and take legal route. A lot of people suffer in trial by media. I'm very enthusiastic about the movement because it's very important.

"If women don't feel safe, then how will the work be done. It shouldn't be trial by media but trial by law. If you've filed a complaint then don't back out. If someone is putting pressure on you, voice it. There are people who'll hear you," she added.

While most in Bollywood have refused to speak on the issue, Hirani's previous collaborators Arshad Warsi, Dia Mirza and Sharman Joshi have batted for the filmmaker.

The director also found support in veteran screenwriter Javed Akhtar, who called him the "most decent" person in the industry. PTI JUR RB

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In collaboration with The Government of India Rooftop Solar Technical Assistance Program supported by the World Bank



New Delhi, Delhi, India (NewsVoir)



TERI School of Advanced Studies (TERI SAS), the pioneer institution of international importance in sustainability research, provided a platform to like-minded researchers, experts, academicians, policy-makers and corporate leaders by hosting the 2ndInternational Conference on Business, Economics and Sustainable Development (ICBESD-2019) to discuss issues and challenges facing businesses and economies to meet the goal of sustainable development through new and innovative solutions, without compromising on growth, profitability, and competitiveness. The conference was organized in collaboration with the Government of India Rooftop Solar Technical Assistance Program supported by The World Bank. The conference comprised three panel discussions on emerging themes of health finance, circular economy, and solar rooftop systems and 16 parallel paper presentation sessions with eminent academicians, corporate leaders and policy-makers chairing the sessions on various themes relating to the Sustainable Development Goals.



The conference was inaugurated by Mr. Gopal Krishna Gupta, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India. Dr. Leena Srivastava, Vice Chancellor, TERI SAS and Chief Patron, ICBESD-2019 delivered the welcome address along with conference Chair, Prof. Manipadma Datta and Conference Patron, Prof Shri Prakash.



Introducing the conference to the audience Dr. Leena Srivastava, VC, TERI SAS said, Industry-Academia partnerships need to go beyond the rhetoric to a mutually beneficial long term engagement to design systemic solutions  particularly on issues of sustainability that are making not just businesses vulnerable but entire societies too! Our effort at the TERI School of Advanced Studies is to lead that change through an inter-disciplinary perspective. Through this conference, as a first step, the aim is to provide an impetus to researchers across sectors to evaluate and ensure the preparedness of businesses and the economies for achieving the SDGs.



Inaugurating the conference, Mr. Gopal Krishna Gupta, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India said, There are many opportunities available for researchers and students to join the government to achieve the goal of sustainable development and climate change. Such a goal needs systematic persuasion and collaboration. This conference provides a platform to likeminded collaborators to deliberate on the issue that is of outmost importance today.



Prof. Manipadma Datta, Conference Chair and Professor at TERI SAS informed that an overwhelming 150 papers has been received under various themes in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. He added, "We believe that ICBESD provides a very suitable platform to researchers, academicians, and corporates committed to the cause of sustainable development. We hope that through this annual conference of stakeholders at TERI SAS, knowledge is disseminated about unique, relevant and useful means and methods to make businesses and economies sustainable in the true sense."



The conference was kept in line with the SDGs with key sessions on the following themes:

 Circular Economy

 Health Finance

 Solar Rooftop Systems

 Solar Rooftop Policies

 Climate Change

 Economics of Sustainable Development

 Banking and Finance for Sustainability

 Corporate Governance, CSR and Ethics

 Creating Shared Value

 Sustainable Development Goals and Indias Preparedness

 Infrastructure and Sustainable Development

 Marketing and Sustainability

 Sustainable Business Strategies

 Sustainable Human Resource Development

 Sustainability Reporting



The conference witnessed the presence of eminent national and international institutes like Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, IIT, NIFM, Jamia Millia Islamia University, Rajiv Gandhi University, Symbiosis Institute of International Business, IGNOU, JNU, AMITY International Business School, Jamia Millia Islamia and many more.



Overall the conference was a unique platform for faculty, researchers, students, corporate leaders and other stakeholders to deliberate on the emerging horizons and the road ahead to create a systemic change to meet the mammoth challenge of sustainable development.



Image: 2nd ICBESD 2019 PWR

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36% YoY growth in Revenue and 47% YoY growth in Net profit in Q3FY19



Mumbai, Maharashtra, India  Business Wire India



L&T Technology Services (BSE: 540115, NSE: LTTS), Indias leading pure-play engineering services company, announced its results for the third quarter ended December 31, 2018.



Highlights for Q3FY19 include:



 USD Revenue at $185.7 million; growth of 4.8% QoQ and 23% YoY



 Revenue at Rs 13,169 million; growth of 4% QoQ and 36% YoY



 EBITDA margin at 18.4%; up by 310bps YoY



 Net profit at Rs 1,856 million; growth of 47% YoY



During the quarter, LTTS won 8 multi-million dollar deals across all industry segments. On a YoY basis, LTTS has increased its USD50mn+ clients by 2, USD10mn+ clients by 4 and its USD5mn+ clients by 10.



We have sustained the double-digit growth trajectory across all industry segments by building on our excellent positioning in digital & leading-edge technologies which has now risen to 34% of revenues. The strong growth achieved in the current year-to-date gives us confidence of exiting FY19 with industry leading growth once again. On the operational front, our execution engine has been firmly focused on improving profitability along with growth. Our EBITDA margin has inched up consecutively for four quarters to 18.4% in Q3, which is an improvement of over 300bps on YoY basis.



We continue to invest in building new capabilities and creating new labs to aid innovation. In Q3 we started a design lab for 5G where our engineers are working on new challenges and concepts. The platforms and proprietary solutions that we are developing in areas like Smart Campus, Autonomous Vehicles, NB-IoT, Digital Factory and Robotic Automation is helping LTTS to be at the forefront of the ER&D Services industry that is participating in transformational technology, said Dr Keshab Panda, CEO & Managing Director, L&T Technology Services Limited.



Industry Recognitions:



 LTTS was honored with the 2018 IoT Platforms Leadership Award by IoT Evolution Magazine, a U.S. based technology publication. LTTS secured the recognition for its Condition Based Monitoring Solution Integrated MCare powered by the Companys IoT platform UBIQWeise2.0



 DataQuest has recognized LTTS as the Best Company for Excellence & Innovation in Digital Engineering Services.



 LTTS was awarded the HR Department of the Year distinction 2018 at the Delaware Valley Awards by the Rosen Group.



 UBS Forum honored LTTS with the Best CSR Practice Award 2018 for creating significant and positive impact on people, communities and the environment through education initiatives.



 LTTS was positioned as a Leader in IoT Technology & Services by Zinnov in 2018 across 12 unique expertise areas as compared to 7 in the previous year.



Patents



 At the end of Q3FY19, the patents portfolio of L&T Technology Services stood at 363, out of which 264 are co-authored with its customers and 99 are filed by LTTS.



 14 new patents were added in the quarter with 6 being filed by LTTS and 8 co-authored with customers.



Human Resources



At the end of Q3FY19, LTTS employee strength stood at 14,777, a net addition of 1,192 during the quarter.



About L&T Technology Services Limited



L&T Technology Services Limited (LTTS) is a listed subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Limited focused on Engineering and R&D (ER&D) services. We offer consultancy, design, development and testing services across the product and process development life cycle. Our customer base includes 52 Fortune 500 companies and 51 of the worlds top ER&D companies, across industrial products, medical devices, transportation, telecom & hi-tech, and the process industries.



Headquartered in India, we have over 14,700 employees spread across 17 global design centers, 27 global sales offices and 48 innovation labs as of December 31, 2018.



For additional information about L&T Technology Services log on to www.LntTechservices.com PWR

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BETHESDA, Maryland, Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Pharmerit International (Pharmerit), a leading health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) consultancy, is expanding its Asian presence. The expansion includes the growth of the Shanghai, China, office as well as establishment of an office in Mumbai, India.



The Asia-Pacific region is a rapidly growing pharmaceutical and medical device market and an emerging leader in healthcare innovation. Pharmerit's expanded local presence will provide both regional and global sponsors with one-stop market access solutions from a team of in-country experts and affiliates.



"Our expanded presence strengthens our ability to meet the rapidly evolving global evidence and market access requirements," said Marc Botteman, Managing Partner at Pharmerit. "Over the past few years, we have been active in conducting and publishing research relevant to regional decision-makers in countries such as India, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and The Philippines. With the addition of Mumbai, we are positioned to work with global sponsors and collaborate with their regional affiliates in Asia's emerging markets by leveraging our regional presence."



The expansion of the Shanghai office includes the addition of Dr. Xiaocong Li as Scientist as well as a new research analyst. Dr. Li brings a broad range of expertise in database and trial analyses, predictive analytics, machine learning, and economic modeling. "Xiaocong is a great addition to the Shanghai office as she fully understands the local requirements and procedures applicable in China. Her experience in HEOR and clinical practice will provide sponsors with increased access to local and technical support," said Cindy Gao, Asia-Pacific Lead.



The newly established Mumbai office is led by Varun Ektare, Senior Scientist and India Office Lead, a seasoned health economist with extensive experience in economic modeling, meta-analysis, literature reviews, health policy and market access in a range of therapeutic areas. Varun has been leading projects over the past 6 years in the Pharmerit Bethesda, USA office. "With Varun based in Mumbai, we can provide quality, local support in a fast-growing pharmaceutical and healthcare market," said Dipen Patel, Executive Director of Strategic Market Access.



About Pharmerit



Pharmerit International has over 30 years of experience supporting pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device organizations in health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) worldwide. We deliver quality research in health economics, outcomes, strategic market access, and pricing/reimbursement. Pharmerit has offices in Berlin, Bethesda, Boston, Mumbai, New York, Rotterdam, York, and Shanghai. Visit https://www.pharmerit.com. PWR

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NEW DELHI, January 17, 2019/PRNewswire/ --

Schneider Electric is one of four companies to receive the 2019 Catalyst Award

Schneider Electric, the global leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation, has received a significant accolade for its commitment and progress towards gender equality and inclusion across the Group. The company has for the first time received the 2019 Catalyst Awardthat highlights the company's bold and forward-thinking initiatives that help create safe and inclusive workplaces where women can advance.







(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/654747/SchneiderElectricIndia_Logo.jpg )



"Schneider Electric's commitment is to provide equal opportunities to everyone, everywhere, and to ensure that all our employees feel uniquely valued and safe so that they can contribute to the best of their potential," said Olivier Blum, Global Chief Human Resources Officer and Executive Vice President at Schneider Electric. "Our inclusion on Bloomberg's GEI, and the prestigious Catalyst Award, demonstrate our strong performance in Diversity and Inclusion, both at the global and country level ."



Catalyst praises Schneider Electric's extraordinary progress in India



The Catalyst Award celebrates innovative organisational approaches with proven, measurable results that accelerate progress for women through workplace inclusion. Schneider Electric is one of four organisations receiving the award this year alongside Bank of America, Deutsche Post DHL Group and Elli Lilly. The company is recognised for Schneider Electric India's holistic approach to gender inclusion attracting and retaining women in Schneider Electric India.



To assess the Group, Catalyst engaged Schneider Electric India leaders and employees in an extensive evaluation which includes documentation reviews, phone interviews and onsite visits. In Delhi and Bangalore Schneider Electric Offices, Catalyst was impressed by the results inclusion has brought to the organisation in a country where gender equality is a big concern.



Schneider Electric India's holistic approach comprises:



Robust recruiting and retention programmes, including targeted campus hiring and outside sector recruitment, intentional recruiting and retention of people across the various dimensions of diversity, including disability and LGBTI.

Efforts to re-engage women following a career break through programmes such as Her Second Innings, which eases women professional's transition back into the workforce.

Men's engagement and inclusion in all aspects of the initiative to encourage and support their participation as allies and champions.

Flexible work arrangements for all. Many employees have stories about their ability to work remotely for extended periods with the support of their managers and colleagues, to care for sick loved ones. Additionally, more fathers are taking parental leave.

"At Schneider Electric, we know that embracing diversity is simply an unfiltered acknowledgement of the truth of this world. It goes without saying that creating an empowering environment for individuals from diverse cultures, gender identities, socio-religious preferences and special abilities gets them to bring their authentic selves to work. It's that common feature which allows them to contribute their finest at work and outside," said Anil Chaudhry, Managing Director & Zone President, Schneider Electric Greater India and Member of the Global Diversity & Inclusion Board of the Group. "We are proud to be walking the talk these last few years on diversity and inclusion - and are truly humbled by Catalyst's recognition. I am proud of my team which has been working at this passionately."



From 2015 to 2018, the impact of the initiative has been increasingly tangible, with women's representation increasing across all levels from 15.9% to 20.8%, despite an overall workforce shrinkage of 5%, and women's voluntary attrition rates shrinking by almost half.



Schneider Electric India's recognition is a testimony to the broader diversity and inclusion transformation led by the company at the global level. By focusing on inclusion for all, Schneider Electric's achievements in India are an example of the company's overall ambition to provide equal opportunities to everyone while creating both physical and psychological safety for all employees.



About Schneider Electric



Schneider Electric is leading the digital transformation of energy management and automation in homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries.



With global presence in over 100 countries, Schneider is the undisputable leader in Power Management - Medium Voltage, Low Voltage and Secure Power, and in Automation Systems. We provide integrated efficiency solutions, combining energy, automation and software.



In our global Ecosystem, we collaborate with the largest Partner, Integrator and Developer Community on our Open Platform to deliver real-time control and operational efficiency.



We believe that great people and partners make Schneider a great company and that our commitment to Innovation, Diversity and Sustainability ensures that 'Life Is On' everywhere, for everyone and at every moment.



http://www.schneider-electric.com



Discover Life Is On



Follow us on:



Hashtags: #LifeIsOn #CatalystAward #BGEI #EmbraceDifferent #DiversityAndInclusion #InvestedInEquality #DataForGood







Source: Schneider Electric India Private Limited PWR

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Merck Foundation is also organizing Merck Health Media Training on 28th February 2019 in Accra, Ghana to break the stigma around infertility in Ghana and rest of Africa



Mumbai, Maharashtra, India & Accra, Ghana  Business Wire India



Merck Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Merck KGaA Germany in partnership with H.E. REBECCA NAA OKAIKOR AKUFO-ADDO, The First Lady of Ghana and Ambassador of Merck More Than a Mother announces the opening of the application period for the Merck More Than a Mother Media recognition Awards 2018 for Ghana and the rest of Africa. The winners will be announced during the 6th edition of Merck Africa Asia Luminary which will be conducted in October 2019 in Accra Ghana, co-chaired by Dr. RashaKelej, CEO of Merck Foundation and Her Excellency First Lady of Ghana.



The applications are invited by media professionals to showcase their work to raise awareness about infertility prevention and breaking infertility stigma in Ghana and rest of Africa.



Dr. RashaKelej, CEO of Merck Foundation and President of Merck More Than a Mother emphasized, I strongly believe in the critical role media play to sensitize communities. Therefore we created these media awards last year with the aim to recognize the outstanding journalistic coverage that enhances the public engagement and understanding of infertility, breaking its stigma and emphasizing the need to change the social perception of it in African communities.



Few other initiatives to get the desired culture shift include Media Health Training in partnership with Ghana Journalism Society. Creating songs and movies in partnership with Ghanaian artists to address this topic and educate people across the country which will require supporting film making industry and students of the National Film and Television Institute in Ghana. Also, involving fashion industry to deliver the message of breaking the stigma of Infertile women to the community in day to day life which will be achieved through supporting the young fashion designers and student of Ghana Fashion Academy to come up with innovative ideas to reach youth, Dr. RashaKelej added.



Merck Foundation will organize the Merck Health Media Training on 28th of February 2019 for media representatives, focusing on the international standards and media ethics for reporting sensitive issues like infertility in Ghana and rest of Africa. It is designed to benefit the journalists in understanding the infertility issues in African communities and to learn the best media practices to cover such issues.



Merck Foundation has also provided technical training to four candidates from Ghana under their Merck Africa Embryology Training Program to help build capacity in the field of infertility in the country. The program will be scaled up under the umbrella of the long term partnership with the First Lady of Ghana.



Merck Foundation has also been empowering many infertile women in Ghana by building a productive life for them by setting up businesses of their choice for them, as women are much more than just mothers.



Who can apply?



Journalists from print, online, radio and multimedia platforms.



Last date of submission:



Entries can be submitted till 30th June 2019.



How to apply?



Entries can be submitted via email to mystory@merckmorethanamother.com.



Categories and prize money:

Category



Multimedia



Print Media



Online Media



Radio



Prize Money



USD 3000



USD 1000



USD 1000



USD 1000







Merck Foundation recently concluded a ceremony to announce the winners of the Merck More Than a Mother Media Recognition Awards 2017 in Nairobi, Kenya. The ceremony was attended by over 200 journalists from 17 African countries.



Here are the details of first award winners from profession journalists category from each segment:



The Award from the Multimedia Segment was given to Ms. Namukabo L Werungah and her team from NTV Kenya for their excellent story named A tale of pain and shame of childless women in Busia.



The First Award from the Print Media Segment was received by Mr. Gardy Chacha, Senior Health and Science Reporter from Standard Newspaper, Kenya. He was selected for his soul-stirring story named Cecilia Wairimu: One woman, Three marriages, 11 years of Infertility.



The First Award from the Online Media Segment was given to Ms. MolateloMainetje, News and Current Affair Producer and Documentary Filmmaker from South Africa for her short film called Womb Man.



Ms. Asha Bakidusa, Journalist with Royal Media Services Limited, Under Bahari FM, Kenya was given the First Award for the Radio Segment for her program on How family men supporting their spouses in cases of Infertility.



All the award winners were present during the ceremony to collect their award.



About Merck More Than a Mother campaign



Merck More Than a Mother initiative aims to empower infertile women through access to information, education and health and by changing mind-sets. This powerful initiative supports governments in defining policies to enhance access to regulated, safe and effective fertility care. It defines interventions to break the stigma around infertile women and raises awareness about infertility prevention and management. In partnership with academia, ministries of health and international fertility societies, the initiative also provides medical education and training for healthcare providers and embryologists to build and advance fertility care capacity in Africa and developing countries.



With Merck More than a mother, we have initiated a cultural shift to de-stigmatize infertility on all levels: By improving awareness, training the skills of local experts, building advocacy in cooperation with decision makers and by supporting childless women in starting their own small business. Its all about giving every woman the respect and the help she deserves to live a fulfilling life, with or without a child.



Along with the First Lady of Ghana, H.E. REBECCA AKUFO-ADDO, following First Ladies are also the Ambassadors of Merck More Than a Mother; H.E. NEO JANE MASISI, The First Lady of Botswana; H.E. DENISE NKURUNZIZA, The First Lady of the Republic of Burundi; H.E. BRIGITTE TOUADERA, The First Lady of Central Africa Republic; H.E. HINDA DEBY ITNO, The First Lady of Chad; H.E. DJENE CONDE, The First Lady of Guinea-Conakry; H.E. FATOUMATTA BAH BARROW, The First Lady of Gambia; H.E. AISSATA ISSOUFOU MAHAMADOU, The First Lady of Niger; H.E. FATIMA MAADA BIO, The First Lady of Sierra Leone and H.E. ESTHER LUNGU, The First Lady of Zambia.



Also, part of the campaign is our Merck Embryology & Fertility Training Program, a three-month hands-on practical course in partnership with IRSI, Indonesia, IIRRH, India and Manipal Academy of Higher Education (Manipal University), India to establish the platform of fertility specialists across Africa and developing countries. Merck Foundation provided for more than 84 candidates, in clinical and practical training for fertility specialists and embryologists in more than 29 countries across Africa and Asia such as: Chad, Niger, Central African Republic, Cote DIvoire , Ghana, Ethiopia , Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania , Zambia , Nigeria, Benin, Mali, Burkina Fuso, Senegal, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cameron, Rwanda, Botswana, DR Congo , Congo Brazzaville, Gambia , Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Cambodia.



Merck Foundation is making history in many African countries where they never had fertility specialists or specialized fertility clinics before Merck More Than a Mother intervention, to train the first fertility specialists such as; in Sierra Leone, Liberia, The Gambia, Niger, Chad, Guinea, Ethiopia and Uganda.



Join the conversation on our social media platforms below and let your voice be heard



Facebook: Merck Foundation

Twitter: @Merckfoundation

YouTube: MerckFoundation

Website: www.merck-foundation.com



Join Merck Foundation online community to exchange experience and information with other healthcare providers, researchers, students, policy makers and community members in Africa and beyond www.merck-foundation.com free registration.



About Merck Foundation



The Merck Foundation, established in 2017, is the philanthropic arm of Merck KGaA Germany, aims to improve the health and wellbeing of people and advance their lives through science and technology. Our efforts are primarily focused on improving access to innovative healthcare solutions in underserved communities, building healthcare and scientific research capacity and empowering people in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) with a special focus on women and youth. All Merck Foundation press releases are distributed by e-mail at the same time they become available on the Merck Foundation Website. Please go to www.merck-foundation.com to read more and/or register online to interact and exchange experience with our registered members.



About Merck



Merck is a leading science and technology company in healthcare, life science and performance materials. Almost 53,000 employees work to further develop technologies that improve and enhance life  from biopharmaceutical therapies to treat cancer or multiple sclerosis, cutting-edge systems for scientific research and production, to liquid crystals for smartphones and LCD televisions. In 2017, Merck generated sales of  15.3 billion in 66 countries.



Founded in 1668, Merck is the world's oldest pharmaceutical and chemical company. The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed corporate group. Merck holds the global rights to the Merck name and brand. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the company operates as EMD Serono, MilliporeSigma and EMD Performance Materials.



To view the images click the links below:



First Lady of Ghana, H.E. Rebecca Akufo-Addo; CEO of Merck Foundation, Dr. RashaKelej meets emergent fashion designers to deliver breaking infertility stigma messages in their designs.



First Lady of Ghana, H.E. Rebecca Akufo-Addo; CEO of Merck Foundation, Dr. RashaKelej meet National TV & Film Institution and Fashion Academy to launch competition of best movie and best design to deliver breaking infertility stigma messages which will be launched soon.



First Lady of Ghana, H.E. Rebecca Akufo-Addo; CEO of Merck Foundation, Dr. RashaKelej meet National TV & Film Institution and Fashion Academy to launch competition of best movie and best design to deliver breaking infertility stigma messages which will be launched soon. PWR

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Aequs is transforming its ERP landscape by embarking on a digital journey in partnership with itelligence India



Belagavi, Karnataka, January 18, 2019: Aequs, one of the worlds fastest growing aerospace manufacturing companies, is partnering with Hyderabad-based itelligence India Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd., as its preferred technology partner to upgrade to the latest SAP S/4 HANA ERP suite. The next phase of digital transformation at Aequs encompasses three business segments including Aerospace, Consumer and Infrastructure.



As a diversified large-scale manufacturing enterprise,Aequs is scaling up at a tremendous pace and this calls for arobust ERP solution that can help the company stay efficient and realise its future goals and objectives. The company has identified SAP S/4HANA as a more sophisticated common platform which would help consolidate its core business processes across its different entities. The business suite aims to combine the real-time SAP HANA database with the functionalities of the essential application platform.



In his statement, Mr. Rajeev Kaul, MD Aerospace and Group CFO at Aequs, said, We are glad to collaborate with itelligence as our solution partner. The latest SAP ERP suite will enable us to cut significantly on operational expenditures as well as operate seamlessly in a digital environmentthat can adapt to the changing business landscape. It will also help us consolidate our diverse work processes into a single platform with easy access to real-timeinformation that will speed up decision-making.



We are delighted and proud to be the partner for Aequs to implement SAP S/4HANA ERP. This is an important opportunity for itelligence in India to deploy the core solution at Aequsas part of itsdigitaltransformation journey. Weare confident that the solution shall help Aequs achieve the growth, enhanced operational efficiency and other business objectives said Sanjeev Deshpande, Managing Director& CEO, itelligence India Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.





About itelligence - https://itelligencegroup.com/in-en/

itelligence, NTT DATA Business Solutions is an internationally leading SAP consultancy firm with around 8,000 highly-specialised employees and branches in 25 countries. itelligence, NTT DATA Business Solutions belongs to the worldwide consultancy network NTT DATA Group, where it is valued as the networks global SAP hub. As SAP Global Platinum Reseller, SAP Hybris Gold Partner, SAP Business-Alliance and Global Hosting Partner and SAP-certified provider of Cloud and application management services, itelligence, NTT DATA Business Solutions realises complex projects in the SAP environment all over the world. With its comprehensive range of services, from advice on the introduction of SAP to the development of an SAP strategy, SAP license marketing, in-house developed industry-specific SAP solutions and application management to managed Cloud services, the company generated a total turnover of 872.1 million euros in 2017.



About Aequs: http://aequs.com/

Aequs is among worlds fastest growing precision engineering companies specializing in forging, precision machining, sheet metal fabrication, aero-structure assemblies and surface treatment for the aerospace and allied industries. Aequs operates several manufacturing facilities in India, US and France. The company is headquartered in Aequs SEZ, Belagavi, India's first notified engineering and precision manufacturing SEZ which is an integrated, self-sustained manufacturing ecosystem. With partners and offices across the world, Aequs has access to world-class expertise, insights and a robust leadership team. PWR

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New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) Former Union minister P Chidambaram Friday said the country's economy was in a 'perilous state' and had he been the finance minister of this government, he would have resigned.

He said the countdown for elections had begun and one did not expect anything better from this government as there was nothing it would do in the next 60 days that would alter the state of the country's economy.

Addressing a press conference, the senior Congress leader said the NDA government would not be able to meet the fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent, like in 2017-18 when it missed the fiscal deficit target of 3.5 per cent.

"We don't expect anything better from this government. This is the countdown to the elections. Nothing the government will do in the next 60 days will alter the status of the economy.

"The state of the economy is quite perilous...Every indicator is worrisome...So, we have to pray some hope and trust in the next government," he told reporters.

Asked what he would have done in this government if he were its finance minister, Chidambaram said, "If I were the finance minister in the NDA government, then I would have resigned."

To a question on claims being made that the Ram temple would be built by 2025, he said "I hope I live as long as that. We will meet in 2025."

The former finance minister also expected the government to announce some sops and measures in the Vote-on-Account, but said no major decision could be announced.

"I don't think they have ever felt the need to go by any precedent. They make their own precedents," he said when asked if the government might announce some big sops or schemes during the Vote-on-Account.

The Congress leader alleged that the GST collections net to the Centre were falling short of the target and the government's net direct tax collection was also falling short of their budget estimate.

"They may garner some money through some devices but I think they will find it difficult to meet the fiscal target. I will compliment them if they meet the target but I have my doubts," he said.

On Finance Minister Arun Jaitley mentioning the farm crisis, Chidambaram said it was no longer a secret that the government might announce some scheme in this regard.

"I think every one of you reported the one kind or other package that they will announce. I think it is an almost open secret that they are going to copy either the Telengana model or the Madhya Pradesh model or the hybrid model and they will give away money which they dont have," he said.

Asked if it was too late for such a scheme he said, "It is for the people to judge. This is clearly intended to win votes, let us wait and see. I don't think people are fools. People know that for 4.5 years, you do nothing and you suddenly wake up and make these policies for announcements over which you slept over."

On the Congress' manifesto, Chidambaram said it was a "looking forward" manifesto.

"Our manifesto will talk about the next five years. It will also talk about long range vision of the party," he said.

He also rejected as "wrong" the claims made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the GDP during the last five years was the highest since 1991 for any government.

"It is completely wrong. UPA-I's average is the highest for any five year period. The whole world knows that. Every economist knows that. Simple arithmetic will tell you that UPA-I's five year growth record is the highest for any five years since Independence or even before Independence," he said. PTI SKC AAR
New Delhi, Jan 18 (PTI) India is nowhere less than China in the arena of space, and after the success of human space mission project 'Gaganyaan', it will be equal to its neighbour in all aspects related to the field, ISRO Chairman K Sivan said Friday.

This month, Chang'e 4, the first Chinese mission to land on and explore the Moon's far side facing away from Earth, carried instruments to analyse the region's geology.

India also has an ambitious mission, Chandrayaan-2, to land on Moon's South Pole, a region unexplored by any country so far, Sivan said.

The plan was to initially launch the mission in April last year, but it has now been postponed to the first quarter of this year.

"We are nowhere less than China," Sivan said in response to a question that sought to draw a parallel between the two space-faring Asian countries.

He added that India was at par in regards to launch vehicles and spacecraft.

India has announced that 'Gaganyaan' will take off by 2022, while China launched its first manned space mission in 2003.

"They had the human space capability, which we did not have, but once we have a successful Gaganyaan project by 2022, we will be equal to them in all aspects," Sivan said.

India and China are two major space-faring giants. While India has launched the South Asian satellite as a gift to its neighbours, China too has been actively engaged with Pakistan and Sri Lanka in these areas.

Sivan said after the launch of South Asian satellite in 2017, Nepal has started using it for broadcasting television in remote and far-flung places "where people have said they have seen a television for the first time" with the help of the satellite.

Elucidating the reasons for Chandrayaan-2 launch delay, he said during the National Experts Review in February last year, it was found that it needed to be improved in terms of robustness.

"Because of the constraints due to the size of the satellite, they cut down many systems. Experts felt that it was a very important mission and we have to increase the robustness. So, the satellite was reconfigured to take care of the improvements. With that, the schedule was December (2018) to January (2019).

"Since all systems are new and we have to go through testing process and we found that testing was not complete and we're not able to meet the February 2019 schedule. The next available slot was April 2019," he said.

Responding to another question on NaVIC, India's own GPS, he said the armed forces have started using the indigenously developed system. PTI PR PR ABH

ABH
Gandhinagar, Jan 18 (PTI) Japanese auto maker Suzuki Motor Corporation Friday said it will commission its third plant at Gujarat by 2020 and will aggressively introduce new hybrid vehicles in India with technical support from Toyota.

Speaking here at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit here, Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) President Toshihiro Suzuki also sought an enabling policy support from the government to further invest in localisation of components of hybrid and electric vehicles.

SMC is making investments in Gujarat on a continuous basis. The first vehicle assembly plant of Suzuki Motor Gujarat was inaugurated in September 2017, he said.

"The second plant will start shortly. We plan to commission the third assembly plant in 2020," Suzuki said.

In a statement on Friday, SMC said it has started production of its hatchback Swift from the second plant in Gujarat.

After three plants in operations, annual production capacity of Suzuki Motor Gujarat will be enhanced up to 7,50,000 units, he said.

The company will also start production at its engine and transmission plant in the state shortly, he added.

Suzuki said it will enable "us to bear fruit of integrated vehicle manufacturing in Gujarat"; and the state is becoming "more and more important as a production site for Suzuki group".

SMC is also currently constructing automotive lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant at Hansalpur in the state.

"In addition to lithium-ion battery, we will localise other components required for vehicle electrification," he added.

Stating that the technologies for hybrid and electric vehicles have similarity, Suzuki said it will first localise components of hybrid vehicles and then electric vehicles.

Reiterating that SMC's aim is to realise Real Make in India in the field of vehicle electrification, he said, "Together with an enabling policy support from the government of India, we can jointly think how to scale up our investment and depth of localisation."

Acknowledging that the automobile industry is now entering a phase of great changes, Suzuki said, "Above all, we fully recognise the challenge to reduce CO2 to prevent global warming."

SMC is tackling this issue from various angles, he said, adding "As one of the solutions for CO2 reduction, we decided to introduce electric vehicles in India in 2020".

The company's Indian arm Maruti Suzuki India has been road testing 50 electric vehicles in the country.

Suzuki also said it is critical to utilise existing technologies in addition to electric vehicles in order to reduce CO2 further.

"In the Indian context, we firmly believe that hybrid and CNG vehicles are the most effective solution, with fastest results," he asserted.

Reiterating that hybrid technologies are evolving at a rapid pace, he said SMC "will introduce cutting-edge hybrid vehicles aggressively with technical support from Toyota Motor Corporation". PTI RKL ANS

ANS
Gandhinagar, Jan 18 (PTI) Tata group Chairman N Chandrasekaran Friday said the conglomerate plans to invest in lithium ion battery manufacturing in Gujarat.

Speaking here at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, he said group firm Tata Chemicals is also looking to enhance its soda ash capacity to one million tonnes annually.

"Many of our group companies like Tata Chemicals and Tata Motors have very significant presence here. We look forward to continuing our investment in the state," Chandrasekaran said.

Tata Motors' plant at Sanand rolls out Tigor electric car besides manufacturing other models such as hatchback Tiago, compact sedan Tigor and Nano.

"We want to make further investments, not only in manufacturing electric vehicles, but also in lithium ion battery projects here," Chandrasekaran added.

He further said, "We are in discussions with the state government for significantly increasing our capacity of Tata Chemicals to reach one million (10 lakh) tonnes of soda ash."

At present, the company's plant at Mithapur in Gujarat has a soda ash capacity of 8.2 lakh tonnes per annum.

Stating that Gujarat is a very important state for the Tatas, he said the group's revenue from the state last year was about Rs 18,000 crore.

"The Tata group has significant presence in Gujarat. It is the third largest state for the group and we have about 25,000 employees," he added.

Chandrasekaran also said the over USD 100 billion salt-to-software conglomerate will also be "investing in renewable energy apart from growing our presence in the technology sector".

He, however, did not specify the quantum of investments that the group would made in the state on the new proposed projects.

He also said Tata group's hotels business are significantly integrated with Gujarat in tourism opportunity that it presents.

"We see Gujarat as a big partner for the Tata group and it's a place where professionalism is shown at its best," he said.

Chandrasekaran also praised the Narendra Modi-led government in the Centre for the "transformative journey" undertaken over the last five years.

"Tremendous amount of progress has been made. The number of things that have been done in these five years are enormous and a platform that will propel India for significant for several decades to come has been laid, all thanks to the Prime Minister," Chandrasekaran said. PTI RKL ANS

ANS
MoUs worth Rs 56,000 crore inked on Day 1 of Vibrant Gujarat

Gandhinagar, Jan 18 (PTI) The Gujarat government

signed around 130 MoUs with investment commitments worth over

Rs 56,000 crore in various sectors on the first day of the

Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit here Friday, said officials.

A majority of the MoUs, also called Investment

Intentions (IIs), were signed in the port and transport

sector.

China-based Tsingshan group commited to invest Rs

21,000 crore to set up a steel plant and a facility to

manufacture car batteries in Dholera SIR, said the officials

at a press meet.

Besides this mega agreement, MoUs worth over Rs 35,000

crore were also signed during the opening day of the three-day

business conclave which was inaugurated by Prime Minister

Narendra Modi.

A key MoU was signed with Petronet LNG Ltd with an

intended investment of Rs 2,100 crore for expansion of their

existing LNG Port Terminal at Dahej, said Sunaina Tomar,

principal secretary, state port and transport department.

"Another MoU was signed with HPCL Rajasthan Refinery

Ltd with an intended investment of Rs 1,400 crore for

development of Single Point Mooring System and Crude Oil

Terminal at Mandvi," she told reporters.

An MOU was signed with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation

Ltd with an intended investment of Rs 1,350 crore for LPG

import facilities along with a jetty at Dahej Port and LPG

cavern and pumping facilities at Ankleshwar, Tomar said.

An MOU was signed with Adani Group with an intended

cumulative investment of Rs 3,500 crore across three projects

- development of a captive jetty at Kori Creek, cargo handling

terminal at Mundra and Ro-Ro ferry facility at Mundra, she

said.

"An MoU was signed with Essar Group with an intended

cumulative investment of Rs 7,485 crore across two projects -

development of port-based Smart City and an LNG terminal at

Hazira, the IAS officer said.

Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd (APM Terminals Pipavav) has

expressed interest in development of a Ro-Ro terminal at

Pipavav, she said.

"A tripartite MOU was signed between Gujarat Maritime

Board, J M Baxi & Co and Port of Amsterdam with an intended

cumulative investment of Rs 800 crore for development of

cruise terminals at Mandvi, Dwarka, Porbandar and Verava,"

Tomar said.

An MOU was signed with Dahej Harbour and

Infrastructure Ltd with an intended investment of Rs 700 crore

for expansion of their existing port facility at Dahej, she

added.

Two Rajkot-based firms have also signed MoUs to set up

artillery factories after getting clearance from the Centre,

said Air Marshal R K Dhir, advisor to the Gujarat government

for the aerospace and defence sector. PTI PJT PD

RSY RSY
Students are going to be the focus of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). On January 24, the space agency will launch Kalamsat, a satellite made by a Chennai-based students' group, Spacekidz, on its next PSLV launch.

This is a unique mission as the ISRO is, for the first time, attempting to give life and utility extension to parts of the spacecraft, which roam aimlessly in space, after inserting the satellites into orbit. Kalamsat will be perched atop the fourth stage of the PSLV, called the PS4, which will be taken to a higher orbit, providing an orbital platform for the students' satellite. Kalamsat will be carrying out experiments regarding Ham radio connectivity.

ISRO chairman K. Sivan said they were keen to launch students' experiments regularly, because younger people think innovatively as they are not scared of going wrong. He appealed to students to just come to them with their scientific projects. Just bring your payloads, we will plug them onto the satellite. Focus on the science, not the satellite,'' he said.

So far, ISRO has received seven proposals from students.

Speaking about India's communication system, Navic, Sivan said that it was one of the unique developments, which has started out from villages and will move onto cities. Usually technology starts in urban areas and then percolates to rural ones. This time, fishermen in Tamil Nadu are using Navic-enabled handsets which will aid them with spotting areas of good catch. Presently, we hope the technology will be incorporated into use in urban devices, too.'' He is hopeful that in another few months, Navic mapping would be available as an alternate to GPS on mobile handsets.

The Navic handsets, which the fishermen are using in Tamil Nadu, use data provided by the Navic system, through the department of fisheries. These handsets give real time information on where fish shoals are moving. It is a big advancement over the earlier method of sighting catch, which relied on watching the flights of birds and other such aids. The handsets also issue alerts to fishermen if they are straying away from the exclusive economic zone of India. This could thus reduce the chances of fishermen being caught by patrols of neighbouring countries for straying into their territory.

Navic handsets are also being used to monitor coal storage and pilferage, said the ISRO.
Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) leader Om Prakash Rajbhar, a BJP ally and Uttar Pradesh minister, has threatened to go it alone in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections if the party's demand for earmarking a part of the 27 per cent OBC quota for most backward castes is not met.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Rajbhar said, "As of now, we are in the NDA, but the BJP has to decide whether we will remain with them or not. If the BJP does not give shape to our demand by February 24, we will take a decision on the tie-up during a party programme in Varanasi and announce the decision on contesting on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh the next day."

The SBSP, which enjoys considerable support among the Rajbhar community, is part of the BJP-led coalition government in Uttar Pradesh. The party has been demanding that a part of the OBC quota in government jobs and higher educational institutions be earmarked for most backward castes and mahadalits, so that they can avail its benefits more.

According to the SBSP, benefits under the reservation policy are at present largely cornered by the castes that are relatively better off among the OBC category.

"The BJP promised there would be a split in the 27 per cent quota for OBC and that it would be implemented six months before the polls. Now barely 100 days are left for the polls, we have given an ultimatum (to the BJP) that if the announcement is not made in the next 100 days through a cabinet decision, we will part ways and contest Lok Sabha elections on our own," Rajbhar said.

Rajbhar had been upset with the BJP for more than a year over the issue of benefits for OBCs. Interestingly, he is the third NDA constituent to have set a 'deadline' for the BJP to resolve grievances. Late last year, Union minister Upendra Kushwaha and his Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) set a deadline of November 30 for the BJP to agree to demands for more Lok Sabha seats to contest from in Bihar. Kushwaha resigned from the government and pulled out of the NDA in December, before joining the UPA.

Later, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan set an ultimatum of December 31 for the BJP to hike its share of Lok Sabha seats to contest from. However, the BJP managed to mollify the LJP, giving it six seats to fight from in Bihar and the party remains part of the NDA.
Kerala government's claim in the Supreme Court that 51 women of child-bearing age had entered Sabarimala during the ongoing season now looks suspicious. An initial investigation by Onmanorama revealed a different story.

Onmanorama tried the numbers of 10 people given in the government affidavit. All the calls were answered by men. Except for three, the rest said no women from their families, or even their lady friends, had gone to Sabarimala. The three who admitted that women accompanied them to Sabarimala, however, added that the women were over 50 years of age.

In short, at least 10 of the 51 women the Kerala government claimed had entered Sabarimala had either not done so or were above 50. The government affidavit has shown the ages of all the 51 women as below 50.

READ: Kerala govt claims 51 women entered Sabarimala shrine

Thirumali of Chennai said his wife Seetha had gone with him to Sabarimala late in October. When her age was sought, he said 53. If a lesser age has been printed, it is a mistake, Thirumalai said. Saravanan, who is also from Chennai, had gone to Sabarimala in November with his mother. But she is 65.

Vasanthiah from Andhra Pradesh was confused when he got the call from us. I am not married and my mother had not gone to Sabarimala, he said. When we told him that his number was in the affidavit, he suddenly remembered. My aunty had gone. She booked through my number. But she is 59, he said.

Paraljyothi from Chennai, Ramesh from Andhra Pradesh and Anand from Veloor in Tamil Nadu said they had gone to Sabarimala, but with men. We were a men-only team, and we do this pilgrimage every year, Paraljyothi. Ramesh and Anand, too, were with friends.

Three othersSankar (Pondicherry), Sudarshan (Telangana) and Sambasiva Rao (Andhra Pradesh)had no idea how their numbers appeared in the affidavit. I am not married, and had never once gone to Sabarimala, Sankar said. Sudarshan and Rao also echoed Sankar.

A top government source, when contacted, said these people were only trying to protect their closed ones. It is just survival instincts. They know the violence that had been unleashed in Kerala. They might fear something bad might happen to their women, the source said.

The Kerala government has informed the Supreme Court that 51 young women had entered the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala since the apex court allowed women of all age groups to enter the hill shrine.

The government has listed the names of the 51 women, along with other details, including Aadhaar card and addresses. Most of the women are from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Goa. None of the names are from Kerala.

However, the names of Kanakadurga and Bindu who recently walked into the sanctum sanctorum of the Sabarimala temple, despite huge protests from right-wing outfits, are missing from the list. This is because the list included the names of only those who booked darshan via online booking.

The Kerala government submitted the list in SC during the hearing on a plea seeking security for Kanakadurga and Bindu. The SC has directed the Kerala police to provide adequate security to two women.

However, Travancore Devaswom Board members K.P. Sankar Das and N. Vijayakumar said they have no data to back the state government's claim in the SC.

Via Onmanorama
The Samajwadi Party's (SP) alliance with the BSP and the RLD was "final" and there would be no issues with regard to seat-sharing in the coming Lok Sabha polls, party chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Friday, while ruling out any understanding with the Congress.

"Our alliance with the BSP, the RLD and smaller parties like the Nishad Party is final and seat-sharing will not be a problem. It will be worked out soon. We have emerged as a strong force in the state, which has changed the tone and tenor of the BJP, whose leaders have started using foul language against us," the SP national president told PTI.

"Uttar Pradesh has always acted as a catalyst for change. This time, the people of the state will change the prime minister. Our fight is with the BJP and the people are supporting us," Yadav said in an interview at the SP headquarters in Lucknow.

He, however, ducked the question as to who would be his choice as the next prime minister. Maintaining that the SP will only "concentrate" in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav ruled out any understanding with the Congress in the state in the Lok Sabha polls.

"How can we have an understanding with it (Congress)? It is a national party. We have given them two seats (Amethi and Rae Bareli), which the SP had been leaving for them. Presently, my focus is on Uttar Pradesh. In Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand also, the SP will field one or two candidates who are strong and we will explore (the possibility of an) alliance with others," he said.

Reminded about his friendship with Congress president Rahul Gandhi (48), with whom he had given the UP ke ladke (boys from Uttar Pradesh) slogan in the 2017 state Assembly polls, Yadav, who is three years younger to Gandhi, said, "I would not like to talk about the Congress as of now."

Asked about his recent meeting with RLD leader Jayant Chowdhury, he said, "Our alliance is final. In Kairana, we had fielded RLD leader Tabassum Hasan on an SP ticket. We will give Mathura and Baghpat to them, which they want. There is no problem in the alliance now." Asked about Bahujan BSP supremo Mayawati's charge that his uncle and Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party chief Shivpal Yadav was being financed by the ruling BJP, Yadav preferred not to speak. "I will not say anything on this," he said.

Announcing the SP-BSP tie-up at a press conference last week, Mayawati had claimed that the BJP had funded Shivpal's party and said the entire money would go down the drain as there would be no split in the SP-BSP votes.

On the BJP, Yadav said, "It had promised many things, but those were never met. The common people are fed up with it and are looking at an alternative. They have only hope, which is the SP-BSP alliance."

Attacking the saffron party, Yadav said it had changed its Uttar Pradesh in-charge only to save one seat (of Prime Minister Narendra Modi).

"The BJP MPs did not work on the ground. They never visited their areas. Now it is being said that they are going to change 60 per cent of their candidates. But such tricks will not work now," Yadav said.

In a lighter vein, he added, "If only they can manage to control the stray cattle, they can get some votes of the farmers."

On the claim of J.P. Nadda, the BJP's poll in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, that the saffron party would win 74 Lok Sabha seats in the state, Yadav said, "They can claim of winning even 82 seats, despite the fact that Uttar Pradesh has only 80 seats!"

Nadda, the Union health minister, during his visit to Uttar Pradesh this week had asserted that the BJP and its allies would bag at least 74 Lok Sabha seatsone more than the NDA tally in 2014in Uttar Pradesh.

On reports of a slew of poll sops the Centre was planning to announce in its Budget, Yadav said, "All the major steps of the Centre like demonetisation, GST and claims of good governance have failed. They cannot be trusted. I want to alert my party workers that the BJP cannot be trusted. They can resort to any conspiracy or gimmick for political gains."

On the ongoing Kumbh at Prayagraj, the SP chief said, "They (BJP) have renamed the Ardh-Kumbh as Kumbh. At Kumbh, people are not invited. People themselves come to attend it to attain moksha (salvation). Are they calling people for moksha?"

Asked about DGP O.P. Singh's claim that the crime rate was witnessing a downward trend in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav questioned the data. "The Centre's data claims to have given jobs to the youth. Did they get those jobs? The law and order situation of the state is known to all. The lie will not work any longer," he said.

On reports that the CBI might quiz him in connection with a mining scam, Yadav said, "I will answer them. These are the BJP's tactics ahead of the polls."

On the possibility of his wife and Kannauj MP Dimple Yadav contesting the Lok Sabha polls, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said, "I do not want her to contest this time. However, the decision is hers. We have to bring up three children. The house is now far from the children's school. How to manage their tuitions etc. needs to be seen."

"They (the BJP government) have not approved the map for our house construction. They do not understand the responsibilities of a family as they do not have one," Yadav said.

-PTI
Bhumi Pednekars entry into films is almost like lore. She did not queue up for auditions, but conducted them as she assisted Yash Raj Films' casting director, Shaanu Sharma. Till one day, she was chosen to do a role. As an overweight Sandhya in Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2014), opposite Ayushmann Khurrana, Pednekar won hearts with her acting chops and small-town innocence. She transformed herself completely. In the four years since, she has only proven her worth as an actor who matters, picking up roles that standout and performing them with conviction. In 2018, she was seen only in Lust Stories on Netflix, portraying the character of a house-help, Sudha, for which she got raving reviews. In 2019, she has two filmsAbhishek Chaubeys Sonchiriya (set in 1975-Chambal, is the story of a gang of dacoits in the ravines) and Alankrita Shrivastavas Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitaare, as she also starts working on Karan Johars period drama Takht.

She talks to THE WEEK about her upcoming project, how she prepares for her characters and why she thinks people in Mumbai live in a bubble while an alternate reality exists elsewhere in the country.

In the public memory, the last character, which comes close to what you are doing in Sonchiriya would be Seema Biswass in Bandit Queen (1994). The release of the film is still a few weeks away. What can you tell us about it right now?

Yes. I think people would like to go back to her because that is too strong a story coming out of that landscape and so is ours. This film is set in 1975. It is a period drama. What attracted me the most towards the film, apart from the fact that [Abhishek] Chaubey was directing it, was the fact that everything that we show in the film is very relevant even today. This film is a big comment on the caste system and the status of women in our country. It is heartbreaking, but a lot has not changed over the last 40 to 45 years. The beauty of the film is that Chaubey has said this in a quirky, action-packed, revenge, adventurous-thriller drama. I know I have used a lot of words, but they all are very true to what Sonchiriya is. We are speaking of such dark human things that happen, but the film is so hopeful. This only comes from Chaubeys finesse as a filmmaker.

I remember the first time he called me and I could not believe that he is calling me to be a part of his film. In 1975, there was a lot of suppression in the society. We cannot even imagine that, especially in an area like Chambal, which is lawless, harsh (clenches her teeth). When I went there now, I realised that as a society, they have not moved on a lot, which is [the case with] 70 per cent of India. I can only imagine how bad it must have been back then.

And the film has such an ensemble cast.

It was so exciting for me to know I would be working with Sushant (Singh Rajput), Manoj (Bajpayee) sir and Ranvir (Shorey). I think Sushant is one of the finest actors we have. I was blown away by what he did in Dhoni and Kai Po Che. I felt here is an actor who definitely puts in a lot. Manoj sir is an institution in himself. Ranvir is also one of the finest actors in the country. Plus, Chaubeys direction and Sudips (Sharma) writing. I told myself, Bhumi, you really have to up your game to match these people.

What were the experiences shooting for the film?

When you watch the trailer, you will know that the language is very authentic to the area. It is Bundelkhandi. It is not a dialect that we have picked up; it is a language. The first time I heard it, I was anxious and thought to myself, how am I going to do it? Learning a dialect and picking up nuances is still easier, learning a separate language all-together is tough. There is this very amazing gentleman, Ram Diwakar, who is also playing a very important part in the film. He is from the area and trained us for two months to speak the language.

I remember Chaubey telling us during the narration that there is going to be a lot of hard work on this film because of the terrain that we were going to work on. You cannot shoot on this terrain if you are not physically strong, if you are not mentally and emotionally strong. It was not until I went to Chambal that I realised what he meant. It is kilometres of just barren, hilly, rocky, dusty land. It is a legit maze. Back in the days, they used to say that if you get lost in the bihad (ravines) of Chambal, you are not going to come out. And it is true.

Some of our locations were 20 minutes away and we would have to walk. If you wanted to use the bathroom, you had to walk back that distance. On the way, we used to see dead bodies of animals, carcasses, skeletons, and lots of dust. On some days, I would go back and there would be lot of brown water out of my body; my nose, ears, hands and legs would be torn; and getting hurt had no reaction. A thorn in my foot would mean nothing. And, I am a Mumbai-bred girl. Something like this happening in Mumbai would have been followed with a reaction like, oh my god, I need a tetanus shot (laughs). This film just changed everything for us. I would walk kilometres barefoot with 10 kilos on my back, matkas (pots) full of 10 litres of water, just to become physically capable of managing in that terrain. It was prep for my character. Women from that era, from this world, know how to do this. Their lives were so strenuous and they were so suppressed. They never had a voice.

You have done films with characters from small-town milieu (Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha), films that probably transport you to a different world altogether. What changed in you while portraying such characters?

I am getting goose bumps! I think, with Sonchiriya specifically, and every other character that I have done, I have become less privileged in my head. They have made me more humane. They have given me the ability to empathise with people and not sympathise. They have made me understand that everything is not black or white, things are grey too. When I was younger, a typical Mumbai kid (pauses). Actually I was never a typical Mumbai kid because my mums village is in Haryana, my grandparents lived in Jaipur, which back then was not as progressed as Mumbai was in the 90s. I have had a shared deal of basic living while growing up. As a kid, I would be damn upset about it, about staying in a place where the electricity keeps going, and the basic things were not available like they were in Mumbai. I could not eat Maggi.

Now, after growing up, I have realised that experience really kept us grounded. Every character of mine has made me realise that it is very easy to sit here and pinpoint at a woman and say: Why is she taking the mans crap? Come on, empower yourself. Go hit him. But, it is easier said than done. I am strong because my parents have instilled that kind of independence, that kind of strength in me that they will be behind me when I hit a man. But the women from the other parts of the country do not know this. That is what my character is in Sonchiriya. She belongs to such a suppressed society that to take the steps that she does, is nothing less than being a superhero.

Now that you have seen this world so closely, do you feel that people in modern cities or metros are living in a bubble?

Hundred per cent! Not all people are living in a bubble, but people who belong to the households like mine that live in comfortable houses, which have access to everything. When I did Toilet, I mentioned that I lived in a bubble. For me, not having a bathroom was only limited to the time I did a trip from Mumbai to Goa, and that there wasnt a bathroom on the highway. I did not understand the kind of turmoil a woman goes through when she has to walk kilometres, scared that somebody might film her, rape her or that she might be bit by a snake. It is unhealthy. It takes a toll on her self-respect. Empowerment does not mean that I am going to wear short clothes and walk around. That is a choice. For most women, this is not even on their radar. For women from the strata [I am talking about], empowerment truly means that when they see some kind of physical, emotional violence that happens to them or their ecosystem, they have the courage to wake up to that. Thats true empowerment.

Since you play characters far removed from what you are and the life you have lived, what is your process? Something like playing a house-help in Lust Stories (in Zoya Akhtars short film), which I immensely loved.

Thank you! I love prepping (laughs). I was cleaning and sweeping for a lot of days. Now, every girl that works with me in my house as the house help, is my friend. That film changed my life. As far as prepping goes, I do not lock myself up in a room. But I just try picking up the language, try and match my daily chores to the character, and try removing a lot of other aspects from my life. Specifically, for Sonchiriya, I had to get rid of any kind of ego, pride and independence. The only thing that I kept with me is a lot of faith, not even courage. Everything that she does and every outcome of it is not something that is planned. It just happened. I think most women work with that faith that tomorrow is going to be better. I remember in Bandit Queen, it opens with the lines that among a woman, vessel, animals, and a person from a lower-caste, the status of the woman is the lowest. It was a very big quote for me that I kept through the process of working on the film.

Did you watch Bandit Queen to prep for this?

Millions of times. It was my biggest reference point. I was not looking for any kind of learning or any kind of character arc. I just wanted to know what their lives are like. Bandit Queen is a very authentic film to understand that landscape and that era. I needed to know to what level the harshness of that land is. The distinction between castes, the disparity between the rich and the poor, which again stems from caste, the difference between genders, and what the outcome of that can be.

You started your career at Yash Raj Studios, which is known for making dreamy-romantic, fantasy world films. Do you want to get into that character zone? Do you feel tired of doing the realistic characters that you are doing?

I definitely want to do that [a Yash Raj brand film]. And, doing these characters [that I am doing] are exhausting as well. But every film requires hard work. It is not that in Shubh Mangal Saavdhaan, I did not put in hard work. None of these girls were Bhumi. Bhumi is a Juhu girl, from a very sheltered family. Yes, a family that worked very hard to get where they are. Playing an urban character is very easy for me. Playing the other parts is very tough. Both Dum Laga Ke Haisha and Toilet were set in the heartland, but were love storieshence, lighter. I think Sonchiriya is the most hard-hitting film that I have done.

Did the character stay with you longer than you expected?

It is still not out of me. This character has changed my life, and I am not going to be the same any more. It triggered a kind of maternal instinct in me, which I did not know existed.

These changes that you mention, have people around you noticed it?

My mum thought I have grown up, finally! I have always been a mature girl, but at home you become a child. But she did see a change this time. I have become nicer. I have become more patient. I think I have just become softer. At the same time, it has given me a lot of strength.

Do you ever feel that you are being typecast?

Not at all. I have got a variety of roles; the only thing common is that they all are real Indian women. Maybe that would not be the right way to describe it, either. In Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, I played an urban girl. An urban girl does not have to be someone who wears a jeans and t-shirt, but someone who is celebrated in her family irrespective of the geographical location. In that sense, even Toilet and Dum, for me, were urban characters because of the way they think. All my characters are very distinct in their path, and that is why I keep getting more of these films. If I was ever typecast, I would not have got Sonchiriya, or may be whatever I am doing next.

Which would be Karan Johars Takht. What does getting that film mean to you?

I have loved Karans films since I was very little. And, it really is a dream come true. I caannot sum it up. I do not know what will it be, how will it be but he is a brilliant human being. I am very fond of him, and feel really fortunate to be a part of his film.

You do not have too many films releasing every year like many other actors.

That was because in 2017, I had two back-to-back releases, and all of 2018 I was shooting. The first three years, you need some time to get into that momentum. I think now that momentum has caught on. And I am very selective when it comes to my work. But this year, after Sonchiriya, there might be two more films releasing. Next year also looks like three-four releases. Now, I am just constantly shooting and it is just about them coming out.
Actor Alia Bhatt has come out in support of her mother Soni Razdan's film No Fathers in Kashmir, which has been stuck over certification issues, saying the movie is about empathy and compassion, and the CBFC should lift the "ban" on it.

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), however, has denied having imposed a ban on the movie, saying it is "unfortunate" that "unwarranted pressure" is being put by spreading "misinformation of a ban". The board said any news of CBFC banning the film is "completely false" and all "responsible" people should take account.

The film has been stuck with the CBFC for over six months and has been offered an 'A' certificate. Its makers have challenged the board's decision and demanded a 'U/A' certification, according to media reports. Bhatt's comments came Thursday after actor Swara Bhaskar came out in support of No Fathers in Kashmir director Ashvin Kumar.

Was soo looking forward to mom's @nofathersmovie#nofathersinkashmir!! @SoniRazdan @ashvinkumar & team worked super hard for this honest teens love story in Kashmir.," Bhatt tweeted. "Really hope the CBFC would #lifttheban. It's a film about empathy & compassionlet's give love a chance,  she said on Twitter.

The media reports claimed that the CBFC has given an 'A' certificate to No Fathers in Kashmir and the makers think it is a completely inappropriate decision. The makers have challenged censor board's decision and appealed to a higher authority, the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT), to look into the matter, according to the reports.

Regional Officer CBFC Mumbai Tushar Karmarkar said, "We are disappointed with the misinformation being spread about the film 'No fathers in Kashmir'. Any news of CBFC banning this film is completely false. And all responsible people should take account of that."

"We want to again clarify that filmmakers of 'No fathers in Kashmir' have already been offered an adult certificate and the reasons thereof have clearly been communicated to them," he said.

"It's unfortunate that unwarranted pressure is being put by spreading misinformation of a ban. CBFC will continue to do its work in a fair and transparent manner without succumbing to misguided pressure tactics," Karmarkar said. Reportedly, fresh cuts were again demanded in the film and Kumar has been running between the CBFC and the FCAT to get an 'U/A' certificate for his film as he thinks that his film deserves a wider audience.
What works against him are the below average dialogues and a sloppy script
Mercy Corps is anInternational NGO that exists to alleviate poverty and oppression by helpingpeople build secure, productive and just communities. Mercy Corps has beenfully registered in Uganda as an operational NGO. Currently Mercy Corps has anoffice in Kampala and is implementing Food Security programs which comprise ofWater and Sanitation, Livelihood and Agriculture and Conflict MitigationManagement Program in North and North Eastern Uganda. We implement programs inthe northern districts of Pader, Kitgum, Agago, Lamwo, Kaabong, Abim and Kotidowith funding from USAID, USDA, Walmart Foundation, SDC, DFID as well as otherprivate donations.
Finn Church Aid isFinlands biggest development co-operation organisation and the second biggestorganisation in Finland working in humanitarian aid. Finn Church Aid is amember of the ACT Alliance (ACT), an alliance of faith-based development andhumanitarian aid organisations forming one of the worlds largest aid organisations.Finn Church Aid is committed to continue working until people in need ofassistance can make their own living and fulfill their basic needs. Finn ChurchAid also campaigns for dignity and justice.
Timothy Seth Bryant Pennington was born on January 30, 1988 in Corbin, Ky. He departed this life on June 3, 2021 to be with his Lord and Savior, whom he accepted as a young boy at his church, West Corbin Baptist. Seth was assured of his salvation and knew where he would spend his eternity. S
In answer to another letter from Nancee Magilson, I have to ask her which sandpile her head has been in?

President Trump does not take his salary/pay, it is given to charity. He is getting things done that needed to be done years ago, but no one before him would tackle it.

A lot of people like Nancee have treated him like dirt in my opinion, and he does not deserve it. I voted for him and will again.

The Dems want open borders and are turning this great country into a socialist country, and that galls me to no end. Obama was leading us in that direction and thank God he is no longer in office.

We need the wall. Those illegals are costing this country billions of dollars that our own citizens cannot get. They bring diseases we already had eradicated and many problems. I have no problem accepting those coming legally.

Which sandpile are you in, Nancee?

Betty Homyer

Granite City

 

Boy! From reading Nancee Magilsons one-sided, biased letter about the border wall, her hate was palpable! You could just feel her hate! Was she one of them who were traumatized during election night 2016?

Nancee skillfully uses the English language. She is well informed, but biased.

Her first paragraph about Mitch McConnell is totally incorrect. She puts all the blame for the continuation of the shutdown on Mitch McConnell. Does she mean to imply that Nancy Pelosi is without blame? People seething with hate tend to make mistakes and purposely contort other things to mislead the public into agreeing with them.

Apprehensions at the border is at a 45-year low. That was true! But that does not eliminate the need for a border wall. According to the Main Street Media at that time, the fewer arrests were due to the immigrants fearing President Trump and choosing not to cross the border! Trump will not always be president. The wall will be needed even more so due to who will come after Trump.

Most undocumented immigrants are here on expired legal visas. Yet 92 percent of ICE arrests this fiscal year were of those who had criminal convictions (in the US).

Most drugs are smuggled in vehicles or on people coming through legal ports of entry. 90 percent of the heroin in the US comes across the southern border. Does she mean to infer that a large minority of the heroin in the US being smuggled elsewhere along the Mexican border does not pose a big enough threat?

The number of individuals using minors to pose as fake family units is tiny (DHS). That is true. It is 1 percent of all families who immigrated.

This is a sample of how her entire letter is, mostly misleading due to her bias. It is shameful for her to make light of a serious situation.

As per my previous letter, it is not good to be closed-minded and stubborn. That is what creates and perpetuates further conflict instead of resolving it peacefully.

Her, being one-sided and misleading decreases her credibility.

Her letter was sad and disappointing. I was expecting better. Hopefully, her next letter will be better.

I sincerely wish her well.

Greg Taylor

Alton
In a landmark ruling, a California judge decided federal authorities cannot force you to unlock your smartphone with your fingerprint or face, which privacy and legal experts call a huge win for privacy.

Now the issue is likely headed to the Supreme Court due to a split in the circuit courts over the issue.

The magistrate judge for the northern district of California, Kandis Westmore, argued that a persons fingerprint, face, or any other biometric features used to unlock a device should be considered equivalent to a passcode, and therefore biometric features are testimonial under the Fifth Amendment. Her decision builds on the 2016 ruling for Securities and Exchange Commission v. Bonan Huang, in which a federal judge ruled authorities cannot force a user to give up their private passcode.

Therefore, Westmore said, authorities cant force you to unlock your phone with your face or fingerprint because that violates your Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and not testify against yourself in court.

Even if probable cause exists to seize devices located during a lawful search based on a reasonable belief that they belong to a suspect, probable cause does not permit the government to compel a suspect to waive rights otherwise afforded by the Constitution, including the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Westmore writes in the ruling.

Electronic Freedom Foundation staff attorney Jamie Williams told InsideSources in an email that the decision strengthens fundamental privacy and constitutional principles despite technological advances.

Its important that courts are looking closely at how searches of digital devices affect our constitutional rights, she said. This has implications not only on law enforcements ability to lawfully search a phone, but also on law enforcements ability to force people to unlock their phones and thereby serve as witnesses against themselves. As Magistrate Judge Westmore correctly recognized, given the sheer amount of data on modern day cell phones, the government simply cannot anticipate the full contents of someones phone, and any order compelling someone to unlock their phone  whether via a numeric passcode or a fingerprint scan violates the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Greg Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, told InsideSources the ruling echoes the Carpenter v. United States SCOTUS ruling from June, which determined that finding the physical location of a cell phone without a warrant violates the owners Fourth Amendment rights.

The court is saying, we have to treat fingerprints like the other technological means of accessing the phone, like a password or passcode, he said. Theyre serving the same function and therefore we should treat them the same way under the Fifth.

But he also said the government will likely appeal the decision in district court, especially since the circuit courts already in disagreement over whether a phones passcode is testimonial.

This adds fuel to the fire by creating a split among the courts about whether faces or fingerprints are likewise testimonial, Nojeim said. Now weve got one magistrate judge saying that, unlike what other judges have said, the fingerprint and the face can also be testimonial.

The government would probably argue that unlike a password, a fingerprint is not something you intentionally communicate, but rather a feature of your body and the use of such a feature to gain access to information is not testimonial like being compelled to say something is. Its a difficult issue, and its an important issue, Nojeim said.

Nojeim also thinks its important to consider how phone users think about fingerprints and passcodes: to the user, theyre equivalent in that they are both methods to unlock the phone. The user doesnt think about how his or her fingerprint might be used against them if used to unlock their own phone.

Does a person really think that when they activate the convenience of facial or fingerprint recognition on their cellphone, that they are giving up some level of control to the information that they are seeking to protect? The level of control they have, compared to using a password, is diminished, Nojeim said. Perhaps the court would consider more favorably the magistrate judges decision in this case because it recognizes the fact that consumers arent thinking differently about facial recognition as a protector versus a password as a protector.

Kate Patrick is a reporter for InsideSources.
EDWARDSVILLE  A jury Thursday took more than four hours to find a man not guilty of home invasion but guilty of aggravated domestic battery for beating the mother of his child and running off with the baby.

Tony R. White, 37, of Collinsville, had argued that the home he was accused of invading was his home. His defense on the aggravated battery charge was simply that the victims testimony was not true.

Prosecutors said that he moved in with the victim after he ran out of money. The two once lived together in Missouri, but she moved out in the face of repeated abuse, prosecutors alleged. Her name was on the lease, and she paid the bills, but he moved in and slept on the couch, he argued.

White represented himself during the trial.

He could get three to seven years in prison for the domestic battery conviction. He could have been sentenced to between six and 30 years for home invasion.

White still faces a charge of aggravated intimidation and 34 counts of harassment of a witness. Prosecutors say he threatened the victim if she did not call the Madison County States Attorneys Office and downplay her report of the violence, and called her 34 times from the Madison County Jail, causing her mental anguish.

The battery and the aggravated intimidation allegedly occurred on Sept. 18. The harassment of a witness allegedly occurred on 10 different days in October. The sentence for the intimidation and harassment is between three and seven years.

After the verdict was announced, White asked Circuit Judge Richard Tognarelli if he could go free and if he could get probation for the conviction. The judge responded that his bond was revoked and that he must remain in jail until he is sentenced.

Probation is available for domestic battery, but white has a record dating to 2004 when he was sentenced to probation for tampering with a motor vehicle. He also has six misdemeanor convictions for driving on a revoked license and pending misdemeanor cases for resisting arrest, assault on a law enforcement officer and interfering with judicial proceedings.
EDWARDSVILLE  After last weekends storm moved through the area, Edwardsvilles street crews moved into action, clearing 240 lane miles of municipal roads.

It was a long-duration storm; that was the hardest part, said Matt Taul, superintendent of streets. He estimates 7.5-8 inches of snow fell in Edwardsville.

According to the National Weather Service in St. Louis, most of Madison County received between eight and 12 inches of snow, Jan. 11-13, while this weekends storm is slated to drop two to three inches over most of the county. A third storm is forecast on Jan. 22 and 23.

Details on this weekends storm include rain moving into the area south of Interstate 70 Friday night, a mix of precipitation north of that and snow in northern Missouri and west-central Illinois. As of Thursday morning, the weather service predicts that the snow will start around 6 a.m. Saturday and end 12 hours later but they caution that those times could change, thus changing snow totals.

Taul said they will not be able to pre-treat the roads on Friday, unlike last weekend, due to the rain that is forecast to arrive first. The city uses a salt brine mixture to pre-treat streets before most snowstorms. The Edwardsville Street Department has 11 trucks that work nine separate routes over 240 lane miles of roads.

The city plows main streets first, then secondary roads and finally subdivisions. Taul estimates his crews used 450 tons of salt during last weekends snowfall. For two inches of snow, the crews might use 250-300 tons, he said.

Last weekend, he said it took 40 hours to clear the streets, versus four to five hours for an average winter storm.

Unlike a growing number of municipalities, Edwardsvilles snowplows are not equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) units.

We tried a pilot program with those a couple of years ago, Taul said. The problem is that we dont have a dedicated dispatcher for that, so we didnt see the benefit.

Taul said the top winter safety tip is to stay home if you dont need to travel during a snowstorm.

Second, he said the best way to be friends with the snowplow drivers is to yield to them and stay behind them, even though they may drive slowly and never try to overtake them

Lastly, he strongly advises pedestrians and children not to play in piles of snow before the streets are cleared to avoid any possibility of striking people hidden among snow forts or while playing games.
PIASA  Southwestern graduate Dr. Kelly Gable, associate professor in the department of pharmacy practice and coordinator of global partnerships at SIUE School of Pharmacy, will be the guest speaker at the Southwestern School Foundation dinner and auction on Saturday, March 9. The event will be held at The Commons at Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey at 6 p.m.

Dr. Gable, a 1997 graduate of Southwestern High School, joined SIUE from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 2007. Dr. Gable is a graduate of the University of Mississippi School Of Pharmacy and subsequently completed a specialty residency in psychiatric pharmacy practice at the University of Southern California.

Dr. Gables clinical areas of interest include the treatment of personality disorders, the integration of motivational interviewing into clinical practice, and Assertive Community Treatment (ACT). She also serves as a psychiatric care provider at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in St. Louis, Missouri and as a consultant to the Missouri State Targeted Response to the Opioid Crisis grant. In 2006 she received her Board Certification as a Psychiatric Pharmacist (BCPP), and in 2016 became a Member of Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT).

In 2014, Dr. Gable received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award and the SIUE Teaching Excellence Award. Other honors include: the St. Louis University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry Outstanding Teacher Award, Preceptor of the Year for the SIUE School of Pharmacy, the Humanitarian Award from the SIUE Department of Social Work, the Service Person of the Year from Community Alternatives in St. Louis, MO, and New Preceptor of the Year from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Her work and research have also been cited in 19 publications.

Dr. Gable was part of a team of eight volunteer medical professionals that traveled to Jacmel, Haiti in 2017 to explore opportunities for future student learning and to participate in a medical mission through Hands Helping Haiti. While in Haiti, Gable and the team provided preventative and acute medical care to 301 children and adults through a pop-up pharmacy they set up in a local school.

In her free time, Dr. Gable still loves to run (as she did while at Southwestern) and her husband Mike, daughter Lily, and son Isaac bring her the greatest joys in life. She is also an active advocate and volunteer within the homeless community in the greater St. Louis region.

The Southwestern Foundations dinner and auction has helped generate $407,000 in scholarships that have been awarded to 386 Southwestern graduates since 2001. The Foundation has also awarded mini-grants totaling almost $61,000 to help enhance learning opportunities in the Southwestern District.

Tickets to the event, which are $30, are available through any Foundation board member or by calling the Southwestern School District office at 372-3813.
SAN FRANCISCO - There is a provocation in the title of the De Young Museum's show "Gauguin: A Spiritual Journey." The exhibition is built around works by the French artist lent by the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, and the De Young's collection of native art from New Zealand, Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands.

The apparent goal of this often diffuse and unfocused survey is to stress the more conventional side of Paul Gauguin, his bourgeois leanings, his marriage to a mistreated but supportive Danish wife, and his preoccupation with spiritual questions, as inflected by the tension between his Catholic education and the cultures he encountered while sequestered on the islands of the South Pacific.

But wait: A spiritual journey? Shouldn't that rather be "a sensual journey," given Gauguin's flight from tradition, his sexual affairs with teenage girls and his search for the "savage" in far-flung French colonies, all embodied in the words he carved on the hut he had built for himself on the island of Hiva Oa, "House of Pleasure"? The exhibition would like to argue otherwise, underscoring what's often overlooked in the well-mythologized life of Gauguin, the ordinary human sentiments and even frailties of a man who was a stockbroker before he reinvented himself as an artist and contrarian.

Unfortunately, the show doesn't come together. The Glyptotek has an extensive collection of works by Gauguin, and more than 60 of the artist's paintings, prints, drawings, ceramics and sculpture are on view in this exhibition, which offers a satisfying overview of Gauguin's career, from an early pencil sketch of his wife, Mette Gad, to journeyman paintings in a generic, impressionist style, to experimental ceramic pieces, which use human forms to create idiosyncratic and grotesque vessels, and several key works of his late period, full of color, flat forms, and cryptic references to native or invented myths and cosmologies. But the happy chance to show a tranche of Gauguin pieces somehow morphed into an exhibition about his putative "spiritual journey," which is adumbrated but not proved.

To support a show about Gauguin's spiritual leanings, the curators would have needed to borrow more of his works that directly engage spiritual matters and focus less on the "dialogues" they suggest between Pacific and Maori art and Gauguin's oeuvre. The latter claim - that Gauguin was inspired by the art he discovered both on his travels and in international expositions he saw while still based in Europe - is easily made, but also a bit of a dead end. The correspondences are obvious, and, for a moment, intriguing.

However, as with some many juxtapositions billed as a "conversation" or "dialogue," there isn't, in fact, much back-and-forth after one notices superficial similarities. Tiki figures from the Marquesas Islands seem to recur with some kind of demonic power in Gauguin's work, but little is made of that connection. Other carved figures are lovely to look at but feel, at best, tangential to the larger themes of the exhibition.

Meanwhile, major paintings (referenced in the catalogue essays) in which Gauguin engaged with the "primitive" Christianity of Brittany (where he painted during various visits in the 1880s and '90s), or fusing Christian and Pacific iconographies for a syncretic mythology of his own making, aren't on view. This would have required a more extensive effort at gathering works from beyond the Glyptotek's holdings, such as the works seen in the National Gallery's 2011 exhibition, "Gauguin: Maker of Myth," which examined Gauguin's spiritual subject matter in greater depth.

In the end, it isn't clear that Gauguin took much of a spiritual journey. Gauguin was the rare artist who acted upon what was a common motif of intellectual life in late 19th-century Europe, a sense of spiritual exhaustion and anomie. He went in search of what he called the "savage," which was a vague feeling that somehow life elsewhere - outside of Europe, or in the idealized past - was richer, earthier and more full of vibrant sensations, which would reawaken feelings and ideas that had gone dormant in "civilized" man. But he was also an imagemaker in search of material, visual stuff that could be put to use in advancing his career in the competitive avant-garde of the fin-de-siecle art market.

In Tahiti, and later in the Marquesas Islands, he was chagrined to find that colonization and the depredations of Christian missionaries had already erased much of the "savage" he had sought. Alcoholism probably contributed to his sense of emotional dullness and spiritual ennui. Gauguin did manage to send back some stunning paintings, and this exhibition gives viewers a good sense of his creative restlessness and risk-taking from earlier chapters in his career. He was also thinking and writing about Catholicism and in argument with the Catholic regime of sexual surveillance, which remains vital to the Church's identity even today. But Gauguin's spiritual journey feels a bit more like a spiritual fantasy life, a roue's ideal of enlightenment through heightened sensation and pleasure.

The exhibition covers a lot of territory, with chapters devoted to Gad's efforts to support her itinerant husband's career, Gauguin's efforts to develop an artistic vision independent of artists such as Camille Pissarro (who was skeptical about Gauguin's "poaching" and "stealing from the savages in Oceania"), as well his relationships with young girls while living abroad. It includes a few spectacular pieces, such as the vibrant 1891 "Tahitian Woman With a Flower" and intricate Maori carvings from the De Young collection. And it features a video by the Samoan-based artist Yuki Kihara, "First Impressions: Paul Gauguin," which encapsulates the ambivalence many viewers today feel about Gauguin's art.

Kihara's work documents a conversation among a small group of Fa'afafine friends from Samoa, "third gender" people who belong to their culture's indigenous LGBT or queer minority. The film documents their reaction to paintings by Gauguin, from bemused indifference to pointed remarks about the colonial objectification of the colonized other. The paintings hold no particular status to the Samoan Fa'afafine, and they treat Gauguin's work just as they would any other image they might encounter, without the hierarchical authority of "art" influencing their judgment.

It's a silly, engaging and sometimes enlightening effort to take Gauguin off his pedestal, and a pleasant surprise after a show that seems mostly content to leave him there.

---

"Gauguin: A Spiritual Journey"

Through April 7 at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. deyoung.famsf.org.
The provincial government is considering a plan to shutter more than 20 health agencies  including Cancer Care Ontario, 14 local health integration networks (LHINS) and eHealth Ontario  and fold them into one super agency, the Star has learned.

Provincial bureaucrats have been asked to create a blueprint for a massive transformation of the health system, according to numerous sources in the broader public sector. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been authorized to give media interviews.

Describing the plan as a work in progress and subject to change, they said the intent is to keep front-line and core services intact, but to run them out of one agency under a single board of directors and a streamlined layer of management.

The provincial cabinet met on Thursday, but it is unclear whether it has signed off on the plan. Following the three-and-a-half-hour cabinet meeting, Health Minister Christine Elliott did not deny the government is looking at getting rid of LHINs.

Weve talked from the very beginning about doing a review of all agencies in government so theres nothing new here, she said, referring to a health agency review announced shortly after last Junes provincial election.

Were continuing our review and working to create a patient-centred system of health care, the minister said in a brief interview with the Star.

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Opinion | Dont harm Cancer Care Ontario while restructuring health agencies

Asked if the government would get rid of Cancer Care Ontario by absorbing it into a new super agency, Elliott said: All I can tell you is that we are looking at truly creating a patient-centred system of health care  its the patient experience that is truly important.

The Star has obtained a copy of an undated Ministry of Health document marked confidential and labelled exploratory model, which appears to point to the option of a large provincial clinical and delivery agency with a government-appointed board of directors, a chief executive and leadership team.

They would oversee three divisions with one in charge of measuring health system performance and including public health, a second division providing clinical oversight for cancer, organ donation, diabetes, critical care, mental health and chronic kidney disease, among others, and a back-office support division to handle procurement, digital health and human resources.

Below these high-level functions would be 60 to 70 integrated delivery systems across the province, which could care for defined patient populations by disease or geographical areas with a comprehensive continuum of care for common conditions like diabetes or mental health.

There are few details in the document, which is described as a vision for delivering health care so everyone in the province can access seamless, integrated care no matter where they live or what care needs they have.

There were no estimates of costs or savings in the document.

Sources said the government wants to debureaucratize the health system by eliminating numerous agencies, along with their boards of directors and executive C-suites.

Home care and long-term care would still be locally co-ordinated under a restructured health system and these sectors would work more closely with the hospital sector.

The idea to consolidate them was first raised in a report last September by the consulting firm Ernst and Young, which was commissioned by government to conduct a line-by-line review of provincial expenditures.

A section of the report, which called for a consolidation of transfer-payment agencies, stated: There are currently more than 20 health agencies across 11 priority areas; these organizations operate independent of each other, and most have leadership teams and back-office functional teams.

It went on to say that administrative costs could be reduced by cutting the number of service providers receiving transfer payments.

Ontarios health system, like many in the developed world, has been criticized for being siloed. The province has long been trying to improve integration of health services. A super agency could help with that, sources said.

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Cancer Care Ontario has been praised in the past for its work in co-ordinating cancer services, but in more recent times it has been criticized as bloated. It has gone beyond its original mandate and now manages the delivery of kidney care services and participates in quality improvement programs in the broader health system.

The Conservatives have long had Ontarios 14 LHINs in their crosshairs. The agencies co-ordinate home-care services and entry into long-term-care homes. LHINs have been accused of devoting too many resources to administration and not enough to front-line services.

eHealth Ontario has a tortured history. A 2009 auditor generals report found $1 billion had been spent on eHealth and its predecessor with little to show for it. Three years later, the auditor found that $24.4 million was spent on an electronic registry of diabetes patients that was unceremoniously scrapped before it was up and running. The organization also weathered an expense account scandal when it was revealed that private consultants earning $3,000 a day were billing taxpayers for $3.99 cookies and $1.65 cups of tea.

Sources say the following transfer-payment recipients are also being eyed for inclusion in a super health agency: The Trillium Gift of Life Network, which co-ordinates organ and tissue donation and transplantation; Health Quality Ontario, which aims to improve the quality of health services; and CorHealth, which organizes Ontarios cardiac and stroke services.

Robert Benzie is the Stars Queens Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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On paper, the federal ridings of Outremont and Burnaby South  whose voters will go to the polls on Feb. 25 along with those of Ontarios York Simcoe  are on parallel byelection courses.

The NDP is the incumbent party in both and each has iconic significance for the party, along with some leadership-related history.

For as long as he was in federal politics, Thomas Mulcair owned Outremont on behalf of the New Democrats. In hindsight, his 2007 breakthrough in the Montreal riding has come to be seen as the precursor of the 2011 orange wave.

Mulcairs successor, Jagmeet Singh is hoping the voters of Burnaby South will give him a ticket to the House of Commons next month. A defeat could precipitate an unprecedented leadership crisis for the party.

But the Liberals also have much at stake.

Quebec and British Columbia will be central to Justin Trudeaus re-election fortunes next fall.

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Snap resignation of Karen Wang gives Liberals just weeks to find new byelection rival for Jagmeet Singh

If the Liberals are to make up for predictable losses in Atlantic Canada and Alberta, they will need to make gains in NDP-held ridings like Outremont and Burnaby South.

On that basis, their Outremont campaign is unfolding like a by-the-book dry run for this falls battle. With more than a month to go to the vote, the Montreal riding is plastered with Liberal signs.

In the battle to win back a riding where Stephane Dion in his days as leader famously barred Trudeau from entering politics, the face of the prime minister is prominent on every sign.

The party is campaigning as if its life in government depended on it.

In fact, winning back Outremont, a riding that was represented by the Liberals for much of its history, should be the easy part. The opposition parties, including the Bloc Quebecois under new leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, will be more competitive in just about all the other opposition-held Quebec ridings Trudeau will have in his sights next year.

Meanwhile, in Burnaby South, the local Liberal campaign has become a gong show. At the end of a particularly messy week, the party is looking for a replacement for its initial candidate, after Karen Wang was ousted over social media comments referencing Singhs ethnicity.

Much melodrama ensued in between the events that prompted her initial resignation as a Liberal candidate and the partys subsequent refusal to give her a second chance. Wang has not ruled out running as an independent.

There have been suggestions that the Liberals are only too happy to drop the ball in Burnaby South, the better to ensure that Singh  who has yet to make a positive impression on many 2015 NDP supporters  passes the test of admission to the House of Commons next month and, as a result, remains at the head of his party for the general election.

A Mainstreet poll done before the wheels fell off the Liberal campaign had the NDP leader in the lead. What better way to rob Singhs possible victory of its shine than to set it up as the mere product of a Liberal accident?

If only because it is less damaging than the alternative explanation  that, with only months to go until the general election, relative chaos reigns in the Liberal backrooms  the party has not tried hard to dismiss the notion that it is trying hard to lose the Burnaby South vote.

Given a choice between coming across as (cynically) clever or totally incompetent, who would not pick the former over the latter?

At a minimum, the Liberal spectacle that has been unfolding this week in Burnaby South speaks to a glaring lack of adult supervision. As it happens, that has also been par for the course in some other by-elections over the past three years.

Looking at the Liberal track record in Quebec for instance, one finds more misses of the Burnaby South variety than organizational hits such as the one on showcase in Outremont.

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The 2017 battle for Stephane Dions succession in the Liberal fortress of Saint Laurent featured a messy nomination fight that saw the partys all-but-publicly anointed choice  former Quebec minister Yolande James  lose to the preferred candidate of the ridings Greek community.

More recently, in Chicoutimi-Le-Fjord, the Liberals allowed themselves to be outplayed by the Conservatives on the front of local recruitment, losing a seat and handing a morale-boosting Quebec victory in the process to rookie Leader Andrew Scheer.

No wonder the Liberals are doing such a great job of trying to snatch a defeat out of the hypothetical jaws of victory in Burnaby South. They have had some practice recently.

Chantal Hebert is a columnist based in Ottawa covering politics. Follow her on Twitter: @ChantalHbert

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Speaking of Freuds narcissism of minor differences, certain people in Burnaby, east of Vancouver, think certain other people dont fit in. With them, that is. If this were a local matter confined to toxic former Liberal candidate Karen Wang, fine. But if its a sign of self-generated ethnic split in a multicultural nation, it is bad news indeed.

I cant find the right metaphor for how multiculturalism works. Maybe its a multi-layered cake and each province is sliced according to population. But no, there shouldnt be layers at all. Perhaps a bricklaying analogy would assist, what with bricks being identical and laid with the tidy Dutch-style grouting I favour.

But none of this explains how Wang messed up.

Being biracial makes me a reasonably good referee. As a walking ethnic quarrel myself, I tend to blame both sides. My Scottish side is at odds with my Indian side, usually when Im buying a winter coat I dont need and cant afford (just buy it, says the Indian dad element) and when Im eating delicious restaurant food.

And why should food be delicious, the Scottish mum element hectors. Food is gasoline for the engine, nothing more. Why go to La Paella when you could cook at home for a tenth of the price? (Because I dont know how to cook paella, I say faintly. Because I am a tight-fisted sybarite. Because I will one day die.)

Im surprised that a candidate as socially awkward as Wang was chosen to run in Burnaby South in the first place. She dug herself a hole and keeps digging, disgracing herself in her determination to become an MP, whether as a party candidate, an independent or an Edible Arrangement.

The Stars alert Vancouver bureau discovered that Wang had said on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform, that she would win as the only ethnic Chinese candidate (hua yi) in the riding because NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is of Indian descent (yin yi).

This implied that voters of Chinese origin would rather hold their breath and turn blue than vote for anyone with darker skin. Worse, she called herself Chinese rather than Chinese-Canadian, when multiculturalism is one of the most basic elements in Prime Minister Trudeaus version of Liberalism.

This situation/apparition pops up often. Cant groups of Canadians focus on what they have in common  the rule of law, Chinese food as great as Indian food, kayaking, Canadian Tire  rather than the tiny things that differentiate them? No? In the U.S., the answer is no with an AK-47.

But Canada is so baked-in multicultural that people dont have the option of not getting along. It works beautifully in the big cities, less well in white-enclave rural Canada, and very badly, it turns out, in suburban ethnic enclaves.

The Liberals had a chat with Wang  presumably brief, frigidly polite and no tea and biscuits on offer  and she quickly resigned while digging in even deeper by blaming an intern and then saying she had been referring to Singhs culture rather than his race.

There is no single culture in India. She didnt say Hindus are fine, she just assumed that any Indo-Canadian candidate would repel her ethnic base, which in her riding is large. Wang says its normal to point out ones background in Chinese media  Im told this is untrue  but what about other peoples?

Her campaign photos show Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen helping out on her campaign, as well as her chatting with Indo-Canadians. So thats one great big wicker basket of offended people.

Then Wang recanted her resignation  good luck with that  saying of Indian descent is merely a statement of fact. Thats a frequent claim made by racists in Alabama but it doesnt wash here.

I have written before about a Markham, Ont. demonstration in 2016, with some Chinese-Canadians protesting asylum seekers crossing the U.S. border into Canada. There were speeches in Chinese and chants of go home go home go home. One protest petition said of the asylum seekers that 75 per cent of them are from Nigeria.

Younger, more aware Chinese-Canadians seeing the disaster unfold, leapt to the rescue of the locals reputation, held up signs and chanted No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here.

But the damage was done. From No Dogs, No Chinese to No Indians to No Nigerians, how could anyone miss the irony of new Canadians turning on each other? In the U.K., its No Poles, No Migrants, No Leylandii Hedges. In the U.S., its just No.

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Wang should have known better. Her grandparents suffered terribly during the Cultural Revolution, when communist gangs turned on individuals who seemed different: too wealthy, too well-known or  perhaps  too Jagmeet Singh.

Wang has lived in Canada for 30 years, long enough to understand Canadian silence on certain subjects: money, race, religion. And where do you worship? I dont ask people at parties.

Does Wang understand the depth of her insult to Canada?

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The mayors and political leaders of the Toronto-centred regions nearly 10 million people are much like the Toronto Maple Leafs: skilled, prominent, hyped and, fatally, lacking grit and fight.

So, expect them  the municipal politicians  to be steamrolled by a pugilistic Premier Doug Ford and his marauding provincial government looking to reduce a provincial deficit on the backs of local taxpayers.

Like Toronto Mayor John Tory before them, these leaders have already folded like a cheap suitcase in the face of provincial intent to meddle and mess up the way our communities are governed.

The municipal leaders have not been asking for this. The provincial bureaucracy has not issued any warnings or concern. The new government was not elected on a platform to fix identifiable problems. There is no study or data or report or discussion or consultation or white paper or recommendation or debate. There is only the facile mantra to reduce government and gain efficiencies.

Some seem to put great stock in the fact that well-regarded advisers Michael Fenn and Ken Seiling have been tapped to do a review and report by summer. But what exactly is their mandate? And their task is so designed to deliver private advice to the government, not a public report for wide consumption and review.

Some 82 cities and towns in the Golden Horseshoe are threatened  or, if you are deluded, on tap for great improvements. When was the last time a provincial government, unprompted, pursued municipal reforms that were designed to improve anything within municipal mandate?

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By the numbers: the regions under the Ford governments review

Ford governments regional review could be a good thing  or a very bad thing

The last time the provincial government meddled in the affairs of cities and towns  because it can, constitutionally  it came at the end of a period of long soul searching, studies, public engagement and recommendations.

Merchants of Visions, was the way then Councillor Brian Ashton described the many studies and ideas and reforms being propagated by just about every village, town, mayor and urban scholar near the end of the last millennium, just over two decades ago.

This coincided with the last time the Progressive Conservatives ruled the province and their leader Mike Harris put the boots to Toronto in a wave of punitive measures that hobbled the city, stole its resources, robbed it of funding, saddled it with added costs once paid by the Ontario government, and left Canadas largest city a shadow of itself.

It took more than a decade of staunch advocacy backed by cities across Canada  and the eventual rescue by the Dalton McGuinty Liberals  to return the city to something near solvency.

So, we have learned that if cities and towns tell the province what makes them tick and how theyll like their citizens to be governed  and even if the government gets cogent advice from scholarly research and study by a credible adviser like Anne Golden provided in 1995, the premier does what the premier does. And the only recourse is protest and clamour for redress.

Doug Ford is showing a penchant for dipping into the Mike Harris tool box. Invent crises, create chaos, move quickly to destabilize and change so many things at once that opposition is diffused and fractured  and declare victory while the victims struggle to find their equilibrium.

When Harris amalgamated the cities in Toronto and downloaded hundreds of millions of dollars of costs on the city, Harris essentially left Torontos neighbouring municipalities unscathed. Toronto lost its regional government (Metro Council) while counterparts (Peel, Halton, York and Durham Regions) were untouched.

So now those regions are under review. Unpracticed in opposing the province, they meekly submit to the governments intent  as if this is a fair and considered exercise.

As bad as Harris was, at least he had promised that within 180 days of taking office he would present an action plan to restructure service delivery such as transit, garbage, welfare and police; to bring co-ordination and cost savings; to clearly disentangle responsibilities and bring about fairness in funding and taxation. This may very well lead to the complete elimination of an entire level of government.

The Golden task force suggested a GTA-wide government to co-ordinate services, Harris ignored it. She said the province should pick up the cost of welfare and social services because those costs dont belong on the property tax bill. Didnt get that either. Instead, Harris dumped provincially-owned and broken-down social housing on Toronto.

So, even with a large body of studies and data and advice the province plowed along, guided by its own designs and self-serving intents.

Distrust, apprehension, doubt and high skepticism only approaches the kind of cynicism thats best attached to the provinces announcement this week.

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Burlingtons Mayor Marianne Meed Ward comes closest to whats most needed  a measure of pushback against what is undeniably a provincial disaster masquerading as reform.

Said the mayor: The central message that we mayors would like to send to the province is we know our business. We are all about finding efficiencies, theres no argument there  but you dont do it with a hatchet, you do it with a handshake.

Expect a hatchet, even with a handshake.

Royson James is a former Star reporter who is a current freelance columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @roysonjames

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Evelyn Korkmaz is not waiting to see if shell receive an official invitation from the Vatican to attend the historic Papal Summit on sexual abuse.

While Pope Francis and the worlds Catholic bishops meet inside Vatican City walls from Feb. 21 to 24, Korkmaz, a survivor of the notorious St. Annes Indian Residential School, will join other global survivors in Rome as they hold an alternate Ending Clergy Abuse event.

Now 61, Korkmaz spent the most horrific years of her life as a student at St. Annes, which was run by Oblate Catholic nuns. Children who attended the school, which opened in 1906, were routinely abused, beaten and malnourished. Students lived in fear of the homemade electric chair used to punish them.

Korkmaz was sexually assaulted at the school, which was one of 139 Indian Residential Schools in Canada that existed from the mid-1800s to 1996. Nearly 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were taken away from their families, homes and communities and placed in government-funded, church-run schools meant to erase their identities and to assimilate them into colonized, Christian Canada.

Pope Francis has refused to apologize for Canadas residential school experience, even though many of the schools were Catholic. Last year, he acknowledged the abuse suffered at the hands of the clergy in Chile but still Indigenous people in Canada wait. What have the Aboriginal people done that we dont have the same respect as those in the other countries? Korkmaz asks.

She understands an apology is not a panacea but it is a start, one that will help many to move on.

To that end, the church must own up to its moral obligation and pay the $21 million owed to survivors, as set out in the 2006 Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. That would go a long way to taking responsibility.

Yet the church refuses to apologize or pay.

One of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions 94 Calls to Action was for the Pope to apologize to survivors, their families and communities.

In fact, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took that request to the Pope, but the Pontiff refused. After an extensive dialogue with the Bishops of Canada, Pope Francis stated that he could not personally respond, according to a letter by Lionel Gendron, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. It was later explained that given the structure of the church, it wasnt proper for the Pope to be the one apologizing.

However, the letter did encourage the bishops to engage in healing and solidarity with Indigenous people and to collaborate in concrete projects aimed at improving living conditions.

But healing and solidarity are surely not possible until the church pays the money it owes. Under the settlement, the Catholic entities had three financial obligations: $29 million in cash, $25 million in in-kind services, and $25 million to be raised in a fundraising campaign.

During Question Period on Thursday, Marc Miller, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of Crown-Indigenous relations, said the church has only raised approximately $3.7 million of the $25 million owed.

The Church must do better.

Its well past time it apologized to Residential School survivors.

But no one knows better than Korkmaz that an apology would be only a beginning.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper apologized to survivors in 2008.

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And still, Canada is fighting Korkmaz and her fellow St. Annes survivors in court.

An apology is given real meaning with actions that demonstrate its sincerity.
If it wasnt completely clear that the Ford government excels at obfuscation, then Colleges and Universities Minister Merrilee Fullerton more than proved it when she unveiled a program on Thursday billed as putting more money back in the pockets of students.

In fact, it will do anything but that.

Sure, the government cut tuition fees at Ontarios colleges and universities by 10 per cent and made most student fees optional.

But at the same time, it cut free tuition for students from lower-income families, made it tougher for students to qualify for grants through the provinces financial aid system, and cut the entire aid program back to the level it was at before the Wynne government introduced the free tuition program in 2016.

Thats not all. Students will have to get more of their aid in loans and less in non-repayable grants. The interest-free period on loans will be cut, along with the six-month grace period students used to have to start paying back loans.

This is all bad news for students. They may pay a bit less up-front in tuition, but once they graduate theyll face the challenge of paying back more debt  and have to pay it back quicker.

At the same time, the quality of higher education they get in Ontario may well suffer.

The government has no plans to compensate universities and colleges for the $440 million they will lose once the reduced tuition fees take effect. Theyre on their own to figure that out.

Fullertons tough-love advice to the institutions: Innovate.

Thats a direction that belies the fact that Ontarios universities and colleges have already been doing more with less than their counterparts across the country.

Ontario colleges, for example, receive about $2,000 less per student from the government than those in other provinces.

And universities have among the lowest levels of per-student funding in the country, while revenues from tuition and operating grants combined have been flat since 2010.

How will it all play out? With larger classes and fewer professors, says New Democrat MPP Chris Glover, a former York University professor.

As for students who took advantage of the free tuition introduced by the Liberals, Fullerton had this to say: Tuition was never free.

Really? Tell that to the 230,000 students who had taken advantage of the program since it was announced in 2016. And for a good reason.

The simple fact is that kids who pursue a college or university education are typically from more affluent homes. Under the Liberal plan, they didnt have to be.

Certainly, there were room for improvements to the program.

As the provinces auditor general reported last December, its cost was skyrocketing. AG Bonnie Lysyk found it was on track to be 50 per cent more costly than the Liberals predicted it would be.

Further, she reported, there was no follow-up to make sure it was actually meeting the goal of helping more low-income students attend post-secondary schools.

And it was downright foolish that the Liberal government allowed a third of mature students to qualify for it without proof they needed financial support.

But those problems required tweaks to the program, not an axe.

Further, the fact the program cost more than expected could be considered a measure of its success at giving poorer students a helping hand.

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Without the free tuition option, its likely that some will simply be deterred from even contemplating a still-expensive post-secondary education.

All of these cuts  with no word on the savings they would produce  were made despite the fact that Fullerton acknowledged that access to good jobs depends on access to a good education, and the government would be there for those with the greatest need.

Those are fine words. But the governments actions go in entirely the opposite direction.

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Some members of eight well-paid physician specialty groups recently voted to leave the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) to form the Ontario Specialist Association (OSA). These specialists claim the OMA does not represent their interests and have asked government to negotiate with them separately from the rest of the provinces doctors.

Despite lofty rhetoric about self-determination and minority rights, this splinter group seems mainly concerned with protecting high incomes resulting from Ontario taxpayers investing in the technologies or practice changes that support their specialties.

Three of the eight groups that voted to leave the OMA are diagnostic imagers (also known as radiologists). In most cases these doctors earn their living at computers reporting on digital images captured from MRI, CT, and other imaging equipment.

Similar to other specialists in the OSA, radiologists have substantially increased their income in the last 20 years. According to government arbitration documents posted on the OMA website, from 1992 to 2016 radiologists increased their billings by 163 per cent to earn an average of more than $560,000 a year. During this time period, average Ontarian wage growth was 66 per cent.

About 13 per cent of Ontario radiologists billed more than $1 million in 2016/17.

The same government documents show the average radiologist worked 12 per cent fewer days in 2015/16 compared to 1992/93.

How did radiologists achieve this substantial increased income while working fewer days? My view, as a former cancer surgeon who analyzed MRIs, CTs and other images as a daily part of surgery practice, is that radiologists have benefitted from a technology windfall funded by Ontario taxpayers. It is no surprise that these specialists now want to leave the OMA in order to protect this windfall.

The technology windfall started with taxpayer funded purchases and operational funding for MRI and CT equipment in hospitals. Over the past 22 years, radiology billings for MRIs have increased by 3,400 per cent and CT billings have increased by more 400 per cent. In 2013, the Canadian Institute of Health Information found that Ontarians had more access to MRI tests than other Canadians.

During the same time interval, taxpayers also purchased hospital computer work stations and radiology digital systems that allow radiologists to read images more efficiently.

These investments in imaging modalities have improved patient care. However, these taxpayer purchases have also allowed radiologists to improve their productivity and transform their billing profiles to increase tests with higher income value (MRI vs. plain X-rays).

In arbitration proposals available on the OMA website, government suggests that radiology fees should be reduced along with fees paid to other specialists (all members of the OSA) who have benefitted from similar taxpayer investments. These reductions would equilibrate OSA incomes with other specialists compensation. The proposed fee reductions would reduce annual Ontario healthcare costs by about $120 million (1 per cent of the physician budget).

The OMA governing council endorsed a recommendation (subsequently rejected by OMA board) that high-earning specialists should be paid less. The recommendation differed from government in recommending that reduced high earners incomes should be redistributed to lower paid doctor groups rather than decreasing health costs.

Given this focus on lowering high billers incomes, it is no surprise that these specialists want to leave the OMA. However, its not up to the specialists to decide whether they can leave the current OMA arbitration; its up to government.

In previous deals with doctors, government agreed that the OMA would be the sole bargaining representative for physicians. The government is now considering whether to unilaterally revoke this agreement and negotiate separately with the OSA.

If separate negotiations were held with the OSA it is likely that a quick agreement would follow with OSA accepting a four-year fee freeze. The government would suggest that they had achieved a good deal for taxpayers. In reality, this freeze would leave the OSA with their technology windfall protected forever and ignore a potential 1 per cent reduction in physician costs.

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Allowing these specialists to escape arbitration with their windfall intact would be an affront to the taxpayers of Ontario. We have all paid for the technology that allowed these well-paid specialists to increase their compensation.

If the government respects the taxpayer, the OSA will not be allowed to protect their technology windfall with separate negotiations.
WASHINGTONThe federal courts are running out of money as the partial government shutdown continues with no end in sight, raising concerns that the legal system will be significantly hobbled if the standoff is not resolved soon.

Judges and court officials around the country are bracing for the likelihood that the federal judiciary will be unable to maintain its current operations within the next two weeks, once it exhausts the money it has been relying on since the shutdown began last month.

Already, courts have been cutting down on expenses like travel and new hiring. Court-appointed private lawyers who represent indigent defendants have been working without pay since late December, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which provides support for the court system.

There have been other disruptions. The Justice Department is among the executive branch agencies whose funding has lapsed, and at the departments request, some federal courts have issued orders postponing civil cases in which the Justice Department is a party while the shutdown continues, according to the administrative office.

If the judiciary runs out of money, courts around the country will pare down their work to mission critical operations, officials said. Thousands of court employees will stop receiving paychecks, some workers are expected to be furloughed and more civil cases could grind to a halt. Jurors may have to wait to be paid until the shutdown is over.

Were already having to make what I call triage decisions as to what we can do versus what we cannot do, said Chief Judge Ruben Castillo of Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, which includes Chicago.

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The Trump administration has tried to blunt the effects of the shutdown on important government services by drawing up plans to recall thousands of employees in executive branch agencies like the IRS and the Agriculture Department.

But the courts present an area in which the damage from the shutdown is expected to worsen considerably. A crippled judiciary, with all the consequences that would entail for businesses and citizens alike who come before its courts, would only add to the pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump and lawmakers to find a way to reopen the government.

With roughly 33,000 employees nationwide and annual federal funding of under $8 billion (U.S.), the judiciary makes up a tiny part of the federal budget. In recent years, it has accounted for only about two-tenths of 1 percent of annual federal spending.

But like other parts of the government, it relies on Congress to provide funding as part of the annual appropriations process, and it now stands as one of the many parts of the government whose funding lapsed in December after Trump demanded money for a border wall and congressional Democrats refused to go along.

Unlike other parts of the government, the courts have been able to keep afloat over the past few weeks by relying on court fees as well as other funds that were available. The courts are now expected to be able to continue funded operations through at least Jan. 25, and possibly until Feb. 1, the administrative office said.

When the courts run out of money, they will essentially have to react much the way that executive branch agencies did in December, limiting work to certain essential activities.

For the courts, that includes activities to support the exercise of the courts constitutional powers under Article III, specifically the resolution of cases and related services, the administrative office said.

The Supreme Court, federal appeals courts, district courts and bankruptcy courts around the country will have to decide on a court-by-court basis how they will change their operations and what staff will be needed to continue that work. Court employees, like executive branch employees affected by the shutdown, would work without pay or be furloughed.

Under the Constitution, appeals court judges and district judges would continue to be paid, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Court officials are grappling with all sorts of complications that could arise, including the possible effects on court reporters and court interpreters, as well as on jurors who are supposed to be paid for their service and reimbursed for transportation expenses.

In Brooklyn, the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York is planning to furlough some court employees, and groups that use courthouse facilities for occasions like bar association meetings or continuing legal education are being told to make other plans.

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Theres a lot of angst, I can tell you that, Eugene J. Corcoran, the district executive for the Eastern District, said of the sentiment among workers.

In the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers much of the West, one idea being considered is to close the appellate courthouses to the public for one weekday per week and furlough employees that day.

My chief judge has no intention of canceling court, said Molly Dwyer, the clerk of court for the 9th Circuit, noting that oral arguments had been scheduled for weeks to come.

In Manhattan, the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York has already restricted the hours when initial appearances for criminal defendants can take place, because of staffing constraints with the U.S. Marshals Service.

There are little things that cost money but might not normally get much thought, like providing lunch for jurors when they are deliberating. I got to find a deli in town thats going to continue to let us owe them thousands of dollars, said Edward Friedland, the district executive for the Southern District.

Then there is the issue of keeping the courthouse doors open.

Friedland said it was unclear if contracted building workers who handle areas like fire safety as well as heating, ventilation and air conditioning would be paid beyond February, raising the possibility that the Southern Districts courthouses might not be able to stay open.

That uncertainty has prompted the court to turn to its pandemic plan  which was prepared for a situation in which judges and other court personnel would not be able to leave their homes because of a disease outbreak, but essential work like determining bail for defendants still needed to take place.

Thats something we never thought wed be testing for this purpose, Friedland said.

In Chicago, Castillo worried that there would be longer-term ramifications, such as veteran employees deciding to call it quits, and young people being turned off from pursuing federal jobs.

Its very self-defeating, he said, adding: Its like youre on the front lines and youre being shot in the back by your own forces. Thats how it feels.

Given that his court is already understaffed, he said he was not planning furloughs. But he said that civil trials would be shut down, and his court would give priority to criminal cases in which defendants are detained awaiting trial and have the presumption of innocence.

Still, for defendants who are not detained, he predicted that defense lawyers would not want to go to trial because of another complication: There would not be any money to pay jurors until after the shutdown.

The dilemma that creates is then you have jurors who are making big decisions and may be unhappy about the circumstances of their jury service, Castillo said. I was a defense attorney. I would not want to proceed to trial under those circumstances because those circumstances can lead to rushed judgments on the part of jurors that just want to get this done and over with. Thats not fair.

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LONDONBritish Prime Minister Theresa May held talks Friday with European leaders and British Cabinet colleagues, but efforts to end Britains Brexit stalemate appeared deadlocked, with neither May nor Britains opposition leader shifting from their entrenched positions.

May has been meeting with politicians from several U.K. parties this week to try to find a way forward after her European Union divorce deal was overwhelmingly rejected by Parliament.

Despite that, May has been unwilling to move her red lines in the Brexit negotiations, which include taking Britain out of the blocs customs union. And opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has refused to meet with May unless she rules out the possibility of Britain leaving the EU with no deal  a scenario that many believe would hurt the British economy.

May on Friday also spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and planned more calls to European colleagues over the weekend.

But the talks yielded little progress.

The European Commission said tersely that the May-Juncker call was an exchange of information on both sides and that the two had agreed to stay in touch.

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May, who narrowly defeated a no-confidence vote in her Conservative government triggered by Corbyn this week, said it was not within the governments power to rule out no-deal because by law Britain will leave the EU without an agreement on March 29 unless Parliament approves a deal before then.

May is due to publish her revived Brexit blueprint on Monday, before British lawmakers debate it  and doubtless try to alter it  on Jan. 29.

The prime minister is in a bind. Many lawmakers think a soft Brexit that keeps Britain in the EUs single market or customs union is the only plan capable of winning a majority in Parliament. But a large chunk of Mays Conservative Party is vehemently opposed to that idea.

Britains political chaos has spurred EU nations to step up preparations for a disorderly British exit. France and other countries are spending millions, hiring thousands of workers and issuing emergency decrees to cope with the possibility that Britain will crash out of the bloc, sparking major disruptions to travel and trade.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Friday inspected some of the countrys preparations for a no-deal Brexit, visiting the Eurotunnel complex and meeting with small businesses on the English Channel coast.

France is paying special attention to the Channel tunnel, which carries millions of passengers annually between Britain and France, as well as freight trucks that play a significant role in Britains trade with the continent.

On Friday, a group of high-profile Germans made an emotional appeal to Britain to stay in the bloc. A letter published in the Times of London said without your great nation, this Continent would not be what it is today: a community defined by freedom and prosperity.

It went on to list things Germans would miss about Britain, among them tea with milk and going to the pub after work.

The signatories include Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, leader of Chancellor Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union, Airbus chief Tom Enders and former German national soccer player Jens Lehmann.

Amid the political impasse, Mays domestic opponents are gathering. Brexit-backing former-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson used a speech Friday at a bulldozer factory to accuse May of lacking the gumption to get a good deal from the EU.

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Johnson, a likely future contender to replace May as Conservative leader and prime minister, urged her to go back to Brussels and get a better deal, even though EU leaders have said the withdrawal agreement wont be renegotiated.

He dodged a question of whether he would support May as party leader if a sudden general election is called, saying instead that Britain does not need a new vote.

I think most people in this country feel they have had quite enough elections, he said. I certainly do.

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CALAIS, FRANCEOne migrant familys night voyage across the English Channel ended an hour after it began, back on a beach in northern France, after their overloaded rubber boat listed and two small Iranian children slid into the frigid, murky water before being hauled back to safety.

After one hour, we came back on the beach, said the childrens 37-year-old father  who doesnt exclude trying again to get into Britain.

The man, who identified himself only as Ahmed and a Christian from Ahwaz in southwest Iran. He is among hundreds of desperate Iranian migrants around the northern French port of Calais who are trying the high-risk tactic of using small boats and motorized rubber rafts to get to Britain.

Successful crossings and the horrifying conditions in small, makeshift camps in Calais feed the dream.

Here its dangerous, 50/50, said Ahmed, referring to the camp where he set up his family near the dunes of Calais. But in the water, its also 50/50.

He said he felt targeted at home because he converted to Christianity.

Read More:

France moves over 1,600 unaccompanied migrants out of Calais

Uncertainty looms ahead of migrant camp closure in France

Britain, France boost security at Channel Tunnel

French border police and maritime officials are patrolling the land, sea and air of northern France, combing beaches, dunes and coastal waters in a bid to end the small boat crossings. Britain has pressured France to do more and is financing the new effort, as it has in the past.

French authorities counted 71 small boat crossings or attempts in 2018  57 in November and December alone, according to the Interior Ministry. Forty of the crossings were successful, with the majority of the 504 migrants who tried managing to make it to British waters or the coast.

In 2017, there were only 12 such crossings.

To date, there are no known cases of migrants drowning on the English Channel crossings, but officials worry it is just a matter of time.

The stepped-up security, announced earlier this month, is beginning to pay off. A patrol discovered a rubber boat and four people this week in the dunes south of Calais, a top French border control official told The Associated Press.

On Friday, a motorcycle patrol found evidence that an Iranian migrant had camped out on a beach near Ambleuteuse, 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Calais.

The motorcycle patrol has found this one-man campsite, Lieut. Col. Jean-Luc Pereau a gendarme leading the beach patrol, told the Associated Press accompanying the search.

A survival blanket and a torn-up police report showed the person was Iranian, he said.

The patrols, who talk to town folk and comb beaches, seek witness accounts and evidence of migrants looking to launch a boat.

The goal is to save lives in one of the worlds busiest and most treacherous waterways, known for its strong currents and cold waters. Officials also want to catch smugglers who appear to have found a new money-making niche, adding to their specialty of hiding migrants in the freight trucks that cross the Channel on ferries or trains.

Most migrants in northern France still opt to hide among vegetables or other cargo in trucks, trying to outwit heartbeat detectors, scans and other sophisticated equipment seeking to rout them out at ports in Calais and Dunkirk and the Eurotunnel.

About 3,000 migrants were discovered hiding in trucks in the region in 2018, Franck Toulliou, the No. 2 Air and Border Police official, said.

The Calais region has long been a magnet for migrants hoping to settle in Britain.

Officials have no clear explanation for the spike in bids by Iranian migrants trying to reach British shores by sea in small boats. Some media reports have speculated that migrants are desperately trying to reach Britain by March 29, when the country is scheduled to leave the European Union, fearing increased border checks after that date.

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But Toulliou said Brexit will change nothing for those trying to enter Britain illegally.

The level of controls (after Brexit) will not be lower or higher. It is at 100 per cent, he said.

The cliffs of Dover, visible in good weather, are irresistible to the desperate people huddled around camp fires in hideouts around Calais, defying police who regularly clear them out. A huge makeshift migrant camp in Calais went up in flames during a dismantling operation in 2016.

Ahmed said he, his wife, 8-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son boarded the rubber boat about two months ago but the unsteady vessel quickly listed to one side. Eight people helped pull his children back aboard.

He says a friend arranged for the boat, but claimed he didnt know which beach the group left from or the exact date of their ill-fated journey.

Smugglers are suspected of expanding their operations to selling crossings on small boats that Iranian migrants originally started to buy on their own, according to Toulliou.

Iranians didnt want to ... pay (smuggling) networks, mostly run by Iraqi Kurds, he said. Initially, they preferred to buy their own boats.

Small motorized rafts can cost from 1,000 to 4,000 euros ($1,135 to $4,545)  often cheaper than buying ones way onto a truck, he said.

Ports have taken measures to lock down vessels after a fishing boat stolen in November from Boulogne-sur-Mer reached Britain, and boats have been tampered with in the small French port of Gravelines, between Calais and Dunkirk.

Toulliou said no Iranian smuggling network has yet been discovered, even though France dismantled 26 smuggling networks in 2018 along the northern coast.

Still to come in the step-up in border security are drones flying over the area.

Planned long before the spike in small boat crossings, a Joint Information and Coordination Center, opened in November. It is staffed by French and British Border Force police, providing real-time information with images of the ports of Calais and Dunkirk, the Eurotunnel and Eurostar.

The high-tech detection is likely to only make Ahmeds life worse in his small camp, which is rife with ethnic and religious divisions.

His wife and children are currently being housed in a small apartment, on doctors orders, but that is temporary. He said he was beaten in the head by Muslims during a Bible-reading session, showing a photo of his bandages.

Ahmed vowed he will try again to cross the Channel by boat.

(But) we (do) not have the money to take to the mafia now, he said.

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CANBERRA, AUSTRALIAAustralian police arrested a man Friday for questioning over the death of an Israeli student in Melbourne, while the victims tearful father visited the flower-strewn crime scene where her body was found.

Aiia Maasarwe was slain at 12:10 a.m. on Wednesday shortly after she got off a tram in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora.

A 20-year-old was taken into custody on Friday morning in the neighbouring suburb of Greensborough, a police statement said. Police did not say if any charges have been filed.

The 21-year-old victim was studying at La Trobe University in Melbourne as an exchange student from Shanghai University in China.

Her father Saeed Maasarwe arrived in Melbourne on Thursday to bring her body home. He cried Friday when he saw an impromptu floral memorial arranged by members of the public at the site where her body was found behind a hedge not far from the tram stop.

This is the last place my daughter  was here, the father told reporters. I had many dreams to be with her.

The father was also among hundreds of people who attended a vigil later on the steps of the Victoria state parliament in honour of the victim and in a protest against male violence.

Saeed thanked the crowd for coming and said if someone else had died, his daughter would be the first to come to the vigil.

This is Aiia, he said before breaking down in tears.

Police have not detailed the attack on Maasarwe, which they assume was random and opportunistic.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed that she had been raped.

I just want to begin by saying how devastated I am by the despicable, tragic and violent killing and rape of Aiia Maasarwe, Morrison told reporters in Fiji.

Every woman in Australia  every person in Australia  should be able to travel home in safety. I cant begin to think of what I could say to her family, he added.

Her uncle, Abed Kittani, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that Maasarwe was speaking by phone to a younger sister when she was attacked.

She heard the cars passing by and she was helpless, she couldnt do anything, Kittani said of the sister. The sister sent messages, but there was no response.

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Instead of coming home with a diploma, she is coming back in a coffin, Kittani said.

Another uncle, Rame Maasarwe, said: We cannot believe that something like this happened in Australia; we think its very safe there.
NAIROBI, KENYAA Canadian national and five other people suspected of helping extremist gunmen stage a deadly attack in the Kenyan capital this week appeared in court on Friday as prosecutors investigated them for suspected terror offences.

A judge ordered five of the suspects held for 30 days while authorities look into the assault on the dusitD2 hotel complex that was carried out by al-Shabab, a group that is linked to Al Qaeda and based in neighbouring Somalia.

Kenyan authorities say 21 people, including one police officer, were killed by the attackers, one of whom blew himself up beside a restaurant. Another four gunmen died.

Prosecutors suspect the alleged accomplices, including two taxi drivers and an agent for a mobile phone-based money service, of aiding and abetting the attackers who stormed the Nairobi complex on Tuesday afternoon and were killed by Wednesday morning, according to a court document. Prosecutors said they were pursuing more suspects in and outside Kenya.

Suspects who appeared in court were identified as Joel Nganga Wainaina, Oliver Kanyango Muthee, Gladys Kaari Justus, Guleid Abdihakim and Osman Ibrahim. Abdihakim is a Canadian national, according to prosecutors. Hussein Mohammed, another suspect who was arrested in Mandera county along the border with Somalia, was brought to court separately, prosecutors said.

Read more:

Kenyan police say 11 arrested after deadly hotel attack

Death toll in Nairobi attack climbs to 21, plus five attackers

Al Shabab extremists claim deadly attack on Nairobi hotel

The investigations into this matter are complex and transnational and would therefore require sufficient time and resources to uncover the entire criminal syndicate, said Noordin Haji, director of public prosecutions. He said he has appointed a team of prosecutors to help ensure that the investigations are meticulous and fast-tracked.

Canada has condemned the attack in Nairobi earlier this week.

A spokesman for Global Affairs Canada said Canadian officials are aware of reports that a Canadian citizen was arrested in Kenya and that consular officials are in contact with Kenyan authorities to gather additional information.

Consular services are being provided to the family of the individual, said Global Affairs spokesman Philip Hannan, adding privacy laws prevent the disclosure of any further information.

Police earlier identified a Kenyan military officer as the father of another suspect in the assault. The son, Ali Salim Gichunge, as well as Violet Kemunto Omwoyo, were named as attackers in court documents.

The attackers were in constant communications with several phone numbers which are located in Somalia, prosecutors said.

Gichunges father, who is not believed to have been involved in the attack, was summoned for questioning about when he last saw his son and other details, a senior police official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The official said a total of 11 people were detained as part of the investigation.

The attack was denounced on Friday in Eastleigh, a Nairobi neighbourhood that is home to many ethnic Somalis and has been targeted in massive police operations against suspected extremist cells. Shop owners temporarily closed businesses to protest extremism, and crowds gathered.

Al-Shabab also carried out the 2013 attack at Nairobis nearby Westgate Mall that claimed 67 lives, and an assault on Kenyas Garissa University in 2015 that killed 147 people, mostly students. While U.S. airstrikes and a multinational African Union force in Somalia have reduced the Islamic extremists ability to operate, al-Shabab is still capable of carrying out spectacular acts of violence in retaliation for the Kenyan militarys presence in Somalia.

The attackers who stormed the hotel complex opened fire and set off grenades, sending panicked people running for cover as security forces converged. Security camera footage released later showed a suicide bomber blowing himself up in a grassy area.

A hotel employee, seen in the footage walking past the bomber just before the explosion, described in an interview with Kenyas K24 television how he heard the man talking on a mobile phone.

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Where are you guys? the agitated bomber said at least a couple of times, according to Abdullahi Ogelo, the employee. Ogelo, who later concluded the bomber had been talking to his accomplices, said the man was also moving his hand over his chest.

Seconds later, the bomber detonated in a flash and billowing smoke.

In the television interview, Ogelo said God saved him and gave him a second chance.
President Donald Trump told his attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his efforts during the 2016 campaign to move forward on a Moscow hotel tower project, BuzzFeed News reported Thursday.

Trump supported a plan set up by Cohen to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow during the campaign to get the tower negotiations off the ground.

Make it happen, Trump told Cohen, according to two sources the online publication identified as federal law enforcement officials.

Trump and his children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project, the report said.

Cohen has already pleaded guilty to lying to Congress for saying the negotiations ended in January 2016. He now says the talks extended months longer.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trumps lead lawyer in the investigation into possible Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election, told The New York Daily News last month that Trump doesnt remember when the negotiations stopped.

The Moscow Trump tower would have included condominiums, hotel rooms and commercial space.

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PARIS  A strong explosion and fire hit a science building undergoing repairs at the University of Lyon on Thursday, injuring three people slightly, French officials said.

The area was evacuated after the explosion on the roof of the building Thursday morning, and the regional fire service said the blaze was under control soon afterward.

Images posted on social networks showed huge plumes of black smoke and flickering flames rising above the campus in the Lyon suburb of Villeurbanne. The university said multiple explosions were heard and that they were caused by renovation work. The town of Villeurbanne tweeted that the blast was accidental, without elaborating.

Both the town and university insisted there were no risks of chemical leaks.

The explosion hit days after a blast apparently caused by a gas leak hit a Paris bakery, killing four people and injuring dozens.

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Richard Smith pokes his head out of his green and grey tent as his dog Pixie sleeps inside beside him.

The tent is draped in sleeping bags  improvised insulation in freezing temperatures that on this day feels like -12 C. Scattered around it are propane tanks he uses to cook, and empty water bottles. A frying pan, pot and dishtowel rest on a small wooden platform next to a large cooler.

Nearby, one of his neighbours collects wood for a stove that feeds into a tiny chimney poking out of the top of his own tent, where a single light bulb glows behind the nylon.

A lot of people dont even realize theres people in them, says Smith of their makeshift homes.

Were pretty tight, pretty good people. We check in on each other, thats kind of the reason to be here.

Smith is one of about a half dozen men, he says, who have set up camp under the Gardiner near Spadina Ave. in the shadow of some of the most expensive condos in the country. He says theyre staking out a sliver of privacy and protection from the elements in a city with a dwindling housing supply and a packed shelter system.

The city handed out eight notices to people like Smith, although he says he didnt personally receive one, starting last Thursday. Officials told them to get out in 14 days, citing public safety issues. But as temperatures are set to drop to as low as -21 C this weekend, and amidst three homeless deaths in less than two weeks, advocates, and some of the men themselves, say theres simply nowhere for them to go.

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Its a Catch-22, says Smith, whos been camping here on and off for about two years after losing his apartment and job following an arrest.

They say theres places for us, he adds. But hed like to see them.

The citys chief communications officer Brad Ross said notices were issued because of public safety issues with right of way, debris and reports of open flames and propane.

As of Thursday, according to a daily count posted on the citys website, shelters hovered between 97 and 100 per cent occupied, except for family shelters in motels which were at 84 per cent.

Yes shelters are crowded but theres still capacity, says Ross, adding the real goal is to help people find permanent housing, with the help of the citys Streets to Homes staff.

Whether its a room or an apartment, yeah its challenging but they continue to work through that and there are solutions out there, he says.

We cant allow people to be sleeping in makeshift shelters and tents and shanties on sidewalks.

Smith says hes been assigned a Streets to Homes worker, whos been tasked with helping him out of the tent and into something with four walls. He says hes been trying to follow up but hasnt been able to reach them.

In the meantime hes heard the shelters are packed, and prefers the camp, where the underbelly of the expressway and the soaring concrete pillars that support it provide some shelter from the wind and snow.

Garbage is strewn around this stretch of land just south of CityPlace  a heart-shaped baking pan lying facedown, old suitcases, needles. A giant yellow stuffed Pikachu rests on a brown couch beside an overturned desk chair, and half of a blue bike frame pokes out from the frozen dirt.

Aside from the woosh of cars, its quiet and still. Most of the men are inside their tents taking refuge from the cold.

On one of the pillars someone has written in black bold letters, Take me Home?

Smith says he stays as he also doesnt want to be separated from Pixie, who he credits with helping him get through some addiction issues. Some, but not all, shelters allow pets.

She keeps me alive, he says with a smile, of the lab-mix.

We just fell in love.

Ross said he cant speak to Smiths particular situation, but said encampments are regularly visited by Streets to Homes outreach workers and anyone having trouble reaching them should call 311, the citys non-emergency hotline.

After a harsh winter last year, and criticism from the ombudsman that the city gave incorrect information about capacity on at least two occasions, officials pledged to do better this year with a winter plan that included opening three new 24-hour respite sites in huge dome-like structures.

So far, only one of the centres  a 100-bed facility in Liberty Village run by the St. Felix Centre  is open. Ross says the city anticipates the opening of other two in March and April.

On Tuesday, asked about the evictions, Mayor John Tory said the notice is meant to be more compassionate, rather than clearing people out immediately.

Even in instances where weve had quite large encampments in the past all of those people, I think, without exception have been found alternate places to to live, he said.

But make no mistake, we have to take these encampments out because it is just not a viable proposition to have people deciding theyre going to set up tents or other kinds of structures like this anywhere they so choose to do so.

On Thursday, advocates marched downtown, calling for the city to declare an emergency and add 2,000 shelter beds. The rally came after the deaths of Hang Vo, who was run over by a garbage truck on Tuesday in an alley near St. Andrew Subway station where shed been sleeping, and Crystal Papineau, who got stuck in a clothing donation bin last week near Dovercourt and Bloor.

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Homeless advocate and street nurse Cathy Crowe told the Star theres actually been three deaths  an Indigenous man also died in an alley last week.

Crowe says the citys capacity numbers dont tell the whole story. Practically all alternatives  not only the shelters, but the Out of the Cold programs, run by faith based organizations where people can sleep and get a meal during the winter  are full.

Essentially there might be three spots at this respite or two spots left on the floor at an Out of the Cold, but even the Out of the Colds are now reporting that the majority of their sites are running over capacity and thats never, ever happened.

The situation, with mats on the floor, approximately a foot and a half away from the next person, is  just inhumane and its unworkable, she says.

Instead of evicting the people under the Gardiner and others like them across the city who are trying to create a nook of comfort and safety in very visible places, the city should work with them around fire safety and increase their street outreach, Crowe says.

Greg Cook, who works at downtown drop-in centre Sanctuary, says the industrial land along the Gardiner, not just at the Spadina overpass, has long been home to scattered tents, but hes seen more spring up in recent years as the housing crisis intensifies.

By and large historically the city hasnt cared as much and there hasnt been the kind of complaints there are now just because people arent living right next to it, he says, noting things changed with the construction of nearby condos.

Back at the camp, Smith says hed like to stay, at least for now.

Im getting pretty comfortable, he says.

But hes not sure how long hell be there, or where hed go next if he had to leave.

I dont know, he says.

I cant really answer that question.

Theyre just doing whatever they have to do to survive

Raymond Sackaney, who describes himself as being semi-homeless since Christmas, doesnt have a tent at the camp but comes down from time to time.

I just ended up walking down this way and I seen all these tents and I wanted to see if Id recognize anybody, and theres some people Id seen on the street before, he says.

I just thought maybe thered be some people down here that I could keep in contact with.

He sometimes goes to Seaton House shelter but mostly sleeps in a 24-hour McDonalds or Tim Hortons.

The shelters are basically all packed and full and theres no available space to actually sleep and rest, he says, looking around at the camp.

I dont know what else theyd do with this so-called area you know? Theyre just doing whatever they have to do to survive.

Terence Campos, 40, is originally from Eglinton and Keele area but says hes been living in a tent in the encampment for maybe six years.

He has many friends in the camp and even shares a birthday with Sackaney.

I did the parking lot stuff, sleeping in staircases, he says.

You get in trouble so you come outside.

Chris, who did not give his last name, says he doesnt have a tent here but has been coming to the camp to stay with friends off and on for three years.

He often picks through the garbage where he finds useful things, such as the red sweatshirt and toque hes wearing.

They dont appreciate stuff, they just throw stuff out, he says of the residents of nearby CityPlace condos.

Its worth a lot of money.

With files from David Rider

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Ontario Places landmark Cinesphere dome and futuristic pods appear threatened by the bulldozer under Premier Doug Fords plan to redevelop the shuttered, once-beloved waterfront park.

The government is not, apparently, ruling out a waterfront casino, giant Ferris wheel or megamall and hotel, attractions Ford pitched for Torontos downtown waterfront while he was on city council from 2010 to 2014.

Tourism Minister Michael Tibollo said in a news release Friday that the government is soliciting international proposals on how to turn Ontario Place, which closed in 2012 amid slumping attendance, into a spectacular world-class, year-round destination to visit in North America.

Our vision for Ontario Place will make it an impressive attraction that could include exciting sport and entertainment landmarks, public parks or shopping, Tibillo said. We could also have places for recreation, for people to come together and to hear great music at the existing amphitheatre.

Guidelines for bidders say Ontario wants to attract local, provincial and international visitors  with potential landmarks such as sports and entertainment attractions, and retail.

Both the east and west islands are being opened for change. The areas available for development includes the Ontario Place islands, mainland, pods and the Cinesphere, which was designed by famed architect Eberhard Zeidler, the guidelines state.

Proposals may be for a portion of the site or for the entire site, and the province intends to reserve only 7.5 acres for parkland on the 155-acre site. Submissions that propose the use of any part of Trillium Park will be required to develop new park land of an equivalent size at the site.

Provincial heritage officials have told the Star that Ontario Place is identified under the Ontario Heritage Act as a provincially significant heritage property. But they couldnt say that would stop the Ontario government from approving demolition of buildings if it so chooses.

Tibollos statement says there will be no condos or other residential development, and no sale of land, only long-term leases.

Mayor John Tory said he is opposed to the idea of a casino and wants to see the architectural heritage of the site protected, but welcomes the idea of revitalizing Ontario Place.

I do believe that whatever changes are made should ensure Ontario Place is a year-round attraction that focuses on culture, music, and recreation, said Tory.

He said the province has promised to involve the city in the discussions about the future of the site.

I would also want to consider having the city itself put forward some ideas for this very unique site, said Tory.

Councillor Joe Cressy (Ward 10 Spadina-Fort York) took issue with the plan.

While I am glad that they didnt announce a new casino or megamall today, they have opened the door to the privatization of Ontario Place and that is deeply troubling, said Cressy.

The Ford governments plan, which could see the sites landmark architectural features torn down and replaced by venues for shopping, sports and entertainment with little parkland, runs contrary to the redevelopment vision from planners and other experts recently interviewed by the Star.

Several reacted with shock at the Ford plan Friday, and vowed to rally Ontarians to fight it.

I think our worst fears are being realized here, said urban planner Ken Greenberg.

There is potentially a wholesale demolition of all these truly valuable iconic assets or some part of them, potential destruction of Millennial Park, which could be moved or replaced even though it is one of the great parks Toronto has created in recent years, and no public money for capital or operating (costs), so no public aspect to it whatsoever.

Ford is going after a Conservative project  this is not something the Liberals did, this is a (former Progressive Conservative premiers) John Robarts and Bill Davis project. From the very inception, the language they used to call it was a park, with some special things in it, but a park, public lands, a public resource. Ontario Place was neglected for some years but, oddly, it has been coming back.

Cindy Wilkey of Waterfront for All, an advocacy group that drew hundreds of people to a recent public meeting to protect Ontario Place, said, Its completely outrageous that the province is abandoning Ontario Place as a public place for everyone.

Its a breathtaking disregard for an important iconic space that is part of the branding of Ontario and Toronto. The plan completely ignores years of planning work and consultation, Wilkey said, as well as Indigenous claims affecting the land and agreement with the City of Toronto to look at co-ordinating redevelopment with city-owned Exhibition Place just to the north.

She predicted residents of Toronto and beyond will mobilize against the Ford plan, saying her group is starting to organize to change the provinces mind before the proposal process starts in spring.

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The Ford government says it wants to hear from people. Before it seeks expressions of interest from developers, the province is inviting Ontarians to email ideas that will help government realize their vision for Ontario Place.

Michael McClelland, a Toronto architect who specializes in heritage conservation and urban design, helped get Zeidlers Ontario Place buildings on the Dutch-based Docomomo registry of significant modern structures about two decades ago.

He called Tibollos redevelopment plan stupidly put together and held out hope that any developer who considers the site will see the Cinesphere and pods as huge assets rather than targets.

Its like developing Niagara Falls and saying, You dont have to keep the falls, McClelland said of presenting the site as a blank canvas.

Davis, who opened the site with fanfare in 1971, recently told the Star that the new Ontario Place must remain genuinely family friendly. A Ferris wheel might be OK, he said, but not a casino.

The former premier envisioned more programming for children, more interactive displays, more cultural and museum facilities, more room for sports, and said it would be a shame and a disservice if commercial gain replaced the public interest on the present site of Ontario Place.

The Ford government release makes no mention of sparing the William G. Davis Trail for pedestrians and cyclists, which was opened by the Kathleen Wynne government in 2017.

Cressy, the city councillor for the area, noted that the process doesnt plan for or account for public consultation. And so, this open call for submissions without clear criteria, demanding and calling for public access, could in fact lead to a megamall or a casino, decided on the fly by the provincial government, he said.

At Queens Park, NDP MPP Chris Glover expressed alarm at the Tory governments plan.

Doug Ford has long tried to get his hands on Torontos waterfront so he could follow through on his casino and megamall dreams  dreams he cooked up in a backroom with an Australian megamall corporation, said Glover (Spadina-Fort York.

It looks like Doug Ford is using his new power as premier to plow ahead with that scheme, the New Democrat warned.

Hes accepting international, private proposals from corporations to demolish the Cinesphere and iconic pods, and take over Ontario Place. With that, its clear: Fords not listening to the people of Ontario who own Ontario Place, hes listening to corporations that want to turn Ontario Place into a cash cow for themselves.

Glover said the premier needs to realize Ontario Place is not your private property.

It belongs to the people. Your backroom deals shouldnt determine what happens to our precious waterfront. Let the people decide, he said.

With files from Robert Benzie and Francine Kopun

David Rider is the Stars City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering Toronto politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider

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The unemployment gap between university-educated immigrants and their Canadian counterparts in the Greater Toronto Area has narrowed over the past two decades, but employers demands for Canadian job experience remain a key barrier for newcomers, a new study has found.

In 2001, newcomers with at least a bachelors degree had an unemployment rate 3.85 times higher than that of their Canadian-born peers, but by 2016, this had dropped to only 2.4 times greater, according to the report commissioned by the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC).

This does indeed suggest that the circumstances of newcomers are improving, said the report, titled State of Immigrant Inclusion in GTA Labour Market.

The gap persists, but it is getting smaller.

While newcomers with a Canadian degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics/IT) subject are doing nearly as well as their Canadian-born counterparts, the report found immigrant women with a degree from outside Canada in a non-STEM subject fare the worst.

Based on census data between 2001 and 2016, the report tracked the makeup of the GTA labour market and immigrants job prospects since TRIEC was established in 2003 to address Canadas doctors-driving-cabs immigrant conundrum.

In 2001, university-educated immigrants had an unemployment rate of 13.1 per cent, almost four times higher than the 3.4 per cent rate for Canadians with the same level of education. While the jobless rate for those immigrants still hovered around 12.5 per cent in 2016, the rate among Canadian-born degree-holders shot up to 5.2 per cent.

One possible contributing factor for the narrowing gap, the report said, was the higher number of newcomers who now possess Canadian education credentials.

In 2006, only 8 per cent of newcomers to the GTA had earned a degree in Canada, but by 2011, it had more than doubled, to 18 per cent. It was at 17 per cent in 2016.

The data also showed newcomers who arrived in Ontario with university degrees before 1990 ultimately worked in a job that requires a university degree at the same rate as their Canadian counterparts  roughly 70 per cent. However, only 54 per cent of degree-holding newcomers who arrived in the last decade are at a comparable job.

It is taking too long for immigrants to catch up with their Canadian-born counterparts, said the report. Unemployment at the start of an immigrants working life in Canada can have a long-lasting impact.

Mexican immigrant Miguel Abascal is a testament to that struggle.

With a masters degree in finance, the former CEO of a coffee production and distribution company moved to Canada in 2010 and found his first Canadian job at a Tim Hortons in Burlington. He sent out hundreds of resumes without yielding a single interview.

After a year, he enrolled in a government-funded job search program and got a job as a bankruptcy processer, then selling insurance door to door and going back to Tim Hortons before landing a job as a teller with help from a TD branch manager he met at a networking event in 2013.

For four years, I was living my Canadian nightmare, said Abascal, 35, who was quickly promoted through the ranks and is now a project manager at the bank. Im finally living my Canadian dream, but four, five years were too long. We want newcomers to realize their dream and full potential in five weeks.

Abascal said there are more organizations offering mentoring and networking programs these days than when he first came. He has seen more recent newcomers joining the bank at entry level jobs in his five years there.

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The Canadian dream is powered by networking. Its all about connections and referrals, said Abascal. At the end of the day, its about an employers trust in you.

The study also surveyed employers and immigrant employment service providers and found credential recognition, the need for Canadian experience, perceptions about language and communication skills, bias and discrimination have remained the main employment barriers for newcomers.

Iren Koltermann, who co-authored the study with Denise McLean, said Canada must scale up mentorship and career-bridging programs that have proven effective for the integration of newcomers and strive to make a Canadian experience requirement a thing of the past.

What is Canadian experience? Its a lexicon no one can define, said Koltermann. We cant use a blanket term and reduce it to cliche. Is it about not being educated in health and safety? We need to unpack and explain it.

KPMG Canada has for years had a formal strategy to attract and retain global talent and promote inclusion and diversity. It measures and sets annual goals for the organizations gender and visible minority representation. Last year, 20 per cent of those who were promoted to become partners were people of colour, 5 per cent higher than four years ago.

Because of the nature of the firm in tax and audit, we do require technical knowledge, but it should not be a barrier, said Kristine Remedios, KPMG Canadas national leader in inclusion and diversity. They are internationally trained and we can offer support for some of that education within the firm.

The changing labour market landscape does help recent skilled immigrants hit the ground running faster.

Unlike Abascal, Eishita Alam, a banker from Bangladesh, enrolled in a job readiness program for newcomers within weeks of her arrival in Toronto last July. In September, she was matched with a professional mentor through TRIEC.

The 37-year-old woman has garnered five job interviews through her nascent professional network, but is still without a job.

I didnt have high school friends or former colleagues in my network and must start from zero here, said Alam, who has an MBA and held a director position in credit analysis with Standard Chartered, a British bank, in Dhaka.

The barrier for us is the lack of Canadian experience. Theres still a lack of recognition of our international experience.
Karen Fraser remembers the exact moment police told her she had to vacate her home on a calm Leaside crescent. It fixed her house as ground zero in an expansive police investigation and the focal point of a horrifying international story.

On the morning of Jan. 18, 2018, police arrested Bruce McArthur, the man who landscaped the yard of her home on Mallory Cres. and is now charged with killing eight men with ties to Torontos Gay Village. At the same time, police launched a massive investigation that saw officers fan out across the GTA and sent Fraser and her partner Ron Smith from their home for 22 days.

It was just the first of the difficult days  for the victims families, for the LGBTQ community, for Fraser and Smith, for investigators, for the city.

In the coming weeks, police would find human remains on the property Fraser and Smith owned, and yet more remains during a summertime excavation.

As questions arose about past investigations into the disappearance of the missing men  and whether a killer could have been stopped sooner  an external review was launched to probe how police handle missing persons investigations.

Read more:

Alleged Gay Village serial killer Bruce McArthur ordered to return to court Jan. 29

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A timeline of the Bruce McArthur case and the police investigation into the Gay Village killings

But it all began that day. And as the anniversary approached, Fraser and Smith decided they needed to do something to acknowledge it.

On the day when everyones thinking: Its been a year?  and then they wouldnt quite know what to do with their reaction  we thought we need something to mark the day, Fraser said in an interview this week.

And so, at 10:25 a.m. Friday, which is the same time Fraser was ordered out of her home and when McArthur was arrested, a lone bagpiper will play a lament for the victims on her driveway.

It will be a simple, wordless acknowledgement that a year has passed  for crimes that are beyond words, there will be no words from us, Fraser said.

McArthur, 67, is charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of men spanning from 2010-2017. He appeared briefly in court Wednesday, as pretrial discussions continue between his lawyers, Crown prosecutors and Ontario Superior Court judge John McMahon.

His trial is scheduled for January 2020.

McArthurs return to court in the week of the anniversary prompted the organization of a healing circle for anyone affected by the case to offer a space to for them to share their feelings and experiences.

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Haran Vijayanathan, executive director at the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP), said the timing was not so much to mark the anniversary of McArthurs arrest as it was to acknowledge the feelings of those affected by the case.

When you start thinking about what happened a year ago and when you have him appearing in the same month in court, and that becomes news, it triggers people, said Vijayanathan.

Held Wednesday evening, the event brought out a small, diverse group of people, including some who knew the victims, or McArthur, and also police officers. It was a really nice balance, Vijayanathan said.

We wanted to encourage people to actively seek support and that they dont have to sit alone with their thoughts, he said.

McArthur is scheduled to be back in court Jan. 29.
As the Jan. 22 deadline to accept or decline cannabis shops looms, more than a third of the 414 eligible municipalities in the province have yet to decide.

As of Friday afternoon, councils representing some 170 cities, towns, townships and regions across the province had not exercised their option to bar brick-and-mortar pot shops from their precincts.

And while some may simply choose to abstain from voting  tacitly accepting the stores under Queens Park rules  many still have their fingers in the air, industry experts say.

A lot of municipalities have opted for the wait-and-see approach, says Alanna Sokic, a cannabis specialist at the Toronto consulting firm Global Public Affairs.

Cannabis was only legalized in October of last year, Sokic notes. Theres still a lot of unanswered questions and I think thats what were certainly seeing.

She says the last-minute decision-making may also be related to scheduling considerations for municipal councils. As well, the first 25 pot-shop licences that an Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario lottery offered up earlier this month can only be used in municipalities with populations of 50,000 or greater. Thus smaller municipalities may not have felt any urgency to put the question to a vote, Sokic says.

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Nick Pateras, vice-president of strategy at the cannabis resource and information company Lift & Co., says some communities may be waiting for the communities directly around them to decide.

Theres probably a bit of you go first,  Pateras says. As well, I think generally that the market continues to evolve every single day  and (theyre) going to maybe leave it to the last minute so they can act with as much information at hand as possible.

King Township Mayor Steve Pellegrini  who was vocal in his opposition to the shops in his municipality  says the pot-store procrastination is due to a number of factors.

There are new councils and a lot of them are doing community outreach to get feedback, says Pellegrini, whose 905 community was one of the first to decline the stores.

Pellegrini also says many councils may be waiting to see how many of their counterparts opt out, hoping for a bigger slice of the $40-million implementation fund the province is providing. That fund is to help municipalities who accept the stores deal with potential law enforcement, education and public health costs.

Meanwhile, 62 communities as of Friday had decided to refuse the stores entry, a number Sokic says is not surprising.

A lot of municipalities have expressed concern about the lack of municipal control when it comes to cannabis retail locations, she says. And that creates a lot of uncertainty as they go about their bylaw and planning initiatives.

While these municipalities will forgo their full share of the transition fund, they will be free to accept the stores at a later date.

Theyre very likely waiting to see how it plays out in other communities, Sokic says.

Many of the municipalities saying no  like Mississauga, Markham, Richmond Hill, Pickering and Oakville  are located in the 905 regions surrounding Toronto. Indeed, this GTA region  which has been granted six of the 25 cannabis stores licences  has been the most reluctant in the province to accept the shops. Under provincial rules, regional governments cant opt out.

(Toronto proper has five of the first stores, as does the eastern part of the province. Western Ontario will host seven stores, while there will be two in northern Ontario.)

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In the GTA region Burlington, Oshawa, Ajax and Clarington have opted in while another four communities will hold votes on Jan. 21, Sokic says.

If you look at the west region, all of the municipalities save for Windsor, which has yet to vote, have opted in, Sokic says. Toronto, eastern Ontario and the North have largely bought in as well, she says.

The patchwork of 905 ins and outs will make it difficult for merchants and shoppers down the road, says Sokic. Its a minefield.

Pateras says the spotty acceptance of stores in the 905 and other places could impede a strong retail-store market down the road.

It will definitely result in a slower rollout than a lot of us were anticipating and hoping for, he says.

But hopefully the opt-out rate is low enough that even if your specific city or town doesnt have a store, you can drive 20 minutes or 30 minutes to the next municipality over.

Sokic says the opt-out decisions made by some 905 communities may have been due to more socially conservative values than other parts of the province. I think its just waiting for them to acclimatize to this new Canadian reality, she says.

Pateras speculates that many 905 communities have neither the general urban acceptance of cannabis, nor the financial incentives to host stores that exists in smaller rural towns.

They kind of straddle the line between being an area like downtown Toronto, where cannabis is fairly pervasive  and a more rural area, which would be looking to collect the tax revenue and establish jobs, Pateras says.

Pellegrini attributes the 905 reluctance in part to the desire of many of its sprawling municipalities to build vibrant downtown centres.

Were all trying to build attractive, livable downtown cores, he says, adding cannabis stores might detract from these efforts. This is just really not something that we are looking for, for our image of our unique, quaint community.

But Pateras says the 905 patchwork resembles the store distribution patterns that have emerged in U.S. states that have legalized recreational cannabis use. Over 60 per cent of Colorados counties, for example, still do not permit cannabis business at all, he says. In California, 70 per cent of counties and cities have opted out of licensing cannabis businesses  theres generally a slow rollout.

Pateras also says many municipalities that have opted out are leaving themselves open to continued black market sales.

Obviously if you dont have a legal place of access, youre allowing for illegal sales to continue to occur.

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A 94-year-old man found to have lied about his membership in a Second World War Nazi death squad has launched yet another appeal of the governments decision to strip him of his Canadian citizenship.

In his latest development in a now-decades-old case, Helmut Oberlander argues among other things that a Federal Court judge who affirmed the governments action last fall should have recused himself from the case.

Oberlander, of Waterloo, also tells the Federal Court of Appeal that the ministers of citizenship and justice should not have taken part in the governments decision-making. Both have been involved in the proceedings against him and could appear biased, he says. However, he says he has been unable to find out if they were involved.

The retired businessman, who potentially faces deportation as Jewish groups have demanded if the citizenship revocation sticks, wants the case returned to Federal Court for a hearing by another judge.

The office of Citizenship Minister Ahmed Hussen did not respond to a request for comment. Canada Border Services Agency, which would be tasked with any enforcement action, had no immediate comment.

In September, Federal Court Judge Michael Phelan sided with the government, which had revoked Oberlanders citizenship in June 2017 for the fourth time since the mid-1990s. The government maintained he was complicit in war crimes by belonging to Einsatzkommando 10a, known as Ek-10a. The notorious squad was responsible for killing close to 100,000 people, most Jewish.

Read more:

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Helmut Oberlander, ex Nazi death squad member, once again wins chance to keep Canadian citizenship

The Ukraine-born Oberlander, who came to Canada in 1954 and became a citizen in 1960, has long argued he was conscripted into the unit as a 17-year-old and risked execution had he tried to leave. He has insisted he acted as an interpreter and took no part in its savagery.

While Phelan said no evidence existed that Oberlander was involved in any atrocities, he did find it reasonable to strip him of his Canadian citizenship for misrepresenting his wartime activities when he immigrated.

In reaching his conclusion, Phelan said a 2000 ruling from Federal Court Judge Andrew MacKay found Oberlander to have been aware of the units brutality and complicit in its war crimes by acting as an interpreter.

However, Oberlanders lawyers Ronald Poulton and Barbara Jackman argue in their appeal notice that Phelan misinterpreted MacKays decision and was in fact leaning on his own previous ruling from 2008  one that was upended on appeal.

Justice Phelan sat in judgment on his own previous finding  the very finding which the GIC relied on to support its conclusion on complicity, the lawyers argue.

Phelan also refused to certify a question of serious importance, sharply curtailing Oberlanders right to appeal. Oberlanders lawyers argue the provision is unconstitutional because it does not comply with the principles of fundamental justice.

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In Mr. Oberlanders case, only his ability to seek appellate review and win at that level has prevented six separate miscarriages of justice that would have resulted in the revocation of his citizenship, Poulton and Jackman say. The deleterious effect of the measure in his case is a serious prospect of being made to suffer without recourse.

Poulton and Jackman have refused repeated requests to discuss the case and Oberlanders daughter, who has defended her father, has not returned previous calls for comment.

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Representatives from 10 Christian denominations will meet Friday for training on how to address sexual misconduct in their ranks in a bid to keep religious institutions up to date with secular society.

The event, organized by the Mennonite Churches of Eastern Canada, is linked to the #ChurchToo movement  a spinoff of #MeToo that focuses on sexual misconduct in the evangelical Protestant world.

Its all over in our society. Its not just happening in the movie industry, and its not just happening in the Catholic Church, said Marilyn Rudy-Froese, church leadership minister for MCEC. Its the work we all need to be doing: we need to be shifting our culture to be attentive to the voices and stories of victims.

The training session in Kitchener will be run by Rev. Dr. Marie Fortune, who began working in this space decades before hashtag was part of the lexicon, having founded the FaithTrust Institute in the Seattle area as a young United Church minister in 1979.

Fortune said shes seen a marked shift in recent years as more survivors have sexual misconduct and assault come forward with their stories.

Its harder  its not impossible but its harder  for institutions to ignore anymore, she said. Thats always been a challenge in addressing this issue, is they really dont want to know and their knee-jerk reaction tends to be wrong in terms of institutional self-interest.

Instead of ignoring the problem for fear of looking bad, Fortune said churches should try to prevent misconduct from happening in the first place by educating church staff about healthy boundaries.

She said that for those who are really predatory and dont care much about education, there need to be policies in place so that abusers can be identified, investigated and appropriately punished.

Throughout that process, Fortune said, its important that those carrying out the investigation are transparent with congregants so that all those affected can come forward.

Fridays training will focus on both preventing sexual misconduct and dealing with predators who slip through the cracks, she said.

Among those in attendance will be Rev. Darren Roorda, Canadian ministries director of the Christian Reformed Church in North America.

The training, he said, will help his sect fulfil a mandate to re-examine the denominations approach to sexual misconduct.

People in various levels of the church  women especially  are much more comfortable to say, I have an issue with fill-in-the-blank, or my history includes some difficulty or challenge or persecution, he said. People are much more apt to identify themselves. That comfort level is really, really healthy and good. Were glad about that.

Its now time for the denomination to shift its approach accordingly, he said.

Last year, at our most senior level of governance  called synod  a really passionate plea came through and was voted on saying, We could do better and we could do more, he said. So weve formed a people that are addressing the more that we should and could do, coming before this years synod.

He said the denomination is encouraging its regional governance bodies to develop increased resources for victims of misconduct, including funds for counselling.

The inter-denominational nature of the seminar is also a draw to Roorda, who said he hopes to build a network of similarly positioned Christian leaders to reach out to for support and advice as the #ChurchToo movement progresses.

Other denominations participating in the training include the Baptist Church, the United Church and the Pentecostal Assemblies.

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In addition to the Friday event, there will be a training session on Saturday for congregational leaders, which is also open to representatives from churches regardless of denomination.

Rudy-Froese noted that the training session is the latest in a series of measures the Mennonite Church has taken to address abuse, having launched an online series called Sacred Trust, illustrating different types of abuse in a church setting.

And in July 2018, a woman came forward with decades-old allegations against a former director at Silver Lake Mennonite Camp in Kitchener, saying she was sexually abused by him as a teenager. The camp publicly named the accused, barred him from camp premises and began to develop a training tool for staff, with the support of MCEC.
MONTREAL  An orderly who looked after Jocelyne Lizotte at a Montreal long-term care facility where she was being treated for Alzheimers disease testified Thursday her case was a difficult one.

Maryse Gesse took the stand Thursday at the trial of Michel Cadotte, charged with second-degree murder in the death of his wife of 19 years. The Crown alleges he suffocated her with a pillow in her room in February 2017 because he was unable to handle her deteriorating health.

Gesse described Cadotte as Lizottes spokesman  he was the one asking for things on her behalf because Lizotte was unable to communicate.

Under cross-examination, Gesse said she was very familiar with the accused, who was frequently at Lizottes side. She said Cadotte did his wifes laundry, had a hairdresser visit every month and had a television installed in her room so Lizotte could listen to music. He also made sure she had better quality lotions, soaps and shampoos.

She testified that Cadotte, 57, had even trained to be an orderly in an effort to better take care of his ailing wife.

Gesse told jurors Lizotte could not eat, get dressed or sit up without help. It was a heavy case. We had to do everything for her, she said. But Lizotte, 60, wasnt the most difficult case, Gesse added, as she didnt put up any resistance like other patients might.

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Gesse also confirmed that Lizotte spent much of her time restrained because she was often agitated and staff feared shed fall. A physician testified on Wednesday Lizotte was on medication to treat extreme agitation.

That was her life, Gesse said, demonstrating for jurors how the woman would rock back and forth in her chair, stopping briefly only when someone touched her. She was always restrained, all the time, except for when she walked.

The trial is expected to last between six and seven weeks.

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OTTAWA The Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from a man who argued he was fending off an attempted sexual assault when he stabbed his new neighbour 37 times.

Nicholas Rasberry of Calgary was sentenced to seven years in prison after a judge convicted him of manslaughter in the death of school teacher Craig Kelloway in May 2013.

Canadas top court on Thursday dismissed a request to hear arguments against the conviction.

The three-member Alberta Court of Appeal had earlier rejected Rasberrys bid to overturn both the conviction and the sentence, which it deemed fit and appropriate.

The defence had argued that the court should have accepted Rasberrys claim that he was acting in self-defence.

Rasberry, 35, was originally charged with second-degree murder. The judge rejected the self-defence argument, but did find that there was provocation and convicted Rasberry of manslaughter.

He and Kelloway had just met in May 2013 and had got together for a barbecue, along with Rasberrys wife and Kelloways girlfriend.

Rasberry admitted at his trial that he had stabbed Kelloway after they had spent time drinking  first at Kelloways home and then continuing at Rasberrys place just two doors down.

Rasberry said Kelloway, who was originally from Glace Bay, N.S., had threatened to sexually assault him and his wife.

Kelloway was stabbed 23 times and slashed 14 times with three different knives. The first two knives broke off and the third was bent.

The Appeal Court said Kelloway was wounded in his front, back and side and would have been unable to defend himself from the attack.

 By Bill Graveland in Calgary. Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter

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History records very few instances of people getting out of a jam by throwing a temper tantrum.

Yet that has been Albertas response in coping with the latest downturn in its fortunes.

And that has to stop. Albertans need to get serious about the provinces real prospects for sustainable prosperity, not the intermittent affluence it has long known.

Albertans should know better.

In the past four decades, Alberta has endured three periods of unnaturally high and prolonged unemployment related to its oil industry, the most recent being the mildest.

In the lost decade of the 1980s, Albertas monthly unemployment rate averaged 9.1 per cent for eight years. In the 1990s recession, Alberta unemployment averaged 8.8 per cent per month for five years. During the current misery, dating from the mid-2014 world oil-price collapse, the province has suffered four years of an average monthly jobless rate of 7.3 per cent.

You dont have to be a forecasting expert to see a debilitating pattern here.

And yet, during the extended 2000s oilpatch boom times of high oil prices, ending abruptly in 2014, Alberta took a pass on the opportunity to diversify its petroleum and agriculture sectors, and also develop world-beating prowess in high tech.

Alberta didnt even use that lucrative era to bulk up a provincial rainy-day fund that today has a pitiful $17 billion in assets compared with oil-producer Norways $1.2 trillion nest egg.

In its petroleum sector, Alberta has been content to mostly ship unprocessed tar-sands oil to U.S. refineries, where the big profits are made by non-Albertans. The prolonged shutdown of many of those refineries for retrofitting contributes to the current deep discount fetched by Alberta heavy oil relative to purer grades, along with the incessantly cited lack of sufficient pipeline capacity.

Failure to diversify has been a surrender of Albertas economic sovereignty and cause for repeated punishing hardship.

Alberta has actually gone backward in upgrading its formidable agricultural sector. In the heyday of Burns Foods Ltd. and Gainers Inc., the province was a major exporter of world-class processed food to Central Canadian and world markets. Alberta also has a thriving dairy sector.

But the provinces status as one of the planets greatest breadbaskets and maker of the worlds best beef was long ago overshadowed by oil reserves second in size only to those of Saudi Arabia.

The lack of forward planning in Calgary, head office of the Canadian oilpatch, is inexplicable. Over the past decade, Alberta ramped up its heavy oil production on the assumption, ludicrous in hindsight, that matching additional pipeline capacity would materialize as if by magic to get that additional landlocked oil to world markets.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is not alone among Albertans in effectively demanding that Ottawa somehow complete an expanded Trans Mountain pipeline before youve finished reading this article.

How could Calgary fail to grasp the toxic nature of pipeline politics, and the long time-frames for getting pipelines approved and built? In the 1950s, pipeline politics toppled the federal Liberal government of Louis St. Laurent after it rammed through Parliament the legislation creating the TransCanada natural-gas pipeline that now warms Central Canadian homes with Alberta gas.

Ever since the notorious Pipeline Debate of that era, getting a new fossil-fuel pipeline approved in this country has proved more difficult than moving a cemetery.

Given that history, it is astonishing that another Liberal prime minister would commit more than $9 billion of Canadian taxpayer funds to tripling the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline to get Athabasca oil to markets in China and India. And to do so over the objections of British Columbia, Indigenous people and environmental activists.

For which, as youve noticed, Albertans appear to be monumentally ungrateful. All facts to the contrary, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to much of the Alberta news media, is attempting to destroy Alberta, as they say his father did.

Actually, the entire country is conspiring against Alberta, according to its premier. In a November speech in Toronto, Rachel Notley accused the 33 million Canadians who dont live in her province of wilfully hold[ing] Albertas economy hostage.

It is true that there is an understandable wariness, to put it mildly, among Notleys fellow Canadians about proposed new oil pipelines, given the oil spills from repeated pipeline ruptures across North America. Calgarians might better understand the pipeline resistance if they awakened one day to find a heavy oil pipeline snaking along the park-lined Bow River.

This week, Notley was at it again, not only blaming Trudeau for letting Alberta down, but accusing a succession of federal governments of both parties of kneecapping Alberta.

One day, perhaps, the sun will rise in the west.

And that will be the day Alberta acknowledges that for decades it has failed to build the sophisticated refineries to produce high-value, easily exportable aviation fuels and specialty chemicals. And that Edmonton similarly neglected a formidable agriculture sector that could be, and once was, an exporter of high-margin processed food. And that Alberta allowed a budding provincial high-tech sector to languish rather than blossom, as those of Waterloo, Ont. and Boise, Idaho have done.

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For all their ingratitude, though, Albertans will take the $1.6-billion bailout that Trudeau has provided the Alberta oilpatch. And a capital-intensive oilpatch will make liberal use of the $15-billion program of federal tax relief for corporate buyers of modernized equipment that Ottawa created last year, largely in response to oilpatch demands.

A resurgent, witless Alberta separatist moment has yet to grasp that Albertas oil would be even more landlocked, if such a thing is possible, after sovereignty. And that Ottawa would have to kill a Trans Mountain pipeline expansion of chief benefit to a jurisdiction no longer Canadian.

A sovereign Alberta would also be stuck with the entire tab for an estimated $260-billion cost to clean up the oilpatch. And the introduction of an Alberta retail sales tax would be an inevitable consequence of Alberta independence.

Time is running out for the Alberta oil resource as a mainstay of the economy, unless the oilpatch is reinvented. McKinsey & Co., the global consulting firm, has estimated that global oil demand could peak as early as 2030.

This month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast plummeting demand for gasoline and diesel fuels by 2040.

Yet during that same period, the IEA forecasts, there will be double-digit annual increases in demand for ethane, naphtha and liquified natural gas (LNG). The IEA also expects surging demand for specialized petrochemicals.

Which means that petroleum is not a sunset industry, as so many believe.

Alberta has a golden opportunity to upgrade its rudimentary network of oil refineries and petrochemicals facilities. That network can be expanded and upgraded with 21st-century technology to make Alberta the worlds most efficient producer of aviation fuels and specialty chemicals, rather than its current status as an oil equivalent to a mere drawer of water.

Highly refined product is far more profitable than tar-sands output. And it is easier than raw crude to export to world markets beyond Albertas sole export customer, the U.S.

But Alberta clings to its relatively primitive Athabasca oil resource. (It is an open-pit, strip-mining operation, after all). One thinks of Pittsburgh, a former world capital in steel as Calgary is to oil, that resisted the hard work of becoming a now-booming knowledge economy until almost every last steel mill had closed.

Instead of taking control of their destiny through economic diversification, as Peter Lougheed urged fellow Albertans to do when he was premier in the 1970s, many Albertans have opted for pointless anti-Ottawa yellow jacket protests. Those have been easily hijacked by an ugly congeries of Alberta separatists, xenophobes, white supremacists, one-world conspiracy theorists and Quebec-haters.

For the rest of the world, the oil curse  as old as the industry itself  refers to the abject poverty of people who see not a dime from the black gold under their feet.

But perhaps uniquely in Canada, the oil curse is an outpouring of bile and delusional thinking from Alberta every time the world oil price collapses. And that has been often in our history, given the notorious volatility of oil prices, over which not even the gods exert control.

Along with its abundance of blessings, Alberta has a weakness for blaming others for homegrown problems and missed opportunities. So, sadly, do many other parts of our country.

A long hard look in the mirror is the necessary start to making an end of our grievances.

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The new wireless technology known as 5G will do more than make mobile phones faster -- it will link billions of devices, revolutionizing transportation, manufacturing and even medicine. It will also create a multitude of potential openings for bad actors to exploit.

The vulnerability helps explain the rising tension between the U.S. and Huawei Technologies Co., Chinas largest technology company. Huawei is pushing for a global leadership role in 5G, but American officials suspect that could help Beijing spy on Western governments and companies.

Huaweis significant presence in 5G creates a new vector for possible cyber-espionage and malware, Michael Wessel, a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that advises Congress, said in an interview. By connecting whole new classes of products, 5G creates new vulnerabilities.

The technology holds great promise. Forests of gadgets will communicate instantly via millions of antennas. Cars will talk to each other to avert lethal crashes, factory foremen will monitor parts supplies and doctors can perform remote surgery as video, sound and data flow without delay. Connections will be 10 to 100 times faster than current standards -- quick enough to download an entire movie in seconds.

Yet U.S. national security officials see billions of opportunities for spies, hackers and cyber-thieves to steal trade secrets, sabotage machinery and even order cars to crash. Citing security threats, the U.S. has been pushing allies to block Huawei from telecommunications networks. The U.S. Congress has banned government agencies from buying the companys gear.

The company denies that it is a threat. The fear about Huawei and 5G is misplaced, Andy Purdy, chief security officer for Huawei in the U.S., said in an interview. This is a strengthened network, a more secure network.

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The new technology will require an overhaul of telecommunications infrastructure. The term 5G stands for a fifth generation, to succeed the current fourth generation of mobile connectivity that has made video sharing and movie streaming commonplace.

Standards for 5G are being written, and large-scale commercial deployment isnt expected until 2020, according to the U.S.-China review commission. Major U.S. carriers AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are rolling out small-scale versions of the service.

In the meantime, the number of internet-connected devices is growing by nearly one-third each year, and will reach 25.1 billion by 2021, according to an estimate by consulting firm Gartner Inc.

As those changes unfold, Huawei is under intense scrutiny by the U.S. and its allies. Canada is conducting a security review of 5G technology, Germany is weighing whether to restrict Huaweis role, and British authorities are said to have concluded Huawei gear puts U.K. national security at risk as they debate whether to impose a ban.

Its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Canada at the behest of the U.S. in December on fraud charges linked to alleged Iran sanction violations. A sales executive was arrested last week in Poland on suspicion of espionage and fired over the weekend.

His alleged actions have no relation to the company, Huawei said in an emailed statement, noting: The incident in question has brought Huawei into disrepute.

A federal criminal investigation of possible parts theft from T-Mobile US Inc. was revealed this week. Chinas Foreign Ministry said Thursday the legal dispute between Huawei and T-Mobile had already been resolved, and expressed concern about the motives behind the reinvestigation.

The company, founded by Ren in 1987, has emerged as a premier overseas presence for China, with a projected $108 billion (U.S.) in annual sales and operations extending to Africa, Asia and Europe.

Ren, in a rare discussion with foreign reporters on Tuesday, denied suggestions that Huawei aids the Chinese government in espionage, saying it has no regular contact with Beijing.

Some countries have decided not to buy equipment from Huawei, he said. Therefore, we can shift our focus to better serve countries that welcome Huawei. We can build high-quality networks in those countries to prove that we are trustworthy.

Ren also called Donald Trump a great president and said hell take a wait-and-see approach as to whether the U.S. leader will intervene on behalf of his daughter. Trump in December said he would intervene if it helped win a trade deal with China.

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Huawei holds an ever-growing share of the worlds smartphone market and it and Chinas government have both made it a priority to develop 5G capabilities. Already Huawei is the worlds largest telecommunications equipment maker, with 28 per cent of a $37.2 billion market in 2017, according to the U.S.-China review commission.

Huawei has said that blacklisting its equipment without proof will hurt the industry and disrupt the development of new high-speed technology.

In its latest annual report, Huawei said it had conducted 5G tests with more than 30 leading carriers in more than 10 cities around the world. We have been investing heavily in 5G research since 2009, the company said.

Huawei has always maintained that its independent and doesnt give the Chinese government access to its equipment.

Misgivings, however, continue to flourish in the West.

Retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding, a former member of the National Security Council under the Trump administration, has privately circulated a memo painting a future of communications dominated by China. Eventually, alternatives to its network technology wont exist, because other suppliers wont be able to compete with government-subsidized offerings from Huawei and fellow Chinese gear maker ZTE Corp., Spalding said in the memo.

Once China controls the market for internet-connected devices, it will be able to weaponize cities, Spalding said in the memo: Think of self-driving cars that suddenly mow down unsuspecting pedestrians. Think of drones that fly into the intakes of airliners.

Spalding left the National Security Council last year after he called for an enlarged U.S. government role in communications, creating an uproar because networks in the U.S. are privately owned and managed.

Chinese laws obligate the nations telecommunications operators to provide its intelligence services unfettered access to their networks, James Mulvenon, a China expert at the SOS International intelligence consultancy, told the U.S.-China review commission at a March hearing.

Mulvenon called Huawei a legitimate globally competitive $90 billion plus company and said it is not a front company or a platform for Chinese intelligence.

But, he said, Given the nature of the political and legal environment in China, they would not be able to refuse a request, a subsequent request, from the Chinese government for access to a network that Huawei runs.

In the U.S., telecommunications companies have also played a role in surveillance. For instance, in 2013 members of Congress confirmed they knew of a secret court order compelling Verizon Communications Inc. to turn over data about its customers calls. In 2015, Congress voted to stop the National Security Agency from collecting bulk records on Americans phone calls and instead get a court order for specific records.

As 5G is introduced, theres an increasing push to bar risky equipment from crucial networks, said Wessel, of the U.S.-China commission.

The internet is the backbone of our economy, the backbone of our security apparatus and the workings of our government, Wessel said. And we need to take substantial steps to make sure we have confidence in the security of those networks.

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TORONTO - Canadian Google offices are expected to face protests Friday from human rights activists hoping to force the tech giant to confirm it has cancelled a controversial project with the Chinese government.

The coalition of at least eight Chinese, Tibetan and Uyghur organizations said they will rally outside the companys Toronto and Montreal offices to highlight risks associated with Project Dragonfly  a search engine they claim the company was secretly building to comply with strict Chinese censorship laws.

The organizations behind the protests claim the engine would comply with Chinese regulations restricting searches for forbidden and sensitive topics, including human rights, democracy, Tiananmen and Tibet and could also facilitate state surveillance in China by linking users search history with their telephone numbers.

For a company that has so much power, I think it is very, very concerning that Google is trying to develop and launch this new search engine app specifically made for the Chinese market and has to comply with the Chinese government and their extreme internet censorship laws, said Sonam Chokey, national director for rally organizer Students for a Free Tibet Canada, who worries about the projects impact on freedom of speech and internet security.

We want to specifically engage with (Google employees) and make sure they understand the company they are working for is dancing very dangerously with the Chinese government.

Chokey said similar protests will be held in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, Argentina and Chile.

At the Toronto and Montreal ones, protesters will hand out leaflets to Google employees, sharing their discontent with the project.

Asked for comment on the protests, a spokesman for Google Canada directed The Canadian Press to statements its chief executive officer Sundar Pichai made in December before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

Pichai told the committee there are no plans for the product to be launched in China, but if that changes, he vowed to be fully transparent and consult widely.

I dont think that is adequate enough, said Chokey. It is very ambiguous.

Dragonfly could be a lucrative way for the tech giant to return to the Chinese market following its 2010 decision to shutdown its Chinese search engine over censorship concerns.

Pichais comments came months after more than 1,000 Google employees signed a letter protesting the project and demanding executives review ethics and transparency at the company.

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Media reports said several senior employees quit the company over the initiative and tens of thousands of members of the public signed various online petitions pushing for the end of the project.

Their resignations came just after employees used a letter campaign again to convince Google to abandon a U.S. military contract it had for Project Maven, which allows the companys artificial intelligence software to be used for the targeting of drone strikes.
MONTREAL - Unifors Quebec director Renaud Gagne is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to follow in Ontario Premier Doug Fords footsteps by pledging support for General Motors workers faced with a looming plant closure.

Mr. Ford, the premier of Ontario, joined Unifor this week to say he will support our move to save Oshawa. I would like to hear the prime minister of Canada say the same thing, that he will join the efforts, that he will ask Canadians to put pressure on GM to make sure they change their minds, Gagne said.

Some 300 Unifor members, including about 60 retirees from the now-demolished GM plant in Sainte-Therese, Que., showed their support for Oshawa GM workers on Friday, taking advantage of the Montreal Auto Show now underway.

Demonstrators were visible throughout the exhibition. Many wore blue T-shirts with the slogan, GM to sell here, build here, and chanted the slogan, Say-say-say-save GM, both in French.

The General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ont., is slated to shut down at the end of 2019, resulting in an expected 2,600 job losses at the factory.

Gagne cited a union-commissioned study that forecasts that by 2025, the closure will have prompted 14,000 job losses in Ontario and 10,000 in the rest of Canada.

Gagne noted that some 10,000 people work in the auto parts sector in Quebec.

We saved that company $10.3 billion in 2008-09. Then to thank us, they close the doors and go to Mexico to make everyone work at $2 an hour. This is unacceptable, Gagne said, shouting.

He called on Canadians to sign an online petition, but added there is no plan to ask them to boycott the auto maker.

We are not at this stage. But I think that if we want to go all the way, it may be a solution that we will eventually have to consider, Gagne said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will only call President Xi Jinping as a last resort if the Chinese government doesnt release two detained Canadians, Ambassador John McCallum said.

Canada will first use international pressure to resolve the matter, McCallum told reporters Friday after a closed-door meeting with lawmakers in Ottawa. Michael Kovrig, on leave from his foreign service job in Hong Kong to work for the International Crisis Group, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur who ran tours into North Korea, were detained on Dec. 10, nine days after the arrest of Huawei Technologies Co. chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on a U.S. request. She is now free on bail.

McCallum said theres a perception in the global community the Canadians are being used as bargaining chips. Canada also wants clemency for a third citizen given a death sentence in China on drug charges.

Its not in the interests of corporate China, when they run into trouble internationally, if the Chinese government arrests people to use as bargaining chips, McCallum said. That is the perception of much of the world, and that isnt good for the reputation of Chinese business people.

Chinas ambassador to Canada held a rare press conference on Thursday where he said the cases arent connected and efforts to rally others against China arent helpful. Lu Shaye declined to comment on whether a call from Trudeau to the Chinese president would resolve matters. McCallum said the time for such a step isnt yet at hand.

The prime minister calling the president is essentially the last arrow in our quiver, and I think other actions have to be taken first, McCallum said. I expect there will be a moment when it is appropriate for the prime minister to make that call, but I dont think that moment has yet arrived.

Read more:

China rejects Canadas plea for clemency for Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, sentenced to death for drug trafficking

Chinas ambassador accuses Canada of backstabbing in arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou

Trudeau enlists Trump to pressure China on two seized Canadians

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Canadas wheat exports to China jumped nearly 200 per cent from January to November 2018 as the Asian country stopped buying from American farmers amid a tariff dispute.

Statistics Canada data released Thursday shows total Canadian wheat exports grew nearly 13 per cent during that time from about 15 million tonnes to roughly 17 million tonnes.

Wheat exports to China grew from about 436,000 tonnes between January and November 2017 to nearly 1.3 million tonnes in the same months of 2018.

Data for December is not yet available.

The U.S. Wheat Associates says on its website American farmers have been shut out of the Chinese market since March 2018 after China announced it would impose a retaliatory 25 per cent import tariff on American wheat.

The group put out a statement in July saying the ongoing trade conflict is already hurting farmers, adding that over the past three years Chinese customers purchased an average 20 million bushels of wheat from March to June compared to no new purchases since March 2018.
John Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group who revolutionized investing by inventing the index fund, a product that gave Main Street investors a cheap way to gain broad exposure to the stock market, has died. He was 89.

Often dubbed the father of index investing, Bogle  a champion of the individual investor  was the driving force behind the shift away from a beat-the-market mentality and high-cost funds run by stock pickers that have reshaped the industry. More than 40 years after its birth, the index fund has led to todays preference for so-called passive investing, a strategy that enables investors to buy a diversified basket of stocks with low expenses with a goal of matching the returns of a broad market index like the Standard & Poors 500.

Dont look for the needle in the haystack, Bogle would famously say. Just buy the haystack.

Bogle, who formed Vanguard in 1974 and then founded what is now known as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund amid ridicule from the Wall Street establishment who referred to the fund as Bogles Folly, has been called a hero by billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Jack Bogle made an impact on not only the entire investment industry, but more importantly, on the lives of countless individuals saving for their futures or their childrens futures, Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley said in a statement on Wednesday. He was a tremendously intelligent, driven, and talented visionary whose ideas completely changed the way we invest. We are honoured to continue his legacy of giving every investor a fair shake.

If a statue is ever erected to honour the person who has done the most for American investors, the hands-down choice should be Jack Bogle, Buffett wrote in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in February 2017. In his early years, Jack was frequently mocked by the investment-management industry, Buffett continued, adding that he helped millions of investors realize far better returns on their savings than they otherwise would have earned. He is a hero to them and to me.

While many derided Bogle and index funds early on, the amount of investor cash funneled into these types of investments has skyrocketed. Vanguard, for example, now manages about $4.9 trillion (U.S.) in global assets and Americans in recent years have been aggressively yanking cash out of so-called actively managed funds run by portfolio managers and moving it into index funds.

Paul Samuelson, the late Nobel Prize-winning economist, famously lauded the creation of the index fund as one of the worlds greatest inventions.

I rank this Bogle invention along with the invention of the wheel, the alphabet, Gutenberg printing, and wine and cheese, Samuelson said in a 2005 speech.

Bogle regularly renounced speculation and advised small investors to stay patient and invest for the long term in low-cost funds that best positioned them to take advantage of the profitability and innovation of American companies.

Time is your friend, Bogle wrote in an essay. Impulse is your enemy.

The performance of index funds has been superior to most funds run by money managers, due in large part to the fact that they dont carry high costs that cut into returns, such as advisory fees, operating expenses, sales commissions, portfolio trading costs and excess taxes caused by frequent trading. Only 13.4 per cent of money mangers who run large company stock funds that invest in growth and value stocks have topped the indexes they are compared to in the 20 years ended in 2017, according to fund tracker Morningstar.

The success of index funds and the reason the indexing revolution is here to stay, Bogle noted in a speech to the CFA Institute in May 2017, is all about the basic math of lower investment costs enabling investors to capture a bigger chunk of the returns the stock market gives them.

Indexing is not a fad, he said in the speech. It is not a fashion. It is a fact of life; indeed of elemental arithmetic.

For example, the average expense ratio across the entire fund industry (excluding Vanguard) was 0.62 per cent in 2017, which equates to $62 for every $10,000 invested, according to Vanguards website. Compare that with Vanguard, where the average for all of its mutual funds and ETFs was 0.11 per cent, or just $11.

Fortune magazine dubbed Bogle as one of the investment industrys four Giants of the 20th Century. And Time magazine named him one of the worlds 100 most powerful and influential people.

In times of market stress, Bogle was often a calming influence, advising investors not to get overly worried about short-term dips in their retirement account balances.

I tell people: Dont peek, he told CNNMoney in early 2017. Dont open those statements until you retire. When you retire and open that statement, you are going to have so much money, you will probably go into dead faint.

Bogle, who was born in Montclair, N.J., on May 8, 1929  just five months before the 1929 stock market crash  studied economics at Princeton University, where in 1951 he hinted at the idea of an index fund in his senior year thesis. That paper stressed that funds must operate in the most efficient, economical, and honest way possible, Bogle recalled in an essay delivered at a Morningstar conference in April 2017.

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His first job after leaving the Ivy League school in 1951 was at Wellington Management Company.

In 1996, Bogle handed over the reins of Vanguard to John J. Brennan.

Bogle wrote numerous article and books, including Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor.
UK progressive rock band King Crimson celebrate 50 years since their original lineup's very first rehearsal this month. To mark the anniversary, King Crimson have announced a heap of activity for the year, starting with a 'Celebration Tour' consisting of 50 dates across Europe and the US.

They will also release a documentary named 'Cosmic F*Kc', directed by Toby Amies, which will include archival footage and interviews with past and present members of King Crimson. It's set fo release in late 2019, with a soundtrack also on the way.

To keep the celebration going, the band have announced several new box sets. Their 1969 debut album 'In the Court of the Crimson King' will receive a limited edition expanded set featuring live recordings, studio sessions, photos, liner notes and a new remix of the album. A vinyl release of all their 1969 records is also in the works, but we don't know any release dates yet.

If that wasn't enough for the King Crimson fandom, the band would also be compiling their live recordings and studio output from the late 90s through to 2008 with the boxset 'Heaven & Earth', due out in May. Clothing, archival live albums (in their ongoing Collectors' Club series), an updated edition of Sid Smith's long out-of-print band biography 'In the Court of King Crimson' and 50 new rarities uploaded to their website and streaming services one week at a time are also due to be released throughout the year.

What a year for the band!
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Sarah Mearhoff

Forum News Service

PIERRE  South Dakota senators have voted to commend U.S. Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds for their votes to confirm United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh  but not without heated debate.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 5 passed the Senate on Wednesday, Jan. 16, by a vote of 22-13 after nearly 30 minutes of floor debate. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Sen. Troy Heinert, of Mission, called the concurrent resolution a thank-you card, and criticized the legislature for passing a resolution that does absolutely nothing as the federal government is in the midst of its longest shutdown in history.

We have so many people in South Dakota that are being affected by this government shutdown, Heinert told media following the Senates vote. The last thing we need to be talking about is the appointment of someone who has been in the job for four months.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh in October after Christine Blasey Ford alleged that he sexually assaulted her at a house party in 1982. Both Ford and Kavanaugh testified about the accusations before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Republican Sen. Stace Nelson, of Fulton, said the purpose of the resolution was to show gratitude for Thune and Rounds doing their duty during some very difficult times.

Republican Sen. Deb Soholt, of Sioux Falls, questioned whether the nomination of Kavanaugh was the right reason to thank Thune and Rounds, and that the resolution could send a mixed message about what kind of support the senate is providing to people who have been victimized.

For Judge Kavanaugh and for Dr. Ford, they were victimized throughout that process and they were traumatized, Soholt said following the floor debate.

She said during the debate that there was disparity and ill regard on all sides during Kavanaughs confirmation process, and that both Kavanaugh and Ford were politicized and victimized.

For us to affirm SCR 5  while we may want to thank and support the people that represent us in Washington  is really an affirmation and a disregard of what happened during that process, she said.

The resolution now moves onto the House for a final vote before passage.
Marcus Traxler

Forum News Service

RAPID CITY  A first-of-its-kind report in South Dakota is taking the temperature of the states aging population.

A Profile of Older South Dakotans is a report from South Dakota State University Extension, which was written by Leacey Brown, a Rapid City-based gerontology field specialist who studies aging in the state.

Now, she says, is a critical time to understand the population. By 2030, 21.3 percent of the population in South Dakota is expected to be 65 years or older, which would be the largest proportion percentage in history. Earlier this decade, from 2011 to 2015, an estimated 14 percent of South Dakotas population was over the age of 65.

Brown said the report serves as a call to action for the states decision-makers, with the hope to see older adults on a more broad basis.

Its really about how can we not only meet the needs of older adults but how we can utilize what older adults bring to the table to make our communities strong, she said.

Much of South Dakotas 65 and over population is still in the labor force, with 21.7 percent of people still working, above the national average of 17 percent. Between ages 65 and 74, 33.7 percent of people are working.

South Dakota is also above average with older adults reporting no disability. Almost 80 percent of the people between ages 65 and 74 report no disability, with that rate at 60 percent between ages 75 to 84 and nearly 40 percent with no disability at age 85 or older. Brown attributes that to many South Dakotans having a tough attitude and keeping themselves in adequate physical condition.

Brown said there are a few reasons for the expected peak in 2030 and then the 65-and-over population leveling off after that. After the 2030 peak, the estimated 65-plus population is expected to be between 19.6 to 21 percent of the population from 2035 to 2045.

She said children from the baby boomer generation were among the first to be expected to live through their very early years, as newborn death rates have decreased. She said baby boomers were born at a time when the medical community made advances in science regarding vaccinations.

In the future, smaller family size will lead to the numbers of individuals at 65 or older leveling off.

The state also has an interesting balance between older residents living alone and group living arrangements, such as nursing homes, mental hospitals or group homes. The state ranks No. 1 in the country in percentage of older residents living in group settings at 6.6 percent, but the state also ranks sixth nationally regarding people 65 and older who live alone, at nearly 31 percent. South Dakota also ranks fifth in the country among adults who die from falls at age 65 or older.

Brown said that she believes South Dakota has improved in recent years in helping older residents with home-based services, allowing them to remain in their homes and receive an appropriate level of care. Part of that, she said, was about doing a better job of allocating federal dollars to that service.

We like our own places, Brown said. Its cultural. We continue to maintain that home and if they own it, its cheaper. These folks likely have owned their home for a long time and its a big part of who they are.

But much of rural South Dakota continues to deal with nursing home failures, in which providers cant cover their costs to stay in business because Medicaid reimbursements arent adequate. Brown said that can provide an entrepreneurial opportunity to those interested in small towns.

In a lot of cases, we dont immediately need a high level of care, she said. Were talking about laundry, snow removal, maybe help with a project or two. Theres opportunities for people to fill those gaps in small towns.
Sheila Slater

Forum News Service

YANKTON  Craft beer is certainly nothing new, but the amount of interest and money in craft breweries in South Dakota has grown exponentially in the last decade.

High quality microbreweries have been popping up across the state, and whether its an India pale ale, known as an IPA, or a dark porter, its likely one can find a craft beer or microbrewery not far from home.

The largest cluster of microbreweries has formed in and around the Black Hills, where eight of the 27 craft beer breweries in the state have set up shop. In 2017, the craft beer industry made an economic impact of $209 million and produced an estimated 14,000 barrels of beer. Traditionally, theres 31 gallons in a barrel of beer.

Sioux Falls now has seven microbreweries, creating a second hub of craft beer in the state, based on the most current data published by SoDak Beer.

Ben Hanten, of Bens Brewing Company in Yankton, is one of the pioneers in the field who started his venture in 2007 while still in his 20s. Hanten operates a bar under the same name, which he established in 2005. Hanten also runs the SoDak Beer website.

The microbrew industry took a turn for the better after former Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed Bill 173 in to law in March 2018, allowing homegrown craft breweries in the state to increase production.

The bill increased the maximum microbreweries can produce from 5,000 barrels to 30,000 barrels. It also lets craft brewers bypass distributors and sell up to 1,500 barrels of their suds each year directly to bars, cutting out the middleman.

The new law allowed for more options for growth in the industry in the future, Hanten said, but had little effect on his microbrewing operation.

We were never going to run up against those limits, Hanten said. But the distribution clause has been helpful. If we go to events in Pierre or Rapid City where we do not have a distributor, we can now sell directly without signing up for a lifetime contract for a one-day event.

Hops farming

While the craft beer scene in South Dakota is rich and growing, hops farming is still in its infancy, with fewer than 10 growers raising hops in the state based on research of the Beer and Hops office of South Dakota State University Extension.

Traditionally, hops are grown in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S., but were also popular in the early years of South Dakota statehood. During prohibition, hops were no longer profitable, forcing farmers to look for other options like corn and soybeans.

While hops can grow in most climates, Ryan Heine, owner of 6th Meridian Hops Farm six miles west of Yankton, believes the good quality of the sandy shores around the Missouri River leads his hops to grow especially well.

We currently grow hops on five of our 80-acre plot, producing about 2,000 pounds a year, said Heine. Were still figuring out different flavors of hops and trying to feel out the field to have the best testing and best volume on hops.

Heine hopes to expand his hops growing operation in the future and use all of his land to grow popular Chinook and Nugget varieties like the Dakota Challenger. The Dakota Challenger is a high yielding dual-purpose variety which originated in England. It can give a very crisp, fruity character that has proven popular in craft beers.

Heine supplies Bens Brewing Company with about a third of his annual yield and also sells his hops to microbreweries in the Black Hills area.

Both Bens Brewing Company and 6th Meridian Hops Farm have become tourists favorites, attracting visitors from near and far.

The idea of beer and how we used to buy it has flipped on its head. People are looking for the freshest and most unique brews, Hanten said. Every town in South Dakota with over 10,000 people should have its own brewery.
Dan Crisler

Public Opinion Staff Writer

The problems surrounding California Pacific Airlines are apparently so mysterious that not even City of Watertown officials know whats going on.

After seeing flights canceled to Pierre and Denver Thursday and Friday, Watertown Mayor Sarah Caron, along with Pierre Mayor Steve Harding, issued a statement Friday afternoon there is no information that flights for this weekend and beyond would happen. Caron said she and Pierre city officials have been in regular contact, including a Friday morning conference, with the United States Department of Transportation, which holds the Essential Air Service contract that links Watertown and Pierre to Denver.

The result of the conference call was USDOT officials reiterating to Watertown and Pierre officials to seek proposals for alternative airlines to serve the cities by Feb. 13, well before the current EAS contract the USDOT has with CPAir expires in mid-2020.

However, given the unknowns and rapidly deteriorating relationship with CPAir, Caron said Watertown and Pierre officials hope to submit a proposal sooner than that.

We asked them to move the deadline up and close it sooner if they could, she said. The USDOT hasnt said if they would or if they could. But theyre working on it.

Late Friday afternoon, the USDOT granted the cities request by moving up the deadline to Jan. 30.

In the meantime, Caron said the USDOT has been working with CPAir in order to resolve the issues. Caron said the USDOT is reluctant to pull the plug from CPAir.

It seems unlikely (that CPAir will be able to perform its duties), but they havent told us that, she said. Thats the USDOTs issue as well: If the airline is trying to make good, the USDOT wants to help them. They dont want to shut CPAir out if the airline is trying.

Adding to the frustration for city officials is the lack of communication about specific issues from CPAir.

Caron said Watertown and Pierre officials are in regular communication with CPAir Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Fernando Pineda. Although praising Pinedas consistent communication style, she said he hasnt been authorized to reveal the specific issues.

Caron said the cities have had no communication with CPAir owner Ted Vallas, a 97-year-old businessman from San Diego County.

We dont know anything. Only the airline knows, and theyre not talking, she said.

CPAir Director of Sales and Marketing Ryan DiVita did not respond Friday to an email from the Public Opinion.

Rumors have circulated recently about CPAirs presumed precarious financial state.

Caron and Pierre Mayor Steve Harding jointly authored two letters to the USDOT. The first letter sent last month relayed that CPAir has not paid the cities in fees outlined in lease agreements in more than six months.

Reports also circulated that the airline has been unable to buy fuel to operate its EAS flight between Watertown, Pierre and Denver.

Caron said she had no insight into the veracity of the rumors outside of CPAir not paying its fees.

I dont have any firsthand information. If I had direct communication that confirmed stuff, I would tell you, she said. Ive heard rumors, but I cant confirm them.

In the event that CPAir cannot recover, Caron said Watertown officials, along with Pierre officials, have had conversations with SkyWest Airlines of St. George, Utah, to provide commercial air service.

Currently, however, Caron said she doesnt know whether SkyWest has gone so far as to submit a proposal to the USDOT, and thus couldnt comment on where Watertown Regional Airport passengers would fly to if the city were to be serviced by the airline.

The Capital Journal in Pierre reported that SkyWest has several agreements with major airlines, including Delta, which has gates at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport.

Should the cities be authorized by the USDOT to go with an alternative commercial airline, Caron said Watertown would want to get that airline in place as soon as possible, although such a switch might take at least a couple of months.

Normally, it takes 60 to 90 days from the date of award before an airline will start providing service. But thats something an airline proposes, she said.

The ongoing partial federal government shutdown has slightly impacted the process surrounding Watertown, Pierre and CPAir. Due to furloughs, many complaints about poor service have gone unanswered.

Caron said the shutdown has not impacted the cities conversations with USDOT officials.

The USDOT folks that weve been working with are not on furlough. Theyre doing whatever they can, she said. They said that if they get information from customers that should go to another agency, theyll just hold on to it until those agencies are back up and working. The USDOT has been very responsive to us.

As the cities wait to see what developments occur, Caron strongly advised those who have booked plane tickets have back-up transportation plans.

That puts everyone in a terrible situation. But people need to have back-up plans, she said.

People who are directly impacted by the cancellations should contact CP Air directly at 1.855.505.9394 or customerservice@mycpair.com. Impacted travelers can also visit transportation.gov/airconsumer for additional resources.
Watertown Public Opinion

The Benedictine Sisters of Watertown say they need assistance from the community if their Multicultural Center is to stay open.

Sister Teresa Ann Wolf, director of the center, said Tuesday the Sisters will not be the sole supporters of Multicultural Center past July 31 of this year. The Sisters are members of the Mother of God Monastery in Watertown.

We are an aging population, and its become difficult to put the energy toward the ministry that we want to put toward it, said Wolf, who added that about 40 to 50 people gathered Monday at the Watertown Regional Library to discuss the situation.

The centers basic mission is to assist immigrants and those who dont speak English to adjust to the community. The original idea for the center came from high school students, and the Benedictine Sisters adopted the idea, purchasing and converting a former radio station building on south U.S. Highway 81 into the Multicultural Center.

The center is busy, Wolf said. It provides several functions, including offering English as a Second Language classes, teaching Spanish, providing citizenship classes and legal help for those seeking citizenship or dealing with green cards, and working with social services and translation services for schools, clinics, dentists and hospitals.

This ministrys basic purpose is to welcome people and especially help immigrants fit into the local community, given the fact the economic advantages they bring to Watertown and the need for immigrant labor, she said. This is an important issue for Watertown.

The centers services are not restricted just to Watertown. Wolf said theyve provided help to clients in western Minnesota, Brookings, Clark and as far north as Veblen.

Right now were depending a lot on volunteers, and we have some very dedicated volunteers, Wolf said. We have only one fulltime paid person. Im fulltime but I am not paid. Darlene Bresson is president of our advisory board who volunteers twice a week teaching English as a Second Language classes and helps with other events as they come up.

Wolf emphasized that although the Benedictine Sisters need help, some of their members want to remain with the center.

Its going to depend somewhat on who the sponsors are, she said. I think personally I would want to be involved regardless of who the sponsors are or what the future is. This ministry is important to me. Its also important to the monastery.

She was pleased with the interest shown in the Multicultural Center at Mondays meeting and with the presentations given by the centers board of directors. She also said the local Hispanic community is prepared to make donations every month to help pay bills and keep the center open.

She said the goal now is to determine what groups within the city are willing to help sponsor the center how they will collaborate on the methods needed to keep it open.

She also said that anyone interested in assisting should contact the center at 605-878-2021.
TAT cultivates India as rich source of tourist arrivals

THAILAND: India has emerged as an inbound tourism market for Thailand, with arrival numbers expected to reach 5 million by 2023.

economicstourism

By Bangkok Post

Friday 18 January 2019, 09:37AM

Foreign tourists walk near the Grand Palace and Wat Pho. Photo: Bangkok Post

Arrivals from India surged by more than 12% year-on-year to 1.43 million in the first 11 months of 2018, generating B63bn in tourism income, up 31.2%, outpacing all other originating countries.

To promote arrivals from India, the Tourism Authority of Thailand will arrange more roadshows. In August, the TAT will take the Amazing Thailand roadshow to secondary Indian cities such as Ahmedabad, Pune, Amritsar and Bhubaneswar.

The roadshow to the four cities, all of which have been given international gateway status by the Indian government, is part of the TATs strategy to tap the rich potential of Indias populous secondary cities.

This week, the TAT and 70 Thai exhibitors are taking part in the South Asia Travel and Tourism Exchange (SATTE 2019) at the India Expo Mart in Delhi. The contingent of Thai exhibitors is the largest ever, up from 54 in 2018.

TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn said the expo provides a showcase for an extensive range of products and facilities catering to many different market segments of Indian buyers.

This year marks the 11th year of Thailands presence at SATTE. The 70 exhibitors include 28 hotels and resorts, 21 tour operators and travel agents, five airlines, and 16 tourist attractions, plus related agencies.

The growing sophistication and maturity of the Indian traveller has presented an opportunity to promote Thailands diverse range of niche-market products for women travellers, high-net-worth individuals, weddings and honeymoons, and family groups.

Mr Yuthasak said Indian travellers are venturing beyond Bangkok and Pattaya to new destinations such as Chiang Rai, Rayong, Trat, Hua Hin and Samut Songkhram.

Tanes Petsuwan, deputy governor for marketing communications at the TAT, said India is now one of the top 10 sources of visitor arrivals for Thailand.

Factors contributing to the growth include the rise in middle-income Indians and a short travel time of 3-4 hours by air.

Bilateral airline capacity is at an all-time high, with 307 weekly flights between Thailand and 16 major cities in India on 13 airlines: Thai Airways International, Bangkok Airways, Air India, Thai Smile, Bhutan Airlines, Druk Air, Jet Airways, Air Asia, Spice Jet, Thai Lion Air, Indigo, NokScoot and GoAir.

The TAT also credited the governments waiver of the 2,000-baht fee for visa on arrival from Nov 15, 2018 to April 30 this year. The waiver applies to 21 nationalities, including Indian.

The TAT has two offices in India (New Delhi and Mumbai) and is expanding marketing representation and services to secondary cities such as Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Pune.

Read full story here.
Phuket officials, Soi Dog rally after dog rabies death

PHUKET: A rabies quarantine zone has been established across a large section of Phuket as officials work alongside staffers from the Soi Dog Foundation to ensure against an outbreak of rabies.

animalshealth

By The Phuket News

Friday 18 January 2019, 04:53PM

The traditional picture of a rabid dog foaming at the mouth and attacking people is not a true picture, Soi Dog Founder John Dalley stressed. Photo: The Phuket News / file

The move follows confirmation that one dog in Moo 4 Chalong had died of the disease.

The zone boundaries stretch from Baan Ketho in Moo 7, Kathu in the north, to Baan Bang Khonthi in Moo 5, Rawai, in the south and from Baan Borrae in Moo 6, Wichit in the east to Wat Suwankhirikhet (Wat Karon) in Moo 1, Karon on Phukets southern west coast.

The quarantine zone was brought into effect yesterday (Jan 17) by order of the Phuket Livestock Office Acting Chief Manat Thepparat.

The zone will remain in effect until until Feb 16, Mr Manat told The Phuket News today.

Several other dogs at Baan Na Yai Chalong have been isolated to monitor their condition as a precaution, he added.

Please dont panic. If you have any dogs or cats that have not yet been vaccinated against rabies, please have it done now, Mr Manat said.

Soi Dog Foundation Founder John Dalley explained earlier today in a statement, A dog was brought into Soi Dog by our dog catchers after it was reported to be vomiting and unable to stand.

It received treatment for several days but did not respond, and symptoms of staggering and being unable to open its mouth, and head tilted to one side led our veterinary staff to suspect rabies as these are classic symptoms.

The dog was euthanised and its body sent to the government testing laboratory. The result indicated that the dog was positive to rabies, the first positive case seen in a dog on Phuket for many years, Mr Dalley noted.

The dog arrived at the foundation on Jan 3 and died on Jan 10. Confirmation that the dog had rabies became known only yesterday (Jan 17), the foundation told The Phuket News.

Soi Dog are working closely with the Department of Livestock to vaccinate all dogs within a five-kilometre radius of where the dog was picked up, he said.

Soi Dog will focus on strays and the DLD on owned dogs. Five teams (two from DLD and three from Soi Dog) are currently working in the project where the positive dog was found.

There is no cause for alarm. We see numerous positive cases in dogs in Bangkok, but no human cases have occurred there in the past 12 months.

The traditional picture of a rabid dog foaming at the mouth and attacking people is not a true picture, as with this dog, Mr Dalley stressed.

Anybody being bitten by a dog at any time should always immediately wash the wound with soap and water and go along to their local clinic or hospital to receive the necessary injections, he urged.

Although this is likely an isolated incident it should be noted that Soi Dog has repeatedly over the years warned of the dangers and requested successive governors to stop the hundreds of very young puppies being imported to Phuket each year for sale at markets and pet stores, but nothing has ever been done, Mr Dalley explained.

We hope the new governor will take action.

Such puppies generally come from uncontrolled puppy farms in rabies endemic areas, Mr Dalley explained.

Puppies cannot be vaccinated against rabies until they are at least 12 weeks old and are reliant on the mothers immunity providing she has some. The case of a puppy seller in Chatuchak market dying from a bite from a puppy shows the danger.

In addition, removing vaccinated sterilised dogs from the street increases the chances of rabies spreading, he said.

The World Health Organistion, the Food and Agriculture Division of the United Nations, the World Organisation for Animal Health and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control have issued joint statements advising that the way to eliminate rabies in humans is to eliminate it in dogs first as much cheaper and more effective to do that, Mr Dalley noted.

If 70% or more of dogs in a country are vaccinated and strict controls on entry imposed, then you will eliminate rabies.

If you remove vaccinated dogs and put them in a pound then you are reducing the number of dogs on the street that are vaccinated which allows for others to take their place that may not be vaccinated.

If a member of the public sees a dog that is staggering or unable to stand then they can call the Soi Dog Helpline on 076 681 029, Mr Dalley urged.

See the Soi Dog Foundation Facebook page, here.
Bad day in Phuket: Australian found hanged, Frenchman dies of heart attack

PHUKET: Police responded to incidents involving the deaths of two long-term Phuket expats yesterday (Jan 17): one Australian man deemed by police to have committed suicide, and a 71-year-old Frenchman who died of a heart attack.

deathpolice

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Friday 18 January 2019, 11:57AM

Thalang Police were called to respond to the deaths of two long-term expats Phuket yesterday (Jan 17). Photo: The Phuket News / file

Capt Kraisorn Boonprasop of the Thalang Police, who responded to both incidents, was first called to the Supalai Essence housing estate in Srisoonthorn at 9am after being informed of an Australian man* found hanged outside his home.

The Australian man was suffering from stress brought on by financial problems, Capt Kraisorn told The Phuket News.

His wife said that he was stressed from a financial situation with his family in Australia, Capt Kraisorn said.

He even told the children that he might not even be able to afford to send them to school, he added.

The wife explained that the stress affected other issues with the children.

He even felt neglected when his children ignored him when he tried to teach them English. His wife said the children just wanted to keep watching YouTube, Capt Kraisorn added.

The wife took the children to school at 8am and returned home to find her husband no longer in the house, Capt Kraisorn explained.

Then she found him hanged by a rope tied to a ladder that was leaning against the side of the house. She called us at 9:02am, he said.

The mans body was taken to Thalang Hospital.

We have found no evidence to indicate this was a murder, and at this stage we believe the mans death to be a suicide, but his body will be sent to the Office of Police Forensic Science in Bangkok for further examination, Capt Kraison noted.

The Australian Consuls office in Phuket has been informed of the incident already. Capt Kraisorn said.

Then, at 3:25pm yesterday, Capt Kraisorn was called to investigate the death of another expat, that of 71-year-old Frenchman Guy Franck Roger Desnoes, also resident in Thalang.

Mr Desnoes had been living in Phuket with his wife, Renuka, for 18 years, Capt Kraisorn said.

His wife said Mr Desnoes had been experiencing chest pains for a week. He was on his way to Surin Beach to have a meal with a friend when he suffered an attack and fell unconscious.

He was rushed to Thalang Hospital, but doctors there pronounced him dead by heart failure, Capt Kraisorn explained.

Its not a good day for police officers when we have to face days like this, he added.

* The name of the Australian man is being withheld until it is confirmed that his family in Australia have been notified.
Trump said he beat ISIS. Instead, he's giving it new life.
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Michigan resident Paul Whelan was arrested by Russian investigative agencies on Dec. 28, 2018, on suspicions of espionage. He has since been charged.
FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2019, file photo, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, waves to the crowd during an organizing event at Curate event space in Des Moines, Iowa. Some of the Democrats considering running for president in 2020 say they plan to ignore personal needling from President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Matthew Putney, File)
Two people were seriously injured in this crash in Gratiot County on Thursday.
We all know that movies are often filled with pop culture Easter eggs. Everyone's basically making Tarantino-style artistic Horcruxes at this point. But sometimes movies and shows include discreet allusions to the last thing you would imagine. Imagine if Saving Private Ryan threw in a shout-out to ALF or something. For some very real examples, look at how ...

6 Game Of Thrones Recreated A Monty Python Sketch

It's probably not surprising that the dudes filling our television sets with dragons and angry hordes of zombie-cicles are giant nerds. Even so, Game Of Thrones may have slipped a particularly geeky reference past most audiences. Obviously, the show's prime inspiration is J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings with a copy of Hustler secretly tucked inside, but the fourth season includes a coded reference to another great fantasy epic: Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

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When Daenerys and her army approach the gates of Meereen, the scene plays out not dissimilarly from when King Arthur and his knights come upon the French castle. But since HBO isn't exactly strapped for cash, the Queen of Dragons and her friends aren't forced to bang coconuts together.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Japan ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Japan ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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Sempra Energy operates as an energy-services holding company in the United States and internationally. The company's San Diego Gas & Electric Company segment generates, transmits, and distributes electricity; and supplies natural gas. It offers electric services to approximately 3.7 million population and natural gas services to approximately 3.4 million population that covers 4,100 square miles. Its Southern California Gas Company segment owns and operates a natural gas distribution, transmission, and storage system that supplies natural gas to a population of approximately 22 million covering an area of 24,000 square miles. The company's Sempra Texas Utilities segment is involved in the regulated transmission and distribution of electricity serving 3.7 million homes and businesses, and operation of 139,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines. Its transmission system includes 18,127 circuit miles of transmission lines, 336 transmission stations, and 806 distribution substations; distribution system comprises 121,129 miles of overhead and underground lines; and 63 miles of electric transmission lines. Its Sempra Mexico segment develops, owns, operates, or holds interests in natural gas, electric, liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquid petroleum gas (LPG), ethane, and liquid fuels infrastructure; and purchases LNG, and purchases and sells natural gas. This segment operates natural-gas-fired, and wind and solar power generation facilities. Its assets/facilities consist of 1,850 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines, 15 compressor stations, and 139 miles of ethane pipelines; and 2,729 miles of natural gas distribution pipelines. The company's Sempra LNG segment develops and builds natural gas liquefaction export facilities; holds an interest in a facility for the export of LNG; owns and operates natural gas pipelines; and buys, sells, and transports natural gas. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.

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A group of British tourists has been asked to leave New Zealand after they were reported for shoplifting, littering, threatening residents and causing chaos, an immigration official said on Thursday.

The family, who are travelling on British passports, were involved in a series of incidents in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, and Hamilton this week that have shocked New Zealanders.

Peter Devoy, assistant general manager for Immigration New Zealand (INZ), told Reuters five individuals from the group had been served with Deportation Liability Notices, the first stage in the deportation process.

The individuals can appeal against the deportation orders and can only be deported if they agree to waive their appeal rights or if the appeal rights expire, he said in an emailed statement.

The group, which included children and women, made headlines in New Zealand newspapers after littering at the North Shore beach in Auckland and threatening residents.

A video posted on Facebook showed that a child, asked by a woman to clean up the rubbish, responded by saying he would "knock your brains out".

Police were called later the same day by staff at a Burger King outlet in the city of Hamilton, about 130 km south of Auckland, who complained that the group was causing a ruckus.

Read also: Visitors to New Zealand must sign Tiaki Promise to protect environment

They had also been spotted in a number of cafes and restaurants in Auckland's central business district, and businesses had complained that they walked out without paying or had abused their employees.

A woman from the group was convicted on Wednesday for stealing a can of Red Bull, sunglasses and rope worth NZ$55.20 ($37.41) from a petrol station.

Immigration officers caught up with the group on Wednesday, after extensive media coverage, and handed them the deportation notices.

Devoy said the deportation notices could be issued for a number of reasons, including matters relating to character.

"INZ understands that the individuals intend to leave New Zealand next week," he said.

One member of the group, however, told reporters earlier this week they would cut short their trip and return home because they felt "unwelcome" in New Zealand.
A number of natural disasters that occurred across Indonesia from 2010 to 2018 not only resulted in lives lost, but also led to economic losses in tourism, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).

"Tourism is very vulnerable to disasters, and if not managed properly, the impact will affect tourism ecosystems and the industrys performance targets," BNPB spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement as quoted by kompas.com.

Sutopo stressed that disaster mitigation must be a priority in developing the sector.

Here is a list of some of the natural disasters that struck Indonesia in the past nine years and their impact on the nations tourism, according to the BNPB.

1. Mount Merapi eruption

The eruption of Mount Merapi in 2010 resulted in an almost 50 percent decrease in visitor numbers for many tourist attractions in Yogyakarta and Central Java.

2. Forest and land fires

Forest and land fires that occurred from August to September 2015, mainly in Kalimantan and Sumatra, caused 13 airports to close down because of limited visibility and for posing a danger to flights.

The closures and the postponement of several international events led to a slump in tourism, disrupting related businesses such as airlines, hotels, restaurants and travel companies.

Read also: Indonesia's priority destinations prone to earthquakes, other disasters

3. Mount Agung eruption

Mount Agung in Bali erupted multiple times in 2017, causing a tourism slowdown that saw 1 million fewer tourists visiting the island and led to an estimated Rp 11 trillion (US$775 million) in losses for tourism businesses. Several flights to and from Bali were also canceled, with the Ngurah Rai International Airport temporarily coming to a halt.

4. Lombok earthquake

The Lombok earthquake that took place in 2018 caused a decrease in tourist visits by 100,000 and an estimated loss valued at Rp 1.4 trillion for tourism.

5. Sunda Strait Tsunami

Economic losses following the tsunami in the Sunda Strait in December are estimated to be in the billions of rupiah because of damages and a domino effect that led to 10 percent of hotel bookings being canceled.

Before the tsunami hit, occupancy rates of hotels in the tourist areas of Anyer, Carita and Tanjung Lesung were 80-90 percent. (liz/kes)
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Linkedin (Reuters) Kuala Lumpur  Fri, January 18, 2019 17:36 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e78928c 2 SE Asia Malaysia,Goldman-Sachs,corruption-case,1MDB Free

Malaysias finance minister said on Friday the government would be ready to discuss dropping criminal charges against Goldman Sachs linked to the 1MDB scandal if the bank pays $7.5 billion in reparations.

Goldman Sachs is being investigated by Malaysian authorities and the U.S. Department of Justice for its role as underwriter and arranger of three bond sales that raised $6.5 billion for 1Malaysia Development Berhad. The bank has denied wrongdoing.

U.S prosecutors last year charged two former Goldman bankers with the theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said Malaysia was seeking $7.5 billion in reparations from Goldman Sachs over its 1MDB deals, which included fees paid to the bank and bond coupons that were higher than the market rate.

Asked by a reporter on Friday if Malaysia would drop the charges against the bank if it paid the reparations, Lim said: Pay the $7.5 billion, then we can discuss.

Malaysia reopened domestic investigations into 1MDB last year, after a historic election that saw the countrys first change of government in more than 60 years.

The government of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak set up the 1MDB fund in 2009, and the U.S. Justice Department estimated $4.5 billion was misappropriated by high-level fund officials and their associates between 2009 and 2014.

Najib has denied wrongdoing.

On Wednesday, Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon apologized to the Malaysian people for the role played by Tim Leissner in the 1MDB scandal, but said the bank had conducted due diligence before every transaction.

Leissner, a former partner for Goldman Sachs in Asia, pleaded guilty in the United States to conspiring to launder money and violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Lim said the apology was necessary but not sufficient and that the whole scandal had caused agony and trauma suffered by the Malaysian people.

If not for the change of government, do you think Goldman Sachs would have apologized? We are talking about the largest investment bank in the world... its not easy to get an apology from them, Lim said.

An apology is not enough. An apology with $7.5 billion, that is what matters.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, January 19 2019

Human rights groups have called on the Papua Police to immediately and unconditionally drop the rebellion charge against three activists from the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) and release them.



Amnesty International and Yayasan Pusaka issued a recent statement saying that the activists were prisoners of conscience who had not employed violence or hatred and were imprisoned solely for expressing their political views in a peaceful manner.



The Indonesian authorities have used Article 106 of the Criminal Code, along with Article 110, to criminalize dozens of peaceful pro-independence political activists with the charge of rebellion in the last decade, said Amnesty International Indonesia spokesperson Haeril Halim.



The incident began on Dec. 31, when the Indonesian Military (TNI) and regional police raided and seized the KNPB headquarters in ...
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, January 19 2019

Feeling fresh and relaxed: Masseuses of Seminyak Beach watch attentively as massage techniques are demonstrated by professional spa therapists during a Bali Spa and Wellness event in Kuta on Friday. Dozens of Seminyak masseuses attended the training session, during which they learned the proper massage techniques they should use on tourists seeking their services.(JP/Zul Trio Anggono)

Indonesias vast cultural heritage, which is shaped by rich gifts derived from nature, inexorably includes a range of beauty regimens. From top to toe, simple to sophisticated, there are choices for everyone.



A common hair treatment found in Indonesian beauty salons is the cream bath that begins with a customers hair being washed, followed by the application of cream all over the head as well as a head and shoulder massage. The treatment continues with the hair being steamed, after whic...
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 18:59 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e78bc63 1 City Bekasi,work-accident,waste Free

A plastic-waste mill worker named Sariman, 36, was found dead inside a milling machine at his workplace in Sumur Batu subdistrict, Bantargebang in Bekasi, West Java on Thursday morning.

Bantargebang Police chief, Comr. Siswo, said Sariman was feeding plastic waste into the mill machine with a partner.

He was milling waste such as plastic buckets and other stuff, Siswo said as quoted by kompas.com. Sarimans post was above the machine, while his partner was at the lower part of the machine to collect the output.

Suddenly, his friend realized that the machine had stopped and there was a lot of blood coming from the machine. He climbed up to see Sariman and found him already inside the machine, Siswo said.

He added that Sariman, who had traveled from his hometown in Blora, Central Java, to find work, was probably not physically fit at that time.

His friend said he often stayed up late. Maybe he was sleepy and then slipped into the machine, Siswo said.

The police are investigating and plan to interrogate the mill's owner.

We have to ensure that worker safety is guaranteed by the employer, Siswo said.

Sarimans body was released to his family for a funeral. (gis)
"Eight people in a single family made the choices that caused much of the opioid epidemic,'' the attorney generals office alleges in a memorandum released Tuesday. They hired hundreds of workers to carry out their wishes and they fired those who did not sell enough drugs. They got more patients on opioids, at higher doses, for longer, than ever before. They paid themselves billions of dollars. They are responsible for addiction, overdose and death that damaged millions of lives.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 21:34 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e78fa79 1 City water,pipe,Palyja,relocation Free

Private water operator PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja) will relocate a 132-meter-long pipe along Jl. Gatot Subroto, South Jakarta from Friday night to Saturday morning.

Palyja spokesperson Lydia Astriningworo said the pipe, which was 600 millimeters in diameter, would be relocated on account of the nearby light rail transit (LRT) construction project.

The relocation will be done because the pipe would be affected by the Greater Jakarta LRT project, which is under construction, Lydia said as quoted by kompas.com.

The areas that will be affected by the project, among others, are Pancoran, Kebon Baru, Tebet Timur, Tebet Barat, Bukit Duri, Manggarai Selatan, Kampung Melayu and surrounding areas.

Water supply will be normal periodically starting Jan. 19 at 9 a.m., Lydia said.

Lydia also said the company would provide water trucks to anticipate emergency situations at hospitals and mosques, as well as to supply fresh water to several areas. (gis)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 10:52 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e76de14 1 Business Trade,Enggartiasto-Lukita,united-states,bilateral-meeting,export-import,export-tariff,imports Free

Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita has welcomed 2019 with an official visit to the United States in an attempt to boost exports amid a slowing global economy.

During his visit this week, Enggartiasto met with US Trade Representative Robert Lightizer to discuss the latter's Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) -- preferential treatment in the form of tariff exemptions for imported products that is granted by developed to developing countries to promote economic development in the latter -- with Indonesia.

"The meeting with the trade representative was constructive because both parties understand that the GSP for Indonesia actually benefits both countries," the minister said in an official statement on Thursday.

Enggartiasto said Indonesian products, which are included in the GSP, were needed by American businesses in their production process. Thus, he added, the two countries agreed to further discuss the GSP in order reach a positive and equally beneficial result.

For now, Enggartiasto said, Indonesian businesses would still be able to enjoy the US' GSP facility. "Therefore, exporters do not need to worry about taking advantage of it."

Last year, the US announced that it was reviewing Indonesia's GSP eligibility "based on concerns related to its compliance with the GSP market access criterion and the GSP services and investment criterion". (dwa)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18 2019

In memory: Cemetery of Black January martyrs in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Courtesy of Embassy of Azerbaijan Jakarta/Yuri Vendelin)

Azerbaijanis living in Indonesia are commemorating this week the 29th anniversary of Black January by lowering the Azerbaijani national flag to half-mast at the Embassy of Azerbaijan and holding a mass prayer in Jakarta.

On the night of Jan.19 and 20, Soviet Union troops invaded Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, as part of Operation Strike and brutally massacred innocent and unarmed people. At that time Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union.

According to official reports, the invasion led to the death of 132 people, injured 612 and destroyed many hundreds of buildings, the Embassy of Azerbaijans charge daffaires Ruslan Nasibov told The Jakarta Post.

Unofficial sources put the death toll at around 300 people. Th...
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie and Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 18:06 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e78add5 1 National 2019-elections,debate,Presidential-Debate,Jokowi-Maruf,Prabowo-Sandiaga,Ira-Koesno,#2019PresidentialElection,Joko-Widodo-Maruf-Amin,Prabowo-Subianto-Sandiaga-Uno Free

Joko Jokowi Widodo ended the first presidential election debate on Thursday night with a strong closing statement that appeared to slam rival Prabowo Subianto, who himself made a number of controversial remarks during the event.

"We are not dictators or authoritarians. We do not have a track record of human rights violations, violence or corruption. We will put all that we have on the line to improve this nation," the incumbent said.

The two-hour debate saw the Jokowi-Maruf Amin and Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno tickets trade barbs on the topics of law, human rights, corruption and terrorism. Here are seven key moments from the event:

1. The president is the chief law enforcement officer

Legal certainty was the first question that came up in the debate, with moderator Ira Koesno asking the candidate pairs about their strategy to fix contravening regulations at the national and regional levels.

Prabowo said he would empower the national law agencies by involving legal experts to help synchronize national law and local ordinances. Jokowi, meanwhile, suggested that he would place all legislative functions of ministries under the National Legislation Center, directly under the President, to address the issue.

In his reply to Jokowis statement, Prabowo said it was indeed the governments responsibility to synchronize and create regulations, adding that the President is the chief law enforcement officer, who is responsible for the implementation of law enforcement.

But in reality, there are still contravening regulations, so we need the help of experts to speed up efforts in addressing the issue; there must be a breakthrough," Prabowo said.

Presidential candidates Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno are on stage during the first candidate debate on Jan. 17. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

The former military general used the term again when answering a question related to what he would do to stop faith-based persecution and discrimination in the country.

As the chief law enforcement officer, meaning the highest law enforcement official, I [if elected] will instruct all law enforcers to not discriminate against anyone based on religion, ethnicity or race, Prabowo said.

Jokowi and Maruf did not question what Prabowo meant with the term, but the incumbents campaign team was quickly to criticize it.

[The term] mirrors [Prabowos] subconscious thoughts of using a presidents position as a tool to intervene with the law, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto said.

Sudirman Said, a member of the Prabowo-Sandiaga campaign team, later explained that what Prabowo meant was that a president played a key role in urging law enforcement officials to truly serve the people.

2. Jokowi insists on strengthening supervision, Prabowo wants pay raise to curb corruption

When the question regarding strategy to end corrupt practices within the countrys bureaucracy came up, the incumbent appeared to give a safe answer, saying that strengthening supervision and transparency in the recruitment process were among key ways to address the problem.

Prabowo, however, asserted that he and Sandiaga would resolve the root causes of corruption by increasing the salaries of civil servants and law enforcers as he believed that improving their welfare would prevent corruption.

The root of the problem is that civil servants are paid very little. If I am president, I will improve the lives of civil servants. How will I do that? I will raise taxes, Prabowo said.

Calling state officials salary unrealistic, he cited a governors salary base, which was "only" Rp 8 million (US$562.9). Prabowo, however, did not elaborate on additional details, such as allowances, for elected officials.

If the officials still committed corruption after earning a higher salary, might as well give them drastic punishments, such as sending them to a gulag and let them mine sand, he added.

I disagree, Jokowi replied, the salaries of our civil servants are sufficient since they also receive performance allowances.

The incumbent asserted that better supervision, including by the media and the State Civilian Bureaucracy Commission (KASN), was important to have a corruption-free bureaucracy.

Jokowi considered legal reform, firm law enforcement and strengthening the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) as keys to combating corruption, while Prabowo wanted to increase the income of court justices, prosecutors and officers to do so.

3. I have nothing to add

The first presidential debated marked the debut appearance of Maruf, who participated in an election debate for the first time, after weeks of receiving training from the campaign team to sharpen his political communication.

However, many said the cleric delivered a rather underwhelming performance, especially when being compared to Sandiaga, who has experience in such debates and was somewhat active in backing up Prabowos statements.

Perhaps one of the most memorable moments from the debate was when the cleric ran the clock after Jokowi finished answering a question from panelists about conflict between law enforcement and human rights.

Seconds still remained for Jokowi and Maruf to explain more about the camps view on the issue, so Ira asked whether the vice presidential candidate wanted to add something to their statement.

The cleric said, I have nothing to add. I support the President.

4. Prabowo gets agitated over ICW report

Jokowi took a direct jab at Prabowos anticorruption commitment while questioning the fact that the Gerindra Party had nominated at least six former graft convicts as candidates in the legislative election, citing Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) data.

Prabowo defended himself and his party, calling the ICW report very subjective and saying that the party was free from corrupt practices. He added that he would send party members who committed corruption to jail.

In response to Prabowos reply, Jokowi repeated his question, There are six ex-graft convicts that you have nominated as legislative candidates. The nomination is signed by party chairman and secretary-general, which means that you have signed

May I reply to this? Prabowo abruptly cut off Jokowis question, but Ira told Jokowi to go on with his question.

The interruption triggered tension on Prabowos side. Sandiaga went on to massage the former generals shoulders in an apparent move to calm him, rather jokingly.

Vice presidential candidate Sandiaga Uno gives his running mate Prabowo Subianto a backrub during the first candidate debate on Jan. 17. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

Prabowo went on to say that Indonesia was a democracy and that the former convicts had gone through the legal process so they could participate in the election. He said it was up to the people to decide whether they would vote for them.

Perhaps [the size of the corruption] was not that significant as well, he said, It is those who have stolen trillions of rupiah that we should go after.

5. Gender should not be the primary concern

Jokowi questioned Prabowo-Sandiaga on the pairs consistency in promoting gender equality through policies as promised in their campaign vision, with the incumbent saying that the executive board of Gerindra was dominated by males.

Prabowo admitted the fact, but said the party had a woman deputy chairperson as well as a womens wing. Our strongest supporters are also mothers.

The incumbent went on to compare Prabowos team to his own Cabinet, which comprises nine women serving as his aides in ministerial seats.

In response, Prabowo argued that the female ministers had issued policies that had done more harm than good, adding that Jokowi should not be proud of appointing women if the programs had not benefitted the people.

If this is about gender, we can add more [female representatives] and count the number, but we can debate more about the output, Prabowo said, Gender should not be the main concern.

6. Jokowi fumes over accusations

In debates, it is usual for a contender to question the incumbents track record. Prabowo and Sandiaga threw jabs at law enforcement under Jokowis administration, calling it unfair while criminalization was still underreported.

Prabowo, for instance, called law enforcers politically bias because a number of regional leaders who had openly thrown support behind Jokowi-Maruf were free from scrutiny, but a village head in Mojokerto, East Java, was sent to jail after he had declared support for him.

The case, Prabowo said, had violated human rights, particularly freedom of expression.

Presidential candidate pair Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and Ma'ruf Amin make statements during the first candidate debate on Jan. 17. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

Dont accuse [us], Pak Prabowo, Jokowi said in his response to Prabowos remarks, We are a country with rule of law, so there is a legal mechanism that we can adhere to. If you have evidence, just report it to the [police].

The incumbent went on to cite the case of Ratna Sarumpaet, one of Prabowos supporters whose bruised face initially triggered a political brouhaha, in what appeared to be an attack on Prabowos camp.

There was a joint press conference, but it turns out it was just [a result of] plastic surgery. Theres no need for comedy, he said.

In a separate topic, Sandiaga shared the story of a fisherman in Karawang, East Java, who was criminalized after taking sand to help him plant in a mangrove forest. Sandiaga said cases that affected common people were not handled well.

Pak Sandi just make another accusation, Jokowi said in his reply, If such persecution happens, report it [to the police].

A similar statement was made by the incumbent when Prabowo lashed out at Jokowis economic policies, particularly the import of rice and sugar, which the rival camp claimed had harmed local farmers.

Prabowo asked Jokowi whether the latter could ensure that his ministers, some of whom were businesspeople, did not have conflicts of interest when deciding to implement import policies.

I dont have past burdens, so its easier for me to work and give orders, Jokowi said, Are there any interests? If [Prabowo] has the evidence, just file a report with the police and the KPK.

7. Settlement of past atrocities: Jokowi takes the issue against Prabowo?

During opening statements, which was the first segment of the debate before it officially started, Jokowi and Prabowo took turns to present their own camps visions related to the topics of the debate.

In his speech, Jokowi mentioned his administrations efforts to solve human rights abuse cases and acknowledged challenges that had hampered the process. However, we are still committed to resolving [the cases], he said.

There was no such thing mentioned in Prabowos own visions delivered on Thursday.

The former general was implicated in the kidnapping of pro-democracy activists between 1997 and 1998.

Military documents leaked in 2014 showed that the Indonesian Militarys (TNI) officers ethics council had discharged Prabowo for his involvement in the forced disappearances, among cases that Jokowis administration had promised to address.

The topic of breakthroughs to solve the cases did not come up during the debatewhether in the panelists-made questions that were picked randomly by the candidates or during the open debate between the rival camps.

In his closing statement, however, Jokowi appeared to take a jab at Prabowo in regard to the latters tainted human rights track record.

We wont talk too much; we understand the nations problems and what we have to do to address them, Jokowi said, We are not dictators or authoritarians. We do not have a track record of human rights violations, violence or corruption. (swd)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 16:37 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e78320c 1 National KNPB,Papua,police,human-rights,human-rights-abuse,AmnestyInternational Free

Human rights groups have called on the Papua Police to immediately and unconditionally drop the rebellion charge against three activists from the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) and release them.

Amnesty International and Yayasan Pusaka issued a recent statement saying that the activists "were prisoners of conscience" who had not employed violence or hatred, and were imprisoned solely for expressing their political views in a peaceful manner.

The Indonesian authorities have used Article 106 of Indonesias Criminal Code, along with Article 110, to criminalize dozens of peaceful pro-independence political activists with the charge of rebellion in the last decade, said Amnesty International Indonesia spokesman Haeril Halim.

The incident began on Dec. 31, when the Indonesian Military (TNI) and regional police raided and seized the KNPB headquarters in Timika, Mimika Baru district. Security forces have since been using the organization's offices as a TNI-police post.

A few days prior to the takeover, the KNPB had sent a letter notifying the police that the organization would be holding a religious prayer and traditional Papuan feast to celebrate its anniversary. The police, who did not present a warrant for either arrest or search, came to the organization's headquarters on the same day, arrested six activists and transported them to Timika Police Station. The police later released the activists without charge.

Halim said that the organization's legal representatives had sent a letter to the Mimika Police chief on Jan. 3, requesting that the security forces depart the KNPB offices and stop obstructing its members' access to the building.

On Jan 5, the Mimika Police summoned eight KNPB activists for questioning under suspicion of committing "acts of rebellion. Three of the activists, Yanto Awerkion, Sem Asso and Edo Dogopia, were named as suspects and charged with rebellion on Jan. 8.

Article 106 of the Criminal Code enables authorities to sentence a person to life imprisonment or a maximum of twenty years for any attempts undertaken with the intent to bring state territory, wholly or in part, under foreign rule or as a separate part thereof, Halim said.

Feby Yoneska, an Indonesian Legal Aid Institute activist, shared his views, stressing that the organization's recent activities should not have been deemed to be violating the law.

"The article on rebellion can be applied only if it is proven that the activists prepared an attack with a subversive intention," he told The Jakarta Post.

He added that charging certain groups with rebellion was clearly a form of persecution.

In the past decade, the West Papua National Committee has organized mass demonstrations in several Papuan cities to call for a referendum for self-determination.

KNPB spokesperson Ones Suhuniap said it was unacceptable that someone could be charged with rebellion when they had merely voiced a different opinion. He said he believed that the charge was made only to justify the police's seizure of the organization's headquarters.

This shows the terrible state of law enforcement in Indonesia, he said.

The rights groups said that they took no stance on the political status of any Indonesian province, including calls for independence, and that the right to freedom of expression protected the right to peacefully advocate independence and other political solutions.

In some cases, law enforcement use excessive force against peaceful protesters, but these cases are not adequately investigated and no one suspected of being responsible for them has ever been brought to justice, Halim said. (ggq)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 18:28 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e78b838 1 City ETLE,ticket,STNK,Jakarta-police Free

The Jakarta Polices traffic division has blocked 800 vehicle registration certificates (STNK) owing to overdue electronic traffic law enforcement tickets.

We have blocked 800 STNK, traffic division director Sr. Comr. Yusuf said as quoted by kompas.com on Friday.

Yusuf said vehicle owners, both cars and motorbikes, had to pay the tickets if they wanted to extend the certificates validity.

The electronic traffic system had been enforced on Jl. MH Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman in Central Jakarta.

The police are coordinating with the Jakarta administration to install more cameras so that the enforcement scope could widen.

The system had been applied since November. So far, the system only applies to vehicles with a B-series license plate, which indicates that the vehicle is registered in Jakarta.

Yusuf said the next plan was to apply the ticketing enforcement on vehicles with other license plate series.

He said vehicles with different license plates only comprised 10 percent of vehicles in Jakarta. Considering the fact, he said it would not be a complicated development for the system. (gis)
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Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar  Fri, January 18, 2019 19:45 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e78e5f1 1 National tourism,bali,waste-management Free

While battling against the plastic that has besieged its waters, Bali is preparing a bylaw that will impose a US$10 levy on foreign tourists.

The Bali administration has drafted a bylaw on tourist contributions for the environment and cultural preservation, which has been discussed with the Bali Legislative Council since December.

Bali Governor Wayan Koster said the revenue from the tourist tax would be allocated to fund programs on preserving the environment and Balinese culture.

This will give us better fiscal space to support the development of Bali, Koster said at the Bali Legislative Council building.

A renowned tourist destination, Bali welcomed 5.7 million foreign tourists in 2017, most of whom came from China and Australia. The number was expected to exceed 6 million in 2018, in which the island province hosted international events such as the Annual Meetings of the IMF-World Bank.

The province is also battling against the growing volume of plastic waste that has polluted its beaches and waters. The Bali Environment Agency recorded that the island produced 3,800 tons of waste every day, with only 60 percent ending up in landfill.

Plastic waste became so unbearable that the administration banned single-use plastics like shopping bags, styrofoam and straws.

The ban, as stipulated in Gubernatorial Regulation No. 97/2018, is expected to result in a 70 percent decline in plastic found in Bali's marine environment within a year.

Koster said he is optimistic that the tax would not discourage tourists from visiting the island.

Tourists will understand [the regulation]. They will be happy to pay it as it will be used to strengthen our environment and culture, he said.

Bali is not the only tourist destination to have imposed a tax on travelers. This year, Japan also started collecting a departure tax, known as the sayonara tax, of 1,000 yen (US$9.10). But the levy applies to both Japanese and foreign travelers leaving the country by plane or ship.

Koster said the policy will be imposed only on foreign tourists, not domestic tourists, because of a directive from the central government that has targeted Bali as the pilot project on a waste management system in a tourist destination.

Most foreigners come to Bali for a holiday, local tourists only come to visit their family, have meetings or for their institutions events, he said, adding that the subject of the levy was still under discussion.

The Bali legislature is deliberating how the tax will be collected. The council and the administration are considering whether the levy should be included in the airline ticket or collected at special counters at the airport. The first option is seen as more feasible with the help of airlines.

The plan on the foreign tourist levy is supported by local leaders.

Contributions from tourists are needed to help us preserve our environment and culture. Tourists come to enjoy our environment and culture. Why not contribute to preserving it? said Bali Legislative Council Speaker I Nyoman Adi Wiryatama of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Ida Bagus Purwa Sidemen, the executive director of the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants Association, said the group was not worried that the levy would deter tourists.

As long as the levy is used for preserving environment and culture, I think it would not cause a decline in tourist numbers. However, if there is no real program following the implementation of the bylaw, tourists may feel disappointed and it would lead to a decrease in tourist arrivals, he added.

Chairman of the Association of Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies Bali chapter Ketut Ardana also warmly welcomed the plan, saying that it would not discourage tourists from visiting Bali. "Actually, it has been discussed in Bali for a long time. If it could be implemented now, that would be really good," Ardana said.

Ardana said $10 is not a large amount of money for tourists. "Other countries also charge foreign tourists. I think $10 won't affect them. If we visit Dubai, we should pay $11 per person and we pay it," he added.

Tourism expert from Udayana University Ida Bagus Puja Astawa also support the initiative.

He said a study in 2015 found that 60 percent of foreign tourists were willing to pay for the conservation of nature and culture.

"Most foreign tourists think it is necessary to preserve nature," Puja said.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Batam  Fri, January 18 2019

Indonesia has allowed an Ethiopian Airlines cargo plane to leave Batam in Riau Islands for Singapore after the plane was forced to land on Monday on suspicion of violating Indonesian airspace.



Hang Nadim airport director Suwarso said that the decision was issued on Wednesday night following a meeting between representatives from the airport, the Air Force, state-owned air navigation firm AirNavs Batam office, the customs and immigration office, as well as those from the Ethiopian government.



Flight clearance has been issued and the plane has just left [the country], Suwarso said on Thursday. [But] officials in Jakarta will discuss further penalty for the airlines.



The aircraft left Batam on Thursday noon, according to authorities.



Three Indonesian Air Force F-16 fighter planes from Roesmin Nurjadin Air Force Base in Pekanbaru, Riau, intercept...
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 10:51 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e76d05d 4 Business Singapore,tourism-hub,Arief-Yahya,Batam,Bintan Free

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya has explained that Indonesia has identified Singapore as a tourism hub this year as it seeks to benefit from 7,200 flights a week from and through the island state.

I am saying that it is easier to fish in the neighbors pond that has already has a lot of fish. There are 11 million potential tourists, who we can encourage to come to Indonesia, said Arief in Jakarta on Thursday as quoted by kontan.co.id, adding that Singapore had responded positively to the Indonesian idea.

The initiative is stated in the Tourism Ministrys program as part of the effort to achieve the targeted 20 million tourist arrivals in 2019.

Arief said the program had been introduced after learning about the success of the Hot Deals tourism promotion in Riau Islands  Batam and Bintan, the closest Indonesian resorts to Singapore  which had sold 700,000 tourism packages within three months last year.

He said Singapore was the main market for the Hot Deals promotion that offered discounts of up to 60 percent from Monday to Thursday. This year, the target for the Hot Deals promotion drive is to sell 1 million tourism packages.

Arief said three tourism programs had elicited a positive response from Singapore: making the country a hub for Indonesian tourism, jointly promoting the idea of cruise ships visiting Indonesia and investing in one of Indonesias 10 prioritized tourist destinations branded as the New Balis.

With the three programs, we not only target Singaporeans and expatriates living in the country, but also tourists from China and India to be encouraged to come to the islands of Batam or Bintan, he added. (bbn)
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Linkedin Rachmadea Aisyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 13:00 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e775727 1 Business Industry-4-0,index,industry-ministry Free

The government has devised an index to measure the productivity and competitiveness of domestic manufacturers as the world enters the fourth industrial revolution, popularly called Industry 4.0.

The Indonesia Industry 4.0 Readiness Index (INDI 4.0) supports a government road map called Making Indonesia 4.0, which was launched by President Joko Jokowi Widodo in April last year.

The head of the Industry Ministrys Industrial Research and Development Agency (BPPI), Ngakan Timur Antara, explained that INDI 4.0 consisted of five main development indicators: people and culture, management and organization, products and services, factory operations, and technology. Scores for each of the indicators range from 0 to 4.

Currently, about 10 companies have signed up for the index, but we actually scored 20 companies before the index [was officially launched], Ngakan told reporters at a recent press briefing. We have trained 40 people to assess these companies and guide them in upgrading themselves once they receive their assessment results.

The ministry, he added, would announce the index scores of all participants from March 20 to 21, following a conference and an opportunity for the companies to showcase themselves at the ministrys headquarters. The registration and scoring process began this week.

Few of the companies the ministry had assessed were ready for Industry 4.0 in terms of their manufacturing activities, said Ngakan, adding that most of them had at least acknowledged the revolution.

He encouraged manufacturers to immediately take action, quoting undisclosed corporate research claiming that, if properly implemented, Industry 4.0 would slash production costs by between 15 and 20 percent and the number of rejected products by 40 percent.

Ngakan also addressed the issue of capital to obtain Industry 4.0 technology, noting that a factory owned by France-based Schneider Electric in Batam, Riau Islands, had earned back within a year all the money it had disbursed to implement Industry 4.0.

In accordance with President Jokowis road map, the index would prioritize five industries to score: food and beverage, textile and garment, automotive, chemical and electronics.

Nevertheless, other industries are very much welcome to join the scoring [...] as it would be useful for manufacturers self-assessments, said Ngakan.

All costs of the index assessment will be borne by the 2019 state budget funds allocated for the ministry, which in 2018 had been granted an additional budget of Rp 2.57 trillion (US$181 million) dedicated to the Making Indonesia 4.0 road map.

According to a 2018 study by global consulting firm McKinsey, 78 percent of Indonesian companies are aware of the Industry 4.0 concept. The figure was beaten only by Vietnam at 79 percent, while countries like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia saw lower awareness rates.

If properly done, Industry 4.0 could contribute nearly $121 billion to Indonesia's gross domestic product by 2025, McKinsey calculated.

An Industry 4.0-ready manufacturing sector is expected to provide more than a quarter of the GDP increase at $34 billion, followed by retail at $25 billion, transportation at $16 billion, mining at $15 billion, agriculture at $11 billion, telecommunications at $8 billion, health care at $7 billion, public sector and utilities at $5 billion and financial services at $2 billion.

Indonesia Cloud Computing Association (ACCI) chairman Alex Budiyanto lauded the initiative, saying the association would support the ministry in the scoring effort, as cloud computing was the heart of a state-of-the-art Industry 4.0.

Getting internet bandwidth and electricity as the enablers of cloud computing, I believe, is no longer an issue in Indonesia these days, Alex said following the briefing. [Industry 4.0] could help even more conventional businesses, in fact, by eliminating risks from things like blackouts or broken computers.

The ACCI, he added, was currently working with the International Data Center (IDC) to measure the efficiency changes from incorporating Industry 4.0 technology and cloud computing in manufacturing environments. (bbn)
In October, the CSCU system reported that if tuition remains flat for the next two years, the system would have a budget gap of $15.7 million next year and $31.9 million the following year. To forestall this, the system said it would need to raise tuition by 2 percent at the community colleges and 4 percent at the state universities in each of the next two years.
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Linkedin Riza Roidila Mufti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 12:15 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e772618 1 Business airline-profits,airline-ticket,Garuda,customers,aviation,aviation-turbine-fuel-ATF-avtur,Aviation-competition,Garuda-Indonesia,citilink,AirAsia,Lion-Air Free

Customer is king. That is how the age-old saying in business goes.

Many companies work hard to provide the best service for their customers, and this has become a source of power for customers to get the best and most profitable service possible.

However, while customers indeed have a right to complain, they are urged to be fair when doing so. Speaking about the recent social turbulence faced by national airlines when passengers complained about skyrocketing ticket prices, Ombudsman Indonesia commissioner Alvin Lie said customers should be wiser when comparing ticket prices.

Comparisons must be apple-to-apple, Alvin told the press recently.

Last week, netizens complained that it was cheaper to fly from Banda Aceh to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore before arriving in Jakarta compared to flying directly from Banda Aceh to Jakarta.

Such a comparison, Alvin said, was not reasonable.

Flights with transits are indeed cheaper, but it comes with a 10-hours layover, he added, saying that based on time efficiency, the two types of flights thus came with different privileges.

Alvin explained that the government charged domestic flights value-added tax (PPN), while international flights were not subject to it.

Moreover, he said, international flights or transits to countries like Singapore, which provides various incentives for airlines, would thus be more affordable than direct domestic flights.

As a major international hub, Changi International Airport provides various incentives to encourage airlines to bring in stop-over passengers.

Another unreasonable comparison is comparing ticket prices from Jakarta to Singapore when using Netherlands-based KLM Royal Dutch Airlines or France-based Air France.

In long-haul flights operated by KLM and Air France, their main goal is to fly people to their main destinations in Amsterdam or Paris. Thus the seats to Singapore are sold to maximize the load factor until they arrive at Singapore, so they sell the seats cheaper instead of leaving them empty, Alvin said.

Furthermore, he added, it should be noted that there were different types of airlines in Indonesia, comprising of full service, medium service and no frills. Airlines that are categorized as full service are Garuda Indonesia and Batik Air, while medium service airlines are Trigana Air, Travel Express, Sriwijaya Air, NAM Air and Transnusa Air Service, and no-frills service ones are Lion Air, Wings Air, AirAsia, Citilink and Asi Pudjiastuti Aviation.

For example, you must compare AirAsia tickets to Lion Air, not Garuda, he said.

Indonesia Consumers Foundation (YLKI) chairman Tulus Abadi said even though the surge in ticket prices had not violated regulations, customers were still shocked.

Customers who are used to prices and all of a sudden are faced with prices that are much more expensive would be shocked, especially if the surge is at the same time, he added.

Tulus said the recent social turbulence should be a lesson for the industry to understand consumer psychology in the Indonesian market.

Public policy expert Agus Pambagyo said amid the challenging situation for the aviation industry, airlines could increase its prices but should do so gradually.

How do airlines set airfares?

In Indonesia, ticket prices are regulated under Transportation Ministerial Regulation No.14/2016 on ceiling prices. Airlines are given the space to apply their own business strategy to generate revenue as long as they set prices within the determined limit.

Indonesia National Air Carriers Association (INACA) chairman I Gusti Ngurah Askhara Danadiputra, also known as Ari Askhara, said an ideal and profitable fare depended on the routes, types of aircraft and seating class.

Ari, who is also the president director at Garuda Indonesia, added that operational costs were a major factor in determining ticket prices. The association predicts that jet fuel contributes 40 to 50 percent of ticket pricing, while aircraft leasing and maintenance each account for 20 percent, and facilities contribute 2 to 10 percent.

Such costs are dependent on the price of jet fuel and foreign exchange rate, thus operational costs for national airlines were sky high throughout last year.

To maximize revenue from ticket pricing, airlines normally use revenue management and capacity management systems. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), in revenue management, airlines used strategies to generate revenue through the correct application of optimal seat allocations.

In the revenue management system, we manage pricing. For example, we allocate 20 to 30 seats with lower prices in one flight. Thus, after the cheaper seats are sold out, the system would automatically refer customers to the seats with higher prices, so those who are faster get the cheaper price, Citilink president director Juliandara Nurtjahjo explained.

With such a system, airfares thus followed the rule of supply and demand, he said.

Meanwhile, through revenue management, airlines could manage passenger demands, seat inventory control, scheduling and capacity adjustments, according to the IATA.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) South Tangerang  Fri, January 18 2019

Thirty computers at SMP 19 state junior high school in South Tangerang, Banten, were stolen on Wednesday, raising concerns over whether the school will be able to hold computer-based national exams.



South Tangerang Education and Culture Agency head Taryono said his office would provide the school with new computers so students could complete their exams.



We are preparing to resolve the issue so it will not disrupt the exams. SMP 19 will still be able to hold the exams, if God wills, he said on Thursday as quoted by tempo.co.



Taryono expressed regret for the robbery, saying that the computers had been kept under maximum security.



The computers were kept in a specific room under maximum security. There were iron bars installed in the building, and also security staff and CCTV cameras, he said.



South Tangerang administration officer...
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Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Surakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 16:43 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e783cdf 1 National surakarta,City-Hall,tolerance Free

Mosaic art surrounding a statue on a major road in Surakarta, Central Java, has drawn ire from conservative Muslim groups, which have said that an aerial view of the art showed that the design resembled a Christian cross.

Surakarta's Muslim Troops (LUIS) has questioned the design and demanded that the city administration review it.

Weve asked the Surakarta administration to evaluate and replace the cross-like mosaic with other motifs so as not to cause controversy and sectarian disputes, LUIS spokesperson Endro Sudarsono said.

An aerial photo of the mosaic on Jl. Sudirman also went viral and caused controversy among internet users.

Surakarta Mayor FX Hadi Rudyatmo dismissed the opinions, saying that the administration never planned for the road mosaic, which is located in front of City Hall, to resemble a cross. He also said that he was not involved in the creation of the design. If I [had planned] a cross on a road, I would have blasphemed my own religion. A cross is very much respected by Christians. No cross is placed down below. All are placed up above, said Hadi, who is a Catholic.

He further elaborated that in Catholicism, a cross had specific requirements, such as in terms of size, and that it must also have a figure of Jesus on it.

Hadi said the design had been prepared by the Surakarta Public Works and Housing Agency. He said the administration would keep the art despite the controversy on social media.

Going viral is normal, he said.

Separately, the public works agencys secretary, Taufan Basuki, said the mosaic design had been integrated with the Pemandengan Statue, Gladag traffic circle and the Kasunanan Surakarta Palace hall, all located in the area.

The design has to be seen as one, starting from the Pemandengan Statue until the Gladag traffic circle. Not separately, Taufan told a press briefing at City Hall.

He also explained that the mosaic was designed based on the eight directions of a compass with the Pemandengan Statue as the center point. The eight directions are shown with the yellow lines of the mosaic.

Surakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Ribut Hari Wibowo called on people to be levelheaded. Ribut said that after hearing explanations and opinions from a number of institutions and experts, the police had concluded that there were no sectarian elements in the design.

People have to be wiser and look at things with a clear perspective. Dont waste your energy by relating things to sectarian sentiments, Ribut said.

Sobari, the head of the Surakarta chapter of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), also dismissed the negative sentiments surrounding the mosaic design.

He echoed the polices statements, saying that the complaint about the design was a one-sided perspective.

Dont skew reality with a one-sided perspective, he said.
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Linkedin Rachmadea Aisyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18 2019

Beyond flashy promises and all-out commitments, business players are highlighting the importance of policy and regulatory certainty when it comes to presidential candidates as they gear up for the April election.



Businesspeople called on incumbent President Jokowi Jokowi Widodo and contender Prabowo Subianto to maintain clear priorities and ensure business competitiveness regardless of any reforms they were offering.



Setting their priorities straight to strengthen the domestic economy were more important amid ongoing disruptions from the United States-China trade war and monetary normalization in developed markets, they said.



Representing the upstream side, food and beverage industry businessman Rachmat Hidayat said he was happy to see that both candidates had a shared mission to take Indonesias manufacturing sector forward.



The food and beverage...
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Linkedin Tun Khin (The Jakarta Post) London  Fri, January 18 2019

This week, ASEAN foreign ministers are gathering in the northern Thai town of Chiang Mai for an informal summit, the first time they meet since Thailand assumed the regional blocs chairmanship at the turn of the year. As the diplomats come together on Jan. 17-18, they must make sure that one particular issue takes center stage  the genocide enfolding in Myanmar against the Rohingya.



The plight of the Rohingya hit international headlines in August 2017, when the Myanmar security forces launched a clearance operation in Rakhine state. In a few weeks, many thousands of Rohingya women, men and children were killed, almost 800,000 were forced to flee into neighboring Bangladesh, and whole villages were torched to the ground.



This brutality was just the latest chapter in a long story of abuse, as Rohingya have suffered systematic persecution at the hands of Myanmar...
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 06:58 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e76563a 1 City Tanah-Abang-skybridge,street-vendors,clash Free

Street vendors under the newly installed Tanah Abang Skybridge clashed with Central Jakarta Public Order Agency officers (Satpol PP) as the latter attempted to raid street vendors on Thursday.

Head of Tanah Abang Satpol PP, Aries Cahyadi, said the clash started at 10 a.m. and went on for 30 minutes following street vendors resistance.

The clash started when South Jakarta Satpol PP personnel were raiding the street vendors. We have been clearing the area of street vendors for two weeks in a row, Aries said on Thursday, as quoted by kompas.com.

The street vendors threw rocks at the personnel, Aries said, damaging the windows of a Satpol PP vehicle.

The agency then cooperated with the Tanah Abang Police to detain three men who allegedly incited the clash.

The police have kept the rocks and damaged car as evidence.

As of 12 p.m., the Tanah Abang Police were still seen guarding the area, with personnel deployed starting from Tanah Abang Station to the hall of Blok G at Tanah Abang Market.

Street vendors were also back to selling their commodities under the sky bridge. (ars)
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Linkedin Yulia Savitri (The Jakarta Post) Palembang  Fri, January 18, 2019 10:21 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e76c00b 1 National narcotics,drug-abuse,crystal-methamphetamine Free

A high-ranking police official in South Sumatra has been dismissed from his post after it was found that he had been using drugs.

Adj. Sr. Comr. Agus Setiawan, who led the police headquarters in Empat Lawang, was dismissed after a forensics laboratory revealed he tested positive for amphetamine, a narcotic agent. The dismissal is stipulated in a National Police chief telegram dated Jan. 15.

He tested positive for sabu-sabu (crystal methamphetamine) and ecstasy. He has been officially dismissed from his post, North Sumatra Police chief Insp. Gen. Zulkarnain Adinegara said on Wednesday.

Zulkarnain said the urine test result also showed that Agus was an active drug user. He said he had consulted with a health team to see if Agus could undergo a rehabilitation program.

He also said he hoped the dismissal would show other police officers that the law enforcement institution was serious about eradicating drugs and narcotics.
The short film Tainted opens with a young boy lying in bed clutching an action figure in one hand. Beneath the blanket, the boy is naked. On his bare thigh, fresh blood trickles. The soundtrack over this opening tableau is one of deep breathing that grows faster as it becomes more urgent.

The scene cuts to the back of a mans head watching a video on a computer. With one hand he seems to be masturbating. With the other, he clutches the same action figure previously held by the little boy.

It is a disturbing scene. Even more disturbing however, are the scenes that follow. The man vainly trying to communicate to his mother the event of that night that left him violated in his bed as a young boy. An event that had left him anguished and broken, and had inevitably tainted his life and perverted his own sexual desires.

In all this, the mother, cocooned in her own world of denial, clings to her image of the perfect mother raising the perfect son.

As the son tells her of the rape by his uncle, she beats the image out of her head as she beats the dough of the pie that she is baking. She thinks her son is telling her his horrific story in order to punish her. She doesnt understand why. Because she has done nothing.

And this is the crucial message of this twelve-and-a-half-minute film. The son suffers precisely because the mother has turned a blind eye to the reality of his rape and does nothing. He will continue to inflict the same pain on another child. And so the cycle of abuse continues.

Pedophilia is a difficult topic to deal with in any form. For many, it is still a topic to be pushed under the bed, together with the bogeymen and scary monsters of childhood. It is better that they remain unreal, lest bringing them up results in being devoured by these horrors.

To bring the topic to the big screen, in all its pain and complexities, however, is even more challenging. It requires courage, insight and the sensitivity of a mature film director who does not pander to the audiences taste or expectations, but who instead is very clear of the films purpose.

Everything I create, says film director Peretz, has a meaning and or message. And that is my branding. Nothing made for dulling the senses.

It is probably because of this awakening of the senses, (the way we prick up our ears whenever the topic of sex is concerned, not to mention when discussing sexual perversion), that Tainted was chosen and screened at Cannes Film Festival 2018, and is being picked up for the full narrative feature version.

As a film director, producer and writer, says Peretz, my main purpose is to create content that always has substance and a societal message. I truly love to bring out taboo matter into the open and really direct any and all issues with it, as an attempt to resolve the issue, but done so in a poetic manner, whether its grotesquely poetic, or beautifully so.

My own interest however, goes beyond this short film with its difficult and discomfiting topic and its both poetically beautiful and grotesque treatment on celluloid. It is with the director herself. Topaz Peretz. A young woman barely in her early twenties, and yet with an old, wise head above her confident shoulders, pushing tirelessly and fearlessly to penetrate the merciless male industry of fortress Hollywood.

Film directing is my sole goal, says Peretz. And what I wish to do for the rest of my life.

A dream that she has nurtured since the tender age of 12. From then on, the precocious pre-teen planned the next 10 years of her life like most people plan out their week.

I chose the university I wanted to go to at that age and honed my skills. I graduated from New York Film Academy in January 2018, and got my thesis into Cannes Film Festival 2018, which immediately brought me many more job opportunities.

Thus, when many young people at this age are still pondering about what career they want to embark on, or even what they want to do with their lives, Peretz has already a laundry list of qualifications and experience under her three resumes of film director, producer and writer.

It is not only her focus and determination that make her unique as a millennial, but her background itself is nothing short of unusual.

Peretz is the daughter of an Israeli father and an Indonesian mother, was born in London and went to a Catholic school. The irony of a Jewish father and Muslim mother, whilst put into a Catholic school seems to always get an interesting response, she says.

Indeed, in a world of increasing polarization, narrow-mindedness and identity politics, it is refreshing to meet someone who is the embodiment of tolerance. I am part of the LGBT community, she says, and work toward female empowerment. The film Dollhouse [her next project] will be a completely female crew.

So what lies ahead for this adrenaline junkie who loves height (her exercise is swinging from drapes in the air while doing complicated maneuvers as if shes a member of the flying trapeze in a circus) and who had been an extreme skier since the age of 5? What does she see as her ultimate target and achievement?

"You know those kinds that sit in their room and fantasize about their weddings?" says Peretz. This has always been my fantasy:

Me: Hey, Warner Bothers, Paramount, I have an idea

WB and P: Dont say another word. Heres a butt ton of cash. Here are your shoot dates. Come back when its done!

Me: Okay, thank you WB and P. Tata!"

Topaz Peretz, well certainly look out for your name on the big Hollywood screen.

-- The article was written specially for The Jakarta Post.
"I Cannot Afford Love" is one of the works by Indonesian artist Nauval Abshar that was prepared for the now-canceled Art Stage Singapore 2019. (Courtesy of Art Porters /-)

Nine days before it was to begin, the organizers of Singapores prestigious Art Stage Singapore have suddenly pulled the plug on the event, shocking all participating exhibitors and artists.

Art Stage Singapore, set to run from Jan. 25 to 27 at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Center, is usually regarded as Singapores most significant annual art event.

Around 45 exhibitors were set to participate this year, a number that was likely behind the reason why the event was canceled. Over the past three years, the number of exhibitors, visitors and sales have reportedly declined steeply, with around 160 exhibitors in 2016 to only 84 in 2018.

According to reports by The Straits Times, Art Stage president Lorenzo Rudolf sent emails to all participating exhibitors on Jan. 16 informing them to cease all preparations or reverse them for Art Stage Singapore 2019.

Affected by this sudden cancellation is Indonesian artist Naufal Abshar, who was set to exhibit eight works at the fair under his gallery, the Singapore-based Art Porters.

The artist said things started to sound odd when he was trying to confirm his booth details with the fairs organizers after being left in the dark for a month.

It was only four days ago when I wanted to make a printed invitation for collectors that I asked [the organizers] again for my booth number, and they right away told me about this rumor that Art Stage might be canceled, he told The Jakarta Post.

But despite this, we still had a positive mindset about it. It was on that morning [of the cancellation] that I got an official email from [Lorenzo Rudolf] saying that the fair would not go on because of some issues [].

As the fairs participating artists scrambled for alternative exhibition venues, Naufal, currently in Singapore, has an exhibition at the Hatch Art Project at Marina Bays Asia Tower 1 starting Jan. 18 along with several other artists from Southeast Asia, including fellow Indonesian artist Aditya Chandra H.

"Nauval Abshar" (Courtesy of Art Porters /-)

Naufals original paintings for Art Stage Singapore will instead be displayed at the Art Porters Gallery at Spottiswoode Park Road, according to the gallerys cofounder Guillaume Levy-Lambert, although as of Friday he said the exhibition date had not been finalized.

Naufal  whose works are known mainly by his go-to aesthetic of depicting laughter in his various surreal and, at times, positively discomforting depictions -- has taken part in exhibitions in Indonesia and abroad, including Singapore, Ireland, Italy and Lithuania. In 2018, he created the album cover for Indonesian popular musician Kunto Ajis album Mantra Mantra.

Hours after the news of the cancellation, sympathetic galleries across Singapore offered their spaces as exhibition hubs for the stranded galleries and artists.

A Facebook group named Art Stage SOS is the main online hub for such interactions, with the number of members recorded at 363 as of 2 p.m. Western Indonesia Time on Friday.

The online hub is a forum that Art Porters gallery head Guillaume Levy-Lambert is also taking part in.

I feel very good with all the initiatives people have taken to offer their help, Levy-Lambert said. [For Art Porters itself], we are holding an exhibition by Singaporean artist Su-en Wong, which opened yesterday as scheduled. So at best, what we can do is to offer pop up [exhibitions] later this year.

"Be Number One" by Nauval Abshar (Courtesy of Art Porters /-)

Attempts to reach out to Lorenzo Rudolf for this article went unanswered. While the former Art Basel director did not elaborate on the reasons why the fair was canceled in his initial email to exhibitors, a full statement circulating in various Singaporean media outlets, initially appearing in Prestige Online Singapore, has been revealed.

In the email, Rudolf laments increasing unequal competition and a stagnant art market in Singapore, with rival art fairs cannibalizing the market. For one, the S.E.A Focus art fair at Gillman Barracks is set to begin and run at the exact same dates Art Stage was supposed to be held.

Rudolf singled this fair out as one of the main obstacles to holding Art Stage in his statement. What is the benefit if, in the difficult market situation [in Singapore], all the participants are previous exhibitors of Art Stage, lured by low participation costs? No new galleries and hardly new collectors and buyers. Is this the necessary incentive for the weak local market?

He also highlighted the stagnant market in Singapore, which resulted in many of the invited galleries of past fairs not wanting to return because of a lack of sales.

Indonesian art auctioneer and expert Amir Sidharta strongly criticized the decision to cancel the fair in the abrupt fashion that it was and for the reasons that were given.

The appearance of the S.E.A Fair should be looked at as a positive thing. The more the merrier, right? Amir told the Post.

He said any claims about the fairs falling attendance rates should have been considered in the initial planning phase. If Art Stage is as prestigious as he claims, then why should he be scared about holding it? Amir said.

I think [Lorenzo] forgot the fact that many galleries and artists in Singapore and abroad have spent large amounts of money preparing for the event next week. It seems that there was no thought spared for these people.

On a brighter note, Amir also saw the dissolution of Art Stage Singapore as an opportunity for the Indonesian art market to draw attention  if Indonesian players were able to network and market themselves well and catch the attention of global collectors.

What happened with this Art Stage fiasco is an example of the art world becoming too capitalistic, be it Southeast Asia or in many other parts of the world. The focus shifted toward sales figures rather than showcasing creativity and talent. (ste)

[gal:4]
A television version of French novelist Michel Houellebecq's most controversial book is in the pipeline, its backers said Wednesday.

Submission has divided critics for imagining a near future in which sharia law is imposed in France after a Muslim president is elected.

Many saw it as provocative, with the writer -- who once described Islam as "the stupidest religion" -- later admitting that he was "probably Islamophobic".

The literary bad boy went into hiding the day it was published in January 2015 after jihadists attacked the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, killing 12 people, including a close friend of the writer.

The French film and TV board told AFP that it was helping to fund a series based on the bestseller for the small screen by Guillaume Nicloux.

Read also: Houellebecq keeps France guessing with 'angry' new novel

The film-maker directed the 2014 comedy, The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq, in which the novelist also starred.

Nicloux is also working on another project in which the socially awkward writer will act alongside French screen legend Gerard Depardieu.

Submission sold nearly 800,000 copies in French and more than half a million in Germany alone, confirming Houellebecq's status as the most read modern French writer abroad.

Houellebecq's latest novel, Serotonin, became an instant bestseller after it was published earlier this month.

Critics hailed it as prophetic, saying that the ageing enfant terrible had predicted the "yellow vests" protest movement that has shaken the country over the last three months.
Winfield, a New Haven resident and co-chairman of the powerful judiciary committee, said a criminal record should not mark a person for life. "When I was a kid, my mother, who was a tough mother, used to tell me ... if [you] do the crime, you do the time,'' he said. "I just dont think she thought the time was for the rest of my life and thats what were really dealing with here.''
Charlotte Rampling, who has appeared in everything from cult movie Zardoz (1974) to accolade-attracting romantic drama 45 Years (2015), is joining the Dune remake in a key role.

Rampling, Oscar nominated for her co-starring performance in 45 Years, will play Reverend Mother Mohiam in Denis Villeneuves Dune, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The character is a senior adviser to the Emperor of the universe, and is responsible for testing the fortitude of Paul Atreides, the grand sci-fi storys hero.

Rampling joins a cast already populated by Timothee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name, Beautiful Boy) as Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson (The Greatest Showman, several Mission: Impossible films) as his mother Lady Jessica, Stellan Skarsgard (Mamma Mia!, early Thor and Avengers films) as Baron Harkonnen, head of the Atreides rival ruling family, and Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy, later Avengers films) as Harkonnens brutal nephew Rabban.

Read also: 'Blade Runner 2049' delivers a devastatingly beautiful dystopia

Blade Runner 2049 director Villeneuve co-wrote the screenplay with Eric Roth (A Star is Born, Forrest Gump) and Jon Spaihts of Prometheus and The Darkest Hour.

The in-demand Greig Fraser, who shot Vice, Foxcatcher, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and is involved with upcoming Star Wars show The Mandalorian, is on board as cinematographer.

Filming is expected to begin in spring 2019, on location in Budapest, Hungary and in Jordan.
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Linkedin Kornelius Purba (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 09:12 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e769762 1 Opinion #commentary,China,economy,ASEAN Free

Beijing admits China lacks trust, vows to try harder, was the heading of The Jakarta Posts report of Jan. 16, based on an interview with Chinese Ambassador to ASEAN Huang Xilian. The interview seemed an indirect response to the conclusion of a Singapore-based think tanks survey that China is facing a serious deficit of trust from its much smaller neighbors.



The ASEAN Studies Center at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute conducted an online survey titled the State of Southeast Asia: 2019 between Nov. 18 and Dec. 5, 2018 to seek the views on China among regional experts and stakeholders from the policy, research, business, civil society and media communities.



Three interesting conclusions of the survey are that first, most respondents do not believe that China will become a benign and benevolent power.



Second, most think China will become a revisionist power with intent to bring Southeast Asia into its sphere of influence.



Third, most respondents have low or no confidence that China will do the right thing in contributing to global peace, security, prosperity and governance.



Ambassador Huang directly addressed the sensitive issue, citing Beijings plan to promote more cultural exchanges and experiences between the grass roots of China and Southeast Asia.



The ambassador reflects Beijings increasing openness to criticism, although there is no shortcut solution. But at least China has signaled strong political will to address its trust deficit.



On the part of the government, we have to work even harder just to bring them together [] That is why we try to present ourselves in a far better perspective for people to understand each other, the diplomat said Monday.



Out of 10 ASEAN members, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have overlapping claims over the South China Sea with China, which claims nearly the whole of the vast sea. These four countries also have an influential population of Chinese descent, who play a key role in their economies. In Indonesia this is a sensitive issue, as the minority Chinese-Indonesian population has often been the scapegoat for the governments failure to boost the economy.



The survey findings merely reconfirm the general sentiment of people, at least in the region. China is the most important trading partner for so many countries, triggering friction, resentment and frustration, including that of United States President Donald Trump. Its role as a creditor for infrastructure projects and many other sectors has also been dominant, even in industrialized countries.



Complaints are growing about Chinas loans for infrastructure projects, many of them with the minimum role of the hosts. But is that solely the problem of China? Not at all. Other major economic powers such as Japan, the US and other western countries have also had problems with their weaker trading partners. Indonesia has also had its own experience with the major money lenders.



In March 1992, then-president Soeharto angrily dissolved the Dutch-led consortium of creditors, the Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI). He was very upset with its chairman Jan Pronk, whom he accused of acting as the Dutch governor general during colonial rule. The Netherlands contribution to the IGGI was quite small, and Japan was the largest donor along with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In April of that year the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) replaced the IGGI.



Soeharto was often upset when the creditors related their money to domestic human rights problems. The US often blocked the sale of spare parts for US-made jetfighters and also Hercules helicopters because Washington was unhappy with Jakarta, particularly regarding accusations of human rights violations by Indonesias military.



What about Japan? On Jan. 15, 1974, then-prime minister Kakuei Tanaka visited Jakarta and was greeted by massive riots protesting Japans dominance in Indonesias economy, though various theories abound regarding the causes of the riots. Under Soehartos 32-year regime, Japan accumulatively became the largest creditor, investor and most important trading partner for Indonesia.



It offered very cheap and very long-term loans, but with the nearly absolute requirement that the projects should be handled by Japanese firms. Japan, however, paid little attention to Indonesias problems such as democracy and human rights.



Today, with China as the worlds second-largest economy, it is just a matter of time before it eventually replaces the US as the biggest. Naturally, China could also play a more crucial political and military role. As the fairly new rich guy on the block, China needs more time to readjust itself to its new position on the international stage.



I agree with the ambassadors idea about the need to boost better mutual understanding among the grass roots, including through exchanges between Chinese people and Southeast Asians. However, a much more substantial approach is needed; for culturally China is no stranger in the region, such as evident in its centuries-long influence in many Southeast Asian dishes.



A friendlier face of China will help to reduce hostilities. Neighbors also need to be more patient with China and not just complain.



An example of more effective soft power on Chinas part would be the sharing of know-how and management of Chinas many strong small and medium enterprises. China can help train Indonesians to be more competitive in international markets. Open your huge market for Indonesian exports especially from small and medium businesses.



ASEAN members and China will always be neighbors. Each needs to try to behave better.
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Linkedin Fajar Hidayat (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019

The beauty of a trade agreement lies in its hypothetical win-win and mutual benefits for the countries involved. The beauty could turn into the beast should a country fail to manage benefits and costs once an agreement is entered into. This premise also applies for Indonesia, which is currently intensifying efforts to conclude more trade agreements, adding to the eight implemented agreements bilaterally and under the ASEAN framework.



Indonesia has concluded three new bilateral trade agreements with Chile, Australia and European Free Trade Area (EFTA) countries. Negotiations with the European Union are under way and so are negotiations with some African countries.



The negotiations with South Korea will be reactivated, and the talks with Peru and Russia will be initiated. Since 2012, Indonesia and other 15 parties of the five ASEAN Plus One FTAs have 

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Linkedin Tun Khin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, January 18, 2019 14:08 881 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e7786fa 3 Opinion ASEAN,Rohingya,genocide,Myanmar,human-rights-abuse,Bangladesh Free

This week, ASEAN foreign ministers are gathering in the northern Thai town of Chiang Mai for an informal summit, the first time they meet since Thailand assumed the regional blocs chairmanship at the turn of the year. As the diplomats come together on Jan. 17-18, they must make sure that one particular issue takes center stage  the genocide enfolding in Myanmar against the Rohingya.



The plight of the Rohingya hit international headlines in August 2017, when the Myanmar security forces launched a clearance operation in Rakhine state. In a few weeks, many thousands of Rohingya women, men and children were killed, almost 800,000 were forced to flee into neighboring Bangladesh, and whole villages were torched to the ground.



This brutality was just the latest chapter in a long story of abuse, as Rohingya have suffered systematic persecution at the hands of Myanmar authorities for decades. I grew up in Rakhine state myself but felt compelled to flee in the early 1990s when I was denied attendance to university, simply because I was a Rohingya.



ASEAN has hidden behind its non-interference principle and remained silent even as the Myanmar military was killing and raping its way through Rakhine. Official statements  most recently after the Singapore Summit in November  have mainly offered bland words of support for Myanmar, and studiously avoided the term Rohingya.



To their enormous credit, individual member states  notably Malaysia and Indonesia  have taken much tougher stances, and called for the Myanmar military to be held to account for their atrocities against.



Last August over 130 parliament members from across ASEAN also signed a statement calling for justice for the Rohingya, clearly demonstrating that this is an issue that attracts sympathy across the region.



Recently, however, there have been growing signs that ASEAN is preparing to take a more active role in the Rohingya crisis. Last November a delegation headed by Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan visited both Bangladesh and Myanmar to discuss ASEANs role in the crisis. Just a month later, plans were announced for ASEAN  and its humanitarian wing, the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance (AHA) Center  to play a role in the repatriation of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar.



Last November, Bangladesh halted plans to begin the return of refugees  not least because it was clear that the Rohingya themselves did not want to go back to a country where their lives are still at risk. But with the Bangladeshi government winning re-election last Dec. 30, talks about repatriation are likely to resume soon.



Southeast Asian leaders must realize that, despite what Nay- pyidaw may claim, conditions inside Myanmar are nowhere near safe and secure enough for Rohingya to return to. Authorities in Myanmar have done nothing to dismantle the state-sponsored discrimination which keeps Rohingya confined in a virtual open-air prison in Rakhine. Nor has Myanmar expressed any intention of granting Rohingya citizenship, a key first step to making life bearable for our community.



Human rights groups and media have recently documented how Myanmar has bulldozed over burned Rohingya villages, and replaced them with military bases, infrastructure projects, and housing for other ethnic groups. Even if Rohingya wanted to return, there might not be anywhere for them to go except for government-run displacement camps, where they risk being held indefinitely in deplorable conditions.



Recent violence between the Arakan army and Myanmar security forces in Rakhine have also shown that region is far from secure. The military has vowed to crush the armed group. If violence escalates, Rohingya people will likely be caught in the crossfire, or even deliberately targeted.



ASEAN must push Myanmar to put a comprehensive plan into place that addresses the root causes of the crisis, including by ending systemic discrimination against Rohingya and granting them full citizenship. ASEAN leaders must also ensure that those responsible for atrocities against Rohingya  regardless of rank or position  are held to account.



Unless Myanmar military officials are brought to justice, they will feel emboldened to commit the same atrocities in the future. This is also true in other parts of the country  such as Shan and Kachin states  where security forces have committed war crimes with impunity.



While Myanmar has established its own commission of inquiry into the events in Rakhine, it will unlikely deliver justice. Myanmar has a long track record of setting up investigations at politically opportune times  the result is always a whitewash.



The only hope for justice lies with the international community, starting with the evidence gathering mechanism established at the United Nations Human Rights Council last September. The world must also guarantee Rohingya in Rakhine some form of protection so that they are not left at the mercy of the Myanmar army again.



ASEAN states might argue that a confrontational line will push Myanmar away from the bloc and into Chinas arms. But with a genocide unfolding in a member state, ASEAN has both a moral and political duty to act. This is an opportunity for ASEAN to show real leadership on human rights  this weeks Chiang Mai summit would be a good place to start.

***

The writer is president of the Burmese Rohingya Organization United Kingdom and international coordinator of the Free Rohingya Coalition.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
Freedom of religion is a fundamental principle in the United States, enshrined in our Constitution.

Over the years, this belief hasnt always been carried out in practice as well as in theory. But compared to many other places in the world, this country has an enviable record of religious tolerance, with little interference from government.

So it was especially remarkable last month when two Democrats on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee seemed to suggest that membership in a Catholic organization could be a reason for their refusal to vote for a judicial candidate.

Their target was lawyer Brian Buescher of Omaha, President Trumps nominee for the U.S. District Court in Nebraska. The senators, Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, posed written questions wanting to know if he would resign his membership in the Knights of Columbus, should he be confirmed.

Harris called the Knights an all-male society (apparently distasteful to her) and criticized their opposition to abortion. Hirono didnt like the Knights support for a California ballot issue to ban same-sex marriage, calling their view an extreme position. She further asked Buescher to promise to recuse himself from cases in which the Knights have taken a position.
Icy road conditions on Friday made commutes difficult and led to numerous school cancellations.

Sgt. Joel Bergman of the Nebraska State Patrol Troop C said the department responded to about a dozen slide-off accidents in Buffalo and Hall counties Friday.

While the Nebraska Department of Transportation treated the roads, Bergman said conditions were slick, and people should avoid any unnecessary traveling.

We dont like to see people driving in these conditions, Bargman said. If you have to, slow down and allow space between you and other vehicles.

The black ice caused extremely icy roads, and Bergman said people were driving too fast for the conditions, which is why they responded to so many accidents Friday morning.

Grand Island Public Schools canceled all student outings and activities Friday. All Friday afternoon classes at the Early Learning Center were canceled. School remained in session at all other GIPS locations.

At Heartland Lutheran High School, principal Tim Leech said there were significantly less out-of-town students attending classes Friday. Around 10:15 a.m., the school announced on its Facebook page that it was dismissing for the day.
District 5 has been a seat of the people, held by a lesbian since 2010 when Sen. Bye threatened to primary when she was not the party choice, Kerrigan said. The ability to primary serves to give each voter a chance for a voice in the partys nominating process. I would love to have had a chance at a primary and to work hard and speak with voters  and have a chance to turn the LGBTQ+ senate representation from zero back to one.
Antoine (Fuqua) really wanted to get it right. He wanted to get the language right and the neighborhoods accurate, he said. It was a world he was really fond of and knew about. He knew some of the people. It was a story he was really passionate about telling in the right way and I feel like Training Day did that.

Fiore also talked about his work on the 2005 film The Island, directed by Michael Bay. The sci-fi action thriller starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johannson is centered around the idea of human cloning.

With this film, Fiore said, a lot of the visual effects are physical and seem real. He said it was important to Bay to have this in the action sequences.

We were not actually driving the car into traffic; we are doing that on stage, Fiore said. A camera was mounted on a huge truck with an arm and the bike is floating through traffic. When the axle comes off on the hood of the car, there is actually a car that has an axle attached to it and it just smashes the car. The other one where the plate moves through the car, it was an actual plate in the middle of the road with a remote-controlled car that moved right (through) it.

Fiore said it is very exciting for him to tell a story on film through his work as a cinematographer.

I think it is about the experiment and the next possible thing. What can you tell in this story? he said. It is very exciting to tell a new project because you develop everything you possibly can for the project, then you are finished with the project. After about a month or so it hits you because it is an open book again. It is the same work again.

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Dear Frustrated: True, its not the best etiquette on a servers part to ask whether you want change. But I think youre looking at this in the wrong light.

Youre assuming servers are insinuating youre cheap when they pose this question. I highly doubt that. Sure, there may be some servers out there who would use such tactics to try to shame a big tip out of customers. But most servers are more polite than that  and more intelligent. (Why risk offending someone precisely at the moment you want him to feel happiest with your service?) I find it more likely theyre oblivious and just trying to save themselves a 30-second trip back to your table. In either scenario, a smile and a yes, please are the appropriate response.

But if I hear a convincing case against this, Ill print it here for you to clip and keep at the ready in your wallet.

Dear Annie: I have a friend who is planning to have her wedding at a lake next year in a state where neither she nor her fiance lives or has relatives.

Her plan is to hold a very small (with about 10 people) private ceremony, to be followed by a reception with about 150 people.
UPDATE: All charges against Kristyn Andrews in this case were dismissed in Hall County District Court on July 10. After an investigation, the charges were dismissed and the court records were sealed.

Woman charged with assaulting two people

Kristyn Andrews, a 30-year-old Grand Island woman, was arrested early Thursday after she allegedly injured her intimate partner and assaulted a woman.

When officers arrived at 421 S. Cherokee Ave. shortly after midnight, they observed Jordan Andrews lying on the floor with injuries to his face and head. Lindsey Jordan reported that Kristyn Andrews had knocked Jordan Andrews out and also assaulted her, causing physical injuries.

Kristyn Andrews, who is also known as Kristyn Michele Newlon, was charged Thursday with first-degree domestic assault and third-degree assault.

Judge Alfred Corey scheduled her preliminary hearing for 9:30 a.m. March 12 and set her bond at $25,000.

As a condition of the bond, she is to have no contact with Lindsey Jordan or Jordan Andrews or visit 421 Cherokee Ave. S.
He and the chairman discussed next steps in the process, said Colleen Flanagan Johnson, a senior adviser to the governor. The governor feels very strongly that UConn must play a vital role in his plan for the economic rejuvenation of the state, and as such, he is taking his responsibility to select the next president of UConn very seriously.
NORWALK  David Levinson never imagined hed become a college president. In fact, when he was a student at SUNY New Paltz, he led several protests against the schools president.

But things changed as he got older.

He started teaching at Massachusetts Bay Community College and became a dean. He moved into a vice president role at Bergen Community College in New Jersey before finally accepting a position at Norwalk Community College as president.

After 15 years as president at NCC, Levinson has announced his retirement, effective in June.

Colleagues call him tireless, a meaningful contributor to the school and a mentor. The say champions connecting with the community and serving students of varying cultures and socio-economic backgrounds.

Its kind of an interesting career path for me, Levinson said, looking back. I saw what you could do and the change you can bring about in peoples lives. Theres nothing like it and the fulfillment that that provides is just extraordinary.

During histenure at NCC, Levinson co-founded Norwalk ACTS for Children, a consortium of community leaders dedicated to eradicating the pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade achievement gap. He also was one of the founders of the Norwalk Early College Academy with IBM and the Norwalk School District. It provides high school students the opportunity to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and a no-cost NCC associates degree within four to six years.

Levinsons last day is June 30. Hell spend the next year as a presidential fellow with the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities.

Im leaving because Ive been here 15 years, Levinson said. I feel Ive accomplished a great deal but its time for new leadership. I feel I can be really helpful at the system level as I serve as a presidential fellow next year.

As a fellow, he can use his expertise to mentor new CEOs, regional presidents and the person stepping into his position.

Ill still be around in the state and still doing things, he said. Beyond that, Ill still remain in higher ed.

Mark Ojakian, president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, praised Levinson for his meaningful contributions to NCC and his service as vice president for the CSCU.

When Levinson joined NCC in August 2004, he had a desire for more community engagement. In his first year, Levinson underscored his commitment to community engagement by holding academic festivals in each of the 10 towns NCC serves. Attendees listened to lectures, participated in art shows, celebrations and demonstrations and had the chance to get to know Levinson.

A year into his presidency, Levinson wrote Community Colleges: A Reference Handbook, a book used by educators nationwide. The book addresses the history, evolution and issues facing community colleges and gives an overview of research on the American community college system.

Under Levinsons leadership, NCC was included in the U.S. Presidents Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll four times. Two years ago, he accepted honors at the White House for NCCs participation in the White House Healthy Challenge, an initiative to inform college students about affordable health insurance.

Cheryl DeVonish will take over Levinsons role as interim chief executive officer on July 1.

I think one of the things Ill continue to focus on is our facilities and making sure students can come on campus at any time and find space to work with another student or have access to a program that they can stop in and enjoy, she said.

Levinson has mentored her for three years in her current role as chief operating officer. Her goal is to continue Levinsons path by integrating the community and college and responding to the needs of the community, she said.

Its very bittersweet for me, DeVonish said of Levinsons retirement. One because Im really excited about stepping into this new interim role but its hard to imagine NCC without Dr. Levinson. People will refer to NCC as the hidden gem and I think President Levinson put us on the map in terms of the work he does and hes really a champion for high quality public education.
NORWALK  Our recent raw, wet weather has me thinking about hot drinks  something that fills the air with aromatic spices, has a bracing note of citrus, and includes an adult dose of liquor to chase the chill.

The classic, of course, is hot cider mulled with cinnamon, clove, and allspice, fortified with a shot of rum, brandy, or bourbon. It doesnt make winter go away but puts it at arm's length, creating a cozy cocoon. If you can drink it in front of a wood fire, all the better.

Marsha and I dropped in on Seth Hiravy, master bartender at Bar Sugo in Norwalk, to see what he had to say on the subject. This Wall Street mainstay, just across from the rejuvenated Wall Street Theater, is known for creative cocktails and chef/owner Adam Roytmans robust Italian food.

Hiravy, tall with a full beard and curling mustache, has an encyclopedic knowledge of mixology and speaks with authority about current trends in the cocktail business. He agreed that hot drinks are a natural for winter in New England. If not here, then where? he asserted.

The basic recipe, he explained, includes a hot liquid (water, cider, or even coffee), sugar, citrus, spice, and, of course, liquor. Bartenders are innovating hot drinks these days, expanding the range of ingredients and combinations.

When I was dreaming about a winter warmer, I didnt have a hot coffee drink in mind. Irish Coffee seems like an after dinner drink from the past, but thats about it. Seth set me straight with a Sugo Italian Coffee.

Starting with an Americano from his espresso machine, he added a house blend of three bitter Italian Amaros plus bourbon and simple syrup, then topped it off with heavy cream infused with green walnut liqueur. Warming, not too sweet, with the mysterious flavors of bitter Amaro, it was scrumptious and the perfect segway from afternoon coffee to the cocktail hour.

Ive always been put off by hot buttered rum, thinking that it would be a slick of butter atop spiced rum and water, but the approach at Bar Sugo is quite different.

Chef Roytman melts butter with cinnamon, hand grated nutmeg, allspice, cloves and brown sugar. Mixed with hot water and dark rum, the infused spices flavor the whole glass and with a little stirring, the compound butter stays blended for a rich, well-rounded and hearty drink.

If hes feeling exuberant, Seth might make a Blue Blazer. The blend of lemon, brown sugar, cinnamon and Old Grandad Bourbon is set ablaze and poured from pitcher to shaker in a streak of showy blue flame. Its not the hot drink I had in mind, but it sure is fun.

At The Tavern at Gray Barns in Norwalk, manager Daria Albert has created the Warm Apple Brown Betty. A blend of warm house-mulled cider, ginger, and fresh lemon, its offered with a choice of aged rum (the most popular choice) or Eagle Rare Bourbon.

A successful hot drink should be warming on multiple levels, Daria said. The spirit, spice, and sweetness should all contribute. Hot drinks should be served steaming in a large mug and the flavors balanced by a spritz of lemon.

A lemon peel floats in the fragrant mug and dots of butter glisten on the top of the Brown Betty. I ordered mine with bourbon, but found a sip of Marshas with rum to be more appealing. Rum, after all, is a natural with citrus and fruit.

Developing a drink recipe and bringing it to the menu is a group effort at Gray Barns. The mulled cider for the Apple Brown Betty is Darias home recipe that includes ginger, clove, cinnamon, and star anise. Its based on the famous hot cider at the Slanted Door restaurant in San Francisco, her hometown. A pot of fragrant cider simmers behind the bar, filling the space with a winter spice aroma.

Bartenders Kyle and Johnny experimented to find the best rum and bourbon matches. Chef Ben Freemole contributed brown butter solids that add a nutty richness and the few drops of butter skimming the surface. Its a successful collaboration.

For better or worse, were just at the leading edge of wooly hat and mitten weather. Theres plenty of dark, cold, maybe even snowy opportunity ahead for a hot toddy, mulled cider, or any warming hot cocktail.

Frank Whitman can be reached at NotBreadAloneFW@gmail.com.
NORWALK  The Norwalk Early College Academy has been granted independent school status, just a month after the district filed its application with the state.

It was quite surprising. I was in touch with state Department of Education and I was told that it would take three to four months, NECA Director Karen Amaker said. It seems as if it was expedited. We are very surprised and very fortunate.

The application was initially filed in response to tensions between Norwalk High School and NECA students and parents.

As NECAs inaugural graduation approached in June 2018, Norwalk High School students noticed their class ranks slide, the result of weighted college courses taken by many NECA students that elevated their GPAs.

A draft policy was proposed that would have slightly reduced the weight of certain NECA credits, subsequently setting off a concerned response from NECA parents. A Board of Education vote on the policy in December was postponed, and instead Superintendent of Schools Steven J. Adamowski announced the plan to apply for independent school status.

Its a move that was met with enthusiasm by parents on both sides, who viewed NECAs new status as a long-term solution to the GPA and class rank problem. After July 1, when NECA officially becomes an independent high school, both NECA and Norwalk High School will have their own, separate, class ranks.

But the problem of alleged inequity remains for the class of 2019, though Board of Education Chairman Mike Barbis said hes not aware of an effort to change the policy just for this years graduates.

Theres nothing to my knowledge actively being worked on. I think the first step was to get this independent school status, Barbis said. Policies are long standing, they sit on the books for a long time. I dont think were going to make a policy change for one year.

With the change in status, Amaker said the schools administrative structure would remain as is, though they may look to add teachers down the road. NECA will continue to operate out of Norwalk High School.

In many ways the model is similar to what weve had with the Center for Global Studies being located in Brien McMahon, said Norwalk Public Schools Chief Communications Officer Brenda Wilcox Williams. It gives the benefit of being a separate school but also allows the students to participate in activities that you get from a more comprehensive school environment.

According to Amaker, NECA students spend half the school day with NECA teachers and students, and the other half with Norwalk High teachers and students.

Its been quite an integrative experience, Amaker said.

Since its inception in 2014-15 as the states first Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-Tech), NECA has roughly quadrupled in size. In its first year, NECA enrolled 80 students. It now has 394 students enrolled, and because of an abundance of applications, will have its first lottery next year.

Not only will NECAs independent status ease tension GPA and class rank tension, it will also allow the district to better track performance data from both schools and craft curriculum accordingly.

Were able to closely monitor and track our data, look at how our students are performing and align our curriculum to our students needs, Amaker said. Its a win-win for everybody.

justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586
STAMFORD  As the news about the host of To Catch a Predator bouncing checks went viral this week, there was one corner of the web unsurprised of the criminal charges levied against Chris Hansen.

It was a comment page full of people who Hansen owed T-shirts, stickers and mugs. And the 59-year-old TV host is accused of bilking a local business of nearly $13,000 for those T-shirts, stickers and mugs.

So ... theres an update, Christopher Glass wrote on the page of Hansens Kickstarter, an online fundraising website. Glass was among 1,220 people who contributed to Hansen vs. Predator, a revival of the Shippan residents pedophilia-catching NBC show. Hansen successfully raised nearly $89,000 to fund the program, which aired in 2016.

Backers of the show, who contributed an average of $73, were promised a mug for a $20 contribution, a signed photo for $40 and a T-shirt and personalized mug with their name next to Hansens have a seat tagline for any donation of more than $45.

For many, they said the mugs never came. Meanwhile, other debts started mounting for Hansen, according to civil lawsuits. It appears Hansens criminal charges came at the same time he was trying to make the mug pledge right.

Ive pretty much written it off, said Travis Hulce, who is still waiting on a mug delivery in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.

Its become somewhat of a joke since it has been four years, he said.

Hansen did not respond to requests for comment.

A Kickstarter spokeswoman said a University of Pennsylvania analysis found that about 9 percent of funded Kickstarter projects fail to fulfill their rewards, such as mugs. Kickstarter does not guarantee projects and does not issue refunds, according to its website.

According to civil suits filed in state Superior Court in Stamford, it isnt only the Kickstarter backers and mug makers at a city promotion company that Hansen owes money to.

In 2015, American Express sued Hansen for $57,900, claiming he refused to make payment on the balance due and owing on a Platinum Card, according to a civil complaint. Hansen didnt appear in court, and court records show no attorney listed for the media personality.

Last spring, Ally Financial filed a lawsuit, claiming Hansen stopped making payments on his 2014 Corvette, records show. In Allys complaint, filed in June 2018, the company said he still owed thousands on the $65,000 sports car when he stopped paying in November 2017.

State Judge Edward R Karazin Jr. in June granted Ally a replevin order, allowing the company to repossess the Corvette.

It is unclear what happened to Hansens Shippan home, but city tax records show the $963,000 colonial is now owned by US Bank Trust, which took ownership last July.

The lengthy wait for mugs first came to light soon after Hansens new show aired its first episode, a predator sting in a Fairfield home. The local sting netted 10 arrests.

In a story on Fox News in 2016 about the rising outcry over missing merchandise, Hansen said the mugs and other goods were on the way.

Some of donor rewards like custom voicemail messages shipped long ago. I have received the books and photos I need to sign and send out. I will get on that over the weekend, he emailed Fox at the time.

Some backers later got their mugs.

Zaq Rizer of Pittsburgh got his mug out of the blue 2 1/2 years after he contributed $20 to Hansen.

I had written off the mug entirely, he said. I was pleased, but also I was like shocked.

Staff writer John Nickerson contributed to this report.
Such is sometimes the narrative arc of major scandals. It should be said that right now, it's very possible that President Donald Trump will survive his legal travails. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III may find criminal conduct but decline to indict; or he may find damning misconduct but nothing illegal; and in either of those cases, any impeachment effort could end up foundering amid the skittishness of House Democrats or, if not, crashing against the wall of the GOP Senate. In these scenarios, Trump could easily get reelected.
Cohill said that hes always felt that government does have a role in broadband infrastructure, comparing it to public-private ventures such as airports and roads.

Some of the incumbents have tried to convince the public in particular and sometimes legislators that this is best left to the private sector, but there are lots of precedents for local and state governments getting involved and providing appropriate infrastructure for the good of the community, Cohill said. All telecommunication, at some level, is a public-private partnership.

Cohill then outlined basic infrastructure the county could provide, which could be conduit pipes or hand holes (underground boxes), dark fiber cable (unused optical fiber), or wireless towers. He emphasized that the service itself would come from private internet service providers (ISPs).

Franklin County has some towers available, Cohill noted, and fees paid by ISPs to lease space on those towers helps offset maintenance costs. Fiber can also be run from towers to homes and businesses.

Another option is less expensive and less obtrusive utility poles, which in turn can transfer signal wirelessly or through fiber to homes and businesses, Cohill said.
Campers arent the crazy, loud people you think they are, she said. I am also neighbors to the marina and I am very happy with the operations there. I would love to see a campground go in there. Franklin County could be missing out on something here.

Patricia Bechtler, who co-manages another Smith Mountain Lake marina, Crazy Horse, said, Any business that can bring more money to the area needs to happen. We need the business because without it we cant survive  Franklin County should be about business, too, or it is just a retirement community.

Vogel said the campground would bring 25 job opportunities to the area 10 full-time, 15 part-time. Other benefits to the area Vogel outlined included housing for local businesses and events such as weddings and fishing tournaments, as well as fishing guide clients.

A lot of people are very interested in having a place for their clients to stay, Vogel said. Whether it be from hunting preserves in the area, a wedding venue, fishing tournamentsits always a hard place for fishing contestants to find a place to stay  there is no alternative to this time of short-term stay on that side of the lake and there is no other RV parks in the county that we know of, of this nature.
Michelle Workman of the Virginia Tourism Corporation spoke about the 50th anniversary of the Virginia is for Lovers slogan.

Roddy Moore of the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum and David Rotenizer, Director of Tourism for Franklin County, spoke about the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution which made Prohibition the law of the land.

The backdrop for the event was the giant LOVE piece of artwork crafted by Franklin County High Schools building trades class. Zack Brooks, Recreation Specialist for Franklin Countys Parks and Recreation department, worked with the school on the LOVE project. The piece, which spent the holidays in front of the Farmers Market in downtown Rocky Mount, is 6 feet tall, 22 feet long and weighs more than 2,000 pounds. Brooks said, I envisioned a good finished product. I couldnt have asked for anything better. He added, I like to see the people enjoy the LOVE.

The Virginia is for Lovers website says, The phrase came from a creative team headed by George Woltz of Martin and Woltz Inc., the Richmond advertising agency that won the Virginia State Travel Service [now the Virginia Tourism Corporation] account in 1968.
Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, a girlfriend of accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (front, 2nd R) testifies as Guzman's wife Emma Coronel (R) looks on from the gallery, with Guzman's defense attorney Eduardo Balarezo (2nd L) listening, in this courtroom sketch in Brooklyn federal court, in New York City on Jan. 17, 2019. (Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)

Woman, Testifying Against El Chapo, Details Affair

NEW YORKLucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez was already trapped in an impossible extramarital relationship with Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman when she found herself in an even crazier bindfleeing with Guzman and others from authorities through an underground tunnel, her outlaw love interest in the buff.

Guzman was naked, Sanchez said Thursday. He took off running. He left us behind.

The account of the mad dash in 2014 and Sanchezs tortured romance with Guzman while he was on the run came at a U.S. drug trafficking trial thats detailed his rise and fall as a near-mythical cartel boss. His lawyers say the allegations have been fabricated by cooperators seeking leniency in their own cases.

Sanchez, 29, a former local politician from Guzmans home state of Sinaloa, took the witness stand in jail smocks after pleading guilty earlier this year to drug charges following her arrest last year. She told her tale with Guzmans wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, sitting expressionless in the gallery.

The petite and soft-spoken witness said she met Guzman in 2010 and by 2011 was visiting him at his hideouts in Cabo San Lucas and elsewhere, and texting with him on cell phones protected by encryption he gave her. Over time, they began mixing business with pleasure that caused her distress, she said.

Until this day, Im confused because I thought we were in a romantic relationship, she said toward the start of her testimony before she began sobbing and needed a break to compose herself. Later, she said of Guzman, Sometimes I loved him and sometimes I didnt.

The trouble began when Guzman drafted Sanchez to purchase marijuana for him, with instructions to ready 882 pounds (400 kilograms) for each plane used to transport it from the countryside.

Prosecutors showed the jury intercepted texts where the pair called each love as they plotted how best to move drugs, though some of Guzmans messages sounded more menacing.

Sanchez said she would sometimes sweet talk Guzman so he didnt think I would rat him out. I thought he could hurt me.

The romance began to sour toward the end of 2012 but seemed like it would never end, Sanchez said, and when he invited her to one of the safe houses in the Sinaloa city of Culiacan in 2014, she automatically accepted.

At the time, a team of Mexican marines were hunting for Guzman, forcing him to leave the safehouse and move to another, she said. She went along and was spending the night with him when there was a commotion outside as one of his assistants blurted, Theyre on us.

She testified that Guzman led her into a bathroom, where the bathtub was lifted with hydraulics to expose a fortified trap door leading to a dark, damp sewage tunnel. It led to a more remote part of the city, where they made their escape, she said.

She was asked how long she was in the tunnel. Long enough to be traumatized, she said, before her testimony ended for the day.

Shortly after the two apparently parted ways, Guzman was captured at a hotel in the resort town of Mazatlan where he had met up with his wife and young twin daughters. Earlier Thursday, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was there testified how the marines were in disbelief that they had bagged Mexicos most wanted, who would still end up escaping a Mexican jail in 2016 before being recaptured for good.

Is it him? Is it him? DEA agent Victor Vazquez said the soldiers kept asking him. He testified he then looked at Guzman with wonder and said, Its you.

By Tom Hays
Woman Sets Fire to Husband After Row Over Phone Password Turns Violent

Warning: Pictures in social media posts contain scenes some may find distressing

A man died two days after his wife set him on fire following an argument sparked by his refusal to give her his phone password.

Dedi Purnama, 26, was repairing the roof of his house in a coastal village in Indonesia on the afternoon of Jan. 12, according to local media reports, when his wife called up to him, wanting to access his phone.

He refused and climbed down the ladder. An argument followed. He then reportedly hit his wife, Ilham Cahyani, who then grabbed a fuel can, doused him in gasoline, and immediately set him on fire.

Local residents of the village on the island of Lombok helped him put the fire out, but not before he had sustained lethal burns.

The victim is currently being treated at the Puskesmas because he suffered burns all over his body, while the perpetrators were immediately secured to the police station, said the police chief in an earlier statement, according to Tribune News.

The newspaper reported that Purnama died two days later. Reports on social media from Purnamas friends mourning his passing also confirm that sometime around Jan. 14 he had died.

Wife Has Police Escort to Funeral Home

Photographs obtained by the Daily Mail and the Mirror citing AsiaWire show Purnama laying on a bed with his torso covered in singed black patches and the skin peeling.

He refused to hand it over  so she poured petrol on him and set him on fire.  Daily Mail  2019117

Cahyani has been arrested, according to the Daily Mail, and remains in custody at East Lombok Regional Police Station. It is unclear from local reports if she has been charged.

Yaa Allah DoresSemoga kau tenang di alam sana kawanSemoga segala amal baikmu diterima di sisi-NyaSemoga  Maskam Mawandi Sahaban  2019114

On social media, his friends posted pictures and videos along with messages of goodbye.

Innalillahiwainnailahirojiunn 3xSelamat jalan kawan,, semoga tenang dialam sana do'aq selalu menyertaimu  ChunK's Rasta  2019114

Goodbye friend, I hope you are at peace  may prayers always be with you  wrote one.

Police allowed Cahyani to pay her last respects to her husband, according to Oke news, whose body was covered with blisters.

A five-strong police escort accompanied her to the funeral home, to protect her from an angry mob on the way, according to East Lombok Police Chief AKBP Agus Winarta, reported Oke News. She was cursed by local residents, and her husbands mother hysterically refused her entry to the funeral home.

Fiercely guarded mobile phone passcodes are increasingly a source of tension between couples, leading to some dramatic showdowns.

A flight had to be diverted in 2017, when a woman became unruly on learningmidflightthat her husband was having an affair by unlocking his carefully guarded phone.

According to reports, the woman had already been drinking before she boarded the flight from Iran to Bali on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2018. When her husband fell asleep, she managed to unlock his phone and uncovered evidence that he had been cheating.

The Hindustan Times said Indian security officials confirmed that the flight had been diverted to Chennai in India to offload a drunk Iranian woman.

She had flown into a rage after unlocking her husbands phone by pressing his thumb against the screen as he slept. The pilot requested permission to divert and land at Chennai as she refused to settle down and cooperate with the flight crew.
Shen Yun performers return for a curtain call at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga, Canada, on Jan. 10, 2019. (Evan Ning/The Epoch Times)

MISSISSAUGA, CanadaFor the past 10 years, Carol Wier has been wanting to see Shen Yun Performing Arts. Every time, she would tell her sister Sharon Rodobolski, We have to get to Shen Yun, we have to get to Shen Yun. The past July, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and Sharon knew she had to find a way to bring her sister Carol to the performance.

Shen Yun, the world renowned classical Chinese dance and music company, has been touring the world since its establishment in 2006 in New York. According to the companys website, the companys mission is to revive the lost world of traditional Chinese culture and share it with everyone.

At first, Carol bought the three most expensive tickets to come with her daughter, Natasha Wier, and Sharon. Were the three musketeerswe always did everything together, said Sharon.

However, Carols condition rapidly deteriorated. We got through Christmas, we got through New Years, said Sharon. But they didnt know how they were going to get her to Shen Yun at the Living Arts Centre on Jan. 13.

I said, Im going to get her there if I have to carry her, said Sharon. She finally found Total Care Transport Service, a company willing to help get Carol to her seat.

Shen Yun was a magical experience for the family, and Natasha and Sharon were especially grateful to share the experience with Carol. She had not been alert lately, but as the curtains opened, her demeanor changed.

She loved it. When she first saw it [the opening], a tear came to her eye, said Natasha.

She kept saying Wow throughout it, said Sharon.

Its a miracle, she added, grateful shed been able to make her sisters wish come true.

The Power of Hope

After the show, Shen Yun conductor Jong-Hun Bae and some of the artists were invited to join the family and the Total Care workers for a post-performance photo.

Natasha expressed her happiness at seeing the performance, and was grateful her mothers dream had finally came true.

A beautiful dream, said Carol. It was fabulousjust bliss.

Natasha described the Shen Yun performance as bringing enjoyment, excitement, beauty, and hope.

Well, there is one thing to do and that is hope. Hopefully well have that, said Carol.

Natasha noted her mother had always valued Chinese culture and spirituality and had wanted to travel to China to see the country for herself. Today she visited China and saw the real, beautiful aspect of Chinaculture, value, religion and dance. Thats what she enjoyed today.

It was wonderful to watch. The colors were fabulous. Just perfect. Id like to come again, said Carol.

One of the beliefs found in traditional Chinese culture and religions, as well as in many other cultures and religions around the world, is that good people will be rewarded and eventually return to heaven one day.

Shes an amazing person, said Natasha of her mother. This is why this [experience to see Shen Yun] happened to her. This happened to her because inside shes a good person and this is what its all about: Be a good person and in the end it will come back to you.

This message of goodness rewarded is at the core of Shen Yuns performances.

Natasha also wished to send a message to the artists. Keep doing what theyre doing because it brings happiness to everybody watching, she said.

With reporting by NTD Television and Madalina Hubert.

The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time and has covered audience reactions since the companys inception in 2006.
Want to Be Danish? Youd Better Shake Hands

COPENHAGENAfghan-born Sakandar Khan, 30, was among the first nine new Danish citizens who shook hands with Denmarks immigration minister under a new law that makes a handshake the final step in the naturalization process.

This is a huge thing for me. I am thrilled, the former practicing Muslim, dressed in shirt and tie, said with a smile.

For Khan, who fled Afghanistan with his family in 2001, shaking the hand of the minister, who happens to be female, wasnt a problem. But the law has been criticized for breaching freedom of religion, as some observant Muslims and Jews avoid touching unrelated members of the opposite sex.

The government says the handshake is an important part of Danish culture and values, and no one who refuses can be Danish.

If you dont shake hands, you dont understand what it means to be Danish, because in Denmark, we have equality and that is something generations before us fought to achieve, said Immigration Minister Inger Stojberg, who led the first ceremony.

The handshake ceremony will be performed by mayors and deputy mayors of the municipalities where immigrants live. Not all of them are pleased.

When you can be rejected because of a handshake, we may have gone too far, Thomas Andresen, mayor of the town of Aabenraa, told Danish broadcaster DR.

Danes pride themselves on their hyggea word roughly meaning to be cozyon being among the happiest people in the world.

But, increasingly, they are also becoming known for taking an ever harder line against immigration in the historically tolerant Nordic region.

Denmarks parliament last year banned wearing the Islamic burqa and niqab in public and approved a plan to hold foreign criminals on a tiny island.

In 2016, Denmark came under international criticism when it passed a jewelry bill, allowing police to confiscate refugees valuables to help pay their costs.
U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Jonathan Farmer (left), 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida is pictured in an undated photo released by the U.S. Army, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, U.S. Navy Cryptologic Technician Shannon M. Kent, 35, is pictured in an undated photo released by the U.S. Navy, in Washington, on January 18, 2019. (U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS)

US Names Three Killed in Syria Blast Claimed by ISIS

A U.S. Navy servicewoman and a former Navy SEAL are among the four Americans killed in a suicide bombing this week in northern Syria that the United States believes was likely carried out by ISIS, U.S. officials said on Jan. 18.

Army Chief Warrant Officer Jonathan Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician Shannon Kent, 35, identified as being from upstate New York; and Scott Wirtz, a civilian Department of Defense employee from St. Louis, died during the Wednesday attack in Manbij, Syria, the Department of Defense said in a statement.

Pentagon identifies 3 Americans killed in Syria attack Includes Navy Intel Chief Shannon Kent, 35 https://t.co/kIIs90AHUe pic.twitter.com/Pscj4JBE6g  Jack Posobiec  (@JackPosobiec) January 18, 2019

The Pentagon did not identify the fourth person killed, a contractor working for a private company.

The Manbij attack on U.S. forces in Syria appeared to be the deadliest since they deployed on the ground there in 2015. It took place in a town controlled by a militia allied with U.S.-backed Kurdish forces.

Kent joined the Navy in 2003 and in her years of service received nearly one dozen honors, including the National Defense Service Medal and two Joint Service Commendation Medals, Navy officials said in a statement.

Wirtz, a Navy SEAL for 10 years, had been employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency since 2017 and completed three deployments for the agency in the Middle East, the agency said.

Scott Wirtz is from #STL and was one of the four Americans kills in a terrorist attack in Syria on Wednesday. Scott was a former Navy SEAL and was working for the DIA in Syria when the explosion happened. Scott, thank you for your service @FOX2now pic.twitter.com/lYQ0rNGL8X  Katherine Hessel (@KHesselFox2) January 18, 2019

Army officials did not immediately respond to requests for more details on Farmer.

Two U.S. government sources told Reuters on Thursday that the United States views ISIS as likely responsible for the attack. ISIS has claimed responsibility.

BOYNTON BEACH SOLDIER KILLED IN SYRIA

 This is Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan Farmer.

 The 37 year old died from an improvised explosive device in Manbij, Syria on 1/16.

 The details so far from DOD: https://t.co/CVo0McevAc

(pic courtesy of @CNN) pic.twitter.com/3uVz2CT3nt  Mike Trim WPTV (@MikeTrimWPTV) January 18, 2019

The attack occurred nearly a month after President Donald Trump withdrew all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, declaring that ISIS had been defeated there.

Vice President Mike Pence said several hours after the blast on Wednesday that the militant group has been defeated.
Massachusetts voted in 2016 to legalize adult recreational use. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are expected to do the same this year. At that point, its foolish to think a state, particularly one as small as Rhode Island, can enforce marijuana prohibition when its a legal product a short drive away. It makes more sense, Raimondo said, for the state to come up with its own system to tax and regulate pot.
(L) Alexanda Kotey and (R) Shafee Elsheikh in Amouda, Syria, in photos released on Feb. 9, 2018. (Syrian Democratic Forces/Handout via Reuters/File Photo)

UK Court Rejects Case Involving ISIS Beatles

LONDONThe mother of one of the British Islamic State militants suspected of murdering western hostages, lost a legal challenge Jan. 18 that it was wrong for Britain to assist a U.S. investigation which could lead to them facing the death penalty.

Britons El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Koteytwo of a notorious group of British fighters nicknamed The Beatlesare being held by Kurdish militia after being captured in Syria last year.

The United States wants to extradite them and Britain has said it will not stand in the way of any future U.S. prosecution that would seek the death penalty, waiving a long-standing objection to executions.

Elsheikhs mother, Maha El Gizouli, had sought a judicial review, saying it was unlawful for Britains interior minister to provide mutual legal assistance in a case which could lead to prosecutions for offenses which carried the death penalty.

Her lawyers said the ministers actions were flawed, inconsistent with Britains unequivocal opposition to the death penalty, and violated her sons human rights. However, Londons High Court disagreed and dismissed her claim.

My priority has always been to ensure we deliver justice for the victims families and that the individuals suspected of these sickening crimes face prosecution as quickly as possible, Home Secretary Sajid Javid said.

Any evidence shared with the United States in this case must be for the express purpose of progressing a federal prosecution.

British prosecutors concluded they did not have the evidence to launch their own case against the men but U.S. officials then expressed frustration with the British stance of seeking an assurance that U.S. prosecutors would not call for the death penalty, court documents showed.

However, last June, British ministers and senior officials decided the best way of ensuring a prosecution and to protect U.S. relations was to seek no such assurance in this case.

By Michael Holden
President Donald Trump stands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island in Singapore, on June 12, 2018. (Evan Vucci/AP)

Trump to Hold Second Summit With North Koreas Kim

President Donald Trump is to hold a second summit with the leader of North Korea near the end of February to try to coax the North to give up its nuclear program.

The announcement came at the White House on Jan. 18, after Trump met with a North Korean envoy.

President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date, White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

The former North Korea former spy chief met earlier with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Washington hotel.

The State Department said that Pompeo had a good discussion with Kim Yong Chol on efforts to make progress on commitments President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un made at their summit in Singapore.

Trump has spoken several times of prospects for a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un early this year. Hes also exchanged several letters with Kim.

President Donald Trump and North Koreas leader Kim Jong Un shake hands during the signing of a document after their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore, on June 12, 2018. (Susan Walsh/Pool via Reuters/File Photo)Trump had his first, historic meeting with Kim Jong Un last June in Singapore and reached a denuclearization agreement.
President Donald Trump speaks to the nation in his first-prime address from the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 8, 2019. (Carlos Barria-Pool/Getty Images)

Trump Continues to Prepare the Battlefield

Commentary

A lot has happened since my last column. Transcripts from the congressional testimonies of three key Spygate participantsBruce Ohr, Lisa Page, and James Bakerhave been made public: two of which were revealed right here on the pages of The Epoch Times. In addition, theres been several other fascinating developments.

Lets briefly survey the current state of affairs.

Mueller Coming Up Empty

Special counsel Robert Mueller will be wrapping up his investigation into the 2016 election in the next couple of months, having found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. And with Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz staring over his shoulder with Pages and Peter Strzoks heads hypothetically mounted on the wall behind him, Mueller knows hes in no position to try to fake anything.

Its suddenly being reported at places such as ABC News that the usual anonymous sources whove spent almost two years furiously leaking about how Mueller has President Donald Trump and his Russian spies exactly where he wants them are suddenly changing their tune and telling their media contacts that perhaps it would be best to begin managing expectations and preparing their audience for something anti-climactic.

Desperate Mainstream Media Steps Up Efforts to Save Narrative

Thats why Fusion GPS and other Spygate plotters are desperately seeding the DNC Media Complex including The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and other outlets with absurd stories that dont stand up to any real scrutiny.

Manafort snuck in to see Assange 3 times!

Cohen phone pinged in Prague!

Then, in the last few days, we got that cool The New York Times story about how the FBI launched its sting against Trump as retaliation for his firing of James Comey, and a Daily Beast story about how theres some intelligence report out there about the Russians infiltrating the NRA and Trumps team.

What are they doing? Theyre trying to save a narrative thats already dead and its nothing but sheer desperation. The side doing all that frantic leaking of fake news stories in the fake news media isnt winning the fight. Far from it.

They are reduced to this pathetic leaking to try to win a useless battle for public support through the mainstream media, now that Trump holds all the winning cards in the public relations battle.

It wont help though, when the indictments go down and things move to the prosecution phase for them to cry, Wait, this cant be happening, look at what Time Magazine said about me, just look at this glowing profile! Im a hero! I won this public relations battle!

The evidence meticulously collected over the past two years by the DOJ Inspector Generals office and the U.S. Attorneys through their grand juries will figuratively hang them.

This isnt a public relations battle. The serious-as-a-heart-attack people leading the real investigations into Spygate demonstrate this when, in comparison to the frantic, desperate leaking of fake disinformation by the other side, they remain resolutely silent as they position their forces.

Sun Tzu on Preparing the Battlefield

The ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote in chapter 6 of his timeless book The Art of War about how the successful military leader wins a battle before the fight even begins. Trump knows this chapter well because Art of War is his favorite book and he fashioned his book Art of the Deal after it.

To win the battle before the fight is joined, pick the ground, prepare it completely to your advantage, and then guide your enemy there. Leave nothing to chance.

As the winning side marshals its forces and prepares the ground, behind the scenes, the Democrats/DNC Media/Spygate plotters can see themselves being surrounded.

Some try to sell you on the idea that the side leaking in a panicthrowing out one quickly debunked fake news story after another is actually about to eat Trumps lunch. Dont make me laugh.

The two key places the battleground in this fight will run throughin the move from exposing the Spygate plot to prosecutionsare the DOJ and the courts, especially the Supreme Court.

Why a New Attorney General for Prosecution Phase?

The real battlefield has never been in the news media. The losing side picked the wrong battlefield. All the leaking in the world to The Washington Post or The New York Times wont change the outcome now.

Trump is getting ready to make two key moves on this battlefield as he prepares for the fight: The first is a new Attorney General for the prosecution phase. The second key move will involve the courts.

The former recused attorney general is now gone. Jeff Sessions was always going to have to recuse himself from the 2016 election-related investigations and he was always going to have to step down from the attorney general post before the prosecution phase could begin, and heres why.

There was simply no way Sessions could stay in charge of the DOJ investigations of people who had targeted him as a Russian agent and tried to prove he colluded with Russians. His recusal was absolutely necessary and people who dispute this are simply wrong.

Likewise, before it came time for the prosecutions of those plotters who targeted Sessions, he was going to have to step down as attorney general, because he was going to be called as a witness in the prosecutions. A sitting attorney general cant be a witness in a case his own Justice Department is prosecuting. (Explaining the obvious is just another free service that I provide.)

William Barr is coming in now to take over the next phase, while Sessions is free to appear as a witness and testify about what McCabe and the other plotters told him at the time they were trying to entrap him.

Do you know who would also have to leave his current job at the DOJ to be a witness in these prosecutions? Because like Sessions, hes involved a lot of this as a witness? Rod Rosenstein.

Of course, weve been given cover stories. Sessions is resigning because at long last Trump has had enough of this incompetent bumbling idiot whos been doing nothing! and Rosenstein is leaving because Barr wants to bring in his own team. Most people dont question the cover stories because they fit their biases.

The result is a new commander at the DOJ for the next phase of the battle. And when it goes to the courts, as much of it invariably will, thats where Trump has been making numerous changes with dozens of judicial appointments.

After Prosecution Phase Begins, Then Comes Court Phase

Trump plays the long game. While many people chafe impatiently for the prosecution phase to start, he knows thats well in hand, and so his eyes are already fixed two moves ahead: the Court phase.

The use of lawfare has served the Democrats well in thwarting some of Trumps initiatives, but its not like he hasnt been working tirelessly, with the aid of congressional Republicans, to take this advantage away from them. In just two years in office, Trumps already made far more judicial appointments than any other president: 85 federal judges appointed in just two years compared to Barack Obamas eight-year total of 65 and George W. Bushs total of 100.

Since John Roberts appears to view his role as Chief Justice as being the neutral arbiter between the left and right wings of the court and to prove how unbiased he is, hell often throw his vote to the left wing, Trump knows he needs that additional conservative vote after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgs forthcoming departure.

Ginsburgs declining health, her recent second fall during which she injured herself by breaking three ribs (she fell and broke two ribs in 2012), and the recent cancer surgery all point to the fact that her long and illustrious career is nearing its end. The White House has already begun preparing for the eventuality of Ginsburgs retirement. That means yet another hotly contested Supreme Court nomination, very likely before the end of this year.

When you know you are winning, when your enemy is almost surrounded, when their position is growing weaker and weaker, and you are holding the winning cards, theres no need to rush everything as you prepare. People claiming Trump needs urgency and to move quickly right now as if Trumps in any real danger are misreading whats actually happening.

When the battlefield is fully prepared and all the pieces are fully in place for total and complete overwhelming victory, well see it all come out into the open as the final battle begins. Until then?

Patience is a virtue. Try to develop some.

Trump obviously has.

Brian Cates is a writer based in South Texas and author of Nobody Asked For My Opinion  But Here It Is Anyway! He can be reached on Twitter at @drawandstrike.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Thousands Expected at Memorial for Slain California Officer

DAVIS, CaliforniaPolice officers from across the country are expected at the Jan. 18 memorial service for a 22-year-old rookie who had long dreamed of being an officer and was slain just weeks into the job in a Northern California college town.

The service for Davis Police Officer Natalie Corona, who was shot and killed last week, will be held at the University of California-Davis. UC Davis said it expects up to 6,000 officers, in addition to family members, friends, and members of the public.

Police officers from across the state are pouring into the ARC pavilion at UC Davis now for 22 year old rookie Davis, CA Natalie Coronas funeral. Killed by a gunman last Thursday just weeks into her job @kron4news pic.twitter.com/EUJlDdinPC  Will Tran (@KRON4WTran) January 18, 2019

Coronas slaying has shocked Davis, which prides itself as a safe, family-friendly community anchored by one of the states top universities. The last time a police officer died in the line of duty in Davis was in 1959.

Family, colleagues, and others who knew Corona recalled her vibrant smile, compassion, dedication, and lifelong dream of being in law enforcement like her father Jose Merced Corona, who spent 26 years as a Colusa County sheriffs deputy.

A rising star in the department, Corona graduated from the Sacramento Police Academy in July and had completed her field training in December. She was assigned to patrol on her own just weeks ago.

On the evening of Jan. 10, there was no apparent danger when Corona responded solo to the scene of a three-car crash in downtown Davis, near the university campus. But as Corona talked to the drivers involved in the crash, gunfire sounded.

Members of @SSFPolice and neighboring agencies are on their way to attend the memorial service for fallen @cityofdavispd Officer Natalie Corona, who was fatally shot on January 10, 2019 while investigating a traffic accident in the City of Davis, CA. https://t.co/uqs2sHhzCZ  SouthSanFranciscoPD (@SSFPolice) January 18, 2019

Police said gunman Kevin Douglas Limbaugh, 48, was not involved in the crash but rode up on a bicycle and, without warning, opened fire on Corona. He hit her in the neck and fired more shots as she lay on the ground, reloading at least twice as he fired at passing vehicles, narrowly avoiding wounding others before he casually walked home.

Police are still investigating the motive and said Limbaugh did not appear to know Corona or to have specifically targeted her. It is also not yet clear if Limbaugh had planned the attack or acted spontaneously, Davis Police spokesman Lt. Paul Doroshov said.

Limbaugh dropped a backpack at the scene that led officers to identify him and trace him to his house, where he had a brief standoff with police, went back inside and killed himself, Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel said.

#Davis police identified 48 year old Kevin Douglas Limbaugh as the alleged shooter that killed Officer Nathalie Corona. They say she reported to a 3 car crash and the gunman who wasn't related to the incident rode up to her on a bicycle and ambushed her. pic.twitter.com/PPII9id399  Ella Sogomonian (@EllaSogomonian) January 13, 2019

Police found two unregistered semi-automatic handguns at the house and a handwritten note on the bed that claimed police had been bombarding him for years with ultrasonic waves and he cant live this way anymore.

Limbaugh was charged and convicted in a battery case last fall after assaulting a colleague at a casino where he worked. He was then ordered to surrender a semi-automatic rifle he owned. It is not clear how he obtained the two handguns.

After the memorial service, a funeral procession is planned from Davis to the town of Arbuckle about 40 miles north, where the Corona family lives. The slain officer is survived by her mother, her father, and three younger sisters.
Texas Church Shooting: Woman Killed, Another Wounded, Suspect Fled Scene

A man is on the run after he allegedly shot and killed his ex-wife in the parking lot at a Texas church northwest of Houston late Thursday, Jan. 17. The mans daughter was also shot and is in critical condition.

The Harris County Sheriffs Office is looking for 62-year-old Arthur Edigin after he allegedly opened fire after 7:00 p.m. at the parking lot of Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church in Cypress.

Investigators are seeking Arthur Edigin, 62, in connection w/the shooting outside Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church on Huffmeister. Hes 54, 144 lbs. Driving a white 08 Suburban w/damaged right front quarter panel. Call 713-221-6000. #hounews pic.twitter.com/sfLE503SYE  HCSOTexas (@HCSOTexas) January 18, 2019

Police said Edigins ex-wife was killed, and his 31-year-old daughter was wounded and is in critical condition.

Heres the scene outside of Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church in Cypress. The parking lot is full of cars, now surrounded by crime scene tape. #khou11 pic.twitter.com/7LdcE1lffu  Brett Buffington (@BrettKHOU) January 18, 2019

At a press conference late Jan. 17, police said Edigin was driving a white 2008 Suburban, which had a damaged right front quarter panel. They said he had fired at least five or six shots. Police believe the shooting was triggered by a domestic dispute but cannot confirm.

In a police Twitter post, Edigin is described as being 5 feet, 4 inches tall and about 144 pounds.

According to Express.co.uk, a witness said that around 7:15 p.m. she heard three sounds that may have been gunshots.

All of a sudden we just see sirens going off everywhere and there was chaos with helicopters flying around, she said.

According to WTNH, children were participating in after-school activities at Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church when the shooting happened outside.

Shortly after the shooting parents of the children were sent an alert, saying the school was on lockdown, according to local reports.

Crusader parents and staff, news is spreading rapidly of an event that has occurred in the parking lot of Christ the Redeemer Church. The school is currently on lockdown, the alert said.

Faculty, parents and students at the school are safe and police are on the scene. Well update with more details as we have them.

A woman told KTRK that her husband and three children were on lockdown during the shooting. Pam Ledesma said her husband told her they were in a gym closet praying during the incident.

Its just crazy to see that stuff like happens, number one at a church, and I know we live in Houston, but at the same time, I mean, I dont know what kind of person would do that at a church when people are just trying to pray at night, Ledesma said. Im glad some people are safe, but unfortunately, some families arent going to be feeling that same way tonight.

KHOU-TV was on the scene and shared a live stream on Facebook.

Two people shot, one killed, at a the Christ of the Redeemer Catholic Church in Cypress, TX  Brett Buffington  2019117

The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston released the following statement on the shooting, as sighted by CBS News:

Our prayers are with the victims and families affected by the tragic shooting this evening at Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church. Officials with the Archdiocese and the parish community are cooperating with local authorities in their investigation.

Anyone with any information is urged to contact 713-221-6000.

Texas saw a mass shooting at a church in 2017, when a man opened fire at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Nov. 5, 2017. Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, had killed 26 and wounded 20 others.

This story is subject to further updates.

From NTD News
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven attends a news conference after meeting with Speaker of the Parliament Andreas Norlen in Stockholm, Sweden, on Jan. 16, 2019. (TT News Agency/Jessica Gow/File PhotoReuters)

Social Democrat Lofven Wins Swedish PM Race

STOCKHOLMSwedens parliament handed Social Democrat leader Stefan Lofven a second term in office on Jan. 18, ending more than four months of deadlock after an inconclusive election that had allowed a populist party to threaten the traditional balance of power.

Sweden had looked set for a snap election until last week when Lofven agreed to a historic deal with the Center, Liberal, and Green parties, bringing together parties from the center-right and center-left to prevent the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats from having a voice in policy.

Ever more governments are becoming reliant on parties with an anti-democratic agenda, Lofven said after winning the vote in parliament. But in Sweden we stand up for democracy, for equality. Sweden has chosen a different path.

The Sweden Democrats polled 17.5 percent in Septembers election, their support bolstered by voters growing concerns about immigration amid a surge in shootings and gang violence in major cities.

While Sweden will now have a workable government that will keep the nationalist Sweden Democrats from any influence over policy, Lofven faces major challenges.

Short-Lived Government?

The deal with the Center and Liberal parties requires Lofven, a former welder and union leader, to cut taxes and deregulate the labor and property rental market, a sharp shift to the Right that is likely to alienate many of his partys traditional supporters.

It also brings together parties that are ideologically poles apart, raising the risk that the government will be short-lived.

The Center and Liberalswho dumped their partners in the four-party Alliance, the Moderates and the Christian Democrats, in order to secure Lofven a second termface a backlash from center-right voters.

The constellation that has chosen this prime minister is only united by one thing, a democratically dubious desire to exclude other parties from influencenot to let their votes count, opposition Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson said.

Lofven was supported by 115 lawmakers while 153 voted against him and 77 abstained. According to Swedish law, the nominee becomes prime minister as long as a majority of parliament does not vote against him or her.

The opposition Left Party abstained in the voteas did the Center and the Liberalsbecause it wanted Lofven reinstalled as premier, though it has threatened to cause him problems in parliament if they believe he has tacked too far to the Right.

Septembers election delivered a hung parliament with no major bloc able to rule without the support of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in the white-supremacist fringe.

By Simon Johnson and Johan Sennero
Pro-life activists participate in a rally at the National Mall prior to the 2018 March for Life in Washington, on Jan. 19, 2018. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Republican Senators Explain Why They Skipped Vote on Pro-Life Legislation

The Senate on Jan. 17 voted against the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, a measure meant to stop taxpayer-funded abortion. Missing from the vote were 5 Republican Senators.

The bill makes permanent the prohibition on the use of federal funds for abortion or other health coverage that includes abortion and is sponsored by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss). The prohibitions listed on the legislation do not apply to abortions in cases of rape or incest or where a physical condition endangers a womans life unless an abortion is performed.

Despite the Republican partys four-vote edge in Senate, the bill failed to reach a majority, facing a defeat of 48-47. For the bill to pass, 60 votes are needed. Voting included two nays from Republican senators Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) while Democratic senators Bob Casey (Pa.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.) voted with the Republicans.

However, five GOP senators did not cast a vote: Lamar Alexander, Richard Burr, Mike Crapo, Lindsey Graham, and Rand Paul. The senators spokespersons told The Epoch Times that they supported the legislation, but were unable to vote physically due to different individual reasons.

A spokesperson for Graham said that he was in Turkey at the time of the vote discussing the fight against the ISIS terrorist group. Graham had left Washington on the night of Jan. 16.

Graham has a long history of votes in support of the pro-life cause and just introduced the 20-week bill this week in the Senate, spokesperson Kevin Bishop said via email. He would have proudly supported the Wicker amendment had he been there today.

A spokesman for Alexander said that he was traveling back to Tennessee to attend to a personal matter and that he was pro-life and supportive of the measure.

Burr had to return to North Carolina at the time and was unable to stay for the vote, his spokesperson said, without going into details.

Meanwhile, Crapos spokesperson said via email that he missed the vote because he was ill.

A spokesman for Paul told the National Review that Unfortunately, today was scheduled to be a day out of session and Senator Paul committed to various events outside of Washington before this last minute vote was scheduled.

The vote comes a day before the 45th March of Life on Jan. 18. About 100,000 people are estimated to attend the peaceful demonstration against abortion.

Vice President Mike Pence will be the headline speaker at the events 37th Annual Rose Dinner representing the Trump administration, a more low-key appearance compared to his 2017 address to rallygoers at the event.
Report: Man Helped Girlfriend Try to Kill Infant by Putting Crushed-Up Painkillers in Milk Bottle

A 23-year-old Indiana man was sentenced for helping his girlfriend try to poison her baby niece by placing crushed up painkillers in a breast milk bottle, it was reported.

Sir Marshall S. Snyder III, 23, was sentenced for aiding girlfriend, Sarai Rodriguez-Miranda, 20, in the poisoning attempt in 2017, People reported on Jan. 16

Rodriguez-Miranda already pleaded guilty, admitting she tried to kill her brothers newborn daughter with pills.

A forensic toxicologist determined nine capsules of Excedrin  a lethal dose  had been crushed before being sprinkled into the milk.  People  2019117

Snyder was sentenced for one count of felony aggravated battery for his role in the incident, records show.

According to Fox59, Snyder received 15 years in prison.

Court records show that an attempted murder charge was dismissed because he made a deal to enter a guilty plea on felony aggravated battery.

Rodriguez-Miranda was angry that her brother and fiancee were living with her in her mothers home, People reported, citing an official.

Im gonna crush up some of these pills since she decided they can stay longer and kill their baby, Rodriguez-Miranda told Snyder via text message.

Sarai Rodriguez-Miranda allegedly put enough crushed up painkillers to kill an adult in the baby's bottle.  CBS News  2018519

Rodriguez-Miranda saw the text messages and went to the refrigerator before checking on the bottles of milk. She spotted powdery residue at the bottom of the milk bottle.

The bottle was tested, revealing trace amounts of acetaminophen, caffeine, and aspirin. Its consistent with over-the-counter pain medications.

A toxicologist determined that nine capsules of Excedrin were crushed up before it was placed in the bottle. That amount is a lethal dose, People reported.

The Journal Gazette reported that the baby wasnt harmed in the plot.

Why didnt that baby die dude, she texted Snyder. I hope she dies. I dont feel bad about it bc she was destined to grow up [expletive] or be abused. Id never be suspect I know but I hope it works.

Rodriguez-Miranda was sentenced to 25 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to an attempted murder charge.

The childs mother told local news outlet WANE-TV during Rodriguez-Mirandas sentencing she is just glad this is over.

One of The Nations Most Serious Concerns

According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services ( pdf ), around 3.5 million children in 2016 were the subjects of at least one maltreatment report to authorities.

Child abuse is one of the nations most serious concerns, the authors of the report wrote.

About 17 percent of those reports were substantiated, and the department said that there were an estimated 676,000 victims of child abuse and neglect. That amounts to 9.1 victims per 1,000 children.

Children in their first year of life had the highest rate of victimization at 24.8 per 1,000 children, the report said.

About three-fourths of the cases were neglect, and about 18 percent were physical abuse. Some children suffered from multiple forms of maltreatment, the HHS said.

The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is available at 1-800-422-4453 or at Childhelp.org.
Protecting Space with a Bold Cybersecurity Portfolio and Strategy

Commentary

Despite recent attempts to characterize the landscape of space threats as something unique to the current administration and president, or to set this up as a battle between the president and asteroids, there remain myriad reasons for being concerned about protecting space and about the cybersecurity-related threats and challenges associated with it.

As an example, with the advent of small satellites and constellations of them, the number of active satellites patrolling the Earth at various altitudes will increase to nearly 20,000 in the next decade from about 1,900.

This nearly 10-fold increase in machinery orbiting the Earth brings with it a number of cybersecurity-related challenges. The first is related to space junk.

Space Junk

All those wonderful satellites launched by U.S. civil, defense, and now, increasingly, commercial interests leave behind a trail of space junk, either when they outlive their expected lifetimes or operations capacities, or by other less-conventional means (orbital interference, as an example).

Satellites operate at different altitudesfor example, the low Earth orbit, or LEO, operates from 100 to 1,240 miles above the Earth. Using different orbits and altitudes has long been a method for avoiding collisions, but it doesnt completely prevent them. Coordination between satellite providers is necessary to avoid collisions. Of course, that coordination will be impacted by 10-fold growth in the number of orbiting satellites.

Precautions must be taken to ensure that the sheer increase in the number of satellite assets doesnt form a shield that would prevent critical observations and measurements due to limited space.

Normally, operational conflict avoidance is done by analysts with computer assistance in one to two days, but given the increase in satellite constellations in the future, civil, defense, and commercial providers are looking to use artificial intelligence (AI) and other automation techniques to enhance their ability to deal with the increase in management required for the new volume of assets.

The Trump administrations movement of the space traffic management operations to the Commerce Department is also seen as a policy that will make space asset management easier. Government contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, look to build capabilities to enhance space asset tracking and management, including the Space Fence project being constructed for the U.S. Air Force to track space objects.

Cyber Threats

Being good stewards of space junk amid the new, voluminous playing field of space assets in the coming decade also places heavy concern on our physical satellite infrastructure, both in space and on the ground, and the cyber threats that challenge it.

For example, there are more than 700 teleports, or ground stations, around the world that manage ground-to-space communication. Many of those stations can be hacked, even if they are air-gapped and disconnected from the networkin fact, in some cases, this just makes the hacking even more appealing to cybercriminals because it requires some social engineering or physical compromise at the facility or with someone related to it. Power stations and backup power for these facilities is also another challenge.

There has been growing concern about jamming technology that can interfere with ground-to-space communications. According to a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Aerospace Security Project, The technology needed to jam many types of satellite signals is commercially available and relatively inexpensive.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and other Department of Defense (DOD) agencies look to fund projects that enable optical ground-to-space communication as a way to combat the typical radio frequency (RF) jamming the CSIS report discussed.

Optical communication has the advantage of being relatively new and less widespread in use than RF communication, and as such presents a security advantage because it is not existing and known infrastructure.

Jamming and Communication

In response to concerns about our foreign adversaries jamming satellite communications, a DOD project called the Tactical Line-of-sight Optical Communications Network, or TALON, was able to use optical communication to transmit data up to 45 miles. The technology appears promising and commensurate with the existing state-of-the-art communications.

Others, including a former general counsel for the National Security Agency and assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, suggest the United States should go beyond passive cybersecurity protection and should move to active cybersecurity thwarting and countering.

The concern about space jamming is likely why the Defense Science Board and the Trump administrations national defense strategy has identified jamming as a key priority for investment and solution generation for the government.

Besides China, there is growing concern about Russians and their jamming capabilities. According to the Secure World Foundation, Russians already have space jamming capabilities and are poised to use them.

American citizens are likely to question the severity and likelihood of an attack, since they arent regularly reported. This is due to the fact that the attacks themselves would likely be classified, as they indicate national security threats and risks, and would not be directly shared with the public.

The Air Force is looking at an end-to-end approach to secure space communications. It already has the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) system, but it is only for the nations most secure communications likely related to nuclear and other sensitive areas.

Since AEHF isnt widely available in the government and costly, a new project called Protected Anti-jam Tactical Satcom (PATS) is underway and focused on three phases: user terminals, ground stations (teleports), and satellites. The goal of PATS is to directly provide AEHF-type secure communications, but make them widely available to less-secure government satellite projects, and also to commercial vendors that require more secure communications, at a fraction of the cost of a AEHF system.

PATS users will be able to dynamically select the best and most secure network options using modem-like switch technology, and the communications will use waveform processing both on the ground and on board the satellite.

Space Force

Unclear from the current legislative times is how and where the diverse space-cybersecurity management will be implemented. The president has requested the inception of a Space Force as a new branch of the military and has taken steps toward that action. However, given the congressional turnover in 2018 and the existing lukewarm reception to the Space Force proposal from legislators, the next steps are murky.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a recent statement that he is concerned that Trumps proposal would create additional costly military bureaucracy at a time when we have limited resources for defense and critical domestic priorities, and I do not believe it is the best way to advance U.S. national security.

However, Dean Cheng, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, believes the Space Force is a necessary step in rearranging the management of space threats under the military akin to the Army Air Force realignment in 1947.

Given our war game simulations over the past 20 years that include space threats, and also the current threat environment, which includes the sitting U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warning that Russia and China will have anti-satellite weapons in the next few years, the government should pursue a swift decision-making process associated with management of cyber-related threats in the space-to-ground environment.

Chris Mattmann is a principal data scientist and associate chief technology and innovation officer in the Office of the Chief Information Officer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Trump Sets Goal of Missile Detection Anywhere, Any Time, Any Place

WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trump announced the release of the 2019 Missile Defense Review on Jan. 17, while Pentagon officials highlighted the increasing threat of new missile technologies being developed by foreign nations and the growing importance of space-based weapons systems.

Our goal is simple: to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, any time, any place, Trump said.

Describing growing threats from missile attack, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said, [T]oday, the number of new missile programs around the world is growing disproportionately to other capabilities. Writ large, the rest of the world is not developing new fighter and bomber aircraft. They are developing missiles, reflecting the reviews assessment of an increasingly complex threat.

While earlier administrations have principally focused on ballistic missile attack from foreign adversaries, the report additionally emphasized advanced cruise missile and hypersonic missile technology under development by Russia and China.

At a press conference following the announcement, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood called this new emphasis a noteworthy change in U.S. defense policy, the next era of missile defense. He described the new U.S. approach as robust in utilizing new approaches and technology and in working with U.S. allies, echoing comments from President Trump in his announcement speech.

Weve had some very substantial and successful and collaborative efforts with countries like Japan, as well as with NATO allies and the Middle East, Rood said.

In speaking to specific foreign threats, Rood confirmed that North Korea could now reach the United States with its current ballistic missile technology. The review provides a sizing construct that will be sufficient to outpace the scale of the North Korean threat.

Undersecretary for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin, in speaking to emerging advanced cruise missile and hypersonic technology out of Russia and China, said that the strategic implications of these systems capability to put U.S. forces at risk required a response to these newer systems as well as the legacy strategic missiles.

A large component of countering the Russian and Chinese hypersonic threat will come in the deployment of space-based systems, to include sensors to detect attack as well as interceptors. Undersecretary Griffin described a plan this year to deploy sensor satellites in low Earth orbit, noting that this had been a directive from Congress.

Neither Rood nor Griffin would provide details as to the amount of funding within the Pentagon budget to be dedicated to the plans outlined in the MDR, or if any would come from the Space Force announced by President Trump last year.
Ive heard the same four words over and over from people I cant even imagine Kristin Song said. You race to the hospital and the doctor whispers your beautiful loved one is gone and your world shatters into a million tiny pieces. You ask if you can say goodbye, kiss them, tell them that they are loved and cherished and you are told that you cannot for your loved one is unrecognizable. You leave the hospital with your family but you leave one behind."
Police Arrest Man After Killing of Israeli Woman Studying in Melbourne

A 20-year-old man was arrested over the killing of an Israeli university student who was walking home after a night out with friends in Melbourne, police said on Jan. 18.

Homicide detectives took the man into custody as part of an investigation into the killing of Aiia Maasarwe, 21, whose body was found by passers-by near La Trobe University early on Jan. 16, Victoria state police said in a statement.

No other details about the man were released.

The arrest came hours before a vigil for Maasarwe, which thousands of people were expected to attend.

Maasarwe was attacked as she returned to the universitys campus in Melbournes northeast, where she had been on a study abroad program, after watching a comedy show. Police described her as an Israeli national.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison offered Maasarwes family his heartfelt condolences.

We must remain vigilant  Im so sickened by the attack and frankly disturbed by it, as Im sure Australians are all around the country, Morrison told reporters in Fiji, where he was winding up a Pacific tour.

He said his centre-right coalition government would announce another action plan to stem violence against women ahead of an election expected by May, on top of $350 million that has already been committed.

Maasarwes father is in Melbourne but it was not clear if he would attend the vigil. People have already begun laying flowers at an impromptu shrine that sprang up in parkland near a shopping center where her body was found.

She grew up in Baqa al-Gharbiyye, a mostly Arab city in the Haifa district of Israel, before moving to China to study at Shanghai University. Her father had a business in China, Australian media reported.

A family member told Australian media this week Maasarwe had been talking on the phone to her sister in Israel as she walked home, a habit she formed so that she felt safer.

She was the second woman killed in similar circumstances in Melbourne in seven months.

Her death has recharged outrage over violence against women after 22-year-old Eurydice Dixon was killed while walking home after performing at a comedy show in June.

The deaths have fueled a growing sense of frustration, particularly from women who say they are already vigilant and that men have to take responsibility for their own behavior as well as challenging the views and actions of other men.

Nothing will change until we change, too. Until we stop blaming bad men  while ignoring the sexist attitudes in our society that created them, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said.
Physician Burnout Deemed a Public Health Crisis: Report

An increasing number of physicians across the United States are feeling burned out, so much so that its been deemed a public health crisis, a new report from Massachusetts health care organizations and Harvard institutes detailed.

The report, published Jan. 17, labels itself a call to action in turning the tide against the spreading phenomenon. The reports authors say complicated computer interfaces and a growing burden of administrative tasks have pushed out physician engagement with patients and exacerbated the problem.

Authors from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Harvard Global Health Institute, the Massachusetts Medical Society, and Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association urged hospitals to appoint an executive-level chief wellness officer at every major health care organization as one way to address the problem. They also urged health care organizations to urgently provide more mental health treatments and to improve the efficiency of their electronic health records (EHR).

A 2018 survey by Merritt-Hawkins found 78 percent of physicians experienced professional burnout, with one of the chief reasons being doctors frustrations with inefficient EHR.

Those in the industry also argue that there arent enough physicians to properly cover patients, coupled with the lengthy amount of time it takes to train a physician and the costs of overhead and education.

A number of different surveys have indicated that many doctors have experienced burnout at some point in their lives. The syndrome includes symptoms such as emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment. Physicians who experience it are also more likely to reduce their work hours or quit the profession, the authors said.

Mounting regulatory requirements from EHRs have forced physicians to spend at least two hours every day on the computer doing administrative tasks, described in the industry as pajama time. The EHR work often translates to physicians working more hours on tasks that dont fundamentally help the interests of the patient.

The growth in poorly designed digital health records and quality metrics has required that physicians spend more and more time on tasks that dont directly benefit patients, contributing to a growing epidemic of physician burnout, said VA physician and Harvard faculty member Dr. Ashish K. Jha in a statement.

The authors of the report say that the meaningless administration work makes physicians not only tired but also disheartened.

A lot of physicians feel they are on a treadmill, on a conveyor belt, said Dr. Alain A. Chaoui, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society and a family doctor in Peabody. Theyre not afraid of workits the work that has nothing to do with the patients that makes physicians unhappy. And it makes the patients unhappy, because they feel the system is failing them.

The demand for primary care physicians, in todays system, is predicted to translate to a projected nationwide shortage of 20,400 physicians by 2020, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Population aging and growth are the primary reasons for the projected demands in primary care services. But the department argues that if primary care nurse practitioners and physician assistants are more fully integrated into health care delivery, the projected shortage could be decreased.

The high costs of recruiting and replacing a physician also come into play, with costs ranging from an estimated $500,000 to $1 million for the employer.

Patients also feel the effects of physician burnout.

The number of physicians experiencing burnout significantly correlates with reduced patient satisfaction as authors also say there is evidence that burnout is associated with increased medical errors. In a November 2018 report published on Mayo Clinic, out of the 6695 physicians surveyed, almost 11 percent reported a major medical error in the prior three months.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Jan. 17, 2019. (Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo)

Pelosi Cancels Afghanistan Trip, Cites Trump Leak

WASHINGTONHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Jan. 18, canceled her plans to travel by commercial plane to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan, saying President Donald Trump had caused a security risk by talking about the trip.

It was the latest twist in what has become a Washington game of brinkmanship between Pelosi and Trump, playing out against the stalled negotiations over how to end the partial government shutdown.

Earlier in the week, Pelosi had asked Trump to reschedule his Jan. 29 State of the Union address, citing security issues at a time when the Homeland Security Department and other agencies remain unfunded.

Trump responded by canceling the military plane that was to have carried Pelosi and a congressional delegation to Afghanistan on the previously undisclosed troop visit. Trump suggested she travel by commercial plane instead.

Trump had belittled the trip as a public relations event and said it would be best if Pelosi remained in Washington to negotiate to reopen the government.

Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative, wrote Trump.

On Friday, Pelosi announced that her plan to travel by commercial plane had been leaked by the White House.

Spokesman Drew Hammill said Pelosi and accompanying lawmakers were prepared to take a commercial flight but canceled after the State Department warned that publicity over the visit had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security, and other officials supporting the trip.

The White House said it had leaked nothing that would cause a security risk.

The political tit-for-tat between Trump and Pelosi laid bare how the government-wide crisis has devolved into an intensely pointed clash between two leaders determined to prevail. It took place as hundreds of thousands of federal workers go without pay and Washingtons routine protocolsa presidents speech to Congress, a lawmakers official tripbecome collateral damage.

Denying military aircraft to a senior lawmakerlet alone the speaker, who is second in line to the presidency after the vice president, traveling to a combat regionis very rare.

Hammill said the speaker planned to travel to Afghanistan and Brussels to thank service members and obtain briefings on national security and intelligence from those on the front lines. He noted Trump had traveled to Iraq during the shutdown, which began Dec. 22, and said a Republican-led congressional trip also had taken place.

Trumps trip to Iraq after Christmas was not disclosed in advance for security reasons.

There have been few signs of progress in shutdown negotiations. On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence and senior adviser Jared Kushner dashed to the Capitol late in the day for a meeting with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And the State Department instructed all U.S. diplomats in Washington and elsewhere to return to work next week with pay, saying it had found money for their salaries, at least temporarily.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump wanted Pelosi to stay in Washington before Tuesday, a deadline to prepare the next round of paychecks for federal workers.

The White House also canceled plans for a presidential delegation to travel to an economic forum in Switzerland next week, citing the shutdown. And they said future congressional trips would be postponed until the shutdown is resolved, though it was not immediately clear if any such travelwhich often is not disclosed in advancewas coming up.

Trump has still not said how he will handle Pelosis attempt to have him postpone his State of the Union address until the government is reopened so workers can be paid for providing security for the grand Washington tradition.

Pelosi told reporters earlier Thursday: Lets get a date when government is open. Lets pay the employees. Maybe he thinks its OK not to pay people who do work. I dont.

Pelosi reiterated she is willing to negotiate money for border security once the government is reopened, but she said Democrats remain opposed to Trumps long-promised wall.

The shutdown, the longest ever, entered its 28th day on Friday. The previous longest was 21 days in 1995-96, under President Bill Clinton.

In a notice to staff, the State Department said it can pay most of its employees beginning Sunday or Monday for their next pay period. They will not be paid for time worked since the shutdown began until the situation is resolved, said the notice.

By Catherine Lucey, Matthew Lee, Zeke Miller And Lisa Mascaro
The Huawei office building at its research and development center in Dongguan, China, on Dec.18, 2018. (Andy Wong/AP)

Oxford University Suspends Research Funding from Chinas Huawei

LONDONOxford University says it is suspending research grants and funding donations from Huawei amid growing security concerns about the Chinese telecom giant.

Its another setback for Huaweis image in Europe, an important market for the company, which has been effectively blocked in the U.S. over concerns its technology poses a cybersecurity risk. Its now facing increasing scrutiny in Europe, where it is expected it to play a major role in building new fifth-generation mobile networks.

The university decided on Jan. 8 that it will not pursue new funding opportunities with Huawei or related companies, it said in a statement on Jan. 17.

The decision, which applies to both funding of research contracts and philanthropic donations, was made in the light of public concerns raised in recent months surrounding the companys U.K. partnerships.

Two existing research projects worth a combined 692,000 pounds ($895,000) will continue, it said.

We hope these matters can be resolved shortly and note Huaweis own willingness to reassure governments about its role and activities, the university said.

Huawei said it was not informed of this decision and awaits the universitys full explanation.

Britains defense secretary and its intelligence chief both voiced concerns last month about Huaweis involvement in the countrys rollout of 5G networks.

Huaweis troubles are expanding elsewhere in Europe. The company fired its sales director in Poland last week after authorities there arrested him on charges of spying for China. The Czech Republic has warned against using Huawei equipment because of security fears and Norway is rethinking the companys role in its telecom networks.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said in a rare interview that his company had never received a request from a government to transmit information in violation of any regulations.

Ren, a former army engineer and current Communist Party member, said his company would not answer to requests from the Chinese regime to hand over information, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Ren didnt provide details about how the company would resist requests from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But under Chinas national security laws, all companies operating in the country are required to grant authorities control of its data if asked. The concept of national security is expansively defined to cover threats to the CCPs authoritarian control, including opinions critical of the Party.

Huawei financial chief Meng Wanchou, who is Rens daughter, is fighting a U.S. request that she be extradited from Canada on charges related to Iran sanctions violations.

By Kelvin Chan. The Epoch Times contributed to this report.
In this Jan. 17, 1994 file photo, Interstate 10, the Santa Monica Freeway, split and collapsed over La Cienega Boulevard following the Northridge quake in the predawn hours in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Draper)

Northridge Quake Thrashed Los Angeles 25 Years Ago This Week

Twenty-five years ago this week, a violent, pre-dawn earthquake shook Los Angeles from its sleep, and sunrise revealed widespread devastation, with dozens killed and $25 billion in damage.

A look back at the damage, deaths and developments in seismic safety since the disaster:

The Quake

At 4:31 a.m. local time on Jan. 17, 1994, a hidden fault lurking under the citys San Fernando Valley neighborhoods unleashed a magnitude 6.7 earthquake that shattered buildings, broke water mains and ignited fires.

The so-called blind thrust faultone with no surface features to reveal its presencecaused a block of earth to move upward. Most of the energy was released toward mountains that line the northern side of the valley, but there was more than enough energy sent in other directions to cause devastation .

The ground shook horizontally and vertically for up to 10 seconds, most strongly in an area 30 miles in diameter around LAs Northridge neighborhood, according to the public-private partnership Earthquake Country Alliance. It was felt as far away as Las Vegas.

Deaths and Injuries

The state said at least 57 died in the earthquake, though a study issued the following year put the death toll at 72, including heart attacks. About 9,000 were injured.

The greatest concentration of deaths occurred at the Northridge Meadows, a 163-unit apartment complex where 16 people were killed when it collapsed onto the parking area below, crushing first-floor apartments.

The catastrophe at Northridge Meadows revealed a particular seismic hazard due to so-called soft-story construction in which a buildings ground level has large open areas for purposes such as parking spots or shop windows.

Damage

The widespread damage to buildings, freeways and infrastructure made the Northridge quake the costliest U.S. disaster at the time.

According to Earthquake Country Alliance , 82,000 residential and commercial units and 5,400 mobile homes were damaged or destroyed, nine parking structures toppled, nine hospitals were evacuated due to structural or other problems, seven key freeway bridges collapsed, and hundreds more were damaged.

Some 200 steel-frame high-rises sustained cracked welds.

Vivid images from the quake included scenes of vehicles stranded high on an elevated section of freeway with the road fallen away in front and behind, and the wrecked motorcycle of a police officer who plunged to his death off the end of a broken overpass while rushing to work in the early morning darkness.

The California Department of Transportation, which had already retrofitted many of the bridges that ended up being damaged, would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to further strengthen numerous bridges identified as being at risk.

The damage to hospitals led the state to require strengthening of those buildings.

Legacy

Since Northridge there has been a push toward progress  sometimes frustratingly slow  on everything from making buildings safer to increasing societys overall ability to deal with seismic threats.

In 2008, an annual earthquake drill known as the Great ShakeOut began in Southern California to teach the basic safety technique of drop, cover and hold on. Initially based on a scenario of a magnitude 7.8 quake on the southern end of the mighty San Andreas fault, the drill has since spread across the United States and around the world.

In 2015, Los Angeles enacted a mandatory retrofit ordinance aimed at preventing loss of life in major earthquakes at the citys most vulnerable buildings. It covered about 13,500 soft-story buildings like Northridge Meadows and some 1,500 buildings with non-ductile reinforced concrete construction.

The ordinance, however, allowed a process spanning seven years for retrofitting of soft-story buildings and 25 years for non-ductile reinforced concrete buildings.

Last year, the U.S. Geological Survey announced its fledgling West Coast earthquake early warning system was ready for broad use by businesses, utilities, transportation systems and schools after years of development and testing of prototypes. The system detects the start of an earthquake and sends alerts that can give warnings ranging from several seconds to a minute before shaking arrives, depending on distance from the epicenter. That can be enough time to slow trains, stop industrial processes and allow students to scramble under desks.

This month, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti unveiled a mobile app that uses the early warning system to alert Los Angeles County residents when there is an earthquake of magnitude 5.0 or greater. Other mobile apps are in development.

Also this month, the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. released a guide aimed at helping businesses minimize disruptions from major earthquakes, taking advantage of information technologies such as the digital cloud to keep a company working even if its physical systems are destroyed or inaccessible.
New Caravan of Central American Migrants Crosses Into Mexico

TAPACHULA, MexicoHundreds of mostly Honduran migrants entered southern Mexico on Jan. 18, joining around 1,000 other people from Central America who crossed a day earlier and putting to the test Mexicos vows to guarantee the safe and orderly flow of people.

The cohort crossed into Chiapas state before dawn without needing the wrist bands that officials on Thursday gave migrants to wear until they could register with authorities, several migrants and an official told Reuters.

The road today was open, said Marco Antonio Cortez, 37, a baker from Honduras traveling with his wife and children, ages 2 and 9. They didnt give us bracelets or anything, they just let us pass through Mexico migration.

A migration official at the entry point, who asked not to be named because she was not authorized to speak to media, said that at least 1,000 people crossed from Guatemala into Mexico by around 5 a.m., without needing wrist bands.

Migration officials did not reply to requests for comment on why the wrist bands were not required on Friday.

The migrant group proceeded on foot alongside cars on a highway, accompanied by federal police officers, arriving at a shelter in the city of Tapachula around midday.

Sitting by the side of the road rubbing cream onto his childrens feet, 40-year-old Honduran migrant Santos Pineda said he and his family entered Mexico easily, and without having to provide documents or wear any wrist bands. The familys plan was to press on to the United States, he said.

Mexicos migration institute said in a statement the migrants can stay in temporary shelters in Mexico until they receive humanitarian visas allowing them to remain in the country, or they wait in Guatemala for their document to be ready.

Groups of migrants left El Salvador and Honduras earlier in the week, the latest in a string of caravans of people.

The caravans have inflamed the debate over U.S. immigration policy. President Donald Trump is trying to secure backing for his plan to build a wall covering the countrys southern border with Mexico.
Actor Morgan Freeman and granddaughter E'Dena Hines arrive at the 62nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 16, 2005. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Fatal Stabbing of Morgan Freemans Step-Granddaughter

Lamar Davenport, 33, was sentenced to 20 years in state prison following the fatal stabbing of his girlfriend EDena Hines, who was actor Morgan Freemans step-granddaughter, in New York City.

Davenport was convicted of first-degree manslaughter by the New York State Supreme Court back in May, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

After binging on mind-altering drugs and alcohol, Lamar Davenports actions were simply horrific, said Vance in a press release. He knocked Ms. Hines to the ground, pinned her down, and stabbed her an appalling 25 timesincluding twice through her heart.

Davenport was expected to be sentenced on May 29, 2018, but the announcement of his sentencing was not given until Jan. 17 in a new press release.

Hines and Davenport had been dating for several years and were reportedly living together in Washington Heights at the time of the crime.

According to the district attorneys office, the pair was outside the apartment at around 3:00 a.m. on Aug. 16, 2015, when Davenport kicked Hines, and she fell to the ground. He then pulled out a knife and attacked her, while witnesses called 911.

Although 33-year-old Hines was rushed to Harlem Hospital, she was soon pronounced dead.

Davenport was found to be under the influence of alcohol, phencyclidine (PCP), and other drugs, and police took him into custody at the scene.

Hiness last words were, Why are you doing this? reported the New York Post.

#LamarDavenport has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars for her brutal slaying. https://t.co/l9HpBn3gec  In Touch Weekly (@intouchweekly) January 18, 2019

A witness, 22-year-old Cristina Aviles, told the Post that she was nearby with a group of friends during the incidentbut they were too scared to get close to the scene.

They were arguing. She was on the [ground], and he was on top of her, restraining her, stopping her from getting loose from his grip, Aviles said to the Post.

I proceeded to call the cops, Aviles continued. He was yelling things about releasing the devil out of her. And then he pulled out a knife.

Davenport apologized during his sentencing hearing and said, I dont remember what happened, according to The Associated Press.

Hines was the granddaughter of Jeannette Adair Bradshaw, Morgan Freemans first wife. Although they were not related by blood, the 81-year-old actor later helped raise Hines after adopting her biological mother, Deena Adair, reported the Post.

During Davenports trial, a defense lawyer claimed Hines had admitted to her boyfriend that she had been having an affair with the much-older Freeman before her murder. The actor has denied the alleged affair.

Freeman has also faced allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior from other women, including CNN reporter Chloe Melas.

After CNN published an article on the story in May 2018, Freeman demanded via a lawyer that the network retract the story. However, CNN refused.

The unfounded accusations made by Mr. Freemans lawyer are disappointing and are difficult to reconcile with Mr. Freemans own public statements in the aftermath of the story, the networks statement read. CNN stands by its reporting and will respond forcefully to any attempt by Mr. Freeman or his representatives to intimidate us from covering this important public issue.
Jack Bogle, founder and retired CEO of The Vanguard Group, speaks during the Global Wealth Management Summit in New York, June 17, 2014. (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo)

John Bogle, Vanguard Founder and Low-Cost Investing Pioneer, Dies at 89

John Bogle, whose familys struggles during the Great Depression led him to pioneer low-cost investing and to found Vanguard Group, now the worlds biggest mutual fund firm, died Jan. 16 at the age of 89, Vanguard said.

Bogle had been in frail health for years, surviving at least six heart attacks and receiving a heart transplant in 1996. The cause of death was cancer, according to Bogles assistant Michael Nolan.

Despite ill health, Bogle was a vital presence through his later years as he pressed for reforms in corporate governance and fund administration.

He often mixed sharp rhetoric with a wry sense of humor and established a reputation as a curmudgeon in his industry, at times at odds with Vanguard executives who eventually stripped him of much of his power within the organization.

Still Bogle, known widely as Jack, kept deep professional friendships and maintained a loyal following through his books and public speaking appearances. Some termed themselves Bogleheads in his honor and spread online his messages of thrift and investments in low-fee funds.

Jack did more for American investors as a whole than any individual Ive known, billionaire Warren Buffett said in a statement.

At the 2017 annual meeting of his company Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which Bogle attended, Buffett estimated that by making low-cost index funds so popular for investors, Bogle put tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars into their pockets.

Bogles life in many ways was the opposite of his great fund industry rival, Edward Ned Johnson III, who inherited control of Fidelity Investments in Boston from his father and employed star active managers like Peter Lynch.

Vanguard, in contrast, promoted low-cost index funds, products that Fidelity and the rest of the industry came to emulate.

He made himself a centurion to the individual investor, said Charles Ellis, an industry consultant and a former Vanguard funds director. He had one great message, about lowering fees, and he kept hammering away at it.

Modest Beginnings

Bogle was born on May 8, 1929, to a family of modest means in Montclair, New Jersey, and graduated from Princeton University in 1951, working his way through college as a waiter. His economics thesis there earned him a job from an older Princeton alumnus at the Wellington Management Co. in Philadelphia.

Bogle rose through the ranks and persuaded the company to start offering more mutual funds, even as he suffered his first heart attack at the age of 31, in 1960. He had a pacemaker installed in 1967 to treat a condition known as heart arrhythmia.

He created Vanguard in 1974 after a dispute with others at Wellington, and built its products around a new economic model in which the funds would be run by their own directors and staff rather than by an external management company.

In 1976, Vanguard also introduced the first indexed fund for individual investors. According to the company, it was initially ridiculed as un-American but now the Vanguard 500 Index Fund is one of the industrys largest. Vanguard has some $5 trillion in assets under management, the bulk of it in index funds and exchange-traded funds.

Dan Wiener, who runs a newsletter for Vanguard investors, recounted how Bogle once sued him after he disclosed details of Bogles compensation, and said Bogle could have a thin skin about material that did not paint Vanguard as a virtuous non-profit.

But Wiener said that when he sent a note wishing Bogle well after a 1996 heart transplant, Bogle sent a response in the guise of one of his doctors, who noted that my email had raised his heart rate and that I should refrain from further emails until he was recovered. When I later found out we had a good laugh, at my expense.

Even as Bogles health declined in his later years he remained a combative public presence, arguing that larger fund companies had grown too focused on their own profit rather than serving as stewards of their clients interests, including pressing corporations for better governance.

Reporting by Ross Kerber.
People walk by a branch of Vodafone in central London is seen in a 2009.(AP Photo/Sang Tan, File)

In 5G Play, Vodafone and IBM Link up Cloud Systems for Business

Vodafone is teaming up with IBM to offer businesses a way to link different cloud computing systems to support the next wave of digital advances, such as machine learning, on super-fast fifth-generation telecoms networks.

As part of the deal, the UK-based telecoms operator will pay $550 million to IBM under an eight-year managed-services agreement that will offer tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to networked businesses.

The two companies are pitching the venture as a combination of cloud computing and connectivity that would, for example, enable super-fast communication between robots on a factory floor without the need for a big pipe back to a data center.

And, with an estimated 70 percent of organizations using up to 15 different cloud systems, the ability to link them should make it easier for firms to adapt and innovate without having to redesign their networks from the ground up.

Businesses are beginning to embrace digital  as they do that they get a lot of complexity, Greg Hyttenrauch of Vodafone, one of the co-leaders of the project, told Reuters in an interview.

We predicated this venture on the ability to simplify that complexity.

Vodafone has built a strong position in mobile services for business  it is the No. 1 or No. 2 provider in Britain, Germany, Italy, and Spain and is stepping up its battle against BT, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia and Telefonica in the fixed-line business market.

It aims to grow business service revenue, which currently accounts for 30 percent of its total, by combining fixed-line and mobile services with new technology in areas like AI and the Internet of Things.

On the Cusp of 5G

The venture will focus on Vodafones British, German, and Irish markets, targeting multinationals and national enterprises operating in industries such as retail, manufacturing, utilities, agriculture or transportation.

It is expected to be operational in the first half of 2019.

The partnership seeks to bring IBMs prowess in handling multiple cloud-based systems to bear, and reflects the priorities behind its $34 billion takeover of Red Hat, a software firm that specializes in Linux operating systems, said IBMs Michael Valocchi, the other co-lead.

Analyst Dave Bartoletti at Forrester Research said the deal recognized Vodafones need for a partner to build out its cloud computing services.

At the same time, IBM is moving away from competing head on with hyperscale cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google that offer hosted memory, network, and storage services that can grow with the needs of big, data-intensive businesses.

Instead, it is aiming to be the go-to company for enterprises who need to stitch together multiple cloud platforms, said Bartoletti.

Analyst Carla Arend at IDC estimates the global cloud market at $420 billion this year, with the market for global cloud connectivity worth another $2 billion.

The combined global market opportunity is huge, she said.

Ireland and Britain have already allocated 5G spectrum and Germany is about to auction frequencies for a mobile technology that will offer downloads far faster than on existing networks, as well as ultra-low latency or reaction times.

Combining these characteristics with significant computing power will make it possible to deploy applications such as AI, or computerized problem solving, in the field.

Telecoms operators say they expect to start offering 5G services from next year in European markets that have moved to allocate spectrum and build out networks.

By Douglas Busvine
President Barack Obama (C) speaks to the media after meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch (L) and FBI Director James Comey in the Oval Office at the White House July 19, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Hey, Media, Why No Trump-Like Scrutiny on Obamacare, Stimulus, or Iraq Bug-Out?

The medias President Donald Trump is a congenital liar narrative reeks of rampant hypocrisy to those who repeatedly complained while the same media gave President Barack Obama pass after pass for eight years.

Obama wanted to become a transformational president, and succeeded, thanks in large part to a fawning, compliant media that mostly supported his policies and ignored the falsehoods he used to pursue them.

Obamacare, to quote former Vice President Joe Biden, was a big [expletive] deal. Similarly, pulling all troops from Iraq and spending nearly $1 trillion for so-called economic-stimulus programs were also big deals. Each decision required deception that the Trump-hating media were only too happy to ignore.

First, Obamacare. Obama promised it would lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year and that if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. Obama falsely claimed that as his mother lay dying from cancer in Hawaii, she had fought with her insurance carriers about her hospital and medical bills.

But the biggest falsehood was the promise that Obamacare would bend the cost curve downthat compelling insurance companies to carry people with pre-existing conditions would actually reduce health care costs.

But in an unguarded moment, economist Jonathan Gruber, a key Obamacare architect, admitted: Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.

About Romneycare, the Massachusetts health care plan he helped craft, Gruber made another admission: The dirty secret in Massachusetts is the feds paid for our bill, OK? In Massachusetts, we had a very powerful senator you may know named Ted Kennedy.  Ted Kennedy and smart people in Massachusetts had basically figured out a way to sort of rip off the feds for about $400 million a year.

Second, the economic stimulus plan. In December 2008, Vice President-elect Joe Biden said, Every economist, as Ive said, from conservative to liberal, acknowledges that direct government spending on a direct program now is the best way to infuse economic growth and create jobs. A couple of weeks later, President-elect Obama said, There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan to jump-start the economy.

Actually, there was disagreement, and a great deal of it.

Larry Elder: Hey, Media, Why No Trump-Like Scrutiny on Obamacare, 'Stimulus' or the Iraq Bug-Out?https://t.co/7jz6Oci4EJ  Larry Elder (@larryelder) January 17, 2019

More than 200 economists, including several Nobel Prize-winners, disagreed with his plan to stimulate the economy with government spending.

In a full-page ad taken out by the libertarian Cato Institute, these economists, joined later by 130 more economists, said: With all due respect, Mr. President, that is not true. Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance.  It is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today.  Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

Third, the Iraq pullout. Obama pulled out of Iraq against the advice of his national security team. His secretary of state, secretary of defense, national security adviser, CIA chief, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq all advised Obama to leave a stay-behind force. But when ISIS grew and metastasized, Obama eventually sent back 5,000 troops, where they remain today.

Did the president, who once referred to ISIS as a JV team, admit his costly mistake? On the contrary, Obama claimed that President George W. Bushs Iraq timetable forced him to withdraw. Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 presidential campaign, also claimed the Bush agreement forced Obama to withdraw, based on the timetable supposedly agreed to by the United States and Iraq. Never mind that in 2011, then-Secretary of State Clinton advised Obama to keep some troops in Iraq, an acknowledgment that he could have negotiated to do just that.

FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocate for voters run by the University of Pennsylvanias Annenberg Public Policy Center, examined the claim that Bush tied Obamas hands on Iraq:

We take no position on whether the U.S. should have left some combat troops in Iraq. But the record shows that (President Bush) agreed to the withdrawal deadline and agreed not to leave behind a residual force. Likewise, the Clinton campaigns response that Iraq wouldnt allow the Obama administration to renegotiate the terms of the withdrawal ignored criticism that Obama didnt try hard enough. That criticism isnt just partisan. And most notably, His own defense secretary said Obama wasnt actively engaged in the negotiations and allowed the opportunity to slip away.'

These three major Obama policy decisionsObamacare, leaving Iraq and stimuluswere based on deception. But unlike todays anti-Trump truth-telling media, Obamas media cheered, saluted or looked the other way.

Larry Elder is a best-selling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an Elderado, visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on Twitter @LarryElder.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The $11.4 million sale of the Enfield Square mall, which had been in decline for years, has now been finalized and the new owner is the Long Island-based Namdar Realty Group.
President Trump watches as the Landwehr Fribourg band leaves the stage during the WEF annual meeting in Davos, on Jan. 26, 2018. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

Gloomy Forecast for Davos: Crises Aplenty, but Few World Leaders

MILANAn array of crises will keep several world leaders away from the annual World Economic Forum in Davos next week, which takes place against a backdrop of deepening gloom over the global economic and political outlook.

Anxiety over trade disputes, fractious international relations, Brexit, and a growth slowdown that some fear could tip the world economy into recession are set to dominate the Jan. 2225 Alpine meeting and the mood will be somber.

The WEFs own Global Risks Report set the tone this week with a stark warning of looming economic headwinds, in part due to geopolitical tensions among major powers.

Some 3,000 business, government and civil society chiefs are due to gather in the snow-blanketed ski resort, but among them are only three leaders of the Group of Seven most industrialized countries: Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Italian premier Giuseppe Conte.

Donald Trump, who stole the Davos limelight last year with a rare appearance by a sitting U.S. president, pulled out of this years event as he grapples with a U.S. government shutdown.

His French counterpart Emmanuel Macron is also skipping the meeting as he seeks to respond to the yellow vest protests, while Theresa May battles to find a consensus on Brexit.

Outside the G7, the leaders of Russia and India are shunning Davos, while Chinawhose Xi Jinping was the first Chinese leader to attend the elite gathering in 2017is sending his deputy instead.

That will leave the likes of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his British colleague Philip Hammond, as well as Chinas Vice Chair Wang Qishan and a host of central bankers, with the task of trying to reassure business chiefs.

Davos will be dominated by a high level of anxiety about stock markets, a slowdown in growth and international politics, said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit.

The leadership presence is lower than last year but those who are going, from Mnuchin to central bankers to Abe, will be seeking to impart a sense of confidence and calm business and investors nerves.

Revamp

A U.S. administration official said the U.S. delegation, which includes Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, would also discuss the importance of reforming institutions such as the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.

Trump has criticized globalization and questioned Americas participation in multilateral institutions like the WTO, calling for a revamp of international trade rules.

Its time to revisit  how some of these groups are structured and are they optimized for the challenges of todays economy, the administration official said. We fully intend to go to Davos and be able to carry the presidents message.

Davos watchers said the absence of so many top leaders this year did not mean the glitzy forum had lost its mojo as a global stage for top politicians to present their agendas.

Abe is going to Davos not just as Japanese prime minister but also as chair of the G-20. It will be a perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork of upcoming G-20 meetings, said a Japanese government source familiar with international affairs.

Of course there may be inconveniences such as missing opportunities to hold bilateral meetings, but that wont undermine the importance of Davos, he said.

A Chinese official who has attended Davos regularly but will not go this year said China had never expected to make progress on the trade row with the United States at the meeting. Its just an occasion for making a policy statement, he said.

The low turnout amongst major Western leaders may also give more prominence to political personalities who may otherwise be upstaged. Davos will be the first major international outing for Brazils President Jair Bolsonaro, elected on a wave of anti-establishment and conservative nationalism also seen elsewhere.

He said on Twitter he would present a different Brazil, free of ideological ties and widespread corruption.

For business chiefs the value of Davos lies not so much in the public sessions but in the networking and deal-making opportunities on the sidelines of the main conference.

Its the best place to pitch for ideas, build connections and get your brand known, said Chen Linchevski, CEO of Precognize, an Israel-based start-up developing software that prevents technical or quality failures at manufacturing plants.

Its the kind of place where in a few days you meet people you wouldnt easily meet otherwise, said Linchevski, who is paying 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,495) to attend the event.

By Silvia Aloisi
Friends Cast Doubt After Texas Mom, Young Daughters Found Dead Inside Mansion: Reports

The shooting deaths of a Texas mother and her two daughters was ruled a murder-suicide, but friends have cast doubts on the ruling.

The Bexar County Medical Examiners Office ruled the deaths of girls Alexa, 16, and London, 10, as homicides. Mother Nichol Olsens death was ruled a suicide, according to News4 San Antonio.

Olsen, a 37-year-old hairstylist, was found shot dead alongside her daughters last week. The sheriffs office said the investigation remains ongoing.

She would NEVER kill herself: Friends demand answers after beloved mom & young daughters found dead inside immaculate mansion, while boyfriend says he was away for the night  Nancy Grace  2019117

We cant just say, Oh, well then she mustve been the one that did this to these two little girls,' Sheriff Javier Salazar told News4. We still have to go out and find out who it was that killed these two young ladies.

He said the same about the suicide ruling.

Our investigation may concur with the medical examiner, the sheriff stated. Or we may find something through the course of our investigation that may change that finding all together. At this point, its just too early to tell.

While authorities continue to investigate the case, those close to Olsen say that she would never have ended three lives so violently.  People  2019117

One friend said the shootings were not done by Olsen.

No one, not ONE person who knew Nichol, can tell you she was capable of killing her girls, Nichols friend, Vanessa Cardona, told CrimeOnline.

Rick Wright, another friend, said he thought she was murdered and would never kill herself.

I would say that she would have had to have been killed, Wright said. Theres no way that she would have taken her life, or taken anybody elses life like that. Thats just not how she was. That wasnt herhow she thinks. She loved life too much.

On January 10, Nichol Olsen and her two young daughters, Alexa and London, were found shot to death inside their San  Dateline NBC  2019115

The crime scene was discovered by the owner of the property where the bodies were discovered, according to People magazine. The owner was in a relationship with Olsen.

He told police that he was not at the home on the night of the shootings, KTSA reported.

The homeowner is cooperating with authorities in the case, Salazar said.

Their family beg for answers heartbreaking  Daily Mail  2019111

Yeah, youre a person of interest if three people were found deceased in your home, whether you were there or not, and two of them have been listed as homicides, Salazar said, People reported. Were a long ways off from naming anybody culpable in the deaths of these girls, he added. But were also a long ways off from clearing anybody.

The father of slain daughter Alexa, Carlos Montez Jr., also said he does not believe Olsen would commit such a crime.

She loved them too much, Montez said of the girls, the San Antonio Express-News reported. She had so much joy in her life and so many things going for her. There is absolutely no way that we believe she is responsible for everything that happened.

The Daily Mail reported that they were found dead inside a $1 million mansion, owned by her boyfriend, Charles Wheeler.
Victor Zammit and his wife Kathleen saw Shen Yun Performing Arts at The David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York on Jan. 17, 2019. (Wei Yong/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORKAs Victor Zammit and his wife Kathleen journeyed through 5,000 years of Chinese history, visiting different dynasties, ethnic groups, and mystery lands, they developed a warm attachment toward the culture. They said were not aware of how grand this divinely inspired culture was until they experienced Shen Yun Performing Arts.

Zammit, who was the former national director of tax at Ernst & Young, said all praises when he experienced the performance at The David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York on Jan. 17. The New York-based Shen Yun tours the globe every year, since 2006, with a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture and universal values through performing arts.

Very artistic, very creative, very romantic, absolutely beautiful, Zammit said, adding that he would like to see the performance again and bring his grandson next time.

I wish my grandson was old enough to enjoy this  he would enjoy it very much, he said.

Every Shen Yun performance is comprised of around 20 vignettes of classical Chinese dance, story-based dances, and ethnic and folk dances from Chinas many ethnic minorities and regions. The pieces are suitable for people of all ages and the values portrayed inspire people from all walks of life.

Kathleen said she liked how every aspect of the performance came together, like the costumes and colors, to make up a beautiful presentation.

Its really beautiful you have a lot of history, she said. Its a performance that is non-paralleled. I mean Ive never seen anything like it.

Goodness Triumphs Over Evil

Many of Shen Yuns stories showcase historical events, myths and legends passed down generation after generation, or modern day pieces portraying todays real-life human rights abuses in China like the persecution of Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, teaches Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance and has helped over 100 million Chinese people today understand and return to the essence of traditional Chinese culture. But the Chinese regime banned the practice in 1999 and has since continued to systematically persecute Falun Gong adherents in China. People who are caught practicing the discipline in China face severe persecution, including torture, imprisonment, and even death.

These stories portray themes like spiritual devotion, the benevolence of gods, good and evil retribution, and the search for the meaning of life, according to the companys website. Such values are foundational to traditional Chinese culture and are not political in nature.

These contemporary story pieces touched Zammit. He said it was unfortunate to learn that terrible things like the persecution are still taking place in China.

Im hoping that the leadership there sees the light and makes some changes, he said.

Kathleen echoed her husband, saying that freedom is a really important thing. She added that she was inspired by the message from the stories: goodness does win over evil.

With reporting by Wei Yong and Janita Kan.

The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time and has covered audience reactions since the companys inception in 2006.
Cutting Government Waste Could Provide Border Wall Funding, Meadows Says

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) floated a compromise solution on Jan. 15 to end the nearly monthlong partial government shutdown sparked by an impasse over funding for a barrier wall on the U.S. southern border.

President Donald Trump is insisting that any new funding bills include $5 billion for the wall. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), has called a border wall both immoral and a waste of money; other top Trump critics have followed suit.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), told CNN at the outset of the shutdown, I think its a waste of money. It just fans Trumps illusions. No, I am not going to support $5 billion or money for a wall.

The idea proposed by Meadows, however, would allocate money clawed back from government overpayments or payments made in error to fund the border walla potentially massive source of funding.

Every year, the U.S. government pays billions of dollars to people in error. Possible compromise: an amendment allowing recovered money to be spent on border barriers. It wouldnt appropriate even ONE new dollar, allowing Democrats to keep their promises while securing our borders, Meadows wrote on Twitter.

Meadows didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. But the issue of government waste was recently explored by the Government Accountability Office, an investigation agency of Congress.

Long-Standing, Significant Problem

A new Government Accountability Office (GOA) audit indicates that the U.S. government made $141 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2017, the most recent data available. The GAO described the issue as a long-standing, significant problem in the federal government.

Improper payments are defined as payments that shouldnt have been made or were made in incorrect amounts under statutory, contractual, administrative, or other legally applicable requirements.

A previous GAO report analyzing the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, states, Although agencies report improper payment estimates annually  we continued to report that the federal government is unable to determine the full extent to which improper payments occur and reasonably assure that actions are taken to reduce them.

Curtis Kalin, spokesman for Washington-based nonprofit Citizens Against Government Waste, said he would welcome any debate that would include a discussion of the critical waste issue.

Fundamentally, every taxpayer dollar should be treated as sacred, and the issue of improper payments is among the most outrageous for taxpayers, Kalin said in an email.

The proposed border wall, like anything else, requires a fiscally responsible approach, he said.

In terms of border security, any policy proposal should be approached with the singular goal of solving the problem in the most practical, measurable, and cost-effective way possible, just like any other government program, Kalin said.

Kalin explained that agencies typically measure improper payments after they have been already made, while doing little before taxpayer resources are spent. Not only are hundreds of billions being wasted, too many programs shirk the responsibility of checking whether a payment is improper, he said.

Failed Risk Assessments

Under the Improper Payments Act of 2002, federal agencies are required to perform risk assessments to identify programs that may be susceptible to significant improper payments.

In its most recent report, published Jan. 10, the GAO reviewed a sample of five programs across four large governments agencies: the U.S. Treasurys Interest on the Public Debt and Home Affordable Modification Program, the Department of Justices Law Enforcement program, Health and Human Services Head Start childhood development program, and the Department of Agricultures Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage program.

Auditors selected these items because their total outlays in fiscal year 2017 amounted to $330 billion, and the respective agencies recently produced their own improper payment risk assessments of them.

In every case, the agencies said their programs werent at risk of significant improper payments. However, GAO investigators found only one agency, the USDA, could provide the required documentation to support its low-risk claim.

While analyzing Department of Health and Human Services records, auditors made a surprising discovery: Based on the analysis of HHS information, GAO identified at least 140 programs or activities that were not assessed during the three-year period, of 2015 through 2017, as required by law.

The GAO concluded that HHS, Treasury and the DOJ cannot be certain whether their programs are susceptible to significant improper payments.

USDA Program Errors

Auditors commended the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for providing sufficient documentation to support its low-risk self-assessment of its audited program. But the USDA grappled with a major improper payment scandal during the same 2015-17 period regarding its largest program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps.

Every year, the USDAs Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) issues a national error rate for the $60 billion to $70 billion food stamp program. The national error rate, which measures improper overpayments to food stamp recipients, is based on the individual errors rates of all 50 states and six U.S. territories.

After reporting improbably low error rates during the Obama-era escalation of the program, the agencys inspector general found that many states were reporting fabricated figures to which the USDA didnt effectively question, but instead issued millions of dollars in low payment error bonuses, according to the Government Accountability Institute (GIA), a nonprofit journalism organization.

The reason for the breakdown in error rate integrity was that FNS created faulty incentives for states already in need of funding, and states took advantage of lax program rules to obtain funding bonuses, a 2018 GAI report says.

In fiscal year 2015, the USDA only included 10 states in its national error rate. The next year, it failed to report any improper overpayment figures. In FY 2017, the USDA produced a roughly 5.2 percent overpayment rate, equivalent to $3.3 billion of the $63.6 billion programor more than half of the requested southern border-wall funding.

In September 2017, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), said, Simply put, no one knows the error rate of SNAP, and that is unacceptable.

According to PaymentAccuracy.gov, there are many factors causing improper payments across government agencies, including poor program design, an inability to authenticate a recipient or contractors eligibility, and the failure to identify key data, such as whether individual recipients are in prison or dead.

The government website also explains that because federal payments are often made through one-way arrangements such as grants, benefits, and loans, the recovery rate is comparatively low.
Police walk sniffer dogs outside the Great Hall of the People during the closing session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing on March 15, 2018. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Chinese Regime Boosts Security to Guard Against Popular Uprisings

BEIJINGChinas police must focus on withstanding color revolutions, or popular uprisings, and treat the defense of Chinas political system as central to their work, the top law-enforcement official said.

Chinas stability-obsessed Communist Party has long tasked the nations police force with stamping out any form of grassroots social or political movement.

Chinas police must stress the prevention and resistance of color revolutions and firmly fight to protect Chinas political security, Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi said on Jan. 17, according to a post on the ministrys website.

(We) must firmly defend our national security, with regime and system security at its core, and firmly defend the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and our nations Socialist system, he said.

Police must also strike back against all kinds of infiltration and subversive activities by hostile foreign forces, he told the ministrys annual national meeting.

The term color revolution refers to popular uprisings experienced by former Soviet states, such as Ukraine, that often swept away long-established rulers.

Chinese officials have previously mentioned such uprisings as a warning to their own people about the trouble that might result from overthrowing long-standing governments.

Chinas domestic security budget has not been detailed by the government in its annual work report since 2014, after the figure outstripped the military budget three years in a row.

Analyst estimates suggest spending has continued to soar, with security-related construction tripling in 2017 in the far western region of Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of individuals from Muslim ethnic minorities have been held in camps as part of a de-radicalization drive.

The Chinese regime has used the excuse that Xinjiang faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions with the ethnic Han Chinese majority to crack down on the local population in Xinjiang.

In August 2018, a United Nations human rights panel said it had received many credible reports that a million or more Uyghurs in China are being held in what resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.

Over the years, Xinjiang has been transformed into a vast security state, packed with police stations, street cameras, and security checkpoints at which electronic identity cards are scanned.

Western countries including Canada, France, Germany, and the United States have urged China to shut down camps in Xinjiang.

Government procurement documents suggest that Chinas police have also increased spending across China as they adopt new high-tech devices, such as phone scanners, to help surveillance.

By Christian Shepherd. The Epoch Times contributed to this report.
Success using IVF alone for women 35-40 is reported at less than 35 percent. Using Chinese medicine, Dr. Chen has a 75 percent success rate.(Rose Elena/Unsplash)

Chinese Medicine Treats Infertility, Boosts IVF Success

For thousands of years, Chinese medicine has been helping couples through all stages of pregnancy. The literature on the subject holds an immense amount of wisdomsome complex and some stunning in simplicity.

Manhattan-based Chinese medicine doctor Decheng Chen L.Ac. Ph.D., author of 15 books on acupuncture and Chinese medicine, recounted the story of one his patients, a 38-year-old Korean woman whose husband is a few years younger than she.

She had been through the gamut of conventional treatment but still had no success despite being in good health. When she decided to turn to Chinese medicine, she came to Dr. Chen. Along with many other questions, Dr. Chen also asked about her husband. In the course of conversation, it came up that he had been taking saunas weekly. Dr. Chen told her to have him stop these saunas because sperm may die in such extreme heat. The husband followed this advice and shortly after the woman became pregnant.

Of course, not all cases are so easy. Some may require months of sometimes daily treatment. But the good news is, the success rate is high. Dr. Chen said that hes treated close to 70 couples with the women being 35-40 years old, an age where the chance of success using IVF alone is reported at less than 35 percent. With Chinese medicine, his patients had a 75 percent success rate.

Chinese medicine gives a new window and doorway to hope, Dr. Chen said.

The success of Chinese medicine for infertility is because it addresses blood circulation and lack of warmth (yang energy) in the womb.

Dr. Chen, who has been a Chinese medicine doctor for over 30 years and teaches at the New York College of Health Professions, said that poor circulation and a cold environment in the womb may prevent conception and may also cause miscarriage even after successful conception with IVF.

Important treatments for these are herbs that warm the body and acupuncture or acupressure on certain points on the body. Dr. Chen said he sometimes also uses a treatment called moxibustion in which a smoldering herb rolled in paper is held over certain points on the body to stimulate warmth and energy flow. Moxibustion is as old as acupuncture; in fact the Chinese word for acupuncture zhenjiu consists of two parts: zhen for needle and jiu for moxibustion, he said.

What particular treatments a couple receives depends entirely on their unique situation. In Chinese medicine, a doctor must get to the root of an illness or disorder. This is because, unlike Western medicine, which tends to treat similar symptoms in the same way, Chinese medicine recognizes that patients with the same symptoms may have very different causes. And conversely, patients with very different symptoms may have a similar root cause.

This is why Dr. Chen holds very long first appointments, so he can learn the details of patients medical history and lifestyle. And if he is not satisfied with what hes able to glean with traditional diagnostics, he asks patients to get further testing such as blood work or an ultrasound.

Lifestyle is very important when a woman wants to become pregnant, Dr. Chen said. She may need to change her eating and sleeping habits because poor nutrition, stress, painkillers, alcohol, and too little sleep can impair fertility. The husband sometimes also needs to make corresponding changes.

Being overweight and using birth control long-term can also make it challenging for a woman to become pregnant, he said.

What Conditions Can Chinese Medicine Help?

In addition to improving blood circulation in the uterus and treating polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), Chinese medicine can help women that have abnormal menstruation or have poor-quality or few eggs. It is also effective for hormone imbalances, inflammation, endometriosis, and polyps.

Being a holistic and comprehensive system, Chinese medicine has protocols to help nourish and strengthen a womans body and reproductive system so that she is able to carry the baby to term. It can also alleviate morning sickness, support the immune system through colds and flu, and reduce labor pains.

However, many hospitals dont allow Dr. Chen to give treatments after a woman in labor is admitted, so he usually gives acupuncture for pain in the early stages.

Chinese medicine also has a special herbal formula (Si Wu Tang) that women can take after birth to help clean out the uterus, Dr. Chen said.

Why It Works

To a Western-trained mind, the mechanisms of Chinese medicine can seem a little mysterious with the talk of hot and cold (yang and yin), qi (life energy) and organ systems that encompass more than the physical organs of the same names. Dr. Chen said that even his Chinese students sometimes have difficulty understanding until he shares an anecdote or example to illustrate.

Dr. Chen compares acupuncture to a key starting a car. Even if a car is in good working order and has plenty of gas, it still needs the key to start. For example, certain acupuncture points can stimulate ovary function, revving the specific energy the body needs for conception.

Because Chinese medicine has such a long history, Dr. Chen said no one knows how many of the formulas and protocols came to be, and unlike Western medicine, there are not always extensive scientific studies that verify results. In addition, even when studies are conducted, the evaluation criteria used and the questions asked sometimes have limiting assumptions from Western medicine and are not able to fully and fairly verify the results of Chinese medicine treatments.

So the best proof of efficacy isin the case of fertility treatmentsin the children. And the hope is in the stories like that of Grace, (not her real name), who at age 43 had failed IVF and was not menstruating. Doctors had told her that if she wanted children she needed to use donor eggs. She didnt want to do this so she came to Dr. Chen. After three months of treatments at Dr. Chens, her period returned; after six months she was ready for IVF again. This time it was successful and she gave birth to a baby boy.

And by far hers is not an isolated case. Dr. Chen said that now fertility doctors send patients to him because they know he will improve their success rate.

Learn more at BestAcupunctureClinic.com
A still image taken from CCTV video shows Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg in court, where he was sentenced with a death penalty for drug smuggling, in Dalian, Liaoning province, China, on Jan. 14, 2019. (CCTV via Reuters)

Chinese Ambassador Warns of Repercussions If Canada Bans Huawei From 5G

OTTAWAChinese ambassador Lu Shaye says Canadas arrest of a Huawei Technologies executive was an act of backstabbing by a friend.

And Lu warns of repercussions if Canada bars the firm from its new 5G network for security reasons, as have three of its intelligence-sharing allies.

In a rare interview with Canadian journalists, Lu also told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to back off recruiting international support in Canadas feud with China. He said it would be a bad idea for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland to use the upcoming World Economic Forum summit in Davos to press that case.

Lu said economic relations between the two counties can be repaired and the current impasse could be resolved through negotiations, but he defended the arrests of two Canadians in China and criticized Canadas arrest of the telecommunications executive, saying Meng Wanzhou didnt break any Canadian laws.

Canada detained her in Vancouver last Dec. 1, at the request of American authorities who want her to face fraud charges for her dealings with American banks. She is out on bail and faces extradition proceedings.

China detained Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat on leave, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur, after Mengs arrest on vague allegations of engaging in activities that endanger the national security. Western analysts believe their arrests are an attempt to pressure Canada to free Meng entirely.

China also sentenced another Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, to death on Jan. 14 in a sudden retrial of his drug-smuggling case. He was originally sentenced in 2016 to a 15-year term, but the court delivered the new sentence after reconsidering his case.

A former Liberal justice minister accused China of using hostage diplomacy against the three.

Irwin Cotler, the founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, took China to task for characterizing Canadas arrest of Meng as vile, unconscionable and evil.

These words define and describe Chinas hostage diplomacy ever sinceincluding its detention of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor and the arbitrarily cruel death sentence of Robert Schellenberg, Cotler said in an email to The Canadian Press.

But nothing exposes and unmasks Chinas contempt for the rule of law, in China as well as in Canada, and its own vile, unconscionable and evil conduct than its cruel and inhumane treatment of Ti-Anna Wang and her infant daughter, Cotler said.

Last week, Wang arrived in southern China where her father, Wang Bingzhangconsidered to be the father of Chinas ill-fated international pro-democracy movementhas been jailed since Chinese agents snatched him in Vietnam in 2002 and hauled him back to the Peoples Republic.

China has consistently denied Wangs attempts to visit her father for almost a decade, as his health has been declining.

In August, Wang was given a fresh Chinese visa, but when she arrived in southern China last week with her husband and 11-month-old daughter, she was turned away after a six-hour airport ordeal. She was sent back to South Korea, where she had been visiting her husbands family.

On Jan. 16, as she and her family were changing flights in Beijing on their return trip to Canada, Wang said half a dozen Chinese agents boarded her flight, took her and her daughter into custody, and separated them from her husband.

Two hours later they were forced onto a different flight and sent back to South Korea. Wangs family had to rebook their travel back to Montreal on a new flight from South Korea that took them through the United States.

Unlike last time, no questions were asked. I wasnt allowed to use my phone or computer, or contact the Canadian Embassy. I couldnt consult with my husband, whom I didnt see again until we were being escorted to the gate, or contact Air Canada to rebook my flight, Wang said in an email from South Korea.

It was a shocking, terrifying and senseless ordeal with no purpose but to bully, punish and intimidate me and my family, she wrote.

Canadas foreign ministry had no comment on Wangs treatment by Chinese authorities.
Chinese military officials arrive at the Great Hall of the People before a session of China's rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, in Beijing on March 12, 2015. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

China Hints at New Anti-Corruption Direction

Chinese authorities are hinting at a new focus in its sweeping anti-corruption campaign against misbehaving Party officials.

At a national meeting for the Chinese Communist Partys anti-corruption body, known as the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), held from Jan. 11 to 13 in Beijing, Party officials outlined requirements for their graft-fighting work, including an emphasis on thwarting interest groups from having a corrupting influence on officials.

Resolutely prevent interest groups from enticing and corroding Party leaders and cadres, push for building a new type of relationship between business and politics that is intimate but clean, read the requirement, according to a communique from the meeting published by state-run media Xinhua.

This is not the first time Chinese leader Xi Jinping has mentioned the need to clean up bribery practices between corporations and local government officials in his corruption-fighting campaign since taking power in 2012.

But singling out the influence of interest groups at the national meeting was unprecedented.

Days later, the Guizhou Province authorities provided an example of what the requirement might mean.

On Jan. 17, the Guizhou CCDI announced on its website new requirements to strictly prohibit cadres from taking advantage of maotai liquor to obtain personal gains.

Maotai, a type of distilled liquor named after the Guizhou town where they are made, is one of the provinces most renowned products and a luxury status symbol. It is often used as a social lubricant at official banquets and business dinners.

Maotai is a big business. The drink is produced only by the state-owned Moutai Distillery under the company Kweichow Moutai (also known as China National Liquor)a publicly listed firm valued at more than $145 billion, according to Fortune magazine.

Its no wonder local officials are enticed to make gains from the company.

To prevent such corruption, the CCDI announcement listed a number of prohibitions for local cadres, including: using ones power to enable oneself, ones spouse and children, or their spouses to engage in maotai business operations; receiving or giving maotai as gifts; and reselling maotai for a profit.

One rule further specified that cadres could not invest in the company, operate maotai retail stores, or sell the liquor for a commission.

Cadres should educate and properly manage relatives and those close to them to avoid breaking the new rules, the announcement said.

Officials who engage in any form of business-related interaction with the company have to be recorded in a new registry and failing to do so will trigger a serious investigation.

The notice signals an effort to crack down on messy business ties among officials.

In December 2018, Chinese finance publication Caixin published a report citing local insiders that former Kweichow Moutai chairman Yuan Renguo was being investigated by anti-corruption authorities for his close ties with former Guizhou vice governor Wang Xiaoguang, who was sacked last April.

Two other former company executives have been sacked under Xis campaign and are under investigation.

Beijing-based independent historian and commentator Zhang Lifan told Voice of America (VOA) that whereas the campaign previously focused on corruption within the Party bureaucracy, the targeting of interest groups would examine relationships with those outside the government.

He added that the label of interest group could be slapped on any Party official in a faction that is not ones own. I think this means the power struggle [between factions] could gradually become more intense, Zhang told VOA in a Jan. 13 interview.

Reuters contributed to this report.
In this image provided by military personnel, emergency personnel respond to the scene of a deadly car bombing at a police academy on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, in Bogota, Colombia. (AP Photo)

Car Bombing Kills 10 People at Police Academy in Colombia Capital

A car bomb exploded at a heavily guarded police academy in Colombias capital on Jan. 17, killing 10 people and injuring dozens in an attack that recalled the bloodiest chapters of the countrys drug-fueled guerrilla conflict.

The scene outside the General Santander police academy in southern Bogota was chaotic in the aftermath of the mid-morning attack, the biggest against a police or military facility in Bogota in years.

Videos circulating on social media show panicked officers hauling injured colleagues on stretchers with debris and body parts strewn in front of red tile-roofed cadet barracks. In the distance, the skeletal steel remains of the truck used in the attack can be seen still burning while approaching ambulances blare.

President Ivan Duque rushed back to the capital with his top military advisers from a visit to a western state to oversee the police investigation, which points to a possible suicide bombing  something unprecedented in decades of political violence in the Andean nation.

Chief Prosecutor Nestor Martinez said a 56-year-old man named Jose Aldemar Rojas, driving a 1993 Nissan pick-up loaded with 175 pounds of pentolite, carried out the attack. He said the car had its last official mechanical revision some six months ago in the eastern state of Arauca, along the border with Venezuela.

This is an attack not only against the young, the security forces or the police. Its an attack against society, Duque said in a brief statement after surveying the blast scene. This demented terrorist act will not go unpunished.

The defense ministry said 10 people were killed and another 66 injured. Among the dead were a Panamanian and an Ecuadorian national.

Rafael Trujillo said he was delivering a care package to his son Gerson, who entered the school just two days ago, when he was stopped in his tracks by the blast that destroyed windows in apartment buildings as far as four blocks away.

Im sad and very worried because I dont have any information about my son, said Trujillo, standing outside the facility, where police officers had set up a taped perimeter as forensic specialists surveyed the blast site.

Authorities were at a loss to explain how the vehicle slipped through a gate permanently protected by explosive-sniffing dogs, heavily-armed guards and security cameras. But there were unconfirmed reports based on leaked recordings of phone conversations of officers on the scene that the driver rammed through the checkpoint on a kamikaze mission.

Health authorities in Bogota appealed for residents to donate blood at one of four collection points in the capital to help treat those injured, the majority of whom were rushed to a police hospital.

For decades, residents of Bogota lived in fear of being caught in a bombing by leftist rebels or Pablo Escobars Medellin drug cartel. But as Colombias conflict has wound down, security has improved and residents have lowered their guard.

While authorities had yet to suggest who was behind the attack, and no armed group claimed responsibility, attention was focused on leftist rebels from the National Liberation Army, which has been stepping up attacks on police targets in Colombia amid a standoff with the conservative Duque over how to re-start stalled peace talks.

The group known as the ELN was long considered a lesser military threat than the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whose 7,000 guerrilla fighters disarmed as part of a 2016 peace accord. FARC became the official military wing of the Colombian Communist Party.

But in the wake of the peace deal the Cuban-inspired insurgency has been gaining strength, especially along the eastern border with Venezuela, where it has carried out a number of kidnappings and bombings of oil pipelines. That has hardened Duques resolve in refusing to resume peace talks that have been stalled since he took office last August, despite a rebel offer of a cease-fire.

Other possible assailants include the countrys Usuga drug cartel, which has suffered a number of setbacks at the hands of the police, and dissident members of the FARC.

Several foreign leaders condemned the attack, as did the former commanders of the disbanded FARC.

The United Nations peace mission in Colombia called it an unacceptable criminal act which goes against the efforts the country is making to steer away from the violence, and work  to build a more prosperous and peaceful future.

An explosion at the upmarket Andino shopping mall in June 2017 killed three people, including a French woman, and injured another 11. Police later arrested several suspected members of a far-left urban guerrilla group called the People Revolutionarys Movement for the bombing.

But it has been more than a decade since a police or military installation in the capital has suffered a major bombing. A blast at military university in 2006 left almost two dozen people injured.

Ariel Avila, an analyst who tracks violence, said that in the last four years, there have been 28 attacks in the capital with explosives. While the majority has been carried out with low-grade homemade materials and grenades that have damaged property but left no casualties, he said police intelligence and checkpoints surrounding the city need to be reinforced to prevent more attacks.

We need to fortify the city again, he told Blu Radio.
Teacher Haley Fazio (2nd L) works with her kindergarten students on a frog-research lesson viewed on tablet computer in Des Moines, Wash., on March 10, 2015. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

California Lawmaker Proposes Mandatory Full-Day Kindergarten Across the State

California could mandate school districts across the state to provide full-day kindergarten by 2021 under legislation proposed on Jan. 10.

Bill AB 197 requires school districts to offer a full-day kindergarten program with the same amount of school time as 1st grade, which is about 230 minutes per day.

All California public school kindergarten pupils deserve the opportunity to maximize their growth, development, and success at this critical time in their developmental process, the bill reads.

Governor Newsom includes full day kindergarten and full day preschool in his budget proposal (School Services of California, Inc ). pic.twitter.com/tA4uEmrRes  Cathy Nichols-Washer (@LodiSupe) January 15, 2019

Full-day kindergarten should provide time to meet the developmentally based instructional needs of the whole child. It should encompass all curricular areas, including visual and performing arts and physical education, as outlined in the state-adopted curriculum frameworks.

The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) on the same day Gov. Newsom revealed his state budget was allocating more than $800 million to establish universal full-day kindergarten.

The budget cites a survey conducted by the Department of Education showing that 22 percent of school districts offer only part-day kindergarten programs, which reflects more than 1,600 school sites. The budget suggested a lack of facilities as the main obstacle preventing the schools from offering full-day kindergarten.

California is not the only state considering the implementation of full-day kindergarten program. Colorado Governor Jared Polis also proposed a similar plan with a cost of $227 million.

News Release  State Board of Education supports governor's full-day kindergarten plan https://t.co/vrF5q593DQ #edcolo pic.twitter.com/UsrRVGCbzM  CO Dept of Education (@codepted) January 17, 2019

In fact, the idea of full-time kindergarten isnt something new to California. The author of AB 197 passed a similar bill (AB 1719) back in 2014, which required a full-time kindergarten program by 2017 although it stopped short of mandating full-time kindergarten if the district voted to postpone it.

Students are being held to more rigorous academic standards under the K-12 Common Core curriculum, Weber said in a statement in 2014. A full-day kindergarten program would provide studentsin particular, those children unable to attend preschoolan opportunity to strengthen the foundational skills necessary to succeed in school.

Californias current law requires kindergartens to offer students at least 180 minutes of instruction per school day without counting lunchtime. An assessment by the Assembly Committee on Education of AB 1719 in 2014 found that although the full-time program has a requirement of 230 minutes, full-time kindergartens typically offered over 300 minutes of instruction.

A survey of full-day kindergarten in California conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California in 2009 found that, in the 2007-08 school year, 43 percent of kindergarteners attended full-day kindergarten, with lower performing and economically disadvantaged schools more likely to offer full-day programs, the assessment read.

The assessment also said that the increased time for students didnt load more burden on the teachers, as most of the kindergarten teachers already work a full-day and that school districts shouldnt have a problem hiring new teachers if needed.

AB 1719 was signed into law in 2014.

Another bill pushed by Weber in 2014 sought to require that all schoolchildren in the state attend kindergarten before entering the first grade.

The voluntary status of kindergarten allows parents to delay their childs entrance into school, said Weber, leaving students unprepared for the educational environment when they enroll in first grade.

That bill passed the state legislature but was vetoed by then-Governor Brown, who had argued it is better to let parents determine what is best for their children rather than mandate an entirely new grade level.

The same argument is being presented by critics of Webers new bill. No public position on the matter has been announced by the California Department of Education as of yet, local media have reported.
The Candlewood Solar controversy could be the first test of Lamonts promise this week that every decision by his administration will be looked at through an environmental lens. The issue could be made even more difficult because Lamont also voiced strong support for increasing Connecticuts use of renewable energy like solar and wind power.
Amazon employee Heather Redman works to pack products for shipment at an Amazon warehouse in Campbellsville, Kentucky on June 10, 2009. (John Sommers II/Getty Images)

Baby Found Dead in Amazon Warehouse Bathroom

A newborn baby was found dead on Jan. 16 in an Amazon warehouse bathroom.

The baby was found at a Pheonix, Arizona, warehouse, in the trash can of the womens restroom. Police were notified at around 8:30 p.m., ABC 15 reported.

Police said the baby was unable to be resuscitated by the time first responders arrived.

This is a terribly sad and tragic incident, said Amazon spokeswoman Lauren Lynch, via a statement obtained by CNN. We are working with local authorities to support their investigation. The safety and wellness of our team is our top priority.

Arizona has a law specifically to avoid situations like these:

You can leave your baby, up to 3 days old, with an on duty staff member at any hospital, emergency medical service provider, fire station or with any licensed private child welfare agency, licensed adoption agency or any church in Arizona, the Baby Safe Haven website says.

And Arizona hospitals have drawers that people can use to abandon newborn babies into the hospitals care, without needing to speak to anyone, according to ABC 15.

Another Tragedy

A woman in Corona, California, pleaded not guilty in December for the murder of a baby found abandoned near a highway. Shawna Joelle Andritch, 22, remains in police custody on $1 million bail, The Press-Enterprise reported.

The baby was found in a cardboard box, wrapped in a stripped shirt, on July 26. Police have not yet determined the cause of death. They also arrested 17-year-old Joshua Tyler Benson. Police made the arrests after someone called police with a tip following media coverage of the tragedy.

Amazon Warehouse Deaths

The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (NCOSH) said Amazon needs to address workplace safety. In a report last year the council said seven people died in or around Amazon warehouses since 2013.

The council reported that three workers died within five weeks in September and October 2017.

The deaths listed in the report occurred at Amazon warehouses in Nevada, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, and New Jersey, along with two deaths at a Pennsylvania warehouse.

In a later report, by The Baltimore Sun, two more people died when the warehouse building partially collapsed during a storm. Two men were found under debris after a 50-foot wall collapsed.

The two werent direct employees of Amazon. One worked for a real estate firm and the other was a contractor for a local delivery company, Recode reported.

Amazon can move products around the globe in a matter of hours, said Peter Dooley, safety and health project consultant at NCOSH, via the report. To be a true leader, Jeff Bezos must use the same focus and intensity to listen to workers and eliminate the hazards which can injure or kill people at Amazon facilities.

Jeff Bezos

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos became the richest person in the world, according to the Forbes billionaires 2018 list, after he overtook Bill Gates with a jump of over $39 billion in net worth from 2017.

Bezos also recently announced via a Twitter post on Jan. 9 he will be divorcing his wife. News reports since the announcement question whether he will still be the richest man in the world after divorce proceedings.

From NTD.com
Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison reacts during the APEC CEO Summit 2018 at the Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 17 Nov. 2018. (Fazry Ismail/Pool via Reuters)

Australia Expands Pacific Labour Scheme to Win Influence in Region

Fijians will be allowed to work in Australia for up to three years, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Jan. 17, as Canberra expands a regional labour scheme in a bid to win favor with its neighbors amid rising competition from China.

Australia and China are vying for influence in sparsely-populated Pacific island countries that control vast swathes of resource-rich ocean. They both offer cheap loans and grants for infrastructure, but Australia is also seeking to build on cultural ties with its regional neighbors.

As part of that drive, Morrison said Fijian workers can join the Pacific Labour Scheme which allows men and women from several island nations to work in industries such as agriculture and tourism in Australia.

Our partnership with each other has to be done in the spirit of a family relationship and I think thats what weve been able to achieve today, Morrison said at press briefing in Suva, Fijis capital.

The scheme allows men and women from Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu aged between 21-45 years old to work in Australia for up to three years.

It is popular with Australian farmers who struggle to hire enough workers for jobs such as picking fruit. Islanders can earn wages in Australia well in excess of their average incomes at home.

The opportunity is transformational for many, said Stephen Howes, professor of economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.

The expansion of the labour scheme is the second regional announcement made by Morrison who is on a Pacific tour.

In Vanuatu on Jan. 16, Morrison said Australia will allow imports of the kava, an intoxicating drink that is deeply embedded in the social fabric of Pacific islanders.

Kava  once the drink of chiefs and spiritual leaders  is the Pacifics favorite tipple and a major export market.

Kava imports to Australia have been restricted since 2007 following concern that some indigenous communities were abusing the drink.

By Colin Packham and Melanie Burton
Anti-Assad Syrian Activist Killed in Germany in Suspected Ax Attack

A Syrian activist who has been critical of President Bashar al-Assad has been brutally killed in Hamburg, Germany.

Mohamed Joune, 48, was discovered lying on a busy street covered in blood on the evening of Jan. 16. He had multiple injuries to his head and body, and one of his fingers had been cut off.

German tabloid Bild reported that the extent of the mans injuries suggested an ax had been used. A trail of blood was found down the stairs of a building near where he was found, suggesting he had tried to escape from the blows.

Witnesses saw Joune stumble out of the building before collapsing, bleeding extensively from the wound in his head.

A suspect has yet to be found, police said, although they are investigating clothing that was discovered in a trash can near the murder scene. They have appealed for anyone with information to come forward and said they are investigating in all directions, The Telegraph reported.

Joune led the Union of Syrians Abroad, a non-profit organization that helps victims of the war in Syria and other Syrian refugees. He was a pharmacist who owned several properties in Harburg, a district in southern Hamburg.

The house where he was killed had several homeless people living in it, according to The Times of London. One theory is that Joune could have been attacked over a dispute in the house.

However, one friend of Joune told Bild that he was killed because he opposed the Assad regime. That afternoon, the friend said, he had met Joune to talk about the possibility of holding a demonstration to mark the eighth anniversary of the start of the Syrian revolution.

It is most likely that [Joune] was killed because of his political activities, the man told Bild.

He added that Joune had recently been forced to evict one of his Syrian tenants.

The reason was that he had discovered from a video that the tenants father was a member of Assads army, the unidentified man said.

Joune was said to be married and had two young daughters. The Times of London reported that neighbors and former employees described him as a kind and generous man.

The website of Jounes non-profit says its goal is to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people, especially women and children, both in Syria and in neighboring countries.

Hamburg politician Kazim Abaci, who knew Joune, told The Guardian, He was not just engaged in humanitarian aid for Syria, but also supported the integration of refugees in Harburg.
A Google Street photo shows the Joshua Tree, Calif., neighborhood near where the woman lived when she was killed. (Google Street View)

70-Year-Old California Woman Killed by 4 Pit Bulls Living in Her Home: Police

A 70-year-old Southern California woman was killed after four pit bulls reportedly mauled her.

The pit bulls were living in the home of Lana Bergman, the slain woman, reported the Desert Sun on Jan. 16, citing the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department.

Bergman was killed at her home around the 59-000 block of Sunflower Lane in Joshua Tree. The Sun also reported that she and her husband lived at the home with the dogs and their owner.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department says the woman was home alone with the dogs on Wednesday night when they attacked.  Press Democrat  2019117

Sheriffs officials said there was no indication the dogs were mistreated or malnourished prior to the attack.

And its not clear, officials said, why the dogs suddenly attacked her while she was home alone.

The dogs were considered family pets, which the victim helped care for over the past year, investigators said, reported the publication.

Deputies also told the Press-Democrat that the dogs belonged to a friend of the family.

Animal control officers took the animals into custody, and its not clear if the dogs will be put down.

Anyone with information about the case can call (760) 366-4175.

Officials did not release more details about the incident in local news reports.

Other Incidents

In December 2018, a woman was attacked by three dogs described as pit bulls while she was hanging laundry in nearby Palm Springs, California.

 Nancy Grace  20181221

Angela Johnson was hospitalized at the Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, reported the Mercury News.

The three dogs, described by the Riverside County Animal Services as pit bulls or pit bull mixes, attacked the woman while she was hanging laundry on her property.

Tim Platt, the victims son, said he was told that he has to make the decision to leave his critically injured mother on life support or to allow doctors to remove her from the machines keeping her alive, MyValleyNews reported.

All three dogs were pit bulls or pit bull mixes, according to Riverside County Department of Animal Services spokesman John Welsh.  NBC LA  20181215

I was asked to let my mother die today, by doctors and family, Platt said on Dec. 17. Everyone tried to convince me today to just let her die as one side of her brain swelled into the other side. But I just could not let my mother go.

The dogs basically ate my mom alive, ripping out a main artery in her throat, causing a severe stroke to the left side of her brain, leaving her half brain-dead, Platt said, describing the attack.

As of Jan. 17, its not clear if Johnson was taken off life support.

Most Abused Dogs on Earth

Animal rights group PETA has said that pit bulls are the most abused dogs on Earth.

Pit bulls are left at shelters in record numbersand since they are difficult to adopt out, reputable shelters (that dont slam the door in the dogs faces) are finding that they must euthanize more pit bulls and pit bull mixes than all other dogs combined, the group said.

Karen Delise, research director for the National Canine Research Council and author of The Pitbull Placebo, has investigated hundreds of dog bite incidents.

But Dogbite.org, a website dedicated to raising awareness about the dangers of pit bulls, wrote: In the 13-year period of January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2017, canines killed at least 433 Americans. Pit bulls contributed to 66 percent of these deaths. Rottweilers, the second leading canine killer, inflicted 10 percent of attacks that resulted in human death. Combined, two dog breeds accounted for 76 percent of the total recorded deaths.
US border patrol officers deploy near the US-Mexico border fence to deter Central American migrants from crossing from Tijuana to San Diego, as seen from Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico on Jan. 1, 2019. (Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images)

250 Illegal Immigrants Give Themselves Up to Border Agents in New Mexico

Border agents arrested almost 250 illegal immigrants in New Mexico on Jan. 16.

The group of Central American migrants is believed to have been brought over the border by smugglers. The group consisted mostly of families and unaccompanied minors and were in need of medical attention. They turned themselves in to border agents after midnight.

A press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, obtained by Fox News, indicated the migrants are following a common procedure taught to them by smugglers.

The Democrats could solve the Shutdown problem in a very short period of time. All they have to do is approve REAL Border Security (including a Wall), something which everyone, other than drug dealers, human traffickers and criminals, want very badly! This would be so easy to do!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2019

Unscrupulous organized smugglers are exploiting the area and the proximity to the border to move large groups of people, the press release said. These groups of people are told where to cross and turn themselves in with smugglers never having to cross the border themselves and risk apprehension.

This mass arrest comes after news that a new migrant caravan is traveling through Central America for the United States.

A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras, wrote President Donald Trump on Twitter. Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown!

A quarter of the government remains shut down due to a stalemate between the president and House Democrats, who are refusing to provide funding for a border wall as large numbers of migrants try to illegally enter the United States.

Trump, who has called the border situation a humanitarian crisis, is waiting to open the government once the Democrat-controlled House apportions the money needed to build the presidents long-promised border wall.

House Democrat leaders, who claim the border situation is a manufactured crisis have said the wall is expensive and unnecessary. Pelosi went as far as saying it was immoral.

In a video clip posted to the White Houses official Twitter account on Jan. 14, Arizona rancher Jim Chilton, who owns a ranch across more than five miles of the border, spoke at the 100th anniversary American Farm Bureau Federation Convention as Trump listened beside him.

Mr. President, we need a wall, Chilton said to cheers in front of more than 7,000 farmers and ranchers who attended the event. I would say we need a wall all the length of the border. Weve got to stop the drug packers bringing drugs in to poison our people.

"Mr. President, we need a wall!  Jim Chilton, Arizona farmer He knows better than anyone why walls aren't immoral: The deadly Sinaloa cartel runs a major drug trafficking route right through Jims ranch. pic.twitter.com/0zaNJMx7zv  The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 14, 2019

Illegal border crossers and drug smugglers often end up on Chiltons property, he said. Currently, at his ranch, there is only a barbed wire fence to separate Mexico and the United States. Those working for drug cartels stalk his land, according to AG Web. A border patrol agent was shot multiple times while looking for illegals on Chiltons property.

When I ride, I have a .44 pistol and a .44 rifle at my side, Chilton said, via AG Web. Every time I kiss my wife goodbye I dont know whether thats going to be the last time or not, but we have to work our ranch.

Congressional leaders for the Democratic Party have sought to block the building of the border wall. Trump has tried to negotiate with Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress and addressed the nation from the Oval Office on Jan. 8 about the crisis at the border.

I would say to Speaker Pelosi, walls are not immoral, Chilton said at the convention. In fact, Ive traveled around the world, and the biggest wall I have ever seen is around the Vatican. They have a wall. Why cant we?
2 Skiers Seriously Injured After Being Buried in New Mexico Avalanche: Reports

An avalanche buried multiple people near the highest peak of a New Mexico ski resort on Thursday, including two who were pulled from the snow as ski patrol continued their search for others, an emergency management official said.

The extent of the injuries for the two people located by searchers after the avalanche was not immediately known.

Bobby Lucero, the director for emergency management in Taos County, told The Associated Press that authorities believed others were likely buried in the snow, and efforts were underway to reach them on a high slope of Taos Ski Valley, one of the biggest resorts in New Mexico.

#BREAKING Avalanche buries unknown number of skiers and snowboarders at popular U.S. ski resort.  WPLG Local 10  2019117

Ski patrol was on the scene and Luceros office also offered to provide assistance, he said.

The Taos News reported that multiple people were buried near Kachina Peak, the highest point at Taos Ski Valley resort.

Its not clear if there are any other people were buried other than the two who were pulled from the snow.

KOAT reported that the two people were seriously injured. One of the skiers was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital.

Witnesses on the scene told KOAT it was a very scary situation that unfolded.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: Two skiers, both men, who have not been identified, were extracted this afternoon and are in  Taos News  2019117

Taos Ski Valley also tweeted that the Kachina Peak life would be closed due to low visibility.

Were very sorry but due to visibility the Kachina lift will not be open today and there is no hiking access either at this time.#safetyfirst, the Taos Ski Valley tweeted.

An official told The Taos News that the mountains ski patrol team had detonated explosives near the avalanche on Thursday morning.

But its not known what caused the avalanche, KOAT reported.

We're very sorry but due to visibility the Kachina lift will not be open today and there is no hiking access either at this time.#safetyfirst  Taos Ski Valley (@TaosSkiValley) January 16, 2019

I see two people trying to come down and a third person on the left. They were really good skiers it looked like, Taos News photographer Morgan Timms stated. I turned my back to put my bindings on  and then I heard a sound. It sounded like an earthquake coming.

George Brooks, the director of the nonprofit Ski New Mexico, which promotes the sport, said avalanches are fairly rare in the state, and typically terrain is very well controlled at the areas ski areas.

BREAKING: An avalanche at Taos Ski Valley resort in New Mexico has buried an unknown number of people. At least three people have been pulled from the avalanche: https://t.co/elpnucwwtg pic.twitter.com/LT0lbc4aBn  The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) January 17, 2019

The avalanche comes as the state has enjoyed one of its best ski seasons in years after a spell of dry winters. If they occur, its not usually when anybody is around, Brooks said of New Mexico avalanches.

The mountain had received 2 inches of snow in the last day and 15 inches in the last week, the Taos Ski Valley website said. The spot where the avalanche happened is prone to winds that can blow up the mountain and cause a cornice, meaning avalanches can occur there even without a high level of recent snowfall, Brooks said, AP reported.

Other details about the incident are not clear.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
12 Reasons Why Even Low Levels of Glyphosate are Unsafe

Proponents of GMOs and Glyphosate-based herbicides and staunch believers in the EPA have long argued that low levels of glyphosate exposure are safe for humans. Even our own EPA tells us that Americans can consume 17 times more glyphosate in our drinking water than European residents. The EWG asserts that 160 ppb of glyphosate found in breakfast cereal is safe for a child to consume due to their own safety assessments, and yet renowned scientists and health advocates have long stated that no level is safe. Confusion amongst consumers and the media is rampant.

Glyphosate is the declared active chemical ingredient in Roundup and Ranger Pro, which are both manufactured by Monsanto, the original manufacturer of Agent Orange and DDT. There are 750 brands of glyphosate-based herbicides.Glyphosate-based herbicides are the most widely used in the world and residues of glyphosate have been found in tap water, childrens urine, breast milk, chips, snacks, beer, wine, cereals, eggs, oatmeal, wheat products, and most conventional foods tested.

The detection of glyphosate in these foods has set off alarms of concern in households and food manufacturers offices around the world. Lawsuits have sprung up against companies that make food products that claim to be 100% Natural and yet contain glyphosate residues. These lawsuits have been successful. Debates, using the argument that the dose makes the poison, have been pushed by media. Speculation is that these media outlets are funded by advertisers that make or sell these chemicals or have sister companies that do and threatening their profits would be unwise for all involved  except the consumers.

It Is Time to Set the Record Straight

Here are 12 reasons why there is no safe level of glyphosate herbicide residue in our food or beverages.

Clearly, it is time for food and beverage manufacturers to have a zero tolerance for glyphosate residue levels and for the US EPA and regulatory agencies everywhere to stop ignoring the science and to revoke the license of glyphosate immediately.

Moms Across America is a 501c3 non-profit organization whose motto is Empowered Moms, Healthy Kids.

Zen Honeycutt is the founding executive director Moms Across America a Childrens Heath Defense Coalition Partner, where this article was originally published.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Kenneth Frank Reinschmidt, PhD (Ken), an engineer and scholar, died December 31, 2018, at the age of 80. He was the first of two sons born to Christian Edward and Martha Marie Kellerman Reinschmidt in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ken grew up nurtured by descendants of immigrants from Baden, Germany, who came to Ohio in the 1850s. A great-great-grandfather served in the U.S. Civil War.

As a teenager, Ken worked in a Cincinnati branch library where he developed a lifelong satisfaction of being surrounded by books. Upon graduation from Woodward High School in 1956 as valedictorian and the top-ranked of 225 students, Ken received a scholarship from the newly established National Merit Corporation. He enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he participated in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, and graduated first in his in civil engineering class. Ken was president of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers and a member of both Tau Beta Pi and Chi Epsilon, the engineering and civil engineering honorary societies. On graduating in 1960 he received a fellowship for advanced studies with employment in MITs new computer lab. He received his masters degree in 1962 and doctoral degree in 1965 from MIT, and served on its civil engineering faculty until being called to active military duty.
A pedestrian was injured early Friday after being struck by a vehicle in College Station, authorities said.

Police said the accident happened at the intersection of Wellborn Road and George Bush Drive just after 1 a.m. when the man was crossing the road in the crosswalk.

Officials said the vehicle was traveling south on Wellborn Road through the intersection and had a green light.

The extent of the man's injuries were not released.

Police said the case remained under investigation Friday morning, and anyone with information was asked to call police at 764-3600.
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Melanie joined The Daily Times in the early 90s and has served as the Life section editor since 1993. A William Blount and UT alum, Melanie is generally the early arriver who turns on the lights in the newsroom.

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Terry Kovel and Kim Kovel answer questions sent to the column. By sending a letter with a question and a picture, you give full permission for use in the column or any other Kovel forum. Names, addresses or email addresses will not be published. We cannot guarantee the return of photographs, but if a stamped envelope is included, we will try. The amount of mail makes personal answers or appraisals impossible. Write to Kovels, (The Daily Times), King Features Syndicate, 628 Virginia Dr., Orlando, FL 32803.
EARLVILLE - Mary E. Watkins, 90, passed away Monday, June 14, 2021, at her home surrounded by her family. She was born in Davenport, a daughter of Horace and Katherine Olmstead Burns and was a graduate of Davenport High School. On June 29, 1950, Mary married Gerald E. Watkins in Oneonta, and
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Manitoba Hydro is alerting local landowners and municipalities to pre-construction activity planned over the next six weeks as it awaits final approval of its new transmission line to Minnesota.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Hydro is alerting local landowners and municipalities to pre-construction activity planned over the next six weeks as it awaits final approval of its new transmission line to Minnesota.

Geotechnical drilling began Monday and will wrap up in late February, Maggie Bratland, a senior environmental specialist with Manitoba Hydro, said in a letter to affected municipalities.

Four crews are working eastward from Winnipeg and will arrive in the La Broquerie and Ste Anne areas early next month, weather permitting, said Hydro spokesperson Bruce Owen.

The Crown corporation has hired Maple Leaf Drilling to take soil samples at proposed tower locations. The data will inform the projects final design.

A track-mounted drill rig will take samples at locations accessible by vehicle, while a helicopter and aerial rig will be used in more remote locations. Holes will be five inches in diameter and 50 feet in depth. No brush clearing is planned.

Easement agreements were secured for private properties, while a work permit from the province was obtained for activity on Crown land.

Hydro hopes to minimize the environmental footprint of the work by completing it while the ground is frozen, it explained in a notice to property owners.

The proposed transmission line was approved by the National Energy Board last November, but federal and provincial governments have yet to give the $453 million project a green light.

The route, more than 200 kilometres in length, begins near Rosser and runs through the RMs of Ritchot, Springfield, Tache, Ste Anne, La Broquerie, Stuartburn, and Piney on its way to Minnesota.
C.A.R. Opinion: Year of reckoning for autos in 2019







By:

Carla Bailo

President and CEO of the Center at the Automotive Research

Kristin Dziczek

Vice President of Industry, Labor & Economics at the Center for Automotive Research

Richard Wallace

Vice President, Transportation Systems Analysis at the Center for Automotive Research

Brett Smith

Director, Propulsion Technologies & Electrification Infrastructure at the Center for Automotive Research

U.S. light vehicle sales ended 2018 on a surprisingly strong note, and the 2019 outlook is mostly positive for the industry. Most forecasters expect companies to continue to post healthy profits and for U.S. sales and production to remain high, though down a few percentage points from the levels achieved in 2016  the most recent peak.

The current economic expansion is just four months away from setting a record as the longest expansion in U.S. history, and auto sales and production have remained strong since 2009; however, signs of weakness are starting to appear as economic momentum slows, bond yields lag, stock prices struggle, and the yield curve has nearly inverted.

External shocks to the economy could come from a number of sources: trade policy, fiscal policy, a protracted government shutdown, the global economic slowdown, or a combination of all these factors.

Faced with these divergent possible paths forward, automakers and suppliers are displaying a mix of optimism and pragmatism at the 2019 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). Much of the optimism focuses on new technology and partnerships, while market disruptions could come from many directions.

Potential for Success

Never before have automakers had to have such a diverse product portfolio offering various body styles, types of propulsion, and safety and comfort features. Automakers and suppliers are placing big bets on technology  from advanced propulsion and automation to the use of new materials and manufacturing processes. Much is changing about the product and the processes used to make it, but change also is coming in how consumers purchase and use vehicles, including new business models such as buying mobility-as-a-service, and that is driving new investments in ridesourcing (such as Uber and Lyft), ride sharing, and micro-mobility initiatives from automakers and new competitors.

The inherent risks across all of these investments are driving closer collaboration between automakers and suppliers, automakers and startups, and even among competing automakers. FCA and Waymo (Google parent Alphabets automated vehicle unit) have been collaborating for several years, and ridesourcing companies such as Uber and Lyft also have partners for development of automated vehicles, while BMW and Daimler recently formed a joint venture to offer mobility services.

This past October, we learned that GM and Honda had formed a partnership to invest in a purpose-built automated and electric vehicle through GMs Cruise Automation. Moreover, earlier this week, we learned about Ford and VWs tie-up to build commercial vehicles and medium-sized pickups and explore ways to develop electric and automated vehicles jointly. These are only a sample of emerging collaborations, and we can expect to see even more strategic partnerships and joint venture announcements throughout 2019.

Over the last few years, one by one, automakers have begun spelling out their electric vehicle (EV) strategies. Ford, for example, revealed that it will invest $11 billion to develop EVs by 2022. GM plans to launch at least 20 EV models by 2023. Also, Volkswagen announced plans to build an EV assembly plant in Tennessee. These announcements, if they come to fruition, will have tremendous impact on the automotive industry.

U.S. customers generally are not yet interested in EVs for, arguably, three reasons: initial purchase cost, range anxiety, and Infrastructure (lack of charging stations and speed of recharge). Each of these present enormous challenge, but progress continues. Vehicle electrification will move forward more rapidly in those countries with government support for financial and non-financial consumer incentives, charging infrastructure and battery research. While China and European countries have been more aggressive in pursuing policies to encourage plugin electric vehicles, recent U.S. federal regulatory strategy has shown less support for the development and adoption of EVs.

The auto industry is focused on predicting the electrification tipping point, that moment when technology and policy combine to make EVs mass-market ready. Whether that tipping point is in two years, five years or longer, manufacturers and propulsion suppliers seem all but certain it will come and have drastically shifted product development and investment to reflect this change.

Potential for Peril

The cyclical nature of the auto industry means that record years and healthy profits often instill worry instead of celebration among industry leaders  after all, what goes up, must come down.

The 2008-09 downturn brought the bankruptcies of Chrysler, GM, and countless automotive suppliers. Overcapacity heading into the downturn led to plant closings, early retirements, and massive layoffs.

Automakers and suppliers know a recession is coming and that they have to continue to invest in future technology and business models through the downturn or else be left in the dust. The companies are being proactive and protective as the signs of a slowing market take hold. GMs announcement to not allocate product to three assembly plants and two powertrain plants in the United States and Canada is based largely on a rapid shift in consumer preferences away from sedans and toward cross-utility vehicles (CUVs) that now account for two out of every five vehicles sold in the United States.

Ford has announced they will stop offering sedan models in the U.S. market, and FCA is down to just three Chrysler and Dodge sedan models in the market. The trend toward CUVs is supported by the demographics of the older new vehicle buyer and relatively low fuel prices. Even if there is an uptick in fuel prices, CUVs are only marginally less fuel efficient than sedans and will likely remain strong in the market.

U.S. light vehicle sales are expected to weaken slightly in 2019, and signs of slowdowns in China and Europe are emerging. Demographics and customer expectations are shifting rapidly, and automakers and suppliers need to be nimble and flexible to respond to these market dynamics. These shifts put plants, workers, and communities at risk as companies align their product lines and capacity to the market. While sales of electrified vehicles remain below four percent in the U.S. market, consumer acceptance is increasing, and battery technology is becoming cheaper and more capable. As the electrification tipping point nears, the risk to traditional powertrain producers, suppliers, plants, and workers increases.

President Trumps approach to trade relations also poses significant risks to the U.S. automotive industry. Already, the Presidents national security tariffs on steel and aluminum have made the United States the most expensive region in the world for these metals  leading to higher prices for consumers and lower profits for producers.

The U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports expanded to encompass virtually all automotive parts in September, and this, too, will affect consumer prices and profits. Passage of the recently-signed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is far from certain as Democrats in Congress seek to strengthen labor and environmental protections in the deal. If the USMCA process bogs down, the President may withdraw from the current North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA) which will create greater uncertainty for the industry. The Administration has also started the process of negotiating trade deals with the EU, Japan, and the UK  adding to uncertainty and risk for automakers and suppliers. Perhaps the biggest risk to the industry, however, is the potential for the President to impose additional tariffs on imported autos and parts as part of the current Commerce Department Section 232 investigation into whether these imports pose a national security threat.

The autos and parts tariffs will raise consumer prices  even for vehicles produced in the United States since the average car or truck made here contains 40 to 50 percent imported content. The Administrations goal is to bring more manufacturing back to the United States shores, but as the industry is on the cusp of a downturn and no one knows if the tariffs will be in place over the long-term, a big uptick in investment and jobs is unlikely.

Changes to U.S. tax law are expected to produce smaller tax refunds this year, and that will have an impact on U.S. light vehicle sales, as will the government shutdown if it continues much longer.

Looking Ahead to 2020

Vice President, Transportation Systems Analysis at the Center for Automotive Research

In 2020, the NAIAS will not happen until June. In the 17 months from now until then, the U.S. auto industry is likely to achieve at least some new milestones, including perhaps the deployment of the first level 4 automated vehicles for public use without safety drivers on board. Automation will affect more than how we operate vehicles, however, and will continue to affect how we make them and begin to affect how we move parts and components around; this also will be affected by evolving trade policy.

Automakers and suppliers are not able to invest in every possible new technology or hedge every possible risk to the business. Success will require a comprehensive roadmap with contingency plans that plays to each companys unique strengths, strategic partnerships, and an unwavering focus on building a future-proof business.
New York: The Trump administration has been rocked by bombshell reporting that the President instructed his former personal lawyer to lie to Congress about his business dealings in Russia, a development that has dramatically increased the likelihood he will be tried for impeachment.

A report in BuzzFeed alleges that Donald Trump instructed his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to mislead Congress about his plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, a claim that has been denied by Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

A new report by BuzzFeed alleges that US President Donald Trump instructed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his business dealings in Russia. Credit:Bloomberg

Trump's hand-picked nominee for attorney general, William Barr, told Congress this week that persuading a person to commit perjury amounted to obstruction of justice.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's office on Friday, local time, issued a rare public statement disputing the accuracy of BuzzFeed 's report.
Liberal senator David Bushby's resignation from federal politics came out of the blue at 1.10pm on Friday, with the Tasmanian saying he looked forward to "a new chapter in my professional career".

It took exactly 60 minutes to find out the details. At 2.10pm, Foreign Minister Marise Payne announced Senator Bushby would be appointed as Australia's new consul-general to the United States in Chicago.

Liberal senator David Bushby will represent Australia's interests in the midwest as consul-general. Credit:Louie Douvis

The appointment just months from a federal election the government is widely expected to lose has irritated the Labor opposition, which says it will review the decision, as well as the posting of former attorney-general George Brandis as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and former Western Australian premier Richard Court as ambassador to Japan.

"Were not guaranteeing any of these [appointments]. We will be assessing appointments on their merits," said a spokesman for shadow foreign minister Penny Wong.
The Victorian governments imposition of compulsory literacy and numeracy tests on aspiring teachers is a no-brainer. The notion that teachers should acquire these fundamental skills before being registered is, surely, unassailable.

And the notion that teachers could emerge from their degree with insufficient literacy and numeracy is, surely, lamentable. But, up to now, aspiring teachers were expected to sit the tests before graduation. Those who failed, or did not sit them, were then given up to another two years to pass.

<> Credit:Quentin Jones

No longer. The government is right to seek to raise teaching standards; the national NAPLAN assessment and international PISA test of students indicate educational outcomes are stagnating.

The decision is part of an ongoing, broad effort. The ATAR entry threshold for teaching degrees has increased from 65 to 70, a commendable move to raise the status of teaching and attract the best and brightest to what is one of the most noble and important professions. A 22 per cent fall in first-round offers suggests this is having the desired effect. So, too, does the welcome news that an increasing number of the top secondary students aspires to teach. Concerns higher standards will lead to a shortage of teachers seem premature and somewhat bleak.
A 20-year-old man is dead after an overnight brawl in Swan Hill, in north-west Victoria.

Police and emergency services were called to the fight on Campbell Street about 1.15am on Saturday.

Police cordoned off Campbell Street between McCallum and Pritchard streets after the incident. Credit:Swan Hill Guardian

The victim, a Swan Hill man, was treated by paramedics for a head injury but died at the scene.

A 40-year-old man, also from Swan Hill, was taken into custody but was released late Saturday night pending further inquiries.
The tram stop where Aiia Maasarwe disembarked before her brutal murder has long been viewed by Route 86 tram drivers as a danger zone for women.

Three tram drivers speaking to The Age under condition of anonymity said they had worried for years about female students riding the tram alone to get to La Trobe University or nearby student accommodation.

Stop 61 on the 86 tram and the next stop at La Trobe University are dark, surrounded by tall trees, and close to Bundoora Park, where teenagers are known to drink and cause trouble.

Tram stop 61 on the Route 86 where Aiia Maasarwe is believed to have alighted before her death. Credit:Paul Jeffers

"I've been wary of these young girls getting off late at night because you do see these men looking at them, patrolling the trams  walking up and down  looking for young girls to sit next to and talk to," one driver said.
A 37-year-old man was sleeping in his car on the NSW north coast when he was woken by an unknown assailant who shot him in the face, police say.

The man was asleep in his station wagon at Brunswick Heads Nature Reserve when he was woken by someone tapping on the vehicle before 6am on Friday, according to NSW Police.

Officers have been told he got out of the car and was threatened by a man who had his face covered and was holding a handgun.

The unknown man fired two shots towards the car owner who was struck in the forehead by one round.

The injured man ran from the scene and sought help from Brunswick police before being taken to Byron Bay Hospital, where he's in a stable condition.
A woman who launched a brutal axe attack on strangers at a convenience store in Sydney's inner west two years ago has been jailed for at least 4 years.

Evie Amati, 26, updated her Facebook status just before 2am on January 7, 2017, to read, "Humans are only able to destroy, to hate, so that is what I shall do." She then walked a short distance to a 7-Eleven in Enmore holding an axe. She had a knife in her back pocket.

Amati walked one lap of the store before she swung the two-kilogram axe into the face of Ben Rimmer, who was buying something to eat, without warning. The blow fractured his nasal bone, eye socket and cheekbone and he bled profusely.

Sharon Hacker, who was buying milk, paused when she left the store and Amati swung the axe into the back of her head, fracturing her skull. Ms Hacker's thick dreadlocks cushioned the blow, and Amati swung a second time but missed.
The investigation into abuse and mistreatment in Australia's aged care services will be conducted amid a "rising torrent of concern that the system is faltering and not "fit for purpose, a royal commission has been told.

Commissioner Lynelle Briggs made the comments in her opening address at the first hearing of the Royal Commission into Aged Care in Adelaide on Friday.

Commissioner Briggs and fellow commissioner Richard Tracey asked providers to cooperate with the inquiry.

Almost 2000 aged care providers sent letters requesting information about complaints and examples of sub-standard care. The tope 100 providers were asked to respond by 7 January and 83 have done so, Senior Counsel assisting the inquiry Peter Gray QC told the commission. The reamining 1,900 proiders' deadline is 8 February.
There are calls to overhaul drinking water guidelines after a troubling new study suggested a weedkiller found in Australias waterways could be harming male fertility by reducing sperm counts.

In mice, a dose of atrazine at what the government says is a safe level appears to cut sperm counts, the new research reveals. Low levels of atrazine have been shown to turn male frogs into hermaphrodites.

The researchers believe the chemical could be linked to the more-than-50 per cent decline in human sperm count seen over the last 50 years.

Multiple government investigations have determined that low levels of atrazine do not pose a risk to human health based on long-term studies that showed exposed animals were not any more likely to develop human-relevant cancers, nor more likely to have reproductive problems.

That is the wrong test, says Dr Andrew Pask, the University of Melbourne scientist who led the research.
Defining Australian values  creating the mirror we hold up to ourselves  has always been a challenge for our political leaders, who attempt it from time to time but rarely with the high-flown rhetoric that emanates more naturally from, say, the French or the Americans. Loading Professor David Rowe, originally from Britain and now with Western Sydney Universitys Institute for Culture and Society, believes the Prime Ministerial edict on clothing standards is quite amusing really, because one version of Australian-ness is that no-one really cares much about how you look. All nations talk about values, and what makes them distinctive, or better than others, Rowe adds. Its partly because a nation is not an ethnic group, it's a complex aggregation of people who come together as a legal entity, through sovereignty and borders and that sort of thing. But we cant just talk in those cold-hearted terms, so there are always higher values [ being sought]. He says politicians often have in their heads a kind of imaginary Australian somewhere, [someone] who  fits their mould.

Morrisons version emerged this week in a series of carefully calibrated interviews, where he justified his Australia Day sallies on the basis that I dont want to see Australia Day undermined into the future and just see it sort of fade away. More broadly, he is on a political mission to make sure ordinary Australians - or us quieter Australians as he chose to put it - view him as one of them. For some, January 26 is a day of celebration. These people celebrated the day last year at Cronulla. Credit:John Veage Morrison, of course, has always been a marketing man, forever associated with the now infamous "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign which Tourism Australia launched under his leadership in 2006. Holidaying on the south coast of NSW this month, enjoying the flathead and chips like everyone else, he came up with a personal manifesto which he laid out at length in Sydneys Daily Telegraph on Monday.

Morrisons version of Australian values boils down to family, hard work, common sense, respect, responsibility, a fair go for those who have a go and being prepared to help others. This has always been what has driven me. A big fan of "mateship": Former prime minister John Howard. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The fair go has long been one of the supposedly cardinal Australian virtues. So has mateship, though that term has had less of a workout under Morrison than under previous prime ministers, including John Howard and Julia Gillard. Howard was so fond of the word mateship that he wanted it inserted into a mooted preamble to the constitution. The preamble idea went to a referendum in 1999, as did the push for an Australian republic. Both failed. Yet even before it went to a vote, political pressure had forced Howard to withdraw "mateship" from the proposed preamble wording. At the time, he declared this a matter of great regret, proclaiming a personal passion for a word I love very much. This week he told the Herald: it was the idea, and I think its still an idea that [resonates] very strongly with most Australians. The proposition that [mateship] was too blokey was just ridiculous  It may have been associated in the minds of some with just men, because only men fought in wars, and mateship was something that was very apparent in wartime. But it was never something that was just the preserve of men.

Professor Greg Melleuish of Wollongong University's School of Humanities and Social Inquiry disagrees, saying mateship tended to denote male bonding of a particular type, probably related to the fact that in 19th century Australia, particularly if you were working out in the bush, you would have had an excess of males. Watson too argues that the cult of mateship grew up with white Australia  and was a male thing, shaped by the Bulletin magazine of the late 19th and early 20th century as it went about fashioning a white, masculinised notion of the ideal Australian. Both fair go and mateship have wormed their way into the official booklet, titled Our Common Bond, which migrants must study before they sit their citizenship test. Ironically, it also ensrhines the notion that Australia is a nation of good sports'. Australian sportsmen and women are admired as ambassadors for the values of hard work, fair play and teamwork, the document states, in sentiments that clearly pre-date sandpapergate. Elsewhere, the booklet defines the "spirit of mateship" as "we help and receive help from each other in times of need". Explaining a "fair go", it proffers: "what someone achieves in life should be a result of their hard work and talents, rather than their wealth or background".

The booklet is probably as close to a manifesto of Australian values as one is likely to find in government documents. Would-be citizens have to score at least 15 out of 20 points to pass the test based on the contents. But the language is too loaded for some. Don Watson says "it's nonsense" for aspiring citizens to be potentially examined on notions such as mateship and a fair go. What the citizenship pledge asks should be sufficient, which is that your first loyalty is to this country and its laws, Watson argues. Its absurd to ask people to sign up to something as nebulous and as fundamentally silly as a kind of quasi-religion of mateship, or to demand that they believe in things for which there can be no test. And are we the only country in the world where people think you should stick by your friends? That in other countries they stab them in the back while they are sleeping? When we start to think that this defines us, and sets us apart from other countries, that seems to be nonsense." He also points to a flip side to mateship which is hoonery and loutishness and stupid unthinking behaviour. What do you do when you discover your mate is stupid or a criminal? It's Cosa Nostra parallels here. A similarly jaundiced view of mateship was nursed by onetime Labor leader Bill Hayden, brought down by the right wing of his party just weeks before the ALP sailed to power under Bob Hawke in 1983. Famously, Hayden said that being addressed as  ma-aate by the NSW right of the party was akin to being handed a bunch of flowers by the mafia.

Howard believes it's the commentariat that obsesses about Australian values rather the average Australian. Despite that, he believes that egalitarianism is still quite strong, and fairness. The other thing, more found in its practical expression, is that Australians have always had a great sense of balance he adds. For example, we have achieved far better balance in the public and private provision of community services like education and health ... There is still a lot of argument about the detail but the idea that health services should [either] be totally provided by the state or the state should stay out of them, we have struck a balance in that department which is superior to what has been achieved in either UK or the US. The Liberal elder doubts Australian values have altered that much over the years  with one exception. The tall poppy syndrome is not as strong as it used to be, he says. It has faded from when I was much younger  That's a very welcome thing. I think  successive generations for whatever combinations of reasons have less of a chip on their shoulder about people who have done really well financially. But again, there is a flip side. Rowe says that despite the citizenship booklets assertion that Australians do not believe in class distinctions, there is in fact more social stratification than most Australians acknowledge. There is significant inequality, he says. One of the first questions I was asked when I came here, to my great surprise, was what school I had gone to. I thought how strange, they were trying to place me in class terms. He says all the government money washing in to private schools is deepening a divide along class, educational and cultural lines.

Australian larrikinism is another supposedly stock trait that  notwithstanding the mayor of Geraldton  seems more entrenched in national self-image than in reality. We are not nearly as anti-authoritarian as we think, says the Australian National Universitys Dr Jill Sheppard, who last year produced the Australian Values Study as part of the ANUs contribution to the World Values Survey. For the most part we are happy to sit back, let our politicians do what they want and not question them too much  Despite our claims to larrikinism we have a keen respect for authority." Worryingly, she detected among younger voters an openness to strongman and technocratic styles of government. She and her colleagues thinks this is tied up with wealth inequality, inability to get into the housing market, almost a throwing up of hands in the air ... [to] let a strongman come in and fix things. Were not so easily convinced that there is some monolithic idea of the fair go that works for everyone. As for the claimed uniqueness of values which are depicted as quintessentially Australian, that also comes under question.

Wollongong Universitys Melleuish is one sceptic. A fair go just means you believe in justice and equality- its a local term for what most people believe in, surely, he argues. Unless you are the Saudis. To some extent Howard agrees. There is little doubt that many of the values we have, we have in common we have with lots of countries he told the Herald. Not just countries in the Anglosphere but others as well. Nick Haslam, psychology professor at Melbourne University, points to recent international research comparing the cultural values of 77 nations. Australia, he says, falls very much in the middle of the pack on every cultural dimension. In fact, on the metrics used by the study, Australia was the second least distinctive culture of all, beaten to the gold medal by Brazil. Rival claims by politicians and lobby groups holding themselves out as the guardians of Australian values are sure to feature in this years federal election. Advance Australia is a new ginger group which styles itself the voice of mainstream values and freedoms, with a mission to battle political correctness. It's strongly behind Morrisons push to reinforce keeping Australia Day on January 26, notwithstanding growing numbers of indigenous voices and their supporters who see the anniversary of the landing at Sydney Cove as invasion day. This week Advance Australia (which claims to be independent of all political parties) produced a poll of 1659 voters across the country, showing a purported 78 per cent wanting to keep the date exactly where it was.
Cohen admitted that he lied when he told lawmakers he had never agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the Moscow project and when he said that he'd decided by the end of January 2016 that the "proposal was not feasible for a variety of business reasons and should not be pursued further."
Casuarina Sands, circa 1965. A year later the river claimed the lives of three Canberra youths on the same day. However, four years later during a warm day in late November with the river in flood, tragedy struck when three teenage boys all drowned at Casuarina Sands on the same day. Frank Bree, 18, and Mark Dwyer, 15, both got into difficulties below the weir and when 17-year-old John Lahey went to rescue them, he, too, was trapped in the turbulence. Lahey was hauled from the water and attempts were made to resuscitate him, but he later died in hospital. An eyewitness report said that a log "came down over the weir and I think it might have hit one of [the boys]". Such was the extreme force of the tonnes of water pouring over the weir that even an experienced police diver, Constable George Harris, was physically pinned by the current and four other officers had to intervene to rescue him.

Loading Constable Harris was taken to hospital suffering from immersion, shock and bruising. Two other people were rescued that same day. One of them, nine-year-old Curtin girl Linda Wyllie, was swept toward the weir but hauled to safety just in time, prompting police to issue the public warning. "With the recent floods, the whole bed of the river has changed and is now very dangerous in places." The death of the three young men at Casuarina Sands reverberated through the community and measures were quickly put in place to warn swimmers. Lifeguards from the Canberra Life Saving Club began patrolling regularly during the summer months and a warning sign was posted in which swimmers were advised of one of three river conditions: "exercise care", "unsafe" or "prohibited".

Booms and buoys were put in place to define a safe swimming area and other signs prohibited swimming distances upstream and downstream of the weir. Brandon McIlroy, 13, who drowned at Casuarina Sands in 1986. He was just 15 metres from land. In November 1986, with the river again in flood, 13-year-old Brandon McIlroy was in a small inflatable boat which became trapped in a back-pressure wave created by the weir's turbulence for 90 minutes. The boat developed a leak and the boy started crying out for help. The incident was witnessed by dozens of people but despite repeated and frantic attempts by a police officer to reach the boy, he was unable to be saved. The boat slowly deflated, the boy was then dragged under and drowned. The officer received a fractured rib and hypothermia.

Two bravery medals were awarded as a result of actions that day. The coronial inquiry which followed recommended major safety upgrades to the area. Rocks and concrete were placed below the weir "to create a spillway effect" in an attempt to minimise the turbulence of the water flow. The following year, the area was closed during the peak swimming season for a full six months while the National Capital Development Commission built a series of steps into the downstream face of the weir to improve its safety. The following year a storage hut was built on the riverbank to store rescue equipment. Despite the improvements, pressure steadily mounted on the government to find a solution with the weir opponents blaming the structure's location and design, and urging its demolition. A 36-year-old Narrabundah man died in January 1987 after swinging out from a rope off the riverbank into muddy water. It again highlighted the issue of undetectable Casuarina Sands hazards because his head hit a rock which was half-a-metre below the surface of the water, but either side of the stump there was two metres of water depth.

Loading As a report was commissioned to assess what should be done, The Canberra Times letters pages overflowed with opinion both for and against, and the debate became fiercely political. In what was seen as a crucial factor in the government's final decision, a submission from the Australian Federal Police rescue squad stated unequivocally "all members of the rescue squad are in support of the destruction of the weir". "Not just the lives of those who swim there, but the lives of those who are charged with the responsibility of rescue will continue to be at risk," the police submission said. The battle of the weir was decided and the concrete structure removed.
Temperatures have soared past 46 degrees in north-western NSW on Friday after a sweltering night during which the all-time Australian record for the highest minimum temperature was broken  twice.

As the state sweats through the peak of the week-long heatwave, scorching Friday temperatures have continued to rise into the evening ahead of a cool change expected to sweep through on Saturday morning.

The record for hottest overnight temperature was broken overnight. Credit:John Veage

The mercury in Penrith hit its peak of 42 at 5.30pm on Friday, and by 6pm remained above 41.

In the city, where a sea breeze kept things cooler throughout the day, it climbed to a top of 29 in the late afternoon.
Do you dream of riding a vintage bicycle around cobbled streets?

Of going to the market to pick up burrata and fresh tomatoes for lunch?

Sambuca Di Sicilia is surrounded by beaches, hiking trails and vineyards and has a view of Mount Etna. Credit:Shuttershock

Of stopping for an espresso with the vecchi signori in the Mediterranean sunshine?

Well, you could do all those things, and you could do them for less than two dollars.
Sign of the times: New Orleans & Company (the former New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau) is launching a food drive for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, U.S. Coast Guard members and others affected by the partial federal shutdown, which is about to enter its second month.

In an email today to members, NO&C president Stephen Perry said, "Providing food and household items for them as they dutifully report for work for no pay feels like the right thing to do."

The drive will begin Tuesday, Jan. 22 at NO&C headquarters at 2020 St. Charles Ave. and will continue until the shutdown ends, Perry said. Items can be dropped off from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

No energy drinks or alcoholic beverages will be accepted, nor will homemade foods. Foodstuffs should be non-expired and in their original packaging. The drive also will accept household goods like paper towels and toilet paper, Perry said.

+4 As shutdown drags, more New Orleans restaurants offer free meals for federal workers Federal workers still going unpaid as the partial government shutdown persists have a few more offers for free meals on the table in New Orlea

Local restaurants also are pitching in to offer free meals and ingredients to those affected by the shutdown, Ian McNulty reported this morning in The New Orleans Advocate.
In this past year since DOTD made its surprise interstate widening announcement for the Baton Rouge area, The Advocate has published at least three letters on our suggestions for interstate congestion relief in the parish. Strangely, no reporters have followed up on our opposition to DOTDs proposal to completely replace the Baton Rouge I- 10 interstate at a projected cost of more than $600 million and eight years of detours and barrels. Its plans do not even include a simple emergency crossover or a detailed operating plan to improve simple towing efficiency. We asked for the 2008 Instant Tow Law report, and it cannot be located. The alleged report on the structural failure of the columns report is not on public websites.

+2 Noticeable work on widening I-10 in Baton Rouge a year away, transportation chief says Visible work on the $360 million plan to widen Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge is likely a year away, Louisiana's transportation chief said Thursday.

Our EBR Parish Chamber  we're a different group from the Baton Rouge Area Chamber  advocated for the $8.8 million new Terrace exit four years ago. This suggestion was not in any of the public documents going back 20 years. All agree the original design is a 50-year failure. Sure, we need four lanes where we need them, not an all-new interstate scorched-earth design with little to no concern for the impact on the community, not to mention the unique City Park/ Perkins Road historic district.

We had hoped that the Terrace exit solution for diverting I - 110 traffic would also severely restrict Washington Street I-10 exit traffic. Not so. DOTD makes Washington a real estate investor's dream come true, creating unrestricted access.

Dedicated, safe Washington Street exiting, and an additional 1,700-foot fourth lane lane of merging can be easily added in the 40 feet of public right-of-way along Braddock. Safety widening of the internationally famous one-lane curve is long overdue.

Washington Streets entrance and Dalrymple Drive's exit are too close. A continuous lane is required and can be done with ease, just it was done successfully on I-12 between Airline and Drusilla 30 years ago. Why wasnt it done here?

Our Chamber also suggested the "Texas U" for Dalrymple I-10 eastbound via Washington. Ample right-of-way exists adjoining the Knock Knock Children's Museum.

Westbound, Acadian and Perkins entrances are way too short and can be easily extended 400 feet each and with virtually no impact on the historic Overpass District.

The Interstate fourth lanes will eliminate these daily bottlenecks and can be built detour-free for under $60 million and in three years, not for more than $600 million, eight years and endless detours.

Coleman Brown

Infrastructure chairman, East Baton Rouge Parish Chamber of Commerce

Baton Rouge
Running for Congress in 2014 as a political outsider, Dr. Ralph Abraham made a pledge that resonated with voters in his conservative northeast Louisiana district: He would not collect his salary if he went to Washington.

It Should Be An Honor And A Privilege To Serve Your Country And NOT A Paid Position, Abraham said on his campaign website. YOU Should Not Pay A Penny For Representation. He said he would donate his salary to charity.

Gubernatorial campaigns staffing up: Abraham rolls out team, Rispone and Edwards making moves The main candidates that have entered the race for Louisiana governor are quickly staffing up with less than nine months to go until Election Day.

Abraham won the race, but it turns out that voters in Louisianas 5th Congressional District are indeed paying for his representation, at a cost of $174,000 per year.

His pledge not to accept his salary lasted only during his first two-year term, spokesman Cole Avery disclosed this week in an interview.

Now a candidate for governor, Abraham learned after his 2014 election that congressional rules limit how much he is allowed to earn from his medical practice, Avery said.

Because of the loss of income, it was not a pledge he could continue beyond the first term, Avery said. Theres the belief that something should be one way, and then theres the reality.

Congressional rules limit physicians to earning no more than their actual and necessary expenses, meaning essentially that they cant earn a profit from their practice.

Abraham did not extend his no-salary pledge to his 2016 re-election campaign. But his campaign website continued to include it as part of his campaign platform.

Avery said he doesnt think Abraham ever publicly announced that he had begun collecting his congressional pay.

John Bel Edwards, competitor report millions in the bank as 2019 race heats up The Louisiana governor's race is shaping up to be one of the state's most expensive elections to date  with campaigns reporting millions in t

Technically, members of Congress are prohibited from refusing their pay. However, they may donate it to charity. Abraham pledged during the 2014 campaign to donate his salary to St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis and to the Independence Fund, a nonprofit based in Charlotte that assists catastrophically wounded or injured veterans.

He kept his commitment, Avery said. He did not respond to two subsequent requests to detail how much Abraham gave to each entity.

A spokesman for St. Judes said he could not discuss an individual donor. The Independence Fund did not return phone calls.

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Abrahams decision to quietly accept his salary could reverberate outside of his district  which includes Monroe, Alexandria and the rural parishes in between  because he announced earlier this month that he is running for governor. He and businessman Eddie Rispone are the two Republican candidates challenging Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat.

The question of whether Abraham is taking his salary arose after The Advocate queried each member of Louisianas congressional delegation on whether they were collecting their pay during the partial government shutdown. Abraham was one of several members who said he had asked to have his salary withheld until the government fully reopens.

+4 As federal workers miss paychecks, Louisiana congressmen split on whether to accept pay WASHINGTON  Hundreds of thousands of federal workers weren't paid Friday because of a partial government shutdown, and at least six dozen con

His changed position might come as a surprise to some given his 2014 pledge, but it isnt to Vance McAllister, who was seeking a second term in Congress that year but finished fourth in the race.

I thought it was a campaign ploy, a vote-getting pledge, McAllister said. Maybe its just politics as usual by not defining it exactly as one term.

A farmer, physician and veterinarian from Richland Parish, Abraham listed the pledge prominently on his campaign website in 2014, and it was part of his regular stump speech.

He also railed against career politicians and called for term limits on members of Congress.

Abraham finished only 750 votes ahead of Zach Dasher, another Republican, to win a spot in the runoff, where he crushed the No. 1 finisher, Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo, a Democrat.

Joshua Stockley, a professor of political science at the University of Louisiana-Monroe, said Abraham may be vulnerable to criticism for his decision to begin taking his salary. But he added: I dont think Rep. Abrahams reneging of his no-salary promise is necessarily either hypocritical or something that voters should hold against him. I interpret it to naivete. It was a naive thing to have done in the first place.

Roll Call, a Washington newspaper that covers Congress, estimated a year ago that Abraham had a net worth of $4.8 million, making him the 65th wealthiest member of Congress.
U.S. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise and Louisiana House Speaker Taylor Barras each took direct aim at Democrats when they welcomed Republicans from across the south to the New Orleans area on Friday.

Scalise, R-Jefferson, knocked U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer over their feud with President Donald Trump over funding for a wall along the southern border of the United States. The showdown between Trump and Democrats has partially shut down the federal government for nearly a month.

Were going to win this battle," Scalise told the crowd, stressing that Republicans are committed to keeping the partial shutdown going for wall funding. "Its a battle for the future of our country.

And Barras, R-New Iberia, detailed his frequent sparring with the administration of Gov. John Bel Edwards, the only Democratic governor in the Deep South.

Its been an interesting battle, but trust that we are out-thinking them, out-smarting them, acting before them, and theyre not liking any of it," Barras said, explaining the positions he's taken to block Edwards's budget efforts. "We continue the battle."

The Southern Republican Leadership Conference, dubbed the "Kickoff to 2020," started Friday and ends Saturday. Most of Louisiana's state-wide elected officials and members of the Congressional delegation have or are scheduled to take part in the event.

Southern Republicans prepare to gather in Kenner this weekend for 'Kickoff to 2020' event Hundreds of Republicans will be flocking to the New Orleans area this weekend for for whats being billed as one of the biggest GOP events lea

On Friday, shortly after doors opened, dozens of people dressed in red, white and blue filtered through the halls of the Pontchartrain Center, picking up fliers from booths supporting conservative causes, and browsing through Trump-themed wares, including bejeweled clutch purses adorned with some of the president's signature phrases, "MAGA" and "Fake News" and Trump-signed memorabilia.

More than 200 people took in speeches that stretched into the evening.

The regional political event, which is held before each presidential election, this year has taken on a decided Louisiana flavor, as Trump has announced intentions to run for re-election and no Republican has entered the race to challenge him. It's also a state-wide and legislative election year for Louisiana.

Barras, who is term-limited in the House, told the crowd that the GOP hopes to gain a 70-member supermajority in the House  up from the 60 or so, depending on vacancies throughout the term  currently held.

After tense meeting over possible rosier Louisiana financials, no update to revenue forecast Just when it seemed fights over Louisiana's state budget had become a thing of the past, tempers flared again at the State Capitol on Tuesday 

"We need it badly, especially if by some fluke of the system, this governor gets elected for another four years," he said.

Republican legislators have never made a serious attempt at ending the Medicaid expansion that Edwards enacted through executive order shortly after taking office, but Barras noted that it has meant an influx of federal funding that has increased the overall size of the state budget. He said conservative Republicans want to overhaul the budget but would find an easier path if a Republican is elected governor this year.

That work will continue, but as long as we have a battle with the fourth floor in the Capitol, its a tough challenge, he said in a reference to where the governor's office is located.

Two Republicans  Baton Rouge businessman Eddie Rispone and U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham of Alto  have announced plans to run against Edwards, and more could enter the race.

+3 Donald Trump greeted with king cake upon New Orleans arrival, and, yes, it had filling President Donald Trump barely had a chance to step off Air Force One before being greeted with a king cake -- it is Carnival time in New Orlea

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Scalise, meanwhile, gave a full-throated defense of Trump, whose presidency has been clouded by an FBI probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Just hours before Scalise took the stage, Buzzfeed News reported, based on unnamed sources, that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has learned Trump told his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to lie about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow to conceal his involvement in it during the 2016 campaign. Trump tweeted in response to the story that Cohen was lying to reduce jail time.

Scalise didnt directly mention the breaking news item, but he defended the president against allegations that his election was aided by Russia.

Theres no collusion with Russia, Scalise said.

He also defended the Presidents track record.

This president has a firm grip on whats going on, not only in America, but all around the world, he said.

As a member of the House Republican leadership, Scalise has taken part in meetings at the White House about how to move forward and re-open the government.

(Trump)s been there ready to negotiate, and not one time have they put a counter offer on the table," he said. They dont want to re-open the government. They dont want border security.

The SRLC crowd was visibly in favor of Trump and his push for a wall, clapping and cheering frequently when the wall was mentioned in Scalise's speech and at other points in the day.

Hours after Scalise's speech, Trump tweeted that he will "be making a major announcement concerning the Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border, and the Shutdown" on Saturday.

The rest of the first day of the SRLC event was peppered with other Louisiana Republican political figures.

Attorney General Jeff Landry gave a pro-Trump wall speech as attendees ate lunch. Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser opened the festivities with jokes about his suit that is pinstriped with the state's new slogan: "Louisiana: Feed Your Soul" and thanked attendees for joining.

Our challenges are many, especially as we grow the Republican Party here in Louisiana and across the country, he said.

Later in the afternoon, a panel of Louisiana Republican legislators took part in a discussion on encouraging more women to take on leadership roles in politics.

The good outweighs the bad, and we need you, said Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell.

Other female lawmakers on the panel included Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton and Reps. Polly Thomas, R-Metairie, and Beryl Amedee, R-Houma.
A charter school in south Baton Rouge with a D letter grade earned a reprieve Thursday after the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board grudgingly renewed its charter for at least three more years.

After a lengthy discussion, the board voted 5-4 to renew South Baton Charter Academy for three more years. The motion calls for a new contract to be finalized by Jan. 31 but with additional, unspecified performance measures agreed upon between the two parties.

Board member Dadrius Lanus, who took office earlier this month, said it would be hypocritical to deny South Baton Rouge Charter Academy while the board approved Inspire Charter Academy a year ago under similar circumstances.

Why would we approve Inspire charter when they dropped several times, and we are going to hold another school to another standard? Lanus asked.

Lanus said the school system should finally adopt a compact for charter schools with standards for charter schools that mirrors those used by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Heres how the vote broke down:

FOR RENEWAL: Mark Bellue, Dawn Collins, Tramelle Howard, Lanus and Evelyn Ware-Jackson

AGAINST RENEWAL: Connie Bernard, Jill Dyason, Mike Gaudet and David Tatman.

School Board to take another week before deciding fate of South Baton Rouge Charter Academy The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board will wait another week before deciding the fate of a south Baton Rouge charter school in danger of be

The charter school, 9211 Parkway Drive, opened in August 2014. It is run by the for-profit Charter Schools USA, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The organization operates eight charter schools in Louisiana; it used to have nine before Baton Rouge Mid-City Charter was closed in 2018. South Baton Rouge Charter and Iberville Charter academies are two schools that it has left in the Baton Rouge region.

Lonnie Luce, state director of Charter Schools USA, highlighted the schools overall academic growth over the past few years.

We have moved the kids every single year, said Luce.

However, Andrea O'Konski, chief of accountability, assessment and evaluation, said a team of evaluators she led had concerns about the performance of the charter school compared with other, higher-performing public schools nearby.

Its the lowest of the surrounding schools in that proximity zone, OKonski said.

OKonski also faulted the schools improvement plans for a lack of detail, especially in how it will improve the performance of subgroups of students whove been falling behind.

Charter schools are public schools run privately via a charter, or contract. The school system has 10 schools it has issued charters to.

State law specifies that after the initial five years in operation, a charter school can have its charter renewed for a period of between three to 10 years. South Baton Rouge Charter, which opened in 2014, is in its fifth year of operation.

Dyason said state law should change to allow shorter renewals of just a year or two.

Three years is a long time, and you can lose a lot of children, Dyason said.

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Collins said the board needs to adopt a clearer policy for when it will renew a charter school and when it wont.

Because we did not do our part, I cannot vote to close it, Collins said.

Spending for low-performing Baton Rouge schools advances, but School Board still has questions The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board tentatively agreed Thursday to start spending some of the $2.2 million in federal funds it was awarde

No one got fully funded, but East Baton Rouge schools will get about $2 million in federal aid The East Baton Rouge Parish school system is likely to receive almost $2 million in federal funding to help improve classroom instruction at 3

Superintendent Warren Drake defended the districts evaluation process of South Baton Rouge Charter. Drake didnt initially offer a recommendation on the charter schools future, but when pressed, he said he would deny its request for a renewal.

The school was evaluated fairly and was evaluated in depth, Drake said. What we didnt have was a school performance score target, which we will have in the future.

Drake, however, said he is heartened by the charter schools growth and by the arrival of Luce, a former superintendent in St. James Parish schools, and Yolanda Burnette-Lankford, who took over as principal in July from Monique Smith, who led the school for four years.

Burnette-Lankford said she grew up near where the school is located.

I still live in this community, and I want to make a difference in the community I grew up in, she said.

Gaudet defended the districts evaluation process, saying it was much improved since the board voted to renew Inspire in spring 2018.

He said it got tougher in part because of his complaints about the weakness of the evaluating tool used to judge Inspire. He urged board members to keep in mind a key question.

At the end of the day, are the children in the seats best served at (South Baton Rouge Charter) or would they be best served at some of our schools? Gaudet asked.

Jesus Antonio Garcia had an answer. Garcia, 13 and in eighth grade, said he transferred to the charter school in 2014 from a public school in Baton Rouge where he was being bullied and its been far better.

They made me feel comfortable; they gave me hope, like I could do something, Garcia said.

Jasmine Stovall, a teacher at the charter school, said students are making strides.

You say you are here meeting in the best interest of our children. Theyre here, and they are begging you not to close us down, Stovall said.

Board watcher James Finney was unmoved. He said every time a charter school is up for renewal, parents and students make similar emotional appeals.

I just wonder how bad a school must be before you would ever vote to close it down, Finney said.

Editor's note: This article was changed on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, to note that Mark Bellue voted in favor of renewing the school's charter and David Tatman voted against.
About 1,400 educators will gather in Baton Rouge this month, a first of its kind summit that is part of the states bid to repair its troubled system of alternative schools.

The Jan. 30 meeting will include principals, counselors, school psychologists, teachers and others from both traditional public schools and some of the state's roughly three dozen alternative schools.

The workshops, panel discussions and other steps are aimed at helping educators better handle a wide range of problems, from teaching basic life skills to dealing with students who bring drugs and weapons to school.

The event is called the 2019 Behavioral Intervention Summit and will take place at the Raising Cane's River Center in Baton Rouge from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.

"It is a really intense one day," Katie Barras, education consultant for the state Office of Student Opportunities and one of the leaders of the gathering said Thursday.

The meeting is the latest response to a state report issued 14 months ago that blasted Louisiana's alternative schools and programs, which are for students with academic or behavior problems or both.

Report: Louisiana too quick to toss troubled, especially black students; alternative schools not helping Public schools are too quick to toss students with behavior problems, and most students fail to get the help they need when they are assigned 

The review by educators said public schools are too quick to remove students with behavior problems, and that most students fail to get the help they need when they are sent to alternative schools.

"We do hope and expect a decrease in the number of students going to alternative education sites," said Lisa French, chief of staff for the Office of Student Opportunities.

About 18,000 students are in alternative programs or schools, and they are five times as likely to drop out  19 percent  as rank-and-file students. Also, black students make up 44 percent of the public school population but 85 percent of those sent to alternative programs.

The one-day meeting will include sessions on how to handle students whose behavior stems from trauma or stress, how to carry out an effective student code of conduct and how to engage families when students show behavior problems.

Tamara Johnson, executive director of school leadership in the East Baton Rouge Parish school system, said the gathering is important "because we aren't mental health providers. But it is going to get us on the right track to know what we need to do to address those behavioral needs."

In some alternative schools a large percentage of students are homeless, have children of their own, and balance school work with part-time jobs.

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Alternative schools are stand-alone sites that get an annual school performance score from the state Department of Education, often D's and F's.

Alternative programs serve a similar purpose but those students remain enrolled in their traditional schools.

One of the longtime complaints is that the state needed to change the way it views the schools, which is what the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education did three months ago.

Scathing report says Louisianas troubled students rarely get help they need through alternative schools After a scathing report, Louisiana's alternative education schools and programs need attention, resources and changes in how the state measure

The changes make a distinction when evaluating alternative schools and programs compared to traditional schools.

Under the new rules, state scores for alternative elementary and middle schools will be based on how students fare on key state assessments.

For alternative high schools the scores will focus on state assessment progress, students earning post-secondary credentials and how many core academic credits they earn.

"The accountability for those schools should be tailored to what we are trying to accomplish with those students," Doris Voitier, a member of BESE, said Thursday.

Voitier is also superintendent of the St. Bernard Parish School District, whose alternative high school with about 100 students has gotten attention from state officials.

The school combines a traditional classroom setting with assistance from the LSU Medical School and the Methodist Foundation.

Voitier said that, if a student fails fail to understand how to handle anger, "you are never going to get him to succeed."
But she has found salvation and hope in writing, first with a blog, then by writing pieces for the Huffington Post and selling articles to top websites and newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books, Vox and The Guardian. When she was in college, she wrote an essay, Confessions of the Housekeeper. Her professor told her it could be a book. Now it is.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday voted just before midnight Thursday to reject two controversial requests for industrial tax breaks from the biggest taxpayer in the parish.

The 5-4 vote marked a rare defeat for ExxonMobil, which has received hundreds of such tax exemptions via the decades-old Industrial Tax Exemption Program, or ITEP, and a big victory for critics of the program, including the faith-based group Together Baton Rouge and school employee groups, including the two teacher unions.

This is a new day for a new type of economic development in Louisiana, an excited Dianne Hanley, a leader of Together Baton Rouge, said afterward.

I am so happy. I hope this is the beginning of a new era of public funding and investing in my students, said Mary Trigg, an art teacher at Sherwood Middle Academic Magnet School. Im excited that they will begin to have the resources they need for success. Yeah, democracy!

ExxonMobil drops two tax break applications, wins go-ahead on three others saving it $6.6 million After facing months of opposition from organizers that included a walkout threat from local teachers, ExxonMobil dropped two applications for 

After the vote, ExxonMobil representatives sound a more cautious note.

Stephanie Cargile, a spokeswoman for the company, said the company tried hard to follow the shifting rules for ITEP over the past two years, and spoke at length with local officials about their plans.

While the company is in a growth mode in Baton Rouge, with plans to add hundreds of jobs at its refinery this year, such growth cant be taken for granted and future projects could go to Texas and to other company operations, she said.

In order to compete, one of the many things that we do look at is cost, Cargile said.

The board voted Thursday against granting ExxonMobil two property tax breaks, one for work at its Baton Rouge refinery and another at its polyolefins plant.

Heres how the vote broke down:

Voting No: Board members Dawn Collins, Tramelle Howard, Dadrius Lanus, David Tatman and Evelyn Ware-Jackson.

Voting Yes: Board members Mark Bellue, Connie Bernard, Jill Dyason and Mike Gaudet.

The company was seeking exemptions from school property taxes worth about $2.9 million over 10 years. The work in question was completed in 2017, and ExxonMobil had a difficult time explaining while it still need a tax break for them.

In October, Ware-Jackson voted in favor of exempting a major proposed expansion at the polyolefins plant, but she had a different view of the work from 2017, noting that since it was complete it didnt qualify as an incentive.

"I would be a lot more receptive for a new project, something thats going to bring in new business, new jobs, Ware-Jackson said.

Collins was more blunt: The project is done. Its over.

Thursday night was the third time the School Board has been asked to weigh in on an ITEP tax break request since Gov. John Bel Edwards in June 2016 ordered that local government have a say in the states decades-old program. And its the first time the board has said No.

ExxonMobils ITEP exemptions have become central to a fiery debate over corporate tax breaks, teacher pay and economic development in the Capitol region.

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Thursdays meeting was no exception. It lasted almost 7 hours  about three of which were dominated by the ITEP issue. Dozens of speakers, for and against, went to the microphone.

"Its not that we dont like Exxon, but its time they put their big boy pants on and run their business based on their profit," said retired Lt. Gen. Russell Honore.

But company representative Megan Manchester noted that dozens of other companies have recently received after-the-fact exemptions.

Exxonmobil is being singled out for following the rules and following the advice we were given, Manchester said.

The local debate is not over. ExxonMobil now turns its attention to the Metro Council, which is taking up the two requests next Wednesday. Sheriff Sid Gautreaux also has yet to weigh in. Both entities have until the end of February to decide. If they dont act, the exemptions go into effect.

ITEP gives property tax breaks to manufacturers that plan to spend money on expansions or improvements.

Under new state rules that took effect on Aug. 20, approved projects receive an 80 percent property tax abatement  down from 100 percent previously  over 10 years, instead of eight in an earlier version.

But, in a big change from the past, local taxing authorities now have an opportunity to say yea or nay to the portion of the tax breaks that applies to them. In East Baton Rouge Parish, that includes the School Board as well as the Metro Council and Sheriff's Office.

The school systems poor financial situation played into Thursdays result. Superintendent Warren Drake is trying to find ways to save $30 to $40 million over the coming months in order to keep the system out of the financial hole.

"We are on life support, point blank period, and we deserve this money. I urge you to deny these exemptions," said Tia Mills, president of the East Baton Rouge Association of Educators.

The financial situation clearly weighed on Lanus, who took office last week. Lanus said he wants to find ways to pay for employee pay raises and to fund universal early childhood education. At one point, he asked ExxonMobil if it would be willing to give back half of the requested exemption.

"I really, really want to support industry in a collaborative way in this district, Lanus said. Its very hard because we have a $30 million deficit, and we got a teacher shortage."

East Baton Rouge school officials revise proposed ITEP tax break rules in response to critics The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday advanced guidelines for handling requests for industrial tax exemptions after dropping a 

Also in ITEP news, the School Board on Thursday finally followed the example of the Metro Council and adopted guidelines for which requests will get the boards approval in the future. They were approved by a 6-3 vote, but apply only to requests submitted after the new rules took effect Aug. 20.

ITEP critics had urged moving that date back two years to June 24, 2016 when Gov. Edwards first ordered changes to the program. Collins made a motion to change the effective date, but board member Dyason offered a substitute motion, which prevailed, to preserve the guidelines as is.

Besides Collins, board members Tatman and Ware-Jackson voted against Dyasons substitute motion.

In arguing for the exemptions, Exxon urged the board to look beyond the loss of property taxes in the near term and judge the requests over a longer time span of 20 years. That would capture the added property taxes paid when the exemptions expire. Over those two decades, the total of property taxes paid by the two Exxon properties comes to an estimated $21.2 million across the parish.

The companys multi-million improvements at its Baton Rouge refinery resulted in 18 new full-time jobs, according to the company, while its more modest improvements at its polyolefins plant added no new jobs to the payroll; the company, however, pledges to keep the 244 full-time jobs already there if it earns a tax exemption.
Breaking a week-long deadlock, Jill Dyason was elected Thursday as vice president of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board Thursday  the first time the board's longest serving member has served in a leadership position.

Dyason, in her 18th year in elected office, won in a 5-3 vote over the boards newest member, Dadrius Lanus, who was just elected on Dec. 8.

Dyason was elected by her peers even though she revealed earlier this week that she signed the petition to hold a public referendum to create a City of St. George, an effort opposed by many in the school system.

+3 Ex-Albemarle executive easily wins Baton Rouge school board presidency; board deadlocks over VP Mike Gaudet, who has been attacked by teacher unions and celebrated by charter school groups, was selected Thursday night without opposition b

On Jan. 10, the board split 4-4 on Dyason and Lanus, unable to break the tie after three consecutive tie votes. The vote split over whether to reward Dyasons long experience or whether board leadership should reflect that it educates predominantly African-American students by picking Lanus, who is black, rather than Dyason, who is white.

Dawn Collins was not present for the Jan. 10 meeting. Collins said "neither" when it came time to vote. Michael Gaudet, who was picked by his peers as board president a week ago without opposition, ended up breaking the tie, changing his vote from Lanus to Dyason.

Gaudet and Dyason will serve one-year terms as board president and vice president. The president and vice president represent the board in many meetings and activities.

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Heres how Thursday's vote for board vice president broke down:

For Dyason: Board members Mark Bellue, Connie Bernard, Dyason, Gaudet and David Tatman.

For Lanus: Board members Tramelle Howard, Lanus and Evelyn Ware Jackson.

Dyason has two children who graduated from East Baton Rouge Parish public schools. She serves as executive director of the Louisiana Association of Children and Family Agencies.

Lanus has taught in a handful of independent charter schools in Baton Rouge and now serves as an educational consultant.

+2 Baton Rouge school board member signed St. George petition so 'we can move forward' East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member Jill Dyason, who represents much of what could become the city of St. George, passed on the first 

Board members did not comment Thursday on Dyason's and Lanus' nominations, but Baton Rouge attorney Donald Hodge did. He urged the board to vote against Dyason, saying she does not represent the best interests of this School Board.
One of the oldest fraternities in the nation has closed its LSU chapter following an investigation that found students violated the organization's hazing and alcohol policies  a development that comes amid the university's ongoing quest for safer practices within its Greek system.

LSU spokesman Ernie Ballard III confirmed Friday that Delta Kappa Epsilon recently announced it would end its presence at LSU almost 100 years after the chapter was founded. He said university administrators and police are conducting their own investigation.

And the chapter has been in trouble before: several times for displaying offensive banners on its facade and once after police found a goat inside the house while responding to reports of suspicious activity.

The national organization said in a statement Friday that its decision arose from recent findings that members had violated its hazing and alcohol policies. The result is that "all chapter activities and operations will cease, and the chapter will disband, effective immediately."

It's unclear whether DKE members will have to move out of their house on the LSU campus now or whether the chapter might reopen in the future. Ballard said what happens to the house is up to the housing corporation  a group of alumni  that owns the building and leases it to the university for student use.

And officials declined to elaborate on the violations in question.

The closure follows the hazing death of LSU freshman Max Gruver at a Phi Delta Theta ritual in fall 2017. That prompted increased scrutiny of LSU's Greek organizations as university officials found themselves scrambling to prevent similar tragedies in the future. Gruver was pronounced dead  his blood alcohol content more than six times the legal limit  after being forced to drink massive quantities of liquor.

+2 LSU task force looks at random drug tests, banning booze to curb frat bad behavior Random drug tests for fraternity members, adult supervision during new member activities, eliminating hard alcohol and kegs at frat houses, an

Several students and former students were arrested and accused of contributing to his death, including one charged with negligent homicide. The chapter was banned from campus for the foreseeable future. A Catholic church group is now leasing the former Phi Delta Theta house.

Gruver's death prompted swift action from state legislators: the Max Gruver Act was signed into law in March 2018, boosting state penalties for people convicted of hazing or related offenses.

+3 Max Gruver Act, other anti-hazing legislation signed into law; here's what the measures entail With a mixture of celebration and sorrow, the Gruvers on Thursday stood alongside Gov. John Bel Edwards as he signed into law a set of anti-ha

Delta Kappa Epsilon was founded in 1844 at Yale University and is "one of the oldest and most prominent fraternities" in the country "known for producing outstanding gentleman, leaders and jolly good fellows," according to its website. It has had a chapter on LSU campus since 1923.

"Our number one priority is that our chapters foster safe environments, and through our investigation, we found that the student members made choices inconsistent with the policies and values of Delta Kappa Epsilon," DKE Executive Director Doug Lanpher said in a statement. "DKE does not tolerate this kind of behavior in the fraternity and holds its chapters and members accountable for the choices they make."

Lanpher said the organization has acted "in full support of the Max Gruver Act and related anti-hazing laws" by filing a report with LSU police and passing along the findings of its investigation to university administrators.

The fraternity has boasted several prominent members over the years, both in Louisiana and across the country, including Huey Long's son Sen. Russell Long, former Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster and former presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. The national organization has also gained attention in recent months due to the membership of U.S. Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose contentious confirmation process centered on allegations of sexual misconduct in both high school and college.

'In and out of trouble'

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The LSU chapter's membership contract requires that "members solemnly swear to live by the mission and purpose of Delta Kappa Epsilon of being a scholar and jolly good fellow and use their time at LSU and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity as a time to improve."

But this isn't the first time members have faced allegations of bad behavior during the organization's long and storied history in Baton Rouge.

"We got our wild hairs out when we were on campus," said DKE alum Frank Foil, a retired Baton Rouge judge quoted in a 1999 Advocate article about the fraternity. "And then (we) became governors and presidents."

The DKE house on Dalrymple Drive was the first on LSU's Fraternity Row, built in the early 1930s, according to old Advocate reports.

The chapter was closed for several months in the 1980s  the door to the house boarded up to bar students from entering  because of longstanding discipline issues, according to an Advocate report from the time. The chapter had been "in and out of trouble" for a while when the university decided to temporarily close it after members got into a disagreement with students in another fraternity.

The chapter was also removed from campus for two years in 2003 following a decision from its alumni board. The house was renovated during that time.

And it was placed under investigation in 2006 when police responded to reports of "suspicious activity" during initiation and found a goat inside the house. Members said it was their symbol and mascot but the incident raised questions about whether pledges were "forced to do anything with the goat," officials said at the time. The chapter ended up agreeing to an "introspection period" lasting two years, which included banning alcohol and animals from the house.

A former LSU student and DKE member was charged with misdemeanor simple battery in November after police said he pushed another student down two flights of stairs during a fraternity preview event in August 2017  just one month before Gruver's death.

Ex-LSU student pleads not guilty to pushing volunteer down 2 flights of stairs at frat house A former LSU student and fraternity member accused of pushing another student down two flights of stairs during an August 2017 fraternity prev

The chapter has also drawn criticism in recent years for displaying inflammatory banners outside their house, which have included offensive jokes about minorities and victims of gun violence.

One that received a lot of attention referenced the mass shooting that has become known as the Kent State Massacre in the context of an LSU football win. The sign read: "Getting massacred is nothing new to Kent State." Members of the fraternity later issued an apology, saying that as young college students they "did not grasp the full scope of the tragedy."

DKE was one of six fraternities that administrators placed on "conditional status" earlier this month for failing to meet a minimum GPA requirement of 2.5 for new members, according to LSU Associate Dean of Students and Director of Greek Life Angela Guillory. Conditional status restricts the chapter's ability to participate in social events both on and off campus.

The academic performance requirement is one of several recent changes that arose from meetings of the President's Task Force on Greek Life, which LSU President F. King Alexander established in response to Gruver's death. The new rules also include expelling students caught hazing pledges, banning hard alcohol at fraternity parties and requiring supervision at pledge activities.

+3 LSU announces zero-tolerance policy for hazing, but six arrested in Gruver case still enrolled at school From now on, LSU students who are caught hazing will be expelled and the involved fraternities or other student organizations will be kicked o

Advocate correspondent Jackie DeRobertis contributed to this story.
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Business employees and consumers alike are leveraging new devices and applications to go about their work and personal lives very differently than even a few years ago. Not only are we in a digital, app- and mobile-centric world, but our expectations for services and information are growing by day. This of course puts incredible strain on the network operators and service providers who are tasked with delivering on our expectations. Natasha Tamaskar, Vice President, Global Marketing and Sales Strategy, Radisys, took time ahead of her participation at ITEXPO 2019 to explain some of the challenges service providers are facing and how innovative technology is enabling them to deliver.

Please tell us a bit about the latest news at your company

Radisys is a global leader in open telecom solutions, enabling communications service providers to drive disruption with new open architecture business models and meet the demands of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The company was acquired by Reliance Industries (RIL) in December 2018.

We are leading the way with our 5G solutions, being first-to-market with our 3GPP compliant 5G Software Suite focusing on Next Generation NodeB (gNB), 5G User Equipment (UE) and 5G Core Network (CN). We recently collaborated with NI on delivering an end-to-end 5G platform that enables mobile operators and chipset manufacturers to validate and begin monetizing their 5G solutions now.

Radisys has also introduced the industrys first decomposed media server platform to allow control and media elements to scale independently, allowing application developers and service providers to support tens of millions of subscribers through application servers that leverage a large pool of media server resources to deliver services such as conferencing, speech recognition, and real-time video. By delivering a decomposed architecture that allows for rapid scaling in the cloud, Radisys is enabling service providers to lower costs with flexible deployment options, accelerate innovation, and reduce complexity in their networks.

What pains are you taking away for customers?

There are a number of ways that Radisys is supporting our service provider customers, but one of the biggest benefits that Radisys open telecom solutions brings to service providers is breaking vendor lock-in. We enable service providers to leverage open reference architectures and build their networks with a variety of open and commercial software and hardware components from a multi-vendor ecosystem, and thereby reduce their reliance on expensive proprietary solutions. We also work with our partners in our Open Business Accelerator to build joint solutions that leverage Radisys software and services integrated with our partners solutions to deliver end-to-end solutions that enable them to accelerate time-to-market.

How is cloud acceptance changing how your company or customers operate?

Service providers want to achieve the same benefits that cloud technology has brought to enterprise, namely economies of scale, cloud agility, and reduced CapEx and OpEx. As such, they are migrating their networks from traditional telecom architectures to NFV and cloud-based architectures. NFV, SDN and the telecom cloud are core components of the software-centric, programmable networks of the future. We support our service provider customers NFVi infrastructure requirements with virtualized and decomposed 4G/5G RAN and media intelligence solutions.

What are the most important recent communications technology innovations in your industry?

5G is changing not only our industry, but will change the world in how we connect, how we communicate, and how we work. The combination of its capacity, throughput and low latency will enable the delivery of new applications that we can only dream of today. 5G networks will be open and disaggregated, with geographically dispersed data centers at the edge. Were proud to be first-to-market with 5G software solutions and open telecom solutions that will enable this new era of connectivity.

How is open-source changing technology and how your company does business?

We have embraced open and its ability to disrupt the traditional telecom industry. Radisys is transforming itself into an open-centric software and services company that enables service providers to disrupt with open architecture business models. This move allows service providers to break vendor lock-in and move away from traditional OEMs with proprietary solutions to smaller, more agile companies  such as Radisys  that are invested in supplying software and hardware for open reference architectures.

Radisys is also deeply involved in the open ecosystem groups driving these efforts, such as the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), and the ORAN Alliance. Working together with like-minded vendors and the service provider community, weve taken a leadership role in delivering open telecom solutions to the industry.

What implications does AI have for your business and your customers?

Artificial Intelligence is one of the key drivers for mobile operators 5G network deployments as AI applications will require 5Gs network capacity, throughput and low latency. GSMA refers to the triple combination of 5G, IoT and AI as intelligent connectivity.

Radisys is enabling AI applications with our 5G and edge computing solutions. At multiple events around the world, weve demonstrated a surveillance application at the network edge with media analytics and AI inference for facial recognition. The solution enables enables service providers to optimize and monetize media at the edge, while achieving backhaul savings for always-on video surveillance. It also delivers ultra-low latency that 5G networks require.

What new opportunities does IoT bring your company?

We enable global service providers to enhance their IoT capabilities. Service providers can leveraging our software-centric disaggregated platform solutions to build their next-gen networks for the 4th Industrial Revolution and IoT connected everything.

What is the greatest opportunity facing your industry?

We live in an increasingly connected world, and communications service providers have the opportunity to be at the forefront of new service innovation and capitalize on the demand for connected everything. But, in order to keep up with the demands of the 4th Industrial Revolution and 50+ billion connected devices, they will need to transform how they build their next-generation networks. They will need to leverage a combination of open and commercial software and hardware components, from a multi-vendor ecosystem, in order to deliver the performance and capacity that will be demanded of their networks, while being able to reduce costs and time-to-market. This network transformation opens up new opportunities to the vendor community, enabling smaller, more nimble players to compete.

What is the greatest challenge?

Communications service providers (CSPs) have traditionally relied on a single source vendor to supply their network infrastructure, which has resulted in massive CapEx and OpEx, while locking CSPs into a single supplier and locking out competition. By leveraging open architectures and open components, CSPs can break vendor lock-in and reduce costs. However, they may not have the in-house knowledge to put all of the components from multiple vendors together.

Radisys ServiceEngine offering  comprised of expertise in systems integration, open compute transformation, custom development, support services, and rapid deployment  provides end-to-end infrastructure built with open and proprietary components. We enable CSPs to break vendor lock-in and reduce costs, without needing to hire integration expertise in-house.

What do you hope to achieve at the event?

Im looking forward to participating at ITEXPO to meet in person with service providers and the vendor community that are facing the challenges that the 4th Industrial Revolution brings  how to go from connecting people and mobile devices, to connecting everything! During this years ITEXPO, I hope to make new connections and gain new insights from my peers to help fuel my work when I return to Boston.

Why should your session be on the list of must-attend sessions at this years conference?

Ill be speaking on the panel Communications Services for the App Economy along with panelists from Red Hat and Cloudonix to address how communications providers must innovate and reinvent their service capabilities. Specifically, Ill address how making the network more open, virtualized and disaggregated will enable service providers to accelerate the introduction of new services while reducing costs and breaking vendor lock-in. I encourage you to join us to learn how a transformed network will transform our world in the App economy. The panel session will take place on January 30, starting at 2pm.

Please make an interesting prediction about tech in 2019?

At Radisys, we believe that Open RAN will gain significant ground in 2019. Recently, Heavy Reading conducted a survey of global mobile operators to better understand their plans for Open RAN transformation. Approximately 70% of all survey respondents said that they consider Open RAN to be strategic to their companies overall network transformation. In 2019, we anticipate that Open RAN adoption will accelerate as large-scale deployments align with mobile operators efforts around 5G.

In addition to participating on the panel, Communications Services for the App Economy, at 2:00pm, Wednesday, January 30, Natasha will expand further on her expectations for Open RAN in 2019, during her session, How Open RAN is Driving Network Transformation, at 9:30am Wednesday, January 30, 2019. This is a great opportunity for service providers and network operators of all kinds to hear from one of the prominent thought leaders in the space. If you havent already, register for ITEXPO today and put her sessions on your calendar.

Edited by Erik Linask
A woman in Florida says she was bit and scratched by an aggressive otter while she was taking her dog for a walk at a park. She suspects that the otter an officer shot and tested positive for rabies was the one that attacked her.

Otter Attack

It was on Jan. 8 that Ann-Christine Langselius was attacked by an otter while she was walking her dog at Lake Lily Park. According to Langselius, she visits the park on a daily basis but had never seen an otter before then.

Evidently, she was walking on a bridge by the lakes eastern shore when she saw the otter looking at her and went straight toward her. The otter attacked her right leg and then bit her left leg and held on while she was running until she got off the bridge. Her dog was not injured in the attack, but she was left temporarily unable to walk because of the severe bites on her leg.

Langselius says that she has encountered many animals before, but that based on the otters behavior it was obvious that the animal was ill.

Rabies Positive

On Wednesday, after several reports about an aggressive otter in the area, the authorities put up flyers, advising people to call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and to keep their distance if they spot any aggressive otters. Furthermore, people were advised to not feed wildlife.

Just this Thursday near Lake Maitland, a police officer fatally shot an otter, which eventually tested positive for rabies. Langselius believes that the shot otter was the one that attacked her.

As such, health department authorities say three people are being treated for rabies.

Rabies

Rabies is a preventable viral disease that affects mammals, and is typically transmitted through the bite of a rabid animal. It is a virus that infects the central nervous system, and ultimately causes disease in the brain and death.

Its initial symptoms are similar to those of other diseases, but its progressive symptoms may include anxiety, confusion, paralysis, excitation, hallucination, agitation, hydrophobia, and hypersalivation. Once these symptoms occur, death occurs within days.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Findings of a new Mayo Clinic study have shown an association between mindfulness and menopausal symptoms. Researchers also found that being mindful can be particularly beneficial for menopausal women who experience anxiety, irritability, and repression.

Menopause In Women

Women are considered to be in menopause if they have gone through a year without a menstrual cycle. About 6,000 women in the United States reach menopause per day.

Although menopause is a natural phenomenon, it comes with inconvenient and at time stressful symptoms which include night sweats, hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and mood changes.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness involves focusing awareness on the present moment and observing thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without judgment.

Earlier studies have shown that practicing mindfulness meditation can improve resilience to stress. A clinical trial backed by the National Institutes of Health found that practicing mindfulness can help individuals with anxiety disorders. Another study found meditation and breathing exercise can help boost brain health.

The new study, published in Climacteric: The Journal of the International Menopause Society, showed another benefit of mindfulness.

Mindfulness And Menopausal Symptoms

Mayo Clinic general internist and women's health specialist Richa Sood and colleagues involved 1,744 women between 40 and 65 who rated their menopausal symptoms, perceived level of stress, and mindfulness in questionnaires.

Researchers found that those with higher mindfulness scores tend to have fewer menopausal symptoms. They also found the link between reduced menopausal symptoms and higher mindfulness is stronger in participants with higher perceived level of stress.

Mindfulness As Treatment Option For Menopausal Women

Sood said that more studies are still needed but doctors can talk with their patients about the potentials of mindfulness as a treatment option for menopausal women.

For those who have not tried mindfulness meditation, Sood assured mindfulness is a skill that can be learned.

"Essentially, the first step in being mindful is to become aware that our minds are on autopilot most of the time," Sood said. "The goal during mindful moments is not to empty the mind, but to become an observer of the mind's activity while being kind to oneself. The second step is to create a pause. Take a deep breath, and observe one's own space, thoughts and emotions,"

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The leading paleontologists discouraged Alvarezs theory, saying that he was out of his league. Something that large would have left a big depression, they reasoned, and nothing like that had ever been found. But since 2/3 of the Earths surface is covered by water, it was possible that the asteroid had landed in the ocean. It would have left a trail of debris, and the search turned toward finding it.
Criminal chaos in Brazil sheds light on likely future for America when Trump starts arresting the criminal traitors of the deep state

Chaos has erupted in Brazil, and authorities in the state of Ceara are being overwhelmed by an unprecedented wave of violent crime. For more than a week, gang members and other criminals have been terrorizing communities in response to a crack-down on crime proposed by the new president, Jair Bolsonaro.

During his inaugural speech in early January, Bolsonaro vowed to rebuild Brazil by fighting corruption, instituting massive reforms and tackling crime. The surge of violence and mayhem in Ceara are a direct challenge to the new presidents proposals. According to reports, three rival gangs have joined forces to commit over 160 attacks and assaults, in an effort to protest Bolsonaros proposal to eliminate the practice of separating gangs in Brazil prisons. Bank bombings, bus torchings, and the general destruction of public property have left the capital city of Fortalewasza in shambles.

Unrest in Brazil

As The Guardian reports, Fortaleza has been ground zero for the chaos afflicting the Brazilian state of Ceara. The whirlwind of crime and aggression has brought the city to a grinding halt: Taxis arent running, businesses arent open and residents are afraid to leave their homes.

Hundreds of national guard troops are now being deployed to patrol the area. In a statement, Brazilian authorities declared, The decision was made after the recorded violence and the difficulty [faced by] local forces fighting organized crime alone.

Critics of the right-leaning Bolsonaro say that this wave of violence is his fault, for fanning the flames by making forceful proposals during his campaign. His platform included harsher prison sentences for criminals and expanding the militarys presence in select areas, along with a promise to crackdown on government corruption.

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As Breitbart reports further:

As well as tackling violent crime, Bolsonaro also promised to push for the prosecution of the dozens of socialist politicians involved in the countrys Operation Car Wash corruption scheme that saw billions of pounds fleeced from the public budget. The scandals most significant participant was former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, who Bolsonaro has pledged to keep in jail for the remainder of his 12-year sentence.

Perhaps it was Bolonsaros campaign promises that caused the riots, after all. Corrupt politicians will do anything to stay in power and out of jail even if it means destroying an entire city. Now, there are growing concerns that a similar wave of violence will overtake the United States once President Donald Trump begins his own effort to take down the Deep State.

Defending America against the Deep State wont be easy

As Mike Adams, founder of Natural News and creator of Brighteon.com, contends, it is time for the Deep States reign to come to an end, and for President Trump to defend the United States against enemies both international and home-grown. Indeed, there is much work to be done, if the president is to truly drain the swamp.

Adams explains further:

All the evidence needed to arrest and prosecute these traitors already exists. The exhaustive evidence of a massive deep state criminal conspiracy operating inside the U.S. government has been covered up by Rod Rosenstein, buried by Obama and ignored by Jeff Sessions. Establishment Republican traitors like the late John McCain attempted to aid the deep state in overthrowing the Trump presidency by ferreting false intelligence used to mislead the FISA court. CIA operatives pretending to be journalists  Anderson Cooper, anyone?  helped carry out a public disinformation campaign to mislead the American public and create an utterly false narrative of Russian collusion where none existed. Thousands of operatives throughout government, the intelligence community and the fake news media are guilty of conspiracy to overthrow Americas democracy. Overwhelming evidence already exists to out them and prosecute them.

If nothing is done to stop the dark forces at play, the United States as we know it will cease to exist  and the last traces of our freedom will disappear with it, as the authoritarian Left secures its power. As Adams contends, globalist and communist factions have teamed up to topple Americas constitutional republic and overtake the government.

But, as the events in Brazil have shown us, when Trump makes the call to start tearing down the Deep State, its not going to be pretty. The radical Left here in the U.S. has already shown that it will do anything to stop conservatives.

Whether its rigging elections and changing laws to fit their agenda, blatant censorship, or terrorist Antifa groups, the regressive and authoritarian Left is attacking America, no holds barred.

Indeed, the Deep State and all of their associates are not likely to go down without a fight. As violence and disorder overtake city streets in Brazil, it is reasonable to expect similar events will unfold in the United States, as President Trump continues to double down on his protection of American values.

See more coverage of left-wing atrocities at LeftCult.com.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

TheGuardian.com

Breitbart.com
Facebook employees have been caught giving the company's own smart display Portal glowing reviews on Amazon.

This comes at the heels of when the social media brand has been embroiled in privacy issues and the like. In light of that, it became hard for it to sell devices like this, to the point that it may have had to sweeten the pot somehow to make them a more compelling buy  or perhaps highlight anecdotes to make them more convincing.

Portal Sells Great To Facebook Employees

Spotted by Kevin Roose of The New York Times (via The Verge), the five-star reviews for the Portal product pages on Amazon were made by users whose names match those of Facebook employees.

Without question, they bought their Portal device via Amazon, which is proven by the verified mark. Granting them the benefit of the doubt, they may simply be happy customers who happen to be working at Facebook.

However, as Roose and Engadget point out, Amazon's guidelines clearly state that this practice is prohibited. In other words, employees aren't allowed to leave reviews for their companies' products on the platform.

Confirmation From Facebook

Facebook agreed that the reviewers' behavior is wrong and have asked them to remove, with the executive Andrew "Boz" Bosworth making it clear that the company didn't encourage them to do it. By the same token, he has confirmed that the brand's employees did in fact leave five-star reviews on its products.

Notably, three users whose names raise doubts to the authenticity of their reviews include Facebook's Tim Chappell, head of supply chain and strategic sourcing AR/VR products; Oren Hafif, a security engineering manager; and Javier Cubria, an event marketer.

neither coordinated nor directed from the company. From an internal post at the launch: We, unequivocally, DO NOT want Facebook employees to engage in leaving reviews for the products that we sell to Amazon. We will ask them to take down.  Boz (@boztank) January 17, 2019

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Scientists say that the first plants that recently sprouted on the moon via a special container in the Chang'e probe have likely died. The experiment was cut short after scientists had to shut down the power supply that kept them alive.

Moon Plants

It was on Jan. 3 that the Change Lunar probe landed on the far side of the moon, and just last Tuesday, the mission behind the team announced the success of the first biology mission on the moon, showing photos of a sprouting cotton plant inside the lunar landers biosphere. The cotton, rapeseed, and potatoes that had sprouted in the biosphere were the first to be planted on the moon by humans.

However, the experiment is over just nine days after it began. The team announced that the plants, as well as fruit fly eggs, are now likely already dead after they had to remotely shut down the power that controls the temperature. Without it, the temperatures become too extreme to support life.

Extreme Temperature

According to the designer of the experiment, Professor Xie Gengxin of Chongqing University, the temperatures were still at 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) at 10:30 a.m. on the moon even with two temperature controlling plates, leaving them at a temperature that is not optimal for growth.

Furthermore, the weight limit of the Change launch prevented scientists from bringing additional batteries to the lander, so the only battery available in the spacecraft could not support or keep the temperature under control. Without temperature control, plants and animals could not survive.

That said, despite pulling the plug on the experiment early on, the scientists still consider it a success.

Moon Experiment

The self-contained biosphere was created to plant seeds and raise fruit flies in the high-radiation, low-gravity environment of the moon, in hopes of assessing how future colonists of the moon would cultivate their food.

For the experiment, the test load inside the Change probe included plants for possible consumption, fruit flies as the consumers, and the yeast as the decomposers. It was initially intended to last for 100 days.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Rumor mill: If the high prices of Nvidia's latest RTX GPUs are getting you down, a recent report from Videocardz may perk you back up. According to the outlet's sources, Nvidia may be working on a new, cheaper Turing-based card without RTX features - the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

When Nvidia revealed its RTX GPUs at Gamescom in 2018, the reception was mixed, to say the least. On the one hand, many were excited about the possibility of real-time ray tracing in games.

On the other hand, a large number of Nvidia fans were alarmed at the astronomically-high price tags the company attached to its latest hardware. Early Founder's Edition and board partner RTX 2080 Tis cost around $1100 each.

Furthermore, as we noted in our Battlefield V RTX benchmarks, using Nvidia's ray tracing features can cause gaming performance to take a major nosedive (a later patch did improve the situation, however).

Regardless of the specifics, one thing's certain: a large portion of Nvidia's audience is simply unwilling or unable to pay such high premiums for modern hardware; especially given the hit-or-miss performance of real-time ray tracing. Those customers just want better framerates, and couldn't care less about being an early RTX adopter.

Fortunately, Nvidia may just have a solution. According to an encouraging report from Videocardz, the GPU giant could be working on a Turing-based GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

In theory, the 1660 Ti will feature a nice jump in performance over some of the company's cheaper Pascal cards, but without RTX features and the premium price tag associated with them.

Apparently, the 1660 Ti (the name is "not yet fully confirmed") will feature a TU116 graphics processor, 1536 CUDA Cores, 6GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and a 192-bit memory bus.

We don't know when (or indeed if) the GTX 1660 Ti will launch, but we'll update you if we learn anything new. In the meantime, despite the fact that Videocardz has three separate sources who have confirmed this information, you should still treat it as a rumor.

With luck, Nvidia itself may pull back the curtain on this mystery GPU in the coming months.
Rumor mill: With Microsoft already working on a second-generation HoloLens without having ever released the first to the consumer, people are anxious to get their mitts on one without having to shell out thousands of dollars. Microsoft will be attending MWC19 next month, and Alex Kipman will be on hand. So we might get word on the HoloLens 2's progress then.

Last June we've reported that Microsoft was working on a second-generation HoloLens that could be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1. At the time it was thought that Microsoft would be revealing a HoloLens 2 at this years Consumer Electronics Show. However, CES 2019 came and went without a reveal of the new mixed-reality headset.

A recent development now seems to indicate that Redmond might be planning an unveiling at this year's Mobile World Congress. A press invitation from Microsoft states that it will be hosting an event at MWC19 on February 24. Key speakers include CEO Satya Nadella, CVP Julia White and technical fellow Alex Kipman. Kipman is the creator of the HoloLens, so news of the second-generation headset seems promising.

Microsoft began working on the first-generation HoloLens as early as 2010. It released a Development Edition for $3,000 in 2016 and followed it up with an enterprise version the following year, which sells for $5,000. While it has continued to say a consumer model is in the works, there never seems to be any sign of a release date.

Since AR and VR technology has advanced so quickly, a consumer version of a second-generation headset seems more likely. Keep in mind that we are guessing at Microsoft's plans for MWC19 based on its invitation. The tech titan has yet to make an official announcement, so take this news with a grain of salt.

Mobile World Congress 2019 will be held in Barcelona Spain from February 25 to 28.
Gloversville, N.Y.  A Good Samaritan found thousands of dollars belonging to the widow of a victim in the Schoharie limousine crash and returned every cent she collected.

Kim Steenburg left a home in Gloversville, northwest of Albany, on Monday with $8,500 in an envelope. She was on her way to the bank to deposit the money, according to the Times Union in Albany.

Some of the cash was meant to pay her dad's property taxes, but most was earmarked for a cruise she had planned to take with her husband Rich, who died in the limo crash along with 19 others in October.

Steenburg said she was so busy buckling her niece into her car seat on Monday that she left the envelope with the money on top of the car and drove off, according to the Times Union. The cash was gone by the time she got to the bank.

Terry Brubaker was driving along the same road to pick up a prescription for her daughter when she saw paper floating through the air, according to News 10 in Albany.

"I didn't realize it was money at first," she said, according to News 10. "I just saw everything floating in the air, so I stopped on the side of the road. And then I saw a $100 bill, another $100 bill, $50 bills, $20 bills and I'm like wow, it's a lot of money."

Brubaker said she began picking up the bills and then went to the Fulton County Sheriffs Office to turn it in.

"You know, obviously, somebody lost a great amount of money and it had a purpose," she said, according to News 10.

Steenburg was at the sheriff's office at the same time filing a report about the missing cash.

Brubaker was able to gather all but $500 of Steenburg's missing money, according to the Times Union. Steenburg tried to give her some of the money as a thank you, but Brubaker declined.

Steenburg was supposed to be in the limo with her husband on the day it crashed, but stayed home because she wasn't feeling well, according to News 10. Her husband's brother Axel and his wife Amy were also in the limo and died in the crash.

The accident occurred when the limo went through a stop sign and drove off the road before crashing into a ditch on Oct. 6 in Schoharie. The vehicle was filled with family members and friends on their way to a birthday celebration.

Eighteen people in the limo and two pedestrians died.

Steenburg and her husband had been planning a weeklong cruise in the Bahamas with Axel and Amy. Instead, she's on the trip now with her sisters, their husbands and some close friends, according to the Times Union.

She brought along containers with ashes from Rich, Axel and Amy to scatter in the ocean.

I plan on doing something special, she said, according to the Times Union. I dont know what it is yet. I feel like when I get there and when I experience it, thats when Im going to know."

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
Washington (dpa)  US President Donald Trump will not attend the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, the White House said late Thursday.

Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his Delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

Trump had been scheduled to open this year's meeting of the world's movers and shakers in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.

On January 10, the president said he intended to attend the summit but would not do so if his governments shutdown continued.

-- Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH, Hamburg, Germany
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trumps rating among New York voters has dropped to its lowest point in his home state since April 2018, according to a new Siena College poll.

About 64 percent of New York voters hold an unfavorable view of the president, compared to 32 percent who said they view Trump favorably, the poll found.

In Upstate New York, voters also viewed Trump unfavorably (58 to 37 percent), reflecting a trend in a region where Trump once boasted that residents think hes the most popular person that has ever lived.

Trump was last viewed favorably by Upstate New Yorkers in December 2016, when 48 percent of voters had a favorable view compared to 45 percent who viewed him unfavorably, according to Siena Colleges polling.

The latest poll asked 805 New York voters their views from Jan. 6 through Jan. 10 during the partial shutdown of the federal government. The shutdown entered its record 28th day on Friday.

A Politico/Morning Consult national poll this week found 49 percent of voters say Trump is mostly to blame for the shutdown, compared to 33 percent who blame Democrats in Congress.

In New York, Trumps rating is the worst since 63 percent viewed him unfavorably in April 2018, compared to 34 percent who viewed him favorably.

The president is viewed unfavorably by 85 percent of New York Democrats and 57 percent of independents.

Trumps support also declined among New York Republicans, who still view him favorably, 68 to 29 percent, down from 76 to 22 percent in November 2018.

The Siena poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent.

Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump unveiled plans to expand American missile defenses on Thursday, but he stopped short of deciding whether to build a ground-based interceptor site for the East Coast.

The Pentagon has been considering whether the U.S. should build a $3.6 billion missile interceptor base at Fort Drum in New York or at military installations in Ohio and Michigan.

The Pentagons missile defense review, made public Thursday after more than a year of delays, held off on a decision about building a new missile interceptor site in the United States.

Instead, Trump announced the military would add 20 ground-based missile interceptors to Fort Greeley, Alaska, one of two existing sites that defend the U.S. from intercontinental ballistic missiles. The other site is at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

He also called for large-scale new investments in American missile defense technologies, including space-based defenses that could include missile interceptors.

We are committed to establishing a missile defense program that can shield every city in the United States, and we will never negotiate away our right to do this, Trump said Thursday in a speech at the Pentagon.

The Pentagons 81-page missile defense review said the military will keep the option of building a third ground-based interceptor site to guard against the potential expansion of missile threats to the homeland, including a future Iranian ICBM capability.

The report said previously completed studies of potential sites at Fort Drum, Camp Ravenna Joint Training Center in Ohio and Fort Custer Training Center in Michigan will enable the Defense Department to shorten the deployment timeline should the United States determine that threat conditions warrant building a new interceptor site.

The report added, The decision to do so, and site selection, will be informed by pertinent factors at the time, particularly emerging threat conditions.

House members from New York and economic development officials have touted the economic advantage of building the site at Fort Drum, noting that the home of the Armys 10th Mountain Division has the infrastructure and community support needed for the new base.

The project would bring 1,450 jobs and $220 million per year in economic value to the community that hosts the interceptor base.

The Missile Defense Agency disclosed in 2016 that it had selected Fort Drum and the Ohio and Michigan bases as finalists as a potential site to host the interceptor base.

The Pentagon completed a two-year, nearly $6 million study to fulfill a mandate from members of Congress who have been pushing for a third interceptor site.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, who represents a district that includes Fort Drum, about 80 miles north of Syracuse, is among House members who have said there is a need for the new site. Stefanik serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

Top generals in charge of missile defense have disagreed with Stefanik over the need for a third site. The generals suggested money would be better invested to upgrade the existing interceptor sites in Alaska and California.

Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
WASHINGTON  U.S. Rep. Anthony Brindisi and Sen. Charles Schumer are among members of Congress working without pay during the government shutdown, which reached a record of 27 days on Thursday.

Brindisi, D-Utica, hasnt received a paycheck as a member of Congress because he asked the House to defer his $174,000 salary on Jan. 3, the day he took the oath of office at the Capitol.

About 130 members of Congress, including nine of New Yorks 27 House members, asked for their pay to be deferred or donated to charity while about 800,000 government employees go unpaid during the partial shutdown.

Brindisi chose not to announce his request publicly, but when asked Thursday a spokeswoman said he believed it was the right thing to do.

Its simple, Brindisi said in a statement. If members of Congress dont do their job, they shouldnt get paid.

Brindisi is a co-sponsor of the No Budget, No Pay Act, a bill that would withhold paychecks from members of Congress if they fail to pass a budget and appropriations bills on time.

The other eight New York House members working without pay are Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik, Chris Collins and Lee Zeldin, and Democrats Antonio Delgado, Max Rose, Adriano Espaillot, Carolyn Maloney and Sean Patrick Maloney. Stefanik made her request to defer pay on the first day of the shutdown.

I submitted a letter today requesting that my pay be withheld during this partial government shutdown: pic.twitter.com/9glqRgmlCG  Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) December 22, 2018

Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, is among members of New Yorks congressional delegation who will continue to be paid during the shutdown, a spokeswoman confirmed.

Schumer, D-N.Y, the Senate minority leader, asked for his salary of $193,400 to be withheld as long as the shutdown continues, a spokesman said Thursday. Schumer is paid a higher salary as a member of congressional leadership.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., had no immediate comment when asked if the senator was deferring her congressional salary during the shutdown.

The House and Senate passed a bill authorizing the 800,000 affected federal employees to receive back pay once the shutdown is over, and President Donald Trump signed it into law on Wednesday.

Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Deresha Hayles is a Syracuse University student in the Class of 2019. The Rev. Dr. Brian Konkol is dean of Hendricks Chapel. They are co-chairs of the universitys 34th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration.

By Deresha Hayles and Brian Konkol | Special to The Post-Standard

One of the most remarkable realities of our existence is that we are deeply connected with all people and in all places. We are now connected through round-the-clock television networks, rapid international travel, mobile phones, social media and various wonders of the World Wide Web. But while such connections are indeed profound, the bonds of our global community run far deeper, for we are also united through global events and international endeavors. Whether it is a sporting event, such as the Olympics, a royal wedding or various natural disasters that capture worldwide attention and compassion, the reach and depth of our personal connections passes through time zones and crosses national boundaries.

While such characteristics of our global community are astounding, our connections run even deeper through our ongoing march toward universal human rights. From Selma to Syracuse to Soweto, we share in a similar struggle and are collectively called upon to ensure that the freedom of all can more fully ring. As Martin Luther King Jr. stated in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, which takes place Jan. 27 at the Carrier Dome, is intended to be a direct expression of Syracuse Universitys commitment to fostering and supporting an inclusive, accessible campus community of opportunity for a richly diverse student body. At the core of our mission and identity is the dignity and worth of all people. Access and opportunity for students from all journeys of life have been a primary promise of the Syracuse tradition since it first opened in 1870 to all, regardless of gender, ethnicity or culture.

Syracuse Universitys commitment to diversity and inclusion is rooted in the belief that an education informed by multiple points of view, life experiences, ethnicities, cultures, abilities and belief systems is essential to academic excellence. Amid a diversity of viewpoints, both inside and outside the classroom, we learn to question assumptions and arrive at a better understanding of ourselves and others. As a campus with students, staff and faculty from around the world, set within the context of a dynamic city and beautiful region, we affirm that the capacity to learn from a range of perspectives benefits all, for each local interaction has a sustained global implication.

As co-chairs for the 2019 planning team, we are excited to welcome comedian and author Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, as special guest for this years Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration. Our theme is The Global Impact of Civil Rights, and we will recognize how people and places are linked through ways and means unlike any previous time in human history.

As Noah wrote in Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, we live in a world where we dont see the ramifications of what we do to others because we dont live with them and if we could see one anothers pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place. At the 34th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, we will focus on the ways in which many of our daily decisions have a direct impact upon the well-being of others, both within our own backyards and to those who reside thousands of miles away. In doing so, we will more carefully consider the nature of our connections, the consequences of our choices, and how we might better honor Kings dream for a better world.
Le Moyne College has named an additional Jesuit priest with a sexual abuse claim against him, involving an adult student.

Officials said Father James F. OBrien, who has died, was removed from Le Moyne after a credible claim of sexual assault was made.

An alumnus of Le Moyne came forward with an allegation involving conduct from more than 20 years ago, President Linda LeMura wrote in a letter to the campus community.

OBrien was not included on the Jesuits' list released earlier this week because the conduct did not involve a minor, LeMura said.

OBrien, however, was accused of sexually assaulting a student, she said. Le Moyne administrators and Jesuit officials permanently removed OBrien from the college and placed him into retirement, LeMura said. Le Moyne did not say when OBrien was removed.

LeMura listed other priests with ties to Le Moyne, including one who was placed on a list by the USA Northeast Province earlier this week.

Father Roy Drake, who worked as director of research, spent almost a decade in Syracuse including on the faculty at Le Moyne.

LeMura said two diocesan priests named by the Syracuse Diocese last year also taught at Le Moyne: John P. Wagner was an adjunct instructor from 1975 to 1990 and in 1993. Francis J. Furfaro, who has died, taught as an adjunct instructor in 1948.

Le Moyne has not received any complaints against either priest involving conduct at the college, LeMura said. No person currently associated with the school has allegations against them, she said.

LeMura praised victims for having the courage to come forward. She pledged to help survivors heal.

We at Le Moyne recognize the importance of these public disclosures, and we are profoundly disturbed by the circumstances they suggest and deeply saddened by this pain and suffering, LeMura wrote. We deeply regret any abuse that occurred on our campus.

Public Affairs Reporter Julie McMahon covers courts, government and other issues affecting taxpayers. She can be reached anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1992
ONONDAGA, N.Y. -- Town supervisors from Onondaga County are hoping the needs of populated areas outside of Syracuse are considered when the state decides the future of Interstate 81.

Eight town supervisors gathered at Onondaga Town Hall Thursday to describe why they think a tunnel is the best, most unifying solution for the entire region.

The state Department of Transportation is expected to soon release a draft environmental impact statement, which will set in motion the process to eventually choose how to replace the aging I-81 highway in downtown Syracuse. DOT officials have said the impact statement will be releases in early 2019.

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh has advocated for a community grid to replace the viaduct in the city. Hes joined by Assemblyman Al Stirpe, State Sen. Rachel May and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. The grid would entail taking down the elevated highway and routing through traffic onto what is now Interstate 481.

What is less known and perhaps more significant is that 19 supervisors that comprise every town in Onondaga County are all in support of an option other than the community grid, said Damian Ulatowski, town of Clay supervisor.

In addition to the town supervisors, State Sen. Robert Antonacci, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon and Assemblyman William Magnarelli oppose the grid.

The town supervisors support a tunnel, saying that it would preserve high-speed connections for people traveling into and out of the city regularly. And they said they are worried about the traffic impacts on outlying areas as drivers find ways to avoid driving onto the citys street grid.

The tunnel would cost $3.6 billion, according to an estimate from an independent firm hired by the state to review the feasibility of a tunnel. Rebuilding the viaduct would cost $1.7 billion, and the grid would cost $1.3 billion.

Infrastructure experts recently told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard recently that finding $3.6 billion for such a project would be difficult, considering federal budget realities and the stiff competition for federal and state funding.

As for costs, the best solution is often high, but arent we worth that cost?" Ulatowski said. "In fact, we should all stand up and shout that we are and applaud those like my associates who champion a non-'grid' alternative.

All the town supervisors support the tunnel option over rebuilding the viaduct, Ulatowski said. Thats because the tunnel keeps the high-speed connection along the existing I-81 corridor while also removing the raised highway, which Ulatowski said has divided the city of Syracuse and is an eyesore.

The supervisors held the news conference to try to get ahead of the draft environmental impact statement thats coming soon from the state. The state could identify a preferred option when it releases the DEIS, though it could change the design or even which option to build by the time the final environmental impact statement is released.

The supervisors also described several polls and surveys that have been conducted since 2013 that, they say, demonstrate little public support for the grid in the suburbs, in addition to among Syracuse residents. People who are against the grid have been drowned out by a vocal minority, the supervisors said.

Four of the polls were conducted by polling firms and surveyed support for repairing or rebuilding the viaduct at between 39 percent and 55 percent," for a boulevard only at between 18 percent and 39 percent and support fro the tunnel at between 12 percent and 18 percent. The results of each poll were compiled by Kerry Mannion, deputy DeWitt supervisor, and provided to Syracuse.com.

One constituent survey, which is not a scientific poll, from Magnarellis office reported that 35 percent of his constituents in Syracuse, Geddes and Van Buren wanted a community grid," compared with 59 percent who wanted to rebuild the existing viaduct.

Just 16 percent of the 1,101 respondents preferred a tunnel, according to the 2018 survey.

Save81, a group aligned against the grid," commissioned a poll in November 2016 that found 59 percent of 1,138 people polled preferred keeping the highway in its current alignment, versus 34 percent who supported the highway being replaced by a boulevard and through traffic diverted onto what is now I-481.

A news release announcing the Save81 poll results did not describe exactly what questions were asked, how the poll was conducted and who was surveyed.

The poll also did not ask about a tunnel replacing Interstate 81. At the time, a tunnel was not being considered by engineers putting the draft environmental statement together.

Mannion said the poll results show the city and surrounding areas are divided when it comes to the I-81 issue and that support for the grid has been overstated.

We believe in a strong city of Syracuse, and we believe we either swim together or we sink together, but we cant shortchange the thousands of residents in the suburb in favor of the city, he said.
Homer, N.Y. -- Farmer Luke Park was sentenced this week to 60 days in jail and a $10,500 fine for his role in the death of Alex Smith, a 14-year-old boy who died while working on Parks farm in 2015.

Smith died July 1, 2015 at Luke Parks farm in Homer. Smith was crushed beneath a piece of farm equipment after something went wrong when he was moving a bale of hay.

Smith was not old enough to legally operate the machinery and he was being paid off the books, according to court and police records.

An investigation by the state attorney generals office, building a case against Park for failing to follow the laws that are designed to keep kids safe on farms. Last year, Park pleaded guilty to three of the charges. Two were violations of labor law for failing to have unemployment insurance for Smith and for allowing the boy to use equipment he was too young to use. The third was endangering the welfare of a child for putting Smith in harms way.

It is unconscionable that any individual would knowingly put a child in harms way, Attorney General Letitia James said. This incident is a tragic reminder that child labor laws exist for a reason. My office will continue to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law employers who unlawfully put children in danger.

James said Park paid most of his employees off the books. His sentence also included a fine of $10,500 and three years of probation.

Park, who paid the majority of his employees off-the-books, underpaid required employer contributions to the States unemployment insurance fund in the amount of $10,500.

Marnie Eisenstadt is an enterprise reporter who writes about people, life and culture in Central New York. Have an idea or question? Contact her anytime: email | twitter | Facebook | 315-470-2246
Nestled between Nine Mile Creek and a wooded hillside near Camillus is the Camillus Erie Canal Park. The park was established in 1972 by Elizabeth and Dr. David Beebe, whose dedication to Erie Canal heritage and the environment preserved a stretch of the 19th century Erie Canal and the 1842 Nine Mile Creek aqueduct.

This structure carried the manmade waterway, its boats and their passengers over the natural body of water, and is the only aqueduct from the 19th-century canal that is restored and navigable.

The Erie Canal Museum will host a talk about the park's history by its founders at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23. The presentation is the first of six talks in the Peggy Lou Feldmeier Lunchtime Lecture Series at the Museum, 318 Erie Blvd. East, downtown Syracuse. Admission is $5 per person, and there is no charge for Museum members. Tickets may be purchased at the door or at https://eriecanalmuseum.org/store/product/lunchtime-lecture/.

Dr. and Mrs. Beebe will discuss current activities at this historic location and talk about their many achievements at the site, including restoration of the aqueduct.

The 400-acre, seven-mile linear park is popular with cyclists, hikers, history lovers and others, and has operated under the Beebes' direction for more than 45 years. The Sims Store Museum at the park is a replica of a Canal-era shop and includes numerous historic artifacts and exhibits. The park is open year-round, and is part of the Town of Camillus park system and the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor.

Dr. Beebe has served on the Board of Directors of the Canal Society of New York State for many years. He is the author of "Camillus Halfway There," a treatise on Erie Canal structures and their functions. Among the many awards and honors the couple has received is the Spirit of the Canal Award, which they received at the World Canals Conference in 2000.

The program will include time for questions. Limited free parking is available in museum-designated spots in the lot across the street under routes 81 and 690.

Established in 1962, the Erie Canal Museum protects and showcases the only existing weighlock building in the United States, and shares the history of the Erie Canal through hands-on displays, interactive exhibits, and original artifacts. It is open Monday-Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Admission is free with a suggested $5 donation.
Syracuse, NY -- A Syracuse man who was forcefully knocked out and probed anally for drugs in October 2017 plans to file a lawsuit against those responsible, he confirmed this morning.

Torrence Jackson, 42, told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard he hadnt originally planned to file a lawsuit because he was still traumatized by the Oct. 16, 2017 forced sigmoidoscopy at St. Josephs Hospital Health Center.

Based on the wishes of Syracuse police and the blessings of a judge, Jackson was knocked out and a colonoscope was inserted 8 inches up his rectum. No drugs were found. He suffered tears that caused him to return to an emergency room the following day for bleeding.

His case was resolved with a plea to a traffic ticket.

But the pain lingered for far longer. Jackson, who has a history of antagonism with police, said he was afraid what might happen to him next.

I was scarred, mentally, Jackson said today, pointing to his head. I was messed up.

But his mother told him the only way he was going to stop police from doing something again was to file a lawsuit, Jackson said. His criminal lawyer, Charles Keller, referred him to a Manhattan police brutality lawyer.

That lawyer, Fred Lichtmacher, has won multiple large settlements for victims of police misconduct. He won a $235,000 settlement in the case of a 23-year-old man who was dragged across a chain-link fence and attacked by a police dog over charges that were latter dropped, according to media reports.

He won a $1 million settlement for a man walloped by a police baton, $535,000 for a female cop subjected to sexual harassment and $125,000 for a man falsely arrested in retaliation by the New York City police, according to media reports.

Closer to home, Lichtmacher has filed lawsuits against Syracuse police for the shooting of a woman during the infamous Fathers Day riot in 2016 (still pending), the death of an armed woman shot by cops in 2016 (dropped) and the alleged beating of a Liverpool man in 2014 (still pending).

Lichtmacher confirmed that he was taking Jacksons case in the forced drug search, but said he hadnt yet reviewed the case file.

Jackson said he would not put a dollar figure on the amount hes looking for. He said only he wants those responsible to take care of me. But he also said that cops should not overstep their bounds when doing proactive police work.

I want accountability, Jackson said. Just because I had a record in the past didnt give them the right to violate my rights now."

Jackson was back in court this morning for a subsequent arrest in which hes accused of stashing a gun and drugs at a South Side residence. Jackson says he didnt even know the residence existed and vowed to fight the charges. Hes been freed on bail -- his family put up their house as collateral -- as that case continues, he said.

Neither Jackson nor Lichtmacher said who exactly theyre planning to sue or in which court the suit will be field. Syracuse.com | Post-Standard reported that actions by Syracuse police, City Court Judge Rory McMahon and St. Joes all contributed to the anal search.

The lawsuit could potentially be filed in state court -- perhaps as a claim against the government, called an Article 78 -- or in federal court as a violation of Jacksons Constitutional protection against illegal search and seizure.

Jackson said hes received a heartfelt response from those he knows after Syracuse.coms story about his forced procedure. Before the story ran, he said, it was hard to tell anybody about the search because it was too embarrassing.
CROGHAN, N.Y. -- A Lewis County man was arrested for having forcible sex with a 17-year-old girl without her consent, according to New York State Police.

Ryan L. Hoch, 21, of Croghan, was arrested and charged with first-degree rape and first-degree sexual abuse, police said.

Hoch was arraigned and remanded to the Lewis County Public Safety Building on $20,000 cas or $40,000 bond, police said.
Morrisville, N.Y. -- A 16-year-old was arrested Thursday after posting threats against Morrisvile-Eaton Middle-High School and a picture of herself with what appeared to be a handgun on Instagram, according to the Madison County Sheriffs Office.

On Thursday morning, the schools principal, Tracy Durkee, opened an email from a concerned citizen that a 16-year-old girl threatened to shoot up the school, deputies said.

The principal called 911 and placed the school on lockout.

An investigation found that a 16-year-old girl posted comments on Instagram threatening to shoot the school and posted photos of herself with what appeared to be a handgun, deputies said.

When the teen was arrested, officers found the handgun was a BB gun.

She was charged with making a terroristic threat, arraigned in the youth part of Madison County Superior Court and released.
While asking for an immediate change of this policy at MSHS, Spradlin praised the school and Principal Mike Davidson for the schools and its students successes despite financial and economic challenges.

During the meetings regular business, Carter told the board that the budget is in limbo at the moment as the county waits on approval of a state budget. He said he is cautiously optimistic about the budget for the 2019-20 school year.

The school budget is under development, Carter said, as the budget committee discusses needs. No one came to speak during a public hearing on the budget Monday night.
The staff of the Litchfield Jazz Festival is presenting the fourth installment of their free virtual concert series for April.
Wildwood Farms

General Store

On Saturday, January 19

Steve Marshall & High Road will take the stage from 6 to 8 p.m.

On Sunday, January 20

Music jam with all pickers welcome from 2:00 until 4:30 p.m.

Floyd Center for the Arts

On Friday, January 18

Springhouse Community School Winter Theater Series will feature Virginia Hollow from 7 to 9 p.m. Doors open at 6 p.m. Cost: Cost: $15 advance tickets available online at www.springhousecommunityschool.org/fundraisers; $20 day of at the door. See story on B6.

Dogtown Roadhouse

On Friday, January 18

Jimothy will perform at 8 p.m.

On Saturday, January 19

Johnny Come Quickly will entertain at 8 p.m.

On Sunday, January 20

The weekly Open Mic Night begins at 6 p.m. with this weeks host, Danny Lectro.

The Floyd Country Store
Do you already have a paid subscription to any of the SWNewsMedia newspapers? If so, you can Activate your Premium online account by clicking here. Activation will allow you to view unlimited online articles each month. To activate your Premium online account, the email address and phone number provided with your paid newspaper subscription needs to match the information you use in setting up your online user account. If you are having trouble or want to confirm what email address and phone number is listed on your subscription account, please call 952-345-6682 or email circulation@swpub.com and we'll be happy to assist.
Police Minister Stuart Nash says anecdotal evidence suggests an increase in the number of sexual assaults at the beginning of each year may be linked to students heading to university.

The police made the possible link when Stuart asked them about the trend late last year.

Of the roughly 6000 sexual assaults reported between July 2017 and July 2018, more than three quarters of the victims were female and almost half were younger than 20 years old.

Internationally, sexual assaults are recognised as being significantly underreported - it's estimated to be only about 10 percent.

An increase in sexual assaults around February and March over a number of years prompted the police minister to ask what might be to blame.

"This is when the universities go back and maybe what's happening is 18 and 19-year-olds are away from home for the first time, mixing with alcohol and orientations for example - that might be the reason,'' says Stuart.

"And police say maybe around this time some of the assaults that occurred over the Christmas break are only just being reported, maybe a woman has found herself pregnant."

Stuart stressed the advice he received was purely anecdotal.

But he said more police resources are being put into keeping young people safe, given one in five female secondary students say they have had unwanted sexual contact.

"What we do know is you mix alcohol with young men and women then sometimes, not always of course, but sometimes it doesn't end well.

"I agree that police will come up with a programme that looks out how do we best target our education towards those who are the most vulnerable in society, and whether that means going into schools and having uncomfortable conversations with young men and women,'' he said.

'People don't know what consent is'

Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association Tamatha Paul says linking an increase in sexual assaults to alcohol and the start of the university year was harmful because it made it sound like victims have chosen to put themselves in that position.

"Now we have a whole bunch of students that are going to be anxious and nervous about university because they feel like they're not safe,"says Tamatha.

"When really we know from evidence that sexual violence happens most frequently ... between people that know each other.

"The problem is that people don't know what consent is and what healthy relationships are."

National campaign on positive relationships needs to start from young age

Victoria University student academic services director Pam Thorburn says a national campaign emphasising positive relationships needs to start from a young age, potentially from early childhood, and continue through secondary and tertiary education.

Counsellors at the university won't always know when a student has been a victim of sexual assault, as there are multiple avenues for reporting it.

But Pam says the university does do lots of work with students, especially at the start of the year, to help them transition into the city.

This includes collaborating with the police and the hospitality sector on the Ask for Angela campaign, which began in the United Kingdom, and lets people discretely alert bar staff if they feel unsafe while out drinking.

"The Ask Angela campaign we've had involvement in helping to shape that.

"We've worked with police on Don't Guess The Yes, which is around consent. And we've put a huge amount of information into our halls for students,'' says Pam.

"This year for the first time we've got compulsory modules in place for students around consent."

Pam says the university had also done a lot of work with the police around alcohol-free events and safe zones, both on and off-campus.

David Kirby, the police's sexual violence spokesperson, says they did a lot of work at the start of the university year to make sure students look after their friends when they're drinking - and know when to tell them enough is enough.

"Ages probably 16 to 25-years-old is our highest proportion of sexual assault complaints that we receive.

"Couple that with the linkages with alcohol and it is often the start of the university year where you've got those two coincide - that can create times where people don't make good decisions."

He says the irony of the statistics was that if the number of reported sexual assaults went up, it didn't necessarily mean the problem was any worse, it may just be that more people feel comfortable reporting it.

Where to get help:

NZ Police

Victim Support 0800 842 846

Rape Crisis 0800 88 33 00

Rape Prevention Education

-RNZ/ Jo Moir, Political reporter
Nine New Zealand websites have been compromised in a huge online data breach.

More than 770 million email addresses and passwords, totalling 87 gigabytes of data, have been posted online in a hackers' forum.

The technology magazine Wired says they appear to have been stolen from more than 2000 websites around the world.

The nine New Zealand websites targetted predominantly belong to smaller companies.

No credit card information is included in the leak, only email addresses and passwords.

One of the companies affected by the breach, Auckland florist Blooms Online, said it had no idea of the breach until contacted by RNZ but would be changing all passwords.

Wired magazine believes the data breach to be the third largest ever, and the largest in which the stolen information has been made public.

The data breach file is named "Collection #1" and was first reported by Australian security expert Troy Hunt.

Speaking to Wired, Mr Hunt described the breach as "a completely random collection of sites purely to maximize the number of credentials available to hackers".

"There's no obvious patterns, just maximum exposure."

Mr Hunt runs the website "Have I Been Pwned?" which allows you to check if your email addresses have been compromised.

He also told the magazine at least 140 million email accounts and their passwords are new to his database, which means they have not been breached before.

-RNZ
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TICKERS: VLC; VLCJF

Source: Peter Epstein for Streetwise Reports (1/17/19)

Peter Epstein of Epstein Research discusses the strategic investment this gold explorer just received.



Velocity Minerals Ltd. (VLC:TSX.V; VLCJF:OTCQB), the Bulgarian gold exploration and development company, with a strong PEA on its Rozino project, and six additional near-surface gold prospects, announced a key strategic investment by Atlantic Gold Corp. (TSX-V: AGB; OTCQB: SPVEF).

A Vote of Confidence in Velocity Minerals

Atlantic Gold is a C$400 million company with proven mine building capabilities. It produced 90,531 ounces of gold in 2018 at a very low all-in sustainable cost of US$521US$566/oz. The mine was built on time and on budget and production metrics are exceeding Feasibility levels. The mine is being expanded to 200,000 ounces/year.

This is a significant de-risking event for Velocity as it will receive a C$3.9 million equity investment at a premium to its market price, plus a C$5.1 million 5-year secured 8.5% convertible bond investment with a conversion price of C$0.25/share (a 35% premium). The convertible bond has no strings attached (no warrants or other equity kickers). In total Velocity will receive C$9 million from Atlantic Gold.

Velocity CEO Keith Henderson stated, "We are delighted to welcome Atlantic Gold as a strategic investor in the company. Atlantic's development expertise in Nova Scotia complements our exploration success in Bulgaria. Our corporate strategies are aligned, with Velocity's development objectives mirroring Atlantic's successful hub-and-spoke approach of satellite deposits feeding a centralized processing plant. The proceeds from the financing will allow for the progression of our PEA-stage Rozino gold project toward feasibility and for exploration and resource definition of several additional projects. We believe that 2019 will be a transformative year for Velocity."

$9 Million in Proceeds Will Go a Long Way .

Upon deployment of the C$9 million, Atlantic Gold will own 39.2% of Velocity Minerals on a partially diluted basis. Atlantic Gold and Velocity plan to work closely together to advance Velocity's Rozino project through Feasibility studies and ultimately, if warranted, construction and commissioning.

Proceeds from the Strategic Investment will be used to fund the advancement of the Rozino gold project towards Feasibility and permitting, including resource expansion and definition drilling, engineering studies, and environmental monitoring and assessment. In addition, Velocity will proceed with exploration and assessment of satellite deposits where Velocity has negotiated option rights.

From the press release,

"Velocity envisions staged open pit mining of satellite deposits and processing in a central CIL plant. An existing, operating processing plant is available through an Exploration and Mining Alliance with its established Bulgarian operating partner. Velocity's strategy is to build a production profile of more than 100,000 ounces of gold per year for over 10 years."

Atlantic Gold was drawn to Velocity's Rozino project due to the attractive features of its PEA.

PEA Based on Just a Six-Year Mine Life

AISC in the range of ~USD$550-650/oz, in the lower decile of industry costs

Low initial capex

Low strip ratio deposits with a 1.51 g/t Life of Mine (LOM) gold grade

Significant Resource extension potential at existing deposits

Simple metallurgy and conventional processing methods

Potential for multiple open pits that could be treated through a central milling facility

An under-explored gold belt, with little, if any modern gold exploration

Velocity has an additional important attribute, a local partner that it has an agreement with to process mineralized material through the partner's currently operating CIL process facility. The facility is located near the Rozino deposit.

The Rozino project is arguably more robust than the PEA implies. It has an after-tax NPV(5%) of C$129 million and after-tax IRR of 33%, which is fairly compelling for a company with a market cap of C$14 million (pre-Altlantic Gold investment). But what makes it really interesting is the mine life. The considerable NPV of C$129 million is on just a six-year mine life.

Ample Opportunities to Extend Mine Life at Rozino

With Atlantic Gold's investment and strategic advice, along with funded exploration drilling, that mine life could possibly be doubled. Or, it could result in more production per year. I won't try to estimate what that might mean for the NPV and IRR, but it would be significant. Higher production levels, if modeled in the next Feasibility report, could potentially lower already low all-in sustainable costs.

This move by Atlantic Gold is a tremendous vote of confidence in Velocity, the Rozino project and the team. It's also a vote of confidence in Bulgaria. At a time where funding junior miners is extremely difficult, Atlantic could have chosen to fund dozens of projects, dozens of management teams. But, they chose Velocity Minerals. And, in looking at Atlantic Gold's press releases over the past year, I don't see any strategic investments into other juniors.

With a C$400 million market cap and C$40 million in cash, and Atlantic Gold's operations exceeding targets, this is a company that has the staying power to see Velocity not just through Pre-Feasibility this year, but well beyond that. In my opinion the chances that Rozino becomes a mine, surrounded by satellite deposits that could possibly extend mine life beyond six years, has gone way up. To reiterate, this is a huge vote of confidence and a substantial de-risking event.

Will the market recognize this de-risking? Time will tell. But, C$9 million will take Velocity Minerals a long way toward potentially creating substantial shareholder value. This cash injection frees management from the arduous task of raising capital, allowing the team to focus on what they bestexploring and developing gold mines.

Peter Epstein is the founder of Epstein Research. His background is in company and financial analysis. He holds an MBA degree in financial analysis from New York University's Stern School of Business.

[NLINSERT]

Epstein Report Disclosures: The content of this article is for information only. Readers fully understand and agree that nothing contained herein, written by Peter Epstein of Epstein Research [ER], (together, [ER]) about Velocity Minerals, including but not limited to, commentary, opinions, views, assumptions, reported facts, calculations, etc. is to be considered implicit or explicit investment advice. Nothing contained herein is a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any security. [ER] is not responsible under any circumstances for investment actions taken by the reader. [ER] has never been, and is not currently, a registered or licensed financial advisor or broker/dealer, investment advisor, stockbroker, trader, money manager, compliance or legal officer, and does not perform market making activities. [ER] is not directly employed by any company, group, organization, party or person. The shares of Velocity Minerals are highly speculative, not suitable for all investors. Readers understand and agree that investments in small cap stocks can result in a 100% loss of invested funds. It is assumed and agreed upon by readers that they will consult with their own licensed or registered financial advisors before making any investment decisions.

At the time this interview was posted, Peter Epstein owned stock options in Velocity Minerals and it was an advertiser on [ER]. Readers understand and agree that they must conduct their own due diligence above and beyond reading this article. While the author believes he's diligent in screening out companies that, for any reasons whatsoever, are unattractive investment opportunities, he cannot guarantee that his efforts will (or have been) successful. [ER] is not responsible for any perceived, or actual, errors including, but not limited to, commentary, opinions, views, assumptions, reported facts & financial calculations, or for the completeness of this article or future content. [ER] is not expected or required to subsequently follow or cover events & news, or write about any particular company or topic. [ER] is not an expert in any company, industry sector or investment topic. [ER] may buy or sell shares in Velocity Minerals and other advertising companies at any time.

Streetwise Reports Disclosure:

1) Peter Epstein's disclosures are listed above.

2) The following companies mentioned in the article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: None. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

3) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The author is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. The author was not paid by Streetwise Reports for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. Streetwise Reports relies upon the authors to accurately provide this information and Streetwise Reports has no means of verifying its accuracy.

4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports.

5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article until three business days after the publication of the interview or article. The foregoing prohibition does not apply to articles that in substance only restate previously published company releases. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Velocity Minerals, a company mentioned in this article.

Charts and graphics provided by author.
At the end of 2018 the Pakistan Navy put two refurbished Sea King helicopters into service as search and rescue helicopters. The 9.5 ton twin-engine Sea King helicopters are a 1950s design and the Indian Navy models were recently retired, most of them after 30-40 years of service. The British retired its Sea Kings starting in 2014 and the seven Pakistan purchased in 2017 were deemed the easiest to refurbish to a state where they would be good for another few thousand flight hours. To continue in service the refurbished Sea Kings will require a lot of maintenance and the greatest cost for these Sea Kings is the maintenance contract with a British firm that specializes in that sort of thing. It is believed only three of the seven will be restored to flying condition and the others will be used for spares.

The first of 344 British Sea Kings was produced in 1969 and the last in 1995. Most were manufactured in the 1970s and 80s. The British Sea King was a license-built version of the American S-61. Pakistan already has six Sea Kings but they are very old and very close to retirement or a major refurbishment. All these options are less expensive than buying new helicopters, which the Pakistani Navy cannot afford.

While there are lots of retired naval helicopters on the market there are far fewer small maritime patrol aircraft. Thus at the same time, Pakistan put its two Sea Kings into service it also put the first of two ATR 72 maritime patrol aircraft to work. Actually, these two are ATR-72s Pakistan already owned that were converted from transports to maritime patrol. The twin-engine ATR-72 has a cruising speed of 511 kilometers an hour. If it slows to 400 kilometers an hour the ATR-72 can patrol for six hours and stay in the air eight hours per sortie. The ATR 72 is a 22 ton transport that, when used for maritime patrol, can be armed with anti-ship missiles, lightweight anti-submarine torpedoes, depth charges, and even a pod-mounted machinegun. There can also be a sonobuoy launcher, a magnetic anomaly detector (MAD, to find large metal objects close to the surface), and a self-protection system (chaff, flares, jammers). Sensors carried can include a SAR (synthetic aperture radar) capable of tracking ships 220 kilometers away (when the aircraft is at 3,000 meters altitude). Basic equipment for the ATR-72 is usually search radar, day/night vidcams with zoom, sonobuoy dispenser, two anti-submarine torpedoes, MAD, and anti-missile defense plus electronic countermeasures. Despite all this anti-submarine gear, most of the time these aircraft will simply be searching for smugglers, poachers, or ships in distress. In these cases, the torpedoes and sonobuoys are not carried.
It is rather astounding the American double-think. It was the US side which unilaterally abolished the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002. And it is the US side which is now unilaterally threatening to walk away from a second landmark arms control treaty, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) accord, which was first put in place in 1987.

Yet it is Washington that is accusing Russia of violating the global arms control architecture.

Washington has been relentlessly encroaching on Russias national security over the past two decades with expansion of NATO forces on Russias borders, including the deployment of missiles systems. And yet Washington has the bare face to accuse Moscow of breaching arms controls.

How would the US feel, if say, Russia were to deploy missile systems in Mexico? Yet, the US is doing similar on Russias borders and then turning around and accusing Moscow of aggression. The American double-think here betrays a disturbing, stupid arrogance.

This week, US and Russian officials met in Geneva to discuss the INF and problems surrounding the treaty on both sides. But the US side in typical high-handed fashion refused to enter into detailed negotiations about alleged grievances contended by both sides. Washington spurned detailed talks and simply repeated its threats to unilaterally abrogate the INF.

It now seems certain that the US will withdraw from the INF over the next two months. The abrogation of the treaty, in place since 1987 as negotiated by former President Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, could mean the return of US medium-range nuclear missiles to Europe targeting Russia.

It is a stupendous retrograde step. Moscow has already warned that if the US abandons the INF, then it will be compelled to respond by installing missiles that will target European allies of the US. This is a lamentable unwinding of arms control and undoing of global security.

But who is responsible? It is the US that is wholly responsible for this retrograde step. No doubt about it. The question has to be asked: which side has continually sought to undermine global security? Any objective observer can see that the US and its cancellation of the ABM in 2002 followed by relentless expansion of NATO offensive forces towards Russia is the malign motive force.

Western accusations against Russia of aggression towards Europe are preposterous propaganda and devious projection of its own malign activities, primarily in the support of a violent coup detat in Ukraine by Neo-Nazis in early 2014. The relentless aggressive expansion of NATO, resembling the Nazi Operation Barbarossa in 1941, is the real context of developments, not the Western media travesty of Russian aggression.

What are US and NATO grievances concerning the INF? They claim Russia is in breach of the INF from its development of a land-launched cruise missile, the 9M729 or Novator missile. Russia denies that claim and has repeatedly asked the US for evidence or details of its grievance in order for a negotiated resolution of the matter to take place. Washington has steadfastly refused to provide details, as the cursory and failed negotiations in Geneva this week proved once again.

Meanwhile, it is a patent fact that Washington has deployed missile systems in Romania and Poland which are incontestably in violation of the INF, potentially breaching the treaty in a most brazen manner. Washington calls these missile systems defensive and against rogue regimes like Iran. Come off it. Nobody in their right mind could buy such a pretext. These missile system directly and promptly put Moscow at risk of an American nuclear attack.

A way to resolve these issues is to hold mutually respectful negotiations within the framework of the INF. But herein is the rub. The US side evidently does not want to negotiate. It is simply blustering ahead with its own speculative claims against Russia.

Washingtons intransigent attitude  which predates Trump  inevitably raises the suspicion that the US side is not in the slightest bit interested in negotiations with Russia on a mutual basis. The US is contriving grievances as an excuse for its own desire to rip up the INF as it did with the ABM.

By falsely claiming that Russia is violating the INF, the US is giving itself license to expand its forces and missile systems in Europe to threaten Russia.

This is a deplorable act of lawlessness by the US, but one which is part of a whole pattern of conduct whereby Washington sees itself as above any international law or norms of conduct in its pursuit of hegemonic ambitions.

Washington accuses Moscow? The American regime has been on a decades roll of criminal genocidal wars in the Middle East and beyond, sponsoring terrorism and regime change. And it has the brass neck to accuse Moscow of threatening global security. Its INF violation and desire to put Europe on a hair trigger for nuclear war is totally in keeping with American criminal imperialism. Trying to scapegoat Russia for its own criminal orgy of misconduct is the biggest, foulest joke imaginable.

Fortunately, Russia has the political intelligence and military capability to know how to deal with such American duplicity and, ultimately, imbecility. The American political class think they know it all. They dont know anything. American stupid arrogance is their own downfall. Bring it on.
Lebanon still doesnt have an agreement to form a government and cash in on the Wests 11bn dollar aid package, which it badly needs to repair a failing state, teetering on the brink of an economic meltdown.

At the heart of the matter is one single minister, which the Hezbollah-aligned government block wants  who happens to be a supporter of Assad, despite being a Sunni  but Saad Hariri is resisting leaving some here wondering whether the Prime Minister is more part of the problem than the solution.

Off the scale corruption which has reached new levels of money grabbing by Lebanons powerful leaders is part of the problem. The block which Hairir represents (the West) is seen to be the main beneficiary of the aid deal, whereas Hezbollah and its allies are not.

But as we pontificate over how backward and corrupt Arab countries are, we cannot look to the West as a moral compass. As Trumps hostage taking in Washington of the very apparatus of the state struggles for space on the front page of our more serious broadsheets with the Brexit crisis in Britain, we are reminded that governance is becoming an anachronism in these political spheres. France too has a crisis of leadership and governance and yet these same three countries are both quick to chastise backward Lebanon  a country so corrupt that the elites money grabbing schemes have resulted in almost no infrastructure of state left to deliver water, electricity, road maintenance while an environmental Armageddon starts to rear its ugly head. In Lebanon if polluted water, burning rubbish, filthy air or beaches which resemble dumps dont kill you, then Lebanons lawless roads or the wasta (corruption and kinship) will. When two Lebanese have a car accident here, neither side wastes time arguing who is right or wrong but rather engage in a game of super trumps  where one party says he has an uncle who is an inspector in the police, only for his opponent to respond by saying that his brother in law is a general in the army. Wasta here allows people to put a bullet in you and get away with it, to take your company, to allow you to not pay tax, to take a government job which allows you to set up a company which controls the contracts which it distributes. It even allows you to have journalists arrested who investigate you. There are no limits to Wasta.

And yet this same Wasta is literally destroying a country which once stood tall as a beacon in the region.

Wasta even rules the Ambassadors of these EU countries.

Indeed, they are not so quick to lead any intelligent debate or discussions to find a political solution to the stalemate in Lebanon. What is the point of these diplomats, one could ask, who live rock star lives in this tiny country and, like the British Ambassador, hide behind social media accounts while behaving exactly like the corrupt ministers in the host country when approached by media who have awkward questions.

Lebanon deserves better than both the motley crew of ministers who only serve one single purpose in office  to rake in cash for their political masters who have appointed them rather like accountants  and this impotent posse of EU diplomats who, like a previous EU ambassador criticize the Lebanese for driving and sending messages on their phones  while she was in traffic and couldnt resist the tweet. The hypocrisy is staggering.

What is the role of EU diplomats if they cant help a democratically embryonic failed state like Lebanon get a cabinet of money grabbing buffoons together? How hard can it be?

Or, are they diplomats, also playing a surreptitious role and are also guilty themselves for the deadlock?

For the EU and Old Europe ambassadors in Beirut, its my personal view that their main purpose is to keep the Lebanese government happy, to turn a blind eye to corruption, mind numbing human rights abuse and bloggers and journalists being beaten up, all for one single purpose: to not rock the boat, so as over a million Syrian refugees stay where theyre presently housed in Lebanon.

And yet, the Lebanese are ahead of them.

What we are witnessing now is the possibility of the entire Lebanese economy to collapse as the lira is devalued at some point, simply because of this soiled relationship with the West. Lebanese officials tell me secretly that they want the economy to get much worse so that quick cash will flow to them via the west with no pre conditions. This is the sad reality of corruption getting out of hand and too many people frantically feeding at the trough, while the economy actually sinks. The elite are not interested in creating a genuine fiscal system and gathering taxes, cracking down on road crime and the money there for the taking, or for restructuring the ludicrous, if not deluded budget, which gives retired generals a half a million dollar cash payment on retirement.

But if it goes on and these corrupt leaders can ultimately call the bluff of the West, it will be the EU, Britain, France and Germany which will have to pay the ransom when the sluice at Tripols port is opened and thousands of Syrian refugees are put on boats for Turkey, placing those same governments are the mercy of President Erdogan of Turkey. The scramble of Arab countries to open embassies in Damascus, might start to make sense, finally and may well speed up the Wests final acknowledgement that the Syrian leader is someone we need to talk to and stop demonizing.

But something needs to be done about Lebanons corruption and the West could start to work on this. These embassies should be watchdogs on the atrocities against democracy rather than pantheons of graft and complicity which house thugs who stand on the touchline goading on the savagery. Diplomacy and governance is dying in Washington, London and Paris. In Lebanon, we were all late for the funeral.
Somewhere along the line in recent history, some US think tank in the employ of the Central Intelligence Agency must have come up with the idea that overthrowing governments in Latin America by military coups came with bad optics for the coup plotters. Often, democratically-elected Latin American leaders were demonized by a cabal of military officers who left their barracks and laid siege to the presidential palaces. After taking control of the national radio stations, these generals would announce they had seized control of the government to protect the people from communism or some other concocted bogeyman.

Beginning in the early 2000s, another plan was devised by US national security planners ensconced in their faux academia think tanks. Their plan was simple: overthrow anti-American elected leaders in Latin America through the courts. In effect, lawyers and judges, not generals, caudillos, or military juntas, would carry out coups by abusing constitutional provisions and laws as a clever ruse.

Under Allen Dulles and Richard Helms, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on the old tried and true method of promoting coups via the facade of a popular rebellion. After the 1973 CIA-directed coup in Chile, which saw Socialist president Salvador Allende die in a hail of bullets fired from aircraft and tanks at the La Moneda presidential palace, the CIA began to look at other avenues to overthrow presidents in the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, CIA-influenced media, including the dubious Wikipedia, have insisted Allende committed suicide with an AK-47 assault rifle presented to him by Cuban leader Fidel Castro. However, nature would later provide the evidence that Allende was assassinated. The proof came in a 300-page top secret report found in the debris of the house of a former military officer. The house had been destroyed in the 2011 Chilean earthquake. The story of Allendes suicide was spread around CIA-friendly media to mask the agencys role in yet another assassination of a foreign leader. The CIAs media manipulation was honed during its pre-eminent role in covering up the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King. For the CIA, however, assassinations were costly in terms of the agencys public image, so some other method of dispatching targeted leaders was in order.

A formerly CONFIDENTIAL CIA "Intelligence Memorandum," dated December 29, 1975, concluded that Latin America had to be weaned away from "Third Worldism." The conclusion was based on the votes of certain Latin American countries that had voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism. The countries were Brazil, Cuba, Grenada, Guyana, and Mexico. Eleven other countries in the Western Hemisphere abstained.

As the bloody coups in Chile, the Dominican Republic, and other countries showed, there had to be a simpler and less lethal way for the US to bring about undemocratic changes in governments in the hemisphere.

If the CIA were able to infiltrate a nations judiciary and law enforcement structures  the latter having already been thoroughly subsumed through CIA-financed training programs  it could bring spurious charges against targeted heads of state. This form of coup detat would become known as lawfare.

The leader of the French left, Jean Luc Melenchon, recently condemned the use of lawfare against former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula, as he is popularly known, has been imprisoned since April 2018 on trumped up charges of corruption. Melenchon told the Brazilian press that lawfare is now used in all countries to get rid of progressive leaders. This is what they did with Lula. Melenchon added, the judge [Sergio Moro] who condemned Lula is now a minister [minister of justice and public security] of Jair Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil. Lula was sentenced to 12 years in prison on politically-motivated money-laundering charges ginned up by Moro and other neo-fascists in the Brazilian judiciary. Bolsonaro, a champion of Brazils former military dictatorship and an admirer of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Donald Trump, has vowed to keep Lula in prison. Lula would have defeated Bolsonaro for the presidency had he been released from prison and allowed to run for political office. However, Moro and his fellow lawfare practitioners ensured that appeals to the Brazilian Supreme Court for Lulas release were all dead-on-arrival.

Melenchon also stated Lula has been a direct victim of accusations to destroy his work and image, built in more than 40 years of public life. British human rights attorney Geoffrey Robertson QC echoed Melenchon in comments made to the New Internationalist in January 2018. Robertson cited the extraordinarily aggressive measures taken to imprison Lula and prevent him from running for president. Robertson cited as Lulas enemies the judiciary, media, and the great sinews of wealth and power in Brazil.

Lawfare coups have been embraced by both Republican and Democratic administrations over almost two decades. The first example of a coup by semi-constitutional fiat was the February 28, 2004 forced removal from office of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. US Marines and American mercenaries escorted Aristide and his party from the presidential palace to a white plane with no other markings except for an American flag on the tail. The United States claimed Aristide voluntarily resigned his office, something that Aristide and his advisers vehemently denied. Aristide was literally tossed off the plane, along with his wife, in Bangui, Central African Republic. Through the abuse of national emergency provisions, the United States installed Haitis Supreme Court Chief Justice, Boniface Alexandre, in the presidential palace. The coup began after CIA-supported rebels and narcotics-gangs seized control of northern Haiti and marched to the capital of Port-au-Prince with the intention of ousting Aristide.

The second lawfare coup was against Hondurass president, Manuel Zelaya. Staged on June 28, 2009, the coup was approved in advance by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as leaked cables from the US embassy in Tegucigalpa attest. Coup leader Roberto Micheletti cited the Honduran Constitution and a decision by the Supreme Court as providing legitimacy for Zelaya being marched from his home in his pajamas to a waiting plane that flew him to Costa Rica. The military junta that replaced Zelaya said that his letter of resignation had been approved by the National Assembly. Zelaya declared the letter to be a forgery.

The third major lawfare coup came in 2012. Paraguay's democratically-elected president, Fernando Lugo, was ousted in a political impeachment carried out by right-wing forces in the Paraguayan Congress and Senate, with the full support of the US-trained and equipped Paraguayan military. From Washington, Secretary Clinton moved hastily to recognize the right-wing vice president, Federico Franco, and his new right-wing government to replace the center-left government of Lugo. As with Haiti and Honduras, the Paraguayan coup was accomplished with the thin veneer of the constitution.

In 2016, it was Brazils turn in the lawfare arena. The impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff of the left-wing Workers' Party ensured that Michel Temer, her right-wing vice president, assumed the presidency. Without Rousseff in the presidential palace, her predecessor, Lula, became fair game for the right-wing.

Next on the American hit list was Venezuela. On December 6, 2015, the US-backed rightist opposition won control over the National Assembly. The rightists immediately commenced procedures to remove progressive socialist President Nicolas Maduro from power through dubious constitutional means. However, the plan faltered in Venezuela. In reaction, Washington applied crippling economic sanctions on the country, something that was to be repeated by the Trump administration against both Venezuela and the democratically-elected government of President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

Pro-democracy forces in Latin America and elsewhere no longer have to worry about sudden troop movements and tanks converging on presidential palaces, but armies of judges and lawyers armed with nothing more than constitutional provisions and criminal codes stretched to the point of incredulity.
With unseemly haste, US news media leapt on the killing of four American military personnel in Syria as a way to undermine President Donald Trumps plan to withdraw troops from that country.

The deadly attack in the northern city of Manbij, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, was reported to have been carried out by a suicide bomber. The Islamic State (ISIS) terror group reportedly claimed responsibility, but the group routinely makes such claims which often turn out to be false.

The American military personnel were said to be on a routine patrol of Manbij where US forces have been backing Kurdish militants in a purported campaign against ISIS and other terror groups.

An explosion at a restaurant resulted in two US troops and two Pentagon civilian officials being killed, along with more than a dozen other victims. Three other US military persons were among those injured.

US media highlighted the bombing as the biggest single death toll of American forces in Syria since they began operations in the country nearly four years ago.

The US and Kurdish militia have been in control of Manbij for over two years. It is one of the main sites from where American troops are to withdraw under Trumps exit plan, which he announced on December 19.

Following the bombing, the New York Times headlined: ISIS Attack in Syria Kills 4 Americans, Raising Worries about Troop Withdrawal. The report goes on, the news prompted calls from Republicans and Democrats for President Trump to reconsider his plans to withdraw troops from the country.

A more pointed headline in The Washington Post was: Killing of 4 Americans in Syria Throws Spotlight on Trumps Policy.

The Post editorialized, the bombing showed that [ISIS] is likely to be a force to be reckoned with in Syria for the foreseeable future. It quoted politicians in Washington claiming the bombing deaths were a direct result of a foolish and abrupt departure announcement [by Trump], and made the case for staying.

Democrat Senator Jack Reed, who sits on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said: From the beginning, I thought the president was wrong [in ordering the withdrawal]. It was a strategic mistake for the whole region.

With macabre smugness, anti-Trump politicians and news media appeared to exploit the death of US troops in Manbij to score points against Trump.

The presidents claims made just before Christmas of having defeated ISIS were widely replayed following the Manbij attack this week by way of ridiculing Trumps order to pullout US troops from Syria.

Nevertheless, despite the deaths, Trump and his Vice President Mike Pence stated they were still committed to bring the 2,000 or so US troops home. Some military figures also went on US media to defend Trumps pullout plan in spite of the terror attack in Manbij.

There clearly is a serious division in Washington over Trumps policy on Syria. For Democrats and supportive media outlets, anything Trump does is to be opposed. But there are also elements within the military and intelligence nexus which are implacably against, what they see as, his capitulation to Russia and Iran in Syria. That was partly why his Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned days after Trump made his announced withdrawal at the end of last month.

Having invested years and money in regime-change machinations in Syria, there is bound to be US military and intelligence cabals which are resistant to Trumps move to pack up. Not that Trumps move portends a peace dividend for the region. It is more a tactical change for how US imperialism operates in the Middle East, as his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Cairo last week.

That is why Trumps order to take troops out of Syria may not be a clear-cut withdrawal. His National Security adviser John Bolton on a tour of the Middle East last week has already tried to undermine Trump by attaching all sorts of vague conditions to the troop pullout. Bolton and Pompeo have talked about the need to ensure the total defeat of ISIS and of the countering of Iranian presence in Syria.

This brings up the question of who may have carried out the bombing in Manbij? Was it really a suicide bomber? Was it really ISIS? Several observers have pointed out that ISIS have not had any presence in Manbij for the past two years since the Americans and Kurds took control of the city.

As always, the key question arises: who stands to benefit from the killing of the American troops? The scale of the attack suggests it was carried out with a sharp political message intended for Trump.

One potential beneficiary are the Kurdish militants who are being abandoned by the putative US withdrawal. Without their American sponsor on the ground, the Kurds are in danger of Turkish forces launching cross-border operations to wipe them out, as Ankara has vowed to do. A Machiavellian Kurdish calculation could be to disprove Trump about ISIS being defeated, and that US forces are needed to prevent any resurgence of the terror group in Manbij and northeast Syria.

Another sinister player is the CIA or some other element of US military intelligence. It is certainly not beyond the realm of plausibility that the CIA could facilitate such an atrocity against American personnel in order to discredit Trumps withdrawal plan.

Certainly, the way the anti-Trump media in the US reacted with such alacrity and concerted talking points suggests there was something a bit too convenient about the massacre.

It would in fact be naive to not suspect that the CIA could have pulled off such a false flag in Manbij. As in 1950s Vietnam, as told by Graham Greene in The Quiet American, the CIA have been doing such dirty tricks with bombing atrocities and assassinations for decades in order to precipitate wars in foreign countries that the agency calculates are in Americas geopolitical interests.
I am reading the news of four U.S. service members being killed in Syria along with others wounded. The void in leadership that this president has shown is an insult to these soldiers and an embarrassment to all citizens of this country.

There was no excuse for his claims that ISIS was defeated other than the fact that he is totally unequipped to carry out the duties of his office. If it is determined in the coming weeks that these soldiers were carrying out their mission with less than the full support required due to the presidents reckless pullout order, then I will expect Sens. Josh Hawley and Roy Blunt and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer to hold him quickly accountable for this.

At some point, all of us, including our elected officials, feared that President Trumps inability to function at a rational level would lead to a disastrous situation. That time has now come. Congress is charged with defending the citizens and service members of this country from exactly the kind of threat that this president has become. There is no other priority right now that would supersede this.

Timothy Prose  Wentzville
Since I am of only average intelligence, unlike our outstandingly intelligent president, here are my thoughts:

It is impossible to negotiate with President Donald Trump because he constantly changes his mind and has absolutely no empathy. President Trump lies multiple times each day; he has a very limited vocabulary and is not able to articulate what he wants to say. I really do not know why he would even run in 2020 after experiencing the presidency during the past two years.

I believe the 25th Amendment of the Constitution allows for removing a president, despite having legally attained his office, if he becomes impaired. How much more impaired must President Trump become before the House and Senate invoke the 25th Amendment?

The Democrats are not responsible for this shutdown. If he cannot govern for all the people of this great country, he should be removed.

Geraldine Jacobs  St. Charles
The presidential gaffe couldnt have come at a worse time for that particular sector of the electorate. Trump is trying to shore up flagging support among farmers after his shutdown sharply curtailed U.S. Department of Agriculture services and forced suspension of payments to farmers under a $12 billion bailout package he arranged after provoking a trade war with China.

Previous administrations maintained strict policies requiring multiple layers of review before presidential communications were released to the general public. Under Trump, no one but the president is to blame for his communication screw-ups  or his shutdown.

So long, George

A Hawaiian land snail named George died recently at age 14, apparently taking his whole species with him. George was of the species Achatinella apexfulva, which once covered the Hawaiian island of Oahu. He lived in Kailua, Hawaii, in a terrarium. He is believed to have been the last of his kind.

Scientists who publicized Georges plight hope it will wake people up to the real-world impact of climate change.
He was always the type of person who wanted to serve his country, Shadow said. He had that mindset from the get-go, This is what I want to do and so this is what Im doing.

When Wirtz visited home, he did not talk much about his military service, Shadow said. He was focused on spending time with family and friends.

He was always more about other people than he was about himself, Shadow said. People who dont know Navy SEALS, they dont necessarily think of someone who is full of laughter and love, but he was the kindest, most loving person.

He would do anything for anybody, especially for his family and his brothers that he served with. He was a true warrior with the heart of a teddy bear.

In his free time, Wirtz pursued a number of adrenaline-pumping hobbies, including training with top mixed martial arts fighters, motorcycle riding and underwater spear fishing. He traveled to every continent and lived several years in Thailand, Wirtz-Hampton said.

He loved the adrenaline rush whether driving in his Jeep or motorcycle riding. ... He told me once that the most beautiful place on earth was Bali, Indonesia, said Wirtz-Hampton, whose brother is Wirtzs father.
Seven police officers have been killed since January 1, 2019: four in firearms-related deaths and three in traffic accidents, according to the National law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Three police officers have been gunned down across the US in the last five days -- two in Southern cities and a third in California.

They are among seven police officers killed so far in 2019: four in firearms-related deaths and three in traffic accidents, according to the National law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

The three fatally shot are:

Sgt. Wytasha Carter

In Birmingham, Alabama, Sgt. Wytasha Carter was fatally shot early Sunday while investigating a call about vehicle burglaries, police said.

He and another officer had encountered two suspects when one of them pulled out a weapon and fired. The officers and one of the suspects were shot. A second suspect was taken into custody.

The 44-year-old Carter later died of his injuries, police said. The second officer is in critical condition.

Carter had been with the Birmingham Police Department since 2011 and had been promoted to sergeant in February 2018, police said.
'This behavior is opposed to the Church's teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.'
"We need to hold charter schools accountable for special education just like we are," she said. "We don't turn away any student, but it adds to our caseload."

They want the district to hire more teachers

Teachers say they need more books, computers and other classroom materials to help them do their job. But students also need enough teachers to educate them.

Meghann Lee works with students who are newcomers to the United States, many of whom have been in the country for a just few weeks. She teaches English-language development at the Academic Leadership Community.

"The school district believes that we can teach on a staff of 17 teachers for the 400-plus students that we have at our school. We don't agree," she said. "We could use our funds that could go to computers, technology and books to purchase seven additional staff members."

Low-income students need more resources

Many of the students Lauren Ebley serves come from low-income backgrounds and many of them live in government housing or homeless shelters, she said.

"A lot of them have experienced real trauma and we have too few counselors on our staff," said Ebley, an English teacher Maclay Middle School.
As of now Trump can deliver his speech from the Oval Office if he wants, though last week's performance should be a warning on how ineffective that can be. Or he can do it at a rally and speak to the same people he will speak to for the next year and a half -- or he can "write it," as Pelosi suggested.

None of those options is as impactful as a traditional State of the Union. And none of these options will position the House speaker behind him while he blames Democrats for the shutdown.

Second, Pelosi showed Trump and members of her own party why she is the boss. Congress is a co-equal branch of government, and she was has every right to disinvite the President. But there is no doubt she left Trump, many members of his staff and many of the freshmen and up-and-coming members of her own caucus surprised she had the power to disinvite him. If anyone needed a reminder as to why an experienced speaker, who knows how to fight gracefully with a bully on her own terms, is needed right now, Wednesday's events were a healthy reminder.
Pelosi changes tactics

When asked Thursday about the State of the Union, Pelosi shifted away from security concerns and focused on the lack of payment.

"It isn't a question of are they are professional enough ... the question is, they should be paid," she said. "And as the secretary of any agency, (Nielsen) should be advocating for her employees to be paid instead of saying it's OK for them to work without pay."

Does Trump have to go to the Capitol to give the speech?

No. For years, the president delivered the speech as a letter to Congress, and per the Constitution, both chambers have to invite the president to come. On Wednesday, Pelosi told reporters that Trump "can make (the address) from the Oval Office if he wants."

Can he?

Article II, Section 3, of the US Constitution states, in part, that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." It doesn't mandate the location or method of delivery for the address. Trump could deliver the address in a letter (which past presidents have done), from the Oval Office or wherever he wants.
Sickly dog found

The searches of Love N Care started when a resident found a sickly Maltese covered in waste roaming around the area near the facility. It was taken to the county Pet Adoption Center.

Animal control officers suspected it may have come from the breeder, which had been the subject of complaints and had been flagged in multiple inspections for not properly cleaning animal waste, according to St. Charles County records.

The breeder denied that the sickly dog belonged there, and said no Maltese dogs were missing.

Animal control officers inspected several prefabricated buildings and large outdoor enclosures, and listed issues ranging from improper food storage and leaking roofs to precarious extension cords and missing smoke alarms.

The property was evacuated after building and code enforcement inspectors checked it Jan. 4.

There were 89 adult dogs (including four pregnant dogs), 83 puppies and 12 dogs that were boarding at the facility, inspectors estimated.

It wasnt that the dogs all looked sickly. It was the state of the facility that was the biggest concern, said Hope Woodson, director of the St. Charles County Department of Public Health.
Coronado, CA (92118)

Today

Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 77F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low 64F. Winds light and variable.
UPDATED: This story has been updated to clarify that city officials had approved holding the ceremony inside City Hall, but event organizers decided to hold it outside the Old Courthouse.

ST. LOUIS  The federal government shutdown means the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration will be restricted to the steps of the Old Courthouse and shortened by half from its typical two hours because of cold weather.

Typically, the ceremony is held inside the historic building, which is part of the Gateway Arch National Park. The Old Courthouse, like the Arch, is closed as a result of a budget impasse between Congress and President Donald Trump over funding of a border wall with Mexico.

Early Friday, a spokeswoman for Harris-Stowe State University, which puts together the list of events for King events across the state, said that because of the shutdown, the event at the Old Courthouse would be moved to City Hall.

A spokesman for St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson, after seeing the information posted on stltoday.com, said city officials had approved holding the observance in the rotunda at City Hall, but organizers preferred to hold it outside the Old Courthouse.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., told the Missouri marchers that while Trump may have been late to the anti-abortion movement, no president had done more legislatively and administratively to restrict it. That began, he said, with an administrative reversal of former President Barack Obamas lifting of a prohibition of using U.S. foreign aid for abortions.

Trump also has had two Supreme Court Justices confirmed  Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh  who abortion rights groups say could tip the court against Roe v. Wade in future decisions.

But Blunt also acknowledged that a Nancy Pelosi-led House will make it harder to pass legislation restricting abortion, and that many of the battles on the issues will occur through Trumps administrative acts.

Several speakers noted that Missouri voters replaced a staunch pro-abortion rights senator, Claire McCaskill, with the abortion opponent, Republican Josh Hawley.

Our entire delegation, our entire Republican delegation, is very out front on these issues, Blunt said. We increased, you know, the pro-life delegation from Missouri (in the U.S. Senate) by 100 percent. This is a delegation that is willing and eager to fight for the same cause you are here for.
Smith, the House Republican conference secretary, immediately tried to smooth it over.

I talked to Tony to make sure he knew it was not directed at any individual, or him, and that it was directed at all Democrats who were vacationing in Puerto Rico, Smith told the Post-Dispatch after speaking to Missourians attending Fridays Right to Life rally on the National Mall. He had taken great offense. He had planned that trip to Puerto Rico, which I didnt know. And so I told him that the outburst was unacceptable on the floor.

Smith continued: I should not have done it, the outburst on the floor. It was a reaction to them vacationing while the government was shut down. I was up here last weekend working with (Republican House Leader) Kevin McCarthy and everyone else, trying to come up with a plan to end the shutdown.

There is no sign of that ending, with House Democrats and Trump dug in on their respective positions on Trumps call for a wall on the border with Mexico and House Speaker Nancy Pelosis opposition to it.
Metros executive director Jessica Mefford-Miller told the Post-Dispatch last year that she believes perception of security on the light-rail system has factored into declining ridership. She said riders also may quit riding because of panhandlers, smokers, fare skippers or disruptive passengers.

On Friday, Metro Transits top two security officials were ousted amid what the operations new chief executive said is an effort to coordinate better with local police.

A statement Friday from a Bi-State spokeswoman said improving safety of riders and employees is its highest priority.

In order to do that Metro Transit will be making major changes and details of those changes will be announced in the coming weeks, the statement said. With the help of the three professional police departments  the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, St. Clair County Sheriffs Department and the St. Louis County Police Department, we are working to rebuild public confidence in our system.

Crime on MetroLink has been a controversial subject, particularly over the St. Louis County Councils decision last year to withhold $5 million from Metro for security funding. Police and Mefford-Miller have said crime on MetroLink has decreased, though the public transit agency has been unable to provide statistics.
ST. LOUIS  A prominent Iranian journalist arrested on Sunday at St. Louis Lambert International Airport was arrested as a material witness and will be released following her testimony in front of a grand jury, court documents unsealed Friday say.

The disappearance of Marzieh Hashemi, who was born Melanie Franklin, had been a mystery since her family and the Iranian government first raised concerns.

There was no public record of her arrest and airport and federal officials in St. Louis and Washington had repeatedly declined to comment on the case.

On Friday, the Justice Department circulated a newly unsealed court record that said Hashemi had not been accused of any crime. She had been appointed a lawyer and had already had two court appearances, the document says.

It also says that officials expect Hashemi to be released after her testimony before a grand jury investigating violations of U.S. criminal law.
ST. LOUIS  A man was found dead by firefighters called to battle a blaze at what appeared to be an abandoned home on Thursday afternoon.

The man's body was found in a back bedroom on the first-floor of the two-story building in the 5900 block of Wabada Avenue, St. Louis Fire Capt. Garon Mosby. He said the call for the fire came in at about 4:30 p.m.

Tipping Point: A legacy of neglect A series looking at the consequences of decades of disinvestment in St. Louis. See all related stories at stltoday.com/tippingpoint

Neighbors said the building was vacant but they were aware of a squatter who had been staying there, Mosby said.

It was unclear if the man found dead was the person the neighbors had seen. The cause of the fire was also not immediately known.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department's bomb and arson unit are also investigating the fire, officials confirmed.

The building is in the middle of the block and the neighboring home on at least one side is occupied. No other buildings were damaged by the blaze. The block is in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood.

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The decrease, she said, is partly because of changes to the states criminal code that went into effect in 2017, which have led to fewer people being sentenced to prison. The state also has launched a $5 million pilot program aimed at keeping inmates from returning to prison after they serve their sentences. Parson has earmarked another $1 million for the program in his budget proposal.

We are very confident that were going to be able to sustain this new level of population, Precythe said.

The estimated $20.6 million saved from the closure will allow for additional salary increases over the 3 percent that Parson is proposing in his budget. Precythe said correctional officers would receive an additional 1 percent increase for every two years of service in an attempt to reward senior employees.

The average salary for prison guards of $31,300 is among the lowest in the nation.

The low pay has led to a high turnover rate and was blamed for the riot that occurred in May.
Tony Messenger Tony Messenger is the metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Tony Messenger Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

In the summer of 1875, Nicholas A. Mortell stood alone.

Mortell, a lawyer by trade, was one of 66 Missourians elected to a Constitutional Convention in Jefferson City. Among the key issues?

What to do about St. Louis.

Since pretty much its inception, the city of St. Louis has been in conflict with the county by the same name that surrounds it. In the 19th century, the city had nearly all the power, and many elected officials wanted to keep it that way. Its leaders proposed a split, creating the separate entities that survive today.

At the time, a few elected officials wanted to go the other way and unite the city and the county as a way to end their constant squabbling.

Mortell was in that camp.

I am in favor of total consolidation of St. Louis County, but I am not in favor of dividing it, splitting and hacking it in this manner, the St. Louis lawyer said at the time. I vote no.

The ayes had it. The statewide constitutional convention created the opportunity for the city and county to vote on the split, and to create a unique city-county form of government in the city of St. Louis.
Stacey Seymour and Jeff Mann, with two sons and a few family and close friends at their side, were married at 10 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, at Thies Farm and Pumpkinland, Maryland Heights. As he officiated at the morning ceremony, Pastor Melrick Bogier reminded the small and impromptu group that marriage is not just two people coming together, but about four people becoming a family.
"However, it will continue to have jurisdiction to grant the extension even if the shutdown prevents it from doing so until after Feb. 21," she said, citing past board decisions as precedent.

Although the state and the railroad have completed the "complicated endeavor" of salvaging the line, the two sides have not struck an Interim Trail Use Agreement.

That said, the two sides have made "substantial progress" in that regard, according to a letter the two sides sent to the federal board on Thursday.

In asking for the delay, the DNR and the rail road cited the "extreme complexity" of converting the corridor, which stretches through 10 counties, numerous small cities and various other settlements.

"The size and complexity of the corridor adds to the significant undertaking for trail sponsorship, and it is essential that MDNR understand the immediate and long term liabilities, costs, benefits and opportunities involved," the letter states.

The request says that three Missouri governors have been in office since the trail was first proposed, meaning each has "needed to be briefed" on the project.
Parker was born in Tucker, Ga., and grew up in Newnan, Ga.  both suburbs of Atlanta. She began college at New York University, switching to Mercer University after her freshman year and earning a bachelors degree in English. She holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English from Baylor University. She joined the faculty of Greenville University in 2016 and became a St. Louis resident two years later.

Parker became interested in theater at an early age.

I can remember being in church plays and elementary-school plays, she says. I was very interested in musical theater and stuff that was playing on Broadway. And in my freshman year of college at NYU, I took a theater studies class that began with Aristotles Poetics and, I think, ended with Angels in America. It was invigorating, and it changed my outlook on theater as a field.

In St. Louis, Parker says, shes found a home for her talents.

One of the things that resonate with me, she says, is that I feel like the people that Ive encountered, the people that Ive worked with, are all truly responsible storytellers. And I want to create art in a community that has a sense of longevity about it.

Because if youre not creating art for your community, who are you really creating it for?

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The idea behind the strategy is to help investors sidestep companies whose activities they find objectionable, such as polluting the environment.

In light of this new information, we certainly will  press the company to stop profiting from schemes devised by the fossil fuel industry to the detriment of U.S. citizens and taxpayers, Green Century said in a statement, calling clean coal a myth.

A.J. Gallagher is one of about 360 companies in the $250 million Green Century Equity Fund, which advertises itself as 100% percent fossil fuel free.

The fund, which held 4,394 A.J. Gallagher shares at the end of October, is passively managed and invests in the companies that are in an index run by MSCI Inc.

MSCI declined to comment for this story.

Calvert Research and Management, a unit of Eaton Vance Corp., said it has contacted A.J. Gallagher as part of a reassessment of the companys ESG performance. A.J. Gallagher is a holding in the $1.3 billion Calvert U.S. Large Cap Core Responsible Index Fund .

In response to this new information, we have contacted the company and will consider this information in our assessment of ESG performance, Calvert said in a statement, referring to the Reuters reporting.
A meeting of political directors from the defense ministries of the EU member states took place on Thursday and Friday in Bucharest, in the context of Romania's exercise of the Presidency at the Council of the European Union, having on the agenda of discussions important topics related to the security and defense of the European Union according to Agerpres.

According to a press release of the National Defence Ministry (MApN), the agenda included important topics related to the security and defense of the European Union, including cooperation between the EU and NATO, especially in the framework of joint exercises, the future of European defense, the developments and prospects of PESCO.

"Thus, on the first day of the meeting, the representatives of the member states, together with EU officials and representatives of the North Atlantic Alliance, discussed the lessons learned from the crisis management exercise EU HEX-ML 18 (PACE) and analysed the possibility of improving European crisis response mechanisms, as well as strengthening EU-NATO cooperation in general and exercises in particular," the press release reads.The quoted source states that the second day of the works was dedicated to the future of European defense, discussing the progress made in the field last year and analysing options to increase the Union's capacity to act as a security generator and to increase the EU's s strategic autonomy."In this context, the European officials discussed the coherent and coordinated implementation of the initiatives launched under the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), including PESCO, the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) and the European Defense Fund (EDF). A special session was dedicated to Permanent Structured Co-operation, where the political directors had an exchange of views on the processes of identifying, evaluating and selecting projects carried out under the PESCO aegis," according to the press release.According to the MApN, the meeting in Bucharest - which was attended by representatives of the 28 EU Member States, the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European Defense Agency (EDA), the European Commission and NATO - was a good opportunity to prepare the Informal Meeting of Defense Ministers from the EU member states to be held on 30 and 31 January at the Parliament Palace in Bucharest.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodor Melescanu encouraged the Chisinau Government on Thursday to take all necessary steps to advance on the European path, underlining that there is no viable alternative for the democratic future of the Republic of Moldova.

"I firmly believe that there is no viable alternative for the democratic future of the Republic of Moldova than the European path, so I encourage the Moldovan Government to take all necessary steps to advance on the European path and implement the reforms on the basis of the Association Agreement with the EU, including by carrying out the necessary actions in view of the parliamentary elections in February 2019, so as to ensure the highest democratic standards in the electoral process," Minister Teodor Melescanu affirmed.

According to a press release issued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) sent to AGERPRES, Teodor Melescanu paid a visit to Chisinau on Thursday at the invitation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Tudor Ulianovschi, to attend the celebration of the Diplomacy Day in Moldova.

In his speech on this occasion, the Minister of Foreign Affairs evoked the special character of the bilateral relations between Romania and the Republic of Moldova and conveyed a message supporting the diplomatic demarches aimed at consolidating the European perspective.

Teodor Melescanu was welcomed by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Pavel Filip, and had a meeting with Tudor Ulianovschi. On this occasion, Melescanu conveyed a strong message of support for the European path of the Republic of Moldova, in line with the bilateral strategic partnership for its European integration, confirming Romania's interest in advancing the bilateral cooperation agenda in many areas of common interest.

"In this context, the Minister of Foreign Affairs highlighted the priority given to the promotion of the irreversible connection projects of the Republic of Moldova through Romania to the European space and the EU values, with emphasis on the interconnection projects in the fields of energy and infrastructure as well as in the field of education, health and culture, which have the real potential to generate direct benefits for the improvement of the life of all citizens of the Republic of Moldova. He also voiced Romania's interest in strengthening the Romanian investment presence in the Republic of Moldova," the MAE release states.

According to the Foreign Ministry, Melescanu assured that during the Presidency of the Council of the EU, all these elements will be among Romania's priorities and highlighted the priority given to the Eastern Partnership's consolidation in the context of the 10th anniversary since its launch and the fifth year from the liberalization of the visa regime for all citizens of the Republic of Moldova and the signing of the Association Agreement.

At the same time, the Minister of Foreign Affairs had a meeting in Chisinau with representatives of the pro-European democratic opposition, on which occasion he reiterated Romania's strategic priority of supporting the pro-European and democratic future of the Republic of Moldova, highlighting, from this perspective, Romania's willingness and interest in maintaining the dialogue with all political actors in the Republic of Moldova that support the European agenda.

Read also: Gov't secretary general Grebla: We'll probably send Vasilescu's and Draghici's criminal records to Cotroceni

In the context of the visit to Chisinau, Minister Teodor Melescanu attended a meeting of ambassadors from the EU member states, on which occasion he encouraged the strengthening of the EU-the Republic of Moldova relationship, underlining Romania's commitment, including from the perspective of holding the Presidency of the Council of the EU, to supporting reform efforts assumed by the Republic of Moldova under the Association Agreement with the EU, informs MAE.

AGERPRES .
A Statesville man, who police accused of firing a gun into the front door of a relatives home last month, was arrested last weekend in Virginia.

Tyrell Dontaye Daniels, 28, was arrested Jan. 12 in Tazewell County, Virginia, on numerous outstanding weapon and assault warrants, according to a press release from the Statesville Police Department on Thursday. He was located and charged by the U.S. Marshals Service and deputies with the Tazewell County Sheriffs Office.

Police said the charges are linked to a report on Dec. 29 when Daniels allegedly fired a gun into the front door of a relatives home on Woodlawn Road in Statesville. Police didnt say if anyone was injured in that incident.

The release said Daniels, of Miller Farm Road, had warrants for his arrest including failure to appear in court for a felony and misdemeanor charges. He had outstanding warrants from law enforcement in Iredell and Catawba counties.

Statesville Police said Daniels was extradited back to Statesville on Jan. 16 from the Tazewell County Regional Detention Center.
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Live Cell Imaging Market 2019 Industry research report gives a systematic and competent approach to gathering important statistics of the Live Cell Imaging industry .Inwhich includes industry chain structure, Live Cell Imaging market classification, dominant market players, product definition, and product scope. Live Cell Imaging research report performsSWOT Strengths, Opportunities, and Threats Muddled in Live Cell Imaging industry.

Live cell imaging is the technique to study live cells with the help of images obtained from imaging systems such as high content screening systems and microscopes.

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The American region holds the major share of the global live cell imaging market, increasing the prevalence of cancer cases, and technological advancements.

The Global Live Cell Imaging market 2018 research provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Global Live Cell Imaging market analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status.

Worldwide Live Cell Imaging Industry 2019 Market Research Report is spread crosswise over 120 pages and gives restrictive essential insights, information, data, patterns and aggressive. specialty division.

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Global Live Cell Imaging Market analyzes on key Live Cell Imaging manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans for next few years. It also focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, and SWOT analysis. It also defines, describe and forecast the market by various types, applications and by regions.

Later, this report also helps you to understand factors driving or inhibiting the market growth along with each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market. At the end, this report provides details of competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

Global Live Cell Imaging Market competition by TOP MANUFACTURERS, with production, price, revenue (value) and each manufacturer including

Carl Zeiss (Germany)

Leica Microsystems (Germany)

Olympus (Japan)

GE Healthcare (U.K.)

BD (U.S.)

Thermo Fisher Scientific (U.S.)

Danaher (U.S.)

Sigma-Aldrich (U.S.)

Nikon (Japan)

Molecular Devices (U.S.)



Development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures are also analyzed. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins. By regions, this report focuses on the sales (consumption), production; import and export of Live Cell Imaging in United States, EU, China, Japan, South Korea and India.

The Asia Pacific live cell imaging market consists of countries, namely, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, Australia, and the Rest of Asia Pacific. Japan is the largest market for live cell imaging due to an increase in the prevalence of cancer and demand for live cell imaging techniques. In China, factors responsible for the market growth are rising geriatric population with chronic diseases and availability of low-cost diagnostic and treatment options.

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Market segment by Type, the product can be split into

Equipment

Consumables

Software

Market segment by Application, split into

Hospitals

Pharmaceutical Companies

Biotechnological Companies

Diagnostic Laboratories

Others

Region a l Segmentation:

North America : United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Central and South America : Brazil and Argentina.

Middle East and Africa : Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

Europe : Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, and Russia.

Asia-Pacific : China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, and Singapore.

Table of Contents

Global Live Cell Imaging Market Insights, Forecast to 2025

1 Study Coverage

2 Executive Summary

3 Breakdown Data by Manufacturers

4 Breakdown Data by Product

5 Breakdown Data by End User

6 North America

7 Europe

8 Asia Pacific

9 Central & South America

10 Middle East and Africa

11 Company Profiles

12 Future Forecast

13 Market Opportunities, Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis

14 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis

15 Research Findings and Conclusion

16 Appendix

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One attendee, using the microphone DEQ had been using, encouraged audience members to visit www.change.org and search clean up coal ash on Lake Norman.

A petition on that site  with almost 13,000 names as of Friday morning  encourages people to tell the DEQ and Duke Energy to clean up the coal ash mess at Lake Norman by moving the ash out of the unlined pit to a safe, dry, lined storage  as Duke Energy is required to do at eight other sites in North Carolina, and as is happening at every coal ash lagoon in South Carolina.

After several minutes, DEQ officials agreed to change the meeting format to question-and-answer. People quickly formed two long lines to take turns asking questions, some of which DEQ said it didnt have knowledge or information to answer.

While DEQ officials werent entirely prepared for a Q&A-style meeting, Holman assured the crowd that she and other DEQ officials were taking note of the questions being asked and the concerns raised.

Someone asked who would pay for the coal-ash cleanup. Holman said that would be up to the N.C. Utilities Commission. Duke will put forward what they think they should be compensated for the process, she said.

Hang on to your wallet, one audience member interjected.
Countries & Areas

Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia Zimbabwe
LINCOLN  The chief justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court said Thursday that his agency lacks the funds to establish a special court to handle offenders with mental illnesses.

Douglas County is among the counties seeking a mental health court, which is a less-expensive  and, many say, more effective  alternative to prison, which have become de facto mental health institutions. More than half of all inmates have some mental health diagnosis, and as many as 30 percent have serious mental illnesses, prison officials have said.

Chief Justice Mike Heavican said the court system has no extra resources to establish mental health courts, and had to transfer about $1.2 million within the agency last year just to keep afloat the existing problem-solving courts that deal with drug offenders, military veterans and young adults.

Efforts to establish a mental health court have been halted, the judge said during his annual State of the Judiciary speech to the Nebraska Legislature.

Heavican added that Douglas County and other urban counties currently lack enough judges to take on the time-consuming supervision needed to further expand problem-solving courts.
We have an ever-growing problem of homelessness that no one thinks we have, Steph Black, executive director of United Way of Western Nebraska, said.

While Black and Anderson agree a one-day count is not accurate, it is what they have to work with. They are attempting to get the word out about the count and raise awareness to the issue of homelessness in the Panhandle.

Were trying to promote the day to get the numbers up because we know the people are out there, Anderson said.

The outreach centers for people to be counted on Jan. 22 are the Lakota Lutheran Center, 1200 East Overland, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Cirrus House Conference Center, 1506 First Ave. from 5-7 p.m.

We want people to know there will be two spots that day, Black said. Anyone facing homelessness that would like to get connected to resources is encouraged to come.

While the local CoCs hope to get a better idea of the numbers of people on Jan. 22, they encourage members of the community to reach out to people they think may need assistance.

This is not a one day problem, Black said. We have resources families can talk to.
Scottsbluff and Gering Public Schools are also reporting students and faculty being out because of the flu.

Lynne Adams, Scottsbluff Public Schools health services coordinator, said they do not have exact numbers on the number of students with the flu, but school faculty are working together to reduce the spread of germs.

The schools are kept really clean, she said. Faculty keep stuff wiped down, too.

While Adams rotates around the district, she said the schools have health staff to assist teachers with questions about students who may exhibit signs of illness. The health staff and faculty also teach students good hygiene practices to reduce the spread of germs.

We teach students good hand washing, to cover your sneeze, cough with your arm not your hand and wash after blowing your nose and coughing, Adams said.

Last year, Adams also shared information about influenza in the February newsletter and will discuss the topic this year, too.

We communicate tips through the newsletter, she said. If children have a fever, they need to stay home for 24 hours after they dont have a fever without medication. Parents should also keep kids home if they feel like they are getting ill.
Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers sells dogs to help people with a variety of physical and mental health problems. The company has come under high-profile criticism and in May, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring filed a civil lawsuit against the company.

Among the state lawsuits allegations were that Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers charged $18,000 to $27,000 for dogs that were unable to carry out tasks like sniffing dangerous blood sugar levels in diabetic patients, as well as violating rules for seeking contributions.

Burchs attorneys said that the lawsuit, among other factors, prompted the student not to want to be associated with the company. But Burch also did not want to return Lesley.

In September, Montgomery County General District Court Judge Randal Duncan said Burch had to give the dog back to the company. The judge also said Burch had been bamboozled and ordered Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers to reimburse Burch for dog food and vet expenses, and to cover her attorney costs.

Burch appealed the ruling to return Lesley.

After an October hearing in Circuit Court, her family posted $25,000 with the court. Attorneys said an agreement might be reached on Lesleys value, or Judge Marc Long might set a value, and the Burches would buy the dog.
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In this latest report on Wine Glass Market the market size is expected to scale up to USD BN by the end of financial year 2025. This report valued the market at USD BN in 2018. After evaluating the various market drivers and market restraints the report expects a % of CAGR across the study period. The report takes a deep dig in the market with detailed analysis on the Revenue, Production, and Capacity from 2013 to 2025.

The report also studies the marketing pricing, trends and extrapolates the growth rate for the next six years. The manufacturers data covered in the report assists in understanding the competitive scenario along with planning the capacity expansion plans.

The latest developments such as the organic and inorganic growth adopted by the key players mentioned in the report, throws light on the strategic planning of the competitors, thus assisting in taking informed decisions.

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The regional study covering all the key regions is an ideal data to understand growth opportunities at specific location or region. The analysis on the Industry Chain covering upstream and downstream customers will give access to a vast pool of knowledge to new or existing players.

The data in the section covering the opportunities & challenges have been collected by industry experts and analysts with deep understanding of the market. The details of the threats and Affecting factors is sure to assist in corporate decision making.

The following manufacturers are covered in this report, with sales, revenue, market share for each company: ARC International, Libbey, Sisecam, ADERIA GLASS (Ishizuka Glass Co. Ltd.), Riedel Tiroler Glashutte GmbH, Zwiesel Kristallglas, Bormioli Rocco, Ocean Glass Public Company Limited, RONA, The Oneida Group, Huapeng.

Market size by Product Glass, Crystal, Others.

Market size by End User, Personal Consumption, Commercial Consumption.

Market size by Region North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China.

Access Report and Full Table of Contents of Wine Glass Market @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ip/38862-wine-glass-industry-market-report

Table of Contents - Snapshot

Chapter 1 Study Coverage

Chapter 2 Executive Summary

Chapter 3 Breakdown Data by Manufacturers

Chapter 4 Breakdown Data by Product

Chapter 5 Breakdown Data by End User

Chapter 6 North America

Chapter 7 Europe

Chapter 8 Asia Pacific

Chapter 9 Central & South America

Chapter 10 Middle East and Africa

Chapter 11 Company Profiles

Chapter 12 Future Forecast

Chapter 13 Market Opportunities, Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis

Chapter 14 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis

Chapter 15 Research Findings and Conclusion

Chapter 16 Appendix

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Seoul (CNN)  One of South Korea's most prominent animal shelters has been rocked by a euthanasia scandal, amid accusations it secretly put hundreds of dogs to death despite its "no kill" ethos.

This week, a dozen employees of Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE) demanded the resignation of the director, Park So-yeon, after a whistleblower came forward to claim the shelter had secretly euthanized more than 230 dogs in the past three years.

In a statement posted online, Park admitted to euthanizing some animals at the CARE-animal shelter, but said it was a limited number and only done as a last resort for ill dogs. CNN has reached out to Park for further comment.

CARE has long spearheaded campaigns to rescue animals from the South Korean dog meat trade. The shelter gained national attention in 2017 after President Moon Jae-in adopted the country's "first dog," named Tory, from the shelter. Moon, a longtime animal rights proponent, posed for photos with CARE staff, including its director.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his shelter dog, Tori

No kill?

Last week, a senior manager at CARE, Lim Hee-jin, told the South Korean investigative website Newstapa that Park had secretly been putting dogs down for years, while promoting the shelter as a "no kill" sanctuary.

Lim did not respond to multiple attempts to reach her. CARE staff said she was unavailable for interview.

"Only a few executives were aware. I asked her to just come clean: Say that we were holding them but had to put them down. We can honestly tell people that," Lim said in an interview with broadcaster CBS. "She said no, because we had euthanized too many."

The generally adopted standard for "no kill" shelters is to save more than 90% of animals, and most do carry out limited euthanasia -- of very sick or aged animals, or due to mass overcrowding.

According to Lim, CARE policy of 100% rescue rate quickly led to overcrowding. As a result, Park allegedly began euthanizing animals, beginning with sick and aggressive dogs, but then more generally.

Lim provided Newstapa with an invoice  later posted online  allegedly from an animal carcass collection company, which billed CARE for collection of 5.7 tons of carcasses between 2015 and 2018. A CARE employee told CNN he had seen the document and confirmed the figure, but it is unclear how many of the carcasses were the result of euthanasia or natural deaths.

The case against Park was further bolstered by the leaked recording of a conversation, allegedly between Park and Lim, that appeared to support claims that she willfully euthanized healthy dogs.

In the recording, which CNN has heard but not been able to independently verify, a woman can be heard discussing how to cover up the deaths of half a dozen dogs rescued from the country's dog-fighting circuit.

The rescue of the dogs in 2016 had been heavily publicized by Park. But when the members of the media requested Park provide an update on their whereabouts later that same year, the woman in the call is heard suggesting they buy new dogs to cover up their deaths.

"We need to say they were ill or just expired," the woman's voice says in the leaked call. "If we say that some perished, it won't be an issue. How will we fit the number? If we bring many of them from one place at once, it will be suspicious. If we gather a few here and there, it won't be known. Their snout can be dyed a bit darker."

Shame and scandal

At a press conference this week, broadcast online, CARE employees held signs saying "Park must resign," and "CARE staff were deceived."

Several of the speakers were overcome with emotion, breaking down in tears as their colleagues spoke of their devastation at the news.

"I'm very ashamed and terribly sorry for the animals that died for no reason," said Lee Mi-hee, who worked at CARE rescuing dogs for two and a half years.

She blamed the situation on a broader pattern of questionable behavior by Park, including "coercive orders, indiscriminate rescues, and leaving unplanned messes for the employees to resolve."

"The fact that this is the result of blindly following her shames me greatly and I'm disappointed in myself," Lee added.

In a statement uploaded to CARE's social media, Park said the group had "tried their best to save them but some animals had to be given up for various reasons in extreme circumstances."

She added that only a small number of animals were euthanized "for unavoidable reasons after a general discussion between staff."

Kim Tae-hwan, CARE's public relations manager, told CNN the staff does "not agree with that explanation."

"The revelations show the number of animals killed was not small at all," he said. "There were many arbitrary orders to euthanize animals."

According to Kim, staff at the shelter were shocked by the report. No one at CARE except for top executives were involved in the euthanasia, he said. Staff are now calling for Park's immediate resignation so the charity can continue operating. They also blamed Lim, the whistleblower, for not coming forward earlier, and helping Park secretly euthanize animals for years.

At the press conference, CARE staff had a new concern: Many donors were cutting funding in response to the news.

"There are still 600 animals in CARE's shelter. Please do not forget about them," animal manager Lee Eun-hye said. "The animals do not deserve this."

This story was first published on cnn.com, "Head of South Korean dog charity 'secretly euthanized hundreds of animals'"
Ogden jazz icon Joe McQueen may be gone, but his memory and legacy live on. One physical reminder of his life, McQueen's lifelong home at 3158 Grant Ave., has now become available for sale. The house received extensive remodeling, but as investor Richard Casperson has said, "Joe's energy is 
H ave the idea for the perfect start-up? If youre aged between 14 and 25 then you can enter your ground-breaking concept into The F Factor and have the chance to pitch your start-up to some of the biggest names in tech.

The F Factor was launched by Founders of the Future, part of the Founders Forum network set up by Lastminute.coms Brent Hoberman, as a way to find the next generation of entrepreneurial talent who will lead the future of tech.

Now in its fifth year, the competition has been revamped in order to give young people across the country a voice and a chance to show off their vision for the future.

There are now two age categories to give everyone a fairer judging process: one for those aged 14-18 years old, and one for those aged 19-25 years old.

There are also four rounds to the competition now with online qualifiers, regional heats and finals, plus the national final, which will take place in June at the annual Founders Forum event in London. The regional breakdown sees London as its own region, as well as the South East and the South West, North East and North West, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and the Midlands.

The entry date for the online rounds has been extended until March 17. Liam Tootill, who runs Founders of the Future alongside Pierre-Simon Ntiruhungwa, told the Standard: Founders of the Future has extended the deadline to apply for its national start-up competition, The F Factor, until midnight Sunday, March 17. This gives us more time to deliver workshops in secondary schools up and down the country as we embark on our mission to unearth the future founders of tomorrow, who are building tech-enabled solutions to some of the world's toughest challenges.

Back in its fifth edition, but with a brand new format, this year's event will be bigger and better than ever as we are across two age categories, five regions of the UK, and across four knock-out stages.

Jack Cornes and Harry Smith won the F Factor in 2017 for their Hausbots start-up / F Factor

In order to enter, you need to come up with an idea relating to tackling one of the UNs Sustainable Development Goals, using a technological solution. This means it could relate to ending poverty, providing affordable and clean energy across the globe, or reducing inequality.

Once you submit your application, you will then get access to resources and a toolkit to help you refine your idea and pitch.

The winners will receive 10,000 equity free funding, as well as internship and mentorship opportunities. They will also become part of the Founders Forum network, which includes names such as Sir Richard Branson, Natalie Massenet of Net-a-Porter, and Sarah Wood, co-founder and co-CEO at Unruly.

Its an incredible opportunity for a young person to pitch their ideas to some of the most important people in the tech industry.

Kiki Oniwinde won last years competition for her business BYP Network, a network for young black professionals. She told the Standard: The F Factor provided me the opportunity, as a young woman from Dagenham, to talk about being black and why the narrative must be changed. I pitched my business, BYP Network, to a crowd of over 350 business leaders at the Founders Forum; and won. That was a moment for me to understand that my ideas are valid and I can be the change I want to see in the world.

Since winning The F Factor last year, BYP Network has raised 150,000 in pre-seed funding and is also supported by Sky and the New Entrepreneurs Foundation.

Its important for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to enter competitions like the F Factor because they provide an opportunity for their business ideas to be validated, Oniwinde added.

Jake Cornes won The F Factor in 2017, alongside his friend Harry Smith, for Hausbots, a start-up focused on creating construction robots. Their first robot can paint walls autonomously. He told the Standard: F Factor was, is and forever will be one of the defining moments of our career. Winning the prize money catapulted our business forward, allowing us to achieve important milestones such as applying for a patent, but not only that, the relationships we have built with the high calibre of people will be life long and life-changing.
N ot for the first time, Brandon Flowers channels his inner Springsteen on a new standalone Killers single. Land of the Free is a gospel rock protest song about the state of America, accomanied by a Spike Lee-directed video that follows Mexicans to the US border.

Jazz-soul collective The Cinematic Orchestra are back, 12 years since their last album, with a new one out in March and three nights at the Roundhouse to go with it. The first song to be revealed, A Caged Bird/Imitations of Life, is an epic beauty featuring Roots Manuva.

Having collaborated with Florence + the Machine and Sampha, cellist Kelsey Lu is stepping out alone with a few solo singles and presumably an album coming soon. Now shes covered 10ccs Im Not in Love, an overfamiliar song given an unsettling makeover.

Scottish indie rock band The Twilight Sad release their fifth album, It Won/t Be Like This All the Time, today, and its a monster. Mighty new single VTr is typical of the intensity and emotion within.
D ame June Whitfields Absolutely Fabulous co-stars have paid tribute to the late actress at her funeral.

Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley were in attendance at the hour-long service at All Hallows Church in Tillington, Chichester.

The much-loved actress, who was best known for her roles in comedies like Ab Fab and Terry and June, died at the age of 93 on December 28 2018.

The service featured a selection of Whitfields favourite music, including the classic hymn Jerusalem and Judy Garlands Get Happy.

June Whitfield Funeral - In pictures 1 /11 June Whitfield Funeral - In pictures Julia Sawalha, Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders PA A view of the order of service for the funeral of June Whitfield at the All Hallows Church in Tillington, West Sussex PA Joanna Lumley PA Suzy Aitchison (left), daughter of June Whitfield PA Jennifer Saunders PA Joanna Lumley PA The coffin of June Whitfield is carried out of All Hallows Church in Tillington, West Sussex PA A view of the order of service for the funeral of June Whitfield at the All Hallows Church in Tillington, West Sussex PA Nerys Hughes PA Gyles Brandreth PA Roy Hudd and his wife Debbie PA

The stars granddaughter reportedly read David Harkins poem She Is Gone, before her actress daughter Susie Aitchison and her husband Terence Quinn delivered a eulogy.

Former Coronation Street star Roy Hudd also made a speech at the service, which was attended by writer Gyles Brandreth and actress Nerys Hughes.

Honour: Whitfield was made a Dame in November last year / Dominic Lipinski/PA

Tributes flooded in for the actress after news broke of her death last month.

Its so tremendously sad to lose June, Saunders said. I will always be grateful that she agreed to be in Ab Fab and even more grateful that she became a dear friend.

She lived and worked with an extraordinary grace. Everything June did was perfectly measured. She was so loved and I will miss her hugely.

Lumley said that she was heartbroken to lose such a darling friend, adding that she would never forget her sensational talent, humour and her generosity to us all who had the joy of working with her on Ab Fab.

Comedian Rory Bremner described Whitfield as the go-to comedy actress for three generations.

Always graceful and elegant with a real comic glint in her eye and (absolutely) fabulous timing, he said.
A t least eight people have died with hundreds more injured in Zimbabwe following a violent crackdown on street protests.

The protests are over an increase in fuel prices, with gasoline more expensive in Zimbabwe than anywhere else in the world. The government has responded with a brutal clampdown.

Amnesty International said eight people were killed when police and military fired on crowds, though reports of the death toll have varied.

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said it has treated 68 people for gunshot wounds, with more than 100 cases of "assaults with sharp objects, booted feet or baton sticks".

Police stand guard in Harare as people arrested during the protests await a court appeal hearing on Friday / Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters

Injured people streamed into a private hospital in the capital, Harare. Some had broken legs. One nurse attended to a man with a broken spine.

Albert Taurai told Associated Press he had ventured out to look for bread when plainclothes officers wearing masks beat him up, accusing him of barricading roads.

On Friday, the government also enforced a total internet shutdown amid the protests, which have lasted for days and seen more than 600 people arrested.

The High Court will hear a challenge to the shutdown on Monday, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said.

Pastor and activist Evan Mawarire, right, arrives handcuffed at a magistrates' court in Harare on Friday / Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

Evan Mawarire, a prominent pastor and activist, faces 20 years in prison on a subversion charge. He called it "heartbreaking" to see the new government of president Emmerson Mnangagwa acting like that of former leader Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabweans had briefly rejoiced when Mr Mnangagwa succeeded Mr Mugabe, who was forced out in late 2017.

They expected the new president to deliver on his refrain that the country "is open for business."

But frustration has risen over the lack of improvement in the collapsed economy, which doesn't even have a currency of its own.

The UN human rights office urged Zimbabwe to stop the crackdown on Friday, citing reports of intimidating door-to-door searches by security forces.
T okyo is investigating claims that a new piece of graffiti could be by street artist Banksy.

The new piece of art depicts a rat holding an umbrella and was sprayed on a door close to the Hinode monorail station.

It has been compared to a famous Banksy painting of a rat parachuting with an umbrella.

Local residents informed the government about the paintings existence last year.

Locals say the piece of art appeared on a door last year / AFP/Getty Images

Government official Koji Sugiyama told AFP: We notice there is a drawing of a rat painted with spray. We think theres a possibility it has been done by Banksy.

The door has been removed and kept in storage for safe keeping.

Officials are now trying to verify the artwork.

Last month, Banksy confirmed he was behind a mural in Port Talbot, Wales.

The mural which seems to comment on the towns industrial heritage appeared on two walls of a garage in Tailbach area of Port Talbot overnight.

Banksy - In pictures 1 /63 Banksy - In pictures AFP via Getty Images A new artwork painted by Banksy during lockdown, which has gone on display in a hospital corridor PA Banksys Girl With A Pearl Earring modified during Coronavirus @Anth0ny_Ward Stormzy performs on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival 2019 wearing a vest designed by Banksy EPA Sotheby's employees pose with 'Love is in the Bin' by British artist Banksy during a media preview at Sotheby's auction house Jack Taylor/Getty Images Two men are sitting in front of a famous graffiti of British street artist Banksy, painted on a wall of a gas station in the West Bank city of Bethlehem Getty Images Banksy's homage to Pulp Fiction in East London Rex Features A new Banksy artwork in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter appears to have been vandalised days after it first appeared. The mural depicts two reindeer painted onto a brick wall appearing to pull along a bench PA Sotheby's host the first unauthorized retrospective exhibition of works by Banksy Curated by Steve Lazarides-Banksy's agent in the early years Alex Lentati Graffitti art by the 'guerilla' artist Banksy is seen on May 16, 2006 in Chalk Farm, London. The striking large scale spray-painted image entitled 'Sweeping It Under The Carpet' depicts a maid who cleaned the artist's room in a motel in Los Angeles. The piece commissioned by 'The Independent' newspaper edited on Tuesday by U2's frontman Bono, is intended to represent a metaphor for the west's reluctance to tackle issues such as Aids in Africa Getty Images Mural: the artwork before it was covered (Photo: PA) PA Banky's Les Mis artwork in Knightsbridge Jeremy Selwyn A piece of urban art by Banksy discovered on the wall of the Poundland store in Wood Green Nigel Howard A woman attacked by seagulls piece by Banksy, during the press view for the artistis biggest show to date, entitled 'Dismaland', at Tropicana in Western-super-Mare, Somerset PA Builders remove a sheet of wood covering a Banksy artwork moments after being told to take it down from the building opposite the French embassy Getty Images Banksy's Barcode Leopard Rex Features A migrant looks at the work by Banksy in the Calais migrant 'jungle' Banksy A blanket covers a mural by elusive street artist Banksy of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, in a migrant camp on the outskirts of Calais. The piece has gained such popularity that people are being charged for the blanket to be lifted to that they can view it PA An employee holds Banksy's 'Girl and Balloon' which was painted on an Ikea frame at Bonhams auctioneers on March 23, 2012 in London Getty Images Dismal, and not how he meant it: Banksy's Dismaland PA Banksy, Brick Lane Rex Features Banksy - Love is in the Air street art, Soho, London Rex Features A graffiti titled "Art Attack" made by the British, guerrilla, graffiti artist Banksy is seen on Israel's highly controversial West Bank barrier in Ramallah Getty Images Sold: This Banksy on the Gaza Strip was bought for just 118 Banksy Banksy's provocative take on an iconic image from the Vietnam war Alex Lentati A stencil image of a Banksy rat in Haringey, London Jeremy Selwyn Children pose for their photo with an installation of British graffiti artist Banksy's art in New York in 2013 Reuters Art installation by British artist Banksy, a robot and a barcode, is seen on a wall in the Coney Island area of New York City Reuters Mobile Lovers by Banksy on Clement Street, Bristol PA Art Buff created by street artist Banksy in Folkestone, KenT PA Banksy's Walled Off Hotel in the Israeli occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem Getty Images Self-portrait by Banksy PA Grafitti by the illusive artist Banksy adorns a building August 28, 2008 in New Orleans, Louisian Getty Images Vulture Petrol Head Mural by Banksy at Dungeness Susan Pilcher British graffiti artist Banksy's artwork 'No Ball Games' EPA Banksy's Bronx Zoo at Yankee Stadium Reuters Banksy's Eton Posse PA Cardinal Sin by artist Banksy at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool PA A worker holding Banksy's portrait of Kate Moss (2005) at a press preview for the exhibition Banksy: The Unauthorised Retrospective, curated by Steve Lazarides, at S|2 Gallery in London PA A Banksy mural which was painted on the side of one of the classrooms at Bridge Farm Primary in Bristol during half-term PA A stencil image of a rat in Haringey, London Jeremy Selwym A dancer poses with a new installation of art by British graffiti artist Banksy painted on the front door of the Hustler Club in New York Reuters "Flower Girl," a delicate stencil on a massive brick wall by popular street artist Banksy, is displayed in a warehouse in the greater Los Angeles, California AP Brexit mural: The artwork on the side of an abandoned arcade in Dover Reuters Detail from an installation by artist Banksy, entitled Civilian Drone Strike, on display at the Art the Arms Fair art exhibition 2017 PA A man takes a photo of one of two new murals painted by the artist Banksy near the Barbican Centre in London PA Banksy's lost 'Snorting Copper' at it's original home on Curtain Road in Shoreditch Gareth Richman A woman passes one of two new murals painted by the artist Banksy near the Barbican Centre in London PA The painting 'Devolved Parliament' by the graffiti artist Banksy, which is on show at Bristol Museum PA A Banksy artwork on a bridge in Hull Banksy A man walks past an artwork by street artist Banksy in Paris AFP/Getty Images People gather around fences that have been erected to protect the latest piece of artwork by the underground guerrilla artist Banksy Getty Images A street stall with oil paintings creating an image of a yacht in the Venice canal with a sign reading "Venice in oil", set up by a person purporting to be British artist Banksy, in Venice Reuters A motorboat passes in front of an alleged work of British street artist Banksy 'The shipwrecked child', that appeared on the outer wall of a house overlooking the canal Rio de Ca Foscari in Venice, Italy EPA Banksy created Stormzy's Union Jack stab proof vest worn at Glastonbury in July 2019 @banksy Banksy hits Notting Hill Bronwen Weatherby A shopfront displays a mini exhibition by secretive British artist, Banksy with the sign 'Gross Domestic Product', in Croydon AFP/Getty Images Displays in a homeware store, Gross Domestic Product, that is being launched in South London by the graffiti artist Banksy PA Banksy turned a rough sleeper's bench into Santa's sleigh in a social commentary on homelessness at Christmas Banksy A new work of art on the side of a house on Marsh Lane, Barton Hill, Bristol PA A section of the new work he has created during lockdown, in his bathroom. The artist captioned the post "My wife hates it when I work from home Banksy via PA Banksys Girl With A Pearl Earring modified during Coronavirus @Anth0ny_Ward

The artist later posted images of the work on his Instagram page.

Banksys identity remains unknown although people have spent years trying to uncover him.
D onald Trump is to hold a second summit with Kim Jong Un in February, the White House has confirmed.

It follows the US presidents meeting with the North Korean leader in June: the first ever between leaders of the two nations.

The announcement came after Kim Yong Chol, Pyongyang's top nuclear negotiator, visited Washington.

Its a rare sign of movement in denuclearisation efforts that have stalled since last years landmark meeting.

The two world leaders last met in June

Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: President Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour-and-a-half to discuss denuclearisation and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February.

"The president looks forward to meeting with chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date.

Thumbs up: the historic meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un (AP) / Evan Vucci/AP

However, the White House added it will maintain its sanctions on North Korea.

Despite the summit announcement, there has been no indication of any progress over US demands for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

The US has demanded North Korea abandons its nuclear weapons programme but there is little evidence this is happening / AP

Mr Trump had declared after the Singapore summit in June that the nuclear threat posed by North Korea was over.

That summit had produced a vague commitment by Kim to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

Trump shakes hands with the leader of North Korea / AP

But hours before Kim Yong Chol's arrival on Thursday, Mr Trump had unveiled a revamped US missile defence strategy that singled out the country as an ongoing and "extraordinary threat."

Communist-ruled Vietnam, which has good relations with both the US and North Korea, has been widely touted as the most likely site of the next summit.

Friday's Oval Office meeting followed 45 minutes of talks between the North Korean envoy and secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
A man filmed leaping from the eleventh floor of a cruise ship into the water more than 100 feet below has been banned from Royal Caribbean liners for life.

Nick Naydev, 27, posted dramatic footage of his own stunt, which has been branded stupid and reckless, on social media in an apparent bid for internet stardom.

He was travelling on the Symphony of the Seas with a group of friends before the terrifying jump saw that they were kicked off the cruise ship and banned for life.

In a statement, Royal Caribbean branded Mr Naydevs behaviour stupid and said it was exploring legal action after the incident on the vessel in Nassau, Bahamas.

A short video shared on Instagram shows Mr Naydev, from Vancouver, smiling and looking over to his friends as he climbs the ledge in preparation for the jump.

He then takes a moment to compose himself before leaping from the side with his arms flailing as he plummets more than 100 feet into the sea below.

The video  captioned full send - quickly went viral, receiving more than 110,000 views on Instagram after it was posted last week.
C hina has caused controversy after earrings on male actors are blurred out on several television shows.

Large blobs have appeared on the ears of actors and stars in soap operas and variety shows on online video platform iQiyi.

The countrys top media regulator has not issued a statement, despite the issue trending on Chinas top social media site Weibo.

It comes amid a crackdown on hip hop content banning artists from programmes.

The blurred earrings were noticed by a popular blogger who brought the issue to the attention of their followers.

It prompted many people to complain about the alleged censorship.

One user wrote: hahaha, whats next. Female artists to wear skirts to their knees!

Another said: I am sick. Sexual discrimination!

Another added: I think foreigners will laugh.

However one person agreed with the move, saying: I support this. I always feel that when boys wear studs, its very strange.

Last year, a Chinese television channel blurred out the rainbow flag during a broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest.
C alifornia has been hit by heavy rainstorms killing at least six people and prompting evacuations.

The region has been battered by torrential rain for the past week, causing flash flooding and downing trees.

Four people died in storm related car accidents, while one died when a tree fell on a homeless encampment in Oakland and another died fleeing a falling tree.

Some areas previously hit by wildfires including Malibu were evacuated amid concerns of landslides.

Authorities in Malibu closed schools on Thursday.

Los Angeles rainstorm - In pictures 1 /16 Los Angeles rainstorm - In pictures City workers remove a giant oak tree that uprooted and fell on top of a house due to heavy rain AFP/Getty Images A Riverside County Transportation employee watches as water flow runoff caused the closing of Temescal Canyon Road AP A man gives a thumbs-up as he passes others braving the wind and rain as they walk on the Huntington Beach Pier AP Los Angeles Fire Department captain Erik Scott briefs the media near a site where mud flow from a home under construction AFP/Getty Images Los Angeles Fire Department officers stand near a site where mud flow from another home under construction pushed out the foundation of a tree in the Nichols Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills AFP/Getty Images This photo provided by The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) shows a boulder that came crashing down onto Topanga Canyon Road in Los Angeles AP A firefighter walks past fire engines lining Nichols Canyon road in the Hollywood Hills area AFP/Getty Images City workers remove a giant oak tree that uprooted and fell on top of a house due to heavy rain AFP/Getty Images Heavy equipment is used by the Los Angeles Fire Department to clear a mudflow in a residential area north of Hollywood AFP/Getty Images City workers remove a giant oak tree that uprooted and fell on top of a house due to heavy rain AFP/Getty Images Riverside County Transportation employees monitor rain run off which caused the closing of Temescal Canyon Road near Horsethief Canyon Road below the Holy Fire burn area in Corona AP Los Angeles Fire Department captain Erik Scott briefs the media near a site where mud flow from a home under construction pushed out the foundation of a tree beside another home in the Nichols Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills AFP/Getty Images Heavy equipment is used by the Los Angeles Fire Department to clear a mudflow in a residential area AFP/Getty Images Department of Water and Power employees work in the pouring rain to clear a fallen tree from a road in the Hollywood hill AP Department of Water and Power employees work in the pouring rain to clear a fallen tree from a road in the Hollywood hills AP Department of Water and Power employees work in the pouring rain to clear a fallen tree AP

Images from Los Angeles show emergency services attending to downed trees, clearing roads and monitoring mud slides.

Emergency services rescued 12 homeless people in Riverside County after they became stranded on an island in the Santa Ana River bottom.

While 20 residents were evacuated from their homes in the Hollywood Hills after mud slid from beneath a house.

A man gives a thumbs-up as he passes others braving the wind and rain / AP

Over 140 flights were cancelled at San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday due to the adverse weather.

Two of the largest utility companies in California told CBS on Thursday that 70,000 customers lost power.

Meanwhile in the Sierra Nevada, blizzard conditions blanketed the region with over four feet of snow.

It comes months after the state was hit by a series of wildfires.
S now and ice warnings have been issued as wintry conditions grip the UK with temperatures expected to plummet as low as -12C in some parts of the country.

A whiteout was forecast for parts of Wales, with a chance of snow in areas of Yorkshire, the north-west and Scotland, which is to face the brunt of the big freeze.

The mercury had already fallen to below -4.7c in Braemar, Scotland, as of 10pm on Thursday night, with temperatures dropping about a degree ever hour that passed.

Met Office forecaster Alex Burkill said that, while clouds rolling in could stop more extreme plunges overnight, lows of -12C are still possible in some areas.

Mr Burkill said the chilliest place is likely to be sheltered parts of Scotland such as Braemar, which saw the coldest night of the winter so far on January 3 (-10.5C).

"Winter's here now properly. It feels like winter and the weather's resembling it, the meteorologist said. "Generally, across much of England, it's going to be very cold and frosty.

People walk on a snow-covered beach in Whitley Bay on Thursday (Owen Humphreys/PA) / PA

Shap in Cumbria could see a low of -8C (17.6F), Mr Burkill said.
T he Duke of Edinburgh has visited hospital for a check-up after he escaped a car crash bruised and bloodied.

Prince Philip attended hospital on doctors orders and was given a precautionary once-over which confirmed he had no injuries of concern, according to Buckinham Palace.

News of the dukes condition comes as Norfolk Police confirmed they were investigating the crash, which took place on Thursday night on the A149 near the Queens Sandringham estate.

Officers said they would be taking any appropriate action.

Prince Philip was involved in a car crash last night near Sandringham / AP

The Palace said Philip has been in touch with the occupants of the other car involved in the accident.

Well wishes were offered to the two women who were injured and a nine-month-old baby that was also in the car, the Palace said.

A spokeswoman said: Contact has been made privately with the passengers in the other car and well-wishes exchanged."

Shattered glass on the ground after Philip's crash / PA

Police today said the driver of the second car, a Kia, was a 28-year-old woman who suffered cuts to her knee, while the passenger, a 45-year-old woman, sustained a broken wrist.

Both casualties were treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn, and were discharged last night. Police also confirmed a baby boy was in the Kia and was uninjured.

Philip was thought to have been on his own in the Land Rover Freelander and was said to have been left very shocked by the ordeal.

He was overheard to tell officers at the scene that he was dazzled by the sun.

A Royal source said: The duke will be monitored by a doctor over the next few days.

He was clearly very shaken by the incident. He was not injured physically but shock and aftershock are serious considerations when dealing with a person of the dukes age after a road traffic incident as serious as this one.

Shocking photographs of the wreckage show the dukes Land Rover lying on its side with a smashed windscreen and heavy dents in the side of the reinforced vehicle.

Barrister Roy Warne, 75, told how he was driving home with his wife when he saw princes black car roll over onto the other side of the road after a huge collision with a second car.

Speaking to BBCs Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Warne said: I went to the other car and there was a baby in the back with another man. We got the baby out and went to the black car to help and realised it was the Duke of Edinburgh.

He was trapped in the car. I asked him to move his left leg and that freed his right leg and he could get out.

Mr Warne said he did not remember what the duke had said to him but that it was nothing rude adding: He was very shaken. He went and asked if everyone else was alright.

He said he believed the duke had emerged from a side road on the Sandringham estate moments before the collision.

He said: I did not see it but he came from the side road, I saw it careering and tumbling across the road and ending up on the other side.

He said royal aides were in a second car who arrived at the scene very quickly.

He added: There was a little bit of blood and one of the royal entourage gave me a wipe to wipe my hands.

In a separate interview Mr Warne said: It was an astonishing escape for everyone. People could have been killed.

He described how he helped Philip out of the vehicle, adding: I reached into the car, put my hands under his armpits and gently eased him out.

He stood up and was unharmed but was obviously very shocked. 

He said: He was disorientated and humbled. I believe he was very sorry about what had happened. The sun was very low in the sky.

He added: I looked down and had the princes blood on my hands. All I could think of is, thank goodness there wasnt more.

Norfolk Police said the investigation was ongoing and was being treated as any other road traffic collision would be.

The incident is likely to raise questions over over whether the prince should still be driving at the age of 97 - and why he was not accompanied in the car by a royal proection officer.

He retired from public duties in the summer of 2017 and last April had a hip replacement operation, but is known to remain active.

He was photographed in the summer driving a horse-drawn carriage, although he has given up competing.

He said there were five million drivers in the UK who are over 70, 265 who are over 100 and two drivers still motoring aged 107.

Today it also emerged that concerns have been previously been raised about road safety on the A149 near Sandringham.

The crash happened at the Babingley crossroads on a stretch of the A149 which runs between the town of Kings Lynn and the north Norfolk coast.

It is single carriageway and has a 60mph speed limit.
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T he road where Prince Philips car crashed near Sandringham is under a safety review, it has emerged.

The 97-year-old Royal miraculously walked away uninjured from the collision near the Queens Sandringham estate where the B1439 meets the A149.

Concerns were raised over the number of accidents on the stretch of the A149 with a reduction of the speed limit and other measures being considered by the local council on Friday.

Highways engineer Andrew Wadsworth told the Eastern Daily Press in October: "The A149 north of King's Lynn was identified as having a high rate of personal injury collisions during routine analysis of collisions on Norfolk's network."

Prince Philip: The Duke of Edinburgh - In pictures 1 /68 Prince Philip: The Duke of Edinburgh - In pictures Getty Images 2020 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in the Oak Room at Windsor Castle, Berkshire, looking at their homemade wedding anniversary card, given to them by their great grandchildren Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, ahead of their 73rd wedding anniversary PA 2020 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh arrives for the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles ceremony at Windsor castle AFP via Getty Images 2020 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in the quadrangle of Windsor Castle. The Queen in the 70th year of her reign PA 2017 Prince Philip, in his role as Captain General, Royal Marines, attends a Parade to mark the finale of the 1664 Global Challenge on the Buckingham Palace Forecourt Getty Images 1947 Princess Elizabeth (The Queen) and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at their wedding in 1947 1969 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh painting at Buckingham on 15 June 1969 Joan Willams/Rex Features 2008 Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh laugh as they watch the games during the Annual Braemar Highland Gathering on 06 September 2008 Getty Images 2019 The Duke of Edinburgh talks to the Duke of Sussex as they leave after the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle PA 2019 The Duke of Edinburgh watching Lady Louise Windsor in the Adelaide Arena during the Royal Windsor Horse Show in Windsor, Berkshire PA 2019 Prince Philip stands with other guests as he as they leave following the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA 2018 The Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh wait for the carriage carrying Princess Eugenie of York and her husband Jack Brooksbank to pass at the start of the procession after their wedding ceremony at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on October 12, 2018 AFP/Getty Images 2018 The Queen, Prince Philip and other members of the royal family wave, after the wedding ceremony of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle AP 2018 Prince Philip waves as he is driven away from King Edward VII's Hospital where he underwent hip replacement surgery Reuters 2017 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh gestures as he is followed by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry with Meghan arriving to attend the Royal Family's traditional Christmas Day church service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, Norfolk AFP via Getty Images 2017 Prince Philip, in his role as Captain General, Royal Marines, attends a Parade to mark the finale of the 1664 Global Challenge on the Buckingham Palace Forecourt Reuters 2017 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Honorary Life Member, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is shown a cricket bat which belonged to West Indies batsman Eveton Weekes, by former England cricketer John Stephenson during his visit to open the new Warner Stand at Lord's Cricket Ground AFP/Getty Images 2017 The Duke of Edinburgh talks to school children from St Edwards Catholic Primary School, during a visit to Lord's cricket ground PA 2017 The Duke of Edinburgh, The Queen and the Duchess of Cornwall observe from a balcony during the annual Remembrance Sunday Service at the Cenotaph PA 2017 The Queen and Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh (C-R) attend the Royal Maundy Service in Leicester Cathedral EPA 2017 Prince Philip prepares to sign the guest book during the Royal Maundy service at Leicester Cathedral Reuters 2017 The Queen and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh leave the National Army Museum in London Reuters 2017 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Tom Cruise meet during a dinner to mark the 75th anniversary of the Outward Bound Trust at Buckingham Palace Getty Images 2017 The Queen watches Prince Philip feed an elephant during a visit to Whipsnade Zoo Reuters 2016 The Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Royal Ascot Getty Images 2016 The Queen's Speech as Prince Philip listens during the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords on 18 May 2016 AP 2016 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh leave St Paul's Cathedral in London following a national service of thanksgiving to celebrate the 90th birthday of Queen PA 2016 The Duchess of Cambridge, the Duke of Edinburgh and Peter Phillips in the Royal Box during the Patron's Lunch in The Mall, central London, in honour of the Queen's 90th birthday PA 2016 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh leaves a service of thanksgiving for the Queen's 90th birthday at St Paul's cathedral Getty Images 2016 The Queen ccompanied by her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh greet well wishers during a 'walkabout' on her 90th birthday in Windsor, west of London, on April 21, 2016. Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images 2015 Prince Philip leaves after attending the British royal family's traditional Christmas Day church service at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham on 25 December 2015 AP 2015 The Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke of Cambridge during the Rugby World Cup Final at Twickenham, London PA 2015 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh smiles during a visit to the headquarters of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force's (RAuxAF) 603 Squadron on July 4, 2015 in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images 2014 The Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red poppy installation at the Tower of London on 16 October 2014 2014 Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Princess Eugenie, Queen Elizabeth II, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, Prince Harry and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge look on from the balcony during Trooping the Colour - Queen Elizabeth II's Birthday Parade, at The Royal Horseguards on 14 June 2014 Getty Images 2014 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh attends day two of Royal Ascot at Ascot Racecourse on 18 June 2014 Getty Images 2014 The Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh attend the Thistle Service at St Giles' Cathedral on July 3, 2014 in Edinburgh, Scotland on 03 July 2014 Getty Images 2014 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh speaks with guests in the Great Hall as he attended a commemorative service for the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle on 03 July in 2014 Getty Images 2013 Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, have an audience with Pope Francis, during their one-day visit to Rome in Vatican City Getty Images 2012 The Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh look out from the Spirit of Chartwell during the Diamond Jubilee Thames River Pageant on 03 June in 2012, Getty Images 2011 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh meets female Chelsea pensioner Majorie Cole during a visit to the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey Getty Images 2011 Queen Elizabeth II poses with U.S. President Barack Obama, his wife Michelle Obama and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in the Music Room of Buckingham Palace ahead of a State Banquet on May 24, 2011 Getty Images 2010 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh attends a reception at the Ambassador's residence in Muscat, Oman Getty Images 2009 The Queen and HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh arrive in the parade ring in a horse drawn carriage on the first day of Royal Ascot Getty Images 2007 The Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh walk at Broadlands AFP/Getty Images 2006 The Queen and her husband The Duke of Edinburgh ride out of Buckingham Palace towards Horse Guards Parade AFP/Getty Images 2006 The Duke of Edinburgh speaks to Prince William and Prince Harry at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy after The Sovereign's Parade that marked the completion of Prince Harry's Officer training PA 2005 The Duke of Edinburgh rides on his mini motorbike during the Royal Windsor Horse Show at Home Park, Windsor Castle Getty Images 2003 HRH The Duke of Edinburgh at the dressage event of the International Grand Prix in the Royal Windsor Horse Show on 16 May 2003 at Home Park, Windsor Castle Getty Images 1997 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince William, Earl Spencer, Prince Harry and Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales walk outside Westminster Abbey during the funeral service for Diana, Princess of Wales AFP/Getty Images 1991 Kuwait. British forces homecoming parade. The Queen wiith Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Associated Newspapers 1989 The Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh watch the fly past of The Trooping the Colour in 1989 Associated Newspapers 1986 The Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, on the Great Wall of China at the Bedaling Pass PA 1977 The Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, wave goodbye at Heathrow Airport today, as they embark on the Queen's Silver Jubilee Tour of Canada Associated Newspapers 1976 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh drives a team of bays owned by Queen Elizabeth II whilst competing in the Marathon event at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, Berkshire on 15 May 1976 Getty Images 1975 M.C.C. president Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh looks on as West Indies captain Clive Lloyd raises the trophy after his team won the final of the Prudential World Cup against Australia on 23 June 1975 Getty Images 1967 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (centre) meets Kumara, a 7 month-old elephant, during a visit to Whipsnade Zoo, Bedfordshire on 19 July 1967 Getty Images 1958 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh playing cricket at Highclere Castle, Highclere, Hampshire on 03 August 1958 Getty Images 1958 English boat designer Uffa Fox sailing at Cowes with Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Charles, Prince of Wales at Isle of Wight in 1958 Getty Images 1957 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on television, broadcasting from Studio 2 at Riverside, Hammersmith. Prince Philip, making his television debut as lecturer-entertainer in BBC Children's Hour, overran his time by 12 minutes eight seconds on 17 May 1957 1951 Princess Elizabeth and Philip, wearing formal dress as they attend a concert at Festival Hall, London in May 1951 Getty Images circa 1951 Princess Elizabeth and Philip with their two children, Charles and Anne AFP/Getty Images 1950 Philip at polo on 1 June 1950 Getty Images 1949 Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh hold their first child Prince Charles (aged six months) in April 1949 PA 1949 Philip climbing a ladder as he visits Aberdovey Training Camp, Wales in July 1949 Getty Images 1949 Princess Elizabeth talking to Philip at the Royal Horse Show at Windsor, England on 12 May 1949 Getty Images 1948 Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, taking an oath as he receives the Freedom of the City of London, watched by Princess Elizabeth and the Mayor of London (right), Guildhall, London on 8 June 1948 Getty Images Circa 1927-1930 Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, as a boy PA

Mr Wadsworth said the majority of collisions there were "those which may be associated with excessive speed, such as tail end collisions, overtake and head on collisions".

However, there has been no suggestion speeding was involved in Thursday's crash.

There were 40 "personal injury accidents" including five that were fatal and 10 serious in the six years to May 2018.

The Queen and Prince Philip have been spending time together on the Sandringham Estate / AFP/Getty Images

A report by the council's executive director of Community and Environmental Services, Tom McCabe, recommends that a safety camera scheme is implemented and agrees in principle to lowering the speed limit to 50mph.

The average speed camera system would cover the A149 from the junction with the A148, which is around two-and-a-half miles south of the crash scene, to Snettisham, six miles to the north.

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The Standard has contacted Norfolk County Council to ask for more details.

Prince Philip was left "very shocked" when the Land Rover he was driving and a Kia collided as he drove near the Queen's Sandringham estate on Thursday afternoon.

Debris at the scene after the crash / PA

Police were called to the scene at around 3pm on Thursday afternoon.

Two women in the other car involved suffered minor injuries.

Pictures from the scene showed Philip's Land Rover flipped onto its side after the crash.

Both drivers were breathalysed and produced negative readings.

A barrister has told how he pulled the very shocked Duke of Edinburgh from his Land Rover after it overturned, helping the Prince through the sunroof.

He told the Sun: I looked down and had the Princes blood on my hands. All I could think is, thank goodness there wasnt more.

The Duke has been spending time with the Queen who is currently at Sandringham, and has always been a keen driver.
A Banksy artwork that appeared on a garage in Port Talbot has been sold to an expert for a six-figure sum.

Ian Lewis, who owns the garage, sold the piece to Banksy expert John Brandler, but the work will stay in the Welsh town for the next two to three years.

It is likely to be moved to the town centre so more people can see it.

Mr Lewis, who said the stress of owning the artwork made him unable to sleep, is said to be relieved by the sale.

Metal fencing was erected in front of the artwork / Getty Images

He was forced to hire security guards and fit protective Perspex to the work, called Seasons Greetings, after 20,000 people visited it.

Actor Michael Sheen, who grew up in Baglan, the adjoining village to Port Talbot, contributed towards security costs to protect the painting.

The piece shows a child with what appears to be snow falling on him, but the other side reveals a fire in a bin emitting ash.

Black dust from the town's steelworks covered houses, cars and pets in the area in July, a possible inspiration for the artwork.
T here is still a huge amount of uncertainty surrounding Brexit as the deadline to leave the EU looms ever closer.

One area of concern is travelling to Europe after the UK leaves the bloc, with British holidaymakers and the travel industry worried about the rules post-Brexit especially in the event of no deal.

In such an event, passport regulations will change drastically.

Brits heading to Spain have already been warned they could face five-hour delays, while millions have been told to renew their documents to guarantee travel to Europe.

So in light of this, what would a no deal Brexit look like for British holidaymakers? Here's everything you need to know.

UK to EU flights after Brexit

Will you be able to fly to Europe under a no deal Brexit? / PA

Both the European Commission and the UK government have both offered assurances that flights between the two will operate as normal.

But the commission said it will aim to only "ensure basic connectivity" with the UK.

The UK government said although it hopes EU countries will grant airlines permission to operate in its airspace, it warned that there "could be disruption to some flights".

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has previously said that "uncertainty for travellers and airlines" remains, arguing that a no deal scenario could lead to a cap on flights and higher prices.

Alexandre de Juniac, director general and CEO, said: "But with two months left until Britain leaves the EU, airlines still do not know exactly what kind of Brexit they should be planning for.

"In the small window remaining before Brexit it is imperative that the EU and UK prioritise finding a solution that brings certainty to airlines planning growth to meet demand and to travellers planning business trips and family holidays."

Driving in the EU after Brexit

Official government advice says that you may need an international driving permit to drive in the EU in the event of a no deal scenario.

If you are currently living in the EU with a UK driving licence, it is recommended you get a local EU driving licence before March 29.

After that date you may need to pass a new driving test.

Holidaymakers and businesses intending to use their vehicles on the continent, or anyone crossing the Irish border by road, have also been warned they will need a "Green Card" if a deal is not reached.

Private motorists and companies have been told to contact their insurance providers around a month before they plan to travel to get one or risk breaking the law. The same rules apply to European Economic Area (EEA) motorists travelling to the UK.

Visas for EU countries after Brexit

Will you need a visa to visit the Alps? / Cheval Blanc

The EU confirmed last year that travellers would have to pay seven euros every three years to travel to Schengen countries after Brexit.

Holidaymakers won't need a visa if a deal was agreed, but they will need to apply for the three-year pre-travel authorisation called an ETIAS, which is similar to the scheme used by the USA and only takes minutes to fill out.

This does not count for countries that are part of the EU but not in the Schengen zone.

However, a spokesman said last year that if Britain crashes out of the bloc with no agreement in place to mitigate ensuing disruptions, Britons could require visas.

Booking a European holiday for after March 29 - what are the passport rules in the event of a no deal Brexit?

After March 29, the Home Office advises travellers to have at least six months left on their passports from the date of arrival in the EU.

They also add: "If you renewed a passport before it expired, up to 9 extra months may have been added to your new passports expiry date.

"Any extra months on your passport over 10 years may not count towards the 6 months that should be remaining for travel to most countries in Europe."

This advice applies for travel to and between countries in the Schengen zone, but does not apply when travelling to Ireland. Different rules apply for countries in the EU but not in the Schengen area.

However, aside from this Brexit is not expected to affect holiday plans too drastically.

Downing Street last year moved to dismiss claims that travellers were told not to book holidays after March in the event of a no deal Brexit.

Travel agents' body Abta added: "There is nothing to suggest that you will not be able to continue with your holiday plans after 29 March.
A barrister has told how he pulled the very shocked Duke of Edinburgh from his Land Rover after it overturned in a crash.

Prince Philip, 97, walked away unharmed from the collision between his car and a Kia on Thursday.

But witness Roy Warne, 75, said the royal was left very shocked and shaken following the smash near the Sandringham Estate.

Mr Warne told how he helped pull the duke, who was left trapped after the crash, through the sunroof of his vehicle.

Prince Philip was said to have been uninjured after a crash on the Sandringham Estate (klfm96.7)

He told the Sun: I looked down and had the Princes blood on my hands. All I could think is, thank goodness there wasnt more.

Philip shouted: 'my legs!" as he was pulled from the wreckage, the witness added.

The driver of the Kia and a female passenger needed hospital treatment following the accident.

A baby was also in the car with them, according to Mr Warne.

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Norfolk Police confirmed both drivers were breathalysed as a matter of procedure and the tests proved negative.

But the force would not confirm whether there was a baby in the Kia.

Police were called to the scene at Sandringham at around 3pm

Mr Warne said Philips Land Rover came across the A149 like a somersault. It was turning on its side over and over".

He described how he helped Philip out of the vehicle, adding: "He stood up and was unharmed but was obviously very shocked."

Philip shouted: 'my legs!" as he was pulled from the wreckage, the witness said.

Officers were called to the A149 at Sandringham just before 3pm.

The Duke of Edinburgh arriving for the Queen's Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace on December 19 / PA

"The male driver of the Land Rover was uninjured. The female driver of the Kia suffered cuts while the female passenger sustained an arm injury, both requiring hospital treatment," the force said.

"We can confirm both casualties from the Kia have been treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn and have since been discharged.

"The road remained open and both vehicles were recovered a short time later.

"It is force policy to breath test drivers involved in collisions. We can confirm both drivers were breath tested and provided negative readings."

The crash happened at the Babingley crossroads on a stretch of the A149 which runs between the town of King's Lynn and the north Norfolk coast.

It is single carriageway and has a 60mph speed limit.

A turning off the A149 to the east leads to the village of West Newton, and a private estate road to the west leads past St Felix Chapel, a British Orthodox church.

A wing mirror surrounded by shattered glass and broken plastic was left on the side of the Hunstanton-bound carriageway after the two vehicles were recovered, with tyre tracks across the verge.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman confirmed the duke was driving when the accident happened.

She added: "He saw a doctor as a precaution and the doctor confirmed he was not injured."

The spokeswoman would not comment on suggestions Philip may have been travelling with a passenger, who is likely to have been his close protection officer.

Philip and the Queen, who was informed about the accident, are staying at Sandringham, their residence during their traditional winter break.

The duke, who retired from public duties in the summer of 2017 and last April had a hip replacement operation, is known to remain active.
F ormer foreign secretary Boris Johnson is set to deliver a major speech which will call on the Government to unite over Brexit in what some may consider a veiled leadership move.

Mr Johnson will tell an audience at the JCB headquarters in Rocester that Britons have been drifting too far apart and will urge the Government to focus on issues that drove the 2016 referendum.

The Tory Brexiteer, who will speak in Staffordshire at 11am on Friday, will also use his keynote address to call for action on the pay gap and careful thinking on immigration.

Yes, it (Brexit) was about democracy, Mr Johnson will say. "But that vote was also triggered by a feeling that, in some way, the people of this country have been drifting too far apart and in areas where we need to come together."

Mr Johnson will also use his keynote address to call for action on the pay gap and careful thinking on immigration, adding: "We all know about boardroom pay and the huge expansion in the last 25 years of the gap between the remuneration of FTSE100 CEOs and the average workers in their firms.

"We know one of the ways big corporations have held wages down is that they have had access to unlimited pools of labour from other countries.

"Now, I am a free-market capitalist and a passionate believer in the benefits of migration, but there must be a balance and if an influx of labour is being used not only to prevent investment in capital equipment but also in the skills and prospects of young people, then we need to think carefully about how we control immigration.

The move follows a bid by Theresa May to talk to prominent MPs and opposition leaders about Brexit in the wake of the Government's crushing Commons defeat, a change of political tack that Jeremy Corbyn branded a "stunt".
N igel Farage has urged Leave campaigners to prepare for a second referendum as the Brexit deadlock continues.

The former Ukip leader spoke at a packed Leave Means Leave rally in London, telling Brexiteers they must face reality in the face.

The MEP spoke alongside former Conservative leader Iain Duncan-Smith, MP Esther McVey and Hotelier Rocco Forte.

Mr Farage said he believed "it is now quite possible that we will see an extension of Article 50".

Nigel Farage at a Leave Means Leave rally at Central Hall in London / PA

"When I've talked in the past about being worried that they may force us into a second referendum.

"I don't want it anymore than you do but I am saying to you we have to face reality in the face.

"Don't think the other side aren't organised, don't think the other side aren't prepared, don't think they haven't raised the money, don't think they haven't got the teams in place, they have."

TODO: define component type apester

The audience at the Leave Means Leave rally were fired up and heckling throughout the nights speeches.

Mr Duncan-Smith said Britain's "greatness" lies in the post-Brexit future.

He added: "I love this country dearly, I love it with all my heart.

"I love people whether they're Remainers or Leavers, I don't care.

"But I know one thing, this country's greatness lies ahead of it and we have an opportunity and a duty to deliver it.

Theresa May is holding talks in an effort to break the deadlock on Brexit / Getty Images

"I pledge to you tonight, I will not sleep, I will not rest, I will not wake to find a Britain that is otherwise than independent and free once again."

He branded the EU a "political project that we have never fully been told the truth about" and described anti-Brexit arguments as "a load of rubbish".

Theresa May in discussions with MPs over 'Plan B' Brexit

Mr Duncan-Smith shared an anecdote from his time as work and pensions secretary during a visit to Berlin, when he said to German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, "just like the rest of you I've sat here for an hour and I've now lost the will to live".

But afterwards he was told his joke had translated in French to him being "terminally ill" rather than "losing the will to live".

And Ms McVey said she asked the cabinet to vote on Mrs May's deal before it was taken to the commons as she could not "put her name on it" and there were "dissenting voices" in the cabinet against it.

She said the decision was down to the Prime Minister whether to have a vote but she was "shouted down and told we were not going to do it".
T heresa May was today grappling with open Cabinet warfare over Brexit amid rising speculation that a general election is on the way.

The Prime Minister called meetings with groups of ministers in a bid to identify compromises that might rescue her withdrawal deal.

But the talks were pre-empted by Cabinet members who took sides on Twitter.

Amber Rudd, Work and Pensions Secretary, wrote worth remembering above a CBI message that said business is united in saying no-deal is unmanageable.

She was retweeted by Justice Secretary David Gauke, in a show of solidarity between two of the Cabinets opponents of a hard Brexit.

TODO: define component type apester

Pro-Brexit Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt entered the fray by tweeting that no-deal might be the best option, and that to rule it out would weaken Britains negotiating hand.

Supporting members of the Question Time audience who last night cheered the prospect of no-deal, Ms Mordaunt sought to explain their enthusiasm by saying they might have judged that the upsides of leaving outweigh the downsides of staying/No Deal disruption.

Alternatively, she mused, they felt its only when no deal is better than a bad deal is believed by the EU that well maximise our chance of a deal or that not honouring the result of the referendum would be appalling.

Downing Street said the PM was speaking to a large number of Cabinet ministers, understood to be more than half, individually and in groups.

The Evening Standard has learned that one group includes Brexiteers Andrea Leadsom, Liam Fox, Ms Mordaunt, Chris Grayling and Geoffrey Cox, plus three former Remain campaigners  Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

Countdown to Brexit: 70 days until Britain leaves the EU

But Environment Secretary Michael Gove was not expected to join the Brexiteer group. One ministerial source said he was believed to be privately backing the so-called Norway-plus model.

Another group was expected to include soft-Brexiteers, including Business Secretary Greg Clark, Mr Gauke and Ms Rudd. They are backing Chancellor Philip Hammond who told business leaders that MPs would be allowed to remove no-deal from the table.

Commons Leader Ms Leadsom is understood to believe that moves to veto a no-deal departure are a Trojan Horse designed to prevent Brexit. A source said that if there was no majority for any deal, it could be used to force indefinite extensions to Article 50. The key dividing lines, according to sources from the rival groups, were whether to soften Mrs Mays red line against a customs union; whether to go to the EU for backstop concessions or seek a soft Brexit deal with Labour MPs; whether to be willing to delay Brexit; and whether to rule out a no-deal exit.

With the Cabinet and Parliament deeply divided, alarm bells were ringing across Whitehall that an impasse could lead to a snap general election. It was revealed Britains most senior civil servant, Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, met Government department heads and ordered them to get ready for an election in case one is needed to break the political deadlock.

Brexit: Meaningful Vote - In Pictures 1 /29 Brexit: Meaningful Vote - In Pictures A Leaver and a pro-European demonstrator argue during protests opposite the Houses of Parliament in London AP A police officer extinguishes a flag that was set alight by pro-Brexit protestors outside the Houses of Parliament PA An anti-Brexit protester dressed in a Theresa May costume recreates a scene from the 1997 film 'Titanic, EPA Pro Brexit supporters outside the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA PA John Bercow speaks in the House of Commons Sky News Pro-Brexit protestors outside the Houses of Parliament, London PA Prime Minister Theresa May listens to the Attorney-General Geoffrey Cox, speak in the House of Commons ahead of the Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Pro Brexit supporters outside the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament in London Reuters Effigies of Prime Minister Theresa May, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, current Environment Secretary Michael Gove and former Brexit secretary David Davis, are driven past the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Dominic Raab, Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Arlene Foster, Conservative Peer Lord Lilley and former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis speak to the media during a press conference to offer an alternative Brexit plan Getty Images Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg speaks to the media outside the Palace of Westminster Getty Images Pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters Former leader of UKIP Nigel Farage speaks to the media as Pro-Brexit and Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters Anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray outside the Houses of Parliament, London PA Pro EU protesters and Pro Leave protesters demonstrate outside Parliament EPA A man dressed to imitate former foreign secretary Boris Johnson holds a fake bank note for 350 million pounds outside the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Images A pro-Brexit 'battle bus' (L) drives past a mix of pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit protesters outside the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Images Anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray (left) talks with a Brexiteer outside the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA A pro-European demonstrator sings during a protest opposite the Houses of Parliament AP Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes leaves 10 Downing Street, London, following a cabinet meeting, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Anti-Brexit and Pro-Brexit protesters fly flags outside the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Theresa May leaves a cabinet meeting at Downing Street AP A pro remain supporter wears anti brexit badges on his hat, during protests outside of the Parliament EPA Anti and pro Brexit placards are displayed outside of the Parliament EPA Anti-Brexit supporters hold up placards outside Parliament AFP/Getty Images Anti-Brexit demonstrators hold up placards outside Parliament AFP/Getty Images Pro-Brexit supporters hold up placards outside Parliament AFP/Getty Images

Mrs Mays official spokeswoman said the PMs focus is on leaving the European Union with a deal  that is what she believes is the way to leave in a smooth and orderly way.

The spokeswoman ruled out Mrs May seeking to call a snap election.

The PM spoke to German chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte yesterday and is due to hold further talks with EU leaders, including possibly with French president Emmanuel Macron, Irish premier Leo Varadkar and Donald Tusk, president of the European Council.

She will make a statement to Parliament on Monday when a neutral motion will be tabled on the Governments latest stance following the crushing of her Brexit proposals in the Commons earlier this week.

There were no plans for her to speak to Jeremy Corbyn today but her door remained open.

On the no-deal threat, the PMs spokeswoman added: Its a simple fact that we will leave without one if we cant come to an agreement. She said there had been good discussion with Opposition leaders and MPs. But doubts remained over whether Mrs May would be willing to compromise, with the spokeswoman saying: Our principles that were set out earlier in the week remain. Pressed on reports Britain had so far failed to finalise most of the trade deals needed to replace the EUs existing ones, the spokeswoman insisted a number were in an advanced stage.

The DUP denied a Times report that it would tolerate a customs union for the whole UK as it would ensure Northern Ireland would not be treated differently to the rest of the country.

In a speech today, Boris Johnson opposed a customs union, saying it would empower the EU to snuff out the success of British inventions by using regulations. The former foreign secretary said a customs union would make Britain non-voting members of the EU single market, forced to take rules from Brussels that could ban new designs.

He was also accused of burnishing his leadership ambitions by calling for careful thinking on immigration.
B oris Johnson is set to say that now is the time to "use Brexit to unite the country" in a major speech which will likely be seen as his latest manoeuvre for the Tory leadership.

The former foreign secretarys pointed intervention comes as Theresa May scrambles to try and get the Brexit agenda back on track after her deal was rejected by MPs.

He is the latest possible future contender for the Tory leadership to set out a wide-ranging speech for the future after the UK leaves the EU following an address by Eurosceptic Dominic Raab on Monday.

In a speech at JCB headquarters in Staffordshire later today, Mr Johnson will say British people have been drifting apart in areas where they need to come together.

He will say: "Yes, it [Brexit] was about democracy. But that vote was also triggered by a feeling that, in some way, the people of this country have been drifting too far apart and in areas where we need to come together."

Under pressure: Theresa May / Getty Images

The move follows a bid by Mrs May to talk to prominent MPs and opposition leaders about Brexit in the wake of the Government's crushing Commons defeat, a change of political tack that Jeremy Corbyn branded a "stunt"

Mr Johnson will also use his keynote address to call for action on the pay gap and careful thinking on immigration.He will say: "We all know about boardroom pay and the huge expansion in the last 25 years of the gap between the remuneration of FTSE100 CEOs and the average workers in their firms.

"We know one of the ways big corporations have held wages down is that they have had access to unlimited pools of labour from other countries.

Mr Johnson delivering a speech / AFP/Getty Images

"Now, I am a free-market capitalist and a passionate believer in the benefits of migration, but there must be a balance and if an influx of labour is being used not only to prevent investment in capital equipment but also in the skills and prospects of young people, then we need to think carefully about how we control immigration.

"If we want the people of Britain to have a pay rise, as I do, then we can't expect to do it by simply controlling immigration, we have to address all the causes of the productivity gap that has so massively expanded."

Farage urges Brexiteers to prepare for second referendum

Mr Johnson will say that more must be done to help the UK's regions, and that there should be a halt to income tax rises.

He will say: "We must create the most favourable tax environment with no new taxes and no increases in rates and no one rich or poor to pay more than 50 per cent of their income in tax, not because we want to create a tax haven for the rich but because that it is the way to stimulate the income we need to pay for this national programme of cohesion."

With Mrs May set to present a Brexit Plan B to the Commons on Monday, Labour former prime minister Gordon Brown used a speech in Edinburgh on Thursday to call on the Government to extend Article 50 by a year in order to consult the public.

TODO: define component type apester

Mr Brown said Mrs May's Brexit stalemate has left Britain "more divided than during the three-day week of the 1970s or during the miners' strike of the 1980s".

The PM was expected to use the next few days to continue talks on Brexit and make telephone calls to other EU leaders.

Mrs May will not be attending the Davos summit in Switzerland next week, Downing Street confirmed.

Labour leader Mr Corbyn said he would not take part in Brexit talks with the PM as Mrs May would not take a no deal option off the table.

Downing Street said it is "impossible" for the Government to rule out a no-deal Brexit as such a move could only be done by securing parliamentary approval.

However, the Daily Telegraph reported that up to 20 middle ranking ministers could resign unless they are given a free vote on a backbench bid to rule out a no-deal exit from the EU.

And, according to the Guardian, Mr Corbyn faces up to a dozen resignations from his front bench if he comes out in favour of a second Brexit referendum.

Meanwhile, former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said Brexiteers should get ready for the possibility of a second referendum.

He told a Leave Means Leave gathering in Westminster: "Let us prepare, let us organise.
T his is the moment leading Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith makes a "rock star" entrance at a pro-Brexit rally.

Mr Duncan Smith was one of the star attractions at the Leave Means Leave campaign event on Thursday, which called for the UK to leave the EU on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms.

Mr Duncan Smith, one of the hardline Brexiteers who has been campaigning against Theresa Mays Brexit deal from within the parliamentary Tory Party, made a dramatic entrance befitting of his billing.

With the venues lights dimmed, a huge screen played a repertoire of Mr Duncans Smith's speeches on Brexit.

Iain Duncan Smith speaks at the Leave Means Leave rally / Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

The MC at the packed rally then announced: Please welcome to the stage Iain Duncan Smith MP!

The former Tory leader was then seen walking through a rapturous audience as loud rock music played over the PA system.

Other leading Brexiteer figures - including former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin and Tory MP Esther McVey - were given rock star entrances as well.

TODO: define component type apester

Kate Hoey, the Labour MP, also spoke at the rally in Westminsters Central Hall.

And Mr Duncan Smith opened his speech by saying: The one person I want to talk about is my hero, Kate.

An open-mouthed Ms Hoey put her head in her hands.

Brexiteers at the Leave Means Leave rally on Thursday / Simon Dawson/Reuters

Mr Duncan-Smith continued: When people talk about courage, standing firm, defying those you believe to be wrong and standing up for your principles, it is indeed an enormous privilege, Kate, to be in the same hall as you.

He went on to say there was an enormous establishment plot to tell us we are a miserable little nation, incapable of doing anything and we must fear the future.

Mr Farage, meanwhile, repeated his claim that fellow Brexiteers should get ready for the possibility of a second referendum.

He said: "Let us prepare, let us organise.
B oris Johnson has said it would be utterly pathetic to cancel Brexit as he declared people have voted for it, Parliaments voted for it, on March 29 its going to happen.

The former foreign secretary wrote off any chance of Theresa Mays Brexit deal coming back while assuring Brits that whatever terms are agreed with the EU there will still be Mars bars, we will still have drinking water and the planes will fly.

In a major speech which some may consider a veiled leadership move, Mr Johnson told his audience that rescinding Article 50 would be "so utterly pathetic" that it would "not only cause widespread international dismay but would also reinforce peoples view that theres some kind of plot going on at Westminster to stop this thing.

Speaking at JCB headquarters in Staffordshire, Mr Johnson also said it would be "shameful" for the Government to request an extension to the Brexit process beyond March 29.

Boris Johnson said it would be "utterly shameful" if Britain was to stay in the EU / EPA

"It would be shameful at this late stage to change that totemic date - March 29, the one fact to which the public has been able to cling with absolute certainty in this sea of political confusion," he said.

"All this vacuous talk of extending Article 50 is dishonest but it's also weakening our negotiating position once again."

He said he was confident that the EU27 would become more "flexible" in negotiations as the deadline for Brexit got nearer as history showed it was "only in the last few days and weeks of a negotiation that the big concessions are made".

Talking of Mrs Mays deal, which was overwhelmingly voted down in Parliament earlier this week, Mr Johnson said: It cannot come back. It is an ex-deal.

"Under these proposals we would still be run by the EU... I think what we should be going for is the kind of clean, global Brexit that I have advocated," he added.

He said the Government had not shown "sufficient drive or JCB-style gumption" in negotiations, adding that Mrs May should go back to Brussels and tell the EU that the UK would not accept the backstop arrangement.

Countdown to Brexit: 70 days until Britain leaves the EU

Also on Friday Mr Johnson, who was the figurehead of Vote Leave in the 2016 referendum, attempted to distance himself from the campaign's claims about immigration from Turkey.

Vote Leave produced adverts posted widely on social media during the campaign which stated that "Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU" and "Britain's new border is with Syria and Iraq".

Some of the ads included images of people in Turkey with large red arrows pointing towards the UK.

Challenged over the campaign ads, he said: "I didn't say anything about Turkey in the referendum... Since I made no remarks, I can't disown them."

Mr Johnson added: "Im not a nationalist if by that you mean Im a xenophobe or someone who deprecates other countries and cultures  absolutely not, far from it, Im called Boris."

"My ancestors come from all over the place, like I dont know  a JCB in fact, sourced I believe from around the world.
A lastair Campbell says he intervened on the side of House of Commons authorities as Boris Johnson tried to bring his bicycle through the 1 Parliament Street entrance to the Palace of Westminster.

Campbell, the Peoples Vote advocate and former spin doctor for Tony Blair, was with Labour MP Alison McGovern at the entrance to the parliamentary estate yesterday afternoon when, it is claimed, Johnson tried to enter with his bicycle. Alastair and Alison were just going through security when Boris bumbled in and the security woman told him that he couldnt bring his bicycle through this entrance, a source says. Boris said he knew, but continued to try and come in with his folding bike. So Alastair quizzed him on why he was ignoring the rules, using rather Anglo-Saxon terms. Boris demanded to know why Alastair was even there. The three of them got into a heated debate on Brexit which resulted in them telling Boris he had ruined the country.

Johnson eventually conceded defeat and sought another entrance. Following the incident, Campbell and McGovern sat down to record an episode of the Progressive Britain Podcast, out today, in which they explain what went on.

We werent very polite to Boris Johnson just now, Campbell ponders. We werent impolite, McGovern disagrees. Just factual... and mentioned that hes ruined our country. And also he was bringing a bike through, and he was told by the woman he wasnt supposed to. Did you tell him off? host Stephanie Lloyd asks. Yeah, Campbell confirms. I did, yeah.

Regulations on the Parliament website state that folding bicycles must be authorised in advance or they will be refused entry. The Londoner has reached out to Johnson for comment. He was in Staffordshire this morning for a wide-ranging speech at the headquarters of construction firm JCB.

Oppression time

Audience members from last nights Question Time are being called on by the Media Diversified campaign to file complaints to the BBC after staff allegedly stoked up the anti-Diane Abbott sentiment before the broadcast. Three audience members separately tweeted about humour at Dianes expense from BBC staff before the recording, with one commenting that Fiona Bruce basically made fun of Diane Abbott in the briefing. The programme, filmed in Derby, showed new host Bruce challenge Abbott on numerous issues to audible jeers from the audience.

"We firmly reject claims that any of the Question Time team treated any of the panel unfairly before and during the recording last night", a BBC spokesperson says.

Our wasted youth

Timothee Chalamet spoke about youth and sobriety at a post-show discussion for his new movie, Beautiful Boy, this week. Everything about being young is in tension with being sober, said the actor, who plays a teenager struggling with addiction in the new film, out today. When youre young, youre shopping around for your personality. Your friend shows up at school in a crazy outfit and youre like, Thats not who you are! The event, held at the Picturehouse Central, Piccadilly, was in aid of charity AddAction.

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An update on the arms race between broadcasters and protesters in Westminster. The BBC now uses double-height platforms to avoid protesters signs creeping into shot. But the demonstrators have responded by extending the height of their placards, BBC head of newsgathering Jonathan Munro writes in a letter to the Spectator. Time for a triple story platform?

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A healthy attitude to diversity from the Regents Park Open Air Theatre: a casting breakdown for its forthcoming revival of Evita, seen by The Stage, specifies that it is seeking a black performer to play the lead. Jamie Lloyd, the acclaimed director, is behind the production of the Lloyd Webber musical.

Ophelia tells new to turn over a new leaf

W1A star Ophelia Lovibond championed female representation again last night as the actor and #MeToo activist celebrated the winners of a women-only filmmaking competition. The Female Film Force, launched by Bumble, gives five 20,000 grants to aspiring female filmmakers: the resulting short films were screened last night to an audience including Lovibond and fellow actors Phoebe Fox and Stefanie Martini. Lovibond has a novel technique for dealing with men who talk over her on set: she sits down, rather pointedly, and opens a book until they notice shes no longer paying attention. And you think, Thats quite bad  it took you two pages. And I was supposed to be a part of that conversation.

Elsewhere, Lady Amelia Windsor and Mary McCartney were at The Bibi Funds gala dinner for childhood cancer research at The Banqueting House on Whitehall, while Lady Mary Charteris enjoyed a special Love Magazine screening of See Know Evil at Islingtons Everyman Screen on the Green.

SW1A

Senior Tories say that Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, has felt marginalised over the decisions being made over Brexit within Downing Street. He just doesnt know whats going on, one told us this week. So Sedwill, at least, may be relieved by the scale of the defeat of the PMs deal: in a constitutional crisis Theresa May simply cannot ignore the countrys most senior civil servant.

Left out: Sir Mark Sedwill / AFP/Getty Images

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Paul Scully, Conservative Vice Chair for London, says his new beard isnt specially for Brexit as the way the Speaker and others have been in the Chamber, Id risk looking like Father Time by the time we end up leaving the EU. He admits, though, that no beard is better than a bad beard.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg is officially joining the LBC radio hosting team. I look forward to finding out what the public really thinks over the next couple of months, he says. Sounds like a call for a Peoples Vote, no?

Quote of the Day

'As Eeyore said, It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine
E xplorers from across the globe will descend on the capital this weekend to help Londoners take on once-in-a-lifetime travel adventures.

Experts who have completed awe-inspiring challenges will be on hand at The Olympia in Kensington to advise those looking to do their own expeditions.

The Adventure Travel Show will feature over 100 travel experts from around the world, including American climber Chris Sharma, offering ideas for small group adventures and overland and sea expeditions to career break projects as well as walking and trekking routes and safaris.

British explorer, writer and photographer Levison Wood, who will be giving a talk at the two-day show, said: Everyone has the right to their own adventure, no matter how big or small, but too often are people unaware of it.

Known for his expeditions, Walking the Nile, Walking the Himalayas and Walking the Americas, which have been turned into best-selling books, he added: Gone are the days of planting flagpoles in maps. Nowadays, exploration and adventure are about going on a personal journey.

Ian McClelland, who runs UK expedition company Turn Wild and will be giving a seminar at the event on travelling in Greenland, said: Adventure is one of the true gifts of life. Nothing compares to immersing yourself into different cultures, seeing different ecosystems and appreciating the full glory of nature at its finest.

He added: But anyone taking on a challenge should make sure they are properly prepared physically and mentally for the demands of their adventure. Nature can be harsh as well as beautiful.
A London hospital trust received the highest number of complaints from junior doctors about their working hours in the country.

London North West Healthcare trust was fined 13,215 after more than 2,500 reports from junior doctors, those below the level of consultant - about having to work beyond their contracted terms and conditions.

The trust, which runs Northwick Park, Ealing and Central Middlesex hospitals and employs 440 junior doctors, had 2,569 exception reports  the highest number in the country  while Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, which runs Purley War Memorial Hospital and Croydon University Hospital, was found to have the highest number of reports per doctor, at 8.5 per member of staff. It resulted in 25,000 in fines.

Putting in longer hours than the Junior Doctor Contract stipulates, often on night shifts running from 8pm to 8am, has been associated with chronic understaffing in the NHS.

Picket line: Thousands of junior doctors went on strike in 2016 / Ben Birchall/PA Wire

All NHS trusts had to appoint a junior doctors guardian as one of terms of the deal agreed by former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to end the junior docs strike in 2016.

Now junior doctors can file a report when they work beyond their contracted hours or work without breaks.

Since 2016, 63,309 of these exception reports were filed by around 36,000 trainee medics nationwide, the data obtained in a freedom of information request by the Health Service Journal revealed.

Just four trusts nationwide reported zero exception reports.

Doctors are entitled to time off in lieu or extra money in return for working extra hours, and to see a review of their working patterns.

Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, said: Although the process is working well overall there are areas where guardians of safe working hours and doctors tell us improvement is needed.

But some believe the new data only shows a fraction of the actual overtime doctors work in an understaffed NHS.

One junior paediatrician, 27, who has worked in both north and south London NHS trusts and wished to remain anonymous, said: I last exception reported as an F1 [first year] on surgery - Ive definitely worked longer than paid on A&E a few times and once or twice on this job we either dont know how to use the online system or its lots of paperwork so an effort to do.

It may also be that North West [the situation] is just so bad that even with the same proportion of doctors reporting it, theres way more [exceptions].

A Croydon Health Services Trust spokesperson said it had worked to create an environment that encourages reporting of incidents as well as exceptions.
A mateur chefs have the chance to win a six-month residency in one of the capitals most vibrant foodie markets.

Hondo Enterprises, owner of the Brixton Village and Market Row arcade, is holding a competition to find the next big talent in food.

It has one category for London home cooks and another for more experienced chefs from Lambeth who already run a small commercial venture such as a supper club or street food stall.

Shortlisted finalists will pitch to a panel of judges including James Cochran of Islingtons 1251, Jackson Boxer of St Leonards in Shoreditch, and Claire Ptak, who baked the cake for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

The two winners will be given a space in Brixton Village from this summer, supported by a team of mentors, including food critic Charles Nyereyegona and chef

Shakya Manage, founder of Sri Lankan Supper Club.

Hondos Alistair Maddox said Brixton Villages aim was to celebrate food and community and support entrepreneurship.
J udges today paved the way for two so-called Islamic State Beatles from Britain, allegedly involved in the beheading of hostages in Syria, to be sent for trial in the US as they rejected a human rights appeal on their behalf.

In a landmark ruling, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, and another senior judge, Mr Justice Garnham, said the Government was entitled to share intelligence with US authorities about the suspected role of former Londoners El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey in acts of barbaric terrorism in Syria.

They said that a human rights challenge brought by Elsheikhs mother, Maha El Gizouli, on five separate points related to the risk that her son might face the death penalty could not be upheld, although they granted her the right to seek a judicial review.

Both Elsheikh and Kotey are among a large number of foreign IS fighters being held by Kurdish forces in Syria while discussions about their fate continue.

Alexanda Amon Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh speak from cell in Syria last year / AP

They are alleged to be part of a four-man IS cell dubbed The Beatles alongside Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John and another Londoner, Aine Davis.

Together, they are believed by the US authorities to have carried out 27 beheadings, including of US and UK citizens in IS-held territory.

Those killed included the British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines and the US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

Ministers have said that they support putting Elsheikh and Kotey on trial for their alleged crimes but have insisted that this country has no obligation to do so because both have been stripped of their citizenship and are now the responsibility of other countries.

The Government has also said that it has no legal means to bring them here because they are in the hands of a rebel force, rather than a recognised state with which Britain has an extradition treaty or other agreement.

Intelligence gathered by British agencies was, however, being shared with the US authorities until the appeal by Elsheikhs mother was launched last year. Her lawyers argued that such sharing was unlawful unless the Home Office obtained assurances from the US that her son and Kotey would not face the death penalty.
A trio of highly manipulative and cunning individuals" have been jailed for life after murdering five people by blowing up a shop and a flat above it.

The three killers Aram Kurd, Hawkwar Hassan and Arkan Ali destroyed a Polish supermarket in Leicesters Hinckley Road after plotting a 300,000 insurance scam.

The group had planned to douse the basement of the building in "many, many litres of petrol" in an arson attack on Kurd's supermarket in Leicester which destroyed the store and home above.

Shop worker Viktorija Ijevleva, 22, was left to die in the explosion due to her knowledge of the insurance policy taken out less than three weeks earlier.

Undated handout file photos issued by Leicestershire Police of (left to right) Hawkar Hassan, Arkan Ali and Aram Kurd / PA

Mary Ragoobeer, 46, her teenage sons Shane and Sean, and 18-year-old Leah Beth Reek, who was Shane's girlfriend, were also killed in the blast on Sunday, February 25, last year.

Passing sentence at Leicester Crown Court on Friday, Mr Justice Holgate said: "None of the defendants has shown the slightest bit of remorse for their wicked crimes. They were exceptionally callous and deceitful.

"I agree with the prosecution that it is plain beyond doubt that Kurd and Ali were both centrally involved in the planning of these crimes.

"It is plain from the way they both behaved in court and outside that they are highly manipulative and cunning individuals."

The scene in Hinckley Road, Leicester, after the explosion / PA

The judge added: "The arson attack on this terraced building was exceptionally dangerous and put the lives of neighbours and other members of the public at a high level of risk. The defendants caused an exceptionally high level of harm."

Ali, 38, Hassan, 33, and Kurd, 34, were unanimously convicted of five counts of murder.

Brothers Sean Rajoobeer, 17, and Shane Rajoobeer, 18, and their mother Mary were killed in the explosion / PA

This was alongside a further charge of conspiring with Ms Ijevleva to make a gain, by dishonestly pursuing an insurance claim in respect of the fire.

Ali, of Drake Close, Oldham, and Kurd, of Hillary Place, Leicester, were both jailed for a minimum of 38 years, and Hassan, of Eld Road, Coventry, was handed a 33-year sentence.

Undated handout file photo issued by Leicestershire Police of Leah Beth Reek, 18, / PA

The three defendants were flanked by eight dock officers throughout the hearing and shopkeeper Kurd wept in the dock as victim impact statements were read out and his mitigation was put forward.

The families of the victims were also emotional as the killers were jailed.

Shop worker Viktorija Ljevleva, 22, was also one of the victims / PA

Natalija Ijevleva said she felt she "failed as a mother" to 22-year-old Viktorija Ijevleva and her victim impact statement, read by prosecutor David Herbert QC, said: "I am heartbroken that she didn't tell me because she told me everything.

"I could have stopped her from going ahead and prevented this tragedy. I feel I failed as a mother to protect my child.

While the husband and father of Mary, Shane and Sean Ragoobeer said all his "hopes and dreams for the future have been taken away".

Leah Reek's mother, Joanne Reek, decided to read her statement from the witness box in court.
A nightclub faces closure after a man was arrested over the attempted murder of a bouncer.

Police were called to the Red Sea, in Camberwell Road, after reports of a man trying to stab a security guard at about 2am  two and a half hours after the club should have closed.

The Met said the suspect had been allowed in earlier and CCTV apparently showed him on the dancefloor intoxicated.

They are urging Southwark council to revoke the clubs licence.

The 45-year-old bouncer needed hospital treatment for a bite.

A man, 37, was arrested on suspicion of assault and possession of a knife, and later on suspicion of attempted murder. He has been released under investigation.

The clubs licence was granted in 2016 but suspended for six weeks that year after a man was attacked.

Licence holder Letteberhan Abraha Tafla, 59, received a council caution after admitting in November operating beyond the permitted hours.
T hree rogue directors of Londons worst letting agency who scammed their customers out of more than 100,000 have been jailed.

Mohammed Rayn Mashuk, 42, Mohammed Ibrahim Ali, 37, and Ahmed Ali Syed, 37, pocketed rent payments and deposits while running Crestons agency, fobbing off landlords and tenants who tried to retrieve their money.

One couples honeymoon was ruined as they battled with Crestons over 8,400 of missing rent, while other victims were forced to instruct lawyers to fight for their money. One family lost 25,000 after hiring the firm to rent out a property, eventually going to the High Court to wind down the company.

Yesterday at Blackfriars crown court, Judge Jane Sullivan sentenced the three men to two years and four months each in prison, and banned them from acting as company directors for the next eight years. You each played a leading role, abusing the trust and responsibility placed in you, the judge said. This was deliberate reckless trading conducted over a sustained period.

Prosecutor Richard Heller said 105,000 was taken from at least 19 victims who hired Crestons through its offices in Camden, Islington and Spitalfields. He said a series of phoenix company names were used to keep the scam going between 2013 and 2016, so that when one had to be shut down another identical operation would spring up. One couples battle with Crestons coincided with getting married and having to deal with matters while on their honeymoon, Mr Heller said.

An online review called it the worst agent in London and the agents bullies who used threats of eviction and intimidation.
P olice officers in Nottinghamshire picked up a pair of penguins which were stolen in November.

The Humboldt penguins were taken from a zoo two months ago, but were found safe and well on Wednesday.

They were found in a house in Strelley Village, near Nottingham.

Officers arrested a 23-year-old man on suspicion of burglary and theft.

Sergeant Andrew Browning and PC Paul Toon worked together on the investigation.

Sgt Browning said: "My first thought was this is one for the books, and one to tell the grandkids, because there's no way we thought we would go down there and actually find two penguins.

"It was an unusual one. Even when we went down to custody it made everyone laugh, particularly the custody sergeant who was booking us in. It was a real off-the-wall find."

The rescue prompted laughs on social media, with Nichola Leake commenting: "Theft and burglary or kidnapping and burglary? Waddle it be?.. get it??"

Helen Waller said: "*checks calendar to see if it's April Fools Day*"

Elizabeth Maltby added: "All sounds a bit fishy to me."
A pickpocket wanted throughout Europe has been jailed after being caught by undercover officers on the London Underground.

Romanian Catalin Copaie, 40, was spotted and tailed by a plain clothes team as he moved between stations on the Piccadilly line in December.

The officers swooped at Green Park after seeing Copaie stash a 100 yellow purse in his pocket. He was also found in possession of a three-inch lock knife.

Copaie was found guilty of theft and possessing a knife at Hendon magistrates court on January 3 and was jailed for a year.

Further investigations into his background revealed that he was a pickpocket well known throughout Europe and had several convictions.
Vinton, IA (52349)

Today

Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. High 98F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Storms may produce large hail and strong winds. Low around 70F. S winds shifting to NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
T wo south London drill rappers have been handed suspended sentences after breaching a gang injunction.

Brixtons Skengdo and AM were sentenced for breaching an injunction which was put im place to prevent them from performing music that police said incited violence against their rivals.

Terrell Doyley and Joshua Malinga, known as Skengdo and AM respectively, were sentenced to nine months imprisonment, suspended for two years, at Croydon County Court on Friday after breaching an interim gang injunction.

The pair, who are both 21, have appeared on BBC Radio 1, performed at Reading and Leeds festivals and received a four-star review in the Guardian.

Their manager, TK, said the musicians were not involved in gang violence, but pleaded guilty after a video of one of their live performances was uploaded to the internet without their knowledge.

The injunction was made against the men after the court found they were members of a south London gang, and linked with rising violence in the Lambeth borough on August 14, according to the Metropolitan Police.

The force said they breached it by performing "drill music that incited and encouraged violence against rival gang members and then posted it on social media".

Detective Inspector Luke Williams, of Lambeth and Southwark's gangs unit, said: "Gang injunctions are a great way to enable officers to tackle those involved in gangs and serious violence.

"Where intelligence identifies somebody is a member of a gang and the requirements of the Policing and Crime Act are met, we will seek to obtain gang injunctions to suppress serious violence across the Capital.

"I am pleased with the sentences passed in these cases, which reflect that the police and courts are unwilling to accept behaviour leading to serious violence. The court found that violence in drill music can, and did in this case, amount to gang-related violence."

Skengdo and AM, who are linked to Brixton's 410 group, are one of the country's most well-known drill acts, selling out two tours last year.

Their YouTube videos, including a Radio1Xtra session uploaded this week, have racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

TK, the director of Finesse Foreva, said they were served with an injunction last year, banning them from going to certain areas, associating with named individuals, and placing restrictions on them making music and performing.

He said police at a hearing in January tried to link Skengdo and AM to the history of Brixton crime.

"They didn't find nothing on them in terms of violence because they don't have nothing on them," he said.

"Last time they might have had any run-ins with the law was when they were 16 and 17.

"They started deciphering slang terms in court, it was all a bit weird.

"Deciphering slang terms to an old-head white woman who probably lives in the countryside or something."

TK said they "basically beat the case", but had to plead guilty over a clip from a recent live performance of their track Attempted.
A man has been arrested over the murder of an Israeli student, 21, who was killed close to her university in Melbourne.

Aiia Maasarwes body was found by passers-by early on Wednesday near La Trobe University's Bundoora campus in the northeast of the Australian city.

She was attacked while speaking on the phone to her sister, police said.

A man, 20, was arrested over her murder in a nearby suburb on Friday. Victoria Police did not immediately provide further details.

A pile of flowers lay in tribute where the body of Aiia Maasarwe was found / EPA

Police, who believe Ms Maasarwe was followed off public transport before she was killed, described her as an Israeli national.

"This is a horrendous crime that has been inflicted on an innocent member of our community," Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper told a news briefing on Thursday.

"Our presumption is that this was a random attack and opportunistic," he said.

Aiia Maasarwe's body was found in Melbourne, Australia / AP

It was the second time in seven months that a young woman has been killed on her way home at night in Melbourne, which has an active night life and is popular with overseas university students.

Police said Ms Maasarwe had taken a tram home after seeing a comedy show. She had been speaking with her sister on the phone at the time of the attack and her sister alerted authorities, Mr Stamper said.

People lay flowers in tribute for Aiia Maasarwe / EPA

"She heard the sound of the fall, the phone falling to the ground and heard some voices and that was it," he added.

Ms Maasarwe's family members arrived from Israel on Thursday.
B lack civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, more than 50 years ago.

Known for his powerful rhetoric, King became the face of the civil rights movement which fought to secure legal rights for African American people in the US between 1954, up to his assassination in 1968.

Just 39 when he was shot, King received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and gave over 2,500 speeches, including the historic 'I Have A Dream' speech he delivered to 250,000 demonstrators in Washington, D.C.

In his short time on earth, King played a crucial role in changing the lives of African Americans forever and Monday, January 21 is remembered with Martin Luther King Jr day.

King receives the Nobel Prize for Peace from Gunnar Jahn / Getty Images

Most poignant Martin Luther King quotes:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character." - I Have a Dream, 1963

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Strength to Love, 1963

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." - Strength to Love, 1963

The time is always right to do what is right. - Oberlin College Commencement speech, 1965

Martin Luther King Jnr in 1964 / Getty Images

Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are. - speech before a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia, October 26, 1967

"Only in the darkness can you see the stars." - I've Been to the Mountaintop speech, 1968

"No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for." - Origin unknown

Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter - "The Most Durable Power," excerpt from Sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on 6 November, 1956

Dr King at the Alabama civil rights march which he led on 15 March 1965 / Getty Images

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. - I Have a Dream, 1963

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere- Letter from Birmingham City Jail, 1963

"If you cant fly then run, if you cant run then walk, if you cant walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward." - Origin unknown, 1967
M atthew Broderick is to star in a new production of The Starry Messenger in the West End this year.

He will be joined onstage by Elizabeth McGovern, who played Cora in Downton Abbey and was nominated for an Oscar for Ragtime in 1981.

Opening on May 16 at the Wyndhams Theatre, Kenneth Lonergan's play follows a New York teacher in the midst of a mid-life crisis who meets a trainee nurse and sees a glimmer of hope. Broderick has already starred in this role when the play ran Off-Broadway in 2009.

Rising to fame with the title character in Ferris Buellers Day Off, he has won two Tony Awards for his stage work in Brighton Beach Memoirs and musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He will be best known to theatre audiences for his part as Leo Bloom in The Producers, reprising the role in the film version.
S tanding centre stage at Amsterdams vast Ziggo Dome arena, Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody attempts to apologise for the fact that his band have not been on tour for six years, or released an album for seven. What can I say? Were just really f**king lazy.

The line gets a laugh but it isnt the truth. Wildness, the Northern Irish quintets seventh album, was released last May but almost didnt arrive at all due to Lightbodys crippling mix of writers block, depression and heavy drinking. When the songs were finally written, the central sentiment of Life on Earth (It shouldnt need to be so f**king hard) and titles such as Heal Me and Dont Give In were all clear signs of his struggles.

In contrast, when we meet in a backstage lounge a couple of hours before the show, the 42-year-old is in grand form, enjoying touring sober and looking down on his troubles from the safe hilltop of recovery. Its blown my mind that weve come back to the same arenas we toured last time, he says, anticipating imminent gigs in both of Londons biggest indoor venues, the O2 and Wembley. I thought wed have to work our way back up after seven years but nearly all of them are sold out. I get emotional thinking about it.

The rest of the band  drummer Jonny Quinn, guitarist Nathan Connolly, bassist Paul Wilson and keyboard player Johnny McDaid  dont do interviews, and dont tend to get involved in the songwriting process until it comes time to get into the recording studio. Long-term producer Garret Jacknife Lee is generally the first pair of ears to advise, but for the most part it sounds like Lightbody toiled alone in the home he bought in Santa Monica, LA, in 2010.

The best advice I got was Just write, which seems so simple, and yet I wasnt doing it. I was opening my laptop, seeing that cursor flashing on the white screen, and just going, No, not today.

All the sun, sea and palm trees didnt help. That sunshine can be misleading, he says. You think youre in paradise but when youre writing, youre better off being in rainy weather. Its too tempting to be outside. Today hes predominantly based in his other home in significantly rainier Bangor, the Northern Irish town where he grew up.

20 European music festivals worth making the journey for 1 /20 20 European music festivals worth making the journey for Primavera Sound (Spain, May 30-June 1) Undoubtedly one of the finest festivals Europe has to offer, with incredible depth of quality on its line-up every year. Rap? Pop? Brazilian thrash metal? You can probably find it here. Interpol are among the 2019 headliners. AFP/Getty Images Rock am Ring/Rock im Park (Germany, June 7-9) Feeling like something of a Reading and Leeds throwback  before they booked rappers as headliners  this huge German festival is spread across two separate sites on one weekend. AFP/Getty Images Kala (Albania, June 12-19) With a successful debut last summer, this beachside dance music festival in Albania is receiving a fair bit of hype this time round. Honey Dijon leads the bill this year. Getty Images for Panorama Roskilde (Denmark, June 29-July 7) Reliably the best festival in Denmark, year after year, pulling in headliners to rival festivals anywhere else in Europe. AFP/Getty Images Open'er (Poland, July 3-6) Polands biggest festival, with a line-up split broadly between the most popular acts in rock and rap. AFP/Getty Images Love International (Croatia, July 3-10) A sun-drenched dance music festival on the Croatian coast, with plenty of boat parties and sunrise DJ sets. Shanti Celeste is a highlight in 2019. Ray-Ban via Getty Images Exit (Serbia, July 4-7) Another intriguingly eclectic festival, this time in Serbia, promising everything from tech house to ska to harcore punk. AFP/Getty Images Pohoda (Slovakia, July 11-13) A veteran festival with more than two decades experience, offering a hugely friendly atmosphere and some pretty massive acts from the worlds of pop, rock and beyond. Liam Gallagher headlines this year. Getty Images BBK Live (Spain, July 11-13) A festival that feels almost like a mini version of Primavera, with the same variety and quality, just not on the same massive scale. The Strokes headline in 2019. Getty Images Hospitality on the Beach (Croatia, July 11-15) A drumnbass extravaganza run by the legendary London label, Hospital Records, bringing together some of the scenes biggest names. Noisia are among the line-up highlights for 2019. Benicassim (Spain, July 18-21) A festival popular with both Spaniards and Brits, which has a focus on Latin artists as well as the more widely known international stars. AFP/Getty Images Sonar (Spain, July 18-19) Said by some to exist in Primaveras admittedly huge shadow, Sonar in fact carves itself a niche by focusing on bass-heavy sounds, from grime to techno. AFP/Getty Images Tomorrowland (Belgium, July 19-21, 26-28) Something of a Mecca for European fans of EDM, this festival promises the biggest names and some bombastic stage production across two weekends. AFP/Getty Images Dekmantel (Netherlands, July 31-August 4) Consistently one of the strongest dance music festivals on the continent, bringing together all the most sought-after selectors for a hedonistic few days. Jamie XX was a standout at last year's event. Getty Images Off (Poland, August 2-4) The antidote to Openers pop, this Polish festival focuses on the more obscure, experimental side of things. Gaslamp Killer will appear here in 2019. Getty Images ya (Norway, August 6-10) A Norwegian festival which proves just how strong its native music scene is, with plenty of homegrown acts headlining alongside international favourites. The Cure headline in 2019. Getty Images Flow (Finland, August 9-11) A varied festival, booking everyone from legacy rockers to cult favourites, held within the industrial surroundings of a disused power station. Tame Impala are set to appear this summer. Jussi Hellsten Rock en Seine (Paris, August 23-25) Paris biggest festival, delivering a crowd-pleasing blend of rock and pop music that draws an increasingly international crowd each year. AFP/Getty Images Sziget (Hungary, August 7-13) A Budapest blowout that seems to book bigger names each year. Expect internationally famous acts across the broad spectrum of rock and beyond. AFP/Getty Images Dimensions (Croatia, August 28-September 1) A collection of cutting-edge DJs and musicians, ranging from techno to jazz, based in a 19th century fort. Craig Richards was one of the big names in 2018. Getty Images for Prada

Then there was drink. He doesnt use the word alcoholic but he doesnt sound far off. I ended up drinking on my own a lot, which Id always said I wouldnt do. That was the beginning of the end. I was always a happy drunk. I dont get into fights, Im not dribbling or talking weird s**t. Ive always been told that I would make an event better, not worse. But what would happen when I got back from the party was that I would keep going on my own. Thats when it started to get messier.

He still wrote music with relative ease but got more and more stuck with the lyrics. Ill write hundreds of songs musically. Melodies come very easily, he says, touching the wooden table between us. The writers block that I have is with words. The lyrics would never catch up with the music.

I ask why he didnt ask for help with the writing. He wouldnt have had to look far. Bandmate McDaid has a booming second career as a writer of hits for others, his most notable co-writer credit being on Ed Sheerans Shape of You, the most streamed song ever. In one week in spring 2017, five of the UKs 11 best-selling albums included his songs.

When Im standing on stage, I want to have written the songs, says Lightbody. Its the same with [side-projects] Tired Pony and The Reindeer Section. Ive never been very good at singing other peoples songs. So the horrible Catch-22 is that as soon as you go, I need help with this, your recovery isnt your own recovery. I wanted to come out of the tailspin myself. Ive realised now that it wasnt the best course of action. It probably took longer. But I do look back and stand up straighter when I think about the journey that I took to make this record. If Id said, I need help with my homework, it might not have felt like that.

He did need others to help with his personal problems, however. A doctor wanted to operate when he developed a serious infection in his ears, throat and sinuses. He went to an acupuncturist friend instead, who treated him on condition he stop drinking. He also saw a therapist to explore his feelings about growing up during the Troubles. I think people are realising now that we are suffering from a collective trauma, and that needs to be addressed by talking about it, he says.

Today hes a regular at the gym, he meditates almost every day and feels the benefit of the Chinese martial art qigong, too. Hes enjoying life in the creatively dynamic Northern Ireland of today, as president of Belfasts Oh Yeah Music Centre, a music hub that is a charity and social enterprise with a live venue, rehearsal space, recording studio and other bits. Its so different from the place I grew up in. It has culturally blossomed, he says. The music scene is incredible, lots of people are doing great movies. Its an amazing place to make art at the moment. Theres so much going on.

He says hes well known in Northern Ireland rather than famous. I dont cause mayhem. Weve never gone anywhere and been screamed at. He seems content that although Snow Patrol continue to tour arenas, their fanbase is less huge than in the days of their biggest albums, Final Straw from 2003 (six-times platinum in the UK) and 2006s Eyes Open (eight-times platinum). Wildness has been certified gold so far, and is worth hearing for one of the bands most euphoric anthems, Empress, and one of their most moving ballads, What If This is All the Love You Ever Get?

The Amsterdam crowd this evening is mature and polite. Mayhem is definitely thin on the ground. Lightbody is an upbeat, funny, surprisingly sweary bandleader. He divides the room into two halves to sing Shut Your Eyes, then says: Of course, this is how the problem started in our country. Its obvious he feels at home up there, literally larger than life as he looms down in black and white from the video wall.

What would he have done if he never managed to get the songs on Wildness finished? I dont know how to do anything else, so I probably would have written songs for other people or the movies. But I wouldnt have been living the life that I truly wanted to be living.

He understands much more clearly what that life is now. To get to play in venues like this is what I wanted as a kid. I might also have wanted to be a rock star, but I didnt know what it entailed. Now I know. Ive never really had to deal with fame in a real sense, but Ive seen it up close with friends and I dont want it. I have the life I truly want. I can forgo the rock-star bit.
T he phrase to run away and join the circus is such a staple that it seems like the simplest thing in the world.

Circus performer Ellie Dubois knows thats a load of rubbish. Its hard and dangerous work making those tricks seem effortless, and there are a lot of secrets lying beneath the polished surface.

No Show, which opens at the Soho Theatre on January 22, gives a glimpse into the real world of circus. Its creator, Ellie Dubois, tells us how.

What can audiences expect from No Show ?

No Show started with an idea and five brilliant circus performers. I invited them to come and explore this idea with me. The show was made collaboratively and is a mix of all of our experiences. It's a battle cry  a show we needed to make, to start talking about the sexism and the problems in our industry. It is about challenging the expectations that female circus performers are often subjected to.

We do what we know how to do best. We express our message through a set of unique circus skills such as acrobatics, contortion, handstands and hair hanging. We then start to break this down and deconstruct what we do. The effort, the pain, the way that we are treated and the things that are asked of us as women. We challenge the expectations placed upon us in contemporary circus. It is very funny and full of the most amazing skills, but it is also a super thoughtful piece.

What made you want to take up circus performing?

I went to see Australian circus company Circa at Riverside Studios in 2009 and it was the most extraordinary thing I had ever seen. Watching people push the physical limits of what they can do always feels so exciting to me. I was a theatre-maker and in theatre we talk a lot about taking risks but these were the most authentic risks I had seen on stage.

How did it match up with your expectations?

I loved pushing myself every day at circus school, but it disappointed me to see how women are treated in the industry. I realised very quickly when I went to circus school that there would not be many interesting roles for me or my female contemporaries unless we made them for ourselves.

Chris Reynolds

How does No Show explore gender and sexual politics?

When we started to make No Show it was pre-#MeToo and #TimesUp. Those movements have led to lots of rumblings and discontent around the circus industry about the continuing dominance of male casts and the lack of female representation in large circus showcases such as Cirque du Demain. But change is slow. The circus industry still looks very similar to the one my cast and I encountered while we were training.

No Show is a way to keep talking about our experiences working in circus, and one which applies to many other industries  not just the arts  where women find themselves under-represented, talked over, mansplained and paid less than their male colleagues. Lots of women who have seen No Show recognize the world that the production depicts from their own working lives that have nothing to do with circus.

What are the differences between expectations placed on female and male circus performers?

Often in contemporary circus performances in the UK, you may not see female performers at all, or you may see a token women being thrown around  often violently or sexually  by men. Alternatively, you might see a female performer being underused, or being used as a decoration. Female circus performers are physically strong, which is not something you often see presented on stage, but so rarely are they able to use their skills to the best of their abilities  theyre asked to smile or look pretty instead. Women are side-lined and objectified much as they are in the rest of society.

No Show is a rare example of five female circus performers getting a space to do and talk about what is important to them. We're seeing more and more of female-led circus and with growing conversations around intersectionality I'm hoping we (the circus) will step up, and the more diverse, interesting and relevant work will get seen.

Chris Reynolds

A lot of circus tricks are dangerous and have the potential for injury and pain  how do you address this in No Show?

Yes, circus is dangerous and the performers are physically putting themselves at risk in every single show. However, often we strive as performers to make it look easy and to hide the risk. In No Show we show the audience everything that can go wrong with a Cyr Wheel act (an act where performers use a 30kg metal wheel)  this includes crushed fingers and toes, shoulder dislocations, concussion and more.

It really changes the light in which you watch the show once you know what the performer is willing to risk to entertain the audience member.

What do you hope to do that differs from how circus has been done up to now?

There is a lot of eye-catching shiny circus which tours the world parachuting into different countries and is always the same wherever it goes. Going to see one of those shows is a bit like booking to stay in one of those international hotel chains: you get exactly what you are expecting, and it is mostly of the quality you want. But its not distinctive.

I think that one of the things that UK circus can do is to create work which is grounded in place and communities. I am making a village hall touring circus show next year which reflects the lives of women living in rural Scottish communities. And because it is so specific, I suspect that it will also be recognisable to communities elsewhere  in rural Spain or Italy.
A nalysts believe that AI technology could help us identify the reasons behind the surge in antibiotic prescriptions during the winter months.

New research by the database management software company Exasol showed that while London is leading the way in reducing antibiotic prescriptions, cutting them by 18 per cent in the past five years, rates surged to 50 per cent above the summer prescribing rate during the extreme winter weather of January 2018.

Using NHS Digital Data they established that even during the milder winter of December 2015, rates were still 34 per cent above summer levels in the city.

This has prompted concerns that GPs are still overprescribing antibiotics for winter viruses, which have little effect. Antibiotics are designed to kill bacteria by disrupting their cell walls, but the external covering in viruses is almost identical to the host cells membranes making them very difficult to target.

Exasol believe that with more data, AI and machine learning will be able to help pinpoint the reasons for more antibiotic use in winter.

By collating data on information such as the diagnosis for each patient, to which day it was prescribed on, and what the weather was like on that particular day, they may be able to pick out correlations between datasets not noticed by humans.

From there links can be made to see which specific illnesses are most commonly prescribed antibiotics incorrectly, so doctors can work on reducing overprescription and educating the public on the issue of antibiotic resistance.

Sam Sibley, Strategic Partner and Alliances Manager at Exasol said: Although we didnt use AI in this project as the size of the data volume didnt require it, if there was more data looking at other variables then AI would be really helpful.

If you have access to the right technology, you can turn anything into a data problem and help address it. You can spot things that might have some sort of influence affecting the outcome and get completely new insights in seconds, which empower you to do things differently.

So in our research weve seen Southwark has achieved the biggest reduction in antibiotic prescriptions in London, but what is causing that? By gathering more data, we might be able to see, he said.

However, Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, doubted GPs were overprescribing in the winter months:

It is normal for GPs to see a surge in patients with infections over the colder months, and as more people develop viral infections, a proportion will also develop bacterial infections and so it may be entirely appropriate that the rate of antibiotic prescriptions also increases over this period, she said.

This does not mean that GPs are prescribing antibiotics for seasonal illnesses like the cold and flu  GPs are highly-trained medical professionals and are all acutely aware that antibiotics will have no effect on viral infections, only bacterial.

We know how vital antibiotics are, which is why GPs will only ever prescribe them if we genuinely believe they will help the person sitting in front of us and when there arent any more suitable treatment options available.

However Mr Sibley believes AI could help to better identify when antibiotics are genuinely needed: These techniques are definitely going to be commonplace in the future. A robot can calculate faster and more accurately than humans can. But I want to emphasise that it is very important to look at the data, and that the data is available to build on.

AI ultimately comes down to the reliability of the data youre using. Its all about governance and understanding the journey the data has been on. Healthcare is a massively regulated market, with especially sensitive data. But if you have the right data, governed in the right way with proof and lineage you can develop fantastic insights.
I s it worth trying to decode what Jeremy Corbyn thinks about Brexit, and what hes going to do about it? The obvious answer is yes. After all, our hung Parliament might collapse soon into an election that could make him prime minister.

Even if that doesnt happen, has there ever been a better chance for an Opposition to determine the future?

If Labour snapped out of its paralysis and backed a second referendum next week, theres a real chance one would happen. But without its formal support, its hard to see how a majority for one can be put together in a fractured Parliament.

She backs a second vote, but shes still in a minority among Labour MPs, and shell know shes still more likely to be dropped from the front bench than to persuade her leader shes right.

Actually, we dont need to spend long working out what Mr Corbyn thinks. Because we already know.

Weve known it since he was a hard-Left activist in the Seventies, voting to stay out of the EEC. Weve known it through his parliamentary career. Weve known it since his limp and unconvincing pretence in the last referendum campaign that he wanted Remain to win, when every sign he gave showed he wanted out. And we know it now, when he has managed to show even less grace and flexibility than the Prime Minister by turning down talks with Number 10 on a plan that might prevent a no-deal disaster or bring about a referendum.

Its not for the want of trying by people such as shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer, or trade union leaders, or Labour members  72 per cent of whom want a new vote and 88 per cent of whom would then back Remain, according to a poll this month. Remember when Mr Corbyn promised to give control of his party to members and win over a new generation of voters? Now we can see that he didnt mean a word of it.

Mr Corbyn seems only fitfully interested in Brexit at all. Those around him dont seem to mind what chaos that might bring with it. After all, in a horrible way, chaos could help them.

The consequences of economic and social catastrophe would be blamed by voters on a Conservative government. Labour might end up with the spoils.

Although the party lost this weeks confidence vote, the longer Brexit remains unresolved, the more likely it must be to win another.

When Mr Corbyn says he wants an election, not a referendum, he means it. Of course others inside Labour disagree, including Ms Allin-Khan.

Maybe they will be able to strong-arm the party leadership into changing course. But dont count on it. On Brexit, Mr Corbyn has got no intention of riding to the rescue.

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Closing the gap

Baroness Hale, the countrys most senior judge and first woman president of the Supreme Court, has said in a speech just published by the court that women can take heart from enormous strides towards equality across the professions. But she identifies several respects in which progress towards fairer treatment for women is slow.

One, importantly, is domestic violence, which she says is too common. She also draws attention to systemic failures in investigation when it comes to sexual assault, which were vividly illustrated in the case of the black cab rapist John Worboys.

She is right. There has been real progress towards equality of the sexes but were not there yet.

Brava, Alessandra

There is a four-star review from the Evening Standard for Trio, the first dance show by the Royal Ballet at the newly reopened Linbury Theatre.

And star of the show is Italian ballerina Alessandra Ferri, who is 55 and who retired from ballet in 2007 before returning to the stage.

As she tells the Standard , her performances are fresh because every production I do Im so grateful and so amazed Im doing it. And who knows if its the last one?
C anadian investor Realstar on Friday ignored Brexit jitters in the residential market, and revealed it has agreed to create 200 million of new rental homes in London.

It has just inked a deal with Balfour Beatty and housing association Places for People to acquire a plot by the Olympic Park in Stratford. It will also fund a project being built by FTSE 250 business Redrow in Southall, west London.

Realstar will build more than 300 homes on the sites, and the Southall project will be run by its new residential brand called Uncle.

The firms UK boss Ryan Prince said he wants to aggressively grow Uncle, which aims to create high-quality rental homes, filled with Made.com furniture, free on-site gyms, and no-letting fees to estate agents.

At present there are around 2000 existing or under construction Uncle flats, mostly in London.

Prince hopes to double that over the next two to three years. The expansion comes despite concerns that Britains departure from the EU will deter buyers and renters from the capital.

Prince said: We create studios to three-bed properties where rents start from less than 1000 per month. I think there is a severe need in London for professionally run and modern rental homes where tenants can speak to their landlord any time of day.
R yanair issued a second profit warning in less than four months on Friday after a winter air fare price war and overcapacity in the market took their toll.

Outspoken chief executive Michael OLeary admitted cutting prices to stay competitive had hurt the budget airline. Fares had been expected to fall 2% on last year over winter but are likely to be down 7%. It is currently offering flights to Spain from London for just 9.98.

The airline, which has been grappling with strikes, lowered its full-year forecasts to a range of between 1 billion and 1.1 billion. That is down from between 1.1 billion and 1.2 billion.

OLeary said Ryanair cannot rule out further price cuts or another downgrade if there are unexpected Brexit or security developments which adversely impact yields between now and the end of March.

He added there is short-haul overcapacity in Europe this winter.

His comments came a day after JP Morgan cut easyJet to neutral. Although the banks aviation analyst David Perry thinks easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air are all long-term winners, he warned on factors such as Brexit uncertainty and a slowing European economy.

Shares in Ryanair decreased 0.27c, or 2.65%, to 9.75. They were down as much as 5.2% in early trading. Shares in easyJet were 28p lower at 1141p, and investors also departed from Wizz Air, down 44p to 2993p.

The Ryanair update marks the latest headache for the Dublin-based carrier. It issued a profit warning in October after being hurt in the first half by repeated strikes by air traffic controllers. That was on top of higher fuel costs.

OLeary said he was disappointed with the forecast lower profits, which exclude Austrian low-cost airline Lauda, which Ryanair took majority control of last year.

However, he pointed out full-year passenger numbers are on track to rise 9% to 142 million and it has been disciplined on costs.

He thinks passing on lower fares to customers is good for Ryanairs traffic growth and business over the medium and long term.

The firm expects to win market share and referred to plans by rival Norwegian to close a number of bases where the airlines compete. The lower fares environment will continue to shake out more loss-making competitors, said OLeary.
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U pmarket slipper brand Mahabis has been bought out of administration by a new private equity group, which on Friday outlined plans to boost sales at the Shoreditch firm to 100 million within five years.

YYX Capital, which counts advertising guru Sir John Hegarty and Simba Sleep entrepreneur James Cox among its founders, has agreed to retain all 16 staff and existing supplier relationships as part of the rescue deal.

The purchase comes a month after startup Mahabis called in administrators at KRE Corporate Recovery.

Before its failure, millennials' favourite Mahabis had been known for its 60 slippers that could also be worn outside. It was founded by Ankur Shah and notched up sales of 25 million and profits of 2.5 million in 2016/17.

YYX's Cox, who becomes interim boss, said the footwear firm "unfortunately stumbled at a critical point". "Mahabis has never raised any external capital, so with the right backing, we believe we can further grow it globally, and at speed."

Cox added that it will look to expand in Europe, the US, and create exclusive ranges for online retailers.
A mid the peeling paint and damaged walls of Maputos largest hospital, the medical staff are working on the front line of a global epidemic that sees a teenage girl infected with HIV every three minutes.

It is a statistic  one meaning some 750,000 girls aged between 15 and 19 around the world live with HIV  that is particularly resonant in the capital of Mozambique which, along with neighbour South Africa, is one of the countries worst affected by Aids.

Here we have 120,000 people in treatment, said Maputos HIV supervisor Dr Sheila Issufo of Clinic 1 Maio, the colonial-era hospital that is the citys HIV treatment centre. In a month we can identify 2,000 new cases.

Dr Issufo is honest about the limitations staff operate under. There are no computers, meaning records risk being lost, and often a risk of a lack of adequate medicines.

This is an old building, she said. Some blocks are not used at the moment. It is not safe.

Faced with such a situation, help often has to come from outside sources, particularly the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Britains Department for International Development.

The UK is the second largest donor to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which last year disbursed 445 million to Mozambique.

Britain is also focusing on trying to help the countrys teenage girls avoid infection, and unwanted pregnancy, with 8 million to help provide access to contraception and family planning facilities.

Low access to contraceptives, and a prevalence of early marriage, means that almost half of girls have two children by the time they are 18.

We are channelling funding to the Global Fund as that is for treatment such as antiretrovirals and other commodities such as tests, said Etelvina Mahanjane, DfIDs local health adviser. It also provides technical support to the ministry of health.

Similarly the Elton John AIDS Foundation supports programmes in the city, including to provide counselling for young people with HIV, which will now be kept going with the help of funds raised though our AIDSfree appeal.

Adelia was 19 when she learnt she was HIV positive. She believes she contracted the virus from her then boyfriend.

Adelia, who was diagnosed with HIV aged 19 / Carlos Litulo

I could not accept it, she said. But when I started talking to people [through the EJAF-supported programme], I realised I was not alone. Hearing other peoples stories made me realise I was not in the worse position. There were people who contracted HIV from rape, or were born with HIV. That helped me accept myself.

Some 13 per cent of people in Mozambique have HIV and 1.16 million people are being treated, which is believed to be just half of those that need it.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said: We are proud that through UK Aid Match, the Elton John AIDS Foundation will accelerate access to HIV testing and treatment for vulnerable young people in Maputo city.

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The Office of the Child Advocate released a scathing report Wednesday morning on the substandard conditions in state facilities for imprisoned and detained youth and called for an overhaul of the system.

The child advocates office found that incarcerated youths, particularly boys who have complex needs and are imprisoned in the adult correctional system, are the most likely to lose meaningful access to education, rehabilitative services and visits with family, and are more likely to to be placed in isolation. In some cases, the report said, the conditions for youth may violate state and federal law.

The report details the individual cases of incarcerated youth, including one boy who is confined for 23.5 hours a day with no access to education or adequate mental health services, and another who was restrained face-down and sprayed with a chemical agent despite his asthma diagnosis.

The year-long investigation found that minority youth remain disproportionately confined and incarcerated in Connecticuts state-run facilities and that the deeper youth go into the correctional system, the less likely they are to receive any developmentally appropriate programming  supports necessary to help youth change their behavior and successfully discharge back to their communities without committing new offenses.

Mickey Kramer, the associate child advocate, said Tuesday that the reports findings prove that Connecticut needs a massive overhaul in the way it both evaluates and meets the needs of incarcerated youth.

Essentially, we believe there is a moral imperative to address the current circumstances , Kramer continued. When we believe and know that certain things that we do to kids are harmful, weve got to stop doing those things.

The report examined the states juvenile detention centers in Bridgeport and Hartford, which are operated by the Judicial Branchs Court Support Services Division; the Manson Youth Institution for boys and the York Correctional Institution for girls, which are Department of Corrections prisons that house minors; and the former Connecticut Juvenile Training School (CJTS), a locked facility for boys that was operated by the state Department of Children and Families until it closed in April 2018. For the full report, click here.

The lack of uniform standards across these facilities can place youth and facility staff at risk of harm, the report says, and may result in some cases in violations of state and federal law and deeply concerning conditions of confinement, particularly for minors in the adult prison system.

The advocates report said that for incarcerated youth, there are few and in some cases, no universal standards in Connecticut law or agency practices regarding mental health services, the use of isolation or force, strategies to prevent suicide, education, or family engagement.

The investigation, which was mandated by the legislature, examined the year between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017 and included a review of records, observations at the facilities, and interviews with youths.

The report takes each facility separately and analyzes key issues affecting the youth  including suicidal behavior and prevention, the use of restraints and isolation, the availability of rehabilitative programming, access to educational programming, access to family visits and family therapy, and the reporting and prevention of child abuse.

Manson Youth Institution

The investigators found the most disturbing conditions at Manson Youth Institution. While the prison houses boys and young men up to the age of 21, the child advocate focused on the approximately 55 boys from the ages of 15 to 17.

To illustrate how a child with complex needs is not getting needed services, the advocates report told the story of Nathan, an African American teenager from one of Connecticuts urban areas, who was incarcerated at 16 at Manson Youth on multiple felonies at the time of the investigation.

Nathans involvement with the justice system began years earlier, however, when he was only 8 years old and the subject of a truancy petition. By age 10, Nathan was placed on juvenile probation after a charge for breach of peace for fighting.

A review of Nathans story shows time after time that when he needed or asked for help, he didnt get it or didnt get enough, the report said. Throughout his young life, Nathans family was the subject of more than 16 reports to DCF alleging abuse and neglect of Nathan and other children in the family home.

By the time Nathan was 14, he had been incarcerated in juvenile detention five times and showed signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and was struggling with behavioral control, suicidal ideation, peer and staff relationships and frequent refusal to engage in school. He was placed in room confinement or physically restrained many times.

Later, he was discharged to CJTS in Middletown, where he was placed on suicide watch several times for threatening to hurt himself or others. He also was placed in restraints and seclusion many times.

Nathan was anxious about leaving CJTS and within three months of his discharge he was arrested again and transferred to Manson, where he has continued to struggle with behavioral control, suicidal ideation, and aggression. He has been placed multiple times in restrictive housing at Manson that confines him to his quarters for 23.5 hours per day with no access to school or rehabilitative programming. He has accumulated 70 days in isolation in nine months.

Despite Nathans history of mental health needs, the report says, records indicate that over a two-month period, when he was placed in isolation on many occasions, the 17-year-old was seen for brief mental status checks but not for individual therapy or other clinical programming.

Nathan is a classic example of a youth who is identified relatively early in childhood, as having complex needs and coming from a complex family, said Kramer. Thats part of what were trying to say. None of the systems that the child touched effectively addressed his unique needs. He went through the criminal justice system over a long period of time with unmet needs.

The report also tells the story of Terrance, who was restrained by several officers after refusing to return to his cell at Manson in May 2018.

He was sprayed with a chemical agent twice and ultimately restrained in the prone (face down) position, the report says. During the course of being restrained by the officers, the youth swung at staff, striking a staff member.

The report said that following the prone restraint and the use of the chemical agent, the youth could be heard on video tape saying repeatedly that he could not breathe and that he had asthma.

The advocate said the youths medical record confirmed a diagnosis of asthma and a prescribed inhaler.

The report said that corrections staff could be seen in the video, moving the youth briefly to the shower to wash his face off while he salivated and continued to state he was having trouble breathing.

At no time during the incident or its aftermath does it appear the youths vital signs were checked and there is no record that the youth was provided with an inhaler, the report says. The initial medical incident report states that no complaints [were] reported by inmate; no marks or injuries noted.'

However, the report notes that on video, the youth could be heard telling the mental health clinician that he was afraid he was going to die.

The report said that the boys with complex needs who need the most help are counterintuitively most likely to go without it in the adult prison system, leading to devastating impacts that include suicide.

If we say that in the schools or hospitals or in treatment settings that isolation and seclusion are harmful practices, how can we think differently just because its a different setting? Kramer asked. Its the practice thats harmful.

In its response to the advocate, which was included in the report, the Department of Correction said that it remains committed to working with stakeholders seeking to improve outcomes and conditions of confinement for youth.

The DOC noted, however, that its policies and practices are consistent with best practice for adult correctional programs and while they have made some effort to meet the needs of the youngest offenders, the agency believes youth would be better served outside of an adult correction system.

The agency also said that the youngest offenders often present with the most challenging behaviors and restrictive measures are used to ensure staff safety and security.

Juvenile detention facilities

An examination of the states juvenile detention centers, which are located in Bridgeport and Hartford, found that while the Judicial Branch has instituted some developmentally appropriate and progressive policies for youth, facilities operations and compliances remains an urgent priority.

During the period reviewed, the Court Support Services Division reported 688 incidents of youth placed on suicide watch status and 41 occurrences where constant observation was needed to support actively suicidal youth.

The support services division also reported that, on average, 11.5 percent of incarcerated youth were physically restrained during the investigation period. The report said that while the agencys policy calls for a sparing use of isolation, the child advocate found several examples of physical isolation for behavior management during the period reviewed.

The advocate found that the Support Services Division is challenged in meeting treatment needs for youth with profound mental health treatment needs while in custody and whose stays are longer than average. The agency was not able to provide the advocate with data on its rehabilitative and group programming. The report said that the division has since added this to their data management system and will be able to report on it in the future.

The report tells the story of Tiffany, a child committed to DCF due to child abuse and sexual assault who was placed in detention several times.

As she grew up, the report said, Tiffany moved back and forth between foster homes, residential programs and inpatient treatment and was eventually diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, complex trauma and persistent depression.

Tiffany was admitted to detention three times in 2016 and 2017, where she was subject to multiple physical restraints and room confinement. And while Tiffany did have check-ins with mental health staff, the report found that her detention support plan was not a comprehensive treatment plan designed to address her unmet needs and complex trauma history.

In its response to the advocate included in the report, the Court Support Services Division leadership reported confidence in its screening and short-term assessment policies and practices, emphasizing that pretrial detention is typically short term has significant limitations regarding mental health treatment and has not been considered a treatment environment.

Not all of the youth living in the detention centers are there for the short-term, however. The closure of the Connecticut Juvenile Training School resulted in the transfer of its entire population into the detention centers  a population that typically requires longer incarceration and more intensive treatment.

The Judicial Branch looks forward to working with the Office of Child Advocate to improve in the areas of the report in which the OCA has identified opportunities for improvement said Gary Roberge, executive director of CSSD, in a statement Wednesday morning, adding that its centers are nationally accredited. The Judicial Branchs Juvenile Residential Services staff do an outstanding job of working with the juveniles we serve each and every day.
STAMFORD  While some answers have appeared in the closing of Kosciuszko Park, the future of the site  adjacent to the new Westover campus  is still to be determined.

According to Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman David Winston, the superintendent of parks has the authority to close a city park.

However, since that role and the director of operations roles were unfilled at the time, the decision fell to Cindy Grafstein, special assistant to the mayor who had taken over the parks maintenance division while the city searched for a new director of operations.

Grafstein, a member of the mold task force, chose to close the park to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. while students attended the new Westover Elementary School location at Elmcroft.

The issue now rests with the mayors new director of operations, Mark McGrath, but according to mold task force member Mike Handler, the decision will be made with input from the mayor, school officials, the Board of Education, mold task force members, police, the Westover Community and the parks and recreation commission.

South End residents and the Parks and Recreation commission were confused by the change, which was made late last year, prompting them to question the parks safety.

However, police Capt. Diedrich Hohn, said the park was not closed due to safety concerns. He said the situation had not been evaluated when the students first moved into the building on short notice in November after Westover was closed due to mold remediation. There were concerns about the public interacting with the students who use the playground.

We didnt know what we were getting into, Hohn said at a meeting of the parks and recreation commission this week. We didnt know the impact the park would have at the school. Were evaluating and re-evaluating. Thats what were doing now.

Hohn said while theyre still exploring options to allow students and the public to use the park, the bus loop in the back of the building located in front of the park will remain closed during these hours due to safety concerns.

Its an immense amount of kids and buses, he said. We have to keep that closed. Were 100 percent behind that.

Hohn said theyre also considering keeping the school resource officers car stationed in front of the park during school hours and putting up fencing near the playground. However, Hohn and Handler said the preference is to keep the park closed to the public.

The park will remain closed during the same hours in the meantime.

Commission members asked to find ways to open the park to residents and communicate to them what is happening.

I completely understand the sensitivity, Commissioner Paul Newman said. But maybe something can be done to open it to some of the residents.

While police and mold task force members have a long winter when the park will be quiet, they hope to find a solution before activity picks up in the spring.

Were really not worried about the park at this point because its the winter months, Hohn said. The parks are not getting a lot of use. But in the spring, we need to evaluate and see where were going and how the kids are intermingling with the public at large.

Handler said a decision will not be made until its determined how long theyll need to use the Elmcroft property.

I assure you Marks not making the decision in a vacuum, he said. Its a decision all parties will weigh in on. Were all in complete agreement our job is to keep 700 students safe...Its an important decision that has ramifications for a lot of people.

South End residents with concerns or input can submit them via FixIt Stamford.

erin.kayata@stamfordadvocate.com; (203) 964-2265; @erin_kayata
STAMFORD  Dannel Malloy knew he was going to a surprise party Thursday night, he just didnt realize the party was for him.

Malloy became the 76th person to be awarded the Stamford Citizen of the Year honor as he walked into the kitchen of his sons home. The former governor of Connecticut and mayor of Stamford thought he was walking into a surprise party for his daughter-in-law Christina.

Instead, a shocked Malloy realized he had become the winner of the annual award.

Im totally surprised. Its very nice, he said.

Malloy said hes gone to many of the previous COTY dinners, but didnt expect to be going as a recipient for the first time.

Board of Finance member and longtime city volunteer Dudley Williams, who won the last COTY award, said Malloy was a great choice for the award this year.

I think for most of his life, hes been involved in some way in service to the city and his impact has been positive in a really transformative way, he said. I cant think of anyone more deserving.

Williams said Malloy spearheaded an economic revival for Stamford during his 14 years as mayor as well as the turnaround of the downtown.

Speaking from his sons home, Malloy said he left Connecticut in a better place than when he took over the governorship in 2011.

I think the states on a much better trajectory today than it was. Id rather be coming in as governor this January as opposed to eight Januarys ago, he said.

The former mayor said he drove by the Charter Communications building, under construction, on his way to his sons Shippan home on Thursday. He sees such partnerships as part of his legacy.

Thats a company that we brought to Connecticut, so Im very proud of it, he said.

Malloy, who recently stepped down from public office, served as the 88th governor of Connecticut, from 2011 to 2019, and was Stamfords mayor from 1995 to 2009.

Prior to becoming mayor, Malloy served on the Stamford board of finance from 1984 to 1994. A graduate of Boston College Law School, Malloy began his legal career in New York as an assistant district attorney before moving back to his hometown.

Rick Redniss, also a past COTY winner, said few, if any, have deserved the award more than Malloy.

In my opinion, no one has done more and sacrificed more time and effort on behalf of so many citizens of Stamford for so many decades than Dan Malloy, Redniss said.

Malloy joins J. Walter Kennedy, Julius M. Wilensky, and Thomas C. Mayers as the only Stamford mayors to have won the COTY award.

Sponsored by Post 142 of the Jewish War Veterans, the COTY honor has been bestowed upon Stamford citizens since 1945.

Stamfords current mayor David Martin was also effusive in his praise for Malloys work and legacy in Stamford.

Dan has demonstrated his great love for our community, both in his official duties and as an advocate for numerous organizations, Martin said. If it were not for him, we would not have the UConn dormitories, Fairfield County Hospice House, the revitalized Mill River Park, Leone Park and the faithfully restored Old Town Hall.

Malloy is the youngest of eight children, all Stamford natives. He has three sons: Dannel, Benjamin and Samuel.

After leaving the governors residence Malloy and his wife Cathy moved to Essex. He is commuting to Boston College Law School where he is serving as its fifth Rappaport Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law.

The Stamford Citizen of the Year dinner will be held this spring.
Bruxelles, Jan 17, 2019 (SPS)  The European Parliament vote during a plenary session held on Wednesday in Strasbourg, on the EU-Morocco agreement including the products from Western Sahara are an "act of utter treachery" which breaches the decisions of the European Court of Justice which ruled on the "distinct" and "separate" aspect of Western Sahara territory, said a diplomatic source in Brussels.

The European Parliament has approved the EU-Morocco agreement (amendment of the agricultural agreement), in a vote that followed a process vitiated by "irregularities," violating the decision of the European Court of Justice issued on 21 December 2016 which ruled on the "distinct" and "separate" aspect of Western Sahara territory, and subsequently the non-applicability of the agreement of this territory.

In a statement to APS, an Algerian diplomatic source in Brussels has called the vote a "disastrous day for the European institutions and for the international and European right."

"This real treachery committed today in the European Parliament grossly transgresses and crumbles the ECJ judgments, which ruled on the" distinct" and "separated" nature of Western Sahara territory," added the same source.

Parliament's vote came after a long process of negotiations between the EU and the Moroccan authorities to circumvent the CJEU ruling, in particular, bypassing the requirement of the consent of Western Sahara people, as required by the judgment of the Court of Justice.

The European Parliament also voted on a "biased" report validating the EU-Morocco agreement drawn up by Former Rapporteur, Patricia Lalonde, while the French MEP was forced to resign in early December 2018.

An investigation against her was opened following information revealing her unannounced membership of in the board of directors of the pro-Moroccan lobbying foundation, EuroMedA.

The vote also took place without any public debate during the EP plenary session, after the rejection by ten votes of difference, of the request made by the Verts / ALE Group to hold a debate before the vote , on the agenda of the 14 January plenary session of the European Parliament.SPS

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This view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, taken in 2005, shows the edge of Saturn's rings alongside its moons Titan and Dione at the top, Prometheus near the rings at center, and Telesto as a speck above the center.

After blasting through the effects-heavy chaos of a "previously on" segment, viewers watching "Star Trek: Discovery" last night (Jan. 17) were treated to a more realistic, awe-inspiring view of Saturn's rings, courtesy of the real-world Cassini spacecraft.

The episode begins with a voice-over from the character Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green: "Space, the final frontier. Above us, around us, within us. We have always looked to the stars to discover who we are." As a backdrop to her words, the show airs black and white images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which returned beautiful views of the Saturn system before the mission ended with a "grand finale" dive into the ringed planet in 2017. The show puts an old-looking slideshow introduction before the photos, but they are our modern-day best views of Saturn's spectacular rings and moons.

"What I love about that opening is that it jumps you into this incredible bird's-eye-view perspective on how small we are in the universe and how massive the cosmos are," Alex Kurtzman, the series' showrunner, told Mike Bloom in The Hollywood Reporter. "The show is called 'Discovery' for a reason. Burnham is going to be wrestling this season with her place in the universe and what her purpose is." [Cassini's Greatest Hits: The Spacecraft's Best Images of Saturn]

In the "Star Trek" universe, the footage from Cassini, in particular, "is archaic, the old way we used to look at space," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "Look how we evolved; look at how our understanding of and our place in the universe changes. I felt that was all embedded in that story, and I loved the visuals and emotional representation."

The footage helps ground (metaphorically!) the episode  while the technology and circumstances may be fantastical, the character interactions and the sense of wonder at the cosmos echo the real world and real human potential. Even if Cassini is ancient history in "Star Trek" terms, it still offers the same inspiration.

This isn't the first Cassini connection to "Star Trek." Carolyn Porco, a planetary scientist at Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, who led Cassini's imaging science team, also acted as the official science consultant for the 2009 "Star Trek" film, contributing to a scene in which the Enterprise rises through the haze of Saturn's moon Titan.

After the Cassini interlude and Burnham's reflection on an ancient story about the Milky Way's creation, the story jumps into high gear, with (among other things) a daring attempt to scoop a sample from a mysterious interstellar asteroid. Is it too much to speculate that this ends up being the recently discovered 'Oumuamua? It could journey pretty far in a couple centuries.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
This summer, the most powerful solar telescope ever built should make its first observations of our sun  but the excitement isn't just for scientists, the telescope team believes.

Instead, the National Solar Observatory, which is building the new Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, wants to make sure that middle school students living near the telescope, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, get just as much from the brand-new instrument as scientists around the world will. That's how a science curriculum called Journey to the Sun came to be. Its goal is to make solar science in particular and astronomy in general interesting and relevant to students growing up on Maui.

"We have a vested interest in supporting local students being interested in astronomy," Claire Raftery, head of education and outreach at the National Solar Observatory, told Space.com last month at the annual conference of the American Geophysical Union. "We have this huge resource  it's going to be a huge step forward, and we want to see students going into the jobs at this telescope." [What's Inside the Sun? A Star Tour from the Inside Out]

The new facility is being built on Maui because, perched on the volcano called Haleakala, the telescope will escape nearly all the effects of dust and turbulence that can interfere with observations of the sun's wispy outer atmosphere, called the corona.

And the telescope itself is cutting-edge. "Some of the specifications they've had to build to, they blow my mind on a regular basis," Raftery said, comparing the instrument to a piece of art. "The feats of engineering that have gone into this are really quite masterful."

Take, for example, the mirror  13 feet (4 meters) across and so smooth that if it were blown up to cross the continental U.S., the largest bump in its surface would be shorter than a dime's width, Raftery said. Then, the entire instrument is mounted on a massive rotating platform that ensures the telescope will keep pace with the sun's apparent rotation during its journey across the sky, permitting sharper images.

But even the best telescope isn't worth much without scientists to use it, and that's where the middle school curriculum comes in. The National Solar Observatory put together a set of six lesson plans exploring astronomy and solar science, invited local teachers for a professional-development workshop. They also sent the teachers home with solar telescopes to share the view with their students, thanks to the musician Sting. (He voiced a documentary about the telescope and decided to donate his narration fee.)

As the observatory adapted materials to build the curriculum, the team was careful to highlight Hawaii's long history of astronomy. "We just tried to make it more place-based and relevant to them," Tishanna Ben, an education and public outreach specialist at the National Solar Observatory, said of the project. That included centering the first lesson plan around astronomy in Hawaiian history and culture.

Kathryn Young teaches astronomy as an elective to middle school students at Samuel Enoka Kalama Intermediate School near the facility and used the curriculum earlier this school year. "It's really neat to teach here, absolutely, with all our ties to astronomy," Young told Space.com, calling Hawaiian wayfinders who first reached the islands and navigated by the stars "the premier astronomers of the time."

Young said that local connections to the sky still hold power with her students, who particularly enjoyed learning about constellations. The students learned about navigating by celestial landmarks like the Southern Cross, and they learned about how different cultures have seen constellations like Scorpio, the tail of which Hawaiians dubbed the Fishhook of Maui.

And unlike students in some locations, her class can see a sky full of stars. "It's amazing because there's so many places here on Maui with no light pollution," Young said. "I tell the kids, 'You guys are just so lucky.'" [Scientists' Favorite Sun Photos by Solar Dynamics Observatory (Gallery)]

In later lessons, the curriculum focuses in on the sun itself, explaining topics like the electromagnetic spectrum and how stars form. "I really liked the whole lesson on the sun  it was really fun and educational. I learned a lot," Saralana Zender, an eighth-grader in Young's astronomy class, told Space.com. But what really stood out to her, she said, was looking through the solar telescope. "I think we even saw a little prominence [a loop of plasma stretching off the sun]. It was really cool."

The sun's activity includes solar flares and prominences, both on display in this image. (Image credit: NASA/SDO)

National Solar Observatory representatives said they hope that kids like Saralana and her classmates will cross paths with the telescope again someday  as adults, there to work at a premier science facility. The organization hopes that once the new solar telescope is operational, it will become as well-known as the telescopes found on an island farther south, on the peak of Mauna Kea. "What we would love to see happen is that [in the future], Maui is to solar astronomy what the Big Island is to nighttime astronomy," Raftery said.

That's a complicated association in Hawaii, where these mountains are sacred places. Scientists' quest to build the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea encountered years of protests and legal battles. Raftery and Ben have had to navigate tensions on Maui as well. "I do understand where they're coming from," Ben said, mentioning conversations she heard as she grew up in Hawaii about sacred landscapes and their appropriation by outsiders.

Both are deeply sympathetic to those who oppose the telescope, which is partly why the pair is focused on building real relationships with the telescope's neighbors. Ben said she hopes the astronomy community can do more to recognize that "both sides are valid and that the people that oppose it do so for their own personal and valid reasons."

But many neighbors who don't oppose the telescope see it as an opportunity for their children and their communities, Raftery said. And that's why the pair's next goal for the program is to translate the curriculum into Hawaiian, to open it to immersion schools as another step in connecting an astronomical powerhouse on the island with the students growing up nearby.

"We like to ignite little fires in the science hearts of these kids," Young said.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will face down the 10th eclipse of its lifetime this weekend, and the team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland is prepared for the brief lapse in sunlight when the moon goes into shadow on Sunday (Jan. 20).

Spacecraft operations are one of the functions deemed essential for government operations, so many of the LRO employees continue day-to-day work without pay amid the U.S. government shutdown. Additionally, contractors  whose work has been paid for ahead of time through their respective companies  continue their assignments with LRO, project scientist Noah Petro told Space.com.

Petro, who is a space scientist at Goddard  is on call in case something happens with LRO, although he hasn't been asked to come in yet. He is part of a class of federal employees that can respond to operational events as required. That said, much of the preparatory work for LRO's eclipse operations took place months before this weekend's event; its team gathered in meetings, studied this weekend's eclipse and went over the history of LRO eclipse events to prepare, he said. [Super Blood Wolf Moon Lunar Eclipse: When, Where and How to See It]

The Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter has circled the moon since 2009. (Image credit: Chris Meaney/NASA Conceptual Image Lab)

The solar-powered LRO is in excellent health, but Petro said the team knows it is working with a spacecraft that will turn 10 years old this year. Originally, LRO would keep most of its instruments turned on to perform observations all of the time. But lately, a small number of instruments have been turned off to preserve LRO's battery.

During some past eclipses, LRO's thermal imager  the Diviner Lunar Radiometer  examined the temperatures of the lunar regolith and soil. Diviner usually can "see" the top layer of the regolith, which is a few tens of centimeters thick. However, during an eclipse, the top 1 cm to 2 cm below the surface can change temperature rapidly. The eclipses thus allowed Diviner to look at a different region of the soil than usual.

Now that LRO is older, however, Diviner is turned off during the eclipse along with the spacecrafts six other instruments, Petro said. LRO won't be performing observations while the moon is dark; instead, it will remain in a power-saving mode to preserve its battery. Before the spacecraft speeds into shadow, the LRO team will turn on its heater for a while to "preheat" the spacecraft, before shutting it off for power saving. With these precautions, Petro said the team expects LRO will sail through just fine, similar to past eclipses.

Petro likened the situation with LRO to operating a cellphone for extended periods when you're away from an electrical outlet or an opportunity to charge the phone. Many people will put their cellphones into power-saving mode, and turn off nonessential apps, to keep the battery going longer.

"We're confident we can get through it, because we did in the past," Petro said.

"These eclipses are a good experience," he added. "They force us to look at the spacecraft. But I don't want to say they're risky. They are unusual operations, and that is always a challenge."

Due to the cycle of geometric positions between Earth, sun and moon, the next total lunar eclipse won't come until 2021. Petro said that will provide a nice break for the team. They are not really worried about LRO's health during this time, but the lack of eclipses will mean a lack of necessary planning meetings to deal with them  allowing for more time to focus on the ongoing observations LRO performs every day.

Later in 2019, Petro and other employees at Goddard plan to highlight LRO's contributions  which include mapping lunar water ice and cataloging the moon's terrain in high resolution  and highlighting that work along with the science performed by the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s. This year not only marks the 10th anniversary of LRO's launch, but also the 50th anniversary of the first crewed landing on the moon, on July 20, 1969.

For now, Petro said he sees the eclipse as an opportunity to get the public interested in the moon and to raise awareness about science activities, especially as NASA plans a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway human space station in the 2020s.

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of the January 2019 total lunar eclipse that you'd like to share with Space.com and our news partners for a possible story or image gallery, send comments and images in to: spacephotos@space.com.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
Georgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 63F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 63F. Winds light and variable.
South Bend Tribune Report

South Bend Tribune

A winter storm warning is now in effect for all of Michiana from 9 p.m. tonight to 7 p.m. Saturday, bringing moderate to heavy snow with gusty northeast winds and significant blowing and drifting snow.

The National Weather Service predicts snow accumulations of 4 to 6 inches, with higher amounts possible in areas.

Northeast winds up to 35 mph Saturday will create hazardous travel conditions.

Snow will start late this evening and continue into Saturday afternoon, according to NWS. The high temperature Saturday is expected to be about 25 degrees.

Its part of a major winter storm that is expected to move rapidly across the Midwest and into New England by Sunday morning.

In the wake of the storm, an arctic surface high will arrive from Canada and result in frigid temperatures across the Midwest.

Wind chills Saturday night could dip to minus 5 degrees, and the bitter temperatures are expected to linger into early next week.

On Sunday, there is a 20 percent chance of snow. It will be partly cloudy and cold, with a high of about 15 degrees, according to NWS.

On Monday, the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, it is expected to be mostly sunny and cold, with a high of only 13 degrees.

Temperatures are expected to moderate by Tuesday, when there is a chance of rain and snow, with a high near 36, according to NWS.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the Associated Press:

Weekend winter storm to sweep across Midwest into Northeast

CHICAGO (AP)  A strong winter storm system is forecast to sweep across the Midwest into New England, bringing double-digit snow accumulations and high winds.

The National Weather Service on Friday had winter storm warnings and watches in effect from the Dakotas, across the Great Lakes states and into New England.

Forecasters say the storm is expected to begin Friday afternoon in the Chicago area, bringing as many as 9 inches (23 centimeters) of snow before intensifying and reaching New York.

The weather service says conditions in New England "could approach blizzard criteria." Snow totals of 16 inches to 17 inches (40-43 centimeters) are forecast in parts of Massachusetts and Maine. Wind gusts in the Chicago area are expected to reach 30 mph to 35 mph (49-56 kph)

Bitterly cold air is expected in the storm's aftermath.
Lincoln Wright South Bend Tribune

South Bend Tribune

SOUTH BEND  A judge ruled Friday that the Mishawaka man charged in a 1998 triple murder can have a fair retrial in St. Joseph County.

Wayne Kubsch, 49, appeared Friday morning before Judge Jane Miller in St. Joseph Superior Court. Kubsch is heading for a third trial, accused of the 1998 murders of his wife, Beth Kubsch, her ex-husband Rick Milewski and her 10-year-old son, Aaron Milewski.

His first two convictions were overturned, first by the Indiana Supreme Court and second by the U.S. Court of Appeals 7th Circuit. In both convictions, Kubsch was sentenced to death. The St. Joseph County Prosecutors Office in September dropped the death penalty and instead is asking for life without parole.

Kubschs defense team has been arguing for the trial to be moved to a different county, citing public hostility toward Kubsch and outrage over the case, according to the motion for a change of venue. The defense argued because of extensive media coverage spanning roughly 20 years, a jury pool in St. Joseph County would be tainted and a trial here would be unfair.

Public sentiment in St. Joseph County runs high against Mr. Kubsch, the motion read.

In court Friday, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Chris Fronk argued the responses to a jury questionnaire sent out showed an impartial jury could be seated. Judge Miller, who ordered the questionnaire be sent out to aid in her ruling, agreed and denied the change of venue.

She said according to the law, a case does not have to be completely unknown to a juror and that exposure to media coverage alone does not disqualify someone. From the hundreds of questionnaires sent out, all parties have narrowed the pool down to 150 people who will be called. Because they are calling 150 people, Judge Miller said, she is confident they can put together a jury that will give Kubsch a fair trial.

Jury selection is set to begin Feb. 11 and Kubschs trial will begin Feb. 25. Both sides declined to comment after the hearing.
Judge sets aside $1.8 million default judgment against Kathleen Marshall, who says she was not properly notified of lawsuit
Secure access control is helping to shape the post-pandemic world

With the continued rolling back of COVID restrictions in the UK, there is a palpable sense of relief. A mixture of mass vaccinations, widespread testing, and track and tracing of the infection is helping to enable a healthy bounce back for businesses  with secure access control taking an important role in facilitating this. However, rather than just being a reaction to the wake of the pandemic, there is every sign that the economy, and consequently the security sector as well, are both rebuilding and reshaping for the long-term new normal. Prioritising Safety Already deemed an essential service even during the first wave of the pandemic, the security industry has of course taken a vital role in protecting people and property throughout the crisis. Now that venues in the UK are starting to reopen again, our services are key to occupancy management and ensuring that disease transmission is limited as far as possible. Access control is also key in reassuring people that their safety is a priority. Making the upgrade Its all been about choosing the most suitable components and technology that already existed with a few tweaks Businesses and organisations have a duty of care to their employees and the safety of visitors  so controlling access, employing lateral flow testing, and deploying suitable Track & Trace mechanisms are all key components. I think those outside our industry are surprised to learn that most of the technology being deployed and used hasnt just magically developed since COVID appeared  its all been about choosing the most suitable components and technology that already existed albeit with a few development tweaks or adjustments for the situation at hand. This includes using or installing facial recognition readers rather than using fingerprint or contact tokens, it is swapping to automatic request to exit sensors instead of buttons; it is using powered secure doors rather than having people all grab the same handle. Using mobile credentials is also a key technology choice  why not use the highly secure, easy to manage, cost-effective, and of course contact-free benefits of this approach? Touchless solutions We have seen a clear shift in organisations looking to protect their staff and visitors. For instance, we have a big utility customer in Southeast Asia that has just replaced close to 200 sites using fingerprint readers with an additional facial recognition capability. We have also seen a big rise in demand for touchless request to exit sensors and Bluetooth Low Energy Readers for use with smartphone authentication. Working together Integration of security systems is of course nothing new, but in the post-pandemic or endemic age, it has perhaps never been more important. Installations need to be simple, straightforward, and rapid to help maintain safe distancing but also to ensure systems can be deployed as soon as they are needed. The world is changing and developing rapidly and there is simply no place for systems that dont work with others or cause the end-user considerable cost and inconvenience to upgrade. This flexible delivery of security solutions perfectly matches the evolving and increasing demands of the market. Its clear that end-users want systems that work well and can easily integrate with their existing systems  not only security but all the other business components which work in unison with each other over a shared network. Great opportunities ahead The recent work-from-home trend is also clearly changing the way organisations and businesses interact with the built environment. Lots of companies are downsizing, offices are being split up, there is lots of revitalisation and reuse of existing office space  all of which creates considerable opportunities for security providers. UK inflation more than doubled in April 2021 with unemployment figures dropping and the Pound rising in value There are also, in the UK at least, clear signs that the construction industry is rapidly growing again -with a forecast of 8% rebound and growth this year. UK inflation more than doubled in April 2021 with unemployment figures dropping and the Pound rising in value  all positive signs for UK-based security providers. Undoubtedly the highly successful UK vaccination rollout has helped considerably, but there are signs that the Eurozone looks set to improve considerably over the next few months as well. Using integrated access control Undoubtedly the pandemic has made security markets around the world more aware of the benefits of integrated access control in managing the needs of the new normal COVID endemic environment. For example, as a business, we have always had keen interest from the UK healthcare sector, but over the last 12 months, we have seen a big growth in previously modest international markets including Morocco, Kuwait, Bahrain, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand  all of which are very keen to adopt improved access control solutions. Learning the lessons Nobody would deny the last year or so has been unprecedentedly tough on everyone, as a society we have had to make huge changes and sacrifices. Governments, organisations, and businesses all need to be better prepared in the future, to understand the things that went wrong and those that were successful. However, there is a world beyond the immediate pandemic and its effects. Flexible working practices and the changes these will have to the way we live and work will undoubtedly present great opportunities for the security sector in helping the world evolve. The pandemic has been a wake-up call for many organisations with regards to their duty of care to employees  particularly when it comes to mental health and providing a sensible work/life balance. Where we work and the safety of these facilities has received far more scrutiny than before. Flexible security systems Integrated security solutions have a vital role to play in not only protecting the safety of people during the post-lockdown return to work but also in the evolution of the built environment and move towards smart cities - which inevitably will now need to consider greater flexibility in securing home working spaces rather than just traditional places of work. Importantly, powerful access control and integrated security systems need to be flexible to the uncertainties ahead. The COVID pandemic has shown that nothing can be considered certain, except the need for greater flexibility and resilience in the way we operate our professional and personal interactions.
Somerset, KY (42501)

Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 61F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 61F. Winds light and variable.
Space.Cloud.Unit: Main sale postponed

Dusseldorf, 18.01.2019  After the highly satisfactory pre-sale of the Space.Cloud.Unit, which took place between October and mid-December 2018, the main sale was originally scheduled to start in mid-January. After careful consideration, however, the main sale has been postponed indefinitely, until further notice. SCU CEO and PowerFolder founder Christian Sprajc said, \Of course we want to achieve a good result with the main sale, in order to be able to guarantee the Space.Cloud.Unit the best possible start. In recent weeks and months, however, ICOs\-\- worldwide willingness to invest has unfortunately slowed down more and more  on the one hand due to the inglorious cases of fraud with ICOs (ICO Exit Scams) that have become known in the recent past and, on the other hand, due to the long overdue consolidation of the crypto market. We therefore want to wait until the situation has eased again. In addition, the necessary audits by government agencies are taking longer than expected, in part because of the festive break. On the subject of \official support for ICOs\, Germany is unfortunately still lagging far behind other European countries.

Work on SCU continues

Despite the postponed start date of the main sale, the work on the Space.Cloud.Unit under the leadership of PowerFolder continues undiminished. The focus is currently on product development and, in particular, on further improving the existing SCU prototype, which can already be downloaded from the Space.Cloud.Unit website (https://space-cloud-unit.io/de/), with a terabyte of storage space being made available free of charge for those wishing to try it out.

Therefore, we are still looking for additional developers, as well as general supporters of the project, including further private investors, whose interest would be welcomed at any time. Interested parties can contact the Space.Cloud.Unit via the contact form (https://space-cloud-unit.io/de/kontakt/) or by email (mail@space-cloud-unit.io).

About the Space.Cloud.Unit

With the world\-\-s first cloud construction kit, users can create their own cloud according to their own wishes and needs. At the heart of SCU is a virtual marketplace that brings together cloud space providers and cloud space seekers. The blockchain project is being developed by File Sync&Share specialist dal33t GmbH, who also created and operate PowerFolder, which has proven its worth for more than ten years. SCU is financed by a multi-stage ICO, an \Initial Coin Offering\, in which self-generated tokens  the \SCU tokens\  are offered for sale. A new date for the postponed main sale will be announced in due time.
New 3D Geological Model highlights multiple higher-grade mineralised zones untested below shallow depth at Douay Project

Posted by Publisher Internet

Maple Gold Mines Ltd. (?Maple Gold? or the ?Company?) (TSX-V: MGM, OTCQB: MGMLF; Frankfurt: M3G  http://www.commodity-tv.net/c/search_adv/?v=298248) has created a new 3D geological and structural model for its Douay gold project, located on the prolific Casa Berardi Deformation Zone near Val d?Or, Quebec. The Douay deposit currently contains 2,759,000 ounces Au in the inferred category and a further 479,000 ounces Au indicated using a 0.45 g/t Au cut-off grade (Micon 2018)[1]. The Micon 2018 resource does not include the new drill data from the winter 2018 campaign, and is open along strike and down dip. The new 3D model will improve targeting of additional resources in subsequent drill campaigns and forms the foundation for an updated resource estimate.

New 3D model based on historical and new exploration results and re-interpretation of the existing and new mineralised envelopes, highlights numerous zones of higher-grade mineralisation throughout the 6km strike length of the Douay deposit (see Figures 1, 2)

The higher-grade zones are variably plunging and structurally-controlled by northwest-southeast striking Douay faults and east-west trending faults of the Casa Berardi Deformation Zone (CBDZ)

The down-plunge continuity of higher-grade zones has to-date been tested only to shallow depth ? the average drill-hole depth at Douay is only ~230m vertical ? providing excellent potential for resource expansion to depth (Fig. 2)

Additional mineralisation controls and orientations are related to the morphology of more local structures, syenite intrusions and their contacts

Matthew Hornor, Maple Gold?s President and CEO, commented: ?Having a more thorough set of structural interpretations and a new 3D geological model establishes a foundation more in line with the standards of a major gold company and marks an important internal milestone for our technical team.?

Fred Speidel, VP, Exploration, added: ?These new products have strongly encouraged us to pursue down-plunge extensions of higher-grade zones that continue below the current average depth of drilling at Douay. They will also allow us to more accurately target these higher grade zones in our subsequent drill programs.???

[1]?Micon 2018: NI 43-101 Technical Report Mineral Resource Estimate for the Douay Gold Project

https://maplegoldmines.com/images/pdf/2018/Douay_NI_43_101_Technical_Report_March_2018.pdf

Additional updates pertaining to the new 3D model, pending resource estimate update and new priority drill targets will be provided shortly.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical data contained in this press release was reviewed and prepared under the supervision of Fred Speidel, M. Sc, P. Geo., Vice-President Exploration, of Maple Gold.?Mr. Speidel is a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.?Mr. Speidel has verified the data related to the exploration information disclosed in this news release through his direct participation in the work.

Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC)

Maple Gold implements strict Quality Assurance (?QA?) and Quality Control (?QC?) protocols at Douay covering the planning and placing of drill holes in the field; drilling and retrieving the NQ-sized drill core; drill-hole surveying; core transport to the Douay Camp; core logging by qualified personnel; sampling and bagging of core for analysis; transport of core from site to the analytical laboratory; sample preparation for assaying; and analysis, recording and final statistical vetting of results. For a complete description of protocols, please visit the Company?s QA/QC page on the website at: http://maplegoldmines.com/index.php/en/projects/qa-qc-qp-statement

About Maple Gold

Maple Gold is an advanced gold exploration and development company focused on defining a district-scale gold project in one of the world?s premier mining jurisdictions. The Company?s ~389 km? Douay Gold Project is located along the Casa Berardi Deformation Zone (55 km of strike) within the prolific Abitibi Greenstone Belt in northern Quebec, Canada. The Project benefits from excellent infrastructure and has an established gold resource3 that remains open in multiple directions. For more information please visit www.maplegoldmines.com.

ON BEHALF OF MAPLE GOLD MINES LTD.

?Matthew Hornor?

B. Matthew Hornor, President & CEO

For Further Information Please Contact:

Mr. Joness Lang

VP, Corporate Development

Cell: 778.686.6836

Email: jlang@maplegoldmines.com

In Europe:

Swiss Resource Capital AG

Jochen Staiger

info@resource-capital.ch

www.resource-capital.ch

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS PRESS RELEASE.

Forward Looking Statements:

This news release contains ?forward-looking information\ and ?forward-looking statements? (collectively referred to as ?forward-looking statements?) within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation in Canada, including statements about the prospective? mineral potential of the Porphyry Zone, the potential for significant mineralization from other drilling in the referenced drill program and the completion of the drill program. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, uncertainties and management?s best estimate of future events. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company?s expectations and projections. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding timing and completion of the private placement. When used herein, words such as ?anticipate?, ?will?, ?intend? and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are based on certain estimates, expectations, analysis and opinions that management believed reasonable at the time they were made or in certain cases, on third party expert opinions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, and uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual events, results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future events, results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. For a more detailed discussion of such risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, refer to Maple Gold Mines Ltd.?s filings with Canadian securities regulators available on www.sedar.com or the Company?s website at www.maplegoldmines.com. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
POINTE BLANCHE:--- The cruise ship MSC Magnifica made its inaugural call on Thursday, January 17th the second cruise ship for the New Year - and was welcomed by Minister of Tourism & Economic Affairs Stuart Johnson and Port St. Maarten representatives where the official plaque and welcome pleasantries were exchanged. This is the second vessel of MSC Cruises to make an inaugural call at Port St. Maarten within the past two weeks.

It was a pleasure once again for me to welcome to Port St. Maarten another cruise ship that has never been here before. It is testament to the hard work of Port St. Maarten Management and Staff whereby our cruise partners continue to add the destination to their cruise itineraries.

Without a doubt, we have to continue to do our best to provide experiences that cruise passengers find amazing and would like to come back to the island to spend more time. The Government and the port are working diligently to grow our cruise numbers for 2019-2020 and we are on the right track where this is concerned, Minister Stuart Johnson said on Thursday.

The MSC Magnifica is currently on MSC Cruises first 119-day world cruise, considered the First Round-the-World Relay Race at Sea, and Port St. Maarten is one of 49 different destinations in 32 countries that the vessel and its passengers are visiting.

The cruise ship passengers started their cruise on January 8, from Barcelona, Spain (Mediterranean) and took them to the Caribbean, and thereafter through the Panama Canal and over the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, through the Gulf and back to Europe at the end of the 119-day cruise. Cruise guests would have covered six continents, traveling 32,260 nautical miles and crossing 24 time zones.

The MSC Magnifica is part of the Musica-class cruise ship operated by MSC Cruises and is the fourth ship to be built along the Musica class design. The vessel was constructed by STX Europe shipyard in Saint-Nazaire.

We were very pleased to welcome the Captain, guests and crew onboard MSC Magnifica to Port St. Maarten on Thursday, as the vessel is currently on a world cruise.

This is an incredible cruise of discovery and a journey that has taken them to St. Maarten, the Friendly Island. We are proud that our destination is one of the 49 where passengers were able to make memorable experiences while on-island and capturing all that the island has to offer, Port St. Maarten Management said on Thursday.

MSC Magnifica has a gross tonnage of 95,128 tons; has 13 decks; 964 feet long, and a beam of 106 feet. The ship carries over 3,600 passengers and over 1,000 crew.

MSC Cruises, is a Swiss-based and is considered the worlds largest privately-owned cruise line. The company, which grew by 800% since 2004, carried two million guests in 2017 and reported strong financial results with a turnover of $2.2 billion.

MSC Cruises has deep Mediterranean roots employing over 23,700 staff globally and selling cruise vacations in 70 countries around the world.

MSC Cruises 15 ships boast a host of cutting-edge innovations and the latest technologies, and its global fleet is one of the youngest at sea. The fleet was born of a 6 bn investment program launched in 2003 and after successful completion of the first investment phase, the Company launched a second phase investment worth 11.6 bn that will see the fleet expand to 25 mega-cruise ships by 2026. MSC Cruises is the first global cruise line brand to develop an investment plan of such length and magnitude, according to company information.

MSC Cruises is the cruise line with the highest passenger capacity on order. An additional ten cruise ships are due to join its fleet by 2026. In addition to the upcoming four Meraviglia and two Seaside ships, these will include four World Class vessels. With 205,000 GT and capacity for 6,761 guests, this new class of cruise ships will bring a new generation of LNG-powered engines that will strongly minimize their environmental footprint.

MSC Cruises is the brand market leader in Europe, South America and South Africa, sailing year-round in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Seasonal itineraries cover northern Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, South America, southern Africa, China and Abu Dhabi, Dubai and India.
Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian supermodel turned environmental activist Gisele Bundchen is pushing back against the agricultural minister in her homeland, along the way wading into a growing debate about the future of the Amazon.

Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Credit:AP

The brouhaha began on Monday when Minister Tereza Cristina Dias accused Bundchen of tainting the country's image abroad. During a radio interview, Dias called the supermodel a "bad Brazilian" for denouncing deforestation and said the model should be promoting Brazil's agriculture and industries.

Late on Wednesday, Bundchen wrote a measured response, saying she would "be happy to announce positive actions" taken toward sustainable development.

In her letter, Bundchen said she was surprised by the derogatory mention. She said her criticisms, which included a series of Tweets last year, were based on science and came from a "worried Brazilian citizen."
Copenhagen: Afghan-born Sakandar Khan, 30, was among the first nine new Danish citizens who shook hands with Denmark's immigration minister under a new law that makes a handshake the final step in the naturalisation process.

"This is a huge thing for me. I am thrilled," the former practicing Muslim dressed in shirt and tie said with a smile.

For Khan, who fled Afghanistan with his family in 2001, shaking the hand of the minister, who happens to be female, was not a problem. But the law has been criticised for breaching freedom of religion, as some observant Muslims and Jews avoid touching unrelated members of the opposite sex.

The government says the handshake is an important part of Danish culture and values, and no one who refuses can be Danish.
The cry was as jarring and intrusive as it was unexpected. Huddled against a bracing Frankfurt morning, the delegation of Jewish leaders from centres as diverse as Novosibirsk, Siberia, and Santiago, Chile, was listening to an outdoor briefing about the turbulent history which lay behind a sign that simply said "Judenmarkt".

Just metres away was an elongated grey wall, its surface punctuated by tiny metal boxes  simulated coffins?  each bearing biographical details of one of the 11,500 Jews of Frankfurt who were murdered in the Holocaust. Suddenly, a cream-coloured Mercedes taxi raced towards us; as it passed, the driver lowered his window and yelled "Alles luege!"  which translates, unfortunately, to "All lies!"

Vic Alhadeff, centre, with Dr Felix Klein, appointed by the German government to devise a strategy to combat antisemitism.

The irony that the invective occurred during the final presentation on the final day of a week-long government program titled "Jewish Life in Germany" was not lost on the international visitors, while visibly rattling our guide's composure. A commendable initiative of the German Foreign Ministry, the comprehensive schedule of briefings, site visits and participation in Holocaust memorial ceremonies immersed us in the fraught situation in which the German Government and the nation's 250,000 Jews currently find themselves.

Headlining the most disturbing aspect of the evolving landscape is the eruption onto the political scene of an extremist party with neo-Nazi elements, the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD). From a standing start, it burst into prominence in September 2017 and now occupies an alarming 92 seats in the Bundestag (federal parliament), making it one of the country's largest opposition parties, while fielding MPs in all 16 of the nation's state parliaments.
Bangkok: The demolition of about 100 homes near Ho Chi Minh City, including one owned by the Catholic Church, has pitted the church against authorities in the latest such dispute over land in the Communist Party-ruled country.

Residents in Tan Binh district received no warning of the demolitions earlier this month and were given little compensation, according to local media reports.

Land conflicts have risen in Vietnam since the ruling Communist Party launched its economic reforms, or doi moi, in the late 1980s, which resulted in more farming land being taken over to build highways and large industrial zones.

About 100 homes near Ho Chi Minh were demolished, including one owned by the Catholic Church. Credit:Alamy

Disputes over property between Catholics and authorities are common, and have posed one of the key obstacles to a normalisation of relations with the Vatican.
Despite earlier reports, a man killed in Kenya in an attack by al Shabaab militants on a hotel in the capital Nairobi was not an Australian citizen, government officials say.

Kenyan media had reported that an Australian man visiting his girlfriend in the African nation was one of the 21 people killed in the attack.

But a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs on Friday confirmed this was not the case.

"The Australian high commission in Nairobi has confirmed that an individual reported by some media as an Australian victim of the attack on the dusitD2 hotel complex was not an Australian citizen," the spokesperson said.
Parliament is no more diverse than it was in 1988, as the government and opposition benches swell with white men, political staffers, unionists, lawyers and bankers.

A new study of parliamentary records shows teachers - the most common route into federal politics three decades ago - have been replaced by political operatives, with up to 40 per cent of all MPs and 50 per cent of all Labor representatives now hailing from backgrounds as political staffers.

Only one side of politics, Labor, has made any real progress on female representation, but overall only a third of federal MPs are women - compared to 51 per cent of the population. The Nationals have only added one female MP in 30 years.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his frontbench. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Culturally and ethnically, Parliament is in a time warp. Since 1988, the proportion of Australians born overseas has risen from 22 per cent to 33 per cent, but their representation in Parliament has stalled at 11 per cent.
NSW's most marginal federal electorate is set for a preselection showdown this weekend, with the Nationals looking to enter the race for Gilmore with former state MP Katrina Hodgkinson.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are considering ditching their preselected candidate for someone favoured by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, in a move that would infuriate local members and the party's state executive.

Former NSW primary industries minister Katrina Hodgkinson is considering a tilt at the federal seat of Gilmore. Credit:Katherine Griffiths

The Nationals conducted a ReachTel poll in the south coast seat of Gilmore on Thursday seeking opinion on Ms Hodgkinson, a former state MP and primary industries minister.

The junior Coalition partner is entitled to run in the seat as the current Liberal member, Ann Sudmalis, is retiring at the election. Three-cornered races with Labor are not uncommon in these circumstances and can sometimes help the Coalition maximise the centre-right vote.
On the first day of the year in Nauru, Iranian refugee Bita* sent a damning letter to the Australian Border Force (ABF) accusing it of "barbarism". She had been refused resettlement in the United States and demanded an end to being held indefinitely on the Pacific island.

"Im fed up and Im not going to beg for settlement in Australia or reunion with my brother [in Australia] any more," she wrote to the ABF. "Please let me know when would you let me seek asylum in another country which cares about humanitarian [sic]."

The ABF is the government agency responsible for onshore and offshore border control.

Bita, a 30-year-old woman from an Arab minority in Iran, asked the agency why it refused to treat her depression, anxiety attacks, hand pains and sciatica. Was this a way of abusing her, she wondered? "If so, please let me know when you are planning to stop harming and punishing me," she wrote.

Bita has sent a stream of increasingly anguished correspondence to the ABF for years, pleading for intervention. Medical specialists on Nauru have acknowledged her long mental decline. "There is very little life in her," one International Health and Medical Services (IHMS) counsellor reported.
It says something about the political ineptness of federal and state Nationals ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, that he insists that the fish deaths are the effects of drought rather than policy, or of drought accompanied by abrupt changes in temperature. No doubt these have played their part in the catastrophe but, as usual along the Darling system, the problem is much more complicated than that, and owes much to the overallocation of water to irrigation farmers, particularly along the Macquarie and Barwon rivers, to the failures of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, not least (from the start) in failing to prioritise the environment ahead of agricultural needs, and to rorting of the whole system, with the connivance of public service regulators, particularly in the NSW government. That federal ministers and some public servants in the primary industry department see their function as facilitating agriculture and maximising its export revenue has also led to the corruption of the public stewardship they were supposed to deliver to the whole community. Loading One reason the symbolism of the fish deaths has the power to sound in votes is that the division of scarce resources inevitably involves rationing, winners and losers, and people who argue about what should be rationed. The Four Corners report last year, which showed some big farmers stealing water, acquired some of its moral force from the fact that the rorters were dobbed in by neighbours as well as by folk nearby. They were angry and resentful not only because the rorters were taking water for free while they paid for it, but because the rorting of the supply meant a diminished total supply. That's quite apart from the fact that many farmers are keen fishers, well-versed in their local environments, and want to live sustainably in them, rather than by mining its water supplies and raping the soil. But that's just in the immediate neighbourhood. In any river system, there are folk upstream and downstream, particularly downstream, who will gripe that their allocations have been reduced because too much water has been taken upstream. They are often right, even within a state. But there has been a long pattern of farmers within an upstream state taking more than they should, to the ultimate disadvantage of downstream states, particularly South Australia. That's a problem aggravated by physical constraints, including weirs that often prevent water flowing downstream, by very poor Commonwealth policy and management of efficiencies to save water, and by evaporation. Given the original overallocations of water licences to irrigators, the Commonwealth began buying allocations (from "willing sellers" on the water market). But this was unpopular in some areas, with claims (by no means substantiated) that the sale of irrigation licences was depopulating communities and reducing their resources. The present government prefers to spend public money subsidising farmers to increase the efficiency of their water use, thus liberating some water for the environment. There are problems with this approach. First, the cost of the water "liberated" for the environment by such measures is nearly three times that of water liberated through buying allocations on the open market, the supposed ideal distributing mechanism. Second, the economic benefit from the subsidised infrastructure and efficiency mechanisms goes to the individual farmer, rather than to a district or the public at large. In a real sense, neighbours can be economically disadvantaged because they are unable to grow food or cotton at the cost of the neighbours whose "investment" in better methods was heavily subsidised.

That has also brought to light other inequities. Last year in NSW, the government announced measures to "borrow" water from the environmental reservation because of the dought's severity. Listening to the blather coming from the Nationals, one would have understood the announcement as suggesting that some water was being liberated so farmers and graziers could get minimal supplies for thirsty sheep, or to round off a crop almost ready for harvest. Loading But the extra water, better characterised as water stolen rather than borrowed, was not rationed out to the needy. It was auctioned out to the highest bidder  usually to better-off farmers not suffering as greatly from the drought and thus in a better position to bid high. Some water, indeed, went upstream to farmers not actually in drought at all. And some of the crops "topped off" were not crops planned and planted as possible from diminishing allocations as drought took hold, but extra speculative planting, just in case there was late rain. The South Australian royal commission into the management of the Murray-Darling system, being conducted by Bret Walker, SC, should soon report. Set up in response to anger about its very junior status at the table, it has had minimal cooperation from the Commonwealth (which ordered that the basin authority, and its staff and board members, not give evidence). The commission has had only token cooperation from the states. But that has not meant that it has been purely parochial, or that the evidence before it has been skewed to South Australian matters or interests. For starters, there are many players, including irrigators and farming interests from other states, who were keen to give evidence and to describe their problems. There have been retired basin workers and regulators, and former CSIRO staff still angry about how managers caved in to politicians and changed scientific calculations of water needs to suit political agendas. There has been abundant evidence showing the authority's setting and subsequent reduction of sustainable environmental allocations not in response to any scientific analysis but to calculations of what interest groups might accept. After the interests complained about the initial determination that a minimum 3000 gigalitres of water a year was needed to meet environmental water requirements, the authority was told to "pick a number with a '2' in front of it". It settled for 2750 gigalitres, but despite all of the fad words about science, accountability and transparency, has been unable, since its establishment, to show how it arrived at either figure. Expert advice from scientists is that the minimum environmental allocation should have been 6900 gigalitres in an average year, that there was Buckley's of satisfying the environmental needs with an allocation of 3000, let alone 2750.

It is typical of the mendacity of NSW's participation in the scheme that it came up with a rort to meet demands for a higher environmental flow. It wants to close up the Menindee Lakes, leaving only a narrow channel by which the water can go downstream. After all, it argues, the water in the lakes (when it is there) only evaporates. Would it be better if, instead, it was sent to those whingeing crow-eaters, without actually disturbing the standard of living of NSW agribusiness upstream. Local farmers, as well as the city of Broken Hill, which draws its water from the lakes, are furious, some insisting that the evaporation causes local weather in any event, but also speaking of the lakes' importance as a wetlands site, a sanctuary for birds, a breeding place for fish (if there are any left) and as a sieve settling some of the dirty water. The basin does not appear to be much of a player in the argument involved, even from its duty as the ultimate protector of the riverine environment. Loading But it seems certain that Bret Walker will hold that the then Commonwealth solicitor-general was wrong when he advised Tony Burke, when the authority was set up, that protecting the environment was only one aim in basin management. Equally important were social and economic considerations. Walker, and the counsel assisting the royal commission, are certain that this interpretation is wrong. Indeed, they say that every senior constitutional lawyer consulted shares this view. The authority is first required to establish the basin's minimum environmental needs. Only after that can it set allocations for irrigation, or for domestic use in towns and elsewhere. Walker plainly thinks the misinterpretation of the Water Act's clear instructions has led the authority to think it must perform some political juggling act, by which it ends up with some solution that causes all of the vested interests least trouble. As such, the authority has failed miserably, and compounded rather than alleviated the rivers' problems.

The counsel assisting, Richard Beasley, SC, has not been kind to the authority or its board. He quoted senior international scientists who said it was a fundamental tenet of good governance that scientists produced facts and that government decided on values and made choices. They were concerned that scientists in the authority felt pressured "to trim [the facts] so that the sustainable diversion limit will be one that is politically acceptable". Loading Beasley said that if all the Murray-Darling Basin Authority had done over the past eight years was to "trim the facts", it would be bad enough. "But it's worse than that. The implementation of the basin plan has been marred by maladministration. By that I mean mismanagement by those in charge of the task at the basin authority, its executives and its board, and the consequent mismanagement of huge amounts of public funds. The responsibility for that ... falls on both past and present executives of the MDBA and its board." There are many guilty parties, and few deserve to be spared. Fish rot from the top, it is said.
Scott Morrison is sticking with Australia's climate change targets despite strong criticism from Fiji about the urgent need to move to cleaner energy.

The prime minister says Australia's emissions reduction targets will remain the same, but money will be spent to help Pacific nations tackle the effects of climate change.

Scott Morrison serves sausages to young rugby league players in Fiji. Credit:Dan Himbrechts

Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama urged Australia to move to clean power sources.

"From where we are sitting, we cannot imagine how the interests of any single industry can be placed above the welfare of Pacific peoples and vulnerable people in the world over," he said in a speech on Thursday night.
Is there any pleasure greater  especially for an Australian man  than packing a car boot for the summer holidays? I love it. It's the highlight of every January.

Of course, for the pleasure to be complete, a nay-sayer must be recruited. Around here: Jocasta. She might offer some advice: "You'll have to leave the boogie boards behind, they'll never fit." Or: "Take the small Esky, that big one will fill out the whole boot."

They didn't start early enough to miss the traffic, but those car boots are packed to perfection. Credit:Adam McLean AMZ

At this point, the Australian male says nothing. He may permit a small knowing twinkle to emanate from his eyes. Other than that, it's just a feeling of quiet, manly confidence as he goes about his work.

I start with the beach towels. Therein lies my brilliance. When packing a station wagon, the back-seat slopes into the area of the boot. A thoughtless person might slide in an Esky or a bulky suitcase, leaving a section of free space in the lee of that slope. By rolling the towels into a series of long sausages, the swimming costumes nestled within, that space is brilliantly occupied.
(CNN)  Hitachi has shelved plans for a $20 billion nuclear power plant in the United Kingdom, raising questions over future energy supplies in the country.

The Japanese conglomerate said in a statement Thursday that it has stopped work on the project in Wales after failing to reach a deal with the British government.

Horizon Nuclear Power, the company's UK nuclear division, said the decision was made after several years of negotiations over financing with UK authorities failed to yield results.

Hitachi is the second big Japanese company to back away from the UK nuclear energy industry in recent months.

In November, Toshiba (TOSBF) said it would shut down its UK nuclear power operation NuGen early this year after failing to find a buyer.

The moves by Hitachi and Toshiba will make it harder for Britain to meet its targets to reduce carbon emissions. They also throw plans to replace the country's aging nuclear plants into disarray.

"The urgent need for further new nuclear capacity in the United Kingdom should not be underestimated," said Tom Greatrex, chief executive of Britain's Nuclear Industry Association.

"Without a diverse low carbon mix and with increasing demand to power electric vehicles, we run the risk of becoming more reliant on burning fossil fuels to produce our electricity," he added.

The Hitachi plant would have provided about 6% of Britain's total electricity needs, according to the British government.

The 16 billion ($20.6 billion) project was expected to create work for up to 8,500 people during construction and 850 jobs once it came online in the mid-2020s. Hitachi had also planned to invest in local infrastructure, such as transport links.

The company said it would "keep the option to resume development in future." But it said in a stock market filing that it would write down 300 billion yen ($2.8 billion) already spent on the project.

"I am very sorry to say that despite the best efforts of everyone involved we've not been able to reach an agreement to the satisfaction of all concerned," Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of Horizon Nuclear Power, said in a statement.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Hitachi shelves $20 billion nuclear power plant in UK."
Not everyone is a fan of multiculturalism. That includes the current Prime Minister.

At least, thats one conclusion you can draw from his aversion to the word.

This week, Scott Morrison announced that local councils would be compelled to hold

citizenship ceremonies on January 26. Australia Day should be reserved for

conferring citizenship to migrants, given that Australia is the most successful

migrant country on earth.

Scott Morrison avoids the word multiculturalism, but there are many ways for an immigrant to identify as an Australian. Credit:AAP

Its a fine sentiment in one respect. While there is disagreement about whether January 26 is the right date for Australia Day, few would dispute the nations historic success with immigration.

But Morrisons favoured choice of words  his distancing from multiculturalism - represents a departure from predecessor Malcolm Turnbull. As PM, Turnbull was fond of describing us as the most successful multicultural society in the world. He spoke often about the value of mutual respect.

This isnt about splitting hairs. As Ill explain, theres an important difference between saying were a migrant country and saying that were also a multicultural society.
Tensions between Fisheries Minister Dave Kelly and the Western Rock Lobster industry continue to simmer after Mr Kelly released findings of a review that found cray fishers were keeping portions of extra catches allowed under the local lobster program for themselves.

Mr Kelly was citing a 2018 Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development review of the local lobster program. The program was set up in 2016 by the Barnett government to provide more lobsters for the local market.

The lobster war continues to rage. Credit:Recfishwest

Fishermen have strongly denied the claim and criticised Mr Kelly for citing a report that isn't publicly available.

On Friday Mr Kelly pointed to several pitfalls of the local lobster program allegedly found by the review, including that during the first two phases of the program more than a quarter of the seafood was kept by the fishers themselves.
A woman scammed out of $34,000 when her final house building payment went to criminals who tricked her rather than the builder said she was "shocked to the core".

Astrid, who did not want her surname published, received an email invoice she believed came from her builder seeking final payment.

Two new home owners, one in Bremer Bay and the other in Perth, have lost their final building payments to a digital scam. Credit:Heather McNeill

We live in Bremer Bay and everything is done remotely here. When I saw the email invoice, everything looked credible. But the email showed a change of bank account," she said.

Ive been in touch with suppliers who have changed their accounts in the past so I didnt think too much of it.
Two men have faced court charged with the rape of underage girls in Melbourne's west.

Noor Hason, 29, of Werribee, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday, charged with one count of sexually penetrating a girl under 16 on December 3 last year.

Mohammed Nuramin, 21, of Noble Park, appeared separately, charged with three counts of sexually penetrating a girl under 12, one count of sexually penetrating a girl under 16 and two of intentionally touching a child under 16.

The accused made no bid for bail and magistrate Felicity Broughton remanded each to reappear on April 5.

AAP
Recently Gillette released an ad that called on men to act like basically decent human beings. That is, not to bash other men or sexually assault women, and to intervene as bystanders when witnessing harmful behaviours.

It is something to celebrate when a company like Gillette begins to interrogate some of the toxic masculine tropes that have underpinned their own advertising campaigns in years gone by. The ad was produced by Australian Kim Gehrig, who did an excellent job.

Israeli student Aiia Maasar.

However, while all the women in my life have been excitedly sharing this video, the men in my life have been silent.

Similarly, the comment threads related to this video were dominated by women who were ready to have a conversation about what we can do to support the men in our lives to reject harmful masculine norms. I didnt see one man engaging in this conversation.
Students at La Trobe University's sprawling Bundoora campus want CCTV cameras installed at surrounding bus and tram stops following the horrific killing of international student Aiia Maasarwe.

Ms Maasarwe, 21, got off the Route 86 tram on the corner of Plenty Road and Main Drive near the Polaris shopping centre in Melbourne's outer-north just after midnight on Tuesday.

Hundreds of people gathered in tribute to La Trobe student Aiia Masaarwe in the Agora courtyard at the Bundoora campus on Friday. Credit:Rachael Dexter

She was about to walk the one kilometre to Kingsbury Gardens, her student housing on the campus, when she was attacked. Her walk home was via a long stretch of road, heavily lined by trees, alongside large areas of grass and bushland and with no visible street lighting.

La Trobe Vice Chancellor John Dewar vowed to hundreds of students who gathered at the university for a vigil on Friday that Ms Maasarwe's death would be the last at the campus.
Detectives have named the man found dead in his apartment by his sister in Brisbane's north as Robert Charles Frescon.

Police were yet to determine what led to the death of Mr Frescon but were treating the death as a homicide.

Detective Acting Inspector Christopher Toohey is appealing for information about the death of 33-year-old man Robert Charles Frescon. Credit:Queensland Police

Mr Frescon's sister went to check on him after he did not turn up to work on Friday.

Emergency services were called to 1/36 Hunter Street at Kelvin Grove after the 33-year-old man was found dead in his unit about 3pm on Friday.
The next big wave of student enrolment growth will be on the Gold and Sunshine coasts and in the outer Brisbane ring of Moreton and Ipswich, Education Queensland has predicted.

Only one new Queensland state school will open in 2019, at Springfield West, as more than 805,000 students return to school.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (centre) visits the Bremer State High School in Ipswich, west of Brisbane. Credit:AAP

However, eight new state schools will open next year in 2020, including Queenslands first vertical high school.

That includes primary and secondary schools in the Ripley Valley near Ipswich and Yarrabilba, which were identified nearly a decade ago as future mega-cities by the Bligh government.
The history of NSW's failings when it comes to school buildings can be told in the story of its toilets. For decades, short-door cubicles have been the default; they are cheaper to build, easier to clean, and simpler to monitor for mischief than full doors. But no-one asked the students what they thought. If they had, most would have said they hated those dungeons of embarrassment and bullying, and would go to uncomfortable lengths to avoid them.

An artist's impression of the new North Kellyville Public School.

Details like toilet design can have a profound impact on a student's school experience. If a child cuts down on drinking water because they don't like visiting the loo, there can be ripple effects on their behaviour and learning, says Stephen Heppell, a British educator who consults on building projects around the world. "This is simple stuff," he says. "If you build the school without talking to the kids, you'll end up with dehydration."

So when a government agency has $6 billion in its pocket to design and build 170 new and upgraded schools that will house generations of children, and if it wants to avoid costly mistakes that will reverberate for the 100-year life of the building and effect students' experience every day, it needs to ask those basic questions not only of students, but of teachers, parents and neighbours. And it needs to work out how to translate these ideas into bricks-and-mortar reality.

It's a complex job. But Education Minister Rob Stokes expects School Infrastructure NSW, the agency overseeing this massive task, to achieve even more. He wants the schools to be grand. "I want us to recapture a little bit of what I'd call the monumentalism of 19th century schools - beautiful facades that said something about the importance of education, and [made] quite a civic statement" he says. "We lost our way in that functional period where schools were hidden away, and almost designed to look bland. So much of the focus on schools at the moment is on what they teach us to do. [Schools also] tell us the story of our society and who we want to be."
"And I decided to do this big, diving leap." Maddi, 23, was sitting on the beach while Ash, 30, swam out to the pier. Ash Treseder, left, dives from the pier at Shoal Bay with friends in April last year. Credit:Instagram "There was heaps of people around  there would have been a good 20 kids on the same pier doing the same thing," Maddi said. "When it happened, I genuinely thought he may have been concussed. He was head down  face down  in the water, and I thought he was unconscious."

Ash said after he hit the bottom, his body went "completely blank". He was conscious, but he was unable to move his arms or his legs to swim to safety. "I could hear all the kids, people swimming and laughing, and everyone on the pier," he said. "And all I could think was, 'Shit, I can't move. I can't swim. I am going to drown.' "I was just waiting for someone to jump in after me. Waiting and waiting. It felt like an eternity.

"I thought I was gone." He had just started to black out when a man jumped in and flipped him over. "That's when I got my first gasp of air. Others came around to support me and walked me closer to shore," he said. They held Ash in the water until paramedics arrived about 45 minutes later, Maddi said. Every wave  every ripple  that lapped his neck was agony.

Being unable to move was terrifying. He was flown to Royal North Shore for extensive emergency surgery, and he has been there ever since. Ash, a keen sportsman and a disability support worker, broke two vertebrae in his neck, shattered another, and suffered spinal cord and nerve damage. They had driven 70 kilometres up to Shoal Bay that morning to have lunch and a swim to celebrate the last day of their holiday. Over lunch at the Country Club, they had been talking about their big plans for the year: an engagement party, a house, a wedding in November, a honeymoon.

And the possibility of starting a family. "I looked at Ash and I said, 'It all seems too good to be true,' " Maddi said. "I remember saying it, because I had never felt happier than in that moment, talking about the life we were going to have in this beautiful part of the world. "An hour later, it had all flipped. "It's funny how life can prove you right."

Ash said they had been sunbaking and swimming at the beach that morning, and had planned to go home straight after lunch. "But me, being me, mentioned I wanted to jump off the pier," he said. "I said, 'Let me just go and quickly jump off the pier. I don't want to have come out all this way and not have jumped off.' "Maddi said, 'Go for it, but be careful,' " What followed was "all a blur" for Maddi.

"I remember seeing him bobbing up and down in the water, and people starting to get in and try to flip him over, and all I could think was, 'Put your head up Ash. Put your head up,' " she said. "I said it out loud as I started walking towards him. I was just in complete shock as to how quickly our day had changed. I just kept walking. 'Turn over! Put your head up!' "It was very traumatic. But we have a great support network who are helping us through it all at the moment." After his initial surgery, doctors advised Ash that he was unlikely to walk again. "They had told me I was just going to have some feeling in my shoulders, that I'd be able to shrug, and that would probably be the extent of what I would be able to do," he said.

But so far, he had regained more sensation, more movement, than expected. "At the moment, it is numb basically from the chest down. But I've got a great range of movement in my arms, my hands, my biceps, my triceps, my wrist. "My fingers are still numb. But there's still some hope more will come back within the next 12 weeks." His neck and spinal cord needed time to "settle" before he would know more. The couple expect to be in Sydney, at the hospital and then a rehab facility, for at least the next six months.

"We are trying to organise our life as much as we can," Maddi said. "But we are walking in the dark at the moment. "It's going to be a bit of a struggle, but we have seen many other families get through it and we are determined to do the same." A Go Fund Me campaign to support Ash's recovery and rehabilitation had raised more than $66,000 in two weeks. "Never in a million years could I have imagined how much support people would have given me," an emotional Ash said. "It has restored my faith in humanity  people genuinely caring for people in tough spots." Maddi said every cent raised would go towards his ongoing treatment, recovery and changing needs.

"He is going to need years and years of physio and rehab, but also, it is to help pay for house and car modifications," she said. "It is solely for his recovery, and what he will need in the future with his disability. "What has been raised so far is a testament to him. It shows what type of man he is, and how many lives he has touched. He is one of the most kind, generous young men in this world. The love of my life." For the past 18 months, Ash had worked as a disability support carer in a group home, mainly caring for two men who use wheelchairs. "I am now on the other end of it," he said. "The care and assistance that I'm receiving each morning is what I was doing for the clients I supported.

"It has been eye-opening to be on the other side, and ironic." Ash, a former private investigator, had also recently begun a wedding videography business. He had several weddings booked in for the year. "Unfortunately that has been put on pause," Maddi said. "But his positivity and determination are incredible.

"He is incredible. He has been putting everyone else at ease  even though he is the one going through this life-changing experience that has flipped his world upside down." But Ash said he was just glad to be here. "I got to the point where I thought I was dead  I thought I was going to drown in that water ... But I am still able to look at Maddi now, and tell her I love her, and I didn't think I was going to be able to do that again," he said. "I feel like I've been given a second chance. "It's not the ideal, but it's the one that I've got. And some people don't get that. "I'm still here, trying to give it my best crack."

Ash said Maddi was very good at cheering him up. "I can see how, for a young woman, it would be very easy to take the easy route," he said. "But she's such a strong woman for her age. "She says she is in for the long haul and, more than anything, she is still talking about our plans for getting married at the end of the year." They intend to get married in the Hunter Valley on November 16.

"Our plans, and the way they happen, may be different  very different, but in the long run, our goals are still the same, and still achievable in terms of marriage and a family," Ash said. "That means a lot." Maddi hoped Ash's story showed people that life could change in an instant. "You never know what is going to happen on any given day," she said. "Don't sweat the small stuff. Stay safe.
Storytime Ballet: Coppelia. The Australian Ballet. Original choreography: Arthur St-Leon with additional choreography by David McAllister. Music: Leo Delibes. Design: Hugh Colman (set), Kristian Fredrikson (costumes), Jon Buswell (lighting). The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. Until January 19. canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

A scene from The Australian Ballet's Storytime Ballet: Coppelia. Credit:Jeff Busby

Coppelia is the third production in the popular Storytime Ballet series produced for young people by the Australian Ballet. It follows productions of The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.

Of the three, Coppelia, with its blend of humour, magic and joyous activity, perhaps lends itself best to being rethought as an experience for the young. Its story is simple and it contains some fascinating characters. Apart from the main couple, Swanilda and Franz, who eventually resolve their problems and get married, there is the eccentric Dr Coppelius, a toymaker who dabbles in his own brand of magic and, of course, Coppelia, the life-sized doll Dr Coppelius has created and hopes to bring to life.

Dr Coppelius can be a formidable character but, in this production, anything alarming about him is reduced by the fact that he takes on the role of narrator. Onstage narration has become a feature of the Australian Ballets storytime ballets and it is beautifully done on this occasion by Sean McGrath, whose acting and strong, clear voice were commented on by my young companions.
An IT services provider will establish an office in Canberra, creating 180 jobs, after winning a $91 million federal government contract.

Kinetic IT will also commit $2.35 million towards education and workforce training programs in the ACT, and offer a raft of industry scholarships and traineeships as part of a move to the nation's capital.

The company has been awarded a lucrative contract to provide services to the Department of Defence, following a competitive tender process last year.

ACT Liberal senator Zed Seselja has welcomed Kinetic IT's impending arrival in the nation's capital Credit:Jeffrey Chan

ACT Liberal senator and assistant minister for treasury and finance Zed Seselja welcomed news of Kinetic It's impending arrival in Canberra.
They were the protests which saw over five million people worldwide take to the streets following US President Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2017, with clever signs and pink pussy-hats.

But, two years on, Sydney Women's March chapter ambassador Jaime Evans believes the Women's March still has relevance.

Ambassadors for the 2019 Sydney Women's March (from left): Erika Heynatz, Alexandra Smart, Lord Mayor Clover Moore, Genevieve Smart, Aunt Norma Ingram, Peta Friend and Sarah-Jane Adams.

"The Women's March is about more than Donald Trump," the 30-year-old says.

"Sure, he was the catalyst, but we think of him as a symptom, and not the cause, of misogyny, and inequality, and all of these other problems that are going to remain in Australia whether Trump is president of the US or not."
Its summer in Australia which means sun, surf, cricket and perhaps most importantly, scoffing fish and chips with sand between your toes. Fish and chip takeaway stores are an institution on street corners from Hobart to Cooktown but according to some seafood experts, Australian chippers need to lift their frying game.

Cooking good fish and chips requires a reasonable amount of skill, said John Susman, director of seafood sales and consultancy company, Fishtales. People think that its a just matter of putting a piece of fish through batter and into a fryer but theres so much more to it.

Kensington Fish Shop manager Zak Elkouri with a favourite fry-up. Credit:CHRISTOPHER HOPKINS

Australians dont look at fish and chips as a planned meal anymore, said Sydney-based chef Stephen Hodges, co-author of the Australian Fish and Seafood Cookbook with Susman. Its a knee-jerk reaction meal and not a sustainable business like it once was.

In terms of seafood sustainability Susman said most Australian fish and chip shops are pretty good with their fish offerings. A Mekong Delta catfish commonly known as basa is the most ubiquitous battered fish on menus.
Its summer in Australia which means sun, surf, cricket and perhaps most importantly, scoffing fish and chips with sand between your toes. Fish and chip takeaway stores are an institution on street corners from Hobart to Cooktown but according to some seafood experts, Australian chippers need to lift their frying game.

Cooking good fish and chips requires a reasonable amount of skill, said John Susman, director of seafood sales and consultancy company, Fishtales. People think that its a just matter of putting a piece of fish through batter and into a fryer but theres so much more to it.

Patrons enjoy fresh fish and chips from The Fish Joint' Cafe at Brighton Le Sands. Credit:James Alcock

Australians dont look at fish and chips as a planned meal anymore, said Sydney-based chef Stephen Hodges, co-author of the Australian Fish and Seafood Cookbook with Susman. Its a knee-jerk reaction meal and not a sustainable business like it once was.

In terms of seafood sustainability Susman said most Australian fish and chip shops are pretty good with their fish offerings. A Mekong Delta catfish commonly known as basa is the most ubiquitous battered fish on menus.
They're loved and loathed, they inspire national pride and prejudice. And this summer, as they boldly waltz across a beach close to you, bringing to mind a rich choice of "s" words (sluggos, scungies, smugglers), they'll again drive us into the thick of that great annual debate: speedos or boardies?

A British survey released last year reported that 74 per cent of UK women hate the iconic swimming briefs. Which gives Brenden Hartmann, "general smuggling manager" of speedo-style swimwear brand Budgy Smuggler, a good belly laugh.

Sluggos: many women dont like them, but Aussie entrepreneurs certainly do. Credit:Getty Images

"The UK is now our second-biggest market and sales have tripled since we opened our offices in London a year ago," says Hartmann from his HQ in Sydney's Manly. "The Brits love our larrikin spirit."

By 2000, the nylon racing trunks, which just about every Australian male wore to the beach from the 1950s to the 1980s, seemed to be dead, confined to professional racers and lap swimmers. The huge success of Aussiebum changed all that. In 2001, when unemployed marketing executive Sean Ashby found he could no longer buy the swimmers he grew up wearing, he spent his last $20,000 having a small number manufactured locally and selling them online after department stores turned him away. The Aussiebum brand now produces more than a million items of swimwear and underwear annually, 90 per cent of which are sold overseas from its base in Sydney's inner west, with total sales topping $150 million.
The Bureau of Meteorology has cancelled its severe thunderstorm warning for Canberra and the surrounding region.

Lightning flashes over the Kingston Foreshore on Thursday night. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

AT 6.45pm, it said, "Cancellation Severe Thunderstorm Warning for people in South Coast, Central Tablelands, Southern Tablelands, Central West Slopes and Plains, South West Slopes, Snowy Mountains and Australian Capital Territory Forecast Districts."

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The State Emergency Service advised that people should still be careful:
This week, the only sign of vegetation on the 40-square kilometres of irrigable land at the Darling Farms outside Bourke was the odd weed the few remaining workers hadn't got around to spraying.

Part of the original cotton tracts opened up in north-western NSW by US pioneer Jack Buster half a century ago, the farm hasn't drawn a drop of the nearby Darling River from its barrage of giant pumps since December 2017.

The manager of cotton farm, Darling Farms, in North Bourke, walks along a dry irrigation channel. Credit:Kate Geraghty

No cotton was planted in Bourke or its surrounds this past season and if the rains don't fall in sufficient flood-like quantities, the next planting scheduled for October or so will also be skipped.

After the fish kill on the lower Darling this month left as many as one million fish dead, the cotton industry has been rounded on as a primary culprit of over-extraction from the ailing river system - criticism it says is unwarranted.
All the same, he loves snakes to this day. Did being on the wrong end of one of Australia's most venomous snakes not put him off? "Not at all. The love is there." The moral? "It's not a good idea to collect venomous snakes by yourself." Some would say it's not a good idea to collect venomous snakes at all but Ric does not agree. There are regulations to protect endangered species and they have to be obeyed, but the Snake Man continues to acquire. He only has two at the moment. One is a death adder. "It's downstairs in a cage," he said (death adders cause paralysis of humans, leading to death after about six hours). Ric Longmore was 12 when he caught his first snake. Credit:Karleen Minney

His other snake companion is less threatening. It's a desert python called Precious that he bought after it was bred in captivity. It was born, he knows, on December 6, 2006 and it accompanies him non-venomously, twisting on his arms and neck and drawing fascinated followers, particularly kids. Ric accepted that his snake companions were not as affectionate as dogs and cats. "They aren't terribly exciting animals to keep as pets," he said. "You don't get too much affection, but they are fascinating. "It's been my main love for all these years." Despite their inscrutable, unresponsive, ungrateful demeanour, he thinks his two companions do know when he is coming to feed them. "They're pretty to watch and we love them, some of them are very beautiful to look at," he said.

"Some, like my death adder, are very deadly and not terribly attractive but I still love him because he's a snake that I respect. If I was to get bitten it would be my fault." They aren't terribly exciting animals to keep as pets. You don't get too much affection, but they are fascinating. The Snake Man, as he calls to himself, is still as enthusiastic at the age of 71 as he was at the age of 12 when he caught his first snake. Even before then, he was hooked. "When I was eight or nine, my parents could see I was fascinated." He started reading books about snakes as soon as he could read as a pre-teen boy in Canberra. His boyish fascination took him into more than a half century as a snake catcher in the ACT. He was the man to call if one appeared.

And they are appearing more and more as, in Ric's opinion, we encroach on their territory. The spread of suburban Canberra means a human spread into snake habitat. "People are going to come face to face with snakes as suburbs expand." His advice is to keep calm. Of red bellied black snakes, for example, "they can hardly wait to get out of the way". Whatever you do, don't try to kill a snake. "One of our principle aims is to convince people the only good snake is a live snake. They play their role in vermin control, they have a position in the ecosystem," Ric said. "Snakes are protected in Australia; it's illegal to kill a snake unless there's some imperative reason to. We tell people to call a snake expert or if you see them in the bush, walk away." He thinks the fear of snakes is overdone. He is adamant that the phobia is learnt and not innate. Young children, he says, have to be taught not to pick them up.
STORM BOY 

(PG) 99 minutes

The producers of this new version of Colin Thiele's classic children's story from 1963 would like it known that they did not set out to remake the 1976 film by Henri Safran. Just as well. The much-loved original never puts a foot wrong. A remake was unlikely to match its innocence, originality and emotional subtlety.

No, what this new mob has done is return to the book  which is more like a 60-page story  and monkey with that, instead of the film. The new script, by Justin Monjo, bookends the story with a modern and mechanical wrap-around in which Geoffrey Rush returns from overseas to discover his teenage granddaughter Madeline (Morgana Davies) in a fearsome temper about her father's plans to redevelop the family land in the Coorong  that unique strip of coastal wetland near the mouth of the Murray River in South Australia. Rush plays the grown-up Storm Boy, whose real name was Mike Kingley. They need his signature to proceed.

In flashback, Mike tells Madeline about growing up in the Coorong 60 years earlier. If you remember the original film, the location isn't just familiar, but exact. The old shack that Mike (played by Greg Rowe) shared with his reclusive father Tom (Peter Cummins) appears to have been recreated in the same sandhills on Ninety Mile Beach, on the far side of the river mouth. Which is odd, given that they say they didn't want to remake the original film.
It's midday: time for Gary Cooper to remind us it's high noon. Midnight strikes in Orson Welles' The Stranger bang on the dot of 12. At 5am, Patrick Bateman's alarm clock goes off and he's straight up and into the shower. For 24 hours, Christian Marclay's masterwork The Clock tells us, via a collage of clips from films showing clocks, watches, sundials and digital displays, exactly what time it is. Sometimes characters are moved to mention the hour. "A drink? It's only 2pm!" Sneak a look at your own watch: they're right.

Marclay, 63, grew up in Switzerland but began his artistic career as an experimental DJ in New York during the punk era, mashing up tracks and physically cutting up records before he played them. The Clock does something similar, in that it is essentially a long assemblage of found footage rearranged in a way that remains recognisable  part of the fun is trying to identify the original films  but becomes something in its own right. It's no surprise to find its author is an admirer of Marcel Duchamp, the Dada trickster who shocked the art world by putting a urinal in a gallery and calling it a "ready-made" artwork.

In 2005, Christian Marclay asked himself: 'What if in the history of film, I could find every minute of 24 hours?' The result is The Clock.

The Clock wasn't Marclay's first collage film. In 1996, he made a much shorter piece called Telephones, consisting of archival clips showing people answering the phone: "Hello Dave! Hello Felix! Hello Jeanie!". The inspiration for The Clock came much later. In 2005, he was putting together a video score  a series of images to be "read" by musicians improvising together  in which he included moving clocks to suggest time signatures. It occurred to him that he could use clocks as he had used telephones, but in a much more ambitious way. "What if," he recalls asking himself, "in the history of film, I could find every minute of 24 hours?"

The Clock was completed, with the help of six researchers watching the entire stock of a specialty video store, in 2010. It was an instant hit. Six copies were sold to major museums after it was first shown in London; in New York, people queued around the block to see it; it then won the Golden Lion at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Since then, it has always been screening somewhere.
The NSW government has backflipped on its push for high-rise schools after its first attempt was plagued by cost blow-outs and delays.

Education Minister Rob Stokes said vertical schools were no longer a "preferred" option because they were complicated to build, less adaptable to students' changing needs and expensive to operate.

Construction at the site of the Arthur Phillip High School in Paramatta. Credit:James Alcock

"There was a lot of initial excitement about the concept of vertical schools," he said. "My ardour is not as strong in relation to them."

The first high-rise school, Arthur Phillip High at Parramatta, was supposed to open this coming term but has been delayed until at least term four after a problem-plagued construction. The cost, which includes neighbouring Parramatta Public School were originally estimated to cost $100 million, but has blown out to $325 million.
When there's a new baby on the scene, most parents encounter the odd hurdle doing tasks that used to be simple.

But for parents with an entrepreneurial bent, that kind of challenge can be the lightbulb moment for a new business idea that smooths the path for other families.

Vanouhi Nazarian says a personal need for travel with children to be easier drove her to create her baby equipment rental start-up, Kindershare.

Vanouhi Nazarian created the baby equipment rental start-up, Kindershare.

On her first international flight with her infant daughter, the frequent traveller says "we ended up taking half the house".
"Because of the nature of the job theres a fair amount of concentration required. We've always said if youre sick, you take a sick day - but people know if they take a sick day off theyll be super busy the rest of the week. "Were pretty adamant that if we see someone at work coughing or spluttering, well tell someone to go home and not make everybody else sick." Were pretty adamant that if we see someone at work coughing or spluttering, well tell someone to go home and not make everybody else sick. Gareth Bryant This recasting of the sick day is apparent in other countries too as employers take into account the varying responsibilities of their staff. Mark J. Marsen, director of human resources for Allies for Health & Well-Being, a US agency for those with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, says the sick day "is alive and well" at his company, although the semantics have changed.

"We call them 'personal emergency days'," Marsen says. Broadening the definition gives employees greater privacy, Marsen says. It also takes into consideration mental health and whether a child or another family member who depends on the employee is sick and requires care. No longer does the employee have to "sell" their sickness to their boss with a list of symptoms. Personal days mean "you're not able to do work today because of some circumstance," Marsen says. Last month, Marsen caught a cold while traveling and missed two days of work. On the third day, he says, he felt well enough to work from home and checked his email, getting rid of the junk in his inbox. "That's a life enhancer," he says.

Dr Anne Junor, an academic at the University of NSW, says that a lot of professionals don't take official sick leave because they fear the work will be waiting for them when they get well. So when the workload increases  they take it home and are also likely to keep working whilst sick. "Even people who have sick leave entitlements may find it very hard to take sick leave, because of work pressure. The works going to be piling up for them when they come back," Junor says. "There are some jobs where the difference between being at work and at home if youve got various devices is immaterial.

"Depending on the job, you might lose contracts, sales, clients ... you may seem discourteous. It piles up. The work demands continue. Theyre constant - so its just as easy to do work from your sick bed, really." Junor also says a fear of needing it later was another contributor as to why workers rarely use up their full allocation of sick leave each year. It piles up. The work demands continue. Theyre constant - so its just as easy to do work from your sick bed, really. Anne Junor "Its a rare employee who would take their annual quota of sick leave. Its always a worry in the back of your mind; what if you got really sick in the future and youd used up your entitlement?" AHRI chairman Peter Wilson says that private workplaces have to be more flexible in order to lure the most talented people into their fold - backed up by AHRI data which also showed that people in the public sector take more than three extra days a year off compared with private counterparts, with 10.8 days per annum compared to 7.4.

"Theres a lot more working from home and remotely and we found that, when talking to employers, this reflects an understanding between the mix of interdependent work and independent work," he says. Loading He says that there was no logical reason that independent work - requiring no input from others in your team or management - could not be done remotely. Recent ABS data showed that more than 30 per cent of Australians now work from home in some capacity - an increase from under 20 per cent just 15 years ago. "You can be facing a commute of two hours each way - and if thats not necessary then youre giving people four hours of their life back," Wilson said.
Another 7-Eleven operator has been implicated in the convenience store chains cash-back wage exploitation scandal, in which workers were forced to withdraw and hand back part of their pay to their employer.

The former operator of the 7-Eleven outlet in the heart of Melbournes legal precinct, near the corner of William and Little Lonsdale streets, has been found to have underpaid retail workers thousands of dollars throughout 2015-2016.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has prosecuted a string of 7-Eleven stores for wage exploitation in recent years.

On Friday, Xia Jing Qi Pty Ltd, its owner and store manager were collectively fined $335,664 for the 7-Eleven underpayments, and for paying an employee at another of its businesses, the Ajisen Ramen franchise restaurant inside Melbourne Central, an illegal flat rate of $11.50 an hour and sometimes as little as $3.98 an hour.

Company director Jing Qi Xia and her 7-Eleven store manager Ai Ling Lin were penalised in the Federal Circuit Court for a slew of violations of workplace law, including failing to pay the minimum hourly rates, failing to pay casual loadings, failing to pay weekend and public holiday penalty rates, and for providing false and misleading pay records, following legal action brought by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Andris Dinsbergs is a web developer and part-time garlic farmer, which isn't that unusual a career combination in the small town of Meeniyan in south-eastern Victoria.

Home to the Meeniyan Garlic Festival, the small country town is experiencing a resurgence thanks to a growing interest in garlic.

This is Dinsbergs' second year farming garlic and he says it provides the perfect balance to web development.

"So far so good; I have doubled the crop in size from last year," he says.
The liquidator of fallen tech outfit Appster has revealed a number of "red flags" in the company's demise particularly the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars from customers in the days leading up to its collapse.

On the sidelines of a creditors meeting on Friday, liquidator Paul Vartelas said the speed of Appster's collapse was unusual and pointed to the plight of several customers who made payments just before the company went under.

Before its demise last year, Appster was a tech industry darling offering to build apps from scratch for businesses.

It was founded by young rich listers Mark McDonald and Josiah Humphrey and had a publicly stated ambition to turnover $100 million by last year.

Ive never been involved in a liquidation where two weeks before the company is healthy, and two weeks later its insolvent, said Mr Vartelas, who was appointed liquidator in December.
The former chief of beleaguered legal giant Slater & Gordon has defended his new role on the company's dime even as he and other directors face legal claims they omitted details of the company's allegedly botched 2015 accounts during an external audit.

Andrew Grech left Slater & Gordon in 2017 after the group completed its life-saving restructure caused by the disastrous acquisition of the professional services arm of UK group Quindell.

Slater & Gordon's ex managing director Andrew Grech has a lot on his plate. Credit:Arsineh Houspian

Mr Grech confirmed he became a director and half owner of Equal Access Funding (EAF), a company that has had a long relationship with Slater & Gordon within a few months of stepping down from the Slater & Gordon board in December 2017.

EAF provides litigation funding services to the no-win, no-fee law firm so that cases can be funded ahead of settlements being paid.
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You are now listening to the sounds of the New Generation. A podcast created for those who desire a new way of gaining information rather than reading a traditional newspaper. In our show we will discuss everything from sports, pop culture, politics, and local news. To stay up to date on our latest episodes every week be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast service. And dont worry, we keep it short.
HARARE, ZimbabweZimbabwe imposed a total internet shutdown for most of Friday in what critics called an attempt to hide growing reports of a violent crackdown on protests against a dramatic fuel price increase. Badly injured people streamed into a hospital in the capital, and rights groups said at least 12 people have been killed this week.

Gasoline in the economically shattered country is now the worlds most expensive, and since Monday Zimbabweans have heeded a nationwide call shared on social media to stay at home in protest. Others took to the streets. Since then, graphic reports have emerged of security forces targeting activists and labor leaders while the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa blames the opposition for the unrest.

Our country is going through one of the most trying periods in its history, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference said, lamenting the governments intolerant handling of dissent and its failure to halt economic collapse.

Access to the internet and popular social media apps like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp has been intermittently blocked as the countrys largest telecom company, Econet, sends customers text messages relaying the governments orders and calling the situation beyond our reasonable control.

The shutdown has cut off crucial access to the electronic bank deposits that Zimbabwes struggling government, without a national currency, uses to pay teachers and other public workers. Some people said they stayed home this week because they were running out of money to afford even a bus fare.

As the few shops that are open run out of basic necessities such as bread, hungry Zimbabweans who have ventured out in search of food risk confrontations with security forces.

More than 600 people have been arrested, among them a prominent pastor and activist, Evan Mawarire, who has supported the protests on social media and faces a possible 20 years in prison on a subversion charge.

Mawarire called it heartbreaking to see the new government acting like that of longtime former leader Robert Mugabe, whose repressive regime also charged Mawarire with subversion. A magistrate on Friday told Mawarire, accused of inciting civil disobedience online, that he must stand trial. He remains in detention through the weekend.

More than 400 people arrested across the country have been denied bail, said Mawarires lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa.

Farai Mutsaka is an Associated Press writer.
LONDON  Prime Minister Theresa May held talks Friday with European leaders and British Cabinet colleagues, but efforts to end Britains Brexit stalemate appeared deadlocked, with neither May nor Britains opposition leader shifting from their entrenched positions.

May has been meeting with politicians from several British parties this week to try to find a way forward after her European Union divorce deal was overwhelmingly rejected by Parliament.

Despite that, May has been unwilling to move her red lines in the Brexit negotiations, which include taking Britain out of the blocs customs union. And opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has refused to meet with May unless she rules out the possibility of Britain leaving the EU with no deal  a scenario that many believe would hurt the British economy.

May on Friday also spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and planned more calls to European colleagues over the weekend.

But the talks yielded little progress.

The European Commission said tersely that the May-Juncker call was an exchange of information on both sides and that the two had agreed to stay in touch.

May, who narrowly defeated a no-confidence vote in her Conservative government triggered by Corbyn this week, said it was not within the governments power to rule out no-deal because by law Britain will leave the EU without an agreement on March 29 unless Parliament approves a deal before then.

May is due to publish her revived Brexit blueprint on Monday, before British lawmakers debate it.

The prime minister is in a bind. Many lawmakers think a soft Brexit that keeps Britain in the EUs single market or customs union is the only plan capable of winning a majority in Parliament. But a large chunk of Mays Conservative Party is vehemently opposed to that idea.

Britains political chaos has spurred EU nations to step up preparations for a disorderly British exit. France and other countries are spending millions, hiring thousands of workers and issuing emergency decrees to cope with the possibility that Britain will crash out of the bloc, sparking major disruptions to travel and trade.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Friday inspected some of the countrys preparations for a no-deal Brexit, visiting the Eurotunnel complex and meeting with small businesses on the English Channel coast.

France is paying special attention to the Channel tunnel, which carries millions of passengers annually between Britain and France, as well as freight trucks that play a significant role in Britains trade with the continent.

Amid the political impasse, Mays domestic opponents are gathering. Brexit-backing former-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson used a speech Friday at a bulldozer factory to accuse May of lacking the gumption to get a good deal from the EU.

Jill Lawless is an Associated Press writer.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates She is largely unknown in the United States. But the American anchorwoman for Irans state-run broadcaster, detained last weekend by U.S. authorities, is a familiar face on its English-language channel.

As a newscaster for Press TV, Marzieh Hashemi has been conducting interviews and reading the news as written by government loyalists in the Islamic Republic. Its a long way from New Orleans, where she was born Melanie Franklin in 1959 to a Christian family.

In college in Louisiana, encounters with Iranian students in the wake of Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution saw her convert to Islam. A marriage brought her to Iran, where she learned fluent Farsi and began working for the countrys state broadcaster 25 years ago.

Her journalism and her public comments mirror her host countrys official ideology.

When I got familiar with Islamic Revolution in Iran, and I saw it was a political and religious revolution, I was attracted to this, Hashemi once told an interviewer in Farsi. I saw this as a political movement to the revolution.

Now, after her apparent arrest by the FBI, her family is questioning why the 59-year-old grandmother was imprisoned by the U.S. Her detention comes at a time of escalating U.S.-Iran tensions, including President Trumps maximalist approach to Iran after pulling America out of its nuclear deal.

Hashemi was detained Sunday in St. Louis, where she had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area. She was then taken to Washington by the FBI on a material witness warrant, according to her elder son, Hossein Hashemi.

The FBI said in an email that it had no comment.

Federal law allows judges to order witnesses to be arrested and detained if the government can prove their testimony has extraordinary value for a criminal case and that they would be a flight risk and unlikely to respond to a subpoena. The statute generally requires those witnesses to be promptly released once they are deposed.

Hashemi studied journalism at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. A yearbook photo shows her smiling with other colleagues at WPRG, now KLSU, the student-run radio station.

Hashemi said thats where she learned about Irans revolution, which saw Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi replaced by an Islamic Republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiite cleric who had final say on state matters as the countrys supreme leader.

Hashemi ended up in Iran working at Irans state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB.

It remains unclear why Hashemi was arrested. However, it isnt the first time shes been questioned by U.S. authorities, her son said.

For the past decade, she has been harassed on a regular basis when she goes to airports, he said.

Jon Gambrell is an Associated Press writer.
BEIRUT  An explosion outside an office belonging to an al Qaeda-linked group in the countrys northwestern on Friday killed at least 11 people and wounded several others, opposition activists said.

The blast comes a week after members of the al Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee, or HTS, took over control of wide parts of Idlib province and the surrounding countryside after forcing rival insurgents to accept a deal for a civil administration run by HTS in their areas.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Smart news agency, an activist collective, said the blast occurred on the southern edge of the rebel-held city of Idlib.

The Observatory said 11 people were killed in the blast, including seven HTS members. Smart said 12 people were killed, many of them militants.

In the countrys east, an air strike in the last area held by the Islamic State killed at least 20 people in the village of Baghouz, according to the state news agency SANA. The Observatory said 23 people were killed including 10 Islamic State members.

They both blamed the U.S.-led coalition that has been providing air cover to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in their months-long offensive to capture the area from extremists near the Iraqi border.

Meanwhile in Turkey, President Tayyip Erdogan met with U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to discuss the situation in Syria as the United States prepares to withdraw troops.

Graham, a prominent voice on foreign affairs in the U.S., met with Erdogan and other Turkish officials Friday for talks that were also expected to include a proposal for the creation of a safe zone in northeast Syria.

The visit comes days after a suicide bombing, claimed by Islamic State, killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians in the northeastern town of Manbij.
Between flooding roads, falling trees and beach hazards brought on by this week's torrential storms, the San Francisco Fire Department has had its hands full rescuing people.

One such rescue, though, was notable because it ended in a beautiful display of passive-aggression on Twitter.
A storm the National Weather Service is describing as "moderately strong" will be moving across Northern California Sunday, delivering up to a foot of snow over mountain passes in the Sierra Nevada.

The unsettled weather will arrive right in the middle of the Martin Luther King holiday, when many Bay Area residents will be making the trek to the Tahoe Basin for ski vacations.
The flight deal gurus at Thrifty Traveler have teamed up with SFGate to provide a weekly roundup of the best domestic and international flight deals from the San Francisco Bay Area.

This week our deals include flights from Bay Area airports to Prague, Nashville, Zurich, Barcelona, Dallas, and Portland. All fares listed are round trip. We will only suggest highly restricted "Basic Economy" fares for flights of less than two hours.

(This is our weekly feature called Friday Fare Deals. If you are a Bay Area bargain hunter, be sure to tune in each Friday morning or sign up for our free bi-weekly email alerts. )

DALLAS: If youre looking for cheap flights to Texas, heres your chance! Flights from San Jose to Dallas Love Field are just $156 right now with Alaska Airlines. This nonstop route typically costs over $200. This flight deal is available January through May. This fare is also available from San Francisco to Dallas Fort Worth, but is flying American basic economy, which doesnt include advance seat assignment. Alaska Airlines fares include advance seat assignment and a free carry-on.

$156 - San Jose (SJC) to Dallas (DAL) - Alaska Airlines

NASHVILLE: Alaska fares to Nashville are sub-$200 right now! Take advantage of this nonstop fare from San Francisco to Nashville, available February through March. Flights to Music City are typically $270+. Alaska Airlines fares include advance seat assignment and a free carry-on.

$196 - San Francisco (SFO) to Nashville (BNA) - Alaska Airlines

TravelSkills on SFGate is brought to you by Visa . See More Collapse

PORTLAND: Fly to Portland for $110! Alaska Airlines nonstop route from San Francisco to Portland often costs more than $190, so take advantage of this awesome flight deal ASAP. This deal is available from January through May. Alaska Airlines fares include advance seat assignment and a free carry-on.

$110 - San Francisco (SFO) to Portland (PDX) - Alaska Airlines

Check out Thrifty Traveler Premium for daily international flight deal notifications.

BARCELONA: United is adding two unusual nonstop roundtrips between SFO and Barcelona on February 23 and 27 to shuttle travelers to a big tech convention. If you are interested, you can fly roundtrip for as little as $350 in basic economy or $520 in regular economy (on the Feb 27 flight only). You'll take the nonstop United B777 on the way over and then fly Lufthansa or Swiss on a one-stop return.

$350-$520 - San Francisco (SFO) to Barcelona BCN - United Airlines (nonstop)

ZURICH: Want to explore Switzerland? Take advantage of Deltas cheap flights to Zurich. Flights to Zurich from the Bay Area typically cost $700 - $800 in May, so dont wait to book this one. Best availability this January through May. This flight deal is available on Delta, with just one stop each way. Fly Deltas basic economy for $324 and get a free carry-on but no advance seat assignment, or upgrade to economy for $180 to get advance seat assignment.

$324 - San Francisco (SFO) to Zurich, Switzerland (ZRH) - Delta Airlines basic economy (upgrade for $180 more to get advance seat assignment: $504 total)

PRAGUE: If you havent been to Eastern Europe, take this opportunity and book a cheap flight to Prague! Flights to the capital of Czechia (formerly Czech Republic) are typically $800+, so you can save $300 on flights right now. This fare is available on SWISS airlines, a Star Alliance member. This is their basic economy fare, which includes free carry-on but not advance seat assignment. Upgrade for $110 to get advance seat assignment. This fare is available January through March and September through December. Some flights flying American partner British Airways are event cheaper at $500 in fall. Just one short stop each way. Book ASAP!

$512 - San Francisco (SFO) to Prague, Czechia (PRG) - SWISS Airlines (upgrade for $110 more to get advance seat assignment: $622 total)

All flights are best found via the Google Flights links list here. New to Google Flights? Check out Thrifty Travelers guide. All fares are round-trip and valid at the time of posting, but as always, are subject to change.

Read all recent TravelSkills posts here

Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here

Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.
In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, many Republicans tried to get out the vote by warning of a phrase they thought would strike fear (or at least intense distaste) in the hearts of party voters: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

"Nancy Pelosi will become speaker and you will not recognize America," cautioned former San Francisco first lady Kimberly Guilfoyle in one such statement intended to fuel Republican voter turnout.

MORE: If true, BuzzFeed story is most damning one yet for Trump

Now, of course, that's already come to pass. On Friday, with reports of damning findings in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation first published by BuzzFeed News, people are raising a possibility even more upsetting to many Republicans: President Nancy Pelosi.

Click through the gallery above for reactions from social media

The thinking is that the investigation could cause the political downfall and impeachment of both President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. As Speaker of the House, Pelosi is next in line for the presidency after Pence.

The BuzzFeed report alleges Mueller has discovered Trump instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a property in Moscow. Trump has said Cohen is lying to "reduce his jail time," although Cohen is not the source cited in the BuzzFeed story. It cites two anonymous law enforcement sources.

ALSO: Pelosi cancels Afghanistan trip, cites Trump 'leak'

Following the bombshell report, some congressional Democrats began alluding to getting the ball rolling on impeachment before the final Mueller report is issued, a marked shift.

The hashtag "#PresidentPelosi" started trending on Twitter Friday morning.

Many people expressed delight imagining Trump's outrage at the hashtag.

Others pointed out the fact that Republican control of the Senate made Trump and Pence's removal from office unlikely.

"The Senate holds the trial. The GOP controlled senate. Have a nice day," tweeted @DocVoliday.

Still, others referenced Trump's decision to withhold military travel from a congressional delegation that included Pelosi on a planned trip to Afghanistan and Brussels. He announced the decision shortly after Pelosi disinvited Trump from delivering the State of the Union address for the duration of the government shutdown.

"I think Speaker Pelosi should just wait a few weeks and travel to Afghanistan in her new plane" tweeted Doug Snider, accompanied by a photo of Air Force One.

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter
He told us that he wanted corners that played with a dog mentality. He just want dogs out there on the island," junior Alexander Smith said of his new position coach.
Posted Friday, January 18, 2019 10:51 am

Donna Lois (Tisdale) Taylor, 94, passed away at her home in Centralia, Jan. 11, 2019. She was born in Chico, Calif., Feb. 14, 1924, at her grandmothers house, to Raymond and Lily Tisdale. Donna, her parents and two sisters, lived in a wilderness logging town in the Feather River Canyon in California.

They moved to Centralia when she was a child and she graduated from Centralia High School. After High School she moved to Seattle then to Duluth, Minn., and returned to Centralia in 1947. Donna married Floyd Taylor in 1951, and they bought their house which she remained in for 67 years.

She worked as a waitress in Chehalis for a number of years and then for The Chronicle, as an ad salesman for 28 years, retiring in 1987. After retiring, Donna wrote songs for the church and loved to sing them at the Unity of Centralia. She was a member of Zonta International and traveled to New York and Japan with her Zonta club members. She loved spending time at the beach and also loved oil painting and writing. Donna published her book, The Snowlygaster, at the age of 90.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Floyd; and son, Thomas Eric.

Donna is survived by her daughter, Michaelle Fries of Winlock.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019, at the Unity of Centralia Church.
(CNN)  The first plant to be grown on the moon by humans is likely dead already, Chinese scientists said Thursday.

Just days after China revealed a cotton seed had sprouted on a lunar lander and become what was possibly the first plant life to grow on Earth's nearest neighbor, scientists ended the experiment when they shut down power remotely.

The seeds were contained inside a special container situated in China's Chang'e 4 probe, which became the first successful mission to the far side of the moon on January 3.

Activated on landing, the self-contained biosphere was designed to raise seeds and hatch fruit fly eggs in an attempt to create a tiny ecosystem and assess how it reacted to the high-radiation, low-gravity environment.

Chinese scientists hoped the experiment might help inform future moon colonists' attempts to cultivate food on the desolate body.

But professor Xie Gengxin of Chongqing University, who designed the experiment, told CNN that it ended after nine days when the control team shut down the power.

Xie said temperatures inside the biosphere had grown too erratic and reached extremes that would likely kill all life, including the seeds and eggs.

"Though we have two temperature controlling plates, the temperature was still above 30 degrees Celsius (86 F) around 10.30 a.m. on the moon. As everybody knows, many plants can't sprout with (that) temperature," he said.

Xie didn't confirm why temperatures had risen to levels intolerable for the plants despite the measures taken by the research team. Even though the experiment was quickly terminated, Xie said he considered it a success.

An article in state-run media Xinhua said the experiment had originally been intended to last as long as 100 days.

Aside from the apparent failure of the biological experiment, the rest of China's mission to the far side of the moon appeared on track as of Thursday.

The historic mission is intended to accomplish a range of tasks, including conducting the first lunar low-frequency radio astronomy experiment and exploring whether there is water at the moon's poles.

A rover, named Yutu 2 or Jade Rabbit 2, is helping Chinese researchers explore the previously unseen surface of the moon.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "China's first plant to grow on the moon is already dead."
Posted Friday, January 18, 2019 10:13 am

OLYMPIA  Citing the devastation and expense of fighting Washington's wildland blazes, state Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz proposed a "groundbreaking strategic plan" Thursday to prevent and respond to wildfires.

The plan by Franz, who oversees the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), is part of her $55 million budget request to lawmakers that would boost the state's wildfire capabilities.

Franz's 10-year plan would add 30 full-time and 40 seasonal wildland firefighters to the agency and add two helicopters to the state's aerial firefighting resources, with one to be assembled from parts the state already has on hand, a practice DNR has used in the past.

The proposal would create a wildland fire-training academy for different agencies to use. It also would explore the creation of "Rangeland Fire Protection Associations" to help cover certain patches of lands. That is necessary, Franz said, because some areas "have absolutely no protection for those homeowners and landowners."

And the plan would explore a task force to look at ways to provide a funding source for wildland firefighting in future years.

In a news conference Thursday, Franz described the 10-year plan as an "all lands, all hands" approach to fire prevention and response. The plan, she said, represents input from nearly 1,000 Washingtonians, including from local fire districts across the state.

Franz cited the effects of climate change and new development around forested areas as reasons for lawmakers to get behind her proposal.

"We must act like our safety, our economy and our lives depend on it," Franz said. "Because they do."

Franz also called for speeding up DNR's forest-health plan to allow for more controlled burns and boosted assistance for landowners. She also wants to improve DNR's ability to engage with communities that have limited abilities to speak English.

Despite record-breaking wildfires, lawmakers in recent years have not agreed to fully fund DNR requests to boost response capabilities. Legislators, instead, have pushed more money toward expensive, court-ordered mandates, such as basic K-12 education and the state's mental-health system.

State Sen. Brad Hawkins, R-East Wenatchee, attended the news conference and said lawmakers should make the new plan a top priority.

"I believe that this issue of wildfires and wildfire suppression is as important to the state of Washington as education, as mental health, as other infrastructure issues," said Hawkins, whose district, which includes Chelan, Twisp and Winthrop, has been badly hit by the fires.

Franz's $55 million budget request is divided between ongoing funding and one-time money, all of which lawmakers would have to approve in the 2019-21 budgets they draft in the coming months. Of that, nearly $18 million would be one-time money through the state capital budget that would be used to treat and restore unhealthy forests.

Other parts of the proposal combine a mix of one-time and continuing funds. For instance, adding two helicopters to the fleet would cost $6.25 million in 2019-21 budget cycle, and $1.34 million in future budget cycles.

The commissioner warned that a continued federal government shutdown could hamper firefighting efforts. Some wildfire training programs already have been canceled because of the shutdown.

"As our wildfire seasons grow longer, every single day counts in our ability to prepare for fire season," Franz said, adding later: "This situation is quite literally a matter of life and death."

Between 2013 and 2018, it cost an average of $153 million in state and federal money per year to fight wildland fires, according to DNR. That time frame includes Washington's back-to-back record-setting wildfire seasons in 2014 and 2015.

Fires those two years destroyed hundreds of homes, scarred nearly 2,340 square miles -- and in 2015 killed three firefighters. State lawmakers after those two years had to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in supplemental budgets to pay fire expenses.

More recent fire seasons in Washington -- combined with smoke from blazes farther afield, like Canada -- have brought a deterioration in air quality here during the summers.
Posted Friday, January 18, 2019 1:51 pm

Three representatives from the Democratic caucus are sponsoring a bill to work towards reducing food waste by consumers and grocery stores in Washington state.

House Bill 1114 suggests a plan to fight hunger and reduce environmental impacts of wasting food. The bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Beth Doglio, Vandana Slatter and Jake Fey and discussed at a public hearing on Jan. 17.

Rep. Doglio aims to combine the two issues of rising sea levels and food insecurity in an effort to become a more environmentally sustainable state.

This is a win-win bill, said Doglio at the hearing.

HB 1114 establishes a goal to reduce food waste in the state 50 percent by 2030, compared to levels from 2015. The goal begins by directing the Department of Ecology to consult with the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture to develop a plan by 2020 to reduce wasted food.

According the the bill, food waste results from the storage, preparation, handling, cooking, selling or serving of food for human consumption. Wasted food is defined as the edible portion of food waste.

The bill includes a prevention goal related to edible food. The plan must include strategies to reduce waste, disperse edible food to food banks and other productive uses, including animal feed, compost and energy production.

Zach Stratton, Corporate Affairs and Internal Communications Manager at QFC, testified in support of the bill. He explained his grocery firms zero hunger, zero waste initiative to eliminate food waste across the company. The grocery company donates more than two million pounds of edible food.

One out of eight Americans struggle with hunger, said Stratton at the hearing. And yet more than 40 percent of food produced in the U.S. every year is uneaten.

One concern voiced at the hearing centered around health department rules across the state regarding which foods can be donated, since many food banks do not accept perishable foods.

According to the Washington state Department of Health, licensed food establishments are encouraged to donate leftover foods to food distribution organizations. The department notes that these organizations are not allowed to accept most types of homemade foods.

Jan Gee, president of the Washington Food Industry Association, hopes to help reduce food waste by educating consumers to buy appropriate amounts of food.

The grocery industry is an important partner in improving sustainability, Gee said at the hearing.
Posted Friday, January 18, 2019 3:10 pm

As the federal government shutdown drags on, many Americans have noted that its had little to no effect on their daily lives. Leaders of from Lewis County and all of its municipalities said its made no difference in their operations during a meeting earlier this month.

Tribal governments dont have that luxury.

The tribes are in a tough spot because of the various federal funding that comes to the reservation for a number of programs, said Jeff Warnke, director of government and public relations for the Chehalis Tribe. You take it for granted until a fight breaks out in Washington, D.C. that has nothing has to do with you, and your funding gets shut off.

At present, more than half of the staffers at the Bureau of Indian Affairs  which supports social services, natural resources, law enforcement, roads and other tribal programs  are furloughed. Staffers at other agencies that tribes rely on for permitting for projects are also on leave.

There's just so many agency interfaces that we need to continue in an efficient manner, said Cowlitz Tribal Chairman Bill Iyall.

The Chehalis and Cowlitz Tribes both reported needing to dig into their governments own reserves to fund programs that had previously been guaranteed by the federal government. Those include nutrition programs to feed elders and low-income members, as well as early childhood education.

For now, the tribes kind of patching some funding together to keep it going, Warnke said. We don't know how long we can do that before we run out of money.  The tribe will do everything we can to keep those programs open.

Iyall said the Cowlitz Tribes ability to cover for the federal funding lapse is stable for the near future.

We'll have to have a contingency plan if it's too much more prolonged, he said.

The tribes are unsure if theyll be reimbursed  or to what extent or for which programs  for covering the federal governments obligations when the shutdown is over.

In past shutdowns, there were some programs that have been reimbursed, others that have not, Warnke said. It's kind of a crapshoot for us.

Direct funding isnt the only area where the tribes are seeing an impact. Four federally employed public health employees assigned to the Cowlitz Tribe are currently not getting paid.

Nurse practitioners and psychiatrists are not getting a paycheck, Iyall said. It's hard for us to be working side-by-side with them knowing they're not getting a paycheck.

The Chehalis Tribe, meanwhile, has lost several natural resources employees because their positions are furloughed.

Some of the restoration projects have stopped, just because the workers are furloughed, Warnke said.

Habitat restoration projects make up a big part of many tribal governments portfolio, and both tribes said those programs have been hard-hit by the shutdown.

A lot of our projects are done in coordination with the federal government, especially restoration projects, Iyall said. Theres a lot of agency feedback on permitting thats not happening.  There's millions of dollars of projects that are ongoing, and many of them are in a collaborative partnership with the federal government. Unfortunately, they can't hold up their end of the bargain.

Iyall noted that projects that get delayed often end up costing more, and the tribe has been tracking its grant funding carefully to make sure they stay on track.

The Chehalis Tribe has also seen projects stalled because of the shutdown.

We've got a couple of projects that are back at the Bureau of Indian Affairs waiting for approval, Warnke said. Obviously, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is not helping us much right now.  Habitat restoration for salmon spawning, and just making sure the river's healthy is huge for us.

The tribe may also be hit with a loss of law enforcement funding, Warnke said, but will ensure that none of its officers need to be furloughed. Overall, both tribes reported that theyve been mostly able to stabilize operations using their own funding, but that may become more difficult if the shutdown continues.

We have reserves that primarily cover us for the near future, Iyall said. If it was to go a couple months, I think we'd need to come up with some contingency planning around that.

He called the shutdown a humanitarian crisis thats affecting all 800,000 government workers who are currently missing paychecks, not just the ones working for and with the tribe.

Warnke added that the Chehalis Tribe is, like just about everyone, ready for the saga to end.

The tribe just is really eager for the shutdown to be over and get back to business as usual, he said.
SANTA ROSA (BCN)



A female Santa Rosa Junior College student admitted she falsely reported a relative with a gun was on the Santa Rosa campus and intended to kill her Thursday, Santa Rosa Junior College District Police said.



The unidentified student admitted making a false report, and after a mental health assessment that determined she posed a risk of harm to others she was placed on a 72-hour mental health hold, police said.



The student claimed a relative was in Analy Hall and was "coming to kill" her.



Police received the report around 2:15 p.m. and immediately sent an alert to lock down the campus. About 100 students and employees were cleared from Analy Hall, and a search did not reveal the accused relative in the area, police said.



Santa Rosa Junior College District Police Chief Robert Brownlee said police responded to Analy Hall within two or three minutes of the student's report of a gunman on campus, and the lockdown lasted about 20 to 25 minutes.



Police are pursuing criminal charges against the student and are asking anyone with additional information about the case to call SRJC police at (707) 527-1000.









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SANTA ROSA (BCN)



A Santa Rosa Junior College female student's claim about a man on campus with a gun Thursday afternoon proved unfounded, Santa Rosa Junior College District police said.



The student claimed a relative was in Analy Hall and was coming to kill her, police said.



Police received the report around 2:15 p.m. and immediately sent an alert to lock down the campus. Analy Hall was cleared of students and employees, but a search did not reveal the accused relative in the area, police said.



The lockdown has been lifted and police are still investigating the student's report.





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The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office released additional details Friday about a Jan. 8 domestic violence stabbing in a Rio Nido residence and a subsequent DUI crash that injured three people.



Two deputies responded to the 15000 block of Rio Nido Road east of Guerneville after a dispatcher received a 911 call from that address around 9:30 p.m., Sgt. Spencer Crum said.



The caller hung up and deputies found the front door closed, lights on and a dog barking inside the unoccupied home. There was a key in a dead bolt lock on the front door, and deputies found blood drops throughout the home, Crum said.



Neighbors identified the residents and said they heard a woman yelling inside the home about five minutes before deputies arrived. A third responding deputy came upon an Acura SUV rollover crash into a tree on River Road near Woolsey Road, Crum said.



Jennifer Skelton, 43, and her unidentified 31-year-old boyfriend who lived in the Rio Nido home, were ejected from the rear window of the Acura. Skelton's boyfriend appeared to have multiple stab wounds to his chest, hands and face, Crum said.



The driver of the Acura, Heidi Allen, 43, of Guerneville, was extricated from the Acura and the California Highway Patrol arrested her for DUI before she was released to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, CHP Officer David deRutte said.



Sheriff's detectives determined Allen was heavily intoxicated and fell asleep at the Rio Nido residence before she was awoken by a domestic violence incident between Skelton and her boyfriend, both of whom who were also intoxicated, Crum said.



Skelton allegedly stabbed her boyfriend at least once with a kitchen knife, and detectives collected other knives in the home as evidence, Crum said.



Allen was driving Skelton and her boyfriend to the hospital before the crash, Crum said. All three remain in a hospital.



The sheriff's office secured a warrant for Skelton's arrest for felony domestic violence and assault with a deadly weapon when she recovers from her injuries and leaves the hospital, Crum said.





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OAKLAND (BCN)



Alameda County prosecutors are seeking an order that would ban the Ghost Ship warehouse fire defendants and their attorneys from talking to the news media about the high-profile case.



The District Attorney's proposed gag order, which technically is called a "protective order," will be debated at a hearing on Friday morning in front of Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson, who recently was assigned to preside over the trial of Ghost Ship master tenant Derick Almena and creative director Max Harris.



Almena, 48, and Harris, 28, are charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the fire during a music party at the warehouse at 1309 31st Ave. on Dec. 2, 2016, which killed 36 people.



If the motion by prosecutors Autrey James and David Lim is granted the order would ban Almena, Harris, their attorneys and witnesses and anyone acting on their behalf from talking to the media.



James and Lim claim the gag order is necessary to prevent the defense from tainting the pool of potential jurors for the trial, which is scheduled to begin on April 2.



The prosecution's motion says "Almena himself has played a part in this effort" because in his writings to the press, his family and his friends "he has admitted to disseminating information to the press knowing it might reach eventual jurors."



The motion alleges "Almena has repeatedly shared with the media emails, videos and photos given to the defense as part of the discovery process in the apparent hope or belief that selective dissemination of these materials would tell his version of how events leading up to this deadly fire transpired."



Referring to Almena's lawyer, Tony Serra, and Harris' lawyer, Curtis Briggs, Lim and James also say, "Defense counsel have spoken to the press after every court appearance, calling into question the law enforcement investigation, blaming the deaths on government employees with the city of Oakland and Alameda County and other public agencies and calling out society in general for the defendants' actions in this case."



Briggs wrote in a brief opposing the motion for a gag order that he believes it is "Alameda County District Attorney's transparent attempt to hide the ugly truth: that the prosecution of Harris and Almena is wholly lacking in justice and integrity. Fortunately for Harris and Almena the protective order the prosecution seeks is entirely unconstitutional."



Briggs said he thinks the prosecution is mad at him for the comments he made to the news media after the Jan. 2 hearing at which Thompson was appointed, in which he said, "The prosecution of Harris and Almena by Nancy O'Malley's office is the highest form of institutional corruption, is the highest and most egregious form of scapegoating."



Briggs wrote, "The very next day, the prosecution, suddenly concerned about a 'fair trial,' hastily authored a motion for a protective order."



At the hearing on Friday, Thompson also is expected to hear arguments on a defense motion asking that the building's owners and Oakland firefighters and police officers be arrested and prosecuted along with Almena and Harris.



A third motion that may be discussed is a defense request to dismiss the charges against Almena and Harris on the grounds that potentially exonerating evidence was destroyed, lost or altered under the watch of the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.





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PALO ALTO (BCN)



Police are searching for three suspects who robbed a man walking on University Avenue Monday evening.



A victim in his thirties had been walking east in the first block of University Avenue toward the transit station at about 6:30 p.m. when he noticed three younger men were following him.



He stopped to check his email and let them pass when they blocked the sidewalk, slapped the victim's phone out of his hand and attempted to kick him, according to police.



They grabbed his phone off the ground and ran up a pedestrian ramp toward a northbound train platform. The victim ran into a waiting train and searched for the suspects but couldn't find them, police said.



All three suspects are believed to be teenagers, about 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall and wearing dark clothing and hooded sweatshirts.



The suspect who tried to kick the victim was described as a Hispanic boy between the ages of 15 to 18, wearing a black shirt, gray pants and a piercing on his right ear. Police also released a sketch of the suspect.



Police are investigating the robbery and said it is not related to a strong-arm robbery on Nov. 23 near the railroad tracks close to the University Avenue transit station and Churchill Avenue. Police have not identified the suspects in either case.





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Four suspects in an alleged botched marijuana deal have posted bail and been released from the Sonoma County Jail, a jail spokeswoman said Friday.



The alleged pot deal involved two men from New York City who flew to the Bay Area Saturday to purchase marijuana at a residence on Todd Road in Santa Rosa, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office.



Welington Polanco, 22, of the Bronx borough of New York City, and Carlos Penzo, 32, of Yonkers, New York arranged to meet Gerardo Valencia, 50, of Santa Rosa and Noah Zayas, 23, of the Bronx, to purchase marijuana Tuesday at a residence in the 500 block of Todd Road, the sheriff's office said.



There are contradictory statements about what happened in the alleged marijuana deal, but Polanco and Penzo tried to leave the Todd Road residence in a rented Infiniti with 14 pounds of marijuana, the sheriff's office said.



Someone on the Todd Road property shot three rounds at the Infiniti that crashed into a ditch, and Polanco and Penzo fled but were captured, the sheriff's office said.



Valencia was found on the Todd Road property and was detained for questioning, and Zayas was found hiding in a rear residence on the property. He was taken into custody after a police dog bit him, the sheriff's office said.



Deputies found marijuana and cash in the Infiniti, and all four suspects were arrested and booked under $30,000 bail in the Sonoma County Jail on suspicion of transporting marijuana for sale and conspiracy, the sheriff's office said.



All four posted bail and were released this week, a jail spokeswoman said. They have a tentative court date of Jan. 25.



The sheriff's office is still investigating the case.





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



State agricultural officials have placed all of San Francisco under a plant pest quarantine because of the recent detection of an Asian citrus psyllid, city public health officials said Thursday.



The yellowish orange insects cause harm to all citrus plants and related plants such as curry leaf trees by transmitting the bacteria that cause the disease Huanglongbing, which causes trees to produce bitter and misshapen fruit and eventually die.



According to the city's Department of Public Health, the quarantine prohibits the movement of citrus and curry leaf tree nursery stock. Residents with backyard citrus trees in San Francisco are asked to not transport or send citrus fruit or leaves.



"Even though San Francisco County is not a commercial citrus producing area, we all play a role in limiting the spread of this insect," San Francisco Agricultural Commissioner Cree Morgan said in a news release.



The SFDPH Agriculture Program is working with the state's Department of Food and Agriculture to start a survey and treatment program.



Crews have placed insect detection traps around the area of the Marina District where the insect was detected to see if it is a single insect or part of a larger population.



Anyone who thinks they may have seen an Asian citrus psyllid or has symptoms of the Huanglongbing disease on their trees is asked to call the state pest hotline at (800) 491-1899 or the San Francisco Agricultural Commissioner at (415) 252-3830.



More information about the insect and the disease can be found online at https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/acp.





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OAKLAND (BCN)



The Oakland City Council has voted unanimously to approve a new contract for the city's firefighters that resolves a 14-month-long contract dispute, the city said on Thursday.



Oakland officials said an arbitrator helped the city and the International Association of Firefighters Local 55 reach a labor agreement that provides for fair wage increases and predictable and guaranteed medical benefits for retirees.



The city said the agreement, which was approved by the City Council on Tuesday, is consistent with the new police contract the council approved in November 2018.



City officials said the two sides agreed on a three-year contract, from Nov. 1, 2017, to Oct. 31, 2020 with a wage increase of up to 8 percent over that period.



The pact calls for a 4 percent raise retroactive to November 2017, another 1 percent hike retroactive to November 2018, with an additional 1 percent raise, depending on the city's third quarter revenues, and another 2 percent hike effective in November 2019.



Oakland officials said the wage increase, which is funded within the existing city budget, is consistent with the increases provided to civilian employees through the labor agreements ratified by the city's four civilian employee labor groups a year ago, as well as with the recently-approved police union contract, which provides an average raise of 2.5 percent per year over the five-year agreement.



The city said the new firefighters contract will cap the amount the it contributes for retiree health care benefits for active employees and current retirees, and aligns new hires' benefits with the its civilian employees.



Oakland officials said the retiree medical caps represent significant relief to the city in beginning to address the growing and unfunded liabilities associated with providing health care to employees after they retire.



They said the changes to retiree health benefits contained in the two public safety labor agreements are projected to reduce the unfunded liability by $79 million in the new contract with Local 55 and by $96 million in the new police contract for a total reduction of $175 million.



City Administrator Sabrina Landreth said in a statement, "We appreciate the Oakland Police Officers Association for being the first employee union to step forward and partner with the city to address Oakland's long-term financial stability."



Landreth said, "And I am grateful that this new contract with our firefighters marks additional progress towards our goal of securing long-term health benefits for employees, and offering a fair wage increase that is within the existing budget, while also ensuring that we can deliver critical services to our community into the future."





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The San Mateo County Sheriff's Office has arrested four people in connection with a 2018 armed robbery at the Millbrae Pancake House.



Taisia Fauolo, 21, of Vallejo, Miani Pon, 18, of San Francisco, Deviante Jackson, 20, of San Francisco, and Michael Pon, 21, of Daly City were arrested on suspicion of various crimes including robbery, conspiracy, possession of a firearm and a gang enhancement, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office.



On Feb. 2, 2018 deputies responded to a report of an armed robbery at the Millbrae Pancake House.



Deputies said two suspects dressed in black, one armed with a handgun, robbed a couple walking to their car in the parking lot.



During a yearlong investigation, deputies, working with the San Francisco Police Department Gang Task Force, learned several members of the TRE-4 street gang were involved in the robbery.



Deputies said a group of gang members were inside the restaurant, saw the victims and called two other members from the gang to commit the robbery.



Fauolo and Miani Pon were arrested Jan. 7 at the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office Maguire Correctional Facility where Pon was visiting Fauolo, who is in custody for attempted murder.



Jackson and Michael Pon were arrested by the San Francisco Police Department on Jan. 8.



Deputies are also looking for Reno Goldie Fiapoto, 18, of South San Francisco.



Fiapoto was recently released from custody with an ankle monitor for a pending case of burglary in San Francisco. He cut off his monitor, and his whereabouts are not known at this time.









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Posted Friday, January 18, 2019 10:06 am

STEVENSON, Wash.  William Haynes, one of roughly a dozen individuals implicated in 2017's massive poaching investigation in Washington and Oregon, pleaded guilty Thursday morning to 15 charges related to illegally hunting big game with dogs and leaving the corpses to rot.

Haynes, a Longview resident, will be sentenced on Feb. 28, but his plea in Skamania County Superior Court leaves only one major defendant in the Washington portion of the massive, high-profile case.

For several minutes, Skamania County Superior Court Judge Randall Krog read off 15 charges spanning Haynes' alleged illegal hunting activity from August 2015 and September 2016, each time asking Haynes for his plea. All 15 times, Haynes replied: "Guilty."

"That's the most I've ever heard someone plead guilty to," said Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Captain Jeff Wickersham, one of the WDFW authorities who investigated the poaching ring, which authorities allege operated in Cowlitz, Skamania and Lewis counties. All four major defendants are Cowlitz County residents.

Five of Haynes' charges were felonies, and it's "very rare" for someone to plead guilty to even one felony fish and wildlife crime, Wickersham said.

The prosecution and defense agreed to recommend a year-long jail sentence for Haynes, 25, but his sentencing was put off because he is expected to testify in an Oregon case involving another alleged poaching ring member. He had previously maintained a not-guilty plea since he was charged late in 2017. Haynes was previously convicted of second-degree unlawful hunting of big game in Cowlitz County in 2013.

One of the requirements of his plea deal is an interview with Fish and Wildlife officials.

If Judge Krog accepts the recommendation, Haynes would also lose his right to own firearms or own hunting dogs and be required to not contact Erik Martin or father-and-son duo Eddy and Joseph Dills, three of the other alleged major members of the ring. He would likely lose his hunting rights as well.

Martin, the last of the group of four awaiting adjudication of his case in Skamania County, had been expected to reverse his plea and admit guilt Thursday. However, Martin is currently serving a sentence in Oregon, and a scheduling or transportation conflict may have led to him not appearing in court Thursday, Wickersham said.

Haynes, Martin and the Dills also all face fish and game violations in Oregon stemming from the same investigation.

Haynes, Martin and the Dills were four of the original seven suspects charged in the investigation. Many of the dogs used in hunting belonged to Joseph or Eddy Dills, and many of the killings of wild game were recorded or found on Haynes' and Martin's electronic devices.

Skamania County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Dan McGill told Judge Krog on Thursday that Haynes was part of a poaching ring which, over the course of two or three years, hunted year-round for black bears with hounds and left their carcasses to rot.

Prosecutors across at least seven counties in Washington and Oregon have filed cases against roughly one dozen people alleged to have been involved in the ring, which operated mostly in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and allegedly killed more than 50 animals.

The investigation led to accusations of the killing of dozens of deer, elk, bears and bobcats. Investigators found a trove of digital evidence after Haynes and Martin filmed and photographed more than 20 alleged brutal killings. In some cases, bears were still alive as Dill's dogs gnawed on their flesh, according to Washington Fish and Wildlife Sergeant Brad Rhoden.

Haynes on Thursday pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree unlawful hunting of big game (a felony), five counts of first-degree waste of fish and wildlife (a gross misdemeanor), and five counts of illegal hunting with the aid of a dog (a gross misdemeanor).

Haynes has been cooperative with authorities, attorneys said, although he has occasionally had trouble making court dates. He was arrested earlier this month and returned to court on a bench warrant.

Jail sentences in some counties have interfered with the trial schedules for some of the accused in other counties, and Wickersham said the number of people who could be charged has changed since the investigation began.

Joseph Dills pleaded guilty in Skamania County and was convicted of four counts each of first-degree big game hunting, illegal hunting with dogs and wasting wildlife in late October. 52 other charges against him were dropped. He will be sentenced in February.

Eddy Dills pleaded guilty in Skamania County and was convicted of first-degree big game hunting, illegal hunting with dogs and wasting wildlife in November. He was sentenced to 23 days of home confinement.
Posted Friday, January 18, 2019 1:45 pm

Adna School District officials are reviewing how they alert parents to noteworthy happenings at or near the school following the arrest of a man accused of shooting a gun and making threatening comments involving teachers on property adjacent to Adna Elementary.

A letter dated Jan. 15 was sent to all parents at the school, said Adna Elementary Principal Lisa Dallas, filling them in on details of the alleged incident that happened Jan. 10.

On that day, Craig R. Osmanberg, 62, of Chehalis was accused of firing a gun multiple times into the ground, on property adjacent to the schools playground. While deputies let the school know that its not technically illegal to fire a gun on such property  albeit with some stipulations  they later found Osmanberg was not eligible to possess a gun due to a previous felony conviction.

Chief Bruce Kimsey with the Lewis County Sheriffs Office explained that the stipulations making the act of shooting a gun illegal, assuming the area isnt a designated no-shoot zone, would include reckless actions  for instance firing at something that might cause a bullet to ricochet.

The letter sent to parents says the gunshots were heard at about 11:55 a.m., near the end of recess. There were somewhere between five and 10 shots heard, and in quick succession. Kids were outside for recess at the time, and were directed back into the building, according to the letter. Staff members didnt see anyone on the property; they only heard the gunshots.

Later that day, at 2:50 p.m., students were being loaded onto busses when a dog came running from the property where authorities believe the gunshots had come from. According to the letter, the dog ran onto one of the busses. Osmanberg, who is not named in the letter, allegedly stood on his property and yelled to the dog to come back, and for the kids not to touch the dog. The letter also says he made threatening remarks to the school staff.

Court documents go into more detail, saying Osmanberg yelled: Kids dont need to listen to the f****** teachers! I can shoot the teachers!

School staff contacted the owner of the property where Osmanberg stood, discovered his name, and reported the information to law enforcement. On Friday, the letter reads, the schools staff was alerted that Osmanberg was in custody.

He was charged with second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, a felony, and misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment and harassment.

Dallas said she received three phone calls from concerned parents the day of both incidents. One was in regard to the sound of gunshots and the other two about the second incident. When more information appeared online and in The Chronicle about the incident, the school received fewer than 15 concerned phone calls and Dallas said she received three emails expressing concern.

We were not timely.  I agree, it was not done in a timely manner and on Friday, something should have gone home that gave some type of information involving the incident, she said.

The schools protocol is to send a letter to parents any time troubling events stir up. Dallas said the school is reviewing the situation with law enforcement, the school districts attorney and with risk management. She said theyre also addressing it with any parent that has contacted the school with concern.

We feel very fortunate that the outcome was that everybody was secure, everybody was safe, the person involved was apprehended, however  we do want to learn from this, and always refine after every situation. We look at how we can improve our safety, because that first and foremost is important to us, Dallas said.

Kimsey said Adna schools, like most school districts in rural areas of Lewis County, fall under the sheriffs offices jurisdiction. He said any school-related calls are given top priority. When the first call came in Thursday afternoon, Kimsey said deputies consistently responded to the area of the school on the hour until Osmanberg was in custody.

He condemned threatening comments against teachers and students.

Its inappropriate and its against the law, he said.

Osmanberg is being held in the Lewis County Jail on $50,000 bail.
(CNN)  At least 10 people were killed Thursday after a car bomb detonated in the Colombian capital of Bogota, the country's Defense Ministry told CNN en Espanol.

Officials said 65 others were injured in the blast, which occurred outside the General Santander National Police Academy.

A high-ranking police official told CNN that the explosion appeared to be the result of a suicide attack.

Police said the driver rammed the vehicle into the grounds of the police academy at full speed and ignored calls to stop. The driver is presumed to have died in the blast, but it is unclear if authorities are counting the attacker in the death toll.

CNN affiliate Cablenoticias showed the area outside the police cadet school cordoned off by Colombia's National Police.

President Ivan Duque condemned the attack as terrorism and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

He later visited the scene, where he spoke from the police academy and ordered the police and armed forces to "determine who the people behind this vile attack are."

After the President spoke, Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez identified "the material author of the attack, a man named Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, who was driving the car that entered the academy."

Martinez said Rojas Rodriguez reportedly had about 80 kilograms of explosives.

Both Duque and the attorney general said an investigation is underway to identify any others behind the attack but did not provide further details.

The U.S. Embassy earlier issued a warning on its official Twitter account to Americans in Bogota, referring to a "security incident" and advising people to monitor local media and police sources for more information.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Car bomb attack at police academy kills at least 10 in Colombia."
WASHINGTON  She imperiled his State of the Union address. He denied her an aircraft to visit troops abroad.

The shutdown battle between President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is playing out as a surreal game of constitutional brinksmanship, with both flexing their political powers from opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue as the negotiations to end the monthlong partial government shutdown remain stalled.

In dramatic fashion, Trump issued a letter to Pelosi on Thursday, just before she and other lawmakers were set to depart on the previously undisclosed trip to Afghanistan and Brussels. Trump belittled the trip as a public relations event and said it would be best if Pelosi remained in Washington to negotiate to reopen the government.

Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative! concluded Trump, who had been smarting since Pelosi, the day before, called on him to postpone his Jan. 29 State of the Union address due to the shutdown.

Denying military aircraft to a senior lawmaker is very rare and Congress was caught off guard. A bus to ferry the legislators to their departure idled outside the Capitol on Thursday afternoon.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said the speaker planned to travel to Afghanistan and Brussels to thank service members and obtain briefings on national security and intelligence from those on the front lines. He noted Trump had traveled to Iraq during the shutdown and said a Republican-led congressional trip also had taken place.

The political tit-for-tat between Trump and Pelosi laid bare how the government-wide crisis has devolved into an intensely personal clash between two leaders determined to prevail over one another. It took place as hundreds of thousands of federal workers go without pay and Washingtons routine protocols  a presidents speech to Congress, a lawmakers official trip  become collateral damage in the budget fight.

Pelosi would normally make such a trip on a military aircraft supplied by the Pentagon. According to a defense official, Pelosi did request Defense Department support for overseas travel and it was initially approved.

The official said the president does have the authority to cancel the use of military aircraft.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump wanted Pelosi to stay in Washington before Tuesday, a deadline to prepare the next round of paychecks for federal workers.

Catherine Lucey, Matthew Lee, Zeke Miller and Lisa Mascaro are Associated Press writers.
WASHINGTON  Moving to protect the U.S. from advanced missile threats from China and Russia, President Trump on Thursday laid out plans for a new array of space-based sensors and other high-tech systems designed to more quickly detect and defeat attacks.

Trump, in a speech at the Pentagon, declared that space is the new war fighting domain. He vowed that the U.S. will develop an unrivaled missile defense system to protect against advanced hypersonic and cruise missile threats from competitors and adversaries.

Our goal is simple: to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States  anywhere, anytime, anyplace, Trump said. In a time of rapidly evolving threats, we must be certain that our defensive capabilities are unrivaled and unmatched anywhere in the world.

Trump did not mention Russia, China or North Korea in his roughly 20-minute speech. But the Pentagons new strategy makes clear that its plan for a more aggressive space-based missile defense system is aimed at protecting against existing threats from North Korea and Iran and countering advanced weapon systems being developed by Russia and China.

The new review is the first since 2010, and it concludes that to adequately protect America, the Pentagon must expand defense technologies in space and use those systems to more quickly detect, track and ultimately defeat incoming missiles.

Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan, who also spoke, said the new hypersonic missiles being developed by nations such as Russia and China are harder to see, harder to track and harder to defeat.

To address that, the U.S. is looking at putting a layer of sensors in space to more quickly detect enemy missiles when they are launched. The U.S. sees space as a critical area for advanced, next-generation capabilities to stay ahead of the threats.

The administration also plans to study the idea of basing interceptors in space, so the U.S. can strike incoming enemy missiles during the first minutes of flight when the booster engines are still burning.

Russia and China have made clear their efforts to develop the high-tech programs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new strategic weapons he claims cant be intercepted. One is a hypersonic glide vehicle, which could fly 20 times faster than the speed of sound and make sharp maneuvers to avoid being detected by missile defense systems.

Missile defense officials on Thursday declined to provide any budget estimates or timelines for the programs.

Michael Griffin, the defense undersecretary for research and engineering, told Pentagon reporters that developing a new layered network of sensors in space is key to being able to detect a fast-moving hypersonic missile in its early, more vulnerable stages. The Pentagon, he said, will study the issue to determine how many would be needed, and at what orbit they would fly. He said the system could be operational in the late 2020s.

Deb Riechmann and Lolita C. Baldor are Associated Press writers.
WASHINGTON  The Obama-era program that shields young immigrants from deportation and that President Trump has sought to end seems likely to survive for at least another year.

Thats because the Supreme Court took no action Friday on the Trump administrations request to decide by early summer whether Trumps bid to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was legal. The program has been protected by several federal courts.

Based on the high courts usual practices, the earliest the justices would hear arguments in the case would be this fall, if they decide to hear the case at all. If arguments take place in October, a decision would not be likely before 2020, when it could affect the presidential campaign.

The administration never asked for a stay of the rulings below which to us indicated it has known all along that theres no real rush to resolve these important issues, said Theodore Boutrous Jr., a lawyer in Los Angeles who represents some young immigrants who challenged the administrations plans.

Trump and Congress could take the issue out of the courts hands altogether if they strike a deal on the program known as DACA, perhaps even in negotiations to end the partial government shutdown.

The administration sought to end DACA in 2017, but federal courts in California, New York and Washington, D.C., have prevented it from doing so. A federal judge in Texas has declared the program is illegal, but refused to order it halted.

DACA has protected about 700,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families that overstayed visas. The Obama administration created the DACA program in 2012 to provide work permits and protection from deportation to people who, in many cases, have no memory of any home other than the United States.

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions determined DACA to be unlawful because President Barack Obama did not have the authority to adopt it in the first place. Sessions cited a 2015 ruling by the federal appeals court in New Orleans that blocked a separate immigration policy implemented by Obama and the expansion of the DACA program.

Civil rights groups, advocates for immigrants and Democratic-led states all have sued to prevent the end of the program.

Mark Sherman is an Associated Press writer.
Recognizing the Muslim That Lost His Life Saving Hundreds of Egyptian Christians on Christmas Eve 859-3842 , press@persecution.org Contact: Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator, International Christian Concern (ICC), 301-



Sayed Askar, a Muslim cleric, witnessed a terrorist planting bombs on a church roof and immediately called the authorities. A bomb squad quickly responded and in the process of defusing the bombs, an officer, Major Mustafa Abid, lost his life.



The actions of those involved saved hundreds of worshipers at the church from a Christmas Eve (Orthodox) disaster.



At a time when religious tensions are high in Egypt and the Middle East, it is both refreshing and encouraging to see members of different faiths defend each other.



ICC is asking all concerned individuals to sign a letter that recognizes and honors the risk and sacrifice of Imam Askar and the bomb squad as they sought to defend their fellow Egyptians.



The letter also expresses sincere and heartfelt sympathy to the family of Major Mustafa Abid who lost his life in the line of duty.



ICC will deliver the letter after all signatures are collected.



For interviews, please contact Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator:

E-mail:

Phone: (301)-859-3842



About ICC

International Christian Concern is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) charitable organization focused on human rights, religious freedom and assisting the persecuted Christian Church around the world.



International Christian Concern

2020 Pennsylvania Ave. NW #941, Washington, D.C. 20006

| E-mail:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2019 / Christian Newswire / -- International Christian Concern (ICC) is inviting all those concerned to sign a letter recognizing a group of brave Muslim men who courageously followed their conscience and duty at great personal risk to thwart the attempted bombing of Virgin Mary and Father Seifin Church in Nasr City, near Cairo, Egypt, on January 5, 2019.Sayed Askar, a Muslim cleric, witnessed a terrorist planting bombs on a church roof and immediately called the authorities. A bomb squad quickly responded and in the process of defusing the bombs, an officer, Major Mustafa Abid, lost his life.The actions of those involved saved hundreds of worshipers at the church from a Christmas Eve (Orthodox) disaster.At a time when religious tensions are high in Egypt and the Middle East, it is both refreshing and encouraging to see members of different faiths defend each other.ICC is asking all concerned individuals to sign a letter that recognizes and honors the risk and sacrifice of Imam Askar and the bomb squad as they sought to defend their fellow Egyptians.The letter also expresses sincere and heartfelt sympathy to the family of Major Mustafa Abid who lost his life in the line of duty.ICC will deliver the letter after all signatures are collected.For interviews, please contact Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator:E-mail: press@persecution.org Phone: (301)-859-3842About ICCInternational Christian Concern is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) charitable organization focused on human rights, religious freedom and assisting the persecuted Christian Church around the world.International Christian Concern2020 Pennsylvania Ave. NW #941, Washington, D.C. 20006 www.persecution.org | E-mail: icc@persecution.org

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PHOENIX  A suburban Phoenix police chief offered her condolences Friday to the family of a 14-year-old burglary suspect who was shot and killed by an officer, calling the boys death tragic but asking the public to withhold judgment until an investigation is completed.

Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir said she called the news conference to be transparent.

I must begin with expressing my condolences to the young mans family. The loss of his life is tragic, Moir said. I am very sorry for their loss.

The boy, identified by his family as Antonio Arce, was carrying a replica handgun when he was shot Tuesday by a Tempe officer identified only as Officer Jaen, who arrived on the scene in uniform in a marked patrol car.

Moir was flanked on one side by six enlarged still photographs, several of them pulled from the officers body-worn video camera.

The chief said Jaen has been an officer for 17 years  14 of them with Tempe. He was placed on administrative leave.

The department said it will conduct its investigation in conjunction with the Maricopa County Attorneys office, as is customary in officer-involved shootings.

Tempe Police said in an earlier report its officer chased the teen Tuesday after he was encountered burglarizing a car. A police spokesman said an officer perceived a threat and shot the youth, who later died at a hospital.

Police said Wednesday the teen was carrying a replica airsoft gun, which they determined was taken from the vehicle with other items.

Arces Facebook page shows photographs of a baby-faced boy with a peach-fuzz mustache and a few images with relatives and friends. Friends of the family were putting together a GoFundMe page to pay for the teens funeral costs.

A vigil was held Thursday outside the Tempe Police headquarters.

Since the beginning of the year, there has been at least one other police shooting that killed a teen in Maricopa County, Arizonas largest.

Earlier this month, a Phoenix police officer shot and killed a 19-year-old Jacob Michael Harris after surveillance officers reportedly saw him and three others carry out an armed robbery. Police say they were watching the group because they were suspects in several other robberies.

Also this month, an officer in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria shot and wounded a 17-year-old boy after getting a call about a robbery at an auto supply store. Officers said the boy had a gun. He was shot in the shoulder.

Anita Snow is an Associated Press writer.
This article, Netflix raised prices because you all are signing up like crazy, originally appeared on CNET.com.

If you want to blame anyone for Netflix raising prices, look to all the newbs who are signing up in droves.

The streaming video service reported that more people signed up in the last three months of 2018 than any other quarter ever, and it predicted even more new members in the first quarter of 2019. The company added 8.84 million new paid members, according to its end-of-year financial report Thursday. That's better than the 7.6 million it'd predicted in October.

Netflix tends to end every year on an upswing, as people on holiday breaks spend extra time streaming and those who received new gadgets as gifts start setting them up by adding services like Netflix. But this time, Netflix had already issued a couple of particularly positive signals about how business was faring.

Last month, the company said Bird Box, its post-apocalyptic thriller starring Sandra Bullock, was watched by 45 million accounts in the first seven days it was available, the best viewership for one of its original movies yet. And Tuesday, Netflix announced price hikes. The prospect of a higher monthly bill wasn't welcome news for consumers, but investors reacted with glee, and analysts interpreted it as Netflix flexing its muscles in the middle of a hot streak.

Netflix doubled down on viewership disclosures Thursday. Bird Box has now been watched by more than 80 million member households in four weeks, the company said, adding that the movie was getting "high repeat viewing." Looking ahead, Netflix expects You -- a thriller series about a bookish stalker, which struggled to find an audience when it aired on Lifetime -- to surpass 40 million households in its first four weeks, and it predicts Sex Education, a British series that Netflix is distributing globally, to reach more than 40 million in the first four weeks too.

Netflix

The eternal caveat about Netflix numbers like these? They're not independently verified. Nielsen offers some ratings for Netflix programs, which it figures with its own system of measurement that leaves out any viewing on mobile devices and doesn't count people watching outside the US. Nielsen's initial Bird Box numbers supported the general case that the movie was widely popular, though.

And Netflix's definition of a view carries different meaning for a movie versus a show. Netflix counts a movie as viewed once an account watches 70 percent of the total runtime, including credits. But for shows, Netflix credits the title with a view if an account gets through 70 percent of the total runtime of a single episode.

But Ted Sarandos, Netflix's head of content, defended the worth of the stats Thursday.

"These are less financial metrics as they are cultural metrics," he said. "For part of your Netflix subscription, you're in the zeitgeist. You're watching the programming that the rest of the world is loving at the same time."

The company also relished a competitive jab at YouTube, Google's massive video site that Netflix's CEO Reed Hastings routinely admits envying for the 1.9 billion people who use it every month.

"When YouTube went down globally for a few minutes in October, our viewing and signups spiked for that time," the company said Thursday.

Netflix shares fell Thursday, after they spiked two days earlier on news of the price increase. Shares were down 2.6 percent at $344 in after-hours trading.

In its latest results, Netflix's international subscriber base increased by 7.3 million paid members to 80.77 million, beating the 6.1 million additions the company predicted. In the US, Netflix added 1.53 million paid streaming customers, for a total of 58.49 million, slightly topping its 1.5 million guidance.

Netflix is switching focus on how it reports its subscribers this year. While investors previously kept watch on Netflix's number of total streaming members, which includes trial memberships, this year the company will make predictions only about paid memberships. By directing focus away from figures that include free trials, Netflix hopes its subscriber numbers won't seem as lumpy as they have in the past.

Looking ahead, Netflix expects to add 1.6 million paid streaming members in the US and 7.3 million internationally in the current quarter. Netflix also predicted 56 cents per share in earnings. On average, Wall Street analysts who track Netflix expected 83 cents.

Overall, Netflix reported a profit of $133.9 million, or 30 cents a share, compared with $185.5 million, or 41 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 27 percent to $4.19 billion.

Analysts on average expected per-share profit of 24 cents -- a penny higher than Netflix's forecast -- and $4.21 billion in revenue.

First published Jan. 17, 1:11 p.m. PT.

Updates at 1:20, 1:25, 1:45 and 4:41 p.m. PT: Adds more details from report and executive call.

Culture: Your hub for everything from film and television to music, comics, toys and sports.

Everything we know about Apple's TV service: Where is Apple putting that $1 billion investment in TV programming?
WASHINGTON  How did the earliest land animals move? Scientists have used a nearly 300-million-year-old fossil skeleton and preserved ancient footprints to create a moving robot model of prehistoric life. Evolutionary biologist John Nyakatura at Humboldt University in Berlin has spent years studying a 290-million-year-old fossil dug up in central Germanys Bromacker quarry in 2000.

The four-legged plant-eater lived before the dinosaurs and fascinates scientists because of its position on the tree of life, said Nyakatura. Researchers believe the creature is a stem amniote  an early land-dwelling animal that later evolved into modern mammals, birds and reptiles.

Scientists believe the first amphibious animals emerged on land 350 million years ago and the first amniotes emerged around 310 million years ago.

The fossil, called Orabates pabsti, is a beautifully preserved and articulated skeleton, said Nyakatura. Whats more, scientists have previously identified fossilized footprints left by the 3-foot-long creature.

Nyakatura teamed up with robotics expert Kamilo Melo at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne to develop a model of how the creature moved. Their results were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The researchers built a life-size replica of the prehistoric beast  we carefully modeled each and every bone, said Nyakatura  and then tested the motion in various ways that would lead its gait to match the ancient tracks, ruling out combinations that were not anatomically possible.

They repeated the exercise with a slightly scaled-up robot version, which they called OroBOT. The robot is made of motors connected by 3-D-printed plastic and steel parts. The model helps us to test real-world dynamics, to account for gravity and friction, said Melo. The team also compared their models to living animals, including salamanders and iguanas.

Technology such as robotics, computer modeling and CT scans are transforming paleontology, giving us ever more compelling reconstructions of the past, said Andrew Farke, curator at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont (Los Angeles County), who was not involved in the study.

Based on the robot model, the scientists said they think the creature had more advanced locomotion than previously thought for such an early land animal. (Think more scampering than slithering.)

It walked with a fairly upright posture, said Melo. It didnt drag its belly or tail.

University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz, who was not involved in the study, said the research suggests an upright stance goes further back than we originally thought.

Stuart Sumida, a paleontologist at Cal State San Bernardino and part of the initial team that excavated Orobates fossils, called it an exciting study. Sumida, who was not involved in the robot project, said the work provided a much more confident window in to what happened long ago. It isnt a time machine, but Nyakatura and colleagues have given us a tantalizing peek.

Christina Larson is an Associated Press writer.
With PG&E on the financial rocks, San Francisco is taking seriously the long-debated notion of a takeover of the utilitys local operations. What was once a marginal political cause now has gained more serious talk as a disaster-caused bankruptcy looms.

Its a huge opportunity and major challenge that City Hall is rightly taking on. Ignoring PG&Es troubles wont work if the companys fate ends before a bankruptcy judge. San Francisco will need to be in the courtroom with a plan for its residents and customers.

But a city takeover will be expensive and risky. Breaking up the states biggest private utility into smaller parts, such as one that San Francisco might run, will involve gigantic costs, even if PG&E were willing to sell off assets. Its more of a buyout than a takeover, when the billions in purchase price are considered. The utility is silent so far on breaking up its operations stretching across a third of the state.

There are other complications. Legal costs from from deadly wildfires will factor in any takeover bid, driving up the bill. There are labor contracts and pensions covering thousands of jobs. More maintenance work on backcountry power lines that may have sparked the worst blazes in state history will likely drive up power costs. The citys own power-selling plan, designed to compete with PG&E, will need to be folded in.

Those drawbacks shouldnt be enough to stop city lawmakers from at least exploring a PG&E acquisition. From its early days, the city has bought out failing private operations such as water companies and transit lines that proved vital to San Franciscos future. This could be another turning point with the city stepping to preserve an essential service.

Also, Californias energy future is changing radically and quickly, from electric cars to renewable energy. A healthy and responsive utility is essential, even if its a local one.

These arguments all need to be studied and matched against the steep costs of acquiring local operations. Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors are eager to push ahead with such a process by asking the city Public Utilities Commission, which runs a mini electrical empire stretching into the Sierra, for advice. Thats a good place to start.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
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Unlike President Trumps pretend border crisis, his unprecedented hobbling of the federal government poses real threats to the nations well-being.

The longest shutdown on record, approaching a full month in duration, is an unacceptable and growing hardship for 800,000 federal employees who in many cases are responsible for public safety and national security.

The shutdown requires about a fourth of the federal workforce to stay home or, if deemed essential, work without pay. Congress has agreed to compensate them retroactively when funding is restored, whereupon taxpayers will assume the added burden of paying more than 300,000 for not working. But countless federal contract employees will never regain the wages lost. Meanwhile, the shutdown may have already cost the broader economy half a percentage point in growth.

Ironically, many of those going unpaid are working to protect the country, which is the supposed goal of Trumps attempt to force Congress to produce $5.7 billion for his border wall. They include not only the Border Patrol agents who police Trumps favorite frontier but also the Coast Guard members who guard our waters  apparently the first instance of a military branch being forced to work without compensation due to a funding lapse. Nor are we paying the customs and Transportation Security Administration employees responsible for the nations airports, where, despite the presidents obsession with the southern border, most immigration takes place.

The administration this week stretched the definition of essential to call back nearly 50,000 furloughed employees and reduce the impact of its irresponsibility by, for example, enabling tax refunds and food inspections. But missed paychecks are an obvious strain on employees whether theyre forced to work or not, as evidenced by increasing TSA absences and longer airport security lines. The San Jose City Council voted this week to provide no-interest loans to TSA employees, while the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank was reaching out to Coast Guard members.

The Republican lawmakers enabling Trumps shutdown must recognize that its doing more damage to the country from within than it could ever prevent at the border.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
In a move that had the surprising support of University of California student leaders, the UC regents voted Thursday to end the role of student adviser to the regents, a pilot program that has let a third student participate on the board, but not vote.

The current student adviser, a UC Berkeley math major, will finish his one-year term in June. The regents oversee the 10-campus university system that has a $30 billion budget, 238,000 students, five hospitals and three national laboratories. Although nonvoting, the adviser participates in all discussions and committees, and may influence how the regents vote.

I very much oppose the vote and take issue with how the discussions and deliberations proceeded, adviser Edward Huang said after the vote. In urging the regents to keep the program, Huang said he believed he had been kept out of important discussions with student leaders about the roles fate, and said students across the UC system were being blindsided by the action.

During public comment as the regents met this week in San Francisco, students spoke about many issues  but never about the student adviser role.

Created in 2016, the student adviser serves for one year. The Board of Regents also has a voting student regent and a nonvoting student regent-designate. Two years ago, students requested the adviser role as a compromise after their requests for a second voting student regent, which would require amending the state Constitution, went nowhere.

On Thursday, student Regent Devon Graves, a UCLA doctoral student, spoke in favor of allowing the pilot program to sunset.

I do not take this decision lightly, he said, adding that he opposed the position because too few students had applied for it, and because the selection process was less rigorous than the three-tiered evaluation required for student regents.

The UC Student Association, UCs student government, voted over the weekend to support Graves position.

Some behind-the-scenes theories have emerged for why student leaders would favor removing a student from the all-important regents table. One was that the adviser didnt operate in lock-step with student government. Huang disputed that and said he often agreed with the UC Student Association.

Another explanation offered by some in student government was that the regents secretly used the student adviser to undermine the student regent.

Regents Chair George Kieffer called that hogwash.

I have no idea where that would come from, he said.

In the end, the regents voted with Graves. Two regents abstained: Charlene Zettel and Gareth Elliott.

In place of the student adviser, UC will increase the number of student advocates to the regents from six to seven. Chosen by the UC Student Association, advocates attend one meeting and can speak freely with regents. The number of student observers will rise from three to six. Each monitors a committee for one year and can deliver prepared remarks.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
Acclaimed Bay Area bartender Jennifer Colliau is stepping away from the Interval at Fort Mason where she spent the last five years as beverage director.

With her long-awaited solo project in Uptown Oakland, named Heres How, the industry vet said she wanted to focus her efforts on the forthcoming project.

This is the first bar that I will own and its only a few miles from where I grew up, Colliau said in a Facebook post announcing the news earlier this week.

Taking over her old role at the Interval, which is operated by the nonprofit Long Now Foundation, will be Todd Carnam who spent the last three years there as assistant manager. Colliau described Carnam as opinionated and relentless and added that his his menu is literary brilliance, and most importantly, different from mine.

Under Colliaus guidance, the Interval cemented its standing not only as one of San Franciscos best bars, but a pioneer in industry for its quirky and referential approach to cocktails. The bar existed in a unique vacuum, buoyed by an aesthetic skewing more library than saloon.

The Interval already has a new menu from Carnam, one that begins with a chapter showcasing original cocktails created by the Intervals bartenders. From there, the menu flows through a section featuring drinks either inspired-by or created in New York City, a chapter inspired by Oscar Wildes Dorian Gray quote referencing all the attractions of the next world, pre-Prohibition cocktails, and a time capsule chapter centered around the cocktails Colliau created during her 2014-2018 run with the Interval. (See the full menu here.)

In the post, Colliau wrote that shes bringing some top-tier bar talent from the Interval over to her new Oakland operation, including Samuel Jimenez, Ty Caudle, Ben Riddell and Julie Kunz. If you know me at all, you know Ill be doing some weird stuff, she wrote. Some will succeed, some will not, but I hope to always push the boundaries of what bars and cocktails can be.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips
DAVIS  As a Davis police officer, Natalie Corona frequently asked her father if she could call him brother cop. The veteran Colusa County sheriffs deputys response was always the same: No.

On Friday, Merced Corona stood over his daughters flag-draped coffin, and said, Yes, Nat, you can now call me brother cop. He looked out as the thousands of law enforcement officers who had come to pay their respects stood up from their seats. Today we laid to rest our beloved sister cop.

The mood inside the 8,000-seat ARC Pavilion on the UC Davis campus was somber as friends, family and co-workers shared their memories of the 22-year-old officer who followed her childhood dream of becoming a cop like her father. Natalie Corona was gunned down Jan. 10 while responding to a routine car crash in what authorities called an ambush.

Police officers and deputies came from San Francisco, Hayward, Fairfield, New York, Chicago and elsewhere. Dozens more people, either dressed in uniform or in blue, stood in the aisles to show their support for the young officer who lost her life just weeks after finishing her stint with a training officer.

Natalie was hardworking and dedicated, said Davis Sgt. Eric Labbe, Natalie Coronas direct supervisor.

He paused as more than 50 rookie officers who graduated alongside Natalie Corona from the Sacramento Police Academy yelled, Hoo-ah in agreement. Their voices echoed through the otherwise silent auditorium.

Resilient and triumphant, Labbe said, pausing briefly between each sentence as the chants continued. Brave and courageous. A go-getter and spirited. Enthusiastic and energetic. Reliable and relentless. Heroic.

One womans face glistened with tears. Another man in the crowd wiped at his eyes as he stood up during the chant.

Corona was killed by 48-year-old Kevin Douglas Limbaugh, who rode up on a bicycle and opened fire as the rookie officer stood on the street investigating a car crash. He shot Corona multiple times, including once in the neck, said Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel.

After the shooting, Limbaugh reloaded his semiautomatic pistol and began shooting indiscriminately around Fifth and D streets in downtown Davis. Bullets hit a fire truck that had arrived on the scene, a passing bus and a womans backpack. Ultimately, Limbaugh shot himself in the head after entering his home just a short walk from the scene of the crime.

Theres only one person to blame, and that is the person who fired the gun, Pytel said. Why Natalie? Why now? We may never know what the reason is.

Family members and colleagues remembered Natalie Corona as kind, dedicated and caring with a joyous smile. When it came to her job, she was enthusiastic and tenacious. She wanted to be the best.

At the memorial, her sisters Jackie, Kathy and Cindy Corona walked to the podium and stared silently over the closed wooden casket. Jackie Corona recalled how Natalie spent her childhood dressing up as a police officer and watching reruns of the show Cops.

The four of them would often play out various scenarios that officers faced in the field  a game that was forced on them by Natalie.

Natalies love for the blue line was far from normal, Jackie Corona said. She truly loved every officer even if she didnt know them. Being a police officer was more than just a career. It was a passion.

Before she was a sworn officer, Merced Corona would take his daughter on ride-alongs while he worked at the Colusa County Sheriffs Department. When it was time for her to pursue her passion, she ignored his urging to work at the same department he did. Instead she chose Davis.

She said, Dad, I have found the perfect department in the perfect city, Merced Corona said at the memorial. I cant see myself going anywhere else.

Her father, who spoke briefly, said that every night when his daughter came home from work to their Arbuckle (Colusa County) home, she was bursting to talk about her day.

I now feel guilty, he said. There were a few occasions we would hear her getting home, I would tell (my wife) Lupe, Here comes Nat, turn off the lights and act like we are sleeping.

But it never worked. Natalie Corona would barge in, flick on the light switch and promise her parents that her story would only take a few minutes.

Real quick, she would say, her eyes wide with excitement.

The shooting of Corona has had a profound impact on the citys Police Department, Pytel said.

Ive seen the officers come together in a way Ive never seen before. Theyre grieving, he said. This is a devastating loss. Theyre working through it, but its definitely going to take some time.

After the service, eight Davis police officers carried Coronas casket to a white hearse that was waiting just outside the auditorium. Merced Corona dabbed his eyes with a tissue as he stood next to his wife and in front of his three daughters, watching as the officers hoisted Natalie Coronas casket into the vehicle.

A procession to Arbuckle, where Corona lived with her family, followed the service. Blue ribbons were tied around dozens of trees throughout Davis and a white tent covered dozens of bouquets that were left at the scene where Corona was killed. Residents gathered at the intersections where the procession would pass, holding American flags and signs that read, We Back The Blue and The Police Are Our Heroes.

Corona started volunteering at the Davis Police Department when she was 18. She graduated from the police academy in July after working as a community services officer in 2016. On Friday, she was awarded a purple heart posthumously, the Medal of Distinction and the Cantrill Citation  an honor named after 23-year-old Douglas Cantrill, the last Davis police officer killed in the line of duty nearly 60 years ago on Sept. 7, 1959.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
A newly enacted state law allowed a San Quentin State Prison inmate to walk free Friday after a Contra Costa County judge overturned his felony murder conviction.

During a 9 a.m. hearing Friday in a Martinez courtroom, Judge Laurel Brady resentenced Adnan Khan on his robbery conviction and vacated his murder conviction, said Scott Alonso, a spokesman for the Contra Costa County district attorneys office.

Khan was convicted for helping plan and execute an Antioch robbery in 2003, when an accomplice fatally stabbed their would-be marijuana dealer. Khan said that he was unaware that a weapon would be used during the crime.

He has served 15 years at San Quentin.

During that time, Khan produced a media project about incarcerated men in San Quentin called FirstWatch, according to Re:store Justice, an Oakland nonprofit that helped craft SB1437, the law that allowed for his resentencing.

SB1437, which went into effect Jan. 1, limits who can be convicted of murder to those who actually commit a killing. Prior to this year, California law allowed for people who participated in crimes that led to a death  even if they did not assist in the killing  to be convicted of murder.

Under the new law, prisoners like Khan are eligible for resentencing on a case-by-case basis. His release would be the first under the new law, said his attorney, Kate Chatfield.

Adnans case was the inspiration for SB1437, and for Adnan to be the first one to be released, it feels like things have come full circle, she said.

In December, then-Gov. Jerry Brown commuted Khans sentence from 25 years to life to 15 years to life in prison.

If given the opportunity to re-enter society, I will live a life of service with the purpose of preventing and deterring crime and increasing public safety for our communities, Khan wrote in his commutation application.

The district attorneys office did not oppose the motions.

Todays outcome in no way undermines the severity of the crime, the unfortunate loss of life or the trauma inflicted upon the family of the victim, District Attorney Diana Becton said. As the criminal justice system continues to evolve, we must collectively continue to find the balance between public safety, accountability, fundamental fairness under the law and the rights of victims.

Khans family members, including his 90-year-old grandmother, were in court Friday for the hearing.

The family is grateful and wanting to hold him and hug him, Chatfield said.

After his release, Khan will have a room at Re:store Justices Oakland re-entry home, officials said.

He was released from the Martinez Detention Facility at 2:30 p.m.

Gwendolyn Wu is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: gwendolyn.wu@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu
The Camp Fire 911 Calls Smoke filled the air as flames approached. But worried 911 callers were told of no threat to Paradise. Within minutes, homes were burning and thousands were fleeing from another California town caught off guard

The Camp Fire 911 Calls Smoke filled the air as flames approached. But worried 911 callers were told of no threat to Paradise. Within minutes, homes were burning and thousands were fleeing from another California town caught off guard

In the hour before the Camp Fire raced into Paradise on Nov. 8, calls to the towns 911 dispatch center mounted.

I live on Dean Road in Paradise. ... Were getting engulfed in smoke, one caller reported at around 7:40 a.m.

Yes maam, I know, a dispatcher responded. But the fires not here in Paradise. Its north of Concow on Highway 70, naming the small town a few miles away.

About a minute later, another Paradise resident who called in, alarmed by smoke, was told there was no danger to Paradise at this time. OK?

Im getting huge pieces of ash, the caller explained.

Maam, the dispatcher said, all I can tell you is what Im telling you.

But less than 20 minutes later, emergency officials would decide that conditions had become so perilous that every resident of the town should flee.

Audio recordings of 911 calls to Paradises small dispatch center that morning, obtained by The Chronicle through a public records request, provide a minute-to-minute document of a community caught off guard by a wind-driven blaze that would kill 86 people and destroy nearly 14,000 homes. Emergency managers and dispatchers were unaware of the speed and scale of the disaster until it had already hit them.

Dispatchers play a crucial role in crisis situations, connecting citizens reporting dangers with first responders. But amid the ferocity and chaos of the Camp Fire, the 911 records show, the model broke down. A Chronicle review of the calls suggests that in the critical moments before flames devoured Paradise, the towns dispatchers did not receive up-to-the-minute information and gave caller after caller what was, in hindsight, a false sense of security.

At least 132 calls to 911 were answered between 6:30 a.m., when flames were first reported about 10 miles northeast of town, and 8:20 a.m., when the center rerouted all calls to nearby Chico because of overwhelming volume. Other 911 centers, including one run by Butte County, were also operating during the disaster.

The Camp Fire has raised myriad questions about how communities at risk of burning should prepare and respond. The 911 calls made that day underscore the need for better and quicker communication in the face of the states new wildfire reality.

Theres a fire up north of Concow, up near Highway 70, dispatchers told dozens of callers who reported heavy smoke and ash in Paradise between 7:10 and 7:40 a.m. One caller was told: There is no threat to Paradise.

Some expressed surprise that the fire could still be 5 or so miles outside of town. Its that far away? It looks like its awfully close, one man said to a dispatcher at around 7:30 a.m.

About the same time, another caller said she was a little relieved to hear that the fire hadnt made its way into her neighborhood.

The tone of many of the earlier calls is relaxed and conversational, but they grew progressively rushed as calls flooded the system. In later conversations, people were told to be aware of a potential evacuation or to just leave if they saw flames.

At about 7:40 a.m., a woman asked about a possible evacuation order and was told by the dispatcher: No, youll be notified.

The caller persisted, appearing to reference an evacuation notice that had been put out by Butte County officials for the eastern outskirts of Paradise, between a main thoroughfare called Pentz Road and the Feather River Canyon.

After a brief silence, the dispatcher asked where the woman had gotten her information. Butte, um, Fire, she said.

OK, we havent been advised of that, the dispatcher replied. If you have gotten a phone call or if you see flames or feel the need to leave, then do that at this time, but we havent been notified.

By 7:48 a.m., people were reporting spot fires  new blazes ignited by embers blown ahead of the main conflagration  over a large section of Paradises east side.

The fire has come over the top of Sawmill Peak, one caller said at about 7:50 a.m., referring to a mountaintop a mile northeast of Paradise. There are spot fires all over and the wind is blowing like hell, and nobody notified us of anything.

Yeah, cause theres no evacuations at this point, a dispatcher said before transferring the call to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. Over the next few minutes, dispatchers began telling those on the far northeast side of town to leave.

And minutes later, just after 8 a.m., the Butte County Fire Department notified Paradise dispatchers of their orders to evacuate the entire town.

Are you serious? one of the dispatchers asked, sounding stunned.

Records show authorities did not fully evacuate Paradise at this time through the communitys alert system. Both Butte County and Paradise used a program called CodeRED, which sends emergency text, phone and email alerts to people who signed up for the service, as well as some landline phones.

Evacuation orders for the east edge of Paradise began at 7:57 a.m., according to records reviewed by The Chronicle. Another round of evacuations, encompassing more of the town, started at 8:32 a.m.

Emergency managers declined to issue a Wireless Emergency Alert, an Amber Alert-style message, which could have reached most cell phones in the area.

Jim Broshears, Paradises emergency operations center coordinator and former fire chief, said the Camp Fire disaster was so unique Im still trying to figure it out. Because of the speed of the fire, he said, the feedback loops between dispatchers, first responders and the public were clearly compromised.

Wildfires are relatively common in the Concow area, Broshears said, and many previous blazes have threatened to spread to Paradise. But that day the shift was so fast, he said. In a matter of five minutes, the flames in Concow shot to the west flank of Sawmill Peak, just across the Feather River.

It was a game-changing moment, Broshears said.

Dispatchers and emergency responders were making quick decisions based on decades of history, he said. Of the dispatchers communication with callers, he said, That reaction makes sense to me. Im not saying its right.

The erratic path of the Camp Fire complicated communication about it. A simulation by Cal Fire shows that Paradise residents didnt face a single wave of flames but rather were engulfed by the mother blaze as well as numerous spot fires that grew into each other.

An orchard in the northeast corner of town burst into flames around 7:50 a.m., according to a 911 caller. Just after 8 a.m., fires were reported near a Lutheran church about 1 miles south, and outside Feather River Hospital a mile south of the church.

One Paradise dispatcher was on duty when the fire first erupted, said Paradise police Lt. Anthony Borgman. Eventually, two others stepped in to help, occupying the towns only three 911 consoles. They relied primarily on citizen reports to gauge the fires location, Borgman said, and received some additional information from Cal Fire and the Butte County Fire Department.

After 8 a.m., everyone who called the Paradise dispatch center was given similar advice.

Paradise police, we are under a mandatory evacuation, one dispatcher said. Collect your pets and your belongings, and leave.

Another said, There are spot fires picking up everywhere. There is a mandatory evacuation for Paradise. So you need to collect your belongings and bug out.

At this point, many of those calling were clustered in certain locations. Some were at the Ridgewood Mobile Home Park, a 100-space senior living community nestled in foothills just west of the Feather River.

I have no way to evacuate, one Ridgewood resident told a dispatcher at 8:06 a.m. I dont have a car.

The dispatcher transferred the person to Cal Fire. Two minutes later, an unidentified person reached the Paradise dispatch center, making what was already a futile request.

Hey, do you have someone you can send out to Ridgewood Mobile Home Park? the caller asked. We have multiple calls from there with people saying they dont have any way to get out.

No, the dispatcher replied. We dont have anybody available.

Of the 86 people who died in the Camp Fire, at least three were discovered inside residences at Ridgewood. Throughout Paradise, many of those killed were older, had physical disabilities, or were unable or unwilling to flee.

Craig Fugate, former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Barack Obama, said that while dispatch centers are the pulse of the community, a disaster that strikes an entire town can overload what the system was built for.

In Paradise, the deluge of calls for help and pleas for information left emergency responders struggling to keep up.

Aaron Abbott, executive director of Sonoma Countys medical and fire dispatch center, faced similar challenges during the 2017 Wine Country fires, when embers ignited hundreds of blazes all at once.

When youre talking about 800 individual fires burning in one county at the same time, and those reports are flooding in at various intervals ... as a dispatch center, it becomes very difficult to decipher what the impacted area is, Abbott said.

People call 911 to get information, he said. Sometimes we dont have the information, because sometimes theyre the first one to report it.

Californias recent wildfires have significantly changed the conversation about how 911 dispatchers handle large-scale emergencies, said Budge Currier, 911 branch manager for the Governors Office of Emergency Services.

The traditional role of a 911 operator is to receive information from the caller, then provide resources accordingly. Local and state officials are now researching how to better prepare dispatchers to respond to difficult scenarios such as a raging wildfire.

For us, situational awareness is key, Currier said. And these incidents moved so fast that you must make a decision even if you dont have all the information.

Dispatch centers are overseen by local governments, but the state emergency services office is working to provide technology and training for each center as officials craft policies that suit their specific needs.

The state is also researching technology that would provide a common platform for communities to view each others emergency announcements. In some scenarios, Currier explained, a city may initiate evacuations without a nearby city knowing about it  a serious problem if cell phone calls are rerouted between the two.

Those are the kinds of things that our limited technology today leads to, he said. So were trying our best to get more data to decision makers to have that critical information they need.

Abbott, the Sonoma County dispatch director, said the recent wildfires in California are a new kind of incident, and the role of dispatchers is being evaluated: Is there a better way we can do this? Should we be doing this differently? Those are questions emergency communication professionals are wrestling with right now, and there are no clear answers.

A half-dozen residents of Paradise who made 911 calls on the morning of Nov. 8 said in recent interviews that the fire had been much closer than what they were told by dispatchers. They did not fault emergency managers, though. Instead they pointed to the sheer power and speed of the fire.

William Richards, 71, said that as he fed his backyard chickens at around 7 a.m., he noticed a growing ball of yellow and black smoke on the horizon. He called 911 and was told there was a wind-driven fire in Concow, still far from his home on Pentz Road.

Within 10 minutes, he said, embers were falling into his yard. Richards left before receiving an evacuation order, then got stuck in traffic on one of the towns few escape routes as flames surrounded him.

I dont think theres a fire department in the world that could have gotten ahead of the fire as fast as it was moving, Richards said.

Cheryl Stock-Tadeo, 57, said she was helping a customer load groceries into a car at the Paradise Save Mart  which survived the blaze  when she saw an orange glow and billowing black smoke on the horizon. She called 911 at 7:16 a.m. and was told she wasnt in danger because the fire was in Concow.

I was thinking, Well, theyre the experts, she said.

A few minutes later, ash, embers and burning leaves started to rain down. Stock-Tadeo raced home to her family, then drove out of town. I think they had an idea of where it started or where it was at one time, but the dispatcher had no idea how fast it was moving, she said.

Joan Borges, 68, called 911 at 7:40 a.m. after she saw blue skies become choked with smoke. Emergency responders told her not to worry, that the fire was still miles away from her home on the edge of the Feather River Canyon in Paradise.

Six minutes later, she called 911 again to report that her neighbors house was in flames, and she was told to evacuate. Borges home burned down, as did the homes of each of the others interviewed by The Chronicle.

It hit really fast. You had winds up to 50 mph coming up the canyon, Borges said. There was nothing they could have done. It was a nightmare. It still is.
Tesla announced plans Friday to cut 7 percent of its workforce, the second round of layoffs for the electric carmaker in less than a year.

At least 3,200 full-time employees will be affected, according to analyst estimates. The Palo Alto company laid off about 9 percent of its workforce in June, though that round mostly spared production-line workers at its Fremont manufacturing plant.

Were up against massive, entrenched competitors, Tesla CEO Elon Musk told workers in an email that was later posted to a company blog. The net effect is that Tesla must work much harder than other manufacturers to survive while building affordable, sustainable products.

Amid pressure on profit, Musk said, layoffs are critical to help Tesla bring down the cost of production. The company shipped nearly as many cars in 2018 as it did in the 15 years of its existence combined, but it still needs to reach many more customers who can afford its vehicles to stay viable.

The most affordable model in the Tesla showroom sells for $44,000. The carmaker has said it wants to bring the cost of a Tesla Model 3 closer to $35,000 this year, when federal tax credits to its buyers shrink, then expire.

Tesla will need to make these cuts while increasing the Model 3 production rate and making many manufacturing engineering improvements in the coming months, said Musk, suggesting that automation will replace some workers on the factory floor.

There isnt any other way, he added.

Tesla shares fell 13 percent, closing at $302.26.

Bloomberg Intelligence analysts said the year ahead holds Teslas most difficult challenge yet, citing concerns about the sustainability of earnings as it looks to ramp up production.

Others found a bit of optimism.

While (electric vehicle) competition is accelerating, we believe Tesla continues to lead the industry as it moves Model 3 price point towards $35,000, Jefferies analysts wrote.

Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available.

Most competitors have low margins on their electric cars because they can afford to do so: California requires them to sell more electric vehicles each year, but the carmakers tend to take a loss on them and make their money on other models.

Tesla is entering a fork-in-the-road situation that will ultimately define the future of the company for years to come, Daniel Ives, managing director of equity research in technology at Wedbush, wrote.

Tesla reported a $312 million profit for the third quarter of 2018, thanks to a rise in production and sales of its Model 3. In his email, Musk called it the companys first meaningful profit in the 15 years since we created Tesla.

He also thanked employees for their contributions.

For those remaining, although there are many challenges ahead, I believe we have the most exciting product roadmap of any consumer product company in the world, Musk wrote.

Melia Russell is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: melia.russell@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meliarobin
As the longest-ever federal government shutdown drags on, Chad Davis-Montgomery and his husband worry about paying the February rent for their Oakland apartment.

If Im not back to work in another week, we will have a serious problem on our hands, said Davis-Montgomery. Hes been furloughed for four weeks from his job as an administrative officer at the Food and Drug Administration in Alameda. His salary is more than half the couples income  and, as with many people in the pricey Bay Area, their financial cushion is thin.

After brainstorming with his husband, he settled on gig work to bring in some extra cash fast. Last weekend, he signed up with Uber and Lyft, and hes waiting to clear the background checks. He also plans to register with odd-jobs market TaskRabbit and post his skills on Facebook, offering help with administrative work, organizing, proposal writing or grants management.

Many of the 800,000 federal employees on furlough or working without pay are making similar decisions as they struggle to pay bills without an income. A study of the 2013 government shutdown showed that most federal workers live paycheck to paycheck. About a fifth had virtually no savings, while about two-thirds had enough funds for just two weeks of expenses. And unemployment benefits are probably not an option for those forced to work without pay, with federal labor officials telling states like California that the workers arent eligible.

App-enabled gigs arranged by Bay Area companies like Uber and Lyft promise flexible work at the tap of a smartphone button for freelancers to drive passengers, deliver food and parcels, and do odd jobs. For people who dont know when they will be called back to work and thus cant seek a conventional job, the gig economys easy-come-easy-go mantra makes a lot of sense.

Side hustles for government workers carry some caveats. Federal ethics policies often forbid taking on extra work without a go-ahead from a department lawyer  whos likely to be on furlough. Its not clear whether those policies cover gig work.

Its a catch-22, Davis-Montgomery said. If I submit paperwork (for a second job), I dont even know if someone would be able to approve it. We are putting ourselves in jeopardy as we navigate uncharted waters.

He decided that gig work was probably OK because he would not be an employee.

Legally, youre an independent contractor working for yourself, making your own hours, he said. It seems like an avenue to make sure Im following the rules but get some income if this continues to drag on.

That calculus has an informal thumbs-up from the Coast Guard, which issued a tip sheet suggesting that its furloughed and unpaid workers make ends meet by holding yard sales, babysitting, dog-walking or working as mystery shoppers. The memo was removed after the Washington Post inquired about it. Along similar lines, the Office of Personnel Management suggested that furloughed workers offer maintenance services to their landlords as partial rent payments.

But the government could see any outside work as problematic, said William Gould IV, an emeritus professor at Stanford Law School and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. Unless the policies use narrow language about employer-employee relationships, any commercial relationship with an outside entity may be subject to the conflict-of-interest policies, he said.

Still, with tens or hundreds of thousands of workers scrambling to bring in extra money, practically speaking, I think the government would not pursue penalties against them, he said.

Some workers have turned to online fundraising sites like GoFundMe to solicit help from friends, relatives and strangers  but that may also violate ethics rules.

Jamie Rodny, a furloughed investigator for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, raised about $2,300 on GoFundMe but was dismayed to receive a letter from her union president warning that online personal fundraising could lead to penalties as severe as suspension or even removal.

The problem: Workers cant accept gifts from prohibited sources such as anyone seeking business with HUD. Since its not possible to determine whether some donors are prohibited, and theres no one available to render a decision, the union said DONT DO IT, according to a letter reviewed by The Chronicle.

We cant get new jobs; we cant get paid; we cant even beg for money, Rodny said. Its outrageous. What am I supposed to do?

Meanwhile, some gig companies are actively encouraging government workers to sign up.

San Franciscos Turo, which arranges rentals of peoples personal cars, is offering a $250 bonus to any furloughed government worker who rents out their car during the shutdown, whether they are an existing host or a new one. We want to be helpful and ease the burden of paying bills during the shutdown, said Michelle Peacock, Turo head of government relations.

San Franciscos Airbnb is giving a $110 bonus to any federal executive branch employee who hosts three nights in their home or provides an Experience (an activity such as a class or tour) during the three months that started Dec. 18.

Lyft put out a statement encouraging furloughed employees who need extra income to consider ride-hailing. Driving is a reliable way to make ends meet and can help these workers fill in the gap during this uncertain time, it said. Uber did not comment.

Delivery service Postmates said it had noticed a significant spike in interest in joining the Postmates fleet since the shutdown began.

Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available.

Twitter is filled with people suggesting that furloughed workers sign up to drive Uber or Lyft and use their referral numbers.

John, a Department of Agriculture employee in Washington, said he signed up for Uber last weekend, although he wasnt in dire financial straits.

I did it just to mainly help folks out (during severe weather), stay busy and productive, and, yes, to make a just a few extra dollars, he said, asking to withhold his last name since he was unsure if he needed supervisor approval for the extra work.

Some government workers create their own informal gigs.

Kaye Washington of San Francisco was furloughed from her work in an IRS call center in Oakland for a month, then required to return to work without a paycheck. She plans to harness her culinary skills.

I will be baking just to cover the car insurance and keep the cable on so I can watch the news, she said. Im going through the cupboards now to see what I have and counting up whats in my change jar to buy eggs, butter and flour at the Grocery Outlet.

She hopes to sell her brownies and lemon pound cakes via Facebook to members of her union chapter. Even that may be skirting the law: Though California recently legalized sales of home-cooked food, local health agencies must create rules before sales can commence, and that hasnt happened yet.

Rodny, the HUD investigator, is seeking photography clients. She had a side gig photographing celebrations and portraits in the Bay Area, but she and her husband recently moved to Orange County, where she knows fewer people.

Rodny has lots of other skills she hopes to use.

I have also posted myself on Craigslist as a resume editor/writer, tutor, essay editor/writer and piano teacher, she said. Im trying everything.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @csaid
When KQED moved to the industrial outskirts of the Mission District in 1992, its news and features were communicated by way of television and radio. Best Foods had recently closed its mayonnaise plant across the street.

Now, KQED emphasizes content areas and digital programming as well as traditional airwaves. Nearby destinations include the likes of Tartine Manufactory, where the mayonnaise-like substance on the roast lamb sandwich is billed as harissa aioli.

So perhaps it is fitting that the 219,000-member public broadcasting station is planning a major upgrade to its home. Instead of the nearly windowless compound that now exists, think glass walls and a portal-like front door.

We want to peel up the facade and invite people in, said Rebecca Sharkey, a principal at EHDD, the architects for the unusual makeover. KQED told us from the start they want to make themselves more visible to the community and open up about what public media does.

Far more than a face-lift, the makeover of the three-story, concrete box that fills a block at Mariposa and Bryant streets will be so extensive that KQEDs 450 employees will move out in July. Theyll relocate downtown until early 2021, subleasing space that will be paid for as part of the projects $91 million budget.

Most of the interior will be gutted to make room for new technical studios and a larger newsroom. The entrance will move to the corner of Bryant and Mariposa  a two-story semipublic atrium within a larger glass shell that will expose upstairs activities to public view and extend one level above the current structure.

The biggest physical casualty will be the oddly grandiose upper-floor atrium buried within the headquarters, a skylit space that never saw much use. Say goodbye as well to the confusing mid-block entrance that sent visitors down a ramp to the security desk, then doubled back to elevators leading upstairs.

EHDD

Other elements will remain: The elevator banks will stay in place, although renovated so that the doors open to the west instead of the east. The tall original television studio will be renovated to hold public events. The parking within the buildings ground floor will remain.

The idea is to keep the things that we can while scraping away the rest of whats there and reconfiguring it, Sharkey said. As for the corners tall glass prow, were trying to be more welcoming, with a fluid connection from the street into the building.

Another gesture to catch the eye will be the supersize media wall inside the 26-foot-tall corner entry lobby. Renderings suggest a tech-saturated town square, complete with an amphitheater-like staircase to the relocated office entrance on the second floor.

Many of these gestures are par for todays urban course. Glass often is touted as a symbol of cultural transparency. Its hard to find a staircase that doesnt include tiers designed more for seating than stepping. The rooftop within the prow will include an outdoor terrace.

A good omen for the KQED project is that EHDD is involved; the local firm has a long track record of spaces that are both contemporary and comfortable, including the Exploratorium and City College of San Franciscos Chinatown campus. The transformation also shows how far that KQED has come since the early 1990s, when its $25 million move to the Mission coincided with staff layoffs and deep financial strains that took years to overcome.

This time around, the $91 million budget is being covered in large part by a capital campaign thats separate from regular pledge drives. The stations 90-strong newsroom staff has doubled since 2010. The digital audience has increased almost tenfold as television viewers make way for consumers connecting with KQED through social media and podcasts.

This used to be an organization that created content and broadcast it out, said John Boland, KQED president since 2010. Now theres much more interaction. We think of ourselves as a community convenor as well as a program producer.

Before deciding to stay put  and swallow the expense of a two-year sublease at the old Bechtel headquarters on Beale Street  the station explored moving from Mariposa Street to another location. But KQED owns the building and has paid off the mortgage, so its in the position of many Bay Area homeowners: Youre in good financial shape, but you cant relocate as easily as youd like.

With luck, the design of the new headquarters will live up to the aspirational rhetoric of KQED and EHDD. But more important than the retooled architecture will be the quality of the work produced inside and its relevance to our fast-changing age  the same test faced by all contemporary media outposts, no matter how humble or stylish their homes.

John King is The San Francisco Chronicles urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron
This weeks storm  by far the worst of the new year  caused mudslides, car crashes and hundreds of fallen trees, leaving officials on Friday to continue assessing and mitigating the damage.

As of Friday morning, the San Francisco Department of Public Works had received 240 reports of downed trees or limbs since the heaviest storm moved in Wednesday afternoon.

Our crews have been literally working around the clock, and we brought in extra crews to respond, particularly Wednesday night, said Rachel Gordon, an agency spokeswoman.

San Francisco had received 10.28 inches of rainfall as of Friday morning, or about 91 percent of normal rainfall totals for the water year, which began Oct. 1. Santa Rosa has now received 17.12 inches, or 93 percent of average, and San Jose had received 5.9 inches, or 87 percent of the water years expected total, according to the National Weather Service.

A few scattered showers are expected this weekend as another weak storm bears down on the region, and up to one inch of rainfall is still possible in the North Bay and less than half an inch is expected in San Francisco. The storm system is moving from southern Oregon into Northern California, said Matt Mehle, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

Its more passing showers than its going to be wet all day, Mehle said.

Coasts and higher elevations could see 20 to 30 mph winds on Sunday evening with the coming cold front, forecasters said, and cloud cover from the weak storm could obscure views of the total lunar eclipse expected that night.

Known as the super blood wolf moon for its reddish tint, the full eclipse will be visible in all of North America for a little over an hour, around 8:41 p.m.

It may still be cloudy during the totality, said Anna Schneider, a National Weather Service meteorologist. It may not clear up until thats over.

King tides are also expected to return this weekend, and they could cause minor flooding in coastal areas and low-lying elevations such as marshes, Schneider said.

On Friday, forecasters warned visitors to stay off the coast as large waves crashed on shore. Waves between 25 to 35 feet were expected to batter local shores, with favored locations expected to see occasional waves exceeding 45 feet, according to a high surf advisory from the National Weather Service.

Breaking waves between 17 to 21 feet were spotted along San Franciscos coastline, along with open ocean waves around 15 feet, Mehle said.

Were still seeing very high surf impacting the coastline, he said.

Next weeks forecast includes dry and cool weather.

Gwendolyn Wu is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: gwendolyn.wu@

sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu
Google published on the webmaster blog some tips and advice around doing well in Google News. All of the tips and advice are known and have been published in Google's help docs - which makes you wonder, why is Google putting a new blog post out there that is near duplicate to what Google has published elsewhere? Maybe - this is a guess - Google is getting ready to penalize a set of publishers in Google News for violating some of their guidelines?

I wrote up a summary of what Google wrote at Search Engine Land. In short, Google said check out the news publisher center, make sure your headlines are clear and accurate, make sure your article timestamps are correct, the structured data is correct, etc. It also goes into saying do not "artificially freshening stories" or produce duplicate content, rewritten content, republished content, etc that doesn't add any added value to the reader. Make sure to follow Google's content policies and do not do stuff against the webmaster guidelines. There was just a lot of emphasis on doing the right thing, producing something unique, not tricking people, not stealing content, etc.

Then Danny Sullivan who posted this at the Google blog posted on Twitter "This is a reminder that these are important guidelines to follow, which is an important part of helping publishers in Google News with these issues. We do take action on violations."

This is a reminder that these are important guidelines to follow, which is an important part of helping publishers in Google News with these issues. We do take action on violations.  Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 17, 2019

He actually posted this message twice. Sometimes, not always, when Google reminds publishers of specific guidelines, not too long after does Google roll out some sort of algorithmic change to hit these publishers and/or a boat load of manual actions around these guidelines that may have not been enforced as strongly as before.

As I said at Search Engine Land, recently there has been a nice number of complaints from Google News publishers not being indexed or ranking in Google News. Maybe - just maybe - this is to respond to those questions?

Forum discussion at Twitter.
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The first week of the viaduct closure has passed with less chaos than prophesied, but that doesn't mean it's going to stay like this, especially when a holiday is in the middle of it all.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a federal holiday, so there won't be as many commuters. But, almost all bus routes will be affected on Monday, as King County Metro will stick to their reduced weekday and University of Washington reduction schedules to honor the holiday.
Saturday may see thousands of women once again marching as part of a national movement, but it might be the last time that the group is part of the National Women's March.

The state-level group, Women+s March on Washington, announced last month that they would be separating from the national team following the allegations and controversy over antisemitism in the country-wide leadership.

Although the movement has frequently been charged with centering white women in its activism, in December Tablet reported on the relationship between two leaders of the Women's March and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. According to the report, the relationship was causing internal strife, given his comments about Jewish people and their "degenerate behavior."

Following the report, Washington State's group released a statement, stating they would be shutting down the statewide group, and folding itself into Smart Politics, which bills itself as a "nonprofit organization committed to achieving political, social, economic and environmental justice for all people."

RELATED: In 2018, #ShePersisted to #MeToo: Women's March marked year of resistance

In the statement announcing the dissolution, Angie Beem, the state's Board Director for Women+s March, said she hoped the new group would "allow us to help everyone without biases or discrimination." (The Washington Women+s March did not return a request for comment.)

"Three years ago, I made a promise to myself. I promised that I would unpack my own shit and I would be the best ally I can be," Beem said in the statement. "Continuing to be a part of the Women's March with the blatant bigotry they display would be breaking a promise. We can't betray our Jewish community by remaining a part of this organization."

Seattle's Womxn's March group has no immediate plans to disband, but they did second the statewide group's condemnation of Farrakhan's comments; the group also reminded its members that the Seattle chapter is "entirely independent of the national team both legally and financially."

RELATED: The Women's March on Seattle in photos:

In a statement released earlier this week on Facebook, the group said:

As your local chapter, we answer to you: our communities here in the Seattle area. We recognize, honor and vow to protect Seattle's Jewish community and we deeply understand the vulnerabilities Jewish people face in America. We condemn Minister Farrakhan, unequivocally, and we will go further to say that his rhetoric is not just harmful to Jewish and trans people, it's harmful for our entire movement and all of our liberation. ...We are proud of the program we have organized and we believe every person who participates will feel empowered and engaged. We hope you will continue to see and understand us as accountable to YOU, and we will continue to listen to you and your thoughts and experiences.

The Seattle group has not released the details of their plans following the dissolution of the statewide group, but did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Either way, many will likely be marching this Saturday across the state. Seattle's Womxn's March will be hosting the march through the city on Saturday, staring at 9 a.m. in Cal Anderson Park, as well as several other workshops and events throughout the weekend. You can find more information on their Facebook page.

SeattlePI reporter Zosha Millman can be reached at zoshamillman@seattlepi.com. Follow Zosha on Twitter at @zosham. Find more from Zosha here on her author page.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are sparing no expense while renovating their new home, Frogmore Cottageand the latest reports reveal how much they're spending, and on what!

According to The Times of London, the royal couple will throw down $3.8 million on Frogmore, which is located on the grounds of Windsor Castle, about 30 miles west of London. That might seem like a lot of money to spend, but keep in mind these former servants' quarters need a lot of work. For one, they'll be taking the cottage's five apartments and merging them into one 10-bedroom home.

And besides, these are the Duke and Duchess of Sussex we're talking about, so we doubt there'll be much need for corner-cutting.

"Renovations using the best finishes with top-of-the-line, custom 'everything' is $1,000 per square foot," says Michael Hershkowitz, a contractor and founder of REDOnyc in New York City. "Plus they are including structural work[$3.8 million] is probably not an unreasonable figure."

So where will that money go? Here's a rundown of the renovations reportedly in the works.

A green energy unit

Meghan and Harry are planning to install a $60,000 green energy unit. Um, what's that? It's a way to provide heat, hot water, and electricity to the home with minimal carbon emissions. After all, this royal couple is passionate about the environment! In fact, two of the seven charities they supported at their wedding were environmental charities, according to Live Kindly.

We don't have particulars on the exact type of green energy unit, but given the size of the home, one likely possibility cited by experts is a solar water-heating unit, a hybrid system that uses solar water heating along with other low-carbon technologies like a heat pump or a wood boiler, according to Simple Energy Advice. In addition to being environmentally-friendly, these units save on energy costs over time.

A floating floor

A floating floor sounds like the stuff of fairy tales, making it perfect for a royal couple.

The reality is a bit more mundane, though. When it comes to flooring, a "floating floor" refers to an installation method. Floating floors are held in place with tongue and groove joints rather than being nailed or glued to the original flooring, according to Networx.

"There are all sorts of reasons to go with a floating floor," says California real estate developer Tyler Drew. "Floating floors are often popular with houses that lack cement foundation and rely on wood joists for support."

A mom/baby yoga studio

Meghan is building a yoga room, with a special springy floor typically found in dance studios, according to the Daily Mail. Hey, only the best for mom and tot. And after all, this baby's grandmother is a yoga instructor!

Additional fireplaces

Harry and Meghan will also be adding a few grand fireplaces, the Mail reports, a delightfully homey touch. Can't you easily envision them reading a book to their little one in front of a cozy fire?

More stairs

More stairs will be added to the home, too. Most likely this is to ensure "that security personnel can move through the house without disturbing the occupants," according to Drew.

In other words: No need for random bump-ins with bodyguards, since they'll have their own methods of navigating from story to story.

Security

Frogmore Cottage is currently highly accessible, which won't work for the royal couple. While the exact details of their plans are unknown, one unnamed source told The Times that Frogmore's security measures will be more "like Fort Knox" by the time they're done. Experts surmise that these measures will include fencing, road closures, alarms, and video cameras, among other things.

A satellite dish

Plans for the cottage also include what some see as a real eyesore: an outside satellite dish.

It looks like these royals enjoy their TV time! What better way to unwind after a long day of diplomatic duties than tuning in to a rousing rugby match?

Still, the dish has ruffled some locals' feathers. In the words of one historian interviewed by The Sun, with typical British understatement: "Oh, dear, a satellite dish. It's not quite right."

Right or wrong, what the royals want, the royals get.

The post Inside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's $3.8M Renovationand One Horrible Eyesore They're Adding appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
He was a visionary and one of the most famous capitalists in all of history. He introduced the automobile to the world and created the modern day production line. By the time of his death in 1947 Henry Ford was worth almost $200 billion in today's dollars. He was an icon and a hugely successful businessman.

Except when he failed. And in 1928 he launched a project that failed big time. It was called Fordlandia and no, it wasnt located in Oregon and Fred Armisen had nothing to do with it.

Related: 5 Things Real Leaders Do Every Day, According to Henry Ford

Its a town located in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil. Believe it or not, the town is still there but not at all like it was planned. Fordlandia (catchy, right?) was established by the automaker so that he could have a reliable source of a very critical raw material: rubber. In 1928, there was (or so it seemed) an endless supply of rubber trees in the Amazon rainforest and hey  who gave a hoot about the environment back then anyway, right?

The deal seemed like a good idea at the time. Resources were plentiful, labor was cheap. The Brazilian government was happy to give a concession for a cut of the profits. The hope was to build a community of 10,000 workers who could enjoy the high standard of living, like the Americans had, while churning out rubber for Fords factories back home.

It failed. Big time. Why?

Related: Why Henry Ford's Most Famous Quote Is Dead Wrong

Workers building the city were felled by yellow fever and malaria. Transport was only possible by a nearby river because there were no roads. Managers, who knew little about tropical farming, incorrectly planted crops that were then beset by disease and insects. Even worse, the local workers were forced to eat unfamiliar American food, wear ID badges, endure long hours in the hot sun, live in American-style housing and -- can you believe it? -- they didnt like it! In fact, they disliked the arrangements so much that riots broke out after just a few years.

Ironically, the whole adventure ultimately turned out to be a waste of time: by 1945 synthetic rubber would circumvent the need for natural rubber. Ford's grandson sold back the property to the Brazilian government six years after its founding for a loss of about $200 million in today's dollars.

Related: How Ford Created a Huge Market by Lowering its Prices

Talk about a bad business decision, right?

But here's the thing: even the greatest capitalists make bad business decisions. Dont believe me? Think of New Coke or Apples Newton or Sonys Betamax. Bad business decisions are a part of doing business. But theres a thing about making bad decisions that separates the successful business people like Henry Ford from all others. The decision doesnt kill your company.

The Fordlandia loss most definitely hurt Ford's pride more than his pocketbook because, as mentioned above, he was personally sitting on a fortune worth more than 10 times that amount while the Ford Motor Company was in the midst of a post-war profit boom.

Sure, Ford lost money. But he didn't lose his shirt. He did what smart business people do. He took a risk -- a big risk -- but he certainly didn't bet the farm. That's a lesson I've learned from years running a business. When I decide to invest in a new technology, or a new product line, or an updated website I always make sure I can afford to lose the money. Whenever I hear of people investing their life savings in a new business or all of their capital in a new venture I always think uh-oh. Thats not something Henry Ford would have done.

Related:

Ever Heard Of Henry Ford's Colossal Failed City in the Jungle?

How to Get Better at Handling Failure: Key Lessons From Entrepreneurs

5 Compelling Reasons for Starting a Business Even Though Most Businesses Fail



Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Detectives say 34-year-old Matthew Ficken killed his parents days before killing himself at their Sammamish home on Tuesday.

The King County Sheriff's Office reported that Ficken likely shot his parents - 68-year-old realtor Lorraine Ficken and 72-year-old historian Robert Ficken - either the evening of Jan. 10 or early Jan. 11.

He then allegedly killed himself just as deputies arrived to perform a welfare check Tuesday  Jan. 15  after family members called authorities, concerned they hadn't heard from the Fickens. Matthew Ficken appeared to have lived in the house in the 23900 block of 42nd Place South for several days after killing his parents.

RELATED: Author, realtor, son are the 3 found dead in Sammamish, reports say

The sheriff's office described the location as Sammamish, but the home was at an Issaquah address, in an area is about 14 miles east of Seattle.

By Thursday, the investigation found that Lorraine Ficken had told her son that she was moving out of state and he would have to find his own place to live.

Ficken's employer, Coldwell Banker Bain in Issaquah, wrote in a statement that Lorraine and Robert Ficken had just bought a home in Oregon to be close to family and that Lorraine was about to retire.

RELATED: Cops ask public's help in solving SR-509 shootings

Lorraine Ficken reportedly gave her son "more than enough" money to pay for his first and last month deposit on an apartment, as well as for additional expenses, according to the sheriff's office.

Detectives claimed Matthew Ficken killed his parents because of their plans to sell their Sammamish home.

The King County Medical Examiner confirmed Thursday that the parents each died of gunshot wounds.

SeattlePI reporter Lynsi Burton can be reached at lynsiburton@seattlepi.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LynsiBurton_PI. Find more from Lynsi here.
King County prosecutors charged two brothers and a woman with assault after they beat and shot a man in his Kirkland apartment.

A 19-year-old man was found bleeding heavily from his head and a gunshot wound in his right arm in the hallway outside of his apartment Jan. 6 on 450 Central Way in Kirkland, according to court documents. A bullet went through the victim right elbow, exited the bicep and grazed his head.

Bones in his arm were shattered but the bullet did not penetrate his skull.

According to a police report, the victim was assaulted by David Garcia, 21, Gabriel Garcia, 23, and Taylor Campbell, 18, after David Garcia accused him through heated conversations over Facebook Messenger leading up to the assault, of raping his girlfriend.

The victim told police that he arrived in Seattle late Jan. 5 at the Edgewater Hotel where he began drinking with Campbell, David Garcia's girlfriend and two others. He had previously been in a relationship with David Garcia's girlfriend.

RELATED: Police: Man who attacked and impersonated security guard arrested for assault

Court records indicated that both were "extremely" drunk when they started engaging in a sexual encounter that the victim stated as consensual. He told police that when David Garcia's girlfriend woke up, she told him she couldn't remember what happened and became angry. He left the hotel in an Uber around 6:30 a.m. to his apartment after an argument between him, the girlfriend and Campbell.

One witness at the hotel was later interviewed and said she observed the girlfriend and the victim engaging in "what appeared to be a consensual romantic interlude together," according to a police report.

He and Campbell started exchanging hostile messages on Facebook at 6:57 a.m., according to a police report that indicated he allowed them to look through the messages.

"I will literally find you and kill you, so your (sic) better off doing it yourself before I get ahold of you," one message from Campbell said.

Messages between the victim and David Garcia began at 7:09 a.m., in which they agreed to fight at the victim's apartment.

Surveillance video showed David and Gabriel Garcia, Campbell and the girlfriend entering the complex and heading for his unit. Police said that one witness overheard David Garcia accusing the victim of "raping my girl."

RELATED: Charges: Man harassed, assaulted lesbian couple at Seahawks game

After opening the door, the three charged with assault immediately began beating him, according to the police report. He was knocked to the ground with his hood pulled over his head and was shot in the arm, although police believe Gabriel Garcia was aiming for his head.

After the shot, surveillance showed the four running from the complex.

The investigation determined that the girlfriend led Campbell and the Garcia brothers to the apartment, according to the police report.

David Garcia was taken into custody Jan. 8, charged with first-degree assault, and released with a $250,000 bail on Tuesday.

Gabriel Garcia was booked into the King County jail in Kent Jan. 9, charged with first-degree assault with a $500,000 bail.

Campbell was booked into King County Correctional Facility Jan 9, charged with first-degree assault with a $250,000 bail.
SEATTLE (AP)  Microsoft says it will devote $500 million to address a problem its own success helped create: the severe need for affordable housing in the Seattle area.

As the tech industry Microsoft brought to the region has boomed with the expansion of Amazon and other companies, the cost of housing has soared. Tent encampments packed with homeless people have become common, and even those with good middle-income jobs, such as teachers and nurses, have been priced out of the cities where they work.

"A healthy business needs to be part of a healthy community," Microsoft President Brad Smith and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood wrote in a blog post announcing the financial commitment. "And a healthy community must have housing within the economic reach of every part of the community, including the many dedicated people who provide the vital services on which we all rely."

While $25 million will be used for grants to address homelessness, including money to provide legal help to those facing eviction, Microsoft isn't simply giving away the rest of the money. Instead, it will provide market-rate or below-market-rate loans to developers who want to build affordable housing  the latter of which especially can make a big difference in what landlords charge for rent.

RELATED: Big Seattle housing investment, but city 3rd in nation for homelessness

Microsoft's initiative comes as Seattle's tech giants face calls to help fix the region's housing crisis. Last year, Seattle's City Council passed a "head tax" on employee-hours at large companies  only to abruptly repeal it under pressure from Amazon. A few months later, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced a $2 billion contribution to start a fund that will open preschools in low-income neighborhoods around the U.S. and give money to nonprofits that help homeless families.

Other regions buoyed by the tech industry have faced similar challenges. New California Gov. Gavin Newsom called on Silicon Valley companies to match the $500 million he proposed in his first state budget with their own low-interest loans to developers that would go to build homes for middle-income residents.

In its announcement, Microsoft urged other companies, the state and local governments to step up and make it easier to build affordable housing. In conjunction, the mayors of nine cities east and south of Seattle  including Microsoft's hometown of Redmond  pledged to tweak building codes and zoning, streamline permitting requirements, and make underused public land available for affordable housing.

Whether or not those companies are catalyzed by Microsoft's donation remains to be seen, but King County Councilwoman Claudia Balducci said she hopes they will.

"I think the big companies have benefitted from the workforce here and they have a responsibility," she told SeattlePI. "And what we see today is one of the big ones stepping up and saying 'we will be part of the solution.' It would be really great to see other big companies follow this model."

RELATED: #SeaHomeless answers: Affordable housing a major contributor to homelessness

Nancy Backus is the mayor of Auburn, a south Seattle suburb that has long had some of the cheapest housing in the area. But even there, she said, new homes run at least $565,000  far above the city's median of about $375,000. She called Microsoft's commitment exemplary.

"The push of people leaving Seattle and leaving the Eastside because it's no longer affordable has really started to have a strain on Auburn," she said Thursday. "We're very hopeful some of the funding that is being made available will help ease some of that burden and be able to keep affordable housing affordable."

She also noted that helping people live closer to their jobs reduces driving, helping the environment, and improves their quality of life, since they don't have to spend so much time in their car.

Dan Bertolet, a housing policy researcher at the Seattle-based Sightline Institute, said the $225 million Microsoft is putting toward making loans at below-market-rate returns could have an especially big impact. His recent research suggested that having to repay loans at 2 percent interest, instead of 5 to 6 percent interest, could allow building owners to cut the rent they charge by roughly half, he said.

Microsoft will loan the rest, $250 million, at market rate to finance construction of low-income housing.

Smith and Hood wrote that Microsoft had teamed up with the Seattle-based real estate firm Zillow over the past eight months to research housing data and that it had worked with others to study best practices for affordable housing around the world. Among the lessons: that providing short-term loans can help developers quickly acquire publicly owned land while they raise longer-term financing for construction.

"With these and similar investments, it's possible to lend money, accelerate progress, be repaid and then lend this money again," they wrote. "While this is just one of the many ways that we'll seek to put money to good use, it illustrates our financial commitment can have a multiplier effect."

Microsoft urged the state to double the $100 million budget for its Housing Trust Fund, which provides grants to developers of low-income housing.

Balducci, who co-chaired the Regional Affordable Housing Task Force, pointed out that Microsoft is a suburban firm, and it's pledge takes the conversation beyond just Seattle.

"It's a remarkable act of leadership on a really challenging issue," she said. "Now we start to look at what regional solutions look like instead of just a talking point."

___

Daniel DeMay also contributed to this report.

AP writers Sally Ho in Seattle and Don Thompson in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Gene Johnson at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle
Our failure to control our southern border is a national disgrace and Americans are paying the price. Unfair competition from illegal workers has diminished our middle class. The flood of illegal narcotics has brought misery and death to thousands of Americans.

Do not confuse legal immigration with illegal immigration. America is a very generous nation. We accept more than 1.1 million legal immigrants every year, far more than any other country.

However, unwilling to comply with our legal immigration system, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens cross our southern border every year. We do not know the exact number of people that reside here illegally, but estimates range from 10 million to 20 million. This unlimited supply of cheap labor holds down wages and steals jobs from hard-working, law-abiding Americans.

It is one of the reasons our middle class hasnt grown or gotten a raise in decades. The most affected are the most vulnerable  those at the bottom of the income ladder. In a 2015 study, Harvard professor George Borjas found that competition from low-skilled immigrants has reduced entry-level middle class wages by $800 to $1,500 each year.
He said he can see nothing more urgent than for Americans to work passionately and unrelentingly to get rid of racism.

Poverty was another one of the challenges highlighted by Anderson.

To keep Kings legacy alive, Anderson challenged those who attended Thursdays ceremony to keep fighting for justice, equal and better pay, health care and safety for all people.

Black lives matter, but Im here tonight to tell you that all lives matter, Anderson said. And if you believe that all lives matter, be informed of the candidates running (for) political offices. Then what do I do? Then vote.

Anderson was joined on the programs lineup by the Young Gifted and Blessed Gospel Choir and other Francis Marion University student performers.

Les Echols, director of community and minority enterprise for the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce, gave closing remarks at the celebration.

We talked about the dream and MLK wanting people to live the dream, Echols said. And before I leave here, Im going to drop off, on behalf of the sponsors and the greater Florence Chamber of Commerce, a check for $1,000 for the Francis Marion University Education Foundation annual fund so that someone else, some lucky men and women, can also be able and privileged to live the dream.
FLORENCE, S.C.  Florence One Schools Superintendent Richard O'Malley says he wants a shift in mindset to make the 2019-20 budget an educational plan.

How do we create an educational plan that we can fund, not just a budget? OMalley said during last weeks school board meeting. Thats the shift in mindset I want to have is we really have to focus on the academics and funding and make sure we put academics first.

OMalley said for the coming school year, hes focusing on investing as much money as possible in student achievement, which will put more money toward textbooks, curriculum, assessments and technology for students.

With student achievement, O'Malley said the district is looking to invest more money in special education and professional development.

O'Malley said during the Jan. 10 board meeting that he also wants to invest in teacher pay and the food-service program.

We always have to look at our budget and start anew with our priorities, OMalley said. Obviously, this is my first budget that Im creating so Im working off of previous budgets. I think our shift is going to be to put as many resources as close to the classroom as possible.
Bilingual children do not have more advantages than monolingual children when it comes to executive function, which includes remembering instructions, controlling responses, and shifting swiftly between tasks, according to a new study published in PLOS One.

The study, "No evidence for effects of Turkish immigrant children's bilingualism on executive functions," was coauthored by two UT faculty members: Nils Jaekel, clinical assistant professor of theory and practice in teacher education, and Julia Jaekel, associate professor of child and family studies, together with Jessica Willard and Birgit Leyendecker, researchers from the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany.

"The research of executive functions is important because they have direct application to success in both real-life and academic situations," said Julia Jaekel.

For their research, the scientists used a computer test to compare the executive function of two groups of children between the ages of five and 15 living in the German Ruhr region. The first group consisted of 242 children who spoke both Turkish and German, and the other group consisted of 95 children who spoke only German.

The test measured the time bilingual and monolingual children took to correctly respond to computer-based problems and stimuli. The results showed no difference in the executive functions of the two groups.

The researchers also considered children's German and Turkish vocabulary size and exposure to both languages, factors for which previous studies on the topic had been criticized for lacking.

Does this mean there's no value in speaking more than one language? Not exactly, said Nils Jaekel: "Although bilingual children are not necessarily more focused than monolingual children, speaking another language can provide other social opportunities along the way. However, it is important to continue the research on this topic so parents, educators, and policymakers do not overpromise on the benefits of speaking a second language."
To female molly and Limia fish, nothing is hotter than a male with a large dorsal fin. But these fins aren't just decorations to attract females.

Males also use them to fight or intimidate rivals. For scientists who study evolution, the fins present a chicken-and-egg dilemma. Which came first -- ornamental fins for courtship displays, or fighting fins only later used in displays?

In a new paper, biologists from the University of California, Riverside, studied the evolution of 40 molly and Limia species, and concluded dorsal fin displays arose first for males to compete with other males, only later being used in courtship displays to females. These changes in fin function went hand in hand with enlargement of the male dorsal fin. The fins reached extreme sizes in a few species and appear to be associated with rapid evolution, especially in mollies.

When Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, he noted that some features arise not from natural selection by outside pressures like predators and food sources, but from competition within a species to find mates and reproduce. He called this "sexual selection," and scientists have used it to explain why males from many species have elaborate ornamentation and are larger than females.

Simply put, the ornament can evolve either because females prefer to mate with ornamented males, or because the ornament helps males defeat rivals. The male peacock's tail, for example, probably evolved through female choice. Deer antlers, on the other hand, probably evolved to compete with other males.

But whether male ornamentation arises through female choice or male-male aggression also has implications for how a group of animals diverges from an ancestral population and evolves into a separate species. In existing species, male-male aggression and covert or "forced" mating occurs much more often than courtship displays and female choice, leading some biologists to predict that, in general, male ornamentation probably evolved first for aggression.

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"This is something that biologists have argued about for over a century, whether it's all in male-male competition for females or how important is female choice of a male," said Daniel Goldberg, the paper's first author, who conducted the research for his master's thesis. "The problem is, even though it was predicted in the 1990s that male ornamentation first evolved for aggression in many species of animals, studies that have been able to prove this for a particular group of animals have been few and far between."

Senior author David Reznick, a professor of biology at UC Riverside, has been working to unravel this problem in guppies. Guppies, like mollies and Limia, give birth to live young instead of laying eggs. The physiology of live birth comes in two main forms for these fish. In some species, the female produces a fully yolked egg, which is simply retained within her body, with no further nourishment after fertilization. In other species, the females have something like a placenta that nourishes eggs throughout development.

"The first step, which came before Goldberg's work, was to show that the male traits were tied to the type of female reproduction. You only get this kind of ornament in the ones that don't have placentas," explained Reznick. In live-bearing nonplacental fish, the female makes all her investment before the egg is fertilized, and the only thing left to ensure a quality offspring is to choose a high-quality male to fertilize it. The ornamentation could signal male quality.

Mollies are found along the Gulf Coast of North America and throughout Central America, while Limia are native to islands of the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean. Both are popular aquarium pets. Goldberg took comprehensive measurements of various body dimensions of male and female molly and Limia species, along with detailed observational notes, to develop an ornamentation index that measures dorsal fin size relative to body size. He then used this information from the living species to follow the evolutionary tree back through time to figure out what the original ancestors would have looked like.

"If you look outside and you see a tree, where we have two branches that emanate from a single branch, that corresponds on an evolutionary tree to a speciation event," explained co-author Mark Springer, a professor of biology at UC Riverside who worked on the evolutionary sequence. "We're interested in trying to reconstruct what the ancestral state was like at each one of those branching points in the tree."

"We know what the branch tips are like, we know what each species is, and so we use that information to go back through time and envision their common ancestor," added Reznick.

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As predicted, the researchers found that in both mollies and Limia, males evolved larger dorsal fins first for fighting other males, only later using them in courtship displays. At that point, it was only a matter of time until they reached huge sizes in a few exceptionally ornamented modern species: three species of aptly-named sailfin mollies, and one species of Limia: the humpback Limia.

The evolution of ornamentation really took off with the evolution of courtship.

"Mollies and Limia have a lot of different species, and the evolution of elaborate courtship displays seems to go hand in hand with rapid speciation," said Goldberg, who is now pursuing a doctorate in biology at Illinois State University. Reznick and Springer are studying the speciation rate in a separate project.

The findings may be broadly applicable to other species and may help biologists solve the chicken-and-egg riddle of male ornamentation.
Working in collaboration with colleagues from Imperial College London, Professor Iain Todd from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield has been taking a novel approach to the development of engineering components produced using additive manufacturing.

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is often used to produce engineering components. By utilising lattice structures (such as that shown below) to replace solid materials, these components are much lighter that their solid counterparts, and can be engineered in such a way that they also exhibit property combinations that are inaccessible to conventional solids. These structures are known as architected materials.

These lattice structures typically have a uniform layout with nodes all conforming to a regular array with the struts between the nodes all following common planes: and herein lies the problem.

The work, detailed in Nature magazine on 17 January 2019, explains how these uniform lattices replicate the structure of a metallic single crystal: the nodes in the AM lattice are equivalent to the atoms in the single crystal and the struts are equivalent to the atomic bonds. In each of these structures, the atomic planes, or nodes are all perfectly aligned.

While in some applications, such as the high temperature end of a jet engine, single crystal materials are ideal because of their ability to withstand deformation at extreme temperatures, they have limitations relating to their mechanical performance. This limitation is also observed in AM parts with a uniform lattice structure.

When the structure is put into compression, once the force is sufficient to cause permanent deformation, the lattice shears along one or more of the planes of nodes. With nothing to inhibit this shearing, the collapse becomes catastrophic.

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In polycrystalline materials -- those with many crystals -- the alignment of the atomic planes is random, so when a shear force is in a particular direction, a crack will slow down or stop when it meets a crystal where the atoms are aligned differently from the crystal in which the crack initiated. Moreover, it is possible to introduce different materials in the form of phases, precipitates or inclusions used to strengthen the materials; these materials also help to inhibit crack propagation.

It is this fundamental metallurgical understanding that inspired scientists at Imperial College London and the University of Sheffield to mimic polycrystalline microstructures in AM lattices with the aim of developing robust, damage-tolerant architected materials.

Through the computer modelling of atomic structures, scaling them up and creating meso-structures based on polycrystalline materials, engineers are transforming the way that materials are designed, for which the name 'meta-crystals' has been coined.

Experimental testing of components made from these meta-crystals has demonstrated that they are highly energy absorbant, with the polycrystal-like material able to withstand almost seven times the energy before failure than the materials that mimic the single-crystal structure.

While the basic metallurgical concepts are being used to inspire the development of architected materials, researchers are using the creation of architected materials as an alternative approach to study complex metallurgical phenomena.

Prof Iain Todd of The University of Sheffield: "This approach to materials development has potentially far-reaching implications for the additive manufacturing sector. The fusion of physical metallurgy with architected meta-materials will allow engineers to create damage-tolerant architectured materials with desired strength and toughness, while also improving the performance of architectured materials in response to external loads.

"And while these materials can be used as standalone structures, they can also be infiltrated with other materials in order to create composites for a wide variety of applications."

Dr Minh-Son Pham of Imperial College London: "This meta-crystal approach could be combined with recent advances in multi-material 3D printing to open up a new frontier of research in developing new advanced materials that are lightweight and mechanically robust, with the potential to advance future low carbon technologies."
Immune cells engineered to attack childhood cancers were able to eradicate different types of pediatric tumors in mice, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The study, which will be published online Jan. 17 in Clinical Cancer Research, provides evidence that these engineered cells can target many types of pediatric solid tumors, including brain tumors. Better treatments are badly needed for children with these tumors, particularly when traditional therapies fail.

"The prognosis for children with relapsed brain tumors or solid tumors or metastatic disease generally is dismal," said Robbie Majzner, MD, the lead author of the new study and an instructor in pediatrics at Stanford. "We're excited that we have a potential therapeutic representing a completely new modality to treat these children." The study's senior author is Crystal Mackall, MD, the Ernest and Amelia Gallo Family Professor and a professor of pediatrics and of medicine.

Immunotherapies that work well for adult cancers do not always succeed against childhood cancers, Majzner noted. One approach, called checkpoint inhibition, targets gene mutations that are limited in most pediatric cancers.

Another immunotherapy method, using chimeric antigen receptor T cells, or CAR-T cells, is the basis of a treatment for one form of relapsed childhood leukemia. Leukemia is a type of blood cancer. That therapy, tisagenlecleucel (brand name Kymriah), employs synthetic biology to make immune cells that react to a surface marker found on the leukemia cells.

CAR-T for pediatric solid tumors

Majzner and his colleagues decided to try to make CAR-T cells for pediatric brain tumors and solid tumors, including tumors found in bone and muscle. These cancers do not carry the same surface markers as leukemia, so the scientists' first step was to look for another marker that engineered immune cells could target.

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"You need high amounts of the target on the tumor cells, and you may need the target to be on every cell in a tumor," Majzner said. The ideal surface marker must not be highly expressed on healthy tissue, to prevent engineered immune cells from attacking normal tissues.

The researchers screened 388 pediatric tumor samples for expression of a surface marker called B7-H3, which prior studies suggested might be a good candidate. B7-H3 was found on 84 percent of the samples, and it was present at high levels in 70 percent of samples. Many types of pediatric cancer were found to express high levels of B7-H3, including Ewing sarcoma (bone), rhabdomyosarcoma (muscle), Wilms tumor (kidneys), neuroblastoma (nerve cells) and medulloblastoma (brain).

The fact that the same marker exists across so many tumor types increases the chance that it could serve as the basis for a commercially viable therapy, Majzner said. Each tumor is fairly rare, with a few hundred children affected across the United States each year, but together they form a larger patient population.

'The tumor just goes away'

The scientists then developed six types of CAR-T cells to target B7-H3 and tested them in a dish. The type of B7-H3 CAR-T cells that performed best was used for further studies.

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The researchers tested these B7-H3 CAR-T cells against several xenograft models of pediatric cancer, in which human tumors were implanted in mice. In mice with osteosarcoma or Ewing sarcoma -- both bone tumors -- B7-H3 CAR-T cells eradicated the tumors. The treated mice lived significantly longer than animals that received a control treatment.

"The tumor just goes away," Majzner said. "It's very consistent. It happened in all the mice, and that's exciting."

A group of mice with osteosarcoma had their initial tumors surgically removed and then received B7-H3 CAR-T cells to test whether the cells could treat cancer cells that had spread to the lungs. Again, the CAR-T cells worked; the treated mice lived significantly longer than those in a control group.

The researchers also tested B7-H3 CAR-T cells in mice implanted with a pediatric brain tumor called medulloblastoma. The CAR-T cells were injected into the blood and were able to cross the blood-brain barrier and eradicate the tumors.

The researchers showed that B7-H3 CAR-T cells do not attack cells expressing low levels of B7-H3, a reassuring finding since some healthy cells produce low levels of the marker.

"We're hopeful that there may be a therapeutic window of B7-H3 levels between tumor tissue and normal tissue," Majzner said. "The only way to find out is to test our new CAR-T cells in clinical trials."

Clinical trials planned

The team is now planning a series of phase-1 clinical trials for the B7-H3 CAR-T cells, starting with adult brain tumor patients. B7-H3 is not expressed on healthy tissues in the central nervous system, making it a good starting point for human trials.

The risk exists that the treatment may leave behind a few rare cancer cells that do not carry B7-H3, which could cause a relapse, Majzner noted. "We're already making combination CAR cells that combine several targets and optimizing those for future clinical trials," he said.

The study's other Stanford authors are postdoctoral scholars Johanna Theruvath, MD, and Sabine Heitzeneder, MD; MD-PhD student Christopher Mount; life science researchers Skyler Rietberg and Peng Xu; graduate students Miles Linde and Louai Labanieh; senior research scientist Elena Sotillo, PhD; former senior research scientist Siddhartha Mitra, PhD; Ravindra Majeti, MD, PhD, professor of medicine; and Michelle Monje, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology.

Majzner is a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute. Majeti, Monje and Mackall are members of Stanford Bio-X, the Stanford Maternal & Child Health Research Institute and the Stanford Cancer Institute. Majeti and Monje are also members of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and Monje is a member of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford. Mackall is director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Stanford and founding director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy.

Researchers at the University of Colorado-Denver, the National Cancer Institute, the University of Virginia, the University of Washington, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of British Columbia, the British Columbia Cancer Research Center, the British Columbia Cancer Agency, MacroGenics Inc., the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania also contributed to the study.

Mackall and some of the co-authors at other institutions hold patents on the use of B7-H3 CAR-T cells for cancer immunotherapy, as well as on anti-B7-H3 antibodies and single chain variable fragments. Mackall is a founder of and holds equity in Lyell Immunopharma.

The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the Sarcoma Alliance for Research Through Collaboration, Hyundai Hope on Wheels, the St. Baldrick's Foundation and Stand Up 2 Cancer.

Stanford's departments of Pediatrics and of Medicine also supported the work.
An international study finds multiple sclerosis treatments have long-term benefits, and that early treatment is important.

The Royal Melbourne Hospital and University of Melbourne-led study is the first to provide evidence that the currently available therapies can delay progression of disability in Multiple Sclerosis. It showed that early treatment -- particularly within five years of onset -- delayed the secondary progressive stage of MS, which is characterised by an ongoing increase of disability.

It showed that early treatment -- particularly within five years of onset -- delayed the secondary progressive stage of MS, which is characterised by an ongoing increase of disability.

Currently, more than 23,000 Australians are living with MS.

The conversion to the secondary progressive stage of MS is characterised by worsening of physical and mental capacity and reduced quality of life.

Therefore, the capability to delay this progression of disability represents an important outcome for people living with multiple sclerosis.

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The results of the study were published in the international medical journal, JAMA.

The study was led by the Clinical Outcomes Research unit (CORe) at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and University of Melbourne in collaboration with the University of Cambridge.

The international study used data from 1555 patients, from 68 neurological clinics across 21 countries.

One of the study leads, Associate Professor Tomas Kalincik, head of the MS Service at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and CORe at the University of Melbourne, said that the study showed how important it is to treat MS pro-actively.

"People who converted from relapsing MS to secondary progressive MS experience gradual and mostly irreversible worsening of disability.

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"Most of the therapies that we use to treat MS have no effect once people have converted to secondary progressive MS. This study shows us how important it is to treat relapsing MS early and pro-actively," Associate Professor Kalincik said.

Royal Melbourne patient Gowri was diagnosed with MS when she was in her 20s. She now has monthly infusions to treat her MS.

She is pleased that doctors have the data to prove that current treatments are effective.

"It's fantastic -- it makes you feel very grateful that the treatment is working," she said.

"I had a great General Practitioner who referred me straight away to a neurologist. My treatment started very quickly."

"This year will be 20 years since I was diagnosed, and even though I have some symptoms and I have been in hospital -- particularly after the birth of my daughter, I'm able to work, catch up with friends and have a normal life," Gowri said.

Associate Professor Kalincik said the results are reassuring for neurologists and patients with MS.

"This study shows that the therapies they have been treated with for many years, significantly improve the quality of their lives over the long-term," he said.
A new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers finds that states with higher levels of household gun ownership also have higher overall youth suicide rates, with every 10 percentage-point increase in household gun ownership associated with a 26.9 percent increase in the youth suicide rate.

Published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study is the first to examine the relationship between household gun ownership and youth suicide rates while controlling for differences in the rate of youth suicide attempts across states.

"The availability of firearms is contributing to an increase in the actual number of suicides, not just leading youth to substitute other means of suicide for guns," says BUSPH predoctoral fellow Anita Knopov, the study's lead author.

The researchers used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on suicides by youth between the ages of 10 and 19 years old from 2005 to 2015. They also used state-level data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) to control for rates of risk behaviors as well as other factors associated with suicide, such as race, family constellation, poverty, education, and urbanicity.

The researchers found the overall youth suicide rate from 2005 to 2015 ranged from a high of 15 youth suicides per 100,000 people in Alaska to a low of 3 per 100,000 people in New Jersey. In the 10 states with the highest youth suicide rates, the average household gun ownership was 52.5 percent, compared to a household gun ownership rate of 20 percent in the 10 states with the lowest youth suicide rates.

"This study demonstrates that the strongest single predictor of a state's youth suicide rate is the prevalence of household gun ownership in that state," says study co-author Michael Siegel, professor of community health sciences at BUSPH.

The study was funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Evidence for Action program.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
One in 10 children and about one in six adults with private insurance received antibiotics they didn't need at least once in 2016, a new Michigan Medicine study suggests.

Overall, 1 in 7 patients received unnecessary antibiotics, researchers found. Among outpatient antibiotic prescription fills by 19.2 million privately insured U.S. children and adults ages 18-64 in 2016, 23 percent were not medically justified, 36 percent were potentially appropriate, and 28 percent were not associated with any documented diagnosis.

The research, which provides the most recent and comprehensive estimates of outpatient antibiotic appropriateness to date among privately insured patients, was published in the British Medical Journal.

"Antibiotic overuse is still rampant and affects an enormous number of patients," says lead author Kao-Ping Chua, M.D., Ph.D., a researcher and pediatrician at University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

"Despite decades of quality improvement and educational initiatives, providers are still writing antibiotic prescriptions for illnesses that would get better on their own."

About 7.6 million (40 percent) of the 19.2 million enrollees filled at least one antibiotic prescription in 2016, and 2.7 million (14 percent) filled at least one inappropriate prescription.

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Among the 14.6 million adult enrollees, roughly 2.2 million (15 percent) filled at least one inappropriate antibiotic prescription in 2016, compared to 490,745 (11 percent) of the 4.6 million children. Antibiotics were most commonly overprescribed for bronchitis, the common cold, and related symptoms such as cough -- conditions that the medicine does not improve.

Of the 3.6 million inappropriate antibiotic prescription fills, 71 percent were written in office-based settings, 6 percent in urgent care centers, and 5 percent in emergency departments.

In children, antibiotics are the leading cause of emergency room visits for adverse drug events, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study. Potential side effects include allergic reactions, fungal infections and diarrhea.

Long term, Chua says, the biggest concern is that antibiotic overuse is contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, causing illnesses that were once easily treatable with antibiotics to become untreatable and dangerous. Each year in the U.S., 2 million people are affected by antibiotic-resistant infections and 23,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study found that the rate of antibiotic prescriptions is 805 per 1,000 people. National data indicate that around 270 million antibiotic prescriptions are filled every year.

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"Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to public health in the world, and the large number of antibiotics that providers prescribe to patients are a major driver of resistance," Chua says.

"Providers urgently need to eliminate prescribing that isn't needed, both for the sake of their patients and society."

Chua notes several possible explanations for inappropriate prescriptions. In some cases, patients may ask for a prescription to reduce suffering, particularly if they have been inappropriately prescribed antibiotics in the past in similar situations, leading them to believe antibiotics are necessary.

In other cases, doctors may truly be unsure about the diagnosis.

"Providers are well meaning and want to care for their patients the best way they can," Chua says. "It's sometimes difficult to differentiate between a cold and a bacterial sinus infection. Diagnostic uncertainty is definitely one factor.

"However, even when providers think a patient likely has a cold, our medical culture encourages them to risk over treating rather than risk undertreating by recommending watchful waiting.""

Chua also notes that the percentage of prescriptions that are unnecessary may be much higher than what the numbers show. Three in 10 fills were not associated with any documented diagnosis. These could include cases where a doctor prescribed an antibiotic over the phone without an office visit based on descriptions matching an infection requiring antibiotics. The 36 percent of fills considered potentially appropriate were also written for conditions that only sometimes need antibiotics, like sinusitis.

"We think that 23 percent may be a lower bound of the scope of unnecessary antibiotic prescribing," Chua said.

Chua and colleagues analyzed insurance claims data using a novel classification system determining whether each of the 91,738 diagnosis codes available in the international medical coding system "always," "sometimes," or "never" justified antibiotics. No study has examined outpatient antibiotic appropriateness using a comprehensive classification scheme of diagnosis codes contained in the newest medical coding system (ICD-10, which replaced ICD-9 in the U.S. in 2015.) Prior studies have used pre-2015 data because of their reliance on ICD-9.

Chua says the classification scheme could help providers better evaluate how often they are overprescribing antibiotics, and could also help evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to reduce antibiotic overuse.

"Our classification scheme could facilitate future efforts to comprehensively measure outpatient antibiotic appropriateness in the U.S. It could also be used in other countries that are already using ICD-10," he says.
Jose Luis Magana/AP photo, FilePaul Manafort, President Donald Trumps former campaign chairman, leaves the Federal District Court after a hearing in Washington. Manafort, while chairman of the Trump campaign, allegedly sent polling data to a Russian associate with close ties to Russian intelligence.
Chandigarh, January 18: The Punjab Government under the leadership of Capt. Amarinder Singh on Thursday gave a major boost to the Hi-tech cycles, e-bikes, e-vehicles and light engineering industry of Ludhiana by signing an agreement for alloting 100 acres of land to Hero Cycles Ltd. in the upcoming Hi-Tech Cycle Valley in Village Dhanansu, for the development of a state-of-the-art Industrial Park within the Cycle Valley.

An MoU to this effect was signed today between Rahul Bhandari, MD, PSIEC, and Pankaj Munjal, Chairman, Hero Cycles Ltd. in the presence of the Punjab Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh, and Industry Minister, Sunder Sham Arora. Several MPs and MLAs were also present along with top government officials on the occasion.

There was a demand from the Industry, CII, PHD Chamber of Commerce, and other representative bodies of investors for setting up a New Industrial Park around Ludhiana, with modern infrastructure facilities. Accordingly, the state government approved the project for setting up of the Hi-Tech Cycle Valley through PSIEC over 380 acres of land at Village Dhanansu, located very close to the industrial city of Ludhiana.

The Chief Minister said that the project shall attract around Rs. 400 crore investment by Hero Cycles Ltd. and its suppliers/ ancillaries, and generate close to 1000 direct employment opportunities. He said the industrial park will have a production capacity of 4 million bicycles per annum and the project shall be implemented within 36 months.

Vini Mahajan, ACS (Industries & Commerce) said that Hero Cycles Ltd. had been selected through an objective, competitive and technical bidding process as the Project Company to set up an Anchor Unit for manufacturing of mobility solutions like Bi-cycles, E-bikes, etc. and to develop the Industrial Park along with ancillary/ vendor units at Hi-Tech Cycle Valley. Hero Cycles Ltd. shall be responsible for the development of the entire industrial park in the allotted land.

Within the proposed project, Hero Cycles Ltd. shall develop its own Anchor Unit in 50 acres. In the remaining 50 acres, it shall invite major national and international manufacturers as ancillary/ vendor units. Expressing gratitude to the Chief Minister, Chairman Hero Cycles Pankaj Munjal said that he was personally indebted to the State Government for approving this iconic cycle valley project expeditiously.

He hoped that the Hi-Tech Cycle Valley at Ludhiana would act as a catalyst for the overall development of the area, giving further impetus to the industrial development of Punjab. Hero Group was alone producing ten million cycles annually, which accounts for 7.5 percent of the World production, he added. The upcoming Cycle Valley Project would cater to 50% demand of cycle production in India and Europe, said Munjal.

He also said the entire production target would be met by an independent knowledge workers team, fully equipped and trained in the company's R and D Centre in Germany. Hero Cycles Ltd. has invited globally reputed manufacturers with high end technology to set up ancillary vendor units in the industrial park. Hero Cycles Ltd. has been allowed to utilize land not only for Industrial purpose but also for other allied operations covering warehousing, logistics, R&D Centres, Skill Development Centres etc.

The Hi-Tech Cycle Valley being set up by PSIEC would help in decongestion and relocating industry from Ludhiana, and encourage setting up of an anchor unit in the sector specific fields of Cycle Industry. Apart from investment of Rs. 300 Crores on infrastructure, the project would attract an estimated additional investment of Rs. 1000-1500 Crores. A separate direct access is being provided by the State Govt. to the Hi-Tech Cycle Valley with 100 feet wide road from the Ludhiana-Chandigarh highway.

The existing road which connects the Cycle Valley via Budhewal Sugar Mills is also being widened and strengthened by the State Government. PSIEC has engaged IL&FS as consultant for planning and designing of infrastructure facilities to be created in the Cycle Valley. The Cycle Valley would provide developed industrial plots to the prospective investors at an affordable price and shall be equipped with modern amenities along with integrated support services covering Banking, Health, Institutional, Recreational, Education etc.

Punjab Govt. through PSTCL would also set up 400 KV Grid Sub Station to cater to the power requirement of coming up enterprises in the Cycle Valley and also for other units likely to come in future in its vicinity. Hi-Tech Cycle Valley at Ludhiana would act as a catalyst for overall development of the area, especially paving the way for providing a big boost to the industrial development of Punjab.

Industrial growth of Ludhiana city significantly relies on Cycle and small scale manufacturing industry. Though Ludhiana is a traditional hub of the cycle industry of India, it has witnessed stagnant growth in the past few years. The main idea behind creation of the envisaged Industrial Park is to create an eco-system for hi-tech bi-cycles and engineering products, which will give impetus to up-gradation if technology and thus, the industry of Ludhiana would remain relevant and competitive globally.

Prominent amongst others who were present on the occasion included Media Advisor to CM Raveen Thukral, MP Ludhiana Ravneet Singh Bittu, PPCC Chief and Member Parliament Gurdaspur Sunil Jakhar, Chief Principal Secretary to CM Suresh Kumar, Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh, Principal Secretary to CM Tejveer Singh, MD PSIEC Rahul Bhandari, AMD PSIEC Vineet Kumar, Director Hero Cycles S K Rai and Regional Head Hero Europe Andrews Klein.
Thomas Carlin

TWO men and a teenage girl subjected an innocent woman to a vicious and brutal attack in the street after falsely accusing her of trying to break into a car.

Thomas Carlin, Michael Dunn and Elle Carlin attacked Sarah Longden on Herringthorpe Valley Road  leaving her hospitalised for five days with a bleed on the brain.

Thomas Carlin (22), of Herringthorpe Valley Road, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday (15), while his sister, Elle Carlin (18), of the same address, and Dunn (22), of Alpha Road, Rotherham, were given 12-month community orders for their part in the attack.

Sentencing, Recorder Gavin Doig said: Its a matter of good fortune and nothing else that this was not an offence of homicide.

Ms Longden (32) was attacked as she headed to a flat on Herringthorpe Valley Road with two friends at 3am on July 7 last year, prosecutor Mr Carl Fitch said.

The victim had been looking for cigarette ends on the floor to roll into a cigarette.

Dunn told police he thought Ms Longden and her friends were trying to break into his car, which had been parked in a layby outside, and he went to confront them, Mr Fitch said.

Elle Carlin tried to grab Ms Longden, who broke free, but Dunn and Thomas Carlin caught up with her.

Thomas Carlin assaulted her while Dunn shouted threats to her.

A witness, who called the police, saw Elle Carlin pushing and punching Ms Longden in the head, while her brother throttled her.

Elle Carlin also attempted to stamp on Ms Longdens head, Mr Fitch said.

Ms Longden, who was taken to the Northern General Hospital, suffered a black eye, a broken nose and a bleed on the brain.

In a victim impact statement she said: I dont know why they were attacking me.

I was not trying to break into their car or any other car on the street.

They didnt give me any chance to explain what I was doing  they just came straight at me.

Thomas Carlin admitted grievous bodily harm with intent, Elle Carlin admitted affray and Dunn admitted threatening behaviour with intent.

The attack happened while Thomas Carlin was on bail for a robbery he carried out in October, 2017, with Gareth Troop (22), of Goldsmith Drive, Herringthorpe.

Troop and Thomas Carlin broke into Rosewell Court, Rotherham, at 6am on October 22 and attacked Curtis Ball (19), while he was asleep in bed.

Carlin punched Mr Ball and hit him over the head with a vodka bottle while Troop poured water on him and stole 10.

Thomas Carlin admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm and Troop admitted robbery.

Troop was jailed for two years for the robbery and Carlin had two years added to the six-and-a-half years he received for the attack on Ms Longden.

Mr Dermot Hughes, mitigating for Thomas Carlin, said he regretted the vicious and brutal attack on Ms Longden.

Elle Carlins barrister, Mr James Baird asked the judge to spare her a prison sentence because she was pregnant.

Dunn was ordered to carry out 60 hours of unpaid work and Elle Carlin was given a four-month curfew order.
Becky Lancashire and Gemma Marshall in their school days and below at university

A BEAUTIFUL dancer who died following a car crash aged 19 will be celebrated by her friend as she takes on 19 challenges this year to raise money for a dance scholarship in her memory.

Becky Lancashire will honour childhood friend Gemma Marshall with a range of activities  from sky-diving to a triathlon  and hopes to capture some of her pals daring spirit.

Money raised by Beckys 19 in 19: A Fundraiser for Gemma challenge will go towards a scholarship set up for underprivileged youngsters in the late teenagers name.

Becky (22) said: Gemma was so daring and adventurous. I imagine if she was fundraising or doing something like this she would have pushed herself to the limit.

I dont think holding a coffee morning would have been very Gemma.

Gemma, of Wickersley Road, had a promising dance career ahead of her and was shining bright in her second year of university in Lincoln when she was fatally injured in a collision on February 3 last year.

The former Oakwood pupil was a passenger in a blue Peugeot when it was involved in a single-vehicle collision. She died in hospital ten days later.

Lincolnshire police said an investigation was still ongoing.

Becky, who trained at the Janet Mitchell School of Dance in Brecks with Gemma from a young age, said the past year had been horrible but she was ploughing her efforts into the challenge.

She was so confident, always at the front of dance classes and putting herself out there, said Becky.

She had a very infectious attitude. I wish I could have been more like that. So this challenge will hopefully see me capture a bit of that feeling.

Production journalist Becky, who now lives in Jersey, said her fundraiser had been well received and more than 200 had been raised in just two weeks through her first challenge  booze-free dry January.

Money raised will go to the Gemma Marshall Award, which has been set up by Gemmas mother.

The award is like a scholarship and will give dance and performing opportunities to young people who may never have been given the opportunity without a little bit of support, said Becky.

Her dance career would have taken her to some huge places, so its nice that this money will go towards helping young people follow their dreams.

The friends attended the same secondary school and Sitwell Juniors.

Gemma also followed in Beckys footsteps to the University of Lincoln to study dance and spent her life in the dance studio.

Becky added: Losing her hit everyone so hard, especially in the first few months. There were so many emotions, grieving, disbelieving, missing her a great deal, and also trying to think: What would Gemma do?

She would not have wanted us to be moping around. She would have wanted us to have a party.

Becky said their university dance friends were keen to join her 19-mile coast-to-coast walk as part of the challenge and the tragic death had brought them even closer together.

Im also going to do meat-free March, which will be a challenge on a day-to-day basis, said Becky, formerly of Broom.

The fundraiser will keep Gemma at the forefront of my mind.

To donate and to follow Beckys challenges visit https://bit.ly/2TtUeqm.
ARSONISTS set fire to a car in Whiston in the early hours of this morning (Friday).

Firefighters from Rotherham station were called to Little Common Lane at 1.50am where a Mitsubishi Trojan was on fire, a spokeswoman for South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said.

They tackled the deliberate fire for 40 minutes.
Arif Ansari arriving at court this morning

A BBC boss described a reporter who named a Rotherham rape victim in a live news report as an excellent journalist who never shied away from difficult stories.

Arif Ansari (44), head of news at BBC Asian Network, was giving evidence at Sheffield Magistrates Court this morning (Friday) where he is accused of breaching the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992, which gives victims lifelong anonymity.

BBC reporter Mr Rickin Majithia named the rape victim during a live radio report about her trial last February.

Ansari had checked Mr Majithias script around 25 minutes before it had been broadcast and believed the womans name used in it was her pseudonym.

Giving evidence today, Ansari said legal training was mandatory for all BBC journalists and this would cover aspects such as anonymity for witnesses in some criminal cases.

Asked to describe Mr Majithia, he said: I considered him to be an excellent journalist.

He was very driven  he dealt with difficult stories and never shied away from them.

Recounting the days before the broadcast, he said: For me, the fact we couldnt name the victim was very straightforward and obvious.

Ansari said his legal concerns ahead of the trial had been around Mr Majithias plans to interview the victim (post trial) and a second trial linked to the case.

Defending, Mr Trevor Burke asked his client: Did you believe that any aspect of this script required legalling by the legal team?

Ansari said: No.

Ansari said he had taken Mr Majithia to a London pub after the broadcast to discuss what had happened.

Ansari said: He (Mr Majithia) was very badly shaken. He was in a really bad way.

I took him to the pub to calm him down and tried to reassure him.

Mr Majithia had been worried he would be arrested or lose his job, said Ansari.

He said he had asked Mr Majithia at the pub whether he had reported from a court case before, which he said he had not.

Ansari said: I remembered being somewhat shocked that he hadnt previously told me that.

Under cross-examination from prosecutor Mr Neil Usher, Ansari said he trusted Mr Majithias journalism.

He was a very good journalist, he added.

This was not a complex legal issue  this is as basic as it gets.

This is what you are taught at journalism school  let alone what you get taught at the start of your career.

Ansari said the script for the 5pm bulletin struck me as 100 per cent correct, including the use of the pseudonym.

Mr Majithia was a senior reporter who had a professional relationship with the victim, said Ansari.

I never knew her, said the BBC boss. "I was in London. I knew that he knew that he could not name her with her real name.

Putting all those factors together, it did not occur to me that this could be wrong.

Ansari denies the offence. The trial continues.
Weather Alert

...CODE ORANGE AIR QUALITY ALERT IS IN EFFECT FOR ATLANTA FOR Thursday June 17... The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division has issued a Code Orange (Unhealthy for sensitive groups) Air Quality Alert for Atlanta for Thursday June 17. Under Code Orange conditions, the outdoor air quality is likely to be unhealthy for some people. Children, people who are sensitive to ozone, and people with heart or lung disease should limit prolonged outdoor exertion during the late afternoon or early evening when ozone concentrations are highest. For additional information on the Air Quality Index, please visit http://airnow.gov.
However, Lee is also one of the poorest counties in the state, with a median household income of $32,500. Only two other localities  Norton and Buchanan County  are lower. By contrast, Arlington is at $108,500 (and just scored 25,000 Amazon jobs that are supposed to pay an average salary of $150,000). Loudoun County is even higher, at $134,600. The point being: No one should be surprised that Lee County spends so little on schools. Where, exactly, is it supposed to get the money? Sure, the county could raise its taxes, but how much tax money can you realistically extract from one of the poorest counties in the state?

In Lee County, as in most rural school systems, most of the money for schools comes from the state. The state spends $7,024 per student in Lee County. Only one other locality  Charlotte County in Southside  gets more from the state per student. And that still clearly isnt enough. Students in Northern Virginia attend school in gleaming educational palaces that are so wired that students are taught computer coding in kindergarten. In Lee County last year, students had to set out buckets to catch the rain coming through the ceiling. At one school, the walls had separated from the foundation. Lee County has heroically added cybersecurity as a class option  even though staffers have to worry about blowing out the electrical circuits. Fixing the rooves at three schools cost $700,000. Finding the money to hire seven new resource officers to cover all its schools? Where is this money supposed to come from? Herring doesnt say. Nobody in state government says. Thats the real issue here. More context: Even once you add in federal funding and other sources of revenue, Lee Countys total per-pupil spending is less than what some Northern Virginia localities spend on their own  because the states most affluent communities can afford to tax themselves more. Lee Countys total per-student spending is $11,936. Arlington blows past that on its own  and winds up at $19,797 per student. Money isnt everything. It cant guarantee a good education. But it can guarantee buildings that arent falling apart, classrooms that are equipped for a modern education, and, in these times, security officers. If Virginia has a locality that struggles to pay for those things, perhaps guns arent the real problem here.
RICHMOND  Virginia legislators on Friday paid somber tribute to Joshua Bell, adult son of Del. John Bell, D-Loudoun, who died Thursday.

The delegate and his son had spoken openly about Joshuas struggles with addiction to opioids since he injured his neck in a car accident eight years ago, and how at one point Joshua had turned from pain pills to heroin.

Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, spoke of Joshua Bell in a brief speech Friday to the House of Delegates.

We in this body have chosen to live our small lives more publicly than most. And so that means that, at times, we have to grieve in public, Mullin said.

Last night John Bell lost his son, Joshua, and we all share in his grief, Mullin said. Were not meant to outlive our children. Its unnatural, its unjust, it smothers the soul.

Josh Bell served his country in the Air National Guard for six years. He strove to do good in this world and he used his experiences and struggles to help others.
Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here.
RICHMOND  For the second year in a row, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax left the dais where he presides over the state Senate when senators honored Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Sen. Richard Stuart, R-Stafford, gave a brief speech in support of Lee and asking that the Senate adjourn Friday in his honor. Saturday is Lees birthday.

I rise today to celebrate the 212th birthday of Robert E. Lee and, Mr. President, I rise to celebrate his birthday because he was a great Virginian and a great American, and not because it has anything to do with slavery, Stuart said. I celebrate Lee on his birthday because he was a man with the strength of his convictions, and that is a rare trait, either in yesteryear or today.

Fairfax, elected in 2017 as the second black lieutenant governor in Virginia history, left the dais in anticipation of the speech. Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, the president pro tempore in the Senate, replaced him.

Fairfax called the decision to again honor Lee in the Senate unfortunate but not surprising, and said he wanted to be firm and respectful in his protest.

Particularly in this year which is obviously the 400 year commemoration of the first enslaved Africans being brought to Virginia, in Hampton and Point Comfort, I think it stings a lot of people in particular in a year like this, he said. To constantly look backwards to a very divisive time and conscript people into honoring someone who  had he prevailed and gotten his way I would not be standing up there on that dais as lieutenant governor of Virginia  I think is something that we should not be doing.
Danielle Davoll, one of five high school seniors participating in the Altruist Clubs 65th Debutante Ball on Dec. 28, was crowned the 2018 queen.

Three Northside High and two William Fleming High girls made their debuts at the ball, which funds scholarships given by the Altruist Club.

The club was organized in the segregated 1950s to celebrate black teens. Over the years, it has awarded more than $250,000 in scholarships to about 2,000 debs. Businesses and community organizations sponsor the young women in the ball.

Blake Barnes, a senior at Old Dominion University, served as the balls grand marshal. He is the son of William and Blair Barnes and a 2015 Fleming graduate who served as a debutante escort for several years.

Davoll, who attends Northside, is the daughter of Alwyn and Deborah Davoll. Her escort was Samuel English III, and her sponsor was Beta Chi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. Her lady-in-waiting was Clarissa Nash.

Iyana Cox, daughter of Richard and Victoria Lee Cox of Roanoke, was first runner-up. Cox, from Fleming, was escorted by Dashaun Grogan and sponsored by LaShays Hair Salon. Kierra Tucker served as her lady-in-waiting.
Harris and new chamber President Onassis Burress have been floating a lot of new ideas about how to further grow and develop the organization that has seen a steady rise in membership since 2015 when former director Lisa Davis took over. The chamber has 261 members, up almost 11 percent in the past year, and Harris said she hopes to see at least that much growth in 2019.

Much of the early focus has been on expanding the chambers reach on social media platforms and creating a new young professionals organization, an idea Burress said that he got from his time working with the local chamber in Columbus, Georgia.

I saw that it worked well [in Georgia] and gave young professionals [ages 21-40] that arent necessarily business owners an opportunity to network and develop relationships in the community, he said.

Burress said that he and Harris have discussed the fact that the chamber should expand on the services it already offers members, especially local businesses, by letting them do what they do while providing courses and help to owners with the behind-the-scenes functions of running a business.

You often find businesses that are really good at their crafts but arent good at running a business, so we want to step in and be a resource for them, he said.
Which road intersections are the most dangerous and why? How do sodas and salty snacks affect the microbes in our guts? How does ozone influence photosynthesis in forests?

What unites these research projects at the University of Virginia is an emerging field that has become one of the hottest subjects in higher education: data science.

UVa announced Friday the launch of a school of data science, backed by a $120 million gift, the largest private donation ever to the university in Charlottesville. With the school, UVa plans to expand a masters degree program and soon offer bachelors degrees in the subject.

The announcement comes two months after Amazon announced it would build part of its second headquarters in Northern Virginia. The state lured Amazon with an economic development package focused on its ability to create technology-fluent talent. Led by Virginia Tech, which plans to build an Innovation Campus near the Amazon facility, other public universities in the state have announced plans to help expand the technology talent pipeline. Now UVa is getting involved.
CHRISTIANSBURG  The list of charges tied to the death Sunday of 2-year-old Steven Dale Meek II now includes felony murder, Christiansburgs police chief announced Friday.

McKenzie Kyle Hellman, 25, of Christiansburg, who already was charged with child abuse, now also faces a felony murder charge and an assortment of sexual abuse and pornography charges in a case that has two victims: Steven and another child who is not being named, Chief Mark Sisson said at a press conference at the town police department.

Also charged in the case is Stevens mother, Hellmans girlfriend Kayla Nicole Thomas, also 25. Thomas is accused of sexually abusing her own son and producing child pornography.

Felony murder in Virginia is a charge that says a victim died during the commission of another felony. Sisson said the murder charge likely would be upgraded as investigation continued.

Sissons voice shook as he spoke in front of a projected picture of Steven standing in the snow, smiling and dressed in a camouflage jacket and hat. In the picture, the boy was held from behind by an adult.

Children in this community are cherished, the chief said. They are individuals without voices.  It is our job to be their voice.
What makes it beautiful is what makes it challenging, Henderson said. VCC officials saw Carilion as a natural fit as a new owner because of the nonprofits long track record of supporting the community and its innovative use of some other historic buildings. Last year, Carilion opened a simulation lab in the trolley barn building near Dr Pepper Park, keeping some historic aspects of the property intact.

Now that it is safe and in the right long-term hands, it will be wonderful to see what unfolds in the coming years, Walker said. Exactly what it will be will take time to process, but Carilion is the perfect steward in every way. Its a huge relief.

Dame said Carilion didnt have an immediate interest in the property when it went on the market. But when Walker approached Carilion last month, officials saw it as a great opportunity to get extra office space downtown, especially as Carilion continues to grow. He also said the organization knew that the money it paid for the building would be used for Roanoke-area projects through VCC, which is what really sold the deal.
At least three curving sculptures painted with vibrant color will appear to dance in front of the Melrose Library in northwest Roanoke when it opens in its new location.

Titled Rhapsody Between the Pages, this forthcoming addition to Roanokes public art collection comes from the mind of Napoleon Jones-Henderson, a Chicago-born artist and teacher who has for decades been an influential figure in the Black Arts Movement. The artist runs the Research Institute of African and African Diaspora Arts in Roxbury, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.

Roanoke arts and culture coordinator Susan Jennings said Jones-Henderson was chosen out of 77 applicants to create the $40,000 project. The biggest reason we chose Napoleon was because of his intent to involve the community. He really wanted it to be a community-driven design.

This commission is important to me for two major reasons, Jones-Henderson said. It allows me to have a work within the African American community and it also allows me to have a visual, artistic relationship with the architect who designed the building, which he described as an artwork in itself on the outside. He views the placement of his art within the space designed by the architect as one form of collaboration.
But also because they truly do find meaning, pride, and feelings of self-worth through their jobs  i.e., all those psychic benefits of employment that Republicans usually talk about.

Consider the legions of federal employees who safeguard the natural world through their work at the Environmental Protection Agency or the National Park Service; who help businesses make informed decisions through data they collect for the Census Bureau; who inspect food for the Food and Drug Administration to prevent outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli, or listeria.

These public servants took such positions not just for the paycheck. They took them because they find meaning in the work that theyre currently barred from doing.

Being told to stay home  or even to report to work, but indefinitely forgo compensation for their labor  is not just financially painful. Its demoralizing.

And finally, there are the federal contract workers who also have been laid off during the shutdown.

Historically, these workers have gotten zero back pay after the government reopens, in part because getting them made whole is complicated.
Wednesday was National Religious Freedom Day  a fitting opportunity for Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Nebraska, to ask the Senate to unanimously reaffirm our oath of office to a Constitution that rejects religious bigotry and reaffirm the constitutional clause that forbids using religion as a test for public office. The resolution was agreed to by unanimous consent.

Sasses motion was prompted in part by the offensive questioning last month of judicial nominee Brian Buescher by Sens. Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono. Both senators took issue with Bueschers membership in the Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus. Harris demanded to know if his ties with the benevolent group would prevent him from being able to serve impartially. Hinoro asked him if he would end his association with the Knights and recuse himself on any case on which the organization had taken a stand.
U.Va. plans for the new school, which is still being designed, to have a Ph.D. program, undergraduate programs in data science, and data science certificates. The university also plans to expand its existing on-campus and online masters program in data science, which has 69 students now.

The private foundation footing the bill for the majority of the school, which is one of the first data science schools in the U.S., is run by two U.Va. alumni.

A Class of 1991 alumnus, Jaffray Woodriff, is the foundations trustee, while his wife, Merrill Woodriff, who completed a bachelors degree from the College of Arts and Sciences and a masters degree from the Curry School of Education in 1998, is its director.

Jaffray Woodriff co-founded and runs Quantitative Investment Management, a private investment firm that operates out of Charlottesville.

The foundations donation will pay for the faculty and administration of the school along with doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships. A university news release said there would be money also coming from U.Va.s Bicentennial Professors Fund and Bicentennial Scholars Fund.
A Republican-led subcommittee in the Virginia House of Delegates voted down more than a dozen Democratic gun control bills Thursday, including a red-flag proposal endorsed by President Donald Trumps school safety committee.

In a packed hearing room, Republicans on a House Militia, Police and Public Safety subcommittee used their 4-2 majority to methodically defeat the gun bills over the course of more than two hours.

For the first time, the panel heard arguments about a bill to create extreme risk protection orders, which would allow authorities to take guns from people whose behavior gives law enforcement reason to believe they may hurt others or themselves.

The idea gained bipartisan support after last years school shooting in Parkland, Fla., but Thursdays vote indicates Virginia wont join the 13 states that have risk protection laws.

I had hoped that this bill would show itself as one that could break the partisan logjam that we seem to be stuck in when it comes to gun safety bills, said Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, the bills sponsor. This is a bill that Republicans all across the country support.
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Virginia GOP leaders, concerned about the rise in vaping by teens, want to increase the states minimum age to purchase or possess tobacco products and electronic cigarettes from 18 to 21.

Del. Chris Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, a physician, and Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, have introduced identical bills in the House and Senate that would bar people under the age of 21 from buying or possessing tobacco products, nicotine vapor products, and alternative nicotine products.

Speaker of the House Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, backs the effort, and Senate Minority Leader Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, is a patron of Norments Senate bill.

Six states have raised the tobacco age to 21, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids  California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, Hawaii and Maine.

Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. said last fall that it would pull some of its e-cigarette products from the market after public health officials warned of a rising epidemic of underage use of nicotine delivery devices.

The nations largest tobacco company said then, for the first time, that it would back federal legislation to set the minimum legal age to buy tobacco products at 21. The current federal minimum age is 18.
A new report shows salaries for Virginia state employees lag private-sector counterparts by an average of 14 percent.

A report by the Department of Human Resource Management says the average applied to 47 different types of state jobs compared with the national average for comparable jobs in the private sector.

State marketing and public relations specialists had the biggest wage gap, making 36.5 percent less than private sector workers with similar jobs.

The report compared salaries, not other benefits.

Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has proposed giving state employees a 1 percent bonus, but its unclear if the Republican-led General Assembly will approve that plan.

Senate backs bill on switchblade knives

The Virginia Senate voted 25-15 on Thursday to pass a bill that would allow knife manufacturers in the state to make switchblades but only distribute them outside the commonwealths borders.

Senate Bill 1251 from Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania, heads to the House of Delegates. If it becomes law, it would expand business for Marion-based Blue Ridge Knives, which Reeves said is the worlds largest knife maker.
For the second year in a row, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax left the dais where he presides over the state Senate when senators honored Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Sen. Richard Stuart, R-Stafford, gave a brief speech in support of Lee and asking that the Senate adjourn Friday in his honor. Saturday is Lees birthday.

I rise today to celebrate the 212th birthday of Robert E. Lee and, Mr. President, I rise to celebrate his birthday because he was a great Virginian and a great American, and not because it has anything to do with slavery, Stuart said. I celebrate Lee on his birthday because he was a man with the strength of his convictions, and that is a rare trait, either in yesteryear or today.

Fairfax, elected in 2017 as the second black lieutenant governor in Virginia history, left the dais in anticipation of the speech. Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, the president pro tempore in the Senate, replaced him.

Fairfax called the decision to again honor Lee in the Senate unfortunate but not surprising, and said he wanted to be firm and respectful in his protest.

Particularly in this year, which is obviously the 400-year commemoration of the first enslaved Africans being brought to Virginia, in Hampton and Point Comfort, I think it stings a lot of people in particular in a year like this, he said. To constantly look backwards to a very divisive time and conscript people into honoring someone who  had he prevailed and gotten his way I would not be standing up there on that dais as lieutenant governor of Virginia  I think is something that we should not be doing.
A man suffered only minor injuries after the truck he was driving was struck by an Amtrak passenger train in New Kent County.

Virginia State Police responded at 11:16 a.m. Friday to the 13700 block of Rockahock Road, which is just off U.S. Route 60.

A Ford work truck hauling a trailer, driven by a 30-year-old Essex County man, was heading south through a railroad crossing on Rockahock Road when it was struck by an Amtrak passenger train traveling east.

The train hit the truck toward the rear on the passenger side and rolled it onto its roof, police said.

The train did not derail but was temporarily disabled, police said. A mobile home and another vehicle nearby were damaged by flying debris.

The driver of the truck was taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries. None of the 80 people on the train, including four crew members, was hurt, police said.

The railroad crossing does not have emergency equipment, but there are stop signs on either side of the crossing.

Charges are pending, police said, and the crash remains under investigation. CSX personnel were assisting with the investigation.
Petersburg officials who want more control over money coming into city coffers are again looking to wrest powers from the embattled treasurers office.

The City Council is asking state lawmakers to amend the citys charter so City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides and her staff can collect local taxes and administer the citys funds.

Those duties now belong to the citys elected treasurer, Ken Pritchett, who was selected in 2017 after his predecessor was arrested for allegedly embezzling city money. Petersburg has struggled for years to properly bill and collect taxes.

Pritchett, who did not return an interview request, has slammed the move publicly as an effort to strip voters of their power. Ferrell-Benavides said the city needs more control to stabilize a core city function.

Our goal is not that we want to take away the rights of the voters, she said. We just want to make sure that the person who is responsible has the proper training and skill set.
Even as Sears chairman Eddie Lampert is trying to salvage whats left of the iconic retailer, the Sears store at Virginia Center Commons mall in northern Henrico County is counting down its last days.

A big poster on the stores entry doors on Thursday advised customers of the stores Last 4 Days. The store is scheduled to close Sunday.

Inside was in disarray, with some of the remaining merchandise scattered around in places and piles of clothes on the floor as workers removed them from store fixtures, which also are for sale.

The news may be better for approximately 400 Sears stores that Lampert wants to keep open. Lamperts ESL Investments Inc. was the winning bidder this week in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy auction for Sears Holdings Corp.s assets, the company confirmed Thursday. Sears filed for bankruptcy in October.

Lamperts $5.2 billion bid will save an estimated 45,000 jobs. Court approval is pending.
The Westmont at Short Pump comes as other senior living communities in the Richmond region have announced new plans for developments or expansion and renovation projects in the past year as the 65-plus population is expected to increase.

For instance, Resort Lifestyle Communities purchased nearly 39 acres in Goochland County last year for the proposed $30 million Tuckahoe Pines, a 130-unit retirement development. The parcel is about a half-mile west of the Henrico line and is across Patterson Avenue from the Rivergate residential community.

Erickson Living is planning a complex just south of The Notch section of West Creek in Goochland. The community, featuring 14 buildings on about 93 acres, will include a combination of 1,100 independent living units and a yet-to-be-determined number of assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing units.

Erickson plans to start construction on a sales office for the complex this summer with plans for it to open in early 2020, a spokesman said. Construction on the units is expected to start soon after, with the first residents to move in during 2021.

Westminster Canterbury Richmond senior living community is looking to add 125 more independent-living residences. The Lakewood senior living community in Henrico is undergoing a $64 million expansion, while Cedarfield is undergoing a $70 million-plus renovation and expansion on its 96-acre campus off Three Chopt Road.
ASHLAND -- Ashland Municipal Court Judge John Good on Friday handed Brandon Campo the maximum possible sentence -- six months in jail -- on drug-related charges.

The judge also revealed new details about the case and outlined Campo's extensive criminal history.

"I think anything less than the maximum sentence would be demeaning to the seriousness of your conduct," Good told Campo. "I'm not sure a maximum sentence isn't demeaning to the seriousness of your conduct, but it's all I've got."

Campo will serve 180 days in the Ashland County Jail on charges of schedule four drug possession and endangering children, both misdemeanors to which Campo pleaded guilty in December. He will also be required to pay a $500 fine and court costs.

The son of Ashland University President Carlos Campo, Brandon Campo was himself an administrator at AU until his arrest last June.

After reviewing the pre-sentence investigation report in the case, Good said evidence shows Campo purchased drugs from an Ashland University student and also arranged for drug deals to be conducted at his residence, which is his father's home. Campo's phone records also showed he purchased black tar heroin from out of state, Good said.

"You have a duty as an administrator at that university to get drug dealers off that campus," Good said. "Instead of doing that, you were financially supporting a drug dealer on that campus by doing business with him.

"This was a student at the university that you were buying drugs from. Instead of turning him in to the police, which was your job, you gave him money."

In addition to arranging drug deals and possessing drugs in the presence of Campo's young son, Good said Campo and his wife, Madeline, further endangered their child by making videos of the two of them engaged in sexual activity with the child visible in the background. The couple then posted the videos on the internet for money.

Good went on to question Ashland University's hiring policies and procedures.

"Who does the background checks when they hire administrators at Ashland University?" Good said. "Because this is not a one-off event. You have a criminal record that is extremely extensive."

Good listed a variety of charges against Campo from other states, dating to 2007. Some of the charges resulted in convictions while others were dismissed.

Campo's past charges included burglary, multiple OVI offenses, public intoxication, theft, identity theft, forgery, obstruction of justice, purchase of alcohol for underage consumption, multiple probation violations, trespassing, defrauding hotels or motels, drug possession and drug trafficking.

Campo has served prison time and has two active warrants for his arrest, according to Good.

"You have two active warrants for your arrest in the state of Virginia. You are a fugitive, and you know that ... Yet somehow you get a job at Ashland University as an administrator?" Good said. "If I were a parent of a student at that university, I would be absolutely outraged that someone like you was working there in a position of trust."

Brandon Campo was remanded into the custody of the Ashland County Sheriff's Office to serve his jail sentence.

Madeline Campo, who pleaded guilty to drug paraphernalia and marijuana possession charges, was ordered to pay $300 in fines and court costs. She also will have her driver's license suspended for one year but may be granted driving privileges for work, school or counseling if she can pass a drug test.

Good said Madeline Campo had no prior criminal history.
MANSFIELD -- When Ricky Mitchell came to town in 2016, he hit the ground running.

That December he moved into his friend's house in Shelby and began recording his first Richland County album, Monday Morning After.

He poured himself into a personal album about getting over past relationships, becoming more mature and getting comfortable with himself again. But the project wasn't completed.

"I've never made real money," Mitchell said, explaining the abrupt end to the project. "A lot of the decisions on albums have been because I've been up against a wall, and I had to do something."

Mitchell said he had a gig coming up at a pizza shop in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee where he wanted to be able to sell the project.

"I still have screen shots of the conversation I had with my drummer (Scott Fugate, of Kingston, Tennessee) about my doubts," he said. "But I had to get the project done by the pizza gig."

At the pizza shop gig, which he dubbed an Album Release Party, Mitchell was so worried about the project he said he played none of the songs on it.

"I only played covers," he said. "It was the most disheartening thing. I was embarrassed by the state of it."

In 2018, he tried to make up for it. He released an album titled Wishing Wells in May 2018.

But even that never felt right.

"It would be akin to writing one of your stories, but not getting to use the same words twice," the Knoxville native said. "I had to recapture the same story, but in a different way. I didn't want to repeat myself and I don't think it ended up sounding like me.

"It's not that any of the songs were bad, it just didn't sound like something that I would do."

He talked it over with his family, his girlfriend and his band, The Yak Pack. In the end, he scrapped Wishing Wells.

"I didn't play the songs live, and I got to the point where If I'm getting to play my original music, I should play stuff that is me."

On Jan. 14, he released a video on Facebook announcing he had returned to Monday Morning After.

The album is now finished, he confirmed, and will be released with music videos on Monday mornings, he said smiling.

"There were originally 15 songs (in 2017) but there are now 13 because there was an introduction that was never meant to make it on there and a song toward the end which wan't supposed to make it on there at all."

It's a relief, he said, being able to revisit an imperfect representation of himself.

He has since deleted Wishing Wells and the original Monday Morning After and an earlier album, Self Harmony, which he recorded in his parent's attic.

Mitchell said he knew this was the right way to go because he saw with data from music providers like Spotify and iTunes showed more people were listening to the 2017 edition of Monday Morning After than his album Wishing Wells.

"If you listen to the original version, it's just out of place," he said.

Now, lyrically, Mitchell feels like its a story better told.

"I'm finally able to finish this sentence," he said. "And I can move on to the next one."
MANSFIELD -- Perhaps it's appropriate that the winning word for the 2019 Richland County Spelling Bee was a word describing part of a bee's anatomy.

With the spelling of the word "mandible," an appendage near an insect's mouth, Ontario eighth grader Alexis Shaver was named the champion of the bee on Thursday morning.

"I'd heard the word before, so I was excited," Shaver said after her win. "The last word I knew, but the couple before that I was a little scared about."

Shaver beat out 52 other student participants after 10 rounds of spelling. Coming in at runner-up was Lexington seventh grader Natalie Holmes.

Shaver had been to the Richland County Spelling Bee in the past, but never made it beyond ninth place. Her winning strategy was to write out the words on her hand before spelling them out loud.

"I'm a visual learner, so I have to write the words out to see them and get them in my head," she said. "Writing on my hand helps me a lot."

Participating school districts in this year's bee included Crestview Local, Lexington Local, Lucas Local, Madison Local, Mansfield St. Mary, Ontario Local, Plymouth-Shiloh Local, St. Peter, Shelby City, and Shelby Sacred Heart.

The next step for Shaver is the Tri-County Spelling Bee, which will be held on Thursday, Feb. 14 at Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center. The 12 top spellers from the Crawford, Richland and Morrow County bees will be invited to participate.

On that day, Shaver will be trying to take her own advice.

"Don't try to be too nervous," she said. "I know it's hard to say that because there's a bunch of people watching you, but you just have to focus. Whatever strategy helps you, just try to use that."
MANSFIELD -- The Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center recognized its seven board members at the January Board Meeting with Interim Superintendent Ed Swartz presenting board members with an OSBA certificate.

He also thanked them for their continued efforts in supporting Mid-Ohio ESC and the school districts and student they serve.

The Ohio School Boards Association is celebrating School Board Recognition Month through the month of January to build awareness and understanding of the vital function an elected board of education plays in society.

School Board Recognition Month honors the members of Ohios more than 700 city, exempted village, local and joint vocational boards of education and educational service centers governing boards for their commitment to providing quality public education to Ohios school children.

In other board business, Mary Dixon was nominated as Board President and Doug Theaker was nominated as vice-president during the Organizational Meeting. Board meetings for the 2019 year will take place the fourth Wednesday of the month at noon.
After a decade-long closure, RFE/RL's Romanian Service has been relaunched on digital platforms to help address declining media independence in Romania and the spread of disinformation.



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U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has held talks with Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan and other officials amid renewed efforts aimed at finding a negotiated solution to the 17-year war in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani government released few details about Khan's talks with Khalilzad, saying only that he reaffirmed Islamabad's "commitment to facilitate the peace process in Afghanistan."

In a statement, it said Khalilzad briefed Khan "on his recent visits to the region to muster support for the Afghan reconciliation process."

Khalilzad also held talks with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.



Washington has been pressing Pakistan to use its leverage to convince the Taliban to meet with U.S. and Afghan officials.

Islamabad says its influence on the Taliban is overstated but it will do whatever is possible for peace.



On his previous trips to the region, Khalilzad met with Taliban envoys in their Mideast headquarters in Qatar.



On January 17, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called Khan to discuss how to advance the peace process.

Taliban representatives said this week that Islamabad was pressuring its leaders to accept talks with the Afghan government, detaining a senior leader in the city of Peshawar before releasing him a few days later.

Taliban envoys have met with Khalilzad on at least three occasions but have repeatedly refused to talk directly to the internationally recognized Afghan government, which they view as a puppet of Washington.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters
Citing the U.S. governments partial shutdown, President Donald Trump has forced the cancellation of a trip by the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Afghanistan just as her delegation was preparing to travel.



Trump said in a letter to Pelosi late on January 17 that the congressional delegation, which was scheduled to visit American troops in Afghanistan as well as make a stop in Brussels, that he was denying use of a military plane for what he called a public relations event.



In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate, Trump said in the letter.



We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over, he added, noting Pelosi and the other lawmakers were free to make their own travel arrangements by flying commercial.



Pelosi did not immediately comment on Trumps move, which he has the power to make as the commander-in-chief of the military.



The political sparring between two of the countrys leading officials comes on the 27th day of the shutdown, the longest in U.S. history.



The government is partially shut down because Trump is demanding more than $5 billion for parts of a wall along the border with Mexico, something the Democrats have rejected outright.



Pelosi raised the ire of the Republican president earlier this week when she asked Trump to postpone his January 29 State of the Union address, or submit it in writing, due to security concerns because of the shutdown.



Republican Senator Lindsey Graham appeared to voice growing frustration with both sides saying in a tweet that "One sophomoric response does not deserve another."

Graham characterized Pelosi's State of the Union move as "very irresponsible," but he also said Trump's denial of a military plane to lawmakers was "also inappropriate."



Press Secretary Sarah Sanders later announced that the White House was canceling a trip to the World Economic Forum by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and others, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U. S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, because of the shutdown.



Trump, an attendee at the global meeting of world business and political leaders in Switzerland last year, had already said he would not attend.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and The Washington Post
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A Kremlin-connected tycoon is handed a contract to help fight corruption, while Vladimir Putin is handed a dog in Serbia and his spokesman portrays the president as a superhuman "workaholic" whose tireless labor keeps Russia running like a blast furnace. Meanwhile, a report claims far more Russians are leaving the country than official statistics suggest.

Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward.

A Not-So-Subtle Piece Of Trolling?

Roads, pipelines, Sochi infrastructure, a bridge to Crimea -- and anti-corruption conferences.

Wait, what?

That's right: Add civil-society development and combating corruption to the list of projects that companies controlled by billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, a childhood friend and former judo sparring partner of President Vladimir Putin, is reportedly getting paid by the Russian state to conduct.

At 46 million rubles, the equivalent of less than $700,000, the size of a grant awarded to Rotenberg's company Granat to hold meetings, discussions, and conferences on these issues pales in comparison to other projects the tycoon has been involved in, from infrastructure for the Sochi Olympics in 2014 to the bridge Russia has built to Crimea after seizing the peninsula from Ukraine later that year.

It is also seemingly further from the heart of Putin, who critics say has suppressed civil society and failed to tackle corruption over nearly 20 years in power -- during which Russia's graft problem has worsened by some measures.

But the reported contract raised eyebrows because, for some Russians and Russia-watchers, Rotenberg and his brother, Boris, are almost emblematic of one of the main problems holding back Russia and keeping its wealth gap high: the cozy, allegedly corrupt ties between the state and a relatively small circle of business leaders. In the current atmosphere, it seems almost like a not-so-subtle piece of trolling.

Disputed Islands

One could also be excused for wondering whether Russia has been trolling Tokyo in recent weeks by suggesting that it could cede two disputed islands just off Hokkaido to Japan -- and then toughening its rhetoric on the issue ahead of a meeting between Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has painstakingly sought a deal over the more than six years in which they have concurrently held power, on January 22.

After the last Putin-Abe meeting, in November, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that Moscow could hand over Shikotan and the Habomai islets -- the smaller of the four islands that Russia calls the Southern Kuriles and Japan calls the Northern Territories -- as part of the process.

He stipulated, however, that Japan must first "recognize the results of World War II" -- meaning that would have to accept Russia as the legal owner of all four islands, which the Soviet Union seized in the final days of the war. And since then, Lavrov and other officials have talked tough on the issue, accusing an enthusiastic Tokyo of getting ahead of itself and making unacceptable remarks.

As a result, a decades-o dispute that once again seemed closer to a resolution now seems -- once again -- maybe just as far.

The Russian pullback, if that's what it is, may have been pretty predictable. After all, Moscow has repeatedly dangled the prospect of a deal in front of Tokyo, but there's always a catch or three, whether stated outright or just hinted at: Recognize this, invest in that, tone down your military ties with Washington.

But the end result of the latest back-and-forth is unclear. Some observers say that Russia does want a deal that would include ceding the two smaller islands to Japan -- or should want one, at least

And the Kremlin has not ruled it out: In a wide-ranging, two-part interview with the newspaper Argumenty i Fakty, Putin's spokesman was given a chance to do just that but stopped short, saying only that the end result of "painstaking work" toward a peace treaty will "in no way violate the interest of our population."

'Blast Furnace'

But if Putin does hand over the islands, he will make every effort to somehow do it -- and to sell it -- in a way that will not undermine the image he has cultivated as the "gatherer of Russian lands."

He has already seen the wave of support that washed over him after the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 fade, even as the resultant Western ire and Western sanctions remain. So, while the windswept, sparsely populated islands don't compare with Crimea, which Putin claims is "holy land" for Russians, he will be sensitive to the potential risks of ceding them to Japan.

Speaking of Putin's image, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov applied a generous dollop of polish to it in the Argumenty i Fakty interview, which mixed hype and hagiography with remarks on policy.

Peskov portrayed Putin as a hale, hardworking leader who is something of a superhuman but is also close to the Russian people -- and does not need things like Facebook or one of its Russian equivalents, Odnoklassniki, to communicate with them.

Putin, Peskov said, is a "real workaholic" who does not look forward to Fridays because running Russia is a 24/7 job.

"The administration of the country is like a blast furnace that cannot be shut down," he said, and 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. is the "height of the workday" at the Kremlin.

Don't cross Putin, though. Asked whether the president curses, Peskov would not answer but said that "like any normal man" his boss sometimes expresses "his negative opinion of a person or processin a way that will make your blood run cold."

'Advanced Geopolitical Dog Trolling'

Not all PR for Putin is so chilling, though: On multiple platforms, state media helped him show a softer side on a trip to Serbia on January 17, when he petted a dog he was given by his hosts as part of a warm and elaborate welcome that would be unlikely in most European capitals.

However warm and fuzzy, the gift gave off a whiff of "advanced geopolitical dog trolling," as one journalist put it. According the Russian state news agency RIA, which featured the dog prominently on its Twitter feed, the breed originates in Kosovo -- the former province of Serbia that, a decade after its declaration of independence and two decades after the war that made it possible, remains at the heart of tension between Belgrade and Moscow on one side and the West on the other.

Russia has suffered several setbacks in the former Yugoslavia in the past couple years, with Montengro joining NATO in 2017 -- after the authorities claimed to have thwarted a Russian-backed coup plot aimed at keeping it out of the Western military alliance -- and Macedonia is close to resolving a dispute with Greece that has blocked it from NATO and the European Union.

With a highly visible church visit and a massive crowd of people coming out to see him -- some of them allegedly lured with promises of money, milk, sandwiches, and transport -- Putin is presumably happy with the optics of the visit, which included his 14th meeting with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in six years.

Heading For The Exit

After the talks, Putin delivered a predictable message on a reliable theme, blasting Kosovo's plans to transform its existing security force into a bigger, more powerful army.

But whether the visit brought the Kremlin closer to its goals in the Balkans is another matter.

"Polls have regularly shown that, while people do believe that Russia is a good friend to Serbia, not least of all over Kosovo, most Serbs do not believe that Russia is a shining example of the future they want," James Ker-Lindsay, a professor at the London School of Economics, said ahead of the visit.

Some Russians seem to feel the same way -- many more than the state statistics agency's figures suggest, according to the independent media outlet Proyekt.

Although EU members said tens of thousands of Russians received a residence permit in 2017, the Russian state statistics service suggested that the number of Russians emigrating to these countries was six times lower.

The Proyekt report said that Rosstat acknowledged its numbers may be lower than the actual figures, explaining that many Russians who emigrate do not notify the authorities.
Two Russian jets have collided in midair in the Far East, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

In a statement on January 18, the Russian military said that two Su-34 jets were performing training flights when they came into contact about 35 kilometers from the shore in the Sea of Japan.

Both crews ejected from their aircraft but it was not immediately clear where they were. Rescue crews have been dispatched to the area. There was no immediate information about the fate of the jets.

The Russian military said the fighter jets were not carrying missiles.

Based on reporting by Interfax, TASS, and AP
Russias Investigative Committee says a gas leak remains the likely cause of a deadly apartment collapse last month in Magnitogorsk after the extremist group Islamic State (IS) said it had bombed the building.

Thirty nine people were killed in the partial building collapse in Magnitogorsk on December 31.

"The investigators have been considering every possible theory of the tragedy since day one. The theory of a household gas explosion remains a priority. Please note that forensic technicians have found no traces of explosives or their components in the samples taken from the scene," said Svetlana Petrenko, a spokesperson for the Investigative Committee.

Her comments to Interfax on January 18 come after a website that monitors extremist organizations said that IS had claimed it had bombed the building.

The SITE Intelligence Group said on January 17 that IS "claimed credit for the apartment building explosion and subsequent bus bombing" in the city in the southern Urals in its weekly periodical, Al-Naba.

Some Russian media sites have reported that the apartment building was targeted with explosives by three men, whom they have identified as radical Islamists.



According to these unconfirmed reports, the three men were killed on January 1 near the site of the blast as they tried to break out of a police cordon in a minibus. At the time, police said an exploding gas canister inside the vehicle caused it to burst into flames.



IS claimed responsibility for the Magnitogorsk explosion in its Al Naba newspaper late on January 17. IS said its operatives had planted explosives that triggered the partial collapse of the 10-story apartment building.



IS did not provide proof to support its claim, saying only that a "security unit" had carried out the attack before safely withdrawing.



Russias Investigative Committee said the IS claim should not be taken seriously.



"I suggest journalists do not trust statements from terrorist organizations, who as you know falsely take credit for all high-profile incidents in different countries," Petrenko said in a later statement on January 18.

Several deadly apartment-building explosions in Russia in the past 25 years have been blamed on militants from the North Caucasus. Household gas blasts have also been blamed for many such disasters.

With reporting by Interfax, Meduza.io, and TASS
This time it will be different.

At least that's the hope of the United States and European Union with the start up of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) in The Hague.

Tasked with confronting one of the most painful periods of Kosovo's troubled history, the Specialist Chambers were heralded by the West as a vital step forward, even if it comes almost two decades after the end of the armed conflict between Kosovar Albanians and Serbian forces.

On January 14, the court finally began operation with the questioning of Rrustem Mustafa, a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) about his role during the bloody 1998-99 Kosovo independence war that pitted forces of Yugoslavia -- by that point consisting of Serbia and Montenegro -- against the Kosovo Albanian rebel group.

The new court to try war crimes that took place in Kosovo follows the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, and the EU Police and Justice Mission, or EULEX.

But how will the KSC differ from its predecessors?

Its supporters say this time, its specific mandate and jurisdiction will ensure trials avoid the witness-tampering alleged during previous attempts to prosecute defendants such as current Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who was twice acquitted on charges amid allegations that two critical witnesses were intimidated.

Its detractors -- mainly Kosovo's dominant ethnic Albanian community -- say it won't differ and see it as little more than a witch hunt that ignores Serbian crimes against ethnic Albanians.

So what is the Kosovo Specialist Chambers? And how does it actually differ from the ICTY?

The KSC was created in 2015 when Kosovar lawmakers amended the constitution to allow for the passage of the Law on Specialist Chambers and the Specialist Prosecutor's Office.

Unlike the ICTY, which was established as an ad hoc court by the United Nations and prosecuted cases according to international law, the KSC is guided by Kosovo's legal statutes and mirrors each level of the Kosovar court system: the Basic Court of Pristina, the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, and the Constitutional Court.

They know that if they're going to be successful, they have to ensure that there are witnesses who are going to testify, even though it's going to be very challenging and very complex."

The court may be located on Dutch soil, funded by the European Union, and staffed completely by an international legal team, but it is nonetheless a Kosovar court. Think of it in similar terms to how an embassy is still its own sovereign territory although located in a foreign country.

The KSC also has a very targeted mandate of investigating incidents outlined in a 2011 report by Council of Europe Special Rapporteur Dick Marty that expressed concerns that "serious crimes" had been committed in Kosovo between January 1998 and December 2000, against Serbs, Kosovar Albanians suspected of being collaborators, and other individuals who had remained in Kosovo at the end of the armed conflict. The allegations include trafficking in human organs by the KLA.

"The jurisdiction of the Specialist Chambers is not limited by any amnesty that may be granted under the constitution of Kosovo. Judgments of the Specialist Chambers are also not subject to any pardon that may be granted under the constitution," notes Robert Muharremi, a professor at the European School of Law and Governance in Pristina.

While it may escape much of the political influence from inside Kosovo, one of the main challenges facing the KSC is convincing witnesses to testify, and then shuttling them to the Netherlands to do so.

During trials in national courts in Serbia and Kosovo, as well as international institutions such as the ICTY, which wound down its operations last year, witness intimidation and interference are a well-documented problem.

The problem became so bad in her dealings with Kosovo war crimes that former ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte once complained publicly that "the investigation of the Kosovo Liberation Army fighters appeared to be the most frustrating of all the investigations done by the ICTY," in large part because "witnesses were so afraid and intimidated that they even feared to talk about the [UCK] presence in some areas, not to mention actual crimes."

Securing the support of witnesses before the Kosovo Special Court for war crimes will undoubtedly be a challenge and a complex process, experts say.

Mark Ellis, head of International Bar Association based in London, has seen how hard it can be to build a solid case when witnesses feel pressured in such tight-knit communities where the person they testify against may be seen locally as a war hero.

Ellis, who acted as legal adviser to the Independent International Commission on Kosovo from 1999 to 2000, says failing to pay enough attention to witness protection was a mistake in the past and a lesson that appears finally to have been learned as the EU is dedicating more funds to address the issue because "it will be too late later on."

"You don't have to look too far to understand the challenges that the Chambers has versus the failure of the ICTY in ensuring that witnesses are protected and that there's no intimidation, because it existed at the ICTY, and the Special Chambers now hopes that it will not have to repeat those mistakes," he told RFE/RL in an interview.

"It's providing more attention on the issue of protecting witnesses, protective measures, ensuring there's no intimidation of witnesses probably than any other court in the past because it knows how complex Kosovo is and how complex the conflict was. They know that if they're going to be successful, they have to ensure that there are witnesses who are going to testify, even though it's going to be very challenging and very complex," he added.

The KSC has measures in place to protect witnesses, including hiding their identity, giving testimony in private and closed court sessions, and one-way closed-circuit video links to keep the location of witnesses from being known.

"Protective measures are usually ordered before the witness testifies, to allow time for their implementation. However, there may be instances where such measures are ordered by the judges during the testimony to protect certain information," according to Angela Griep, spokeswoman for the chambers.

But even with safeguards for witnesses, some legal experts say the court will have difficulty convincing some to come forward, even though those asked to come are compelled to do so and face fines and possible imprisonment if they avoid the court.

Mustafa, who says he was invited as a "suspect witness," and his attorney spent about 17 hours being interviewed this week.

An interview with Sami Lushtaku, another former UCK commander, began on January 16, according to one of his lawyers, Arian Koci. Briton Geoffrey Nice, who led the ICTY prosecution of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, is also representing Lushtaku.

Others, including Raimonda Rreci, the first female UCK member to be summoned, have been invited for interviews but say the intent of the interview is unclear.

Rreci, who lives in the United States, says she has nothing to hide and will answer any questions she faces, even though she's unsure of her status.

Some 13,000 people died in Kosovo's war for independence, most of them ethnic Albanians.

The conflict ended in June 1999 following weeks of NATO air bombardments against the Yugoslav Army and allied police forces that are accused of committing atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians.

Despite its international support, few inside the country are happy about the KSC.

Twice in recent years, Kosovar lawmakers have tried to repeal the law on the KSC, saying it discriminates against former Kosovar Albanian guerrillas, whose ranks included President Hasim Thaci.

"The jurisdiction is framed in a unique way. It is essentially focused on one side of the conflict, namely the [UCK]. This is novel in the sense that it focuses on accountability of the 'victors' of the conflict, rather than the 'vanquished,'" according to Carsten Stahn, professor of international criminal law and global justice at Leiden University, just outside The Hague.

"The absence of domestic judges avoids inequalities between judges. But it might also entail downsides in terms of diversity of expertise and local perception," he adds.

It's those perceptions of the court that may ultimately decide whether it is judged as a success or a failure.
Iran's chief prosecutor has tried to walk back his own suggestion that the country's courts sometimes avoid amputations or controversial punishments when sentencing criminals due to UN human rights criticisms.

Mohammad-Jafar Montazeri was initially quoted expressing regret at a law enforcement conference in the capital that such pressure had forced Tehran to limit the number of "divine punishments" it carried out, referring to the severing of convicted thieves' hands.

Many rights groups in Iran and abroad say such punishments amount to torture.

Iran's religiously dominated system frequently organizes hangings and corporal punishments as public spectacles to discourage would-be criminals and has been called out over its rights record, including the frequent use of the death penalty and occasional reports of blindings or stonings.

The January 16 comments appeared to be a rare acknowledgement by an Iranian official that international pressure can be effective in forcing the heavily Shi'ite country to improve its human rights record.

"One of the mistakes we have is that we are worried about propaganda under the excuse of human rights -- that they say we treat thieves with violence," Montazeri said on January 16, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

He added that the Koran prescribes that any man or woman caught stealing and meeting certain Islamic criteria must have their hand chopped off.

"But, unfortunately, to avoid being condemned for human rights issues by the United Nations, we stopped implementing some divine punishments," he said.

The remark caught the attention of close followers of Iran's legal and rights policies, who noted hundreds of amputation sentences in the decade to 2017, for instance.

But Montazeri appears to have quickly walked back his comments.

Quoted elsewhere on the sidelines of the same conference, Montazeri said human rights concerns will not compel the powerful Judiciary branch into leniency when implementing religiously prescribed punishments.

"We do not retreat from the implementation, or moderate treatment, of our punishments," another semiofficial agency, ISNA, quoted Montazeri as saying.

ISNA added that Montazeri's comments came in response to a question about whether "human rights excuses" would push the Judiciary to adjust Islamic punishments.

In 2010, the secretary of Iran's state High Council for Human Rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani, told the UN Human Rights Council that many of the much-criticized punishments handed down in Iran were "culturally and religiously justified."

Iranian officials publicly condemn human rights concerns expressed by rights organizations and Western governments as interference in the country's internal affairs, and they frequently jail or harass Iranian rights activists or their lawyers.

Yet they are also sensitive to how the country is seen by the outside world.

Montazeri suggested that fewer offenders might get sentenced to hand amputations because "the rules of Islamic jurisprudence" make it less likely that a convict meets all the criteria.

Nevertheless, he added, once the decision is made by a judge, the Judiciary "is not wary of implementing the law."

In the past, Iran has imposed multiple Koranic punishments that are described by rights groups as "cruel" and "inhuman," including stonings, amputations, blindings, and floggings.

In 2002, the Judiciary introduced a moratorium on stoning. Such cases are difficult to track in Iran's secretive judicial system, but several stoning sentences were said to have been issued and carried out in the years since.

In 2010, following an international outcry, a stoning sentence was overturned for an Iranian woman accused of adultery.

Only a small number of the reported amputations are carried out publicly.

In January 2018, local media reported that a 34-year-old man had one of his hands chopped off publicly as punishment for stealing livestock in the northeastern province of Razavi Khorasan. The amputation was condemned by Amnesty International as an "unspeakably cruel" punishment that highlighted Iranian authorities' "complete disregard for human dignity."

In one particularly gruesome case, authorities in Shiraz amputated the hand of a man convicted of robbery in April 2017 before executing him 10 days later for murder.

At the January 16 conference, Montazeri also acknowledged a rise in property crime in Iran and hinted that the country's economic situation was a contributing factor.

"The crime rate increases when people and the society face economic problems," he said.

Joblessness and price rises have sparked angry protests over the past 13 months, and Iran's currency has plummeted as the United States returned to economic sanctions to punish what Washington sees as Iranian misbehavior.

Montazeri said prison sentences are not enough to fight theft and robbery.

"Jailing has negative consequences for the prisoner and for the family of the prisoner. And increasing the number of prisoners is not in our interests," Montazeri told journalists. "It is not logical for us to think that we can stop a thief from committing the crime of theft through imprisonment."

He added that "there are definitely other" methods to discourage crime and urged pundits to send their suggestions.
Bulgarian special police forces have dismantled a suspected terrorism financing ring and detained 43 people in coordinated raids across the country.

Deputy Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev said on January 18 that one of the suspects was a Syrian citizen permanently residing in Bulgaria who allegedly transferred money to people abroad linked to militant groups.

Geshev told a news conference in Sofia that "the main suspect has been in touch and has financed people who provide logistics to international terrorist groups."

He did not reveal the names of the groups or the countries where they allegedly operate, but explained that the funds had been sent through the traditional Muslim hawala system that uses individual brokers rather than banks.

Geshev said that the bust follows a yearlong investigation in several European Union member states.



He added that the investigation was not about any direct terrorist activities in Bulgaria.

The police raids took place at more than 50 sites and 26 cars in seven Bulgarian cities. Some 32,000 euros ($36,000) were seized together with documents and other evidence.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Berlin prosecutors are investigating a far-right German journalist who was implicated by a defendant in a Polish court of involvement in the firebombing of a Hungarian cultural center in western Ukraine last year.

The preliminary investigation into Manuel Ochsenreiter, a vocal supporter of Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine who has been interviewed numerous times in Russian state media, is based on suspicion of serious arson, a spokesperson for the Berlin prosecutors office told RFE/RL on January 18.

The existence of the investigation into Ochsenreiter was first reported on January 17 by the German newspaper Die Zeit, which cited its own information.

The confirmation of the probe comes four days after a Polish defendant, one of three currently on trial for the February 2018 firebombing in the Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod, told a Krakow court that Ochsenreiter had directed and financed the attack.

The incident, in which no one was injured, and a similar attack weeks later fanned tensions between Budapest and Kyiv over a Ukrainian law that Hungary says infringes on the rights of ethnic Hungarians to receive education in their native language in Ukraine.

The suspects allegedly intended to make it look as if Ukrainian ultranationalists were responsible for the incident, which included the painting of Nazi symbols on the headquarters of the Hungarian Cultural Association in Uzhhorod, the capital of the western Zakarpattya region.

The three Polish defendants currently on trial all have had previous links to far-right political movements.

Ochsenreiter, who had worked for a member of Germanys parliament from the anti-immigration AfD party, denied earlier to RFE/RL that he had any involvement in the attack.

A representative for the journalist, German lawyer Ralf Hoecker, told RFE/RL in a January 14 e-mail that the allegation was false.

No criminal charges against Ochsenreiter have been announced by Polish or German authorities.

Neither Hoecker nor Ochsenreiter immediately responded to a January 18 e-mail seeking comment on the preliminary investigation by Berlin prosecutors.

Markus Frohnmaier, the German parliamentarian for whom Ochsenreiter had worked since September, said on the opening day of the trial that he intended to keep the journalist on as a consultant until he was charged with a crime  and that he would only put him on leave pending the results of a trial.

But Frohnmaier was quoted by Die Zeit on January 18 as saying that Ochsenreiter had offered to be released from his position as a consultant, and that the lawmaker had agreed.

With reporting by Die Zeit
The Belarusian Embassy in Moscow says it is looking into the case of a Belarusian model who was detained by Russian authorities after landing in Moscow following her deportation from Thailand.

Anastasia Vashukevich, who claimed last year to have evidence of alleged Kremlin efforts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election, was detained at Sheremetyevo Airport on January 17 along with three others who had also been deported.

Moscow police said in a statement that Vashukevich, also known on social media as Nastya Rybka, was held on prostitution-related charges along with the other three, including Aleksandr Kirillov, a self-styled sex guru also known as Alex Lesley.

A spokesperson for the Belarusian Embassy in Moscow said it was looking into the information about the detention of Vashukevich and Kirillov, also a Belarusian citizen.

"The embassy is studying this information," the spokesperson told Interfax on January 18.

A lawyer for Vashukevich rebuked Russian authorities for questioning his client without him present.

Dmitry Zatsarinsky said late on January 17 that any information gathered from such questioning would not be admissible in any possible court proceedings.

A video has emerged on social media appearing to show Vashukevich's arrest at Sheremetyevo airport. In it a woman yells I dont want to go anywhere as she struggles with a group of men, one of whom is dressed in a police uniform.

It was not immediately clear why she was put on a flight to Russia.

Vashukevich earlier claimed to have recordings of Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska talking about interference in the 2016 U.S. election, but never released them.

Deripaska is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and also had a working relationship with Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager who was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller and convicted last year of tax and bank fraud.

In February 2018, Russian anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny published an expose appearing to show a former deputy Russian prime minister off the coast of Norway on a yacht belonging to Deripaska.

Navalny's report, which drew on photographs and video that Vashukevich published on Instagram in 2016, appeared to show then-Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko being offered lavish treatment on Deripaska's yacht. The two also appear to discuss U.S. politics.

Vashukevich, who was pictured on the yacht, says she had an affair with Deripaska.

Vashukevich and Kirillov made international headlines again when they asked for asylum in the United States while detained in Thailand.

Vashukevich claimed that she could reveal details about Russia's alleged meddling in the U.S. election.

Deripaska, one of several Russian tycoons hit by U.S. sanctions, was once an associate of Manafort.

Vashukevich has more than 120,000 followers on Instagram and authored a book about seducing oligarchs.

But she faces legal problems in Russia as Deripaska won an invasion of privacy lawsuit against her and Kirillov in July over a video that showed Deripaska vacationing with Prikhodko.

With reporting by AFP, Meduza, REN-TV, and Interfax
DUSHANBE -- At least five people have been killed in snow avalanches in Tajikistan this week, officials said.

Emergencies Committee spokeswoman Umeda Yusufova told RFE/RL that a large snow avalanche killed 64-year-old Azkrizobek Muzofirshoev and his 41-year-old son, Maftulbek Muzofirbekov, in the Ishkoshim district of the Gorno-Badakhshan region, on January 17.

One more person was hospitalized with serious injuries, Yusufova added.

According to Yusufova, three others were killed in avalanches in the region earlier this week, with two more reported missing.

Authorities said all major roads and highways in the mountainous region remain closed after more than two dozen avalanches in the area since January 14.

Elsewhere, officials said heavy snow triggered eleven avalanches in the northern Sughd region, with no casualties reported.

Mountains cover 93 percent of the Central Asian nation, and avalanches and mudslides kill dozens of people every year.
BISHKEK -- Demonstrators who protested against Beijing's policies towards the indigenous Muslim peoples of China's northwestern Xinjiang region have been fined.

Kyrgyz Interior Ministry spokesman Bakyt Seitov told RFE/RL on January 18 that 21 activists were found guilty of disrupting public order and fined 3,000 soms ($45) each.

The activists were detained on January 17 when some 500 people rallied at Bishkeks Ala-Too Square, expressing support for ethnic Kyrgyz who they said were being persecuted in reeducation camps in China's Xinjiang.

The demonstrators also urged authorities to deport what they say are hundreds of thousands of illegal Chinese migrants in Kyrgyzstan.

Foreign Ministry official Almaz Imangaziev met with some activists on January 17 and told them that all migrants from China were residing and working in Kyrgyzstan legally.

However, activists at the meeting disagreed and said that all Chinese businesses in the Central Asian country should be checked in an effort to locate illegal immigrants.

Following similar protests in Bishkek in recent months, President Sooronbai Jeenbekov warned on January 11 that "those trying to disrupt the Kyrgyz-Chinese partnership" would face legal prosecution.

The United Nations said in August that an estimated 1 million Muslims from Xinjiang were being held in "counterextremism centers."

The UN also said millions more had been forced into reeducation camps.

China denies that the facilities are internment camps.

Uyghurs are the largest indigenous community in Xinjiang, followed by Kazakhs. The region is also home to ethnic Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Hui, also known as Dungans.

Han, China's largest ethnicity, are the second-largest community in Xinjiang.
Colonel Tun Tun Win of Myanmar's Ministry of Defense speaks at a workshop on the creation of a complaint mechanism to report instances of forced labor, in Naypyidaw, Jan. 17, 2019.

More than 1,700 child soldiers in Myanmar have been reunited with their parents, and about 800 military officers and other army personnel who recruited and used them have been punished, a defense ministry official said Thursday during a workshop in Naypyidaw to discuss the creation of a complaint mechanism to report instances of forced labor.

Colonel Tun Tun Win of the Ministry of Defense said that the army has taken action against the use of child soldiers in Myanmar based on regulations of the International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency that sets global labor standards and promotes social protection for workers.

In response to the ILOs regulations, the Tatmadaw [Myanmar military] has taken action from 2007 to 2018 against a total of 379 military personnel, including 64 officers and 315 other ranks in accordance with military discipline, he said.

At the same time, the U.N. Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting (CTFMR), co-chaired by June Kunugi, UNICEFs representative to Myanmar, and Knut Ostby, the U.N.s highest representative and humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, to report on grave violations committed against children during times of armed conflict, has taken action against 448 military personnel, including 96 officers and 352 other ranks, he said.

The punishments included sending military personnel to both civilian and army jails as well as demotions, Tun Tun Win said.

Besides sending nearly 1,730 child soldiers home, the army is addressing the issue in a transparent manner, he said.

Saw Tin Win, a lawmaker who is a member of the Farmers and Workers Affairs Committee in Myanmars lower house of parliament, said his committee receives about 40 complaints about the militarys use of child soldiers every month, though only two or three have been returned.

Some underage children were allowed to resign from the service, while other cases remain under investigation, he said. And some children were not allowed to resign during their recruitment period.

He also said that the committee had gathered evidence of underage children being used as child soldiers and then sent complaint letters to the defense ministry.

Thein Swe, Myanmars minister for labor, immigration, and population said that the Myanmar military is cooperating with both the CTFMR and the ILO on the child soldier issue.

It also has taken action if complaints were submitted under the Supplementary Understanding agreement, he said.

The February 2007 agreement between the Myanmar government and the ILO provides for a complaint mechanism under which individuals can submit cases of forced labor under the ILO Convention 29 concerning forced labor, and including underage recruitment, to the ILO liaison officer in Yangon.

For instance, if the Tatmadaw cooperated on the issue of child soldier recruitment, then it took action against those who recruit underage children and notified us once the issue had been resolved, Thein Swe said.

He also said that the ministry would address the issue of forced labor by ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, but did not elaborate.

Widespread use of child soldiers

The use of child soldiers in Myanmar has been widespread since the countrys independence from colonial ruler Britain in 1948. For decades, the national military has engaged in hostilities with several ethnic armies fighting for varying degrees of autonomy in their states.

Some of the ethnic armies that are fighting against Myanmar forces, and some of the forces allied with them, also have recruited and used child soldiers, though the numbers have been much lower than those recruited and used by the Myanmar military.

In 2007, Myanmar and the U.N. began negotiations on ending the use child soldiers that culminated in a joint action plan in June 2012 to stop the recruitment and use of children by the armed forces.

Three years later, Myanmar signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC), also known as the international child soldier treaty, but has yet to ratify it to make it fully binding.

In 2017, the country signed the Paris Principles and Commitments to protect children from unlawful recruitment or use by armed forces and groups and to reintegrate those who have been associated with armed forces into civilian life.

In September 2018, the Myanmar government released 75 children and young people who were recruited and used by the military in the only discharge to take place last year.

Reported by Win Ko Ko Latt for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Nandar Chann. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Myanmar Army officials Major General Tun Tun Nyi (L), Major General Soe Naing Oo (C), and Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun (R) speak during a rare military press conference at the Defense Services Museum in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw, Jan. 18, 2019.

The Myanmar military has killed 13 Arakan Army soldiers in counterstrikes amid ongoing clashes in restive northern Rakhine state, while in the capital Naypyidaw State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has ordered the countrys forces to destroy the rebels, a military spokesman said Friday.

The government army engaged in eight clashes with the Arakan Army (AA) between Jan. 5 and 16, during which time there were also five landmine explosions, Major General Tun Tun Nyi, vice chairman of the Myanmar militarys information committee, said during a rare news conference at the Defense Services Museum in Naypyidaw.

Thirteen enemy bodies and three weapons were seized, and some soldiers died and were injured on our side, he said, but declined to state the number of government soldiers who were killed. RFA has been unable to independently confirm the armys figures.

Fighting between Myanmar forces and the AA intensified after rebel soldiers launched deadly attacks on four police outposts in the northern part of the state on Jan. 4, killing 13 officers and wounding nine others.

State Counselor Daw [honorific] Aung San Suu Kyi has said the Arakan Army is a terrorist insurgent group and has told us to crush it effectively and quickly, Tun Tun Nyi said.

Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay has accused the AA of having ties to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Muslim militant group that carried out deadly armed assaults on police outposts in the same region in August 2017.

The AA, which represents the regions Buddhist Rahkine ethnic group and is fighting the Myanmar military for greater autonomy in Rakhine state, has denied links to ARSA, which purports to speak for Muslim Rohingyas. Analysts have said ties between what are effectively enemy groups are improbable.

If we fail to crush them [the AA] as instructed, we will face finger-pointing from the international community which might question whether we are fighting intensely against ARSA on religious grounds, and say that we didnt crush the AA because it is an ethnic minority [organization], Tun Tun Nyi said. So, we need to decisively crush them as instructed.

Army denies cutting off food aid

Major General Soe Naing Oo, chairman of the militarys information committee, told those at the press conference that peace in Myanmar cannot be achieved through armed struggles and must be sought through legal channels.

Myanmars National Reconciliation and Peace Center and a negotiation team led by Lieutenant General Yar Pyae has opened the door for ethnic armed groups to hold talks on peace, and it is up to AA to join, he added.

In response to a question on possible human rights abuses during the military operations in northern Rakhine, Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun, secretary of the militarys information committee, said that government troops have been acting in accord with international rights standards.

All know what happened in Rakhine state in the past, and the actions we had taken, he said. Weve been addressing human rights abuses according to international standards.

In response to the attacks by ARSA in August 2017, Myanmar forces launched a counter-insurgency against Muslim terrorists that included a brutal crackdown on Rohingya civilians who were subject to indiscriminate killings, torture, rape, and arson. The United Nations and several Western countries say Myanmar committed ethnic cleansing when it drove more than 725,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, where they remain in refugee camps.

In the current conflict with the AA, government troops have reportedly restricted food supplies and other aid for some of the estimated 6,000 displaced civilians tin the region to prevent them from reaching the insurgents, drawing criticism from groups both inside and outside the country.

But Zaw Min Tun insisted that the military had instituted no restrictions on food supplies the region.

The Rakhine state government has banned NGOs and the U.N. from providing aid to civilians in five townships affected by the hostilities.

Fighting affects ethnic Khami

The thousands of civilians who have fled the fighting in the multiethnic state since late November 2018 and are staying in temporary camps in Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Kyauktaw, and Ponnagyun townships include roughly 1,600 ethnic Khami, according to members of the ethnic minority group.

About 450 Khami who fled from their villages in Rathedaung and Buthidaung townships have sought shelter in Buthidaungs Pethadu and Donethin villages, they said.

We were scared as we were hearing explosions from heavy weapons and gunfire for three days, said Thar Kyaw, a resident of Rathedaungs Bawdi Kan village. Some ran into the forest out of fear. We couldn't bear it anymore and finally fled from our village.

More than 180 villagers including 50 children from Bawdi Kan and Naypu Kan villages in Rathedaung Township fled to Thatpyin Kya village first on Dec. 18, and then to Pethadu village to stay longer, displaced Khami residents said.

We are now thinking whether we should find a place in this village for a school for displaced children or send them to schools in nearby villages, said another displaced resident of Bawdi Kan who gave his name as Tun.

Ethnic Khami depend on forests and farms to survive, and adults usually lack a high school education.

I couldnt go to school, and children currently cannot go to school as well, said Kyaw Kyaw Naing, a displaced resident of Alechaung village in Buthidaung township. If they cant get an education, they will have the same kind of lives that we have. When I think about our ethnic groups future, I feel really sad.

Kyaw Kyaw Naing was one of 260 people from Alechaung who fled the community on Jan. 13 and are now staying in Htone Thin village in Buthidaung.

More than 180 displaced Khami are living in temporary tents in Pethadu village with no sanitation facilities or enough water to drink and use for cooking and washing. They said they also lack food, clothing, and health care.

'People are suffering'

The Rakhine Nationalities Union, a regional political and social organization, has teamed up with local donors to supply food and drinking water to displaced people in Pethadu.

As there is no one to protect the ethnic Khami, their future is very uncertain, said Shwe Hpaw Sein, an ethnic Khami who is the organizations chairman.

Not only Khami ethnics, but also other people in this region are working in forests and farms for their survival, but they cant work now, he said. We need to do something for all these people in this region.

Zaw Zaw Tun, secretary of the Rakhine Nationalities Union, said the displaced people cannot stay in the temporary camps for too long, because the facilities are not suitable for living on a long-term basis.

They should return to their homes and work in their villages, he said.

But with government forces still carrying out clearance operations against the AA in the region, it is uncertain when those who have been displaced will be able to return home.

People are suffering, said Tun Aung, a displaced Khami from Buthidaung township. We want the fighting to stop.

Reported by Win Ko Ko Latt and Min Thein Aung for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Nandar Chann and Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Lao authorities have released a villager held since 2017 with a group arrested for protesting the loss of land awarded by the government to a Vietnamese rubber company, sources in the communist Southeast Asian state said.



Phonesawai, the fourth villager of the group to be released, was freed without official explanation on Jan. 6, a villager in Sekong province told RFAs Lao Service, speaking on condition of anonymity. Three other villagers from the group were released in 2018, with another reported to have died in custody last year.



Ten others remain in detention.



In July 2017, 15 residents of Yeub village in Sekongs Thateng district were detained by police for obstructing workers and cutting down trees on land granted by the government to a Vietnamese rubber company in what is believed to have been a 50-year concession.



Several of those now held in detention were beaten or subjected to electric shocks in the days following their arrest, and many are now malnourished and in failing health, relatives told RFA in earlier reports.



Speaking to RFA, Vanida Thepsouvanhpresident of the Lao Movement for Human Rights, based in Francecalled the imprisonment of the group, including two minors, a shocking example of arbitrary arrest and abuse of power in Laos, where too many Lao have become victims of investors.



Very sadly, it must not be forgotten that one of them died in custody, Thepsouvanh said.



I dare to hope that the person who was freed in January 2019 was not forced to sign a confession, she said.



Also speaking to RFA, Andrea Giorgettahead of the Asia desk for the Paris-based International Federation for Human rightscalled the detention of the Yeub villagers unjustified, arbitrary, and illegal.



Whatever crimes they were charged with did not justify a pre-trial detention that was extremely long. And as far as I understand, none of them has been put on trial yet, he said.



But still, theyve been detained for more than six months, which is contrary even to the criminal procedure code of Laos.



Reached by RFAs Lao Service, Solaseumsak Phongsanouvongvice head of Sekong provinces prosecution officedeclined to comment on the case.



Land grabs and the appropriation of public property to turn over to foreign and domestic companies are common in Laos, and villagers affected by them often refuse to speak out publicly because they fear retribution.



Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Angry parents in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu clashed with officials and police last week, after 145 children got sick from expired vaccines.

The victims, who range in age from three months to four years, suffered fever, skin rashes, facial paralysis and deafness, among other symptoms.

Wang Yanfang, the U.S.-based wife of jailed human rights lawyer Tang Jingling, who once represented the victims of tainted and fake vaccines, said the problem hasn't gone away.

She added that there are fewer channels of redress for victims following a nationwide crackdown on rights lawyers since 2015.

Such cases are very risky and impossible to win, and lawyers could lose their licenses if they take them on, she said.

Tang Jingling had been working on a case like that, but the cases failed to make the government take the problem of harmful vaccines seriously, she said.

There were no further investigations into those responsible, said Wang, adding, If the case had been rigorously investigated, then this incident wouldn't have happened today.

It is really ridiculous, she said.



The help that a lawyer offers to their clients affects each family, including the health of the children; their lives and their safety, said Wang, adding, Under the law, we need people to carry out such duties. In a normal situation, they should win approval for doing these things.



But progress on the rule of law has been reversed, and the people who break the law are getting more and more out of control, she said.

The issue of fake and tainted vaccines is getting more and more serious, and yet it's still the same people making those fake vaccines, said Wang.



Instead of being regarded as a defender of the law, [my husband] has now become a person who violates the law, she said.

This society doesn't care about the law at all, Wang said.

Just as Tang Jingling said in court, the courts don't uphold the law, nor any kind of legal justice, because upholding justice and the law requires everyone to abide by it, she said.



If Tang Jingling were still able to be a lawyer, he would have continued to fight for the victims of fake and tainted vaccines, she said.

But while another fake vaccine comes to light in Jiangsu, he is stuck in prison.



Reported by C.K. for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have jailed a human rights lawyer for five years, RFA has learned.



Chen Wuquan was found guilty of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" by a court in Guangdong's Zhenjiang city and sentenced to five years' imprisonment.



Chen stood trial alongside six co-defendants on Dec. 25, 2018 at the Zhenjiang Economic and Technological Development Zone District People's Court, his wife Chen Lianjuan said.



His co-defendants were handed jail terms ranging from one year to 18 months in a sentencing decision handed down on Jan. 9, the Weiquanwang rights website reported.



"They allowed the family members of the defendants to sit in on the trial; three relatives per family," Chen's wife Chen Lianjuan said. "There was no verdict or sentence announced at the time."



"They just made recommendations for a sentence of 5-10 years," she said. "The court informed the lawyers on Jan. 15, and the lawyers told us to go and collect the judgment from the court."



Chen's jailing come after he helped residents of Zhenjiang's Donghai Island to protest against a reclamation project that damaged the offshore environment and affected their livelihoods.



Chen took part in shoreline protests with banners, and initiated an online petition against the project. He and six protesters were detained in February 2018.



Chen Lianjuan said her husband had done nothing wrong.



"Of course I think it's unfair," she said. "My husband was in the right, and tried to defend people's rights using legal means."



License taken away



Chen became involved in the protest after losing his license to practice law after offering legal assistance to members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, which Beijing has designated an "evil cult."



Chen had also offered legal assistance to blind Shandong dissident Chen Guangcheng, who made a daring escape from house arrest before taking refuge in the U.S. Embassy in April 2012, and who now lives in the U.S.



China frequently withholds the licenses of lawyers who represent "sensitive" and disadvantaged groups, such as those who pursue complaints against official wrongdoing.



"He had already changed from a lawyer into a farmer," Chen Lianjuan said. "What kind of trouble would he cause after that?"



Guangdong lawyer Tan Yongpei, whose consultancy "club" for lawyers who lost their licenses was raided by police earlier this week, said Chen, a former police officer, had run for the post of village chief in local elections three years earlier, and narrowly lost.



"He won more than 40 percent of the votes, which is anathema to the [ruling] Chinese Communist Party," Tan said. "It would have been far worse if he had won."



"His opposition to the reclamation project was just an excuse," he said. "Chen Wuquan was a human rights attorney, highly educated, with an excellent knowledge of the law."



He said Chen had been given a harsh jail term in the hope that he wouldn't trouble the authorities for some time.



"They were afraid of a backlash if they only gave him one year; he is also a former cop, and a lawyer, and that's two things the authorities are afraid of," Tan said.



A nationwide police operation under the administration of President Xi Jinping has targeted more than 300 lawyers, law firms, and related activists for questioning, detention, imprisonment, debarring, and travel bans since it launched in July 2015.



Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
The European Union will impose a tax on rice from Cambodia and Myanmar for three years, beginning at the end of the week, after an investigation found that a significant increase in imports of the grain from the two countries caused economic damage to European producers.



Cambodia and Myanmar benefit from the EUs Everything But Arms (EBA) trade scheme, which grants them, and other least developed nations, tax- and quota-free access to the blocs market.



But in a statement issued late on Wednesday, the European Commission said that as of Jan. 18, the EU will reinstate the normal customs duty on Indica rice from the two countries of 175 euros (U.S. $199) per ton in year one, following by a reduction to 150 euros (U.S. $170) in year two, and 125 euros (U.S. $142) in year three.



According to Commission, an investigation it launched in March last year found that Indica rice imports from both Cambodia and Myanmar had increased by 89 percent over the past five growing seasons, while prices remained lower than those on the EU market and actually decreased during the same period.



This surge in low-price imports has caused serious difficulties for EU rice producers to the extent that their market share in the EU dropped substantially from 61 percent to 29 percent, the Commission said.



The decision to reinstate duties on the rice imports was taken using a safeguards mechanism of the EUs Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) tariff-reduction scheme for developing countries, which the EBA is one pillar of.



The initial request for trade safeguards on rice imports was made by the Italian government in February last year, the Commission said, adding that the request had been backed by all other EU rice growing Member StatesSpain, France, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.



A positive development



On Thursday, Cambodias Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan told RFAs Khmer Service that his government was unconcerned by the Commissions announcement, adding that the rice tax would demonstrate that Cambodia is entirely capable of competing with other countries in international trade.



Imposing a tax on Cambodia is a positive development, which proves that Cambodia is able to pay duties like other countries, he said.



We know that imposing the tax will affect us, but we must ready to compete on a level playing field with other countries in trade.



Phay Siphan said that in order to cope with the new tax, Cambodias government will further develop the local market so that it will be ready for any circumstances.



He said that Cambodia will encourage exports to alternative markets, such as the Philippines, and will continue to rely on demand in China.



Last month, the Secretariat of One Window Service for Rice Export said Cambodia exported 497,240 tons of milled rice in the first 11 months of 2018, down 13 percent compared to the same period last year. It said China was the Southeast Asian nations top export market for rice, followed by France, the Netherlands, Poland and Britain.



Threatened EU trade sanctions are a politically sensitive topic in Cambodia, which banned the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and jailed its leader in 2017, paving the way for Prime Minister Hun Sens ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) to win all 125 seats on offer in parliamentary elections in July 2018.



According to the European Commission, the EU ranked in 2017 as Cambodias second-largest trade partner, importing goods worth 5 billion euros (U.S. $5.8 billion) from the country.



Cambodias Ministry of the Interior on Wednesday arrested a CNRP activist after he posted a Facebook message saying the EU planned to impose a tariff on Cambodian rice, sources in the country said.



Theng Savoeun, secretariat coordinator of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmers Community, told RFA Thursday that Cambodia has no measures in place to protect farmers from the effects of an EU rice import tax, and urged the government to put aside a portion of the national budget to buy domestic rice.



This issue is much like that of farmers losing their land [to government concessions], and we have seen that when the farmers lose their land, they protest, he warned.



Tougher competition



Myanmar industry insiders told RFAs Myanmar Service Thursday that the EUs decision would have little impact on the countrys rice exports, which are already limited by a lack of infrastructure.



This decision will not affect us very much on rice exports to Europe, but if it were on our garment exports, it would hurt, said Hla Maung Shwe, deputy chairman of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI).



The Myanmar Times also quoted Lu Maw Myint Maung, joint secretary of Myanmar Rice Federation, as saying that restoring EU tariffs on rice imports will affect the production of only 66,000 to 110,000 tons of Indica rice.



But Soe Tun of the Myanmar Rice Federation acknowledged to RFA that the decision will make it harder for Myanmars already small rice export industry to compete with other Asian rice producers.



In the past, even though our rice was not of top quality, it was cheaper than others because of this preferential tax treatment, he said.



Now, if our rice is to be taxed, we will need to compete with other countries in our rice market, and our share of the market may become smaller.



Yan Naing Tun, permanent secretary of the Myanmars Ministry of Commerce, told RFA Thursday that the government is working on something in accordance with the regulations to buffer the impact of the decision.



The EU is currently Myanmars sixth biggest trading partner, and total trade between the two nations was worth U.S. $2.38 billion in 2017. The EU imported goods worth U.S. $1.77 million from Myanmar and sent nearly U.S. $615 million to the Southeast Asian nation.



Myanmar exported more than 3.3 million tons of rice in the 2017-18 fiscal year.



Reported by Thiri Minzin for RFAs Myanmar Service and by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane and Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
A senior Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) member, released from prison last year, will join pro-democracy demonstrations in Washington this weekend and discuss his detainment at the hands of the Cambodian government with U.S. lawmakers, he told RFAs Khmer Service on Friday.

The former political prisoner, Meach Sovannara, who holds dual Cambodian and U.S. citizenship, will meet with congressmen Ted Yoho (R-MN), Steve Chabot (R-OH) and Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) to discuss his experience of being a political prisoner on two occasions, detained for a cumulative period of about four years.

In his most recent detention, Sovannara along with 11 others had been incarcerated since 2014 for their alleged role in a July 15, 2014 demonstration held by the CNRP against government manipulation of the general election a year earlier.

They received sentences of from seven to 20 years in prison but were released in August 2018 under a royal pardon.

Sovannara said that his detention affected him both financially and mentally.

I want to request that [the congressmen introduce legislation to] intervene to normalize democracy in Cambodia because it is narrowing down, he said in an interview with RFA in Washington.

Cambodia is now not a multi-party state. It is a one-party state, and thats dangerous for Cambodia, he said.

I have already stressed my stance: that I will die with the CNRP, he said.

He said that he will join with other party members in protests on Saturday aimed at restoring Cambodian democracy.

All the people can participate in the fight for democracy; we want democracy to survive, he said.

The current government in Cambodia regards the voters as their slaves, he said, adding, We want a collective voice.

If the current leaders say that they are good leaders, they must release Kem Sokha, he said.

CNRP President Kem Sokha has been under house arrest since September 2017 facing charges of treason.

Sovannara added that Prime Minister Hun Sens Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) dissolved the CNRP in Nov. 2017, fearing they would lose [in the 2018 general] election.

In the July election, the CPP captured all 125 seats in Cambodias National Assembly, with only token opposition from minor political parties.

Reported by Huot Vuthy for RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Cambodian authorities this week gave permission for trade union members to commemorate the 2004 murder of their former president Chea Vichea, forbidding participants to march, however, and warning against the involvement of former opposition party members now banned from political life.



Chea Vichea, an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Hun Sens government and president of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC), was gunned down on Jan. 22, 2004 by an unknown assailant while he read a newspaper at a stand in Phnom Penh.



Two men were arrested within days of the murder with each handed 20-year jail sentences in a 2005 trial decried by rights groups as unjust.



The men, Sok Sam Oeun and Born Samnang, maintained they had been framed by police, and were finally acquitted in 2013 by Cambodias Supreme Court, which ruled they had been wrongfully convicted.



Writing in a Jan. 15 letter to FTUWKC president Touch Seu, Phnom Penh Municipality deputy governor Mean Chanyada denied permission for a requested march by 150 union members to the place where Chea Vichea was killed, allowing a brief ceremony to be held at the site instead.



However, former members of the now-dissolved opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party banned from active political life in Cambodia would not be permitted to take part, and the event itself should not be politicized, he said.



In order for the event to go smoothly, and for reasons of security, City Hall asks the Union to cooperate with the authorities and not allow the 118 individuals who were banned from politics to participate in the event, he said.



Speaking to RFAs Khmer Service, FTUWKC vice president Mann Senghak said he would not block former CNRP officials from taking part in the commemoration, calling it a nonpolitical event and adding, I dont agree with the ban. These 118 people are Buddhists, and they have a right to pay their respects to Chea Vichea.



CNRP members had joined in similar commemorations in the past, he said.



Killers still not found



Speaking to RFA from Finland where she has lived since her husbands murder, Chea Vicheas wife Chea Kimny called on Cambodias government to find and arrest her husbands real killers.



There has been no justice for me and my family for the last 15 years until now, she said. The government must try to arrest the real killers, but they havent been able to arrest any suspects, and I wonder why that is.



Now grown, Chea Vicheas daughter Chea Vicheata said that her fathers murder has made her stronger and more motivated to work hard at her studies.



I want to use the knowledge that Ive gained here to continue my fathers work to provide justice for the people, she said.



Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Richard Finney.
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Table of Contents



1 TIC Services for Automotive Market Overview

1.1 Product Overview and Scope of TIC Services for Automotive

1.2 Classification of TIC Services for Automotive by Types

1.2.1 Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Comparison by Types (2019-2024)

1.2.2 Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Types in 2018

1.2.3 Testing Services

1.2.4 Inspection Services

1.2.5 Certification Services

1.3 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market by Application

1.3.1 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Size and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2014-2024)

1.3.2 In-House

1.3.3 Outsourced

1.4 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market by Regions

1.4.1 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Size (Million USD) Comparison by Regions (2014-2024)

1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) TIC Services for Automotive Status and Prospect (2014-2024)

1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) TIC Services for Automotive Status and Prospect (2014-2024)

1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) TIC Services for Automotive Status and Prospect (2014-2024)

1.4.4 South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia) TIC Services for Automotive Status and Prospect (2014-2024)

1.4.5 Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa) TIC Services for Automotive Status and Prospect (2014-2024)

1.5 Global Market Size of TIC Services for Automotive (2014-2024)

2 Manufacturers Profiles

2.1 DEKRA

2.1.1 Business Overview

2.1.2 TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

2.1.2.1 Product A

2.1.2.2 Product B

2.1.3 DEKRA TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

2.2 TUV SUD Group

2.2.1 Business Overview

2.2.2 TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

2.2.2.1 Product A

2.2.2.2 Product B

2.2.3 TUV SUD Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

2.3 Applus Services

2.3.1 Business Overview

2.3.2 TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

2.3.2.1 Product A

2.3.2.2 Product B

2.3.3 Applus Services TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

2.4 Bureau Veritas

2.4.1 Business Overview

2.4.2 TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

2.4.2.1 Product A

2.4.2.2 Product B

2.4.3 Bureau Veritas TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

2.5 TUV Rheinland Group

2.5.1 Business Overview

2.5.2 TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

2.5.2.1 Product A

2.5.2.2 Product B

2.5.3 TUV Rheinland Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

2.6 TUV Nord Group

2.6.1 Business Overview

2.6.2 TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

2.6.2.1 Product A

2.6.2.2 Product B

2.6.3 TUV Nord Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

2.7 SGS Group

2.7.1 Business Overview

2.7.2 TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

2.7.2.1 Product A

2.7.2.2 Product B

2.7.3 SGS Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

2.8 Intertek Group

2.8.1 Business Overview

2.8.2 TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

2.8.2.1 Product A

2.8.2.2 Product B

2.8.3 Intertek Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

3 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Competition, by Players

3.1 Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Share by Players (2014-2019)

3.2 Market Concentration Rate

3.2.1 Top 5 TIC Services for Automotive Players Market Share

3.2.2 Top 10 TIC Services for Automotive Players Market Share

3.3 Market Competition Trend

4 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Size by Regions

4.1 Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Market Share by Regions

4.2 North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

4.3 Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

4.4 Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

4.5 South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

4.6 Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

5 North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries

5.1 North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries (2014-2019)

5.2 USA TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

5.3 Canada TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

5.4 Mexico TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

6 Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries

6.1 Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries (2014-2019)

6.2 Germany TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

6.3 UK TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

6.4 France TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

6.5 Russia TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

6.6 Italy TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

7 Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries

7.1 Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries (2014-2019)

7.2 China TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

7.3 Japan TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

7.4 Korea TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

7.5 India TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

7.6 Southeast Asia TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

8 South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries

8.1 South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries (2014-2019)

8.2 Brazil TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

8.3 Argentina TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

8.4 Colombia TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

9 Middle East and Africa Revenue TIC Services for Automotive by Countries

9.1 Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries (2014-2019)

9.2 Saudi Arabia TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

9.3 UAE TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

9.4 Egypt TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

9.5 Nigeria TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

9.6 South Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

10 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Segment by Type

10.1 Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Market Share by Type (2014-2019)

10.2 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Forecast by Type (2019-2024)

10.3 Testing Services Revenue Growth Rate (2014-2024)

10.4 Inspection Services Revenue Growth Rate (2014-2024)

10.5 Certification Services Revenue Growth Rate (2014-2024)

11 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Segment by Application

11.1 Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Application (2014-2019)

11.2 TIC Services for Automotive Market Forecast by Application (2019-2024)

11.3 In-House Revenue Growth (2014-2019)

11.4 Outsourced Revenue Growth (2014-2019)

12 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Size Forecast (2019-2024)

12.1 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Size Forecast (2019-2024)

12.2 Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Forecast by Regions (2019-2024)

12.3 North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)

12.4 Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)

12.5 Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)

12.6 South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)

12.7 Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)

13 Research Findings and Conclusion

14 Appendix

14.1 Methodology

14.2 Data Source



List of Tables and Figures



Figure TIC Services for Automotive Picture

Table Product Specifications of TIC Services for Automotive

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Types in 2018

Figure Testing Services Picture

Figure Inspection Services Picture

Figure Certification Services Picture

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) by Application (2014-2024)

Figure TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Applications in 2018

Figure In-House Picture

Figure Outsourced Picture

Table Global Market TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) Comparison by Regions 2014-2024

Figure North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2014-2024)

Figure Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2014-2024)

Figure Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2014-2024)

Figure South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2014-2024)

Figure Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2014-2024)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2014-2024)

Table DEKRA Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors

Table DEKRA TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

Table DEKRA TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

Table TUV SUD Group Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors

Table TUV SUD Group TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

Table TUV SUD Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

Table Applus Services Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors

Table Applus Services TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

Table Applus Services TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

Table Bureau Veritas Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors

Table Bureau Veritas TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

Table Bureau Veritas TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

Table TUV Rheinland Group Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors

Table TUV Rheinland Group TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

Table TUV Rheinland Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

Table TUV Nord Group Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors

Table TUV Nord Group TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

Table TUV Nord Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

Table SGS Group Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors

Table SGS Group TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

Table SGS Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

Table Intertek Group Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors

Table Intertek Group TIC Services for Automotive Type and Applications

Table Intertek Group TIC Services for Automotive Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) by Players (2014-2019)

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Share by Players (2014-2019)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Share by Players in 2017

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Share by Players in 2018

Figure Global Top 5 Players TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share in 2018

Figure Global Top 10 Players TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share in 2018

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (%) (2014-2019)

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) by Regions (2014-2019)

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Regions (2014-2019)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Regions (2014-2019)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Regions in 2018

Figure North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Table North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries (2014-2019)

Table North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries in 2018

Figure USA TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Canada TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Mexico TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Table Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries in 2018

Figure Germany TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure UK TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure France TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Russia TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Italy TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Table Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries in 2018

Figure China TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Japan TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Korea TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure India TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Southeast Asia TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Table South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Countries (2014-2019)

Table South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries in 2018

Figure Brazil TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Argentina TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Colombia TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Table Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) by Countries (2014-2019)

Table Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries (2014-2019)

Figure Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share by Countries in 2018

Figure Saudi Arabia TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure UAE TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Egypt TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Nigeria TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure South Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) by Type (2014-2019)

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Share by Type (2014-2019)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Share by Type (2014-2019)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Share by Type in 2019

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Forecast by Type (2019-2024)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Share Forecast by Type (2019-2024)

Figure Global Testing Services Revenue Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Global Inspection Services Revenue Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Global Certification Services Revenue Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue by Application (2014-2019)

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Share by Application (2014-2019)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Share by Application (2014-2019)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Share by Application in 2019

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Forecast by Application (2019-2024)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Market Share Forecast by Application (2019-2024)

Figure Global In-House Revenue Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Global Outsourced Revenue Growth Rate (2014-2019)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate Forecast (2019-2024)

Table Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue (Million USD) Forecast by Regions (2019-2024)

Figure Global TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Share Forecast by Regions (2019-2024)

Figure North America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)

Figure Europe TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)

Figure Asia-Pacific TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)

Figure South America TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)

Figure Middle East and Africa TIC Services for Automotive Revenue Market Forecast (2019-2024)


Lebanon, IN (46052)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.
HARTFORD  Operation Fuel will give people an opportunity to experience what it is like to live in a freezing home when they unveil their Ice House on Thursday, Jan. 31 at the Old State House in downtown Hartford. The Ice House will be built the night before by professional ice sculptors from Ice Matters. This inaugural event is the first of its kind in Connecticut.

This event has been rescheduled from Jan. 24 because of the weather, and the concern that it wont be cold enough for the ice house.

There are 500,000 Connecticut households that cant afford the cost of basic needs, including their energy bills. This includes working families with young children, people living with disabilities and the elderly who are living on a fixed income.

We are going to be sitting on ice. We are going to be sitting within ice walls and we are going to feel what it is like not to have the heat and lights on, said Brenda Watson, Executive Director of Operation Fuel.

The Ice House will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and people will have an opportunity to step inside the home to experience its freezing temperatures. Music, visiting mascots, information on energy assistance programs along with food trucks and other surprises will be part of the day. There is no charge to the public to participate; a donation of $5 per person is encouraged.

Eversource Energy is the Presenting Sponsor. Were always mindful of the effect the price of power has on our customers, particularly those who are facing difficult financial circumstances, said Eversource President of Corporate Citizenship Rod Powell. Like our customers, we have no control over fluctuating energy prices, but we do all we can to help them save energy where they can. Partnering with Operation Fuel on events like this and the very successful Add-a-Dollar program, were helping to bridge the gap for struggling families. Weve worked with Operation Fuel since it was founded in 1977 and were pleased to continue supporting all they do to ensure families in need have access to year-round energy assistance.

We are incredibly grateful for the support and partnership from Eversource Energy. As a result of their support and others, we will be able to help many struggling Connecticut households this winter, said Watson.

A workplace campaign called Chill Out is a way for groups, clubs or companies to support Operation Fuel and its efforts by raising funds internally and nominating a representative to Chill Out in the ice house for 15 minutes.

For information on the Chill Out campaign, sponsorship opportunities or the event, visit http://www.operationfuel.org/ice-house or contact Kim OBrien Green at 860-243-2345, ext. 3303, or at icehousect@operationfuel.org.

Operation Fuel provides year-round emergency energy assistance throughout Connecticut to lower-income working families and individuals, the elderly, and disabled individuals who are in a financial crisis. Anyone who needs energy assistance should call 211. For more information on Operation Fuel, or to make a donation, go to www.operationfuel.org.

Dance alliance to hold Day of Dance

HARTFORD  The Connecticut Dance Alliance (CDA) will host its annual Martin Luther King Jr Day of Dance on Monday, Jan. 21, 9 a.m.-3 pm., at CRECs Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, 15 Vernon Street, Hartford. The Day of Dance is open to anyone with prior dance experience.

The CDAs Annual Martin Luther King Day of Dance honors the teachings and legacy of Dr. King as well at the abundant African American contributions to the world of dance. This years theme - Legends, Legacy and Lineage focuses on dance classes in many forms including ballet, modern dance, Afro-Caribbean, stilt walking and jazz. The event also infuses elements of collaboration, history and educating the participants on the experiences of people of color in the dance world.

The cost is $25 for members of the CDA, $35 for non-members. The day includes two 1.5 hour long Master classes in your choice of technique: Ballet, Horton, Fosse, Graham, Afro Caribbean or Introduction to Stilt Walking; a panel discussion with the guest artists; high school students should bring their own lunch and have the option to participate in a Dancing in College discussion; adults can join the CDAs regional meeting (lunch provided).

Guest Artists Include: Rachel Hutsell (Ballet) is a member of the corps in the esteemed New York City Ballet. She is regularly cast in a wide variety of repertoire. She has collaborated with several choreographers, including Troy Schumacher, Gianna Reisen, Peter Walker and Justin Peck; Broadway Veteran Stephenie Pope (Fosse) has appeared in over 10 Broadway shows including Pippin, Chicago, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Fosse, Kiss of the Spider Woman. Stephanie has the distinct honor of having been hand-picked to work with the legendary director/choreographer, Bob Fosse, along with his former wife and muse, Gwen Verdon and holds the distinct and treasured title of being a Fosse Dancer; Kim Stroud (Graham) was a Principal Soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company for 11 years. Stroud has also danced and toured with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, performed in the Universal Studio film production of The Wiz, and as a guest artist with Katherine Dunham and the Gemini Dance Company; Stephen Hankey (Afro Caribbean) was a founding member of The National Dance Theatre Company of Trinidad and Tobago, where he performed nationally and internationally. In addition, he was also a member of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop and Peter Minshalls Callaloo Company of Trinidad and Tobago; Melissa Craig (Introduction to Stilt Walking) is a founding Company member of Island Reflections Dance Theatre Company and a current company member and teaching artists for the Judy Dworin Performance Project. And, Christine Kershaw (Horton) of the Elm City Dance Collaborative.

To register, contact CDA Board Member Alexis Melonopoulos Fleury at alexafleury@gmail.com. For those interested in sponsoring a young dancer, you can make a tax-deductible donation here: https://www.ctdanceall.org/support/. The is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing public awareness of dance in all its forms and serving the needs of the state-wide dance community. For more information about the CDA, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Dance including a complete schedule and full guest artist bios visit www.ctdanceall.org.
Gov. Ned Lamont and the president of Webster Bank announced a new partnership Tuesday to provide interest-free loans to essential federal workers who are unable to receive unemployment assistance during the government shutdown, now entering its 25th day.

The program, which is being supported by the Connecticut Bankers Association, calls for Webster  and potentially other banks  to provide the loans. The state would guarantee the lending in event some recipients fail to repay.

Federal workers  regardless of their employment classification  are hurting while the federal government is shut down, Lamont said. This is particularly true for those employees who must still report to work and incur the cost of commuting and other work-related costs without receiving a paycheck.

The governor estimated 1,200 to 1,500 federal workers in Connecticut could fall into this category, including air traffic controllers and certain Environmental Protection Agency staff.

To qualify for unemployment, a federal employee has to be one of those furloughed as part of the ongoing shutdown, and not one of the more than 400,000 workers nationally asked to remain on the job without pay.

Lamont said he doesnt want federal workers, particularly those in crucial jobs tied to air traffic safety and environmental protection, to leave to find other work over what amounts to a technicality in unemployment rules.

Webster Bank is pleased to work with the state to provide assistance to essential workers during this time of hardship, John R. Ciulla, president and chief of executive officer of Webster Bank, said. Webster has a long history of supporting Connecticut and will work alongside other banks to assist residents during this difficult period.

Full details and terms of the loans still are being developed, Ciulla said. But, he added, the loans will be provided interest-free.

Ciulla also said that he anticipates other banks agree to participate in this relief program as it is developed.

One key detail that still hasnt been resolved is whether Lamont can act unilaterally to provide the loan guarantees  such as through an executive order  or whether it will require legislative action.

The new governor, who was sworn in on Jan. 9, told one reporter he wasnt sure of the process, but that he would reach out to legislative leaders on Wednesday and was confident the matter could be resolved.

Legislative leaders from both parties quickly issued statements after Lamonts announcement praising the governors efforts.

I know people are having trouble with simple cash flow - they need to buy food, to put gas in their car, to heat their home. And theyre running out of money, said Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee.

Osten and several other Democratic senators sponsored a bill Tuesday that would allow the Department of Labor to assist federal employees who are either furloughed or forced to work without pay to be paid through the states unemployment compensation fund. The fund would then be reimbursed by the employee once the federal government shutdown ends and federal employees are paid their back wages.

A lot of federal employees who are not being paid are public safety workers, putting their lives on the line in prisons or at airport security, Osten added. These are the jobs that protect us day in and day out, and they shouldnt be treated with disrespect. I want to thank Governor Lamont for his consideration of these hardworking people.

I appreciate Gov. Lamonts efforts to create a public private partnership between government and business leaders to quickly solve a problem impacting state residents, Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven.

All our hearts go out to the federal employees who are struggling to support their families at this time. The proposed temporary support is a clever and unique way to leverage a partnership to help those in need. I look forward to reviewing the details of this proposal and am hopeful that we will see necessary protections to ensure taxpayer funds are protected at the same time assistance is provided to the workers who are most in need.
BRIDGEPORT  The states first major winter storm of 2019 is expected to bring snow, ice, sleet and freezing rain this weekend.

A winter storm watch is in effect Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon for southern Connecticut, southeast New York and northeast New Jersey, the National Weather Service said.

Southern Connecticut is expecting between 3 and 6 inches of snow, with higher totals possible in the northern part of the state. A foot or more of snow is possible from northern Pennsylvania to upstate New York and northern New England, said Frank Strait, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.

State Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection officials said they are in constant communications with the NWS to ensure readiness for the storm.

We will be monitoring conditions statewide and are prepared to coordinate any assistance that may be needed, said Scott DeVico, a spokesman for DESPP.

Leading up to the weekend storm, towns and cities and state agencies monitored the impending snowfall, looking to prevent the struggles that hit statewide during a snowstorm in November.

That storm caused slippery roads and snarled traffic during evening rush hour. Connecticut State Police responded to 1,341 snow-related calls during the storm, including 230 crashes  one of which was a fatal crash on Interstate 95 in Milford.

Clearing streets

Ahead of the weekend storm, the Connecticut Department of Transportation pretreated more than 300 miles of problem areas across state-run roadways, according to DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick.

Its not feasible for us to target all state roads, he said. We strategically pretreat ... trouble spots  bridges, which quickly freeze over, hills, valleys.

The salt-brine solution, which started to get applied to roadways on Wednesday, makes it easier to plow. Nursick said the DOTs fleet of more than 800 plows should help adequately deal with the weekends snowfall.

Expected snowfall Bridgeport: 4-6 inches Danbury: 6-8 inches Hartford: 8-12 inches New Haven: 4-6 inches New London: 3-4 inches Torrington: 8-12 inches Waterbury: 6-8 inches See More Collapse

On local roads, public works departments battle with quickly clearing roadways when vehicle owners dont adhere to parking bans.

In Bridgeport, a snow emergency was declared to take effect at 7 a.m. Saturday.

We need residents to help us out to ensure that we can efficiently and effectively get the snow cleared, said Scott Appleby, director of emergency management and homeland security for Bridgeport.

In 2013, Bridgeport officials under then-mayor Bill Finch were criticized for the way they handled a February storm that dumped nearly 30 inches. The cleanup cost the city about $1.7 million, which was only partially reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In any storm, you need to stay ahead of it and be prepared, Appleby said. Were trying to get the word out to the community to refresh themselves ... on the snow emergency routes and what parking bans mean when we declare or activate a snow emergency.

Dont panic

Heavy snowfall and winds are expected with Saturdays storm, leaving the potential for power outages.

If your home ends up losing power, dont panic, Appleby said. Shut the doors that youre not using, make sure that you bundle up. Dont use candles and dont use your gas stove to heat your residence.

If evacuations are necessary, Appleby said, the EOC will open up shelters based on the need.

Bridgeport is working with homeless shelter agencies in the area. If there is a need for overflow shelters or warming centers, he said, the city will provide it.

Be safe, be prepared and, most importantly, stay alert to our emergency instructions, Appleby said. Were in this together.

Eversource Energy, which was heavily criticized for restoration of widespread power outages after two major storms last fall, is also preparing crews to address any possible storm-related outages.

We are closely monitoring weather conditions and planning accordingly so we have crews in position to respond, said Mike Hayhurst, Eversource vice president of electric system operations.

Michele DeLuca, deputy director of emergency management in Norwalk, warned residents to take precautions to keep safe as temperatures drop.

Limit your exposure to the cold temperatures by not going outside unless necessary, she said. Avoid serious conditions, such as frostbite and hypothermia, by keeping warm.

If you are using a space heater, DeLuca said, make sure it is at least 3 feet away from anything that can burn and turned off when you leave the room or go to sleep.

Frigid temps

As the snow lets up Sunday, Strait said, the real concern will be the low temperatures and the wind.

Gov. Ned Lamont launched statewide cold weather protocol, which goes into effect noon Sunday and remains in effect through noon Wednesday.

Once the protocol takes effect, the DESPP activates an internet-based system that allows local, regional and state emergency management officials and first responders to information about a variety of situations and conditions.

Those seeking shelter can call 211 or visit www.211ct.org to find the nearest shelter options.

Its expected to get very windy on Sunday and temperatures will just drop during the day, Strait said.

Current forecasts are calling for temperatures to plummet Sunday night, hovering near zero degrees by daybreak Monday. Wind chills are expected to be between minus-10 and minus-20 degrees. The high on Monday will be around 10 degrees with wind chills remaining below zero during the day.

Thats some pretty serious cold that people need to take into account, Strait said. Everyone should avoid long-term exposure.
GREENWICH  The next national head count, to take place in 2020, will affect the balance of political power in the nation and the fate of billions of dollars.

In a nutshell, thats what the census is all about, Terri Ann Lowenthal told the Retired Mens Association of Greenwich Wednesday. She also shared grave concerns about the count upcoming.

I see a confluence of unprecedented factors, most outside of the Census Bureaus control, that threaten to create what I call a perfect storm, said Lowenthal, a Stamford resident and former staff director for the U.S. Houses Census Oversight Committee. She also covered the subject as part of President Barack Obamas 2008 presidential transition team.

Late Congressional funding throughout the current 10-year census cycle, unrealistic goals for how much the census should cost, a dependence on modern technology in an age of hacking and security concerns, and the current political climate are all factors swirling into that storm, she said.

A climate of fear in immigrant communities and the ongoing opioid crisis threaten participation, she said, as does President Donald Trump, since the census will take place in the middle of what will likely be a very contentious presidential campaign.

Lowenthal said the tweeter in chief could use his platform to undermine public confidence in the census.

The unsettled issue of including a question about citizenship, the subject of six lawsuits, also is a factor she said could hurt participation. The question, added by Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, has not been on the census since 1950 and was not field tested before the attempt was made to add it, she said.

Her concerns are based on past difficulties the census has had getting accurate numbers, which can result in certain populations being undercounted and some being overcounted.

The census numbers determine how many seats each state has in the United States House of Representatives, and how more than $880 billion a year is allocated to states for purposes from highway construction to schools to Medicare supplemental insurance.

It also helps local governments to assess need and deliver services effectively, Lowenthal said. We need an accurate census to do that.

She later added, Lawmakers cant make smart decisions and you cant hold them accountable without an accurate census. And thats why you should care if the Census Bureau gets it right.

Even though the Census Bureau has gotten better at collecting data, Lowenthal said, endemic problems still persist.

The census is not an equal opportunity enumeration, Lowenthal said. People of color are missed at disproportionally high rates. Lower income households in both urban and rural areas are missed at higher rates. Non-Hispanic whites and wealthier households, on the other hand, were overcounted in the 2010 and 2000 census. Immigrants, foreign-born residents, single-parent-headed households and mobile young adults, millennials, who are moving around quite a bit are all at risk of being missed because they tend not to respond voluntarily at higher and higher rates.

Children under the age of five have the highest undercount of any age group, particularly black and Hispanic children who she said are twice as likely to be missed as white children, which makes a huge difference when federal funding is allocated for schools.

Field preparations have already begun for 2020, with tens of thousands of people submitting applications to be census workers. Field offices will begin opening in January, and in late January 2020 the counting begins in remote Alaska, before hunting and fishing season starts.

The Constitution mandates that a census be conducted every 10 years.

Technology will play a greater role in the 2020 census than ever before. The Internet, smartphones and other electronic means will be used to collect data to an unprecedented degree.

The Census Bureau will also make more use of data that has already been collected by the IRS, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and other federal programs.

The result of all of the automation is going to be a dramatically smaller census bureau footprint in the field, Lowenthal said with less workers in the field and half the number of regional census offices, which means there will be no office in Stamford in 2020 and the closest one will be in Danbury.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
Currently Reading

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BERLIN  Three design engineers at the state Department of Transportation stood among hundreds of colleagues on the second floor of the DOTs main office, overlooking the huge, oblong, airy atrium, waiting for Gov. Ned Lamont to emerge from the commissioners office.

I asked what theyd like to ask, or tell, or hear from the new governor as he stopped by the DOT, one of his first agency visits since his Jan. 9 inauguration.

How were portrayed in the media  people always like to bash on the state workers, said one, who declined to give his name. I dont know how to beat it.

That bothers him. It also bothers Lamont.

And it matters more than usual in 2019 because DOT, a crucial agency for the states economic hopes, remains far understaffed in the wake of the Malloy cutbacks. Yes, Malloy cut government, he didnt increase it.

The department, with 2,865 employees, has 497 positions authorized by the legislature but not filled, upwards of half of them are maintainers who handle snow and ice and potholes and all that stuff.

That means everyone is working harder, at least in theory. The peak was about 6,000 people in 1985 after former Gov. Bill ONeills push following the Mianus River Bridge collapse.

Its not an overstatement to say progress in highway and transit systems is viewed as one of the linchpins of restoring economic growth. Whats new is that Lamont views the issue not just as a money question, not just as systems and processes, not just as a game of political management, though its all that.

No, hes starting with the lost art of motivation, which many corporations in this era of technocracy have forgotten.

This is one of the first places I wanted to come, he told the loosely assembled employees Thursday afternoon, many leaning over rails in the 4-story atrium. Something you never hear is, first of all, thank you for what youre doing...for the state of Connecticut.

Thats what those engineers wanted to hear. It started on the campaign and Lamont is continuing that approach.

Theres only so much you can get done in four years and a lot of its going to be defined by the budget, he said. We dont have to get it all done in four years but weve got to tell people what this states going to look like in ten years.

Thats how they come back, thats how they grow, thats how our kids come back and stay here. We turned around those moving vans so thank you so much to each and every one of you.

No, sorry, we havent turned around those moving vans just yet, although theres some evidence the outmigration from Connecticut may be abating. Motivation does require some serious optimism and thats what were seeing from Governor Ned.

Fitting his aw, shucks style, Lamont showed up in a jacket with open-neck, dress shirt, pressing flesh and listening to peoples stories like Bubba Clinton at a barbecue.

I know youre under stress, its going to take us a while to get that fixed but in the meantime, were going to put in place a system....And I really think that whats going on in this building is going to define this state for the next generation...It starts right now with each and every one of you.

Speaking of wild optimism, Lamont talked about high-speed rail and his 30-30-30 declaration: Thirty minutes to get from Hartford to New Haven, 30 from New Haven to Stamford, 30 from Stamford to midtown Manhattan, Grand Central Terminal.

That has a nicer ring to it than 45...an hour and 15 minutes if youre lucky....and whatever.

Lamont, whos showing an early knack for staying on point, on schedule, followed his new DOT commissioner, Joe Giulietti, down to the basement-level highway operations command center, an automated war room with control stations and a dozen big screens on the wall showing live videos from across the state.

Governor Ned asked what the command center can do  such as, Do you track speeders on GPS?

No, but they do work closely with the state police.

Looking at a scene of tree removal along I-91 in Cromwell, he said, Could you just leave a few of those trees up there, a couple of them, to give us that woody look?

Yes, sir, said Paul Rizzo, the bureau chief of highway operations, clearly not intending to fulfill that request in the what Id call the bark wars between tree lovers and highway managers. Safety comes first, Rizzo and other top DOT officials later told me as I asked about saving trees along the Merritt Parkway.

It wouldnt be a visit to DOT in 2019 without some talk of highway tolls. Much has been made, by me and others, about the alleged rift between Lamont  who said he favors tolls for long-haul truckers only, like Rhode Island is trying to do  and Guilietti, who favors broader tolling.

Guilietti, a former Metro North president from New Haven, who started the same day as Lamont, downplayed the difference and said the department is working on proposals to present to Lamont.

What Im encouraged by is that weve got a governor that recognizes the need for some tolling, Guilietti told me, walking a fine line.

On the way out, I asked Lamont about a study a few years back, done by DOT, that showed its cheaper to bring work back in-house to design highway and some transit projects  rather than pay outside firms. The Connecticut State Employees Association, the union that represents about 800 DOT engineers, strongly favors those results, obviously, but DOT managers under Malloy remained skeptical.

Weve got to look at that, dont we? Lamont said. He talked about the distinctions between hiring out for ultra-specialized work and doing more routine design work in-house.

Speaking of that issue, in a comment that summarizes his overall philosophy, he added, Weve got to put that over the finish line.
Last updated on: January 30, 2019 17:38 IST

As he was giving evidence, Dr Matcheswalla peremptorily summoned the CBI representative over to the witness box and whispered something.

Indrani Mukerjea's advocate Sudeep Pasbola immediately cut in, wondering what he was up to: "Please, please, please."

Dr Matcheswalla, looking innocently startled, said: "I was asking if I can order for tea."

Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

The Sheena Bora murder trial, which has been unfolding since February 2017 on the third floor of the Mumbai city civil and sessions court, south Mumbai, hadn't, till date, seen a witness like Dr Yusuf Abdulla Matcheswalla.

The unshaven psychiatrist made every attempt to elevate his ordinary witness box into a dais and those present in Courtroom 51 on Thursday, January 17, his audience and the recipients of what he thought was their first Psych 101, like maybe he was lecturing at the Grant Government Medical College, Sir J J Group of Hospitals, where he is/was an honorary professor.

Dr Matcheswalla, whose personal Web site describes him as both 'the top psychiatrist' and as 'one of the best minds in the field of mental health care' in Mumbai, had a bombastic style, that tended to always remind those present of his seniority in his field.

As the hearing progressed, this, while causing a bit of amusement and hardly-concealed smiles, also began to rankle, given that those he was speaking to were equally senior in their own fields. And also perhaps not that ignorant of matters relating to mental illness and psychiatry.

Each question put to him harvested long, meandering answers, laden with superfluous facts and were little lessons rather than simple replies.

When that was remonstrated with him, his occasional refrain was: "Seekhne mein koiee burai nahin hai (Is there harm in learning a little?)" or something similar, suggesting those assembled for the hearing needed to learn more about the psychiatric world, whilst he was there to happily impart details to them.

The highlight was when he stopped the proceedings midway as he was giving evidence and peremptorily summoned the CBI representative, the bewhiskered, always smiling Durga Singh Bisht over to the witness box and whispered something.

Indrani Mukerjea's advocate Sudeep Ratnamberdutt Pasbola immediately cut in, wondering what he was up to: "Please, please, please."

Dr Matcheswalla, looking innocently startled, said: "I was asking if I can order for tea."

Everyone looked first mildly aghast and then entertained, as the room broke into a collective grin, given that nothing is allowed in an Indian courtroom by way of refreshments apart from water, even to the honourable judge.

Pasbola, chuckling, joked: "If you can, then order for all of us!"

Dr Matcheswalla considered the request for half a second and said: "I don't mind. I will order cutting chai for everyone."

Interestingly, while giving his testimony, and during his cross examination, it became more and more blurred whether the information the psychiatrist was revealing was in favour of the prosecution or the defence.

Or even who his patients had been.

Sheena Bora? Mekhail Bora? Or Indrani nee Bora Mukerjea?

They seemed to have all "benefitted" from his advice willingly/unwillingly or knowingly/unknowingly, on different occasions.

Suspense is building up too as the trajectory of the CBI's case in this trial is perhaps becoming clearer.

It now already hints that the drug supposedly administered to Sheena to make her drowsy, before she was allegedly strangled in a vehicle in April 24, 2012, was maybe the anti-psychotic risperidone, sold under the brand name risdone, that was prescribed by Dr Matcheswalla for Mekhail in 2006, six years before the crime and maybe for Indrani too.

Will the next witness be the proprietor of the chemist where Indrani customarily stocked up on prescription medicines, near her south central Mumbai home?

Will a pre-murder dated prescription be shown to the court?

To add to that -- and muddy the waters further -- for the first time too a storyline is inadvertently (or advertently) building up in Indrani's favour.

How?

Dr Matcheswalla revealed that he had been consulted by Indrani about symptoms arising from substance-induced psychosis for both Mekhail and Sheena. So rather than appearing like the mother from hell who was trying to get rid of her two eldest children for mercenary et al reasons, an alternative narrative of a concerned, anxious mother trying to treat, at no doubt high costs, both her children for drug abuse/usage is emerging, close on the heels of the information, though hearsay, revealed by the second to last witness, Pritul Sanghavi, that Sheena was once observed snorting cocaine at a night club.

Dr Matcheswalla's name first cropped up in this trial in Indrani's son Mekhail Bora's testimony in mid-2018.

Mekhail accused Indrani of forcibly admitting him into a mental institution, under the care of a menacing psychiatrist, with the intention of having him under her physical control so she could do what she liked with him, including trying to kill him.

That psychiatrist, under whose care he had been, was Dr Matcheswalla, who had less a menacing and more a sort of teddy-bear reassuring demeanour about him. It was Dr Matcheswalla who admitted him for two months to the Masina Hospital, Byculla, south central Mumbai, according to Mekhail, in 2006.

Dr Matcheswalla, who kept the court waiting 15 to 20 minutes by arriving late, when he took the witness box on Thursday, filled in the details of that two-month episode of 12 years ago.

Attired in a suit of royal blue, a white shirt, black shoes, white socks, glasses, Dr Matcheswalla, 60, a bulky man of medium height, after holding up his hand and loudly swearing "in the name of god to tell the truth and nothing but the truth", was persuaded to offer an outline of the treatment Mekhail underwent.

The psychiatrist's witness box manner was as dramatic as his style of speaking -- he would listen to each question and then purposefully rotate himself 90 degrees to give his slow, measured reply to the judge, his answers were often illustrated with sweeping gestures of his hands. In between, he would pause to glug mineral water.

CBI Special Prosecutor Bharat B Badami began Dr Matcheswalla's testimony with standard queries about the psychiatrist's occupation, designation and appointments, which he gave in a precise tone.

It started off, thereafter, just for the first few minutes, smoothly.

Badami: "Do you know Indrani Mukerjea?"

Dr Matcheswalla: "Yes, I know Indrani Mukerjea."

Badami: "How you know Indrani Mukerjea?"

Dr Matcheswalla: "I have had an opportunity to treat her relative Mekhail Bora."

Badami: "You said treat Mekhail Bora. For what?"

Dr Matcheswalla paused, taking a deep breath, and did not initially answer citing pressures of confidentiality being a doctor.

Does a psychiatrist, before a judge, in an open courtroom, in a trial, need to offer confidential information about a patient he treated, who is neither the murder victim or the accused?

From that point onwards, Dr Matcheswalla's answers were not always the ones expected back, and at times pedantic and blustery.

Dr Matcheswalla was convinced to admit to the court that he had treated Mekhail for substance-induced psychosis in 2006 and that Indrani's son had been admitted to the Masina Hospital for two months and then was referred to a rehab centre in Pune, the Chaitanya Mental Health Care Center, Katraj.

That dealt with, Badami turned to Dr Matcheswalla and asked him: "What happened in 2012?"

The psychiatrist and the lawyers immediately took umbrage.

Pasbola: "How can you ask that?"

Dr Matcheswalla: "I get 100 calls a day." He suggested Badami be more specific and ask a question like; "Did you receive Sheena Bora's call?"

CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale immediately scuttled that: "No, no, he can't. It is not permissible by law to ask leading questions (like that)."

Dr Matcheswalla didn't seem to get the concept of a 'leading question' and continued to argue over the next few minutes about the need for specific questions to be addressed to him and slowly began to irk both the lawyers and the judge with his insistence on a procedure in a courtroom, an arena in which he had no expertise.

Finally, he was herded into replying that he had received a call from Indrani Mukerjea (not Sheena Bora, his error) some time in 2012 saying that "the concerned relative (Mekhail Bora) was behaving aggressively" and he had suggested that liquid risdone be administered.

Continuing on in his distinctive wordy manner, Dr Matcheswalla said: "Risdone is an anti-psychotic medication which is regularly used by psychiatrists all over the world for the treatment of aggressive behaviour, abnormal behaviour, violence and psychosis."

Further, the psychiatrist added that he had received several calls on that particular night in 2012 -- the date he did not remember -- from Indrani Mukerjea, but he specified that "the last call was after midnight."

Mekhail had stated in his evidence that Indrani has been talking on the phone at 5 am on April 25, the night after Sheena's murder.

The calls were in relation he said "to the best of my memory" (a phrase the doctor leaned on throughout the hearing) in connection with the fact that a medication was not working.

Badami queried: "Not working to whom?"

Dr Matcheswalla's reply was critical. "At that time," he said, "she had mentioned Mekhail Bora. She had also mentioned Sheena's manner that she is behaving aggressive and unmanageable."

The psychiatrist said he advised Indrani "to give this particular medication risdone and to bring the person to Masina Hospital for advice."

He also clarified that after his earlier dealings with Indrani, when Mekhail was hospitalised he had not had that much interaction with her or Mekhail in the interim.

He had not seen either of them and there was intermittent communication between him and Indrani.

"She had called me a few times in relation to Mekhail and once sought advice regarding her hypertension."

He advised her to also take risdone for her hypertension which he termed "anxiety".

On Badami's questioning he said risdone was available at any chemist shop if one had a prescription and that he had "to the best of my memory have given a prescription to Indrani or her driver."

One wondered if this was a prescription for Mekhail or Indrani or whom. If it was for Indrani how could a prescription have been written for another patient he had not examined and been sent.

Risdone, he explained to the court, could be either had as a tablet if the person was willing to take it or ingested in liquid format as drops. "And it could be mixed in water, juice, sharbat, not in hot drinks like coffee or tea."

When asked to identify Indrani, Dr Matcheswalla, who evidently doesn't watch television or read newspapers/online publications said: "From whatever little I remember, it is the lady sitting behind."

Pasbola started off the cross examination asking a series of questions about how the psychiatric unit at Masina Hospital functioned.

The lawyer also determined and established that a patient who was admitted there was first evaluated on an outpatient basis, via a detailed process, before a decision was reached, with the help of senior psychiatrists, to admit him and that without that scientific evaluation a person could not reach a bed in the Masina psychiatric ward.

About 20 minutes was spent unearthing what happened to Mekhail's Masina Hospital medical records.

Apparently, Dr Matcheswalla explained, the hospital, in those days (2006), before total digitalisation had been introduced, kept the records of a patient for a period of five years and disposed of it thereafter.

So in 2015 when the police and CBI came looking for Mekhail's records Dr Matcheswalla was unable to help them though, strangely, as per his statement to the police he said he would help them.

Pasbola put it to the psychiatrist that that meant that the court had to rely only on his memory and word.

Dr Matcheswalla flatly refused to answer the question.

Pasbola re-requesting him: "Doctor please answer the question."

Dr Matcheswalla, adamant: "I have answered the question."

Pasbola, meeting his match facing the psychiatrist (professor vs professor), equally resolute: "You have not answered the question."

Dr Matcheswalla: "I have answered the question."

It went on like slow-motion ping-pong, as tedious as Theresa May negotiating the Brexit deal.

It emerged that the question offended Dr Matcheswalla. He said he had been called to the court as a witness for who he was and added firmly and loudly: "My word counts!"

The CBI had called Dr Matcheswalla to their office for questioning twice, the doctor confirmed. Dr Matcheswalla didn't remember the exact dates but said "Definitely after that fateful day in August 2015."

The advocate began querying Dr Matcheswalla about Mekhail's illness and the diagnosis.

Pasbola: "The history that was given to you of substance-induced psychosis..."

Dr Matcheswalla interrupted: "No, that was my diagnosis!"

Pabola: "Can this medical diagnosis be in common parlance (referred to) as drug abuse?"

Dr Matcheswalla: "No, a little more than that." He launched into a painstaking, lumbering, explanation that both the judge and Pasbola valiantly struggled to cut short, that it was more than drug abuse because for Mekhail the usage had caused him psychosis too.

"Sabko nahin hota hai. Har alcoholic ko liver cirrhosis nahin hota hai. Har cigarette smoker ko lung cancer nahin hota hai (It doesn' happen to everyone. Every alcoholic doesnt get liver cirrhosis. Every smoker doesn't get lung cancer)..."

Digging on, Pasbola had the psychiatrist tell the court that the substance producing this psychosis in Mekhail was cannabis and nicotine. DR Matcheswalla disputed that it was anything more than "family" of cannabis, be it ganja or charas and that it was not narcotics.

He also stated strongly: "He was not habituated to drugs. He was not a drug addict. He was only a 15-16 year old boy. Cannabis induced psychosis."

He denied telling the police that narcotics was the issue too and maintained he had said cannabis and nicotine.

Pasbola checked with the doctor about the symptoms this psychosis produced.

Dr Matcheswalla, who called Pasbola from time to time "learned advocate", said it made individuals "Aggressive. Violent. Suspicious. Unrealistic."

Pasbola: "Under hallucinations?"

Dr Matcheswalla immediately dismissed that: "Hallucinations are different."

The judge smiled.

Pasbola verified that after a patient was discharged he was given all the instructions and facilities to continue on his course of treatment/medication from home.

He also ascertained that it was quite routine for a patient's relatives to be in touch with Dr Matcheswalla post discharge, especially if the patient was showing deterioration or any other problem.

Pasbola then delicately tiptoed into the topic of restraint: "Masina Hospital is a very reputed hospital and then there is your reputation but if a patient is admitted against his will are they tied up?"

Dr Matcheswalla reacted instantly: "Let us not use the word tied up!"

He then launched into a long description about the kinds of ill people ("homicidal, suicidal, grossly psychotic, severely manic") who were unable to make rational decisions about hospitalisation.

These individuals were extreme cases because they did not have the judgment or insight to realise they were ill had to be admitted against their wishes with the consent of their relatives.

Through much of this, Indrani, wearing Thursday a very Bengali style kurta-salwar ensemble of red and white, red chunni and red bindi, sat very, very still, listening intently.

Referring to India's old Mental Health Act and then the new one, Dr Matcheswalla took off on a lecture on the ways in which a person could be admitted against his wishes as per both acts.

Judge Jagdale mumbled, his brows knitted together, not sure what to make of his verbose witness: "Now we are in 2006 (the year Mekhail was admitted)."

Dr Matcheswalla continued on his monologue, all charged up, declaring that it was important to know the circumstances in which a person can be forcibly hospitalised or like "Parveen Babi who nobody cared for" people can die, old and senile in their homes.

When the late actress Parveen Babi's name was mentioned Pasbola had had enough and cut the psychiatrist short irately "talking Parveen Babi and all!"

Dr Matcheswalla: "Learn something sir!"

Both the judge and Pasbola then hustled Dr Matcheswalla back onto course with Pasbola asking if Mekhail belonged to the category of patients who resisted hospitalisation and did not agree to be admitted or remain in the hospital.

Dr Matcheswalla said that to "the best of my memory" he was not uncooperative. "He was cooperative."

Pasbola: "But was he admitted against his will?"

Dr Matcheswalla suddenly dug his heels in: "Minors don't give consent."

Pasbola asked again.

"Minors don't give consent. Sorry sir. Minors don't give consent," adding that they would not be in a position to make that decision, rambling further, "God forbid tera ya mera beta ko hota (if it happened to your son or mine) then what would we do)..."

Pasbola grimaced and swiftly pushed the cross examination along, getting once more to the issue of Mekhail reporting being tied up.

That set Dr Matcheswalla off all over, who spoke about what psychiatric patients generally wanted and why hospitals all over the world had patients under lock and key and then roundly told Pasbola that it was referred to as physical restraint and chemical restraint.

Pasbola exaggeratedly: "Thank you."

Dr Matcheswalla: "Tie is a crude word."

Pasbola patiently enunciated: "Did you ever see him 'physically or chemically restrained'?"

Dr Matcheswalla, perhaps forgetting his censure of half a second earlier: "As far as I remember I never saw him physically tied up."

The lawyer then moved the discussion to Mekhail's treatment at the Pune rehab place.

While Dr Matcheswalla was answering, Pasbola interrupted him to ask the judge if they could continue the cross-examination the next day since it was already 5 o'clock and he needed another half an hour or so more.

The psychiatrist was willing to continue and finish on Thursday, although he muttered something about it being "Sone ke time hai (time to sleep)" Chai mil jaati (if I get tea) then I can go on..."

He said he did not want to come the next afternoon too because his whole day got shot to pieces on Thursday.

Pointing to Badami and the other CBI Special Prosecutor Kavita Patil, who looked taken aback: "They told me to come at 11 am. Ghoom rahein hai (Been wandering around). GT Hospital. Idhar udhar (here and there). Missed my OPD."

Noon, Tuesday, January 22 was chosen to complete Yusuf Matcheswala's cross examination.

There is a possibility that Accused 2, Vidhie's dad Sanjeev Khanna's lawyers would also examine him briefly given that the psychiatrist crucially also mentioned that Mekhail was brought for admission in 2006 by Indrani and Sohail Buddha. Not Sanjeev Khanna, as Mekhail had said.

The psychiatrist stepped down from the witness box, taking a bit of rest in a chair. Pasbola, under Badami's amused gaze, came across to shake Dr Matcheswalla's hand. The psychiatrist's assistant stopped Pasbola for a visiting card, who said he had none ("These days, who carried cards!").

Five minutes later, Dr Matcheswalla departed with his assistant, the doctor exiting behind the lawyer. The lawyer moved swiftly. The doctor, who has an unusual gait, progressed, like royalty.

Badami, who was sitting on a bench outside, nodded his head in approval, and told a colleague, "He is a celebrity."
Source:

Last updated on: January 18, 2019 23:52 IST

A fresh row erupted on Friday over the Rafale deal with the Congress alleging that the National Democratic Alliance government has wronged the country by reducing the number of aircraft bought under the deal as it 'denied' the Indian Air Force the jets it 'desperately' needed and gave a 'windfall' to Dassault Aviation by paying more per aircraft.

The government, however, rejected as 'factually inaccurate' the media report which was cited by the Congress to target it and said it would be best to await the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General which has been given access to all the files relating to the contract.

The media report claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 Rafale jets, instead of 126 as negotiated by the previous United Progressive Alliance government, while bypassing mandated procedures pushed the price of each aircraft up by 41.42 per cent.

Addressing a press conference, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the government did not buy the 90 more aircraft needed by the Air Force and paid Rs 186 crore more to French firm Dassault, maker of Rafale, for 13 India-specific enhancements in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).

The former finance minister while citing the report in The Hindu reiterated his party's demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale jet deal, saying the decision is not amenable to court but to a parliamentary panel.

The Defence Ministry, however, rebutted the allegations saying the report compared 'price of 2007 with the price of 2016 without considering the escalation factors inherent in the price bid'.

The UPA government had started the process of procuring the jets in 2007.

"The article is factually inaccurate. It does not adduce any new argument. All the issues have been answered in detail by the Government at various fora and most recently by the Raksha Mantri in an open debate in Parliament," a ministry spokesperson said.

Citing the newspaper report, Chidambaram had alleged, "The government has wronged the country in two ways -- firstly, it has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force 90 fighter aircraft that they desperately need.

"Secondly, it has purchased two squadrons that will cost about 25 million more per aircraft. At the 2016 exchange rate, Euro 25 million is equal to Rs 186 crore. India will pay Rs 186 crore more per aircraft."

"There is no doubt any longer that Rafale aircraft deal deserves to be examined thoroughly by a joint parliamentary committee. The Congress reiterates its demand for constitution of a JPC," he said.

The Congress has alleged earlier that the prime minister increased the 'Benchmark Price' of Rafale deal from 5.2 billion to 8.2 billion and that the NDA government paid over Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft against UPA's negotiated price of Rs 527 crore per aircraft, demanding answers as to who is responsible for the loss to the state exchequer.

Dismissing the news report, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said it was based on 'fudged arithmetic'.

In a series of tweets, the minister said the Supreme Court has examined the prices and the CAG is examining the same.

'The new article on Rafale is based on fudged arithmetic - ignore the escalation of the 2007 non-deal offer and compare it with the 2016 price and invent a scam," he said.

'The fudged arithmetic of a compulsive contrarian can hardly be objective... Fudged arithmetics does not add to the credibility of its creator," he said.

Rejecting the Congress' charges, BJP leader and Union minister Smriti Irani said the opposition party's 'malicious campaign has been exposed' as she noted the Supreme Court verdict on the matter and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's over 90-minute reply in Parliament.

Irani said those who are on bail are running a false propaganda in a dig at Rahul Gandhi and Chidambaram.

"The Congress' game of running a malicious campaign on this issue and abandoning national interest for their own politics has been exposed," she said.

"The Supreme Court has spoken on it, the defence minister has spoken on it...for those who use this for their own political ends, yeh public hai, sab janti hai (the public knows it all)," Irani said.

Chidambaram said he feels that Dassault 'is laughing all the way to the bank', as the NDA government gave a 'gift' to the French firm over amortization or recovery on the cost of 13 India-specific enhancements sought in the aircraft that cost 1,300 million.

He said the cost of these enhancements have been recovered by Dassault in 36 aircraft and the same should have been recovered by it for 126 aircraft instead.

Chidambaram said he has only analyzed a part of the new information available and awaited more information to come.

"That is a windfall for Dassault. That is the gift that the NDA government has given to Dassault and that is why I said Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank... The windfall to Dassault is highly questionable.

"The windfall to Dassault is undeserved. The windfall to Dassault was certainly not through as per negotiation, it was a deliberate decision," he alleged.

"The increased price per aircraft is a gift to Dassault that the NDA government gave between April 2015 to August 2016," he said.

Chidambaram said serious issues are being raised in media reports about the process of decision-making in the NDA government and alleged that 'the man who got away was Mr Manohar Parrikar who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security. Clever man'.

"We will not comment on the process today. However, it is necessary to compliment the three officers of the Indian Negotiating Team who stood up to pressure and forced a vote of 4-3 on every issue," he said, adding that he has never seen such a decision on a defence deal happening in any government so far in the country.

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury alleged, "Modi's sudden announcement in Paris, to buy only 36 Rafale jets, not 126 that the Air Force wanted, violated all procedure. But it also compromised India's national security and increased the price by 41%! That is why Modi has been running scared of sharing details."

He said the CPI-M had long demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the deal but the government had blocked all such efforts.

"It is crystal clear now, and no amount of spin will help," the CPI-M leader said.
Source:

January 18, 2019 09:07 IST

United States President Donald Trump has postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosis trip to meet military officials and troops in Afghanistan and Brussels, saying she was needed here for negotiations to end the partial government shutdown.

IMAGE: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was scheduled to meet military officials and troops in Afghanistan and Brussels. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Trumps move came on Thursday a day after the House Speaker urged him to reschedule his annual State of the Union address slated for January 29, citing security concerns triggered by the shutdown that has entered its 27th day.

Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over, Trump said in a letter to Pelosi, a copy of which was released to the press.

The president also said postponing this public relations event was totally appropriate.

The longest-ever shutdown in US history has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including security and state department.

In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that, Trump said.

However, Pelosis spokesman Drew Hammill said the visits purpose was to express appreciation to US troops and obtain critical briefings from them. The trip did not have Egypt as a stop, he said.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divide over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House have refused to approve a legislation approving $5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border.

I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the strong border security movement to end the shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative, Trump said.

The US president said: I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!

Trumps letter to Pelosi came soon after the House Speaker told reporters at the US Capitol that the president has been silent for more than 24 hours on the issue of rescheduling his annual State of the Union address.

We havent heard. It was a very silent more than 24 hours, to your question that you ask me every time I step out of the office, have you heard? No, we havent heard yet. Pelosi said taking a dig at the president.

The House Speakers spokesman, Hammill, said the Congressional Delegation to Afghanistan included a required stop in Brussels for pilot rest.

In Brussels, the delegation was scheduled to meet with top NATO commanders, US military leaders and key allies - to affirm the United States ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance. This weekend visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt, the spokesman said.

The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines, Hammill said.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said, We want to keep her (Pelosi) in Washington. If she leaves, she guarantees that the second round of paychecks to 800,000 federal workers wont go out. The deadline to make that deal is midnight on Tuesday.

She wasnt scheduled to be back until Wednesday. The president wants her here to negotiate, she said.

US President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.

The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.

The ongoing shutdown on January 12 broke the previous record of 21 days of US government shutdown under the Bill Clinton administration in December 16, 1995 to January 5, 1996.
Source:

Last updated on: January 18, 2019 22:22 IST

A state senior Congress leader said since it was suspected that eight party MLAs had 'committed' to the BJP and might jump ship, the legislators were being shifted to a resort.

Exposing chinks in the ruling coalition in Karnataka, four dissidents on Friday skipped the Congress Legislature Party meeting in Bengaluru that was called as a show of strength against an alleged bid by the Bharatiya Janata Party to dislodge the H D Kumaraswamy government.

The absence of four lawmakers posed no imminent threat to the seven-month old Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) government in the numbers game but suggested that all was not well within the Congress which is still wrestling with dissidence.

The Congress would issue notices to absentee MLAs Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was dropped as minister in the recent cabinet rejig and is said to be extremely unhappy over it, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli, CLP leader Siddaramaiah told reporters after the meet.

He said 76 MLAs were present at the meeting, also attended by Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, All India Congress Committee general secretary K C Venugopal and deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, besides other state leaders.

Siddaramaiah said Jadhav had written to him saying he would not be able to attend as he was unwell, while Nagendra had spoken to Venugopal conveying his inability to be present because of a court case.

The other two MLAs had not communicated anything,he said.

Siddaramaiah said after receiving the replies, the issue would be discussed with the party high command and state leaders before deciding on the next step.

Ahead of the CLP meet, Siddaramaiah had issue notices to all the party MLAs warning that their absence would be viewed 'seriously' and action initiated according to the Anti-Defection law.

Soon after the CLP meet, the Congress MLAs were herded together in two buses from the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat where the CLP was held, and taken to a resort near the city.

A state senior Congress leader said since it was suspected that eight party MLAs had 'committed' to BJP and might jump ship, the legislators were being shifted to a resort.

"All the MLAs, MPs, and ministers will stay together. They will stay together as long as required to escape from the onslaught of the BJP," Siddaramaiah said, adding that they would also discuss Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, BJP MLAs continued to stay put at a luxury hotel in Gurugram, a move the party has defended saying it was to prevent the Congress from poaching them.

It is still not known when the MLAs, hunkered down since Monday when the turmoil erupted, would return home.

In the first blow to the coalition government on on Tuesday, two Independents had withdrawn their support to it.

BJP state chief B S Yeddyurappa on Friday claimed that they were supporting the party whose strength was 106 now.

"Our MLAs are united. Our team is intact. Our party is intact and united," Siddaramaiah said, as he unleashed a barrage of attacks on the BJP, targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah.

"Look at the BJP's temptations, so much of money.. Rs 50 crore, Rs 100 crore and Rs 25 crore (being offered to Congress MLAs to quit)," Siddaramaiah alleged.

"See how the Chowkidar's party is functioning. How Narendra Modi Chowkidar is getting so much of money?" he said, claiming that he would give proof of how much money was offered to several of his party lawmakers.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president Amit Shah and central ministers are involved in destabilising the government in Karnataka.Not only the state leaders of BJP, even the central leaders were also involved," he said.

As the turmoil brought out cracks in the Congress, the party's leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge accused Modi of attempting to 'take control' of his party MLAs by using the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax to 'terrorise' them in the BJP's alleged bid to topple the state government.

"They are trying multiple things such as threatening our MLAs by carrying out CBI, ED and Income Tax raids," he alleged at a party meeting in Bengaluru.

Ahead of the CLP meeting, senior Congress leaders in Karnataka asserted there was no threat to the coalition government while hitting out at the BJP for making 'futile attempts' to destabilise it, saying the saffron party's conspiracy had been 'exposed'.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Dinesh Gundurao said, "Let whatever happen, there is no threat to this government.It will complete five years.The BJP is making futile attempts to destabilise the government."

KPCC working president Eshwar Khandre said he had spoken to Umesh Jadhav (the Chincholi MLA), who had allegedly planned to switch to the BJP.

"He (Jadhav) has told me that he will remain in the Congress...I have trust in him," he added.

Earlier, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy met Venugopal in Bengaluru and held discussions on the ongoing developments.

"They (BJP leaders) will keep continuing with their 'Operation Kamal' (lotus).I am not bothered about it. It is (state BJP chief) Yeddyurappa's duty," Kumaraswamy told reporters.

He said since he would not be available for two days and had a packed schedule, including a visit to Kolkata, he called on Venugopal as he would not be able to meet him during the period.

As the CLP was underway, Yeddyurappa said several legislators appeared to be attending the meet out of compulsion.

"Let them indulge in squabbles....we have nothing to do with it."

He said the ruling coalition was claiming the support of some BJP MLAs and it was because of this that the party had decided they should stay together in a hotel in Gurugram.

In the 224-member assembly, the BJP has 104 members, the Congress-79, the JD-S 37, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party and Independent one each, besides Speaker. The BSP is supporting the government.
Source:

January 18, 2019 23:18 IST

IMAGE: West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee with her nephew and party MP Abhishekh Banerjee, right, and Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, left, during the visit of Brigade Parade Ground ahead of party's mega rally, in Kolkata, on Thursday. Photograph: PTI Photo

The stage is set for West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's mega Opposition rally against the Narendra Modi government.

More than 20 national leaders, including former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha, Shatrughan Sinha and Arun Shourie; three present chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal, Chandrababu Naidu and H D Kumaraswamy; and former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Akhilesh Yadav and Gegong Apang will attend the meeting, TMC sources said.

Most of them have already arrived in Kolkata.

"I have met Deve Gowda ji, Hemant ji (Hemant Soren of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) and Akhilesh Yadav. I will meet other Opposition leaders too," Banerjee told reporters.

With Bharatiya Janata Party's recent defeats in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Banerjee has raised the pitch to be united against the saffron party in the 2019 general election.

Bahujan Samaj Party general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra, Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar, Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, too, have already arrived.

Large scale preparations have been made to ensure that it is a complete success. Besides the huge stages, 20 watch towers have been erected and 1,000 microphones and 30 LED screens put up so that the spectators can see and hear the speeches of the leaders clearly.

Lakhs of TMC supporters and workers are expected to attend the rally and huge numbers of them from various corners of the state have already started pouring into the city. They have been put up in the outskirts of the city and in some auditoriums and stadiums.

Hundreds of TMC volunteers will be on the grounds to take care of supporters.

A thick security blanket has been thrown on the sprawling Brigade Parade Ground -- the venue for the mega rally -- to prevent any untoward incident.

As many as 10,000 police personnel will be deployed and around 400 police pickets have been set up to ensure foolproof security, police said.

Policemen in plain clothes, personnel of the Rapid Action Force and Quick Response Team would be deployed at the rally venue.

Police posting would start from as early as 4 am with senior officials in the rank of assistant commissioners in charge of the five dais set up for the rally, a senior police officer said.

"We are expecting a huge turnout from all parts of the state as well as from the country. There will be so many important dignitaries. We have arranged foolproof arrangements for their security," he said.

Separate entrances have been arranged for the five dais that would be looked after by around 15 teams of police officers, he said adding that commandos and other officers would also be posted there.

"We are not allowing any food stall near the venue. Only water tanks are being allowed at a safe distance from the dais. Nobody will be allowed to light fire near the venue for cooking or any other purpose," the officer said.

Vehicular movement in and around the venue has been either restricted or directed.

"VVIPs will be taken in small cars to the venue. Other would have to park their vehicle at designated parking lots. We will not let anybody to drive motorbikes to the place," he said.

A central monitoring desk has been set up at the Kolkata Police headquarters to keep a watch on the proceedings of the rally.
January 18, 2019 08:35 IST

Perhaps the last thing you want to see while in the ocean is a great white shark. For divers in Hawaii, it may have been an incredible discovery.

A team of divers has had a close encounter with one of the biggest great white sharks on record -- and lived to tell the tale.

IMAGE: Ocean Ramsey swimming with Deep Blue in photos shot by Juan Oliphant after it was spotted in the water off Oahu, Hawaii. Deep Blue is believed to be 50 years old, weighs 2.5 tonnes and measures 20-feet. Photograph: Juan Oliphant/via Reuters

The monster shark, known as Deep Blue, believed to be around 50 years old was spotted off the coast of Oahu, a Hawaiian island, as it devoured a dead sperm whale.

Deep Blue weighs 2.5 tonnes and measures 20-feet-long. Deep Blue was last spotted in Mexico in 2013 where it was fitted with a tracker which is how divers were able to identify it this time.

Conservation photographer Juan Oliphant was one of the divers who took the plunge along with marine biologist Ocean Ramsey.

Posting on Instagram shortly after the swim, Oliphant wrote: Face to face with the worlds largest great white ever recorded Deep Blue with @oceanramsey.

IMAGE: Deep Blue was last spotted in Mexico in 2013 where it was fitted with a tracker which is how divers were able to identify it this time. Photograph: Juan Oliphant/via Reuters

Im still in shock that we spent almost the whole day with this amazing animal in my backyard.

I hope my conservation images like this help people to question their perceptions and realise the beauty, and importance of sharks and I hope that they inspire the kind of compassion and connection we need to have with nature and sharks, to help protect them and coexist alongside them.

Kimberly Jeffries, another diver who swam with Deep Blue, wrote: If you asked me a few days ago what the most amazing thing Ive ever seen in Hawaiian waters the answer probably would be pretty different.

IMAGE: Great whites are rarely seen around Hawaii as they prefer cooler seas. Photograph: Juan Oliphant/via Reuters

If you asked me yesterday the answer would be freediving with Deep Blue, a great white, the largest ever documented, who was last seen in 2013 in Mexico.

If you asked me right now, it would be freediving with, interacting with and photographing not one but multiple, different great whites AND Deep Blue.

IMAGE: Conservation photographer Juan Oliphant said he hoped his photos would help people to question their perceptions and realise the beauty, and importance of sharks. Photograph: Juan Oliphant/via Reuters

Great whites are rarely seen around Hawaii as they prefer cooler seas.

The shark was nicknamed Deep Blue by expert Mauricio Hoyos Padilla, who dived with the creature as part of the Discovery Channel's Shark Week in 2013.
January 18, 2019 19:34 IST

Army sources indicate the first Integrated Battle Groups would come up in the plains of Jammu, Punjab, and Rajasthan, providing New Delhi instruments of retaliation in the event of grave provocation by Pakistan, such as a 26/11-style terrorist attack.

Ajai Shukla reports.

Image only for representation. Photograph: PTI Photo

New Indian Army structures geared towards sudden and swift offensives into enemy territory by integrated battle groups (IBGs) will be war-gamed next month, and then physically validated in exercises on the ground in May, announced Army Chief General Bipin Rawat.

The proposed IBGs are at the core of an offensive doctrine called Cold Start which involves launching an offensive rapidly, and on multiple independent thrust lines, leaving the enemy with neither the time nor the defensive resources to block those multiple thrusts.

Traditionally, different army components like infantry, armour, artillery, engineers, signals, and logistics stay and train separately in peace locations, only 'marrying up' for combat when they deploy in the field.

Since marrying up takes time, an IBG integrates all these components in peacetime itself, keeping them ready to be thrown into combat without delay.

The Cold Start doctrine was long denied by Indian policymakers until General Rawat publicly endorsed it at his first Army Day press conference on January 13, 2017.

Now, on the same occasion two years on, General Rawat announced the first IBGs would be tested this summer.

"We will carry out war games in February/March, and in May we will exercise the IBGs. Hopefully, after that, we will go to the government and take their sanction (to restructure traditional divisions into permanent IBGs)," said General Rawat.

General Rawat clarified that only part of the army, located in areas where IBGs would need to be rapidly launched into battle, would be restructured into permanent battle groups.

Army sources indicate the first IBGs would come up in the plains of Jammu, Punjab, and Rajasthan, providing New Delhi instruments of retaliation in the event of grave provocation by Pakistan, such as a 26/11-style terrorist attack.

In addition, one of the army's three mechanised strike corps will be restructured into a rapid reaction Sabre Corps, capable of immediate launch into Pakistan when required.

For retaliatory strikes in the mountains, against either Pakistan or China, the two divisions of the newly created Mountain Strike Corps would also be converted into IBGs.

Traditionally, a division (with about 20,000 soldiers) has been the smallest formation that has all the components -- infantry, armour, artillery, engineers, signals and logistics -- needed to fight a war.

The battle group concept involves distributing these resources between the three brigades of a division, making each brigade capable of operating independently, as an IBG.

The creation of IBGs is part of an ambitious four-point reorganisation of the army that General Rawat has launched.

The other dimensions include reorganising army headquarters, a cadre review of officers, and re-evaluating manpower structures to bring down the strength of the army.
Last updated on: January 18, 2019 13:06 IST

'They (BJP) can claim of winning even 82 seats, despite the fact that Uttar Pradesh has only 80 seats'

'How can we have an understanding with it (Congress)? It is a national party. We have given them two seats (Amethi and Raebareli), which the SP had been leaving for them'

IMAGE: Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav greets Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on her 63rd birthday in Lucknow on January 15, 2019. Photograph: Nand Kumar/PTI Photo

The Samajwadi Party's alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal was "final" and there would be no issues as regards seat-sharing in the coming Lok Sabha polls, party chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Friday, while ruling out any understanding with the Congress.

"Our alliance with the BSP, the RLD and smaller parties like the Nishad Party is final and seat-sharing will not be a problem. It will be worked out soon. We have emerged as a strong force in the state, which has changed the tone and tenor of the BJP, whose leaders have started using foul language against us," the SP national president told PTI.

"Uttar Pradesh has always acted as a catalyst for change. This time, the people of the state will change the prime minister. Our fight is with the BJP and the people are supporting us," Yadav said in an interview at the SP headquarters in Lucknow.

He, however, ducked the question as to who would be his choice as the next prime minister.

Maintaining that the SP will only "concentrate" in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav ruled out any understanding with the Congress in the state in the Lok Sabha polls.

"How can we have an understanding with it (Congress)? It is a national party. We have given them two seats (Amethi and Raebareli), which the SP had been leaving for them. Presently, my focus is on Uttar Pradesh. In Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand also, the SP will field one or two candidates who are strong and we will explore (the possibility of an) alliance with others," he said.

Reminded about his friendship with Congress president Rahul Gandhi, with whom he had given the UP ke ladke (boys from UP) slogan in the 2017 state assembly polls, Yadav, who is three years younger to Gandhi, said, "I will not like to talk about the Congress as of now."

Asked about his recent meeting with Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Jayant Chowdhury, he said, "Our alliance is final. In Kairana, we had fielded RLD leader Tabassum Hasan on an SP ticket. We will give Mathura and Baghpat to them, which they want. There is no problem in the alliance now."

Asked about Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati's charge that his uncle and Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party chief Shivpal Yadav was being financed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Yadav preferred not to speak.

"I will not say anything on this," he said.

Announcing the SP-BSP tie-up at a press conference last week, Mayawati had claimed that the BJP had funded Shivpal's party and said the entire money would go down the drain as there would be no split in the SP-BSP votes.

On the BJP, Yadav said, "It had promised many things, but those were never met. The common people are fed up with it and are looking at an alternative. They have only hope, which is the SP-BSP alliance."

Attacking the saffron party, he said it had changed its Uttar Pradesh in-charge only to save one seat (of Prime Minister Narendra Modi).

"The BJP MPs did not work on the ground. They never visited their areas. Now it is being said that they are going to change 60 per cent of their candidates. But such tricks will not work now," Yadav said.

In a lighter vein, he added, "If only they can manage to control the stray cattle, they can get some votes of the farmers."

IMAGE: Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav during a joint press conference to announce the SP-BSP alliance in Lucknow on January 12, 2019. Photograph: Nand Kumar/PTI Photo

On the claim of JP Nadda, the BJP's poll in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, that the saffron party would win 74 Lok Sabha seats in the state, Yadav said, "They can claim of winning even 82 seats, despite the fact that Uttar Pradesh has only 80 seats."

Nadda, the Union health minister, during his visit in Lucknow this week had asserted that the BJP and its allies would bag at least 74 Lok Sabha seats -- one more than the NDA tally in 2014 -- in Uttar Pradesh.

On reports of a slew of poll sops the Centre was planning to announce in its Budget, Yadav said, "All the major steps of the Centre like demonetisation, GST and claims of good governance have failed. They cannot be trusted. I want to alert my party workers that the BJP cannot be trusted. They can resort to any conspiracy or gimmick for political gains."

On the ongoing Kumbh at Prayagraj, the SP chief said, "They (BJP) have renamed the Ardh-Kumbh as Kumbh. At Kumbh, people are not invited. People themselves come to attend it to attain moksha (salvation). Are they calling people for moksha?"

Asked about state director general of police OP Singh's claim that the crime rate was witnessing a downward trend in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav questioned the data.

"The Centre's data claims to have given jobs to the youth. Did they get those jobs? The law-and-order situation of the state is known to all. The lie will not work any longer," he said.

On reports that the Central Bureau of Investigation might quiz him in connection with a mining scam, Yadav said, "I will answer them. These are the BJP's tactics ahead of the polls."

On the possibility of his wife and Kannauj MP Dimple Yadav contesting the Lok Sabha polls, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said, "I do not want her to contest this time. However, the decision is hers. We have to bring up three children. The house is now far from the children's school. How to manage their tuitions etc. needs to be seen."

"They (the BJP government) have not approved the map for our house construction. They do not understand the responsibilities of a family as they do not have one," Yadav said.
Last updated on: January 18, 2019 09:27 IST

'If the Citizenship Bill passes, then the very principle of Indian citizenship, which is called jus soli (right of birthplace) will convert to principle of jus sanguinis (right of blood) on the basis of religion.'

'Citizenship is being given on the basis of religion and it is against the Constitution.'

IMAGE: College students block NH 37 that connects Assam and Manipur in protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, in Dibrugarh. Photograph: PTI Photo

RTI activist and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti leader Akhil Gogoi, along with litterateur Hiren Gohain and journalist Manjit Mahanta, was charged with sedition for opposing the Citizenship Bill, which was passed by the Lok Sabha last week. The bill allows the granting of citizenship to Hindu refugees from neighbouring countries.

The Assam police filed a sedition case against the three for comments made by them during a meeting on January 7 to protest against the Citizenship Bill. They have since been granted bail by the Guwahati high court.

An unfazed Gogoi says he opposes the bill as he feels it is communal in nature and goes against the Assam Accord and the Constitution.

He also warns that it will lead to Hindu refugees from Bangladesh flowing into Assam once the bill is passed by the Rajya Sabha and becomes law.

"I was earlier booked under the NSA (National Security Act for four months, but the high court quashed the case. Now they are charging me with sedition. I don't care," Gogoi, below, tells Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf.

You observed a hunger strike to oppose the Citizenship Bill.

Today (Monday, January 14) is our Magh Bihu and all Assamese celebrate this day, but we are not happy because the Government of India has passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 in the Lok Sabha.

This bill is unconstitutional, illegal and immoral.

If this bill passes (in the Rajya Sabha), then the very principle of Indian citizenship, which is called jus soli (right of birthplace) will convert to principle of jus sanguinis (right of blood) on the basis of religion.

Citizenship is being given on the basis of religion and it is against the Indian Constitution.

Where will these Hindus go if they are persecuted in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan but India?

Bangladeshi Hindus are not our responsibility.

We may take refugees, shelter them and feed them for a period of time, but how can we give them our places?

This is not good. The Government of India must discuss this issue with the government of Bangladesh and tell them not to harass the minority population in their country.

We cannot take on the burden of all refugee people. We can give shelter them for a period, but we cannot give them citizenship as it is unconstitutional.

Is there social tension prevailing in Assam because of Bengali Hindus?

From 1915, the Assamese people are fighting against infiltration. The politics of ;Assam depends on illegal migrants.

The Assam movement, from 1979 to 1985, was against this illegal migrant and after this we got the Assam Accord.

This was the understanding between the Government of India and the government of Assam and the All Assam Students Union.

According to the Assam Accord, nobody can enter Assam after March 24, 1971. This is the cutoff year.

On the basis of the Assam Accord, the Citizenship Act 1955 has been changed.

The 6A special provision for Assam was entered and nobody can change this clause.

On the basis of 6A clause, the National Register of Citizens of India is being updated now under the supervision of the Supreme Court of India.

Now, if the Citizenship Act Bill is passed, then there are three opposition points:

a. It is an unconstitutional and immoral bill. It is against the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. It is against Articles 14, 15, 245, 26, 27 and 28.

b. This bill will violate the Assam Accord which was a national promise, and

c. The NRC is going on on the basis of 6A and if this bill is passed, then at least 190 million Hindus will come to Assam from Bangladesh.

At present, 28 lakh (2.8 million) Hindu people are residing illegally in Assam according to the NRC. If you see Bangladesh's population it has a 10 percent population of Hindus.

If this bill is passed, then a floodgate of Hindus will open to Assam from Bangladesh.

But the Citizenship Bill mentions a cut off date of December 31, 2014, and no new person can enter India after that.

You must see the picture this way. On September 7, 2015, the notification on Passport (entry to India) Rules was issued. This notification was changed for Hindus of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan by either bureaucrats or the Modi government.

This cutoff date is only in the notification, and not in the Citizenship Bill.

Are you saying December 31, 2014 is not the cutoff date for the Citizenship Bill?

There is no mention of this in the bill.

This change happened only in the notification, and if a legislative change happens, then in one day they can change this notification of the cutoff date immediately.

Don't you think it is inhuman to send 28 lakh Bangladeshi Hindus back to Bangladesh?

If this bill passes, then the floodgate of illegal migration will open up.

There are 170 million Hindus in Bangladesh and they can enter Assam.

But this is your fear, it may not happen.

If you come to Assam, you will also feel this fear.

The demographics of Assam has changed because of illegal migration, and all politics of Assam is dependent on illegal immigration.

Now tomorrow, if 20 lakh Bangladeshi Hindus land in Mumbai, will anyone accept them? These people are from Bangladesh and they have come illegally to Assam.

What do you make of the statement by BJP leader Himanta Biswas Sharma that Jinnah will become the chief minister of Assam if the Citizenship Bill is not passed?

No honest and good people care for his words. Only the outsiders of Assam take him seriously.

But he won the elections for the BJP.

That was a political wave and therefore he won. Now he cannot win in 2019.

You will see nobody from the BJP will win in Assam and north east India.

Only in those constituencies where illegal Bangladeshi people are residing can they win.

Himanta Biswas Sharma also said the Citizenship Bill is a fight between Jinnah's legacy and India's legacy.

That is a communal statement. You must know that Jinnah and the RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) people are the same. They are communal.

Every Indian who is secular is against Jinnah and also against the RSS.

It is also said that Badruddin Ajmal's party, the All India United Democratic Front, wins elections in Assam because of illegal Bangladeshi Muslims and therefore the Citizenship Bill is important to keep a check on illegal Muslim refugees from Bangladesh.

We are against illegal Bangladeshi Muslims too.

We have been fighting against them since 1915, when Bangladesh was not even created.

From that time, all the Assamese people are fighting illegal Muslim migration.

Illegal Bangladeshi Muslim is a threat, but we cannot take illegal Hindu Bangladeshis in their lieu. We cannot take illegal Bangladeshi Hindu refugees in Assam.

You must be aware that the chief ministers of Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland are also opposing this bill.

The chief minister of Meghalaya has threatened to quit the BJP alliance if the bill is passed.
January 18, 2019 11:45 IST

'Xi Jinping is keen that the second Trump-Kim summit happens soonest.'

'Kim is reported to have told Xi that he expects to achieve a result from a second summit that the international community would welcome,' points out Dr Rajaram Panda.

IMAGE: United States President Donald John Trump shakes hands with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un before their meeting at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore, June 12, 2018. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hit international headlines in 2018 by emerging from his reclusive posture and indulged in a high-powered diplomacy.

In the closing months of last year, there looked a setback as no further progress was announced on the issue of negotiating North Korea's nuclear issue despite much promise during Kim's summit meeting with US President Donald Trump in June in Singapore.

Kim never stepped out of his isolated and sanction-hit country for six years after inheriting power in 2011.

Neither did he meet any foreign heads of State and concentrated to strengthen his hold on power by purges, executions and other ruthless means to send the message that he was in full control of the nation.

At the same time, his focus never deviated from his mission of overseeing rapid technological advancement in the country's nuclear arsenal.

To send a loud message to the outside world, he launched a series of ballistic missiles and even conducted nuclear tests before he aspired to sit across the high table with United States President Donald J Trump as an equal to talk on the issue of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

Having achieved that objective with the Singapore summit, the issue of real denuclearisation remained suspended with plenty of ambiguities on the interpretations of the terms of the agreement reached in Singapore.

While his real intentions and sincerity to denuclearise remains subjected to interpretations, the talks for a second summit with Trump that did the round last year is again being talked about following his eighth summit in just 10 months with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the early days of January 2019.

What do these diplomatic dalliances by Kim mean to the world keen to see a resolution to the nuclear issue of North Korea?

To connect to the present development in order to project the possible developments to unfold in the coming months of 2019, here is in brief a ready recapitulation to what transpired in 2018.

Following his New Year speech last year wherein Kim expressed his desire to engage in dialogue with the stakeholders, he sent North Korean athletes and officials to take part in the Pyeongyang Winter Olympics hosted by South Korea in February and sent his sister to shake hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

This was soon followed by his first ever unannounced visit to Beijing on March 26, 2018 on board his private train to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

It may be remembered that China has remained as the main diplomatic backer and main business partner of North Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

Days later, the date for the first summit between Kim and Moon was announced, which finally happened in a blaze of publicity on April 27 at Panmunjom, the truce village in the Demilitarised Zone.

The leaders of the two sides shook hands when Kim for the first time crossed to the South Korean side of the DMZ.

Both agreed to pursue a permanent peace treaty and complete denuclearisation of their divided peninsula.

Then six weeks after his meeting with Xi, Kim flew to the Chinese port city of Dalian to prepare for the first-ever summit with Trump in Singapore.

Both leaders met on May 7-8 and Xi then took up the issue with Trump.

When Trump suddenly announced the cancellation of the planned summit with Kim, Kim and Moon met again in Panmunjom on May 26 with the objective to salvage the process of having a summit with Trump.

Trump seemed convinced when Moon announced Kims sincerity and then agreed to meet Kim.

Soon, Trump and Kim had their landmark summit on June 12 in Singapore, thereby burying preceding months of insults and threats of war.

What one saw thereafter was a vaguely worded pledge of denuclearisation by Kim and Trump agreeing to suspend 'very provocative' annual US joint military exercises with South Korea.

Within a week after the Singapore summit, Kim again went to Beijing on June 19-20 to report on what transpired at Singapore.

IMAGE: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Uun with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right. Photograph: Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool/Reuters

Back to inter-Korean diplomacy, Moon travelled to Pyongyang on September 18-20 for his third summit with Kim despite a deadlock in talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

He took along with him an entourage of top business moguls to convey the message to Kim that Seoul is keen on business with North Korea.

Kim offered to shutter a missile-testing site and a key nuclear facility at Yongbyon if the US takes unspecified 'corresponding measures'.

In a spirit of bonhomie, both leaders went to Mount Paektu, the spiritual birthplace of the Korean nation.

Despite expectations, Kim's visit to Seoul in 2018 did not happen.

Diplomacy and negotiations resumed with the herald of New Year 2019 when Kim and his wife Ri Sol Ju traveled to Beijing on board his private train for his eighth summit in just 10 months with Xi.

This fourth Kim-Xi meeting was preceded by three summits with Moon and the high-profile summit with Trump in Singapore.

As the hiatus between Trump and Kim continued to remain with the latter warning of choosing an alternative path if the former does not ease sanctions and pressure on North Korea, it was probably Xi who intervened to explore a breakthrough and invited Kim to Beijing to talk over.

This has again revived talks for a second summit between Kim and Trump which was expected to happen last year, but did not, to take the agreement reached in Singapore forward.

IMAGE: A screen displays a CCTV news report about the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a shopping mall in Beijing, January 10, 2019. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

Denuclearising the Korean peninsula is a tricky issue that needs tactful diplomacy.

Pyongyang continues to put stiff conditions and Trump seems unwilling to bend and therefore the issue is stuck with no solution in sight.

A shrewd Kim reminds the Trump administration that 'he does have diplomatic and economic options besides what Washington and Seoul can offer', observes Harry J Kazianis, director of defence studies at the US-based Centre for the National Interest.

With Kim getting cozy with Beijing, Trump's discomfort only will increase.

That Kim was accompanied by, besides Ri Sol Ju, with senior officials, including vice chairmen of the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea Kim Yong Chol (who is likely to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington, DC on Friday, January 18, and pay a courtesy call on President Trump later) and Pak Thae Song, the former being a key negotiator in talks with the US, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, head of the ministry of the people's armed forces No Kwang Chol, and chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the DPRK supreme peoples assembly Ri Su Yong, meant that both Kim and Xi would strategise how to deal with Trump and get a result that would be in favour of North Korea if the second summit between Kim and Trump does take place anytime soon.

Interestingly, Kim's visit coincided with his 35th birthday, January 8.

Despite the suspicion that Kim and Xi see common ground for an outcome in Pyongyang's favour in the second summit with Trump, if that happens, the US seems unperturbed, with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praising China for its support for resolving the North Korean crisis and discounting the fear that the US trade dispute with China would affect this.

The US believes its trade issue and North Korea's nuclear issue are separate and that Beijing would not mix the two.

Opinions could differ if this is the case.

South Korea was euphoric on Kim's Beijing visit and summit with Xi, hoping that this high-level exchange will 'contribute to the complete denuclearisation and establishment of permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula'.

Though Kim had three summit meetings with Moon and one with Trump in 2018, the North Korean leader's first overseas visit since coming to power was to China in March last year.

The Chinese president also accepted an invitation to visit the North, but no such visit has materialised so far.

Kim's visit to Beijing and summit with Xi adds credence to the talks that a second Trump-Kim summit could happen soon.

Even news reports have appeared identifying several possible locations.

What appears to have transpired from Kim's Beijing visit is that a closely coordinated China-North Korea relationship has been worked out ahead of the summit.

Viewed differently, while Xi will want to maintain the perception and reality of China's clout, Kim would wish to signal that he has diplomatic options and leverage when he deals with Trump.

It remains to be seen if Kim's visit to Beijing is a precursor to what the world eagerly expects a second Trump-Kim summit.

IMAGE: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with Chinese President Xi Jinping, right. Photograph: Chinese ministry of foreign affairs

From all available reports, it transpires that Xi is keen that the second Trump-Kim summit happens soonest.

The Chinese president is seized of the deep differences that exist between Pyongyang and Washington despite the broad agreement reached in Singapore, which was short on specifics and further negotiations have lacked promise for a resolution.

While Pyongyang has demanded that Washington lifts sanctions imposed following the former's nuclear tests and declare an official end to the 1950-1953 Korean War, Washington insists that Pyongyang must denuclearise first before sanctions are lifted or eased.

As a show of sincerity, Pyongyang took unilateral steps towards denuclearisation by dismantling its only known nuclear testing site and a key missile engine facility.

Xi tried to impress upon Kim that the international community expects tangible results.

'The political settlement of the peninsula issue faces a rare historic opportunity,' Xi told Kim.

Kim is reported to have told Xi that he expects to achieve a result from a second summit that the international community would welcome.

The South Korean president too is upbeat that a second Trump-Kim summit shall happen soon, which shall pave the way for Kim's planned visit to Seoul that could not materialise last year.

The international community expects that Kim takes 'bold steps' towards denuclearisation in order to draw US concessions such as sanctions relief.

If the suspicion that Pyongyang is becoming impatient and beginning to lose hope with the US asking it to make changes without in turn removing sanctions is credible, then any hope towards denuclearisation could end up as a non-starter, for Washington is not expected to change its position.

Since there is an acute trust deficit between Washington and Pyongyang, it seems to be foolhardy to expect Pyongyang to denuclearise and gets security guarantee at the same time.

If this is the scenario, Beijing's role to act a bridge becomes crucial.

From available reports, it emerges that Xi had sympathetic ears to Kim's 'reasonable concerns' and agreed to work for achieving denuclearisation during a second summit which the international community would welcome.

There is no substitute to continuing dialogue if the ultimate goal of realizing resolution of nuclear issues in the Korean Peninsula is to be achieved.

In further expression of its sincerity, Pyongyang could possibly consider to abolish international and intermediate-range ballistic missiles and dismantle weapons production facilities and other nuclear sites.

While such a step could please Washington, it could unlikely to lead towards reduction of US military commitments, such as a withdrawal of troops or strategic assets from the region.

This is because, as Moon remarked 'US forces in South Korea or strategic assets in places like Guam and Japan are not linked with North Korea alone, as they exist for the stability and peace of the entire Northeast Asia.'

Given such complexity, can one expect the second summit to take place anytime soon?

Even if it takes place being brokered by Beijing, can one expect any tangible outcome?

Trump's acknowledgment of receiving a 'great letter' from Kim without revealing its contents does not promise much even while rumours about the location of the summit doing the round.

Interestingly, Trump does not comment on the reported contents in Kim's letter wherein he warned that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions.

From his side, Trump has repeated time and again that sanctions shall remain 'in full force and effect' and would remain in place until the US saw 'very positive' results.

That takes the issue back to the start and all efforts going for a toss.

This means that there is no clarity yet on the agreement reached in Singapore in June 2018 where both Trump and Kim agreed to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula as there was a deficit on what that agreement meant.

Dr Rajaram Panda, former Senior Fellow at the IDSA and until recently ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, Japan, is at present a Lok Sabha Research Fellow.
January 18, 2019 15:56 IST

Under the resolution plan, the lenders would end up having a sizable portion of shares in the airline, if their boards of directors agree to convert part of their debt into equity.

The lenders to Jet Airways, led by State Bank of India (SBI), might take a haircut (write-off) of up to 25 per cent on the airlines Rs 8,500-crore debt.

The resolution plan in this regard would be ready by mid-February. By then, Etihad Airlines, which owns 24 per cent in Jet, aims to conclude its own examination ('due diligence') on the airline's issues.

A banking source said banks will have to make provisions for 15 per cent of the exposure to Jet Airways, as per the RBI's existing norms.

Besides they have a window post-default to find a solution to an account, to avoid coming under the ambit of the Reserve Bank of India's circular of February 12 last year which bans any debt restructuring.

An appeal against the circular is before the Supreme Court.

Jet defaulted on the debt payment due in the December quarter; its interest cost was Rs 230 crore in the earlier one.

Under the resolution plan, the lenders would end up having a sizable portion of shares in the airline, if their boards of directors agree to convert part of their debt into equity.

Etihad has already warned that Jet will require equity funding in excess of the amount currently mentioned in the draft resolution plan of the banks.

Also, that it would not invest a single penny more without first getting the regulatory approvals on matters such as not making an open offer.

The banks would benefit later if the share price of Jet goes up after conversion of part of its debt into equity.

An SBI spokesperson said on Thursday: "The lenders are considering a restructuring plan under the RBI framework for resolution of stressed assets that would ensure long-term viability of the company.

"Any such plan would be subject to approval of boards of the lenders and subject to adherence and clearance, if required, from RBI and/or the Securities and Exchange Board of India (takeover code, ICDR regulations) and/or ministry of civil aviation, and in compliance with all regulatory prescriptions.

A letter sent by Etihad on Tuesday states the former was the only shareholder that had arranged or procured significant funding for the airline since 2013.

Etihad has been urging Naresh Goyal (chairman of Jet Airways) to invest further funds into the business for the past three years.

"We are, once again, willing to step up and inject new capital into the business on acceptable terms and conditions.

"It is only at this stage, after the company has defaulted to its lenders, that Goyal has made offers to bring in a small amount of additional capital, Etihad chief executive Tony Douglas wrote, in a communication to both SBI and the aviation ministry.

Adding: Therefore, I reconfirm that the additional fund support being requested from Indian lenders will not have pledge of shares of Etihad nor any kind of corporate guarantee from Etihad.. (though) Etihad would facilitate discussions with HSBC and Mashreq for terming out the existing facilities.

"But, we would not be able to persuade them to provide additional funding support."

Douglas also warned of an imminent risk that the lessors of planes to Jet could ensure a grounding of the aircraft, trigerring a cessation of operations.

Further, the business is unable to fund continuing operations from the end of this week, without immediate and substantial additional funding.

"The company has also informed us that your team is fully aware of this.

"I am concerned that without emergency funding to the company, our joint efforts to formulate a resolution plan will run out of time."

Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters
Source:

January 18, 2019 20:27 IST

Hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party government, top industry captains pledged mega investments at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India is poised to be among the top 50 countries of the world when it comes to ease of doing business by 2020. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters

Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Aditya Birla and Tata group chairman N Chandrasekaran on Friday announced investments worth crores for the state.

India's richest person Mukesh Ambani committed to invest Rs 3 lakh crore in various projects in the next 10 years in Gujarat, that may range from energy and petrochemical to new technology and digital business.

Ambani's Reliance Industries operates the world's largest oil refining complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat as well as petrochemical units at multiple locations in the state.

"Gujarat is Reliance's Janmabhoomi (birthplace) as well as its Karmabhoomi (workplace). Gujarat has always been - and will always remain - our first choice," he said at the 9th Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Gandhinagar.

Reliance has also invested billions of dollars in the roll out of telecom venture, Jio.

"We have so far invested nearly Rs 3 lakh crores in the state of Gujarat. And created and catalysed over one million livelihood opportunities in Gujarat. In comparison to the past decades, Reliance will double this investment and employment numbers over the next ten years," he said.

Without giving timelines, he said Jio and Reliance Retail, which has over 9,000 stores across the country, will launch "a unique new commerce platform to empower and enrich our 12 lakh small retailers and shopkeepers in Gujarat  which are part of over 3 crore community in India."

Ambani had previously spoken of leveraging the Jio network for launching some sort of e-commerce venture.

"As the world moves towards electrical vehicles, Reliance will use hydrocarbons less for fuel and more for producing high-value new materials with a wide range of uses in society," he said adding the oil to chemicals strategy will greatly boost exports and create employment.

Photograph: PTI Photo

Also, Reliance Foundation will invest Rs 150 crore to make Pandit Deendayal University in Gujarat even stronger and an institution of international repute, he said.

Tata group chairman N Chandrasekaran said the conglomerate plans to invest in lithium ion battery manufacturing in Gujarat.

Speaking at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, he said group firm Tata Chemicals is also looking to enhance its soda ash capacity to one million tonnes annually.

"Many of our group companies like Tata Chemicals and Tata Motors have very significant presence here. We look forward to continuing our investment in the state," Chandrasekaran said.

Tata Motors' plant at Sanand rolls out Tigor electric car besides manufacturing other models such as hatchback Tiago, compact sedan Tigor and Nano.

He further said, "We are in discussions with the state government for significantly increasing our capacity of Tata Chemicals to reach one million (10 lakh) tonnes of soda ash."

At present, the company's plant at Mithapur in Gujarat has a soda ash capacity of 8.2 lakh tonnes per annum.

Stating that Gujarat is a very important state for the Tatas, he said the group's revenue from the state last year was about Rs 18,000 crore.

"The Tata group has significant presence in Gujarat. It is the third largest state for the group and we have about 25,000 employees," he added.

Chandrasekaran also said the over $100 billion salt-to-software conglomerate will also be "investing in renewable energy apart from growing our presence in the technology sector".

He, however, did not specify the quantum of investments that the group would made in the state on the new proposed projects.

He also said Tata group's hotels business is significantly integrated with Gujarat in tourism opportunity that it presents.

"We see Gujarat as a big partner for the Tata group and it's a place where professionalism is shown at its best," he said.

Aditya Birla Group plans to invest Rs 15,000 crore in Gujarat over the next three years on capacity expansion and setting up of new units, its chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said.

The group will be making these investments in various business segments ranging from textiles and chemicals to mining and minerals.

Speaking at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, Birla said, up until now the group's investments in Gujarat "are of over Rs 30,000 crore and counting".

"We have plans to invest about Rs 15,000 crore more. This is towards expansion of our capacities, setting up of new plants," he said. Elaborating the investment plans, he said, "Amongst our major expansion is with Grasim viscose staple fibre plant at Vilayat and Indian Rayon viscose filament yarn plant at Veraval. These will entail investments of Rs 7,500 crore."

The group currently has 15 manufacturing plants providing employment to around 26,000 people.

He said the investments on expanding group firm Grasim's chemical business will be around Rs 1,000 crore.

"About Rs 1,000 crore allocated for the mining and mineral sector and solar power," Birla added.

Moreover, the group is also increasing investment in green technologies at all of its plants as part of environmental friendly measures as part of the new investments planned, he added.

"All of these investments together run up to Rs 15,000 crore three year period," Birla said.

Gautam Adani anounced over Rs 55,000 crore investment in the next five years in a clutch of projects in Gujarat including the world's largest solar park, a copper plant, a cement unit, and a lithium battery manufacturing complex.

Speaking at the 9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit here, Adani said his group's investments in Gujarat in the past five years exceed Rs 50,000 crore and "we are further accelerating our investments."

"Over the next 5 years, our investments will include the world's largest solar hybrid park in Khavda. The anticipated investment in this park is Rs 30,000 crore.

"We also plan to establish a 1 GW Data Center Park in Mundra, a one million ton copper smelting and refining project, a cement and clinker manufacturing unit in Lakhpat, an integrated Lithium battery manufacturing complex and expand our Photovoltaic manufacturing capabilities. Overall, we anticipate a total of Rs 55,000 crore of investment in all these projects," he said.

This will lead to the creation of over 50,000 new direct and indirect jobs in the state.

Adani praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision saying he has "fundamentally restored confidence across the world that India will be the key engine for global economic growth."
Source:

January 18, 2019 21:56 IST

For India to succeed in this data driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India: Mukesh Ambani.

Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps against 'data colonisation', specially by global corporations, stating that Indian data must be owned by Indians.

Invoking Mahatma Gandhi's movement against political colonisation, Ambani said India now needs a new movement against data colonisation.

"Gandhiji led India's movement against political colonisation. Today, we have to collectively launch a new movement against data colonisation," he said Gandhinagar at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

Stressing that, in this new world, data is the new wealth, Ambani said, "India's data must be controlled and owned by Indian people and not by corporate, especially global corporations."

He further said, "For India to succeed in this data driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India. In other words, give Indian wealth back to every Indian."

Stating that the "entire world has come to recognise" Modi "as a man of action", Ambani said, "Honorable Prime Minister, am sure you will make this one of the principal goals of your digital India mission."

Later in the day, countering Ambani's call, Governor - Commonwealth of Kentucky, Matthew Griswold, asked Modi "to think in the opposite" in order to realise the tremendous opportunity that lies in Indo-US partnership.

"Honorable prime minister you have been asked from this stage to think about limiting the amount of competition, limiting the exchange of ideas, information and goods. I would encourage you to think in the opposite," he said.

While stating that it is important to put the people of India first, Griswold said, "It is also important to put their opportunity and our opportunity as citizens of the world to trade with one another and exchange ideas because iron sharpens iron."

The greatest possibility comes from the exchange of these idea, he added.

"If we can cut the regulations, cut the bureaucracy, cut the red tape, the opportunity is enormous between our nations," he added that India is now the 10th largest trading partner for the US and "climbing quickly".

"The opportunity before us between India and the United States is incredible, but responsibility falls on each of one us, those of us in elected positions, those of you in the industry, those of you who represent various constituencies, we have much work to do...we must do this, " Griswold said.

Photograph: PTI Photo
January 18, 2019 17:54 IST

While Jet founder Naresh Goyal said he was willing to infuse Rs 700 crore and also pledge all his shares in the company provided he can have at least 25 per cent stake, the airlines foreign partner Etihad Airways insists he must not keep more than a 22 per cent stake.

IMAGE: Lenders want Jet founder Naresh Goyal to step down from the management of the company as a pre-condition for restructuring the airline. Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/Reuters

A day after Jet Airways foreign partner Etihad Airways told lenders that promoter Naresh Goyal must not keep more than a 22 per cent stake and that he should have no role in running the airline, the man at the centre of the controversy has hit back.

Jet founder Goyal, in a letter dated January 16, has told State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Rajnish Kumar that he was willing to infuse Rs 700 crore and also pledge all his shares in the company provided he can have at least 25 per cent stake in the airline.

Goyal currently controls 51 per cent while Etihad holds 24 per cent in Jet.

In what looks like a no-holds barred corporate battle for control and ownership between the once close partners, Goyal has pointed out in case his stake falls below 25 per cent, he would not be able to infuse fresh funds or pledge shares until the markets watchdog grants him an exemption related to the takeover code.

An exemption from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) would permit him to increase his reduced stake (below 25 per cent) without triggering the takeover code.

Another point that Goyal has put out to the lenders is that in case his shareholding does not go below 10 per cent and he and his promoter group are not represented on the board, he would continue to be recognized as a promoter along with the attendant exposure and risks.

Therefore, he has suggested that it is only fair and equitable that he holds at least a 25 per cent stake in the airline.

Making a case for himself, Goyal has said that amounts payable by the company to promoter group companies (for their services) should be treated on par with the other overdue creditors.

The same, upon conversion into equity, should be considered as cash, according to Goyal's letter.

In a sharp contrast to what Goyal has said, the letter written by Etihad CEO Tony Douglas to the SBI chairman a day earlier stated it was already agreed that there would be no conversion of debt held by non-bank creditors (including Goyal and his affiliates) into equity.

As part of the resolution plan, banks are planning to convert a portion of the Rs 8,000-crore loan into equity.

Such a move could mean lenders controlling around 40 per cent equity in the company.

Etihad's stake could also go up but it has also sought an exemption from the Sebi takeover code.

Douglas, who wrote to Kumar on January 15, said Etihad would subscribe to fresh shares only if offered at a discount of 47 per cent from the stock price.

According to Douglas, the fair price of the company is Rs 140 a piece, but he's willing to go up to Rs 150 for buying fresh shares.

Meanwhile, the lenders too want Goyal to step down from the management of the company as a pre-condition for restructuring the airline.

According to the plan on which the stakeholders are working,Goyal can keep two directors of his choice out of a total of nine.

Douglas told SBI he's fine with the condition only if there's agreement on all other key issues. Jet should be a board run company, the Etihad CEO has stressed.

A Jet Airways spokesperson did not respond to an e-mail query regarding Goyal's communication.
The Three Minute Thesis competition is an annual competition for masters and doctoral students to communicate their research in just three minutes. On Feb. 25 at 12:15 p.m. in room 200C of the Geography/Geology room, the graduate school is holding an information session for interested students to learn more about 3MT. The competition provides students with more than just a chance to win a cash prize. It allows students to develop their presentation and research communication skills.
Whether you need a quick fix because you have a morning class or you just want to be able to be productive on the weekend, a remedy for a hang
(CNN)  One of South Korea's most prominent animal shelters has been rocked by a euthanasia scandal, amid accusations it secretly put hundreds of dogs to death despite its "no kill" ethos.

This week, a dozen employees of Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE) demanded the resignation of the director, Park So-yeon, after a whistleblower came forward to claim the shelter had secretly euthanized more than 230 dogs in the past three years.

In a statement posted online, Park admitted to euthanizing some animals at the CARE-animal shelter, but said it was a limited number and only done as a last resort for ill dogs. CNN has reached out to Park for further comment.

CARE has long spearheaded campaigns to rescue animals from the South Korean dog meat trade. The shelter gained national attention in 2017 after President Moon Jae-in adopted the country's "first dog," named Tory, from the shelter. Moon, a longtime animal rights proponent, posed for photos with CARE staff, including its director.

No kill?

Last week, a senior manager at CARE, Lim Hee-jin, told the South Korean investigative website Newstapa that Park had secretly been putting dogs down for years, while promoting the shelter as a "no kill" sanctuary.

Lim did not respond to multiple attempts to reach her. CARE staff said she was unavailable for interview.

"Only a few executives were aware. I asked her to just come clean: Say that we were holding them but had to put them down. We can honestly tell people that," Lim said in an interview with broadcaster CBS. "She said no, because we had euthanized too many."

The generally adopted standard for "no kill" shelters is to save more than 90% of animals, and most do carry out limited euthanasia -- of very sick or aged animals, or due to mass overcrowding.

According to Lim, CARE policy of 100% rescue rate quickly led to overcrowding. As a result, Park allegedly began euthanizing animals, beginning with sick and aggressive dogs, but then more generally.

Lim provided Newstapa with an invoice -- later posted online -- allegedly from an animal carcass collection company, which billed CARE for collection of 5.7 tons of carcasses between 2015 and 2018. A CARE employee told CNN he had seen the document and confirmed the figure, but it is unclear how many of the carcasses were the result of euthanasia or natural deaths.

The case against Park was further bolstered by the leaked recording of a conversation, allegedly between Park and Lim, that appeared to support claims that she willfully euthanized healthy dogs.

In the recording, which CNN has heard but not been able to independently verify, a woman can be heard discussing how to cover up the deaths of half a dozen dogs rescued from the country's dog-fighting circuit.

The rescue of the dogs in 2016 had been heavily publicized by Park. But when the members of the media requested Park provide an update on their whereabouts later that same year, the woman in the call is heard suggesting they buy new dogs to cover up their deaths.

"We need to say they were ill or just expired," the woman's voice says in the leaked call. "If we say that some perished, it won't be an issue. How will we fit the number? If we bring many of them from one place at once, it will be suspicious. If we gather a few here and there, it won't be known. Their snout can be dyed a bit darker."

Shame and scandal

At a press conference this week, broadcast online, CARE employees held signs saying "Park must resign," and "CARE staff were deceived."

Several of the speakers were overcome with emotion, breaking down in tears as their colleagues spoke of their devastation at the news.

"I'm very ashamed and terribly sorry for the animals that died for no reason," said Lee Mi-hee, who worked at CARE rescuing dogs for two and a half years.

She blamed the situation on a broader pattern of questionable behavior by Park, including "coercive orders, indiscriminate rescues, and leaving unplanned messes for the employees to resolve."

"The fact that this is the result of blindly following her shames me greatly and I'm disappointed in myself," Lee added.

In a statement uploaded to CARE's social media, Park said the group had "tried their best to save them but some animals had to be given up for various reasons in extreme circumstances."

She added that only a small number of animals were euthanized "for unavoidable reasons after a general discussion between staff."

Kim Tae-hwan, CARE's public relations manager, told CNN the staff does "not agree with that explanation."

"The revelations show the number of animals killed was not small at all," he said. "There were many arbitrary orders to euthanize animals."

According to Kim, staff at the shelter were shocked by the report. No one at CARE except for top executives were involved in the euthanasia, he said. Staff are now calling for Park's immediate resignation so the charity can continue operating. They also blamed Lim, the whistleblower, for not coming forward earlier, and helping Park secretly euthanize animals for years.

At the press conference, CARE staff had a new concern: Many donors were cutting funding in response to the news.

"There are still 600 animals in CARE's shelter. Please do not forget about them," animal manager Lee Eun-hye said. "The animals do not deserve this."

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Head of S Korean dog charity 'secretly euthanized hundreds of animals'."
Hong Kong: Payment set to help CSSA recipients

Able-bodied Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients aged 60 to 64 will receive a new monthly supplement of $1,060 starting February 1, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced today.

At a press conference, Mrs Lam said the new supplement aims to help people between the ages of 60 and 64 who apply for CSSA because they are unemployed.

In addition to receiving the standard rate, they will receive this Employment Support Supplement (ESS). There is no procedure to apply. It will be disbursed at the same time with the standard rate, on an almost permanent and perpetual basis.

So as long as he or she receives the standard rate, he or she will receive the ESS, that is hand in hand given to them in recognition of the special circumstances of an elderly trying to find a job.

Mrs Lam said the Government will implement the supplement on the same day it adjusts the eligible age for elderly CSSA from 60 to 65.

She emphasised the change in age eligibility was not made to reduce CSSA expenses.

The whole purpose of initiating this change is driven by population policy. It is to respond to the general aspirations that we should extend peoples working life - which we had.

We have extended the retirement age for civil servants, for new civil servants, serving civil servants. We have extended the work life of security guards up to 70, by amending the legislation.

The Government announced in the 2017 Policy Address a package of social security measures including the adjustment of the eligible age for elderly CSSA.

Other measures, including raising the asset limits for the Normal Old Age Living Allowance, and introducing the Higher Old Age Living Allowance and the Fujian Scheme, have been implemented.

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Traverse City, MI (49684)

Today

Isolated thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Isolated thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Magpul's been busy dropping new products all week leading up to SHOT Show 2019. Today, we're sharing info about the company's product line extensions in the DAKA wallet, eywear, and Pro 700 Chassis lines.

From Magpul:





Magpul's DAKA Bifold Wallet

The Magpul DAKA Bifold Wallet was designed with the same slim styling of our original wallets, but with extra room added for those times when you need a little more insurance that you can buy what you want and go where you want to go. Itll easily hold your cash, IDs and credit cards without adding significant bulk to your everyday carry. Its slim profile eliminates printing while still providing room for your necessities. We created it from polymer-infused material that stands up to hard usage so, like the rest of our Magpul DAKA products, its resistant to just about everything youre going to do to it.

Dimensions Folded: 4.125 L x 3.05 H

Dimensions Open: 8.25 L x 3.05 H

Reinforced polymer fabric with anti-slip texture

RF welded construction that creates permanent, impenetrable seals

Chemical resistant and non-hygroscopic

Rounded corners ease pocket entry and exit

Suitable for EDC and travel

Made in the USA

Colors: Black, Stealth Gray, Flat Dark Earth

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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 01/18/2019



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

: Hip Hop Edition featured the five couples participating in a heated rap battle and spicy-food challenge, which ultimately turned out to be blame games, during Thursday night's episode on WE tv.The couples on this season are former Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood couple Soulja Boy and Nia Riley; former Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta couple, rapper Waka Flocka and wife Tammy Rivera; former Love & Hip Hop: New York couple Lil' Mo and husband Karl Dargan; Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta couple Jessica Dime and fiance Shawne Williams; and Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood couple Lil' Fizz of B2K, formally called Dreux, and ex-girlfriend Tiffany Campbell.The couples were given 10 days to get to the core of who they are as individuals and what they wanted out of their relationships.The pairs of spouses, lovers or estranged hearts were forced to leave their lavish lifestyles of champagne and fancy cars behind to work through their scandals, dark secrets, and cheating allegations under the guidance of therapists Dr. Venus Nicolino and Dr. Ish Major.The episode began with Nia discussing with Dr. V how she used to beg and plead for Soulja Boy 's attention and affection but she no longer cared to receive it.On Day 2 of , Dr. V asked Soulja Boy to be vulnerable with Nia, but he insisted every time he tried, he was shut down.Meanwhile, Lil' Mo said Karl struggled to accept his identity as "Lil' Mo's husband" given she's been in the spotlight for 20 years.And Tiffany said she blames Dreux for her confusion in their relationship because she's very verbal and expressive with him but he rarely shares his feelings and emotions with her in return.Dr. V and Dr. Ish then asked each of the stars to write down five things he or she blames on his or her partner.The short exercise led into a series of rap battles between partners -- and the individuals had to include the five things they previously wrote down about blame in their lyrics.Lil' Mo rapped about how women talk about her husband on the Internet and a February 6 miscarriage broke her heart."These dirty miserable b-tches want to ruin our happy home," she rapped, before asking Karl what he would do if she had a man on the side.In his rap, Karl asked his wife to play her role because he also has a job and his own thing going on.Jessica and Shawne were up next, and he admitted trying to rhyme was like "trying to land on the moon." Jessica accused Shawne of acting like he knows everything, and Shawn just kept repeating how she's "too hood" and "too ratchet" for him.Dreux rapped that Tiffany's attitude was bad and his "appetizer" was trying to be "full course meals." In reply, Tiffany said she's mad at herself for wasting her time because she can get any man she wants.Waka Flocka asked Tammy to forgive him about his past life and just let it go, and then she said it's difficult to handle the image of his being his wife. Soulja Boy and Nia's battle was next and was pretty dramatic."I told you everything all good, but Nia, you just don't listen. It ain't my fault that we don't talk. Baby you be makin' me distant. I just be sittin', sittin' back chillin', but you be going trippin'. You be pressin' a n-gga. You just be stressin' a n-gg-."Nia eventually rapped, "She told him, 'Always hurtin' me while you're actin' like a big baby. You're the reason we lost our real baby," which caused the entire group to gasp.Nia wasn't sure they could get past their issues, as "too much damage" had been done.Nia vented about how she's never hated someone so much in her life before, and he called her "disrespectful."After exchanging slams, Soulja Boy and Nia broke out into a screaming match. He said she was acting like "a stupid ass ho" and she yelled at him that he needed to learn how to speak to her."I don't care about any of this sh-t," Soulja Boy said."I know! That's the problem! You don't care 'bout sh-t but yourself. I'm going to leave this time. Are you alright? Don't try to kill yourself this time!" Nia screamed on the verge of tears.Dr. V said "words about suicide, whether you're joking or not, are always weapons" in a relationship.Dr. V and Dr. Ish then sat down with the couple after their explosive argument so Soulja Boy and Nia could air their grievances.Dr. V explained Nia inappropriately lashed out and should never have exposed Soulja Boy 's darkest secrets in front of the group. Dr. Ish added suicide should never be something to joke about.Nia's words came from a place of pain, as she told the doctors, "I was almost 16 weeks and we were fighting a lot, and that was the cause of me losing the baby... I feel like he acted like it never happened, and that hurts a lot."Dr. V asked Nia to show Soulja Boy the comfort she so desperately sought from him. The pair then exchanged apologies and attempted to move on from the fight.Nia admitted the suicide comment was wrong and it's something that should never be said.Later on, the participants were challenged to "eat [their] words," according to Dr. V.The couples were forced to eat hot peppers and other spicy foods until one person in the relationship chose to take the blame for a certain topic broached.One of the courses, for example, happened to be red jalapeno peppers.Waka Flocka took the blame for Tammy's trust issues, but Lil' Mo wouldn't accept the blame for treating her husband like a "lesser" person. Jessica surprisingly took the blame for being too "ratchet." Soulja Boy claimed he smoked weed to deal with the stress of his relationship, blaming his bad habit on Nia."That's a lie," Nia insisted. "No, I'm not taking that."To his immediate horror, Soulja Boy took a bite of a pepper because he was so stubborn and needed Nia to take the blame.Dr. Ish then stepped in and said, "Now explain to me how this woman is responsible for you smoking all day?... You don't have enough coping skills on your own to deal with her so you have to add a foreign substance to your body just to be around this woman?" Soulja Boy claimed the weed helped to calm him down in stressful situations, but he eventually owned up to smoking even when communication was good between them.Tiffany also accused Dreux of making her feel like she's just "a f-ck buddy" when she's supposed to be his girlfriend. He then confessed to being selfish at times and making his desires the priority.Dr. V explained the exercise was about taking responsibility for one's actions before throwing blame around because blame "burns" a romance and hurts people.The episode concluded with Judge Lynn Toler from Divorce Court addressing the couples and discussing what had transpired over the last day.Judge Toler then forced one couple to eat an entire plate of hot peppers as a punishment for not doing their job to the fullest extent, and she placed the peppers in front of Dreux, who refused to eat anything.After two hours, Dreux and Tiffany were still sitting at the table, and Dreux could not open up to his love interest. He admitted that he kept running into the same problems with women and so he must've had some issues to work out with the doctors.
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Tony Evers, the new governor in Wisconsin, has made no secret of his hostility to school choice. When Wisconsin expanded the private voucher program statewide in 2012, he called it morally wrong. And during the 2018 campaign he said hed like to phase out the Milwaukee voucher program, the oldest such program in the country that serves 28,000 students. The new tone from Madison gives school choice advocates some cause for concern.

For critics like Evers, no amount of research is going to convince him that school choice is good. School choice advocates have to make the case to the families and the communities that stand to benefit the most from a voucher program. That case is often made around academic achievement, cost, safety, and opportunity for low-income families. But advocates should incorporate innovation and practical knowledge when touting the merits of school choice.

Consider the newly formed Free Enterprise Academy at Milwaukee Lutheran High School that will be taking steps to incorporate the principles of free markets, entrepreneurship and financial literacy into the existing curriculum and creating new courses and programming around those concepts at the school. The goal is to create graduates who are more than literate about their basic finances -- who can use the tools of free enterprise and free markets to increase their incomes, grow wealth, create businesses and a legacy far beyond an existence of living paycheck to paycheck, both for themselves and for our Milwaukee community.

Four years ago, Milwaukee Lutheran made the conscious decision to invest in the children taking advantage of the Milwaukee School Choice Program, Milwaukees voucher program. As a result, of an approximate student body of 800 children, the clear majority are inner-city, economically disadvantaged, black children. Not all, but most, of these students have received little or no proper education in economics, finance, or entrepreneurship. The mission of the Free Enterprise Academy is a real opportunity to change the culture of inner-city Milwaukee from within, because when these children learn how to handle their money and begin to create economic prosperity and wealth, it will create stability and a rejection of the perpetually downward-spiraling culture that now drowns our black communities in chaos, poverty and violence.

By educating students about the history of free-market systems, how they work, and how those tools have and can be used to create wealth and prosperity, The Free Enterprise Academy is offering students something they cannot get elsewhere. The students get hands-on experiences and connections in partnership with Milwaukees education and business communities to provide tangible skills and demonstrate that their future really is in their own hands. They will learn that capitalism is not the pejorative it is perceived as today, but rather a force for good.

This is not about indoctrination, nor should it be. Students at the Free Enterprise Academy will be challenged to think critically about the subject matter and encouraged to challenge and put their instruction to the test. Indeed, a business professional or entrepreneur wont survive if they cannot think on their feet, adapt to changing landscapes and think into the future, sometimes all at the same time. The students wont be able to do this if all that is asked of them is to parrot information. That would be a failure.

Parents understand the importance of this program. They know the transformational opportunity being bestowed on their children and the chance to do better than what the future held before. These parents want their children to learn, to be independent, to be successful -- they want their children to leap off their shoulders into a world where they can provide for themselves everything they could ever need or think to have.

This is what we have to sell. This is about more than school. Its about hope and opportunity. The value of the education is not just in good grades, but in good citizens and good leaders. When that is evident and understood in our communities, only then will school choice find itself safe from the winds of politics.

Collin Roth is a policy analyst at Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.
Today a PolitiFact fact check caught my eye: Mike Pence wrong that ISIS has been defeated. Assigned a rating of Mostly False by the site, the assessment reminds us that as much as 20 percent of ratings by some fact checkers are actually opinion checks based on interpretation rather than indisputable fact.

The controversy over Pences remarks stems from a speech he gave earlier this week in which he said, The caliphate has crumbled, and ISIS has been defeated and that the U.S. would now hand off the fight against ISIS in Syria to our coalition partners.

Pences speech explicitly noted that defeat of ISIS would still entail a continued war against the insurgency.

Two years ago, CNN touted, ISIS defeated in Raqqa as major military operations came to an end, despite pockets of resistance remaining. Iraq was declared fully liberated from ISIS, with the organization defeated in the country. ISIS was in retreat and on the run and U.S. efforts to defeat the terror group on the battlefield were seeing significant  victories.

At the same time, CNN took pains to argue that the credit was former President Obamas, not President Trumps. As the Syrian conflict has increasingly become Trumps war, the outlets stance seems to have changed, running the headline this week Fact Check: Has ISIS been defeated?

Just what does it mean to defeat a terror organization?

The term defeat has specific military meaning. The U.S. Armys Field Manual 3-09 defines defeat as when an enemy force has temporarily or permanently lost the physical means or the will to fight and is embodied by mass surrenders, abandonment of positions, equipment and supplies, or retrograde operations.

Such a definition would certainly fit ISISs loss of its caliphate and its degradation from a quasi-nation-state back into a traditional federated terror organization. Indeed, the Atlantic Council has previously used the term territorial defeat to describe the U.S. focus in Syria and said that such defeat would still leave an insurgency on the ground.

The Council on Foreign Relations similarly clarified the military defeat of ISIS would still leave an insurgency that could effect and inspire attacks. The Center for Strategic and International Studies offered that defeating ISIL in [Iraq and Syria] is at best likely to defeat its ability to hold any territory and that new forms of terrorism will emerge even if ISIL is formally disbanded. Even the 2003 United States National Strategy for Combating Terrorism clarifies that victory against terrorism will not occur as a single, defining moment, but rather a point where the threat of terrorist attacks does not define our daily lives.

Each of these definitions of defeat would appear to support Pences claim that ISIS had been defeated and that post-defeat there would still be a powerful insurgency left to fight.

Indeed, the very question of what it means to entirely eradicate a terror or hate organization is fiercely debated. Such groups pose unique challenges in that even after their formal structure has been eliminated, their remnants can still inspire others from afar to commit violence. Three-quarters of a century after the Nazis were defeated there are many thousands of neo-Nazis who commit acts of violence in their name. In the case of ISIS, its mastery of social media means it will likely continue to inspire terror acts long after its leadership has been neutralized.

How then did PolitiFact come to its conclusion that Pences statement was Mostly False?

PolitiFact arrived at its rating exclusively through interviews with seven experts who study terrorism and foreign policy.

Rather than adhering to Pences literal statement that defeat of ISIS will still leave a vibrant and militant insurgency behind, the seven individuals redefined his use of the word defeat to mean the absolute elimination of all traces of ISIS.

This redefinition of the vice presidents words from their literal form into a straw-man argument is a common, but unfortunate, tactic adopted by fact checkers, which undermines their credibility.

Putting this all together, few would argue that ISIS no longer poses any threat. The vice president did not actually claim this and was quite explicit that there is still a vibrant insurgency remaining. Fact checkers including PolitiFact and FactCheck.org reached their verdicts by redefining Pences words into an argument he did not actually make.

PolitiFact notes that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole and that it does not review statements that are not rooted in a fact that is verifiable. One could easily argue Pences use of the word defeat strongly comports with the Armys military definition and thus was a True statement. There is also considerable room to view it as a succinct political sound bite for a complicated story and thus not eligible for fact checking under PoltiFacts standards.

In the end, when a fact-checking verdict relies exclusively on the opinions of a hand-picked group of experts regarding a claim that was not actually made, it raises the question once again of why we place so much power in the hands of so few with no oversight.
In a crowded field of Democrats vying for the presidency in 2020, one thing stands out. "Medicare-for-all" tops their campaign promises. On Sunday, the latest to announce, former Obama cabinet official Julian Castro, pledged to make Medicare-for-All a reality.

But these candidates would rather walk on hot coals than tell you what "Medicare-for-all" costs: a whopping $32 trillion over 10 years. To raise that, all taxpayers, not just the rich, would have to hand a gut-wrenching share of their paycheck to Uncle Sam, based on Congressional Budget Office revenue tables.

A single guy earning $82,500 a year, and currently paying a 24 percent marginal rate, would be hit with a 60 percent tax rate. A couple reporting $165,000 in income would also see their marginal rate soar from 24 percent to 60 percent. No more dinners out or family trips. Goodbye to their standard of living.

And goodbye to America's standard of care. Liberals want to keep the name Medicare, but change everything else. The result will be stingy care for all. Here's why:

Currently, Medicare pays doctors and hospitals about 87 cents for every dollar's worth of care, according to the American Hospital Association. Why do doctors and hospitals go along with the shortchanging? Because they can shift their unmet cost onto younger, privately insured patients. But "Medicare-for-all" outlaws private insurance. All patients would be underpaying, leaving hospitals with less money. "Many hospitals wouldn't be able to keep their doors open," says Chip Kahn of the Federation of American Hospitals. Those that do will be jamming more beds in a room, and making patients wait longer for a nurse.

That could be you. If you have insurance now, you won't be allowed to keep it. Nationwide, the 156 million people getting coverage through a job would be forced to give it up. Employers and unions would be barred from covering workers or their families. Public unions are already protesting. Everyone would get the same coverage, employed or not. What's the incentive to work?

Instead of facts, Democrats are offering happy talk. Last week, Mayor Bill De Blasio boasted that "from this moment on in New York City, everyone is guaranteed the right to health care." And this promise is not just for emergency room visits; he means a primary care physician. De Blasio put the cost of covering 600,000 uninsured at $100 million a year and said no tax hikes are needed. That miracle math works out to $170 per person. In truth, it won't pay for one doctor's visit, much less tests or medications.

But this urban Robin Hood knows he'll need more. At his State of the City speech, he said, "Brothers and sisters, there's plenty of money in the world; plenty of money in this city. It's just in the wrong hands." Meaning the hands of the people who earned it.

Sanders' approach is only slightly less confiscatory. There's no disputing the $32 trillion cost of "Medicare-for-all," according to the left-leaning Urban Institute and the right-leaning Mercatus Center. Sanders proposed hiking the capital gains tax rate as high as 64.2 percent. That would torpedo economic growth. He also proposed an unprecedented tax on wealth. Even these radical ploys would raise less than half the cost, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Democrats have to decide whether they're the party of capitalism or confiscation. Some Dems are pledging to soak the rich and others are catering to them. Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey of New York is pushing to restore full tax deductibility of state and local taxes, benefitting her well-heeled constituents. In the midterms, Democrats swept the 10 richest congressional districts in the nation. It's becoming the party of the ultra-rich and the very poor. "Medicare-for-all" offers nothing for the vast middle -- the working people.

That's a huge opportunity for Republicans. They need to offer practical fixes for the unaffordable deductibles and suffocating paperwork that make people angry. And they need to remind voters that massive tax hikes to pay for single-payer health care will destroy economic growth, robbing all of us, rich, poor and middle class alike.

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What would we say if Washington asked to base nuclear-armed missiles, aimed at China, on Australian territory? Its not an entirely hypothetical question. Amid all the talk of a new cold war with China, the strategic logic of Americas plans to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty plainly suggests that such a request is a real possibility.

If the request comesand it could come quite soonAustralia would face a truly momentous choice. If we agreed, our relations with China would face a crisis far, far worse than the recent chill from which the government has been working so hard to extract us. To refuse would be to abandon our ally in what everyone in Washington now sees as the decisive strategic contest of our time. Either way, Canberras fragile effort to avoid taking sides in the epic contest over the future of Asia would be smashed.

To see why this possibility looms, we have to go back to the INF Treaty and Americas reasons to withdraw. China wasnt a party to the bilateral agreement reached in 1987 between the Soviet Union and America to ban missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. But it has been clear that the U.S. decision to withdraw is as much or more about China as about Russia.

Moscow has violated the treaty by building new missiles that contravene its terms, but Beijing has never been constrained from building such weapons, and it now has thousands. Thanks to the treaty, America has none, but now, as the contest with China becomes Americas primary strategic focus, Washington wants to be able to match Beijings intermediate-range missiles with equivalent forces of its own. Thats a key reason why it wants to scrap the treaty.

Matching Beijings intermediate-range missiles with similar forces is seen to be important to Washington because of a fear that Chinas intermediate-range forces will undermine the credibility of Americas nuclear deterrent in the Western Pacific. Its the same fear that drove America to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles to Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, to counter the Soviet SS-20 missiles that threatened Western Europe.

The worry then was that the Soviet SS-20s could threaten Western Europe with impunity if Washington didnt have similar systems, and had to rely instead on U.S.-based intercontinental-range missiles to counter them. It was feared that Washington would be deterred from using those forces because that would provoke a massive Soviet counterattack on the U.S. homeland. So, to deter the Soviets and reassure its European allies, America based intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe until, as the Cold War wound down, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to ban such forces altogether.

Now that Washingtons strategists recognise that the U.S. is in a new cold war with Beijing, they want to base intermediate-range nuclear forces in the Western Pacific for the same reasons. They are starting to take China more seriously as a nuclear adversary, and they worry that the possibility of a Chinese counterattack on America itself might undermine the deterrent credibility of their intercontinental-range forces. They worry both that China will be less convinced than they have long assumed of Americas nuclear advantage, and that that will lead Asian allies to doubt Americas commitment to defend them from Chinese nuclear threats.

Those worries are not without some foundation. In South Korea, theres an active debate about the need to develop an independent nuclear capability. Japans doubts about Americas reliability as an ally are real and growing. And conversations with U.S. policymakers and analysts suggest that some in Washington have been surprised and somewhat alarmed by the way that doubts about Americas reliability have sparked a debate here on The Strategist and elsewhere about whether Australia needs to consider nuclear options, suggesting that we too are losing faith in America.

This is bad news for Washington as it gears up to contest Chinas bid for regional hegemony in Asia. America will need these allies, and that means they need to be convinced that the U.S. is a credible and reliable nuclear ally. And many in Washington seem to have decided that deploying intermediate-range nuclear forces to the territories of its Asian allies is the best way to do that.

Its far from clear that this is true. The whole INF issue deals only with land-based missiles, and America has plenty of options to deploy sea-based nuclear forces to Asiajust as it had in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. The land-based INF deployment to Europe was a political gesture aimed at reassuring nervous Europeans, and made little real difference to the nuclear balance in Europeas many Americans recognised at the time.

But more importantly, deploying intermediate-range nuclear forceswhether land or sea basedwould not fix the underlying weakness in Americas nuclear posture in Asia. Thats because the problem with that posture is not a lack of intermediate-range weapons but a lack of clear resolve to accept the risks to America itself of using them to attack China.

Those risks are very real. Unlike the old Soviet Union, China has no major military assets beyond its own territory, so the only targets worth hitting with nuclear forces would be in China itself. Any nuclear attack on Chinese territorywhether launched from within Asia or from the U.S.would carry a serious danger of Chinese nuclear retaliation against American territory.

Some strategists in the U.S. assume that Beijing could be deterred from such retaliation by fear of a full-scale American counterstrike, but that cant be taken for granted. And no one in Washington seems ready to argue that Americas desire to remain the primary power in Asia is worth the million American lives that might be lost in a Chinese nuclear attack on the U.S.. That is one key difference between the old Cold War and the new one. There was little doubt that America was willing to suffer a nuclear attack to contain the Soviets, but no one has made that case about China.

Even so, the push to build and deploy land-based intermediate-range nuclear forces to Asia is now gaining momentum in Washington, and raises the question of where they would be based. The only U.S. territory in the region is Guam, which is already highly vulnerable. The whole logic on INF deployment suggests that Washington will be looking to locate these forces with its allies in the Western Pacific.

That means before too long we can expect a preliminary approach about whether we would be willing to host some of them here. It would make a kind of military sense. Missiles at the upper end of the intermediate-range band based in northern Australia would be able to reach most of China, and would be much more secure from Chinese preemptive attack than missiles based in South Korea or Japan.

But to many in Washington, the real point of putting this request to Canberra would be political rather than strategic. It would not just be about reassuring Australia of Americas reliability as an ally, but also about testing Australias commitment to stand by America in the new cold war with China.

It cannot have gone unnoticed in Washington that Canberra has so far failed to endorse Americas new tough line on China, and is still trying desperately to avoid choosing sides between our major ally and our primary trading partner. That is not what Washington wants or expects. It wants us to choose sides unambiguously, and what better way to force that choice than to ask us to host nuclear missiles aimed at China?

The risk for the U.S., of course, is that we might not make the choice it wants. We might say no.
A last-ditch attempt by Russia and the United States to salvage the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at a consultation meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, on January 15, ended in mutual acrimony. Washington has accused Moscow of deploying a modified Iskander land-mobile missile launcher fitted with a 9?729 (NATO designation: SSC-8) long-range cruise missile, in blatant violation of the INF. Moscow has adamantly denied any wrongdoing, since the 9?729 allegedly has not been test-fired at ranges longer than 500 kilometers. In turn, Russia has lobbed multiple accusations at the United States: First, the U.S. has allegedly been violating the INF by using dummy rockets with properties similar to Iranian or Korean middle-range missiles to test its ballistic missile defense (BMD) interceptors. Second, the U.S. has been deploying long-range attack drones, which, the Russians argue, should be classified as missiles under the treaty. And third, it has been building batteries of SM-3 Aegis Ashore BMD interceptors in Poland and Romania using standard ?K-41 launch tubes; on U.S. warships, the MK-41 tubes are also used to launch different types of offensive projectiles, including Tomahawk cruise missiles (see EDM, December 6, 2018).

In Geneva, on January 15, the Russian delegation apparently offered to allow the U.S. to inspect the 9?729 missiles in exchange for an inspection of U.S. Aegis Ashore batteries in Poland and Romania. But Washington demands the verified destruction of the 9?729 missiles and launchers. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation in Geneva, denounced the U.S. demands as an unacceptable ultimatum, while Washington announced the Russian inspection proposals fell short of verified INF compliance. The gap between the two sides looks unbreachable for now. Last October, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would abandon the INF because of Russian noncompliance. And last December, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced the U.S. will suspend its obligations [under INF] in 60 days unless Russia returns to full and verifiable compliance. This grace period ends on February 2 (Interfax, January 16, 2019).

Since 2007, Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly denounced the INF Treaty as unfair and one-sided (see EDM, October 25, 2018). Russia has developed land-based, long-range, nuclear-capable, precision-guided cruise missiles (the 9?729 and possible modifications) it could rapidly and relatively cheaply deploy, if the INF Treaty goes defunctalthough some production issues are possible (see EDM, November 7, 2018). The Pentagon, on the other hand, apparently lacks any ready-for-deployment delivery systems currently forbidden by the INF. Ryabkov, Putin and other Russian officials have called for further consultations, but efforts to salvage the INF seem halfhearted at best. Moscows initiatives look to be mostly a PR move aimed primarily at European countries, which could be the main losers if the treaty is scrapped and intermediate-range land-based missiles are reintroduced on the continent. In the 1980s when Russian and U.S. intermediate-range nuclear missiles were massively deployed in Europe, Moscow supported a massive anti-American and anti-missile peace movement in NATO countries as a Cold War precursor to the present-day Russian hybrid war efforts. Projecting blame for the INF collapse on Washington seems to be an important objective of current Russian policy. As the Pompeo-announced February 2, deadline approaches, Moscow is doubling its propaganda efforts. On January 18, a briefing for foreign ambassadors will be organized in Moscow to affirm the narrative of Russian compliance with the INF while emphasizing alleged U.S. guilt (Kommersant, January 17, 2019).

General (ret.) Vladimir Dvorkin, today a well-known strategic- and intermediate-range nuclear missile expert, had advised the Soviet military/political leadership and then-president Mikhail Gorbachev during the negotiations that led to the INF and START-1 arms control treaties, which ended the Cold War and facilitated the scrapping of thousands of nuclear missiles and warheads in an unprecedented disarmament drive. Dvorkin helped negotiate the removal from Europe of U.S. Pershing-2 intermediate-range ballistic missiles and Tomahawk land-based nuclear cruise missiles. The Pershing-2s were most dreaded by the Kremlin leaders and top military brass because of their briefseveral minutesflying time from Germany and the deadly accuracy of their maneuverable, self-guided warheads. Moscow feared the Pershing-2 warheads could kill the Soviet military/political leadership in a co-called decapitation strike before these authorities could evacuate the capital in case of war. Dvorkin previously denounced attacks on the validity of the INF; but after the latest Geneva consultations, he has acknowledged, There are practically no chances left to salvage the INF. The U.S. does not believe Russian assurances, but according to Dvorkin, no one will rush to deploy new missiles as the INF becomes defunct. Russia may threaten to deploy adequate measures, but should not act first so as to not destabilize the situation in Europe, while the U.S. does not actually need new land-based missiles (Militarynews.ru, January 17, 2019).

Russian officials, from Putin on down, continue to say they want to avoid a costly arms race. However, such statements do not reflect reality. According to the chairperson of the Duma defense industry commission, Vladimir Gutenev, Russia has managed to restore its Cold Warera military/industrial and scientific potential and is today number one in electronic warfare, hypersonics and other advanced weapon systems. In response to the U.S. suspension of the INF, Russia could deploy weapons that would surpass those scrapped in the 1980s after the signing of INF. In particular, Gutenev mentioned the possible deployment of a land-based Kalibr-M cruise missile (Militarynews.ru, January 16, 2019). The Kalibr-M is a modernized version of the sea-based Kalibr-NK and the submarine-launched Kalibr-PL cruise missiles. It is reportedly bigger than the previously deployed Kalibr-class missilesit carries more fuel, giving it an extended range of some 4,500 km, and it has a one-ton (two times bigger) warhead payload (TASS, January 8, 2019).

The enhanced Kalibr-M could be fitted on new bigger frigates and Yasen-class nuclear-powered attack submarines. But its mass deployment on truck launchers would be much cheaper than on ships or submarines. The Russian military would see a clear incentive to deploy such land-based weapons that would not only cover all of Europe, but also parts of Asia and North America, if deployed in the Russian Far East. Russian experts and officials have been increasingly assertive, implying that the new generation of nuclear superweapons announced by Putin has propelled Moscow into the position of a military world leader capable of imposing a new world order. Meanwhile, the Russians say, the West is mired in decay and disarray as internal squabbles and conflicts consume the U.S., the United Kingdom, France and others.

Dr. Pavel E. Felgenhauer is a Moscow-based defense analyst and columnist for Novaya Gazeta as well as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. He served as senior research officer in the Soviet Academy of Sciences, from where he received his Ph.D. Dr. Felgenhauer has published widely on Russian foreign and defense policies, military doctrine, arms trade and the military-industrial complex. He comments regularly in local and international media on Russias defense-related problems. Dr. Felgenhauer is also a weekly contributor to The Jamestown Foundations Eurasia Daily Monitor.

This article appeared originally at The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor.
Bringing human rights programming to a mainstream audience, the International Observatory of Human Rights (IOHR) has launched the web-based IOHRTV channel.





The IOHR guarantees that its coverage will give a voice to the voiceless with content from around the world, putting human rights into the front line of mainstream media.Content broadcast on the IOHRTV platform is produced by a team of human rights professionals, researchers and award-winning journalists of diverse backgrounds including Trish Lynch, a former CNN and Sky News presenter who anchors the NGOs shows and televised conferences. The channel also features human interest interviews with professionals such as UNICEF Ambassador and TV star Charley Boorman, who attended the launch in London to show his support. Other guests interviewed on IOHRTV included the families of dual-nationals imprisoned in Iran, including Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has is currently on hunger strike in an Iranian jail.New format shows will include NGO Focus, a talk show dedicated to showcasing the work of non-governmental organisations and those who dedicate their lives to championing civil society worldwide. Episodes feature interviews in the UK with organisations such as Save the Children, Care International and women's shelter, Refuge. NGO Focus is also produced internationally with shows already filmed in Copenhagen featuring the Danish Refugee Council and Dignity an organisation running the first torture rehabilitation centre in the world.The channel is available on the netgem.tv service, and the IOHR website as well as a mobile app.Were proud to be the first organisation taking this approach in the UK, said IOHR director Valerie Peay. TV is a great platform to share the many incredible stories we encounter, and we aim to use that platform to make long-lasting and meaningful change.
Love Island sees young, glamorous occupants live a celebrity lifestyle in a villa in a beautiful island location. They are on the lookout for romance but as always, the road to love never runs smoothly, as they must not only choose their partner wisely but also win the hearts of the public. Its up to the viewers to decide who they want to stay in the show as they watch the relationships develop and ultimately which pair they want to crown the hottest couple on the island.The new deals  which see new Polish and Dutch/Flemish versions to launch and second and third season renewals for Sweden and Germany  take the total number of original commissions for the programme to 11 countries.In Belgium, SBS has licensed the format, which will be a co-production with RTL in the Netherlands. This version will feature Islanders from both countries and will be co-produced by Lecter Belgium and ITV Studios Netherlands. Meanwhile, Polsat has ordered the show for Poland, which will be produced by Jakevision. Love Island has also been recommissioned in Sweden (TV4) and Germany (RTL II) following highly successful first and second seasons respectively.In the UK, where Love Island became the most tweeted about show of 2018, according to data from Kantar Social Media Intelligence , ITV2 will air its fifth season later this year. The launch of season four in the UK delivered ITV2s highest overnight ratings since records began and was the highest-rated show across all channels in the 9.00PM slot.The programme will also make its US debut on CBS, while a second season in Australia was confirmed last year. The overall number of international production hours for Love Island tripled in 2018.Viewing records were smashed in several territories in 2018, with Germany joining the UK and Australia in achieving huge ratings success. The second season on RTL II became the most streamed show on Germanys TV Now catch-up service, while the first episode of Nine Networks Love Island Australia garnered the highest-ever Video Player Measurement (VPM) ratings of any Australian reality show on its catch-up service 9Now, within 24 hours of broadcast.Love Islands unique blend of light-hearted fun, meaningful relationships, and window on youth culture, has made it one of most-talked about shows of the year, not only in the UK but in every country it has aired, said Mike Beale, managing director, Nordics and ITV Studios Global Creative Network. With two new versions launching and more in the pipeline, as well as the previously announced US version and returning series, the brand is set to make a step change in 2019 and that is a very exciting prospect indeed for us and our brilliant international partners.Richard Foster, CEO of Motion Content Group added: We are delighted to continue to work closely with ITV Studios and the commissioning broadcasters to create funding opportunities around the Love Island phenomenon.
In an effort to support creators and users of video content, the Singapore government has announced that it will be amending the Copyright Act to update its copyright regime to reflect the modern era of piracy.





A critical part of the suite of amendments includes new enforcement measures to deter retailers from profiting from providing access to content through unauthorised sources such as illicit streaming devices such as ISDs  also known as TV boxes  that enable access to pirated TV channels and video-on-demand content.The Singapore government announced that the new amendments were intended to complement the existing mechanism for the blocking of flagrantly infringing online locations. Recent events have made the actions necessary. In November 2018 a study of the content viewing behaviour of Singaporean consumers by the Asia Video Industry Associations (AVIA) Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) revealed that 15% of consumers use a TV box which can be used to stream pirated television and video content. The same month, Singapores High Court ordered internet service providers to block access to popular illegal applications that are frequently sold pre-loaded on Android TV boxes.Commenting on the new development, Louis Boswell, AVIA CEO said: AVIA welcomes the governments proposals to update Singapores Copyright Ac t to be relevant to the technological developments of today. The application and ISD ecosystem is seriously impacting all businesses involved in the production and distribution of legitimate content and generates huge revenue for criminal syndicates and retailers who profit from selling access to stolen intellectual property.Neil Gane, CAP general manager added: Illicit streaming devices and their associated applications are by far the most important copyright infringement issue in Singapore. Liability for ISD retailers under the present version of the copyright act exists, but establishing it is not straightforward. We are pleased that the government has recognised that this lack of legal clarity had allowed ISD retailers to mislead consumers that the content accessible through such TV boxes was legal and that requisite subscription charges went to rights-holders  which they did not. Hopefully ISD retailers will no longer be so heavily represented at Singapore IT exhibitions and IT malls.
Direct Line Groups (DLG) has renewed MediaCom UKs contract as its media planning and buying agency.





The partnership will see MediaCom UK work across all DLG brands including Direct Line, Direct Line for Business, Churchill and Green Flag. Its reupped role will focus on working across each DLG brands individual requirements, building on real-world data as well as tech capability and delivery to enhance DLGs position in the insurance market.Were thrilled that Direct Line Group has chosen to renew its partnership with MediaCom UK as its media agency, said Josh Krichefski, CEO of MediaCom UK . As one of the biggest names in insurance and beyond, its a great opportunity to create and deliver some of the most exciting content across all the DLG brands in an ever-changing industry. Were proud of what weve already achieved over our long-term relationship with DLG and cant wait to deliver even bigger and better results.The decision follows a six-month review process, and the partnership will begin immediately. Direct Line Group began the media-buying review in mid-2018 as the existing contract with MediaCom drew to an end.Throughout this review we challenged ourselves and our long-standing agency, MediaCom to develop a future-ready, progressive partnership which will help our business grow in the long term, said Raluca Efford, head of digital marketing at Direct Line Group . What really impressed us was MediaComs commitment to transparency coupled with the passion they have for our business in pursuit of commercial performance. We have total confidence that together we can achieve great results and ensure we continue winning, now and into the future.
SLOVAKIA: Passenger services on regional Line 153 running 74 km south from Zvolen to Sahy on the Hungarian border were reinstated by national operator ZSSK with effect from January 2.
SERBIA: Further agreements for Russian Railways to support the modernisation of the Serbian rail network were signed when Russias President Putin visited Beograd on January 17.
The first major library conference of the year gets underway next week, with the 2019 ALA Midwinter Meeting (January 25-29) in Seattle, Washington. As usual, the conference features a great slate of authors and speakers on the programs main stage, kicking off with philanthropist Melinda Gates, who deliver the conferences opening keynote, in conversation with Nancy Pearl, on Friday, January 25, at 4 pm, which will be immediately followed by a reception in the exhibit floor. Check out the ALA Midwinter website for more details and a complete program listing.

With the ALA in the midst of an organizational transformation, this years conference should be especially notable. And the library community is facing its usual array of challenges, including expectations that the Trump administration, as it has for the last two years, will again seek to eliminate all federal library funding. E-books are also expected to be a hot topic, with the major publishers appearing to consider new restrictions on e-lending after years of relative calm in the sector.

And as always, the highlight of ALA Midwinter is the announcement of the Youth Media Award winners, and the winners of the Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.

ALA officials are also hoping for a rebound in attendance, and it's looking good so far. Though exhibitor numbers are down for 2019, pre-registered attendance is already up significantly over last year, and nearly even with 2017. Last years Midwinter Meeting, in Denver, drew the lowest attendance in some 30 years.

You can also check out PWs ALA Midwinter preview, as well as a preview in American Libraries. And PW will be at the meetingcome by and say hello at booth 2021. And one editor's note: There will be a newsletter next week, but The Week in Libraries will be off, as we will be in Seattle for the conference. Check out the PW web site for all our coverage of the 2019 ALA Midwinter Meeting.

And if you're in Seattle for ALA Midwinter, be sure to say hello and congrats to University of Washington iSchool professor Joseph Janes (Midwinter is a home game for Joe), who has officially joined the growing PW library team as a contributor. Many of you know Joe well, as he's a frequent panelist at ALA conferences, a former columnist for American Libraries, and the author of Library 2020: Today's Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow's Library (Rowman & Littlefield) and most recently In his new role, he'll write a few columns a year on a range of subjects, will contribute online pieces to this newsletter. Welcome to the PW team, Joe Janes!

Reserve Reading

Sad news: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver died this week. The New York Times says that late in life, Oliver had taken on "the aura of a reluctant, bookish rock star." Via Publishers Weekly, Ann Godoff, Olivers editor at Penguin Press, said Oliver's "profound gifts allowed us to understand and celebrate the life weve been given.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer, a look at how e-books are working (or not working) in libraries. "As popularity soars, publishers and content providers have adopted 'metered access' and 'per-checkout' models for e-books and other content. Those models are guzzling library cash and resulting in book-lending inefficiencies, library officials warn."

The Wichita Eagle reports that some residents in Kansas are trying to remove LGBT books from the kids section. "Andover resident Marci Laffen said in a written request that the books George, Lily and Dunkin and I am Jazz should be moved to the librarys adult section, or at least to the young adult section. She cited the sexual content of the books, along with issues such as bullying, rebelling against police and refusing to take medications."

And via Yahoo News, the Ottawa Catholic School Board has quietly removed Drama, a 2012 graphic novel by celebrated author and illustrator Raina Telgemeier, because "it features a side story about two boys who are attracted to one another, and who share an onstage kiss."

From the Wall Street Journal, yet another report on Amazon's growing power over the book business: They arent gaming the system, literary agent Rick Pascocello said. They own the system.

Following its survey last week on the financial plight of working writers, the Authors Guild has announced that it is kicking off a national advocacy campaign to establish a new federal bureaucracy to pay authors for library lends.

And following the Authors Guild's lead, the U.K. Society of Authors is now threatening legal action against the Internet Archive's Open Library project. "We look forward to hearing from you by 1 February confirming that you will immediately take measures to ensure that Open Library books are not made available for downloading in the UK. We also demand that you stop scanning books by UK authors without permission. If we do not receive assurances by that date we will have to consider legal action on behalf of our members to prevent this practice. If that becomes necessary we shall be seeking damages for copyright infringement and payment of all legal costs."

On the open access front, Wiley and Projekt DEAL this week announced a groundbreaking countrywide Publish and Read agreement. For an annual fee, the three-year agreement provides all Projekt DEAL institutions with access to read Wileys academic journals back to the year 1997, and researchers at Projekt DEAL institutions can publish articles open access in Wileys journals.

Via Gary Price at InfoDocket, the pioneering institutional repository arXiv this week issued its annual update. In 2018 arXiv provided open access to "1.5 million e-prints in Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance, Statistics, Electrical Engineering and Systems Science, and Economics, with 228 million downloads from all over the world." And, the repository "received 140,616 new submissions, a 14% increase from 2017."

From American Libraries, a look at the The University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science's Library Scholar Program, which works with local school districts to "develop existing school employees, such as teachers and staff members, into school librarians."

Also from American Libraries, an update for librarians regarding the upcoming 2020 Census.

Via NBC News, a federal court this week barred the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to 2020 Census, holding that while the government has the right to add the question, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross added the question arbitrarily and did not follow proper procedure. The legal battle is far from over, however. ALA has been part of an effort to stop the Trump Administration's addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, arguing that it will lead to an inaccurate count in some communities, where answering the question could lead to ICE agents showing up at your door.

From MinnPost, an article on Ruby Rivera, the St. Paul Public Librarys first social worker. "Rivera gets to combine her passion for libraries, with her desire to roll up her sleeves and help people navigate lifes toughest moments."

From The New York Times, a fascinating article on an effort to return books looted by the Nazis. "In the last 10 years, for example, libraries in Germany and Austria have returned about 30,000 books to 600 owners, heirs and institutions, according to researchers."

Everyone this week is talking about this old tree stump in Idaho turned into a Little Free Library...via Nerdist.

TorrentFreak reports that the copyright battle in Europe could soon take a crucial next step. But one of the EU's most controversial reform efforts, Article 13, which would hold internet platforms liable for the infringement of their users and could force platforms to filter their works for unauthorized content, appears to be rapidly losing support. BoingBoing reports that the major record labels have changed their minds on the article's new language. And at TechDirt, Mike Masnick says Hollywood, too, has reconsidered, although not necessarily for the right reasons.
Officially billed as - Trumptasmic! The Official-Unofficial Rendezvous & Expo for Trump Supporters, at the Alleged Happiest Place on Earth - is scheduled for May 5th to May 12th, 2019.

We, The Deplorables, are thrilled Trump is our President and WDW is the Happiest Place on Earth, the perfect combo," says Cini. There couldn't be a better venue to host tens of thousands of Trump supporters, for an eight day celebration.

"To all who come to this happy place; WELCOME" -Walt Disneys most memorable quote. Preserving Walt's tradition and values, The Disney Company and Cast Members joyfully greet their Guests regardless of race, color, religion or political affiliation. Inclusivity and diversity has always been the core of the Disney brand, allegedly.

"The first year will be more casual, to test the waters for the following years," says Cini. We want to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch and that everyone respects the nature of the event. Trumptasmic! will have daily gatherings at each Park. The Expo and after party will be located at the Host Hotel, located just off WDW property.

Opportunities for online and print advertising are available. Vendors space is available at the Expo, contact for more information.

More information: http://www.trumptasmic.com

Media Contact: info@trumptasmic.com

Vendors: info@trumptasmic.com

Trumptasmic! its organizers, vendors, advertisers or affiliates are not associated with The Walt Disney Company or Walt Disney World.
With over 100 marketing automation (MA) engineers, MC Naha Center has a special capability of offering MA tools operations outsourcing services.

transcosmos inc. expanded and relocated Marketing Communication Naha Center (MC Naha Center) which delivers website development & operations services in Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture, and held its opening ceremony on January 10th, 2019. The center is scheduled to begin full-scale operations on January 21st, 2019.

MC Naha Center Overview

Name: Marketing Communication Naha Center

Location: Naha Business Center 11F, 1-20-1, Izumizaki, Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture (Kafuna Asahibashi A-block)

Number of workstations: 200

Number of employees: 200 (planned for FY2019)

Services: Website development & operations services

MC Naha Center opened in December 2000 as the former WebWorks Okinawa Office offering website development & operations services. In June 2007, transcosmos made WebWorks its subsidiary and integrated their business in October 2018. Following this expansion and relocation, transcosmos aims to increase the number of employees that currently stands at around 150 with a goal to reach 200 by the end of FY2019.

Through its nearshore centers in Tokyo, Osaka, Sapporo, Fukuoka, and Okinawa with 1,600 staff, the largest scale in Japan, transcosomos offers website development & operations services to nearly 700 clients annually. Outsourcing demands for website development and day-to-day operations services continue to grow in Japan whilst demand from overseas is also increasing. Making the most of the abundant English-speaking talent pool that Okinawa Prefecture has, the center will act as a global hub, collaborating with offshore centers in Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and more.

Opened in Naha Business Center which is directly linked to the monorail station Asashi-Bashi, the MC Naha Center is designed with a prime focus on creating an employee-friendly office. With its open operations space that encourages communication among members, a clean and bright refresh area that lets employees rest comfortably, and a conference room equipped with a system to have video conferences with other centers, the overall office layout creates an open office environment with the aim to let employees naturally communicate with others whilst improving overall productivity.

Whats more, with over 100 marketing automation (MA) engineers, the experts in operating MA tools, MC Naha Center has a special capability of offering operations outsourcing services to clients that have implemented MA tools. transcosmos will further enhance the team and grow it into a specialized team that performs integrated marketing operations across multi-channels that include mobile, email and social media. The team ensures high quality services building upon its record in operating various integrated marketing tools.

transcosmos entered into Okinawa Prefecture in 1999, and now delivers extensive services including call center services, BPO services, and digital marketing services from 9 centers with around 4,000 employees. transcosmos continues to hire and develop people in order to offer services that satisfy clients various requests whilst contributing to the revitalization and development of local communities through creating jobs.



transcosmos is a trademark or registered trademark of transcosmos inc. in Japan and other countries.

Other company names and product or service names used here are trademarks or registered trademarks of respective companies.

About transcosmos inc.

transcosmos launched its operations in 1966. Since then, we have combined superior people with up-to-date technology to enhance the competitive strength of our clients by providing them with superior and valuable services. transcosmos currently offers services that support clients business processes focusing on both sales expansion and cost optimization through our 169 locations across 31 countries with a focus on Asia, while continuously pursuing Operational Excellence. Furthermore, following the expansion of e-commerce market on the global scale, transcosmos provides a comprehensive One-Stop Global E-Commerce Services to deliver our clients' excellent products and services to consumers in 49 countries around the globe. transcosmos aims to be the Global Digital Transformation Partner of our clients, supporting the clients transformation by leveraging digital technology, responding to the ever-changing business environment. Visit us here https://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp/english/
Entrepreneur is one of the worlds most well-respected and well-read business publications, so earning such a high ranking in the annual Franchise 500 is a major accomplishment for our franchise family. - Afshin Cangarlu

Stratus Building Solutions, the nations leading green commercial cleaning and janitorial services franchise, was recently ranked #42 in Entrepreneur magazines Franchise 500, the worlds first, best and most comprehensive franchise ranking. This represents a massive improvement over Stratus already excellent ranking from 2018  moving up 61 spots from 103 to 42.

We are thrilled to be featured as one of the top 50 franchise brands in the country, said Afshin Cangarlu, CEO of Stratus Building Solutions. Entrepreneur is one of the worlds most well-respected and well-read business publications, so earning such a high ranking in the annual Franchise 500 is a major accomplishment for our franchise family. I applaud everyone in the Stratus family, including our Master Franchisees, Unit Franchisees, and all corporate employees, for their role in earning this industry leading ranking!

Placement in the Franchise 500 is a highly sought-after honor in the franchise space, as evidenced by the fact that Entrepreneur received more than 1,000 applications this year, making it one of the companys most competitive rankings ever. Recognized as an invaluable resource for potential franchisees, the Franchise 500 ranks Stratus Building Solutions 42nd for its outstanding performance in areas including unit growth, financial strength and stability, and brand power.

As we celebrate 40 years of producing the Franchise 500, its a good opportunity to step back and look at how much has changed since that first ranking in 1980, says Jason Feifer, editor in chief

of Entrepreneur. While the franchise business model has changed little, the strongest franchise brands are constantly evolving and innovating to keep up with changing trends and technology.

The key factors that go into the evaluation include costs and fees, size and growth, support, brand strength, and financial strength and stability. Each franchise is given a cumulative score based on an analysis of more than 150 data points, and the 500 franchises with the highest cumulative scores become the Franchise 500 in ranking order.

Over its 40 years in existence, the Franchise 500 has become both a dominant competitive measure for franchisors and a primary research tool for potential franchisees. Stratus Building Solutions position on the ranking is a testament to its strength as a franchise opportunity.

To view Stratus Building Solutions in the full ranking, visit http://www.entrepreneur.com/franchise500. Results can also be seen in the January/February 2019 issue of Entrepreneur, available on newsstands January 15th.

For more information on Stratus Building Solutions, please visit https://www.stratusbuildingsolutions.com/.

For more information on Stratus Building Solutions Master and Unit level franchise opportunities, please visit http://www.stratusclean.com.

About Stratus Building Solutions

Stratus Building Solutions is an international franchise company in the commercial cleaning industry, founded in 2006 and headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Stratus was developed to provide environmentally friendly commercial cleaning services driven by dedicated, entrepreneurial, small-business owners and regional support offices. Stratus has over 1,500 unit franchisees in 46 major cities across the United States and Canada. Stratus is setting new standards in the building services and maintenance franchise industry by being the first to offer green janitorial with their proprietary, Green Seal Certified line of cleaning chemicals. To learn more about franchising opportunities, visit https://www.stratusclean.com/.
Peak Push To Talk Peak PTT Provides Instant Always On Talk for companies using cutting-edge Push To Talk systems and rugged devices.

Peak PTT, the Push To Talk experts for business, is showcasing its exclusive Push To Talk Platforms featuring its complete line-up of advanced Push To Talk Over Cellular & Wifi devices in Booth #N2477 (North Hall) at the World Of Concrete Exposition, being held at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 22-25th 2019.

Peak PTT offers cutting-edge VOIP Over Cellular & Wifi Push To Talk devices that are transforming the way commercial construction businesses communicate. As easy to operate as a walkie-talkie, Peak Push To Talk devices have no distance limitations, offer a low entry barrier to entry and provides a very high return on investment for businesses looking to improve communications.

Designed for the construction professional, the Peak Everest Push To Talk Platform is a carrier-grade PTT system that offers high availability, low latency Push To Talk communications for both small and large groups. The Everest Platform features rugged Push To Talk Devices, secure PC dispatching & monitoring software, as well as Android and iPhone apps.

The Everest dispatch console features on instant voice communication, on-demand location tracking, embedded recordings, and emergency event management.

We are excited to introduce our products and services to construction professionals explained George Karonis, CEO of Peak PTT. Our Push To Talk services offer a cost-effective solution, that provides instant always-on communication for teams and companies.

Located in Southern California, Peak PTT is a communications company that provides cutting-edge non-mission critical communication technology to businesses for Fortune 100 & 500 companies; small businesses; federal, state and local government agencies. Its products and services are backed by knowledgeable sales and technical staff to ensure users purchase the right systems that will work flawlessly for their needs. For more information, for a free demo or to place an order, visit Peak PTT online at https://www.peakptt.com or call us toll-free at 855-600-6161.
From left are Jim Blair and Marc Kiner of Premier Social Security Consulting in Cincinnati. (Paula Norton Photo) Premier is finding that more financial advisors are basing their practices on the needs of baby boomers. Past News Releases RSS

Premier Social Security Consulting will host its National Social Security Advisor (NSSA) certificate education in six cities this year while expanding its webinar and on-demand courses for busy professional advisors nationwide.

Marc Kiner, partner at Premier Social Security Consulting of Cincinnati, which teaches the Social Security education program, said professional advisors are busier than ever, but want the comprehensive NSSA program.

Weve found that advisors, like the rest of us, are pressed for time, said Kiner. An increasing number of advisors are choosing the all-day webinar option. We have the same content and the same interaction ability as a live program, but advisors can take the course in the privacy of their company conference room or the comfort of their home offices.

NSSA is the nations only accredited Social Security education certificate program, with accreditation provided by the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE) in Washington, D.C.

The NSSA Advisor certificate is awarded to professional advisors who take the NSSA course and pass an assessment. The National Social Security Association has certified more than 1,700 advisors since the program began in 2013.

Full, all-day NSSA programming will be held in Cincinnati on Feb. 5, April 19, June 3 and 19, Aug. 15 and 16, Oct. 22 and Dec. 3; Orlando, Fla. on March 5; San Diego on March 28; Chicago on June 27; Cleveland on July 16; and New York on Sept. 23. Live Classes run from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Webinars will be held on: Jan. 23; Feb. 14; March 12; April 5; May 3; June 18; July 23; Aug. 20; Oct. 17; Dec. 11; Dec. 27.

Cost for the live class is $995, with web-based and on-demand video classes at $695. Premier also offers private, on-site classes for organizations that need to provide in-house Social Security training to multiple professional advisors.

Eight continuing education credits are available for certified financial planners, certified public accountants, and insurance agents nationwide for live classes. Education credits will be also available for on-demand and web-based education in 2019.

Premier provides ongoing gold standard Social Security education support after an NSSA education course is completed, said Kiner. Support includes monthly webinars; marketing videos; and a PowerPoint presentation.

Baby boomers turn 65 years old at the rate of 10,000 a day, yet the majority of boomers know little about how to maximize their Social Security income, said Kiner. Thats why we developed the NSSA certificate programto help advisors teach clients everything they need to know about Social Security but didnt know they had to ask.

Premier is finding that more financial advisors are basing their practices on the needs of baby boomers, said Jim Blair, Premier partner and a Social Security expert. The Social Security topic, he added, has become an excellent lead generation tool.

Since retirements today can last up to 30 years, Social Security income has become increasingly more important to help retirees not outlive their money, said Blair. We find that NSSA advisors are better educated about Social Security and equipped to help their clients make wise decisions about claiming Social Security.

About 75 million Americans today are classified as baby boomers.

A married couple can leave as much as $150,000 on the table in Social Security benefits by not accessing the program correctly based on their ages, health and life expectancy and not coordinating spousal benefits, said Kiner.

For more information about the National Social Security Advisor certificate program, visit http://www.nationalsocialsecurityassociation.com or http://www.premiernssa.com or call Kiner at (513) 247-0526.

# # #

Follow us on twitter @pssconsulting or connect with us on LinkedIn at Social Security Rainmaker

Contact: Marc Kiner

Email: mkiner@mypremierplan.com

Phone: (513) 247-0526

About Premier Social Security Consulting:

Premier Social Security Consulting, LLC in Cincinnati educates professional advisors nationwide on the nations Social Security program so they can counsel their clients on how to maximize lifetime Social Security income. Partners Marc Kiner and Jim Blair teach the National Social Security Advisor (NSSA) certification program.
As part of its efforts to increase college access, affordability, and completion, Monroe College, a national leader in educating urban and international students, today announced that its Saturday morning Jumpstart program for high school seniors and juniors will start its 15th year tomorrow, January 19.

Started in 2004, Jumpstart offers ambitious high school students the opportunity to explore a major of interest by taking one of the introductory courses often taught by a dynamic faculty member who has worked in the field. James Ferguson, the former Commissioner for the New York State Board of Parole, for example, is teaching the Introduction to Criminal Justice course.

Jumpstart is offered free of charge, including textbooks, to selected students from local participating schools in New York City and surrounding communities. More than 120 students from 30 area schools are participating this year. To date, more than 10,000 students have participated in Monroes Jumpstart program.

Students who successfully complete their course earn three transferable college credits that may be applied toward a degree program at Monroe College or elsewhere. One recent study calculated that the average cost per credit hour at U.S. institutions is $594, which suggests that families of Jumpstart students can save up to $1800 off the total cost of a college education for each three-credit Jumpstart course.

I am so proud of this program, which has given thousands of urban students a chance to earn college credits free of charge and get a head start on their college education, said Marc Jerome, President of Monroe College.

He added: In addition to helping make college more affordable, Jumpstart provides an important opportunity for these students to truly challenge themselves in a college classroom and prove they have what it takes to be successful. The experience leads to heightened study skills, a boost in self-confidence, and a stronger sense of personal responsibility. These traits will serve them well wherever they choose to go to college.

Classes are taught by Monroe faculty and run for 11 consecutive weeks following an initial orientation and testing session on the first Saturday. This year, orientation and testing will take place this Saturday, January 19, with the first day of classes scheduled for January 26. Classes will end this year on April 6.

Among the Jumpstart courses offered this year: Fundamentals of Communication; Introduction to Business; Introduction to Contemporary Health Issues; Introduction to Criminal Justice; Introduction to Information Technology; Introduction to Hospitality; Introduction to Human Services; Introduction to Psychology; Marketing Foundations, and Principles of Accounting I.

Jumpstart is just one of several initiatives that Monroe College has implemented to increase college access and affordability for local families. Through its Presidential Partnership Program (PPP), for example, more than 900 students from area high schools are attending Monroe on a generous scholarship that enables the vast majority of recipients to earn their Bachelors degree with zero student loan debt for tuition. Enhanced mentorship and special programming are also key components of the program.

Similarly, its Dreamers Initiative grants a full tuition scholarship to 20 academically gifted undocumented students each Fall; many more earn partial scholarships. There are currently 80 Dreamers at Monroe as a result of this progressive program.

ABOUT MONROE COLLEGE

Founded in 1933, Monroe College is a recognized leader in urban and international education. The College is proud of its innovative programs to increase college access, affordability, and completion outcomes, especially among first-generation students. The strength of its warm, supportive culture is reflected in the personal connections fostered among students, faculty, and staff.

Monroe educates close to 8,000 students each year, offering Certificate, Associate, Bachelors, and Masters degree programs from campuses in the Bronx, New Rochelle, and St. Lucia. Students may also take courses online.

Programs are offered through seven academic schools, including the Schools of Allied Health Professions, Business & Accounting, Criminal Justice, Education, Hospitality Management and the Culinary Institute of New York (CINY), Information Technology, and Nursing, as well as through King Graduate School. Liberal arts and continuing education programs are also available. For more information and admissions criteria, please visit http://www.monroecollege.edu.
Veterinary assistant Wendy Whitenburg bottle feeds a young kitten in the nursery at the Best Friends Lifesaving Center in Mission Hills, CA. "If Los Angeles can become no-kill, any city or community can. ~ Julie Castle, CEO, Best Friends Animal Society

When Best Friends Animal Societys No Kill Los Angeles (NKLA) initiative launched in 2012, the save rate at Los Angeles Animal Services was just 57 percent. In 2018, the save rate skyrocketed to 89.7 percent, just shy of the 90 percent benchmark for a community to be considered no-kill.

Best Friends has been working with LA Animal Services and more than 140 coalition partners towards the NKLA goal and 2018s results were especially impressive:



For the second year in a row, dogs were above the no kill threshold at 93.36% across the city of Los Angeles.

Once the most at-risk population in city shelters, kittens are now at 88.24% (up from 82.27% in 2017).

Adult cats saw a save rate increase to 83.6%, up from 77.99% in 2017.

NKLA is a true example of the great results that collaboration can bring in the animal welfare movement, said Julie Castle, CEO, Best Friends Animal Society. It also serves as a model for Best Friends mission to end the killing of shelter pets across America by 2025. If Los Angeles can become no-kill, any city or community can.

Best Friends' lifesaving efforts in Los Angeles were expanded in 2018 by increasing working cat transports and opening an additional pop up kitten nursery at the Mission Hills location.

Altogether, Best Friends, LA Animal Services New Hope partners and NKLA Coalition partners helped save 23% more adult cats, 50% more kittens, and 11% more dogs in 2018 compared to 2017.

As Castle noted, We know we still have a lot of work to do here and we are grateful to our steering committee that has helped achieve the current milestone, including, Los Angeles Animal Services, Stray Cat Alliance, Kitten Rescue, Spay Neuter Project of Los Angeles, FixNation, Angel City Pit Bulls, Michelson Found Animals Foundation and Heaven on Earth.

These numbers are truly cause for celebration, as it represents thousands of shelter pets who are now having positive outcomes, said Brenda Barnette, General Manager of LA Animal Services. NKLA has been an exciting journey for everyone involved and Im looking forward to a future where we can save even more pets.

The achievement was especially stunning in light of the ongoing TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) injunction in place against the City of Los Angeles, which prohibits community cat programming.

TNR and return to field programs are being embraced across California and the country with dramatic lifesaving results, Castle said. In fact, I cant think of another municipality the size of the City of Los Angeles that has achieved no-kill without one. For us to get this close to no-kill here was like working with one arm tied behind our backs.

Best Friends, along with NKLA Coalition partners and supporters in the community, is currently looking into the review process for the injunction and exploring all available options to appeal the ruling or modify the injunction

Until then, Castle encouraged pet-loving Angelenos to continue assisting with NKLA efforts by:

Adopting their next pet

Fostering kittens or adult pets while they wait for a home

Spaying and neutering your pet

Volunteering at our adoption centers or at a local shelter

Sharing the word about helping homeless pets via social media channels

Donating funds or supplies

Pet homelessness is a community problem with a community solution. We need everyones help to Save Them All, Castle said.

About Best Friends Animal Society

Best Friends Animal Society is a leading national animal welfare organization dedicated to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America's shelters. In addition to running lifesaving programs in partnership with more than 2,200 animal welfare groups across the country, Best Friends has regional centers in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Salt Lake City, and operates the nation's largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals. Founded in 1984, Best Friends is a pioneer in the no-kill movement and has helped reduce the number of animals killed in shelters nationwide from 17 million per year to about 1.5 million. That means there are still more than 4,100 dogs and cats killed every day in shelters, just because they dont have safe places to call home. We are determined to get that number to zero by the year 2025. Working collaboratively with shelters, rescue groups, other organizations and you, we will end the killing and Save Them All. For more information, visit bestfriends.org.

To become a fan of Best Friends on Facebook, go to Facebook.com/bestfriendsanimalsociety. Follow Best Friends on Twitter (@BestFriends) and Instagram (@BestFriendsAnimalSociety).
If HOMER Energy is among the Ashden winners, we plan to use the prize money to expand training programs and accessibility of our distributed energy modeling software in developing countries.

HOMER Energy is proud to be listed among 19 finalists for an Ashden Award, a UK prize rewarding organizations that contribute to the global sustainable energy transformation by introducing new technologies and business models. HOMER Energy applied for the 2019 award in the category of Financial or Business Model Innovation, which has among its requirements innovations that improve the financial viability of enterprises to bring affordable, sustainable energy products and services to markets and which reduce risk and cost of capital associated with investing in underdeveloped markets.

HOMER Pro, the companys flagship software, reduces risk for distributed energy developers by providing a reliable software program that can model and compare sizes and configurations of hybrid renewable energy systems. By simulating their projects with the HOMER Energy software, users can get a realistic sense of the capital and operating costs of the systems they are designing. They can make better choices and improve the prospects that these systems will meet the needs of the communities they are designed for. The availability of HOMER software in developing countries also contributes to the growth and expertise of the renewable energy industry wherever it is used.

The Ashden Awards focus on the work that organizations carry out in low and middle income developing countries. People from these countries make up a significant proportion of HOMER Energy users and software license owners. The original HOMER Pro software grew out of the village power program at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) a decade ago and was focused on providing hybrid renewable energy solutions to remote, developing country communities that were either diesel-powered or had no access to electricity at all.

Ashden award winners will be announced on July 3rd and the ceremony will be a part of Londons Climate Action Week. If awarded an Ashden prize, HOMER Energy plans to use the money to expand training programs in developing countries so that local renewable energy developers can build the capacity to design technically sound and economically feasible projects.

About HOMER Energy

HOMER Energy is the developer and distributor of the HOMER software, the global standard for energy modeling tools that analyze solar-plus-storage microgrid and other distributed energy projects. HOMER Pro simulates the engineering and economic feasibility of complex off-grid and grid-tied distributed energy systems that combine conventional and renewable power, storage, and load management. HOMER Grid, aimed at the solar-plus-storage market, helps commercial and industrial customers design hybrid renewable energy systems that save on electricity bills and lower carbon footprints. Based in Boulder, Colorado, HOMER Energy was founded in 2009 by Peter Lilienthal, Ph.D., and Marilyn Walker, Ph.D, and now has over 200,000 users in more than 190 countries. Learn more at HOMER Energy or call 720-565-4046. Subscribe to our blog the Microgrid News and get with microgrid news from around the world.
The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), an international association dedicated to the leadership and practice of alliance management, partnering, and business collaboration, announced its lineup of featured speakers at the March 11-13, 2019 ASAP Global Alliance Summit. The annual event will convene partnering leaders and alliance management practitioners from high tech, biopharmaceuticals, and a growing number of other industries to explore trends in technology, life science, cross-industry practices, advanced partnering and ecosystem skills, proven and new practices, case studies, and more.

Each years Summit is a one-of-a-kind event where the worlds most experienced and capable partnering and alliance management executives share successful practices and lessons learned from their business collaborations, said ASAP President and CEO Michael Leonetti, CSAP. The 2019 Summit will include the incredibly smart and provocative speakers, hands-on learning, and candid peer-to-peer conversations that participants experience at ASAPs other annual destination eventsthe BioPharma Conference, Tech Partner Forum, and European Alliance Summit. But there are unique connections and insights that only come from the ASAP Global Alliance Summits diversity. In a time of rapidly expanding cross-industry alliances, public-private partnerships, and customer-centered collaborative ecosystems, the Summit attracts leading thinkers and practitioners from many industries, sectors, and geographies, allowing attendees to glean insights, engage with surprising new ideas, and even meet unexpected new partners.

This years ASAP Global Alliance Summit will take place March 11-13, 2019, at the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Platinum Sponsors of the event include Vantage Partners and WorkSpan; The Rhythm of Business is a Gold Sponsor. Headlining speakers include:



Bruce Anderson, general manager, high-tech/electronics industry, IBM

Christine Carberry, CSAP, chief operating officer, biopharmaceutical senior executive

Steve Levine, PhD, Dassault Systemes, founder and executive director, Living Heart Project

Tiffani Bova, global customer growth and innovation evangelist, Salesforce

Charles Onstott, chief technology officer, SAIC

Continuing the trend of recent ASAP conferences, the 2019 Summit offers foundational alliance management learning opportunities as well as a wide range of programming for veteran alliance mangers. Topical sessions focus on how to apply leading edge-practices and the know-how of seasoned alliance managers at a time of new ecosystems, business models, and partnership types. The Summit will provide a mix of content that includes:

50-plus facilitators, speakers, and panelists representing 35-plus industry-leading companies, educational institutions, and consultancies

28 education sessions and in-conference workshops

10-plus hours of business development and networking opportunities

Several pre-conference workshops and a variety of in-conference tracks

12+ countries typically represented, fostering the sharing of global, cross-cultural perspectives

Attendees include influential C-level and senior executives from Fortune 100 and 500 companies in number of different industry verticals

Greater emphasis on advanced skill development and strong interactive learning opportunities

Bruce Anderson: Partnering in the AI Era

On the morning of March 12, as part of the conference opening session, Bruce Anderson will present a plenary talk titled Partnering in the AI Era: An Essential Shift from Value Chains to Business Ecosystems. In todays age of digital convergence and technological change, according to Anderson, it is more important than ever to collaborate, in order to continually innovate and thrive. Anderson is responsible for worldwide business across industry segments ranging from semiconductor and consumer electronics to network, office, industrial, and medical equipment. He intends to share his deep understanding of marketplace opportunities and challenges facing companies, describing what hes learned as he consults extensively with senior executives striving to optimize and transform their organizations, operations, and business models.

After lunch on March 12, four speakers will present TED-talk-style presentations during the 2019 Summits Leadership Spotlight plenary session.

Christine Carberry, CSAP: Maximizing Value

Is it a lack of time, resources, or ideas that holds back fulfilling the maximum value of alliances? Perhaps all these ingredients are available in abundance and what is lacking is the ability to connect the right ideas with the right resources at the right time, Carberry intends to explore. The concept is simplefind the right connections, collaborate on a common goal, and create value. Executing against this simple concept is far from easy. In this session, Carberry will talk about how to strengthen connections, improve collaboration, and increase value creation in alliances and beyond. In her most recent role, as a member of the Keryx Biopharmaceuticals executive committee, she led Keryxs technical operations, quality, regulatory, human resources, and program management functions. Prior to Keryx, Carberry served as a senior vice president at FORUM Pharmaceuticals, where she established program and alliance management while also leading technical operations and quality. She previously spent 26 years with Biogen, holding positions in technical operations and, for her last nine years at Biogen, leading program and alliance management for a portfolio of more than 30 programs.

Steve Levine, PhD: The Living Heart Project

In the US, someone has a heart attack every 34 seconds. Despite billions of research dollars, bringing new therapeutics to market is increasingly difficult and connecting new therapies precisely with the patients remains an unsolved challenge. What if a virtual replica of your heart could be created, imitating its unique electrical impulses, muscle fiber contractions, and abnormalities? Valuable insights on human heart function could accelerate breakthroughs delivered to clinical practice.

Dr. Levine will describe his methodology to unite the world's leading cardiovascular researchers, medical industry innovators, regulatory agencies, and practicing cardiologists on a shared mission to develop accurate personalized digital human heart models. Dr. Levine is the founder and executive director of the Living Heart Project and senior director of life sciences at Dassault Systemes or 3DS. Previously, he served as chief strategy officer of the SIMULIA brand from 2006 to 2013 which included development of an industry-leading alliance ecosystem. In his current role, he is leading the development of medically accurate digital human models by coordinating global research and commercial medical communities toward common, shared goals.

Tiffani Bova: Growth IQ and Partnering

There has never been a more disruptive time for business and partnerships. Cloud, mobile, social, big data and analytics are transforming how companies deliver their products and services. Customers demand a seamless experience, regardless of who makes the sale. Profitable and sustainable business growth is top of mind in and around all industries. Alliance managers must develop their "Growth IQ" to meet today's business demands. Pulling from the 10 proven paths highlighted in her Wall Street Journal Best Seller book, Growth IQ: Get Smarter about the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business, Bova will present customer-centric best practices and pivot points for partnering executives and their companies to consider.

Charles Onstott: Partnering to Help the US Government Move at Startup Speeds

In recent years, the US government has been looking for means to accelerate the adoption of new technologies to support government missions. Not known as an early adopter, many parts of the government have been pushing for easier acquisition of new technology. Onstott, chief technology officer at SAIC, will describe his companys approach to enabling government customers to move at the speed of startups through partnerships, people, processes, and technologies. SAIC, as a technology integrator, strives to help emerging technology companies expand into government businessand thereby bring valuable capabilities that benefit the government. Emerging technology partnerships are similar to strategic alliances, but have some important differences, according to Onstott, whose plans to discuss SAICs partner engagement model, share lessons learned in establishing relationships with emerging technology companies, and provide examples of what worked and did not work well.

About the 2019 ASAP Global Alliance Summit

The 2019 ASAP Global Alliance Summit will take place March 11-13, 2019, at the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Platinum Sponsors of the event include Vantage Partners and WorkSpan. The Rhythm of Business is a Gold Sponsor. For more information and to register for the 2019 ASAP Global Alliance Summit, please visit http://asapsummit.org.

About ASAP

The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) is the only professional association dedicated to elevating and promoting the profession of alliance management, partnerships, and collaboration. Founded in 1998, the organization provides professional development, networking, and resources for cultivating the skills and toolsets needed to manage successful business partnerships. ASAPs professional certifications include the Certificate of Achievement-Alliance Management (CA-AM) and Certified Strategic Alliance Professional (CSAP). Active global members include Astellas, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Cisco, Citrix, Covance, Dassault Systemes, Eli Lilly and Company, HealthCore, IBM, JanssenPharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, JDA, Merck, Microsoft, NetApp, Novartis, Salesforce, SAS, Takeda, The Warren Company, and Xerox.

More information, including the ASAP blog and a complete list of global members, is available at http://www.strategic-alliances.org.
Frank Raha joined HNTB as government relations director for the firms Central Division. Frank is a skilled relationship builder with a history of bringing together groups with diverse interests on legislative, infrastructure and regulatory initiatives.

Frank Raha, III, joined HNTB Corporation as government relations director for the firms Central Division. He brings more than 20 years of experience in state and local government, regulatory compliance and public-private partnerships. He is located in the firms Dallas office.

Raha will direct the firms government relations activities for Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas and Mississippi. His responsibilities include developing government and public affairs plans and collaborating with government relations professionals across the firm to develop and maintain relationships with key policymakers who impact the transportation infrastructure industry.

Frank is a skilled relationship builder with a history of bringing together groups with diverse interests on legislative, infrastructure and regulatory initiatives, said Michelle Graham, HNTB Central Division sales officer and vice president. His practical experience in the transportation industry will enable him to provide support and insights to local governments and policymakers throughout Texas and the Midwest.

Prior to joining HNTB, Raha served as regional manager, government and public affairs for a major building materials and solutions firm. Earlier in his career, he served as director government affairs for the Michigan Department of Transportation. Appointed by former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, Raha led MDOTs government affairs program and served as director for the state transportation commission, the organization that develops and approves all transportation policies and projects in the state.

Raha earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from Michigan State University. He has been active with the ITS World Congress; the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials; the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce; and other organizations.

About HNTB

HNTB Corporation is an employee-owned infrastructure firm serving public and private owners and contractors. With 105 years of service in the United States, HNTB understands the life cycle of infrastructure and addresses clients most complex technical, financial and operational challenges. Professionals nationwide deliver a full range of infrastructure-related services, including award-winning planning, design, and program and construction management. For more information, visit http://www.hntb.com.
Often when we focus on Operational Excellence, we talk about focusing on leaner processes and business transformation  but really at the heart of it, its about driving the right kind of corporate culture, every day.

The Austin Business Journal recently released its list of top women-owned businesses and Firefly Consulting, led by President Kimberly Watson-Hemphill, has once again made the cut. In a city that regularly takes the lead for fastest growth in the US, the field of candidates has also increased: the Austin Chamber of Commerce reported that in 2017, Austins economy grew an impressive 6.9%.

Now in its tenth year of business, Firefly serves a wide range of industries, with on-going projects that include healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing. Team growth has strengthened the companys core capabilities, adding more mergers and acquisitions capacity as well as growing a European presence. Bruno Ternon, who joined Firefly in the spring, brings his recent experience as an Operational Excellence Global Deployment Leader with Amazon to his new post as European lead in Paris. When asked about his approach, he shared, Often when we focus on Operational Excellence, we talk about focusing on leaner processes and business transformation  but really at the heart of it, its about driving the right kind of corporate culture, every day.

Weve expanded our staff in recent months to meet an increasing demand for operational consulting services, says Watson-Hemphill. Assessments and consulting in the operations space continue to be the leading request from our clients. High-growth businesses are looking for a roadmap on how to achieve operational improvements, followed by rapid results. For clients that are interested in developing the internal capabilities of their team, we continue to offer Lean Six Sigma and design training programs.

About Firefly Consulting

Firefly Consulting is a privately held, boutique consulting firm that specializes in innovation and operational excellence and is headquartered in Austin, TX. More information about the firm and its services can be found online at http://www.firefly-consulting.com.
U.S. Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) members, who are not receiving military pay during the partial government shutdown, are getting extra support from United Concordia Companies Inc., which administers the TRICARE Dental Program (TDP).

To ease the financial impact and maintain continuity of care, United Concordia put measures in place beginning Jan. 1, 2019, to ensure that all benefits, coverage and claim payments continue uninterrupted for Coast Guard and NOAA TDP members.

During the shutdown, no TDP coverage will be cancelled due to non-payment of premiums, and no collection actions will be initiated. United Concordia also will ensure that members have ample opportunity to pay their monthly premiums after the shutdown ends.

We understand that many members of the Coast Guard and NOAA are facing financial challenges, for reasons that are completely beyond their control, said Daniel Wright, senior vice president, government business and finance for United Concordia. These members provide valuable service to our country, and we appreciate the opportunity to assist them during this difficult period.

For more information on the TRICARE Dental Program, visit http://www.uccitdp.com.
Dr Robin Unger's unique technique does not require more than 1 -2 PRP treatments per year to achieve optimal results.

Dr. Robin Unger, renowned New York PRP hair restoration treatment physician, directed another workshop on platelet rich plasma therapy (PRP) for hair restoration in Los Angeles, CA at the annual ISHRS meeting. Dr. Unger has been one of the leaders in education and discussion and advancement of our understanding of PRP. This is the fifth talk she is leading in the last year on this cutting edge technique. More importantly, she feels it is part of her professional mission to create these workshops and give talks to other experts in the field that are looking to improve their ability to help patients with platelet rich plasma.

This annual meeting brings together hair restoration experts from around the world. The goals are to teach and share knowledge in order to be able to offer patients better treatment options and improved techniques. One of the benefits of this meeting is that information can be shared amongst experts and taught to those just starting in the field of hair restoration.

Dr Robin Unger has created a workshop on PRP which brings together an impressive faculty of those in the field of hair restoration, with a specific interest in improving the results that can be obtained from this treatment option.

The faculty will be sharing their experience and knowledge. It includes:

Dr. Robin Unger  Dr. Unger has been studying the potential mechanisms of action of PRP, the effect of microneedling, the benefits of using ACell in the preparation and different compositions of the platelet rich plasma to improve results and make them longer lasting. Her technique has developed and evolved over the last nine years and many patients have benefited from her expertise.

Dr. Jim Vogel  Dr. Vogel has been in a practice specializing in hair restoration

Dr. Dan McGrath  Dr. McGraths practice is in Austin Texas and he has achieved excellent results with PRP

Dr. Chiara Insalaco  Dr. Insalaco practices in Italy and specializes in hair restoration. She has studied platelet rich plasma therapy with Dr. John Cole. Specifically she is interested in the role played by different methods of activation. Sonication is a new technique which may be able to facilitate the release and activation of more growth factors as compared to other techniques.

Dr. Jerry Cooley  Dr. Cooley has been advancing the scientific knowledge in this community for more than 15 years. His work regarding holding solutions and graft survival has benefited many in practice today. His new area of interest with respect to PRP, is the possible role that can be played by the addition of other cells in the mixture: embryonic, follicle stem cells, and fat stem cells.

Dr Robin Unger is honored to be the Chairperson of the ISHRS conference in Bangkok in 2019.

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-robin-unger-a0a3865/
Amanda Wildblood joins Cypress Bayou Casino Hotel as Sous Chef My desire to entertain and inspire others through the palate is what motivated me to become a chef.

Cypress Bayou Casino Hotels Executive Chef, Willie Gaspard, announced today that Amanda Wildblood, a native of Basile, Louisiana has been named as the casinos Sous Chef.

The Louisiana native brings nearly 20 years in the food industry with her to her new role. Wildblood spent her childhood in Basile, La. where she graduated from high school and developed a passion for feeding others. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Culinary Arts at Nicholls State University from The John Folse Culinary Institute. Since 2014, Wildblood served as the assistant pastry chef at Coushatta Casino Resort and worked as an adjunct instructor at South West Louisiana Community College.

In her new position, Wildblood will work to develop new creative food concepts on property as well as assist in the oversight of the many kitchens on property.

My desire to entertain and inspire others through the palate is what motivated me to become a chef, said Amanda Wildblood, sous chef at Cypress Bayou Casino Hotel. I am excited to learn from the talented culinary staff in place at the property and am eager to teach some of the talents that I bring with me, continued Wildblood.

Wildblood will assume her new role immediately.
In expanding its web security services to the European market, Cloudbric has just announced its newest partner SQNetworks, a managed security service provider based in the Netherlands that offers a full range of cybersecurity services and business solutions.

Europe is one of Cloudbrics key target regions in their pursuit of global expansion to meet the growing demand for cybersecurity solutions worldwide. In fact, the Europe cybersecurity market is anticipated to grow 11.3% CAGR and become a USD 47.17 billion market by 2023.

Europe currently holds the second largest market share in the global cybersecurity market and is one of the reasons initiatives like the GDPR have upped the regions cybersecurity capabilities and cooperation in combating cyberattacks.

The implementation of the GDPR has prompted SMEs and enterprises to comply with comprehensive security standards but has proved challenging, and businesses are incurring more costs for compliance than anticipated.

Accordingly, businesses exposed to cybersecurity threats must look beyond data security compliance regulations to protect their customers. Through this partnership, SQNetworks will look to integrate Cloudbrics enterprise web application security as a part of a comprehensive cybersecurity suite of services to their existing partnership network and clientele throughout Europe.

Furthermore, as a partner to Chubb, an insurance products and services firm, SQNetworks will strengthen their current portfolio of security products by delivering risk assessment tools and reports in addition to their different Cyber Resilience Services, inclusive of Cloudbric, to Chubb partners. In return this allows Cloudbric to tap into new partner networks and grow its services even further.

By continuing to expand a full suite of cybersecurity services globally, Cloudbric is helping businesses ensure that high level security is also meeting productivity and efficiency standards. In Europe especially, the stakes are high for data compliance, so were committed to reach more users and build and solidify our footprint in the cybersecurity market in the region, TJ Jung, CEO of Cloudbric, said.

With the expansion of our services through Cloudbric we see a nice addition to mitigating threats to the rapidly changing cybersecurity landscape. We are therefore proud of the fact that the cooperation with Cloudbric has taken shape and foresee a very large growth of services in the coming years. Marko van Vliet, CEO of SQNetworks, said.

Since 2017, Cloudbric began to slowly expand its services into Europe and is excited to have SQNetworks onboard as their latest partner.

About Cloudbric

Cloudbric is a decentralized universal security platform featuring enterprise-grade website, mobile device and crypto asset security, as well as access to a community driven threat intelligence database all powered through a new technology called VISION (patent pending). It features one of the most accurate (low false positive rated) security detection engines on the market. Visit cloudbric.com to begin using their website services today.

About SQNetworks

SQNetworks is a cyber security company with a razor-sharp focus on monitoring your business continuity. The cyber security services are always fully in balance with your business objectives. Our experts map out the best available technology worldwide and make it directly applicable to your organization. To facilitate cyber resilience within your organization, you do not need to be a cyber security expert yourself. What distinguishes us in the market that both the business departments and the IT department with the software platform of SQNetworks are able to work together to achieve the business objectives. Cyber security has thus become a mature part of the business. Visit sqnetworks.com to learn more about the Cyber Services of SQNetworks.
Joining Otus offered a profound opportunity to continue to build an industry-leading platform that fosters student growth and shapes the next generation of learners.

Otus, a Chicago-based educational technology provider for K-12 school communities, today announced the appointment of Ed Earley as Chief Software Architect.

Earley most recently served as Head of Engineering and Chief Architect at SpotHero, where he focused on a large-scale transformation of the companys engineering organization, architecture and internal processes. He previously served as CTO at Scientific Games, where he oversaw all aspects of multiple casino gaming business lines in U.S. and European markets. Earley holds a bachelors degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a masters from the University of Chicago.

As part of Otus leadership team, Earley will focus on building up the platforms architectural and technology vision and scaling the engineering teams processes and organization.

Ed has a proven track record of building high-performance teams and innovative platforms, said Otus Chief Operating Officer Keith Westman. His leadership and vision will help take Otus to the next level in our mission to transform K-12 edtech and help educators, students and parents be more productive, connected and informed. This is an incredibly exciting next chapter for Otus.

Joining Otus offered a profound opportunity to help build an industry-leading platform that fosters student growth and shapes the next generation of learners, said Earley. I knew I wanted to be part of that transformation, bringing my decades of experience in delivering cutting-edge architecture and building dynamic teams to keep this company at the forefront of edtech.

Otus, which is free for students, teachers, and families, was recently named by Built In Chicago as one of the 100 best places to work in Chicago. It has also been recognized as the Best Learning Analytics Solution by EdTech Digest. The company recently unveiled several added features, including its new student profile, which highlights student performance across a variety of metrics and timeframes, and its interactive historical analytics, which will be available in 2019 to enhance educators understanding of student performance and improvement over time. All of these tools are designed to support the successful implementation of initiatives such as standards-based grading, differentiated instruction, and data-informed decision making.

About @OtusK12

Otus is a Chicago-based education technology company that has developed an innovative school operating system for K-12 classrooms, schools, and districts. Otus provides an all-in-one technology platform for the entire school community and allows users to easily view student engagement, performance, and progress. Designed and built by teachers and school administrators, Otus empowers teachers in the classroom, informs school leaders, keeps students engaged and organized, and helps parents stay better connected. Otus features three primary components: a Classroom and Learning Management System, an Assessment Platform, and a Data Management system. Otus was named one of Chicagos 100 best places to work by Built In Chicago in 2019. The company received EdTech Digests 2018 award for Best Learning Analytics Solution, and it has been listed in District Administration magazines Top 100 Products ranking. For more information, visit http://www.otus.com and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
A new women-owned and controlled Kansas City law firm is providing legal services in a common-sense way. Founded by Big Law veterans, PEAK Litigation promotes straightforward and transparent pricing.

Most law firms bill by the hour, charging clients for every six minutes an attorney spends on a matter. This can lead to tension; lawyers are not economically incentivized to resolve matters quickly, and clients lack any means of accurately predicting their legal expenses. In Clios 2018 Legal Trends Report, 54 percent of legal clients reported they worried about, never knowing how much a lawyer will cost in total.

PEAK Litigation is bucking that trend. For clients who want pricing certainty, PEAK Litigation works with the client up front to provide a budget, strategy and proposed fee covering the life of the matter. Legal matters can be structured with fixed fees, budget caps or success bonuses, depending on the clients legal and business goals. The firm provides regular updates on both the case and the budget that are uniquely catered to match each clients need.

Its an approach that works for business clients  who worry about balance sheets as much as dockets  and is more rewarding for the lawyers, said Emily Sullivan, a founding partner and PEAK Litigations chairwoman.

By its nature, litigation is a challenge. Its hard enough to manage risk, strategy and resources  law firms shouldnt make it harder with inefficiency and guesswork, she said. We take pride in truly understanding our clients goals and finding ways to make their lives easier, whether thats through proactive reporting, predictable pricing or just plain common-sense answers.

Along with Sullivan, PEAKs founders are Kristi Burmeister, Aaron Craig and Pat Fanning (PEAK is an acronym of the four founders initials). The four worked together at litigation powerhouse Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P., where they served clients ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Their work has been recognized by the Association of Corporate Counsels Value Champion program and others for quality, efficiency and results.

PEAK Litigation represents individuals and companies on a variety of litigation matters, including contract disputes, business-to-business commercial disputes, fiduciary duty and partnership claims, trust and estate disputes, product liability claims and personal injury matters. Its alternative fee model is available for both plaintiffs and defendants.

After a soft opening in September 2018, the firm is now fully staffed and open to the public at 4900 Main Street, Suite 160, Kansas City, Missouri.

The firms approach already has attracted a number of local clients who value the promise of, skilled representation and straightforward pricing.

Its rewarding to work with lawyers who are so invested in meeting our goals  from providing intelligent budgeting to pursuing our ultimate business objectives economically and intelligently, said Sara Meinhard, senior corporate counsel and head of litigation at Cerner Corporation. We congratulate them on this exciting new venture and look forward to being a part of their future in Kansas City.

About PEAK Litigation:

PEAK Litigation LLP is a women-owned and women-controlled law firm, built by four trial attorneys with more than 50 years of collective Big Law experience. The firm represents individuals, small businesses and corporations in a full range of commercial litigation matters. For more information, visit http://www.PEAKlitigation.com.
Driven by the twin forces of growth and its projected impact on strategic direction at the C-level, Benzer Pharmacy has responded in kind, turning to accomplished retail pharmacy and healthcare technology expert Meghann Chilcott to lead future decision-making efforts as the companys new Chief Technology and Marketing Officer.

In a prolific career spanning more than 20 yearsacross the healthcare, retail, pharmaceutical and technology industriesChilcott has established an enviable track record of success, both from the viewpoint of practical, real-world experience, as well as from the advanced perspective of an academic authority.

Regarding the former, at her previous position as Senior Vice President of OrderInsite, a retail drug forecasting service, she played pivotal roles in business development and strategic partnerships, as well as in sales and branding management, among others.

Prior to that, Chilcott held a VP post with Freds, Inc., a southeastern U.S. chain of discount retail stores, supervising IT and pharmacy systems for approximately 370 pharmacies in 15 states; and also served in several capacities at Navarro Discount Pharmacies in Miami, capping off a productive nine-year tenure with her promotion to Director of Pharmacy Services.

Learning the ins and outs of the business has been essential for Chilcott, as she explained, Ive done a little bit of everything, ranging from spearheading pharmacy operations to building frameworks for healthcare technology and beyond. All of it factors-in to what it takes to become an industry leader.

On the academic side of the ledger, she holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology; and is currently completing studies at Nova Southeastern University College of Medicine in pursuit of a Masters in Biomedical Informatics.

Earning her extra credit, Meghann is also highly skilled with the written word, penning healthcare technology articles published regularly on Forbes as a member of the magazines technology council. Just as impressively, shes active in online media as a co-host of FutureDose.Tech, a platform for discussion of the latest trends in the industry on the Pharmacy Podcast Network.

As it relates to next steps at Benzer Pharmacy, her vision is undeniably clear: I believe the company has the agility and nimble positioning necessary to remain at the forefront of the technological transformations that are setting the stage for tomorrow.

No doubt thats going to take some heavy lifting, especially in terms of her stated goals to streamline operational processes and develop a top-notch, personalized patient experience.

Yet, none of it throws Chilcott, who is a ready match for every challenge.

Unifying technology, marketing and business intelligence will allow our pharmacists to interact with patients in ways never experienced before, she reasoned. Its a bold new future for the pharmacy industry and Im truly excited to be part of it. Just as excited, perhaps, as we are to have Meghann part of Benzer Pharmacy.

To learn more, visit http://www.benzerpharmacy.com.

About Benzer Pharmacy. Founded in 2009, Benzer Pharmacy is a chain of independent retail pharmacies specializing in compounding and specialty medication. Currently, there are 66 corporate-owned and 34 franchise locations situated throughout 23 states, including Florida, Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Louisiana, New York, Missouri, Mississippi, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, and Idaho. Projections call for continued rapid growth as the organization seeks to substantially increase its customer base, while ensuring experiences match expectations at every touchpoint.

Benzer Pharmacy has made four straight appearances on Inc. 5,000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America from 2015-2018; correspondingly, the company earned 39th place on the 2015 Florida Fast 100 list, while concurrently placing 67th on the 2015 TBBJ 200 list of Tampa Bays largest private companies. Benzer was also voted favorite pharmacy in the 2015 Best of Fuquay Varina in North Carolina, and achieved PCAB compounding accreditation with Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC). All Benzer Pharmacy medications require a doctor's prescription.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BenzerPharmacy

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/benzerpharmacy

SOURCE: Benzer Pharmacy
The beginning of an ambitious expansion strategy, one rooted in establishing a stronger retail presence in The Buckeye State by opening 10 new pharmacies and 2 more coming in the early part of this year.

Another allegiance between Benzer Pharmacy and a longstanding storefront has just been announcedthis time around in Alliance, Ohioknown locally as The Carnation City.

As President Alpesh Patel sees it, the new partnership in Alliance, Ohio is a cornerstone of the companys efforts to improve the delivery of pharmaceutical services in small communities across the country.

Living in less populated areas doesnt have to mean living with higher costs or untimely delays in prescription refill time, Patel said. As the first pharmacy to come online in the system, we envision the new Alliance, Ohio location will flower into something very special for local customersthe same location theyve known for years, only reborn with a new look and a host of new benefits for the first time.

Among the advantages, customers will likely see more competitive prices and group discounts on certain medications. Meanwhile, staff members themselves will enjoy enhanced support functions on the back end, which represents a win-win on both sides of the counter.

Benzer Pharmacy believes in what were doing to improve the pharmacy business from the ground up, Patel explained. With a little TLC, backed by a brand that has the resources to stand toe-to-toe with the big box stores, we offer a powerful combination to cultivate success in any setting.

The new Benzer Pharmacy is located at 1696 S. Arch Avenue in Alliance, OH 44601. Weekday store hours are 9am to 7pm. Saturday hours are 9am to 3pm. Phone: 330-823-2266.

The list of all Ohio locations:

1) Benzer Pharmacy Holding, 1549 Boettler Rd.Suite B,Uniontown, OH 44685

2) Benzer Pharmacy Holding, 57 W Main St, Newark, OH 43055

4) Benzer Pharmacy Holding 244 N. Main Street, Utica, OH 43080

5) Benzer Pharmacy Holding 26 E. Third St, Frazeysburg, OH 43822

6) Benzer Pharmacy Holding 817 Main Street, Dresden, OH 43821

7) Benzer Pharmacy Holding 1650 W Church St ,Newark, OH 43055

8) Benzer Pharmacy Holding 155 N Point Dr, Mt. Orab, OH 45154

9) Benzer Pharmacy Holding 263 Xenia Ave, Yellow Springs, OH 45387

10) Benzer Pharmacy Holding 96-D Integrity Dr., Hebron, OH 43025

11) Benzer Pharmacy Holding 1696 S. Arch Avenue in Alliance, OH 44601.

To find the closest Benzer Pharmacy near you, visit http://www.benzerpharmacy.com/locations.

About Benzer Pharmacy. Founded in 2009, Benzer Pharmacy is a chain of independent retail pharmacies specializing in compounding and specialty medication. Currently, there are 66 corporate-owned and 30 franchise locations situated throughout 23 states, including Florida, Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Louisiana, New York, Missouri, Mississippi, Maryland, Indiana and Idaho. Projections call for continued rapid growth as the organization seeks to substantially increase its customer base, while ensuring experiences match expectations at every touchpoint.

Benzer Pharmacy has made four straight appearances on Inc. 5,000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America from 2015-2018; correspondingly, the company earned 39th place on the 2015 Florida Fast 100 list, while concurrently placing 67th on the 2015 TBBJ 200 list of Tampa Bays largest private companies. Benzer was also voted favorite pharmacy in the 2015 Best of Fuquay Varina in North Carolina, and achieved PCAB compounding accreditation with Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC). All Benzer Pharmacy medications require a doctor's prescription.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BenzerPharmacy

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/benzerpharmacy

SOURCE: Benzer Pharmacy
AssuredPartners Regional President Jack Suber noted, The Langley Agency brings nearly 30 years of leadership experience and customer care with a notable track record of retention."

AssuredPartners, Inc. is pleased to announce the acquisition of The Langley Agency of Boca Raton, Florida. Specializing in securing the insurance needs of individuals, families and small business owners, The Langley Agency has been a respected name in Southern Florida. The agency will remain under the current leadership of Brent Langley.

Established in 1990, we built The Langley Agency with the understanding that living in a coastal community provides some unique challenges. We represent carefully selected carriers to protect our clients as we support our community, stated Brent Langley of The Langley Agency. Joining AssuredPartners allows us to continue to be an active part of the community while partaking in the support of a larger organization, specifically with a vast presence in Florida.

AssuredPartners Regional President Jack Suber noted, The Langley Agency brings nearly 30 years of leadership experience and customer care with a notable track record of retention. We are pleased to welcome the team and clients of Langley to AssuredPartners as this addition is consistent with our operations in the Florida marketplace.

For more information on The Langley Agency, please visit: http://www.thelangleyagency.com.

ABOUT ASSUREDPARTNERS, INC

Headquartered in Lake Mary, Florida and led by Jim Henderson and Tom Riley, AssuredPartners, Inc. acquires and invests in insurance brokerage businesses (property and casualty, employee benefits, surety and MGUs) across the United States and in London. From its founding in March of 2011, AssuredPartners has grown to over $1.1 billion in annualized revenue and continues to be one of the fastest growing insurance brokerage firms in the United States with over 170 offices in 30 states and London. For more information, please contact Dean Curtis, CFO, at 407.708.0031 or dean.curtis(at)assuredpartners.com, or visit http://www.assuredpartners.com.
The Winners of ALOHA Mind Math's 2018 2nd National Math Challenge for kids with over $40,000 in prizes Cash prizes for the 2019 ALOHA Math Challenge will total more than $43,000. Over 1,300 students participated in ALOHAs 2018's 2nd Annual National Math Challenge.

Registration for ALOHAs 3rd Annual National Math Challenge for kids, offering over $43,000 in cash prizes, is open to children (grades 1-6) through February 15, 2019. This math test-based competition for kids is open to students grades 1-6 nationally.* Sign up continues through Feb.15, 2019 click for more info.

ALOHAs 2019 National Math Challenge features three separate age categories with 5 cash prize winners in each category. Cash prizes will total more than $43,000. Over 1,300 students participated last year in ALOHAs 2nd Annual National Math Challenge. Each student registered for the 2019 Challenge will compete within their age group across three rounds of testing. The preliminary test round will be held March 16, 2019. Qualifying students will be invited to compete in the semi-finals on Apr 13, and qualifying finalists will be invited to the final round held in Edison NJ in May, 2019.** Registration fee for contest: For current ALOHA students: $45 for the first child, for non-ALOHA students, $60*; sibling discounts available. Registration is open through February 15, 2019. Click/tap here to register.

How Does This National Math Challenge Work?

Students will compete in three categories: Pre-Jr: grades 1& 2; Jr: grades 3 & 4 and Sr: grades 5 & 6. The math challenge is open to all students, not just to those enrolled in an ALOHA program, although there are some state restrictions* (see eligibility information below). Children will be tested with competitive math-type questions that are grade level appropriate. Students will not be allowed to use calculators or an abacus. Scratch note paper and pencils will be allowed.

ALOHA Mind Math National Challenge Prizes:



Pre-Junior Challenge (Grades 1-2)

1st Prize: $5,000; 2nd Prize: $2,000; 3rd Prize: $1,000; 4th Prize: $750; 5th Prize: $500.



Junior Challenge (Grades 3-4)

1st Prize: $7,500; 2nd Prize: $3,000; 3rd Prize: $1,500; 4th Prize: $1,000; 5th Prize: $750.



Senior Challenge (Grades 5-6)

1st Prize: $10,000; 2nd Prize: $5,000; 3rd Prize: $2,500; 4th Prize: $1,500; 5th Prize: $1,000.

*Some restrictions apply, please see contest eligibility information below and full rules and regulations at: https://alohamathchallenge.com/math-challenge-rules/

** Final Round Entrants and their Eligible Children must travel to Edison, New Jersey to compete in the Final Round. See complete details in the contest rules and regulations.

How Can a Child Get Involved in ALOHA Programs?

ALOHA currently works with children in grades K through 6th in Math, Reading and Writing at over 100 locations in 19 states across the U.S., including: AL, AR, AZ, CA, CT, FL, GA, IL, MA, MI, MO, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TX, VA. For more details on these programs, go to http://ALOHAMindMath.com, search for a nearby center using ALOHA's online center locator, check the ALOHA Facebook page (Facebook.com/aloha.usa), or call 877-256-4203 to find a center near you. Each ALOHA learning center is independently owned and operated.

About ALOHA

Since 2006, ALOHA Mind Math, a leading provider of mental arithmetic and English Reading | Writing after school programs, has been helping children in the U.S. between the ages of 3 through 12 achieve academic excellence. Other programs also include a Tiny Thinkers pre-school program for ages 3-5 and Math and Reading Summer Camps. The interactive learning process ALOHA uses enhances a childs math, reading and writing capabilities. Teachers also assist children in developing skills and abilities such as critical thinking, observation, and listening that result in the overall growth of the child. The ALOHA program is also in use in 20 countries worldwide.

*Math Challenge Eligibility

The ALOHA National Math Challenge (the Contest) is open to legal residents of the United States except where our contest is not permitted by the laws of Colorado & North Dakota, and as such no Entrants will be accepted in these states or in any other jurisdiction where this Contest is not permitted by applicable law. All registrants must be a parent or legal guardian of a child that is in grades one (1) through six (6) (Eligible Child or, collectively, Eligible Children). Also, due to state laws, legal residents of Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois and Maryland may only participate if they are currently a parent or a guardian of a child that is enrolled in programs at an ALOHA Learning center and is currently in grades one (1) through six (6) and (Eligible Child or, collectively, Eligible Children). Employees (and their immediate families or those living in the same household) of Apogee Learning, LLC (Sponsor) or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, divisions, parent and related companies, franchisees, suppliers, printers and advertising, promotional and judging agencies (collectively, Sponsor Affiliates) are not eligible to enter or win. Parents or legal guardians wanting their child to participate in the Contest may do so by registering an Eligible Child in accordance with the complete rules and eligibility page (https://alohamathchallenge.com/math-challenge-rules/) before the Contest registration end date.
Australia is set to have a new record terrace price with Prue MacLeod and her husband Alasdair securing an off market purchase of a four-storey Potts Point home.

The sale of the attached grand Victorian Italianate residence, Highclere was secured by father and son flippers, Roy and Anthony Medich, who had bought the 340 sqm holding for $12.5 million in November 2017 from John McNiven.

The Medich's retain James Packers Bondi Beach home which was bought for a coastal record of $29 million as the Medich HQ.

It is understood the deal was done December 21.

The reputed $14 million off-market deal tops the earlier $13 million terrace record set by a freestanding grand 1880s-built terrace just two doors away when it was sold in 2016 by Heidi Onisforou to the lawyer Karen Beck.

The acquisition by Prue MacLeod, the eldest daughter of Rupert Murdoch, and her husband Alasdair coincides with the Wentworth Courier reporting late last year of their hopes to quietly off-load their Queen Street, Woollahra, for about $15 million.

Prue and Alasdair MacLeod bought their Woollahra residence in 2014 for $10.65 million from former mining boss Nick Curtis and his wife Angela for $10.65 million.

The house was previously owned by radio broadcaster John Laws before he sold it to the Curtises in 2004 for $7.7 million.
New Delhi, Jan 18 : With the country already in election mode, the formal schedule for the coming Lok Sabha polls is expected to be announced by the Election Commission in the first week of March and the process is likely to over seven to nine phases.

Assembly elections are also expected in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh along with the Lok Sabha polls. Jammu and Kashmir could also be added to the list as Home Minister Rajnath Singh had said in Parliament that government had no objection if the Election Commission wanted to go ahead with such a proposal.

Sources said a final decision has not been taken on the dates but the poll panel is likely to finalise an April-May schedule of election that will entail the end of election process by the middle of May. The schedule of 2014 general elections was announced on March 5 and that of 2009 elections on March 2.

The sources said that the poll panel is making necessary logistical calculations in terms of examination schedules, holidays and availability of security forces for what is the largest democratic exercise in the world.

The government had told the Lok Sabha earlier this week that it is prepared to hold assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, which is at present under President's Rule.

The term of the present Lok Sabha will end on June 3, that of Sikkim Assembly on May 27, Andhra Pradesh assembly on June 18, Odisha assembly on June 11 and Arunachal Pradesh assembly on June 1.
New Delhi, Jan 18 : The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Friday approved the acquisition of India's fourth largest supermarket chain -- Aditya Birla Retail Ltd (ABRL) -- by Witzig Advisory Services Private Ltd (WASPL) and also the acquisition of 49 per cent of its stake by an Amazon subsidiary.

"CCI approves acquisition of 99.99 per cent of the equity share capital of Aditya Birla Retail Limited (ABRL) by Witzig Advisory Services Private Limited," the CCI tweeted.

The fair trade regulator also gave approval to Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of US online retail giant Amazon, for acquiring 49 per cent stake in Witzig Advisory Services, a joint venture controlled by private equity firm Samara Capital.

"CCI approves acquisition of 49 per cent equity share capital of Witzig Advisory Services Private Limited by Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC," it said in another tweet.

The twin approvals by the country's anti-monopoly watchdog comes within a month of Centre tightening the norms for foreign direct investment (FDI) in e-commerce.

On December 26, 2018, the government revised the rules banning the sale of goods produced by an entity in which an e-commerce venture has a stake on its online platform. It also barred e-commerce venture from controlling inventory on its platform.

ABRL is the retail arm of $44-billion Aditya Birla Group. The company is into food and grocery retail sectors under the brand 'More' with two formats - Supermarket and Hypermarkets, as per its website.

Currently, it has 532 supermarkets and 20 hypermarkets across India.
Islamabad, Jan 18 : Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday stressed on expediting projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the country.

Chairing a meeting here, Khan reviewed progress of the CPEC projects in industrial development, special economic zones, road projects, agriculture development, infrastructure development and Gwadar port development.

He said that early completion of the CPEC-related projects was in great interest of Pakistan and it will bring huge socio-economic opportunities to the people, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Prime Minister said that Pakistan-China cooperation in industrial and agriculture sectors would help Islamabad tap its potential in these areas.

He also directed chairperson of the country's board of investment to present comprehensive recommendations on speedy development of special economic zones within four weeks time and decided to form CPEC Business Advisory Council to give recommendations to the government regarding the project.

The $60 billion CPEC is a key project of Beijing's Belt and Road initiative. India is opposed to the corridor whose planned route is through the disputed Kashmir held by Pakistan.
Brussels, Jan 18 : The European Commission proposed on Friday the elimination of tariffs for industrial goods with the US in future trade talks. The proposal will need approval from the EU member states.

The EU-US trade in goods amounted to 633 billion euros (about $722 billion) in 2017, of which 598 billion euros were in industrial goods, according to a press release by the European Commission.

In general, both the EU and the US have low tariffs on industrial goods. The average tariff rates on non-agricultural products were 4.2 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively, said the press release cited by Xinhua news agency.

"While applied tariffs levels are relatively low, the sheer size of our trade relationship means that the elimination of all tariffs of industrial goods will have an important impact on businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic," it said.

An internal analysis by the European Commission showed that if zero tariff on industrial goods comes true, EU exports of goods to the US would increase by 10 per cent and US exports to the EU would increase by 13 per cent.

In addition, the European Commission also proposed a conformity assessment that would help remove non-tariff barriers, by making it easier for companies to prove their products meet technical requirements on both sides of the Atlantic.

The EU and the US have their respective practices of conformity assessment to ensure that manufacturers can only place a product on the market when it meets all the applicable requirements, which may include testing, inspection and certification.

Differences in approaches to conformity assessment can result in additional costs and lengthy and complex administrative processes without necessarily improving the safety of products, according to the European Commission.

It added that the reduction in the costs of conformity assessment can bring significant economic benefits, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises The member states must now give their green light to the proposals before the EU-US negotiations can begin.

The proposals followed a joint EU-US statement in July 2018, in which the two sides agreed "to work together towards zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods".

"The joint statement was adopted under exceptional circumstances, in order to avoid an escalation of trade tensions between the EU and the US," the European Commission said on Friday in an official document.
Beijing, Jan 18 (IANS) The Chinese police must remain alert to any uprisings and defend the political stability of the country, the country's top security official has said.

The extremely paranoid Chinese government represses any form of dissent which, according to it, can turn into a movement. The authorities have an iron fist policy in quelling protests.

China's Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi on Thursday said that the police must "prevent coloured revolutions", a term used for popular uprisings in some countries in early 2000.

Kezhi asked the police to protect China's political security and the leadership of the ruling Communist Party. His remarks were posted on the website of the Ministry of Public Security.

The minister also said the police must guard against infiltration and any subversive activities by foreign forces in the country.

Under the all-powerful Chinese President Xi Jinping, the room for any debate has become narrower.

China's domestic security budgets outweigh its military budget. After mass self-immolations in Tibet and riots in Xinjiang, the government has become warier of any incidents.

Beijing has detained about 1 million Uighur Muslims at internment camps in Xinjiang in the name of "de-radicalization".

( can be contacted at sharmagaurav71@gmail.com)
Tokyo, Jan 18 : Japanese automaker Mitsubishi on Friday alleged that ousted Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn received $8.9 million in illegal payments from a Netherlands-based joint venture between April-November 2018.

Mitsubishi made the allegation in a statement which gave details of these operations, uncovered in an internal investigation, reports Efe news.

The accusation follows other alleged irregularities in Nissan, which controls Mitsubishi.

It said the payment was made by NissanMitsubishi BV (NMBV), a 50-50 venture set up in the Netherlands in June 2017.

The payment was done on the basis of an agreement "concluded by a person who was not authorized to do so (and) no appropriate procedure was taken to pay any remuneration to Ghosn".

It was made as remuneration on the basis of an employment agreement that NMBV and Ghosn entered into to appoint him as managing director, the statement said.

On April 26, 2018, both Mitsubishi and Nissan had paid approximately 15.62 million euros in total to NMBV as a service fee.

The statement said the payment Ghosn received was "hidden" from Mitsubishi but was discovered through the disclosure of information by Nissan.

Mitsubishi also said it "will further investigate the cause and consider action to pursue liability against Ghosn in collaboration with Nissan".

Ghosn, who has been in detention in Tokyo since November 19, 2018, was chairman of both Nissan and Mitsubishi, but was removed from the positions after his arrest.

Tokyo prosecutors have accused Ghosn of under-reporting his income by tens of millions of dollars in documents to investors based on an understanding that he would receive them as post-retirement compensation as well as of breach of trust.
Bogota, Jan 18 : At least 21 people were killed in a car bomb attack at a police academy in the Colombian capital of Bogota, authorities said.

An SUV laden with explosives was blown up on Thursday in the General Francisco de Paula Santander Officer's School, reports Efe news.

"The preliminary count stands at 21 deaths, including the perpetrator of the attack, and 68 injured, who were transferred to different care facilities with the help of the rescue and emergency services of the district," a police statement said.

Colombia's police and military training schools accept students from other Latin American countries.

The statement confirmed the identity of the attacker as Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, a native of Arauca who died upon detonating 80 kg of the high explosive pentolite that he was transporting in the SUV.

"Joint investigations with the Attorney General and other authorities are moving forward to establish the causes and culprits behind this terrorist act which has hurt Colombians," it said.

In a statement, President Ivan Duque vowed to punish those responsible for the attack.

"We Colombians have never submitted to terrorism and this will not be the exception, they won't bend us. We won't give way a single step to those who miserably attack society."
Chandigarh, Jan 18 : Leading brand in cycles, Hero Cycles, will invest around Rs 400 crore in the Hi-Tech Cycle Valley project in Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said here on Friday.

Hero Cycles on Friday signed an agreement with the Punjab government for allotment of 100 acres of land in the Cycle Valley which is coming up in 380 acres in Dhanansu in Ludhiana district.

The company will manufacture hi-tech cycles, e-bikes, e-vehicles and light engineering goods at the new plant.

The agreement was signed between Punjab Small Industries Export Corporation (PSIEC) Managing Director Rahul Bhandari and Hero Cycles Chairman Pankaj Munjal here in the presence of the Punjab Chief Minister.

"The project shall attract around Rs 400 crore investment by Hero Cycles and its suppliers/ancillaries and generate close to 1,000 direct employment opportunities. The industrial park will have a production capacity of four million bicycles per annum and the project shall be implemented within 36 months," the Chief Minister said.

Within the proposed project, Hero Cycles will develop its own anchor unit in 50 acres. In the remaining 50 acres, it will invite major national and international manufacturers as ancillary/vendor units.

The Hero Group produces 10 million cycles annually, which accounts for 7.5 per cent of the world production, Munjal said.

"The upcoming Cycle Valley Project would cater to 50 per cent demand of cycle production in India and Europe," he added.
New Delhi, Jan 18 : The Delhi High Court on Friday granted bail to alleged hawala dealer Muhammad Aslam Wani, who is accused of money-laundering.

The court allowed bail plea of Wani asking him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 3 lakh and two sureties of like amount.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in September 2017 filed a chargesheet against Wani and Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Wani was arrested on August 6, 2017. He had reportedly confessed that he had passed on hawala money amounting to Rs 2.25 crore to Shah.

Shah was arrested on July 25, 2017, on charges of money-laundering in previous case when the Delhi Police Special Cell arrested Wani.

Both of them have denied the charges.
Vijayawada, Jan 18 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which recently began a fresh investigation into a decade-old case of an Andhra girl student's rape and murder, on Friday questioned Satyam Babu who was acquitted in 2017.

A team of CBI officials were questioning the youth at his house near here. They were also recording the statement of his family members.

The central agency, which took up the investigation on the direction of the Hyderabad High Court in December, will also question the managers of a private hostel where the 19-year-old victim, a B.Pharmacy student, was raped and murdered on the intervening night of December 26-27, 2007.

The CBI registered two separate First Information Reports (FIRs) - one against unknown persons for the rape and murder and another against three employees of a Vijayawada court for destroying the evidence.

In 2008, police claimed that one Satyam Babu, arrested in a cell phone robbery case, confessed to the murder.

A court in Vijayawada, on September 10, 2010, convicted and sentenced Babu to life imprisonment.

The Hyderabad High Court in 2017 acquitted Babu and ordered action against the police officials involved. Subsequently, the state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conduct a fresh probe.

The High Court, which was supervising the probe by the SIT, found that evidence in the case was destroyed in the Mahila Court Vijayawada in 2014 even though the appeal against the conviction of Babu was pending in the High Court. Taking serious note of this, the High Court reached the conclusion that only a probe by an independent agency could bring out the truth.

The victim's parents, both teachers, had alleged that police had pinned the crime on Babu to misdirect the investigation as a relative of a powerful politician was involved in the crime.
Islamabad, Jan 18 : Pakistan has ruled out any role for India in the Afghan peace process, the media reported on Friday.

"India has no role in Afghanistan," Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said at the weekly media briefing on Thursday while responding to a query about Islamabad's position on New Delhi's part in the reconciliation process.

Faisal acknowledged that Pakistan has a difficult relationship with India, saying that despite Pakistan's efforts for normalisation, no concrete progress could be achieved in ties with India, Dawn news reported.

"You all know that India is not willing to engage with Pakistan," he reminded.

Faisal's remarks were in sharp contrast to what Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had told the National Assembly last month.

"Since India is present in Afghanistan, its cooperation in this regard (facilitating a negotiated settlement of the Afghan conflict) will also be required," he had told legislators.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump's Special Envoy on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad arrived in Pakistan on Thursday to discuss with the senior civil and military leadership the latest efforts to bring peace to the war-torn country.

Khalilzad, who met Taliban representatives last month in Abu Dhabi, is leading an inter-agency delegation to India, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan from January 8-21 to "facilitate a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan".
Panaji, Jan 18 : Accusing ailing Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar of avoiding meeting legislators from the Opposition, state Congress President Girish Chodankar on Friday said if Parrikar continues this, the Opposition party would raise a ruckus in the forthcoming state Assembly session.

"Parrikar has been skipping office regularly. When it comes to meeting him, it is only the ruling MLAs and BJP leaders that get preference. Despite repeated official requests, Parrikar has not even had the courtesy of meeting our Leader of Opposition, let alone any Congress MLA," Chodankar told reporters here.

"If he dodges meeting the Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar on Monday during the Assembly Business Advisory Committee meeting, then the Congress MLAs will raise the issue of his inaccesibility in the Assembly session," he added.

In the Business Advisory Committee meeting, the agenda for the upcoming three-day Budget Session of the state Legislative Assembly, scheduled to be held later in January, is expected to be finalised.

Both Parrikar, as Chief Minister and Kavlekar as Leader of Opposition, are part of the six-member Committee.

Parrikar is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York since February 2018. While the former Defence Minister, strapped with medical paraphernalia, has been making public appearances now and then, public access to the Chief Minister is limited, much to the chargin of the Opposition members.

According to sources in the Goa Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Parrikar is expected to attend the Assembly session which begins on January 29.

"The Chief Minister will take part in the Assembly proceedings and will table the budget too, irrespective of health concerns," a party functionary said on condition of anonymity.
Washington, Jan 18 (IANS) US President Donald Trump has barred Speaker Nancy Pelosi from flying on a Pentagon plane to Afghanistan in a tit-for-tat for her blocking his State of the Union Address as a new act unfolded in the farcical drama of egos playing on the sidelines of the government shutdown paralysing all but vital operations.

Mirroring her reasons for cancelling Trump's ceremonial speech to Congress, the President wrote to Pelosi on Thursday that "due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed".

"We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over," he added.

On Wednesday, Pelosi had written to the President that he could not deliver the address because security cannot be assured due to the shutdown.

Trump has announced he was cutting the number of US troops by half to 7,000 in Afghanistan while its government is battling the Taliban and other terrorist organisations, some backed by Pakistan.

He also grounded his Cabinet members -- Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Rossm -- who were to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Even Republican leaders criticised Trump's response to Pelosi. "One sophomoric response does not deserve another," Senator Lindsey Graham said, while fellow Republican Senator John Cornyn remarked that there was too much "childishness" in the Trump-Pelosi fight.

Trump ordered the flight cancelled just as Pelosi was preparing to fly out to visit American troops in Afghanistan on a mission that had been kept secret for security reasons.

Buses were even waiting outside the Capitol with some members of her entourage already on board to take them to a military base for the flight when cancellation was announced.

Trump sarcastically suggested that she could fly to the war zone on commercial planes.

Pelosi's spokesperson Drew Hamill said that the stop in Brussels that Trump mentioned was to give the pilot a break and while there she had planned to meet NATO leaders. The trip was to "express appreciation and thanks" to the troops in Afghanistan and to get security and intelligence briefings, he added.

He said that Egypt was not on Pelosi's itinerary contrary to Trump's claim.

Trump's wife Melania, meanwhile, reportedly took a military Boeing jet to Palm Beach, Florida, where he has the Mar-a-Laga resort. The White House would not confirm the trip or disclose its purpose.

Trump and his officials were reportedly working on alternatives to the cancelled State of the Union Address scheduled for January 29.

Republican Representative Mark Meadows said that Trump was planning to deliver the address outside the House chamber, heightening the drama.

Amid the political theatrics, the shutdown entered its 28th day on Friday with no signs of a compromise to end the crisis.

Trump is standing firm on his demand for $5.6 billion to be included in the budget for building a wall along the Mexican border, while Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and most Democrats are equally uncompromising that they won't give in.

During his campaign, Trump had made the wall to deter illegal immigrants and smugglers a key electoral promise.

As a result of the standoff, there is no federal budget to fund government operations leading to the shutdown affecting about 800,000 employees.

None of them, including those in essential services like security, aviation and tax collection who continue to work, have been paid since January 11.

Their tales of economic distress are beginning to pour out and Democrats hope a groundswell of sympathy would pressure Trump to compromise.

( can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis)
London, Jan 18 : British Prime Minister Theresa May will not attend this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to focus on resolving the Brexit crisis following the House of Commons' overwhelming rejection of her plan earlier this week.

The UK leader will remain in London next week to focus on "matters at home", a Downing Street spokesperson told CNN on Thursday. The government will be represented by "senior ministers", likely to be Chancellor Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark, added the spokesperson.

The World Economic Forum is scheduled to begin on January 22 and will run till January 25.

The Downing Street announcement came following a turbulent week for May during which her Brexit plan was dismissed by the UK Parliament. Her government was later subjected to a no-confidence vote which it survived by a narrow margin.

May was expected to hold calls with EU leaders in the coming days. She will publish a revised Brexit blueprint on Monday, before the Parliament debates it on January 29.

Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29, currently without any arrangements in place for doing so.

Experts warned that the UK's failure to secure a formal deal could lead to travel chaos, food shortages and a catastrophic economic slump in the British economy.

Now, May only has just 70 days to work together with opposition parties, as well as several competing factions within her own Conservative party, to secure a compromise Brexit deal that can win a majority in the Parliament.

May joins US President Donald Trump on the list of Western leaders too embattled by domestic politics to attend the elite gathering. French President Emmanuel Macron will also skip the ceremony.

Last week, Trump announced that he would cancel his own Davos trip due to a standoff over border security funding.

Both leaders attended the event last year.
Bengaluru, Jan 18 : Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Friday said the Central government should confer the Bharat Ratna on Tumakuru Siddaganga mutt's 111-year-old pontiff Shivakumara Swami.

"I had recommended Bharat Ratna for Swami in 2006 itself for his good work. If necessary, we will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to grant the award to Swami," Kumaraswamy told the media here.

The Swami, who has been in and out of hospitals lately due to advanced age, is currently being treated at the Siddaganga mutt in Tumakuru, about 70 km northwest of Bengaluru.

Known among his followers as a walking god and an incarnation of 12th century social reformer Basava, the Lingayat seer is also the head of the Sree Siddaganga Education Society which runs about 125 educational institutions in the state -- from engineering colleges to business schools.

Kumaraswamy said he had recommended the Swami's name to the Central government for the highest civilian award 13 years ago when he was the Chief Minister heading the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition.

The BJP's state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa also said that the party would request the Prime Minister to confer the award on the seer.

"His Holiness Shivakumara Swami is a remarkable personality and has positively impacted crores of lives through his outstanding service. The entire nation is praying for his speedy recovery and good health," Modi had tweeted earlier.

Thousands of followers and students have gathered outside the mutt in Tumakuru, praying for the pontiff's health.
New Delhi, Jan 17 : The BJP on Thursday blamed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for the death of 331 homeless people in the last 45 days due to cold conditions in the national capital, saying his government has failed on all fronts.

"The winter season comes as a disaster for the homeless of Delhi as every year more than 200 homeless people die in December itself," Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said addresing a press conference.

Citing the report of the Centre for Holistic Development (CHD), Tiwari said, "The recently published report of the CHD has revealed that during the last 45 days, 331 homeless people have died in the national capital."

He said according to CHD data, 96 people have died within 14 days of January and in the coming days of January this number may go up.

The BJP MP from North-East Delhi constituency said in north Delhi itself, 23 homeless people have died, which is the highest for any part of Delhi.

"The responsibility of providing shelter to the homeless people of Delhi lies with the Delhi government," he said.

Citing the data provided by the Shelter Board of Delhi, Tiwari said, "More than 200 shelter homes were set up for the homeless but the reality about these shelter homes was shown to everyone by the media.

"In spite of all these, Kejriwal spent crores of rupees in the name of shelter homes. The Kejriwal government has not only failed on every front, but it is also responsible for the death of these homeless people," he said.

Citing the data of last four years, Tiwari said that since the Aam Aadmi Party government came to power in Delhi, every year in December, more than 250 people die.

He said that in 2015 December, 251 homeless people died, in 2016 December, 235 people lost their lives, while in 2017 December, this number was 250.

"In 2018 December, 235 died due to intense cold conditions. And if we compile this data for the whole year, then the total number of 3,222 homeless people died in 2015, 3,398 people in 2016, 2,979 in 2017 and 3,289 in 2018 in Delhi," he claimed.

Tiwari also said that the data was not only shocking but also shameful for Delhi and the country. "But Kejriwal does not take this problem seriously. Kejriwal and his government are responsible for the deaths of these homeless people every year in Delhi," he added.
Varanasi, Jan 17 (IANS) Decked up with hundreds of mono and multi-colour lights with a special-effects system synchronised with soothing music, the entire stretch from Rajghat Bridge to Samne Ghat Bridge on the Ganga river is being spruced up to welcome delegates to the upcoming Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) celebrations in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Varanasi Parliamentary constituency.

Beside ghats on the bank of Ganga which are main attractions of the holy city, the TV Tower, Town Hall, Manikarnika Gate, Old Kashinath Temple, BHU Temple, Durga Temple, Railway Station and Sarnath Museum will also be showcased with facade lighting for the three-day PBD event being held here for the first time from January 21.

Adding more colour to the massive lighting-up exercise, over 1,800 heritage street light poles are being installed with about 2,500 lights at 26 stretches of roads in the city to receive international guests.

The Central Public Works Department, the Centre's construction agency under the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, has been roped in to undertake the special-effect lighting job, including facade lighting and street lighting, at an estimated cost of about Rs 50 crore for the global meet.

Lighting up the entire city along with those ghats before the PBD event was a challenging task, said a senior CPWD official involved with the job.

The Varanasi ghats are riverfront steps leading to the banks of the River Ganges and the main attraction spots of the city. Most of the ghats are bathing and puja ghats, while a few are used as cremation sites. Most Varanasi ghats were built after 1700, when the city was part of the Maratha Empire.

Concerted efforts are on to make the evening arati a memorable experience for the PBD delegates at the Ganga ghats.

Though there are total 84 ghats between Assi Ghat and Rajghat, the facade lighting system will cover only 62 ghats as some of the othes are in a highly dilapidated state.

Facade lighting has been installed along most of the seven km stretch between Assi Ghat and Rajghat, including the double-decker Rajghat bridge, said the official.

While the facade lighting will have total 3,000 LED lights, there will be 1,867 heritage street light poles and 2,451 street light fittings operational to dazzle up the holy city.

A tent city comprising 12 massive structures in white has come up in the heart of the township to host the PBD event.

Arrangements have been made for the PBD delegates to travel to Allahabad for participating the Kumbh Mela at Prayag.

Three special trains will be pressed into service to ferry PBD delegates from Allahabad to New Delhi on January 24 evening to enable them witnessing the Republic Day Parade on January 26.

( can be contacted at akdas2005@gmail.com)
Chandigarh, Jan 17 : A special CBI court in Panchkula on Thursday sentenced Dera Sacha Sauda sect chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh to life imprisonment in the murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati.

The court also sentenced his three close aides, Krishan Lal, Kuldeep Singh and Nirmal Singh, who were also found guilty of the murder of Chhatrapati in 2002, to life imprisonment.

Ram Rahim's life imprisonment will begin after the completion of the 20-year jail term in the rape cases for which he was convicted earlier.

CBI counsel H.P.S. Verma told media that Ram Rahim will have to remain in prison for life following Thursday's judgment.

Ram Rahim and the three others were convicted by the CBI court on January 11. All the four were convicted under Section 302 (murder) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The judgement came over 16 years after the murder of the journalist.

"The punishment is satisfactory. We had to fight a lot to get him punished," Anshul Chhatrapati, son of the slain journalist told media after the sentencing.

Ram Rahim is already lodged in Sunaria jail near Rohtak after his conviction on August 25, 2017 for the rape of two women disciples. He was sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment in the case.

The judgement was delivered by judge Jagdeep Singh. The same judge had earlier convicted Ram Rahim in the rape case of two female disciples on August 25, 2017 and sentenced him to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.

The judge also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on Ram Rahim and others. Ram Rahim and the three others were convicted by the CBI court on January 11.

All the four were convicted under Section 302 (murder) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).The judgment came over 16 years after the murder of the journalist.

Arguments of lawyers of the CBI, Chhatrapati's family and the sect chief were held for over two hours. The sentencing came over two hours after that. The counsel for Ram Rahim pleaded for a lesser sentence, citing the social work being done by the sect.

Ram Rahim appeared before the court through video conferencing from the Sunaria Jail near Rohtak where he is lodged. The other three convicts appeared through video-conferencing from the Ambala jail.

Sources said Ram Rahim, 51, looked pale as he appeared before the court. Chhatrapati's son Anshul had demanded capital punishment for the disgraced self-styled godman.

Chhatrapati, who edited a newspaper in Sirsa, was shot five times on October 24, 2002. He died later that year on November 21 in a hospital in New Delhi.

He had published the letter of a 'sadhvi' (female disciple) of the sect, in which she had highlighted her sexual exploitation by the sect chief, in his local vernacular newspaper 'Poora Sach'.

The publication of the letter and other stories carried by Chhatrapati, which were critical of the activities of the sect and its chief, had upset Ram Rahim who asked his close aides to eliminate the journalist.

Security was heightened in parts of Haryana and Punjab ahead of the sentencing. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court complex in Panchkula's Sector 1, adjoining Chandigarh, was a virtual fortress on Thursday with strict checking of all people and vehicles coming to the area.

Anti-riot police was present in strength outside the court complex. The local administration imposed Section 144 Cr.PC in the area to prevent the assembly of five or more people.

The area around the Sunaria Jail near Rohtak, where Ram Rahim is lodged, was completely sealed by security personnel. Security was tightened in Haryana's Sirsa town, around 260 km from here, where the sect's headquarters is located.

Haryana Police personnel and three companies of paramilitary forces were statioed around the sect campus. The Punjab Police had also taken preventive security measures in the neighbouring state as the sect has lakhs of followers in Bathinda, Mansa, Moga and Sangrur.

Ram Rahim's conviction on August 25, 2017, had led to violence in Panchkula and Sirsa, leaving 41 people dead and over 260 injured. The court on Wednesday allowed authorities in Haryana to produce the disgraced sect chief and three others before it through video-conferencing for their sentencing.

Ram Rahim, who was patronized by political leaders and parties of Punjab and Haryana for nearly two decades due to his ability to shift votes of his followers, is now lodged in jail following his conviction on two counts of rape of his female disciples.

The sect chief is also linked to the murder of former Dera manager Ranjit Singh (in July 2002). The matter is being heard by the CBI court.

Ranjit Singh, who was believed to be privy to wrongdoing in the sect headquarters, was shot dead in July 2003.

The sect chief suspected that Ranjit Singh was responsible for complaints of sexual exploitation of female disciples inside the sect campus coming out in the public.
Shimla, Jan 17 : The Himachal Pradesh government on Thursday approved 24 industrial proposals for new and existing units, involving an investment of Rs 1,047 crore and generating employment for over 1,900 people.

The proposals got the nod at the fifth meeting of the state single window clearances and monitoring authority, chaired by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, here.

The new proposals include those by Alcobrew Distilleries India Pvt Ltd, FCI Aravali Gypsum and Minerals India Ltd and cement-maker Nohra Dhar, while the existing units comprise Luminous Power Tech Pvt Ltd, Beta Drugs Ltd, Mankind Pharma Ltd and TVS Motor Company Ltd, a government statement said.

The state government is eyeing an investment of Rs 80,000 crore by wooing investors mainly in healthcare and wellness, tourism, hydropower, fruit processing and health sectors.

It will be holding a mega investors summit in Dharamsala in June with participation from foreign investors.
New Delhi, Jan 17 : Aerospace major Airbus' ACH145 twin-engine helicopter has entered into India's private and business aviation market, a fully customised version being developed to Adar Poonawalla, CEO and Executive Director of Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer by doses.

Airbus Corporate Helicopters (ACH), which made the delivery, is the dedicated private and business aviation helicopter brand of Airbus Helicopters.
London, Jan 17 : The UK Parliament will vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's "Plan B" for Brexit on January 29, the Leader of House of Commons said on Thursday.

Andrea Leadsom told lawmakers that the Prime Minister would put forward a motion and make a statement to the lower chamber on what her next steps would be on January 21, Efe news reported.

"A full day's debate on the motion will take place on January 29, subject to the agreement of the house," she told the Parliament.

Leadsom spoke as May met with lawmakers and opposition leaders for cross-party consultations, urging them to "put self-interest aside" and "work constructively together" to find a way forward for Brexit, following her slim victory in a no-confidence vote.

On Tuesday night, MPs voted against May's plans for Brexit by a historic margin: 432 votes against to 202 in favour -- the largest defeat for a sitting government in history.

May is currently trying to resolve a political deadlock set up by her antagonists, both from the hard-Brexit and anti-Leave camps.

One of the demands is that May should rule out any possibility that the UK might crash out of the European Union (EU) in March without any deal in place.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29.

In a statement in Downing Street shortly after midnight on Thursday morning, May had said: "It will not be an easy task, but MPs know they have a duty to act in the national interest, reach a consensus and get this (Brexit) done."

The Prime Minister said she wanted to approach the discussions in a "constructive spirit".

May is expected to hold meetings with both Conservative Brexiteers and the DUP on Thursday.

May has scheduled meetings with Scottish nationalists, Welsh nationalists and pro-EU Liberal Democrats.

The Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru all spoke with Theresa May on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "Last night's offer of talks with party leaders turned out to be simply a stunt, not the serious attempt to engage with the new reality that is needed."

"I say to the Prime Minister again - I am quite happy to talk but the starting point for any talks about Brexit must be that the threat of a disastrous no-deal outcome is ruled out, taken off the table, and we can talk about the future of the plans that we will put forward and the future relationship with Europe," he added.
Bengaluru, Jan 17 : Buoyed by the return of its "prodigal" MLAs and failure of "Operation Lotus" against the JD(S)-Congress coalition, Karnataka's ruling Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting here on Friday is expected to be a show of strength, capping the political drama of the last few days.

The meeting of Congress MLAs takes place after some half-a-dozen party MLAs, sulking over not being inducted into the government, returned expressing allegiance to the Congress even as nearly 100 BJP MLAs sequestered in a Gurugram hotel, near Delhi, are set to leave their camp on Friday.

"The legislators who will not attend the CLP meeting on Friday may be disqualified by the party. The meet will be a show of strength," Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) Vice President B.K. Chandrashekar told IANS here.

The meeting has been onvened by CLP leader Siddaramaiah at the Vidhana Soudha at 3.30 p.m. "The meeting will take stock of all the political happenings over the last week. Legislators might also be asked to refrain from speaking against each other in the public," Chandrashekar said.

The budget that will be presented by the coalition government in February will also be part of the discussions at the CLP meet.

Earlier this week, Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar's remarks that the opposition BJP was indulging in horse trading by offering money to about four Congress legislators in Mumbai, set off high-octane political activity in the southern state.

While the BJP denied the poaching allegations, it lodged its legislators, who were in Delhi over the past week for a party meet with national leadership, at a private resort in Gurugram, Haryana. The party in turn claimed that the JD-S and Congress coalition was attempting to poach its legislators.

Amid the exchange of horse trading charges by the three major parties in the state, two legislators withdrew their support to the coalition government on Tuesday. They were R. Shankar of Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party from Ranebennur Assembly segment in Haveri district and H.Nagesh, an Independent from Mulbagal constituency in Kolar district.

The coalition partners, however, continued to maintain that the government was stable and that they had the support of all their legislators.

"No attempt to destabilise the coalition government will be effective as we have the support of all our legislators," Congress leader and Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara said.

In the 225-member Legislative Assembly, including one nominated member, the Congress has 80 legislators, JD-S 37, and the BJP 104, while one Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA continues to support the coalition after one Independent Nagesh and the KPJP legislator Shankar withdrew their support.

The coalition government thereby has 118 legislators on its side, while BJP has 104.

The BJP was "taking advantage" of the legislators who were not offered a place in the ministry, Parameshwara said.

"Whenever there is a cabinet reshuffle, there will naturally be disappointment among those legislators who were not offered a ministry. BJP was trying to take advantage of that but failed," he asserted.

Among the two legislators who withdrew their support to the government, Shankar, who was a former Forests Minister in Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy's cabinet, was dropped from the ministry during a reshuffle and expansion on December 22 last year.A

"There is a possibility that the legislators who were not given cabinet posts, be offered ministries, with 4-5 current Ministers ready to give up their positions," Chandrashekar told IANS.

Through the CLP meet, the party aims to renew confidence among its legislators to keep the coalition intact, he said.A

"The party might also shift the focus to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections (in April-May) by entrusting the leaders with campaigning responsibilities," the state unit Congress vice president added.

Meanwhile, Karnataka Congress Working President Dinesh Gundu Rao said many Congress MLAs out of Bengaluru on holiday or for Sankaranti and they were threatened by the BJP with the use of agencies and blackmailing tactics but it did not succeed.

BJP leader and former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa countered the Congress allegations and his suggestion to the Congress would be that it was their responsibility to keep the flock to gether.

"Keeping your MLAs together is not my responsibility. If they were not happy and were in Bengaluru or Mumbai or any other place, we are not responsible for that," he said.

He said his party of 104 MLAs is in tact and charged the Congress with trying to poach BJP MLAs.
Kolkata, Jan 17 : Terming the January 19 public meeting of opposition leaders here as "united India rally", West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said it will sound the death knell of BJP in the 2019 general election.

Banerjee predicted that the saffron outfit, which is currently in power at the Centre, will not get more than 125 seats in the coming polls.

The Trinamool Congress chief, who has been a strong advocate of a federal front, said regional parties will play a big role in the Lok Sabha election.

"This rally will be a united India rally. So many heavyweight leaders, including chief ministers of a number of states, a former prime minister, ex-chief ministers and party chiefs will be attending the rally. This will be a historic rally," Banerjee said after inspecting the preparations at the sprawling Brigade Parade Ground.

"All the leaders are coming. It is a battle against the BJP in 2019 elections. Every political party will convey its message. Obviously the death knell of BJP will be sounded from here. The process has already started," she said.

When asked whether the strength of all the opposition parties combined will be enough to gain more Lok Sabha seats than Congress and BJP, Banerjee said, "I do not know how many seats Congress will get in 2019. It will depend upon the election. But BJP will not get more than 125 seats. So, the rest of the parties will play a vital role. The federal parties, the state-based parties will be a big factor this time."

The mega-event, also dubbed as 'anti-BJP rally', is being seen as a step towards unifying the opposition parties ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and is also expected to elevate Banerjee as one of the prime opposition faces.

Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, NCP President Sharad Pawar, DMK President M.K. Stalin, BSP's Satish Misra and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah will arrive in the city on Friday to attend the meeting.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and a few others will reach Kolkata on Saturday morning, the day of the rally, Banerjee said.
Islamabad, Jan 17 : The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ordered all schools across the country that charge more than 5,000 Pakistani rupees per month to reduce their fees by 20 per cent, media reports said on Thursday.

The apex court had issued an interim order on December 13, 2018, in a case pertaining to reduction of private school fees, Xinhua news agency reported.

In Thursday's court proceedings, the detailed verdict was released that upheld all points laid out in that interim judgement.

The detailed judgement also underscored that the fee reduction would not affect scholarships and other facilities provided by schools, adding that school owners would also not cut the salaries of teachers.

The court has directed all the parents and students to submit 20 per cent less in fees, and disciplinary action would be taken against those parents who failed to comply with the top court's order.
New Delhi, Jan 17 : Streaming platforms including Netflix, Hotstar, Voot and SonyLiv, have signed and agreed to follow a new industry code of conduct and self-regulation for online content in India.

The streaming platforms, also known as Online Curated Content Providers (OCCPs), have voluntarily signed a self-regulatory Code of Best Practices under the aegis of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

Other platforms to sign the code are Zee5, Arre, ALT Balaji and Eros Now, read a statement.

This marks the first time global streaming giant Netflix has signed on to this kind of code in a single country. It previously adopted a similar code for the Southeast Asia region.

The code, which has been in the works for over a year, establishes guiding principles for OCCPs to conduct themselves in a responsible and transparent manner and at the same time ensures that consumer interests are protected.

Amazon Prime Video, which launched in India two years ago, was not among the signatories.

According to hollywoodreporter.com, Amazon, however, has no plans to sign up to the voluntary code, which covers sexual and religious topics, among others, and sets a process for consumer complaints.

When contacted by The Hollywood Reporter, an Amazon representative said: "While we are assessing the situation, we believe that the current laws are adequate to fulfil this mission."

While theatrical films and television are regulated in India, the country currently does not have any official guidelines for the streaming space. Last year, Netflix was hit with a lawsuit, which is still ongoing, over its first Indian original "Sacred Games", which stars Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

As per the statement, the objectives of the code are to: Empower consumers to make informed choices on age-appropriate content; protect the interests of consumers in choosing and accessing the content they want to watch at their own time and convenience; safeguard and respect creative freedom of content creators and artists; nurture creativity, create an ecosystem fostering innovation and abide by an individual's freedom of speech and expression and provide a mechanism for complaints redressal in relation to content made available by respective OCCPs.

The IAMAI highlighted that the "constitutional framework of India upholds freedom of speech and expression, including commercial speech" and that the signatories to the code "seek to uphold the freedom as envisaged in the constitution of India".

The code prohibits content that "deliberately and maliciously disrespects the national emblem or national flag" or "represents a child engaged in real or simulated sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a child for primarily sexual purposes".

It also prohibits content that deliberately and maliciously intends to outrage religious sentiments of any class, section or community; promotes or encourages terrorism and other forms of violence against any state of India or its institutions and "content that has been banned for exhibition or distribution by online video service under applicable laws or by any court with competent jurisdiction".

Participating companies must establish an internal redressal department to receive and consider complaints from consumers directly or those forwarded by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

Welcoming the initiative, Viacom's Indian partner Network18 Media group general counsel Kshipra Jatana said: "This endeavour is a significant step forward in striking the right balance between defending creating freedom and protecting consumer interests. All the signatories to the code have agreed to adhere to and uphold the principles enshrined in the code both in form and in substance."

Adding to that, Ashok Nambissan, General Counsel, Sony Pictures Networks India Private Limited, said: "Self-regulation encourages creativity and makes content creators more responsive to their viewers. It's worked well for broadcast media and there's no reason for it not to do so for curated video content. We are happy to be part of this industry initiative."
Beijing, Jan 17 : China on Thursday urged the US not to politicise a business case amid reports that the US Department of Justice was investigating Chinese company Huawei for allegedly stealing trade secrets from its American partner.

Politicising this business case and using national mechanisms to persecute Chinese enterprises does not correspond with fair play rules and also goes against the laws, Efe news quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying as saying.

Hua was responding to media reports saying that the US prosecutors may press criminal charges against the Chinese telecom giant.

In an exclusive report, the Wall Street Journal cited sources close to the matter as saying that the theft allegations were related to a robot device used by telecom firm T-Mobile -- Huawei's trade partner in the US -- to test its smartphones.

The Chinese spokesperson said Huawei and T-Mobile had settled the dispute "through legal ways".

"We are concerned about the investigation and we doubt the true motives behind it," Hua said, adding that Chinese companies overseas followed market rules and international law.

"We hope the US can create a fair, competitive environment for the Chinese enterprises' operations in the US," she said.

The reported investigation comes in the backdrop of a diplomatic row between the US and China that was aggravated after Canada arrested Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at the behest of Washington.

Meng has been accused of committing fraud by violating US sanctions on Iran.
Young Living's New EVP of Marketing Will Ensure Brand Consistently Reflects YL's Vision, Mission, and Purpose

LEHI, Utah, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Young Living Essential Oils , the world leader in essential oils, announced today that it has hired Wayne Moorehead as Executive Vice President (EVP) of Marketing. Wayne joins the Young Living executive management team with extensive experience in marketing and brand strategy and will help fuel Young Living's continued success as a leading health and wellness brand.

"Wayne joins Young Living with proven expertise in marketing strategy and brand positioning through his extensive experience in the retail and direct sales industries. He will be instrumental in our ongoing commitment to brand development and marketing strategy enhancements to help us execute on our 55 Pledge," said Jared Turner, Young Living President and Chief Operating Officer. "As the newest member of the Young Living executive team, Wayne is charged with magnifying our position as the world leader in essential oils by overseeing marketing strategies to bring Young Living Essential Oils into every home in the world."

Prior to joining Young Living, Wayne applied his expertise and passion for branding to help various companies define, communicate, and activate their brands. His previous experience includes roles as CMO for a large, publicly traded natural supplement company, as well as CMO for an INC 500 company, where he was instrumental in building their billion-dollar brand.

Wayne has led the brand strategy practice at a New York creative agency and Salt Lake City-based agency, where he worked with many iconic brands, including Johnson & Johnson, Fender, Whole Foods, and Intel. Most recently Wayne served as chief brand officer at one of the fastest-growing digitally native vertical brands (DNVB). He holds an MBA from the Marriott School of Business.

"I am very excited to join such an amazing, purpose-driven company," said Wayne. "Young Living's people and products have fueled incredible growth and firmly established it as a leading wellness brand. I look forward to being part of Young Living's exciting future."

About Young Living Essential Oils

Young Living Essential Oils, LC, based in Lehi, Utah, is the world leader in essential oils, offering the highest quality oil-infused products available. Young Living takes its industry leadership seriously, setting the standard with its proprietary Seed to Seal quality commitment, which involves three critical pillars: Sourcing, Science and Standards. These guiding principles help Young Living protect the planet and provide pure, authentic products that its members can feel confident about using and sharing with friends and family. Young Living's productswhich all come from corporate-owned farms, partner farms, and Seed to Seal-certified suppliersnot only support a healthy lifestyle, but also provide opportunities for over five million global members to find a sense of purpose and whole-life wellness by aligning their work with their values and passions.

For more information, visit YoungLiving.com , follow @younglivingeo on Twitter or like us on Facebook .

Media Contact

For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].

SOURCE Young Living Essential Oils

Related Links

http://www.youngliving.com


WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Washington Women in Public Relations (WWPR), a leading resource for female communications professionals in the nation's capital, announced its 2019 Board of Directors. The 2019 Board is as follows:

President: Amanda Cate , American Society of Anesthesiologists

, American Society of Anesthesiologists Vice President: Sarah Beth Cloar , Edelman

, Edelman Past President: Danielle Veira , A Better Chicago

, A Better Chicago Treasurer: Susan Matthews Apgood , News Generation, Inc.

, News Generation, Inc. Secretary: Julie Malveaux , communications professional

, communications professional Sponsorship/ Partnership Chair: Avelyn Austin , REQ

, REQ Content Marketing Chair: Jennifer Dunn , Business Wire

, Business Wire Digital Marketing Chair: Christina Francisco , ASHP

, ASHP Digital Engagement Chair: Kasey Lum Condra , American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Emerging Leaders Awards Co-Chair: Sabrena Pringle , American Diabetes Association

, American Diabetes Association Emerging Leaders Awards Co-Chair: Elynsey Price, Pearson

Membership Co-Chair: Stacy Fitzgerald-Redd , North American Insulation Manufacturers Association

, North American Insulation Manufacturers Association Membership Co-Chair: Zorie Valchev , Novartis

, Novartis Pro Bono Co-Chair: Carrie Johnson , Association of American Colleges and Universities

, Association of American Colleges and Universities Pro Bono Co-Chair: Bonnie Piper , Senior Communications and Public Affairs Specialist

, Senior Communications and Public Affairs Specialist Professional Development Co-Chair: Sarah Beccio , Indigecomms

, Indigecomms Professional Development Co-Chair: Katherine Hurd , Baltz & Company

, Baltz & Company Woman of the Year Co-Chair: Taylor Leaming , Ketchum

, Ketchum Woman of the Year Co-Chair: Christin Lewis , Hilton

"With a year full of milestones for WWPR, including the 30th anniversary of the Woman of the Year Awards and 10th anniversary of the Emerging Leader Awards, this extraordinary group of women is poised to continue advancing the impact of this organization," said Amanda Cate, 2019 WWPR President. "It is an incredible honor to lead this group of talented, diverse and accomplished women as WWPR continues to lead the way in providing signature programming, impactful professional development and meaningful networking for communications professionals."

The board induction meeting featured a keynote by Leslie Crutchfield, author, social change expert, executive director of Georgetown University's Global Social Enterprise Initiative at the McDonough School of Business, and adjunct professor teaching corporate social responsibility. Crutchfield, who authored "How Change Happens" in 2018, spoke about impactful and successful movements to create social and environmental change. An authority on social change, Crutchfield challenged attendees to continue to be forces for good especially today. "Movements matter today as much as they ever have," she said. "Change doesn't happen by chance."

Throughout the year, WWPR will continue to host its annual professional development and networking events for female communicators at every stage of their careers, including two signature events: the Emerging Leader Awards and the PR Woman of the Year Awards.

Learn more about WWPR and upcoming events at www.wwpr.org



ABOUT WASHINGTON WOMEN IN PUBLIC RELATIONS

Washington Women in Public Relations (WWPR) is a member-based professional society cultivating and inspiring female communicators to reach their full potential in the DC market and beyond. The organization is committed to providing leadership opportunities, professional development, mentorship, and industry networking. Visit us at wwpr.org , connect with us on LinkedIn and Facebook , and follow us on Twitter @WWPR and on Instagram @WWPRDC .

For more information contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Washington Women in Public Relations

Related Links

https://wwpr.org


LAS VEGAS, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Nevada Donor Network (NDN) is proud to announce its sixth record-breaking year out of the last seven in the number of lives saved and healed through organ, eye and tissue donation. In addition to their role as a federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO), NDN also coordinates healing tissue and cornea donation statewide.

Throughout 2018, Nevada Donor Network coordinated the recovery of 530 lifesaving organs from 130 organ donor heroes, 799 tissue donor heroes and 1,238 cornea donor heroes. These precious gifts allowed NDN to provide 442 grateful organ transplant recipients with a second chance at life, facilitate increased mobility and function for thousands of tissue recipients, and restore sight to 1,980 cornea recipients. As a key metric in determining OPO success worldwide, the average rate of organ donors per million of population served (DPMP) around the U.S. is approximately 33 DPMP. In 2018, NDN reached an unparalleled 59 DPMP based on Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and U.S. Census data. Per this same data, NDN also leads the nation in the number of organs transplanted per million of population served (TPMP) in 2018, achieving 201 TPMP  more than double the U.S. average of 99 TPMP.

The organization's President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Ferreira shares, "It is with great pride that the Nevada Donor Network team continues to save and heal more lives than ever before at such a remarkable per capita rate. With the support of our hospital partners and community champions, we have the privilege of honoring the wishes of a record number of heroic donors and their courageous families; each one whose legacy will live on forever. In addition to celebrating our success of maximizing the gift of donation, we remain mindful of the fact that our work is not done. Until all 619 Nevadans on the waiting list and the more than 114,000 others nationwide receive their lifesaving transplants, we will continue to passionately serve our mission with record-breaking success. More than 2 million people who call this beautiful state 'home' are counting on us. We will proudly continue serving those who give and saving those who desperately wait across the globe in honor of our donors and their families. We are #nevadastrong for Nevadans."

Nevada Donor Network (NDN) is a federally designated 501(c)3 not-for-profit organ procurement organization, also responsible for facilitating tissue and cornea donation in Nevada. Our primary function is coordinate, recover and allocate lifesaving organs and healing tissues for transplantation and research on behalf of our heroic donors. Nevada Donor Network is a member of Donate Life Nevada, a statewide collaboration of agencies committed to motivating Nevada residents to register as organ, eye and tissue donors.



www.nvdonor.org / www.Facebook.com/NevadaDonorNetwork / www.twitter.com/DonateLife_NV



SOURCE Nevada Donor Network

Related Links

http://www.nvdonor.org


MIAMI BEACH, Fla., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- When it comes to American cities, Miami is that multi-cultural place where no trip here is ever the same. It's one of the few places where a beach vacation includes trips to world-class museums, art districts, shops, restaurants, and recreational activities. 2019 is the year of Miami, the year to discover what's new - and what's old - in the Magic City, and Catalina Hotel invites you to do so.

Miami Beach is the hottest destination famed for its picture-perfect beach views, historical Art Deco district, numerous restaurants with cuisine from all around the world, beautiful people, and famous nightlife.

Ocean Drive is still an Art Deco landmark with its signature neon-lit streets, but Miami has expanded with celebrity chef-helmed restaurants, world-class museums, and family-friendly attractions that weren't there before. A walk on Lincoln Road is always nostalgic even if it features the ultra-modern 1111 Lincoln Road architectural marvel and all its fabulous tenants and restaurants.

With South Beach as a base, the exploration is endless. An easy ride over the causeway reveals the Miami of 2019, boasting an expansive skyline and a bustling downtown scene. Museum Park, in Downtown Miami, features a 30-acre public park and two major museums--the Perez Art Museum and the Frost Museum of Science, which finally put Miami on the museum map it was missing from for so many years.

The heartbeat of the downtown area is the bustling Brickell City Centre featuring plenty of daytime and nighttime diversions. Nearby is Little Havana, where old is still old, albeit with a hipster accent thanks to some very hot spots including Ball & Chain, a live music landmark and throwback to old school Havana, and Los Altos, a hidden Little Havana lounge tucked upstairs from a Mexican restaurant favored by Mezcal fans and celebrities alike.

The recently re-designed Design District, where celebs shop for jewelry in Cartier while interior designers look at fabrics in nearby stores and studios for their clients' beach homes, used to be a ghost town at night. Not so much anymore. Nearby in world-renowned Wynwood are gritty warehouses and walls plastered with graffiti. It is possibly Miami's hippest neighborhood with bars, restaurants, shops and a scene straight out of SoHo, NYC circa 1980.

It's impossible to experience all of Miami 2019 or even remnants of Miami 1920 in one jaunt, especially if it includes lazy days on the beach, paddle boarding, beach yoga, stops in Miami Beach's own Wynwood, North Beach, or even Aventura, whose mall is the stuff of shopping legends. Consider a stay at one of Miami Beach's retro-fab hotels which masterfully mix modern with retro so one doesn't forget from where Miami and Miami Beach has come. While modernized to 2019 standards, hotels like the Waterside, the Catalina Hotel, Riviera South Beach, and Oceanside, welcome guests with the warmth of old school Miami and the sophistication of 2019 Miami and beyond. Sparkling pools, spacious suites, happening happy hours are among the highlights and comforts that will complement any Miami vacation. That's the magic of Miami no matter what year it may be.

SOURCE Catalina Hotel
"I look forward to working with such a dynamic and forward thinker as our new CEO Chad Newton," said WCAA Board Chair Nabih H. Ayad, Esq. "With over two decades of serving Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Mr. Newton not only brings experience and leadership to the table, but an understanding of the importance of diversity and inclusion in leveling the playing field for all citizens of this region. Chad simply gets it."

"Safety and security is one of the biggest concerns at any major airport," said WCAA CEO Chad Newton. "It is an honor to know the Board of Directors has confidence in the nearly 30 years I've spent in law enforcement, including 20 years at Detroit Metro Airport. I look forward to using my knowledge and experience as our team continues to improve the customer experience, collaborate with our stakeholders, support small businesses and give back to our community."

Newton is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and certified by the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) as an Accredited Airport Executive (A.A.E.). He is one of approximately 500 airport executives in the United States and the first WCAA CEO to hold this title. The A.A.E. certification is the highest level of accreditation granted by AAAE to aviation professionals who have demonstrated their ability to handle the responsibilities of airport management.

"I had the pleasure of getting to know Chad while mentoring him through the AAAE Accreditation Program," said Bishop International Airport Authority  Airport Director Craig Williams, A.A.E. "His professionalism throughout the process impressed me and I am sure that will carry over to his role at Metro. I look forward to working together with Chad to further aviation and airports in Michigan."

Newton is a United States Army veteran who served tours of duty in Seoul, South Korea and Fort Campbell, Kentucky. After being honorably discharged from the Army, Newton joined the Wayne County Sheriff's Department as a Deputy Sheriff. His duties included patrolling the airport grounds and facilities. In 1999, Newton transitioned to the Wayne County Airport Police Department, where he advanced through the ranks to become WCAA's Vice President of Public Safety. He was also assigned the responsibility of overseeing Willow Run Airport. In July 2018, Newton was appointed WCAA's Interim CEO.

"Chad Newton has had a distinguished career in public service," said Regional Director of the Department of Homeland Security/TSA Steve C. Lorincz. "He will continue to build and support the Wayne County Airport Authority and provide world-class customer service for the millions of passengers who utilize our airports. I am proud to continue to serve with Chad, and wish him nothing but the best."

Highlights of Newton's career at Detroit Metropolitan Airport include successfully managing the January 2017 protest of the United States Presidential Executive Order banning entry into the country and receiving the 2018 TSA Partnership Award. Newton also implemented initiatives to diversify WCAA's Public Safety Division.

"In Romulus, we know firsthand how crucial it is to have good leadership at the Airport Authority. Chad Newton has a proven history of integrity and customer service at WCAA," said Mayor LeRoy D. Burcroff of Romulus, Michigan. "Since his interim appointment as CEO, we have had unprecedented response to our questions and concerns. We appreciate the Airport Authority as an important community partner and look forward to continuing our strong working relationship with Chad in the future."

A graduate of Eastern Michigan University, Newton holds a bachelor's degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice and a master's degree in Technology Studies with a Law Enforcement specialty.

Newton's contract became effective Jan. 16, 2019. The initial term is three years.

Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) welcomed nearly 35 million passengers in 2017 and is one of the world's leading air transportation hubs. With service from 14 scheduled passenger airlines, Michigan's largest airport offers more than 1,100 flights per day to and from more than 140 non-stop destinations on four continents. With two award-winning passenger terminals, six jet runways, and an onsite AAA Four-Diamond Westin Hotel, DTW is among the world's most efficient, customer friendly and operationally capable airports in North America. DTW is operated by the Wayne County Airport Authority, which also operates nearby Willow Run Airport  an important corporate, cargo and general aviation facility. The Airport Authority is entirely self-sustaining and does not receive tax dollars to support airport operations. Visit www.metroairport.com for more information.

SOURCE Wayne County Airport Authority

Related Links

http://www.metroairport.com


Venture Tianfu is aimed at further gathering innovative global resources, strengthening the driving force of entrepreneurship and building up the innovative channel Chengdu and global prestigious colleges and universities for high-end talents communication, application development and market transformation. More than 100 people, including social groups, top universities, international incubators, renowned experts and youth innovation and entrepreneurship teams from China, Britain and other countries, explored and shared the newest trends and cooperative opportunities of global innovative and entrepreneurial incubation.

The event was hosted by Laura-Jane Silverman, head of the LSE Generate, LSE Research & Innovation, the London School of Economics and Political Science. During the event, Liao Dongyun, Deputy Secretary General of Chengdu Committee of the Communist Party of China, made a speech. Hua Chengke, the vice inspector of the Science and Technology Bureau of Chengdu, shared the innovative and entrepreneurial policies and the blueprint of Chengdu's future development with the guests. Mr. Kartik Varma - MD, Barclays Accelerator, Techstars and Mr. Raphael Levy, the partner of DealGlobe also made keynote speeches. During this event, deep exchanges and cooperation between Chengdu and the UK government, universities and enterprises were discussed in the fields of financial technology, information networks, bio-medicine, clean energy, economic and trade exchanges, conventions and exhibitions, etc.

The success of this event not only established the communicative and cooperative platform of innovation and entrepreneurship between Chengdu and London, but also expanded the width and depth of both side's cooperation in innovation and entrepreneurship; talent exchange; deep integration of universities and colleges; development of new economy, economic and trade exchanges; as well as conventions and cooperation, creating ideal conditions for continuously promoting and accelerating the ecosystem and innovative ecological chain of Chengdu and forging it into a center of innovation and entrepreneurship with international influence.

SOURCE Venture Tianfu
The Philippines is a primary location from which Shearwater Health recruits its nurses through its local Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) accredited recruitment partner, ABD Manpower Services, Inc. Many Filipinos become nurses for the purpose of working in other countries, especially in the United States, where better economic and career growth opportunities are found ( watch a touching example of one nurse's journey here). Attractive nursing opportunities outside of the Philippines result in more Filipino nurses in the profession here per capita than in the nations that recruit from the Philippines.

Any CNO at a U.S.-based hospital may read this and reasonably assume that Philippine hospitals have an ample supply of nurses. But the frequent departure of nurses from hospitals in the Philippines creates high turnover and temporary staffing shortages across the Philippines health sector. In some ways, then, U.S. hospital CNOs and Philippines CNOs share the same problem.

As a part of its mission to improve patient outcomes globally, in combination with its deep ties and commitment to the Philippines, Shearwater Health today announces a partnership with Asian Hospital, based in Manila, Philippines, to refer nurses for employment for a period of time while the nurse awaits a visa. Asian Hospital and Medical Center (AHMC) is a quaternary hospital and a subsidiary of the Metro Pacific Hospital Group, the largest private hospital group in the Philippines managed by the Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC). It is one of the top Philippine hospitals accredited by the Joint Commission International (JCI), the world's most prestigious accrediting body for health care organizations. It has built a reputation of providing a unique and heartfelt kind of care to its patients in the Philippines, and a quality service that is on par with U.S.-based hospitals.

This transpacific partnership to coordinate efforts to address the nursing shortage will help Asian Hospital manage the migration of nurses outside of the country. In many cases in the Philippines, when nurses decide to work abroad, they prefer not to disclose this to their employers until the last possible moment, causing hospitals to scramble to fill positions.

Shearwater Health will help correct this problem by referring nurses recruited for U.S. employment through its POEA accredited agency, ABD Manpower, Inc., to Asian Hospital. Shearwater Health will then notify Asian Hospital many months in advance of when the nurse is expected to depart for the United States.

The wait for a visa to work in the United States for a Filipino nurse can take 2-4 years. Nurses often choose to work abroad (in the Middle East, for example) while waiting for a visa, which may require leaving their children and spouse in the Philippines. With Asian Hospital's outstanding reputation for developing nursing talent through its nursing leadership and training programs, Shearwater Health believes this arrangement offers nurses an alternative to remain in the Philippines while still developing nursing skills.

As a result, Asian Hospital, Shearwater Health, and the nurse will coordinate for the same goal: provide outstanding nursing care in the Philippines without disruption, and empower nurses inclined to work in the U.S. to reach their dream of a career in a U.S hospital.

SOURCE Shearwater Health

Related Links

http://www.swhealth.com


INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Indiana families and educators are celebrating School Choice Week and their state's leading status when it comes to educational opportunity Jan 20-26.

The Week will feature 981 events and activities across the Hoosier State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be an Legislative Breakfast on January 23, 2019 at 7:30 AM at the Conrad Hotel in Indianapolis.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Indiana, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling. Parents in Indiana can take tax deductions for private school or homeschool expenses, and families under a certain income level can qualify for state-funded scholarships for private schools. All Indiana students may enroll full-time in Indiana Virtual School without a fee.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. Governor Eric Holcomb issued an official proclamation recognizing Jan. 20-26 as Indiana School Choice Week. In addition, the counties of Delaware and Franklin and the cities of Beech Grove, Perry Township, and Veedersburg have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"Indiana is a national leader in providing a multitude of K-12 education options for families, and National School Choice Week is the ideal time for parents to evaluate these options for their own children," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Hoosier State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/indiana.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


JEFFERSON CITY, Mo., Jan. 18, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As thousands of Missourians are celebrating School Choice Week, schools of all types are connecting with their local community to raise awareness about education options.

The Week will feature 762 events and activities across the Show Me State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be a rally on Thursday, January 24, 2019 12:00 p.m. at the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City. In addition, a school fair is planned in St. Louis on 10:00 AM on Saturday, January 19, 2019 at the Grand Hall on Chouteau.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Missouri, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling. Any student in Missouri, from kindergarten through 12th grade, can take courses online through the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program. Students with certain medical conditions can have the tuition waived.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. Governor Michael Parson issued an official proclamation recognizing Jan. 20-26 as Missouri School Choice Week. In addition, the counties of Crawford and Newton and the cities of Belton, Boonville, Branson, Gideon, Lexington, Smithville, and Wentzville have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"Missouri families have a growing variety of new and different school choice options, and we encourage parents to use National School Choice Week to evaluate these options for their children," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Show Me State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/missouri.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


MONTPELIER, Vt., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Families and educators are celebrating School Choice Week and the empowerment and flexibility that educational options provide Vermont students.

The Week will feature 58 events and activities across the Green Mountain State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be a rally planned on Thursday, January 24, 2019 10:30 a.m. at the Capitol Theater in Montpelier followed by a school choice celebration at the Capitol Plaza in Montpelier at 12:00pm.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Vermont, there are many educational options, including open enrollment, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling. Students in specific Vermont towns are eligible for a tuitioning program, allowing them to go to nonreligious public or private schools outside their communities.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. The town of Waterford has issued a proclamation recognizing School Choice Week in its community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"Vermont has some of America's longest-running school choice programs and policies, and we encourage Vermont families to discover these education options during National School Choice Week," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Green Mountain State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/vermont.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


JACKSON, Miss., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Families and educators around the state will celebrate how school choice empowers Mississippi families during School Choice Week.

The Week will feature 441 events and activities across the Magnolia State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be a rally on Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 9:30 a.m. on the ground of the state capitol in Jackson.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Mississippi, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, and homeschooling. Mississippi offers a variety of public scholarship programs for students with special needs.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. Governor Phil Bryant issued an official proclamation recognizing Jan. 20-26 as Mississippi School Choice Week. In addition, the county of Benton and the cities of Moss Point, Goodman, and St. Paul Park have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"National School Choice Week provides an opportunity for families in Mississippi and across America to evaluate their education options and research different schools in advance of the next school year," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Magnolia State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/mississippi.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


TOPEKA, Kan., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Families and educators across Kansas are celebrating the unique needs and opportunities school choice provides students during School Choice Week.

The Week will feature 348 events and activities across the Sunflower State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be a rally on Thursday, January 24, 2019 11:30 AM at the Kansas Capitol Building in Topeka.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Kansas, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling. Students in Kansas who are under a certain income level or who are in Title I schools can qualify for a state-run scholarship. Kansas offers a variety of virtual school options, full-time and part-time, with or without tuition, for students in kindergarten through high school.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. The counties of Ellsworth, Johnson, and Sedgwick and the cities of Altamont, Chanute, Hays, and Paola have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"We encourage Kansas families to discover the different school choice options available for their children during National School Choice Week," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Sunflower State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/kansas.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


BOISE, Idaho, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Families and educators are celebrating School Choice Week and the empowerment and flexibility that educational options provide Idaho students.

The Week will feature 240 events and activities across the Gem State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be a school fair on Thursday, January 24, 2019 4:00 PM at Galaxy Event Center in Boise.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Idaho, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. The cities of Chubbuck, Heybum, and Meridian have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"Idaho families have a diversity of choices for their children's K-12 education, and we encourage parents to use National School Choice Week to search for schools that best meet the needs of their kids," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Gem State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/idaho.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


SACRAMENTO, Calif., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Families and educators who've chosen a wide variety of schools are celebrating educational opportunity for California's millions of students during School Choice Week.

The Week will feature 2,778 events and activities across the Golden State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In California, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling. California permits charter schools to offer full-time online instruction.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. The counties of Plumas and Riverside and the cities of Blythe, Cathedral City , Chino Hills, City of Belmont, City of La Verne, City of Rocklin, Grand Terrace, Half Moon Bay, Highland, Kinston, La Habra Heights, Lemon Grove, Oakley, Oceanside, Patterson, Perris, Rio Vista, San Fernando, Santa Clara, Sierra Madre, Surfside Beach, Thousand Oaks, Tustin, Vallejo, and Walnut Creek, and West Covina have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"We focus on not only the importance of choice with our students but the awareness of the type of school that our students and their families are in... We do a lot of media and PA announcements during the school day and during the week. We also have a lot of different student service organizations and groups work on community service action projects," said Brian Bauer, executive director at Granada Hills Charter High School, a charter school serving 4,650 students in Granada Hills, CA.

"National School Choice Week is the perfect time for California families to explore the school choice options available for children all across the state," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Golden State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/california.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


PROVIDENCE, R.I., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Students, parents, teachers, and community leaders are celebrating options in K-12 education during School Choice Week.

The Week will feature 130 events and activities across the Ocean State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be a legislative reception planned on Thursday, January 24, 2019 2:30 PM at Rhode Island Capitol in Providence.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Rhode Island, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, and homeschooling. Rhode Island families below a certain income level qualify for a publicly run scholarship program.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. The cities of Lincoln and Woonsocket have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"Rhode Island families have a variety of school choice options and we encourage parents across the state to use National School Choice Week to evaluate these choices in advance of the next school year," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Ocean State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/rhode-island.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


DOVER, Del., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Thousands of people across the state will thank their teachers and school leaders and explore educational options during School Choice Week.

The Week will feature 115 events and activities across the First State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Delaware, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, and homeschooling.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. The city of Rehoboth Beach has issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"As a community we realize and respect the uniqueness of our students. That is why we participate in National School Choice Week: because everyone should know their options when it comes to education and finding the right school for their child to be successful," said Dr. Gina Harrison, principal at Gateway Lab School, charter school serving 225 students in Wilmington, Delaware.

"We hope that Delaware families will take the time to evaluate education options available for their children during National School Choice Week," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the First State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/delaware.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


ALBANY, N.Y., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Families and educators who've selected all types of schools will join together to celebrate School Choice Week at nearly 2,000 local events across New York State.

The Week will feature 1,911 events and activities across the Empire State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be an student showcase is planned on Thursday, January 24, 2019 10:30 a.m. at the New York Academy of Medicine in New York.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In New York, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, and homeschooling.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. The counties of Nassau and Rockland and the cities of Alexandria Bay, Ballston Spa, Brookhaven, Buffalo, Camden, Charlotte, Clarkstown, Clayton, Cohoes, Elmira, Galen, Henderson, Herkimer, Horseheads, Huntington, Lindenhurst, Middleport, Mount Hope, Silver Creek, Galen, Vienna, Elmsford, Wappinger, and Wawarsing have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"National School Choice Week reminds us of the importance of celebrating our school! Our school is a very special place and we have much to be proud of!' said Karen Leeper, assistant principal at Evergreen Charter School, a charter school serving 525 students in Hempstead, New York.

"National School Choice Week provides an opportunity for families in New York and across America to evaluate their education options and research different schools in advance of the next school year," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Empire State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/new-york.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- School Choice Week is underway across Ohio as students, parents and teachers at every type of K-12 education during School Choice Week.

The Week will feature 1,728 events and activities across the Buckeye State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be an school fair planned on Saturday, January 26, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. at Lordes University in the Franciscan Center in Sylvania.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Ohio, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling. Ohio offers a variety of publicly funded scholarship programs for students from low-income families, students with special needs, students assigned to low-performing schools, and students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Students in elementary through high school grades may enroll in virtual school at no cost.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. The counties of Vinton and Warren and the cities of Beaver Township, Blanchester, Cleveland, Dayton, Dover, Findlay, Genoa, Granville, Groveport, Mansfield, Medina, Mentor-on-the-Lake, Middletown, Montgomery, Norwood, Payne, Sheffield Lake, Trotwood, and Westlake have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"Christian Life Academy has celebrated National School Choice Week for several years We are thankful that we have the choice of where to attend school in Ohio and want to thank our community for their support," said Melissa Boggs, administrator at Christian Life Academy, a Christian preschool in Jackson, Ohio.

"Ohio has long provided families with access to a variety of educational opportunities and we encourage Ohio families to explore these options during National School Choice Week," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Buckeye State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/ohio.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


PLAINFIELD, Ind., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Like many Midwesterners, Duke Energy continues to monitor and prepare for a winter storm that has the potential to cause power outages across the company's 69-county Indiana service area.

Related: B-roll video of storm prep and winter storm power restoration efforts

"This storm will be different compared to the system that blanketed the Midwest with snow last weekend," said Duke Energy Meteorologist Curt Grimoskas. "This one is distinctive because it has the potential to bring a combination of snow, sleet, rain, freezing rain, very gusty winds and cold temperatures."

Related: High-resolution photos of winter storm power restoration work

Snow on its own typically has little to no impact on the electric system. However, heavy wet snow accumulation, freezing rain and high winds can bring down trees, limbs and power lines. These types of winter storms can also create hazardous driving conditions, which could delay and impede Duke Energy workers' abilities to assess storm damage and restore power.

Duke Energy workers preparing for and tracking storm

Ahead of this weekend's storm, Duke Energy line technicians and other workers continue to inspect equipment, check supplies and restock inventories to ensure adequate materials are available to make repairs and restore power outages. In addition, Duke Energy meteorologists are continually tracking the storm's path and intensity, and updating forecast models, which influence how the company mobilizes its workers and other resources.

Related: How Duke Energy restores power following a storm

Duke Energy has more than 500 line technicians, service crews and other storm personnel available across the company's Indiana service region to respond to power outages once conditions are safe. Depending on the impact of the storm, Duke Energy can bring in additional workers from its Southeast utilities and/or activate mutual aid agreements to enlist help from other utilities across the U.S.

Safety reminders

Ahead of this winter storm, Duke Energy urges customers to make plans to move family members  especially those with special needs  to safe, alternative locations in the event of an extended power outage. The company also advises customers to be prepared and stay safe, and to encourage their family members, friends and neighbors to do the same.

"We can't stress enough the need for customers to be prepared for this storm and to be ready to move family members and neighbors  especially those who may be more vulnerable during a loss of power  to safe, alternative locations," said Stan Pinegar, Duke Energy Indiana state president.

Here are ways customers can be prepared and stay safe before, during and after a storm:

Ensure an adequate supply of flashlights, batteries, bottled water, non-perishable foods, medicines, etc., as well as the availability of a portable, battery-operated radio, TV or weather radio.

Stay away from power lines that have fallen or are sagging. Consider all lines energized as well as trees or limbs in contact with lines. Please report downed power lines to Duke Energy or local emergency services.

If a power line falls across a car that you're in, stay in the car. If you MUST get out of the car due to a fire or other immediate life-threatening situation, do your best to jump clear of the car and land on both feet. Be sure that no part of your body is touching the car when your feet touch the ground.

If you are driving and encounter emergency responders or other roadside work crews, remember to MOVE OVER. It's the law in Indiana and a good practice for all drivers.

and a good practice for all drivers. If you use a generator due to a power outage, follow the manufacturer's instructions to ensure safe and proper operation. Operate your generator outside; never operate it inside a building or garage.

operate it inside a building or garage. Don't use grills or other outdoor appliances or equipment indoors for space heating or cooking, as these devices may omit carbon monoxide.

Reporting outages

Customers who experience outages during the storm have multiple ways to report them:

Text OUT to 57801 (standard text and data charges may apply)

Call the automated outage-reporting system:

Indiana : 800.343.3525

: 800.343.3525 Report an outage or view current outages by visiting duke-energy.com/outages

Duke Energy will also provide updates on its social media channels to keep customers informed if significant outages occur:

Duke Energy on Twitter: twitter.com/DukeEnergy

Duke Energy on Facebook: facebook.com/DukeEnergy

Duke Energy Indiana

Duke Energy Indiana's operations provide about 6,700 megawatts of owned electric capacity to approximately 820,000 customers in a 23,000-square-mile service area, making it the state's largest electric supplier.

Duke Energy Indiana is a subsidiary of Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK).

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is one of the largest energy holding companies in the U.S., with approximately 29,000 employees and a generating capacity of 49,500 megawatts. The company is transforming its customers' experience, modernizing its energy grid, generating cleaner energy and expanding its natural gas infrastructure to create a smarter energy future for the people and communities it serves.

The company's Electric Utilities and Infrastructure unit serves approximately 7.6 million retail electric customers in six states  North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. Its Gas Utilities and Infrastructure unit distributes natural gas to approximately 1.6 million customers in five states  North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. Its Commercial Renewables unit operates a growing renewable energy portfolio across the U.S.

A Fortune 125 company, Duke Energy was named to Fortune's 2018 "World's Most Admired Companies" list and Forbes' 2018 "America's Best Employers" list.

More information about the company is available at duke-energy.com. The Duke Energy News Center includes news releases, fact sheets, photos, videos and other materials. Duke Energy's illumination features stories about people, innovations, community topics and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Contact: Lew Middleton | 317.838.1505 office

24-Hour: 800.559.3853

SOURCE Duke Energy

Related Links

http://www.duke-energy.com


WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Small businesses donate 250% more than larger businesses to local nonprofits and community causes, according to data compiled by SCORE, the nation's largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors. This trend is predicted to remain strong, with 81% of small businesses planning to continue giving in 2019.

How do small businesses support their communities?

Small businesses donate 250% more than larger businesses to local nonprofits and community causes, according to data compiled by SCORE, the nations largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors. This trend is predicted to remain strong, with 81% of small businesses planning to continue giving in 2019.

Give to local charities: 66%

Support youth organizations: 48%

Donate to local first responders: 42%

Support local religious organizations: 39%

Aid local service groups (Rotary Club, Scouts, etc.): 37%

Donate food or volunteer in soup kitchens: 32%

How much do small businesses give?

75% of small business owners donate an average of 6% of their profits to charitable organizations each year.

Doing good is good for business:

85% of consumers have a more positive image of companies that give to charities.

90% of consumers want to know how companies are supporting charitable causes.

Company-sponsored volunteering engages employees by:

Producing employee satisfaction with their employer (93%)

Improving employee leadership and broadening professional skill sets (92%)

Helping employee well-being (77%)

Boosting morale (70%)

Strengthening camaraderie with work colleagues (64%)

Download this infographic for more information on the positive effects of small business charitable contributions in local communities across the nation.

About SCORE

Since 1964, SCORE has helped more than 11 million aspiring entrepreneurs. Each year, SCORE's 10,000 volunteer business experts provide 750,000+ free small business mentoring sessions, workshops and educational services to clients in 300 chapters nationwide. In 2017, SCORE volunteers helped to create 54,506 small businesses and 61,534 non-owner jobs.

For more information about starting or operating a small business, or on volunteering with SCORE, visit SCORE at www.score.org. Follow @SCOREMentors on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for the latest small business news and updates.

Contact Information

Betsy Dougert

800-634-0245

[email protected]

SOURCE SCORE

Related Links

https://www.score.org


MIAMI, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sitel Group, one of the largest customer experience management companies in the world, today announced it has been named a Finalist in the Contact Center or Customer Service Outsourcing Provider of the Year and the Contact Center of the Year - for Sitel Nicaragua - categories in the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and will ultimately be a Gold, Silver or Bronze Stevie Award winner in the program.

The awards are presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes several of the world's leading business awards shows including the prestigious International Business Awards and the Stevie Awards for Great Employers.

The Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie placements from among the Finalists will be revealed during a gala banquet on Friday, February 22 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. More than 600 professionals from across the globe are expected to attend.

More than 2,700 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry, in 45 nations, were evaluated in this year's competition. Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 150 professionals worldwide, working in seven specialized judging committees. Entries were considered in 93 categories for customer service and contact center achievements, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year; 60 categories for sales and business development achievements, ranging from Senior Sales Executive of the Year to Sales Training or Business Development Executive of the Year to Sales Department of the Year; and categories to recognize new products and services and solution providers.

"It is an honor to be named finalists in not one but two Stevie Awards categories," said Martin Wilkinson-Brown, Chief Marketing Officer at Sitel Group. "Our commitment to providing positive experiences internally for our employees and externally for our customers is evident in the recognition of being a finalist in the Contact Center of the Year and Contact Center or Customer Service Outsourcing Provider of the Year categories."

"The 2019 judges were very impressed by the caliber of this year's nominations, which set another record for this competition. The quality of the accomplishments outlined in every Finalist nomination was remarkable," said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards. "We look forward to announcing the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements in Las Vegas next month."

Details about the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and the list of Finalists in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

About Sitel Group

Sitel Group is one of the largest customer experience management companies in the world. The group is comprised of industry-leading firms providing business process outsourcing, digital customer experience, training and talent management, technology and innovation and consulting and analytics solutions.

With subsidiaries such as Sitel, TSC, Learning Tribes, Sitel Insights and Novagile, the group's services are leveraged across geographies, verticals and all stages of the end-to-end customer journey, helping clients effectively harness the industry's explosive digital transformation and consistently deliver outstanding customer experiences.

With over 30 years of industry-leading experience, Sitel Group's 75,000 associates service over 400 clients  Fortune Global 500 companies as well as local businesses  through its network of more than 150 offices in 27 countries.

To learn more, visit www.sitel.com or join the conversation on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About The Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.StevieAwards.com.

Sponsors of the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include Sales Partnerships, Inc. and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

Contact:

Maria Gallagher

[email protected]

SOURCE Sitel Group

Related Links

http://www.sitel.com


LOS ANGELES, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The California state Senate paid $350,000 to settle a workplace discrimination lawsuit filed by a former employee. The employee alleged that the upper house did not accommodate her emotional disabilities and then terminated her employment in retaliation after she claimed that she was sexually assaulted by an Assembly staff member.

The payout, which was to a former legislative aide to state Sen. Bob Wieckowski, is one of the largest settlements that the state Legislature has negotiated in recent history. The $350,000 payment came from the Senate's operating budget, which is funded by taxpayer dollars.

The plaintiff was listed as "Jane Doe" because the law allows for alleged victims of sexual assault in civil cases to use a pseudonym. The case's resolution could further ignite the #MeToo movement and encourage other legislative workers to speak up if they believe they are a victim of harassment.

Carney Shegerian, the founder of Los Angeles-based employee rights law firm Shegerian & Associates, has weighed in on the case.

"The conclusion of the case will hopefully demonstrate other victims of sexual harassment to step forward," Shegerian says. "It is important the legislative workers, and all employees, understand what their rights are in the workplace."

The former state Senate employee alleged that was sexually assaulted after a night out in Sacramento with co-workers in late 2016. She reported the assault to the police and both houses of the Legislature. An Assembly investigation did not substantiate the victim's claims and police did not file charges against the man accused.

The victim sued the Senate in May, in a lawsuit alleging that she was fired in September 2017 in retaliation of reporting the alleged rape. The lawsuit claimed that the victim's supervisors knew of her emotional problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and panic attacks. The victim requested the Senate ban the man from the Senate floor and assign him to a new parking garage, which were both denied.

About Shegerian & Associates:

Shegerian & Associates has won clients over $200 million in employment-based disputes and maintains a 98% success rate. We have offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and New York.

Media Contact:

Pace Public Relations

Caroline Kropke

[email protected]

SOURCE Shegerian & Associates

Related Links

www.shegerianlaw.com


CANTON, Mass., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- School of Rock, the world's leader in performance-based music education, is proud to announce School of Rock GearSelect, a transformational set of partnerships with the most innovative providers of musical instruments, accessories and tools in the world. School of Rock is proud to welcome

Fender (guitars and amplifiers), Zildjian (cymbals), Vic Firth (sticks and mallets), Roland (keyboards/electronic drums), Earasures (hearing protection), as well a portfolio of brands distributed by Hal Leonard, including Gretsch (drums), Gibraltar (drum hardware), Remo (drum heads), Blue (mics), Avid (Pro Tools recording software), Samson (audio), GeerFab (acoustic treatments), Tycoon (hand percussion), and Hal Leonard print music publications.

Through GearSelect, School of Rock will be working with its new partners on original content, artist access, and special events. Partner brands will be front and center in School of Rock music video productions, live performances, and marketing platforms. Brands also have the opportunity to tap into School of Rock students' insights and feedback to help shape product and customer strategies.

School of Rock will feature GearSelect partners' world-class products to its community of 30,000 students around the world each year. This will come to life through collaboration on sourcing partners' gear for schools, introducing instructors and students to their brands, and reducing obstacles for younger artists to get professional level gear.

According to School of Rock CEO, Rob Price "School of Rock already offers unmatched musical development. Adding GearSelect will substantially improve the quality of our student's playing and performing experience."

Fender was the first partner to join GearSelect. Fender CEO Andy Mooney observes "School of Rock has an unmatched opportunity to help shape tomorrow's players. We are excited to leverage this powerful partnership to maximize the exposure of these young artists to Fender's innovations."

While GearSelect will expose School of Rock's community to a wide range of products, the company realizes that schools and students will need other categories of equipment or special requirements. To support this, its schools, staff members and students will have the additional support of Chicago Music Exchange. In addition to its flagship store in Chicago, CME offers an extraordinary ecommerce platform and exceptional support through a dedicated concierge and special programs for School of Rock Students.

ABOUT SCHOOL OF ROCK

School of Rock helps aspiring musicians master skills, unleash creativity, and develop tools they need to thrive in life. Founded as a single school in Philadelphia, PA in 1998, School of Rock has become a rapidly growing international franchise operating more than 220 schools in nine global markets. Since 2009, School of Rock has grown student count from 4,000 to more than 30,000. School of Rock offers a wide variety of music lessons , including guitar lessons , singing lessons and piano lessons (available at www.schoolofrock.com/lessons ).

Follow School of Rock on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SchoolofRockUSA and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SchoolofRockUSA .

For more information on School of Rock visit www.SchoolofRock.com or call 866-695-5515. To learn more about School of Rock franchise opportunities head to http://franchising.schoolofrock.com/

ABOUT FENDER MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS CORPORATION:

Since 1946, Fender has revolutionized music and culture as one of the world's leading musical instrument manufacturers, marketers and distributors. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC), whose portfolio of brands includes Fender, Squier, Gretsch guitars, Jackson, EVH and Charvel, follows a player-centric approach to crafting the highest quality instruments and musical solutions across genres. FMIC is dedicated to unlocking the power of music through electric and acoustic guitars, amplifiers, pro audio, accessories and digital products that inspire and enable musical expression at every stage, from beginners to history-making legends. For additional information on new Fender products and to find a retail partner near you, visit www.fender.com. Join the conversation on social media by following @Fender.

ABOUT ZILDJIAN

The Zildjian Company has been synonymous with setting the standard for the development and manufacture of high performance musical instruments since 1623. As the world's leading maker of cymbals, drumsticks and percussion mallets, Zildjian products are sold across the globe, under the Zildjian, Vic Firth and Balter Mallet brands, and are the standard to which all other cymbals, drumsticks and mallets are measured. From the beginner to the world's greatest rock stars, jazz performers and concert percussionists, amateurs and pros alike chose Zildjian, Vic Firth, and Balter Mallets products to allow them to experience and share the joy of music.

Headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts with offices in Los Angeles, CA and London, UK, Zildjian products are sold globally through distributors and via a network of dealers. All Zildjian products are made in the USA at our cymbal factory in Norwell, MA and drumstick/mallet factory in Newport, ME. For more information on the Avedis Zildjian Company, please visit: https://zildjian.com/information/about-zildjian

ABOUT HAL LEONARD

Founded in 1947, Hal Leonard is the world's largest publisher and distributor of music performance and instructional materials, with a catalog of over 220,000 products in both physical and digital form. Hal Leonard represents many of the world's best known and most respected publishers, artists, songwriters, and arrangers. The company is also a major distributor of music gear and technology products, selling and marketing the most popular software, hard goods and accessories available today. Its products are sold in more than 65 countries throughout the world through Hal Leonard offices and a large network of distributors. Hal Leonard is headquartered in Milwaukee, WI and also has domestic offices in Winona, MN; Austin, TX; Boston, MA; and San Francisco, CA. It also has offices abroad in Australia, Belgium, China, Germany, Holland, India, Italy, Switzerland, and two locations in the UK: London and Bury St. Edmunds, England.

SOURCE School of Rock

Related Links

https://www.schoolofrock.com


New Features

This bSafe app is providing brand new opportunities, because both audio and video recordings provide new insights into what actually happened. This app works as a deterrent with its siren-like alarm, an alarm that will make the attacker think twice about doing what he has initially planned on doing.

Both audio and video recordings are instantly sent to the guardians simultaneously; therefore no information is lost, even if the perpetrator destroys your mobile phone. bSafe has additional features like Follow me, Fake call and Timer alarm.

Cost

Everyone who downloads the app receives a 7-Day free trial with all features included. Connect to the AppStore/GooglePlay. Users have the option to pay $7.99 per month or an $5.99 per month/$71.88 per year.

Vouchers for parents, corporates and organizations

bSafe offers vouchers for anyone to purchase the app with one year of safety and security for their children, members, and employees and give peace of mind everywhere they go.

bSafe for college campus

The company has developed a platform for public safety to make college campuses and cities safer. Mobile Safety Technology Inc has recently signed an MOU with Drexel University in Philadelphia and had initial meetings with the Attorney General's office in Pennsylvania about College Campus Safety.

Rich Larsen, founder and developer of bSafe is in the United States for the next two weeks and is available for interviews. Please contact Alison Maloni of Alison May Public Relations at 413.478.4481 or [email protected] to schedule an interview.

Website: https://getbsafe.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bsafeapp/

Twitter: @getbsafe

About Alison May Public Relations, LLC

We are a full-service public relations company with more than twenty years of media experience. Our team consists of former journalists, authors, and award-winning professionals. We have spent years establishing relationships with journalists around the world and do what everyone else is not doing. We are storytellers. We get your story told.

SOURCE bSafe
FORT WORTH, Texas, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- PermRock Royalty Trust (NYSE:PRT) (the "Trust") today declared a monthly cash distribution to record holders of its trust units representing beneficial interests in the Trust ("Trust Units") as of January 31, 2019 and payable on February 14, 2019 in the amount of $0.087678 per Trust Unit, based principally upon production during the month of November 2018.



The following table displays underlying oil and natural gas sales volumes and average received wellhead prices attributable to the current and prior month net profits interest calculations:



Underlying Sales Volumes Average Price

Oil Natural Gas Oil

(per Bbl) Natural Gas

(per Mcf)

Bbls Bbls/D Mcf Mcf/D Current Month 45,812 1,527 49,630 1,654 49.05 2.06 Prior Month 47,818 1,543 57,103 1,842 55.58 4.35

Oil cash receipts for the properties underlying the Trust totaled $2.25 million for the current month, a decrease of $0.41 million from the prior month distribution period as a result of a decrease in sales volumes and oil prices compared to the prior month.

Natural gas cash receipts for the properties underlying the Trust totaled $0.10 million for the current month, a decrease of $0.15 million from the prior month distribution period as a result of a decrease in sales volumes and gas prices compared to the prior month. The production month of November has one less day than the previous production month of October. Further, lower natural gas prices for the month of November primarily relate to the renegotiation and extension of a longer-term contract for the sale of natural gas at market prices. In the meantime, Boaz Energy received and expects to be paid lower, short-term sales prices until the longer-term contract is effective. Boaz Energy projects that contract to be effective February 1, 2019.

Hedge settlement revenue in the amount of $550,850 has also been included in the calculation of net proceeds. Basin differentials continue to affect oil and gas prices.

Total direct operating expenses, including lease operating expenses and workover expenses, were $0.76 million, an increase of $0.06 million from the prior month. Severance and ad valorem taxes were $0.33 million, a decrease of $0.18 million from the prior month.

Capital expenditures were $0.45 million in the current month, an increase of $0.26 million from the prior month. Boaz Energy has advised the Trustee that the increase in capital expenditures reported in recent months was primarily attributable to pre-payment for non-operated drilling in Glasscock County, Texas as well as continued drilling and completion operations on non-operated acreage in Crane County, Texas.

About PermRock Royalty Trust

PermRock Royalty Trust is a Delaware statutory trust formed by Boaz Energy II, LLC ("Boaz Energy") to own a net profits interest representing the right to receive 80% of the net profits from the sale of oil and natural gas production from certain properties owned by Boaz Energy in the Permian Basin of West Texas. For more information on PermRock Royalty Trust, please visit our website at www.permrock.com.

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements represent the Trust's expectations or beliefs concerning future events, and it is possible that the results described in this press release will not be achieved. These forward-looking statements include the amount and date of any anticipated distribution to unitholders. The anticipated distribution is based, in part, on the amount of cash received or expected to be received by the Trust from Boaz Energy with respect to the relevant period. Any differences in actual cash receipts by the Trust could affect this distributable amount. Other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include expenses of the Trust and reserves for anticipated future expenses. Statements made in this press release are qualified by the cautionary statements made in this press release.

Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, the Trust does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Trust to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements in the prospectus filed with the SEC in connection with the Trust's initial public offering, and in the Trust's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other public filings filed with the SEC. The risk factors and other factors noted in the Trust's public filings with the SEC could cause its actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. The Trust's filed reports are or will be available over the Internet at the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.

Contact: PermRock Royalty Trust

Simmons Bank, Trustee

Lee Ann Anderson, Senior Vice President

Toll-free: (855) 588-7839

Fax: (817) 298-5579

Website: www.permrock.com

e-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE PermRock Royalty Trust

Related Links

http://www.permrock.com


Located in Arlington's desirable, bustling Rosslyn neighborhood, known for the quality lifestyle it offers, the property is conveniently located near Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill district, the Pentagon, Reagan Washington National Airport and the National Mall. Oakwood Arlington's units are fully furnished which offer business professionals, individual travelers and long-term residents a spacious, comfortable apartment stay experience. Oakwood has managed this property for more than a decade; Mapletree's purchase is based on its confidence in the growing Northern Virginia market.

"Mapletree is proud to continue expanding its footprint to include Northern Virginia. Like our recent acquisition in Chicago, we have been eyeing this region as it is a growth market," said Chua Tiow Chye, Mapletree's deputy group chief executive officer. "As Arlington and its surrounding neighborhoods continue to grow and attract global businesses, we are committed to investing and developing offerings for major corporations and the U.S. government through strategic acquisitions. The acquisition is part of a value-add strategy for Mapletree, and we will be investing more capital to enhance the quality of the building in the coming months to tie in with the expansion in the area," added Chua Tiow Chye.

Oakwood Arlington is just three blocks from the Rosslyn Metro Station, surrounded by hip restaurants, leading national and local retailers and boasts a Walk Score of 95, providing convenient access for guests and residents. Directly across the Potomac River from Georgetown University and Washington's Foggy Bottom neighborhood, Oakwood occupants can look forward to a lively, exciting and liveable atmosphere, distinct from the daytime bustle of nearby Washington.

"Securing Oakwood Arlington, a premier property in one of Washington, D.C.'s most-desired neighborhoods, reinforces Oakwood's desire to simultaneously strengthen its offerings while establishing itself in one of the world's most significant hubs for business and government leaders," said Chris Ahearn, chief executive officer, Oakwood. "Northern Virginia is growing: it was recently selected as one of Amazon's two new headquarters. We are thrilled with Mapletree's decision to invest in the building and to continue managing this landmark property."

About Oakwood

Oakwood, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mapletree Investments, is the leading global accommodation solutions provider helping businesses and individual travelers be anywhere they need to be. With an extensive and flexible selection of move-in ready furnished and serviced apartments, Oakwood has enabled thousands of companies to expand their reach to more customers and markets. The award-winning company continues investing in its exclusive and growing portfolio of Oakwood-branded properties throughout the Americas, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and APAC (Asia Pacific) offering travelers a broad range of accommodation options from apartments with luxurious style and full amenities to sensible accommodations with modern essentials. For more information, please visit www.Oakwood.com.

About Mapletree

Mapletree is a leading real estate development, investment, capital and property management company headquartered in Singapore. Its strategic focus is to invest in markets and real estate sectors with good growth potential. By combining its key strengths, the Group has established a track record of award-winning projects, and delivers consistent and high returns across real estate asset classes.

Mapletree currently manages four Singapore-listed real estate investment trusts (REITs) and six private equity real estate funds, which hold a diverse portfolio of assets in Asia Pacific, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US).

As at 31 March 2018, Mapletree owns and manages S$46.3 billion of office, retail, logistics, industrial, residential, corporate housing / serviced apartment, and student accommodation properties.

The Group's assets are located across 12 economies globally, namely Singapore, Australia, China, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, the UK, the US and Vietnam. To support its global operations, Mapletree has established an extensive network of offices in these countries.

For more information, please visit www.mapletree.com.sg/ .

SOURCE Oakwood

Related Links

http://www.oakwood.com


FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Astanza Laser is excited to host Modern Advancements in Aesthetic Lasers on February 21, 2019, a special event coming to the greater Fort Lauderdale / Miami area, located at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina. During this night of innovative technology, Astanza will share their insight on the aesthetic devices that top laser practitioners and physicians prefer for increasingly popular procedures such as laser tattoo removal, laser hair removal, skin rejuvenation and resurfacing. Modern Advancements in Aesthetic Lasers will feature international lecturer and laser hair removal industry leader, Judy Adams, CME as keynote speaker.

Attendees will learn about Astanza's top aesthetic laser devices as well as view live laser tattoo removal, laser hair removal, and skin resurfacing treatments. Featured that evening will be the newest Astanza device, the Astanza DermaBlate. The Astanza DermaBlate has been recognized as the most powerful, versatile and controllable Erbium laser in the world, and has the ability to provide safe and gentle skin resurfacing treatments with little to no side effects and shorter healing time compared to treatments with CO2 lasers. The Astanza DermaBlate is the Erbium laser commonly used to perform the popular "Celebrity Peel."



Also included in the evening's lineup, attendees will view live laser tattoo removal treatments with the Astanza Trinity TSR, the leading tattoo removal system that combines the power of both the Duality and EternityTSR lasers to provide the optimum solution for completely removing unwanted tattoo ink. Using three wavelengths (532nm, 694nm, and 1064nm), a variety of beam improvements and high energy production, the Astanza TrinityTSR has become elite laser practitioners' first choice for treating multi-colored tattoos quickly, safely and effectively.

Live demonstrations at the event will also cover laser hair removal treatments with the Astanza ReSmooth. The Astanza ReSmooth's XL handpiece highlights an industry-leading spot size of 9.1 cm2, earning the title of the fastest hair removal diode laser on the market. This device is changing the way users approach laser hair removal, saving practitioners and patients time with fast and efficient treatments.

"Florida's aesthetic industry is booming, and we're excited to invite industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and laser practitioners to join the conversation together during this special event. With increasingly improved aesthetic technology entering the market, we want to offer our insight into the devices and treatment trends making waves in the industry," said Beth Gualario, Florida Regional Sales Manager.

In addition to current industry trends, technology, and clinical information, attendees will hear more about the following topics:

The Celebrity Peel  The Hottest NEW Trend in Aesthetics

 The Hottest NEW Trend in Aesthetics Beyond IPL  Diode Lasers and Hair Removal Treatments

 Diode Lasers and Hair Removal Treatments Nano vs. PicoSecond Lasers  Truth or Fiction?

Astanza is excited to welcome Judy Adams, CME as their keynote speaker at Modern Advancements in Aesthetic Lasers and hear her ideas on the changing aesthetic market.

Judy Adams, CME is an international lecturer for hair removal and has trained hundreds of electrologists how to safely operate hair removal lasers, as well as physicians (MDs and DOs), physician assistants (PAs), advanced registered nurse practitioners (ARNPs) and estheticians from around the world. She is the past president (twice) of the Electrolysis Society of Florida and a past president of the International Society of Clinical & Medical Hair Removal.



Those unavailable to attend Modern Advancements in Aesthetic Lasers but still interested in learning more about Astanza devices and gaining more insight into aesthetic practices are invited to attend Astanza Laser's training program, New Look Laser College (NLLC). The upcoming New Look Laser College course will take place in Fort Lauderdale February 23-24, 2019 following this special event. During this extensive training course, students will learn how to perform laser tattoo removal treatments, laser physics, safety protocol, insights for running a successful tattoo removal business, and will receive hands-on training with real tattoo removal patients. Find more information regarding the New Look Laser College curriculum here.

EVENT DETAILS

Click here to RSVP for Modern Advancements in Aesthetic Lasers in Miami / Fort Lauderdale

DATE & TIME

Thursday, February 21, 2019

6:30  9:00 PM

6:30 PM  Cocktails

7:00 PM  Presentation and Dinner



LOCATION

Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina, 1881 SE 17th St, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316



For more information regarding this event, please contact Beth Gualario Florida Regional Sales Manager, by calling (813) 732-2583 or emailing [email protected].

About Astanza Laser

Astanza is the leader in lasers for tattoo removal, hair removal, and additional aesthetic procedures. In addition to developing cutting-edge medical laser devices such as the Duality, Trinity, and ReSmooth systems, Astanza offers its customers a complete range of training, marketing, and business consulting services specific to achieving success in this growing field. Astanza Laser is headquartered in Dallas, TX with customers throughout North America and Europe. For product, investor, or press information, call (800) 364-9010, or visit http://www.astanzalaser.com/.

SOURCE Astanza Laser

Related Links

http://www.AstanzaLaser.com


KILLEEN, Texas, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Established as a federal holiday in 1983 at the urging of his wife Coretta Scott King, the third Monday in January is a day spent honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Since being signed into law and its first official celebration in January 1986, the three-day weekend that 42 percent of American workers receive now overshadows the purpose of the day: to honor the man who fought for racial equality, financial equality and justice.

Instead of using the MLK Day of Service holiday to sleep in, you can take a cue from the life of Dr. King and turn a day off into a day of action. Serve your community by:

Donating Blood

The end of year holidays brings an uptick in car crash victims and fewer blood donors. MLK Day falls just three weeks into the new year. With nearly half of the working population off of work, it is the perfect time to give blood.

Preparing Displacements Kits for Families

Winter weather brings colder temperatures and the use of space heaters and other dangerous heating methods that may lead to house or apartment fires . Displaced families need basic necessities such as clean clothes, linens, and new underwear. Additionally, you can collect food, feminine and other hygiene products, pet food, diapers or gift cards to local stores to aid these families.

Donate Gently Used Clothes and Shoes

Divorce and domestic violence are two of the top reasons people seek help for themselves and their children through the aid of shelters or charities. Use your day off to go through gently used items that you no longer wear such as shoes, coats, pants, shirts, blouses and even purses and eyeglasses. You can donate these items to a local shelter or national charity.

Visit a Nursing Home or Senior Living Community

It is estimated that as many as 60-percent of nursing home residents never have visitors. Unfortunately, nursing home abuse and negligence are more likely to occur when residents have little to no visitors. Volunteer to call bingo or wow residents with your musical talents.

Need more ideas? Visit The Carlson Law Firm's blog for more ways you can spread love and kindness this upcoming MLK Day and beyond.

Media Contact: Kazia Conway

[email protected]

SOURCE The Carlson Law Firm

Related Links

https://www.carlsonattorneys.com


(CNN)  It was a meant to be a happy occasion to launch the New Year -- a meet and greet between a Japanese pop idol and her fans.

But Maho Yamaguchi didn't turn up to her pop group's event on January 6. In the following days, she apologized for her absence and went public as to the reason why: An alleged assault at the hands of two male fans.

"I am sorry to shock you guys. Some might get scared to hear what happened to me. I am really sorry. I wanted to help those who were going through the same experience," she posted on her Twitter account on January 8.

Yamaguchi is a member of Niigata-based "idol group" NGT48, a sister group to the famous 48-member girl band AKB48. She claimed a member of her group had leaked her address to two male fans who assaulted her at home on December 8 last year.

"I didn't do anything for a month because I didn't want to impose on everyone that supports me. I don't want you to dislike NGT (the pop band) ... That's because I believed they'd sort all this out," Yamaguchi added on Twitter.

Following her online confession, Yamaguchi made a fleeting appearance at her pop group's three-year anniversary show on January 10 and apologized in person for "causing trouble" to her fans.

A statement on NGT48's website last week confirmed that another member had told male fans when Yamaguchi might return home. The two men were arrested on suspicion of grabbing her face but later released. Yamaguchi insinuated her management company did nothing to deal with those involved in her ordeal.

Apology stirs controversy

Her apology comes amid growing attention in Japan to the issue of violence against women. In the days following her Twitter post, criticism was directed at Yamaguchi's management company, AKS, for its apparent mishandling of the incident  and for her seemingly unnecessary omission of regret.

In Japan, people often issue public apologies when they think they have disturbed "wa" or societal harmony. Speaking to CNN, Kukhee Choo, a cultural studies expert at Sophia University in Tokyo, said that Yamaguchi's apology has also helped her to garner more sympathy from the Japanese public.

"There's a lot of affinity in Japan towards idol figures as the management companies choose very average, cute, young cheerful women. They want everyone to feel like this could be your daughter or next-door neighbor," said Choo.

"If someone powerful has a hard time coming out, the average women in Japan thinks, what chance do I have? But idols are very relatable. This incident could help other young women to think, if she came out, then I can come out too."

Japan is ranked 110th out of 149 countries in the World Economic Forum's index measuring the degree of gender equality.

The country also ranks bottom among G7 countries for gender equality, despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's pledge to empower working women through a policy called "womenomics."

According to Choo, Japanese culture is still bound by notions that women have to behave in a so-called "womanly way" to elicit sympathy. "In western culture strong women are respected, but in Japan, even when you're strong you have to perform the victim."

The management company for both NGT48 and AKB48 announced Monday that it had removed one of its officials amid criticism of its handling of the alleged assault on Yamaguchi. It said it would take preventive measures such as providing emergency alarms to all members and patrol around their homes.

In a statement, the company said they were "determined to build trust with each of the members and to provide mental care for Maho Yamaguchi and all other members."

When the 'girl-next-door' speaks up

The Japanese pop idol industry, or J-pop as it's more commonly known, is worth billions of dollars. Major record companies maintain a tight grip on the lives of their stars, dictating their image and behavior both on and off stage.

Many of the groups are manufactured to appeal to male demographics.

"The point is they have to be cute and sexy and push all the buttons of the deferential and pure girl that appeals to guys," said Jeff Kingston, professor at Temple University in Tokyo and an author of several books on Japan and Japanese social change.

Post-concert meet and greets and photo opportunities are routinely used to foster a sense of closeness between J-pop performers and audiences. It's here that the performers continue to sell their fabricated identities.

But it's this faux sense of intimacy that blurs the line between fantasy and reality for some fans. In 2014, a saw-wielding man attacked two members of AKB48, and in 2017, an obsessed fan turned stalker stabbed pop idol Mayu Tomita dozens of times.

The failure of the record industry to better protect its stars from violence has been amplified in the age of social media.

A petition on change.org that supported Yamaguchi and called for the manager's resignation had garnered more than 53,000 signatures when it closed on January 13.

"The (record company) staff should first protect the girls," Kemta Otsubo, an idol industry insider and writer, told CNN.

"It was inevitable that criticism would occur worldwide (in Yamaguchi's case), everybody is very angry with the management angry for apologizing for failing to protect her after Yamaguchi herself apologized."

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Why a pop idol's stand against her assault sparked outrage in Japan."
Medical Genetics Awareness Week is being celebrated for the first time in 2019 to recognize the invaluable contributions that medical genetics healthcare professionals make in the diagnosis, management and prevention of genetic diseases and the difference these professionals make in the lives of patients and families. During this week, which will coincide annually with the ACMG Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting, we take time to recognize the skills and commitment of all those on the healthcare team who translate genetic and genomic discoveries into better patient care.

Louanne Hudgins, MD, FACMG, president of the ACMG said, "I am very excited we are initiating a formal Medical Genetics Awareness week which will coincide with the ACMG Annual Meeting each year. This is a great way to remind the general public as well as other healthcare providers about the integral role our specialty plays in all of medicine."

Events will be scheduled at the ACMG Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington (www.acmgmeeting.net), the largest conference for clinical geneticists in the United States, as well as around the country. Those interested in collaborating, to hold their own event or to be an "ambassador" to promote awareness of medical genetics, are invited to email [email protected] for more information.

More information will be available soon at www.acmg.net and on the ACMG social media channels. People are invited to use the following hashtags for posts related to the celebration of Medical Genetics Awareness Week and to tag @TheACMG in Twitter posts:

#MedicalGeneticsAwareness

#IamaMedicalGenetecist

#FutureGeneticsProfessional

About the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) and ACMG Foundation

Founded in 1991, ACMG is the only nationally recognized medical society dedicated to improving health through the clinical practice of medical genetics and genomics. The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (www.acmg.net) provides education, resources and a voice for more than 2,200 biochemical, clinical, cytogenetic, medical and molecular geneticists, genetic counselors and other healthcare professionals, nearly 80% of whom are board certified in the medical genetics specialties. The College's mission is to develop and sustain genetic initiatives in clinical and laboratory practice, education and advocacy. Three guiding pillars underpin ACMG's work: 1) Clinical and Laboratory Practice 2) Education and 3) Advocacy. Genetics in Medicine, published monthly, is the official ACMG peer-reviewed journal. ACMG's website (www.acmg.net) offers a variety of resources including Policy Statements, Practice Guidelines, Educational Resources, and a Find Genetic Services tool. The educational and public health programs of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics are dependent upon charitable gifts from corporations, foundations, and individuals through the ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine.

Kathy Moran, MBA

[email protected]

SOURCE American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics

Related Links

http://www.acmg.net


ASBURY PARK, N.J., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Equipped with its own Mystic Krewe, the pomp and pageantry of a traditional Mardi Gras Ball will debut 7 pm Feb 23 at The Asbury, located at 210 Fifth Ave in Asbury Park.

Mardi Gras by the Shore is put forth by the Brian Holland Legacy Foundation, created last year to honor the life of a local resident with a penchant for elevating those around him.

Mardi Gras by the Shore  The Mystic Krewe of BHLF Celebrates New Orleans City Muses

The celebratory event aims to financially support the three pillars on which the nonprofit was founded - LGBTQ support, education and legacy.

Holland, a 10-year Asbury Park resident, was struck and fatally injured last year by an NJ Transit train at the Sunset Avenue crossing. The 37-year-old served as Regional Director of Employee Experience at The Asbury.

The inaugural Mardi Gras Ball, complete with music, dancing, a presentation of the Mardi Gras Krewe and the Royal Court, is a black tie/costume gala that will pay tribute to the Jersey Shore itself, said Dembrun, who is continuing a New Orleans tradition that began in 1973 by his adopted grandmother Mary Katherine Lonatro Tusa. At its peak, 600 plus members worked throughout the year to raise funding support for worthy causes.

This year Asbury Park residents Jon Biondo and Michelle Gladden will serve as King and Queen of the Mystic Krewe.

"This is someone who lives without borders and makes a lasting impact on every person that they encounter - like Brian," Dembrun said. "Brian was a selfless person who would sacrifice his time, energy, and money to charitable causes all across Asbury Park. He was an advocate for those whose voice wasn't loud enough to reach the platforms that could make a difference. In meetings, conversations, discussions, and at events, Brian spoke up for those who could not speak for themselves."

Tickets for the 7 pm Mardi Gras by the Shore Ball are $65 per person; $500 for a table of 10. For more information, visit the eventbrite.com listing by clicking here .

View the Mardi Gras BHLF video: https://vimeo.com/308941531/b28d7c48f7

View the Brian Holland Leave a Legacy Video: https://vimeo.com/299982359

Media Contact:

Larry Dembrun

[email protected]

917-455-3099

SOURCE Brian Holland Legacy Foundation

Related Links

https://www.brianhollandlegacyfoundation.com


BEIJING, Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- China's rising coffee chain brand luckin Coffee (luckin) is vying to become the nation's largest coffee chain with a total of 4,500 stores in operation by the end of the year. Founder and CEO Qian Zhiya made the announcement at a press conference in Beijing in early January.

Luckin burst onto China's coffee scene when it was founded in Beijing in October 2017. Since then, the company has expanded to 2,073 stores in 22 cities across China by the end of 2018, serving up more than 89.6 million cups of coffee to 12.5 million customers.

China's younger generations are increasingly enjoying coffee and the culture surrounding the beverage. For example, the American coffee brand Starbucks has opened 3,500 stores in 150 Chinese cities since 1999.

For luckin, its ambitious plan is backed by an abundant amount of capital. In December 2018, luckin announced having raised USD 200 million in a Series-B round of funding, which pushed its post-money valuation to USD 2.2 billion.

Luckin CEO Qian Zhiya considers the 2019 goal achievable because luckin's business model is already tackling the biggest challenges currently facing the coffee industry in China: expensive prices and inconvenience.

"With the development of the internet, luckin has transformed the traditional coffee chain to a new retail model, integrating offline services and online delivery services," Qian said. "Thus, luckin's new retail model strikes an excellent balance of price and services."

Luckin's delivery service likewise sets the brand apart. With in-app ordering, the company guarantees a delivery time of 18 minutes or less within major cities. Recently, luckin has partnered with China's largest food delivery giant, Meituan Dianping, and now allows customers to order luckin Coffee products via Meituan's delivery app Meituan Waimai.

By the end of 2018, the company claimed to have achieved its "500-meters coverage" layout in downtown Beijing and Shanghai, meaning customers can walk to luckin's stores within five minutes.

Qian said that its luckin's established strategy that they will race to grab market share through subsidies. "So far, the loss is in line with our expectation, " she added.

In 2017, the country's coffee shop sales reached USD 4.4 billion (RMB 30 billion) and are expected to reach USD 145 billion (RMB 1 trillion) by 2025, according to consultancy firm Qianzhan.

SOURCE luckin
MIAMI, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Longeveron LLC, a biopharmaceutical company that develops cellular therapies for aging-related diseases, will play a prominent role when leading experts gather in Miami for the 2019 World Stem Cell Summit, Jan. 22-25 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

One of the largest conferences dedicated to regenerative medicine, the World Stem Cell Summit brings together leading scientists and clinicians, investors, legal experts, funders and regulators. WSCS is held in conjunction with partner events, Phacilitate Leaders World, Cell & Gene Therapy World and Immuno-Oncology Frontiers World. The combined conferences attract more than 1,500 attendees from around the world, feature more than 300 global speakers, and have more than 90 hours of programming on the latest advances in regenerative medicine.

"We are very pleased to be a host in our hometown of Miami as the world's most prominent researchers and experts come together to discuss new developments and share the latest innovations in this rapidly-growing field, which we believe holds great promise for the future of healthcare," said Suzanne Page, Chief Operating Officer of Longeveron, which is serving as a co-chair of the event.

On Wednesday, Jan. 23, from 12:30 to 1:30 pm, Longeveron will host a briefing on "Trends in Biotechnology Research Aimed at Extending Health Lifespan." On Thursday, Jan. 24, at 2:35 pm, Longeveron will discuss the company's progress with its clinical research studying the safety and efficacy of stem cell treatments for aging-related diseases as part of a session on "Neurology and aging diseases: Giving neurology patients new hope through stem cell research." Longeveron is researching treatments based on its Mesenchymal Stem Cells for a variety of aging-related diseases, including Aging Frailty and Alzheimer's Disease.

In 2017, the company published positive Phase I and Phase 2 clinical studies in the Journals of Gerontology that evaluated the safety and efficacy of its stem cells in patients with Aging Frailty, a serious geriatric syndrome that can lead to other severe health conditions, such as heart disease. The company is now recruiting for an expanded Phase 2b Aging Frailty study.

The company is also recruiting for a Phase 1 Alzheimer's trial, as well as Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials to evaluate the safety and efficacy of its stem cells for improving flu vaccine immune response in Aging Frailty patients. The company's MSC product is derived from the bone marrow of young, healthy adult donors.

About Longeveron

Longeveron (www.longeveron.com) is a regenerative medicine therapy company founded in 2014. Longeveron's goal is to provide the first of its kind biological solution for aging-related diseases, and is dedicated to developing safe cell-based therapeutics to revolutionize the aging process and improve quality of life. The company's research focus areas Aging Frailty, the Metabolic Syndrome and Alzheimer's Disease and gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer's Association and Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund. Longeveron is also conducting a Phase 1 trial to study Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, a rare indication that affects infants, supported through a grant from the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund.

For more information about the clinical trials Longeveron is sponsoring, visit ClinicalTrials.gov or Longeveron's website www.longeveron.com

SOURCE Longeveron LLC

Related Links

http://longeveron.com


NEW YORK, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- National real estate investor and developer Lightstone announced today the launch of its new real estate debt platform, Lightstone Capital. Founded to address the financing inefficiencies and roadblocks many borrowers face in the current market, Lightstone Capital provides a reliable source of flexible capital for real estate transactions at a speed faster than traditional lenders.

"Our decades of experience across every real estate sector allow us to see value and uncover opportunities where other lenders cannot," said David Lichtenstein, Lightstone Chairman and CEO. "As a developer, we understand the borrower's perspective and needs, and we recognize their desire for a reliable lender that can work quickly."

Tapping Lightstone's extensive real estate investment and development knowledge, Lightstone Capital specializes in providing first-lien and mezzanine loans for bridge and construction financing projects secured by land and transitional real estate assets. The platform plans to close $500 million of financing within its first year.

Lightstone has hired Eugene Rozovsky to oversee and manage Lightstone Capital as Senior Vice President of Real Estate Debt Strategies. Prior to joining Lightstone, Mr. Rozovsky was Vice President of Acquisitions & Asset Management at Madison Realty Capital where he led the team responsible for all debt and equity investments, closing over $2 billion of transactions. Earlier in his career, Mr. Rozovsky held positions at Hudson Realty Capital and at Blackstone.

Lightstone Capital's target loans range in size from as small as $3 million up to $100 million, secured by real estate assets located in gateway markets including New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. Lightstone Capital will also consider strong projects in secondary markets.

Lightstone Capital underwrites opportunities with term sheets typically out within 3-5 business days, far more quickly than most present lenders.

To learn more about Lightstone Capital, please visit http://www.lightstonegroup.com/lightstone-capital/

About Lightstone

Lightstone, founded by David Lichtenstein, is one of the largest and most diversified privately held real estate companies in the United States. Lightstone is active in 28 states across the country, developing, managing and investing in all sectors of the real estate market, including residential, hospitality, commercial, and retail. With over 178 existing properties, Lightstone's $3 billion portfolio currently includes over 4.5 million square feet of office, retail and industrial commercial properties, over 15,000 residential units, and 4,300 hotel keys. Lightstone also owns over 12,000 land lots across the country.

Headquartered in New York City, Lightstone continues to grow its development portfolio with over $3.5 billion currently under development in the residential and hospitality sectors spread across New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami.

Contact:

Teddy Wilson Simmons

212-704-4564

[email protected]

SOURCE Lightstone

Related Links

http://www.lightstonegroup.com


"We are extremely proud to announce Jay's promotion to President and CEO of the Bank. He has been a leader with Woodforest from his first day of employment in 2007 and this same leadership has been recognized throughout the banking industry, as well as Montgomery County. Jay's commitment and dedication is evidenced by his service in the role as board member and volunteer of numerous banking and community organizations," said Marling.

In February 2007, Dreibelbis joined Woodforest National Bank as Chief Executive Officer of its newly acquired institution, Woodforest Bank, F.S.B. Shortly thereafter he became President and Chief Operating Officer of Woodforest National Bank, overseeing Technology and Operations.

Said Dreibelbis, "I am pleased and honored to serve Woodforest as its new CEO. I am very proud of our Bank, the manner we serve our customers and our communities. I look forward to building on the great reputation and success we hold in the banking industry."

Dreibelbis is a Texas native. He received his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, in 1980 and has been a proud Montgomery County resident since moving to Conroe, TX in 1986. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Woodforest National Bank and the Conroe Economic Development Council and is also on the Advisory Council for the Sam Houston State University School of Banking. He is a member of the Finance Committee and Board of Directors of the Texas Bankers Association where he served as Chairman for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Dreibelbis also currently serves on the Board of Directors for LiftFund (a non-profit organization that helps finance new small business and startup companies and provides small business loans, SBA loans and microloans in Texas and South Eastern USA) and Payrailz, (a digital payments company offering advanced bill payment and money transfer solutions to banks and credit unions). He previously served as Chairman of the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce and Campaign Chairman for The United Way.

Dreibelbis and his wife, Karol, raised their family in the Conroe community, and their children are graduates of the Conroe Independent School District. He is an avid outdoorsman, dedicated father, husband, grandfather, and volunteer.

About Woodforest

Celebrating 38 years of community banking service, Woodforest National Bank has successfully stood among the strongest community banks in the nation, proudly offering outstanding customer service since 1980. Woodforest currently operates over 700 branches in 17 states across the United States. For more information about Woodforest National Bank please visit www.woodforest.com.

Media Contact

Patricia Brown

President-Conroe Market

Public Relations Director

Woodforest National Bank

832-375-2298

[email protected]

SOURCE Woodforest National Bank

Related Links

http://www.woodforest.com


SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Prologis, Inc. (NYSE: PLD), the global leader in logistics real estate, and global real estate investor Ivanhoe Cambridge today announced the close of their agreement to form an approximately $880 million, 20/80 joint venture in Brazil.

Prologis Brazil Logistics Venture will develop and operate logistics real estate in Brazil, specifically in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. At closing, the venture acquired an initial portfolio of assets of approximately 6.9 million square feet of operating properties and 371 acres of land from Prologis with a commitment to build out the existing land bank.

ABOUT IVANHOE CAMBRIDGE

Ivanhoe Cambridge develops and invests in high-quality real estate properties, projects and companies that are shaping the urban fabric in dynamic cities around the world. It does so responsibly, with a long-term view to generate optimal, risk-adjusted returns. Ivanhoe Cambridge is committed to creating living spaces that foster the well-being of people and communities, while reducing its environmental footprint. Vertically integrated in Canada, Ivanhoe Cambridge invests internationally alongside strategic partners and major real estate funds that are leaders in their markets. Through subsidiaries and partnerships, the Company holds interests in more than 1,000 buildings, primarily in the residential, office, retail, industrial and logistics sectors. Ivanhoe Cambridge held more than C$60 billion in assets as at June 30, 2018, and is a real estate subsidiary of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (cdpq.com), one of Canada's leading institutional fund managers. For more information: ivanhoecambridge.com.

ABOUT PROLOGIS

Prologis, Inc. is the global leader in logistics real estate with a focus on high-barrier, high-growth markets. As of September 30, 2018, the company owned or had investments in, on a wholly owned basis or through co-investment ventures, properties and development projects expected to total approximately 771 million square feet (72 million square meters) in 19 countries. Prologis leases modern distribution facilities to a diverse base of approximately 5,500 customers across two major categories: business-to-business and retail/online fulfillment.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

The statements in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about the industry and markets in which we operate as well as management's beliefs and assumptions. Such statements involve uncertainties that could significantly impact our financial results. Words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," and "estimates," including variations of such words and similar expressions, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements, which generally are not historical in nature. All statements that address operating performance, events or developments that we expect or anticipate will occur in the futureincluding statements relating to rent and occupancy growth, development activity, contribution and disposition activity, general conditions in the geographic areas where we operate, our debt, capital structure and financial position, our ability to form new co-investment ventures and the availability of capital in existing or new co-investment venturesare forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Although we believe the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be attained and, therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in such forward-looking statements. Some of the factors that may affect outcomes and results include, but are not limited to: (i) national, international, regional and local economic and political climates; (ii) changes in global financial markets, interest rates and foreign currency exchange rates; (iii) increased or unanticipated competition for our properties; (iv) risks associated with acquisitions, dispositions and development of properties; (v) maintenance of real estate investment trust status, tax structuring and changes in income tax laws and rates; (vi) availability of financing and capital, the levels of debt that we maintain and our credit ratings; (vii) risks related to our investments in our co-investment ventures, including our ability to establish new co-investment ventures; (viii) risks of doing business internationally, including currency risks; (ix) environmental uncertainties, including risks of natural disasters; and (x) those additional factors discussed in reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by us under the heading "Risk Factors." We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements appearing in this document except as may be required by law.

SOURCE Prologis, Inc.
PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement is being issued by Heffler Claims Group regarding the Canada Dry Ginger Ale Class Action Settlement.

Two proposed class action Settlements have been reached in cases alleging Canada Dry Ginger Ale Products, packaged and labeled with the words "Made from Real Ginger" were false and deceptive. The Settlements resolve two lawsuits: in California, Fitzhenry-Russell, et al. v. Keurig Dr Pepper, et al., No. 5:17cv564 (U.S. District Court for Northern District of Cal.); and in 49 other states, George, et al. v. Keurig Dr Pepper, et al., No. 1822-CC11811 (Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, MO). The Settlements require Defendants to change the label and compensate consumers. Defendants deny any wrongdoing.

Who is a Class Member?

You may be an eligible Settlement Class Member if you purchased Canada Dry Ginger Ale Products in California between December 28, 2012, and June 26, 2018, or in the other 49 United States, between January 1, 2013, and December 19, 2018.

What are the Benefits?

The Settlements require Defendants to permanently remove the label claim "Made from Real Ginger." They permit labeling that includes statements such as, "real ginger taste" and "made with real ginger extract," among other combinations of those label claims. Settlement Class Members who file a claim will receive $0.40 per Unit purchased, up to 13 Units or $5.20 per Household without proof of purchase, and up to 100 Units or $40.00 per Household with proof of purchase. Every Valid claim will receive a minimum payment of $2.00. The total Benefit for the 49-State Class Members is capped at $11,200,000, so Class Members there may receive per Unit less depending on how many Valid Claims are actually submitted. There is no cap on total benefits for the California Settlement.

What are my rights?

You may make a Claim, Object, Opt-Out, or do nothing. To receive a payment, you must submit a Claim, online or by mail, by March 19, 2019. If you Opt-Out of the Settlement, you may pursue a separate lawsuit, but you will receive no payment. Your Opt-Out request must be received by the Settlement Administrator by March 19, 2019. If you do not Opt-Out, you give up your right to bring a separate lawsuit. To object, you must submit a written Objection that complies with the requirements in the applicable Settlement Notice available at www.CDGAsettlement.com . Your Objection must be filed with the Court by March 19, 2019. Do nothing, and you will not receive a payment and you will release claims against Defendants that relate to the allegations in the lawsuits.

Each Court presiding over the cases will hold a Fairness Hearing to review its respective Settlement. The California Settlement will be heard on April 10, 2019, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, 280 S. 1st St., San Jose, CA 95113, before the Honorable Nathanael Cousins. The 49-State Settlement will be heard on April 8, 2019, in the Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis, MO, Civil Courts Bldg., 5th floor, 10 N. Tucker Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63101, before the Honorable Mark Neill. Each Court will decide whether to approve the Settlement and to make certain awards to be paid by Defendants. The Missouri Court will decide whether to award Attorneys' Fees and Costs of up to $1,200,000, plus $1,000 per named Plaintiff as Class Representative Service Awards. The California Court will decide whether to award Attorneys' Fees and Expenses of up to $2,250,000, plus $5,000 per named Plaintiff as Class Representative Service Awards. The Applications for Attorneys' Fees and Expenses will be posted on www.CDGAsettlement.com after they are filed. You may, but don't have to, attend the hearings. Benefit Checks will be issued to the Class Members only if the Settlements are approved and any Objections are resolved. Please be patient.

For more information, visit www.CDGAsettlement.com or contact the Settlement Administrator at 1-833-305-3916 or Heffler Claims Group, Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., P.O. Box 58097, Philadelphia, PA 19102-8097. Please do not telephone the Courts to inquire about the Settlements.

SOURCE Heffler Claims Group
NEW YORK, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Grey today announced that its Grey New York flagship office has been selected as the advertising agency-of-record for Douglas Elliman Real Estate, the third-largest residential real estate brokerage company in the United States, following a review.

Grey will develop a new global brand strategy, visual identity and digitally-led marketing approach, followed by an extensive new brand campaign. The work will encompass each of the firm's regions including New York, Florida, California, Colorado, Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well its new development division, Douglas Elliman Development Marketing.

Scott Durkin, President and COO of Douglas Elliman, said, "We are excited to begin working with the team at Grey. They demonstrated a deep understanding of our complex business, our brand's legacy and our vision for the future. We intend to leverage our success by creating original and compelling communications that resonate with our agents, our clients and our customers in each of our markets, across every channel."

In 2018, Douglas Elliman took part in six out of the top 10 most expensive deals in Manhattan and currently serves as exclusive broker to some of the most bespoke homes on the market, including La Follia in Palm Beach for $135 million, a 400-acre retreat atop Aspen Mountain in Aspen, Colorado and a $100 million dollar estate in Bel Air, California. Douglas Elliman Development Marketing represents more than $30 billion in new projects including 111 West 57th Street in Midtown-Manhattan, The XI by Bjarke Ingels which will have the first Six Senses Hotel in the United States, The West Hollywood Edition by Ian Schrager, The Four Seasons in Fort Lauderdale and Monad Terrace by Jean Nouvel in Miami's South Beach.

Debby Reiner, CEO of Grey New York, said, "We are delighted to welcome Douglas Elliman, the iconic brand that has been a pacesetter in its industry for over a century, to our roster. We shared an instant chemistry and look forward to a great partnership."

Jane Reiss, Chief Brand Experience Officer of Grey New York, said, "Our goal is to harness Grey's expertise in innovation, creativity and design to help further cement Douglas Elliman as the preeminent brand in luxury real estate."

About Douglas Elliman Real Estate

Established in 1911, Douglas Elliman Real Estate is the largest brokerage in the New York Metropolitan area and the third largest residential real estate company nationwide. With more than 7,000 agents, the company operates approximately 113 offices in New York City, Long Island, The Hamptons, Westchester, Connecticut, New Jersey, Florida, California, Colorado and Massachusetts. Moreover, Douglas Elliman has a strategic global alliance with London-based Knight Frank Residential for business in the worldwide luxury markets spanning 60 countries and six continents. The company also controls a portfolio of real estate services including Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, Douglas Elliman Property Management and Douglas Elliman Commercial. For more information on Douglas Elliman as well as expert commentary on emerging trends in the real estate industry, please visit elliman.com.

About Grey





Grey is the advertising network of Grey Group, which ranks among the largest global communications companies. Its parent company Is WPP (NYSE: WPP). Under the banner of "Grey Famously Effective Since 1917" the agency serves a blue-chip roster of many of the world's best known companies: Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Kellogg's, Pfizer, Canon, Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Nestle, Walgreens, Applebee's, and T.J. Maxx. In recent years, Grey has been named ADWEEK'S 'Global Agency Of the Year" twice; ADVERTISING AGE's 'Agency Of the Year' and CAMPAIGN magazine's 'Global Network of the Year' in recognition of its creative and business performance (www.grey.com).

Contact: Owen J. Dougherty

212-546-2551

[email protected]

SOURCE Grey

Related Links

http://www.grey.com


DUBLIN, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Agricultural Camera and Monitoring Systems - Global Market Outlook (2017-2026)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Global Agricultural Camera and Monitoring Systems Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.2% during the forecast period.

Rise in wages of farm workers and improving automation for better agricultural produce are some of the key factors propelling the market growth. However, utilization of agricultural drones is restraining the market.

Agriculture cameras and monitoring systems are mostly used in monitoring outdoor and indoor agriculture farms for security surveillance and livestock monitoring to get better efficiency and productivity and decrease operational costs. Agricultural cameras are common equipment in agriculture fields, enabling the farmers to make informed decisions.

By Type, Indoor Agriculture Farms segment has acquired the significant growth. It is used for security surveillance and livestock monitoring to improve efficiency and productivity and reduce operational costs.

Based on Geography, North America holds the largest market share during the forecast period. Due to it is a highly fragmented and it provides inventive products with advanced technologies to address consumer preferences are expected to drive the market growth.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Executive Summary

2 Preface

2.1 Abstract

2.2 Stake Holders

2.3 Research Scope

2.4 Research Methodology

2.5 Research Sources

3 Market Trend Analysis

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Drivers

3.3 Restraints

3.4 Opportunities

3.5 Threats

3.6 Product Analysis

3.7 Application Analysis

3.8 End User Analysis

3.9 Emerging Markets

3.10 Futuristic Market Scenario

4 Porters Five Force Analysis

4.1 Bargaining power of suppliers

4.2 Bargaining power of buyers

4.3 Threat of substitutes

4.4 Threat of new entrants

4.5 Competitive rivalry

5 Global Agricultural Camera and Monitoring Systems Market, By Type

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Indoor Agriculture Farms

5.3 Outdoor Agriculture Farms

6 Global Agricultural Camera and Monitoring Systems Market, By Product

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Pizza Crust

6.3 Bread Rolls & Artisan Loaves

6.4 Savoury

6.5 Sweet Baked Goods & Morning Goods

6.6 Other Products

7 Global Agricultural Camera and Monitoring Systems Market, By Application

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Extreme Heat

7.3 Inconsistent Irrigation

7.4 Excess Water

7.5 Over Plantation

7.6 Improper Fertilization

7.7 Other Applications

8 Global Agricultural Camera and Monitoring Systems Market, By End User

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Commercial

8.3 Household

9 Global Agricultural Camera and Monitoring Systems Market, By Geography

9.1 Introduction

9.2 North America

9.3 Europe

9.4 Asia Pacific

9.5 South America

9.6 Middle East & Africa

10 Key Developments

10.1 Agreements, Partnerships, Collaborations and Joint Ventures

10.2 Acquisitions & Mergers

10.3 New Product Launch

10.4 Expansions

10.5 Other Key Strategies

11 Company Profiling

11.1 Basler

11.2 Dakota Micro

11.3 Tetracam

11.4 Brigade Electronics

11.5 TapLogic

11.6 Hyndsight Vision Systems

11.7 Farmtronics

11.8 Jansen Electronics

11.9 Grupo Bimbo SAB

11.10 Harry-Brot GmbH

11.11 Europastry Sa

11.12 Flowers Foods

11.13 PROVIX

For more information about this report visit

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


The Garnier Fructis study, revealing that the average woman feels she needs an extra 82 minutes a day to accomplish everything she would like, heralds the launch of a new innovative, time-saving in-shower hair styler, Sleek Shot. Sleek Shot is an in-shower hair styler that works by mixing with your shampoo (1:1 ratio), so that the in-shower hair smoothing and sleeking technology, infused with Argan Oil, coats hair strands with a flexible, hydrophobic polymer to jumpstart the blow dry routine. Users then rinse, follow with conditioner and blow dry as usual with no need for a flat iron or additional styling. The product will leave hair five-times smoother (with the Garnier shampoo, Sleek Shot, conditioner system vs. non-conditioning shampoo). The product was developed and tested specifically for women who spend hours trying to achieve the perfect blow out. Now with Sleek Shot, it takes half the time to sleek her hair.

"As a hairstylist, I hear countless women tell me they wish they could cut down on the time spent doing their own hair. They all wish they could get more time back for themselves," said Garnier Fructis Hair Consulting Stylist Ashley Streicher. "A time-saving product, like Garnier Fructis' new Sleek Shot in-shower styler, is becoming a total lifesaver for my clients with hectic lives. And they're obsessed  by adding it to their shower routine, they're tossing out their flatirons and finding that their perfect sleek hair no longer requires tons of extra time, steps or products to achieve a super polished look."

The survey further revealed that receiving this extra time back is of the essence for today's modern woman. One in three women are so busy, they'd be willing to give up social media and watching TV in order to have a bit of extra time back in their day; one in ten say they'd even give up their significant other for more time.*

With more time saved that was previously spent on their hair care routines, women can reconnect to their own personal priorities. Half of respondents reported that they have given up a hobby, simply because they didn't have the time for it. Twenty-two percent of women would use their extra time to learn a new hobby. Women report wanting to learn how to knit, write poetry and learn photography as some of the most lusted after activities.*

Garnier Fructis Sleek Shot In-Shower Styler is available nationwide at drug, food and mass market retailers as of January 2019 (SRP $4.49- $6.99). Visit http://www.garnierusa.com/ for store locations.

About Garnier

Garnier, a L'Oreal USA brand, was developed in 1904 in France by hair care expert Alfred Amour Garnier and is now present in more than 65 countries worldwide. Following the launch of Garnier in the United States in 1999 with Nutrisse hair color, the brand has continued to develop beauty products with a keen awareness of its responsibility to you and the planet. The entire collection of Garnier brands available in the U.S. includes Nutrisse, Fructis hair care and Fructis Style, Olia hair color, Color Sensation hair color, SkinActive and Whole Blends hair care. For more information visit www.garnierusa.com or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Snapchat @GarnierUSA.

*According to the SWNS survey conducted by OnePoll to 2,000 women aged 18+

For Press Inquiries Please Contact

Lauren Larkin or Donna Valle

Alison Brod Marketing Communications

212.230.1800

[email protected]

Taryn Multack

Director of Social Media & Influencer Marketing for Garnier

212.984.4499

[email protected]

SOURCE Garnier

Related Links

https://www.garnierusa.com


ERIE, Pa., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent AARP study1 found people with traditional Medicare spent an average of $5,680 in one year on insurance premiums and medical services, with half spending at least 17 percent of their income on health care. One in 10 spent at least $10,852. Erie Insurance now offers several supplemental insurance plans to cover the gaps associated with Medicare Parts A and B, also known as Original Medicare or Medicare.

Medicare provides coverage for health-related expenses including inpatient hospital and skilled nursing facility care, certain home health care services, doctor visits and more, but participants still have to pay deductibles and coinsurance. These out-of-pocket costs can create a significant financial burden, especially for seniors on fixed incomes.

"Instead of covering gaps out of their own pocket, people 65 and older who are enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B can now apply for an Erie Insurance Medicare Supplement plan," said Louis Colaizzo, senior vice president of life insurance at Erie Insurance. Erie Insurance offers four different plans and five in Pennsylvania. "Reviewing and selecting a plan can be daunting, which is why we recommend people work with an experienced insurance agent who can help them choose the right plan for them based on their individual needs and budget."

Generally, Medicare Supplement plans are standardized across the industry and offer similar benefits. Certain plans must be offered, while the carrier may choose other specific plans offerings.

"Selecting a Medicare Supplement is a big deal and who you buy it from matters," said Colaizzo. "Erie Insurance was founded on the principle of providing the best possible coverage and service at the lowest possible cost, and we've carried that philosophy into our new Medigap coverage. People should buy from a company they can trust, and that they know will be there for them when they have questions."

Erie Insurance Medicare Supplement plans, offered by Erie Family Life Insurance Company, based in Erie, Pa., are available in Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Not connected with or endorsed by the U.S. government or the federal Medicare program. Erie Family Life Insurance Company is rated A (Excellent) by A.M. Best Company. Medicare Supplement policies are available to disabled individuals under the age of 65. This is a solicitation of insurance; an agent (or the company) may contact you. The policy has terms, limitations and exclusions under which the policy may be continued in force or discontinued. For costs, complete details and licensure information, contact an ERIE agent or visit erieinsurance.com/medicare-supplement.

About Erie Insurance

According to A.M. Best Company, Erie Insurance Group, based in Erie, Pennsylvania, is the 9th largest homeowners insurer and 11th largest automobile insurer in the United States based on direct premiums written and the 16th largest property/casualty insurer in the United States based on total lines net premium written. The Group, rated A+ (Superior) by A.M. Best Company, has more than 5 million policies in force and operates in 12 states and the District of Columbia. Erie Insurance Group is a FORTUNE 500 company.

News releases and more information about Erie Insurance Group are available at www.erieinsurance.com.

1 "Medicare Beneficiaries' Out-of-Pocket Spending for Health Care," November 2017

SOURCE Erie Insurance

Related Links

http://www.erieinsurance.com


CINCINNATI, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Like many Midwesterners, Duke Energy continues to monitor and prepare for a winter storm that has the potential to cause power outages across the company's Ohio and Kentucky service regions.

Related: B-roll video of storm prep and winter storm power restoration efforts

"This storm will be different compared to the system that blanketed the Midwest with snow last weekend," said Duke Energy Meteorologist Curt Grimoskas. "This one is distinctive because it has the potential to bring a combination of snow, sleet, rain, freezing rain, very gusty winds and cold temperatures."

Related: High-resolution photos of winter storm power restoration work

Snow on its own typically has little to no impact on the electric system. However, heavy wet snow accumulation, freezing rain and high winds can bring down trees, limbs and power lines. These types of winter storms can also create hazardous driving conditions, which could delay or impede Duke Energy workers' abilities to assess storm damage and restore power.

Duke Energy workers preparing for and tracking storm

Ahead of this weekend's storm, Duke Energy line technicians and other workers continue to inspect equipment, check supplies and restock inventories to ensure adequate materials are available to make repairs and restore power outages. In addition, Duke Energy meteorologists are continually tracking the storm's path and intensity, and updating forecast models, which influence how the company mobilizes its workers and other resources.

Related: How Duke Energy restores power following a storm

Duke Energy has more than 500 line technicians, service crew workers and other storm personnel available across the company's Ohio and Kentucky service regions to respond to power outages once conditions are safe. Depending on the impact of the storm, Duke Energy can bring in additional workers from its Southeast utilities and/or activate mutual aid agreements to enlist help from other utilities across the U.S.

Bitter cold temperatures following the storm will make conditions even worse in the event of outages.

"We can't stress enough the need for customers to be prepared for the storm and to be ready to move family members and neighbors  especially those who may be more vulnerable during a loss of power  to safe, alternative locations," said Amy Spiller, president, Duke Energy Ohio and Kentucky.

Safety reminders

Here are ways customers can be prepared and stay safe before, during and after a storm:

Ensure an adequate supply of flashlights, batteries, bottled water, non-perishable foods, medicines, etc., as well as the availability of a portable, battery-operated radio, TV or weather radio.

Stay away from power lines that have fallen or are sagging. Consider all lines energized as well as trees or limbs in contact with lines. Please report downed power lines to Duke Energy or local emergency services.

If a power line falls across a car that you're in, stay in the car. If you MUST get out of the car due to a fire or other immediate life-threatening situation, do your best to jump clear of the car and land on both feet. Be sure that no part of your body is touching the car when your feet touch the ground.

If you are driving and encounter emergency responders or other roadside work crews, remember to MOVE OVER. It's the law in Ohio and Kentucky , and a good practice for all drivers.

and , and a good practice for all drivers. If you use a generator due to a power outage, follow the manufacturer's instructions to ensure safe and proper operation. Operate your generator outside; never operate it inside a building or garage.

Don't use grills or other outdoor appliances or equipment indoors for space heating or cooking, as these devices may omit carbon monoxide.

Reporting outages

Customers who experience outages during the storm have multiple ways to report them:

Text OUT to 57801 (standard text and data charges may apply).

Call the automated outage-reporting system at 800.543.5599.

Report an outage or view current outages by visiting duke-energy.com/outages.

Duke Energy will also provide updates on its social media channels to keep customers informed if significant outages occur:

Duke Energy on Twitter: twitter.com/DukeEnergy

Duke Energy on Facebook: facebook.com/DukeEnergy

Duke Energy natural gas customers in Ohio and Kentucky can always call 800.634.4300 to report natural gas outages or other issues. Any customer who suspects a gas leak should always evacuate the area before calling.

Duke Energy Ohio and Kentucky

Duke Energy Ohio/Kentucky's operations provide electric service to about 850,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in a 3,000-square-mile service area, and natural gas service to approximately 533,000 customers.

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is one of the largest energy holding companies in the U.S., with approximately 29,000 employees and a generating capacity of 49,500 megawatts. The company is transforming its customers' experience, modernizing its energy grid, generating cleaner energy and expanding its natural gas infrastructure to create a smarter energy future for the people and communities it serves.

More information about the company is available at duke-energy.com. The Duke Energy News Center includes news releases, fact sheets, photos, videos and other materials. Duke Energy's illumination features stories about people, innovations, community topics and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Sally Thelen

513.287.2432

24-Hour: 800.559.3853

@DE_SallyT

SOURCE Duke Energy

Related Links

http://www.duke-energy.com


LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, a coalition of international business aviation organizations joined Los Angeles-area civic leaders to mark a milestone in the development and adoption of sustainable alternative jet fuels (SAJF) through Business Jets Fuel Green: A Step Toward Sustainability.

"We are excited to see our industry demonstrating the viability of sustainable alternative jet fuel at general aviation airports for business aviation users," said General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) President and CEO Pete Bunce. "This event will help raise awareness of the safety and accessibility of the fuel, and demonstrate our industry's commitment to building the necessary demand for SAJF that will be integral to achieving industry climate emissions goals."

"Today's ground-breaking event demonstrates that National Air Transportation Association (NATA) members across the supply chain  from fuel suppliers and distributors to aircraft owners and operators  are committed to a future of Sustainable Alternative Jet Fuel," stated NATA President Gary Dempsey. "Van Nuys Airport was the perfect backdrop for today's activities, and we appreciate the support of the Van Nuys Airport Association, Los Angeles World Airports and the other coalition members in making 'Business Jets Fuel Green: A Step Toward Sustainability' a reality. We look forward to continuing to spread the message of the impact and benefits of SAJF throughout the industry and across the world."

The day-long series of events included demonstration flights conducted by business aircraft, established Van Nuys Airport as the first general aviation airport in the U.S. to offer SAJF on a trial basis, and served as a model for offering the fuels at other airports.

"As one of the world's busiest general aviation airports  with 231,000 annual operations supporting diverse private, business and government aviation needs  Van Nuys Airport is committed to leading the way in environmental sustainability," said Van Nuys Airport Association (VNAA) President Curt Castagna. "The airport's four fixed-base operators participating in this initiative exemplify the Van Nuys Airport Association's long history of building collaborative partnerships among industry, business and community stakeholders to achieve meaningful progress and change. We are honored to play a key role in advancing the use of sustainable alternative fuels and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft at airports across the nation."

The trial flights, which were first announced at the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE) in 2018, are an extension of the SAJF initiative, reflecting the industry's long-standing commitment to emissions reduction, including, among other aims, carbon neutrality from 2020 forward. In conjunction with EBACE, the coalition released the "Business Aviation Guide to the Use of Sustainable Alternative Fuel" to provide a roadmap for the education about, and use of, SAJF.

"This first-ever event focused on business aviation use of SAJF demonstrates the industry's strong interest in reducing its environmental impacts, particularly its carbon emissions," commented International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) Director General, Kurt Edwards. "SAJF represents a critical measure to help meet the sector's global commitment to halve carbon emissions by 2050 relative to 2005 levels. Always at the forefront of innovation, business aviation will be an international leader in taking up and seeing the benefits of this cutting-edge and available technology."

The success of the trial flights clearly demonstrated three key points:

SAJF are safe and do not impact aircraft performance. SAJF offer great impact and benefits to the airport and the community, including reduced particulate matter. SAJF reflect the commitment by business aviation to aircraft carbon reduction.

"Business aviation has long led the way in promoting advances aimed at reducing the industry's environmental footprint," said National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) President and CEO Ed Bolen. "We are proud to celebrate this major industry milestone, and look forward to launching SAJF flights in locations around the world."

The SAJF initiative, developed by a coalition of international aviation organizations, is intended, first, to address a "knowledge gap" on the availability of SAJF and concerns within the industry regarding its safety and, second, to advance the proliferation of alternative jet fuels at all the logical touchpoints: the manufacturers, the ground handlers and the operators, at the regional, national and international levels.

"The commitment of this coalition to continued emissions reduction is one shared across the business aviation sector. In fact, thanks to a continuing focus on emissions, business aircraft today are cleaner, quieter and more fuel-efficient than ever. I am therefore proud to say, on behalf of the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA), that we fully endorse this initiative and appreciate all of the coalition's efforts and are looking forward to continuing this momentum on the European continent," said EBAA Secretary-General Athar Husain Khan.

Business Jets Fuel Green: A Step Toward Sustainability was made possible through the efforts of EBAA, GAMA, IBAC, NATA, NBAA and VNAA, in coordination with Avfuel Corporation, Bombardier Business Aircraft, Gevo, Inc., World Energy, World Fuel Services and other industry stakeholders.

"Our industry is uniquely poised to make a huge, positive difference in the fight against climate change  not by changing how much we fly, but by changing how we fuel. SAJF will enable a future of clean, efficient propulsion in business aviation: their advantages are real and current  we can benefit from the regular use of SAJF not just in our lifetime, but immediately, starting today," said David Coleal, President, Bombardier Business Aircraft and Chair of GAMA's Environment Committee. "We commend the Van Nuys Airport community for their historic leadership in not only making SAJF accessible for operators, but also for providing an example for other airports to follow. This is how meaningful change begins."

"Avfuel is proud to support the SAJF initiative with its first full truckload of sustainable alternative jet fuel delivered to a business aviation airport," said Keith Sawyer, Avfuel's manager of alternative fuels. "We are committed to helping the industry achieve its goals of carbon neutrality and are pleased with this first step, which proves that SAJF can become a viable option for the industry at large. We are working ardently to secure further sources of the product to champion one of the largest hurdles yet to the initiative, availability. We're also working with operators who can help us support this initiative by making commitments for the SAJF productcommitments that will drive demand and, hopefully, the supply of the fuel at the production level."

"This event demonstrates our partnership and mutual commitment with Avfuel to feed the world, sequester carbon dioxide and reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Dr. Patrick Gruber, Chief Executive Officer of Gevo. "In our production process, not only do we produce renewable jet fuel, we also can produce large quantities of protein for the food chain and even sequester carbon in the soil. In fact, for every barrel of bio jet fuel produced by Gevo, we could produce approximately 420 pounds of protein and sequester up to 60 pounds of carbon back into the soil. We are planning on expanding our plant in Luverne, MN, to make it capable of producing nearly 10 million gallons per year of our sustainable alcohol-to-jet fuel, and we are putting plans in place for additional sustainable alcohol-to-jet fuel production plants that could even use wood as a feedstock," continued Dr. Gruber.

"In 2016, World Fuel Services, in partnership with World Energy, became the first to deliver commercially viable SAJF to the aviation industry, and after three years remains the only large-scale distributor," said Steve Drzymalla, SVP, Business Aviation Bulk Fuel at World Fuel. "Since that time, we have delivered nearly 500K gallons of SAJF to business aviation and over 13M gallons to commercial customers. We are proud to partner with World Energy, whose Paramount, CA refinery is the U.S.'s first and only fully operational, consistent producer of SAJF. Events like today are critical to developing awareness and increasing industry momentum and investment."

"Since January 2016, as the only commercial producer globally of SAJF, World Energy has forged partnerships with industries such as general aviation, who are committed to a low-carbon future. World Energy's SAJF has been independently certified to reduce GHG emissions in excess of 60% relative to petroleum Jet-A. Importantly, turbine criteria pollutants are significantly lowered in a flight's life-cycle, primarily upon take-off and landing, providing local solutions to airport communities such as Van Nuys," said Bryan Sherbacow, CCO of World Energy.

Learn more about the SAJF initiative, see a full list of participants and view a video stream of key portions from today's event at Van Nuys Airport at futureofsustainablefuel.com. Follow business aviation's commitment to alternative fuels on Twitter and Facebook at #Sustainability.

Coalition Members:

NBAA (National Business Aviation Association)

NATA (National Air Transportation Authority)

GAMA (General Aviation Manufacturers Association)

EBAA (European Business Aviation Association)

IBAC (International Business Aviation Council)

SOURCE Sustainable Alternative Jet Fuels Initiative Coalition
DUBLIN, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Research Report on Coal Import in China, 2019-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

China is the largest coal producer and consumer. The huge coal consumption in China encourages foreign coal producers to expand their production capacity. In addition, overseas coal mines are mostly opencast ones, which makes it easy to increase production.

However, coal production in China is restricted by environmental protection policies and other factors. In recent years, some small and medium-sized coal mines had to cut or even stop production because their environmental protection facilities failed to meet standards. Meanwhile, the rising mining costs have made the coal prices in China higher than the international coal prices. For example, in 2017, the average price of imported steam coal was only 429 CNY/ton, about 12% lower than that of domestic steam coal.

According to this analysis, the logistics costs for imported coal are very low because imported coal mostly enters China by sea. While the logistics costs for domestic coal are far higher because the prices of refined oil are more expensive in China than in other parts of the world, and the expressway tolls are excessively high. Therefore, China imports a large quantity of coal every year. In 2017, the import volume of coal in China was about 270.9 million tons, up by 6% from 2016.

Coal imports are classified into anthracite, coking coal, other coal, other bituminous coal and lignite. The first three types of coal are used for thermal power generation and collectively called steam coal in China. China's coal imports are dominated by steam coal that has a low average price. For example, in 2017, steam coal imports reached about 188.14 million tons, accounting for about 69.4% of China's coal imports. As the major sources of China's coal imports, in 2017, Indonesia, Australia, Mongolia and Russia exported 251 million tons of coal in total to China, contributing about 93% to the import volume of coal in China. Indonesia, the largest source of China's coal imports, exported about 109 million tons of coal to China in 2017, accounting for 40.2% of the import volume of coal in China.

According to the researcher, coal import can bring the following benefits to China: (1) Appropriate amount of coal imports can suppress the price fluctuations and speculation on China's coal market so that the downstream industries can maintain stable production and operation; and (2) the import of high-quality coking coal that China lacks can promote the development of China's coke and metal smelting industries.

However, the Chinese government issues policies to restrict coal import from time to time, worrying that a large number of coal imports will harm the interests of the domestic coal mining industry. For example, from July 1, 2017, according to the Interim Measures for Administration of Quality of Commercial Coal, the ports administered by province-level governments stopped approving coal import.

On January 9, 2018, the National Energy Administration held talks with major power enterprises on assessing power plants' use of imported coal and the supply of coal for power generation. At the beginning of April 2018, the Customs of China's major coal importing provinces such as Fujian, Guangdong and Zhejiang began to restrict coal import.

It is expected that the import volume of coal in China will continue to grow from 2019 to 2023 but the growth rate may be limited. On one hand, imported coal can stabilize the coal prices in China and improve the operation of the major downstream industries of coal. On the other hand, a large number of coal imports will certainly impact China's coal mining industry. Therefore, the Chinese government will issue policies to regulate and rationalize coal imports.



Key Topics Covered:



1 Overview of China's Coal Industry

1.1 Definition of Coal

1.2 Classification of Coal

1.3 Industry Chain of Coal



2 Analysis of Environment of Coal Import in China, 2019-2023

2.1 Economic Environment

2.1.1 China's GDP and Disposable Income Per Capita

2.1.2 China's Industrial Value Added

2.2 Policy Environment

2.2.1 China's Regulatory Policies on Coal Industry

2.2.2 China's Policies on Coal Import

2.3 Technological Environment



3 Analysis of Coal Supply in China

3.1 China's Coal Reserves

3.2 Production Capacity of China's Coal Mines

3.3 Production Volume of Coal in China



4 Analysis of Coal Demand in China

4.1 Major Downstream Consumers of Coal in China

4.1.1 Thermal Power Generation

4.1.2 Iron and Steel Smelting

4.1.3 Building Materials Industry

4.1.4 Chemical Raw Materials and Chemical Products Industry

4.2 Consumption Volume of Coal in China

4.3 Market Size of Coal in China



5 Analysis of Coal Import in China

5.1 Scale of Coal Import in China

5.1.1 Import Volume of Coal in China

5.1.2 Import Value of Coal in China

5.2 Average Import Prices of Coal in China

5.3 China's Reliance on Coal Imports



6 Analysis of Coal Imports by Type in China

6.1 Steam Coal Import in China

6.1.1 Import Volume of Steam Coal in China

6.1.2 Import Value of Steam Coal in China

6.1.3 Average Import Prices of Steam Coal in China

6.1.4 Comparison of Average Prices of Domestic and Imported Steam Coal in China

6.1.5 Sources of China's Steam Coal Imports

6.2 Coking Coal Import in China

6.2.1 Import Volume of Coking Coal in China

6.2.2 Import Value of Coking Coal in China

6.2.3 Average Import Prices of Coking Coal in China

6.2.4 Comparison of Average Prices of Domestic and Imported Coking Coal in China

6.2.5 Sources of China's Coking Coal Imports

6.3 Anthracite Import in China

6.3.1 Import Volume of Anthracite in China

6.3.2 Import Value of Anthracite in China

6.3.3 Average Import Prices of Anthracite in China

6.3.4 Comparison of Average Prices of Domestic and Imported Anthracite in China

6.3.5 Sources of China's Anthracite Imports



7 Analysis of Major Sources of China's Coal Imports

7.1 China's Coal Imports from Indonesia

7.2 China's Coal Imports from Australia

7.3 China's Coal Imports from Mongolia

7.4 China's Coal Imports from Russia



8 Major Coal Importers in China

8.1 Major Steam Coal Importers in China

8.2 Major Coking Coal Importers in China



9 Prospect of Coal Import in China, 2019-2023

9.1 Major Factors Influencing Coal Import in China

9.1.1 Favorable Factors

9.1.2 Unfavorable Factors

9.2 Forecast on Import Volume of Coal in China

9.3 Forecast on Types and Major Sources of China's Coal Imports



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/f4kq9p/china_coal?w=5

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board) announced that it has imposed an automatic interim suspension of the CFP certification on Larry J. Templin of Temple, Texas, which was effective January 9, 2019.

CFP Board imposed an automatic interim suspension after receiving evidence that Mr. Templin entered into a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent ("AWC") with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA") on October 11, 2018, wherein FINRA made findings of FINRA rule violations and barred him from associating with any FINRA member in any capacity after he refused to produce information requested by FINRA staff pursuant to FINRA Rule 8210. FINRA had requested the information in connection with its investigation of Mr. Templin's alleged bank fraud.

Pursuant to Article 5.7 of CFP Board's Disciplinary Rules and Procedures, "[a]n interim suspension shall immediately be issued without a hearing when CFP Board Counsel receives evidence ofa professional discipline in accordance with Article 13.1 forrevocation of a financial professional license." Article 5.7 also provides that "a letter or other writing from a governmental or industry self-regulatory authority to the effect that a Respondent has been the subject of an order of professional disciplineby such authority, shall conclusively establish the existence of such."

Under the automatic interim suspension order, Mr. Templin's right to use the CFP certification marks is suspended pending CFP Board's completed investigation and possible further disciplinary proceedings.

CFP Board's enforcement process is a critical consumer protection. CFP professionals agree to abide by CFP Board's Standards of Professional Conduct (Standards), which includes the Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Rules of Conduct and Financial Planning Practice Standards. The Standards set forth the ethical standards for financial planners who hold the CFP certification.

CFP Board enforces its ethical standards by investigating incidents of alleged violations and, where there is probable cause to believe there are grounds for discipline, presenting a Complaint containing the alleged violations to the CFP Board's Disciplinary and Ethics Commission (Commission) pursuant to CFP Board's Disciplinary Rules and Procedures (Disciplinary Rules). If the Commission determines there are grounds for discipline, it may impose a sanction ranging from a private censure or public letter of admonition to the suspension or revocation of the right to use the CFP marks. CFP Board's Disciplinary Rules set forth the process for investigating matters and imposing discipline where violations have been found.

ABOUT CFP BOARD

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. is a professional body for personal financial planners in the U.S. CFP Board sets standards for financial planning and administers the prestigious CFP certification  one of the most respected certifications in financial services  so that the public has access to and benefits from competent and ethical financial planning. CFP Board, along with its Center for Financial Planning, is committed to increasing the public's awareness of CFP certification and access to a diverse, ethical and competent financial planning workforce. Widely recognized by firms as the standard for financial planning, CFP certification is held by over 83,000 people in the United States.

SOURCE Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.cfp.net


MIAMI, Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's biggest Palm Oil producing company, in terms of access to African palm plantations with more than 8 million hectares under contract, has been contacted by major energy conglomerates in the U.S. to reach agreements whereby palm oil produced in Africa can be exported to North America to be transformed into Biodiesel.

New regulations developed in jurisdictions specifically in California are requiring companies to provide and use renewable energy to drive their activities, and because of this a great deal of attention is currently turning towards Biodiesel.

The African palm is the source of palm oil, a profitable product due to its economic efficiency and versatility as a source of both food and energy.

Palm oil is the most efficient raw material for creating the various blends of biodiesel that can be sold at points of sale all over the west coast of the United States, for significant profit.

However, the development of the palm oil industry as a source of biodiesel is not without controversy. The internet is full of criticism about deforestation, displacement of animals that contributes to the threat of extinction, maltreatment and human rights abuse problems.

Company President Oscar Faria notes that, "It's possible to produce palm oil in Africa and achieve the best for both worlds: social and environmental development for regions and people on one hand, and profitable results for investors and strategic partners on the other hand. This balancing act is the driving force that guides the strategy of African Palm Corporation."

The company is collaborating with local leaders who are concerned about the wellbeing of their people and the conservation of their lands. These relationships are based on strong principles of mutual respect without imposing on anyone. It is a win-win situation.

As a result of African Palm Corp's actions, agreements have been signed with local proprietors for more than 8 million hectares of land in west and central Africa, where African palms grow wild or on empty lands, though they can also be planted with EG seeds. This guarantees that there is no risk of deforestation due to the fact that practically unlimited areas of land are easily available.

The company has an exclusive agreement with one of the largest and most prestigious insurance brokers in the world to coordinate insurance coverage of its operations against climate and political risk through a syndicate of Lloyd's of London.

All of the lands will be developed with the help and support of members of the local communities surrounding the plantations. This will ensure that people do not suffer the consequences of forced migrations and have to live apart from their nearest and dearest. Local leaders have expressed zero tolerance for negative environmental impact that could result from operations. The commitment undertaken with them has been documented in written agreements expressing a commitment to directly invest 10% of the operation's net profits in social projects in the communities involved. The company wishes to be always welcome on these precious lands.

The company's primary objective is to uphold its commitment to social responsibility, environmental protection and good commercial practices with its partners, investors, insurers, suppliers and the communities of Africa, so that, when anyone searches for palm oil on Google, the links connecting to the company will tell nothing but good stories.

African Palm Corp is a U.S. corporation with headquarters in Miami. For further information, please go to www.africanpalmcorp.com

SOURCE African Palm Corp

Related Links

http://www.africanpalmcorp.com/


CHICAGO, Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Brain Tumor Funders' Collaborative (BTFC)  six funders of brain tumor research  just announced $3 million in grants to four multi-institutional teams of researchers and clinicians studying immunotherapy in primary brain tumors.

"This collaborative speaks directly to the core of our mission," said Ralph DeVitto, president and CEO of the American Brain Tumor Association. "This unique opportunity allows us to work with like-minded organizations to provide a greater amount of support for brain tumor research."

The four funded projects will examine vaccination strategies, the tumor's micro-environment, anti-tumor T-cells, and personalized immunotherapy approaches. They were selected during a multi-stage review process from more than 79 responses to the BTFC call for proposals.

The following institutions will be receiving $750,000 BTFC grants over the next three years:

Project Sponsor: David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Project Title: Active vaccination and the timing of checkpoint blockade dictate effective immunotherapy for glioblastoma

Project Manager: Robert Prins

Project Sponsor: McGill University

Project Title: Harnessing the brain tumor immune-microenvironment to enhance therapeutic efficacy

Project Manager: Daniela Quail

Project Sponsor: UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh

Project Title: Interrogating anti-tumor T-cells To develop adoptive cell transfer (ACT) Immunotherapy for pediatric high-grade gliomas

Project Manager: Gary Kohanbash

Sponsoring Institution: University of California, San Francisco

Project Title: Three dimensional immuno-genomics approach to personalized neoantigen-based immunotherapy

Project Manager: Joseph Costello

The Brain Tumor Funders Collaborative was formed by private foundations and non-profit organizations to pool their resources and become more strategic by focusing their research dollars toward specific therapeutic goals. The BTFC organizations combine this research funding with patient education and advocacy.

Note: The following organizations participate in the BTFC and in this joint funding initiative:

American Brain Tumor Association (ABTA)

Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada

James S. McDonnell Foundation

Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation

Sontag Foundation

Anonymous

Further information about the BTFC and its funding initiative can be found at www.braintumorfunders.org.

Brain tumor facts are available at https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/brain.html

About the American Brain Tumor Association

Founded in 1973, the American Brain Tumor Association was the first national patient advocacy organization committed to funding brain tumor research and providing support and education programs for people of all tumor types and all ages. For more information, visit http://www.abta.org or call 800-886-ABTA (2282).

Contact

Nicole Willmarth, PhD

773-577-8741

[email protected]

SOURCE American Brain Tumor Association

Related Links

http://www.abta.org


SEATTLE, Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing [NYSE:BA] today delivered the first of ten 787 Dreamliners to WestJet, marking the start of the airline's global expansion. Having long operated a fleet of Boeing single-aisle jets, WestJet will use the super-efficient, long-range 787-9 Dreamliner to profitably serve new international routes.

"Today's delivery marks a new chapter for WestJet," said Ed Sims, president and CEO of Calgary-based WestJet. "Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is one of the most technologically advanced aircraft ever flown and is the perfect platform for our transition to a global network carrier. We look forward to bringing Canadians to the world and the world to Canada in comfort and style."

This spring, WestJet will use the 787-9  the longest-range Dreamliner that can fly 7,635 nautical miles (14,140km)  to offer the first-ever flight connecting Calgary and Dublin. The airline will also offer non-stop Dreamliner service between Calgary and London Gatwick and Calgary and Paris.

The 787 Dreamliner  the fastest-selling widebody jet in history with about 1,400 orders  allows airlines to reduce fuel use and emissions by 20 to 25 percent and serve far-away destinations. The combination of super fuel efficiency and long range has helped airlines save more than 30 billion pounds of fuel and open more than 210 non-stop routes.

WestJet's 787-9 will accommodate 320 passengers in a three-class configuration. The Dreamliner's passenger-pleasing interior, which includes large windows, lower-cabin altitude and smooth-ride technology, complements WestJet's all-new business cabin featuring the carrier's first lie-flat seats.

"We are excited to welcome our friends at WestJet to the Dreamliner family. The airline has achieved impressive growth with the Boeing 737 and will now use the 787's unmatched performance and passenger comforts to profitably launch a new 'global era'," said Ihssane Mounir, senior vice president of Commercial Sales & Marketing for The Boeing Company.

In preparation for its new Dreamliners, WestJet recently added digital solutions powered by Boeing AnalytX, to optimize its operations. These include Airplane Health Management, which provides predictive analytics to optimize WestJet's 787 fleet operations, as well as Toolbox, which delivers real-time information for technicians to quickly resolve maintenance issues and keep airlines on schedule.

Contact:

Paul Bergman

Boeing Communications

+1 (206) 724-7292

[email protected]

SOURCE Boeing

Related Links

http://www.boeing.com


SINGAPORE, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Ascenda, the global loyalty management company, today announced the acquisition of loyalty consulting firm Loyalty Advantage. Mark Mullinix -- previously Managing Director at Loyalty Advantage -- has joined Ascenda as Head of Loyalty Strategy.

With the acquisition, Ascenda expands its loyalty advisory division and brings aboard Loyalty Advantage's proven expertise in rewards program development and optimization for leading brands across aviation, travel, retail and hospitality.

In his new role, Mullinix will drive the company's vision of making loyalty simple and enabling clients to successfully develop & grow premium loyalty programs around the world.

Prior to leading Loyalty Advantage, Mullinix held loyalty-centric roles at American Express in Canada, the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore. "Working with Ascenda to expand their loyalty advisory capabilities represents a fantastic opportunity to combine the strategic expertise of Loyalty Advantage with the technology and implementation capabilities of Ascenda, enabling us to deliver across the entire spectrum of client needs in the loyalty space," said Mark Mullinix, Loyalty Advantage's Managing Director.

"We are thrilled to announce this strategic acquisition which further strengthens Ascenda's loyalty advisory services," said Kyle Armstrong, CEO of Ascenda. "The talent, expertise and client footprint from Loyalty Advantage deliver synergistic benefits across our loyalty management business."

About Ascenda

Ascenda is a global provider of innovative and powerful loyalty propositions for major financial services and travel brands worldwide.

In a world of increasingly complex enterprise software and proliferating buzzwords, Ascenda strips away the noise and takes a fresh, practical approach to delivering compelling customer value. Acenda's solutions are beautifully simple whilst including everything a highly compelling loyalty program needs: from the right technology, content, and value proposition to the management of marketing, servicing, costs and fraud.

Whether as end-to-end solution or as modular capabilities such as the TransferConnect currency network, loyalty propositions powered by Ascenda delight millions of customers worldwide every day, enabling leading loyalty programs to build deep & lasting customer relationships.

For more information about Ascenda (formerly Kaligo Solutions), please visit www.ascendaloyalty.com.

Contact: Valerie Perridon, [email protected]

SOURCE Ascenda

Related Links

http://www.ascendaloyalty.com


KYLE, Texas, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Alsco is pleased to announce the grand opening of its new Kyle, Texas, mixed laundry plant on Jan. 23, 2019, at 9:00 a.m. at 449 Vista Ridge Drive, Kyle, Texas 78640. City Mayor Travis Mitchell, City Manager Scott Sellers, and Alsco leaders will be speaking at the ribbon-cutting event. The Kyle plant will serve the greater Austin, Texas, area. The new facility, which contains 96,000 square feet and sits on approximately 9 acres, will be able to process up to 100,000 pounds per day of linens and uniforms with 100 percent accuracy.

Alsco announces grand opening of its new Kyle, Texas mixed laundry plant.

Although Alsco has served the greater Austin area for over 25 years, the new facility will allow Alsco to continue to grow its services in the area. It will also bring a positive impact to the City of Kyle, where Alsco will employ 160 fulltime employees to support its operations.

The facility also employs cuttingedge technology to reduce Alsco's impact on the environment. This includes water and energy saving technologies such as the Norchem water filtration system, which will allow the plant to reuse approximately 70 percent of its water and meet the City of Kyle's wastewater standards.

After Alsco had chosen the site for its new plant in Kyle, TX, the City of Kyle asked Alsco to participate in the Texas Capital Fund. This fund created an additional opportunity for the city to receive grant money if Alsco met certain requirements. These requirements included spending a certain amount of money on capital improvements and hiring a specific number of fulltime employees. Because Alsco met these requirements, the city received nearly $1 million in grant funds.

Alsco will also be contributing $200,000 to the City of Kyle to be used for improvements to infrastructure, such as the wastewater treatment plant.

"We are excited for this opportunity to partner with the Kyle community," said the new Kyle General Manager Anthony Wessels. "We believe it's an exciting opportunity for both Alsco and Kyle to see economic growth."

About Alsco:

Alsco is a fifthgeneration familyownedandoperated business, founded in 1889, that was recognized by the prestigious Hohenstein Institute for having invented the linen and uniform rental industry. Celebrating 130 years of business, Alsco provides linen and workwear rental services to customers that include restaurants, healthcare, the automotive industry and industrial facilities. With over 180 locations and more than 20,000 employees, Alsco provides worldclass service to over 355,000 customers in 14 countries. Learn more at www.alsco.com.

Media Contact:

Patricia Almand

Phone: 855-633-7769

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Alsco

Related Links

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ALBANY, N.Y., Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Albany Law School has received a transformative $15 million gift from an anonymous donorthe largest gift in the history of the law school. This investment in the future of Albany Law will provide extraordinary support for the law school and for the life-changing legal programs and services provided by the Albany Law School Law Clinic and Justice Center.

This gift was announced on January 17 by President and Dean Alicia Ouellette at the New York City launch of We Rise Together: The Campaign for Albany Law School.

"We are overwhelmed by the generous spirit of our anonymous donor and the confidence the donor has shown in the bold path we are setting as an independent, innovative law school which continues to make a significant impact onand throughlegal education across New York State and the nation," said President and Dean Ouellette.

In particular, this gift will multiply the impact of Albany Law School's award-winning Law Clinic and Justice Center in the Capital Region and beyond. The Center provides free legal services to eligible clients through its clinical and pro bono programs. The Center's students, faculty, and staff represent hundreds of clients each year and assist many more individuals and organizations through technical assistance and community education activities.

In honor of this gift and in recognition of the substantial impact the Center has on the Capital Region community, the Law Clinic and Justice Center will be renamed The Justice Center at Albany Law School.

"The trustees of Albany Law School are eternally grateful for this tremendous gift and acknowledge the selflessness that this donor embodies. We also applaud the amazing leadership of President and Dean Ouellette. This is further indication that Albany Law School is on the rise amongst our peers," said James E. Hacker '84, Chair of the Board of Trustees.

We Rise Together: The Campaign for Albany Law School calls on the entire Albany Law community to join in this historic moment for the law school. "This transformative gift and campaign signal an incredible step in the 167-year history of Albany Law School as it forges a path to sustained independence, increased innovation, and expanded impact," said Jeffrey M. Schanz, Vice President for Institutional Advancement.

Funds raised in We Rise Together: The Campaign for Albany Law School will be used to:

build a robust scholarship endowment;

create innovative programming and improve technological infrastructure and academic facilities;

and bolster the law school initiativesThe Justice Center and Government Law Centerthat provide critical legal services to the community.

Albany Law School has an endowment of approximately $65 million and has set an initial campaign target of $30 million to be raised through 2021.

Learn more at albanylaw.edu/RiseTogether.

MEDIA CONTACT: Chris Colton, Interim Director of Communications  [email protected]  518-445-3208

SOURCE Albany Law School

Related Links

https://www.albanylaw.edu


CINCINNATI, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- When leading education management platform provider Abre.io was first created, a unique element of their strategy was to allow students to develop software apps to solve problems they have experienced in school using Abre. To promote this philosophy, Abre has been hosting App-a-thons for the past year, where students come together to define problems then design and build an Abre app as a solution.

To date, Abre has held four App-a-thons and is embarking on another year of events with the goal to reach more students. The next events will take place on January 18th at Loveland High School (1 Tiger Trail, Loveland, OH) followed by Indian Hill High School (6865 Drake Rd, Cincinnati, OH) on February 9th. Abre is working on potential App-a-thons in the Cleveland and Atlanta areas for 2019 as well.

"Abre is built on the fundamental premise that when technology meets education some great things can happen," said Zach Vander Veen, Co-Founder and Vice President of Instruction at Abre. "And, when students who see things that technology can address in their own education experiences come together in a creative environment to use technology to solve challenges , even greater things can happen."

Organizations, schools or companies, can apply to sponsor App-a-thons on the Abre website . Once an organization is chosen, local students are then invited to participate. Abre will help facilitate the App-a-thon with the sponsoring organization. Typically, App-a-thons are day-long events that have several components:

Who are We and What is Abre  The first step is a tour of the sponsoring organization followed by an introduction to the open Abre platform the participants will use to create education apps. This includes a discussion of open source software and Material Design theories and how its used in Abre apps. Define Problems & Brainstorm Solutions  Forming groups, the students brainstorm problems they face as students. From there, they begin conceptualizing solutions that has the potential to solve their particular challenge. Wireframing  An App-a-thon is an open invitation to be creative regardless of the skill levels. Wireframing is an important part of the design process. Abre introduces students to the concept, moving from idea to putting screens and workflow on paper. Not only is wireframing a key first step, it is very approachable at all skill levels. Git, Install, and Run  Next, participants learn to use GitHub, a popular repository for managing code for a project. Students use GitHub to access the code for the Abre core and have access to a basic starter app. Within 10 minutes they are reviewing code, making tweaks, and working on their app. Present  After a very exciting and demanding day, the App-a-thon students pitch their projects to representatives from the sponsor, Abre team members and the other student teams. Students get asked questions and are offered suggestions to help build a path toward completing their projects.

"We were all blown away by the quality of the students and the ideas they generated in our first several App-a-thons," said Damon Ragusa, co-founder and CEO of Abre. "One of our missions is to give back to the teachers and students and not just profit from an industry that supports them. For that reason we are planning additional App-a-thons and encouraging other organizations to host them. Our goal is to export the framework from App-a-thons throughout the country and to develop more formal curriculum to continuously deliver a quality project-based learning opportunity for students."

According to Ragusa, Abre will be developing an online Abre marketplace for students to distribute their apps to schools. "We love the idea that students can get excited about coding and contribute apps that schools can use. As an open source platform we will share the fruits of this labor with everyone in the learning community."

For further information on the Abra App-a-thons, please visit the www.abre.io/appathon on the Abre website www.abre.io .

About Abre

Abre.io provides an education management platform that delivers a growing number of connected apps designed for schools who use the web to manage information and to deliver instructional content. Abre apps are built to simplify managing school and delivering instruction. School districts benefit from Abre by reducing professional development time for teachers, freeing up data to support improving performance and saving money. Abre.io manages a community edition based on an open source project of the same name developed at Hamilton City School District (OH). https://abre.io/ Follow Abre on Twitter @abreplatform.

SOURCE Abre.io Inc.

Related Links

http://abre.io


NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- 365 Connect, a leading provider of award-winning marketing, leasing and resident technology platforms for the multifamily housing industry, announced today that its founder and CEO Kerry W. Kirby was featured for the eighth year in a row on the Silicon Bayou 100 List of Louisiana's most influential leaders in technology and entrepreneurship.

The Silicon Bayou 100 recognizes the most influential entrepreneurs and innovators in the state. This prestigious accolade acknowledges Kirby's commitment to the technology community  from his building of one of the most highly acclaimed tech companies in Louisiana to his mentorship of various startups and support of educational events in the New Orleans area. His considerable list of achievements has made him a continual stand-out in the Silicon Bayou 100 List alongside other influencers across the Pelican state.

Kirby stated, "I am proud to be an integral part of our technology community and honored to be recognized beside some of the most visionary entrepreneurs in our state. Together, we are proving to the rest of the world that we have a unique business ecosystem that is supportive and responsive and thrives on the next generation of change-makers."

Kirby is an entrepreneur, technology innovator and the founder of New Orleans-based 365 Connect, an internationally recognized, award-winning technology firm focused in the multifamily housing industry. An acclaimed speaker, author and technology expert, Kirby has published numerous articles and studies and contributed to several nationally published books. He has served as a speaker and panelist at universities and conferences, in addition to appearing on various media outlets such as the BBC Digital Planet program and NPR News. Known for his passion to foster the next generation of innovators, he is one of the most prominent supporters of educational technology events in the New Orleans area.

"Louisiana, known as the Silicon Bayou, is rapidly becoming a place where entrepreneurs, innovators and venture capitalists are making great strides in modern technology," Kirby explained. "State and local governments, economic development groups, universities and start-up accelerators are supporting entrepreneurship and high-growth companies in Louisiana like never before. I am excited to be a part of it."

ABOUT SILICON BAYOU 100: The Silicon Bayou 100 is the annual list of the 100 most influential and active people in tech and entrepreneurship in Louisiana. The list is compiled by the community through an anonymous nomination process. The Silicon Bayou 100 is hosted by Silicon Bayou News, the leading start-up and technology media property in Louisiana. It reaches hundreds of thousands of visitors per month from all 50 states and over 100 countries. For more information, visit www.SiliconBayouNews.com.

ABOUT 365 CONNECT: 365 Connect was founded in 2003 with an unwavering commitment to transforming how apartment communities market, lease and retain residents. As a leading provider of award-winning technology platforms for the multifamily housing industry, we deliver a fully integrated suite of comprehensive solutions that automate marketing, simplify transactions and serve residents after the lease is signed. The 365 Connect Platform allows its clients infinite expansion, robust integrations and the ability to revolutionize user experiences. Explore www.365connect.com.

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SOURCE 365 Connect

Related Links

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More than 430 aspiring urologists registered for the SAU/AUA Urology Residency Match. Of those who registered, 90 percent submitted preference lists, competing for a record 339 available positions across the country. When the matching algorithm was processed, 85 percent  the highest rate in nearly a decade - matched to a vacancy within 136 registered and accredited training programs in the United States, leaving just nine vacancies unmatched.

"We are extremely proud of the success of the Urology Residency Match and welcome the continued growth in program participation and applicants," said SAU Past President, Byron D. Joyner, MD. "In the past five years alone, we have seen an increase of nearly 20 percent in the number of urology positions offered and a rise in the match rates for nearly every applicant group."

Urology Match Day is an annual rite of passage for U.S. medical students and other applicants from around the world, a day set aside to recognize many years of hard work and dedication. Applicants received their "Match" offers earlier today, which allowed family, friends and mentors the opportunity to share in the excitement of learning which U.S. urology residency program these talented young physicians will attend over the next five years.

"Today we congratulate applicants and programs alike," said AUA President, Robert C. Flanigan, MD. "We are honored to play a small role each year in moving forward the careers of these young physicians and wish each of the talented men and women nothing but success as they begin their journey toward becoming urologists."

Medical students begin their residency application process at the start of their final year in medical school. After applying to various registered programs across the country, select candidates are invited by programs for interviews, which are held in the fall and early winter. Once the interview period is over, both registered parties submit their preference lists to the AUA, which has performed the Match annually on behalf of the SAU for 35 years.

View statistics on the 2019 Match and past Match results

Results of the Urology Residency Match are closely watched as they can be predictors of future trends in physician workforce shortages and supply.

The AUA uses a computerized mathematical algorithm to match applicants with programs using the preferences expressed on their ranked lists.

About the American Urological Association: Founded in 1902 and headquartered near Baltimore, Maryland, the American Urological Association is a leading advocate for the specialty of urology, and has more than 21,000 members throughout the world. The AUA is a premier urologic association, providing invaluable support to the urologic community as it pursues its mission of fostering the highest standards of urologic care through education, research and the formulation of health policy.

About the Society of Academic Urologists: Formed in 2016 when the Society of University Urologists and the Society of Urology Chairpersons and Program Directors merged, the Society of Academic Urologists (SAU), provides academic urologists with a forum to discuss, review and work toward resolving critical issues in all aspects of academic urology. Additionally, SAU maximizes benefits for educational urology programs, streamlines communications with the AUA, RRC, ABU, and other societies, as well as gives academic urology a voice in the AUA Match program.

SOURCE American Urological Association

Related Links

http://www.AUAnet.org


DENVER, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Conference (RMECC) returns for its 8th consecutive year in the Mile High City on March 1st and 2nd, bringing together over 2,000 early childhood professionals, parents and caregivers, policymakers and business leaders. Over the course of two days, participants will learn, share and connect at over 150 sessions in 10 comprehensive professional development tracks which include topics around child development and learning, inclusive practices, and early childhood mental health, among others.

This year, RMECC will feature two inspiring keynote addresses. Shiza Shahid, Co-founder of the Malala Fund and CEO of NOW Ventures, will showcase her work providing access to high-quality education to children worldwide. Participants will also learn from Dr. Dana Winters, Director of Simple Interactions and Academic Programs at the Fred Rogers Center, who focuses on the power of human connection to serve children and their caregivers.

The region's premiere early childhood conference is hosted by Denver's Early Childhood Council and the Early Childhood Council Leadership Alliance, two organizations devoted to ensuring all young children and those caring for them have the tools, information, and resources they need to achieve their full potential.

"RMECC 2019 offers early childhood champions not only the opportunity to learn, but the ability to network with other like-minded individuals," said Nicole Riehl, Chief Operating Officer of Denver's Early Childhood Council. "The ideas, connections and breakthroughs that have happened as a result of this conference in the last seven years prove this is a pivotal meeting point for the advancement of the early childhood in the Rocky Mountain Region."

Registration allows participants to attend one day, both days or just for a keynote presentation. Early bird registration is available until January 31st and saves participants $50. To view the complete RMECC schedule, workshop descriptions and additional program details, visit www.rmecconference.com

About Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Conference (RMECC): it is the region's largest and leading early childhood conference. The conference provides early childhood professionals, business leaders, policymakers, parents, caregivers and other key stakeholders with top-notch keynote speakers, hundreds of workshops, exhibitors and networking opportunities. Visit www.rmecconference.com to find out more about this year's workshops, exhibitors and keynote speakers.

Media Contacts:

Haysel Hernandez

(757) 634-9422

[email protected]

Patricia Lepiani

(720) 838-6909

[email protected]

Social Media: @RMECC, @RMECC2019, #RMECC2019, LinkedIn

SOURCE 2019 Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Conference

Related Links

http://www.rmecconference.com


PIERRE, S.D., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Families and educators around the state will celebrate how school choice empowers South Dakota families during School Choice Week.

The Week will feature 84 events and activities across the Mount Rushmore State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In South Dakota, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, private schools, and homeschooling. South Dakota families below a certain income level may be eligible for a publicly run scholarship program.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"National School Choice Week provides an opportunity for families in South Dakota and across America to evaluate their education options and research different schools in advance of the next school year," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Mount Rushmore State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/south-dakota.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


CARSON CITY, Nev., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Students, parents, teachers, and community leaders will celebrate expanded educational options in Nevada this School Choice Week.

The Week will feature 314 events and activities across the Silver State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be a rally planned on Tuesday, January 22, 2019 10:45 a.m. at the state capitol in Carson City. In addition, a school fair is planned in Las Vegas at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 19, 2019 at MEET Las Vegas.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history.

In Nevada, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling. Nevada families below a certain income level qualify for a state-run scholarship program. Families can also choose Nevada Learning Academy, a free, full-time online school for grades 6-12.

On the local level, elected officials and community leaders are recognizing the importance of educational opportunity by officially recognizing the Week. The county of Nye and the city of North Las Vegas have issued proclamations recognizing School Choice Week in their community.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"Explore Knowledge Academy Charter School in Las Vegas, Nevada is proud to support National School Choice Week! Yearly, the entire school, including staff learn the school choice dance to strengthen our community and to celebrate the choice in education that we have made. There is no better way to show our school spirit then having all 800 of us dancing together!" said Hope Vivas, operations manager at Explore Knowledge Academy, a charter school serving students in Las Vegas, Nevada.

"Nevada offers families a variety of new and different school choice options, and National School Choice Week provides a great opportunity for families to research these options," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Silver State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/nevada.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


CONCORD, N.H., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Families and educators are celebrating School Choice Week and the empowerment and flexibility that educational options provide New Hampshire students.

The Week will feature 134 events and activities across the Granite State, including open house events at schools, school fairs, homeschool information sessions, and other celebrations. One of the largest events in the state will be a rally planned on Tuesday, January 22, 2019 11:00 a.m. at Grappone Conference Center in Concord.

Nationwide, 40,549 events and activities are being organized to raise awareness during National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26, 2019), and 10.8 million Americans are expected to participate. It will be the largest series of education-related events and activities in U.S. history. Governor Christopher Sununu issued an official proclamation recognizing Jan. 20-26 as New Hampshire School Choice Week.

In New Hampshire, there are many educational options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling. New Hampshire students in families below a certain income level or in areas subject to town tuitioning are eligible for publicly run scholarships. Virtual Learning Academy Charter School offers online courses to New Hampshire residents free of charge, full- or part-time.

Celebrated since 2011, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort. The Week is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, and it is not related to any legislative advocacy campaign.

"When it comes to opportunity in K-12 education, New Hampshire families have a variety of choices for their children's schooling. We encourage parents to use National School Choice Week to look into these options," said National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella.

To download a guide to school choice or learn more about featured events in the Granite State, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/states/new-hampshire.

National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a spotlight on effective education options for children. National School Choice Week celebrates all types of school options, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. Learn more at www.schoolchoiceweek.com .

SOURCE National School Choice Week

Related Links

http://schoolchoiceweek.com


The 9,690 total visits from 32 countries and regions confirmed the Shanghai Jewellery Fair's international reach. Jewellery and gemstone companies from Canada, Thailand, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the United States, mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan regions comprised the 335 exhibitors from 10 countries and regions.

Not surprisingly, the majority of visitors came from the robust mainland China market. The Top 10 sources of buyers outside of mainland China were Sri Lanka, Taiwan Region, Hong Kong Region, India, Japan, Canada, Pakistan, the United States, Vietnam and UK.

Jewellery-Lifestyle convergence

Jewellery Life Pavilion 2.0

Enthusiastic response to the new concepts unveiled at this edition was an endorsement that the innovations are right on target. Premiere among these is the Jewellery Life Pavilion 2.0, which highlighted jewellery crossover marketing with fashion products, such as clothing, handbags, leather goods, foot wear, cosmetics, home furnishings and fashion accessories, among others.

Cartibaul Co Ltd, Chic Chu Fine Jewelry, Cider Creations Co Ltd, Dalian Yiyou Jewelry Co Ltd, Guangzhou David Xiao Jewelry Co Ltd, Jasen Jewelry (DG) Co Ltd, Kelly Xie Fine Jewelry, Misani, Mylove Jewelry Co Ltd, Shenzhen Kadibao Jewelry Co Ltd, Yuting Import & Export Co Ltd and others have contributed their gracious presence at the Jewellery Life Pavilion. Also, a pop-up area for Fashion Access, a global trade fair of the latest collections on fashion products and independent brands, highlighted the synergy amongst the crossover elements, whilst the Salon area in the pavilion offered additional opportunities for exhibitors to mingle with buyers and talk about their brands and products.

"Buyers were thrilled about all the inspiration presented, including insight into the latest advancements and trends as well as the benefits of crossover marketing of jewellery with various lifestyle segments," says Teddy Tan, Event Manager - China Jewellery Fairs, UBM China (Guangzhou) Co Ltd.

Crossover Shining Your Life

At the related forum "Crossover Shining Your Life," high-calibre resource speakers provided rich insights into business opportunities in the jewellery market. Michael Duck, Executive Vice President, UBM Asia Ltd, Teddy Tan of UBM China (Guangzhou) Co, Ltd, and Zhang Tiejun, Chairman, Shanghai International Brand Jewellery Centre delivered welcome speeches.

Li Chengmo, Design Director of UD Designer Studio, and interior designer Echo Yu, Executive Director of HFS|BE Design (China Division), shared their ideas about enhancing retail space by optimising interior design and displays. They recommended several useful concepts and directions that jewellery retailers could adapt to enhance customer experience and boost sales. They suggested that exploring common elements in interior design and jewellery design, such as colour trends or materials, could lead to marketing themes that could open up more opportunities to jewellery traders.

Other renowned professionals from various lifestyle fields: jewellery designer Shirley Hou, makeup artist Sofiya Lin, fitness trainer Chen Gurong, and apparel designer Fiona Tam were also on hand to dish out tips. Their ideas on how cooperation could be implemented across different lifestyle segments were met with a very enthusiastic response from exhibitors and visitors alike.

Storytelling from professionals further presented a strong case for developing crossover alliances. Resource speakers cited case studies to make their point; speakers included Li Jun, founder of One Jewellery; and Teddy Tan, Event Manager, China Jewellery Fairs, UBM China (Guangzhou) Co, Ltd.

Helen Mao, International Editor of TRENDVISION, served as the forum moderator.

Other fresh offerings

The abundance of new products and innovations was evident throughout the fair. Not only were there intensive dialogs at the trade fair stands, participants discussed and witnessed industry trends and market developments in specialized pavilions and at knowledge seminars.

A conference focused on the bridal market organized by the China Gold Association was also launched at this edition. The conference highlighted new directions in bridal jewellery and served as a networking opportunity for participants specializing in this segment of the market. "We hope to strengthen Shanghai Jewellery Fair's role in the bridal market by giving industry players a platform to inspire and be inspired, trade, network and grow their business," says Mr Tan.

The newly launched Chinese Culture Pavilion, where elements central to Chinese Culture -- metal, wood, water, fire and earth  played a key role, was embraced warmly. Jewellery featuring the five themes gave visitors special insight into the Chinese culture. Buyers whose target was to see both classic and contemporary jewels were not disappointed.

Another new feature, called Mirage, featured artists from Southeast Asia who demonstrated their talents in painting or drawing. The participation of visitors, in which they drew or painted under the guidance of the featured artist added to the upbeat mood.

The iconic Designer Pavilion drew in robust visits. It gave professional designers from home and abroad the platform to showcase their jewellery creations and have face-to-face interaction with the fair's global audience. Buyers in turn got insights into current designer viewpoints and market trends through their work.

Adding to the array of informative sessions and networking opportunities was another newly introduced feature -- the "Everyone Could be a Designer" activity. The interactive project is a collaborative undertaking among UBM Asia, 3D printing technology specialist iiiMark 3D, and Chinese charity organisation, Aimier. Under the guidance of a professional jewellery designer, art works by physically or mentally challenged children under the patronage of Aimier were made into jewellery items via 3D printing technology. Visitors, including more than 50 children, were also able to channel their inner artists by drawing. They had a chance to witness the many uses and benefits of 3D printing technology when their sketches were turned into real jewellery items.

"UBM will continue to devote to this kind of CSR program while advancing the development of jewellery industry. Similar practices will be implemented in our upcoming Shenzhen Jewellery Fair," says Mr Tan.

He concluded: "The robust number of participating exhibitors and the amount of booked space as well as the strong visitor turnout bear witness to the great success of this year's event."

Judging from the warm reception to this year's innovations, next year's edition of the Shanghai Jewellery Fair promises to be anything but conventional. "We will be back next year with yet another exciting fair that will help our exhibitors raise their market profile and that of their products," Mr Tan concluded.

The next edition of the China International Gold, Jewellery and Gem Fair  Shanghai will be held from 28 November to 1 December 2019 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Centre.

UBM Global Jewellery Events Calendar 2019

Exhibitions Dates Venue Mainland China China International Gold, Jewellery & Gem Fair  Shenzhen 19  22 April 2019 Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center China International Gold, Jewellery & Gem Fair  Shanghai 28 November  1 December 2019 Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center Hong Kong region



Asia's Fashion Jewellery & Accessories Fair  March Edition 27 February  2 March 2019 AsiaWorld-Expo  Hong Kong June Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair 20  23 June 2019 Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre Asia's Fashion Jewellery & Accessories Fair  September Edition 16  19 September 2019 AsiaWorld-Expo  Hong Kong September Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair 16  20 September 2019 18  22 September 2019 AsiaWorld-Expo  Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre Taiwan region Taiwan Jewellery & Gem Fair 15  18 November 2019 Taipei World Trade Center Japan Japan Jewellery Fair 28  30 August 2019 Tokyo Big Sight Exhibition Center India Chennai Jewellery & Gem Fair 8  10 March 2019 Chennai Trade Centre Kolkata Jewellery & Gem Fair 6  8 April 2019 Milan Mela Complex  Kolkata Hyderabad Jewellery, Pearl & Gem Fair 14  16 June 2019 HICC, Novotel  Hyderabad Delhi Jewellery & Gem Fair 28  30 September 2019 Pragati Maidan  Delhi Chennai Jewellery & Gem Fair 4  6 October 2019 Chennai Trade Centre Middle East Jewellery Arabia Bahrain 19  23 November 2019 The Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre Turkey Istanbul Jewelry Show I 21  24 March 2019 CNR Expo Center  Istanbul Istanbul Jewelry Show II 10  13 October 2019 CNR Expo Center  Istanbul Russian Federation JUNWEX St. Petersburg 6  10 February 2019 EXPOFORUM  St. Petersburg JUNWEX New Russian Style 22  26 May 2019 All-Russian Exhibition Centre  Moscow JUNWEX Moscow, JUNWEX Watch 25 - 29 September 2019 All-Russian Exhibition Centre  Moscow

For exhibiting, please contact: Sales Department, Jewellery Fairs, UBM China (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. Tel: (86) 20 8666 0158 Fax: (86) 20 8667 7120 E-mail: [email protected] For visiting, please contact: Visitor Promotion Department, Jewellery Fairs, UBM China (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. Tel: (86) 20 8667 2808 Fax: (86) 20 8667 7120 E-mail: [email protected] www.shanghaijewelleryfair.com



The China International Gold, Jewellery & Gem Fair  Shanghai is organised by UBM, which in June 2018 combined with Informa PLC to become a leading B2B information services group and the largest B2B Events organiser in the world. Please visit www.ubm.com/asia for more information about our presence in Asia.

Appendix: 14th China International Gold, Jewellery & Gem Fair  Shanghai Fair Statistics

Breakdown of Total Visits (including revisits)



Number of visits from Mainland China 9439 97.41% Number of visitors from overseas, Hong Kong and Taiwan regions 251 2.59% Total number of visits 9690 100%

Visitors came from 32 countries and regions

1 Mainland China 12 Korea 23 Italy 2 Sri Lanka (Rep of) 13 Jordan 24 Kazakhstan 3 Taiwan Region 14 Netherlands 25 Malaysia 4 Hong Kong Region 15 Indonesia 26 Montenegro (Rep of) 5 India 16 Israel 27 Nigeria 6 Japan 17 Mexico 28 Saudi Arabia 7 Canada 18 Syrian Arab Republic 29 Spain 8 Pakistan 19 Thailand 30 Tajikistan (Rep of) 9 USA 20 Uzbekistan (Rep of) 31 Brazil 10 Vietnam 21 Austria 32 Denmark 11 UK 22 Belarus





Mainland China visitors came from 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities

1 Shanghai 12 Anhui 23 Inner Mongolia 2 Jiangsu 13 Shanxi 24 Guizhou 3 Zhejiang 14 Sichuan 25 Guangxi 4 Guangdong 15 Shaanxi 26 Xinjiang 5 Beijing 16 Fujian 27 Gansu 6 Liaoning 17 Hunan 28 Hainan 7 Tianjin 18 Yunnan 29 Ningxia 8 Henan 19 Heilongjiang 30 Qingha 9 Jiangxi 20 Jilin 31 Tibet 10 Hubei 21 Chongqing



11 Shandong 22 Hebei





Breakdown of Exhibitors (by country and region)

No. Country/ Region No. of Exhibitor(s) 1 Canada 1 2 Thailand 1 3 Hong Kong Region 8 4 Italy 1 5 Japan 1 6 Korea 1 7 Mexico 1 8 Taiwan Region 2 9 USA 1 10 Mainland China 318 Grand Total: 335

SOURCE UBM China (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd

Related Links

https://www.shanghaijewelleryfair.com/zh-cn/


HOUSTON, Jan. 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Rowan Companies plc ("Rowan" or the "Company") (NYSE: RDC) announced today that the Rowan Norway, an N-Class ultra-harsh environment jack-up rig, has been awarded a contract in Norway by ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS ("COPSAS") for an estimated duration of seven months that is expected to commence in the second quarter of 2019. The contract award is subject to partner approval. Following the initial contract term, COPSAS has two options. The first option has an estimated duration of five months and the second an estimated duration of nine months. The Rowan Norway is currently under contract with Turkish Petroleum in the Mediterranean Sea until approximately late April 2019.

Rowan is a global provider of contract drilling services with a fleet of 25 mobile offshore drilling units, composed of 21 self-elevating jack-up rigs and four ultra-deepwater drillships. The Company's fleet operates worldwide, including the United States Gulf of Mexico, the United Kingdom and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea, the Middle East, the Mediterranean Sea, and Trinidad. Additionally, the Company is a 50/50 partner in a joint venture with Saudi Aramco, entitled ARO Drilling, that owns a fleet of seven self-elevating jack-up rigs that operate in the Arabian Gulf. The Company's Class A Ordinary Shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "RDC". For more information on the Company, please visit www.rowan.com.

Statements herein that are not historical facts are forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, statements as to the effective commencement date, scope of work, and duration of the contracts. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and are subject to numerous risks, assumptions, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include oil and natural gas prices and the impact of the economic climate; changes in the offshore drilling market, including fluctuations in supply and demand; variable levels of drilling activity and expenditures in the energy industry; changes in day rates; ability to secure future drilling contracts; cancellation, early termination or renegotiation by our customers of drilling contracts; customer credit and risk of customer bankruptcy; risks associated with fixed cost drilling operations; unplanned downtime; operating hazards and equipment failure; risks of collision and damage; casualty losses and limitations on insurance coverage; weather conditions in the Company's operating areas; hostilities, terrorism, and piracy; impairments; cyber incidents; the outcomes of disputes, including tax disputes and legal proceedings; and other risks disclosed in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date hereof, and the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/720386/Rowan_Companies_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Rowan Companies plc

Related Links

http://www.rowan.com


MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jan. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Republic of Uruguay (" Uruguay ") previously announced an offer to purchase for cash (the " Tender Offer ") its bonds of each series of Global Bonds listed in the table below (collectively, the " Old Bonds " and each Old Bond, a "series" of Old Bonds), subject to the terms and conditions contained in the Offer to Purchase, dated January 15, 2019 (the " Offer to Purchase "). Uruguay has instructed J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (in such capacity, the " Billing and Delivering Bank "), to accept subject to proration and other terms and conditions contained in the Offer to Purchase, valid Preferred Tenders in aggregate principal amounts of Old Bonds as set forth below. Capitalized terms used but not defined in this announcement have the respective meanings specified in the Offer to Purchase.

The Non-Preferred Tender Offer and Preferred Tender Offer expired as scheduled at 12:00 noon New York time on January 15, 2019.

The Maximum Purchase Amount is (i) US$0 principal amount for the 2022 Bonds (as defined below), (ii) US$158,609,416 principal amount for the 2024 Bonds (as defined below), and (iii) US$227,988,716 principal amount for the 2027 Bonds (as defined below)

The aggregate principal amount of Preferred and Non-Preferred Tenders of Old Bonds and the aggregate principal amount of Preferred and Non-Preferred Tenders of such Old Bonds that have been accepted are shown in the table below. No Non-Preferred Tenders have been accepted. Appropriate adjustments will be made so that purchases are made in the minimum denominations set forth in the Offer to Purchase.

Global USD Bonds Aggregate Principal Amount of Preferred Tenders Aggregate Principal Amount of Preferred Tenders Accepted Aggregate Principal Amount of Non-Preferred Tenders Aggregate Principal Amount of Non-Preferred Tenders Accepted 8.000% Global Bonds due 2022 (" 20 22 Bonds ") US$48,824,643 US$0 US$9,131,000 US$0 4.500% Global Bonds due 2024 (" 2024 Bonds ") US$158,609,416 US$158,609,416 US$28,738,000 US$0 4.375% Global Bonds due 2027 (" 2027 Bonds ") US$376,265,203 US$227,988,716 US$120,965,000 US$0

Holders of Old Bonds held through DTC that have been validly tendered and accepted pursuant to the Tender Offer must deliver their accepted Old Bonds to the relevant Dealer Manager no later than 3:00 p.m., New York time, on the Settlement Date. Holders of Old Bonds held through Euroclear or Clearstream that have been validly tendered and accepted pursuant to the Tender Offer must deliver their Old Bonds to the Billing and Delivering Bank, at the latest, using the overnight process, one day prior to the Settlement Date and must not use the optional daylight process. The Settlement Date is expected to occur on Tuesday, January 22, 2019, subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase.

Failure to deliver Old Bonds on time may result (i) in the cancellation of your tender and in you becoming liable for any damages resulting from that failure, (ii) in the case of Preferred Tenders (a) in the cancellation of any allocation of New Bonds in the New Bonds Offering in respect of your related Indication of Interest and/or (b) in the cancellation of your tender and in your remaining obligated to purchase your allocation of New Bonds in respect of your related Indication of Interest and/or (iii) in the delivery of a buy-in notice for the purchase of such Old Bonds, executed in accordance with customary brokerage practices for corporate fixed income securities. Any holder whose tender is cancelled will not receive the Purchase Price or Accrued Interest.

All Old Bonds that are tendered pursuant to Tender Orders placed through a Dealer Manager and are accepted as instructed by Uruguay will be purchased by the Billing and Delivering Bank in such amounts as Uruguay shall determine and subject to the terms and conditions of the Offer to Purchase. Only the Billing and Delivering Bank will be liable for the payment of the Purchase Price and Accrued Interest for Old Bonds validly tendered and accepted by Uruguay. Uruguay will not be liable under any circumstances for the payment of the Purchase Price and Accrued Interest for any Old Bonds tendered in the Offer by any holder. The Billing and Delivery Bank shall only have the obligation to sell to Uruguay the Old Bonds validly tendered and accepted for purchase that the Billing and Delivery Bank has actually purchased pursuant to the Tender Offer on the Settlement Date. Tender Orders that are not for Permitted Tender Amounts have not been accepted.

Subject to the conditions to settlement of the Tender Offer, Old Bonds accepted for purchase will be settled on a delivery versus payment basis solely with the Billing and Delivering Bank on the Settlement Date, in accordance with customary brokerage practices for corporate fixed income securities.

Uruguay has agreed to apply a portion of the net proceeds of its new bonds offering announced on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 (the " New Bonds Offering ") to purchase the Old Bonds accepted pursuant to the Tender Offer from the Billing and Delivering Bank at the applicable Purchase Price plus Accrued Interest. The Tender Offer is subject to the Dealer Manager Agreement relating to this Offer not being terminated prior to or at the time of the settlement of the Offer. Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Scotia Capital (USA) Inc. acted as Dealer Managers for the Tender Offer. Global Bondholder Services Corporation is the information agent in connection with the Offer (" Information Agent "), and questions regarding the Tender Offer may be directed to the Information Agent or any of the Dealer Managers using the contact information below:

Global Bondholder Services Corporation Attention: Corporate Actions 65 Broadway  Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 Banks and Brokers call: +1 (212) 430-3774 Toll free: +1 (866) 470-3800 website: http://www.gbsc-usa.com/uruguay Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc. 767 Fifth Avenue, 50th Floor New York, New York 10153 United States of America Attention: Liability Management Group Collect: (212) 710-6749 Toll free: (888) 770-4828 J.P. Morgan Securities LLC 383 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10179 United States of America Attention: Latin America Debt Capital Markets Collect: (212) 834-7279 Toll free: (866) 846-2874 Scotia Capital (USA) Inc. 250 Vesey Street New York, New York 10281 United States of America Attention: Debt Capital Markets Collect: (212) 225-5559 Toll free: (800) 372-3930

Important Notice

This announcement is not an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell the Old Bonds. The Tender Offer will be made only by and pursuant to the terms of the Offer to Purchase, as may be amended or supplemented from time to time.

The distribution of materials relating to the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer, and the transactions contemplated by the New Bonds Offering and Tender Offer, may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. Each of the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer is made only in those jurisdictions where it is legal to do so. The New Bonds Offering and the Tender are void in all jurisdictions where they are prohibited. If materials relating to the New Bonds Offering or the Tender Offer come into your possession, you are required to inform yourself of and to observe all of these restrictions. The materials relating to the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer do not constitute, and may not be used in connection with, an offer or solicitation in any place where offers or solicitations are not permitted by law. If a jurisdiction requires that the New Bonds Offering or the Tender Offer be made by a licensed broker or dealer and a Dealer Manager or any affiliate of a Dealer Manager is a licensed broker or dealer in that jurisdiction, the New Bonds Offering or the Tender Offer, as the case may be, shall be deemed to be made by the Dealer Manager or such affiliate in that jurisdiction. Owners who may lawfully participate in the Tender Offer in accordance with the terms thereof are referred to as "holders."

In any EEA Member State this announcement is only addressed to and is only directed at qualified investors within the meaning of the Prospectus Directive.

The New Bonds have not been registered with the Comision Nacional de Valores and may not be offered publicly in Argentina. The New Bonds may not be publicly distributed in Argentina. Neither the issuer nor the underwriters will solicit the public in Argentina in connection with the New Bonds Offering.

The New Bonds have not been and will not be issued nor publicly placed, distributed, offered or negotiated in the Brazilian capital markets. The issuance of the New Bonds has not been nor will be registered with the Securities Commission of Brazil (Comissao de Valores Mobiliarios, or " CVM "). Any public offering or distribution, as defined under Brazilian laws and regulations, of the New Bonds in Brazil is not legal without prior registration under Law No. 6,385/ of December 7, 1976, as amended, and Instruction No. 400, issued by the CVM on December 29, 2003, as amended. Documents relating to the New Bonds Offering, as well as information contained therein, may not be supplied to the public in Brazil (as the New Bonds Offering is not a public offering of securities in Brazil), nor be used in connection with any offer for subscription or sale of the New Bonds to the public in Brazil. Therefore, each of the underwriters has represented, warranted and agreed that it has not offered or sold, and will not offer or sell, the New Bonds in Brazil, except in circumstances which do not constitute a public offering, placement, distribution or negotiation of securities in the Brazilian capital markets regulated by Brazilian laws and regulations. Persons wishing to offer or acquire the New Bonds within Brazil should consult with their own counsel as to the applicability of registration requirements or any exemption therefrom.

With respect to persons in Hong Kong, the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer are only made to, and are only capable of acceptance by, "professional investors" as defined in the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Cap. 571) of Hong Kong (the " SFO ") and any rules made thereunder. No person or entity may issue or have in its possession for the purposes of issue, whether in Hong Kong or elsewhere, any advertisement, invitation or document relating to the New Bonds, Old Bonds or the Tender Offer, which is directed at, or the contents of which are likely to be accessed or read by, the public of Hong Kong (except if permitted to do so under the securities laws of Hong Kong other than with respect to the Old Bonds which are or are intended to be tendered, or New Bonds which are intended to be purchased, only by persons outside Hong Kong or only by "professional investors" as defined in the SFO and any rules made under thereunder.

In the Netherlands, the New Bonds may not be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, other than to qualified investors (gekwalificeerde beleggers) within the meaning of Article 1:1 of the Dutch Financial Supervision Act (Wet op het financieel toezicht).

Neither the communication of this announcement nor any other offer material relating to the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer has been approved, by an authorized person for the purposes of section 21 of the UK Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended, "the FSMA"). This announcement is only being distributed to and is only directed: at (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom; or (ii) persons who have professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within Article 19(5) of the Order; persons falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) ("high net worth companies, unincorporated associations etc.) of the Order; or (iii) persons to whom an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity (within the meaning of section 21 of the FSMA) may otherwise lawfully be communicated or caused to be communicated (all such other persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). Any investment or investment activity to which this announcement relates is available only to relevant persons and will be engaged in only with relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this announcement or any of its contents.

ANY DISCLAIMERS OR OTHER NOTICES THAT MAY APPEAR AFTER THIS MESSAGE ARE NOT APPLICABLE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND SHOULD BE DISREGARDED. SUCH DISCLAIMERS OR OTHER NOTICES WERE AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED AS A RESULT OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT BEING SENT VIA BLOOMBERG OR ANOTHER EMAIL SYSTEM.

SOURCE Republic of Uruguay

Related Links

http://www.gbsc-usa.com/uruguay


WASHINGTON, Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In the spirit of Martin Luther King Service Day, approximately 400 volunteers joined Operation Gratitude today, to assemble 25,000 Care Packages at the DC Armory. The packages will be delivered to law enforcement officers, firefighters, and National Guardsmen locally and in more than a dozen cities across America today through Monday. The massive service project also launches Operation Gratitude's 2019 campaign to "Make Every Minute Count," and the goal to deliver more than 525,600 care packages to service members, veterans, first responders and their families  at least one care package every minute of the year.

"Our Care Package recipients are profoundly affected when they learn that, last year alone,780,000 Americans donated time, resources, and energy to express appreciation for their selfless service and sacrifice," said CEO Kevin Schmiegel. "I'm in awe over everyone's hard work and dedication today  it demonstrates the tremendous potential for Operation Gratitude and its army of volunteers to truly make every minute count this year."

Operation Gratitude's mission is to forge strong bonds between all Americans and their military and first responder heroes through volunteer service projects, acts of gratitude, and meaningful engagements in communities nationwide. Today's Assembly Day and the direct delivery of 25,000 Care Packages by grateful citizens to the men and women in uniform who serve and protect them show that hands-on volunteerism and face-to-face interactions can help bridge a growing divide that exists between civilians and those who serve.

Through these activities, Operation Gratitude and its volunteers have provided Care Packages to 1.7 million U.S. Service Members deployed globally and 500,000 veterans, first responders and military families on the home front since 2003. The packages include snacks and hygiene items, as well as scarves, hats, and paracord "survival" bracelets that were "handmade with love" and the most cherished item, handwritten letters of appreciation from Americans everywhere.

The packages assembled today will be hand delivered to 3,000 DC National Guardsmen and 6,000 DC Police, Firefighters, and EMTs in Washington, DC on Thursday afternoon, and more than 1,000 first responders in Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia on Friday and Saturday. Operation Gratitude and its partners will build on the success realized in our nation's capital to host additional large-scale Assembly Days in Austin, San Diego, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Philadelphia, New York City, and San Antonio in 2019.

Operation Gratitude's ability to make every minute count and expand its grassroots movement to bridge the civilian-service divide is bolstered by corporate and civic leaders who make up the BRIDGE Council (Bridging the Divide through Gratitude and Engagement). Key partners for today's event include CSX Corporation, CVS Health, Mars Incorporated, Target, and DC Police Foundation.

Operation Gratitude gives everyone an opportunity to say, "thank you." Get involved by signing up to be a volunteer at OperationGratitude.com and follow Operation Gratitude on social media (f:@OperationGratitude I/T:@OpGratitude). Corporations can contribute by sponsoring an employee service project or making in-kind donations.

Editors: Photos from today's Operation Gratitude's Assembly Day in Washington, DC are available here.

About Operation Gratitude

Demonstrating that actions speak louder than words, Operation Gratitude, a 501(c)(3) organization, provides tangible ways to strengthen communities and bring together grateful civilians with the men and women in uniform who serve and protect them. More than 1 million volunteers across the country have supported Operation Gratitude's efforts to deliver more than 2.2 Million Care Packages to our nation's heroes since 2003. Awarded a 4-Star rating from Charity Navigator and a Platinum rating from Guidestar, 94 percent of Operation Gratitude's expenditures go directly to programs that annually support more than 250,000 Service Members, their families at home, Veterans, and First Responders. Learn more at www.operationgratitude.com.

Contact: [email protected]

410-562-5285 or 540-419-7263

SOURCE Operation Gratitude

Related Links

https://www.operationgratitude.com


"The end-of-year numbers are particularly remarkable since the transfer to local control occurred just two years ago and they show that our strategy to develop Ontario into an international gateway is succeeding," said Alan D. Wapner, president of the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA). "Our success is rooted in our ability to provide the facilities, services and amenities that air travelers demand and deliver the positive, hassle-free customer experience they deserve."

In December, ONT welcomed more than 441,000 passengers, 7.4% higher than December 2017. Domestic and international passenger volume grew 5.3% and 61.7%, respectively.

Air cargo likewise continued its robust growth pace in December and for the year. During calendar year 2018, shipments of freight and mail totaled more than 750,000 tons, 14.8% higher than 2017. In December shipments totaled more than 75,000 tons, an increase of nearly 5% over December 2017.

"We owe this sustained growth to our airline partners at China Airlines, Frontier Airlines and JetBlue Airways who have added services during this past year," said Mark Thorpe, OIAA chief executive officer. "We look forward to continuing increases in 2019 thanks to new services already announced and others we expect to hear about soon."

Ontario International Airport was recently named the fastest growing airport in the U.S. by a leading travel publication. Several air carriers including United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines have already announced new flights from ONT beginning this year.



December 2018 December 2017 % Change YTD 2018 YTD 2017 % Change Passenger Traffic

























Domestic 416,529 395,568 5.3% 4,888,011 4,411,274 10.8% International 24,644 15,244 61.7% 227,883 141,428 61.1% Total 441,173 410,812 7.4% 5,115,894 4,552,702 12.4% Air Cargo (Tons)











Freight 74,691 71,408 4.6% 723,016 626,579 15.4% Mail 1,031 849 21.4% 28,513 27,890 2.2% Total 75,722 72,258 4.8% 751,529 654,469 14.8%

About Ontario International Airport

Ontario International Airport (ONT) is the fastest growing airport in the United States, according to Global Traveler, a leading publication for frequent fliers. Located in the Inland Empire, ONT is approximately 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the center of Southern California. It is a full-service airport with nonstop commercial jet service to 19 major airports in the U.S., Mexico and Taiwan, and connecting service to many domestic and international destinations. There is an average of 67 daily departures offered by nine air carriers. More information is available at www.flyOntario.com.

Follow @flyONT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

About the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA)

The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of ONT for the benefit of the Southern California economy and the residents of the airport's four-county catchment area. OIAA Commissioners are Ontario City Councilmember Alan D. Wapner (President), Retired Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge (Vice President), Ontario Council Member Jim W. Bowman (Secretary), San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman (Commissioner) and retired business executive Julia Gouw (Commissioner).

News Media Contacts:

Atif Elkadi, Deputy Executive Director, (858) 361-9319 [email protected]

Steve Lambert, (909) 841-7527 [email protected]

SOURCE Ontario International Airport

Related Links

http://www.flyontario.com


NEW YORK, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Rehs Contemporary, a New York Gallery specializing in Contemporary Realism, has announced the unveiling of premier Japanese artist Hiroshi Furuyoshi's newest work, Adelaide (2018).

Hiroshi Furuyoshi Hiroshi Furuyoshi

Furuyoshi, born in Hiroshima in 1959, found himself surrounded by all sorts of intriguing objects and treasures as a child. At the time, Furuyoshi's parents ran an antique shop, which is where he spent most of his youth. Unsurprisingly, he was naturally drawn to depictions of curiosity cabinets, a subject matter that reached its height of popularity in the 17th century as evidenced by the collaborative series of work by Rubens and Jan Breughel I, The Five Senses. The Five Senses, a set of allegorical paintings which currently hang in the Prado Museum, illustrates the five senses using assemblages of works of art, musical instruments, scientific equipment, flowers, fish, and other items. Furuyoshi's fascination with Baroque art and the exuberance and grandeur of the period not only influenced his work, but how he presents the finished piece. Today, Furuyoshi's highly sought-after miniature paintings are jam-packed with ultra-realistic renderings of toys, dolls, flowers and other things he may have crossed paths with in his younger years and are typically adorned with one-of-a-kind handcrafted frames.

His newest piece, Adelaide (2018), depicts a young woman holding a variety of colored roses standing in front of one of Hiroshi's iconic curiosity cabinets. In this composition, which measures just 6  x 3 inches, the cabinets are overflowing with floral arrangements stuffed into vibrant and seemingly delicate vases. The young woman, Adelaide, stoically gazing out through the gold doors of the majestic frame that encapsulates the work  her eyes appearing to maintain contact irrespective of the viewer's vantage point.

This work shares its title with a painting featuring the same model completed two years earlier. Adelaide (2016) shows the young girl seated before a towering cabinet filled with toys, dolls and other objects  it was sold through Christie's London in 2016 and while it measures just 14 x 11 inches, it still holds the artist's auction record of 80,500 ($106,256).

Lance and Alyssa Rehs, co-directors of Rehs Contemporary, are always on the lookout for exceptional and unique talent. The gallery connected with Furuyoshi through an exhibition award they offer to a select group of finalists of the Art Renewal Center's Annual Salon. Lance stated, "Hiroshi's finish is remarkable. When we received Ella (the painting submitted for the gallery's award exhibit The Modern Muse, October 2018) I was amazed by the quality and precision. He is a true master of his craft." The artist sent Ella to the gallery just days before the opening and as soon as word went out that the painting was going to be featured in the show, they were flooded with inquires. The work was snatched up immediately by a private collector before the show opened. Alyssa went on to say, "We received Adelaide last week and I was simply floored. Such a stunning work painted perfectly to fit into a miniature frame of what I can only describe as a gothic church altarpiece hit by Wayne Szalinski's (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids) shrink laser; it is truly awing." The gallery notes that while the artworks are small, the painstaking detail is so time-consuming that they only expect to receive three works for the entire year of 2019.

Furuyoshi's Adelaide (2018) is slated to be presented through Rehs Contemporary at the upcoming LA Art Show, which opens on Wednesday, January 23rd and will run through Sunday, January 27th at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

For more information, visit https://www.rehscgi.com, or call Lance Rehs at (212) 355-5710

About Rehs Contemporary

Rehs Contemporary is regarded as one of the top galleries in New York City and is a platform for new, emerging and established contemporary artists; many of whom have received extensive academic training. The gallery offers high quality works to art lovers of all kinds, from first-time buyers to major collectors.

Media Contacts:

Lance J. Rehs, Director

Alyssa T. Rehs, Director

Rehs Contemporary

(212) 355-5710

[email protected]

https://www.rehscgi.com

SOURCE Rehs Contemporary Galleries, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.rehscgi.com


SARASOTA, Fla., Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lakewood-Amedex Inc., a leading developer of novel anti-infective pharmaceuticals, announced today it had entered into a collaboration agreement with Nassau based Foot and Ankle International (Bahamas) to conduct two Phase 2 cDFU clinical trial for its topically applied Nu-3 antimicrobial used to eliminate infection and promote wound healing in patients with chronic diabetic foot ulcers (cDFU). The trial will be under the direction of the prominent Bahamian surgeon, Dr. Daniel Johnson, who is the principal and chief researcher of Foot and Ankle International (Bahamas). He is an acknowledged expert on the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers.

Nu-3, which belongs to a proprietary class of antimicrobials called Bisphosphocins, was first used as a solution to treat infected diabetic foot ulcers for seven days in a Phase 1/2 a clinical trial completed late 2017, when it was well-tolerated with no reported adverse events related to treatment. Results showed promising trends with median wound area reduction (change from baseline) of 65.5% in the 2% Nu-3 treatment arm, versus 29.9% in the placebo arm.

Lakewood-Amedex, based in Sarasota, Florida, has developed a proprietary gel formulation of Nu-3, said they intend to conduct a Phase 2 clinical trial commencing early 2019 using this compound to treat chronic diabetic foot ulcers (cDFU), with a 28-day treatment period using escalating concentrations of Nu-3. The company believes this longer treatment with increased Nu-3 concentration will improve the potential to reach a point of healing or partial healing of the patient's ulcers. Lake-Amedex also intends to conduct an 'adaptive arm' of this clinical trial which will involve treating an increased number of patients with the most effective concentration of the gel formulation to achieve robust clinical data.

Steve Parkinson, President and CEO of Lakewood-Amedex, said the company will seek to recruit up to 120 patients for the entire clinical trial and has identified the Bahamas as not only an up and coming location for medical specialty in DFU in the treatment of diabetic foot wounds and ulcers, but also a potential source of large numbers of patients.

Dr. Daniel Johnson, who recently hosted the First International Congress, "New Hope For The Diabetic Foot, Solving the problem for The Bahamas and the region," said that both companies had agreed that the Bahamas was an ideal clinical site for the proposed trial.

In making the announcement, Mr. Parkinson said, "We are thrilled to be working with such a prestigious physician in the DFU specialty as Dr. Johnson who will add immeasurably to our project in the Bahamas."

Dr. Johnson said, his group was excited to be collaborating with Lakewood-Amedex. "Physicians and surgeons everywhere are anxious to find potential new therapeutics that might be used to treat chronic ulcers which often results in problems for millions of patients around the world. It entails significant healthcare costs and ultimately may result in the amputation of limbs with all the issues, hospitalization and rehabilitation that goes with it. We believe that Bisphosphocin technology may provide new resources to solve these problems, save suffering and save millions of dollars in healthcare costs."

He said the trials will also serve to focus attention on the growing role of the Bahamas as a center of excellence for the research and treatment of numerous medical conditions. "We have been at the very forefront of research, diagnosis and treatment of diabetic foot conditions for the past 25 years," he said.

About Lakewood-Amedex, Inc.

Lakewood-Amedex is a privately held, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a broad portfolio of innovative, novel-approach, anti-infective products in the treatment of serious infectious diseases, improving patient outcomes and significantly reducing the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains like MRSA, VRE, NDM-1, and biofilm strains. The Company's Bisphosphocin products and technology are covered by an extensive patent portfolio consisting of 28 issued and 6 pending patents. The Company's lead product, Nu-3, a first-in-class antimicrobial now in clinical trials, is being developed as a treatment for bacterial and fungal infections, including DFU and oral mucositis.

About Foot and Ankle International (Bahamas).

The Bahamas Foot and Ankle International is a podiatric medical and surgical group based in Nassau, The Bahamas. It has been at the front line of the diagnosis and treatment of the diabetic foot for over 25 years. Lead Researcher, Dr. Daniel Johnson, has worked for decades in the field of diabetic wounds and ulcers in Canada and the U.K. He is President of the Bahamas Podiatric Medical Association. The goal of Dr. Johnson and his colleagues is to establish the Bahamas Foot and Ankle International as a regional center of excellence in the field of podiatric medical and surgical services. They strive to bring the very best in global research development and treatment of diabetic foot complications especially in the Caribbean, a region of the world most impacted by this healthcare crisis. Their constant aim is to see a significant reduction in Lower Extremity Amputations and improve people's quality of life and health. Thus, Dr. Johnson and his colleagues are pleased to introduce a new class of antimicrobial called, Bisphosphocins, to the healthcare equation and we are delighted with the introduction of this new formula, Nu-3, which has shown tremendous progress in the treatment of diabetic foot ulceration.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "expects", "potential", "suggests", "may", "will" or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements regarding our business, which are not historical facts, are "forward-looking statements" that involve risk and uncertainties, which could cause the Company's actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from statements made as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to sufficiency of cash to fund the Company's planned operations, risk associated with inherent uncertainty of product research and development, risk of protecting proprietary rights and competition. Forward-looking statements speak only as to the date they are made. The Company does not undertake to update forward-looking statements to reflect the circumstances or events that occur after the date the forward-looking statements are made.

Contacts: Media Contact:



Steve Parkinson, President & CEO Victor Webb Lakewood-Amedex, Inc. Marston Webb International T: (941) 359-0510 / 225 5859 T: (212) 684-6601 C: (917) 887-0418 [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]



Dr. Daniel Johnson

Foot and Ankle International

Nassau, Bahamas

T: (242) 322-5402

e-mail: [email protected]



SOURCE Lakewood-Amedex Inc.
MINDEN, Nev., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bently Heritage Estate Distillery officially opens in early 2019. The distillery's new home is the LEED Gold certified Minden Flour Mill and Creamery buildings. The century-old Minden Flour Mill is a local landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Owners Christopher and Camille Bently have restored the historic building to state-of-the-art standards, creating a landmark which will be a source of pride for Minden, Carson Valley, and all of Nevada.

Christopher Bently grew up in Minden, and remembers riding his bike past the old flour mill when he was a boy. "As a kid I played inside the Flour Mill and Creamery buildings. These structures are part of the heart and soul of our small town and I want to safeguard that history," he enthuses. Additionally, Christopher says, "I have one simple passion: to make the best American spirits possible, from gins and vodkas to single-malt whiskies, with most of the components sourced from our ranch."

The Bentlys have a dedication to building renovation and historic preservation. The restored Farmers Bank in Minden serves as the flagship office for their companies and won LEED Platinum Certification in 2017.

The new distillery will use sustainably-produced grains from its sister company, Bently Ranch, which is located outside the town of Minden. Winter rye, oats, wheat, corn, and barley will be milled on-site and malted in-house on the malting floor. The Mill Building will create single-malt whisky using handmade Forsyths pot stills imported from Scotland. The Creamery Building will distill vodka and gin, using Carl pot stills imported from Germany. Bently Heritage Estate Distillery has already begun the process of oak barrel aging for their single-malt whisky and bourbon.

Spirits industry veteran Jeff Hodson is the company's director of sales and will be in charge of launching Bently Heritage Estate Distillery's Juniper Grove American Dry Gin and Source One Vodka. Hodson and his sales team will initially target the Nevada, California, and Arizona markets; they plan to be nationally distributed within the next few years. Breakthru Beverage Nevada has been selected as the Nevada distributor. Young's Market Company has been selected as the California and Arizona distributor. Source One Vodka will retail for approximately $32-34. Source One Vodka Rested in Sherry Oak Casks will retail for approximately $36-38. Juniper Grove American Dry Gin will retail for approximately $38-40. "This brand launch is the most exciting I have ever been involved with during my career," says Hodson.

Contact Jeff Hodson at [email protected]. The distillery web address is http://www.bentlyheritage.com.

About Bently Heritage Estate Distillery

Bently Heritage Estate Distillery creates ultra-premium spirits that have been sourced from the local land here in Minden, Nevada. Our products elevate the connoisseur's passion for luxury spirits, creating an experience that will be treasured for generations to come.

SOURCE Bently Heritage Estate Distillery

Related Links

http://www.bentlyheritage.com


LUXEMBOURG, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Globant (NYSE: GLOB), a digitally native technology services company, today announced it has entered into a binding agreement to acquire Avanxo, a leading cloud transformation company with presence in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Argentina. Subject to completion of certain requirements set forth in the purchase agreement, the transaction is expected to close in February 2019.

With this acquisition, Globant continues to focus its capabilities in creating digital experiences for large organizations worldwide, expanding its broad expertise in corporate process optimization and cloud technologies.

"Avanxo shares our vision on how to deliver profound digital and cognitive transformations for the most demanding customers. With Avanxo, we'll broaden our transformation approach as we keep bringing our digital culture to optimize our customers' corporate processes," explains Martin Migoya, Globant CEO and Co-founder. "We have found an amazing team that complements our model, and we are confident that this acquisition will help us propel our positioning as leaders in the digital and cognitive arena."

"With Avanxo, we are expanding our service offering along with the key partnerships Avanxo holds with Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, Google and Informatica," added Martin Umaran, Globant Chief of Staff and Co-founder.

Avanxo pioneered the Cloud System Integration market in Latin America and received widespread recognition for its expertise and ability to drive customer success. Avanxo was recognized as a most valuable partner and became the first independent Platinum Consulting Partner of Salesforce in Latin America. The company is an Advanced Consulting and MSP Certified Partner of Amazon Web Services, and has consistently been recognized by leading publications such as Talkin' Cloud, CIO Review, CIO Application, Forrester Research and others. The company has 310 IT professionals exceptionally skilled in cloud capabilities and working for renowned brands such as ABInBev, Sulamerica, Ecopetrol, Sika, Allianz, Terpel, Samsung, La Meridional, Audi Argentina, Sodimac and many others.

Diego Maldonado, Avanxo Founder and CEO, said: "We are thrilled to become part of the Globant team. Globant is a premier leader in digital and cognitive transformations, recognized worldwide for its ability to incorporate cloud into its deliverables to enhance customer experience and success. Globant shares our core values focused on talent development, employee satisfaction, close alignment with our partners, and customer success. By joining Globant, we will be able to broadly expand our capabilities and provide a vehicle for growth for our employees and our partners."

About Globant

We are a digitally native company where innovation, design and engineering meet scale. We use the latest technologies in the digital and cognitive field to empower your organization in every aspect.

Globant has more than 7,800 professionals and we are present in 13 countries working for companies like LinkedIn, BBVA, EA, and Coca Cola, among others.

We were named a Worldwide Leader of Digital Strategy Consulting Services by IDC MarketScape report (2016 and 2017)

We were also featured as a business case study at Harvard , MIT , and Stanford .

For more information, visit www.globant.com .

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The expectations related to the businesses of Globant and Avanxo may differ from their actual results and consequently, you should not rely on these forward looking statements as predictions of future events. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "believe," "may," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "should," "plan," "expect," "predict," "potential," or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, expectations with respect to future performance, the satisfaction of the closing conditions to the proposed transaction and the timing of the completion of the proposed transaction. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Most of these factors are outside of the control of Globant and Avanxo and are difficult to predict. Factors that may cause such differences include, but are not limited to: (1) the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstances that could give rise to the termination of the share purchase agreement, (2) the ability to recognize the anticipated benefits of the proposed transaction, (3) costs related to the proposed transaction, (4) changes in applicable laws or regulations, (5) the demand for Avanxo's services together with the possibility that Avanxo may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; and (6) other factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in our most recent Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Because of these uncertainties, you should not make any investment decision based on these estimates and forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this press release whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

These risks and uncertainties include those discussed or identified in the filings with the Luxembourg Stock Market Authority for the Financial Markets (Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier).

Contact

Megan Felz

Account Manager

Walker Sands

[email protected]

312.964.9111

SOURCE Globant

Related Links

http://www.globant.com


With 2019 avocado consumption in the European market expected to increase to 1.7 billion pounds, this partnership truly highlights the astonishing growth (65% in the past two years) of the world's favorite superfood. This superfood can be found on the menus of many renowned restaurants, from informal to Michelin-starred around the world!

"We are very proud to continue our collaboration with the Michelin Guide," said Xavier Equihua, President and CEO of WAO. "The revelation of the stars is the most important gastronomic event of the year in the world. Numerous star chefs feature the avocado in their creative dishes and we want to further enhance its versatile uses and flavors in the world of gastronomy."

On the occasion of the 110th Annual Ceremony the avocado will be present and the brand ambassador to the WAO, FoodDeco of Holland, will create the first ever edible Michelin Star sculpture made entirely of fresh avocados. WAO also plans to unveil the first ever avocado beer in France during the event. The avocados provide the beer with a creamy texture and flavor, offering a unique taste and sensory experience.

A special edition of the 2019 MICHELIN Guide for France will also be created to celebrate the unique partnership. "The guide's cover will fuse the traditional red color of the iconic guide with the green color of the avocado," stated Xavier Equihua. "In honor of the event we are also creating a special edition cookbook dedicated to cooking with avocados  a first of its kind in the world." The link to download the cookbook: https://online.fliphtml5.com/rlyl/ikpb/.



WIDELY CONSIDERED THE MOST POPULAR SUPERFOOD IN THE U.S. AND EUROPE. COLLECTIVELY BOTH MARKETS CONSUMED 4 BILLION LBS IN 2018, AN ASTONISHING GROWTH FOR ANY PRODUCE ITEM.

About the World Avocado Organization (WAO):

Established in 2016, the World Avocado Organization (WAO) is an international association representing the leading producers, exporter and importers of avocados, including Peru, South Africa, Colombia, Spain, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Mexico and the United States. The primary objective of the association is to spread the word of the avocado around the world and to promote its consumption thanks to its nutritional values and its recognized health benefits. www.avocadofruitoflife.com

SOURCE World Avocado Organization

Related Links

http://www.avocadofruitoflife.com


You have to get used to fighting white people

Paul Joseph Watson

PrisonPlanet.com

January 17, 2019

A philosophy lecturer at the University of Georgia was accused of advocating racial violence after he tweeted fighting white people is a skill.

Fighting White people is a skill. Really, its one reason Im in support of integrated schools. You have to get used to fighting White people. It takes practice, tweeted Irami Osei-Frimpong, who is listed on the official University of Georgia website under the Department of Philosophy.

Fighting White people is a skill. Really, it's one reason I'm in support of integrated schools. You have to get used to fighting White people. It takes practice. "Blacks kill Blacks because they have never been trained to kill Whites"

-Dr. Bobby Wright  Irami Osei-Frimpong (@IramiOF) January 12, 2019

Osei-Frimpong, who goes by the name The Funky Academic, also quoted Bobby E. Wright, a political activist who once said, Blacks kill Blacks because they have never been trained to kill Whites.

One respondent on Twitter accused of advocating racial violence against whites.

@universityofga did you know you have a professor advocating racial violence against whites? I wouldn't feel safe sending my kids to your school.  Salty ?? Shrimp (@SaltyShrimpface) January 17, 2019

It is interesting that you believe this. Black people in white neighborhoods tend assimilate with white people, and despise people who think like you, commented another user.

It is interesting that you believe this. Black people in white neighborhoods tend assimilate with white people, and despise people who think like you.  Christian Vantu (@TheVantu) January 17, 2019

It is unclear why Osei-Frimpong advocates fighting white people, but a review of his teaching style on the RateMyProfessors website reveals one students opinion that, If you are sensitive to criticism of white people, you will not enjoy his lectures.

Osei-Frimpongs blog features writing in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, while one entry also discusses how he was suspended by Facebook for 30 days for a post in which he called for a political revolution and said he was a fan of white people writing checks out of guilt.

Osei-Frimpongs Facebook page also reveals his support for Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 8:28 am

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Zero Hedge

January 18, 2019

President Trump instructed his former longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to congress about negotiations to construct a Moscow Trump Tower, according to BuzzFeed, citing two federal law enforcement officials who leaked the information.

Trump also supported a plan hatched by Cohen to visit Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign in order to personally meet Vladimir Putin to see if it would help get the project off the ground. Make it happen, Trump allegedly told Cohen.

And even as Trump told the public he had no business deals with Russia, the sources said Trump and his children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project. BuzzFeed

According to BuzzFeed, Cohen told special counsel Robert Mueller that after the election, Trump personally instructed him to lie  by claiming that the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations had ended months before they actually had. The special counsels office also allegedly learned about Trumps insructions to lie through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents, which Cohen reportedly confirmed.

This revelation is not the first evidence to suggest the president may have attempted to obstruct the FBI and special counsel investigations into Russias interference in the 2016 election. But Cohens testimony marks a significant new frontier: It is the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia. BuzzFeed

Trump repeatedly denied having any business interests in Russia while on the campaign trail  while simultaneously pushing for the Moscow project which he hoped could bring the Trump Organization profits in excess of $300 million. According to BuzzFeed, citing two law enforcement sources, Trump had at least 10 face-to-face meetings with Cohen about the deal during the election.

Interestingly, Mueller withheld information in his nine-page charging document against Cohen that he had no direct contacts at the Kremlin, undercutting any notion that the Trump channel had an active backchannel to Putin.

Last year, BuzzFeed reported that Cohen associate (and FBI asset) Felix Sater continued to spearhead the Trump Tower Moscow idea through June 2016  communicating with Russian bankers, developers, and officials connected to the Kremlin.

Meanwhile, lawyers close to the Trump administration helped Cohen craft his Congressional testimony, including his draft statement to the Senate panel according to the report. This did not include former White House counsel DOn McGhan, who told BuzzFeed through an attorney: Don McGahn had no involvement with or knowledge of Michael Cohens testimony. Nor was he aware of anyone in the White House Counsels Office who did.

Following Cohens guilty plea, the special counsels office filed a memo in court vouching for his credible and useful information during seven interviews  adding that Cohen had provided details about his contacts with persons connected to the White House in 2017 and 2018.

According to BuzzFeeds law enforcement sources, Cohen confirmed that Trump directed him to lie to Congress, and that he had provided details of his conversations regarding Trump Tower Moscow with Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump  all three of whom have distanced themselves from the issue, claiming they had little knowledge of the negotiations.

Ivanka, however, was set to manage a spa at the tower and personally recommended an architect, according to the report. She also instructed Cohen to discuss the project with a Russian athlete who offered synergy on a government level in order to get the project moving. Cohen reportedly rebuffed Ivankas suggestion to meet with the athlete, angering Ivanka according to emails reviewed by BuzzFeed.

But a picture of their deep involvement is now emerging, as FBI agents and prosecutors pore over witness interviews and internal documents from Cohen and other Trump Organization officials and executives. Trump was even made aware that Cohen was speaking to Russian government officials about the deal. The lawyer at one point spoke to a Kremlin aide as he sought support for the tower. Trump also encouraged Cohen to plan a trip to Russia during the campaign, where the candidate could meet face-to-face with Putin. BuzzFeed

Felix Sater, meanwhile,  a real estate developer, convicted felon and longtime asset for US intelligence agencies, tried to arrange a trip for Cohen to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum where he was to meet with top Russian government officials and bankers. In order to advance the deal, Cohen told Sater that Trump himself would also go to Russia after the Republican National Convention in July 2016.

Felix Sater, FBI and CIA asset, real estate developer, ex-con

Sources say Sater, whom Cohen described as a salesman, testified to the House intelligence panel in late 2017 that his communications with Cohen about putting Trump and Putin on a stage for a ribbon-cutting for a Trump Tower in Moscow were mere puffery to try to promote the project and get it off the ground. Also according to his still-undisclosed testimony, Sater swore none of those communications involved taking any action to influence the 2016 presidential election.None of the emails and texts between Sater and Cohen mention Russian plans or efforts to hack Democrats campaign emails or influence the election. RCI

Of course, buried towards the end of the story BuzzFeed notes The trip to St. Petersburg never took place and the plans to build Trump Tower Moscow never came tor fruition.

That said, the negotiations occupy an important place in Muelers investigation, as agents try to learn whether it is connected to the Kremlins interferene campaign and whom Trump associates were in contact with to close the deal.

Trump, in his defense of the project, stated last November There was a good chance that I wouldnt have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?

Meanwhile, big questions remain over how involved Trumps children were in the project.

A spokesperson for Ivanka Trumps attorney wrote that she was only minimally involved in the project. Ms. Trump did not know about this proposal until after a non-binding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the Organization about the proposal, never visited the prospective project site and, even internally, was only minimally involved, wrote Peter Mirijanian. Donald Trump Jr., meanwhile, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 7, 2017, that he was only peripherally aware of the plan to build a tower in Moscow. Most of my knowledge has been gained since as it relates to hearing about it over the last few weeks. The two law enforcement sources disputed this characterization and said that he and Cohen had multiple, detailed conversations on this subject during the campaign. BuzzFeed

Cohen is set to testify publicly before the Democrat controlled House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on February 7.

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 7:12 am

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I propose we move it to the Senate and make it happen!

Steve Watson

Prison Planet.com

January 18, 2019

Senator Rand Paul weighed in on the stand off regarding the upcoming State of The Union address, suggesting that if Nancy Pelosi is unwilling to allow it to happen in the House, then it should be moved to the Senate and go ahead without her and the Democrats.

Senator McConnell is in charge of the Senate, Paul tweeted Thursday morning. If Mrs. Pelosi refuses to allow the president to deliver the State of the Union in the House, I propose we move it to the Senate and make it happen!

Senator McConnell is in charge of the Senate. If Mrs. Pelosi refuses to allow the president to deliver the State of the Union in the House, I propose we move it to the Senate and make it happen!  Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 17, 2019

Following up during an interview on Fox & Friends, Paul said This would be the first time in history that the House would deny the president a forum of speaking.

If she is going to do that, lets hold it in the Senate.

Paul was appearing to tout a bill he has introduced aimed at preventing future lengthy government shutdowns.

Following Senator Paul floating the idea of an address delivered from the Senate floor, CBS reported that The White House was seriously considering the possibility.

Top White House officials are discussing whether the GOP-controlled Senate could invite President Trump to deliver the State of the Union address. https://t.co/VmLrU3fcCB  CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) January 17, 2019

Pelosi has made it clear that until the government is fully reopened, she will not issue the invitation for Trump to deliver the speech in the House. Pelosi has suggested that Trump should consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th.

News: @SpeakerPelosi letter to President Trump suggesting he move State of the Union until after government re-opens  or submit his speech in writing instead  due to Shutdown effect in DHS and Secret Service, via @FoxReports & @arogDC: pic.twitter.com/CPMvjm7shr  Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) January 16, 2019

The security concerns Pelosi cited as a reason to postpone the address seemed to have stemmed from a single furloughed DHS employee:

After @SpeakerPelosi sent Pres. Trump letter asking to delay SOTU, citing security concerns, Pelosi spokesperson later said a furloughed DHS employee had "expressed serious concerns that the department has insufficient staffing levels," @MajorCBS reports https://t.co/hs6BqeK09f pic.twitter.com/j9wyuWFCIC  CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) January 17, 2019

Pelosi spox: The Office of the Spkr has been contacted by a furloughed DHS employee who expressed serious concerns that the dept has insufficient staffing levels to sufficiently manage the security needs for the upcoming State of the Union..due to furloughs of critical staff  Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) January 16, 2019

Its clear that Pelosi, who has also stated unequivocally that she will not budge on funding for Trumps proposed border wall, is playing politics.

Really? And who pray tell was this conscientious employee? So she will believe this anonymous furloughed employee over word of Secret Ser. And DHS? Please! Another Pelosi fabrication.  Hiram Holland (@lovesimflight) January 16, 2019

"A furloughed DHS employee" is the new woke six-year-old. https://t.co/rvGfbvW321  Joseph Ashby (@JosephAshbyShow) January 16, 2019

Fox News's John Roberts says a DHS official told him that no one from Pelosi's office called the Secret Service to ask if they had concerns about SOTU before she sent that letter. #StateoftheUnion #GovernmentShutdown  Cortney O'Brien (@obrienc2) January 16, 2019

.@SpeakerPelosi says secret service COULD secure State of the Union, but they shouldnt have to while not getting paid. Theyre professionals. They train for this. They should be paid for this. pic.twitter.com/U926sol7O3  Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) January 17, 2019

Just asked Pelosi if she's simply trying to deny Trump a platform after DHS said it could secure SOTU, and she said: "I'm not denying him a platform at allLet's pay the employees. Maybe he thinks it's OK not to pay people who do work. I don't, and my caucus doesn't either." pic.twitter.com/RODDSMihbK  Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 17, 2019

In response to Pelosis antics, Trump wrote his own informing the speaker that her scheduled trip overseas will be postponed in light of the government shutdown.

The President did this one hour before Pelosi and her team was to leave, forcing Democrats to literally circle around the Capitol on a bus and then get back off it.

USAF bus back on Capitol plaza. Mbrs getting off bus & going back into Capitol pic.twitter.com/k9luYw5YyC  Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) January 17, 2019

Trump even had Pelosis luggage returned to her office by cart:

Pelosis luggage was sent back to her office after Trump cancelled her trip. h/t @odonnell_r pic.twitter.com/dFqTcDo6Ff  John Cardillo (@johncardillo) January 18, 2019

Democrats, along with MSNBC and CNN immediately went into full on attack mode, blaming Trump for playing politics:

However, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy slammed Pelosi for even considering traveling abroad in what is now the fourth week of the partial government shutdown.

Why would she want to go overseas with government shut down, with people missing their paychecks? And if we dont get this back open they could miss their paycheck again by next week, so I think its appropriate that we would get back together. It would not take long, and we could solve this problem, McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill.

I couldnt imagine she would even think about going, McCarthy added. I didnt read what it is but Im just shocked shed even think that she would leave the country. Why would you leave the country with government shut down and youre speaker of the House?

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy reacts to President Trump withholding a military plan for Speaker Nancy Pelosis congressional trip: Why would she want to go overseas with the government shutdown?  I couldnt imagine she would even think about going pic.twitter.com/zDnsi8wNPg  CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 17, 2019

In a further Fox appearance, Rand Paul said that he fully supports Trumps action in canceling Pelosis trip, and that the Speaker has to be willing to compromise on border wall funding.

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 8:24 am

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Michael Snyder

End Of The American Dream

January 18, 2019

Less than 24 hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi essentially disinvited him from delivering the State of the Union address on January 29th, President Trump delivered a power move that we will be talking about forever.

Just minutes before a congressional delegation including Pelosi was scheduled to leave on a seven day trip to the Middle East, Trump abruptly canceled the Air Force flight that they were supposed to be riding on. Top Democratic lawmakers were literally sitting on the bus that was to take them to the plane when they found out about the news. Needless to say, they were absolutely enraged, and they began furiously working their phones in order to find a solution. But of course Trump would not relent, and everybody in the entire country is talking about this epic troll move. In fact, even CNN is admitting that Donald Trump dunked on Nancy Pelosi.

In his letter to Pelosi explaining this cancellation, Trump told her that if she wanted to fly commercial instead of taking an Air Force jet that would be your prerogative. The following comes from Fox News

Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over. In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate, Trump wrote. I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.

Members of Congress were literally sitting on the bus waiting to go when they received this letter, and Chad Pergram reported that furious calls were going back and forth in a desperate attempt to salvage the trip

Members are sitting on the USAF bus on CapHill they wait to see if they are departing on overseas trip Trump canceled. Fox is told there are furious calls going back and forth now between the Hill, State, Pentagon and White House.

As the stunned Democrats tried to figure out what to do, the Air Force bus began circling the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to keep away from pesky reporters.

The stunned officials were trying to understand whether their trip really was canceled. Phone calls and messages were flying between those on the bus and officials inside the Capitol, according to aides. Suddenly, the bus started rolling to the Senate side of the Capitol. It left the Capitol complex and drove slowly in front of the Supreme Court. Less than five minutes later, the bus was in front of the House chamber again, stunning the jacket-less reporters, photographers and camera operators who were almost sweating in 35-degree weather chasing after the bus. The lawmakers eventually got off the bus but wouldnt comment extensively on the situation.

But of course eventually it become clear that Trump would not move, and the bus returned to the U.S. Capitol and the highly embarrassed lawmakers got off and went back inside

Needless to say, things are getting personal now.

After disembarking from the bus, Democrat Adam Schiff told reporters that this kind of thing has never happened in the annals of congressional history

This is obviously an action directed at the speaker, Schiff told reporters after exiting the bus. And we think, as far as we can tell, this has never happened in the annals of congressional history.

Donald Trump has always said that when people hit him, he always hits back harder.

And on Thursday he delivered an epic troll move that is going to be difficult to top. We will be talking about Nancy Pelosis bus to nowhere for a very, very long time.

But this was not just an arbitrary decision by Trump. Because of the government shutdown, he also canceled his trip to the World Economic Forum

President Donald Trump has canceled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum, citing the ongoing partial government shutdown. Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his Delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a late Thursday statement.

After Thursday, the odds of a compromise between President Trump and the Democrats went way, way down.

Nancy Pelosi embarrassed Trump when she disinvited him from delivering the State of the Union address, and now President Trump has deeply embarrassed Nancy Pelosi by canceling her Middle East tour at the last moment.

Both sides are going to continue to hammer one another, and it is clear that Trump could use some more friends in Washington. Unfortunately, we are likely to have endless gridlock in D.C. for the next two years, and at this point neither side appears to have a strong incentive to end the government shutdown

Pelosi sees a Democratic base that is entirely uninterested in giving Trump his border wall and a series of national polls that suggest the public blames the President and his party more than congressional Democrats for the ongoing shutdown. Combine those two factors, and Pelosi has zero incentive to give in to Trump. Trump, of course, has made a political career of doing just this  smashing through normal behavior, acting impulsively and impetuously, taking his ball and going home when he doesnt get exactly what he wants. If Pelosis political calculations make her unlikely to take the high road any time soon, Trumps personality doesnt even allow him to see that a high road exists.

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 6:44 am

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American Mirror

January 18, 2019

Nancy Pelosi suffered another flare up of bizarre behavior today as she denounced President Trump and demanded the government be reopened without funding for a border wall.

The House Speaker spoke to reporters today, and she marred words, frequently repeated herself and suffered brain freezes.

Early in her remarks, Pelosi sighed heavily, seemingly out of breath.

Next week, as you are aware, we she stopped, breathing in, have canceled our district work period next week, she continued, repeating herself.

The House Speaker suffered a mouth problem was trying to say increase, then was hit with a brain freeze when she discussed dignity.

Reiterating what she had already said, Pelosi said, Once again, we call upon the President to open up, uh, government, uh, to reopen government, uh, as I said, we canceled our district work period. This is directly related to our security, she said, suffering another speech problem.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t



After calling it the Trump shuntdown, she had trouble saying immigration.

Pelosi really had trouble saying mine.

She said she was particularly concerned about the United Ine, Arn, United Mine Workers of America, she said, pronouncing the words very deliberately.

After having trouble saying United Mine Workers again, she stumbled through saying denied.

Attempting to offer some heart-wrenching testimonials from government employees being deprived of a paycheck, Pelosi botched the employees name  but only after calling one an employer.

While trying to explain why she wants to postpone the Presidents annual State of the Union address, the House Speaker stumbled, And thats why I said to the President, lets uh, lets if, if you dont open up government, uh, if that doesnt happen, lets discuss a mutually agreeable date. Septemb uh, Jan, January 20 this, the date of the, she continued, thumbing through her notes, State of the Union is not a sacred date, its not constitutionally required, its not any Presidents birthday, its not anything. It is a date that we agreed to, she said.

After suffering more brain freezes, she mispronounced contraband, and then fumbled a demand to reopen government immediately.

Pelosi said there are 3,000 border positions not pilled, before correcting herself and saying filled.

The House Speaker went on to say increased scans at ports of entry would be like an electronic dog, and again mispronounced contraband.

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 7:07 am

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The Daily Caller

January 18, 2019

California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters announced in her first major policy speech since taking the reins of a powerful House committee that she will target acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.

The time for accountability for his actions is about to begin, Waters said Wednesday at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank. Waters took the gavel of the House Financial Services Committee after Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives. A longtime critic of the Trump administration, Waters vowed to hold hearings involving other White House officials, and also plans to target the banking industry.

The California Democrat has taken issue with Mulvaneys tenure as the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an agency he lead from November 2017 to December 2018. Waters suggested he tried to dismantle the CFPB by rolling back fair housing safeguards and protections for consumers.

It is a new day in Congress and for the Financial Services Committee, she said, adding that her committee will push legislation that seeks to undo the rollbacks.

Waters is just one of a number of new Democratic committee leaders who plan to vehemently target the Trump administration for the next two years. House Democrats are expected to hold several dozen investigations, with Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff announcing that every committee will focus on investigating the White House.

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This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 6:34 am

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Chris Menahan

Information Liberation

January 18, 2019

Just business as usual for our moral betters!

From the JTA:

In 2010, Sen. Joe Lieberman fretted that the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE might be spying on Americans. Nearly a decade later, Lieberman registered as a lobbyist for ZTE, with a spokesperson for the former senator saying he is now working for the company to see how they can alleviate the kind of concerns he previously raised. The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that Lieberman, then a Connecticut Independent, joined three Republican lawmakers in 2010 who asked the Obama administration to provide information on whether Americans were susceptible to espionage given aggressive attempts by ZTE and Huawei, another Chinese company, to enter the telecommunications market.

As JTA notes, the 2010 letter he signed on to said: We are very concerned that these companies are being financed by the Chinese government and are potentially subject to significant influence by the Chinese military which may create an opportunity for manipulation of switches, routers, or software embedded in American telecommunications network so that communications can be disrupted, intercepted, tampered with, or purposely misrouted.

More from OpenSecrets:

Clarine Nardi Riddle, chair of the firms Government Affairs and Strategic Counsel Practice Group and Liebermans former chief of staff in the Senate who also registered as a lobbyist for ZTE, said Lieberman is not actually lobbying for ZTE but rather is gathering concerns about the company from lawmakers and officials. Senator Lieberman is conducting a national security assessment investigation, where he will listen to congressional, executive branch, and customer national security concerns, but will not be attempting to influence them nor advocate on ZTEs behalf, Nardi Riddle told the Center for Responsive Politics in an email. His mission is to listen, assess and then make recommendations to ZTE on how to address U.S. national security concerns. While these activities are not associated with the common understanding of lobbying, the Lobbying and Disclosure Act can be interpreted to require registration because he is meeting with covered officials under the statute. Out of an abundance of caution, Senator Lieberman will register under the LDA so that there will be no question about his and ZTEs transparency and compliance.

Lieberman is not lobbying hes lobbying!

Big difference!

Realistically, he should just say not trusting the Chinese is racist and xenophobic. Thats all Kevin McCarthy needs to hear  hell cave immediately!

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 7:04 am

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Sputnik

January 18, 2019

Canadian psychology professor and online guru Jordan Peterson has often referenced the Scandinavian paradox, citing stark gender differences in progressive Nordic countries despite their commitment to equality. A recent Finnish study gives fuel to the embattled thinkers standpoint, citing welfare state as one of the underlying reasons.

A fresh analysis called Glass Ceiling Paradox by Finnish think-tank EVA has addressed the issue of low proportion of female managers in Finland, despite the Nordic country potentially offering more equal opportunities compared to its less feminist peers.

In Finland, the proportion of women in senior positions is 32 per cent, which is below the OECD average, the report stressed. This is still a far cry from 44 per cent in Latvia, an OECD member state, which, unlike Finland and its fellow Nordic countries, seldom gets any praise for its gender equality.

In Finland, the conditions should be better than in Latvia for women to advance to top positions, Swedish-Kurdish economist Nima Sanandaji, one of the contributors to the analysis, told the Hufvudstadsbladet daily newspaper, citing the universal trend of women surpassing men when it comes to higher education, which is clearly manifested in Finland.

According to Sanandaji, men compensate for the lower level of education by having longer working hours. Men are thus over-represented in the top and bottom parts of the career pyramid, whereas women dominate the middle.

Sanandaji ascribed Nordic women progressing more slowly in their careers to generous contributions from the welfare state.

It encourages women to stay out of work or work part-time, which is detrimental to their careers. On average, women work less than men and that is the main reason why glass ceilings exist at all. The Nordic welfare policy only strengthens this effect, Sanandaji explained.

Another factor that impedes womens career progression, according to Sanandaji, is high levels of taxation which discourage people from working, while at the same time make it more difficult to procure household services to the same extent as, for example, in the US. By contrast, freeing up more time for work would not only increase productivity but provide jobs to others.

Lastly, womens career choices are another factor that impedes their advancement. According to Sanandaji, opportunities in the female-dominated public sector are limited.

In the public sector, wage levels are set by agreement, while wages in the private sector are determined to a greater extent on the basis of the personal work effort, which encourages advancement, Sanandaji explained.

According to Expert Market, Belarus, often labelled by western politicians and press alike as totalitarian, has the highest percentage of women in managerial positions in Europe at 46.2 per cent. Internationally, Jamaica, Colombia and Saint Lucia are in the lead, being the only countries where female managers enjoy a numerical superiority.

Toronto University professor Jordan Peterson, who rose to international fame due to his opposition to mandatory gender-neutral pronouns, as well as criticism of feminism and socialism, has often referenced feminist Scandinavian countries as having the highest gender differences in the world, despite their commitment to equality.

Evidence From Norway Shows Gender Quotas Don't Work For Women https://t.co/ij0ju1mZqZ  Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) March 14, 2018

During his Scandinavian tour last autumn, the author of bestseller 12 Rules for Life. An Antidote to Chaos, reiterated his standpoint.

The more egalitarian and rich a society is, the greater the differences between the sexes. In Norway, you therefore have the biggest differences between men and women. This materialises in working life: men become engineers, women become nurses, Peterson said, as quoted by the Norwegian daily Aftenposten.

For his claims, Peterson received a lot of flak in Scandinavian media. The uproar culminated in Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, a fervent feminist and the architect of Swedens feminist foreign policy, telling the acclaimed professor to crawl back under his stone.

Nima Sanandaji is the president of the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform think-tank, and the author of over 20 books on innovation, entrepreneurship, womens career opportunities, the history of enterprise and the future of the Nordic welfare states, including The Nordic Gender Equality Paradox.

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 7:18 am

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Stock market report for June 15, 2021 SAS Research has provided the following updates on the stock market activities

14 times this year armed robbers heightened fears of insecurity in Ghana A brutal attack on a vehicle transporting cash to a bank on Monday, June 14,
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Belgium reach last 16 of Euro 2020 after Denmark win Kevin de Bruyne inspired Belgium to a comeback win against Denmark that secured

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Botswana diamond could be world's third largest A diamond believed to be the third largest ever found has been put on display

Mats Hummels own goal gives France win over Germany at Euros World champions France started their Euro 2020 campaign with a win over Germany
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Sergio Ramos set to leave Real Madrid after 16 years Sergio Ramos is set to leave Real Madrid after the club announced a "farewell"
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Israel strikes in Gaza after fire balloons launched Israel says it has carried out airstrikes against Hamas militant targets in
Galamsey: John Boadu petitions CID The General Secretary of the NPP, John Boadu has petitioned the Director of the

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Ghana hosts ECOWAS Summit this week Ghana will, from today, host the Mid-Year Statutory Meetings of the Economic
Sergio Ramos set to leave Real Madrid after 16 years Sergio Ramos is set to leave Real Madrid after the club announced a "farewell"

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ECG issues mobile money scam alert The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has issued a scam alert on the

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Economy expands by 3.1% in quarter one 2021 The Ghanaian economy expanded by 3.1% in the first quarter of this year, the
NLC to meet TUTAG today The National Labour Commission, NLC and the leadership of the Technical

GFA begins 2021/22 CAF Inter Club Licensing process The Club Licensing department of the Ghana Football Association will today,

Irish police to be given powers over passwords Irish police will have the power to compel people to provide passwords for
Ghana set for biggest cocoa harvest in a decade Ghana, the worlds no. 2 cocoa grower, is headed for its biggest harvest in at

ECG issues mobile money scam alert The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has issued a scam alert on the

Police arrest two Dansoman robbery suspects Police have arrested two persons who attacked and snatched the motorbike with
Israel strikes in Gaza after fire balloons launched Israel says it has carried out airstrikes against Hamas militant targets in

Shenzhou-12: China launches first crew to new space station China has launched three astronauts into orbit to begin occupation of the

Italy becomes first team to reach Euro 2020 knockout stage Manuel Locatelli had never scored twice in a match during his professional

GH20,000 placed on the head of Adedenkpo bullion van robbers The Ghana Police Service has placed a GH20,000 bounty on the head of the armed
Belgium reach last 16 of Euro 2020 after Denmark win Kevin de Bruyne inspired Belgium to a comeback win against Denmark that secured

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FRANCONIA [mdash] Donald "Don" Swift was born in Montreal, Quebec, on March 3, 1954, and passed peacefully from his battle with cancer on June 13, 2021, with some family by his side. He is formerly of Scarborough, Ontario, and Beaconsfield, Quebec. He is survived by his two daughters: Katie 
Last year, through a Red Cross grant, the Ventnor Fire Department installed 80 detectors in 50 units, Cahill said.

And departments can come out to check detectors if homeowners are unsure if theyre working properly.

If people have smoke detectors in their place, they should test them monthly, Cahill said. If it doesnt go off, if youre in the city of Ventnor, well come check it.

Cripps said residents should never feel as if theyre bothering their fire department if they need help.

Were here for the public and the community, Cripps said. If something goes wrong, all they have to do is dial three numbers and they get us to respond as well as the police department.

While the smoke detector is a homeowners first indication of fire, it should be coupled with a family plan of what to do if theres smoke in the house, Cahill said, adding that the time to plan is before you hear the alarm going off in the middle of the night.
But there continues to be gaps and holes in medical research, making physicians wary of recommending the therapy. Medical marijuana is a Schedule I drug and therefore not eligible to get federal funding for research.

A big criticism some physicians have is, where is the evidence? Elnahal said. We do need more research. The evidence is not as strong as wed like it to be.

The lack of evidence on specific outcomes for psychiatric disorders is concerning, said Dr. Inua Momodu, chairman of AtlantiCares department of psychiatry. He said other medication therapies have historically strong evidence in successfully treating patients.

Elnahal said there may be many times when medical marijuana would not be the first-line treatment, but physicians should be able to offer it as an option to compliment treatment or use if nothing else works.

Another health care worker who attended the lecture remotely said some of his patients were worried about using medical marijuana and getting drug screened at work. Currently, people are not protected, Elnahal said, but he hopes pending state legislation will address that.

Stockton to host panels on alternatives to opioids GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP  Two panel discussions on opioid addiction and alternatives to the drugs 
We dont want to harm the same people were trying to help, he said. We do appreciate that they are looking at doing a graduated approach, but the devil is in the details and the final resolutions made.

The left-leaning think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective called the deal one of the most consequential in state history.

The positive impact of this increase will reverberate throughout the economy as workers will immediately have more disposable income to spend in their local communities, said Brandon McKoy, the groups director of government and public affairs.

Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, D-Atlantic, said hes looking at how the wage increase will affect businesses in South Jersey.

Im a small-business owner, so I want to give workers a fair wage, and I certainly think the minimum should be increased, said Mazzeo, who owns a produce store in Northfield, but we also have to be fair to small businesses and businesses in South Jersey like seasonal and agricultural that are affected by a larger increase.
There is a special type of excitement and eclectic buzz surrounding the coming together of these phenomenal groups and diverse women from across the state of New Jersey, said Estina Baker, Senior Campaign Lead for Communications Workers of America-NJ and Senior Adviser to the marchs Leadership Team. There is so much history for women, the labor movement and civil rights movement right on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, particularly at the venue of the march. Our Union is so very honored and thrilled to be a part of this moment of history in our great state."
Security footage from outside the Haven Nightclub at Golden Nugget Atlantic City on Nov. 11, which was released to the media by the state Attorney Generals Office, showed Gilliam and Councilman Jeffree Fauntleroy II fighting with two other men in a parking area outside the club at 2:22 a.m.

Following the fight, Gilliam is seen entering the drivers side of the vehicle and leaving the property at 2:27 a.m.

Recently, Gilliam has been seen using a black Ford Explorer with municipal government license plates.

The use of municipally owned vehicles by public employees is not regulated by the state. It is left up to individual jurisdictions to design, implement and enforce standards.

Atlantic City has no formal standards for use of city vehicles by elected officials.

In 2012, the state recommended Atlantic City discontinue the unwritten practice of allowing part-time elected officials to have city-issued vehicles.

The mayor  the only full-time elected position in the city and who is on call 24 hours a day  was not subject to the states request.

Atlantic City elected officials have a checkered history with municipal-issued vehicles.
Retreat is on the table, we just need to do our analysis, said J.B. Smith, Army Corps project manager.

Its already happening on the state level, but the idea hasnt made headway on the shores of Atlantic and Cape May counties.

Under New Jerseys Blue Acres program, the state is making offers to residents in Deguzmans Pleasantville neighborhood to purchase properties, demolish them and turn the land into green space to absorb flood water. The program uses $300 million in federal disaster recovery funds.

Nearly 650 demolitions have taken place across the state, but mostly in North Jersey communities close to rivers, such as Woodbridge and Sayreville. Pleasantville is the only municipality in Atlantic County participating in Blue Acres.

Usually its death that takes them out (of the shore), said Stewart Farrell, director of Stockton Universitys Coastal Research Center. But at some point, there might not be anything showing even at low tide on Absecon Island except the buildings.

He said the average turnover rate in coastal communities like Stone Harbor and Avalon is about 5 percent.

The state focuses its efforts on buying large clusters of homes, rather than individual properties.
PLEASANTVILLE  A gunfire detection system poised to improve police response to area shootings will be ready to launch by the end of February, according to the company.

Representatives from ShotSpotter, along with the Pleasantville Police Department, hosted a presentation Thursday afternoon at the New Hope Community Center to update officers, city officials and other stakeholders on the progress the city has made installing the system.

The service is anticipated to go live Feb. 27.

ShotSpotter Project Manager Graham Campbell said as of 1:30 p.m. Thursday, 20 percent of the planned gunfire-detection sensors have been installed throughout the city.

More than 70 sensors will be installed on homes and businesses in the city. Campbell added officers have helped reach out to residents who are willing to have the small boxes installed on their homes.

ShotSpotter Director Jason Smith said Pleasantville was the first community to have residents approve and fund the system through a ballot question.
TOMS RIVER  The Ocean County Prosecutors Special Operations Group is getting a rebranding, as the prosecutor announced Thursday the agency will double down on fighting narcotics trafficking.

The arm of the Prosecutors Office, now renamed the Ocean County Prosecutors Narcotics Strike Force will see personnel changes and a re-dedication to aggressively pursuing persons trafficking in the sale (of) illegal narcotics in Ocean County, said Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer.

In conjunction with the renaming, the Prosecutors Office announced Thursday arrests made stemming from a two-month investigation with police from Barnegat, Lacey and Stafford townships. Ronald Lawrence, 30, Denisha Nash, 30, Leashan Coleman, 29, all of Barnegat; and Carol Ann Budinski, 36, of Toms River, were all arrested Tuesday and charged with a litany of drug-related charges, including conspiracy to distribute heroin.

Lawrence was charged with maintaining a controlled substance manufacturing facility and is being held at the Ocean County jail. Nash, Budinski and Coleman were all processed and await future court dates.
ATLANTIC CITY  Two men were arrested late Wednesday after a motor vehicle stop led to a chase and the discovery of drugs and guns, police said.

Just after 10:30 p.m., Keshaun Bunch, 28, of Sicklerville, and Stefano Santiago, 23, of Newfield, were pulled over at North Carolina and Pacific avenues after what officers said was multiple infractions from the driver.

Officers said they smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle and asked Bunch, the passenger, to exit. He exited the vehicle and ran, throwing a loaded handgun to the ground and jumping over several fences. Two officers caught up to Bunch and arrested him. He was in possession of 118 bags of heroin and 49 oxycodone pills, police said.

Santiago, the driver, was found in possession of small quantities of cocaine and marijuana, and arrested, police said.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account.
In the spring of 2013, Milam abruptly resigned. Reports at the time cited the demands of his business, Foundry Service Corp. in Vineland. An operator at that office said he no longer runs the company.

Andrzejczak replaced Milam in the Assembly and on the Democratic ticket that November.

A combined meeting of Democratic committee members was being planned for late January, with plans for a secret ballot to determine whether the seat would be appointed to Milam or Quinn.

Sciarra said he could not offer further details on the matter when contacted Thursday.

Fiocchi said Gov. Phil Murphys State of the State address, with its emphasis on tax increases and drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants, helped him decide to run.

Frankly, I found it disingenuous that the governor would thank our veterans for their service knowing that at least $1.2 million was removed from the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs in his state budget, he said in a statement announcing his run. Yet he could find $2 million for the defense of illegal aliens in this state.
WASHINGTON  U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, D-2nd, has been appointed to the House Committee on Agriculture, as he expected, he said Friday.

It was his first choice, he said, along with Transportation and Infrastructure, which he did not get.

For our district, we think of peaches, cranberries, blueberries and tomatoes, as well as sod, said Van Drew, adding he plans to help New Jersey farmers through his work on that committee.

He will find out next week whether he will get his second choice of Natural Resources.

Natural Resources deals with a lot of fishing and environment issues, said Van Drew. That would be good for South Jersey.

Milam to replace Andrzejczak in Assembly; Fiocchi running for Senate Former Assemblyman Matthew Milam will take the 1st District Assembly seat Bob Andrzejczak va

Van Drew has said he didnt feel House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, another Democrat, had stopped him from getting any particular committee assignment, after he voted against her speakership earlier this month.

As a freshman, he said, he wasnt expecting to be put on the highly sought-after committees like Appropriations, where seats typically go to those with seniority.

No House member from New Jersey has been on either Agriculture or Natural Resources in years, according to Van Drew.
The Arbor Day Foundation is including 10 flowering trees with any membership added during January.

By becoming a part of the nonprofit Arbor Day Foundation, new members will receive 10 flowering trees or five crapemyrtles. The flowering trees include two Sargent crabapples, three American redbuds, two Washington hawthorns and three white flowering dogwoods.

These stunning trees will beautify your home with lovely flowers of pink, yellow and white colors, said Matt Harris, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation. These trees are perfect for large and small spaces.

The trees are part of the foundations Trees for America campaign.

The trees will be shipped postpaid at the right time for planting, between Feb. 1 and May 31, with enclosed planting instructions. The 6- to 12-inch tall trees are guaranteed to grow or they will be replaced free of charge.

Members will also receive a subscription to the foundations bimonthly publication, Arbor Day, and The Tree Book, which includes information about tree planting and care.

To become a member of the foundation and to receive the trees, send a $10 contribution by Jan. 31 to Ten Flowering Trees, Arbor Day Foundation, 100 Arbor Ave., Nebraska City, NE 68410.

Local residents can also join online at arborday.org/January.
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Following the incessant kidnapping incidents, killings and other violent crimes in the state, the Ondo State Government, on Thursday, held a security summit in a bid to work out a blueprint on fighting myriad of security challenges facing the state.

Participants at the event which held in Akure, the Ondo State capital, include the army, the police, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, other paramilitary organisations, local vigilante groups, traditional hunters and some Niger Delta militant groups.

The state has, in recent past, been a hub for kidnapping, ritual killings and other violent crimes, with a number of academics, lawyers and medical personnel as victims.

The alarm brought the army, the police and other security agencies together into a joint task force, which had made relative success in the raids of some of the forests around the state.

A few persons have been arrested for kidnapping and other violent crimes, but the state is still largely, under the siege of the bandits.

At the event, the state governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, said his administration was committed to the fight against kidnapping and other security challenges, but noted that fighting insecurity was capital intensive.

Insecurity has been a major challenge globally, he said. There is hardly any continent in the world without its own peculiar socio-economic issues.

Mr Akeredolu said the African continent is grappling with serious challenges of existence with debilitating impact on the peoples development.

It is, therefore, expedient that we put in place the necessary security architecture that would enhance all-round development of the State and protect the citizens and investors operating in the state, the governor said.

We need to involve all well-meaning individuals to ensure that our environment is free of crime.

A Professor of Criminology, Femi Odekunle, while making a presentation at the summit, said a lasting solution to the problem of insecurity in the country would be to empower the traditional rulers and institutions by making funds available to them to fund security in their domains.

Mr Odekunle, who was the lead speaker at the summit, presented a paper titled Improving the Security Architecture of Ondo State for Sustainable Peace and Development. He said traditional rulers should be saddled with the responsibility of securing their domains in order to assist the government at all levels in tackling insecurity.

He specifically urged the National Assembly and the 36 States Houses of Assembly to make legislation against insecurity with a view making their states safer.

There should be a legislation to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of security work and administration in all the states, he said.

By this, I mean there can be legislation to enforce regular security patrol, intelligence based policing and stipendiary justice administration.

Mr Odekunle also advised that the government should establish an advisory social science based State Crime Prevention and Control body for articulation and co-ordination of the objectives of crime prevention and control instrumentality in all the states.

He identified corruption as the basis of insecurity in the country and urged Nigerians to support the fight against corruption by the present administration, adding that such would put an end to crime and insecurity in the country.
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Tonye Cole no longer addresses himself as the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate for Rivers State apparently in obedience to a recent court judgment which nullified the primary he won.

The court also barred his opponent, Magnus Abe, from parading himself as a governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

A statement released on Friday by Mr Coles media office in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, chose to address him, instead, as The Coordinator of the campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari in Rivers State.

Mr Cole, a wealthy businessman, resigned from the board of directors of Sahara Group of Companies in September last year to join Rivers politics.

Backed by the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and the national leadership of the APC, Mr Cole won the APC governorship primary in Rivers State under controversial circumstances.

Mr Abe, a senator from the state, together with a faction loyal to him, conducted a parallel primary. The senator claimed he was the authentic governorship candidate of the party in the state.

Earlier this month, a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt nullified both primaries conducted by the two factions.

The court, presided by Kolawole Omotosho, also restrained INEC from recognising any candidate of the APC for the 2019 general elections in the state.

Mr Omotosho declared that both primaries were held during the pendency of a suit at the Rivers State High Court.

The Friday press statement from Mr Coles media office touched on the court judgment.

It said the APC in Rivers State has not been outlawed by the courts from campaigning for President Muhammadu Buhari.

What the courts have done is to place the aspirations of APC candidates in Rivers State on hold and we respect that.

As loyal party members who are waiting for the decision of the courts, we shall campaign for President Buhari and the APC at this time. When we do, we shall not be campaigning for Rivers candidates, the statement quoted Mr Cole to have said.

He urged Rivers people not to be dismayed by the current developments.

Our candidates know their day will come. We shall await judicial pronouncements on the matters before them. By the grace of God, justice will prevail, he added.
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President Muhammadu Buhari Friday in Abuja appealed for accommodation and tolerance among cattle herders and farmers throughout the country.

Speaking at the State House when he received the leaders of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association on Nigeria (MACBAN) on a courtesy visit, the president appealed for calm among all citizens, saying that his government will give equal respect to all citizens irrespective of their ethnic, religious and geopolitical backgrounds.

According to President Buhari, I appeal to all farmers and herders for restraint, mutual respect and tolerance for one another as people destined to live together in this great country. I appeal for patience and understanding as the administration works towards lasting solutions to these conflicts.

He also urged the herders to support him in the task of bringing lasting peace to the country.

The president called on state governors to work with the Minister of Agriculture, who he said, had been mandated to work out a solution with the states by which herders will have access to water for their livestock, and farmers will have security against the destruction of their farmlands.

President Buhari attributed part of the conflict between the two groups to the climate change phenomenon and population explosion. He regretted that its politicisation by selfish individuals who did not mean well for the country did not also help matters.

He emphasised that this conflict was neither religious nor ethnic, but one that his administration has foreseen and warned about.

According to the president, Before the Benue and Taraba crises, I called the Minister of Agriculture and the Governor of Central Bank and asked them to work with the state governors on rediscovering the gazetted cattle routes, clear of farmlands that had made for peace during the First Republic.

President Buhari expressed strong confidence that a way around the problem will be found, working with the states which have an important role to play in finding a lasting solution.

Whatever it will take, I am determined to bring peace between farmers and herders. I urge you all to be patient and exercise restraint while we are working for an enduring solution, he stressed.

MACBAN, led by Mohammed Kiruwa, informed the President that the 20-million strong body had sent the delegation to endorse his bid for a second term of office on account of the administrations achievements in office.

These, he said included, the successful clampdown on kidnapping and cattle rustling; and the fight against terrorism and corrupt elements in the society.

Mr Kiruwa said President Buharis personal qualities of honesty, integrity and his unparalleled commitment to the unity and progress of the nation, also informed his associations support for a renewal of his tenure.
Long delays in approving federal budgets have been blamed on the constant tussle between the executive and National Assembly on which of the two arms of government has the power of appropriation.

The director general, Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, said the huge losses as a result of these delays were not in the interest of national development and the economy.

Mr Akabueze spoke in Abuja at a policy advocacy roundtable dialogue on Budget Cycle, Budget System and Public Expectation organised by the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) on Wednesday,

He said it was high time the Supreme Court intervened and gives a judicial clarification on the controversy.

This matter has lingered for too long, and the economy has always been the worse for it. The Supreme Court must step in to give a judicial clarification on which, between the executive and National Assembly has the power of appropriation.

The clarification is necessary so that Nigerians will know who to hold responsible for the delays. If the National Assembly has the right, let the Supreme Court say so clearly so that the executive will know its job ends with providing all the information required to prepare and pass the budget on a timely manner, he said.

Participants in the dialogue decried the negative impact of the late approval of the national budget by the federal lawmakers on the countrys economy.

A former Minister of Health, Aliyu Idi-hong, who participated in the discussions, criticised the practice where the federal budget is always delayed for several months due to the absence of a definite cycle.

Budget Padding

Mr Idi-Hong, who is also a council member of the chamber, also blamed the menace of budget padding on members of the National Assembly who he accused of always abusing the budget process.

He described as selfish the practice where lawmakers removed items in the draft budget proposal submitted by the executive for approval and replaced these with new projects without adequate costing and funding analysis to guide implementation.

In his presentation, the Budget Office DG said the executive has always followed the Constitution and the directive principles requiring it to submit a budget proposal to the National Assembly for approval based on estimates from the ministries, departments and agencies.

According to the DG, although the country has the capacity to prepare bigger annual budgets, government proposals have always been limited to projections from available revenue sources and current priorities.

He said unauthorised insertion of items into the budget by the National Assembly without subjecting them to the due scrutiny of the budget process results in serious distortions and projects abandonment.

Panacea

To resolve the crisis and end the delays in approving annual budgets, Mr Nwabueze said a Bill, titled Organic Budget Law, was submitted to the National Assembly in 2006 for consideration and approval.

He said the Bill spelt out a specific budget calendar requiring the executive to submit the budget proposal not later than September each year, while the National Assembly is allowed to complete work on the document by mid-December and return to the president for final assent.

However, the DG expressed regrets that the Bill has since been abandoned in the National Assembly, as nothing is being done to approve it.

Until 2016, I have been associated with budget preparation for a long time. I have never heard of budget padding, which relates to unauthorised insertion of items in the budget proposal submitted for approval.

In 2016 budget, budget padding occurred at two levels  at the Budget Office (where some of the staff inserted some unauthorised items in the budget that did not originate from the MDAs), and National Assembly (where, after the lawmakers passed the budget, at the committee stage, several new items were inserted that were not in the passed version), he said.

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Automated Budget System

With effect from the 2017 budget, he said the budget preparation process was automated, replacing the previous practice where the MDAs were bringing physical proposals to the Budget Office for the staff to manually key them into the system.

Since 2011, the government had licensed the budget applications under the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) that enabled MDAs to input their budget proposals directly online to the budget system, he said.

Since the automated budget system took off, he said the Budget Office only communicates the cost and revenue ceilings to the MDAs to help them upload their budgets directly to the system.

He said the system has an audit trail, where only authorised personnel with personal identification numbers can access and work on the system.

At different levels, you have the Data Inputer, Checker and Authoriser, to allow the system monitor the points people put things in the budget.

The only thing the Budget Office does after the MDAs have uploaded the proposals is to go online to review them to ensure conformity with coded guidelines and instructions to adjust them as appropriate.

If the MDAs fail to make the adjustments, the Budget Office, through authorised staff, can step in and effect the adjustments. And any item in the form of padding that was not authorised could be traced and removed.

At the National Assembly, the DG said since 2016, the practice where the appropriation committee was usually asked to forward a copy of the Appropriation Bill to all its members for them to work on, has been jettisoned.

From 2017, he said, the National Assembly also changed its system of handling the budget document.

The appropriation committee, he said, no longer brings only the copy of the bill to its members, but the full details (about 2000-page document) to every member before the National Assembly passes the budget.

If anything changes from what was already passed, members can remove what was not passed. I believe with this arrangement, the incidence of budget padding is behind us, he said.
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A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Maitama on Friday granted bail to Kogi West senator, Dino Melaye, on health grounds.

Mr Melaye, who had been in police custody since January 4 after a week-long siege to his house.

He approached the court for enforcement of his fundamental human rights through an application filed by his counsel, Mike Ozekhome (SAN).

Ruling on the application, the judge, Yusuf Halilu, said though there was no formal charge before the court, he would still grant bail on health grounds.

As part of the bail conditions, the judge ordered the senator to provide three sureties, two who must show evidence of landed property in Abuja.

The third, a clerk of the National Assembly, must do a letter to the court that the applicant must be produced in court when he is required.

He adjourned until January 23 to rule on the substantive matter.

Mr Ozekhome had argued that ill health was a condition to reckon with in consideration for bail.

He said only the living can stand trial, that in an investigation procedure, it was unlawful to arrest a suspect unless there was enough evidence.

He is a senatorial candidate in this election and that is the reason they are holding him so that he will not take part. It is a political vendetta, he said.

Simon Lough, counsel to the police, who opposed the application, argued that the arrest was lawful because it was in pursuant to a petition written against Mr Melaye.

He said that the petition alleged that Mr Melaye was in possession of firearms and he attempted to commit an assassination.

On his health status, he said there was no evidence given by the applicant to show that the medical facility where he was taken could not take care of his illness.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has responded to the allegations by the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, that he is behind the travails of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen.

The federal government on January 10 filed corruption charges at the Code of Conduct Tribunal against Mr Onnoghen for allegedly failing to declare a series of his bank accounts, denominated in local and foreign currencies.

The tribunal has, however, been restrained by a federal high court, Abuja, from continuing with the trial of Mr Onnoghen.

The Rivers governor, Mr Wike, during a political rally on Thursday in Eleme, Rivers State, told a crowd of supporters that Mr Amaechi confessed in Abuja to being responsible for travails of the chief justice of Nigeria.

At that meeting in Abuja last Monday, Amaechi confessed that he is the person behind the illegal crisis facing the CJN. He bragged that he will destroy the CJN the way he brought Former President Goodluck Jonathan down, a statement from the Rivers State Government House quoted Mr Wike to have said at the rally.

The governor did not, however, release any proof to back his allegation against Mr Amaechi.

A statement released on Friday evening by Mr Amaechis media office described the allegations as spurious.

Mr Amaechi challenged Mr Wike to name the chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the governor said he (Amaechi) met with in Abuja to confess to being behind the corruption charges against the CJN.

This is another blatant lie just to smear Amaechi and put him on collision course with the judiciary.

The former Rivers State Governor and Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi is not a judicial officer and is not part of whatever is happening in the Judiciary, the statement said.

The statement added, This Wikes latest attack on Amaechi is reminiscent of his earlier spurious allegations during the Ikoyi-Osborne-gate scandal where Wike disgracefully opened his mouth to shamelessly allege that the former Rivers State Governor, Amaechi was the owner of the 13 billion dollars and the owner of the Osborne apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos, where the money was kept.

Wike lied that the money was stolen from Rivers State Government treasury. However, in Wikes usual chicanery, up to today, he has refused to go to Court to claim the 13 billion dollars found in that apartment which he claimed was Rivers money stolen by his predecessor.

Even when a court of law openly asked anyone laying claim to the money to come forward and collect it, Wike ran far away from the court and chickened out, like the chicken he is.

Mr Amaechi also said the attack against him was meant to divert attention from the governors poor performance in office.

He threatened that the governor would face prosecution for his many libelous attacks when his immunity expires.

At the appropriate time, he would no doubt face the full wrath of the law and ultimately, that of the Almighty God, the minister said.

The minister urged Nigerians to ignore Governor Wikes allegations.

Indeed, it is pathetic and a big shame that Wike do not know that Nigerians already know him as an incurable, incorrigible compulsive liar and do not take him and/or his comments seriously, the minister said.

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The late Ex-Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Alex Badeh, will be buried on January 23 at the National Military Cemetery in Abuja.

According to a statement by John Agim, a brigadier general and the Acting Director Defence Information, DDI, the remains of late CDS will be committed to mother earth at 12.30 p. m. after a Church Service.

Mr Agim said the service will take place at the Nigerian Airforce Base, Protestant Church, Bill Clinton Drive Airport Road at 10 a. m.

He added that there would also be a service of song on Sunday by 5 p.m. at the Air Force Base, Protestant Church, Bill Clinton Drive.

Mr Badeh, a retired Air Chief Marshal, who served as CDS under ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, was shot dead on December 18, 2018 by unknown gunmen, on Keffi-Abuja highway, while returning from his farm.

(NAN)
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has reacted to fresh corruption allegations made by the federal government.

Mr Abubakar in a statement on Friday dismissed as cock and bull story, the allegation by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed on Friday, that he (Atiku) has a case to answer over the collapse of Platinum Habib Bank, Bank PHB.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the allegation by Mr Mohammed, who said Mr Abubakar would be questioned by anti-corruption agencies when he returns to the country.

Mr Abubakar, however, challenged the federal government to either prove his alleged corrupt activities or forever remain quiet.

It is disgusting to continue to spin allegations of corruption against me by people who have failed to come forward with a single shred of evidence of my misconduct while in office. Isnt it a shame that the ruling party whose National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole only yesterday gave official confirmation to the general belief that, even if Lawrence Anini becomes an APC member today, Buhari will forgive and consecrate him can turn around to accuse me of corruption today?

They just suddenly woke up to the reality that, their lies about Atiku being corrupt can no longer hold? I challenge the federal government to come up with evidence that I benefitted from N156 million slush funds through Claremont Management Services Account on 13th January, 2009 as well as the collapse of Bank PHB as they have alleged.

It is instructive to note that, the same BankPHB is now Keystone bank which was said to have been acquired Buharis cronies through AMCON last year, Mr Abubakar said.

The opposition candidate also said with or without a trip to the U.S., he will defeat the President Muhammadu Buhari at next months election.

Mr Abubakar visited the U.S. on Thursday after 12 years of avoiding the nation over perceived graft issues.

He had not visited the U.S. since 2007 when he left as Nigerias vice-president. He served under former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Mr Obasanjo accused Mr Abubakar of fraud while in office, and he was also linked to corruption charges filed in the U.S. The politician denied all allegations of wrongdoing.

For the over 12 years that Mr Abubakar was unable to visit the U.S., American authorities had declined to issue him entry visa and there were speculations that a secret indictment had been entered against him by that countrys authorities.

In the statement issued in Abuja on Friday, by his Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Mr Abubakar said the federal government should bury its head in shame having failed to stop him from travelling to the US.

The APC-led government had consistently taunted Mr Abubakar over his inability to visit the U.S.

Mr Shuaibu said it was shameful that the governing APC took it upon itself to call on the authorities of another country not to grant a private citizen entry visa, which ordinarily should not be its business.

The information minister, Mr Mohammed, had cautioned the U.S. not to grant a visa to Mr Abubakar, saying it might give the impression that the foreign power is supportive of the opposition partys candidate.

Mr Abubakar said the APC was jittery knowing that its government has failed. He said Mr Buharis days as president of Nigeria were numbered, which explains why members of the ruling party have been running from pillar to post.

According to him, Nigerians have already made up their minds to send President Buhari packing on February 16, 2019.

Tell them that their days of deceit are numbered. Nigerians are tired of them and they can no longer lie or take the people for a ride anymore, the statement said.

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Mr Abubakar further taunted his main opponent next month.

It was a mark of the idleness of the folks in charge of the APC that they resorted to lobbying the US to deny him (Atiku) visa, when they should be busy strategising on how to save their party from an imminent defeat.

I am shocked that the minders of the governing APC can be lobbying the US to deny me a visa, when no other party is in a bigger mess than the APC following the confusion arising from its unprecedented record of non-performance, the statement said.

The statement said three and a half years into the Buhari administration, no appreciable progress has been made in any sector, whether in the area of the economy, infrastructure, health, education, security or employment.

It said the prevailing situation in the country is due to the lack of initiative of the ruling party.

It said the party lacked the wisdom needed to tackle the massive unemployment level and mindless violence, including kidnapping, armed robbery, killings by herdsmen that are ravaging the country.

There is no need to worry, as we shall unveil on Sunday, January 20, 2019 Buharis Hall Of Shame.

Its a scorecard of failure, incompetence, nepotism and a presidents proclivity to harbouring indicted and other famed thieves of our patrimony. Date and venue shall be made public in due course, the statement added.
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The governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, has accused Rotimi Amaechi, the Minister of Transportation, of being responsible for the travails of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Onnoghen.

The federal government on January 10 filed corruption charges at the Code of Conduct Tribunal against Mr Onnoghen for allegedly failing to declare a series of his bank accounts, denominated in local and foreign currencies.

The tribunal has, however, been restrained by a federal high court, Abuja, from continuing with the trial of Mr Onnoghen.

The Rivers governor, Mr Wike, during a political rally on Thursday in Eleme, Rivers State, told a crowd of supporters that Mr Amaechi confessed in Abuja to being responsible for travails of the chief justice of Nigeria.

At that meeting in Abuja last Monday, Amaechi confessed that he is the person behind the illegal crisis facing the CJN. He bragged that he will destroy the CJN the way he brought Former President Goodluck Jonathan down, a statement from the Rivers State Government House quoted Mr Wike to have said at the rally.

The governor did not, however, release any proof to back his allegation against Mr Amaechi.

He (Amaechi) wants to destroy the nations judiciary, Governor Wike said. This particular evil will finally consume Amaechi.

A media aide to Mr Amaechi who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES on Friday morning described Governor Wikes remarks as libelous.

The ministers media office is going to issue a statement before the close of work on Friday, the aide said.

Governor Wike and Mr Amaechi have been political allies in the past before both men parted ways because of political differences.

The two have been locked in an epic political battle over the soul of Rivers State since Mr Amaechi defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013.
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The presidential candidate of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), Tope Fasua, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to increase the 2019 budget to N15 trillion to improve the lives of Nigerians.

Leading a group of protesters Thursday morning at the main entrance to the National Assembly complex in Abuja, Mr Fasua said Nigeria has the lowest budget to GDP ratio in the world, with the budget being only six per cent of its GDP compared to the average of 40 per cent for other countries.

The protesters, who were staging their protest for the fourth time at the National Assembly, later submitted a petition to the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, for a review of the budget.

Mr Fasua said the petition stated how more revenue can be generated through several means.

The Minister of Budget has listened to us but we have not communicated officially, though we have seen in the newspapers three days ago, where the minister himself acknowledged that the budget is too small for the economy, and they will see how they can increase it.

Mr Fasua said the ministers statement was too futuristic and he is concerned about an immediate review of the budget.

The budget of a country is an important document in any given year, he said.

Making a comparison, he said Cape Town, a state in South Africa with less than three milion people, budgets $3 billion, while a country like Algeria is doing $60 billion. He said Nigerias budget is $23billion for about 190 million people.

Opponent asks Buhari to increase 2019 budget to N15 trillion Opponent asks Buhari to increase 2019 budget to N15 trillion Opponent asks Buhari to increase 2019 budget to N15 trillion Opponent asks Buhari to increase 2019 budget to N15 trillion Opponent asks Buhari to increase 2019 budget to N15 trillion Opponent asks Buhari to increase 2019 budget to N15 trillion

Mr Fasua said Oxfam (an international confederation of 20 NGOs) brought out a statistics about a month ago that showed Nigeria has the worst form of inequality in the world, ranking 157 out of 157 countries.

Our people have been so dehumanised that they are not even asking for better governance anymore, he said. Most Nigerians have been beaten down to the extent that we think that this is the best we can achieve. It is highly unfortunate.

Mr Fasua had earlier led a demonstration in Abuja and submitted a petition to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Budget and National Planning asking the federal government to review the 2019 budget upward to N15 trillion.
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The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has taken a swipe at his counterparts from Nigerias South-south over the latters painful position on the trial of the Chief Justice of Nigeria for alleged false asset declaration.

The federal government arraigned the Chief Justice, Walter Onnoghen, on Monday, before the Code of Conduct Tribunal after authorities received a petition exposing alleged violations in assets filings.

But before the arraignment, the six governors of the South-south, Mr Onnoghens region, had issued a statement, condemning the trial, and accused the executive arm of a plan to weaken the countrys judicial arm.

One of the most painful things I have experienced in the last two weeks, was the statement by the governors of the South-south, justifying that non-declaration of assets is nothing, is a non-issue because the Chief Justice is from the South-south, Mr El-Rufai said, while speaking on Channels Television on Thursday.

But apart from the governors, senior lawyers, including Femi Falana and Olisa Agbakoba, have also expressed opposition to the CJNs trial.

The lawyers, citing a judicial precedent, argued that a serving judge like Mr Onnoghen could not be tried at a court, except after the recommendation of the National Judicial Council.

Mr Onnoghen, who was absent at his trial on Monday, admitted to the allegations in his statement to the CCB. He, however, said he forgot to declare, initially, some of his assets, including significant amounts in domiciliary accounts.
About 76,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Rann are currently threatened by starvation following recent Boko Haram attacks which has forced humanitarian workers to flee the community, officials say.

On Monday, January 14, Boko Haram insurgents carried out a deadly attack on Rann during which an undisclosed number of casualties were recorded.

The attack, which lasted all through Monday night till the morning of Tuesday, targeted a military base stationed in Rann, the headquarters of Kala Balge Local Government Area of Borno State.

Rann is the Borno village where a military fighter jet in 2017 mistakenly dropped bombs on innocent people in an IDP camp killing nearly 200 persons.

It was also in Rann that three female health workers working for UN agencies were abducted last year. Two of the abductees have so far been killed by the Boko Haram.

On Monday, the insurgents returned to Rann where they carried out yet another deadly attack.

Confirming the incident via a statement, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, said the deadly attack has not only forced an emergency evacuation of aid workers but also made Rann inaccessible by land and by air.

Mr Kallon heads the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

The statement, which was made available to PREMIUM TIMES by Samantha Newport, UNOCHAs head of communication in Nigeria, indicated said Mr Kallon was gravely concerned over the interruption of aid delivery to tens of thousands of internally displaced people in Rannfollowing a deadly attack by a non-state armed group.

The statement also said: the interruption in the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Rann is the direct result of an attack that started at dusk on 14 January 2019 on the military base, and continued into the next day.

At the time of the attack, an estimated 76,000 internally displaced people were living in Rann, said the foremost UN agency in Nigeria.

The statement also explained the dire situation further.

A medical clinic, warehouses with humanitarian supplies and accommodation for aid workers were looted and/or destroyed in the attack, and the market and shelters in the camp were burned down by the attackers.

Several civilian fatalities have also been reported, although the total number is not yet known, and thousands are reported to have fled to Cameroon. In addition, 14 aid workers, who were in Rann during the attack and able to hide, were withdrawn the day after by helicopter.

At present Rann is inaccessible to international humanitarian organisations both by road and by air.

Mr Kallon said: the attacks on Rann, that are increasingly frequent, are having a devastating impact on the civilians taking refuge in this isolated town and severely affecting our ability to deliver life-saving aid to women, men and children in need.

This attack has spread fear among an already vulnerable population, and humanitarian assets were also targeted. I urge the Government of Nigeria to protect civilians, including aid workers.

The military has not issued any statement on the Rann attack neither has the federal government reacted to the agencys appeal.

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Also reacting to the Rann attack, Amnesty International said satellite images it analysed show the horrific aftermath of a Boko Haram attack that devastated Rann, displacing more than 9,000 people earlier this week.

The satellite images reveal the true extent of the devastating attack which took place on 14 January in the Borno State town, which hosted thousands of civilians internally displaced by the conflict with Boko Haram. According to Amnesty Internationals analysis, the attack resulted in large areas being burnt in the west and south of Rann, with more than 100 structures destroyed or heavily damaged by fire.

Amnesty International condemns Boko Harams despicable disdain for life. This attack clearly targeted civilians and, therefore, may constitute a war crime. The organization appeals to the Nigerian authorities to provide immediate humanitarian assistance to the thousands of people who have been displaced, said Osai Ojigho Director Amnesty International Nigeria.

What is happening in Rann shows how vulnerable internally displaced persons are in Nigeria and the need to do more to protect them.
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The Federal Government of Nigeria has said that the candidate of the opposition PDP in the 2019 election, Atiku Abubakar, has questions to answer when he returns from his current trip to the United States.

The government said it is investigating Mr Abubakars alleged role in the collapse of former Bank PHB.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said this while briefing State House correspondents on Friday.

Mr Mohammed said the decision to question Mr Abubakar is following fresh evidence that he benefitted from slush funds that led to the collapse of Bank PHB.

The government spokesperson said the government has in its position paper trail which shows that he benefitted from N156 million.

It started from an internal memo dated 13 January 2009 asking that a draft in favour of Atiku Abubakar of 156 million should be raised, he said.

Mr Mohammed also said another memo on the same date was raised to confirm that the amount was raised from a claimant management account.

He said the government has proof of the account mandate, cheque and account statement showing Mr Abubakar as the signatory to the account that received the money.

We want him to stay in the US for as long as he wants but he has to explain to Nigerians when he returns, he said.

Speaking further on the visit of the former vice president to the U.S., the minister said the government had earlier issued a statement advising the U.S. not to issue him a visa.

He, however, said it remains the prerogative of the U.S. government to issue visa to anyone

We are not perturbed one bit. He can go ahead and get a U.S. green card. That will not save him from imminent defeat in the forthcoming election, Mr Mohammed said.

He also said the election will be held here not in the U.S.

The minister, however, said his claim does not imply that the former vice president will be arrested on his return.
On Wednesday, Nigerias president, Muhammadu Buhari, and his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, appeared at a town hall discussion forum organised by Daria media, in partnership with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).

The event, anchored by ace journalist, Kadaria Ahmed, was aired live on NTA and other affiliated stations. It is part of a series Ms Ahmed is organising for presidential candidates and their running mates for the 2019 elections.

Messrs Buhari and Osinbajo appeared as candidates of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and were drilled on what they plan to do for Nigerians, if re-elected.

While Mr Buhari largely parried questions directed at him with witty, indirect responses, Mr Osinbajo engaged the audience more, with figures and statistics.

PREMIUM TIMES highlights some of the claims made by the duo during the town hall event.

CLAIM 1: As of 2012, Nigeria had 112 million people living in extreme poverty.

While speaking on Nigerias poverty index and how the nation was ranked the poverty capital of the world last year, Mr Osinbajo said as of 2012, Nigeria had 112 million people living in extreme poverty. Today, he said, Nigeria has about 86 million people who are poor but it is higher than India, adding that the nation has done immensely well in lifting people out of poverty through its poverty alleviation programmes.

Verification

In March 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics said about 112million Nigerians are living below poverty level, according to the bureaus poverty report. The NBS added that the figure represented about 67.1 per cent of the countrys total population of 167million at the time.

The report came amidst revelations that the countrys real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate recorded a marginal rise from the 7.40 per cent in Q3 2011 to 7.68 per cent in the last quarter of 2011.

Economists, however, argued at the time, that the growth was exclusive as it never translated to improvement in the lives of Nigerians. More Nigerians slipped into poverty at the time, according to reports.

Verdict: True

CLAIM 2: Okonjo Iweala warned about recession as far back as 2012/2013.

Addressing why the nation slipped into recession even when the government inherited a growing economy, Mr Osinbajo said there had been signs of looming recession before the government took over power. He specifically said a former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, warned of a looming recession as far back as 2012/2013.

Verification

In June 2012, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, who was also co-ordinating minister of the economy, warned that government should buckle up and prepare for a possible recession in the economy.

The minister, at the time, added that the nation must put measures in place to avoid recession, citing the slide in the price of crude oil as well as the dire economic situation as signs of things to come.

Nigeria may not be so lucky to avoid recession this time as it did during the last economic meltdown and urged the Federal Government to put up measures that will help mitigate the effect of such economic meltdown, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala was quoted as saying.

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Verdict: True

CLAIM 3: Our debt to GDP is one of the lowest in the world

Still commenting on the state of the economy, Mr Osinbajo said Nigeria has no debt-to-GDP problem as the nation has one of the lowest in the world. He added, however, that Nigeria faces a debt-to-revenue issue.

Verification- In May 2018, the immediate past finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, said the nations debt to GDP ratio stood at 21 per cent.

By the end of the year, it is believed to have risen to 24 per cent.

Although many experts have expressed fears about the nations rising debt profile, Nigeria still has one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world.

Some of the countries with highest debt to GDP ratios globally are Japan, Greece, Lebanon, Italy, and Portugal with 253 per cent, 178 per cent, 149 per cent, 131 per cent and 125 per cent, respectively. The United States, according to Trading Economics, has 105 per cent while France has 97 per cent debt to GDP ratios.

Congo and Egypt, two African countries with high debt to GDP ratio, recorded 117 and 101 per cent, respectively.

On the flipside, as Mr Osinbajo claimed, while Nigerias debt keeps rising in the face of dwindling revenue, many have expressed worries over its debt to revenue figures.

In November 2018, partners at PwC and KPMG warned the nation about its debt to revenue figures.

Adegoke Oyelami, a partner at KPMG, warned that with a debt of N22.2 trillion, the nation will be in dire straits servicing the debt in the next five years.

Verdict: Largely True

CLAIM 4: Most of our debt is local

But, to allay the fears of Nigerians about the nations debt status, Mr Osinbajo added that Nigeria is not in any danger as most of the debt accumulated are local debts. Most debt is in naira because its in treasury bills, the vice president said.

Verification-

In September 2018, the Debt Management Office announced that Nigerias external debt rose to $21.591 billion as at September 30, while domestic debt rose to $40.107 billion and $11. 514 billion for the federal government and state governments, respectively.

The figure showed that Nigerias total debt stock rose to a new high of N22.428 trillion ($72.213 billion), from N17.36 trillion ($56.73 billion) at the end of 2016. The local debt is however higher than the external debts.

Verdict: True

CLAIM 5: Nigeria is practically self-sufficient in rice.

Still on the economy, Mr Osinbajo rehashed the administrations signatory tune on rice production and food sustainability. According to the vice president, Nigeria is practically self-sufficient as it produces about 90 per cent of the rice it consumes.

Verification-

It is not the first time Mr Osinbajo would make this grossly exaggerated claim, together with Mr Buhari and Agriculture minister Audu Ogbeh.

As PREMIUM TIMES fact-check has shown, the governments rice programme, the Anchors Borrowers Programme (ABP), may have encouraged increase in local production of rice but it is dogged by numerous allegations of fraud and malpractices, many of which slow down its potentials.

Besides, Mr Osinbajos claim of 90 per cent sustainability is not supported by verifiable data.

Rather, a PREMIUM TIMES fact-check has shown that a criminal surge in smuggling of rice from neighbouring countries like Benin, rather than improved local production, has accounted for the supposed sustainability in local consumption.

As per the reduced import figures, the CBN policy on access to forex for importation of rice has been a contributing factor.

Verdict: The Claim Is At Best MisleadingAnd At Worst, False.

CLAIM 7: Disability Bill not transmitted to the presidency

Toward the end of the event, Ms Ahmed asked Messrs Buhari and Osinbajo about the disability bill transmitted to the executive by the national assembly last December.

From his countenance, Mr Buhari apparently knew nothing about the existence of any such bill. I think we sent to the national assembly, Mr Buhari said. They returned it to you, Ms Ahmed responded but the vice president quickly intervened, saying he is not aware of that.

He added that even as of Wednesday, there was a demonstration in front of the national assembly where they were saying that they were giving the national assembly seven days to transmit the bill to us, to the presidency.

Verification

First, the vice presidents claim that the executive has not received the bill is MISLEADING as virtually every national newspaper reported that the bill had been transmitted to the presidency in the third week of December.

Checks by PREMIUM TIMES revealed that there are no rebuttals by the presidency notifying the public that it did not receive the bill as claimed by the national assembly.

Verdict: False

Again, the vice presidents claim that there was a demonstration as of Wednesday is FALSE.

Checks by PREMIUM TIMES revealed that no such demonstration was reported anywhere penultimate Wednesday.

In actual fact, the last time any demonstration was staged as regards the bill was on October 10, 2018, two months before the bill was finally transmitted by the national assembly and three months before the town hall event held Wednesday night.
Nigeria may continue to walk a violent tightrope as measures towards addressing the countrys farmers-herdsmen conflict, considered a threat to national survival, are not in the re-election campaign manifesto of President Muhammadu Buhari and only mentioned with a casual air in Atiku Abubakars plans, PREMIUM TIMES has observed.

The conflict is not new. Studies show that the pastoral conflict has posed an unrelenting security concern in the years preceding the Buhari administration. But decades of not tackling it decisively has seen it snowball that it now threatens the very existence of the country. Though reliable statistics on the impacts of the conflict are scarce, the Global Terrorism Index reported the conflict claimed 1,229 human lives in 2014. Mr Buhari came to power in 2015.

However, under Mr Buhari, it became Nigerias major defining problem with implications for national survival and socio-economic well-being, including food security and livelihoods. A 2017 report by Lagos-based SBM Intelligence suggested the conflict accounted for 44 per cent of Nigerias fatalities in 2016, the year that witnessed the international attention-grabbing Agatu Massacre.

Throughout 2017, killings resulting from the conflict regularly featured in daily media reports. The country opened 2018 on a fatal note with the killing of 73 citizens in Benue State by suspected herdsmen.

Pastoralists-farmers conflicts in Nigeria have grown, spread and intensified over the past decade and today poses a threat to national survival, according to a January 2018 memo by Attahiru Jega, Ibrahim Gambari, and Martin Agwai. Thousands of people have been killed, communities have been destroyed and so many farmers and pastoralists have lost their lives and property in an orgy of killings and destruction that is not only destroying livelihoods but also affecting national cohesion.

Despite the seriousness of the issue, Mr Buhari and his main challenger, Mr Abubakar, at best have paid drab attention to the crisis in their campaigns for the 2019 election.

In the APCs Next Level manifesto of Mr Buhari, there is no mention of the crisis even though it has taken a spiralling dimension since the president came to power in 2015. Ironically, one of Mr Buharis main election promises in 2015 was to tackle the countrys security lapses.

This is extremely tragic, said Cheta Nwanze on the absence of the herders-farmers crisis in the manifesto of Mr Buhari.

President Muhammadu Buhari

Meanwhile, in the Atiku policy document, the farmers-herders conflict is stated among other persistent challenges' that include terrorism in the Northeast, Niger Delta militancy and politically orchestrated acts of conflicts.

Yet, apart from a mention, Mr Atiku offers no measures to address the conflict, unlike the somewhat detailed solution the document proposes to end the Boko Haram terrorism, kidnapping and the militancy in the Niger Delta region.

When questioned by PREMIUM TIMES, the spokesperson for the Atiku campaign, Segun Sowunmi, counter-reacted rhetorically: Have you seen the APCs Next Level document? Is the herdsmen crisis given much prominence?

Mr Sowunmi explained that the policy document for the purpose of the campaign could not have captured all the emotions and plans of a party, but just the direction it plans to go. However, the Atiku document includes specific steps towards addressing other security challenges, excluding only farmers-herders crisis.

If for print out error or not wanting to make the document too talky or not wanting the document to be divisive or not wanting to go into specific details of securityI dont think that is a flaw, argued Mr Sowunmi, adding that his principal has clear thoughts about the countrys problems more than any other candidate.

Festus Keyamo, who speaks for the Buhari campaign, was evasive when PREMIUM TIMES made efforts to have him comment on this report. Repeated calls to his phone after we both agreed to a telephone interview were not answered.

Similarly, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, both of whom speak for Mr Buhari, also declined to comment on this report.

The crisis has a socio-political context, including history, culture, ethnicity, religion, state capacity and politics of the elites, which has further drawn it out and made it a seemingly intractable challenge.

It is a resource conflict but has taken a religious colouration, noted Mr Nwanze, who is lead consultant at the SBM Intelligence.

This context evokes diverse sensitivities and sentiments across the country and might be the reason both Mr Buhari and Mr Atiku, like previous administrations, are not demonstrating boldness in the face of a challenge on the edge of which Nigerias stability and unity stand.

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Atiku Abubakar

Speaking of the treatment of the crisis by both Mr Buhari and Mr Atiku, Mr Nwanze said it appeared there is no identification of the problem, adding that the solution may, therefore, be impossible.

It may go on to the extent that we may even forget what (the actual cause of) the problem is, said Mr Nwanze.

The crisis poses a grave risk to Nigerias unity and stability  perhaps greater than any other crisis  because usually, the belligerents are from diverse ethno-religious backgrounds; for instance, Muslim Fulani herders and Christian Tarok or Tiv farmers with a long history of distrust.

This context evokes diverse sensitivities and sentiments across the country and might be the reason both Mr Buhari and Mr Atiku, like previous administrations, are not demonstrating boldness in the face of the challenge.
A national micro-finance bank is to be established to promote access to credit finance for small, medium enterprises (SMEs) and other unbanked groups in the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said on Thursday.

The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, who announced this in Abuja, said the bank will be established in collaboration with the Bankers Committee, the Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) and the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST).

Mr Emefiele was represented by the deputy governor, Financial Systems Stability of the CBN, Aishah Ahmad, at the maiden two-day National Financial Literacy Stakeholders conference organised by the bank in Abuja.

The CBN governor said the new national MFB which shall be technology driven will leverage on the NIPOSTs presence in 774 local government areas of the country to reach its target beneficiaries.

The bank will serve as an efficient channel for the disbursement and monitoring of key intervention funds by the CBN, such as the Anchor Borrowers fund, SME fund, etc, to farmers and SMEs at the grassroots level, Mr Emefiele said.

He said the conference will provide the platform for participants to deliberate on key imperatives for achieving the countrys financial inclusion targets, promoting financial stability and entrenching sustainable and inclusive economic growth.

The theme of the conference, Implementing Financial Literacy and Consumer Protection to advance Financial Inclusion in Nigeria, the CBN governor noted, was selected to help focus on the need to redress the challenges limiting financial inclusion in the country.

Building an inclusive financial system, he said, has positively impacted efforts towards poverty reduction and enhancement of economic prosperity.

Following the launch of a National Financial Inclusion Strategy in 2012, Mr Emefiele said the federal government set a target to achieve 20 per cent financial exclusion rate in the country by 2020.

He said the latest access to financial services survey showed about 36.8 per cent of eligible Nigerian adults do not have access to financial services, down from 41.6 per cent in 2016.

Despite the improvement, the CBN governor said more effort was necessary to achieve the overall 20 per cent target exclusion rate by 2020.

The revised National Financial Inclusion Strategy, which was launched at the opening session of the conference, he said, identified consumer protection and consumer education as critical to the attainment of financial inclusion.

He said adequate consumer protection will help sustain the long term viability of the financial sector, while consumer education will thrive on the foundation of financial literacy.

The benefits of a financially literate population are immense. Consumers are better equipped to make optimal choices in the use of financial products, pose lower credit and default risk, constitute a market for sustainable financial services and products, reinforce competitive pressure on financial institutions for better products and services, and promote financial system stability by increasing market demand and responsible use of financial services, he said

On the impact of technological advancement on the financial system, he said new digital products and services have emerged, with the internet greatly influencing consumers purchasing decisions on e-commerce.

In 2017, he said the banking industry processed about 1.4 billion electronic transactions valued at N97.4 trillion, against 869 million transactions valued at N69.1 trillion in 2016.

Regardless, he said these positive developments in aid of financial inclusion are associated with challenges, namely privacy and security concerns; exposure to new and more inventive fraudulent practices, and multiplicity of information leading to information processing errors.

To provide the framework for financial inclusion in the country, the CBN governor launched four policy documents, namely the Revised National Financial Inclusion Strategy; Consumer Protection Framework as well as National Financial Literacy Framework and National Financial Education Strategy.

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While the Consumer Protection Framework will provide policy direction for a robust consumer protection regime in the banking and financial services industry, the National Financial Literacy Framework will provide a roadmap for the implementation of various financial literacy programmes for various target groups in the country.

Earlier, the Director, Consumer Protection Department, CBN

Kofo Salam-Alada, said efforts toward financial inclusion have been limited by the challenge of financial literacy and awareness amongst consumers and a general lack of confidence in dealing with financial institutions.

Mr Salam-Alada said these issues can only be addressed through robust financial literacy and consumer protection programmes.

If consumers are not adequately protected  if they are constantly having unresolved issues with their financial services providers, they are bound to be apathetic towards the system. This will negatively affect the financial inclusion rate and ultimately the stability of the financial system, he said.
By Peter Penar, Michigan State University

Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbos acquittal on charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) opens the way for his return to Cote dIvoire once released.

His return after seven years in detention at The Hague and eight years after being discovered in a bunker during the disputed 2010 presidential election, could shape the character of the countrys 2020 presidential election. Despite his absence, his influence on Ivorian politics has shaped opposition divisions in the years since hes been gone. His return therefore raises the question of internal opposition party loyalties.

Gbagbo and his co-accused, youth militia leader, Charles Ble Goude, were arrested for having allegedly orchestrated the murder, rape and persecution of opponents after he lost the election in Cote dIvoire in December 2010. At least 3,000 people were killed in the violence.

Despite his absence, he has continued to influence internal opposition party loyalties. His return is therefore likely to shape the character of the election. Another reason hes likely to play a significant role is that the coalition that won presidential elections in 2010 and 2015  led by President Alassane Ouattara  has, for the time being, fallen apart.

Ouattara has signalled that he may stand for a third consecutive term. But Cote dIvoires new constitution promulgated in 2016, states that a candidate can only be reelected once.

These signals have not been well received by Ouattaras now former coalition partners. For example, his entertaining a third term and efforts to lessen the power of coalition partners has led one member of the coalition to quit the arrangement. Others have also walked away. In response, Ouattara has attempted to solidify his support by morphing his ruling coalition into a new party called the Houphouetists Rally for Democracy and Peace. The jury is still out on whether it will be enough to bring back disgruntled coalition partners.

With Ouattaras coalition weakened and the opposition divided, Gbagbos return could shape coalition politics before the elections. Gbagbo continues to hold a bastion of popular support in the country, including his home area in Western Cote dIvoire.

More broadly, its likely that Ivorians would support his bid for the presidency. And, his return to Cote dIvoire would lend credence to his purported innocence and the image of success in his struggle against Ouattara and Western bias.

In short, his return could make him a larger than life figure ahead of elections.

Gbagbos friends and foes

Early on in his absence, Gbagbos party, the Front Populaire Ivoirien, fragmented between those loyal to him and those interested in moving beyond his legacy. In particular, Aboudramane Sangare, Gbagbos friend, dismissed attempts to continue the partys work without him. Sangare, and like-minded opposition officials, believed that Gbagbo would return to Cote dIvoire, ready to contest incumbent President Alassane Ouattara after the ICC proceedings ended.

Sangare gained the unofficial title of guardian of the temple, for his part in maintaining Gbagbos place at the centre of the opposition movement. Sangare died late last year though his imprint hasnt diminished.

Efforts to move beyond Gbagbos legacy were led by Affi Pascal NGuessan, a former prime minister during Gbagbos presidency, who took over the presidency of the party before the 2015 election. This sparked vehement protests from Gbagbo loyalists. Although NGuessan paid homage to Gbagbo, the loyalists felt he wasnt sincere.



Peter Penar

More controversy followed NGuessan when he decided to contest the 2015 presidential election. In advance of the election, he met then French president Francois Hollande. This led to Gbagbo loyalists suggesting he was receiving payment from France to contest the election. The claim has never been verified.

With low voter turnout at 55% compared to 80% in 2010, NGuessans lack of popular and internal party support saw him garner just over 9% of the vote compared to Ouattaras nearly 84%. The opposition boycott and calls to await Gbagbos return appeared strong. Since then, NGuessan has experimented with different political alliances and has seemingly not reconciled with Gbagbo loyalists.

Gbagbos options

If he returns, one option is that Gbagbo resumes the flag-bearer position of the Front Populaire Ivoirien and contests the 2020 election. Because he sought election in 2010 but lost, he would be able to run. In addition, the removal of a maximum age for candidates (previously age 75) makes him eligible. Hell be 74 in May. This scenario assumes that Ouattara doesnt set up legal roadblocks to Gbagbos return.

Another scenario is that Gbagbo may guide the Front Populaire Ivoirien towards a new political alliance ahead of the election. The alliance may involve some of Ouattaras unhappy former partners.

A related scenario is that Gbagbo will be able to unite the Front Populaire Ivoirien and opposition forces, but anoint a new flag-bearer and act as the elder statesman for the party.

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Finally, Gbagbo may decide to stay on the political sidelines but remain vocal on the political scene.

What do Ivorians think?

According to a 2017 survey by Afrobarometer  the independent African research network  Ivorians strongly support (81%) the maintenance of a two-term limit for a president. They also overwhelming support democracy (77%). But, they have some concerns about the democratic space afforded ahead of elections next year, with 52% suggesting that they are not satisfied with how democracy works in the country.

One of the criticisms that the opposition has levied against Ouattara is his intolerance of dissent. Among Ivorians, 48% feel that they are not at all  or not very  free to criticise the president.

Its quite possible that Gbagbo will build on these concerns, and the energy and high levels of participation that characterised Ivorian politics in 2010 could return.

Abel Gbala, who holds an M.A. from the University of Felix Houphouet Boigny and is a Development Monitoring and Evaluation expert, contributed to this article.

Peter Penar, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, Michigan State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The conversation
(CNN)  A 21-year-old exchange student has been found dead in suburban Melbourne, Australia -- a city consistently ranked among the world's safest places to live.

Victoria Police said the victim, Israeli national Aiia Maasarwe, appeared to have been "seriously assaulted."

The La Trobe University student's body was found partially naked in bushes early Wednesday in Bundoora, a suburb about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Melbourne's center, CNN affiliate Nine News Australia reported.

Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said Thursday that further details about Maasarwe's injuries would not be revealed out of respect for her family.

"This was an absolutely horrendous, horrific attack that was committed against an innocent young woman," he said.

Investigators believe a T-shirt and cap found in bushes about 100 meters (330 feet) from the crime scene were left by Maasarwe's killer.

Stamper said the clothing was "key to solving this crime."

"Somebody in the community knows who did this. Somebody's come home on Tuesday night or in the early hours of Wednesday morning, maybe with blood on them, missing items of clothing," he said. "Somebody knows about this and we need help."

La Trobe University said its community was "shocked and saddened" by this appalling crime.

"La Trobe University is committed to providing a safe university environment. On campus we undertake a range of activities to improve personal and physical safety and our security has been intensified as a result of this incident," the school said in a statement.

"We are committed to continuing to work closely with all relevant authorities to address these serious community issues around public safety and violence against women.

The Israeli Embassy in Australia has yet to respond to CNN's request for comment Thursday.

Meanwhile, authorities have increased patrols and police escorts around Bundoora since Maasarwe's body was found.

Acting Superintendent Tony Ryan, from North West Metro, said the increased police presence would likely remain in place until the killer was caught.

"We understand that this distresses the victim's family. We understand that this distresses the local community. And we understand our role in this -- and that is we need to be in that area, and we need to provide some comfort and some safety," Ryan said.

Authorities released CCTV footage showing Maasarwe at the tram stop on Tuesday night in the hope members of the community could come forward with further details of her murder.

"We have a grieving family who has had to fly halfway across the world under the most horrific circumstances and we want to be able to give them some answers," Stamper added.

The death has sent shockwaves through Melbourne, which was ranked among the five safest cities in the world on The Economists' 2017 Safe Cities index. It was also ranked the ninth-safest city for personal security.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Israeli exchange student, 21, found dead in Melbourne after 'horrific' attack."
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, is currently visiting the United States. He arrived Washington DC, the American capital on Thursday. It is his first visit to that country in 12 years.

On Thursday night, the former vice president was interviewed by Voice of Americas Aliyu Mustapha Sokoto. On Friday afternoon, a spokesperson for the politician sent Premium Times a transcript of the interview.

Read the transcript below.

Aliyu Mustapha: What has been in the news for many years has come to past right now Im together with the former Vice President of Nigeria and the Presidential flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after he had just returned from some interactive session with some high ranking Congress Men and Women. Your excellency, now that you have visited Washington D.C, does it have to do with those who said you cannot come to the United State of America or the visit is for what purpose?

AA: Aliyu I told you before that my coming to the United State is in the hands of Americans if they decided to issue a Visa to me I will definitely come and if they refused to give me I cannot come. And now they have issued it to me and I am here. Im having some positive discussions with some of the officials. I was in the Congress and I had discussions with some high ranking Congress men and Women about Nigeria and how Nigeria intends to improve her relationship with the United States of America.

Aliyu Mustapha: After visiting the Congress, do you intend to meet with some other people?

Atiku Abubakar: Yes, by tomorrow (Friday) I will go to the State Department in order to have vital discussions with some of their officials.

Aliyu Mustapha: Will you also meet with the members of the United State Chamber of Commerce?

Atiku Abubakar: Yes, I will meet them tomorrow (Friday) by the Grace of God.

Aliyu Mustapha: Who invited you to the United State?

Atiku Abubakar: I was invited by many organizations in United States.

Aliyu Mustapha: Before some people are saying that you cannot come to the United States of America but now you are here people will stop doubting.

Atiku Abubakar: The whole thing is about misinformation

Aliyu Mustapha: What do you mean by misinformation?

Atiku Abubakar: Because for a very long time they have been lying to them (Nigerians) and they agreed; I tried to explain to them but they refused to listen. And I hope now people are going to understand.

Aliyu Mustapha: Your coming to America has shown that you are going to have some interactions with some top officials of the United State are they in support of your candidacy?

Atiku Abubakar: Yes.

Aliyu Mustapha: Are you convinced that the United States Government are in support of your candidacy?

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Atiku Abubakar: There is no doubt because the United State is ready to support any country that is practicing democracy.

Aliyu Mustapha: People know you as a businessman; do you think that your business background and experience will influence the United States Government to support you?

Atiku Abubakar: One good thing is that Nigeria is a country that is practicing democracy and everyone knows that we have played a significant role and have done a lot to sustain democratic governance in Nigeria and it is very important.

Aliyu Mustapha: Thank you very much.

Atiku Abubakar: It is my Pleasure.
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A team of foreign filmmakers are set to teach a masterclass for members of the Nigerian film and television industry, who aspire to take their craft to the next level.

The experts, drawn from South Africa, Kenya and India, will host a Nollywood masterclass at the MultiChoice Talent Factory which kicks off in Lagos on Friday.

Among these are South African director and producer, Bobby Heaney; accomplished sound consultant from Dolby India, Vikram Joglekar; pan-African storytelling and creative consultant, Allison Triegaardt.

Others are award-winning Kenyan film producer Appie Matere; and Jonathan Kovel, the cinematographer behind the award-winning South African film Ayanda.

Additionally, a special MTF Masterclass on Nollywood will be facilitated by the academy director for MTF Academy West Africa, Femi Odugbemi.

This was announced in a statement by MultiChoice on Wednesday.

According to the statement, the Masterclasses will present the industry with Best in Class workshops to increase MTFs up-skilling outreach to established film and television industry professionals and are aimed at developing technical skills in cinematography, audio and storytelling to improve the quality of local productions.

The Masterclasses will be powered by various industry partners as part of the shared value initiatives three touch points alongside the MTF Academy and the soon-to-be launched industry networking portal.

Speaking about the workshop, Mr Odugbemi said, The success of these MTF Masterclasses will, over time, deliver a more professionalized, networked film and television industry across Africa and an expanded community of highly- skilled professional who are passionate about creating quality home-grown content.

The organisers said the workshop is open to invited members of the film and television industry, who aspire to take their craft to the next level.

Participants will be drawn from across the spectrum of the industry, with delegates from the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), Lagos Television, independent television production companies and leading Nollywood professionals.

We are excited about the launch of this next touch point of MTF, as it reaffirms our commitment to supporting the industry and promoting sustainability by creating shared value across the business through quality programming for our customers, said John Ugbe, Chief Executive Officer, MultiChoice Nigeria.

The MTF Masterclasses will be presented with support from Dolby Laboratories and FOX Portugal, who both play a crucial role in priming the MTF Academy students as key players in the growth and sustainability of Africas creative film and television industry.
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The new Director-General of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), John Asein, has declared his commitment to the reconstruction and repositioning of the commission for effective regulation and development of the nations copyright industry.

Following his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Asein stated this at a management meeting upon his assumption of office at the Commissions Headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.

The permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Solicitor-General of the Federation, Dayo Apata, who conveyed the presidents approval in a letter dated January 15, 2019, with Ref. No. MT:4511/T/106, stated that the appointment, which is for an initial four-year tenure, took effect from January 8, 2019.

Mr Asein, who reported at the commissions headquarters on January 16, called for dedication and teamwork among the management and staff of the commission.

The new appointee indicated that the commission under his watch would develop a comprehensive intervention strategy that would impact positively on every sector of the creative industries.

He assured that the commission would be proactive in the execution of its mandate under the Nigerian Copyright Act CAP C28 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, adding that areas of its mandate like the visual arts and others which have not received sufficient attention would be covered.

We must change the copyright narrative in Nigeria positively to impact the copyright-based industries to the benefit of all copyright stakeholders, he stated.
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The organisers of the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize have begun accepting submissions from Nigerian undergraduates studying in Nigeria and the diaspora.

The award, which is an initiative of Poets in Nigeria, is aimed at stimulating literary creativity, promoting literary excellence and encouraging critical thinking among Nigerian undergraduates.

The entries are open until March 15.

The moderator, Kolade Freedom, noted in a statement that the submissions will be received between January 15 and March 15, 2019.

Interested Nigerian undergraduates are expected to submit a poem (30 lines maximum) on any theme of their choice before the deadline

The organisers say the poems (entries) must be original intellectual property of the entrants. They also add that an entrant is entitled to a single entry of 30 lines maximum and they can also write on any relevant theme.

Entries submitted must be previously unpublished. A submission discovered to have defaulted on this rule will be automatically voided (inclusive of winners).

Since inception in 2016 at the University of Ibadan, the prize has received over 1500 entries from students representing over 100 tertiary institutions (including universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, schools of nursing and seminary schools).

Reputed to be the foremost poetry prize for Nigerian students, the NSPP has been hosted by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (2017) and Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu (2018).

As host of the fourth edition of the prize, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Yenagoa, will be the venue for the NSPP awards ceremony slated for mid-2019.

Aside rewarding the prize winners (top three entrants) with a total cash prize of 300,000, the top 100 entrants will each receive a certificate of excellence.

They will also receive a complimentary copy of the NSPP anthology which features their works.
X Fertilizers Potash Etf Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:20:59

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Plant diseases are the cause of crop and plant damage which is caused by plant pathogenic (disease causing organism). Fungi are the most common pathogenic organism that damages the productivity of crop or plant. Other pathogenic organism causing damage to the crop and plants are viruses, nematodes and bacteria. Within the agricultural sector, manufacturers of fertilizers are the most important channel in the food supply chain. Quality fertilizers are responsible for the growth and productivity of the crop to manage the rising demand for food in the growing population scenario. Farmers require these nutrients to increase crop yields, and fertilizer companies have become the primary producers of commodities that are critical for global food supply growth. Some of the major fertilizer ingredients include nitrogen, phosphate and potash which are helpful in improving the productivity of the crop.X Fertilizers/Potash ETF is a system that keeps a track on the actual performance of the largest and most liquid listed companies in the field of fertilizer manufacturing. Also, provide proper information to the manufacturers of fertilizers about the potential market and the requirements of the farmer to increase the crop yield, so as to stand ahead of the increasing food demand in the global market. Additionally, X Fertilizers/Potash ETF provides accurate information about the emerging market for fertilizers and in which part the manufacturing companies should invest.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3539 Asia Pacific is the largest consumer of fertilizers (owing to increasing agricultural sector in the countries such as India and China). China is the largest consumer of fertile globally accounting for more than one fifth of global fertilizers consumption. North America and Europe follows Asia Pacific market in the consumption of fertilizers. Asia Pacific being the largest consumer of fertilizers is also the largest market for X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system. It is followed by North America and Europe. Asia Pacific region is expected to maintain its dominance in the forecasted period. North America and Europe are expected to witness average growth in the coming future. Latin America region is expected to witness highest growth in the forecasted period owing to increasing domestic demand of fertilizers by the farmers.With increasing population, demand for food items is increasing. To cater the increasing demand, better agriculture facilities is required, increasing the importance of fertilizers in the agriculture sector. Increasing demand for fertilizers is expected to increase the global demand for X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system. Additionally, farmers are getting aware about the significant economic impact of fertilizers on yield and quality of the crop. This is further expected to increase the demand for X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system to provide proper information to the manufacturers of the fertilizers about the actual demand and in terms of quantity and quality. However, strict government regulation on use of certain fertilizers may hamper the fungicides market.Owing to increasing demand of fertilizers the manufacturing companies are implementing more of X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system, providing ample growth opportunity for the global X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system market. Some of the major companies operating in the global X Fertilizers/Potash ETF system are Solactive AG, Syngenta AG, Bayer AG, The Dow Chemical Company, Nufarm Limited, and E.I. Dupont De Nemours & Company.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3539
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 13:21:16

The eBook, "Rewriting the Rules: Telling Truths about Women and Money," is Now Available at No ChargeLOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / January 18, 2019 / The Humphreys Group is pleased to announce the release of a free new eBook titled "Rewriting the Rules: Telling Truths about Women and Money." The book addresses a number of important topics including women money myths, financial planning, wealth management and more.To download a free copy of the eBook, please visit http://humphreysgroup.com/women-money-myths/ The financial services industry is experiencing a wake-up call of sorts in regards to women and money. Because most financial institutions were created by and for men, the current "norm" does not reflect or represent the strengths or preferences of women.The Humphreys Group is acutely aware of a number of unfair and untrue myths that surround women and money - these include things like "men are better investors than women" and "women lack confidence when it comes to money." Instead, The Humphreys Group is talking about women and money in an unapologetic and unabashed way.Writing and releasing this eBook has an inspired purpose to addresses the challenges women face, encourages them to venture outside their comfort zone, and empowers them to recognize the strengths they already possess, in finance and beyond.To get started with the Humphreys Group, women may visit the website at any time; there, they may also enroll in a Conversation Circle to discuss financial topics in depth with other women."At The Humphreys Group, it's no secret we applaud and encourage the many ways in which today's women are breaking through gender stereotypes. Since our firm's founding, we have championed women as they've scaled the learning curve of personal finance and investing," the spokesperson noted, adding that in the new book, authors Diane Bourdo and Hallie Kraus dive deep into decades of research and data around women and wealth, money and personal finance to distinguish myths from reality."In each of the myths we explore throughout the book, we make observations and provide some recommendations. For example, What if we put it all together? And What would it look like to invest like a woman?"About The Humphreys Group:The Humphreys Group is a women-owned and - operated wealth management firm in San Francisco. They provide comprehensive financial planning and investment management, with a focus on the unique needs, aspirations and strengths of women. They believe that wealth management is best delivered with equal doses of expertise (the technical number crunching), and empathy (emotional intelligence) - always being guided by what matters most to their clients. For more information, please visit http://humphreysgroup.com Contact:Beyond AUMhello@ beyondaum.com 1-800-583-2315SOURCE: The Humphreys Group
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White tea is one of the varieties of tea which consists of young and least processed leaves of Camellia sinensis. It is made from juvenile buds, when the plant is in its primary growth phase. The beverage is soothing and nearly pale yellow in color and identified by mellow floral-fruity flavor, though its name comes from the small white hair present on the buds. White tea is also used in various other industries such as cosmetics, pharmaceuticals etc. White Tea possess various properties such as anti-microbial properties, anti-oxidants, etc. hence have various health benefits.White Tea Market: Drivers and RestraintsAs tea market is witnessing a remarkable growth all over the world, the White Tea Market is also going parallel to the tea market. Although White Tea is not much popular, but steadily White Tea Market is getting the pace. The White Tea Market is driven by its health benefits and its medicinal properties. It contains anti-oxidants and high levels of caffeine. White Tea beverage accounts to reduce risk of cardiovascular diseases and various other problems. Another key driver for white tea market is its medicinal use in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.White tea is the least processed tea, hence it takes less time and labor to process it, which accounts to drive the White Tea Market. Because the processing is minimum, White tea comes up with more natural benefits.The key producers of White tea are China and India, unfortunately other countries have to depend on the exports, hence could be considered as a restraint. Less awareness about white tea products may also hamper the market.White Tea Market: SegmentationWhite tea market is segmented on the basis of product type, applications, flavors and origin.Based on the product type, the white tea market is segmented into white peony white tea, silver needle white tea, Darjeeling White Tea, Moonlight White Tea, Shou Mei White Tea, White Matcha Tea. White peony white tea is made by first and second tips of the tea stem and are of the best quality while Silver needle white tea is the most expensive white tea which is made from the single tip of the tea stem. These tips when dried looks like silver needles. White Matcha is grown in Kenya.Based upon the applications, the white tea market is segmented into the beverages, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and toiletries. White tea is used as a non-alcoholic beverage drink that is consumed often and creates the major market. White tea possess anti-microbial properties, so can be used in pharmaceutical industry. Anti-ageing and anti-oxidant properties of White Tea are useful in cosmetic industries. White tea extract can be used as anti-ageing ingredient in cosmetic products. White tea can be used in toiletries such as sanitizing soaps as it possess the antibiotic properties which help in cleaning the hands.Based upon the flavors, white tea market is segmented into the flowery and fruity flavors. Flowery flavor is Smooth, creamy and possess buttery taste. It is made using white peony white tea while Fruity flavor is formed using Silver needle white tea which is very delicate, smooth and have sweet flavor with fruity tones.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/16432 On the basis of variety, White tea market is segmented into conventional white tea and Organic white tea.White Tea Market: Regional OutlookDepending on the geographic regions global White Tea Market is segmented into five key regions: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, APEJ, Japan and MEA.Western Europe is the leading consumer of the White Tea products followed by North America. Latin America also possess a large White Tea Market. Middle East and Africa also have a large numbers of import data for White tea. Japan is also becoming a large White Tea Market and expected to grow in forecast period.Asia Pacific White Tea Market is expected to grow during the forecast period because people are getting more health conscious and are keen to consume healthy beverages.The recent trend is people are looking for more health beneficiary beverages to combat with changing environment and lifestyle.Request For Report Sample@White Tea Market: Key PlayersSome of the major players operating in white tea market are Zejiang Tea Group co. Ltd, Vicony Teas Company, Lanzhou Waltlets Biotech co. Ltd, Subodh Brothers Pvt. Ltd, Goenka Brothers and few regional players.
Waterborne Coatings Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:06:00

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Waterborne coatings are green substrates using water as solvent to dissolve a resin, making them environment friendly and easy to apply. These coatings usually contain approximately 80% of water with minimum quantities of other solvents such as glycol ethers. As per the U.S. and European regulations of waterborne coatings to have a VOC content less than 3.5 gallons of water, these are considered eco-friendly in nature. Various types of coatings such as water-soluble paints, water-dispersible paints, latex paints and water-based alkyds are used for a variety of applications including automotive, industrial, architectural, wood, and packaging.Significant investments from certain large scale companies such as BASF SE, AkzoNobel, and Valspar among others to expand in quite a few countries of Asia Pacific and Latin America have been witnessed. Demand for green coatings in these regions have still been in the development and are anticipated to have a huge potential in the near future. Moreover, focus on R&D activities in the green coatings industry coupled with product innovation has also contributed to the growth of the market.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3460 Growing demand for non-hazardous, eco-friendly, low VOC green coatings from the end-user industry are expected to boost the demand for waterborne coating over the next few years. In addition, growth of the automotive and construction industry has also been the current growth factors for waterborne coatings. However, increasing use of other better performing green substrates such as powder coatings is expected to hamper the growth of the waterborne coatings market.North America was the largest consumer for waterborne coatings. However, future market growth is expected to be from Asia Pacific. Green coatings are expected todominate the market over the next few years due to the expansions by the major manufacturers in emerging economies such as China and India in the region.AkzoNobel, Asian Paints Limited, BASF SE, Hempel A/S, Jotun A/S, Masco Corporation, PPG Industries Inc., Rpm International Inc., The Valspar Corporation, and Tikkurila OYJ among others are some of the key players involved in the waterborne coatings industry.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3460
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 07:15:13

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Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/Manager9898989898

Water Resistant Packing Cubes Market: Overview - Water resistant packing cubes are small packaging solutions made up of fabric, often comes in a rectangular or square shape. They are used to pack clothing and various travelling accessories. Water resistant packing cubes help in keeping persons belongings compact and overcome the burden of tedious packing. This packing cube comes with water resistant property helps protect the products during uneven whether conditions. Water resistant packing cubes are available in different size and shapes so that one can find suitable packing cube which can fit easily into the luggage. Generally, fiber and nylon are commonly used materials as they make water resistant packing cubes lightweight. These packing cubes come with the zipper which helps in keeping products inside the packing cubes organized and stable.Water Resistant Packing Cubes Market: Dynamics - The global water resistant packing cubes market is expected to expand on the backdrop of changing lifestyle of people and growing trend of compact packaging. The growing travel & tourism across the globe is expected to drive the demand for water resistant packing cubes. Water resistant packing cubes can keep clothes and other belongings more compact so that one can fit more into the bags. Also, the brick type shape of packing cube makes them easy to stack and can be fit in luggage properly. Water resistant packing cubes are not only used for packing clothes but are also act as a good packing container for things such as cosmetics, electronic devices and other products. Water resistant packing cubes offer alternative packaging solutions, for instance, some travelers can use water resistant packing cubes as small cosmetic bags while other can use them to store small devices and cables.These factors are expected to drive the global water resistant packing cubes market during the forecast period. The water resistant capability of packing cubes make them suitable choice for packaging during adverse weather conditions. Water resistant packing cubes makes packing, repacking and finding products easier as one can pull a particular cube out of the bag to get what is exactly needed. This factor is expected to drive the global water resistant packing cubes market during the next decade. The availability of alternatives to the water resistant packing cubes including packing folders, shoe bags, compression bags, zipper pouches and other such products are expected to hamper the water resistant packing cubes market during the forecast period. Overall, the outlook for the global water resistant packing cubes market is expected to be positive.Request for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7438 Water Resistant Packing Cubes Market: Segmentation - Globally, the water resistant packing cubes market has been segmented on the basis of material type, size, shape, application and region: On the basis of material type, the global water resistant packing cubes market has been segmented as: Nylon, Fiber, Others; On the basis of size, the global water resistant packing cubes market has been segmented as: Small sized, Medium sized, Large sized; On the basis of shape, the global water resistant packing cubes market has been segmented as: Square, Rectangular; On the basis of application, the global water resistant packing cubes market has been segmented as: Clothing, Cosmetics, Electronic devices, Other accessories; On the basis of region, the global water resistant packing cubes maret is segmented as  North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Middle East & Africa, Japan;Europe is expected to drive the global water resistant packing cubes market during the forecast period. Tourists from European nations including France, Sweden, Norway, Finland and others frequently do outbound travelling, it is on rise due to high standard of living in the region. This trend is followed by North America and APEJ. This is expected to drive the global water resistant packing cubes market during the forecast period. MEA region is expected to witness average growth during the forecast period.Water Resistant Packing Cubes Market: Key players - Few of the leading players operating in the global water resistant packing cubes market are  Vasco Bags, Away (Luggage), eBags, Eagle Creek, Red Oxx Mfg, Inc., Anatomie Store, Tumi, Inc., Pro Packing Cubes, Osprey Packs, Inc.;The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Report Highlights: A detailed overview of parent market, Changing market dynamics in the industry, In-depth market segmentation, Historical, urrent, and projected market size regarding volume and value, Recent industry trends and developments, Competitive landscape, Strategies for key players and products offered, Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth, A neutral perspective on market performance, Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintGet more information on Water Resistant Packing Cubes Market @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7438
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 11:50:52

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Vinasse is a byproduct of sugar industry. Vinasse is a liquid residual left after fermentation and distillation of alcohol. Vinasse is used for production of biogas, and also for the production of methane which is used to generate electricity. The mineral nutrients present in vinasse are useful for algal and plant growth, especially for sugarcane. The use of vinasse in chemigation is increasing for agriculture areas, substituting potassium fertilizers and furnishing water, organic matter, and other mineral nutrients in negligible quantities which is increasing the market for vinasse.Market SegmentationVinasse is segmented by its type, application, form, and region. By its type, it is further segmented as beet vinasse and sugarcane vinasse. Beet vinasse is derived from the production of alcohol from sugar beet. Beet vinasse has a high fertilizing value. It provides a significant level of phosphorous and nitrogen. Beet vinasse is useful for organic farming and used as a fertilizer especially for arable crops. Sugarcane vinasse is used in alcohol. Sugarcane vinasse is high in organic matter and various nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and minerals such as zinc, iron, manganese, and others.By its application, it is segmented as animal feeding, beverages, and agriculture. In agriculture, it is useful in irrigation, especially for sugarcane. In the beverage industry, the distillery vinasse is low feed, as the sugar presents in the molasses used for alcohol production. Vinasse is used in liquid form for animal feeding, and it also used in powdered form which makes it easier to improve the intake. The use of vinasse as an additive is better for feeding and to increase weight and growth due to the presence of organic acids. It also used for feeding birds.By form, it is segmented by liquid and powdered. Liquid vinasse is useful for plants growth which shows rapid recovery.Regional OutlookThere is an increasing demand for vinasse throughout the globe with the major exports accounting to the following region; North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and APAC. North America accounts for a significantly bigger market, whereas there is an increase in market demand from developing countries. Asia Pacific region is expected to grow to a considerable fraction during the forecast period.DriversIncreasing demand for beverages is projected to rise the vinasse market over the forecast period. As it is an effluent from sugarcane, it is useful for alcohol production. Vinasse has high levels of potassium, calcium, and organic matter as well as nitrogen and phosphorous which is useful for crop production. In agriculture, it used as a fertilizer and as a raw material for single cell protein production and for energy conversation which is fuelling the demand for vinasse. Along with this, vinasse is mixed with soil to obtain soil vinasse which is then used for the production of non- structural bricks. As vinasse is rich in protein, it is helpful for animal feeding.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/16693 Increasing popularity and consumption of beverages among consumers is expected to increase the market share of vinasse over the forecast period. The use of vinasse in agriculture is important, but it has several challenges due to its high polluting potential to soil and subterranean water i.e., underground water. Vinasse has high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD) values that contribute to pollution. A high BOD can cause damage to aquatic life.Key global market players manufacturing different types of vinasse are Heineken, Carlsberg Group, Tsingtao Brewery Co, Ltd, SABMiller, Anheuser-Busch Company LLC, Suntory Holdings Limited, etcRequest for Report Sample : https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/16693
Future Market Insights

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:08:57

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Heart failure is one of the most common cause of deaths worldwide, it is a condition when the heart cannot pump blood properly throughout the body. In most of the cases the left ventricle gets affected but sometimes the right ventricle gets affected and the heart cannot pump oxygen rich blood to the lungs. Ventricle assist devices are mechanical pumps which support the functioning of the heart in individuals who have weak heart. There are two types of heart failure one is diastolic heart failure and the other systolic heart failure. The major symptoms of heart failure are fatigue, irregular heart rhythm, blood pressure, heart valve functioning is affected, shortness of breath and fluid retention. Most of the above symptoms can be stabilized by the use of medication but in some cases ventricle assist devices have to be used depending upon the condition of the patient.A ventricle assist device comprises of a small tubes transferring blood out of heart and into the pump, the heart pump is connected to a control unit, which monitors the functioning of the ventricle assist device. Recent research has shown that continuous flow ventricle assist devices are more effective as they reduce the hospitalization and improve survival rate of patients suffering from heart failure. The different types of ventricle assist devices available in the market, left ventricle support, right ventricle support and bi-ventricle support.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2273 The ventricle assist devices are used for short-term period for individuals recovering from myocardial infraction or individuals recovering from cardiac surgery, and for long term use in individuals suffering from total heart failure. Ventricle devices are generally used as bridge to transplant, bridge to decision and bridge to recovery for an individual who is suffering from Class III & Class IV heart failure. Ventricle assist devices are generally implantable and transcutaneous depending on the individual heart condition.Transcutaneous ventricle assist devices have the control unit installed outside the body and the pump placed inside the body whereas implantable ventricle assist devices are generally used for people waiting for heart transplant. Ventricle assist devices are generally categorized as Pulsatile and Non Pulsatile devices. Pulsatile devices were the first generation devices, whereas non pulsatile devices have a continuous flow as they allow the blood to move forward in a systemic circulation. In a non-pulsatile ventricle assist device all the parameters are displayed on the console or the control unit. Some of the common ventricle assist devices in the market are Thoratec VAD, Heart Mate and Jarvik 2000.Ventricle assist devices although have great benefits but some time they may give rise to certain complication like bleeding, infection, thrombosis, device malfunctioning and hemolysis.When both the ventricle stop functioning or the entire heart fails, bi-ventricle assist devices are used and Total Artificial Heart is implanted. The rapid advancement in ventricle assist device technology has limited the TAH (Total Artificial Heart) development as majority of the heart failure can be controlled by using ventricle assist devices. At present the only TAH approved by the FDA is the Cardio West TAH by Syncardia System, which is a pneumatically powered dual chamber device.Ventricle Assist Device Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe global market for ventricle assist devices is expected to be driven by the advancement in technology and increasing prevalence of Class III & Class IV heart failure, increase in geriatric population, better reimbursement reforms are some factors anticipated to fuel growth of global ventricle assist devices market within the forecast period of 2016-2026. However the high cost certain complication which may arise after or during the implant and development of the total artificial heart can be the restraint for the growth of this market.Ventricle Assist Device Market: SegmentationThe global Ventricle assist device market is classified on the basis of product type, modality, indication, end user and geography.Based on modality, the global Ventricle assist device market is segmented into the following:Transcutaneous Ventricle Assist DevicesImplantable Ventricle Assist DevicesBased on product type, the global Ventricle Assist device market is segmented into the following:LVAD (Left Ventricle Assist Devices)RVAD (Right Ventricle Assist Devices)Bi-VAD (Bi-Ventricle Assist Devices)TAH (Total Artificial Heart)Based on indication, the global ventricle assist device market is segmented into the following:Bridge to RecoveryBridge to TransplantBridge to TherapyBased on end user, the global ventricle assist device market is segmented into the following:HospitalsSpecialized Cardiac ClinicsAmbulatory Surgical CentersVentricle Assist Device Market: OverviewCost-effectiveness of ventricle assist devices and ongoing researches on improving quality of care for continence would create an attractive growth opportunities for the ventricle assist device market. The hospitals end user segment is expected to hold the highest market share in global market for ventricle assist devices.A new generation of ventricle assist devices have been approved by the FDA which are more efficient in increasing the survival rate of individuals suffering from heart failure. These devices are much small smaller in size and much more efficient in restoring the functioning of the heart. These are centrifugal continuous flow pumps suspended through magnetic or hydrodynamic levitation in blood flow path, this levitation mechanism theoretically increases the device durability and reliability as there is no friction and heat generation component contact. The third generation left ventricle assist devices are more used in Europe.Ventricle Assist Device Market: Regional OverviewRegion wise, the global ventricle assist device market is classified into regions namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America dominated the global market for ventricle assist devices because of better reimbursement policies for diagnostic procedures. Europe dominates the market for the third generation ventricle assist devices.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2273 Ventricle Assist Device Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in global ventricle assist device market are SynCardia System Inc., St. Jude Medical, Berlin Heart, Heart Ware International, Jarvik Heart Inc. Abiomed, CardiacAssist Inc., and Reliant Heart Inc.
General Electric Company (U.S.), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), Toshiba Corporation (Japan), Siemens AG (Germany), Hitachi Ltd. (Japan), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (South Korea), FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation (Japan), Esaote S.p.A. (Italy), Mindray Medical International Ltd. (China), and Analogic Corporation (U.S.) are some of the Utrasound Doppler Market key market players in 2016.

Future Market Insights

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 11:30:05

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531

The term ultrasound treatment is a known one, while some of us may even have undergone some kind of check-up with its assistance. As the name suggests, a Doppler Ultrasound test uses higher frequency sound waves to measure blood flow in the arteries and veins and is usually done on the arms and legs. It is a completely risk and pain free procedure as it only involves using high intensity sound waves. It is recommended by doctors to check for signs of deep vein thrombosis, superficial thrombophlebitis, arteriosclerosis or even if tumours are suspected in any of the limbs. The ultrasound Doppler market can broadly be classified into two main types based on portability- handheld and trolley based ones. The trolley based ones account for the majority sold at present but the handheld ones are expected to show larger growth because of ease of use, cheaper initial expenditure and also lower long term cost of running due to less electricity consumed as compared to trolleys.Utrasound Doppler Market DriversThere are several drivers responsible for the growth of the ultrasound Doppler market. In the developed world, an aging population at a greater risk of chronic and lifestyle-related problems, technological advancements making the devices (relatively) more affordable, increasing healthcare investment both in the public and private sectors and also a growing preference for therapeutic and non-invasive kind of treatments. In the developing world, the high birth rate, in-vitro fertilization treatment and required gynaecological care for young mothers are fuelling the demand for ultrasound devices. It can also be used for detecting breast cancer and the American Cancer Society and Radiological Society of North America recommends periodic mammographic screening to women above the age of 40 years. An increasing awareness from the public and government support and encouragement ensure the continued demand for ultrasound Doppler market products.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2253 Utrasound Doppler Market RestraintsThe picture is not all rosy for the ultrasound Doppler market as there are several impediments to its growth. As is the case with almost all other specialized equipment, there can be a dearth of qualified and trained technicians to use the equipment in the developing world. Sale of refurbished devices at lower prices also makes them more attractive, making first time sales difficult in places where the disposable income is less. There are also cultural and social issues involved in Asian countries like China and India. Preference for the male child and sex-selective abortions have made governments pass laws like the Prenatal Diagnostic Test Act (PNDT). This requires registration of all counselling centres, laboratories, and clinics like solography centres, mobile solography vans and those having advanced ultrasound machines. Strict compliance with the law can also hamper adoption of such equipment to an extent.Utrasound Doppler Market Key RegionAn aging population in the western world while continue to ensure that both North America and Europe remain among the largest ultrasound Doppler markets. They benefit from world-class infrastructure, many healthcare benefits provided by the governments and also increasing adoption of home and remote patient monitoring to cater to their privacy concerns. They will drive the demand for compact, handheld devices in the medium to long term. Asia Pacific on the other hand, is expected to demand for greater trolley based ultrasound devices due to a proliferation of hospitals in underdiagnosed rural areas of these populous and fast growing countries. There have also been an increasing number of lifestyle-related health issues, especially in the polluted metropolis cities of China and India. Greater public awareness of benefits offered by the ultrasound treatments along with a special focus of global players on this highly dynamic region ensures thriving demand for the ultrasound Doppler market here as well.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2253 Utrasound Doppler Market Key Market PlayersGeneral Electric Company (U.S.), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), Toshiba Corporation (Japan), Siemens AG (Germany), Hitachi Ltd. (Japan), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (South Korea), FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation (Japan), Esaote S.p.A. (Italy), Mindray Medical International Ltd. (China), and Analogic Corporation (U.S.) are some of the Utrasound Doppler Market key market players in 2016.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:47:11

The automotive industry has reached at a crossroad where decisions has to be made with regards to moving forward with electric vehicles or conventional IC engine vehicles. In the present scenario, innovations in the automotive industry are more focused towards the electric vehicles than the conventional vehicle implying a future where electric vehicles will eventually phase out the other types. This factor bodes well for the growth of the electric vehicles ancillaries market that include electric vehicle transmissions as well. Early transmission systems utilized in electric vehicles were usually equipped with single gears so as to cater the low power output, however, manufacturers are venturing into developing multi-gear transmissions on account of higher powered electric vehicles. Rise in sales and production of electric vehicles coupled with government regulations on automobile emissions are some of the key factors attributing to the growth of electric vehicle transmission market in the upcoming years.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5636 Electric Vehicle Transmission Market: DynamicsThe electric vehicle transmission market depends upon the performance of electric vehicles sales within the automotive industry. Though the sales of electric vehicles in the current market is largely outperformed by conventional vehicles, the trend is poised for a shift towards electric vehicles in the near future, which can benefit the electric vehicles transmission market in the forecast period. Manufacturers of such electric vehicle transmissions are always on a constant lookout for developing materials that can reduce the overall weight of the system without compromising performance. Efficient utilization of power stored within the electric vehicle batteries is also of utmost importance prompting the manufacturers to design the transmission system to close tolerances. Stringent regulations on vehicular emissions has greatly helped in marketing electric vehicles as the transportation mode of the future hence, aiding the growth of the electric vehicles transmission market.The restraints associated with electric vehicle market are plenty and many which can have a domino effect on the electric vehicles transmissions market as well. It is a clear fact that the sale of electric vehicles determines the strength of the electric vehicles transmission market. Hence, the problems associated with electric vehicles such as high price, subpar performance, travel range anxiety, and lack of charging infrastructure, among others, can hamper the growth of the electric vehicles transmission market.Electric Vehicle Transmission Market: SegmentationThe electric vehicle transmission market can be segmented by material type, vehicle type and application mainly.By type, the electric vehicle transmission market can be segmented as:Single Gear MechanismMulti Gear MechanismBy vehicle type, the electric vehicle transmission market can be segmented as:Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs)Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs)Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs)By sales channel, the electric vehicle transmission market can be segmented as:Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM)AftermarketElectric Vehicle Transmission Market: Regional OutlookFrom the regional perspective, the electric vehicles transmission market is anticipated for a steady growth in North America owing to aggressive promotion of electric vehicles by major players. The European region is also posed for a healthy growth due to various subsidies and incentives offered by the economies in the region on purchase of an electric vehicle, hence attracting more customers. The market in Asia Pacific is also expected to flourish well in the upcoming years especially in the Japan and China owing to push by the respective governments to place more emphasis on electric vehicles. The market in both Latin America and Middle East & Europe regions may grow on a stagnant phase, this is due to availability of low-cost fuels such as flex fuel in Brazil and abundance of petroleum in the Middle East.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-5636 Electric Vehicle Transmission Market: Key ParticipantsExamples of some of the participants involved in the manufacture of the global electric vehicle transmission are:Oerlikon Graziano SpAZF Friedrichshafen AGAllison Transmission Inc.Eaton Corporation PlcMagna International (Getrag)GKN PlcBorgWarner Inc.Xtrac Ltd.Drive System Design Ltd.
MSP Software Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 21:54:11

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The statistical data of MSP Software Market has recently added by IT Intelligence Markets to its massive repository. It offers the continual advancements in technologies which helps to understand the platform for the development of the businesses. It offers numerous strategies for boosting the performance of the companies. Both primary and secondary research techniques carried out to find solutions to different issues faced by various stakeholders.Get Free Sample Pages of this report @ https://www.itintelligencemarkets.com/request_sample.php?id=522 MSP Software Market is strongly guided by following key Players: NinjaRMM ConnectWise Cloud Management Suite LogicMonitor ConnectWise MMSOFT Design Kaseya SolarWinds MSP Unigma Atera Auvik Networks Continuum CENTREL Solutions Loom Systems Trend MicroAccording to this research report, the global MSP Software Market has been fragmented across several regions like North America, Latin America, Asia-pacific, Europe and Africa. The business profiles of several leading key players have been described to get a clear understanding of the competitive landscape.The top-level companies investing in the MSP Software Market are situated in the global region. This research is an analytical view of different factors which are driving the progress of the MSP Software Market. Additionally, it offers informative data from different vendors and clients operating in the global regions. This research report effectively helps several industries as well as various decision makers to address their issues and challenges which helps to increase the productivity of the companies.On the basis of Types, MSP Software Market splits in to: On-Premise Cloud-BasedGet up to 40 % Discount on this report @ https://www.itintelligencemarkets.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=522 On the basis of Applications, MSP Software Market splits into: Small Business Medium-sized Business Large BusinessMoreover, it includes different case studies from various industry experts which helps to understand the market clearly. Apart from this, it offers planning and management techniques which tells how to use resources effectively for increasing the profitability in the businesses. Focused market research key pillars such drivers and restraining factors helps to understand the ups-downs stages of the businesses. This report will help to identify the demands of the clients. It also offers a numerous approach for increasing the sale of the companies.Some Points from TOC of this report:Chapter 1: MSP Software Market OverviewChapter 2: MSP Software Market Economic ImpactChapter 3: Competition by ManufacturerChapter 4: Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2019-2026)Chapter 5: Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2019-2026)Chapter 6: Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7: MSP Software Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8: MSP Software Market by Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11: Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12: MSP Software Market Forecast (2019-2026)Chapter 13: AppendixContinuedBrowse Full Report @ https://www.itintelligencemarkets.com/reports/Global-MSP-Software-Market-Size-Status-and-Forecast-2022-522 About IT Intelligence Markets:We at IT Intelligence Markets conduct intensive market research and generate detailed reports about the products and services offered in the IT domain. Our team is devoted to providing custom reports that are taylor-made to suit the customers requirements. We make sure to keep our customers updated with the latest market dynamics as IT industry is undergoing sea change intrinsically & extrinsically by forces such as regulatory fluctuations, rapidly evolving consumer preferences, and newer technologies. Not only do our market research analysts scrutinize market requirements but also track competitors relentlessly for obtaining the most updated scenario of the market.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Thermodilution Catheter Market Expected To Observer Major Growth By 2026" report to their offering

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616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comManager+1-347-918-3531

Catheter is medical device made from medical grade material having wide range of application in various medical fields such as neurovascular, cardiovascular, urology, nephrology, gynecology, and gastroenterology. Catheter is a thin tube that can be injected in the body to treat diseases or perform a surgical procedure. The process of inserting a catheter inside the human body is known as catheterization. A wide range of polymers are used for production of catheters including silicon, rubber, nylon, latex and others. Silicon is most preferred polymer for manufacturing of catheter but this polymer is mechanically weak and can cause serious facture during surgery. Different types of cardiac catheters are used for treatment of different cardiac conditions. Cardiac catheters are of various types include angiographic balloon catheters, bipolar pacing pins, hexapolar balloon pacing catheters, semi flotating electrodes, wedge pressure catheter, thermodilution catheter and others. Thermodilution Catheter are frequently referred as pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) or Swan-Ganz catheter, in honor of its inventors Jeremy Swan and William Ganz.It is used to determine cardiac output by passing a catheter with a thermistor through the heart. It is also used in conjunction with disposable pressure transducer kits to monitor intravascular and intra-cardiac pressures.The market of thermodilution catheter is supposed to driven by frequent increase in cardiovascular diseases. Growing aging population and rise in demand for minimally invasive surgeries are expected to drive thermodilution catheters market globally. Growing population and economies in developing countries such as India and China are expected to drive the growth of the thermodilution catheter market in Asia. Government interest for improvement of healthcare infrastructure can be important factor for rise in thermodilution catheter market. High cost involved in cardiac surgery procedures and lack of experienced and skilled professionals can limit the growth of catheters global market. The increase in prices of thermodilution catheter by key players can also retrains the global market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2120 The global market of thermodilution catheters is segmented on the basis of material, end users and geographical region.Segmentation by MaterialNylonPolyurethanePVCOthersSegmentation by End UserHospitalsPublic HospitalsPrivate HospitalsAmbulatory Surgical CentersDiagnostic LaboratoriesCardiac Catheterization LaboratoriesSegmentation by RegionNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEuropeAsia PacificMiddle East & AfricaThermodilution catheters market is expected to grow over forecast period due to increasing in the investment in the healthcare sector. Innovation of some new products with focus on patients comfort is expected to offer good opportunity for the global cardiac catheters. In addition, new designs of thermodilution catheters which gives rapid and accurate measure of cardiac output have raised their demand in the global market. Thermodilution catheters market supposed to grow rapidly over the forecast period due to increasing adoption of the technique for cardiovascular therapy by healthcare professionals. Based on type of material used for manufacturing, thermodilution catheter are classified as nylon, polyurethane, PVC and other. Polyurethane thermodilution catheter is supposed to dominate the global market. Based on end user thermodilution catheter market is classified as Hospitals, Ambulatory Surgical Center, Diagnostic Laboratories and Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. Thermodilution catheters have been used in hospitals worldwide since 1970. Hospital end user segment is expected to contribute the maximum share among end users.On the basis of regional presence, global thermodilution catheters market is segmented into five key regions viz. North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America is the largest market for thermodilution catheters which is followed by Europe and Asia. The Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region due to attention of new investors in the catheter market. In Asia Pacific region the developing countries such as India and China are expected to offer good opportunities for the global thermodilution catheter market due to adoption of minimally invasive procedures and advancement in technology.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2120 Key PlayersSome of the major players in global thermodilution catheters market are B. Braun AG, Biosensors International Limited, Edwards Life Sciences,Intra Special Catheters GmbH, Teleflex Inc. Other prominent players in thermodilution catheter market are Argon Medical Devices, ICU Medical Inc., Becton Dickinson and Company (BD), Pulsion Medical System.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 11:00:00

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305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comManager6465687751

Alcoholic drinks have been associated with human being from an old time. From medieval period human has been making constant effort to make such drinks from various fruits and natural fermentation process across globes be it Greeks or the Turks all have mastered their own art of making such drinks. Tequila is also a discovery of such an effort from a much lesser known civilization from South America continent. It was initially fermented as a prized drink by an Aztec civilization in lowlands of Mexico. It is made with the sap of agave plant, which is found mostly only in dry arid lands of Mexico. The drink consist of 50%-70% of alcohol. The demand for tequila has grown amongst consumers, which will fuel the growth of tequila market and over the forecast period, tequila market will gain significant CAGR.Cocktail culture has gain momentum across various societies. Improvement in economic condition of individuals has been a driving force for the cocktail culture. The demand for tequila in cocktails is not confine to bars and restaurants; it has also gained spaces in parties organized at homes. It can also be observed that a market shift, especially in the younger population, from binge drinking to more sophisticated drinking such as tequila. Moreover, in 21st century with change in outlook and more broadness in human way of thinking, drinking of tequila has been irrespective of any sex. In country such as U.S., there has been increase in demand of handcrafted tequila. As per data provided by Distilled Spirits Councils Economic & Strategic Analysis Department tequila consumption volume raised from 7 million 9 liters cases in 2003 to 15 million 9 liters cases in 2015. Economic improvement of individuals, improvement in infrastructure of places across countries are also few of the possible drivers, which is contributing towards tequila market growth.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/13315 Decrease in agave plant cultivation, conflicts in Mexico, rise in fuel and energy prices are few restraints which can deter the growth of tequila market globaly.Based on purity, Tequila market is segmented into:,100% Tequila,60% Tequila,Based on the product type, Tequila market is segmented into:,Blanco,Joven,Mixto Gold,Reposado,Anejo,Extra Anejo,Based on distribution channel, Tequila market is segmented into:,B2B,B2C,E-Commerce.Based on the geographies, the global vinyl acetate market is fragmented into seven key regions  North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific except Japan, Japan, and the Middle East & Africa. Among the aforementioned regions, North America accounts for a significant share of global Tequila market, owing to relatively high consumption of tequila among the masses. Business sectors such as restaurants, bars and pubs are growing significantly in North America, which are potential driver of tequila market. Western Europe is followed by North America region in the global tequila market, owing to the substantial growth in consumption of tequila in the region. The Asia-Pacific except Japan region accounts for significantly high volume share in the global tequila market owing to change in consumer behavior. Eastern Europe and Japan also accounts for significant value share in the tequila market over the forecast period, in past few years people in these regions are preferring tequila over other alcoholic drinks due to prevalence of perception that tequila is much more sophisticated and less of harmful compared to other drinks. In MEA due to prevalence of Islamic culture mostly, drinking of alcoholic beverages is limited, therefore the growth of tequila market is not so optimistic. In Latin America, tequila market has been quite healthy. Since, Mexico is the origin of excellent and authentic tequila, most Latin countries are more likely to have affinity for tequila compared to other nations. The market is significantly growing in Latin America.The major players identified in the global tequila market includes:,Jose Cuervo,Don Julio,Casa Corralejo,Tequila512,Ambhar,Dos Lunas,El Grado.Request for the Sample Copy: https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/13315
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Research Report Insights (RRI)42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website: https://www.researchreportinsights.comEmail: sales@researchreportinsights.com+1-631-721-42016317214201

Telemedicine technology conceivably focuses on the elderly, the underserved along with their caregivers, people with chronic ailments, dependents and employees and fitness-oriented people. The implementation of telemedicine is expanding around the world. This can be ascribed to its capacity to enhance the nature of care, get to patients in rural networks, lessen hospital admissions and readmissions, upgrade patient engagement and improve time administration and accommodation. Telemedicine, in addition, addresses the doctor shortage worldwide. The increasing prevalence of chronic ailments, rising elderly populace, and growing healthcare services costs are aspects of driving this market. As of now, mHealth (mobile health) is considered to be the biggest utilized telemedicine. With the wide assortment of versatile health apps accessible in the market and novel mobile therapeutic devices that are customer friendly, currently, patients are relied on technology to screen and track their health.Telemedicine exploits fast strides in the communication innovation in order to enable healthcare experts to give financially savvy effective healthcare, distance-learning to the patients, supervision, decrease wastage and requirement for physical appointment, increasing proficiency of healthcare specialist's time and others. In general healthcare system incorporation as well as cutting the shortage of healthcare experts through the world is another circumstance of the innovation. The drivers for the telemedicine market increase in the demand for healthcare services in rural areas, rise in government initiatives to cater the health needs of the rural population, availability of well-developed information technology infrastructure, rising number of telemedicine services provider and others.Request For Report Sample: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upsample/120124708/Telemedicine-Market On the other hand, the absence of reimbursement, administrative issues, absence of physician knowledge and acknowledgment poor connectivity in underdeveloped regions, high installation cost, poor quality networks particularly in emerging nations all over the world, absence of awareness and others are a few of the aspects constraining the expansion of the telemedicine market.In the year 2016, GlobalMed took on TreatMD. TreatMD had assisted GlobalMed to associate physicians and patients all over the world. The deal was believed to generate synergy among direct-to-customer telemedicine technologies of TreatMD together with the client to client established GlobalMed technology for telemedicine. During the same year, Medvivo one of the prominent telemedicine companies took on Expert 24 with a chief goal of enlarging its regional distribution in addition to product lines all the way through the United States, Europe, and the UK.Request Report For Toc: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/TOC/120124708/Telemedicine-Market In November 2017, BioTelemetry, Inc., reported its contract with Apple Inc. to allow for services for cardiac monitoring in alignment with the Apple Heart Study. Again during the same period, Telcare, (a division of BioTelemetry) the producer of the worlds first FDA-authorised cellular-enabled blood glucose monitor, came into a strategic partnership with Onduo, a combined venture made by Sanofi as well as Verily (an Alphabet company). Under this combined venture, Telcare is considered to function as the provider of remote blood glucose systems as well as the ensuing data for patients recruited in Onduos groundbreaking program for diabetes management.Increasing the amount of virtual medical centers in addition to the growth of remote clinical enterprises are a few of the trends which have been discovered in the worldwide telemedicine market. In rural areas shortfall of physicians is believed to put forward fresh prospects for the expansion of the telemedicine market, worldwide. A few of the prominent companies functioning in the telemedicine market globally are AMD Telemedicine, Philips healthcare, Cardio Net Inc. McKesson Ltd., along with GE Healthcare Ltd. On account of the rising potential in the developing nations, for instance, Russia and Brazil, the foremost market players are concentrating on increasing their services in these regions.Report Analysis: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upcomming/120124708/Telemedicine-Market
Superhard Material Market

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A superhard material is a material with a hardness level exceeding 40 gigapascals. Superhard materials are highly incompressible solids with high electron density and high bond covalency.The various products of superhard material include cemented carbides, tool steels, ceramics and diamond. Cement carbide is generally used in industrial applications for machining tough materials such as carbon steel or stainless steel. The superhard material market is segmented in the following three categories: monocrystalline superhard, composite superhard materials and super-hard materials and tools. Monocrystalline superhard materials include diamond and cubic boron nitride.Composite superhard materials include clad sheet for oil and gas, clad sheet for cutting tools, clad sheet and wire drawing die blanks used for coal and mining. Super-hard materials and tools include polycrystalline diamond drawing dies, diamond saw blades, diamond drill bits, diamond discs and diamond cutting tools.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3646 Due to their incomparable hardness, superhard materials can scratch and shape any object, hence it used in a wide range of industrial operations related to turning, cutting, drilling, boring and grinding. Superhard materials are used in many industries including aerospace, alternative energy, automotive, chemical processing, infrastructure and construction, die & mold, electronic, general machining, mining, oil & gas, paper & pulp, power generation, railroads and shipbuilding. Application of superhard material in these industries includes abrasive, coating, cutting tool, general medical, precision part, refractory parts, sensors, semiconductor fabrication, subsystem components and wear parts polishing.In 2013, affected by the insufficient demand from downstream petroleum, construction and metal cutting machine tool and due to the sluggish economy, superhard material and products industrys growth was slowed down and many companies were facing high operating costs due to this reason. In view of this, SF Diamond Co., Ltd, BOSUN Tools Co., Ltd, Henan Huanghe Whirlwind Co., Ltd, and some other companies adopted number of measures to expand their existing production capacity and extend their industrial chain to enhance their operational capabilities.Asia-Pacific is the largest market for superhard material. China contributes the largest share of superhard material market in Asia-Pacific region generating about 90% of global output and become the top producer of manmade diamond. The superhard material market in China reached about USD 2 billion in 2013, accounting about 21.8% of global market share in superhard material. Market of superhard material in North America and Europe region is driven by improving economy, intensifying manufacturing activity and the ensuing rise in demand for machine tools that used for various industrial operations.Major companies operating in global superhard material market are Zhongnan Diamond Co.,Ltd , Zhengzhou Sino Crystal Diamond Co., Ltd, Henan Huanghe, SF Diamond Bosun Tools, KingDream Public, Advanced Technology & Materials Co., Ltd, Zhengzhou New Asia Superhard Material Composite Co., Ltd., Henan Yalong Diamond Tools Co., Ltd, Shenzhen Haimingrun Industrial Co., Ltd., Zhengzhou Research Institute for Abrasives & Grinding, Monte Bianco Diamond Applications Co., Ltd., King strong Material Engineering Ltd, CR Gems Diamond Co., Ltd, Anhui Hongjing New Material Co., Ltd, Funik Ultra hard Material Co., Ltd, Henan Yalong Superhard Materials Co.,Ltd , Zhengzhou Realy Superabrasives Co.,Ltd and BOSUN Tools Co., Ltd.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3646
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Subcutaneous Implantable Defibrillator System Market to Witness Steady Growth During 2016-2026 " report to their offering

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A subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system is a type of defibrillator which continuously monitors the heart rates in cardiac patients. Being placed subcutaneously, it generates electric impulses to treat heart suffering from ventricular tachyarrhythmia and normalized the heart rhythm. Subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system (S-ICD) helps to save patient life by regulating irregular heartbeat. It is generally not used in patient with symptomatic bradycardia. Subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system (S-ICD) consists of titanium case powered with battery and circuit that offers defibrillation therapy, subcutaneous electrodes and accessories. Subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems is programmed in order to deliver tier therapy like antitachycardia pacing (ATP) and cardioversion shocks for treating slower hemodynamically stable ventricular tachycardias and high energy shocks for treating hemodynamically unstable VT and ventricular fibrillation (VF). Fast ventricular tachycardia are common in cardiac patients. Antitachycardia pacing helps to reduce these episodes by decreasing incidences for syncope.Antitachycardia pacing against fast ventricular tachycardias helps to decrease morbidity for shocks. However, it is generally harmful in patient suffering with symptomatic bradycardia as heart beats too slowly in symptomatic bradycardia patients. The subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system (S-ICD) is implanted without insertion of the leads in the heart. The subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system is implanted subcutaneous (under the skin) below the armpit along the rib cage or the left axilla and not inserted at the standard location near collar bone. The lead connecting the device is placed under the skin instead of placing it inside the heart. The advantages of subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems over other defibrillator are that it provides defibrillation therapy without generating transvenous leads. Moreover, the subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system (S-ICD) do not show any of the symptomatic or long-term complications caused due to implanting a lead in the heart, such as collapse of the lung, perforation of the heart, etc. Subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems market is anticipated to be driven by factors like, easy implantable procedure and very less complications.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2128 Subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe major factors driving the global subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems market are rising incidences of cardiovascular diseases, increasing awareness about cardiovascular disorders, rising need for cardiac monitoring system like subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems, etc. According to report published by WHO in 2015, 17.5 million people died due to cardiovascular disease which represents 31% of the global death. Factors contributing to increasing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases are growing aging population, changing lifestyle, increasing disposable income, smoking, etc. Subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems market has anticipated to grow at significant growth rate in next few years owing to increase in the cardiac patient pool. The American Heart Association has recommended several guidelines to use subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems in order to produce desirable impact on arrhythmia. The conditions like acute myocardial infarction, myocardial ischemia, electrolyte imbalance and drug toxicity leads to arrhythmia, which could be life threatening when not treated efficiently. Monitoring patients with arrhythmia with subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system has proven to deliver effective treatment. With significant scope, subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems market has anticipated to imbibe a high potential with a significant growth rate.Subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system Market: SegmentationBy Product TypeSingle ZoneDual ZoneOthersBy End UserHospitalsClinicsAmbulatory surgical centersCardiac catheterization laboratoryOthersSubcutaneous implantable defibrillator system Market: Region-wise OutlookGeographically, the market has been categorized in five main regions: North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia  Pacific and the Middle East and Africa. Increasing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, growing aging population and active intervention by government like Million Hearts initiative by US government to spread awareness about risk associated with cardiovascular diseases are the factors contributing to the growth of subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems market in North America, and followed by Europe. In addition, the market in North America is expected to grow rapidly due to high demand for new and innovative products. According to a recent report by the Japan Aging Research Center, the Asia  Pacific is on the verge of suffering from aging of population. Japan, China, and South Korea are the countries experiencing highest problem of aging population followed to rising risk for cardiovascular diseases. The growing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases in Asia will be responsible for increase in cardiovascular burden across the region. The region also constitutes some of the developed markets such as Australia and New Zealand. These nations possess well established infrastructure along with high awareness and huge demand for subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems and is expected to propel the market.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2128 Subcutaneous implantable defibrillator system Market: Key PlayersThe Key players operating in the global subcutaneous implantable defibrillator systems market are Boston Scientific Corporation, Imricor Medical Systems, Inc., LivaNova PLC Company, Mayo Clinic US, Medtronic plc, MicroPort Scientific Corporation, MRI Interventions, Inc., St. Jude Medical, Inc., etc.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:43:39

A train bogie is the chassis or the combined framework with wheel sets used for ferrying passengers or goods and are commonly attached one-after-one to railway engine. Train bogies are normal but are an essential component of the train, it is a drive system and track guidance mechanism is very important for overall transportation of the trains. Train bogies usually have a suspension system and separate breaking system so that the train handling and comfort can be maintained at every stage of the transportation. The crucial function of the train bogies is to support the mass of the train, use of the wheels to guide along the tracks and to provide a good cushioning effect against the shocks transmitted from the railway tracks during the motion.The Train Bogie is used for the purpose of stopping the rail vehicles and from preventing them from crossing the physical section of the track as well as transporting goods and passenger from one destination to the other. Train Bogie is designed according to the construction of train and its engine, it is used in the rail vehicles as it increases the load carrying capacity of the rail vehicles. They provide energy efficient and cost effective solution for the transportation large quantity of goods along with hundreds of passengers. The individual suspension and breaking systems prevent the damage and lessens the danger of injury to the commuters travelling in the rail. Additionally they are designed according to the speed and the weight of the rail vehicle. Train bogies may be either powered by some type of mechanical connected drive to the train engine or by an electrical motor. When the bogies are only used for the carrying fiction they are called as trailer bogies.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6780 Train Bogie Market: DynamicsIncreasing consumer inclination towards safety and security in railway transportation in commercial and passenger sectors is expected to drive the train bogie global market over the estimated period of time. There is a successive growth in the use of public transport since past year and it is expected to continue the same pattern in the near future. Rail industry is estimated to directly drive the train bogie market. Stringent rules and regulation by the government and the ruling authorities of the developed and the developing countries regarding the safety of the passenger and the goods transported is one of the prominent driver of train bogie global market in the near future. Train bogies have prominent characteristic of being energy efficient and cost effective and this is expected to fuel its growth in the global market in the near future.The growing research and development for newer technology has always been acting as a bridge to the railway sectors future, and the coming next half century wont be any different. The most significant driver for the rail industry is the increasing consumer preference to use railways as it is one of the most economical and eco-friendly source of transportation available in the global market. Moreover, with the advent of technologies such as the hyperloop, bullet trains, metros, etc. the manufacturers are able to target the consumer inclination towards public transportation besides provide them with an alternative which is far more economical and safe in global as well as the regional markets.Train Bogie Market: SegmentationThe train bogie market can be segmented on the basis of type of component and sales channel-The train bogie market can be segmented on the basis of component as:Bogie FrameBrake SystemSuspension SystemWheel SetOthers (motors, dampers, axles, bolster, etc.)The Train Bogie market can be segmented on the basis of sales channel as:OEMAftermarketTrain Bogie Global Market: Regional Outlook:Stringent rules and regulation regarding the safety of passenger in dominant markets such as Europe and North America has increased the demand of trains in this regions which in turn is estimated to accelerate the train bogie market in the near future. Growing use of public transport in the countries like India and China of Asia Pacific region is increasing the growth of rail industry and this is estimated to propel the train bogie market in this region. Emerging countries of Middle East Africa and Latin America is expected to cover the significant market value share in the global train bogie market over the estimated period.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-6780 Train Bogie Global Market: Key PlayersKey players in the global market of Train Bogie are:ALSTOMPROMEC srlSiemens AGTITAGARH GroupPremier Ltd.BombardierNIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORPORATION.FLEISCHMANNWBN Waggonbau Niesky GmbH
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Steam Trap Monitor Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012  2016 and Opportunity Assessment; 2017  2027" report to their offering Upcoming

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Steam trap monitor system is designed to improve the steam system performance and provides the non-intrusive and easy installation with perfect wireless monitoring functions. It is essential to keep the record of steam trap's performance for Steam users because blocked or leaking traps waste water and energy whereas a healthy steam trap inhabitants allow condensate to be removed and recycled from the steam system. Wireless steam trap monitor operates based on wireless sensor networks which include Routers, Sensors, and Coordinators. This makes a cluster tree network of devices where coordinator or router works as a parent and sensor works as a child and measure the steam conductivity and temperature. Steam trap monitor is helpful in online computation energy saving or loss due to leakage of steam traps and provides complete trap health analysis and status generated by the steam trap system. It is widely used in automotive and manufacturing industries, owing to a high demand for automation in these industries.For Requesting a Sample Copy of This Report, Please Visit @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3814 Global steam trap monitor market: DynamicsThe key driving factor of global steam trap monitor market is the rapid growth of automotive industry, owing to a high demand of steam trap monitor systems. Due to strong demand for packaged food and beverages in food and beverages industries is also a major driving factor of global steam trap monitor market. Furthermore, global steam trap monitor market is majorly driven by the increase in high internet penetration and high technological advancement, attributed to the high adoption of smart devices based on the internet of things in various industries. Another factor which helps to grow global steam trap monitor market is rapidly increasing chemical as well as the pharmaceutical industry due to high usage of steam trap monitor systems. The microeconomic factors which drive the global steam trap monitor market are the rapid rate of industrialization and emerging economy such as Brazil, China, and India. The key restraining factor of global steam trap monitor market is higher maintenance cost and govt. Safety regulations related to global steam trap monitor market. Continuously rising in energy cost will increase the steam cost produced by site utility operations which will restrict to grow steam trap monitor market globally. Various large market players such as Forbes Marshal and Spirax Sarco released wireless steam trap monitor system which is the key trend which helps global steam trap monitor market to grow at a rapid pace over the forecasted periodGlobal steam trap monitor market: SegmentationGlobal steam trap monitor market can be segmented by end-use industry types, technology types, material type, trap types and region types.Global steam trap monitor market can be segmented by end-use industry types as follow: Pharmaceutical Chemical Food & Beverages Automotive Downstream Hydrocarbons Defense Water & Wastewater Power generation Oil & gas Pulp & paperGlobal steam trap monitor market can be segmented by technology types as follow: Wired WirelessGlobal steam trap monitor market can be segmented by trap types as follow: Mechanical Traps (inverted bucket & Float and Thermostatic) Thermodynamic Traps Venturi or Orifice Traps Thermostatic TrapsGlobal steam trap monitor market can be segmented by material types as follow: Steel Iron OthersGlobal steam trap monitor market: Regional OutlookBased on the geographies, global steam trap monitor market is segmented into seven regions  Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, Western Europe, North America, Japan and Middle East & Africa. Among region mentioned above, North America accounts high market share in steam trap monitor market across the globe followed by Western Europe. Western Europe and Middle East & Africa is estimated to grow with a rapid rate in global steam trap monitor market due to its high usage in manufacturing industries in these regions. Due to low manufacturing cost in Asia-Pacific countries such as China and India is estimated to witness a rapid growth in steam trap monitor market across the globe.Detailed TOC of Research Report Available @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3814 Few prominent market players of global steam trap monitor market as follow: Forbes Marshall Emerson Electric Co. Spirax-Sarco Engineering Plc. ThermaXX Jackets, LLC. Mosto Technologies, Inc. Armstrong International Inc. Flowserve Corporation GESTRA AG CIRCOR International, Inc
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Significant Growth Foreseen by Marine & Dock Gangways Market During 2017- 2027" report to their offering

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:47:53

Ships, barges, cruise, boats, etc. all have different dimensions and dock profiles which are often elevated several feet above. Accessing these often requires specially designed platform known as gangways. A gangway is a variable-sloped pedestrian walkway which links a fixed structure or land with a floating structure. Also, gangways mounted on ships/barges facilitate easy manual stevedoring and offshore transfer of essentials among ships. Gangways on a ship connect the quarterdeck to the forecastle and serve the purpose of connecting various other areas within the ship and to that of other ship. Marine gangways are designed according to the various marine construction standards as gangways can be extensively useful in case of an emergency. Apart from stevedoring, the marine gangways are highly useful in case of offshore man and material transfer. Also, marine gangways are extensively useful in offshore construction and maintenance activities.The trade through marine ports contributes around 80 percent of the international trade volume and over 70 percent of total trade value. While in countries like China, these shares contribute a significantly higher share. Marine routes are major conveyance for goods in the form of containers, dry bulk, liquid bulk, and roll on-roll off (Ro-Ro) type of cargos, also passenger involving numerous national, international and cruise passenger. The marine gangways can be in the form of plain slop, stairs or stepped platforms and the design vary according to designing standards, application and customer requirements. Marine gangways are conventionally made up wood, aluminium and metal alloys, while the modern gangways are made through high strength polymers and fibers enabling a construction of a light weight structure.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5644 Marine & Dock Gangways Market: DynamicsThe global marine gangways market is highly dependent on the demands from shipbuilding industry and new port construction and expansion projects. During the last few years, the shipbuilding industry has passed through deterioration phase, which is likely to get its pace over the next few years. Countries like, South Korea, China, Hong Kong (PRC), etc. are striving to bring on track the regional shipbuilding industry. Also, a huge surge in demands is expected from the defence sector as naval ships play a crucial role in maintaining sovereignty of any country. Countries like India, China, U.S, Japan, and NATO members have increased their defence budget for modernizing and strengthening forces which is estimated to fuel the demands of naval ships over the next coming years.Offshore activities plays an important role on in orientation of shipbuilding industry and port development projects. Around 20% of oil reserves and 45% of gas reserves are located offshore. The spending for offshore exploration has been significantly increased and is estimated to increase further in coming years. Increasing bulk trade, development of new trade regions, offshore wind energy project, etc are some of the other factors which are estimated to lever up the demands for ships, barges, vessels and other maritime transports and hence the global marine & dock gangways market.Marine & Dock Gangways Market: SegmentationThe marine gangways are available in different sizes and material which are customized as per the application and customer demand. However, the manufacturing and installation standards are maintained as per the guidelines issued by various standardizing organizations. The global marine & dock gangways market can be segmented as:On the basis of Structure Type:TrussBeamOn the basis of Walkway TypeRampStairs/LaddersTreadedOthers. On the basis of OperationSingle Platform (Non-expandable)2 Stage Expandable (Telescopic)Multistage ExpandableOthersOn the basis of MobilityFixedMobileOn the basis of Application/InstallationPort/HarborShip (container ship)BargesVesselOffshore refineries/exploration plantsOthersOn the basis of MaterialAluminiumSteel & Metal AlloysComposite/Wood/OthersMarine & Dock Gangways Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global marine & dock gangways market is dynamic in nature and demands are highly dependent on the regional ship & boat building industry and port development projects. With contribution of countries like, China and South Korea, the APEJ region is estimated to dominate the global marine & dock gangways market. However, port expansion and offshore exploration projects in North America and Europe region is estimated to create high growth opportunities for marine & dock gangways manufacturers. MEA region and Latin America regions are estimated to exhibit moderate growth for regional marine & dock gangways market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-5644 Marine & Dock Gangways Market: Market ParticipantsThe marine & dock gangways market involves participation of various international and regional players offering customized solutions for the customers in various sectors. Some of the players in the global marine & dock gangways market involves GatorDock (CMI Limited Company), Safe Harbor Access Systems, Poralu Marine Inc , China Deyuan Marine Fitting Co.,ltd ., sam-gong, among others.
Persistence Market Research has announced the addition of the  Sales Scenario of Global Pain Management Devices Market to Remain Positive Through 2021" report to their offering.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 13:58:05

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CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comteam lead800-961-0353

Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience caused due to tissue damage or illness. It is caused due to injury and various diseases such as osteoarthritis, chronic arthritis, diabetic neuropathy, multiple sclerosis, stomach ulcer, fibromyalgia and cancer. It can be classified on the basis of duration as acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain is sudden onset of pain where as chronic pain persists for long periods. Chronic pain is mainly caused due to aging conditions of bone and joints and nerve damage and injury. Pain is managed by a particular set of drugs or devices to treat pain. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulators, neuro-stimulators, analgesia infusion pumps and radiofrequency ablators are some of the pain management devices. Most of these devices block the pain gate mechanism, to block the passage of pain signals to the brain. Radiofrequency ablators destroys nerves by generating heat to block the pain signals, Similarly, neuro-stimulator devices uses mild frequencies of current to block the passage of pain signals. These devices help in treating various painful conditions such as cancer, musculoskeletal injury and neuropathic pain. Pain management devices help to reduce the risk of long term narcotics, non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and other pain relieving medications.Request Sample Report@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3641 North America dominates the global market for pain management devices due to large number of aging population and favorable regulatory and healthcare reforms such as the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Asia is expected to show high growth rates in the next five years in global pain management device market. China and India are expected to be the fastest growing pain management devices markets in Asia-Pacific region. Some of the key driving forces for pain management devices market in emerging countries are large pool of patients, increasing healthcare expenditure and rising government funding and initiatives.In recent times there is increased use of pain management devices due to rise in aging population. Increase in cancer population, increasing prevalence of lifestyle associated disease and increasing neuropathic disorders are some of the key factors driving the growth for the global pain management devices market. In addition, increasing healthcare awareness and rise in healthcare expenditure are also fuelling the growth of global pain management devices market. However, side effects such as skin hypersensitivity, redness and hyper-pigmentation and availability of substitutes such as pain relief medications are some of the major factors restraining the growth for global pain management devices market.Request Report TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3641 Technological advancement of pain management devices would develop opportunity for the global pain management devices market. However, high cost involved in manufacturing of pain management device could lead a challenge for the global pain management devices market. Increasing demand of spinal cord stimulation device for neuropathic, chronic and refractory pain is the trend for the global pain management devices market. Some of the major companies operating in the global pain management devices market are Medtronic, Inc., B. Braun Melsungen AG., Boston Scientific Corporation, Hospira, Inc., Baxter International, Inc., DJO Global LLC., St. Jude Medical, Inc., Bio-Medical Research Ltd., Smith Medical, Pain Management, Inc., Kimberly-Clark Healthcare and Stryker Corporation.
Orifice Reducers Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 07:16:40

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Orifice Reducers Market: An Overview - Whether the container needs a precise drop or a small handful, the orifice reducers always complement the product. Orifice reducers are closures accessories that cover a container to reduce the flow of liquid and allow it flow out drop by drop. The technological advancement in the orifice reducers offers an ultimate dispensing control and bring functionality as well as reliability to the containers. The orifice reducers are easily accessible and can be simply pressed into the opening of a bottle to allow the regulated amount of flow. The orifice reducers are considered as ideal for the dispensing liquid such as inks, dyes, food coloring, lotion, sauces, essential oils, eye dropper, and others. Hence, the orifice reducers are highly prevalent in end-user industries such as healthcare, food and beverage, cosmetics and personal care, chemicals and others. The orifice reducers meets all the industry standard and specification and widely used in many applications. Therefore, the global outlook for orifice reducers market is expected to remain positive during the forecast period.Orifice Reducers Market: Dynamics - Continuously, an unimaginable amount of fluids are packed into bottles daily which need an effective dispensing system to regulate the flow of the product. This factor is expected to propel the growth of orifice reducers market during the forecast period. The outstanding properties of orifice reducers such as temperature tolerance, moisture barrier, high impact & scuff resistance, light-weight nature are also contributing to the growth of global orifice reducers market during the forecast period. The orifice reducers are versatile and work with standard bottles, and securely connect to the container ensuring the accurate dosing are among the factors driving the growth of global orifice reducer market during the forecast period. The consumers positive response towards the use of orifice reducers to limit the flow and outpouring of the liquid products is expected to fuel the growth of global orifice reducers market during the forecast period. Therefore, the orifice reducers market is projected to expand with a notable growth rate during the forecast period.Orifice Reducers Market: Segmentation - On the basis of material,the orifice reducers market is segmented into: Low-density polyethylene (LDPE), High-density polyethylene (HDPE), Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Polypropylene (PP), Other resins; On the basis of neck size,the orifice reducers market is segmented into: Up to 15 mm, 15-20 mm, More than 20 mm; On the basis of applications,the orifice reducers market is segmented into: Eye Droppers, Sauces Bottles, Lotion Bottles, Essential Oils, Others; On the basis of End Use,the orifice reducers market is segmented into: Healthcare, Pharma, Oral Care, RX Retail, Oral, Medical, Food and Beverage, Cosmetics and Personal Care, Chemicals, Others;Request for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7439 Orifice Reducers Market: Regional Outlook - The Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region is expected to dominate the global orifice reducers market account healthy market share during the forecast period. The countries such as China and India appears as a key market driver of APEJ orifice reducers during the forecast period. The Western Europe region is expected to follow the APEJ region in terms of market size and projected to register a notable growth rate of orifice reducers market during the forecast period. The countries in this region such as Germany, U.K., France, and Italy is expected to demand orifice reducers during the forecast period. The North America region is a significant shareholder of global orifice reducers market and projected to expand with lucrative CAGR during the forecast period. The continuous expansion of end-use industries is a key factor driving the North America orifice reducers market during the forecast period. The Latin America orifice reducers market is expected to attain significant growth rate during the forecast period and contribute to the growth of global orifice reducers market during the forecast period. The Middle East & Africa region is expected to witness the significant demand of orifice reducers market during the forecast period. The region such as Eastern Europe and Japan is expected to register a positive growth rate during the forecast period.Orifice Reducers Market: Key Players - Some of the key players operating the global orifice reducers market are listed below: Amcor Limited, Berry Global Inc., Comar LLC., Plastipro Canada Ltd., O.Berk Company, LLC., Acadiana Plastics Molding, Inc., Acme Vial and Glass Company, LLC., Weener Plastic Packaging Group, SKS Bottles and Packaging;The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides an in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Regional Analysis Includes- North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Middle East & Africa (MEA), Japan;Orifice Reducers Market Reports Highlights: A detailed overview of parent market, Changing market dynamics in the industry, In-depth market segmentation, Historical, current, and projected market size regarding volume and value, Recent industry trends and developments, Competitive landscape, Strategies for key players and products offered, Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth, A neutral perspective on market performance, Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintGet more information on Orifice Reducers Market @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7439
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 05:31:21

Apart from accurately depicting the position of aircraft and relatable information, demand for air traffic control equipment has increased multifold in recent times, considering its paramount utility in navigation and surveillance in various aircraft operations. Data processing innovations and advancements in the communication technologies has been providing major opportunities for the market players as the demand for air traffic control equipment continues to rise in the aviation industry.Technological Advancements Fostering Growth of Air Traffic Control Equipment Market Automation plays a crucial role when it comes to enhancing the capabilities of the air traffic control. The deployment of automation in the air traffic control equipment is witnessed in the major aviation bases. The deployment of automation systems in air traffic control centers by FAA is one instance, where the involvement of automation as key market driver could be observed.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4841 Moreover, technologies innovations such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are also expected to provide future avenues to the providers of air traffic control equipment. Ottawas Searidge Technologies, an air navigation service provider and a company recognized as a major air traffic control equipment market player is partnering with the United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority for developing applications and conducting research for AI in air traffic control.Furthermore, the emergence of smart airports is expected to significantly boost the demand for air traffic control equipment to achieve next-generation navigation and control.Emerging Regions to Witness Key Investments by Major ManufacturersAmongst the key regions that hold a significant scope for air traffic control equipment, the North American market has witnessed developments in the form of investment strategies that allow effective business opportunities. For example, Raytheon Company, a key player in the air traffic control equipment market plans to invest $72 million in a manufacturing unit in Massachusetts campus which would a have industrys leading manufacturing innovations. The space would deliver advanced automation technology to foster the integration and complex testing of radars.BAE Systems, recognized as a key air traffic control equipment market contributor has entered into a contract with the U.S. Navy in accordance to which it is expected to support landing systems and air traffic control equipment at shore facilities and on ships. With such opportunities in the United States, air traffic control equipment providers could expect increasing profit in business while investing in this region.Europe has also been highlighting a promising future for the air traffic control equipment market with the increasing collaborations to suffice air traffic management needs. The partnership between HungaroControl and Azeraeronavigation Air Traffic Control Center (AZANS) for providing air navigation services in Azerbaijan. Such collaborations in Europe are expected to drive the growth of the air traffic control equipment market.Increasing Demand for Air Traffic Control Equipment to Provide Growth Avenues for Market ParticipantsThe market players in the air traffic control equipment market are grabbing major business opportunities as the demand for the product escalates. The market players are continuously seeking key opportunities to extend their capabilities.For instance, the France-based Thales group is supporting a program for modernization of surveillance radars in Saudi Arabia. Thales is recognized as a major supplier of air traffic control equipment in the region. This deal acts as a crucial commitment for Thales group as they focus on broadening their support in the civil aviation domain to the Kingdom.Another major player in the air traffic control equipment market, Raytheon Company, is also working towards providing effective solutions to FAA with a contract of over $70 million. With respect to this contract, the company focused on enabling futuristic next-generation air traffic control equipment and air traffic control tools which would enhance the efficiency and safety of National Airspace System.Collaborations and mergers have been a crucial strategy for companies as they focus on business expansion and growth. Similar merger between the key market participant, Harris Corporation and defense giant L3 technologies resulted in a largest defense merger. The combined company would offer an extensive portfolio of products including secret space hardware, military radios, and air traffic control system.Segmentation of Air Traffic Control Equipment Market Based on Device type, Application & End useThe air traffic control equipment market is classified in accordance with the type of device, its application, and the end use sector. A broader classification based on the region also helps in understanding the scope of the air traffic control equipment market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4841 Based on the device type, the air traffic control equipment market is subdivided into proximity devices, information system devices, radar devices, simulator devices, and safety and navigational devices.The application segments in the air traffic control equipment market include surveillance, navigation, and communication.According to the end use, the air traffic control equipment market is classified into commercial and cargo aircraft, defense aircraft, and private aircraft.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Europium Market " report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 10:17:27

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Europium is a rare earth metal which oxidizes readily in presence of air and water. It is generally present in oxide form and has applications in automobiles, catalysts, consumer electronics, flat panel displays, metallurgy and fluorescent lamps and as a dopant of glass in lasers and optoelectronic devices.Growing demand from flat panel displays and LEDs in Asia Pacific market is expected to drive the market. The shift from traditional lighting to solid state lighting systems in displays is expected to fuel the market for flat panel displays and LEDs. Increasing civil infrastructure is the main factor behind growing demand for LEDs owing to its use in street lighting and highway lighting. However, the supply issues and lack of refining, alloying and fabricating technologies for europium are expected to hamper the growth of this market. Technological advances in the field of earth metal nano-crystals are expected to provide immense opportunities for the players in this market. Europium nano-crystals are being use in the LEDs as a phosphor which emits wide range of spectrum.Read Report Overview @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/europium-market Asia Pacific region was the largest consumer of europium and its derivative products. China contributes highest for the consumption of this metal owing to increasing population, improving living standard and disposable income. Growing demand from Japan, Korea and China for consumer electronics is fueling the market in this region. China is the largest manufacturer of europium and its derivatives. However, export restrictions and increasing local demand has been causing supply issues. Asia Pacific is followed by North America owing to demand from LEDs and consumer electronics industries. Decreased exports from China causing development of new exploration and production sites in this region to fulfill the demand.The key players in europium market include Rare Element Resources, Avalon Rare Metals Inc., Molycorp, Lynas, Minmetals Corporation, Baotou Steel Rare-Earth, Xiamen Tungsten, Great Western Minerals Group Ltd., Indian Rare Earth, Arafura Resources Ltd. and Canada Rare Earth Corporation among others. This research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data and statistically-supported and industry-validated market data and projections with a suitable set of assumptions and methodology. It provides analysis and information by categories such as market segments, regions, product types and distribution channels.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-359
Refrigerated Vehicles Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:27:38

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Refrigerated vehicles are used for transportation of vulnerable food, pharmaceutical and healthcare products. The increasing population and consumer spending on food products has surged their production globally. Among food products, dairy products and fresh fruits and vegetables require cold storage and transportation for their sustainability. The increasing global warming has been emerging as a matter of great concern for the food producers globally which is reducing the shelf life of these products in non-refrigerated conditions. Most of the pharmaceutical and healthcare products need protection from heat and light to maintain their chemical and biological formulation. All these concerns have been driving the refrigerated vehicles market globally and are expected to increase in terms of growth rate during 2014-2020.Refrigerated vehicles include a large types of vehicles used in several transportation requirements based on loading requirement. Some of their types include refrigerated vans, refrigerated trucks, refrigerated trailers, refrigerated railcars, refrigerated ships, refrigerated transport by air, refrigerated containers, atmosphere controlled containers, intermodal refrigerated containers, insulated containers, integral reefer containers and multimodal temperature containers. The increasing consumer awareness about fresh products is one of the important factors which have been escalating the demand for refrigerated vehicles globally.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3595 The developing and underdeveloped countries have an underdeveloped cold-supply chain infrastructure which leads to destruction of a large quantity of food products every year. This also increases warehousing charges of the food manufacturers and the distributors as they have to maintain local distribution points in the area of demand. The growing population and increasing per capita income in these countries is boosting the demand for food products which is further creating demands for the refrigerated vehicles in these countries. The dairy product consumption in Asia Pacific countries have also been increasing to a great extent in recent times. The pharmaceutical and healthcare industries have also been growing at a rapid pace in these developing countries which is creating demand for the refrigerated vehicles in this domain as well. The shortage of skilled labor and unstable fuel prices are the key hurdles for the refrigerated vehicles market. The companies operating in the refrigerated vehicles market are improving the fuel efficiency and noise reduction of these vehicles.There have been several technology development and introduction in the recent times by the refrigerated vehicle manufacturers. They include CorroGuard and ThermGuard by Great Dane, Strip door solution for refrigerated trucks by R.O.M, GRIPTM by RTE, LED based indicator by Carrier, economical cold plates by Johnson, reefer monitoring system by PAR, reefer-trak sentry solutions by Star-Trak, Secureseal system by OEM Group, new alternator by Robert Bosch and Fleetview by Terion.Among regions, North America dominated global sales of refrigerated vehicles market, followed by Europe. There are a large number of market players in the refrigerated vehicles market which are operating in a particular country or globally through their subsidiaries. The global refrigerated vehicles market is fragmented however; it is increasingly advancing towards consolidation with a number of companies engaged in merger and acquisition activities.The key market players include Great Dane Trailers, Ingersol Rand Company Limited, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited, Schmitz Cargobull, R.O.M., Thermo King, Carrier Transicold, Johnson, PAR, Star-Trak, GE, OEM Group, Robert Bosch, Terion, Northgate Plc and Fraikin Limited.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3595
Refinery Catalyst Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 08:55:25

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Refinery catalysts are used by petroleum refineries in the cracking process. Global refinery catalyst market is mainly driven by the increasing demand for cleaner petroleum products. Based on type, the refinery catalyst can be categorized into seven segments namely Hydroprocessing Catalysts, Fluid Catalytic Cracking Catalysts, Alkylation Catalysts, Hydrogen Manufacturing Catalysts, Hydrodesulphurization Catalysts, Isomerization Catalysts and Others.The key raw materials used in the manufacturing of refinery catalysts are metals, zeolites and chemical compounds. Hydroprocessing catalysts are used to create cleaner fuels and possess highest growth rate among refinery catalysts. Fluid catalytic cracking catalysts market is growing towards maturity and losing its market share which is gained by other segments of the market.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3414 Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East are witnessing high growth in the refinery catalyst market due to increasing use of petroleum products. The increasing demand for gasoline and ultra low sulfur diesel has been boosting the market for refinery catalysts. The increasing use of petroleum feedstocks in the industries such as ethylene, propylene and butadiene in North America are creating growth opportunities for the refinery catalysts market. The refinery catalyst manufacturers are increasingly producing more challenging feedstock compositions despite unstable fuel prices. Tightening environmental regulations and increasing demand for diesel are supporting the growth of Hydroprocessing catalysts.However, the European refiners have been reducing their production capacities due to weak economic condition in the region. According to International Energy Agency, oil consumption in China grew by 1.6% as compared to 2012, which was slowest since 1992, however it is expected to increase in the coming years.North America dominated the refinery catalysts market in 2013 followed by Asia Pacific. U.S. and China were the key markets in these regions. The refinery catalysts companies are investing heavily on their research and development as this industry is developing at a fast pace in terms of technology due to changing demands of the refineries. The key companies in the refinery catalysts market are Albemarle Corporation, Air Products and Chemicals, Arkema Group, BASF SE, Chevron, Clariant International Limited, Eka Chemicals AB, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Evonic Industries AG, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, INEOS Group Limited, Johnson Matthey PLC, UOP LLC, Zeolyst International Inc. and W.R. Grace & Company.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3414
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 08:59:55

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According to a new report by Future Market Insights titled Pressure Bandages Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012  2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017  2027), the global pressure bandages market is estimated to grow from US$ 186.5 Mn in 2017 to US$ 257.4 Mn by 2027 end. This reflects a CAGR of 3.3% over the forecast period 2017 2027. The global market represents absolute $ opportunity of US$ 5.1 Mn in 2018 over 2017 and incremental opportunity of US$ 70.9 Mn between 2017 and 2027. North America is currently the most lucrative regional market for pressure bandages, followed by Western Europe and APEJ. However, in terms of annual growth, the Latin America pressure bandages market is anticipated to experience the highest CAGR of 3.9% during 2017-2027.Global Pressure Bandages Market: OpportunitiesPenetration of orthopaedic treatments in emerging economies including Asia Pacific and MEA is still not as widespread as compared to North America and Europe. This is owing to low awareness regarding advanced wound management and associated risk factors amongst the general as well as obese populationThe retail e-commerce channel has gained significant attraction from consumers in the last few years, and is expected to show rapidly increasing adoption over the forecast period. Sales of pressure bandages through e-commerce have also increased in the last few years with e-commerce companies providing attractive discounts to their customersRequest to View a Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1966 Global Pressure Bandages Market: Forecast by Product TypeOn the basis of product type, the global market for pressure bandages is segmented into short stretch bandages, long stretch bandages and multi-layer compression systems. In terms of value, short stretch bandages are likely to dominate the market throughout the period of forecast, while the long stretch bandages segment is expected to be the fastest growing segment during 2017-2027.Global Pressure Bandages Market: Forecast by ApplicationSegmentation by application includes lymphedema, leg ulcers, deep vein thrombosis and others. The leg ulcers segment is expected to be the most lucrative market for pressure bandages, with an attractiveness index of 1.9, while lymphedema is expected to remain the least attractive in the global market in revenue terms over the forecast period.Global Pressure Bandages Market: Forecast by Raw MaterialThe different segments by raw material include cotton, latex, polyester, and others. Cotton dominated the pressure bandages market in revenue terms in 2016, and the trend is projected to continue throughout the forecast period.Global Pressure Bandages Market: Forecast by Distribution ChannelOn the basis of distribution channel, the global pressure bandages market is segmented into retail stores, online stores, hypermarkets & supermarkets, pharmacies and clinics. Retail stores and online pharmacies segments are expected to reflect an attractiveness index of 1.8 over the forecast period. The retail stores segment accounted for a market share of 41.4% in 2016.Request to Browse Report Customization @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-1966 Global Pressure Bandages Market: Forecast by RegionThe seven key geographies of North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, APEJ, Japan and MEA have been covered in this report. North America dominated the pressure bandages market in revenue terms in 2016, and the trend is projected to continue throughout the forecast period. MEA and Japan are expected to remain least attractive in the global market in revenue terms, with a market attractiveness index of 0.2 over the forecast period.Global Pressure Bandages Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in the global pressure bandages market profiled in the report are BSN Medical (Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget SCA), Smith & Nephew, 3M Inc., Medtronic Plc., Cardinal Health and ConvaTec Inc.View Report Preview @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/pressure-bandages-market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 06:26:49

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Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Manager13479183531

The need for aligning resources in healthcare settings has compelled medical organizations towards adoption of technological solutions that help manage & arrange patient care information in orderly fashion. Hospitals from across the globe are installing patient throughput & capacity management solutions to tackle challenges associated with management of increasing capacity & space. Ideal use of added functional capacity through improved patient throughput solutions is also a key trend driving the demand for such solutions. Persistence Market Research estimates that towards the end of 2024, more than US$ 1.2 Bn worth of patient throughput & capacity management solutions will be employed across the globe.The global market for patient throughput & capacity management, according to Persistence Market Researchs report, is presently valued at US$ 834 Mn, and will soar steadily at 5% CAGR during the eight-year forecast period. The report further anticipates that over half of global revenues procured from sales of patient throughput & capacity management solutions will be accounted by the US and Canada.North Americas dominance over the global patient throughput & capacity management market is justified by the regions robust healthcare industry, which is also a proponent to technological advancements and adoption of intelligent solutions. Europes patient throughput & capacity management market will also leave a sizable imprint on the global market, registering a value CAGR of 5.3%.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/13198 High Demand for Real-Time Locating System (RTLS) SolutionsThe report reveals that an analysis of global sales of patient throughput & capacity management solutions indicates a major upsurge in demand for RTLS solutions. With more than one-third share, RTLS solutions will remain a top-selling product dominating the global market revenues through 2024. Revenues from global sales of workflow management solutions will impose a consistent share on global revenues, while bed management solutions will exhibit revenue growth at 5.2% CAGR during the projected period. A majority of products offered in the global patient throughput & capacity management market will be offered as integrated solutions. Towards the end of 2024, integrated solutions will surpass 65% share on global revenues, while global demand for standalone solutions will register a marginal decline.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/13198 The report also reveals that over 40% of patient throughput & capacity management solutions are delivered through on-premise models. By 2024-end, on-premise delivery of patient throughput & capacity management solutions will net nearly US$ 500 Mn in global revenues. On the other hand, cloud-based delivery is likely to lose out its traction, but will witness a negligible downtrend in terms of revenue growth. The report has also profiled companies such as EPIC Systems Corporation, STANLEY Healthcare, Central Logic, Care Logistics LLC, McKesson Corporation, TeleTracking Technologies, Inc., Sonitor Technologies, Inc., Allscripts, Awarepoint Corporation, and Cerner Corporation as key players of the global patient throughput & capacity management market.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 07:53:41

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Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/Manager9898989898

The US$ 2.5 billion packaging tubes market is slated to exhibit promising performance over the next decade. As indicated by a recent outlook published by Future Market Insights, the global market for packaging tubes will possibly thrive at 5.4% over 2028-1028, attaining a value of around US$ 4.5 Bn by 2028 end. During the course of assessment period, packaging giants are expected to concentrate on improvisation of existing formats of packaging tubes, which have been limiting the use of packaging tubes to pharmaceuticals, oral care products, and cosmetics.Laminated Tubes Are Most Likely to Outperform Aluminum Tubes in Terms of Adoption & Growth RateImmense ease of use, convenience, and portability will collectively enable laminated tubes to witness healthy traction in near future. As consumers are moving away from rigid packaging formats such as plastic and aluminium-based packaging tubes, they are more inclined towards laminated tube packaging, which is expected to push the performance of laminated tubes in the packaging tubes market in next few years. However, the substitutes such as stick packs, pouches, and sachets may limit this growth, with an advantage in terms of price and convenience. Aluminum tubes, though account for the maximum revenue share, are expected to witness a heavy decline in near future.Request to Sample of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6859 Premium Personal & Beauty Care Products Come in Laminated TubesLaminated tubes, which were only considered for packaging of hand lotion, toothpaste, and a series of similar products till a decade ago, are increasingly being embraced by a number of beauty and personal care brands. To harness the most of structural, functional, and design flexibility of laminated packaging tubes, brands are using them for packaging almost every beauty and personal care product on retail shelves. Premiumization has been a big trend in personal and beauty care industries, which manifests in a wide range of decorating possibilities and a number of material attributes such as texture. Moreover, it also enables manufacturers to include metallics on tubes and closures, and create virtually seamless, 360 degree decorated packaging tubes.Technological Intervention to Benefit Laminated Tube SalesRecently, a beauty care brand introduced a range of products packaged in fully decorated plastic tubes, which are manufactured using the innovative digital print technology in mass scale. The tubes look vibrant and are include seamless structure, tactile embossing, photorealistic images, and cap-to-tube printing. These packaging tubes are likely to attract an exceptionally large female consumer base in near future. Brand owners are foreseen to innovate their existing product offerings with innovative digital print  direct-to-print technology. Also, growing adoption of flexographic printing technology by tube manufacturers is anticipated to contribute to the market growth through 2028.The shift of a growing number of pharmaceutical players to laminated tube packaging from plastic and Aluminum-based packaging, is conscious and marked, and has been attributed to several noteworthy anti-contamination properties possessed by this packaging tube type. The global market for packaging tubes is witnessing rapid uptake of laminated tubes in the pharmaceutical industry, especially for packaging of OTC products, which is expected to boost the market performance in near future.Request to Report Methodology @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-6859 Innovation Rides the Sustainable Future of Packaging TubesNevertheless, the packaging industry has been striving to diminish its environmental footprint, by adopting bio-based plastics in manufacturing packaging materials. However, the availability of such sustainable materials is limited, which directly translates into the high price point. Manufacturers are thus investing more in research and development of cheaper sustainable materials for using in packaging tubes, which are also environment-friendly. One of the not-so-popular and accepted sustainable solutions, includes using PCR (post-consumer recycled) plastic materials. This and more such innovations are likely to benefit the market for packaging tubes in the next few years.Moreover, the market is also trending with tubes made up of plastic barrier laminates with EVOH and polyamide, which impart them the see-through functionality in multilayer structures. Industry experts reveal that the see though packaging solutions, including transparent plastic packaging tubes, tend to gather higher consumer value on retail shelves, helping marketers to stand apart from other traditional packaging counterparts. Product visibility will continue to influence the buying decision of consumers, which is poised to continue fuelling market growth through the next decade.Get full report now @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/6859
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Osmium Market" report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 11:43:40

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comMANAGER3479183531

Osmium belongs to platinum group family and is obtained when platinum metal is extracted from its ores. Osmium is found in nature alloyed with iridium and as a trace component of many ores such as copper and nickel. Hence, osmium is mainly produced as a byproduct of platinum extraction. It is one of the densest elements found in nature and is blue grey in colour. Osmium is represented by the symbol Os and its atomic number is 76. The metal is hard and brittle, which remains lustrous even at very high temperature. Osmium is generally produced in the form of powder since it is difficult to shape owing to its hardness. The amount of osmium produced per year is trivial, which is less than a ton.Osmium exhibits low compressibility and has high bulk modulus. Osmium is toxic in nature when it is exposed to air and undergo chemical reaction to form osmium tetroxide. Osmium is highly volatile as well as water soluble in nature and the metal has very low vapour pressure and exhibits high melting point. There are numerous regulations on the use of osmium owing to the aforementioned properties it possess.Osmium is used in many alloys, which find significant applications in end use industries due to the quality osmium can impose on end products such as corrosion resistance and hardness. For instance, osmium alloys are used to manufacture pen nibs, compass needles, and electrical contacts, among others. Osmium-tungsten was used in filaments of light bulb as well.Get More Information @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/osmium-market Apart from these osmium can be used as a catalyst at industrial levels that increments the market value of osmium considerably. Osmium tetroxide is popularly utilized in chemical industry since it is strongly oxidising and volatile. However, proper precautions need to be taken while using osmium tetroxide in laboratories. The reflectivity of osmium makes it desirable in space based UV spectrophotometer applications as well. The alloys of osmium are used in manufacturing several surgical implants and instruments, due to its inert nature.Osmium Market: Market DynamicsThe sustainable development in the global chemical industry is expected to boost the demand for osmium over the forecast period. Growing applications of osmium in fingerprint detection, optical and electron microscopy and also in staining fatty tissues in various research institutes are the drivers, which can bolster the market growth in the upcoming years. The growing trend of using osmium for innovative medical technologies is expected to boost the overall demand for the osmium market.Furthermore , stagnant price of osmium makes it more popular in end use industries. However, the toxic nature of osmium necessitates optimum storage facilities, which may act as a low impact restraint for the market growth.Osmium Market: Market SegmentationOsmium market is segmented on the basis of form, application and grade mainly.On the basis of form, the global osmium market can be segmented into;PelletsRodGranulesOn the basis of grade, the global osmium market can be segmented into;Technical GradeAnalytical GradeOn the basis of application, the global osmium market can be segmented into;Electrical ContactsInstrumental PivotsFountain Pen NibsOthers (clock bearings, compass needles, gramophone, etc.)Osmium Market: Regional OutlookThe increasing preference for sustainable technology augments the production of osmium significantly. The global osmium market is projected to grow with a substantial CAGR over the forecast period. In terms of consumption, North America is expected to be the prominent market for osmium, followed by Europe. Moreover, Asia Pacific is expected to be a substantial producer of osmium. China, being the major exporter of osmium, contributes significantly to the global market share.Osmium Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the global osmium market, identified across the value chain include, American Elements, Ceimig Limited, Cleantech and Reade International Corp, among others.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3719
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 11:53:58

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305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comManager6465687751

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have recently discovered the use of oregano essential oil to combat the adverse effect of certain tough, drug-resistant bacterial strains. To infuse the essential oil into a water based bacterial ecosystem, the team of researchers designed nanocomposites filled with carvacrol extracted from oregano. Even as diverse uses of essential oils continue to be researched and incorporated in the healthcare and pharmaceuticals industry, the global consumption of oregano essential oil is expected to steadily peak in the coming years.This is just one of the various factors boosting global revenue of the oregano essential oil market, which is projected to reach a valuation of US$ 7,452.1 thousand by 2025, up from a market size of US$ 4,572.2 thousand in 2017. This is reflective of a robust growth rate of 6.3% during the period 2017  2025.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/16816 Global Consumption Trend Indicative of Multiple Regional Factors Driving AdoptionThe utilization of oregano essential oil across the globe is predominantly based on a variety of factors ranging from purchasing power to innovation in use cases. For instance, consumers in the First World are more liberal in the use of natural ingredients such as essential oils in their food products and cosmetics, cost complexities notwithstanding. An established awareness of the health benefits of natural plant based ingredients is the primary driving force behind increased adoption across these regions.Then again, consumers in Japan and China prefer the use of essential oils in aromatherapy and skin/hair care formulations. Utilization of essential oils in countries of the Asia Pacific like India is driven by the cultural factor, where such oils are increasingly used in traditional religious and medical practices. Having said this, Western influence has slowly seeped into the rest of the world, and essential oils such as oregano are finding application in the food and beverages industry as preservatives and in the cosmetics and pharmaceuticals industries as key components of various formulations.Another trend driving adoption of oregano essential oil in the Eastern countries is the influx of European and Mediterranean cuisines that largely incorporate the use of oregano in various dishes. Moderate consumption of oregano essential oil has been observed across the Asia Pacific region in the last few years and this is likely to continue in the near future.Food and Cosmetics to be Largest End Users of Oregano Essential OilOregano oil is used as a natural preservative in the food and beverages industry, especially in the preservation of processed food. The natural antimicrobial and antioxidant properties of oregano make it an excellent natural agent for preserving processed food products particularly meat and meat based products. Essential oils are also largely used in pharmaceutical and cosmecutical formulations. Personal care products use bio-active oils in shampoos and body creams and lotions and this has led to an increase in demand for essential oils in this industry. Oregano is used as a prime ingredient in certain cosmecuticals, and this is driving global demand for oregano essential oil exponentially.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/16816 Multi-level Marketing to Remain Established Distribution Channel for Oregano Essential OilThe global oregano essential oil market structure is governed by the multi-level marketing (MLM) channel and market consolidation can be witnessed at the global level, with limited regional players constituting a fraction of the market. MLM companies hold about 40%-45% of the global market share and target the lucrative regions of Europe and North America, owing to high consumption levels across countries in these geographies.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 14:41:03

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Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353

Persistence Market Research (PMR) has published a new research report titled FoodService Packaging Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast 2017  2025. The report states that food service packaging is expected to witness an increment in it demand owing to the growing number of fast food chains across the globe and the inclination of consumers towards quick food services. An upsurge in the overall consumption of products across the globe has factored the price hikes on packaged goods. Diversity in demand for packaging solutions comes to play a key role for classifying the products on the basis of their function in protecting the goods and their appearance-enhancing attributes. The global packaging industry remains at the cusp of miscellany with a wide range of packaging formats congregated across multiple applications. Owing to this, the global food service packaging market is expected to witness a CAGR of 5.3% over the course of the forecast period.Concern over Hygiene and Consumer Convenience to be Core Driving Factors Influencing Market GrowthConsumers across the globe are gradually concerned about the hygiene related to the packaging of their food and are opting for food products that are convenient to carry. A large chunk of foodservice disposables are a one-time use and recyclable. As these products are mainly made of plastic and foam, they help reduce food contamination and also maintain food hygiene. Furthermore, these are most cost effective as compared to non-disposable foodservice products. The aforementioned properties are boosting the adoption of foodservice disposables by food service operators. Disposable foodservice products are lightweight and can hold both hot and cold beverages and food, which is further expected to fuel market growth.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/22354 Asia Pacific to Surge Ahead of all RegionsOwing to the growing number of food chains in the region, the demand for food service packaging is also expected to rise at a substantial rate. The growth of the market in the region can also be attributed to the growing disposable income of people in the region and also their inclination towards fast food services. The sedentary and hectic lifestyle of people in the region has also impacted their eating habits, thus impelling them to order food online or order a takeaway from restaurants. As a result, the demand for food service packaging has risen substantially and is expected to stay the same in the coming years.Companies Look Forward to Product Quality EnhancementThe companies operating in the market are focusing on product differentiation and quality enhancement in order to retain their consumer base. The run to make the products attractive and hygienic is impelling manufacturers to invest in structured R&D initiatives. Some of the companies operating in the global foodservice packaging market are Dart Container Corporation, Georgia-Pacific LLC, Anchor Packaging Inc., D&W Fine Pack LLC, Gold Plast SpA, Berry Global Group Inc., and DOpla S.p.A.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/22354
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Near-Patient Molecular Solutions Market is classified on the basis of technology, product type and end user" report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 13:40:47

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616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comManager+1-347-918-3531

Innovations in healthcare technologies, including smartphone apps, wearable devices, lab-on-a chip, biosensors all of which offer easy link to the patient quickly becoming part of the transformation of the healthcare landscape. The driving concept in support of point of care diagnostic is to bring testing closer to the patient and provide results appropriately and quickly. This is different technique than earlier used where all the tests were performed in the laboratory.Point of care testing has extensive application base that includes, oncology, hematology, endocrinology, prenatal testing and near patient testing in infectious disease management. Most substantial progress have taken place in the fields of oncology point of care molecular tests and infectious diseases.Rapid flu testing is a leading application for point of care platforms.Near-Patient Molecular SolutionsMarket: Drivers and RestraintsFactors, such as the increasing incidences of diseases such as cardiac diseases and diabetes in developing countries, increase in the usage of home-based point of care devices, and advancement in technology with demand for development of faster and easy to use devices are energizing the point of care diagnostic market. Rising demand for home healthcare facility and the increment in population of elderly patients with multiple chronic conditions is expected to drive point of care diagnostics market over the forecast period. In light of the many factors increasing the demand for point of care diagnosis, manufacturing companies are pushing the envelope to make point of care devices faster, easier, and more reliable. Shortage of skilled-staff, especially in the field of diagnostics, are expected to restrain the market growth for point of care diagnostic.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2098 Near-Patient Molecular SolutionsMarket: SegmentationThe global near patient molecular solution market is classified on the basis of technology, product type and end user.Based on technology, the global near patient molecular solution market is segmented into the following:PCR-basedGenetic sequencing basedHybridization-basedMicroarray-basedBased on product type, the global near patient molecular solution market is segmented into the following:Infectious diseases testing kitsCardio metabolic monitoring kitsPregnancy and fertilityCoagulation monitoring kitsHematology testing kitsUrinalysis testing kitsGlucose monitoring kitsDrugs-of-abuse testing kitsTesting kitsFecal occult testing kitsTumor/cancer markersCholesterol test stripsOther productsBased on end user, the global near patient molecular solution market is segmented into the following:HospitalsHomecareDiagnostic LaboratoriesResearch LaboratoriesNear-Patient Molecular SolutionsMarket: OverviewAlthough the market of near patient diagnostic is less, but it is expected to grow over forecast period according to new healthcare analysis. It has been observed that near patient molecular solutions have witnessed higher penetration in medical system market though they facilitate better antimicrobial treatment. Point of care products for diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis, malaria and other infectious diseases are supposed to achieve substantial growth in emerging markets. Manycompanies are developing molecular diagnostic platforms and assays that are designed to for near-patient. The initial focus of most of the medical devices companies is on infectious disease testing.Near-Patient Molecular SolutionsMarket: Regional OverviewRegion wise, the global near patient molecular solution market is classified into regions namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America dominated the global market for near patient molecular solution due to good reimbursement policies for diagnostic procedures and number of clinical studies investigating the efficiency. After North America this market is followed by Europe due to increase demand for near patient testing growth over. Asia Pacific region is expected to perceive a significantly faster growth over the forecast period due to a lower availability of hi-tech central laboratory testing facilities.Increasing number of local players providing near patient testing in countries such as China is expected to boost the market growth in APEJ region.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2098 Near-Patient Molecular SolutionsMarket: Key PlayersSome of the key players in the market of near patient molecular solution are Abbott Laboratories, Inc. Roche Diagnostics Limited, Siemens AG, Beckman Coulter, Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Johnson & Johnson, Alere Inc., PTS Diagnostics and Nova Biomedical. Other prominent player in near patient molecular solution market are Bayer Healthcare, BioMerieux, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Cepheid, Danaher Corporation.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Multicore Cables Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012  2016 and Opportunity Assessment; 2017  2027 "report to their offering Upcoming

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 10:57:08

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Multicore cable is a generic name for electrical cable. Multicore cables have many cores which are made of copper wire. The multicore cable is bundled together with a single wire and performs different functions includes power, data transmission and AV elements inside a single cable sheath. For instance, four main core wires is not a multicore cables, but a cable comprising with four coaxial cables in a single sheath is a multicore cables. The multicore cables are versatile and used for an industrial and commercial purpose. The multicore cables provide analog and digital signals. The multicore cables are fire proof, reliable, durable, resistant to chemicals, functional efficient is optimum and gives high performance. The multicore cables are heavily featured with cable jacketing to protect the cable from damage and helps in negate the effect of electromagnetic interference. Moreover, it contributes to reducing the overall weight of the cable. Nowadays, multicore optical fiber cables are used mostly because of sending data from one place to other and data can be transferred faster with minimum interference and best audio signal transmission.Global Multicore Cables: Market Dynamics:The demand for multicore cable is driven by its varied uses in automotive and construction industry. The multicore cables are easy to handle and use and highly flexible and installed quickly. The multicore cables are used for different radio and electrical purposes and help to transmit data from one point to another. Increase in demand for multicore cables, owing to high investment in infrastructure leads to drive the multicore market in the near future. Moreover, the chances of loss in data are very less and move current faster. Further, multicore cables. Further, the rise in the development of infrastructure in developing regions such Asia Pacific leads to increase demand for multicore cables. However the continuous developments and up gradation of the manufacturing company of multicore cable to extend the life which can be a restraint to multicore cable market.For Requesting a Sample Copy of This Report, Please Visit @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3906 Global Multicore Cables: Regional Outlook:The global multicore cables market is segmented into seven regions includes North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Japan, and Asia Pacific excluding Japan, and The Middle East and Africa. Among all regions, Asia Pacific region is contributing majorly to the growth of multicore cables market followed by Latin America. Moreover, Asia Pacific excluding Japan is the dominating market for multicore cables as the infrastructure is increasing in developing countries like China and India. Japan is also contributing the multicore cable market. North America has a significant market share in the global multicore market owing to its boom in the automotive market. The Middle East and Africa is at emerging stage in the multicore cable market and is expected to increase in CAGR in the anticipated period.Detailed TOC of Research Report Available @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3906 Global Multicore Cables Market Players:The prominent players of the global multicore cables are: Relemac Technologies Pvt. Ltd Centurion Power Cables Pvt. Ltd. Bhuwal Cables Limited KCL Cable Limited Cabcon Technologies Pvt Ltd Hitex Plus Gem Cables Doha Cables Bambach wires and cables
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Multi-item patient monitor Market " report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 15:59:49

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comMANAGER3479183531

A patient monitor is a medical device that consists a processing component, monitoring sensors and a screen display which further measures and store a patients vital signs such as, blood pressure, body temperature, respiratory rate and pulse rate. Multi-item patient monitors are also capable of measuring the activity of different body organs and ensure higher level of quality patient care. Multi-item patient monitors are electronic and technological advancements use wireless and intelligent communication technology for monitoring the patients vitals. These monitors display waveforms and numerical data for the patient and are used for treatment and diagnosis in different healthcare facilities, majorly for post-acute care and chronic diseases. Multi-item patient monitors are not only used in healthcare facilities but also for home-based care. These devices are portable and easy-to-use and thus are extensively being used in home-care settings as well.Multi-item patient monitor Market: Drivers and Restraints-Multi-item patient monitors are consistently being improved in technology, especially for better algorithm-based monitoring. Remote patient monitoring has evolved over the years and thus, boosted the demand for multi-item patient monitors over time. Paradigm shift of multi-item patient monitors for use in hospitals to use in mobility services and ambulatory centers is expected to trigger the market growth for multi-item patient monitors during the forecast period. Several macro-economic factors like, increase in healthcare expenditure, improved healthcare infrastructure, and rise in disposable income are also expected to contribute to the market growth for multi-item patient monitors. Growing product penetration and popularity across regions might also drive the multi-item patient monitors market. However, high costs associated with these monitors and poor reimbursement policies for the device might hinder the market growth for multi-item patient monitors during the forecast period. These monitors also require maintenance and economic crisis in developing regions could also restraint the market growth for multi-item patient monitors over the forecast period.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-8489 Multi-item patient monitor Market: SegmentationOn the basis of acuity type, Multi-item patient monitor Market can be segmented as:High-acuity monitorsMRI-compatible monitorsCritical care monitorsPeri-operative monitorsMedium-acuity monitorsPost-anaesthesia care monitorsEmergency care monitorsLow-acuity monitorsVital Sign monitorsAmbulatory monitorsOn the basis of application, Multi-item patient monitor Market can be segmented as:NeurologyCardiologyRespiratoryFetal & NeonatalRemote MonitoringWeight MonitoringTemperature MonitoringOn the basis of end user, Multi-item patient monitor Market can be segmented as:HospitalsAmbulatory Care CentersClinicsDiagnostic LaboratoriesHome-care SettingsOn the basis of geography, Multi-item patient monitor Market can be segmented as:North- AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding China & JapanChinaJapanMiddle East and AfricaLatin AmericaMulti-item patient monitor Market: OverviewGlobal Multi-item patient monitor market has witnessed growth due to increasing number of private healthcare facilities, globally. Multi-item patient monitor are being extensively used for emergency and post-acute care. Increase in adoption of portable multi-item patient monitors is also responsible for expansion of the multi-item patient monitors market. Wireless technology for several monitors have gained U.S. FDA clearance and are being installed in various hospital settings around the globe. Improved technologies involve mobile augmented reality and wireless sensor network to remotely measure heart rate and body temperature in real time for patient care. Multi-item patient monitors have gained popularity for home-based care, owing it to the easy-to operate feature of these monitors. Portable multi-item patient monitors have increased the demand of these monitors for emergency, critical and other ambulatory services.Multi-item patient monitor Market: Region-wise OutlookGeography wise, Multi-item patient monitor market is divided into eight regions viz. North-America, Asia- Pacific excluding China & Japan, China, Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Middle-East & Africa. North Americas Multi-item patient monitor market is expanding because of high product penetration and it will remain dominant during the forecast period because of growing number of intensive care facilities and improved healthcare infrastructure. Southeast Asia is facing an increase in the trend for these monitors owing it to the use of multi-item patient monitors via Wi-Fi and other networks. Europes Multi-item patient monitor market is also expected to grow at a significant rate due to constant technological advancements in multi-item patient monitors and increase in number of private hospitals.Multi-item patient monitor Market: Key Market ParticipantsSome of the market participants in the Global Multi-item patient monitor market identified across the value chain include: GE Healthcare, Mindray, NIHON KOHDEN CORPORATION, Koninklijke Philips N.V., OSI Systems, Inc, Microchip Technology Inc., Hipac Healthcare Pty Ltd, Arjo, Schiller, Heyer Medical AG, SUNRAY MEDICAL APPARATUS CO.LTD , TENKO MEDICAL, Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA and Fukuda DenshiRequest to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-8489
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 06:17:52

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Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Manager13479183531

The mobile payment is an integrated system linked by various components of value chain which typically includes the merchant, the consumer, the financial institution involved and not to forget the payment gateway and the telecom network.In terms of revenue, the global mobile payment transaction market revenues valued at US$ 549,917.7 Mn in 2015 will possibly reach US$ 2,849,231.4 Mn in the year 2020.Mobile payment transaction volume will grow by a massive 41.7% during the forecast period 2015-2020. In terms of volume, the global mobile payment transaction market volume was 18,969.8 million transactions in the year 2015 and this is projected to increase by 106,001.5 million transactions by the year 2020.Persistence Market Research forecasts the global mobile payment transaction market to register a CAGR of 39.1% through 2020 and reach US$ 2.89 trillion in revenues.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12937 Market dynamicsEven though there will be tremendous growth in mobile payment transactions market, there are many challenges that are obstructing the growth of this market. A major challenge is the slow adoption of smartphone compatible POS systems by the retailers. If taken at face value, a 41.7% volume growth looks amazing, but there is something to be concerned about. One of the major concerns is that apart from few countries, consumers havent fully accepted the concept of mobile payments, even though the facility is much more secure. However, given the inherent nature of the product, it wouldnt be long before consumers all over the world use the facilities provided by mobile payments, as per the research report of Persistence Market Research.Market forecastBy technology, SMS and WAP/WEB will continue to account for most of the transactions conducted worldwide. Mobile payments conducted through SMS will witness a robust CAGR of 24.5% over the forecast period. In the year 2015, the revenue from the SMS segment was US$ 238,884.3 Mn and this is going to be at the value of US$ 678,117.1 Mn by 2020 end.Mobile payments conducted through WAP/WEB will witness a CAGR of 48.0% during the forecast period. In the year 2015, the revenue from the WAP/WEB segment was US$ 164,386.1 Mn and this is going to be valued at US$ 1,725,209.6 at the end of the forecast period in the year 2020.Money transfer and merchandise purchases account for over 90% revenue share of the global mobile payment transaction market on the basis of end-use purpose. Mobile payments made for merchandise purchases will be worth US$ 323.73 Bn in 2016, up from US$ 228.32 Bn in 2015. Money transfer, the largest end-use purpose in the mobile payment transaction market, will grow by over 38% to surpass US$ 381 Bn in revenues.The market for mobile payments will continue to be robust in APEJ and Africa, as majority of people there dont own a credit card, in contrast of the situation in Europe and United States. So, consumers in APEJ and Africa are making a direct shift from using cash to using mobile payments. Growth in the mobile payments market will be particularly strong in China. This is due to the entry of major market players like Apple and Samsung in the Chinese market, making the competition more fierce and interesting.Due to a strong showing in China, the market for mobile payment will continue to grow in the Asia Pacific region and this region will be the leading market in the world in terms of volume. However, in terms of value, it is Africa that will maintain its number one position in the mobile payment transaction market. This is due to the spectacular success of M-Pesa in Kenya and this has influenced consumers and businesses in other regions of Africa to adopt the technology of mobile payments. This has boosted the market of mobile payment transaction market in Africa. Currently, Africa has nearly 32% revenue share of the global mobile payment market, and boasts of a subscriber base of over 100 million. Other than Asia Pacific and Africa, Western Europe and United States are other lucrative regions for mobile payment transaction market the world over.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/12937 Competitive landscapeLeading players operating in the global mobile payment transaction market are PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, Google Wallet, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Alipay.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:02:08

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The global demand for advanced sensor technology has been on a steady rise over the last few years, owing to a growing need for biopharmaceuticals brought about by a rising prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Increased demand for biopharmaceuticals has necessitated the manufacturing of sensor products and this is likely to positively impact revenue growth of the global measurement technology in downstream processing market. Future Market Insights presents a comprehensive forecast of the global market for measurement technology in downstream processing in a new report titled Measurement Technology in Downstream Processing Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012  2016) & Opportunity Assessment (2017  2027). Besides a historical market valuation for the period 2012 to 2016 and detailed revenue projections for the period 2017 to 2027, the report also provides useful information on the key market dynamics  growth drivers, revenue inhibitors, current and predicted market trends, as well as opportunities for manufacturers  with an objective to provide the report audience with pertinent qualitative and quantitative insights on the market.According to the forecast presented in the report, valuation of the global measurement technology in downstream processing market is anticipated to increase from an estimated US$ 3,772.4 Mn in 2017 to about US$ 6,827.9 Mn by the end of the forecast period in 2027. This reflects a CAGR of 6.1% in terms of value during the period of study.Sensors Dominant Product Type in the Global Measurement Technology in Downstream Processing MarketThe global measurement technology in downstream processing market is segmented on the basis of product type into Sensors, Transmitters and Controllers, Sensor Housings, Cables and Connectors, and Buffers and Standard Reagents. Sensors are the widely adopted product type with an increased market share throughout the forecast period. Conductivity sensors and cell density sensors are two of the fastest growing sensor types. In 2017, the market volume of the sensors segment was pegged at 4,165.4 (000 units) and this is expected to increase to 8,094.9 (000 units) by 2027 end.Request to View a Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5922 Single Use to Remain the Most Preferred Modality in the Global Measurement Technology in Downstream Processing MarketOn the basis of modality, the global market is segmented into Single Use and Reusable. The single use segment is the fastest growing modality type with a CAGR of 6.9%.Biopharmaceutical Companies the Fastest Growing End Users of Measurement Technology in Downstream ProcessingThe global market for measurement technology in downstream processing is segmented based on end user into Biopharmaceutical Companies, Food & Beverage Companies, Contract Manufacturing Organisations, Contract Research Organisations, Academic and Research Institutes, and Others. Biopharmaceutical companies are the largest end users of measurement technology in downstream processing, and this segment is slated to register a CAGR of 7.2% during the forecast period  the highest among all the end user segments of the global market. Food & beverage companies are the second largest end users of measurement technology in downstream processing, and this segment is expected to reach a market valuation of US$ 2,273.2 Mn by 2027 end.Western Europe Largest Regional Market for Measurement Technology in Downstream ProcessingThe report studies the performance of the global measurement technology in downstream processing market across the key geographies of North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. The Western Europe regional market is the largest in terms of revenue, with an estimated market valuation to the tune of US$ 2,677.1 Mn by the end of 2027. However, the Asia Pacific Excluding Japan measurement technology in downstream processing market is projected to witness the fastest growth rate of 8.3% between 2017 and 2027.Request to Browse Report Customization @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-5922 70% of the Global Measurement Technology in Downstream Processing Market Comprises Tier 3 PlayersThe report profiles some of the tier players operating in the global market such as Applikon Biotechnology, Inc., Broadley-James Corporation, Endress+Hauser AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Hamilton Company, Mettler-Toledo International, Inc., PendoTECH, PreSens Precision Sensing GmbH, and Sartorius AG. Just about 8% of the global market is represented by Tier 1 players.
Masterbatch Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 08:54:20

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Masterbatches are solid or liquid mixture of additive or pigments used for coloring or enhancing other properties of polymers such as UV stabilizing, flame retardation, antistatic and antilocking. Masterbatches can be used by several technological methods including injection, blow, spinning and others. Growing end user markets such as packaging, automobile and healthcare is boosting the demand of masterbatch market. Moreover, increasing demand of plastics from construction and luxury goods packaging industries are further driving the global masterbatch market. Among the end-user industries, packaging accounts for the largest share in global masterbatch market. Packaging industry uses all types of masterbatches, wherein color and white masterbatch are the most commonly used segments. Food and beverages manufacturers increasing interest in enhancement of packaging colors is escalating demands for the color masterbatches.The raw materials for masterbatch production include pigments, carrier, dispersant and some additives. Masterbatch market can be classified into four segments - additive, color, white and black. Additive masterbatche is the fastest growing segment which finds its application in customized plastic products in industries such as automotive, electronic appliances, textile, pharmaceutical packaging, and food and beverages packaging. Color masterbatche is used in the production of plastics for automobiles, electronic appliances, flexible packaging for food and beverages and medicine packaging. Black masterbatche is mainly used in construction, automotive and electronic appliance industries.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/2991 The demand for light weight vehicles is escalating globally due to European Unions concern for reduction in green house gases. Increasing the plastic content in vehicles reduces their weight and carbon emission, and also increases fuel efficiency. This is leading to replacement of metal parts in the vehicles by plastic components. This shows growth opportunities for the masterbatch market for the forecasted period (2014-2020). However, the rising oil prices and stringent environmental laws related to non-biodegradability of plastics are posing significant challenge to the growth of plastic industries which is in turn affecting the masterbatch market.Asia Pacific was the largest market for masterbatch in 2013 owing to high demand of plastics from construction and automobile industries. Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East are expected to witness high growth rates during the forecasted period.Masterbatch market in Europe and North America is consolidated, whereas the masterbatch market in Asia Pacific has a fragmented structure where china alone is a home to about 500 masterbatch manufacturers. Due to large number of mergers and acquisition taking place, rivalry in the masterbatch industry is expected to reduce during the forecasted period. The major companies operating in global masterbatch market include, A. Schulman Inc., Ampacet Corporation, Clariant International Ltd., PolyOne Corporation, GABRIEL-CHEMIE GROUP, Ferro Corporation and Americhem, Inc.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/2991
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Dimer Acid-Based (DAB) Polyamide Resins Market " report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:56:39

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comMANAGER3479183531

Dimer acids which are also known as dimerized fatty acids belong to the group of dicarboxylic acids. Dimer acids are viscous fluids that are transparent and non-toxic in nature. Dimer acids are manufactured by dimerizing unsaturated fatty acids that are obtained from oleic acid, canola oil, tallow, cottonseed, tall oil and rapeseed among others. Dimer acids are widely used to synthesize polyamide resins and hot melt adhesives. Dimer acid-based polyamide resins have varied properties which makes them either reactive or non-reactive in nature. Reactive polyamides are primarily used as curing agents for epoxy resins that are generally used in the manufacturing of adhesives and surface coatings. On the other hand, the non reactive polyamides are predominantly used in the manufacturing of printing inks and hot-melt adhesives. Dimer acid-based polyamide resins exhibit physical properties such as heat resistance, cold resistance, film flexibility, fast curing, oil resistance, excellent adhesion and good compatibility among others. Dimer acid-based polyamide resins are widely used as decorative coatings, fabrics, interlining, shoe stretch, fold plastic and Baotou glue.Get More Information @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/Dimer-acid-based-polyamide-resins-market Growing economies of developing countries coupled with rising disposable income has boosted the overall demand for residential properties which in turn is expected to augment the overall growth of construction industry. Construction industry is the major application of adhesives and surface coatings. Thus, the growing demand for adhesives and surface coatings from various end-use industries such as construction is expected to drive the overall dimer acid-based polyamide resins market. Dimer acid-based polyamide resins are also mainly consumed in the manufacturing of printing inks. Dimer acid-based polyamide resins exhibit improved freeze thaw characteristics to the printing ink compositions. Thus, the use of dimer acid-based polyamide resins plays a crucial role in improving the overall quality of the printing inks. Thus, growing demand for printing ink is expected to augment the overall growth of dimer acid-based polyamide resins market.China is the major consumer of dimer acid-based polyamide resins owing to the presence of huge demand for adhesives and surface coatings from construction and automobile applications. North America is expected to be the next largest consumer of dimer acid-based polyamide resins owing to the presence of huge demand for printing inks in the region. The demand for DAB polyamide resins is expected to grow rapidly in Europe owing to the huge demand for surface coatings from the automobile industry present in the region. Rest of Asia Pacific is anticipated to experience huge demand for dimer acid-based polyamide resins owing to the growing construction industry in countries such as India, Japan and Korea present in the region. Rest of the World is expected to exhibit sluggish growth in the demand for dimer acid-based polyamide resins market in the near future.Arizona Chemical, Anqing Hongyu Chemical Co., Ltd., The Dow Chemical Company, Jinan Tongfa Resin Co., Ltd. and RITEKS are some of the major participants of the dimer acid-based polyamide resins market. The companies are mainly focused towards achieving economies of scale. Hence, most of the leading players are striving towards increasing their production capacities for manufacturing dimer acid-based polyamide resins market. The companies are also hugely investing in research in order to develop innovative products having superior qualities.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-337
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 07:25:12

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# 863 Words

Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/Manager9898989898

Global UV Stabilized Films: Market Overview - UV stabilized films are generally made up of polyester material. The features of UV stabilized films include excellent dimensional stability over wide temperature ranges and high mechanical strength. UV stabilized films also offer high absorption of UV radiation and good weathering resistance. These films have UV blockers to minimize UV transmission in ultraviolet regions and high transmission in visible regions. UV stabilized films are designed to provide enhanced adhesion to solvent-based coatings, inks, and adhesives. UV stabilized films find application in photovoltaic end uses, where improved flatness, optical clarity, and high durability are required. Owing to their properties, UV stabilized films are used for thermal insulation, heat and glare reduction, security and safety, decoration, UV filtration, and branding. UV window films and industrial films are used to reduce UV transmission with enhanced adhesion. The growth of the global UV stabilized films market is largely driven by end-user industries such as automotive, construction, and marine.Global UV Stabilized Films Market: Dynamics - Increasing urbanization and the demand for UV stabilized films in zero energy buildings are estimated to drive the market. The growing demand from the automobile and construction industries are expected to fuel the growth of the UV stabilized films market, globally. Growing building and construction activities in the Asia Pacific and the Middle East area such as Dubai are accelerating the growth of the UV stabilized films market. Bio-based polyester UV stabilized films are used as window films, which can minimize the dependency on fossil resources and enhance carbon footprint, driving the market for UV stabilized films. Regulations regarding energy conservation and consumption, especially in the commercial building sector, are escalating the demand for UV stabilized films.Moreover, the increasing demand from coastal countries from the naval sector, combined with increasing trade activities across borders is expected to drive the marine industry, which, in turn, is expected to drive the market of UV stabilized films in the near future. Stringent environmental regulations in developed economies such as Germany and the U.S. to minimize carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with concerns regarding the conservation of energy, is anticipated to drive the demand for UV stabilized films over the forecast period.Request for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7445 Global UV Stabilized Films Market: Segmentation - On the basis of material, the global UV stabilized films can be segmented as follows: Plastic ( PET, PVC, PE, Others ), Metals; On the basis of product type, the global UV stabilized films can be segmented as follows: UV Window Film, UV Industrial Film, Others; On the basis of end use industries, the global UV stabilized films market can be segmented as follows: Automobiles, Building & Construction, Agriculture, Others;Geographically, the global UV stabilized films market can be segmented based on region such as North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, MEA, and APEJ & Japan. The Asia Pacific and MEA regions are anticipated to witness strong growth in the UV stabilized films market, owing to the surging construction and automotive industries. Lucrative commercial environment in emerging economies such as China, India, and Southeast Asia, and the reduced labor costs are accelerating the market of UV stabilized films in the Asia Pacific region. Countries such as Germany, Italy, and France in Europe are investing in residential and construction projects, which is increasing the demand for UV stabilized films.Global UV Stabilized Films Market: Key Players - Some of the key players in the UV stabilized films market are: DuPont Teijin Films Inc., Tintfit Window Films Ltd., Llumar Window Films, Johnson Window Films, Vista Windows Films, Pleotint LLC., 3M Company, Easter Industries Inc., Polypex GmbH; Many local and unrecognized players are expected to contribute to the global UV stabilized films market during forecast periodGlobal UV Stabilized Films Market: Key Developments - Some of the key developments in the UV stabilized films market are as follows: DuPonts Teijin Films expands the transmittance cut-off to around 375 nm of UV stabilized films, while enabling the PET film to retain mechanical and optical properties after accelerated UV aging. In 2017, Eastman Performance Films, LLC. Becomes the 'National Dealer of the Year' for window film excellence.Global UV Stabilized Films Market: Regional Outlook - North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Middle East & Africa (MEA), Japan;The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative assessment by industry analysts, and inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators, and governing factors, along with market attractiveness as per segment. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Report Highlights: A detailed overview of parent market, Changing market dynamics in the industry, In-depth market segmentation, Historical, current, and projected market size regarding volume and value, Recent industry trends and developments, Competitive landscape, Strategies for key players and products offered, Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth, A neutral perspective on market performance, Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintGet more information on UV Stabilized Films Market @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7445
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Magnetic Materials Market to Witness Widespread Expansion During 2017- 2027" report to their offering

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:44:06

Magnetic material are objects that can be magnetized or naturally hold magnetic properties. According to the ease of magnetization, magnetic materials can be classified into hard and soft. Hard magnetic materials retain their magnetism even in the absence of an applied magnetic field. Hard magnetic materials are difficult to magnetize and demagnetize. On the other hand, soft magnetic materials can be easily magnetized and demagnetized. They lose their magnetism when an external magnetic field is removed.Demand for effective utilization of electricity and faster transmission of data, and decreasing size of technological devices have provided an impetus to the magnetic material market.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-466 Magnetic Materials Market: Drivers & RestraintsEnvironmental concerns, government support & incentives, increasing demand from end use industries, such as demand in automotive industry for electric vehicles, demand in medical devices for body scanners and others are the driving factors for the growth of the magnetic material market. Additionally, rapid industrialization, specifically in emerging economies and demand for alternative power sources, such as water turbine and wind mill are also driving the demand for magnetic material market. However, the variation in the price of raw material can be a restraining factor in the growth of the magnetic material market.Magnetic Materials Market: SegmentationOn the basis of types, the global magnetic material can be broadly segmented into soft magnetic material and hard or permanent magnet. In 2014, permanent magnet accounted for more than fifty percent of market share of the global magnetic materials market in terms of volume.On the basis of application, the global magnetic material market has largest applications in automotive, industrial and electronics segment. The automotive segment is projected to have the highest growth rate during the forecast period.Magnetic Materials Market: Region-wise OutlookIn terms of region, Asia Pacific is anticipated to have an attractive growth for magnetic material market as various multinational companies shifting their manufacturing set-ups to this region. China has the highest automobile production rate according to the 2014 automobile production rate of OICA which, in turn, is a factor behind the growing demand of magnetic material market. China and India are projected to be the dominant countries for the global magnetic material market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-466 Magnetic Materials Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players for magnetic material market are Arnold Magnetic Technologies, Hitachi Metals Ltd., Molycorp Inc., Electron Energy Corporation, Lynas Corporation Ltd., Tengam Engineering Inc. and many others.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 07:22:47

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Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/Manager9898989898

Global Mister Cap: Market Overview - The mister cap is also known as finger sprayer or pump. Mister cap finds application in various cosmetic products such as perfumes, moisturizers, mist sprayers, essential oils etc. These caps are generally made up of polypropylene & polyethylene plastics. Generally mister caps are used where minimum amount of product is required. Mister caps are available in variety of sizes & colors as per the demands. Various end use industries such as pharmaceutical, automobile, food & beverage need mister cap for the packaging of car spray paints, medicines, cleaning products and many other products. The demand for cosmetics and pharmaceutical drugs has been increasing at a healthy rate and as an impact of this, the mister cap market is also expected to record an increase in demand in the forecast period.Global Mister Cap Market: Dynamics - Increasing use of sophisticated closure products in packaging of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals are driving the market of mister caps globally. With the modernization and increasing focus on beauty enhancement products, the demand for cosmetics such as mist, essential oils, perfumes, air fresheners are increasing which in turn is accelerating the demand of mister caps in the market. In recent years, growing demand for spray paints in the paint industry is one of the key factor in driving the market of mister cap. As well as growing pharmaceutical & automobile industries act as a driver. Mister caps provides cost effective sealing solution. With the market changing dynamically, company requirements are also varying. Manufacturers are looking for products that can offer longer shelf life. With growing e-commerce industry, it is essential to design packaging to survive the transport and sustain its integrity in various environmental conditions. Mister caps provides obstruction for dirt, oxygen and moisture and keeps the product fresh & secure from undesired opening this is reason that mister caps are preferred over its substitutes.However, the mister cap industry is dependent on polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, which are used as raw materials, have significantly fluctuating costs in the market. Also, stringent regulations regarding the plastic quality can affect the mister cap market. Also, regulations result in surplus costs, as there is a need for testing to meet the standards. These factors are disturbing the overall cost for companies, thus restraining the growth of the mister caps market. Eco friendly and recycled mister caps can serve as opportunities for the manufacturers in the market.Request for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7443 Global Mister Cap Market: Segmentation - On the basis of material, global mister cap can be segmented as: Metal, Plastic, Polypropylene, Polyethylene, Polyvinyl chloride, Others; On the basis of application, global mister cap can be segmented as: Room Freshener, Medical Bottle, Perfumes & deodorants, Aroma bottles, Hair care products, Spray paints, Others;On the basis of end use, global mister cap can be segmented as: Pharmaceutical Industry, Personal & Home Care Industry, Automotive Industry, Food & Beverage Industry, Others;Geographically, the global mister cap market can be segmented based on the region like North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, MEA, APEJ & Japan. Asia Pacific and MEA. MEA region is expected to grow highest in terms of CAGR, as the Saudi Arabia is leading in caps & closure market followed by UAE. Asia Pacific & North America region have significant market share in the mister cap market followed by Europe.Global Mister Cap Market: Key Players - Some of the global key players in the mister cap market are as follows: Global Closure Systems, Plastics Caps and Closures, Lindal Group, Weener Plastics Group B.V, Coster Tecnologie Speciali S.p.A., Berry Global, Pluritrade S.r.l., Paneuropean S.A.; Many local and unrecognized players are expected to contribute to the global mister cap market during forecast periodGlobal Mister Cap Market: Key Developments - Some of the key developments in the mister cap market are as follows: In 2017, Coster Group has introduced mister caps is fitted with a newly developed and visible tamper tag on the rear side of the finger pad. Weener Plastics' has launched new twist-lock mister cap for new Nivea deodorant packaging in 2018.Global Mister Cap Market: Regional Outlook - North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Middle East & Africa (MEA), Japan;The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Report Highlights - A detailed overview of parent market, Changing market dynamics in the industry, In-depth market segmentation, Historical, current, and projected market size regarding volume and value, Recent industry trends and developments, Competitive landscape, Strategies for key players and products offered, Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growthGet more information on Mister Cap Market @
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Linear Actuators Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012  2016 and Opportunity Assessment; 2017  2027 " report to their offering Upcoming

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Linear actuators assist in converting energy into straight line motions, generally for positioning applications. Most of the linear actuators are either mechanical or electro-mechanical devices that provide controlled movement and positioning. These actuators are primarily used in industrial machinery, computer peripherals, valves, and many other places where linear motion is required. A typical linear actuator generally produces push and pull action. As most processes across a variegated range of industries gets automated, the global linear actuators market is expected to expand with an impressive CAGR throughout the forecast period.Linear Actuators Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe major factors boosting the growth of linear actuators market is rising automation across manufacturing industry. Industrial objectives such as achieving complete factory automation, and integrating Industrial Internet of Things are some of the prime reasons that will drive more demand for linear actuators. While, rising industrialization particularly in the third world countries is another factor that will drive the demand in the global linear actuators market, on the backdrop of increasing number of factories. As the number of research studies conducted increases, demand for telescopic actuators is expected to increase significantly. Also as companies overcome their legacy systems to achieve higher efficiency, and replace existing actuators with new ones, demand for linear actuators is expected to rise. Furthermore, as an increasing number of industrial process adopt self-control and positioning demand in the linear actuators market is expected to continuously rise.For Requesting a Sample Copy of This Report, Please Visit @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3778 However, as concerns regarding employment rises among most countries on the backdrop of increasing automation in factories, demand for linear actuators might get sluggish over the end years of the forecast period. Adoption of 3D printing in many industries is another factor that will restrain the demand for linear actuators, as usage of machines will decrease.Linear ActuatorsMarket: Market SegmentationThe Linear Actuators Market is segmented into two parts based on operation type and end use industry:Based on operation mechanism, the linear actuator market is segmented into: Mechanical Hydraulic Pneumatic Piezoelectric Electro-mechanical actuatorsBased on End Use Industry, the linear actuator market is segmented into: Automotive Medical/Healthcare Energy and Mining, Steel Construction Military Chemical OthersLinear Actuators Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, linear actuators market has been categorized into seven key regions including North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, APEJ, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa.A prominent share of the demand for linear actuators comes from North America, and the region is expected to maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. Furthermore, with more inclination towards shifting manufacturing in US from China and other ASEAN countries, demand for linear actuators will further rise in the region. Asia Pacific Exc. Japan is another prominent shareholder in terms of demand for linear actuators, amid, large manufacturing sector of China. Moreover, with India and Indonesia picking up at a fast pace, demand for linear actuators is expected to expand with a bullish growth rate over the forecast period. Being home to large automotive and research base companies, Western Europe is another prominent region generating huge demand for linear actuators. Eastern Europe is also expected to generate descent demand for linear actuators, particularly from energy and defense sector. Rising industrialization and the already dominant oil and gas industry of Middle East and Africa is the prime reason driving automation in the Middle Eastern region. Thus driving more demand for linear actuators. Japan is another prominent industrial nation, which drives demand for linear actuators, due to high automation penetration in their industries coupled with growing semiconductor industry of the region.Detailed TOC of Research Report Available @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3778 Linear Actuators Market: Key PlayersSome of the players identified in Global Linear Actuators market are:- Duff-Norton Helix Linear Technologies, Inc. Altra Industrial Motion Tolomatic, Inc. Fabco-Air, Inc. Actuonix Motion Devices Tusk Direct, Inc. Bishop-Wisecarver Corporation BEI Kimco Magnetics Burr Engineering & Development Company Del-Tron Precision, Inc. Rollon India Pvt. Ltd.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 13:46:16

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 18, 2019 / LED Medical Diagnostics Inc. ("LED" or the "Company") (TSX-V: LMD) is pleased to announce that Mr. Alexander Ryzhikov has been appointed to the board of directors of LED.Mr . Ryzhikov, who holds a Chartered Financial Analyst designation, currently serves as Partner at Ewing Morris & Co., an independent Canadian boutique investment firm. Prior to joining Ewing Morris in 2014, Mr. Ryzhikov worked as an Investment Analyst at Burgundy Asset Management, where he was part of the U.S. large cap team. Mr. Ryzhikov graduated with distinction from Concordia University in 2011 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting and a Minor in Finance. He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology and Immunology from McGill University. Following the recent convertible preferred share placement, Ewing Morris & Co. Investment Partners Ltd. has become a significant investor in LED Medical."I welcome Alex to our Board and look forward to his contributions to LED's business," commented Dr. David Gane, CEO of LED Medical Diagnostics.About LED Medical DiagnosticsLED Medical Diagnostics Inc. is a dental imaging technology provider focused on delivering state-of-the-art imaging software and systems. Through its wholly-owned subsidiaries LED Dental Inc., LED Dental Ltd., and Apteryx, Inc., LED Medical provides dentists and oral health specialists with advanced diagnostic imaging devices and software. LED's proprietary technologies include the VELscope Vx Enhanced Oral Assessment and TUXEDO Intraoral Sensors, in addition to Apteryx's XrayVision, XVWeb and XrayVision DCV imaging software solutions.Backed by an experienced leadership team and dedicated to a higher level of service and support, LED is committed to providing dental practitioners with the best technology available by identifying and adding leading products to its growing portfolio. The Company is currently listed on the TSXV under the symbol LMD, the OTCQB under the symbol LEDIF, as well as the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol LME.Media Contact:LED DentalChris KochPhone: 678.293.9413Email:Corporate Contact:LED MedicalDavid Gane, CEOPhone: 604.434.4614 ext 227Email:Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacySOURCE: LED Medical Diagnostics Inc.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 06:24:00

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The worldwide market for geosynthetics is believed to be for the most part fueled by the gigantic undertakings embraced by a few national governments with the end goal to improve civic amenities. The utilization of geosynthetics has expanded hugely in the transportation industry as well as is probably going to develop over the approaching years. Geosynthetics give steadiness and solidarity to the underlying soil in the railroad in addition to roadway tracks. The requirement for geosynthetics is probably going to develop for industrial waste, harmful waste and secure dumping of normal waste. Geosynthetics are utilized in different applications, for example, mining, waste management as well as erosion control among others. The significant prospects for geosynthetics are from emerged and rising nations where environmental and huge infrastructure projects are undertaken. Notwithstanding, unpredictable raw material costs might impede the development of the market as the majority of these materials are downstream results of petrochemicals.Geosynthetics industry utilization incorporates construction, costal engineering, environmental and civil applications because of properties, for example, erosion control, soil reinforcement, filtration, and separation. The product is relied upon to foresee increasing requirement in waste water treatment and landfills as a result of developing awareness with respect to environmental protection.Request For Report Sample: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upsample/120124766/Geosynthetics-Market Geosynthetics were significantly utilized in pavements and roads, representing more than 30% of worldwide volume during 2014. Expanding geotechnical materials utilized for encouraging the procedure of soil compression in street development is relied upon to fuel the business development throughout the following years. Control and waste water are relied upon to foresee the quickest development over the years. Expanding geosynthetic usage in load draining procedure amid mining for leak detection and liquid containment is required to have a good effect.During January 2012, the U.S. established MDE (Maryland Department of the Environment) reported new directions for sediment and erosion control. Furthermore, EPA has reported approaches expected for controlling sedimentation as well as soil erosion. Strict regulatings in the U.S. implied for curbing soil disintegration at the residential level are probably going to grow application of geosynthetics over the approaching years.On the basis of demand, the Asia Pacific regional market was considered as the foremost leading and lucrative region for geosynthetics. The requirement is immense as a result of huge investments in the projects related to waste management and civil transportation. Positive mining business outlook in Chile, South Africa, Australia as well as China is anticipated to privilege the market expansion. China is considered to be the most lucrative and attractive regional market for geosynthetics in the Asia Pacific region. Nations, for instance, Malaysia, South Korea, and India are considered to expand their market as a result of large infrastructure projects. The North America regional market is believed to for the APAC market in worldwide geosynthetics market. On the other hand, the European nations had lesser market attractiveness in contrast to North America and the Asia Pacific nevertheless; the circumstances are believed to vary as a result of rising figure of waste management projects.Request For Report TOC: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/TOC/120124766/Geosynthetics-Market A few of the foremost market participants in the worldwide geosynthetics market are GSE Environmental, Propex Global, Low & Bonar PLC, Agru America, and FiberWeb PLC amid others. During May 2014, the GSE Environmental Inc introduced a fresh production facility in Suzhou, China. This production facility has a yearly manufacturing capacity of 20,000 metric tons of GSE product contributions. The growth of manufacturing capability in Asia Pacific regional market in addition to latest product developments are believed to stay put critical success aspect for the producers over the years to come.Report Analysis: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upcomming/120124766/Geosynthetics-Market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 14:05:10

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Implantable defibrillator is a small battery powered device that is placed in the chest of a patient which monitors the heart of the patient. Implantable defibrillator device consists of thin wires that connect the defibrillator to the heart of the patient, and continuously monitors the patients heart rate. If there is any abnormality in the patients heartbeat, the implantable defibrillator sends electrical impulse to restore the normal heart rhythm. Implantable defibrillators are useful in saving patients lives with known history of ventricular tachycardia and arrhythmias. Implantable defibrillator consists of a pulse generator which is a battery powered electronic circuit, and one or more electrode leads which are placed into the patient heart through a vein. The implantable defibrillator works on three principles, pacing, cardioversion, and defibrillation. During pacing, a small electrical discharge is released in cases of mild abruptions in the heart rhythm, while the cardioversion principle works when a more serious problem arises. Defibrillation principle is the strongest form of electrical impulse to restore normal heartbeat. The implantable defibrillators are used in treating sudden cardiac arrest caused due to ventricular fibrillation, cardiac arrhythmias, especially in cases of pulseless ventricular tachycardia. Any person with a history of a ventricular arrhythmia, heart attack, sudden cardiac arrest, or congenital heart disease, may need an implantable defibrillator. New and more advanced version of Implantable Defibrillator are launched in the global market, which are just placed beneath the skin outside the ribcage, and do not contain any electrodes that are attached to the heart.Implantable Defibrillator Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe global market for Implantable Defibrillator is expected to be driven by the increasing incidences of cardiovascular diseases, increasing geriatric population around the world, changing lifestyle, increased smoking, rising prevalence of strokes, and increasing technological advancements in the medical devices industry. According to Centers of Disease Control (CDC), around 735,000 Americans have a heart attack every year. Of these 525,000 have a heart attack for the first time, while 210,000 have a second incidence of heart attacks. According to Heart Foundation, in 2013 heart diseases were responsible for around 43,602 deaths in Australia. In the U.K., stroke occurs every 150,000 times a year, and there were an estimated 1.2 Mn stroke survivors in the U.K. In 2014, according to Stroke association of U.K., these factors have resulted in increased demand for implantable defibrillators around the world. Increasing incidences and awareness of cardiovascular diseases in the Asia Pacific region, is expected to drive the growth of the market during the forecast period.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2225 Implantable Defibrillator Market: SegmentationThe global Implantable Defibrillator market is classified on the basis of product type, procedure type, end user, and geography.Based on product type, the global Implantable Defibrillator market is segmented into the following:Single ChamberedImplantable DefibrillatorsDual Chambered Implantable DefibrillatorsBiventricular Implantable DefibrillatorsBased on procedure type, the global Implantable Defibrillator market is segmented into the following:Trans-Venous Implantable DefibrillatorsSubcutaneous Implantable DefibrillatorsBased on end user, the global Implantable Defibrillator market is segmented into the following:HospitalsSpecialty ClinicsAmbulatory Surgical CentersImplantable Defibrillator Market: OverviewSingle chambered implantable defibrillators segment is expected to dominate the global implantable defibrillator market in terms of value during the forecast period owing to factors such as cost effectiveness, easy to use, and technological advances in the Implantable defibrillator devices. Based on end user segmentation, hospitals is expected to dominate the global implantable defibrillators market in terms of value, due to increasing cardiac surgeries, improving hospital infrastructure and increased adoption of sophisticated and advanced technologies by hospitals.Implantable Defibrillator Market: Regional OverviewRegion wise, the global Implantable Defibrillator market is classified into regions namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, Middle East and Africa (MEA). North America dominated the global market for implantable defibrillators in terms of value and volume, due to availability of reimbursement policies for surgical procedures, and increased demand for implantable defibrillators. Increasing incidences of cardiovascular diseases owing to changing lifestyle and increasing geriatric population in the APEJ region is expected to boost the market growth in APEJ region.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2225 Implantable Defibrillator Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in global Implantable Defibrillator market include Boston Scientific Corporation, LivaNova PLC Company, MicroPort Scientific Corporation, Mayo Clinic US, Imricor Medical Systems, Inc., Medtronic plc, MRI Interventions, Inc., and St. Jude Medical, Inc.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 10:57:34

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Hop Extracts is a brewing component used commonly in making beer for commercial and personal purposes. In the year 2000, a journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry listed hops as anti-oxidant. Later in 2005, Journal of Molecular Nutrition listed Hops as Anti-Infective. Due to its properties, Hops became a critical ingredient in beer production and achieved a significant role in the same. In 1405, Hops was first legalized in Flanders (currently Belgium) which witnessed high growth in production since then. In 1516, REINHEITSGEBOT (German Beer Purity Law) passed a bill in Bavaria State of Germany which requires only water, barley malt, hops, and yeast may be used for crafting beer. This is one of the oldest law still applied globally. Almost all the countries have a market for Hop and Hop Extracts. During the time, many unique Hop Extracts are developed in order to satisfy the taste buds of people and their preferences. Hops are used to give flavor, aroma, color and taste to a beer when mixed in appropriate proportions during the brewing process. While many factors create overall beer flavors, hops will have the biggest impact on how beer is perceived. Hop Extracts market is strong in Americas and Europe because a large portion of the population consumes beer which is driving the Hop Extracts market. While a large population of APEJ and MEA still dont drink alcoholic beverages which have restricted the Hop Extracts market in these regions. However, countries like India, have shown significant growth in beer consumption; India is the most growing beer market in the world is likely to become next home of many international Hop Extracts producers in next 5 to 10 years. Although, India doesnt produce Hops which create a great opportunity for companies to start producing hops in the country. Apart from India, China and Hong Kong are also one of the most growing markets of Hop Extracts in APEJ region due to their historical relation with beer. Hop Extracts market is expected to witness an escalating demand among the consumers because of its significant use and increasing presence of beer, ale and other beverages throughout the globe.Hop Extracts: Market DynamicsGrowing demand for beer and ale is driving the Hop Extracts market globally. Consumers all around the world are getting attracted towards Hop Extracts because of its ease and low production costs which is driving the market. Hop extracts save time and energy while producing beer. Hops are generally added in Wort in order to give bittering, aroma and flavour to beer. Countries like China, India, and Hong Kong, are the future markets for alcoholic beverage and thus a promising market for Hop Extracts. Perception towards alcoholic beverage in the Middle East and APEJ is changing, and with the rise of per capita income, people changed their way of living and shifted towards beer from fruit juices. Hop Extracts serves best for the purpose of brewing when one needs to save time which wont be possible without Hop Extracts. Hence, Hop Extracts market is expected to grow during the forecast period due to its versatile benefits.However, Hop Extracts comes along with some restraints. Hop Extracts cannot be easily found in developing markets. Most of the people have no knowledge of Hop Extracts in most of the countries which is a big restraint for this market because of limited advertisement. People also fears of dangers such as change in alcoholic content, conversion of liquid to poison or acid and others that they perceive in using Hop extracts instead of pellets or hop fruit.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/13060 Hop Extracts market has an opportunity to expand in APEJ and MEA region. In the past decade, hundreds of Hop Extracts players entered China because of decent Hop production in the country and all of them are doing great. There is a need to increase the presence throughout the region.Hop Extracts: Market SegmentationHop Extracts market can be segmented on the basis of types, which include: Oil, Pellets, AromaHop Extracts market can be segmented on the basis of Hop variety, which include:, Cascade, Nugget, Willamette, Citra, Crystal, Cluster, Centennial, Others (Chinook, Columbus, Mosaic, etc.)Hop Extracts market can be segmented on the basis of Applications, which include: Brewing, Herbal Treatment, PharmaceuticalHop Extracts: Segment OutlookHop Extracts market can be segmented on the basis of type which includes oil, pellets and aroma. Hop Oil is the most commonly used ingredient in beer. Hop Extracts market can be segmented on the basis of Hop variety which includes Cascade, Nugget, Willamette, Citra, Crystal, Cluster, Centennial and Others (Chinook, Columbus, Mosaic, etc.). Hop Extracts market can also be segmented on the basis of types of applications which includes brewing, herbal treatment and pharmaceutical.Hop Extracts: Regional OutlookRegional coverage for Hop Extracts market includes North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). Hop Extracts market witnesses a high demand in North America and Europe because of the high consumption of beers in the region. However, the Hop Extracts market is expected to grow significantly in APEJ region as consumers have widely adopting beer and ale.Hop Extracts: Market PlayersThe market players in Hop Extracts market are Hopsteiner, BSG, Northern Brewers, The Malt Miller, MoreBeer, Charles faram and many more.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/13060
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Homecare Medical Devices Market Explores New Growth Opportunities By 2016 - 2026" report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 13:45:52

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Home care medical devices are intended for use in any environment outside a professional healthcare facility. The user could be a patient, caregiver, or family member who directly uses the homecare medical device or provides assistance in using the homecare medical device. A qualified healthcare professional is a licensed or non-licensed healthcare professional with proficient skills and expertise in the use of the homecare medical device such that they can aid or train care recipients and caregivers to use and maintain the device. The homecare medical equipment market consists primarily of wheelchairs, scooters, oxygen treatment equipment, accessibility beds, lifts, and toilets, which have until recently been sold primarily through distributers. As patients move to the use of home care services for recovery or long-term care, the homecare medical devices are necessary for their care. As a result, complex medical devices are used more frequently in the home, many times under unsuitable conditions. This in turn has adverse implications on the safety and effective operation of these homecare medical devices, especially those with sophisticated requirements for proper operation or maintenance.Homecare Medical Devices Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe geriatric population are dependent on assistance for mobility. Wheelchair technology is evolving to provide people with disabilities an ease in mobility. Mobility of these people with disabilities depends on wheelchair which solves the purpose to greater extent. Power and manual wheelchairs are used by people depending on their requirements. Many issues impact the choice of a wheelchair, for instance, some patients look for cost effective devices and reimbursement availability. Medical scooters is a fast growing segment in the global homecare medical devices market owing to its feature of mobility for the aging population and their performance in an outdoor environment. A major driver of the global homecare medical equipment is the growing incidence of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and other respiratory conditions wherein oxygen is able to improve the quality of life significantly. Portable devices have become affordable and support a mobile lifestyle even while on oxygen. Stationary oxygen concentrators are needed for night use by patients on portable oxygen concentrators during the day. The impact of direct sales through the Internet has brought about distribution channel consolidation, leading to a decrease in the number of distributers in the global homecare equipment market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2170 Homecare Medical Devices Market: SegmentationThe homecare medical devices market is classified on the basis of product type, distribution channels and geography.Based on product type, the global homecare medical devices market is segmented into the following:WheelchairsScootersOxygen treatment equipmentAccessibility bedsLiftsToiletsOthersBased on distribution channel, the global homecare medical devices market is segmented into the following:Direct Distribution ChannelOnline SalesHomecare Medical Devices Market: OverviewAccording to American Association for Homecare more than 8 Mn Americans depend on durable medical equipment and services at home to treat conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, spinal cord injuries, lung disease such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure, sleep apnea, and diabetes. Fueled by the rising number of elderly people and technological advancements, the global homecare market has experienced significant growth over the past decade. A pivotal factor in the growth of this market has been the increasing healthcare cost, which have shifted the focus of healthcare from hospitals to home. Initiatives taken by governments to support home healthcare further propels the market. However, limited insurance coverage for home healthcare devices and risk to the safety of patients and home care workers are the major deterrents curbing the growth of the market.Homecare Medical Devices Market: Regional OverviewRegion wise, the homecare medical devices market is classified into regions namely, North America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, Japan, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Middle East and Africa (MEA). North America is the largest market for homecare medical devices, followed by Western Europe attributed to the increasing old age population in these regions. Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) and Japan are growing at significant growth rate which is followed by Middle East & Africa.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2170 Homecare Medical Devices Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in global homecare medical devices market include AirSep, SeQual, Drive Medical, Graham Field, Inogen, Invacare, Meyra, Nordic / Handicare / Permobil, O2Concepts Oxlife, Philips Respironics, Pride, Sunrise Medica, Teijin and TiLite.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:10:38

Future Market Insights presents a new report titled Hepatitis B Diagnostic Tests Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012  2016 and Opportunity Assessment 2017  2027 that studies the performance of the global hepatitis B diagnostic tests market over a 10 year assessment period from 2017 to 2027. The report presents the value forecasts of the global hepatitis B diagnostic tests market and provides pertinent insights into the factors driving market growth as well as the factors restricting market growth. As per the figures provided by Future Market Insights, the global hepatitis B diagnostic tests market was estimated to be valued at nearly US$ 650 Mn in 2017 and is likely to reach a valuation of nearly US$ 1,200 Mn in 2027 and in the process exhibit a CAGR of 6.3% during the period of forecast 2017-2027.Request to View a Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1332 High Prevalence of Hepatitis B in the APEJ Region Boosting Global Market Revenue GrowthThe prevalence of hepatitis B is highest in the APEJ region and the disease burden caused by chronic cases of hepatitis B is enormous. APEJ region has more number of chronic hepatitis B patients than any other region in the world and is thus a potential market for hepatitis B test kit manufacturers. As per the data provided by WHO, China accounts for one-third of all chronic hepatitis B infections. In addition, 6.2% of the adult population in the Western Pacific region is infected with hepatitis B. In the South-East Asia region, an estimated 2% of the general population is infected with hepatitis B. According to Hepatitis Australia, approximately 225,000 people are living with chronic hepatitis B in the country. As per the data provided by WHO, in India, the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen is 3%-4.2% with over 40 million hepatitis B carriers. Due to such high prevalence of hepatitis B in the APEJ region, the market for hepatitis B diagnostic tests has a huge potential in the region.Global Hepatitis B Diagnostic Tests Market: Segmentation and ForecastThe global hepatitis B diagnostic tests market is segmented on the basis of product type, end user and region.On the basis of product type, the enzyme immunoassay kits segment was estimated to be valued at nearly US$ 590 Mn in the year 2017 and is likely to reach a valuation of nearly US$ 1,100 Mn in 2027, accounting for a CAGR of 6.2% during the assessment period 2017-2027.On the basis of end user, the hospitals segment was estimated to be valued at nearly US$ 250 Mn in 2017 and is estimated to reach a valuation of nearly US$ 460 Mn in 2027, registering a CAGR of 6.1% during the period of assessment.On the basis of region, the APEJ hepatitis B diagnostic tests market was estimated to be valued at nearly US$ 200 Mn in 2017 and is likely to reach a valuation of nearly US$ 380 Mn in 2027, accounting for a CAGR of 7.2% during the period of forecast.Request to Browse Report Customization @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-1332 Global Hepatitis B Diagnostic Tests Market: Competitive LandscapeThis report features some of the important players functioning in the global hepatitis B diagnostic tests market such as bioMerieux SA, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., DiaSorin S.p.A., Abbott Laboratories, Meridian Bioscience, Inc., Vista Diagnostics International, Biogate Laboratories Ltd., J.Mitra & Co. Ltd., Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. and General Biologicals Corporation.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 07:46:22

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Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/Manager9898989898

Labelling holds immense significance in the healthcare industry and laboratories, owing to the crucial information contained by the industry components ensuring the safety of their usage and alerts about the associated risks. A new research report recently published by Future Market Insights has come up with the key insights on the global healthcare and laboratory labels market. According to the exhaustive research report, titled Healthcare & Laboratory Labels Market Global Industry Analysis 2013-2017 and Opportunity Assessment 2018-2028, the market is expected to progress steadily at the rate of 4.6% during the forecast period, reaching a market value of over US$ 8,300 Mn by the end of 2028.Global Healthcare and Laboratory Labels Market: Segmental AnalysisThe report divides the global market for healthcare and laboratory labels into the materials used for labeling of healthcare and laboratory labels. Paper is revealed to be the leading segment which is expected to reach a market value of over US$ 5,100 Mn by the end of 2028. However, the future of the global healthcare and laboratory labels market also holds fastest growth rate for polyester in the upcoming years, which is anticipated to register a CAGR of 5.0% during the forecast period.Request to Sample of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6624 The report also projects a clear and in-depth scenario of the market in different regions. According to the regional analysis, North America is expected to account for the highest value by the end of 2028. However, in terms of growth rate, India is expected to showcase growth at the fastest pace, registering a stellar CAGR of 7.3% during the forecast period.Global Healthcare and Laboratory Labels Market: TrendsThe report provides in-depth assessment of the key trends observed in the global healthcare and laboratory labels market, which are most likely to influence the market growth throughout the forecast period. The rising need for advanced pharmaceutical products for improved healthcare services has led to the development of new drugs and formulations, boosting the clinical research market in Europe. This trend is anticipated to create sustainable market opportunity for pharmaceutical labels, primarily due to the dominant presence of pharmaceutical manufacturers in the European and Asia Pacific region.Request to Report Methodology @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-6624 Such dynamic trends of global healthcare and laboratory labels market are also expected to bring barcoding into limelight. Barcoding with cryogenic vials is expected to come into existence with growing importance of products that are easily visible and identifiable. Barcode labels include printed characteristics on either side of the cryogenic vials that enhances readability to consumers. Cryogenic vial barcode scanning eliminates issues caused while identifying the stored content and eliminates duplicity of the sample as well.The market trends mentioned in the report have also highlighted the companies that are efficient enough to rule the market in the projection period. Some of the leading companies mentioned in the report are Multi-Color Corporation, UPM Raflatac, BRADY Germany, Diagramm Halbach GmbH & Co. KG, Schreiner Group GmbH & Co., The Aenova Group, Weber Packaging Solutions, and Adampak Private Limited.Get full report now @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/6624
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 18:33:11

Research Report Insights (RRI) delivers key insights on the global hand tools market in its latest report titled Hand Tools Market by 2027. The long-term outlook on the global hand tools market remains positive, with market value expected to increase at a CAGR of 3.9% by 2027. Among application, the household & DIY segment is expected to expand at a significant CAGR in terms of value over the forecast period. Among product type, the metal cutting tools segment is anticipated to witness higher CAGR in terms of value over the forecast period. Global sales offhand tools is estimated to be valued at US$ 15,642.8 Mn by the end of 2017, witnessing a Y-o-Y growth of 3.9% over the year 2016. North America is estimated to account for a value share of 33.3% in the global hand tools market by 2017 end and it is anticipated to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period.Hand Tools has been identified as one of the most profitable and consistently performing industry despite being low profile. Use of hand tools is largely affected by the demographic conditions with majority of consumers utilizing hand tools for several DIY (do it yourself) and remodeling activities. On the other hand, in industries use of hand tools has been largely characterized by companies looking for state of art technology to produce high quality products. To respond to the needs of industries, producers are aggressively focusing towards product innovation to satisfy the needs of different customers. One of the several areas of product innovation where companies are primarily focusing is ergonomic design of hand tools to make it more precise and comfortable to operate. Industrial expansion worldwide is primarily driving the demand for hand tools since adoption of hand tools for several maintenance purpose is continuously increasing. Further, emerging demand of hand tools from automotive repair and maintenance industry has also witnessed the growth of high precision hand tools.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114717/Cosmetic-Ingredients-Market However, the global hand tools market is expected to face certain challenges. Consumer shifting preference towards power tools mainly due to fast and easy operating feature is primarily restricting the growth of the market. Moreover, raw material price rise is also identified as the challenge for the companies to maintain price quality ratio of hand tools primarily during shifting trend toward adoption of power tools. The segment is anticipated to account for a market value of more than US$ 9,000 Mn in 2017 and is anticipated to be valued in excess of US$ 12 Bn by 2027 end, expanding at a CAGR of 3.9% during the projected period.Segmentation analysisOn the basis of product type, the general purpose tools segment is anticipated to continue to dominate the market in terms of value over the forecast periodOn the basis of application, the industrial segment is anticipated to dominate the market in terms of value. This segment accounted for 59.9% value share in 2015On the basis of sales channel, the online sales segment is expected to be the most attractive in terms of CAGR index. The growth of this segment is due to rising penetration of e-commerce and increasing demand for cross border products among consumers.In terms of sales channel, retail segment is expected to dominate the market throughout the forecast period. Mass merchant retailers selling product at price below industry average in order to drive their sales is primarily fuelling the growth of this segment.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114717/Cosmetic-Ingredients-Market Regional analysisNorth America and Western Europe are estimated to collectively account for 63.8% value share in the global hand tools market by the end of 2017. The North America hand tools market is expected to remain dominant over the forecast period. Although power tools are continuously replacing hand tools in North America and Western Europe, increasing product innovations and companies aggressive expenditure in R & D is expected to propel the growth of the market. Mexico is expected to hold dominant revenue share in the Latin America hand tools market over the forecast period. This is primarily due to higher per capita consumption of hand tools. Sales of hand tools in APEJ is expected to increase to US$ 3,916.8 Mn by 2027 end from US$ 2,186.0 in 2017.Vendor insightsThe report highlights and presents the market value share of some of the top companies operating in the global hand tools market such as Stanley Black Decker, Apex Tools Group, Snap-On, Klein Tools, Akbar Tools Ltd., Wera Tools, Channellock, Inc., JK Files (India) Limited and Kennametal Inc.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114717/Cosmetic-Ingredients-Market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 14:41:07

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Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353

According to a recent Persistence Market Research report, the global microalgae market is set to record an average expansion between the forecast period 2017 and 2026. Over US$ 75 Mn revenues are estimated to be procured from sales of microalgae across the globe.Future Prospects of Microalgae to Remain Positive with its Robust Adoption in Agri-foodMain products obtained from microalgae, dried algae in particular, are nutrient-rich and engulf high-value compounds that include pigments, fatty acids, and anti-oxidants. Economic opportunities for nutrients derived from microalgae have been deemed to be comparatively smaller than those derived from other commodity crops. However, future prospects of microalgae-derived nutrients are anticipated to be positive, provided with scientific & technological developments coupled with robust adoption of microalgae in the global market for agri-food. On the other hand, challenges such as complex regulations pertaining to incorporation of microalgae in food, low consumer awareness, and climatic conditions are likely to constrain adoption of microalgae in the foreseeable future.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/22360 Cost of microalgae persists to be high compared to oil crops or woody biomass, which can be mainly attributed to cultivation energy consumption. Several researchers across the globe have therefore been examining and exploring cultivation practices adopted for microalgae with an aim of curtailing operation costs and energy consumption. Research activities at national and international level have resulted into the development of new strategies and technologies that are contributing well to cost-reduction and pushing the microalgae sector toward the industrial development at a global level.Hypermarket to Remain Dominant Sales Channel for MicroalgaeHypermarket/supermarket will continue to be the dominant sales channel for microalgae, with revenues projected to hold more than 45% market share during 2017 to 2026. However, sales of microalgae in this sales channel segment will register a relatively slower expansion, owing to robust sales growth in retail stores and online stores through 2026. Retail stores and online stores will collectively account for over half market revenue share by 2026-end.On the basis of application, food and feed industry will continue to spearhead the global market for microalgae, in terms of revenues. Pharmaceutical industry will also prevail as a major revenue contributing application segment in the market. Between chemical industry and cosmetics industry, the former will hold a slightly greater market revenue share, whereas latter will exhibit a comparatively faster expansion through 2026.Spirulina and Chlorella to Remain Leading Product Type SegmentsBased on product type, spirulina and chlorella are expected to lead the global microalgae market during the forecast period, in terms of revenues. These two product segments are likely to account for over 80% market revenue share throughout the forecast period. Dunaliella salina will prevail as the least lucrative product in the market.The market for microalgae will witness the fastest expansion in North America through 2026. In terms of revenues, North America will endure as the largest market for microalgae, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ). Revenues from microalgae sales in Europe and APEJ will record a modest increase through 2026.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/22360 Microalgae harvesting entails several technical limitations for new market entrants in terms of investment cost and energy demand, which in turn has necessitated the development of affordable and efficient technologies. With growing emphasis on reducing operation costs & energy consumption and help small and medium-sized enterprises to capitalize on untapped markets for expanding their businesses, cost-effective technologies are being integrated with SME microalgae extraction and harvesting systems. Key companies that are actively contributing to growth of the global microalgae market include Taau Australia Pty Ltd., Algae.Tec Limited, Fuqing King Dnarmsa Spirulina Co. Ltd, Cellana, LLC, E.I.D.- Parry (India) Limited, TerraVia Holdings, Inc., DIC Corporation, and Cyanotech Corporation.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 14:24:59

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Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353

The presence of established players, such as Barilla G. e R. Fratelli S.p.A, Campbell Soup Co., Arcor U.S.A. Inc., Mondelez International Inc., United Biscuits Ltd., Nestle SA, PepsiCo Inc., Britannia Industries Ltd., M. Dias Branco SA, and Kellogg Co., points towards a highly fragmented and competitive business landscape in the global cookies market, states a new research report by Persistence Market Research (PMR). Due to the intensive rivalry between the leading players, the degree of competition within this market is significantly high and the scenario is likely to remain so over the forthcoming years, thanks to innovations, cookie vendors are making in terms of flavor, ingredients, and packaging, notes the research study.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/18610 According to the research report, the global market for cookies is projected to expand at a CAGR of 5.80% over the period from 2017 to 2022 and increase to US$38 bn by the end of the period of the forecast. Currently, chocolate cookies are witnessing the most prominent demand among consumers, especially the younger ones. Researchers at PMR predict this trend to continue in the years to come, thanks to the augmenting popularity of chocolates across the world, and result into the rise of the chocolate cookies segment at a CAGR of more than 6% between 2017 and 2022. North America and APEJ have surfaced as the prime regional markets for cookies. With the extensively widening consumer base, both the regional markets are likely to retain their spots over the next few years, reports the research study.Innovation in Products to Drive Markets GrowthPrimarily, the worldwide market for cookies is driven by the continual introduction of novel and innovative products in the global marketplace. The taste, flavor, shape, nutrients, and packaging are the main areas of innovation among cookie vendors across the world. The increasing urbanization and the rise in disposable income of consumers across the world are also important factors behind the growth of this market.Over the forthcoming years, the market is expected to benefit from the advent of healthy cookies, which means cooking made up with oatmeal. The augmenting concerns over the adverse effect of cookies, which is high in carbohydrate, on health and fitness and the rising awareness about the advantages of oatmeal are projected to stimulate this market in the years to come, states the research report.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/18610 Demand for Bar Cookies to Remain HighAmong the type of cookies, bar cookies acquire the leading position. Analysts expect the bar cookie segment to maintain its dominance over the next few years thanks to the high demand for bar cookies in North America and Asia Pacific excluding Japan. The APEJ and North America bar cookie markets, collectively, are likely to surpass US$2 bn in revenues by the end of the forecast period.
Global Biological Drugs Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 14:16:05

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Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comAssociate Consultant800-961-0353

According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research Global Market Study on Biological Drugs: North America to Witness Highest Growth By 2020, the global biological drugs market was valued at US$ 161,056.5 Mn in 2014 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.1% from 2014 to 2020, to reach US$ 287,139.7 Mn by 2020.Biological drugs are typically derived from living cells and are used in the prevention and treatment of various diseases such as cancer, blood disorders, auto-immune diseases, and other medical disorders. Biological drugs have more complex structures compared to that of conventional drugs.Globally, the biological drugs market is witnessing significant growth due to the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases and growing geriatric population. In addition, health and awareness initiatives by various government associations are also supporting the growth of the biological drugs market. However, high costs of biological drugs and patent expiry of blockbuster drugs impede the growth of the biological drugs market. Moreover, risks of adverse effects associated with biologic injectable drugs also inhibit the growth of the market.The global biological drugs market is anticipated to grow from an estimated US$ 161,056.5 Mn in 2014 to US$ 287,139.7 Mn by 2020 at a CAGR 10.1% during the forecast period.North America dominates the global biological drugs market. This is due to increasing use of biological drugs in the treatment of diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases in the region. In addition, several clinics in the region are focusing on biological drugs for the treatment of various diseases.The biological drugs market in Europe is growing due to increasing aging population in the region. For instance, according to a UN report, elderly people accounted for 23.2% of the total population in Germany in 2000, and the number is expected to reach 33.2% by 2025. Aging can lead to certain disorders such as age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma, which require effective biological drugs for their treatment.Low manufacturing costs in Asia are attracting biopharmaceutical companies to invest in the region, supporting the growth of the biological drugs market. Moreover, governments of some Asian countries are also supporting the growth of the biological drugs market by providing funds to life sciences research institutes and biotech companies for the construction of R&D and manufacturing facilities.Request to Sample Report @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/2997 Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc., and Merck & Co., Inc. are some of the leading players in the global biological drugs market. Other major players in the market include Abbott Laboratories, Baxter International Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Eli Lilly and Company, Biogen Idec, and Amgen Inc.
Research Report Insights (RRI), reveals that market for flexible glass in Asia Pacific is set to surge at a staggering CAGR of 36.5% between 2014 and 2020 to reach valuation in excess of US$ 600 Mn.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 19:05:58

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A recently published report by Research Report Insights (RRI), reveals that market for flexible glass in Asia Pacific is set to surge at a staggering CAGR of 36.5% between 2014 and 2020 to reach valuation in excess of US$ 600 Mn. Development of displays with higher flexibility threshold is expected to reflect favourably on the flexible glass market in the Asia Pacific in the forthcoming years. Moreover, the flexible glass is likely to find widespread application in 2.5D and 3D semiconductor packaging. In the near future, flexible glass may emerge as a more cost-effective and better alternative for silicon interposer. Developers are also viewing the use of flexible glass in manufacturing flexible OLED display and may potentially replace plastic substrates.Request for Report Sample: https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/sample/230126-Flexible-Glass-Market On the basis of application, the market for flexible glass in Asia Pacific is primarily segmented into solar PV (photovoltaic) and display. Among these two, the display application segment currently hold account for the dominant share of the market. In 2013, this segment is was valued at over US$ 74 Mn, and is estimated to stand at a market valuation of over US$ 417 Mn by end for 2020, expanding at a robust pace. In addition, the arrival of Roll2Roll process is expected to further drive the demand for flexible glass, especially in solar PV manufacturing.This, in turn, in boosting the growth of solar PV application and making it the fastest growing segment during the assessment period. The display application segment is sub-divided into curved TV, wearables, tablets, smartphones and displays mounted on buildings. Among these, the smartphones & tablets segment is projected to lead, accounting for more than 50% revenue share of the market by the end of the forecast period. Meanwhile, the curved TV segment is projected to reflect a robust CAGR of 37.1% during the same period. This is primarily attributed to emergence of new market players that are accelerating the demand for flexible glass in manufacturing of curved TV.Request for Report Discount: https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/discount/230126-Flexible-Glass-Market On the basis of countries, the market for flexible glass in Asia Pacific is segmented into South Korea, China, Japan and others. Among these, Japan in currently the most attractive market for flexible glass, followed South Korea and China respectively. In addition, the Japan is anticipate to represent for more than one-fourth share of the market in the region by the end of 2020. Meanwhile, existence of the established smartphone & TV manufacturers coupled with increasing number of research and development centres is expected to boost the growth of the market in South Korea.Factors such as higher investments R&D programs, integration of flexibility threshold in display, introduction of Roll2Roll process for flexible PV is expected to play a significant role is driving the sales of flexible glass in Asia Pacific over the next couple of years.Report Analysis: https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/analysis/230126-Flexible-Glass-Market Some of the leading companies functioning in the market for flexible glass in the region include Nippon Electric Glass Company Ltd., Asahi Glass Co., Ltd., Schott AG and Corning Inc. The presence of prominent glass manufacturers makes the market highly competitive in the region.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Fine Chemicals Market Projected to be Resilient During 2015 - 2025" report to their offering

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:44:57

Fine chemicals, also referred to as specification chemicals, is a class of chemicals which is characterized by their low volume use and higher price as compared to that of commodity chemicals. These complex, pure chemicals are manufactured in limited quantities and according to exacting specifications for their intended application. Fine chemicals are produced in batches as against continuous production which is practiced for bulk chemicals. Moreover, manufacture of fine chemicals involves conversion of basic chemicals into complexes which serve as building blocks in a variety of applications across diverse industries such as agrochemicals, paints and coatings, electronics, pharmaceuticals among the others. Agrochemicals and active pharmaceutical ingredients are the most common chemicals covered under Fine chemicals. Fine chemicals differ from specialty chemicals in that, these fine chemicals are sold primarily on the basis of what these chemicals are as opposed to specialty chemicals which are sold on the basis of what those chemicals can do.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-504 Fine chemicals Market: Drivers & RestraintsGlobal fine chemicals market is expected to witness a steady growth during the forecast period, this growth of global fine chemicals market is expected to be driven by growth of the major end use industries. Pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals, being major consumers of fine chemicals, the growth in these industries is in turn expected to fuel the growth of global fine chemicals market during the forecast period. Moreover, growing demand from developing countries, especially those in Asia Pacific, is expected to result in growth of global fine chemicals market. A major trend witnessed in global fine chemicals market is that the companies producing fine chemicals are channelizing efforts towards development of efficient processes and newer products in order to gain a competitive advantage which eventually translates into a higher share in global fine chemicals market.Fine chemicals Market: SegmentationDepending on the end use application industries, global fine chemicals market can be segmented into following key segments:PharmaceuticalsAgrochemicalPolymer additivesFood and FeedElectronicsPerfumes and FragrancesOthersAmong the above mentioned end use industry based segments of global fine chemicals market, the pharmaceuticals segment accounts for the largest share in global fine chemicals market value. The pharmaceuticals segment is followed by agrochemicals segment in terms of share in the global fine chemicals market value.Fine chemicals Market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of geographical regions, the global fine chemicals market can be segmented into seven key segments, namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East & Africa. Among all region based segments of global fine chemicals market, Asia Pacific is expected to emerge as the fastest growing segment.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-504 Fine chemicals Market: Key PlayersSome of the identified major participants of the global fine chemicals market are as follows:LonzaSumitomo ChemicalsBASF SEBoehringer-IngelheimSigma-Aldrich CorporationChemada fine chemicals
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Ferro Aluminum Market " report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 10:23:58

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comMANAGER3479183531

Ferro aluminum is an alloy that belongs to the category of ferroalloys. Ferro aluminum is produced by combining iron with aluminum. The manufacturing process of ferro aluminum is highly energy intensive in nature. Ferro aluminum requires large amount of electricity during its manufacturing process. Ferro aluminum manufacturing process involves production of aluminum from synthetic cryolite or bauxite. The processed aluminum is then further transformed into aluminum oxide by using Bayers process through electrolysis. The resulting aluminum oxide is then mixed with iron oxide at extremely high temperature. Ferro aluminum is further purified to make it available in several grades. Though ferroalloy contains about65% of aluminum alloy, it exhibits the properties of about 40% alloy in terms of density. Pure ferro aluminum usually contains aluminum at the range of 30% and 75%. Ferro aluminum is usually supplied in granular, powder or in pieces of different sizes. Ferro aluminum is primarily used as a de-oxidation agent for steel manufacturing process. Ferro aluminum is also used for moulding applications in combination with carbon steel and carbon steel. Ferro aluminum is stable at room temperature however; it burns at extremely intense exothermic reactions.Applications of ferro aluminum differ with the aluminum content in the alloy. Ferro aluminum is widely used as a major deoxidizing agent. Ferro aluminum is also used to manufacture welding electrodes. Ferro aluminum is also used to manufacture cutting tools. Ferro aluminum being hard and tensile strength in nature is expected to boost the demand for ferro aluminum in the near future. Ferro aluminum is widely used in manufacturing railway tracks. Ferro aluminum is also used in manufacturing several automotive components. Thus, growing demand for automobile industry is expected to boost the overall growth of the ferro aluminum market. Ferro aluminum is also used in manufacturing various pyrotechnic initiators such as fireworks. Ferro aluminum is also used in major cutting tools industry. Thus, the growing demand for hard tools and equipments industry is expected to augment the overall growth of the ferro aluminum industry. However, the high operational cost coupled with stringent environmental regulations is expected to hamper the overall growth of the market. Ferro aluminum manufacturers are expected to comply with stringent carbon emission limits. In ability of many manufacturers to comply with these regulations has led to the shutdown of their manufacturing units of the small scale manufacturers.Read Report Overview @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/ferro-aluminum-market Ferro aluminum is widely produced and consumed in the China. Thus, the growing demand for ferro aluminum from various end-use and secondary process industry is expected to boost the demand in the in the near future. Easy availability of raw material coupled with cheap labor is expected to boost the overall demand as well as production of ferro aluminum market. Asia Pacific is the largest consumer of ferro aluminum. The demand for ferro aluminum is expected to grow rapidly in Europe owing to the presence of large automobile industry in the region. North America is expected to experience sluggish growth in the demand for ferro aluminum market.AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group, Tremond Metals Corp., Core Metals Group, Gulf Chemical and Metallurgical Corporation, Bear Metallurgical Company and Hickman, Williams & Companies are some of the major participants of ferro aluminum market. The companies are mainly focused towards increasing their production capacities in order to achieve economies of scale and thus, in turn achieve competitive advantage. The companies mainly strive to capture larger market share in the market. This research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data and statistically-supported and industry-validated market data and projections with a suitable set of assumptions and methodology. It provides analysis and information by categories such as market segments, regions, product types and distribution channels.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-365
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Factors influencing the global Specialty Silica market growth report to their offering Upcoming

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 11:09:55

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According to a market report published by Future Market Insights on Global Specialty Silica market in its latest report titled Specialty Silica Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012  2016 and Opportunity Assessment, 2016  2026 The long-term outlook on the global Specialty Silica market remains a sound one, with market value of specialty silica expected to increase at a CAGR of 6.9% during the forecast period (2016  2026) embarking upon a market size around 10 Bn in 2026.Speciality silica predominantly consists of silica (SiO2) and is produced in the coarse form of round pebbles and sawed or trimmed blocks or fine powder which is used as a key additive in formulation of several products and components fabricated in a wide range of end use industries such as automotive, electronics, inks, coatings, personal care products and others.The Specialty Silica market has been analysed on the basis of product type and application. Among the product type, the precipitated type of specialty silica has been found to contribute over 60% of the overall sales of specialty silica and is further expected to grow at a significant CAGR in terms of value over the forecast period by 2026. On the basis of application, currently the specialty silica mainly finds its use in fabrication of automotive tyres and other elastomeric products. Furthermore, the plastics segment is expected to be another high growth market for specialty silica during the forecast period, owing to its multitude of uses in product design enabled with superior performance characteristics.Request Sample Report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-577 In terms of the Specialty Silica market outlook and analysis by geographical regions, the Asia Pacific region has been identified as the leading segment in terms of current acquired specialty silica market value share and estimated growth in the future period which has been recorded above global average. The demand of specialty silica is considered to arise mainly from China contributing close to 60% of the global specialty silica market. North America, Japan and Europe are also considered to be the prominent regions of growth in the global specialty silica owing to established manufacturing base with automotive OEMs and ancillaries in particular. The other regions are expected to record moderate growth levels of respective markets of specialty silica in the forecast period.The specialty silica market is susceptible to volatile pricing of raw materials which in turn has also influenced the specialty silica manufacturers to adopt alternative value chain, sales process as well as production technologies of specialty silica reducing production overhead costs, optimizing trade margins and enabling profitability. The specialty silica market has also been governed by regulations based on HSE (Health, Safety and Environment) norms so as to produce specific grades/ forms of specialty silica fully complying with mandatory guidelines.Specialty Silica Market ParticipantsSome of the market participants identified in the Specialty Silica market are Evonik AG, Akzo Nobel N.V., Cabot Corporation, Wacker Chemie, PPG Industries, Ecolab Inc., and Qindao Makall Group. The market participants of specialty silica market have envisioned two key strategies to fortify their footprint in the target specialty silica market by two methods: 1. Consolidation of market footprint and 2. Vertical/ Horizontal Integration to streamline their business operations in a more efficient manner. The former type has been achieved through setting business in untapped specialty silica market through collaborative tie-ups with regional enterprise or increasing product portfolio of specialty silica, increased spending in research and development, strengthening of sales and distribution network; whereas the latter type has involved mergers and acquisitions of small business units. For e.g. Evonik AG expanded its production capacities of specialty silica at its sites in Thailand and Japan during 2013 and 2014 respectively. In another key development, PPG Industries in 2015, announced a partnership with Goodyear Tire & Rubber company for supply of its Agilon specialty performance silica to produced enhanced tyres to increase fuel efficiency of vehicles.Need more information about Report Methodology? @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-577
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Modular PLC Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012  2016 and Opportunity Assessment; 2017  2027" report to their offering Upcoming

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:48:34

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PLCs or Programmable Logic Controllers are generally the commercial or industrial computers used to operate automated systems. From traffic lights on streets to roller coasters at parks, PLCs are seen everywhere. To make PLC work, three major components are required, namely, the Central Processing Unit (CPU), the power supply and rack, and the I/O section. The two main categories of PLC are fixed and modular PLCs. Modular PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) is preferred over fixed PLC owing to its capability to execute complex processes. Furthermore, modular PLCs are also called rack-mounted units, consisting of bases for installation of various I/O modules, which are easier to repair. Capability to store more information, greater number of available I/O modules, designed to expand and customize processes for continuous development and greater economic security for long-term are some of the benefits, which are expected to be the factors for the market growth. Based on product type, micro modular PLC is expected to dominate the global modular PLC market.Modular PLC Market: DriversThe modular PLC has the ability to complete the process while the other errors are being fixed. Moreover, the ease of troubleshooting the downtime of the modular PLC is lesser than the fixed PLC. Due to the aforementioned factors, global modular PLC is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. Furthermore, growing home and building automation market is expected to fuel the demand for modular PLC in the near future. Additionally, increasing requirement of automation solutions is projected to upsurge the demand for modular PLC during the forecast period.For Requesting a Sample Copy of This Report, Please Visit @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3711 Modular PLC Market: RestraintsHigher initial cost as compared to fixed PLC is expected to be one of the factors hindering the growth of global modular PLC market over the forecast period. Furthermore, decrease in space efficiency, high cost of diagnostic labour during failure, need of enclosure due to low IP ratings and more spare stock, which increases maintenance cost are the other factors hampering the growth of global modular PLC market during the forecast period.Modular PLC Market: SegmentationThe global modular PLC market can be segmented on the basis of product type, program memory size, offerings and end-use industry mainly. On the basis of product type, the global modular PLC market can be segmented into micro modular PLC and nano modular PLC. On the basis of program memory size, the market can be segmented into small size PLC (max two I/O module), medium size PLC (less than 100 I/O modules) and large size PLC (more than 100 I/O modules). On the basis of offerings, the modular PLC market can be segmented into hardware, software and services. On the basis of end use industry, the market can be further segmented into automotive, food and beverage, cement industry, home & building automation, metal & mining, pharmaceutical industry and others.Modular PLC Market: Regional OutlookBased on regions, North America is expected to dominate the global modular PLC market. The increasing demand for modular PLC from food and beverage, power and waste water treatment industries is expected to drive the growth of modular PLC market in North America. Asia Pacific, led by China and India, is projected to witness high growth during the forecast period. Rapid industrialization coupled with increasing manufacturing units in this region are projected to fuel the demand for modular PLC. Latin America and Europe are expected to witness positive growth during the forecast period. Japan, being the matured and developed market, is expected to witness stagnant growth in modular PLC market during the forecast period. Owing to growing industrialization and commercialization in Middle East & Africa, the modular PLC market is expected to exhibit significant growth during the forecast period.Detailed TOC of Research Report Available @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3711 Modular PLC Market: Market ParticipantsSome of the examples of the prominent players identified in the global modular PLC market are as mentioned below: ABB Limited B&R Industrial Automation General Electric IDEC Corporation Mitsubishi Electric Company Omron Corporation Rockwell Automation Inc. Siemens AG Schneider Electric SE Robert Bosch GmbH
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Several developing nations like India and few African countries are pumping in millions into the healthcare sector. The healthcare markets spread across India, Middle-East and South-East Asia are skyrocketing. Several healthcare global giants are re-strategizing to foray into this massive emerging virgin markets spread in these regions of the world. As the healthcare industry globally is passing through a crucial juncture, and it is also complimenting the development of the medical equipment industry. According to a study, the average growth rate of the healthcare ancillary industry might touch almost 12 billion by 2021.This growth wave will thrust a considerable impact on different segments of healthcare which also includes exam Tables. The sale and growth of exam tables market are stringed with the expansion of the global healthcare market.The exam tables are mostly used mostly in the clinical environments and they are used for a plethora of examinations, such as normal health exams, gynecological treatments, to conduct pediatric examinations, dental and aesthetic examinations and much more. They are hugely procured by medical institutions, private practitioners, government and private healthcare joints, medical training facilities, spread across the world. The price of these tables depends on the quality. Some of the advanced exam tables makers are based in U.S.A. and other western markets of the world. Over the years they have created a strong export channel to penetrate into the developing markets of the globe. Though markets of Middle-East, Singapore, China, Afghanistan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Germany, Brazil and Chile are some of the prospective markets for these leaders of the healthcare markets. But local market players and price difference and thin budget in healthcare which is paralyzing the growth of healthcare in the developing nations of the world are blockading the upsurge of the exam tables market in these regions.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2203 Exam tables Market: DriversThe future markets of the exam tables are in accord with the growing markets of healthcare which is stretched along the length and breadth of south- East Asia, Middle-East and North Korea and several other developing nations. The healthcare segment is India is growing and the government is adopting some stern steps to revamp the entire healthcare skeleton of the country. The projected budget of the country for healthcare is close to a few billions and the market is growing at a rate of CAGR 17 percent. Thus it is creating a massive market for exam tables. A massive population of the developing nations is establishing a healthy contact with theaffordable healthcare framework which can further expedite the growth of the entire exam tables market in these markets. The financial institutions such as World Bank doled out massive funds in the recent past to develop the crumbled healthcare ecosystem of few countries of Europe and Central Asia. The healthcare infrastructure of war-torn countries like Afghanistan, Armenia, Bosnia, Iraq, Sri Lanka and even Syria are majorly refurnished by the World Bank and UN. The exam tables market have an extreme opportunity for growth in these markets and several new hospitals and medical hubs will pop up these areas in the recent future.The entire healthcare climate is passing through a massive storm of modernization. The modernization of healthcare infrastructure around the globe is creating a stable ground for the entire exam tables market.Exam tables Market: RestraintsThe exam tables market is reaping the benefits from the growth of the healthcare. But still the markets of the developing nations are growing at a snail pace and governments apathy towards healthcare industry and ambulance of cheap and substandard products are shattering the growth trail of the exam tables industry.Exam tables Market: Major RegionsThe market of the exam tables is large and it is kicking. The entire manufacturers and exporters of exam tables are based in US and Europe and also in India and China. The export market is dominated by some of the front runners of this marker based in U.S. Australia and U.K. The major importers are the third world and the developing nations of the world and some of the major healthcare markets spread across Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai and India.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2203 Exam tables Market: Major PlayersManufacturers and exporters of Exam Tables are mostly located in U.S. and U.K. and Australia. In U.S. DRE, ModoMed, Surgitech, Universe surgical equipment Co, in India, Janak Healthcare, Athlegen from Australia, ABCO Healthcare in Australia. Apart from these China is also populated with many Exam Tables manufacturers and exporters.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Estimated Growth Rates for the Global Electronics Industry  report to their offering Upcoming

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NMP or N-Methyl-2-Pyrrolidone is a hygroscopic, highly polar compound with great thermal and chemical stability. It is slowly oxidised by air and easily purified by fractional distillation. NMP is used for many applications, and is highly prevalent in the industry as it is biodegradable and recyclable. A new research report by Future Market Insights projects the market scenario of NMP for the years ahead. According to this comprehensive research report titled N-Methyl Pyrrolidone (NMP) Market: Global Industry Analysis 2013  2017 and Opportunity Assessment 2018  2028, the global NMP market is expected to reach a value of over US$ 1,200 Mn by the end of 2028, growing at a CAGR of 4.6% during the forecast period.N-Methyl-2-Pyrrolidone Market: SnapshotWith the rise in demand for NMP in the global market, many companies are adopting the strategy of innovating their product offerings. There are various companies moving strong in the market, and are forced to come up with innovative products in order to compete efficiently in the market. Innovation and sustainability initiatives are anticipated to be major factors responsible for competiveness. Consumers do not mind paying a premium for green chemistry and environmental preservation initiatives. This, along with more stringent regulatory constraints, may further increase the importance of innovation in this market. Regional expansion is another strategic move undertaken by top manufacturers to efficiently cater to consumer demands. Manufacturers are also expanding their production plants in different regions with improved capacity levels. These moves also serve as a driver for the global NMP market, boosting product supply and demand.Request Sample Report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/global-n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone-market Some of the key players in the market include companies such as LyondellBasell Industries Holdings, Ashland, Eastman Chemical Company, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Hefei TNJ Chemical Industry Co., Ltd, Shandong Qingyun Changxin Chemical Science-Tech Co., Ltd, Zhejiang Realsun Chemical Co., Ltd, Puyang,, Guangming Chemicals Co., Ltd, Abtonsmart Chemicals (Group) Co., Ltd, Balaji Amines, Binzhou Yuneng Chemical Co., Ltd, Binzhou City Zhanhua District Ruian Chemical Co., Ltd. All these companies play a crucial role in influencing the dynamics of the global NMP market.NMP Market Anticipated to Face Growth Restrictions in North America and Europe Due to New Regulatory FrameworkAccording to the market analysis for the years 2018-2028, China is expected to record the highest consumption of NMP in excess of 120,000 MT by the end of 2028. However, in terms of growth rate, the SEA & Pacific region is expected to witness good growth during the forecast period. North America also holds a lucrative position with a high market value estimated by the end of 2028.To know more about this market ? @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-625 The report also highlights the fact that the application of NMP in industrial cleaners and paints or coatings will decline exceptionally in Europe and North America, due to a stringent regulatory framework. In Europe, the use of NMP in consumer products is expected to decline owing to its entry in Annex VI of the CLP Regulation including Repr. 1B H360D with a specific concentration level (SCL) of 5% (current consumer product limit). If this is applied, it will confine the use of NMP in consumer applications to less than 0.3% and would thereby prohibit NMP from being used in such products as NMP would have no functionality at this level in the current consumer applications.Need more information about Report Methodology? @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-625
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An endoscopy is a minimally invasive medical procedure with the help of a tool used to observe the interior surfaces of the body. It is to diagnose, prevent and even treat complications pertaining to the internal organs of the body. It is cost effective, much less complicated than surgery and also leaves minimal if any scars in the body. An endoscope procedure kit mainly consists of a long tube, a camera and a light source at the tip that enables the physicians or medical practitioners to examine the area of interest. The procedure is and usually painless requiring minimum hospital stay. They make cause some discomfort but a quick recovery is expected for most patients undergoing an endoscopy. These factors contribute to their popularity and are also responsible for the endoscopy procedure kit market.Endoscope Procedure Kits market DriversA fast paced modern lifestyle has led to a variety of gastrointestinal disorders like Gastrointestinal Reflux Disease (GERD), Crohns disease, Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastroenteritis, dyspepsia, gallstones and also various forms of Cancer such as Colon Cancer. This affects not only the aged population, but also the young and upwardly mobile. Hence, it can be reasonably assumed to drive the endoscope procedure kit market demand for the foreseeable future. There is also a growing preference for minimally invasive non-surgical procedures with diagnostic and therapeutic application. An endoscopy does not require a patient to stay in the hospital for very long (if at all) which brings down the stress levels and associated costs of the treatment. Greater patient awareness and technological innovation are also primary reasons that the endoscope procedure kit market is growing exponentially. Another factor is the reimbursement option available for preventive screening techniques like various endoscopies. The American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy estimates the average Adenoma Detection Rate (ADR) to be around 25%. This also requires the use of endoscope procedure kit, further boosting growth. The U.S. FDA policies are also encouraging and support quick approval of these devices.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2219 Endoscope Procedure Kits market RestraintsThere are a few factors which restrain the endoscope procedure kit market from reaching its true potential, the availability of advanced alternatives being one of them. These devices are very costly and there are limited funds available with governments in developing countries to reimburse hospitals and medical practitioners for their sizeable investment in them. A lack of awareness on the part of the general public in these countries about the cost-benefit equation of such treatments is also something which must be mentioned.Endoscope Procedure Kits market Key RegionsThe main regions served by the endoscope procedure kit market are as follows  North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the rest of the world (Latin America, Middle East and Africa). North America is the largest market at present followed by Europe. This is mainly due to the availability of advanced healthcare facilities, an aging population, strong government support in the form of social security benefits and an educated and aware populace. Asia Pacific can be expected to rapidly catch up to the West in the medium to long term for demanding endoscope procedure kits because of greater investment in healthcare, rising prevalence of gastroenteritis disorders and lastly a growing awareness of such procedures.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2219 Endoscope Procedure Kits market Key Market PlayersThe endoscope procedure kit market key players include Ethicon, Inc. (U.S.), Olympus Corporation (Japan), Hoya Corporation (Japan), Given Imaging Ltd. (Israel), Minntech Corporation (U.S.) Fujifilm Holding Corporation (Japan), Advanced Sterilization Products Services Inc. (U.S.), Steris Corporation (U.S.), Boston Scientific Corporation (U.S.), Pentax Medical Corporation (Japan), Stryker Corporation (U.S.). KARL STORZ GmBH (Germany), Smith & Nephew plc (U.K.), Medtronic plc (Ireland), Richard Wolf GmBH (Germany), CONMED Corporation (U.S.), and Cook Medical Incorporated (U.S.).
Dysphagia Management Market

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Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comAssociate Consultant800-961-0353

Rapid improvement of healthcare services is ensuring a qualitative development of medical treatments for dysphagia. The number of outpatients seeking dysphagia management services is also expected to be on a rise globally. More patients are opting for OTC (over-the-counter) drugs over prescription-based medications, which will continue to be a key determinant for growth in demand for dysphagia management since such diseases can be cured orally, without a mandatory medical supervision.According to Persistence Market Researchs report, titled Dysphagia Management Market: Global Industry Analysis & Forecast, 2016-2024, by the end of 2024, the global dysphagia management revenues are likely to reach US$ 4,101.3 million value, a majority of which will be accounted by nutritional solutions products. The report also predicts that global sales of thickeners in nutritional solutions (as dysphagia management products) will net revenues worth over US$ 1,700 million during the forecast period.According to the report, over the forecast period, the global dysphagia management market will expand at a healthy CAGR of 6.2%. Growth in global demand for dysphagia management will be paralleled with improvement of medical services & facilities in the global healthcare sector. Increasing presence of specialty clinics and retail pharmacies will further add to the distribution of dysphagia management drugs and treatment solutions.In terms of global revenues, however, hospital pharmacies will continue to lead the worldwide dysphagia management market by reaping more than US$ 1.5 billion by 2024. Although, growth of the global dysphagia management market is likely to be restrained by side-effects of products sold as dysphagia drugs & tubes. Additionally, losing out on market exclusivity is also a key challenge incurred during sales of dysphagia drugs as OTC medications.Request to Sample Report @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12988 Global Dysphagia Management Market: Regional AnalysisNorth Americas dysphagia management market is projected to grow substantially, owing to the surging incidences of strokes. Excessive addiction to smoking and binge-drinking is a major factor triggering occurrence of dysphagia-related disorders in North America. By 2024, nearly US$ 1,500 million revenues from sales of dysphagia management will be accrued in North America, among which, oropharangeal dysphagia indications will account for more than a billion dollars in revenues. Europe is also projected to be a key region, lucrative for the growth of dysphagia management market.In terms of global market share, Europes dysphagia management revenues will be contributing to about 27% of global revenues throughout the forecast period. Likewise, increasing production of pharmaceuticals in Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is also expected to favor the growth of dysphagia management in that region. By 2024-end, the APAC dysphagia management market will expand rampantly, registering the highest regional CAGR at 6.9%. On the other hand, Latin America and Middle East & Africa (MEA) regions are likely to incur nascent growth in terms of dysphagia management market value, over the projection period.Request Report TOC @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/12988 Global Dysphagia Management Market: Competitive LandscapeJapanese pharmaceuticals manufacturer, Eisai Co. Ltd. is globally recognized for specializing in production of drugs for treatment of peptic ulcers and dysphagia. The company is also projected to be developing its businesses in generics production, and will continue co-marketing medications developed by industry leaders such as Johnson & Johnson. North American drugmakers, C. R. Bard, Inc. and Cook Medical Inc., along with Louisiana-based Kent Precision Foods Group, Inc. are also leading players in the global dysphagia management market. Besides, Nutricia Advanced Medical Nutrition, Cipla Ltd., Nestle Health Science, and Astra Zeneca plc. are other leading companies profiled in the report.
Persistence Market Research has announced the addition of the  Defense Robotics Market to Record Sturdy Growth by 2021" report to their offering.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 11:36:28

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CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comteam lead800-961-0353

Most of the countries utilize the defense robotic system or are in the process of acquiring or building the technology to incorporate into military programs. These robots are used in form of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned group vehicles (UGVs) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). Unmanned group vehicles are robots that move on wheels or tracks and perform the function of sentry duties and examine the potential hostile location. Unmanned aerial vehicles are essentially remotely controlled or automated robots. The use of all these robotic system includes same purpose of replacing or supplementing human in battlefield situations. Deployment of autonomous or semi autonomous robotic system in the battle field helps in improving the military efficiency, operational performance and accuracy.Defense robotics has many advantages, the important one being performance similar to human being without danger of human casualties. Robots can endure damage done by bombs or other types of weapons that can destroy the human body. Another advantage includes various sizes of robots which enables them to fit into spaces that are not accessible for humans. Other advantages include transportation, drones and bomb disposal. The defense robotic system market across the globe is expected to show a substantial growth with a single digit increase in CAGR by the year 2019. The growth is due to the procurement of robotic vehicles for control, communication, simulation, training and other applications for military purposes.The market for defense robotics system is driven by factors such as desire to reduce the casualties in the field of operation and reduce the military spending. Development in the field of computer programming, sensing technology and material science help to create more advanced tools. Some of the factors restraining the market growth include reduced spending on defense system due to weak economic conditions, and high cost required in manufacturing of robots. Technological availability is enabling diverse applications of robots besides improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the system. Applications such as border patrolling are creating an increasing demand for UAVs and UGVs in countries such as Israel, South Korea, China and United States.Request for Report Sample : https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/5087 The segmentation of defense robotics market can be done on the basis of product type, application and geography. On the basis of product type, the market for defense robotics can be segmented as unmanned group vehicles (UGVs), unmanned underwater vehicle (UUVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). On the basis of applications, the market can be segmented as simulation, control command and security, training and others. Global defense robotics market can also be segmented based on geographical markets as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the world. North America is the most technological advanced region in defense robotic system and Asia Pacific represents a strong opportunity due to the availability of technology in countries including China, Japan and India.Some of the players in the defense robotics market include iRobot Corp., Allen-Vanguard Corporation, Honeywell Aerospace, GeckoSystems Intl. Corp., Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Bluefin Robotic Corp., AB Electrolux, Deep Ocean Engineering Inc., ECA Hytec SA, McArtney Group, Fujitsu Ltd., Toyota Motor Corp., AeroVironment, Lockheed Martin and others.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/5087
Dammar gum is a resin mostly found in India and East Asian countries. Dammar gum is also known as Dammar or Damar gum.

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Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.commanager+1 03479183531

Dammar gum is a resin mostly found in India and East Asian countries. Dammar gum is also known as Dammar or Damar gum. Dammar gum is a dried exudate derived from Dipterocarpaceae family trees, by tapping the trees or collected in the form of fossil from the ground. The content of the dammar gum is triterpenoid resins and its oxidation products such as dammarane, oleaonic acid, oleanane, and dammarenolic acid. Due to its clouding, glazing, stabilizing, and other properties it finds uses in industries such as food, paint, ink, varnish, and lacquer. Dammar gum resin is used in incense industry because it emits light lemony scent.Dammar Gum market dynamics:Dammar gum finds application in the wide array of industries due to its various characteristics. These applications in different industries are the main driver for the dammar gum market growth. Dammar gum is used in the food and beverage industry as a clouding agent and glazing agent. Dammar gum is used in varnish industry due to its glazing property. Besides glazing property dammar gum provides adhesion, color retention, flexibility, and resistance to fumes. Dammar gum is used in white enamel paint as it provides good adhesion and fume resistance. Due to the emission of aromatic scent, dammar gum is used in many Asian and Southeast Asia countries in an indigenous system of medicine mainly in India, Malaysia, and Indonesia etc. Dammar gum possesses good water-resistance property and is used in the pharmaceutical industry as a coating material of tablets.Request Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7874 The major driving factor for the growth of the dammar gum market is the growth of the food industry. Also increasing population is leading to growth in the construction and paint industry where the demand for dammar gum as a varnish in increasing. Also, urbanization leading to increased production of the vehicle is fueling dammar gum market growth.However, due to increased demand for dammar gum, cutting of the Dipterocarpaceae family trees has increased by a tremendous amount. This is leading to deforestation on a huge scale and affecting the forest flora and fauna in the regions of Southeast and East Asia countries. Stringent rules and regulation are being implied by the governments of these countries which is affecting the market growth.Dammar Gum market segmentation:Dammar Gum market segmentation on the basis of the source:ShoreaAgathisHopeaOtherDammar Gum market segmentation on the basis of color:WhiteBrownGrey-brownPale yellowOtherDammar Gum market segmentation on the basis of end use:FoodIncenseVarnishDentistryPharmaceuticalOther (paint, ink etc.)Dammar Gum market segmentation on the basis of application:Glazing agentStabilizerClouding agentAdhesionOther (water-repellant, fume resistance etc.)Buy This Report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/7874 Global Dammar Gum market: Key playersDammar gum market is operated by small and regional manufacturers. Sennelier, Bandish Enterprises, Nexira Inc., Starlight, William Bernstein Company, and P.T. Samiraschem Indonesia are among the key players in the global dammar gum market.Global Dammar Gum market: Key developmentsNexira Inc. launched two new food ingredients in 2017; Damar-EZ organic and Instantgum organic which are used for flavor stabilizer and flavor emulsifier, respectively. Damar-EZ organic is derived from shorea javanica tree and Instantgum is derived from Acacia tree. Both the products are plant-based and easy to use in flavor formulation, meeting the market requirements for natural solutions as well as clean labeling. Also as a natural origin, the non-GMO product makes these dammar gum products more attractive fitting the current consumer needs.Global Dammar Gum market: OpportunityThe global dammar gum market is likely to show growth in the Asian region by increasing population due to increased demand in food and beverage industry. Also, rapid growth in high-tech technologies and R&D facilities might lead to increased application in pharmaceutical and dentistry industries. There are various factors that are likely to attribute to the growth of the application of dammar gum such as increased awareness in overseas countries. Also, approval of dammar gum in food ingredients as a flavor emulsifier and stabilizer in the US is likely to affect the demand for dammar gum and fuels dammar gum market growth. As the demand for the dammar gum is increasing, the opportunity for Acacia and Shorea tree cultivator might escalate.
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This independent study makes an objective assessment of the current state of the Cyber Security In Smart Commercial Buildings Market sector. The report focuses on market sizing and opportunities for Smart Commercial buildings, providing a fresh market assessment based upon the latest information. The increased proliferation of smart devices, combined with persistent concerns over cyber-risk and data privacy and an increased incidence of cyber-attacks against smart buildings will help drive a significant increase in demand for new cyber security hardware, software and services in the market.The most profitable data is gathered with our inbound research activities considering the Cyber Security In Smart Commercial Buildings Market elements that organizations are interested in. An all-inclusive overview of historical & futuristic cost, quantified market opportunities through market sizing & forecasting, along with technological breakthroughs have been provided in details. The report includes data that can help businesses in handling this issue with ease and provides complete qualitative and quantitative details concerning the Cyber Security In Smart Commercial Buildings Market elements that organizations are interested in.Get Sample Copy of this Report @Top Key Vendors in Market:Risk Vision,, Safer Social,, Webroot Software,, TitanHQ,, Netikus.net ,, Horangi Cyber Security,, Netwrix,, Trend Micro,, HelpSystems,, TulipControls,, Synopsys,, Avanan,, F-Secure,, CentrifyThe banking and financial services held the largest market during the forecast period. Banking and financial institutions are exposed to the highest number of cyber-attacks. Cyber Security In Smart Commercial Buildings Market in banking has evolved largely in response to regulations that emerged from the global financial crisis and the fines levied in its wake. In order to secure their operations from any kinds of unforeseen risks, banking and financial services have adopted risk management softwares to a wide extent.Geographically the market is divided into the regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Latin America (MEA). The data in the report is gathered with the intent of providing necessary market information to vendors operating in the Global Cyber Security In Smart Commercial Buildings Market. A detailed description of the competitive scenario and regulatory framework is conducted, giving a clear understanding of the market drivers, opportunity guidelines, industry policies, and prevailing threats.Ask for discount@About Research N Reports:Research N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Where counting on a legitimate board company for your selections will become critical. Research N Reports specializes in enterprise evaluation, marketplace forecasts and as a result getting great reports overlaying all verticals, whether be it gaining angle on modern market situations or being in advance inside the cut throat Global opposition.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Cosmetic Chemicals Market " report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:26:49

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comMANAGER3479183531

Cosmetic chemicals are the primary ingredients that are used for formulation of personal care products. Cosmetics have come from late civilizations due to need for improving looks and appearance. Since then, ingredients in cosmetics have changed drastically and new techniques and formulas were introduced to manufacture own cosmetics and scents. Different minerals were used to produce colors by the ancient Egyptian aristocracy to give description to their facial features. During the Greek era it was very universal to make use of face paints, while the Romans favored baths that contained oil based perfumes.Almost 1500 chemical entities have been recognized to be cosmetic chemicals globally. The common chemicals that are found in the cosmetics include thickening agents, carrier powders, colorants, pigments, surfactants, preservatives, emollients, film formers and moisturizers among others. The cosmetics chemicals which are consumed on a large scale include emollients, film formers and moisturizers followed by surfactants globally. The cosmetic industry is fragmented as large number of suppliers provides a very wide range of inorganic and organic chemicals that are the necessary ingredients in the cosmetic industry. Nevertheless, twenty or more major international companies have a considerable share of cosmetic chemicals trade in the market.Read Report Overview @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/cosmetic-chemicals-market The cosmetic market is generally segmented based on products into surfactants, oleochemicals, aroma chemicals and blends, botanical extracts, fats, oils and waxes and polymers among others.The major applications of these chemicals include the skin care products, hair care products, color cosmetics, makeup, toiletries and oral care among others.The major diving factors of the cosmetic industry include growing demand from the ethnic groups for beauty products that are tailored according to their needs. In addition, the increasing purchasing power coupled with growing awareness and demand for personal care products among the aging baby boomers is also expected to fuel demand for cosmetic chemicals market. However, increasing demand of natural ingredients may hamper the growth graph of the global cosmetic chemicals market. In addition, major companies have comply with standards and regulations in the industry.The key segments for cosmetic chemicals market include North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Rest of the World (RoW). North America is expected to be the largest consumer of cosmetic chemical owing to the high demand for hair care products and growing demand for multifunctional products. In addition, growing male grooming segment is also expected to boost demand for cosmetic chemicals in the market. Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest consumer of cosmetic chemicals in the near future. Southeast Asia including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore is expected to show substantial growth in the coming years.The trends that the cosmetic industry follow globally include Globalization of cosmetic products as major international companies such as LOreal, Unilever and Procter & Gamble continue to invest in the growing markets. Other trends include consolidation, increased use of nontraditional distribution channels and growing interest in cosmeceuticals among others.The cosmetic chemicals companies use innovative bio based high performance products and advanced technologies to manufacture a wide variety of products. The key companies profiled include: Akzo Nobel NV, Ashland Incorporated, Active Organics, BASF SE, Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated, Bayer AG, Clariant International Limited, Dow Chemical Company, Eastman Chemical Company, Evonik Industries AG, Emery Oleochemicals Group, FMC Corporation, Novecare, Integrated Botanical Technologies, Pilot Chemical Company, Procter & Gamble Company, Solvay SA and United-Guardian Incorporated among others.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-322
Commodity Chemicals Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 08:45:11

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Commodity chemicals (bulk chemicals) are a group of chemicals that are made on a very large scale and act as intermediates to produce other chemicals, which, in turn are used to produce a extensive range of end-user products including construction materials, adhesives, plastics, apparel and tires. Commodity chemicals are the largest sub-segment of the chemical industry. Commodity chemicals are commonly traded under broad categories such as organics, inorganics, plastics resins, synthetic rubbers, fibers, films, explosives and petrochemicals. These broad categories include chemicals such as, acetic acid, acetone, acrylate esters, adipic acid, acrylonitrate, benzene, bisphenol, butadiene, butanediol, butyl acetate, hexane, melamine, polyvinyl chloride, propylene, methanol, methyl, glycol and glycerines. These chemical are very low in product differentiation, and hence making price the dominant economic factor in purchasing decisions for the end users.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/2787 The commodity chemical industry is highly fragmented and served with large number of local or regional players. Asia Pacific is by far the largest market for commodity chemicals accounting almost half of the total market. It is followed by North America and Europe. The growth prospective is still high in Asia Pacific attributed to the growing economy and ongoing trend and support for manufacturing sector in the developing countries such as India, China, and Indonesia. Bulk availability of crude oil and natural gas from gulf countries such as Saudi Arabian, Iran, Iraq and Syria is helping the commodity chemical industries in Asia Pacific.Commodity chemicals serve a wide range of industries ranging from personal care products to aerospace industries. It has its application either directly or indirectly in almost all manufacturing industries. The economy growth and increasing Gross domestic product (GDP) of developed and developing countries around the world is boosting the overall market of commodity chemicals. However the stiff regulation of the governments around the world regarding the health and environment side effect of chemicals and fluctuating prices of crude oil and natural gas are posing significant challenge for the industry.Some of the major players in commodity chemicals market include, BASF SE, Bayer AG, The Dow Chemical Company, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation, PPG industries, Linde Group, Akzo Nobel, LyondellBasell Industries, Asahi Kasei, Sumitomo chemicals, Evonik Industries, INEOS Group Holding and Chem China.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/2787
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:13:00

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Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/Manager6465687751

Coconut oil is made up of a mixture of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. The oil contains nearly 12 g of saturated fat. This is approximately 60 percent of daily recommended saturated fat intake for humans. As per American Heart Associations recommendations the intake of saturated fats in foods should be less. Saturated fat intake can affect human health due to increase in cholesterol levels, leading to an increased risk of heart disease. While it is high in saturated fat content, the coconut oil also contains heart-healthy polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats that are important for brain function and overall growth and development.Coconut Oil Market: SegmentationThe coconut oil market can be segmented into applications, packaging, product type, and distribution channel. Coconut oil market finds applications in food, household detergents, metalworking fluids, paints and coatings, soaps, textile chemicals, plastic industry and pharmaceuticals and cosmetic industry. On the basis of packaging, the coconut oil market is divided into steel drums, flexi tanks/iso tanks, carboys, plastic bottles, squeeze tubes, glass jars, and pails. On the basis product type, the coconut oil market is segmented as distilled, partially hydrogenated, fully hydrogenated, low white or low whole products. On the basis distribution channels, the coconut oil market is segmented as manufacturers, super stockist, wholesalers, retailers, online retailers and convenience stores.Coconut Oil Market: Regional OutlookAsia is the largest user of coconut oil owing to the presence of tropical regions, and coconut production being a good pastime. Coconut oil is majorly produced in countries like India, Indonesia, and Philippines. But the coconut oil market has gone up even in countries like the USA. There has been an exponential demand for coconut oil because of its multiple health benefits from the years 2006-2014. Also, there has been an increase in demand for the coconut oil from Europe since the year 2016. The Philippines has stated that the coconut oil demand rose from Europe as compared to the past decade.Coconut oil Market: Drivers, Restraints, and TrendsCoconut oil market is driven by increasing application in as an ingredient in consmetic industry. The coconut oil is not only used as a cosmetic and an enhancement in beauty care but also has nutritional and health benefits. For women opting for shampoos, hair oils, conditioners, sunscreen, and serum- coconut oil has a solution for all these problems as proven by dermatologists.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/17233 Increasing health benefits are also driving the coconut oil market over the forecast period. It is emerging as a better option for cardiovascular patients because, due to its unsaturated fatty acid content, it lowers heart attack risk for these patients. Besides, coconut oil production is low in regions such as Europe and USA whereas the demand increases, and due to less available resources, the price for this product also goes on increasing and hence, coconut oil makes is desirable for investors.Coconut Oil Market: Key PlayersSome of the key manufacturers in the coconut oil market are: Parachute, A.B. Enterprises, PT MANGGA DUA, Flower Song Fine Chemical Co Ltd., EPS IMPEX CO., J.K.International, Irmal Middle East, PT General Laju, ADP Southeast Orient Corporation, Shanghai Asia Co.Ltd . And Libra Bioscience Pvt. Ltd. The key stakeholder play a pivotal role and dominate the market by effective development of market strategies.Request for Report Sample : https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/17233
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 08:57:31

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A new report published by Future Market Insights titled Coagulation Analysers Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012  2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017  2027) studies the performance of the global coagulation analysers market over a 10 year assessment period from 2017 to 2027. The report presents the value forecast of the global coagulation analysers market and provides useful insights into the factors driving market growth as well as the factors restricting market growth. The estimates point to a revenue growth from US$ 756 Mn in the year 2017 to US$ 1,514 Mn by 2027 end, resulting in a CAGR of 7.2% during the period of assessment.Growing Prevalence of Cardiovascular Diseases and an Increase in the Number of Cancer Patients Fuelling Revenue Growth of the Coagulation Analysers MarketCardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of deaths in the world and are considered as a global disease burden. As per the data provided by WHO, 17.5 million people across the world die from cardiovascular diseases every year, which accounts for 31 percent of all the deaths globally. In light of this, coagulation tests such as PT/INR are commonly used blood tests to identify the risk of cardiovascular diseases. An increasing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases is expected to boost the global market for coagulation analysers during the forecast period.Request to View a Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5843 Research has indicated that malignancy affects the haemostatic system and vice versa. An imbalance of the haemostatic system in cancer patients raises their chances of developing thrombosis, haemorrhage or both. In addition, the haemostatic factor plays an important role in tumour progression and haemostatic components and cancer biology are interconnected in various ways. As per the American Cancer Society, in the year 2016, nearly 1,685,210 new cancer cases were registered in the U.S. This increase in the number of cancer patients is expected to drive the global coagulation testing market during the assessment period.Global Coagulation Analysers Market: Segmentation and ForecastThe report segments the global coagulation analysers market on the basis of product type and end user. On the basis of product type, coagulation analysers are categorised as standalone analysers, table top analysers and portable analysers. On the basis of end use, the coagulation analysers market is segmented into hospitals, clinical laboratories and others.The table top analysers segment by product type is estimated to be valued at US$ 208 Mn in the year 2017, and is projected to reach a valuation of US$ 432 Mn by the end of the year 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 7.6% during the period of assessment.By end use, the hospitals segment is estimated to be valued at US$ 244 Mn in the year 2017, and is projected to reach a valuation of US$ 450 Mn by the end of the year 2027, registering a CAGR of 6.3% during the period of assessment.Global Coagulation Analysers Market: Regional ForecastFuture Market Insights tracks the performance of the global coagulation analysers market across the key geographies of North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa. As per the forecast of Future Market Insights, the North America coagulation analysers market is estimated to be valued at US$ 286 Mn in the year 2017 and is projected to reach a value of US$ 546 Mn by the year 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 6.7% during the period of assessment. The Western Europe coagulation analysers market is estimated to be valued at US$ 147 Mn in the year 2017 and is projected to reach a value of US$ 314 Mn by the year 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 7.8% during the period of assessment.Request to Browse Report Customization @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-5843 Global Coagulation Analysers Market: Vendor InsightsThis report includes some of the important players operating in the global coagulation analysers market such as Instrumentation Laboratory, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Helena Laboratories Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Rayto Life and Analytical Sciences Co., Ltd., Nihon Kohden Corporation Siemens AG, Beckman Coulter Inc. (Danaher Corporation), Sysmex Corporation, Abbott Laboratories and Siemens AG. Manufacturers are concentrating on developing advanced analysers at a lower price, with an objective to witness an increase in their market share.View Report Preview @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/coagulation-analysers-market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 07:52:20

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Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/Manager9898989898

Several companies across the globe are working on advanced technology that will help them cut through the general product portfolio and expand their customer base. For instance, recently, Arm, a British semiconductor and software design organisation partnered with a Cambridge-based company PragmaticIC for developing an ultra-thin electronic gadget that can be easily printed on super flexible plastic. This smart-wrap is capable of carrying some data about the product and the location of the products. The sensor in the smart film allows tracking of the product lifecycle from the factory to the retail outlet to ensure the authenticity of the product.Leading restaurants across the globe as well as food and beverage stores are identifying the advantages associated with the use of cling film as more people are using them on a day-to-day basis. Most companies are manufacturing cling films and supplying these at wholesale prices to retail outlets, hence making these films available to end consumers at affordable rates. Intensifying urbanisation in emerging economies such as India and China has led to the growing adoption of on-the-go food products, especially by the working population. Cling films are extensively used as an effective material for the packaging of ready-to-eat food products, hence boosting growth in demand across the global food and beverages industry.Request to Sample of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2654 Considering all the leading scenarios, Future Market Insights (FMI) projects that the global cling film market will exhibit a CAGR of 5.8% from 2018 to 2028. The market was worth US$ 1,045.3 Mn by 2017 and is estimated to rise to a valuation of US$ 1,924.5 Mn by 2028 end.Cost-effectiveness and Durability to Push Demand for Cling FilmsThough cling film is thin it is highly durable and solid at the same time. Cling films can hold up against any object for an extended period of time. Even if the item is dropped, moved or tampered with in any way, the cling wrap will hold up and continue to protect the item. Cling film is one of the most cost-effective products to protect items compared to other materials. These films also help save space and keep stored products organised by consolidating items together without any added bulk, which is particularly useful when moving offices or homes. Cling films also keep the items fresh and even extend the shelf life of the products. Additionally, cling films are convenient to use as there are no restrictions and work with any kind of object that needs to be shipped or moved.Request to Report Methodology @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-2654 Evidence Suggests Cling Films May Have Negative Impact on Human HealthFor decades now, doctors have been cautioning people about the toxic impact of plastic. New evidence suggests that heat causes the chemicals in cling film storage boxes to contaminate food products, causing grave concerns to human health. Cancer Research UK has been warning that cling film should not be allowed to touch the food it covers, when the food is heated in a microwave. The chemical causing the most concern is Bisphenol A (BPA), mainly used in the manufacture of plastics. Laboratory studies have linked BPA with breast and prostate cancer. These negative factors may restrict revenue growth of the global cling film market to a certain extent.Get full report now @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/2654
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Castor Oil Derivatives Market Projected to Witness Vigorous Expansion by 2015 - 2025" report to their offering

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:44:32

Castor oil is one of the most multipurpose plant oils, obtained by pressing the seed of the castor oil plant (Ricinus communis).It is well known source of a monounsaturated, ricinoleic and 18-carbon fatty acid. Owing to its unique chemical structure and rich properties, castor oil and its derivatives find uses in many industries such as cosmetics, food, lubricants, paints, agriculture, electronics & telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, perfumeries, plastics and rubber, inks & adhesives and textile chemicals. After plant oils, castor oil is considered to be the most required oil. However, growing concerns pertaining to biofuels specially biodiesel and biopolymer across the globe is pushingcastor oil to play a much larger role in the world economy.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-474 Castor Oil Derivatives: Drivers & RestraintsGrowth of major end-use industries (includes lubricants, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals) and increasing demand for sustainable products & biodegradable, on account of reducing dependence on petrochemicals is anticipated to fuel the demand for castor oil derivatives market. Also regulatory support and rising prices of alternative renewable chemicals is expected to drive the global castor oil derivatives market. However, factors influencing its manufacturing cost includes raw material availability, weather uncertainties, shortage of working capital, techniques & methods used for extraction and availability of substitute oil are resulting in restraints for the castor oil derivative market.Castor Oil Derivatives: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, the global castor oil derivatives market is segmented into Undecylenic Acid, Sebacic Acid (largest consumed castor oil derivatives), Castor Wax or Hydrogenated castor oil (HCO), Dehydrated Castor Oil (DCO) and others. On the basis of application, global castor oil derivatives market is segmented into Lubricants, Cosmetics & Pharmaceuticals (largest application segment), Biodiesel, Plastics & Resins and Others.Castor Oil Derivatives: Region-wise OutlookThe global castor oil derivatives market is expected to register a double digit CAGR for the forecast period, 2015?2025. Asia-Pacific is expected to continue its dominance on the global castor oil derivatives market. India accounts for largest production of castor oil derivatives worldwide, followed by China and Brazil. Higher demand from the US, Europe and China has resulted in the higher prices for castor as well as increase in demand for castor oil derivatives. The major castor producing countries are India, China, Brazil, Paraguay, Ethiopia, Philippines, Russia and Thailand.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-474 Castor Oil Derivatives: Key PlayersSome of players in global castor oil derivatives market are Thai Castor Oil Industries Co. Ltd., Jayant Agro Organics, Hokoku Corporation, ITOH Oil Chemicals Co. Ltd., Gokul Overseas, Bom Brazil, Liaoyang Huaxing Chemical Co., Ltd., Kanak Castor Products Pvt. Ltd., and others.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Bonded Abrasives Market " report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:52:13

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comMANAGER3479183531

An abrasive is a material that when rubbed against a surface, producesthe desired surface finish and shape. Abrasives are usually minerals that are often available in a wide range of shapes, sizes and types. They are usually used to clean, grind, scour, abrade or remove the solid material usually by using impact or by the rubbing action. Abrasives are mainly classified as bonded abrasives, steel abrasives, coated abrasives, loose abrasives grain and raw super abrasives, among others. The abrasives material or the abrasives product finds various applications in industries such as electrical & electronics, machinery, metal fabrication and transportation among others.Bonded abrasives are the natural or synthetic abrasive grains which are usually bonded into a solid form. Bonded abrasives are usually made of the abrasive grains that are closely sized and molded or pressed to produce a wide variety of the products. Bonded abrasives are usually in the shape of a wheel. The products range of the bonded abrasives also includes the snagging wheel, mounted wheel, grinding and the cut-off wheel, cones and plugs. Bonded abrasives are mainly used for precision grinding, cutting, rough grinding, lapping, sharpening and light grinding among others.Get More Information @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/bonded-abrasives-market The growing automobile industry is expected to boost the overall growth of the bonded abrasives market. Bonded abrasives are widely used in giving the required surface finish as well as the desired design to the automobiles. The increasing demands for the advanced technology based machineries are further expected to boost the demand for the bonded abrasives. The bonded abrasives help in the super finishing of the machine shaft in order to achieve the required roughness. The bonded abrasives are used in providing the smooth finish to the various tools and the machineries that are manufactured. The bonding abrasives are used in the polishing as well as deburring of the bore holes on the machine blocks. Regular maintenances of the workshops further boost the overall demand for the bonded abrasives market. The increasing use of the bonded abrasives for de-scaling and for the rust and dust removal has augmented the overall growth for the bonded abrasives market. The bonded abrasives are also widely used in the medical sector. Bonded abrasives are used to sharpen the dental tools. The bonded abrasives are also used for smoothening of the edges of the dental tools such that it is extremely convenient for the doctors to use the dental tools on the patients.The bonded abrasives segment accounts for the largest share within the global abrasives market. North America is expected to be the largest market for the bonded abrasives. The growing demand especially in U.S is expected to boost the growth of the global bonded abrasive market. Europe is expected to be the next largest consumer of the bonded abrasives especially due to the growing demand especially in Germany. Asia Pacific is expected to be fastest growing market for the bonded abrasives market mainly due to the presence of various end-use industries especially in China and India.Norton, 3M, Baystate, Tyrolit, Treibacher and Noritake among others are some of the key participants of the global bonded abrasives market. Companies are extensively conducting research in order to develop and introduce new products in the market such that they can efficiently cater the needs for the specific application.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-357
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Bariatric Walking Aids Market Set to Grow Exponentially During the Forecast, 2026" report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 13:45:39

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Beriatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with the causes, prevention and treatment of obesity. Obesity has become one the major health scares in the recent times. One of the main problems that obese people face is an increased effort required for walking and mobility and maintaining their general lifestyle independence. Due to this, a large number of people are opting to use the bariatric walking aids. Bariatric equipment and supplies are meant for obese individuals. The major characteristics of bariatric walking aids are that they are designed to be stronger, sturdy and larger in size. Bariatric walking aids have increased weight capacities, heavy duty supports and are wider in width so that obese individuals can fit in. The equipment is defined as bariatric if it has a 300-900 pound limit, even though there is no width or weight limit specified for bariatric equipment.Looking from another perspective, due to a rise in obese patients, the popularity of bariatric surgery is increasing day by day. Hence, bariatric walking aids market is exhibiting sustained growth and this trend is going to continue in the coming decade. The type of bariatric equipment that is in demand include wheelchairs- both manual and electric, mobility scooters, road scooters, canes, folding canes, offset canes, quad canes, axillary and elbow crutches, forearm crutches, knee walkers and rollators.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2153 Bariatric Walking Aids Market: DriversAs the geriatric population of the world is increasing, there is a rise in the incidences of osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Also, proactive government interventions in the healthcare sector, rise in income, technological advancement and a growing obese population across the globe are the main drivers of the bariatric walking aids market. Bariatric walking aids are mainly used by obese individuals and use of such type of equipment is increasing in this segment of the population. On the other hand, there has been a significant increase in the healthcare budgets of United States, China and India and this is also a major driving factor of the bariatric walking aids market.Also, the rapid technological advancements coupled with an intensive research and development effort in the field of mobility aids and transportation equipment has also invigorated the bariatric walking aids market. The rise of per capita income in the emerging economies of India and China has also increased the demand of bariatric walking aids. All these factors are going to boost the bariatric walking aids market in the coming decade.Bariatric Walking Aids Market: RestraintsOne of the main restraint affecting the global bariatric walking aids market is the high product pricing due to which people are not able to afford such costly equipment, especially in the developing countries. In addition, a low acceptance level due to social stigma is also hampering the growth of the personal mobility devices market.Bariatric Walking Aids Market: Key RegionsCurrently, North America is the largest and most lucrative market for personal mobility devices. The rising geriatric and obese population in this region is fuelling the growth in the bariatric walking aids market. Europe is the second largest market for personal mobility devices. However, due to the economic crisis in the European Union and shrinking healthcare budgets may hamper the growth of bariatric walking aids market in Europe. In Asia, countries like India, China and South Korea are expected to become lucrative bariatric walking aids markets. The reason of this is the rising economic prosperity in these countries coupled with an increase in the healthcare budgets along with an increase in the obese population.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2153 Bariatric Walking Aids Market: Key Market PlayersMajor players in the bariatric walking aids market are Invacare Corporation, Pride Mobility Products Corporation, Stryker Corporation, Amigo Mobility International Inc., Patterson Medical Holdings Inc., Argo Medical, Drive Medical and Hill-Rom Holdings Inc.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Bariatric Walkers Market Set to Grow Exponentially During the Forecast, 2026" report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 13:45:33

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The countries like U.S. and United Kingdom are combating bariatric diseases for decades. Bariatric ailments are caused due to obesity. Obesity is not only an ailment but it is a deep rooted lifestyle disease which can further aggravate and can usher several other diseases into the body. A massive population of the world is at the brink of aging and a major chunk of that population is obese and they are fighting a long term war with their extra flabs. Its a challenge for the healthcare leaders to support and create a healthcare friendly climate for this massive population of over weight adults. In the last few years the healthcare leaders of U.S., U.K., China, Japan and India are mulling over this issue. The top honchos in the healthcare ecosystem are planning to create a proper support system for these people who are crippled by age.The industry insiders believe that the bariatric walkers market will grow and shall churn out a whooping revenue from the markets which are directly related with the obese elderly population. The constant demand will generated in several potential markets across the globe which will further spike the periphery of the Bariatric Walkers market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2152 The Bariatric walkers are normally light weight and tailor made for bariatric elders. They are made of aluminium and they are normally equipped with two button mechanism which also makes them portable and user friendly. There are several other bariatric walkers available in the markets made of plastic and wood. But the bariatric walkers markets are predominated by aluminium made walkers. They can shoulder a weight of 600 lb. The size of the bariatric walkers market will soar in the recent future. Amongst many the United States is one of the leading manufacturers and procurers of bariatric medical items such as Bariatric walkers. Presently the bariatric walkers market in U.S. worth few billions and it will jump in the coming few years.The Bariatric Walkers market: DriversThe size of Bariatric walkers market is surging steadily in U.S. and North America. Diseases like obesity is spreading like an epidemic in the U.S. and thus it is creating a proper market for bariatric walkers manufacturers. A recently tabled report suggests that the adult population in U.S. will shoot up in the coming few years. The report further reveals that the elderly population in U.S. will gallop from 35 million to approximately 71 million by 2030. The medical bills of the obese adults are likely to swell in the recent future which will directly impact the growth of the Bariatric Walkers market in U.S. The bariatric market in U.S. and U.K. and China has grown in the past few years. These nations have ducked others and they are presently leading the flock of the obese nations. Experts believe that China is another potential market which has an ocean of opportunities for Bariatric Walkers makers.Bariatric Walkers Market: RestraintsThough the bariatric walkers market is dominated by manufacturers from U.S. and U.K. but Chinese manufacturers are at loggerheads with them and they are constantly trying to earn an extra piece of pie from the global market. The local competition maiming the growth of the bariatric walkers market in the South East Asian, Indian and other emerging markets. Though there is a clear difference in quality and pricing of the products manufactured in the local markets, but still they are dominating the local markets and fetching ample revenue from the markets which is spread across the length and breadth of South East Asia.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2152 Bariatric Walkers Market: Key RegionsThe bariatric walkers market in China touch few billions in the coming few years and can give a stark competition to countries like U.S. and India. A study reveals that the 15 percent of the worlds obese population resides in India and China and both the South Asian giants are aging steadily. China and India are fighting for the top position in this region. They both have a thriving bariatric walkers market because of their massive population and stable healthcare ecosystem. Even foreign manufacturer are eyeing this massive south East Asian bariatric walkers market, but industry observers believe that the bariatric walkers market in this region is hard to penetrate as cost and quality and income disparity will be some of the deciding factors which will surely dominate the surge of bariatric walkers market in this region of the globe.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 10:25:21

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Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comManager3479183531

For several years now, the autonomous underwater vehicle has been the undisputed champion in the case of niche underwater applications. However, the growing acceptance of these multi-purpose vehicles has now turned them into the de-facto choice for the subsea community. The last decade has seen the autonomous underwater vehicle market come into its own with AUVs being chosen for most deep-water surveys. The scientific community has also opted for autonomous underwater vehicles for both deep exploration as well as work in shallow waters. New applications have surfaced in the autonomous underwater vehicle market as these vehicles are critical in search & rescue missions, salvage operations, and in archaeology. The autonomous underwater vehicle market is projected to record a robust CAGR of 6.1% from 2017 to 2022.Request Report TOC @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/19330 The oil & gas segment has a revenue share of one-sixth in the autonomous underwater vehicle market by end user and is anticipated to lose market share. The oil & gas autonomous vehicle segment is estimated to have a value of approx. US$ 65 million at the end of the forecast period. The military & defense segment is considerably larger by comparison. Political disputes, territorial claims, and small skirmishes may well push countries into war which is why they are investing heavily in their defense preparedness and military budgets. Autonomous underwater vehicles perfectly complement their warships prowling the high seas. North America stands out as the region that should account for more than a third of the military & defense segment of the autonomous underwater vehicle market at the end of 2017In the age of global warming, environmental protection and monitoring is the need of the hour, especially for low-lying, coastal nations that will bear the brunt of rise in water levels. An absolute dollar opportunity of over US$ 24 million makes the environmental protection and monitoring segment of the autonomous underwater vehicle market very critical indeed. Furthermore, this segment is on track to gain share going forward. After North America, Europe has a strong focus on environmental protection and monitoringIt is often said that we have a better grasp of the surfaces of other planets than that of our own ocean floors.Therefore, oceanography has gained prominence recently. Oceanography has double-digit revenue share in the autonomous underwater vehicle market by end use segment and is poised to gain marginal share in the forecast period. The oceanography segment may well witness a robust CAGR of more than 6% for the five-year period and companies would do well to take this inot account.Request for sample report: https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/19330 True to its size, the large AUV segment has the largest contribution in the autonomous underwater vehicle market and should remain so for the foreseeable future. The North America large AUV segment is assessed to have a value of roughly US$ 38 million in 2017 aloneThe companies profiled in the autonomous underwater vehicle market report are International Submarine Engineering Ltd, Hydromea SA, L3 OceanServer, ECA Robotics SAS, Atlas Elektronik GMBH, Saab AB, Kongsberg Maritime AS, Teledyne Gavia ehf, and General Dynamics Corporation
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the "Automotive Roller Bearing Market to Incur Rapid Extension During 2017- 2027" report to their offering

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:48:31

Automotive roller bearings are used for supporting rotating shafts in mechanical equipment. Automotive roller bearings are simple tools which can be precision manufactured in mass production quantities. They are generally used as an alternative of ball bearings as they can support heavier radial loads. In general applications, there are either one or two roller bearings supporting a rotating shaft. Automotive roller bearings are manufactured in different configurations and sizes, are relatively inexpensive and require very little maintenance. Moreover, the size and type of the bearings depend upon the type of vehicle and the amount of load to be carried out. There are numerous types of roller bearings available in market including cylindrical, spherical, tapered and cam follower roller bearing. With advancement in technology, manufacturers are focusing on improving the quality of the material used for manufacturing roller bearings by using cleaner steel materials. Moreover, focus on increasing the load bearing capacity of automotive roller bearings has also increased significantly in the past years. With increasing focus on designing compact vehicles the space constraint has increased considerably, owing to this manufacturers are focusing on designing compact bearings with improved performance characteristics.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5680 Automotive Roller Bearing Market: DynamicsVehicle production is anticipated to increase over the coming years. With advancing technology, demand of improved performance vehicles are anticipated to increase over the time. Roller bearings provide this functionality of noiseless operation of rotating elements of the vehicle. Moreover, as the manufacturers are focusing on increasing their focus on manufacturing better quality roller bearings by using cleaner steel quality. Furthermore, manufacturers are also focusing on the deigning compact roller bearings which could have better functionality. This will increase the demand of roller bearings for multiple automotive applications.Automotive roller Bearings also have distinct advantage over the sliding bearing as they are internationally standardized, interchangeable and readily obtainable. Furthermore, they are easy to lubricate and can be used for extreme temperature conditions. All such characteristics of the roller bearings will further increase the demand of automotive roller bearings in the coming years. Furthermore, as the average age of the vehicles is increasing, the demand of repair and maintenance services is anticipated to increase, this will in turn increase the demand of automotive roller bearings in the coming years.Counterfeit equipment manufacturers pose a great threat to the business of the Tier 1 suppliers in the aftermarket. This has a negative effect on the revenue stream of many key players in the market. Furthermore, increasing raw material prices across the globe puts a pressure on the manufacturers, volatility in the material prices can affect the investment in the automotive roller bearing market. With increasing advancement in the technology, the life of roller bearings has increased considerably over the years. This has reduced the replacement rate considerably over the years, affecting the demand of the automotive roller bearings in the coming years.Automotive Roller Bearing Market: SegmentationOn the basis of the bearing type, automotive roller bearing market can be segmented into:-Cylindrical Roller BearingTapered Roller BearingsNeedle Roller BearingsCam Follower Roller BearingsSpherical Roller BearingsOn the basis of the vehicle type, automotive roller bearing market can be segmented into:-Passenger CarLight Commercial Vehicle (LCV)Heavy Commercial Vehicle (HCV)On the basis of the sales channel, automotive roller bearing market can be segmented into:-Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)AftermarketAutomotive Roller Bearing Market: Regional OutlookThe automotive roller bearing market is anticipated to augment considerably in Asia-Pacific region in the coming years. This can be attributed to the increasing vehicle production and vehicle parc in the various countries of Asia Pacific such as China and India. The North American market is driven by the presence of numerous vehicle manufacturers which create opportunity for the bearing manufacturers to expand their foothold in the market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-5680 Automotive Roller Bearing Market: Key ParticipantsSNL Bearings Ltd.Wafangdian Bearing Group CorpRBC BearingsCW BearingIljin Bearing Co., Ltd.NTN CorporationSvenska Kullagerfabriken ABTimken Company
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 10:23:11

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# 600 Words

Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comManager3479183531

The automotive brake system market is projected to witness a significant growth during the time of given forecast period due the automotive industry is predicted to have a very bright future in the coming years in both emerging and developed economies. Increasing concerns about the safety have enforced governments all across to lay to strict guidelines associated with safety vehicular norms is also expected to drive the growth of the market. Ever growing population coupled with changing standards of living in the middle class with an increasing spending power have made it comparatively easy to own personal vehicles in the developing countries. A higher requirement for passenger cars is naturally advantageous for the global automotive brake system market. In addition to this, the concerns over the safety of customers, the governments all across the globe have imposed strict regulations related to the safety of the vehicle and mandates to enhance the overall efficiency and safety of the vehicles. Moreover, new advancements in technology such as ABS and regenerative braking are also expected to fuel the all-round development of the global automotive brake system market.The overall growth of the global automotive brake system is expected to be achieved with the help of an impressive CAGR of 5.7% over the course of the given forecast period of 2017 to 2022. The overall valuation of the global automotive brake system market is expected to reach a figure worth US$25 bn by the end of the given forecast period.Request for sample report: https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/19276 In terms of types of brakes the global market for automotive can be segmented into drum brakes and disc brakes. The segment of disc brakes has relatively larger share in the global automotive brake system market in the years 2017 and is estimated to reach an overall valuation of US$14 billion over the course of the given forecast period of 2017 to 2022. Nonetheless, the growth rate for the segment of drum brakes is expected to be on the rise in the coming years. The key shareholders of the global market for automotive brake system are advised to consider this possibility while devising strategies for long term. Europe accounts for the biggest contribution from a regional standpoint in the segment of drum brakes and the players in the market are advised to concentrate their efforts on this continent with lucrative opportunities for a good return on their investments.The segment of OEM has a revenue share of nearly fourth-fifth in terms of sales channel in the global market for automotive brake systems and is well placed to leverage the market conditions in the coming years of the forecast period. Thus, it is vital segment that the players in the global market cannot afford to avoid. The OEM segment is projected to experience an impressive CAGR of 5.5% over the course of the given forecast period of 2017 to 2022. The aftermarket sector is comparatively much smaller and consists the share of balance revenue in the global automotive brake systems market by the segment of sales channel. Along with the market in Europe, the key players in the global market should try to focus on Asia Pacific except Japan or North America, as both the regions are evaluated to have overall market valuations worth billions of dollars by the end of the given forecast period.Request Report TOC @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/19276 Some of the key players in the global market for automotive brake system include names such as ZF Friedrichshafen AG, Wabco Holdings Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, Mando Corporation, Continental AG, Knorr-Bremse AG, Brembo SpA, Akebono Brake Industry, and Aisin Seiki among others.
Automotive Air Filters Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 09:06:33

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Air filters are essential component of an automotive which serves basically two purposes based on its type. There are two types of automotive air filters namely intake air filters and cabin air filters. Where the former acts as a barrier against foreign particles such as dust to enter engines combustion chamber, the latter restricts the entry of dust in the cabin of the vehicle through the vent of HVAC system. Non-performance of intake air filters may lead to inefficiency of engine and increase in its emission levels. Therefore, it becomes necessary for the vehicle user to clean it at regular intervals and replace it with new once it completes its lifetime.Automotive air filters have both OEM as well as replacement markets wherein the latter dominates the global sales. The automotive air filter market is driven by increasing demand for automobiles, strict emission norms and changing lifestyles. The increasing number of vehicles with air-conditioned cabins is boosting the market for cabin air filters. The increasing health consciousness of people wherein they require resistance from dust, pollution, harmful exhaust gases and other contaminants while driving is attracting the car users for the cars with cabin air filter. According to The World Health Organization (WHO), the urban outdoor air pollution causes about 1.3 million deaths every year worldwide. Apart from the developed countries, the developing countries are also becoming conscious about their safety from outdoor pollution which is a positive sign for the growth of cabin air filters market in the long term.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3478 Based on vehicle type, automotive air filter market can be segmented under passenger cars, light commercial vehicles and heavy commercial vehicles. However, there exist certain restraints for automotive air filters market including large interval of their replacement in the developing countries and increasing market for duplicate automotive air filters.Growing per capita income in other Asian countries such as India is propelling the demand for passenger cars. On the other hand, the increasing industrialization and commerce in Asian countries are boosting the market for commercial vehicles which is driving the automotive air filters market in the region. Commercial vehicles in the developing countries need more care and maintenance as the quality of parts used in them is low as compared to the commercial vehicles manufactured in the developed countries. Moreover, due to less developed infrastructure the chances of entry of dust and dirt in the combustion compartment are high. Due to these factors, the replacement market in the developing markets including Asia Pacific is high as compared the developed countries. However, cabin air filters finds very less usage in commercial vehicles as the requirement for cabin convenience is very less in their case.Among the regions, Asia Pacific dominated the global sales of automotive air filters followed by North America. China surpassed U.S. in 2010 to become the country with largest automotive population. Some of the key companies operating in automotive air filter market include AC Delco Inc., Affinia Group, Denso Corporation, Hengst GmbH and Company KG, Cummins Inc, Toyota Boshoku Corporation and Hollingsworth & Vose Company Inc.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3478
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 14:04:57

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616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comManager+1-347-918-3531

Atrial fibrillation is a type of arrhythmias refers to as an irregular heart rhythm of the upper chamber of the heart i.e. erratically change of normal sequence electrical impulses. Atrial fibrillation is treated with medications by slowing the heart rate to the rhythm control stage. Atrial fibrillation may lead to blood cloth, heart failure, strokes and other heart related problems. If atrial fibrillation disease remains untreated it will double the risk of patients death. Valvular heart disease and hypertension are the most common alterablerisk factor of atrial fibrillation disease. In 2014, according to centers for disease control and prevention, around 6 Mn people in the U.S were suffering from atrial fibrillation disease and the number was estimated to increase in near future. According to MRI Interventions, Inc. research report, around 2 to 4 Mn new patients are diagnosed with atrial fibrillation in the U.S annually and the incidence rate of atrial fibrillation disease will increase. Technological advancement in the field of surgical catheter ablation along with rising occurrence of disease due to changes lifestyle habits like drinking and smoking will drive the growth of global atrial fibrillation device market in forecast period.Atrial Fibrillation Device Market: Drivers and RestraintsIncrease in the prevalence of obesity and hypertension among aging population, reduce mortality rate and favorable outcomes of the atrial fibrillation device are the factors expected to drive the growth of global atrial fibrillation device market. Moreover, atrial fibrillation device is an alternative to long term oral anticoagulants among non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients, eliminate the use of long term warfarin and reduce the risk of heart bleeding and strokes are some other factors expected to fuel the growth of global atrial fibrillation device market. However, alternative to atrial fibrillation device such as drug therapy, catheter related complications and high cost of minimally invasive ablation procedures are proving a major challenge for overall growth of atrial fibrillation device market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2214 Atrial Fibrillation Device Market: SegmentationThe global atrial fibrillation device market has been classified on the basis of surgical type, non-surgical and end user.Based on surgical type, the global atrial fibrillation device market is divided into following:Catheter AblationMaze SurgeryBased on non-surgical, the global atrial fibrillation device market is divided into following:Pharmacological DrugsDiagnostic devicesElectric CardioversionRecording SystemsAccess DevicesCardiac MonitorsClosure DevicesLeft Atrial AppendageBased on end user, the global atrial fibrillation device market is divided into following:HospitalsAmbulatory Surgical CentersCardiac Catheterization LaboratoriesAtrial Fibrillation Device Market: OverviewBased on surgical type, global atrial fibrillation device market is sub segmented into catheter ablation and diagnostic device, of which catheter ablation segment is expected to grow fastest over the forecast period. Increasing patient awareness, improved healthcare infrastructure and rising demand for non-pharmacological treatments are some of the factors which are driving the growth of catheter ablation segment. Pharmacological drug segment is expected to have highest market share in the forecast period. Low prices of pharmacological drugs along with increasing use of anti-coagulant therapy is driving the demand of pharmacological drugs segment.Atrial Fibrillation Device Market: Regional OverviewDepending on geographic region, atrial fibrillation device market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America held largest share in the atrial fibrillation device market followed by Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific owing to high prevalence of atrial fibrillation, awareness among population, reimbursement policies,and healthcare infrastructure. The developing nations in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa hold huge potential for growth in the atrial fibrillation device market due to increase in geriatric population, improved healthcare expenditure along with increased per capita income. Also, growth in public and private hospitals, pharmacies & drug stores will drive the growth ofatrial fibrillation device market in this region.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2214 Atrial Fibrillation Device Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in global atrial fibrillation device market are Boston Scientific Corporation, Abbott, Biosense Webster, Inc., St. Jude Medical, Inc., Siemens Healthcare, Medtronic plc, Koninklijke Philips N.V. and AtriCure, Inc.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 10:43:24

The research report Anaesthesia Machines Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017-2027) published by Future Market Insights throws light on several aspects driving the global market. The growth of the market is impacted by various trends, developments, drivers and challenges, the analysis of which is included in the fact based research report. The exhaustive research publication covers historical data analysis along with current scenario as well as future projections of the market from a value standpoint for a 10 year period, starting from 2017 till 2027. The analysis on various segments playing a major role in the expansion of the global anaesthesia market has been carried out to get a complete picture of the global market.Mergers and Collaborations to Present High Growth Opportunities for Market Players in the Coming YearsMergers and collaborations between local and international players in developing regions are expected to present potential opportunities for growth in terms of successful market penetration and sales. The regional markets of Asia Pacific, Latin America and GCC countries is anticipated to create significant opportunities to players involved in anaesthesia machines market. This can be attributed to the increasing surgical procedures in these regions coupled with increasing per capita expenditure on cosmetic surgeries and other healthcare associated procedures. Players in this market are establishing business relationships with healthcare facilities in these regions as well as government agencies for long term gains and enhancing their presence in the region. Moreover, partnership programs between organizations and institutions are observed to facilitate anaesthesia training programs.Request to View Sample of Research Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-789 Increasing Need for Anaesthesia Procedures to Spur the Adoption of Anaesthesia Machines in the Coming YearsAccording to WHO (World Health Organization) and World Bank, by 2026, the treatments demanding surgeries and hence anaesthesia machines would eclipse that of tuberculosis and HIV as well as malaria. Current market scenario portrays the fact that about 30% of the population in the entire globe do not have access to surgeries. On the contrary, about 75% of major procedures are being performed in the wealthiest countries in the world whereas poor countries are witnessing only 3.5% of operations. Government bodies along with non-government institutions are continuously working on offering healthcare access to every region, which is expected to trigger the adoption of anaesthesia machines. The growing number of surgeries and increasing government support are expected to fuel the growth of the anaesthesia machines market at a global level in the years to follow.Global Market for Anaesthesia Machines: Factors Promoting GrowthThe global market for anaesthesia machines is influenced by several aspects that facilitate the growth of the global market. Few of these aspects include continual technological advancements in anaesthesia machines, integration of IT in healthcare systems pushing the demand for anaesthesia workstations, emergence of anaesthesia information management systems, increasing public and private investments in healthcare, expanding imports and exports of medical devices among different regions, expanding private sector, enhancement in product lines by various manufacturers of anaesthesia machines, growing trend of patient monitoring using IoT, favourable government support, increasing medical tourism, growing geriatric population and manufacturing of cost effective anaesthesia machines.However, product recalls due to defects in devices, shortage of healthcare professionals, adoption of refurbished machines, lack of public access to healthcare facilities and lack of clinical resources are expected to pose hindrances to the growth of the global market.Segmental Highlights on the Anaesthesia Machines MarketWith respect to region, North America and Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) are expected to showcase high potential for growth. Anaesthesia machines market in North America (led by US) is estimated to be the largest, whereas the market in APEJ is expected to rise at a comparatively high value CAGR during the forecast periodWith respect to modality, the standalone anaesthesia machines are expected to witness increased adoption across the globe in several hospitals and clinics. This segment is expected to lead the global market with a high valuation and projected to expand at a relatively high CAGR throughout the period of assessmentRequest customized copy of report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-789 Top Players Competing in the Global Anaesthesia Machines MarketThe research report includes profiles of major players operating in the anaesthesia machines market. To name a few, the report includes intelligence on players such as GE Healthcare, Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA, Mindray Medical International Limited, Getinge AB, Spacelabs Healthcare, Heyer Medical AG, Infinium Medical, Inc., ACOMA Medical Industry Co., Ltd., Chirana Medical A.S., DRE Medical, BPL Medical Technologies, Beijing Aeonmed Co. Ltd., Comen Medical Instruments Co. Ltd., Okuman Medical System Ltd., Narang Medical Limited and Lowenstein Medical GmbH & Co.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 10:38:32

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The global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market is expected to exhibit a strong growth over the course of the forecast period. The report on global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market has been minutely studied and researched upon by the analysts of Future Market Insights (FMI). The market research report presents an all-inclusive analysis of the global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market along with an outline of the competition existing among the core players operating in the market. The vendor landscape section includes several facets pertaining to key players such as innovation and developments, product portfolio, core strategies, geographical area covered, prime personnel, mergers, acquisitions, agreements, and other financial and non-financial strategies.Request to View Sample of Research Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6359 According to Future Market Insights, the global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market is expected to rise at a CAGR of 6.4% from 2017 to 2026. The market is projected to touch a valuation of over US$1,030 Mn by the end of the forecast period.Key Insights on Amino Acid Metabolism Disorders Treatment MarketOn the basis of region, the global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific except Japan, Japan, and the Middle East and Africa. Amongst these, North America is expected to retain a leading position in the market by the end of the forecast period reaching a valuation of over US$359 Mn. North America is expected to be closely followed by Europe. Players operating in this market can seek potential opportunities from the U.S., Germany, Spain, and France owing to several clinical trials taking place pertaining to this treatment and several mergers and acquisitions occurring among core players operating in these regions. Players can also find lucrative opportunities from Asia Pacific excluding Japan and as well with the rise in nutritional management activities in these regions. Countries in APAC such as China and India are also expected to emerge as potential adopters of amino acid metabolism disorders treatment in the long run.In terms of product type, the global amino acid metabolism disorder treatment market has been segmented into arginine, folic acid, vitamin B6 and B12, thiamine, vitamin D, betaine, carglumic acid, sapropterin dihydrocholoride, and others. Among these, carglumic acid is expected to lead the market until the end of the forecast period reaching a valuation of over US$185 Mn. However, sapropterin dihydrocholoride is expected to witness the maximum growth rate over the course of the forecast period.Based on indication, the global market for amino acid metabolism disorder treatment has been classified into phenylketonuria, maple syrup urine disease, argininosuccinic acidemia, citrullinemia, and homocystinuria. Among all of these, phenylketonuria is expected to emerge dominant by the end of the forecast period.On the basis of sales channel, the global market for amino acid metabolism disorder treatment has been classified into hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, and online sales. Hospital pharmacies is expected to take the lead among all these by the end of the forecast period.Request customized copy of report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-6359 Vendor LandscapeThe companies operating in the market are Pfizer, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Merck KGaA, Koninklijke DSM N.V., Recordati S.p.A., Sanofi, Civentichem, LLC, Shine Star (Hubei) Biological Engineering Co., Ltd., AMINO GmbH, and Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Aircraft Washing Systems Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027 " report to their offering Upcoming

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 08:15:32

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Over the years, more than dozens of people would be involved in washing an aircraft, which was not only immensely time consuming, but the eminence of work was also not up to international standards. On an average, a team of 17 to 20 people would take about 9 to 10 hours to clean one Jumbo (707) aircraft. Also, there are other issues to be considered, such as injuries caused by even a minor carelessness. Presently, in many countries aircraft washing and cleaning is assigned to manual labor. In India, Indira Gandhi International Airport (New Delhi) will soon get washing robots to clean jumbo jets. According to DIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited), the technology will be imported from Sweden. Currently, apart from British airports, this technique is used by Qatar and Thai airways. The new aircraft washing systems will be entirely computerized and will comprise spray nozzles, cleaning brushes and mobile power units.In the Middle East region, the aviation industry is very keen on green practices. Airlines cannot afford spending extensive periods of time on cleaning activities. Therefore, a company named Clean Middle East developed a new aircraft washing technology known as dry wash. Dry wash is developed and produced by Rhoba-Chemie GmbH, (Germany) to clean aircrafts without water. This concept has a big edge over its counterpart since it inhibits corrosion, improves physical appearance, reduces chemically contaminated waste water and minimizes water consumption.For Requesting a Sample Copy of This Report, Please Visit @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2855 As the use of airplanes has increased exponentially, commercial and private aircraft agencies spend billions of dollars every year in aircraft maintenance. Now, international standards of aviation safety and rules also mandate aircraft cleaning. Cleaning is done by both, private and in-house agencies. However, cleaning is not a secondary job and must be carried out with possible aircraft washing systems (equipment).The commonly used aircraft washing equipment are: Carts used to clean the floor of an airplane are included in aircraft washing systems Coatings used to add extra shine are included in aircraft washing systems Aero brushes used to remove dust from surface are included in aircraft washing systems Wax and buff balls used in the belly area are also included in aircraft washing systems Aircraft squeegee used to remove water and liquid from different areas are included in aircraft washing systems Washing mops used to clean the surface are included in aircraft washing systemsAircraft washing systems companies such as Riveer (U.S.) have launched automated aircraft washing systems. Such aircraft washing systems take two minutes to clean the aircraft and the wash water is reclaimed and reused again.Aircraft Washing Systems: DynamicsThere is a never ending battle against corrosion in aircraft maintenance, particularly in rotary aircrafts operating over saltwater. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Defense has concluded on rinsing the aircrafts on a weekly or daily basis to combat this problem. Increase in these aircrafts and their running is forecasted to directly create demand and a large growth opportunity for the aircraft washing systems market.Aircraft Washing Systems: Segmentation by MethodWhen it comes to washing the exterior of an aircraft, there are two types of methods: dry and wet. The wet wash requires water and cleaning agent (soap) in three steps, i.e. scrub, rinse and dry. The major problem with this method is that the water needs to be clean and mineral-free. However, most water has some mineral content, which actually captures dirt and leaves deposits on the surface.On the other hand, the dry wash method cleans and shines the surface in a single step and hence, is becoming a more popular choice. As compared to a wet wash, the cost of dry wash chemicals are expensive and much like waxing your car. This process involves a lot of elbow grease but end results are often less intrusive. With a dry wash interior cleaning and maintenance can be performed simultaneously.Detailed TOC of Research Report Available @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2855 Aircraft washing systems: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the global aircraft washing systems market identified across the value chain include: Riveer Nordic Aerowash Equipment Hydro Engineered Inc. Cleaning Debrring Finishing Inc. JRI Indstries Stoelting Cleaning Eqipment Utrasonic Power Corporation Jensen Fabricating Engineers Inc. Wanner Engineering Inc. Ransohoff Cincinnati Encon Evaporators Daimler Industries Inc. KMT Aqua Dyne Inc.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:46:30

Agriculture equipment are the machine tools used in the various stage of agriculture such as harvesting, planting, threshing and agro processing. Agriculture equipment are replacing traditional tools: for traditional practice in land development, tillage and seed bed preparation plough and blade harrow were used but current practice includes tractors, mould board plough and power tiller.Agriculture Equipment Market: Drivers & RestraintsGrowing population at faster pace is the main driver for agricultural equipment market as it spurs the need of food which aggressively demand for better equipment for agriculture. Though agriculture equipment help in the cultivation but farmers are in having financial issues to replace the old equipment with new machinery, which hindered the growth of the global agriculture equipment market. Asia Pacific is one of the major user of tractor.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-523 Agriculture Equipment Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, agriculture Equipment market is broadly segmented as:Tractor, Combine Harvester, Thrasher, Rotavator, Self-Propelled Vertical Conveyer Reaper, Zero Till Seed Drill,Multi Crop Planter, Power Tiller, Laser Land Leveler, Rice Transplanter, Power Spray, Power Weeder,, Drip Irrigation Equipment, Sprinkler Irrigation Equipment.On the basis of process, the market is segmented into:Land Development, Tillage, Seed Bed PreparationSowing & PlantingWeed Inter CultivationPlant ProtectionHarvesting & ThreshingPost-Harvest & Agro ProcessingAgriculture Equipment Market: Region  Wise OutlookAsia  Pacific region is expected to dominate the market during the forecasted period aided by China and India the fastest growing agriculture equipment market. Growing population will increase the demand of food in these countries, which in return increase the demand of better harvesting machinery. Europe and North America agriculture equipment market is expected to show a moderate growth. With rapid technological advancement and growing population agriculture Equipment market is expected to increase at a double CAGR during the forecast period.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-523 Agriculture Equipment Market: Key PlayersSome of the players in the market we identified includes, CNH Industrial NV, AGCO Corp, J.C. Bamford Excavators Limited, Iseki & Co. Ltd, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, Deere & Company and Kubota Corporation.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 18:55:10

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Research Report Insights (RRI)42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website: https://www.researchreportinsights.comEmail: sales@researchreportinsights.com+1-631-721-42016317214201

ADME-Tox is pharmacology phrase that represents distribution, absorption, metabolism & excretion with toxicity testing. These four measures are imperative for the dynamics of drugs coverage to the tissue level, hence testing ADME-Tox is essential for drug development. The ADME-Tox screening is method is an incorporated workstation for discovering the absorption, metabolism, distribution & excretion attributes of drug molecules. This system incorporates biochemical assay tester that assesses the physicochemical attributes of a drug molecule. This system, in addition, bolsters the permeability assays testing that channel the drug affinity in the direction of the metabolic enzyme.The growing center of drug maker to cut down the development price of a drug with the slightest toxicological issue is the one of the foremost factor bolstering the expansion of the market for ADME-Tox screening system. Alongside the ADME-Toxicological testing gains the potency of drug that enhances the competence of the drug to aim the desired tissue. Furthermore, rising need for the specialized drug because of the increasing occurrence of several chronic diseases will in addition surge the expansion of AME-Tox screening system market. High maintenance and installation cost of this system will impede the expansion of this market. In addition, an absence of skilled professional to control this system will as well be responsible for the slow expansion of this market.Request For Report Sample: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upsample/120124754/ADME-Tox-Screening-Systems-Market By product type, the worldwide market is segmented into software, assay system and instruments. In terms of the application, the worldwide market is segmented into tissue engineering, drug screening, biopharmaceutical production, discovery and development and other. In terms of the end user, the worldwide market is segmented into academic and research institute, contract research organization (CROs), biopharmaceutical companies and others.The market for ADME-Tox screening system will reflect exponential expansion because of increased biopharmaceutical production and drug development. This market is considered to increase with higher pace owing to the expansion of innovative proficiencies and an stepping up customer preference. This market has presented the huge expansion prospects to the foremost biopharmaceutical companies. In terms of the application, the drug development segment will expand the highest market share. The biopharmaceutical companies will lead the overall market by the end user for the duration of the forecast.Request Report For Toc: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/TOC/120124754/ADME-Tox-Screening-Systems-Market Region-wise, North America will lead the worldwide market because of the existence of a huge number of biopharmaceutical companies. Asia-Pacific and Europe will trail the North America market. In APAC region, India and China will be growing fast throughout the period of forecast due to the augmented focus of foremost biopharmaceutical makers to extend their subsidiaries in these nations.The foremost players discovered all over the value chain of the worldwide market are ACEA Biosciences Inc., Hudson Robotics Inc., Agilent Tsechnologies Inc., Albany Molecular Research Inc., ADMEcell Inc., BioreclamationIVT, LLC, Cerep SA, Beckman Counter Inc., and other.Report Analysis: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upcomming/120124754/ADME-Tox-Screening-Systems-Market
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Acrylic Lenses Market " report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-18 12:07:07

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comMANAGER3479183531

The increasing prevalence of vision problems such as myopia, hypermetropia, cataract, and astigmatism has triggered the demand for acrylic lenses. Acrylic lenses are increasingly preferred over glass lenses due to various advantages, such as lightweight, high break resistance and spark resistance, it offers. As per World Health Organization (WHO), there are 285 million visually impaired people across the globe. Moreover, WHO lists that the major reasons for visual impairment are glaucoma, refractive errors and cataract. Growing safety concerns among people to prevent these problems is expected to upsurge the demand for acrylic lenses market. Additionally, improvement in the healthcare facilities and shifting focus towards acrylic lenses over glass lenses are further estimated to influence the growth of the global acrylic lenses market.Based on application, corrective acrylic lenses are expected to dominate the global acrylic lenses market. However, therapeutic lenses are projected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. Based on design type, toric lenses and accommodative acrylic lenses are expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. Based on product type, hydrophilic lens is expected to dominate the global acrylic lens market owing to their ease of implantation during surgery.Acrylic Lenses Market: DriversIncreasing demand for acrylic lens due to its advantages over glass lens is projected to drive the growth of the global acrylic lenses market. Moreover, rise in the count of diabetic patients coupled with increasing risk of cataract among the diabetic patients are two main factors estimated to escalate the demand for acrylic lenses during the forecast period. Additionally, increase in incidences of ocular and ophthalmic conditions is further expected to drive the growth of global acrylic lenses market. Moreover, continuous innovations in the field of accommodative and toric lenses will also fuel the demand for acrylic lenses in the near future.Get More Information @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/acrylic-lenses-market Acrylic Lenses Market: RestraintsOne of the major factors affecting the growth of the global acrylic lens market is the high initial cost of the acrylic lens. Moreover, lack of reimbursement is further expected to hamper the growth of the global acrylic lenses market. Additionally, problems such as photophobia, corneal allergy and perilimbal infection due to continuous use of lenses are expected to restrict the growth of the global acrylic lenses market.Acrylic Lenses Market: SegmentationThe global acrylic lenses market can be segmented on the basis of product type, design type, and applications. On the basis of product type, the market can be further segmented into hydrophilic acrylic lenses and hydrophobic acrylic lenses. On the basis of design type, the global acrylic lenses market can be further segmented into spherical acrylic lenses, aspherical lenses, toric lenses, multifocal lenses and toric multifocal lenses and accommodative lenses. On the basis of application, the global acrylic lenses market can be further segmented into therapeutic lenses, lifestyle, corrective lenses and cosmetic lenses.Acrylic Lenses Market: Regional OutlookOn the basis of region, North America is expected to be a promising revenue generating region owing to increasing adoption of technologically advanced products. Asia Pacific, led by China and India, is projected to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period. Increasing ophthalmic cases in Asia Pacific is expected to fuel the demand for acrylic lenses during the forecast period. Latin America is expected to witness substantial growth in the near future. Europe and Middle East & Africa are expected to witness positive growth during the forecast period.Acrylic Lenses Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants identified in the global acrylic lenses market are as mentioned below:Polyoptics GmbHLensOpticEyeKon Medical, Inc.Bausch & Lomb, Inc.American HydronBarnes HindCooperVisionWesely-JessenAmerican OpticalSyntexHoya CorporationAbbott Medical Optics, Inc.Some of the players in the market are exploring Asian market in order to increase their market share and revenue in the near future.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3762
Steve has posted President Trumps letter to Speaker Pelosi advising her that that a congressional delegation trip she intended to take to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan is now postponed. The letter is a masterpiece. Its vastly preferable to a tweet blasting Pelosi and calling her names, which is how I expected Trump to respond to Pelosis talk about postponing the State of the Union Address.

Its appalling that Pelosi didnt herself postpone the seven-day excursion, as Trump labels it. What sense does it make for one of the two principals in the shutdown showdown to be out of the country for an extended period of time while the federal government remains partially closed?

Trump has already cancelled a trip he was scheduled to make to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. That trip was far more consequential than Pelosis fact finding mission. Pelosi has little role to play in U.S. foreign policy (and no positive one, as her craven visit to Bashar al-Assad in Syria years ago demonstrated).

Trumps statement that it is totally appropriate to postpone Pelosis trip in light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay seems difficult to dispute. I think most Americans will agree with it, though many will be disgusted at what can be viewed as a tit-for-tat  Pelosi threatens the State of the Union Address; Trump postpones her travel.

Trump couldnt resist sticking the knife in by characterizing Pelosis trip as a public relations event. This gives Pelosi the opportunity to dispute the characterization, instead of explaining why she was about to to leave the country for a week while the government is partially shut down.

But the master strokes in Trumps letter outweigh the overreach. I particularly enjoyed the last two sentences:

Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative. I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!

This wasnt a Trump tweet, but you knew there still had to be at least one exclamation point.

UPDATE: Trump has now canceled the U.S. delegations upcoming trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Previously, as noted above, he had canceled his own visit.

I dont think it was necessary for Trump to cancel the delegations participation. The presence of the delegates in Washington wont contribute to breaking the impasse that has produced the partial shutdown.

At the same time, their presence in Switzerland at the Davos gabfest wouldnt have contributed much to anything, either.
The Trump administration will lift sanctions against companies controlled by an ally of Vladimir Putin. The Putin ally is Oleg Deripaska, a metals oligarch who apparently has ties to Paul Manafort.

Does Trumps decision mean that hes doing Putins bidding? No. The sanctions are being lifted at the request of our European allies, who are concerned that the action against Deripaskas companies has created havoc in the global market for aluminum.

The decision to lift sanctions thus lies at the intersection of two anti-Trump themes: (1) that Trump is a tool of Putin and (2) that Trump is insufficiently attentive to the concerns of our European allies. The first theme is ridiculous; the second is overblown.

In this case, the administration has tried to balance its desire to sanction a Putin ally and its desire to accommodate our allies. It will lift sanctions on Deripaskas companies, but not on the oligarch himself. And Deripaska has agreed to reduce his ownership in the companies to less than 50 percent.

Congress has a 30-day period in which to block any relaxation of Treasury Department sanctions related to Russia. The House voted overwhelmingly to block this relaxation. 136 Republicans, including Minority Leader McCarthy, joined with the Democrats. Only 53 members opposed the blocking measure.

However, the Senate narrowly rejected the attempt to block the administration, which required 60 votes. The vote was 57-42. The dissenting Republicans were: John Boozman, Susan Collins, Tom Cotton, Steve Daines, Cory Gardner, Josh Hawley, John Kennedy, Martha McSally, Jerry Moran, Marco Rubio, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

I have no view as to which side has the better of the debate over whether to block the administrations relaxation of sanctions. I think its clear, however, that the administrations position is a reasonable one, and that it does not constitute a bad faith capitulation to Moscow.
This episode offers another of my lectures for the William F. Buckley Program at Yale, this time on the subject of equality. Borrowing from the taxonomy of the legendary political scientist Aaron Wildavsky, I explain why 600 percent of the American people are victims of oppression! I also review some of the disagreements among prominent conservative thinkers about the principle of equality, since it is so badly abused by modern liberalism. This is the first of three lectures I will be delivering on the subject of equality. Stay tuned for announcements of the sequels! (Though Im likely to share a preview of some of the material for my next lecture in the next day or two.)

Exit bumper music today is Dinner Fork by Twiddle.

As usual, listen below, or download the episode from our partners at Ricochet. And can you please take three minutes to post a five-star review of the show on iTunes? Those things actually count, and help us build an audience.
Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Ilhan Omar hasnt even been in office a month and decent people everywhere must be sick of her. In one of her latest pronouncements, she has declared (on Twitter  where else?) that Senator Lindsey Grahams frequent support of President Trump reflects the (alleged) fact that They got to him, he is compromised! CNN subsequently followed up with a few questions asking Omar to state the factual basis of her allegation (video below). David Rutz covers the story for the Washington Free Beacon here.

Omar responded: Over the last three years, we have seen many times where Senator Lindsey Graham has told us how dangerous this president could be if he was given the opportunity to be in the White House, and all of the sudden, hes made not only a 180-turnaround but a 360-turnaround, and so I am pretty sure there is something happening with him, whether it is something that has to do with his funding when it comes to running for office, whether it has something to do with the polling that they might have in his district [Graham represents a state, not a district] or whether it has to do with some sort of leadership within the Senate, Omar said. He is somehow compromised to no longer stand up for the truth to make sure that he is fighting to protect the oath that he took in serving the American people.

Based on what evidence? CNNs Jim Sciutto asked. Thats a remarkable comment to make about a sitting U.S. Senator, Sciutto observed.

The evidence really is present to us, is being presented to us in the way that hes behaving, she answered. In other words, she has no evidence.

If Omar were a Republican, the hometown paper would be all over her case. The Star Tribune would denounce her as homophobic. The editors would demand that she apologize. The paper would ferret out fellow Republicans to denounce her. The Free Beacons Mikhael Smits provides the context of Omars deep thoughts here.

Ah, but Omar is not a Republican. She is a radical left-wing moron of the AOC persuasion and a Somali Muslim immigrant to boot. Star Tribune Washington correspondent Patrick Condon therefore absolves Omar of the homophobia rap. Citing her denial in a subsequent tweet, Condon declared that Omar never said or implied that in her tweet or the CNN interview[.]

This is Omars subsequent tweet: Yall know my tweet had nothing to do with his sexuality and everything to do with his blind cooperation w/ Trump. Thats not quite a denial and there is in any event a circular quality to the logic implicit in her statement, but its good enough for the Star Tribune in Omars case.
We wrote here about the fact that Nancy Pelosi has appointed Ilhan Omar to the House Foreign Relations Committee, notwithstanding Omars vicious hostility toward Israel, one of Americas key strategic partners, and her apparent anti-Semitism. Among other things, Omar is a supporter of the BDS movement that seeks to delegitimize Israel as an independent nation.

Today the Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents more than 1,000 rabbis on issues of public policy, delivered a letter to Pelosi, asking her to rescind her appointment of Omar to Foreign Relations. The letter is embedded below. Some excerpts:

We write to express our alarm, dismay and outrage at your elevation of Freshman Representative Ilhan Omar to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. This decision runs contrary to the values of tolerance and equality to which the Democratic Party and your office have always been committed. In 2012, as Israel defended itself against an expressly genocidal army which fired thousands of missiles at civilians, Ilhan Omar declared: Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.

***

According to the United States State Department, applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation is anti-Semitic, as is justifying the killing or harming of Jews and making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews. Rep. Omar has done all three.

***

The Republican Party responded to comments attributed to Representative Steve King by stripping him of all committee assignments  although he disavowed those remarks, insisted they did not represent his views, and voted in favor of House Resolution 41 condemning white nationalism and white supremacy. The Democratic National Committee similarly, and to its credit, pulled its sponsorship from the Womens March after coleader Tamika Mallory refused to condemn the anti-Semitic statements of Louis Farrakhan. Now, you have responded to the anti-Semitic statements of Representative Omar by providing her a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, from which a House Member with such noxious views of Jewish self-defense can do maximal damage to the special US-Israel relationship and the ongoing fight of the civilized world against terrorism.  We urge you to immediately rescind this ill-considered appointment.

Here is the letter:
We are awash these days in faux scandals, but this is a real one: Nancy Pelosi has appointed Ilhan Omar to the House Foreign Relations Committee. Omar is viciously anti-Israel and, I think, pretty clearly an anti-Semite. This is one of her notorious pronouncements on Israel:

Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel  Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 16, 2012



Omar also has come out in favor of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, a movement that is diametrically opposed to bipartisan U.S. foreign policy.

Omar announced her plum committee assignment on Twitter this afternoon:

I finally have committee assignments and I am excited  1st choice- House Foreign Affairs Committee: The Foreign Affairs Committee oversees all foreign assistance, national security affecting the countrys foreign policy, treaties, peacekeeping and war powers.  Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 17, 2019



Republicans were quick to denounce the appointment. Chuck Schumer should have criticized it, too. He has denounced BDS as anti-Semitism. (I think he is right about that.) For that matter, Pelosi, too, has said Congress must oppose BDS.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, I would love to know what changed, because Democratic leaders just promoted a pro-BDS Democrat to a key committee that deals with the State of Israel. But I think we all know what has changed: there is a new wind blowing through the Democratic Party, and Ilhan Omar, despite her youth and inexperience (or perhaps because of those qualities), typifies it. The Democratic Party is increasingly anti-Israel and flirts, to be charitable, with anti-Semitism. Today we see the latest evidence of the character of what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls the New party.

UPDATE: Earlier today, Omar was asked about her claim that Israel is evil on CNN. You can judge her response for yourself:

Rep. Ilhan Omar just doubled down on her claim that Israel has hypnotized the world, calling its behavior evil. But instead of denouncing it, Democrat leadership rewarded her with a spot on the House Foreign Relations Committee. pic.twitter.com/gyGvb0Pnqt  Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) January 17, 2019



The Minnesota press has consistently run interference for Omar and has buried negative facts about her. Possibly the national press will not be quite so pliable.
Sen. Kamala Harris styles herself a progressive prosecutor. But Harris wasnt nearly progressive enough for Lara Bazelon, a law professor and former director of the Loyola Law School Project for the [allegedly] Innocent in Los Angeles.

In a New York Times op-ed, Bazelon rips Harris for her regressive conduct and positions during her time as a district attorney in San Francisco and then Californias attorney general,

According to Bazelon:

Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the states attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.

Bazelon presents a bill of particulars. I lack the information and/or knowledge needed to evaluate most of these complaints.

Its clear, though, that Harris has an enemy on the left. Its also clear that this enemy is focusing on themes that are politically fraught  themes with the potential to undermine Harris status as a darling of the left.

Criminal justice reform is one such theme. The death penalty is another. According to Bazelon, Harris appealed (as she should have) a ruling that the death penalty is unconstitutional. That wont warm leftist hearts.

Then theres marijuana. In 2014, Harris apparently laughed when a reporter asked if she would support the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. Marijuana is no laughing matter unless, of course, if one is high.

It gets worse. In 2015, says Bazelon, Harris opposed a bill requiring her office to investigate shootings involving officers. She also refused to support statewide standards regulating the use of body-worn cameras by police officers.

Doesnt Harris realize that black lives matter?

It must be impossible these days to be a prosecutor without at times alienating both the defense bar and the far left. Bazelon apparently belongs to both groups.

Thus, its natural that Harris has an enemy in Bazelon. But this doesnt mean that Bazelons attacks lack the potential to injure Harris as she competes for votes from the Democratic left.
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Evan Brandt has been a staff reporter for The Mercury for more than 20 years. He covers municipal, school district, political, state government, federal government and environmental news.
Anna Maciejewska, who has been missing since April 2017, is presumed to be dead. The missing person case became a homicide investigation in 2018.
(CNN)  A 21-year-old exchange student has been killed in a "horrific attack" in Melbourne, Australia, police saida city consistently ranked among the world's safest places to live.

Victoria Police said the victim, Israeli national Aiia Maasarwe, appeared to have been "seriously assaulted."

The La Trobe University student's body was found partially clothed in bushes early Wednesday in Bundoora, a suburb about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Melbourne's center, CNN affiliate Nine News Australia reported.

Maasarwe was talking on the phone to her sister, who was overseas, when the attack happened, police said. The sister then alerted authorities.

Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said Thursday that further details about her injuries would not be revealed out of respect for her family.

"This was an absolutely horrendous, horrific attack that was committed against an innocent young woman," he said.

Investigators believe a T-shirt and cap found in bushes about 100 meters (330 feet) from the crime scene were left by Maasarwe's killer.

Stamper said the clothing was "key to solving this crime."

"Somebody in the community knows who did this. Somebody's come home on Tuesday night or in the early hours of Wednesday morning, maybe with blood on them, missing items of clothing," he said. "Somebody knows about this and we need help."

La Trobe University said its community was "shocked and saddened."

"La Trobe University is committed to providing a safe university environment. On campus we undertake a range of activities to improve personal and physical safety and our security has been intensified as a result of this incident," the school said in a statement.

"We are committed to continuing to work closely with all relevant authorities to address these serious community issues around public safety and violence against women."

Israel's embassy in Australia expressed its condolences to Maasarwe's family, saying it was ready to "support them during this time as our Consul works to return her body home to Israel for burial."

"We have complete faith in the Victorian Police and have no doubt that they will leave no stone unturned in the search to bring the perpetrator to justice," it said in a statement.

Authorities have increased patrols and police escorts around Bundoora since Maasarwe's body was found.

Acting Superintendent Tony Ryan, from North West Metro, said the increased police presence would likely remain in place until the killer was caught.

"We understand that this distresses the victim's family. We understand that this distresses the local community. And we understand our role in this -- and that is we need to be in that area, and we need to provide some comfort and some safety," Ryan said.

Authorities released CCTV images showing Maasarwe at the tram stop on Tuesday night in the hope members of the community could come forward with further details of her death.

"We have a grieving family who has had to fly halfway across the world under the most horrific circumstances and we want to be able to give them some answers," Stamper added.

The death has sent shockwaves through Melbourne, which was ranked among the five safest cities in the world on The Economists' 2017 Safe Cities index. It was also ranked the ninth-safest city for personal security.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Israeli exchange student, 21, killed in 'horrific' attack in Melbourne, Australia."
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Big topics were on the agenda at the Iowa Cattle Industry Leadership Summit, hosted by the Iowa Cattlemen's Association on Dec. 6. The annual event is held for the association to discuss policies and set its direction for the new year.

The association represents about 10,000 beef-producing families and associated companies.

National traceability was one of the main topics. An interim policy passed by the board of directors in 2018 stated that the cattle industry "should secure the broad adoption of individual animal ID disease traceability systems, to equip the industry to effectively manage a disease outbreak while enhancing both domestic and global trust in U.S. beef." In a survey conducted last fall, 74 percent of ICA members said they agreed with that statement.

The association also adopted a policy to say the word "meat" should be used to describe only those proteins derived from livestock raised and harvested for human consumption. The policy also supports oversight of alternative protein products by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations.
At least five federal permits are expected to be issued for seismic blast testing in any or all of five areas offshore.
Columbia/Myrtle Beach Managing Editor

Andy Shain runs The Post and Courier's newsrooms based in Columbia and Myrtle Beach. He was editor of Free Times and has been a reporter and editor for newspapers in Charlotte, Columbia and Myrtle Beach.
Gregory Yee covers breaking news and public safety. He's a native Angeleno and previously covered crime and courts for the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, CA. He studied journalism and Spanish literature at the University of California, Irvine.
David Slade is a senior Post and Courier reporter. His work has been honored nationally by Society of Professional Journalists, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Scripps foundation and others. Reach him at 843-937-5552 or dslade@postandcourier.com
Political Reporter

Caitlin Byrd is a political reporter at The Post and Courier and author of the Palmetto Politics newsletter. Before moving to Charleston in 2016, her byline appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times. To date, Byrd has won 17 awards for her work.
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Controversial racist U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) yesterday sent a fundraising email to his supporters asking them to give money to help him defend himself. King has been under fire since he made comments in a New York Times interview saying that terms such as white supremacist should not be considered offensive.

Steve King fundraising off controversy surrounding his comments on white supremacy https://t.co/lk2ks1Thab pic.twitter.com/TevRP9OIF2  The Hill (@thehill) January 18, 2019

King said in his fundraising that he was being attacked by the rabid leftist media after the prominent newspaper published his inflammatory remarks.

King wrote in a campaign email obtained by The Des Moines Register on Thursday:

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The unhinged left has teamed up with Republican NeverTrumpers and is pulling out all the stops to destroy me.

King accused The Times and rabid left media of coming after him because of his support of President Trump (another white supremacist) and his hard-line views on immigration.

Kings fundraising efforts came after he suffered an extreme backlash following his Times interview.

White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization  how did that language become offensive? King asked in the interview published last week. Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?

King later said that he made a freshman mistake agreeing to the interview and claimed his quote was taken out of context.

I regret the heartburn that has poured forth upon this Congress and this country and especially in my state and in my congressional district, King said in a House floor speech condemning white supremacy.

Ive never been anti-immigrant. I have been anti-illegal immigrant, and I remain that way, King said.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) later removed King from all of his House committee assignments following the media firestorm which resulted from the publication of Kings comments.

The Des Moines Register (Iowas largest newspaper) and The Sioux City Journal (the largest newspaper in Kings Iowa congressional district) have both called on the nine-term lawmaker to resign.

New Utah Senator Mitt Romney has also called upon King to resign, as has the Congressional Black Caucus.

Last fall a poll discovered that the majority of Americans believe that President Trump encourages white supremacists.
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One day after the bombshell NBC report based on a previously-undisclosed administration memo showing that the Trump administration weighed targeting migrant families, speeding up deportation of children and specifically targeting parents in migrant families for increased prosecutions, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) formally asked the FBI to investigate Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for perjury.

Nielsen swore under oath before the House Judiciary Committee that the Trump administration did not have a policy for family separation but they were simply enforcing existing law, saying, Weve never had a policy for family separation.

But Merkleys office says that the secret memo released yesterday shows that DHS was actively planning a family separation policy as early as December 2017.

The FBI has previously indicated that the Department of Justice requires a formal criminal referral from Congress to initiate an investigation concerning Congressional testimony. I write today to execute such a criminal referral, Merkley said in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

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Merkley pointed out that Trump has shut down the government over a crisis he created.

President Trump has shut down the government over a crisis we now know he deliberately created, said Merkley. This document shows Trump Administration staffers plotting to create a humanitarian crisis at the bordercriminalizing the search for asylum, tearing children from their parents arms, and expanding the lock-up of both parents and children. This memo shows that the administration was treating children as political pawns, not vulnerable human beings. Thats reprehensible. We must end this Trump war on migrant children.

On Wednesday, we learned that the Trump administration might have separated thousands more immigrant children from their parents than previously known. However, an internal watchdog said due to the administrations inadequate record-keeping the exact number remains unclear.

Senator Durbin demanded that Nielsen resign based on the watchdog report about the possibly additional thousands of children separated from their parents.

Seeking asylum is legal. Refugees can either enter the U.S. and make the request for asylum or as resettled refugees in another country, per the The Refugee Act. It is actually illegal to turn away asylum seekers. The U.S. has legal obligations to provide asylum to those who qualify as refugees.

There are politically and racially motivated remnants of Trumps 2017 Muslim ban in the Trump administrations approach to asylum seekers at the southern border. And now it appears as if he directed his administration to create this chaos on purpose in order to justify his costly and ineffective wall.

Border security is certainly important, but the wall isnt the way to achieve it and separating children from their parents not only does nothing to protect our country, but its an inexcusable affront to the very foundations of freedom that define our country.

Trump is right, there is a humanitarian crisis at the border. But its one he deliberately made by separating children from their parents.
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The #2 ranking Senate Democrat has called upon Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kirstjen Nielsen to resign, following the release of a government watchdog report. The report found that the Trump administration stole thousands more children under the zero tolerance policy than was previously known. No one has been held accountable for this humanitarian disaster at our southern border, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois tweeted. DHS Secretary Nielsen should accept responsibility for this outrage and resign.

America can have border security without bullying and we can be safe without treating toddlers as terrorists. DHS Secretary Nielsen should accept responsibility for this outrage and resign.  Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) January 17, 2019

While the administration said that more than 2,500 children had been kidnapped under the 2018 policy, the Office of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General has revealed that government employees were separating children from their families some time before that.

How many more children were separated is unknown by us and HHS, the OIG said Thursday. According to NBC News, some may have been released to family or nonrelative sponsors, but it is not known how many have been reunified.

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Newly empowered House Democrats weighed in on this humanitarian disaster.

I have been seeking information that would help reunify these children since last year, but the Trump administration refuses to comply, said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who now leads the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. As Chairman, I will do everything in my power to obtain the documents Ive requested to ensure the administration is held accountable for this callous and immoral policy.

The watchdogs report also found that, despite Trump official claims, there was no central system linking who was stolen from whom, ensuring that some children could be permanently orphaned.

The Trump administrations statements indicating that there was a database were also false, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. Consistently misleading the public about the administrations actions is unacceptable. However, whats infinitely worse is that some families may never be reunited.

Some children who were separated as a result of the official policy are still in custody, months after a federal judges deadline, but its unknown how many of the other children who were stolen before the policy have been returned. This is a crime against humanity.

Todays bombshell report, Durbin continued, reveals the true scope of this horrific policy: that thousands of children were forcibly removed from their parents before the policy was made public and the fate of these children is still unknown.
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A member of the House Intelligence Committee has demanded that President Donald Trump resign or be impeached for committing the felony of suborning perjury when he directed Michael Cohen to lie before Congress.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), whose brother Julian is running for president, said that the new information about Trumps alleged crimes, if proven to be true, makes him unfit to be president. The report concerning new evidence of Trumps crimes first appeared in an article published last night on Buzzfeed News.

Writing on Twitter, Castro said:

If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached.

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If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached.  Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) January 18, 2019

Two federal law enforcement officials who were reportedly involved in an investigation into the matter told Buzzfeed that Donald Trump specifically directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress when he was testifying under oath about Trump connections to Russia. The lies told by Cohen were about the Trump Organizations efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump also reportedly directed Cohen to visit Russia to begin negotiations about the Trump Tower construction project shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

Then-candidate Trump also reportedly directed Cohen to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the trip, Buzzfeed reported.

Make it happen, Trump allegedly told Cohen about the Trump Tower project.

Cohen pleaded guilty last fall to making false statements about the Trump Tower Moscow plans while testifying before two congressional intelligence committees.

He said he lied about his travel plans and how long the project was discussed with Trump Organization officials before the 2016 presidential election won by Trump.

Buzzfeed said that their confidential sources within law enforcement told them that there is documentary evidence that Trump also personally directed Cohen to lie to special counsel Robert Muellers team about the Moscow project.

Trump and Cohens efforts to obscure the truth were to help Trump win the presidential election by hiding his extensive involvement with and relationships with Putin and Russia.

Special Counsel Mueller has previously said that Cohens false claim that the project was scrapped by January of 2016 was an attempt to minimize links between the Moscow Project and Individual 1 in hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia investigations.

Individual 1 is widely known to be a reference to President Trump.

Rudy Giuliani, the presidents current attorney, reportedly dismissed the Buzzfeed News report in a statement to reporters after it was published.

If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge, Giuliani said.

The new report about Trumps involvement in Cohens perjury crimes comes just a few weeks before Cohen is scheduled to testify before Congress again, at a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on February 7.

As legal expert Laurence Tribe pointed out on Twitter, Trump is now being accused of a very serious felony:

If this report is accurate, Trump committed subornation of perjury, punishable by five years imprisonment under 18 U.S. Code  1622.

If this report is accurate, Trump committed subornation of perjury, punishable by five years imprisonment under 18 U.S. Code  1622. https://t.co/5uBydMX99s  Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) January 18, 2019
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Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) has requested that Michael Cohen be called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about being directed to lie to Congress by Trump.

Here is the letter that Blumenthal wrote to Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC):

Richard Blumenthal wants Michael Cohen to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee: "This is our Constitutional duty  as members of Congress, a co-equal branch of government whose role is to serve as a check on the Executive Branch and the President." pic.twitter.com/Lh0GhQEUhA  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 18, 2019

The key part of the letter:

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Trump Cant Silence Michael Cohen

Given the new report that Trump directed Cohen to lie and that his false testimony was prepared by the White House, Trump cant silence his former lawyer. Even if Cohen was intimidated into not testifying, Congress now has the grounds to subpoena Cohen and compel him to appear before the committee.

The walls are closing in on Trump.

The president appears to be terrified of what Michael Cohen will tell Congress and the entire world when he testifies in public.

Michael Cohen has nothing to lose. He is already going to prison. Cohen is trying to rehab his image and save his family by coming clean in front of Congress.

Cohen now cant be silenced, and Donald Trumps presidency is living on borrowed time.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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A BuzzFeed News report published late Thursday night found that President Donald Trump has been implicated in federal crimes by directing Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. According to the report, Trump directed Cohen to lie about the 2016 Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller has evidence to prove it.

BREAKING: President Trump personally directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in order to obscure his involvement.

BREAKING: President Trump personally directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in order to obscure his involvement. https://t.co/BEoMKiDypn  BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) January 18, 2019

Given that Cohen has already pleaded guilty to the crime of perjury before Congress, legal experts explained that, if the report is accurate, it is the end of the Trump presidency.

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The lies Cohen told were about secret negotiations during the 2016 campaign to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Citing two sources, Buzzfeed reported that, Cohen also told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie  by claiming that negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did  in order to obscure Trumps involvement.

The special counsels office learned about Trumps directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents, Buzzfeed explained. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.

Buzzfeed claims their reporting, is the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia.

The story also explains that Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. received detailed updates about the Trump Moscow project. As Chris Hayes pointed out, this should cause panic among Trumps family and associates.

If I were Trump, Ivanka or Don Jr, this would make my blood run cold:

The special counsels office learned about Trumps directive for Cohen to lie to Congress throughinternal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.



If I were Trump, Ivanka or Don Jr, this would make my blood run cold: "The special counsels office learned about Trumps directive for Cohen to lie to Congress throughinternal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents."  Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 18, 2019

Other experts weighed in on Twitter, discussing the seriousness of the federal laws that Trump may have violated and casting doubt on Trumps political future.

Big breaking news. About to talk about it on @cnn with @donlemon. Ordering someone to lie to Congress is a felony.

Big breaking news. About to talk about it on @cnn with @donlemon. Ordering someone to lie to Congress is a felony. https://t.co/HnOKdw3DlW  Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) January 18, 2019

If there are text messages and other receipts, thats the ballgame. Thats the smoking gun.

If there are text messages and other receipts, thats the ballgame. Thats the smoking gun. https://t.co/4Jd1LLn8Id  Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) January 18, 2019

If true, hes done: President Trump Directed His Attorney To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower Project

By directing his subordinate to lie to Congress, Donald Trump committed the serious crime of suborning perjury. And if Mueller indeed has evidence proving this, Trump will easily be convicted of this crime. There is no question that it is time for the President of the United States to be indicted for his crimes, and to be removed from office.
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Donald Trumps reckless last-minute decision to nix House Speaker Nancy Pelosis trip to Afghanistan will cost the military an unfathomable amount of resources.

According to Kevin Baron, the executive editor of Defense One, the disruption caused by Trumps petty political play will have an immeasurable toll on man hours, intelligence assets and much more.

In a word, Baron called the move by the president stunning.

Trump just cause an unfathomable amount of disruption and cost to the US Air Force and other services by his last minute refusal of the codels travel. Truly immeasurably but enormous man hours, intelligence assets, vehicle 7& aircraft allocations, prep, security. Stunning.  Kevin Baron (@DefenseBaron) January 17, 2019

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Trump has repeatedly shown a blatant disrespect for the military

Donald Trump likes to tout how much he respects the military, but his actions have repeatedly demonstrated that he only cares about U.S. service members when he can use them to his political advantage.

With his moronic move to get back at Nancy Pelosi on Thursday, he didnt just drain resources and disrupt military operations, but he put members of Congress at risk.

As Rep. Adam Schiff pointed out on Thursday, The presidents decision to disclose a trip that a Speaker is making to a war zone was completely and utterly irresponsible in every way.

This irresponsible attack on Pelosi comes a day after Trumps snap political decision to pull troops from Syria led to the death of four Americans in a bombing attack carried out by ISIS.

It can sometimes be easy to dismiss or even laugh off some of this presidents craziest rhetoric and policy decisions, but this is no laughing matter. American lives are at stake and American lives have already been lost as a result of this out-of-control commander-in-chief.

Time and again, Donald Trump has shown that he is a clear and present danger to the United States.

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Donald Trump appears to have stepped into yet another crime by using the White House bully pulpit to threaten witnesses and their family members.

In an appearance on Fox News, the president called Michael Cohen weak and attacked his father-in-law.

[Cohen] should give information maybe on his father-in-law, because thats the one that people want to look at, Trump said. Thats the money in the family.

During an interview with MSNBCs Ari Melber on Thursday, Cohens legal advisor Lanny Davis slammed the president and called for an immediate criminal investigation into the threats made against his client and family members.

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Davis called Trumps threats the very definition of intimidation and witness tampering, especially a witness about to appear before a congressional committee to tell the truth about what he knows about Donald Trump.

By definition that deserves a criminal investigation, he added.

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Davis said:

[Cohen] is very concerned, as is his family, that a bully in the bully pulpit named Donald Trump calls out a member of his family and hes also called out other members of his family using the White House platform on a national television show. Let me be very clear here. This is a definition of witness tampering and intimidation and could be obstruction of justice. But more than that, if there is one thing at a time of this shutdown and the worst polarization in my lifetime in this country, if there is one thing that can bring Trump voters and anti-Trump voters, Democrats and Republicans together, it is to draw the line that family is out of bounds. I want to hear Republicans say that to President Trump. Tonight, tomorrow  family is out of bounds. Youve gone too far. And Im challenging them to do that.  There is no question that his threatening and calling out his father in law who, quote, has all of the money, is not only improper and unseemly for a bully using the bully pulpit of the presidency, but the very definition of intimidation and witness tampering, especially a witness about to appear before a congressional committee to tell the truth about what he knows about Donald Trump. By definition that deserves a criminal investigation.

As Jason Easley pointed out a short time ago, witness tampering could potentially result in decades of jail time for Trump.

Michael Cohen is set to testify on Feb. 7

With Michael Cohen set to sing like a bird before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 7, Donald Trump is becoming increasingly panicked. His bullying comments on Fox News reek of desperation.

As Paul Waldman of The Washington Post wrote on Thursday, [I]f [Cohen] really gives a comprehensive account of everything he saw and did while toiling as Donald Trumps factotum, he could be to the Trump administration what John Dean was to the Nixon administration.

Waldman added, Cohen could peel away the layers of deception and denial to expose the rancid corruption boiling underneath.

The walls are closing in on Trump. In his desperate attempt to get out from under the legal avalanche about to pummel him, he may have stepped into yet another crime.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters)  President Donald Trump has canceled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week, due to the partial U.S. government shutdown, according to a statement Press Secretary Sarah Sanders released on Thursday.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Lisa Lambert)
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Trump was mad at the media coverage over being uninvited to deliver the State Of The Union, so he canceled Nancy Pelosis travel to countries that she wasnt visiting.

Trump claimed that Pelosi was going to Egypt. She was not. Pelosi was going to Brussels so that their pilot could rest. Pelosi was going to Afghanistan to gather critical intelligence information.

Here is the letter that Trump sent to Pelosi:

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Speaker Pelosis office set the record straight:

The CODEL to Afghanistan included a required stop in Brussels for pilot rest. In Brussels, the delegation was scheduled to meet with top NATO commanders, U.S. military leaders and key alliesto affirm the United States ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance. (1/4)  Drew Hammill (@Drew_Hammill) January 17, 2019

This weekend visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt. (2/4)  Drew Hammill (@Drew_Hammill) January 17, 2019

The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation & thanks to our men & women in uniform for their service & dedication, & to obtain critical national security & intelligence briefings from those on the front lines. (3/4)  Drew Hammill (@Drew_Hammill) January 17, 2019

The President traveled to Iraq during the Trump Shutdown as did a Republican CODEL led by Rep. Zeldin. (4/4)  Drew Hammill (@Drew_Hammill) January 17, 2019

To summarize, the White House made it sound like Pelosi was going on a trip and keeping the House out of session while the government is shut down. This was a false claim. The House will be back in session on Tuesday. Pelosi canceled Representatives district work period next week and is keeping the House in session. Pelosi wasnt going on a PR trip that was going to keep the House out of session. Trump lied. It was a trip to see the troops and gather information about the war in Afghanistan.

Trump got it all wrong and in the process humiliated himself by canceling a trip he made up details for. The bottom line is that if Donald Trump wants the government to open all he has to do is agree to fund it.

The shutdown is Donald Trumps problem. Speaker Pelosi is waiting for him to say yes.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) hammered Trump for outing Speaker Pelosis trip to the Afghanistan war zone.

Schiff said, Im not going to comment on the speakers travel plans. Quite frankly, there has been far too much said about that already. And I think the presidents decision to disclose a trip that a Speaker is making to a war zone was completely and utterly irresponsible in every way. And Im not going to comment on the Speakers travel plans.

Rep. Schiff added, Well, look, I cant say what the presidents motivation is here, whether this is related to his disappointment that the State Of The Union at the time when the government is closed doesnt make much sense. I can say that all too often in the last few years the president has acted like hes in the fifth grade. And to have someone who has that kind of character running the country is an enormous problem at every level. We see it now. Weve seen it over the last two years and my guess is we will see it in the future. But regardless of what the presidents motivation is for this one thing here is, we will not let the President Of The United States tell the congress you cant do your oversight. That appears whats going on here. And we are a coequal branch of government. It may not have been that way over the last two years when he had a Republican Congress willing to roll over any time he asked but that is no longer the case.

Video:

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Rep. Adam Schiff, "I think the president's decision to disclose a trip that a Speaker is making to a war zone was completely and utterly irresponsible in every way." https://t.co/debhDBtJ6d pic.twitter.com/Hkaw4u5PrS  Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 17, 2019

Trump had a tantrum and put the lives of members of Congress in jeopardy

Trump threw a fit over not getting his SOTU, so he publicly outed a Congressional trip to a dangerous war zone. It took Trump two years to visit the troops because he was afraid to go to Iraq or Afghanistan. These trips are not PR junkets as Trump called them. They are intelligence gathering missions so that Congress can do proper oversight.

Donald Trumps actions were beyond petty. They could have gotten members of Congress killed.

Whether it is the government shutdown or outing Pelosis trip, the one consistency is that Trump shows no regard or value for the lives of others.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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Mitt Romney has, in part, built his political career on standing up to Vladimir Putin, but his early work in the U.S. Senate has exposed him as just another stooge of Donald Trump and Russia.

MSNBCs Ari Melber pounced on Romneys hypocrisy on Thursday, calling him out for voting this week to lift sanctions on Putin-connected businesses.

Sen. Romney can talk a very big game on this, but this was his first test as senator, a chance to take action to confront Russia, and he folded, the MSNBC host said. He did exactly what he said he wouldnt do when it comes to Russia.

Video:

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Melber hit Romney:

Tough talk. And this week a Putin oligarch has been lobbying to cut sanctions with support from Russia-friendly President Trump. It seems like a time for Romney to buck the White House. He has been warning about Russia for years.  And Romney took heat for that. He even doubled down. He staked his presidential candidacy on what he said was a principal of standing up to that foe, Russia.  So what happens now when Romney finally gets this chance to use those clear eyes on Putin? You see him there presiding over the vote. He stuck with Trump, voting to block any effort to address these sanctions on the Russian oligarch. This is actually one of his very first votes as senator. Take a look. We found this on Russian-state TV covering the news. You see Romney in the top row celebrated by that foe. Sen. Romney can talk a very big game on this but this was his first test as senator, a chance to take action to confront Russia, and he folded. He backed Donald Trump. He did exactly what he said he wouldnt do when it comes to Russia.

Republicans have completely sold out to Trump and Russia

As Rachel Maddow pointed out on Wednesday after Republicans voted with Donald Trump in favor of Vladimir Putin, the GOP didnt pass the test when they gave Russia a giant economic handout on Wednesday.

Its the latest indication that Russia and Putin have complete control not only over the president they helped install in 2016, but the Republican Party more broadly.

And no GOP hypocrite stands out more than Utahs new Sen. Mitt Romney, who has spent years touting his tough stance on Russia before folding like a cheap tent this week.

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By Ginger Gibson

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  When President Donald Trump stormed out of a White House meeting with congressional leaders last Wednesday, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sat there silently, uttering not a word as the talks blew up, according to others in the room.

The No. 1 Republican in Congress, who rose to power on his reputation as a master of legislative wrangling, has had little to say in public or private during a partial federal government shutdown that began on Dec. 22 and has no end in sight.

Showing no interest in defying his president and Trumps demand that triggered the shutdown for funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall opposed by Democrats, McConnell has kept a low profile. This posture, allies and opponents said, is about McConnell protecting himself, vulnerable Republicans and their control of the Senate ahead of the 2020 elections.

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At the core of McConnells quiet loyalty to Trump, despite past friction between them, is a calculation that Trumps popularity with Republican voters makes standing by him, in the long run, politically wiser than responding to short-term worries about the shutdown, aides and experts said.

The leader is prepared to engage, but the leader always wants to be able to look ahead and see the two or three other moves ahead of the immediate move, Republican Senator Thom Tillis told Reuters, referring to McConnell.

The cost of this long-term focus, Democrats said, is that McConnell has ceded control of the Senate to Trump for the duration of the shutdown fight by pledging to block any shutdown-ending legislation the president would not sign.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who helped negotiate an end to an earlier shutdown, said this of McConnells absence from negotiations: Basically, thats whats holding everything up.

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, is passing shutdown-ending spending bills in her chamber, including one on Friday. If McConnell would only put those measures on the Senate floor for a vote, Democrats argue, senators from both parties would support them.

That would then pressure Trump, according to the Democrats, to sign the bills into law and reopen government, even if the measures lacked the $5.7 billion in wall funding he is demanding. McConnell has made clear this will not happen.

SLIP OUT THE BACK

Twice now, House Republican leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise have emerged from high-level White House shutdown talks to address reporters, once with Trump and once with Vice President Mike Pence. While McCarthy and Scalise went to the microphones, McConnell returned unobtrusively to the Capitol.

A senior Democratic aide described McConnells demeanor in meetings with Democrats about the shutdown as more subdued than when he helped end previous shutdowns.

One other possible explanation for this, Democrats said, is that McConnell was burned by Trump last month when the president reversed position and rejected a bipartisan, Senate-passed spending bill that would have averted the shutdown.

About a quarter of the government closed after Trump rejected that bill, unexpectedly demanding that any measure to restore funding to agencies whose funding expired for unrelated reasons must include more than $5 billion for his wall. Democrats continue to refuse to fund the wall, which they have called immoral, ineffective and expensive.

In addition, for all his acumen as a legislative tactician, McConnell in 2017 failed to get the Senate to vote to repeal Obamacare, the 2010 healthcare law that Trump had vowed to end. In the aftermath, Trump publicly criticized McConnell.

RE-ELECTION TEST

McConnells main concern as he navigates the shutdown drama is likely November 2020, when he will face a re-election contest in his home state of Kentucky. If Trump is the Republican presidential nominee again, the two would be on the same ballot.

McConnell won his last re-election bid in 2014 by 16 percentage points. Trump did even better in Kentucky two years later, winning by 30 percentage points. So sticking with Trump is more likely to help than hurt McConnell.

Mitch McConnell backing the president, keeping the Republican conference together behind the president, is very good in Kentucky, said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist from Kentucky who has advised McConnells last three Senate campaigns and worked on national campaigns.

A poll by liberal Public Policy Polling found that in seven states where Republican senators are up for re-election in 2020  Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Maine and North Carolina  most voters oppose a shutdown for border funds.

Republican senators such as Susan Collins and Cory Gardner may feel pressure to vote to reopen the government, but defying Trump could make them vulnerable to future challenges in party primaries.

By blocking Senate consideration of such measures, McConnell helps these senators avoid making expedient short-term votes that could hurt them in 2020, while letting them continue to criticize the shutdown without having to vote against their president.

It would be crippling if the Republicans were running around eating each other alive, Jennings said.

(Additional reporting by Rick Cowan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Will Dunham)
Phil Hellmuth Heads to Rio de Janeiro for partypoker LIVE MILLIONS South America

January 17, 2019 Valerie Cross

At the start of the year, partypoker announced some changes to their LIVE events, particularly a shift to all main events on the schedule becoming $10k buy-in freeze-outs. What other changes the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS events will reveal are yet to be seen, but one particular confirmed guest appearance stands out for the kickoff stop in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Phil Hellmuth is known as a globetrotter, willing to jet out to a variety of events across the U.S. and the world if the value and experiences are attractive. He even has his own hashtag to help describe his lavish lifestyle: #PHNiceLife.

Soon, the Poker Brat will be able to cross off yet another exotic trip off his Poker Bucket List. partypoker MILLIONS South America will run from March 15-24, 2019 hosted at the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio, and Hellmuth is confirmed to be in attendance.

Look who's coming to #flyingdowntorio He can sing as well, what can't @phil_hellmuth do? Join him and us at https://t.co/NhktJwss2a  partypokerLIVE (@partypokerlive)

Hellmuth Talks Rio Trip

We asked Hellmuth about his upcoming trip to Rio, which he has been hyping up on his social media channels. Hellmuth is no regular at partypoker LIVE events, but not for lack of interest.

I would have loved to play in the Millions Bahamas, they even had a jet leaving from Vegas, but I had appearances booked (I charge $50,000 a night). Same with the one in Canada. I have been LONGING to play in more of the bigger poker tourneys. And it hurt to skip the WSOPE in 2018 (the first time I missed a WSOPE or WSOPA). partypoker LIVE is a great tour, and Im glad that I can play in Rio.

For MILLIONS South America, the stars aligned and Hellmuth saw an opportunity he couldnt turn down.

After missing too many big tournaments in 2018, and texting with Rob Yong, I discovered I had a gap in my schedule during the Millions South America. The fact that it was in Brazil was persuasive, and the fact that my wife and I could attend 'Carnival' sold the deal! Bucket list item, Carnival - check! Also, we both love Warren Lush, and he recruited me to come.

"The fact that it was in Brazil was persuasive, and the fact that my wife and I could attend 'Carnival' sold the deal!"

Hellmuth plans to play a handful of high-value events on the schedule including the $1,100 Turbo Rio Open $1 million guarantee and the $10,300 Main Event $5 million guarantee. If he busts the main, he'll also fire the $10,000 High Roller $1 million guarantee. South America will be a new territory for The Poker Brat, though hes mixed it up with a couple of Brazils best before.

There are definitely some world-class poker players from Brazil. Felipe Ramos and Andre Akkari are both top top players. I havent played much against the other top Brazilian poker players yet... At a WSOP tourney a few years back, I whined too much when Akkari was at my table. He rightfully called me out for my bad behavior! He was 100% right! I apologized and he forgave me. Sometimes Im a Poker Brat!

We asked the 15-time WSOP bracelet winner what adding a partypoker LIVE title to his poker resume would mean for him.

Anytime I can add huge titles to my resume, the world takes notice. I seem to have a ton of 'Haters' and 'Doubters' that constantly attack my game, not my unparalleled accomplishments: they attack the way I play today. Fine, so be it. I use that as fuel. I dont walk around thinking Im great all of the time. The haters wont let me! But, if I can win this, then theyll have to shut up for a year (hopefully!). Winning my 15th WSOP Bracelet has shut them up for the last six months.

As far as off-the-felt plans, Hellmuth has one main focus.

Other than seeing the Carnival, we have nothing else planned yet. But Im sure wifey will look at touristy stuff in and around Rio, and we will definitely see a bunch of cool stuff.

"If I can win this, then [the haters] will have to shut up for a year (hopefully!)."

When asked what he is most looking forward to about the Rio trip, Hellmuth responded:

Two things: Carnival and the main event!

Knowing he keeps a pretty packed schedule, we wondered if fans can expect Hellmuth to make more pp LIVE appearances after the Rio stop.

We will see. I think the one in Canada fits my schedule, and it close enough, and The Canadians LOVE poker, and always treat me well. I LOVE Canada!!

Her name is Rio, and she dances on the sand  phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth)
All photos by Kyle Froman for Pointe, modeled by Gwen Vandenhoeck of Ballet Academy East.

Explore Your Turnout With These 4 Exercises
New York City Ballet principal and Dance Against Cancer Co-Founder Daniel Ulbricht in New York City's Columbus Circle. Travis Magee, Courtesy DAC.
Vermillion, SD (57069)

Today

Clear this evening then becoming cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Clear this evening then becoming cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph.
Logansport, IN (46947)

Today

Some clouds and possibly an isolated thunderstorm late. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Some clouds and possibly an isolated thunderstorm late. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
Staff reports

The Petoskey News-Review

Editor:

Big, multiple changes at Michigan Department of Health and Human Services aren't working as intended, not for the folks trying their best to help citizens with heat, food stamps or Medicaid and certainly not for those needing these services.

In 2015 Gov. Snyder merged Community Health with the Deptartment of Human Services. He said it would make the system ... more compassionate and efficient. Then last spring the agency changed to something called "Universal Caseloads." At the same time department's county configurations changed dramatically. When I worked in the St. Ignace office from 1996-Jan. 2008 we were a dual county with Cheboygan. Today, the entire networks of U.P. department offices are under one huge tent.

Meanwhile the northern part of the Lower Peninsula merged into a 10-county unit called MITop10.

Adding misery to these changes, in October 2018 all federal dollars marked for heat, go to the department.

Then there's this change: If a person seeking help with heat, they face a measly asset limit of $50. Need propane? A client must first wait until the tank is at or below 25 percent, otherwise the application is automatically denied. Citizens can and do run out of propane before a case is processed.

One department caseworker told me the new system is a disaster. From top to bottom, many folks at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services hate the new system and some say it should be tossed into the trash.

I encourage department staff to contact their union reps, state representatives, Gov. Whitmer, and department director Gordon. Those who have needed help and system didn't work for you  reach out, tell your story. Central Office along with Republicans in Lansing created this mess. It's time for them to fix it. Please consider contacting the press to shine a light on this mess.

Karen MartinRetired eligibility specialistCheboygan
Jillian Fellows (231) 439-9389 jfellows@petoskeynews.com

The Petoskey News-Review

PETOSKEY  During Wednesdays school board meeting, John Scholten, superintendent of Petoskey schools, formally announced his intention to retire.

Scholten said his retirement will be effective June 30, 2019, and expressed his gratitude to the school board and the districts administration and staff.

Thank you for everything youve done to help me throughout my career here, Scholten said. Its hard to believe that its been 14 years, this is my 14th year, but Ive talked to you, Ive wrestled with this for a few years  but Ive come to the conclusion that I plan to retire at the end of the school year.

Scholtens resignation for the purpose of retirement was unanimously accepted by the school board, with one member absent.

Earlier in the meeting, Scholten said he has 23 years of experience as a superintendent in all. He is just the fifth superintendent to work for the Public Schools of Petoskey in the districts 98-year history.

As the years have gone by, it feels good. Weve had a lot of fun, a lot of success, Scholten said. I guess I feel that 14 years is adding to that. In 98 years, with my departure, it will only be five leaders. Thats unheard of in the state of Michigan. Thats probably unheard of in the nation to have that consistency in leadership.

Board members thanked Scholten for his years of service to the district and the work he has done to make the schools better.

Youve certainly done a lot in the 14 years that youve been here, said board member Mary Ling. Youve always tried to say you want to be the lighthouse district and you want us to be the school district that people look at, and I think youve moved it from when you were hired 14 years ago to now. You continue to stay focused on making it a better place for students and we all appreciate that guidance that youve had for the school district.

Board president Keith Szajnecki added that, Youve done great things for our school system and youre certainly going to be missed.

During Scholtens time as superintendent, he has overseen large-scale construction projects such as Northmen Stadium, guided the district through budgetary concerns and applauded the passage of a regional enhancement millage, among many other accomplishments.

It was also noted by board members that Scholten has set the table for the current administration, having hired all of the current building principals.

Ive been fortunate. Ive been blessed, Scholten said. Weve had a couple bumps here and there, but for the most part its been a really smooth ride and very good.
Arielle S. Hines (231) 439-9358 ashines@petoskeynews.com

The Petoskey News-Review

Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, has invited President Donald Trump to deliver his State of the Union address in the House chamber in the states capital.

There is no higher loyalty or obligation than to the people we serve and the communities we represent, and no partisan gamesmanship should stand in the way of that service. Because of that, this chamber and this speaker are willing to put people before politics for this important occasion, Chatfield wrote in a letter that was posted to his public Facebook page on Friday.

Chatfields letter comes after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Trump to postpone his Jan. 29 State of the Union speech, citing concerns about whether adequate security could be provided due to the ongoing partial government shutdown. Republicans were quick to cast Pelosis request as playing politics.

After Pelosis request, Trump canceled the military plane that would have carried Pelosi and a congressional delegation to Afghanistan on the previously undisclosed troop visit. Pelosi later canceled her plans to travel by commercial plane to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan, stating Trump created a security risk by talking about the trip.

Chatfields letter casts Michigan as being different from the politics in Washington D.C., stating on social media the success of our state and country is bigger than political parties. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Chatfield have talked at length about the need for bipartisanship since assuming their top roles in state government.

We also have a divided government in our state, but Republicans in Michigan understand that the success of our Democratic governor means the success of Michigan. Even though we will disagree, we will always work together to improve the lives of our local families and seniors, because we have a solemn responsibility to do so. However, because some have chosen to stand in the way of your official duties, we would be honored to host you in our Capitol for this necessary address to our nation, Chatfield wrote in the letter.

Chatfields invitation got swift GOP support. Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, a Michigan native, retweeted Chatfields letter, stating in part the American people deserve to hear from @realDonaldTrump about the state of our union.

U.S. Rep Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, said he was supportive of Chatfields invitation in a statement to the News-Review.

I would love to welcome President Trump back to Michigan to hold the State of the Union address. As Speaker Chatfield said, we in Michigan know how to work across party lines to do whats best for the people. National politicians would do well to take note of the way we work in our state. The pettiness and partisan nonsense on display this week is below us. The American people deserve better, Bergman said in a statement.

However, House Democratic Leader Christine Greig of Farmington Hills had a different view on Chatfields invitation.

At a time when Michigan is focused on building bridges, we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by partisan gamesmanship. Instead of inviting Washingtons dysfunction to Lansing, I am ready to work with the Speaker and Governor Whitmer to focus on the things that matter to Michigan families  fixing the roads, lowering healthcare costs, and cleaning up our water, Greig said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Whitmer declined to comment about Chatfields letter. Whitmer did send out a joint statement with Governor Jay Inslee of Washington and Andrew Cuomo of New York on Friday about the government shutdown, though it doesnt mention Chatfields invitation. The release asks for Trump administration to take action on the states ability to make unemployment benefits available to unpaid federal workers who are still working despite the shutdown.

We urge President Trump and the Senate Republicans to end this impasse now and reopen the government for all Americans, the press release said.

While Trumps address was scheduled for the end of January, Chatfield concludes his letter by saying please know that we are ready and available to host you at your convenience.

Washington, D.C. may be bogged down in partisan politics, but Michigan is different. Michigan helped build this country, and we know how to get things done. In the Great Lakes state, we roll up our sleeves and work hard every day. That includes working collaboratively, regardless of party, and together we can prove it to the rest of the country, Chatfield said in his letter.

Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow didnt immediately respond to News-Reviews request for comment. Trump hasnt responded to Chatfields invitation as of yet.
Arielle S. Hines (231) 439-9358 ashines@petoskeynews.com

The Petoskey News-Review

LANSING  Michigan lawmakers introduced a variety of bills last week.

Below is a short description of measures recently introduced in the Michigan Legislature. The list doesnt include every measure recently introduced.

House proposals

House Resolution 8: Creates the House Select Committee on Reducing Car Insurance Rates. House speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, will appoint five Republicans and four Democrats to members of the committee, which will consider legislation to reform the states car insurance system. Chatfield sponsored the resolution, which was adopted on Wednesday.

House Bill 4040: Prohibits tobacco vending machines. Terry Sabo, D-Muskegon, is sponsoring the measure. The bill has been referred to the committee of regulatory reform.

HB 4045: Authorizes county officials to offer up to $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of a person that committed a crime in the county. Kara Hope, D-Holt, is sponsoring the bill. The measure has been referred to the judiciary committee.

HB 4046: Allows for short-term rentals in all residential zones. In addition, the measure would prohibit local governments to require short-term dwellings to obtain a special use permit. However, regulations to account for things such as noise and traffic could still be enacted. The bills sponsor is Jason Sheppard, R-Temperance, who also spearheaded a similar measure during the last legislative term that was never voted on. The measure has been referred to the committee on local government and municipal finance.

HB 4054: Sets a minimum number of school counselors to be employed by a school district. Leslie Love, D-Detroit, is sponsoring the measure. The measure was referred to the committee on education.

Senate proposals

Senate Bill 1: Aims to reduce auto insurance rates by allowing drivers 62 or older to allow Medicare or other lifetime health care benefits to cover medical costs related to vehicle crashes. Younger drivers would also have more choices when it comes to coverage. Aric Nesbitt, R-Lawton, is sponsoring the measure. The bill was referred to the committee on insurance and banking.

SB 14: Aims to toughen PFAS in drinking water standards. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, is the bills sponsor. The measure was referred to the committee on environmental quality.

SB 16: Recaptures tax credits for businesses relocating out of Michigan. Jim Ananich, D-Flint, is sponsoring the bill. The measure has been referred to the finance committee.

SB 23 and 24: Aims to provide more options for state prosecutors to charge people accused of mail theft. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake, and Peter Lucido, R-Shelby Township, are sponsoring the bills. The measures are being referred to the committee on judiciary and public safety.

SB 38: Allows winner of state lotteries to remain anonymous. Curtis VanderWall, R-Ludington, is the bills sponsor. The measure has been referred to the committee on regulatory reform.

For additional details about the measures listed, visit www.legislature.mi.gov or contact the bills sponsor.
Though Sierra Nelson tried to blame the life-altering injuries suffered by her 4-month-old daughter on the childs father, a Dauphin County jury convicted her of child abuse on Thursday.

The Dauphin County District Attorneys Office shared the outcome of the case against Sierra Nelson, 26, following the conviction on felony endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated assault of a child.

The office described the case as follows:

Nelson and the infants father, Andre Houston, brought their daughter to a well child doctors appointment on March 24, 2016. Almost immediately, the doctor sent the child to the emergency room at Hershey Medical Center.

Dr. Kent Hymel, a child abuse expert at Hershey, testified during Nelsons trial about the babys injuries. Those included 33 rib fractures, at least four skull fractures, a fractured clavicle and a fractured vertebrae. The baby was also underweight and had severe brain injuries.

The couple told investigators there was one time their daughter rolled off a couch, but doctors confirmed that the injuries could never have happened from the fall that was described.

Hymel told the jury the injuries were inflicted on multiple occasions rather than all at once. The injuries were life-altering, Hymel testified, and the now 3-year-old baby suffered brain damage so severe she must be fed through a feeding tube and might never walk.

As a pair, Houston and Nelson initially denied any serious medical problems other than the fact she was underweight.

Houston testified he saw several concerning signs that his daughter was injured in some way, and that he failed as a parent by not helping her at the time. Court documents list the offenses as dating back to late November 2015.

Houston said he shared his concerns about the child with Nelson, but she said they shouldnt call the doctor because they will think we did something to her, the district attorneys office said.

Houston pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child in December 2018 and is serving a state prison sentence of two to four years, followed by three years of probation, according to online court documents.

Nelson testified during the trial and described herself as a loving, caring mother who could never harm her child, the DAs office said.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Sean M. McCormack used cross-examination of Nelson to point out inconsistencies in her testimony with prior statements to child protective services, the police and the childs doctors. McCormack used the inconsistencies to argue to the jury that Nelson was the one to injure her her baby.

This case is a perfect example of how this type of crime should be investigated. In particular, the teamwork during this investigation between Sydelle Chase, formerly of Dauphin County Children & Youth, and Harrisburg Police Detective Paula Trovy had a direct impact on our ability to obtain justice for this little girl. McCormack said following the conviction. He also thanked Deputy District Attorney Katie Adam for her invaluable help during this trial.

Online court documents do not list a sentencing date for Nelson.
The U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force arrested a central Pa. man accused of robbing a home in Dauphin County on New Years Eve.

Tymere Laquan Eaton, 22, was wanted by the Lower Paxton Police Department in connection with a home invasion robbery in the 4200 block of King George Drive, according to the marshals.

Eaton has lived in Harrisburg, Hershey, Lancaster and Millersville, the marshals said, and attempts to find him in Harrisburg were unsuccessful, so the task force was called in to assist.

Thursday around 10:15 a.m., deputy marshals and task force officers check a home in the 100 block of Manor Avenue in Manor Township, Lancaster County, and found Eaton, the marshals said. Eaton was arrested without incident and turned over to Lower Paxton police.

We place a high priority on fugitive cases in which the use or threat of violence against innocent victims occurs, said U.S. Marshal Pane. We will continue to work with our partners in the law enforcement community to ensure our communities throughout Pennsylvania are more secure.

The task force included the Lower Paxton Township Police Department, Swatara Township Police Department, Dauphin County Adult Probation Office, York County Sheriffs Office, the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, the Pennsylvania State Police and more according to the release.
Karen Coates, a top legislative attorney for state House Republicans throughout their current eight-year run in the majority, died Thursday at Hershey Medical Center after a brief illness. She was 55.

Coates, the former wife of late Dauphin County Judge Bernie Coates, was part of a group of women over the last generation who broke significant glass ceilings at the state Capitol not as elected officials, but as top staffers who play key roles in building bills and the relationships to get them passed.

Few climbed as far up that ladder as she.

As the first female chief of staff / chief counsel to the House Speaker, she was proud of her barrier-breaking, acknowledging in a 2016 interview with The PLS Reporter that, from a personal perspective, thats a huge accomplishment for me.

But it was also an honor that Coates did let not define her.

For that, she relied on her work.

In her legislative post, Coatess duties included making sure first that her boss, Rep. Mike Turzai, had the best possible reading of the will of his Republican members and then, in subsequent negotiations with House Democrats, Senate leaders and governors staff, making sure that message was communicated clearly.

I never felt Ive been treated differently, Coates said about her position as a top female staff person in the Legislature, so, as a result, I think people dont treat me differently.

A native of Bloomsburg, Coates graduated from Bloomsburg University and enrolled at Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle.

After law school, Coates spent about 20 years in private practice in Harrisburg working as a litigator, before joining the House staff as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee in 2007. She joined Turzais staff when he became House majority leader, and then moved with him into the Speakers office in 2015.

Heres the statement that Turzai, R-Allegheny County, issued Thursday night:

We are devastated at the loss of our great friend and teammate who was an outstanding leader in state government, Karen Coates...

"She was a person who broke glass ceilings, particularly as the first female to hold that position in the Commonwealths history. She always put her children first while balancing the immense responsibilities of managing a large staff and broad array of legislation.

An attorney by training, Karen was intelligent, quick, strategic, savvy, straightforward and principled. She was also kind and respectful to all, humble and fun with a warm laugh. She was a role model and mentor to many on the House staff, as well as others. She was a natural leader and wise counselor. She personally resolved many legislative issues, helping to find solutions to move legislation forward on many significant policy fronts. We are indebted to her for her service to our team, the House and the Commonwealth. We will sadly miss her friendship.

She cared deeply about her family, always dropping whatever was in front of her to talk to her daughter Caleigh and son Trey," Turzai continued. "She adored them and beamed talking about them. To them and her sister Andrea, brother Rick, mom Carmella, and companion Bob, we extend our love, support and prayers. Karen left us too soon. May she rest in peace with the good Lord.

News of Coates' passing brought additional tributes from other Republicans and Democrats in the legislature Thursday evening.

Theres not a single Pennsylvania law passed in recent years that Karen Coates did not help to shape," House Democratic leaders said in a joint statement. She was a natural leader and an integral part of the House staff who helped us get through our toughest moments.

Republican leaders in the Senate, meanwhile, called Coates a co-worker and a friend to us... (whose) intelligence and experience benefitted not only the House, but the Senate as well.

Coates and her husband, who died in 2015, had two children.

In a statement released through the House Clerks office, Coates' family expressed gratitude for the thoughts, prayers and gestures extended to Karen and her family during the past difficult days."

Details regarding funeral arrangements are still being finalized.
Gov. Tom Wolf Friday signed a state of emergency declaration, and said the state will reduce the speed limit and ban commercial traffic, including buses, on most interstates and the Pennsylvania Turnpike during the storm.

State officials are encouraging people not to travel during the storm. Snow is expected to move into central pennsylvania midday Saturday, bringing heavy snow, changing to mixed precipitation, and ice before it ends midday Sunday.

We want to be aggressive in managing this storm, during which snowfall rates could exceed one to two inches per hour, Wolf said in a news release. Our top concern is the safety of residents. If you do not have to travel during the storm, please avoid it. Please heed warnings from emergency responders and personnel, and remember to check on your neighbors, especially the elderly.

The declaration enables additional help from neighboring states, as well as prepares the Pennsylvania National Guard for a quick response. It also authorizes state agencies to use all available resources and personnel, as necessary, to manage the storms impacts.

The declaration does not restrict citizens from travel on state roadways, but motorists are reminded to be aware of any restrictions in place.

Speed limits will be restricted to 45 mph on interstates and expressways as the storm progresses, according to the release. PennDOT, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, and Pennsylvania State Police have coordinated their planning ahead of the storms arrival.

The ban on commercial vehicles will be in place between noon Saturday and noon Sunday, according to the release. That ban will be in effect on all interstates and the Turnpike, except Interstate 95 in southeastern Pennsylvania.

That ban will also be imposed on the U.S. 22 expressway in Lehigh Valley, as well as state Route 33 expressway in Northampton and Monroe counties.

State officials have announced a commercial vehicle ban on numerous roadways throughout the state.

State officials also urge motorists to carry emergency kits in their vehicles stocked with items such as non-perishable food, water, first-aid supplies, warm clothes, a blanket, cell phone charger, and a small snow shovel.
LOCK HAVEN - The man found guilty of killing his estranged lover in 1991 and disposing her body so it could never be found has been sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison and fined $10,000.

"Loyd W. Groves will now get a state inmate number, which he has deserved for a long time," Senior Deputy Attorney General Daniel J. Dye said after Thursday's sentencing in Clinton County court.

Senior Lycoming County Judge Kenneth D. Brown, specially assigned to the case, sentenced Groves, 69, to the maximum term in effect for third-degree murder in 1991 when the crime occurred.

"That was the sentence we were hoping for," said John Heckel IV, the dead woman's son.

The Legislature in 1995 upped the maximum to 20 to 40 years, and Brown said he would have imposed that term if allowed.

He cited three aggravating factors in deciding his sentence:

Disposal of the body that caused further trauma to the family.

Groves was aware that the victim, Katherine Dolan Heckel, 40, was the mother of two children, then 9 and 13.

Lack of remorse.

Groves, who did not testify during his trial, maintains he is innocent. "I hurt no one. I committed no crime," he told Brown.

He offered sympathy to those who lived through the loss, but the divorced father of four who has survived three heart attacks did not mention Heckel's name, only that he was not the cause.

Groves never looked at Heckel's family and relatives as they stood at a podium describing how her death had impacted their lives and urging Brown to impose the maximum sentence.

"I feel Mr. Groves has my daughter's blood on his hands," Heckel's mother, Margaret Dolan, said. "Groves refuses to tell us what happened in July 1991."

A Clinton County jury in December found Groves guilty of third-degree murder, finding he killed Heckel because she wanted to end their extramarital affair.

Heckel was last seen leaving for lunch on July 15, 1991, from the former International Paper Co. mill in Lock Haven where she worked in the human relations office and Groves was an industrial hygienist.

Heckel's husband, John III, who was on duty with the National Guard at the time, daughter, Alicia Talbot, and son, John, fought back tears as they addressed the judge.

Talbot described getting her last kiss and phone call from her mother on that July day. "We never got to say goodbye," her brother said. "Our family has never been the same."

"He killed my mother. He should spend the rest of his life in prison."

John Heckel III leaves the Clinton County courthouse after Loyd Groves was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison for killing his wife 27 years ago.

John Heckel III told the judge he has been pursing justice for 27 years. As long as he can breathe he will continue to try to find his wife's remains, he said.

"Did Cathy Heckel deserve to lose her life for ending an affair with him [Groves]," he asked.

Because Groves won't say where her remains are "we will suffer for years to come," Heckel's sister Cynthia Dolan said.

"We may never know where Cathy's body is at but the jury's verdict and the judge's sentence assumes death," Dye said.

Heckel's family and relatives cited Groves being able to live life as he pleased for 27 years but she was not there when her children graduated, got married or to see her new grandson.

Groves has been a cancer to the community, they said, and Dye urged Brown to "excise that cancer."

It was a tough case because there was no body, the prosecutor said. However, DNA tests determined a speck of blood found in the back of Groves' conversion van was Heckel's.

Dye cited the dedication of the more than 100 law enforcement personnel who were involved in the investigation over the years.

He singled out FBI Agent Kyle Moore and retired state Trooper Michael Hutson, who filed the charges. He noted Moore was in the courtroom despite not being paid due to the partial federal government shut down.

George E. Lepley Jr. argued for a sentence in the 4- to 10-year range citing his client's lack of a criminal record, age, health and being a model prisoner since his arrest in January 2015 in Beaver where he was living.

A longer sentence will be the equivalent to the death penalty, he claimed. Afterward, Lepley said Groves expects to die in prison.

An appeal will be filed because he said the defense believes there are real legal issues.

It contends Brown erred is refusing to suppress evidence about the blood in the van and a handgun found in Groves' desk at work claiming the search warrant affidavits lacked probable cause.

Allowing the trial testimony of Gayle Taylor is another issue, he said.

She testified while Groves and she were working for a county health department in Ohio in the early 1990s he commented he could show her how to get rid of a body so it could never be found.

Although Groves will get credit for the time he has been in jail since Jan. 29, 2015, Brown cautioned him there is no guarantee he will be released when his minimum term expires in six years.

Heckel's family will be permitted to provide input when Groves comes up for parole, he said.

Although the case is over except for an appeal, Dye said the investigation would be reopened if someone comes forward with information on the location of Heckel's remains.
Tributes to Karen Coates, the chief of staff to House Speaker Mike Turzai and first female to hold that top senior staff-level position in Pennsylvanias House of Representatives, continued to pour in Friday as the states political community came to grips with the news of her death on Thursday.

Coates was hailed by Republicans and Democrats alike for the service she provided to lawmakers and impact she had in steering the law-making process for the past 12 years. She died at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center following a short illness.

Gov. Tom Wolf issued a statement on Friday morning extending his and wife Frances sympathy to Coates family, friends, colleagues and Turzai.

Throughout my time as governor, Karen's leadership and insight helped our state government bridge divides. Her professional rise to become the first female chief of staff to the Speaker of the House surely has inspired many, and all Pennsylvanians have benefitted from her dedication to public service. A great friend to so many in and around the Capitol, her presence will be greatly missed," he said in a statement.

His predecessor, former Gov. Tom Corbett, issued a statement as well praising Coates' skills and contributions to the commonwealth.

Karen was an accomplished attorney and a skilled legislative negotiator, Corbett said in a statement. She possessed a keen intellect and a vast understanding of the House, and was a trusted advisor to Speaker Turzai. Karen played a significant role in helping my administration steer many pieces of legislation through the House. Susan and I extend our deepest sympathies to Karens family. She will be missed.

In a post in their Friday morning newsletter, Greenlee Partners said: Some of us knew her as a neighbor, a colleague, or a trusted advisor, but all of us respected and admired her passion for the issues, the process, and the laws of the commonwealth.

Her counterpart in the state Senate, Drew Crompton, who serves as chief of staff to Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, also offered some kind words. He said on Twitter: Death is always sad, but sometimes it is also a tragedy. The tragic sudden passing of Karen Coates has us in the Capitol community tearful and shaken. She will be painfully missed. Thoughts and prayers for her family.

State Rep. Greg Rothman, R-Cumberland County, tweeted, I will miss you terribly my friend.

State Rep. Sheryl Delozier, R-Cumberland County, also tweeted out a comment: Karen will be missed. A person that by day could battle with you on a legislative issue and have dinner with you as a friend that night. Thoughts to her son and daughter and all who loved her. RIP my friend.

Among the many other tweets posted as word spread about her passing was one from Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-Lehigh County. He wrote: Karen was really well liked: Trustworthy, friendly, & easy to work with. Its a huge loss to the Commonwealth & the House. And it is a huge loss to the Speaker & his staff-I cant imagine their pain.

Details regarding funeral arrangements have not yet been announced but the family indicated in a statement that it plans to designate a suitable charity for gifts in lieu of flowers.
Putting food on the table is getting more difficult for some Pennsylvanians as the federal government shutdown drags on.

That is apparent from the 400 individuals/families who turned out in the first week of the Central Pennsylvania Food Banks special food distribution for affected federal workers.

Its been a somewhat busy week and then we expect next week to probably get busier, said Joe Arthur, the food banks executive director. I think were all hoping this ends quickly but were prepared for longer.

Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, who stopped by the food bank on Friday, said all donations to the food bank are appreciated to help it serve the federal employees and contractors being impacted by the shutdown but monetary donations would do the most good and can be stretched to serve the greatest number of people in need.

DePasquale said he chose to use his bullhorn as auditor general to ask for that support for food banks at this time and to urge those affected by the shutdown to avail themselves to the food assistance they provide.

Further, he said as the state governments chief fiscal watchdog, the financial consequences of the shutdown cant be ignored.

The shutdowns impact could imperil the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) starting next month for the 1.8 million Pennsylvania recipients, DePasquale said. The shutdown could also impact the state government employees who are paid with federal funds.

To date, those employees have continued to be paid by backfilling funding with state dollars to avoid benefit delays and furloughs.

But Gov. Tom Wolfs spokesman J.J. Abbott said, As time goes on, it will be more difficult to do so. In the last few days, weve been able to make adjustments that should mitigate furloughs for the time being. However, this practice cannot continue forever.

Regardless of the point of view anyone holds about this political stalemate in Washington, D.C., DePasquale said the impact is already being felt in Pennsylvania and beyond.

Core government services are not being done and real Americans, middle-class Americans are being hurt, he said. That should be unacceptable to all of us regardless of where we stand on the ideological spectrum.

Arthur said the food bank, which serves 27 counties in the Susquehanna Valley, will distribute food to federal workers on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at its facility in Lower Paxton Township for as long as needed.

We really want the federal employee families and contractor employee families that are impacted to actually take us up on this, he said. Dont hesitate. Were here. We have plenty of food.
Women will set the agenda this weekend in the nations capital as thousands of them participate in back-to-back national rallies that pit divergent viewpoints on one of the most central debates of their lives: reproductive rights.

On Friday, thousands of women (along with men and children) will participate in the annual March for Life to, once again, call for the end of an era marked with expanded reproductive rights, including those for abortion. The march is held each year in the nations capital on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

Saturday at the nations capital will take on a different tone as thousands of women are expected to gather for the national Women's March. Once again, the third annual rally is expected to target and protest Trump administration policies, in particular, its assault on womens reproductive rights.

The juxtaposition of the dueling marches comes at a time when the perennial debate over abortion and womens access to contraception hangs in the balance amid a changed political landscape.

Proponents of reproductive rights fear that a new conservative SCOTUS will take on Roe v. Wade. The 1973 landmark decision by the high court affirmed a woman's right to have an abortion. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)AP

On the one hand, the U.S. Supreme Court has been realigned to lean conservative with Trumps appointments of justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

On the other hand, state legislatures continue to fuel robust debate over abortion with as many states pushing for extraordinarily restrictive laws on abortion even as others seek to expand those rights.

A perennial lightning rod, debate continues to generate distinctly different perspectives even as it positions a pivotal moment on both sides.

We are always hopeful and to be in a movement 40 years you have to be hopeful and you have to think that at some point there is going to be legal protection for the preborn child, said Maria Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, the state affiliate of National Right to Life. I would say we are encouraged and hopeful at this point.

As with so many so-called anti-abortion advocates, Gallagher is hopeful that the Supreme Court may reverse or at least weaken Roe v. Wade.

Its going to fall under the weight of its own hypocrisy, she said. It was an ill-conceived decision. The vast majority of Americans do not believe in the central holdings of Roe v. Wade and yet this is the law of the land.

But the newly restructured high court notwithstanding, opponents on the other side of the argument are emboldened by the results of the midterm elections and the tide of progressive lawmakers who took office this month. The outlook of the new guard could stave off attacks on reproductive rights at the federal level.

We had incredible wins in November. Absolutely, we are feeling optimistic about those investments, said Sari Stevens, executive director of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. We went into the midterms knowing it had to be a foundational year ... and we did that.

Stevens notes the re-election of Gov. Tom Wolf, an outspoken abortion rights advocate, as a critical point in her organizations ongoing challenge to protect womens reproductive rights in Pennsylvania.

We do have the Kavanaugh court. That is a reality that we will face and many other states, Stevens said. But we are in a safer place than other states.

Pennsylvania is far from being characterized as a bastion of progressive policy when it comes to womens reproductive rights. The state imposes strict limitations on abortion, restricting the procedure to 24 weeks and requiring minors under 18 to get parental consent, among other restrictions.

With a Republican majority in the Legislature, Wolf continues to be the equalizer against extreme measures. In his first term, the governor vetoed a bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks, as well as imposed criminal penalties on doctors who perform abortions.

A new proposal is underfoot in the Legislature that would ban abortions based solely on a prenatal Down Syndrome diagnoses.

Across the country at least five states  Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Florida and South Carolina  are expected to consider bills that would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, possibly just six weeks into a pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood in recent years has staved off assaults from Washington and the General Assembly as conservative lawmakers threaten to slash government funding. The organization largely gets its funding from Medicaid reimbursements.

I think the question we dont know the answer to is how aggressive this Pennsylvania General Assembly will be on womens reproductive rights, Stevens said. I dont care what side you are on but its not a political winning issue. Whats the point, if its going to be vetoed. (Wolfs) veto is more intact than before and will be sustained for at least four years.

On Monday, advocates of reproductive rights hailed a legal ruling as a federal judge in Pennsylvania blocked the Trump administration from implementing a rule allowing employers to decline to offer contraceptive coverage on moral or religious grounds.

U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia imposed a nationwide injunction on the policy, which was set hours from going into effect nationwide. A federal judge from California also blocked the rules in 13 states and Washington, D.C.

Public opinion has been a bellwether in the debate, but even polls are up for interpretation.

Stevens points to a recent survey out of Franklin and Marshall College that found an overwhelming majority of state residents identify as pro-choice, had a favorable opinion of Planned Parenthood and thought the federal government should continue to fund the organization.

By contrast, Gallagher points to this weeks survey by the Marist Poll that found that while most Americans identify themselves as pro-choice, the vast majority of the same group support increased restrictions on abortion.

The poll was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization.

Overwhelming Americans want restrictions on abortion, Gallagher said. I think that shows that pro-life education is working and that people are changing hearts and minds towards greater respect for human life.

While the new Supreme Court realignment provides optimism for Gallagher, its a source of concern for Stevens. The high court could by June hear three cases that stand to have significant ramifications on Roe v. Wade.

While most scholars do not believe the court would overturn the landmark decision, it could erode and limit the rights substantially. The task then would fall on states to decide whether they want to safeguard existing rights and access.

To be clear there are vast abortion deserts in this country, Stevens said. Any further erosion of access is really a terrifying prospect for women who live in those regions already.

Gallagher argues that to be pro-life is to be pro-science.

Technological advancements such as 4D ultrasound demonstrate quite clearly the humanity of the child in the womb, she said.

Ultrasounds are a true window to the womb, showing babies smiling and even somersaulting in utero. Its time our law catches up with science and protects all pre-born babies from the harm of abortion.

Sari challenges the popular concept that the back-to-back rallies bear distinctly different messages. She says there is more to being pro-life than being opposed to abortion.

I believe in clean air for my children and protection for pregnant workers and child care, Stevens said. If you think about the immigrants crisis or the children at the border, what quality of life do they have? Is the March for Life considering those individuals? Its not a black and white issue. This administration does not uphold pro-life values in so many ways.

IF YOU GO:

March for Life: The rally will take place at noon Friday at 12th St. on the National Mall, between Madison and Jefferson. The march will begin on Constitution Avenue between 12th and 14th Streets at approximately 1:00 pm.

Womens March: The location of Saturdays Womens March has been moved due to the federal government shutdown and because of the possibility of bad weather. As of now, participants are expected to gather at 10 a.m. Saturday at Freedom Plaza.

This story has been updated to correct a reference to a poll.
The driver of a Volkswagen TDI killed in a Thursday morning crash on Interstate-83 in Cumberland County has been identified as 37-year-old Robert S. Frey of Felton.

State police in Harrisburg released Freys identity in a Friday afternoon news release, which included additional details about the crash on I-83 in the southbound lane near mile marker 40.4 in Lower Allen Township.

Police said Frey was driving his Volkswagen in the left lane of the roadway behind a tractor-trailer driven by a 44-year-old Maryland man.

The tractor-trailer slowed as it approached heavy traffic, and Freys vehicle crashed into the back of the tractor-trailer, police said.

Freys vehicle became pinned under the tractor-trailer, police said Thursday.

Frey was killed in the crash, and his vehicle suffered disabling damage," police said. The tractor-trailer received minor damage.
As a winter storm moves toward central Pennsyvlania, where it is expected to dump large amounts of snow and ice, electric companies are gearing up for outages.

Utility officials have called in additional manpower and, on Friday, some were working to set up bases of operation in strategic locations across the state.

Thats all in preparation for the storm, which is to hit Saturday into Sunday. The storm, forecasters said, could deliver more than a food of snow to some parts of the state. A bigger problem, however, could be areas where the snow may fall in lesser amounts, but will be followed by rain and sleet.

Its all hands on deck, said Carol Obando-Derstine, regional affairs director with PPL Electric Utilities. We will be prepared to respond if the forecasted ice and wind cause outages.

The ice, Obando-Derstine said, can prove especially problematic. Heavy ice accumulation can cause weak tree branches to snap and fall, she said, explaining those branches can land on and sever utility lines, cutting power to customers.

In cases with especially heavy accumulation, the weight of ice alone can be enough to snap lines, Obando-Derstine said, adding that slippery roadways also can lead to vehicles crashing into utility poles.

Stay away from any downed wire, and assume that all downed wires are energized, Obando-Derstine said.

To prepare for those incidents, PPL officials have implemented a comprehensive plan to respond to severe winter weather. And in addition to added manpower during the predicted storm, precautions have been taken throughout the year to winterize the PPL system, Obando-Derstine said.

A line clearing program has helped to clear vegetation from near utility lines, storm-resistant utility poles have been installed and PPL workers have built a smart grid that can automatically reroute power to downed areas without human intervention, Obando-Derstine said.

Lauren Siburkis, a spokeswoman with Met-Ed, said the company has an in-house meteorologist monitoring the storm, looking out especially for heavy, wet snow and ice. Siburkis also said heavy snow and ice can snap tree limbs and power lines.

Like PPL, Met-Ed relies on technology to quickly reroute power, Siburkis said, and extra manpower also is being recruited.

The company offers electricity in six states, and line workers in that entire area are being stationed in locations expected to be affected by the storm, she said.

At this time, weve secured about 1,030 additional line workers and utility personnel that can be deployed to the hardest-hit areas within our service territory, Siburkis said. It looks like every part of our six-state territory is going to be impacted by the storm in one way or another.

That number might change with the shifting forecast, she said.

In Pennsylvania, those workers will be stationed at an operations base in Reading with secondary stations available in York and Easton, she said.

While both power companies have technology in place to notify them about large-scale outages, both Obando-Derstine and Siburkis stressed that more localized outages must be reported.

Its extremely important for customers to report the outages to us, Siburkis said.

To report PPL outages, customers can visit PPLelectric.com, text outage to 898-775 or call 1-800-342-5775. They can also monitor outages on PPLs live map.

To report Met-Ed outages, customers can visit visit Met-Ed.com, text out to 544-487 or call 1-888-544-4877. They can also monitor outages on Met-Eds live map.

Both Obando-Derstine and Siburkis also stressed the importance of immediately reporting downed lines.
The PA Media Group  The Patriot-News and PennLive  will honor 20 high school seniors as the Best and Brightest to represent the potential of the class of 2019.

This is our 27th year of honoring these exceptional students.

Recipients are featured in The Sunday Patriot-News in May and in a photo gallery, videos and profiles on PennLive. Students, families and school officials also are invited to an awards reception.

Applications are due by Friday, March 8, 2019, at our office, 2020 Technology Parkway, Hampden Township. A postmark of that day is acceptable.

To be eligible, a senior must have at least a B or 3.0 grade point average although a grade point average below 3.0 because of extenuating circumstances does not preclude participation.

Seniors must attend a public or independent high school or be home-schooled or attend cyber school in Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Juniata, Lancaster, Lebanon, Perry or York county. Local residents attending schools in other counties or states are not eligible.

Selection is based on academic achievement, extracurricular activities and service to school, peers and community as well as an autobiographical essay and two letters of recommendation.

Students are asked to address any challenges they have faced in the essay.

Educators assist in semifinalist selection and leaders from business, the arts, education, faith, government and the community choose the 20 finalists.

For more information, send an email to Deb Kiner at dkiner@pennlive.com or call 717-257-4749.
For some, two of the best products Microsoft ever produced are Windows Mobile and Windows 7and support for both are ending in about a years time.

Earlier this week, Microsoft reminded customers that official support for Windows 7 ends on January 14, 2020, even posting an official reminder page to encourage customers to hurry up and adopt Windows 10.

Now is also the time for Windows phones to finally accept their fate: Windows 10 Mobile, version 1709, will lose support on December 10, 2019. At that time, Windows 10 Mobile users will no longer be eligible to receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free assisted support options, or online technical content updates from Microsoft for free, Microsoft says. In other words, no new patches. Backups, at least, will persist until March 10, 2020. Its even worse if you own a Microsoft Lumia or Lumia XL: June 11, 2019 will be the last date those devices are supported.

Because Microsoft has discontinued support for the Lumia family, the news is bleak for those who own and use a Lumia phone: With the Windows 10 Mobile OS end of support, we recommend that customers move to a supported Android or iOS device, Microsoft says. Microsofts mission statement to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, compels us to support our Mobile apps on those platforms and devices.

The good news, if there is any, is that Windows Mobile market share was always tiny to begin with, and now is largely infinitesimal: 0.10 percent, according to NetMarketShare. (Two of the remaining few users are my wife and eldest soncant play Fortnite if your phone doesnt support it, right?)

The more serious problem is the transition away from Windows 7. Microsofts beloved Windows 7 is the most popular desktop PC operating system in the world, with over 40 percent market share, again by NetMarketShare. Microsoft is encouraging businesses to make the transition before the deadline, and to ensure users also migrate away from legacy apps like Internet Explorerwhich will die with Windows 7, too.

The upgrade path from Windows 7 is, naturally, to Windows 10which isnt free. Microsofts encouraging businesses to migrate to Microsoft 365its package of Office 365 and Microsoft Windows supportwhich comes with a free upgrade from Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 Pro, but for $20 per user, per month. Consumers have no such optionyoull pay $139 to download Windows 10 Home , or a bit less if you opt for a system-builder option. Either way, the free upgrade window closed long ago.

What this means for you: If you own a Windows Mobile phone, youre going to have to migrate your phones data onto an iOS or Android device, if you havent already. As for Windows 7 owners, the problem is financial: Backing up your data to an external hard drive, than upgrading to Windows 10, requires an investment in time and money. Unfortunately, using Windows 7 after support expires is playing with fire.
Payson, AZ (85541)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High 103F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. Low 74F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
In Tim Cook's Brussels speech in October 2018, Cook praised Europe's "successful implementation" of privacy law GDPR. Cook specifically stated that "Fortunately this year you've shown the world that good policy and political will can come together to protect the rights of everyone. We should celebrate the transformative work of the European institutions tasked with the successful implementation of the GDPR. It is time for the rest of the world  including my home country  to follow your lead.

After pounding the table in favor of Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a privacy activist non-profit organization noyb lists Apple along with other Silicon Valley companies for not complying with Europe's GDPR. Noyb said it filed its complaints with the Austrian authority on behalf of 10 users.

Today noyb (None of your business) filed a complaint that read: A test by noyb shows structural violations of most streaming services. In more than 10 test cases noyb was able to identify violations of Article 15 GDPR in many shapes and forms by companies like Amazon, Apple, DAZN Spotify or Netflix. noyb filed 10 strategic complaints against 8 companies today.

Right to Access. Under the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) users enjoy a 'right to access.' Users are granted a right to get a copy of all raw data that a company holds about the user, as well as additional information about the sources and recipients of the data, the purpose for which the data is processed or information about the countries in which the data is stored and how long it is stored. This 'right to access' is enshrined in Article 15 GDPR and Article 8(2) of the Chart of Fundamental Rights.

Eight out of eight violations. noyb (a European non-profit organization for privacy enforcement) has put the law and eight online streaming services from eight countries to the test  but no service fully complied. In eight out of eight cases, noyb has filed formal complaints with the relevant data protection authorities today. All major providers even engaged in structural violation of the law, says Max Schrems, Director of noyb

Structural Violations. While many smaller companies manually respond to GDPR requests, larger services like YouTube, Apple, Spotify or Amazon built automated systems that claim to provide the relevant information. When tested, none of these systems provided the user with all relevant data.

Max Schrems, director of noyb statement: "Many services set up automated systems to respond to access requests, but they often dont even remotely provide the data that every user has a right to. In most cases, users only got the raw data, but, for example, no information about who this data was shared with. This leads to structural violations of users rights, as these systems are built to withhold the relevant information."

Considering that Time just published an Op-Ed by Apple's CEO on privacy issues and shadowy data brokers yesterday, it's surprising that Apple, of all U.S. companies, has been drawn into this formal complaint filed in Austria. Then again, the fine print tells us that it's more specifically "Apple Music" out of Ireland.
Yesterday Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple's CEO wants the Government to Rein In Data Brokers who Invisibly work with Online Stores to Collect your Data." Today we're learning that Acxiom, a large data brokerage, has come out in support of Apple CEO Tim Cooks quest to bring a law very much like the EUs GDPR to America.

Acxiom, like Mr. Cook, also supports a national privacy law for the US, such as GDPR provides for the European Union, said the company in a statement

Data brokers are firms which act as middlemen, transferring data between different companies and parties  or as Cook put it in the op-ed, a company that exists purely to collect your information, package it and sell it to yet another buyer. The biggest data brokers include firms like Acxiom, Experian, and Oracle.

In the statement, Acxiom said that it is actively participating in discussions with US lawmakers on consumer transparency, which it claims to have been voluntarily providing for years. Still, the company denied that it partakes in the unchecked shadow economy which Cook made reference to in his op-ed.

Acxiom advocated for a single set of US policies, rather than multiple state laws. The company wrote: "What everyone must understand is that the cost of compliance for all businesses in the US will be punitive and detrimental to our economy if everyone must adhere to multiple and independent state laws versus a singular, united set of policies across the US." For more on this, read the full BI report here.

It seems like shady companies all say the same thing in almost the same language. The "Information Technology and Innovation Foundation" (ITIF) representing the three worst offenders of selling consumer data, Google, Facebook and Twitter, said the very same thing as Axciom. The ITIF proposed a "grand bargain" with lawmakers, arguing that any new federal data privacy bill should preempt state privacy laws and repeal the sector-specific federal ones entirely. ITIF's senior policy analyst added that "Privacy regulations arent freethey create costs for consumers and businesses, and if done badly, they could undermine the thriving U.S. digital economy."

Acxiom appears to want to blur the lines and be one of the good guys on this issue by snuggling up to Tim Cook's statements yet want to ensure that State laws shouldn't be allowed.

Such statements show us that they're afraid of States being able to craft specific and meticulous new local laws that these shady companies will have to fight one state at a time. They claim it's only about saving consumers money, when it's really about not being able to lobby one group in Washington and protect their company and others in their industry from being over scrutinized. It's a way to control law makers.

Apple's CEO hit a nerve yesterday when he stated that "Right now, all of these secondary markets for your information exist in a shadow economy thats largely uncheckedout of sight of consumers, regulators and lawmakers."

While Acxiom says that they agree with Cook's statements, they certainly don't want to be overly scrutinized by regulators and lawmakers. It's great PR to side with Cook on this issue that rocked their industry yesterday, but that doesn't make Acxiom one of the good guys yet.

Until new Federal and State laws are written to stop data broker's nefarious activities, Acxiom shouldn't be given a pass until proven they've stopped the practice of selling consumer data to other parties without the consumer knowing.
NORMAL  Normal police on Friday released a photo of the man suspected of robbing a Freedom Oil gas station at gunpoint Thursday night near Illinois State University.

It was the 10th armed robbery reported in the Twin Cities in a little more than a month. While police are seeking a suspect they dubbed the "Business Bandit" in connection with most of those, they are not connecting this robbery with the others at this point.

"We're not considering that one related to our other ones," said John Fermon, Bloomington Police Department public affairs officer, adding that this suspect appears to be taller than the "Business Bandit."

Police were called about 9:30 p.m. to the business at 601 S. Main St. A man entered the gas station, displayed a black handgun and fled north with an undisclosed amount of money, police said.

The clerk was shaken up but not injured, police said.

The suspect was described as an adult African-American man, wearing a dark winter coat with a hooded jacket under it with the hood up, blue jeans and gray gloves. He may have a thin build, but the clothing made it hard to tell, police said.

Video footage shows the suspect partially covered his face with a scarf while he was in the store.

Police said he was 18 to 30 years old and 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall.

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Illinois State University police issued an emergency alert Thursday night asking people to remain alert and use caution.

The robbery came a day after police said one individual may be responsible for at least seven of nine recent armed robberies at Twin City businesses since Dec. 14.

Police say the Business Bandit is a black male, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 8 inches tall with a medium build. In several of the incidents, the suspect has been seen wearing a black hooded jacket with button or snap pockets on the front sides of the coat.

In a statement released Wednesday, police encouraged all businesses to check their video surveillance systems to ensure they are operational and are capturing clear video of the interior and exterior of their businesses. Businesses also should make sure their exterior windows are not covered by posters or flyers.

Before Thursday's incident, the most recent robbery occurred at 5:27 p.m. Sunday at Rosati's Pizza, 203 N. Prospect Road, Bloomington.

In that incident, the male suspect entered the store and demanded money from an employee while wielding a knife, police said. The suspect took an undisclosed amount of cash and left on foot.

Photos: 2018-19 McLean County jail mugshots

Contact Roger Miller at (309) 820-3233. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_rmiller Contact Kelsey Watznauer at (309) 820-3254. Follow her on Twitter: @kwatznauer

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SPRINGFIELD  Illinois officials say the state's unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in December.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security also announced Thursday that nonfarm payrolls increased by nearly 14,000 jobs based on preliminary data.

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The November unemployment rate was 4.2 percent. IDES also adjusted November jobs gains upward to 8,000 jobs from about 6,000.

Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes said there's "room to both grow the Illinois economy and create opportunity for working families."

He noted that Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed executive orders in his first week in office to improve wage opportunities for women and target workforce training money to growth industries .

The state's unemployment rate is 0.4 percentage points higher than the national rate. The national unemployment rate rose in December to 3.9 percent from 3.7 percent.

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It has been an honor to serve residents of Clare, Gladwin, Arenac and Osceola counties in the Michigan House of Representatives the past two years as part of the 2017-18 legislative term.

We set forth plans to continue Michigan's economic comeback and saw lower unemployment numbers as more Michigan residents were able to provide for themselves and their families. We put record money into roads and schools - making a sizeable investment into Michigan's future. We also worked to increase mental health care and veteran service access throughout the state, which was desperately needed.

Now begins the 100th Michigan Legislature - a historic number and moment in the unfolding story of our state. It's readily apparent that our country is polarized politically and while everything in government seems like a daily struggle, everyday people end up struggling the most. The political climate has led to a temporary shutdown of our federal government and we go into 2019 in Michigan with a governor from a different party than the one holding majority in the Legislature.

But I challenge the notion - and what seems to be the forgone conclusion - that this will create gridlock. I am committed to crafting proposals that will make Michigan a better place to live, work and raise a family. We still need to remedy the state's out-of-control car insurance costs that take hard-earned money out of people's pockets. We need to continue to ensure more oversight and transparency within Michigan's civil asset forfeiture process, which is the procedure law enforcement officers use to seize property they believe was gained from or used during a crime. We must also work on pension tax repeal to protect seniors and a generation that is retiring younger.

Regardless of who holds the governor's office, it is integral to respect the office and work towards real solutions for the people. There are several buzzwords or phrases in the news for this dwindling practice, such as bipartisanship or "working across the aisle." I like to think of it more plainly as working hard to get things done for the hardworking people of Michigan. At the same time, I will remain true to core principles I have steadfastly followed both before and during my time as a representative.

Former President John F. Kennedy, a World War II hero, once stated: "So let us begin anew - remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us."

I look forward to working with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in our new session while putting these important reforms at the forefront.

Rep. Jason Wentworth, R-Clare, serves the 97th House District, which includes the residents of Clare, Gladwin and Arenac counties and part of Osceola County. Wentworth was recently elected Speaker Pro-Tempore for the 2019-20 legislative term.
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriff's Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by managing editor Tony Lascari.

Tuesday, Jan. 15

11:55 p.m. - A Lee Township man, 38, agreed to turn his music down after a loud music complaint.

11:37 p.m. - A motorist received a citation for violation of the basic speed law after a single-vehicle crash in Ingersoll Township.

11:20 p.m. - A 30-year-old Ingersoll Township man was arrested for assaulting a 59-year-old woman with a knife. The woman was not injured.

11:16 p.m. A deputy received minor injuries during a single-vehicle crash in Lee Township.

10:51 p.m. - Officers responded to a property damage accident at Longfellow Lane and Campau Drive.

10:37 p.m. - A deputy responded to a single-vehicle crash at S. Meridian and E. Gordonville roads.

9:24 p.m. - Officers responded to an overdose in the 800 block of Cambridge Street.

8:22 p.m. - Police assisted EMS in the 4900 block of Artcrest Drive.

6:37 p.m. - A deputy responded to a single-vehicle crash and issued a citation for violation of the basic speed law in Jerome Township.

5:41 p.m. - Officers respodned to an alarm in the 6800 block of Eastman Avenue.

4 p.m. - Police responded to the 100 block of N. Saginaw Road for a hit and run property damage accident.

3:57 p.m. - Officers responded to a private property crash in the 100 block of N. Saginaw Road.

1:44 p.m. - A deputy responded to a private property crash with two vehicles in Midland Township.

1:44 p.m. - A deputy responded to a private property crash with three vehicles in Midland Township.

1:44 p.m. - A deputy responded to a private property crash with two vehicles in Midland Township.

1:43 p.m. - A Homer Township woman, 71, said someone stole her credit card and charged $54.65 to it. She canceled her card and notified her bank.

1:41 p.m. - A deputy removed a large garbage container from M-20 that was creating a traffic hazard.

1:31 p.m. - A deputy responded to a property damage accident in Sanford.

12:19 p.m.- Officers responded to a crash in the 7600 block of W. Wackerly St.

12:09 p.m. - Deputies responded to Warren Township for a single-vehicle crash involving a tractor trailer and the driver was cited for violation of the basic speed law.

11:46 a.m. - Police responded to a crash in the 2000 block of S. Saginaw Road.

10:26 a.m. - Police made a warrant arrest in the 400 block of Sam St.

10:18 a.m. - Officers responded to a property damage accident on Warblers Way and Pondview.

9:32 a.m. - A Sanford man, 54, violated his sex offender registry requirements by verifying his address about two weeks late.

9:29 a.m. - A single-vehicle crash occurred in Hope Township.

8:22 a.m. - Police responded to a crash in the 3200 block of Bay City Road.

8:15 a.m. - A deputy removed a dead deer from a Jasper Township roadway.

8 a.m. - Police responded to a property damage accident at Eastman Avenue and Saginaw Road.

7:59 a.m. - Officers responded to a crash with an injury at U.S. 10 and Ashman Street.

7:32 a.m. - A property damage accident was reported in Lincoln Township.

5:30 a.m. - Police responded to a property damage accident in the 6200 block of Eastman Avenue.

5:28 a.m. - Police responded to a property damage accident at Ohio Street and Swede Avenue.

3:09 a.m. - Officers responded to a property damage accident on the U.S. 10 Business Route.

2:21 a.m. - A property damage accident occurred in Hope Township.

2:19 a.m. Police assisted the Midland Police Department with a possible drunk driving traffic stop.

Monday, Jan. 14

10:58 p.m. - A Lee Township man, 21, accidentally shot himself while cleaning a firearm at his home. He is expected to make a full recovery.

9:48 p.m. - A Hope Township boy, 15, was bit in his face by his dog at his house. An isolation notice was issued for the dog.

9:17 p.m. - A deputy responded to a possible school bus violation and the suspected driver denied passing the bus while its lights were activated.

8:17 p.m. - Police responded to a false alarm in the 6800 Block of Eastman Avenue.

5:33 p.m. - Police responded to a crash at eastbound U.S. 10 Business Route and the Waldo Avenue overpass.

5:24 p.m. - A case was turned over to Michigan State Police after a Bay County woman, 18, reported she was assaulted in Bay County and then brought to Midland.

3:12 p.m. - Police assisted the Michigan State Police in the 7100 block of Eastman Avenue.

2:40 p.m. - Police investigated a missing person report in the 1000 block of Ashman Street.

2:11 p.m. - A deputy spoke with a 32-year-old man whom a 62-year-old woman said pulled out in front of her, causing her to almost crash.

1:44 p.m. - Police responded to the 200 block of W. Ellsworth Street for a report of obstructing justice.

11:43 a.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the 4900 Block of Drake Street for a verbal domestic situation.

11:40 a.m. - Deputies handed over a complaint about suspicious situation to Child Protective Services and the detective bureau for investigation.

10:40 a.m. - Officers responded to traffic hazard at Isabella Road and Currie Parkway.

10:39 p.m. - A deputy issued a deer permit to a 60-year-old man in Homer Township.

9:58 a.m. - Police responded to a report of fraud in the 5700 block of Stillwater.

9:37 a.m. - Police responded to a private property crash in the 1400 block of Rodd Street.

9:31 a.m. - Officers responded to a property damage accidental Campau and Dilloway drives.

9:21 a.m. - A deputy completed a salvage inspection at a Midland Township residence.

8:41 a.m. - Police responded to a drunk driving complain at eastbound U.S. 10 and the Bay City Road ramp.

8:28 a.m. - A 56-year-old man in Edenville Township reported hearing voices around his house and having hallucinations. He admitted to using illegal drugs recently and was transported for a mental health evaluation.

12:29 a.m. - Officers responded to a false alarm in the 3500 block of Centennial Drive.

7:40 a.m. - Deputies responded to a car/deer crash in Mount Haley Township.

4:04 a.m. - A deputy checked a Coleman neighborhood for a report of a male yelling and did not hear anyone yelling.
The Midland branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) is offering scholarship assistance for two college women to attend the 2019 National Conference of College Women Student Leaders (NCCWSL) to be held May 29-June 1, 2019, at the University of Maryland campus at College Park, Maryland.

Two $1,500 scholarships will be offered locally. Winners will be asked to apply to AAUW for a national scholarship which covers the conference registration and lodging, extra nights, and an optional activity. The Midland Branch award is expected to supplement the national scholarship to cover airfare, local transportation, and non-conference meals. Scholarship applicants should have at least 3.0 GPA, either be attending a local college/university, or be from the area and attending college elsewhere. The award process includes an application with a short essay, a recommendation from a college official or faculty member, and a list of college and community activities noting any leadership roles held. A brief oral report of the experience is expected to be presented at the AAUW-Midland Branch meeting in September. Application deadline is Jan 29.
Seth Mose, 35, of Midland has been arrested on a charge of possession and distribution of child sexually abusive material and for coercing of a minor, according to State Police.

The Michigan State Police (MSP) Computer Crimes Unit, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force announced the arrest late Thursday following an investigation in which digital evidence was seized from his home. The investigation was initiated when it was learned, according to police, that Mose was uploading child sexually abusive material to the internet.
Ottumwa, IA (52501)

Today

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 76F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 76F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.
SALEM  Gov. Kate Brown said Friday that she might support legislation to reinstate double health care coverage for public employees, after lawmakers passed a bill to end it in 2017.

The governors statement was somewhat surprising, given that she highlighted the cost savings from that law just four days ago during her inaugural address.

Were not going to get credit for that work, but thats not the point, Brown said, referencing state lawmakers. We still have to do it.

At the time lawmakers passed the bill, it was projected to cut roughly $300 million in state spending  with one-third of that savings coming from eliminating double health insurance coverage for public employees. Other efficiencies in the law included leaving job vacancies unfilled.

The insurance savings idea had been championed by then-Rep. Julie Parrish, R-West Linn, who cited state data showing thousands of households where state government and schools employees doubled up on health insurance coverage. Parrish was defeated in November by well-funded Democratic nurse practitioner Rep. Rachel Prusak.

Oregon teachers health insurance is expensive, with the cost in some communities exceeding school districts in Seattle, Vancouver and Boise, according to a 2017 report.

However since 2017, Brown said that she has spoken with public employees about the change and its ramifications.

I know this is a hardship on our hardworking families across the state, the governor said of eliminating public employees' double health care coverage. She was speaking to reporters at an Associated Press event previewing the legislative session that begins on Tuesday.

Brown said she would prefer that any proposal to restore double coverage would save money elsewhere in the state budget. Those cost savings are important, so I would hope folks would come to the table with other measures that would do that.

 Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 | @hborrud

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WASHINGTON - Democrats in Congress vowed Friday to aggressively investigate a new report that President Trump personally directed his former attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the presidents push for a Moscow real estate project ahead of the 2016 election.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said his panel would "get to the bottom" of the allegations in a Thursday night report from BuzzFeed News that have caused an uproar among congressional Democrats.

"We know that the President has engaged in a long pattern of obstruction," Nadler said in a tweet. "Directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime. The @HouseJudiciary Committee's job is to get to the bottom of it, and we will do that work."

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also said that his panel would do "what's necessary to find out if it's true" that Trump had directed Cohen, a longtime loyalist and fixer, to lie to Congress about plans for a massive Trump Tower in Moscow.

"The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date," Schiff said in a late-night tweet Thursday shortly after the BuzzFeed story posted.

The BuzzFeed report cited two unnamed federal law enforcement officials who say Cohen acknowledged in interviews with the office of special counsel Robert Mueller that the president directed him to deceive Congress about key facts linking Trump to the proposed deal in Russia. Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying under oath about those details.

The Washington Post has not independently verified the report, on which congressional Republicans have largely remained silent.

In his first public comments on the report, Trump went on Twitter on Friday morning to quote a Fox News reporter, Kevin Corke, as saying, "Don't forget, Michael Cohen has already been convicted of perjury and fraud, and as recently as this week, the Wall Street Journal has suggested that he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars...."

"Lying to reduce his jail time!" Trump added in his own words.

The Journal story to which Trump referred reported that Cohen had hired a technology company to help rig online polls in Trump's favor ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The report said that Cohen sought a larger reimbursement from Trump and his company than what he paid the technology company.

In a statement Thursday night, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani also sought to discredit Cohen, saying: If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge.

 The Washington Post
A male babysitter who raped or molested two young sisters was sentenced to 16 years in prison Friday.

Zachary Thomas Turner, 24, of Northeast Portland, started babysitting for the girls when they were both younger than 5 and one of them was still in diapers. He continued to watch them for the next six years, court papers say. Turner was 15 to 21 years old at the time.

Turners mother was friends with the girls mother, and Turner isnt related to either girl, said Brent Weisberg, a spokesman with the Multnomah County District Attorneys Office.

After Turner stopped babysitting, their mother heard from a relative that Turner had victimized her daughters, according to a probable cause affidavit. Last February, their mother took them to a child-abuse assessment center, CARES Northwest, where the sisters both described Turner touching them or forcing them to perform sex acts on him, the affidavit says.

One of the girls said hed raped her several times, according to the affidavit. In one instance, she said he told her to shut up or hed hurt her, and she was afraid to tell anyone what happened.

One of the girls said she and her sister hid in a closet to get away from Turner, according to the affidavit.

Turner dropped out of school after the eighth grade and worked at a pizza restaurant at the time of his arrest last year. He had no previous criminal history. He told jailers hed been diagnosed with depression.

In December pleaded guilty to first-degree rape, sodomy, attempted sodomy and sexual abuse in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Turner must register as a sex offender.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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For years, attorneys who have successfully sued the state for millions of dollars for failing to protect children under its watch have been disheartened by the efforts of neglectful parents to collect proceeds of wrongful death lawsuits.

Often, the parents walk away with nothing. But occasionally, they prevail.

Some attorneys say they want that to change: After a child dies, money from wrongful death lawsuits could go to other surviving relatives, such as siblings who have grown up in the same troubled circumstances and need the financial boost, they say.

State Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, also wants a change. This week, Gelser introduced a bill that would make it much tougher for parents who lost custody for neglecting or abandoning their children from getting any money from lawsuits that show the Oregon Department of Human Services failed to protect their children. State Rep. Duane Stark, R-Grants Pass, has signed on the bill as co-sponsor.

Senate Bill 474 would change the threshold for barring alleged neglectful parents from payouts: A judge would need to find that parents had neglected or abandoned their children for only one year instead of 10 years, as state law currently requires. If children are less than 10 years old when they die, current law requires that parents neglected or abandoned those child for their entire lives.

The judge also could make this finding based on a lower burden of proof: a preponderance of the evidence (i.e. more likely than not) rather than the current standard of clear and convincing evidence (i.e. substantially more likely than not).

The reason why it is important is really simple: Parents who have severely abused and neglected or abandoned their children should not benefit financially from the death of that child, Gelser said. There should be no award for failing your child.

Gelser was inspired to champion the bill after being contacted by Portland attorney Erin Olson, who noted that the state this November agreed to pay $260,000 to the parents of Gloria Joya. The 15-year-old Albany girl died of untreated gastrointestinal problems while in state custody in 2016.

According to a wrongful death lawsuit and the Department of Human Services own investigation into Joyas death, the child welfare agency took custody of the teen after a long history of concerns about her well-being.

The girl missed an unusual amount school and suffered ongoing problems with untreated lice, her mother repeatedly used methamphetamine while living with her in a shelter and her parents fought and threw items in front of her and her siblings before the couple split, according to investigators. Joya also said shed been choked, according to one report.

But the existing law that prevents abusive parents from profiting from their childrens deaths didnt apply because neither of Joyas parents had been convicted of felony abuse against their daughter and they didnt directly cause her death.

While Gelser says she doesnt know enough about the father to comment, she said she believes the girls mother caused her daughter much grief. Gelser said the mother shouldnt receive a financial windfall because of her death.

Her chronic neglect of her children set in motion events that caused Gloria great suffering over the course of her lifetime, Gelser said.

Olson, who represented the interests of Joyas 12-year-old sister, urged a judge to prevent the parents from getting any money based on allegations that they failed to fulfill their parental duties. Olson noted repeated neglect by Joyas mother and failure of her father to be a meaningful part of her life for years.

But with the help of lawyers, Joyas mother, Magan McDermott, and Joyas father, Jerry Joya, mounted a vigorous case that under the current law, the parents couldnt be cut off from the money. McDermott denied she deserted or neglected her daughter for the 10-year period leading up to the teens death, and Jerry Joyas lawyers said severe mental illness prevented him from intentionally abandoning or neglecting his daughter.

The current clear and convincing standard made those assertions tougher to dispute.

Olson ultimately agreed in court papers that she faced a steep uphill battle to exclude them both from the money.

The case settled for $1.25 million. After attorney fees and other costs, $780,000 was left for Gloria Joyas heirs. Her parents each got $130,000, just like her four surviving siblings did.

While many parents may have a legitimate claim against the Department of Human Services after their children die in state custody, the current law makes it too difficult to keep truly absentee parents from receiving a financial windfall because of their childrens deaths, said Portland attorney Josh Lamborn.

Its not right for people to benefit from their childrens deaths when they barely participated in their life, especially after they already cost the state so much in Department of Human Services intervention, Lamborn said.

Really? Youre going to take the money when youve put (your kids) through all that? Lamborn said. And youre going to take the money from the state, when look what youve already cost the state.

Lamborn acted as a guardian ad litem for Gloria Joyas sister.

Lamborn supports Gelsers bill, including the provision that allows parents to be cut off from benefiting after at least a year of neglecting or abandoning their children. Thats enough time for a judge to determine if parents have truly failed their child or made a genuine effort to mend their broken family, he said.

Gloria Joya was the oldest of McDermotts five children. Over the years, as McDermott has struggled with methamphetamine addiction and abusive relationships, the 34-year-old has lost custody of them all, court records show.

That includes her youngest, a 5-month-old boy who McDermott is accused of overdosing with methadone in November -- she said in an effort to help him sleep, according to police reports. Investigators believe the boy wasnt breathing for nearly 14 minutes before medics were able to revive him.

McDermott has been booked in Benton County Jail for more than six weeks and has been indicted on charges that include criminal mistreatment and assault of her baby.

In the months and days leading up to the overdose, McDermott repeatedly emailed Olson, the attorney, asking when her $130,000 settlement check for the death of her oldest child would arrive, according to court records. She referred to the upcoming payout as great news and expressed her appreciation.

But Lamborn, the Portland attorney, filed suit in December against McDermott on the behalf of her 5-month-old son, trying to ensure she never sees the money.

The lawsuit seeks $900,000 in damages for the boy and asks a judge to immediately intervene by stopping McDermott from collecting the $130,000 payout from the Department of Human Services until her sons lawsuit against her has run its course.

McDermott, who initially had a civil lawyer but more recently has been representing herself in the wrongful death settlement case, couldnt reached for comment through her criminal lawyer.

No efforts are underway to stop Gloria Joyas father from his $130,000 in settlement money. Rob Harris, an attorney who represents the fathers stake in the settlement, said theres a vast difference between the girls mother and father  and the reasons why one should be cut off from the money.

They shouldnt be lumped together, Harris said.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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SEATTLE (AP)  Microsoft says it will devote $500 million to address a problem its own success helped create: the severe need for affordable housing in the Seattle area.

As the tech industry Microsoft brought to the region has boomed with the expansion of Amazon and other companies, the cost of housing has soared. Tent encampments packed with homeless people have become common, and even those with good middle-income jobs, such as teachers and nurses, have been priced out of the cities where they work.

"A healthy business needs to be part of a healthy community," Microsoft President Brad Smith and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood wrote in a blog post announcing the financial commitment. "And a healthy community must have housing within the economic reach of every part of the community, including the many dedicated people who provide the vital services on which we all rely."

While $25 million will be used for grants to address homelessness, including money to provide legal help to those facing eviction, Microsoft isn't simply giving away the rest of the money. Instead, it will provide market-rate or below-market-rate loans to developers who want to build affordable housing  the latter of which especially can make a big difference in what landlords charge for rent.

Microsoft's initiative comes as Seattle's tech giants face calls to help fix the region's housing crisis. Last year, Seattle's City Council passed a "head tax" on employee-hours at large companies  only to abruptly repeal it under pressure from Amazon. A few months later, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced a $2 billion contribution to start a fund that will open preschools in low-income neighborhoods around the U.S. and give money to nonprofits that help homeless families.

Other regions buoyed by the tech industry have faced similar challenges. New California Gov. Gavin Newsom called on Silicon Valley companies to match the $500 million he proposed in his first state budget with their own low-interest loans to developers that would go to build homes for middle-income residents.

In its announcement, Microsoft urged other companies, the state and local governments to step up and make it easier to build affordable housing. In conjunction, the mayors of nine cities east and south of Seattle  including Microsoft's hometown of Redmond  pledged to tweak building codes and zoning, streamline permitting requirements, and make underused public land available for affordable housing.

Nancy Backus is the mayor of Auburn, a south Seattle suburb that has long had some of the cheapest housing in the area. But even there, she said, new homes run at least $565,000  far above the citys median of about $375,000. She called Microsofts commitment exemplary.

"The push of people leaving Seattle and leaving the Eastside because it's no longer affordable has really started to have a strain on Auburn," she said Thursday. "We're very hopeful some of the funding that is being made available will help ease some of that burden and be able to keep affordable housing affordable."

She also noted that helping people live closer to their jobs reduces driving, helping the environment, and improves their quality of life, since they don't have to spend so much time in their car.

Dan Bertolet, a housing policy researcher at the Seattle-based Sightline Institute, said the $225 million Microsoft is putting toward making loans at below-market-rate returns could have an especially big impact. His recent research suggested that having to repay loans at 2 percent interest, instead of 5 to 6 percent interest, could allow building owners to cut the rent they charge by roughly half, he said.

Microsoft will loan the rest, $250 million, at market rate to finance construction of low-income housing.

A homeless camp in Seattle, photographed Feb. 9, 2016. Microsoft pledged $500 million to address homelessness and develop affordable housing in response to the Seattle region's widening affordability gap.(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)AP

Smith and Hood wrote that Microsoft had teamed up with the Seattle-based real estate firm Zillow over the past eight months to research housing data and that it had worked with others to study best practices for affordable housing around the world. Among the lessons: that providing short-term loans can help developers quickly acquire publicly owned land while they raise longer-term financing for construction.

"With these and similar investments, it's possible to lend money, accelerate progress, be repaid and then lend this money again," they wrote. "While this is just one of the many ways that we'll seek to put money to good use, it illustrates our financial commitment can have a multiplier effect."

Microsoft urged the state to double the $100 million budget for its Housing Trust Fund, which provides grants to developers of low-income housing.

___

AP writers Sally Ho in Seattle and Don Thompson in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Gene Johnson at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle
Portland-area events honoring the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr. include service, speakers, performances and more and run through the long holiday weekend and extend into the next weekend.

Weekend of Service

The 2019 United Way MLK Weekend of Service invites you to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by volunteering at locations across the metropolitan area. Spots are going fast, but theres still room for more. Sign up at handsonportland.org

Drum Major Celebration

Portlands annual Drum Major Celebration is presented Saturday and Sunday by Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church. Tickets are $25 for each event or $45 for both, available online, by calling 503-282-9496 or at the door.

Saturday, the Salute to Greatness awards and scholarship luncheon will feature Lakayana Drury, social studies teacher at Rosemary Anderson High School and Executive Director of Word is Bond, as the keynote speaker. Noon to 2 p.m. at New Song Community Church Fellowship Hall, 220 N.E. Russell St.

Sunday, Attalah Shabazz, eldest daughter of Malcolm X, will speak to the theme of Now is the Time! Interfaith leaders and Mayor Ted Wheeler are also scheduled to speak and the Pacific Youth Choir will perform. 2-4 p.m. at Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church, 3138 N. Vancouver Ave.

Weve Come This Far Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King jr. Tribute

This is the 34th anniversary of the annual celebration honoring Kings legacy. The event will feature performances (including the Jefferson High School Dancers) and an array of community speakers. Donations requested of 5 units of perishable food or $5 for local food banks. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Highland Christian Center, 7600 N.E. Glisan St. http://worldartsfoundation.org/

Reclaim MLK Annual March for Human Rights and Dignity

This event is a protest, meant to include everyone as we support and uplift the voices of Black people. We are unapologetic in our movement for Black Lives and we use this event to center the voices of our children. ... Not many events center the voices of children to uplift the Black community so we reclaim Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day for this purpose. https://www.facebook.com/events/201403987457766/

1-5 p.m. Sunday, Peninsula Park, 700 N. Rosa Parks Way.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Engagement

Reed Colleges annual Day of Engagement on Monday aims to transform the day off into a day ON. Events include Lunch with Liberation Literacy at noon and a public lecture entitled History Reconsidered by Clint Smith at 3 p.m. Details at reed.edu. RSVP requested online.

MLK Tribute featuring Rukaiyah Adams

Rukaiyah Adams, a native of Portland, community activist and chief investment officer at Meyer Memorial Trust, will speak about economic inequities and advancing social change. 6:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 28, Portland State University Smith Memorial Student Union, 1825 S.W. Broadway. Get your FREE ticket online, in person at the PSU Box Office, or by calling 503-725-3307.

 The Oregonian/OregonLive
Heres a full list of the locations that have been linked to the Vancouver-area measles outbreak. Officials ask anyone who has been exposed and believes they have measles symptoms to call their doctor before visiting a medical office to avoid exposing others. This list will be updated.

Public exposure locations

People who visited the following locations may have been exposed to measles:

Health care facilities:

PeaceHealth Urgent Care  Memorial, 3400 Main St., from noon to 5:30 pm Monday, Dec. 31.

Magnolia Family Clinic, 2207 NE Broadway, Suite 200, Portland from 11:30 am to 3 pm Tuesday, Jan. 8.

The Vancouver Clinic, 700 NE 87th Ave., Vancouver

3:30 to 7 pm Friday, Jan. 11.

10:45 am to 1:30 pm Saturday Jan. 12.

4:30 to 7:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 13.

9:30 am to 1 pm Monday, Jan. 14.

Kaiser Cascade Park, 12607 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver from 1 to 8:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 12, from 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15 to 2 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 16.

PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center Emergency Department, 400 NE Mother Joseph Pl., Vancouver

10 pm Saturday, Jan. 12 to 4 am Sunday, Jan. 13.

12:30 to 8:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 13.

March 3 to 1:45 am Monday, March 4.

Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center Emergency Department, 2211 NE 139th St., Vancouver

8:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 12 to 1 am Sunday, Jan. 13.

5:45 pm Sunday, Jan. 13 and 12:30 am Monday, Jan. 14.

11:40 pm Monday, Jan. 14 to 5:10 am Tuesday, Jan. 15.

Rose Urgent Care and Family Practice, 18 NW 20th Ave., Battle Ground from 3:45 to 8 pm Monday, Jan. 14.

Memorial Urgent Care, 3400 Main St. in Vancouver, from 4:30 to 7:50 pm Saturday, Jan. 19

Kaiser Cascade Park Medical Office, 12607 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver from 12:30 to 7:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 19.

Legacy GoHealth Urgent Care Cascade Park, 305 SE Chkalov Drive, Vancouver from 6:25 to 10:15 pm Tuesday, Jan. 22.

Kaiser Orchards Medical Office, 7101 NE 137th Ave., Vancouver from 1:50 to 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 24.

The Vancouver Clinic Salmon Creek, at 2525 NE 139th St., Vancouver, from 7 to 10 pm Thursday, Feb. 14, and from 10:30 am to 3:45 pm Friday, Feb. 15.

The Vancouver Clinic Washougal, 291 C St., Washougal from 7:10 to 10:35 am Thursday, Feb. 14.

The Vancouver Clinic, 700 NE 87th Ave., Vancouver from 1:50 to 6 pm Monday, Feb. 18.

PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center Emergency Department, 400 NE Mother Joseph Place, Vancouver 7:45 to 11:05 pm Saturday, Feb. 16.

The Vancouver Clinic, 700 NE 87th Ave., Vancouver, from 3:30 to 9:30 pm Friday, March 1, and 9 am to 12:30 pm Saturday, March 2.

Schools:

Cornerstone Christian Academy, 10818 NE 117th Ave., Vancouver on Friday, Jan. 4

Vancouver Home Connection, 301 S. Lieser Road, Vancouver on Monday, Jan. 7; Wednesday, Jan. 9 (This is a corrected date); and Friday, Jan. 11.

Hearthwood Elementary School, 801 NE Hearthwood Blvd., Vancouver on Monday, Jan. 7; Tuesday, Jan. 8; and Wednesday, Jan. 9.

Image Elementary School, 4400 NE 122nd Ave., Vancouver on Tuesday, Jan. 8 and Wednesday, Jan. 9.

Eisenhower Elementary School, 9201 NW Ninth Ave., Vancouver on Tuesday, Jan. 8 and Wednesday, Jan. 9.

Tukes Valley Primary School, 20601 NE 167th Ave., Battle Ground on Tuesday, Jan. 8.

Tukes Valley Middle School, 20601 NE 167th Ave., Battle Ground on Tuesday, Jan. 8.

Maple Grove School, 601B SW Eaton Blvd., Battle Ground on Tuesday, Jan. 8 and Wednesday, Jan. 9.

River HomeLink, 601 SW Eaton Blvd., Battle Ground on Tuesday, Jan. 8 and Wednesday, Jan. 9.

Orchards Elementary School, 11405 NE 69th St. in Vancouver, on Monday, Jan. 14

Yelenas Daycare, 17007 NE 23rd St., Vancouver:

Tuesday, Jan. 22

Wednesday, Jan. 23

Minnehaha Elementary School, 2800 NE 54th St., Vancouver from 3:45 to 7:45 pm Thursday, Jan. 17.

Burton Elementary School, 14015 NE 28th St., Vancouver on Monday, Feb. 11; Tuesday, Feb. 12; Wednesday, Feb. 13.

Pacific Middle School, 2017 NE 172nd Ave., Vancouver all day until 4:30 pm on Tuesday, Feb. 12. The school was already listed as an exposure site. This extends the exposure period into after-school activities.

Public Health is requiring exclusion of students and staff without documented immunity to measles from the above schools, as well as child care and other congregate settings. Students and staff at schools where measles exposure did not occur are not impacted by exclusions.

Other locations:

Church of Christ Savior, 3612 F St., Vancouver from 9:10 am to 3 pm Sunday, Jan. 1; 9:30 am to noon Sunday, Jan. 6; and 6 to 11:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 6.

Church of Truth, 7250 NE 41st St., Vancouver from 11 am to 4:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 6.

Portland International Airport, 7000 NE Airport Way, Portland from 10:45 am to 3:45 pm on Monday, Jan. 7. More specifically, anyone who spent time in Concourse D and the Delta Sky Lounge during that time period.

Costco, 4849 NE 138th Ave., Portland from 1 to 5:30 pm Tuesday, Jan. 8.

Amazon Lockers, 1131 SW Jefferson St., Portland from 3:30 pm to 7 pm Thursday, Jan. 10.

Rejuvenation, 1100 SE Grand Ave. Portland from 3:30 to 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 10.

Pho Green Papaya, 13215 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver from 7:30 to 10:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 10.

Chuck's Produce, 13215 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver from 8 to 11:45 pm Thursday, Jan. 10 and 2:30 to 5:30 pm Friday, Jan. 11.

Ikea, 10280 NE Cascades Parkway, Portland from 4:30 to 8:30 pm Friday, Jan. 11.

Fisher Investments, 5525 NW Fisher Creek Drive, Camas, from 6:20 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 10; 6:20 am to 7 pm Friday, Jan. 11; 6:20 am to 7 pm Monday, Jan. 14; 6:20 am to 7 pm Tuesday, Jan. 15

Moda Center (Trail Blazers game), 1 N Center Court St., Portland from 5:30 to 11:30 pm Friday, Jan. 11.

Verizon Wireless at Cascade Station, 10103 NE Cascades Parkway, Portland from 5 to 11 pm Monday, Jan. 14.

A Childrens Dentist, 101 NW 12th Ave., Battle Ground from 1:30 to 6 pm Tuesday, Jan. 8.

Dollar Tree, 11501 NE 76th St. in Vancouver, from 8:10 to 10:50 pm Tuesday, Jan. 15

Dollar Tree, 7809-B Vancouver Plaza Drive, Vancouver from 6:30 to 9:10 pm Tuesday, Jan. 15.

Portland International Airport, baggage claim and south end of the ticket counter (near Alaska Airlines and Starbucks), 7000 NE Airport Way, Portland from 7:30 to 11 pm Tuesday, Jan. 15.

Costco, 4849 NE 138th Ave., Portland from 5:30 to 8:40 pm Wednesday, Jan. 16.

God Will Provide Church, 7321 NE 110th St. in Vancouver from 7 to 11 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18.

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, OMSI, 1945 SE Water Ave., Portland from 2:30 to 7 pm Saturday, Jan. 19.

New Life Mission Church, 3300 NE 172nd Place, Portland from 9:30 am to 2 pm Sunday, Jan. 20.

Trader Joes, 305 SE Chkalov Drive, Vancouver from 12:30 to 3:40 pm Monday, Jan. 21.

Dollar Tree, 305 SE Chkalov Drive, Vancouver from 1:10 to 4 pm Monday, Jan. 21.

Walmart Supercenter, 14505 NE Fourth Plain Blvd., Vancouver 1:30 to 5 pm Monday, Jan. 21.

Word of Grace Bible Church, 1317 NW 12th Ave., Battle Ground: Jan. 20 9:30 am to 2 pm

Mountain Air, 20495 Murray Rd, Suite 150, Bend, Saturday, Jan. 19, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Juniper Swim and Fitness Center, 800 NE 6th St, Bend, Sunday, Jan. 20 (Timeframe currently unknown. Updates will be provided as they are available).

Fred Meyer, 401 NW 12th Ave., Battle Ground from 3:30 to 10 pm Wednesday, Feb. 13.
The Oregon Health Authority is taking aggressive action to ensure people with severe mental illness arent forced out of state-funded residential facilities, increasing oversight of a contractor that advocates have accused of improperly discharging vulnerable patients.

State officials since December have been reviewing decisions by Kepro, a Pennsylvania-based company, in order to protect patients from potential harm.

So far, the state has reversed Kepro decisions in 17 of 17 cases.

Clearly, there was some room for improvement as far as what OHA expected, said Saerom England, a state spokeswoman. This is about the care, quality and safety of residents in the mental health residential system, she added.

Oversight of Kepros work follows reporting by The Oregonian/OregonLive in November and months-long scrutiny by Disability Rights Oregon. The newsroom identified three instances of serious harm to people discharged following a Kepro decision, including a 54-year-old woman with schizophrenia who was found catatonic and severely dehydrated after wandering the streets for a week.

State action comes near the end of a three-year project by the health authority that included determining if all of the approximately 1,600 people with severe mental illness in residential facilities needed to be there. The state hired Kepro, as part of a $27 million contract, to evaluate patients medical needs.

Those patients included about 250 people living in locked residential facilities. State officials have said at least 215 people from those facilities have had to move elsewhere after Kepro decided they didnt qualify to stay. The states new oversight is limited to people who want to stay in a secure facility or move into one.

Contacted Thursday, Kepro did not directly address the states scrutiny or the recent string of reversals. Kepros chief operating officer, Meghan Harris, said in an email that the company is working to amend its contract with Oregon and believes those changes will improve our ability to serve the state and the patients.

The Oregonian/OregonLive last year reported that the Kepro contract and its implementation had been riddled with problems, from paperwork that violates federal law to cases of serious harm to people forced to leave a facility after the company determined they no longer qualified.

Months after Disability Rights Oregon asked the state for a tally of people who ended up hospitalized, homeless, or in jail after they were removed from facilities, state officials told the group they did not have an answer.

One of those people, Ruane Oliverio, was kicked out of a locked facility in Portland last June despite warnings from clinicians that the 54-year-old with schizophrenia was too vulnerable. After being hospitalized multiple times, she was sent to the Oregon State Hospital, the highest and most expensive level of care.

Oliverio was one of the 17 people who Kepro recently decided did not qualify to be cared for in a secure facility. Her mother was getting ready to appeal Kepros latest decision when the health authority told her this week that Oliverio could, in fact, move back to a locked facility.

Im in disbelief, Patty Bagley-Hill said. I want to see it in black and white.

The states action this month marks a significant walk-back of comments made late last year by Patrick Allen, the health authoritys director.

Im confident in Kepros medical appropriateness reviews, Allen said at the time. Those professionals licensure and credentialing are on the line if they were to make inappropriate decisions.

The states confidence appears to have waned.

Allen said Thursday that the agency now knows more about Kepros work than it did last year, and that concerns have escalated."

"Weve told Kepro we expect that they will make clinically sound decisions about whether it is medically necessary for individuals to be in secure treatment, Allen said in an email.

State officials have now tasked three employees, including a licensed counselor and social worker, to review Kepros discharge decisions.

The agency wants to catch improper denials on the front end as opposed to tracking down individuals after theyve been forced out.

Its a lot easier to prevent a crisis or a negative outcome, England said.

Have a tip about the Oregon Health Authority or mental health services? Get in touch.

-- Fedor Zarkhin

fzarkhin@oregonian.com

desk: 503-294-7674|cell: 971-373-2905|@fedorzarkhin
During six seasons of filming the NBC series, Grimm, Russell Hornsby and other members of the cast participated in Portland community events that went beyond the shows fanciful blend of fantasy and crime procedural. Now, Hornsby will return to the Rose City to serve as celebrity master of ceremonies at the Portland Childrens Museums new gala, the Fancy Pants Ball.

According to a press release from the Portland Childrens Museum, "Russell is elated to be back in town to emcee the Fancy Pants Ball and to stop off for a visit to Portland Childrens Museum with his two young sons.

At the Fancy Pants Ball, Russell will guide guests in activities and programming that demonstrate and celebrate all of the ways in which the Museum gives children a voice, preparing them to become our next generation of innovative problem-solvers."

Since Grimm ended its run, Hornsby has stayed busy with a variety of projects, including roles in the movies, The Hate U Give, and Creed II, and TV series including The Affair and Seven Seconds. Hornsby is also one of the stars of the Fox legal drama, Proven Innocent, which will premiere Feb. 15.

On Grimm, Hornsby played Portland Police detective Hank Griffin, who worked with his supernaturally gifted partner, Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli), to solve cases of Wesen creatures wreaking havoc in Portland.

Offscreen, Hornsby worked with Portland high school students in the August Wilson Monologue Competition, in 2015. He also joined other cast members at two out of three Grimm Galas, which raised money for Doernbecher Childrens Hospital.

The Childrens Museum Fancy Pants Ball will be held Saturday, April 13, at Ecotrusts Irving Street Studio. https://www.portlandcm.org/fancypants2019 for upcoming information on tickets, sponsorships and more.

-- Kristi Turnquist

kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist

Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.
A week after the Oregon Secretary of State released a highly critical report of Portland Public Schools , the school boards audit committee laid out some of the districts next steps, including plans to swiftly fix what state officials said are bloated expense practices.

But committee members didnt discuss other changes the report called for with more urgency, including the districts need to retain principals and teachers at schools that serve a concentration of students of color or living in poverty.

And board members said they likely cant make changes to their student discipline policies and procedures until fall 2020. A required 90-day delay to make changes that the teachers union files objections to would prevent them from making changes by the start of next school year, they said.

Auditors wrote that teachers complain the districts discipline options are confusing and behavior expectations are unclear. The audit called for Portland district leaders to provide clearer guidance, more discipline options, more specialists in classrooms and more interaction with families. It also said the school board should also make it a priority to better communicate discipline expectations and options.

In a 32-page response released in tandem with the state audit, Portland schools officials had indicated they would update the districts purchasing card policy and start collecting more data on employees use of the cards by June. Claire Hertz, the districts deputy superintendent for business and operations, said Wednesday she could order a dry run of new practices almost immediately.

The cards have accounted for an average of $13 million a year in district expenses over the last few years, state auditors found. Their report pointed to a 2017 retirement party aboard the Portland Spirit tourism ship as a particularly egregious use of the cards.

The outing cost at least $13,000, according to state auditors. That included $9,475 to rent the ship and $1,725 for crystal clocks given out as retirement gifts. The district in 2018 dialed back the long-standing tradition of a lavish retirement party to a $4,000 event, auditors found.

They (auditors) are saying they want to see us using our money efficiently and wisely, Hertz told the school boards audit committee.

Hertz, who formerly served as chief financial officer for Beaverton schools, was hired for the top financial post in Portland schools in July of 2018. On Wednesday, she steered the audit committee through the states recommendations. Among them: reform the way contracts are awarded.

The district currently requires its most stringent procedures for contracts worth $150,000 or more. District employees must broadcast a call for bids, then award the project based on the price and quality of the proposal. Board members see and vote on those contracts before they can take effect.

Making purchases and contracts worth $10,000 or less can entail a more lax approach. Theyre sometimes awarded in a direct award process, with oversight coming in after the fact as managers review purchases. Board members dont vet them at all.

Board members bristled at the idea of scrutinizing smaller expenses.

The thing that immediately comes to mind is that interminable exercise the Legislature goes through where they go through every thing on every bill, said board member Paul Anthony. Its like they want us to go through every contract.

Hertz said the district will soon add a contract review function to its human resources management system to simplify oversight. The district is also working on a bidding process for smaller contracts.

Portland schools are also in the process of hiring two internal auditors, the first of whom district officials interviewed Jan. 9. Hertz said the first auditor should be hired by the next time the audits committee meets.
Updated at 8:26 p.m.

A 64-year-old man is accused of killing another man, wounding a woman and shooting and killing the womans dog after a long-standing dispute with the two who were camping on his property in Northeast Portland, according to Portland police and court records.

Reza Chehrazi Mardani was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center at 4:14 a.m. Friday, accused of murder, attempted aggravated murder and unlawful use of a weapon.

Portland police Sgt. Pete Simpson said the killing was not a domestic violence-related homicide, yet investigators believe that all involved were associated with the residence and property where the shooting occurred.

Portland police were called to the home at 5287 N.E. 74th Avenue Thursday afternoon about 4:30 p.m. on a report of gunfire.

A neighbor, Juliana Mejia, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she heard gunshots and a woman screaming.

Another neighbor, Petru Rachi, said he was working in his backyard on Northeast 73rd Avenue. "I hear pop,pop, and then I heard someone yelling help, help! '' Rachi recalled. "Then I hear another two pop, pop, and then quiet.''

Officers found George Michael Atkeson, 62, dead and Darlene Marie Kelley, 63, wounded on the property. Kelley was reported to be in serious condition in a local hospital on Friday.

Kelleys dog also was shot and killed, police said.

Mardani had obtained a temporary stalking protective order against Atkeson in September 2018, saying Atkeson was living in a camper on his property and wouldnt leave, court records show. Portland police had been called to the property several times before the homicide occurred.

Mardani wrote in his Sept. 12, 2018 petition for the stalking order that every time he asked Atkeson to go, Atkeson would confront him.

Atkeson had punched Mardani and knocked him to the ground on Sept. 7, and Mardani called police and sought the stalking protective order, records show.

Mardani wrote in his petition that Atkesons camper was parked on his property, filled with garbage and attracting several women and other transients. When confronted in September, Atkeson told Mardani that hes not moving, has no other place to go and that Mardani couldnt force him to leave, Mardani wrote. Atkeson had promised he "will make my life as hell from now on,'' Mardani wrote in the stalking order petition.

Mardani also was perturbed that Atkeson had moved the belongings of a female friend into a shed on his property.

"He has physically assaulted me, damaged property,'' Mardani wrote in the petition. " I believe he may kill me.''

Mardani had been working as the full-time caretaker for his brother, Mohammad Mardani, 66, but his brother passed away two weeks before Christmas 2017, according to court documents.

In June 2017, Reza Chehrazi Mardani was arrested, accused of violating a court stalking order obtained by another woman living on his property, Amber Cherie Barnett, 40. Mardanis brother Mohammad Mardani, according to court records, had allowed Barnett to live on their property because she had a heart problem. Reza Mardani , though, believed she was trespassing. The charge ultimately was dismissed, and the stalking order Barnett had obtained against Reza Mardani in June 2017 was dismissed two months later.

Mardani, a native of Iran who had served as a corporal in the Iranian army, has lived in the Portland area for more than 20 years, according to court records. He has one prior misdemeanor conviction in 2010 for tampering with government records.

Mardani is not scheduled to be arraigned on the allegations in Multnomah County Circuit Court until Tuesday afternoon because he was booked into jail after 2 a.m. Friday.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
Forecasters with the National Weather Service say a warm front lifting northward through Oregon on Friday will bring a moderately strong atmospheric river into the Portland area by the afternoon. This could make an already busy end of the week commute even slower. Be prepared for heavy traffic, wet bus stops and a soggy bike ride home this afternoon.

Improvements begin Friday on the elevator at TriMets second busiest transit center at Hollywood/NE 42nd Ave. The work requires closing the only elevator at that station for about three months. As there is only one elevator between the station platform and the elevators top entrance, the closure will require riders unable to use the stairs to adjust their trips.

Crews will replace all the components of the elevator cab including electronics, mechanical and HVAC equipment, as well as install new panels and doors. A roof vent will be installed to improve air movement and help keep the elevator mechanisms cool during hot weather.

***

SOUTHEAST PORTLAND 8:23 a.m.: Injury crash with several units responding on Southeast Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Oak Street.

***

MAX YELLOW LINE 7:57 a.m.: TriMet reports the MAX Yellow Line to Expo Center is experiencing at least 10 minute delays thru 8:15 a.m. from earlier blocking vehicles in the tracks.

***

PEARL 7:48 a.m.: Crash on Northwest Everett Street at Ninth Avenue.

***

MORELAND 7:45 a.m.: Injury crash on Southeast 17th Avenue and Insley Street.

***

MARQUAM BRIDGE 7:38 a.m.: A crash or stall is partially blocking the right lane of the ramp from I-5 northbound onto the Marquam Bridge.

UPDATE 8 a.m.: Cleared.

***

SUNSET HIGHWAY 7 a.m.: Crash blocks the left lane of U.S. 26 eastbound near the Zoo exit.

UPDATE 7:19 a.m.: Cleared.

***

NORTHEAST PORTLAND 6:35 a.m.: Semi crash on Northeast 82nd Avenue, just south of Airport Way.

ALERT: a semi is in a ditch at NE 82nd just south of Airport Way. Its trailer blocking all southbound lanes. Southbound traffic using 1 northbound lane, northbound restricted to right lane. Slow going here, tow on scene. USE CAUTION #LiveOnK2 #pdxtraffic pic.twitter.com/vlqWM26hRc  Mike Warner (@MikeKATU) January 18, 2019

***

Washington County drivers should expect a nighttime signal shutdown 9 p.m.-5 a.m. Friday-Saturday, Jan 18-19 at 118th Avenue and Barnes Road. Expect delays/avoid the area.

Improvements to the tunnels on OR 99E just south of Oregon City began on Wednesday and will delays travelers with up to 20 minute closures at night and lane closures during the day through the summer of 2019.

The Oregon Department of Transportation and the City of Oregon City will work on the vehicle and pedestrian tunnels south of the city and install new lighting and a new message sign south of the tunnel, update electrical systems, and improve old fixtures. Most of the work will be done at night to minimize traffic impacts.

Travelers can expect flaggers directing traffic through single lane closures 9 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays. Night time closures will be variable and last up to 20 minutes between 10 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Walkers and bicyclists can use the pedestrian tunnel with only minor delays, but use caution in the work zone and limit personal distractions (cell phones, music) through the work area.
A Portland man who was detained and released by police in 2017 after driving through a crowd of people opposing a right-wing groups rally in Vancouver faces charges in the case.

A review hearing was held Tuesday in the case against Billy Wilson, 33. Wilson is accused of reckless driving and reckless endangering in Clark County District Court, Washington court records show.

The Clark County Prosecuting Attorneys Office filed charges against Wilson in February 2018, five months after he allegedly drove into a crowd of people opposing a Patriot Prayer protest.

He wasn't arrested at the scene. Vancouver police said in 2017 that officers didnt have enough evidence to arrest him. The prosecuting attorneys office later reviewed the case and pursued charges. A trial date hasnt yet been set.

The 2017 altercation came after two Patriot Prayer rallies, one in Vancouver and another in downtown Portland, that both drew counter-protests. Two people were arrested in Vancouver in incidents unrelated to the pickup, and seven people were arrested in Portland.

Videos from the September 2017 altercation show Wilson reversed his a black Chevy pickup adorned with American flags and a Confederate sticker through the crowd of counter-protesters near the Vancouver Convention Center while strains of the song DIxie played from the trucks horn. He later drove forward through the crowd walking in the middle of Columbia Street, went through a red light at an intersection nearby and then stopped when a car quickly veers in front of the truck.

Vancouver police arrived, put Wilson in handcuffs and he was later released. Police said no one was injured. The incident invoked comparisons to a month before when a woman was killed and 19 others were injured in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a man drove his car through a crowd protesting a white nationalist rally.

According to police reports, Wilson told Vancouver officers he made a wrong turn that put him in the counter-protestors path and sped away to stop them from damaging his truck. He said he wasnt trying to hit anyone and feared for his safety. Witnesses told police that Wilson appeared to be intentionally trying to rile up the crowd and endanger pedestrians, the reports said.

The crowd included a few dozen people, including anti-fascist protesters and reporters.

After being released from police custody, Wilson later appeared in a video posted on Facebook where he stood atop his pickup with his arms outstretched holding two American flags and said, No jail for this proud USA patriot.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey

Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.
UPDATE JAN. 18: Outbreak grows to 19 people, including one who attended Blazers game.

The number of unvaccinated Clark County children with confirmed cases of the measles continues to rise, officials said Thursday, as does the number of public and private businesses where people may have been exposed to the contagious children.

Public health officials have confirmed 16 Clark County-area children have the measles, and another five are suspected to have the preventable disease. Fourteen of the confirmed cases involve children who have not been vaccinated.

According to a news release, the remaining two cases involved children with unverified immunization histories. Two children have been hospitalized, one with a confirmed measles case and the other suspected.

Measles is a highly contagious viral illness spread through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. It was thought to be eradicated years after the vaccine hit the U.S. in 1963. Prior to the vaccine, 400 to 500 people would die every year, and 48,000 or more were hospitalized.

Clark County has one of the worst vaccination rates among all Washington counties, with just 77.4 percent of all public students having completed their vaccinations, according to state records.

Marissa Armstrong, Clark County Public Health spokeswoman, said investigators are still trying to pinpoint the main source of the outbreak. The office is withholding some sensitive information which may otherwise identify the families involved.

The infected children visited busy public spaces, like the Portland International Airport, and private businesses like Costco. The county released a list of two dozen locations Thursday where people may have been exposed to measles  ranging from schools, to a Vietnamese restaurant to a Portland hardware store.

I dont think anybody would be surprised, Armstrong said, if these numbers continue to grow. She said measles is highly contagious and the children visited a variety of public spaces  including schools  in Oregon and Southwest Washington when they were highly contagious.

Children are typically vaccinated against the measles starting between 12 and 15 months, with a second shot between ages 4 and 6.

Of the Clark County confirmed cases, 13 of the 16 involve children between the ages of 1 and 10.

Complications from measles can include ear infections or diarrhea, along with more severe health issues like pneumonia, encephalitis (brain swelling) or total hearing loss.

Additionally, measles is potentially harmful to pregnant woman,  who may suffer miscarriages or premature births and its also particularly dangerous for people with compromised immune systems.

Officials ask anyone who has been exposed and believes they have measles symptoms to call their doctor before visiting a medical office to avoid exposing others.

Heres a full list of the locations:

Public exposure locations

People who visited the following locations may have been exposed to measles:

Health care facilities:

PeaceHealth Urgent Care  Memorial, 3400 Main St., from noon to 5:30 pm Monday, Dec. 31.

Magnolia Family Clinic, 2207 NE Broadway, Suite 200, Portland from 11:30 am to 3 pm Tuesday, Jan. 8.

The Vancouver Clinic, 700 NE 87th Ave., Vancouver

3:30 to 7 pm Friday, Jan. 11.

10:45 am to 1:30 pm Saturday Jan. 12.

4:30 to 7:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 13.

9:30 am to 1 pm Monday, Jan. 14.

Kaiser Cascade Park, 12607 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver from 1 to 8:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 12.

Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel Emergency Department, 2801 N Gantenbein Ave., Portland from 11:30 am to 2 pm Saturday, Jan. 12.

PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center Emergency Department, 400 NE Mother Joseph Pl., Vancouver

10 pm Saturday, Jan. 12 to 4 am Sunday, Jan. 13.

12:30 to 8:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 13.

Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center Emergency Department, 2211 NE 139th St., Vancouver

8:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 12 to 1 am Sunday, Jan. 13.

5:45 pm Sunday, Jan. 13 and 12:30 am Monday, Jan. 14.

11:40 pm Monday, Jan. 14 to 5:10 am Tuesday, Jan. 15.

Rose Urgent Care and Family Practice, 18 NW 20th Ave., Battle Ground from 3:45 to 8 pm Monday, Jan. 14.

Schools:

Cornerstone Christian Academy, 10818 NE 117th Ave., Vancouver on Friday, Jan. 4

Vancouver Home Connection, 301 S. Lieser Road, Vancouver on Monday, Jan. 7; Tuesday, Jan. 8; and Friday, Jan. 11.

Hearthwood Elementary School, 801 NE Hearthwood Blvd., Vancouver on Monday, Jan. 7; Tuesday, Jan. 8; and Wednesday, Jan. 9.

Image Elementary School, 4400 NE 122nd Ave., Vancouver on Tuesday, Jan. 8 and Wednesday, Jan. 9.

Eisenhower Elementary School, 9201 NW Ninth Ave., Vancouver on Tuesday, Jan. 8 and Wednesday, Jan. 9.

Tukes Valley Primary School, 20601 NE 167th Ave., Battle Ground on Tuesday, Jan. 8.

Tukes Valley Middle School, 20601 NE 167th Ave., Battle Ground on Tuesday, Jan. 8

Public Health is requiring exclusion of students and staff without documented immunity to measles from the above schools, as well as child care and other congregate settings. Students and staff at schools where measles exposure did not occur are not impacted by exclusions.

Other locations:

Church of Christ Savior, 3612 F St., Vancouver from 9:30 am to noon Sunday, Jan. 6 and 6 to 11:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 6.

Church of Truth, 7250 NE 41st St., Vancouver from 11 am to 4:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 6.

Portland International Airport, 7000 NE Airport Way, Portland from 10:45 am to 3:45 pm on Monday, Jan. 7. More specifically, anyone who spent time in Concourse D and the Delta Sky Lounge during that time period.

Costco, 4849 NE 138th Ave., Portland from 1 to 5:30 pm Tuesday, Jan. 8.

Amazon Lockers, 1131 SW Jefferson St., Portland from 3:30 pm to 7 pm Thursday, Jan. 10.

Rejuvenation, 1100 SE Grand Ave. Portland from 3:30 to 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 10.

Pho Green Papaya, 13215 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver from 7:30 to 10:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 10.

Chuck's Produce, 13215 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver from 8 to 11:45 pm Thursday, Jan. 10 and 2:30 to 5:30 pm Friday, Jan. 11.

Ikea, 10280 NE Cascades Parkway, Portland from 4:30 to 8:30 pm Friday, Jan. 11.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.
Offshore tax dodges by multinational corporations are costing Oregon $175 million per year, according to a newly released study.

Nationally, the study contends, offshoring profits cost the states a collective $17 billion a year.

Companies use complicated systems to shift U.S. earnings to subsidiaries in offshore tax havens  countries with minimal or no taxes  to shave millions off their state and federal income tax liabilities. This result, critics say, is an uneven playing field, with smaller, domestic companies paying proportionately more than multinationals.

Every dollar that we allow big corporations not to pay, someone else has to pick it up, said Richard Phillips, a senior analyst with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and co-author of the study. This is not a victimless crime. This is taking money out of the pockets of small business.

Hundreds of American companies have invested at least $2.6 trillion of their domestic profits overseas.

Intel and Nike, Oregons two largest companies, are enthusiastic practitioners of the offshore tax haven strategy. Critics of the practice estimate that the chipmaker has moved $46 billion in profits overseas while the sneaker giant has placed $12.2 billion offshore, according to another annual survey by opponents of offshoring.

Intel disputed the $46 billion figure. According to its 2017 annual report, Intels non-U.S. subsidiaries held $8.4 billion. Otherwise, the company declined comment.

Nike dismissed any criticism of the $12.2 billion in domestic profits it has moved offshore. The company employs some 73,000 employees, more than 12,000 of which are local. It pays those employees nearly $900 million a year in salary and benefits. It paid nearly $2 billion in taxes worldwide in its 2018 fiscal year, though that was an abnormally large amount due to transition taxes associated with President Donald Trumps tax reform bill.

Nike has invested deeply in Oregon and contributes substantially to the states economy, the company said in a statement. We havent reviewed the report... but Nike has paid corporate income tax on all its global earnings and pays significant other taxes including duties, tariffs, property taxes, sales taxes and payroll taxes in markets where it operates around the world."

Regulators in Europe arent convinced Nike is paying enough. The European Union disclosed last week it is investigating the legality of tax shelters Nike used in The Netherlands.

The study contends there is a simple way to close the tax loopholes. Require companies to report all their income  even the money invested in offshore tax havens. So-called worldwide reporting would require a company to report their total, global profits, and the portion of that overall business done in a given jurisdiction.

If a state makes up 2 percent of a companys global business, then 2 percent of their taxable profit would be subject to the states tax rate.

The debate over offshore tax havens is sure to come up in Salem in the upcoming session. Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, has introduced a bill that would require worldwide reporting of income.

I think theres a desire to change, to collect more money from corporations to pay for schools and health care, Nosse said. This might be a way to do that.

Well maybe. The Legislature just repealed a law in 2018 intended to do much the same thing -- force multinationals to report profits moved offshore and pay state tax on it. Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, an influential voice on tax issues, said the law was bringing in a relatively paltry sum and lawmakers decided it was more hassle than it was worth.

The earlier tax haven law brought in about $28 million a year. The state excluded too many important tax haven countries to be truly effective, said Daniel Hauser, a policy analyst at the left-leaning Oregon Center for Public Policy.

Nosse acknowledged hes taking on some of the deepest pockets and most adroit political players in the state. Nike in particular has developed a surprising political alliance with Gov. Kate Brown in recent months, he noted. Nike officials said the company has no position on Nosses bill.

I fully suspect that businesses that take advantage of offshore tax havens will not like the bill, theres no point in denying that, Hauser said. The question becomes, how influential is Nike?
TEMPE, Ariz.  Oregon State opened up its road trip in the desert against Arizona State on Thursday night, but the Beavers werent quite able to handle the heat. The Sun Devils beat the Beavers 70-67, handing them their first loss since the start of Pac-12 play and dropping them to 11-5 overall (3-1 Pac-12).

After jumping out to a 10-4 lead early on, the Beavers had eight consecutive misses from the field and allowed the Sun Devils to go on a 15-1 run. Defense was the name of the game for Arizona State (12-5, 3-2), which stopped ball movement, forced deflections and turnovers, and created a frustrating situation for the Beavers.

The Beavers came out flat to start the second half, allowing the Sun Devils to score nine unanswered points. Oregon State didnt score for nearly four minutes into the second half. Tres Tinkle hit a three, but the Beavers still trailed by 15.

A strong effort brought the Beavers back within one point of the Sun Devils as just seconds remained on the clock. Unfortunately for the Beavers, they fell too far behind and couldnt complete the comeback.

The Beavers will look to rebound at 4 p.m. Saturday when they take on the Arizona Wildcats in Tucson. Arizona will also be coming off its first conference loss, as the Wildcats dropped to 13-5 overall with a 59-54 loss to Oregon on Thursday.

-- Brittany Bowyer for The Oregonian/OregonLive

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Will the Global Stem Cell Market grow by the end of 2022 :Top Keyplayer are Osiris Therapeutics Inc. , NuVasive Inc., AlloSource, RTI Surgical, Inc. , Medipost Co. Ltd., Anterogen Co. Ltd., Pharmicell Co. Ltd.

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DescriptionBy 2022, the Global Stem Cell Market is estimated to reach US$ XX Mn, up from US$ XX Mn in 2016, growing at a CAGR of XX% during the forecast period.A stem cell is an undifferentiated biological cell that has the potential to develop into specialized cell types in the body. Given their unique regenerative abilities, stem cells offer prospective treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and conditions such as diabetes, heart diseases, and brain injuries. The most widely used stem cell treatment is the transplantation of blood stem cells to treat diseases and conditions of the blood and immune system. In addition to enabling regenerative medicine, stem cell research also promises to enhance drug discovery and development. Important clinical trials are underway and researches continue to explore new avenues for using stem cells in medicine.Request For Free Sample@End-usersThe end-users of the stem cell market are hospitals, cell banks, clinical research laboratories, and academic institutes.Market DynamicsThe global stem cell market is one of the most promising markets in the field of medicine and is expected to grow even more in the forecast period as stem cells enable cost-effective treatment of many conditions that currently have poor or no treatment. To address the increasing demand for stem cell banking services and regenerative treatment, scientists are engaged in discovering novels methods to produce human stem cells. Factors such as growing awareness related to the therapeutic potential of stem cells in disease management, increase in the patient population, rising investments in research and government support are expected to further accelerate the development of regenerative medicine, thus driving the market growth.While the market has ample scope for growth, factors such as high cost, regulatory policies, and ethical framework restrain it as well. Moreover, the list of diseases for which stem cell treatment has been proven safe and effective is still very short. Despite these hurdles, stem cell therapy is believed to be the next major advancement in transforming healthcare.Market SegmentationThe global stem cell market is fragmented on the basis of cell type, therapeutic application, and technology.Cell TypeAdult Stem CellsHuman Embryonic Stem CellsInduced Pluripotent Stem CellsRat Neural Stem CellsTherapeutic ApplicationMusculoskeletal DisordersWounds and InjuriesCardiovascular DiseasesSurgeriesGastrointestinal diseasesTechnologyStem Cell AcquisitionStem Cell ProductionStem Cell CryopreservationStem Cell ExpansionGeographical AnalysisThe North American region is by far the largest stakeholder in the global stem cell market and is expected to continue its dominance across the globe. The European Market, segmented into the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and rest of Europe, is the second leading market for stem cells. However, due to increasing awareness among the public and advances in technology, the market in Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at a high rate.Request For Customization@Key PlayersCompanies like Osiris Therapeutics Inc. (U.S.), NuVasive Inc. (U.S.), AlloSource (U.S.), RTI Surgical, Inc. (U.S.), Medipost Co. Ltd. (South Korea), Anterogen Co. Ltd. (South Korea), Pharmicell Co. Ltd. (South Korea), HolostemTerapieAvanzate(Italy), and JCR Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. (Japan) are some of the key players operating in the global stem cell therapy market.Report ContentsRegional AnalysisReport HighlightsMarket segmentsMarket Drivers, Restraints and OpportunitiesMarket Size & Forecast 2016 to 2022Supply & Demand Value ChainMarket - Current TrendsCompetition & Major CompaniesTechnology and R&D StatusPorters Five Force AnalysisStrategic and Critical Success Factor Analysis of Key PlayersNorth AmericaUS and CanadaLatin AmericaMexico, Brazil, Argentina and Rest of Latin AmericaWestern EuropeEU5 (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, U.K.)Nordic Countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden)Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Rest of Western EuropeEastern EuropeRussiaPolandRest of Eastern EuropeAsia PacificChinaIndiaJapanAustralia and New ZealandRest of Asia PacificMiddle East and AfricaGCC countries (Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE and Kuwait)South AfricaNorth AfricaRest of Middle East and AfricaThis report is an elaborate aggregation of primary inputs from industry experts and participants across the supply chain. It provides details on market segmentation which is derived from several product mapping exercises, macroeconomic parameters and other qualitative and quantitative insights. The impact of all such factors is delivered across multiple market segments and geographies.Read More@Detailed Historical Overview (Market Origins, Product Launch Timeline, etc.)Consumer and Pricing AnalysisMarket dynamics of the industryMarket SegmentationEstimated Market Sizing in terms of volume and valueRecent trends in Market and impactResearch Status and Technology OverviewExtensive Industry Structure CoverageAbout Kenneth ResearchKenneth Research is a reselling agency providing market research solutions in different verticals such as Automotive and Transportation, Chemicals and Materials, Healthcare, Food & Beverage and Consumer Packaged Goods, Semiconductors, Electronics & ICT, Packaging, and Others. Our portfolio includes set of market research insights such as market sizing and market forecasting, market share analysis and key positioning of the players (manufacturers, deals and distributors, etc), understanding the competitive landscape and their business at a ground level and many more. Our research experts deliver the offerings efficiently and effectively within a stipulated time. The market study provided by Kenneth Research helps the Industry veterans/investors to think and to act wisely in their overall strategy formulation.Contact UsName: DavidEmail : Sales@kennethresearch.comPhone:+1 313 462 0609
Mustard Flour Market Analysis Covers Top Key Players Are - Colman's, McCormick, Wisconsin Spice, Mincing Overseas Spice, Farmer Bros, S&B Foods etc

Mustard Flour Market

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Mustard flour is the powder made by grounding mustard seeds from various mustard plants species such as Brassica and Sinapis. Mustard flour has been used as seasoning since ancient times, and is now added to meat, chicken poultry and fish dishes, salads and other savory sauces. Mustard flour is made from the seeds of the either yellow, brown or golden mustard plant, which are then ground and mixed with a liquid to form a spreadable paste.Mustard is commonly used as a condiment in sandwiches, or as a hot and tart addition to sauces, spreads and salad dressings. Mustard flour is just another name for mustard powder or dry mustard, which is composed of ground mustard seeds. Different brands may contain varying ratios of each type of mustard seed, making some kinds hotter than others. The unique flavor and pungency of mustard flour is used widely in salad dressings, mayonnaise, snack seasonings, sauces and ethnic foods. Mustard flours are also available for applications in BBQ sauce, specialty sauces, meat sauces and seasoning blends.Mustard seed are often found largely in countries such as Canada, Russia, China and South Asian countries. Most of the trade for mustard flour is from countries such as Canada, France, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium and the U.K. and the major buyers of mustard flour includes countries such as the U.S., Spain, Japan, and Australia.The global Mustard Flour market is valued at xx million US$ in 2018 and will reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of xx% during 2019-2025. The objectives of this study are to define, segment, and project the size of the Mustard Flour market based on company, product type, end user and key regions.Download PDF Sample of this Market Research Report@This research report categorizes the global Mustard Flour market by top players/brands, region, type and end user. This report also studies the global Mustard Flour market status, competition landscape, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, sales channels and distributors.The following manufacturers are covered in this report, with sales, revenue, market share for each company: Colman's McCormick Wisconsin Spice Mincing Overseas Spice Farmer Bros S&B Foods G.S. Dunn Sakai Spice (Canada) Minokyu Taj Agro ProductsMarket size by Product By Mustard Type Organic Mustard Flour Conventional Mustard Flour By Colour Yellow Mustard Flour Brown Mustard Flour Golden Mustard FlourGet Instant Discount on this report@Market size by End User Household Food ServiceMarket segment by Regions United States Europe China Japan Southeast Asia India Central & South AmericaThe study objectives of this report are: To study and analyze the global Mustard Flour market size (value & volume) by company, key regions, products and end user, breakdown data from 2014 to 2018, and forecast to 2025. To understand the structure of Mustard Flour market by identifying its various subsegments. To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks). Focuses on the key global Mustard Flour companies, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape and recent development. To project the value and sales volume of Mustard Flour submarkets, with respect to key regions. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Mustard Flour are as follows:History Year: 2014-2018Base Year: 2018Estimated Year: 2019Forecast Year 2019 to 2025This report includes the estimation of market size for value (million US$) and volume (K MT). Both top-down and bottom-up approaches have been used to estimate and validate the market size of Mustard Flour market, to estimate the size of various other dependent submarkets in the overall market. Key players in the market have been identified through secondary research, and their market shares have been determined through primary and secondary research. All percentage shares, splits, and breakdowns have been determined using secondary sources and verified primary sources.Get full Access of this Market Research Report@Contact Usinfo@supplydemandmarketresearch.comGlobal Contact: +1-276-477-5910About Supply Demand Market Research(SDMR)We have a strong network of high powered and experienced global consultants who have about 10+ years of experience in the specific industry to deliver quality research and analysis.Having such an experienced network, our services not only cater to the client who wants the basic reference of market numbers and related high growth areas in the demand side, but also we provide detailed and granular information using which the client can definitely plan the strategies with respect to both supply and demand side.302-20 Misssisauga Valley, Missisauga,L5A 3S1, Toronto
Cyber Security Insurance Market Is Getting High Rise Due To Technological Innovations and Opportunities - Outlook by To Key Players, Emerging Trends, and Growth from 2018-2026

cyber security insurance market outlook

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According to a new market report published by BlueWeave Consulting, the global cyber security insurance market was valued at US$ 3,329.0 Mn in 2016 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 25.3% from 2018 to 2026, reaching US$ 32,543.6 Mn by the end of the forecast period. According to the report, North America was the largest contributor in terms of revenue to the cyber security insurance market in 2016.Request for Sample Copy of Study Report on Cyber Security Insurance Market:Growth In Cyber Insurance Market:Cyber insurance helps protect businesses against losses resulting from cyber-attacks or data breaches. Cyber insurance coverage can include data loss and restoration, extortion, legal fees, and more. Cyber security insurance increases and improves cyber security with the benefits of good security, and internalizing of the costs of poor security. There are many benefits that coincide with investing in insurance.The growth of the US cyber insurance market is due to the introduction of legislation in most states to take appropriate security measures to protect against cyber risks and report serious breaches to national authorities. This led to an increase in demand for cyber insurance products covering personal data breach. The U.S. is the largest market for the cyber security insurance market. The U.S. economy loses US$57 billion-US$109 billion per year due to malicious cyber activity, according to White House Council of Economic Advisers.Cyber challenges in Asia Pacific region, such as low cyber security investments and long dwell times, can be attributed to the complex geopolitical tensions, exposed critical infrastructure, and the severe shortage of cyber security talents in the region. Brazil is undergoing a digital revolution with few parallels in the developing world. The rate of digital penetration and social media adoption has risen exponentially over the past decade. Over 50% of Brazilians are active Internet users, & Brazilian financial institutions were early adopters of online services. Cyber security and online fraud are major concerns, with annual losses reaching billions of dollars.Get Complete Table of Content Having Unique Analysis on Several Factors:Cyber Security Insurance Market: Scope Of The ReportThe global market for cyber security insurance is segmented on the basis of service type, enterprise size, industry vertical and geography. On the basis of service type, the market is segmented into risk management, integrity, forefront portfolio, third party liability, and others.On the basis of enterprise size, the global cyber security insurance market is bisected into small & medium enterprises and large enterprise. On the basis of industry vertical, the market is divided into banking and financial services, telecom and IT, government, healthcare, education, manufacturing, travel and hospitality and others. Financial services, energy and utilities, and telecommunications are among the most investigated industries in APAC, highlighting the need for higher awareness levels, stronger mitigation measures, and improved cyber security posturesGeographically, the global cyber security insurance market is bifurcated into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The North America holds the largest market share of cyber security insurance market in 2017.Asia Pacific is the most promising markets for cyber security insurance market and are slated to offer players a host of opportunities in the coming years. In Indian market, the high demand for cyber insurance policies is due to telecom revolution. Moreover, increase digitization of the economy further boosts the demand. Latin America is experiencing significantly more data breaches and with that, increased sales of cyber insurance. Norton Security has reported cybercrime cost Brazil roughly US$8 billion and Mexico US$3 billion in 2015. Cyber security insurance coverage is still in its at beginning stage in Latin America.This factor increases the need of cyber security insurance market in Latin AmericaGlobal Cyber Security Insurance Market: Competitive DynamicsMajor industry players in cyber security insurance market are adopting different strategic initiatives such as mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, and collaborations for technologies and new product development. For instance, In June 2017, Zurich Brasila, subsidiary of Zurich Insurance Group, has launched insurance coverage for cyber-related risks, amid the fast-growing use of internet among companies and individuals. The company will offers protection in nations more exposed to cyber-attacks, such as the US, the UK and China, will now offer this product in Brazil due to increasing demand.For instance, in June 2014, the UK Government launched a joint initiative with some major British insurers to increase the level of IT security in UK companies called the Cyber Essentials Scheme, it is based on certificates and will ensure that certified organizations have a certain amount of security measures in place. Cyber Essentials has been developed in close consultation with the insurance industry and is backed by AIG, Marsh, Swiss Re, the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) and the International Underwriting Association (IUA). The global cyber security insurance market includes key players such as XL Group Ltd., American International Group Inc., Zurich Insurance Co. Ltd, AON PLC, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, Munich Re Group, Chubb, HSB, BCS financial corporation, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., Markel Corp, Travelers group, Hiscox, Beazely Insurance group and others.Browse Full Research Report on Cyber Security Insurance Market:About UsBlueWeave Consulting is a one-stop solution for market intelligence regarding various products and services online & offline. We offer worldwide market research reports by analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data to boost up the performance of your business solution. BlueWeave has built its reputation from the scratches by delivering quality performance and nourishing the long-lasting relationships with its clients. We are one of the promising digital market intelligence generation company delivering unique solutions for blooming your business and making the morning, more rising & shining.Contact Us:Email: info@blueweaveconsulting.comWebsite:Phone: +1 8666586826
Construction & Demolition Robots Market By Product Type, Automation Degree, Robot Function, Application Vertical And Region 2014-2025: Growth Opportunity And Business Strategy

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The aggregated revenue of global construction & demolition (C&D) robots market is expected to reach $2.13 billion during 2018-2025 owing to a growing adoption of all types of construction & demolition robots across the globe.Highlighted with 51 tables and 70 figures, this 169-page report Global Construction & Demolition Robots Market by Product Type, Automation Degree, Robot Function, Application Vertical and Region 2014-2025: Growth Opportunity and Business Strategy is based on a comprehensive research of worldwide construction & demolition robots market by analyzing the entire global market and all its sub-segments through extensively detailed classifications. Profound analysis and assessment are generated from premium primary and secondary information sources with inputs derived from industry professionals across the value chain. The report provides historical market data for 2014-2016, revenue estimates for 2017, and forecasts from 2018 till 2025.PDF Sample For Latest Advancement:In-depth qualitative analyses include identification and investigation of the following aspects: Market Structure Growth Drivers Restraints and Challenges Emerging Product Trends & Market Opportunities Porters Fiver ForcesThe trend and outlook of global market is forecast in optimistic, balanced, and conservative view. The balanced (most likely) projection is used to quantify global construction & demolition robots market in every aspect of the classification from perspectives of Product Type, Automation Degree, Robot Function, Application Vertical and Region.Based on product type, the global market is segmented into the following sub-markets with annual revenue included for 2014-2025 (historical and forecast) for each section. Traditional Robots Robotic ARMs ExoskeletonsOn basis of robot automation, the global market is analyzed on the following segments with annual revenue in 2014-2025 provided for each segment. Semi-Autonomous Robots Fully Autonomous RobotsSample Brochure Enlightening the New Advancement and Future Prospects :On basis of robot function, the global market is analyzed on the following segments with annual revenue in 2014-2025 provided for each segment. Demolition Robots Bricklaying Robots Concrete Structural Erection Robots 3D Printing Robots OthersOn basis of application, the global market is analyzed on the following segments with annual revenue in 2014-2025 provided for each segment. Public Infrastructure Commercial and Residential Buildings Nuclear Dismantling and Demolition OthersGeographically, the following regions together with the listed national markets are fully investigated: APAC (Japan, China, Australia, India, South Korea and Rest of APAC) Europe (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, Rest of Europe) North America (U.S. and Canada) Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Rest of Latin America) RoW (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran)For each of the aforementioned regions and countries, detailed analysis and data for annual revenue are available for 2014-2025. The breakdown of all regional markets by country and split of key national markets by product type and robot function over the forecast years are also included.Get more Information about this Report:The report also covers current competitive scenario and the predicted manufacture trend; and profiles key C&D robot vendors including market leaders and important emerging players.Specifically, potential risks associated with investing in global construction & demolition robots market and industry are assayed quantitatively and qualitatively through GMDs Risk Assessment System. According to the risk analysis and evaluation, Critical Success Factors (CSFs) are generated as a guidance to help investors & stockholders identify emerging opportunities, manage and minimize the risks, develop appropriate business models, and make wise strategies and decisions.About Us-Research Report UK ( A Division of Envision Research & Consulting) offers Premium quality market intelligence, market research, industry analysis reports and forecast data for different domains across the business industry. Research Report totally understands the importance of market analysis for any strategy implementation in any organization or association. In order to provide the quickest and the most dependable solution, Research Report have associated with major organizations within market research and consultancy firms. This portfolio offers market analysis reports at one place for different business verticals. Research Report ensures to offer you the most reliable and qualitative market research available.Contact Us-Research Report109 ,Straford Street,Leeds, West YorkshrieLS11 6JG, United KingdomToll Free - +442037693786Email -help@researchreport.co.uksales@researchreport.co.uk
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China's top political advisor Wang Yang on Thursday called for enhanced cooperation between China and Russia in economic and social areas.

Wang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top advisory body, made the remarks while meeting with Valerii Fadeev, chairman of the Russian Public Council.

Noting that the year 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Russia, Wang said the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination is at its best period in history under the strategic guidance of leaders of both countries, becoming a ballast stone of regional and international peace and stability.

He called on both countries to make concerted efforts to upgrade bilateral cooperation to a new high, to benefit the two peoples.

The CPPCC National Committee will continue to support cooperation between the China Economic and Social Council and the Russian Public Council to deepen bilateral exchanges in the economic and social areas, and promote overall advancement of relations between the two countries, Wang said.

Fadeev said the Russian Public Council stands ready to continue to work for the mutual understanding and friendship between Russia and China.
(CNN)  U.S. federal prosecutors are reportedly working on a criminal investigation into Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei.

Investigators are looking into whether the firm stole trade secrets from U.S. business partners, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.

The reported probe would complicate efforts by the US and Chinese governments to reach a deal to end the trade war that has shaken financial markets around the globe. Intellectual property theft is one of the issues at the heart of the dispute between the two economic superpowers, and Huawei has already come under pressure from the US government on other fronts.

The Journal reported that the investigation was spurred in part by civil litigation between Huawei, which makes phones and other telecom equipment, and T-Mobile. T-Mobile (TMUS) had accused Huawei of stealing information related to a robot used for testing mobile phones.

The Journal reported that the criminal probe is at an "advanced stage."

Huawei, the world's biggest maker of telecommunications equipment, declined to comment directly on the report. But it said in a statement that the disputes with T-Mobile were settled in 2017 "following a jury verdict finding neither damage, unjust enrichment nor willful and malicious conduct for T-Mobile's trade secret claim."

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN Business. It declined comment to The Wall Street Journal.

The report was published one day after the reclusive founder of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, shrugged off allegations from Washington that Huawei is a threat to U.S. national security.

He denied allegations from the Trump administration and U.S. intelligence agencies that Beijing could use Huawei equipment to snoop on Americans. The company has also been prevented from supplying next-generation 5G equipment to Australia and New Zealand.

U.S. lawmakers target Huawei

In another sign of the suspicion Huawei faces in Washington, a group of U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation aimed at tightening the rules for Chinese telecommunications companies.

The proposed law, the Telecommunications Denial Order Enforcement Act, would ban the sale of U.S. parts to any Chinese telecom firm that has violated US export control laws or sanctions.

Last year, the U.S. government imposed such a ban on Huawei's smaller rival ZTE (ZTCOF) but lifted it a few months later after President Donald Trump intervened. Trump described the move as "a favor" to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The new legislation, introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers including Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, aims to prevent the penalties being withdrawn until the Chinese company in question has shown a pattern of compliance with U.S. rules and cooperation with U.S. investigations for one year.

"Huawei is effectively an intelligence-gathering arm of the Chinese Communist Party whose founder and CEO was an engineer for the People's Liberation Army," Cotton said in a statement. "It's imperative we take decisive action to protect US interests and enforce our laws."

China accuses U.S. of 'hysteria'

The Chinese Foreign Ministry fired back on Thursday, describing the legislation as "hysteria."

"I think the behavior of these U.S. senators is extremely arrogant and lacking in confidence," said Hua Chunying, a ministry spokeswoman. She accused the U.S. government of using its state apparatus to suppress Chinese high-tech companies.

"This is not a normal country's normal action, and this is not what the No.1 world power should do," Hua said, calling on "certain people" in the United States to "adopt the correct attitude and stop this kind of action."

The U.S. lawmakers' move follows the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer, Ren's daughter Meng Wanzhou, last month in Canada.

She's accused by the United States of helping Huawei cover up violations of sanctions on Iran, according to Canadian prosecutors. Meng was released on bail in mid-December, setting her up for a lengthy legal fight over extradition to the United States.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry called Meng's arrest "lawless, reasonless and ruthless." Huawei has said in a statement that the company has "every confidence that the Canadian and U.S. legal systems will reach a just conclusion" in the case and said that the company follows all the laws and regulations where it operates.

CNN Business' Jethro Mullen, Yong Xiong, Charles Riley and Julia Horowitz contributed to this report.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "China's Huawei reportedly targeted in US criminal probe."
Global Dental Radiology Equipment market Analysis by top key players Danaher, Carestream Health, Dentsply Sirona, Planmeca, Acteon, VATECH, Midmark

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This report compiled by Market Study Report, LLC, focuses on factors influencing the present scenario of the Dental Radiology Equipment market. The research report also offers concise analysis referring to commercialization aspects, profit estimation and market size of the industry. In addition, the report highlights the competitive standing of major players in the projection timeline which also includes their portfolios and expansion endeavors.Dental Radiology Equipment is a highly dense material constituting of tungsten and carbon as their constituent materials. They exhibit significant properties like extreme hardness, toughness, wear & abrasion resistance, pressure resistance, and many more.Request Sample of this premium report at:With advancements in medical imaging technologies, the demand for radiology systems in the field of dental healthcare will continue to witness an upsurge.These equipment (products) include extraoral x-ray systems, intraoral x-ray systems, cone-beam computed tomography imaging, and intraoral plate scanners.Being developed on one of the most breakthrough technology in medical imaging, CBCT equipment have emerged as a key tool for dentists around the world. Both, extraoral and intraoral x-ray systems are being utilized for generating two-dimensional images of dental structures. However, thesedental radiology equipment were unable to detect the abnormalities on the third-dimensional surfaces of teeth and mouth. CBCT imaging equipment have stepped in as a relatively new medical imaging technique that offers 3D images. One of the keyadvantage of CBCT imaging equipment is their ability to generate accurate 3D images at low cost, compared to the conventional computed tomography. The images procured from CBCT imaging equipment have the potential to bring higher efficiency in oral and maxillofacial surgeries. Made of feasibly-procurable materials, such dental radiology equipment areanticipated to witness a steady demand in the global market throughout the forecast period.The global Dental Radiology Equipment market is valued at xx million US$ in 2018 and will reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of xx% during 2019-2025. The objectives of this study are to define, segment, and project the size of the Dental Radiology Equipment market based on company, product type, end user and key regions.This report studies the global market size of Dental Radiology Equipment in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America and Middle East & Africa, focuses on the consumption of Dental Radiology Equipment in these regions.This research report categorizes the global Dental Radiology Equipment market by top players/brands, region, type and end user. This report also studies the global Dental Radiology Equipment market status, competition landscape, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, sales channels and distributors.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers:Danaher, Carestream Health, Dentsply Sirona, Planmeca, Acteon, VATECH, MidmarkMarket Segment by Product, covers:Intraoral X-Ray SystemsExtraoral X-Ray SystemsIntraoral Plate ScannersCone-Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) ImagingMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Dental Clinics, Hospitals, Ambulatory Surgical CentersRequest a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:The study objectives are:To analyze and research the global Dental Radiology Equipment capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast;To focus on the key Dental Radiology Equipment manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years.To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Table of Contents:1 Study Coverage1.1 Dental Radiology Equipment Product1.2 Market Segments1.3 Key Manufacturers Covered1.4 Market by Type1.4.1 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Market Size Growth Rate by Product1.4.2 Capnograph1.4.3 Disposables1.5 Market by End User1.5.1 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Market Size Growth Rate by End User1.5.2 Hospitals1.5.3 Ambulatory1.5.4 Others1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Market Size2.1.1 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Revenue 2014-20252.1.2 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Sales 2014-20252.2 Dental Radiology Equipment Growth Rate by Regions2.2.1 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Sales by Regions2.2.2 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Revenue by Regions3 Breakdown Data by Manufacturers3.1 Dental Radiology Equipment Sales by Manufacturers3.1.1 Dental Radiology Equipment Sales by Manufacturers3.1.2 Dental Radiology Equipment Sales Market Share by Manufacturers3.1.3 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI)3.2 Dental Radiology Equipment Revenue by Manufacturers3.2.1 Dental Radiology Equipment Revenue by Manufacturers (2014-2019)3.2.2 Dental Radiology Equipment Revenue Share by Manufacturers (2014-2019)3.3 Dental Radiology Equipment Price by Manufacturers3.4 Dental Radiology Equipment Manufacturing Base Distribution, Product Types3.4.1 Dental Radiology Equipment Manufacturers Manufacturing Base Distribution, Headquarters3.4.2 Manufacturers Dental Radiology Equipment Product Type3.4.3 Date of International Manufacturers Enter into Dental Radiology Equipment Market3.5 Manufacturers Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans4 Breakdown Data by Product4.1 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Sales by Product4.2 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Revenue by Product4.3 Dental Radiology Equipment Price by Product5 Breakdown Data by End User5.1 Overview5.2 Global Dental Radiology Equipment Breakdown Data by End User6 North America6.1 North America Dental Radiology Equipment by Countries6.1.1 North America Dental Radiology Equipment Sales by Countries6.1.2 North America Dental Radiology Equipment Revenue by Countries6.1.3 United States6.1.4 Canada6.1.5 Mexico6.2 North America Dental Radiology Equipment by Product6.3 North America Dental Radiology Equipment by End UserMore Details on this Report At:Related Report:United States Dental Radiology Equipment Market Report 2017The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Dental Radiology Equipment manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry.Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including its definition, applications and manufacturing technology. Then, the report explores the international and Chinese major industry players in detail. The compnaies include: Align Technology, Inc., DxRay, Inc., Farus, LLC, Imagination Software Corporation Company, Innobreeze Communication Technologies Private Limited, Real Time Imaging Technologies, LLC, Sirona Dental Sys et al. In this part, the report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2013-2018 market shares for each company. Through the statistical analysis, the report depicts the global and Chinese total market of Dental Radiology Equipment industry including capacity, production, production value, cost/profit, supply/demand and Chinese import/export. The total market is further divided by company, by country, and by application/type for the competitive landscape analysis.About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license managementContact Us:Market Study Report LLC4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog:
Cord Blood Banking Market Trends, Business Growth, Leading Players and Forecast 2025

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Research Report on Cord Blood Banking provides Market Size, CAGR Analysis, Types, Application, Analysis of Key Players like China Cord Blood, Cord Blood America, CBR Systems and More.Global Cord Blood Banking Market report provides a detailed market overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications, challenges, competitive scenario and industry chain structure. The report also analysis the Cord Blood Banking Market verticals and horizontals, Market Size and CAGR comparison by region.The study objectives are to provide the Cord Blood Banking market trends, future opportunities, SWOT analysis, development, key drivers, top players and their analysis etc. Major regions covered in this report are as United States, Europe, Central & South America, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India.The Global Cord Blood Banking Market focuses on global major leading industry players providing information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and its Competitors. Upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also carried out.Key Players covered in this report are China Cord Blood, Cord Blood America, CBR Systems, Cordlife Group, Cryo-Cell International, Cryo-Save AG, Lifeforce Cryobanks, National Cord Blood Program, ViaCord, Virgin Health Bank.Get Sample of this report spread across 114 pages and 10 Companies atCord Blood Banking Market is analyzed by types like Public Banking, Private Banking.Cord Blood Banking Market is also analyzed by Application like Application 1, Application 2.The study objectives of this report are:To analyze global Cord Blood Banking status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.To present the Cord Blood Banking development in various regions like United States, Europe and China.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies.To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.The Cord Blood Banking Market report provides Market Effect Factors Analysis such as Technology Progress/Risk, Substitutes Threat, Customer Preference Change, Economic and Political Environmental Change. With the tables and figures the report provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Table of Contents:1 Report Overview2 Global Growth Trends3 Market Share by Key Players4 Breakdown Data by Type and Application5 United States6 Europe7 China8 Japan9 Southeast Asia10 India11 Central & South America12 International Players Profiles13 Market Forecast 2018-202514 Analyst's Viewpoints/Conclusions15 AppendixFor Your Queries, VisitAbout InForGrowth:We are a market-intelligence company formed with the objective of providing clients access to the most relevant and accurate research content for their growth needs. At InForGrowth, we understand Research requirements and help a client in taking informed business critical decisions. Given the complexities and interdependencies of market-intelligence, there is always more than one source to explore and arrive at the right answer. Through our smart search feature and our reliable & trusted publishing partners, we are paving way for a more simplified and relevant research.For all your Research needs, reach out to us at:Address: 6400 Village Pkwy suite # 104, Dublin, CA 94568, USAEmail: info@inforgrowth.comPhone: +1-909-329-2808UK: +44 (203) 743 1890
Paper Packaging Market Trends That You Cannot Afford to Miss in 2019

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Paper packaging market is a traditional market. It contributes more than 30% to overall packaging market share and dominates other packaging domains. In 2016 overall market size of paper packaging was estimated to be $243 Billion and forecasted to reach $450 Billion by 2027. Paper packaging market is estimated to be growing at a CAGR of 7%. Paper packaging is used in variety of applications ranging from food & beverages to pharmaceuticals to cosmetics. Different grades of papers and products are used in packaging. Paper packaging is the most preferred packaging among all other types of packaging, because of its lightweight and flexible features. In heavy-duty packaging paper packaging is not the suitable or preferred packaging. Paper packaging is majorly used as a tertiary packaging.Paper packaging: Market DynamicsPaperboard is estimated to be the fastest growing product segment with estimated growth rate of 7.5% among all other product segments of paper packaging. APAC region leads the paper packaging market (estimated revenue share of 35%). Europe region follows APAC, North America follows Europe. The demand in APAC is driven by India & China. The carton board market is dominated by European paper packaging manufacturers because of lack of facility and capacity in APAC region. Flexible plastics packaging is posing a tough competition to paper packaging. Rising oil prices work in favor of paper packaging market, but in recent times the oil prices are so volatile and declining due to over production and over supply. The rise in the number of hypermarkets and supermarkets is influencing the growth of the paper packaging market. A rapidly growing organized retail sector is leading to rise in demand of food & beverages and other. Paper packaging not only helps retail stores to pack the food but also to protect and maintain nutritional values.Request Sample Report @Global paper packaging market is consolidating to gain new capacities, expertise and new markets. Major M&A deals happened in 2016. Clearwater Paper Corporation has acquired Manchester Industries of Richmond, Virginia, from PaperWorks Industries, an integrated full-service packaging provider for a purchase price of $68.25 million. Mondi Group has acquired 100% of the outstanding share capital of LLC Beepack from a private investor for a consideration of RUB 2,825 million (EUR41 million) on a debt-and-cash-free basis. Packaging Corporation of America acquired Columbus Container, Inc., an independent corrugated products producer in a cash-free, debt-free transaction of $100 million.Growing public private deals in forest leasing or opening the management of forest land management to private players helps paper and paperboard packaging market players to secure the supply of raw materials (timber). Recently Indian government opened up the management of almost 40% forest land by private players.Paper packaging: Market SegmentationDifferent grades of paper used in paper packaging market are Solid bleached sulfate, coated recycled board, MET-PET Board, uncoated recycled board, Clay Natural Kraft, Coated Unbleached Kraft Paperboard, FBB, WLC, Glassine & Greaseproof, and Label Paper. On the basis of application paper packaging market is segmented into food & beverages, pharmaceuticals, personal care, cosmetics, homecare, and others. The paper packaging market has been segmented by product as container or corrugated or shipping box, kraft paper or paperboard or cardboard, folding carton and others.As we said earlier, paperboard dominates the paper packaging market. Application wise food & beverages creates highest demand among others. SBS is extensively used in North America and European region. Uncoated recycled board and coated recycled board are produced from 100% recycled paper and containers including newspapers, old containers etc. Paper industry is an energy intensive industry. So growing crude oil prices is the major concern. However R&D, Innovation and explorations are happening to optimize energy consumption and producing 100% recyclable paper.Paper packaging Market: Regional outlookPaper packaging market has been segmented on the basis of region into North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Middle East & Africa (MEA), and Japan.United States has the highest density of usage (More than 50 times). It shows there is high penetration ability. Countries like Russia, China and Brazil have excess supply, so they are exporting to other nations. APEJ and Japan collectively dominate the paper packaging market. Above 25% population in Africa region are below 25 and by 2100 it is expected to reach 50 %. Changing lifestyle, growing consumer consumption power in MEA driving the demand for paper packaging. Paper packaging costs low compared to other packaging. So it is best suitable for the price sensitive markets, where GDP and purchasing power is low. Manufacturers of paper packaging can tap these untapped markets by innovating and exploring low cost paper packaging solutions for low GDP under developed and undeveloped markets.Per capita paper consumption in US is estimated to be around 300Kg and in China it is around 150 Kg. In India per capita paper consumption is around 6 to 8 Kg and in Africa (all 20 nations) it is 3-4Kg. Due to stagnation in population growth and rise in migration in United States, UK, Canada and Russia demand for paper packaging is declining. Growing population in India and China driving demand for paper packaging. China paper packaging growth rate stands at 7 to 8% and India at 3-4%.Paper packaging Market: Key playersSome of the players in the global paper packaging packaging market are Amcor Ltd., International Paper Company, Kapstone, Evergreen Packaging Inc., West Rock Packaging Company, Packaging Corporation of America, Sappi Limited, DS Smith, Mondi Group, Oji Paper Company, Smurfit Kappa, Metsaliitto Cooperative, Tetra Laval Group, Georgia-Pacific, Sonoco Products Company, Caraustar Industries Inc., Clearwater Company, Rengo, MeadWestvaco Corporation, Graphic Packaging International Corporation, Sappi Limited, DS Smith, Austrlian Paper, Visy, GH Packaging, KR Papers, GS Paper and Packaging group, Malex Paper products, Junopack, Napco, Middle East paper company, AlMasah, Transpaco.Request to View TOC @Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. 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Virology Market 2015  2025 Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment by Industry Analysis across the Value Chain

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Virology, the study of viruses, is an unparalleled branch of life sciences. With immensely high prevalence of diseases such as flu, hepatitis, AIDS, and STDs, the importance of virology is repeatedly highlighted. The global virology market is expected to grow over 2015-2025.FMIs research identifies growing infectious diseases as a key force driving the market throughout the forecast period.Key Drivers: Virology MarketEarly in 2016, the WHO officially issued a warning about the possible spread of zika virus to each Western Hemispheric region, as the disease vector Aedes aegypti was found to thrive strong in tropical and sub-tropical climatic conditions. This has been a key driver of market growth throughout 2016.The virology market is constantly catering to the prevention and cure needs put forth by the healthcare sector; however, several diseases continue to demand R&D of novel applications, driving the growth of virology market. Various treatments and diagnostic processes also employ virology applications, further fuelling the market growth.Burgeoning applications of virology research in gene therapy, phage therapy, formulation of vaccines, and synthetic biology is another factor fostering the overall growth of the virology market.Moreover, the field of virology is extending in various forms, including molecular virology, paediatric virology, computational virology, and many more, prompting at increasing research findings throughout the forecast period. Research prospects are high and FMI indicates a continuing need for trained virologists in the near future.Public awareness programmes conducted worldwide on flu, zika virus, STDs, AIDS, and Ebola virus are also a key factor increasing public awareness and eventually influencing the market.Request Sample Report @Key Restraints to Market GrowthMaintaining the quality and safety standards of viral a controlling therapy has been a longstanding challenge, which is anticipated to hamper the market in the forecast period as well. Moreover, stringent approval processes for antiviral drugs is also foreseen to be a restraint to market growth. Another factor identified for affecting the market growth includes resistance toward and side effects of antiviral drugs for new treatment options.Current Trends in the Virology FieldIn 2015, the virology industry was predominantly influenced by ebola, MERS, and hepatitis C viruses. In 2016, zika virus is dominating the research, with better prospects in the near future.Virologists are persistently investigating novel applications for viruses. Currently, an ongoing research is experimenting on the exploitation of viruses for plant production, aiming at the efficient production of high quality, eco-friendly food.Global Virology Market: Competitive LandscapeBy 2017 end, a few important patents are approaching expiry, including Tamiflu, Sustiva, Tenofovir, Combivir, Relenza, and Telbivudine. Following expiry of these blockbuster drugs, the market is estimated to discover a dynamic competitive landscape. The generic competition in the virology market will be at a high pace 2017 onward.Apart from expiring drugs, the market also has some late stage pipeline drugs, including Inavir, Elvitegravir, Vicriviroc, Rilpivirine, and Rapiacta. These drugs are set to enter the global market, fostering the competition globally.Virology Market: SegmentationFMI's research on the global virology market provides a 10-year forecast, segmenting the market on the basis of product type, application, end-use, and region.Based on product type, the global virology market is segmented intoDiagnosing TestDNA VirusesRNA VirusesPrions Diagnostic TestOther Viral TestsViral Infection Controlling MethodsImmunoprophylaxisActive Prophylaxis (Vaccines)Passive ProphylaxisAntiviral ChemotherapyVirucidal AgentsAntiviral AgentsImmunomodulatorsInterferonsCytokinesBased on application, the global virology market is segmented intoSkin and Soft Tissue InfectionsRespiratory Tract InfectionsGI Tract InfectionsUrinary Tract InfectionsEye InfectionsCNS InfectionsSexually Transmitted DiseasesPerinatal InfectionsAccording to the end-user, the market is segmented intoHospitalsClinicsLaboratoriesDiagnostic CentresBlood BanksPharmaciesRegional Outlook: Global Virology MarketNorth America is the largest virology market led by the U.S., owing to technological advancements such as rapid, portable diagnostics. N. America is expected to retain the top market position over the forecast period as well.Europe is projected to maintain the position as the second largest market globally. During the forecast period, Europe is anticipated to record the highest CAGR, attributed by enhanced healthcare infrastructure, facilitated access to diagnostics, and growing affordability of diagnostic tests for viral diseases.Japan is currently a growing virology market, which is estimated to grow at a remarkable CAGR through to 2025. However, APEJ and Africa are expected to witness the most promising growth opportunities during the forecast period. While China will be a leading APEJ market, India will contribute a considerable revenue share to the APEJ virology market.Segment-wise Market ForecastImmunoprophylaxis therapy and antiviral drugs are the fastest-growing market segments in the estimated forecast period.STDs, urinary tract infections, and respiratory tract infections are currently dominating compared to other application types in the global virology market.On the basis of diagnosis tests, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV, human papillomavirus (HPV), and other tests (influenza, ebola, and dengue) are estimated to attract the largest market shares globally.Hospitals and laboratories projected to continue the most dominating end-use segments, accounting for almost 50% market share globally.Key Players in the Global Virology MarketThe notable players identified in the global virology market include GlaxoSmithKline plc, Abbott Laboratories, Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation, Merck and Co. Inc., Novartis International AG, Siemens, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca AB, and Roche.Merck and Co. Inc. has several drug candidates in phase 2, including cancer, diabetes, cardiac arrest, and hepatitis C, and some candidates in phase 3, including breast cancer, atherosclerosis, Alzeimer's, ebola, and HIV. The company also has many other candidates, which are currently under review.Abivax, a high profile biotech company in Paris, France, has already successfully produced candidates against dengue and chikungunya viruses. The company has a few more candidates against HIV and ebola, currently under development.Request to View TOC @Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Lightweight materials market is expected to reach $189,076 million by 2022 | Top 3 players are ThyssenKrupp AG, Henkel Corporation, Owens Corning Corporation

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The lightweight materials are metal alloys and composites used to decrease the weight of automotive, aircraft, and windmills without affecting the strength and efficiency of the structure. The lightweight materials have a high strength-to-weight ratio, exceptional corrosion resistance, and greater design flexibility.Get the sample report:Lightweight Materials Market was valued at $144,613 million in 2015 and is projected to reach $196,299 million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 4.2% from 2016 to 2022. Composites and polymers segment dominated this market, occupying more than 60% of the total share of the market revenue in 2015.The market for lightweight materials is on a continuous rise due to increasing penetration of lightweight components, increasing production of aircraft modules as well as growing windmill industry. Lightweight materials are used to manufacture various aircraft components such as airframe, overhead bins, lavatory interiors, passenger doors, and cargo doors. A standard aircraft contains about 70% to 80% of the lightweight materials and due to needing to improve fuel efficiency, reduce related costs, and to increase passenger/cargo load per flight.Moreover, increase in the investments in wind power for capacity additions and new projects across the globe is uplifting the demand for windmills which is linked to the growth of the demands for lightweight materials during the forecast period. However, the high cost of carbon fiber and fluctuating prices of highly traded commodities and price fluctuations could hamper the growth of the market.Get the purchase report @Discount:In 2015, the automotive segment occupied around 80% of the overall lightweight materials market and is expected to maintain its lead. This is due to the large quantity of lightweight material such as steel and aluminum, which is used in manufacturing hybrid and electric vehicles to achieve fuel efficiency.Lightweight Materials Market Key Findings: Metal alloys are anticipated to grow at the fastest rate during the analysis period. Asia-Pacific is estimated to continue to lead the market, growing at a CAGR of 3.3%, in terms of volume. China occupied more than half of the total share of the Asia-Pacific lightweight materials market in 2015. India is estimated to grow at the highest CAGR of 5.4%, in terms of revenue. Asia-Pacific and LAMEA collectively accounted for approximately 50% revenue share of the market in 2014, and are expected to maintain this trend throughout the forecast period. This is due to the rise in demand for cars due to an increase in per capita disposable income especially in China, India, and other developing economies.Key players in the world lightweight materials market concentrate to acquire local players to strengthen their market reach as well as to expand their customer base.Major companies profiled in the report include E.I DuPont de Nemours and Company, Cytec Industries Inc., ExxonMobil Corporation, SABIC, Bayer AG, Toray Industries Inc., Novelis Inc., ArcelorMittal SA, PPG Industries Inc., and Alcoa Inc.About Us:-Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions. AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.Contact Us:-David Correa5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesUSA/Canada (Toll Free):+1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141UK: +44-845-528-1300Hong Kong: +852-301-84916India (Pune): +91-20-66346060Fax: +1(855)550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWeb:
Epiglottitis Treatment Market (2018-2028) Research Covers Top Players as AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Pfizer Inc., Sanofi, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd

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Epiglottitis is a bacterial viral infection which results in inflammation and swelling of epiglottis, basically epiglottis is a cartilage structure which located at the back of the throat, beneath the tongue and the function of epiglottis is close over the trachea when foods are being swallowed, Epiglottitis causes breathing issue, tachycardia, swelling of supraglottic tissue, inspiratory stridor, pharyngitis, cervical lymph nodes, inability to handle secretion. The symptoms of epiglottitis are drooling, dysphagia, dysphonia, distressed inspiration efforts. Differential diagnosis of adult epiglottitis includes Infectious process and non-infectious disease, infectious process symptoms are diphtheria, pertussis, croup, tracheobronchitis, peripharyngeal and others and in non-infectious disease, epiglottitis diagnosing identify by are an allergic reaction, angioneurotic, oedema, reflex laryngospasm, systemic lupus, and others. Epiglottitis can affect people at any age, basically Epiglottitis used to diagnosed mostly in males rather than females and usually occurs in children 2 to 8 year of age, primarily epiglottitis is caused by Haemophilus influenzae type B (HIB) and other bacteria and viruses also can cause epiglottitis inflammation such as Streptococcus pneumonia, Streptococcus A, B and C, and Staphylococcus aureus. Epiglottitis is diagnosed by the blood test to identify bacteria, x-ray, and CT scan to determine the level of swelling. Epiglottitis is treated by oxygen mask which used to deliver air to the lungs, tracheostomy which may be needed to bypass the swelling in the throat.For Requesting a Sample Copy of This Report, Please Visit @Epiglottitis Treatment Market: Drivers and RestraintsIncreasing prevalence and incidence rate of epiglottitis are expected to contribute to the growth of Epiglottitis Treatment market during the forecast period. HIB vaccination and third generation cephalosporin which is given by parental route (Intramuscular/intravenous) effective against Haemophilus influenzae type B which cause Epiglottitis disease is expected to enhance the growth of Epiglottitis Treatment market. Epiglottitis is an inflammatory disease and caused by a variety of organism, so antibiotics and Combination of an intravenous antistaphylococcal agent is expected to have a significant growth during the forecast period of Epiglottitis Treatment market. Epiglottitis Treatment drugs can sometimes cause depression and other side effects which limits the growth of Epiglottitis Treatment market. Lack of access to healthcare facilities, affordability constraints and lack of market penetration of approved drugs are the primary restraints of the Epiglottitis Treatment markets.Epiglottitis Treatment Market: SegmentationGlobal Epiglottitis Treatment market is segmented on the basis of Drug, Route of administration, by Distribution Channel and by regionBased on the Drug, Epiglottitis Treatment market is segmented as:Broad-spectrum antibioticTargeted antibioticSteroid medicationBased on the Route of administration, Epiglottitis Treatment market is segmented as:OralParentalBased on the end user Epiglottitis Treatment market is segmented as:Hospitals PharmaciesRetail PharmaciesDrug StoresClinicsOnline PharmaciesEpiglottitis Treatment Market: OverviewGlobally increasing prevalence of the disease expected to contribute to Epiglottitis Treatment market significantly. The global Epiglottitis Treatment market by Drug type is expected to be dominated by third generation antibiotics and Combination of an intravenous antistaphylococcal agent. By distribution channel, Epiglottitis Treatment market is expected to be dominated by retail pharmacies. The manufacturers in the Epiglottitis Treatment market are highly focusing on the development of a new formulation for the Epiglottitis Treatment.Epiglottitis Treatment Market: Regional OutlookThe global Epiglottitis Treatment market is expected to be dominated by North America due to higher adoption and number of the customer using Epiglottitis Treatment and also awareness regarding Epiglottitis disease. Europe is expected to be the second most lucrative epiglottitis treatment market due to the growing number of men and also women suffering from Epiglottitis disease. Presence of one of the fastest growing economies such as India and China further expected to drive the growth of Epiglottitis Treatment market in the APAC region. Latin America Epiglottitis Treatment market is expected to witness steady growth due to increased diagnosis of the condition in the region. The Middle East and Africa Epiglottitis Treatment is expected to be the least lucrative market due to low treatment seeking rate, low product penetration, and low diagnosis rate. Overall, global Epiglottitis Treatment market expected to witness significant growth due to increasing penetration of products and diagnosis.Detailed TOC of Research Report Available @Epiglottitis Treatment Market: Key PlayersExamples of some of the market participants in the global Epiglottitis Treatment market identified are Abbott, Merck & Co., Inc, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Pfizer Inc., Sanofi, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Johnson & Johnson, Roche Holding AG, and others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.CONTACT:Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb:
Pen Injectors Market Analysis On Competitive Landscape 2019 By Eli Lilly and Company, Sanofi, Ypsomed, AstraZeneca, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Merck KGaA, BD, Owen Mumford, Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc,

Pen Injectors Market

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Global Pen Injectors Market is broadly analyzed in this report that sheds light on critical aspects such as the vendor landscape, competitive strategies, market dynamics, and regional analysis. The report helps readers to clearly understand the current and future status of the market. The research study comes out as a compilation of useful guidelines for players to secure a position of strength in the Market. The authors of the report profile leading companies of the Global Pen Injectors Market,Such as:Novo Nordisk A/S, Eli Lilly and Company, Sanofi, Ypsomed, AstraZeneca, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Merck KGaA, BD, Owen Mumford, Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc., Wilhelm Haselmeier GmbH & Co. KG, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Mylan N.V., SHL Group, Copernicus, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Services Inc., Emperra GmbH E-Health Technologies, Trividia Health Inc., Pikdare S.r.l., ARKRAY Inc., and GlucoMe.Global Pen Injectors Market is expected to rise from its initial estimated value of USD 33.05 billion in 2018 to an estimated value of USD 52.08 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 5.85% in the forecast period of 2019-2026. This rise in market value can be attributed to the rising approval rates by the particular authorities for the products.Get Sample Copy Of Report For More Information@They provide details about important activities of leading players in the competitive landscape.Global pen injectors market is highly fragmented and the major players have used various strategies such as new product launches, expansions, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, and others to increase their footprints in this market. The report includes market shares of pen injectors market for global, Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, South America and Middle East & Africa.The exclusive research report on the Global Pen Injectors Market, 2019 examines the market in detail along with focusing on significant market dynamics for the key players operating in the market. Global industry research report offers granulated yet in-depth analysis of revenue share, market segments, revenue estimates and various regions across the globe.Key Developments in the Market: In November 2018, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. announced the launch of a generic EpiPen based on Mylan N.V.s autoinjector in US. In October 2018, Novo Nordisk A/S agreed to collaborate with Flex Digital Health for the usage of its BrightInsight platform, focusing on the connectivity and complying with the regulations set by the authorities for the digital health devices.This publication includes key segmentations of the Global Pen Injectors Market on the basis of product, application, and geography (country/region). Each segment included in the report is studied in relation to different factors such as consumption, market share, value, growth rate, and production.Speak To Industry Experts, Request For More Details Report@Pen injectors can be defined as drug delivering medical devices that enable the patient or the user to deliver a particular dosage of the drug. These pen injectors are basically a type of syringe that has a spring attached to their base, so that the patient or the consumer can self-inject these drugs with the push of a button. These products were invented so as to overcome the fear in patients regarding needle based drug delivery devices.A numerical graphical report has been presented in chapter format. In this, the introductory chapter provides a general point of view of the Global Pen Injectors market. The next chapter offers an extensive view of the Pen Injectors industry, with an in-depth focus on the key regional markets. Sub-sectors such as technology and product expansion, key progress trends, competitive landscape analysis, key regional and national development status.Based on geography the market report covers data points for 28 countries across multiple geographies, namely North America & South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and, Middle East & Africa. Some of the major countries covered in this report are U.S., Canada, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, South Africa and, Brazil among others. In 2017, North America is expected to dominate the marketThe comparative results provided in the report allow readers to understand the difference between players and how they are competing against each other. The research study gives a detailed view of current and future trends and opportunities of the global market. Market dynamics such as drivers and restraints are explained in the most detailed and easiest manner possible with the use of tables and graphs. Interested parties are expected to find important recommendations to improve their business in the global market.Market Drivers: Rising cases and prevalence of chronic diseases is expected to drive the market growth Increasing approval rate by the authorities for the products is also expected to drive the market growthMarket Restraints: Adoption & preference over alternative drug delivery methods is expected to restrain the market growth Lack of appropriate reimbursement facilities in developing countries is also expected to restrain the market growthMake an Inquiry for Discount On this Report@Readers can understand the overall profitability margin and sales volume of various products studied in the report. The report also provides the forecasted as well as historical annual growth rate and market share of the products offered in the global Pen Injectors Market. The study on end-use application of products helps to understand the market growth of the products in terms of sales.Table of Content:Global Pen Injectors Market Research Report 2019-2025Chapter 1: Pen Injectors Market OverviewChapter 2: Pen Injectors Market Economic ImpactChapter 3: Competition by ManufacturerChapter 4: Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2019-2025)Chapter 5: Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2019-2025)Chapter 6: Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7: Pen Injectors Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8: Pen Injectors Market by Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10: Pen Injectors Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11: Pen Injectors Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12: Pen Injectors Market Forecast (2019-2025)Chapter 13: AppendixGet Full Toc@Note: If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.About Us:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Data Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com
New Research report on Wound Care Biologics Market Insights, Competitive Landscape and Global Forecast to 2022 | Analysis by Smith & Nephew, Organogenesis, MiMedx, Integra, Osiris, Derma Sciences, Soluble Systems

Wound Care Biologics Market

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Global Wound Care Biologics Market Report 2019 report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability. The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.Global Wound Care Biologics Market Overview:The Global Wound Care Biologics Market research report is the study prepared by analysts, which contain a detailed analysis of drivers, restraints, and opportunities along with their impact on the Wound Care Biologics Market growth.According to the market report analysis, increasing demand for wound care biologic products is expected to increase significantly as early intervention of diabetic ulcer can prevent severe complications such as infection, hospitalization and amputation. Wound Care Biologics Market is expected to gain significant traction, as the commercially available skin substitutes have clinical and experimental evidence of efficacy in wound healing.Available Exclusive Sample Copy of this Report @The Global Wound Care Biologics Market is segmented on the basis of Product, Type of Wound, End-User and Region. By Product, the wound care biologics market is sub-segmented into biological skin substitutes and topical agents. In 2019, the Biological Skin Substitutes segment is expected to account for the largest share of the Wound Care Biologics Market. The large share of this segment can be attributed to the rising incidence of diabetes and the subsequent growth in the demand for chronic wound care products across the globe.Based on Type of Wound, the market is sub-segmented into Ulcers, Surgical &Traumatic Wounds and Burns. The Ulcers segment is expected to dominate the Wound Care Biologics Market in 2019. This segment is also expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period (2019 - 2022).On the basis of regional analysis, the Wound Care Biologics Market was dominated by North America, followed by Europe in 2017. The APAC market is estimated to register the highest growth during the forecast period primarily due to the presence of a large patient population, increasing penetration of key market players, and the large number of research and development activities for wound care biologic products.This is an expert and top to bottom examination on the present condition of the Wound Care Biologics Market. The report gives a fundamental review of the business including definitions, arrangements, applications and industry chain structure. The Wound Care Biologics Market investigation is accommodated the worldwide markets including advancement patterns, focused scene examination, and key districts improvement status. Improvement strategies and plans are additionally examined and producing procedures and cost structures broke down. Wound Care Biologics Market import / send out utilization, free market activity figures and cost and creation esteem net edges are additionally given.Grab Your Report at an Impressive Discount @Top Key Manufacturers in the Market are:1 Smith & Nephew2 Organogenesis3 MiMedx4 Integra5 Osiris6 Derma Sciences, Inc7 Soluble Systems8 Amnio Technology, LLC and More.................Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers1 North America Country (United States, Canada)2 South America3 Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea)4 Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy)5 Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC)Purchase this report online with 125 Pages, List of Tables & Figures and in-depth Table of Contents on Global Wound Care Biologics Market Report 2019 @What Information does this report contain?1 A detailed analysis of regulatory trends, drivers, industry pitfalls, challenges and growth opportunities for participants2 Which are the leading market products, applications & regions and how will they perform by 2022?3 What are the technologies & innovation trends, how will they evolve by 2022?4 Which companies lead the industry, how are they positioned in the market in terms of sustainability, competency, production capacity and strategic outlook?Major Points in Table of Contents:Global Wound Care Biologics Market Report 20191 Wound Care Biologics Product Definition2 Global Wound Care Biologics Market Manufacturer Share and Market Overview3 Manufacturer Wound Care Biologics Business Introduction4 Global Wound Care Biologics Market Segmentation (Region Level)5 Global Wound Care Biologics Market Segmentation (Product Type Level)6 Global Wound Care Biologics Market Segmentation (Industry Level)7 Global Wound Care Biologics Market Segmentation (Channel Level)8 Wound Care Biologics Market Forecast 2019-20229 Wound Care Biologics Segmentation Product Type10 Wound Care Biologics Segmentation Industry11 Wound Care Biologics Cost of Production Analysis12 ConclusionAbout usBusinessindustryReports.com is digital database of comprehensive market reports for global industries. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined  we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Media ContactBusiness Industry ReportsPune  Indiasales@businessindustryreports.com+19376349940
Will FDAs Endorsement of CBD-based Drugs Spur Cannabidiol Sales?

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The cannabidiol marketplace is likely to witness significant R&D investment in the pharmaceutical industry as a broad-spectrum pharmaceutical therapeutics. Multiple scientific studies have shown promising results of cannabidiol for its potential in the treatment of a number of diseases. Following which the cannabidiol market is marked by a considerable cannabidiol therapeutics getting FDA approval or moving ahead in the human clinical trials. For instance, INSYS Therapeutics, Inc. announced in March 2018, the initiation of Phase III clinical trial of cannabidiol oral solution for the treatment of a rare type of pediatric epilepsy, infantile spasms. GW Pharmaceutical plc and Greenwich Biosciences, GWs subsidiary announced FDAs approval of EPIDIOLEX cannabidiol oral solution in June 2018 and from November 2018, the plant-derived cannabidiol is available by prescription in the U.S.Approval of EPIDIOLEX cannabidiol has become a landmark announcement as it is FDAs very first approval of the drug derived from cannabis sativa plant and also validated some of the therapeutic benefits of cannabidiol. Further, the approval is expected to impact significant economic, political and legislative shifts across the global cannabinoid marketplace. Also, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is also expected to reschedule and change the classification of cannabidiol compound in the near future.Claim Sample Report For FREE:Increasing CBD Sales: Regulatory Changes Regarding Industrial Hemp to Reduce THC Content & Cost of CBDCannabidiol (CBD) is a non-intoxicating and non-psychotropic cannabinoid, which not only imparts myriad beneficial health effects, but also is deprived of relevant side effects. CBD is industrial hemps primary cannabinoid, present in concentrations between the range 0.5% and 4%. Major stakeholders in the hemp industry have been focusing on continued growth, in tandem with progress being made in legislature and product development.The Industrial Hemp Regulations (IHR) address specific topics apropos of the production, processing, control, and export measures within various stages of the industry. Current IHR require two conformances namely, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) testing of every field, except cultivars depicting low THC in provided province, and THC sampling & testing in production process concerning food derivatives. These process are expensive and entail the need for significant administrative investments by health regulatory bodies.Recognizing the concern, the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance (CHTA) proposed an efficient infield science-based alternative for generating reliable results. The proposal involves elimination of THC testing with respect to food derivatives. The alterations suggested are expected to aid achieving the objective of reducing THC content in crops with relatively less investment. Such regulatory changes are further expected to facilitate harvest, processing, and sales of non-psychoactive cannabinoids such as CBD from industrial hemp.Request Full Report With TOC:Improving Accessibility to CBD-based Therapies: WHO Report aids Alleviation of Restrictions on CannabidiolCannabis comprises over 100 chemical compounds known as cannabinoids, with the most common among them being CBD and THC. The WHOs Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) published a report in 2017, which acknowledges clinical employment of CBD to be the most advanced treatment of epilepsy.CBD is perceived to have significant therapeutic value for seizures on account of epilepsy and relevant conditions. In addition, clinical trials conducted on CBD have depicted its efficacy in treatment of various forms of epilepsy. The report further acknowledged existence of primary evidence underpinning utilization of CBD in treatment and management of various other diseases that include Alzheimers disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohns disease and Huntingtons disease.ECDDs conclusion states that current state of research with regard to scheduling of CBD is not justified, and it could impact accessibility for medical and scientific research. ECDDs impending final recommendations, to be published soon, will reaffirm or reinforce these conclusions, in order to alleviate legitimate basis for Secretary of Department of Health in maintaining present restrictions on CBD. This will not only relieve burden from companies developing medicinal products, but also improve access for consumers to effective and novel therapies.Cannabidiol Market: Surging Penetration in Health Food ProductsRich in alpha-linoleic, linoleic, and antioxidants, CBD oil illustrates optimal ratio of Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids. Numerous studies underpin the fact that properties of CBD assist management of depression & anxiety, pain, seizures, and insomnia. As researchers continue to analyze this increasingly popular cannabinoid, consumers across the globe are becoming more aware of the therapeutic qualities associated with CBD.Based on preferences, circumstances, and conditions of an individual, there are various ways in which CBD can be consumed, with some of the valid options being vaping CBD oil, applying CBD ointment topically, and swallowing CBD capsules. Currently, more and more individuals are seeking incorporation of CBD into their lifestyle through infusion into their meals.CBD-infused food products are gaining high momentum in the market, abreast growing consumer demand for healthy food options. In response to growing demand, companies are concentrating on production of healthy foods for meeting requirements of consumers seeking healthy replacements for traditional CBD-infused foods. Some of the common examples of such healthy alternatives include essential oil blends, flavored tinctures, and edibles such as coffee and candy.Notable Developments in CBD MarketPivot Pharmaceuticals Inc., in coordination with SolMic GmbH, its German technology partner, announced the initiation of its development of PGS-N001 in 2017. PGS-N001 is a water-soluble, natural, and pure oral CBD solution, which shows highest bioavailability and is devoid of THC. PGS-N001 will be developed and formulated for treating a wide range of disease indications such as the chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV)  major therapeutic challenge in cancer supportive care area.Nightfood Holdings, a startup that manufactures and markets products in nighttime snacking category, entered into a joint venture with Players Network Inc. in 2017. This joint venture is dedicated toward the development of CBD-infused line of products such as cannabinoid oil.Marijuana Company of America, Inc. (MCOA) has partnered with HoneyB Healthy Living for developing a series of CBD-based products. These products will be launched under the brand name BeniHemp and are intended to be distributed through convenience stores. The partnership aims at full-scale launch of their new product series by 2018-end, while coordinating supply chain arrangements via their partners in Colorado.Grow Your Business From Expert Advice:About USFact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; thats why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsRohit BhiseyFact.MR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:Blog:
Aquaculture Vaccines Market: Snapshot Analysis by Top Vendors (Pharmaq AS Norway, Merck Animal Health U.S, KoVax Israel, Hipra Spain, Tecnovax Argentina, Veterquimica Chile, Nisseiken Japan, Virbac France) Forecast 2019-2024

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Global Aquaculture Vaccines Market 2019-2024: The global aquaculture vaccines market estimated to be valued US$ XX Mn in 2017 and poised to grow at significant CAGR over 2018-2025 due to surge in the of prevalence of bacterial and viral infections among aquaculture species, increase in aquaculture production around the globe, and rise in adoption of vaccines by aquaculture farmers.Key players profiled in the global aquaculture vaccines market include: Pharmaq AS (Zoetis, LLC) (Norway) Merck Animal Health (Merck & Co., Inc.) (U.S.) KoVax Ltd. (Israel) Hipra (Spain) Tecnovax SA (Argentina) Veterquimica S.A. (Chile) Nisseiken Co. Ltd. (Japan) Virbac S.A. (France)Get Sample PDF Brochure of this report atGlobal aquaculture vaccines market report gives comprehensive outlook on aquaculture vaccines across the globe with special emphasis on key regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa. The report on global aquaculture vaccines market gives historical, current, and future market sizes (US$ Mn) on the basis of vaccine type, application, route of administration, species, and region. This report studies global aquaculture vaccines market dynamics elaborately to identify the current trends & drivers, future opportunities and possible challenges to the key stakeholders operating in the market. In addition, global aquaculture vaccines market report includes aquaculture production and competition analysis with vividly illustrated the competition dashboard to assess the market competition. Moreover, PBI analyzed global aquaculture vaccines market to better equip clients with possible investment opportunities across the regions (regional Investment Hot-Spots) and market unmet needs (Product Opportunities). Key stakeholders of the global aquaculture vaccines market report include suppliers, manufacturers, marketers, policy makers, and aquaculture service providers engaged in global aquaculture vaccines products usage and advocacy.Increase in the fish mortality due to certain disease outbreaks driving the growth of aquaculture vaccines market. For instance, in October 2017, approximately 125,000 salmon have died due to a disease outbreak at two fish farms on the Isle of Lewis due to bacterium Pasturella Skyensis infection. In addition, surge in population demand for the healthy fish products, demand for animal protein, government support for the aquaculture immunization programs, rise in adoption of aquaculture vaccines in the developed and developing nations are boost the aquaculture vaccines market over the forecast years. Moreover, increase in the international trading of aquaculture species immense boost the global aquaculture vaccines over the forecast periodDevelopment and launch of innovative vaccines to treat various infectious diseases in aquaculture species boosting the revenue growth of the global aquaculture vaccines market. For instance, In March 2018, Hipra launched Icthiovac VR/PD injectable vaccine for seabass against Vibriosis and Pasteurellosis in Greece. Apart from aforementioned dynamics, Raise in funding for the research and development of innovative aquaculture vaccines boost the market over forecast years. For instance, In March 2015, The Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Center (SAIC) has announced it is issuing grants worth almost GBP 950,000 to two major salmon farming research projects proposed by leading farmed salmon companies on sea lice and salmon vaccinationsBrowse Complete Report with Table of Content atEurope accounted for larger revenue share through 2013-2017 and the same trend is projected to follow over 2018-2025 owing to increase in the adoption of aquaculture vaccines in Norway, Russia, U.K, Greece, and other European countries coupled with increase in the aquaculture farming in the region are boost the market. Latin America market projected to exhibit significant growth owing launch of newer products into the Chile, Mexico, Brazil, and other Latin America countries is expected to enhance the market.Global aquaculture vaccines market is surging owing to frequent product approvals and launchings by the market players. For instance, In June 2016, Norwegian fish health firm Pharmaq tested its live salmon rickettsial septicaemia (SRS) vaccine across 20 million young Chilean fish, after the innovative product was approved in February. Moreover, In January 2017, Pharmaq acquired fish vaccination company Nordland Sett Vaks to strengthen its fish vaccine portfolio.Key Findings of the Report: Global Aquaculture Vaccines market expanding at significant CAGR over 2018 to 2025 owing to increase in the adoption of aquaculture vaccines in developed and developing countries Based on product type inactivated aquaculture vaccines accounted for larger market revenue share in 2017 and projected gain market revenue share over the forecast period Players focusing on innovation of newer products and collaboration strategies to retain market position in global aquaculture vaccines marketKey Features of the Report: The report provides granular level information about the market size, regional market share, historic market (2013-2017) and forecast (2018-2025) The report covers in-detail insights about the competitors overview, company share analysis, key market developments, and their key strategies The report outlines drivers, restraints, unmet needs, and trends that are currently affecting the market The report tracks recent innovations, key developments and startups details that are actively working in the market The report provides plethora of information about market entry strategies, regulatory framework and reimbursement scenario The report analyses the impact of socio-political environment through PESTLE Analysis and competition through Porters Five Force Analysis in addition to recent technology advancements and innovations in the marketFor Better Insights help@decisionmarketreports.comDetailed SegmentationBy Vaccine Type Inactivated Vaccine Attenuated Live Vaccine DNA Vaccine OthersBy Application Bacterial Infection Viral Infection Combined Bacterial and Viral Infections OthersBy Route of Administration Immersion Vaccines Injection Vaccines Oral VaccinesBy Species Salmon Seabass and Seabream Tilapia Trout Turbot CarpGeography North America Europe United Kingdom Rest of Europe Asia-Pacific Latin America Middle East and Africa (MEA)Request a In-depth Insights PDF Sample Brochure @About UsDecision Market Reports is a one-stop solution, covers market research studies of all the industries, companies and regions. DMR aims at providing quality research, and insights about every market to helps our clients in taking right decisions. Our repository consists of most trending industry reports, niche areas, and leading company profiles. A comprehensive collection of reports is updated daily to offer hassle-free access to our latest updated report databases.Contact UsGasper James304, S Jones Blvd,Las Vegas,NV 89107, USAUS Toll Free +1-866-605-1052Email: sales@decisionmarketreports.comWeb:Follow Us on LinkedIn:
 Flash

European Union (EU) Chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said in Lisbon on Thursday that the EU will immediately change the exit agreement if the UK's red lines change, Portuguese Lusa News Agency reported.

"The red lines are from the UK, they are not ours, and they closed doors" in negotiating the exit agreement, Barnier said in Portugal's parliament while defending the agreement already negotiated as "the best possible".

"If the United Kingdom fiddles with the red lines, we move immediately. If they want more, we're ready," he said, cited by Lusa.

The EU official said that all models are available but he stressed that "everyone has rights and obligations."

"We respect the British will and respect the red lines, as we respect the principle of the single market and the indivisibility of the four freedoms," he said.

At a joint press conference with Barnier on Thursday, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said that Portugal is fully politically aligned with European Union institutions on the UK's departure from the EU.

"The attitude of the (European) Council and Commission has been exemplary and what we want is for the United Kingdom to be able to respond to the professional, responsible and clear way in which negotiations on the European side have been conducted by Michel Barnier," Costa said.

The British parliament rejected on Tuesday the UK's exit agreement negotiated by the government of Prime Minister Theresa May with Brussels by a 432-202 vote.
Latest Research on Bicycle Mudguard Market with Top Key Players: SKS, Crud, Zefal, Generic, Ass Savers, PDW, Axiom, Reid, Alps, Rapid Racer, Topeak, LifeLine

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UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Bicycle Mudguard Market Analysis and Forecast 2018-2025 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains 113 pages which highly exhibit on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability.Get Exclusive FREE Sample Copy Of this Report @Bicycle Mudguard Market research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period. It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Bicycle Mudguard Market global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018  2025.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.The generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.The report for Bicycle Mudguard Market analysis & forecast 2018- 2025 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Region- wise Analysis Global Bicycle Mudguard Market covers: North America Europe China Japan India Southeast Asia Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)For More Information On This Report, Please VisitThe Major players reported in the market include: SKS Crud Zefal Generic Ass Savers PDW Axiom Reid Alps Rapid Racer Topeak LifeLineGlobal Bicycle Mudguard Market: Product Segment Analysis: Full-length Clip-on Mountain Bike StyleGlobal Bicycle Mudguard Market: Application Segment Analysis: Bike Manufacturing CommercialTo Buy This Report and Get It Delivered In Your Inbox Within 24 Hours @Bicycle Mudguard Market Analysis and Forecast 2018- 2025 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. The report also calls for market- driven results deriving feasibility studies for client needs. UpMarketResearch ensures qualified and verifiable aspects of market data operating in the real- time scenario. The analytical studies are conducted ensuring client needs with a thorough understanding of market capacities in the real- time scenario.Global Bicycle Mudguard Market: Key Stakeholders: Bicycle Mudguard Manufacturers Bicycle Mudguard Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers Bicycle Mudguard Subcomponent Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream VendorsIn this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Bicycle Mudguard are as follows: History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year 2018 to 2025Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global Bicycle Mudguard Market Analysis and Forecast 2018- 2025 and its commercial landscape. 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As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well- defined  we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States.
Personal Care Ingredients Market Business Growth Statistics and Key Players Insights: Ashland, BASF, Croda International, Dow Corning, Solvay

Personal Care Ingredients Market

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QY Research Groups has announced the addition of "Global Personal Care Ingredients Market Insights, Forecast to 2025" Market Research report to their database.Personal care ingredients are substances that are used in the production of skin care products, hair care products, cosmetics, fragrances and toiletries, and oral hygiene products. These ingredients provide personal care products with pleasant aromas, moisturizing capabilities, and conditioning features.By application, the skin care segment dominated the personal care ingredients market in 2017. The personal care ingredients market is driven by the growing demand for anti-aging and anti-acne creams from growing aging population in countries such as the U.K., Japan. the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, and Italy, among others. The segment is also estimated to witness the highest growth rate between 2018 and 2023.Asia-Pacific dominated the personal care ingredients market in 2017, in terms of value. Growing population and rapid urbanization, along with the increase in per capita spending on personal care products in highly developing economies such as China, South Korea, India, and Indonesia is contributing towards the growth of the personal care ingredients market in this region.TOP MOST PLAYERS: Ashland BASF Croda International Dow Corning Solvay Akzo Nobel Aston Chemicals Biosil Technologies Clariant International Eastman Chemical Evonik Industries Guangzhou Tinci Materials Technology J.M. Huber Lonza Group Momentive Performance Materials Holdings Royal DSM Stepan Wacker ChemieWorldwide Personal Care Ingredients Market 2019 research report conveys industry business patterns and the undertaking information, tolerating one to grasp clients and the stock driving gainfulness and yield development. The report highlights information on improvements and Global Personal Care Ingredients market trends, drivers, revenue and furthermore available. The market report pulls in the most peculiar bits of knowledge of this business additionally makes Personal Care Ingredients forecast that is important out there. 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Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Get The Best Discounts Offer of This Report @Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Personal Care Ingredients Market on a regional as well as global level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain.The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment.The study objectives of this report are:To study and analyze the global Personal Care Ingredients market size (value & volume) by company, key regions, products and end user, breakdown data from 2014 to 2018, and forecast to 2025.To understand the structure of Personal Care Ingredients market by identifying its various subsegments.To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).Focuses on the key global Personal Care Ingredients companies, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape and recent development.To project the value and sales volume of Personal Care Ingredients submarkets, with respect to key regions.To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.FEATURES OF THE REPORT:1. 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Cling Film Market is Estimated to Rise to a Valuation of US$ 1,924.5 Mn by 2028 end

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Several companies across the globe are working on advanced technology that will help them cut through the general product portfolio and expand their customer base. For instance, recently, Arm, a British semiconductor and software design organisation partnered with a Cambridge-based company PragmaticIC for developing an ultra-thin electronic gadget that can be easily printed on super flexible plastic. This smart-wrap is capable of carrying some data about the product and the location of the products. The sensor in the smart film allows tracking of the product lifecycle from the factory to the retail outlet to ensure the authenticity of the product.Leading restaurants across the globe as well as food and beverage stores are identifying the advantages associated with the use of cling film as more people are using them on a day-to-day basis. Most companies are manufacturing cling films and supplying these at wholesale prices to retail outlets, hence making these films available to end consumers at affordable rates. Intensifying urbanisation in emerging economies such as India and China has led to the growing adoption of on-the-go food products, especially by the working population. Cling films are extensively used as an effective material for the packaging of ready-to-eat food products, hence boosting growth in demand across the global food and beverages industry.Request Sample Report @Considering all the leading scenarios, Future Market Insights (FMI) projects that the global cling film market will exhibit a CAGR of 5.8% from 2018 to 2028. The market was worth US$ 1,045.3 Mn in 2017 and is estimated to rise to a valuation of US$ 1,924.5 Mn by 2028 end.Cost-effectiveness and Durability to Push Demand for Cling FilmsThough cling film is thin it is highly durable and solid at the same time. Cling films can hold up against any object for an extended period of time. Even if the item is dropped, moved or tampered with in any way, the cling wrap will hold up and continue to protect the item. Cling film is one of the most cost-effective products to protect items compared to other materials. These films also help save space and keep stored products organised by consolidating items together without any added bulk, which is particularly useful when moving offices or homes. Cling films also keep the items fresh and even extend the shelf life of the products. Additionally, cling films are convenient to use as there are no restrictions and work with any kind of object that needs to be shipped or moved.Evidence Suggests Cling Films May Have Negative Impact on Human HealthFor decades now, doctors have been cautioning people about the toxic impact of plastic. New evidence suggests that heat causes the chemicals in cling film storage boxes to contaminate food products, causing grave concerns to human health. Cancer Research UK has been warning that cling film should not be allowed to touch the food it covers, when the food is heated in a microwave.Request to View TOC @The chemical causing the most concern is Bisphenol A (BPA), mainly used in the manufacture of plastics. Laboratory studies have linked BPA with breast and prostate cancer. These negative factors may restrict revenue growth of the global cling film market to a certain extent.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb:
Travel Insurance Market to Register Unwavering Growth during 2019 2024

Travel Insurance Market

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http://www.arcognizance.com/report/global-travel-insurance-market-analysis-2013-2018-and-forecast-2019-2024

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Latest Report Available at Analytical Research Cognizance, Travel Insurance Market provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamics and a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining industry growth.Travel insurance is insurance that is intended to cover medical expenses, trip cancellation, lost luggage, flight accident and other losses incurred while traveling, either internationally or within one's own country. Travel insurance protects the financial investment in a trip, including lost baggage and trip cancellation. Travelers may be more likely to avoid travel when sick if they know their financial investment in the trip is protected.Request a sample of this report @The global Travel Insurance market will reach xxx Million USD in 2018 and CAGR xx% 2018-2023. The report begins from overview of Industry Chain structure, and describes industry environment, then analyses market size and forecast of Travel Insurance by product, region and application, in addition, this report introduces market competition situation among the vendors and company profile, besides, market price analysis and value chain features are covered in this report.Product Type Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Major Company of Product Type etc.):Medical expenseTrip CancellationTrip DelayProperty DamageOthersCompany Coverage (Sales Revenue, Price, Gross Margin, Main Products etc.):AllianzMunich REGeneraliAXAHanse MerkurGroupamaMapfre AsistenciaAIGCSA Travel ProtectionUSI AffinitySeven CornersMH RossTokio MarineSompo JapanPingan BaoxianSTARRBrowse the full report @The latest report covers detailed study conducted on the Travel Insurance market. The motive of the report is to provide the customer the detailed analysis of the Travel Insurance industry. Report covers all the key insights available about the market as well as other statistical information about the Travel Insurance market such as the market size by value and volume, the revenue generated, cost, profit, market share of the various segments and the major players in the market.Application Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Different Demand Market by Region, Main Consumer Profile etc.):Domestic TourismOversea TourismRegion Coverage (Regional Production, Demand & Forecast by Countries etc.):North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico)Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Russia, Spain etc.)Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia etc.)South America (Brazil, Argentina etc.)Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, South Africa etc.)Purchase copy of this Report @Some Points from TOC:Chapter One: Industry Overview1.1 Travel Insurance Industry1.1.1 Overview1.1.2 Development of Travel Insurance1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 Upstream1.2.2 Downstream1.3 Cost AnalysisChapter Two: Industry Environment2.1 Policy2.2 Economics2.3 Sociology2.4 TechnologyChapter Three: Travel Insurance Market by Type3.1 By Type3.1.1 Medical expense3.1.2 Trip Cancellation3.1.3 Trip Delay3.1.4 Property Damage3.1.5 Others3.2 Market Size3.3 Market ForecastChapter Four: Major Companies List4.1 Allianz (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.2 Munich RE (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.3 Generali (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.4 AXA (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.5 Hanse Merkur (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.6 Groupama (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.7 Mapfre Asistencia (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.8 AIG (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.9 CSA Travel Protection (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.10 USI Affinity (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.11 Seven Corners (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.12 MH Ross (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.13 Tokio Marine (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.14 Sompo Japan (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.15 Pingan Baoxian (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.16 STARR (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)Chapter Five: Market Competition5.1 Company Competition5.2 Regional Market by CompanyChapter Six: Market Demand6.1 Demand Situation6.1.1 Demand in Domestic Tourism6.1.2 Demand in Oversea Tourism6.2 Regional Demand Comparison6.3 Demand ForecastAbout US:is an initiation in this new era of analysis @ thought. We are on a mission to replace the conventional research programs and give way to the latest methods and information for the organizations. We have created this hub of analytical research papers where you can get an access to the latest and the best research papers coming out from some reliable and budding research houses. After the advent of new analytics" based on the data collection facilities of big data, the face of "business research facilities" has changed drastically. With ARC our experts have created a bookshelf where you can check out the research reports that are an outcome of the progression of knowledge in various industry sectors. Alongside you can also check some research papers, market reports, and forecasts that are talking about the "out of the box" developments in the market.Contact US:Name: Analytical research cognizanceAddress: 100 Church Street,8th floor, Manhattan,New York 10007Phone: +1 (646) 434-7969 +91 90967 44448Email: enquiry@arcognizance.com
Application Specific Integrated Circuit Market 2024 | Infineon Technologies AG, Renesas Electronics, Analog Devices, Maxim Integrated Products Inc., NXP Semiconductors N.V., ON semiconductor, Qualcomm Inc

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Research Report Insights (RRI) has released a new and a comprehensive report on the global application specific integrated circuit market. As per this report, the application specific integrated circuit market is a highly competitive market, with the presence of several small and local market players. Moreover, most of the market players have their business presence scattered in various regional markets. According to this report, some of the major players operating in the global application specific integrated circuit market include Texas Instruments Inc., STMicroelectronics N.V., Infineon Technologies AG, Renesas Electronics, Analog Devices, Maxim Integrated Products Inc., NXP Semiconductors N.V., ON semiconductor, Qualcomm Inc., Linear Technology Corporation and Intel Corporation.. The above companies are also focusing on expanding their business by undertaking strategic acquisitions and this is one of their main strategies for cementing their position in this market.As per the assessment of Research Report Insights, the global application specific integrated circuit market was valued at US$ 18.7 Bn in 2017 and is anticipated to reach a valuation of US$ 35.2 Bn in 2024 end Vast Usage of Application Specific Integrated Circuits Boosting Market GrowthDuring the last few years, due to the technological advancements in the electronics and semiconductor industry, the array of applications for application specific integrated circuits have enhanced. Furthermore, developments in application specific integrated circuits in the form of miniaturization of the components, energy efficiency and reliability have led to increased utilization of such kind of circuits across various application segments. Uses of application specific integrated circuits have broadened to automotive electronics, industrial electronics, telecommunication, medical electronics, military electronics, aerospace electronics, and power electronics. In comparison to the previous uses of application specific integrated circuits, which were basically for electrical circuits and consumer appliances, the scope of use of such kind of circuits has significantly increased in the past few years. This has given a great boost to the global application specific integrated circuits market.Request For Report Sample:Intense Competition Amongst Application Specific Integrated Circuit Manufacturers Acting as a RestraintThe semiconductor industry as a whole is evolving. The manufacturers of application specific integrated circuits strive to design products that are smaller, faster and cheaper. Advancements in manufacturing technology have also lead to a rise in the number of transistors on a chip. Thus, better products with added features are entering the market on a regular basis. However, such technological advancements have fueled intense competitive rivalry among the various manufacturers of such kind of circuits. A newly launched advanced application specific integrated circuit becomes common within a matter of months due to such strong rivalry. Thus, companies developing such kind of circuits have to bear the brunt of fluctuating revenues and reduced profitability. After launching a new product, manufacturers cannot afford to wait and need to continuously strive to develop a better product. These factors may act as a restrain and slow down the growth of the global application specific integrated circuit market during the assessment period.Request For Report discount:Global Application Specific Integrated Circuit Market: Regional OutlookAsia Pacific region dominates the global application specific integrated circuit market. The Asia Pacific application specific integrated circuit market was valued at US$ 13.4 Bn in 2017 and is slated to reach a valuation of US$ 25.6 Bn in 2024 end. Asia Pacific is also expected to be the fastest growing market during the period of assessment. The reason for the complete dominance of Asia Pacific in the global application specific integrated circuit market is that the region boasts of huge sales of consumer electronics and a huge middle class population with growing disposable incomes., reflecting a CAGR of 9.5% during the period of forecast 2017-2024.Report Analysis:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalized in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trendsContact Us:Research Report Insights (RRI42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.com
Global Retail Ready Packaging Market Progress & Manufacturer Contribution Highlighted until 2026 | Market Players are DS Smith plc, Mondi, Amcor Limited, LINPAC Packaging, Caps Cases Ltd., Orora Packaging Australia, etc.

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FactMR has published a new research report titled Global Retail Ready Packaging Market Progress & Manufacturer Contribution Highlighted until 2026 to its online database that tries to unveil the various scenarios prevailing in the retail ready packaging market. This assessment delivers a smart compilation of primary and secondary data which provides a clear insight about the future plans expected to impact the retail ready packaging market. This study comprises of prominent data which makes it a beneficial source for investors, analysts and industry experts to acquire necessary knowledge associated to the fundamental market trends, opportunities and growth drivers during 2017-2026. A new report of FactMR projects a steady 5.2% value CAGR for the global retail ready packaging market between the period 2017 and 2026. Sales of retail ready packaging are pegged to surpass 45,000 thousand tons by 2026-end.Request 100 Page Sample Report from Here -Retail ready packaging has witnessed widespread acceptance among end use industries, owing to its provision of effective and fast moving of products throughout the supply chain and enabling storage of products in the most efficient manner. Demand for retail ready packaging is further driven by its imperative role in improving product identification and increasing brand visibility.Retail ready packaging has gained paramount importance as secondary packaging for retailers, as it enables products to arrive and be placed directly onto the retail shelves or selling floor, devoid of the requirement for unpacking inner contents. Retail ready packaging offers numerous benefits compared to traditional retail packaging with regard to the product visibility, stock handling, and labor costs. This type of packaging is attractive to display brands as a value-added specialty, and is appealing to brand owners & retailers, as it serves as the shipping container and persists on store shelves, thereby assisting marketing efforts. Demand for retail ready packaging is further likely to be supported by growth of club stores and mass retailers, along with surging food & beverage sales in nontraditional outlets including drug and dollar stores. Proliferation of no-frills deep discount grocery stores and club stores is the leading demand driver for retail ready packaging, as these stores sell merchandise directly from the secondary packaging, with their vendors shipping products in retail ready packaging solutions.Based on end-user, food & beverages are anticipated to lead the global market for retail ready packaging, with a market revenue share considerably larger than those of all the other end-user segments combined. Demand for retail ready packaging for use in food & beverages will be driven by growing emphasis on curtailing labor costs by eliminating the product handling requirements associated with stocking of products.Request Global Market Report with TOC Here -On the basis of product type, die-cut display containers and corrugated cardboard boxes are likely to persist as the largest revenue contributors to the global retail ready packaging market. Demand for these products will be influenced by growth in retail user base along with greater presence of the value-added box types. Sales of die-cut display containers and corrugated cardboard boxes will collectively account for over 55% market revenue share by 2026-end.Paper & paperboard is likely to remain sought-after among materials for manufacturing retail ready packaging products. Greater preference for paper & paperboard can mainly be attributed to their easy recyclability and sustainability features. A market revenue share of over 50% has been projected for paper & paperboard during the forecast period.Competition TrackingKey market participants identified by FactMRs report include Smurfit Kappa Group plc, DS Smith plc, Mondi, Amcor Limited, LINPAC Packaging, Caps Cases Ltd., Orora Packaging Australia Pty Ltd., International Paper Company, Creative Corrugated Designs, Inc., and i2i Europe Ltd.Grab Customized Market Report from Here -About FactMrFactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsFactMR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400, Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:Blog:
Pradaxa Global Industry Report - History, Present and Future 2018

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GET SAMPLE REPORT @The global market size of Pradaxa is $XX million in 2017 with XX CAGR from 2013 to 2017, and it is expected to reach $XX million by the end of 2023 with a CAGR of XX% from 2018 to 2023.There are 3 key segments covered in this report: geography segment, end use/application segment and competitor segment.For geography segment, regional supply, application-wise and type-wise demand, major players, price is presented from 2013 to 2023. This report coverss following regions:*North America*South America*Asia & Pacific*Europe*MEA (Middle East and Africa)The key countries in each region are taken into consideration as well, such as United States, China, Japan, India, Korea, ASEAN, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, CIS, and Brazil etc.For end use/application segment, this report focuses on the status and outlook for key applications. End users also can be listed.For competitor segment, the report includes global key players of Pradaxa as well as some small players. The compnaies include:Pfizer, Bayer Healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingelheim, Aspen Holdings, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries et al.The information for each competitor includes:*Company Profile*Main Business Information*SWOT Analysis*Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin*Market ShareACCESS REPORTTable of ContentsChapter 1 Executive SummaryChapter 2 Abbreviation and AcronymsChapter 3 Preface3.1 Research Scope3.2 Research Methodology3.2.1 Data Collection3.2.2 Data Analysis3.2.3 Data Validation3.3 Research Sources3.3.1 Primary Sources3.3.2 Secondary Sources3.3.3 AssumptionsChapter 4 Market Landscape4.1 Market Overview4.2 Classification/Types4.3 Application/End Users. CONTINUEDList of Tables and FiguresTable Abbreviation and Acronyms ListTable Research Scope of Pradaxa ReportTable Primary Sources of Pradaxa ReportTable Secondary Sources of Pradaxa ReportTable Major Assumptions of Pradaxa ReportFigure Pradaxa PictureTable Pradaxa ClassificationTable Pradaxa Applications ListTable Drivers of Pradaxa MarketTable Restraints of Pradaxa MarketTable Opportunities of Pradaxa Market. CONTINUEDFOR ANY QUERY, REACHContact Us:Office No. 212/213, B Block 2nd Floor,Parmar Chambers,Sadhu Vaswani Road, Pune  411001Phone Number: 020 - 2612 6969Email: info@research2reports.comResearch 2 Reports offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Office No. 212/213, B Block 2nd Floor,Parmar Chambers,Sadhu Vaswani Road, Pune  411001
Cryptocurrency Market to Witness High Growth in near future: ZEB IT Service, Coinsecure, Coinbase, Bitstamp, Litecoin, Poloniex, BitFury Group, Unocoin Technologies Private, Ripple, OKEX Fintech Company, Bitfinex

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For overview analysis, Big Market Research introduces Cryptocurrency Market basic information including definition, classification, application, industry chain structure, industry overview, policy analysis, and news analysis, etc.This report focuses on the global Cryptocurrency market status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Cryptocurrency development in United States, Europe and China.In 2017, the global Cryptocurrency market size was million US$ and it is expected to reach million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of during 2018-2025.The Competitive landscape of the Cryptocurrency Market profiles the key players participating in the global ZEB IT Service, Coinsecure, Coinbase, Bitstamp, Litecoin, Poloniex, BitFury Group, Unocoin Technologies Private, Ripple, OKEX Fintech Company, Bitfinex. The report also details the market positioning, strategies, and revenue procured by each of these manufacturers.Get sample copy of this report:On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoBitcoin (BTC)Ether (ETH)Litecoin (LTC)OtherOn the basis of the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate for each application, includingTransactionInvestmentOtherThis report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.The industry is analyzed in terms of products, applications, regions, and the key manufacturers holding a prominent share of the global revenue.The report further details the market share to be procured by each of these products over the coming years.A detailed analysis of the contribution of these application segments to the overall market revenue and volume has been included in the report.Enquire about this report @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South AmericaThe study objectives of this report are:To analyze global Cryptocurrency status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.To present the Cryptocurrency development in United States, Europe and China.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies.To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Cryptocurrency are as follows:History Year: 2013-2017Base Year: 2017Estimated Year: 2018Forecast Year 2018 to 2025For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2017 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.Discount of this report:Table of Contents :Global Cryptocurrency Market Research Report 20181 Cryptocurrency Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Cryptocurrency1.2 Cryptocurrency Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Cryptocurrency Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2013-2025)1.2.2 Global Cryptocurrency Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20171.2.3 Extra Virgin Cryptocurrency1.2.3 CryptocurrencyCryptocurrency1.3 Global Cryptocurrency Segment by Application1.3.1 Cryptocurrency Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2013-2025)1.3.2 Cooking1.3.3 Cosmetics1.3.4 Pharmaceuticals1.3.5 Other1.4 Global Cryptocurrency Market by Region (2013-2025)1.4.1 Global Cryptocurrency Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2013-2025)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Cryptocurrency (2013-2025)1.5.1 Global Cryptocurrency Revenue Status and Outlook (2013-2025)1.5.2 Global Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2013-2025)2 Global Cryptocurrency Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.1 Global Cryptocurrency Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.2 Global Cryptocurrency Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.2 Global Cryptocurrency Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.3 Global Cryptocurrency Average Price by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.4 Manufacturers Cryptocurrency Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Cryptocurrency Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Cryptocurrency Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Cryptocurrency Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2013-2018)3.1 Global Cryptocurrency Capacity and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)3.2 Global Cryptocurrency Production and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)3.3 Global Cryptocurrency Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)3.4 Global Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.5 North America Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.6 Europe Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.7 China Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.8 Japan Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.9 Southeast Asia Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.10 India Cryptocurrency Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)4 Global Cryptocurrency Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2013-2018)4.1 Global Cryptocurrency Consumption by Region (2013-2018)4.2 North America Cryptocurrency Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.3 Europe Cryptocurrency Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.4 China Cryptocurrency Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.5 Japan Cryptocurrency Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.6 Southeast Asia Cryptocurrency Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.7 India Cryptocurrency Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)Related Reports: -World Shipping Software Market Research Report 2023 (Covering USA, Europe, China, Japan, India and etc)Shipping Software market research report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability. The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market. The ...About Us:Big Market Research has a range of research reports from various publishers across the world. Our database of reports of various market categories and sub-categories would help to find the exact report you may be looking for.We are instrumental in providing quantitative and qualitative insights on your area of interest by bringing reports from various publishers at one place to save your time and money. A lot of organizations across the world are gaining profits and great benefits from information gained through reports sourced by us.Contact Us:5933 NE Win Sivers Drive, #205, Portland,OR 97220 United Statescall answer Direct:+1-971-202-1575call answer Toll Free:+1-800-910-6452email help@bigmarketresearch.com
Data Security Software Market 2019 Global Analysis By Key Players  Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, AVG, Avast Software, ESET, Fortinet

Data Security Software Market

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WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On  Data Security Software Market 2019 Global Analysis By Key Players  Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, AVG, Avast Software, ESET, Fortinet.Data Security Software Market 2019Description:-The Data Security Software industry has also suffered a certain impact, but still maintained a relatively optimistic growth, the past four years, Data Security Software market size to maintain the average annual growth rate of 3.36% from 1286 million $ in 2014 to 1420 million $ in 2017, The analysts believe that in the next few years, Data Security Software market size will be further expanded, we expect that by 2022, The market size of the Data Security Software will reach 1633 million $.Get a Sample Report @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comThis Report covers the manufacturers data, including: shipment, price, revenue, gross profit, interview record, business distribution etc., these data help the consumer know about the competitors better. This report also covers all the regions and countries of the world, which shows a regional development status, including market size, volume and value, as well as price data.Besides, the report also covers segment data, including: type segment, industry segment, channel segment etc. cover different segment market size, both volume and value. Also cover different industries clients information, which is very important for the manufacturers.Sections:-Section 1: FreeDefinitionSection (2 3): 1200 USDMajor Player DetailSymantecMcAfeeTrend MicroAVGAvast SoftwareESETBitdefenderFortinetF-SecureG DATA SoftwareAviraQihoo 360KasperskyPanda SecurityQuick HealComodoMicrosoftRisingCheetah MobileAhnLabSection 4: 900 USDRegion SegmentationNorth America Country (United States, Canada)South AmericaAsia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea)Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy)Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC).Enquiry About Report @Table Of Contents  Major Key PointsSection 1 Data Security Software DefinitionSection 2 Global Data Security Software Market Major Player Share and Market Overview2.1 Global Major Player Data Security Software Business Revenue2.2 Global Data Security Software Market OverviewSection 3 Major Player Data Security Software Business Introduction3.1 Symantec Data Security Software Business Introduction3.1.1 Symantec Data Security Software Revenue, Growth Rate and Gross profit 2014-20173.1.2 Symantec Data Security Software Business Distribution by Region3.1.3 Symantec Interview Record3.1.4 Symantec Data Security Software Business Profile3.1.5 Symantec Data Security Software Specification3.2 McAfee Data Security Software Business Introduction3.2.1 McAfee Data Security Software Revenue, Growth Rate and Gross profit 2014-20173.2.2 McAfee Data Security Software Business Distribution by Region3.2.3 Interview Record3.2.4 McAfee Data Security Software Business Overview3.2.5 McAfee Data Security Software Specification3.3 Trend Micro Data Security Software Business Introduction3.3.1 Trend Micro Data Security Software Revenue, Growth Rate and Gross profit 2014-20173.3.2 Trend Micro Data Security Software Business Distribution by Region3.3.3 Interview Record3.3.4 Trend Micro Data Security Software Business Overview3.3.5 Trend Micro Data Security Software Specification3.4 AVG Data Security Software Business Introduction3.5 Avast Software Data Security Software Business Introduction3.6 ESET Data Security Software Business IntroductionSection 4 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Region Level)4.1 North America Country4.1.1 United States Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.1.2 Canada Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.2 South America Country4.2.1 South America Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.3 Asia Country4.3.1 China Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.3.2 Japan Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.3.3 India Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.3.4 Korea Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.4 Europe Country4.4.1 Germany Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.4.2 UK Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.4.3 France Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.4.4 Italy Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.4.5 Europe Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.5 Other Country and Region4.5.1 Middle East Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.5.2 Africa Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.5.3 GCC Data Security Software Market Size and Market Segmentation (Industry Level) 2014-20174.6 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Region Level) Analysis 2014-20174.7 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Region Level) AnalysisSection 5 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Type Level)5.1 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Type Level) Market Size 2014-20175.2 Different Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Type Level) Market Size Growth Rate 2014-20175.3 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Type Level) AnalysisSection 6 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Industry Level)6.1 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Industry Level) Market Size 2014-20176.2 Different Industry Trend 2014-20176.3 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Industry Level) AnalysisSection 7 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Channel Level)7.1 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Channel Level) Market Size and Share 2014-20177.2 Global Data Security Software Market Segmentation (Channel Level) AnalysisContinuedBuy 1-user PDF @ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Office No.528,Amanora Chambers,Magarpatta Road,Hadapsar,Pune-411028.
Wireless Charging Market Analysis On Competitive Landscape 2019 By Qualcomm, Leggett & Platt, PowerbyProxi, Fulton Innovation LLC, Texas Instruments, WiTricity, Texas Instruments, Integrated Device Technology,

Wireless Charging Market

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Wireless Charging Market is broadly analyzed in this report that sheds light on critical aspects such as the vendor landscape, competitive strategies, market dynamics, and regional analysis. The report helps readers to clearly understand the current and future status of the market. The research study comes out as a compilation of useful guidelines for players to secure a position of strength in the Market. The authors of the report profile leading companies of the Global Wireless Charging Market,Such as:Qualcomm Inc., Leggett & Platt, Incorporated. Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd, Powerbyproxi Ltd., Powermat Technologies Ltd., Fulton Innovation LLC, Texas Instruments, Inc., WiTricity Corporation, Convenient Power HK Ltd., Texas Instruments Incorporated, , Integrated Device Technology, Inc., Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Duracell Powermat, Energizer Holdings, Inc, Oregon Scientific, Inc. and Anker among others.They provide details about important activities of leading players in the competitive landscape.Get More Information About Competitive Landscape @The global wireless charging is fragmented and the major players have used various strategies such as new product launches, expansions, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, and others to increase their footprints in this market in order to sustain in long run. The report includes market shares of wireless charging market for global, Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and South America.The exclusive research report on the Global Wireless Charging Market, 2019 examines the market in detail along with focusing on significant market dynamics for the key players operating in the market. Global industry research report offers granulated yet in-depth analysis of revenue share, market segments, revenue estimates and various regions across the globe.Wireless Charging Market is expected to reach USD 145,337.92 million by 2025 from USD 3,346.91 million in 2017 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 60.22% in the forecast period of 2018 to 2025. The upcoming market report contains data for historic years 2016, the base year of calculation is 2017 and the forecast period is 2018 to 2025.This publication includes key segmentations of the Global Wireless Charging Market on the basis of product, application, and geography (country/region). Each segment included in the report is studied in relation to different factors such as consumption, market share, value, growth rate, and production.Based on technology: inductive technology, radiation technology, and other technologies,Based on transmission: short range, medium range, long range,Based on application: consumer electronics, defense, healthcare, automotive, industrial, others.Speak To Industry Experts, Request For More Details Report@A numerical graphical report has been presented in chapter format. In this, the introductory chapter provides a general point of view of the Global Wireless Charging market. The next chapter offers an extensive view of the Wireless Charging industry, with an in-depth focus on the key regional markets. Sub-sectors such as technology and product expansion, key progress trends, competitive landscape analysis, key regional and national development status.By Geography:o North Americao South Americao Europeo Asia-Pacifico Middle East and AfricaThe comparative results provided in the report allow readers to understand the difference between players and how they are competing against each other. The research study gives a detailed view of current and future trends and opportunities of the global market. Market dynamics such as drivers and restraints are explained in the most detailed and easiest manner possible with the use of tables and graphs. Interested parties are expected to find important recommendations to improve their business in the global market.Market Drivers and Restraints: High ability to charge multiple devices is expected to create a huge demand Consumer inclination toward wireless connectivity is expected to lead the market Growing demand is expected for wireless charging enabled smartphones Lack of standards restricts the growth of the marketMake an Inquiry for Discount On this Report@Readers can understand the overall profitability margin and sales volume of various products studied in the report. The report also provides the forecasted as well as historical annual growth rate and market share of the products offered in the global Wireless Charging Market. The study on end-use application of products helps to understand the market growth of the products in terms of sales.Table of Content:Global Wireless Charging Market Research Report 2019-2025Chapter 1: Wireless Charging Market OverviewChapter 2: Wireless Charging Market Economic ImpactChapter 3: Competition by ManufacturerChapter 4: Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2019-2025)Chapter 5: Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2019-2025)Chapter 6: Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7: Wireless Charging Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8: Wireless Charging Market by Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10: Wireless Charging Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11: Wireless Charging Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12: Wireless Charging Market Forecast (2019-2025)Chapter 13: AppendixGet Full Toc@Note: If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.About Us:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Data Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying [Photo/fmprc.gov.cn]

China on Thursday expressed firm opposition to the abuse of export control measures of the United States and urged U.S. lawmakers to stop the proposed bill targeting Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese telecommunications equipment companies.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the comments at a press briefing in response to some U.S. lawmakers' introduction of a bill that would ban exports of U.S. chips and components to Chinese telecom companies, such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, ZTE Corp or other Chinese firms.

"Such a move shows the extreme arrogance of certain U.S. lawmakers as well as their extreme lack of confidence," said Hua.

"It is obvious to all that the true intention of the U.S. side is to use all kinds of state apparatus to suppress and block Chinese hi-tech companies," Hua said.

China opposes U.S. abuse of the so-called export control measures and U.S. interference in normal trade activities of enterprises, Hua said. "We urge relevant U.S. lawmakers to stop suppressing Chinese enterprises, stop the relevant bill and do more to build mutual trust and cooperation between China and the United States."
The Emerging Start-ups Key Players in the field of AI in Healthcare | CloudMedx, Imagia Cybernetics, Precision Health AI, and Cloud Pharmaceuticals

AI in healthcare market, AI in healthcare market research, AI in healthcare market forecast, AI in healthcare market size

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) requires data mining approach as well as pattern recognition to medically diagnose the condition of a patient. Neural networks process information by recognizing patterns and data that has been previously loaded into the system. The AI in healthcare market is expected to grow from USD ~2 billion in 2018 to USD ~36 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of ~50% during the forecast period. This is possible due to competence of AI to recognize drug targets and help in drug design, discovery, identification and screening of molecules instantly. Medical imaging on the other hand is one of the major application areas that has led to improvement in cancer and tumour diagnosis using AI. It is primarily based on pattern recognition that effectively works using deep learning technique.The global AI in healthcare market is projected to reach a value ~of $36 Billion by 2025, at a CAGR of ~50% during the forecast period.Increasing need for hardware platforms with high computing power to run various AI software is the key factor accelerating the growth for hardware devices in the AI in healthcare market.Market Key Players are:NVIDIA (US)Intel (US)IBM (US)Google (US)Microsoft (US)AWS (US)General Vision (US)GE Healthcare (US)Siemens Healthineers (Germany)Medtronic (US)CloudMedx (US)Imagia Cybernetics (Canada)Precision Health AI (US)Cloud Pharmaceuticals (US)OthersGet Free Sample @Market Segmentation:AI in Healthcare Market, By OfferingsHardwareSoftwareServicesAI in Healthcare Market, By TechnologyMachine LearningNatural Language ProcessingContext-Aware ComputingVisionAI in Healthcare Market, By ApplicationDiagnostic ImagingRobot-Assisted SurgeryVirtual AssistantInpatient Care & Hospital ManagementPatient Data and Risk AnalysisDrug DiscoveryWearablesResearchPrecision MedicineAI in Healthcare Market, By End-UserHospitals and ProvidersPatientsPharmaceutical and Biotechnology CompaniesHealthcare PayersAI in Healthcare Market, By RegionNorth AmericaAsia PacificEuropeRoWTable of Content:1. Introduction2. Research Strategy3. Executive Overview4. AI Technology Segmentation/Platforms5. AI in Different Healthcare Applications6. AI Platforms Penetration in Different Healthcare Applications7. IP Scenario: AI in Healthcare8. Key Insights9. AI in Healthcare Market, By Offerings10. AI in Healthcare Market, By Technology11. AI in Healthcare Market, By Application12. AI in Healthcare Market, By End-User13. AI in Healthcare Market, By Region14. Competitive Landscape15. Company Profiling16. AppendixView Full Report @About us:IngeniousReports provides one-stop solution platform for all technology, business, and market research dilemmas. We, at IngeniousReports, collaborate with leading global publishers of technology, business and market intelligence reports to industries, individuals and organizations with the endeavor of supporting them in making strategic and cost-effective business decisions.Phone: +1 347 480 2054Mail: sales@ingeniousreports.com207-208, 2nd Floor, Welldone Tech ParkSohna Road, Sector 48Gurugram, Haryana
Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Industry Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023

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Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Industry is foreseen to develop at a consistent rate and will post a CAGR of near 9% amid the estimated time frame. The expanding interest for measured power arrangements in sustainable power source applications will drive the development prospects for the market amid the gauge time frame. Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM)s Industry are utilized in wind converters and photovoltaic sun based vitality frameworks to change over clean vitality sources into usable business control sources.Get sample copy of report:Table of ContentsChapter 1 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Intelligent Power Modules (IPM)1.2 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Segmentation by Type1.2.1 Global Production Market Share of Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) by Type1.2.1 Insulated Gate-Bipolar Transistor (IGBT)1.2.2 MOSFET1.2.3 Type 31.3 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Segmentation by Application1.3.1 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Consumption Market Share by Application1.3.2 Consumer Electronics1.3.3 Servo Drives1.3.4 Others1.4 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Segmentation by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Intelligent Power Modules (IPM)1.5.1 Global Product Sales and Growth Rate1.5.2 Global Product Revenue and Growth RateChapter 2 Global Economic Impact on Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Industry2.1 Global Macroeconomic Environment Analysis2.1.1 Global Macroeconomic Analysis2.1.2 Global Macroeconomic Environment Development Trend2.2 Global Macroeconomic Environment Analysis by RegionsChapter 3 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Competition by Manufacturers3.1 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Share by Manufacturers3.2 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Revenue and Share by Manufacturers3.3 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Average Price by Manufacturers3.4 Manufacturers Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Manufacturing Base Distribution, Production Area and Product Type3.5 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Competitive Situation and Trends3.5.1 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Concentration Rate3.5.2 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers3.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, ExpansionChapter 4 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue (Value) by Region4.1 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production by Region4.2 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production Market Share by Region4.3 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region4.4 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.5 North America Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.5.1 North America Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.5.2 North America Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Type4.5.3 North America Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Application4.6 Europe Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.6.1 Europe Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.6.2 Europe Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Type4.6.3 Europe Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Application4.7 China Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.7.1 China Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.7.2 China Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Type4.7.3 China Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Application4.8 Japan Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.8.1 Japan Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.8.2 Japan Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Type4.8.3 Japan Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Application4.9 Southeast Asia Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.9.1 Southeast Asia Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.9.2 Southeast Asia Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Type4.9.3 Southeast Asia Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Application4.10 India Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.10.1 India Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.10.2 India Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Type4.10.3 India Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by ApplicationChapter 5 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.1 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Consumption by Regions5.2 North America Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.3 Europe Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.4 China Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.5 Japan Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.6 Southeast Asia Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.7 India Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type6.1 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production and Market Share by Type6.2 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Revenue and Market Share by Type6.3 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Price by Type6.4 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production Growth by TypeChapter 7 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Analysis by Application7.1 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Consumption and Market Share by Application7.2 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Revenue and Market Share by Type7.3 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Consumption Growth Rate by Application7.4 Market Drivers and Opportunities7.4.1 Potential Applications7.4.2 Emerging Markets/CountriesChapter 8 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Manufacturers Analysis8.1 Infineon Technologies8.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.1.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.1.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.1.4 Business Overview8.2 Mitsubishi Electric8.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.2.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.2.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.2.4 Business Overview8.3 Fuji Electric8.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.3.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.3.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.3.4 Business Overview8.4 Semikron8.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.4.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.4.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.4.4 Business Overview8.5 ON Semiconductor8.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.5.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.5.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.5.4 Business Overview8.6 STMicroelectronics8.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.6.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.6.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.6.4 Business Overview8.7 Renesas Electronics Corporation8.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.7.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.7.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.7.4 Business Overview8.8 ROHM Semiconductor8.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.8.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.8.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.8.4 Business Overview8.9 Texas Instruments8.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.9.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.9.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.9.4 Business OverviewChapter 9 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Manufacturing Cost Analysis9.1 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Key Raw Materials Analysis9.1.1 Key Raw Materials9.1.2 Price Trend of Key Raw Materials9.1.3 Key Suppliers of Raw Materials9.1.4 Market Concentration Rate of Raw Materials9.2 Proportion of Manufacturing Cost Structure9.2.1 Raw Materials9.2.2 Labor Cost9.2.3 Manufacturing Expenses9.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Intelligent Power Modules (IPM)Chapter 10 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10.1 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Industrial Chain Analysis10.2 Upstream Raw Materials Sourcing10.3 Raw Materials Sources of Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Major Manufacturers10.4 Downstream BuyersChapter 11 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11.1 Marketing Channel11.1.1 Direct Marketing11.1.2 Indirect Marketing11.1.3 Marketing Channel Development Trend11.2 Market Positioning11.2.1 Pricing Strategy11.2.2 Brand Strategy11.2.3 Target Client11.3 Distributors/Traders ListChapter 12 Market Effect Factors Analysis12.1 Technology Progress/Risk12.1.1 Substitutes Threat12.1.2 Technology Progress in Related Industry12.2 Consumer Needs/Customer Preference Change12.3 Economic/Political Environmental ChangeChapter 13 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Market Forecast13.1 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Revenue Forecast13.2 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production, Consumption Forecast by Regions13.3 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Production Forecast by Type13.4 Global Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Consumption Forecast by Application13.5 Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) Price ForecastChapter 14 AppendixBy this report online:About Market Density:Market Density is your one stop market research and industry analysis reports' library providing business data and intelligence information on thousands of micro markets with global as well as regional coverage.Market Density offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Market Density understands how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.Contact Us:Email: Support@marketdensity.comWebsite:Phone: +1 669 264 16564340 Stevens Creek Blvd,Suite # 172,San Jose, CA 95129
Brachytherapy Afterloaders Market Scope and Growing Demands 2019 | Key Players: Elekta, Eckert & Zieglar BEBIG, Varian Medical Systems Inc.

Brachytherapy Afterloaders Market

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Brachytherapy is type of radiotherapy in which a closed radiation source is positioned directly into or next to area that requires treatment. It is used to cure cancer tissues at specific sites and is frequently used as an effective treatment for breast, cervical, skin, and prostate cancers. In a normal EBRT (external beam radiation therapy), a high energy x ray is generated by the source system is focused towards the tumor. In this type of radiation therapy, rays are guided from outside the body with the help of radiation system.Download PDF Brochure Of This Research Report @A treatment course of brachytherapy can be completed in less than other radiotherapy techniques, which minimizes the chances of surviving cancer cells to grow and divide in the long intervals between each radiotherapy session. Based on the technique, two types of brachytherapy afterloaders are available in the market: low dose rate (LDR) afterloader and high dose rate (HDR) afterloader.Brachytherapy Afterloaders Market  DynamicsIncreasing prevalence of cancer among the global population is a major factor driving growth of the brachytherapy afterloaders market. For instance, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) 2018 report, cancer was the second-leading cause of death around the globe and was responsible for around 8.8 million death in 2015. Globally, around 1 out of 6 deaths is due to cancer. The same report showed that, most common causes of cancer death was lung cancer with around 1.69 million deaths followed by liver cancer with 788,000 deaths, colorectal 774,000 deaths, stomach 754,000 deaths, and breast cancer having 571,000 deaths.Rising geriatric population around the globe is also another factor for increasing incidence of cancer, as aged population is most likely susceptible to cancer. This is another factor propelling growth of brachytherapy afterloaders market significantly. For instance, according to United Nation 2017 report, the geriatric population in 2017 is expected to increase over double by 2050 and to over triple by 2100. These figures are expected to rise from 962 million globally in 2017 to 2.1 billion in 2050 and 3.1 billion in 2100.Brachytherapy Afterloaders Market  Regional InsightsBased on the region, the global brachytherapy afterloaders market is segmented into North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. North America holds the dominant position in the global brachytherapy afterloaders market, owing to increasing adoption of new innovative technology and rise in funding for research and development for cancer treatment. For instance, in 2013, Varian Medical Systems, Inc. awarded US$ 100,000, a second year renewal grant to The American Board of Radiology Foundation (ABRF), for the brachytherapy research work.Brachytherapy Afterloaders Market  Competitive LandscapeKey players operating in the brachytherapy afterloaders market includes Elekta, Eckert & Zieglar BEBIG, Varian Medical Systems Inc.Market players are engaged in adopting various strategies such as acquisitions, new product launches, acquisition, and partnerships to retain their position in the market. For instance, in April 2018, Proton Partners International Ltd. acquired Elekta MR-linac systems to provide cancer patients with the most advanced treatment across U.K.Request For Customization @Brachytherapy Afterloaders Market  TaxonomyOn the basis of technique, the global brachytherapy afterloaders market is segmented into: Low Dose Rate (LDR) Afterloaders High Dose Rate (HDR) AfterloadersOn the basis of application, the global brachytherapy afterloaders market is segmented into: Prostate Cancer Breast Cancer Cervical Cancer OthersOn the basis of region, the global brachytherapy afterloaders market is segmented into: North America Latin America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East AfricaAbout Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.com
Radiofrequency Ablation Devices Market Showcases Promising Growth During Forecast 2017 - 2024

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An up-to-date research report 2018 has been disclosed by Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) highlighting the title Radiofrequency Ablation Devices Market for Pain Management which provides an outlook for current market value as well as the expected forecast including Rate on Investment (ROI) together with the growing CAGR near 12.9% during 2017-2024. The report studies the Radiofrequency Ablation Devices Market worldwide, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, size, growth, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions.Click here For Free Sample Report @The second half of the past century has been a relatively peaceful duration for the humanity and populations have prospered across developed and emerging economies. As a result, geriatrics are now constituting for a prominent chunk of the worlds population. And with that  the healthcare industry is flourishing, as geriatrics are prone to several bodily disorders, especially arthritis, chronic low-back pain, and joint pain. The advent of radiofrequency ablation devices has paved a minimally invasive surgical procedure that can adequately serve pain management, and the market for the same is primed to excel in the near future.According to the findings of this business intelligence report, the demand in the global radiofrequency ablation devices market for pain management will expand at an impressive CAGR of 12.9% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2024. Revenue-wise, the vendors of pain management market will generate a demand for RF ablation devices worth of US$1,114.5 million by the end of 2024, substantially more than the markets evaluated worth of US$477.3 million as of 2017.Apart from the increasing population of geriatrics and strong prevalence of chronic pain, increased investments by multinational medical device companies to harness the concept of minimally invasive surgeries and recent approvals and launches of technological advanced devices are expected to drive the demand for radiofrequency ablation devices. On the other hand, regulatory hurdles and availability of other low-cost therapeutics for pain management are a few restraints obstructing this market from attaining greater profitability. Nevertheless, the analyst of the report foresees the emerging economies of China, India, and Brazil to open vast new opportunities in the near future.RF Ablation Devices Emerging as Key Product SegmentOn the basis of product type, the market for RF ablation devices market for pain management has been segmented into RF generators, reusable products including electrodes and probes, and disposable products, which have been further bifurcated into needles, cannulas, and single-use probes and electrodes. As of 2017, the sub-segments of disposable products generated the most prominent chunk of demand, which was worth US$204.5 million. Benefits of disposable cannulas and probes include reduction in sterilization costs. Additionally, connector cables provided for single use probes are long enough to stay out of the sterile field, thus preventing infection.Detailed Report with specifies Table of Content @On the other hand, the RF generators segment is poised to expand at an above-average CAGR of 13.1% during the period of 2017 to 2024. Technological advancement such as cooled radiofrequency technology platforms which allow creation of larger lesions without excessive heating at the electrode fuels the growth of the segment. By the end of 2024, the pain management market is expected to produce a demand for RF generators worth of US$401.1 million.The report has also evaluated the demand potential from the end users: hospitals, specialty clinics, and ambulatory surgical centers, with the former poised to provide for a demand worth of US$538.4 million by 2024, which will represent nearly half of the overall demand.North America to Overtake Europe as Most Lucrative Region by 2024North America is projected to continue to dominate the market, accounting for 38.3% share by 2024. The segment is anticipated to reach value of US$426.4 million by 2024. The U.S. dominated the market in North America due to the existence large population base, higher awareness, significant health care spending in overall national budgets, early availability of advanced technologies, and higher penetration of health care services across the country. Europe, on the other hand, is estimated to offer 33.5% of the overall demand by the end of the aforementioned forecast period.St. Jude Medical, Inc., Boston Scientific Corporation, and Halyard Health, Inc. have been identified as the three companies currently dominating the RF ablation devices market for pain management. The report profiles these and several other companies in its featured section on competitive landscape.Any Query, Ask Our Expert at:About (MRRSE)Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY  12207(United State)Telephone: +1-518-730-0559(USA & Canada Toll-Free)Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:
Global Connected Logistics Industry Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023

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Global Connected Logistics Market measure is relied upon to develop at a CAGR of over 30% over the figure timespan. Connected Logistics helps in building up, enhancing communications between all accomplices engaged with the coordinations organize by empowering center administrators to screen internal and outward movement. This outcomes in more straightforwardness and improved effectiveness. Nearness of business exercises over the different districts of globe makes it obligatory for associations to choose propelled foundation. Data, which is the scarcest asset in the business world, can be proficiently and viably utilized with the assistance of Global Connected Logistic frameworks to rethink generation calendar and coordinations.Get sample copy of report:Table of ContentsChapter 1 Connected Logistics Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Connected Logistics1.2 Connected Logistics Market Segmentation by Type1.2.1 Global Production Market Share of Connected Logistics by Type1.2.1 ZigBee1.2.2 Bluetooth1.2.3 Wi-Fi1.3 Connected Logistics Market Segmentation by Application1.3.1 Connected Logistics Consumption Market Share by Application1.3.2 Logistics Management System1.3.3 Warehouse Management System1.3.4 Security and Monitoring1.4 Connected Logistics Market Segmentation by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Connected Logistics1.5.1 Global Product Sales and Growth Rate1.5.2 Global Product Revenue and Growth RateChapter 2 Global Economic Impact on Connected Logistics Industry2.1 Global Macroeconomic Environment Analysis2.1.1 Global Macroeconomic Analysis2.1.2 Global Macroeconomic Environment Development Trend2.2 Global Macroeconomic Environment Analysis by RegionsChapter 3 Global Connected Logistics Market Competition by Manufacturers3.1 Global Connected Logistics Production and Share by Manufacturers3.2 Global Connected Logistics Revenue and Share by Manufacturers3.3 Global Connected Logistics Average Price by Manufacturers3.4 Manufacturers Connected Logistics Manufacturing Base Distribution, Production Area and Product Type3.5 Connected Logistics Market Competitive Situation and Trends3.5.1 Connected Logistics Market Concentration Rate3.5.2 Connected Logistics Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers3.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, ExpansionChapter 4 Global Connected Logistics Production, Revenue (Value) by Region4.1 Global Connected Logistics Production by Region4.2 Global Connected Logistics Production Market Share by Region4.3 Global Connected Logistics Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region4.4 Global Connected Logistics Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.5 North America Connected Logistics Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.5.1 North America Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.5.2 North America Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Type4.5.3 North America Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Application4.6 Europe Connected Logistics Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.6.1 Europe Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.6.2 Europe Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Type4.6.3 Europe Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Application4.7 China Connected Logistics Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.7.1 China Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.7.2 China Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Type4.7.3 China Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Application4.8 Japan Connected Logistics Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.8.1 Japan Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.8.2 Japan Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Type4.8.3 Japan Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Application4.9 Southeast Asia Connected Logistics Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.9.1 Southeast Asia Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.9.2 Southeast Asia Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Type4.9.3 Southeast Asia Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Application4.10 India Connected Logistics Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.10.1 India Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.10.2 India Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Type4.10.3 India Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by ApplicationChapter 5 Global Connected Logistics Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.1 Global Connected Logistics Consumption by Regions5.2 North America Connected Logistics Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.3 Europe Connected Logistics Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.4 China Connected Logistics Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.5 Japan Connected Logistics Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.6 Southeast Asia Connected Logistics Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.7 India Connected Logistics Production, Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6 Global Connected Logistics Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type6.1 Global Connected Logistics Production and Market Share by Type6.2 Global Connected Logistics Revenue and Market Share by Type6.3 Global Connected Logistics Price by Type6.4 Global Connected Logistics Production Growth by TypeChapter 7 Global Connected Logistics Market Analysis by Application7.1 Global Connected Logistics Consumption and Market Share by Application7.2 Global Connected Logistics Revenue and Market Share by Type7.3 Global Connected Logistics Consumption Growth Rate by Application7.4 Market Drivers and Opportunities7.4.1 Potential Applications7.4.2 Emerging Markets/CountriesChapter 8 Global Connected Logistics Manufacturers Analysis8.1 AT&T, Inc.8.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.1.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.1.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.1.4 Business Overview8.2 IBM Corporation8.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.2.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.2.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.2.4 Business Overview8.3 Intel Corporation8.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.3.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.3.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.3.4 Business Overview8.4 SAP SE, Infosys Limited8.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.4.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.4.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.4.4 Business Overview8.5 Cisco Systems Inc.8.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.5.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.5.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.5.4 Business Overview8.6 HCL Technologies Limited8.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.6.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.6.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.6.4 Business Overview8.7 Cloud Logistics.8.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.7.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.7.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.7.4 Business Overview8.8 company 88.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.8.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.8.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.8.4 Business Overview8.9 company 98.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.9.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.9.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.9.4 Business OverviewChapter 9 Connected Logistics Manufacturing Cost Analysis9.1 Connected Logistics Key Raw Materials Analysis9.1.1 Key Raw Materials9.1.2 Price Trend of Key Raw Materials9.1.3 Key Suppliers of Raw Materials9.1.4 Market Concentration Rate of Raw Materials9.2 Proportion of Manufacturing Cost Structure9.2.1 Raw Materials9.2.2 Labor Cost9.2.3 Manufacturing Expenses9.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Connected LogisticsChapter 10 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10.1 Connected Logistics Industrial Chain Analysis10.2 Upstream Raw Materials Sourcing10.3 Raw Materials Sources of Connected Logistics Major Manufacturers10.4 Downstream BuyersChapter 11 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11.1 Marketing Channel11.1.1 Direct Marketing11.1.2 Indirect Marketing11.1.3 Marketing Channel Development Trend11.2 Market Positioning11.2.1 Pricing Strategy11.2.2 Brand Strategy11.2.3 Target Client11.3 Distributors/Traders ListChapter 12 Market Effect Factors Analysis12.1 Technology Progress/Risk12.1.1 Substitutes Threat12.1.2 Technology Progress in Related Industry12.2 Consumer Needs/Customer Preference Change12.3 Economic/Political Environmental ChangeChapter 13 Global Connected Logistics Market Forecast13.1 Global Connected Logistics Production, Revenue Forecast13.2 Global Connected Logistics Production, Consumption Forecast by Regions13.3 Global Connected Logistics Production Forecast by Type13.4 Global Connected Logistics Consumption Forecast by Application13.5 Connected Logistics Price ForecastChapter 14 AppendixBy this report online:About Market Density:Market Density is your one stop market research and industry analysis reports' library providing business data and intelligence information on thousands of micro markets with global as well as regional coverage.Market Density offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Market Density understands how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.Contact Us:Email: Support@marketdensity.comWebsite:Phone: +1 669 264 16564340 Stevens Creek Blvd,Suite # 172,San Jose, CA 95129
Global Artificial Intelligence Products Market 2018-2023 Industry Trends, Size, Share, Top Key Players- Open AI, IBM, NEC, Nuance s, Google, Microsoft Corp, Ipsoft, Google, Rocket Fuel Inc, Fingenius Ltd

Global Artificial Intelligence Product Market 2018-2023

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The Artificial Intelligence Product Industry based on geographic classification is studied for industry analysis, size, share, growth, trends, segment, top company analysis, outlook, manufacturing cost structure, capacity, supplier and forecast to 2023. Along with the reports on the global aspect, these reports cater regional aspects as well as global for the organizations.For Sample Copy of this Report Visit @Scope of the Report:Artificial Intelligence Products Market Report covers the comprehensive market, vendor landscape, present scenario, and the growth prospects of the Sensing Artificial Intelligence Products Market for 2018-2023. Report, consists of various factors such as definitions, applications, and classifications. Global Sales Volume, Sales Price and Sales Revenue Analysis are also covered in the Sensing Artificial Intelligence Products Market research report. This report provides valuable information for companies like manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, traders, customers, investors and individuals who have interests in this industry.This report covers the global perspective of Artificial Intelligence Products Industry with regional splits into North America, Europe, china, japan, Southeast Asia, India, apac and Middle East. Where these regions are further dug to the countries which are major contributors to the marketAlong with the reports on the global aspect, these reports cater regional aspects as well for the organizations that have their Artificial Intelligence Products Market gated audience in specific regions (countries) in the world.Global Artificial Intelligence Products Industry is spread across 119 pages, profiling 10 companies and supported with tables and figures.Inquire more or share a question if any before the purchase on this report @Report Coverage:Top Manufactures/vendors of Artificial Intelligence Products market:Open AIIBMNECNuance sGoogleMicrosoft CorpIpsoftGoogleBased on Type:Computer/GPU Chip HardwareCloud HardwareOthersBased on Application:Media & AdvertisingHealthcareAutomotive & TransportationOthersOrder a copy of Global Artificial Intelligence Products Market Report 2018 @what does Report Include?Historic Data: What was the Artificial Intelligence Products Market data (Size, competition, company share, YoY growth rate, etc.) from 2013 to 2018Current Market Status: A comprehensive analysis of current market Size, trends, growth drivers, industry pitfalls, challenges and opportunities for playersMarket Forecast: Report will comment and provide details about market growth and forecast till year 2023.Customization: We can provide following things 1) On request more company profiles (competitors) 2) Data about particular country or region 3) We will incorporate the same with no additional cost (Post conducting feasibility).There are 09 Chapters to deeply display the global Artificial Intelligence Products market.1 Market Overview2 Industry Chain3 Environmental Analysis4 Market Segmentation by Type5 Market Segmentation by Application6 Market Segmentation by Region7 Market Competitive8 Major Vendors9 ConclusionAbout UsOrian Research is one of the most comprehensive collections of market intelligence reports on the World Wide Web. Our reports repository boasts of over 500000+ industry and country research reports from over 100 top publishers. We continuously update our repository so as to provide our clients easy access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, and products. We also specialize in custom research in situations where our syndicate research offerings do not meet the specific requirements of our esteemed clients.Contact Us:Ruwin MendezVice President  Global Sales & Partner RelationsOrian Research ConsultantsUS +1 (415) 830-3727| UK +44 020 8144-71-27Email: info@orianresearch.comWebsite:Follow Us on LinkedIn:
Healthcare Facilities ManagementMarket 2019: Top Key Players are ABM Industries, Ecolab, Inc, UEM Edgenta Berhad, Aramark Corporation, Jones Lang LaSalle, IP, Inc, Mitie Group, OCS Group, Sodexo, Vanguard Resources etc.

Healthcare Facilities ManagementMarket 2019

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Healthcare Facilities ManagementMarket 2019 Report analyses the industry status, size, share, trends, growth opportunity, competition landscape and forecast to 2025. This report also provides data on patterns, improvements, target business sectors, limits and advancements. Furthermore, this research report categorizes the market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.Get Sample Copy of this Report@Global Healthcare Facilities Managementmarket 2019 research provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Global Healthcare Facilities Managementmarket analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status. Development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures are also analyzed. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins.Healthcare Facilities ManagementMarket research report spread across 103 pages with top key manufacturers and list of tables and figures.Inquire more or share questions if any before the purchase on this report @Global Healthcare Facilities Managementmarket competition by TOP MANUFACTURERS, with production, price, revenue (value) and each manufacturer including ABM Industries Ecolab, Inc UEM Edgenta Berhad Aramark Corporation Compass Group Secro Group ISS World Services A/S Jones Lang LaSalle IP, Inc Manutencoop Facility Management S.p.A. (MFM) Medxcel Facility Management .This report studies the top producers and consumers, focuses on product capacity, production, value, consumption, market share and growth opportunity in these key regions, covering North America Europe China Japan Southeast Asia IndiaGlobal Healthcare Facilities ManagementMarket providing information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also carried out. The Global Healthcare Facilities Managementmarket development trends and marketing channels are analyzed. Finally the feasibility of new investment projects are assessed and overall research conclusions offered.With tables and figures helping analyze worldwide Global Healthcare Facilities Managementmarket, this research provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Order a copy of Global Healthcare Facilities ManagementMarket Report 2019 @Market segment by Type, the product can be split into Hard Services Soft ServicesMarket segment by Application, split into Hospitals Clinics ASCsThe study objectives of this report are: To analyze global Healthcare Facilities Managementstatus, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. To present the Healthcare Facilities Managementdevelopment in United States, Europe and China. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies. To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.There are 14 Chapters to deeply display the global Healthcare Facilities ManagementmarketChapter 1: To describe Healthcare Facilities ManagementMarket Overview, Introduction, product scope, market opportunities, Application.Chapter 2: To analyze the Top Manufacturers of Foodservice, with sales, capacity, production, revenue, and price of Foodservice, in 2014 and 2019.Chapter 3: Foodservice, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers with capacity, production, share by region, sales, revenue, gross margine and market share in 2016 and 2017.Chapter 4: To show the global market by regions, supply, consumption, with sales, export-import, revenue and market share of Foodservice, for each region, from 2014 Healthcare Facilities Managementto 2019.Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 To analyze the market by countries, by type, by application and by manufacturers, with sales, analysis by application, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions.Chapter 10 and 11 To show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, strategy analysis and factor analysis from 2014 Healthcare Facilities Managementto 2019.Chapter 12 Healthcare Facilities Managementmarket forecast, by regions, type, with sales and revenue, growth rate, price Forecast from 2019 to 2025 Foodservice.Chapter 13: Connected Foodservice.Chapter 14: To describe Healthcare Facilities Managementsales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.About Us:Research Reports World is the credible source for gaining the market reports that will provide you with the lead your business needs. At Research Reports World, our objective is providing a platform for many top-notch market research firms worldwide to publish their research reports, as well as helping the decision makers in finding most suitable market research solutions under one roof. Our aim is to provide the best solution that matches the exact customer requirements. This drives us to provide you with custom or syndicated research reports.Contact Us:Name: Mr. Ajay MoreEmail: sales@researchreportsworld.comOrganization: Research Reports WorldPhone: +1 408 520 9750/+44 203 239 8187
Contactless Payment Market will Grow in the Upcoming year with Leading Key players : America Express Co, Gemalto N.V, Giesecke & Devrient GmbH, Heartland Payment Systems, Ingenico Group, Inside Secure, MasterCard Worldwide

Contactless Payment

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Worldwide Market Reports has announced the addition of the Global Contactless Payment Market Size Status and Forecast 2022, The report classifies the global Contactless Payment Market in a precise manner to offer detailed insights about the aspects responsible for augmenting as well as restraining market growth.This report studies the global Contactless Payment market, analyzes and researches the Contactless Payment development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, like,America Express Co, Gemalto N.V, Giesecke & Devrient GmbH, Heartland Payment Systems, Ingenico Group, Inside Secure, MasterCard Worldwide, Microsoft Corporation, Oberthur Technologies Sa, On Track innovations, Opus Software Solutions, Paypal Inc, Proxama, PLC, Renesas Electronic Corp, Thales, Verifone Systems, Visa Inc, Wirecard AGRequest a Sample Copy:Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Contactless Payment can be split intoSmart CardsNFC ChipsPoint of Sale TerminalsMobile HandsetsOther DevicesMarket segment by Application, Contactless Payment can be split intoManaged ServicesProfessional ServicesMulti-Channel PaymentTable of ContentsGlobal Contactless Payment Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Contactless Payment2 Global Contactless Payment Competition Analysis by Players3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 America Express Co3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Contactless Payment Revenue (Value) (2013-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Gemalto N.V3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Contactless Payment Revenue (Value) (2013-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Giesecke & Devrient GmbH3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Contactless Payment Revenue (Value) (2013-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Heartland Payment Systems3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Contactless Payment Revenue (Value) (2013-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Inside Secure3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Contactless Payment Revenue (Value) (2013-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 MasterCard Worldwide4 Global Contactless Payment Market Size by Type and Application (2013-2017)5 United States Contactless Payment Development Status and Outlook6 EU Contactless Payment Development Status and Outlook7 Japan Contactless Payment Development Status and Outlook8 China Contactless Payment Development Status and Outlook9 India Contactless Payment Development Status and Outlook10 Southeast Asia Contactless Payment Development Status and Outlook11 Market Forecast by Regions, Type and Application (2017-2022)12 Contactless Payment Market DynamicsElse place an Inquire before Purchase Global Contactless Payment Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022:About Us:Worldwide Market Reports is your one-stop repository of detailed and in-depth market research reports compiled by an extensive list of publishers from across the globe. We offer reports across virtually all domains and an exhaustive list of sub-domains under the sun. The in-depth market analysis by some of the most vastly experienced analysts provide our diverse range of clients from across all industries with vital decision making insights to plan and align their market strategies in line with current market trends. Worldwide Market Researchs well-researched inputs that encompass domains ranging from IT to healthcare enable our prized clients to capitalize upon key growth opportunities and shield against credible threats prevalent in the market in the current scenario and those expected in the near future.Contact :Mr. ShahWorldwide Market ReportsTel: +1 415 871 0703Email: sales@worldwidemarketreports.comVisit our news Website:
Pericardium Diseases Market Expected To Grow at a CAGR of 8.2% with Teva Pharmaceutical, GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Novartis AG, Arthrex, Inc., Medtronic, Edwards Lifesciences, Abbott Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. Etc

Pericardium Diseases Market

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The Global Pericardium Diseases Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~8.2 % during the forecast period 2017-2023. The pericardium is a double-layered, tough, collagenous membrane, which surrounds the heart. They play an important role in the protection of the health from external shock. Nowadays, a number of companies manufacture artificial tissue membrane, which is widely used in the surgical procedures of pelvic floor reconstruction and bariatric stomach reduction. Many factors are responsible for the diseases, which includes infections, heart surgery, trauma, cancer and many other diseases. Pericarditis is the most common type of the disease. It affects people of all ages, however, men between 20 years-50 years are more likely to develop the disease. In 15%-30% cases, it develops into chronic pericarditis. Increasing prevalence of pericarditis across the globe is a major driver of the market. According to the Health Grades Inc, 1 in every 2,000 individual have pericarditis. Additionally, high healthcare expenditure, increasing demand for the better treatment, and rising number of patients with heart diseases are providing support for the growth of the market. However, available treatments are costly and are not affordable to peoples in developing countries. Thus, the high cost of the treatment may slow the growth of the market.Get Complementary Sample Pages atKey Players in Global Pericardium Market:Some of key the players in the market are Smith and Nephew (U.K), Teva Pharmaceutical (Isreal), GlaxoSmithKline Plc. (U.K), Novartis AG (Switzerland), Eli Lilly and Company (U.S.), Arthrex, Inc.(U.S.), Medtronic (U.K), Edwards Lifesciences (U.S.), Abbott Laboratories (U.S.), Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. (U.S.), C.R. Bard Inc (U.S.)Allergan (U.S.), Integra Lifesciences (U.S.), Livanova(U.K), and Zimmer Biomet (U.S.)Pericardium Diseases Market Segmentation:The Global Pericardium Diseases Market is segmented on the basis of types, treatment, and end users.On the basis of the types, the market is segmented into acute pericarditis, hemopericardium, pericarditis, tuberculous pericarditis, and others.On the basis of the treatment, the market is segmented into diagnostic test, and disease treatment. The diagnostic treatment is further segmented into the physical exam, EKG, chest X-ray, echocardiography, cardiac CT, cardiac MRI, and others. The diseases treatment is sub-segmented into anti-inflammatory drugs, pericardium patches, surgery, and others.On the basis of the end users, the market is segmented into hospital & clinics, ambulatory centers, and others.Global Pericardium Diseases Market Regional Analysis:The Americas account for the major share of the global pericardium diseases market owing to the increasing number of patients with pericardium diseases, well-developed technology, and increasing government support for research & development. Additionally, high healthcare expenditure and changing lifestyle have fuelled the growth of the Americas pericardium diseases market. Presence of major players in this region is likely to support the growth of the market during the forecasted period.Europe holds the second largest pericardium diseases market, which is followed by Asia Pacific. Strong government support and availability of the funds for research & development have driven the market growth. Germany and the U.K are the major contributors to the market. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing pericardium diseases market owing to the presence rapidly developing the economy, increasing the prevalence of cancer and other heart diseases, and increasing government support.Browse Complete 130 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with Respective Tables and Figures atOn the other hand, the Middle East & Africa hold the least share of the market due to poor political conditions in Africa, and limited availability of funds and medical facilities. The Middle East dominates the Middle East & Africa pericardium disease market due to the presence of well-developed countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and South Arabia. However, due to the presence of a huge opportunity for the development of the market, Africa region is expecting a healthy growth.MAJOR TABLE OF CONTENS: Global Pericardium Diseases Market Research Report- Forecast Till 20231 INTRODUCTION1.1 Definition1.2 Scope Of The Study1.2.1 Research Objectives1.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations1.3 Market Structure2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2.1 Research Process2.2 Primary Research2.3 Secondary Research2.4 Forecast Model3 REPORT EXCERPT4 FORECAST INDICATORS4.1 Introduction4.2 Growth Drivers4.3 Growth Barriers4.4 Growth OpportunitiesTOC Continued.!Send an Enquiry atAbout US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
2019 Clinical Trial Management System Market Study by Top Industry Players - PAREXEL International Corporation, Wipro Limited, GCP-Service International Ltd. & Co. KG, Oracle, Bioclinica, Covance Inc.

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The Global Clinical Trial Management System Market Report by MRFR stretches out accurate and descriptive details through the range of years 2018-2023. This Industry report comprises interior and outside exploration and bits of comprehension of Clinical Trial Management System Market.Market ScenarioClinical Trial Management System (CTMS) is a solution (software) designed for managing clinical trials of drug discoveries. CTMSs are specially designed for biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries to maintain and manage the planning, performing and reporting functions, alongside participant contact information, tracking deadlines, and milestones.Clinical trials are overwhelming involving thousands of people, hundreds of investigative sites, multiple CROs, various eClinical source systems, and the massive amounts of data generated by these all.GET SAMPLE REPORT DETAILS @In such a scenario, the powerful end-to-end clinical trials management systems bring control, efficiency, and quality data to every study. Web-based CTMS works on the go, allowing to view and manage real-time operational performance wherever and whenever.Over the last decade, the pharmaceutical industry is growing by leaps and bound due to the ever-increasing population prompting a tremendous need for effective treatment and care. As a result, R&D activities for novel drug discoveries and contract manufacturing (CMOs) are increasing too, leading to escalating the market on the global platform.Recognizing the potential of this market to grow further, Market Research Future (MRFR) in its recently published study report asserts that the global clinical trial management system market is expected to evaluate at an exponential value by 2023, registering an impressive CAGR throughout the forecast period (2018  2023).Additional factors fostering the market growth include the extensive demand for these systems and the presence of a large number of healthcare IT companies providing client-specific software solutions. Simultaneously, the availability of user-friendly software solutions that are enhancing the performance of clinical trials is contributing to the growth of the CTMS market.On the other hand, slightly higher cost of these systems acts as a headwind, impeding the market growth. However, the efficiency and efficacy of these systems that enhance the overall management of clinical trials are expected to support the market growth over the forecast period.Leading Industry Key PlayersFervent players leading the global clinical trial management system market include Forte Research Systems Inc., Oracle, eClinForce, Inc., Medidata Solutions, PAREXEL, iWeb Technologies, Bioclinica, and Bio-Optronics.Clinical Trial Management System (CTMS) Market  Regional AnalysisThe CTMS market in the North American region accounts for the largest market, globally. Some factors that are propelling the market growth in the region include increasing digital advancements in medical technology, extensive uptake of CTMS, and the presence of healthcare IT companies that are quadrupling by numbers.Also, the augmenting demand for user-friendly systems along with the importance of clinical data contributes to market growth. Furthermore, the increasing rate of ongoing clinical trials in this region is driving the regional market.OBTAIN PREMIUM RESEARCH REPORT @The European region accounts for another lucrative market for clinical trial management system standing the second position. The market is growing with the augmenting demand for CTMS across CMOs and CTOs.Certainly, the resurging economy in the region is a dominant factor substantiating the market growth, increasing healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. Also, the increased government funding in the rising numbers of R&D activities for the drug discoveries provides impetus to the market growth in the region.The CTMS market in the Asia Pacific region is rapidly emerging as a promising market. Burgeoning healthcare sector along with the spreading awareness about the use of IT in clinical trial management defines the market landscape in the region. Also, rapidly improving economic conditions along with the market penetration of healthcare technology in the region provide impetus to market growth.Global Clinical Trial Management System (CTMS) Market  SegmentsMRFR has segmented its analysis into five key dynamics for enhanced understanding.By Type : Enterprise Clinical Trial Management System and Site Clinical Trial Management SystemBy Delivery Model : Web-based (Hosted CTMS), Licensed Enterprise, and Cloud-based CTMS.By Component : Software and Services.By End-user : Medical Device Manufacturers, Pharmaceutical & Biopharmaceutical Companies, Contract Research Organizations and others.By Regions : North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest-of-the-World.Competitive LandscapeHighly competitive clinical trial management system market appears to be fragmented owing to the presence of many large and small-scale players along with new entrants churning competition in the market. Key players are adopting strategic trends such as collaboration, M&A activities, and innovations seeking market expansion continually.These players increasingly invest in R&D activities to develop cost-effective solutions. They possess state of the art facilities to develop software and strong sales and distribution network which have helped them to gain the leadership position in the market.Industry/ Innovation /Related NewsDecember 18, 2018  Novotech Pty Limited (Australia), APACs one of the largest CMO announced that it is investing in implementing Oracles trial management service systems to support its footprint within the APAC region. According to Novotech, this will enable it to have the largest trial management system in the region.December 19, 2018  Spirita Oncology, LLC (US), an integrated oncology research and development company announced that it had initiated global clinical development of E6201 in Collaboration with JS InnoPharm (China) under the strategic partnership alliance and sub-license agreement. E6201 is a potent MEK1 inhibitor with excellent brain penetration.On November 26, 2018, Spirita Oncology and The University of Arizona Cancer Center announced the Initiation of Phase 1 clinical trial of the E6201 in patients with central nervous system metastases from BRAF+ or MEK-mutated metastatic melanoma.November 21, 2018 -- Adaptive Clinical Systems (US), a provider of cloud-based services that provides interoperability and data integration announced its partnership with Medidata Solutions (US), an eClinical software service company that develops solutions for research collaboration in clinical trials.GET EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT @Some Points form TOC for Clinical Trial Management System Market Research Report  Forecast to 2023Chapter 1. Report PrologueChapter 2. Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope of the Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 LimitationsChapter 3. Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size EstimationChapter 4. Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restrains4.3 Opportunities4.4 Challenges4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators4.6 Technology Trends & AssessmentChapter 5. Market Factor Analysis5.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis5.1.1 Bargaining Power of SuppliersTOC ContinuedAbout Us:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Office No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
British political system has come full circle over the issue of parting ways with the EU. The voting down of Prime Minister Theresa May's agreed plan with Brussels by historic margin of 432-202 has exposed her country's political fault lines and dimmed its chances of a smooth exit.



The meaningful vote was initially scheduled for December 11, but then delayed by May. The idea behind this seemed to be that recalcitrant lawmakers would be forced to endorse her controversial agreement due to lack of time to address their expressed reservations ahead of March 29 deadline.

However, the plan has backfired spectacularly, leaving May in limbo. Not only has it increased confusion about how the divorce should become effective, but also threatens her future in office.

Though, she survived a no-confidence move by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn the following day, May's performance is being minutely scanned both at home and abroad, and especially in Brussels.

There are several unanswered questions about her style of leadership, as her handling of the crisis has shown the kind of sagacity needed to handle such a delicate issue as the EU divorce.

After Tuesday's humiliation, she did show a willingness to start consultations with the various political groupings in an effort to achieve a consensus before facing the House of Commons early next week when she is supposed to come up with an alternative Brexit deal.

Her challenge is not just from the opposition, but also how to regain support of those Conservative backbenchers who joined opposition MPs and voted against the initial deal.

The time is short and the stakes are high. Another defeat would leave the Prime Minister with little alternative to a disorderly exit without a formal deal. This would have grave implications for all spheres of British life  ranging from the security issues to business and immigration matters.

Events since the Brexit referendum in 2016 show how the entire issue has been mishandled. There is a clear mismatch between what the people had in their minds when they voted for Brexit and what their MPs thought on this important issue. In other words, the people on the street and their representatives in Westminster are simply not on the same page.

Politicians both on the right and left have used the EU as a punching bag to vent popular anger against multiple failures at the domestic level. Instead of showing light to a bewildered nation, the leaders offered fantasies.

That is why, after more than two years of talks and speculations, the leadership has nothing solid in hand to satisfy the public, who now consider terms like "hard Brexit" and a "softer Brexit" as mere diversions.

The bottom line is that a majority of the people who cast votes in the referendum chose "leave" and, in a democracy, their will should be honored and implemented whether there is a deal or no deal with Brussels.

Theresa May should realize she became the Prime Minister when her predecessor bowed out after losing the Brexit referendum, with a mandate to organize an orderly exit. Instead of forging unity, she squandered valuable time in electioneering and drawing up plans without taking her own party members and opposition on board.



May is not willing to step down or seek another referendum, even though she is losing the moral high ground as well as initiative to deliver.

So, can she save her government if she succeeds to gaining further concessions from the EU. One way for Brussels to rescue her could be by extending the deadline for final exit for a while.

May can also work on a no-deal exit scenario if parliament agrees to support her. As a last resort to restore her leadership, she can also announce new elections and try to come back with new mandate.

Timing is always vital in politics. Any more delay will bring pressure on her to make way for another leader.

The Brexit referendum has steered the U.K. into uncharted waters. Brexit has become merely the first stop on this journey; the final destination remains unsure.

This is the price the British people have to pay for a decision that was based more on emotion than on thoughtful calculation.

Sajjad Malik is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:





http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SajjadMalik.htm





Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Plastic Compounding Market Projected to exceed $50 Bn demand in 2024 | Key Players are RTP Company, LyondellBasell, A. Schulman, Inc., SABIC, Solvay, BASF BCN etc.

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According to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. Plastic Compounding Market Size will surpass USD 50 billion by 2024.Significant market players include: A. Schulman, RTP Company, Dow Chemical, LyondellBasell Industries, BASF, SABIC, Solvay, etc. Various research initiatives are constantly taken up by companies to improve the production capacity.Get a Sample copy of this Report @North America constituted approximately 18% of the global market share for plastic compounding in 2016. Presence of packaging giants as International Paper, Tetrapak, Reynolds Group, Ball Corporation and Owens-Illinois will have a positive impact on plastics demand in the region. Rising thermoplastic elastomer usage in sports equipment, paving & roofing, personal hygienic products and medical equipment will boost the regional plastic compounding market growth. Strong demand for 3D printing from aerospace and defense, healthcare, education, and consumer products industries will also boost the plastic compound market size particularly in the U.S.Plastic compounding market will witness substantial demand in consumer goods by 2024. Plastics are used in consumer goods for a wide range of applications, including food packaging, furniture, household appliances, toys, etc. Packaging is integral to the delivery of safe, high-quality consumer products. Various household electrical appliances will have substantial demand for plastics in the coming years. PVC is widely used to insulate electric wiring, while thermosetting plastics are used for switches, light fittings and handles. 3D printing applications, innovative packaging techniques for consumer goods and surging demand for bioplastics will be few significant trends driving the global plastic compounding market by 2024.Global plastic compounding market for thermoplastic polymers was valued at over USD 18 billion in 2016. Thermoplastic polymers are estimated to lead the global plastic compounding market by 2024. The higher demand will be attributed to their re-usable nature, wide range of applications and lower manufacturing costs compared to the other segments.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Plastic compounding market research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry with estimates & forecast in terms of volume in kilo tons & revenue in USD million from 2013 to 2024, for the following segments:Plastic Compounding Market, Product by End-userThermoplastic Polymers-PolyethylenePolypropylenePolyesterPolycarbonatePolyethylene TerephthalatePolyvinyl ChlorideThermosetting Polymers-Polyurethane ResinEpoxy ResinOthersThermoplastic Elastomers-PolyamidesPolyurethanesSBCOthersPlastic Compounding Market by End-userConsumer GoodsElectrical & ElectronicsConstructionAutomotiveAerospaceOthersThermoplastic elastomers segment was valued more than USD 7 billion in 2016. Thermoplastic elastomers have progressed as a substitute for metal, synthetic or natural rubber, wood, glass, etc. Cumulative expenditure in medical, automotive and construction sectors in addition to the supervisory compliances for sustainable product development will propel the plastic compounding market for thermoplastic elastomers by 2024.Consumer goods was a key end-user segment in global plastic compounding market in 2016. The segment generated above USD 7 billion in 2016 and is projected to witness extensive gains by 2024. Plastic compounding market for consumer goods will have substantial demand for packaging, household appliances, furnishing applications, etc. in the coming years. Consumer goods is projected to be the fastest growing segment over the forecast period.Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:
Biologics Market 2019-2027 Growth Analysis - Research Covers Top 10 Players as AbbVie, GlaxoSmithKline plc., Johnson and Johnson, Novartis, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb etc.

Biologics Market

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Global Biologics Market - Key PlayersAbbVie, Amgen, Biogen Idec, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline plc., Johnson and Johnson, Merck and Co., Merck KGaA, Novartis, Pfizer, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, and Sanofi are some of the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the Global Biologics Market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.Global Biologics Market - SegmentsGlobal Biologics market has been segmented on the basis of product type which comprises of vaccines, blood and blood products, allergenic extracts, human cells and tissues, proteins, gene therapies, cellular therapies, xenotransplantation products and others. On the basis of applications, which consist of Rheumatoid arthritis, renal failure, Anemia, Cancer, Diabetes and others. On the basis of Source, which consist of Humans, Avian Cell Culture, Yeast, Bacteria, Insects Cell Culture, Transgenics and others.Get Sample Report @Global Biologics Market  OverviewBiologics are compounds of pharmaceutical importance such as sugars, proteins, and nucleic acids or complex combinations of these substances, or they can be living entities by themselves which are inclusive of such cells and tissues. Biologics can be isolated from natural sources including human beings, animal, or microorganism, and may be produced by biotechnological procedures through various cutting-edge technologies.The Global Biologics Market is growing with a sound pace. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, the Global Biologics Market is booming and expected to gain prominence over the forecast period. The market is projected to demonstrate a sound growth by 2027, surpassing its previous growth records in terms of value with a striking CAGR during the anticipated period (2017  2027).Market Drivers and Restraints:The global market for biologics is majorly driven by the availability of wide range of biologics such as vaccines, allergenics, blood, blood components, somatic cells, tissues, gene therapies, living cells used in cell therapy and recombinant therapeutic protein. The increasing number of individuals with chronic and acute diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, anemia and others, that involves biologics in their treatment is inducing demand for biologics or biologic drugs in the global market.The growing approval of patient-centric and personalized medicines and increasing resistance towards conventional drugs are impacting positively on the expansion of the global biologics market. The increasing inclination towards the adoption of medicines that are derived from natural sources owing to the high rate of side-effects caused by the conventional chemically synthesized drugs is creating traction for biologics in the global market, resulting in the expansion of the global biologics market.The high success rate in terms of approval of biologic drugs has created a broad pathway of opportunities for the manufacturers, which in turn is fueling the growth of the global biologics market. The increased research and development expenditure by the pharmaceutical companies has led to the introduction of new and efficient biologic drugs in the global market, leading to the expansion of the global biologics market. However, the high capital investment for research and development of biologics, high cost of biologics and development of biosimilars are likely to act as a restraint on the growth of the global biologics market.Global Biologics Market - Competitive AnalysisWell established players incorporate acquisition, collaboration, partnership, expansion, and product launch in order to gain competitive advantage in this market and to maintain their market position.Merck KGaA is one of the prominent players in the Global Biologics Market and is headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany. In January 2017, the company acquired acquired BioControl Systems Inc., a global leader in food safety testing. The acquisition opened growth opportunities for Merck in the food and beverage space; particularly in the U.S.In August 2016, FDA approved Pfizer's TROXYCA ER extended-release capsules CII for pain management. This drug is used for abuse-deterrent properties for the management of pain and will help Pfizer to improve their goodwill and sales with this new productIn April 2017, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. FDA for the CINtec Histology test. This test is the only clinically validated p16 biomarker test. The CINtec Histology test will help physicians make informed decisions as to the best course of care for patients with high-grade pre-cancerous cervical disease.Browse Complete 80 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 30+ Respective Tables and Figures @Global Biologics Market - Regional AnalysisGeographically, the North America has the largest biologic drug market. Due to increasing prevalence of diseases like Cancer and diabetes in the North America is the major factor for the growth of the market. North America is followed by Europe in biologic market. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region for biologic market. Biologic market growth of Asia Pacific is majorly driven by Japan, China and India. Beside this a huge population base in this region has provided a fuel for the growth of the market. Middle East and Africa has the least biologic market.Major Table of ContentChapter 1. Report PrologueChapter 2. Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope of the Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 LimitationsChapter 3. Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size EstimationChapter 4. Market DynamicsContinued.To Know More Enquire @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.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com
Travel Insurance Market Competitive Analysis to 2025: Allianz, AIG, Munich Re (Group), Generali, AXA, Tokio Marine HCC, Sompo Japan Sigorta, MAPFRE ASISTENCIA and Seven Corners, Inc.

Travel Insurance Market

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This Travel Insurance Market report aims to examine the developments of market including its market improvement, development, position and others. The Travel Insurance market emphases on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis. This report also contains a deep knowledge on what the markets definition, classifications, applications, and engagements are while also explaining the drivers and restrains of the Travel Insurance market which is derived from SWOT analysis.This report studies sales (consumption) of market, focuses on the top players, with sales, price, revenue and market share with volume and value for each region.Some Of the Key Players in Travel Insurance Market Include: Allianz AIG Munich Re (Group) Generali AXA Tokio Marine HCC Sompo Japan Sigorta MAPFRE ASISTENCIA Seven Corners, Inc. USI AffinityRequest Sample Copy of the Report @A chocolate candy bar is a candy bar that has chocolate liquor and cocoa butter as the main ingredients.This report presents a comprehensive overview, market shares, and growth opportunities of Travel Insurance market by product type, application, key manufacturers and key regions and countries.This report focuses on the global Travel Insurance status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Travel Insurance development in United States, Europe and China.Products Type Covered: Single Trip Annual Multi-trip Long-StayApplications Covered: Family Traveler Senior Citizens Business Traveler OthersRequest for Report Brochure for Latest Industry Insights @Major Table of Contents:1 Travel Insurance Market Overview2 Global Travel Insurance Competition by Players3 Global Travel Insurance Competition by Types4 Global Travel Insurance Competition by Application5 Global Travel Insurance Production Market Analysis by Region6 Global Travel Insurance Sales Market Analysis by Region7 Imports and Exports Market Analysis8 Global Travel Insurance Players Profiles and Sales Data9 Travel Insurance Upstream and Downstream Analysis10 Global Travel Insurance Market Forecast (2017-2022)11 Research Findings and ConclusionInquire More or Share Questions if any before the Purchase on This Report @Insights of the report CAGR values in the market for the forecast period Key trends in the market place Major players and brands Drivers and restrains of the market Historical and current market size and projection up to 2025.Note: Any special requirements about this report, please let us know and we can provide custom report.About Research for Markets:Research for Markets indulges in detailed and diligent research on different markets, trends and emerging opportunities in the successive direction to cater to your business needs. We have established the pillars of our flourishing institute on the grounds of Credibility and Reliability. RFM delve into the markets across Asia Pacific, North America, South America, Europe, Middle East and Africa.Contact:Mr. A NaiduResearch for MarketsTel: +44 8000-4182-37 (UK)Email: alan.naidu@researchformarkets.com
Global Driver Safety Systems Market 2019  Comprehensive analysis with Top Trends, Size, Share, Future Growth Opportunities & Forecast by 2025 | Robert Bosch GmbH, Continental AG, Seeing Machines, Magna International Inc.

Driver Safety Systems Market

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Market Overview of the Report:The global Driver Safety Systems Market report analyses various tendencies, obstructions, and challenges faced by the key competitors of Driver Safety Systems Industry. The report has been prepared analyzing major outcomes and consequences of the market.Here, you can avail Sample PDF pages for this report:This report studies the Driver Safety Systems market status and outlook of global and major regions, from angles of players, regions, product and end Application/industries; this report analyzes the top players in global and major regions, and splits the Driver Safety Systems market by product and Application/end industries.The Major Companies Covered in this Report are: Robert Bosch GmbH, Continental AG, Seeing Machines, Magna International Inc., Valeo S.A., Smart Eye AB, Denso Corporation, Infineon Technologies AG.The prime objective of this Driver Safety Systems Industry report is to help the user understand the market in terms of its definition, segmentation, market potential, influential trends, and the challenges that the market is facing. Deep researches and analysis were done during the preparation of the report. The readers will find this report very helpful in understanding the market in depth. The data and the information regarding the Driver Safety Systems market are taken from reliable sources such as websites, annual reports of the companies, journals, and others and were checked and validated by the industry experts. The facts and data are represented in the report using diagrams, graphs, pie charts, and other pictorial representations. This enhances the visual representation and also helps in understanding the facts much better.Get Discount on this Report:Major Types of Driver Safety Systems covered are: Eye-Tracking, Facial Expressions, Heart Rate-Monitoring, Steering Angle Sensor (SAS), Lane Departure System.Major end-user applications for Driver Safety Systems market: Aftermarkets, OEMs.Points Covered in The Report:The points that are discussed within the report are the major Driver Safety Systems market players that are involved in the market such as manufacturers, raw material suppliers, equipment suppliers, end users, traders, distributors and etc.The complete profile of the companies is mentioned. And the capacity, production, price, revenue, cost, gross, gross margin, sales volume, sales revenue, consumption, growth rate, import, export, supply, future strategies, and the technological developments that they are making are also included within the report. The historical data from 2012 to 2017 and forecast data from 2018 to 2025.The growth factors of the Driver Safety Systems market is discussed in detail wherein the different end users of the market are explained in detail.Data and information by manufacturer, by region, by type, by application and etc, and custom research can be added according to specific requirements.The report contains the SWOT analysis of the market. Finally, the report contains the conclusion part where the opinions of the industrial experts are included.At last, the global Driver Safety Systems Market offers an overall research conclusion and a market feasibility of investing in new projects is evaluated. Global Driver Safety Systems Market is a valuable source of guidance and way for individuals and companies interested in the sales of the market.Get a Full Access of This Report Here @Garner Insights is a Market Intelligence and consulting firm with an all-inclusive experience and vast knowledge of the market research industry. Our vast storage of research reports across various categories gives you a complete view of the ever-changing and developing trends and current topics worldwide. Our constant endeavor is to keep on improving our storage information by providing rich market reports and constantly improving them.Office C & D - 4th Floor, Siddhi Towers, Above Rupee Bank, Kondhwa Road, Pune 411048, Maharashtra, India.
Laser Printer Market 2019 Global Leaders Overview: Lexmark International, Kyocera, Seiko Epson, HP, Canon, Brother Industries, Fuji Xerox, The Ricoh Company

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Market Research Future published a research report on Laser Printer Market Research Report- Global Forecast 2023  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2023.Market ScenarioMajor giants like HP, Canon, Samsung and Brother are considered to be the key players in the laser printer market owing to the market share they capture. HP has been dominating the overall laser printer market owing to the increasing demand from various industry verticals. HP is followed by Canon and Samsung Electronics in terms of market share.North America region holds the largest market share of global laser printer market followed by Europe and Asia Pacific regions. The growth is North America region is mainly dominated by U.S. and Canada and is attributed to the increasing demand for mobile communication and consumer electronics in the region. The region also has a well-established infrastructure which allows implementation of advanced technologies.Get Sample of Report @Laser printer market has been segmented on the basis of type and end user. The type segment is further bifurcated into single function and multi-function laser printers. Out of which, multi-function printers are expected to hold the largest market share and also grow at a significant rate during the forecast period. This is owing to the increasing demand for multi-function printers across various industry verticals and increasing initiatives from vendors and government. Growing number of government kiosk centers is another major factor driving the penetration of multi-function printers and eventually driving the growth of laser printer market.Major factor driving the growth of Laser Printer Market is the increasing demand for advanced printing technologies in order to improve productivity and efficiency or the entire workflow. Laser printer basically makes sue of a photocopier technology. It makes use of a laser beam to produce an image on a drum. Laser printers are capable of generating a very high quality print and with unlimited set of fonts. Laser printers are non-impact printers and are simplex in nature. Laser printers are cost effective as well as have great output speeds in comparison to the inkjet printers.The global laser printer market is expected to grow at approx. USD 2,322 Million by 2023, at 16% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.Industry Updates:Jan 2018 The Brother Company has released a range of new printers and all-in-ones. The complete list of devices comprises of three printers: the Brother HL-L2370DW, HL-L2350DW and HL-L2370DW XL. There are also three more devices that are a part of the multifunction devices range capable of copying, printing and scanning such as the Brother HL-L2395DW, HL-L2390DW and DCP-L2550DW. The additions across the product range includes auto-fulfillment with options together with Amazon Dash Replenishment and Brother Refresh, which implies that the replacement toner cartridges will routinely be dispatched before the printer runs out of ink.Mar 2018 HP Inc which has an established presence as the leader in printing across the world, recently presented the new HP LaserJet Pro M15 and M28 series which is expected to be the smallest laser in its category. This product is designed to give small and micro business owners unmatched productive and fast printing that can be adapted for any requirement or environment. The product which is 30% smaller than the previous generation, feature a sleek and compact design that can fit nearly anywhere.Key PlayersThe prominent players in laser printer market are  HP (U.S.), Canon, Inc. (Japan), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (South Korea), Brother Industries, Ltd. (Japan), Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. (Japan), Dell, Inc. (U.S.), OKI Electric (Japan), The Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Japan), Lexmark International, Inc. (U.S.), Kyocera Corporation (Japan), Seiko Epson Corporation (Japan) and others.Laser Printer Market SegmentationThe laser printer market has been segmented on the basis of type and end user. The type segment is further bifurcated into single function and multi-function printer. Out of which, the multi-function laser printer being the more popular one and holding the largest market share of the laser printer market. Multi-function printers are being increasingly implemented in SMEs and large enterprises owing to its cost effectiveness and multi-functional capabilities.Regional AnalysisThe regional analysis of laser printer industry includes regions such as North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Rest of the World. It has been witnessed that the North American market is projected to account for the major share of the market, while the Asia-Pacific market is anticipated to develop at the fastest rate through the forecast period. The major development in the laser printer industry in the North American region is credited to technical progresses and growing demand from many industry verticals in that region.Get Complete Report @Intended Audience Technology Investors Research/Consultancy Firms Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) Printer Manufacturers Corporate Offices Government InstitutionsAbout Us: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.Media Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Regenerative Braking Systems Market - In-Depth Analysis with Booming Trends Supporting Growth and Forecast till 2024 | Key Players - ADVICS, Bosch, Continental, Hitachi, TRW, APG, Youfin etc

Regenerative Braking Systems Market

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Global Regenerative Braking Systems Market Report 2019 - Market Size, Share, Price, Trend and Forecast is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Regenerative Braking Systems industry. Its vast repository provides important statistics and analytical data to give a complete understanding of the market. The report is beneficial for strategists and industry players to plan their future business strategies. The research report on the Regenerative Braking Systems market includes an evaluation of all critical aspects underlying it, and this factor which is valuable & supportive to the business.Get Sample Copy of this Report -The Global Regenerative Braking Systems market 2019 research provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Global Regenerative Braking Systems market analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status. Development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures are also analyzed. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins.Key segments covered in this report:Geography segment, end use/application segment and competitor segment. The key countries in each region are taken into consideration as well, such as United States, China, Japan, India, Korea, ASEAN, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, CIS, and Brazil etc. For end use/application segment, this report focuses on the status and outlook for key applications. End users also can be listed.Analysis of Regenerative Braking Systems Industry Key Manufacturers: ADVICS, Bosch, Continental, Hitachi, TRW, APG, Youfin at el.No. of Pages in this Report: 147Inquire more or share questions if any before the purchase on this report @The key insights of the report:1.The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Regenerative Braking Systems manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry.2.The report provides a basic overview of the industry including its definition, applications and manufacturing technology.3.The report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2013-2018 market shares for key vendors.4.The total market is further divided by company, by country, and by application/type for the competitive landscape analysis.5.The report estimates 2019-2024 market development trends of Regenerative Braking Systems industry.6.Analysis of upstream raw materials, downstream demand, and current market dynamics is also carried out7.The report makes some important proposals for a new project of Regenerative Braking Systems Industry before evaluating its feasibility.With tables and figures helping analyze worldwide Global Regenerative Braking Systems market, this research provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.For competitor segment, the report includes global key players of Regenerative Braking Systems Market as well as some small players. The information for each competitor includes: Company Profile Main Business Information SWOT Analysis Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin Market ShareMajor chapters covered in Regenerative Braking Systems Market Research are:Chapter 1 Executive SummaryChapter 2 Abbreviation and AcronymsChapter 3 PrefaceChapter 4 Market LandscapeChapter 5 Market Trend AnalysisChapter 6 Industry Chain AnalysisChapter 7 Latest Market DynamicsChapter 8 Trading AnalysisChapter 9 Historical and Current Regenerative Braking Systems Market in North America (2014-2019)Chapter 10 Historical and Current Regenerative Braking Systems Market in South America (2014-2019)Chapter 11 Historical and Current Regenerative Braking Systems Market in Asia & Pacific (2014-2019)Chapter 12 Historical and Current Regenerative Braking Systems Market in Europe (2014-2019)Chapter 13 Historical and Current Regenerative Braking Systems Market in MEA (2014-2019)Chapter 14 Summary for Global Regenerative Braking Systems Market (2014-2019)Chapter 15 Global Regenerative Braking Systems Market Forecast (2019-2024)Chapter 16 Company ProfileOrder a copy of Global Regenerative Braking Systems Market Report 2019 @Reasons to Purchase this Report: Analyzing the outlook of the market with the recent trends and SWOT analysis Market dynamics scenario, along with growth opportunities of the market in the years to come Market segmentation analysis including qualitative and quantitative research incorporating the impact of economic and non-economic aspects Regional and country level analysis integrating the demand and supply forces that are influencing the growth of the market. Market value (USD Million) and volume (Units Million) data for each segment and sub-segment Competitive landscape involving the market share of major players, along with the new projects and strategies adopted by players in the past five years Comprehensive company profiles covering the product offerings, key financial information, recent developments, SWOT analysis, and strategies employed by the major market players 1-year analyst support, along with the data support in excel format.Few Points from List of Tables and Figures:Table Abbreviation and Acronyms ListTable Research Scope of Regenerative Braking Systems reportTable Primary Sources of Regenerative Braking Systems reportTable Secondary Sources of Regenerative Braking Systems reportTable Major Assumptions of Regenerative Braking Systems reportTable Regenerative Braking Systems ClassificationTable Regenerative Braking Systems Applications ListTable Drivers of Regenerative Braking Systems MarketTable Restraints of Regenerative Braking Systems MarketContinuedAbout UsOrian Research is one of the most comprehensive collections of market intelligence reports on the World Wide Web. Our reports repository boasts of over 500000+ industry and country research reports from over 100 top publishers. We continuously update our repository so as to provide our clients easy access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, and products. We also specialize in custom research in situations where our syndicate research offerings do not meet the specific requirements of our esteemed clients.Contact UsRuwin MendezVice President  Global Sales & Partner RelationsOrian Research ConsultantsUS: +1 (415) 830-3727 | UK: +44 020 8144-71-27Email: info@orianresearch.comWebsite:Follow Us on LinkedIn:
Home Medical Equipment Market 2025 | B. Braun Melsungen AG, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, GE Healthcare, Abbott, AstraZeneca, Baxter, ResMed, CareFusion Corporation, Hospira, Inc.

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The worldwide home medical equipment utilization pattern will rely upon epidemiological and demographic improvement such as China and India to outcome in the expansion of the home medical equipment market. Expanded efforts in the battle against chronic ailments, for example, cancer, kidney disorders, and respiratory diseases will support the requirement for home restorative devices. The products, for example, ventilators, continuous positive airway products, portable oxygen concentrators along with different accessories will experience the quickest increment in sales in this market. Rising number of baby boomer and an expansion in the number of inhabitants in aged individuals on a worldwide scale will likewise aid the development of this market.Advancement in the comfort in taking care of and use of these types of equipment because of the increment in chronically sick patients will make a quick increment in demand. The home IV devices category will likewise encounter upward expansion as an intense control in outpatient visits along with shorter hospital stays will prompt an expansion in the number of cancer and other chronic ailment patients to be administrated parenteral nutrition along with other restorative modalities at home.Request For Report Sample:Technological advancement, cost-saving benefits, increase in disposable income of customers and growing healthcare expenditure are moreover a few of the key aspects driving the expansion of the global market for home medical equipment. Also, raising awareness concerning the cost-effectiveness and conveniences presented by home medical equipment along with repositioning of treatment cases from hospitals to home, as a result of high hospital spending are considered to boost the home medical equipment market. On the other hand, effectiveness and safety issue are a few of the key indicators restraining the expansion of the global market for home medical equipment.The home medical equipment market has changed amid an ongoing couple of years, attributable to oxygen-related products in the market are gaining high acceptance, because of increment in the frequency of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) cases. Various devices are utilized for patient care at home, for instance, wheelchair, infusion pumps, glucose meters, apnea monitors, and cannula. For example, glucometers or glucose meters are routinely utilized at home to assess the glucose level for diabetics in blood. Additionally, new advancements, for example, medication administration equipment, needle-free diabetic care along with durable medical equipment, for example, lift chairs and medical beds, drive the market expansion.As indicated by the statistics published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the situation of home care and individual care aids are anticipated to increase by roughly 13.0 million before the end of 2020, which construes to around 70.0% rise from that of 2010. As a result, home health care services displays best potential alternative rendering less costly quality care. The establishing and support of healthcare centers and different settings are investment requiring in nature as well as include tremendous investments concerning operational capital and costs. In this way, healthcare services suppliers are currently infiltrating the quickly developing home healthcare market with the assistance of mergers and acquisitions so as to pick up an advantage from the current prospects and restrain.Request For Report TOC:A rising number of new product launches and mergers and acquisitions are a few of the recent trends have been foreseen in the home medical equipment market. A few of the prominent market active in the worldwide market for home medical equipment are B. Braun Melsungen AG, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, GE Healthcare, Abbott, AstraZeneca, Baxter, ResMed, CareFusion Corporation, Hospira, Inc., Philips Healthcare., Stryker, Medline Industry, Inc. and Sunrise Medical (US) LLC. These market players are occupied in several strategic initiatives like mergers and acquisitions, collaborations, regional expansion, and service range expansion.Report Analysis:About UsResearch Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalized in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trendsContact Us:Research Report Insights (RRI42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.com
Crude Sulfate Turpentine Market  ResiniqueseTTerpeniqes (France) company signed an agreement to enhance their business.

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Derives ResiniqueseTTerpeniqes (France), one of the major players in the crude sulfate turpentine market, focuses on strengthening its crude sulphate turpentine portfolio through expanding its production unit for terpene derivatives in the North American region. Its core competencies are an extensive product portfolio that includes alpha-pinene and beta-pinene caters to varied industries such as adhesives and perfumes.In March 2015, Derives ResiniqueseTTerpeniqes (France) company signed an agreement with Safic-Alcan (France), a specialty chemical distributor in order to expand business in Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia.To know more, read:Market Segmentations:Market Data Forecast published a report named Global Crude Sulphate Turpentine Market. Global Crude Sulphate Turpentine Market worth was USD 226.38 million in 2018 and estimated to be growing at a CAGR of 4.10%, to reach USD 276.75 million by 2023.Report Segmented as:Type:Alpha PineneBeta PineneDelta 3 CareneCampheneLimoneneApplication:Aromatic ChemicalsAdhesivesPaints and printing inksCamphorBased on applications, aromatic chemicals accounts for the largest market share because of the high use of crude sulphate turpentine in FMCG products such as air fresheners, soaps, and deodorants. Additionally, rise in the production of chemical products from turpentine, which is, used in various forms, such as fragrance agent, solvent and flavour had expected to fuel the market growth.Geographical Segmentation:Based on geography, the market is analysed under various countries namely Asia Pacific, china, India, U.S., Canada. North America is dominating the Crude Sulphate Turpentine Market and Asia pacific had estimated to grow at highest rate.Key market players:Dujodwala Paper Chemicals LtdRenessenz LLCInternational Flavors& Fragrances IncArizona Chemical Company LLCPine Chemical Group, LawterIncView sample and decide:Scope of the report:The report offers a comprehensive examination of the industry by providing the estimations of market potential and forecasts with utmost granularity. Along this, the factors influential in influencing the market dynamics and trends discussed in detail at the product level. Further, the performance of the market at the regional and country-level had assessed and the prospects with huge growth potential identified and debated.The key players in the industry are profiled giving insights on their financial performance, market position and growth strategies. Comparative analysis on prime strategically activities of the market players delineating the key developments like mergers & acquisitions, collaborations and an evaluation of the competitive environment within the industry had provided. The report also provides a broad outlook of the current market along with recommendations from industry experts on the opportunities for investment activity.What else? Apart from the syndicated report, our in-house team has an expertise and experience in designing custom reports to meet your specific research needs and assist you in making well-informed decisions.2nd Floor, Lakeview Plaza, Kavuri HillsContact Info:Name: Mr. Abhishek ShuklaEmail: abhishek@marketdataforecast.comOrganization: Market Data ForecastAddress: Hyderabad, Telangana 500033, India.Phone: +1-888-702-9626
Crack Tooth Syndrome Market 2023 Analysis - Research Covers Top 10 Players as Henry Schein, Inc., Institut Straumann AG, Zimmer Biomet, 3M, Ivoclar Vivadent AG, Nobel Biocare

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Global Crack Tooth Syndrome Market  Competitive AnalysisCrack tooth syndrome market is highly competitive. The key strategies traced from the analysis of recent developments of the key players include product launch, agreement & partnership, acquisition, and expansion. Key manufacturers utilizing breakthrough manufacturing technology strive to develop a comprehensive range of Safe and reliable solutions portfolio.Get Pdf Sample Copy @Key Players:The Global Crack Tooth Syndrome Market is driven by some of the leading players including Henry Schein, Inc., Institut Straumann AG, Zimmer Biomet, 3M, Ivoclar Vivadent AG, Nobel Biocare, DENTSPLY Sirona, Osstem Prosthetics, and CAMLOG Biotechnologies AG Planmeca OY.Market Scenario:Cracked tooth syndrome (CTS) also known as split tooth syndrome or cracked cusp syndrome or incomplete fracture of posterior teeth is a dental condition characterized by a fractured but unbroken tooth. Problems related to cracked teeth are the third leading cause of tooth loss after caries and periodontal disease.As the population ages, CTS issues become more prevalent, increasing the incidences of root caries, gum disease, teeth crowding, erosion, attrition, parafunctional occlusion, and abrasion and increased number of cracks. CTS conditions are more painful; fortunately, there are several novel treatments available to the aid such as endodontic treatments and others.Further introduction of the interim endodontic therapy is helpful in eliminating infection and regenerate native bone in the site before extraction and immediate dental implant placement. Moreover, new advanced diagnosis treatments are exceeding the success ratio as compared to the traditional diagnosis such as transillumination, magnification, or methylene blue dye which were delivering often poor results, failing to examine the teeth properly.As a result, cracked tooth syndrome treatments are witnessing wide uptake, and the market for CST treatments is widening on the global platform, garnering substantial traction. Acknowledging the traction this market perceives today, Market Research Future (MRFR) in its recently published study report asserts that the already booming market of crack tooth syndrome is expected to garner USD 4.96 bn. by 2023 at a CAGR of 6 % throughout the forecast period (2017-2023).CTS treatment market has evolved dramatically over the last few years, witnessing the development of stronger, biocompatible and bioabsorbable materials with better osteointegration properties, development of silicon dental adhesives, CAD/CAM technology, and others. Factors such as advantages provided by these treatments and well-spread awareness among people about the availability of these treatments and accessibility, cumulatively drive the market growth.Additional factors substantiating the market growth include paramount concerns of oral health care, increasing geriatric populace and the well-spread awareness about the oral healthcare. Besides, the growing risk factors and causes of CTS such as previous dental restorative procedures, occlusal factors, anatomical considerations, and trauma are driving the demand in CTS treatments market.On the other hand, factors such as the High cost of treatments and dental implants, coupled with inadequate reimbursements for dental implants reflected by high out-of-pocket costs reimbursements are impeding the market growth.Global Crack Tooth Syndrome Market  SegmentsThe MRFR analysis is segmented into six key dynamics;By Diagnosis : Clinical Examination, Dye Test, X-ray, Transillumination, and Radiograph, among others.By Types : Completely Fractured Teeth (obliquely directed and vertically directed), and Incompletely Fractured (oblique and vertical) among others.By Drug Class : Pain Killers, and Anti-biotic, among others.By Treatments : Stabilization, Crown Restoration, Root Canal Therapy, and Extraction, among others.By Devices : Implants, Adhesives, and Expendables, among others.By Regions : North America, Europe, APAC and the Rest-of-the-World.Browse Full Reports @Global Crack Tooth Syndrome Market  Regional AnalysisNorth America region holds the hegemony over the global crack tooth syndrome market, accounting for the largest market share. The region is expected to continue with its dominance throughout the forecast period.Whereas, Europe market is projected to be the second-largest market for CTS treatment. Germany, backed by its sizeable medical device industry and its vast CTS treatment market is expected to drive the market growth in the region.The Asia Pacific region is emerging as one of the lucrative markets for CTS treatments, and the region is expected to escalate rapidly over the forecast period. In developed economies like the US & UK, the cost of CTS treatments is quite high which in turn fuels the market growth of medical tourism in developing economies such as India, Malaysia, etc.The Middle East and Africa CTS markets are expected to have limited but steady growth during the review period.About US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Ammonium Phosphate 2019 Global Industry Key Players  Lanxess AG ,Solvay S.A. ,CF Industries Holdings Market Analysis And Forecast To 2025

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Global Ammonium Phosphate MarketAmmonium phosphate is the salt of ammonium and phosphate. It is a highly unstable compound with the formula (NH4)3PO4. Because of its instability, it is elusive and of no commercial value. A related "double salt", (NH4)3PO4.(NH4)2HPO4 is also recognized but is too unstable for practical use. Both triammonium salts evolve ammonia. In contrast to the fragile nature of the triammonium salts, diammonium phosphate (NH4)2HPO4 is a valuable material, mainly as a fertilizer. Also of value is monoammonium salt (NH4)H2PO4 which is also valued as a fertilizer.Request a Sample Report @This report focuses on the top manufacturers' Ammonium Phosphate capacity, production, value, price and market share of Ammonium Phosphate in global market. The following manufacturers are covered in this report:Lanxess AGSolvay S.A.CF Industries HoldingsMaaden-Saudi Arabian Mining CompanyOCP SAPrayon SAYidu Xingfa Chemicals Company LimitedJordan Phosphate Mines CompanyChemische Fabrik Budenheim KGYuntianhua Group Company LimitedHubei Xingfa Chemicals Group,Wengfu GroupVale S.A.OJSCEuroChem MCCInnophos HoldingsItalmatch Chemicals S.p.A.Yara International ASAUnited Phosphorus Limited Potash Corp.Israel Chemicals (ICL)China accounted for the largest regional share for ammonium phosphate followed by India and Brazil. China was also the largest producer, accounting for over 50% of the global market in 2014. However, the government of Indias decision to lower fertilizer subsidy is expected to decline demand. As a result, fertilizer prices have increased, which is expected to hamper market growth.North America demand is expected to increase on account of improved reforms by the government on the use of fertilizers in crops. However, growing demand for organic products in the region is expected to hamper market growth over the forecast period. Furthermore, stringent regulations against the use of chemical fertilizers are expected to negatively impact market growth in Europe. As a result, the demand is expected to decline over the forecast period.Global Ammonium Phosphate market size will increase to xx Million US$ by 2025, from xx Million US$ in 2018, at a CAGR of xx% during the forecast period. In this study, 2018 has been considered as the base year and 2019 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Ammonium Phosphate.This report researches the worldwide Ammonium Phosphate market size (value, capacity, production and consumption) in key regions like United States, Europe, Asia Pacific (China, Japan) and other regions.This study categorizes the global Ammonium Phosphate breakdown data by manufacturers, region, type and application, also analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.Ammonium Phosphate Breakdown Data by TypeMonoammonium Phosphate (MAP)Diammonium Phosphate (DAP)Ammonium Phosphate Breakdown Data by ApplicationMetal Finishing ChemicalsWater Treatment ChemicalsFood & BeverageDetergent & SoapsAmmonium Phosphate Production Breakdown Data by RegionUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanOther RegionsAmmonium Phosphate Consumption Breakdown Data by RegionNorth AmericaUnited StatesCanadaMexicoAsia-PacificChinaIndiaJapanSouth KoreaAustraliaIndonesiaMalaysiaPhilippinesThailandVietnamEuropeGermanyFranceUKItalyRussiaRest of EuropeCentral & South AmericaBrazilRest of South AmericaMiddle East & AfricaGCC CountriesTurkeyEgyptSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaThe study objectives are:To analyze and research the global Ammonium Phosphate capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast;To focus on the key Ammonium Phosphate manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years.To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Table of Contents-Key Points CoveredGlobal Ammonium Phosphate Market Research Report 2019-2025, by Manufacturers, Regions, Types and Applications1 Study Coverage1.1 Ammonium Phosphate Product1.2 Key Market Segments in This Study1.3 Key Manufacturers Covered1.4 Market by Type1.4.1 Global Ammonium Phosphate Market Size Growth Rate by Type1.4.2 Monoammonium Phosphate (MAP)1.4.3 Diammonium Phosphate (DAP)1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Ammonium Phosphate Market Size Growth Rate by Application1.5.2 Metal Finishing Chemicals1.5.3 Water Treatment Chemicals1.5.4 Food & Beverage1.5.5 Detergent & Soaps1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered.8 Manufacturers Profiles8.1 Lanxess AG8.1.1 Lanxess AG Company Details8.1.2 Company Description8.1.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.1.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.1.5 SWOT Analysis8.2 Solvay S.A.8.2.1 Solvay S.A. Company Details8.2.2 Company Description8.2.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.2.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.2.5 SWOT Analysis8.3 CF Industries Holdings8.3.1 CF Industries Holdings Company Details8.3.2 Company Description8.3.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.3.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.3.5 SWOT Analysis8.4 Maaden-Saudi Arabian Mining Company8.4.1 Maaden-Saudi Arabian Mining Company Company Details8.4.2 Company Description8.4.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.4.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.4.5 SWOT Analysis8.5 OCP SA8.5.1 OCP SA Company Details8.5.2 Company Description8.5.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.5.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.5.5 SWOT Analysis8.6 Prayon SA8.6.1 Prayon SA Company Details8.6.2 Company Description8.6.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.6.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.6.5 SWOT Analysis8.7 Yidu Xingfa Chemicals Company Limited8.7.1 Yidu Xingfa Chemicals Company Limited Company Details8.7.2 Company Description8.7.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.7.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.7.5 SWOT Analysis8.8 Jordan Phosphate Mines Company8.8.1 Jordan Phosphate Mines Company Company Details8.8.2 Company Description8.8.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.8.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.8.5 SWOT Analysis8.9 Chemische Fabrik Budenheim KG8.9.1 Chemische Fabrik Budenheim KG Company Details8.9.2 Company Description8.9.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.9.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.9.5 SWOT Analysis8.10 Yuntianhua Group Company Limited8.10.1 Yuntianhua Group Company Limited Company Details8.10.2 Company Description8.10.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Ammonium Phosphate8.10.4 Ammonium Phosphate Product Description8.10.5 SWOT Analysis8.11 Hubei Xingfa Chemicals Group,8.12 Wengfu Group8.13 Vale S.A.8.14 OJSC8.15 EuroChem MCC8.16 Innophos Holdings8.17 Italmatch Chemicals S.p.A.8.18 Yara International ASA8.19 United Phosphorus Limited Potash Corp.8.20 Israel Chemicals (ICL)Continued..Enquiry For Buying Report@Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Office No. 528/524, Amanora Chambers, Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune, Maharashtra 411028
Stem Cell Antibody Market 2019 Global Analysis by Top Industry Players Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (U.S.), Merck Group (Germany), Abcam plc (U.K.), Becton, Dickinson and Company (U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (U.S.)

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The global Stem Cell Antibody market is broadly analyzed in this report that sheds light on critical aspects such as the vendor landscape, competitive strategies, market dynamics, and regional analysis. The report helps readers to clearly understand the current and future status of the global Stem Cell Antibody market. The research study comes out as a compilation of useful guidelines for players to secure a position of strength in the global Stem Cell Antibody market. The authors of the report profile leading companies of the global Stem Cell Antibody market, such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (U.S.), Merck Group (Germany), Abcam plc (U.K.), Becton, Dickinson and Company (U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (U.S.), Cell Signaling Technology, Inc. (U.S.), Agilent Technologies, Inc. (U.S.), F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd (Switzerland), Danaher Corporation (U.S.), GenScript (U.S.), PerkinElmer, Inc. (U.S.), Lonza (Switzerland), and BioLegend, Inc. (U.S.). They provide details about important activities of leading players in the competitive landscape.The report predicts the size of the global Stem Cell Antibody market in terms of value and volume for the forecast period 2018-2025. As per the analysis provided in the report, the global Stem Cell Antibody market is expected to rise at a CAGR of _ % between 2018 and 2025 to reach a valuation of US$_ million/billion by the end of 2025. In 2017, the global Stem Cell Antibody market attained a valuation of US$_ million/billion. The market researchers deeply analyze the global Stem Cell Antibody industry landscape and the future prospects it is anticipated to create.This publication includes key segmentations of the global Stem Cell Antibody market on the basis of product, application, and geography (country/region). Each segment included in the report is studied in relation to different factors such as consumption, market share, value, growth rate, and production.Download Free Sample Report at:The comparative results provided in the report allow readers to understand the difference between players and how they are competing against each other. The research study gives a detailed view of current and future trends and opportunities of the global Stem Cell Antibody market. Market dynamics such as drivers and restraints are explained in the most detailed and easiest manner possible with the use of tables and graphs. Interested parties are expected to find important recommendations to improve their business in the global Stem Cell Antibody market.Readers can understand the overall profitability margin and sales volume of various products studied in the report. The report also provides the forecasted as well as historical annual growth rate and market share of the products offered in the global Stem Cell Antibody market. The study on end-use application of products helps to understand the market growth of the products in terms of sales.Global Stem Cell Antibody Market by Product:Primary AntibodiesSecondary AntibodiesGlobal Stem Cell Antibody Market by Application:ProteomicsDrug DevelopmentGenomicsThe report also focuses on the geographical analysis of the global Stem Cell Antibody market, where important regions and countries are studied in great detail.MethodologyOur analysts have created the report with the use of advanced primary and secondary research methodologies.As part of primary research, they have conducted interviews with important industry leaders and focused on market understanding and competitive analysis by reviewing relevant documents, press releases, annual reports, and key products.For secondary research, they have taken into account the statistical data from agencies, trade associations, and government websites, internet sources, technical writings, and recent trade information.For more details and inquiry ask for Amazing Discount:The report on the global Stem Cell Antibody market covers 12 sections as given below:Industry Overview of Stem Cell Antibody: This section covers market definition, classifications, specifications, applications, and market segmentation by region.Stem Cell Antibody Cost Structure Analysis: Here, raw materials and suppliers, industry chain structure, process analysis, and manufacturing cost structure analysis are covered.Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis: In this section, the report provides capacity and commercial production date of Stem Cell Antibody, manufacturing plants distribution, major manufacturers in 2018, raw material sources and technology sources analysis, and R&D status.Overall Overview of Global Stem Cell Antibody Market: It covers 2013-2018 overall market analysis, sales price analysis, capacity analysis, and sales analysis.Stem Cell Antibody Regional Market Analysis: The report includes a study on the North America, China, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, and India Stem Cell Antibody market analysis.2013-2018 Global Stem Cell Antibody Market Segmentation Analysis by Type: This section covers Stem Cell Antibody sales by type, interview price analysis of different types of Stem Cell Antibody products, and driving factors analysis of different types of Stem Cell Antibody products.2013-2018 Global Stem Cell Antibody Market Segmentation Analysis by Application: It includes Stem Cell Antibody consumption by application, different applications of Stem Cell Antibody products, and other studies.Major Manufacturers Analysis of Global Stem Cell Antibody Market: It provides analysis on each company profile with product pictures and specifications, sales, ex-factory price, revenue, gross margin analysis, and business distribution by region analysis.Development Trend of Stem Cell Antibody Market Analysis: Here, the report covers Stem Cell Antibody market trend analysis, market size (volume and value) forecast, regional market trends, and market trends by product type and application.Stem Cell Antibody Marketing Type Analysis: It includes marketing type analysis, Stem Cell Antibody market supply chain analysis, Stem Cell Antibody international trade type analysis, and Stem Cell Antibody traders or distributors by region with their contact information.Consumers Analysis of Global Stem Cell Antibody Market: This section explains consumer behavior and provides deep insights into various types of consumers in the global Stem Cell Antibody market.Conclusion of Global Stem Cell Antibody Market Professional Survey Report 2018: It includes information on methodology, analyst introduction, and data sources.Read more about the report:About Us:QYResearch always pursuits high product quality with the belief that quality is the soul of business. Through years of effort and supports from huge number of customer supports, QYResearch consulting group has accumulated creative design methods on many high-quality markets investigation and research team with rich experience. Today, QYResearch has become the brand of quality assurance in consulting industry.Contact US:QY Research, INC.17890 Castleton, Suite 218,Los Angeles, CA - 91748USA: +1 6262 952 442China: +86 1082 945 717Japan: +81 9038 009 273India: +91 9766 478 224Emails  enquiry@qyresearch.comWeb Expert News:
Breast Pumps Market Outlook 2018  2025 Analysis By Top Key Players  meda AG, Ardo, Babybelle, Bailey Medical, Beldico, Linco Baby Merchandise Works, Freemie, Medela AG, Koninklijke Philips and Willow

Breast Pumps Market Outlook 2018  2025

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The Worldwide Breast Pumps Market was valued at USD 0.99 Billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 1.30 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 3.5% from 2019 to 2026Verified Market Research recently launched the Global Breast Pumps Market study with market data Tables, Pie Chat, Graphs & Figures spread through Pages and easy to understand detailed analysis. At present, the market is developing its presence. The Research report presents a complete assessment of the Market and contains a future trend, current growth factors, attentive opinions, facts, and industry validated market data. The research study provides estimates for Global Breast Pumps Forecast till 2025An exclusive Breast Pumps Market research report created through broad primary research (inputs from industry experts, companies, and stakeholders) and secondary research, the report aims to present the analysis of Global Breast Pumps Market By Type, By Application, By Region - North America, Europe, South America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The report intends to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment evaluation. Besides, the report also identifies and analyses the emerging trends along with major drivers, challenges and opportunities in the global Breast Pumps market. Additionally, the report also highlights market entry strategies for various companies across the globe.Get | Download FREE Sample Copy of This Report Now with Detailed Toc and Charts & Tables @Breast Pumps Market Leading Key Players: meda AG Ardo Babybelle Bailey Medical Beldico Linco Baby Merchandise Works Freemie Medela AG Koninklijke Philips NV WillowGlobal Breast Pumps Market Segmentation, by Product Open System Breast Pump Closed System Breast PumpGlobal Breast Pumps Market Segmentation, by Technology Electric Breast Pumpo Single Electric Breast Pumpo Double Electric Breast Pump Manual Breast PumpGlobal Breast Pumps Market Segmentation, by End user Hospital Home CareGlobal Breast Pumps Market Geographic Scope North Americao U.S.o Canadao Mexico Europeo Germanyo UKo Franceo Rest of Europe Asia Pacifico Chinao Japano Indiao Rest of Asia Pacific Latin Americao Brazil Rest of the WorldAsk For Discount @Worldwide Breast Pumps Market Analysis to 2025 is a specialized and in-depth study of the Breast Pumps industry with a focus on the global market trend. The report aims to provide an overview of global Breast Pumps market with detailed market segmentation by product/application and geography. The global Breast Pumps market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Breast Pumps players and offers key trends and opportunities in the market.Also, key Breast Pumps market players influencing the market are profiled in the study along with their SWOT analysis and market strategies. The report also focuses on leading industry players with information such as company profiles, products and services offered, financial information of last 3 years, key development in past five years.Table Of Content Introduction Of The Global Breast Pumps Executive Summary Research Methodology Of Verified Market Intelligence The Global Breast Pumps Outlook The Global Breast Pumps, By Systems The Global Breast Pumps, By Service The Global Breast Pumps, By Verticals The Global Breast Pumps, By Applications The Global Breast Pumps, By Geography The Global Breast Pumps Competitive LandscapeComplete Report is Available @Reason to Buy- Save and reduce time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the growth, size, leading players and segments in the global Breast Pumps market- Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies.- The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the Breast Pumps market, thereby allowing players to develop effective long term strategies.- Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets.- Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it.- Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to products, segmentation and industry verticals.About Us:Verified Market Research' has been providing Research Reports, with up to date information, and in-depth analysis, for several years now, to individuals and companies alike that are looking for accurate Research Data. Our aim is to save your Time and Resources, providing you with the required Research Data, so you can only concentrate on Progress and Growth. Our Data includes research from various industries, along with all necessary statistics like Market Trends, or Forecasts from reliable sources.Contact Us:Mr. AnkushCall: +1 (650) 781 4080Email: sales@verifiedmarketresearch.com
Worldwide Agriculture Bactericides Market 2018 Flourishes with International Prestigious Players | Bayer CropScience AG, Syngenta AG, The Dow Chemical Company, Nufarm Limited, Etc.

Agriculture Bactericides Market

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Market Definition:Agriculture bactericides are widely used in the agricultural segment to restrict the bacterial infection on the agricultural produce by inhibiting or killing the bacteria responsible for the disease. Increasing demand for food grains coupled with shrinking cultivable land is expected to drive the demand for agriculture bactericides over the forecast period.Market Scenario:The amount of crop-loss due to bacteria attack is increasing rapidly, which is a great concern among the farmers and crop producers. Thus, the demand for the agriculture bactericides has increased to a great extent due to adequate disease control support along with an increase in the crop productivity. Additionally, rising demand for organic fruits, vegetables, and cereals and pulses is projected to drive the growth of the global agriculture bactericides market over the forecast period.Moreover, increasing demand for crop protectants is projected to drive the growth of the global agriculture bactericides market. The market players are responding to these new opportunities by expanding their service offerings/product lines, which has boosted the share of the agriculture bactericides in the global market. The global agriculture bactericides market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.7% during the forecast period, 2017-2023.Receive a Sample Report@Key Players:Some of the key players profiled in the global agriculture bactericides market: BASF SE (Germany), E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (U.S.), Sumitomo Chemical Company, Limited (Japan), The Dow Chemical Company (U.S.), Bayer CropScience AG (Germany), FMC Corporation (U.S.), Syngenta AG (Switzerland), Nufarm Limited (Australia), Nippon Soda Co., Ltd. (Japan), and Adama Agricultural Solutions Ltd. (Israel)Key Findings:High demand for organic food products has surged the global market of agriculture bactericidesDec-2017, Greenspire Global has launched a new product Procidic. The product is an agricultural bactericide and fungicide that provides disease control without use of synthetic chemicalsIntended Audience:Bactericide manufacturersFertilizer industryCrop cultivatorsRaw material suppliersTraders, importers, and exportersSegments:The global agriculture bactericides market is segmented into type, application, and form.On the basis of the type, it is segmented into copper-based agriculture bactericides, dithiocarbamate agriculture bactericides, amide agriculture bactericides, and others. Among all, the copper-based agriculture bactericides segment is dominating the market followed by dithiocarbamate owing to its higher use on fruits & vegetables and other agricultural crops.Access Complete Report @On the basis of the form, it is segmented into powder, liquid, and others. The liquid form segment is dominating the market owing to its easy to use nature.On the basis of the application, the agriculture bactericides market is segmented into fruits and vegetables, cereals & pulses, oilseeds & grains, and others. Among all the applications, the fruits and vegetables segment is dominating the market owing to the increasing awareness about the health benefits associated with organic fruits & vegetables in the population.Regional Analysis:The global agriculture bactericides market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world (RoW). The European region is dominating the agriculture bactericides market followed by North America. The U.K and Germany account for a higher use of agriculture bactericides for the protection of fruits and vegetables from bacteria owing to increasing awareness about the benefits of using agriculture bactericides. Additionally, high demand for organic fruits and vegetables from the farmers is considered to be a key driving factor in this region.Furthermore, increasing consumer awareness and growing demand for organic fruits, vegetables, cereals, and pulses has uplifted the demand for agriculture bactericides in the North American countries like the U.S. and Canada, which is anticipated to boost the growth of the agriculture bactericides market during the review period.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
Acaricides Market 2018 Flourishes with International Prestigious Players | E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Chemtura USA Corp, Etc.

Acaricides market

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Market Definition:Acaricides are a class of pesticides, which are used in the agricultural sector to restrict the attack of arachnid on the agricultural produce. Apart from the agriculture, Acaricides are increasingly used in the animal husbandry. Growing demand for food grains coupled with the shrinking farmland is expected to drive the demand for Potato protein. Most commonly used Acaricides include organ chlorine, organ phosphorus, natural Potato protein, and others.Market Scenario:Acaricides help in improving agricultural productivity by restricting the growth of arachnids such as ticks and mites. Additionally, increased demand for Acaricides for adequate disease control support and increased crop productivity has uplifted the global Acaricides market. Moreover, high acceptance of modern farming techniques among the crop cultivators is adding fuel to the growth of Acaricides market. Additionally, rising demand for agricultural products such as fruits, vegetables, cereals, and pulses is projected to drive the growth of the global Acaricides market over the forecast period.Key manufacturers are emphasizing on the new product development in order to enhance the customer base. Apart from that, the key players are promoting their products through advertisements in television and social media, which, in turn, escalates the Acaricides demand. The global Acaricides market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.4% during the forecast period 2017-2023.Receive a Sample Report@Key Players:Some of the key players profiled in the global Acaricides market: E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (U.S.), Chemtura USA Corp. (U.S.), FMC Corporation (U.S.), Arysta Life Science Corporation (Japan), Bayer Aktiengesellschaft (Germany), BASF SE (Germany), Nissan Chemical Industries, Ltd. (Japan), Syngenta AG (Switzerland), The Dow Chemical Company (U.S.), and Merck & Co., Inc. (U.S.)Key Findings:The Asia Pacific region is dominating the global Acaricides marketAcaricides have a massive opportunity in the pesticide industryIntended Audience:Acaricides manufacturersFertilizer industryCrop cultivatorsRaw material suppliersRetailers and wholesalerTraders, importers, and exportersSegments:On the basis of the type, it is segmented into organ chlorine, organ phosphorus, natural, and others. Among all, the organ phosphorus Acaricides segment is dominating the market followed by organ chlorine. Organ phosphorus Acaricides are rich in phosphorous content and are also highly effective against arachnids.On the basis of the application, it is segmented into agriculture, animal husbandry, and others. Among all, the agriculture segment is dominating the market. Growing demand for fruits, vegetables, cereals, and other agricultural products among the rising population is expected to surge the growth of this segment over the review period.Access Complete Report @protein-market-5267Regional Analysis:The global Acaricides market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world (RoW). The Asia Pacific region is leading the global Acaricidesmarket followed by Europe. India and China are the major contributors to the growth of Acaricidesmarket in this region. Furthermore, high demand for agricultural products from the farmers is considered to be the key driving factor in the Asia Pacific market. Additionally, regulatory approval for the use of Acaricideson agricultural products for crop protection is projected to raise the growth of the Acaricidesmarket.However, the European region is expected to witness a significant growth during the forecast period. European countries like Germany, France, and the U.K, is projected to boost the growth of the Acaricidesmarket during the review period. However, stringent environmental regulations in the developed economies of North America and Europe region are expected to restrain the market growth in these regions.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
North America Machine Translation Market will grow at 17% CAGR to exceed $600 mn by 2024

North America Machine Translation Market

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North America Machine Translation Market size is set to surpass USD 600 million by 2024. It is the leading machine translation market globally owing to the abundant demands from the IT sector of the U.S. North Americas IT sector holds more than 60% of the regional market demand. This is attributed to the presence of IT technology giants in the region. IT companies are one of the major adopters of this technology for meeting the requirements of global customers. This is one of the major reasons for the North America machine translation market.Request for a sample of this research report @Machine translation is mainly used by large enterprises as the deployment of these systems requires high initial cost and resource allocation. Machine translation tools are used as content localization tool and are common in larger organizations. With smaller firms and organizations in North America, the trend of outsourcing such services has been observed. However, when faced with enormous volumes of data, organizations may deploy machine translation as an on-premise business activity.Moreover, the presence of several providers in the region backed by supportive government policies is driving the North America machine translation market. The increasing investments and developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning by technology giants will bolster the North America machine translation market.On the basis of technology, the SMT segment has shown a lucrative growth over the forecast period in this region. Google translate and Microsoft translation use SMT machine translation technology for its online services and applications. Recently, when Google Translate was first launched, Phrase-Based Machine Translation (PBMT) was used as a key algorithm. PMBT algorithm works by splitting sentences into phrases and words that can be translated mainly autonomously. This is considered as the simplest and most popular version of SMT.Browse key industry insights from this 2018 report North America Machine Translation Market in detail along with the table of contents at:Major companies in the machine translation market in North America are IBM, Microsoft, and Google. In October 2017, Google launched Pixel Buds, a real-time translator that connects web search and connectivity incorporated with a built-in Google Assistant and Google Translate capable of translating 40 different languages.Segments We Cover:North America Machine Translation Market Statistics, By ApplicationAutomotiveMilitary & defenseElectronicsITHealthcareOthersNorth America Machine Translation Market Forecast, By TechnologyRBMTSMTOthersThe above information is provided for the following countries:U.S.CanadaMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @About Graphical Research:Graphical Research is a business research firm that provides industry insights, market forecast and strategic inputs through granular research reports and advisory services. We publish targeted research reports with an aim to address varied customer needs, from market penetration and entry strategies to portfolio management and strategic outlook. We understand that business requirements are unique: our syndicate reports are designed to ensure relevance for industry participants across the value chain. We also provide custom reports that are tailored to the exact needs of the customer, with dedicated analyst support across the purchase lifecycle.Contact Us:Parikhit B.Corporate sales,Graphical ResearchEmail: sales@graphicalresearh.comWeb:
Increase in demand for Caribbean Islands Bunker Fuel Market, 2017-2023

Caribbean Islands Bunker Fuel Market

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Caribbean islands bunker fuel market was valued at $8,231 million in 2016, and is projected to reach $16,404 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 10.7% from 2017 to 2023. Fishing vessel is anticipated to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period, as this vessel possesses high potential to use battery solutions because diesel engines do not have better efficiency even at low speeds. Thus, boats/ships can be built on diesel-electric power while operating in low speeds for a couple of hours.Get Sample Report:Increase in demand for natural gas is expected to drive the growth of the bunker fuel operation across the Caribbean region to fuel gas production and boost economy. It is anticipated to create more employment opportunities in bunker fuel operations and related activities. The generation of direct and indirect employment in a bunker fuel extraction project is expected to enhance the economic stability of the Caribbean region. In addition, chemical tanker is a cargo tanker that transports chemicals in various forms from one port to another. These tankers are specifically designed to maintain the consistency of chemicals that they carry. Moreover, they are applied with extensive coatings of certain substances leading to easy identification of chemicals that are shipped, thereby driving the growth of the Caribbean Islands banker fuel market.Container shipping is gaining immense popularity and is witnessing high demand. Jamaicas shipping line of customer mix depends on three key container carriers, namely, CMA CGM, MSC, and ZIM. Vessel calls and shipping traffic are major concerns in bunkering. The total vessel calls by the port of call in Jamaica had reached 3,300 by end of 2012. Kingston Container Terminal alone contributed around 40% of total visits, thereby making it the most visited facility.Request For Customization:Key Benefits for StakeholdersThis report provides an extensive analysis of the current trends, emerging estimations, and dynamics in the Caribbean islands bunker fuel market.In-depth analysis of the market is conducted and estimations for key segments between 2015 and 2023 are provided.Factors that drive and restrain the growth of the market are provided.Industry analysis is conducted by following the key product positioning and monitoring the top competitors within the market framework.Key players are profiled and their strategies are analyzed thoroughly to provide a competitive outlook of the industry trends.The Caribbean islands bunker fuel market is segmented based on type, commercial distributor, end user, and geography. On the basis of type, the market is classified into residual fuel oil, MDO, and MGO. Residual fuel oil is further divided into IFO 180 and IFO 380. Depending on commercial distributor, the market is fragmented into oil majors, large independent, and small independent. By end user, it is categorized into container, bulk carrier, oil tanker, general cargo, chemical tanker, fishing vessel, gas tanker, and others. Geographically, it is analyzed across St. Eustatius, Trinidad, Curacao, Jamaica, and rest of Caribbean islands.For More Discount:Key manufacturers operating in the market are Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc., Bomin Bunker Oil Corp., BP PLC, Bunker Holding A/S, Chemoil Energy Ltd., Exxon Mobil, Gazprom Neft PJSC, GAC Bunker Fuels Ltd., KPI Bridge Oil A/S, and Royal Dutch Shell PLC.Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions. AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.Shriram Dighe5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free: +1-800-792-5285UK: +44-845-528-1300Hong Kong: +852-301-84916India (Pune): +91-20-66346060Fax: +1?855?550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.com
Cybersecurity Market Detailed Analysis with Forecast 2019-2025 by Global Top Players - IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, McAfee, Cisco and Symantec

Cybersecurity Market

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Adroit Market Research launched a study titled, Global Cybersecurity Market Size 2017 By Solution (Identity access management, End-point, Web security, Network, Security & vulnerability management (SVM), Messaging, Education & training, Consulting, Integration, Managed services and others), By Deployment type (Cloud and on premise), By Industry vertical (BFSI, ICT, Healthcare, Government, Manufacturing, Retail and others), By Region and Forecast 2018 to 2025. The study covers the global cybersecurity market value and volume for a period ranging from 2012 to 2025, where 2012 to 2017 imply the actual annual consumption with forecast between 2018 and 2025. The global cybersecurity market report also includes qualitative insights of the market such as drivers, restrains, value chain, regulatory framework, PESTLE analysis and Porters analysis. The value chain has been analyzed in detail covering key stages. Additionally, we have provided a glimpse of the global identity theft market. The global cybersecurity market 2018 gives a holistic view encompassing production, consumption, import and export for key regions and countries.Request PDF sample @The global cybersecurity market size is estimated to reach almost USD 395 billion by 2025 owing to the rise in data breaches globally. Year 2017 saw the most number of cybersecurity breaches with a total of 5,000 plus breaches and around 8 billion records exposed. Amongst these breaches, the theft from a cryptocurrency exchange in Japan was the biggest affecting computers worldwide with a ransomware attack called WannaCry and costing around USD 570 million.The increasing measures taken by governments and organizations of various countries worldwide also contribute majorly to the growth of cybersecurity market. For instance, the Australian Cyber Security Growth Network Ltd (ACSGN), which is a key initiative launched by the Australian government, identifies the cyber security growth and innovation to tackle cyber threats. Many governments across the globe are issuing new laws and regulations which challenge organizations to have the right cyber security controls in place and will require further security spending resulting in proliferation of cybersecurity market.The evolution of cloud computing technologies is becoming the major driver of cybersecurity market. The increasing adoption of cloud computing has moved the potential area of cyber-attacks from the corporate network to the cloud networks managed by third party across different geographies. In the era of industry 4.0, the organizations are connected with their smart devices and networks. This offers a very lucrative target for the cyber criminals to penetrate more easily through the connected devices and networks. Hence, increasing adoption of IoT devices will help in the growth of cybersecurity market.The current cybersecurity market focuses mainly on the protecting the premises of organizations and companies. This includes preventing the cyber attackers from gaining access to the servers and training employees in order to prevent breaches. In future, the business to consumer aspect will play much bigger role as cybersecurity will enter into daily life activities such as cars and IoT devices which will eventually contribute to the cybersecurity services market.Read more details of the report @Cybersecurity is one of the major concerns for healthcare organizations and the economic impact by the breaches has risen dramatically since 2010. According to a study conducted by Ponemon Institute in 2016, 89% of healthcare organizations have experienced a data breach in past two years, costing the industry USD 6.2 billion. Thus, the cybersecurity market in healthcare sector is expected to grow at a CAGR above 20% in the forecast period.IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, McAfee, Cisco, and Symantec are the leading players present within the global cybersecurity market. These companies are focusing on expanding their presence in the global cybersecurity market over the next few years by adopting strategies such as mergers & acquisitions and product standardization. For instance, in November 2018, Symantec announced the acquisition of Appthority Inc. and Javelin Networks Inc., two startups focused on enterprise network protection.Key segments of the global cybersecurity marketDeployment type Overview, 2012-2025 (USD Million)CloudOn premiseSolution Overview, 2012-2025 (USD million)Identity access managementEnd-pointWeb securityNetwork, Security & vulnerability management (SVM)MessagingEducation & trainingConsultingIntegrationManaged servicesOthersIndustry vertical Overview, 2012-2025 (USD million)BFSIICTHealthcareGovernmentManufacturingRetailOthersRegional Overview, 2012-2025 (USD million)North AmericaS.CanadaEuropeUKGermanyRest of EuropeAsia-PacificJapanAustraliaRest of APACLatin AmericaMexicoBrazilRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & AfricaAdroit Market Research is an India-based business analytics and consulting company incorporated in 2018. Our target audience is a wide range of corporations, manufacturing companies, product/technology development institutions and industry associations that require understanding of a markets size, key trends, participants and future outlook of an industry. We intend to become our clients knowledge partner and provide them with valuable market insights to help create opportunities that increase their revenues. We follow a code Explore, Learn and Transform. At our core, we are curious people who love to identify and understand industry patterns, create an insightful study around our findings and churn out money-making roadmaps.Ryan JohnsonAccount Manager Global3131 McKinney Ave Ste 600, Dallas,TX75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: USA: +1 (214) 884-6068 / +91 9665341414
Kombucha Market Opportunities 2019 by Top Competitors PepsiCo (KeVita), The Hain Celestial Group, Inc., and GTs Kombucha

Kombucha Market

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The global kombucha market size is anticipated to witness growth at a 13% CAGR over the forecast period due to increasing consumer preference for functional beverages on account of their numerous health benefits. Kombucha has recently entered the commercial space with more and more players entering the market to address the potentially growing demand.Request sample copy of Kombucha Market at:Players are actively developing the market via social media and ensuring the visibility of their products in the local farmers market. Moreover, a seamless supply of these products, ensuring replacement of over-fermented bottles in supermarkets, and launching seasonal drinks has resulted in playing a significant role in developing the market. However, the presence of several local drinks such as kvass in Russia, buttermilk in Turkey (Ayran) & India is expected to restrain the market growth for kombucha tea. Nonetheless, the global kombucha market is gaining tremendous traction across the world as an exotic drink.In 2017, organic accounted for over 90% of the global kombucha market sales. Organic foods & beverages have been gaining tremendous popularity among consumers. Higher nutrient content and freshness of these organic products in comparison to non-organic has resulted in these products being available off the shelf. Though the popularity of organic foods & beverages is huge, their penetration is low with consumers often opting for non-organic products owing to their lower cost and availability.Read details of the report at:Key segments of the global kombucha marketProduct Overview, 2014-2025 (USD Million)OrganicNon-organicType Overview, 2014-2025 (USD Million)OriginalFlavoredHerbs & SpicesFruitsFlowersOthersDistribution Channel Overview, 2014-2025 (USD Million)Supermarkets/HypermarketsConvenience StoresHealth StoresOnline RetailersOthersNorth America was the largest market for kombucha drink and is expected to witness the fastest growth over the next few years. Asia Pacific is expected to be the second fastest growing market after North America on account of rising consumer demand for increasing consumer disposable income, rising health awareness, and changing lifestyles of consumers. The China kombucha market is projected to witness a significant growth due to cultural preferences, rising interest traditional beverage preservation techniques as well as demand for cost-effective functional drinks.The competitive landscape of the global kombucha market is highly fragmented owing to the presence of several local players. Typically, the majority of the players cater to their local market with little presence overseas. Companies such as PepsiCo (KeVita), The Hain Celestial Group, Inc., and GTs Kombucha have a broader presence within the global market.Regional Overview of the global kombucha market, 2014-2025 (USD Million)North AmericaUSCanadaMexicoEuropeGermanyUnited KingdomFranceSpainRussiaAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaAustraliaSouth AmericaBrazilArgentinaMiddle East & AfricaSouth AfricaEnquire more details of the report at:Key players covered in the studyKeVita (PepsiCo)Buchi KombuchaThe Humm Kombucha LLCThe Hain Celestial Group, Inc.Revive KombuchaKosmic KombuchaLIVE Soda, LLCGTs KombuchaOthersTable of Contents:Executive SummaryResearch MethodologyMarket OutlookKombucha Market Overview, By ProductGlobal kombucha market share, by product , 2017 & 2025OrganicKombucha Market Overview, By TypeGlobal kombucha market share, by type , 2017 & 2025OriginalKombucha Market Overview, By Distribution ChannelGlobal kombucha market share, by distribution channel, 2017 & 2025Supermarkets/HypermarketsKombucha Market Overview, By RegionGlobal kombucha market share, by region, 2017 & 2025North AmericaIndustry StructureCompany Profiles KeVita (PepsiCo)Adroit Market Research is an India-based business analytics and consulting company incorporated in 2018. Our target audience is a wide range of corporations, manufacturing companies, product/technology development institutions and industry associations that require understanding of a markets size, key trends, participants and future outlook of an industry. We intend to become our clients knowledge partner and provide them with valuable market insights to help create opportunities that increase their revenues. We follow a code Explore, Learn and Transform. At our core, we are curious people who love to identify and understand industry patterns, create an insightful study around our findings and churn out money-making roadmaps.Ryan JohnsonAccount Manager Global3131 McKinney Ave Ste 600, Dallas,TX75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: USA: +1 (214) 884-6068 / +91 9665341414
Network Monitoring Tools 2019 Global Industry Key Players  Riverbed ,Zenoss, Nagios,Monitis Market Analysis And Forecast To 2025

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Global Network Monitoring Tools MarketAT present usage of Network monitoring Tools is increasing significantly due to ability of these tools to provide information about problem and information about how to solve it and improve network. These Network monitoring Tools help users to generate log files and performance charts that helps in detailing system capabilities and allow user to change system settings for optimal set-up. These Network monitoring Tools includes software such as application performance management, web monitoring and packet capturing.The key players covered in this studyRiverbedZenossNagiosMonitisZohoMonitortoolsRequest a Sample Report @Presently, North America is holding the largest market share for Network monitoring Tools market due to high adoption of Network monitoring Tools among enterprises in various industries for improved auto discovery of data, to increase availability of servers and applications, to determine unresponsive machine and alert user, for faster detection of network outage. In Europe region, the market for Network monitoring Tools is witnessing high growth rate due to the increasing demand for technologies that can allow companies to improve network performance, trend analysis, and network storage, improve working of wireless devices.The Asia Pacific region is following the Europe region in Network monitoring Tools market. This Network monitoring Tools market is expected to have the highest growth rate in coming years due to the adoption of cloud based Network monitoring Tools offerings significantly.In 2018, the global Network Monitoring Tools market size was xx million US$ and it is expected to reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during 2019-2025.This report focuses on the global Network Monitoring Tools status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Network Monitoring Tools development in United States, Europe and China....Market segment by Type, the product can be split intoApplication Performance ManagementWeb MonitoringProtocol AnalyzingPacket CapturingOthersMarket segment by Application, split intoLarge EnterprisesSmall and Medium EnterprisesMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South AmericaThe study objectives of this report are:To analyze global Network Monitoring Tools status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.To present the Network Monitoring Tools development in United States, Europe and China.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies.To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.Table of Contents-Key Points Covered1 Report Overview1.1 Study Scope1.2 Key Market Segments1.3 Players Covered1.4 Market Analysis by Type1.4.1 Global Network Monitoring Tools Market Size Growth Rate by Type (2014-2025)1.4.2 Application Performance Management1.4.3 Web Monitoring1.4.4 Protocol Analyzing1.4.5 Packet Capturing1.4.6 Others1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Network Monitoring Tools Market Share by Application (2014-2025)1.5.2 Large Enterprises1.5.3 Small and Medium Enterprises1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered..12 International Players Profiles12.1 Riverbed12.1.1 Riverbed Company Details12.1.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.1.3 Network Monitoring Tools Introduction12.1.4 Riverbed Revenue in Network Monitoring Tools Business (2014-2019)12.1.5 Riverbed Recent Development12.2 Zenoss12.2.1 Zenoss Company Details12.2.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.2.3 Network Monitoring Tools Introduction12.2.4 Zenoss Revenue in Network Monitoring Tools Business (2014-2019)12.2.5 Zenoss Recent Development12.3 Nagios12.3.1 Nagios Company Details12.3.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.3.3 Network Monitoring Tools Introduction12.3.4 Nagios Revenue in Network Monitoring Tools Business (2014-2019)12.3.5 Nagios Recent Development12.4 Monitis12.4.1 Monitis Company Details12.4.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.4.3 Network Monitoring Tools Introduction12.4.4 Monitis Revenue in Network Monitoring Tools Business (2014-2019)12.4.5 Monitis Recent Development12.5 Zoho12.5.1 Zoho Company Details12.5.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.5.3 Network Monitoring Tools Introduction12.5.4 Zoho Revenue in Network Monitoring Tools Business (2014-2019)12.5.5 Zoho Recent Development12.6 Monitortools12.6.1 Monitortools Company Details12.6.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.6.3 Network Monitoring Tools Introduction12.6.4 Monitortools Revenue in Network Monitoring Tools Business (2014-2019)12.6.5 Monitortools Recent DevelopmentContinued.Enquiry For Buying Report@Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Office No. 528/524, Amanora Chambers, Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune, Maharashtra 411028
Not India but Spain struggles to rescue 2-year-old who fell down 360-ft borehole

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Madrid, Jan 18: It is not uncommon to see such instances in India nowadays. But may be the occurrence of the same in a West European nation has shocked many.

A two-year-old boy fell into a 360-foot-deep well in Spain recently and the rescue workers are working overtime to bring the toddler out. Technical challenges, however, have impeded their efforts, reported People.com.

On Sunday, January 13, little Julen Rosello fell inside the borehole while he was out for picnic with his family in Totalan, off Spain's southern coast, as per an Associated Press report. The authorities had hoped to reach the boy by Friday but technical difficulties have hampered the progress.

Bihar: 3-year-old girl who fell in borewell in Munger rescued

According to a report in NBC News, mining engineer Juan Escobar said in a press conference on Thursday, January 17, that work was on from both sides to reach the boy.

"Without time to do a preview study of the area, we will face difficulties. The most important thing here is to be able to get close to the boy," Escobar said.

Julen perhaps feel into the hole after he got separated from his parents, according to AP. According to Washington Post, the boy cried as he fell and hasn't been heard since. The incident has caught global attention with concern pouring in for the boy and well wishes for the family.

Julen's father Jose Rosello was seen in tears as time passed by though the authorities were hopeful still that the boy would be saved.

MP: After over 35 hours, 4-year-old boy rescued by Army from borewell in Dewas

In India, a number of such instances have happened in the past where little kids fell into open borewells dug sometime to trace water but left dangerously open. While in some cases, the lives were saved, they couldn't be on other occasions.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 9:53 [IST]
Shenzhou-12: China all set to launch manned mission with three astronauts for its space station

Chinese firm makes employees crawl on busy road after they fail to meet targets

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Beijing, Jan 18: Instances of humiliating the employees for not being able to meet the sales target is something not new in China. In the past, there have been reports of Chinese companies making their staff members who failed to reach the sales targets drink urine and eat cockroaches.

On Monday, January 14, a similar story of a company punishing some of its employees in most unusual way since they failed to meet their year-end targets went viral online.

In incident happened in Zhaozhuang city in China's Shandong province where at least six workers were seen crawling on the sidelines of a busy road on their hands and knees. A man holding a flag with the company's name on it was leading them, Shanghaiist reported.

China: Elderly mom with Alzheimer's goes to kids' school to pick her adult daughter

The bizarre procession was stopped by the police and the company's operations were suspended temporarily. The managers reportedly said that they were only trying to "motivate" the employees after they fell short of their allocated sales goals.

Chinese firms have also been known for slapping and spanking workers and also make them eat live worms among other forms of punishment for not being able to produce results.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 15:28 [IST]
Italy finds patient with new COVID-19 strain which UK said is out of control

British queens 97-yr-old husband meets road accident while driving, goes unhurt

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

London, Jan 18: Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, 92, met with a road accident near the queen's Sandringham Estate in Norfolk but escaped unhurt. The 97-year-old royal member was driving his Land Rover and the mishap occurred just when he was pulling out of a driveway onto the road, the local police said.

Pictures emerged from the spot about the royal's vehicle lying on its side with debris scattered. The front left side of the car, which is opposite to the right-hand drive vehicles in the UK, was badly damaged. Two persons from the other car, including a female, involved in the accident were injured and undergoing treatment in hospital.

Why the British are not interested in the 'other royal wedding'

Though Prince Philip did not sustain any injuries, eyewitnesses told the BBC that he was conscious but visibly shaken. He saw a doctor in the estate.

It was being questioned whether Philip, who is just months away from turning 98, should still be driving vehicles.

In the UK, vehicle drivers above 70 need to renew their licences every three years. While the Queen doesn't need to undergo the same, her husband does. Sources in the royal family said Philip's licence was updated, CNN reported.
I am waiting to hear what other leaders say, Mamata says ahead of mega 19.1.19 rally

India

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Kolkata, Jan 18: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday, January 17, visited the Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata to take stock of the preparation for the mega 'United India' rally which her party - Trinamool Congress - is organising to launch Mission 2019 along with many other anti-BJP parties. The rally will feature a number of heavyweight leaders from other parties like the Samajwadi Party, National Conference, Telegu Desam Party, Aam Aadmi Party, DMK, JD(S), RJD and others. Congress president Rahul Gandhi though will not be present at the rally but he wrote to Banerjee saying the Opposition is united.

SP-BSP alliance: Strategically a good move but it will face these 5 challenges as well

After getting snubbed in UP, Congress to share platform with SP in Kolkata

When Banerjee was asked whether Saturday's meeting would be a repetition of the historic 1993 meeting when the leader, president of the Youth Congress then, had sounded the death knell of the then ruling Left, she said she would not say anything this time this time and would wait to hear what other leaders say.

UP elections 2014 & 2017: Looking at vote-shares of BJP and its opponents

"In 1993, when I was the president of the Youth Congress, I had sounded the death knell of the Left Front here and it became a historic meeting. This time, I myself will not say anything. Let all leaders decide. I am waiting to hear what other leaders have to say. I will not impose my viewpoints on anybody because it is a democratic system. We will lend our ears to others," she told the media at the iconic venue, adding that the BJP will not get more than 125 seats in this year's election.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 17:00 [IST]
Shutdown in Trumps US: Why India shouldnt be presidential system

India

oi-Shubham Ghosh

New Delhi, Jan 17: The United States, often revered as the world's most effective democracy is in a rattled state of affair. The government of the nation is witnessing a shutdown extending for almost a month, thanks to a prestige battle for President Donald Trump who has locked horns with the Congress over the funding of his pet wall along the US border with Mexico to prevent infiltration. The wall has been one of President Trump's top electoral promise ahead of the 2016 election and not being able to fulfil it means a loss of face for the Republican among his supporters.

The continuing government shutdown in the US which has started taking toll on the economy now and not many are foreseeing a quick end to the stalemate, given the uniqueness of the political milieu that the US has in the era of Trump.

Good to have tied with India, Russia and China: Trump

Taking a cue from the stalemate of a battle between the executive and legislature in the US, should we yet consider the presidential form of government to be a better alternative than the parliamentary one?

Difficult to say yes.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who also make it his routine work to attack everything that has a connection with the bygone British rule in India in a bid to revive the brand of nationalism that the Grand Old Party was known for as a counter narrative to the BJP's cultural nationalism, is strongly in favour of starting a presidential form of government.

One of Tharoor's logic that with the presidential system in place, the head of the government would not have to run for campaigns in state polls and devote more time to what he should: run the administration. But there are more factors that also demand that a parliamentary system is more suitable for India than a presidential one.

In India, it's parties that mobilise social expressions

It is a different challenge altogether for India to give vent to the political ambitions of its socio-economic diversity. Unless there are parties to mobilise the electoral energy which lies in communities, castes and religious groups, elections in India are not going to be successful. There is no denying the fact that seeing our countrymen vote for an individual directly to become the chief executive as the president will be a thing of glory but given India's social realities, expecting such thing is too far from the reality.

Government shutdown becomes longest in US history

In the US, we have seen how a 'short circuit' in the country's politics has produced a leadership like Trump. It is not Trump who is to be blamed for this but the prevailing mood across the nation in the wake of the rule of a black president which had done the damage. In India, we cannot just allow such an outcome for even the slightest of disagreements over social ideologies can lead to havoc, thanks to factors like caste, creed and religion.

What is India gets a Trump-like president?

It is a risk if the elected highest executive becomes a sorry by-product of a system which is upset with itself. The Americans today are seeing day in and out how their president is making things tough for them and also creating a world where the US is finding itself increasingly in isolation. Many will call Trump an exceptional phenomenon but given the damage he is inflicting during his tenure (which could be eight years), it will take a long time for his successors to clean up the mess and restore the American credibility again. The fact that the president has found his path less smooth after the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives testifies the inherent strength of a democracy where the system of checks and balances must be operational. And that strength is present in abundance in the parliamentary system that is in progress in India.

State elections may seem distracting but they are handy

What we call noise in our democracy is actually our strength because we are not mature yet to take universal decisions that fit and suit all. The state elections, even though are frequent and seem hindering for the administration, they serve as a necessary tool to remind the national rulers of their duties and responsibilities when they tend to go on an overdrive. In a system like the one India has, it is always handy to have periodical caution in place against over-ambitious rulers, irrespective of the party. At best, the timing of the elections can be aligned once again as it was till 1967 but then again, it is very difficult to forecast that it will remain so forever. But the success of our democracy lies in that chaos and no presidential system can address this better.

Indians prefer community living more than as individuals

Indians are psychologically people who love to live in communities and groups and not as individuals. In such a system, too, it is advisable to continue with the party-based parliamentary system of governance and not a presidential one which is more personalised.

Yes, there have been elections in the past where individuals were projected as faces of parties but to equate it with only an individual-dominated system will be wrong. India is too diverse and disproportionately distributed to be ruled by a single man. And even if that happens, clashes between the chief executive and the legislature over issues on which the former tends to show dictatorial tendencies will be a common phenomenon.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 7:03 [IST]
UP: Moustache allowance for cops see hike by 400%

India

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Lucknow, Jan 18: A few days ago, Madhya Pradesh police personnel made the headlines after the state's new government under Chief Minister Kamal Nath allowed them to avail a weekly off so that they can get to spend quality time with their families. It was hailed as 'achhe din' for the police personnel of the central Indian state.

Now, good news has embraced the police personnel of neighbouring Uttar Pradesh as the provincial armed constabulary (PAC) authorities of the state has revived the moustache reward by a whopping 400 per cent for personnel who sport big and twirly moustaches. Also, allowance for the upkeep of the moustaches has been raised from Rs 50 to Rs 250 a month, Newsd reported.

Allahabad: Only vegetarian, 'Sanskari' cops to be deployed for Kumbh 2019

The decision is being seen as an attempt by the UP PAC authorities to bring back the trend of recognising personnel who have robust moustaches. Additional Director General, PAC, Binod Kumar Singh said the trend of sporting big moustaches among the cop had declined and it is high time that the fashion resumed, the report added.

According to Singh, the moustache reward was to "keep old traditions alive along with encouraging modern professional skills".

UP: Video of cops abusing girl, thrashing her went viral for being in 'relationship' with Muslim man

The allowance was a regular feature till the mid-1980s when new police uniform rules started that they included guidelines about haircuts and daily shaving.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 18:04 [IST]
Arun Jaitley framed bill on Art 370 nullification that can withstand legal challenge, says his wife

Jaitley statue at Kotla: Angry Bedi asks DDCA to remove his name from stands, quits membership

They could masquerade corruption as crusade: Jaitleys comeback on opposition

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

New Delhi, Jan 18: Terming opposition parties as 'Compulsive Contrarians', Finance Minister Arun Jaitley accused them of manufacturing falsehood and subverting democracy by weakening an elected government.

Nations are built by those with positive mindsets and a national vigor, not by the 'Compulsive Contrarians', he said in a Facebook blog without naming Congress or other opposition parties.

Jaitley, according to sources, is in the US for a medical checkup.

Also Read | Arun Jaitley in New York for cancer treatment, may miss budget

"The Compulsive Contrarians had no qualms about manufacturing falsehood. They could concoct arguments even if they went against the general interest of the country. They could masquerade corruption as crusade. They could adopt double standards whenever it suited them," he said in a Facebook post titled 'The Compulsive Contrarian and his Manufactured Logic'.

Citing the tirade mounted by political parties on host of issues including 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections and the Rafale defence deal, Jaitley said that the 'Compulsive Contrarians' believe that this Government can do no good and hence its every act must be opposed.

"Nations are built by those with positive mindsets and a national vigor, not by the Compulsive Contrarians. Didn't left-liberals find fault with the various actions that Gandhiji took during the freedom movement? Weakening a Sovereign Elected Government and strengthening the unelectable is only a subversion of democracy," he wrote.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 6:53 [IST]
Son of BSF jawan who complained about bad food found dead

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 18: The son of a Border Security Force (BSF) constable dismissed from service for posting videos reeling to the quality of food served to soldiers was found dead at their home in Rewari, Haryana.

Centre calls sacked BSF constable's 'daal story' a cooked up one

Sacked BSF constable, Tej Bahadur Yadav's son, Rohit was found in a locked room of the family's home with a gun in his hand. The police say that the family called and reported a suicide.

Yadav was away at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh to attend the Kumbh Mela, the police said. He has been informed, the police also said.

No contact with foreigners before BSF jawan posted bad food video

The BSF, it may be recalled had set up an inquiry against Yadav after his videos complaining about the quality of food was posted on the social media. He was shifted out of the Line of Control after the controversy had escalated. Both the Prime Minister's Office and the Union Home Ministry had sought a report in this regard. Yadav was later dismissed from service on charges of making false claims.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 11:24 [IST]
Dont you have confidence in the state you served for 30 years: SC to Param Bir Singh

Provide full security to two women who entered Sabarimala says SC

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 18: The Supreme Court has directed the Kerala Government to provide full security to the two women who entered Sabarimala. Provide adequate and full security, the court said.

The two women who entered the Sabarimala shrine had moved the Supreme Court seeking round the clock protection. The Supreme Court had agreed to hear the matter on Friday.

Sabarimala: Violence breaks out as 2 women attempt to enter temple

It may be recalled that one of the two women was assaulted by her relative. Kanaka Durga who was one of the two women who entered the shrine was attacked when she returned home on Monday.

Following protests and threats, Bindu Ammini and Kanaka Durga had gone into hiding. Their entry had sparked widespread protests and also a day long strike in Kerala. While speaking from an undisclosed location, they had said that they were facing threats, but were hopeful that the authorities would provide them security. There have been protests following a Supreme Court order which lodged the ban on women of all ages to enter the shrine.
Dont you have confidence in the state you served for 30 years: SC to Param Bir Singh

Post SC order, Maha govt to bring ordinance against dance bars

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

Mumbai, Jan 18: After the Supreme Court's verdict paving the way for reopening of dance bars in Maharashtra, the BJP-led state government is considering bringing an ordinance to stop their operations.

Stating that there can be "regulations" but not "total prohibition", the SC Thursday set aside some provisions of a 2016 law imposing restrictions on licensing and functioning of dance bars.

Senior minister Sudhir Mungantiwar told PTI Friday that in order to protect the cultural fabric of the state, the state government is considering bringing an ordinance to stop dance bars from operating.

Mungantiwar said while the state government respects the apex court's decision, it is firm on its stand that dance bars cannot be allowed to operate.

Mumbai dance bars to reopen but showering of money not allowed

The Minister for Finance and Planning said the issue will be discussed in detail during the weekly state cabinet meeting next week.

"In the interest of people and for saving the cultural fabric of the state, we will not hesitate in bringing an ordinance to stop dance bars from operating," he said.

"Once we receive the written orders of the court, our lawyers will study it and based on their recommendations, we will bring an ordinance in the next two weeks, making changes and strengthening the existing law," Mungantiwar said.

Asked if such an ordinance would violate the SC orders, he said there have been court rulings in favour of dance bars. "All parties came together for a law against dance bars. We will do it this time as well," Mungantiwar said.

The SC has allowed tips to performers but disallowed showering of currency on them.

It also quashed some provisions of the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (Working therein) Act, 2016, like the mandatory installations of CCTV cameras in dance bars saying they violated privacy.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 11:42 [IST]
New CBI chief: It could be Modi vs Jaiswal

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 18: The high powered committee headed by the Prime Minister will meet on January 24 to decide on who would be the next chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation.

There are nine names that are in contention and these officers are those selected in the years 1983, 1984 and 1985. The Supreme Court had said in 2014 that officers from the four oldest serving batches of the IPS will be in contention for the post.

Special Director Rakesh Asthana moved out of CBI

Sources tell OneIndia that a decision on the CBI chief would be made in the last week of January. Alok Verma who was shunted out of the CBI by the high powered committee would have completed his term on January 31 2019.

The Department of Personnel and Training is in the process of shortlisting the names. Some of the factors that are being taken into consideration are seniority, expertise in investigating anti-corruption cases, integrity and handling vigilance. Prior experience in the CBI would also be one of the factors.

In December 2018, the names of 17 officers were sent to the DoPT. The list was further pruned and nine names were in contention. Sources say that before the high powered committee, it may come down to three names. They are NIA chief, Y C Modi, Mumbai Police Commissioner, Subodh Kumar Jaiswal and Uttar Pradesh DGP, O P Singh. The source also added that for now Modi is the frontrunner for the post. However the final decision would lie with the high powered committee which also comprised the leader of the opposition and Chief Justice of India.

Modi has experience of working in the CBI and anti-corruption branches. Coupled with the seniority factor, this could work well in his favour, the source also said. Jaiswal on the other hand, who is also a frontrunner has worked in the Research and Analysis Wing. He has also worked as an additional secretary to the Cabinet Secretariat before taking over the police commissioner of Mumbai.

Selection Panel to meet on January 24 to decide on new CBI director

Another name that has also been in contention is that of Rina Rina Mitra, Special Secretary (internal security), Home Ministry. She too has worked in the CBI and handed several anti-corruption cases.

Seniority list:

1983 batch:

Rina Mitra: Special Secretary (internal security), Home Ministry.

O P Singh: UP DGP

Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar: CRPF Director

1984 batch:

Y C Modi: NIA chief

Sudeep Lakhtaki, NSG director

A P Maheshwari: Bureau of Police Research and Development chief

Javeed Ahmad: Director of National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Science

Rajnikant Mishra: Border Security Force chief

S S Deswal, Chief of Indo-Tibetan Border Police chief

1985 batch:

Subodh Kumar Jaiswal: Mumbai Police Commissioner

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 14:54 [IST]
Maharashtra: In a trilateral fight, Shiv Sena loses, NCP-Cong gain

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Mumbai, Jan 18: The Congress-NCP says that the deal is done in Maharashtra. All eyes would now be on the BJP and Shiv Sena after both parties have dropped enough hints that the 2019 battle would be a solo contest.

If the BJP and Shiv Sena fight the battle on their own, then one would get to witness a trilateral fight in Maharashtra which accounts for 48 Lok Sabha seats. In the 2014 elections, the BJP and Shiv Sena together bagged 41 seats, while the Congress and NCP got 6.

NCP-Congress to fight Maharashtra elections together, MNS kept away

In case of a trilateral contest, the Congress and NCP looks to gain, if one goes by the vote share that the parties had in the previous elections. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and Shiv Sena together polled 48.4 per cent of the vote share. The Congress-NCP on the other hand polled 34.4 per cent.

The Maharashtra Assembly elections held in 2014 witnessed a four corner fight. In that election, the BJP polled 28.1 per cent while the Shiv Sena ended up with 19.5 per cent. The Congress and NCP ended up with 18.1 and 17.4 per cent respectively.

Going the vote share of the past, it appears that the Shiv Sena is likely to lose more than the BJP. The BJP may not be able register a mammoth victory like it did the last time without an alliance. However it is likely to hold on to at least 20 out of the 23 seats it had won in 2014. However it is the Congress-NCP that would make gains in case of a trilateral contest.

After Marathas, now Brahmins demand reservation

NCP leader Sharad Pawar had recently said that the deal with the Congress has been finalised. Out of the 48 seats, the two parties have reached an understanding on 45, he had also said.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 10:07 [IST]
Haryana woman tries to flee to meet her Pakistan boyfriend via Kartarpur corridor, sent back home

After Pak allows access, India says yet to decide on opening Kartarpur Corridor

Kartarpur corridor: Access mode for Indian devotees yet to be decided

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Jan 18: Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri said Friday the mode of access for Indian devotees headed for Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara in Pakistan, is yet to be decided by the two countries.

"Whether access will be given to them by using passport as a travel document or VISA will be applied, are issues that are to be discussed bilaterally between the two countries. It is yet to be finalised," Puri told reporters.

He said that a decision has been taken that access from the Indian side  the main road which goes up to Kartarpur Sahib will be completed in a time-bound manner. After the Cabinet decision on November 22, 2018, a number of steps have been taken and one of them is to open the Kartarpur corridor, he said.

Pakistan sees Kartarpur as high point in Imran Khan's diplomacy

"We have so far decided that the access from our side  the main road which goes up there (Kartarpur Sahib), and the specific corridor, we will complete in a time-bound manner."

The four-km corridor will connect Dera Baba Nanak in India's Gurdaspur district with Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Narowal in Pakistan.

It will provide access to Indian Sikh pilgrims to the historic shrine in the neighbouring country. Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, is believed to have spent more than 18 years of his life there. The Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara is located on the banks of Ravi river, about three-four kilometres from the Indo-Pak border.

Puri lamented that the cartographer who drew the boundary between India and Pakistan after separation, must have been "insensitive" as he carved out the place belonging to Guru Nanak from India.

The ground-breaking ceremony for the corridor was performed by Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan, in November last year. On Indian side, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had laid the foundation stone of the corridor in Gurdaspur last year.

PTI
Karnataka: BJP-Congress indulge in war of words over CLP meeting

India

oi-Vikas SV

Bengaluru, Jan 18: Amid political turmoil in Karnataka, all eyes are on the Congress legislature party meeting which is scheduled to be held today at Vidhana Soudha, Bengaluru.

The meeting assumes significance following attempts by the Congress to reach out to its disgruntled MLAs, who are allegedly ready to jump ship to the BJP side. The meeting is aimed at putting to rest speculation that the Congress is not a united house.

In Karnataka, a crisis is not over until the last MLA returns

"I am not bothered about their CLP meeting, that is left to Congress and JDS, why should I comment about it? They are telling many things, I am not responsible for that. Our 104 MLAs are worried about our party and preparing for Lok Sabha elections," Karnataka BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa told the media today.

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and senior Congress leader G Parameshwara exuded confidence that all the party MLAs would turn up for the meeting.

"Yeddyurappa is president of BJP, he need not worry about Congress MLAs, all of our MLAs will attend the CLP meeting. The pathetic thing is that BJP stooped to this level, they approached our MLAs & are still doing it but they will not succeed," he said, as quoted by ANI.

Operation Lotus fails again

It would be interesting to see how many turn up at the meeting. The BJP is keeping a close watch on Congress MLAs, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatalli. These MLAs are still in Mumbai and have not made their intentions clear. There were others too part of this sulk list, but the Congress managed to win them over. Shivram Hebbar and J N Ganesh too were presumed missing, but they return to Bengaluru and declared that they were still with the party.

Hebbar termed the episode as a misunderstanding and said that he was away at Andaman and Nicobar with his grandchildren. Former CM Siddaramaiah who would convene the meeting has warned absentees. He said that remaining absent would invite action under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution, which deals with the anti-defection law.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 10:57 [IST]
BPL families which lost earning member to COVID to get Rs one lakh relief in Karnataka

Karnataka: Congress moves MLAs to Eagleton resort to 'work out counter-strategy against BJP'

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

Bengaluru, Jan 18: Three Congress MLAs gave a miss to Congress Legislature Party meeting held on Friday. Gokak MLA Ramesh Jarakiholi and Athani MLA Mahesh Kumatalli skipped meeting without informing. MLA Umesh Jadhav had informed Siddaramaiah about skipping the CLP meeting, citing a personal emergency.

The three MLAs, who skipped the CLP meeting, are in Mumbai since the current political crisis unfolded in the state.

After the meeting, former CM Siddaramaiah said, "76 MLAs were present physically out of the 79. I will send notice to absentees and seek an explanation. Then I will speak to the high command."

Karnataka: BJP-Congress indulge in war of words over CLP meeting

Siddaramaiah took a direct aim at the saffron party leadership for attempting to destabilise the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government.

In a press conference held after the meeting, he said, "Including Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and central ministers are also involved in this process of destabilising our Govt. They approached our MLAs with huge offers of 50-70 crores. I have proof. How come a Chowkidar has so much money?."

Sowmya Reddy, Congress MLA, said, "We are not going to leave, we are working together well, let us work. We are all going to Eagleton resort, it would be a one day stay probably, a show of strength. We will also have a discussion on upcoming parliamentary elections."

Bengaluru: Congress MLAs move to Eagleton resort after CLP meeting pic.twitter.com/Y2W9t0ZGEK  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

KPCC President Dinesh Gundu Rao tweeted that all the members of the CLP opined to d to fight 'destructive force BJP head on'. "We will be staying together tonight to work out our counter strategy. The BJP is openly indulging in horse-trading and has stooped to new lows to bring our INC-JDS government down by hook or crook."

All the members of the CLP opined that we need to fight this destructive force BJP head on.

We will be staying together tonight to work out our counter strategy.

The BJP is openly indulging in horse trading & has stooped to new lows,to bring our INC-JDS govt down by hook or crook  Dinesh Gundu Rao (@dineshgrao) January 18, 2019
Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged more efforts to achieve new, greater progress in the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.





Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour of the region from Wednesday to Friday.





During the tour, Xi chaired a symposium on the region's coordinated development and made an important speech.





Vice Premier Han Zheng, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, accompanied Xi on the tour of the Xiongan New Area in Hebei Province and Beijing and attended the symposium.





Three-day tour





On Wednesday morning, Xi visited the exhibition center for the planning of the Xiongan New Area and stressed that the creation of Xiongan is "a strategy that will have lasting importance for the millennium to come."





China should remain committed to the new development concept and stick to the high-quality growth when building the new area, Xi said.





While visiting a government service center, Xi stressed that development of the Xiongan New Area requires concerted efforts from a large number of enterprises.





"We welcome all companies, whether they are state-owned enterprises or private companies, local firms or companies from Beijing, Chinese enterprises or overseas-funded companies, as long as they conform to the industrial development plan of the new area," he said.





A good ecological environment represents the important value of the Xiongan New Area, he said while visiting a forestry zone in the region Wednesday afternoon.





Visiting the campus of Nankai University in Tianjin Thursday morning, Xi said it is a priority to nurture patriotism among students for them to become a new generation of capable young people well-prepared to join the socialist cause.





In a square on campus, enthusiastic students welcomed Xi, shouting greetings such as "Welcome, General Secretary" and singing a patriotic song. Xi shook hands with students and waved to others in the crowd.





At a community in Heping District in Tianjin, Xi pointed out that community work should be people-centered with an accurate grasp of people's needs and provide targeted and elaborate services for the residents in a timely manner.





He then visited a service and administration station for veterans in the community and stressed that setting up institutions for veteran affairs is to enhance the management of veterans and better protect their welfare in order to make military service a publicly respected occupation.





Talking about the large number of unique buildings and streets of historical and cultural significance in Tianjin, Xi asked for more care for the historical and cultural heritage in cities and better coordination of development and protection.





During his visit to the Tianjin port Thursday afternoon, Xi called for efforts to develop it into a world-class smart and green port, which can better serve the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei as well as joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative.





Xi then visited the Binhai-Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park, where he highlighted the pressing task to rely on self-dependent innovation for advancing high-quality development and replacing old growth drivers with new ones.





On Friday morning, while visiting the sub-center of Beijing, Xi stressed that planning should take precedence over the construction of the sub-center while quality should be the top priority.





He said the sub-center should be made another "shining name card" of Beijing.





Six demands





Xi made six demands to promote the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.





Efforts should be made to relocate the non-capital functions of Beijing in an active, proper and orderly manner, he said.





He stressed high-quality and high-standard planning and development of the Xiongan New Area and called for building a number of major infrastructure projects in transportation, water conservancy and public services in the new area.





The relocation of Beijing's municipal organs should be taken as an opportunity to pursue high-quality planning and construction of the sub-center, Xi said, adding that the spatial layout and economic structure of Beijing should be optimized.





He stressed the need to take reform and innovation as impetus to inspire high-quality development and establish independent innovation bases.





Joint efforts must be made in the improvement and protection of ecology and environment, while more clean energy should be supplied, Xi said.





He called for a people-centered approach and joint work in developing the basic public services with shared benefits, adding that all poverty-stricken counties in the region should be lifted out of poverty by 2020.




Temple in Srinagar that was closed due to militancy, reopens after 31 years on Panchami

J&K: Grenade attack in Srinagar, no casualities

India

oi-Vikas SV

Srinagar, Jan 18: A blast is said to have occured in Srinagar on Friday. While some reports claimed that there has been a grenade attack in Srinagar's Lal Chowk, others state that blast occured at Ghanta Ghar Chowk.

In a seperate incident, terrorists lobbed a grenade on Police camp in Gagran area of South Kashmir's Shopian.

No loss of life or property have been reported. Police have registered cases for both the incidents, reported news agency ANI.

On Thursday, three cops were wounded after terrorists lobbed a grenade at a police party in Srinagar. The incident took place near Zero Bridge in Rajbagh area.
COVID situation going from bad to worse; PM, health min refuse to own responsibility: Chidambaram

If I was the finance minister: Here is Chidambarams answer

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

New Delhi, Jan 18: Taking a swipe at the NDA government, former union minister, P Chidambaram had an interesting answer on the upcoming interim budget.

While speaking on the Rafale controversy at a press conference, he was asked by reporters what he would have done if he were to present the vote on account this year.

"If I was the finance minister in the NDA government today, I would have resigned," he said. His answer drew laughter from the room.

Rafale: Govt compromised on national security says Chidambaram

"We don't expect anything good from this government... Nothing that the government will do in the next 60 days can change the state of the economy... It's perilous, every indicator is worrisome," he told news agency ANI.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is in the US for treatment amid speculation that he may be unable to present the interim budget on February 1.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 16:40 [IST]
Hues of Kumbh Mela 2019 in pictures

India

oi-Vikas SV

Allahabad, Jan 18: Kumbh Mela 2019 commenced with the first Shahi Snan on Tuesday (January 15). The holy dip for Kumbh Mela 2019 began on Monday midnight with the Shahi Snan on the auspicious day of Makar Sankranti. Over 12 crore people expected to visit Prayagraj between now and March, when the festival will come to a close.

As a part of the Shahi Snan, sadhus belonging to 13 akhadas take a dip in the holy rivers along the banks of River Ganga where the Kumbh Mela takes place. The order in which the akhadas perform the holy ritual by taking a dip in the river - the Ganges in case of the Prayagraj Kumbh Mela - is predetermined and according to the norms, no one is allowed to enter the holy river before the akhadas finish their Shahi Snans.

World's biggest gathering A sea of devotees gathered to take bath at Sangam on the occasion of Makar Sankranti, the first Shahi Snan, during Kumbh Mela 2019 in Allahabad (Prayagraj). Naga Sadhus take a holy bath Naga Sadhus take a holy bath at Sangam on the auspicious Makar Sankranti day during the Kumbh Mela. Meteorology dept launches special app to give weather info on Kumbh Mela 2019 Juna Akhara Sadhus Juna Akhara Sadhus arrive to take a holy dip at Sangam on the auspicious Makar Sankranti day during the Kumbh Mela. The auspicious holy dip A Sadhu takes a holy dip at Sangam on the auspicious day of Makar Sankranti during Kumbh Mela

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 9:31 [IST]
'Gone too early': Sorrowful condolences pour in for Kannada actor Sanchari Vijay

KCET 2021 registration open from today: How to apply for KCET Exam 2021, fees, other key details

CET 2021 performance not to be criterion for B.SC admissions: Ashwathnarayan

Karnataka: HK Patil takes charge as Campaign committee Chairman in a grand function

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

Bengaluru, Jan 19: Senior Congress senior leader HK Patil took charge as he KPCC Campaign committee Chairman in a grand function held at Palace Ground in Bengaluru.

Within the Karnataka Congress circle, it is said that the grand celebration was a measure to appease Patil, a loyal Congress leader, who was upset for not been accommodated in the Cabinet. Hence, the party made the event look like the swearing-in ceremony of a minister.

Karnataka: Congress moves MLAs to Eagleton resort to 'work out counter-strategy against BJP'

Patil's effort to get a berth in the recently expanded Congress-JDS Cabinet went in vain. Therefore, Congress President Rahul Gandhi summoned him to Delhi and asked him to take the responsibility of campaign committee chairman.

AICC General Secretary and Karnataka in-charge Shri Venugopal, KPCC President Dinesh Gundu Rao, former CM Siddaramaiah, KPCC working President Eshwar Khandre, Dy CM Dr. G Parameshwara, Ministers, MLA and Leaders of the Congress attended the oath taking ceremony.

Who is HK Patil?

HK Patil, son of Late Sri. K. H. Patil, a renowned politician and former Minister for Co-operation, currently represents the Gadag Assembly Constituency in Karnataka Legislative Assembly.

Popularly known as 'Tiger of Hulkoti', Patil got widespread accolades for enthusiastically involving himself with the expansion of Irrigation across the state and spearheading the attempt for 'Cloud Seeding' while being the Minister for Water Resources of Karnataka.

He was the Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj in the Government of Karnataka headed by Shri. Siddaramaiah.
MP: BJP Yuva Morcha leader fined Rs 10,000 for flouting COVID-19 norms but no case as he expresses 'remorse'

Ayodhya land deal: Rahul Gandhi slams BJP, says betrayal in name of Lord Ram is unrighteous

BJP gen secy, Ram Lal admitted to hospital

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

New Delhi, Jan 18: BJP national general secretary (organisation) Ram Lal was admitted to a hospital in Noida where he was undergoing treatment for fever on Thursday.

He was running fever on Wednesday night and is still under observation, officials at Kailash Hospital here said.

"Some blood tests have been done and reports are awaited. He is fine but under observation," senior manager, Kailash Hospital, V B Joshi, told PTI.

Khemchand Sharma, member of BJP's national IT and social media campaign, said the 66-year-old party office-bearer was in the hospital for "regular checkup".

"BJP National General Secretary (Organization) Shri Ram Lal ji admitted to Kailash Hospital in Noida just for regular checkup. I just had a discussion with his team. Nothing to worry, he will be discharge by today evening," Sharma tweeted.

Ram Lal has worked as a pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in western Uttar Pradesh before he was appointed to the current post in the BJP.
Israel Embassy blast: The NIA is looking for these men, watch CCTV footage

NIA charges Kerala man who helped set up ISIS province in forests of South India

Amidst Khalistan threat, ISIS module probe reaches Punjab

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 18: The National Investigation Agency has widened its probe into the Islamic State inspired module that it had busted recently. A teacher from a madrasa was picked up for questioning after investigations learnt that he was allegedly linked to the module.

Mohammad Owais had gone to Ludhiana from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh around a month back. He was working as a maulvi cum madrasa teacher at Madni Mosque on Rahon road. The NIA is also questioning three other suspects in connection with the case.

The NIA team raided the Mosque and picked up Owais. The agency has arrested 12 people in this connection since December 26 last year.

With support from Italy, Canada, how Khalistanis are looking to meddle with Indian elections

The fresh raids come five days after the National Investigation Agency or NIA arrested 24-year-old Muhammad Absar from Hapur on January 12.

The NIA said that searches were being conducted based on inputs from interrogation of the people arrested for allegedly being part of ''Harkat-ul-Harb-e-Islam'' module of global terror group ISIS.

The agency had earlier said it had seized a locally made rocket launcher, material for suicide vests and 112 alarm clocks to be used as timers besides recovering 25 kg of explosive material - Potassium Nitrate, Ammonium Nitrate and Sulphur.

The group had allegedly purchased remote-controlled cars and wireless doorbells to use their circuits in assembling remote-controlled improvised explosive devices.

The NIA had also seized steel containers, electric wires, 91 mobile phones, 134 SIM cards, 3 laptops, knife, sword, ISIS-related literature during the searches conducted earlier.

Ban on KLF is a step forward on cracking down on ISI-SJF sponsored Khalistan movement

The raids at Punjab come at a time when the Intelligence Bureau sounded a warning about the rise of Khalistan terrorism. Punjab has been on a high state of alert ever since pro Khalistan groups launched Referendum 2020 seeking to declare the state independent from India.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 9:17 [IST]
7,500 women in age group of 10 to 50 registered to enter Sabarimala, SC told

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 18: At least 7,500 women in the age group of 10 and 50 had registered to enter Sabarimala using their Aadhaar details, the Kerala Government told the Supreme Court.

The court was hearing a petition filed by two women who entered the shrine, following which they had sought round the clock protection. The court ordered adequate and full security for the two women.

Appearing for the Kerala government, senior advocate, Vijay Hansaria said that so far 51 women had entered the shrine without any problem. He also submitted a list of the 51 women who entered the shrine.

Provide full security to two women who entered Sabarimala says SC

On the plea by the two women, Kanaka Durga and Bindi Ammini, the Kerala government said that protection was already being provided. The court said that there is no harm in continuing with the security even after its order.

The two women also stated in their plea that the shrine should be not be closed for cleansing. The Bench however rejected the idea. Further it was also stated that this petition be clubbed with the rest. While rejecting the same, the court said that there were already 48 petitions seeking a review of the judgment.

It may be recalled that one of the two women was assaulted by her relative. Kanaka Durga who was one of the two women who entered the shrine was attacked when she returned home on Monday.

Woman who entered Sabarimala attacked by relatives, hospitalised

Following protests and threats, Bindu Ammini and Kanaka Durga had gone into hiding. Their entry had sparked widespread protests and also a day long strike in Kerala. While speaking from an undisclosed location, they had said that they were facing threats, but were hopeful that the authorities would provide them security. There have been protests following a Supreme Court order which lodged the ban on women of all ages to enter the shrine.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 16:44 [IST]
2019 LS polls may throw up unstable govt says Jayant Sinha

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

New Delhi, Jan 18: Union minister Jayant Sinha has said that the "most likely" outcome of the ensuing Lok Sabha elections is that India may not get a strong and stable government. The country has transformed and the priority now is to inform the people about this change, the minister said.

"If indeed we end up in a situation where we don't have a strong, stable government, (which) I think that is in fact the most likely case, I think that will be something that will not be good for India going forward," he said, speaking at the CNBC-TV18's India Business Leadership Awards here.

To conquer 2019, 5 hurdles BJP will need to cross

"For us the goal is to inform, to ensure that people understand all that we have done and all that is at risk consequently," Sinha said.

Sinha's remarks come in the backdrop of the setback the ruling BJP suffered in Assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states recently. Speaking at the event, industrialist Sajjan Jindal called the (2019 Lok Sabha) elections as one of the biggest risks (to the economy) the country is staring at.

On his expectations from the next government, he said the influence of state-run companies should diminish. Agreeing with him, banker Uday Kotak said we need to reimagine the financial sector, and the next government should be "seriously considering" how to handle state ownership in this crucial sector.

He was quick to clarify that he is not pitching for the private sector to take over the state ownership, but for the ownership to be broadened in such a way that the general public's ownership in the companies grows.

BJP plans a new strategy for Dalits in Uttar Pradesh with SP-BSP joining hands for LS polls

Kotak also pitched for a 0.50 per cent cut in the repo rate by the Reserve Bank along with a cut in the cash reserve ratio.

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Story first published: Friday, January 18, 2019, 5:49 [IST]
Roberts asserts that the issue is not border security but only a dumb campaign promise and that there are more effective, cheaper and proven ways to police the border. I do not consider a campaign promise to be dumb. The president was elected on that vow, and we who voted for him expect him to make good on it.

Roberts says the system we now have in place is effective, cheaper and proven. Is that why we have anywhere from 11 million to 22 million illegal immigrants walking the streets of our nation?

Roberts states the president should not be allowed to put the country $5 billion further in debt to fund a project that will do little to make our country safer. Ask anyone else who has a wall built around them if they feel safer.

We are a nation of immigrants, but they must be legally in our country. Who could possibly disagree with that?

Del Ostergaard, La Vista

Congress has dropped the ball

Im in my mid-60s and have been politically aware since the riots of 1967 and protests in 1968.
Nebraskas weak performance in creating higher-paying jobs also leads to another problem: The state is hobbled in retaining higher-educated young people and being economically competitive with other states.

Each year the state loses a net of about college-educated 2,000 men and women age 25 and older. Nebraska ranks 10th worst in the country in that regard. A report from the Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education last year pointed to this as one of Nebraskas central challenges in competing effectively against other states.

This brain drain hinders Nebraskas tech industries, for example, from reaching their full potential. Nebraska ranked 40th in advanced industries in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, a 2016 Brookings Institution study said.

University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds pointed to these concerns last year, saying, We need to be all in as a state in growing high-wage jobs.

Nebraska elected officials, across party lines, make the same point. Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts is calling creation of new STEM-focused scholarship programs and says an incentive revamp should shift from incentivizing lower-paid jobs to higher-paid ones.
The Chinese mainland's Taiwan affairs chief Thursday called on Taiwan compatriots to join the mainland to pursue national reunification and rejuvenation.

Liu Jieyi, head of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made the remarks at an activity held by the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland in Beijing.

"The peaceful development of cross-Strait ties and peaceful reunification of the motherland are in the best interest of the Chinese nation and Taiwan compatriots," Liu said. "Taiwan compatriots should act in conformity with the trend of history, and work hard together to seek national reunification and rejuvenation."

Calling the "one country, two systems" principle the best arrangement for national reunification, Liu called on Taiwan compatriots to actively contribute their ideas in exploring Taiwan plan on the "two systems."

Liu promised to continue to do solid work and solve problems for Taiwan compatriots, and expressed the hope that Taiwan compatriots would join the mainland to promote cross-Strait integrated development and make contributions to the peaceful reunification of the motherland.
(CNN)  A Canadian citizen was kidnapped on Tuesday in Burkina Faso, the country's Minister of Security said.

A dozen armed individuals, believed by the ministry to be terrorists, abducted Kirk Woodman from a mining exploration site in the northern part of the country, the ministry said in a statement. The statement did not say whether authorities believe Woodman is alive.

Woodman arrived at the mining exploration site on January 10, according to the ministry. The site is owned by Progress Minerals, a Canadian-based company, the statement said.

The Canadian government has been in touch with officials in Burkina Faso on the kidnapping, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters.

"There are serious reports that he has been kidnapped. We are in touch with authorities in Burkina Faso and the authorities there, and the relevant Canadian agencies are very much engaged in this difficult situation," Freeland said.

Earlier this month, Quebec native Edith Blais, and Luca Tacchetto, an Italian national, went missing while in Burkina Faso.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Canadian citizen kidnapped in Burkina Faso."
A state senator from Lincoln is calling out Attorney General Doug Peterson for saying a petition and bill that would legalize medical marijuana are motivated by the marijuana industry.

State Sens. Adam Morfeld and Anna Wishart of Lincoln are the co-sponsors of a petition drive to legalize medical marijuana in Nebraska, and Wishart introduced a bill that would do the same.

Peterson made the comments Wednesday on an Omaha radio show.

We know it (the bill and petition drive) is coming from an industry that  is making billions and wants to sweep the country with access to some very high-potency marijuana, Peterson said.

Morfeld tweeted an open letter he sent to Peterson on Thursday.

In the future, Morfeld wrote, if you are curious as to my motives, instead of pondering them on the radio, I would encourage you to call my cell phone, send me a text message, message me on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or email, drop by my office or arrange time for coffee  a courtesy I have always extended to you, despite our differences from time to time.

Morfeld invited Peterson to his home or office to discuss what he said is his motivation: people suffering from PTSD, seizures, chronic pain and opioid addiction.
Then all of a sudden it kind of felt like it hit a black ice patch, and then it went sideways, said Salz, a producer in Los Angeles who was back in Omaha for a visit.

McCoy, the airport affairs manager, said crews had been working on treating Eppleys runways since the start of the freezing drizzle earlier in the day.

Sarah Smith was traveling Friday with her husband, Andy Lee, and their three small children from Alamo, California, for a nieces birthday party. Like many passengers, she said Fridays ordeal was mostly calm.

You could just tell you were sliding a little bit, and then a little bumpy near the end, she said.

Passengers said they stayed on the plane for about an hour after it slid off the end of Runway 14R. Stairs were eventually brought to the aircraft, and passengers were taken by bus back to the terminal, where they were briefly sequestered in a conference room.

Smith said her children didnt seem to notice that anything was amiss.

I dont think they even realized what happened, she said.

Philip Baris, 57, came to town from Los Angeles for a wedding. He had a window seat and said he knew that the landing didnt go right when he saw ice.
UPDATE 2:15 p.m.: The National Weather Service office in Valley now is expecting only about an inch of snow by the time the weather system moves out of the Omaha area. The freezing rain that was falling early Friday afternoon was expected to become a mix of freezing rain and snow before switching over to all snow Friday evening.

Creighton University announced on its Twitter page that it had closed at 2 p.m. because of the weather. Drivers in central Omaha were reporting that it is becoming difficult to keep their windshields clear because of the freezing rain.

Council Bluffs police said on Twitter that road conditions had deteriorated rapidly and noted that several calls had come in about people being injured in falls. "Everything is becoming coated with a thin layer of ice," Bluffs police said. "Please be careful!"

UPDATE, 1:45 p.m.: The Nebraska State Patrol said before 1:30 p.m. that troopers were reporting that main roads in the Omaha metro area are wet but side streets are covered with ice. The patrol recommended that people allow themselves extra time if they needed to be out driving.

UPDATE, 1 p.m.: Light drizzle is falling across the Omaha area, and sidewalks are starting to get slick, Omaha's street maintenance engineer said.
You are here: China

Chinese President Xi Jinping inspected north China's Tianjin Municipality on Thursday morning.



During his inspection, President Xi went to Nankai University, one of China's top universities.

He visited the university's centenary exhibition, talked with a group of academicians and examined a national chemistry laboratory.
Six takeaways from Gov. Pete Ricketts State of the State address Tuesday. The governor wants to:

 Bolster property tax relief by increasing the property tax credit program by $51 million per year, to $275 million in credits. The owner of a $100,000 home would get $20 more from the tax credit, for a total of $106 per year.

 Limit the growth of property tax revenues by enshrining in the state constitution, with voter approval, a 3 percent limit on increases in property tax dollars collected by schools and other local governments. The proposal would require approval of the Legislature as well as the states voters. Local voters could decide to override the lid.

 Address prison overcrowding by building two high-security units at the Lincoln Correctional Center. The 384-bed addition would cost $49 million and allow the state to meet a July 2020 deadline to reduce overcrowding to under 140 percent of capacity. Nebraska has the second-most-overcrowded prisons in the country and is facing a federal civil rights lawsuit because of it.
The World-Heralds Statehouse reporters round up news highlights from the Legislature and state government into the Capitol Digest  a daily briefing for the political newshound with a busy schedule.

Convention of States. Nebraskans rallied Wednesday at the Capitol in support of Legislative Resolution 7, which would put the state on record calling for a constitutional convention to rein in the power of the federal government.

The resolution, introduced by State Sen. Steve Halloran of Hastings, says the convention would be limited to proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution that would impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for federal officials.

Article V of the U.S. Constitution provides for such a convention if 34 states call for one. So far, 12 have done so. Halloran said he believes he can get the measure passed in Nebraska, although a similar measure fell short last year. He also expressed confidence that the convention could be limited in scope and would not undermine existing provisions of the Constitution.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is scheduled to help teach a two-week course this semester at Creighton University.

His first day of teaching at Creighton this term isnt clear, but its expected to be soon, perhaps in a week or 10 days. Creighton declined to talk about the matter, evidently at Thomas request. Two professors mentioned security concerns as the reason for Creightons secrecy about the visit.

Thomas has taught a short course several times before at Creighton, although the university has never publicized those visits.

A professor said the law school was on lockdown during Thomas visits. Most Creighton representatives spoke on condition of anonymity, knowing that Creighton has kept Thomas visits out of the public eye.

Thomas will co-teach a two-week Supreme Court class with Creighton law professor Michael Fenner. Fenner is expected to take the first week and Thomas will join him for the second week.

Hes been here before and its always been totally about the students, Fenner said. Its not a public event.

Two sources said second- and third-year students will participate in a lottery, or already have, to determine who gets to take the one-credit course.
A 17-year-old was arrested in the shooting of two other teenagers early Wednesday outside the Salvation Army Kroc Center in South Omaha.

A male and female were hit in their torsos and were taken to the Nebraska Medical Center for treatment. The male was in critical condition and the female in serious condition, said Lt. Enrico Ramos of the Omaha Police Department.

Later, police said the injuries to Zakari Glasgow, 17, and Matthew Brenden, 18, were not life-threatening.

The shooting was reported at 12:44 a.m. by someone who lived nearby.

In the wake of the shooting, police said the wounded teens were not cooperative when questioned.

Wednesday afternoon, police arrested Jamil Phillips and booked him into the Douglas County Youth Center on two counts of first-degree felony assault and two counts of using a weapon to commit a felony.

Two males in what appeared to be a Ford hatchback sped off north on 27th Street after the shooting, Ramos said. There were no immediate arrests.

There was a parked vehicle in the lot at the time, but it was not clear if it was connected to the shooting.

The 122,000 square-foot Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center is at 2825 Y St.
When Birmingham, Alabama, Police Sgt. Wytasha Carter was shot and killed Sunday, the Birmingham community mourned. That tragedy also is hitting close to home in Douglas County, where Carter had served as a corrections officer from 1998-2000.

Anytime we lose a law enforcement officer in the line of duty, its devastating for our country, but the death of Sgt. Wytasha Carter hits especially hard for us because he was a part of our county family, said Douglas County Board member Chris Rodgers. We send our deepest condolences to his wife, children, family and to the entire Birmingham Police Department. Sgt. Carter will be greatly missed.

Carter, 44, and another officer were shot early Sunday as they questioned two people suspected of trying to break into cars in Alabamas largest city. Carter died and the other officer was seriously injured.

Carter, an Air Force veteran, had been promoted to sergeant last February by the Birmingham Police Department, where he had served since 2011.

Harvey Burtley, a Douglas County Corrections officer for 23 years, recalled Carters bubbly personality and go-getter mindset, according to a press release.
Yet the NIPT's entry into the mainstream has raised some questions as busy health-care providers scramble to figure out how to offer it en masse to a public with varying understanding of genetic testing and little access to genetic counselors. "Sometimes, OB/GYNs don't have time to explain the nuances of the tests before they order them," says OB/GYN Neeta Vora, who works as the director of reproductive genetics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

That communication gap is further exacerbated by what Houston prenatal genetic counselor Blair Stevens calls the "elephant in the OB/GYN's office": some patients agree to take the NIPT simply to learn the sex of their baby. They may not understand that the NIPT is not 100 percent accurate and should be confirmed by a diagnostic amniocentesis or CVS. And they also might not be prepared for  or even expecting  the possible genetic problems the test can reveal.

When Casey Delperdang was pregnant with her son, Simon, two years ago, she says the main appeal was the chance to learn she was carrying a boy. "I was 25 at the time and wasn't even thinking about genetic abnormalities because of my age. I sort of took the test for granted," says Delperdang, who works in health-care marketing in Houston.
A bill to add another district court judge in Douglas County has been introduced by State Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha. He said there are many advantages of such specialty courts.

Any time we can invest money in problem-solving courts, were saving money at corrections, Lathrop said.

The cost of housing someone in prison is about $38,627 per year, compared with $2,865 for handling a case in a problem-solving court, Heavican told lawmakers Thursday.

In a problem-solving court, a judge and probation officers closely monitor an offender, making sure that they submit to drug tests and stay off drugs and that they keep jobs and take other steps to become a productive citizen.

Such courts also help relieve overcrowding in Nebraska prisons, the second-most crowded in the nation. A mental health court would work to ensure that an offender is taking medications, attending counseling and taking other steps to address their problems.

Drug courts now exist in all 12 of the states judicial districts, and participation in such courts has doubled since 2008. Last year, special veteran courts were launched in Douglas and Lancaster Counties that focus on the special needs of military veterans who commit crimes.

State court officials estimate that it would cost about $660,000 a year to establish one mental health court. That pays for extra probation and support staff, as well as training and testing expenses, they said. National studies indicate that graduates of problem-solving courts have a much lower chance of offending again.

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Human rights are your tools  the best and most effective investment in a sound and safe future for your people, said United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet.

Bachelet made her remarks during the launch of the UN Human Rights Offices Annual Appeal. The appeal, for US $321.5 million for 2019, will cover, what she has called the most ambitious programme of work ever drawn up by the office. The money will fund the work of some 1,300 staff in 72 presences worldwide, including the headquarters in Geneva.

The money also funds the projects and on-going work of human rights that make noticeable differences in the lives of people. Here are some examples:

Guatemala

Mayan weavers in Guatemala worked with the UN Human Rights Office in Guatemala for assistance in their pursuit for protection of their traditional weaving patterns. Under the slogan Textiles are the books the colonists could not burn, a weavers collective was established and some of its members trained by the UN Human Rights Office in Guatemala. Members of one group, the Asociacion Femenina para el Desarrollo de Sacatepequez, eventually presented a petition for intellectual property rights to the Guatemalan Constitutional Court.

Moldova

Determined to improve the lives of its minorities, the government of Moldova launched a human rights overhaul of Moldovan society that is nothing short of revolutionary. Two key laws that underpin this transformation  Law 60, which guarantees social inclusion of persons with disabilities, and Law 121 which provides a means to address discrimination complaints  were developed with support from the UN Human Rights Office.

South Korea

Reports place the number of people abducted during and after the South Korean war to be between 80,000 to 100,000 during the conflict and 516 since. The UN Human Rights presence in South Korea works with individuals, NGOs and others to help families of abductees press for access to information on their missing loved ones.

Kosovo*

The Multi-Ethnic Resource Centre on Missing Persons in Kosovo* provides a place for families and representatives from associations across all ethnic lines to cooperate and gather information those missing as a result of the 1998-1999 conflict. The centre was opened with the help of the UN Human Rights Office of UN Mission in Kosovo*

* Reference to Kosovo shall be understood in full compliance with the UN SC Resolution 1244 (1999) and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo*.

You can read more on these projects and other stories of impact of the work of the UN Human Rights Office on Exposure. You can support our work and read more stories of human rights impact in everyday lives in the Annual Appeal.

18 January 2019
Beijing will make it easier for foreign talent to obtain housing and gain permanent residency, as a means of luring more top brains, according to the capital's top authority.

The city will widen channels to bring in global talent and fuel the city's efforts to establish a science and technology innovation center, according to a report delivered on Monday by Mayor Chen Jining to the second session of the 15th Beijing Municipal People's Congress.

Chen said that the municipal government will work with multinationals to set up research and development centers, while encouraging universities and colleges to launch innovation centers and support young entrepreneurs.

Last year, the capital formulated 20 new policies to better serve skilled workers and create a favorable environment, including creating a rule that foreign talent can lead scientific research at the national level, and simplifying their entry and exit procedures.

A science and technology innovation fund of 30 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) was set up in 2017 for new technology incubation, he added.

More than 2,300 skilled scientists have been brought in since 2017, and Beijing had provided them public rental housing, said Xu Qiang, director of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

To make them feel at home, seven international hospitals in Beijing launched pilot projects to improve medical care services, and three local public primary and middle schools have increased foreign students' enrollment.

Tan Xuxiang, director of the city's Reform and Development Commission, said the capital will attract and train a group of scientific talent regarding key technological breakthroughs and industrial development. Young entrepreneurs under the age of 30 will also be trained to become professionals capable of establishing international platforms.

According to the Center for China and Globalization, a think tank based in Beijing, only 1 percent of the talent in Beijing's Zhongguancun area is from overseas.

Among the overseas talent pool, about 70 percent are Chinese who have studied abroad; 30 percent are foreigners.

Wang Yaohui, director of the think tank, said Beijing must accelerate its steps to attract foreign talent because that's the only way the capital can make big strides in innovation.

Zhao Lei, director of Tongzhou district and a deputy to the congress, said construction of the subcenter also needs to draw more international talent to build the district into a high-quality international community.

Huang Dakun, general manager of Atlas International Group in Hong Kong and a member of the Beijing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said he was satisfied with the policy on foreign talent but raised some concerns about building the zone.

"The move to attract foreign talent is pretty good, but the government should also focus on how to provide complete surrounding facilities," he said.
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Michelle Ubben

Were only human. That is, were all prone to make mistakes. And by extension, our organizations are just one flawed, human moment away from significant and long-term brand damage, leading to loss of reputation, revenue, customers, and market share. Thats nothing new. What has changed in the digital world are the ways a crisis can originate, how quickly the damage can occur and spread and how long it can last.

The fundamental principles of crisis management remain as true today as ever: Get out in front of your crisis and manage it, tell your own story rather than waiting for others to tell it for you, tell the truth and get all the facts out in one big release if possible, and communicate with all of your most important audiences.

Rather than changing the playbook, the digital world has raised the ante, amplified the urgency, and magnified the importance of responding to a crisis quickly and well. Word travels fast in a time of instant notifications and social shares, so brand-keepers must assume that awareness of their crisis will be broad and swift. Mishandling a crisis in the early minutes and days can be devastating: In a recent Sachs Media Group Breakthrough Research survey, 61 percent of respondents said a companys handling of a PR crisis affected their decision whether to do business with that brand. Among the much-courted younger demographic of 18 to 34 year olds, the number was even higher  67 percent.

So, how is the digital world impacting how a crisis unfolds, and how should brands respond? Some recent crises provide good lessons.

Take decisive and dramatic action

It used to be that a crisis didnt become a crisis until a story broke in the media. Today, many a crisis erupts on social media thanks to a smartphone video, escalates when influencers comment and share, and evolves when other people keep the story alive with new information (not all of it accurate). Traditional media pickup becomes the secondary crisis when reporters chase a story that is trending on a social platform. When a crisis grows legs, a brand in the crosshairs needs to take responsibility and act swiftly and decisively.

A crisis erupted for Starbucks in April, when a customer posted a video on Twitter of two black men being arrested after they didnt order anything. The video generated heavy social shares and sparked protests. The incident was amplified by influential social media users such as Young Turks commentator Shaun King, who has a Twitter following of 1 million and retweeted posts about the incident. The crisis then expanded when a second video about a black customer being denied use of the restroom at a Los Angeles Starbucks emerged. Traditional media jockeyed for the story  a competition won by Good Morning America when it broadcast the first interview with Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, the pair arrested in Philadelphia.

Although it took Starbucks nearly a month and a half to put this crisis to bed, it ultimately succeeded by taking the dramatic step of closing 8,000 of its coffee shops for a half-day of anti-bias training. That bold step conveyed far more credibility than simply announcing a new training program  it showed that the company was willing to forgo four hours of sales to induce a culture change. It also meant the gesture could not be missed and would generate a nationwide buzz, taking negative stories and calls for a boycott and replacing them with positive media coverage and social comments.

Even King circled back with a positive message about the coffee house on Twitter, Im proud of Starbucks for this.

People expect information; give it to them

A time-tested principle of crisis management is to keep the media informed with regular, predictable briefings so they will look to the brand as a trusted information source, rather than getting information from wherever they can find it. Its still important to keep the media fed, but in the digital world all audiences expect a steady flow of updated information. Fortunately, brands have never had more tools to communicate directly with customers and other essential audiences. Smart brands use these tools effectively to quell rumors, reduce upset, put a likeable human face on the company, and retain brand loyalty during a period of trial.

When 700 Southwest Airlines flights were grounded in July 2016, after the airlines computer system went down, their customers were inconvenienced and understandably upset. Rather than hiding and dodging, Southwest used all its owned communications platforms to give customers real-time information about the causes of the problem and clear guidance about what to expect and how to rebook flights or get a refund. The airline launched a new online resource, Southwest Community, to post explanations and updates. It leveraged videos with top Southwest executives that struck the right chords  leading with an apology, then expressing empathy for the plight of their customers, and finally offering clear explanations about how to get help.

Smart brands predict and prepare

The best way to survive a crisis is to anticipate and prepare for it. That means honestly assessing your brands vulnerabilities and thinking through a course of action to respond. While social media can fuel a crisis, it also provides a powerful window into the minds of customers and other interested audiences, if monitored closely. In 2018, we saw examples of some brands using social monitoring to protect their reputation and forestall the crisis, while other brands missed the signs and endured some unnecessary brand damage.

When Build-A-Bear announced a one-day Pay Your Age promotion to take place, it was a genius marketing and PR move that generated significant positive media coverage and social love. But the unprecedented spike in social media engagement should have been a tip-off to the company that customer response might outpace their fulfillment potential. Instead, eager parents and children stood for hours in long lines outside stores, only to be disappointed. In some locations, lines were cut off, while in others stores were shut down altogether. Build-A-Bears brand sentiment plunged and its CEO had to go on the Today Show to apologize.

Like many crises, this one was self-inflicted and avoidable. Savvy brands can use social media monitoring as a crystal ball to anticipate a crisis, and certainly as a window to observe brand damage as it happens in order to react swiftly.

While its too soon to say which companies will endure brand-threatening crises in 2019, its beyond question that there will be some doozies. How does a brand avoid damage in a digital world?

 Assess your brand weaknesses and threats, and put a crisis plan and quick-response guide in place now.

 Make sure your core messaging is fresh and reflects your corporate values. Based on that messaging, create a social media response guide that anticipates most common crisis scenarios.

 Appoint a crisis response team and train your leaders so they are able to deliver your messages effectively, truthfully, and with empathy.

 Inventory your owned platforms and consider how you will use them to get information out to all your important audiences in a crisis.

 Establish social monitoring and look for trends in how your brand is perceived.

 Dont wait for a crisis to do the right thing.

The best defense for any crisis is preparation. Because in todays fast-moving, hyper-connected world, its a matter of when, not if.

Click here to view our Top 10 Tips for Managing Your Crisis.

***

Michelle Ubben is Partner and President at Sachs Media Group.
Eric Yaverbaum

Governor Andrew Cuomo, in the first State of the State address of his third term in office, pledged to legalize cannabis in New York within a hundred days.

While the timetable is aggressive  usually, cannabis legalization has followed a lengthy review and planning process  its another sign of the widespread acceptance of cannabis use that has taken hold in recent years.

For a wide variety of reasons  changing demographics, recognition of its relative harmlessness, or simply the slow, plodding passage of time  societal attitudes toward what used to be called a gateway drug have drastically changed, and, like same-sex marriage before it, the law is slowly catching up.

And the opportunity created is borderline unprecedented: the ushering into the open of one of the biggest black-market industries on Earth.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect, however, has nothing to do with recreational use; as businesses are increasingly focused on cannabiss potential in the wellness industry, the zonked-out stoner on the couch may be giving way to fit, active, urbanite professionals, more Whole Foods than 7-11 parking lot.

Thats because CBD, the non-psychoactive component in cannabis (as opposed to THC, which produces that legendary high), has a growing reputation in the management of both pain and anxiety. The shift away from cannabis as a purely recreational substance to a regular component in a fit and active lifestyle, however, will require changing the conversation about how society sees cannabis, and consequently, how cannabis exists in the market.

The fact remains that the entire discussion about the legalization of cannabis focuses  and to a degree rightly so  on recreational use and the sociological impact of criminalization since 1937 (when it was effectively first outlawed at the federal level), which includes everything from mass incarceration to petty harassment of minority communities.

Indeed, the first steps toward legalization in New York focused on reducing criminal penalties and removing use and possession as offenses warranting arrest. The result of that relaxing attitude is, predictably, an even more casual attitude towards recreational use, an effectively penalty-less offense in one of the most liberal cities in America. Nonetheless, cannabiss image is still clouded by whats perpetuated by shows like Broad City: acting like an idiot for funsies.

Now, thats not an image thats going away anytime soon. Cheech & Chongmay not be the most potent cultural symbol anymore, but the public perception about what cannabis is and does is likely to remain overwhelmingly dominated by glassy-eyed stoners who cant maintain a conversation.

But theres a huge opportunity in bringing other uses to the fore, getting ahead of the legalization discussions that are happening across the United States with a bigger, broader picture of what cannabis is and can be: polished, professional, adult, intelligent, and part of a comprehensive fitness and wellness lifestyle that extends far beyond the smoke-filled basement and the smell of a carpet stained with bong water.

This is, first and foremost, a PR issue, not a marketing one. Marketing can do and say whatever it wants; the trick isnt going to be getting your product in front of consumers, but getting the right message out there, in earned media, that marijuana isnt what you might think it is, moving the conversation away from THC and even medicinal marijuana and towards its role in a fit, healthy lifestyle.

Cannabis has a vital role to play in day-to-day life with an expansive range of applications, from helping manage symptoms of premenstrual syndrome to easing the sore muscles of exercise junkies to alleviating the effects of a host of sleeping, stress, and anxiety disorders. The applications go beyond palliative care and pain management for cancer patients: this is marijuana as a big part of a functional, successful, independent lifestyle for everyday young adults building careers. Thats an entirely new space for it to inhabit, and to do it effectively will ultimately require a fundamental cultural shift away from a single, dominant narrative about the substance.

Its uncertain, unsteady ground, but its an exciting business investment opportunity thats unprecedented, save perhaps for the personal computer revolution: an entirely new industry springing up, seemingly out of nowhere, with the hype of limitless potential. Bringing that to fruition is going to absolutely require new kinds of positioning: expert, clean-cut, adult, credentialed. The recent embrace of people like former House Speaker John Boehner, who pivoted last year very strongly towards advocating for the marijuana market, is indicative of the way forward: a marijuana industry in a suit and tie. Its a change thats coming, no matter what we do; the question is going to be who gets to control the conversation, and the business that takes command of it is the business thats going to attract investors hungry to participate in what is going to be one of the biggest investment frenzies the market has seen in decades.

Now is the time to find your experts. Nows the time to carve out your niche. The snowball is already rolling down the hill, and its vital to stake your claim to your corner before someone else does. I keep thinking about the runaway success of JUUL e-cigarettes; they didnt bring anything to the market that wasnt already there, but they took ownership over e-cigs, not simply as an alternative to smoking, but as a hip lifestyle choice, something the tobacco industry hasnt been able to do since the forced retirement of Joe Camel twenty-two years ago. Smoking, in short, got to be coolagain. Thats a huge cultural movement, and one JUUL capitalized on  not only with marketing, but with a PR blitz focusing on health, youth prevention, and technology. They understood the potential of their burgeoning industry. Commanding cannabis will require the same foresight.

***

Eric Yaverbaum, President of Ericho Communications.


A company in Shandong province, China, has come under fire for forcing six of its employees to crawl through the streets on their hands and feet as punishment for not meeting sales targets.

The humiliating procession reportedly took place in the city of Zaozhuang on January 14 and was recorded by shocked passers-by. Six people can be seen crawling on all fours through traffic behind a man carrying a red flag emblazoned with their companys name. With no protection other than their office clothes, the punished staff struggles to keep up with the flag bearer, but somehow find the strength to keep going, probably fueled by the fear of losing their jobs.

Fortunately for the exhausted employees, police eventually arrived on the scene, probably alerted by shocked onlookers, and put an end to their cruel punishment. Chinese media reported that the company responsible for the shocking procession had its operations temporarily suspended and is currently under investigation.

The beauty products company has been widely criticized online after videos of its staff crawling through the streets of Zaozhuang went viral, but one of its managers claimed that they were merely trying to motivate poor-performing employees who failed to meet their year-end sales targets.



Chinese companies are notorious for coming up with unusually cruel punishments for under-performing employees. Last year, we wrote about a company in Zunyi, China, that forced employees to eat cockroaches for not reaching sales targets, and two years earlier we reported on another company that forced staff to eat sour gourd for the same reason.
China's energy giant PowerChina signed an agreement and a contract with GCM Resources, a leading British resource exploration company, for development of a coal-fired power plant in Bangladesh's Dinajpur district, some 338 km northwest of the capital Dhaka.

Both the Joint Venture (JV) deal and the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract were signed at a ceremony in Dhaka on Thursday.

The proposed project, which is part of a broader strategy by GCM to generate 6,000MW of low cost electricity for the Bangladesh market utilizing domestic coal, is in line with the government's energy development master plan.

The power plant, with two units of a capacity of 1,000MW each, will be built by ultra supercritical technology, which provides lower levels of emissions and delivers the lowest cost of power.

The project would deliver a sustainable power solution for the development and progress of Bangladesh and would have a substantial multiplier effect on the country's economic and social advancement, according to a statement of the companies.

Ding Zhengguo, chairman of PowerChina International, said they were delighted to be a partner with GCM to deliver an integrated mine and power plant for the people of Bangladesh.

"Completing the JV agreement and EPC contract are very important steps in progressing the combined project. As the power plant contractor, we are committed to a positive relationship with the community and to constructing an environmentally friendly power plant for the benefit of the local people."

Michael Tang PJN, executive chairman of GCM, said, "The JV agreement and EPC contract are key milestones for the development of the 2nd proposed 2,000MW power plant project at the mine site and aligns with GCM's strategy to present a holistic power solution to the government of Bangladesh which can generate 6,000MW at the lowest cost for the country."

"The Phulbari Coal and Power Project will deliver a significant multiplier effect on the nation's advancement," he added.

PowerChina is an investor and contractor for three large projects in Bangladesh - two coal-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 1,670MW and a JV for the Dhaka Elevated Expressway.




FORT CALHOUN, Neb.  A couple looked to the sky to learn their babys gender.

About 30 friends and relatives of Chelsea and Chris Samson gathered in the snow Dec. 8 at the Samsons acreage for a gender reveal.

They waited for Scott Olsons Cessna 175 to release a stream of either pink or blue chalk and biodegradable confetti.

After a few test laps over the party, Olsons buddy in the backseat wedged open the door and unfurled the bag of powder.

Blue.

I was kind of rooting for a boy, said Chelsea, who has one other child, an 11-month-old boy named Sawyer. I thought having the two close together, they could be best friends.

Chelsea said she was brainstorming ideas for the gender reveal when she thought about the crop-duster airplanes she sees above the fields in Fort Calhoun.

I pride myself in being as out of the box as possible, said Chelsea, a 29-year-old Las Vegas native who restores old homes with her husband. You see all the same gender reveals over and over again.
VALLEY  A Chambers County School District employee and a Valley resident were charged in December with drug trafficking and other related offenses.

Tierra Nicole Calloway, 30, and Keitavious Quartell Heard, 29, both of Valley, were arrested Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018, and charged with drug trafficking (cocaine), possession of a controlled substance (ecstasy), second-degree possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. Heard was additionally charged with unlawful distribution of a controlled substance (cocaine).

Both were taken to the Chambers County Detention Facility.

Calloway, the school district employee, was released the following day on a bond.

Heard is being held at the jail without bond because of previous convictions.

The arrests were the result of a drug operation by the officers of the Alabama Drug Enforcement Drug Task Force, "Region D," according to a news release by the Valley Police Department on Friday.

The officers performed a traffic stop on Heard and found approximately three grams of cocaine, the news release said.
U.S. high-tech firm International Business Machines (IBM) opened its new headquarters including research and development (R&D) centers in Shanghai on Thursday.



Located on the "AIsland" of Zhangjiang Science City in Pudong New Area, the new headquarters include the company's China Research Lab, China Systems Lab and China Development Lab.

IBM is the first company to settle down on the "AIsland," and China is one of the three countries where the company has settled all the three R&D centers.

The labs will not only provide customized solutions for the Chinese market but also support the company's global R&D activities, according to Jeff Rhoda, general manager of IBM Greater China Group.

"We also look forward to supporting Shanghai in the development of the Yangtze River Delta during a time of digital transformation," said Rhoda.

"Everything from our Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, environment management and blockchain to food safety and many other solutions, we all have here in our client center in Shanghai," Rhoda added.

Pudong has seen a great development of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry in recent years, with more than 100 AI-related enterprises and organizations settled in the area. Microsoft on Wednesday signed a memorandum to locate its new AI and IoT Insider Lab, the first of its kind in the Asian-Pacific Region, on the "AIsland." The lab is expected to open in April.
Tencent Holdings Ltd is looking to work with more smart solutions and service providers, or SSPs, as it seeks to deepen its mobile wallet business' overseas presence, according to a company executive.



The idea is to make its WeChat app payment function run as smoothly in a foreign market as it does at home, by incorporating more app programming interfaces and payment-to-marketing tools developed by third-party providers, said Fan Wei, overseas business director of WeChat Pay.

"The introduction of the SSPs serves to better connect with merchants, users and licensed payment providers," Fan said during WeChat's annual open class event in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, last week.

"They stand to bring to life a variety of smart commerce solutions inspired by local merchants."

These providers must meet certain criteria, including proven capabilities in product development on the WeChat platform, merchant development and maintenance, marketing and a strong local presence, he noted.

In addition to WeChat Pay, overseas merchants are in a position to enjoy other sister services embedded in the WeChat ecosystem, such as mini programs, which work like apps without customers needing to install them, official accounts that can publish notices and manage customers, as well as cards and coupons to incentivize shoppers.

Leveraging WeChat's over 1 billion monthly active users, Tencent can also initiate public relations campaigns and involve online influencers to endorse products and services for foreign vendors.

Fan said WeChat plans to enlarge its local operating team in overseas markets this year, to offer more responsive and tailored services to SSPs and foreign merchants.

"For instance, we will devise more lightweight marketing tools for both SSPs and merchants, taking into consideration the complexity of exchange rates," he said, adding that more details will be unveiled during a global partners conference in March in Hong Kong.

By the end of 2018, WeChat Pay was accepted in 49 countries and regions, and could settle payments in 16 currencies, according to company figures.

Earlier adopters of a comprehensive WeChat solution included Japan's Fuji-Q Highland amusement park. Since July, the park has introduced a mini program that offers introductions to facilities in Mandarin Chinese, provides special entrance offers and supports mobile payments settled in renminbi.

Fan added that WeChat Pay will remain focused on serving outbound tourists instead of delving deeper into developing local payment wallets in foreign markets, since the payment functionality largely originates from its popularity and vast user base in China.

This contrasted with the approach taken by its biggest rival Alipay, which is actively branching out overseas through the rollout of nine local payment wallets. These aim to connect the Alibaba business ecosystem with the overseas markets by forging strategic partnerships, said William Chou, technology, media and telecom industry leader at Deloitte China.

"WeChat's payment business overseas is a complementary strategy to WeChat's internationalization. The downside of WeChat Pay is that not many foreigners use WeChat, and it takes time and effort to develop payment tools overseas," Chou added.
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It was a high-stakes week for Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, who faced two major votes in Parliament.

Lawmakers rejected both Mrs. Mays plan to withdraw Britain from the European Union, as well as a no-confidence motion in her government. Neither result was a surprise.

Which measure was rejected by the larger number of votes?
The prototype of China's new-generation exascale supercomputer Tianhe-3 has been tested for over 30 organizations in China, and it is expected to provide computing services to users in China and overseas, the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin said.



The prototype was operated to meet simultaneous demands from 30 organizations including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center, said Meng Xiangfei, head of the center's applied research and development department.

It has provided computing services for over 50 apps in fields of large aircraft, spacecraft, new generation reactors, electromagnetic simulation and pharmaceuticals, he said.

The sample machine passed tests in July last year and is ready for application. It is a first-phase result in the research of exascale supercomputer capable of a quintillion calculations per second.

The new supercomputer Tianhe-3 will be 200 times faster and have 100 times more storage capacity than the Tianhe-1 supercomputer, China's first petaflop supercomputer launched in 2010.

Zhang Ting, an engineer with the center, said the supercomputer prototype will provide high-quality computing and technical service to clients in high-performance computing, artificial intelligence and big data. It is expected to help boost computing capabilities for technological institutions.




Just a few years out of college, Jeff Arnold sold his first company, which made a remote cardiac monitoring system, for $25 million. In 1999, he sold his second company, WebMD, becoming a billionaire before age 30.

Now hes on his third company, Sharecare, a platform that helps people manage their own health care and allows companies to give employees incentives for better behavior. But while Mr. Arnold has an impressive entrepreneurial biography, what he lacked was an entrepreneurial history  more precisely, a history of his and his wifes families after they emigrated to America from Ireland, Germany and elsewhere in the mid-19th century.

So, last summer, he sought one out.

I dont feel my parents did a very good job of explaining my family history to me, Mr. Arnold said. I was the fifth of six children, so maybe they were tired. But I have four children, so explaining to them their roots was an important box I wanted to check.

Generationally wealthy families have long commissioned or participated in documenting family histories  think of the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds. At their most basic, these works preserve the stories of suffering and greatness that can remind younger generations of what came before them.
California joined about a half-dozen states this month in banning the use of a persons gender when assessing risk factors for car insurance, a change that could potentially alter rates for scores of drivers across the state.

The state, which is the countrys most populous, requires insurers to prioritize criteria like drivers safety records and years of experience behind the wheel when setting auto rates, but it also allows them to weigh other factors, like marital status. Gender had been among the optional criteria until the beginning of this year, when a new regulation went into effect prohibiting the practice.

In announcing the change, the departing state insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, said the new regulations ensure that auto insurance rates are based on factors within a drivers control, rather than personal characteristics over which drivers have no control.

Mr. Joness term as commissioner ended in early January, and the new regulation was one of his final acts. The states Insurance Department, in explaining its reasoning for the change, noted that the industry had inconsistently  and perhaps unfairly  applied gender weighting in pricing.
STOCKHOLM  After a deadlock lasting more than four months, Sweden got a new government on Friday, with the Social Democrats and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven holding onto power under an agreement that excludes a right-wing, anti-immigrant party.

The pact is a precarious one, creating a minority government run by a coalition that had to make concessions to some of its more conservative opponents. Both of the major, multiparty political alliances fell well short of an outright majority in the Parliament in the September elections, and forming a government 133 days later required splitting both blocs.

The Social Democrats and Green Party will govern without the third member of their campaign bloc, the Left Party. To consent to the governments formation, the Center Party and the Liberals broke with the other two members of the center-right alliance they had joined in the campaign.

In Sweden, a government does not require majority support in Parliament. But a majority vote can prevent its formation, and an attempt to do that on Friday fell short, with 153 of 349 lawmakers voting to block the new government from taking office.
The artist, for his part, said that he was surprised and hurt by the controversy.

It was an enormous surprise to see some people, not even many of them, contest the statue, Mr. Abella said in a phone interview.

Segovia is a normal city with normal people, he added, and it hurts me to see the image of the place where I have lived for some 30 years damaged by this.

To Mr. Abella, the statue has nothing to do with religion. It refers to a Segovia myth that the Devil, not the Romans, had given the city its famous aqueduct, which towers 90 feet over the Old Town of Segovia.

According to the legend, the Devil offered a deal to a young girl who was tired of dragging water through the citys steep streets: He would get the water to her home before dawn, in return for her soul. As the Devil labored all night to build the aqueduct, she prayed. A storm came, holding up the Devils work, and in the end, he lost his bid by one stone.

Ms. Lazaro said the statue was a departure from the true message of the legend: to take care of ones soul and repent.

In recent years, Spain has seen similar high-profile court cases led by the Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers. The association has mostly used an article in the Spanish criminal code that forbids offending the feelings of members of a religious confession.

In 2014, the association tried to remove the director of the Reina Sofia art museum in Madrid for displaying artwork that alluded to burning churches. In 2017, it filed a complaint against a drag queen who performed as the Virgin Mary and Jesus on the cross. And the actor and theater producer Willy Toledo was briefly detained by the police last year after he ignored a court summons for publishing insults about God and the Virgin Mary online. He is still awaiting trial.
The latter view is widely held by those who have been outed as agents but insist they had never knowingly worked for the K.G.B. Instead, they say, they have been framed by Soviet secret police officers who padded their roster of informants, either to impress superiors or plant a slowly ticking time bomb under Latvias future as an independent state.

It is impossible that the K.G.B. would leave behind a real list of agents in what it considered enemy territory, Mr. Tjarve said. The files, he said, must have been doctored and deliberately left as a special gift to Latvia, now a member of NATO, as part of a disinformation operation by retreating Soviet officers.

Latvians found in the bags, the term of art for people who have turned up in the files, include a two-time former prime minister, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, a onetime foreign minister, leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, three post-independence rectors of the University of Latvia, celebrated filmmakers and assorted television stars and writers. Some names leaked years ago or appeared in a Latvian documentary, Lustrum, released late last year.

But the publication of the full list has still caused dismay.

Mara Sprudja, director of the national archive, which began posting the files online in December and will release another batch in May, said she was particularly shocked, for example, to see the name of Andres Slapins, a Latvian cameraman, shot and killed by Soviet troops who attacked pro-independence activists in Riga, the capital, in 1991.
A little more than a year ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was traveling to Beijing, hoping for a free trade deal. How things have changed. Since Canada carried out an American warrant and arrested Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in the Vancouver airport last month, Canada seems to have become enemy No. 1 of the Chinese government. The price has been steep for three Canadians in particular: Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, both detained in China and accused of threatening national security, as well as Robert Schellenberg, who was hastily retried this week for drug smuggling. His original sentence of 15 years in prison was replaced with the death penalty.

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In Canada, the sentence has been viewed as a kind of international ransom. But I wondered how the detente has been perceived in China. I reached out to my colleague Chris Buckley. An Australian by birth, Chris has lived in China for more than two decades and studied Chinese Communist Party history at Renmin University in Beijing. He joined The Times in 2012.
MELBOURNE, Australia  The authorities in Australia have charged a 20-year-old man with the rape and murder of Aiia Maasarwe, an Israeli exchange student who was attacked on a Melbourne street this week.

The man, Codey Herrmann, of the Melbourne suburb of Greensborough, was arrested on Friday afternoon and was charged in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Saturday. He was being held without bail and was scheduled to appear in court again on Monday.

The police allege that Mr. Herrmann, who has been described by local news media as an aspiring rapper, killed Ms. Maasarwe, 21, just after midnight on Wednesday morning.

She had been returning from a night out with friends and was speaking via FaceTime to her sister, who is overseas, on the short walk from a public transportation stop to her home when the attack occurred, the police said.
Actor David Rysdahl, director Cathy Yan and actresses Li Meng, and Zazie Beetz attend the "Dead Pigs" premiere during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Jan. 19, 2018. [File photo/VCG]

Chinese-American director Cathy Yan's directorial debut of "Dead Pigs" saw its China premiere in Beijing on Wednesday. The film offers up dark humor in a realistic drama intertwining the lives of five lonely and trapped individuals, while reflecting aspects of modern China.

The film is based on a true story of dead pigs found mysteriously floating in a river in China. After Yan read the story in the news, she decided to pursue the story, shooting it in Shanghai and completing it in New York with the help of funding from Chinese investors such as Alibaba Pictures. Renowned Chinese director Jia Zhangke is the film's executive producer.

"It's very fateful for me to meet Cathy. She showed me the test filming footage and talked to me for just ten minutes, then I decided to get on board," Jia Zhangke remembered. Born in China and raised in Hong Kong and Washington, D.C., Yan previously worked as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal in America and China before turning to filmmaking, thus giving her a unique perspective and experiences.

Jia further explained his interest in producing the film: "I feel that through this kind of real event, which is a subject that I'm very familiar with, she can portray the various faces and vicissitudes of life in the transition period of modern China. I was impressed she has so many insights."

Vivian Wu, a veteran Chinese actress who has starred in many classics such as "The Last Emperor" and "The Soong Sisters," and as one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1990, presents an attractive yet challenging character in "Dead Pigs."

Executive producer Jia Zhangke, actress Vivian Wu and actor Yang Haoyu pose for a photo at the premiere of "Dead Pigs," held in Beijing, Jan. 16, 2019. [Photo/China.org.cn]

"I think that she may be the most breakthrough and paradigm-shifting character for me in recent years, " Wu said at the premiere. "She is a woman with flesh and blood, ideals and tempers. She uses her weak power to defend her own home, which actually represents the vibe of a generation."

Another highlight of the cast is Mason Lee, son of the world-famous director Ang Lee, who was absent from the premiere. But actress Li Meng, whose character interacted closely with Lee's, mentioned on Wednesday that Lee is a very independent actor. "He came to Shanghai to experience life and work in a restaurant one week before the start of the shooting," she shared.

"Dead Pigs" has been winning accolades since it first debut at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Award for ensemble acting. Other awards include a Ricky Jay Magic of Cinema Award at the 30th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF), a Grand Jury Prize at the 2018 Dallas International Film Festival, and the New Director's Grand Jury Prize at the 2018 Seattle International Film Festival.

Yan was also absent at Wednesday night's premiere because she had something more important to work on: a Harley Quinn DC Extended Universe superhero film based on the comic "Birds of Prey." She is the first-ever Chinese female director selected by Warner Bros. to helm a superhero film, due to her outstanding directorial and storytelling skills displayed in "Dead Pigs."

"Dead Pigs" will open in Chinese theaters nationwide on Jan. 25.
The risks of speaking out were underlined during that period. Shortly after a local girl was raped and murdered, Ms. Ammini said she and two other women marched into the office of a senior police official and called for the arrest of the men responsible for the crime.

They were siding with the criminals, she said.

Instead, a few days later, the police arrested Ms. Ammini, she said, accusing her of attacking a man and knocking out one of his teeth. After a night locked in the police station, she escaped by jumping from the buildings first floor.

(Ms. Ammini said she was not convicted in the fake case.)

The first in her family to attend college, Ms. Ammini gravitated to leftist circles at the University of Calicut and joined the Communist Party of India. She also met her future husband, K.V. Hariharan, a party member, bonding with him over books by Pablo Neruda and humanist writers.

Even his love letters were serious, Ms. Ammini said.

With little money, Ms. Ammini wore a $2 sari to her wedding in a building called Freedom Fighters Hall. A few years later, she gave birth to a daughter, B.H. Olga, naming her for Olga Benario Prestes, a German Communist who was killed in a Nazi gas chamber.
Afghanistans presidential race is in full swing, with several former officials lining up to challenge President Ashraf Ghani in a vote to be held in July, amid a raging war and fears that yet another fraud-marred election could further destabilize the country.

On Friday, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, a powerful former national security adviser who parted ways with the government in August, became the most serious challenger to formally join the race so far. He vowed to save the country from what he has described as Mr. Ghanis mismanagement.

He joins a list of former officials who have either formally joined the race or declared that they will do so. They include Rahmatullah Nabil, a onetime intelligence chief who has selected an army general and a female former cabinet minister as his running mates (Afghanistan has two vice presidents); Zalmai Rassoul, a 75-year-old former foreign minister, who came a distant third in the disputed 2014 race that brought Mr. Ghani to power; and Shaida Abdali, a former diplomat seen as close to former President Hamid Karzai.

Mr. Ghani, who has declared that he will seek a second term, is scheduled to begin his re-election bid on Sunday. A senior official close to him said Mr. Ghani had dismissed his controversial first vice president, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, from the ticket, with Amrullah Saleh, a former intelligence chief that he recently tapped to lead the countrys police force, replacing him.
Even before the attack, Mr. Duque, whose right-wing Democratic Center party campaigned against the peace deal with the FARC, expressed little enthusiasm for negotiating with the ELN.

Image A vigil outside the police academy. The attack on Thursday was the first car bombing in Bogota in years. Credit... Leonardo Munoz/EPA, via Shutterstock

If the ELN really wants peace, he said on Friday, they need to show the country concrete actions, like the immediate return of all kidnapped people and the end of all criminal actions.

Mr. Botero, the defense minister, said the attacker, Mr. Rojas, had joined the ELN in the 1990s and worked as an explosives instructor. He lost a hand at one point in an explosion and thereafter was known by the nickname Mocho, slang in Colombia for someone who is missing a hand or arm.

In 2015, as the FARC was nearing its peace deal with the government, Mr. Rojas had tried three times to pass himself off as a member of that group to receive demobilization benefits, but FARC members rejected him repeatedly, said Mr. Botero, the defense minister.

The FARC, which has given up arms and formed a political party, worked to distance itself from the attack this week.

We express our solidarity with the victims and their families, the party wrote in a statement after the attack. And we call on all sectors of the country to keep building a pact that takes violence and weapons out of doing politics.
I, on the other hand, felt totally devoid of any maternal intuition. When my babies cried, my first instinct was not to get up and comfort them, but to run away. I didnt. I got up and nursed and sang and soothed even if my whole body was reeling with sleep deprivation and exhaustion. When I was not doing that, I was wondering what was wrong with me. Why did I feel resentful instead of happy?

When my first baby was born nine years ago, the country of motherhood I found myself in was not in any way as expected. Instead of the beautiful place I envisioned, I found myself on a wild, deserted island. I had prepared, packed all the necessary items, but once I landed, I lost everything and was left with only a pocketknife to fend for myself. I had no point of reference, didnt speak the language, had no knowledge of the customs. It was a feeling of disorientation Id never felt so acutely before.

Because I always turn to books in times of need, I immersed myself into the confusing world of parenting advice. I thought that I could stitch together my own philosophy of parenting, like a quilt made from different scraps of fabrics. But the books I read offered no solace, only patronizing and contradictory advice.

I gave birth naturally but felt that wasnt enough because I was supposed to have a home birth. I breast-fed each of my children for a year. That seemed like a good length of time for us, but I know that to some people, it wasnt enough. For others, that was too long. My children slept in a crib in our room until they were 2 or 3 because it worked for us. For the attachment-parenting types, I was a terrible mother because why werent my children in my bed? According to the Ferber faction, I was a terrible mother because I didnt sleep-train them.

I felt stifled by these rigid ideas of what it meant to be a mother. The books goal was to turn me into a better, more useful vessel to carry my childrens needs and desires. I refused to be a vessel. I wanted to be a person.
Whether or not youre planning to march on Saturday, heres a breakdown of whats been happening, and what to expect.

[Listen to The Daily: A Rift Over Power and Privilege in the Womens March]

Charges of anti-Semitism

Recent articles in Tablet, a Jewish magazine, and The New York Times have renewed scrutiny of claims that some of the earliest founders of the Womens March had made anti-Semitic remarks.

In both articles, Vanessa Wruble, a Brooklyn-based activist and an early leader of the Womens March, says her Jewish heritage played a role in her being pushed out of the group  charges that Tamika Mallory and Bob Bland, presidents of the national Womens March, have vehemently denied.

Mallory has also been criticized for expressing support for Louis Farrakhan, who has been widely condemned for making anti-Semitic, as well as transphobic and sexist remarks. (Mallory has said she disagrees with some of Farrakhans statements.)

Linda Sarsour, another one of the marchs co-chairs, has expressed solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli occupation. On the allegation that the group did not address concerns of anti-Semitism fast enough, she said: Give us a chance.

[READ MORE: Womens March Roiled by Accusations of anti-Semitism]

Calls for a leadership change

In recent weeks, Jewish groups and Teresa Shook  the first person to suggest the idea of a womens march in a 2016 Facebook post  have called for the resignations of the leaders of the national movement: Mallory, Bland, Sarsour and Carmen Perez.

Regional chapters of the Womens March, civil rights groups and high-profile allies  including the Democratic Party , which until recently was listed as a supporter on the Womens March website  have distanced themselves from the national entity. On Thursday, Womens March Global, a group that organizes marches around the world, sent out an email underscoring that it had never been affiliated with the national Womens March.
Mr. Kim, for his part, has balked at dealing with anybody but Mr. Trump. He rebuffed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whom Mr. Trump put in charge of the negotiations, and told the president in a letter that he preferred to deal directly with him.

There have been no substantive working-level negotiations between the two sides since last fall. While Mr. Pompeo emerged from a meeting with Mr. Kim in October declaring that the North Korean leader told him hes ready to allow inspectors into a nuclear testing site that the North had blown up, that inspection has yet to happen.

Larger issues of inspection will hang over the next meeting as well. One subject under discussion with the North, according to officials of several countries briefed on the talks, is whether the country would freeze its nuclear fuel and weapons production during negotiations, so that the countrys arsenal does not grow while talks drag on.

But that would require highly intrusive inspections, across the country, said Jung Pak, a former senior C.I.A. analyst now at the Brookings Institution. Previous negotiations have fallen apart because of our insistence on those inspections. And who is going to take North Koreas word on whether it is truly freezing its program?

Some analysts and diplomats said they worried that by agreeing so readily to another meeting, Mr. Trump was inviting the same situation as in Singapore  a press extravaganza that produces little in the way of concrete achievements.

You have to be afraid that we are playing into North Koreas hands, said Joseph Y. Yun, a former State Department official who has negotiated with the North. They want to wait, and have as much time as possible elapse when they dont do anything significant to denuclearize, and become accepted regionally and globally as a nuclear state.

The risk was even greater, some said, because of the multiple political and legal challenges facing Mr. Trump, from the government shutdown to the investigation of ties between his presidential campaign and Russia.
Susan Bucher, the supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County, Fla., was suspended on Friday by the states new governor, Ron DeSantis, after problems in her county contributed to chaos during the states midterm election recount.

In an executive order, Gov. DeSantis said that Ms. Bucher had demonstrated incompetence and neglect of duty, resulting in systemic problems that prevented Palm Beach County from completing a state-mandated recount until Dec. 26.

An election that happened the week after Halloween, you ended up not having the recount done until after Christmas, the governor said at a news conference on Friday. Palm Beach County stands alone in that level of ineptitude.

Gov. DeSantis appointed Wendy Sartory Link, a West Palm Beach lawyer and Republican, to replace Ms. Bucher, a Democrat who was halfway through a four-year term. At the news conference Friday, Ms. Link said she will serve out the remainder of Ms. Buchers term but does not plan to run for election in 2020.
But the ideas amount to a tacit acknowledgment by Democrats that, even as they criticize Mr. Trumps tactics and demands in the shutdown fight, they have largely allowed him to define the terms of the debate on border security, and that they must be more effective in articulating their own position on the issue.

People want to make sure that its clear that the Democrats do stand for border security, and not allow the president to determine how we talk about it, said Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California. We cant cave to his vision for a wall, because of everything that it represents, but we also want to show that were for something.

The issue came up in a meeting of the Democratic caucus this week as Ms. Pelosi was briefing rank-and-file lawmakers about her latest broadside against Mr. Trump over the shutdown: her letter requesting that he delay or cancel his State of the Union address this month in light of the security measures that would have to be provided by federal workers who are working without pay. Mr. Trumps response was to prevent Ms. Pelosi from taking her trip on a military plane.

His letter to Ms. Pelosi announcing that step also disclosed her itinerary, which was secret given that Afghanistan was her destination. Official congressional trips are kept confidential for security reasons, particularly when they involve travel to war zones and high-ranking leaders like the speaker, who is second in line to the presidency.

You never give advance notice of going into a battle area  you just never do, Ms. Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol, adding that Mr. Trump may not have understood that because of his inexperience.

The people around him, though, should have known that, she said. Thats very dangerous.

After Ms. Pelosi rushed to salvage the trip by making alternative travel arrangements to fly commercial instead, people close to Mr. Trump who had been briefed revealed the speakers plans to reporters late Thursday. By dawn on Friday, said Drew Hammill, her deputy chief of staff, facing a heightened State Department threat assessment and amid concern that the administrations leaks had further compromised the safety of those involved, Ms. Pelosi canceled the trip.

A White House official on Friday denied the charge, saying that there was no way for Ms. Pelosi to have kept her trip a secret and that any suggestion of a leak is a flat-out lie.
WASHINGTON  Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin flew from Washington to Los Angeles this month on the private aircraft of Michael R. Milken, the billionaire junk bond king who pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 1990 and served two years in prison.

The flight, which was confirmed by the Treasury Department on Friday, was the latest example of Trump administration officials using luxury or government aircraft for personal reasons. Mr. Mnuchin, who was accompanied by Secret Service agents on Mr. Milkens jet, travels frequently to California to visit his children who live there.

A Treasury Department spokesman said that Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. Milken have known each other for years and that after reviewing internally the secretarys plans to take the flight, it was decided that he did not need an ethics waiver. Mr. Mnuchin has reimbursed Mr. Milken for the cost of the flight, the spokesman said, but did not disclose the amount.

Trump administration officials, including Mr. Mnuchin, had been encouraging President Trump last year to pardon Mr. Milken, who pleaded guilty to six criminal charges related to securities transactions undertaken in the 1980s. Mr. Milken, who had to pay $600 million in fines, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and released after two years.
Mr. Jones has adopted a different playbook. While he has voted with Mr. Trump half of the time, according to the website FiveThirtyEight, more than nearly any other Senate Democrat, he has stood with national Democrats on high-profile issues, including opposing Justice Kavanaugh. He used his first speech on the Senate floor to call for new gun control measures, tackling an issue that has long been anathema to many Southern Democrats.

Democrats hope voters will value Mr. Joness decision to stick with his gut when it comes to difficult political issues, even if that means siding with the national party.

Hes a guy whos going to be true to himself, said John Anzalone, a Birmingham-based Democratic pollster. Authenticity is what sells in a place like Alabama.

But theres also little question that Mr. Jones hit the political jackpot with his special election in 2017 by facing Roy S. Moore, an already-controversial Republican opponent who became all but radioactive after charges of sexual assault against underage girls. Even with that baggage, Mr. Jones beat Mr. Moore by only about 20,000 votes.

A number of Republican officials in the state, including Representative Bradley Byrne and the Alabama State Senate president pro tempore, Del Marsh, are considering challenging Mr. Jones next year. None have the liabilities of Mr. Moore, who motivated a surge of black Democratic voters while prompting some Alabama Republicans to cross party lines and others to stay home from the polls.

On top of those local challenges, Mr. Jones will also be running against the backdrop of the 2020 presidential election, a contest that will both highlight the national Democratic platform and bring out conservative voters eager to support the president.

Even some of his supporters dont expect to be represented by Mr. Jones for much longer.

Senator Jones, bless his heart, hell be a one-term senator, said Sheila Pressnell, 61, as she walked through a Huntsville shopping center popular with employees of NASA and other government agencies. The only reason he got it was because he was up against a child predator.
Acclaimed Kunqu Opera actress Liang Guyin may be 77 years old, but she will soon return to the stage to play the role of a character who is 60 years younger as part of the 11th Classic Chinese Opera Series at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center.



The winner of the prestigious Plum Performance Award, China's top award for operas and dramas, will play the lead role of Pan Jinlian in the eponymous opera that revolves around a character from the 17th-century Chinese novel, Jin Ping Mei.

In the story, Pan poisons her husband after her extramarital affair was discovered and is later beheaded by her husband's younger brother. Although Pan's name in Chinese is a synonym for a slur against women, audiences have in recent times started to sympathize with the character as she was forced to marry her husband, who had a disability.

Despite being a veteran actress, Liang says that playing this role at her age is not without its challenges.

"To be honest, I'm already old, so I wasn't very willing to play a 17-year-old who is supposed to be sexy and seductive," Liang said during the media conference for the Classic Chinese Opera Series on Jan 9.

"I will try my best to perform the role. I do hope audience will be tolerant."

Created by Liang and other Kunqu actors 32 years ago, Pan Jinlian blends beautiful singing with fight scenes. The production first premiered in Beijing in 1987 and was well-received, despite being produced on a modest budget.

Liang says that she and her colleagues from the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe only spent 2,000 yuan ($538) to design the stage as they were more concerned about keeping the costs low. The actresses even resorted to wearing old dresses borrowed from others instead of making new ones.

Liang says she will perform the difficult stunts required of her character, in addition to a series of complicated and energy-sapping dance moves. Liang will also need to crawl on her knees during the performance, a gesture that expresses the character's remorse and fear before she is killed.

"It's very easy for me to do all these moves, even at this age. I've practiced Kunqu since I was a child. I will never forget how to do it," she says, laughing.

Pan is one of the characters that Liang loves playing the most.

"It's hard to define Pan Jinlian in only a few words, as she is so sophisticated," she says. "I need to express her loveliness, sadness, seductiveness and cruelty on the stage."

The opera will be staged by the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe on March 31.

While Liang usually plays the role of huadan (young and pretty women) in traditional Chinese opera, she has also performed as a noblewoman, a nun, a queen and an evil character. The famous artist Cheng Shifa once commented that Liang's smile-and even her frown-is so enchanting that it can be turned into a beautiful painting.

"I am really looking forward to watching Liang's opera," says Liu Xinran, a Peking Opera actor who also performs huadan roles.

"Her singing is like a fresh breeze from the valley, and her movements are so light and smart. Her uniqueness is simply unforgettable."
Im not a high-paid salary, federal bureaucrat in Washington. Im an air conditioning mechanic. My husband is an electronics technician in the United States Coast Guard. I work at the United States Department of Agriculture. My husband is an attorney for the Department of Commerce. We work for the U.S.D.A. in rural housing. My husband is active duty. Ive been a government employee, now, for 29 years. Today, was the first time in my life that I actually filed for unemployment insurance. It was quite a moment. Its just my husband and I. Im coming to the point to where I dont know if I should just go ahead and apply for unemployment. If I should look for, maybe, temporary work. Were going to need another income pretty soon. The prospect that, for no reason at all, I may have to find another permanent job is very frustrating and it speaks to a kind of waste. You know, the taxpayers would have to fund the whole hiring process for my replacement. I have an autoimmune condition that causes severe nerve pain and made the decision to cut back work hours so I could focus on my health and get more treatment. But we cant now get on my husbands plan because my husband works for the federal government and theyre not processing the special enrollments right now. I was due to retire from the government on Dec. 30. The lady that was processing my, my pension has been furloughed. I cant even retire. My husband is working without pay. Were very stressed about our bills and how were going to manage them. Theres a food pantry that was started by the spouses club and that is helping every single family here. And were just, were conserving really. You know, the food pantry is great. You know, were trying to, you know, make meals that last. No spending in excess. You know, as much as I want that Starbucks its not happening. My medicine is getting low. I have diabetes and Im a breast cancer survivor. Some of my medications are getting low. If the shutdown keeps going on, then I cant delay my care anymore. Ill get a lot worse. So, it really means my husband is not going to have a paycheck. Im going to have a paycheck thats a lot lower than it was and were going to be paying a lot more. We need to come together and realize that this hurts all of us. And its going to start hurting everyone pretty soon. So, please stop and put your petty differences to the side and open us back up. If the issues with the wall, deal with the wall later. But open us back up. We want to work.
The United States has more expansive laws for incarcerating people who joined terrorism groups, including the offense of providing material support to a terrorist organization. It also operates the Guantanamo prison, where it holds several dozen terrorism suspects without charges and is trying to prosecute a handful through the troubled military commissions system.

Like many European allies, Britain strongly opposes the Guantanamo prison. Mrs. Mays government was afraid that the Trump administration might send the two British men there, a recurring theme in the ruling.

Last March, the ruling said, the British home secretary at the time, Amber Rudd, met with Mr. Sessions to discuss the case: In the course of those discussions, he expressed the view that all foreign terrorist fighters should be prosecuted in their home countries. He referred to them as prisoners of war, and to Guantanamo Bay as the appropriate place of detention for prisoners of war.

After discussions with Justice Department officials in April, the British security minister, Ben Wallace, internally argued against pushing for assurances against the death penalty, saying that he had been warned that there were strong voices arguing for Guantanamo and that the more restrictions the U.K. attached to support, the harder it would be to avoid that outcome.

And on May 30, when the new British home secretary, Sajid Javid, met with Mr. Sessions, the attorney general said that if the U.S. were to be willing to try Elsheikh in a civilian court as opposed to a military one, he could not see how the U.S. could do that without the U.K. evidence or without recourse to the death penalty.

Ultimately, Mr. Javid told Mr. Sessions in June that the United States could have the evidence without death-penalty conditions, so long as it was not introduced in the military commissions system. That concession by the British appears to have persuaded senior Trump administration officials to focus on an eventual civilian trial in the Eastern District of Virginia on charges that would most likely include conspiracy in kidnapping resulting in death, an offense that carries the death penalty, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations.

Both Mr. Sessions, who was fired in November, and John R. Bolton, who became President Trumps national security adviser in April, have agreed that a civilian trial is now seen as the most likely venue, according to former American officials. The family members of the victims had strongly pushed for that outcome. In a meeting with Mr. Bolton in late April, he was visibly emotional and pulled out a handkerchief in response to the families arguments, according to several people familiar with the meeting.
Tribune Broadcasting, the stations parent company, said that Mr. Steincross would not face disciplinary action. Mr. Steincross started at Fox2 as a general assignment reporter in 1996 and became a morning newscaster in 1998, according to the stations website.

The Fox2 management team spoke to Kevin following the mistake, and we believe that it was truly inadvertent and does not reflect Kevins core beliefs, the company said in a statement. Kevin is extremely upset by the mistake and regrets it deeply. We do not believe additional disciplinary measures are necessary.

But some people said the apology was not enough. The St. Louis chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. said on Twitter that it was unacceptable and very disappointing and called for Mr. Steincross to resign. Others on Twitter questioned how he could mix up the insult with Dr. Kings name.

During his lifetime, Dr. Kings last name was often swapped out for the epithet, both by avowed racists and others who claimed to have used it mistakenly. More recently, American broadcast journalists have made similar utterances in 2005, 2010, and 2014, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported.

Heather Taylor, a sergeant in the St. Louis police force and president of the Ethical Society of Police, an association for African-American police officers in St. Louis, said the slur was so insulting because of the long history of its use against a man of towering stature.
When 30,000 Los Angeles teachers went on strike on Monday, prominent Democrats  and potential presidential candidates  lined up to give their blessings.

Senator Kamala Harris of California said she was standing in solidarity with teachers, who are demanding higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff.

Im with teachers all the way, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said on Twitter.

Senators Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Kirsten Gillibrand and Bernie Sanders all shared similar sentiments about a strike that has drawn broad public support but disrupted the routines of half a million, mostly low-income children.

In 2019, after a year of teacher walkouts across the country, it is practically impossible for a national Democrat to profess anything short of full-throated support for picketing educators. But many of them this week steered clear of the most contentious underlying cause of the strike: the teacher unions opposition to the growth of charter schools, and the unions claim that district officials  who are largely Democrats  favor charter schools over traditional ones.
For experts who make a living forecasting hurricanes, storm season is a year-round worry. When the tropics are calm, as they are now, researchers dive into data, analyze results, improve scientific models and train state and local officials on the latest technology that can help them make lifesaving decisions.

But the partial government shutdown  the longest in United States history  has brought much of that fieldwork and instruction to a halt. Most researchers have been furloughed, and training academies and courses have been canceled, with no makeup dates in sight.

Emergency workers, such as firefighters, paramedics and physicians, rely on federal academies to earn national certifications, keep their training current and learn how to keep people safe during a disaster. The prolonged stalemate, though, has forced the cancellation of a five-day course at the National Hurricane Center in Florida for recently hired state and municipal emergency managers. And last month, when the shutdown began, some 50 trainees at the National Fire Academy in Maryland were sent home, their coursework incomplete, said Steve Reaves, the president of the union that represents Federal Emergency Management Agency workers.

W. Craig Fugate, a former FEMA chief, warned that the missed workweeks would be difficult to make up before the next calamity strikes.
For one of the fastest-growing sectors of the global travel industry, there is no pork on the hotel dinner menus. There are flights with no alcohol on the drink carts, resorts with separate swimming pools for men and women, and daily itineraries with built-in break times for the five daily calls to prayer.

Since 2016, the number of Muslim travelers has grown nearly 30 percent, and a recent joint study by Mastercard and Crescent Rating, a research group that tracks halal-friendly travel, projects that over the next decade that sectors contribution to the global economy will jump to $300 billion from $180 billion. With a population that is disproportionately young, educated and upwardly mobile, they are one of the fastest-growing demographics on the global tourism scene.

But this wasnt always the case.

In 2015 , Soumaya Hamdi went roadtripping through Asia with her husband and her then 4-month-old baby. The trio visited Singapore and Malaysia, and then caught a flight to South Korea and on to Japan. The trip was thrilling, but Ms. Hamdi and her husband, who are both observant Muslims, found the daily search for halal-certified food a difficult one.

Ms. Hamdi, who is based in London, began blogging about the best Muslim-friendly restaurants she found, as well as prayer facilities and sites that were particularly welcoming for a family with a young baby. Those musings turned into Halal Travel Guide, an online platform offering tips, recommendations and curated itineraries for Muslim travelers.
The technologies that power the behavior speculation market, of course, have spread far beyond online ads.

They enable auto insurers to surveil drivers and offer discounts based on their driving performance. They allow workplace wellness programs to charge higher health insurance premiums to employees who decline to wear fitness trackers. They helped Kremlin-linked groups mount political influence campaigns on Facebook (although, as my colleague John Herrman pointed out this past week, we have yet to learn how effective those campaigns were).

The flash-trading in human behavioral data was not inevitable.

In her book, Dr. Zuboff describes how Google, in its early days, used the keywords that people typed in to improve its search engine even as it paid scant attention to the collateral data  like users keyword phrasing, click patterns and spellings  that came with it. Pretty soon, however, Google began harvesting this surplus information, along with other details like users web-browsing activities, to infer their interests and target them with ads.

The model was later adopted by Facebook.

The companies pivot  from serving to surveilling their users  pushed Google and Facebook to harvest more and more data, Dr. Zuboff writes. In doing so, the companies sometimes bypassed privacy settings or made it difficult for users to opt out of data-sharing.

We saw these digital services were free, and we thought, you know, Were making a reasonable trade-off with giving them valuable data, Dr. Zuboff told me. But now thats reversed. Theyve decided that were free, that they can take our experience for free and translate it into behavioral data. And so we are just the source of raw material.

Of course, tech companies tend to bristle at the word surveillance. They associate it with government spying on individuals  not with their own snooping on users and trying to sway them at scale.

When organizations do surveillance, people dont have control over that, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief, said in April during a Senate hearing on Cambridge Analytica, the voter-profiling company that improperly harvested the data of millions of Facebook users. But on Facebook, everything that you share, you have control over.
Ms. Haddock, who previously worked in health care and served in the Navy, is a self-described anatomy nerd. She knew she wanted her product to be customizable, so she started gathering data for where the G-spot and the clitoris are located on different bodies. I tried to have that conversation with every single person with a vagina that I knew, Ms. Haddock said. I literally asked them to measure it with their hands and a tape measure.

Ose, which will be available this fall for $250, expands, according to user preference, once placed on the pelvic girdle. It doesnt vibrate but uses gentle, autonomous motions and air flow to enhance stimulation. Eight patents associated with Ose are pending. The team that built it includes Dr. Ada-Rhodes Short, who specializes in robotics and artificial intelligence, and Lola Vars, a current doctoral candidate in design-focused mechanical engineering at Oregon State University.

In follow-up emails, officials from CES and the Consumer Technology Association appeared to step back from the earlier assertion about the products violations of the morality clause, writing instead that Ose did not fit into the robotics and drones category, nor into any of the other product categories.

It certainly is a robotic device if you look at a definition of a robotic device, Mr. Parmigiani said. There is no justification. Lora DiCarlo should have won the award.

In a statement provided to The Times, Gary Shapiro, the president and chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association, said: We have apologized to CEO Lora Haddock for our mistake, as the Lori DiCarlo product does not fit into any of our existing product categories and should not have been accepted for the Innovation Awards Program. CES is a professional business show, and porn, adult toys and sex tech products are not part of the event. CES is a large show with over 4,500 exhibitors. We acknowledge there are inconsistencies in exhibiting companies, and these will be addressed.

But Ms. Haddock believes that what happened was more than an accidental oversight or a clerical error. So she published an open letter accusing CES of gender bias last Tuesday, Jan. 8, the first day of the convention. It is not the first time the trade show has been accused of gender bias: In 2018, numerous people in the tech industry criticized CES for having no female keynote speakers for the second year in a row, a failing CES attributed to a limited pool when it comes to women in these positions.
Los Angeles isnt the only place where Latinos are disproportionately affected by strikes. In Arizona, Latinos make up about half of the students enrolled in public school and across the country, Latinos make up the highest percent of public school enrollment after whites. That number is growing: The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that by 2025, Latino children will make up 29 percent of the students enrolled in K-12 public schools.

In a 2008 paper, Patricia Gandara, the co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at U.C.L.A., called the state of Latino education a crisis. These students will form the work force in the immediate future, she wrote, and, more specifically, if the state of California does not immediately begin preparing more underrepresented students for higher education, by 2020 the state will experience an 11 percent drop in per capita income, resulting in serious economic hardship for the people of California.

Part of the problem, Gandara said, is misplaced attention on English language ability. The notion of speaking a language other than English as an educational liability must be turned on its head, Gandara wrote, noting the positive effects of dual language programs on both Latino and non-Latino students.

BLACK BURNOUT

Earlier this month, a BuzzFeed News article about burnout as the perennial millennial condition went viral, hitting a nerve with many who could relate to feeling overworked and obsessed with productivity. The result of our current condition, wrote Anne Helen Petersen, is that millennials tend to neglect ostensibly simple tasks, like going to the post office or doing laundry, if they arent directly related to our jobs. (Guilty!) Petersen described burnout as a systemic issue: The problem with holistic, all-consuming burnout is that theres no solution to it. You cant optimize it to make it end faster. Her essay set off alarm bells in my head and gave language to a latent feeling Ive had for a long time that somethings got to give.

A response written by Tiana Clark expanded on Petersens idea to consider how race and economic inequality increase burnout even more. Yes, we are all so damn tired and in debt, she wrote, but it is compounded for people of color, who must also manage microaggressions and systemic discrimination as well. Its a worthwhile read that adds another dimension to discussions about our collective health.
On the 11th floor of 120 East End Avenue, a 14-room estate-condition apartment listed for $6.25 million recently went into contract, after a price drop of more than $2 million. Four years ago, a seventh-floor apartment with a similar floor plan that was in need of some updating sold for $10.25 million.

Of course, buyers in such buildings have to have iron constitutions and the patience routinely associated with saints. Some high-end co-ops restrict home improvement  in any case, demolition  to the summer months, thus potentially stretching out a full-on renovation for years. Still, if you have some vision and you have the stamina for a gut renovation, you are getting a deal, Ms. Larson said.

But as with many deals, this one has a catch: You have to get past a barrier known as the co-op board.

There are people who, in the past, would have thought Fifth or Park Avenue was too rich for their blood, but who have seen prices come down, Ms. Larson said. Theyre getting more bold about making offers in co-ops where they wouldnt have even looked during a sellers market.

Some luxury buildings on the Upper East Side are notorious for their strict financial requirements and will accept only all-cash deals or require a minimum of 50 percent down; others require buyers to have liquid assets worth five or six times the sale price of the apartment. But these days, Ms. Larson said, there are buyers who are thinking, Maybe theyll take me; maybe the board will loosen their standards and accept a less financially qualified candidate.

These buyers, however, are not always rewarded for their boldness.

If anything, boards have become more strict, she said. I dont think they like to see apartment values dropping in their buildings.
A movie called "Dead Pigs" is coming soon to Chinese cinemas. It reflects the dramatic changes that happen in the lives of five different people due to an incident in which thousands of dead pigs floated down a river.



The film has given director Cathy Yan great recognition from critics and even landed her a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures to helm DC's upcoming "Birds of Prey" film.

"Dead pigs was inspired by this true event in 2013, where 16,000 dead pigs were found floating to Shanghai. I personally was born in China and was raised in the U.S., but I would spend a lot of time back and forth. I was a reporter before I got into film, and so it's sort of like in so many ways became natural sort of starting point, or jumping point for a film, I thought."

The film's story opens with a pig farmer in the perilous situation of seeing all his pigs begin to die. The man is in financial crisis and seeks help. He later gets involved with a relative who is a feisty salon owner. He also interacts with a sensitive busboy, an expat architect, and a disenchanted rich girl.

This Chinese-and-English language film is due out in Chinese cinemason January 25.
But on Monday, this apology tour hit a snag when Mallory appeared on the daytime talk show The View and refused to denounce the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whom she once called the GOAT, or Greatest Of All Time. Last February, Mallory attended a Farrakhan rally where he railed against satanic Jews. During his speech, he gave a shout-out to Mallory and the Womens March, and afterward, she posted positively about the event on social media. On The View, rather than disavowing Farrakhan, Mallory said only, I dont agree with many of Minister Farrakhans statements.

Following that interview, the Democratic National Committee, which had been listed as a partner of the 2019 march, appeared to pull out. Several groups that have sponsored the march in the past, including Naral and the Southern Poverty Law Center, are also gone from its public list of backers. Local marches around the country have emphasized their independence from the national group. New York City will have two competing rallies.

Writers I admire have argued that there are good reasons that some black activists hesitate to disavow Farrakhan. Last March, the journalist Adam Serwer wrote in The Atlantic of the successful violence-prevention work that the Nation of Islam has done in impoverished black communities. Mallory told him how Nation of Islam women supported her when her sons father was murdered in 2001. Serwer described a sense in some black communities that the Nation is present for black people in Americas most deprived and segregated enclaves when the state itself is not present, to say nothing of those who demand its condemnation.

Yet even if youre willing to accept rationalizations for associating with an anti-Semite, the point of organizing is to build political power, and in that respect the leaders of the Womens March have fallen short. They were put at the helm of a popular mass movement, and under their leadership it has alienated many supporters and become significantly more marginal.

The idea for a womens march on Washington was born in viral Facebook posts that Bob Bland, one of the current co-chairwomen, and Teresa Shook, a retired lawyer in Hawaii, put up after the 2016 election. On social media, tens of thousands of women committed to travel to Washington before any logistical arrangements had been made. Some of the women making initial preparations realized it would be a disaster if the march seemed to be entirely by and for white women. So, at the suggestion of a celebrity-connected activist named Michael Skolnik, Mallory and Perez, both affiliated with Skolniks nonprofit, the Gathering for Justice, were recruited to help lead it. They, in turn, brought in Sarsour.
President Trump, you surely could not have wanted your partial government shutdown, your tariffs, your corporate tax cuts and your war on undocumented immigrants to hobble economic growth and to hurt farmers, factory workers, airline passengers, government contractors, retailers, Coast Guard members and F.B.I. agents. But the economy can take only so many bad policies.

A $19.4 trillion economy is losing momentum as fast as your approval ratings. Growth is slowing down in spite of a $1.5 trillion tax cut that is blowing up the deficit while help ing companies like Goldman Sachs, which earned $2.5 billion in the fourth quarter, thanks in part to a $467 million tax benefit.

Government workers have already missed an average of $5,000 in pay because of the shutdown. These unpaid federal employees may represent only 0.53 percent of all payrolls, according to the economist Ian Shepherdson, but because these employees have above-average earnings, the harm to the economy is greater than that proportion might suggest. Presumably, theyll get back those wages at some point. Even then, some of those earnings will have to go to pay late fees on credit card and mortgage bills that are piling up. None of that money, though, will compensate for restaurant meals not eaten; movies not seen; Frappuccinos not sipped ; or supermarket runs not made, at least not by Coast Guard members who are heading to food banks instead. Those sales, and sales taxes, are lost forever.

The shutdown is also aggravating damage youve already caused. You must have thought your audience was just a bunch of hayseeds when you told the American Farm Bureau Federation this week that were setting records together for farmers and for agriculture. Farmers are losing sales to China, Mexico, Canada and elsewhere because of your trade policy. Theyve lost customers who may never return. And now, because of the shutdown, they cant get services ranging from crop financing to vital information about commodity supplies from the Department of Agriculture. Farmers have crucial decisions to make before the spring planting season begins, and the shutdown is keeping them in the dark. And in the red.
BERLIN  In April, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will celebrate its 70th birthday. Founded in the earliest years of the Cold War, it is just as relevant today, when many feel that the international order is shaken again. In fact, if NATO did not exist, those in favor of a free world would have to invent it.

While NATOs key purpose remains to guarantee the security of its members, it has never been a purely military alliance. It is a political alliance as well, based on the common aspirations of its members who, as the NATO Treaty says, are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of its peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.

These principles are under assault today. Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, the terrorism of the Islamic State spreading from the Middle East to the capitals of Europe, authoritarian regimes developing nuclear weapons  as different as these challenges are, they have one thread in common: They emanate from actors who oppose the international order. They try to undermine or even change the rules that have governed the age of democracy and prosperity since World War II.
To the Editor:

Re Did the Police Spy on Black Lives Matter Protesters? (news article, Jan. 15):

The allegations of police spying require mayoral intervention.

Under federal court rulings in the Handschu case, now nearly half a century old, the police are barred, under the First Amendment, from doing what in the current case they are accused of doing: spying on peaceful expressions of political opinion.

Yet in the current case, the police refuse even to say whether they are doing it or not, raising spurious claims of terrorism.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has in the past opposed a City Council bill to require the police to even disclose what they are doing. This is beyond legitimate policy differences; it involves police-state tactics against fundamental First Amendment rights.

No mayor who claims the label progressive can fail to step in and stop this.

Ira Glasser

New York

The writer was executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union in 1971 when it helped bring the original Handschu lawsuit.
To the Editor:

Bangladeshs Farcical Vote (editorial, Jan. 16) correctly identifies why Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was re-elected: a booming economy, a dramatic reduction in poverty, and human development indicators that outpace even its runaway growth.

But its wrong when it suggests that voters were intimidated into voting for her party, the Awami League . Law enforcement authorities reined in pre-election violence not for political reasons but to ensure a peaceful and fair vote, which is what most election observers said it was.

There were no mass arrests. Indeed, compared with previous elections, the 2018 vote was tranquil and safe.

Voters look to their government for security and economic progress. Prime Minister Hasina has provided both. Thats why her party won overwhelmingly.
This article is part of David Leonhardts newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday.

Its day 28 of the government shutdown. Heres what that looks like:

In many cases, federal agencies have taken temporary steps to minimize the effects of the shutdown  not so different from the approach of that Wisconsin worker who is rationing her insulin. Yet if the shutdown continues, many of those temporary steps will become untenable, and the effects will begin to increase. Soon, lists like the one Ive put together here will start looking much worse.

A reminder: This shutdown isnt about some partisan divide. Its about President Trump. Last month, Senate Republicans and Democrats agreed to a deal to avoid a shutdown. Trump, goaded by cable television hosts and Rush Limbaugh, rejected the deal. Since then, Republicans have changed their position and backed the president. This is his  and now their  shutdown.

[Listen to The Argument podcast every Thursday morning, with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt.]
Dr. John Mendelsohn, who led the prestigious University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center through an era of substantial growth, and who, as a scientist, helped pioneer a new type of cancer therapy, died on Jan. 7 at his home in Houston. He was 82.

His death was confirmed by MD Anderson, which said the cause was glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Dr. Mendelsohn was the cancer centers third president, serving from 1996 to 2011, a period in which MD Anderson rose in prominence to be considered the nations top cancer hospital. At the same time, its annual revenues quadrupled, to $3.1 billion.

He was an extraordinary scientist, he was a compassionate individual, he was a strategic thinker, and he was able to bring all of those capabilities to bear as an exceptional leader of MD Anderson, Dr. Peter Pisters, the centers president, said in a telephone interview.
Glen Wood, the courtly and innovative patriarch of the famed Wood Brothers Nascar racing team, died on Friday in Stuart, Va., the town where he was born. He was 93 and the oldest living member of the Nascar Hall of Fame.

Wood Brothers Racing announced the death.

Wood founded the team in 1950 with his younger brother Leonard and was initially its primary driver. He won four times in an 11-year racing career, retiring from behind the wheel in 1964.

In 1998 he was named one of Nascars 50 greatest drivers  a list that includes 20 drivers who had once raced a Wood Brothers car. He was elected to the Nascar Hall of Fame, in Charlotte, N.C., in 2012. Leonard Wood was inducted the next year.

The Wood Brothers won 99 races in more than 1,500 starts in Nascars elite division, and they did it with an array of manufacturers and multiple star drivers.
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Deep under the New York Bay near Brooklyn, covered in mildew, seaweed and other gunk, is what thousands of commuters would consider a hidden treasure: the start of a subway tunnel linking Staten Island to the rest of New York City.

The idea of a subway to Staten Island really goes way back, said Stan Fischler, a subway historian. Way, way back.

The plan, first proposed in 1890, was approved. Maps were drawn up. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held. Construction began.

What followed were dozens of missed opportunities that could have prevented the fastest-growing borough in recent decades from becoming the most isolated.
Ive been working in and with this community for two decades now and police brutality has always been an issue, relationships between the police department and the community have always been an issue, said Alyshia Galvez, 45, a cultural anthropologist who works in the South Bronx. The way Yajaira was disrespected is the same way other members of the community are disrespected on a daily basis.

For the South Bronxs immigrant community, a negative experience with the police is not just an issue of respect and trust. It also brings fears for their immigration status. For Ms. Saavedra, her arrest made that fear palpable.

It doesnt matter if I live in a sanctuary city, she said. When the incident occurred, I was just thinking that this could lead to my deportation.

It all began around 4:30 p.m. last Friday when an undercover officer from the Bronx narcotics unit made a felony purchase of narcotics on the street outside the restaurant and the individual from whom she purchased the drugs began acting aggressive, according to a police spokesman.

Noticing what appeared to be an arrest happening outside the restaurant, Ms. Saavedra began filming the incident on her phone, mindful of the stories she hears often from friends and customers of what she describes as prejudiced police practices in the neighborhood.

The police do not have a good relationship with the community, Ms. Saavedra said. We see them making unfair arrests, racially profiling us, so I started recording so if that happened it could be exposed.
A new book offers an insight into former vice-foreign minister Fu Ying's time as a spokeswoman for the National People's Congress, Fang Aiqing reports.

Fu Ying, China's former vice-foreign minister, has published a book recalling her years as the spokeswoman for the National People's Congress, or NPC, through 2013 to 2017.

In the informative book named Face to Face with You: the Stories behind Press Conferences, Fu reveals the thoughts behind her responses to questions raised by journalists from domestic and foreign media regarding legislation, diplomacy, economics, social issues and national defense, among others.

Equally she details the monthslong preparation for the congress as well as for the news conference that takes place annually on March 4-the day before the NPC, which, together with the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, forms the "two sessions".

The book also includes some anecdotes of her attendance at international forums, such as the Munich Security Conferences in Germany and the annual meetings of Russia's Valdai International Discussion Club.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 18)  A former Cebu City prosecutor was killed in an ambush Thursday night.

Mary Ann Castro, 50, was driving along Escario street in Cebu City when a motorcycle-riding suspect closed in at the driver side of the car and shot her on the neck.

Witnesses told the Cebu City police that only one suspect was seen riding the bike.

The Department of Justice has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to probe into Castro's death.

Castro was embroiled in several controversies and love affairs while serving as assistant city prosecutor for 18 years.

She was suspended twice by the Supreme Court during her stint at the Office of the Prosecutor.

Police are looking into her past relationships and cases she handled as possible motives for the killing.

Cebu-based journalist Dale Israel contributed to this report.
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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo seemingly rescued New York City from the L train shutdown on Jan. 3 by offering a last-minute solution. But two weeks later, no one knows what exactly is going to happen to the subway line.

Critics have pilloried the new repair plan over safety concerns. It is not clear how long the solution would last or when construction would begin. It might still need approval from federal and local officials.

Even one basic question has not been resolved: Is the shutdown really off?

The citys transportation commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, asked subway officials on Tuesday what would happen if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board votes no on changes to the L train contract.

What would that mean  that the L train shutdown isnt averted? Ms. Trottenberg said at a special meeting of the board, which oversees the subway.
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From that day a huge cross-section of people can draw a line to their own proximity to, or roles in, an extraordinary amount of uncharted violence. For then-Captain Parker of the Second Force Reconnaissance Company, the opening experience became seven months of blood and fire and broken glass, a life of fighting in the homes of our enemies, among their families and then, back in the safety of the United States, the startling and yet woefully common quandary of being unsure how to share with a loved one a particular memory. In his case it was the lingering recollection of a 2-year-old child toddling through window glass shattered by an explosive charge and leaving tiny, bloody footprints on the polished concrete floor of his home.

Many veterans know something that the Pentagon and the politicians who speak for military action often do not: that regardless of the organizing ideas behind a military campaign, for those who do the fighting, war is often reduced to who is near and whatever happens. And the rest of a life can be spent trying to make sense of it all.

TIMES EVENT: Civilian Casualties of the War on Terror

Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019 | New York City

A rare convergence of experts on the human costs of war will discuss the often-ignored outgrowth of the global war on terror: two decades of civilian casualties. Times journalist and Marine Corps infantry veteran C. J. Chivers, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his 2016 story about an Afghan war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, will moderate the discussion. The panelists are Alissa J. Rubin, the Times Paris bureau chief who won a Pulitzer Prize for foreign reporting on Afghanistan in 2015; Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter and New York Times Magazine contributor, who uncovered civilian casualties among nearly 150 airstrike sites across northern Iraq; and writer Brian Castner, a veteran of the Iraq war and weapons expert for Amnesty Internationals crisis team, who also investigates war crimes and human rights violations.

Get tickets here.

The Latest Stories From At War
The following report compiles all significant security incidents confirmed by New York Times reporters throughout Afghanistan from the past seven days. It is necessarily incomplete as many local officials refuse to confirm casualty information. The report includes government claims of insurgent casualty figures, but in most cases these cannot be independently verified by The Times. Similarly, the reports do not include Taliban claims for their attacks on the government unless they can be verified. Both sides routinely inflate casualty totals for their opponents.

At least 62 pro-government forces and three civilians were killed in Afghanistan during the past week. Casualties among pro-government forces saw a significant drop compared to the previous two weeks, but remain high for this time of year when freezing temperatures historically have curtailed Taliban attacks. In Kabul, there were two bombings within two days of each other; the first left at least 22 people dead and 120 wounded; the breakdown of casualties between security forces and civilians was not available. The second bombing killed one N.D.S. official.

[Read the Afghan War Casualty Report from previous weeks.]

Jan. 17 Parwan Province: one police officer killed

Afghan forces launched an operation against the Taliban in Shinwari District. The district police chief was killed and two police officers were wounded in the fighting.

Jan. 16 Faryab Province: four police officers killed

The Taliban ambushed an Afghan security convoy in Khwaja Sabz Posh District, killing four police officers and wounding two others. The convoy was driving from Balkh to Faryab.
A few years ago, Daniel Ramoss grandmother asked him just how did he make a living as a photographer. Grants, he replied. His grandmother was puzzled: Do they pay you in food?

I asked her what she meant, and she said that when she was growing up in Mexico, the local photographer was paid with food, he recalled with a chuckle. So she had the idea I was paid that way.

That exchange may sound familiar to many children of working-class immigrants, who hoped their backbreaking sacrifices would lift their children into the middle class.

For Mr. Ramos, the conversation was another step along his journey from a rough-and-tumble childhood in Chicago to becoming a working photographer in Monterrey, Mexico, where he moved five years ago after inheriting a house from his mother. Caught between his heritage and his hopes, he delved into childhood memories of Mexican summers, using photos, collages and text to document his journey of self-discovery. To do so, he recalled the stories his parents had told him and took images of children, grandparents and relatives.
The study found that opioid-related spending on doctors was most highly concentrated in counties in the Northeast; the Midwest had the lowest concentration.

Areas with large numbers of payments and high overdose rates included four cities in Virginia  Salem, Fredericksburg, Winchester and Norton  as well as Cabell County, W.Va., which has one of the highest overdose death rates in the nation. Lackawanna County, Penn., which includes Scranton, also ranked high in both measures, as did Erie County, Ohio.

The authors said they were particularly struck by the fact that the number of marketing interactions with doctors  such as frequent free meals  was more strongly associated with overdose deaths than the amount spent.

Each meal seems to be associated with more and more prescriptions, Dr. Hadland said. He added that while pharmaceutical company payments to doctors seem to have started dropping, the practice of companies buying meals for doctors remains alive and well.

The study noted that while some states have sought to limit the total amount drug companies spend promoting their products to doctors  New Jersey, for example, recently adopted a new regulation limiting such spending to $10,000 per doctor, per year  what may matter more is for states or health systems to limit the number of interactions.

I think what seems to be less important is the amount of money spent, Dr. Hadland said, compared with the number of interactions.

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The study linked information from 2013 to 2016 across three national databases: the Open Payments database, which includes all payments made by pharmaceutical companies to physicians, which companies are required to report under a section of the Affordable Care Act; drug overdose data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and C.D.C. data on opioid prescriptions dispensed at pharmacies.
It was a well-intended policy. Almost all parties agree on that much.

A decade ago, when Medicare beneficiaries were discharged from hospitals, one in five returned within a month.

Older people faced the risks of hospitalization all over again: infections, deconditioning, delirium, subsequent nursing home stays. And preventable readmissions were costing Medicare a bundle.

So the Affordable Care Act incorporated something called the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, which focused on three serious ailments with high readmission rates: heart failure, heart attacks and pneumonia.

The A.C.A. penalized hospitals  withholding up to three percent of Medicare payments  when readmissions within 30 days exceeded national averages.
Mr. Astaire called his son, an art lover, and told him he had met a woman named Pilar Ordovas, who was a kind, interesting, fascinating and beautiful woman, he said. A recognizable name in the art industry, his son thought he was kidding. Milo said, Do you know who that is? Youre lying to me. Id love to meet her.

The following day Mr. Astaire met Sting for lunch and told him all about Ms. Ordovas. Because she was married, he didnt consider courting her, but he wanted to follow up on the dog breeder she had suggested. They stopped by her gallery on Savile Row in London, but she wasnt there. Mr. Astaire left his phone number and email address. She responded soon after with the breeders information.

A few months later, he texted and asked if she would meet with his son. She said yes. And as weeks passed, Ms. Ordovas and Mr. Astaire would meet once more, casually, at her gallery.

On New Years Day 2017, Mr. Astaire was having a drink at the White Horse Tavern in Manhattan. Seated under a portrait of Dylan Thomas, he posted a quote from the famed poet on Instagram: I wrote, Life always offers you a second chance; its called tomorrow, he said, and wished everyone a happy New Year.

Ms. Ordovas, who was by then divorced, saw the post and was encouraged by co-workers to respond. She, too, was in New York and sent him a message. But by the time he saw it, he was at the airport heading to Los Angeles. He promised to connect when he retuned to London.

The two had dinner in early March, a year after first meeting. She was as lovely as I remembered, Mr. Astaire said. Its like for all these years Id been looking in the wrong place. I met someone that has the essence of understanding me.
Hi, its Emily, and I have five weeknight dishes for you, starting with one of my personal favorites, this garlicky chicken with lemon-anchovy sauce. I realized I was maybe not alone in this when I saw this tweet by the writer Hannah Giorgis: I make this chicken so much that I truly look forward to passing the recipe down to my future children while pretending its an old family secret. Same. (Also, while Im not sure anyone ever tried to conceal this, my nanas special matzo ball soup was almost certainly made from the mix in the box.)

If (a) this kind of culinary deception exists in your family or (b) you feel this way about another recipe, either on NYT Cooking or another website, then tell me at dearemily@nytimes.com.

[Sign up here to receive the Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter in your inbox every Friday.]

Here are five recipes for the week:
Chickpeas give the dish a boost of protein. Feta cheese adds creaminess and tang, though how much tang will depend on the kind of feta you buy. Greek tends to be the saltiest and most intense in taste, while cheeses imported from Bulgaria and France are generally milder. Taste a bit before you add it to the pan. If it seems very salty, give the cheese a quick rinse. And if it seems too bland, add an extra pinch of salt and dash of balsamic vinegar to the pan to perk things up.

Every one-pan meal needs a vegetable and here, roasted sturdy grape tomatoes  a winter staple in my kitchen  get the job done. Cooked along with balsamic vinegar, garlic and scallions, they turn both savory and sweet, their juices condensing in their brief stint in a very hot oven.

They do not, however, provide any kind of textural contrast. (This is not a dish for anyone looking for crunch.) Soft, cheese-filled and warming, this meal is as gently comforting as that spot on the couch.

Recipe: Pearl Couscous With Creamy Feta and Chickpeas

And to Drink 

While pearl couscous gives this dish the weight and texture to satisfy in cold weather, the herbs and flavorings bring to mind a Mediterranean summer. For that reason, its a great opportunity to indulge in a winter rose. But dont reach for the last bottle from the past summers $50 case. Those cheap roses have a fleeting life span. You need a sturdier bottle, like a Bandol rose or a few others that not only survive a few years aging but actually improve. If you find a winter rose is too jarring  though I dont know why it should be  this dish will go well with any dry Mediterranean white. Try something from Greece, like an assyrtiko, a moschofilero, maybe even a retsina. ERIC ASIMOV
TOKYO  Mitsubishi Motors has joined Nissan in accusing Carlos Ghosn of financial wrongdoing, saying on Friday that he secretly received compensation of 7.8 million euros, or almost $9 million, from a joint venture of the two automakers.

Osamu Masuko, Mitsubishis chief executive, told reporters in Tokyo that the automaker was considering suing Mr. Ghosn, the former chairman of both Nissan and Mitsubishi. Renault, the third automaker in the global car alliance that Mr. Ghosn ran, is also preparing to cut ties with its star executive.

Mr. Ghosn has been detained in Tokyo since Nov. 19 on suspicion of understating his salary for eight years, and of temporarily transferring personal investment losses to Nissans books during the 2008 financial crisis. Mr. Ghosn has denied all charges. His lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mitsubishis findings involve a joint venture between Nissan and Mitsubishi established in 2017 in the Netherlands. The company said Mr. Ghosn, who is listed as a director of the joint venture, had drawn up an employment contract that rewarded him 7.8 million in compensation.
You are here: Arts

The China Cultural Week is being held in three major cities of Myanmar - Yangon, Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay.

The China Cultural Week was launched on Wednesday and will last until Sunday.

The 2019 Spring Festival Gala, with the theme "Celebration of China-Myanmar Friendship" and activities of the China Cultural Week, is aimed at deepening the China-Myanmar traditional friendship and strengthening cultural exchanges.

The event, which features different kinds of exhibitions and art performances, is hosted by the Information Office of the State Council of China, the Chinese Embassy to Myanmar, the provincial government of Yunnan, Myanmar's Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture.

It is organized by Yunnan Radio and Television Station, Yunnan Daily Newspaper Group, and Myanmar Radio and Television.

The China Cultural Week activities include the Spring Festival gala, a special photo exhibition featuring the achievement of China's poverty eradication efforts titled "Pursuing good life," broadcasting of Chinese TV programs, the China-Myanmar media forum, photography and calligraphy exhibition involving photos, paintings and handwriting created by artists, and a Spring Festival book sale week.

The Spring Festival gala will take place at Skynet Studio of the Shwe Than Lwin Media Co. Saturday evening to showcase a transnational Chinese New Year.

During the event, photo exhibition on China's poverty eradication efforts will be launched at Mandalay's Yunhua Normal University, Nay Pyi Taw's Myanmar Radio and Television Station and Yangon's China Cultural Center.

The China Cultural Week activities attracted the participation of the Myanmar people on Wednesday, the first day of the event.

U Soe Win, a Myanmar man who rushed to Yangon's China Cultural Center from Bago region, told Xinhua that he was extremely interested in the activities.

Myanmar and China are good neighbors, sharing identical and communicable culture, he said, adding such exchanges will contribute to Myanmar's development.
Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, may be the first billionaire couple with a huge stake in an enormous technology company to announce their divorce.

They wont be the last.

The surprise announcement last week that the Bezoses would divorce after 25 years of marriage instantly raised questions about the future of their 16 percent, roughly $140 billion stake in Amazon. As its founder, chairman, chief executive and largest shareholder, Mr. Bezos exerts almost complete control over the company he created.

The big question is, now what? Will Ms. Bezos sell her portion of the familys vast Amazon holdings? Will she seek a seat on the companys board? Will she push for big strategic or management changes?

The Bezos divorce could have consequences for investors in other companies with billionaire founders  Google, Facebook, Groupon and Snap, to name a few. Unlike Mr. Bezos, who owns Amazon shares with ordinary voting rights, these tech entrepreneurs wield control of their companies by holding special classes of shares that confer extra power to their owners.
Which made it all the more astounding when, a few years after his death in 2007, the truth came out. Starting in the early 1960s, Withers had spent nearly two decades as a paid informant of the F.B.I., feeding its agents information about the activists he photographed. He not only informed; he took requests. At one anti-Vietnam War march, he was asked to photograph all of the 30-odd protesters, taking special care to catch all their faces, and he turned 80 8-by-10 prints over to his F.B.I. contact. On occasion, he sold his work to a local paper, then gave copies to the bureau. His daughter Rosalind, the youngest of his nine children and the one who handles his estate, was blindsided when the news came out via a series of FOIA requests and legal fights undertaken by Marc Perrusquia, a reporter from The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. Perrusquia wrote about Withers and the revelation of his intelligence work in his own book, A Spy in Canaan, which was published last year. Its a smart journalists book, crisply marching through Witherss F.B.I. records and the papers battle to pry them out of the governments grip.

Bluff City, by Preston Lauterbach, aims instead for something less snappy and more lyrical. Its subtitle is The Secret Life of Photographer Ernest Withers, which suggests that its a biography, but it isnt quite that, or at least not a comprehensive one. Big stretches of Witherss life get a fairly cursory look, and Lauterbach basically calls it a day after Kings assassination in 1968, dispatching the photographers subsequent four decades in an introductory chapter and an afterword. Nor is this a book about photography history, examining the photographs the way an art historian might. There are 18 pictures, most, though not all, by Withers, enough to hit the main points but no more. (Which is fine. Decisions about including photos in a book like this tend to be limited by the cost of rights, and anyway there are several nice volumes of Witherss pictures out there. Or, you know, Google.)

Instead what Lauterbach, a former Memphis resident and the author of two other books set in the South, Beale Street Dynasty and The Chitlin Circuit, is going for is a loose, rangy history of the civil rights movement in Memphis, using Withers and his camera as the (literal) lens. Hes done the work, tracking the complex, intertwined dances of the radicals and the centrists, the local ministers and visiting heavyweights like King. Weirdly, though, his very thoroughness and deep interest in this time and place have the almost certainly unintended effect of diminishing Withers rather than keeping him front and center. There are long stretches where, say, Stokely Carmichael appears, and we get 10 enthusiastic pages about his politics and S.N.C.C. and the dynamics between Carmichael and King, and then Withers pokes his head in to snap a few pictures and go meet his F.B.I. contact. Some of those scenes are nicely wrought, but the secrets in this life are often other peoples rather than Witherss own.
Born in Neuquen, Argentina, Beatriz emigrated with her parents when she was 2 years old to Webster, Tex., just outside Houston. Her interest in acting began with that perennial refuge for young outsiders: high school theater.

Thats where the weird kids were; thats where the gay kids felt comfortable. A lot of people of color gravitated toward that group, Beatriz said. I just felt like the best version of myself when I was with that group of kids.

After high school, Beatriz graduated with a theater degree from Stephens College in Missouri, then moved to New York.

I knew there was space for me in theater, but I didnt know if there was space for me in TV and film, she said. Eventually, she found her place: Following bit parts in a few TV series and a notable supporting turn in the film Short Term 12, Beatriz got her big break in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which debuted in 2013.

In portraying a tough good guy, Beatriz found inspiration in spaghetti Westerns, a genre which sometimes featured a character in an all-black get-up. She describes it as a robot-cowboy look: I think I was taking elements of that archetype when I started thinking about her as a character. I remember going into the first costume fitting and saying, I think its a lot of black.

Join Times theater reporter Michael Paulson in conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda, catch a performance from Shakespeare in the Park and more as we explore signs of hope in a changed city. For a year, the Offstage series has followed theater through a shutdown. Now were looking at its rebound.

Aside from her inscrutable nature, Rosa is known for her sardonic tone and dedication to being a solid detective.
Its not as though the Queens-based artist just up and started thinking along such apocalyptic lines. Hes been pondering them good and hard, for a long time. Back in 2006, for example, he perpetrated Prospect, the bas-relief to end all bas-reliefs, an idyllic sylvan scene (a meadow, a copse of trees) idling atop a wedding cake cross-section of the geological underground, each layer distinct and differentiated, with a thin seam of compressed plastic and metal refuse coursing down below. The stuffs positively indestructible, he noted at the time, and may well end up being all thats left to mark our time on this earth. Tomorrows Day Before Yesterday, as it were : a regular laugh riot.

With his current This Land, the polarities get reversed. The product of a years concerted effort, and to even more compelling effect, offering up, as it were, Yesterdays Day After Tomorrow. Ive been trawling eBay for years, Mr. Opdyke commented, as he was recently putting his final touches on the piece, gathering up vintage postcards like these, often in random batches of hundreds at a time. For a long time I was experimenting with repurposing individual cards  had a whole show of those a few years back  but about a year ago, this current project just swam into view and took over my life.

The father of two (a boy, 14, and a girl, 10) with his wife, Kimberlae Saul , who is an architect, Mr. Opdyke noted, For years Ive been feeling the need to do something about the dismal future into which we all seem to be sleepwalking. And yet, he paused before continuing, Im constantly haunted by worry. Can such artistic gestures ever really make any difference , especially given the sheer scale of the challenge?
True Confidence

Barbara Roper, the director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, said Mr. Bogle didnt just bring low-cost investments to the average person  he ran Vanguard for the benefit of investors.

There has been thinly veiled resentment toward Bogle from other mutual fund leaders over the years because of his focus on reducing costs, which was a direct threat to their bottom line, said Ms. Roper, who met him once, when she was seated next to him at a dinner. He always cared more about that vision  how the industry should be run  than making friends in the industry. Of course, he was rewarded with a following that was cultlike in its devotion.

The cultists call themselves the Bogleheads, a group of like-minded investors who consider Mr. Bogle the spiritual leader of their financial lives.

Moral Compass

Each year, the Bogleheads hold a conference . And Christine Benz, the director of personal finance at Morningstar, has interviewed him at each one for the past decade. She called him the conscience of the financial services industry.

His consistent belief that all investors deserve a fair shake was a core principle that I incorporated into my work and shaped my career path, she said. You listen to Jack Bogle and you think, I want to be on this guys team. Whatever he is talking about, this is the right thing to do for people.

So strong was Mr. Bogles belief, she said, that it remained firmly instilled in Vanguard long after he had given up control. And once investors convert to his ethos of simplicity and thrift, its for life.

Investors come around to Vanguard, and then they never leave, she said.
A Belarusian escort who claimed to have audio recordings that could link Russia with President Trumps election was detained in Moscow on Thursday, according to Russian news agencies.

The escort, Anastasia Vashukevich, was deported from Thailand on Thursday after she and seven other defendants  five Russians and two Belarusians  pleaded guilty to charges of solicitation and conspiracy. Russian news services said that she had been detained when she arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow.

Citing a statement from the Interior Ministry, the Russian news services Interfax and RIA Novosti said that three Russian citizens and a female Belarusian citizen, arriving on a flight from the Kingdom of Thailand, were arrested at the airport on charges of inducement to prostitution.

If convicted, the four face up to six years in prison apiece.

Ms. Vashukevich, who also goes by the name Nastya Rybka, was detained in Moscow with her associate Alexander Kirillov, who had helped her conduct a sex-training seminar in the Thai city of Pattaya.
BOGOTA, Colombia  The suspect in a car bombing that left 21 people dead on Thursday in Bogota, the capital,was a member of the countrys largest remaining guerrilla group, the defense ministry said Friday.

Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, the assailant who was also killed in the attack, was a member of the National Liberation Army, a Marxist rebel group known as the ELN, said Guillermo Botero, the Colombian defense minister.

The group did not claim responsibility for the bombing, but it has stepped up attacks against the government since its rival, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC, signed a peace deal with the government in 2016.

Thursdays attack was the first car bombing in Bogota in years, a gruesome reminder of a time when drug lords and rebel groups ravaged the capitals streets with car bombs, killing hundreds of civilians and members of the security forces. Since the signing of the peace accords, the Colombian government has said it turned the page on that violent era.
NAIROBI, Kenya  The police intensified their search on Thursday for the plotters of the deadly assault on a Nairobi hotel-shopping complex, as Kenyan news services said at least 11 people had been arrested, including a suspected financier.

The assault, which began Tuesday afternoon and lasted more than 18 hours, killed at least 21 people, including a police officer. Fifteen of the victims were Kenyan, one was American, one was British and the others were of undetermined African nationality, the authorities said.

Five assailants also were killed and 700 people were evacuated from the complex in one of the Kenyan capitals most secure areas.
Mr. Gabbard, who has been a state lawmaker since 2006, has been an outspoken anti-gay activist. In addition to the Alliance for Traditional Marriage, he also ran a group called Stop Promoting Homosexuality America and hosted an anti-gay radio show called Lets Talk Straight Hawaii, according to Honolulu Civil Beat, a news organization.

Ms. Gabbard alluded to her conservative upbringing and her fathers work on Thursday in her video, but did not go into detail about her own anti-gay advocacy as a young person. She was the youngest person ever elected to the Hawaii State Legislature.

According to a 2017 profile in The New Yorker, Ms. Gabbard led a protest in 2004 against a bill to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples. That year she also spoke in the State House against a measure to combat anti-gay bullying in schools.

She said she objected to students being taught that homosexuality is normal and natural and feared that the anti-bullying resolution would mean inviting homosexual-advocacy organizations into our schools to promote their agenda to our vulnerable youth, according to The New Yorker.

On Thursday night, Mr. Gabbard said all of that was in his daughters past.

Im not sure why theres all this conversation about Tulsis position right now, he wrote in an email. Her position changed a long time ago. So, Im not sure why its coming out now.

Indeed, in her video apology Ms. Gabbard said her views had significantly changed.

While many Americans may be able to relate to growing up in a conservative home, my story is a little different because my father was very outspoken, she said. He was an activist who was fighting against gay rights and marriage equality in Hawaii, and at the time I forcefully defended him and his cause."

Ms. Gabbard, an Army National Guard veteran who was twice deployed to the Middle East, was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2012. She was the first Hindu and the first American Samoan elected to that chamber.
A Skadden Arps team led by Gregory B. Craig, a former White House counsel for President Barack Obama, produced a report concluding that, while the trial violated some of Ms. Tymoshenkos rights, her conviction was supported by the evidence presented at trial. And the report found no evidence that the prosecution was politically motivated.

Mr. Craig, who maintained deep connections to Washingtons Democratic establishment and its press corps, worked to shape the public relations strategy for the release of the report, according to a Justice Department filing released with the settlement.

The filing, which identifies Mr. Craig as Partner 1 but does not name him, indicates that he arranged for a journalist to receive a copy of the report, then discussed the report with that journalist. The journalist, who is not named in the filing, is David E. Sanger of The New York Times, which published an article in December 2012 about the report quoting Mr. Craig.

Mr. Craig and Skadden Arps should have disclosed that activity under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA, which covers both lobbying and public relations on behalf of foreign political interests, the Justice Department said. But Mr. Craig misled both his colleagues at Skadden Arps and officials in the Justice Departments FARA unit about his interactions with the news media, leading the Justice Department to conclude that the firm was not obligated to register under the act, the settlement filing said.

The settlement puts law firms on notice that they cant hide behind their identity as lawyers. If they are doing lobbying work on behalf of foreign countries, they need to register under FARA, said Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School who specializes in legal ethics. It also shows that the government will not tolerate false statements by lawyers.

Skadden Arps said in a statement that it had learned much from this incident and was taking steps to prevent anything similar from happening again.

Mr. Craigs lawyer declined to comment.

The investigation that led to the settlement with Skadden Arps was handled by the Justice Departments Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, which includes the FARA unit. But federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, to which Mr. Muellers team referred illegal lobbying cases, asked witnesses about Mr. Craigs involvement in Mr. Manaforts work as recently as last month, according to people familiar with the case.
When the crew of the documentary Startups began shooting, Dai Wei, the 28-year-old entrepreneur and his bike-sharing venture, Ofo, were riding high.



Back then, in early 2017, millions of the bright yellow shared bikes could be seen in more than 50 Chinese cities, as well as other countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore. Dai, then 26, was regarded as one of the most prominent budding entrepreneurs, exemplified by his appearance on a Forbes "30 under 30" list and the Hurun China Rich List.

However, Ofo is now teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Millions of users are clamoring for the return of their deposits and Dai was put on a spending blacklist by a Beijing court on Dec 4, which prohibits him from air or high-speed rail travel and staying in high-end hotels.

"We've seen his anxiety and stress rise since the middle of last year, but I didn't expect it would turn into such a crisis. However, I still admire Dai's spirit to fight for what he loves," says Guan Xiu, the main director of the documentary, during a telephone interview with China Daily.

Since Friday, the film-which follows 14 startup founders-has been released across Chinese mainland theaters, while a five-episode series with the same title is still being produced and expected to debut later this year.

Aside from Dai, the 107-minute documentary also features Luo Yonghao, founder of the niche smartphone maker, Smartisan Technology; Cheetah Mobile CEO, Fu Sheng; Jin Xing, who established the online cosmetic medicine platform SoYoung; and Jiang Yilei, better known as Papi Jiang, an internet celebrity who founded a short video production company.

A veteran of several successful TV reality shows about business startups, Guan says she has met a lot of ambitious entrepreneurs, making friends with them and witnessing both their joy and despair.

"During the interviews, we've found that more than 90 percent of startups don't survive the first three years (in the Chinese market).

"In fact, a renowned investor estimated that on average, an entrepreneur will not taste success until they have failed in at least three business endeavors," says Guan.
The chronic funding shortage for Californias large urban school systems is primarily because of the states property tax law. Voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, capping property taxes and drastically limiting the amount of money the state could collect for public schools. The law has led to smaller, more affluent communities raising money with local bonds or parcel taxes, something that is virtually impossible in poorer urban districts like Los Angeles.

But despite widespread agreement from education experts that the law harms low-income schools, it is widely seen as a third rail of state politics and changing it would require statewide voter approval. There is now an effort, supported by both district and union leaders in Los Angeles, for a 2020 ballot measure that would change the law to increase commercial property taxes, but not change the law for homeowners.

Still, Democratic leaders are facing pressure to find significantly more money for public schools. The scrutiny is now turning to Mayor Eric Garcetti and Gov. Gavin Newsom. Austin Beutner, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, has suggested that the mayor use some of the citys budget to help pay for student services. And many observers say that an agreement between the union and the district will ultimately require more money from Mr. Newsoms budget.

Although the union and Mr. Beutner agreed that the state should spend more on public schools, they are locked in a bitter fight over how the district should use the money it already has  and cannot agree on how much that is.

The union has pointed to a nearly $2 billion reserve, which it says could be used to pay for more educators so that class sizes are significantly smaller and that all schools have full-time nurses, counselors and mental health professionals. But Mr. Beutner has said the district is already spending far more than it brings in. A state-appointed fact-finder supported both claims, and both sides have pointed to the report to bolster their arguments.

Mr. Beutner has been steadfast in his support for charters, saying they give parents more choices and are an essential option in Los Angeles. But Mr. Beutner has pushed back at the unions claim that he wants to shut down traditional public schools.
PARIS  Two related scenes are currently playing out in theaters here. In Les Idoles (The Idols), at the Odeon  Theatre de lEurope, the actress Marina Fois recounts in detail the death of the philosopher Michel Foucault, in 1984, of an AIDS-related illness. At the Espace Cardin, Foucaults homosexuality is seen through the eyes of his first biographer, the sociologist Didier Eribon, in Retour a Reims (Returning to Reims).

In both productions, prominent French gay artists reclaim their pasts with striking honesty. Retour a Reims, staged by the German director Thomas Ostermeier, is based on Mr. Eribons 2009 memoir-cum-essay about his working-class roots, while the writer and director Christophe Honore looks back at the artistic heroes  those idols  he lost to AIDS in his youth.

Mr. Honore may be better known for films including Love Songs, but his theater work is in some ways more ambitious and original. His recent plays have brought real individuals back to life and imagined, with the benefit of hindsight, how they might have interacted: Nouveau Roman, in 2012, focused on the 20th-century French literary movement of the same name; Les Idoles brings together six writers and filmmakers who died between 1989 and 1994.

Extensive research clearly went into the play, but Mr. Honore doesnt strive for truthfulness. He isnt preoccupied with physical likeness, for starters, and regularly casts women in male roles onstage. In Les Idoles, Ms. Fois plays Herve Guibert, whose autobiographical novel To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life evoked Foucaults last days, while the part of the filmmaker Jacques Demy is taken with gusto by Marlene Saldana, in a fur coat and heels.
Physical pain, relentless and undeniable, throbs like a bass line in Behind the Sheet, the deeply affecting new historical drama by Charly Evon Simpson at Ensemble Studio Theater. Sometimes it takes the audible, metaphoric form of a hammered drum. And every now and then a scream, quickly muffled, lances the air.

But for the most part, agony holds its tongue in this meticulously assembled story of a dark chapter in medical experimentation. Like its core of heroines  plantation slave women used as gynecological guinea pigs in the South of the 1840s  Behind the Sheet, which opened on Thursday night, resists the natural urge to shout in righteous defiance.

Instead, as directed with Olympian calm by Colette Robert, the production takes on cumulative power in its steady, cleareyed depiction of a time when it was a given that pain would be borne uncomplainingly by human beings regarded as chattel. That some things are just the way they are, as one character says, becomes a stoics creed for survival.

What the young black women portrayed here have to survive includes repeated vaginal surgeries  as many as 30  performed without anesthetic. Behind the Sheet was inspired by the career of J. Marion Sims, an American physician and plantation owner known as the father of modern gynecology (and a figure whose commemorative statue was recently removed from Central Park, as were reminded in an onstage postscript).
A photo published by The Times on Tuesday, showing some of the dead victims of an attack in Nairobi, Kenya, led to a swift backlash among some of our readers.

Many readers thought it was inappropriate to include an image of bloody bodies slumped over tables in our article about the assault, which was committed by the Islamic extremist group Shabab.

Readers, including many Kenyans, also questioned whether The Times would publish similarly horrific photos after an attack in the United States or elsewhere in the West.

These are not just bodies . These are people whose family and friends are reading your article and experiencing indelible trauma from seeing their loved ones photos, Lorna Kagecha wrote in an email to The Times. We do not see this kind of nonsense when you write articles on attacks in the Western world.

While many social media users blamed our incoming East Africa bureau chief, Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, for posting the image, she played no role. As with any article, decisions about photography are made by editors in New York or elsewhere, not by reporters.

The publication of graphic images is never taken lightly at The Times. Many people across the newsroom are involved in difficult conversations, weighing the desire to be sensitive and respectful of victims and their families with our mission to give readers a clear view of whats happening in the world.

To provide more insight into the decisions behind publishing graphic photos, Meaghan Looram, our director of photography, and Marc Lacey, our National editor and former foreign correspondent based in Nairobi, have answered questions drawn from reader feedback.

We welcome you to continue the conversation in the comments section.

What considerations went into choosing the photos in this article? Why did you decide to run the image of dead bodies?

MEAGHAN LOORAM Let me first say that editors in New York made the decision on which images to publish with the story. Our reporter did not have any input into this decision.

Our editors always take into consideration the newsworthiness of the story and our responsibility to our readers to honestly convey the events of the world, horrific and disturbing as those events may sometimes be.

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Pretty cool, Lt. Gen. Paul E. Funk II, then the commander of coalition forces fighting in Iraq and Syria, told me. This is what stability looks like. This is what winning looks like.

General Funk was standing in a crowded marketplace in Manbij, Syria. He was surveying stalls where vendors not only hawked spices, gold jewelry, olive soap and fresh chicken, but also freely displayed womens undergarments and brightly colored clothes that the Islamic State banned before it was driven from the city in 2016.

He was with a delegation of two United States senators, their staffs and a military escort  none of whom wore body armor as they walked through the throngs. From the souk, the group strolled to a nearby restaurant, the Palace of Princes, for lunch with local leaders. It was July 2, 2018.
And because federal law enforcement agencies have failed to adapt to this changing population, agents are ill equipped to handle the asylum seekers once they do arrive.

Those agents are used to chasing after single Mexican men determined to evade capture. They are now dealing with Central American families, fleeing their countries and running to, not from, the agents. Some carry very small children; all are being crowded into small, inhumane cement cells for days at a time.

I am not blaming the agents. During one of our visits to an El Paso Sector station, agents were up front with us about how unprepared they were to care for the large groups of people they apprehended. They had to buy burritos from a vendor down the street, then warm hundreds of them in a single, small microwave that eventually burned out.

Then there was the mother who, in our presence, asked for a cup of water for her toddler, only to be told that the facility was out of cups. What a terrible situation for the mother, holding an exhausted, thirsty child in her arms. And what does that do to the agent who has to say no to her?

During flu season, agents in El Paso had to dispense medication to their charges. Imagine keeping track of dozens of prescriptions intended to be dispensed every few hours. And all of this was keeping agents from what they were trained to do: track and apprehend bad guys.

When I ask agents what they worry about most, I hear stories like this  not pleas for a wall. Other times they ask for better cellphone coverage and updated radios to use in rural areas. In urban areas with busy ports of entry, they ask for more personnel and newer equipment. There arent enough immigration judges, they dont have enough independence, and the laws on the books dont reflect modern realities.

The agents may not be to blame, but the agencies sure are. Local immigration activists said their main concern was inadequate communication from federal law enforcement, which left their organizations scrambling when the local Immigration Customs Enforcement office releases hundreds of migrants in need of temporary housing into the nighttime streets of El Paso.
Officially, a big part of the federal government shut down late last month. In important ways, however, Americas government went AWOL almost two years earlier, when Donald Trump was inaugurated.

After all, politicians supposedly seek office in order to get stuff done  to tackle real problems and implement solutions. But neither Trump, who spends his energy inventing crises at the border, nor the Republicans who controlled Congress for two years have done any of that. Their only major legislative achievement was a tax cut that blew up the deficit without, as far as anyone can tell, doing anything to enhance the economys long-run growth prospects.

Meanwhile, there has been no hint of the infrastructure plan Trump promised to deliver. And after many years of denouncing Obamacare and promising to provide a far better replacement, Republicans turned out to have no idea how to do that, and in particular no plan to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions.

Why cant Republicans govern? Its not just that their party is committed to an ideology that says that government is always the problem, never the solution. Beyond that, they have systematically deprived themselves of the ability to analyze policies and learn from evidence, because hard thinking might lead someone to question received doctrine.
It seems that the speaker of the House has gotten under the famously thin skin of the president.

On Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle by effectively disinviting President Trump from delivering his State of the Union address to Congress this month .

In a letter citing concerns about the security implications of the continuing government shutdown, Ms. Pelosi suggested, sadly, that it might be best if she and the president could determine another suitable date after government has reopened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing.

The communique was at once excruciatingly polite and brutally dismissive, driving home how the power dynamic has shifted on Capitol Hill. As congressional Republicans sputtered about how grossly political the speaker was being, Mr. Trump was reminded not only of the limitations of his own power, but also of how his House enablers have been stripped of theirs.

Surprised and clearly irked, Mr. Trump fired back Thursday with a petulant, taunting letter postponing a congressional delegation that Ms. Pelosi had been scheduled to lead to Brussels and Afghanistan  or at least canceling military support for it  for the duration of the shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative, snarked the president.
With the commissions work scheduled to end in September, why the sudden urgency to expel its staff?

Cicig has charged Mr. Moraless own brother and son with fraud and has been investigating Mr. Morales and his associates for possible campaign finance violations. On Jan. 9, two days after the president ordered the expulsion of the prosecutors from Guatemala, they didnt show up in the courtroom where the presidents son and brother were being tried; its the first trial indefinitely suspended because the president revoked the commissions mandate.

Guatemala will hold national elections in June. When his term ends, so will Moraless immunity from prosecution. Mr. Morales and his political, economic and military allies are maneuvering to block pro-Cicig candidates  especially former Attorney General Thelma Aldana  from running. What Guatemalans refer to as a slow-motion coup, prompted by his earlier moves against Cicig, is speeding up.

Meanwhile, the pro-Morales coalition in the countrys congress, known by its critics as el pacto de corruptos, is moving to gut the Constitutional Court . Guatemalans are bracing for whats being deemed as the restoration: a return to impunity for corrupt economic and political elites, the release from prison of those charged with crimes by Cicig and the repression of journalists, human rights and judicial activists.

Cicigs European donor countries and other governments strongly denounced the commissions expulsion. The United States is Cicigs largest donor, but the bipartisan consensus that supported it for 11 years has collapsed. Many agree that the role of the United States is likely to be determinative.

Democratic lawmakers in the United States have voiced support for the commission. Representative Norma Torres warned that with its abrupt departure, the complex cases involving organized crime, drug trafficking and human smuggling would fall apart. Powerful criminals and the corrupt politicians would get away with serious crimes.

The United States Embassy in Ciudad de Guatemala officially expressed concern about the future of anti-corruption efforts in Guatemala but made no mention of Cicig, doing little to dispel concerns that the Trump administration tacitly supports Mr. Morales. Leading Republicans, including Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Representative Steve King of Iowa, have praised Mr. Morales for defending Guatemalan sovereignty.

Sovereignty was arguably pertinent to the decision to end Cicigs mandate, but Mr. Moraless other actions undermine Guatemalan rule of law and democratic institutions. Representative Rick Crawford, an Arkansas Republican, said on Twitter, I stand by the people of Guatemala and the decision of their president regarding Cicig  a ludicrous statement, considering that polls have consistently demonstrated overwhelming Guatemalan support for Cicig, the most recent measuring 71 percent approval.
Last summer, a federal judge in San Diego said the Trump administration treated immigrant children detained at the border worse than chattel.

The unfortunate reality, wrote Judge Dana Sabraw in ordering a halt to President Trumps policy of separating the children from their parents, is that under the present system, migrant children are not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property.

That was underscored on Thursday when the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services released a report revealing that thousands more children than previously disclosed may have been torn from their parents for months before the policy was even announced. The report confirmed that, as the number of families seeking asylum has soared, the true crisis on the border was a humanitarian one that the administrations actions have made far worse.

The report said department officials who care for immigrant children seized at the border realized by August 2017 that the proportion of children separated from their parents was 10 times greater than had previously been the case, when families were usually broken up only if there were safety concerns for the children. It was not until the following April that the administration announced a zero-tolerance approach, under which families would be pulled apart because all adults crossing the border without authorization would be criminally charged and jailed.
Joe Sinicki would have mistaken Carrie Feyerabend as a Chinese performer, had he not watched on the spot her presentation of an excerpt of song and dance from Peking Opera classic The Heavenly Maid Scatters Blossoms at a recent show in the State University of New York at Buffalo.



"She did pretty well. If I didn't see her, I thought she was maybe a Chinese girl," said Sinicki, who is a fan of the most influential Chinese drama form, in an interview with Xinhua.

In the story of The Heavenly Maid Scatters Blossoms, the Buddha orders the heavenly maid to scatter blossoms in Vimalakirti Nirdesa's room in order to test his faith. The heavenly maid scatters the blossoms in front of him and proclaims the Buddha's words before she returns to the west.

"It was cool. I like it. It's very abstract. There's a lot of symbolism," said Sinicki, who was enthralled by Feyerabend's superb dance with Shuixiu, literally Water Sleeves, one of the most skillful stunts in Peking Opera.

Shuixiu refers to the extra-long dancing sleeves attached to the cuffs of a costume, which are used to perform various movements. There are hundreds of gesticulations in Shuixiu dancing, such as sleeves quivering, throwing and wigwagging.
Mark Urman, a distributor who championed independent films and documentaries, helping movies that might have faded into obscurity reach audiences and win major awards, died on Saturday in Newark. He was 66.

His wife, the writer Deborah Davis, said that the cause was respiratory failure and that Mr. Urman had recently learned he had bone cancer.

Mr. Urman was an important part of two distribution companies that focused on independent films: ThinkFilm, which was founded in 2001 and essentially shuttered in 2008, and Paladin, which he founded in 2009.

A distributors job is to market movies and place them in theaters. What distinguished Mr. Urman was his devotion to independent movies that can hardly compete with Hollywood blockbusters; he had to persuade moviegoers and theater owners to choose films with subjects that were unfamiliar and, at times, seemingly unappealing.
The Brooklyn District Attorneys Office on Thursday took the rare step of asking a State Supreme Court justice to appoint a special prosecutor in an obstacle-laden case involving two New York Police detectives charged with kidnapping and raping an 18-year-old woman.

The unusual request was the latest twist in a closely watched case that, for more than a year, has been filled with complications for prosecutors.

In a letter to Justice Danny K. Chun, Nancy Hoppock, the chief assistant district attorney, acknowledged three issues that have emerged since the detectives, Richard Hall and Edward Martins, were charged in October 2017: that a prosecutor in her office was involved in a romantic relationship with one of the detectives; that the accuser has made a series of false, misleading and inconsistent statements about the facts of the case; and that because she made those statements, prosecutors cannot call on her to testify and may not be able to proceed in an ethical fashion on some counts now contained in the indictment.

Ms. Hoppock noted that the woman had already made some of the false statements under oath and that prosecutors have had to confront her about them. As a result, the woman harbors mistrust in the prosecution team and has shown hostility toward our office, Ms. Hoppock wrote in the letter, adding that the woman has publicly expressed her displeasure to news reporters and through social media.
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In the early morning of Feb. 17, 2014, the Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman Loera was in bed with his mistress  one of many  when his personal secretary burst into the room with an urgent message: Troops were at the door. Time to leave.

Mr. Guzman  naked  ran into the bathroom, beckoning the rest of his household to come with him. Popping the top on his escape hatch, he lifted the lid of the bathtub to reveal a set of wooden stairs leading to a tunnel. As a tactical team of Mexican marines used a battering ram on his front door, the kingpin known as El Chapo disappeared into the tunnels humid darkness  and into the annals of criminal myth.

Like other legends that surround Mr. Guzman, the basic facts of his flight from the marines five years ago have been told so often they have started to develop the haziness of a fable. But on Thursday, the tale was told again, not only with astonishing new details, but by a stunning firsthand source: Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, the mistress who escaped into the tunnel at his side.

In an afternoon of testimony at Mr. Guzmans drug trial in New York, Ms. Sanchez took the jury through an almost unbelievable drug world love story, starting with the moment she met the crime lord at age 21 and ending with a terrifying trudge through Culiacans sewers.
Artful illumination gives visitors a better glimpse of the shelves of books lining the (inaccessible) balcony, hinting at the atmosphere of the grand library on the third floor. It pulls the books right down into the center of the room, said Bruce Crawford, the clubs current president (and a collector of Dickens and other 19th-century authors).

On the way up to the members-only spaces , Mr. Holzenberg offered me a quick look into the second-floor gallery, where a half-dozen members were installing Two American Poets: Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams, a new exhibition drawn from the collection of Alan M. Klein, a member and lawyer.

I made the mistake of tsking that no one was wearing gloves.

Never gloves! several people exclaimed at once. They compromise the grip, as it turns out, increasing the risk of dropping or tearing something.

Up in the library (open to researchers but not the general public), Meghan Constantinou, the clubs librarian, opened a not-so-secret door concealed in a bookshelf. It opens to a staircase that leads to more shelves holding some of the librarys collection of more than 150,000 bookseller, auction and private library catalogs, as well as over 40,000 books about books.

Ms. Constantinou, a collector of womens bookplates, had pulled out one of the oldest printed books in the collection: a copy of Flavius Joseph uss The Jewish War, published in 1470 by a Rhineland printer named Johann Schussler (no known relation to this reporter, alas).
Still, critics will insist that its fiscally irresponsible for Indiana to get rid of its corporate tax  but the facts simply do not support that claim. Indiana is actually one of the best-positioned states to get rid of its corporate tax. Our state has balanced its budget every year since 2013, despite also reducing both corporate and personal income taxes. We even boasted a $100 million budget surplus in the 2018 fiscal year, leaving more than enough room to ease the job-killing tax burden.

In its latest forecast, the Indiana Department of Revenue estimated that in 2021, when Indianas corporate tax drops to 4.9 percent, the tax will bring just $793 million in revenue, less than 5 percent of the budget. This means Indiana could easily get rid of its corporate tax without running up any debt if the state ends some sales tax exemptions and dubious tax loopholes it offers to some companies in the name of business incentives.

For instance, under political pressure from President Donald Trump in 2016, Indiana gave $7 million in tax exemptions to the air conditioner manufacturer Carrier to convince the company not to leave the state. However, subsidies like this do not create any jobs but do encourage other companies to demand handouts from the government.
CROWN POINT  Trenton J. Tharp handed his family some of his personal items then surrendered to Lake County authorities Thursday to begin serving a seven-year prison term.

Tharp was originally charged in 2017 in Lake Criminal Court with murder in the perpetration of a robbery and two counts of attempted murder.

On Nov. 9, the 29-year old pleaded guilty to the level 3 felony attempted armed robbery as part of a plea agreement between Lake County prosecutors and his defense attorney, Nicholas Barnes.

The original charges stem a botched robbery committed July 24, 2017 at a house in the 800 block of East Sixth Street in Hobart. The robbery resulted in one of the four alleged robbers  Jordan Davis, 28, of Indianapolis  being fatally shot by a resident of the home.

According to court documents, the men believed there was a safe containing cash and narcotics inside the house. They attempted to force their way through the front door of the home after a resident went to retrieve something from his car. However, a shootout resulted in Davis death and the wounding of the residents girlfriend, documents said.

Tharp has been on home detention with an ankle monitor for 252 days, Barnes told Lake Criminal Court Judge Clarence Murray.
BURNS HARBOR  A 54-year-old woman was struck and seriously injured Thursday night as she attempted to cross U.S. 20.

The woman, a Burns Harbor resident, was transported to Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, by ambulance following the crash, Police Chief Mike Heckman said, adding medical helicopters were unable to fly because of weather.

The incident happened at 6:55 p.m. near the intersection with Doman Road.

The woman was running from the south side of U.S. 20 toward the north side to return to her home. One car on the inside lane of westbound U.S. 20 slammed on its brakes to miss the woman, Heckman said, but a second car, a 2001 Buick, traveling in the outside lane was unable to avoid the woman.

Heckman said no citations were issued to the male driver of the Buick. He was not injured. The woman's condition was unknown Friday morning.

Heckman said Burns Harbor was assisted by the Portage police crash team, Porter and Ogden Dunes police, Indiana Department of Transportation, Portage Fire Department and a Hobart Fire Department deputy chief who was driving by when the incident occurred.

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MUNSTER  Coming off back surgery, Doris Galinski needed some help stepping onto the stage Thursday at the Center for Visual & Performing Arts. But she made it, accepting the Rock Star of the Year Award at the Lake Area United Ways STAR Awards.

The Crown Point woman, a Meals on Wheels of NWI volunteer since 2013, has twice been honored for racking up 500-plus volunteer hours annually. Her surgery prevented that milestone in 2018, but Galinski said the LAUW honor feels fantastic.

Galinski, who helps in the Meals on Wheels office, said volunteering gives a purpose to life. You get to meet some nice people and you know youre helping others.

The third annual STAR Awards featured 15 award categories, recognizing the efforts of nonprofit and faith-based organizations, theirvolunteers and their staffs.

The awards program recognizes some very special, hard-working volunteers and employees, said Lisa Daugherty, president and CEO of LAUW. They are doing some amazing work in the community, doing it on behalf of people who need their assistance.

Down Syndrome Association of NWI & Chicagoland walked away with several honors, including the Innovation Award for its Uber Independence program.
MERRILLVILLE  Five minutes before Bob Salitores DeVry University course was supposed to meet in the Merrillville Centers new computer lab, the instructor popped his head in to give the students studying in the reserved room a heads-up that his class was about to start.

Were having class in here at 6:30, he told a handful of students. Its not until 6:30, so you dont have to get out of here  you can stay as long as you like. In fact, you can stay for class if you like.

What class is this? one student asked as Salitore invited the group to his 115: Intro to Business course.

Oh, you know what? another said, Im taking that online right now.

Salitore lit up.

Do you live near here? he asked.

You can crash any Tuesday night if you like. We invite people to crash class anytime  any online student that would like to come to a live class, were thrilled. We find that the chemistry is so terrific.

Its these kinds of interactions that DeVry student Reyna Teasley said makes her university experience.
INDIANAPOLIS  It's too soon to say how a proposal that would permit Griffith to become its own township will proceed in the Indiana House.

That's the word from state Rep. Kevin Mahan, R-Hartford City. Mahan is chairman of the Government and Regulatory Reform Committee, to which House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, has assigned House Bill 1227 for review.

He said the Griffith legislation is among 21 proposals that the speaker so far has referred to the committee, with potentially a few more coming next week.

Mahan explained Thursday that he typically identifies noncontroversial, or "easy bills," and moves those through the committee before taking up other proposals, such as the Griffith measure, that he knows will stir up controversy or consume considerable time.

"I've got to look into it," Mahan said about the Griffith situation.

"I want to look in to see what all was done, if everything was done in good faith up there, to truly wrap my mind around what is happening.

"If it's a situation that legislatively we do have to do some sort of a fix, I'll certainly be at the table. Whether it's that bill that needs to happen, or by other manners, whatever it is. We'll see. It's too early to tell," Mahan said.
INDIANAPOLIS  The heaviest things lifted by Hoosier lawmakers at the Statehouse typically include a few sheets of paper, a tablet computer and maybe a plastic plate with a free lunch on it.

That could be why members of both the Indiana House and Senate stood in awe Monday when LaPorte County Sheriff's Deputy Bobby Greer strode into the chambers.

In October, Greer set a new Indiana state record by bench pressing 446 pounds to win the gold medal at the North American Regional Bench Press Competition in Costa Rica.

His accomplishment was magnified by the fact that Greer only has been powerlifting for two years, in between his duties as a canine officer at the LaPorte County sheriff's department.

Greer also previously worked 12 years as a police officer in the city of LaPorte.

"Bobby's powerlifting successes are truly remarkable and represent his spirit of determination and perseverance," said state Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores.

State lawmakers unanimously approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 11, congratulating Greer for setting the state's new bench press record and thanking him for conscientiously serving his community.

"He has made his country and state very proud, and we appreciate his service as a police officer here at home," said state Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie.

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State Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, sponsor of the legislation, along with state Reps. Mike Aylesworth, R-Hebron, and Chuck Moseley, D-Portage, said he believes the revised proposal will help prevent the voting site problems and tabulation delays that plagued the Nov. 6 election in Porter County.

"One of the things we heard from everybody is that we needed accountability," Soliday said. "So we've tried to come up with something that mitigates some of the problems that cascaded into the election problems that we had."

Porter County Clerk Jessica Bailey, a Democrat first elected in November, told the committee that she supports the proposed changes, and is prepared to shoulder the responsibility associated with making the election process run more smoothly.

"It also allows for the voters to keep accountability in their officials, so if they don't think it's being run right  they can get rid of me," Bailey said.

Mike Jessen, a Republican Porter County Council member, likewise endorsed the revised legislation. He told the committee that both the County Council and Board of Commissioners are in full support of the measure.
CROWN POINT  Michael Fryzel, a retired St. John police commander accused of sexual battery and ghost payrolling, has had his case continued for the 20th time.

Criminal Court Judge Clarence Murray granted another 90-day continuance on Thursday in Fryzel's case pending in Lake Criminal Court. His next hearing date is set for April 25.

Fryzel was originally charged in May 2016 with three counts of sexual battery, five counts of official misconduct, two counts of theft and three counts of battery. Since that time he was represented by defense attorney Thomas Vanes.

On Jan. 10, defense attorney Steven Mullins took over the case.

Mullins told Lake Murray Thursday that he hadnt yet received any documentation from Vanes, and asked Murray to continue Fryzels case for 90 days to allow time to receive and evaluate the files.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Aleksandra Dimitrijevic said she was going to ask for a trial date, but had no objection to the next hearing date of April 25.

Fryzel resigned from the police department in March 2015, days before federal lawsuits were filed accusing him of sexual harassment.
MICHIGAN CITY  A 16-year-old was taken into custody after police found an 18-year-old shot in the head Wednesday night in a vehicle at the 200 block of Jackson Street.

Javan D. Brown, 16, was taken into custody and booked into LaPorte County Jail Thursday, according to a news release from the Michigan City Police Department.

Following a probable cause hearing on Thursday, a warrant was issued for a Count 1 felony murder, police said. Brown was being held on a $1 million cash bond.

The victim, identified as Justin Ameer Garner, 18, suffered a single gunshot wound, police said.

Police said they were dispatched to the site at 7:59 p.m. and found Garner in the driver's seat of a parked vehicle.

The death is being investigated by members of the Michigan City Police Department and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force.

Anyone with information regarding the case is encouraged to contact lead Detective Cpl. Michelle Widelski at 219-874-3221, extension 1088.
GRIFFITH  Four of five men accused of the botched Jan. 9 robbery that cost the life of Portage High student Alayna Ortiz are still being sought by police.

Griffith police Cmdr. Keith Martin said Friday that Juarez Rogers, 48, of Park Forest, Illinois, and three unidentified Illinois men who took part in the holdup remain at large.

He said authorities have been notified of the arrest warrant the Lake Criminal Court issued this week for Rogers to be brought to Indiana to face charges of murder, attempted robbery, burglary and attempted burglary.

Earlier this week, police arrested Giovante Marshuan Galloway, 21, of Gary, on the murder, robbery and burglary counts. He remains in custody without bond at the Lake County Jail. No trial date has been set.

No charges have yet been filed against the three unidentified men, but Martin said the case remains under investigation.

Police made public Thursday the charges and results of their investigation into how the crime occurred.
Defense attorney Bob Harper said following Friday's hearing that the drug test from the child was provided to him during Friday's hearing.

"There's no saying how it happened," he said. "There's nothing filed saying she did anything."

Ramos is accused of allowing illegal drugs to be sold in the presence of her 6-year-old child, according to court records.

She also faces charges of possessing heroin, hypodermic needles and other heroin-related paraphernalia, according to court records. She is charged with possessing and dealing marijuana, possessing synthetic marijuana, allowing drug use at her Portage home and possessing crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia.

Friday's bond reduction is her second since October. It was reduced from $7,500 to $4,500 at that time by Clymer, who said he offered the reduction as a sign of hope and encouraged her to participate in drug treatment if she wants to see the bond reduced further.

Ramos vowed in October that if released from jail, she would not stick with the father of one of her children if there were drugs around.

"My kid is more important to me than he is," Ramos said.
CROWN POINT  Vincent E. Banks will remain in Lake County Jail awaiting his Feb. 18 trial on charges of attempted murder and other felonies.

Lake Criminal Court Judge Clarence Murray denied defense attorney Susan Severtsons request to lower Banks bail from $10,000 cash to $2,000 cash during Thursdays final pretrial hearing.

The 51-year-old Gary resident is charged with attempted murder and other felonies in a February 2017 incident when a then-34-year-old womans throat was slashed. She required 17 staples to close the near-fatal wound, according to court records.

During her remarks to Murray, Severtson pointed to Banks 74-year-old mother, Frances Banks, who the attorney said attends every court hearing.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Aleksandra Dimitrijevic told Murray that Banks is a danger to the community and doesnt deserve a bail reduction based on his criminal history.

Murray denied the bail reduction.

I think under the circumstances, they should have reduced it (the bail). I dont think hes a threat to the community, Frances Banks said after the court hearing.
"This was an audience that was extremely targeted, and the metrics show it," Gregorio said.

Times Publisher Chris White said the goal is to expand the campaign to other suburbs in the future. "Their taxes are just as high and their commutes are even longer," he said.

Indiana Toll Road Concession Co. CEO Nic Barr followed that presentation with details of the $220 million in road and bridge improvements completed since the company took over the lease of the 157-mile road in 2015. ITRCC also is investing $70 million in roadside travel plazas, and plans further road improvements, including infrastructure developments near the state line, in coming construction seasons.

Barr said ITRCC is making efforts to re-engage with communities across northern Indiana after "significant under-investment" by the Toll Road's previous operator, which went bankrupt. He also said the company has begun investigating a rebranding effort.

"I think we're just scratching the surface of what we can do with the relationship," Barr said of the Toll Road, SSCVA and campaigns like Move to Indiana.

"Successful tourism and economic development of the corridor is always going to be helpful for our organization, and vice versa," he said. "We bring in traffic, it's good for you; you bring in tourists, it's good for us."

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When it was our turn to step up to the plate of adulthood, there was a little thing called Vietnam. A war where we werent confident that the full truth was out there for the American public. So, rather than simply doing what we were told, we spoke out. We protested. We insisted on transparency.
George Bowers Sr. is the senior pastor of Antioch Church of the Brethren and has authored 11 books in addition to contributing to Everyday Grace for Men by Worthy Inspired. He can be reached through www.georgebowersministries.com or at gabowers@shentel.net.
Its an election year. Residents of Marion County go to the polls to elect the men and women we want to lead our city government.

Indianapolis has a unique power structure, and its important to understand who is responsible for what.

Some elements of our city government are common to many cities: An elected mayor and a 25-member City-County Council.

What's different is known as Unigov, a system in place since 1970. By state law, Indianapolis and Marion County consolidated their governments.

As a result, the mayor of Indianapolis has more power than your average mayor. Their executive powers extend to every resident of Marion County, including the 11 included towns allowed to keep some level of autonomy under Unigov like Speedway, Lawrence, and Southport.

The mayor is important not only because of the direct power he or she wields, but because of who the mayor places in other positions of authority.

The Mayors Office consists of the Mayor and the Mayors executive staff which includes a Chief of Staff and one or more deputy mayors. The mayor appoints deputy mayors and, under state law, the City-County Council may create additional deputy mayors and specify their authority, according to the League of Women Voters of Indianapolis' Unigov Handbook.

The Mayors cabinet, made up of the Deputy Mayors, Mayors Office directors, and city department directors, meets regularly to discuss policy-making activity.

But, just because Indianapolis' mayor has greater authority doesn't mean the office isn't constrained in other ways. The mayor still has to work with the City-County Council in order to get much of anything done.

CURRENT CANDIDATES

Democratic Mayor Joe Hogsett is running for his second term after first being sworn in on Jan. 1, 2016. Hogsett was preceded by two-term Republican Mayor Greg Ballard, who is now campaign chairman for mayoral primary challenger Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis.

In the Republican primary, Merritt will face at least three challengers including political newcomers John Schmitz and Christopher Moore, along with former City-County Council Member Jose Evans. The municipal primary election is scheduled for May 7, and the general election will be Nov. 5.

Each mayor wants to put a personal stamp on the office, but since municipal terms in office are split into such short stints, it's often hard to say who gets the blame or credit. The major problems any mayor faces, from crime to infrastructure, are generational, with systemic, root causes tracing back decades. These trends are unlikely to be radically altered in four, or even, eight years.

For example, a major theme of Merritt's mayoral campaign has been the rising homicide rate, which has broken records for a fourth year in a row. Undoubtedly, this is a real problem, but also not one that suddenly appeared at the start of the current administration, or the one before that or the one before that, and so on.

The past is prologue, as Shakespeare wrote.

YOUR QUESTIONS

The Marion County Elections Board just started taking submissions for the ballot Jan. 9, so we're just getting started with our coverage. As we did with the 2018 Midterm Voters Guide, we hope youll participate in the process so we can provide the most in depth coverage of the candidates on the issues you tell us you care about the most.

What questions do you have about city government? What qualities and qualifications do you look for in a mayor? By what standards should we evaluate the candidates applying for the job?

You should see a question box on this page titled City Committee with a place for you to submit your questions and thoughts. If you have ad blocker or it doesnt appear, you can go directly to the City Committee landing page to leave a suggestion or question; leave a comment below; send me an email.

I look forward to your input on how we cover the mayors race this year.

UPDATE

Jose Evans, former city-county councilor, ended his campaign for mayor at an event Friday morning at Xclusive Cuts.

Evans is now endorsing the mayoral campaign of Sen. Jim Merritt, Indianapolis.

A city must be able to ensure that all of its members share its advancements and prosperity by having safe neighborhoods, decent housing, good paying jobs, healthy food, and healthy lifestyles, Evans stated. I know that, together, Senator Merritt and I can win Indy. We can win when it comes to crime. We can win when it comes to uniting diverse groups. And, by saying win, I mean that we can make Indy the successful and safe city its meant to be.

Merritt accepted Evans support and welcomed him onto his campaign team.

Today is a day like no other. Two opponents have come together in unison for the greater good of Indianapolis, Merritt stated. From his global perspective and expertise in education, to being an Indianapolis City Councilor, to uniting groups of all backgrounds, Jose is an inspiration to all of us.
A sovereign musician and an ambassador of Chinese music, Wu Man will make her Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra debut at Schrott Center for the Arts, on Saturday, Jan. 26. The East Meets West program features a concerto written especially for her instrument, the pipaor Chinese lutethe pear-shaped, four-string instrument of which Wu is a celebrated master.

She will perform the Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra, composed by Tan Dun, with the ICO.

Tan Dunacclaimed for his scores for the blockbuster martial arts films Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Herocombines the ethos of European chamber music with Chinese folk melodies and traditions in his compositions.

Its a nexus achieved through Duns experience with the ritualistic ghost opera of his native Hunan, in which shaman performers channeled past spirits and invoked the future during Taoist funerals.

We had a similar concept [of the ritual], Wu told NUVO from her San Diego home. People passed away and we had a formal ceremony to remember [them].

Hailing from East Chinas city of Hangzhou, Wu made her way to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing at age 13, not long after universities in the country had re-opened at the end of Mao Zedongs Cultural Revolution in 1976.

The Cultural Revolution was an early imprint in the lives of both Dun and Wu.

When she entered the conservatory, she had hardly been playing the pipa for four years. Her parents, who appreciated the rich cultural heritage of the 2,000 year-old instrumentdating back to the Qin and Han dynastiesboth prompted her to study the instrument, and found a teacher for her.

In 1987, Wu became the first recipient of a masters degree in pipa. Following her move to the United States in 1990, she has made it her mission to familiarize the West with this once-enigmatic instrument from Central Asia.

The defining moment that launched Wus career was her involvement with the New York ensemble Music from China, with which she played in the early 1990s.

David Harrington, a founding member of the acclaimed crossover ensemble Kronos Quartet, attended one of those early performances and was motivated to invite the then-27-year-old musician to play with Kronos. Since then, Wu has collaborated with some of the most notable ensembles and composers of our time, including Yo-Yo Mas Silk Road Ensemble, The Knights, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and the late Lou Harrison.

She was named Musical Americas 2013 Instrumentalist of the Year.

A landmark recording that resulted from her collaboration with Kronos Quartet was Ghost Opera, Duns 1994 theatrical piece for solo pipa and string quartet, also playing makeshift percussion like a water bowl, rolls of paper, and stones.

The four-movement Concerto that will be performed at the Schrott Center is an arrangement for pipa and strings only, leaving out the percussion and theatrical elements of the older piece. Most of the solo parts are notated, but not the distinctive gestures of the pipa, expressed through bent notes, tremolo, and vibrato.

Wu, who has returned time and again to the Concerto over the last 18 years, finds freedom for expression in the solo parts, which she worked out with the composer during the composition of the original piece.

The pipas technical practice has had an interesting evolution: We have established the musical style for this instrument through 2,000 years, Wu says. The lyrical style, technically, is in the left-hand detailshow we treat the notes with vibrato, or bending the notes. Musically it is slow and meditative. To me that lyrical style is much deeper.

On the other hand, the contrasting martial style is dramatic and percussive, more like a flamenco guitarmore right-hand technique, strumming and tremolo. Contemporary composers usually combine those two styles into one piece, as is the case with the concerto, roughly 20 minutes long.

The heart of the piece is the popular northern folk song "Little Cabbage," which is evoked and returns throughout the piece. A lot of people know it, Wu says. I knew that song and grew up with it as well.

Against a quiet incantation of "Little Cabbage" by the wispy pipa, the strings recall Bachs Prelude in c-sharp minor, originally for keyboard. Both themes are juxtaposed and interwoven, especially in the serenity of the third movement, resulting in a pristine meeting of East and West. This is followed by the throbs and stomps of the finaleaccentuated by shouts and squeals from the instrumentalistsbefore a final summoning of "Little Cabbage" reinstates the peace and quiet of the half-forgotten ritual that it evokes.

Now that Wu, a veritable spokesperson for Eastern culture, has all but accomplished her undertaking to bridge East and West through music, she looks to the future of the pipa in the hands of newcomers.

Im more interested in wanting to share my experience with a younger generation, and let them understand a different culture with different music, she says.

Wu still travels to her home country, where she is a visiting professor of three major conservatories, to teach master classes and lead workshops.

But new projects, collaborations, and performances are not in short supply: her most recent release is Fingertip Carnival, a collaboration with the group Son de San Diego, which plays traditional Son jarocho music from Mexico. In March, Wu joins Yo-Yo Ma again in New York for the U.S. premiere, by the New York Philharmonic, of Zhao Lins A Happy Excursion, a double concerto for pipa and cello.
Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that a senior foreign diplomat told the network that the deadly suicide attack on U.S. soldiers in Syria was a direct result of the announcement made by President Trump that U.S. forces are pulling out.Nancy Pelosi had suggested postponement of Trump's State of the Union Address due to concerns over security and safety. Trump's "payback" cancellation of the overseas congressional flight did exactly the opposite. His open announcement of what was supposed to be a secret trip (and suggesting what would have been an illegal commercial flight instead) endangered not only the congressmen scheduled to participate, but the troops they were scheduled to meet. So much for the oath Trump took to "protect and defend."
Community Reporter

Erica Welch is the special sections editor for The News-Review, mother of two and a native of Roseburg. She is an alumni of RHS, UCC and Western Oregon University. Contact her at ewelch@nrtoday.com or 541-957-4218.
Firefighters spent more than two hours in cold and flurries Friday fighting flames and smoke at a home on South Maloney Drive.

One of the homes residents was working on a vehicle in the garage when the fire started, said Capt. Ed Etherton of the North Platte Fire Department. Firefighters were called to the scene just before 10 a.m. They headed back into town from the home  located near Lake Maloneys South Beach  about 12:30 p.m.

Flames took a while to completely contain because of an extra wall between the attached garage and the home. As firefighters broke into the siding of the house, more flames appeared.

There was a lot of hidden fires, due to the way the house was constructed, Etherton said.

Most of the damage remained in the garage, but the home sustained heavy smoke damage. An exact dollar amount of damage was unclear Friday, pending an investigation from the Nebraska State Fire Marshal.

Everyone in the home had made it out safely when firefighters were called, Etherton said. Family members were nervous about a family cat, but the cat was found safe when firefighters arrived. Etherton was unsure how many people live at the house.
In Jamestown, Seafeldt said, boardings increased from 2,000-3,000 to 8,000 those first two years and continued to grow after that. North Plattes boarding numbers took off immediately. By August, the airport was seeing flights fill up on the 50-seat aircraft.

To win back the (Jamestown) community after years of frustrations was difficult, Seafeldt said. Here in North Platte, everyone loves Denver. Everyones used to Denver already.

Seafeldt came to North Platte in November, succeeding Mike Sharkey, who retired.

He said SkyWest has something thats important to local customers.

Its reliable, he said. Statistics show that its reliable.

Higher passenger rates not only show an airlines reliability, but also can improve federal funding for an airport.

Airports such as North Plattes receive a minimum of $150,000 in federal funding annually. However, an airport that reaches 10,000 boardings per year can receive up to $1 million from the federal Airport Improvement Program, Seafeldt said.

North Platte Regional Airport had already met that threshold in 2007, and its eligibility for the funds hadnt been taken away even though boardings had declined.
In 2017, Google tested out a new feature in Maps that showed speed limits in turn-by-turn navigation mode. This update, which was tested in 2 major cities, became less accurate over time, and was eventually axed over time. Now, it appears the app is trying this function out again. It is reportedly available to users in some parts of the US.

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Google is currently trialling another method to enrich traffic information in its Maps app as it directs drivers to their destinations. This involves the inclusion of speed-limit data to streets in turn-by-turn mode. The search giant had tried to add this feature to Maps before. Users in Rio de Janeiro and San Francisco had had access to this extra layer of guidance. However, it became less and less accurate per road over time, and was scrapped shortly after its introduction in 2017.

The ability to see speed limits in Maps has now returned. However, users who are located in New York, Los Angeles or Minnesota are the only ones who have reported its appearance so far. It appears as a new icon in the bottom left corner of the Maps view in turn-by-turn mode. This is possibly due to the proportionately greater populations in these areas, and, thus, the increased likelihood that the speed-limit information will be accurate.

It is not clear how useful the new addition to Google Maps will turn out to be, or if it will last this time around. However, it may be something to gain a new feature in this app, which has not been updated since the addition of the option to search for e-vehicle charging stations along a given route.
LINDEN -- Two people were arrested this week for allegedly burglarizing two businesses in the Williamsport area this week.

State Police in Montoursville said Rachel Hamilton, 30, of Jersey Shore, and Charles Buday, 43, of Milwaukee, WI, allegedly broke into Lewis Veterinary Clinic in Woodward Township on January 15, 2019.

Police were called to the business at 6465 Route 220 Highway around 12:35 a.m. for a burglar alarm. Upon arrival, police observed damage to the front double doors. Upon further investigation, they determined a white male had gained entry into the clinic and removed a black filing cabinet, police said. He then fled the scene.

Video surveillance linked the male to a burglary that occurred earlier on January 14 at Antlers Lane in Woodward Township.

Upon clearing the scene, troopers made contact with the male exiting a vehicle at the TownePlace Suites by Marriott in Williamsport. The male, who was later determined to be Buday, was in clothing that matched that seen on surveillance at both burglaries, police said. The vehicle matched the description of the vehicle at the scenes.

Buday and Hamilton, who was operating the vehicle, were both taken into custody and charged with multiple counts of burglary, criminal trespass, theft and criminal mischief. Both were arraigned in front of District Magistrate Jerry C. Lepley and committed to Lycoming County Prison in lieu of $75,000 bail.
None of this guarantees that Mueller will be able to complete his work unhindered, or that Americans will ever know what work he did. Ominously, Barr, while promising "as much transparency as I can consistent with the law," suggested he might try to bury the special counsel's report by treating it as confidential and releasing only "certain information" himself.
Caleb Slinkard was hired as the editor of the Norman Transcript in August of 2015. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University-Commerce and previously was in charge of several newspapers in northeast Texas.

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We bash immigrants while we call home a country built by immigrants. It is our duty as advertisers of the American Dream to understand, welcome, and advocate for those who were born into a nightmare.

For many, the immigration process is too lengthy and their homeland is too unsafe to wait in line to most likely be denied. We must sympathize with those who have known nothing but war and seek nothing but safety.

According to the Washington Post, American born citizens commit more crimes than undocumented immigrants. In Texas alone, around 1,700 per 100,000 native-born citizens have committed a crime while only 700 per 100,000 of undocumented immigrants are criminals.

Shall we cast out all those who break the law no matter the circumstances? We must not always regard the law as absolute; after all, several of the most influential changes were made through rebellion.
In a paper titled Lego  The Toy of Smart Investors, Dobrynskaya analyzed 2,300 sets sold from 1987 to 2015 to measure their price-return over time. She found that collections used for Hogwarts Castles and Jedi star fighters beat U.S. large-cap stocks and bonds, yielding 11 percent a year. Smaller kits rose more than medium-sized ones, similar to the size effect in the Fama-French model (though the relation isnt exact).

The beta of the size factor is statistically significant and the dynamics of the Lego index we created for our research is similar to that of the size factor, Dobrynskaya said by phone from Moscow. Lego sets dont show a significant correlation to the financial crises and can be seen as an attractive investment with a diversification potential.

Guess what? Not everyone loves the science. Trying to shoehorn Legos into model of factor returns strikes some people as a little silly and creates the potential for human judgment to distort findings. First among the hazards is the possibility that everything is explained by happenstance  a criticism that looms over many factor models.
Some time after Jeffrey Bigham and his family checked into an Airbnb just before the new year, he spotted something that was not in the rentals online listing. Staring back at him, above the TV, where the walls met the ceiling, was a camera, and it wasnt the only one.

In posts on his website published this week and in an email conversation with The Post, Bigham recounted the surprising discovery of two indoor cameras, and the dispute that followed between him, the host and Airbnb. His retelling of events and claims of Airbnbs subsequent responses highlight both the publics unease with automated surveillance and the role of companies in facilitating or restricting the mainstream use of everyday surveillance tools.

Bigham, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote in his blog post that he was shocked to find the cameras and immediately unplugged them. He said he didnt think the camera above the TV captured anything particularly weird, but a second camera, whose field of view was close to the exit of a bathroom, very likely caught his two-year-old child running naked in front of it.
After a welcome speech from the mayor, the Iowans enjoyed a jaunt on a steamer, the Manitoba, joined by editors from Winnipeg newspapers.

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A trader from the northern reaches of Canada was in Winnipeg selling his 16 cartloads of furs and visited the Iowa journalists on their train. It was a treat for the man as he had never seen the interior of a train car.

The Iowans attended church at St. Johns Cathedral, welcomed by the minister, who expressed his pleasure that the visitors had respected the Sabbath by seeking out a place of worship.

The visiting newspaper men and women were told Winnipeg had grown from a population of 700 in 1871 to nearly 10,000 in 1879. Local businesses boasted annual budgets of as much as $250,000.

The Winnipeg headquarters of the Hudson Bay Company brought merchants from all over the world to purchase furs. And local officials informed the Iowans of the Red River cart used in the area to transport furs. The all-wood wagon with two very large wheels and pulled by oxen carried up to 800 pounds of furs.

Winnipeg had become a center of flour, grain and lumber production over the years. And potato growers produced about 275 bushels from a quarter acre of land.
Emanuel Lutheran Church, 2444 N. Broadway, will hold worship with Communion at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, followed by fellowship and coffee at 10:30, and mental health advocacy training led by MOSAIC at 11. On Monday, Tai Chi will begin at 11 a.m.; the church council and the MS support group will both meet at 7 p.m. On Tuesday, the Girl Scouts will meet in the community room at 5:30 p.m. followed by the Boy Scouts at 7 in the youth center. On Wednesday, Mission Action Quilters will meet at 9:30 a.m.; church dinner will begin at 6 p.m. followed by adult study and Kidz Kamp at 6:45 and worship in the community room at 7:30. On Thursday, adult study begins at 9:30 a.m. followed by Tai Chi at 11; choir rehearsal begins at 6:30 p.m. followed by DaBand rehearsal at 7:30. The office is closed Friday. On Jan. 26, the Girl Scouts will meet at noon. On Jan. 27, the church will hold worship with Communion at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, followed by fellowship and coffee at 10:30, the annual congregation meeting at 10:45 and lunch served by the children and youth committee at 11:45. Visit the church online at emanuelcb.org or facebook.com/emanuellutherancbia.
"I think most people are thinking: 'Why not?' They think all the rules have been broken, that anybody can run," said Buttigieg, who has said he'll announce his decision on whether to run for president soon. "I think some of the rules have been broken, but there's only one way to find out which ones."
 Flag Disposal  Missouri Valley residents with U.S. flags for disposal may take them to the Times-News Office, 501 E. Erie St., in Missouri Valley. Flags may also be deposited in the special drop box located near the meeting room door of the Jesse Post No. 378, American Legion in the Mondamin Community Center. They will be given to the American Legion for a flag disposal ceremony.

 Oakland Senior Center  Meal reservations, inhouse or delivered, available Monday through Friday. Call prior to 11 a.m. the day before the meal.

 Friends of Underwood Community Organization  Meets every other Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Underwood City Hall. The group would like to have more people join to come up with and implement ideas on how to make the Underwood community a better place to live and work. Like them on Facebook: Friends of Underwood, IA Community.

 Flag Installations  The Underwood Avenue of Flags project installs American flags on residents property in the morning and removes them at night on the following holidays: Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Patriot Day and Veterans Day. Avenue of Flags is sponsored by the Underwood High School Junior Optimist Club. Cost is $35 per year. Call Dale and Barb at 712-566-2820 or email agidale@aol.com. Subscribers without changes may send check to J.O.O.I. Club, 505 N St., Underwood, 51576.
The Legislative Auditor has cited several concerns about the administration of the state's unemployment program during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, including the allocation of federal jobless benefits, state worker overtime and the 
We learned about Choppas game-day ritual on Sunday, when the New Orleans Saints took on -- and beat -- the Philadelphia Eagles.

It involves having a cowbell and certain socks and underwear. He sits in a specific corner of his house, in a specific chair.

When the final minutes of the Saints' first quarter in that NFC divisional ticked away, Choppa worried that the vibes were all wrong because he was out and about -- off to perform instead of following his usual rituals on Saints Sundays. Luckily, not only did the Saints manage to pull ahead and hold a lead, but, like all Saints fans, the artist behind the teams latest anthem was actually able to enjoy it.

The Saints have a new anthem. For Choppa, it's a whole new world

The Saints are due to take on the Los Angeles Rams in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Sunday at 2:05 p.m, and we want to know about your game-day rituals.

Do you watch from a specific French Quarter bar? Do you know exactly what drinks to shake up? Is there a lucky jersey in your closet? Lucky hat?

Tell us about what keeps the vibe right for your game-day plans in the comment stream below, or send us a note on Twitter or Facebook.
Chimp Haven, a private, nonprofit refuge for former research chimpanzees in north Louisiana, is closer to expanding thanks to a $2 million gift from an anonymous donor.

The 200-acre refuge is currently home to more than 260 chimps, most of whom were retired from biomedical research. The additional funding will help it welcome another 200 chimps still living in research facilities, according to a news release.

The anonymous gift supports Chimp Havens Welcome Them Home campaign, which is seeking funding to build more habitats and add veterinary care suites to the refuge. The campaign seeks $20 million total.

In a statement, Rana Smith, president and CEO of Chimp Haven, said ensuring former research chimps have a place to go is as important as ever.

Were working diligently to expand our habitats and give these chimps the sanctuary retirement they deserve, Smith said.

Chimp Haven, located in Keithville, Louisiana, about an hour-and-a-half drive southwest of Shreveport, was founded in 1995 in order to meet a growing need for long-term care for chimps. The facility, currently the countrys only federally-funded sanctuary for former research chimps, was built on forested land provided by Caddo Parish.

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The sanctuary welcomed its first two chimpanzees in 2005. Today, about 40 employees care for the roughly 260 resident chimps who call it home.

Chimp Haven leaders note even more chimps need care. In June 2013, the National Institutes of Health announced it would retire all but 50 federally-owned chimpanzees used in medical research. Federally-funded research on chimps officially ended in 2015. An estimated 300 chimps are still waiting on a home.

The expansion at Chimp Haven includes new forested habitats and open-air enclosures, giving resident chimps more space to play, explore and interact in addition to making room for more animals, according to the release.

Chimp Haven relies on private donors in order to fund any expansions of the facility, the release said. The $2 million anonymous donation follows a $10 million gift from the Walter Family Foundation in 2018.

Strudel the schnauzer reunited with owner after van stolen with dog inside
A New Orleans native with ties to the Black Panther Party of the civil rights era will be honored and recognized for his years of community activism Friday night (Jan. 18) at the Southern University at New Orleans.

The Center for African and African American Studies at SUNO has partnered with Southern University Law Centers Louis A. Berry Institute for Civil Rights & Justice to honor Malik Rahim at an inaugural Living Legend Award Celebration, according to a SUNO news release. The award will honor members of the citys African American community for their exemplary and lifelong service in a range of areas, including education/youth development, community activism, community-based health, cultural enrichment and small business development, the release said.

Clyde Robertson, director of the center at SUNO and creator of the Living Legend Award, said Rahim was selected because of his lifelong commitment to community activism.

Rahim, formerly known as Donald Guyton, is a 71-year-old Algiers native who enlisted in the United States Navy, according to SUNO. He worked in vulnerable communities in New Orleans as a founding member of the Louisiana Black Panther Party after his honorable discharge from the Navy.

Since the 1970s Rahim has devoted his life to social activism, with grassroots efforts that include housing and prison activism, SUNO stated. He is a founding member of Pilgrimage for Life, which is a ministry created by Sister Helen Prejean to end the practice of capital punishment. Rahim also became a founding member of the Fisher Projects Health Clinic and GED studies program. He is also the founder of the Angola 3 Support Committee, which advocated for three former prison inmates who were put in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary.

SUNO is also honoring Rahim for serving Louisiana citizens in need through immediate rescue efforts following Hurricane Katrina. Rahims decentralized hurricane-relief efforts spurred him to create the Common Ground Collective to offer free healthcare, legal, rebuilding and clean-up services in homes, schools and commercial buildings in nine parishes. By the time his work with CGC ended, approximately half a million Louisiana citizens had been served at no cost, SUNO said.

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Angela Allen-Bell, a Southern University professor and director of the Southern Law Schools institute, stressed in a statement that Rahims pursuits ensure that constitutional protections are realized for all citizens, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, the poor, vulnerable, underrepresented and neglected.

The conferment of this award is a tribute as much as it is a necessary act of restorative justice in that it counters the historical harm done when acts of leadership and heroism are suppressed in minority communities, Allen-Bell stated.

The ceremony for Rahim will begin Friday at 6 p.m. with a reception at the Millie M. Charles School of Social Work on SUNOs 6801 Press Drive Lake Campus, SUNO stated. The 7 p.m. program will feature speakers, artists, performers and an address by Rahim.

Oral histories: New Orleans civil rights leaders, activists

Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles.
Remember that story about the soldier who supposedly used his Saints hoodie to treat a Texas crash victim? Now Army officials believe it wasnt true.

The Army Times reported Thursday (Jan. 17) that Fort Bliss has retracted a news release about Sgt. Trey Troney, who said he used his New Orleans Saints Salute to Service hoodie and a ballpoint pen to treat the victim of a serious crash in Sweetwater, Texas, last month.

The Army is investigating whether Troney lied to his leadership about his role in the accident, Fort Bliss spokeswoman Maj. Allie Payne told the Times.

We cannot find any evidence through our investigation that his story was accurate about the first aid he talked about, said Lt. Bryan Witt, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Read the full report here.

Texas soldier uses Saints hoodie to treat crash victim: reports
Sen. John Kennedy and Reps. Steve Scalise and Garret Graves are among President Donald Trumps more reliable supporters in Congress. The Louisiana Republicans back the GOP chief executive on 85 percent or more of their votes, according to fivethirtyeight.com.

So its remarkable when they break with the White House. All three did so this week, in opposing a Treasury Department plan to lift sanctions on companies controlled one of Russian President Vladimir Putins allies, Oleg Deripaska.

Deripaska is a Russian oligarch with ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. In December, the Treasury Department said it planned to lift sanctions on three of his companies because he was reducing his stake in them to a minority interest, thus protecting the firms from the controlling influence of a Kremlin insider, The Washington Post reported.

David Vitter lobbying to reduce sanctions on companies linked to Russian oligarch

Among those lobbying to benefit Deripaskas companies was Kennedys predecessor in the Senate, Republican David Vitter. He now works for Mercury LLC and is a registered foreign agent.

Congress remained skeptical of the Trump administrations plan, however. The Senate voted 57-42 on Tuesday (Jan. 15) to debate a measure keeping the sanctions in place. Kennedy voted in the majority, while Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., voted not to proceed with debate.

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I have grave concerns about Mr. Deripaska, CNN quoted Kennedy as saying. "I understand he says hes given up his majority of the stock ... but you dont have to own the majority of the stock to have influence over the people of the company.

The House voted 362-53 on Thursday to oppose Treasurys plan. Scalise, of Old Jefferson, and Graves, of Baton Rouge, voted in the majority, as did Rep. Cedric Richmond of New Orleans, the only Democrat in the Louisiana delegation. Scalises vote was especially noteworthy because, as minority whip, hes the No. 2 Republican in the House.

Reps. Ralph Abraham, R-Alto, and Clay Higgins, R-Port Barre, voted against sanctions. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Benton, did not vote.

. . . . . . .

Drew Broach covers Jefferson Parish politics and education, plus other odds and ends, for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Email: dbroach@nola.com. Facebook: Drew Broach TP. Twitter: drewbroach1. Google+: Drew Broach.
The Orleans Parish School Board voted on Thursday night (Jan. 17) to re-elect District 1 member John Brown as board president for one term beginning in January. The OPSB also voted to re-elect District 4 member Leslie Ellison as vice president, tasking her with the duties of OPSB president in Browns absence.

Browns and Ellisons re-elections follow criticism from civil rights organizations against Ellisons bid for president. The groups cited concerns about Ellisons candidacy in part from Ellisons 2012 state legislature testimony in support of a bill letting charter schools exclude gay students, according to an article from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune at that time.

Ellison, a charter school board leader at the time, told lawmakers she couldnt sign a contract with the anti-discrimination clause spelled out by the Louisiana Department of Education, which bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, because that contract violated both the separation of powers as well as the freedom of religion.

The OPSB president signs contracts and other official documents for and on behalf of the OPSB, which is significant because the school board serves as an authorizer for the dozens of nongovernmental organizations that manage schools through charter contracts. The boards president also sets meeting agendas and assigns members to its five committees.

OPSB policy dictates their president and vice president must receive four votes from board members before being declared elected. The officer may hold that office for no longer than two consecutive terms. Brown and Ellison were initially term-limited from re-election after serving in their roles for two years.

However, OPSB District 5 member Ben Kleban Thursday motioned to suspend the term-limit policy to extend the term of Browns and Ellisons presidency roles. None of the OPSB members opposed his motion, so he went on to nominate the re-election of Brown and Ellison in their respective roles.

Ken Ducote, who worked for the OPSB for 34 years as a teacher and school administrator, said Thursday the district only recently adopted the officer term limit policy.

For a long time, OPSB had no policy limiting terms, just informal rotations of members to the chair, said Ducote, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Collaborative of Charter Schools. It is relatively recent that OPSB adopted the officer term limit policy.

Browns re-election was by a unanimous vote. Ellison was re-elected by four votes. Since 2015 Brown has represented the 1st District, which is composed of the Lower 9th Ward, Holy Cross and most of eastern New Orleans. He is a retired public school administrator for the city. Since 2012, Ellison has represented the 4th District, which represents Algiers, Faubourg Marigny, Bywater and the French Quarter.

Ellison currently serves on the OPSBs Legal, Property, Budget and Finance committees. Ellison is owner and CEO of the Ellison Group and serves as administrator at Gideon Christian Fellowship International.

Candidate for Orleans School Board president faces backlash over LGBT views

Ellison in July 2013 elicited shock from attendees of a school board meeting during a discussion over an anti-bullying policy affecting five schools at the time, according to a Times-Picayune article from 2013. Ellison expressed opposition to listing characteristics like sexual orientation, race or religion in the bullying policy when then-member Seth Bloom, who is gay, said I just find it perplexing that certain minorities seek protection for certain minorities but not for others.

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Ellison replied back this has nothing to do with being black. I cant change my blackness at all, which drew audible gasps from attendees. The American Psychological Association has stated that sexual orientation is not a matter of personal choice.

On Thursday night, Ellison and the rest of the OPSB listened to several comments from residents who opposed both Ellisons bid for president and her re-election as vice president. Rhonda Broussard, a parent who identifies as a lesbian, said the OPSB is here for all children, adding their vote and actions affect everyone. EdNavigators Gary Briggs told the board students know who is in their corner. He encouraged them to lift up leaders who support all students.

Trust me, they are watching, Briggs said of the districts students.

Other residents drew attention to the fact that Louisianas schools already struggle to provide protection for their LGBTQ students. Moriah Moore, who identified herself as a transgender woman, fought back tears as she said many of the young LGBTQ girls she works with struggle to stay in school and drop out due to the discrimination they face.

Kenny Tucker, chair of the political action committee for the Forum for Equality, said this vote will long be remembered. He also said hes heartened by the fact no one nominated Ellison for president. Ms. Ellisons long documented views belong in last century, Tucker added.

Some residents spoke in support of Ellison. Resident Leonard Washington vouched for Ellisons commitment to the community, saying shes visited the homes of students and their parents to support their needs. Many of the things shes done was even before she was a school board member, Washington said.

I know that Leslie Ellison is suited for this school board or any other school board, Washington added.

Dylan Waguespack, president of the Board of Directors of Louisiana Trans Advocates, in released statement expressed disappointment in the OPSBs re-election of Ellison.

Electing Ellison to a leadership position of any kind sends an extremely harmful message to students, faculty, and administrators throughout our school system, Waguespack stated.

Cantrell administration addresses Orleans School Board presidents election

Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles.
New Orleans students within the LGBTQ community have received assurance that city government fully supports them ahead of Thursday nights (Jan. 17) contested election by the Orleans Parish School Board of a new president, Mayor LaToya Cantrells administration confirmed.

The citys Human Relations Commission, which was established in 1989 to end discrimination and promote equal rights, issued a statement to reiterate that it stands in full solidarity with LGBTQ+ students within the Orleans Parish school system. Many of those students already face additional challenges due to their race and socioeconomic status, the commission stated.

Deep disparities exist within the LGBTQ+ community itself, and for many, this inequality has its roots in the educational system. Too often we fail to engage in dialogue that emphasizes empathy and appreciates the lived experience of these children, the statement said.

The Cantrell administrations comments come as civil rights organizations have criticized OPSB Vice President Leslie Ellison, the school boards 4th District member who is seeking election as OPSBs president. OPSB District 6 member Woody Koppel is also planning to run.

Louisiana schools unsafe for LGBT students, education group report says

Ellison appeared before the 2012 Legislature to testify in support of a bill letting charter schools exclude gay students, according to an article from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune at that time. Ellison, a charter school board leader at the time, told lawmakers she couldnt sign a contract with the anti-discrimination clause spelled out by the Louisiana Department of Education, which bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, because that contract violated both the separation of powers as well as the freedom of religion.

"The role of any school administrator, including the school board, is to treat all children with respect, dignity and to support all of the students they serve -- including those who are LGBTQ, said Ellen Kahn, director of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Children, Youth & Families Program in a released statement Thursday.

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Ellison responded to her critics Thursday afternoon in a statement, pointing out that shes served as OPSB vice president by a unanimous vote of board members who have never questioned my commitment to serve every child citywide over the past two years. She said she even approached former OPSB member Seth Bloom, who is gay, about his bid for OPSB president before she nominated him and voted in support of his presidency for his two elected terms.

My record and priorities will continue to place all children first and clearly negates any question of my ability to do so with fairness, Ellison stated.

New Orleans city government has very little control over the citys school system, which consists of public schools supervised by the OPSB as well as private schools managed by the Archdiocese of New Orleans and non-parochial organizations. Even so, Vincenzo Pasquantonio, executive director of the Human Relations Commission, on Thursday weighed in on Ellisons comments, saying our leaders should consider the impact of their words.

The human rights commission, as an advocate for all at risk communities, encourages our elected officials to fully consider what is in the best interest of all students, regardless of orientation or identity, Pasquantonio stated.

New Orleans City Hall could get gender-neutral bathrooms, among other proposals

Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles.
Back in early October, I received a letter from Ric Holtz asking if Id serve as a judge for his organizations event: Mr. Potempa: I am with an organization called Self Sufficiency Project, selfsufficiencyproject.org, that is hosting a chili cook-off for a fundraising event. I know you have judged many contests in the past. Though you likely dont remember, I have even won one, when I came in second at two of the events held by The LUPUS Foundation of NWI and The Key Club for their annual event when it was held at Merrillville High School and you were a judge. Our chili event will be held Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019, at Crown Point High School with The National Honor Society assisting us. I am asking if you can please help out and be a celebrity judge for this event, which we hosting for the first time. I hope to hear from you soon. Sincerely, Ric Holtz
A 59-year-old mans body lay outside a bar in the Leonidas area Wednesday night (Jan. 16) after he was killed in the crossfire of a shootout between two other men, New Orleans police said Thursday.

Police were called to the shooting about 7:45 p.m. outside a neighborhood bar at the corner of Birch and Monroe streets. The man who was killed was an unintended target of a shooting that occurred when two other men traded gunfire with each other after arguing, NOPD spokesman Aaron Looney said Thursday. The deceased has not been publicly identified.

According to a preliminary NOPD report, two men were involved in a verbal altercation in the 8700 block of Birch Street when one subject produced a gun and started shooting. The man he shot at then returned fire, the report states, and the 59-year-old man was struck in the crossfire.

Man killed in shooting outside Leonidas neighborhood bar: NOPD

Karen Dorsey, who identified herself at the scene Wednesday night as the ex-wife of the victim and mother of his adult son, said people in the neighborhood told her he was standing at the food tent, waiting to buy some oysters, when he was shot.

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Dorsey described her childs father as an easygoing man and said she arrived at the scene after getting a call from her nephew that her ex-husband had been shot.

Neighbors said the brick building near the site of the shootout is used as a barroom that sometimes serves food.

In total, more than 30 cones were placed at the scene, drawing stares from onlookers who wondered aloud at how many cones marked shell casings, at how many shots were fired so near their homes.

NOPD Homicide Detective Michael Polukis is in charge of the ongoing investigation and can be reached at 504-658-5300 with any information on the fatal shooting. Anonymous tips may be submitted by calling Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.

Staff writer Laura McKnight contributed to this report.
A New Orleans family says that a representative from a social work agency punched and berated a 13-year-old boy, in an altercation caught on video.

The family filed a complaint with the Louisiana Department of Health, brought the matter to New Orleans Police and plans to file a lawsuit, according to Quishandra Walker, the boys mother, and their lawyer, Juan LaFonta.

In an email Thursday afternoon, an NOPD spokesman said the social-work agency representative, Robert Stanley Sr., has been issued a summons for battery in the incident. NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune is not naming the counselor involved because he has not been charged with a crime.

The incident occurred during a Dec. 29 home visit.

After her son left the house around 4 a.m. one day without permission, Walker said she asked her sons counselor to speak with him about his decision to leave the house and how it worried her. The counselor works for Empowerment Behavioral Services, described on its website as a holistic, faith-based counseling agency working diligently to empower individuals in our communities by positively engaging youth, adults and families from the New Orleans region in prevention, early intervention and ongoing support.

According to Walker, her sons counselor, as well as his supervisor, Stanley, and Stanleys 17-year-old son, arrived at her sisters home on December 29, 2018 to talk with her son. Walker said she was only expecting her sons counselor to arrive at the house, not Stanley or his teenaged son.

While at his aunts home, the 13-year-old boys counselor and Stanley asked to speak with him outside, Walker said.

While talking with the men, the 13-year-old boy, who is typically quiet and stays to himself, rolled his eyes, LaFonta said.

Stanley repeatedly cursed at the boy before he punched him in the head, as seen in video captured by a doorbell camera system.

Theres no logic to what happened, LaFonta said. Theres no justification.

A representative from Empowerment Behavioral Services declined to comment.

Louisianas mental health care system is broken. Heres how we got here.

In one video clip sent to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, the 13-year-old boy is seen trying to get back into the house. Stanley then pushes the boy and blocks him from the door. According to LaFonta, at this point, the counselor also pushed the boy and prevented him from reaching the door.

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Another boy, who LaFonta said is Stanleys 17-year-old son, walks up to the house. LaFonta said Stanley used him as a threat to the 13-year-old boy, suggesting that he wanted the two boys to fight. The 17-year-old returns to the car shortly after.

The 13-year-old boys uncle, who was out of town at the time but watching the incident on the camera system, tells the two men not to hit the boy through the camera system, LaFonta said. The supervisor is heard yelling: Im just doing my job!

The two men left after the 13-year-old boys cousins came out of the house, LaFonta said.

While the 13-year-old boys family plans to sue for a monetary reward, LaFonta said they are more concerned with preventing other such incidents. LaFonta and Walker said the states Department of Health should improve its vetting of social services agencies who are directly involved with children.

"Black kids have it tough enough in this city without being abused by social workers," LaFonta said.

Stanleys name does not appear on the Louisiana State Board of Social Work Examiners websites database of licensed social workers. The counselors name does appear. LaFonta and Walker said they hope their case will prompt other families to speak out about abuse by social-service workers.

The 13-year-old boy had been working with the Empowerment Behavioral Services counselor for two to three months, Walker said. Since the age of 5, her son has been in the Individualized Education Program at his school to help with ADHD, she said.

Walker said she didnt have any concerns with her sons counselor or Empowerment Behavioral Services prior to this incident.

The Louisiana Department of Health does not have a contract with the agency, but its licensing section is investigating the incident, according to a spokesman from the department.

Walker had not yet heard from NOPD as of Wednesday night (Jan. 16), LaFonta said. It was unclear Thursday afternoon if NOPD has since contacted Walker, but NOPD spokesman Aaron Looney said in an email to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune that Stanley, the supervisor, had been issued a summons for battery.

NOPD Child Abuse investigators were consulted and determined that the case did not rise to the level for the Child Abuse Unit to handle, Looney said.

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story indicated that the counselors name did not appear on the Louisiana State Board of Social Work Examiners websites database of licensed social workers. His name appears, but the supervisors name (Robert Stanley Sr.) does not.

This story was updated Thursday evening (Jan. 17) with new information from the New Orleans Police Department.
New Orleans police are searching for a masked man accused of robbing a Chef Menteur Highway gas station at gunpoint early Wednesday (Jan. 16).

The holdup occurred about 5:30 a.m. at a Texaco station in the 9200 block of Chef Menteur, in New Orleans East, police said.

The man, wearing a black ski mask, entered the store, pointed a silver gun at the clerk and demanded money from the register. After taking all the cash from the drawer, the man rode off in a vehicle, heading toward Bundy Road, the NOPD said.

Anyone with information on the robbery is asked to call NOPD 7th District detectives at 504-658-6070 or submit an anonymous tip by calling Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111 or toll-free at 1-877-903-STOP.

Laura McKnight covers crime and breaking news for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune.
The discovery of a missing teenager from St. Tammany Parish last year has resulted in the arrests of seven suspects on human trafficking charges in Florida, authorities said this week.

The St. Petersburg Police Department and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody on Monday (Jan. 14) announced the arrests of six people after an eight-month investigation. A seventh suspect later turned himself in.

The case was sparked last May by the disappearance of a 17-year-old boy from the Waldheim area north of Covington.

St. Tammany Parish Sheriffs Office spokesman Capt. Scott Lee said deputies responded to a call about the missing youth on the morning of May 7 and were able to develop information that led to Florida. Investigators asked St. Petersburg police to do a welfare check at a residence where the youth and a 16-year-old boy from Marion County, Florida, were discovered on the night of May 8, Lee said.

We had a young man lured out of the parish by predators, Lee said Friday. Our deputies did good police work from start to finish . . . and saved him from a life of sex trafficking.

When St. Petersburg officers performed the welfare check, they found the teens in a mobile home with four of the suspects, authorities said. Both teens were removed from the home.

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Florida investigators believe the St. Tammany teen was lured away from his home through Discord, an online gaming app that allows users to communicate directly with each other. The suspects used it to coordinate picking the teen up and driving him to St. Petersburg, authorities said.

Police said the Florida teen was lured with the promise of a better life, but instead was moved into a filthy trailer and lived with four men. For the next year, he was introduced to sadomasochism and used as a sex slave, and did not attend school or receive medical care, authorities said.

Today, that victim is receiving specialized trauma-informed care designed for victims of human trafficking and is thriving, Florida authorities said.

Booked with conspiracy to commit human trafficking and other charges were:

Mark Earl Dennis, 52, of Lehigh Acres, Florida.

Mark and Andrew Dennis, Blasdel and Gauthier were also booked with sexual battery.
The victim was identified as 24-year-old Juan Valdez. His older brother Francisco Valdez is now in custody.
In enclave near border, crisis doesnt reflect residents reality

Still, opinion mixed in Kino Springs Village on the need for a wall
UPDATE (Friday, 3:40 p.m.): The Athletics Ken Rosenthal reports talks are heating up with the Cincinnati Reds.

#Reds making progress in pursuit of #Yankees Sonny Gray, sources tell The Athletic.  Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 18, 2019

Reds, a favorite all along, are still trying for sonny gray, as @Ken_Rosenthal said. Teams are talking about prospects and possibly a draft choice. NYY hoping to complete a deal soon.  Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 18, 2019

In Sonny Gray talks, Yankees have shown interest in 2B prospect Shed Long and C prospect Tyler Stephenson from Reds, among others, who have a nice prospect list. A draft pick could also factor into a potential Sonny deal.  Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 18, 2019

New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman appears to be closer to trading right-hander Sonny Gray, per Fancreds Jon Heyman:

Yankees are working hard now on a trade for Sonny Gray. Appears to be getting more serious. Teams involved have included: reds, giants, brewers, as, padres, braves, mariners.

Yankees are indeed close to trading Sonny Gray. Teams are also asking about Tommy Kahnle and Jonathan Holder.  Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 17, 2019

#SFGiants interesting new entrant in Sonny sweepstakes. It does make sense; Giants prez Farhan Zaidi, who knows Sonny from As days, is said to be fan. It appears some other linked teams  As, Brewers, Braves, Ms, Pads, Reds  dont appear to be at forefront of talks at moment  Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 17, 2019

No Sonny Gray trade quite yet but the #SFGiants are indeed among teams in as things heat up. Earlier, @JackCurryYES said a few teams are in ongoing talks.  Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 18, 2019

Its no secret Cashman is shopping Gray. From the start of the offseason, hes been quite clear in his desire to move Gray, who has failed to live up to his potential following the 2017 non-waiver trade deadline with the As.

Hes 15-16 with a 4.51 ERA since coming over from Oakland. By the end of the 2018 season, Gray had been banished to the bullpen and finished with a 11-9 record and 4.90 ERA.

On Monday, Heyman reported there are at least six teams interested in possibly acquiring Gray.

On Wednesday, Heyman reported that while the Yankees are shopping Gray, they are also looking to add starting pitching, as well as reliever Adam Ottavino (who signed a three-year, $27 million contract on Thursday).

Cashman had pulled back on trading Gray, following CC Sabathias heart procedure in December. But the general manager resumed shopping Gray once Sabathia received a clean bill of health earlier this month.

Cashmans quest to upgrade the rotation led him to trade for Seattle Mariners left-hander James Paxton and to re-sign southpaws J.A. Happ and CC Sabathia.

The Yankees also tried to sign left-hander Patrick Corbin, who ended up going to the Washington Nationals after getting a six-year, $140 million contract.

There were rumors the Yankees had been interested in right-hander Nathan Eovaldi, who re-signed with the Boston Red Sox, after getting a four-year, $67.5 million contract.
They need to find a way to compromise and money for a wall, and (Democrats) say its because he made a campaign promise, she said after the forum. To me, Trump is a true American trying to do what is best for this country. Im tired of the illegals. (Seek citizenship) the right way.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 18)  The Cebu City local government took down a huge tarpaulin poster of senatorial aspirant and Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos for supposed "politicization" of the Sinulog festival.

Mayor Tomas Osmena on Friday posted a photo of the poster with Marcos' name and face on it, and the words "Viva, Pit Senyor." The Sinulog is held in honor of the Senor Santo Nino de Cebu every third Sunday of January.

"Trust me when I tell you I am doing you a favor by taking this tarpaulin down. The Cebuanos do not appreciate the politicization of the Sinulog. This won't be earning you any votes and is doing you more harm than good," Osmena said.

He later posted a screenshot of Marcos' response. "Dear Mayor Tommy, thank you for the reminder, and I have asked our supporters to take the tarp down. Meanwhile, Viva Pit Senor," the text message read.

Osmena has ordered the removal of all political posters using the Sinulog for mileage, saying he would not allow the use of the religious festival as a campaign platform.

"National candidates like anyone else are welcome to join in the celebration, but they will not be speaking nor will they be grandstanding on stage," Osmena said. He said nobody should be exempted from this rule, not even his brother, former Senator Serge Osmenas who is seeking a Senate comeback.

"The only star of the Sinulog is the Sto. Nino," Osmena said.

The campaign period for the May 13 elections begins February 12, although the Commission on Elections said it cannot stop aspirants from campaigning early as it has not released an official list of candidates yet.
New Jerseys delinquent taxpayers coughed up at least $200 million during the states months-long tax amnesty program that wrapped up this week, treasury officials said Thursday.

The state received more than 50,000 inquiries from people looking to settle up with the state and potentially have their penalties waived and interest payment cut in half.

Deputy Treasurer Catherine Brennan said Thursday that while money are still coming in the door the state has collected enough to meet its $200 million goal.

A number of companies enter into settlements with the Division of Taxation, so weve got paperwork signed, but were still waiting for checks, she said. We know weve met our revenue projection, but we dont know if weve exceeded our revenue projection. We wont know for the next couple of weeks.

The amnesty program ran from Nov. 15 to Tuesday. It applied to tax filings or payments due anytime between Feb. 1, 2009, and Sept. 1, 2017, according to the Division of Taxation.

Anyone who didnt take this opportunity to settle up  and it would have been hard to miss the states $4.78 million marketing blitz  will incur another 5 percent penalty, in addition to whatever penalties and interest have already accrued.

The state also sent letters to 750,000 individuals and businesses whose overdue taxes or returns may have met the requirements to participate, Treasury spokeswoman Jennifer Sciortino has said.

The amnesty covered dozens of taxes collected by the state Division of Taxation, such as income, motor fuels, sales, corporation business and estate and inheritance taxes.

Brennan said much of the revenue came from overdue sales tax payments and from corporate and personal income taxes and small amounts from taxes on estates and petroleum products.

Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, proposed the amnesty program to drum up some cash for the state. While Gov. Phil Murphy objected to using the projected one-time income to balance the budget, he agreed to budget $200 million from it as part of protracted budget negotiations.

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com . Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus.
WASHINGTON  Jim Meyer remembers attending the first anti-abortion March for Life in 1974, held a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of abortion rights. He was back for No. 46 on Friday.

I never thought that 46 years later, Id still be involved," said Meyer, a utility worker from Freehold. Were not going away. We are going to turn this around.

Meyer was one of thousands of demonstrators from New Jersey and around the country who descended on the nations capital to call for an end of the U.S. Supreme Courts Roe v. Wade decision.

While they lost their anti-abortion majority in the U.S. House when Democrats won control of the chamber in November, the marchers still count on strong support from President Donald Trump, who has filled two vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court and dozens of lower-court vacancies after pledging to appoint anti-abortion judges.

Hes putting all the pieces in place," said James Cherrey of Westfield, who attended the march with his daughter, Hannah, a senior at Mother Seton Regional High School in Clark. "It shows his commitment.

Trump addressed the marchers by video while Vice President Mike Pence made an unscheduled live appearance.

Great to be with @SecondLady to welcome so many Americans to our Nations capital for the largest pro-life gathering in the US  the 46th annual @March_For_Life! From the first day of this admin, @POTUS has taken action to defend the sanctity of LIFE. Great to see everyone! pic.twitter.com/hopSAtCvsV  Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) January 18, 2019

Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th Dist., also spoke at the rally, and then hosted his annual gathering for New Jersey marchers after the rally.

Smith used to be joined by other Republican lawmakers from New Jersey at his post-march reception, but the 2018 midterm election left him the last remaining opponent of abortion rights representing the state in Washington.

I will try to persuade them, Smith said. My hope is others will really ask the hard question about what is being aborted. We have to peel away all of those euphemisms.

Smith was the lead writer of a letter to Trump earlier in the week, signed by 169 House Republicans, asking him to remain firm even if House Democrats seek to remove long-standing anti-abortion provisions from spending bills, most notably the Hyde amendment preventing public funds from being spent on abortion procedures except in cases of rape, incest of the life of the woman.

Trump responded on the day of the march. I will veto any legislation that weakens current pro-life federal policies and laws, or that encourages the destruction of innocent human life at any stage, he wrote.

Wyatt Dobrovich-Fago of Wall, whose high school yearbook photo had been edited to remove references to Trump, said he hoped his generation would be the generation to end abortion.

The presence of marchers like Dobrovich-Fago, 18, American University sophomore Jenna Brink, 19, of Hamilton, and Hannah Cherrey, 17, warms the heart of veteran demonstrators like Meyer.

Im getting old, he said. Were getting tired. You see these youths out there on the street, its very encouraging to us.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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Gov. Phil Murphys chief counsel, Matt Platkin, on Friday became the latest state official to testify that he did not know who hired Albert J. Alvarez, the ex-Murphy administration staffer accused of rape, leaving the legislative committee investigating Katie Brennans allegations searching for answers.

It doesnt seem to me that anyone knows who hired Mr. Alvarez, a frustrated committee co-chairwoman, state Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin, D-Essex, said during the panels fifth public hearing at the Statehouse in Trenton.

Platkin also defended his decision to not inform Murphy of Brennans allegations, even after she emailed Murphy directly in June and asked to speak to him about a sensitive matter that occurred during the governors 2017 campaign.

When the committee again and again fired questions at Platkin about why he kept the allegation from Murphy, Platkin said he had received training on how to handle sexual harassment and other workplace complaints just weeks before and was operating under those guidelines, which emphasize strict confidentiality.

In the weeks since then, I have often considered and reconsidered whether it was the right decision to not inform the governor of Ms. Brennans allegations, Platkin told the committee. And I can understand why, especially with the benefit of hindsight, a different conclusion might be appropriate. But I acted in accordance with what I understood, based on the training I received.

Michael Critchley, one of the attorneys for the committee, said Platkin missed numerous opportunities to inform the governor that Alvarez had been asked to leave, and why. Murphy must have known Alvarez well, Critchley said.

He was someone who has worked what the governor personally - he worked for New Way for New Jersey," a nonprofit Murphy created leading up to his campaign, Critchley said. He worked on the campaign. He was a high level position in transition.

I am having a hard time believing you did not tell the governor," Critchley said. Its a head-scratcher.

Brennan has said Alvarez sexually assaulted her in her apartment in Jersey City in April 2017. He had driven her home from a campaign-related social gathering and asked to use the bathroom, Brennan has said. The Hudson County Prosecutors Office declined to file charges against him.

Alvarez was chief of staff to the New Jersey Schools Development Authority until he resigned Oct. 2 after he was contacted by the Wall Street Journal, which was preparing to publish a story about Brennans allegation and the administrations failure to investigate or hold Alvarez accountable.

Murphy campaign and administration officials testified that Alvarez was told twice to look for a new job. But none have said they actually hired Alvarez in the his then $140,000-a-year job at the Schools Development Authority.

Platkin said Friday that it wasnt him, either.

I cant speak for everyone in the administration, but I was not involved in the process for hiring Mr. Alvarez, he said, adding he had no formal role in the transition and was largely filling out the governors Cabinet and drafting executive orders. I was very infrequently involved in the discussion on staff."

Marin seemed perplexed. That concerns me and everyone on this committee. Someone had to make an actual offer of employment," she said.

I understand, Platkin replied.

Murphys chief of staff, Pete Cammarano, testified earlier that Platkin was in charge of the authorities, while he was involved with selecting cabinet members.

At an unrelated news conference in West Trenton on Friday, Murphy was asked if he knew who hired Alvarez.

I have nothing new on that front to offer, the governor said.

Much of the testimony from nine previous witnesses over four hearings singled out Platkin as the key decision-maker in how the administration responded to Brennans complaint and who was or wasnt brought into the fold.

Brennan earlier this month sued the Murphy administration for violating her confidentiality and mishandling her complaint.

Platkin described how he followed the policy by flagging the chief ethics officer in the governors office after Brennan told him in March 2018 that she was raped.

He recused himself from the equal employment opportunity investigation because he knew both Brennan and Alvarez, he said Thursday. But the recusal was not necessary, Murphys chief ethics officer, Heather Taylor, told him, because the Attorney Generals Office concluded it did not have jurisdiction to investigation Brennans allegation, Platkin said.

Alvarez has denied he raped Brennan and has declined to comment on the hearings. In his testimony Friday, Platkin offered a window into Alvarezs state of mind after his he was told for the second time to find a new job.

He was very emotional and was sobbing, Platkin said, describing a telephone conversation with Alvarez in June. He felt he had rights, too, and that he was having his career unfairly ended by an allegation already rejected by the prosecutors office.

Platkin said he did not waiver. I nevertheless told him that he should leave state government. He informed me in clear terms that he would do, but since he was the caretaker for two minor children, he needed some more time to find other employment so that he could continue to support his family.

Alvarez told Platkin he was considering pursuing a job at Rutgers University, but he never applied, Platkin said. Platkin said he understood Alvarez was planning to leave in October.

Platkin also denied helping Alvarez find new employment. In appealing his rejected unemployment claim last week, Alvarez wrote that state officials had agreed to assist him in his job search. Cammarano, the chief of staff, also denied doing so.

State Sen. Kristen Corrado, R-Passaic, asked Platkin if he believed Brennans allegation  he said he did  before she read aloud a text exchange between Platkin and Charlie McKenna, Alvarezs boss at the Schools Development Authority. McKenna was not told about Brennans allegation. He wrote: He really is a decent guy.

Platkin responded with a text that he agreed.

So Mr. Alvarez is a decent guy?" Corrado said.

I just wanted to end the text conversation, Platkin said.

Platkin, a 32-year-old New Jersey native and Stanford graduate, joined Murphys campaign for governor at the inception, serving as policy director and fleshing out the candidates platform. Before the campaign, he served a similar role in Murphys pre-campaign vehicle, New Way For New Jersey.

As chief counsel, Platkin is the governors top lawyer, with an office just steps away from Murphys door. Political insiders say he is a trusted  even indispensable  adviser who got in on the ground floor of the governors political career and has remained a key aide even under the intense glare brought by the scandal.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report.

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
We know Phil Murphy isnt a fan of Donald Trump. But the Democratic New Jersey governor has never lit into the Republican U.S. president quite like he did on Thursday.

The usually mild-mannered Murphy almost sounded as biting as former Gov. Chris Christie was during his eight-year run at the Statehouse.

Murphy said during a Facebook Live town hall that Trump is acting like a child obsessed with a toy in how hes handling the partial federal government shutdown, which is now a record 27 days long, with no end in sight.

President Trump is being blamed for this shutdown, Murphy said. And he deserves it. This is ridiculous. Its juvenile.

Murphys rant was sparked by a resident who asked if New Jerseys state government will help people living on food stamps if the shutdown drags on. People will stop getting food stamps through the end of February if the shutdown lasts through then.

The governor said the state may have to step in.

Murphy then started ripping into Trump, who is seeking $5.7 billion in funding from Congress for a wall along the Mexico border to step illegal immigration. Democratic lawmakers  who control the U.S. House  have refused to grant him the money. That impasse has led to the shutdown.

Murphy said the shutdown is needlessly hurting hundreds of thousands of federal workers when there are very reasonable people from both political parties who have genuinely good ideas about how to improve border security without having to resort to a wall.

He literally obsessed like a juvenile  and thats insulting juveniles  with this wall like it were a toy, Murphy said of Trump. Hes fighting a war that doesnt exist.

Its yet another example of awful leadership, the governor added.

Murphy said the state will do "everything we can to backstop."

But Im pleading with the president to come to his senses and reopen the government, he concluded.

Polls show majorities of Americans continue to blame on Trump for the shutdown. A PBS Newshour/Marist College survey from Wednesday found 54 percent say Trump is responsible, with only 31 percent blaming congressional Democrats.

Meanwhile, Murphys administration issued a bulletin Thursday encouraging insurers, banks, credit unions, mortgage lenders, and other entities regulated by the state Department of Banking and Insurance to work with and assist New Jersey residents affected by the shutdown.

We do not know when these families will be made whole again," Murphy said in a statement. We have to make every effort to minimize the financial impact on our residents who still have to provide for themselves and their families.

Murphy often criticizes Trump, and his administration has filed numerous lawsuits and backed numerous proposals to fight back against the presidents policies.

But Murphy said Thursday that he does not take partisan shots for the sake of taking partisan shots.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Jonathan D. Salant contributed to this report.

Facebook Live Town Hall Join me live to discuss my State of the State address and take your questions. Comment on this post or use the hashtag #StateoftheStateNJ. And let us know where youre from! Posted by Governor Phil Murphy on Thursday, January 17, 2019

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WASHINGTON  More than half of U.S. voters said they want someone other than President Donald Trump in 2020.

But theyre not sure if that someone else should be New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who remains an unknown for many voters.

In the NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist College poll, 57 percent of registered voters said they would definitely vote against Trump in the next election, while just 30 percent said they would definitely support him.

But when selecting a Trump opponent, 49 percent of Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning independents said they hadnt heard of Booker, who is mulling a race for the presidency. Of those who know him, 40 percent gave him a favorable rating, with 10 percent viewing him unfavorably.

Bookers favorability was the fourth highest among 10 potential Democratic candidates, leading such potential rivals as U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who also are unknown by most of the electorate.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is viewed most favorably at 76 percent, with a 12 percent unfavorable rating. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is next with a 57 favorable rating, but his 28 percent unfavorable rating is the highest in the field, just barely ahead of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican, at 27 percent. Bloombergs favorable rating was also 27 percent.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was third with 53 percent favorable and 17 unfavorable ratings.

Trumps numbers were pulled down by the partial government shutdown, now in its fourth week. Majorities blame the president for the shutdown and disagree with his refusal to sign legislation funding federal agencies without $5.7 billion in taxpayer funding for a southern border wall he promised Mexico would pay for.

His job approval rating was 40 percent with 54 percent disapproving.

In the middle of the government shutdown, Americans think the buck stops with the president, and his approval rating is taking a hit, said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

The poll of 873 registered voters was conducted Jan. 10-13 and had a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points. The subset of 417 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents had a margin of error of 6 percentage points,

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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A funeral will be held Friday morning for the man whose death has ignited nightly protests and a promise of change in Paterson police training and policy.

A viewing for 27-year-old Jameek Lowery will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at Canaan Baptist Church in Paterson, the funeral will begin immediately afterward and burial will be at St. Peters Greek Catholic Cemetery in Garfield.

Though his body will be buried, Lowerys family still has not seen his autopsy with the official cause of death, according to Harley Breite, an attorney who represents, Lowerys father, uncle, aunt, and soon Lowerys 11-month old daughter, Ava.

Whos blocking it whos taking their time whos looking at it before its released, said Breite. Of the more than 75 homicide cases he said he has handled, Breite said this is the longest it has ever taken to release an autopsy. It raises a lot of questions.

Breite said they will not perform an independent autopsy, but will administer an independent review of the medical report based off the autopsy, when they receive it.

Lowerys mother, Patrice King, has a separate lawyer. She is being represented by the New York law firm Caitlin Robin and Associates, which hired Dr. Michael Baden to perform an independent autopsy according to NorthJersey.com. Baden also performed independent autopsies of Eric Garner, who died in 2014 during an arrest by New York City police officers, and Michael Brown, who was shot by a cop in Ferguson, Missouri.

Jameek Lowery. Photo from Bragg's Funeral Home in Paterson

On Jan. 5, Lowery called 911 for help after he took ecstasy. Lowery was taken to S. Josephs Medical Center, where he was admitted, but he left shortly afterward. He called 911 again that night, and then walked into Paterson police headquarters filming a Facebook Live video. He asking officers for help, and repeatedly begged them not to shoot him.

Police called an ambulance and Lowery was placed in a compliance hold to get him into the ambulance, according to the Passaic County Prosecutors Office. Prosecutors said he received no acute injuries as a result of the hold.

Lowery died at the hospital less than 48 hours later on Jan. 7, but family raised concerns in social media and circulated a picture of Lowery laying in a hospital bed with a broken cheekbone, a fractured eye socket and several cuts and bruises.

Multiple protests have continued at Patersons city hall and officers arrested several Black Lives Matter activists. On Wednesday, two of Lowerys family members were arrested as residents gathered to question police about an arrest during a traffic stop. Lowerys mother was maced at the incident.

Paterson mayor Andre Sayegh hold press conference in wake of the death of city resident Jameek Lowery.

Mayor Andrew Sayegh acknowledged during a press conference Thursday that he understood why faith and trust in law enforcement had been shaken and eroded, noting the recent Paterson probes in which police officers charged with crimes that violated their oath in office.

He announced several initiatives, including a citizen advisory board and a search for funding for body cameras. that he said would build community trust.

Sayegh did not answer questions after the press conference about his tools of trust, and the prosecutors office investigation, only stating it was an ongoing investigation.

Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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Self-proclaimed "stable genius" Donald Trump has negotiated himself into a corner with no obvious way out.

The leader of the free world has decided that the best way to get funding for his very stupid border wall is to pitch a hissy fit the likes of which have never been seen before. He now presides over the longest/dumbest government shutdown in the history of the republic with no end in sight.

The president fancies himself a master negotiator. Everyone who has ever negotiated with him before views him as a dupe. He takes his marching orders from the conservative Twitter-verse and has managed to negotiate his way out of his beloved wall several times.

Democrats were willing to pay for the ridiculous barrier in return for preserving DACA, far-right pundit Ann Coulter put the kibosh on that in 180 characters or less.

Trump has, through decades of media coverage, crafted the persona of a prosperous businessman. A prominent real estate developer in the financial mecca of Manhattan and a billionaire many times over. That turned out to be, shocker, a lie.

Trump is not, nor has he ever been, a big time real estate developer. He propped up a meager portfolio with a few high profile projects like the Grand Hyatt and Trump Tower. He built his "empire" with money his daddy ran through a gauntlet of tax evasion schemes and still managed to burn through that several times over.

Trump got himself into this shutdown mess because he is incompetent.

He, in his own words, likes to "wing it" in all things. There was no plan to get in and there is sure as hell no plan to get out. In the balance are the institutions that form the United States government and the livelihoods of 800,000 government workers.

God bless America.

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A smooth, jet black rock that N.J. sisters suspected could be a meteorite actually just turned out to be a lump of coal.

Nora and Jean Muchanic were only slightly disappointed when experts at the Franklin Institute confirmed the discovery they made was not a meteorite or remnant of a fireball from earlier in January.

Curious to uncover the mystery, the sisters traveled to Philadelphia on Thursday to meet with Dr. Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer of the institute. He examined the rock closely and quickly determined it was coal.

The sisters found the object on Jan. 11 while strolling down the coast on Silver Beach when they came across a hole that looked like a crater. What they would find out to be coal was at the bottom of the crater, and sparked interest between the ladies and their Facebook friends.

Is it a METEORITE??!! Was walking with my sister Jean Muchanic on Silver Beach, NJ this afternoon when we found this 5... Posted by Nora Muchanic on Friday, January 11, 2019

Jean Muchanic said shes happy she got a confirmation of what the mysterious object was, and is excited to let the world know.

Yes, it is a piece of coal and I will be reporting to work for the next six years until I retire, Muchanic joked. I think well just keep it as a souvenir together and itll be a fun conversation piece."

Her sister, on the other hand, was let down a bit more, but said she wasnt shocked.

The chances of it being a meteorite were not high, but we did hold out hope, added Nora Muchanic, a former meteorologist at ABC 6.

If it was actually a space rock, it would have been the first found in New Jersey since 1829.

The sisters did get to see a real meteorite at the Franklin Institute after Pitts let them down gently, they said. And for now, they agreed to stick to searching for sea glass on future beach walks.

Nora and Jean Muchanic traveled to the Franklin Institute and were disappointingly told their "meteorite" was just some coal.

It was a fun adventure and we got a kick out of it, Jean Muchanic said. Now we have the most famous piece of coal in New Jersey.

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In the first criminal case filed by a state task force set up to investigate allegations of clergy abuse, a well-known Phillipsburg priest has been arrested on sexual assault charges involving a teenager in Middlesex County more than two decades ago.

The Rev. Thomas P. Ganley was a priest at Saint Cecelia Church in the Iselin section of Woodbridge when the alleged assaults occurred, from 1990 through 1994, state prosecutors said in announcing the arrest late Thursday. He is currently assigned to Saint Philip & Saint James Church in Phillipsburg.

Ganley was taken into custody on Wednesday and charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault in the first degree, and two counts of sexual assault in the second degree, according to state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal. He is being held at the Middlesex County Adult Corrections Center in North Brunswick pending a detention hearing on Friday.

No details of what allegedly happened, or how the attorney generals office came to bring charges against Ganley, were released by the attorney general. The teen was reported to be between the ages of 14 and 17 when the alleged assaults occurred.

Ganleys arrest was made by members of the Middlesex County Prosecutors Office assigned to the task force. It was not known if the priest had an attorney yet.

Its a shock, said Rev. John Barbella, the pastor at Saint Philip & Saint James Church. Barbella said he didnt know anything more about the allegations against Ganley than what was released by the attorney general, and could say little more, but expected the diocese would have a statement tomorrow. The Diocese of Metuchen did not return a call.

According to a bio on his church website, Ganley serves as parochial vicar and has been a priest of the Metuchen Diocese since his ordination by then Bishop Theodore E. McCarrick at St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral in 1985.

McCarrick, the former head of the Archdiocese of Newark who later became a cardinal, was removed from public ministry last June following allegations that he had sexually abused a teenage altar boy 47 years earlier while serving as a priest in New York, and later resigned as the scandal rocked the church.

The Rev. Thomas P. Ganley, in a photo released by the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office.

New Jersey launched its clergy abuse task force in September to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy within all the Catholic dioceses of the state  as well as any efforts to cover up such abuse  following the disclosures last year by a Pennsylvania grand jury, which graphically detailed the horrific sex abuse by priests who preyed upon children for decades.

This case illustrates that we are prepared to move swiftly to investigate allegations, and where there are viable criminal charges, to pursue those charges, said Grewal in a statement. Our clergy abuse task force is diligently pursuing its mission to expose the truth about past wrongs and seek justice for survivors, because no person is above the law and no institution is immune from accountability.

Former Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert Laurino, who leads the task force, said a hotline set up by the state to reach out to victims continues to draw calls. Every caller who contacts our hotline can be assured that their case will be taken seriously, and that we will make every effort to hold their abuser accountable, he said.

That hotline  (855) 363-6548  has received more than 350 calls since September, officials said.

In addition to investigating allegations of sexual abuse by clergy, the state task force is expected to also conduct a review of existing agreements between the Catholic dioceses of New Jersey and state law enforcement. Those agreements grew out of a 2002 Memorandum of Understanding between the states five dioceses, the attorney generals office, and several county prosecutors' offices, mandating policies and procedures to report potential cases of sexual abuse within their churches to law enforcement.

Late last year, church officials in New Jersey said the names of every priest and deacon "credibly accused" of sexually abusing a child will be made public by the states five Catholic dioceses early this year. The diocesesNewark, Camden, Paterson, Metuchen and Trenton are also establishing a victim compensation fund and counseling program for victims of sexual abuse by clergy and other church employees, according to Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the head of the Archdiocese of Newark.

Tobin did not give a date for the release of the names or indicate how many priests and deacons may be on the list.

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A Cape May County resident was sentenced to 28 years in state prison on Wednesday for his role in the stabbing death of a man at a motel.

Herbert E. Tozer, 53, of Middle Township, previously plead guilty to aggravated manslaughter for his involvement in the fatal stabbing of Robert Niemezura on Jan. 10, 2017, according to a release from the Cape May County Prosecutors Office.

Niemezura, 45, was stabbed in the neck at the Country Motel in Rio Grande section of Middle Township and died at the hospital.

Niemezuras autopsy listed his manner of death as homicide.

Tozer was indicted on March 28, 2017, on first degree murder charges along with aggravated assault, hindering apprehension, and weapons-related offenses, officials said.

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The arrest this week of a New Jersey priest on sexual assault charges came just two days after the victim in the nearly 30-year-old case made a call to the states clergy abuse hotline, authorities disclosed.

At the same time, church officials said Rev. Thomas P. Ganley, a parochial vicar at St. Philip and St. James Catholic Church in Phillipsburg and a chaplain at Warren General Hospital has admitted the allegations to law enforcement.

Ganley, 63, was arrested on Wednesday and was scheduled Friday for a detention hearing in New Brunswick.

According to the state Attorney Generals office, Ganley was a priest at Saint Cecelia Church in the Iselin section of Woodbridge when the alleged assaults occurred between 1990 through 1994. No other details were revealed by prosecutors, nor was the name and gender of the victim, who was between the ages of 14 and 17 at the time the reported assaults took place, authorities said.

Ganley is charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault in the first degree, and two counts of sexual assault in the second degree, and is now being held at the Middlesex County Adult Corrections Center in North Brunswick.

The Middlesex County Prosecutors Office is handling the criminal case against him.

The charges mark the first sexual assault case brought by New Jerseys clergy abuse task force, which was launched in September in the wake of disclosures last year by a Pennsylvania grand jury detailing decades of abuse by priests who preyed upon children.

As part of that task force, New Jersey set up a 24-hour hotline to allow victims to report allegations of abuse. That hotline  (855) 363-6548  has received more than 350 calls, officials said.

According to a spokesman for the Attorney General, the unnamed victim in the case against Ganley first called the hotline Monday. The speed in which charges were brought against the priest was remarkable, considering how long ago the alleged incidents occurred, and the long-standing complaints by clergy abuse advocates that authorities have been slow to take action when victims have stepped forward.

Ganley was arrested only two days after the call, and the state reported the filing of charges on Thursday.

In a statement by the Diocese of Metuchen, church officials said the diocese never received an accusation of sexual abuse or misconduct in the past regarding Ganley.

Its our understanding the victim just came forward to prosecutors as an adult with an allegation of abuse that occurred while a minor in the early 1990s, which Fr. Ganley has reportedly admitted to law enforcement, said the diocese. As per church protocol, he would then be removed from the priesthood.

The diocese said it is contacting all the parishes and diocesan organizations where Ganley ministered to alert them of the charges.

Bishop James Checchio, head of the Diocese of Metuchen, said in the statement the sexual abuse of a minor is among the most terrible of crimes because it is committed against societys most innocent and vulnerable.

The bishop, who said he was sickened and saddened, said I am truly sorry to learn of this abuse and the suffering of this victim.

Ganleys photo and bio had been removed from the St. Philip and St. James website on Friday. According to that bio, he has been a priest of the Metuchen Diocese since his ordination by then Bishop Theodore E. McCarrick at St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral in 1985.

McCarrick, the former head of the Archdiocese of Newark who later became a cardinal, was removed from public ministry in June following allegations that he had sexually abused a teenage altar boy 47 years earlier while serving as a priest in New York, and later resigned under pressure by Pope Francis.

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Officials in Union County are touting their homicide statistics for 2018, saying the number of killings last year fell to single digits for the first time in nearly 50 years.

In a statement sent to media outlets, acting Union County Prosecutor Michael A. Monahan said there were nine homicides in the county last year, the lowest figure measured since 1970. Monahan said that number came from internal statistics and a review of the New Jersey State Polices Uniform Crime Report, which is based on figures reported by county agencies and police departments throughout the state.

Monahan said non-fatal shootings have also dipped in recent years. In 2018, there were 34 of those shootings, compared to 47 in 2017 and 49 in 2016, according to the prosecutors office.

Five of 2018s homicides occurred in Plainfield, while three happened in Elizabeth and one in Linden.

Six of the nine homicides in 2018 have been solved, Monahan said.

The three that are unsolved are from two shooting incidents in Plainfield. On June 24, 2018, Shavonne Young, 25, of Scotch Plains, and Michael Welsh, 34, of Plainfield, were gunned down as they sat in a vehicle near New and West Fifth streets.

The other unsolved homicide occurred on Nov. 11, 2018. In that case, Benjamin Nord, 45, of Plainfield, was shot by a gunman on the 400 block of Liberty Street in Plainfield.

Monahan urged anyone with information in these two shootings to contact the Union County Prosecutors Office. Tips can also be sent to the Union County Crime Stoppers, which offers rewards up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest and indictment. Those tips can be given anonymously by phone at 908-654-TIPS (8477) or online at www.uctip.org, officials said.

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The land of Bruce Springsteen and his rugged peers is slowly becoming the land of people who can afford $1 million luxury condos.

At least on the waterfront.

While developer iStar has mapped out an ambitious plan to transform Asbury Parks waterfront with luxury condos, a swanky hotel, a revamped music venue and other mixed-use projects, a local developer is hoping to slide into the action.

Regional Development Group, led by Trip Brooks, who has lived in Asbury Park since 1999, recently received approval from iStar and the city council to become a subsequent developer in the waterfront redevelopment area of the city.

The hope is to turn a vacant building at 215 First Ave. into a four-story, 24-unit boutique condominium building that would be marketed as full-time residences, not just summer spots, Brooks said. There will be 12 two-bedroom units and 12 three-bedroom condos, with prices ranging from $600,000 to $1.1 million.

The Asbury Park Press first reported the news of the development.

Brooks, who recently developed and opened Park Place, a six-story condominium building in Asbury Park, said the next step is to receive approval from the citys Planning Board. Optimistically, construction on the $9 million project will begin in April and would be completed in 2020.

The amenity deck of a proposed luxury condominium building in Asbury Park.

Brooks said he is not concerned with being overshadowed by iStars sprawling development. With Asbury Parks commercial spaces  restaurants, bars and shops  continuing to grow, he said they are what is driving the current residential surge, adding the beach and proximity to Manhattan also helps.

Everything plays off each other, said Brooks, crediting iStars Asbury Hotel, a glitzy 110-room boutique hotel that opened in 2016 as spearheading the next level of development.

So far under their multi-billion-dollar investment of a one-mile beachfront stretch in Asbury Park, iStar has constructed the hotel, renovated Asbury Lanes, an iconic bowling alley and music venue, and are soon set to open the Asbury Ocean Club, a 17-story, 130-unit luxury condo building with units as much as $6 million.

Brian Cheripka, senior vice president for land and development for iStar, told NJ Advance Media recently that they are permitted to build around 3,100 units under the redevelopment plan.

According to Zillow, home values in Asbury Park have increased more than 25 percent over the past year.

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A driver who died in a three-vehicle crash in Freehold on Wednesday was identified as a 76-year-old Lakewood woman.

Patricia Limone and her husband, James Limone, 78, of Lakewood, were taken to local hospitals after the 2003 Toyota Camry she was driving was hit a Honda Accord that had just crashed into another car, according to a release from the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office.

Patricia was taken was taken to CentraState Medical Center where she was pronounced dead at 2:09 p.m. and her husband was taken to Jersey Shore Medical University Medical Center, where he was in critical condition Thursday afternoon, officials said.

The accident was was reported just before 1 p.m. at the busy intersection of Route 9 and Craig Road near the border of Freehold and Manalapan.

Route 9 at East Freehold Rd / Craig Rd in Freehold Twsp remains closed in both directions for an accident investigation. Check for updates: https://t.co/ik25Jwo9OP @AsburyParkPress @FreeholdTwpPD @MonmouthPDFDEMS pic.twitter.com/a19ESyH1Y9  Thomas P. Costello (@ThomasPCostello) January 16, 2019

Derrick T. Gyengo, 33, of Laurence Harbor, was driving north on Route 9 in a 2009 Honda Accord on when he collided at the intersection with a 2013 Lexus driven by John Scranton Jr., 59, of Howell, authorities said.

Scranton was making a left turn from East Freehold Road onto Route 9 south when he was hit by Gyengo, the release stated.

Gyengo, Scranton and his unidentified male passenger were not hurt in the crash.

After hitting the Lexus, Gyengos Honda continued north where it hit the Camry driven by Patricia, who was driving west through the intersection of Route 9 from East Freehold Road to Craig Road, prosecutors said.

The accident was still under investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office on Thursday.

Anyone with information on the crash was asked to contact Monmouth County Prosecutors Office Det. Kristian DeVito at 800-533-7443, or Freehold Police Department Detective Daniel Valentine at 732-294-5142.

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When a local Sikh house of worship in Lawrence was looking for a police officer to work an off-duty security post for their weekend services early last year, Mercer County Sheriffs Officer Pablo Santiago snapped up the gig.

It was March of 2018, and on his first shift at their gurdwara, the Sikhs learned what many in the Trenton area knew about Santiago.

You didnt just get a security officer, you got all of Pablo.

Santiago, who took his own life last month, made an immediate impact and fast friends at Sikh Sabha of New Jersey, in Lawrence. On Saturday, they will honor his work with the organization.

The security job, as many things did with Santiago, turned into a relationship.

They loved his energy, and invited him to their monthly service project in Trenton, a langar, or free community kitchen. Santigao became a fixture at the event, helping cook and serve food to those in need outside the Trenton train station, the Sikh Coalition said in a statement.

And it kept going.

Last summer, Santiago suggested a new location in Trenton near a low-income housing area that he believed needed help, so the organization worked with him and eventually added it to their monthly food service.

One time, he memorably brought one of his daughters to gurdwara simply because he wanted to introduce her to a religion and culture that was different than her own, the groups statement said.

This Saturday, at the train station, the Sikhs will honor Santiagos humanitarian work at their monthly service. Santiagos family and friends are expected to attend the event, which starts at 9:30 a.m.

"The seva (selfless service) work of the local Sikh community has grown in large part thanks to the efforts of Officer Santiago. This Saturdays event serves as a way for the community to honor him by doing what he was best at: connecting people and fulfilling needs, said Sachdeep Singh Arora, who is organizing the Santiago memorial.

"Pablo was a friend, a brother and a sevadaar (community volunteer) Arora said.

A member of the group also made a memorial video highlighting his work over the past year, below:

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In his role at the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency, Lamont King wrote reports and transported adults and children to court-ordered visits. He also made recommendations to the court and the Department of Children and Families.

But King abused the power he had, extorting sex from two mothers known to the DCPP.

On Thursday, King, 42, of Trenton, was sentenced to prison for the crimes. Superior Court Judge Thomas Brown handed down a three-year sentence in Mercer County.

An investigation revealed that multiple times in 2015 and 2016, King pressured the women into sex, including once driving to a motel in Pennsylvania for an encounter.

One of the women did not report the behavior because she feared speaking out would "negatively affect her visits with her children," state prosecutors said.

King was charged in June 2016 after a State Police investigation. In July 2018 he pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy to commit a pattern of official misconduct.

The manner in which King pressured his victims into sexual relations by exploiting his authority and playing on their fears regarding their children was corrupt and deplorable, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a news release announcing the sentence.

King is also permanently barred from public employment in New Jersey.

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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EDITORS NOTE: Interested in the marijuana business industry? NJ Cannabis Insider is a new premium intelligence briefing that features exclusive weekly content geared toward entrepreneurs, lawyers and realtors. View a sample issue.

State Sen. Nicholas Scutari, the prime sponsor of the bill to legalize adult-use marijuana in New Jersey, told NJ Cannabis Insider hes losing faith that Senate Democrats and Gov. Phil Murphy will come to an agreement.

The concern is so acute Scutari said he and state Senate President Stephen Sweeney have discussed letting the voters decide by putting the issue on the November ballot that, if approved, would amend the state constitution.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney, left, congratulates the adult use legalization of cannabis author state Sen. Nicholas Scutari after the bill passed in committee voting on Nov. 26, 2018. NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Its not my preference, said Scutari, D-Union, but I think it might be a lot easier to let the people decide.

It would likely be easier to win votes in the state Senate and Assembly for a ballot question than an outright vote on legalization, he added.

The state Legislature would need to pass a bill by three-fifths majority to put a question on the November ballot, according to the state constitution.

Scutari said one of the latest compromises Sweeney, D-Gloucester, verbally offered a month ago would let the governor choose three of the five members on the proposed Cannabis Regulatory Commission  without the legally mandated advice and consent of the Senate.

Scutari and Sweeneys bill (S2703) places control over the nascent cannabis industry and the medicinal marijuana program in the hands of an independent commission, loosely tied to the state Department of Treasury. Murphy has rejected this plan, saying the administration needs to have far more hands-on involvement.

Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, also offered Murphy an olive branch by allowing a university to study the commissions efficacy after three years and to determine whether it should remain in its current format.

The Murphy administration has not responded to either proposal, according to Scutari and Sweeney.

But an official familiar with the negotiations tells a different story. The Murphy camp has offered a counter-proposal that splits the responsibilities. The administration would compose the rules governing the industry and the commission would handle the licensing responsibilities.

And an administrative source said there is no stalemate. There was a meeting this month.

Weve been having good conversations with both Scutari and leadership, the source said, who was not authorized to discuss the meeting. We are making progress.

We are open-minded and willing to find an amenable solution, the source added.

Asked to respond to the comments, Scutari said, I dont have a recollection of that.

Ill discuss anything, Scutari said. But I dont understand why they cant trust an independent commission ... if we are giving them the ability to pick the (majority of the members of the) commission.

Scutari said he didnt know how soon he would decide whether negotiations with the governor was a lost cause.

I am losing faith, Scutari said.

This story first appeared in NJ Cannabis Insider.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.

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A 31-year-old Jersey City felon with 13 convictions and tattooed tears under his left eye tried walking out of his own sentencing Friday afternoon, saying I dont want to be here.

Anticipating problems because of a previous court outburst by William Gerena, extra sheriffs officers were on hand when Gerena turned and walked away from the defense table near the end of his sentencing for lewdness and two counts of theft.

The officers put Gerena back at the defense table, but as Hudson County Superior Court Judge Mitzy Galis-Menendez tried to finish the hearing, Gerena again walked away. This time sheriffs officers guided him out of the courtroom in the Hudson County Administration Building in Jersey City and he did not return.

Gerena was convicted of lewdness and found not guilty of sexual assault earlier this month. He then pleaded guilty to the theft charges. Galis-Menendez sentenced him to five years in prison for the thefts and 14 months for lewdness.

The two theft sentences are to be served concurrently but consecutive to the lewdness sentence, making the sentence just over six years. Court officials said there are still outstanding warrants for Gerenas arrest.

With the conviction and pleas, Gerena now has six convictions for indictable offenses in New Jersey. He has seven indictable convictions in Florida, Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Andrew Baginski said.

Galis-Menedez noted Gerenas extensive record as an adult and as a juvenile dating back to 2001 and said he has had consistent contacts with the law since 2007 to the present date.

When asked if he had anything to say during the sentencing, Gerera said No, I got nothing to say.

Baginski had asked for the maximum sentence of 18 months on the lewdness conviction, saying Based on the frequency, the number of contacts with the criminal justice system and the (previous) sentences imposed, anything less than the maximum will not deter him."

The sentencing hearing was nearly over when Gerena decided he had had enough. Earlier in the hearing Gerenas attorney, Claude Heffron, held a folder in front of her clients face when a member of the press photographed him.
State lawmakers investigating how Gov. Phil Murphys office handled rape allegations against a senior administration staffer are locked in a fight with Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarezs office over e-mails that may raise questions about Suarezs claims she had no knowledge of the case, NJ Advance Media has learned.

The dispute lays bare tension between the prosecutor and the legislative oversight committee, which has been conducting hearings on how Murphys administration responded to allegations one state official, Katie Brennan, brought forth against another high-level staffer, Albert J. Alvarez.

It also adds a new dimension to the scandal over the Brennan case, which has enveloped the first-term Democratic governors administration and at times put Murphy at odds with legislative leaders from his own party.

Brennan came forward in October of last year and claimed she was raped by Alvarez following a Murphy campaign gathering in Jersey City in April 2017. After prosecutors declined to bring charges, Brennan made multiple attempts to alert Murphys administration to the alleged incident, prompting state lawmakers to launch a formal inquiry.

While Suarez has publicly offered to testify in front of the committee, a January 16 letter sent by her attorney to the committee shows her office is resisting handing over everything they have on the case.

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by NJ Advance Media, attorney Ralph Lamparello refused to provide any e-mails, claiming they were confidential investigatory records and warning that their disclosure could be considered a crime.

The letter states that lawmakers indicated in one request for documents that they received information that Prosecutor Suarez received e-mail communications regarding Ms. Brennans allegations on multiple occasions beginning April 10, 2017.

The existence of such e-mails could cast doubt on the prosecutors public statement that she only learned of the matter more than a year later, alerting the Attorney Generals Office to a potential conflict of interest in October because she knew both Brennan and Alvarez.

They would also raise questions about a separate inquiry overseen by state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, a Murphy appointee, which cleared the prosecutor of wrongdoing. A spokeswoman for Grewals office on Friday stood by the findings.

Reached by phone, Lamparello said, "We are not either confirming or denying emails.

If such emails exist, theyre part of a confidential file and they shouldnt be in possession of them," he said, referring to the committee.

State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, who is co-chairing the legislative committee, said Friday the request was made in response to some information (that) has been floating around about the content of those emails.

Suarez, the top law enforcement official in Hudson County, has defended her offices investigation, saying she played no role in the decision by career prosecutors not to pursue criminal charges against Alvarez over the alleged sexual assault following a Murphy campaign gathering in April 2017.

A spokesman for Suarez, Raymond Worrall, said in a statement Friday the Alvarez investigation was handled professionally by six members of the office with almost 85 years of combined experience among them."

In an Oct. 17 statement, Suarez claimed she only learned of the rape investigation when her office was contacted by the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on Brennans claims, on October 2. It was at that time, she said, that she alerted the attorney general to the potential conflict of interest, prompting the attorney general to reassign the case to prosecutors in Middlesex County out of an abundance of caution.

In a Nov. 27 letter to legislative leaders, Grewal said investigators from his Office of Public Integrity and Accountability examined the complete investigative file" of the prosecutors office "as well as other documents, including emails related to the investigation.

The offices charge was to determine whether Suarez improperly influenced the resolution of the investigation due to a conflict of interest or otherwise.

The probe "found no evidence that Prosecutor Suarez acted improperly in any respect regarding this investigation, the attorney general wrote, assuring lawmakers there was no need for further legislative inquiry on this matter.

But lawmakers have continued to pursue information from Suarez, first making a broad request for e-mails on December 20  a request the prosecutors office denied. The committee followed up on January 11, seeking e-mails dated April 10, 17, 21 and May 8 of 2017  a crucial time period in the first few weeks of the investigation.

Lamparello wrote in the January 16 letter  a copy of which was obtained by NJ Advance Media  that the request for e-mails from those specific dates left the office disconcerted.

Because much of the HCPOs work involves non-public, confidential, sensitive matters, the dissemination of any information or documents regarding the HCPOs investigations could  aside from violating privacy rights, jeopardizing an investigation, or unfairly damaging an individuals reputation  constitute a crime, Lamparello wrote.

An excerpt of the letter to the joint legislative committee.

The attorney told lawmakers the attorney general was on notice of the alleged disclosure.

Suarezs spokesman said that "as in any criminal investigation, reports and internal electronic communications were generated and shared among members of the office.

As a matter of practice, similar communications were generated in every investigative file, totaling thousands of such communications each year.

Weinberg said Friday she had not personally seen any of the requested messages. She said the committee would consult with its own lawyers about what to do next.

We do have subpoena power, but we have not had to use it up until now, and well see what happens here on in, she said.

Lamparello said Friday the office was resisting turning over investigatory records to lawmakers because of the precedent such a disclosure would set.

Think of all the ramifications that would happen if an investigative file is being released, especially one that does not result in a public indictment, he said.

He said that while Suarez recused herself because she knew both Brennan and Alvarez, she was not close with either individual. Lamparello said the prosecutor knew Alvarez from legal work he had done for Bergen County more than a decade ago and met Brennan at a private dinner in 2018. He added that Suarez was not aware of the case when she met Brennan and had never discussed the matter with her.

In a Friday statement sent to NJ Advance Media, Sharon Lauchaire, a spokeswoman for the Attorney Generals Office said our office does not intend to comment further on this matter until prosecutors in Middlesex County conclude their investigation.

Once that probe is concluded, the statement said, we will provide additional information" to the legislative committee as requested and to the extent permitted by law and procedure.

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter.

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BAYONNE  A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the family of a man who died in 2014 after a Bayonne police officer used pepper spray to break up a fight, affirming that the officer acted justifiably and did not use excessive force during the incident.

The lawsuit was filed by Jamie and Maureen Williams, the wife and daughter of Peter Lee Williams, 51. He died after collapsing outside an apartment building on Avenue C following the incident on June 10, 2014. The plaintiffs sought compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys' fees and other relevant fees.

The lawsuit stemmed from Police Officer George Poniks response to a large fight among high school students inside the vestibule of an apartment building at 403 Ave. C. Ponik discharged the pepper spray into the air, above the group, after ordering those involved to stop.

Williams' family has contended that he was trying to break up the fight when the pepper spray was used and in 2015 filed a lawsuit in Newark federal court alleging the pepper spray was a contributing factor to his death.

But U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez granted summary judgment for the city on Jan. 11, writing that Ponik did not use excessive force and acted in an objectively reasonable manner when he used the pepper spray."

Jonathan D. Clemente, the Williams family attorney, expressed disappointment in the decision of the trial court, but added that the family is absolutely filing an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Vazquez also noted in his decision that Ponik had no prior complaints of excessive force lodged against him. According to the NJ Advance Media database of use of force reports Ponik used force eight times between 2012 and 2016.

Courts have found an officers deployment of pepper spray into a rowdy crowd to not run afoul of the Constitution, Vazquez wrote.

Additionally, Vazquez noted that Williams' autopsy report showed his manner of death was natural and the cause of death was severe coronary disease due to atherosclerotic and hypertensive cardiovascular disease, with cocaine use and mild obesity as contributory causes.

Bayonne Law Director Jay Coffey III said that the city is not happy with what happened with Mr. Williams, but the judge has found that the city of Bayonne and the individuals that were named defendants were not at all fault in connection with his death.

"It was a tragic situation that, according to the judge's decision, was not the fault of the city or its officers," he added.

The Williams family lawsuit is one of several high profile legal cases involving officers who used pepper spray.

In November 2014, Bayonne resident Brandon Walsh filed a federal lawsuit against the department, alleging Police Officer Domenico Lillo and other officers unlawfully pepper-sprayed him and his mother in their home.

Lillo later pleaded guilty to charges stemming from that incident and an unrelated crime, and is serving 42 months in prison. The city, meanwhile, settled the lawsuit for at least $1.5 million. The Jersey Journal had to fight the city in court for a year to obtain details of the settlement agreement.

Another city resident, Jason Rios, sued the department over an Aug. 29, 2010 incident in which he said police pepper-sprayed him, knocked him out and arrested him for no reason. The city settled that case as well.

Comparatively, the city police departments use of pepper spray is not as frequent as other municipalities, according to the NJ Advance Media database of state use-of-force data.

According to the lawsuit, the Bayonne police utilized a pepper-spray policy that directed officers that use of pepper spray is preferred over physical use of force as a means to reduce the risk of injury to civilians and police in confrontation and arrest situations.

The city provided The Jersey Journal a heavily-redacted copy of the BPDs current pepper-spray policy on Thursday.

(Pepper spray) shall only be used as instructed. Any use of the agent, which is not justified, will subject the user to disciplinary action," according to the policy. "(Pepper spray) shall not be used to harass, humiliate, or intimidate any person.
Even if a person cant attend the annual march, whether its due to weather or for personal reasons, there are other ways to be involved and keep up the efforts that kicked off in 2017, Julie Storbeck, president of NWI NOW, the local chapter of the National Organization for Women, said.
JERSEY CITY  A Jersey City neighborhood is in mourning after a 5-year-old student of School 37 died Thursday afternoon.

The boy was unresponsive after taking a nap at the school and was taken away in an ambulance at dismissal time, school officials confirmed.

The preschool student was taken to Jersey City Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, the officials said. A spokeswoman for the hospital could not be reached to comment.

The cause of death remains under investigation, but there is no indication of foul play, school officials said.

At this point we have no information. The hospital folks are working on it, said Sudhan Thomas, president of the Board of Education. Our immediate focus is to make sure the school and extended family get the support they need in terms of counseling," adding the district will have grief counselors available to staff and students Friday.

The Hudson County Prosecutors Office is investigating the matter, HCPO spokesman Ray Worrall confirmed Thursday night.

School 37, known as the Cordero School, is located in the citys Hamilton Park neighborhood. Thomas added the 5-year-old boy did not have siblings at the school.

Schools Superintendent Marcia Lyles was at the school Thursday night supporting the principal and other officials to ensure all parents are notified in a timely matter via email and phone calls, Thomas added.

Theyre all shaken up," Thomas said. Its really shocking. It really hits you.

Thomas said the district will release more information as it becomes available.

Our thoughts and most profound condolences go out to his family and the entire Cordero community who are now trying to come to terms with this tragedy," reads a statement from the school district. "The early childhood department will be sending additional support to help his very young classmates and friends understand what has happened.

This report was updated to reflect the boys correct age.
As thousands of federal workers in New Jersey continue to be squeezed by the ongoing government shutdown, one health network in the state has decided to help out.

Hackensack Meridian Health, the states largest health network, said on Friday that it would waive co-pays and deductibles for emergency room visits at all of its hospitals and urgent care centers for furloughed federal workers and their insured family members.

The shutdown, now in its 27th day, is affecting some 6,700 federal workers in New Jersey who are continuing to go unpaid during the shutdown. Nationwide, roughly 800,000 federal employees are being impacted.

We see federal employees in a time of need, Robert C. Garrett, CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, told NJ Advance Media. We actually saw some on the news standing in line for food stamps, not knowing where their next meals are coming. So we felt we wanted to do something for the members of our community.

As of Friday, furloughed federal workers and their covered family members in the state can now seek emergency or urgent care at any of Hackensack Meridian Healths 17 hospitals and urgent care centers without incurring the cost of co-pays and deductibles, according to a statement.

If any of them need emergency care, which obviously isnt something thats planned, or urgency care, if they use any of our facilities, they would not have any out-of-pocket expenses in terms of whatever (their) insurance doesnt cover, he said.

Hackensack Meridian reaches two-thirds of New Jersey's population, with more than 500 patient locations from Bergen to Ocean counties.

Its unclear how much this will ultimately cost Hackensack Meridian Health, but Garrett said, Were committed to doing this for as long as they are furloughed and the government shutdown continues.

He is also calling on other health networks throughout the state and the country to implement similar policies during the shutdown.

I looked at this opportunity as a call to action, and I would urge my colleagues out there running health care systems or hospitals to follow suit, he said. Because it is the right thing to do because there are federal workers who need our help across the country not just in the Hackensack Meridian communities.

Spencer Kent may be reached at skent@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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TRENTON  Advocates and law enforcement debated the merits of seizing money from alleged criminals Thursday, a month after a report showed police took $5.5 million in five months through the little-known practice.

Civil forfeiture allows law enforcement to take cash and property from New Jersey residents if they believe they were used during a crime. A recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union, based on data from early 2016, showed that the practice is typically used to seize small amounts and that seizures are rarely challenged.

Four advocates suggested multiple reforms to how civil forfeiture is practiced, including more transparency, legal representation and a higher standard for seizing property from residents.

Jennifer McDonald of The Institute for Justice urged the Assembly to pass a bill (A3442) that would require local departments to report to the state on where seized funds go and the outcome of civil forfeiture cases. The N.J. Senate has passed a similar bill.

It will give you the tools to make sure innocent people are not losing their property, she said.

Individuals who have their property seized dont have access to due process like the right to free legal counsel, unlike criminal forfeiture cases, said Liza Weisberg from the ACLU of New Jersey. As a result, most dont end up challenging their cases since the amount seized is often lower than the expenses associated with the challenge.

The government had to justify those seizures in just 3 percent of cases, Weisberg said. That means that prosecutors win 97 percent of civil asset forfeiture cases without ever putting forth a single piece of evidence.

Five representatives testified on behalf of law enforcement, denying that the items seized have ever been misused and said officers had good reason to take the property they seize.

The first day I walked into the academy, the first words out of the instructors mouth were probable cause, said Tom Fatigante from the New Jersey Fraternal Order of Police.

South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka said his department used forfeited funds for valuable law enforcement initiatives, such as training and body cameras for officers.

"The federal government gives a grant of about $400 an officer for armored vests. That's not much," he said. "With forfeited funds, I can give them the very best equipment."

The ACLU contends that under current law, law enforcement is not required to return the items seized if the case does not result in a conviction.

I think whats revealing is these representatives cant point to any reason why building in basic due process protection would harm their interest. The implication is, theyre doing things now to take peoples money that they couldnt do if those people had the constitutional protections that theyre owed, Weisberg said.

Erin Petenko may be reached at epetenko@njadvancemedia.com.Follow her on Twitter @EPetenko. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Disha Raychaudhuri may be reached at draychaudhuri@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Disha_RC.
UPDATE: Jury reaches a verdict in trial of Jeremiah Monell

Attorneys presented closing arguments Thursday in murder trial of Jeremiah E. Monell and a Cumberland County jury is now weighing the evidence.

Monell, 34, is accused of killing his estranged wife, Tara OShea-Watson, in the womans Commercial Township mobile home.

She suffered nearly 90 stab wounds to her neck, chest and stomach in the Dec. 18, 2016, attack.

Monells palm print in blood was found on one of the knives, prosecutors said.

The couples son, who testified during the trial, allegedly witnessed the killing.

The boy and his sister ran to a neighbors house, where the boy reported, Mommys dead. Daddy killed her, witnesses said.

Neighbors testified about finding the grisly scene and New Jersey State Police detectives testified about evidence they discovered, including two bloody and damaged knives found behind the kitchen stove.

Defense attorney Nathan Perry argued that the prosecution hadnt established that Monell was the killer, raising questions about the quality of evidence presented and about the reliability of witness testimony.

Jeremiah Monell didnt do it, Perry said. The state hasnt given you the evidence they need to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.

He questioned the testimony of the couples son, noting it was dark in the trailer and that he had an obstructed view. Perry also reminded jurors that the boy didnt see the entire incident. So what did he see? What did he not see? Consequently, what did you not hear from him.

He also spoke about what may have happened before the killing.

Tara O'Shea-Watson was killed in Commercial Township in 2016.

Was there a fight? Did Jeremiah Monell actually act in self-defense? I dont know. Those questions were left open for you to answer, Perry said.

He also criticized the work of a fingerprint expert who testified that Monell was a match for the bloody palm print found on the knife, calling his conclusion biased and questioning the reliability of print analysis in general.

Assistant Prosecutor Charles Wettstein told the jury that the defense was throwing out speculation and theories.

Theyre not based on the facts in this case, he said.

While the defense argued that the violent wounds were evidence of passion, Wettstein argued otherwise.

I would suggest to you that its evidence of a persons depravity, of their state of mind, of a vile and horrible and inhuman action, he said.

The evidence shows that Monell planned the killing, Wettstein said.

Eighty-nine sharp force injury wounds, a slash to the throat. Thats purpose, pure and simple. Thats murder, pure and simple.

On the palm print evidence, Wettstein reminded the jury that the expert testified to finding 25 unique points of identification to conclude that the print was a match for Monell.

OShea-Watson, 35, had told friends Monell was abusive to her and that she was planning to take her kids and flee to Tennessee. They were still married but living separately. Monell allegedly assaulted OShea-Watson at her home in April 2016 and she obtained a restraining order against him. He was indicted on a domestic violence charged In August of that year, but the charges were dismissed at OShea-Watsons request.

Monell was suspicious of his estranged wife and would quiz his son about what she was doing, Wettstein said. Witnesses also testified that he screamed at her outside of the trailer on the night she was killed.

Theyre separated, but hes still jealous, Wettstein said. If the defendant couldnt have her then nobody could.

The son testified last week about the night his mother died, saying he saw his father choking his mother before hearing her plead, Let me die in peace.

Assistant Prosecutor Charles Wettstein presents evidence during the murder trial of Jeremiah Monell in Cumberland County Superior Court.Joe Warner | For NJ Advance Medi

Instead, Monell walked back to the kitchen, retrieved a knife and he sees him start to stab her, time and time again," Wettstein said Thursday.

After the attack, Monell walked into his sons room, where the crying child said, You killed her, you killed her, Wettstein said.

All his dad can say is, You shouldnt have seen that.

As police searched for Monell after the killing, they found his pickup truck abandoned near railroad tracks in Cedarville, a community not far from the crime scene.

Monell remained at large for two weeks after the killing. He was found hiding in Atlantic County.

Before closing arguments, defense attorneys presented only one witness, an employee of the Budget Lodge in Buena, where Monell apparently stayed in the days after OShea-Watsons death.

Monell checked in around 7 a.m. on Dec. 19, 2016, the morning after she was killed, paid for a weeklong stay, renewed for another week on Dec. 26 and checked out on Jan. 2, Monal Patel confirmed during testimony Thursday morning.

On cross-examination, Wettstein presented a copy of a 2017 statement Patel gave to state police in which he told investigators that Monell arrived wearing dirty clothing and appeared to have walked to the motel. Patel said Thursday that he didnt recall making the statements.

The motel is 16.7 miles from the murder scene and 7.2 miles from the location in Folsom where Monell was arrested on the afternoon of Jan. 2, the jury was told. He was found in a wooded area behind a pizzeria.

Perry argued that Monell wasnt running and hiding from police, having used his own name to check into the motel. When he was caught, he was walking along railroad tracks eating a slice of pizza, Perry said.

Hes not on the run. He didnt flee from the scene. He had nothing to flee from, Perry argued.

On the suggestion by the defense that Monell wasnt running from the law, Wettstein wondered why he didnt spend the Christmas holiday with his family. Hes hanging out at a hotel on Route 40 in Buena.

He was also making preparations for a longer stay somewhere else, Wettstein told the jury.

After his arrest, Monell contacted his father and asked him to retrieve a bag left near the spot where he was arrested. In the bag, the father found a set of keys and items Wettstein described as survival gear, including propane canisters, a propane burner, duct tape and a pair of sunglasses.

Monell, who chose not to testify, rejected a plea deal in October under which he would have faced 30 years to life. He faces a mandatory life sentence without parole if convicted of murder.

The jury deliberated for about an hour Thursday afternoon and will resume Friday morning.
A jury has convicted a Cumberland County man of murder in the 2016 slaying of his estranged wife.

Jeremiah E. Monell, 34, was accused of stabbing Tara OShea-Watson nearly 90 times in the womans Laurel Lake, Commercial Township, home a week before Christmas.

OShea-Watson suffered stab wounds to her neck, chest and stomach in the Dec. 18, 2016, attack.

The victims family, some in tears, declined to comment after the verdict.

Thank God, one said as she left the courthouse.

Tara O'Shea-Watson was killed in Commercial Township in 2016. (Submitted photo)

During the trial, a prosecution witness testified that Monells bloody palm print was found on a knife recovered from the home.

The couples son testified during the trial that he witnessed the killing.

The child, who was 12 at the time, recounted watching from his bedroom as his father choked and stabbed his mother before telling the sobbing boy, You shouldnt have seen that.

The boy cried himself to sleep that night, he testified.

The morning after the killing, he took his younger sister and ran to a neighbors house, where he reported, Mommys dead. Daddy killed her, prosecutors said.

OShea-Watson, 35, had told friends Monell was abusive to her and that she was planning to take her kids to Tennessee. They were still married but living separately.

Monell allegedly assaulted OShea-Watson at her home in April 2016 and she obtained a restraining order against him. He was indicted on a domestic violence charged In August of that year, but the charges were dismissed at OShea-Watsons request.

Monell was arrested two weeks after the crime in Atlantic County. A defense witness testified Thursday that Monell stayed at a Buena motel in the weeks after OShea-Watsons death.

Jeremiah Monell listens as the verdict is read Friday morning in Cumberland County.

Monell chose not to testify in his own defense.

The jury deliberated for about an hour on Thursday before requesting to hear a recording of the sons earlier testimony. They listened to that for about 90 minutes Friday morning before returning to the deliberation room. In less than an hour, they were back with a verdict.

As with the rest of the trial, Monell showed little emotion as the verdict was read. In addition to first-degree murder, the jury convicted him of weapons offenses.

Monell rejected a plea deal in October under which he would have faced 30 years to life. He now faces a mandatory life sentence without parole.

Superior Court Judge Cristen P. DArrigo scheduled sentencing for March 1.
With temperatures remaining below freezing and a string of winter storms on the way, counties across the state have activated Code Blue shelters -- places where the homeless can go to sleep for the night. But, two of the state legislators who started the program say the system in at least one county is not working as it was intended.

A Code Blue designation means temperatures will be below freezing, and warming centers will open as a place to keep people warm and provide food, clothing, and other assistance.

State Senator Bob Andrzejczak and Assemblyman Bruce Land issued a joint statement Monday saying Cape May County isnt doing enough to keep vulnerable populations warm -- accusations county leaders vehemently denied.

When we crafted the Code Blue legislation with Congressman Van Drew, the intent was for the 21 counties in New Jersey to take an active lead in formulating and implementing a Code Blue alert plan in their respective county, the two men said in the statement.

County governments responsibility does not end with making an alert announcement. We would encourage the Cape May County Board of Freeholders and the Office of Emergency Management to take a more proactive approach...

Cape May County Freeholder Board Director Gerald Thornton fought back this week, saying the county has been working over the past year on how to best handle the change in Code Blue funding that he said was initiated at the state level. The county, he said, has had meetings with its towns that have the largest homeless populations.

Once the state cut off the funding source the county had been using to help those in need during a Code Blue event, I made sure we found money in our budget to fund warming centers, Thornton said.

Cape May County has also held meetings with Burlington County and others, he said, to see what is being done statewide. In the statement, Thornton called the lawmakers' statements political grandstanding.

These comments also suggest that municipalities are not meeting their responsibility, which is not true, Thornton added.

Every January, Monarch Housing Associates conducts an annual statewide Point-in-Time count, surveying the number of homeless individuals and families in the state. During the 2018 count, 103 people in Cape May County were identified as homeless during the night of January 23, 2018. Middle Township recorded the highest amount that night in Cape May County, with the highest concentration located in Middle Township. The 2019 count is scheduled to take place Wednesday, Jan. 23.

Chris Franklin can be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @cfranklinnews or on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters.
A Bergen County man is facing charges he used the Letgo app to find sellers of used items and rob them during the sale, authorities said Friday.

Sincere Degroat, 19, of Engelwood, was arrested after several North Jersey residents said they had been robbed by a man they met on the popular app that allows users to buy and sell used products.

The latest robbery occurred about 12:20 p.m. on Jan. 5 when a woman and her boyfriend told police they with met a man in the 100 block of Second Street in Englewood to sell him their used iPhone.

When they arrived, the prospective buyer met them and, during negotiations, he grabbed the phone from the victims hand, indicated he had a gun and said he would shoot them both, Capt. Timothy Torrell of the citys police department said in a statement.

The couple ran from the robber and flagged down and police car.

In a robbery on Dec. 31, 2018, police said a 27-year-old man from Fort Lee listed his iPhone for sale on Letgo and met with a buyer at a Starbucks on East Palisade Avenue in Englewood.

During negotiations, the buyer physically grabbed the phone from the sellers hand and ran from the area, Torrell said.

Days earlier on Dec. 26, a 21-year-old woman from Paramus told police she listed an Apple Watch for sale on Letgo and arranged to meet the buyer at the McDonalds restaurant on West Palisade Avenue in Englewood.

She agreed and the two met and began negotiations. A price was agreed upon at which time the seller handed the buyer the (watch) and cash was exchanged, Torrell said.

The buyer then quickly left the restaurant, at which time the seller realized she had been handed counterfeit money, Torrell said.

The woman chased the man but lost sight of him, Torrell said.

Detectives identified Degroat as a suspect following an investigation and arrested him as he walked through Mackay Park in Englewood, Torrell said.

Found in his possession was the stolen iPhone from the Jan. 5 robbery, as well as drug paraphernalia, Torrell said.

Degroat was charged with one count of first-degree armed robbery, two counts of third-degree terroristic threats and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was taken to the Bergen County Jail to await a hearing.

In what Torrell said was a related crime, a 17-year-old North Bergen teenager was lured through Instagram by the prospect of meeting a female in the area of Lake Street and Broad Avenue, Torrell said.

When he arrived, three males approached him. One of them, armed with a handgun, pointed it at the victims chest while the other two males stole his backpack, iPhone and (Apple) AirPods, the captain said.

Police later arrested one of the suspects, Xavier Medina, 18, of Englewood, Torrell said.

Medina was charged with first-degree armed robbery and held at the Bergen County Jail ahead of a court hearing.

Torrell said more suspects are sought in all of the robberies and thefts.

Anyone with information is asked to call Englewood detectives at 201-568-4875.

Xavier Medina, 18, of Englewood was charged with robbery after a teen told police he was held up at gunpoint.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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EAST HAVEN  Six years after the indictments of local police officers for harassment, conspiracy and excessive force against Latinos, the wounds of a bias scandal that made national news still seem to fester within the East Haven Police Department.

While some local law enforcement personnel stayed on and have risen in rank, including Chief Edward Lennon, Officer Vincent Ferrara, one of a few in the department who helped the FBI ferret out the four crooked cops , is trying to hang on.

Read about public policy every day in Hearsts CT Politics newsletter.

A federal settlement after the bias investigation supposedly protected Ferrara from any form of retaliation, even subtle snubbing, for cooperating with the U.S. Department of Justice. According to recent sworn depositions as part of Ferraras federal lawsuit againstin connection, some East Haven police officers engaged in a range of harassment against Ferrara.

But his future is in doubt, amid charges that he lied to an investigating officer. Lennon is in the process of trying to fire Ferraro for disciplinary charges that the embattled officers lawyers say are relatively minor offenses accumulated while performing a tough job during an 11-year town career, at a time when he is being treated for a life-threatening disease.

Claims of retaliation

Ferrara was the only on-duty officer not informed of a mid-shift Thanksgiving dinner at headquarters in 2015. When his wife later called to complain, another officer cut off her phone call at headquarters.

When Ferrara requested routine backup during a motor vehicle stop, it took a responding officer more than half an hour to drive to the scene. Other police officers, including those now in supervisory roles, allegedly told young officers to avoid Ferrara.

In hundreds of pages of sworn depositions made in response to Ferraras pending civil lawsuit against more than a dozen people, including Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., police admit that Ferrara was among those labeled a rat for assisting in the investigation that led to the Jan. 18, 2012, indictments and subsequent felony verdicts against Sgt. John Miller and Officers Dennis Spaulding, David Cari and Jason Zullo.

Lt. Joseph Murgo, in a 181-page deposition in connection with Ferraras federal lawsuit, acknowledged knowing that other officers, including now-Sgts. Kevin Klarman and Craig Michalowski, told other cops not to associate with Ferrara, also in apparent violation of the deal that the town of East Haven reached with the Department of Justice that expired at the end of 2017. The Department of Justice has declined comment.

Meanwhile, a report that the East Haven Board of Police Commissioners is reviewing, as it appears on-track to fire Ferrara, was prepared by Internal Affairs Detective Robert Brockett, who acknowledged in a deposition that he had been accused of calling Ferrara a rat and telling a local resident that he would not back up Ferrara on any calls.

There was never an internal probe of those allegations.

Police chief wanted evidence of outside work

Brockett, who roasted a turkey for the potluck holiday dinner in 2015, told Ferraras lead attorney, James S. Brewer of Hartford, that he did not know why Ferrara wasnt invited to the event, for which several on-duty officers also prepared side dishes. While he testified that the invitation was broadcast over the police radio system, another officer said it was strictly a telephone-and-text invitation, and Ferrara was left out.

Brockett denied using the rodent term against Ferrara when he was a street patrolman three years ago, before his promotion to the department in-house investigative unit.

Brockett testified that as an Internal Affairs detective, he first accepted a verbal order from Chief Lennon in the fall of 2017 to scour Ferraras departmental emails for evidence of possible on-duty work as a part-time salesman for a body armor company. Brockett said that over the course of three days he found several emails from the company  Angel Armor  which are allowed under police-computer rules, but none that Ferrara sent on the companys behalf.

From the police depositions In the 217-page deposition of last Oct. 15, East Haven Investigative Affairs Detective Brockett said that it was a superior officer who advised him in 2015 that Ferrara had voiced concern, after a citizen said Brackett referred to Ferrara as a "rat" and promised that he would not backup Ferrara if assistance was requested. James Brewer, one of Ferrara's attorneys, spent four and a half hours questioning Brockett on a variety of issues, including the "rat" remark as relayed from a local woman. Brewer: "....So she's just making this out of whole cloth?" Brockett: "She must be." Brewer: "But unfortunately back in 2015 when this complaint was made, there was no IA (Internal Affairs review) conducted. Right?" Brockett: "Not that I'm aware of...." Lt. Joseph Murgo Brewer also interviewed Lt. Joseph Murgo, Oct. 17, 2018, during more than three hours of testimony that totaled 183 pages. Brewer: "....You might need backup for traffic safety for both the officer and the vehicles involved, too. Right? Murgo: "Yes." Brewer: "Were you aware of Vince Ferrara complaining that he wasn't getting backup or timely backup for his calls?" Murgo: "Yes." Brewer: "Now was there an IA opened about that? Murgo: "Yes." Brewer: "Are you sure?" Murgo: "I believe so." Brewer: "Who did the IA?' Murgo: "Well, I investigated it up until I get my findings, and then I referred it to the internal affairs officer..." Brewer: "Do you know what the outcome was?" Murgo: "I do not believe it was substantiated." Brewer: "Now do you recall, during the same series of reports, a complaint, in addition to not getting backup, that - by Ferrara, that Brockett was, quote, running his mouth off about him to someone on the street? Murgo: "Yes." See More Collapse

What Brockett, like Lennon  a defendant in Ferraras 14-month-old lawsuit  did find were seven photos of nude and topless women, sent by at least one woman to Ferraras police email, which Ferrara then forwarded to his personal email, in an alleged violation of departmental policies. The photos, presented recently to the police board, are the main element in Lennons case to terminate Ferrara, who has been battling brain cancer and has been out of work for more than a year.

During a nearly two-hour interview with Brockett, Ferrara initially denied knowing the women, prompting the detective to probe deeper, looking among Ferraras Facebook friends. Brewer says Ferraras reticence could have been the result of medication he was taking for the severe headaches he suffered in the days before his brain-cancer diagnosis in December 2017, just days after Brocketts interview.

This, and a 2016 incident involving a previous excessive-force altercation with a 17-year-old on a bicycle, are parts of Lennons attempt to terminate Ferrara, who was put on paid administrative leave in early December 2017 and locked out of the agencys computer system.

Ferraras pending civil lawsuit is against Maturo, who in the town charter has sole discretion in hiring and firing police chiefs; Lennon, who was also the compliance officer in the wake of the federal investigation; Sal Brancati, the towns director of administration and management; Joseph Coppola, assistant director of administration and management; Brent Larrabee, the former police chief; James Naccarato, deputy police chief; the town of East Haven, and the five-member Board of Police Commissioners.

We need more time to make a fair job judging this, said William Illingworth, chairman of the police board, at the end of a recent 90-minute special meeting in which Stephen M. Sedor, a Pullman and Comley attorney hired by Lennon, laid out the case against Ferrara, including previous disciplinary reports.

Through an investigation of that matter, Officer Ferrara not only denied that he did that, but then he denied knowing who those individuals were, Sedor told the commission, adding that he misrepresented the facts during Brocketts investigation and lied about his relationship with at least one woman. The forwarding of the photos themselves, Sedor said, violates the agency policy on transmitting pornographic images.

From the chiefs standpoint, the only reasonable step to take would be the termination of the officer, Sedor said during a half-hour presentation. The concern also is that if the officer is not terminated, the message that it would send to the other officers about their conduct if they were to make this representation in IA interviews would be disastrous.

He has some blemishes on his record

After Sedors presentation to the police board, Norman Pattis, a nationally known civil-rights and employment attorney who represented Zullo during the towns bias-and-harassment scandal, said it was ironic he was back in town, now representing Ferrara, a former cooperating witness for the federal Department of Justice.

Pattis said that in his career, employees who seem to get the toughest treatment are school teachers and police.

And in proceedings like this, its easy to forget what we ask police officers to do on a day-to-day basis, Pattis said. He has some blemishes on his record but theyre not very different from what you see among other officers.

Pattis said that during his 25 years in practice, police officials in particular tend to massively overcharge those up on disciplinary charges. He said that the case against Ferrara is essentially in three parts: the salacious photos; potential misuse of email; and the misleading statements.

He said police officers are asked daily to make snap decisions and act based on their training. He noted that the incident with the teenager on a bicycle, whom Ferrara took to the ground and which first resulted in a 10-day departmental suspension, was reduced by the state Board of Labor and Arbitration to five days, indicating a possible overreaction of punishment by East Haven officials.

Pattis said the photographs were not distributed beyond Ferraras personal email. Pattis noted limited use of personal email is permitted under departmental rules.

There is no blanket prohibition on the use of email, he said. He sent the photos to himself. He did not bring shame or discredit on the town of East Haven.

Officers arent expected to be perfect, Pattis said, noting that another charge against Ferrara centers on his failure to report allegedly unreasonable use of force by another cop. Theyre expected to be reasonable. These are not shocking uses of force. Force is used routinely, each and every day, on the job.

Pattis proposed some kind of compromise suspension rather than termination.

From these three instances of misconduct in his 11 years in East Haven, you dont see a pattern of rampant lawlessness, he said. You dont see a pattern of exposing the city to liability. Mr. Ferrara may have made mistakes and may not be perfect, but the question for you is: Does he warrant dismissal on a slight disciplinary matter? His most serious offense is the lack of candor. Could he have been more forthcoming? Yes. Mr. Ferrara wants to be a police officer.

Ferrara, who late last year was cleared to return to work, is scheduled for an independent medical examination in early February. Pattis asked the commission to defer a decision until after that subsequent report.

I think the town of East Haven owes him that much, Pattis said. Mr. Ferrara hung in there and he came to East Haven and he helped the town during a dark time and now he struggles with health issues. If hes cleared to return to work, then make a decision. If hes not clear to return to work, give him the opportunity to apply for a disability pension.

Pattis warned that if Ferrara were fired, the action would add fuel to his pending federal lawsuit.
The Gary Commission on the Social Status of Black Males in collaboration with the East Chicago and Gary Housing Authorities will host the Juvenile Reentry Assistance Program from 10 a.m. to noon Thursday in the Green Room at 839 Broadway, Gary. Those attending are asked to access the entrance in the rear (east side) of the building. An introductory presentation will be delivered by Attorney Carla Morgan. The JRAP program provides free legal assistance for youth who qualify that reside in Gary and East Chicago that are between ages 14-24. Services include expungements/sealing of juvenile and adult records, driver license restoration assistance and help with child support issues. More information is with Bennie Muhammad at 219-880-2284.
COHOES  Sharon Mitchell has been on a waitlist for the shingles vaccine for seven weeks.

The retired high school English teacher from Cohoes is worried what will happen if she doesn't get it soon. Two of her friends had shingles several years ago, and one has painful flare-ups to this day.

"It's frustrating, for the pharmacy and for me," said Mitchell, 71. "They don't even have an estimate. Usually, John can tell you we'll be getting some in X number of weeks, but he doesn't know with this."

John McDonald, her pharmacist and state Assemblyman, said he has a list of 70 customers at Marra's Pharmacy waiting to get the vaccine. He's been out since September, and other pharmacies nationwide have been out even longer  since spring, when the two-dose vaccine known as Shingrix first became broadly available in the U.S.

On Friday, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, visited the pharmacy on Remsen Street in Cohoes and suggested the federal government shutdown was only exacerbating the problem.

Normally, he said, Congress could call on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to address the drug shortage, either by expediting regulatory hurdles for the manufacturer or redirecting shipments from low-priority to high-priority areas. But due to the federal shutdown, he said, the staff charged with doing that are all furloughed.

"This is one of so many examples of how this government shutdown is hurting people in the Capital Region and elsewhere," he said.

"Because of the shutdown there's no one home at the FDA," he added. "We call the FDA and say, 'Can't you do this?' We don't get an answer because there's no one there."

Shingles is more serious and more prevalent than most people realize, health officials say.

Caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, shingles causes a painful rash that may appear as a stripe of blisters on the trunk of the body or the face. If it spreads to the eyes it can cause loss of vision. Anyone who has recovered from chicken pox may get shingles later in life when the dormant virus reactivates, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

While the rash and blisters eventually fade with treatment, nerve pain can persist for months or even years after.

Roughly one in every three Americans will develop shingles in their lifetime, and the risk increases the older you get.

In October 2017, a federal panel of immunization experts made two recommendations that helped contribute to the vaccine shortage experienced today. It recommended that all adults over age 50 get the vaccine (down from a previous recommendation of age 60 and older) and it recommended the newly developed Shingrix vaccine over the longstanding Zostavax vaccine, as the former was found to be significantly more effective at preventing the virus.

But the maker of the new vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline, wasn't prepared for the demand that followed. Shortages were being reported by May 2018, according to multiple news reports.

Schumer on Friday said that, ideally, the federal government would reopen and the FDA would intervene to help address the shortage. Barring that, however, he said the FDA could declare the current vaccine shortage an emergency, which would allow the agency to bring back staff to address the problem.

"I am urging the FDA to go above and beyond, to do whatever it can, amidst this needless shutdown and pull out all the stops to step in and help remedy this shortage before it becomes a full-on crisis," he said. "And it is why I am, once again, urging the president to see the light here and stop holding agencies that have nothing to do with the debate at hand hostage."
Father Lazar asked me if I ever thought about getting married and having my own children. I told him I did think about that at times. However, my desire to be the light of Christ to others was a much stronger desire, Starcevich said. Father Lazar asked me what other occupation, other than being a nun, do I think would accomplish the same mission. Now, I was only about 120 pounds or less back then, and Im only 5-4, but I looked at him and said, Well, a police officer, but Father Lazar, no police department is going to hire me! Im female and (really small)!
HARTFORD  A former New Haven behavioral health clinician group and its owner have agreed to pay $100,000 and will be suspended from participating in Connecticuts Medicaid program for 10 years for allegedly engaging in a systematic and long-term pattern of submitting false claims to the program, officials said in a release.

New Haven resident Lamaara Davis is the owner and CEO of the Davis Group, which conducted business in New Haven under the name Caring Family Solutions and provided, among other services, temporary child care, after-school programs, support groups for children and summer camps, according to the release from Attorney General William Tong and state Department of Social Services Commissioner Roderick L. Bremby. The Davis Group enrolled in the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program  the states Medicaid program  as a behavioral health clinician group in 2014.

A state investigation, initiated by a fraud referral from the DSS, found that from April 2014 through April 2017, the Davis Group submitted claims for psychotherapy services allegedly provided to CMAP patients by licensed behavioral health providers. The state alleged that the vast majority of those services were actually provided by unlicensed persons, in violation of CMAP regulations.

The state investigation developed evidence that, in some cases, psychotherapy services were never provided to patients at all and patients were not physically present on the dates that services were purported to have been provided, according to the release. In other cases, the state found that the services provided were not psychotherapy services, but instead were services such as homework assistance, support groups or recreational activities that are not eligible for reimbursement through the CMAP, officials said.

We take very seriously allegations of fraud and abuse in our taxpayer-funded healthcare programs, Tong said in the release. The DSS relies on the accuracy and truthfulness of the information provided on claims for services when it reimburses healthcare providers. Services performed by unlicensed providers expose Medicaid patients to substandard care and undermine the integrity of our healthcare system. When providers engage in false and fraudulent schemes, they will be held accountable by my office.

DSS investigators worked closely with the Attorney Generals Office and other state and federal partners to disrupt these fraudulent practices, Bremby said in the release.

While the situation by no means represents behavioral health providers in general, strong anti-fraud measures are critical to safeguard the integrity of the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program, he said.

As part of the settlement with the state, Davis and the Davis Group have agreed to pay $100,000 by forfeiting $12,409 in suspended payments, paying $25,000 immediately and repaying the balance of the settlement over time with interest. The settlement funds will be returned to the CMAP, according to the release.

Davis and the Davis Group have agreed to be suspended from CMAP participation for 10 years. The Davis Groups Caring Family Solutions is no longer in operation.

Thursdays action is part of a larger effort by the State of Connecticuts Interagency Fraud Task Force, which was created in July 2013, to wage a coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute healthcare fraud directed at state healthcare and human service programs, officials said in the release. The task force includes a number of Connecticut agencies and works with federal counterparts in the U. S. Attorneys Office and the U.S. Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General  Office of Investigations. For more information, please visit www.fightfraud.ct.gov.

Anyone with knowledge of suspected fraud or abuse in the public healthcare system is asked to contact the Attorney Generals Antitrust and Government Program Fraud Department at 860-808-5040 or by email at ag.fraud@ct.gov; the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at 860-258-5986 or by email at conndcj@ct.gov; or the Department of Social Services fraud reporting hotline at 1-800-842-2155, online at www.ct.gov/dss/reportingfraud, or by email to providerfraud.dss@ct.gov.

Assistant Attorney General Joshua Jackson, Forensic Fraud Examiner Thomas Martin, Legal Investigator Peter Harrington, and Assistant Attorney General Michael Cole, chief of the Antitrust and Government Program Fraud Department, assisted the Attorney General with this matter, the release said.
NEW HAVEN  Police Chief Anthony Campbell stood to celebrate his officers Thursday.

Reporting on crime statistics of last year, Campbell said crime is lower in nearly every category thanks to the commitment of individual officers and relationships with community agencies.

New Haven suffered 10 homicides in 2018, two of which the states attorneys office is investigating as self-defense incidents. Its consistent with an overall downward trend in crime over the past decade.

The real heroes that make all of this happen are the men and women who put on a uniform that bears the name New Haven and a name tag that represents their family, Campbell said. The roughly 400 of this department have made good on their promise to serve and protect.

The city last year saw 50 non-fatal shootings, the lowest number since the city has been keeping records, Campbell said. And confirmed shots-fired were only 101.

Adding the number of homicides from 2016, 2017 and 2018, the city still doesnt amount to the 34 homicides it saw in 2011.

That is significant, Campbell said. That is progress. That is lives being changed and saved. Not may people can say that what they do changes and saves lives.

Campbell credited reduction in crime to collaboration among agencies  clergy, states attorney, Drug Enforcement Administration, the university police departments, neighboring police departments, adult and juvenile probation offices, Project Longevity and YouthStat, which diverts youths from crime.

The city has seen graduations increase because a safe, healthy community is what you get when you have this great level of collaboration, he said.

The heavy lifting in this effort has been born by the New Haven Police Department, Mayor Toni N. Harp said. It takes a village in some ways but its led by our police department.

During the first month of Harps first term as mayor, she was at a funeral for a youth killed in gun violence. Five years later, Harp said she could describe a much improved New Haven, much safer New Haven, a city better equipped to squash the surge of gun violence.

New Haven saw a time when many of the shooting and homicide victims were very young. In 2014, the city had 14 youths shot and in 2015, after starting YouthStat, the number was down to eight. It remained eight the next year and was one lower the following year. In 2018, New Haven saw five youths shot.

When you look at how its affecting youth, its reducing high school-age and below youth who are being significantly impacted by gun violence and death, Campbell said.

The reduction in crime comes as the department is understaffed and without a contract. The department will be reducing the budgeted number of sworn officers from 495 to 430, but right now its operating with approximately 377 officers.

Weve been able to have this level of success because the officers are dedicated, Campbell said. Theyre working a lot of overtime, but you can only push people for so long before you start running into problems, compromising officer safety and being able to handle calls in a timely fashion.

With the department going into its third year without a contract, it also has seen a number of retirements last year and seven already this year. Campbell said itll be important for New Haven to retain more officers, because 20-year veterans cant be replaced by new hires.

The relationships weve built for the last 20 years means something to us and we want to build on them, Campbell said.

mdignan@hearstmediact.com
CHESHIRE  An 11-year-old girl who committed suicide in late December was being bullied in school, her stepfather told police.

Anjelita Estrada, who had moved to Connecticut with her family, was being bullied in school, the childs stepfather told the Cheshire police officers who were called to the familys Mixville Road home Dec. 23, 2018. Police released a copy of the incident report Thursday.

The stepfather, Michiele Giorgio, said the family had moved from New Mexico to Cheshire in July 2018, according to the report filed by Officer Tracy Gonzalez. Anjelita started sixth grade at Doolittle Elementary School in September and Giorgio told police she was being bullied because she was Hispanic.

Giorgio told police Anjelita had gotten into a fight with one of the girls who was bullying her. The girl served an in-school suspension as a result of the incident, which occurred several weeks before the suicide, according to the incident report

Cheshire Superintendent of Schools Jeff Solan declined to address any of the specifics related to the fight or other issues specific to the girl. But Solan said Friday the districts schools investigate all reports of mean-spirited behavior.

Our administrative team then evaluates the circumstances often in consultation with other administrators, educators, and occasionally the School Resource Officer to determine appropriate consequences, Solan said.

Cheshire has two resource officers that serve the district, according to Lt. Michael Durkee, a spokesman for the police department.

The police department would only become involved if there is any criminal activity involved or there is something to the point of harassment, Durkee said. Fights between students are investigated, he said.

School officials held the first in a series of community meeting Jan. 16 to discuss bullying and resources to prevent it. Michelle Piccerillo, the towns director of human services, took part in that meeting and said Friday that parents need to be aware of signs that may indicate that a child is at risk for suicide.

Those signs include:

Direct treats of suicide or those that are indirect like a child saying, I wish I could fall asleep and never wake up again.

Talking or writing about wanting to hurt or kill himself or herself.

Looking for ways to kill themself by seeking access to firearms, available pills, or other means.

Discussing having no reason to live or no purpose in life.

Anxiety, agitation, unable to sleep or sleeping all of the time.

Giving away possessions.

Hopelessness.

Withdrawal from friends, family and society.

Piccerillo said her office regularly works with Cheshires young people in an effort to help them build their self-esteem. Low self-esteem, she said, often is why bullies do what they do and also is an issue for those who are being bullied, she said.

The face of bullying has really changed with the introduction of social media, Piccerillo said. It has become more layered and harder to get away from. Before social media, you go into your home and get away from it for a while.

State Rep. Lezlye Zupkus, R-Prospect, issued a statement Friday regarding Anjelitas death expressing sympathy to the entire Estrada family. Zupkus district includes a portion of Cheshire.

May we find ways to keep our memories of Anjelita alive forever, Zupkus said. Losses like this one remind us about how precious, and sometimes fleeting, life can be. They also remind us of the importance of reaching out to one another to offer strength and support and to seek help when needed.

Zupkus said she has an 11-year-old daughter of her own.

This sudden, heartbreaking tragedy hits home for me and my family, Zupkus said. I stand ready to work with Cheshire school officials, educators, parents and other state officials to make sure every student feels safe with the school culture and climate.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
Galloway, Rogers and the three others followed the SUV to Park West Apartments, Martin said. At least two people got out of Galloways vehicle, approached the SUV and tried to open a door, police said. One person tried to shoot at the SUV but the rounds did not fire, Martin said. Another shot was fired, shattering a window of the SUV, according to Martin.
OLD SAYBROOK  Donna the Buffalo has been playing its long-running brand of rhythmic, deeply grooving, accordion and organ-drenched, zydeco-spiced, old-time fiddle-infused, earthy and VERY danceable roots jam music for longer than most of you know.

And for just as long, their Herd of fans has been following them wherever they go.

Could it really be possible that you STILL havent heard of Donna the Buffalo? (Or Herd of em? as the ubiquitous DTB bumper stickers ask.)

Dont worry, its not too late.

With a new album, Dance in the Street  their eighth studio album  out, Donna the Buffalo will perform at The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center on Jan. 24.

Showtime is 7:30 p.m. The Gary Douglas Band opens. Tickets are $39-$42, available in advance at thekate.org or 860-510-0453. The Kate is at 300 Main St.

Dance in the Street, Donna the Buffalos first new album in five years, came out in November, just about the time the band played its last Connecticut gig at Fairfield Theatre Companys StageOne.

In Fairfield, as at the Rhythm & Roots Festival in Rhode Island over Labor Day weekend, all of the new songs they played sounded great and had folks dancing!

So who is this Donna the Buffalo?

Well, its not a who. Its a what  a really good band. And there is no Donna. The name is a twist on dawn of the Buffalo.

Donna the Buffalo was co-founded in Trumansburg, New York, just outside Ithaca, by Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins. It has had a tight relationship with The Herd for more than 30 years now.

Puryear and Nevins have been joined onstage for the past few years by Dave McCracken on keyboards, Kyle Spark on bass and Mark Raudabaugh on drums.

On Dance in the Street, just as they do every time they play, Donna the Buffalo shows that it knows a thing or two about rhythm.

Cajun, zydeco and old-time rhythms. Some reggae riddim. Various guitar and fiddle rhythms. The rhythms of traveling by bus year after year for more than a quarter-century now, criss-crossing America and returning to the same places (and occasionally new or slightly different places) over and over again.

With a warm, soulful Lowery organ washing over it all.

Some other good stuff coming up:

Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters will play the blues Jan. 19 at Infinity Hall in Hartford. Showtime is 8 p.m. Tickets are $29-$49, available in advance at infinityhall.com or 866-666-6306. Infinity Hall is at 32 Front St. in Hartford.

The Jayhawks will perform at Fairfield Theatre Companys Warehouse Jan. 20. Folk Uke opens. Showtime is 8 p.m. Tickets are $48, available in advance at fairfieldtheatre.org or 203-259-1036. The Warehouse is at 70 Sanford St. in Fairfield.

The great Alejandro Escovedo will play at FTCs StageOne on Jan. 26, with Don Antonio opening. Showtime is 7:45 p.m. Tickets are $48, available in advance at fairfieldtheatre.org or 203-259-1036. StageOne is at 70 Sanford St. in Fairfield.
Hamburg, N.Y.  Two people are dead after an apparent murder-suicide Wednesday morning in Hamburg, south of Buffalo.

Police said 31-year-old Kevin Kopper shot and killed 25-year-old Danielle Morse and then himself, according to the Buffalo News. Neighbors told police the couple had lived at the home, a three-family residence, about three months.

The incident began when Kopper called police and said he had shot his girlfriend and planned to kill himself, according to the News. Police responded and when they knocked on the door, they heard a single gunshot.

Officers entered the home and found Morse lying on the kitchen floor. She was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the News.

Kopper was found dead in an adjacent bedroom.

"This is a total shock to me," said Leroy Osborn, a neighbor, according to the News. "Just yesterday these people were here. I didn't know them very well. A young man and a young woman whose life was snuffed out suddenly."

Police are still investigating. Autopsies will be conducted on the bodies, according to WKBW in Buffalo.

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
"Mazda's done it again in 2019, and taken home three of the 12 category wins for AJAC's Canadian Car and Utility Vehicle of the Year 2019. Winning one category is a great achievement, and winning two categories is exceptional. To win three categories is a very clear demonstration that Mazda's vehicles are right in sync with what Canadians want to drive this year," said Mark Richardson, President, AJAC.

Mazda prides itself on building some of the finest vehicles in the industry, and these awards go a long way to back up our confidence. Following 2018's three category wins, Mazda became the most awarded brand by AJAC over their more than thirty-year history. By adding another three category wins in 2019, Mazda only further cements this title in place.

The 2019 MX-5 and MX-5 RF exist only to put a smile on the driver's face; a mission that's been in place since the first MX-5 debuted to the world almost thirty years ago. Even though pure speed has never been at the top of the list, 2019 sees some major revisions to the 2.0L engine under the hood of the 'ND' generation MX-5, raising the power output to 181 horsepower, the most ever in a MX-5. With this comes a higher redline, allowing the engine to rev all the way up to a new high of 7,500 RPM. As a result of numerous changes, the 2019 MX-5 is quicker, more responsive and more engaging to drive, adhering to Mazda's unique Jinba Ittai"horse and rider as one"engineering philosophy.

AJAC's 2018 Best Small Utility, the Mazda CX-5 compact crossover, returns to take the top spot once again, winning the recently-renamed category, 2019 Best Mid-Size Utility. The 2018 CX-5 took a comprehensive package and introduced updates to both 2.0L and 2.5L engines which reduced internal friction, increasing low-end torque and reducing real-world fuel consumption. The 2.5L Skyactiv-G engine also introduced cylinder-deactivation to further enhance fuel economy with gains of up to 20 percent improvements at city speeds, and approximately 5 percent on the highway. The 2019 CX-5 (not yet available for testing for these awards) ups the performance envelope with the introduction of the Skyactiv-G 2.5T, a turbocharged engine producing 250 horsepower and 310 lb-ft of torque at just 2,000 RPM. A new Signature trim adds a higher level of sophistication with authentic materials used in the cabin, such as Cocoa Nappa leather, and real Abachi wood trim throughout the interior.

The 2019 Mazda CX-9 is also a returning winner, taking the award for AJAC's Best Large Utility for the second year in a row. The CX-9 is Mazda's largest vehicle, featuring three rows of seats with room for up to seven passengers. For 2019, the CX-9 received improvements to the interior quietness and interior craftsmanship, and added new features customers have been asking for, such as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, 360 View Monitor, and ventilated front seats. In addition, changes were made to the steering and handling performance to provide even better control and drivability to exceed the driver's expectations.

"We are very humbled to be awarded three of the category awards for AJAC's 'Best New' vehicles once again in 2019," said Massey Kondo, President, Mazda Canada. "These awards are borne out of the unbiased and respected opinions of some of Canada's most influential auto experts. We are grateful that this platform exists to highlight the very best vehicles available to consumers today, including the MX-5, CX-5, and CX-9, which we are proud to feature in our Canadian line-up."

The AJAC Canadian Car and Utility Vehicle of the Year awards program offers some of the most coveted automotive awards available on the Canadian automotive landscape, and represent the collective voice of Canada's top automotive experts. Vehicles are judged on a large variety of objective and subjective qualities, meaning there is no single factor that determines a win. Instead, the vehicle must represent an overall package of quality, value, comfort, fuel economy, and many other factors that are critical to the Canadian consumer.

About Mazda Canada Inc.

Mazda Canada Inc. is responsible for the sales and marketing, customer service and parts support of Mazda vehicles in Canada. Headquartered in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Mazda Canada has a nationwide network of 164 dealerships. For additional information visit Mazda Canada's media website at www.media.mazda.ca.

SOURCE Mazda Canada Inc.

For further information: Chuck Reimer, Mazda Canada Inc., 905-787-7079; Sandra Lemaitre, Mazda Canada Inc., 905-787-7167

Related Links

http://www.mazda.ca


Trinity Baptist Church: 1831 Virginia St.  All month long the Youth Department will collect coins as part of its "Raise the Roof" drive. The Youth Ministry will hold Bible Bowl lessons from 6-7 p.m. on Wednesdays. The church will host its first Youth Summit, starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday. Presenters include representatives from the Gary Community School System, Lake Ridge Schools, Merrillville Community Schools, Edgewater, the Division of Family & Children Services, the Lake Co. Juvenile Justice Dept. and Love for Jaylin Foundation. Please bring your children for this life-changing event. Sign up: 219-702-4150. This is a free event.
A new full-service cafe on Bank Street in New Milford has caught the attention of townspeople.

River & Rail Cafe at 21 Bank St., formerly the home of Dagwoods, opened on Jan. 4.

I love the ambiance, the coziness, said resident Rachelle Goldberg of New Milford, who has been to the cafe four times.

She praised the cafes savory food and described the owners as welcoming and caring.

Customer Tracey Ruscil agreed.

The food is artfully plated and delicious, said Ruscil, who works on Bank Street. Im still thinking about the perfectly cooked bacon.

Ethan and Nicky Grievous purchased the building that houses the cafe in August. With the help of family, including her contractor-father and her designer-mother, they transformed the space into their vision  a space for the community to relax with friends and enjoy a meal.

We both wanted to open a business together and incorporate all the elements we believe people deserve when they go out, Nicky Grievous said.

She works the front end of the cafe, where she can focus on her passions  coffee and community. Ethan Grievous showcases his culinary skills creating dishes in the kitchen.

We are bringing people together over food and drinks, Nicky Grievous said, smiling at a customer. Its about the connections, the storytelling.

Ethan Grievous agrees.

I like to see people hang out talking, having coffee and having a good time, he said.

The cafes breakfast menu includes ham and cheese on a croissant, Brioche French toast, and apple cinnamon crepes.

The lunch menu includes Gruyere and Fontina grilled cheese on Pullman bread, roasted turkey club, and a trio of roasted vegetables on rosemary focaccia.

Soup and salad options, and childrens menu are also available. The owners expect to add snacks such as cheese boards and flat breads.

Everything on the menu is thoughtfully planned, seasoned, and made with care, said Ethan Grievous, who began working in a kitchen as a teenager. Food is something you can put a lot of passion into.

Theres nothing else I would rather do than get up at 4 a.m. and make pastries, he added.

The couple hopes to make their own breads in the future.

In addition to food, the cafe plans to offer live music and open mic poetry events.

The couple, who celebrated their first wedding anniversary in September, initially thought theyd find a space in New Yorks Hudson Valley, but after exploring western Connecticut, the charm of New Milford spoke to their hearts.

We knew right away, Nicky Grievous said of their decision to open a business in town. The sense of community and spirit here is like nothing Ive experienced.

The business features five small round tables with chairs, two counters that overlook Bank Street.

A counter along one wall boasts River & Rail Cafe hats and T-shirts, coffee cozies, and chocolates.

Customers can order at the counter, then sit and be served, or they can sit and order. Takeout and catering is available.

Ruscil described the cafe as having a high end feel with reasonable prices.

The owners said pursuing their dream together is fulfilling. We go to bed with a smile and wake up with a smile, Nicky Grevious said.

This is so much more than about my husband and I, she added. Its about being a place in the community, where theres no rush to leave.

Ruscil, who described the cafe as beautifully decorated, with great attention to detail, said she appreciated how accommodating the owners are to allergies.

They assured me that if anything I ordered wasnt what I expected, they would be happy to let me have something else, she said.

Ruscil also praised the cafes coffee, which the owners get from Ethan Grievous native Virginia.

River & Rail Cafe at 21 Bank St. in New Milford is open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. For more information, call 860-799-7272.
NEW HAVEN  As the United States population grows annually, Connecticuts inability to keep apace might have political consequences.

According to U.S. Census Bureau projections from 2018, the nations population grew by 18.4 million, or 5.96 percent, from the last census in 2010; but Connecticut ranks 48th in the nation for state growth, and is one of three states projected to have shrunk  by 1,482 people  since 2010.

A lot of it has to do with the job opportunities in Connecticut; weve had major corporations leave such as General Electric recently, and Connecticut is still financially in a recession-like economy, said Gayle Alberda, assistant professor of politics and public administration at Fairfield University. Another big thing is brain drain, and its hard to retire here.

Wesley Renfro, associate professor of political science at Quinnipiac University, said the states effectively plateaued population is a ticking time bomb, because young people are neither moving to nor staying in the state, so the population is aging.

Theres fewer young people here than there should be, he said.

Experts say Connecticuts lagging population is of interest because of the impact it could have on the states congressional representatives, of which there are currently five. Following the census, Congress reapportions the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives every 10 years based on state population so citizens have approximately equal representation. In 2010, the average size of a congressional district was 710,767, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

For now, experts believe Connecticuts five congressional districts will remain intact past 2020.

Its possible, but its very unlikely that Connecticut will lose a representative following 2020, said Jeffrey Ladewig, associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut.

Ladewig said that in 2010, residents of Connecticut were slightly underrepresented in Congress, with a population large enough for about 5.05 congressional districts. By 2020, following current trends, Ladewig said, Connecticut is likely to maintain five congressional districts, but will be overrepresented with a population befitting an estimated 4.75 districts.

By 2030, in all likelihood, well lose a seat, he said.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, said that if the experts are right and Connecticut could lose a congressional seat in a little more 11 years, There are many critical issues that working families face in Connecticut now and over the next decade  including the dramatic effects climate change and rising automation could have on jobs, the environment and national security  but reapportionment is not high on that list.

I have no doubt that Connecticut will continue to have representation in Congress from strong leaders who are fighting for working families and the middle class. she said.

Ladewig said the census numbers dont tell the full story with reapportionment, as overseas populations such as those serving in the military are absent from census estimates of the resident population but will be included in apportionment discussions. He said the effect on Connecticut of including overseas residents would likely be negligible though.

The effects on Connecticut politics of losing a congressional district could be significant.

It would set off a pretty complicated process within state-level politics, Renfro said. There would be a lot of jockeying over five seats becoming four seats, because an incumbent would lose a seat. Given that Connecticuts delegation to the House of Representatives is overwhelmingly Democratic most of the time, it has potential to be a nasty intra-party fight over how five seats gets translated into four.

The Connecticut legislature is responsible for drawing congressional boundaries and, once they have a draft map in place, it takes a supermajority vote to approve new congressional district boundaries.

Alberda said a political battle in 2030 could be influenced by what occurs in 2020, if state-level political districts were redrawn, which could tip the balance of power between urban centers and suburbs and between Democrats and Republicans.

One has to wonder if you could see the return of Republicans, said Jonathan Wharton, a professor of political science at Southern Connecticut State University and former chairman of the New Haven Republican Party.

Wharton said Republicans have been targeting the 4th Congressional District, which encompasses Greenwich as well as Bridgeport and is currently held by Democrat Jim Himes, for many years and that the 5th District, which recently elected Democratic political newcomer Jahana Hayes, is not nearly as strong of a blue district as the 1st and 3rd, which include Hartford and New Haven, respectively.

Ron Schurin, an associate professor in residence of political science at the University of Connecticut, said he does not anticipate that Democrats in Connecticut will have a major battle if they redistrict. However, incumbents may find themselves challenged politically by new constituents. If the map changes, it could influence the electorate in some districts.

The (DeLauro) seat is a longtime Democratic seat. The (Rep. Jim Himes, D-4) seat has been in play for many years and still could be, he said. Himes is certainly more responsible to the financial community than someone sitting in Rosa DeLauros seat.

The last time Connecticut lost a representative, in 2002 following the 2000 Census, it sparked a tough, partisan battle in the newly redrawn 5th Congressional District between two incumbents: Democrat Jim Maloney and Republican Nancy Johnson, who won the seat.

If Democrats are in control of redistricting, they have to choose which two incumbents face off. The only projection you can make is it would be highly partisan, said Ladewig. It makes all incumbents a little vulnerable, because they all will have new voters in their districts who dont all know them.

Gary Rose, chairman of the Department of Government, Politics and Global Studies at Sacred Heart University, said he does not believe the electoral math would work for Republicans in most places.

Irrespective of how the reconfiguring is done, its going to be very difficult for any Republican to win any district, he said.

Wharton said he was also pessimistic about Republican chances in the Nutmeg States congressional delegation in the future.

Realistically, I think it only happens on either end of the state, he said, as the Interstate 91 corridor leans blue.

Andrew Doba, a Democratic consultant in Connecticut and former member of then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloys staff, said he believes Democrats current control over the states congressional districts would survive any consolidation.

Its a part of our political process and a part of our government, he said. The politics will generally work themselves out. I think there are nothing but good signs for the Democratic Party in Connecticut.

Experts said if reapportionment affects Connecticut, it would likely be felt more acutely at the federal level.

We have some pretty important players down there, Rose said.

Himes, he said, was influential within the centrist New Democrat Coalition as its chairman from 2017 to 2019, and Hayes, as the states first African-American congresswoman and part of a more diverse and progressive freshman class, could wield influence.

We have a lot of bang for our buck in terms of our congressional delegation, Schurin said.

U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1, is on the Committee on Ways and Means and DeLauro sits on the Committee on Appropriations, Wharton noted.

Our lawmakers sit on some pretty powerful committees, he said.

Renfro said the number of legislators sitting in the House isnt the only factor that determines a states influence and power, but its nevertheless important.

If you do decrease the number of members in that delegation, you probably get less pork, he said.

If Connecticut were to lose a congressional district, its number of electoral votes in presidential elections would also decrease from seven to six. Although Connecticut has not recently played a major role in any presidential races electorally, Alberda said it could continue to play a fairly unique role, regardless of congressional representation.

Connecticut doesnt get a lot of presidential visits, but if candidates air ads in solid states, they do get an investment in their return to build fundraising, she said. If a Democratic nominee airs a few ads in Connecticut, the return on investment is Nutmeggers donate to the campaign. We might lack in electoral votes, but we play a vital role in getting the message out in swing states.

Political experts agree the electoral role of Connecticut, as well as most states in New England and the industrial Midwest, is diminishing as states in the South and West grow at a more rapid pace. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Texas, Florida and California have all grown by more than 2 million people since 2010, and other states along the Sun Belt, such as North Carolina and Georgia, lead the rest of the nation in population growth.

The population expanding in southern states and the Sun Belt has helped the Republican Party, Rose said. As those states grow, I think the Democratic Party is becoming a more northern party.

Schurin said population trends have worked in Republicans favor thus far, but migration could also be influencing the political makeup of historically red states; last year, he mentioned, former Democratic Texas Rep. Beto ORourke won more than 48 percent of the vote in his Senate race against incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and a number of Democrats flipped seats in the historically red state down ballot.

Additionally, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won her Senate race in Arizona, and Democratic gubernatorial candidates Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida ran high-profile, competitive campaigns, all in states that voted for Republican President Donald Trump in 2016.

Alberda said since Texas is guaranteed to gain seats as the state with the largest population growth, its changing demographics can have an outsize influence nationally. Part of the demographic shift, she said, is New England residents moving out of state and taking their political values with them.

We dont actually pay enough attention to demographics in general; its a slow-moving freight train, Renfro said. Its not sexy compared to scandals, but it matters a whole lot in terms of our tax base. Its a really powerful thing right in front of us.

brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
The year 2018 will go down as another year of budget cuts for many public school districts in the state, but thats nothing new.

It is something Bridgeport has endured for years and which many other local districts are starting to get a taste of, with state finances the way they are.

Despite that, the year just ending brought the area new buildings, new leaders and a swell of student activism sparked by yet another deadly school shooting.

The mass shooting took place in Parkland, Fla., on Valentines Day, but it helped thousands of young people across the nation to galvanize and find their voice.

New activism

On March 14, students across southwestern Connecticut and across the nation walked out of class to show solidarity. Among the march organizers were students from Newtown. Some like Jackson Mittleman, said it was like taking care of unfinished business.

The walkout was followed by a second in April, then a summerlong push that began in Chicago and ended in Newtown to encourage more young people to register to vote in Novembers midterm election. The effort seemingly paid off when 31 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 cast ballots, according to a Tufts University study, a turnout 10 percent higher than for the 2014 midterms.

New tensions

The strain of funding the rising cost of education exposed strained relations in at least two Naugatuck Valley communities.

In Ansonia, a disagreement over what the city is legally obligated to contribute toward the education of the school districts 2,304 students last spring led to a threat by Schools Superintendent Carol Merlone to end the school year early. She did not follow through with the threat, but the matter  and a contested $600,000 in city funding  ended up in court and is subject to a state Board of Education inquiry, which will be held in Hartford on Jan. 3.

In Shelton, city and school officials also went to court over school buses. The city owns a fleet of them, but Mayor Mark Lauretti threatened not to let the school system use the propane-fueled buses after the district awarded a new contract to a private vendor instead of the city. School officials say they had no other choice because the city failed to offer a specific plan or price for transporting some 3,500 students to school each day. Just before the start of school last fall, a compromise was reached that will turn the operation over to the city in the 2019-20 school year.

New economies

Buses also played into Stratford school finances. After spending two decades transporting elementary students all over town in the name of maintaining a state-mandated racial balance in its schools, the school board voted last spring to convert Stratford Academy Magnet School into a neighborhood school, sending nearly 1,000 students districtwide back to their home schools and helping the district reduce the number of buses it used. Some parents protested, but the change took effect anyway.

New alliances?

Finite resources was also the driving force behind a committee formed to see if the Derby and Ansonia school districts should become one. The committee hired a consultant this fall and will spend much of 2019 figuring out if a merger makes sense before taking the findings to votes.

New digs

While short on operating funds, new schools were opened in several communities. In Bridgeport, a brand new $107 million Harding High School opened a half mile away from the original building on Bond Street in the citys East Side. After several years of renovation, Central High School in the city also was declared good as new.

Meanwhile, the Monday after Thanksgiving, the 963 students at Stratford High School relocated to a new building on the other side of Kings Street, signaling a major milestone in that $126 million project. Much of the existing 1925 building is being torn down and replaced with a new auditorium and other spaces that connect to the new main building via a breezeway.

In the fall, Housatonic Community College cut the ribbon on a renovation and expansion of Lafayette Hall while Sacred Heart University began settling into the former General Electric headquarters on Easton Turnpike in Fairfield, dubbing it the West Campus. Across town, Fairfield University started the 2018-19 academic year with a new residence hall, 42 Langguth.

Recognitions

In October, the state named its 2019 Teacher of the Year, Sheena Graham, a music teacher at Harding High School in Bridgeport. Graham will represent the state in a national Teacher of the Year competition. Finalists will be named in January.

Rejections

In April, the New England Association of Schools and College issued a strongly worded rebuke of a plan to merge the states 12 community colleges into one. The so-called Students First plan was promoted as a way to save money. The accrediting body called the plan unrealistic. Many who objected to the change saw the plan as ill-conceived and stripping the institutions of their community identity. Undeterred, system president Mark Ojakian pledged to proceed with the plan in smaller doses. For the time being, he has kept in place staff sharing, with Housatonic Community College President Paul Broadie also serving as interim president at Gateway Community College in New Haven.

Comings and goings

The year saw new leadership at some area colleges and announced departures at others.

The University of Bridgeport found a replacement for retiring President Neil Salonen in Laura Skandera Trombley, who took office in July. She quickly announced an academic reorganization that merged 14 distinct schools and programs into a three-college structure. In doing so, a number of dean positions were eliminated.

Quinnipiac University in Hamden also saw new leadership, when longtime president John Lahey passed the baton to Judy Olian in July. Meanwhile, University of Connecticut President Susan Herbst announced right after commencement in May that she would step down in a years time  not to retire, but to return to the classroom, and at the UConn-Stamford campus. The university is expected to name her successor as soon as January.
A male student was arrested at Danbury High School Wednesday after officials say he was threatening a female student and bullets were found in his possession.

The school resource officer learned of the threat around 12:15 p.m. that day.
School Exec Connect expects to present the District 64 board with a slate of five to seven candidates on Feb. 25, from which board members will select semifinalists to interview. Those interviews will be conducted March 4 and March 5, with the finalists heading to a final round of interviews set for March 11 and March 12, the board agreed.
DANBURY  The race for Danbury mayor officially began Thursday night with a show of force from Democrats and their presumptive nominee, attorney Chris Setaro.

More than 440 party leaders and supporters filled the Amber Room Colonnade for Setaros formal campaign launch in what Democrats hope could be their best shot to topple longtime Republican Mayor Mark Boughton since he took office 17 years ago  after he narrowly beat Setaro for the seat.

Our city is at a crossroads, Setaro told the group during his first stump speech of the election season. It has grown significantly in many ways and grown in ways the status quo politics does not address.

We need a new politics to fit our new reality ... The politics of new leadership that recognizes that change is upon us, he said. The new politics is the politics of change because make no mistake, change is here.

Setaro is off to a quick start with one of the earliest and fastest races against Boughton as Democrats look to capitalize on a series of upset victories in the November elections and break the Republicans stronghold on Danbury government.

The former City Council president has already raised more than $25,000 since announcing his run just before the new year, and party leaders believe he can rewrite the ending to his hotly contested 2001 race against Boughton, which Setaro lost by 138 votes.

And were off, longtime State Rep. Bob Godfrey teased after the speech. Ive never seen it like this. Ive been to gubernatorial announcements with a smaller turnout than this.

The state of Danbury Public Schools is emerging as one of the chief issues expected to dominate the race.

Setaro has said he would push for more funding to increase the districts per-pupil funding rate, currently ranked last in the state, and pledged to personally lobby the state Legislature so that we receive our fair share of state aid.

He stressed the need for economic development  transforming downtown with new mixed-use development and redevelopment  and a closer focus on city infrastructure, including a comprehensive study of local roads and traffic. But he warned the citys constant growth needs to be more closely restrained and designed.

Lets work together for the creation of a remarkable city, he said. To make our city more resilient, just, livable and inclusive ... New inspiring and pragmatic leadership, new perspectives, knowledge, methodologies and technology are necessary to address the scale and pace of the challenges and opportunities we face.

Democratic Town Committee Chairwoman Andrea Gartner introduced Setaro and signaled he will be the partys nominee, though she and at least one other had considered runs this year. Party leaders argued Setaros early rise to the top of the ticket shows the party is united and organized for this years push.

Boughton has not officially filed to run for re-election but has said he plans to as the GOP starts to firm up its slate of candidates for the about 40 local seats up for election this fall.

Already the longest-serving mayor in Danbury history, Boughton is seeking his 10th term as mayor after losing his third  and he says final  bid for governor last year.

Im not worried about what anyone else is doing, Im just focusing on the governing weve got ahead of here in City Hall for the next few months, Boughton said in reference to the city budget negotiations. Theres time for politics later.

zach.murdock@hearstmediact.com
Mark Ojakian, president of the financially-troubled Connecticut State Colleges and University system, said Thursday he is embarking on a deep analysis of various tuition scenarios, including some free college models, to be weighed by the Board of Regents for Higher Education.

These options, which are motivated by a desire to attract more students and strengthen the system, are being considered against a backdrop of significant financial constraints due to cutbacks in state funding and declining student enrollment.

In October, the CSCU system reported that if tuition remains flat for the next two years, the system would have a budget gap of $15.7 million next year and $31.9 million the following year. To forestall this, the system said it would need to raise tuition by 2 percent at the community colleges and 4 percent at the state universities in each of the next two years.

Students at the community colleges are paying $4,384 in tuition this year, while students at the states four regional universities are paying anywhere from $10,616 to $11,356, not including room and board.

Ojakian said he will ask Gov. Ned Lamonts administration if there is an opportunity in the short-term to provide funding so we dont have to raise tuition.

Ojakian met Thursday with the regents executive committee to discuss whether they want to continue analyzing the half dozen tuition scenarios that CSCU staff brought to the regents finance committee in October in light of new leadership at the Capitol.

Among the options being considered by the regents is one that would guarantee a flat rate for entering freshmen for three years at community colleges and for five years at the state universities  an approach designed to encourage students to graduate within a reasonable timeframe.

Another approach would allow students to get the last semester of college free as an incentive to complete a degree.

Ojakian said after the meeting that he favors tuition models that not only would be affordable for students but would provide incentives for them to graduate in a timely way.

He does not, however, favor making tuition at state colleges free for all students.

I would not be in favor of saying its free for everybody regardless of their ability to pay, Ojakian said, because that takes resources that could be deployed elsewhere and provides students who can pay with a free opportunity.

A Democratic proposal to make state colleges and state universities free for income-eligible students failed to get through the legislature last year. Ojakian said he expects lawmakers will again propose a free college bill.

Although the concept of providing free education is compelling, he said, its also important to consider whether students will access to the services they need.

It doesnt do a student any good to get in the door and eight years later still be trying to navigate the system because they dont have access to an adviser, Ojakian said.

Ojakian noted that about a third of students already attend community college essentially for free because they are covered by federal Pell grants. He said an even larger percentage get some help through Pell.

If students dont graduate in a timely way, it often is more costly for them, Ojakian said, and many, he said, get frustrated and leave.

Ojakian said he hopes to have a conversation with state leaders and legislators, reminding them that the CSCU system is the engine for economic development in the state of Connecticut, both at the community college and at the university level  Are we going to be considered a priority in terms of funding or continue to have cuts year after year?

Rep. Gregg Haddad, D-Mansfield and co-chairman of the legislatures higher education committee, said he expects the committee will be discussing plans to make college free for some portion of the population. I hope a big portion of the population, he said.

While free college would require an additional state investment, Haddad said he thinks the offer would rapidly pay for itself by strengthening college enrollment and producing the kind of skilled workforce that will attract employers to the state. He noted that Rhode Island and New York are already offering free college programs.

Haddad estimated a free college program would cost the state about $60 million. As an overall percentage of our budget, thats remarkably small, he said.
DANBURY - Police were hunting Friday for a man who shot a 19-year old in the arm Thursday afternoon near Danbury Hospital.

At the same time, police said Danburians should not be alarmed that a gunman was at large.

The reason: the gunman apparently shot the 19-year-old after a dispute, and the gunman is not thought to be a threat to the general public.

From what I understand the two individuals knew each other and there was some kind of grievance between them, Mayor Mark Boughton said. This is not a situation where someone is out there with a gun shooting people.

The shooting near Hospital and Ellsworth avenues was called in by a school crossing guard. Police would not say whether the guard was a witness or merely heard the gunfire.

The shooting suspect, described only as a young man wearing a blue bandana and a black Northface backpack, was seen near Wooster Cemetery, where police searched with a dog and a drone until sundown Thursday.

Police on Friday would not answer questions about the victim, except to say he was a white male from Danbury.

It was not clear if the victim was cooperating with detectives.

Nor would police give more details about the shooting scene, except to say the armed man fired either a revolver or a handgun.

This is an ongoing investigation, said police Lt. Mark Williams. But we can definitely put the public at ease that we believe the victim was the target of this shooting.

Shootings are uncommon in Danbury, despite being the states 7th largest city.

However, Thursday marked the second time in as many months that gunfire has erupted in the Hat City.

On Dec. 29, an officer responding to a complaint about a man with a knife shot and killed 45-year-old Paul Arbitelle and accidentally wounded his 74-year-old mother.

The police shooting - the first of its kind in 20 years in Danbury - is under investigation by the state police Western District Major Crime Squad.

Although there is no word when the state report will be complete, police have already said the officer and his partner acted in self-defense.

Arbitelles wounded mother has hired a lawyer who says she intends to sue Danbury for damages.

Boughton said he is confident the latest shooting will be closed with an arrest.

We are looking for him, and I know our police officers will find him, Boughton said.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342
Its not always the students that clog up the neighborhood parking, said Dennis Marani of Fenwicks board of directors. We have a lot of extracurricular events at Fenwick and a lot of them in the evening. The garage would be open for events like that. It takes cars off the neighborhood street for that. Our air-conditioned auditorium, [could] possibly hold community events or different people putting on productions and allowing them to be seen and have a place [for guests] to park. It opens up another venue in Oak Park, possibly.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 18)  The Philippines' human rights situation worsened in 2018 amid the administration's drug war, an assessment made by international rights group Human Rights Watch said.

"The human rights crisis in the Philippines unleashed since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in June 2016 deepened in 2018 as Duterte continued his murderous "war on drugs" in the face of mounting international criticism," HRW said.

It also pointed out Duterte's withdrawal from the International Criminal Court in response to preliminary investigations being conducted on the anti-illegal drugs campaign.

In the keynote essay, HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth criticized the extrajudicial killings -- saying that Duterte's leadership "encouraged more summary executions, supposedly of drug suspects, but often of people guilty of no more than being poor young men."

The international group expressed difficulty in ascertaining the number of fatalities under Duterte's drug war due to "contradictory statistics." Government data in December showed that 5,050 have been killed in anti-illegal drug operations since the President took office in July 2016, but other groups believe it to be as high as 22,000.

HRW also took note of the attack on human rights defenders and critics of the Duterte administration, citing Senator Antonio Trillanes' voidance of amnesty and the cancellation of online news outfit Rappler's license to do business as well as tax evasion cases filed against its CEO Maria Ressa.

The advocacy group also alerted of mandatory drug testing among Grade 4 students, saying that this endangers children should they fail it.

"Mandatory testing may also violate children's right to bodily integrity, constitute arbitrary interference with their privacy and dignity, and may deter children from attending school for reasons unrelated to any potential drug use," HRW added.

However, the assessment also pointed out some positive developments.

The group lauded the November 2018 decision by a Manila court to charge three police officers guilty for the murder of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos in August 2017. HRW called this "a rare triumph of accountability in the Philippines."

It also cited the conviction of former Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan and two other military men for the kidnapping and illegal detention of Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan in September 2018. The two women were student activists who were alleged abducted, raped, and tortured by military agents in 2006.
New Delhi:

Is the Megalodon from Jason Stathams Jaw still alive? Divers near the Hawaiian island of Oahu have made a rare discovery over the weekend of what they believe to be the largest great white shark ever recorded in history. The great white shark, which was last spotted 20 years ago at the coast of Mexico has now been nicknamed Deep Blue and researchers estimate the predators to be 50-years-old, weighing in at 2.5 tons.

Mark Mohler and Kimberly Jeffries who first saw the shark feasting on a dead sperm whale on Sunday, boldly swimming alongside the seven-metre giant and capturing stunning pictures of the experience. Ocean Ramsey, one of the divers who studies sharks, told The Star-Advertiser that, based on the shark's size and markings, the shark may be Deep Blue one of the largest great whites on record.

"Im without words; its heartwarming; shes probably the most gentle great white Ive ever seen," Ramsey told The Star-Advertiser.

Ms Jeffries, who first spotted Deep Blue also shared images and videos in their social media accounts, Jeffries in her Instagram account captioned, I waited quietly, patiently, observing as she swam up to the dead sperm whale carcass and then slowly to me, passing close enough I gently put my hand out to maintain a small space so her girth could pass.

Read | Another bug hits WhatsApp, may expose private messages to strangers

I know some people criticise touch but what some dont realize is that sometimes sharks seek touch, she swam away escorted by two rough-toothed dolphins who danced around her, she continued.

Ms Jeffries along with other activists are now calling for a bill to be re-introduced in the Hawaii legislature that would ban the killing of sharks and stingrays, and other marine lives which are being killed in a rapid speed.

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highlights A cliff-edge "no-deal" Brexit on March 29 could bring gridlock at ports.

Reservists will be allowed to be called up for a year of permanent service.

3,500 soldiers will be available to help if needed after a no-deal Brexit.

London:

Britain has put military reservists on standby for permanent service in the event the country leaves the European Union without a divorce agreement to smooth the way. A cliff-edge "no-deal" Brexit on March 29 could bring gridlock at ports and disruption to the supply of goods because of the sudden need for customs checks and other measures. Armed Forces Minister Mark Lancaster says an order has been made allowing reservists to be called up for a year of permanent service as part of "contingency planning for a no-deal EU exit scenario." The Ministry of Defense has said 3,500 soldiers will be available to help if needed after a no-deal Brexit.

Opposition politicians condemned the move. Labour lawmaker Ian Murray said it was "staggering that soldiers are being put on standby because of the risk of a constitutional crisis of the government's own making." Germany's parliament has approved legislation regulating a putative transition period following Britain's departure from the European Union, a bill described as obsolete by an opposition lawmaker.

Lawmakers passed legislation Thursday under which Britain would essentially still be treated as an EU member during the nearly two-year transition foreseen by the withdrawal agreement that the British Parliament rejected this week. It's unclear whether and to what extent that deal can be salvaged.

Alexander Lambsdorff of the opposition Free Democrats said that the legislation "is completely obsolete. We are voting on a bill that will never take effect." But Florian Hahn, a lawmaker with Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right bloc, said authorities want to continue preparing for all eventualities and it's a signal that Germany wants to pursue the deal.

The leader of the Welsh political party Plaid Cymru has said it was "good to talk" to Prime Minister Theresa May about the Brexit deadlock.

Party leader Adam Price said Thursday after meeting with May that the discussions focused on what he called "the surest way" to break the stalemate: a so-called "people's vote" on Brexit.

Price said that "we had a fairly lengthy discussion about that and we set out some of the criteria which could be adopted. We are available to continue those discussions." He also said it is "essential" that May take the no-deal option off the table.

The prime minister is meeting with various opposition parties as she seeks a consensus in Parliament on how to proceed. She has thus far ruled out a second referendum.

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highlights Trump insists that building a wall is only solution to protect US.

The Democrats are opposed to any such funding of the wall.

Democrats have refused to come to negotiation table.

Washington:

President Donald Trump has cancelled the US delegation's trip to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos, Switzerland, due to the partial government shutdown. The announcement comes as the shutdown entered its 27th day on Thursday. Last week, Trump cancelled his planned trip to the WEF meeting, citing the "intransigence" of the Democrats on his funding request to build a controversial wall along the US-Mexico border. The five-day summit is slated to begin at the Swiss resort town of Davos from January 21.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Thursday.

The cancellation of the US delegation visit to the WEF meeting came on a day Trump postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, citing the shutdown.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was due to lead the five-member presidential delegation to Davos which also included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

The other members of the presidential delegation to Davos are United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination Chris Liddell.

The longest-ever shutdown in US history has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including Security and State department.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divided over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House have refused to approve a legislation approving USD 5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.

The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.

The ongoing shutdown on January 12 broke the previous record of 21 days of US government shutdown under the Bill Clinton administration in December 16, 1995 to January 5, 1996.

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highlights AU agreed to send a delegation to Kinshasa to find a way out of the crisis.

EC last Thursday declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi winner.

He had got 38.57% of the tally against chief rival Martin Fayulus 34.8%.

Addis Ababa:

The African Union called on Thursday for the final announcement of last months disputed presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo to be suspended due to serious doubts. Meeting in Ethiopia, the AU agreed to urgently send a high-level delegation to Kinshasa in a bid to find a way out of the political crisis. The Heads of State and Government attending the meeting concluded that there were serious doubts on the conformity of the provisional results, as proclaimed by the National Independent Electoral Commission, with the votes cast, the AU said in a statement. As a result, it has called for the suspension of the proclamation of the final results of the elections.

The provisional results of the long-awaited election announced last week are being challenged in court, in a country that has never known a peaceful transfer of power since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960.

The electoral commission last Thursday declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi the winner of the December 30 vote with 38.57 per cent of the tally against chief rival Martin Fayulus 34.8 per cent.

Fayulu who launched the court action said it was an electoral coup forged in backroom dealings between Tshisekedi and outgoing President Joseph Kabila, who has been in power since 2001.

Even if the situation on the ground has been fortunately calm so far, it obviously remains a cause for concern, AU chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat told African leaders including from South Africa, Zambia and the Republic of Congo gathered to discuss the vote dispute at AU headquarters in Ethiopia.

Earlier this week, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a bloc that includes Angola and South Africa, called for a recount of the vote and a unity government in DR Congo.

But in a communique issued on Thursday, SADC made no mention of those demands, instead of calling on Congolese politicians to address any electoral grievances in line with the Democratic Republic of Congos Constitution and relevant electoral laws.

It also asked the international community to respect the DR Congos sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The vote dispute has raised fears that the countrys political crisis, which erupted two years ago when Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional term in office, could worsen.

The vast and chronically unstable country became a battlefield for two regional wars in 1996-97 and 1998-2003, and the last two presidential elections, in 2006 and 2011, were marked by bloody clashes. The countrys top court is due to rule on the court action later this month.

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New Delhi:

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chief K Sivan announced during a press conference that the space agency is looking to launch 'Young Scientists programme. In this program, three students from each state will be selected. The selected candidates will be given training and access to research and development labs. The programme is being launched with a purpose to provide practical knowledge to the students so that they can gain practical experiences in building satellites. This was the second press conference in two weeks where ISRO Chief K Sivan shared detailed plans about the upcoming projects.

He said, ISRO is launching a 1-month Young Scientists program, under this program, 3 students from each state will be selected, they will be taught and given access to research and development labs giving them practical experience in building satellites.

Also Read | Shooting stars on demand: Japan start-up plans 2020 meteor shower

Earlier, K Sivan revealed that the target for two unmanned missions to space is scheduled for December 2020 and July 2021. He also shared that ISROs target for a crewed mission to space is December 2021.

Some of the main points discussed from the last weeks press conference includes the reusable launch vehicle from ISRO which will have a test launch later in the year. A total of 32 missions are planned for the year 2019 which will have 14 rockets, 17 satellites, and one tech demo mission.

Another important news which was shared in the last weeks press conference was that ISRO will train both men and women for the Gaganyaan mission.

Also Read | SpaceX to build Mars ships in Texas, not Los Angeles

K Sivan said, "The initial training for Gaganyaan will be done in India and advanced training may be in Russia. Women astronauts will be there on the team. That's our aim. "Regarding Chandrayaan-2 schedule, right now Chandrayaan is scheduled from March 25 to April end. Most probably, the normal targeted date is April middle.

According to the sources, the agency is also planning to invest Rs 9,000-crore budget and its time towards the Gaganyaan mission this year putting together rockets and life support systems in preparation for two test flights in 2020.

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highlights Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and BSP chief Mayawati won't attend the rally.

The CPI (M), along with the other Left parties, has decided to give rally a miss.

Ex-Arunachal CM Gegong Apang, who quit BJP, will also attend the meet.

Kolkata:

With an eye on Delhi, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is all geared up for Saturday's "united opposition rally", which party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said would sound the "death knell" for the BJP in the coming Lok Sabha polls. Leaders of over 20 opposition parties are expected to attend the rally at the iconic Brigade Parade Ground here on Saturday to vow to put up a united fight against the "misrule" of the saffron party.

The TMC hopes to use the rally as a platform to prop Banerjee as a leader who can "take along other parties" and challenge the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the General Elections. Banerjee, the brain behind the mega opposition rally, on Thursday said the regional parties would be the deciding factor in the Lok Sabha polls.

"It will be a 'United India Rally' against the misrule of the BJP. It will sound the death knell for the BJP ... The saffron party's seat count in the general election will not cross 125. The number of seats the state parties will win will be much higher than that of the BJP's.

"The federal parties, that is the regional parties, will be the deciding factor after the elections," she claimed.

Chief Ministers Arvind Kejriwal, HD Kumaraswamy, N Chandrababu Naidu, former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Akhilesh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's (DMK) MK Stalin, besides dissident BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha are among those billed to attend the mega rally. Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and his party colleague Abhishek Manu Singhvi will also take part in the rally.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Rashtriya Lok Dal's (RLD) Ajit Singh, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, Patidar leader Hardik Patel, Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani and Babulal Marandi of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha will also be present on the stage alongside the TMC chief. Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, who quit the BJP on Tuesday, is also set to attend the meet.

The rally will, however, miss the presence of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and BSP supremo Mayawati. They have deputed senior party leaders to attend the programme. The three politicians had attended the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy last year.

According to state Congress sources, the party unit was not very keen on Kharge and Singhvi attending the rally as it would send a wrong message to its workers who are fighting against the TMC in West Bengal. The Communist Party of India (Marxist), along with the other Left parties, has decided to give the rally a miss. Asked to comment on Mayawati skipping the rally, Banerjee said BSP's "senior leader Satish Chandra Mishra will be attending, which is a big thing for us".

About the TMC's ambitions in the national arena, a senior party leader said, "Nobody can deny that Mamata Banerjee is one of the most popular Opposition leaders in the country and can take others along with her to fight the BJP. She has experience both as a (former) central minister and as a chief minister. The rest is for the people to decide."

Several top TMC leaders, during the campaign meetings for the rally, had claimed that the "people are waiting for Mamata Banerjee" and urged the party workers to ensure that the next government at the Centre was formed under her leadership.

The BJP leadership predictably mocked the rally, saying the Opposition should first decide on its prime ministerial candidate and then think of ousting Narendra Modi and the ruling party.

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New Delhi:

The son of a Border Security Force (BSF) jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav, who was dismissed from the service for exposing the poor quality of food served to soldiers, has been found dead under mysterious circumstances at their home in Harayanas Rewari. Rohit, the 22-year-old son of the BSP jawan, was found locked in his room with a pistol in his hand. The police said that prima-facie it looked Rohit committed suicide.

"We received a call that Rohit has committed suicide. At the crime spot, we discovered that the room was locked from inside. The body was lying on the bed. There was a pistol in his hands, said a police officer. The family also called the police to report the suicide. However, Yadav was not home when the incident took place but the police said they have informed him about the suicide of his son.

Also Read | BSF Jawan narrates agony on 'poor food', blames senior officials of persecution

In 2017, the BSF soldier, who was posted in Jammu and Kashmir, had posted a series of videos on his social media account questioning the sub-standard quality of food being served to the soldiers. In the video that went viral, Yadav had also accused senior officials of corruption and selling the ration in the market.

Following the video, the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) had sought a factual report from the Union Home Ministry and the BSF. The BSF, however, refused the claims made by the jawan and ordered an inquiry against him. Yadvas voluntary retirement request was also rejected by the force.

Later, the ministry informed the PMO that the BSF has maintained that there was no shortage of rations at any post and that the security personnel deployed their never complained about the quality of food being served to them.

The BSF also dismissed the jawan from his service and warned other soldiers against sharing their grievances on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp.

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highlights The top court orders police to provide security to Kanakdurga and Bindu.

Kerala witnessed massive protests opposing the September 28 verdict.

The Supreme Court will review its Sabarimala verdict on January 22.

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Kerala police to provide round-the-clock security to 2 women who had entered Sabarimala temple. The development came in the wake of massive protests by right-wing Hindu groups over the entry of women to the Lord Ayyappa shrine in Kerala. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi said it was only going into the aspect of security to the two women and would not like to entertain any other prayer.

"Supreme Court directs Kerala government to provide adequate security to the two women who entered and offered prayers at Kerala's Sabarimala Temple on January 2," the news agency ANI reported.

Supreme Court directs Kerala government to provide adequate security to the two women who entered & offered prayers at Kerala's #SabarimalaTemple on January 2. pic.twitter.com/mD1QrO6FKx  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

The bench, which also comprises Justices LN Rao and SK Kaul, however, refused to tag the matter along with the pending petitions in the Sabarimala case. Two women - Kanakdurga and Bindu, both in their menstruant age, stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by the police in the wee hours of January 2.

The plea sought directions to all authorities to allow women of all age groups to enter the temple without any hindrance and to ensure security and safe passage, including police security to women wishing to enter the temple in future. The petition also sought directions declaring all authorities not to conduct the rite of purification or to shut the temple right after the entry of women.

"Issue writ of mandamus directing authorities to provide full security, 24x7, to the two women who have entered the temple, and to deal with protesters indulging in acts of violence, physical and/or verbal on social media or otherwise against them in accordance with the law," the petition said.

The purification ritual is representative of a cleansing ceremony, signifying the petitioners were impure, which is violative of their dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution, it added.

Kerala has been witnessing a string of protests ever since the Supreme Court, in its historic judgment, had on September 28, 2018, lifted the ban on the entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the hilltop shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity.

However, the bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice RF Nariman, Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Indu Malhotra is scheduled to review the Supreme Court's September verdict on Sabarinmala on January 12.

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New Delhi:

As 2019 Lok Sabha elections are approaching the nation, it seems like the Congress has also jumped in the race to cash the issue of Ram Temple. While parties like the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena have been nourishing the politics on the issue of Hindutva and Ram Temple, the Congress has also started walking on the same path. Former Uttarakhand chief minister and senior Congress leader Harish Rawat has said that the BJP has only disrespected the dignity of Lord Rama in the name of his temple and that the Congress party will restore that.

The people in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) always disrespect dignity; those who destroy dignity cannot be devotees of Lord Ram. We are the ones who establish dignity, respect the constitution. When Congress comes into power only then will the Ram temple be built," Rawat told reporters in Pauri Garhwal.

Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has mocked the BJP for the delay in the construction of Ram Temple, saying it will now be built in 2025. Taking pot shots at the Narendra Modi government, RSS General Secretary Bhaiyaji Joshi on Thursday said the country will start developing rapidly after the construction of Ram temple in 2025.

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David Carlin, president of chief executive officer of the Greater Oak Brook Chamber of Commerce, said Friday that he had heard a rumor of Tuscanys closing, but had not spoken with anyone from the restaurant.
highlights There was speculation that the AAP would contest the polls with the INC.

Sheila Dikshit had said there is no talk of alliance with the AAP.

Dikshit was appointed as the Delhi unit head by Rahul Gandhi recently.

New Delhi:

Aam Aadmi Party leader Gopal Rai on Thursday said that their party will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections alone. He also said as quoted by news agency ANI, "For Congress, their arrogance is bigger than national interest, it is visible from recent statements of Punjab CM and Sheila Dikshitji." It was being widely speculated that the AAP would contest the elections with the Congress to pip the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Rai's statement has put all such speculations to rest.

Three-time Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Wednesday had said there is no talk of alliance with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party in the capital city. Dikshit, who took charge of the Congress Delhi unit on Wednesday, further said both the BJP and AAP are an equal challenge to them and the party will meet the challenges together.

In an apparent reference to the amendment, proposed in the Delhi Assembly, demanding a withdrawal of Rajiv Gandhi's Bharat Ratna award in December last year, the senior Congress leader said, "The way they talked about Rajiv Gandhi in the Assembly... we were hurt by it and it was not right. There have been no talks with AAP".

The change of guard in the Congress' Delhi unit is significant as it may play a crucial role in the upcoming General Elections due by May. Dikshit was appointed as the Delhi party unit head by Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday. Devender Yadav, Rajesh Lilothia and Haroon Yusuf were appointed as working presidents to assist the former Delhi chief minister.

"The meeting focused on setting priorities and fixing responsibilities of office-bearers in view of the approaching Lok Sabha elections. The ways to strengthen the party unit were also discussed in the meeting," the party leaders said.

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highlights Ardh Kumbh is held in every six years, while the Kumbh Mela comes after 12 years.

The Yogi govt has renamed Ardh Kumbh as Kumbh and the Kumbh as Maha Kumbh.

The mela draws tens of millions of pilgrims over the course of approximately 48 days.

New Delhi:

Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday offered prayers along with his wife at the Sangam in Praygraj, becoming the first president after Rajendra Prasad to visit a Kumbh Mela. The President also inaugurated the three-day 'Gandhian Resurgence Summit' at the Parmarth Niketan camp, where he said he was lucky to make the trip. "This is the first visit by a president to the Kumbh since the visit of then president Rajendra Prasad in 1953," Rashtrapati Bhavan's Twitter account posted later. The Kumbh is an important part of India's spiritual and cultural heritage, it quoted Kovind as saying.

Kovind and his wife Savita Kovind reached the Bamrauli airport on a special plane of the Indian Air Force around 9:30 am. They were welcomed by Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and several cabinet ministers, officials said.

Kovind said it was a happy coincidence that along with the Kumbh, the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi also falls this year.

The President and his wife participated in 'Ganga pujan' in the Sangam area along with the governor, chief minister, his deputy Keshva Prasad Maurya and Health Minister Sidharth Nath Singh among others.

The President was at the Sangam area for about half-an-hour. Sangam refers to the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati rivers.

President Kovind along with his family members came last year too during the 'Magh Mela'. This years Kumbh is costliest ever with the Uttar Pradesh government allocating Rs 4,200 crore for the Kumbh Mela. This years budget is over thrice the budget of the Maha Kumbh in 2013, making the mega pilgrimage perhaps the costliest ever.

"The UP government has allocated Rs 4,200 crore for 2019 Kumbh Mela. The previous state government had spent around Rs 1,300 crore for the Maha Kumbh, which was held in 2013," state Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal told PTI. He said that apart from this, some other departments have also allocated funds for the mega event.

Agarwal said this time the Kumbh Mela area has been doubled as compared to the previous years. This year's Kumbh Mela is spread over an area of 3,200 hectare as compared to 1,600 hectare area in the previous melas.

The endeavour of the UP government has always been to enhance the facilities for the public and establishing facilities at the ground level has been a big task, the minister said. The Kumbh Mela (the festival of the sacred pitcher) is anchored in Hindu mythology. It is the largest public gathering and collective act of faith anywhere in the world.

Ardh Kumbh is held in every six years, while the Kumbh Mela comes after 12 years. The Yogi Adityanath government has renamed Ardh Kumbh as Kumbh and the Kumbh as Maha Kumbh.

The mela draws tens of millions of pilgrims over the course of approximately 48 days to bathe at the sacred confluence of the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati river. The congregation includes Ascetics, Saints, Sadhus, Sadhvis, Kalpvasis and pilgrims from all walks of life.

In all there are six auspicious bathing dates in this Kumbh - Makar Sankranti (January 15), Paush Poornima (January 21), Mauni Amawasya (February 4), Basant Panchami (February 10), Maghi Poornima (February 19) and Mahashivratri (March 4).

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Bengaluru:

The Congress has shifted its 76 MLAs to a private resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru. The party said that the move has been taken to foil any poaching bid by the Bharatiya Janata Party after four lawmakers skipped the Congress legislature party (CLP). "All our MLAs will stay together, we will discuss there about our situation. All our MLAs, MPs and ministers will stay together at one place.... We will stay as long it is necessary," CLP leader Siddaramaiah said.

Speaking to reporters, he said, "We will discuss about party issues....to escape from the onslaught by the BJP. We will discuss about drought, parliament election also."

Soon after the CLP meet, the Congress MLAs were herded together in two buses from the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat where the CLP was held, and taken to a resort near the city.

Bengaluru: Congress MLAs move to Eagleton resort after CLP meeting pic.twitter.com/Y2W9t0ZGEK  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

Earlier, 76 Congress lawmakers attended the CLP meeting, which was attended by Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, besides other state leaders.

Meanwhile, Siddaramaiah said that Congress will issue notices to all the four MLAs seeking an explanation for their absence at the meeting. Siddaramaiah said that after receiving the replies from the absentee lawmakers, the issue would be discussed with the party high command and state leaders before deciding on the next step.

The lawmakers who didnt attend the meet are - Ramesh Jarkiholi - who was dropped as a minister in the recent cabinet rejig, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav, and Mahesh Kumatahalli.

Siddaramaiah said Jadhav had written to him saying he would not be able to attend as he was unwell, while Nagendra had spoken to Venugopal conveying his inability to be present because of a court case.

Ahead of the CLP meet, Siddaramaiah had issued notices to all the party MLAs warning that their absence would be viewed "seriously" and action initiated according to the anti-defection law.

Meanwhile, BJP MLAs continued to stay put at a luxury hotel in Gurugram, a move the party has defended saying it was to prevent the Congress from poaching them.

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highlights the CAG has refused to disclose details about its audit in controversial Rafale deal.

It says the process is incomplete. Disclosure will amount to a breach of Parliament's privilege.

Last month, the Supreme Court had dismissed pleas challenging the Rafale deal.

New Delhi:

The controversy over the mega-billion Rafale fighter jet deal refuses to die. In the latest development, a media report has detailed how the Narendra Modi government's 2015 decision exponentially increased the price of each fighter jet. The report says that the deal bypassed the procedures despite some serious objections raised by top defence brass. 'The Hindu' report says that the 2015 decision caused the price of Rafale jets to go up by 41%. According to the report, Manmohan Singh-led UPA government had decided to buy 126 Rafale aircraft in 2007. The 2007 bid meant India was buying 18 fighter jets in fly-away condition and 108 were to be made in India.

In 2015, the Modi government surprised everyone and signed the deal with France for the multi-role fighter jets. But instead of 126, India now settled for 36 fighter jets. This is where the problem comes. 'The Hindu' reports that the Dassault Aviation had quoted 1.4 billion euros as the 'design and development' cost. At that time, this cost was supposed to be divided into 126 fighter jets. In 2016, this cost came down to 1.3 billion euros after tough negotiations. But due to the lesser number of aircraft, the price per jet increased as much 41%."This straightaway meant an increase of 25 million euros in the price of each aircraft as compared with the UPA-era bid by Dassault," 'The Hindu' report said.

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram attacked the Modi government citing 'The Hindu' report. "In the light of new facts and revelations in THE HINDU, the question gains greater urgency: why did the government buy only 36 Rafale aircraft instead of 126 aircraft required by the Air Force," Chidambaram asked on Twitter. He also alleged that "the government has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needs."

The Government has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needs.  P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) January 18, 2019

The CPI(M) also attacked the Modi government and said that "lid over the mammoth #RafaleScam coverup blown. Modi's decision bypassing mandated procedures & made in the face of official objections resulted in 1.3 billion non-recurring cost. All to favour Anil Ambani's Reliance."

Meanwhile, the Comptroller and Auditor General has refused to disclose details about its audit in the controversial Rafale aircraft deal, saying the process is not yet complete and any disclosure at this stage will amount to a breach of the Parliament's privilege, an RTI reply said. In its response to Pune-based activist Vihar Durve who had sought the report from CAG, the country's auditor said, "The audit is under progress and the report is yet to be finalised. The information cannot be given under Section 8(1)(C) of the RTI Act as the disclosure would cause breach of Parliament". Section 8(1)(C) of the Right To Information (RTI) Act exempts information the disclosure of which would cause a breach of privilege of Parliament or the State Legislature.

Last month, the Supreme Court had dismissed pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract.

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highlights This is the second attack on security forces in less than 24 hours in Kashmir.

After the attack, the security forces have cordoned off the entire area.

Security vehicles and shops near the spot were damaged.

New Delhi:

The terrorists on Sunday hurled a grenade on security forces at Srinagar's Lal Chowk in Jammu and Kashmir. Several people, including security personnel, sustained injuries in the blast that took place near Ghanta Ghar in Lal Chowk. Security vehicles and shops near the spot were damaged, however, no loss of life was reported.

This is the second attack on security forces in less than 24 hours in Kashmir. On Thursday, at least six people, including three traffic personnel injured after terrorists hurled grenade on security forces at Zero Bridge in Srinagar, less than 1 km from the spot. Yesterday's attack had occurred less than 100 metres from the National Conference headquarters and the local office of the All India Radio.

Jammu and Kashmir: Blast at Ghanta Ghar Chowk in Srinagar. More details awaited. pic.twitter.com/fG6a1TRmMT  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

After the attack, the security forces have cordoned off the area and launched a manhunt to nab the terrorists who lobbed the grenade in the busy Lal Chowk area in Srinagar.

The two attacks on security forces have come after Indian Army gunned down five Pakistani soldiers in Kashmir's Poonch sector on Thursday. The Indian Army also destroyed seven bunkers of the Pakistani forces in one of the most stringent retaliation to the ceasefire violations by the party.

Earlier in December last year, five security personnel were injured in a grenade attack by suspected terrorists in Anantnag district. The incident occurred when the terrorists among a crowd lobbed a grenade at the security forces in Arwani area of Bijbehara.

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Bengaluru:

Hours after four Congress lawmakers skipped the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, that was called as a show of strength against an alleged bid by the BJP to dislodge the HD Kumaraswamy-led coalition government in Karnataka, CLP leader Siddaramaiah said that Congress will issue notices to them seeking an explanation for their absence at the meeting. Siddaramaiah said that after receiving the replies from the absentee lawmakers, the issue would be discussed with the party high command and state leaders before deciding on the next step.

The lawmakers who didnt attend the meet are - Ramesh Jarkiholi - who was dropped as a minister in the recent cabinet rejig, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav, and Mahesh Kumatahalli.

Siddaramaiah said Jadhav had written saying he would not be able to attend the meet as he was unwell, while Nagendra had spoken to AICC general secretary K C Venugopal conveying his inability to attend because of a court case. The other two MLAs had not communicated anything, the former chief minister said.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said that all the four MLAs are in regular touch with him. Nothing will happen, they will also come and join us. I am regularly in touch with them, he was quoted as saying by ANI.

Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy on 4 MLAs not attending CLP meeting: Nothing will happen, they will also come and join us. I am regularly in touch with them. pic.twitter.com/QloCQoiGyw  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

Ahead of the CLP meet, Siddaramaiah had issue notices to all the party MLAs warning that their absence would be viewed "seriously" and action initiated according to the Anti-Defection law.

The absence of four lawmakers posed no imminent threat to the seven-month-old Congress-JDS government in the numbers game but suggested that all was not well within the Congress which is still wrestling with dissidence.

In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, the BJP has 104 members, Congress 80 (including Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar), Kumaraswamys JD (S) has 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each. BSP is supporting the coalition government.

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highlights The Supreme Court set aside some provisions of a 2016 Maharashtra law.

The top court allowed tips to dance bars' performers in Maharashtra.

The proposed ordinance seeks to stop operation of dance bars in the state.

Mumbai:

After the Supreme Courts verdict paving the way for reopening of dance bars in Maharashtra, the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government in the state is considering bringing an ordinance to stop their operations. Stating that there can be regulations but not total prohibition, the top court on Thursday set aside some provisions of a 2016 law imposing restrictions on licensing and functioning of dance bars.

Speaking to news agency PTI, senior minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said in order to protect the cultural fabric of the state, the state government is considering bringing an ordinance to stop dance bars from operating.

Mungantiwar further said while the state government respects the apex courts decision, it is firm on its stand that dance bars cannot be allowed to operate. The Minister for Finance and Planning said the issue will be discussed in detail during the weekly state cabinet meeting next week. "In the interest of people and for saving the cultural fabric of the state, we will not hesitate in bringing an ordinance to stop dance bars from operating," he said.

"Once we receive the written orders of the court, our lawyers will study it and based on their recommendations, we will bring an ordinance in the next two weeks, making changes and strengthening the existing law, Mungantiwar added.

Asked if such an ordinance would violate the SC orders, he said there have been court rulings in favour of dance bars. All parties came together for a law against dance bars. We will do it this time as well," Mungantiwar said.

The Supreme Court has allowed tips to performers but disallowed showering of currency on them. It also quashed some provisions of the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (Working therein) Act, 2016, like the mandatory installations of CCTV cameras in dance bars saying they violated privacy.

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highlights The NOTA vote count was much higher in reserved seats than in the general ones.

In MP, Rajasthan, NOTA vote exceeds difference between vote shares of Cong and BJP.

Many swayamsevaks have said that NOTA defeated the BJP in Madhya Pradesh.

New Delhi:

RSS, ruling BJPs ideological mentor, is all set to launch an anti-NOTA campaign in the run-up to the crucial Lok Sabha Elections, scheduled some time in April or May this year. Latest media reports suggest that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is likely to launch a door-to-door campaign urging people not to press NOTA or none of the above option on the polling day. Trend analysts say that the need for such a campaign stems from the disastrous results of the Assembly Elections concluded in December last year, in which the ruling BJP lost miserably in the Hindi heartland.

An Indian Express analysis showed that the NOTA vote count was much higher in reserved seats than in the general ones. In fact, in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the NOTA vote exceeds the difference between the vote shares of the Congress and the BJP, the report said. This also means that the RSS will not merely play in the shadows. It will play on the front foot, coming out in open batting for the BJPs second coming to the power.

It should be noted that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had last year said that NOTA will allow people to elect wrong person. Many swayamsevaks have said that NOTA defeated the BJP in Madhya Pradesh.

Last week, the RSS had organised a four-day brainstorming session for its over 30 parivar organisations, including the BJP and the Vishva Hindu Parishad, in Chennai. The meet chiefly looked at organisational aspects and carry out a 'SWOT' (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to help the individual outfits with their respective "nationalistic goals." The session, though dubbed routine by the RSS, offered a "broad guideline" to reconcile the VHP's "Hindus cannot wait for eternity for Ram temple" line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent assertion on the Ayodhya issue, RSS sources indicated.

Modi had in an interview said any legislative initiative like an ordinance for Ram temple in Ayodhya will have to wait till the disposal of the dispute in the Supreme Court.

The meet also took stock of BJP's electoral drubbing in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh besides the work of 30-plus outfits belonging to the larger Sangh parivar.

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highlights The quota would be implemented in jobs and admission.

It will be in addition to 50% quota given to ST/SC/BC/OBC.

PM Modi had termed the Bill as a victory for social justice.

New Delhi:

The Uttar Pradesh government on Friday approved 10% reservation given by Central Government in government jobs and education to economically weaker section in the general category. After Gujarat and Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh has become third state to implement the 10% quota for the Forward Castes. Earlier, the Lok Sabha had passed the Bill on January 8 with as many as 323 members voting in support of it and only three voting against the Bill. A day later, it was passed from the Rajya Sabha with 165 voting in favour and seven against. The government had extended the session for a day to take up the Constitutional (124th) Amendment Bill. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had termed the passage of The Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill, 2019 in both Houses of Parliament a victory for social justice. He said the Bill will ensure a wider canvas for our youths to showcase their prowess and contribute towards Indias transformation.

Gujarat was the first state in India to implement the Forward Quota Bill. On January 15, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani took to Twitter to inform about his governments decision. Happy to state that the Government Of Gujarat has decided to implement 10% EWS reservation benefits from 14th January, 2019. It will be implemented in all ongoing recruitment process too wherein there is the only Advertisement published but first stage of examination is yet to held (sic), Rupani had tweeted.

A day later, on January 15, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das announced that the state government will provide 10 per cent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions to the economically weaker sections who are not in the reservation category.

The chief minister had said that the step was part of follow up action on the Centre's decision to provide 10 per cent reservation in jobs and education for economically weaker sections in the general category.

"In the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governments historic decision to give 10 per cent reservation to economically weaker section, Jharkhand government has also decided to provide this (10 per cent) reservation among the economically weaker category in government jobs and educational institutions," the release quoting Das said.

This 10 per cent reservation will be in addition to 50 per cent reservation given to ST/SC/BC/OBC, it said.

Thanking the government, BJP spokesman Pratul Shahdeo said Modi became the first prime minister in the history to give reservation to economically weaker section in the general category and in Jharkhand, the chief minister gave a gift on the occasion of Makar Sankranati with the announcement.

This clearly shows the government is eager to bring the poor into the mainstream of development, he added.

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New Delhi:

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may sweep the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Delhi by winning six of the total seven seats while the resurgent Congress is likely to get some respite in Haryana, according to the opinion poll conducted by News Nation in the two tiny but crucial North Indian states. As far as the prime ministers post is concerned, Narendra Modi still remains the first choice for the top job despite a sharp decline in his popularity since 2014.

In national capital Delhi, the BJP, with 39 per cent vote share, may win six of the seven parliamentary seats in Delhi. While the Congress may once again fail to open its account, Arvind Kejriwals Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is predicted to win one seat with 31 per cent vote share.

When asked about the most suitable candidate for prime ministers post, Narendra Modi was the first choice with 49 per cent votes against Rahul Gandhis 19 per cent. Twenty-three per cent people, however, wanted someone else for the top job. Nine per cent people failed to make any choice.





The one thing that may concern the BJP in Delhi is that 49 per cent Delhiites (respondents) said that they were not satisfied with the NDA government at Centre while 56 per cent people gave thumbs up to the Kejriwal government in Delhi.

In Haryana, the resurgent Congress-led by Rahul Gandhi is expected to bounce back with 29 per cent vote share, just one per cent less than the BJP's 30 per cent vote share projection. The BJP, however, is likely to win five of the total 10 seats against the Congress' three.





Regional parties - Om Prakash Chautala's INLD and Dushyant Chautala's Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) are projected to win one seat each. While the INLD may get 15 per cent of vote share, the newly formed JJP is likely to get 12 per cent votes in the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

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New Delhi:

Delhi's air quality slightly improved with increased wind speed Friday but was recorded in "very poor" category as CPCB-led task force recommended municipal commissioners (MC) and district magistrates (DM) to review ground-level action by their teams on a daily basis and ensure intensified measures.

According to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, the overall air quality index (AQI) in the city was 394 which falls in the "very poor" category. Lt Governor Anil Baijal Friday reviewed the air pollution situation of Delhi and asked agencies to direct field officers to visit hotspots and heavily penalise instances of burning of waste, polluting units and dust-generating activities.

In view of the spike of pollution level in the national capital, the Central Pollution Control Board-led task force recommended that municipal commissioners and district magistrates review ground-level action by their teams on daily basis and ensure intensified measures.

An AQI between 100 and 200 comes under the 'moderate' category, 201 and 300 is considered 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor', while that between 401 and 500 is 'severe'. The CPCB said as many as 11 areas recorded "severe" air quality and 18 "very poor" air quality. In the National Capital Region, Ghaziabad and Greater Noida recorded "severe" air quality, while Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida recorded "very poor" air quality, it said.

The overall PM2.5 level, fine particulate matters in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, in Delhi was 252, while the PM10 level was 385, it said. The Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR) said the overall air quality has improved to "very poor" category from "severe" since morning due to an appreciable increase in wind speed to 3.8 kmph despite other adverse meteorological conditions, including dense fog.

"It is likely to improve marginally and slowly but the AQI is expected to remain in very poor range for next three days. An active western disturbance is very likely to cause fairly widespread of moisture intrusion over northern Indian region, including Delhi," the SAFAR said.

"If it results in sufficient amount of rain then rapid improvement (in air quality) to poor is expected. Else pre-shower conditions or little shower only aggravates the situation. Dense to very dense fog will continue at isolated places over Delhi which is not good for air quality as it will resist pollutants to mix vertically," the SAFAR said.

Baijal chaired a meeting with Delhi government officials and EPCA chairperson and other municipal authorities. He asked the Delhi government to ensure greening of areas where waste has been lifted to control dust pollution.

"To control air pollution, night patrolling need to be conducted by teams comprising representatives from MCDs, Revenue department, DPCC. Industrial associations/market traders associations, citizen groups are to be sensitized," he said in a statement.

Baijal chaired a meeting today at Raj Niwas convened by Chairman, EPCA to review air pollution, waste managment and sealing of industries operating in non-conforming areas like Narela, Bawana, Mundka and adjoining areas. The meeting was attended by Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain, and EPCA Chairman Bhure Lal.

Baijal also directed PWD and MCDs to ensure greening of areas from where waste has been lifted to control dust pollution. He also directed DJB to ensure drinking water supply at industrial areas. Baijal was further apprised that 41,580 MT solid waste/industrial wastes has been collected from Narela and Bawana area. Also, DPCC has issued 230 show cause notices in Narela and Bawana area and imposed Rs 1.825 crore of penalties and received an amount of Rs. 82.50 lakh.

The DSIIDC has inspected 3817 units in Narela and Bawana area and issued notices to 867 defaulters. It was also informed that 21,960 non-permissible industries operating in residential and non-conforming areas have been closed in Step I by municipal bodies. In Step II, 30,000 similar units operating illegally in residential and non-conforming areas will be closed.

It was further informed that out of 1467 industries, 1297 industries have been converted into PNG and 170 industries have been closed for non-conversion to PNG. Environmental Marshalls have attended 15556 no. of incidents and settled 14310 incidents at site.

The task force sought daily action taken report to CPCB and Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority. The IMD informed the task force that the air quality will gradually improve and rain and higher wind speeds are expected Monday. In view of this, the task force opined that there is no need to invoke additional measures.

However, measures already in force must be intensified by implementing agencies particularly in the areas(Bawana, Mundka, Nehru Nagar, R.K. Puram, Rohini, Vivek Vihar, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad,Gurugram) which showed higher levels of pollution.

"Construction and demolition activity, open dumping and burning of municipal solid waste, traffic congestion, which have been extensively reported by field teams, may require special attention," it recommended. Similar actions may be taken in other adjoining areas of Delhi like Bahadurgarh, Sonipat, Jhajjar.

A study said about 3 per cent of the people surveyed do not understand the meaning of 'Air Quality Index' and do not know when it is termed as 'good', 'poor', or 'severe'. The study conducted by United Residents Joint Action (URJA), a collective of the city's resident welfare associations (RWAs) and ARK foundation, was conducted among residents in 10 polluted areas in Delhi.

Delhi's air quality was recorded in severe category on Thursday and slightly improved on Friday to very poor category.
highlights As many as 14,123 Model S cars were recalled from China.

This move is a part of the global recall of parts manufactures by Japanese supplier, Takata.

NHTSA: There have been at least 23 deaths, 300 injuries due to improperly inflated airbags.

New Delhi:

US electric carmaker Tesla will recall as many as 14,123 cars in China over faulty airbags that contained parts made by now-defunct Japanese manufacturer Takata, the Chinese market regulator announced on Friday as reported by news agency AFP. This move is a part of the global recall of parts manufactures by the Japanese manufacturer, which went out of business in 2017 after its airbags were blamed for a number of deaths. The recall, because of faulty airbags, has virtually affected all automakers across the world who used to take their supply of airbags from Takata, the Japanese automotive parts supplier. Teslas official website said that the front passenger airbags in certain 2014-2016 Model S vehicles were affected and it will be replacing them.

As per the US National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) reports, there have been at least 23 deaths and 300 injuries due to improperly inflated airbags, the media reported.

On January 7, Tesla CEO Elon Musk laid the foundation of a $7-billion plant at Shanghai in China, becoming the first company to benefit from a new Chinese policy of allowing foreign vehicle manufacturers to set up wholly-owned subsidiaries in the Asian nation. Till now, foreign automakers in China were required to forge joint ventures with domestic firms for establishing manufacturing plants, which means sharing profits and technology with local partners.

The plant, which is Teslas first outside the US, is located at Lingang, a high-end manufacturing park in the southeast harbour of Shanghai. It has an annual production capacity of 500,000 electric cars.

Tesla signed an agreement with the Shanghai municipal government in July 2018 to build the factory. In October, the company got the approval to use an 864,885 sq mt tract of land in Lingang for its Shanghai plant. Musk and Shanghai government officials attended the ground-breaking ceremony.

The Tesla factory, which will be built with an investment of over 50 billion yuan (USD seven billion), is the largest foreign-invested manufacturing project in Shanghais history, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Aiming at reinforcing its presence in the worlds largest market for electric cars, Tesla brought its Model S, Model X and Model 3 to the China International Import Expo held in November 2018 at Shanghai.

(With PTI inputs)
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Dear Newsie Readers,

Newsie has now permanently ceased it's services as of Friday 20th December 2019.

Newsie has been an owner-funded operation since day one.

Coming up to three years old, while we still firmly believe Newsie has a place in the New Zealand media landscape, the cost in both time and money has become too burdensome for the owners to continue alongside other ventures.

With the current government looking to restructure public broadcasting, and seemingly supporting NZME buying a ring-fenced Stuff, the time seems right to call it a day.

Should it happen, the combination of NZME and Stuff will ensure New Zealands national media will die a death by a thousand opinion-based articles.

Newsie has always tried to stick to balanced news, to inform readers of the facts of a situation, amid being largely ignored by government. Hopefully, one day someone else will take up the challenge to fight the good fight.

The good news, however, is that there were no job losses as a result of Newsie closing. Thanks to careful structuring, everyone involved in Newsie will retain their current positions.

We hope you all have a happy Christmas and new year. Stay safe, and stay out of the news.

The team at Newsie
Do you have a news release about a Naperville resident being honored or accomplishing something of note? Send it to ksorensen@tribpub.com for possible inclusion in a future Naperville People in the News column.
Apple and Amazon are among eight tech firms named in a complaint filed in Austria by non-profit organisation NOYB, which cited their failure to comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The action by NOYB, chaired by data privacy activist Max Schrems, also named Netflix, Spotify and Youtube, after it tested them by requesting private data the companies hold about the user.

"No service fully complied," NOYB said in its statement.

The GDPR, implemented in May, gives users the right to access their data and information about the sources and recipients of the data. Social networks must regain Europeans' consent every time they want to use their data in new ways, including for targeted advertising.

The GDPR foresees fines of up to 4 percent of global revenues for companies that break the rules.

NOYB said it filed its complaints with the Austrian authority on behalf of 10 users. The Austrian watchdog would have to work with its counterparts at the streaming services' main establishments.

"Many services set up automated systems to respond to access requests, but they often don't even remotely provide the data that every user has a right to," Mr Schrems said. "This leads to structural violations of users' rights, as these systems are built to withhold the relevant information."

Mr Schrems is a veteran privacy campaigner who took his first legal action against Facebook as a student in 2011.

Now a lawyer, Mr Schrems filed complaints last year against Google, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, arguing they were acting illegally by forcing users to accept intrusive terms of service or lose access.

Reuters
A planet just two stars down the road could potentially hold life, scientists say.

Barnard's Star is the second-closest system to our own, at just six light years away. A planet about three times the size of Earth and discovered just last year, Barnard b is just outside the habitable zone where liquid water can form overground - but a new paper has outlined a scenario under which life could emerge.

On the surface, Barnard b - as it's been dubbed - probably has a temperature of around -170degC. But underground it could be relatively balmy.

"Geothermal heating could support 'life zones' under its surface, akin to subsurface lakes found in Antarctica," said Edward Guinan, an astrophysicist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.
A 21-year-old Israeli student has been attacked and killed in Melbourne, Australia, while she was on FaceTime to her sister.

Aiia Maasarwe's body was found partially clothed in bushes in Bundoora in the north of the city on Wednesday morning. She had taken a tram home after a comedy show on Tuesday evening.

Her sister told police she "heard the sound of the phone falling to the ground and heard some voices," 9 News reports.

Police are still searching for her killer.

They have not ruled out the possibility that Aiia was sexually assaulted, with known sex offenders "an active line of inquiry".

"Our presumption at this stage is that this was a random attack and opportunistic," Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said.
A team of researchers and conservationists have filmed their incredible encounter with a massive great white shark off the coast of Oahu in Hawaii.

In the interest of public safety, the location has not been disclosed, but the footage of the amazing moment has been shared.

In the video, the gigantic shark can be seen approaching divers. At one point, a diver can be seen holding hand-to-fin with the animal.
The unruly group of holidaymakers causing disruption across New Zealand can't be kicked out of the country just yet.

The group, understood to be British, were served with a Deportation Liability Notice (DLN) in Hamilton on Tuesday and may not be allowed back into New Zealand for at least five years.

However that didn't stop them from moving down south to stop off in Levin on Thursday and make their way to Wellington where it's understood they're located now.

A female member of the group, 26-year-old Tina Marie Cash, pleaded guilty to two counts of theft in the Hamilton District Court on Tuesday. The tourists have also been accused of littering and scamming their way out of paying for meals.

But despite their anti-social behaviour, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) isn't able to kick them out of the country just yet, a spokesperson told Newshub.

"Section 157(5) of the Immigration Act 2009 provides for temporary visa holders to be issued with a DLN on a number of grounds, including matters relating to character," the spokesperson said.

"Deportation Liability Notice is the first stage in the deportation process and activates the individual's appeal rights.

"During this appeal period, the individual cannot be deported from the country, unless they agree to waive their appeal rights. Once an individual's appeal rights expire, INZ may serve the individual with a Deportation Order."
The infamous group of British tourists who caused disruption across the country have praised the Maori culture and slammed "white Kiwis" as ruthless.

On Friday, John Johnson and his father James spoke exclusively to Newshub about the outrage they have faced since a video was posted on Sunday showing the family at Takapuna beach where they are accused of littering and abusing beachgoers.

The family's movements down New Zealand's North Island have been carefully followed by the world's media, with accusations of the group fleeing restaurants without paying bills, causing issues at a Hamilton Burger King, and one of their members of the family being convicted on charges of theft.

While Mr Johnson hit out at Kiwis' reactions, saying the family are living in fear in the mountains north of Wellington, desperate to get home to England but scared to go out in public, he did praise Maori for being welcoming and kind.

"The Maori culture is a beautiful culture and they are the ones that treated us in the right way," he told Newshub.

"The only people that treated us in the right respect were the Maori culture."

He also said "white Kiwis" had acted the worst, including on social media where the family have become the target of memes.

"I swear from my heart and soul, I found the Maori people, when people start saying that Maori people are gang members and they are very ruthless, do you want me to tell who the ruthless people is? The ruthless people are the white Kiwis, not the Maori

people."

"At the end of the day, there was not one Maori person on the social media who said anything bad about us."

Mr Johnson noted two instances where he found himself thankful for Maori New Zealanders, including when the group were too scared to go out in public, so they gave a "Maori guy in a car" money to buy them food, water and baby food.

Another was when Mr Johnson's sister-in-law, Tina Cash, was in custody on two charges of theft.

"When Tina was in the cell, there was a Maori guy who treated her that good and nearly sat crying because of her, and felt so sorry for her."

He said Tina never stole anything, despite pleading guilty in court on Wednesday.

Members of the family have now been served deportation notices by Immigration New Zealand, and Mr Johnson says the family have booked flights out of Wellington next week but they fear they'll be attacked at the airport.
The British family whose escapades across the country have gripped New Zealand have spoken out, saying they have done nothing wrong but now fear going out in public as they believe they will be attacked.

In an exclusive interview with Newshub, the so-called rowdy tourists, who have been accused of theft, littering and general chaos, have labelled Kiwis racist and say they want to leave but fear going to the airport.

One of the family members, John Johnson, said they were like "refugees" in a Commonwealth country, hiding in the mountains north of Wellington.

"The reason being is that we feel that we're going to be attacked by the locals," he told Newshub.

Mr Johnson is known as the man in the white shirt in the now infamous video caught of the family at Takapuna Beach on Sunday.

He says he's holed up with his elderly mum and dad, who are in their sixties, his sister-in-law, and three children, aged seven, three, and seven months.

"We are a respectable family, we are a British family who have come here, as a Commonwealth country, to see New Zealand, to see the Hobbits and see the mountains," Mr Johnson said.

"The way we have been treated, intimidated, we are scared to leave, we are scared to move, we are hiding at the moment. We don't know what to do."

Mr Johnson says there is another side to the story of the encounter at Takapuna Beach, where they were accused of littering and abusing other beachgoers.

He says his family left rubbish on the beach and his nephew lashed out because they were fleeing gang members who threatened them.

"A guy got into the car, I'm not sure if it was two I only seen one, got into the car and tried to follow us and when we turned left he tried to ram us, and we turned left and right and barely got away. So we were followed," he said.

"I don't think anyone is going to hang around to clean anything up if they are going to be beaten up."
Doctors says some schools and parents are doing better than others when it comes to informing teens about contraception.

Most 14- to 18-year-olds interviewed by Otago researchers knew little about long-acting implants and IUDs - despite these being 22 times as effective as the pill.

College of GPs medical director Richard Medlicott says if doctors aren't fully informing patients, they may need to lift their game.

"Have a talk to young people about this - they don't want to get pregnant, and we don't want them to get pregnant, so we should be helping them the best way we can."

Dr Medlicott says doctors can take something from this research.

"I was a little bit surprised, really. I thought there would be more understanding. I suspect that some schools and parents are clearly doing better than others."

He says they'd like to see the intra-uterine device Mirena more widely funded. Mirena and other levonorgestrel-releasing devices have a failure rate of around only 0.2 percent, compared to the pill's 7 percent and condoms' 13 percent. Mirena and similar devices can last between five and seven years, once implanted.

Dr Medlicott says long-acting, removable contraception is very effective, and they'd like to see it used more.

"Clearly condoms have got advantages in terms of reduction of STIs, but they're not as effective for contraception. If people are going to see doctors and they're not being fully-informed, maybe we need to lift our game a bit."

The researchers' findings were published on Friday in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

Newshub.
The debate on whether we should legalise cannabis has focused far too much on the pros and not enough on the cons, public health researchers say.

Kiwis are set to vote on the drug's legal status in a referendum in 2020, the exact question yet to be decided.

But Joseph Boden of the University of Otago's Department of Psychological Medicine is urging a slow-and-steady approach, saying the negative effects marijuana can have are being ignored.

"Relatively few contributors have discussed either the harms of cannabis or potential risks of legalisation," Dr Boden wrote in the latest NZ Medical Journal, published Friday.

"Most contributions imply that cannabis is a relatively harmless drug, and that cannabis law change will only have beneficial consequences. We would argue that, on the basis of evidence generated by longitudinal studies based in New Zealand, both assumptions are incorrect."

Dr Boden and his late colleague and co-author David Fergusson say evidence from the Christchurch Health and Development Study and the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study show marijuana use can be linked to:

educational delay

welfare dependence

increased risks of psychotic symptoms

major depression

increased risks of motor vehicle accidents

increased risks of tobacco use

increased risks of other illicit drug use

and respiratory impairment.

The effects are strongest for those under 18, and "could not be explained by social demographic and contextual factors associated with cannabis use".

"This research clearly establishes the facts that: a) cannabis use is not harmless; b) it has its greatest impacts on young users who are vulnerable to the neuro-psychological effects of cannabis."
Cradles to Crayons is looking for winter coats and warm clothing for newborns up to adult size medium and boots up to an adult size 10. They will also collect toys and books geared for children up to 12 years old.
Catch up on local news with our roundup of top 5 headlines of the week, and learn how you can get unlimited access to these stories and more here.
Mrs. Ruth L. Cleek, 94 died peacefully surrounded by her family on June 14, 2021, in New Albany Indiana. Born December 21, 1926, in Hot Springs, Virginia, she was the daughter of the late Willie Gratton Hodge and Clara (Stinnett) Hodge, and wife to the late Ronald Cleek. Mrs. Cleek was the P
Funeral services for Thomas Armond "Tommy" Ritch, 72, will be Friday, June 11 at 11 a.m. from the Chapel of Kilgroe Funeral Home. Interment to followe at Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Cemetery in Gallant. The family will receive friends on Friday from 10 a.m. until service time at funeral home
Our foreign policy is a muddle

Several weeks ago, President Trump shocked the world by announcing the United States would soon pull out of Syria and cut back troop numbers in Afghanistan. Foe and friend alike were shaken. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned. He went public with his reasons, so Trump fired him  after the fact.

After a brief period in which the president generated other dramatic and distracting headlines, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton set out on regional speaking tours to reduce the shock, roll back the Trump decisions and reset the regional agenda. But for whom were they speaking  for President Trump, the military/industrial complex, Congress, the Republican Party or for the American people?

Pompeos speech in Cairo got the biggest play in the news. In his narrative, the heart of U.S. policy in the region is to radically sideline Iran. This dovetailed with Trumps rejection of the Iran nuclear agreement and of anything with Barack Obamas name on it. But this puts U.S. policy in direct opposition to China, France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. The only nations agreeing with Pompeos hard line are Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
A Chesterfield County man convicted of the attempted sex trafficking of a child and child pornography charges was sentenced to life in prison Thursday.

Richard Todd Haas, 49, who was found guilty by a federal jury in September, spent 40 minutes delivering a detailed, sometimes rambling denial of any misconduct before U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne pronounced the sentence.

Life in prison is a terrible, terrible, severe punishment, Payne told Haas. The judge said he believed it was necessary to deter him and others from such crimes. And, Payne said, it is necessary you be confined and not be given the opportunity to endanger any children.

Haas, of the 200 block of Monath Road, was convicted of attempting to traffic a child for a commercial sex act from May 2016 to Aug. 16, 2016. The indictment alleged he also received and possessed child pornography in 2016.

Evidence showed that he attempted to use a prostitute to help him obtain girls to molest and produce child pornography he intended to sell.

When the prostitute visited Haas at his Chesterfield home in May 2016, Haas showed her child pornography on his laptop computer and asked her if she had access to young girls. The prostitute pretended she was interested, and then called the FBI.
Virginia legislators on Friday paid somber tribute to Joshua Bell, adult son of Del. John Bell, D-Loudoun, who died Thursday.

The delegate and his son had spoken openly about Joshua's struggles with addiction to opioids since he injured his neck in a car accident eight years ago, and how at one point Joshua had turned from pain pills to heroin.

Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, spoke of Joshua Bell in a brief speech Friday to the House of Delegates.

"We we in this body have chosen to live our small lives more publicly than most. And so that means that, at times, we have to grieve in public," Mullin said.

Last night John Bell lost his son, Joshua, and we all share in his grief," Mullin said. "Were not meant to outlive our children. Its unnatural, its unjust, it smothers the soul.

Josh Bell served his country in the Air National Guard for six years. He strove to do good in this world and he used his experiences and struggles to help others.

John loves his son dearly, and many in this body, we all know that Joshua was the inspiration for so many of the pieces of legislation that John carried.
After nearly being wiped out from poaching, habitat loss and, perhaps most lethally, its eggs being ravaged by the effects of DDT, the bald eagle has been on such a roll that spotting them in Lake County isnt unheard of  but, according to Nan Buckardt, director of education for the Lake County Forest Preserves, it appears that the iceless early weeks of winter 2018-19 have made those sightings more frequent and widespread.
"The President's comment that lawmakers visiting Afghanistan is a 'public relations event' is an insult to the brave men and women serving in harm's way," Luria said in a statement released two hours after the cancellation.

Luria, a 20-year Navy veteran, was to join Pelosi and other lawmakers on a military flight Thursday afternoon to Afghanistan. The president canceled the use of the plane and said Pelosi should stay in Washington to negotiate an end to the partial government shutdown, which is in its 27th day.

Luria was just named to House Armed Services and Veterans' Affairs committees and represents the Virginia Beach region that is home to the largest Navy base and seven other major military installations.

The purpose of the trip was to thank troops for their service and dedication, and to "obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines," Luria said in her statement.

"It is my duty to support our troops and learn everything I can about their mission," she said. "Oversight is the responsibility of Congress, and it is inappropriate for the President to interfere with our constitutional duties."

Her statement ended with a single sentence noting that Trump and a separate congressional delegation traveled to Iraq during the shutdown.

A spokesman said Luria was not immediately available for an interview.

Republicans said allowing the Afghanistan trip to go ahead would have ensured no progress toward opening the government.

"Had Elaine Luria and Nancy Pelosi gone overseas, it would have assured that Virginia's federal employees would have gone another pay period with nothing to show for their hard work," RNC spokesman Garren Shipley said in a statement. "Hopefully, Congresswoman Luria can use this time to come to the table and help pass a bill that the President will sign."

Last month Luria traveled to Israel with five other freshmen for a five-day crash course in U.S.-Israel relations sponsored by the American Israel Education Fund, the charitable arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
A Lynchburg man has been charged in connection with a stabbing earlier this month, police said Friday.

Jamel Lamont Robey, 47, is charged with malicious wounding, Lynchburg police said in a news release. He is jailed without bond.

Police went to the 500 block of Oakley Avenue at 6:47 p.m. Jan. 3 on a report of an injured person on the ground.

Police found a 39-year-old man who had been stabbed. He was treated at the hospital. Police said he was in stable condition and his wound was not life-threatening.

Police said the incident was isolated with no immediate danger to the public.

Anyone with information on the stabbing is asked to call Detective J. Tucker at (434) 455-6116.

Police also encourage people with tips to call Crime Stoppers at 1-888-798-5900. Visit the Central Virginia Crime Stoppers website at www.cvcrimestoppers.org. Enter a tip online at http://p3tips.com or use the P3 app on a mobile device.

Contact Matt Busse at (434) 385-5534 or mbusse@newsadvance.com.

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That is not news. Through the long sweep of human history, the vast majority of the population lived in destitution, unhealthy misery, and often starvation. Imminent death was a fact of life. That gruesome reality led a lot of people to idealize poverty, celebrate simple rural life, a denial of reality that is also part of the human condition.
That leaves May to work out the contract with the builders, Thacker said. Then they will have about a month to get ready to start construction when school lets out this summer.

We are on track for you to occupy the school by August 2020, Thacker said. We are very excited about this project.

Also during Wednesdays meeting, the school divisions Chief Financial Officer Randy Hagler said school officials should have some preliminary budget figures to present to the school board in February if the Virginia General Assembly passes its budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

This is a short session so we hope they pass the budget before moving on to other bills, Hagler said. The good news is that the state looks to be in good shape financially.

Hagler said the budget from Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam does a lot for states school divisions.

We are pleased with the governors budget, Hagler said. It allocates more for schools, although a lot of that is contingent on some of the tax reforms that are in the budget and how they tie into the federal budget. We are all waiting to see how that works out, but we should be able to have something for you to look at next month.
A group of scientists from Russia's Ural Federal University, headed by Professor Grigory Zyryanov, synthesized a group of multi-purpose fluorophores. The scientists told about the content and results of their research on the unique technology in a respected international scientific journal Dyes and Pigments.

'Fluorophores are powders of different colors, which emit visible radiation (in other words - glow) when exposed to optical emission of a certain band. This phenomenon is called "cold light" or fluorescence,' Zyryanov explains.

Fluorophores are called dyes because they are capable of staining biological objects: for instance, cells, including those affected by pathological processes. It is vital that the dyes, firstly, have the property of selectivity, meaning they stain, say, either healthy or diseased cells only. Secondly, they should be bright, high-contrast, and suitable for observation, since some biological tissues are naturally fluorescent.

The fluorophore is placed in a solvent, preferably water, then either the tested biological object is immersed in the resulting solution, or the solution is applied to the object. In this case, certain electrostatic, donor-acceptor interactions occur between the fluorophore and the bioobject: the fluorophore molecules are captured by receptor fragments of biomolecules (the scientific term for the substance being captured is ligand). As a result, supramolecular structures, (complexes based on non-covalent (weak, reversible) bonds) are formed.

By the way, many of the vital human body functions are controlled mainly by this kind of non-covalent interactions, and we are in some sense unsteady "construction kits".

'Depending on the type and intensity of the "communication" with the processed biological object, either the shift in the fluorescence band (in other words, the change in fluorophore's color, for example, from blue to green or red), or the fluorescent enhancement/quenching occurs. Scientists call this dynamics a change in the physical signal emanating from a fluorophore molecule due to the interaction with the biological object under observation,' Ural Federal University professor explains.

Such reaction indicates, for example, the area affected by pathogenic, particularly cancerous, cells (or, vice versa, healthy tissue surrounded by pathology is brightly stained). Thus, it is possible not only to establish the presence of the disease, but also to observe its development, and in some cases successfully remove the affected tissue surgically.

'Another field of application of fluorophores is pharmacy: they can be used to trace how a drug (for example, an anti-cancer drug) is absorbed by various organs of the human body, what changes in human organs and tissues occur, how benign they are,' Zyryanov adds.

The "behavior" of dyes is an indicator of the presence of explosives. In this case, the receptors of the brightly luminous fluorophore do not "touch", as in the case of the cancer cell, but "smell" the explosive molecule in the air in the form of vapors or nanoparticles, approximately the same way a dog senses explosives with the olfactory receptors of its nose. When in contact with explosives, the fluorophore, as a rule, goes out, as the fluorescent quenching happens, which is indicated with a special device.

Fluorophores are also effective in the express analysis of soils, groundwater and domestic sewage - when it is necessary to check them for the presence of herbicides, industrial wastes or, for example, traces of pharmaceuticals. Instruments commonly used for this purpose (expensive mass spectrometers and mass chromatography mass spectrometers) are large, heavy, and require additional maintenance personnel. In contrast, to conduct an on-site visit with dyes only a small portable laboratory is required.

The uniqueness of the Ekaterinburg scientists' technology lies in its simplicity, relative quickness and locality (due to the simultaneous passage through several stages of synthesis in one reactor). In addition, the creation of dyes is accomplished without solvents, which ensures the environmental sustainability of the process. Using the methods of "green chemistry", waste-free and low-waste technologies is the historically established approach at the Ural Federal University. The work is carried out at the Ural Federal University's Department of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry and at the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Organic Synthesis under the auspices of academicians Oleg Chupakhin and Valery Charushin.

It is also important that UrFU scientists "work up" fluorophores using long-wave radiation: it is more similar to sunlight in terms of range and has great penetrating power, while affecting only the dyes and, unlike short-wave radiation, does not damage surrounding tissues, thus not doing harm to the body by secondary effects caused by radiation, such as photodegradation.

Another advantage of the technology is its low cost. Thus, it is available to medical institutions (like cancer centers) not only in large cities. Moreover, since a slight modification of the fluorophore can drastically change its properties and purpose (the same substance is suitable for working with biological objects, explosives, and pharmaceuticals), the simplicity and low cost of the technology by the Ural scientists create conditions for the synthesis of extensive "libraries" consisting of several dozen dyes for different purposes.

Clinical trials of synthesized fluorophores (the study of the aspects and limits of applicability of the synthesized dyes, the accumulation of statistics) are carried out in medical institutions and research institutes of Ekaterinburg and the Sverdlovsk region. Foreign colleagues from Europe, Brazil, India, and China also show interest in the research. Professor Ashel Silvan, a member of the editorial board of Dyes and Pigments journal, a French chemist, who recently visited the center of pharmaceutical and chemical technologies at Ural Federal University, where Professor Zyryanov's research team works, expressed admiration for the quality of the laboratory base, scope and level of work. The Ural School of Organic Chemists, founded many years ago by the renowned academician Isaac Postovsky, confirms its leading position in global science.
Rate depends on age, pollutant and lung disease

As levels of ozone and fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) rise, more patients end up in the ER with breathing problems, according to the largest U.S. study of air pollution and respiratory emergency room visits of patients of all ages. The study was published online in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

In "Age-specific Associations of Ozone and PM2.5 with Respiratory Emergency Department Visits in the U.S.," Heather M. Strosnider, PhD, MPH, and colleagues report on the associations between ground-level ozone and fine particulate pollution and ER visits for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and respiratory infections.

"Previous studies of ER visits related to respiratory illness have shown that children are particularly susceptible to air pollution, but those studies were mostly confined to a single city," said Dr. Strosnider, lead health scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program (Tracking Program). The researchers leveraged the data available through the Tracking Program to look at the association between air pollution and respiratory ER visits across hundreds of U.S. counties.

Ozone, the main ingredient of smog, and fine particulate pollution, microscopic particles that penetrate deep into the lung, are two important forms of air pollution in the U.S. The study looked at the levels of these two pollutants in 869 counties in the week prior to an ER visit for a breathing problem. The study included nearly 40 million ER visits for breathing problems from the counties, which represent 45 percent of the U.S. population.

The researchers divided patients into three groups: children under the age of 19, adults under the age of 65 and adults over the age of 65. The study found:

An association between ozone and respiratory ER visits among all age groups, with the strongest association in adults under age 65. Per 20 parts per billion (ppb) increase in ozone, the rate of an ER visit for respiratory problems increased 1.7 percent among children, 5.1 percent among adults under 65 and 3.3 percent among adults over 65.

Increased levels of ozone resulted in increased ER visits for asthma, acute respiratory infections, COPD and pneumonia. Overall the association was strongest for asthma among adults under 65.

An association was found between fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) and respiratory ER visits among children and adults under the age of 65, with the strongest association among children. Per 10 microgram per cubic meter (g/m3) increase in PM2.5, the rate of an ER visit increased 2.4 percent in children and 0.8 percent among adults under 65.

Increased levels of fine particulate matter resulted in increased visits for asthma, acute respiratory infections and pneumonia.

The authors wrote that their study findings support the Environmental Protection Agency's "determination of a likely causal relationship between PM2.5 and respiratory effects and a causal relationship between ozone and respiratory effects." However, they emphasized that their study also found important variations in those relationships based on the age of the patient, the pollutant, and the respiratory illness under consideration.

Dr. Strosnider said that study findings should guide efforts to protect those most vulnerable to air pollution. "For example, we observed strong associations for ozone among adults under 65 and for fine particulate pollution among children," she said. "This information can be used by public health officials and governments to make important decisions about air pollution and respiratory health in our communities."

Study limitations include the fact that county air pollution measurements do not measure personal exposure and counties in the Northwest and mid-Atlantic were under-represented in the study.
A new study suggests that vital exhaustion - which can be perceived as an indicator of psychological distress - is a risk factor for future risk of dementia.

Researchers from the Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen have, in collaboration with the National Research Centre for the Working Environment, and the Danish Dementia Research Centre, shown that being distressed in late midlife is associated with a higher risk of dementia in later life. The findings contribute to our understanding of psychological distress as an important risk factor that should receive more focus when considering prevention initiatives in relation to later dementia.

Psychological distress can be defined as a state of emotional suffering sometimes accompanied by somatic symptoms. Vital exhaustion is operationalized as feelings of unusual fatigue, increased irritability and demoralization and can be considered an indicator of psychological distress. Vital exhaustion is suggested to be a response to unsolvable problems in individuals' lives, in particular when being incapable of adapting to prolonged exposure to stressors.

The physiological stress response, including cardiovascular changes and excessive production of cortisol over a prolonged period, may serve as the mechanism linking psychological distress with an increased risk of dementia. Sabrina Islamoska, Ph.D. student from the Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, has shown a dose-response relation between symptoms of vital exhaustion reported in late midlife and the risk of dementia later in life. Islamoska explains: "For each additional symptom of vital exhaustion, we found that the risk of dementia rose by 2%. Participants reporting 5 to 9 symptoms had a 25% higher risk of dementia than those with no symptoms, while those reporting 10 to 17 symptoms had a 40% higher risk of dementia compared with not having symptoms."

The researchers used survey data from 6,807 Danish participants from the Copenhagen City Heart Study, who responded to questions about vital exhaustion in 1991-1994. At the time of the survey, the participants were on average 60 years. The survey data were linked to national hospital, mortality and prescription registers in order to identify dementia cases. The participants were followed until the end of 2016.

Based on the results of this study, Islamoska has drawn attention to the debate on whether psychological distress in late midlife may be important for one's later risk of dementia. Nevertheless, it is also possible that dementia pathology in an early stage result in more psychological distress.

"We were particularly concerned whether the symptoms of vital exhaustion would be an early sign of dementia. Yet, we found an association of the same magnitude even when separating the reporting of vital exhaustion and the dementia diagnoses with up to 20 years," Islamoska said. The results of this study supports that distress in late midlife may potentially increase the risk of dementia in later life. Despite adjusting for several other well-known risk factors for dementia, such as sex, marital status, lower educational level, lifestyle factors and comorbidities, the risk of dementia associated with vital exhaustion did not change.

"Stress can have severe and harmful consequences not just for our brain health, but our health in general. Cardiovascular risk factors are well-known modifiable risk factors for dementia, and in some countries, a stagnation or even a decreasing incidence of dementia has been observed. Our study indicates that we can go further in the prevention of dementia by addressing psychological risk factors for dementia," Islamoska said.
An international group of toxicologists, which includes scientists from Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), continues to study the potential risks of genetically modified (GM) products. Scientists have published a review of research papers on the fate of the DNA derived from GM food and feed entering the human body and animals. The article published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.

According to the review data, the DNA of GM products can survive harsh processing and digestive conditions. Some of them can get into the human body, combining with the DNA of bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). Scientists have discovered the presence of such DNA in the blood stream and tissues of humans and animals.

"We are talking just about the limited pieces of evidence of this process, including because this area studied insufficiently. Although we have not found evidence of any effect of DNA of GM products on the human genome, we can safely say that micro-ribonucleic acid (one of the main molecules in cells of living organisms, in addition to DNA and proteins) of the plant food treated with insecticides and antiviral sprays, enters the body of its consumers and can affect genetic processes. This question would be worth exploring further. " - Commented on the results of the review one of its authors, Dr. Muhammad Amjad Nawaz, a visiting scientist at the "Nanotechnology" Research and Education Center (REC) operating at FEFU. The scientist continues to study the effects of GM products on human and animal health, working in a group of colleagues from FEFU and other Russian and foreign universities, led by a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chief researcher of the "Nanotechnology" REC Aristides M. Tsatsakis.

In the review, scientists examine the ways and mechanisms by which foreign DNA can survive during digestion and penetrate into the cells of the body of their consumer. In particular, researchers are interested in the region of the gastrointestinal tract as the hot spot for horizontal gene transfer of GM crop DNA into gut-bacteria. Such a transfer can potentially lead to dysbacteriosis and ill-health, as well as subsequent mutations. Scientists pay attention to the contradictions that arise around the topic of the presence of DNA of consumed products in the blood and organs of their consumers and declare the failure to prove their effect on the human body. They are also discussing the possibility of integrating genomes and the expression of foreign DNA in the tissues of the consumer. In conclusion, researchers consider the potential for penetration of micro-RNA of GM plant food into the human body cells.

In 2017, the same group of researchers had published two reviews of the scientific papers on the GM crop cultivation impact on the environment, ecosystem, diversity and the health of animals and humans.

As of 2016, the global production of genetically modified cereals for food and feed is set at 185.1 million hectares and makes a profit of about 150 billion US dollars. With such production volumes, research on the potential effects of genetically modified products on human health remains relevant in the future.

Source: https://www.dvfu.ru/
Researchers at Queen's University Belfast have developed a highly innovative new enzyme biomarker test that has the potential to indicate diseases and bacterial contamination saving time, money and possibly lives.

The test, developed by scientists at the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's, can detect enzyme markers of disease known as proteases in humans, animals and food products.

Proteases are crucial for microorganism growth and are responsible for the progression of many diseases.

Levels of proteases can be highly elevated in the urine of patients with diabetic kidney disease, or at the sites of infected wounds. Similarly, in cows, an elevation of proteases in their milk can reveal diseases such as bovine mastitis, a type of mammary gland infection. In food, proteases produced by bacteria contaminated in meat and dairy products can lead to rancidity, as well as decreased shelf life and quality.

Current protease detection methods are costly, time-consuming and are not always effective. Scientists at Queen's Institute for Global Food Security have developed a nanosensor which has resulted in sensitive, fast and cost effective protease detection in milk and urine.

Dr Claire McVey, Queen's researcher and co-author on the study published in leading journal Nano Research, explains: "Not only is the test cheap to produce, but it can be used anywhere and is not reliant on laboratory conditions. Eliminating the need to carry out tests in a laboratory setting is life-changing. As well as being cost-effective, it means faster diagnosis."

The gold-nanoparticle based nanosensor devised by Queen's researchers indicates when proteases are present through a visible colour-change reaction. Gold nanoparticles are well known for their capability in speeding up the oxidization of a chemical called tetramethylbenzidine (TMB), visible through a vivid blue-colour formation.

When casein (a molecule present in milk) is added to gold nanoparticles, it surrounds the nanoparticles acting as a protective surface barrier. When TMB is introduced, the casein prevents the oxidization reaction meaning there is no or only a slight colour change.

Where proteases are present, they 'eat' the protective casein barrier, exposing the surface of the gold nanoparticles. In this instance, when TMB is added, the proteases have removed the casein meaning oxidization occurs quickly causing a fast change in colour.

Dr Cuong Cao, the lead academic on the study: "When we add TMB to the casein-covered gold nanoparticles, we can tell virtually instantly if proteases are present by whether or not the solution turns blue. Normally such testing takes much longer."

Using this approach, proteases can be detected within 90 minutes without the need for complicated or expensive laboratory equipment.

In addition, the 'ingredients' for making the nanosensor are readily available and low cost. Gold nanoparticles can be produced in abundance, with little restriction on storage requirements, making it a durable and cheap substance.

The approach developed by the Queen's researchers was tested on milk and urine but it could be adapted for a number of other applications.

Dr Cao explains: "Using molecules other than casein to coat the surface has the potential to detect other types of enzyme biomarkers. For example, coating the nanoparticles with lipids could detect the lipase enzyme, which could help in the diagnosis of diseases such as pancreatitis.

"Following full validation of this test, we would like to explore how we could expand the application to detect a host of other diseases or contaminated foods. This new approach will enable the identification of enzyme biomarkers at the point of care. It could change the landscape of how enzyme biomarkers are detected and diagnosed, making an impact not only on food safety, but on the diagnosis of enzyme-related illnesses among animals and humans. The potential scope for this test is huge."

Professor Elliott, founder of the Institute for Global Food security and a co-investigator in the study commented: "The ability to diagnose disease or contamination quickly can have a huge impact on how serious problems can be dealt with. The ultra-low cost of the system will help reduce costs of testing and could transform the amount of testing performed in the developing world."
A team of scientists from the National University of Science and Technology "MISIS", the Moscow Technological University (MIREA) and the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University has experimentally proved the effectiveness of the formerly suggested "light" method in oncotherapy. In a series of laboratory preclinical tests, the tumor growth stopped in 70% of mice, treated according to the innovative scheme. The results are presented in Pharmaceutics journal.

Selective elimination of malignant cells (when the active ingredient targets the tumor, not the whole body) is a vital part of modern oncotherapy. If this elimination is of high quality, the "hit" becomes more precise and the drug toxicity decreases; the resource to fight the disease increases.

The combination of modern photodynamic therapy with the latest methods of targeted drug delivery demonstrates positive results in the fight against malignant tumors. "Photodynamic therapy is a cancer treatment method that uses a combination of special preparations -- photosensitizers and light with waves of a certain length. Photosensitizers tend to accumulate in the tumor and when exposed to light with a certain wavelength contribute to the formation of a special form of oxygen, which destroys cancer cells. In addition to destroying cancer cells, photodynamic therapy destroys cancer in two other ways. First, photosensitizers can damage the blood vessels in the tumor, thus disrupting the flow of nutrients to it. Second, they can activate the immune system, causing it to attack cancer cells", -- Mikhail Green, one of the authors, Sc.D. in Chemistry, Head of the Department of Chemistry and Bioactive Compounds, MIREA.

Scientists have combined a magnetic nanoparticle (deliverer) with a molecule-photosensitizer, which kills cancer cells when affected by light. The resulting hybrid allows using MRI to track the movement in the bloodstream of molecules-"killers" and the level of their accumulation in the tissues in real time.

The most important issue is that for the effectiveness of treatment, it is necessary to irradiate the organ with light exactly when the concentration of the drug in the tissues is on its peak. But how to capture the right moment?

"Even at the theoretical stage, we have suggested that the optimal time of exposure to light can be determined by the intensity of the signal on the MRI image and the data obtained after the introduction of the hybrid "magnetite + photosensitizer" is 60-100 minutes, -- Maksim Abakumov, one of the coauthors, Head of NUST MISIS Laboratory "Biomedical Nanomaterials", -- Next, we conducted a series of preclinical tests on three groups of mice for 21 days. The first group received radiation after 30 minutes after injection of the test drug, the second one -- for 60-100 minutes, the third -- after 3 hours or more. As a result, almost all mice from the second group demonstrated stop in tumor growth, which proved the correctness of the proposed hypothesis".

Thus, the team was able to obtain and prove the effectiveness of the method that allows choosing the right time scheme for photo-therapy. In the nearest future, scientists plan to proceed with clinical trials of the innovative hybrid.
The results of clinical trials conducted in Ethiopia by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), in partnership with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the University of Gondar, and Addis Ababa University, open the way for more effective and safer treatments for people with both HIV and visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a group of patients who have historically suffered from poor treatment options. The results were published today in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Visceral leishmaniasis (also known as kala-azar), with up to 90,000 cases estimated in Asia, Africa, and South America, is the second largest parasitic killer after malaria, with 20,000-30,000 deaths every year. HIV affects visceral leishmaniasis by altering its severity, worsening treatment outcomes and relapse rates, and increasing the risk of death. Co-infection remains prevalent in several parts of the world, notably in North-West Ethiopia, where 20 to 40% of visceral leishmaniasis cases occur in people living with HIV.

"The region has the highest global burden of visceral leishmaniasis in people living with HIV. Young workers in Ethiopia, who have migrated to the lowlands for seasonal work and are at risk of contracting HIV, are also exposed to sandfly bites that cause visceral leishmaniasis as they sleep in improvised shelters," said Dr Jorge Alvar, Senior Advisor on Leishmaniasis at DNDi. "There is an urgent need for better treatment and outcomes for this seriously ill and neglected population."

Current World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines recommend the treatment of HIV/VL co-infection with liposomal amphotericin B (often better known as AmBisome, the brand name of the drug produced by Gilead), but the recommendations lack proper evaluation in most endemic areas.

Between 2011 and 2014, the international medical humanitarian organization MSF began using a compassionate use regimen, combining AmBisome with the oral drug miltefosine in Abdurafi Health Centre in North-West Ethiopia.

"The medical imperative was to reduce the alarmingly high treatment failure rates, so we tried something new," said Dr Koert Ritmeijer, Neglected Tropical Diseases Advisor at MSF. "Based on our experience treating more than 150 patients in routine care at Abdurafi Center, the results were very encouraging, but needed confirming in controlled clinical studies."

To provide the needed scientific evidence, DNDi ran a Phase III study, starting in 2014, testing both AmBisome monotherapy (40 mg/kg) as per current WHO and international recommendations, and a combination of AmBisome infusion (30 mg/kg) and miltefosine orally for 28 days (100 mg/day) in 58 HIV/VL patients in two sites in Ethiopia.

Results demonstrated the high efficacy of the combination therapy, with 67% cure rate when treatment lasted 28 days, and increased to 88% cure rate when patients who were not cured received a second round of treatment to clear Leishmania parasite, with a full treatment lasting 58 days.

"Considering the individual and public health benefits, there is a strong case for the prompt adoption of this treatment in international and national guidelines," said Dr Alvar. "The results also suggest a new case management strategy is needed, whereby using one or two rounds of treatment depends on whether negative parasitology has been achieved."
Many drugmakers have announced price increases with the start of the new year. The new Congress wants to do something about that. And even though both Republicans and Democrats want to address the politically potent issue of drug prices, it is unclear what they might be able to agree on.

Battle lines are forming between the House and Senate on the matter of abortion. The House is led by abortion-rights supporters and, since the election, the Senate has become slightly more against abortion.

And even though the majority of the Department of Health and Human Services remains unaffected by the partial government shutdown, the lapse of funding for other agencies is having spillover effects on health programs.

This week's panelists for KHN's "What the Health?" are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times and Alice Ollstein of Politico.

Among the takeaways from this week's podcast:

The biggest conflict among Republicans and Democrats on the drug issue centers on the GOP's reluctance to give the government a role in directly negotiating prices. Adding to the pressure is the clear indication that the issue will be front and center in the 2020 campaign.

Some states, such as California, are looking to find ways to bring down drug costs on their own. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has proposed that the state have direct negotiations with drugmakers. Such efforts could mean cutting off consumers' access to some drugs, if manufacturers don't agree to a price the state likes, and that is a painful choice for officials and patients.

When House committee assignments were released this week, women were appointed to lead many of the key panels that have a hand in health policy, including the chairman and top Republican on the Appropriations Committee and two Energy and Commerce subcommittees.

The House Democratic Caucus now has more liberal members and fewer conservatives, so the party's efforts to roll back restrictions on abortion are likely to be more robust. That could also trigger some big battles with Republicans through the legislative session.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is putting a bill on the Senate floor that would make permanent the Hyde Amendment  which bars federal funding of abortions in nearly all circumstances. But it seems unlikely that bill could be passed by the Senate, where it needs 60 votes, and even some Republicans are believed to oppose it.

Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read too:

Julie Rovner: Bloomberg News' "This JPMorgan Health Conference Is So Packed Attendees Are Meeting in the Bathroom," by Kristen V Brown

Joanne Kenen: The New York Times' "The Strange Marketplace for Diabetes Test Strips," by Ted Alcorn

Margot Sanger-Katz: Kaiser Health News' "Patients Turn To GoFundMe When Money And Hope Run Out," by Mark Zdechlik

Alice Ollstein: The Washington Post's "Federal Officials Launch Audit of D.C. Government's Opioid Grant Spending," by Peter Jamison

This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Researchers have now successfully created perfect blood vessels in the labs and this may be a huge step in benefitting people with diabetes and other conditions. The report of the procedure appears in a study titled, Human blood vessel organoids as a model of diabetic vasculopathy, published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

Capillary, blood vessel illustration. Image Credit: UGREEN 3S / Shutterstock

The researchers on the team from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of British Columbia, explain that diabetes causes abnormal thickening and damage to the blood vessels. This thickening occurs in the basement membrane part of the blood vessel, they explain. Because of this thickening there is impaired transfer of nutrients and oxygen from the blood vessels to the tissues and the cells surrounding it. This leads to the complications commonly seen among diabetics including eye disease, blindness, heart disease, strokes and kidney damage.

The team used stem cells to make them grow on organoids to become blood vessels. Stem cells or pluripotent cells in the body have the capacity to turn into any cell given the right triggers. The organoids are the three dimensional structures that are similar to organs. These act as a frame or scaffold for the blood vessels to grow upon.

These lab grown blood vessels are now placed within a petri dish to mimic an environment of diabetes. Soon they found that these blood vessels showed a thickening of the basement membranes. This was similar to what happens to blood vessels of diabetes explained Reiner Wimmer a postdoctoral research fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who was one of the researchers on the team. The team then looked for a chemical that could prevent this thickening of the membrane and found that an inhibitor of the enzyme -secretase could do the trick. Researcher Josef Penninger explained that this inhibition of -secretase seemed to prevent the blood vessel damage and this could prove to be a new area of therapy for diabetics.

The team believes that this research would benefit not only diabetes research but also other disease conditions where blood vessels are involved in the disease process. Penninger in a statement said, Being able to build human blood vessels as organoids from stem cells is a game changer... Every single organ in our body is linked with the circulatory system. This could potentially allow researchers to unravel the causes and treatments for a variety of vascular diseases from Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular diseases, wound healing problems, stroke, cancer and, of course, diabetes. Wimmer also said, What is so exciting about our work is that we were successful in making real human blood vessels out of stem cells... Our organoids resemble human capillaries to a great extent, even on a molecular level, and we can now use them to study blood vessel diseases directly on human tissue.

Diabetes affects 420 million people across the world and is fast becoming the leading cause of death and disability. Long term diabetes causes damage to almost all the major organs of the body. This is caused mainly due to the persistently elevated blood glucose levels.
To be qualified for the positions, applicants must be at least 18 years old, a registered voter in the district and a resident of the district for at least a year leading up to the appoint. They cannot be a child sex offender, hold an incompatible office or hold certain prohibited state or federal positions.
President Donald Trump is issuing a staunch denial Monday that he ever worked for Russia, as he lobs attacks at the former federal officials who have launched investigations against him, calling them "dirty cops" and "scoundrels."
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Perry

Perry Center of Lake County keeps costs down in helping community
Annie McSween had her struggles in her life, but she was fighting a winning battle, Assistant Lake County Prosecutor Carolyn Mulligan said.
EAST HAVEN  Six years after the indictments of local police officers for harassment, conspiracy and excessive force against Latinos, the wounds of a bias scandal that made national news still seem to fester within the East Haven Police Department.

While some local law enforcement personnel stayed on and have risen in rank, including Chief Edward Lennon, Officer Vincent Ferrara, one of a few in the department who helped the FBI ferret out the four crooked cops , is trying to hang on.

Read about public policy every day in Hearsts CT Politics newsletter.

A federal settlement after the bias investigation supposedly protected Ferrara from any form of retaliation, even subtle snubbing, for cooperating with the U.S. Department of Justice. According to recent sworn depositions as part of Ferraras federal lawsuit againstin connection, some East Haven police officers engaged in a range of harassment against Ferrara.

But his future is in doubt, amid charges that he lied to an investigating officer. Lennon is in the process of trying to fire Ferraro for disciplinary charges that the embattled officers lawyers say are relatively minor offenses accumulated while performing a tough job during an 11-year town career, at a time when he is being treated for a life-threatening disease.

Claims of retaliation

Ferrara was the only on-duty officer not informed of a mid-shift Thanksgiving dinner at headquarters in 2015. When his wife later called to complain, another officer cut off her phone call at headquarters.

When Ferrara requested routine backup during a motor vehicle stop, it took a responding officer more than half an hour to drive to the scene. Other police officers, including those now in supervisory roles, allegedly told young officers to avoid Ferrara.

In hundreds of pages of sworn depositions made in response to Ferraras pending civil lawsuit against more than a dozen people, including Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., police admit that Ferrara was among those labeled a rat for assisting in the investigation that led to the Jan. 18, 2012, indictments and subsequent felony verdicts against Sgt. John Miller and Officers Dennis Spaulding, David Cari and Jason Zullo.

From the police depositions In the 217-page deposition of last Oct. 15, East Haven Investigative Affairs Detective Brockett said that it was a superior officer who advised him in 2015 that Ferrara had voiced concern, after a citizen said Brackett referred to Ferrara as a "rat" and promised that he would not backup Ferrara if assistance was requested. James Brewer, one of Ferrara's attorneys, spent four and a half hours questioning Brockett on a variety of issues, including the "rat" remark as relayed from a local woman. Brewer: "....So she's just making this out of whole cloth?" Brockett: "She must be." Brewer: "But unfortunately back in 2015 when this complaint was made, there was no IA (Internal Affairs review) conducted. Right?" Brockett: "Not that I'm aware of...." Lt. Joseph Murgo Brewer also interviewed Lt. Joseph Murgo, Oct. 17, 2018, during more than three hours of testimony that totaled 183 pages. Brewer: "....You might need backup for traffic safety for both the officer and the vehicles involved, too. Right? Murgo: "Yes." Brewer: "Were you aware of Vince Ferrara complaining that he wasn't getting backup or timely backup for his calls?" Murgo: "Yes." Brewer: "Now was there an IA opened about that? Murgo: "Yes." Brewer: "Are you sure?" Murgo: "I believe so." Brewer: "Who did the IA?' Murgo: "Well, I investigated it up until I get my findings, and then I referred it to the internal affairs officer..." Brewer: "Do you know what the outcome was?" Murgo: "I do not believe it was substantiated." Brewer: "Now do you recall, during the same series of reports, a complaint, in addition to not getting backup, that - by Ferrara, that Brockett was, quote, running his mouth off about him to someone on the street? Murgo: "Yes." See More Collapse

Lt. Joseph Murgo, in a 181-page deposition in connection with Ferraras federal lawsuit, acknowledged knowing that other officers, including now-Sgts. Kevin Klarman and Craig Michalowski, told other cops not to associate with Ferrara, also in apparent violation of the deal that the town of East Haven reached with the Department of Justice that expired at the end of 2017. The Department of Justice has declined comment.

Meanwhile, a report that the East Haven Board of Police Commissioners is reviewing, as it appears on-track to fire Ferrara, was prepared by Internal Affairs Detective Robert Brockett, who acknowledged in a deposition that he had been accused of calling Ferrara a rat and telling a local resident that he would not back up Ferrara on any calls.

There was never an internal probe of those allegations.

Police chief wanted evidence of outside work

Brockett, who roasted a turkey for the potluck holiday dinner in 2015, told Ferraras lead attorney, James S. Brewer of Hartford, that he did not know why Ferrara wasnt invited to the event, for which several on-duty officers also prepared side dishes. While he testified that the invitation was broadcast over the police radio system, another officer said it was strictly a telephone-and-text invitation, and Ferrara was left out.

Brockett denied using the rodent term against Ferrara when he was a street patrolman three years ago, before his promotion to the department in-house investigative unit.

Brockett testified that as an Internal Affairs detective, he first accepted a verbal order from Chief Lennon in the fall of 2017 to scour Ferraras departmental emails for evidence of possible on-duty work as a part-time salesman for a body armor company. Brockett said that over the course of three days he found several emails from the company  Angel Armor  which are allowed under police-computer rules, but none that Ferrara sent on the companys behalf.

What Brockett, like Lennon  a defendant in Ferraras 14-month-old lawsuit  did find were seven photos of nude and topless women, sent by at least one woman to Ferraras police email, which Ferrara then forwarded to his personal email, in an alleged violation of departmental policies. The photos, presented recently to the police board, are the main element in Lennons case to terminate Ferrara, who has been battling brain cancer and has been out of work for more than a year.

During a nearly two-hour interview with Brockett, Ferrara initially denied knowing the women, prompting the detective to probe deeper, looking among Ferraras Facebook friends. Brewer says Ferraras reticence could have been the result of medication he was taking for the severe headaches he suffered in the days before his brain-cancer diagnosis in December 2017, just days after Brocketts interview.

This, and a 2016 incident involving a previous excessive-force altercation with a 17-year-old on a bicycle, are parts of Lennons attempt to terminate Ferrara, who was put on paid administrative leave in early December 2017 and locked out of the agencys computer system.

Ferraras pending civil lawsuit is against Maturo, who in the town charter has sole discretion in hiring and firing police chiefs; Lennon, who was also the compliance officer in the wake of the federal investigation; Sal Brancati, the towns director of administration and management; Joseph Coppola, assistant director of administration and management; Brent Larrabee, the former police chief; James Naccarato, deputy police chief; the town of East Haven, and the five-member Board of Police Commissioners.

We need more time to make a fair job judging this, said William Illingworth, chairman of the police board, at the end of a recent 90-minute special meeting in which Stephen M. Sedor, a Pullman and Comley attorney hired by Lennon, laid out the case against Ferrara, including previous disciplinary reports.

Through an investigation of that matter, Officer Ferrara not only denied that he did that, but then he denied knowing who those individuals were, Sedor told the commission, adding that he misrepresented the facts during Brocketts investigation and lied about his relationship with at least one woman. The forwarding of the photos themselves, Sedor said, violates the agency policy on transmitting pornographic images.

From the chiefs standpoint, the only reasonable step to take would be the termination of the officer, Sedor said during a half-hour presentation. The concern also is that if the officer is not terminated, the message that it would send to the other officers about their conduct if they were to make this representation in IA interviews would be disastrous.

He has some blemishes on his record

After Sedors presentation to the police board, Norman Pattis, a nationally known civil-rights and employment attorney who represented Zullo during the towns bias-and-harassment scandal, said it was ironic he was back in town, now representing Ferrara, a former cooperating witness for the federal Department of Justice.

Pattis said that in his career, employees who seem to get the toughest treatment are school teachers and police.

And in proceedings like this, its easy to forget what we ask police officers to do on a day-to-day basis, Pattis said. He has some blemishes on his record but theyre not very different from what you see among other officers.

Pattis said that during his 25 years in practice, police officials in particular tend to massively overcharge those up on disciplinary charges. He said that the case against Ferrara is essentially in three parts: the salacious photos; potential misuse of email; and the misleading statements.

He said police officers are asked daily to make snap decisions and act based on their training. He noted that the incident with the teenager on a bicycle, whom Ferrara took to the ground and which first resulted in a 10-day departmental suspension, was reduced by the state Board of Labor and Arbitration to five days, indicating a possible overreaction of punishment by East Haven officials.

Pattis said the photographs were not distributed beyond Ferraras personal email. Pattis noted limited use of personal email is permitted under departmental rules.

There is no blanket prohibition on the use of email, he said. He sent the photos to himself. He did not bring shame or discredit on the town of East Haven.

Officers arent expected to be perfect, Pattis said, noting that another charge against Ferrara centers on his failure to report allegedly unreasonable use of force by another cop. Theyre expected to be reasonable. These are not shocking uses of force. Force is used routinely, each and every day, on the job.

Pattis proposed some kind of compromise suspension rather than termination.

From these three instances of misconduct in his 11 years in East Haven, you dont see a pattern of rampant lawlessness, he said. You dont see a pattern of exposing the city to liability. Mr. Ferrara may have made mistakes and may not be perfect, but the question for you is: Does he warrant dismissal on a slight disciplinary matter? His most serious offense is the lack of candor. Could he have been more forthcoming? Yes. Mr. Ferrara wants to be a police officer.

Ferrara, who late last year was cleared to return to work, is scheduled for an independent medical examination in early February. Pattis asked the commission to defer a decision until after that subsequent report.

I think the town of East Haven owes him that much, Pattis said. Mr. Ferrara hung in there and he came to East Haven and he helped the town during a dark time and now he struggles with health issues. If hes cleared to return to work, then make a decision. If hes not clear to return to work, give him the opportunity to apply for a disability pension.

Pattis warned that if Ferrara were fired, the action would add fuel to his pending federal lawsuit.
WASHINGTON  Residents took part last weekend in an effort to better understand the current bald eagle population in the state.

Last years results of the Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey reported 166 bald eagles in Connecticut  the highest since the National Wildlife Federation started the survey in 1979.

The survey is used to document trends in the bald eagle population over time.

Its one of the longest, continuous data sets we have monitoring the states eagles, said Brian Hess, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Through the effort, volunteers keep track of the number and location of the eagles they see, when they see them, and what the birds are doing, as well as noting whether its an adult or immature eagle.

That data is then sent to the DEEP, which leads the survey for Connecticut. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now oversees the survey for the country.

Citizen science has become a bigger component for the survey to cover the large areas and gather observations. Citizen science is when non-professionals gather data or observations for meaningful science projects.

We cant do any of this without the help of the volunteers doing the hard work, Hess said. It wouldnt be possible without the army of volunteers.

Steep Rock Association was one the organizations leading groups of citizen scientists last weekend for the survey.

Although the early hours of a winter day may be cold, patience and perseverance are often rewarded with many wildlife sightings, according to the associations website. Witnessing the 7-foot wingspan of an adult eagle searching for open water to hunt will quickly make ones day special.

Surveys are done all over the state, with most along major rivers and lakes where the eagles like to hunt and nest.

Eagles have slowly been bouncing back, largely due to the elimination of DDT, a pesticide introduced in the 1950s to kill mosquitoes. But the pesticide worked its way up the food chain, from insects to fish to the eagles that prey on them. The chemical caused thinning in the eagles eggs, which cracked easily when they were incubated. Connecticut banned DDT in 1979.

While there are more eagle sightings reported, Hess cautions this could be due to more people participating and documenting the eagles than more eagles themselves.

He suspects there could be fewer sightings with the survey this year because there isnt as much ice cover as usual. Connecticuts eagles stay year round but the state also gets the northern eagles that travel south when their waters freeze over. Because of this, warmer winters tend to have fewer sightings in Connecticut.

This could change if there is a cold snap though.

The Housatonic is generally a good place to see eagles, especially at the Shepaug Dam in Southbury where an observation center is located. This is because the dam prevents that section of the river from freezing and the eagles can continue to hunt.

kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345
Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington will play host to a presentation, Refugee? Asylum Seekers? Undocumented Immigrant? What is the Real Difference? Jan. 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Chris George, executive director of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), will address the legal paths of refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented immigrants.
DANBURY  The person on the receiving end of gunfire Thursday afternoon was the intended target, according to police.

The Danbury Police Department would like the public to know that a preliminary investigation indicates the earlier shooting was not random and that the victim was the intended target, said a statement from Detective Lt. Mark Williams.

The shooter, who Williams identified as a male, had not been caught later Thursday. Williams said there was no indication he posed an imminent threat to the general public.

The victim was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, Williams said. He had been shot in the arm, police said.

The shooting happened around Hospital and Ellsworth avenues, near Danbury Hospital, and the shooter had last been seen in the area of the Wooster Cemetery, police said. Officers were looking for a young adult wearing a blue do-rag and a black NorthFace backpage.

Officers stayed on the scene as the sun set and blocked off a portion of Hospital Avenue. Officers also appeared to be focusing their search around and in the Wooster Cemetery immediately west of the apparent scene. Police cleared from the area just after 5 p.m.

Nearby Ellsworth Avenue, Hayestown Avenue and Broadview Middle schools were briefly locked down because of their proximity to the hospital while police searched the area, but students were ultimately released around 4:30 p.m., school officials said.

Western Connecticut State Universitys midtown campus also lifted its lockdown around 4:30 p.m. and Danbury Hospital lifted a limited lockdown at 5 p.m.

The investigation is ongoing as investigators are currently gathering information, which will hopefully assist in identifying a suspect, Williams said in the statement later Thursday.

While gunfire is uncommon in Danbury, the incident comes less than three weeks after a confrontation outside an apartment near Rogers Park ended when a police officer shot and killed 45-year-old Paul Arbitelle when he reportedly wielded a knife at officers.

In September 2017, a 20-year-old man was shot twice on outside a home on Church Hill Road within 100 feet of a school playground, leading to the lockdown of Westside Middle and Mill Ridge Primary schools. Four men were arrested about six weeks later and charged in the incident.

In May 2014, Garfield Sanderson, a 20-year-old from Bridgeport, was arrested nine days after Jeliel Kingston, 23, was gunned down during a late-night fight at the Mambo Cafe on Elm Street. Sanderson was sentenced to 25 years in 2017 when he was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter and carrying a pistol without a permit, but his case is under appeal.

zach.murdock@hearstmediact.com
When they all went to use the restroom at the same time, he wondered away from the group and noticed a spot he called clown ally where the performers congregated. One of them came over and spent some time with him, after which he was determined to become a clown.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 18)  President Rodrigo Duterte made a last pitch for the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), pleading to Cotabato City residents to vote in favor of the measure which would abolish the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and establish the new Bangsamoro ARMM (BARMM).

"Let us use the plebiscite as a peaceful means to finally correct the historical injustice against the Moro people of Mindanao. Let us forget the bitterness of the past and move on to the future," Duterte said Friday, a day before the end of the campaign period for the BOL plebiscite.

Duterte was joined by members of his Cabinet, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman Murad Ebrahim and Moro National Liberation Front chairman Yusop Jikiri at a peace assembly in Cotabato City, one of the three areas which would vote Monday whether to approve or reject the BOL.

Duterte's presence at the peace assembly in the regional office of the ARMM is seen as a symbol of his call for this city to eventually join and embrace the BARMM.

Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, the mayor of Cotabato, which is not part of ARMM but hosts its offices, has openly expressed her opposition to add the city to the BARMM. She has also called for the Commission on Elections chair to inhibit from the plebiscite.

The plebiscite, where Cotabato, Isabela City, Basilan and ARMM would vote in, is going to be historic since this is the first time that the MILF, a former revolutionary force, would submit itself to a democratic electoral process.

Duterte promised in 2016 that he will support the passage, implementation and ratification of the BOL, citing its contribution to bringing peace in Mindanao.

Isabela and Cotabato residents would be deciding whether they want to be included in the BARMM, while ARMM residents would decide if they want the BOL ratified.

Basilan province would also be voting whether it will allow Isabela City to join the BARMM.

CNN Philippines' David Santos and Xave Gregorio contributed to this report.
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NEW CANAAN  Silver Hill Hospital will once again host the Labrang Tashi Kyil Monks for a visual and experiential cultural event.

The four-day event will take place at Silver Hill from Jan. 25 to 28. The cultural event looks to educate the public about the culture and religion of Tibet, the teachings of the Dharma and raise funds for the monks monastery. A special presentation for the public is scheduled for Jan. 26 at 1 p.m. at Silver Hills Martin Center. The community event is free to the public.

President and Medical Director of Silver Hill Hospital Andrew Gerber said the staff is thrilled and privileged to host the Tashi Kyil Monks again. The monks previously visited in 2013 and 2016.

This is another opportunity for us to learn from them, from them to learn from us, and for all of that learning to ultimately come out in the service of our patients, he said.

The Jan. 26 event will feature six Tashi Kyil monks who will perform a Tashi Sholpa dance, which was created to welcome the Dalai Lama during visits to Tibetan monasteries. The monks will also lead a Chod meditation, which is a cermony to cut off attachments, accompanied by a sacred Buddhist dance called Cham.

Gerber said the event is an important way to breakdown any preconceptions about a western versus eastern approach to mental health.

I think there can be a misconception that you must do one or the other, he said. Were interested in demonstrating that there may be different languages and different approaches, but there is one human mind and one human experience.

Community members will have the opportunity to observe the monks work on a sacred sand Mandala on world peace, he said. This initiative will take four days to complete and involves millions of grains of sand resulting in a multi-colored design symbolizing healing.

I hope and I believe an event like this one speaks to breaking down barriers and talking across differences in a way thats not just good for our patients or staff, but our society as a whole, Gerber said.

Janet Isdaner, director of social work and transitional living programs at Silver Hill Hospital, said, While its exciting to open our doors and welcome the community to such a special event, we also feel incredibly fortunate to have the Tashi Kyil monks on Silver Hills campus for several days  getting to know our patients and staff and having an opportunity to impact their lives.

Isdaner said with the monks lessons on meditation and mindfulness, and the hands-on activities they lead  which involve focus and patience  Silver Hill regards the monks time with the patients as a unique, informal type of therapy.

The monks approach is similar to the practices we teach our patients every day, she said. Their time with us provides a creative, stimulating way to reach our patients and an experience that enhances the holistic treatment program we aim to provide. We so look forward to their visit.

dj.simmons@hearstmediact

.com, 203-842-2568
Newburyport, MA (01950)

Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 53F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 53F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Democratic Massachusetts Congressman Stephen Lynch blasted President Trump Friday for reportedly leaking that lawmakers were trying to make a trip to Afghanistan on a commercial airline.

"It was extremely reckless and thoughtless and potentially dangerous that the president announced our itinerary going into a war zone," said Lynch, who was scheduled to attend the trip with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress.

Trump had denied Pelosi and other members of Congress a military plane to make the trip, citing the shutdown, but suggested she could still fly commercially if she wanted to. That move came after Pelosi asked if Trump would reconsider giving his State of the Union address at the Capitol, given that many government workers responsible for security aren't being paid.

Senior American delegations to war zones are usually planned and executed under strict secrecy, since reporting those plans ahead of time would tip-off the enemy on where to attack high-value targets. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said in a statement that Trump's revelation of Pelosi's travel plans on Thursday increased the danger to all involved.

He said that the delegation had been prepared to make the trip commercially, but Friday morning, "we learned that the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well."

The trip was postponed given "the grave threats caused by the Presidents action," Hammill said.

The White House said it had leaked nothing that would cause a security risk.

Lynch, the incoming chairman of the National Security subcommittee, said this would have been his 15th trip to Afghanistan, and called it "dangerous under the best of circumstances." But to have Trump publicly share information about the trip put the lawmakers, their staff and their diplomatic security team and military escorts in danger.

"There are very few flights going into Kabul airport from the U.S., and so it basically gave the Taliban and others  ISIS, al-Qaida  first-hand information of when our plane was coming in... I think it was highly, highly reckless on the part of the president, and the saddest part is I don't think he even gets it."

"I think it was spiteful, it was small-minded, it was petty. Just to do that out of spite but accepting the consequences that you're putting all these people in danger, in mortal danger, and outing us to al-Qaida and to the Taliban and others is just reprehensible and a violation of every protocol we have."

Trump's initial letter  his first public comments to or about Pelosi after she suggested Trump push back the State of the Union from Jan. 29 until after the end of the shutdown  was sent just before she and other lawmakers were set to depart on the previously undisclosed trip to Afghanistan and Brussels. Trump belittled the trip as a "public relations event"  even though he had just made a similar warzone stop  and said it would be best if Pelosi remained in Washington to negotiate to reopen the government.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative!" Trump wrote.

Denying military aircraft to a senior lawmaker  let alone the speaker, who is second in line to the White House after the vice president, traveling to a combat region  is very rare. Lawmakers were caught off guard. A bus to ferry the legislators to their departure idled outside the Capitol on Thursday afternoon.

The political tit-for-tat between Trump and Pelosi laid bare how the government-wide crisis has devolved into an intensely pointed clash between two leaders both determined to prevail. It took place as hundreds of thousands of federal workers go without pay and Washington's routine protocols  a president's speech to Congress, a lawmaker's official trip  became collateral damage.

Hammill said that Pelosi was planning to meet with commanders and troops on the front lines in Afghanistan as part of Congress' oversight responsibilities. Her trip was initially scheduled for Brussels as well.

For security reasons, Pelosi would normally make such a trip on a military aircraft supplied by the Pentagon. According to a defense official, Pelosi did request Defense Department support for overseas travel and it was initially approved. The official wasn't authorized to speak by name about the matter, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the president does have the authority to cancel the use of military aircraft.
Christopher B. Burke Engineering has found that high lake levels and continuous wave action have resulted in the loss of shoreline and reduced the width of an access drive from 77 feet to 62 feet. Lake Michigans water level is between 2 1/2 to 3 feet higher than in 2002, but is lower than the levels that were seen in the mid 1990s, the firm noted in a memorandum to the city of Highwood.
A luxury Massachusetts resort has been sued by a woman with a nut allergy who landed in the hospital after being served a veggie burger containing cashews.

The Berkshire Eagle reports that the suit filed in federal court in Springfield this week against Canyon Ranch Wellness Resort in Lenox alleges negligence, breach of warranty, breach of contract and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. It seeks unspecified damages.

Kristin Chu Smart, of New York City, says she and her mother paid $3,000 for a weekend at the resort in December 2017.

Smart says she informed numerous staff at the resort, including her server, she was allergic to nuts and was assured there were none in her food.

A Canyon Ranch spokeswoman said she could not comment on pending legislation.
A Massachusetts man has been identified as one of the victims who died after an avalanche rushed down a mountainside at a New Mexico ski resort on Thursday.

The avalanche near the highest peak of Taos Ski Valley happened around 11:30 a.m.

NBC10 Boston has confirmed Matt Zonghetti, the man who was killed, was a graduate of Mansfield High School.

"He had, like, the heart of a champion. He was smart, he had such great pride and determination," Michael Redding, Zonghetti's former high school football coach, told NBC10 Boston. "He was going to have such a positive influence on the world, and that's the most tragic thing."

Superintendent of Schools Teresa Murphy released a statement following the tragic news.

"Matt Zonghetti was an outstanding Mansfield High School student-athlete and citizen, We are proud to consider him one of our own. His death is a tragic loss and our school community is heartbroken," read the statement.

"The Wake Forest University campus community is deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of Matt Zonghetti ('14). We offer our condolences and support to his friends and family at this difficult time," read another statement from the college he attended.

Two other skiers were pulled from the snow after a roughly 20-minute rescue effort, according to a resort spokesman.

A representative from Taos Ski Valley released a statement saying they were conducting a review of what happened as "a situation like this has never happened."

"We don't have details to share at this time, but we are committed to doing a diligent and exhaustive review," read the statement. "Our hearts go out to the skiers and their families and friends who were affected by yesterday's accident, as well as to all the volunteers, staff and community members who are mourning with us."
Flu season is upon us and hitting its peak across Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Thursday, the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human services has confirmed the first flu-related death in the Granite State.

State health officials are hoping the unfortunate news of that flu-related death will encourage people to get a flu shot.

Inside Convenient MD in Exeter, mom Katie Warburton is desperately hoping for some relief for her little girl.

She doesnt want to get up and play, I just want her to be happy again thats the goal, Warburton said.

Two-year-old Riley has flu-like symptoms.

Coughing and getting sick at night, Warburton said. This year, for some reason, its been really, really bad.

According to the CDC, the flu is now widespread in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

And with flu season hitting its peak locally, doctors say parents should have their sick children seen right away.

Medication given to help treat influenza is most effective if given in first 24-48 hours, said Convenient MD Regional Medical Director Dr. Jo Gates.

She says thats also true for elderly people and those with underlying medical conditions.

Influenza does kill people, Dr. Gates said.

Because of that, Dr. Gates wants families to know what to look out for. She says despite common misconceptions, having the flu doesnt mean you have to be nauseous.

In general, its like the worst cold youve ever had, Dr. Gates said. Congestion and cough, and usually a sore throat and headache at some point during the illness.

She says the best way to protect yourself is with the flu vaccine.

You wont be as sick and you are far less likely to die, she said.

Hampton resident Casey Ward says take it from him  the flu shot works.

I got it for the first time ever, he said. Ive always been against it, but this is the first year, I did not get sick.

Dr. Gates says its not too late to get your vaccine. She thinks this flu season will last well into March.
A typo in an email address connected total strangers  and will result in an unlikely guest at a party in Vermont this weekend.

I try to be open to things in life, said Will Novak of Arizona, who was accidentally invited to the bachelor party of a man he never met.

A typo meant the invitation went to Will instead of to Bill Novak of Brooklyn, because their email addresses  like their names  are just a single letter off from one another.

Hes a really nice guy, Bill Novak said of Will Novak, referring to the email and texting friendship that developed after other party guests sorted out the email confusion.

The invitation was to a bachelor party for a man named Angelo and will be held this weekend at Vermonts Okemo Mountain Resort.

Will Novak responded to the misdirected message, accepting the invitation, because he said he thought Angelo and his friends seemed cool.

The fact they wrote back and met me at my level of intensity and enthusiasm and were like, You seem great, youre hilarious, come on out  lets have fun, was amazing, Will Novak said.

Its very crazy, Bill Novak acknowledged, adding that he thinks his group of friends will all get along with the stranger from Arizona, based on the sense of humor and fun Will has demonstrated.

The director of Okemos ski-and-ride school said he will give the Arizonan beginner lessons, hoping to get his skills to the point where he can take an easy run with the whole bachelor party.

Ive never heard of anything even close to something like this, ski-and-ride instructor Chris Saylor said of the unusual reason the guest is attending the bachelor party. I think the friendship theyre going to build with people theyve never met before, just through an errant email  its going to be stories for a lifetime!

Bill Novak, the intended guest, said he cant wait to meet the other Novak, and made a T-shirt staking his claim that hes the real Will Novak.

Will Novak, the one in Arizona, said he is curious if his return trip home Sunday may be delayed by snow this weekend in New England. If it is, no biggie, he said: hell just have more time to spend with his new buddies.

Thursday, Gov. Phil Scott, R-Vermont, tweeted well-wishes to the groom-to-be and the guests at the bachelor party.

Please extend my congratulations to Angelo and his bride-to-be on their wedding! Scott tweeted. Its always great when new people visit Vermont. I hope you all have a fun weekend. Be safe and enjoy the snow!
A man who graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine was among the four Americans killed in a suicide bombing in Syria.

Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, was identified as one of the victims in the Wednesday attack. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said he had graduated from Bowdoin. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the bombing, but did not immediately provide evidence to support its claim.

"Saddened to hear that Bowdoin College graduate and Army Chief Warrant Officer Jonathan Farmer was one of four Americans killed during an ISIS attack in Syria this week," Pingree wrote in a Facebook post. "Thinking of his family, friends & entire Bowdoin community today, and indebted to his service to our country."

The attack happened just a month after President Donald Trump claimed that ISIS had been defeated and announced he was pulling out U.S. forces.

Officials also identified Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician Shannon M. Kent, 35, and Department of Defense operations support specialist Scott A. Wirtz as victims from the U.S. The Department of Defense said the still-unidentified fourth person was a contractor.

In total, at least 19 people were killed in the attack in the strategic northeastern town of Manbij, which highlighted the threat posed by ISIS despite Trump's claims. It could also complicate what had already become a messy withdrawal plan, with the president's senior advisers disagreeing with the decision and then offering an evolving timetable for the removal of the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops.

The attack, which also wounded three U.S. troops, was the deadliest assault on U.S. troops in Syria since American forces went into the country in 2015. It has prompted new complaints about the withdrawal and underscored Pentagon assertions that ISIS is still a threat and capable of deadly attacks.

The dead included a number of fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces, who have fought alongside the Americans against ISIS, according to officials and the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In a Dec. 19 tweet announcing the withdrawal, Trump said, "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency." He said the troops would begin coming home "now." That plan triggered immediate pushback from military leaders, including the resignation of the defense secretary.

Over the past month, however, Trump and others have appeared to adjust the timeline, and U.S. officials have suggested it will likely take several months to safely withdraw American forces from Syria.

Not long after the attack Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence repeated claims of ISIS's defeat. Speaking at the State Department, Pence said the "caliphate has crumbled" and the militant network "has been defeated." Later in the day he released a statement condemning the attack but affirming the withdrawal plan.

"As we begin to bring our troops home, the American people can be assured, for the sake of our soldiers, their families, and our nation, we will never allow the remnants of ISIS to re-establish their evil and murderous caliphate - not now, not ever," he said.
President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to broker a deal to coax the North to give up its nuclear weapons, the White House announced Friday.

News of a second meeting with the reclusive North Korean leader came after Trump's 90-minute meeting in the Oval Office with a North Korean envoy, Kim Yong Chol, who traveled to Washington to discuss denuclearization talks. Trump and Kim Jong Un are to meet near the end of February at a place to be announced later, said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

"The United States is going to continue to keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea until we see fully and verified denuclearization," Sanders said. "We've had very good steps and good faith from the North Koreans in releasing the hostages and other moves. And so we're going to continue those conversations and the president looks forward to the next meeting."

In May, North Korea released three American detainees and sent them home with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after his meeting with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang.

The second summit signals stepped-up efforts by both countries to continue talks. Trump has exchanged letters with the North Korean leader amid little tangible progress on the vague denuclearization agreement reached at their first meeting last June in Singapore.

On Friday, Pompeo met with the North Korean envoy at a Washington hotel before the White House meeting, and the two had lunch together afterward.

Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit early this year. Vietnam has been considered as a possible summit venue, along with Thailand, Hawaii and Singapore.

Since their Singapore sit-down in June, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology. A planned meeting between Pompeo and the envoy, who is North Korea's former spy chief, in New York last November was abruptly canceled. U.S. officials said at the time that North Korea had called off the session.

The special U.S. envoy for North Korea negotiations, Steve Biegun, is set to travel to Sweden for further talks over the weekend.

The talks have stalled over North Korea's refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them. The North also has demanded that the U.S. end harsh economic penalties and provide security guarantees before it takes any steps beyond its initial suspension of nuclear and missile tests.

Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for National Interest, said any talks between the two nations are a positive development, but the hard work of negotiating an agreement has only begun.

"Both nations must now show at least some tangible benefits from their diplomatic efforts during a second summit, or risk their efforts being panned as nothing more than reality TV," Kazianis said.

As a possible first step, Kazianis said, North Korea could agree to close its nuclear centrifuge facility at Yongbyon in exchange for some relief from U.S. sanctions or a peace declaration ending the Korean War. The three-year war between North and South Korea ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

"Such a deal allows both sides to come away with a much-needed win that can breathe new life into negotiations," he said.

Kim expressed frustration in an annual New Year's address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit "to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community," according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.

Kim's latest trip to China, his fourth since last year, came as the North's strongest ally has encouraged negotiations with the U.S. while at the same time arguing in favor of an immediate easing of sanctions.

The U.S. and North Korea seemed close to war at points during 2017. The North staged a series of weapons tests that brought it closer to its nuclear goal of one day being able to target anywhere on the U.S. mainland. The two sides then turned to insulting each other: Trump called Kim "Little Rocket Man" and North Korea said Trump was a "dotard."

Independent analysts are highly skeptical that North Korea will easily abandon a nuclear arsenal constructed in the face of deep poverty and probably seen by Kim as his only guarantee of his government's survival. But Retired Gen. Vincent Brooks, former U.S. commander of American and allied forces in South Korea, told "PBS Newshour" that he believes Kim is serious about getting rid of his nuclear weapons.

"I do. I think that the dance is going to be very important here, though, as we think about how we go from where we were to where we all want to be," Brooks said. "First, we ought to take him (Kim) at his word. And it's not an easy thing to accept, especially given the track record of North Korea.

"But this is a new leader in North Korea ... and, indeed, there's evidence that he's serious about committing to what he said. For example, we've now gone 415 days without a strategic provocation, test or demonstration. I think that's a signal by itself that Kim Jong Un has moved in a different direction."
America's busiest airport, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International, is a blur of activity on the best of days. But an extra layer of anxiety gripped the airport Friday, the eve of a three-day holiday weekend. The partial government shutdown  the longest ever  has thinned the ranks of federal workers who staff airport security lines. And some travelers had braced for the worst.

"I have a 3 o'clock flight, and I arrived at 10:15 a.m.," Beth Lambert said while waiting to check in at a Delta Air Lines counter as her 5-year-old, Michael, rode around on his wheeled bag like a scooter. "We're going to be hanging out for a while."

The scene at most of the nation's airports has so far been marked more by concerned passengers showing up early than by missed flights. Longer lines are evident at some airports. But delays resulting from a rise in federal security screeners calling in sick have been slight.

Yet concern is quickly growing. President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress remain far apart over Trump's insistence on funding for a wall along the Mexican border as the price of reopening the government. With the two sides trading taunts and avoiding talks, travel industry analysts and economists have been calculating the potential damage should the shutdown drag into February or beyond.

Airlines and hotels would suffer. So would parks and restaurants that cater to travelers. And, eventually, the broader U.S. economy, already absorbing a trade war with China and a global economic slowdown, would endure another blow.

The travel and tourism industries generate about $1.6 trillion in U.S. economic activity  one-twelfth of the economy  and one in 20 jobs, according to the Commerce Department. Macroeconomic Advisers says it now expects the economy to expand at just a 1.4 percent annual rate in the first three months of this year, down from its previous forecast of 1.6 percent, because of reduced government spending during the shutdown.

America's air-travel system will face its sternest test this weekend, which coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, a federal holiday. The Transportation Security Administration predicts it will screen over 8 million passengers between Friday and Monday, up 10.8 percent from last year's MLK weekend. And it will do so with fewer screeners. On Thursday, the TSA said 6.4 percent of screeners missed work  nearly double the 3.8 percent rate on the same day in 2018.

A TSA spokesman said the agency was offering overtime to screeners for this weekend, though those workers wouldn't be paid  for their regular pay or for overtime until the shutdown eventually ends.

On top of potentially longer airport security lines this weekend, a blast of winter weather could snarl travel this weekend in the Midwest and Northeast.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, home to Delta Air Lines, has likely been the hardest hit airport. Delta said this week that the shutdown will cost it $25 million in January because fewer federal employees and contractors will be flying. By contrast, United Airlines, which has a substantial presence around Washington, D.C., said it hasn't felt much impact yet.

But the airlines fear that if the shutdown doesn't end soon, more TSA agents will call in sick or quit. A shortage of screeners would cause security lines to swell. Air traffic controllers, who are also working without pay, say they, too, are short-staffed. If the controller shortage became severe enough, the government could restrict the number of flights, though some analysts think that's unlikely.

"Luckily this is the low season  January is one of the weakest months of the year," said Savanthi Syth, an airline analyst for Raymond James. "This spilling into February is a real concern. The risk is that the longer this drags out, it might cause some passengers to say, 'I don't want to deal with all the hassle, maybe I won't take that trip.'"

Consumers are, in fact, taking a dimmer view of the economy, in part because of the shutdown. A measure of consumer confidence fell this month by the most in more than six years, according to the University of Michigan, which conducts the survey. If Americans were to cut back on travel and other discretionary spending, it would weaken consumer spending, the U.S. company's primary fuel.

Laura Mandala, who runs a travel and tourism research firm, said the shutdown might discourage international travelers, too.

"These uncertainties will result in fewer conferences being booked," Mandala said, leading to "convention and hotel staff layoffs, reduced schedules, resulting in less income for workers to spend in the local economy."

Hotels are starting to feel the impact, particularly in the Washington, D.C., region but also in other cities with substantial federal workforces, such as San Diego, which has a large naval base.

In the Washington area, including its nearby suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, hotel revenue plunged 26 percent in the second week of January compared with the same period last year, according to STR, a travel research firm. That's much steeper than the 8 percent decline that occurred nationwide.

Michael Bellisario, an analyst for investment bank R.W. Baird, suggested that other factors accounted for the most of the nationwide drop but said the shutdown almost certainly played a role.

"In no way is the government shutdown a positive for hotel demand and travel," Bellisario said.

If the shutdown lingers and people see more reports of long TSA lines on television news, "they will say, 'Oh wow, traveling is hard,' and that impacts the hotel industry," said Jan Freitag, a senior vice president at STR.

For now, though, the most visible impact has been at airports. One of the seven checkpoints at Houston's main airport has been closed all week and will remain so indefinitely, a spokesman said. Miami closed one concourse during the afternoons and evenings last weekend. On the other hand, officials at airports in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami said they weren't experiencing any problems.

The problems would emerge if the shutdown persists, and the damage would extend to the private companies that operate airport shops and restaurants.

Mike Boyd, an airport consultant in Colorado, noted that a pullback in travel would be felt most in airports that are heavily dependent on government employees such as Reagan National Airport outside Washington, Manhattan Regional Airport in Kansas, near the Army's Fort Riley, and Watertown International Airport in upstate New York, near Fort Drum.

Federal employees going without pay  there are about 800,000 of them, including 420,000 who are still working  are already suffering, of course.

"We still have to make sure our kids eat, make sure to have a roof over their head," said Shalique Caraballo, whose wife is a TSA worker in Atlanta. "We sweat in private and don't let the kids see the struggle."

Some in the airline industry and even in Congress have suggested that longer TSA security lines could exert enough pressure on politicians to break the stalemate that is keeping the government shuttered.

Others have all but lost hope.

"I would love to think that politicians understand that travel and tourism is an incredibly important gear in the economy," said Ninan Chacko, CEO of Travel Leaders Group, which owns and manages travel agencies, "but I don't think that is really the rational discussion that is taking place in Washington."

Koenig reported from Dallas and Rugaber from Washington. AP staffers Sarah Blake Morgan and Ron Harris in Atlanta and Cathy Bussewitz in New York contributed to this report.
Vice President Mike Pence said the criticism of Christian education in America should stop.

Pence is responding to media reports of his wife returning to teach at a school that says it can refuse to employ gay and lesbian teachers or enroll children with gay or lesbian parents.

Karen Pence is teaching at Immanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights advocacy group, criticized the move as an example of the Pences showing their public service "only extends to some."

But Pence said on the Catholic news network EWTN in an interview that aired Thursday that America has a rich tradition of religious education and that "to see major news organizations attacking Christian education is deeply offensive to us."
Maine's giant ice disk is spinning again thanks to one man's efforts.

The formation in the Presumpscot River in Greater Portland stopped rotating Wednesday, two days after a video of its mesmerizing movement was widely shared on social media.

The roughly 100-yard (91-meter) wide disk became lodged against the river's edge, preventing it from moving.

Andrew Sims says he saw what happened and decided he had to do something about it.

"I just think it's great for Maine. Once I saw it on national news, I said, I gotta check it out, and then once I saw it wasn't spinning, I said we gotta get it spinning," Sims said. "So I gathered my resources and, uh, took my paddleboard out and jumped on it, took a couple hours and it's moving."

Sims, a photographer, says he wanted to get a timelapse of the disk moving at night.

"It's exciting," he said. "It's just a really neat event."

Sims said people who had gathered near the river clapped as he worked to free the disk Thursday night.

"Everybody clapped," he said. "They were encouraging me as I was getting around because it took a while."

Adding with a laugh and a thumbs up, Sims said, "I'm the hero, yep."

NBC10 Boston/necn Meteorologist Michael Page says the disk may not last through the weekend given the winter storm expected to arrive Saturday night. Page says the disk could freeze in place because of how much cold air is coming in on the backside of this weekend's storm.

Experts believe these disks form naturally when there's a circular current that creates a whirlpool effect.
What to Know The boyfriend of Morgan Freeman's granddaughter has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in her stabbing death

E'Dena Hines, 33, was stabbed and killed by Lamar Davenport, now 33, near her Washington Heights apartment building in July 2015

Davenport was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in May 2018

The man convicted of killing Morgan Freeman's granddaughter on a Manhattan street in 2015 has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Lamar Davenport, 33, was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in a bench trial last May. Prosecutors said he fatally stabbed his 33-year-old girlfriend E'Dena Hines near her Washington Heights apartment building in July 2015 while under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

"Ambitious and driven, EDena Hines was deeply loved by family and friends before her life was brought to a horrific and tragic end by her boyfriend, Lamar Davenport," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said.

Freeman mourned Hines in a statement when she died, saying: "The world will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer. Her friends and family were fortunate enough to have known what she meant as a person. Her star will continue to shine bright in our hearts, thoughts and prayers. May she rest in peace."

Hines shared Freeman's love of acting, and appeared in a small role in "12 Flights Up", a drama starring her grandfather and Diane Keaton. She studied at New York University's graduate acting program, according to her website.

She also taught under-exposed children in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

Freeman's publicist has said that Hines was technically the actor's step-granddaughter but that he always referred to her as his granddaughter. Police initially said that she was his goddaughter.
Transit agencies serving Washington, D.C., say they're missing out on significant ticket sales and over revenue during the partial federal government shutdown.

MARC train monthly ticket sales have dropped 18 percent since the shutdown started, according to Maryland Transit Administration records. Federal workers receive transit benefits for three rail lines, the Brunswick, Camden and Penn.

The agency says it plans to conduct a deeper analysis of the shutdown's impact on MARC's finances next month.

Washington, D.C.'s Metro system says it is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars for every weekday that goes by during the partial federal government shutdown.

In a letter to U.S. Senators representing Maryland and Virginia, Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said the shutdown has resulted in about a 16 percent loss in average weekday Metrorail ridership and an 8 percent drop in Metrobus ridership on weekdays.

"Our preliminary analysis estimates that for an average weekday when the federal government is closed, Metro is losing approximately $400,000 in fare and parking revenue," Wiedefeld said in the letter sent on Thursday.

Holy smokes. @WMATA is losing $400,000 PER WEEKDAY due to the shutdown. That revenue loss doesnt even include federal funds that are on hold because the Department of Transportation is shut down. This has got to stop. pic.twitter.com/CbMDqbyYU6  Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) January 17, 2019

He goes on to say that if ridership continues to decline, Metro might consider staffing or service adjustments such as scaling back the number of trains it uses during rush hour.

Metro could be forced to use its line of credit or postpone important repair projects if the shutdown continues longterm, according to Wiedefeld.

"Like other transit agencies, we are not receiving our grant funding and cost reimbursements during the shutdown," the letter says.

Wiedefeld said Metro anticipates a funding gap of about $50 million through the end of January due to the unpaid reimbursements.

Wiedefeld says in the letter that Virginia senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, and Maryland senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen requested information about how the shutdown has affected Metro.
Federal workers affected by the partial government shutdown are feeling a financial squeeze, but there are many ways citizens are working to ease the stress.

About 800,000 federal employees on furlough or working without pay missed their first payday on Jan. 11, forcing many households to bridge the financial gap by cutting back on purchases and turning to public assistance.

If there's any silver lining, it's that the public has tried to help those in need, from celebrity chef Jose Andres' free kitchen to citizen Laniera Jones' list of resources for workers.

One way to help is by calling your Senator or Representative and voicing your opinion to their staff.

If you're looking to get help during the government shutdown, NBC Washington has a running list of resources here.

Here are some more ways that you can help federal workers during the government shutdown:

Donate

Capital Area Food Bank

You can donate money to one of the area's foremost food banks.

World Central Kitchen #ChefsForFeds: Direct Donation

World Central Kitchen is open in D.C. to feed federal workers. You can donate directly to Jose Andres' charity on their website.

#ChefsForFeds: GoFundMe to Feed Furloughed Workers

The organizer says that money raised through this GoFundMe goes to Andres' World Central Kitchen.

The kitchen, at 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, near the United States Navy Memorial, is set to be open every day from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. It's serving a "rotating menu of hot meals, sandwiches and salads," a statement from the nonprofit said.

Goodie Girl Bags

This organization hands out pads, tampons and other feminine hygiene products to those in need. You can find a list of places to drop off donations here.

GreaterDC Diaper Bank

Homes and businesses throughout the area have sites where you can drop brand new and unexpired diapers, formula, bottles, wipes and more. You can also donate some gently-used baby furniture, like baby bathtubs and soft-sided, front baby carriers.

Find all the places to drop off donations here. You can also donate money online.

Greater Washington Community Foundation

The Greater Washington Community Foundation has run its Resilience Fund since 2017 to cover for those impacted by budget impasses, and they are currently providing assistance to smaller nonprofits aiding everyone affected by the current shutdown. You can donate to their fund here.

Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless

The Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless provides services for those in the midst of homelessness or a housing crisis. They are accepting donations and volunteers.

Manna Food Center

The Manna Food Center accepts donations of food and money. You can also volunteer.

National Park Restoration Fund

The National Park Foundation is raising money to fund clean-up and restoration once the shutdown is over. Donate here.

PGCPS Meals Challenge

Prince George's County Public Schools are fundraising to give kids in affected families free breakfast and dinner during the shutdown. Donate here.

PayItFurloughed.com: Buy a Beer for a Fed

Sipping a cold beer is a great way to pass the time on furlough. PayItFurloughed.com allows you to buy one or more beers that the site will give away to a federal worker. All the beers are from local craft breweries. Donations start at $7.50.

Rock Creek Conservancy

The Rock Creek Conservancy says it will help with any needed fixes when the shutdown ends.

Women Who Care Ministries

This faith-based nonprofit based in Montgomery Village is devoted to providing safety net services for those dealing with low-income or hunger.

Volunteer

Arlington Food Assistance Center

From packing boxes to driving deliveries, there's lots to help out with at this Arlington food pantry. You can also donate money or food.

Capital Area Food Bank

Make an account and sign up for a shift to help feed anyone suffering food insecurity in our area.

Collect Trash at National Park Sites

Many National Parks are technically open to visitors during the shutdown, but trash collection has stopped. Check the forecast and head to a park with a trash bag to scoop up some litter. Take precautions: Check the weather before you go, make sure trails are safe and consider wearing protective gloves.

GreaterDC Diaper Bank

Sign up ahead of time for volunteer shifts or offer to host a diaper drive at your home.

Interfaith Works

Interfaith Works is currently providing assistance to Montgomery County residents through its Emergency Assistance Coalition, which connects furloughed workers to human services.

Manna Food Center

The Manna Food Center accepts donations of food and money. You can also volunteer.

United Planning Organization

Year-round, UPO and volunteers work to fight poverty throughout D.C. with education, community health, job training and youth services programs.
A man who tried to rob a Maryland bank before a police officer shot and killed him also is suspected of robbing a different bank last month, police said.

The Montgomery County Police Department on Thursday identified 31-year-old Mikyas Mehary Tegegne as the suspect in Wednesday's attempted robbery of a BB&T bank in Silver Spring. Police said Officer Christopher LaPointe shot him.

Tegegne told a bank manager he had a bomb in his backpack and showed a handgun before fleeing without any cash, police said. The officer confronted him in a nearby parking garage and shot him, according to authorities.

Investigators believe Tegegne also robbed a Sandy Spring Bank branch in Silver Spring on Dec. 24, the department said.

LaPointe has been placed on administrative leave.
Downed wires and a toppled traffic light have shut down 16th Street at Colesville Road in Silver Spring early Friday.

A D.C. Department of Public Works truck was approaching the area when it took down the wires, affecting power to some buildings in the area.

As a result, 16th Street is closed where it meets Colesville at a traffic circle near the border with the District.

The closure was expected to have a big impact on commuters who travel between D.C. and Maryland via 16th Street. Drivers heading into the District are being diverted at East-West Highway. Those heading into Maryland are being diverted at Eastern Avenue.

The closure is expected to last until at least midday.

Follow @First4Traffic and @JustinNBC4 for updates.
Several thousand people marched through Hungary's capital Sunday in a fourth day of demonstrations against new laws that critics say restrict workers' rights and undermine democracy.

Protesters chanted anti-government slogans amid sub-zero temperatures outside parliament as speakers denounced revised overtime rules that lawmakers approved Wednesday.

The crowd became increasingly angry as speakers urged demonstrators to remain dignified and peaceful. They yelled: "We've had enough!" and "Strike, strike, strike!"

The event's final speaker was more defiant. Anna Donath, daughter of an outspoken minister, lit a smoke flare and declared: "We will not tire. We won't go home. Today we are twice as many as yesterday. We are (growing) day by day. This is a mass community."

Police had detained Donath on Thursday for lighting a flare during a protest.

The labor code amendments that sparked the protests increase the maximum number of overtime hours that companies can demand from workers in a year from 250 to 400. The changes, intended to offset Hungary's growing labor shortage, also give employers up to three years instead of 12 months to settle payments of accrued overtime.

During four days of protests that began Wednesday night, the demonstrations have evolved to encompass complaints about other policies of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government, including legislation passed Wednesday that establishes a separate court for administrative matters.

A government spokesman, asked to comment on Sunday's demonstration, said in an email that citizens had a constitutional right to assemble freely as long as laws weren't broken in the process.

On Thursday, some protesters threw bottles and smoke bombs at officers in riot gear guarding the neo-Gothic parliament building. Police said two officers were injured.

The demonstrations have attracted disparate participants from across Hungary's political spectrum, including members of Jobbik, which started out as a radical right movement and has worked to reframe itself as a "peoples'" party. A clutch of left and liberal opposition parties, trade unions and supporters of a Budapest university founded by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros have also joined in.

Central European University announced this month it was leaving Hungary for Austria, saying it had been "chased out" by Orban's government.

After Sunday's official protest ended, hundreds of demonstrators marched across the Danube River, blocking at least two major road bridges and flanked by police. One faction, chanting for a free media, declared it was heading for the state television building, four miles away in a northwestern suburb of the Hungarian capital.

Officers began using tear gas seeking to control and disperse the crowd.

Orban's allies have denounced the protests as the work of liberal groups financed by Soros. Gergely Gulyas, the prime minister's chief of staff, called Thursday night's participants Soros's "kept people" displaying "open anti-Christian hatred."
San Diego County had a total of 1 million guests stay in Airbnbs in 2018, making it the second-most active city in California after Los Angeles.

According to a news release, the collective income for San Diego-based hosts was $213 million in 2018, coming in second after L.A.'s $613 million.

Overall, the California host community earned a combined $2 billion in income while welcoming approximately 9.5 million guests in 2018.

According to the news release, there are over 89,000 hosts in the state who typically earn about $12,000 annually in supplemental income.

In third place was San Francisco, with 392,000 guest arrivals in 2018 and $143 million in host income for the year.

Additional stories from the San Diego Business Journal are available here. Sign up for their free daily email newsletter.
In his demands that Congress set aside $5.7 billion for a border wall, President Donald Trump has insisted that a new physical barrier would stop heroin entering the U.S. from Mexico.

"Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border," Trump said in a speech last week about U.S.-Mexico border security.

Trump added in a tweet the next day: "These numbers will be DRASTICALLY REDUCED if we have a Wall!"

But U.S. statistics, analysts and ongoing testimony at the New York City trial of drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman show that most hard drugs entering the U.S. from Mexico come through land border crossings staffed by agents, not open sections of the border.

"We've been gradually beefing up physical barriers along the border for 20 years and have not seen any demonstrable difference in drug flows," said David Shirk, a University of San Diego political science and international relations professor who specializes in U.S.-Mexico relations and border politics. "Drugs come through many ways that are not stopped by a wall, whether it's by boat, submersible, tunnel, catapult, drone."

ON THE BORDER

The southwestern U.S. border "remains the primary entry point for heroin into the United States," says the Drug Enforcement Administration's 2018 Drug Threat Assessment.

It says most of its heroin seizures on the border are at official crossings called ports of entry, in California, and increasingly in Arizona. It arrives in passenger vehicles, hidden inside their frames and in other places in the cars, followed by tractor-trailers, where the drugs are hidden in legally imported goods.

A much smaller amount of heroin is seized from people who sneak across the border, usually on foot.

"Why bother trekking through the desert with a small amount of the drugs if it's so much easier and faster to drive it through a port of entry?" asked Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight for the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America, a group that says Trump's wall will not boost border security.

Customs and Border Protection statistics show that 4,813 pounds (2,180 kilograms) of heroin were confiscated at official crossings in the 11-month period ending Aug. 31. The Border Patrol, which patrols the vast areas between the crossings, seized 532 pounds (241 kilograms) of heroin in the same 11 months.

Statistics suggest more bulkier marijuana shipments are smuggled between ports of entry than at them. The Border Patrol seized nearly 440,000 pounds (200,000 kilograms) of pot between crossings during the 11 months, compared with 280,000 pounds (127,000 kilograms) confiscated at crossings.

HOME ON THE RANGE

Still, some people living near the border believe a wall would stop the flow of hard drugs into the U.S.

Sue Chilton, the wife of longtime cattleman Jim Chilton who has operated a 50,000-acre ranch in southern Arizona for more than three decades, said they have seen "anything and everything" come onto their land that includes a 5.5-mile stretch along the international boundary.

"There are two ways to look at it," she said. "You could also say that they have been more successful at the ports of entry because they have the dogs and the equipment and they don't have those advantages in the in-between areas."

"If you have 10 people standing on one corner and no one standing on the other corner, where do you think they are going to catch the robber?" she asked.

VIEW FROM THE SOUTH

Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican intelligence official who is now an independent security analyst, says a new wall as a counter-drug strategy is "basically a pointless exercise."

He points to recent drug seizures in Mexico, including 92.5 pounds (42 kilograms) of methamphetamine found Monday at the Tijuana airport just across the border from San Diego with a passenger who brought it hidden in cheese on a commercial flight from the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan.

That day, 53 pounds (24 kilograms) of cocaine were found inside the doors of a car intercepted between Monterrey and Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas. And packages containing 64 pounds (29 kilograms) of cocaine were captured in Tuxpan port, in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, on a cargo ship from Barranquilla, Colombia bound for New Orleans.

He said it's highly likely that all of those shipments were bound for official border crossings because it would not make sense for them to be rerouted to more remote areas where people cross the border illegally on foot.

Hope said it's harder to say where traffickers had planned to take the 3.7 metric tons of pot that Mexican authorities seized last Friday from a truck intercepted between the cities of Zacatecas and Saltillo in central-northern Mexico.

It could have wound up hidden inside a truck carrying cargo to Texas or smuggled under the border in secret tunnels leading from Mexico to Arizona.

TUNNELS

Over the years, tunnels running from Mexico to the U.S. have become an increasingly common way to smuggle drugs by circumventing the many miles of steel bollards and tall fencing already built along the four-state border.

U.S. authorities in August discovered a tunnel stretching from a house in Mexico to an abandoned fast-food restaurant in Arizona. The Department of Homeland Security said it learned in April of a tunnel wide enough to walk through leading from Mexico to a closed Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in San Luis, Arizona, about 200 yards (180 meters) north of the international line.

Since 1990, U.S. officials have discovered at least 230 tunnels, most of them running from Mexico into California and Arizona. It's believed smugglers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build the more sophisticated ones with ventilation and lighting.

PLANES, TRAINS, AND A SUBMARINE

Testimony during Guzman's trial made it clear that physical barriers did little to prevent the shipment of his Sinaloa Cartel's drugs to the U.S.

Jurors have heard how the cartel has hidden narcotics in shipments that included cans of jalapeno peppers. A former cartel member detailed an operation in which trains took cocaine stuffed inside compartments of tankers filled with cooking oil from Mexico to New Jersey.

Testimony was presented of the cartel using airplanes to fly cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, which was then offloaded to trucks for transport via official border crossings to cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.

Jurors also watched a video of a cartel submarine carrying 13,000 pounds (some 5,900 kilograms) of cocaine worth more than $100 million. The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted the submarine off Guatemala's coast as it headed north. The Coast Guard has detected dozens of such subs over the years, many bound for Mexico and a trip for the drugs by truck through official border crossings, as well as few found off the U.S. coast in Florida and Texas.

Intercepted cartel text messages presented in court have shown if there is a crisis on the border, as Trump insists, it isn't new. The cartel has moved loads of drugs over the border at legal and illegal crossing points for three decades.

"How are the sales going?" Guzman asked in a 2012 text message to his lover Agustina Cabanillas Acosta, who helped coordinate drug deals.

"Like busy bees," she replied. "Non-stop, love."

Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Mexico City, Claudia Torrens and Astrid Galvan contributed to this report.
Tlaibs comments hit mark: Id like to comment on what U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib called the president. I think it was mild of what she should have called him because hes that and more. I just dont want to stoop that low and I dont think anyone should stoop as low as him. He shuts down the govern because he doesnt get his way. He wants this wall for his legacy. All he worries about is me, me, me. The people in his cabinet are receiving raises of about $10,000 while these poor people are struggling and arent getting paid. And you think he shouldnt be called worse?
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What to Know A weekend winter storm is expected to hammer the Philadelphia region with a dangerous mixture of heavy snow, ice and rain.

Heavy snow will begin moving into the region Saturday afternoon. Some areas will then get snow and ice, and others will get heavy rain.

Temperatures begin plummeting to dangerously cold levels later Sunday and continue through Monday.

A weekend winter storm is expected to hammer the Philadelphia region with a dangerous mixture of heavy snow, ice and rain. But the storm's effects will vary widely depending on where you live, and will make travel treacherous.

The dangerous conditions prompted Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf to declare a statewide emergency and issue speed restrictions, as well as a "ban on all commercial traffic, including buses on most interstates and the Pennsylvania Turnpike." The declaration allows for increased help for storm-related needs.

A First Alert is in effect through Monday, which is also the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, due to the winter weather.

Here is the latest breakdown from the First Alert Weather Team:

The Storm - Saturday evening through Sunday night

Starting Saturday afternoon, heavy snow will begin moving into the region from the west. By the evening, warmer air will move up from the south, potentially turning snow into ice.

The areas most in danger of experiencing heavy icing and freezing rain will be to the north and west of Philadelphia. The ice is expected to begin forming early Sunday morning. This combination will create a danger of power outages as heavy snow and ice accumulate on power lines and tree branches.

Philadelphia and areas further south, like South Jersey, the Jersey Shore and southern Delaware will be less affected by snow, but could see several inches of heavy rainfall, creating a risk of floods. These areas could also expereince a rain-snow mix. As Arctic air rushes in later on Sunday, any leftover moisture will quickly freeze -- slush will likely turn to ice on roads and sidewalks.

The sooner you shovel, especially in northern and western suburbs, the better as whatever snow is on the ground will harden as temps quickly drop.

It's still too soon to predict how much snow and ice could fall.

Dangerous Cold - Late Sunday through Monday night

The coldest air of the winter season so far will plunge our neighborhoods into a deep freeze later Sunday as winds, with gusts above 40 mph possible, blow. Low temperatures are expected to rest in the single digits and highs in the teens on Monday.

Making matter worse, the wind chill will remain well below zero all day, but it'll feel 10 to 20 degrees below zero.

Any moisture left on the ground will freeze, making for potentially treacherous travel Monday.

[NATL] 6 Essential Life Hacks for Surviving Cold Winter Weather

This Arctic blast will come on one of the most popular days for volunteerism: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Outdoor activities are likely to be moved or canceled.

The African American Museum in Philadelphia hopes to get people inside as quickly as possible Monday. Other groups are also making plans for the cold. Keep an eye on social media and reach out to organizations to learn of any changes to volunteer opportunities.

Temps still won't break the freezing mark Tuesday when sunny skies push the high temperatures into the upper 20s. Relief from the cold finally comes on Wednesday with high temps pushing into the 40s.

Our team of First Alert meteorologists will keep you updated with the latest forecast here and on air and on the NBC10 App so you will be prepared for rain, snow or both and bitter cold in your neighborhood.
Days after an immigration judge denied Layidua Salazars petition to remain in the United States in 2015 because she was not living with her spouse, she learned at an annual visit to Planned Parenthood that she was pregnant.

The possibility that she would not be allowed to stay in the country made her realize "within five minutes" that she couldnt continue her pregnancy and risk her family being separated at some point, she said.

"I cant do both. Cant be in the middle of deportation proceedings and be pregnant," said Salazar, who is now a storyteller with We Testify, a program of the National Network of Abortion Funds. The organization works to decrease barriers, including financial, to abortion.

Because she had worked with reproductive justice organizations, she knew that her Planned Parenthood clinic in California's Bay Area did not have to disclose that she was undocumented. She had an abortion two days later. Given all that was going on, she said, her "abortion experience was relatively simple. But, she and other advocates noted, this is not the case for many undocumented women in the U.S.

"Reproductive healthcare for immigrant women is very much a patchwork system," Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, executive director at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, told NBC. "It often depends on where you live and the access that you have to reach certain communities."

The undocumented community "has lived in a major state of panic since about 2008," Salazar said.

After the record number of deportations at the border under President Barack Obama, "I remember when the [Trump] election happened many people in my community saying it can't possibly get worse," Salazar said. "And, low and behold, it actually has. It has gotten horrible."

Layidua Salazar

Efforts across the country to restrict access to reproductive healthcare and the Trump administration's anti-immigrant policies have converged to impede undocumented womens reproductive rights including their decision to have a child, and their right not to, legal and other advocates for immigrants as well as several undocumented women who spoke to NBC say. Access to reproductive health care has been limited by a lack of health insurance, legal obstacles, difficulties in traveling and the fear of deportation and the family separation policies under President Donald Trump.

'Jane Doe' and a Right to an Abortion

Since Roe v. Wade was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, all women have had a constitutional right to an abortion.

"There's no exception for anyone, including based on their immigration status," Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, told NBC.

But last year, the federal Department of Health and Human Services tried to prevent a 17-year-old unaccompanied Mexican immigrant from ending her pregnancy, by refusing to allow her to leave the detention facility in Brownsville, Texas. They instead brought her to a crisis pregnancy center, a type of non-profit that counsels women against abortions. Such facilities have been accused of disseminating false information. As of March 2017, shelters receiving federal funding cannot take "any action that facilitates" abortion access.

Brigitte Amiri

"What the Trump administration did to Jane Doe was unprecedented, said Amiri, a lead lawyer on Janes case, who knew of no other case where the government held a woman hostage to prevent her from getting an abortion. It is so extreme and so egregious and a symptom of a larger problem in the Trump administration and its hostility to access and contraception."

The Supreme Court vacated a court of appeals decision that had allowed her to get the abortion last June; her case will not be precedent for others.

Doe is not the only young undocumented woman to be obstructed from obtaining an abortion; the ACLU has filed a class action lawsuit with other women affected by similar circumstances.

Local Laws Impeding Access

When a woman from Central America who NBC spoke with became pregnant, in 2016, the steps to getting an abortion in Texas were more difficult than she anticipated. She searched for a clinic where she could receive a free ultrasound. She also ended up at a crisis pregnancy center, where she was told her pregnancy was too far along for an abortion. (It is illegal to get an abortion past 20 weeks in Texas, barring severe health issues or fetal abnormality.)

But the woman continued her research, and was able to find a clinic in Dallas. That clinic referred her to a sister one in a nearby state. Shed have to fly out a few days later and it would cost her over $10,000.

"Im like, okay, I dont even have $50," she recalled. In the end, with outside support, she was able to get the abortion in February 2016.

She feared flying because her student visa is expired but thought getting an abortion was worth the risk.

"Thats something that, at least for me, makes me nervous, because, as you can see on the news, they ask for documents," she said. NBC is not identifying her over her concerns.

Texas, one of the six states that according to Pew Research are home to 58 percent of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., spotlights the difficulties undocumented women face in obtaining reproductive healthcare access. Texas reproductive healthcare clinics in particular have been targeted by state policies.

In 2013, Texas passed House Bill 2, imposing new restrictions on abortion clinics, and banned abortions beyond 20 weeks, forcing many clinics to shut down. The Supreme Court overturned the restrictions three years later as placing an undue burden women seeking abortions, though many clinics struggle to reopen.

Gonzalez-Rojas said the cost of transportation, within and outside of Texas, could be a "de facto ban on abortion for women" and a "matter of reproductive justice."

For instance, in many colonias, unincorporated housing communities composed primarily of Latino immigrants near the Texas border, road infrastructure is "poor" and there is a lack of adequate public transportation.

Then in May 2017, Texas Senate Bill 4 outlawed sanctuary cities. Also called the "show me your papers law," it requires that local governments comply with federal immigration "detainers."

The law created a "wave of panic among the Latinx communities in the state of Texas," said Nancy Cardenas Pena, associate director for State Policy and Advocacy at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIH). She said it also "made conditions a lot harder."

"We were seeing, even during the implementation and during the passage of SB4, border patrol and ICE  started making their way towards routes that our activists usually took to get to their healthcare appointments," she said.

The undocumented Texas woman told NBC she wanted to speak out about her experience to show others like her that abortions are possible. She mentioned a woman whom she met at the abortion clinic also from her home country, who was surprised there was funding that could help.

"You have the opportunity even if youre not from this country," she said.

"My Body, My Choice"

Alejandra Pablos, a reproductive and immigrants rights activist in Arizona, had her fourth abortion in March 2017, at 33. It was her first while she was fighting deportation and came at a time when she wanted to start considering having a baby. She had a "great job," and thought of her strong community.

"This was what could have been a beautiful moment for me, but I quickly remembered that I am still facing deportation," said Pablos, who spoke with NBC this fall.

"How am I supposed to take care of another human being?" she asked.

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health

Pablos was detained by ICE in March.

"It is not only my decision anymore," she said. "I dont have the privilege to say, 'my choice, my body' when my body basically belongs to ICE."

This December, she appeared in court to apply for political asylum. Her petition was denied and her green card was revoked: The judge has ordered her deportation.

Pablos grew up in California and her parents had citizenship, but she didnt petition for her legal permanent residency until she was 16. As a legal resident, in 2011, she was arrested in Arizona for possession of drug paraphernalia and a DUI and detained for two years in Eloy Detention Center, a private prison. Because the arrest came within the first five years of her legal permanent residency, she lost the status.

A year after she had her abortion, Pablos was detained again, following an arrest at a protest outside the Department of Homeland Security in Virginia, where she was working at the time. She was releasedthose charges were dropped but at an ICE check-in soon after, she was taken back to Eloy for two more months. Pablos lost her work permit and her job at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.

Just as barriers to accessing care impede undocumented womens ability to raise children, so can other federal policies.

The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" position towards immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border led to the widely condemned the family separation policy. Children separated from parents facing prosecution were held in "tender age" detention shelters.

The program was ended by an executive order in June but in late November, the Texas Tribune reported the number of children held in private shelters had reached a high: 5,620 children as of Nov. 15.

This is a "major reproductive justice issue," Salazar said.

The Fear Factor

The "fear factor," according to Gonzalez-Rojas, means many undocumented women "are forgoing care completely."

A study released Nov. 1 from the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health found that 1 in 4 of Latino voters have a close family member or friend who has put off getting health care because of fear around immigration issues. One in 5 reported the same about reproductive health care. These numbers are for voters; The numbers are likely higher for undocumented immigrants, Gonzalez-Rojas said.

Planned Parenthood NYCs Promotores de Salud team  certified Spanish language medical interpreters who provide information for sexual and reproductive healthcare to Latinas  has "noticed that fewer community members were making appointments during outreach sessions," Larissa Vasquez, associate director of adult and professional programs at PPNYC, wrote in an email to NBC. The women were distrustful of accessing care in traditional places like clinics and community-based organizations, she added.

Through their "Nuestro Texas" report from 2015, a partnership between the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and the Center for Reproductive Justice, Gonzalez-Rojas "heard stories of women who are afraid to take their children to school, are afraid to leave the house," She cited "constant militarization in that community."

"We have heard stories of ICE vehicles parked in clinic parking lots, community health centers." Gonzalez-Rojas said clinic staff told her.

Salazar, the We Testify storyteller, said she's experienced border patrol presence near Planned Parenthood "regularly," happening around border areas in California.

"It means that people who are undocumented dont even want to approach [Planned Parenthood] obviously," she told NBC.

For many undocumented women, who lack medical insuranceundocumented immigrants cannot access the Affordable Care Actclinics that offer free or affordable care can be crucial in obtaining healthcare. But organizations meant to uphold their reproductive rights may not always consider their needs.

In 2017, the Planned Parenthood Great Memphis Region opened 400 feet away from an ICE office. Planned Parenthood told Rewire they were under the impression ICE would move offices. In their statement, PPGMR said: "Our highest priority is our patients, and we will be doing all we can to ensure that they can seek care safely without fear."

Gonzalez-Rojas called it a "you are not welcome here" sign for immigrants from around the world.

Adding to fears is Trumps proposed "public charge" rule, which would would revise the 1999 green card rules by making it more difficult for immigrants who use public assistancehealth insurance, like Medicaid, or food stamps, for instanceto obtain a green card. The rule hasnt officially taken hold yet but there are reports that it is being quietly enforced already and many undocumented immigrants have already felt the effects.

Gonzalez-Rojas said media coverage, especially in Spanish, has caused some undocumented immigrants to already withdraw from care.

"Theres a real chilling effect that these proposed rules are creating" Gonzalez-Rojas observes, "and the visible climate of fear."

This public charge law is being written and sought to be implemented in a way that, Jimenez said, "affects our ability to raise our children, to make decisions about reproduction."

Looking Forward

The priorities of the Texas branch of the NLIH are always changing, Cardenas Pena said. "This administration is definitely trying to exhaust all of the activists by making us be in this fight or flight mode 24/7," she said.

When ICE detained Eva Chavez, an immigration and reproductive rights activist who worked with NLIH's Texas Latina Advocacy Network last February, the group was met with an increase in demand for their services. Her case is ongoing.

"I looked at the camera," Cardenas Pena said, "and told anyone who was watching, you do not have to do this alone. There is a community behind you and we will be happy to support you. And goddammit, the people listened. My phone started blowing up with calls."

After her green card was revoked this December, Pablos, the Arizona-based reproductive and immigrants rights activist facing deportation, told The Washington Post, "La Lucha Sigue" of her continuing struggle. She plans to appeal by seeking a governor's pardon.

"The reason why Im doing this and Im not going back in the shadows, and Im going to fight this deportation is that I want to be able to make that choice, if I want to start a family or not," she said before her trial.
What to Know The husband of a Roxbury, New Jersey, woman whose body was found on a mountaintop in Oklahoma in 2009 has admitted killing her.

The Record reports court documents show that Wilson pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and faces five years in prison.

The case went unsolved until 2017 when Wilson's father told authorities his son had smothered Jody Rilee-Wilson with a plastic bag.

The husband of a woman whose body was found on a mountaintop in Oklahoma in 2009 faces sentencing in her death.

The Record reports court documents filed Thursday show Donald Wilson pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and faces five years in prison. He had been scheduled for trial this month.

A sentencing date has not been set.

Jody Rilee-Wilson was last seen alive in early May 2009. Her body was discovered several days later after it was spotted by a paraglider.

The case went unresolved until 2017 when Wilson's father told authorities his son had smothered Rilee-Wilson with a plastic bag to keep her from moving back to New Jersey with the couple's baby. Jerry Wilson also said his wife helped dispose of the body. He made the same claims in a 2017 interview with The Record.

Kathy Wilson also pleaded no contest this week and was found guilty by a judge of obstructing a public officer. She was sentenced to one year but received credit for time she'd spent in jail and was released Wednesday, according to the newspaper.

The couple's daughter, who turns 10 next week, has been living with her maternal grandparents in New Jersey.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Wilson pleaded no contest, which the court treats as a guilty plea, but has not admitted to the killing.
What to Know Rudy Giuliani is trying to clarify after saying on CNN Wednesday night that he's "never said there was no collusion" between Trump & Russia

He says in a phone interview, "I was trying to suggest the limits of what I can possibly know. I have no information that anybody colluded."

The former NYC mayor also spoke about Michael Cohen's claims he paid to rig polls for Trump and the shutdown

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, now President Trump's lawyer, is trying to clear up earlier comments that seemed to suggest it was possible that other people in the president's campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

On CNN Wednesday night, Giuliani said he's "never said there was no collusion," directly contradicting the position of his own client, who's repeatedly insisted there was no collusion with Russia during his successful White House run. Giuliani himself has described the idea of Russian collusion as "total fake news."

Giuliani said on CNN that even if some on the campaign did something wrong, there's "not a single bit of evidence" tying Trump to a Russian hack of Democratic emails.

But Giuliani scrambled on Thursday to clarify his comments the night before.

"What I was trying to do is suggest -- I was trying to suggest the limits of what I can possibly know," he said in a phone interview with News 4 New York. "I have no information that anybody colluded. Certainly not the president. The president has no information that anybody colluded. I haven't seen any yet."

"But all I can do is represent the president. I'm not representing the campaign, and I haven't interviewed everybody in the campaign," he said.

"I'm certainly not suggesting that anybody did," Giuliani added. "I'm just saying there's no way I can make a generalized statement like that because I haven't interviewed everybody."

On Michael Cohen's claims he was directed by Trump to rig online pollls to boost his name during the campaign: "I don't know why anyone would be trying to falsify a poll," Giuliani said. "I've never heard of that. It's just a meaningless poll."

On the shutdown, and whether Trump is seriously considering declaring a national emergency to move along spending for the border wall: "He was hopeful that they would negotiate," said Giuliani. "I can't speak for the president on this because I'm not involved intimiately in it. Nor should I be. I'm his private lawyer. I can sort of give you my opinion, sort of as a citizen and a political kind-of expert. I think the president is totally justified in declaring a national emergency."

"The situation at the border has been a perennial problem. The fact that it's gone on so long and not been addressed makes it an emergency," he continued. "It has a lot to do with the drugs coming into the country. The vast majority come over that border." (Editor's note: Most illegal drugs, including hard narcotics, come into the U.S. through ports of entry or in the mail from China.)

"I see the emergency as the way out of the problem, which is a totally insecure border. Where you can say that most of the people coming over are people looking for work because they're coming in such large numbers and undetected, it's a perfect avenue for terrorists, drug dealers, MS-13 members, and other gangs, etc. -- the thing that Democrats are closing their eyes to."

"Even Adam Schiff, one of the president's biggest critics on the Democrat side, says [declaring an emergency] would be legal. He doesn't think it would be wise but he thinks it's legal."
What to Know Suspect in mowing down and killing a gas station manager on Long Island in his attempt to get away turned himself in, cops announced Friday

Joshua E. Roston, 33, turned himself in to Philadelphia authorities overnight after fleeing New York following the deadly incident

Nassau County police have been looking for Roston in the hit-and-run death of 59-year-old Cemal Dagdeviren of Levittown earlier this week

The man suspected of mowing down and killing a gas station manager on Long Island in his attempt to get away after stealing $22 worth of gas on Monday morning turned himself in, police announced Friday.

Joshua E. Roston, 33, turned himself in to Philadelphia police overnight after fleeing New York following the deadly incident, Nassau County police say.

Nassau County police had been looking for Roston of Baldwin in the hit-and-run death of 59-year-old Cemal "John" Dagdeviren of Levittown earlier this week. The black GMC Suburban involved -- which already had front-end damage on it when it arrived, and had no plate or registration at the time -- had been recovered in Pennsylvania, prior to Roston's arrest.

The Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said "Roston felt the pressure" of authorities closing in on him and decided to surrender.

"He knew he was going to get caught," Dagdeviren's friend Sandy Mislin said. "You can't do things like this, you can't. He took a good life. He took a good man."

Dagdeviren, a Turkish immigrant and father of two who had worked at Pit Stop gas station in South Hempstead for 25 years -- had just pumped $21 worth of gas into the SUV and was trying to collect payment when the driver got into the car and tried to take off.

Dagdeviren's family remains in Turkey, where his body was taken for burial. Police say they have spoken with the family who expressed relief that the suspect was in custody.

The killing of the gas station manager prompted an outcry of sadness and anger from the community that set a memorial outside the South Hempstead gas station.

Dagdeviren's co-worker Mark Polat called the suspect's surrender bittersweet, adding "it's not going to bring [Dagdeviren] back."

The incident was captured on surveillance video that was released by Nassau County police. They say after releasing the footage they received tips that helped them find Roston.

Surveillance video shows Dagevrien trying to block the driver from leaving. The driver mowed him down as he fled.

"He senselessly ran an individual over who was in front of his vehicle," Nassau police said. "He knew what he was doing when he stepped on the gas and crushed that mans life and his familys life."

Longtime customers said Dagdeviren was a reliable mechanic and friendly face who made their days a little better.

"This individual, for $22, ruined a family's life," said police.

Police say Rostono has been arrested four times in the past four years on accusations of shoplifting, stealing gas, and stripping autos.

Roston is awaiting extradition to Long Island. Eventually, he'll face a murder charge that carries with it a potential sentence of 25 years to life.

It is unclear if Roston retained an attorney.

The gas station reopened Friday.
What to Know NY towns are objecting to a budget proposal from Gov. Andrew Cuomo that would cut nearly $60 million in funding to local governments.

Cuomo inserted the reduction in a $175 billion state budget proposal submitted to lawmakers this week.

More than 1,300 towns will lose funding if state lawmakers support the cut.

Towns around New York state are objecting to a budget proposal from Gov. Andrew Cuomo that would cut nearly $60 million in funding to local governments.

The state Association of Towns on Friday called the cut "disrespectful" and said it could force local officials to trim services or dip into reserves.

Cuomo, a Democrat, inserted the reduction in a $175 billion state budget proposal submitted to lawmakers this week.

More than 1,300 towns will lose funding if state lawmakers support the cut.

Cuomo's budget spokesman defended the reduction, saying it amounts to less than 1 percent of the typical town's annual budget.

The governor is also proposing a change in the way internet sales taxes are collected that could allow towns to split a $350 million windfall.
What to Know Mayor de Blasio warns that the government shutdown is an unprecedented crisis that's about to directly affect at least 2 million New Yorkers

De Blasio said the city will lose a half-billion dollars in direct federal funding for New Yorkers beginning on March 1

The mayor said the city is willing to exhaust its reserves to help those in need

Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a dire warning Thursday that the government shutdown is an unprecedented crisis that's about to directly affect at least 2 million New Yorkers.

"We are now entering nothing less than a full-blown crisis that is about to have massive effects on the people in New York City," he said during a briefing at City Hall. "And it is a crisis with no end in sight. And it's a crisis that will get worse and worse with each passing month."

De Blasio said the city will lose a half-billion dollars in direct federal funding for New Yorkers beginning on March 1. Beginning that day, 1.6 million people won't get their food stamps, and thousands of others won't be able to get vouchers for NYCHA's Section 8 housing.

Then in April, school breakfast and lunch are at risk, and in May, housing assistance will be lost for people with HIV and AIDS.

"When it comes to the shutdown of our federal government, things are beginning to spin out of control and things are happening that no city and no state could possibly compensate for. And this is absolutely uncharted territory," said de Blasio.

"We've never seen a federal shutdown of this length and we'd never seen a federal shutdown with no end in sight," he added. "We have no playbook to look on  look back on. There's no map in the wilderness to tell us how to handle something that's never happened before. We're doing our best to come up with a vision for something absolutely unprecedented."

The mayor said the city is willing to exhaust its reserves and will continue offering food banks and mental health counseling for those affected by the shutdown. The city has set up a website, nyc.gov/federalshutdown, that will offer resources for people in need.

But "even if we get everyone to chip in, we can't compensate for half a billion per day," he said.

"The briefings over the last few days, Ive never heard anything like it in my life  the notion of losing half a billion dollars in a month," de Blasio said. "I mean there is nothing like that. And also I think for a lot of us we all assumed it would be over by now."

The mayor reiterated several times he wasn't trying to scare people, but wanted everyone to be aware ahead of time. The real danger, he said, begins 44 days away.

"This is not a crisis that hits and then just levels off," he said. "In fact, it starts to cascade for two reasons. The human impact gets worse each month. People's budgets get drained. The possibility of evictions from their homes, the quality of life in their neighborhoods and their housing developments will decline with each month.

"But it's also because the State of New York will have to start cutting off support, because, as it loses federal dollars, it cannot turn around those dollars and help localities. So we're going to be hit by two different problems and each month they will get worse," he continued.

De Blasio said the city will be reaching out to the non-profit and the philanthropic sectors, along with the business community and the clergy, to find ways to help people in need.

In response to the mayor's announcement, the union for federal employees says it is "grateful to any and all support being offered by the mayor and his administration at this time. It is critical for state and local governments to step in and assist federal workers during this difficult period."
What to Know An NYC woman is suing a luxury Massachusetts resort she claimed gave her a veggie burger with cashews in it; she's allergic to nuts

The woman says she informed staff at the wellness resort, including her server, of her allergy and was assured there were no nuts

A Canyon Ranch spokeswoman said she could not comment on pending legislation

A New York City woman with a nut allergy who landed in the hospital after being served a veggie burger that had cashews in it is suing the luxury Massachusetts resort that served it to her.

The suit filed in federal court in Springfield this week against Canyon Ranch Wellness Resort in Lenox alleges negligence, breach of warranty, breach of contract and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, the Berkshire Eagles reports. It seeks unspecified damages.

The plaintiff, Kristin Chu Smart, says she and her mother paid $3,000 for a weekend at the resort in December 2017.

Smart says she informed numerous staff at the resort, including her server, she was allergic to nuts and was assured there were none in her food.

A Canyon Ranch spokeswoman said she could not comment on pending legislation.
What to Know Man with alleged ties to African-based terror organization connected to al-Qaeda was extradited to the United States Thursday, sources say

David Cardona-Cardona faces federal narco-terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and firearms charges, according to law enforcement sources

Cardona-Cardona is a native of Colombia living in Africa

A man with alleged ties to an African-based terror organization connected to al-Qaeda was extradited to the United States Thursday to face federal narco-terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and firearms charges, law enforcement sources tell NBC New York.

David Cardona-Cardona, a native of Colombia living in Africa, was arrested last October in Croatia and will appear in federal court in Manhattan Friday, prosecutors say.

Cardona is named in a four count federal criminal complaint and a separate seven-count indictment, both filed in October, which describe a series of meetings he had with confidential DEA sources during which he allegedly arranged to supply cocaine to the law enforcement sources in return for weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, AK-47s, sniper rifles and ammunition that Cardona planned to provide to Ansar al-Dine, a group designated in 2013 by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, court papers say.

Ultimately, the cocaine was intended to be sold throughout Europe, according to law enforcement sources.

Cardona allegedly told the DEA sources the purpose of the surface-to-air missiles was to shoot down manned and unmanned United States and allied aircrafts operating in West Africa, the papers say.

The investigation was conducted the DEA, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, and several law enforcement agencies outside the United States.

Attorney information for Cardona-Cardona was not immediately available.
The district is also in the process of equipping all classroom and staff bathroom doors with lockdown locks and keys, Heiderscheidt said. The project is in its last phase, with work being doing at the five high schools, he said.
Former President George W. Bush delivered food to federal workers on Friday who are still on the job despite not being paid due to the partial government shutdown.

Bush posted a photo of himself in Florida delivering boxes of pizzas to the workers to his Instagram page.

"Its time for leaders on both sides to put politics aside, come together, and end this shutdown," Bush said in the post.

He also thanked the government employees who still travel and protect him everyday.

"Laura and I are grateful to our Secret Service personnel and the thousands of Federal employees who are working hard for our country without a paycheck. And we thank our fellow citizens who are supporting them," Bush wrote in the post.

A spokesman for Bush told NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth the former president plans to continue to bring more food to the workers until the government reopens.

The shutdown will soon enter its fifth week.
What to Know Its Friday, January 18th  and NBC 6 has the top six stories for you to know for your day.

Its Friday, January 18th  and NBC 6 has the top six stories for you to know for your day.

Weather wise, a slightly warmer morning will continue a trend with high temperatures near 80 degrees today and tomorrow before the next cold front is scheduled to arrive overnight Saturday and into Sunday morning.

No. 1 - A Broward County man used the popular game Fortnite to recruit an underage teen to engage in sexual activity and get pornographic photos and videos of the minor, and investigators believe there could be as many as 20 more victims, authorities said Thursday.

Anthony Gene Thomas, 41, is facing charges that include soliciting a child for unlawful sexual conduct using computers, traveling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual activity and more.

No. 2 - A man was charged in the murder of two men more than two years after they were shot and killed outside of a nightclub in southwest Miami-Dade.

Prosecutors say Miquell Simmons, 28, killed Von-Tavius Sands and Eddie Seymour on Sept. 10, 2016 outside of the M&M Too Sweet Lounge near SW 220th Street and 120th Avenue.

No. 3 - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized the Legislature's implementation of a medical marijuana law and said Thursday that if they don't fix it quickly, he'll take matters into his own hands.

DeSantis wants a new law by mid-March that will end a ban on smokable medical marijuana and loosen limits on treatment center licenses, saying voters spoke clearly when they approved medical marijuana in 2016.

No. 4 - More than 68,000 pounds of Perdue Foods ready-to-eat chicken nugget products are being recalled because they may be contaminated with wood, the U.S. Department of Agricultures Food Safety and Inspection Service announced Thursday.

The recalled products are 22-oz. packages of gluten-free chicken breast nuggets with the brand name Perdue SimplySmart Organics. They were shipped to stores nationwide.

No. 5 - This weekend, residents across South Florida will be honoring the life and legacy of the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  while officials remind you to celebrate safely.

For a list of some of the events taking place during the holiday weekend to honor Kings life, click on this link.

No. 6 - A group of men have been banned from cruising with Royal Caribbean for life after one of them was filmed jumping from their 11th floor balcony on the Symphony of the Seas cruise ship while it was docked in the Bahamas.

Nick Naydev posted footage of the frightening jump into the ocean at Nassau on his Instagram account on Friday. As of Thursday, it's been viewed more than 87,000 times and has more than 1,300 comments.
Prosecutors in Minnesota have charged a woman whose 2-year-old child tumbled from the back seat of a moving vehicle while still strapped in a car seat.

Forty-year-old Maimuna Hassan of Mankato was charged Thursday with child endangerment, failing to properly secure a child passenger restraint and a misdemeanor driver's license violation.

Dashcam video captured the moment the car seat and toddler rolled out of the vehicle Monday as the car turned a corner in Mankato. Police say the child was properly strapped into the car seat, but the car seat wasn't fastened in the vehicle. The child was OK.

The Star Tribune reports Hassan told police her daughter must have unlocked the car seat from the passenger seat.

Online court records do not list an attorney who could speak for Hassan. Her first court appearance is Feb. 14.
What to Know Monday, Jan. 21 opening

$8.95 adult (non-member)

Three showtimes daily

Even if your feisty friend is said to have the personality of a volcano, spoiler alert, they're not an actual volcano.

Likewise, if you order a dessert called The Volcano, one that oozes chocolate, it isn't really a lava-spewing cone, nor are any school projects that charmingly replicate what a volcano might do.

Volcanoes, however, are the real volcanic deal, but approaching one, especially if it is doing that whole aforementioned lava-spewing thing, is not quite the same as approaching a dessert or science kit.

But winging along as adventurers inch to the very edge of an active volcano? All with a camera crew in tow? And you sit in a movie theater seat?

That's lovely, or lava-ly, if you prefer, and still incredibly fascinating, while being much, much less hot.

We'll have the chance to do just that, beginning on Monday, Jan. 21 when "Volcanoes 3D: The Fires of Creation," an epic new work from SK Films, opens at the California Science Center IMAX theater.

Viewers will join "intrepid explorer Carsten Peter... to dodge boulders at the edge of an active volcano in Indonesia, descend to a lava lake in Vanuatu and visit incredible acid ponds, geysers, and mineral deposits fields in Ethiopia."

The cost to go on this bubbling, burbling, molten-tastic journey?

A non-member adult ticket is $8.95. Less than a tenner and you won't even need to step to one side as a trickle of lava streams in your direction.

There will be three showtimes daily, so get the info you need on this truly epic happening made for the big, big, BIG screen.

Bubble bubble, lava-style? We call many things in this world "volcano" or "volcano-like," but only one thing is a volcano: a volcano. That there are "over 500 active volcanoes" on this planet astounds, but so should the fact that we can visit a volcanic landscape from the comfort of our IMAX theater chair.

Volcanoes are ancient, and have been around for eons, but "Volcanoes 3D: The Fires of Creation" clocks in at a pinch over 42 minutes.
The governor said he and legislative leaders have reached an agreement that would allow federal workers who are working without pay to receive interest-free loans and a vote on the bill is expected Tuesday.

Earlier this week, Gov. Ned Lamont said federal employees in Connecticut who are working without pay during the government shutdown are eligible for interest-free loans provided by the banks or credit unions and backed by the state.

The initial loans would afford impacted employees up to one months net pay, capped at $5,000.

In the event that the shutdown continues, participating banks and the state will work with impacted employees to provide additional funds.

In addition to creating the loan program, the bill would allow municipalities to defer property tax payments from the federal employees who are impacted and prepares the states unemployment insurance system to offer benefits to essential workers if the requisite changes are made to federal law.

On Friday, Lamonts office said the Democratic and Republican leaders in each of the General Assemblys four caucuses have reached an agreement to adopt emergency certified legislation and it is being drafted.

Approximately 1,500 federal employees in Connecticut are impacted by the partial government shutdown.

The state Department of Labor has already been offering some of them employment benefits, but only furloughed employees who are not allowed to work can file for unemployment, which means those working without pay were considered ineligible for benefits.

The shutdown, which is the result of the ongoing fight between President Donald Trump and Democratic lawmakers over funds for a U.S.-Mexico border wall is now in its 28th day.

This has become the longest shutdown in history and there is no resolution in sight.

Before this, the longest government shutdown was during the Clinton administration. It lasted 21 days, from Dec. 16, 1995, until Jan. 5, 1996, according to NBC News.
Ridgefield High School was dismissed Friday morning after a written bomb threat was found inside, according to police.

They said staff from the high school immediately contacted Ridgefield Police, who determined there was no threat.

Out of an abundance of caution, Ridgefield High School was dismissed at 1045 a.m. and Ridgefield Police and Connecticut State Police continue to investigate, according to Ridgefield Police.
A New Haven high school principal has stepped down the same week surveillance video surfaced of him shoving a student in the hallway.

The New Haven Independent obtained and first published the video of Morgan Barth from inside the Achievement First Amistad High School on Dixwell Avenue.

The conduct shown in the video is unacceptable, Achievement First Chief External Officer Fatimah Barker said in a statement to NBC Connecticut.

A spokesperson for the State Department of Education said the Bureau of Investigation had not been notified of any previous misconduct by Barth before the video of this physical altercation became public.

The video shows Barth shoving a student in the hallway before he is seen getting in the students face, blocking him from picking up his backpack.

The New Haven Independent reports the principal and student had just discussed previous discipline.

When this incident happened, we conducted an internal investigation, documented the incident in accordance with state laws, and worked with the students family  including sharing the video with them. In addition, Mr. Barth was disciplined and also required to attain additional restraint training, Barker said in her statement.

A letter sent this week to students families said, It is clear to Mr. Barth that he could not be the leader the school needs right now given his actions and the feelings of the school community.

The schools communications director Amanda Pinto said members of the executive leadership have already begun meeting individually with parents, teachers and staff as they look to make improvements.

Its clear that there are concerns that need to be addressed, and it is our job to listen, Pinto said.

After the 2016-17 school year, the State Department of Education told Amistad it must reduce its suspension rate, which was three times higher than the average for schools in New Haven.

Off-camera, one mother told NBC Connecticut she is alarmed by the video, calling it a sad situation. She said she plans to meet with school leadership.

Barth had planned to step down at the end of the school year, so a search for a replacement was already underway, Pinto said.

Achievement First Amistad plans to name an interim principal soon.

This public charter high school for students from New Haven and Bridgeport is not part of the New Haven Public School system.
A 21-year-old man who was shot in Meriden Thursday evening has died, according to police.

Police have identified the victim as 21-year-old Aaron Joseph Ormsby.

Officers found him outside a Foster Street home when they responded after getting a 911 call at 6:30 p.m. reporting shots fired.

Ormsby was transported to Midstate Medical Center and police said they later learned that he died from the injuries.

The Meriden Police Major Crime Division is in charge of the case and determined that this was an isolated incident, police said.

Its not yet clear how many people might be involved in the shooting.

Anyone with information is asked to call Detective John Wagner at 203-630-6334.
Former Coast Guard Commandant, Adm. Thad Allen (Ret.), made a visit to the pop-up food pantry at Leamy Hall at the Coast Guard Academy in New London Thursday in the wake of the partial government shutdown.

Its extraordinary how coast guardsmen have come together  men and women  service members, their families, their spouses, to cope with this problem, Allen said.

He praised the extraordinary work of the Coast Guard and the community but said its not sustainable.

Even as we speak today the Coast Guard Cutter Bollard is out on the Connecticut River breaking ice by East Haddam. And theyre up there doing their job making sure the Connecticut River is open for shipping. Theyre not getting paid and their families are at risk. Thats unacceptable, Allen said.

With the shutdown in day 27 and resources stretched thin, Allen said stresses will eventually build.

At some point this is going to cause a problem with readiness to respond at mission. And what we dont want to do is increase the risk to this country that we created artificially, he said.

Allen was the principal federal official for response and recovery after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. He was the U.S. Coast Guards 23rd Commandant and the national incident commander for united response during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yesterday was the admirals 70th birthday and he posted on social media that the best present he received was the resilience of the men and women of the Coast Guard and their families dealing with the emergency.

He praised the community efforts, too.

Extraordinary, extraordinary outpouring of support from the community. Just extraordinary, Allen said.

The southeastern Connecticut community he knows well. Allen graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1971. He served as the commander of Group Long Island Sound in New Haven in the 1990s where the station in New London was under his command.

Even now, hes the Tyler Chair at the Institute for Leadership at the Coast Guard Academy. Thats what brought him into town, but Allen said he would have made the trip anyway.

Allen grew up in a Coast Guard family and has seen hardships associated with duty.

This is a hardship imposed on the Coast Guard with no any mission effect associated with it. Were not trying to help anybody. Its almost like weve become the victims here, Allen said.
A Guilford couple has been calling for stricter gun legislation after their teenage son died in an accidental shooting and now there is a push for gun storage legislation on the federal level as well.

Kristin and Mike Song are the parents of Ethan Song, a 15-year-old boy who died in a shooting last January. They, along with U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal will hold a news conference Friday morning to announce a proposal for new legislation.

The Waterbury State's Attorney's office investigation into Ethan's death determined that the teen accidentally shot himself with a .357 magnum handgun. He and another teen were at a home on Seaside Avenue, with no adults present, at the time of the shooting, according to police.

The state's attorney report called Ethans death a horrific and preventable tragedy and found the gun had been stored with other firearms in a cardboard box inside Tupperware in the master bedroom closet.

While there were gun locks and no signs the firearms were loaded, investigators learned the keys and ammunition were also hidden in the closet.

The report concluded the storage of the weapons did not break the law and its led some to believe the law has a loophole that needs to be closed.

The family previously proposed Ethan's Law on the state level, which would create legislation they said would close a loophole and require all guns to be properly stored as well as amend rules on when a firearm must be secured.

It would also close a perceived loophole in Connecticut law that prohibited prosecutors from charging the owner of the gun Ethan shot himself with.

On Friday morning, a news conference is planned to announce federal legislation. Blumenthal's office says the announcement comes the day before what would have been Ethan's 16th birthday.

After investigating Ethans death, Guilford police arrested a juvenile, who was charged with second-degree manslaughter. Police added the juvenile also faces a reckless endangerment charge for an event before Songs death.

After the state Ethans Law proposal was announced, Scott Wilson, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, a guns rights group, issued a statement, offering sympathies to the Song family and urging that in addition to securing firearms all parents should make an effort to understand that firearms can be deadly if handled improperly.

There are tremendous programs out there that teach firearm safety to children of all ages; often at little or no cost. Along with the securing of firearms in a responsible manner, proper firearms education is imperative to the safety of children. Even if parents dont own firearms themselves, children should still be taught what to do if they encounter a firearm without parental supervision, Wilson said in a statement previously posted on the CCDL website.

We thank Ethans father for acknowledging that there may be times that gun owners may also need to gain access to their firearms immediately to stop home invasions or protect loved ones, Wilsons statement went on to say.

Wilson, who said he had been shot decades ago, said his organization partners with an organization to help get gunlocks distributed and he planned to meet with Representative Scanlon.

The Song family has also started a foundation to honor Ethan.
Meanwhile, members of the Chicago Bulls G League affiliate, the Windy City Bulls, will attend several of the Socratic Cafes that Kimball and Abbott middle schools students will conduct at their respective schools on Wednesday and Friday. The events are also known as Socratic seminars, group-led dialogue discussions on a text or topic that allow for open-ended questions. According to a U46 news release, next weeks cafes will focus on Dr. Kings sermon On Being a Good Neighbor.
Just days into his own term as Connecticuts 89th Governor, Ned Lamont helped to welcome Ella Briggs to her new position as the states kid governor.

Dont think youre too young to get involved, we really want to hear your point of view, Lamont said. Great things happen when you speak out when youre young.

Ella, a student of the Ana Grace Academy of the Arts Elementary Magnet School in Avon, was elected by other fifth-graders across the state, and was sworn in by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill.

As youre new kid governor I will begin important conversations with students and adults all over this great state, Briggs said.

Ellas platform - Pride Hope Love.

I will encourage schools and school districts across Connecticut start gay-straight alliance, otherwise known as GSAs safe spaces where members of the LGBTQ community and allies can feel pride in who they are, said Briggs.

The kid governor program is run by the Connecticut Democracy Center. In a year where there is a more diverse Congress than ever, Ella said shes glad to add her voice to that list of leaders.

People who dont know me seem surprised that at such a young age, Im already very confident with the person that I am, and that I desire to help people, said Briggs. What people dont realize is that all my life Ive been surrounded by strong female leaders.

Its a list that includes Jahana Hayes, who is now the first African American woman from Connecticut in Congress.

I believe in civic education, said Hayes. It just makes my heart so proud to see young people getting involved so early.

Ellas one year term starts today and she plans to get right to work.
New Britain police have arrested two people accused of attacking a Dominos delivery driver on New Years Eve.

Police said a patrol officer found the bleeding victim in the area of North Street and Erwin Place. The 38-year-old man told police four people attacked him while he was delivering pizza, and stole the food and his cash and cell phone. The victim had serious injuries to his eye and nose.

Investigators identified 18-year-old Carlos Irving Matias as one of the suspects, and a 17-year-old girl.

Matias was located in his Springfield, Massachusetts, and returned to Connecticut. On Thursday he was charged with first-degree robbery, first-degree assault, conspiracy to commit assault, larceny, and conspiracy to commit larceny. He was held on a $200,000 bond.

The juvenile suspect was arrested on January 8 and charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit larceny.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information should contact New Britain police at 860-826-3141.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that she's pushed back a congressional trip to Afghanistan she was attempting to organize after the Trump administration leaked that she was trying to make the trip on a commercial airline.

Pelosi called the move, which the White House denies, "very irresponsible."

Asked by reporters if she thought Trump was retaliating for her request that Trump reconsider giving his State of the Union address at the Capitol, given that many government workers responsible for security aren't being paid, Pelosi said, "I would hope not. I don't think the president would be that petty, do you?"

Trump hasn't responded to Pelosi's State of the Union request, but a day later, on Thursday, denied Pelosi and other members of Congress a military plane to make the trip, citing the shutdown. He suggested at the time that she could still fly commercially if she wanted to.

Trump tweeted Friday that he would be making a "major announcement" about the shutdown on Saturday afternoon.

Senior American delegations to war zones are usually planned and executed under strict secrecy, since reporting those plans ahead of time would tip-off the enemy on where to attack high-value targets. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said in a statement that Trump's revelation of Pelosi's travel plans on Thursday increased the danger to all involved.

Hammill said that the delegation had been prepared to make the trip commercially, but Friday morning, "we learned that the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well."

The trip was postponed given "the grave threats caused by the Presidents action," Hammill said.

The White House said it had leaked nothing that would cause a security risk.

Asked about the denial, Pelosi said, "I rest my case."

For security reasons, Pelosi would normally make such a trip on a military aircraft supplied by the Pentagon. According to a defense official, Pelosi did request Defense Department support for overseas travel and it was initially approved. The official wasn't authorized to speak by name about the matter, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the president does have the authority to cancel the use of military aircraft.

Pelosi said that, "You never give advance notice of going into a battle area, you just never do. Perhaps the president's inexperience didn't have him understand that protocol. The people around him, though, should have known that, because that's very dangerous."

Trump's initial letter  his first public comments to or about Pelosi after she suggested Trump push back the State of the Union from Jan. 29 until after the end of the shutdown  was sent just before she and other lawmakers were set to depart on the previously undisclosed trip to Afghanistan and Brussels. Trump belittled the trip as a "public relations event"  even though he had just made a similar warzone stop  and said it would be best if Pelosi remained in Washington to negotiate to reopen the government.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative!" Trump wrote.

Denying military aircraft to a senior lawmaker  let alone the speaker, who is second in line to the White House after the vice president, traveling to a combat region  is very rare. Lawmakers were caught off guard. A bus to ferry the legislators to their departure idled outside the Capitol on Thursday afternoon.

The political tit-for-tat between Trump and Pelosi laid bare how the government-wide crisis has devolved into an intensely pointed clash between two leaders both determined to prevail. It took place as hundreds of thousands of federal workers go without pay and Washington's routine protocols  a president's speech to Congress, a lawmaker's official trip  became collateral damage.

Hammill said that Pelosi was planning to meet with commanders and troops on the front lines in Afghanistan as part of Congress' oversight responsibilities. Her trip was initially scheduled for Brussels as well.

Trump's move was the latest example of his extraordinary willingness to tether U.S. government resources to his political needs. He has publicly urged the Justice Department to investigate political opponents and threatened to cut disaster aid to Puerto Rico amid a spat with the island territory's leaders.
Federal authorities announced a raft of conspiracy and tax fraud charges Tuesday against four men in the first U.S. prosecution related to the so-called Panama Papers.

The 11-count indictment unsealed in Manhattan stems from what prosecutors described as an "intercontinental money laundering scheme" involving a global law firm based in Panama.

Two Germans, one American and a Panamanian attorney were charged with conspiracy and other counts.

The Panama Papers include a collection of 11 million secret financial documents that illustrated how some of the world's richest people hide their money. The records were first leaked to the Suddeutsche Zeitung, a major German newspaper, and were shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which began publishing collaborative reports with news organizations in 2016.

The repercussions of the leaks were far-ranging, prompting the resignation of the prime minister of Iceland and bringing scrutiny to the leaders of Argentina and Ukraine, Chinese politicians and Russian President Vladimir Putin, among others.

Federal prosecutors say the law firm Mossack Fonseca conspired to circumvent U.S. laws to maintain the wealth of its clients and conceal tax dollars owed to the IRS. They say the scheme dates to 2000 and involved sham foundations and shell companies in Panama, Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said the defendants "shuffled millions of dollars through off-shore accounts" and had "a playbook to repatriate un-taxed money into the U.S. banking system."

"Now their international tax scheme is over," Berman said in a statement, "and these defendants face years in prison for their crimes."

Charged in the indictment were Ramses Owens, 50, a Panamanian attorney who worked for Mossack Fonseca; Dirk Brauer, 54, a German investment manager; Harald Joachim Von Der Goltz, 81, of Germany; and Richard Gaffey, an accountant from Medfield, Massachusetts.

Authorities said Owens remained at large Tuesday; the other defendants have been taken into custody.

Messages sent to an attorney for Gaffey were not immediately returned Tuesday evening. It was not immediately clear whether the other defendants had attorneys.

Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela contributed to this report.
Agencies from across the area are preparing for severe weather as heavy snow and high winds will begin to impact the region this weekend.

The snowstorm, which could dump anywhere from four to eight inches of snow, or possibly more, across the area has already forced some cancellations as agencies prepare for the rough weather.

Amtrak canceled train service from Chicago to the East Coast on two different lines, as service on the Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited lines will not be active on Saturday.

Other services could be impacted, but the rail agency says commuters and travellers should keep an eye on the services website for more details.

Locally, Metra and South Shore lines will both proceed as scheduled his weekend, the agencies announced, but said that delays are possible, and that commuters should be careful on train platforms and in parking lots as the storm rolls through.

Crews will be working continuously to minimize the severe weather impact, but some train delays may be possible, the agency said in a statement.

Metra says that any disruptions in service will be posted to the agencys mobile app and sent out on social media pages.

For those taking to the roads this weekend, the Illinois State Police and Department of Transportation are both urging motorists to postpone unnecessary travel. The state police say that they assisted over 1,200 motorists during a snowstorm last weekend, and responded to nearly 400 traffic crashes during that time.

If you must travel, ISP and IDOT make the following recommendations:

-Move over and slow down for emergency vehicles and snowplows

-Dress warmly, and dress in layers.

-Ensure you keep plenty of gas in your tank in case you become stranded.

-Watch out for black ice, especially in intersections, off-ramps, bridges, and shady areas.

-Put together an emergency car kit that contains jumper cables, a flashlight, an ice scraper, blankets, gloves, food, water, and a first-aid kit.
For many Chicagoans, Canada Goose coats are the uniform of winter. The down coats with fur hoods cost close to a $1,000and now, their distinctive patches are being targeted by robbers.

Chicago police say Canada Goose jackets have been taken in six robberies since Tuesday. The spree began late Tuesday night in Hyde Park and continued with three more robberies Thursday morning. One robbery occurred in the 900 block of North Wells and another in the 900 block of North Larabee.

The most recent robbery happened here outside Lasalle II Magnet School just as school was starting for the day.

A victim tells NBC 5 he thought the car that sped past him was a parent who was running late for drop off, but instead the person who got out showed a gun and demanded his coat.

Police issued a community alert on Wednesday for three of the robberies. They now believe the same dark colored Audi was used by the same offenders in all of the robberies.

Janine Wilkin says the robberies make her think twice about wearing nice things.

"Its super unfortunate," she said. "I feel safe most of the time but you keep hearing stories like this, so I feel like I'll be more cautious."

Others, however, like Jen Kripas, say you cant live in fear.

"We have really good police officers, so I trust that theyll get them," she said.

Police found the Audi used in the robberies Thursday abandoned in an alley.
At least two people were murdered and nine others were wounded in citywide shootings since the weekend began.

The citys last reported shooting left 22-year-old Daniel L. Erskin dead inside a hallway Saturday night after he violated a protection order in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiners office. At 11:44 p.m., the 22-year-old was wounded by a 52-year-old woman on the second floor of an apartment building in the 1400 block of West 71st Street. A bullet entered his left shoulder, and he was pronounced dead at University of Chicago Medical Center.

Saturday afternoon, 21-year-old Christian A. Robinson was killed and another man was wounded in a shooting in the Noble Square neighborhood on the North Side. They were sitting in their vehicle when a vehicle they did not recognize pulled up and someone inside fired shots about 3:20 p.m. in the 1200 block of North Ada Street, police said. Both men were shot multiple times in their upper bodies, the younger man fatally.

In nonfatal shootings, a man was shot while driving Saturday night in the Little Village neighborhood on the Southwest Side. The 29-year-old was driving east at 8:28 p.m. in the 2800 block of West Cermak Road when he saw a black car approach his vehicle, police said. He then heard a loud noise and felt pain in his leg.

Two men were wounded by gunfire Friday evening in the Hermosa neighborhood on the Northwest Side.

The men, ages 49 and 60, were looking into a possible burglary at a building in the 4500 block of West Palmer Street when someone began shooting at them, police said. The 69-year-old was hit in the shin and the other man grazed in the thigh.

The 69-year-old was taken to Norwegian American Hospital in good condition, police said. The younger man declined medical treatment.

At least eight people were shot, two fatally, in Chicago on Saturday. Six people were wounded in shootings on Friday. No gun violence was reported on Sunday yet.

Over the extended New Years holiday weekend, at least two people were killed and 27 others were wounded in citywide shootings.
Police in Manchester, New Hampshire, arrested a man accused of a number of "nefarious" activities while behind the wheel on Tuesday.

Michael Douville, 51, of Nashua, was allegedly smoking crack cocaine while his female passenger engaged in sexual acts as he was driving.

Authorities say two detectives stopped Douville's vehicle at the intersection of Union and Valley streets while at a red light.

The detectives walked up to Douville's car and ordered him to pull over; instead, he allegedly accelerated through a green light and briefly disappeared from the detectivess before he was found by another Manchester officer.

Douville was stopped near Warsaw and Pine streets, where the female passenger ran away, but the Manchester officer was able to successfully arrest Douville, according to police.

He's charged with lewdness, disobeying a police officer, reckless conduct and possession of a controlled drug. He appeared at Hillsborough County Superior Court-North on Wednesday. It's unclear if he has an attorney or if he has been released on bail.
A historic California law that would replace cash bail with a risk assessment system has been put on hold because a referendum challenging it qualified for the November 2020 ballot.

Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced Wednesday that the referendum sponsored by the American Bail Coalition, a bail bond agents' trade association, had enough signatures for the ballot.

The qualification automatically suspends the new law until the election is held. The California Money Bail Reform Act had previously been scheduled to go into effect on Oct. 1 of this year.

Bail coalition executive director Jeff Clayton said in a statement, "Now we can move on toward defeating this reckless law."

In opposition, the directors of the California branches of the American Civil Liberties Union said, "We must reject the wealth-based, two-tiered system of justice that the bail industry seeks to preserve."

Separately, two challenges to the money bail system are pending in the California Supreme Court and in federal court in Oakland.

A ruling by one or both of those courts could potentially result in a modification of the money bail system before 2020.

In the cash bail system, people who are arrested and awaiting a criminal trial are released if they post a cash bond in an amount specified in a bail schedule set by the local superior court. People can pay the bond either with their own money or through commercial bail agents, who typically charge a 10 percent fee for putting up the cash.

The new law would use a risk assessment tool to determine whether arrestees are a low, medium or high risk of failing to appear in court or endangering the public. People accused of violent crimes or threats of violence would usually be denied release, subject to review by a judge.

Opponents of the system contend it is unfair to low-income people and favors well-to-do defendants who can afford to pay.

The ACLU directors said the system "is antithetical to our values of justice, fairness, and racial equity."

"By charging people nonrefundable fees for pretrial release, the bail industry has made billions of dollars off the backs of individuals and families in dire circumstances, especially people most affected by racial and economic inequities in our society and the criminal justice system," they said.

The bail industry coalition claims that assessment tools are inaccurate and could result in dangerous people being released.

The referendum needed 365,880 signatures, or 5 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the November 2014 election, to qualify for the ballot.
A suspect wanted by San Jose police was shot by officers at a Stockton home Thursday evening, according to police.

The shooting happened around 5 p.m. outside a home in the 4500 block of Mist Trail Drive. The suspect was wanted by San Jose police in connection with a carjacking and kidnapping, police said.

The suspect was taken to a hospital in critical condition, Stockton police said. His identity was not provided.

San Jose officers responded to the home on a tip, requesting help from Stockton police and California corrections officers, police said.

When officers arrived at the home, the suspect tried to run away but then ran back inside. After other residents exited the home, the suspect came out brandishing a handgun, police said. A Stockton officer and corrections officer fired their weapons, hitting the suspect.

The California Department of Justice and San Joaquin County District Attorneys Office is investigating the events leading up to the shooting.

KCRA in Sacramento contributed to this report.
We understand the added pressures on our residents due to the lengthy government shutdown at the federal level. If you need help, please do not be afraid to ask, Mayor Dave Kaptain said in a news release. Elgins strong safety net of services can help you through this difficult time. If you need assistance, call 311 for guidance from city staff.
A group of Oakland teachers engaged in a major disruption on Friday to protest the slow pace of contract talks between the Oakland Unified School District and the teachers' union.

The action on Friday was organized by a group of Oakland High School teachers called the Wildcat Underground that coordinated a sickout by dozens of teachers on Dec. 10.

Teachers and students from Oakland High School, Oakland Technical High School, Life Academy, Skyline, United for Success Academy, and Fremont High School gathered at Oakland Tech at 4531 Broadway at 8 a.m. on Friday for a rally outside the school.

At 9 a.m. teachers and students started marching to school district offices at 1000 Broadway, which is two-and-a-half miles away, and at 10 a.m., teachers, student, and allies gathered outside the school offices.

"We hope to disrupt district business as usual, Oakland High School history teacher Cole Margen said in a statement.

Margen said, "We need our district to understand that we are on the brink of a catastrophic strike. This will impact Oakland's educational system, both teachers and students."

He said, "The issues we face are similar to those in Los Angeles," where teachers went on strike on Monday.

Margen said Friday's action isn't sanctioned by the Oakland Education Association, the union that represents teachers.

The OEA said last week that it is strongly considering conducting a strike authorization vote by the end of the month.

The teachers organizing the action on Friday noted that a strike by Oakland teachers lasted for more than two months.

Contract talks between the school district and the union have been going on for about a year and a half.

The two sides currently are in the midst of fact-finding.

The school district's most recent offer to the teachers is a 5 percent raise over the next three years.

Suzi LeBaron, a science teacher and pathway director at Oakland High School, said, "Held up against the cost of living, this offer would send us economically backward."

Commenting on the teachers' planned action on Friday, Oakland schools Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell said in a statement, "We urge them not to engage in this illegal labor action which is not sanctioned by their union."

Johnson-Trammell said, "It is also a move that runs counter to our collective efforts to reach an agreement between the OEA and the school district as both parties are engaged, in good faith, in the fact-finding process with the California Public Employment Relations Board."

She said, "We want our teachers to know that everyone on the Board of Education and in district leadership firmly believe that they deserve to be paid more than they currently are. We are hopeful that our teachers will remain in class supporting students on Friday."

Johnson-Trammell added, "We are committed to working with the OEA to come to an equitable contract that works for both sides."
The ability to use a smart phone is something most of us probably take for granted.

But for people who couldn't use one, a Silicon Valley tech giant is coming to the rescue. Google is now helping people with disabilities access the Internet.

"Googlers are volunteering their time to build devices for people with disabilities," said Chad Leaman, Neil Squire Society.

The company on Thursday hosted what it calls the "Buildathon" at its headquarters, and you could say they're building a new way to search.

Launched by an $800,000 Google grant, techies are working with the Neil Squire Society, which aims to bring economic and social equality to people with disabilities.

The result? They call it lip sync.

"The lip sync is a mouth-operated mouse for someone with a disability that can't use their hands," Leaman said.

So people can -- for the first time -- operate a computer, tablet and even a smartphone by using their mouths to navigate around. The device itself uses common electronics, a little 3D printing and costs Google about $200 each.

"A device like lip sync can help users do what other people can do with their devices -- browse the Internet, maybe watch cat photos, send an e-mail, apply for a job, pay their bills," said Olga Prelipova with Google.

In other words, join the mobile revolution. With a piece of technology Google says it will give away to patients, for free.

"It's very rare we get to build something in a day and see how it impacts their life," Prelipova said.

Google said the first batch of 10 lip syncs it made will be donated to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. The company is also posting the assembly instructions online so others can make them too.
Democratic lawmakers introduced a new legislation Thursday to give undocumented farmworkers an ability to earn a "blue card" and put them on the path to citizenship.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who represents the 19th District in Santa Clara County, drafted the the Agricultural Worker Program Act (H.R. 641) to allow farmworkers who have worked in the field for at least 100 days in the past two years to apply for a card that will allow them to work legally in the U.S.

"Farmers throughout California struggle mightily to find workers, and we all know that backbreaking farm labor is performed largely by undocumented immigrants," Feinstein said in a statement.

The lawmakers cited a University of California Davis study which estimated that up to 60 percent of Californias 421,000 farmworkers, approximately 253,000 people, are undocumented.

Once workers obtain the blue card and maintain it for three or five years, they can apply to become lawful permanent residence and obtain a green card.

"With this legislation, farmworkers will be able to improve their wages and working conditions, resulting in a more stable farm labor force and greater food safety and security to the benefit of American employers, workers, and consumers," Lofgren said.

The legislation has already received support from United Farm Workers, the county's largest farm workers union that was founded by Cesar Chavez.
What to Know Report: one in six Americans get sick from foodborne illness every year

CALPIRG study finds 83% increase in meat and poultry recalls since 2013

Researchers identified a 10% increase in food recalls overall

Consumer watchdog CALPIRG says more Americans are at risk of getting sick from what we eat.

The Public Interest Research Group released a food safety study today. Titled How Safe is Our Food?, the report finds a spike in meat and poultry recalls, and calls for improvements to U.S. food safety oversight.

CALPIRG Executive Director Emily Rusch told NBC Bay Area the government should scrutinize and upgrade the ways it keeps tainted food off our plates.

"We need to improve our systems for making sure that recalled products are taken off store shelves," Rusch said, "and that consumers who have bought those products are adequately notified."

Among the principal findings of the PIRG study:

An 83 percent increase in hazardous meat and poultry recalls since 2013. CALPIRG says such "Class 1" recalls are the most likely to cause serious illness or death.

A 70 percent increase in chicken recalls, often for outbreaks of Salmonella contamination. The CDC estimates 1.2 million Americans get sick from Salmonella bacteria every year.

A 10 percent increase in recalls for all food products sold in the U.S.

Foodborne illness reported among at least one in six Americans every year.

CALPIRG says part of the problem is related to laws governing meat and poultry safety. Rusch told NBC Bay Area it is legal for food producers and distributors to sell meat that has tested positive for Salmonella.

"When you're allowed to put chicken that has antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella on store shelves, that's a real warning cry that we need to make sure that everything on store shelves would be something that you'd want to feed to your kids," Rusch said.

The laws in question are the Federal Meat Inspection Act and Poultry Products Inspection Act. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) denied a petition by the Center for Science in the Public Interest which called for classification of Salmonella as an "adulterant" which could not be present in food made available for sale. At the time, FSIS said it had "concluded that the data do not support" tougher standards for meat and poultry, "because ordinary cooking and preparation of these products is generally sufficient to destroy the pathogens."

Rusch says consumers must take extra steps to keep our meals safe.

"Until we make improvements to the food safety net overall, it is very important that you do cook your meat to the right temperature," Rusch said. "Cleaning your kitchen carefully, and cooking your meat to the right temperatures, are some of the most important things you can do."

NBC Bay Area asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration to comment on the PIRG study for this story. FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb responded to us on Twitter, saying in part, "We appreciate US PIRG's interest in the safety of the nation's food system and we always welcome a larger conversation on the topic. Public health is our top priority and FDA is working hard to ensure the U.S. food supply remains among the safest in the world."

A USDA spokesperson said the agency could not comment specifically because of staffing issues during the government shutdown, but stated "Meat, poutry, and egg products inspections, recalls, outbreak investigations, and all other activities required to protect human life and property continue during the shutdown."
The reintroduction program for the green turtle in the Cayman Islands is crucial in order to recover this species, which are threatened by the effects of human overexploitation, according to a study published in the journal Molecular Ecologyand led by the experts Marta Pascual and Carlos Carreras, from the Evolutionary Genetics laboratory of the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona.

The new study, with its first author being Anna Barbanti (UB-IRBio), represents the first genetic study of the reintroduction project of this endangered species, and the wild population of green turtles in the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory.

According to the conclusions, the current wild population of green turtle in the Cayman Islands has been recovered as a result of the reintroduction process; it presents a high genetic diversity and shows no difficulties regarding breeding. However, the authors of the study recommend conducting a genetic monitoring of the species in this Atlantic Ocean region since it shows a differential genetic heritage compared to other populations of the Caribbean. Other participants in this study were Clara Martin and Victor Ordonez (UB-IRBio), and other experts from the University of Exeter, the Cayman Turtle Farm (CTF) and the Department of Environment of the Cayman Islands Government (United Kingdom).

At the limits of survival due human overexploitation

The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is a migratory species globally distributed in tropical and subtropical latitudes -nesting beaches in the Mediterranean basin- which has been quite exploited by human activity. This species is the biggest one within the family of Cheloniidae -adults can weigh over 200 kg- and one of the species of marine turtles with a more natal phylopatric behaviour (it comes back to their birth place to lay its eggs). Factors such as marine pollution, loss of natural habitat, fishing pressure and bycatches endanger the survival of these turtles, classified as an endangered species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

During the eighties, overexploitation of the green turtle in the Cayman Islands caused the disappearance of nesting populations. To recover this endangered population, a program of reintroduction of the species was launched, with individuals of the Cayman Turtle Farm (CTF). Forty years later, data show that the nesting population of the Cayman Islands has been restored but researchers did not know if this was the result of the reintroduction process or the natural recovery of the population for the improvement of threatening factors.

In the new study, experts analyse several genetic markers to see the degree of parentage of the natural population of the green turtle in the Cayman Islands with the breeding individuals in the farm, and therefore evaluate the effect of the reintroduction process on wild population.

"In wildlife, genetic diversity is a key factor that eases the adaptation of populations in the natural environment and their tolerance to environmental changes. In this context, it is crucial to conduct a genetic monitoring of the reintroduction processes to evaluate their success and the potential consequences for the target species of the reintroduction", says Carlos Carreras, member of the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the UB and IRBio. "A threatened population -he continues- reduces their survival options due excessive inbreeding but a poorly planned reintroduction can have negative consequences because of the mix of genetically different beings, since they could create hybrids that are not feasible to the environmental conditions of the population".

The population of the wild green turtle has a tight genetic relationship with the ones in CTF, the new study reveals. According to Marta Pascal, member of the mentioned Department and IRBio, "90 % of the wild individuals were related to the captive stock. This means the reintroduction process was very important in the recovery of threatened populations".

The reintroduction process started in the farm with individuals of distant populations, and this explains why the genetic diversity of first generation turtles is higher than their parents'. This genetic diversity of the initial population has been changing as a consequence of the captivity process -as expected- but also because of the effects of the CTF population management. For instance, they use beings from the same cohort as reproductive adults to replace the losses hurricane Michelle caused in 2001, a strategy that has increased the degree of parentage among reproductive individuals in the farm. Therefore, scientific studies like the one in Molecular Ecology, are essential tools to take the right decisions in the management of threatened species.

Lights and shades in the reintroduction of endangered species

Current labelling studies show that there is a population between one hundred and one hundred and fifty reproductive female adults in the Cayman Islands. In this situation of biodiversity protection, the reintroduction programs for endangered species can become an effective tool of preservation but can also be inefficient, and can even have negative consequences for the threatened populations and natural ecosystems. "Therefore, it is essential to design these programs of reintroduction of threatened species with scientific rigor and to conduct a long term scientific monitoring to assess its success and the potential consequences for the species", warn the experts.

The genetic studies carried out by the Evolutionary Genetics team of the UB and IRBio are part of the first scientific initiative to assess the global impact of the reintroduction of the species Chelonia mydas in the Cayman Islands from different sides: social and economic, commercial, and even gastronomic. This research study has been funded by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), as well as the Darwin project, with the support of Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG) of the UB and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (United Kingdom).
The bicycle was invented by the Latimer brothers and only two such bikes are still in existence. The presentation will showcase one of these bikes and talk about how the brothers developed and patented their velocipede and related accessories.
Biology-themed anime Hataraku Saibou, also known as Cells at Work!, received praise from a Japanese cancer researcher based in Atlanta, as he commented on the accuracy of its seventh episode featuring cancer cells.

Sad Story Of Cancer Cells

The world of Hataraku Saibou takes place inside the human body, where cells are depicted as human characters to illustrate their function.

A red blood cell takes the lead character as a rookie red-haired girl carrying boxes of oxygen to different locations. Similarly, actual red blood cells contain hemoglobin, a protein that carries oxygen to different parts of the body.

Its seventh episode highlights the presence of cancer cells in the body and how the immune system is fighting to keep them at bay.

Cancer cells are cells that grow and divide uncontrollably and possibly cause tumor to form. Meanwhile, the immune system is a network of different cells working as the body's defense against invasion and harm.

Researcher Praises Accurate Depiction

"This talk was about how immune cells were preventing the initial outbreak of cancer. Even in the eyes of cancer researchers, I think it was a very accurate content," Dr. Satoru Osuka tweeted. He is a postdoctoral fellow at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.

In his blog, Dr. Osuka also explained the science of eliminating cancer cells. While the anime only featured the work of the immune system, he mentions other ways of getting rid of cancer cells.

"Actually, there are many other elimination mechanisms. The most important of them is the self-destruct system integrated into the cell," he wrote in Japanese.

He refers to the TP53 gene that has the blueprint for making a tumor suppressor protein. The protein prevents cells from growing too fast and multiplying uncontrollably. It signals a damaged cell to undergo self-destruction called apoptosis to avoid further damage.

Accurate Science Outside Books And Classrooms

In previous episodes, the anime featured how cells work in cases such as a scrape wound on episode 2, food poisoning on episode 4, and pollen allergy on episode 5.

However, the show is not free of minor inconsistencies. In the anime show, red blood cell girl called other immune cells to the location of cancer cells. However, red blood cells do not have such function.

Despite minor corrections, Dr. Osuka recommended the anime as a good opportunity to get more knowledge.

"I really appreciate this anime. It's a good chance to learn more about cancer," he continued in another tweet.
(Natural News) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally invited President Donald Trump to give his annual State of the Union Address before Congress in a letter on Jan. 3.

Its a formality, really, that befalls all Speakers. The SOTU address is a constitutional requirement, but historically, presidents have delivered them in writing to Congress.

On Wednesday, Pelosi wrote the president again to suggest he do just that, all but rescinding her earlier invitation.

Why?

Well, security concerns, of course.

In an interview with reporters on Capitol Hill, the Speaker said:

Its an event of special security. And so these people are not working. And weve never really had a state of the union when the government has been in shutdown since the Budget Act in the 70s. So this is  this is respectfully and sadly, proudly I invited to come, privileged to invite him to come. But the government is shut down. The people who are  we would have the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, the entire Congress of the United States, House and Senate, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Cabinet of the United States. Did I say that? And the diplomatic corp, all in the same room.

This requires hundreds of people working on the logistics and security of it. Most of those people are either furloughed or victims of the shutdown. The presidents shutdown. But that isnt the point. The point is security.

Actually, Pelosi owns the shut down now because she is refusing even to meet with POTUS Trump to discuss the presidents border wall funding, which is something she has voted for in the past. And isnt it odd that shes suddenly concerned about security for the presidents SOTU address, but isnt at all concerned about security along the U.S.-Mexico border?

Nevertheless, its obvious this is nothing but a cheap political stunt. To even suggest that the president, at any time and under any circumstance, would not be adequately protected is absurd. But apparently some focus group told her to make the case because it would resonate with the Democrats far-Left, Trump-hating base. (Related: Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi cheers disease, saying, Lets hear it for more pre-existing medical conditions!)

Politically, its great for us

As for her security argument, shes the only one making it; the agencies responsible for the presidents security  DHS and its subordinate entity, the Secret Service  have pushed back hard against her claim.

As reported by The National Sentinel, two #NeverTrump media outlets, CNN and NBC News, both have reported that Homeland Security and Secret Service officials have said that security planning for the SOTU address did not begin when Pelosi sent the president the invitation earlier this month.

Secret Service is fully ready to offer full protection during the #SOTU, a sr. law enforcement official tells @petewilliamsnbc. Its a no-fail mission, the official says. Though USSS personnel are not being paid, the intelligence & protection functions are fully staffed., NBCs Peter Alexander tweeted.

Weve been planning for this for months, as we always do. It didnt start up 29 days ago, the official said.

Secret Service is fully ready to offer full protection during the #SOTU, a sr. law enforcement official tells @petewilliamsnbc.

"It's a no-fail mission," the official says.

Though USSS personnel are not being paid, the intelligence & protection functions are fully staffed. (1/2)  Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) January 16, 2019

A senior DHS official tells me that Speaker Pelosis claim regarding security concerns surrounding the State of the Union during a shutdown has zero credibility It is a serious event but one we can handle, tweeted CNNs Elizabeth Landers.

A senior DHS official tells me that Speaker Pelosis claim regarding security concerns surrounding the State of the Union during a shutdown has zero credibility It is a serious event but one we can handle.  Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) January 16, 2019

Fox News Cortney OBrien also noted that DHS officials said no one from Pelosis office called the Secret Service to ask if they had concerns about SOTU before she sent that letter.

Fox News's John Roberts says a DHS official told him that no one from Pelosi's office called the Secret Service to ask if they had concerns about SOTU before she sent that letter. #StateoftheUnion #GovernmentShutdown  Cortney O'Brien (@obrienc2) January 16, 2019

Republicans called Pelosi out for the letter, correctly describing it as a stunt. But one GOP senator, John Kennedy of Louisiana, said it would backfire. Politically, its great for us, he said.

Read more about libtard Democratic tactics by Pelosi and others at Libtards.news.

Sources include:

TheNationalSentinel.com

Politico.com

RealClearPolitics.com
(Natural News) A former contractor who worked at the Livonia, Michigan, manufacturing plant of Ford Motor Company has come forward with the disturbing details about how he was recently fired from his position simply for sharing biological and scientific facts in response to pro-transgender propaganda that was posted on an internal company message board.

The former contractor, who has chosen not to reveal his identity publicly, says he was fired the very same day he committed the crime of speaking the truth. In response to an article entitled, An Evolution to Happiness: Fords Progressive Corporate Culture Helps Engineer Take Transformative Step, which featured another Ford employee, a biological male who had transformed into a woman, the former contractor responded with the following statement:

Human beings are male or female, the socio-cultural reality of gender cannot be separated from ones sex as male or female.

For the simple act of making this comment, the former contractor was immediately fired from his post and told to leave the premises.

Ford said that because of my comment and the intolerance that it represented (or so they accused me of) that my services to them would cease immediately, the former Ford contractor anonymously told PJ Media.

I was told this in an unscheduled 1 on 1 meeting with my boss and an HR representative. I was told to pack up my belongings immediately, to leave my badge and computer, then I was walked out of the building like a criminal. I am quite sure this post was the reason!

Ford is guilty of religious persecution, says former worker

Its the epitome of fascism: the expectation that one must accept any and every form of LGBT perversion in order to keep his job. And yet, this is exactly what happened to this former contractor, who says he was the only one to speak up about the derangement of so-called transgenderism, and the idea that one can simply change his or her gender into something thats incongruent with his or her natural biology.

Nearly all of the comments were singing the praises of the transgender cause whereas I was hoping to inject a statement of truth in order to bring about a genuine, constructive discussion for the good of the transgender employee the article featured, the man told PJ Media.

Ford saw my comment as intolerant and at odds with its progressive ideologies.

Another important factor in the equation is that this former contractor is a religious Catholic  the comments he made having come from his religions statement of faith. What this means is that Ford Motor Company may also be guilty of infringing on the former contractors religious liberty, which could be grounds for him to sue the company.

As he explained to PJ Media, theres a significant element of religious persecution in play in all this, too, seeing as how the former contractors comments in response to the article in question included a paraphrased version of a statement  from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB].

I strongly feel that Ive been persecuted for my moral values on this issue, he added in a statement to PJ Media.

When questioned about the issue, both Ford Motor Company and The Productivity Team, the company that technically paid the former contractor, refused to comment  other than Fords insistence that the man was never one of its employees, which he says is false.

Yes, I had agency status, but otherwise I was integrated into Fords systems like any other employee, the man told PJ Media, explaining that he had direct access to Fords intranet servers. He even shared his CDSID, or official Ford employee identification number, with PJ Media as evidence of this.

For more related news, be sure to check out Gender.news and Fascism.news.

Sources include:

PJMedia.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Social media use is a divisive topic. Regular users say that websites like Facebook help them connect with family and friends, while health experts believe that social media may aggravate a persons mental health. According to a study, your Facebook posts can also be used to diagnose your risk of developing depression and other mental health conditions.

The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved researchers from the Penn Medicine Center for Digital Health.

Is there a link between Facebook use and mental health?

For the study, researchers used an artificial intelligence (AI) program to analyze Facebook posts for linguistic red flags that may indicate depression. The findings suggest that the AI program can identify the condition at least three months earlier than health services.

Depression, or major depressive disorder, is a common and serious medical illness. While depression can be treated, the condition can negatively affect how you feel, think, and act. Depression is associated with feelings of profound sadness or a loss of interest in activities that you used to enjoy. The condition can also cause different emotional and physical problems, and it can decrease your ability to function at home and at work.

The researchers said that in previous tests, the machine learning algorithm performed just as well as current screening questionnaires that are used to identify depression. But unlike the questionnaires, the AI program can run unobtrusively in the background.

Concerned guardians often call for the stricter age and usage limits of social media applications and websites like Facebook, especially due to its potentially damaging impact on childrens mental health. However, the researchers believe that the machine can be used to study the wealth of information in social media pages. It could even be used to screen for mental health conditions, which is alarming since the AI program can do so even without the users permission.

In the study, the AI program searched for early warning signs that include:

An increase in the use of first-person pronouns, such as I or me, which indicates a preoccupation with the self in public posts.

Mentions of loneliness or isolation (e.g., alone, ugh, or tears).

The timing and length of posts.

Dr. Johannes Eichstaedt, one of the senior authors of the study, said that social media data has markers that are similar to the genome. He added that methods comparable to those utilized in genomics can be used to comb social media data to find these markers.

Eichstaedt, who is also a co-founder of the World Well-Being Project at the University of Pennsylvania, explained that the AI program can detect depression, which can significantly change how an individual uses social media, unlike other conditions like diabetes or skin disease. (Related: Facebook admits its site can be bad for you  but says if you are suffering ill effects, youre doing it wrong.)

In the study, the researchers analyzed the Facebook profiles of 683 individuals who agreed to share their digital archives. The group included 114 volunteers who were diagnosed with depression, and every person with the condition was matched with five participants without a depression diagnosis to test the accuracy of the AI program.

The researchers studied the 524,292 posts made by the participants on Facebook in the years before they were diagnosed with depression. The results of the analysis were then compared with data from control subjects that researchers refer to as depression-associated language markers.

Using these markers, the program successfully identified warning signs of depression in individuals based on posts that were made at least three months before the condition was documented in their medical records.

AI programs and internet privacy

The study showed that the program produced more accurate results if it searched for social media cues in the six months prior to a depression diagnosis. This could help detect depression in people at risk, especially if the AI program is paired with other forms of digital screening.

H. Andrew Schwartz, an associate professor of computer science, said that the researchers are aware of the stigma that surrounds social media use. Schwartz, who is also the principal investigator of this study, concluded that social media could be an important tool for diagnosing, monitoring, and eventually treating mental health conditions.

Since this was a small proof of principle study, the researchers posit that the AI program could be improved by incorporating phone usage data or facial recognition software to analyze pictures posted on Facebook.

Are you willing to risk your privacy to learn more about your mental health, instead of consulting a therapist who can promise doctor-patient confidentiality?

Sources include:

Independent.co.uk

Psychiatry.org
(Natural News) Boston City Mayor Martin J. Walsh will be pushing legislation on Beacon Hill this year which would require doctors to interrogate patients about the presence of firearms in their homes. The legislation is being promoted as a way for healthcare providers to play a larger role in addressing gun violence by spotting the early warning signs of suicide and domestic violence.

Of course, this type of interrogation would be a massive violation of patient privacy and has conservatives in an uproar. Furthermore, mandating doctors to reduce gun violence is ironic considering how many of the mass shootings and other forms of gun violence that Americans have been subjected to in recent years are the direct result of the mind-altering drugs prescribed by these very same healthcare providers.

Doctors become Big Brother

Boston officials insist that the proposed bill will not turn doctors into amateur sleuths and that gun ownership will not become part of official patient medical records.

Were just asking them to help identify ways to save lives, Boston Police Commissioner William Gross told the Boston Business Journal. This is a great way for the medical field to help identify any red-flag issues, he added in a media briefing. Its to put another tool in the physicians belt to help out the victims.

Some medical professionals already ask subtle questions to try to determine which patients might be at risk. For example, they might ask questions like: Do you feel safe at home? or Is anyone threatening you? This type of gentle probing provides doctors with valuable feedback which can help them to connect the patient with the right resources to get the help they need.

However, there is currently no legislation which demands that healthcare workers ask these types of questions, and subtle probing to establish whether a person is safe in their home environment is a far cry from interrogating patients about what type of firearms they have in their homes.

The Massachusetts Medical Society is backing Walshs proposed bill, with President Dr. Alain A. Chaoui issuing a statement saying, [W]hen appropriate, a physician, as part of a detailed conversation about medical history, has a right and responsibility to speak with patients about gun ownership, storage, and safety.

Perhaps physicians should rather use this right and responsibility to find out whats really going on with the troubled young people who enter their rooms needing help, instead of putting them on antipsychotic drugs which carry dangerous side effects, including mania, violence, psychosis and homicidal ideation  the desire to commit murder. (Related: World famous psychiatrist warns that increased use of psychiatric drugs will translate to more mass shootings.)

Gun control vs medication control

Natural News previously reported on the alarming link between psychiatric medications and gun violence:

While many politicians focus on the gun debate when discussing the issue of mass shootings, what virtually none of them ever mention is the clearly established link between such mass homicides and psychiatric drugs. The mental health watchdog organization, CCHR International, recently reported that at least 36 school shootings or other school-related acts of violence were committed by people who were either on psychiatric drugs or withdrawing from them  which can be just as dangerous.

These acts of violence resulted in the deaths of 80 people and the wounding of a further 172. In addition, there have been many similar incidents where information regarding the mental health and psychiatric drug use of the killer/s was not made public, so the problem is likely far worse.

If doctors were to focus on really helping their patients by getting to the root of their problems and encouraging counselling, cognitive behavioral therapy and a healthy lifestyle they would be of real benefit in reducing cases of domestic abuse and suicide. Interrogating vulnerable patients about firearms in their home will do nothing to alter the problem.

After all, if someone is inclined towards self-harm or violence, removing firearms from their home will only force them to alter their weapon of choice; it will not alter the eventual outcome.

Read more about the rise of medical tyranny at MedicalTyranny.com.

Sources include:

DailyCaller.com

BostonGlobe.com

NaturalNews.com

CCHRFlorida.org
(Natural News) Since Nov. 9, 2016, the day after the presidential election, Democrats have accused POTUS Donald Trump and his campaign of conspiring with Russia to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

Weve learned since then that the only conspiring with Russian sources that took place during the campaign was between the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, and Russian sources.

The Democrat-aligned Deep State has also accused Moscow of meddling in our 2016 election, but now, according to an assessment by a noted expert, a U.S. technology company  Google  very likely meddled in the 2018 election in a way that greatly benefited Democratic candidates and could even have led to Republicans losing control of the House.

As reported by The Gateway Pundit, research psychologist Robert Epstein has previously revealed that Google can change a 50-50 split among undecided voters to a 90-10 split without anyone realizing they had been manipulated, and without making it apparent to outside observers, based on a set of search suggestions that can be implanted into algorithms.

On Thursday during an appearance on Fox News Tucker Carlson program, Epstein made another startling revelation: A single shift in Google search results on Election Day 2018 very likely shifted anywhere from 800,000 to 4.6 million votes to Democratic candidates.

His revelations come in the heels of a blockbuster expose from Breitbart News, which revealed leaked contents of internal discussion threads at Google indicating that the company is manipulating search results after placing certain search terms like abortion and Maxine Waters on so-called blacklists.

Not only does Google control what users see, the manipulated search results also control what users dont see. Abortion was one of the terms that Google engineers added to a blacklist file for controversial YouTube queries, where a list of search terms the company considers sensitive are housed.

In addition to the term abortion, additional terms abortions, the Irish abortion referendum, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and anti-gun activist David Hogg were included, the internal leaked discussion thread revealed.

They can do whatever they want

All of this criminal manipulation by Google, which is run by Leftists like the other major social media platforms, is having the desired effect, Epstein notes: Electing Democrats.

The researcher, who admits hes not a conservative but rather an American citizen who is genuinely concerned about the outsized influence companies like Google can and have wielded in our elections, told Carlson that the search behemoth can censor anything it wants to censor.

Calling the leaks exposed by Breitbart extraordinary, Epstein said they confirm what I and others have been saying in writing for years that individual employees at Google have the power to manually remove material, remove content that we see, and they do so often with political ends. (Related: 2018 will be remembered as the year of tech censorship: Only delusional liberals still try to deny the attacks on free speech.)

Also, he continued, this tells us that [Google CEO] Sundar Pichai committed perjury when he testified before Congress a few weeks ago because he said quite specifically that Google never does this.

Carlson then asked Epstein if any American could trust that the next national elections in 2020 wouldnt be interfered with or unduly influenced by Google and other tech companies and social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter.

I guarantee you that this past election was affected, Epstein said, adding that he has research data he will be releasing  perhaps by early March  substantiating his claim. He said Googles posted reminder to go vote on Election Day in November shifted perhaps millions of votes to Democrats.

Democracy is kind of an illusion at this point because we have let these companies  Google more than any other  go completely wild, said Epstein. There are no rules, no regulations, no laws that restrict anything they do.

Read more about social media manipulation and deception at Deception.news.

Sources include:

NewsTarget.com

TheGatewayPundit.com

Breitbart.com

TheNationalSentinel.com
The NATO Deputy Secretary General, Ms. Rose Gottemoeller will be travelling to Israel on Sunday, 20 January and Monday 21 January 2019 for meetings with senior government officials.

Still images will be available on the NATO website after the visit.

Follow the Deputy Secretary General on Twitter @Gottemoeller. Also follow us at @NATOPress.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visited the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) on Friday (18 January 2019) to meet Director General Eamonn Brennan and reaffirm the close collaboration between the two organisations.

The Secretary General thanked EUROCONTROL for their continued commitment to the Memorandum of Cooperation, in place since 2003. The Alliances partnership with EUROCONTROL is crucial in protecting civil and military aviation activities from common threats such as cyber-attacks, but also in the preparation and execution of exercises, such as Trident Juncture 2018, NATOs biggest exercise since the Cold War. This operational and technical collaboration has increased over the years, owing to the very sharp growth in civil air traffic and the need to take account of military requirements, particularly those of NATO's Strategic Commands. It is that civil-military cooperation in air traffic management that is at the heart of relations between our two organisations Mr. Stoltenberg said, stressing NATOs commitment to pursue enhanced cooperation in the future.

Through close collaboration with EUROCONTROL, the Alliance achieved a milestone at the NATO Summit in July in its ability to move planes at the speed of relevance  or Rapid Air Mobility. Allied aircraft supporting NATO missions will be given a NATO Call Sign. This means that they will receive priority handling by Air Traffic Control in Europe.
GENERAL

PROGRAMME

MEDIA ACCESS TO MEDIA EVENTS

POOLS AT NATO HEADQUARTERS

ONLINE / BROADCAST

ACCREDITATION AND SECURITY CHECKS

MEDIA FACILITIES

OPENING HOURS (TBC)

PARKING

CONTACT POINTS

By e-mail only:

TV & Radio arrangements on site and via satellite

Annex 1

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Yves here. Wowsers, does Macron not know basic French history? The last time a ruler asked la toute France for its opinion about the problems of the day, the situation developed not necessarily to his advantage. From Wikipedia:

The Cahiers de doleances (or simply Cahiers as they were often known) were the lists of grievances drawn up by each of the three Estates in France, between March and April 1789, the year in which a revolutionary situation began. Their compilation was ordered by King Louis XVI, to give each of the Estates  the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the nobility) and the Third Estate, which consisted of everyone else, including the urban working class, the rural peasantry, and middle class and professional people, who were the only ones in the group likely to have their voices heard  the chance to express their hopes and grievances directly to the King. They were explicitly discussed at a special meeting of the Estates-General held on May 5, 1789. Many of these lists have survived and provide considerable information about the state of the country on the eve of the revolution. The documents recorded criticisms of government waste, indirect taxes, church taxes and corruption, and the hunting rights of the aristocracy.[1] While the cahiers conveyed the grievances of common people, they were not meant to directly challenge the Old Regime. They were instead suggestions of reforms.[2] Still, the writing of the cahiers forced the people of France to think about the problems that France faced, and how they wanted them fixed. The political discussions that raged throughout France were a direct challenge to the current system, as they gave the people a voice, and subsequently the cahiers were used to guide the elected representatives in what to discuss at the Estates General. In essence, they added greatly to a revolutionary air of expectation of the Estates General.

By Peter G. Collier, a sociologist and educator with a PhD (University Nantes) on the emergence of urban spaces in Ireland. He has lived in France for twenty-five years. Originally published at openDemocracy

My wife and I used to live in West Brittany. Like Connemara its a beautiful place if you can afford it. After the effects of the 2008 crisis began to be felt, my work as an independent educator dried up. Banks and institutions put contracts on a two-year hold. After an expensive eighteen months of wait-and-see, we moved to Nantes. Five years on we consider ourselves lucky to have escaped peripheral isolation and financial suffocation[i].

Peripherality is about spatial distance from work and social services. 75% of home-work trips daily in France are by car with an average distance of 50 kms. Without secure work, family ties or welfare protection you wont make ends meet in Peripheral France. This was why we supported the first protests of the Gilets-Jaunes.

The first Saturday protest in November mobilised 287,000. Most had never protested before. There have been eight Saturday protests. Over 5,000 were taken into custody and a thousand held in prison[ii]. Emmanuel Macron reacted by first, apologising, then freezing tax increases and bank charges while raising the minimum wage. Amazingly the Gilets-Jaunes won more concessions from the government than any trade-union or opposition party for decades. Paradoxically the more concessions Macron made the more the movement became radical. The moderate middle-class, unsettled by the level of violence, now stayed away on Saturdays. (For this alone it may be argued that Macron had played it this way.)

The Two Frances

The current discord in France is not about immigration, but money and status. For decades successive governments have driven economic deregulation while distributing welfare to the bottom end of the social scale.

The squeezed middle paid revenue and kept their lips shut (an estimated ten million people). This evolved alongside the isolation of suburban and rural spaces and resulted in the emergence of The Two Frances. Hiding this national social fracture has been Europe  an increasingly unsure ideal fused indubitably with global neo-liberalism. Macrons ambition for a post-national European sovereignty and a multicultural France is considered with suspicion in the poorer regions. Hyper-centralisation in the internet age and the fusion of regions into super-regions under Francois Hollande resulted in the dislocation of thousands of public servants. Income inequality and status depreciation in the face of new wealth have been the results.

Two decades ago, the philosopher Marcel Gauchet warned that the greatest threat to multicultural France was that nobody had bothered to debate its effects on democracy[iii]. Today the country is a multicultural society but without a reformed democracy. Thats why ordinary people stand at roundabouts wearing fluorescent jackets: They want to be seen and what they are talking about listened to. They refuse any form of representation, which is their great strength and weakness too.

Recently political scientist Pierre Rosanvallon described populism as a political form that is, for the moment, the sole response to the problems we face in the world today[iv]. This form uses bits from the Right and pieces from the Left to develop an incoherent narrative against the status quo. The first successful populist is Emmanuel Macron himself. His start-up election and his positioning in the centre was managed on a digital platform by a small core of friends from the Grande Ecoles and Tech corporates like Apple.

His party LREM is an eclectic ferment of mostly better off middle-class executives. LREM constituency politicians are rigidly whipped by Richard Ferrand, an old dog of the Socialist Partys tribal politics whose fiefdom is in Brittanys heartland. Macron lacks such roots in regional France unlike all previous Presidents. He is isolated in the Elysee palace and so needs to win back trust (his IPSOS popularity rating dropped to 20% in December but so did that of all other political actors).

Great Debate Between Citizens

Now hes sent a letter to every citizen asking them to participate in a citizens debate about the future of French democracy. It is to be organized across the land until March. The letter is interesting because Macron poses no less than thirty questions to the citizen. What might a citizen do if she was to find themselves in his position? The agenda gives four themes: purchasing power, the role of the State, ecological transition and citizenship including immigration quotas. The president admits there are subjects such as taxing the super-rich he is not going to allow onto the agenda. His described the debate in these words:

This debate is neither an election nor a referendum. Its your personal expression of your own story, your opinions, your priorities that is being sought without distinction of age or social situation. It is I believe a great step forward for our Republic to consult its citizens in this way.

Will the debate get consensus from the multitude of opinions to be expressed? What limits will be accepted, and what mechanism will record consensus? The dissolution of the traditional Right/Left party divide leaves the President in a rocky place. How will they take part in the national debate? Does it not undercut the agonistic role of the Assemblee Nationale?

The Yellow-Vests are a bottom-up, eclectic social movement. The debate will differ from those of the Italian 5-Star Movements digital platform that was managed top-down. The debate overseen by the State is between citizens and not between citizens and the government. This is a risky and complex proposition. Visionary, if it creates a new communicative civic space for the Twitter age. A debacle, if those well-funded lobby groups succeed in monopolizing the debate for their champions.

High Stakes

Last weekend, I watched one of Frances popular chat shows hosted by Cyril Hanuna. Hanuna speaks his audiences roughbanlieulanguage. For nearly two hours everyone gave their opinion about the arrest of a gilet-jaune champion boxer. Hed hit a CRS member in defence, he says, of a woman who was being beaten up. Why was the boxer hero of the gyspy community in custody while the cop whod assaulted an arrested black protester was free?

Over a hundred thousand euros were collected online for his legal fees. The debate was accompanied by phone videos showing poorly-trained police using rubber bullets indiscriminately. Once the Presidents name was mentioned gross imprecations were hurled. Hanuna responded that incidents concerning the boxer and the CRS officer were not the same in the eyes of the law. But you wouldnt think many in the studio accepted this constitutional distinction. For them the enemy was the power incarnate of the president-monarch. The security force is his lacquey. Whats dangerous for the great debate is having no red lines for this tribal cynicism and hatred for all authority.

Despite this, Macrons Great Debate should challenge French civic society to innovate and find ways to make peoples daily worries matter. Already there have been the usual blunders that have eyes thrown to heaven. The first coordinator Chantal Jouanno prompted understandable outrage at her 14,OOO euros monthly salary. The debate will be organised at local commune level with a procedure for individuals and civic associations to speak at scheduled meetings. (For those interested youll get details in French here).

In one of the first surveys carried out, one in two French citizens want to participate[v]. The stakes of the debate are very high both for Emmanuel Macron and for French democracy. The rest of Europe will be watching and hopefully learning from its results.

[i] The geographer Jacques Levy has spent a lifetime exploring territory and mobility. These essays provide an overview of what a just or equitable territory is.

[ii] This Wikipedia site gives stats and details.

[iii] See this conversation between Marcel Gauchet and Regis Debray back in 2002.

[iv] Pierre Rosanvallon interview France Culture radio January 5th 2019. See also his important book Notre histoire intellectuelle et politique 1968-2018

[v] Opinion Way Survey, 14/01/2019.
Some county board members sought changes to the rules governing the invocation, noting it did not include other faiths and that often county board members, who also led their own congregations, delivered the prayer. Of the past 13 meetings, county board members Herb Brooks, a Joliet Democrat who also pastors a church, and Gretchen Fritz, a Plainfield Republican who also serves as a deacon, delivered the opening invocation seven times because outside clergy members were not available.
Zimbabwe blocked access to the entire internet again, this time for 15 hours. The internet was switched off by all internet providers on Thursday at around 2300hrs after they received an order from government. Access was only restored on Friday at around 1500hrs.

An SMS message sent out by Econet Wireless, the largest mobile internet provider in the country, read:

We were served with another directive for total shutdown of the internet until further notice. Our lawyers advised we are required to comply with the directive pending the Courts decision on its legality. The earlier directives are already the subject of a pending High Court Application. We sincerely apologize for all inconvenience caused by the acts of government which are beyond our reasonable control.

This is the second time access to the internet has been blocked in one week. The first was on Tuesday 15 January 2019 and it was blocked for 30 hours.

 Pindula

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Acting President Constantino Chiwenga ordered police to release and apologise to Godwin Gomwe, the Zanu PF Youth League chairman for Harare, after he was arrested over the shooting deaths of two people, police sources have told ZimLive.

Gomwe was arrested on Wednesday with a lot of guns but was set free after Chiwenga intervened, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Driving in a Ford Everest and 16 brand new Ford Ranger vehicles with no registration marks, Gomwe patrolled Harare neighbourhoods with death squads, some of them in army uniform.

They rounded up and beat up young men suspected to have participated in Mondays widespread street protests against a 150 percent increase in the price of fuel announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Police also believe the same Ford Ranger vehicles  some of which had been seized by investigators before they were forced to release them  took part in the bombing of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) headquarters in central Harare on Monday night.

Gomwe was arrested by Budiriro police and later taken to the Law and Order section at Harare Central. He was charged for shooting two people, but we were later made to understand Chiwenga had secured his release. The final ignominy for the police was having to first apologise, and then escort him to his home as per orders, a police source said.

A day after his release, on Thursday, they were terrorising residents of Highfield. He drives around in a Ford Everest, while the rest of the gang has Ford Rangers. We want to believe he commands this terror group.

Police chiefs had taken Gomwes docket, and he is unlikely to face charges. We were not able to establish the names of the victims, who are believed to be from Budiriro.

Police sources say a third murder case is being linked to the Ford Ranger squad, although there was no evidence linking Gomwe to that particular killing.

Trymore Nachiwe, according to a police docket seen by ZimLive, was driving in a blue Toyota Voxy in Glenview 8 with a friend when they were intercepted by five Ford Ranger vehicles with no registration plates.

The vehicles way was blocked by the unregistered Ford Rangers. The unknown accused disembarked the vehicles, some wearing civilian attire and others wearing ZNA (Zimbabwe National Army) camouflage. They were armed with stones, iron bars, machetes and tear smoke canisters, the police document says.

The accused broke the Toyota Voxy windows ordering the duo to come out and the two complied. The accused assaulted the two with clenched fists and booted feet all over their bodies and they left them lying on the ground.

Nachiwe died at 7PM on Tuesday after being hospitalised from injuries sustained during the beating. The police crime report number for the open murder investigation is CR 269/01/19.

On Thursday, MDC leader Nelson Chamisa said they were convinced that Chiwenga and President Emmerson Mnangagwa  currently on a five-country tour in Eastern Europe  had carefully coordinated an attack on Zimbabwe over the last three days.

There was a group for looting and public violence meant to discredit the demonstrations; one for extreme and countrywide repression using degrading treatment such as beatings, rape, and grave bodily harm and one for killing Zimbabweans  essentially shooting civilians to show that the government is prepared to kill, Chamisas spokesman Nkululeko Sibanda said.

Citing information from NGOs, churches and the courts, Sibanda said they had evidence that Zanu PF had infiltrated the anti-government protests.

Credible reports show that the state carefully organised Zanu PF youths, who would infiltrate the mass stayaways and loot a few shops for their personal benefit. These were not paid, and were told that the loot would be for their personal benefit, Sibanda said.

Chamisa called on the Southern African Development Community (SADC)  which was holding a double Troika Summit in Ethiopia on Thursday  to intervene and investigate these serious circumstances in which grave crimes against humanity were committed.

Government spokesman Nick Mangwana had yet to respond to written questions sent to him. This story will be amended to include the government response once it is received.

 ZimLive

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TWO MDC Alliance MPs and 16 other people were arrested and appeared at the Gweru magistrates court yesterday.They were denied bail on charges of inciting and participating in public violence.

Amos Chibaya, the MDC Alliance organising secretary who is the MP for Mkoba, Livingstone Chiminya, the opposition partys Chiwundura MP who is also the Midlands provincial youth chairperson and 16 other people were arrested over the violence that led to the looting of shops and bars in Gweru on Tuesday.

Chibaya and five other people appeared before provincial magistrate Ms Charity Maphosa while Chiminya and 11 others appeared before regional magistrate Mrs Phathekile Msipa.

Chibaya and Chiminya are facing one count each of inciting violence while the other people who appeared before the two magistrates including Titus Chumunya, Bongani Sibanda, Message Nerongo, Lazurus Matariro, Mavis Chakunga, Brenda Madzire are facing a count each of public violence.

Chibayas lawyer Mr Reginald Chidawanyika made an application for bail pending trial which was opposed by the State.

In her bail application ruling, Ms Maphosa said the country and Gweru in particular had not yet returned to normalcy.

She remanded Chibaya in custody to today for trial while the other five were remanded in custody to January 22.

The accused person after allegedly addressing the youths drove them to areas where they committed acts of public violence and therefore the accused is remanded in custody to tomorrow (today) for trial, she said.

The other five are remanded in custody to January 22.

On the other hand Mrs Msipa also denied Chiminya bail after an application by the accused lawyer Mr Brian Dube.

She said she was going to deal with the bail application for the other people today.

The environment is still volatile, you are alleged to have incited people in Gweru to participate in criminal activities and things are not yet 100 percent normal.

Releasing him is not in the best interest of the public. We need to protect the people from such acts. The public will lose confidence in the judiciary and bail is denied, she said.

The other 11 people were also denied bail to January 22.

Chibaya and Chiminya, the court heard, allegedly held a meetings at their respective houses in Mkoba 13 and 14 on January 13 and incited MDC-Alliance youths to go onto the streets of Gweru to prevent the general public from going to work.

It is alleged that youths gangs blocked Hamutyinei and Bristol roads in Mkoba which lead to the city centre, Matobo Road in Mtapa leading to town, using logs, stones and burning tyres, disrupting free movement of vehicles and the general public.

They allegedly went to Choppies supermarket in Mkoba 6 and looted groceries worth $10 000, Samanyanga shop at Mkoba 10 and looted various groceries valued at $2 500, among other shops.

Meanwhile, 18 people were arraigned before a Gokwe Magistrate for barricading roads, vandalising property and looting of shops including the GMB Gokwe depot as part of the protests.

Tonderai Rukato (36), Chengetai Takuvira (30), Gilbert Francesco (36), Prince Paradza (31), Tatenda Muzenda (18) and thirteen others appeared before Gokwe Magistrate Mr Musaiona Shortgame facing public violence charges.

They were remanded in custody to January 23 for provision of a trial date.

The State led by Mr Michael Mhene opposed bail saying the suspects were facing serious charges and that some of them were of no fixed abode hence they were flight risks.

Mr Solomon Kangembewu who led the defence counsel, had proposed $50 bail for each suspect.

The State alleged that on January 15 at around 1500 hours, the gang, and their accomplices who are still at large, barricaded the Gokwe-Kwekwe road and other roads using rocks and burning tyres.

The suspects, the court heard, ordered shops and tuckshops to close and went on to loot groceries from tuckshops and shops that remained open.

They then proceeded to Choppies where they vandalised the shop after failing to gain entry to loot.

They then proceeded to the Gokwe New Long Distance Bus terminus where they vandalised property and chased away council police.

They proceeded to a ZUPCO depot were they again vandalised the precast wall to gain entrance before stoning stationary buses.

The suspects, the court further heard, proceeded to GMB Gokwe Depot where they looted 154 bags of 50kg mealie-meal and carried them to their various homesteads.

About 28 bags were recovered.

In Bulawayo, 15 more suspected hooligans who are alleged to be part of a mob that unleashed an orgy of violence and mayhem in Bulawayo, burning cars, property and looting shops, appeared in court yesterday.

The accused persons, among them five juveniles aged between 11 and 17 years appeared at Tredgold magistrates court.

Enviolator Moyo (34) of Cowdray Park, Clinton Nyathi (20), Phathisani Moyo (42), Elitha Sibanda (22), Constance Ncube (28), Moreen Moyo (32) Wilson Nyathi (18), Sihliselo Ncube (40) Siphathisiwe Nyandeni (46), Thandolwenkosi Moyo (23) and the five minors all from Ngozi Mine appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Ms Sithembiso Ncube charged with public violence.

They were arrested while allegedly trying to break into Richmond Spar to loot groceries.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights lawyers Mr Dixon Abraham and Mr Tinashe Runganga, who represented the accused persons, argued that the reasons for opposing bail by the State were not compelling enough to deny the accused persons bail.

Ms Ncube remanded the 15 accused persons in custody to January 21 for a bail ruling while the juveniles were remanded into the custody of their parents.

The State led by Ms Tafadzwa Mutsambiwa opposed bail, saying releasing them would send a wrong message.

She argued the accused persons were a threat to the safety of the public given that they allegedly participated in civil unrest.

She said if granted bail, the accused persons were likely to continue participating in the violent protests.

Prosecuting, Ms Mutsambiwa said on January 16 at around 7AM, the accused persons connived and armed themselves with stones and iron bars before they allegedly proceeded to Richmond Spar where they intended to loot the shop. They were carrying empty bags.

Upon arrival, they threw stones at security guards manning the supermarket and went on to break the burglar bars on the door so that they could gain entry.

Local residents teamed up with security guards and fought the accused persons before they alerted police who came and swiftly reacted and arrested them, said Ms Mutsambiwa.

The accused persons were allegedly part of a mob that staged mass protests dubbed Zimbabwe National Total Shutdown and went around looting shops, burning vehicles and private properties and disrupted public order and peace.

The three-day nationwide stay away was called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and other civil society organisations aligned to the MDC Alliance.

The protesters also turned parts of the citys western suburbs into no-go areas as they set up barricades, makeshift roadblocks, burnt tyres and attacked police officers.

On Wednesday, 25 suspected hooligans appeared separately at Tredgold and Western Commonage magistrates courts facing the same charges.

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Zimbabwes domestic and foreign policies will not bend to the whims of other countries desires, and will continue to be informed by the national interest as well as respect for historically friendly relations with like-minded nations, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said.

In a series of interviews with Russian media houses earlier this week during his current tour of four Eurasian nations, the Head of State and Government also explained Zimbabwes Engagement and Re-Engagement Policy.

The President has already been to Russia, where he held fruitful talks with President Vladimir Putin, and yesterday he discussed economic co-operation with President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, Belarus.

Thereafter, President Mnangagwa will hold talks with President Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhstan) and President Ilham Aliyev (Azerbaijan), after which he heads to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum.

The engagements are designed to strengthen economic co-operation and attract investment as President Mnangagwa steers Zimbabwe towards middle-income status by 2030.

However, critics of the President have sought to belittle the engagements, insinuating that he would be better off courting Western countries  some of whom maintain economic sanctions on Zimbabwe because of Harares fast-track land reform programme.

In one interview in Russia, President Mnangagwa said, Zimbabwe is a sovereign state; we make decisions on the basis of national interests as well as the interests of those who are friendly to us.

In regard to the Russian Federation, there is a history of co-operation prior to our Independence and post-Independence, and we have stood together  So there is no cause for us to depart from that stance.

The question of deepening our relations is not prompted by the sanctions imposed on us by those who do not like us. We consolidate and deepen our relations on the basis of our interests as two sovereign states.

Those who have put sanctions on us, they best know why they have sanctions on us. As Zimbabwe we carried out our land reform which was the basis of our revolution leading to us gaining our Independence in 1980.

And we fulfilled the grievances of our people by implementing the land reform.

If history could be reversed we would do it (land reform programme) again. Land reform was critical for us to move forward and we are happy that it is now behind us. Its irrevocable.

In another interview, the President was asked about US national security advisor Mr John Boltons recently unveiled new Africa Strategy, which analysts have said is largely about trying to counter Chinas economic co-operation with the continent.

Im sure Mr Bolton pronounced the policy in the American interest, we pronounce our foreign policy in the Zimbabwean interest. We dont look at American interests to determine our policy. We determine our policy on the national interest of Zimbabwe, and that is what is going to guide us on whatever issue.

Where their interests and our interests coincide, well and good.  We will respect their national interest and we will expect them also, in return, to respect our national interest because we are all member states of the United Nations.

President Mnangagwa said he would formally invite President Putin to Harare as the two nations consolidate relations, jokingly adding: Except that we have come here and it is minus 4 degrees Celsius, so when he comes to Zimbabwe we will make sure it is above 40 degrees Celsius.

Zimbabwes leader dismissed speculative reports that Zimbabwe was on an arms shopping spree, pointing out that his number one priority was economic development.

But down the line as Zimbabwe becomes stronger in terms of its economic muscle, we should be able to buy the type of hardware which we know the Russian Federation has and which we require.

But we are not in a hurry. Our priority is now to develop our economy in terms of modernising and mechanising.

(When the time comes) we dont think we will concentrate on hardware; we will concentrate on manpower training in the area of the Army and the Air Force. We have a lot of our officers who trained here and we think they received the best training for our size of army.

And speaking to the editor-in-chief of Tass new agency, Mikhail Gusman, President Mnangagwa said he was dedicating up to 95 percent of his time to affairs of State, leaving very little time for his family.

He said he had never hoped to be President of the Republic, but rather that the ruling Zanu-PF and the legislature  guided by the party constitution and the national Constitution respectively  had deployed him to that role, and he had subsequently won an election to secure a five-year term.

I dont view it as being about power, he said, it is about the burden leadership, a duty to be discharged for ones country.

President Mnangagwa said his administrations efforts were starting to bear fruit, pointing out that exports had gone up 26 percent since he assumed the mantle, and that with strategic partnerships with friendly nations, Zimbabwe would attain the objective of becoming a middle-income economy by 2030.

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A man found shot to death Thursday morning in the driver's seat of a Yellow Cab in the parking lot of a thrift store in Windcrest, has been identified.

A witness reported the shooting just before 7 a.m. at the large parking lot for the Texas Thrift store in the 7500 block of Interstate 35, officials said.

When police arrived, they found the victim, Aadam Xirsi, 50, dead. The driver's side front window had apparently been shattered by a bullet, and the victim had one leg dangling out of the open door.

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Investigators said they believe Xirsi operated the taxi.

Windcrest Police Chief Al Ballew said officers are reviewing security camera footage in the area and the taxi driver's log in order to get a better idea of what led to the shooting.

"We're still working this," he said. "It's fresh. It's still under investigation."

No weapon was found inside the vehicle, and Ballew said it's unclear what kind of firearm was used in the killing.

Police are working to identify any suspects involved in the slaying.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com |

cdowns@mysa.com | @calebjdowns
A Comal County Sheriff's deputy died in an accident that involved three vehicles Thursday afternoon in Schertz.

Police say Deputy Ray Horn, 44, was off duty and may have suffered a medical emergency while driving home. At about 5:15 p.m., he collided with other vehicles at the intersection of F.M. 3009, according to the Schertz Police Department. Investigators were still trying to determine the exact sequence of events.

RELATED: Sheriff: Mom's boyfriend 'person of interest' in triple shooting

He was rushed to an area hospital, but was pronounced dead shortly after arrival, police said.

One other person involved in the accident was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

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At about 9 p.m. Schertz investigators were still at the scene, reconstructing the accident.

Several lanes of traffic going both east and west are closed, police said, and would stay closed for several hours until the investigation at the site is complete.
You know how it goes  one unsuspecting Saturday evening when you think youre simply going out for pizza and thus arent wearing much makeup or even your best going-out outfit, when in fact your hair is still recovering from the afternoon nap you took at their encouragement, they take you to a movie and afterward walk you into a restaurant so you can nearly have a heart attack in public.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence surprised thousands of protesters demonstrating against abortion on the Mall in Washington by making unannounced speeches at Friday's March for Life.

Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, strode onstage to the delighted cheers of a roaring crowd carrying antiabortion posters and banners. Then Pence concluded his remarks with a second surprise: Trump, who addressed the march by video feed last year, had again prepared videotaped remarks for the marchers.

"When we look into the eyes of a newborn child, we see the beauty and the human soul and the majesty of God's creation. We know that every life has meaning," Trump said in his video, before listing his administration's antiabortion actions and vowing to reject any legislation passed by the new Democratic-controlled House that "weakens" the campaign to prevent abortion access.

More for you News The Health 202: The one area of agreement between...

He said he signed a letter to Congress on Friday announcing his intent to veto any such law.

Pence gave a similar list of antiabortion actions, including Trump's appointment of conservative judges to powerful appellate courts across the country, and his reinstatement of the Mexico City policy that bans U.S. government funding for any foreign aid organization linked to abortion. And Pence, too, spoke with religious overtones: "Listen to the truth," he said, then cited one of the antiabortion movement's favorite biblical verses. "Know that He who said, 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you' also said, 'I will never forsake you.'"

Sixteen-year-old Daniel Pierini was among those cheering, thrilled to hear Pence describe the president's reinstatement of the Mexico City policy, which he supports.

"I like how he explained what the president has done so far for the pro-life movement," he said, adding that he is a fan of Trump and Pence except for their opposition to rights for transgender Americans, because he has transgender friends.

Standing with classmates from his Christian school in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania, Pierini said his own mother had a troubled pregnancy - a doctor told her that she was at risk of a miscarriage or could die if she carried her pregnancy to term, Pierini said - but she chose not to abort and give birth to him. Now, he hopes, the Supreme Court with two conservative justices appointed by Trump will overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal nationwide.

Since the March for Life began in 1974, the year after the Roe v. Wade decision, the crowd has been largely youthful, including Catholic school students who ride buses from all over the country to attend the march. In recent years, march organizers said they have tried to welcome a broader group of people who oppose abortion. In addition to the march's Catholic core, an Evangelicals for Life conference now draws a sizable contingent. Other groups march in step, like Secular Pro-Life and Democrats for Life of America.

However, last year, when Trump addressed the crowd, some complained that the polarizing president distanced those who aren't fans of Trump from the antiabortion movement. In this shifting environment, the march leaders picked science as their theme this year - under the headline, "Unique from Day One: Pro-Life is Pro-Science."

March for Life president Jeanne Mancini and other leaders of the movement said before the march that they wanted to include a politically diverse audience of anyone who opposes abortion - which, according to polling, includes at least a quarter of Democratic voters, although antiabortion Democrats in Congress are a rapidly dwindling group. Mancini touted the equal balance in speakers this year, two Republican congressmen and two Democrats (one a state legislator).

But on Friday, Trump and Pence spoke again. And again, some said they were unhappy to associate the antiabortion movement with a president they dislike.

"I think the most dangerous thing we ever did is make this a partisan issue. It's a human rights issue," said Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, 35, president of a group called New Wave Feminists that brought about 50 marchers to the event. She gave birth as a teenager, she said, so she understands the plight of women considering abortion.

She came from Dallas to attend the march and said her group will participate in both the March for Life and the Women's March the following day, a march which demonstrates against Trump and Republican policies.

"We really want to challenge the GOP to be consistently pro-life," she said. "What about children at the border? . . . They're doing a lot of things that are anti-life."

She would like to see more Democrats who oppose abortion rights elected to office, she said.

Brian Westbrook, who runs a group of about 20 young adults who counsel women outside abortion clinics in St. Louis, said it didn't matter to him what political parties were represented at the March. The excitement over the president, he said, "has little to do with Trump and everything to do with the Supreme Court."

He said he is most excited about the two conservative justices Trump has appointed to the court, and wonders about the possibility of a third as he sees Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg struggle with health problems. Otherwise, he has not been impressed by Republicans' accomplishments on the issue - including, as featured march speaker Ben Shapiro pointed out, their unfulfilled promise to defund Planned Parenthood.

"They had two whole years. They had the House and the Senate," Westbrook said.

A group of college students said they didn't think the event seemed partisan.

"It was so inspiring everyone can come together from different backgrounds. We have friends here who are Democrats. I know atheists who are pro-life," said Evelyn Munsterman, 19, a freshman at James Madison University who studies engineering.

At school, she said, she feels "shut down" whenever she tries to talk about abortion.

The unexpected presidential and vice presidential addresses eclipsed the planned "pro-science" theme of the march, which the March for Life had promoted using two scientific papers. One, published by the antiabortion nonprofit the Charlotte Lozier Institute, describes the meeting of a sperm cell and an egg cell to form a zygote, a new type of cell distinct from the two that formed it. The paper then asks whether that cell is its own organism separate from the mother, or a part of a human like a liver cell or a skin cell.

The fact that the zygote "directs its own development," leading it to eventually turn into a more complete embryo and eventually a baby in the right circumstances, leads the writer of the paper (a neurobiology and pediatrics professor at the University of Utah) to conclude that from the moment of conception, embryos "are indeed living individuals of the human species."

Sarah Horvath, a doctor who has performed abortions and works as a family planning policy and advocacy fellow for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said the ACOG, a 58,000-member organization that includes more than 90 percent of the OB/GYNs in the United States, disagrees with that scientist's explanation of life.

"I think that's a gross exaggeration of an incredibly complex topic. There are many fertilized eggs that never implant, that implant in the wrong place . . . that become miscarriages, that in fact can become a type of cancer," Horvath said.

She said medical professionals don't have a working definition of when life begins. ACOG strongly supports increased access to abortion in its official positions.

"Science isn't really designed to answer questions about the exact beginning of life or the moral assignations of these sorts of things," she said. "Science tells us that abortion is safe. Science tells us that abortion is health care. Science tells us that abortion care can be lifesaving."

That's the first disagreement. The second disagreement: Putting aside when life begins, what should women be allowed to do about an unwanted pregnancy? One can believe that an embryo is a life or not a life and still have differing opinions about whether a woman should be able to choose to end her pregnancy.

The second paper promoted by the March for Life stakes out a clear opinion: "The College values all human lives equally from the moment of conception (fertilization) until natural death. Consistent with its mission to 'enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being,' the College, therefore, opposes active measures that would prematurely end the life of any child at any stage of development from conception to natural death," the paper says.

That College is the American College of Pediatricians, which was founded in 2002 in opposition to the larger pediatric institute's approval of gay parents. It represents a few hundred doctors, compared with the 66,000 doctors of the American Academy of Pediatrics. That body, the vastly larger medical organization, does not share the ACP's opinion. It tends to weigh in only on the question of whether teenagers, who can be the patients of pediatricians, should have access to abortion - and strongly supports access to abortion.

"Timely access to medical care is especially important for pregnant teenagers because of the significant medical, personal, and social consequences of adolescent childbearing," the organization wrote in a 2017 statement opposing state laws that require a teenager to disclose an abortion to her parents. "Early childbearing can lead to a range of negative outcomes for the adolescent mother and her child or children, including lower rates of school completion, higher rates of single motherhood, higher rates of preterm birth and low birth weight, increased rates of incarceration among male children, and increased rates of teen motherhood among female children born to adolescent mothers."

Participants in the March for Life on Friday expressed a range of views on the topic. Some professed a belief that life begins at conception, while others stated that any scientific conclusions should be secondary to what morality and religion dictate on the subject.

Alan and Lisa Anderson, both nurses, said their belief that life begins at conception motivated them to drive eight hours from Massachusetts for the march.

"If you don't intervene with that life, what will you have?" Alan Anderson, 64, said as he waited for the march to begin. "You'll have a full-blown human being."

But if scientists reached a different conclusion, somehow proving that life does not begin at conception, Alan said, he'd still oppose abortion. That's what he has learned from his Catholic faith.
UPDATE: This company has ceased treatments. Read more on HoustonChronicle.com.

Think young blood is the key to better aging? A new company based on that premise will now inject such blood into the veins of people in Houston who want to give the idea a try.

Fair warning: It'll cost you at least $8,000, payable online through PayPal.

Business Insider is reporting Houston is one of six U.S. cities where a startup called Ambrosia is providing the unusual therapy, inspired by a 2014 study with mice. There is no evidence it can rejuvenate normally aging people, say experts.

"That's a very expensive 'fountain of youth,' " said Dr. Mark Udden, professor of medicine in Baylor College of Medicine's section of hematology/oncology. "This is a legitimate area of research, but this company appears to be just hype."

According to Ambrosia's website, people in Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tampa and Omaha, Nebraska can receive intravenous infusions of plasma from donors between 16 and 25. It's $8,000 for one liter, $12,000 for two and "laboratory fees may be extra."

RELATED: Critics wary of stem cell clinics that promise big results

A liter of plasma usually goes for about $1,000, said Udden. He warned that more plasma than that can cause blood overload resulting in heart failure.

Ambrosia recently conducted a clinical trial  participants still had to pay at least $8,000 -- designed to find whether the procedure is beneficial, but hasn't published the results. The company's founder, Jesse Karmazin, told Business Insider the results were "really positive."

Blood transfusions from young donors are being tested in Alzheimer's patients. Udden said those have shown modest benefits in a small number of patients.

Ambrosia's for-profit business is legal despite the therapy still being in clinical trials because blood transfusions are already approved by federal regulators.

Todd Ackerman covers medicine for the Houston Chronicle. He can be reached at todd.ackerman@chron.com or twitter.com/ChronMed.
San Antonio cheered to opening night of the Cocktail Conference held at Rivercenter Mall. Party goers gathered for the 'Come & Taste It' event Thursday night.

This new party is being dubbed 'Thursday night's new big event." It commemorated all things Texas including the Battle of the Alamo. Memorabilia and relics from the Alamo were on display.
Jason Momoa, the superhero star from Aquaman, will return to San Antonio for the 2019 Celebrity Fan Fest, according to a news release from PMX events.

Momoa, who was in the Alamo City for the inaugural festival last year, will be back this year's event, which will run between June 14 and 16. He will be joined by other celebrities who will be announced in the coming weeks.
Nod your head if youre sick of arguments on social media. Speak up if youre bored with taunts and angry rants. It may have been fun for a while to see some people melt down with outrage, but that routine is getting old.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 17)  The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) extended its sympathies to the family of a FIlipino who drowned in New Zealand.

In a statement released Thursday, the DFA said the 20-year-old Filipino  who they did not name  was swimming with friends in the Whanganui River when he drowned Wednesday.

The body was recovered Thursday, it said.

The DFA said this was the third incident of a Filipino drowning in New Zealand. On January 11, student Kent Espinosa drowned in Whangarei Falls. In October 2018, another Filipino drowned as he tried to save his nieces.

"As a result of these drownings, Ambassador to New Zealand Jesus Gary Domingo said the Embassy will hold townhall meetings to promote better water safety awareness with members of the Filipino Community," said the DFA.

Meanwhile, the DFA also said that a Filipina tourist was hurt when the bus carrying her and 22 other passengers skidded off a highway in Chumphon province in southern Thailand.

Ambassador to Thailand Mary Jo A. Bernardo-Aragon reported the Filipina sustained minor injuries in the incident and was released after being treated.
South Africa: Minister pays visit to Home Affairs offices

Home Affairs Minister Siyabonga Cwele on Thursday visited the Randburg Home Affairs offices to ensure that services are delivered efficiently to the public.

After being informed by staff at the front office that systems were offline for most of the day, the Minister personally called IT service providers, where he was assured that technicians were working speedily to resolve the issue.

Cwele used the visit to urge citizens to collect their smart card IDs after observing a pile of uncollected cards.

We urge all those who had applied for their IDs and had received notifications to come and collect their IDs. An ID is an important document that allows you to access government services, the Minister said.

He reiterated the same message when he visited Home Affairs offices in Soweto, Maponya Mall and Roodepoort. The visits were intended for the Minister to experience first-hand the situation at the offices and to ensure effective service delivery.

Last week, the Minister made an unannounced visit to the departments Umgeni office in KwaZulu-Natal to monitor service delivery. During the visit, Cwele observed that the trend of uncollected smart card IDs was prevalent there as well.

With the elections coming up, citizens need their IDs to register to vote. We also encourage people to register to vote, he said.

During his visit in eThekwini, the Minister was accompanied by the departments Acting Director General, Thulani Mavuso and KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Manager, Cyril Mncwabe.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Washington, DC  Californias two US Senators are among a dozen that signed a letter sent to the Trump administration upset that the government shutdown is halting forest prep work ahead of the summer fire season.

The letter sent by Dianne Feinstein, Kamala Harris, and others reads, Typically, federal agencies use the winter months to hire and train firefighters in advance of the upcoming fire season, and to perform fire prevention worklike tree removal and controlled burnsthat are more difficult or dangerous to carry out during active fire seasons. Training and prevention programs are both currently on hold.

It goes on to argue state, Unless these firefighter trainings and forest health projects resume soon, the health and safety of our communities mostly in rural areas will continue to be put at risk.

The Senators that sent the letter to President Trump are all Democrats. Others include Ron Wyden of Oregon, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
Sacramento, CA  New regulations now in effect make it legal for medical and adult use cannabis sales deliveries across California, even in areas that ban marijuana sales.

Wednesday Californias three cannabis-licensing authorities confirmed that the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) officially approved and immediately put into effect state regulations for cannabis businesses, which replace emergency ones set in place last year.

The final version of the new rules, submitted to OAL on Dec. 3, underwent a 30-day review that ended Jan. 16. California Cannabis Bureau (BCC) Chief Lori Ajax says the regulations are the culmination of more than two years of hard work by the licensing authorities.

Although there are many related issues still in dispute, one of the top ones concerns home deliveries, a matter that could end up in court. An amended subsection of the rules governing deliveries currently clarifies that all sale of cannabis goods must occur in the retail area except for cannabis goods sold through delivery, a drive-in, or drive-through window. The added amendment highlighted the limited circumstances where authorized sales of cannabis goods may occur outside the retail area.

Critics Argue New Rules Conflict With Prop 64

Law enforcement agencies and jurisdictions where pot sales are currently not allowed fear the rule will undercut local control and foster a hidden market. The League of California Cities says the rule conflicts with 2016s voter-approved Prop 64 that gives local governments the authority to ban nonmedical pot businesses.

The new rules allow deliveries of medical and recreational pot within any state jurisdiction. However, the retailer and delivery personnel must comply with all of the stated provisions under an extensive list of delivery rules.

For starters, delivery personnel must be at least 21 and specially licensed and use a secure and manned unmarked vehicle with GPS tracking. Cannabis goods must deliver person to person; may not deliver to a daycare or youth center or a school providing instruction to kindergarten or any grades 1 through 12.

Officials in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties and cities of Sonora and Angels Camp are among those that have been following the issue with interest over the past several months. While Calaveras has three medical marijuana dispensaries and Sonora will have one opening this Friday, there are local bans on adult use sales.

The regulations and related documents are available for viewing on the California Cannabis Portal here.
The parties and their respective attorneys further acknowledge that settlement is made to avoid the uncertainty of the outcome of litigation and the expense in time and money of further litigation and for the purpose of judicial economy, the agreement states.
There are currently 16 packing stations where merchandise is boxed up for shipping, and Cooke said the plan is to double that to 32 stations in the coming weeks. The facility will increase its operating hours, with plans to be fulfilling orders seven days a week by the end of February, he said.
The child, who is not believed to have been the intended target of the shooting, was taken to Comer Childrens Hospital in stable condition, city spokesman Sean Howard said.
Lisa Mannion, of Chicago Ridge, was one of six Illinois recipients of a Sport Clips Help a Hero Scholarship. I am very excited to be receiving the VFW Help-A-Hero scholarship. I will be graduating with my Associates in Fine Arts in music one year from now and this scholarship brings me one step closer to achieving my goal, Mannion said. In 2024, I plan to finish my Masters Degree in music so that I can teach my passion at college level. The scholarship program awards service members and veterans with post-secondary scholarships of up to $5,000 to help them achieve their educational goals without the burden of student loan debt. It is administered by VFW Illinois and supported financially by Sport Clips founder and VFW Life member Gordon Logan.
What can it mean that two years into Donald Trump's presidency, the bigger star on Washington, D.C.-area stages is Vladimir Putin?

The Russian president was satirized in the fall in the delirious "Putin on Ice (that isn't the real title of this show)" at Baltimore's Single Carrot Theater. Putin is unnamed but unmistakable in Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph's "Describe the Night," an Obie Award winner last year as best American play that's getting its area debut at D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth in the spring.

And cementing Putin as a stealth theatrical headliner is "Kleptocracy," a new drama from former "House of Cards" writer Kenneth Lin, having its premiere at Arena Stage in Washington. "Kleptocracy" recounts - in mostly fictionalized terms - the story of Russian oil baron and Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who in 2003 was arrested for fraud and spent a decade in prison.

"I thought it was fascinating and tragic that he went from being the richest man in Russia to being put in prison by Vladimir Putin," says New York producer Robert Ahrens, who brought the idea to Lin in 2013.

"We had no idea," says Ahrens, whose major producing credits began with the unexpected 2007 Broadway hit musical "Xanadu." "It makes the story more relevant. But I always found it relevant."

Putin has been a hypnotic figure to the West at least since George W. Bush "looked the man in the eye," as the president put it, and came out the other side babbling about the former KGB agent's soul. Beck Bennett's shirtless shtick on "Saturday Night Live," as Putin the Trump Whisperer, rides high in the American mind, and internationally, the Putin brand is popular wherever nationalism rears its head. In Russia, he even has his own weekly TV reality show.

"The effect that Putin has on America is very operatic, and poetic, in a sense," says Lin, who notes that "Kleptocracy" - with a reflective (if unreliable) Putin as the lone figure addressing the audience - will be utterly transparent about what are and are not facts.

The slippery slope of disinformation and rampant mythmaking, on the other hand, was the tactic of "Putin on Ice," which Pierson and Yury Urnov, the show's Russian-born director, are hoping to revive. That performance began in a secret room off the theater lobby, where audience members - blindfolded and individually escorted - could let their fingers briefly, reverently graze a bust of Putin. The show continually subverted what it said and did, always alighting on the notion of Putin pulling the strings of our consciousness.

"I kind of live with him," says Urnov, who now lives in Baltimore. "He is there for almost exactly half of my life. He was appointed just before 2000, and I am 42. It's like a family member or something - the one who moves in and doesn't leave. You (Americans) are kind of sure, at least, with an eight-year (term) limit you can get rid of almost anybody."

Lin worked on "House of Cards" during seasons that included a Russian president, but his deeper connection to "Kleptocracy" stems from his roots as a child of parents fleeing Mao's China.

"I just happened to be that person for whom this is an ever- present story in my life," Lin says, recounting family sagas of Chinese Nationalist Party leaders and opium addicts, a rebellious grandmother unbinding a little girl's feet, and scampering across international borders up until he was born in the Bronx in the 1970s.

"My bedtime stories," the nattily dressed Lin says in an interview at Arena Stage, "were, 'You almost didn't live - except for America.' "

Russia, too, grew volatile in the long transition after the Soviet Union's collapse. "It's interesting that Khodorkovsky stayed when most oligarchs left," Ahrens says, touching on a mystery of the play. Khodorkovsky's arrest, Ahrens reckons, highlighted "the omni-potence of Vladimir Putin."

Like Ahrens, "Describe the Night" author Rajiv Joseph was fascinated by Russia well before the 2016 American presidential campaign. Of particular interest: the 2010 airplane crash in Smolensk, Russia, that killed 96 people, including Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and a number of Polish leaders, an incident that some blamed on Russia. Joseph calls "Describe the Night" "a spider web of a play" with the story spinning from Isaac Babel's travails in Stalin's Russia (the writer was executed in 1940) to the emergence of Putin.

"Be who you are and you might rise high in tomorrow's Soviet Union," the Putin character is advised. "When the world is a gang fight, people want a gangster to lead them."

"It revolves around notions of what is true and not true," Joseph says. "Are we understanding what we are seeing? How does that relate to how we understand history? And current events?"

"Non-theater people think of language as being aligned with truth," says "Putin on Ice" writer Lola B. Pierson. "And I think theater people are comfortable with the idea that it's not. At all."

Lin echoes that, saying, "I am suspicious of anybody who says, 'I really know something' when clearly there is so much material out there that's designed to obfuscate and confuse."

The Russian artists working on these projects are less daunted by the Putin I'm not there mythos.

"He is different from leaders of the Communist Party who at least had to pretend they were following some kind of ideology," Urnov says. "Maybe there is this one idea: some kind of image of the great Russia and the magic knights of the KGB who are protecting this beautiful entity from dirty Western hands. But even that, for me, seems exaggerated. He is very practical, tactical, goal-oriented."

"I am annoyed by the notion of romanticizing him," says "Kleptocracy" set designer Misha Kachman, who, like Putin, grew up in Leningrad. "He's a thief and a thug and a killer."

Does that mean theater, with its fictions and slippery frames and glorifying spotlight, is a bad place to think about Putin?

"Theater is a good place to think about ourselves," Kachman says. "Theater doesn't matter unless we learn something about who we are, why this is happening to us, what's next. Otherwise we're just looking at stories about exotic people."

The plague of disinformation has become an unarguable fact of daily American life, whether it's Putin or something else "sowing chaos," as Joseph puts it. That's why "Kleptocracy," Ahrens says, "is about thinking, not just taking in information and taking it at face value for 10 hours a day. The play's call to arms would be: 'Be informed. Be smart. Read. And think.' "

Still, the image continues to ascend of Putin as a master manipulator. "We are in the process of mythologizing Putin, so he is making it into the art scene," Urnov says. With a gallows laugh, he adds, "And pure evil - there is always a need to dramatize that."
Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison - Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me Out

By Jason Rezaian

Ecco/Anthony Bourdain. 320 pp. $29.99

---

One day while Jason Rezaian was languishing in prison in Tehran, his jailers told him, "You must sing for us." He finally agreed to do so, but only if they stood up. They did. Rezaian crooned with deep emotion and passion, and the guards burst into applause. Rezaian then told them he had been singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" - so that, by clapping, they had "paid the ultimate respect to the Great Satan."

That anecdote provides a fitting introduction to the many little dramas and absurdities experienced by Rezaian, then The Washington Post's correspondent in Tehran, during nearly a year and a half in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. "Prisoner," Rezaian's account of his time behind bars and his release, is full of stories like the one about his rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" - some of them funny, some of them outrageous.

Rezaian grew up in California, a son of an Iranian rug merchant. He eventually established himself as one of the very few American newspaper correspondents in Iran. He and his wife, Yeganeh, were arrested at their Tehran apartment in the summer of 2014 just as they were about to leave on a trip to the United States. At the time, the Iranian regime was in the midst of negotiating a deal with the Obama administration in which the United States would lift sanctions in exchange for Iran's agreement to limit its nuclear weapons program.

Rezaian eventually concluded that he was a hostage, seized so that Iran could try to extract leverage in those nuclear negotiations. He sardonically brands the government that jailed him "the Hostage Taking Republic of Iran." He observes that the "signature move" of the current Iranian regime after it came to power in 1979 was the seizure of more than 50 American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Rezaian wound up spending 544 days in captivity - precisely 100 more than those earlier hostages. Sometimes, he theorizes, Iranian officials take hostages without even knowing at first what they will seek in return.

The specific charges against Rezaian became as absurd as everything else about his case. First, Iranian authorities accused him of espionage, seeking to claim that he was a CIA agent. But they couldn't find evidence to substantiate this, because there was none.

The prosecutors were deadly serious in their efforts to develop a case, but they seemed sometimes like figures in a Kafka novel and sometimes those in a Marx brothers movie. When Iranian officials found that the inbox of Rezaian's Gmail account was full to overflowing, they told him this was a sign he was a spy - that he was so disorganized, he must have been trained to be that way, perhaps to cover his tracks. At one court appearance, Rezaian's lawyer made the seemingly unexceptional, boilerplate argument that if there was no evidence that Rezaian had committed a crime, he should be acquitted. The judge replied, "No one will tell me how to do my job."

Eventually, the Iranian authorities abandoned the claims of espionage and charged him with a different offense. Through his neutral newspaper reporting, they said, Rezaian was trying to soften American public opinion toward Iran, to make the negotiations succeed - and thus to open the way for a more liberal, open Iran. And that, they said, was criminal.

In other words, Rezaian was said to be trying to undermine the Iranian regime through a strategy of "peaceful evolution." John Foster Dulles, President Dwight Eisenhower's secretary of state, first used that phrase to describe a strategy for liberalizing the Soviet Union without the use of force, and decades later, conservatives in China's Communist Party drew on the wording to characterize American strategy in the years leading up to the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

"My personal hope was that Iran would someday become an open society," writes Rezaian. "But to my captors, that was my biggest crime. And it didn't matter that I wasn't doing anything tangible toward that end. Just my being there to document what was happening was criminal enough."

The Iranians gradually came under intense pressure from overseas to let Rezaian go. The appeals to release him extended from Rezaian's family and his editors at The Post to, eventually, President Barack Obama and private Americans, including Muhammad Ali, Noam Chomsky and Edward Snowden. The end of Rezaian's book includes a dramatic airport scene worthy of "Casablanca," as the Iranians try to keep his wife in their grasp and a Swiss diplomat makes sure she gets out with him.

Not all of Rezaian's book is as fast-reading as that final scene. There is a slow-going chapter about the many relatives in his large Iranian American family, and in general, the narrative about the incremental progress of his court case inches along. It is Rezaian's descriptions of the way the Iranian regime operates at the working level - its twisted logic and paranoia - that make the book so worthwhile.

Barely two months into his captivity, for example, Rezaian's jailers took him out of prison for a brief shopping expedition and then delivered a stern warning to him. "The Great Judge said you must buy flowers for your wife," he was told. When he said he had no money, the jailer said he would just put it on Rezaian's account.

Rezaian's case can now be seen in a new light after the death of Jamal Khashoggi, another writer for The Post, who was most likely brutally murdered by officials of Saudi Arabia last year at their consulate in Istanbul.

Both cases demonstrate the dangers that journalists confront while working and traveling overseas. Khashoggi was a commentator; Rezaian a reporter. Khashoggi operated among elites, seeking to change ideas in the Middle East; Rezaian covered day-to-day events. Yet both men, in their different ways, were threatening to the regimes about which they were writing.

Under current American foreign policy, Iran is an adversary while Saudi Arabia is supposed to be a friendly country. Yet in the end, Rezaian's fate in Iranian hands was better than Khashoggi's with the Saudis.

Iran subjected Rezaian to a long captivity and what could be called psychological torture - but he was not beaten and was even accorded regular conjugal visits. Khashoggi was killed while in the process of trying to get married. Rezaian was given ridiculous show-trial hearings in court, but at least he was accorded some sort of trial - which was more than Khashoggi ever got.

And Rezaian is alive today. Thanks for small favors.

---

Mann is the author of several books on American foreign policy, including "The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power."
Ike's Mystery Man: The Secret Lives of Robert Cutler

By Peter Shinkle

Steerforth. 401 pp. $29.95

---

In 1957, the New York Times published a profile of President Dwight Eisenhower's first assistant for national security affairs, a position that would eventually become known as national security adviser. "No man in the Government, with the possible exception of the President, knows so many of the nation's strategic secrets," the Times declared of Robert "Bobby" Cutler. The paper then employed a mess of contradictions to describe this Massachusetts Republican, which was not so much the oxymoron then that it is today. "A proper Bostonian" who is also a "Rabelasian with a salty vocabulary," "an earnest Episcopalian" and "a man who can move so quickly from ribaldry to piety and back to ribaldry again," "a 'slave driver' who can force his staff to work as hard as he works himself" but also "a charming and generous friend," Cutler was "a bachelor's bachelor ... who has had a lifelong love affair" not with any person but with his hometown, Boston.

To add another paradox, barely hinted at by the Times: Cutler was a gay man who sat atop the national security bureaucracy at a time when people like him were being purged from government service.

This we know thanks to a new biography, "Ike's Mystery Man: The Secret Lives of Robert Cutler." Written by Cutler's great-nephew, Peter Shinkle, it is based largely upon a set of secret diaries that Cutler wrote during his time in the Eisenhower administration and that he never intended anyone, except the (human) object of his affection, to see. While the interests of America's historical record - long bereft of gay history, which is often elusive by nature - may be served by revealing the intimate details of Cutler's interior life, whether he merits a full-length biography is another matter.

Born into a Boston Brahmin family, Cutler was a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School. After working as a lawyer, banker and political fixer, he got to know Eisenhower personally as an aide on his 1952 national whistle-stop campaign train tour. As much as Cutler's bloodline made him a natural fit for the WASP aristocracy leading the new Eisenhower administration, his sexual orientation threatened his privileged position.

Shortly after swearing the oath of office, Eisenhower began weeding "subversives" out of the federal government. Elected amid the Red Scare, Ike had won the presidency partly because of a sense that the long-reigning Democrats were soft on communism, which in the public mind had become linked with homosexuality. A whisper campaign, abetted by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, tarred the recently divorced Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson, as a homosexual; Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen (Ill.) associated Stevenson with "the lavender lads of the State Department." Ike's campaign slogan, "Let's Clean House," alluded not only to corruption but sedition and sexual impropriety.

On Inauguration Day, Attorney General Herbert Brownell submitted a draft executive order to the new president mandating security background checks for all new federal employees. The following day, Cutler suggested a more sweeping policy, one that had been proposed by a government commission during the previous Truman administration but never implemented. Under the regulations advised by the Interdepartmental Committee on Internal Security, "sexual perversion" should be a factor in determining whether an employee posed a security risk, alongside the more conventional menace of communist sympathies. While "sexual perversion" was undefined, its intended target was obvious: homosexuals.

As a result of Executive Order 10450, signed by the president on April 27, 1953, thousands of patriotic gay men and women lost their jobs in what later became known as the "Lavender Scare," far more than would ever fall victim to the much more infamous Red Scare. Shinkle's contribution to history is his revelation that a gay man played an important bureaucratic role in this tragedy by advocating a policy that lowered the threshold for dismissal from disloyalty to homosexuality.

There are not many more such previously undisclosed moments in this book, however, much of which treads familiar Cold War history. In chapters rehashing the controversy over Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance, U.S.-sponsored coups in Iran and Guatemala, and the evolving U.S. nuclear weapons posture, Cutler emerges as a bystander to far more significant figures like Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, CIA Director Allen Dulles and Hoover. Shinkle does recount an exchange involving the latter figure, which, in light of what he has revealed about Cutler's sexual orientation, can be read in a somewhat humorous light. Following a leave of absence Cutler took during the "politically sensitive" period around the 1956 re-election campaign, which may have been prompted by rumormongering about his sexuality, Hoover wrote the returning administration official a letter. "Dear Bobbie," the FBI director - himself a bachelor long dogged by gay rumors - began, conspicuously using the feminine form. Cutler, no less catty in his reply, used letterhead from the bank at which he was working, embellished with the image of a Puritan and the motto, "Worthy of Your Trust."

"Ike's Mystery Man" becomes a genuinely engrossing read in its final third, when Cutler develops a romantic interest in a National Security Council staffer half his age. Thus begins, by his own description, "the greatest adventure of my life," an adventure that is by turns pathetic and illuminating. Pathetic, as the romance is unrequited yet strung along by the younger man, who at most admits to platonic love for Cutler. Illuminating, because it resembles the experiences of countless men and women who, forced for so long to mask their true selves, appeared to the world as mysteries.

---

Kirchick, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, is the author of "The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age." He is writing a history of gay Washington.
Facebook on Friday announced that it may allow former President Donald Trumps Facebook and Instagram accounts to be reinstated in January 2023. At that time, the social media company will re-evaluate whether the risk to public safety of allowing Trump back onto its services has receded. This two-year suspension will prevent Trump from using Facebook or Instagram to broadcast to his followers until after the 2022 U.S. midterm elections. Do you think tech giants like Facebook are using their power to censor political speech and manipulate U.S. politics? Choices are:

You voted:
The return of Lt. Dan: Sinises band to perform at Fort Huachuca this weekend
I also think we can say King helped eliminate fear. As a young boy, I knew nothing of the racial injustice he spoke of in the South. But I do recall the palpable fear in the room that came from adults whenever he was on the news.
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Steve Fair is Chairman of the 4th district of the Oklahoma Republican Party. He can be reached by phone at 580.252.6284 or by email at okgop@aol.com. His blog is stevefair.blogspot.com.
Jamison Jaron Weeden, 28, Okmulgee resident, left us June 5, 2021. Service of Remembrance will be Friday, 11:00 AM, The Chapel of Peace of the Keith D. Biglow Funeral Directors, Inc., of Okmulgee. biglowfunerals.com
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Court proceedings in a murder trial came to an abrupt halt Wednesday after a juror passed out as photographs were shown of the victims charred remains.

The Bexar County jury was in its second day of hearing testimony in the murder trial of Antonio Nunez Jr., 63, who is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend Lisa Carter.
The Montgomery County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force has arrested 24 men on suspicion of seeking sex with minors, including one man being charged with sexual assault of a child.

The three-month long sting is part of the task force's ongoing investigations to thwart the online solicitation of minors, which is a second-degree felony offense. The task force arrested at least 61 people in similar investigative operations in 2018, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office Child Exploitation Division.

"Protecting the children of Montgomery County is always my top priority," Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said in a statement. "The task force is committed to keeping our children safe and we will continue to aggressively pursue those that seek to victimize our children through the internet."

Ligon pointed to the number of arrests and charges made in 2018 as a warning to would-be offenders.

"We will not tolerate sexual exploitation of our children," he said in a statement.

From Oct. 8 through Dec. 20, investigators posing online and through mobile phone as children younger than 17 determined the adult suspects they were communicating with were soliciting them for sex. Most of the men arrested were from either Montgomery County or Harris County. A couple was from Liberty County and one was from Walker County.

Montgomery County: 39 felony DWI arrests, 26 felony sex crimes arrests in Dec.

Cody Wayne Dean, 30, of Spring, was arrested Nov. 28 was accused of soliciting sex from who he thought was a 14-year-old. During questioning, he admitted during a polygraph test to having sex with a female family member when he was 18 years old, county officials said. Investigators say they confirmed the family member was underage at the time and charged Dean with sexual assault of a child, according to court records.

Thomas Earl Massey, 46, of Conroe, was arrested Oct. 24 on charges of soliciting sex from a minor. Massey has previously served a 10-year sentence on a robbery charge, according to court records.

Massey also has two convictions for causing bodily injury to a family member and a conviction for evading arrest with a vehicle, public records show.

Christian Andrew Turcios, 22, of Katy, was arrested Nov. 7 on suspicion of soliciting sex from a minor. Turcios received two additional felony charges for assaulting a public servant and evading arrest with a vehicle while an officer attempted to arrest him during the sting. Turcios is accused of dragging the arresting officer with his vehicle as he tried to flee, filing documents show.

NOVEMBER ROUNDUP: 33 arrested on sex-related felony charges in Montgomery County

Juan M. Gone, alias Juan Gone, Jr, 37, of Houston, was arrested Dec. 18 on suspicion of soliciting sex from a minor. He is accused of sending a photo of his penis to whom he thought was a minor, according to court records.

Ramiro Emilio Sanchez, 21, of South Houston, was arrested Nov. 2 on suspicion of soliciting sex from a minor.

Jeffrey Daniel Hunter, 58, of Willis, was arrested Dec. 20, and charged with soliciting sex from a minor under 14, according to court records.

In other cases:

Abdalrazak Akram-Yosef Hamdan, 22, of Houston, was arrested Oct. 4. Earl Stanley Boutte, 41, of Conroe was arrested Oct. 8. Reginald Dchien Sampson, 26, of Conroe, Jimmie Daniel Merchant, 27, Huntsville, and Fernando Fernandez-Guzman, also known as Fernandez Guzman Fernandez, 22, of Willis, were arrested Oct. 23.

Tyrone David Broussard, 44, of Willis, was arrested Oct. 24. Omar Hermann, 34, of Houston, was arrested Oct. 26. Richard Alex Tamez, 26, of Houston, was arrested Nov. 27. Marco Silviano Vasquez, 22, of Tomball, Kayode Emmanuel Olaniyi, 40, of Humble, and Hector Enrique Gonzalez, 22, of Porter, were arrested Nov. 28. Jose Alfredo Avila Jr, 28, of Houston, and Kyle Taylor Mack, 29, of Houston, were arrested Nov. 29.

Paul Ramon Rodriguez, 23, of Conroe, was arrested Dec. 4. Roberto Orocio Lopez, 23, of Houston, was arrested Dec. 18. Paul Ryan Young, 24, of Humble, Max Leon Furrey III, 44, of Cleveland, and Carmelo Garcia-Cantoran, 33, of Cleveland, were arrested Dec. 19.

Anyone with information on these or other possible similar cases should call the county task force's tip line at 936-760-6910, authorities said

jose.gonzalez@chron.com

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January is designated as National Mentoring Month. The campaign, which began in 2002 by Mentor, the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Harvard School of Public Health, promotes youth mentoring throughout the country. Throughout this month, well look at some of the local agencies that use mentors as well as the impact they have on area youth.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Permian Basin is a program that relies very much on its mentoring programs and volunteers. Kay Crites, the agencys executive director, talked how the benefits young people receive is perpetual but that area children are in need of a big brother or sister.

MRT: What makes a good mentor for your agency?

Crites: I think if you can laugh, that can make a great mentor. There arent these special skills. If someone is willing to give up an hour or so a week and have fun with the child, that can have a huge impact.

MRT: Mentoring comes in a variety of forms at BBBS.

Crites: We have three basic programs here. Our community-based mentoring, Bigs will meet or pick up their Littles for activities and to spend time together. Our school-based mentoring volunteer will meet at their Littles school about once a week during the school day. And we also have a program for high school students to meet with younger students after school at some area elementary schools and earn community service hours at the same time.

MRT: BBBS also has a new program with group mentoring element.

Crites: We are launching a collaboration with Communities in Schools this month called Beyond School Walls. Instead of mentors going to schools, students are taken to the workplace. So, well have 10 students from Midland and Lee high schools. We are working with the Chamber of Commerce on this, and the students will go there to learn about goal-setting, problem-solving, business and personal etiquette, building a resume, interviewing skills and career planning.

Beyond School Walls is a national BBBS program and so here, about 10 employees at the chamber will meet with these students and then break out into sessions so it is more of a group- mentoring situation. We hope other companies will partner with us for the future to give these students an idea about their future.

MRT: How many matches do you have currently and how many are needed?

Crites: At the end of 2018, we had 142 matches. But we are still needing mentors. We have a waiting list of 100 children in Midland. . We are just getting started in Odessa but right now, were working more to have volunteers ready. We have volunteers who are age 15 to 80. We look for someone who is responsible and consistent. We do have background checks and then we have an interview to help determine our matches. Anyone who wants to volunteer can begin by visiting our new website at bbbspermianbasin.org.

MRT: Are there misconceptions about being a mentor?

Crites: That it takes a lot of time and that its difficult. Those are the two biggest that keep people from volunteering. So, we talk to as many people as we can and have volunteers talk to people to battle that. We just have to show them that being a Big is the fun part and how they can see the change and impact day-to-day in the children.

MRT: What is something youve seen that BBBS mentors offer that goes unseen?

Crites: One of our mentors said that he tells his little brother Im so proud of you. He said the child told him that hes the only person whos ever said that. They may not hear these words at home for whatever reason. Those compliments or affirmations can change how they function and it alters their self-esteem.

MRT: Why is mentoring important?

Crites: Its been studied that children who grow up with mentors have (fewer) instances of drug and alcohol abuse, are less likely to be in the criminal justice system, they continue and complete their education. When they become adults, they give back to their community. Not only are youth being mentored but shaped to be better neighbors, colleagues and citizens.






S. Javaid Anwar received the Top Hand Award from the Permian Basin Petroleum Association Thursday at a dinner at the Petroleum Club.

The award adds to his growing list of accolades, which include the Hope award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Outstanding Philanthropist award from the Permian chapter, Association of Fundraising Professionals. Anwar, president and chief executive officer of Midland Energy and of Petroplex Energy, was appointed to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board by Abbott.
At the entrance to Travis Stice's office is a framed cover of a special newspaper section celebrating Midland's centennial in 1985.

Stice, chief executive officer of Diamondback Energy, marvels at the changes the Tall City has experienced since that celebration more than 30 years ago. The same could be said for the Midland-based company, which closed the books on a transformative year.

By the end of 2018, the company had completed a buying spree in which it spent $1.2 billion to acquire Ajax Resources and $9.2 billion to acquire Energen Corp., In addition, Diamondback formed Rattler Midstream to handle its takeaway needs.

"We've done a lot of acquisitions since the beginning, but Energen was the first we've done where we got people associated with the acquired company," said Stice.

OIL REPORT: Construction begins on $600 million West Texas wind farm

The deal included an estimated 200 Energen employees -- a number of them who already were in the Permian Basin overseeing the company's local assets. Stice said employees in Energen's Birmingham, Alabama, offices, which is being closed, will move to Diamondback's Midland or Oklahoma City offices.

The company's growth has come as a bit of a surprise to Stice and Diamondback's other senior executives.

"We never set out to grow Diamondback to a certain size, to grow for the sake of growth," he said. "We've tried to position growth opportunities as a way to realize true value creation. Our benchmark has always been long-term, true value creation."

Diamondback "is fortunate in we've grown organically through acquiring the opportunities that were there. In the energy space, acquisitions are driven by necessity  either the company doesn't have the size and scale needed to compete, or there are no willing buyers for its assets, or they're seeing activist investors moving into the space, causing boards to react," he said.

The new entity created by the acquisition of Energen will give the company the opportunity to highlight to shareholders, the investment community and others "the manufacturing process we're all involved in here in the Permian Basin," Stice said.

That manufacturing process is the result of the maturing of the Permian's shale play and should be managed the same way other mature manufacturing businesses manage their operations, he said.

"(They) manage their costs to the penny and monitor their operations with a focus on managing cash flow. Manufacturing returns are better than that of the energy space," Stice said.

Forming Rattler Midstream was part of the company's strategy of controlling costs, especially as it expanded its Delaware Basin operations and had acreage that wasn't dedicated to specific pipelines.

"We decided to invest in ourselves rather than dedicating acreage to someone else," he said.

Through Rattler, the company has taken equity positions in the Gray Oak Pipeline as well as signed on as a strategic partner in the EPIC Crude Oil Pipeline. Diamondback now has about 200,000 barrels a day committed to the projects.

"We're actually paying ourselves for the barrels that move on that pipeline," Stice said.

RELATED: New study shows NM captures greater share of oil revenues

Rattler "gives us maximum control We don't wait on someone to build a midstream system for us. I can go down the hall and talk to the engineers responsible for our midstream operations and make sure things are on time and on budget," he said.

Stice said Permian Basin operators need to heed the two-fold message of the investment community: live within their means and return capital to shareholders.

"We need to mature towards truly returning capital to shareholders," he said. "If you look at what I said in December in announcing our 2019 guidance, that reflected a significant pivot. That pivot was, rather than growing as free cash flow grows, we will still grow but only to the point where we grow the business consistently but also to reward shareholders."

In that December announcement, the company said it intends to increase its annual cash dividend by 50 percent -- to 75 cents per common share from the previous 50 cents per common share, payable beginning in the first quarter of this year pending discretion and approval of Diamondback's board of directors.

Kaes Van't Hof, Diamondback's senior vice president, strategy and corporate development, said paying a dividend to the shareholders who have invested with the company over the last six years is a priority for Diamondback.

"In the future, there may be other shareholder benefits  stock buybacks and special dividends," he said.

The capital discipline mantra that has become prevalent among oil and gas operators "resonated with Diamondback because that's how we've operated the last four years  spend less than we make," Stice said.

"That's the maturation our industry is evolving toward," Stice said. "(And) until it becomes real, investors have left the energy space and are staying on the sidelines."

Diamondback is "drilling the same wells hundreds of times, thousands of times. The companies that can drill that same well cheaper and operate at lower costs are the companies that will be the ones that general investment dollars will support," he said.

With the Energen acquisition, "we're moving into size and scale from a mid-cap to a large cap," Stice said.

And with that growth, comes great responsibility, he said.

"Concho is the gold standard Diamondback is now challenged to meet. We'll take a more active role in the Permian Strategic Partnership," for example, he said.

Pondering a company significantly larger than a year ago, Stice acknowledged that "the conversations we have with our partners as we operate 24 rigs and 10 frac crews are different than when we ran five crews.

"I'm ecstatic about the team we've assembled and the work we have ahead of us," he said.

Mella McEwen is the Oil Editor and covers the latest business and energy news. You can read more from her here. |mmcewen@mrt.com|


WASHINGTON - WASHINGTON  Pressure is mounting on the Interior Department to halt its plans to continue oil and gas leasing during a partial government shutdown now almost four weeks long.

House Democrats on Wednesday told the Interior Department to stop plans to bring back furloughed staff for an offshore lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico in March. Thursday, environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council, urged Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to stop all oil and gas lease sales.

"The administration cares only about the impacts on its favorite industry and not its workers, their families, and ordinary Americans," said a letter from the House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and other Democrats. "If you refuse, we insist you that you come to Capitol Hill this week for a detailed briefing providing the legal justification for what appears to be a violation of the Antideficiency Act."

OIL SHUTDOWN: Shutdown leaves oil and gas unscathed, but for how long?

A spokesman for the Interior Department said officials there are "happy to meet with the Committee, as appropriate."

"We are confident that we are fully meeting our legal obligations," the spokesman said "We care about our employees, parks, public lands, and border security."

The call for action comes as the oil and gas industry has been allowed to operate relatively unfettered by a government shutdown that has upended industries from air travel to farming to defense contracting. Last week, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management made plans to bring employees back for an offshore lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico in March. The Bureau of Land Management, meanwhile, continues to issue drilling permits for federal lands  something the Obama administration did not do during the 2013 shutdown.

"American companies who operate in the offshore invest hundreds of millions of dollars in projects and need certainty to see these projects through," said Mallori Miller, senior director of government relations at the Independent Petroleum Association of America. "Preventing business as usual from continuing over a political fight that has nothing to do with our industry doesn't help anyone."

But continuing to allow new oil and gas leasing to continue could constitute a breach of federal law limiting government activity during a shutdown, the environmental groups maintain.

"Due to the partial government shutdown, the Bureau of Land Management lacks the necessary funds and staff to fully comply with applicable legal requirements, which include mandatory environmental reviews and 30-day public comment and protest periods," a letter from the group said.
There were average gas price decreases in just six of AAA Texas larger 27 metropolitan areas, and no markets posted lower declines this past week than Odessa and Midland.

The Petroplex cities led the state with 5- and 4-cent decreases, respectively, when it came to the average price of gas. The movement in prices helped bring average gas prices in both cities closer to $2 a gallon mark and also closer to the state average. AAA Texas reported an average in Midland of $2.44 and an average of $2.38 in Odessa. They are still the lone metropolitan areas in the state showing averages at or above $2 a gallon. The next highest price can be found in Austin -- $1.94. The state average was $1.93, and the national average was $2.24.
Moultrie, GA (31768)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable.
The federal government and the provincial government of Prince Edward Island (PEI) announced a bi-lateral agreement to support housing repair, construction, and affordability in the province.

The 10-year agreement, under the auspices of the National Housing Strategy (NHS) will invest a minimum of $15 million to housing projects across PEI. The governments of Canada and Prince Edward Island will also work together on the design and implementation of a new Canada Housing Benefit for the province, to provide affordability support directly to families and individuals in housing need. Investments under the Canada Housing Benefit will be announced at a later date.

"The government of Canada is committed to ensuring that every Canadian has a safe and affordable place to call home, said Adam Vaughn, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.

Our government will continue working in partnership with Prince Edward Island and other provinces and territories towards a 15% expansion in new affordable housing units and renewing 20% of existing community housing units across the country."

"Signing this agreement will assist Prince Edward Island's significant efforts to increase the amount of affordable housing in our province, said Wade MacLauchlan, premier of PEI. It is imperative that we continue to work to provide Islanders with secure and affordable housing in as timely a manner as possible. As a government, we will continue to work with the federal government and advocate on behalf of all Islanders to ensure our province participates to the fullest extent possible in opportunities offered through federal housing programs."
In December, students in the Elyria City Schools District received a large number of winter coats, hats, gloves, scarves and supplies valued a
"We think teachers have the greatest job on earth and they are definitely heroes to us. It's a hard job."

Cavs in-arena emcee Ahmaad Crump

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Elyria police arrested a man and woman on Nov. 27 who are accused of breaking into Northwood Junior High School, according to a news release.
Police were called Jan. 17 to an Elyria McDonalds after a woman unknowingly attempted to pay for her order with a counterfeit $100 bill.
BioCarbon Solutions, based in Seattle, Washington, is looking to put the facility on 10 acres off of Knell Road near Aucutt Road. A special use is needed because village ordinances do not allow for the manufacturing of gas and petroleum on the site.
Funeral arrangements for a firefighter who died last week have been announced. See video from last week when firefighters from around the county paid respects to him as he was brought back to Burke County after his autopsy in Winston-Salem.
An official with Burke County Public Schools says it is unclear if BCPS is among school systems affected by a software error.

On Friday, The Associated Press reported that a PowerSchool software error has caused public school students around North Carolina to receive incorrect end-of-term grades this school year, according to state education officials.

Cheryl Shuffler, public relations officer for BCPS, said it is not yet known if the school system will have to deal with the error because schools in Burke County have not yet entered grades into the system. Melanie Honeycutt, chief information officer for BCPS, and Michelle Minton, the district PowerSchool lead, have been made aware of the problem.

Hopefully, (PowerSchool) will have the issue resolved by the time we put in grades, Shuffler said.

AP reported the N.C. Department of Public Instruction said it has been advising districts about the problem with PowerSchool software since December, after many schools sent home first-quarter report cards. The error could have affected as many as 109 school districts and 59 charter schools in the state, but it's not clear exactly how many students were impacted.

Shuffler said there are 115 total school systems in the state.
This is an event that we have held for the last 30 years in Burke County, said Ruth Roseboro, the community outreach liaison for the Burke County branch of the NAACP. Our theme this year is Unity: Embracing Our Differences. We may look different, we may talk different, we may live in different types of environments, but we all strive for and want the best for our fellow citizens, and the pursuit of happiness, justice and the right to thrive and be productive for the good of the whole.
Today

Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Service

The Burke County branch of the NAACP will sponsor a county-wide worship service to commemorate the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at 4 p.m. at Slades Chapel AME Zion Church. The guest preacher will be the Rev. Dr. Marvin Connelly, senior pastor of Saint Augusta Missionary Baptist Church in Fuquay-Varina. Proceeds from the service will benefit the MLK Scholarship Fund for students at Western Piedmont Community College.

State park program

South Mountains State Park will hold a fly-fishing workshop at 2 p.m. in its visitors center.

Monday

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. March/Celebration

The Hickory branch of the NAACP will lead a march in honor of the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The celebration will begin with a presentation by Dr. Joshua Bennett at 10 a.m. in the PE Monroe Auditorium on the campus of Lenoir-Rhyne University. The march will begin at 11 a.m. from the auditorium and at the Brown-Penn Recreation Center in the Ridgeview community. Everyone in the community is invited to participate.

City facilities closed
If you've always dreamed of living it up in a small Italian village, but have never been able to pack up your life and move over - then Airbnb might have the perfect opportunity for you!

The travel company wants to pay for 4 people to move to the small Italian village of Grottole and live there for 3 months.

"Escape the hustle and bustle of the city and become a temporary citizen of a village in the south of Italy." they wrote online.

"Immerse yourself in the local culture and discover how to speak, act and cook the Italian way. You will also get to support the local community by hosting an Airbnb Experience. Your goal? To help the local community revitalize the small village of Grottole."

If this sounds like the perfect experience for you and your friends, you can apply online here.
January 18, 2019 Reagan Wannabe Relaunches Reagan's Star Wars On December 12 2001 then President Bush pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Under the 1972 ABM treaty the Soviet Union and the United States had agreed to deploy only one anti-ballistic missile system each. With that limit gone the U.S. started to build a global missile defense system in Alaska and California that was designed to defend against incoming Russian missiles. The Russian president warned about the illusion such a system would create: Starting from 2002, after the US unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, which is an absolute cornerstone of international security, the strategic balance of forces and stability, the creation of the US global missile defense system has been continued persistently, said the Russian president. According to him, this poses a threat not only to Russias security, but also to the entire world  just because of the possible disruption of this strategic balance of forces. I think this is harmful for the United States as well, because it creates the dangerous illusion of invincibility, Putin said. Russia, like other countries, feared that the U.S. would come to believe that it could launch a large first strike against Russia's strategic weapons and use its missile defense to prevent being hit by a smaller Russian retaliation strike. This upset the balance of Mutual Assured Destruction that has prevented a large scale nuclear war. The global missile defense system the U.S. installed proved to be largely incapable. Out of a total of ten carefully choreographed tests five failed completely, the others were largely unrealistic. Still, the issue prevailed and the U.S. kept expanding its missile defense projects. In consequence Russia started research programs to create new weapon system that would be immune to any missile defense. President Putin introduced the new weapons in his state of the nation speech in March 2018. The systems include hypersonic weapons, nuclear propelled cruise missiles and extreme long range torpedoes. All experts agree that there is currently no possible defense against the new Russian systems. Yesterday the Trump administration issued the Missile Defense Review (pdf) report as mandated by Congress. The MDR report is more hawkish than the last one (pdf) issued in 2010 under the Obama administration. The technical plans therein did not change much. The new review mostly foresees more research into some crazy projects, like space based lasers, that are unlikely to ever be deployed. The report also proves that missile defense is a self-licking ice cream cone. It uses the new Russian systems, build as reaction to new U.S. missile defense systems, to justify more U.S. missile defense: Potential adversaries are investing substantially in their missile capabilities. They are expanding their missile capabilities in three different directions simultaneously: increasing the capabilities of their existing missile systems; adding new and unprecedented types of missile capabilities to their arsenals; and, integrating offensive missiles ever more thoroughly into their coercive threats, military exercises, and war planning. The review goes own to justify an expansion of missile defense even though it is clear that there is no defense against the new Russian and upcoming Chinese systems. Trump used the occasion of the MDR launch to exaggerate the possibilities of new missile defense systems: Our goal is simple: to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States  anywhere, anytime, anyplace.

...

We are committed to establishing a missile defense program that can shield every city in the United States.

...

My upcoming budget will invest in a space-based missile defense layer. Its new technology. Its ultimately going to be a very, very big part of our defense and, obviously, of our offense. The system will be monitored, and we will terminate any missile launches from hostile powers, or even from powers that make a mistake. It wont happen. Regardless of the missile type or the geographic origins of the attack, we will ensure that enemy missiles find no sanctuary on Earth or in the skies above. What Trump is aiming at is a replay of the Reagan era Strategic Defense Initiative, derisively nicknamed Star Wars. It included some crazy weapons like the "rods from god", telephone pole size tungsten projectiles thrown from space. The cost to put 1 kilogram into low-earth orbit are some $5,000-$20,000. Those are just the transport costs, not the cost of the more expensive high tech load. A missile defense layer in space that would cover the full surface of the earth at any time would require thousands of systems, each weighing several tons. Low flying satellites require permanent replacements. They can be shot down by Russian and Chinese anti-satellite weapons. Any such program, if technically feasible which it is not, would ruin the United States. Regular readers of this site will remember that we predicted that Trump will do this. On January 20, the day Trump was inaugurated, we wrote about the military support that helped Trump to win the elections: The military will demand its due beyond the three generals now in Trump's cabinet. But soldiers do not like to go to war. That means that Trump will increase conflict rhetoric against some foreign countries but also that he will not start any serious war. Expect the announcement of some super nifty, new but useless military wonder weapon for which Trump will promise trillions (Reagan's star wars redux). In August 2017 we predicted that Trump would use the case of North Korea to argue for his remake of Reagan's Star Wars: The Reagan wannabe currently ruling in the White House may soon revive Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, aka "Star Wars", which was first launched in 1984. SDI was the expensive but unrealistic dream of lasers in space and other such gimmicks. Within the SDI the U.S. military threw out hundreds of billions for a Global Ballistic Missile Defense which supposedly would defend the continental U.S. from any incoming intercontinental missile. The program was buried in the early 1990s. One son of Star Wars survived. It is the National Missile Defense with 40 interceptors in Alaska and California. It has never worked well and likely never will. If NMD would function as promised there would be no reason to fear any North Korean ICBMs. Missile defense is largely a fraud to transfers billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to various weapon producing conglomerates. I expect that the North Korean "threat" will soon be used to launch "SDI - The Sequel", another attempt to militarize space with billions thrown into futuristic but useless "defense" projects. It will soothe the Pentagon's grief over the success North Korea had despite decades of U.S. attempts to subjugate that state. The first country the new Missile Defense Review names under "Current and Emerging Missile Threats to the American Homeland" is of course North Korea. It is followed by Iran, Russia and China. Why Iran is mentioned is unclear. It has regional missile capabilities but neither nukes, nor the technology, nor the intent to build intercontinental missile that could reach the United States: Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has restricted the range of ballistic missiles manufactured in the country to 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles), the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said .. It is likely that National Security Advisor John Bolton, who in 2001 was behind Bush's pull out of the ABM treaty, pushed to include Iran in the Missile Defense Review. Anyway. Little will come from Trump's dream of new toys except a stream of revenues for the research laboratories and weapon manufactures that will think up the most crazy systems, but will ultimately fail to achieve Trump's aim. Russia has shown how even a working missile defense can be circumvented and others will follow its path. The U.S.' "illusion of invincibility" is just that. Posted by b on January 18, 2019 at 17:52 UTC | Permalink Comments
As the partial government shutdown continues, Northern Illinois Food Bank would like to reassure our neighbors that we will continue to provide fresh, nutritious food to those in need through our network of member agencies, the statement said. While the food bank administers a number of federal nutrition programs and relies on some government funding, we are confident we can continue serving all our neighbors including those directly impacted by the shutdown.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 18)  China's foreign ministry addressed concerns surrounding Beijing's military reform and modernization on Thursday.

"China is a role model in observing regional and international rules. We maintain that interests shall be protected by rules, not by weapons," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a press conference Thursday.

This is Beijing's response to a United States' Defense Intelligence Agency report saying that China's new military technology will compel neighboring Taiwan to reunify with the country.

READ: U.S. report says rapidly modernizing Chinese military has set sights on Taiwan

Hua slammed the report, as well as a U.S. Department of Defense report in December 2018. The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said the U.S. made unwarranted speculations in their assessment of Beijing's military firepower.

"The baseless speculations they contain are highly ridiculous and unprofessional. China is firmly opposed to that. We believe that the sound and steady development of military ties between the two sides will benefit not only the two countries but also the whole world," she said.

She added that U.S. should also respect and observe international rules instead of criticizing Beijing for "fabricating various excuses to develop greater lethal force for the purpose of more military strength."

The U.S. and China have been at odds over their military strength. The two have had an ongoing tiff amid China's alleged militarization of the South China Sea, which has caused tensions among countries in the region  including the Philippines.

China has refused to observe a 2016 international tribunal ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration which invalidates their claim over majority of the South China Sea.
The school communication tech company MGM Wireless Ltd [ASX:MWR] has tacked on a cool 17.02% to its share price today, up 48 cents, trading at $3.30 per share at time of writing.

MGM is a technology company designing, developing and commercialising a wearable phone watch for children devices, and software for school communication and student absence management.

The company currently has tenders to supply New South Wales, Western Australian, Queensland and New Zealand Government Schools, supplying in excess of 1,350 schools across New Zealand, Australia and the US.

UK to become MGM Wireless buyer, share price up

MGM has today announced international expansion plans to launch their SPACETALK smartwatch in the United Kingdom.

With the release scheduled for April 2019, the move follows the successful international launch of SPACETALK in New Zealand in November 2018.

SPACETALK is a smartwatch designed to help parents to keep in contact with their kids. The watch also features a GPS tracker so parents can locate their child via their smartphone.

The watch doesnt give children access to social media, apps, open internet, YouTube or other such services that some parents might perceive as dangerous to young children.

MGM Wireless CEO Mr Mark Fortunatow said of the UK launch:

At this stage it is too early to say with absolute confidence what our sales expectations arehowever, our first year Australian and New Zealand sales have exceeded expectations and we have been impressed by the enthusiasm and support expressed by UK retailers and distributors.

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MGM hoped to have sold 20,000 units by the beginning of this year, having seen a 10-fold increase in Christmas sales last year.

Perhaps underestimating the ever-increasing popularity of this device, JB Hi-Fi ran out of SPACETALK smartwatches days before Christmas.

The company is confident it would sell out of its 23,000 devices by the time children return to school.

MGM Wireless bets on phone ban

With the announcement in December that NSW will move to ban smartphones from public primary schools this year, MGM feels its products will satisfy parents needs to contact their children.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian cited an increase in online bullying, distractions in class and the sharing of explicit images as the cause of the ban.

As SPACETALK does not have access to social media and has parental control functions, its likely that the watch will not be subject to the ban.

MGM Wireless recorded $4.02 million in revenue in 1H FY19, up 154% on the previous corresponding period.

The company was one of the biggest small-cap success stories of last year, going from only 60 cents to a high of $5 in November, before ending the year at about $3.90.

This is only the first in a series of announcements expected from the company. MGM also hope to expand to Europe within the next six months.

Regards,

Ryan Clarkson-Ledward,

For Money Morning

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The Afterpay Touch Group Ltd [ASX: APT] share price has been the one to watch on the ASX this morning. Despite a note out of Goldman Sachs today, slashing its price target for the company by 26% to $19.25, APT has managed to rocket out of the gates this morning.

The payment providers share price has climbed 11.93% in the opening hour of trade, putting on $1.70 to trade at $15.95. Current trading price is $15.83.

According to Goldman Sachs, the reduced target priced reflects lower merchant fee assumptions in the US market.

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Afterpays share price reflects strong performance

In an ASX announcement released shortly before open this morning, Afterpay provided investors with its key business developments.

According to the announcement, the company has continued its strong performance through the first half of FY19. Underlying sales globally for the period was over USD$2.2 billion, an increase of 240% from the corresponding period of FY18.

The company also reported strong growth within its user base, having transacted with over 23,000 merchants globally, consisting of 3.1 million active customers within the last 12 months.

According to APT, they experienced a growing average of approximately 7,500 new customer per day over Q2 FY19.

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In Australia and New Zealand, APT reported AUD$2.0 billion in underlying sales were processed through its platform in the 1H FY19, double the prior corresponding period.

In the last 12 months, approximately 2.5 million customers and over 21,500 retailers have transacted with Afterpay within Australia and New Zealand.

Despite some retailers reporting slushing sales over the holiday season, APT has managed to buck this trend with particularly strong figures, which it attributes to its larger merchant partners.

In addition, in-store sales now represent a total of 16% of total underlying sales within Australia and New Zealand.

Whats next for Afterpay?

Just as the banking inquiry is scheduled to conclude, the Senate Inquiry into Credit and Financial Services is well underway.

Despite the government and regulators snooping around, Afterpay has ensured its customers and investors it looks forward to illustrating its unique business model.

The company seems eager to show regulators the ethics of its business model. Indeed, APT has seen a decline in late fees as a proportion of total income.

During 1H FY19, late fees represented less than 20% of total income comparatively to 25% of total income in FY18.

While Afterpay insists the decline in late fee income has no impact on the business, the reduction reflects the strength in Afterpays business model  APT relies on fees from its merchants rather than collecting late fees from customers.

The company claims several factors that have contributed to the reduction in late fees. Namely the introduction of a cap to late fees in June 2018, and optimisation of their strategy to assign limits which promotes more responsible spending.

Customers continue to be swayed by the Afterpay model regardless of spending limits, with over 90% of monthly sales from returning customers.

Regards,

Ryan Clarkson-Ledward,

For Money Morning

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Sun Pharma has made some allegations against Moneylife. For clarity and transparency, here is a statement by Moneylife.

Moneylife has written has three articles on Sun Pharma which are in the public domain.

These are based on two voluminous documents that have already been submitted by a whistleblower to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Following the first document, the SEBI chairman has already confirmed that it is investigating the matter.

For every article, consistent with journalistic norms, we have asked Sun Pharma for its comments.

As journalists, we have naturally published information that would be of interest to readers and to the public at large, especially when we were privileged to have access to it. These had distilled the information available in the whistleblower's report for easy understanding by allespecially small investors.

However, institutional investors naturally wanted more granular information. So, in the best traditions of transparency and public interest, we have decided to allow institutional investors to look at the documents available with us, purely in public interest.

However, we also received requests from brokerage firms and even a human rights NGO (non-government organisation) from Delhi and allowed all those who asked to see the papers to look at them.

So the allegation about selective disclosure are completely false.

Companies, traditionally, have conference calls and conferences only for institutional investors and analysts. Sun Pharma had a conference call in December as well when this story first broke. So it hardly makes sense for a publicly-listed entity to make such claims.

If Sun Pharma believes that these whistleblower documents should be fully in the public space, SEBI should be the body to make them public.

Statement by Sun Pharma

We wish to bring to your kind notice an alleged second whistleblower complaint filed against our Company, which we learnt from a media report on January 15, 2019

We also learnt on November 30, 2018, from a media report that a whistleblower complaint was filed against the company. The said whistleblower documents and other confidential emails are being offered for inspection to institutional investors by one media house as per the above report, which again we are not privy to.

In these circumstances, there is a great asymmetry in the information circulating between analysts, investors and media leading to intense speculation. The availability of information contained in the whistleblower documents to a set of selective investors does put other investors including retail investors in a disadvantageous position. We are concerned that certain entities/individuals are adopting unfair trade practices prejudicial to the interest of shareholders and other stakeholders.

It is evident from the fact that shareholders value has been drastically eroded within a short span of time due to unsubstantiated complaint/allegation against the company and mala fide campaign launched by certain media houses.

We request your office to examine the matter in its entirety, and the role of some media houses and other stakeholders.
John C Bogle, legendary investor and businessman, who brought the most impact to millions of American investors through low-cost index funds, passed away on Wednesday. Bogle was in frail health for years, had survived at least six heart attacks and also received a heart transplant in 1996.

Bogle was born on 8 May, 1929 in Montclair, New Jersey in the United States of America. In 1947, he was accepted at Princeton University where he studied economics and investment, and showed keen interest in the mutual fund industry. After graduating from Princeton, he was hired at Wellington Fund where he was later promoted to assistant manager due to his great talent. Climbing through the ranks, in 1970, he replaced Walter L Morgan as the chairman of Wellington. However, he was later fired for an unwise and poor investment decision he made.

Four years later, he founded the Vanguard Company and, in 1976, announced the first index mutual fund to the general public. He believed that mutual funds should be managed in a manner that serves the interests of the investing public. Until then, actively run equity funds ruled the mutual funds industry; charging high expense and underperforming the index they were paid to outperform. In the long term, investors earned low returns and ended up paying high expenses.

Index funds solved this by eliminating active management through mimicking the benchmark, than outperforming it. Under Under this new concept, investors gained by paying lower expenses and earning high returns than they previously did. Today, Vanguard is the largest fund company, managing $4.40 trillion, and is the only true mutual structure among mutual funds.

This stupendous achievement is known. What is not known is that in1960, when Bogle was 31 years old, he was diagnosed with an incurable heart disease. He got himself a pacemaker but as Dr Bernard Lown, his heart specialist, described later, Bogle was afflicted with a bizarre electrical derangement of the heartbeat, threatening catastrophic cardiac arresta guillotine about to drop. I gave him the brutal verdict and he was undaunted. He lives his life intently and with exuberant energy. A sense of humor lightened the morbid reality, and he joked that playing squash with a portable defibrillator close by unnerved every opponent.

But the inevitable downward spiral of my heart disease continued, Bogle writes in his new book. Cardiac arrests and paddles on my chest. Physical activity fades away. The right side of the heart no longer pumps. Deaths shadow draws near. This continued for some 36 years after the first diagnosis of his heart trouble. In 1996, Bogle was eligible for a heart transplant. Some 15 years later, his acquired heart thumps away minute after minute, like the beat of a jungle drum.

This personal anecdote comes on page 583 of a 600-page book titled Dont Count On It. And he narrates this story not to recount his life but to pay homage to four of his heroes and mentorsWalter Morgan, a pioneer of finance, economist Paul Samuelson, Peter Bernstein, a financial economist and, of course, his heart specialist Dr Lown. It is astounding what John Bogle has achieved in one lifetime with such a serious heart ailment.

Bogle hated the idea of trading the market. This is why his index fund only provided net asset value of the funds after the markets closed. However, the rise of exchange-traded funds, low-cost index funds but tradable in the stock market during the trading hours, received a bad rap by Bogle. Even though he despised it, his company Vanguard eventually succumbed to the market craze of ETFs and joined in. Yet, Bogle continued to promote the idea of long-term investing through ETFs and not trade in them.

Bogles approach to investing is defined by simplicity and common sense. Below are his eight basic rules for investors-

1. Select low-cost funds

2. Consider carefully the added costs of advice

3. Do not overrate past fund performance

4. Use past performance to determine consistency and risk

5. Beware of stars (as in, star mutual fund managers)

6. Beware of asset size

7. Don't own too many funds

8. Buy your fund portfolio  and hold it

But business success is not why Bogle stands out. He is known as Saint Jack of the financial services industry, the conscience-keeper of Wall Street. John Bogle has spent an entire career fighting for individual investors against the dark forces of Wall Street. John Bogle is an institution in the US financial market. He is a true pioneer, having created index funds and having led a lifelong battle for the small investor by advocating low-cost funds. He has also been a powerful writer; his books are now being re-issued as investment classics.
The selection committee headed by prime minister Narendra Modi is likely to meet on the 24th January to finalise the name of the next chief of CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), as the term of the current CBI chief will be over on the 31st January. The government has, reportedly, initiated this process since December 2018. In the meantime, a controversy is already brewing regarding the appointment of Nageshwar Rao as the interim director; but thats another story.

Just like the appointment of information commissioners under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the naming of the selection committee and the short-listed candidates for these posts also demands transparency. While, in the past, this information was available under RTI requisition; recently, the department of personnel & training (DoPT), which appoints them has defied the Supreme Court order which directed it to make this information public. Now, the DoPT is playing the same game of opaqueness in the case of the appointment of the next CBI chief.



Activists Anjali Bharadwaj and Amrita Johri filed RTI applications regarding details of the meetings of the selection committee (which consists of the PM, the leader of the Opposition, and the chief justice of India (or a Supreme Court judge nominated by him) including the date of meetings, copy of the agenda of meetings, copy of the minutes of meetings and details of persons who attended each meeting. Information was sought under the RTI Act about any process adopted by the government to short-list candidates for consideration by the selection committee; a copy of any short-list prepared; and details of any committee set up to prepare such a short-list.

The DoPT has responded to each of these RTI applications with the same summary response: It is informed that as per this departments executive order No. 230/14/99-DPSE dated 08.07.2004 issued in pursuance of Honble Supreme Courts directions dated 20.04.2004 given in CA No. 4303/2002, amongst all the IPS officers of the senior most 4 batches in service on the date of retirement of the (incumbent) director, CBI are needed to be considered for filling up the post of new Director, CBI. The process of selection of new Director in CBI has not attained finality

States Anjali Bharadwaj, There is complete lack of transparency in the process of appointment of the CBI director. The government has not provided information sought under the RTI Act about details of the on-going selection process. This is clearly an attempt to obfuscate and withhold information about the appointment process. No details about the selection committee meetings or the process of short-listing candidates have been provided.

She fears a repeat of December 2016 as she says, When the previous CBI director retired, the government failed to convene a meeting of the selection committee to appoint the successor, and Mr. Rakesh Asthana was named interim director. After a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court, Mr. Alok Verma was selected and appointed as director. In order to ensure public trust in the institution of the CBI, it is critical that appointment of the director be made in a timely manner and there be transparency in the process of appointment, which will enable public scrutiny."

As against such utter secrecy, which would arouse the suspicion of every right thinking citizen, Commodore Lokesh Batra states that, In 2012 such information was given out and included file notings too. I was also allowed inspection of files. It is strange that Anjalis and Amritas RTI applications have been thwarted.

The information Cdr Batra sought included the following:

a) Names, seniority and batch details of IPS officers initially included for short-listing by the CBI selection board/committee headed by the Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) for the appointment of the next CBI director;

b) Names, seniority and batch details of officers recommended in the panel for selection of CBI director and name of the officer selected;

c) List of file/files with reference numbers on which the selection process of the next CBI director was processed by the selection committee headed by the CVC and by the appointment committee of the Cabinet;

d) Attested copies of the file/file notings from time to time and when the process of selection for the post of the next CBI director was initiated; and

e) Permission for me to inspect all the files concerned with the said issue.

Anjali Bharadwaj and Amrita Johri had requested the following information recently, but they have been flatly refused the information. The requisitions were as follows:

1. Information regarding all the meetings held since 1 December 2018 of the committee constituted under Section 4(A) of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act to select/appoint the CBI director:

a. Dates of all meetings

b. Copy of agenda of all meetings

c. Copy of minutes/discussions/proceedings/verbatim recordings, etc, of the proceedings of all meetings

d. Name and designation of persons attending each meeting.

1. Information (as defined in Section 2(f) of the RTI Act) on the process being adopted by the government to prepare a short-list for the consideration of the selection committee set up (under Section 4A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act) to appoint the CBI director upon the retirement of the incumbent director.

2. Copy of any short-list prepared by the government for consideration by the selection committee set up (under Section 4A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act) to appoint the CBI director upon the retirement of the incumbent director.

3. If any committee has been constituted to prepare a short-list for consideration by the selection committee set up (under Section 4A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act) to appoint the CBI director upon the retirement of the incumbent director, please provide the following information related to the said committee

a. Order/notification regarding constitution of the committee

b. Names of members of the committee

c. Date of all meetings of the committee

d. Copy of agenda of all meetings of the committee e. Copy of minutes/ discussions/ proceedings/ verbatim recordings etc. of the proceedings of all the meetings

f. Names and designations of persons attending each meeting.
HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company Limited ('HDFC Life') announced that its corporate name has changed to "HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited", following the receipt of relevant approvals from regulatory authorities including the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, according to a release from the company. The name change is effective immediately and the Company will henceforth operate under the name "HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited".

Over the years, specifically after listing of the company on the stock exchanges, "HDFC Life" as a brand has established itself as one of the most valuable brands in the Indian life insurance sector. Hence, with a view to align the corporate name of the company with its brand name, the corporate name of the company has been changed to "HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited". Other than the company name, all other details and structures of the company remain unchanged.
Saudi Arabia plans to build an oil refinery and a petrochemicals plant in South Africa as part of $10 billion of investments in the country, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said on Friday.

Saudi oil would be used in the planned refinery whose construction would be led by state energy company Saudi Aramco, Al-Falih said in comments following a meeting with South African Energy Minister Jeff Radebe in Pretoria.

"There have been exchanges of talks by Saudi Aramco teams and they have been supported by the South African energy ministry," Al-Falih said.

The exact location of the refinery and petrochemicals plant will be finalised in the coming weeks, Radebe said.

Saudi Arabia was also interested in using South Africa's major oil storage facilities, Al-Falih said, adding that Saudi utility developer Acwa Power was looking at investing in South Africa's revamped renewable energy programme.

He also confirmed that there were discussions about the kingdom investing in South Africa's state defence company Denel, which was exclusively reported by Reuters in November.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is trying to woo foreign investors to help revive a struggling economy as he prepares for a parliamentary election this year.

Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman met with Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina in November.
Moneycontrol Contributors

Brexit: The referendum where Britain decided its never, ever, ever getting back together with Europe. The solution, some may even say, has not been tailored to fit, and has been far far from swift.

The EU played it cool - Brussels warned about the changes it would bring, then set about framing the rules for Brexit, even as the rest of Britain came to terms with the break up, and had a panic attack. Not a day goes by that a Brit journalist doesnt warn about the doom that will follow. Brexit is like a 10-car pileup in a formula one race, with wheels, gearboxes and bodies flying everywhere - we cant believe its happening but we just cant look away.

Shepherding what many believe is an ungainly mess is a woman who must be gifted with enormous patience - Theresa May. She has to wake up every day and deal with it. I can just imagine the long sighs she lets out as she opens her eyes every morning. Britain made a boo-boo, and now its up to a woman to ensure theres no mess. David Cameron, who caused the mess, was last seen surfing in Costa Rica. The question that's looming large over Britain's gloomy skies is one that you simply cannot escape - like the London Eye except really more like the Eye of Sauron. The question is what Duchess Meghan in her previous life as a suitcase girl used to ask: Deal or No Deal. Except, it's even murkier than the bloodline of the British royal family. Where Britain finds herself in a saga that's as dramatic as any Eastenders plotline is our Story of the Day. Shepherding you along the Central Line via knotty hills and (Oxford) circuses to station Brexit, or not, is me Rakesh Sharma right here on Moneycontrol.

What is Brexit?

Ok, first things first. What is Brexit, why is the UK Brexiting, and why is everyone getting their knickers in a twist over Britain leaving? Well, to be fair, historically whenever Britain exits something, it tend to leave a bit of a mess. India, Ireland, the Middle East, Africa...you get the drift. With Brexit, the fear is that the mess will be at home.

So, what is Brexit?

The European Union consists of 28 European countries. Each of these member states pays to be a member and, in return, they receive access to special ways of working together. This includes being part of a single market, which means that countries can trade with one another and people can move around freely  as if we were all living together in one big country. All very kumbaya.

Then we come to the difficult part, which has been partially responsible for the rise of right wing politics in some EU nations. The EU has its own parliament, laws and currency (the Euro). The EU was set up after World War 2 with the idea that if countries work together, they are unlikely to go to war again.

The first mention of Brexit happened in 2013 when David Cameron spoke about it in Parliament. To give a background to why it came about, Ill quote the newspaper The Independent: The British public have not had a direct say on our relationship with Europe since 1975, when we voted to stay in what was then the European Economic Community. In the intervening years, Europe has changed...Then, we were voting on joining a Common Market of nine member states, with a population of 250 million. Today, the EU has 28 member states and a population of more than 500 million...successive treaties since 1975 have seen the European Union transform...to a fully-fledged political union, giving Brussels influence over many other areas of policy. It added, Ever since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, which created the modern EU, there have been those calling for another vote to take into account how things have has changed, with Eurosceptics claiming that membership now represents an unacceptable transfer of powers from our Parliament to Brussels.

Around the time of the recession in 2008, and after, then PM David Cameron, as well as the overall political class, underestimated the groundswell of public resentment caused by the influx of European migrants to the UK since the accession of Eastern European countries in the early 2000s. Good ol those-Polacks-are-stealing-our-jobs-mate xenophobia. This anger was ripe for manipulation, and in stepped Nigel Farage and a party known as UKIP or UK Independence Party. One thing led to another, and in 2015, Cameron, while campaigning for re-election, promised a referendum on the EU membership if he won. He won handsomely, something even he didnt expect, reportedly. Well, soon, in 2016, Brits from all walks of life found themselves following that grand old tradition - queuing up. This time, to decide what should be done: leave the EU or stay. The result stunned many, and the condescending jokes about conservative Brits suddenly seemed unnecessarily provocative: Leave won by 51.9% to 48.1%. Thats 52 to 48. The referendum turnout was 71.8%, with more than 30 million people voting, around half the population.

The 48% who voted to remain in the EU, including former Prime Minister David Cameron, felt that being a member of a 28-nation club is better than going it alone. They felt it was easier for us to sell things to other EU countries, meaning it was good for businesses and trade. The 52% didnt care. Cameron then resigned as Prime Minister and Theresa May was chosen to lead the UK through the Brexit maze. The reluctant divorce was apparently going to proceed.

Well, whats the holdup?

Its been over two years now, so many wonder whats happening, and why isnt the break-up happening faster?

Well, for one, the British government is dragging its feet. They dont like it but they have to do it. Kinda like eating fresh vegetables, I suppose. You have committed to it, but, god, its awful tasting!

For Britain, it turns out ending a 45-year union is not as easy as the Brexiters claimed it would be. Well, imagine my shock! The fear of creating some serious unintended consequences (economic or otherwise) is high, and many hurdles have yet to be overcome. CNN claims that some opinion polls suggest the delays, the dangers and the constant bickering are now -- a little over two months before Britain is due to Brexit its way out of the EU-- prompting some who voted to leave to change their minds. Remember the news about Brits Googling What is Brexit? the day after they voted for it?

The two parties - EU and the UK - have been trying to work out a divorce deal, since Great Britain will henceforth be outside of the EU trading block. The thought of the UK tumbling out of the EU without a future trade deal scares business people in Britain as well as Europe. The negotiations have been tough. So now, after more than two years of wrangling, they've come up with this: a draft agreement (a breezy 585-page read) that lays out how the UK will leave the EU on Friday, March 29, 2019. Thats the day IPL 2019 is slated to start, by the way. It will be a day to remember!

But the UK will stay inside the EU's single market and still be subject to EU laws and regulations until the end of 2020. That will give everyone enough time to hammer out a future trade deal. So yes, probably two more years of status quo. Remember, no one in the British establishment wanted this: the referendum was supposed to a release of simmering frustrations, not a game changer. Must be hating democracy right about now.

So, the UK will leave the EU by basically staying in it for another two years. That's clear, right?

Also, the agreement guarantees protections for the more than 3 million EU citizens in the UK, and over 1 million UK nationals in EU countries to continue to live, work or study as they currently do.

Theres also the Ireland issue. Ireland, which is partitioned into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is open, could see serious problems. Because, you know, the English tended to partition lands they conquered. People and trade move between the two Irelands with ease. One CNN analysis claims there are fears that could change in a Brexit divorce. The Republic of Ireland is in the EU. Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, won't be in the EU after the split. Normally that would require something called a "hard border," with checkpoints, border crossings etc. Those could seriously slow trade and other economic activity. To quote CNN, Irish politicians also fear they could escalate tensions and raise the need for security to be in place.

What about a second referendum?

Some people want a second referendum. Thats right, a second vote to decide if Britain really wants to Brexit. And its a pretty popular thought, even among conservative politicians. The Guardian reported about a group of Tory MPs who want Britain to remain in the EU. It said some Conservatives claimed that There were 4 million like-minded Tory voters out there who were fed up with being lied to, who recognised the prime ministers deal was dead and wanted to take back control of their lives by having another say on leaving the EU. It was a bold claim to make when the total membership of Right to Vote seemed to be limited to the same few Tory MPs  Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston, Dominic Grieve, Heidi Allen, Justine Greening, Sam Gyimah and Lee  whose views on a second referendum were already well known. But small steps and all that. Right to Vote Anonymous might now be a bit too niche and too anonymous, but if you build it, people will come. Just give it time. They had been expecting one more MP to appear but hed pulled out at the last minute.

But its not that simple. As the BBC reported, Stopping Brexit would require a change in the law in the UK. The European Court of Justice ruled on 10 December 2018 that the UK could cancel the Article 50 Brexit process without the permission of the other 27 EU members, and remain a member of the EU on its existing terms, provided the decision followed a "democratic process".

Thats not all. The Beeb added, Prime Minister Theresa May warned Conservative MPs thinking of voting against the deal she reached with the EU that they risk "no Brexit at all". This is a reference to another referendum, which is backed by the SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru the Green Party, a small number of Conservatives and larger group of Labour MPs, who want the public to be given the final say, with the option to remain in the EU. They are trying to get the Labour leadership to back them - but Jeremy Corbyn wants to try and force a general election first.

CNN reported that influential British leaders like former prim minister Tony Blair have been calling for a second vote, but, realistically, there's no plan to take this back before voters. Theresa May slammed the door on that idea, saying a new vote would be a gross betrayal of democracy. Not to mention, it would look rather foolish to keep having elections until you get your desired result. The draft agreement will be voted on by the parliaments of the UK and the EU, and that's that.

Far from safe

A few days ago, on January 15, the UK Parliament resoundingly rejected May's proposed Brexit plan. At 432 to 202, it was a historic defeat, with more than a hundred No votes cast by members of May's own party. A distraught May said after the vote, Every day that passes without this issue being resolved means more uncertainty, more bitterness and more rancour. The government has heard what the house has said tonight but I ask members on all sides of the house to listen to the British people who want this issue settled, and to work with the government to do just that. The Financial Times said, Under normal political rules, any prime minister confronted by such a savage rejection of their core policy programme by MPs would resign. But Mrs May immediately signalled that she was determined to soldier on and try to breathe new life into her damaged withdrawal agreement.

May herself survived a scare after her government won a no-confidence brought by her opponent Jeremy Corbyn. The Tories won the vote by a narrow margin of 325-306, just a day after Mays Brexit plan suffered that political defeat in the House of Commons.

Meanwhile, European Council President Donald Tusk regretted the vote, but suggested the solution was for the UK to stay in the EU. He said, If a deal is impossible, and no one wants a no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?

In a video thats viral on social media, French President Emmanuel Macron is seen saying that the first losers in a no-deal Brexit would be the British. He added, Either way, we will have to negotiate a transition period with them because the British cannot afford to no longer have planes taking off or landing at home, and their supermarkets, as much as 70 percent, is supplied with (products) from continental Europe.

And thats where Brexit stands. After a defeat in parliament at the hands of backbench MPs last week, and the resounding rejection of her Brexit deal by the House of Commons, Theresa May survived the no-confidence vote, but there is now a need to make a statement quickly on a new plan of action. As Mary Poppins - someone who has only recently returned to clean up another British mess - would say: Spitspot, hurry along.
Pakistan Supreme Court on January 17 ordered the federal government to promulgate a new law within a fortnight to grant more rights, including fundamental human rights, to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in PoK.

A seven-judge bench headed by Justice Saqib Nisar issued a detailed order in response to several petitions filed against constitutional issues and previous reforms in the region.

The bench in the order wrote that the jurisdiction and power of the Supreme Court extend to Gilgit-Baltistan.

It further said that the region's courts did not have constitutional power to deal with issues within Pakistan but the people from the region will be able to challenge their top court's decisions in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

It also ordered that the people of the region should be give fundamental human rights as provided in the proposed constitutional order, which was made part of the detailed order.

Noting the international status of Kashmir, of which Gilgit-Baltistan is a part, the order said that "as and when the promised plebiscite is organized by the parties to the dispute, it will be up to the people of all of Jammu and Kashmir, and of Gilgit-Baltistan, to make their choice.

It also said until the plebiscite, "it is surely incumbent upon both India as well as Pakistan to ensure that the people of this region enjoy maximum rights for areas within each country's control.

However, it noted that until the plebiscite is held, a proper arrangement must be provided for by Pakistan for the people of Gilgit-Baltistan for purposes of governance within a framework of a constitutional nature, including most importantly the enjoyment of fundamental rights.
I collapsed because I was exhausted, Drozdowski said. I couldnt even tell you if the water was cold, but we just jumped in. Its a huge honor to receive this and Im at the tail-end of my career, so its nice that officers get recognized. At the time right now, officers are getting a bad rep, but people forget we are people too.
Nepalis have stashed Rs 35.8 billion (Rs 3580 crore) in Swiss banks, violating the country's law which bars them from transferring funds abroad, according to an investigation carried out by the Centre for Investigative Journalism.

The report 'Nepal-leaks 2019: Illegal Wealth watch', released Wednesday night, also claimed that 55 Nepalis have invested in offshore companies, taking advantage of the country's secretive tax regimes and breaching the law which bars investment in foreign countries.

The report is based on an analysis of over 3,000 financial and court documents and interviews with 70 individuals.

Questions have been raised about the source of their investment since they have invested in offshore companies including lesser known British Virgin Islands , says the report.

Those who invested money in foreign countries include politicians to high-flying businessman-some of whom are non-resident Nepalis-to doctors and hoteliers.

The investors include renowned businessmen and industrialists Upendra Mahato, Chandra Dhakal, Rajendra Bajgai and Minu Shah Chhibar.

Majority of the investments were made in businesses registered in the British Virgin Islands, one of the most notorious tax havens in the Caribbean.

The report also revealed how a lot of these investors used their offshore companies to funnel money back into the country under the guise of Foreign Direct Investment.

According to the report, Nepalis have parked Rs 35.8 billion (Rs 3580 crore) in Swiss banks, violating the country's law, which bars Nepalis from transferring funds abroad.

Nepali account-holders have earned interest of around Rs 774.1 million from the funds they deposited in Swiss banks. Interestingly, the Nepalese started depositing money in the Swiss Bank in 1996, when the decade-long Maoist insurgency began.

The total amount of money deposited by Nepalis in Swiss Bank amounts to 460.8 million Swiss Franc equivalent to Rs 52 billion. Even now, Nepalese have Rs 35.8 billion in the Swiss Bank, adds the report.

Between 1996 when the Maoist insurgency started and 2006 when the peace agreement was signed the amount of money deposited by Nepalis in Swiss banks more than doubled from Rs 1.2 billon to Rs 2.7 billion.

The report has named Minu Shah as the individual with the highest savings among Nepali account holders. Shah, who was married to an Indian national, made deposit of USD 23 million equivalent to Rs.2.62 billion in the Swiss Bank account.
Former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn received nearly eight million euros in "improper payments" from a Netherlands-based joint venture, the Japanese car giant alleged Friday, threatening to sue to recover the funds.

Nissan said Ghosn entered into a personal employment contract with Nissan-Mitsubishi BV (NMBV), a company formed "with the mission of exploring and promoting synergies within the Nissan-Mitsubishi Motors partnership."

"Under that contract, he received a total of 7,822,206.12 euros (including tax) in compensation and other payments of NMBV funds," Nissan said, citing an ongoing investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Ghosn.

The firm said the contract was signed without consultation with current Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa or Mitsubishi Motors CEO Osamu Masuko.

"Nissan views the payments Ghosn received from NMBV to be the result of misconduct and will consider measures to recover from Ghosn the full sum," the firm said in a statement.

Since his out-of-the-blue arrest on November 19, Ghosn has been kept in a Tokyo detention centre and has made only one public appearance in court when he passionately rejected the accusations against him.

Ghosn faces three formal charges.

First, he is accused of under-declaring his income by five billion yen ( USD 46 million) between 2010 and 2015 in official documents to shareholders, apparently to fend off criticism he was overpaid.

Second, he stands accused of continuing this practice for three more years, understating his pay by a further four billion yen.

A third, more complex, charge relates to allegations he sought to transfer personal investment losses to the firm and paid a Saudi intermediary from company funds to stump up collateral for him.

The 64-year-old auto tycoon rejects all the charges, arguing in court that he has been "wrongly accused and unfairly detained based on meritless and unsubstantiated accusations."

He has appealed several times to be released on bail and filed another appeal earlier Friday.

So far, the appeals have all been rejected, with the court reasoning that he is a flight risk and could tamper with evidence.

His lawyers have vowed to lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court against his continued detention, but even his lead attorney has told reporters it is unlikely he will taste freedom before a trial -- and that could take six months at least.

Meanwhile, the allegations continue to stack up against Ghosn -- once revered as a corporate genius who saved Nissan from the verge of bankruptcy.

He is said to have had luxury houses in Beirut and Rio de Janeiro paid for by the company -- plus costly renovations for the first property.

It is also alleged one of his sisters received USD 755,000 for work carried out between 2003 and 2016 as part of a "Global Donation Advisory Council" -- a body which has never existed according to sources close to Nissan.

Nissan is thought to be looking into other payments such as donations to universities in Lebanon or a subscription to a yacht club in Brazil for USD 63,000.

Ghosn has been unable to defend himself against these new allegations and they do not form part of the formal charges against him.

But the Japanese firm is ramping up its probe into its former leader and more revelations are likely as it continues.

Nissan has also been slapped with formal charges over the affair as they submitted the documents to shareholders that allegedly under-declared the executive's income.
A Tesla Model S charges at a Tesla Supercharger station in Cabazon, California, U.S. May 18, 2016. REUTERS/Sam Mircovich/File Photo - TM3ECAQ0SK201

Tesla has issued a recall of over 14,000 Model S cars in China over faulty airbags issue as per a report by AFP news agency.



#BREAKING Tesla to recall more than 14,000 cars in China over airbags: govt pic.twitter.com/VezuXfvdEL

 AFP news agency (@AFP) January 18, 2019

This complies with the ongoing recall involving Takata front passenger airbag inflators. This recall has affected virtually all major automakers, reports USA Today.

Takata is a Japanese automotive parts supplier who has been supplying airbags for major companies. However, recent issues such as shrapnel exploding from airbags has put the company in a crisis.

As per the US National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) reports, there have been at least 23 deaths and 300 injuries due to improperly inflated airbags.

Teslas official website says the front passenger airbags in certain 2014-2016 Model S vehicles are affected and Tesla will be replacing them.

A schedule previously determined by the NHTSA said that the recall of the front passenger airbags in 2012 Model S vehicles that began in January 2017, was extended to 2013 Model S vehicles in January 2018. It is now being extended to 2014-2016 Model S vehicles to January 2019 as well. The recall does not affect the Roadster, Model X, Model 3, or later Model S.

The Model S is an all-electric liftback car which was introduced in 2012.
One of the last looks at Saturn and its main rings from a distance as captured by Cassini. When the spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, the planet's northern hemisphere, seen here at top, was in darkness, just beginning to emerge from winter. Now at journey's end, the entire north pole is bathed in the continuous sunlight of summer. Images taken October 28, 2016 and released September 11, 2017. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY - RC16A3699DF0

Scientists, using data from the Cassini spacecraft, have found evidence of methane rainfall on the north pole of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.

The rainfall would be the first indication of the start of a summer season in Titan's northern hemisphere, according to the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"The whole Titan community has been looking forward to seeing clouds and rains on Titan's north pole, indicating the start of the northern summer, but despite what the climate models had predicted, we weren't even seeing any clouds," said Rajani Dhingra, a doctoral student at the University of Idaho in Russia.

"People called it the curious case of missing clouds," Dhingra said.

The researchers identified a reflective feature near Titan's north pole on an image taken on June 7, 2016, by Cassini's near-infrared instrument, the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer.

The reflective feature covered about 46,332 square miles and did not appear on images from previous and subsequent Cassini passes.

Analyses of the short-term reflective feature suggested it likely resulted from sunlight reflecting off a wet surface. The study attributes the reflection to a methane rainfall event, followed by a probable period of evaporation.

"It's like looking at a sunlit wet sidewalk," Dhingra said.

This reflective surface represents the first observations of summer rainfall on the moon's northern hemisphere.

If compared to Earth's yearly cycle of four seasons, a season on Titan lasts seven Earth years.

Cassini arrived at Titan during the southern summer and observed clouds and rainfall in the southern hemisphere, researchers said.

Climate models of Titan predicted similar weather would occur in the northern hemisphere in the years leading up to the northern summer solstice in 2017, they said.

However, by 2016, the expected cloud cover in the northern hemisphere had not appeared. This observation may help scientists gain a more complete understanding of Titan's seasons.

"We want our model predictions to match our observations. This rainfall detection proves Cassini's climate follows the theoretical climate models we know of," Dhingra said.

Additional analyses suggest the methane rain fell across a relatively pebble-like surface, she said.

A rougher surface generates an amorphous pattern as the liquid settles in crevasses and gullies, while liquid falling on a smooth surface would puddle in a relatively circular pattern.

Dhingra is using the wet sidewalk effect to search for additional rain events on Titan as part of her research.
North Korea-United States summit: US President Donald Trump held a summit meeting North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un at the Capella Hotel in Singapore. The meeting assumed significance as the first-ever meeting between leaders of the two countries. (Image: Reuters)

A top North Korean general is in Washington on January 18 for a rare visit, during which he is expected to meet President Donald Trump as the two countries seek to finalize a new summit aimed at denuclearization and easing decades of hostility.

Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, arrived on January 17 evening in the US capital, the latest peace-making mission just a year after once-soaring tensions began to abate.

The North Korean negotiator abruptly canceled his last planned talks in the United States -- a meeting set two months ago in New York with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- and this time the administration has treaded cautiously, not announcing his visit in advance.

But an American source, who could not be identified as the schedule has not been announced, said that Pompeo would welcome Kim on Friday for a meal in Washington before the two are expected to head together to the White House.

Trump has repeatedly voiced eagerness to see Kim Jong Un again after their landmark June summit in Singapore, the first meeting ever between sitting leaders from the two countries that never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Trump has repeatedly hailed his diplomacy as a triumph, recently saying there would have been "a nice big fat war in Asia" if it were not for him.

He has said to expect an announcement soon about the second summit, with diplomats seeing Vietnam and Thailand as possible venues.

In a sign that frictions have eased since the official's no-show in November, Trump -- who has mused that he and Kim Jong Un are "in love" -- said he received a warm new letter from the North Korean leader earlier this month.

For Trump, the made-for-television summitry with the young and elusive North Korean leader also offers a welcome respite from news at home.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is probing whether Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia, and his insistence that Congress fund a wall on the Mexican border has shuttered the US government for nearly a month.

For Kim, the stakes are more existential as he seeks guarantees of the survival of his regime.

Kim, backed by ally China as well as South Korea's dovish government, is also hoping for an easing of international sanctions, but the United States insists on maintaining maximum pressure until Pyongyang moves forward on giving up its nuclear weapons.

In Singapore, Kim promised his "unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula." But the two sides appear to have different ideas on how to define that, with the United States expecting North Korea to give up nuclear weapons assembled over decades of work and Pyongyang more broadly seeking an end to what it sees as US threats.

"I think there is somewhat of a general consensus of what denuclearization means. I think there is obviously still disagreement on how to get there -- whether denuclearization is the end of the process or the process itself," said Jenny Town, managing editor of the 38 North web journal on North Korea policy at the Stimson Center.

"Realistically, they can talk about it all they want to, they can define the end goal, but if you don't have a common understanding of how to get there, you're not going to reach that common goal," she said.

She noted that Americans have traditionally preferred to hash out the details of agreements before big summits, while the type of leader-driven diplomacy favored by Trump is more common in Asia.

"People have been very skeptical of this top-down approach, but we won't know unless we try it," she said.
PTI file photo dated October 1990 shows Babri Masjid in Ayodhya

RSS executive head Bhaiyyaji Joshi has expressed confidence that the Ram temple will be constructed in Ayodhya by the time of next 'Kumbh' in 2025, the Sangh said in a statement on Friday.

In a bid to "contextualise" the comments, the RSS in a statement issued by spokesperson Arun Kumar said Joshi had made these remarks on Thursday at the ongoing Kumbh in Praygraj in Uttar Pradesh.

"When Kumbh is again held after six years in 2025, the construction of Ram temple, which is a symbol of India's national honour, will be completed and the nation will move towards prosperity," the spokesperson quoted Joshi as saying.

Joshi, who is number two in the hierarchy of the Sangh, made these remarks at the time when its allied organisation VHP is demanding the government to enact a law which paves the way for construction of temple in Ayodhya.

The Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute is scheduled for hearing on January 29 in the Supreme Court.

In Varanasi, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said that not just the BJP but the majority people of this country wants Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya at the earliest.

Sinha said the government will build the temple as per the guidelines laid down in the Constitution.
New Delhi: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during their joint press conference on demonetization issue in New Delhi on Tuesday. PTI Photo by Manvender Vashist(PTI12_27_2016_000150B)

Viju Cherian

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mamata Banerjee will host a mega opposition rally in Kolkata on Saturday, January 19, to present a united opposition of anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parties ahead of the general elections.

Leaders and representatives from the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Aam Aadmi Party, Janata Dal (Secular), the Telugu Desam Party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the National Conference, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, and the Congress are expected to attend Banerjees United India rally.

The rally will give a fillip to Banerjees claim for the top job in Delhi if the opposition is in a position to form a government after the elections.

Speaking about the rally, Banerjee said that it "will sound the death knell for BJP and added, they (BJP) will not cross more than 125 [Lok Sabha] seats. Given that her party will be facing the BJP in the state her prediction is likely to boost the morale of the TMC cadre.

However, the rally will also send an important message to the Congress  this was evident in the CMs statement: "The federal parties, that is the regional parties, will be the deciding factor after the elections.

The ambiguity surrounding Congress place in the opposition arises because of two factors. One, for many regional parties the Congress is a rival or potential rival in their respective states. In addition to the BJP, for the SP and BSP in Uttar Pradesh and for the TMC in West Bengal, the Congress is also a rival party.

The second factor is the growth of the Congress in the last year has made regional parties uncomfortable. As long as the grand old party was on the back foot it suited the regional parties to include the Congress in the coalition against the BJP. This changed after the December state elections where the Congress not only performed well but also managed to form the government in three important Hindi-heartland states. Thus, a rising and powerful Congress does not fit into the mould set for it by regional parties in the opposition space.

Banerjees stress on regional parties becoming the deciding factor should be seen in this light.

The absence of Naveen Patnaiks Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and K Chandrashekar Raos Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) from Banerjees rally in many way weakens the grand alliance or united opposition. The TRS strong presence in Telangana and the likely challenge it will pose in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh makes Rao an important leader in the post-poll scenario.

Banerjees TMC has 34 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from West Bengal making it the fourth-largest party in the current Lok Sabha. Her clout in national arena will be determined if she retains or betters that tally. This will be a challenge with BJP President Amit Shah stressing on strengthening the party in West Bengal. Also, if it fails to strike a pre-poll deal with the Congress, the TMC will face a multi-cornered attack in West Bengal.

From time-to-time the united opposition (or grand alliance or mahagathbandhan) will have to remind the electorate that it is a cohesive unit working towards one goal. For that, such shows of strength  much like tripod stances in the animal kingdom  are important. In the meantime, it has to not only fight the BJP but also keep in check the contradicting interests of its member leaders.
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee (Image- Reuters)

A host of Opposition leaders are set to attend a political rally organised by West Bengal Chief Minister and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) leader Mamata Banerjee on January 19.

Aimed to be a show of strength for Opposition forces ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the United India rally will be held at the Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata, West Bengal.

It is being called by some as the largest such event in West Bengal since Independence.

With no such public meeting in the planning, this is likely to be not just the first but also the last united opposition rally before the Election Commission of India (EC) announces poll dates for the general elections.

Several Opposition leaders are also expected to hold meetings with each other on the sidelines of the rally.

The event is being seen by political observers as a launch pad for Banerjees campaign for the top office in New Delhi.

Mamatas attack

Speaking to mediapersons while surveying the venue on January 17, Banerjee said, It will be a historic rally. Leaders of almost every opposition party will be present.

"It will be a 'United India Rally' against the misrule of the BJP. It will sound the death knell for the BJP...The saffron party's seat count in the general election will not cross 125. The number of seats the state parties will win will be much higher than that of the BJP's, Banerjee said.

"The federal parties, that is the regional parties, will be the deciding factor after the elections," she claimed.

Who is attending?

The Opposition is likely to be present in full force from across regions.

Among those expected to attend are: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) President MK Stalin, former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) President HD Deve Gowda, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convener Arvind Kejriwal and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu.

Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, former Jharkhand Chief Minister and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) chief Babulal Marandi, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Badruddin Ajmal, National Conference (NC) chief Farooq Abdullah and former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah are also likely to attend.

Former BJP leaders Yashwant Sinha, Ram Jethmalani and Arun Shourie are also expected to attend along with the saffron partys Bihar Member of Parliament (MP) Shatrughan Sinha. The latter will attend the event as a representative of Yashwant Sinha's political action group Rashtra Manch.

Who is not attending?

United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Sonia Gandhi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi will not be attending the rally. However, it has been confirmed that the party will be represented by senior party leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

However, extending moral support to Banerjee, Rahul Gandhi said in a letter, "I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together."

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati is set to give the rally a miss. However, she will be represented by Rajya Sabha MP Satish Mishra.

Also read: How TRS and YSRCP could play kingmakers in Delhi

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who is trying to stitch together a non-BJP non-Congress Federal Front, will not be attending the rally. KCRs new ally YS Jaganmohan Reddy of the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) will also give the event a miss.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist), along with other Left parties, too won't be attending.

On participation of Left parties, Banerjee had earlier said: "I had invited the Left, including the Kerala Chief Minister. I have performed my responsibility. If any party does not want to come due to political compulsions, I respect the decision."

Similar shows of strength were put up by the Opposition during Kumaraswamys swearing-in ceremony in May 2018 and during those of Ashok Gehlot, Kamal Nath and Bhupesh Baghel in December 2018.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted a private dinner for his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and wife Sara at his 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence. (PTI)

Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat visited India earlier this week and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss issues related to bilateral relations, including the advancing of security deals, according to an official statement here.

NSA Ben-Shabbat, who was in India on the invitation of his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, also held a series of meetings with senior officials of Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and security organisation, a statement from the Prime Minister's media adviser here said.

Prime Minister Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke over phone during the visit of the Israeli NSA to New Delhi.

Ben-Shabbat returned to Israel on January 15, on the Air India flight that flies through the Saudi Arabian airspace, the statement said.

During his visit, the Israeli NSA discussed issues related to bilateral relations including the advancing of security deals, it said.

Additional measures were agreed to on advancing security, technology and civilian-economic cooperation between Israel and India, it said.

Ben-Shabbat is said to have briefed his interlocutors on regional issues, including "Iran's efforts to entrench itself militarily in Syria and its actions that undermine regional stability".
Ashok Gehlot at press conference

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for increasing procurement price of moong beans under MSP by 25 to 40 per cent and for extending the procurement period till January 31.

The state government has procured 2.36 metric tonne moong beans against the target of 2.39 lakh metric tonne during the procurement period of 90 days from over 1.67 lakh farmers, officials said.

After the 90-day period, procurement from 52,308 registered farmers was still pending, Gehlot said in the letter addressed to the prime minister on January 16.

Rajasthan has recorded a high yield of moong beans in the kharif season and farmer organisations in the state have demanded an increase in procurement price from 25 to 40 per cent under Centre's MSP scheme, the letter read.

Yesterday, RLTP leader Hanuman Beniwal had raised the issue of farmers and procurement of moong beans, saying farmers were suffering.
It is a continuation of a regular Get to Know You program that is part of the Fifth Sunday Celebration series organized by InterFaith Aurora. The event is free and open to the public.
The BJP Friday alleged that the Congress stood with those who raised anti-India slogans, days after police filed a chargesheet in a sedition case against former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar and others.

BJP leader and Union Minister Smriti Irani also dared Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to repeat in public the slogans that Kumar and other accused had allegedly raised in JNU.

Addressing a press conference at the BJP office, Irani said, "On the one hand the BJP-led central government resolves to ensure a strong India, a resurgent India. On the other hand, the Congress continues to support the forces which proclaimed on the streets of the national capital 'Bharat Tere Tukde Hongae' (India will break up)."

She also alleged that a Congress leader "hid behind" a fig leaf of how sedition is looked upon but did not pay heed that there was a criminal conspiracy and an attempt to riot among those who spoke against India and its interest.

Earlier, Congress leader Kapil Sibal had said the sedition law should be scrapped as those in power are "manipulating" it. He also called for a change in the government to save the country.

"...but just because the Congress leader has a venomous approach towards the honorable prime minister, they would rather side with 'break the country forces' then contribute towards making a new India," she said.

Irani alleged that Rahul Gandhi publicly stood with those who raised anti-India slogans .

"The Congress chief has publicly stood with such forces, publicly supported the statement of 'Bharat Tere Tukde Hongae'. As citizens of this country let us ask the Congress president and the party, do they have the guts to stand in public places and repeat that slogan against India and interests of the nation," she said.

Slogans against India were allegedly raised during a procession in JNU in February 2016. Delhi Police earlier this week filed a chargesheet in the case.

On a question on Congress leader BK Hariprasad's remarks against BJP chief Amit Shah, who is suffering from swine flu, Irani said whenever the Congress has made false accusations and ridiculed Shah, he has only emerged stronger and strengthened the party.

On a question on four nuns who supported another nun allegedly raped by a Jalandhar bishop and were directed to leave their convent in Kerala, Irani attacked the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government.
BSP supremo Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav during a joint press conference in Lucknow. (Image: PTI)

Bharatiya Janata Party is not scared of any political alliance ahead of parliamentary elections, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma said.

"BJP is capable of forming the government on its own. The opposition is day-dreaming," he said.

His comments came days after Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav announced they would contest Lok Sabha polls, expected to be held in April-May, together in UP.

The comments also came ahead of Saturday's rally of several anti-BJP parties being organised by TMC chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata, which the SP and the BSP have decided to be part of.

"Those who are scared have decided to opt for alliances. They are the ones who make strategies to join hands with one to make the other lose," Sharma told reporters Thursday.

"The opportunists have struck alliances in the past too, which were devoid of any policy or morality... They were not able to defeat the BJP even then," he said.

Sharma said BJP has formed governments in 16 states people can see "what BJP has done for development."

The Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister said crime and casteism in the state were rampant once, but after the BJP came to power, investors have begun looking towards UP.

To a question about CBI raids in connection with illegal mining during the previous government, Sharma said it were being done in pursuance with court orders.

"BJP does not work like previous governments. Whoever is guilty will definitely be punished," he pointed out.

On cleaning the Ganga river, Sharma said people are getting pure Ganga water in Kumbh.

"Even leaders of Opposition parties, taking a holy dip in Ganga, are thanking UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for it," Sharma said.
Amit Shah_BJP

The scheduled rallies of BJP in West Bengal has been deferred by two days to January 22 owing to its national president Amit Shah's ill health, party officials said on Friday.

"As he (Shah) is not well, we have decided to change dates (of the rallies) so that he can attend them. There has been change in dates. Amit Shah will address the first rally on January 22 in Malda," Dilip Ghosh, president of the West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party said.

Shah, who has been admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, with swine flu, is doing well and will be discharged in a day or two, the party had said Thursday.

On January 23, Shah will address two rallies at Suri in Birbhum district and Jhargram district. On January 24, he will address rallies at Krishnanagar in Nadia district and Jaynagar in South 24 Parganas district, Ghosh said.

The BJP has identified West Bengal as a priority state for the upcoming general elections and Shah has set a target of winning 22 of the state's 42 Lok Sabha seats.

The party is also looking to host a few rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi although the dates have not been confirmed yet, Ghosh said.

In the last few years, the BJP has emerged as the main opposition in the state with a commendable show in rural polls and by-elections.

Shah's rally will come just days after TMC's mega opposition rally.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday had asked the West Bengal government to allow proposed public meetings and rallies of the BJP under its "Ganatantra Bachao Yatra".

In a show of strength ahead of the national polls, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has organised a massive rally in Kolkata on January 19, which is likely to see participation of lakhs. Leaders of all major opposition parties have been invited to the rally to be held at the Brigade Parade ground in the heart of the city.
With trends indicating that the Congress was ahead in the assembly polls in three Hindi heartland states, senior party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said the figures reflected the people's desire for a change. Image: PTI

Senior Congress leaders in Karnataka asserted on Friday that there was no threat to the coalition government in the southern state, while hitting out at the BJP for making "futile attempts" to destabilise it, saying the saffron party's conspiracy had been "exposed".

"All are in contact, you cannot say that any one person is not in contact...you (media) had listed out the names of those who may switch from the party. Most of them have come, the others will also come," Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief Dinesh Gundu Rao said.

Speaking to reporters here ahead of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, he said, "Let whatever happen, there is no threat to this government. It will complete five years. The BJP is making futile attempts to destabilise the government."

Pointing out that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had confined all of its MLAs in the state to a hotel at Gurugram in Haryana, Rao said he felt "pity" for them.

"There is no threat to this government... whatever they may try to do, the government cannot be toppled. The BJP's conspiracy has been exposed. Wait and watch what will happen in the days to come," he added.

The CLP meet is scheduled at 3.30 pm on Friday at the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat, here.

It is expected to be a show of strength for the Congress, in a counter to the BJP's alleged toppling bid, which the ruling coalition has said has turned out to be a "flop".

KPCC working president Eshwar Khandre said the party leaders were in touch with all the legislators and they had said they would attend the CLP, "where everything will be cleared".

Khandre said he had spoken to Umesh Jadhav (the Chincholi MLA), who had allegedly planned to switch to the BJP.

"He (Jadhav) has told me that he will remain in the Congress...I have trust in him," he added.

Both Rao and Khandre, however, evaded a direct response to a question about Gokak MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, who has allegedly made up his mind to join the BJP, miffed with the Congress on being dropped from the ministry during a recent cabinet rejig.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy met Congress general secretary in-charge of Karnataka K C Venugopal here and held discussions on the ongoing developments.

"They (BJP leaders) will keep continuing with their 'Operation Kamala' (lotus). I am not bothered about it. It is (state BJP chief) Yeddyurappa's duty," Kumaraswamy told reporters.
Moneycontrol Contributor

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Tolstoy began Anna Karenina with that line. But one wonders if that is applicable all the time. One example: divorce.

It's the oldest tale in the book. You are rich; you are middle-aged; you are a man; crisis. You buy a Porsche; you drop some weight; you hit the gym; you get jacked. Chances are your one-time sweetheart does not seem so sweet or young to you anymore. Society rewards salt and pepper in men. Distinguished, it labels them. Women? Shit out of luck. Outcome: divorce.

"Growing apart," "falling out of love," "at different places in our lives," "irreconcilable differences" are all familiar ingredients in the celebrity divorce cocktail we have all consumed with practised disinterest. The Tolstoyian unhappiness in a family doesn't seem so unique after all.

Until it is.

Add the world's most valuable company and the world's richest man to the mix and you have yourself a divorce unlike any other where even a percent of the wealth parted is firmly in the three-comma category. "It's going to be a beauty," said one man who is himself no stranger to divorces. His divorces were of course characteristically messy, but this divorce may turn out to be the prime example of a fast delivery with all parties satisfied with the product.

The tale of love, marriage, divorce, billions, and Amazon stock price is our Story of the Day. Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, CEO of Amazon, owner of The Washington Post, and MacKenzie Bezos, a novelist and one of the first employees of Amazon, are getting a divorce. From the first million he made in 1997 to the present moment when he is the richest man in the world, all of Jeff's wealth has been created as a married man.

137,000,000,000 dollars at stake. An 800,000,000,000 dollar company stands to get affected. The Bezoses live in a community property state, meaning the debts and incomes of the couple could be split down the middle in the divorce. Will MacKenzie become the richest woman in the world? What could be the impact on Amazon stock? Why is breaking up a hard thing to do? These and other questions answered today as we examine the anatomy of a centibillion divorce with me Rakesh Sharma on Moneycontrol.

MARRIAGE

To a lot of us in our 20s and 30s, the institution might seem redundant. An oppressive construct of the patriarchy. Ask the same to some captains of the industry, and you might be surprised by their answer. Warren Buffett, in the 2017 HBO documentary, 'Becoming Warren Buffett,' said there had been two turning points in his life. One when he came out of the womb and the other when he met his wife Susie. Of course, it's another matter that his marriage was almost a happy menage a trois, with Susie on one side and Astrid on the other. "Marry the right person. I'm serious about that. It will make more difference in your life. It will change your aspirations, all kinds of things," he said at the 2009 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. He addressed the topic during a 2017 conversation with Bill Gates at Columbia University. "You want to associate with people who are the kind of person you'd like to be. You'll move in that direction," he said. "And the most important person by far in that respect is your spouse. I can't overemphasize how important that is."

Sheryl Sandberg agrees. As does Mark Zuckerberg. And Barack Obama. Despite the troubles in their marriages, so have Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Beyonce and Jay-Z. Psychologists from Carnegie Mellon University have even put out research that claims people with supportive spouses are "more likely to give themselves the chance to succeed." Having a conscientious spouse can boost your salary by $4,000 a year and increase your chances of getting promoted, claimed another study from Washington University.

Jeff Bezos probably agreed, too. Back in 1993, at age 30, when he interviewed a fresh graduate from his own alma mater Princeton University for a job at DE Shaw, a New York City hedge fund where he was VP, he clearly saw in her the qualities that resonated with what he wanted in a partner. As he would say years later, "I wanted a woman who could get me out of a third-world prison." Resourcefulness - something he and the young woman he interviewed, MacKenzie Tuttle, both valued. I think my wife is resourceful, smart, brainy, and hot, but I had the good fortune of having seen her resume before I met her, so I knew exactly what her SATs were, Bezos said in a Vogue profile of MacKenzie in 2013.

MacKenzie herself was a bit more romantic in her retelling of their meeting - understandable considering she was an aspiring novelist who wanted the hedge fund job just to fund her writing. A writer who counted (and still counts) Toni Morrison, her creative writing instructor at Princeton, as a mentor; a writer whom the Nobel Prize-winning Toni Morrison described as one of the best students Ive ever had in my creative-writing classes. Job in hand, MacKenzie then was not too far behind in falling in love. My office was next door to his, and all day long I listened to that fabulous laugh, she told Vogue. She took charge of asking him out to lunch. Within three months of dating, they were engaged. Three months after that, they were married in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was 30; she was 23; it was 1993.

An acknowledged wizkid of Wall Street, Jeff, around 1994, found for himself a new fascination: retailing on the internet. Selling books, specifically. He abruptly quit his high-paying job, bundled all his belongings into a moving van, and ordered the movers to set off West. He hopped into the car to write a business plan and choose a specific location. MacKenzie may never have needed to bail Jeff out of a third-world prison, but it was she who drove out west, to Seattle, to help her husband start a little company you may have heard of - Amazon.

MacKenzie was an integral part of the Amazon dream from the very beginning. To me, you know, watching your spouse, somebody that you love have an adventure, what is better than that and being part of that? Couldnt wait to hop in the car, she said in 2013. During the early days of Amazon - when its office was in their suburban Seattle garage - she, as one of the first employees of the company, negotiated its first freight contracts from a Starbucks attached to a Barnes & Noble near their home. She has been there every step of the way, perhaps even postponing her writing debut in order to support Jeff in his dreams, and taking care of the family, which now has four children. An attack on Amazon was not merely something she could shrug off as par for the course. When Brad Stone wrote 'The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon,' a none too complimentary tale of Bezos' rising star, MacKenzie was incensed enough to fact-check Stone in a scathing 1-star review posted on, where else, Amazon. "I worked for Jeff at D. E. Shaw, I was there when he wrote the business plan, and I worked with him and many others represented in the converted garage, the basement warehouse closet, the barbecue-scented offices, the Christmas-rush distribution centers, and the door-desk filled conference rooms in the early years of Amazons history. Jeff and I have been married for 20 years." Amazon was personal for her.

As Business Insider put it, "There would be no Amazon without MacKenzie. What happened to Bezos would not have happened without MacKenzie."

From all known accounts, Jeff was just as supportive when it came to his wife's writing career. Jeff is my best reader, she told Vogue, adding that he "would cheerfully clear his schedule for the day, read her manuscript in one sitting, and give her meticulous notes" on her work. Work that has been critically appreciated - her debut novel 'The Testing of Luther Albright' (2005) won an American Book of the Year award and her sophomore novel 'Traps' (2013) was also widely appreciated.

It was a marriage founded on the bedrock of partnership and mutual respect. For any marriage such as that to crumble is obviously a tragedy irrespective of how fabulously wealthy the parties involved may be. But what Jeff and MacKenzie have also ensured is to not let it all play out in public, not go the way of the tabloid, and remain what they have been to each other all their married life - respectful and loving. We wish them the very best.

And now to the ugly stuff.

DIVORCE (and a dash of Donald Trump because it is 2019 and life is just like that now)

Unsurprisingly, there has not been much room for ugly stuff. The Bezoses got ahead of the narrative. The National Enquirer, tabloid of the very worst kind, was about to release what it claimed was a trail "across five states and 40,000 miles, [tailing them] in private jets, swanky limos, helicopter rides, romantic hikes, five-star hotel hideaways, intimate dinner dates and quality time in hidden love nests." Them being Bezos and his current love interest, Lauren Sanchez, a former media personality and soon-to-be ex-wife of a well-known Hollywood agent Patrick Whitesell. It was Bezos's Hollywood connections that brought the two in contact - Amazon Studios produced Manchester by the Sea, an acclaimed, Oscar-nominated film. Reportedly, it was love at first sight for Bezos and Sanchez. The National Enquirer, in typical fashion, also got a some images exchanged between the two. The Bezoses got wind of the situation, and released their joint statement before the Enquirer could release their "explosive" piece. Reports reveal that MacKenzie knew of the alleged affair. (Lauren and Jeff even appeared together at the Golden Globes.)

The joint statement read:

"We want to make people aware of a development in our lives. As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends. We feel incredibly lucky to have found each and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other. If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again. We've had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also see a wonderful life ahead, as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures. Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends."

The statement could well be Lesson 101 in the art of divorce announcement in the age of social media: Own the narrative. Keep it kind and loving. Leave out the blame. Don't wash dirty linen in public. In a world where privacy is an illusion and intimate photographs and devastating personal news can travel the world before you can scream "Thief," the opportunity to let the world know of something on your own is rare. As people so prominently in the public eye, it is even harder. The Bezoses managed it, and managed it well.

If "conscious uncoupling" was a gift that Goop-lady Gwyneth Paltrow and Yellow-man Chris Martin gave us, "loving exploration" was a Bezos gift to the lexicon. The statement also hinted at the possibility of this not being a messy divorce. The use of "We," the repeated use of the word "friends," the emphasis on wanting to remain partners in ventures and adventures, underscored the notion that the two want to keep it friendly. Nothing to see here, move along, thank you.

But of course, there is something to see - not the wealth, not how assets are going to be split, not what the future holds for Jeff, MacKenzie, and Amazon. Of course, we will come to that. But this being 2019, there is something else to see - Donald Trump.

The National Enquirer is no regular sleaze rag. It is one that has been used essentially as a Donald Trump propaganda machine. Its publisher David Pecker is an ally of the sitting President and has been instrumental in spreading positive stories about Trump and taking potshots at his rivals. Little wonder then that Agent Orange typed this out: "So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post." Yes, it is 2019, and the publication that came out with such stunning headlines as "Hillary Clinton Lesbian Lovers Named in Secret Emails" is being compared with an institution of integrity that broke Watergate and brought a sitting American President down. Not just compared, but being declared better by a sitting American President. Let that sink in.

Donald Trump, man all too familiar with divorces, said "it was going to be a beauty." His first divorce settlement with Ivana Trump dominated tabloid headlines for two years, with Ivana walking away with about $25 million and some property and a line of advice about divorce to the First Wives in the film The First Wives Club: "Ladies, don't get mad. Get everything."

We bring Donald Trump into these proceedings because his beef with the Washington Post is only too well known. The Post, which regularly criticises Trump and keeps a meticulous record of his lies and misleading statements, has been at the receiving end of Trump's invective for a while now. His animosity with Bezos is also well documented in his little Twitter missives where he has claimed that Amazon is doing the US Postal Service a disservice, that it is "doing great damage to tax-paying retailers," and that the company ought to pay its dues and more. Sure, there is an argument to be made even by the most ardent left-leaning liberal that Trump has a point here, but it is evident also that the basis for Trump's disapproval of Amazon and Bezos has less to do with Amazon's trade practices than it is with the fact that Bezos owns The Post and is seen widely as a potential presidential candidate, and is well, a self-made actual billionaire a hundred times over. These are not petty asides, but probably constitute a large portion of the reason why Trump hates Bezos - this Agent Orange has a deep hue but a thin peel. In April last year, a source speaking to Vanity Fair characterized Trumps animosity this way: He gets obsessed with something, and now hes obsessed with Bezos. Trump is like, How can I f with him?"

The National Enquirer could well be one tool with which to achieve that goal.

But The Telegraph reported, "Last year it was revealed that Mr Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc (AMI), had been granted immunity by US prosecutors in exchange for helping during the prosecution of Michael Cohen, Mr Trump's former lawyer, over hush payments to women during the 2016 election. One of them involved a $150,000 payment from AMI to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, to suppress her claims of an affair with Mr Trump. The Trump records were stored alongside similar documents pertaining to other celebrities' catch-and-kill deals, in which exclusive rights to people's stories were bought with no intention of publishing to keep them out of the news."

Speculation has been that Pecker and Co. might no longer be in Trump's good books. But the revelation of the Bezos story by The National Enquirer might hint at otherwise. Chris Hayes of MSNBC tweeted: "Given everything we know about how Pecker's National Enquirer has functioned as essentially an arm of Trumpworld, [the National Enquirer's report] prompts some questions."

This is not speculative fiction; this is just life in 2019 when a sitting American President has an ongoing investigation to look into whether he was a Russian agent or not. We have walked through the looking glass, and are firmly staying there.

Alexis Madrigal writing for The Atlantic said it best. I would not improve a single word.

"A presidential candidate rises on the back of a reality-TV program and his constant promotion of a conspiracy that the first black president wasnt born in the United States. To protect himself, this candidate sets up a gentlemans agreement with an old friend at the National Enquirer to buy up negative stories about him and kill them, which ends up forming part of the investigation into Russian interference in the election, all of which could somehow tie back into a tryst between the richest man on Earth (who also happens to own The Washington Post) and a helicopter pilot who was also once a local Fox News anchor.

You tell me which clause is the most implausible."

Honestly, tell me if you know.

THE MATHEMATICS OF THE DIVORCE

Vice, somewhat exaggeratedly, declared that the Bezos divorce could be the biggest divorce since Henry VIII divorced Katherine of Aragon. That particular divorce led to the creation of the Church of England. Could this one have similarly seismic changes? All hints point to No, chief among them the rather conciliatory joint statement issued by Jeff and MacKenzie.

Other than their marital home in Medina, Seattle, Jeff and MacKenzie jointly own four other homes: in Beverly Hills; Van Horn, Texas; Washington, D.C., and Manhattan, cumulatively worth over $165 million. Jeff is the 25th largest landowner in the U.S., according to Business Insider, and 28th according to The Land Report. The couple apparently do not have a prenuptial agreement.

They could file for divorce in any of these states, but if they choose to do so in Seattle, Washington, the law is clear. As The Daily Beast noted, " Divorces there are only granted based on irretrievable breakdown and considered no fault, as demanded by the Washington State Constitution. That means all assets and property not inherited or gifted to one spouse by name are considered communal property owned by both spouses and, as such, have to be divided equally."

Amazon is a public company of which Bezos alone owns controlling power through his 78.8 million sharesroughly 16.2 percent of the firm, valued at approximately $130.7 billion, according to The Street. The stock comprises more than 95% of his fortune. The Daily Beast says, "If Bezos has to give half of those shares to his ex-wife, it would dilute his ownership of the company." That could have a detrimental effect on the value of Amazon, which would ultimately not be in any exs interest, according to CNBC.

Still, if he has to split up his shares, he may lose control of the company. Seattle-based attorney David Starks told CNBC that he assumed that the Bezos had come to an agreement before announcing their divorce. I have to imagine that some of the longest conversations and most legal mind power went into how to fashion a settlement that retained Jeff Bezos ability to remain a controlling shareholder in Amazon, Starks told CNBC, suggesting that Tuttle may have agreed to give up claim to the stock or give up her voting rights to her shares in exchange for some other asset.

Joe Pinsker, writing for The Atlantic, notes, "When a couple in an equitable-distribution state doesnt agree to a settlement, it gets worked out in court, and the judge considers a variety of criteria. One attorney says that generally, the longer the marriage, the closer the split will be to 50-50. But, she says, if youre divvying up 20 billion, and youre getting 1 billion and someone else is getting 19  a judge might say thats enough for you. Even if $1 billion isnt equal, its still plenty to live on, the reasoning goes."

Steve Mindel, a family-law attorney in Los Angeles who works with high-net-worth clients, told The Atlantic, "In the case of the Bezoses, since they were married at the time that he moved from Wall Street to start developing Amazon, we would assume that everything in Amazon is going to be community property. There is another possibility that the stock could be transferred into a single entity over which the former husband and wife would have joint control; that arrangement might put Amazon's investors and corporate directors at ease, given that there wouldn't be two separate shareholders."

People use a variety of techniques to outfox the IRS - hide money in Gibraltar, Isle of Man, an island off the coast of Africa, Cayman Islands etc. But that is unlikely in the Bezos case.

In any case, CNBC claims a 50-50 split is unlikely, since reducing Bezoss ownership of Amazon would ultimately impede both Bezos and MacKenzie from acquiring more wealth.

If things were to turn ugly, MacKenzie could receive about 8% of the total Amazon shares and might like to exercise control. As Brittain Ladd points out on Forbes, there are multiple scenarios for how that could get even uglier: she could conspire with any of the other biggies (Walmart, Google, Facebook, etc) to leverage her shares to acquire Amazon; she could retain these shares and become an advocate for positive change in Amazon, perhaps even fighting for higher wages, etc; she could sell her shares as a block trade to a big company and allowing a member from that buying company to secure a seat on the Amazon board and exercise control from the outside.

But if words are anything to go by, their joint statement indicates that the outcome could be pleasing to both, and not in a tearing hurry to occupy the pages of the Enquirer. To anyone looking for the drama of the Mel Gibson divorce (over 400 million) or the Bernie Ecclestone divorce (over 1.2 billion dollars) or the Wildenstein divorce (with the queen of cosmetic surgery Jocelyn 'Catwoman' Wildenstein getting over $3.8 billion from her art dealer husband), this might be a disappointment. For those who are not, which I am hoping is the large majority of the population, this may well be a lesson in grace.

Like one West Coast attorney noted, "Their divorce will be handled as quickly as an Amazon delivery."

WHAT'S IN STORE FOR AMAZON LEADERSHIP AND STOCK?

Bezos's position in Amazon is of course one he created himself. But his sustaining it is largely due to his being a good boss. As Matt Levine notes in Bloomberg, "One nice thing about Jeff Bezos is that he is just a regular shareholder of Amazon.com Inc. Hes a big shareholderhe owns about 16.1 percent of the stock, more than twice as much as the next-biggest holderbut he just owns ordinary common stock, with no special voting rights or agreements, and he has nowhere close to a majority. To the extent that he controls Amazon, it is because (1) he is the chief executive officer and (2) he is good at it. If a majority of the board of directors wanted to fire him, or if a disgruntled majority of the shareholders wanted to install a new board and management, they could, but this is not something that ever really comes up. Bezoss situation is very different from that of Mark Zuckerberg, for instance; people do sometimes go around saying that Zuckerberg should not be CEO of Facebook Inc. anymore, but the only person who can do anything about that is Zuckerberg himself, since he is Facebooks controlling shareholder by virtue of holding super-voting stock."

Larcker et al of Stanford Graduate School of Business, in a paper about CEO divorces noted that there are three potential ways in which a CEO divorce might impact a corporation and its shareholders: loss of control or influence; divorce can affect the productivity, concentration, and energy levels of the CEO; divorce can influence a CEO's attitude to risk.

"Unless you worry that he will get so distracted by the divorce that he cannot manage the company, this will be a non-event," Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, told Reuters.

Tom Metcalf, writing for Bloomberg, noted, "While Wall Street took the announcement in stride, investors will be watching to see if the divorce settlement affects Bezoss control of Amazon. So long as the company is growing and returning profits, hell probably maintain their confidence, though a settlement could potentially put a dent in such Bezos side projects as the space exploration company Blue Origin."

According to some analysts, investors could in fact benefit from the divorce. If the couple has to sell Amazon shares as part of the divorce, those shares will become part of Amazons free float, according to ZeroHedge. As a result, Amazons weight in indexes like the S&P 500 could increase.

Index fund managers would then have to buy more AMZN shares to account for the change. Indexes typically use a companys available float  rather than the number of shares outstanding  to determine weighting.

Amazon is considered one of the most highly liquid stocks traded in the US. Therefore, its unlikely that Jeff Bezos selling shares would impact Amazons share price significantly, the publication further notes. It added that may not be the case for other stocks if index managers liquidate other holdings to buy Amazon.

Quoted in the report, David Dziekanski, a portfolio manager at Toroso Investments, said that index managers may need to sell a little of everything else to buy Amazon.

WHAT REMAINS

Should there be a 50-50 split, MacKenzie Tuttle will walk away with well over $65 billion making her the wealthiest woman in the world.

10 billion dollars can buy you: Ralph Lauren's collection of 17 classic cars, a penthouse at Bloomberg Tower, a massive boat like Dennis Washington's Attessa IV, A vacation to outer space for family of four, your own private island, Manchester United and Real Madrid. And you have some change left. NOW REPEAT SIX TIMES.

This would place her over Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the granddaughter of the founder of cosmetics manufacturer LOreal SA, who is currently the richest woman in the world, with a net worth of $45.6 billion.

The Bloomberg Billionaire Index compiles the list of the wealthiest people in the world, and has 66 women on it, as per the latest count. Only six women are self-made billionaires with the rest inheriting their wealth through death or divorce. MacKenzie will join that list. She did compare getting married to Jeff to winning a lottery, but not in the way you and I understand it. To her, the lottery was an understanding and encouraging spouse.

As Recode noted, "Then theres the couples philanthropic efforts. After years of modest charitable giving for a couple of their economic position, the Bezoses announced in the fall that they planned to give away at least $2 billion through the Bezos Day One Fund. Some of the money would be earmarked for existing nonprofits that help the homeless, and some would go toward the creation of a network of free preschools in low-income communities."

Something tells us Jeff will be just fine.

Should there not be an equal split, and even if MacKenzie gets a percent of Jeff's wealth, she walks away with over a billion. Speaking purely in monetary terms, no one comes out of this the loser.

Love, perhaps.
Moneycontrol Contributors

There was a strange incident in October of 2018. The CBI, or Central Bureau of Investigation, arrested one of its investigating officers and conducted searches at its own headquarters after registering a case against its second top official, Rakesh Asthana. Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar was charged with falsifying the statement of a Hyderabad-based businessman in order to implicate CBI director Alok Verma. We will try and dig deeper into this feud on this episode of Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki, with me Rakesh Sharma, right here on Moneycontrol.

Inhouse slugfest

The bureau said in a statement, It was found that Devender Kumar had fabricated the statement...to corroborate the baseless allegations made by Rakesh Asthana against Alok Verma to the Chief Vigilance Commission. The role of other officers of the SIT supervising the Moin Qureshi case is also being probed. A senior central government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Livemint, The usual course of action when a money trail is established is that the ED takes over the probe. In this case too, ED is likely to probe the money trail against Rakesh Asthana, more so because it is unprecedented for the second-in-command of the CBI to be under the scanner.

The power struggle between Verma and Asthana came into public view when Asthana wrote a letter to the cabinet secretary and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) claiming he was being framed by director Verma. He cited 10 cases of alleged corruption and irregularities against the CBI director. One of them pertained to the case that involved Kumars arrest. Asthana claimed that Sathish Sana, a key witness, paid Rs 2 crore to Verma to get relief in the Qureshi case. The CBI claimed that the allegations were false and malicious.

Hold on, there are more twists. On October 15, 2018, the CBI filed an FIR against Asthana after a complaint by Sana claiming Asthana had received a 3 crore bribe from him - criminal conspiracy and corruption.

Another official told Livemint, Its no secret that Asthana enjoys external support because of which he is able to periodically challenge the director. This is doing nothing but destroying the reputation of CBI.

There had been tension between Asthana and Verma earlier as well - the CBI sent a letter to the CVC stating that Asthana had not been given any powers to represent director Verma in the latters absence.

Asthana was appointed CBIs special director in October 2017, and led several cases like the AgustaWestland scam, coal scam and the investigation against Vijay Mallya. He headed an SIT to probe the 2002 Godhra Sabarmati Express burning case and had given Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, a clean chit in the communal violence that flared up. Alok Verma was appointed earlier that year, in January 2017, and the committee that appointed him included Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, and then Chief Justice of India JS Khehar. Verma has served as the Director General for Tihar prisons, police chief of Mizoram etc.

Big egos, and big fallouts

One India Today report claimed that an insider familiar with the events in the CBI said, The rivalry began the day, Asthanas appointment as special director was cleared by the government. A Rediff report claimed that when Verma took charge, Asthana began flexing his muscles and took decisions without keeping the director in the loop. You can guess what consequences such actions tend to have.

When Rakesh Asthanas appointment as special director came up for approval, Alok Verma opposed the move claiming that Asthanas connection with the Sterling Biotech bribery case tainted him. According to Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Asthana was not fit for the post of special director because his name figured in the diary of Sterling Biotech, which was being investigated by the CBI. Thats when a query by the Central Vigilance Commission to the bureau regarding Asthana received a response clarifying that Rakesh Asthana did not have the mandate to represent agency director Alok Verma.

Now, back to the bribery charges. As mentioned, Asthana claimed Sathish Sana paid Alok Verma a bribe of 2 crores in connection with the case of meat-exporter Moin Qureshi who was being investigated for tax evasion. Asthana also said when he and his team wanted to arrest Sana in February, Verma called him and told him not to do so. He also accused Alok Verma of taking him off probes into the IRCTC case against Lalu Prasad Yadav and the INX Media case involving former finance minister P Chidambaram.

Sana, on the other hand, claimed he paid Asthana a bribe of 3 crores through a Dubai-based middleman named Manoj Prasad. He claims Manoj showed him a WhatsApp conversation with Asthana and he saw Asthana's profile picture with the number which reassured him that Manoj's connection to Asthana was legitimate. Sana claimed Manoj also said Asthana had stayed at his home in London the previous year, and Manojs brother Somesh had also named a senior RAW officer Samant Kumar Goel. The FIR against Asthana named Goel as part of the extortion gang.

And then there was politics

The Asthana-Verma tussle turned political after Congress party president Rahul Gandhi tweeted, blue-eyed boy has been caught taking bribes. Under this prime minister, the CBI is a weapon of political vendetta.

On October 24 2018, the central government divested both, Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana, of their powers just hours after Verma directed his deputy to go on leave. The government stepped in after their feud threatened to sully the image of Indias premier investigative agency that is probing a series of high-profile corruption cases. The appointments committee of the cabinet said that one Nageswara Rao, who was serving as a joint director of the CBI, had been appointed as interim director of the agency.

Heres how it played out:

According to media reports, at 9.30pm on Tuesday 23 October 2018, Alok Verma signed orders to send Rakesh Asthana on leave. This was reportedly done a day after Verma had approached the PMO seeking Asthanas suspension. Two hours later, the PMO, allegedly at the behest of the CVC, summoned top officials of the department of personnel and training and issued immediate orders to send Verma also on leave. By 1am on Wednesday, government officials reached North Block to execute the orders, after which Rao took charge of CBI, along with the case loads of both Verma and Asthana. Media reports claimed that orders were issued on Wednesday to transfer 13 officers including Ajay Bassi, the investigating officer in the Asthana bribery case. Bassi was transferred to Port Blair while SS Gurm, an additional superintendent of police, was transferred to Jabalpur and Manish Kumar Sinha, a deputy inspector general, was transferred to Nagpur.

Alok Verma challenged his forced leave order in the Supreme Court. He claimed the centres move was patently illegal because it was in violation of the provisions under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, which secure a two-year term for the CBI director. His petition stated, The CBI ought to be insulated from the government, the present actions give serious credence to the requirement that the CBI be given independence from the DoT which seriously hinders the independent functioning of the institution. Verma further claimed that the high powered committee, comprising the Prime Minister, the leader of opposition and chief justice of India, was not consulted by the centre before appointing Nageswara Rao as the new director.

The government claimed it had exercised its powers under Section 4(2) of the same act to divest the director and the deputy director of their powers. It also said the CVC had observed that the Director CBI had been non-cooperative with the Commission, non-compliant with the requirements/ directions of the Commission and has created wilful obstructions in the functioning of the Commission which is a constitutional body.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley told the media, This is an unfortunate episode. The CVCs powers are prevalent in this matter with prevailing powers of superintendence it is concerned to prevention of corruption act cases, the power of investigation is with the CVC...the CVC suggested that these accusations cant be examined by anyone under their supervision. So, to maintain the integrity of CBI, an SIT not functioning under either of these two officers will investigate the case.

As per a follow-up report in one news outlet, a former CBI official claimed that though Verma had a fixed tenure of two years, the governments decision to send him on leave was not illegal. He explained, This is not illegal since it does not curtail the directors term. Technically he has been sent on leave and not sacked. This was decided on by the chief vigilance commissioner and this is much needed because two officers cant go on like this.

Importantly, according to Livemint, the fight between Asthana and Verma puts at risk the bureaus probe into why fraud-accused Vijay Mallya was allowed to leave the country, as well as the matter of his extradition from the UK. It also compromised the probes into the 14,356 crore PNB fraud case and the AgustaWestland chopper scam.

Former politicians Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha as well as lawyer Prashant Bhushan came out in support of Verma. Shourie and Sinha, who have long been critics of the current government, demanded a probe in the Rafale deal, citing criminal misconduct by high functionaries. Meanwhile, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi permitted the CVC to conduct an inquiry against Verma on charges of non-compliance, non-cooperation and wilful obstruction.

The cases on Alok Verma's table before he was removed

At the time when Verma was shunted out, he was supervising seven cases, according to a report by The Indian Expres. Lets take a look at the cases that were left unfinished, as listed by The Indian Express:

Rafale deal case: The high-profile Rafale deal case has become a talking point and Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi have been trying to corner the central government over the issue. CBI is probing a complaint against alleged irregularities in the Rafale fighter deal with France. CBI was going ahead with the verification process of the complaint. Former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan had filed a 132-page complaint and submitted to Verma.

Medical Council of India (MCI) bribery case: Another controversial and much-publicised case which was being monitored by Verma himself. The CBI was looking into the alleged involvement of highly-placed individuals in the case which also implicated retired High Court judge I M Quddusi. The charge sheet has been filed and was awaiting Vermas signature, as per The Indian Express report.

The case of Justice S N Shukla of Allahabad High Court: Another case involving Allahabad High Court Justice S N Shukla was lying on Vermas table. Shukla was sent on leave over allegations of corruption in medical admissions. The CBI has prepared preliminary enquiry (PE).

Verma was supervising a case in which BJP MP Subramanian Swamy wrote letters to the CBI, complaining against Finance and Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia.

A key case involving IAS officer Bhaskar Khulbe, Secretary to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is being investigated by the CBI in a case of allocation of coal mines.

The other case is Sandesara and the Sterling Biotech matter which was set to culminate. In this case, Asthanas role was being probed by CBI.

In the first week of October, a Delhi-based middleman was raided. CBI during its probe found that an alleged payoff list and Rs 3 crore in cash. The CBI ascertained that the person had a pivotal role in bribing politicians and officials for senior Public Sector Unit appointments."

Over to the court

In late November, the Supreme Court said it would consider whether the government had the power to divest the CBI director of his duties under whatever circumstances, or whether the selection committee headed by the Prime Minister should have been approached before moving against Verma. In December, Attorney general KK Venugopal told a bench headed by chief justice Ranjan Gogoi, Dispute between CBI director and special director was pulling down integrity and respect of the premier institution. Two top officers, Alok Kumar Verma and Rakesh Asthana, were fighting against each other and went public, which exposed CBI to ridicule...If the government had not (intervened), only God knows where and how this fight between the two top officers would have ended.

In January, in a victory for Verma, the apex court reinstated him to his earlier position. However, the SC bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and KM Joseph said they restrained Verma from taking any major policy decision until the high-powered committee considers his case. The panel - which consists of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India - was being given one week's notice to consider the case.

This decision also took on a political hue. The Congress party said Alok Verma was removed without being given a chance to present his case, which showed that PM Modi was too afraid of an investigation - a reference to its demand of a probe into the Rafale deal. Verma was transferred as Director General of Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards, an offer which he refused and subsequently resigned from the Indian Police Services (IPS) instead. The BJP responded in typical fashion, stating, Sore loser Congress is licking its wounds after failing to subvert the CBI by joining internal personal battles. The only investigation pending is of 'The Family' that received bribes from 'Mama Christian Michel' in multiple defence deals. Lies of Rahul Gandhi completely exposed.

Another twist in the tale

PTI reported that the Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear next week the plea challenging the appointment of M Nageswara Rao as the interim Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chief, PTI has reported. The petition, filed by NGO Common Cause is seeking to quash the January 10 order of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet that named Rao as the acting CBI chief for a second time.

Rao was first made the interim chief of CBI after the then Director Alok Verma was divested of his powers and sent on forced leave in October last year. The NGOs plea also seeks that the procedure laid down in Section 4A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, amended by the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 should be followed for the appointment of the CBI director.

After the removal of former CBI chief Alok Verma by the committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rao was named as the interim chief of the agency for the second time. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge termed the appointment of Rao as interim chief as illegal and in a letter to the PM Modi urged that a meeting of the selection committee should be called immediately to choose a new CBI Director without further delay. Kharge had voted against the removal of Verma as the CBI chief and has since asked that the findings of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and Justice A K Patnaiks report on Verma should be available on public domain so that the people can draw their own conclusions in the matter.

What happens next on this episode of Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki - CBI Edition is the stuff of next week.
Answer: Best Buy

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In January, so far, Sensex has risen around half a percent. But broader markets are still lagging frontliners with the BSE Midcap index falling 1.6 percent and Smallcap index down a third of a percent.

In comparison, Sensex gained 6 percent in 2018. BSE Midcap index fell 13.5 percent and Smallcap index was down 24 percent in 2018.

Overall, especially after the run in November, the market has been rangebound and stock-specific action has continued, which is likely to be the top theme in the rest of 2019 as well.

Most experts feel the volatility will continue in the first half of 2019, so it is better to go with stock-specific action rather than looking at index return.

"We believe that the first half may be muted on account of upcoming elections. However, if a stable, reform-oriented government were to assume power, that would be a positive trigger for equities, which we believe will be the case. Thus, the first half may be a good time for investors to buy stocks," Vivek Ranjan Misra, Head of Fundamental Research at Karvy Stock Broking told Moneycontrol.

Even after the recent recovery, the market is still down 7 percent from its peak hit in August 2018 and broader markets are far away from their historic highs but that gives analyst an opportunity to pick good quality stocks at right time.

Here is the list of top 10 stocks where analysts initiated coverage with buy call and are expected to return 20-50%:

Brokerage: Ambit Capital | Stock: VIP Industries | Target: Rs 653 | Return: 27%

VIP Industries is India's leading luggage brand (around 55 percent organised share), #1 player (value terms) in backpacks and making inroads into ladies handbags (less than 2 percent share, $1 billion market).

Distribution architecture, product quality and brand segmentation across price points drove 25 percent EBITDA CAGR over FY14-18. Experienced team investing in brand and now own capacities (Bangladesh) should drive 24 percent revenue CAGR over FY18-23.

Despite currency volatility and rising procurement costs, 29 percent EPS CAGR over FY18-23 should be led by 1) 24 percent revenue CAGR from rising contribution of backpacks/handbags and 2) EBITDA margin improving to 16.9 percent (versus 13.7 percent) led by captive production, premimumisation and operating leverage.

We initiate coverage with buy call and target price of Rs 653 is built on high-teen revenue growth over the next decade as penetration and brand salience rise. Risks are management attrition and market share loss in economy segment.

Brokerage: Kotak Securities | Stock: Surya Roshni | Target: Rs 328 | Return: 32%

We initiate coverage on Surya Roshni (SURL) with buy rating and a target price of Rs 328 based on SOTP (Sum of the parts) valuation methodology.

We believe that SURL valuations can get rerated on back of 1) potential demerger of companys consumer electrical and steel pipes business 2) strong growth in companys estimated consolidated profits through FY18-20E driven by a) meaningful growth in fans & consumer appliance segments supported by improved penetration on the current lower base b) stability in LED prices c) recovery in the pipes business driven by improved public spending in infrastructure.

We project 18.7 percent CAGR between FY18-20 in consolidated profits from Rs 108 crore in FY18 to Rs 150 crore in FY20E, expect improved return ratios and balance sheet strengthening-building a case for stock re-rating.

Brokerage: Karvy Stock Broking | Stock: KEC International | Target: Rs 376 | Return: 37%

With the growth imperatives in international and domestic T&D sector along with huge potential in other infrastructure sectors like railways and civil, we initiate a coverage with buy rating for a target price on KEC (Rs 376).

The revenues are expected to grow at 16 percent CAGR during FY18-20E by execution of huge order book. The overseas T&D opportunities are strongly visible, also the non T&D business is gaining traction in the international markets.

The current order book of Rs 20,135 crore stands at 1.9x the revenues which provide a very strong revenue visibility of 16 percent CAGR during FY18-20E.

Brokerage: Karvy Stock Broking | Stock: Kalpataru Power Transmission | Target: Rs 497 | Return: 81%

A very strong order book in T&D business and a very strong momentum of growth in Non T&D business would lead the revenues to grow at 15 percent CAGR during FY18-20E. The overseas T&D business is expected to grow on the back of strong orders from Africa, Middle East and SAARC nations.

Also Kalpataru is trying to gain traction in the international markets for its non T&D business. With subsidiaries going to perform strongly, it should support the cash flows for the company.

We arrive at a target price of Rs 497 for a buy rating.

Brokerage: JM Financial | Stock: Karur Vysya Bank | Target: Rs 120 | Return: 32%

Karur Vysya Bank's track record of consistent profitability over the last 102 years and unbroken dividend payout is pretty commendable.

Reasons to be sanguine on KVB now is a new CEO at helm (completing over a year in office now), taking charge from a large MNC with a brilliant track record in retail banking, focus back to serve SME/Individuals which has always been its core strength, digitization of its product suite to ensure it remains competitive and relevant in the current data age and last but not the least with asset quality pain over, credit costs is expected to normalize leading to a bounce back in ROAs from 0.5 percent in FY17/18 to an estimated 1.2 percent in FY21E.

We initiate coverage on Karur Vysya Bank and assign a buy rating with a target price of Rs 120.

Brokerage: Axis Securities | Stock: City Union Bank | Target: Rs 228 | Return: 22%

City Union Bank, over last few years, has witnessed relatively better and stable valuations owing to consistent return profile vis-a-vis midsized private bank peers.

We believe the bank with superior net interest margin, best return profile, grip on asset quality with greater bottomline visibility over the medium term should continue to fetch higher multiple.

We initiate buy with a target price at Rs 228 per share.

Brokerage: HDFC Securities | Stock: Laurus Labs | Target: Rs 480 | Return: 27%

Laurus is likely to come out stronger as backward integration for the key molecule is already in place and the formulations business is about to be in the black with fresh orders.

With a likely initial tender win, Laurus is set to enter the $1.8 billion ARV formulations market in FY20. It can capture at least 15 percent market share (in 3 products), supported by one of the largest API capacities.

At FY21E formulations revenues/EBITDA of $85/25 million, earnings can triple over FY19-21E (on a soft base). Moreover, we expect a couple of big ticket formulations launches in the US market by FY21 which can further boost profitability. Initiate coverage with a buy rating and target price of Rs 480.

Brokerage: Centrum | Stock: Federal Bank | Target: Rs 135 | Return: 48%

We initiate coverage on Federal Bank with a buy call and target price Rs 135. The bank is evolving to a more prolific private banking franchise on the back of its balance sheet size, quality growth trajectory, pan India expansion strategy, branch light-distribution heavy model, digital architecture and senior management pedigree.

Incremental flow to higher rated assets has maintained capital adequacy at healthy levels (CAR - 13.3 percent). Stressed asset ratio has substantially declined over FY14-Q2FY19 and we expect credit cost to recede.

All these levers will enhance return on assets / return on equity to by 41 bps / 520 bps over FY18-21 to 1.1 percent / 12.6 percent. Valuation looks attractive.

Brokerage: Arihant Capital Markets | Stock: Natco Pharma | Target: Rs 864 | Return: 27%

Natco Pharma is a leading player in the oncology and the hepatitis C business in India and had successful product launches in USA led by prime molecules such as Tamiflu, Copaxone, Doxorubicin and Lanthanum.

Company has partnered with leading generic player which reduces company's litigation cost. A large untapped domestic market growing in mid-teens and US-driven international business with 29 ANDAs in the pipeline and relatively lower risk of sharp pricing erosion puts Natco in a sweet spot among peers.

We expect Natco to report 14 percent CAGR in its revenue and PAT over FY18-20E. EBITDA margin is expected to stabilise at 40 percent. We are positive on the future prospects of Natco and initiate coverage on the stock with a Buy rating and a target price of Rs 864.

Brokerage: Anand Rathi | Stock: Nocil | Target: Rs 210 | Return: 28%

Capacity expansions of tyre companies (demand side) and the doubling of Nocils production capacity (supply side) should keep volume growth steady for the company.

However, auto sector sales would determine OEM demand and, growth in the logistics sector, the tyre replacement market, and in turn utilisation of tyre-companies new capex. This would govern realisations of rubber chemicals.

Potential growth in this jamboree of binary events keeps us cautiously optimistic about Nocil. Nevertheless, we initiate coverage on it, with a buy rating, for a target price of Rs 210.

Risks are removal of the anti-dumping duty on Chinese rubber chemicals and tyres, reduction in the average selling price (ASP) of rubber chemicals.

: The above report is compiled from information available on public platforms. Moneycontrol advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday encouraged India and Denmark to establish a research platform for finding solutions to global issues such as food security, water management, climate change and sustainable development.

During his bilateral meeting with the visiting Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Lkke Rasmussen at Gandhinagar, Modi said this could be achieved as Denmark had the skills and India the scale, and there was a need for new technologies in the world.

The Danish prime minister is on a two-day visit to India from January 18 to 19, for the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, 2019 in Gandhinagar, where Denmark is participating as a 'partner country'.

Rasmussen is accompanied by a business delegation, including CEOs of major Danish companies, an External Affairs Ministry statement said.

The bilateral meeting between the two leaders was held on the sidelines of the summit. They had earlier met during the first India-Nordic summit in Stockholm in April 2018.

During the meeting, the statement said, the two leaders deliberated upon various areas of bilateral cooperation and also exchanged views on multilateral issues of mutual interest.

"They underscored the huge potential for expanding bilateral trade and investments between the two countries," it said.

Denmark is a global leader in several niche technologies which are of relevance to India.

During the meeting, two MoUs were also exchanged. One on maritime issues between the Ministry of Shipping of India and the Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs of Denmark and another between Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited and the Danish Embassy in New Delhi to establish an Urban Living Lab in Panaji, Goa.

Around 130 Danish companies have invested in India in areas such as shipping, renewable energy, environment, agriculture and food processing and are keen to expand their engagements in other sectors like smart urban development and waste-to-energy.

Several major Danish companies are also present in Gujarat in shipping and renewable energy sectors.
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Paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi in the year of his 150th birth anniversary, Reliance Industries CMD Mukesh Ambani called for a revolution against data colonisation, drawing parallels to Gandhi's movement against political colonisation.

"In this new world, data is the new oil and data is the new wealth. India's data must be controlled and owned by Indian people and not by corporates, especially global corporations. For India to succeed in this data data-driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data, back to India," Ambani said, at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Gandhinagar.

Ambani said that the world has come to recognise Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a man of action. He went on to suggest to the PM, who was also present at the summit, to make this one of the principal goals of his digital India vision.

Calling Gujarat Reliance's janmbhumi and karmabhumi, Ambani said that he has invested nearly Rs 3 lakh crore in the state so far and that investment will double over the next 10 years. He also announced that Jio and Reliance Retail will launch a unique e-commerce platform in Gujarat. He added that Jio's Network is fully ready for 5G technology and the company is committed to making Gujarat fully digital.

Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
Gandhinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes hands with President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev on the sidelines of 'Vibrant Gujarat', in Gandhinagar, Friday, Jan 18, 2019. (PIB Photo via PTI) (PTI1_18_2019_000060B)

The government on Friday entered into a long term contract with Uzbekistan to supply uranium ore concentrates to fuel the nuclear reactors.

The contract was signed in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who are here for the Vibrant Gujarat summit that began on Friday. The two leaders also held a bilateral meeting.

The agreement was signed between the department of atomic energy and Novoi Minerals & Metallurgical Company of Uzbekistan, the external affairs ministry said in a statement without offering more details.

Meanwhile, the Exim Bank entered into an agreement with Uzbekistan to offer a USD 200-million credit line to finance housing and social infrastructure projects in the former Soviet republic, it said, adding this was announced by Modi during the official visit of Mirziyoyev last October.

Mirziyoyev said he was keen on attracting Indian capital in areas like IT, education, pharma, healthcare, agri business and tourism.

According to the World Nuclear Association, an international organisation that represents the global nuclear industry, the landlocked Central Asian country is the seventh largest exporter of uranium in the world.

New Delhi has been working on securing a stockpile of nuclear fuel for its strategic uranium reserve to sustain the country's nuclear reactors for the next five years so that the reactors stop functioning for want of fuel as had happened after the Pokhran II nuclear tests.

The US and other nations had imposed economic and technology sanctions on New Delhi following both the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998.

Attempts are also being made to procure uranium from Australia. A nuclear cooperation pact between the two nations was signed in 2014 and came into force in 2015.

After the Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement, New Delhi's quest to have a uranium reserve got traction as importing fuel became much easier.

Apart from domestic production, India currently imports uranium from Kazakhstan and Canada. This is primarily used to fuel its indigenously built pressurised heavy water reactors. Some uranium is also produced from Russia. Apart from that, it has agreements in place to import uranium from Namibia and Mongolia.
Ziman was reporting on the first full year of the contract, 2018, in which drunken driving arrests in the city went from 326 in 2017 to 447 in 2018. But that 326 in 2017 had also represented an almost 40 percent increase from 2016, and Aurora police officials had credited that to the work of DiGiovannis office for the last three months of 2017.
The Kerala government on January 18 informed the Supreme Court that a total of 51 women under the age of 50 had entered Sabarimala temple in Kerala since the apex court's verdict allowing women of all ages to entry.

The top court also directed Kerala Police to ensure round-the-clock security to two women -- Kanakadurga and Bindu -- who had entered the temple first on January 2, despite protests right-wing Hindu groups.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and Justices LN Rao and SK Kaul was hearing a plea by the two women.

The plea sought directions to all authorities to allow women of all age groups to enter the temple without any hindrance and to ensure security and safe passage, including police security to women wishing to enter the temple in future.

On September 28 last year, a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in a 4:1 verdict paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple, saying the ban amounted to gender discrimination.

Kanakadurga and Bindu had stepped into the hallowed precincts on January 2 guarded by police three months after the apex court's historic judgment lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity.

The top court has said it may not start hearing pleas seeking a review of the Sabarimala verdict from January 22 as one of the judges was on medical leave.

Earlier, the apex court decided to hear in open court the review petitions against the verdict. Besides Justice Indu Malhotra and the CJI, justices RF Nariman, AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud are part of the five-judge constitution bench.

Justice Malhotra had delivered the dissenting judgment in the case.

(With inputs from PTI)
With scarcely available ready A-grade rent-yielding commercial assets being taken up fast and the housing market no longer offering the kind of returns it did a few years ago, investors are now turning to other options such as warehousing, co-living, co-working spaces and even student housing to get the best bang from the buck.

There is a major shift from investors putting in their money into small office spaces to co-working spaces. Theres also been a trend wherein investors are buying into large floor plates and handing them over to co-working players to manage such spaces on a revenue share model with their gains often working out to be around 13-14 percent IRR, said real estate experts.

Another option is warehousing where investors are typically outsourcing it to a third party to manage the facilities. Debt is relatively cheaper because warehousing has been given infrastructure status. Loans under priority sector lending are at around 9.5 percent.

Student housing is yet another option as it is a resilient and a risk averse segment.

Here's a look at these realty investment options:

Co-working spaces

Co-working operators are expected to lease about 7-9 million sq ft by 2020 from over 5 million sq ft estimated this year, according to property consultant CBRE. Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR were the largest markets for flexible spaces in India, with a combined share of almost 55 percent in overall leasing by flexible space operators.

The concept of co-working spaces essentially involves groups of individual professionals and small and increasingly large-scale businesses who share workspaces. In an age when business cycles have dramatically reduced and companies need to constantly innovate to survive and remain competitive over the long term, a co-working workplace may provide the environment that fosters fresh thinking and innovation.

Besides companies, people such as business nomads, expats or those travelling to the country for a limited period are amongst those preferring to work out of plug-and-play co-working spaces. Another constituent is the growing volume of freelance workers (gig economy) who support corporate entities with specialised outsourced services in the advisory, consulting and designing domain such as recruiting and advertising, says a Knight Frank report.

Co-working spaces also enable the typical start-up to bypass the fixed rental cost with the additional capex requirements of fit outs and operational hassles of a traditional office space and opt for the flexibility of a co-working office. This not only allows the new business to occupy a contemporary workplace on a per seat basis but also the flexibility to increase, reduce or to exit the workplace.

Of late, several developers are planning on starting their own co-working offices or collaborating with a co-working operator to provide incubation spaces, or divide large floor plates for smaller occupants.

While co-working companies accounted for just under 0.2 mn sq mt (2 mn sq ft) of the 3.8 mn sq mt (3.8 mn sq ft) annual commercial office space transactions volume, the expansion plans of major players and the increasing appetite for this format from occupiers, property owners and co-working operators should see annual transaction numbers triple from current levels over the next three years. Currently, Bengaluru, Mumbai and NCR house most of the co-working stock in India followed by Hyderabad and Pune, says the report.

Warehousing

Warehousing investment accounted for around 26 percent of the total private equity (PE) investments into real estate during January 2014  January 2018. Around USD 3.4 billion (Rs 22,100 crore) of institutional capital has flown into this sector during this period. The actual size of capital movement would be higher, as these numbers only cover the major investments by organised players.

New developments or greenfield projects accounted for 67 percent of the total investments followed by 27 percent for acquisition of complete projects, says a Knight Frank report.

In light of the slump in the Indian residential market over the past few years and the track record of poor returns; investors preferred to invest in rent-yielding commercial assets. With increased investor activity in the commercial segment and the acute shortage in supply of good quality of office space, the cap rates are declining and inching below 8 percent from the 910 percent range witnessed a few years ago.

The risk-reward ratio would start becoming unfavourable as the cap rates start to decline further below 77.5 percent. As a result, there has been a considerable shift in investors focus towards the warehousing sector, the report says, adding the warehousing assets are offering a higher cap rate around 150200 bps greater compared to what commercial assets are currently offering, says the report.

Going forward, demand for large warehousing spaces is likely to see steady increase as occupiers now to move out of their smaller warehouses and consolidate their activities in larger facilities, which are presently in short supply compared to the demand. This demand-supply gap is visible in the current premium commanded by organised players owning these assets. For example, in the Bhiwandi warehousing cluster, the rents for unorganised spaces are as low as Rs 9 per sq ft, whereas organised players are commanding rents in the range of Rs 1417 per sq ft in the same region.

As more and more companies streamline their logistics networks, unorganised players or smaller organised players would consolidate or sell their assets to larger ones. The industry is expected to witness a structural shift over the next 35 years. The warehousing aspect in the logistics supply chain globally is going through a transformation. From being a mere storage space provider for goods, the segment is offering an array of value added services such as packaging, small scale manufacturing, cross docking, automation, algorithm based demand forecasting and distribution centres.

Who should invest?

Warehousing will be in demand regardless of REITs simply because of the push for logistics infrastructure in the country. GST rationalisation, and the growth of e-Commerce are additional drivers for large scale warehouses in various locations. Additionally, with Indias logistic industry being awarded the infrastructure status there is more interest in the sector for investments. Investments in Tier 2 cities and the outskirts of metros is a good bet by as they are perfect for a hub and spoke model and allow for easy transportation, says Mudassir Zaidi, executive director North, Knight Frank India.

So, if you are interested in this asset class, look at investing in warehousing facilities that are not less than 30-40 acres. The IRR that this option is likely to fetch is around 18 percent, says Anckur Srivasttava of GenReal Advisers.

Student housing

Student housing offers opportunities both to those who have the appetite to invest and developers who could bank on it as a lucrative rental yielding revenue stream. Currently, there are several players in the student housing space who have entered the market knowing fully well that there is huge demand but lack of supply. These include Your Space; Oxfordcaps which offers premium student housing facilities in Delhi-NCR and is headquartered in Singapore and Stanza Living.

As per a report by Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and JLL India, titled, 'Future of India Real Estate: Deciphering the Mid-term Perspective', student housing has the potential to yield more than 12 percent returns vis-a-vis the core commercial sector in which returns remain rangebound between 7 percent and 10 percent. This sector is expected to see a compounded annual growth rate of 38 percent to Rs 2,400 crore until 2020. It is currently worth Rs 1,267 crore. The sector is still at a nascent stage with the top 15 players dominating the organised space. They cumulatively operate around 84,500 beds and plans to grow to 1,60,000 beds by 2020.

This segment is largely part of an unorganised market. Student housing players generally charge on a per bed basis with a host of facilities such as food, WiFi, laundry, security, gymnasium, leisure activities, independent kitchenettes, food delivery and even shuttle services to colleges thrown in.

Who should invest?

"Student housing is yet another option as it is a resilient and a risk averse segment. In case you wish to invest in this asset class, look for at least an option of 100 rooms. IRR expected to be around 12-13 percent," said experts.

Student housing is a relatively new concept in India. The government impetus on education, a young migrant population base and public private partnerships in the sector have changed how student housing was perceived. One of the main advantages of investment in this class is that it offers stability unlike others since there will always be a demand.

"Mainly two models are prevalent in this segment, one will be where asset is owned and operated and the other model which is picking up in India is the only-operation model. Investment selection should ideally be closer to campus and offer ample connectivity. With all the pros, the student housing as an asset class is still growing and will require capital for asset generation and operation given the paying capacity of the target segment, said Zaidi.

Co-living spaces

In India, the co-living spaces opportunity is here to stay as the millennial population currently accounts for 440 million. The growing interest for co-living spaces in cities such as Bengaluru, the National Capital Region (NCR) and Pune has been instrumental in many investors sitting up and taking notice of this emerging sector to diversify their portfolio and risk.

The renting philosophy for co-living spaces is derived from millennial behaviour where such renters share less utilised areas such as living spaces, kitchen, balconies, etc. in order to make an economical rental decision and be part of a working community.

This trend is giving impetus to an organised rental market in cities such as Bengaluru, NCR and Pune in the same way as co-working spaces did for shared office spaces.

With the Indian home renting market estimated at $32 billion, investing in the co-living sector presents a new asset class for investors to diversify their risks. Since the co-living model allows sharing of lower utilisation areas such as kitchen, living rooms, the design of these products is such that it allows more people to be accommodated on the same floor plate and generate more rental income from it. The co-living sector is at a nascent stage, with low entry barriers a higher rental yield between 1013 percent can be achieved, according to a Knight Frank report.

Co-living operators typically take properties on long-term lease from property owners, bear the makeover costs, load the properties with amenities and invest in creating a tech platform for residents. They also charge on per bed basis from renters for managing the properties

Who should invest?

"Co-living and co-working is mainly targeting the same cities where housing and office space is expensive. Typically, both will be an agreeable option for new start-ups and young employees that want to stay flexible and will look to move or upgrade in a short time frame of time. Cities that drive employment such as the IT capital of Bangalore, Gurugram, Pune, Chennai are going to be ideal places to invest in these asset classes," added Zaidi.

vandana.ramnani@nw18.com
A tiny small equity fund, from an equally tiny fund house, appears to have come out from nowhere and is setting the charts on fire. As on January 16, 2019, Quant Tax Plan (QTS) gave the best returns in the past 5-year period with a 21.25% return.

Over the past 3-year period, it returned 17% return; the third best return among all tax-saving mutual fund schemes. Between the years of 2014 and 2018, it gave top quintile return in all years except one (2017). At just Rs.8.2 crore (as on the end of December 2018), this scheme is making heads turn also because the tax season is on and investors are rushing to make last minute investments in tax-saving vehicles. What is this scheme all about and should you invest in it?

Leaving a sedate past, behind

Quant Money Managers is one of the Indias smallest fund houses that manages equity and debt schemes, including QTS. The fund house was earlier called as Escorts Asset Management Ltd, a Delhi-based fund house from the house of Escorts, which was launched in December 1995. The fund house was set by Escorts Finance Ltd, a non-banking finance company, part of the Escorts Group that manufactures tractors and farm equipment.

While most of the Rs.23.61 trillion Indian mutual funds (MF) industry is headquartered in Mumbai, Escorts AMC was the rare fund house that was based out of Delhi. With its overall corpus size hovering around Rs 200 crore for many years, it has been one of Indias smallest fund houses.

In 2015, Sandeep Tandon, founder of Quant Group, an institutional brokerage firm acquired a token stake of 9% in the fund house, in his individual capacity. Apart from being an institutional broking firm, Tandons firm also managed money for high net worth families and family offices.

In December 2017, the Escorts Group decided to exit the Indian MF industry. The capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India gave it preliminary approval in October 2017, Tandons group took control of the fund house checked in and renamed the fund house to Quant Money Managers in February 2018, Sebis final approval came in June 2018 and the fund house marched on.

Active management with a twist

Tandon's involvement with the fund house has woken it up from its slumber. Like all its equity fund, QTS is actively-managed. But one look at QTSs portfolio tells us that it is managed, perhaps more, actively than most other equity funds. Like all other actively-managed schemes, QTS also relies on companies balance sheets and annual results to track their fundamentals. In addition, Quant has developed multiple data points to track factors such as valuation, liquidity and risk that, Tandon, says affects the share prices of companies.

For instance, QTS reduced its holding in HDFC Bank sharply in the month of December 2018 where most other equity schemes held on to the stock or tinkered with the holding marginally. QTSs holding in HDFC Bank was at 3.84% of its corpus in December 2018, down from 7.90% in November 2018.

Apart from three fund managers and four analysts, the fund house also has four people, part of its fund management team, which looks at analytics; numbers and statistics that aim to predict market and companies outcome.

QTS stayed away from Hindustan Unilever throughout 2018 but bought a small quantity of its shares (2.98% of its corpus) in October 2018. It sold the shares in November and then again bought it (5.16% of its corpus) in December 2018.

We do not stick to investing in stocks as per our benchmark index. If our data points prove that there is excessive risk in the making, for any of our holding, we do not hesitate in removing it from our portfolio. The fund house is actively managed; we do not necessarily buy-and-hold, says Tandon, founder of Quant Group.

He adds that apart from studying the companys financials (much like any other fund house), the firm relies heavily on its data analytics, more than meeting with company managements to judge the companies future.

Despite avoiding stocks like Kotak Mahindra Bank and IndusInd that did exceedingly well in 2018, QTS gave a top quintile performance in 2018. It held Kotak Mahindra Bank briefly between July and September 2018. It also held less than 2% in IndusInd Bank February and July 2018.

Since early 2017, QTS has consistently reduced its exposure to small-sized companies and in 2018 it cut its exposure to mid-sized companies. QTS holds a concentrated portfolio of about 30-35 stocks on account of its small size.

Should you invest?

These are early days but QTS and the rest of the fund house holds promise. Tandon says that the scheme aims to be a consistent performer rather than being ranked at no.1.

The schemes performance is good, despite avoiding some of the best performing stocks in 2018. However, it remains to be seen if this strategy works when its size grows. Its current size of Rs 8 crore is fairly small which makes the scheme agile and nimble footed, says Roopali Prabhu, head of investment products, Sanctum Wealth, a boutique advisory firm.

We need to see its consistency over time. Besides, its size, as Prabhu rightly points out, is too small. If you wish to invest in a tax-saving mutual fund this year, we suggest you avoid QTS for now. Take a look at other schemes that come with a longer track record.
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Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani announced plans to launch a new e-commerce venture at the 9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit on January 18.

Ambani said that the foray, "the second mega mission for India", will be first rolled out in Gujarat, hinting at tough competition ahead for Amazon and Walmart. The first mega venture for the company was Reliance Jio that caused ripples in the country's telecom industry.

The planned e-commerce venture, powered by Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail, would be a platform to empower 12 lakh shopkeepers and retailers, he said.

Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
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City-based tyre major MRF on Friday said it has bagged the top rank in terms of customer satisfaction in the J D Power 2018 India Tractor Tyre Satisfaction Index Study.

MRF Tyres performed strongly in the four tyre performance-related factors - durability, traction, ride quality and appearance, a press release from the company said. The JD Power 2018 is the inaugural edition of the tyre satisfaction index.

The recognition highlights the position of MRF in the market as the most preferred farm tyre brand among tractor owners, the release said. The study also finds that satisfaction with tyres was higher when customers personally choose the brand installed on the tractors, it said.

MRF offers the range tyres to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers)under the farm portfolio, it said. Executive vice-president (marketing)of MRF Tyres Koshy Varghese received the award from J D Power, Practice Lead for agriculture and construction equipment, Yukti Arora at an event recently, the release added.
August 2019 | Sun Pharma - 85 employees reportedly terminated after company shut 2 units

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Shares of Sun Pharmaceuticals plummeted over 8 percent as investors reacted to a fresh complaint by a whistleblower against the company.

The company lost a little over Rs 15,000 crore market capitalisation in the past two sessions.

According to Moneylife magazine, between 2014 and 2017, Aditya Medisales (AML) has had over Rs 5,800 crore of transactions with Suraksha Realty, controlled by Sun Pharmas co-promoter, Sudhir Valia. This is as per a new 172-page complaint (with documents) sent by the whistleblower on Sun Pharma to the market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

The company has been battling corporate governance issues. In December 2018, the first complaint by whistleblower alleged that Dilip Shanghvi, his brother-in-law Sudhir Valia were part of financial irregularities with Dharmesh Doshi. Doshi was allegedly a key figure in Ketan Parekh scam of 2001.

The company was also in the news recently for a drug recall.

Its US subsidiary started voluntarily recalling 13,918 cartons of Vecuronium Bromide Injection of 10 mg and 20 mg strengths from US market at hospital level, following the identification of "particulate matter identified as glass" in the product.

The Vecuronium Bromide for Injection has been found to contain particulate matter identified as glass," Sun Pharma said in a letter to the US Food and Drug Administration on January 8.

The company, in a filing to exchanges, has clarified some aspects with regards to the complaint. The said whistleblower documents and other confidential emails are being offered for inspection to institutional investors by one media house as per the report, which again we are not privy to.

In these circumstances, there is a great asymmetry in the information circulating between analysts, investors and media leading to intense speculation. The availability of information contained in the whistleblower documents to a set of selective investors does put other investors including retail investors in a disadvantageous position.

We are concerned that certain entities/individuals are adopting unfair trade practices prejudicial to the interest of shareholders and other stakeholders. It is evident from the fact that shareholders value has been drastically eroded within a short span of time due to unsubstantiated complaint/allegation against the company and mala fide campaign launched by certain media houses, it added.

At 09:30 hrs Sun Pharmaceutical Industries was quoting at Rs 384.75, down Rs 42.40, or 9.93 percent, on the BSE. It touched a 52-week low of Rs 375.40.
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Here are stocks that are in the news today:

Results on Friday: Wipro, Atul, MPS, NIIT Technologies, Muthoot Capital Services, Zee Learn, Larsen & Toubro Infotech, Kajaria Ceramics, Omax Autos, MT Educare, SBI Life Insurance Company, Dhanlaxmi Bank, 3i Infotech, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company

Board meeting on Friday: Vascon Engineers (fund raising), Solara Active Pharma Sciences (fund raising).

Reliance Industries Q3: Consolidated profit grows 7.7 percent to Rs 10,251 crore versus Rs 9,516 crore, revenue increases 9.1 percent to Rs 1.56 lakh crore versus Rs 1.43 lakh crore QoQ.

Reliance Jio Q3: Profit jumps 22.1 percent to Rs 831 crore versus Rs 681 crore, revenue rises 12.4 percent to Rs 10,383 crore versus Rs 9,240 crore QoQ.

Hindustan Unilever Q3: Profit rises 8.9 percent to Rs 1,444 crore versus Rs 1,326 crore; revenue increases 11.3 percent to Rs 9,558 crore versus Rs 8,590 crore YoY. Volume growth unchanged at 10 percent (QoQ) & versus 11 percent YoY.

AU Small Finance Bank Q3: Profit rises 20.8 percent to Rs 95.3 crore versus Rs 79 crore; net interest income jumps 38.9 percent to Rs 348 crore versus Rs 250.4 crore YoY.

L&T Technology Services Q3: Profit falls 2.8 percent to Rs 185.6 crore versus Rs 191 crore; revenue rises 4 percent to Rs 1,316.9 crore versus Rs 1,266.1 crore; dollar revenue increases 4.8 percent to $185.7 million versus $177.2 million QoQ.

Cyient Q3: Profit falls 27.4 percent to Rs 92.3 crore versus Rs 127 crore; revenue unchanged at Rs 1,187.7 crore QoQ. Company to decide on share buyback on a later date.

Rallis India Q3: Profit falls to Rs 13.88 crore versus Rs 25.08 crore; revenue rises to Rs 417.35 crore versus Rs 390.16 crore YoY.

Aurobindo Pharma: Subsidiary Acrotech Biopharma LLC to buy 7 oncology drugs from US company Spectrum Pharma, to pay $160 million upfront and $140 million as milestone payments.

Lupin: US FDA begins inspection at company's Pithampur unit-2, which is currently under warning letter - CNBC-TV18 sources.

Jet Airways: Naresh Goyal communicated his position on resolution plan to SBI.

Axis Bank: The bank has no credit exposure to account mentioned in report of 10-year old Hawala scam.

IL&FS Transportation: J&K Zojila tunnel contract terminated on January 15.

Suyog Telematics: Company successfully able to obtain license from Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), for installation of cellular equipment across all 17 Monorail stations of Mumbai.

Rallis India board approved the merger of its wholly owned arm Metahelix Life Sciences with company

IIFL Holding - IIFL Finance to raise up to Rs 2,000 crore via NCDs

Sundram Fasterners' plant situated at SEZ Unit, Mahindra World City, Kancheepuram District (Unit III) has commenced commercial production with effect from January 16, 2019

Rushil Decor received notice from Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) to stop manufacturing process of one of the Laminate Sheet Manufacturing units

DHFL: Brickwork Ratings India assigned BBB+ (SO) long term credit rating to Senior Pass Through Certificate (PTCs) worth Rs 1,375 crore.

Bajaj Holdings and Investment: 27 percent shareholding in Maharashtra Scooters Ltd held by Western Maharashtra Development Corporation Limited (WMDC) i.e. 30,85,712 shares is being acquired by the company.

Great Eastern Shipping Company: Company has contracted to sell its 1994 built very large gas carrier Jag Vishnu of about 49,353 dwt. The vessel will be delivered to the new buyer in first half of FY2019-20.

UCO Bank: Board approved proposals to issue equity shares on preferential basis to Goverment of India against capital infusion of Rs 3,076 crore, to raise equity capital fund upto Rs 1,OOO crore through qualified institutions placement and to raise Tier- II capital upto Rs 500 crore.

PVV Infra: Board approved the allotment of 5,00,000 equity shares and 4,71,716 convertible equity share warrants at Rs 21 apiece to promoters and 3,30,000 equity shares and 6,00,000 convertible equity share warrants at Rs 21 apiece to other than Promoters on preferential basis.

Bulk Deals on January 17

GIC Housing Finance: Fidelity Funds-Asian Smaller Companies Pool bought 6,99,673 shares of the company on NSE and Rs 6,98,267 shares on the BSE at Rs 267.49 per share. Fidelity Asian Values Plc also bought 3,63,075 shares of the company on NSE and 3,61,733 shares on NSE at same price.

Transwind Infra: Armour Capital Private Limited sold 48,000 shares of the company at Rs 10.85 per share on the NSE.

(For more bulk deals, click here)

Analyst or Board Meet/Briefings

Poly Medicure: Board meeting will be held on January 25 to consider the un-audited financial results of the company for the third quarter and nine months ended on December 2018.

HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company: The company will be hosting an earnings conference call with analysts and investors on January 22 to discuss the financial results of the company for the quarter and nine months ended December 2018.

Saregama India: Board meeting is scheduled on January 25 to consider the un-audited financial results for the quarter and nine months ended December 2018.

Oriental Carbon & Chemicals: Conference call for investors and analysts to be held on February 4 to discuss the financial performance for the quarter and nine months ended December 2018.

Jindal Stainless (Hisar): Board meeting is scheduled on January 30 to consider the unaudited standalone financial results of the company for the 3rd quarter / period ended December 2018.

DCM Shriram: Board meeting will be held on January 29 to consider unaudited financial results (both standalone and consolidated) of the company for the quarter and nine months ended December 2018 and to consider the payment of 2nd interim dividend, if any for the financial year 2018-19.

Edelweiss Financial Services: Board meeting is scheduled to be held on January 24 to consider the unaudited financial results of the company for the quarter and nine months period ended December 2018 (Q3) and declaration of interim dividend, if any.

Lloyds Steels Industries: Board meeting is scheduled on January 29 to consider the un-audited financial results for the 3rd quarter ended December 2018.

Kernex Microsystems (India): Board meeting is scheduled on January 27 to consider the un-audited financial results for the third quarter ended December 2018.

National Fertilizers: Board meeting is scheduled to be held on February 1 to consider the un-audited financial results of the company for the quarter and nine month ended December 2018 and the proposal for payment of interim dividend for 2018-19.

Siyaram Silk Mills: Board meeting is scheduled on January 28 to consider the unaudited standalone financial results of the company for the quarter /nine month ended December 2018.

Hexaware Technologies: Conference call with analysts is scheduled to be held on January 30, where in the CEO and the CFO would discuss the Q4 and year ended December 2018 financial results of the company.

Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals: Board meeting is scheduled on February 5 to consider the un-audited financial statements for the third quarter ended December 2018.

Jyothy Laboratories: The company is organising a conference call for analyst/ investors on January 24, subsequent to declaration of its financial results for the quarter and nine months ended December 2018.

Apollo Hospitals Enterprises: Board meeting is scheduled on February 9 to consider the unaudited financial results of the company for the quarter and nine months ended December 2018.

Tata Chemicals: Board meeting is scheduled on February 5 to consider the financial results for the third quarter and nine months ended December 2018.

Deepak Fertilisers: Company's officials will be meeting institutional investors on January 18.

Music Broadcast: Board meeting is scheduled on January 28 to consider the un-audited financial results for the third quarter ended December 2018.

SML Isuzu: Board meeting is scheduled on February 8 to consider the unaudited financial results for the third quarter and nine months ended December 2018.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Rajnish Kumar on Friday said the resolution plan for Jet Airways would be crystallised very soon.

Debt-laden Jet Airways on January said State Bank of India (SBI) along with other lenders and stakeholders is working on a comprehensive resolution plan to turnaround the airline.

Sharing his outlook on the banking industry, Kumar said, Things seems to be looking much better. In terms of recovery, banks provision coverage ratio has gone up, fresh slippages are down, growth in credit which is now averaging 15 percent, so these are all positive pointers as far as the banking industry is concerned."

About Essar Steel, he said, There is a time value for money and the way we have worked out it is that we are putting time value for the realisable amount and that is how the entire offer-for-sale (OFS) has been restructured so the message is all around that every day, it is costing lenders Rs 17 crore, my share is nearly 25-30 percent. So we dont want to wait indefinitely.

On liquidity situation, he believes RBI is maintaining the liquidity deficit at macro level which is well within their targeted level. As of now if you look at any other indicator or measure of liquidity, things are normal, he added.

Source: CNBC TV 18
The Punjab government on Friday signed an agreement with a leading bicycle maker Hero Cycles for allotting 100 acres of land to set up an industrial park in the upcoming Hi-tech cycle valley project at Ludhiana.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed by Punjab State Industrial Export Corporation MD Rahul Bhandari on behalf of the state government and Hero Cycles chairman Pankaj Munjal in the presence of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, and Industry Minister Sunder Sham Arora, as per an official release.

Notably, Hi-tech cycle valley project is coming up at village Dhanansu over 380 acres of land where hi-tech bicycles, e-bikes would be manufactured.

The chief minister said the project shall attract around Rs 400 crore investment by Hero Cycles and its suppliers or ancillaries, and generate close to 1,000 direct employment opportunities.

He said the industrial park will have a production capacity of four million bicycles per annum and the project shall be implemented within 36 months.

Additional Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan said Hero Cycles Ltd has been selected through an objective, competitive and technical bidding process as the 'project company' to set up an anchor unit for manufacturing of bi-cycles e-bikes, etc and also to develop the industrial park along with vendor units.

Hero Cycles shall be responsible for the development of the entire industrial park in the allotted land.

Within the proposed project, Hero Cycles will develop its own anchor unit over 50 acres. In the remaining 50 acres, it shall invite major national and international manufacturers as ancillary units, she said.

Chairman Hero Cycles Pankaj Munjal said he hoped that the hi-tech cycle valley at Ludhiana would act as a catalyst for the overall development of the area, giving further impetus to the industrial development of Punjab.

Hero Group was alone producing ten million cycles annually, which accounts for 7.5 per cent of the world production, he added.

The upcoming cycle valley project would cater to 50 per cent demand of cycle production in India and Europe, said Munjal.

Hero Cycles has invited globally reputed manufacturers with high end technology to set up ancillary vendor units in the industrial park, said Munjal.

The company has been allowed to utilise land not only for industrial purpose but also for other allied operations covering warehousing, logistics, research and development centres and skill development centres.

The Hi-tech cycle valley being set up by PSIEC would help in decongestion and relocating industry from Ludhiana, and encourage setting up of an anchor unit in the sector specific fields of cycle industry.

Apart from investment of Rs 300 crore on infrastructure, the project would attract an estimated additional investment of Rs 1,000-1,500 crore.

The cycle valley would provide developed industrial plots to the prospective investors at an affordable price and shall be equipped with modern amenities along with integrated support services covering banking, health, institutional, recreational, education etc.
The MRO industry has claimed that they have lost a massive 90,000 direct jobs to overseas markets like Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, France and Germany and blamed the "lop-sided" tax policies for this and has sought a level-playing field on this front.

Urging the government to bring down GST rate on the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services to 5 percent from the present 18, the MRO Association of India has also expressed fears of a "shut-down" of the industry if the "anomalies" were not fixed on priority.

"With 90 percent of the MRO requirements being met from outside, the industry has lost around 90,000 direct jobs to Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, France and Germany," the association said in a statement Friday.

The association's claim assumes significance in the wake of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, an independent think-tank, recently estimating that a whopping 1.10 crore jobs were lost in 2018 alone, with the rural sector being the worst hit.

"Of the several requests we are making to the aviation ministry, our highest priority is to get the GST rate reduced to 5 percent so that it is brought on par with foreign MRO services," association president Bharat Malkani said.

At the same time, the customs duty on MRO services should be applied at 18 percent on all imports, the association added.

"All we are asking for is a level playing field if the MRO industry has to survive in the country," Malkani said.

Lamenting that the industry has registered a negative growth in the current fiscal, Malkani said while there is an 18 percent GST in the country, Singapore and Malaysia charge just 7 percent taxes and in Sri Lanka there is no taxation at all on these services.

Claiming that domestic MRO industry has more than adequate capability for airframe services, the association said of the total MRO spend of around Rs 31,500 crore in the past five years, airframe MRO constituted around 27 percent at Rs 9,450 crore during this period.

"This is the direct revenue loss in foreign exchange to the government. Besides, a sustainable ecosystem in terms of component overhauls is being also neglected, jeopardising its future, association vice-president Ravi Menon said.
But the Etsy store and the message mugs are really just a diversion for Cervantes. She owns and runs her own graphic design business, Seven Brighter, where she serves a number of business and church ministry clients. She also works with illustrations, photography and computer-generated poster art  all of which is on display at sarahcervantes.com.
Representative Image Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The leather sector was expecting to register a growth of five to six per cent in exports in financial year 2018-19, an official from Council for Leather Exports said.

According to CLE, Chairman, Panaruna Aqeel, India is the second largest consumer of footwear after China, globally.

"The total turnover of the industry is USD 17.74 billion with exports contributing USD 5.74 billion and domestic USD 12 billion," he said.

The industry is expecting a growth of 5-6 per cent in exports during 2018-19 in rupee terms though it has the potential to achieve higher growth levels in coming years, he said in a statement.

CLE, executive director, R Selvam said, the unique selling proposition of the leather industry was its huge raw material base, strong products and availability of huge labour.

Noting that the United States was the largest market for the Indian leather industry, Aqeel said, "to tap this market, we are increasing our capacities with the financial assistance of the government under the Integrated Development of Leather Sector."

Referring to the recent Invest India event held in China in which more than 400 companies participated, he said, as a follow-up to that a delegation from Beijing would be making a visit during the Indian International Leather Fair scheduled to be held from January 31 in the city.

Efforts were being taken to augment raw material base by organising a Raw Material Sourcing meet, scheduled to be held here on February 1.

At least 45 designers from eight countries would be taking part in Designers Fair scheduled to be held on February 1 in the city, he said.
Former finance minister P Chidambaram

Former Union minister P Chidambaram Friday said the country's economy was in a 'perilous state' and had he been the finance minister of this government, he would have resigned.

He said the countdown for elections had begun and one did not expect anything better from this government as there was nothing it would do in the next 60 days that would alter the state of the country's economy.

Addressing a press conference, the senior Congress leader said the NDA government would not be able to meet the fiscal deficit target of 3.3 percent, like in 2017-18 when it missed the fiscal deficit target of 3.5 percent.

"We don't expect anything better from this government. This is the countdown to the elections. Nothing the government will do in the next 60 days will alter the status of the economy.

"The state of the economy is quite perilous...Every indicator is worrisome...So, we have to pray some hope and trust in the next government," he told reporters.

Asked what he would have done in this government if he were its finance minister, Chidambaram said, "If I were the finance minister in the NDA government, then I would have resigned."

To a question on claims being made that the Ram temple would be built by 2025, he said "I hope I live as long as that. We will meet in 2025."

The former finance minister also expected the government to announce some sops and measures in the Vote-on-Account, but said no major decision could be announced.

"I don't think they have ever felt the need to go by any precedent. They make their own precedents," he said when asked if the government might announce some big sops or schemes during the Vote-on-Account.

The Congress leader alleged that the GST collections net to the Centre were falling short of the target and the government's net direct tax collection was also falling short of their budget estimate.

"They may garner some money through some devices but I think they will find it difficult to meet the fiscal target. I will compliment them if they meet the target but I have my doubts," he said. On Finance Minister Arun Jaitley mentioning the farm crisis, Chidambaram said it was no longer a secret that the government might announce some scheme in this regard.

"I think every one of you reported the one kind or other package that they will announce. I think it is an almost open secret that they are going to copy either the Telengana model or the Madhya Pradesh model or the hybrid model and they will give away money which they don't have," he said.

Asked if it was too late for such a scheme he said, "It is for the people to judge. This is clearly intended to win votes, let us wait and see. I don't think people are fools. People know that for 4.5 years, you do nothing and you suddenly wake up and make these policies for announcements over which you slept over."

On the Congress' manifesto, Chidambaram said it was a "looking forward" manifesto.

"Our manifesto will talk about the next five years. It will also talk about long range vision of the party," he said. He also rejected as "wrong" the claims made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the GDP during the last five years was the highest since 1991 for any government.
Q14. What exclusive government-owned store was inaugurated at the departure terminal of the Goa International airport in January 2019 by Suresh Prabhu, minister for Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation? (Image: PTI)

E-commerce players should be asked to furnish certificates about their compliance with foreign direct investment norms every fiscal, traders' body CAIT said on Friday.

In a letter to Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) also said that "those who are unable to obtain the said certificate should not be allowed to raise funds and the operations of their portal should be suspended".

The government last month announced changes to FDI policy for the e-commerce sector, which would put an end to a barrage of discounts and cashback offers by online platforms with foreign investment from February.

The traders' body alleged that various global e-commerce players have initiated a "vested interest campaign" demanding deferment, extension, amendment or changes in the said policy.

"If the government succumbs to their arbitrary pressure, the trading community will (be) left with no other alternative but to launch a national campaign against any such deferment or extension or otherwise and will expose sinister designs of these global e-commerce players," CAIT said in the letter.

The traders' body also urged the minister to immediately roll out the proposed e-commerce policy for the sector.

Tightening norms for e-commerce firms having foreign investment, the government had barred online marketplaces such as Flipkart and Amazon from selling products of companies where they hold stakes and banned exclusive marketing arrangements that could influence product price.

The confederation also asked the minister to set up an independent regulatory authority for the sector.
Nithin Kamath, CEO, Zerodha

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Bengaluru-based online discount brokerage firm Zerodhas aim has been to make trading barrier-free since it was founded in 2010 by brothers Nithin and Nikhil Kamath. Hence the name Zerodha; it comes from the words 'zero' and 'rodha', the latter Sanskrit for obstructions.

Their work has finally paid off as the firm dethroned long-time market leader ICICI Securities to become the largest brokerage firm in India, with nearly 8.47 lakh active clients. The platform sees two to three million trades every day which makes it the largest retail brokerage firm across the world. It adds 50,000 to 75,000 accounts every month.

Zerodha brought many firsts in India's broking industry when it entered the market in 2010. It is India's first 'discount brokerage' firm.

A discount broker is different from a full-service broker in that it does not offer research services to its client, such as buy or sell recommendations. The cost it saves by not having a full-fledged research team, it passes on to customers via a low brokerage.

Zerodha applied a flat fee of Rs 20 for every trade, irrespective of its size with no brokerage fee, which was deemed as quite disruptive by experts at that time in the market. Compared to that, other brokerages used to typically charge a percentage of the traded amount.

The startup kicked off with a team of five people, which has now gone up to an employee count of nearly 1,300 today.

Credibility and transparency are crucial for any financial services business, Nithin Kamath told Moneycontrol.

"It took a long time, it was a slow transition that happened over the last eight years. In our first year, we opened 3,000 accounts. When the cost of any product or service is less, people automatically question the quality. That was a big challenge for us right from the start. We were able to build a community around us, which helped in the long run. Even today we don't spend any money on advertising, he said.

The focus on building a community helped because initial skepticism towards Zerodhas discount broking model stemmed from the fact that retail investors, who are often clueless about what stocks they should or sell, were not offered any research services.

To counter this, Zerodha launched Varsity, a learning module, which has become immensely popular. It also runs TradingQ&A, an active forum were traders and investors, can discuss stock ideas. Then there is Z Connect an interactive blog.

Nithin invested in a lot of tech startups in a hope to make relations with budding technologists.

"The problem we are trying to solve with this is how to grow the capital market ecosystem in India. It can only happen through educating people on a platform which has content and engagement both," Nithin said.

Over time, Zerodha has used technology heavily to differentiate itself. Its trading platform Kite on web and mobile accounts for more than 10 percent of all retail trading turnover in India. It recently launched Coin, an online platform to buy direct mutual funds.

It has also invested in a host of promising financial technology startups. These include Smallcase, which allows thematic investing  for instance, it offers you a readymade portfolio of companies expected to benefit from the electric vehicle revolution. Or Sensibull, an options trading platform.

Next for the brand is the aim to add 5-10 million new investors to the Indian market. "India is very dependent on foreign capital to drive the country. For any country to do well, you need local residents to put their money in the market. The money shouldn't just stay in fixed deposits and real estate. I want to encourage people to educate themselves and put the money in the ecosystem in some way or the other to drive growth," Nithin added.
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Sun Pharma, Indias largest drugmaker on January 18 told stock exchanges it hasnt received the alleged 172page whistleblower complaint and therefore, is not privy to the contents of the document.

The company requested market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to examine the matter in its entirety and the role of some media houses and other stakeholders.

There is a great asymmetry in the information circulating between analysts, investors and media leading to intense speculation. The availability of information contained in the whistleblower documents to a set of selective investors does put other investors including retail investors in a disadvantageous position, Sun Pharma said in a statement.

It is evident from the fact that shareholders value has been drastically eroded within a short span of time due to the unsubstantiated complaint or allegation against the company and mala fide campaign launched by certain media houses, the statement alleged.

Sun Pharmas stock took a beating on Friday falling 12 percent after a media report alleged fresh whistleblower compliant made to market regulator SEBI.

This too has been filed by the same whistleblower who had filed a complaint in September last year, according to the report.

The whistleblower report alleged large transactions between Aditya Medisales (AML) and Suraksha Realty, controlled by Sun Pharmas co-promoter, Sudhir Valia out of the money generated from the publicly-listed company.

Sun Pharmas domestic formulation business is entirely routed through a promoter-owned entity called Aditya Medisales, a super stockiest that became a related party of the company during FY18 after a consolidation of several other investment companies.

Aditya Medisales does not enjoy any significant profitability, and on revenues of Rs 8,000 crore in FY18 it had an EBITDA margin of 1.7 percent and net margin of 0.4 percent in FY18.

In an analyst call, the company had said the arrangement was made for an efficient tax structure and it is ready to relook at the deal but might consider changing the structure of the deal.

Sun Pharma also said the voluntary recall of certain batches of Vecuronium Bromide Injection in the US market will not have any material impact on financials, as the product has a negligible contribution to companys consolidated revenues.

Shares of Sun Pharma were trading at Rs 390.40, down 10.23 percent on BSE at 3.24 pm, while the benchmark Sensex gained 0.05 percent to 36,393.94 points.
Arata Zero Chemicals, a New Delhi-based personal care brand, has raised seed funding of Rs 3.5 crore from early stage venture capital firm DSG Consumer Partners, AngelList India and Rajan Raghavachari, former personal care research and development director at Unilever.

The company sells nature-derived, vegan and chemical free unisex skin and hair care products. In a statement, the company said it aims to use the funds for new product development, product launches, marketing, building the team and investment in its online and offline presence.

Launched in February 2018, Arata sells its products online across various marketplaces as well as on its own website. The company also has a curated offline presence across select modern trade stores in Delhi-NCR.

It said that they catered to over 10,000 customers across the country and plans to increase its reach through online marketing and distribution in the next 12 months.

Arata was founded in 2017 by Dhruv Madhok, a former strategy consultant in the US and UAE and Dhruv Bhasin, a former finance executive in the UK and India.

Deepak Shahdadpuri, Managing Director of DSG Consumer Partners, said: "Consumers across the globe are becoming more conscious about the safety and efficacy of personal care products they use on a regular basis. At the same time, younger consumers are showing a strong preference for natural and plant-based ingredients. We believe there is huge scope for an honest, clean label everyday personal care brand that consumers can trust."
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IndiGo co-founder Rakesh Gangwal's plan to take the budget carrier west, with low-cost long haul flights to Europe, has now been postponed indefinitely due to mounting costs and slick margins, as per a report in The Economic Times.

Sources told the paper that IndiGo will not launch flights to any European destinations for the next six months or even a year. The plan is not being reversed but will be put under review. The airline did not get the necessary regulatory approvals for flights to London, which was going to be the first destination that it was targeting. The airline had booked slots in the city's Gatwick airport, but they will expire by March end.

The IndiGo management is in the middle of a heated debate on whether the proposed model for international flights would be enough to stimulate demand in such a competitive environment. Highly established carriers like Emirates and Singapore Airlines also concerned some members of the board, which is why the plan was ultimately postponed.

In the beginning of 2018, the airline had requested regulatory approval for destinations like London, Madrid and Paris. In a conference call with analysts, Gangwal had said IndiGo must take advantage of the international market India offers because its large domestic network enables it to capture that growing market.

When Air India was put on the block, IndiGo had expressed intentions to buy a stake in the debt-laden airline to take advantage of its international airport slots and flying rights. But the deal never took off.

Rising costs and pressure on yields kept the carrier from acquiring bigger planesthe 300-seater Airbus A330that it had initially planned on getting.
N Chandrababu Naidu

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said the country is witnessing dictatorship in the form of BJP and "autocracy" in Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Telugu Desam Party, hence, is fighting a 'just war' against the BJP, he said and asked the party cadre to gear up for the ensuing general elections that were 100 days away.

Addressing a teleconference of the TDP rank and file on the occasion of party founder N T Rama Rao's 23rd death anniversary, Naidu said NTR taught them how to fight dictatorship and autocracy.

"We are now witnessing dictatorship in the form of BJP, and autocracy in Narendra Modi. So, we launched a dharma poratam (just war) against them," he added.

Referring to the anti-BJP parties' rally in Kolkata scheduled for Saturday, the chief minister claimed that the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the YSR Congress were in the pro-Modi front as they were not attending it.

"There are only two fronts in the country now. One is pro-Modi and the other is anti-Modi. Since they are not attending the Kolkata rally (being organised by Trinamool Congress), it is clear where the TRS and the YSRC stand," the TDP chief said.

Paying tributes to the TDP founder, Naidu exhorted the party's rank and file to re-dedicate themselves to the service of the society.

He said winning over poverty would be a true tribute to NTR as the doyen always strove for elimination of poverty and removal of economic inequalities in society.

Noting that elections to the state assembly and Lok Sabha were just 100 days away, Chandrababu asked the cadre to strive for the party's victory so that it could play a key role in national politics.
Rank 3 | Amazon | E-commerce company (Image: Amazon)

Fair trade regulator CCI on Friday said it has approved a deal wherein Samara Capital-backed Witzig Advisory Services and Amazon will acquire Aditya Birla Retail Ltd, which operates supermarket store chain 'more'.

According to the Competition Commission of India (CCI), the deal involves acquisition of 99.99 per cent of the equity share capital of Aditya Birla Retail by Witzig and 49 per cent stake buy in Witzig by Amazon's subsidiary Amazon NV Investment Holdings LLC.

This also marks the US-based e-commerce major Amazon's second investment in the Indian brick and mortar format after it had picked up stake in the K Raheja group's retail arm Shopper Stop.

Witzig is a wholly owned subsidiary of Samara Alternative Investment Fund which is registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) as category II Alternative fund.

The CCI "approves acquisition of 99.99 per cent of the equity share capital of Aditya Birla Retail limited (ABRL) by Witzig Advisory Services Private Limited", the regulator said in a tweet.

In another tweet, the fair trade watchdog said it "approves acquisition of 49 per cent equity share capital of Witzig Advisory Services Private Limited by Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC".

In a notice to regulator, Amazon said post acquiring 49 per cent in Witzig, the remaining 51 per cent of Witzig will be controlled and majority owned by Samara fund.

Last year, Witzig had announced plans to acquire Aditya Birla Retail and as per the reports, the deal is valued at Rs 4,200 crore.

In September 2018, US online retail giant Amazon and Samara Capital had jointly invested in Witzig Advisory.

Moreover, the e-commerce giant is in advance stage talks to acquire 9.5 per cent stake in Future Retail.
Zarin Daruwala, chief executive officer, Standard Chartered India on Thursday said the outcome of 2019 general election outcome will be closely watched by foreign and domestic investors.

The investors will be looking at the election outcome before making plans about further investments, Daruwala said.

"Similarly, on private sector capital expenditure also, when we look at multinationals, a lot of them will be watching the outcome before making big investments," she said.

On the crisis in Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFC), Daruwala said the situation is much better now than three months back and it has been a big source of finance for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector and many other parts of the economy.

According to Daruwala, India should be making most of the US-China trade war and the government should try to get maximum capital investments.

Source: CNBC TV 18
800 N. Michigan Ave., No. 4601, Chicago: $4,795,000 | Listed: May 8, 2021



This three-bedroom home has four bathrooms, one half-bath, oversized windows and views of Lake Michigan and the city skyline. The living room features natural herringbone floors, a soft barrel ceiling, cove lighting, custom window treatments and a fireplace. Custom sliding doors lead to the dining room, which has an imported chandelier. The kitchen is outfitted with top-quality appliances and an island with seating. A butlers pantry with a built-in wine refrigerator doubles as a bar for entertaining, and a built-in desk in the family room offers the flexibility to work from home. There are three bedrooms, including a spacious primary suite with dual baths, a dressing room, and a walk-in closet. A laundry room and two garage spaces complete this home.



Agent: Jennifer Ames of Engel & Volkers, 312-440-7525



*Some listing photos are virtually staged, meaning they have been digitally altered to represent different furnishing or decorating options.



To feature your luxury listing of $800,000 or more in Chicago Tribunes Dream Homes, send listing information and high-res photos to ctc-realestate@chicagotribune.com.



Join our Chicago Dream Homes Facebook group for more luxury listings and real estate news.
The spunky, defiant Ocasio-Cortez, widely known as AOC, her initials and her Twitter handle, explained it well on 60 Minutes  Your tax rate, let's say from zero to $75,000, may be 10 percent or 15 percent, she said. But once you get to the tippy-top  on your 10 millionth dollar  sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That doesn't mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder, you should be contributing more.
There is an adage that states, Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. This is applicable in the face of President Donald Trumps absurd and harmful shutdown of the U.S. government. We need only to look to Illinois for a potential example. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner took a similar route as Trump. Rauner dug in his heels and refused to agree to any budget proposal that did not incorporate his agenda. As a consequence, Illinois did not have a state budget for over two years. Then, as now, many people suffered due to Rauners hubris. Rauner was defeated in his run for a second term. Sound familiar, Mr. Trump?
The cost to America of this conflict is incalculable. Sort of the way the cost of the shutdown cant quite be quantified. About 800,000 federal workers either are on furlough or are on the job without pay. The hardships to those families and inconvenience to other Americans are real. But what does it say about the state of the country when the president and Congress are willing to hold the government hostage to their political demands? It is an outrageous abdication of responsibility and a harbinger of what might come.
Meeting with the Tribune Editorial Board in December, Emanuel didnt talk specifics but suggested that yes, a new bill probably will look like the old bills that flopped in Springfield. Hed be smarter to distance himself from the gambling bill industry  the legislators, lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who inhabit Springfields living history of cronyism, influence-peddling and sweetheart deals. They produce enormous gambling expansion bills  the 2017 opus ran 533 pages  that would expose a Chicago casino to grubby hands looking for illicit slices of the loot it would yield.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 18)  Daraga, Albay Mayor Carlwyn Baldo, tagged as the mastermind in the killing of AKO BICOL party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe, is appealing to President Rodrigo Duterte for help.

"Mr. President, humihingi po ako ng tulong sa patas at hustisya na kung ano po ang mga ina-accuse sa akin ay haharapin ko po ito nang buong-buo. Hinihiling ko rin po na sana wag pong malagay sa alanganin ang buhay ng aking pamilya," Baldo said in a press conference on Friday.

[Translation: Mr. President, I am asking for help for fairness and justice. I will fully face the accusations against me. I am also asking that my family's lives would not be put in harm's way.]

Asked about reports that a search warrant would be served on him, Baldo said he has not received any information about it, but if it is true, he just wants it to be done right.

"Tamang sistema lang. Baka ang kinakatakot ko ay may mahanap sila na droga o granada. Alam naman po natin na ang [possession ng] granada ay non-bailable [offense,]" he said.

[Translation: I just want the right process. I fear that they would find drugs and a grenade. We all known that possession of a grenade is a non-bailable offense.]

All six suspects in the slay of Batocabe and his police security aide have pointed to Baldo as the brains behind the crime, which he has repeatedly denied.

Police say they have strong evidence against Baldo, whose mayoralty bid for the midterm polls was challenged by Batocabe, a three-term congressman.

Duterte has threatened to slap Baldo if he threatens the Batocabe family or interferes in their political plans.

The late lawmaker's wife, Gertie, is being eyed as his replacement for the mayoralty race, while his son Justin, is the second nominee of AKO BICOL party-list for the 2019 polls.
After the large-scale storm system moves off east of Michigan, colder air will ooze into Michigan. A brisk wind with the cold temperatures will make wind chills we havent experienced yet this winter.

The wind chill forecast for 7 a.m. Sunday shows wind chills below zero across Michigan.

When we head out the door early Sunday morning, it will be cold. Wind chills across southern Lower Michigan will be in the -5 degrees to -15 degrees range. That isnt real dangerous, but could make frostbite in about 30 minutes. Unless you are forced to stay outside, I think youll want to come in the warmth before you get frostbite.

It will be a more dangerous cold in northeast Lower Michigan and the eastern U.P. Wind chills should range between -15 degrees and -30 degrees around Sault Ste. Marie.

Fortunately this next cold snap isnt real long lasting or extremely windy. By Sunday afternoon, winds will decline to five to 10 mph. The wind chill will be close to the actual temperature in the teens by Sunday afternoon. Monday winds will turn southerly and pick up. The temperature will still be cold in the single digits. With the stronger breeze, wind chills again Monday morning will be in the single digits below zero.

So get ready for uncomfortable cold, and cold we arent used to dealing with just yet this winter.
SAGINAW, MI - A nonprofit group has graded Michigans 674 high schools, and though one Saginaw Public School District school was ranked the 10th best in the state, another was ranked the worst.

Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy was given an A letter grade and came in at 10 on the top 25 list provided by the Mackinac Center, a Midland-based free market think tank.

Saginaw High School was at the bottom of the list and received a letter grade of F by the nonprofit.

The report is not sitting well with officials in the Saginaw school district.

Superintendent Ramont Roberts said he is happy to see one of the districts schools at the top of the list, however the Mackinac Center report does not reflect progress the district has made with its other schools.

There is no validity to their report from my standpoint, Roberts said, adding that he rejects the report. Because they dont take into account other factors that show that the school is progressing, such as growth on local assessments.

Saginaw school board President Ruth Ann Knapp said SASA has an advantage in the study over Saginaw High since students have to apply and be accepted into SASA. Roberts agreed.

We know SASA is a high performing school, Roberts said. It is a gifted and talented program. We would expect students at SASA to perform at high levels.

According to the Mackinac Center, the report is a school-level assessment of academic performance based on a four-year average of state standardized tests, and unlike assessments produced by the Michigan Department of Education, students' socioeconomic status factors significantly into a schools grade.

"Relying on raw test results may mislead about how well a school is actually doing, said Ben DeGrow, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center and co-author of the study. To get a fuller perspective, it helps to factor socioeconomic status into the equation.

According to the report, the analysis predicted how well each school would perform given the socioeconomic makeup of its students. Schools are then ranked by how well they actually did relative to their predicted performance.

The study compared the number of enrolled 11th grade students who were eligible for free school lunches through the federal school lunch program in each school.

As for factoring in poverty, Knapp said SASA would be less impacted.

Though it still exists there, she said.

Knapp said the report pointed out things that the district already knew and is working on.

They didnt tell us anything we didnt already know, which is why we have been working so hard with our partnership agreement and our partners and I look forward to seeing more progress in all of our schools, Knapp said.

Roberts said that researcher Richard Rothstein once said that until social conditions such as poverty are addressed on a broad scale, youll continue to have the problems facing school districts such as Saginaws.

In the Great Lakes Bay Region, H. H. Dow High School came in 25th on the top 25 list and received an A from the center.

Genesee Early College in the Carman-Ainsworth School District ranked 8th in the top 25.

Saginaws Arthur Hill High School came in at 638 out of 674 and received an F grade.

In 2016, Arthur Hill High School received a C grade from the center. That year, 639 schools were graded. Saginaw High ranked 594 and received an F that year.

Our kids are not failures, Roberts said. Our staff are not failures and that school is not a failure.
FREELAND, MI  Pizzas, subs, groceries, gas cards  these are some of the donations that started flowing into Mid-Michigans MBS International Airport for federal workers who remain on the job without pay in the ongoing partial federal government shutdown this month.

Airport Manager Jeff Nagel said the donations have come from airport employees, passengers, area business owners and others in the community. It started about a week, maybe a week and a half, ago and hasnt stopped.

Its been very impressive. Im hearing from the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) that they certainly appreciate the outreach, Nagel said. From what Im hearing, the donations have been fairly constant.

Tom Roy, chairman of the Saginaw County Republican Party and president of Saginaw Area Fireworks, put a call out for donations on the partys Facebook page. He said he recognized the need after talking to someone he knows who works for TSA.

Their last paycheck was Dec. 31, Roy said. Many people live paycheck to paycheck.

Soon, Roy was getting calls and messages from Republicans and Democrats alike who wanted to help. Hes been connecting would-be donors with the TSA manager at MBS airport to schedule donation drop-offs.

My Facebook has blown up from people wanting to help, Roy said. "Its just awesome.

The partial government shutdown, which entered its 28th day Friday, Jan. 18, and is the longest lapse in federal funding in U.S. history, continues as President Donald Trump pushes for money to fulfill his campaign promise of building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. House majority Democrats, meanwhile, have refused to talk about funding a border wall until the government is fully back in business.

Across Michigan, restaurateurs are showing their support for federal workers by offering them free or discounted meals during the shutdown. Craig Dotson, who owns Studio Grill in downtown Kalamazoo with his wife, Daphney, and who previously served six years in the U.S. Navy, is offering a 20 percent discount for federal employees and their families.

In Ann Arbor, Toarminas Pizza and Burrito Joint is offering free lunch to federal government employees. Employees with a valid ID can get one free menu item from 2 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday for as long as the shutdown continues, owner Frank Toarmina said.

Smokin Js Bar B Que Pit in Goodrich is collecting donations of non-perishable food items, household essentials, pet supplies, personal care products and more to benefit federal workers. According to a post on the restaurants Facebook page, the business is also collecting monetary donations which will be used to offer a free meal to federal workers and their immediate family members at a later date, and its offering federal workers a 10-percent discount every day during the shutdown.

Several small businesses in Grand Haven are offering free meals, haircuts, gas and even temporary work. In the first-ever Coast Guard City, USA, it wouldnt be any other way, the Coast Guard is part of the fabric of the West Michigan community.

Grand Haven is Coast Guard City, USA -- the town is built around that, said Josh Sandberg, co-owner of The Paisley Pig in Grand Haven.

The shutdown is affecting about 800,000 federal workers, some of whom were deemed essential and must work without pay and some of whom are furloughed, or staying home without pay.

Most of the affected workers received their last paycheck three weeks ago, and Jan. 11 marked their first payday with $0-pay stubs. Thousands of federal workers are now seeking unemployment benefits to help make ends meet, the Associated Press reports. Some federal workers, including some Michiganders, have created GoFundMe pages to bring in extra cash.

Karen Langenburg of Saginaw brought platters of Subway sandwiches to workers at MBS on Friday. She said her daughter works at the airport, but she works for an airline.

Theyre not getting paid, what do you do?" Langenburg said. "I know what its like to live from paycheck to paycheck with no reserve. Ive been there. So I just wanted to do something.

And Bill Giorgis, co-owner of Mikes Wrecker Service in Saginaw, recently donated a cart full of food, including fresh fruits, snacks and bottled beverages, to workers at MBS.

Whats happening is just patently unfair and needs to come to a resolution, Giorgis said of the shutdown and the effect on workers. "But, in the meantime, we need to do something thats positive and proactive.

TSA staff shortages have reportedly caused delays at some airports, but Nagel said effects of the shutdown arent being felt by travelers at MBS International Airport. Thats because TSA and other government workers upon whom the airport depends are still showing up to work, even though theyre not being paid.

Weve seen no operational impact from the shutdown, he said. I think we really have a dedicated staff here at MBS and I appreciate the fact that I can answer the question that we havent seen any kind of operational impact from the shutdown. I think were fortunate with the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) folks we have here. They do a great job.

Nagel said other groups of employees who are showing up to work at MBS but who arent receiving paychecks include Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers, FAA technical operations and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Theyre working without pay, he said. "Were really fortunate we have great folks in all those positions that are coming to work and doing their job.

Other federal workers in Michigan currently reporting to work without pay include those at the U.S. Coast Guard Station Saginaw River in Bay Countys Hampton Township. In a show of support, law enforcement and other community members are organizing a food and everyday household needs drive to benefit those Coast Guardsmen and women.

Pinconning Police Sgt. Terry Spencer said the collection is scheduled to take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 27, at American Legion Post 18, 700 Adams St. in Bay City. Community members are asked to consider donating food, gift cards and other household items families might need. In addition, the American Legion donated $1,000 and gift certificates and Coast Guard members and their families have been invited to a free fish fry at the post.

If you think about going to the grocery store, buying laundry soap, buying toilet paper, all these things are expensive," said Spencer, who served in the U.S. Navy and whose father served in the U.S. Coast Guard. I know theres at least one guardsperson that has a newborn, size three diapers.

Spencer said these people are on the job, sometimes risking their lives, without pay.

Everybody knows the value of what this Coast Guard does for our community," he added. Ive been an officer for 16 years. I cant tell you how many times the Coast Guard has been out on the ice, risking their life, to save other people.

Likewise, the Essexville Public Safety Department is collecting donations of grocery store gift cards and gas gift cards to benefit the local Coast Guard station.

Having to work without pay is going to put a strain on their families, theres no doubt about it, said Chief William Gutzwiller, who estimates 30 to 50 people are assigned to work at that Coast Guard station. "It looks like theres no end in sight for this government shutdown.

Gutzwiller said the public safety department has already collected quite a few donations, and hes been in communication with Coast Guard officials who expressed appreciation for the communitys support.

This is a giving community, Ill tell you, he said.

Gift cards can be dropped off at the Essexville Public Safety Department, 1107 Woodside Ave. in Essexville, any time. If its outside normal business hours, call 989-892-2541 to ensure someone will answer the door.

Many communities around the country are doing things similar for their local Coast Guard (and) from the Coast Guard units, the support is very appreciated, said Alan Haraf, master chief with the U.S. Coast Guard district 9 public affairs office.

Haraf said communities have offered support in the form of restaurants donating food, barbers offering free haircuts and other acts of kindness.

"It certainly lifts the morale of members, he said.

MLive reporters Chris Ehrmann and Justine McGuire and MLive photographer Kaytie Boomer contributed to this report.
MUSKEGON, MI - The words of a slave who wished his new master would buy his love - but didnt - set the scene for a discussion about the legacy of slavery in the United States.

Author and professor Anne Bailey says that legacy is family separation, from separating families at the auction block to the more recent mass incarceration and separation of immigrant families attempting to enter the United States.

Bailey spoke to a packed room at the 23rd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast on Friday, Jan. 18, at Muskegon Community College.

She began the keynote address by reading from her book, The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History.

The excerpt described the scene of the largest slave auction in American history, which took place in Georgia during 1859, just two years before the start of the Civil War. More than 400 slaves were sold.

Bailey described slave auctions as the stock market of that time.

The historical legacy of something like a slave auction is theres a history of separating families in the U.S., she said.

She traced that legacy to the fight over affirmative action, the border crisis and mass incarceration.

What I love about America is, this a can-do place, said Bailey, who is a Jamaican-born dual citizen of Jamaica and the United States. If we have the will to do it and the heart to do it, we can solve this border crisis.

She expressed similar optimism regarding the other legacies of slavery, and encouraged audience members to each do their part to work toward fixing the disparities in incarceration and to improve affirmative action.

Bailey is a professor of history and Africana studies at SUNY Binghamton.
GRAND HAVEN, MI - While U.S. Coast Guard personnel go unpaid due to the partial federal government shutdown, those who serve in Grand Haven havent been forgotten by the local community.

Businesses and organizations began stepping up this week to help active duty Coast Guard personnel who missed a paycheck on Wednesday, Jan. 16. It was the first paycheck that the service, under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, missed due the lapse in government funding as the U.S. Congress and President Donald Trump remain in a stalemate over funding for a southern border wall.

Yet active duty Coast Guard personnel are considered essential and are still required to work.

Several small businesses in Grand Haven have stepped up to offer free meals, hair cuts, gas and even temporary work. In the first-ever Coast Guard City, USA, and host of the annual Coast Guard Festival, it wouldnt be any other way.

Grand Haven is Coast Guard City, USA - the town is built around that, said Josh Sandberg, co-owner of The Paisley Pig in Grand Haven.

Offering free meals to Coast Guard families was an easy decision for Josh Sandberg and Katie Sandberg.

They and their families are always sacrificing and now they have yet another obstacle, Josh Sandberg told MLive/Muskegon Chronicle on Friday, Jan. 18. Now theyre not getting paid and theyre still out there protecting us. We thought it was our duty to offer something to them."

The restaurant, which opened during June 2017, is giving free pizza and kids' meals to Coast Guard personnel and their families. The Sandbergs used Facebook to get the word out on Thursday, Jan. 17, and served more than 10 families that day.

Local, family-owned manufacturer Shape Corp. is offering part-time, temporary work to help Coasties make ends meet. Normally, the company only hires full-time employees.

We want to make sure were helping those who help us in their time of need, said Tim Wiseman, Shape talent acquisition manager. Ultimately it gives them the opportunity to do it what they need to do - it gives them an income coming in.

No one has applied yet - as of Friday morning, Jan. 18 - but Wiseman is hopeful to connect with applicants soon.

Grand Haven has hosted the national U.S. Coast Guard Festival every summer since 1937. In 1998, it was the first to be recognized as Coast Guard City, USA, by an act of U.S. Congress.

There are 42 active duty Coast Guard personnel serving at Station Grand Haven. During the summer, those officers also man small stations in Holland and Muskegon. They were all deprived of their mid-month paycheck, which includes basic pay, and food, housing and uniform allowances.

Yet they are all required to continue to show up for work. Grand Haven personnel are transitioning from boat rescue season to ice rescue season. The Coast Guard is responsible for ice rescues along the shore of Lake Michigan and on inland lakes.

Its not just Grand Haven, but throughout the Great Lakes region and United States - the outpouring of support has been strong and its growing, said Master Chief Alan Haraf, of the U.S. Coast Guard District Nine public affairs office. Were thankful for the support.

Although theres no pay coming in, the Coast Guard remains committed to its motto: Semper Paratus, which means Always Ready.

Other Grand Haven-area businesses offering help include:
KALAMAZOO, MI  The woman who pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murdering the woman who was dating her ex-boyfriend wants a new trial.

Theresa Petto, 47, entered the plea in September 2016 after several days of her murder trial in the June 2015 shooting death of Rachel Drafta. Petto was scheduled to take the stand that afternoon. Kalamazoo County Circuit Court Judge Alexander C. Lipsey sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In August 2017, Petto and an appellate attorney went before Lipsey and asked to withdraw her plea, saying her defense attorney at trial, Jason Ronning, pursuaded her to plead guilty but mentally ill by saying she would only get treatment for mental health services if she did so. Pettos attorney argued that Ronnings information was false because mental health services are provided to all prisoners, and said Petto entered her plea based on false information.

Petto said in an affidavit filed in circuit court that Ronning told her she "had to be specifically tagged by the court as mentally ill to have access to all of my mental health medications and physical health medications in prison. I later found out this was not true." Petto went on to say in the affidavit that Ronning told her she would be placed in the psych ward in prison with her plea, but that she has been housed in the general population at Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti.

Petto said in the affidavit that if she had known she would get physical and mental health treatment in prison she would not have pleaded guilty but mentally ill to felony murder and would have demanded that her trial continue.

Lipsey denied Pettos motion, and Petto then appealed the decision to the Michigan Court of Appeals, then to the Michigan Supreme Court. The Michigan Court of Appeals ultimately granted her motion to remand, allowing her to file a new motion to withdraw her guilty plea and for an evidentiary hearing on her claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, according to court records.

Petto has a motion hearing scheduled Thursday, Jan. 24.

Police say Petto shot 25-year-old Rachel Drafta in the driveway of Draftas parents' Portage home on June 24, 2015. Drafta died two days later.

Petto allegedly was upset with Drafta because Drafta was dating Petto's ex-boyfriend, Brent Kik. The shooting happened four years to the day that Petto's baby, fathered by her former boyfriend, Brent Kik, was found dead in Petto's Hastings apartment. The medical examiner determined the 3-week-old baby had suffered a skull fracture, but Petto denied causing the injury.

Police found several clothing items in Pettos Jeep, along with trash bags, two kitchen knives, scissors a machete and zip ties. When Petto was arrested several doors down from Draftas house, she had a backpack which contained several rounds of .22 caliber ammunition, zip ties, rubber gloves, trash bags and mace. A .22 revolver registered to Petto was found underneath a camper in the driveway, Portage police officer Trevor Patterson testified Wednesday morning.
CALHOUN COUNTY, MI -- The truck driver killed Thursday in a fiery crash on I-94 was identified by police as a 48-year-old man from Mendon.

Peter Monroe, a truck driver for Greenwood Motor Lines of Wilmington, Ohio, died Thursday, Jan. 17, after rear-ending another semitractor-trailer on westbound I-94 in Calhoun County, according to a press release from Michigan State Police Marshall Post.

Monroe was westbound on I-94 in Emmett Township when his truck struck another semitractor-trailer merging onto the highway from the 11 Mile Road entrance ramp, the release said.

One of the trucks caught fire, and Monroe was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. The driver of the second truck, Rashad Dobbins, 40, of Belleville, was not injured in the crash, police said.

Speed is believed to be a factor, but the cause of the crash is yet to be determined, police said. The investigation is ongoing.
SCHOOLCRAFT TOWNSHIP, MI -- A man accused of driving with a blood-alcohol content of at least twice the legal limit and fleeing the scene of a Thursday evening crash was arraigned on both charges Friday.

Craig Rhoda, 54, was arraigned in Kalamazoo County District Court Friday, Jan. 18, on charges of operating a vehicle while intoxicated with at least a .17 blood-alcohol content and failing to stop after a collision, according to court officials.

Police responded about 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 17, to southbound U.S. 131 at XY Avenue in Schoolcraft Township on a report of a hit-and-run crash, according to a news release from the Kalamazoo County Sheriffs office.

The driver failed to stop before attempting to cross four lanes of traffic, the release said, and the silver SUV struck a southbound vehicle on the highway.

A mother and her daughter, 7, were not seriously injured in the crash, Undersheriff Jim Van Dyken said.

The driver in the silver SUV turned around and fled eastbound on XY Avenue, Van Dyken said. A suspect, Rhoda, was later located and arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated and fleeing the scene of a crash.

Rhoda pleaded not guilty to all charges during his arraignment Friday. A personal recognizance bond was set at $500. He is required to be drug and alcohol tested at the Kalamazoo County Office of Community Corrections, and is prohibited from buying or consuming alcohol, according to the court.

The man had a high blood-alcohol content, at least 0.17 percent, Van Dyken said. In Michigan, it is illegal to operate a vehicle with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher, and there are harsher penalties for those convicted of driving with a blood-alcohol content of 0.17 percent or higher.

The incident remains under investigation.
CALHOUN COUNTY, MI  Police are investigating the death of a 74-year-old Leroy Township woman as suspicious after her body was found buried in her homes front yard.

Michigan State Police Detective First Lt. Chuck Christensen said Friday afternoon, Jan. 18, that investigators are excavating the site where her body was found, in the yard of her home in the 10000 block of 4 Mile Road in Leroy Township, south of Battle Creek. Police have not identified the woman.

Police are investigating the death as suspicious," Christensen said. He said police are talking with the womans 45-year-old daughter, who he said is a person of interest in the case.

Michigan State Police troopers from the Marshall post were dispatched at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 17, to check on the woman after close friends told police they had not seen her since September.

After receiving the initial report, troopers made contact with a family member of the woman reported missing. That initial contact with family gave troopers reason to believe that the woman was deceased, according to a Michigan State Police new release.

Christensen said the death is being investigated as suspicious because of the location where the body was found, and because of the amount of time that passed before the woman was reported missing.

Troopers are currently at the residence investigating the scene, Christensen said.

Anyone with information can call the Michigan State Police Marshall Post at 269-558-0500 or Silent Observer at 269-964-3888.
Another expert on public safety: former police superintendent and now mayoral candidate Garry McCarthy, who has made crime reduction the cornerstone of his campaign. Nothing is going to change in this city until we make it safe, he said. Smarter incarceration  keeping violent offenders behind bars, pushing for tougher sentencing laws for illegal possession of a firearm and easing up on incarceration rates for nonviolent criminals  are among his prescriptions for safer streets. He also was known for using data-driven strategies to target crime hot spots, and holding district commanders accountable, until Mayor Rahm Emanuel made him a fall guy and fired him after the McDonald case exploded.
COLUMBIA TWP., MI  Firefighters cut a vans roof off to free a motorist who was trapped inside after it left an icy Columbia Township road and slammed into a tree Thursday afternoon.

Rescue crews were called at about 3 p.m., Jan. 17, to the intersection of Jefferson and Hayes roads for a report of a tan mini-van that collided with a tree and was resting on its side, Columbia Township Fire Chief Scott Cota said.

Michigan Department of Corrections Sgt. Brian Lobliner was driving on Jefferson Road on his way home to grab a few things when he witnessed the crash and stopped to help.

The van looked like it was going a little too fast and hit a patch of ice before it went off road and hit the tree, he said. The woman in the passenger seat was freed pretty quickly and taken to the hospital, but (the driver) is wedged deep in the drivers side.

Tire marks could be seen on the south side of Jefferson Road near the intersection where the van struck the now downed tree.

The vans driver, a male in his 20s, was trapped inside the wreckage for more than 45 minutes while fire crews used extrication tools to cut the roof off and free him.

This is the fourth crash weve had in the area this week and the third time we needed to use extrication equipment, Cota said.

The driver, as well as two occupants, were taken to Henry Ford Allegiance Health for treatment, Jackson Community Ambulance Spokesman Matt Rose said.

The driver was taken in critical condition, while the two passengers were listed as stable, Rose said.

The Columbia Township Police Department controlled traffic near the scene of the crash and are handling the report. The Liberty Township Fire Department and Jackson Community Ambulance assisted at the scene.
WYOMING, MI -- A suspicious device that caused a brief scare in Wyoming when it was left on a public sidewalk turned out to be commercial fireworks, police said.

The device was discovered about 9:30 a.m. Friday, Jan. 18 in the 1200 block of 56th St. SW.

Police said the device was concerning because it had visible wires and multiple pieces.

Police evacuated two nearby homes and a building and advised others to shelter in place.

Portions of 56th Street SW and Gezon Street also were shut down for about an hour.

State police bomb squad personnel arrived and evaluated the device and determined it was legal commercially available fireworks. Because the fireworks are relatively powerful and could be dangerous if handled carelessly, state police disabled it.

The components were turned over to Wyoming police.

Anyone with information about who left the device on the sidewalk can call police at 530-7300 or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345.

While there is no reason at this time to believe any harm was intended, Wyoming Police are investigating, police wrote in a statement.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A man behind a bank holdup and a string of other robberies in 2017, all tried to a drug addiction problem, has been sentenced to prison.

Jacob Savickas, 35, was sentenced to 29 months to 20 years in prison Thursday, Jan. 17 in Kent County Circuit Court.

In July and early August of 2017, Savickas was deemed a suspect in the the following unarmed robberies:

The J & H Mobil, 4404 Clyde Park Ave. SW, on July 26; the Admiral gas station on South Main Street in Cedar Springs, on July 27; two other stores in South Bend, Ind. on July 27; a credit union in Peru, Ind. on July 28; the Next Door Food Store, 4616 Alpine Ave. NW in Alpine Township on Aug. 1, the Independent Bank, 3090 Plainfield Ave. NE on Wednesday, Aug. 2, and possibly an attempted robbery of a McDonalds restaurant in Walker on Aug. 2.

Kent County sheriffs investigators at the time said they believed the spree was fueled by Savickas' drug use.

Judge Curt Benson, in one of his first sentencing hearings as a newly elected judge, advised Savickas to get help for his drug addiction.

What youve done, handing notes to bank tellers and demanding money, is simply intolerable in our society. Youve got a horrific drug addiction problem you have to address.," he said

Savickas was sentenced on charges of bank robbery and larceny from a person.
KENT COUNTY, MI  James King, 17, the slain East Kentwood High student, was fighting a gunman trying to rob him of marijuana when he was shot in the face, police say.

Israel Valdez, 17, was identified as the suspected gunman. He and Kayleb Douglas Sims, 17, who allegedly drove the getaway car, are wanted by police.

Police have identified four suspects in the slaying who planned to rob King of marijuana he planned to sell them, police said.

Ahmed Hasan, 17, who allegedly drove his Dodge Magnum to Towne and Country Shopping Center, then got out before the shooting occurred, was arrested the night of the killing after police found his abandoned car.

An 18-year-old woman awaits arraignment Friday, Jan. 18, in Grand Rapids District Court.

All are charged with open murder, assault with intent to rob while armed and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, all life offenses.

Hasan drove the others to the parking lot of Florentine Ristorante, near Kalamazoo Avenue SE and 44th Street around 5 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 13, police said in a probable-cause affidavit filed in Grand Rapids District Court.

They had set up a marijuana buy with King over social media, police said.

The intent of the group was to commit a robbery of Marijuana from King, a detective wrote in the affidavit.

King met them at the parking lot and got in their car, police said.

Kayleb Douglas Sims, left, and Israel Valdez, both 17, are wanted in the Jan. 13 killing of James King, 17.

Israel Valdez was in possession of a pistol during this robbery and the occupants of the vehicle were aware of the pistol. Israel began the robbery as King sat in the backseat of the vehicle. King attempted to fight off the robbery and Israel shot King one time in the face, killing him, the detective wrote.

Sims was seated in the drivers seat of the vehicle and drove the vehicle as they fled the scene.

The victim died at the scene.

He had been in communication with Valdez and the woman about selling them marijuana, police said. The woman had also communicated her desire to commit a robbery with the co-defendants  (and) also took steps to destroy evidence after the murder, the detective wrote.

Police asked anyone with information on whereabouts of Sims and Valdez to call Grand Rapids police 616-456-3400 or Silent Observer at 774-2345.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- The Kent County Sheriffs Office will no longer honor federal immigration holds without an arrest warrant signed by a judge.

The policy change, effective immediately, comes after outrage at the three-day detainment of a 27-year-old U.S. citizen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, a former U.S. Marine, was set to be released from the Kent County Jail on Dec. 14 when ICE instead took custody of him after giving the jail a detainment request. Ramos-Gomez was then transferred to the Calhoun County Jail for possible deportation proceedings.

He was released three days later only after an attorney, contacted by Ramos-Gomez mother, provided citizenship documentation to ICE.

ICE officials previously said in a statement they issued a detainer after Ramos-Gomez allegedly told them, while interviewed in jail, that he was a foreign national illegally present in the U.S."

Ramos-Gomez was lodged in jail with a Michigan drivers license in his possession, said Kent County Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young.

We have tremendous concern over this investigation and the reasons that they used to hold this particular person, LaJoye-Young said. Again, thats why were advocating for a judicial review, a second set of eyes to look at the case, like would happen with any of our criminal cases.

Unlike arrest warrants, ICE detainment requests are not reviewed by judges. LaJoye-Young said its clear that ICE detained Ramos-Gomez based on either incomplete or inaccurate information -- information that is their duty to collect and verify."

The additional requirement of independent judicial review will increase the level of oversight of ICE detention requests in Kent County, she said. Our justice system is built on a balance of authority and oversight. For that reason, we advocate for the requirement that all ICE detention requests be subject to judicial review at a national level.

In 2017, the county held 185 ICE detainees, according to jail records. LaJoye-Young said these people were kept detained for ICE solely on detainment requests.

LaJoye-Young said she joined Ramos-Gomez' family and others in their concern and outrage over his treatment by ICE.

ICE officials became aware of Ramos-Gomez after Grand Rapids police alerted them, and other federal authorities, of a possible act of terrorism" he was involved in, Grand Rapids police said in a statement.

The possible act of terrorism" relates to a Nov. 21 incident at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in which Ramos-Gomez allegedly breached security at the hospital, set a fire, pulled a fire alarm and stood out on the helipad, according to Grand Rapids police. He was arrested that day.

We initially looked at it as a potential act of terrorism based on the circumstances, but we eventually concluded that it may be more of a mental health thing, said Grand Rapids Police Department Sgt. Cathy Williams.

Ramos-Gomezs family says his actions were related to post-traumatic stress disorder and that he is currently receiving mental health treatment. Ramos-Gomez, a lance corporal and tank crewman, served in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2014.

On Dec. 14, Ramos-Gomez pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing in the incident and was issued a personal recognizance bond pending sentencing. Before his mother could drive to the jail and pick him up, he was placed into ICE custody.

The Grand Rapids police officials, in a statement Friday, said they dont enforce immigration laws and only contact ICE when there is a potential risk to the publics safety, specifically when there is a possible act of terrorism. They pointed out there was a risk to federal airspace.

We are committed to being a welcoming community where immigrants and refugees feel safe, the Grand Rapids police statement read. We want to reassure the community that safety -- not immigration status -- is our No. 1 priority.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, who helped bring Ramos-Gomez' situation to light, lauded LaJoye-Youngs decision and called on other law enforcement agencies to follow suit.

We applaud the Kent County Sheriff for launching an immediate investigation and recognizing that no one should be handed over to ICE unless ICE has a judicial warrant," said ACLU attorney Miriam Aukerman in a statement. "Jilmars case shows that blindly turning people over to ICE based on ICEs error-ridden detainer system is a recipe for disaster. We call on local law enforcement across the country to follow the lead of the Kent County Sheriff, and ensure that no one gets held for ICE unless a judge signs off. We also call on ICE -- which has refused to do an investigation -- to do so.

Ramos-Gomez' detainment made national headlines and has emboldened the local movement to end cooperation between ICE and the Kent County Sheriffs Office.

Since June, immigration advocates have argued that the county should ends its jail contract with ICE which formalizes lodging reimbursement and length of detainment. LaJoye-Young said her departments ICE-hold policy change will not affect the contract with ICE.

Advocates argue the countys contract and cooperation with ICE incentivizes racial profiling of Latinos and the number of immigrants arrested for minor infractions or nonviolent crimes, thereby exposing them to deportation.

MLive previously reported that drunk driving, domestic violence and driving with a suspended license arrests prompted more federal immigration detainments in 2017 at the Kent County Jail than any other charges.

LaJoye-Young has previously resisted calls to not honor ICE detainment requests.

In November, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and Michigan Immigrant Rights Center petitioned county officials to end the contract. Representatives from those organizations stressed that ICE detainment requests, which are issued by ICE and not signed by a judge, are not mandatory.

At the time, LaJoye-Young framed honoring ICE detainment requests without an arrest warrant as following federal law.

Its not for us to determine if the legal process that Congress set out is fair or if its appropriate or sufficient, she said at the time. Its my job to facilitate the legal execution of those laws of Congress.

The Kent County Sheriffs Office does not conduct immigration arrests. Rather, detainment requests are typically issued by ICE after a person is booked in the jail and that persons information is transmitted to federal authorities.
KENT COUNTY, MI  Prosecutors on Friday, Jan. 18, charged three additional suspects in the killing of an East Kentwood High student.

The suspects set up the victim, James King, 17, for robbery during a planned marijuana sale, police said. The killing happened Sunday, Jan. 13, at Towne and Country Shopping Center near Kalamazoo Avenue SE and 44th Street, Grand Rapids police say.

Ahmed Hasan, 17, who allegedly drove his friends to the strip mall was first arrested after police found his car, abandoned a few blocks away from the homicide scene.

Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said Friday that charges have also been issued against an 18-year-old woman, who is jailed, and two others  Kayleb Douglas Sims, 17, and Israel Valdez, 17  who are at large.

The prosecutor asked anyone with information on their whereabouts to call Grand Rapids police 616-456-3400 or Silent Observer at 774-2345.

Becker said police have conducted an extensive investigation in the killing. The defendants have all been charged with open murder, assault with intent to rob while armed and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

The charges are all life offenses.

8 Ahmed Hasan, 17, appears in a video arraignment

Police said that the defendants planned to rob King of marijuana after using social media to set up a drug buy at the strip mall.

Hasan drove to the parking lot of Florentine Ristorante, then got out of his Dodge Magnum, police said. Someone else got behind the wheel before King got into the back seat of the car.

King was shot in the face, then pushed or fell out of the car, which sped away, leaving Hasan at the scene. Police found his car parked a few blocks away.

Police found him at his home. He was arrested after allegedly providing incriminating statements. He told police that one of his friends had a handgun, and that they intended to rob King, police reports show.

Hasan provided material support for this crime by transporting and allowing the conspirators to use his vehicle both during the robbery/murder as well as afterwards in order to flee, Grand Rapids police Detective Case Weston wrote in an affidavit.

Hasan admitted that he was aware of the groups plan to commit a robbery and was aware that a subject was armed with a handgun.
FLINT, MI  The man who killed two women and left the toddler son of one of the victims alone with the bodies for days was sentenced Thursday in Genesee Circuit Court.

Malek E. Thornton, 20, was sentenced by Judge F. Kay Behm on Jan. 17 to serve between 22 and 50 years in prison for the murder of 19-year-olds Sasha Bell and Sacorya Reed inside Ridgecrest Apartments on April 18, 2016.

Thornton plead guilty in October to second-degree murder and felony firearm. The agreement with prosecutors set a minimum prison sentence and Thornton testified against his cousin Toron C. Fisher.

A jury convicted Fisher Wednesday, Jan. 16 on first-degree murder, second-degree murder and two counts of felony firearm.

Sacoryas mother Dianna Reed asked for Behm to sentence Thornton to the maximum allowable prison sentence.

He took a piece of my heart and Ill never be the same, Diana Reed told the court on Thursday. Id just like for him to pay for what he did to my child.

Investigators believe Thornton and Fisher went to Ridgecrest Apartments to retaliate for a previous robbery of Thornton.

Thornton was called to the apartment to sell the women some marijuana and thought he was again being set up for a robbery, MLive-The Flint Journal previously reported.

This time, however, Thornton took matters into his own hands and brought Fisher with him.

Thornton went into the apartment and shot Bell in the head while she was in an upstairs bedroom.

Both Thornton and Fisher shot and killed Sacorya Reed in the downstairs of the apartment, according to MLive-The Flint Journal files.

Bells parents held large photos of her while addressing the court during sentencing.

Sasha was such a bright light, said her mother, Audra Bell. She was one of the happiest people I know. She would befriend anybody.

Audra and husband Floyd are now raising their grandson  who was left in the home with two dead bodies for two days.

He has been traumatized beyond belief, Audra Bell said. He was scared to be by himself. He would not allow us to put him down.

Sasha Bells murder garnered national and international headlines due to her involvement in a lawsuit in which she alleged her child had been poisoned by lead as a result of the Flint water crisis. Police have said the murders had no direct connection to Bells involvement in the lawsuit.

Someone she trusted took her life, said Floyd Bell of his daughter. It was an assassination. I would say he needs to spend the rest of his life  80 years  in prison. A life for a life.

Thornton took time to apologize to families of both victims, the court and his family during his sentencing Thursday.

I know I dont deserve it, but I pray that one day yall will forgive me, Thornton said. Sasha and Sacorya was two beautiful girls who had bright, promising future and I took that away from them.

Behm said she took a lot of time when determining Thorntons prison sentence. She said Thornton lied about being remorseful and his motive for the killing.

Its not fair that he has a chance to start his life again, Behm said. You were old enough to understand right from wrong. You made a choice. You killed two women.

Behm said she didnt like the plea deal given to Thornton, but Fisher wouldve never been held accountable if not for Thorntons testimony.

Im so sorry for your loss, the judge said through tears to the families of the women. I have two daughters about the age of your daughters. I couldnt imagine being in your shoes. Im so, so sorry.

Thornton was given credit for 1,002 days in jail and was also was ordered to pay $16,000 in restitution.
FLINT, MI -- Boosters of a federally-funded registry are looking to match people exposed to Flint water during the citys water crisis to services designed to minimize the effect of lead.

They just want more men, women and children to work with.

Officials and media gathered at the Flint Farmers' Market on Friday, Jan. 18 for a press conference to announce that the Flint Registry was active.

I encourage everyone -- its for all ages -- to sign-up so you can be connected, supported and counted, said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, associate professor at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and director of the MSU-Hurley Childrens Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative.

The Flint Registry gives anyone exposed to Flint water from April 2014 until October 2015 -- an estimated 150,000 people -- access to services and programs, including the the Genesee Health Systems Neurodevelopmental Center of Excellence, which provides assessment services for children.

The Registry is funded in part by a $14.4-million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Members of Congress who helped secure the funding were thanked at a program to promote the program Friday, including U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, and U.S. Reps Dan Kildee, D-Flint, and John Moolenaar, R-Midland.

Our delegation here has been such a strong voice for us, and we thank you so much ... This wouldnt be happening if you hadnt been down there fighting ... Its nice to know you all have our backs, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said.

Hanna-Attisha said several dozen people have been fully enrolled in the Flint Registry and almost 6,000 people have pre-enrolled, starting the process of qualifying for services.

Maxine Onstott, a mother of four, was one of the first Flint residents to enroll and has already been referred to services including the Lead Safe Home Program at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

That program offers assistance to low and moderate- income families, as well as rental property owners, in making their homes lead-safe for children.

I know from personal experience it can be extremely difficult and confusing to find available resources while juggling work, kids, home life, responsibilities (and) not knowing if youre eligible ... or whats even out there, Onstott said. I can related to the many Flint residents who run into these same barriers, and things can feel hopeless at times.

New MDHHS Director Robert Gordon, whose department was centrally involved in the water crisis, also spoke at Fridays enrollment promotion event and offered his support.

Gordon replaced Nick Lyon, who still faces criminal charges related to the water crisis, including two counts of involuntary manslaughter, in Genesee Circuit Court.

The charges relate to Lyons performance as director during outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease in Genesee County while the city of Flint was attempting to treat its own water.

The state government and my department lost the trust of the people of Flint and for good reason, and the question now is how we rebuild that trust, Gordon said. "One (way) is that we do the work ... and the second way we rebuild trust is to hold firm to the right principles.

You honor and listen to science and the scientists. You put the interest of the public ahead of agency interests or personal interests, and you treat people -- whatever their race, background (and) wherever theyre from with dignity and respect and honesty," he said.
Update: The date of this event has been changed due to bad weather on the original date.

YPSILANTI, MI -- Alive, Alonzo Miller served as chief of the Ypsilanti Fire Station. Dead, his ghost remains a legend.

The Detroit Paranormal Expeditions team is hoping to pay Miller a visit on Saturday, Jan. 26th, during an evening of paranormal investigating from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Michigan Firehouse Museum, 110 W. Cross St. in Ypsilanti.

Since 2016, the DPX team of paranormal investigators has researched and explored reported haunted locations in Michigan. From large to small places, they strive to uncover secrets and understand the unknown. While some experiences can be explained by logic and science, some remain unexplained.

"As a group we try to prove that it is haunted, but sometimes never find anything, Todd Bonner, founder and leader investigator, said. When we do get results, we let people make their own conclusions based on our findings.

Bonner investigates the paranormal, motivated by his personal musings on spirits and the afterlife and a desire to encourage historical preservation.

We try to focus on Michigan and Detroit area and its history, he said.

Last year, DPX explored the abandoned Eloise Asylum in Westland and now offer tours of the facility.

The legend of Alonzo Miller claims he died in the fire station in 1922 during a very ironic fire, the second since 1901 at the station. After his death, Millers ghost is said to have remained, haunting the building and causing unexplained disturbances.

Despite the excitement aroused by mystery, Michigan Firehouse Museum Director Al G. Dyer Jr. said Millers family has debunked this myth, stating he did not die until 1940.

The truth has not stopped visitors from seeking evidence of paranormal activity, according to Dyer. Since becoming director, he welcomes groups like DPX to visit the museum and investigate.

Obviously as the director, I want people to explore the paranormal activity but also explore the museum and learn more about the history of the building and surrounding community. Dyer said.

With its close proximity to Ypsilantis historic Depot Town, Dyer hopes the increased visitation to the museum will encourage people to eat or shop downtown.

My goal was to get a large group of people into the museum and then consequently benefit local businesses, he said.

The original building was constructed in 1898, and the facility housed the Ypsilanti Fire Department until 1975. Today, the old and new converge in the Michigan Firehouse Museum. What is left from the original building stands with the modern exhibit and education center.

Since opening the museum to paranormal exploration, Dyer has received positive feedback from the surrounding community and an increased interest from individuals seeking answers to the unknown.

Movies and TV sensationalize the paranormal, but it helps create more opportunities for us to mainstream our work, Bonner said. It piques peoples interest to want to come with us and find the paranormal in their own lives.
YPSILANTI, MI  After viewing surveillance footage and hearing detailed testimony from an ex-girlfriend, a judge on Thursday forwarded to trial court the case of a prison inmate accused of killing a man while on parole in 2017.

Rico M. Chandler, 42, is accused of killing Dominique Lee, 28, at an Ypsilanti housing complex on June 8, 2017 in a suspected narcotics-related shooting.

Judge J. Cedric Simpson of 14A-1 District Court moved the case forward to trial court Thursday, Jan. 17 after four witnesses testified in a preliminary examination.

Chandler had been out on parole for a year at the time of the shooting and absconded the same month, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections.

He was sent back to prison in November 2017 when he pleaded no contest to three counts of assaulting, resisting or obstructing police and six weapons charges in a separate September 2017 Ypsilanti Township incident, prison records show.

Ypsilanti Police officer Ashley Kofahl was dispatched at 2:40 a.m. June 8, 2017 in the 900 block of West Michigan Avevnue in the Sauk Trail Pointe housing complex for a report of shots fired, and a car crash.

A vehicle had crashed into the building and the victim had a gunshot wound to his head, Kofahl said at Chandlers preliminary hearing Thursday.

Robert Peto, a retired Ypsilanti detective, was off duty during the incident, but was asked to report to the scene, which he described as an area filled with broken glass that appeared to have come from a side window of the vehicle. He found a lot of blood" inside the vehicle.

Several surveillance videos showed a Chevrolet Impala entering the complex at about 1:58 a.m. before a man in a Detroit Red Wings jacket exited the vehicle.

Footage then showed the victims vehicle running into a building in the complex. Assistant Washtenaw County Prosecutor John Vella presented the videos in court Thursday.

Lee was killed about 2:45 a.m.

Michigan parole officer Brian Teske, who met with Chandler twice a month, said he recognized him in the video by his height, build, the way he walks with his feet outward" and his Red Wings jacket.

"He came in on March 15, 2017 to do a drug test and he was wearing (the jacket) that day, Teske testified.

Chandlers girlfriend at the time of the homicide, Teneca Powell, also testified, swaying in her seat at the witness stand.

The day of the murder, Chandler came to her home, where he would occasionally stay, and stood at the foot of her bed at 3:08 a.m., Powell said, adding he was wearing a white, sleeveless shirt, black shorts down to the knee with cargo-like pockets with a drawstring that came down the side.

She said she was half-asleep, watching TV when he handed her a gun and five or six eight-balls" of crack.

He was sweating profusely. He was jittery. He was nervous ... somebody else (was) standing in the doorway, Powell said. I didnt know who he was at the time.

I said Whats going on? Whats wrong? He said Nothing, Ill tell you later," Powell testified. "He passed me a gun and some drugs and told me to put it up  put it in my night stand, to put it up for him.

She did, and he came back at 6 a.m. to take the weapon, she said. Powell reached him again at 9 a.m. after talking to his brother about what happened.

Rico said he couldnt talk on the phone, so she met him on Michigan Avenue between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on June 8, 2017. He was wearing a different outfit.

He was wearing a pair of pants and a Detroit Lions jacket, she said.

Marcus Walker, 30, another man charged in the homicide, set up a deal to buy drugs, Powell said. Walker currently faces one count of open murder, a count of armed robbery and a count of unarmed robbery.

They (were) standing there and he said Dominique pointed a gun at him so he shot him, Powell said.

Chandler shook his head at Powell in the courtroom.

He just said, he couldnt leave (the 900 block) because he had to make sure no one was going to talk, adding the exterior of his forearms were bloody from jumping a wall, and his knees appeared scraped and bloody as well.

Vella showed her security footage of the man in a Red Wings coat at the parole office.

Its Rico, Powell said.

And again, she identified him in footage at the housing complex based on the clothes he wore, the shape of his head, the way he walks, the Red Wings jacket, the drawstring and just everything," she said.

Chandler faces one count of open murder, two counts of armed robbery and seven weapons charges in the Lee death.

He is due in Washtenaw County Trial Court on Feb. 25 for a pretrial hearing at 1:30 p.m. before Judge David S. Swartz.
It is possible to consider the GOPs condemnation of Steve King all well and fine, yet also a little arbitrary and affected given that King has a history of racist rhetoric that passed without his party seeming to much notice or care  and that the GOP itself has a long record of thinly veiled racism as obvious as the writing on Barack Obama's birth certificate.
ANN ARBOR, MI  Seeing a fellow student struck by a car and nearly killed isnt something Emma Aboukasm will soon forget.

It was so scary, she said. The whole thing was a shock.

Aboukasm was on Huron Street in downtown Ann Arbor near University of Michigans campus Monday night, Jan. 14, when she watched a driver fail to yield at a mid-block crosswalk and strike a 21-year-old pedestrian, who was taken to the hospital in critical condition.

The victim was bleeding and unconscious and his shoes and backpack were in the street, and he was laying yards away from where he was hit, said Aboukasm.

Im so sad about it and I really want him to be OK, she said, noting she was once almost hit in the same crosswalk.

Ann Arbor police Sgt. Bill Clock said the victim remained in critical condition as of Tuesday and had no updates Wednesday on whether the driver was cited or charged with a crime. Police were still investigating and have not released the victims name.

Aboukasm thinks the crash could have been avoided if there were flashing crosswalk lights, like at some other crossings.

Hours before the incident, city officials discussed budget priorities for the upcoming year, including pedestrian safety.

There was mention of a Pioneer High School student hit in a Stadium Boulevard crosswalk while walking home from school Jan. 7, suffering a broken nose and a deep gash in his forehead.

Another student at Community High was hit by a car this week, apparently escaping without serious injury.

City Council plans to approve the next budget in May, and Kathy Griswold, D-2nd Ward, is hoping to convince her colleagues to put significantly more money toward making crosswalks safer.

Im going to advocate for the funding that we need to bring all of our crosswalks up to minimum standards in terms of illumination, signage and markings, Griswold said.

How much extra is she talking?

Were going to be getting more revenue this year and I would think maybe $2 million, she said, noting the city just spent hundreds of thousands hiring a consultant to take a big-picture look at the citys transportation system, a move she didnt support.

The city needs to spend less on planning for the future and more on taking care of the here and now, Griswold argues.

Council Member Ali Ramlawi, D-5th Ward, suggests having a full-time city employee dedicated to pedestrian safety.

Its high enough on our priority list that it deserves serious attention and perhaps a permanent position, he said. It seems to be coming up every council meeting and its not a problem thats going to go away with another study or survey.

More than 600 pedestrian crashes have been reported in Ann Arbor since 2008. The numbers ranged between 49 and 68 per year from 2013-17, then 64 in 2018, and seven so far in 2019.

Before she was elected in November, Griswold spent years speaking before City Council as a private citizen, raising concerns about what she saw as unsafe and poorly lit crosswalks.

The former school board member successfully lobbied the council to lift a longstanding moratorium on new street lighting four years ago, arguing the city needed to address unlit mid-block crosswalks, including one on Fuller Road in front of Huron High School.

Before the city took action to add lighting, a 16-year-old student was struck and killed in the dark crosswalk in October 2016.

In the wake of that tragedy, Griswold joined with other residents, parents and school officials to lobby for more pedestrian safety improvements, and the city responded.

Griswold is continuing her advocacy in a new role, pushing the city to do more, and at times butting heads with city staff.

We have a professional engineering staff in the transportation department. Unfortunately, that is the same staff  that allowed this crosswalk to go un-illuminated after people, including myself, pleaded and begged council to please fund a streetlight, she said at a meeting last month, referring to the Fuller Road crossing.

This is the same transportation department that has allowed crosswalks to go without proper signage, without proper markings. We need to have a professional engineer that specializes in pedestrian safety  and we need to add such a person to our team.

City Administrator Howard Lazarus objected to Griswolds criticism and came to the staffs defense.

Its wholly inappropriate to criticize a team of professional engineers employed by the city who have no other thing in mind than providing the safest possible route to school for our kids, he said.

Griswold has been advocating for pedestrian safety for more than two decades. Since Lazarus arrived in 2016, the city has made tremendous progress, she said, but theres still a lot more to do.

At the Jan. 7 council meeting, Griswold raised concerns about a mid-block crosswalk added last year on North Maple Road, down the street from Skyline High. She issued a public apology to the community for the lack of lighting there.

It is in a location where people dont expect a crosswalk and it has no street lighting or illumination anywhere nearby, she said.

I believe it is unconscionable to have a crosswalk without lighting in Ann Arbor, given our history.

There are a number of other crosswalks without adequate lighting and streetlights that arent functioning, Griswold said.

Many streetlights in the city are owned by DTE Energy, city spokesman Robert Kellar noted.

The city asks people to report concerns about streetlights and crosswalks using the citys A2 Fix It app.

The city plans to add lighting at the Maple Road crosswalk, Kellar said.

About 25 to 40 locations are expected to get new streetlights in the coming year, according to the city, which also has been working on crosswalk design guidelines.

Mayor Christopher Taylor issued a statement this week, calling the recent pedestrian injuries heartbreaking and unacceptable.

We are improving our infrastructure by adding pedestrian islands, RRFBs, signs, and more lighting, but there is so much more to do, he wrote. It took us decades to design ourselves into this problem -- valuing cars over other users -- but we are committed to finding and deploying solutions so that our streets are safe for everyone.

Ann Arbor is committed to a Vision Zero strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries by 2025, Taylor said.

We need to reduce traffic speeds, improve road designs and crosswalk infrastructure (including lighting), emphasize traffic enforcement, educate drivers and pedestrians, and expand traffic calming, he wrote. As more and more people walk and ride, drivers need to increase their vigilance; pedestrians and cyclists need to constantly be aware and take nothing for granted.
PITTSFIELD TWP, MI -- A global chemical company is promising 300 new jobs for Pittsfield Township, but some residents have environmental concerns about proposed construction of a new industrial facility near a park.

The Pittsfield Township Planning Commission on Thursday, Jan. 17 postponed a decision on whether to allow Wacker Chemical to build an Innovation Center and Regional Headquarters near Marsh View Meadows park.

We havent seen in my opinion, a high enough level of cooperation from wacker to workout design and building issues, siting and minimizing footprint and height, Planning Commission Chair Matthew Payne, said. We have nothing against Wacker and welcome economic development but there are some issues.

The Germany-based company is seeking zoning amendments that would allow construction of the new research facility along East Textile Road in Pittsfield Township.

After Wackers presentation of development plans, CFO Paul Mason discussed the companys plans for growth over the next five years and its need for new facilities and the type of highly skilled and educated employees that can be found in the Ann Arbor.

Mason said the new facility would bring 300 jobs to the community.

Our vision with this project is a building reflective of a progressive company, like ourselves. We want to grow to be better and bigger, Mason said.

Residents expressed concerns over the sites close proximity to Marsh View Meadows park.

This is not a company I want in my community, especially near an environmentally sensitive area, said Anne Fortunato, Pittsfield Township resident and park commissioner.

Multiple speakers pointed out a chemical explosion at a Wacker manufacturing facility that injured 13 people in Charleston, Tennessee in 2017.

Parents discussed concerns for childrens safety if their are traffic increases in the area and if there were limited access to nearby playgrounds during construction.

Other major concerns involved potential traffic congestion, chemical emissions, impact on groundwater quality and how Wacker would respond to emergency situations.

Jennifer Olmstead, director of business development at Ann Arbor SPARK, expressed support for new Wacker Chemical facilities in Pittsfield Township, calling it critical to our economic developmental strategy.

Our goal is to attract and retain jobs in our community, Olmstead said. When the city of Ann Arbor prospers, Pittsfield prospers."
President Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general shared some good news for Michigan marijuana businesses during his confirmation hearing this week.

Bill Barr, a conservative lawyer who served as President George H.W. Bushs attorney general, said he would not use federal government resources to prosecute marijuana businesses operating in states that have legalized the drug.

Im not going to go after companies that have relied on the Cole Memoranda, Barr said, speaking before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, Jan. 15, during his confirmation hearing.

The Cole Memos are guidance from the Obama era that kept federal authorities from intervening in the marijuana industry in states that have legalized the drug for medicinal or adult uses.

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the memos in January 2018, days after California approved legal marijuana, leaving marijuana businesses across the country on shaky legal footing.

Marijuana is still considered a Schedule 1 controlled substance federally, meaning it is illegal to buy, sell or possess it. State laws have circumvented the issue, and federal authorities have let states take the lead.

The current system is untenable, Barr said during his confirmation hearing.

While Barr said he wouldnt go after businesses, he does believe action needs to be taken.

Either we have a federal law that prohibits marijuana, everywhere -- which I would support, myself, because I think its a mistake to back off on marijuana, Barr said. However if we want a federal approach -- if we want states to have their own laws -- then lets get there and lets get there the right way.

The confirmation process for Barr continues. He would replace Sessions, who Trump asked to resign the day after the midterm election in November 2018.

-- Amy Biolchini is the marijuana beat reporter for MLive. Contact her with questions, tips or comments at abiolch1@mlive.com. Read more from MLive about medical and recreational marijuana.
ALGER COUNTY, MI A snowmobiler was killed when he collided with a vehicle in Michigans Upper Peninsula.

WLUC-TV6 reports that a snowmobiler was trying to cross M-28 near Knox Street south of Munising around 8:25 a.m. when he passed directly into the path of an eastbound vehicle and was hit.

The snowmobiler was immediately transported to U.P. Health System - Marquette where he later died from his injuries, the TV station reported. The driver of the vehicle was uninjured.

The Alger County Sheriffs Office was assisted at the scene by U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer. Alger County EMS and the Munising Township Fire Department.

This is at least the third snowmobile-related death to occur in the U.P. since the start of 2019. Dennis Pellinen was found dead on Jan. 9 in Delta County three days after he was reported missing.

An Ohio man was killed in Chippewa County on Jan. 11.
ROYAL OAK, Mich. -- A 31-year-old Royal Oak man is in custody after his father was found dead inside their home and the suspect led police on a high-speed chase through several counties in Michigan Thursday.

According to a press release from the Royal Oak Police Department, the suspect -- who has not been identified -- was wanted in connection of the death of his 72-year-old father. Police found the father dead inside the home he shared with the suspect, with his hands and legs bound together. Police found the father after they were called by family members who were worried about being unable to reach the father and son by phone earlier in the day.

When police got to the home, they found the fathers body.

Meanwhile, the suspect was found after a run-in with police officers in Gratiot County. Those officers were called to a gas station Thursday evening when a customer was acting erratically. After officers made contact with the customer they discovered he was the suspect wanted by Royal Oak police. As they tried to arrest the suspect, he violently assaulted the deputies and fled the scene in the police vehicle.

An hour-long chase ensued through Clinton, Ingham and Livingston counties before the car became completely disabled on I-96 near Howell after police deployed spikes in the road which disabled all four tires . The suspect was then arrested by deputies with the Livingston County Sheriffs. Earlier in the day, police officers in Berrien County encountered the suspect after he was found near the Indiana border because his car had run out of gas, but were unaware that he was wanted by police.

Royal Oak police continue to investigate the fathers death, but he is believed to have died earlier in the week. An autopsy will be conducted Friday to determine the cause of death.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced Thursday that shes hoping to settle a federal lawsuit alleging the states existing political district lines are gerrymandered, a move that could mean new districts in the 2020 election cycle.

The lawsuit, initially filed by the League of Women Voters in December 2017, claims Michigans 2011 redistricting process heavily favored Republicans and resulted in gerrymandered districts. The case was slated to go to trial in early February, and Benson filed a brief in court this week concurring with a request from attorneys for several Republican officials that the trial be put on hold - albeit for different reasons.

It is clear the court has found significant evidence of partisan gerrymandering, and the likely outcome would not be favorable to the state," Benson said in a statement Thursday evening. "It is therefore my responsibility to ensure a fair and equitable resolution for the citizens of Michigan that would save taxpayer money and ensure fair representation.

Bensons brief indicates she is looking to settle the case in a way that mitigates the impact of any past impermissible partisan gerrymandering; and obviates the need for further proceedings in this case."

Laura Cox, a candidate for state Republican Party Chair, called Bensons move a way to rig the system in favor of Democrats.

Benson should let the courts decide instead of rigging the process to pay back her donors and partisan friends," she said in a statement.

If the case is settled, any resulting changes to Michigans political districts would only impact the 2020 election. The next round of redistricting will come after the 2020 census and be in place by the 2022 election, and will be the states first test of the independent redistricting commission set into motion by the passage of Proposal 2.
SCHOOLCRAFT COUNTY, MI  A Michigan man was killed when the car he was driving struck a tree in the Upper Peninsula.

Troopers from the Michigan State Police Manistique Post were dispatched to the crash scene on Port Inland Road just south of US-2 in Schoolcraft Countys Doyle Township around 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 16.

They later determined that a vehicle driven by 57-year-old Paul McGahan of Gulliver was traveling southbound on Port Inland Road when it left the roadway, traveled into a ditch and struck a tree.

McGahan, who was found at the scene unresponsive, was later pronounced deceased at Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital. Alcohol and speed are not believed to be factors in the crash, police said.

Troopers were assisted by the Schoolcraft County Sheriffs Department, Sault Tribal Police Department, MSP Gladstone, MSP St. Ignace, along with Manistique EMS and Doyle Township First Responders. The investigation is ongoing.
After a fisherman noticed a cat in distress, trapped atop a spillway at the J. Edward Roush Lake dam in Indiana, local authorities and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers teamed up to help it. A short time later, the felines dramatic free-fall rescue was captured on video.

The incident happened Wednesday in Huntington County, Ind., which is southwest of Fort Wayne.

The cat was clearly in distress and retreated to the very top of the spillway area and lodged itself in the metal structure, Huntington sheriffs officials said in a Facebook post. There was not anyway to gain access to the animal, short of taking a boat out and hoping we could coax it down. It was decided it was worth a shot to attempt (to) help the cat versus doing nothing.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers staff got permission to shut down the water flow at the dam and get a boat out beneath the spillway.

When the boat reached the concrete spillway, the cat came out of the structure it was hiding in at the top, and slid the entire way down and the rescuers were able to grab it before it hit the water, sheriffs staff said.

One person commented on the sheriffs social media page, thanking them for rescuing their missing cat.

Mr. Vanjie is safe and sound! He has been missing for almost 2 weeks. Id truly like to thank the Huntington County Sheriff Department and the rescuers from the Army Corp of Engineers who saved our beloved cat!
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk informed employees via email Friday that seven percent of the companys workforce will be fired in order for the company to be able to lower the cost of the upcoming Model 3 standard edition.

Musk explained the company needs to create a more affordable model of the popular Model 3 that would be priced around $35,000. Current models included longer ranged batteries and premium features that push the model to a minimum price of $44,000. By producing the Model 3 standard edition with a shorter range battery (approximately 220 miles) the company hopes to gain more buyers at a more affordable rate.

However, in order to do so, Musk said the company must get rid of several staff members.

We unfortunately have no choice but to reduce full-time employee headcount by approximately 7% (we grew by 30% last year, which is more than we can support) and retain only the most critical temps and contractors. Tesla will need to make these cuts while increasing the Model 3 production rate and making many manufacturing engineering improvements in the coming months, Musk wrote.

The news comes as auto makers from around the world have gathered in Detroit for the North American International Auto Show. Once again, Tesla has decided not attend the show -- in large part because the company is not allowed to sell cars in Michigan -- even though its popularity has grown in recent years. The absence was notable this year as several other auto makers unveiled concepts or soon-to-be produced electric cars that will rival Teslas offerings.

Musk said Tesla nearly sold more of its vehicles in 2018 than it did in all previous years combined, indicating the growth is rapid and demand is there for more of its vehicles. However, the company did not produce enough of a profit to retain jobs while lowering costs.

The job cuts come as no surprise to some industry experts who say every auto maker faces the same sort of challenge when trying to reach a broader audience.

As Tesla attempts to transition from a niche brand to a volume, mainstream automaker, it is facing the same hurdles every other established car company must clear. First and foremost among those, a right-sized, efficient workforce that can produce vehicles at a consistent, sustainable profit," said Karl Brauer, executive publisher, Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book

Wall Street reacted to the announcement quickly as stock in Tesla had dropped by about 10 percent early Friday morning. the stock price was at $315.46 as of 11 a.m., down by about nine percent.

Detroit auto show press and industry previews take place this week before the 2019 exposition opens to the public from Jan. 19 to Jan. 27 at Cobo Center in Downtown Detroit. Automakers and suppliers from around the world show off new models and make world debuts ahead of the public show. Full coverage here.
Let's not forget that, during the period in question, Republican primary voters were choosing their party's presidential candidate, and again and again, Trump talked up the need for better relations with Russia and Putin, and publicly absolved Putin of various nefarious charges against him. He presented this as a good-faith description of what he saw to be in the national interest. But if the BuzzFeed report is correct, he understood that he had a direct financial stake in making this argument to a far greater degree than we thought.
"John Wick" (2015) was a perfect, self-contained action movie, a blend of James Bond, classic Hong Kong action, the Godfather's mob rules and advanced weapons-training instruction videos. The tale had just enough plot to connect the fight scenes. No 10-minute Tarantino rants or tortured Marvel "mythology" here.

"John Wick: Chapter 2" somehow managed to increase the body count and maintain the first movie's standards as Wick continued to insist he was a retired hitman as chaos thundered around him.

"John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum" opens in theaters May 17, and the new trailer offers hope that the adventures of the now-excommunicado killing machine will be every bit as compelling this time around.

No longer under the protection of the rules of the Continental Hotel and burdened by a $14 million bounty on his head, Wick has to come up with an exit strategy. He turns to reluctant former colleague Sofia (Halle Berry) and her Belgian Malinois dogs to assist in his survival plan.

Our colleagues at Task & Purpose and We Are the Mighty agree: John Wick is awesome. May can't come fast enough.
Military movies are a lot of fun, and the Department of Defense loves how they prime plenty of young folks to join the service. But while military service and military movies are both great, there's a huge gap between how military life is portrayed and how it actually works. So, here are nine scenes from military movies that are fun to watch but few troops ever get the chance to do:

1. Buzzing the deck or tower

This poor man hasn't had a peaceful cup of coffee since the '90s. (YouTube/MovieClips)

Yeah! "Top Gun"! And not the beach scene that makes our sisters act weird for 20 minutes afterward! But if you're thinking about joining naval aviation in order to fly super fast past control towers on ship and shore, you should probably know that the beach scene is more likely to happen (but much less sexy) than "buzzing the tower" against orders.

See, F-14 Tomcats cost about $38 million each. So, pilots taking dangerous risks with their birds weren't told off by an angry commander, they were investigated and had their wings taken away. And Top Gun is a school, and the commander definitely should've had some pilots ready to go to school besides the one who keeps taking unnecessary gambles with aircraft.

2. Hunt for lost technology with sexy archaeologists

Do not let this sexy archaeologist select your cup. She chooses poorly. (YouTube/MovieClips)

In "The Mummy," another awesome Tom Cruise flick, the hero is an elite soldier who, after a series of illegal mishaps, finds himself searching a tomb with a sexy archaeologist. The Nazi soldiers in "Indiana Jones" also spend a lot of time in ruins with sexy archaeologists (I'm talking about Dr. Elsa Schneider, but if you're into Dr. Rene Emile Belloq, go for it).

But actually, modern military weapons typically come from laboratories, not ancient ruins. And the number of entombed monsters the Air Force is sent to re-secure like in "The Mummy" is also shockingly low. You'll spend much more time in smelly port-a-johns with a smartphone than you will in Egypt with models.

3. Tell off scientists for being too science-y

But about that weapons-coming-out-of-labs thing from the last paragraph -- plenty of movies also show soldiers running into academics and being all superior because the soldiers are brave and covered in muscles and the scientists are pencil necks. For those of you lucky enough to have forgotten the 1998 "Godzilla," the military ignores about 30 warnings that Godzilla may have laid eggs.

But scientists aren't actually assigned to combat units very often. And the few scientists who do end up with military units aren't typically biologists tracking the local zombie outbreaks that you can laugh off until you get bit. They're usually anthropologists telling you that the local Afghans don't like you much, mostly because of all the shooting. Thanks, scientists!

4. Fight aliens

Alien invasions aren't real. And if they ever are, pray the aliens don't have miles-wide aircraft carriers. (YouTube/MovieClips)

We loved "Independence Day" and hated "Battlefield: LA" as much as the next guy but, and brace yourselves here, aliens have never invaded Earth, and that's not what the Space Force is for. Offensive wars against aliens don't happen much either. We won't be mining unobtanium from Pandora.

I know, big shocker. You might get to work against the "immigrant" form of aliens, but that's mostly putting up barbed wire and providing medical aid while you sit in the middle of the desert during Christmas. So, I guess what we're saying is: weigh your options.

5. Slaughtering bug armies

Pictured: Coolest way to kill a giant bug. (TriStar Pictures)

The best kinds of armies, alien or otherwise, to kill are easily bug armies and zombies. So much killing, so much gore, so little moral squeamishness. No one worries much about the bugs in "Starship Troopers," even when heroes are climbing on top of them, shooting a hole through their exoskeletons, and then throwing a grenade inside of them.

(So cool.)

Sigh. Unfortunately for die-hard action fans, American forces actually spend most of their time fighting other humans. While this is often necessary (looking at you, Hitler), it also means a lot of real people just swept up in the currents of their times are killed (looking at you, all of the Wehrmacht who weren't dedicated Nazis). Not nearly as much fun as killing the bugs.

6. Survive bomb after bomb, grenade after grenade

Also, you're not nearly as survivable in future combat as movies and video games would have you think. Bombs, artillery fire, grenades, and even bullets can kill you very easily. You're basically a big bag of soup with a little brain pushing it around the world, and wars are filled with all sorts of flying metal that can shred your bag.

7. Defeat the enemy thanks to their one critical weakness

When the enemy shows up with massive walker tanks, they probably have a dozen weaknesses. Aim for those before you count on the common cold taking them out. (Alvim Correa, from 1906 "War of the Worlds")

Luckily, your enemies will usually have the same weakness. Unfortunately, they won't also have one big weakness that can be exploited by some savvy Jeff Goldblum type saying, "I gave it a cold. I gave it a virus, a computer virus." Instead, when the British start rolling the first tanks against your lines, you just have to hit them with artillery and hope they get caught in the mud.

And you press every weapon in your arsenal against the new threat. Turns out, machine guns could break off rivets inside early tanks and injure or kill the crew. High-powered rifles would split the armor and send shards into the crew. Incendiary devices could set off gas and force the crew to evacuate. So, German soldiers used all of these things.

8. Retrain in four jobs before the final credits roll

Remember when Jake Sully in "Avatar" took over his brother's job as a scientist and pseudo-alien, then became a spy for the human military, then became a pilot for the alien resistance, then a small strike team leader? Those are all still different jobs, right?

In reality, most soldiers spend weeks or months learning their first job, and they can only switch jobs with more weeks or months of training. Any movie realistically showing them moving from job to job would need to be a biopic with a story spanning years of the soldier's life.

9. Underwater fighting

Fun fact: There's only been one documented underwater submarine battle in history. And that was an exchange between two submarines in World War II. But that hasn't stopped movie after movie that showed submarines hitting each other or even divers fighting to the death under the waves.

It is exciting, exciting stuff  I'm partial to the underwater spear gunfight in "Thunderball"  but actual underwater fighting is super rare since almost no military forces specialize in it or want to fight in the water. Even SEALs generally fight above the waves.

MORE POSTS FROM WE ARE THE MIGHTY:

Top 4, veteran-approved, year-round gift ideas

5 things to have in your home when you live off base

10 time-honored military traditions that civilians find weird

We Are The Mighty (WATM) celebrates service with stories that inspire. WATM is made in Hollywood by veterans. It's military life presented like never before. Check it out at We Are the Mighty.
There are plenty of questions no kid wants to hear. Who spilled that? Isnt it time to do your homework? You want me to find something for you to do?

But the question no military child wants to hear (from my highly scientific sample of my Air Force brat siblings and Navy brat children) is:

Are you ready to move?

Most of the time, the answer is something like, No. NO! Please, no. Nonononononononoooooooooooo!!!

Even though the average military children moves six to nine times between Kindergarten and high school graduation, military kids dont necessarily welcome the move.

Like anyone else, kids dont want things to change. It is hard enough to make friends when you feel weird without moving and making yourself twenty billion times weirder.

We arent even moving, but we dared suggest to our son Peter last month that because he is switching into middle school, he could think about attending a different school up the street. Smaller classrooms. Less craziness. A uniform.

The blood drained from Peters face. White and strained, he gripped the kitchen counter. No. NO! I dont want to go!

Peter isnt as well moved as his sibs. Because we did a geographic bachelor tour between two tours at the Pentagon, Peter has only attended one elementary school. His older siblings attended four elementary schools each. I went to three myself.

Im hardened.

But Im not hardened to him. And I am not hardened to the genuine pain that comes with a move for kidseven if it is best for the family.

According to the National Military Family Association, military children will say good-bye to more significant people by age 18 than the average person will in their lifetime.

Still, unless you are going to embrace the hassles that come with a geographic bachelor tour, your kids will have to move. And you, Kind Parent, are going to be the one helping them deal.

Here are some tips we collected for all kids and some for kids of particular age groups. Do you have any that we missed?

To tell or not to tell?

The question of when to tell kids that you are moving is hotly debated. After 16 moves, I am one for holding off on the telling as long as possible. Toddlers dont care. Elementary kids panic. Preteens tell all their friends and are hurt when friends start pulling away because you wont be here next yeareven when the move is still nine months away.

Blogger (and former teacher) Heather Sweeney argues for telling right awaybest not to keep secrets from kids because they are going to find out anyway.

Find some good local gouge.

Lots of military parents have had good luck with their kids by making the move sound like an adventure. If you are moving younger kids, you might find a book specific to their new base here. Or your housing center may offer a packet about the new base.

For older kids, get the AAA book for the area if you or your parents are members. Or look on Amazon to find tourist guides for all kinds of unlikely places.

Although googling top rated tourist attractions for your new state is also good, there is something reassuring about the presence of printed material.

Give your kids some power.

One of the things I like about websites like the DoDs Military Youth on the Move and Military Kids Connect is the way they put some of the responsibility for the move squarely in the kids capable hands.

One suggestion I like is for the preteen to make a list of all the things they do not know about the new duty station, then set out to get some answers.

Heather Sweeney notes that both sites are divided into age-appropriate categories and offer a wealth of kid-friendly advice from how to pack to being the new kid at a new school to staying in touch with friends. (They have sections for parents as well, so if you need some advice, check it out for yourself too.) Read more of Heather's moving tips here.

Do some PCS Calculus.

When it comes to moving a family, all family members are not created equal. Some kids needs have to get a higher priority depending on their stage of life. This means you end up doing some PCS Calculus.

Ask each of your children when is most important to them about the move, what scares them most, what they would love to happen most. Write it down. It is better to know what kids want (and have them know you know) than to guess.

Move the unborn.

Even though they are too young to know you are moving, a PCS can be important to your coming baby, too. Army wife blogger Maria said, When you are pregnant and moving, you gotta get your act together  especially if you are moving overseas.

You gotta eat, rest and redecorate. Find her tips for the much-too-pregnant PCS here

Move your toddler.

Early childhood professional Margaret St. Andre is a fan of naming everything when it comes to moving your toddler. Use phrasing for young children such as, This is Pack-Up Day where the movers will put your toys in boxes to take to the new house. This is Goodbye Day where we will say bye-bye to our friends, This is Airplane Day 

Margaret also suggests that you iInclude events that are unrelated to the move like birthdays or planned play dates. This will help your child keep track as time passes because he can refer to events rather than days. Find more of her tips for moving toddlers here.

Move your school aged child.

Getting your elementary child resettled is all about the friends. Fortunately, at this age you have lots of power when it comes to creating friend-making opportunities. At one of our Spouse X events, military parents came up with five ways to help your kid make friends fast.

Move your special needs child.

Think of your annual IEP meeting. Think of that process doubled. Or tripled. Or quadrupled. (Well, maybe not quadrupled.)

As any parent of a special needs kid will tell you, there are some extra hoops during a PCS move.

Sarah Stockwell, PhD, As the Facebook administrator for American Military Families Autism Support (AMFAS) came up with 16 stressbusting tips for dealing with your new neighborhood, your new house, your concerns, and the EFMP program that work great for special needs kids here.

Move your teenager.

You may not, in fact, want to move your teenager. But it is the law. You have to take them with you.

You can try stealth bombing a new school with your kids. You can cross your fingers and send them a link to teen content on Military Youth of the Move. You can print a list of teen tips from Military OneSource or NMFA's Teen Toolkit. You can pray.

Ive moved my teens three times. I think the only thing I did that did any good was to listen to them and pretty much agree with them that a move is a suckfest. They stopped being mad faster when I didnt try to be positive and talk them out of how they felt about the move.

Instead, I closed my eyes and thought of England. And of the day that they would have friends againwhich came sooner than they thought it would.

Have some faith in them.

Blogger Mary Douglas wrote about that saying that military children are like dandelions. They can put down roots almost anywhere. They are impossible to destroy. They adapt easily and can survive nearly anywhere. Military children bloom everywhere the wind carries them and they stand ready to fly into breezes to take them into new adventures, new lands and new friends.

As much as your kid might not want to do a move. The fact is that they probably can and that when they grow up they will talk about how these moves shaped themand what you did to help.
"The United States Army needs to act. Snipers have a unique skill set that is not being used to its full capacity. The demand for their skills and expertise continues to increase, but the incentive for seasoned snipers to stay is non-existent. The framework and structure for a Warrant Officer sniper MOS would prove to be very successful and would continue the growth of the militarys greatest force multiplier, the sniper."

SSG Christopher Rance, who recently competed in the Army Sniper Association's International Sniper Competition, has had an article published in Small Arms Review. Though much of what he says may sound like common sense to Kit Up! readership, the simple fact that he needed to write it all is ample proof that - like many lessons from many conflicts in the past - Big Army (and all of DoD) frequently forgets what it has learned...or chooses to ignore it. In addition to making some points about continuation and training, he discusses lessons learned from the competition.

"Snipers are becoming an increasingly valued weapon in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan. A definite renaissance of sniping is being seen across the front lines of war. The sniper was such an effective tool in Iraq that the snipers tactical comeback in Afghanistan is being facilitated by the mounting concerns over the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan caused by collateral damage from coalition air strikes. This has made the sniper the militarys most cost effective, discriminating fighting machine in the Global War on Terror. As the military draws down and budget cuts loom, the military will place additional dependence on affordable force multipliers.

Two of the most effective force multipliers currently in the war on terror are unmanned aerial drones (UAVs) and the modern military sniper. These force multipliers can be outfitted to emphasize any role necessary, from reconnaissance to combat and everything in between. Both are relatively inexpensive and fit well into the militarys transformation to a smaller, more agile force."
The Department of Veterans Affairs shows no signs of backing off opposition to extending Agent Orange health care and benefits to "Blue Water Navy" Vietnam veterans, setting up another major battle this year with veterans groups and overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate.

The VA still lacks "sufficient evidence" to prove a presumptive link between service off the coast of Vietnam and the illnesses caused by the widespread use of the defoliant Agent Orange, Paul Lawrence, the VA's under secretary and head of the Veterans Benefits Administration, said Thursday.

"In terms of presumptives, they come with a real requirement of sufficient evidence to indicate it's warranted," he said in a panel discussion on a VA Town Hall webcast.

Veterans who served on the ground or on the inland waterways of Vietnam are now eligible for Agent Orange health care and benefits. But existing studies do not show definitive causation between the illnesses suffered by the estimated 90,000 Blue Water Navy veterans and the use of Agent Orange, Lawrence said.

"We understand the situation," he said. "We talked about having more studies in 2019 that would give us more insight into what the causation was and the definitive conclusions behind it."

He gave no indication of when the studies might be completed.

Blue Water veterans can file a claim, which will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, Lawrence said, but they "must be supported by science."

He took a similar position on claims by veterans that they suffered illnesses from the toxic fumes of the burn pits used in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying those claims also must be supported by scientific evidence.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by veterans for damages against companies that managed the open-air burn pits.

Last August, Lawrence and VA Secretary Robert Wilkie stunned Congress by announcing their opposition to a bill extending Agent Orange benefits to Blue Water sailors that had overwhelming bipartisan support in the House and Senate.

The bill had passed 382-0 in the House and appeared headed to easy passage in the Senate with the support of Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

However, Lawrence, at a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing, said, "It's difficult to hear from veterans who are ill," but "there is no conclusive science" from a report by the Institute of Medicine to show a service connection.

Major veterans service organizations (VSOs) disputed Lawrence on the evidence, but the bill failed in December when Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, citing the costs, blocked a Senate vote.

The Congressional Budget Office had estimated that about 90,000 sailors could be covered by the bill, which would likely cost about $1.1 billion over 10 years.

Last week, House Democrats reintroduced the "Blue Water Navy" bill, setting up another lengthy battle with the VA on extending Agent Orange benefits.

In a statement, Rep. Mark Takano, D-California, the new chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said, "We must get to work and finally secure the benefits our Blue Water Navy veterans earned over 40 years ago."

On Thursday, three VSOs -- the Paralyzed Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars -- said that passage of the Blue Water Navy bill would be at the top of their legislative agenda for 2019.

"One of our key legislative concerns is ensuring that veterans who were exposed to dangerous toxic chemicals and other environment hazards during their service receive full compensation and other earned benefits," DAV National Commander Dennis Nixon said in a statement.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
A second summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will take place next month, the White House announced Friday.

President Trump met with a top North Korean official Friday afternoon in the Oval Office.

"President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date," the White House said in a statement.

The face-to-face came after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Kim Yong-chol, North Korea's lead negotiator, in the nation's capital early Friday morning to negotiate terms that could lead to a second nuclear summit between Trump and Pyongyang leader Kim Jong-un.

Pompeo and Kim Yong-chol didn't shake hands or respond to reporters' questions but did smile during a photo opportunity ahead of their meeting at a hotel in Northwest Washington.

Kim Yong-chol was expected to have carried a letter from the North Korean dictator to Trump. Last year, he presented Trump with an oversized letter in the Oval Office that led to the leaders' historic June summit.

"They will discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Korea's final, fully verified denuclearization," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement shortly before the meeting.

Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit with Kim early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with the North Korean leader despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearization agreement reached at their first meeting in Singapore last June. Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology.

At a conference of U.S. diplomats at the State Department on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged the lack of progress. He called the Trump-Kim dialogue "promising" but stressed that "we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region."

A planned meeting between Pompeo and Kim Yong-chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. U.S. officials said at the time that North Korea had canceled the session.

The talks have stalled over North Korea's refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them.

The North has demanded that the U.S. end harsh economic penalties and provide security guarantees before the North takes any steps beyond its initial suspension of nuclear and missile tests.

Trump has offered assurances that a second summit would allow the two leaders to seal a deal resolving the nuclear standoff and improving a relationship marked by decades of animosity and mistrust since the Korean War.

Kim Jong Un expressed frustration in an annual New Year's address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit "to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community," according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.

Kim's latest trip to China, his fourth since last year, came as the North's strongest ally has encouraged negotiations with the U.S. while at the same time arguing in favor of immediate easing of sanctions.

The U.S. and North Korea seemed close to war at points during 2017. The North staged a series of weapons tests that brought it closer to its nuclear goal of one day being able to target anywhere on the U.S. mainland. The two sides then took turns insulting each other: Trump called Kim "Little Rocket Man" and North Korea said Trump was a "dotard."

Kim abruptly turned to diplomacy with Seoul and Washington last year, possibly fearing economic harm from the penalties imposed over the weapons tests.

Still, even after the Singapore summit, the first between U.S. and North Korean leaders, there has been little real progress in nuclear disarmament.

Independent analysts are highly skeptical that North Korea will easily abandon a nuclear arsenal constructed in the face of deep poverty and probably seen by Kim as his only guarantee of his government's survival.

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Vilhelm Rundquist said Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has landed in Sweden "to take part in talks in a minor format where international experts take part.

He declined to give further details. Sweden's TT news agency said Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom would also attend the event.

It is possible that U.S. special envoy for reported.
Rick Trent served as the 7th Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard, from 1994 to 1998. Vincent Patton held the post from 1998 to 2002. Frank Welch served as the 9th Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard from 2002 to 2006. Skip Bowen served in the position from 2006 to 2010.

For 28 days, 800,000 government workers have been either furloughed or working without pay, including more than 56,000 active-duty, reserve and civilian members of one of our nation's armed services, the U.S. Coast Guard.

Active-duty Coast Guard servicemen and women remain on the job, devoted to their work of saving lives and defending our nation's waterways and coasts, even as they and their families go without compensation.

No one joins the military to get rich. Contrary to popular belief, the pay is not high, particularly at the entry-level pay grades. In fact, the base pay of more than 14,000 junior members of the Coast Guard (which is about one-third of the active-duty workforce) is considered at or just below the established poverty level. Most of these members do not have the resources to go without pay over any extended period of time.

To assist our unpaid Coast Guard personnel, many military support organizations and spouses' clubs have set up food banks near Coast Guard installations throughout the country.

The Coast Guard itself is trying to grapple with the situation in myriad ways. For instance, at Training Center Cape May, New Jersey, the Coast Guard's only "boot camp," many recruits are being held after graduation because the service is unable to give them travel money to send them on to their first duty stations.

Resources directly focused on the service, such as Coast Guard Mutual Assistance, Coast Guard Foundation, Coast Guard Enlisted Association, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Association, and Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officers Association, as well as many other "military support" organizations, are being stretched to the limit.

We all served with pride and honor with the U.S. Coast Guard, a branch of the armed forces as defined by law under Title 14, U.S. Code Section One.

Its members, as well as those of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force, swore an oath to "... support and defend the Constitution of the United States." This oath requires military personnel to be ready and willing to serve whenever and wherever our country needs them. That's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year anywhere in the world.

Our government leaders also took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and to "well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office" that they now hold. We believe they are derelict in those duties.

We speak from our collaborative experience of 127 years of service in expressing our anger over the fallout of this government shutdown. During the course of our tenures in the senior enlisted position of our service, we have traveled to all four corners of the world, have met with the hard-working individuals of the Coast Guard and witnessed the diligence and devotion with which they carry out their duties and responsibilities as exceptional stewards to our country.

They don't deserve to have their pay held hostage by their own government leadership, who are refusing to sit down at the table and work out a deal that will get the government reopened and its people paid.

The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
An Army sergeant who was shot in combat operations in Badghis province, Afghanistan, on Jan. 13 has died, the Defense Department announced Friday.

Sgt. Cameron Meddock, 26, of Spearman, Texas, died Thursday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. He had been assigned to 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.

According to his hometown newspaper, the High Plains Observer, he leaves behind a wife, Stephanie, who is expecting the couple's first child.

"Sgt. Cameron Meddock is one of America's precious sons," Col. Brandon Tegtmeier, commander of 75th Ranger Regiment, said in a news release. "The entire nation should strive to emulate the warrior, patriot and husband that Cameron was."

Meddock enlisted in the Army in 2014. He was on his second deployment to Afghanistan, where he was serving as a fire team leader. He previously had served as a machine gunner, automatic rifleman and gun team leader, according to U.S. Army Special Operations Command.

"Sergeant Cameron Meddock was a phenomenal Ranger, and his selfless service represents the very best of our great nation," Lt. Col. Rob McChrystal, commander of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, said in the release. "He will be missed dearly, and the 2nd Ranger Battalion offers its sincerest condolences to his family."

Meddock's awards include the Purple Heart and the Army Achievement Medal with two oak leaf clusters.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at patricia.kime@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.
How practical would it be to scan more vehicles and cargo coming into the United States? DHS tells Congress these inspection systems can examine cargo and passenger vehicles for contraband and weapons in as little as eight minutes versus 120 minutes for a physical exam. Last December at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, I asked Commissioner McAleenan how much it would cost to buy the technology to give us 100 percent vehicle and cargo scanning. He said $300 million per year. The Trump administration, while it fights for billions for a wall that the Mexicans were supposed to pay for, only asked Congress for $44 million for non-intrusive inspection technology.
The Pentagon has identified the two service members and one Defense Department employee who were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Manbij, Syria, on Wednesday.

Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida, died as a result of wounds sustained during the blast. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, listed as being from upstate New York, also died. She was assigned to Cryptologic Warfare Activity 66, based at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland.

In addition, Defense Intelligence Agency operations support specialist Scott A. Wirtz, from St. Louis, also was killed.

An American contractor also was killed but has yet to be identified. Three additional troops were wounded, according to news reports from the scene.

Defense officials said Wednesday the explosion happened while the troops and American workers were "conducting a local engagement" in Manbij.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the London-based group monitoring Syria's civil war, and the local Manbij Military Council, more than a dozen people were killed or wounded in the attack.

The U.S. has been conducting joint patrols with the Turkish military since early December under an agreement worked out by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to ease Turkish concerns about the U.S.-backed SDF's presence in the region.

According to the Syrian Observatory, several SDF members were also killed in the explosion Wednesday.

There was no immediate word on whether or how the attack might affect the planned withdrawal of the estimated 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria.

Last Friday, CJTF-OIR and the Pentagon confirmed that the withdrawal from Syria had begun but was being temporarily limited to the pullout of equipment. In a statement, a Pentagon spokesman stressed that no personnel had as yet been withdrawn and gave no timetable for the completion of the withdrawal.

Operation Roundup, the U.S.-backed offensive by the SDF against the last remnants of ISIS in Syria that began last May, is continuing against ISIS fighters in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border with U.S. air and artillery support, according to the task force.

This story will be updated.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@military.com.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@military.com.
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, Va. -- Retired Marine Staff Sgt. R. Lee Ermey was driven at all stages of life and always brought an element of surprise to everything he did, according to those who spoke at his funeral.

His love of marksmanship and shooting started young, with family members recalling childhood target practice. At the age of 60, he tried to learn how to ride a unicycle.

These were some of the memories shared through tears and laughter on a very chilly Friday morning at snow-covered Arlington National Cemetery as Ermey -- best known for playing Marine drill instructor Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in the film, "Full Metal Jacket" -- was laid to rest with military honors nine months after he died.

"He put effort into everything he did," recalled his son, Clint, after the ceremony.

"The Gunny" had a following: Nearly 100 friends, family and fans gathered to pay their respects to the Vietnam veteran. Ermey, 74, died in April due to complications from pneumonia.

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Dozens of Marines from 8th and I Barracks Washington, D.C., were present, serving as pallbearers, a firing party and an honorary platoon. A three-volley salute rang out before "Taps" was played on the edge of the cemetery, adjacent to the Old Post Chapel at Fort Myer.

In a few days, Ermey will be buried in the cemetery's new Section 82, which opened in September. Headstones have yet to be placed for the dozen or so people already laid to rest there.

During the ceremony, two chaplains read Psalms 130 and 46 and honored his courage and commitment to the Corps. Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Ronald Green presented Ermey's wife of 38 years, Nila, the folded flag.

Ermey had six children and 12 grandchildren. His children, Clint and Betty, and his last surviving brothers, Jack and Terry, talked of how "Ronny" was probably off on some new adventure in heaven.

Ermey was passionate about working with vets, added former Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Harold Overstreet, who spoke after Ermey's brothers. He recalled how vets would ask Ermey to re-enact famous lines from "Full Metal Jacket."

"And he loved it," Overstreet said.

Ermey served 11 years in the Marine Corps, according to his online biography. Some of those were spent as a drill instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego.

The Kansas native deployed to Vietnam in 1968 with Marine Wing Support Group 17, followed by two tours in Okinawa. Ermey medically retired as a staff sergeant after sustaining injuries.

He received an honorary promotion to gunnery sergeant in 2002 from then-Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones.

"It is extremely difficult to truly quantify all of the great things this man has selflessly done for, and on behalf of, our many men and women in uniform," Ermey's long-time manager, Bill Rogin, said in a statement on Facebook when Ermey died.

"He has also contributed many iconic and indelible characters on film that will live on forever," Rogin said. "He especially cared deeply for others in need."

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
The United Nations, an organization charged with protecting human rights worldwide, has a harassment problem.

While U.N. leaders say they have a "zero tolerance" policy toward sexual harassment, a report commissioned by the organization showed that more than one-third of respondents to a survey reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment while working for the world body.

Sexual jokes and offensive remarks about workers' appearances were most often cited. More than 10 percent of those responding, a group roughly split between men and women, reported being touched in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. Overall, about 40 percent of women and 20 percent of men responding reported harassment.

"We got the sense from sexual harassment claims in recent years that they might be just the tip of the iceberg," Kai Sauer, Finland's ambassador to the UN, said in an interview Wednesday.

Sauer, who has helped lead efforts to examine harassment issues in the organization, said, "There is no question that harassment is a serious problem at the UN, and it must be addressed. It's clear that management is taking the issue seriously, but the question is will it trickle down and how quickly?"

As the #MeToo movement puts pressure on businesses and governments to stop sexual abuse, the U.N. has faced similar calls to respond to what's seen as a widespread problem in its patchwork of agencies around the world.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres has made accountability for sexual misconduct a focal part of his overhaul of the organization, and the "Safe Space" report by Deloitte is part of the effort to shed light on the problem.

The world body recently created a task force that has instituted a system-wide policy on harassment, bolstered investigation capabilities and developed a database to prevent the rehiring of those who perpetrate misconduct.

Even before the new report, it was clear that the U.N. had a problem on its hands.

Human Rights Watch and U.N. investigators have documented in recent years that peacekeeping soldiers, deployed to help restore stability in war-torn nations such as Somalia and the Central African Republic, abused their positions by preying on vulnerable and impoverished women and girls.

But the latest survey indicated women in office settings, such as U.N. headquarters in Manhattan, are also targets, with 58 percent of incidents taking place in an office setting.

Recently, Michel Sidibe, head of the U.N. agency tasked with fighting HIV, offered to step down later this year after an independent report criticized his leadership after he was accused of mishandling sexual assault allegations at the organization. UNAids officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Sidibe's response to the accusations.

One caveat with the Deloitte report is that not enough workers responded, a sign that many may still feel uncomfortable with the subject, according to Guterres. Only 17 percent, or about 30,000 employees across 31 U.N. agencies, participated in the survey. The highest number of respondents came from the U.S., where the global organization is based and 1,464 people took the survey.

"The results confirm that this issue has a debilitating effect on staff morale and work performance, and there are continued barriers to reporting, including a fear of retaliation and a perception that perpetrators, for the most part, enjoy impunity," Guterres said in a statement.
MIDDLETOWN  Community Health Center, Inc. (CHC) recently announced the establishment of a Community Health Worker (CHW) pilot program at CHC of Meriden. Community Health Workers engage one-on-one with patients to focus on health improvement goals and may assist with issues such as food insecurity, housing instability, finding a job, and creating a social support system, according to a statement.

I know how it feels to be somebody looking for help, said CHCs new CHW Leonora Ortiz. A lot of people dont trust anyone, they dont feel like they want to go to the clinic, they dont want to pay attention to their health. They dont have enough information. They dont know there are resources they can use. This will give me the opportunity to work with people face to face.

The integration of CHWs into CHCs care team will help close the gap between the clinic and home, providing additional support for patients. Research has shown that CHWs can help improve health outcomes, lower health care costs, and reduce hospitalizations.

In addition, CHC has collaborated with the Penn Center for Community Health Workers to design and implement a new Weitzman ECHO for CHWs and those in similar roles across the country. This new ECHO, which has 150 participants from 33 organizations, launched today and will be held twice a month through June. Three CHC staff members will join the Penn Center as faculty to share their expertise and deliver information on various topics, such as trauma-informed care, re-engaging patients, and CHWs as members of the care team.

For more information, visit www.chc1.com.

Dance alliance invites participants to Day of Dance

HARTFORD  The Connecticut Dance Alliance (CDA) will host its annual Martin Luther King Jr Day of Dance Monday from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at CRECs Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, 15 Vernon St., and is open to anyone with prior dance experience.

The CDAs Annual Martin Luther King Day of Dance honors the teachings and legacy of Dr. King as well at the abundant African American contributions to the world of dance. This years theme - Legends, Legacy and Lineage focuses on dance classes in many forms including ballet, modern dance, Afro-Caribbean, stilt walking and jazz. The event also infuses elements of collaboration, history and educating the participants on the experiences of people of color in the dance world.

The cost is $25 for members of the CDA, $35 for non-members. The day includes two 1.5 hour long Master classes in your choice of technique: Ballet, Horton, Fosse, Graham, Afro Caribbean or Introduction to Stilt Walking; a panel discussion with the guest artists; high school students should bring their own lunch and have the option to participate in a Dancing in College discussion; adults can join the CDAs regional meeting. Lunch is provided.

Guest Artists Include: Rachel Hutsell (Ballet) is a member of the corps in the esteemed New York City Ballet. She is regularly cast in a wide variety of repertoire. She has collaborated with several choreographers, including Troy Schumacher, Gianna Reisen, Peter Walker and Justin Peck; Broadway Veteran Stephenie Pope (Fosse) has appeared in over 10 Broadway shows including Pippin, Chicago, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Fosse, Kiss of the Spider Woman. Stephanie has the distinct honor of having been hand-picked to work with the legendary director/choreographer, Bob Fosse, along with his former wife and muse, Gwen Verdon and holds the distinct and treasured title of being a Fosse Dancer; Kim Stroud (Graham) was a Principal Soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company for 11 years. Stroud has also danced and toured with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, performed in the Universal Studio film production of The Wiz, and as a guest artist with Katherine Dunham and the Gemini Dance Company; Stephen Hankey (Afro Caribbean) was a founding member of The National Dance Theatre Company of Trinidad and Tobago, where he performed nationally and internationally. In addition, he was also a member of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop and Peter Minshalls Callaloo Company of Trinidad and Tobago; Melissa Craig (Introduction to Stilt Walking) is a founding Company member of Island Reflections Dance Theatre Company and a current company member and teaching artists for the Judy Dworin Performance Project. And, Christine Kershaw (Horton) of the Elm City Dance Collaborative.

To register, contact CDA Board Member Alexis Melonopoulos Fleury at alexafleury@gmail.com. For those interested in sponsoring a young dancer, make a tax-deductible donation here: https://www.ctdanceall.org/support/. The is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing public awareness of dance in all its forms and serving the needs of the state-wide dance community. For more information about the CDA, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Dance including a complete schedule and full guest artist bios visit www.ctdanceall.org.

School launches Choose Love program

DEEP RIVER  Deep River Elementary School has launched the Choose Love Program for grades K-6 for the 2018-19 academic year. The school invites parents and members of the community to learn more about the tenets of the Choose Love Program and how it is being implemented at the school, on Thursday, Jan. 24, 6-7:30 p.m. There will be a variety of Make & Take Activities for participants to gain hands-on experience with the lessons and gain useful tools to try at home.

The evening will conclude with an Informational Panel Discussion with members of the DRES school community and Tri-Town Youth Services. The panel will discuss the program as a whole and each panelist will address how the program fits within the classroom, school, home and broader Deep River community.

Tri-Town Youth Services will provide information about the free Choose Love at Home online course. Throughout the month of February, Tri-Town Youth Services will also be hosting a Choose Love at Home Study Group on Thursday evenings.

RSVP to Tri-Town Youth Services at 860-526-3600
EAST HAMPTON  Inspectors from myriad town and state agencies continued Friday to pore over a commercial building that partially collapsed Thursday afternoon, injuring three workers.

The 8,000 square-foot building, located at 207 West High St., is owned by developer Wayne Rand and is being constructed to house a daycare facility. Efforts to reach Rand Friday were not immediately successful.

Using a crane, workers were putting roof trusses in place when one of the trusses collapsed, causing a domino effect that sent other trusses falling either to the ground or into the interior of the structure, officials said.

Three workers were injured in the 2:10 p.m. incident, including one who reportedly suffered a broken pelvis.

Two waves of officials descended upon the site: the first wave was made up of first responders who took two of the workers to local hospitals.

The two men, the one with the broken pelvis, the other with an ankle injury, were first taken to the Middlesex Health Marlborough Medical Center, but were then transferred on to Hartford Hospital, Police Chief Dennis S. Woessner said Friday.

The third worker, who suffered a head injury, reportedly was driven by a friend to Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Woessner said.

The first responders were then followed to the scene by numerous a local and state building and safety officials, led by East Hampton building official Glen LeConche.

In swift order, investigators from the state fire marshals office and the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration joined LeConche at the scene.

Because the crew was using a crane to lift the trusses into place, the Connecticut State Police crane inspection unit also was called to the scene to join the multi-agency inspections.

The company that built the trusses was also reported to be sending a team to inspect them.

The various investigators worked well into the evening and then many of them returned to the site Friday morning.

LeConche asked Town Manager Michael Maniscalco to have the towns engineering firm, Anchor Engineering Services, Inc., join him at the site to determine if the remaining portion of the building is stable enough to remain standing or will it have to be demolished.
The only way to combat this entrenched practice is to punish not only the officers who abuse citizens but the officers who look the other way or lie to protect the guilty. Chicago police are not likely to take the risk of making enemies of their fellow officers unless they genuinely fear losing their jobs and going to prison for concealing the truth.
MANCHESTER  The first woman to serve the Manchester Police Department as a police officer, sergeant and lieutenant is being remembered this week as a trailblazer who worked to give back to her community.

Patricia Ann Graves was sworn in as an officer in 1966 and went on to achieve many firsts in Manchester over her 30-year-career, according to a post on the police departments Facebook page.

In 1974, she was the first woman to become sergeant and five years later, the first female lieutenant.

She was also the departments first youth services officer, and in 1975, became the first female officer from New England to attend the FBIs National Academy, according to the MPD.

The men and women of the Manchester Police Department extend our condolences to the family of Retired Lieutenant Patricia Ann Graves, the department posted on Facebook.

Community members on Facebook expressed sadness at Gravess death and admiration for her life and career.

Was saddened to see this, she was a great woman & a true trailblazer for women in law enforcement. Was proud to know her, wrote Kristine Cormier, one of the dozens of comments and condolences.

In addition to climbing the ranks within the police agency, Graves was a pioneer in community service in Manchester, helping to establish several outreach efforts.

She was a founding member of initiatives that include Manchester's Child Advocacy Team and the Manchester Community Services Council, as well as Manchester's Shelter Care Committee, its Drug Advisory Council and its Group Home Committee.

Graves served as the chairwoman of the Child Advocacy Team and the Community Services Council, according to her obituary.

Her service to the community was recognized by the Manchester Bar Association which awarded her its Liberty Bell Award (two more firsts as she was the first woman and first police officer so honored); by the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce;, by the Manchester Emblem Club; and by B'nai B'rith, the obituary reads.

Graves is survived by her sister Nancy Galvani, her close friend Barbara West and by many nieces and nephews. She was 81.

A gathering is planned at John Tierney Funeral Home in Manchester on Saturday from 10:30 a.m. until noon.

She was born in Dresden, Ohio where a spring memorial service is planned.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Manchester Police Athletics League, 239 East Middle Tpke, Manchester, CT. 06045.
LANSING  Sen. Dan Lauwers recently announced his senate committee assignments for the 100th Legislature.

Lauwers has been assigned two committee leadership roles. He will chair the energy and technology committee and serve as vice chair of the insurance and banking committee.

In addition, Lauwers will serve as a member of the committees on agriculture, economic and small business development, government operations, regulatory reform and transportation and infrastructure.

The committees are where legislators work with members on both sides of the aisle and examine bills in detail before recommending them to the full senate, Lauwers, a Brockway Township Republican, said. It is a critical part of the process of a bill becoming law, and Im excited to be asked to serve on committees of significance to the Thumb of Michigan."

"I look forward to working with my colleagues on these committees," he added.
CARO -- There will be a blood drive from noon to 5:45 p.m., Monday at St. Paul Lutheran Church located at 503 S. State St. in Caro.

The American Red Cross encourages people to help meet the urgent need for blood by resolving to give blood this January - National Blood Donor Month.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 18)  The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Friday said it may have preempted an ISIS-linked group's plan to sow terror in the upcoming plebiscite on the Bangsamoro law.

Speaking to the media in Cotabato City, CSupt. Eliseo Rasco, director of the Soccsksargen regional police, revealed intelligence information that remnants of the Ansar Al-Khilafah Philippines (AKP) are planning to bomb some areas in Mindanao.

He also announced the arrest of one of its members, Abubakar Pagayao, an apprentice of slain AKP leader Mohammad Jaafar Maguid, also known as Tokboy.

"With the arrest of Pagayao e siguro na preempt natin itong plano ng grupo na panggugulo (we may have preempted the planned attack with Pagayao's arrest)," Rasco said.

He added that Pagayao is in the arrest order against suspected rebels which remains in effect since martial law in Mindanao continues until yearend on President Rodrigo Duterte's request.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines earlier said it does not foresee any threat to the conduct of the Bangsamoro plebiscite, but a total of 20,000 soldiers and policemen will be deployed to keep the voting safe.

The January 21 and February 6 referenda will determine areas to be included in the new autonomous Bangsamoro region which will replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). This is in line with the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) signed by Duterte in July 2018.

Areas under the ARMM, along with Cotabato City and Isabela City, would be voting for or against the BOL and whether or not they want to be part of the new region on January 21. A second plebiscite for Lanao del Norte excluding Iligan City, North Cotabato and the 28 areas which petitioned for inclusion into the new Bangsamoro region is scheduled for February 6.
On Sunday, 13 January, at the invitation of the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, His Beatitude Theodoros II, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Markos Bolaris attended the ordination of the new Bishop of Toliara and South Madagascar, Mr Prodromos, which took place in Cairo, Egypt, during a Patriarchal-Polyarchieratic Divine Liturgy officiated by His Beatitude.

Later, on the same day, during their official meeting which was held at the second seat of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, in Cairo, His Beatitude warmly welcomed the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, by stating, inter alia, the following:



"I would like to officially express my great joy that today, in our office in Cairo, I welcome His Excellency, Minister Markos Bolaris. He is not only a representative of our country. He is also a friend. He is one of the few people who knows the difficulties of the Patriarchates, and the ecclesiastical issues. At the same time, his rich political experience has endowed him with the gift to immediately intuit the problems of his interlocutor. I want to thank him for his attendance today.



Your Excellency, Mr Minister. Thank you. Our Patriarchate has existed for two thousand years here in the hospitable country of Egypt. The President of Egypt, Mr Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, supports us with all his heart, our beloved homeland, Greece, is close to us, and Cyprus, this blessed island of ours, provides me with great comfort and assistance in my diplomatic contacts across Africa. I wish to express my deepest gratitude knowing that while our church had a great past, an even greater future lies ahead of it yet, in the shape of a future Africa, that is, its entire Continent. I would like to wish you all the very best and please remember that all our children who come from our Homeland to preach in Africa feel that you hold them close in your thoughts. Thank you so very much and may the Lord bestow upon you, our Prime Minister and our people all His blessings and strength to overcome the difficult days our homeland is going through at the moment."



In response to the Patriarch, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs stated:



"It is a great pleasure and a special honour to be here today at the Cairo office of the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria, Theodoros II, in order to discuss in depth the great challenges that the Second Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church is facing these days. I am referring to the challenges that Evangelists and Missionaries face in the Dark Continent, and I would like to convey the special wishes of the Greek Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Alexis Tsipras, as well as his profound joy and respect at the enormous efforts the Patriarch of Alexandria and his excellent cabinet, the Synod, the Patriarchate and its staff, have deployed over the years on the Dark Continent. I would also like to stress that it is a great pleasure to be in Egypt, this ancient womb which birthed the special friendship between our two peoples, Egyptians and Greeks, as Herodotus once mentioned. A country which has provided refuge for our church, as well as refuge, friendship and love for the Greeks, the Rum."
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Markos Bolaris, visited the Pope of the Coptic Church, Tawadros, at the seat of the Coptic Patriarchate in Cairo.



The Patriarch knew that Bishop Pavlos of the Coptic Church had visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens, and he thanked the Deputy Minister for the interest that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government and the co-competent Ministries showed in finding a solution to the outstanding issues and problems of the Coptic Church in Greece. He underscored the challenges Christendom faced in the Middle East and referred to the inauguration of the large new Patriarchal Coptic Church in New Cairo, which took place on Christmas Day at the same time as the inauguration of the Great Mosque by the Egyptian President, Mr Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. He expressed interest in the problems that the Greek community of Egypt faces.

For his part, the Deputy Minister informed the Pope about the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enhance assimilation, interaction and cooperation between various religions and faiths, a process which began over the last four months in Athens, which is expected to peak in the near future with a two-day conference organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the participation of all the aforementioned entities. The Deputy Minister referred to the excellent cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Episcopate of the Coptic Church in Athens, and congratulated His Beatitude on the inauguration of the new Patriarchal Church in New Cairo, underscoring that the concurrent inauguration of the new Islamic Mosque on the same day represented a highly symbolic act which the Egyptian President, Mr Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, used to send meaningful messages, both within and beyond the borders of the country.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Markos Bolaris visited the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and had a meeting with the Egyptian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Mahmoud Talaat.

Issues were discussed, related to existing agreements between the two countries on culture, where the excellent level of collaboration on a number of issues was confirmed. A special reference was made to the success of the most recent Cavafia in the autumn of 2017, and for the preparation of the next Cavafia. Mr Bolaris stressed the need to further expand, at the initiative of the governments, the cooperation which will be able to highlight the excellent climate that exists between the two countries and their people. As a first step, he proposed organising an International Conference on an academic level, with synergies from Egyptian and Greek universities, with participation on the part of distinguished scientists, not only from Greece and Egypt, but also from Europe, the Arab world, America, and other countries. Its agenda will aim at showcasing the interaction of cultures and philosophy containing the Greek spirit with the Arab world. This proposal was accepted by Mr. Talaat.

The Greek Deputy Minister referred to the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which pertains to assimilation, contact, and collaboration among religions and dogmas, a process which began over the last four months in Athens and is expected to culminate in the near future with a two-day conference organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Based on the foregoing, Mr Bolaris mentioned that during his next planned visit to Egypt, he shall visit Al-Azhar University and their spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Al Tayeb.
Services for Ricky Everett Roberson are Friday, 11 a.m., at Stephens Funeral Home. Burial will follow in First Baptist Collinsville cemetery. Mr. Roberson, 68, of Meridian, passed away Sunday. Friends may sign the online register at www.stephensfunerals.com.
Apple recently filed its annual proxy statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for 2018 and the documents give us a full-disclosure for the Cupertino giant's finances. It includes everything from expenditures, compensations and everything else.

 YouTube

The document also detailed expenses such as personal security for Apple CEO Tim Cook. These expenses are included in the other compensation, category and a new report by Wired reveals Cook's personal security cost. Apart from a Tim Cook, the report also revealed figures for other CEOs that need protection and its subsequent costs. Apple spent an estimated $310,000 in 2018 which seems quite a lot but is nothing compared to what other companies are spending.

Wired provided further details via an info-graph that cites similar SEC filings by companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Intel and others. These numbers will shock you as Apple spent the least when compared to these tech giants. Alphabet, Google's parent company spent more than double than that of Apple's. Google spent $637,538 to protect its current CEO Sundar Pichai.

 Reddit

Amazon spent a whopping $1.6 million to protect Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison however you won't guess what tops the list. Facebook spent $7.3 million to protect Mark Zuckerberg, in addition to around $2.7 million protecting its Chief Financial Officer, Sheryl Sandberg. This was probably because all the negative publicity both Zuckerberg and Sandberg have received in the recent past.

 BCCL

Of course, we can't be entirely sure if the negative publicity was the sole reason for the Social media giant to spend so much more than its counterparts on personal security. It could be possible that Facebook spends, even more, to protect Zuckerberg as one leading industry consultant says that Zuckerberg's personal security detail is expected to surpass $10 million this year.

If you want to know how much other companies like Intel, Oracle; you can check out WIRED'S full report to know more.

Source: WIRED
John Wick is back to kick some more ass, and this time, his victims are bounty hunting killers.

The first look of the movie came out a month ago and increased the excitement for the movie, as well as everyone's concern about the dogs.

Welcome to the next chapter. #JohnWick3 pic.twitter.com/qtvXepVEvw  John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (@JohnWickMovie) December 19, 2018

Now, the first trailer is here and it's honestly incredible. John Wick is now on the run and has an army of killers behind him with a bounty of 14 million dollars on his head.

'John Wick: Chapter 3  Parabellum' has John running around New York City killing everyone with a variety of weapons, which also includes a book.

After giving us some incredible fight sequences in New York, including one with John Wick literally riding a horse, the movie shows him somewhere in the Middle East where he meets Halle Berry's character.

Super-assassin John Wick returns with a $14M price tag on his head and an army of bounty-hunting killers on his trail. #JohnWick3 #Parabellum. #KeanuReeves https://t.co/fQ8wwFoYC3 pic.twitter.com/CEDALq2kED  IMDb (@IMDb) January 17, 2019

The trailer was obviously well-received, I mean people are talking about how they want Keanu Reeves to keep making these movies till he dies, which means he should be making them forever because we all know he's immortal.

Here's what everyone's saying about the trailer:

Love it!

More over-the-top, unnecessary and grotesque violence. We love it!  lil (@ElCatalonia) January 17, 2019

Oh no, not the dog.

What a great series.

Welcome to the next chapter.  John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (@JohnWickMovie) January 17, 2019

The horse is everything.

I can't be the only one who's ready to see John ride a horse into war! #JohnWick3 pic.twitter.com/T4NZ5o7rKc  ((Fitzy)) (@TheFknLizrdKing) January 17, 2019

Only John Wick can do this.

"I'll sword fight you on a motorcycle!" - John Wick#JohnWick3 pic.twitter.com/3Rw6Jihi4A  Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) January 17, 2019

Thank you, John Wick.

everyone say thank you john wick pic.twitter.com/gga93QymGc  abs (@bcrdsofprey) January 17, 2019

With a book!

folks i am pleased to report that john wick appears to murder a goon WITH A BOOK pic.twitter.com/oii38HohLs  Brian Grubb (@briancgrubb) January 17, 2019

The horse was honestly so cool.

It's just too less.

I feel like they gotta start offering more than a $14m bounty for John Wick after he killed ten thousand hit men in a row.  luke o'neil (@lukeoneil47) January 17, 2019

RIP in peace.

Rest in peace to everyone who comes after John Wick in #JohnWick3 pic.twitter.com/8o6rq8rzmD  UltraInstinct (@shanshan888888) January 17, 2019

All of us.

LRT: Look, I'm not telling Keanu Reeves what to do with his life, but if he only made John Wick movies for the rest of his life, I'll be there with wallet in hand.  Caleb Dume (@pfunk1130) January 17, 2019

So well made.

And the crazy part is that so far, they've been really good and well made films. Simple and to the point. https://t.co/qemW6xckAz  3BG Hurricane Robbers (@3BlackGeeks) January 17, 2019

No, we're excited about both.

[avengers trailer drops]



ME: ok wow everyone needs to relax a bit geez



[john wick trailer drops]



ME: EVERYONE SHUT UP KEANU AND HIS DOG ARE IN DANGER  Brian Grubb (@briancgrubb) January 17, 2019

We all do.

*sees #JohnWick riding a horse, pursued by motorcycle dudes that are wielding katanas* pic.twitter.com/00rOJfaf1x  Nathan Steinmetz (@Humanstein) January 17, 2019

It needs to be.

Not totally familiar with the rules, is "Keanu Reeves Riding A Horse In John Wick 3" eligible for this year's Oscars? pic.twitter.com/vIMb6NJjBh  Alex Zalben (@azalben) January 17, 2019

Yes, he does.

They sure will.
Eating takeout and flossing the teeth are routine tasks for many people. However, a new study has found that they could be exposing people to potentially dangerous chemicals. Share on Pinterest Flossing seems linked with toxic chemical buildup. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have become a daily part of human life. These water- and greaseproof substances are present in many products  from fast food containers to certain types of clothing. Humans also face exposure to them through contaminated water and even dust. However, what is most concerning  according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  is that these manmade chemicals continue to build up in the body without breaking down. Regular exposure to PFAS has led some researchers to examine their impact on human health. So far, results have shown a link to health issues such as high cholesterol, kidney and testicular cancer, and thyroid disease. A new study has delved further into typical human behaviors to see whether any were associated with PFAS exposure. Participants were 178 middle-aged women, of whom half were African-American and the other half were non-Hispanic white. These women were already part of the Public Health Institutes Child Health and Development Studies, which enrolled pregnant women living in Oakland, CA, in 19591967. Its aim was to determine the impact that environmental chemicals and other things have on disease.

The PFAS levels of floss Scientists from the Silent Spring Institute and the Public Health Institute in Berkeley, CA, used blood samples taken from the women in 20102013. They examined the samples to find levels of 11 types of PFAS. They also interviewed each woman at some point in 20152016, asking a series of questions about behaviors potentially linked with PFAS exposure. They addressed food consumption, dental flossing, and stain-resistant furniture and carpets. Once the scientists had determined all the blood measurements, they compared them against the answers the women gave. They took into account factors such as whether people lived in areas where water was contaminated with PFAS. The results appear in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. The most striking observation the study made was that certain dental floss seemed to result in elevated levels of PFAS. The researchers studied this association further by testing 18 different flosses for the presence of fluorine, which also indicates the presence of PFAS. They revealed that Glide flosses and three non-Glide flosses came back positive for fluorine. This matched the results that found that women who used a certain brand of Glide floss had higher levels of a PFAS called PFHxS in their blood.
by Ray Schultz , January 18, 2019

An Austrian privacy group has filed complaints against eight tech firms, including Apple Music and Amazon Prime, accusing them of failing to comply with the EUs General Data Protection regulation (GDPR), the group announced on Friday.

The complaints, filed by the nonprofit noyb, allege that the firms failed to provide access to data as required under the GDPR, and demand penalties based on 4% of their worldwide revenue, the maximum allowed.

The group put "eight online streaming services from eight countries to the test  but no service fully complied," states Max Schrems, director of noyb.

Also named in the actions are Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, Flimmit and DAZN.

Perhaps typical is the complaint against Apple.

It states that GDPR requires that controllers disclose all data they hold that could render individuals identifiable, including cookies, online identifiers, tracking technologies, beacons, IP addresses, pixels tags or device identifiers,

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By failing to comply, Apple has infringed the Complainants right of access, the paper adds.

Specifically, Apple provided no information about the purposes of data processing or the recipients of the personal data, the complaint continues.

In addition, the firm failed to supply information about the right to rectify or erase personal data and the persons right to lodge a complaint with supervisory authorities, noyb charges. Nor did it reveal the retention period for data or safeguards ifor sending data to third countries, in adds.

The complaint goes on to claim that Apple sent raw data in a non-intelligible and machine readable format.

In what appears to be an unintended irony, Apple CEO Tim Cook yesterday called for comprehensive data legislation in the U.S. In an essay in Time, he outlined these principals:

First, the right to have personal data minimized. Companies should challenge themselves to strip identifying information from customer data or avoid collecting it in the first place. Second, the right to knowledge  to know what data is being collected and why. Third, the right to access. Companies should make it easy for you to access, correct and delete your personal data. And fourth, the right to data security, without which trust is impossible."

In Amazons case, the group says the firm also provided data in unintelligible form, almost two months after making the request.

Meanwhile, noyb demands that Apple be investigated to determine violations, and asks for a penalty of 8.02 billion, which it estimates as 4% of Apples worldwide revenue of $265.6 billion (around 200.5 billion).

In line with this formula, it demands a 6.31 billion penalty against Amazon Prime and a 3.87 billion penalty from YouTube. Netflix would be hit with a 415 penalty, Spotify with 163 million and SoundCloud with 20 million. No penalty is requested of Austria-based Flimmit.

Other legal actions are also pending against tech companies. In November, Privacy International filed complaints with Irish and French data authorities against Acxiom, Oracle, Criteo, Quantcast, Tapad, Equifax and Experian.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, January 18, 2019

A group of privacy experts are warning California lawmakers about potential problems with the state's new privacy law.

The California Consumer Privacy Act, slated to take effect next year, allows consumers to learn what personal information about them is held by businesses, and to opt out of the sale of that information.

Consumer advocacy groups supported the law, but the ad industry and business groups are pressing for changes. Earlier this week, the Association of National Advertisers asked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to clarify the law by passing regulations that could make the measure more marketer-friendly.

The privacy experts now weighing in say there is an urgent need for major changes to the law, which they argue may be unconstitutional.

In our view, the CCPA needs many substantial changes before it becomes a law that truly benefits California, reads a letter to state lawmakers, signed by Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman on behalf of himself and 40 other privacy experts -- including Michael Rhodes of the Silicon Valley firm Cooley (which represents Facebook, Google and other tech companies) and Berin Szoka of the libertarian group TechFreedom.

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One of the major concerns flagged by the experts is that the measure could regulate businesses that lack significant ties to the state. If so, the law could violate the Constitution, because only Congress is allowed to regulate interstate commerce.

The CCPAs purported application to activity outside of California raises substantial Constitutional concerns and potentially exposes the state to expensive and distracting litigation, the letter states. More importantly, it causes tremendous uncertainty and possibly wasted expenditures for businesses without real ties to California.

AT&T raised a similar argument late last year, in comments submitted to the Federal Trade Commission.

Another concern raised in the letter centers on the law's definitions of terms like personal information.

The law defines personal information broadly, as data that could be linked to particular consumers or households. The statute specifies that this definition includes browsing history, search history, data regarding interactions with websites, apps and ads. It also includes geolocation data and audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.

But the privacy experts who signed the letter say some of those examples -- including thermal and olfactory information, are nonsensical.

The Association of National Advertisers has also argued that the law's definition of personal information is too broad. Any data theoretically is 'capable of being associated with' a particular consumer, which means that there is no reasonable limitation on the scope of the law, the ANA said in a testimony submitted to Becerra this week.

But consumer groups and digital rights advocates say the new law should be made even stronger. Last month, a coalition of watchdogs and advocacy organizations said the law should also prohibit companies from using data in ways that consumers don't expect. For instance, they said in a letter to state lawmakers, social media companies should be prohibited from using inferences it makes about individuals emotional states to target them with ads.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, January 18, 2019

Microsoft's Bing team in 2019 will strongly focus on automation to give marketers back time, audiences to better target campaigns, and attribution to more accurately measure budgets. All will rely on data and artificial intelligence to buy media, but some also will depend on responsiveness and feedback from advertisers.

David Pann, GM of global head of advertising at Bing Ads, Microsoft, said during the Bing Ads Next event that the company will continue to build algorithms into Bing Ads that understand advertising objects and then make recommendations to carry out a successful campaign.

Weve been customer obsessed, Pann said, speaking about investments in technology and partnerships to support advertisers.

Some advertisers and agency analysts remain skeptical around the reasons for change, like the updated partnership around Microsoft and Verizon Media.

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Mark Ballard, vice president of research at the agency Merkle, believes the deal is another sign of the telecoms retreat from the digital ad business.

A little more than a year ago, Oath still talked about challenging Google and Facebook to be more than a distant third or fourth in the digital ad business, he explains in an email to Search Marketing Daily. A lot has changed since, with Verizon getting a new CEO and Oath architect Tim Armstrong leaving the company, he wrote.

Other investments made in 2018 were around AI to integrate more data and using audiences rather than keywords.

The audience network -- an extension of search that began to build traffic last year -- focuses on audiences rather than keywords. This network should take the place of display advertising based on the premises of search advertising.

Related to AI, the competition tab, for example, shows the brand how they do in comparison to competitors. It also provides tips to do better. The performance targets let marketers set goals and provides insight into the probability of whether they will hit them.

The Bing team also is working with AI to organize the news, so users of the search engine will continue to see a greater view of multiple perspectives in the news section.

In 2019, its all about the data and how to use AI to offer more insights in advertising, but also in search results to eliminate bias. Several Microsoft committees focus just on possible bias and they continually review results. Teams also learn from a users interactions with search results, such as how many times they must query a specific topic to find the correct answer for them, from visual search for images and video to text.

The days of search engines acting like an echo chamber based on the query are over. Features being added into Bing search include something the team calls multi-perspective, which shows multiple points of view, because not all people have the same opinion or perspective on a topic.

The Bing team is working with AI to organize the news, so users of the search engine will continue to see a greater view of multiple perspectives in the news section.
Nanomedical Devices Market  Segmentation

The global Nanomedical Devices Market has been segmented on the basis of applications, end users, types, and lastly region. As per application-based segmentation, this market has been segmented into disease treatment & diagnosis, drug release regulation and other. Disease treatment & diagnosis has been sub-segmented into cancer, cardiovascular diseases neurological diseases, and other. With regards to end users, the market has been segmented into clinics, hospitals, and research institutions. By types, the market segmentation covers implantable biosensors, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, implantable drug delivery system, and others.

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Nanomedical Devices Market  Key Players

The Key Players Global Nanomedical Devices Market include 3M Company (USA), EnvisionTEC (USA), EOS GmbH (Germany), Medtronic (USA), PerkinElmer, Inc. (the USA), Smith & Nephew PLC (UK), St. Jude Medical, Inc. (the USA), Starkey Hearing Technologies (USA), and Stryker Corporation (USA).

Nanomedical Devices Market  Overview

This report analyzes the market structure and offers insights about factors affecting the market growth. Evaluating market size and forecasting the revenue, this reports covers and observes the competitive developments of market players that include joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, research and developments (R & D), and strategic alliances.

The primary factors driving the growth for global nanomedical devices market include steep growth in the development of nanomedical devices, increasing healthcare expenditure, increasing the prevalence of cancer & other chronic diseases, and the introduction of nanotechnology-based cardiac & orthopedic implants in the markets. However, the high cost of the treatment and lack of regulatory standards in the examination of nanoparticle-based medicines can restrain the market growth.

Latest Industry News

Leading graphene biosensors manufacturer and biotherapeutics developer Nanomedical Diagnostics are developing Agile R100. This is a portable digital device useful for biosensing that can be employed for any click-able application. It evaluates the potential of the platform for identifying the biomarkers associated with aging, pathology, and tissue health. 16 OCT 2018

Houston Methodist scientists have developed a nanodevice to deliver immunotherapy without side effects to treat triple-negative breast cancer. 23 OCT 2018

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Nanomedical Devices Market  Regional Analysis

The regional segmentation of the global nanomedical devices market segments the market into continent-based regional markets namely The Americas (North America & South America), Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East & Africa (MEA). The biggest regional market is The Americas. North America alone holds the potential to be the largest market due to its strong economies are known as the United States of America (USA) and Canada. Individually, North America is a bigger market than South America due to the availability of advanced technology. Other factors aiding the market growth in this region include increasing governmental support for the research and development (R&D) as well as rising healthcare expenditure.

In Europe, the market growth is primarily driven by more awareness and advancement in the nanotechnology sector. Europe has a high density of population, and after North America, it has maximum technological advancement. Due to the reasons same as The Americas, Western Europe as a market is bigger than Eastern Europe. The most important country-specific markets in Europe are Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom (UK), followed by the rest of Western Europe.

According to the report, the Asia Pacific is expected to emerge as the fastest growing regional market during the forecast period. The reasons for the market growth are increasing demand for better treatment options and increasing initiatives to include Information Technology (IT) in all sectors including healthcare. The primal country-specific markets in this region are Australia, China, India, South Korea, and Japan, followed by the rest of the Asia Pacific region.

The MEA region shows limited market slow and steady growth. The reasons for the slow market growth in this region are lack of awareness, lack of education, lack of technological development, political instability, poor healthcare facilities, and healthcare not considered a priority by most governments. The crucial country-specific markets in the MEA region are Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar, followed by the rest of the MEA region.

Table of Content Nanomedical Devices Market Research Report  Global Forecast Till 2023:

1 Report Prologue

2 Market Introduction

2.1 Definition

2.2 Scope Of The Study

2.2.1 Research Objective

2.2.2 Assumptions

2.2.3 Limitations

3 Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Primary Research

3.3 Secondary Research

3.4 Market Size Estimation

4 Market Dynamics

4.1 Drivers

4.2 Restrains

4.3 Opportunities

4.4 Challenges

TOC Continued!

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Metagenomic Sequencing Market  Segmentation

The global metagenomic sequencing market is segmented on the basis of technology, application, and end user.

On the basis of the technology, the global metagenomic sequencing market is segmented into sequencing, bioinformatics, and others

On the basis of the application, the global metagenomic sequencing market is segmented into infectious disease diagnosis, environmental remediation, gut microbe characterization, biotechnology, biofuel, ecology, agriculture, and others

On the basis of the end user, the global metagenomic sequencing market is segmented into hospitals, research institutes, specialized clinics, and others.

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Metagenomic Sequencing Market  Key Players

Some of key the players in the global metagenomic sequencing market are GATC Biotech AG (Germany), Enterome Bioscience (France), Illumina Inc. (U.S.), Aperiomics, Inc. (U.S.), The Mitre Corporation (U.S.), F Hoffman-La Roche Ltd. (Switzerland), SciGenom Labs Pvt. Ltd. (India), Second Genome Therapeutics (U.S.), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (U.S.), Freenome Inc. (U.S.), GenapSys, Inc. (U.S.), COSMOSID (U.S.), Pacific Biosciences (U.S.), Beijing Genomics Institute (China), Biomatters Ltd. (New Zealand), Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (U.S.), Oxford Nanopore Technologies Inc. (UK), CLC Bio (Qiagen) (Denmark), Agilent Technologies Inc. (U.S.), DNAStar Inc. (U.S.), Macrogen Inc. (South Korea), Helicos BioSciences (U.S.), Knome Inc. (U.S.), and others.

Metagenomic Sequencing Market  Market Scenario:

Metagenomics sequencing is also known as environmental or community genomics. It is termed as the genomic study wherein the DNA of the specified host microorganism is extracted and cloned directly from the microorganism. Genetic testing is an expensive affair. Moreover, the testing requires specific infrastructure and resources. Currently, the genetic testing market is majorly spread in North American and West European region. There are huge opportunities for the service providers and companies to make the tests affordable and enter the untapped regions of the world with a great scope of expanding. The reducing costs of the tests may also encourage people to undergo the genetic tests.

Furthermore, the factors such as the use of advanced bioinformatics tools, recovery of novel drugs, high throughput screening (HTS) methods, and the development of cost-effective technologies such as next-generation sequencing (NGS) are driving the market growth. Moreover, rising R&D activities to identify new antibiotics and enzymes, and improved bioinformatics offers some attractive opportunities to the key market players. Growing concerns regarding the standardization and accuracy of diagnostic testing, lack of skilled professionals, and lack of knowledge is likely to restrain the market growth over the forecast period.

Metagenomic Sequencing Market  Regional Analysis

The global metagenomic sequencing market is segmented into the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa.

The Americas region holds the largest market share of the global metagenomic sequencing market owing to the rising genetic abnormalities and diseases, governmental support for the research and development in genetics, and presence of sophisticated infrastructure. Many key companies such as Illumina Inc. (US), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (US), Abbott Laboratories (US), and others are present in this region and are playing a major role in the growth of Americas metagenomic sequencing market.

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Increasing prevalence of the genetic disorder in Europe boost the market growth to some extent. In Europe, recent advancements in the fields of molecular medicines have emerged as a critical factor for the development of this market. Moreover, genetic testing has gained a huge attention in Europe over the past few years. Denmark, France, and especially, the U.K are the top three contenders owing to a huge patient population having genetic abnormality and share almost 50% of total patients in Europe. Germany holds the largest share of European region while the U.K is growing at the fastest pace.

Asia Pacific is witnessing the fastest growth in the global metagenomic sequencing market. Increasing awareness about the growing genetic diseases and disorder is driving the market growth. Furthermore, rising spending on healthcare, developing healthcare infrastructure, rising government initiatives to improve public health, increasing aging population, advances in the medical fields are giving a push to the market growth.

The Middle East and Africa are expected to experience limited growth due to less demand for genetic testing. The Middle East is growing significantly as compared to African metagenomic sequencing market due to a rise in the number of chronic disease cases such as cancer, new innovations in the genetic testing, and increase in the aging population.

Major TOC of Global Metagenomic Sequencing Market Research Report- Forecast To 2022:

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 DEFINITION

1.2 SCOPE OF STUDY

1.2.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

1.2.2 ASSUMPTIONS & LIMITATIONS

1.2.2.1 ASSUMPTIONS

1.2.2.2 LIMITATIONS

1.3 MARKET STRUCTURE

2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1 RESEARCH PROCESS

2.2 PRIMARY RESEARCH

2.3 SECONDARY RESEARCH

3. MARKET DYNAMICS

3.1 DRIVERS

3.2 RESTRAINTS

3.3 OPPORTUNITIES

3.4 MACROECONOMIC INDICATORS

Continued TOC.!

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Major Vincent August Knapp age 48 of Canton, GA passed away at his home June 3, 2021. The family will receive friends at Darby Funeral Home on Monday, June 21st from 3-8pm. The funeral will be on Tuesday, June 22nd at 11am at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church with Lt. Colonel David B
The Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii has apologized for such statements before. But she has come under renewed criticism since she announced during a CNN interview last week that she would run for president.
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A Sandy Springs resident who took the city to court over the rezoning of his property and won, as a result, has more flexibility to redevelop 
The two Centennial High School Students who were missing since Jan. 14 have been found safe by Roswell Police.
Students in the Fulton County Schools district soon will once again decide what items should be added to menus at all of its school cafeterias.
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Viola Caudill, 85, a resident of the Gowen Community passed away Thursday June 10, 2021 at home. A Graveside service will be held a 11:00 AM Monday June 14, 2021 in the Pavilion at Bache-Red Oak Cemetery. There will be a family and friends visitation on Sunday June 13, 2021 from 5:00pm to 7:
A man who landed on the Massachusetts State Police Most Wanted Fugitives list for an alleged kidnapping and assault in Townsend last year has been captured in Florida, state police said.

Kevin J. Hamel, 50, was arrested around 7:45 a.m. Friday U.S. Marshals Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force at a Miami address provided by Massachusetts State Police Trooper Thiago Miranda, state police wrote in a statement.

Hamel was wanted on charges including kidnapping, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and domestic assault and battery for allegedly holding a woman against her will last March in Townsend, state police said.

Townsend police received a 911 call on March 30 from a woman who was fleeing an assault, the statement read. Hamel is accused of kidnapping the woman and assaulting her, causing numerous injuries.

Officers were unable to find Hamel, who has a criminal history including convictions for kidnapping, firearm charges and restraining order violations. He was also wanted for a violation of his probation from one of his previous convictions, state police said.

Hamel was added to the Most Wanted Fugitives list in August. State police received new information about Hamels location earlier this month after months of exhausting several leads.

After his arrest Friday morning, Hamel was taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami, where he was booked as a fugitive from justice and will be held pending rendition to Massachusetts.
SPRINGFIELD  Lawyers for a Westfield man and woman accused of selling heroin to a woman who died of an overdose argued Friday there is not enough evidence to send a manslaughter charge to the jury for deliberations.

But the judge in the case disagreed.

Daryn M. Sampson, 35, and Gilka Rolon-Arroyo, 24, are on trial for involuntary manslaughter in connection with the overdose death of 31-year-old Rebekah Swotchak in Westfield on Feb. 10, 2016.

The trial has included testimony that the heroin Swotchak took contained fentanyl, a powerful drug that has been a factor in overdoses.

Andrew Klyman, lawyer for Sampson, asked Hampden Superior Court Judge J. Gavin Reardon Jr. to dismiss the manslaughter charge and four drug offenses for Sampson.

Jared Olanoff, lawyer for Rolon-Arroyo, asked Reardon to dismiss the manslaughter charge and two of the drug charges against his client.

Reardon said despite the points made by the defense lawyers, there is enough circumstantial evidence to send the case to the jury. He said jurors are allowed to deliberate and arrive at a verdict based on circumstantial evidence.

The prosecution rested its case with testimony from Thomas Swochak, Rebecca Swochaks father.

The defense lawyers rested their case without any presentation of evidence.

Thomas Swochak said he spoke with his daughter mid-afternoon Feb. 9, 2016, by phone.

He said he couldnt reach her by phone, and his wife couldnt reach her by text, when they tried at about 5 p.m. that day. Then, they went to her apartment. Thomas said he opened the door with his key  since he owned the building she lived in  and saw her on the couch.

She was face down on the couch, her knees were on the floor, Swochak said. He said his daughters body was stiff. He called police immediately.

In arguing for a required finding of not guilty  a ruling by the judge which would have ended the charges against Sampson  Klyman said there is no direct evidence for any of the charges.

He said Sampson and Rolon-Arroyo both lived in the apartment upstairs from Rebecca Swochak, but the 40 bags of heroin found there were in Rolon-Arroyos room.

Testimony was that Sampson, who slept on the couch, had a smaller amount of heroin in the the bathroom which he told police was his for personal use.

Klyman said it was from Gilka alone Swochak got heroin.

He had no part and parcel of any manslaughter, Klyman said.

Assistant District Attorney Robert Schmidt said the case alleges joint venture. He said Sampson would get heroin from Rolon-Arroyo and provide it to Swochak.

Sampson was subdealing heroin for Rolon-Arroyo, Schmidt said.

Olanoff said there is no direct evidence Rolon-Arroyo distributed heroin. He said no one testified Swochak got heroin from Rolon-Arroyo or Sampson on a particular date and it caused her death.

Swochak got heroin from Sampson, Olanoff said. Even if he got the heroin from Rolon-Arroyo she didnt know what he did with it. She didnt aid and abet Swochaks death in any way, he said.

Schmidt said although there isnt direct evidence, there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to show the heroin she died from came from the two defendants.

The trial continues Tuesday.
The Massachusetts Republican State Committee elected Jim Lyons, a former state representative from Andover, as its next chairman Thursday night.

"I am humbled by the trust placed in me by my fellow members of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, and look forward to working with them in the years ahead to grow and unify our Party and secure victory in 2020," Lyons said in a statement. He won his election by a 47-30 margin.

Lyons replaced Kirsten Hughes who was first elected as the committees chairwoman in 2013. In a statement, Lyons thanked Hughes for her leadership.

We have delivered record investment in our field, data, and digital resources, supporting the election and re-election of Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito and growth among our legislative caucus on Beacon Hill. Over the next two years, I look forward to working with all Republicans to build on this foundation and take our efforts to the next level," Lyons said.

Thank you to the Massachusetts GOP state committee for electing me party chair .. I look forward to working together to elect more republicans in our great state ... Posted by Jim Lyons on Thursday, January 17, 2019

While working as a lawmaker on Beacon Hill Lyons distinguished himself as a leading abortion opponent who worked to amend the states constitution to block state money from funding abortions for low-income women. This effort was ultimately unsuccessful and drew ire from the planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, and other womens rights activists.

Lyons was also one of the initial petitioners who put Question 3 on the ballot in 2018, which asked voters whether they wanted to preserve the law protecting transgender people from discrimination in public places. The measure passed overwhelming - with 67 percent of voters choosing to keep the protection.

Lyons said he felt transgender people would have continued to be protected under civil rights laws, but felt the 2016 law signed by Gov. Baker only protected these individuals with respect to their access to the bathroom of their choice. He told the Boston Globe at the time this was beyond a reasonable boundary.

The Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Gus Bickford released his own statement Thursday, blasting Massachusetts Republicans for being profoundly out of step with their constituents. Bickford said Lyons spent his career on Beacon Hill railing against fundamental rights and protections for women, workers, and the LGBTQ community, in a statement. He also highlighted the former lawmakers 97 percent rating from the National Rifle Association.

Lyons' election pushes the state Republican Party further towards the policies and rhetoric of Donald Trump, and away from the best interests of people in the commonwealth, Bickford said in a statement.
The House intelligence committee chairman said he will do what is necessary to confirm a published report that President Donald Trump directed his personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations over a real estate project in Moscow during the 2016 election.

Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff of California says the allegation that Trump asked Cohen to lie to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date.

The report by BuzzFeed News, citing two unnamed law enforcement officials, says that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress and that Cohen regularly briefed Trump on the Moscow project. The Associated Press has not independently confirmed the report.

An adviser to Cohen, Lanny Davis, declined to comment.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat eyeing a 2020 White House run, announced Friday that she will be in Puerto Rico next week to hear firsthand about the islands efforts to recover from Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Warren, who formed a 2020 exploratory committee in late December, will visit San Juan on Tuesday for a community conversation about the islands recovery.

The 6 p.m. event will be held at Alejandro Tapia y Rivera Theater, according to organizers.

The senators Puerto Rico visit will come just one year after Warren led a delegation of Massachusetts congressional lawmakers in traveling to the island to survey the storms' damage and federal recovery efforts.

Warren, whose state saw thousands of Puerto Rico hurricane evacuees after the 2017 storms ravaged the island, has repeatedly criticized the Trump administrations response to the damage.

She and fellow Massachusetts Democrat, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, called on Congress to pass legislation that would provide longer-term housing supports to hurricane evacuees and others impacted by natural disasters.

Warren recently joined other lawmakers in reintroducing a bill to establish an independent, 9/11-style commission to examine the Trump administrations response to Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico.

In addition to Puerto Rico, Warren has stopped in Iowa and New Hampshire as she mulls a 2020 presidential run.
WARE -- The Planning Board on Wednesday unanimously approved a special permit and site plan for a business that hopes to open a marijuana sales shop downtown at 60 Main St.

B'Leaf Wellness Centre is owned by Lori and Megan Sinclair.

To open, B'Leaf must also obtain approval from the state's Cannabis Control Commission.

In October, Ware Town Manager Stuart Beckley, Selectmen Vice Chairman Alan Whitney and Lori Sinclair signed a host community agreement by which the business agrees to pay the municipality 3 percent of its yearly gross sales.

The agreement requires B'Leaf to "Punctiliously take measures to prevent the diversion of marijuana to minors, including but not limited to the awarding of bonuses to employees who catch minors attempting to purchase marijuana using false IDs."

The contract, in effect for five years, says the company shall "support an elder-oriented marijuana education program to be held at the Senior Center to address applicable health benefits and concerns of the largest growing demographic benefiting from cannabis, namely, adults 40-70."
LONGMEADOW -- Voters at a Special Town Meeting Thursday night approved an article that would allow for the recall of any elected town official except the Select Board.

The vote was 635 in favor, or 73 percent, to 235 opposed, or 27 percent. A two-thirds majority was required for passage.

The article - Article 3 on the Special Town Meeting warrant - is a home rule petition and will now have to be approved by the Massachusetts Legislature before it can be enacted in the town and added to the town charter.

Nearly 900 people (896 to be exact, according to Town Manager Stephen Crane) attended the meeting at Longmeadow High School.

One of the most vocal audience members in opposition was former School Committee member Jerold Duquette, who said the article would "damage the integrity of the town charter" and that recalls were a means of "personal attack" and a way to embarrass elected officials.

Duquette also proposed an amendment to the article that would prevent current elected officials from being recalled before their term expires, which he said would allow voters to view the warrant "in an objective way, sorting out the passions of the moment and thinking about this as a long-term decision." His proposed amendment failed by majority vote.

Another former School Committee member, Liz Bone, spoke in favor of the article and pointed to other towns across the state that have recall mechanisms, like Holland, Shirley and Fall River.

"Do you want to have elected officials adhere to the contract they entered into?" said William Welch, who spoke in support of the article. "That's the simple issue and question for you."

The article excludes the Select Board because changing the term, composition or appointment of the Select Board would require the election of a charter commission, according to town counsel Mike Schneider.

The article and Special Town Meeting was sparked by residents upset with the School Committee's vote not to renew the superintendent's contract. Tensions between some residents and the School Committee have been high since the committee voted 4-3 in November not to renew Superintendent Marty O'Shea's contract when it expires in June.

Article 1 would have allowed for recall elections for officials specified in section 3-3 of the town charter: members of the School Committee. Petitioner Patrick O'Shea moved to take no action because he said Article 3, which he also submitted, was a better mechanism.

Article 2 was deemed unlawful and petitioner Marc Haber moved to take no action. It would have transferred the control of $2 million (or another amount agreed on by Town Meeting voters) from the school department's fiscal 2019 operations budget to the Select Board under a reserve or school expenditures fund. The School Committee would then have to request by majority vote to transfer the money from the Select Board, and the transfer would also have to be approved by majority Select Board vote.

But Schneider said Article 2 is unlawful and doesn't meet the state requirements under Chapter 71, Section 37 of Massachusetts General Law.
We had that horrible weekend during the summer where 70 people were shot, almost every single one of those outside. Twelve people killed. To date, there is still only one arrest. How is that possible? Lightfoot said. Where were the cameras? Where was the use of intelligence about these big parties being advertised on Facebook? Why wasnt that intelligence operationalized by the patrol division of the department? There is a lack of accountability within the department that takes seriously that absolute, utter necessity of being much smarter, much more proactive in using technology to fight crime.
LONGMEADOW -- Nearly 900 residents filled the gymnasium at Longmeadow High School Thursday night, at times applauding and yelling before being called to order by the Town Meeting moderator and hearing emotional arguments on both sides of a heated debate over whether to allow recall votes of elected town officials.

Debate continued for nearly an hour and included a few proposed amendments that failed. And despite some voicing concerns that recall elections could turn the town into "a three-ring circus," the petition was approved 635-235.

"I'm not looking for people who will acquiesce to the loudest voices," said resident Jennifer Falcone. "There haven't been any public forums. ... Do any of us feel like this article has been properly vetted? It could have a profoundly negative impact on the town."

Resident Alex Grant called the article "the biggest poison pill to public service you could ever come up with and should be rejected," stating that it will discourage potential candidates from running.

The vote was by paper ballot, as proposed by one resident and approved by voters, instead of a traditional show of hands. A two-thirds majority was required for passage, and yes votes amounted to 73 percent.

The petition must be approved by the state Senate before it can be implemented in Longmeadow, a process that could take months.

Six residents, including Falcone and Grant, spoke in opposition to the petition. Some, including former School Committee member Jerold Duquette, urged voters to instead wait until the June annual elections, when the current controversy around the School Committee voting 4-3 two months ago not to renew Superintendent Martin O'Shea's contract "will all be sorted out."

Duquette said there were too many unanswered questions to make such significant a change to the town charter, which he said would "damage (its) integrity" and be used as a means to "personally attack" elected town officials.

He also said recall elections are costly. Town Manager Stephen Crane said any election costs about $10,000.

Petitioner Patrick O'Shea, in an opening presentation, listed a number of reasons why the petition would be beneficial to Longmeadow, "current circumstances aside."

He pointed to Fall River, where the mayor has been indicted on charges of defrauding investors in his company. Fall River has a recall mechanism already in place, but if it didn't, the mayor could be able to serve out his term while his case moved through the judicial system.

"Having recall language in the town documents is the proper thing for this town," Patrick O'Shea said. "It might be necessary in five, 10 years if we're a Fall River someday and have some other situation."

He also explained that a petition to start the recall vote of an elected official would need at least 200 signatures filed in an affidavit, the same threshold as for a Town Meeting petition. Once the initial batch of signatures is verified, petitioners would have 45 days to collect the signatures of at least 15 percent of the town's registered voters -- nearly 1,800 voters with the current population -- with at least 50 from each of the town's five precincts to ensure townwide support.

The official would be notified and could resign within seven days; otherwise a recall election would be held within 60 to 90 days.

Patrick O'Shea said the provision requiring the support of 15 percent of town voters would also ensure strong support for the election and is a "significant hurdle" to reach. Candidates running for office in town don't often get that amount of support at the polls. One recently elected officer won with 395 votes, he said.

Resident Brian Crawford said he's originally from California, where the state allows recall votes of elected officials. He proposed an amendment to increase that 15 percent to 30 percent, which he said would prevent frequent recall elections. That amendment was defeated by majority vote.

Duquette proposed an amendment that would have prevented the recall of anyone currently in office before their term expires. He said that would allow voters to view the petition "in an objective way, sorting out the passions of the moment and thinking about this as a long-term decision." His amendment failed by majority vote.

Some in attendance took a pessimistic stance on the issue.

"Regardless of how we as a town vote tonight, there will be no winners," said Marc Haber. "Unless the current School Committee finds a way to compromise, to re-establish trust with our school administrators, teachers and with the Longmeadow voters ... we all lose."

Haber was the petitioner behind the second article on the warrant, which would have transferred budget expenditure power from the School Committee to the Select Board. It was deemed unlawful by town counsel and withdrawn.

The recall petition, Article 3 on Thursday's warrant, excludes the Select Board because changing the term, composition or appointment of the Select Board would require the election of a charter commission, according to town counsel Mike Schneider.

Article 1 was filed by Patrick O'Shea and would have allowed for recall elections for officials specified in section 3-3 of the town charter: members of the School Committee. O'Shea moved to take no action because he said the wider-reaching Article 3, which he also submitted, was a better mechanism.
WEST SPRINGFIELD  Police seek the publics help as they work to identify a female suspected of a larceny from a hotel on Riverdale Street.

The suspect then attempted to use stolen credit cards from the larceny at a gasoline station on Riverdale Street, according to a post on the departments Facebook page.

The female was seen exiting the rear passenger seat of a white sedan.

Those with information are asked to call detective Michael Kennedy at 413-263-3210. Ext. 229 and reference Case #18-80158-OF. Callers may remain anonymous.
SPRINGFIELD  Mayor Domenic J. Sarno announced this week that legislation he supports, which would allow prosecutors to appeal bail amounts they believe are too low, has been refiled by state Rep. Angelo J. Puppolo Jr.

The bill, first filed by Puppolo in 2015 and refiled in 2017 on behalf of Sarno, is submitted for its third consideration.

Local supporters have included Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni. It has been opposed by the Hampden County Bar Association.

Sarno praised Puppolo and Gulluni for renewing the push for passage.

A hard line has to be taken on these repeat violent offenders; the gangbangers, gun offenders and drug dealers that continue to victimize Springfield residents, businesses and police officers, Sarno said in a statement. Our brave men and women in blue put their lives on the line day in and day out just to have these negative individuals released. It has to STOP!

Supporters of the bill say that defense lawyers can appeal bails set by district court judges to superior court, but prosecutors cannot. Sarno in recent years has repeatedly cited cases in which he says judges have released violent criminals on low bail, endangering the public.

The bar association, in a 2015 statement, said Sarno was misguided in placing blame for Springfields violent crime issues on trial judges and the perception of low bail. The association said higher bails discriminate against lower-income defendants.

Puppolo said Thursday that the impetus behind the bill is putting another tool in the prosecutors' tool box in order to fight a low bail.

The key is to keep habitual offenders off the street; at least make it a little more difficult, Puppolo said.

While the bill has not been successful in the past two filings, Puppolo said he believes we have picked up some momentum with the Governors office, which has filed separate legislation on dealing with dangerous defendants. Bakers bill, first submitted in September and refiled this week, would broaden the circumstances under which a judge can hold a dangerousness hearing and incarcerate someone before trial.

Currently, when bail is levied in district court, offenders have the right to appeal to a judge in superior court and then to a single justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Sarno said.

It is important to note under this proposed legislation an appeal by the Commonwealth must occur by the close of the following business day as to not draw out the process, Sarno said. These proposed changes were initiated after an alarming trend of repeat violent offenders returning to the streets after having to meet and comply with little or any bail after arraignment became apparent.

Sarno called it a common occurrence for offenders to be back out on the streets after being arrested multiple times by the Springfield Police Department and other police departments across Massachusetts.

Gulluni said the bill provides some recourse for prosecutors.

Aggressively prosecuting violent offenders is paramount to keep our streets safe and foster a positive quality of life for residents throughout our neighborhoods in Hampden County, Gulluni said. The proposed legislation would provide recourse in circumstances where bail levied against violent offenders may not be sufficient.
SPRINGFIELD  Speakers participating in a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration at City Hall on Friday told those in attendance that his dream of equality carries on as the nightmare of racial injustice continues to surface in the United States.

The keynote speaker, Rev. Barbara Headley, senior pastor at Zion Community Baptist Church in Springfield, said that King was correct when he said: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

She and other speakers cited examples of inequality and injustice in the nation such as cases of police brutality and discrimination.

"Keep the dream alive by living it in your lives, within places wherever you may be," Headley said. "So that we can be like Dr. King, standing up for justice, standing up for righteousness, and most importantly waking up. For the time of the dream's fulfillment must be now or never."

The ceremony, Remembering Dr. King, presented by the Springfield NAACP, fell between the 90th anniversary of Kings birth, Jan. 15, 1929, and Mondays Martin Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday.

Headley said there have been gains in equality through better access to education and employment and reduced discrimination in housing, among other reduced barriers to the slowly opening door of equality and justice.

King had dreamed that children would not be judged on the color of their skin but on the content of their character, she said.

But now, that dream seems to just be that  a dream, Headley said. But the nightmare of racism in America continues in alarming and disturbing ways. ... Today, it is not so much the dream we seek to fulfill as it is to awaken from the nightmare that has held this country now more than ever before.

She cited national examples from Ferguson to Charleston, from New York City to Charlottesville, among others.

Other speakers included: the Rev. Talbert W. Swan II, president of the Greater Springfield NAACP; Jessica A. Washington, of Emerge America, of Washington, D.C.; and Mayor Domenic J. Sarno. There was praise of the strides that have been made in civil rights, but each said that there is much more to be done.

Sarno said that King was a great visionary and leader who energized and mobilized a generation. He carried a message of peace against racism and discrimination, Sarno said.

Swan said that after eight years of the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, "where people thought we had entered into a post-racial America, we found out that the racist underbelly of America was boiling up and ready and willing to rear its ugly head. And now bigotry has become normalized in the public sphere."

Swan said there has been a rise of ugly racism and the public acceptance of it."

Even though there has been progress that has been made, we have seemingly taken a few steps back, and if the message of Dr. King should ever resonate with us, is the day and the age that we live in right now, Swan said.

The Martin Luther King Jr. celebration was hosted by Saibo Ndlovu, and included a raising of the Martin Luther King Jr. flag outside City Hall.
Johnsonville LLC is recalling 48,000 pounds of raw ground pork patty sausages that may be contaminated with black rubber.

The raw ground frozen pork patties were packaged on Sept. 27, Oct. 17 and Oct. 18.

The products subject to recall bear establishment number 34225 printed on the carton end under the Best Flavor By date. The items were shipped to stores nationwide.

They include:

24-oz. (1.5 lbs.) plastic bag in a carton of frozen Johnsonville Grillers CHEDDAR CHEESE & BACON FLAVOR with Best Flavor By: 7/24/2019 represented on the label.

24-oz. (1.5 lbs.) plastic bag in a carton of frozen Johnsonville Grillers CHEDDAR CHEESE & BACON FLAVOR with Best Flavor By: 8/13/2019 represented on the label.

24-oz. (1.5 lbs.) plastic bag in a carton of frozen Johnsonville Grillers CHEDDAR CHEESE & BACON FLAVOR with Best Flavor By: 8/14/2019 represented on the label.

The United States Department of Agriculture said the problem was discovered after three consumers complained of black rubber in the products.

There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of the products, and anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a doctor.
SPRINGFIELD - Police on Thursday night arrested a Connecticut sex offender who was wanted as a fugitive, according to a police spokesman.

Ronny Smoot was apprehended at Mercy Medical Center by officers with the departments Metro Unit who tracked him there, said police spokesman Ryan Walsh.

Smoot had been living on Taylor Street, he said.

Walsh said he could not disclose why Smoot was at the hospital.

He was arrested on a fugitive warrant issued in Connecticut for violation of his parole, related to his conviction on three counts of child rape in 1992. He served a three year sentence and was released in 1995.

He is also considered in violation in Connecticut for failing to register in that state as a sex offender, according to the Connecticut Sex Offender Registry.

Walsh said Springfield police also charged him with failing to register as a sex offender with Springfield police, as is required by state law.
When Jasmin Johnson, of Boston, was 16, she got pregnant and wanted an abortion.

Unable to go to her parents, Johnson applied to a judge for permission. That is a requirement under state law that requires a minor to get permission from a parent or judge.

Johnson called the experience completely overwhelming, and said she had to reveal intimate details about her life in court. Even though the judge granted my request, I still battled additional emotional anxiety for just being a person of color in the court system, for transportation issues, for more time out of school, and for having to push my procedure back several days, Johnson said.

A new bill being championed by abortion rights advocates, named the Roe Act after the landmark Supreme Court case legalizing abortion, would eliminate the parental consent and judicial bypass requirements for minors. It would also lift some restrictions on late-term abortions, and otherwise change state laws to make it easier for Massachusetts residents to terminate a pregnancy.

We have 45-year-old laws that dont reflect the states commitment to reproductive freedom and its tradition of caring for all people and ensuring that all people have the ability to lead healthy and meaningful lives, said Tricia Wajda, director of public affairs for The Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, during a Statehouse lobby day on Thursday. The Roe bill will allow us to rectify that and really ensure that the right to safe and legal abortion is a right that can be realized by all people.

The bill is sponsored by former Senate president Harriette Chandler, D-Worcester, Speaker Pro Tempore Pat Haddad, D-Somerset, and Rep. Jay Livingston, D-Boston.

Representatives from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts say some teenagers cannot tell their parents they are pregnant  for example if they are victims of incest or abuse or are worried about getting kicked out of their house. They say the judicial bypass process is shaming for teenagers and can cause delays in getting an abortion, which can cause health risks.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, of more than 18,000 abortions performed in Massachusetts in 2017, 304 were for teenagers under 18.

Another significant change would be in allowing abortion after 24 weeks in cases when the fetus has a fatal anomaly. Currently, state law allows abortion after 24 weeks only to save the health or life of the mother, not in a case when the fetus will not survive past birth. Of all abortions performed in Massachusetts in 2017, according to state statistics, only 23 occurred after 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Luu Ireland, an OB/GYN in central Massachusetts who supports the bill, said women should not be forced to accept the risks of pregnancy if they will not have a live baby. This is already often a very painful decision for them, and having them forced to continue a pregnancy with the fetus or a baby that is not expected to survive is both emotionally cruel and medically unsafe, Ireland said.

The bill would also remove a requirement that any abortion after 24 weeks take place in a hospital, rather than a clinic.

Other parts of the bill would extend state-sponsored health safety net insurance coverage to cover abortions, eliminate an unenforceable 24-hour waiting period and update language. For example, it would eliminate language that describes pregnancy as carrying an unborn child rather than a fetus.

Advocates for the bill said they worry about potential federal restrictions on access to abortion. We think the threat to reproductive freedom at the national level is a clear and present danger, and we are asking the Massachusetts Legislature to be proactive and shore up reproductive freedom in Massachusetts to make sure that we are a national example to what access to care looks like, said Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts.

The bill will garner opposition from the states abortion opponents.

Anne Fox, of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said the reason for requiring parental consent for a minor is that parents are in charge of their childrens welfare. Any other medical procedures, including taking aspirin at school, a minor requires parental consent, Fox said. With abortion its even more so because a certain percentage of people who have abortions have physical or psychological problems afterwards, and the people who have to take care of that are the parents of their child.

Although Fox acknowledged that a small number of teenagers cannot tell their parents, she said, We dont make laws because of unusual situations that then affect everyone else.

Fox said she would also oppose allowing abortion after 24 weeks in cases of fatal fetal anomalies because a doctors prognosis can be wrong.
Two people were injured after a shooting in Bostons Jamaica Plain neighborhood on Friday afternoon, police said.

The shooting occurred near 3100 Washington St.

One of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries, police said. The second victim is expected to survive.

Two guns were recovered at the scene.

No further information was immediately available.
Boston-based State Street Corp. is cutting 1,500 employees in an effort to cut costs and move toward automation.

The layoffs represent 6 percent of the companys workforce, State Street said in a news release Friday. The cuts will take place in high-cost locations.

While we have made progress on our technology transformation, much remains to be done and we are not satisfied with our recent performance, President and CEO Ronald OHanley said. Structural costs are still too high and our automation efforts have not moved fast enough."

State Street also plans to cut senior managers by 15 percent and introduce a more rigorous performance management system.

OHanley said the changes will position State Street to carry out a three-year strategic vision geared toward making the company the leading asset servicer, asset manager and data insight provider.

State Street had more than 39,000 employees this fall.
Music Jamboree

A Music Jamboree will be held tonight at the HJDB Event Center (the old Bassett High School) in Bassett. It will start with a jam session at 6 p.m., then be followed by The Shelton Brothers at 7 p.m. and Marshall Brothers and High Road at 8 p.m.

Admission costs $5 at the door. Concessions will be sold. Dancers are welcome.

The event is held every third Friday.

TODAYS TRIVIA QUESTION: Isaac Newton came up with the theory of gravity after being hit on the head with what fruit?

THURSDAYS TRIVIA ANSWER: Mahalia Jackson, the Queen of Gospel, met Thomas Andrew Dorsey (1899-1993) The Father of Gospel Music, when she was in her late teens, and they ended up touring together for almost 15 years. He was so important to that field of music that sometimes gospel songs were called dorsies.

He was born in Georgia and was the music director at a church in Chicago for more than 40 years. Earlier in his life, when he went by the name Georgia Tom, he was a leading blues pianist. He developed the gospel style of music which combines Christian praise with the rhythms of jazz and the blues. His best-known song, Take My Hand, Precious Lord, was sung by Mahalia Jackson and was well loved by Martin Luther King Jr. He also was the writer of Peace in the Valley.

Holly Kozelsky reports for the Martinsville Bulletin. She can be reached at holly.kozelsky@martinsvillebulletin.com

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Nepotism is what Ald. Ed Burke and his brother have. He handed that over to him and gave him that position, she said. Right now, Rep. Ortiz does not have the funds and does not have any power. When I made my decision to run for alderman, he was not even in office yet. So he is not handing me anything. Im working hard for this.
Paula Garrett, WIC director for Virginia, said, We are realistically optimistic we will get funding through the end of March. She added she hopes that funding will come in early February.

 The USDA has not had a lot of conversation past March, she said.

After that, Garrett said, the best-case scenario is, The government will reopen and we will be fully funded the remainder of the fiscal year.

The worst-case scenario, she said, is, The government is not open and there are not any more funds allocated.

The WIC program currently is totally federally funded in Virginia, she said.

If federal funding were cut off, she said, an option might be to ask the commonwealth for help.

In Virginia, 112,950 women, infants and children participate in WIC. That includes about 2,000 participants in the West Piedmont Health District, Garrett said.

The average food package is about $50 per month per person. That includes such foods as milk; eggs; cheese; cereal; juice; peanut butter or beans; whole grains; fruits and vegetables; and certain infant foods.
An Indonesian woman burned her husband alive after he refused to give her the passcode to his mobile phone.

Dedi Purnama, 26, had been working to repair the roof tiles on the couple's home when his wife Ilham Cahyani, 25, asked for his password.

He refused, sparking an argument during which he hit her before she poured petrol on him and set him on fire.

Mr Purnama died two days after the incident in the East Lombok Regency of the Indonesian Province of West Nusa Tenggara.

Burned alive: Dedi Purnama, 26, died two days after his wife, 25, poured petrol on him and set him on fire during a fight about his mobile phone in their home in Indonesian

East Lombok Police Chief Made Yogi said the initial verbal argument between the couple had escalated when Mr Purnama climbed down from the roof and hit his wife.

Cahyani reportedly grabbed a petrol can and poured the flammable liquid over her husband before setting him aflame using a lighter.

A witness identified as Oji told reporters he had run over to the couple's house after spotting the flames and helped put them out.

Mr Purnama, shown during the aftermath of the attack, hit his wife when their argument escalated, after which she grabbed a petrol can

Tragic: Mr Purnama was rushed to hospital and died two days after the incident

Mr Purnama was rushed to the Keruak Health Centre and underwent treatment for two days for the horrific burns he sustained.

Photos show large parts of the 26-year-old's upper body severely burnt as he lies on a mattress.

Mr Purnama died after two days hospital.

Cahyani has been arrested and reportedly remains in custody at East Lombok Regional Police Station, although it is unclear if she has been charged.

The investigation is ongoing.
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Service Circuit

Optimists helping Wyatt and his mom move on

Service Circuit: St. Clair Shores Optimists helping Wyatt and mom move on
The Harp Media Student Short Film and Screenplay Competition is a Broadcasting Authority of Ireland sponsored initiative aimed at promoting filmmaking amongst secondary school students in the midlands.

It will welcome submissions from secondary school students in Longford, Westmeath and Cavan.

The competition will have two categories: Best Short Film Screenplay (maximum 12 pages) and Best Short Film (maximum 12 minutes).

There is a prize of 250 for each category as well as filmmaking equipment.

The objective of the competition is to facilitate and nurture a new range of voices in the midlands by encouraging students to create their audio visual work.

We will be hosting training sessions in early 2019 that will look at screenwriting, film production and the current Irish film landscape. If you would like to attend one of these sessions, please register your interest by emailing info@harpmedia.ie.

Terms and conditions for the Harp Media Short Film and Screenplay Competition in partnership with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland are:

* Entrants must be a student in one of the participating midlands counties  Longford, Westmeath or Cavan.

* Short films should be no more than 12 minutes.

* Scripts should be no more than 12 pages.

* Entries must be submitted by Friday, 15th March via email to info@harpmedia.ie.

* Scripts accepted via email. Films can be sent via Vimeo or YouTube links, as well as via file sharing platform WeTransfer.

For further details, head over to our website www.harpmedia.ie or follow us on Instagram @harpmediafilms, Facebook @harpmediafilm and Twitter @harp_media.
An Irish man has been arrested in New York in connection with sex offence charges which are alleged to have occurred on dates between 2004 and 2009 in the midlands.

The man, who fled Ireland in 2013, was arrested earlier this week by US Homeland Security, with assistance from Guilderland police.

The man, who is currently in custody, appeared in court on Thursday and, American news outlets are reporting that he is facing an extradition hearing next Friday, January 25.
Youve heard a lot about the record number of women taking their seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate this year. But Ive never seen anything quite like The New York Times breathtaking special section this week featuring portraits of each woman  standing, sitting tall, leaning against a desk like theyre ready to make a deal in front of a dark background while others get their close-up. Its all the more stunning because it was just over a century ago the first woman was sworn into the U.S. House. Today, that number is 131. Ill leave it to you to decide whether thats quick progress. Check it out here.
If the current draft of the Regional Spatial & Economical Strategy were in place a couple of years ago, there would be no Center Parcs in Longford.

That was a statement made by Cllr Mae Sexton and backed up by Cllr Peggy Nolan at last week's special meeting to discuss the RSES.

The current draft of the strategy is too restrictive for Longford, according to local councillors who vow to do whatever they can to ensure Longford is not left behind again.

I believe that every county in Ireland should have its own opportunities available to it, said Cllr Sexton.

Also read: Significant job creation progress in Longford but no room for complacency

And it should not be dictated by a document that is so tight that, in fact, I came to the conclusion that Center Parcs would never have gotten the go-ahead in the county of Longford if this document had been in place. And thats the truth of it, gentlemen. And thats why we are so angry.

Cllr Sexton went on to express her concern that there is no flexibility in the document in its current draft and that if the local authority went out there and were able to pursuade another company as big as Center Parcs to come to Longford, it wouldn't happen.

If we find another Center Parcs, through no help from anybody, and we were able to move that forward, this document would be so tight that wed be able to go nowhere, she said.

We wouldnt be able to get the money to do the infrastructure works that are so evident out in Ballymahon at the moment, that have already made huge impact on the county of Longford in its positivity and in job creation.

Also read: Calls for end to 'mad' housing policy in Longford

The infrastructure required ahead of the Center Parcs grand opening was also discussed at length.

High-speed broadband, upgrades to the N4 and N55, an extension to the natural gas line, housing and tourism were other issues raised with Jim Conway and Malachy Bradley of the EMRA last week.

The two representatives of the EMRA listened to suggestions from each of the Longford councillors, as well as three Westmeath councillors and one Laois councillor before ensuring the chamber that each and every submission would be taken on board between now and the drawing up of the final draft.

Councillors in the room insisted that a copy of the final draft be delivered to them ahead of time so that they can ensure the county is not left behind once again in this strategy for development in the country.

Read next: Ballymahon businesses launch new enterprise video
The suspects sped away in a car as officers gave chase for nearly a mile. When they got to Douglas Park, the suspects stopped, jumped out of the car and Turner tried to sprint across the partially frozen lagoon, only to fall through ice and slip under water.
Windcrest has seen two homicides in less than two weeks, both of them shootings.

In the latest incident, Aadam Xirsi, 50, was found dead Thursday in a taxi in the parking lot of Texas Thrift Store in the 7500 block of Interstate 35. Police are still looking for his killer.

The first homicide of the year occurred Jan. 7.

Maurice Williams-Brunson, 24, died as a result of a gunshot wound to the chest and abdomen, according to the Bexar County Medical Examiners Office.

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Police Chief A.O. Al Ballew said Williams-Brunson had been arguing with his daughters mother in the parking lot at Crestwind Apartments, 8835 Wilmen Way, when the shooting occurred at about 11 p.m. Jan. 6. He was taken to San Antonio Military Medical Center where he died at 2 a.m. Jan. 7.

The chief said police have responded to calls in the past involving Williams-Brunson and the woman, whose name was not released. Details of those calls were not immediately available.

No arrests had been made in the case as of Thursday night.

Williams-Brunsons mother, Teana Williams, said her son and the woman had been dating for around 18 months, and that their daughter is 9 months old.

He was loving and caring even though he did have faults, said Williams, 42.

RELATED: SAPD: Teen robbed, shot at NW side Whataburger

Williams said that her son had been charged in two unrelated shootings, but was not convicted in either one.

Court records show Williams-Brunson was arrested on a charge of murder in a 2014 East Side drive-by shooting that killed 16-year-old Kiana Nicole James, who was six weeks pregnant. The charge was later dismissed.

In 2013, Williams-Brunson was charged with manslaughter in the death of Jeremy Moore, 22. The charge was later rejected, pending further investigation, according to court records.

jbeltran@express-news.net
The 10-year-old girl found dead with her mother and sister at their Northwest Side home last week died of a gunshot wound to the head and neck.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office on Thursday positively identified the victim as London Sophia Bribiescas and ruled her death a homicide.

She was in fifth grade at Leon Springs Elementary School.

The death of her mother, Nichol Leila Olsen, 37, was ruled a suicide. The death of Olsens other daughter, Clark High School cheerleader Alexa Denice Montez, 16, was ruled a homicide. Each died of a gunshot wound to the head.

Their bodies were found inside their home in the 11300 block of Anaqua Springs, located in a gated community.

On ExpressNews.com: Three found dead in Northwest Side home

Also Thursday, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said that Olsens boyfriend is a person of interest but not a suspect in the case.

Charlie Wheeler, 31, has complied with officers and submitted to tests examining his hands for any traces of gunshot residue, the sheriff said.

Hes been cooperative with us knowing full well that under the circumstances hes a person of interest, Salazar said. Were not calling anybody a suspect at this point.

San Antonio attorney Mark Stevens, who represents Wheeler, expressed frustration with the sheriffs comments.

On ExpressNews.com: Sheriff: Boyfriend of woman in San Antonio triple shooting is 'person of interest,' not a suspect

What we would ask is that people not jump to conclusions, that they not demonize this young man who does not deserve it, that they let the professionals do their jobs and complete this investigation and respect the privacy of presumptively innocent people and of Charlie Wheeler, who did not commit a crime here, Stevens said

Wheeler reported finding the bodies around 9 a.m. Jan. 10.

Salazar said his officers arent relying solely on the medical examiners findings and will be investigating fully, noting there are numerous unanswered questions.

On ExpressNews.com: Family rejects suicide ruling in triple shooting

Friends and family have disputed the ruling on Olsens death, saying that she would not have committed suicide or harmed her children.

Friends of Olsen who don't believe she committed suicide have established a GoFundMe page called "Searching for the Truth" to help fund further investigation. Their fundraising goal is $50,000. Contributors had already donated $5,600 less than an hour after the page was established.

For a more detailed report on the sheriff's investigation into the shooting deaths go to ExpressNews.com.

Peggy OHare is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pohare@express-news.net | Twitter: @Peggy_OHare
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A pilot was killed in a plane crash Thursday outside of Fredericksburg, according to officials.

The single-engine plane crashed at about 5 p.m. on Kerr Road, west of Fredericksburg.
But prosecutors ridiculed Esters account of the stabbing, which he gave from the witness stand this week. Valez was trying to move on from her abusive relationship with Ester, and he was seen buying a shovel at a hardware store on the last day Valez was seen alive, prosecutors noted.
WASHINGTON - The fight over the weeks-long government shutdown hit a bizarre new low as President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled a planned trip to Afghanistan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a day after she angered Republicans by suggesting the president delay his State of the Union Address.

Hours before Pelosi and top Democrats were set to depart for a visit to military leaders in Brussels and to troops in Afghanistan, Trump released a letter canceling what he termed a "public relations event."

"I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown," he wrote. "We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over."

The president's letter to Pelosi, D-Calif., followed one she wrote to him Wednesday suggesting he postpone his State of the Union address, set for Jan. 29, if the partial government shutdown does not end this week, citing security concerns because of Secret Service and other personnel who are working without pay.

Trump uncharacteristically did not respond Wednesday to Pelosi's suggestion that he postpone his speech. Instead he struck back Thursday afternoon, canceling a trip that for security reasons had not yet been made public.

Relations between Trump and Pelosi, the most powerful two politicians in Washington, have spiraled downward since Pelosi regained the speakership this month as Democrats retook control of the House. Now they have assumed the character of a schoolyard spat, in the process all but extinguishing any remaining hopes that the partial government shutdown that entered its 27th day on Thursday will end anytime soon.

Democrats responded furiously to Trump's cancellation and accused the president of acting like a child.

Lawmakers' visits to war zones are typically kept secret for security reasons, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Trump's decision to disclose Pelosi's travel plans was "completely and utterly irresponsible in every way."

"I can say that all too often the last two years the president has acted like he's in the fifth grade, and to have someone who has that kind of character running the country is an enormous problem at every level," Schiff, who was to have joined Pelosi and other lawmakers on the foreign trip, told reporters assembled outside Pelosi's office in the Capitol.

Things could spiral further: Though Pelosi asked Trump to reschedule his State of the Union address, her office made clear that she was not, at this point, denying him an invitation.

The House and Senate must pass a resolution to formally invite Trump to come to Congress, and if Pelosi blocks the measure this year, it would almost certainly deny Trump a traditional State of the Union platform.

Trump himself visited Iraq after the partial government shutdown began Dec. 22, raising questions about his stated rationale for blocking Pelosi's travel. But the president Thursday canceled a U.S. delegation's trip to the annual economic conference in Davos, Switzerland. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other top officials had been slated to attend.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his Delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

Trump did not explain what authority he has to cancel Pelosi's trip, but her travel probably would have required the use of military aircraft controlled by his administration. He said Pelosi could fly commercial if she chose.

A U.S. defense official said Pelosi submitted a request to the Pentagon for support for overseas travel, which the Defense Department approved. The president does retain the authority to cancel such support, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal information. The Defense Department typically extends such support for congressional trips as a courtesy to lawmakers.

"The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation & thanks to our men & women in uniform for their service & dedication, & to obtain critical national security & intelligence briefings from those on the front lines," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill wrote on Twitter.

In Brussels, Pelosi, Schiff and other participants had planned to meet with top NATO officials to affirm their commitment to the alliance, a counter to Trump's at-times wavering support for the defense pact.

It was uncertain whether Pelosi would find some other way to make her trip, which had been scheduled for what was supposed to be a congressional recess next week, before the nation's longest-ever government shutdown forced House leaders to announce they would remain in session.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had mentioned keeping the Senate in session to work next week as well, but no votes are expected until the last week of January, suggesting there will be little if any movement in negotiations in the near future.

Vice President Mike Pence and presidential adviser Jared Kushner appeared at the Capitol to meet with Senate GOP leaders late Thursday. Elsewhere, a bipartisan group of senators continued to work on gathering signatures on a letter to Trump asking him to reopen the government while talks continue, but scant progress has emerged from such sessions thus far.

Trump and Pelosi remain far apart on the issue of Trump's border wall, with the president continuing to demand $5.7 billion for a wall he repeatedly claimed Mexico would pay for, and Pelosi refusing to offer more than $1.3 billion to extend existing funding for border barriers and fencing.

Even one of Trump's top Republican allies questioned his move.

"One sophomoric response does not deserve another. Speaker Pelosi's threat to cancel the State of the Union is very irresponsible and blatantly political," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement. "President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate."

Others backed the president.

"I can see why he'd do it," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., said of Trump's canceling Pelosi's trip. "She's the top leader of the House, and she's the top negotiator to open up the government. You can't open up the government from Afghanistan, so I think he has every right to do it."

Inhofe also pushed back against the idea that Pelosi had a right to visit the troops whenever she wanted.

"No she doesn't," he said. "She needs to be staying here and opening government again."

But Democrats were uniformly disgusted.

"I've been here seven or eight presidents . . . but I haven't seen any do as many petty things as this president does," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said.

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The Washington Post's Paul Kane, Paul Sonne, Karoun Demirjian, Damian Paletta, Jeff Stein and Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.

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Video: On the 27th day of the government shutdown over building a border wall, President Donald Trump blamed "radical Democrats."(The Washington Post)

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Video: Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., on Jan. 17 criticized the president, who cancelled an overseas congressional oversight trip.(Joyce Koh/The Washington Post)

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On Saturday the partial government shutdown became the longest in U.S. history, surpassing a 21-day impasse between then-President Bill Clinton and Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995 and 1996. From a historian's vantage point, the length of the shutdown is unique, but the contentious issue at its heart - President Donald Trump's pursuit of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border - is far from surprising.

That's because the obsession Trump (and many of his supporters) have with the wall speaks to a paranoia about borders, outsiders and threats of "the other" that runs deep in American history and culture. It's as old as the frontier mythology that defined America from its start, and although Trump has seized on it, it's likely to continue long after this particular stalemate.

That obsession with the violent fortification of borders is what the renowned scholar Richard Slotkin talked about in his landmark trilogy on the mythology of the frontier. In "Regeneration through Violence," "The Fatal Environment" and "Gunfighter Nation," Slotkin charted the social and cultural anxiety Americans have had about claiming, defending and taming lands that were never their own. This anxiety, Slotkin argued, manifested itself in cherished myths about the significance of violence in fortifying borders and excluding the people who live beyond them.

History is always a push and pull between continuity and change. And you'll find a lot of differences between how 17th century Puritans, for example, imagined the frontier and how Trump talks about the issue. But there are important similarities, too.

Like many before him, Trump latches onto the belief that the frontier - the imaginary line between civilized and lawful America and the uncivilized and lawless societies that border it - poses an explicit threat to Americans, specifically American women. The vulnerability of white women often lies at the heart of this myth. Violent crimes against them (particularly crimes that are sexual in nature) are used to justify national vengeance and defense. And the ability of the nation to protect women works almost as a barometer, alerting the male powers that be when the frontier has been most egregiously "violated."

This was a common trope in the early 19th century, when future president General Andrew Jackson justified his invasions of Indigenous territories by arguing that failing to do so would threaten American lives. These invasions continued the centuries-long process of marking out and fortifying America's borders. Waxing poetic, Jackson tugged at emotional heartstrings by relaying stories of the kidnapping, rape and murder of American women by those who crossed into the U.S. illegally - or, as Trump has put it, who had "violated our borders."

In 1812 and 1813, for instance, Jackson and his supporters latched onto the story of an attack along Duck River, in western Tennessee, near the border with the Chickasaw nation. Newspapers sensationalized the story, providing readers with gruesome details of how a white woman known only as Mrs. Manley was murdered (and possibly raped) by unidentified Indigenous warriors. Another woman, Martha Crawley, was kidnapped and taken into Indigenous territory, where newspapers falsely accused her captors of raping her.

The story captivated Jackson and his supporters. "Your frontier is threatened with invasion with the savage foe," Jackson told his troops in an effort to rally support for an illegal invasion into Indigenous territory. "The wretch who can view the massacre at the mouth of Duck river, and feel not his spirit kindle within him and burn for revenge, deserves not the name of a man." Future Tennessee governor William Carroll echoed Jackson's argument, asking, "Who among you can sit quietly at home and hear the story of savage butchery?"

The story, and the rhetoric, was soon given a national audience when it was picked up by Hezekiah Niles, editor of the widely distributed newspaper, the Niles Weekly Register. "The attack," Niles attested, "is but a type of what is transacting on many parts of our frontier." The solution? Swift victory in the War of 1812, which many Americans saw as the only way to strengthen the new nation's borders and protect its civilians from attacks by Indigenous nations allied with the British.

It's in this spirit that Candidate Trump notoriously called Mexican migrants rapists, a comment he doubled down on in a 2018 interview with CNN's Don Lemon. "Somebody's doing the raping, Don. I mean somebody's doing it. Who's doing the raping? Who's doing the raping?" And it was also in this spirit that Trump referred in his Oval Office address earlier this month to the rape and murder of Air Force veteran Marilyn Pharis "by an illegal alien with a long criminal history." "How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job?" Trump asked.

Like Jackson before him, Trump failed to cite important information that contextualized the crime. Jackson didn't consider the fact that the Duck River attack was part of an extended campaign by Indigenous nations to combat the illegal invasion of white settlers into their ancestral homelands. Likewise, Trump failed to mention that Pharis was sexually assaulted and murdered by two men: one who had indeed entered the country illegally, and another who is a U.S. citizen. Nor has Trump - a man who admitted to sexually assaulting women on tape and mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony about her sexual assault during Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination hearings - shown any indication that he cares about sexual violence when it's not perpetrated by men who enter the country illegally.

Before Trump, many presidents used stories about "savage foes" preying on innocent Americans in violation of federal borders to help launch invasions into sovereign territories. Right now, an invasion into Mexico or any one of the Central American countries migrants flee from seems unlikely, despite the U.S.'s long (and recent) history of proxy wars throughout the region. But for Trump, the wall serves a similar purpose: It's an emotional issue, one that speaks to deep-seated patriotism surrounding America's ability to defend itself from threats that are sometimes real, but are mostly imagined.

So why is all this important to keep in mind? The answer goes back to Slotkin's emphasis on the importance of myths in the American psyche. "A people unaware of its myths is likely to continue living by them, though the world around that people may change and demand changes," Slotkin wrote. He added that a history of viewing America as the beacon of global freedom and democracy makes it particularly hard for Americans to see these stories for what they are: myths.

But seeing them and paying attention to them, however irrational they might be, is a must, Slotkin said. Failing to do so can leave you blindsided by the chaos and violence national myths often produce. Right now, that chaos is the violence that's unfolding at the U.S.-Mexico border and in a government that's been partially shut down for weeks. It's hard to predict how the shutdown will end, or what will become of the wall. But even if Trump gives up this particular battle, the centuries-old myth doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

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Gismondi is a historian and journalist. She holds a Ph.D. in North American history from the University of Virginia.
WASHINGTON - A Democratic senator requested Friday that the FBI open a perjury investigation into Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, accusing her of lying about the Trump administration's family separation policy during sworn testimony to Congress.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., released a previously undisclosed memo Thursday from high-level officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department in 2017 that outlined policy options to deal with illegal immigration at the border. The second item on the list is a policy to "separate family units." The memo also notes that an upshot of such policies will be the "substantial deterrent effect."

Nielsen has long denied that there was a policy to separate families; during testimony in front of Congress in December she said, "We've never had a policy for family separation."

"Compelling new evidence has emerged revealing that high-level Department of Homeland Security officials were secretly and actively developing a new policy and legal framework for separating families as far back as December 2017," Merkley wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray. "In light of these conflicting facts, the FBI should immediately investigate whether Secretary Nielsen's statements violate 18 U.S. Code  1621, 18 U.S.C  1001, or any other relevant federal statutes that prohibit perjury and false statements to Congress."

Katie Waldman, a DHS spokeswoman blasted Merkley's claims in a statement Friday night, saying that administration's role in the family separations has been explained repeatedly to Congress.

Waldman said that Nielsen had rejected the policy proposal to separate all families in DHS custody.

"As Secretary Nielsen has said publicly and testified multiple times, DHS has never had a blanket policy of separating families in custody," Waldman said. "What this pre-decisional, pre-deliberative memo - as well as previously leaked pre-decisional, pre-deliberative documents - shows is that the Secretary was provided a menu of options to prevent the humanitarian crisis we predicted at that time and which has manifested itself today."

Instead, the administration opted for a "zero tolerance" immigration policy, in which undocumented adults who crossed the border have been routinely prosecuted criminally, which makes the removal of their children an inevitable result, as children cannot be incarcerated in adult facilities. The federal government separated nearly 3,000 children from their parents last year as a result of these new practices.

Nielsen sought to blame the media for the crisis that ensued at the time.

"This misreporting by Members, press & advocacy groups must stop. It is irresponsible and unproductive," she said in a statement on Twitter in June. "We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.

The memo makes clear that administration officials had an idea of the backlash the policies around families at the border would create.

"Advocacy groups are aware that this policy shift may occur and therefore are seeking to identify families who have been separated in order to bring a class-action lawsuit," it read.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

President Donald Trump has mused in recent months about reviving the practice, saying he believed that it effectively deterred people from crossing the border illegally.

This week, a report from the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, which has been responsible for caring for the children after they are separated, said that thousands more children than were previously reported were probably taken from their parents or guardians by immigration agents since Trump took office.

"Although previous administrations also separated minors at the border in some instances - usually when they suspected the child was smuggled, or if the parent appeared unfit - the report said the practice appears far more common under Trump and began nearly a year before administration officials publicly acknowledged it,"

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The Washington Post's Amy Goldstein contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - The White House announced Friday that President Donald Trump would hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February as the two sides seek to jump-start nuclear talks that have bogged down since their historic first meeting last year.

The news came after Trump met for about 90 minutes in the Oval Office with Kim Yong Chol, a former spy chief who has served as Pyongyang's lead negotiator. White House aides disclosed no other logistics, but one location that has been strongly considered is Danang, Vietnam, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

"We've continued to make progress," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters after the meeting. She emphasized that the administration would "keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea until we see fully and verified denuclearization."

The announcement reaffirmed Trump's commitment to a strategy in which he has placed faith in his own negotiating skills to cut through years of mistrust and dead-end talks among lower-level diplomats and forge a deal for North Korea to relinquish a nuclear weapons program that analysts said can now reliably strike the United States.

Yet nuclear experts have said there has been no demonstrable progress since the first summit in Singapore last June, and Trump's claims that North Korea is a diminished threat have been contradicted by the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.

"While a possible new avenue to peace now exists with North Korea, it continues to pose an extraordinary threat and the United States must remain vigilant," the Pentagon's Missile Defense Review, made public this week, concluded.

In recent months, the talks have stalled as North Korea refused demands from U.S. negotiators to provide a detailed inventory of its nuclear and missile programs. Kim Jong Un has made clear he objects because doing so would be tantamount to providing a list of U.S. targets.

Instead, Pyongyang has insisted that the United States lift economic sanctions on North Korea and offer a security guarantee to the isolated regime before it makes any further concessions.

With little progress on the technical end of the negotiations among diplomats, the fate of the talks could rely on Trump changing the current trajectory in direct interactions with senior North Korean officials.

A second summit "is not necessarily great news," Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, warned on Twitter. He said Trump must insist on a "detailed roadmap" and added that the outcome "depends on how well a summit is prepared and handled and what @realDonaldTrump offers and demands in return. Recent history hardly reassuring."

For Trump, a second summit could help him make the case that his top foreign policy initiative is paying off and divert attention from his escalating domestic political troubles.

The president is embroiled in an increasingly nasty public fight with congressional Democrats as a partial government shutdown over funding for his proposed border wall reached the four-week mark Friday. And the White House has been rocked by a series of new revelations in the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Friday marked the second time Trump has welcomed Kim Yong Chol, who was reported to be delivering a letter from Pyongyang. He also visited Trump in the Oval Office last June to seal plans for the leaders' summit later that month in Singapore - the first time a sitting U.S. president has met a North Korean ruler.

Unlike the first visit, however, during which a smiling Trump was photographed accepting an oversized envelope from Kim, reporters were not permitted to view any portion of their meeting in the Oval.

Before arriving at the White House, Kim met for less than an hour with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a hotel in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle neighborhood. The two parties met for lunch there after Kim returned from the White House.

Trump allies praised the president's leadership and expressed cautious optimism that the high-level engagement will pay dividends.

"President Trump deserves great credit for getting us to this point," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement. "We have a long way to go, and I'm hopeful that the engagement started by President Trump can finally end the North Korean problem in a win-win fashion."

Trump has been upbeat about a second round of face-to-face negotiations with Kim, touting personal letters from him.

"With North Korea, we have a very good dialogue," Trump said this month. "I'm going to not go any further than that. I'm just going to say it's very special."

Trump stated after the Singapore summit that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat to the United States, and Pyongyang has maintained a 14-month hiatus on testing, which Trump frequently claims credit for.

But The Washington Post reported in July that U.S. spy agencies had indications that North Korea was constructing new missiles at the same factory that produced the country's first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

"The second summit must emphasize substance over pageantry because the window for a diplomatic resolution to North Korea's nuclear threat will not remain open indefinitely and absent progress, North Korea's nuclear weapons program will continue to grow," said Kelsey Davenport, who studies North Korea at the Arms Control Association.

At the State Department, U.S. officials want the North to start treating the American envoy for the talks, Stephen Biegun, seriously. The North has repeatedly turned down meetings between him and his counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Choi Sun Hee. Biegun was present at Pompeo's meeting with Kim Yong Chol, and he is expected meet Choi for follow-up negotiations in Stockholm over the weekend.

In Seoul, there is a strong feeling among South Korean officials that the U.S. side will offer a more flexible approach and that Washington is coming around to the idea that both sides need to offer concessions in a phased process - rather than a unilateral, all-or-nothing approach favored by White House hard-liners, such as national security adviser John Bolton.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said at a news conference Wednesday that her government's approach is to secure a "comprehensive deal toward complete denuclearization" of the North and a "phased implementation." She said Washington "also shares considerably" this approach.

Kim Jong Un said in a New Year's Day speech that North Korea might have to follow a new path if the United States maintains sanctions and demands unilateral action from Pyongyang. But Kim also said the improvement in relations could accelerate if the United States took "corresponding actions."

Kim also told South Korean President Moon Jae-in last year he was prepared to permanently close the Yongbyon nuclear processing site if the United States took "corresponding steps."

Corresponding measures could include a declaration to end the 1950-1953 Korean War, providing humanitarian aid or establishing a "permanent North-U. S. dialogue channel," Kang said. One suggestion is that each country open a liaison office in the other's capital.

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Denyer reported from Tokyo.

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Video: Kim Yong Chol, the lead negotiator for North Korea, met Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department ahead of a possible meeting with President Trump.(Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

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WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has personally courted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to consider running for an open Senate seat in Kansas, according to people familiar with the effort, a move that could anger President Donald Trump and further roil his tumultuous Cabinet.

Senate GOP leaders have been so dedicated to recruiting Pompeo that McConnell directly urged him to consider it in a recent telephone call, according to two people familiar with the conversation, which has not been previously reported.

By the time Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., announced that he was retiring earlier this month, GOP leaders were already eying Pompeo. In the hours ahead of Roberts' announcement, their allies were talking Pompeo up.

But Trump does not want to lose Pompeo and sees him as his favorite Cabinet member, according to two people familiar with his thinking. It was unclear whether he was aware of the conversation between McConnell and Pompeo. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond late Thursday to a request for comment.

Pompeo, who has risen through the ranks in Washington from congressman to CIA director and now the head of the State Department, has not ruled out a run publicly.

"Secretary Pompeo is focused on serving the President and keeping Americans safe as the Secretary of State," Pompeo spokesman Robert Palladino said in a statement Thursday.

Privately, Pompeo has left the door open, according to associates, though his attention is on his current job and is not in a rush to reach a verdict, they said.

The people who described the conversation between McConnell and Pompeo and the president's thinking spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.

Jumping from a coveted Cabinet position to vie for a spot as a very junior member of Senate would be an unorthodox move - and one some top Republicans remain skeptical Pompeo will ultimately make.

But given all of the twists and turns during the Trump presidency, some Republicans close to both McConnell and Pompeo are far from ready to close the book on the idea.

One person who has been in contact with Pompeo foresaw a situation where Pompeo might want to "parachute out if things get bad." The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

Democrats now control the House, giving them the power to issue subpoenas and hold hearings on the Trump administration. Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Mueller III has not completed his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

"He hasn't closed the door," said one of the people familiar with the phone call, speaking of Pompeo's posture on a Senate bid.

From the perspective of McConnell and other Senate Republican leaders, the appeal of Pompeo is clear - he gives them a high-profile recruit with the ability to head off an potentially expensive and divisive primary for a must-keep GOP seat in a ruby red state.

Given his stature, Kansas political roots and ties to Trump, Pompeo would be heavily favored to win if he entered the race. He served in the House for six years before Trump tapped him to head the CIA. Not long after Rex Tillerson's departure from the secretary of state job last year, Pompeo won confirmation by the Senate to fill the job.

When it comes to personnel and recruiting, Trump and McConnell have not always seen eye to eye.

For example, during Trump's presidential transition, McConnell wanted to recruit Ryan Zinke, then a Montana congressman, to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. But Trump tapped him to be his Interior secretary.

Tester won reelection last fall, avoiding the fate of four of his Democratic colleagues who lost in red or purple states.

Democrats have not won a Senate seat in Kansas since 1932. But the state elected a Democratic governor in 2018 and several female Republican state lawmakers have switched parties out of frustration with Trump and the current state of the GOP.

Republicans are defending 22 Senate seats in 2020, compared to just 12 for Democrats. While Kansas is not seen as a ripe pickup opportunity for Democrats, it could prove to be fertile ground for messy intraparty battle that could lead to uncertainty in the general election.

Other names that have surfaced as GOP possibilities include former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Trump ally who was defeated in the race for governor last year; Rep. Roger Marshall; former governor Jeff Colyer, whom Kobach defeated in the gubernatorial primary; and American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp.

McConnell, a savvy political strategist focused on retaining or even expanding the GOP's 53-seat Senate majority, is up for reelection himself in 2020. He is seeking a seventh term in a state Trump won comfortably and where he would be heavily favored again in 2020.

McConnell and Trump have had a roller-coaster relationship during the past two years. It turned bad after the failed Republican attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. But it improved after the GOP passed a sweeping tax bill.

Tensions flared between Pompeo and Senate Republicans in 2016 when Pompeo stoked talk of a primary challenge by criticizing Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., but the relationship appears to be more cordial now. McConnell called Pompeo a "brilliant, tough-minded leader" when Trump nominated him. And Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the assistant secretary for legislative affairs for the State Department, is a former McConnell aide.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 18)  Cotabato City Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi urged Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sheriff Abas to inhibit from the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) plebiscite as a "matter of delicadeza."

She pointed out that Abas is the nephew of Mohagher Iqbal, the Chief Peace Negotiator of rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a group that has long pushed for an autonomous region.

"I am not questioning the institution itself. But you seem in this particular case, Chairman Abas should inhibit himself, being identified with the MILF," she told CNN Philippines on Thursday.

Guiani-Sayadi is not considering filing a complaint against the poll chairman to force him to inhibit.

The local official's comments come after she questioned the identification cards being issued by a pro-BOL group that was granted accreditation by Comelec to also serve as poll watchers. The mayor claimed some residents have come forward to reveal they were given pro-BOL IDs even without applying for them. She suspects the pro-BOL group had access to Comelec voters' records since the pictures and data on the IDs were similar from those provided on the voter registration forms.

CNN Philippines is trying to reach Abas and other Comelec officials for a comment.

Guiani-Sayadi has openly expressed her opposition to include Cotabato City to a new Bangsamoro territory.

"Yung decision ko specifically to support the no for inclusion of Cotabato City, hindi ko sariling desisyon ito. I consulted practically all the stakeholders of Cotabato City," she said.

[Translation: My decision to specifically support the no for Cotabato City's inclusion, I did not come up with it by myself. consulted practically all the stakeholders of Cotabato City.]

She added her decision to go "all out" for a no vote was representative of the people's will. She urged her constituents to exercise their right to vote on January 21.

Voters in Cotabato City, Isabela City in Basilan, and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) will decide the fate of BARMM (Bangsamoro ARMM) on January 21. A second plebiscite for Lanao del Norte excluding Iligan City, North Cotabato, and the 28 areas which petitioned for inclusion into BARMM would be held on February 6.

CNN Philippines senior correspondent David Santos contributed to this report.
ALTON  Representatives from local police department across the area were honored at the Southern Illinois Law Enforcement Commission (SILEC) and Southern Illinois Police Chiefs Association (SIPCA) co-hosted awards banquet, which took place Thursday night.

The banquet provides recognition to the men and women who work in the profession of law enforcement and who have made significant contributions towards enhancing the profession of law enforcement, according to SILECs website.

In addition to awarding law enforcement, recognition is also given out to individual citizens who have displayed acts of good citizenship by assisting law enforcement agencies in seven counties  Bond, Clinton, Madison, Monroe, Randolph, St. Clair and Washington.

Among the biggest honors of the night was East Alton Police Chief Darren Carlton being recognized as the new president of the Board of Officers in the SIPCA.

Im still in awe, Carlton said. Its such an honor to even be elected to serve on the board, so to be given the opportunity to be president is really something.

Here are some of the other recognitions given to local department members at this years banquet:

Alton

Two members of the Alton Police Department, Det. Sgt. Michael ONeill and Dispatcher Jenifer Martin, were awarded honors at the banquet.

ONeill received a Law Enforcement Certificate of Merit for his continued and relentless work in solving the murder of Bonnie Woodward, who disappeared in 2010. Roger W. Carroll, of Jersey County, was charged last year with Woodwards murder and was accused of burning her remains.

Martin received the Telecommunicator Award for saving the lives of five people in 2017 by calmly and effectively instructing 9-1-1 callers how to perform CPR while paramedics were en route.

Martin was the only reciprocate of the Telecommunicator Award.

Edwardsville

Officer Conor Hoyland was given the Life Saving Award. In a post on their Facebook page, The Edwardsville Police Department congratulated Hoyland on a job well done.

Chief Jay Keeven was also named Treasurer of the Board of Officers in SIPCA.

Madison County Sheriffs Office

Lt. Carole Presson of the Madison County Sheriffs Office was awarded the SILEC Presidential Award.

Five members of the Madison County Sheriffs Office also received the Law Enforcement Certificate of Merit: Sgt. Michael Keshner, Deputy Jason Thatcher, Deputy Benjamin Patterson, Det. Robert Weller and Det. Timothy Lawrence.

Reach reporter Riley Newton at (618) 208-6460.
An audit of the Liberty County engineering department discovered some alarming practices, including some missing money that has since been corrected and addressed, officials said.

The audit is designed to provide reasonable but not absolute assurance that the department is adhering to laws, regulations, and contracts. It will also ascertain whether controls in place are adequate to safeguard assets, review that transactions and department funds are properly supported, recorded, and deposited in their entirety in a timely manner and in accordance with all governing laws and regulations.

It was that last mantra that was violated and forced the early retirement of one employee.

A newly created reinspection fee was being charged and collected during June and July 2018, but the fees had not been approved by commissioners court.

Angela Maselli, first assistant county auditor, also discovered cash was being collected for the reinspection fees and not deposited with the Treasurers office.

David Douglas, who was originally appointed county grant administrator and later had engineering interim administrator and flood plain manager added to his duties in 2017, was disappointed that it happened under his watch.

I think they felt like they needed the money more than the county, he said.

It wasnt a large sum of money, only reaching approximately $200 or four transactions.

It was still a misappropriation of funds, of county money, Douglas said, and the lady no longer works here. She chose to retire under the circumstances.

The audit also found that no receipts were issued to customers for reinspection fees paid with cash.

In his response to the audit, Douglas said the culvert reinspection fee structure has since been approved by the court.

Since these funds were collected prior to Court action, they were returned to the customer, he said.

Douglas also said the fees are no longer collected in the field.

Payments are accepted only by personal appearance of the customer at the Engineering and Permit Department. Numbered receipts are issued, thereby allowing for appropriate tracking, the interim administrator said.

Some of the concern was the fast-rising amount of money being transacted in the engineering department.

Last year the county engineering department did just a little less than $1 million in business, more than tripling the amount in the last four years. In 2014, the departments revenue was $298,962. In 2018, the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, 2018 was a whopping $963,885.

There are a number of permits that we issue, Douglas said.

Among them are driveway or culvert permits which help the county account for the size of culverts being used and facilitate good drainage.

Theres also a subdivision permit for preliminary platting and platting. Those fees are accelerating as developers purchase land and begin work on new subdivisions.

When youre adding 3,000 to 4,000 lots, that can be a lot of money, he said.

The biggest bulk of the work comes with septic systems installed in the county.

Theres not a septic system installed in Liberty County that were not supposed to permit and inspect, Douglas said.

As part of the inspection department, they also respond to complaints of neighbors sewer in the yard, drainage issues, and other engineering type complaints.

Douglas readily admits hes not a P.E. (professional engineer) but relies on his many years of city management business to be a sort of shade tree engineer, he said.

The county has been outsourcing engineering services to LJA Engineers in Beaumont for a few years now.

If growth continues at the current trajectory, the $1 million collected this year could as much as triple in the next five years.

With that in mind, procedures have changed. Douglas said hindsight is myopic.

As of Jan. 15, we will only accept funds in the form of credit cards, debit cards, cashiers checks, or money orders, he said. No personal or corporate checks or cash.

Two weeks before Christmas, they installed the system to accept credit card transactions.

I dont see how you could short circuit the system we have now, Douglas said.

Douglas used to office out of the Law Library across the street from the County Courthouse but has moved over to the former two-story Liberty County Hospital District building on the corner of Webster and Fannin in Liberty. The rest of the engineering department employees were set up in the annex building and have moved into the newer, more spacious facility.

Now they have private offices now for each employee so that they can meet privately with their clients, Douglas said.

Employees called Designated Representatives licensed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) are qualified to inspect wastewater treatment systems or septic tanks.

Weve never hired a certified person, Douglas explained. We send them all to school to get their certification. Weve never had one who was hired with the certification, he said.

The county pays for the employee to take the classes and should they fail both of those times, they are still able to return to take the test on their own dime. If they fail a third time, Douglas said he asks for their resignation.

Douglas will soon have some relief.

The county is in the process of hiring an engineer. A job description is being written and could be presented to commissioners court in the next month or so.

dtaylor@hcnonline.com
Convergys, one of the biggest private employers in Laredo, has been taken over by a company named Concentrix.

The acquisition of Convergys was finalized in October.

It is still the great call center company that you know, according to Brooke Beiting, senior specialist of communications for Concentrix. Were looking to be bigger, better and bolder with the next team."

The company is aiming to fill more than 200 positions at their Laredo location, 2451 Monarch Drive.

READ ALSO: These are the 20 highest-paying jobs in Laredo, according to the Bureau of Statistics

Laredo is currently the third largest facility out of the 60 Concentrix sites in North America with over 1,100 staff members, the company said. We are in the process of hiring 200-plus more jobs within the next three months.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Thursday at the call center in Laredo to mark the rebranding of Convergys to Concentrix.

Also Thursday, the company hosted a job fair to explain more about the opportunities for new workers. Among the positions they are seeking are customer service representatives and sales associates. No experience is necessary. Applicants should have a high school diploma or equivalent, PC knowledge and be skilled in multi-tasking. They must also be registered in www.workintexas.com. For more information, call 956-794-6500.

Robert Juarez, site leader for the Concentrix contact center in Laredo, said all staff members go to a three- to five-week classroom training, equipping them with the tools and knowledge to successfully perform.

This is followed by a transition period servicing customers with real-time hands-on support from experienced associates, Juarez said.

He added, We are looking for individuals to fit into our health care customer service account (prior health care experience not required), and also for one of our communications clients supporting cellular service. Customer service individuals ready to provide a fanatical experience to our customers. They must have a high school diploma or GED and pass a customer service assessment and interview. Bilingual candidates are also welcome.

The company said that a customer service job can serve as a stepping stone to other career opportunities. Also, more than 79 percent of customer service managers are promoted from within the company.

READ ALSO: Laredo police release warning to public on individual known for targeting elderly



In December, Workforce Solutions for South Texas recognized Convergys/Concentrix with the Pacesetter Award during the Annual Employer Awards Banquet. The Pacesetter Award is presented to a business or organization that provides unique ideas that result in innovative program delivery services.

Concentrix said that over the last several months, teams have worked tirelessly to integrate two great organizations into one team, one company, one Concentrix. Concentrix has $4.7 billion in revenue, over 225,000 staffers, 650-plus clients and over 275 locations in 40 countries.

Concentrix is a subsidiary of SYNNEX Corp., a technology-enabled global business services company specializing in customer engagement.
You might want to hold off on that Marie Kondo-inspired decluttering. Antiques Roadshow is coming back to San Antonio for an all-day appraisal event April 27 at the McNay Art Museum.

As part of its 2019 production tour, the hit PBS series will film appraisals throughout the day inside and out of the McNay, as owners of antiques, collectibles and good ol junk from the trunk vie for hidden treasure glory  or at least an auction or retail estimate that beats what they paid for those wares at that weekend garage sale.
Chicago Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, issued a statement condemning the decision. There is no circumstance under which the actions of these officers was justifiable or appropriate, the statement read in part. The decision by the judge is a blow to the cause of police accountability, and will serve to further undermine trust between the CPD and the Black community. We have so much work still to do.

"Accountability for police conduct is not just the responsibility of any one officer. It must be rooted into our systems and processes to be truly transformative for our city. This trial presented an opportunity to impose some accountability for police officers who maintain the code of silence that has enabled inequitable policing in Chicago. It is disappointing and disheartening to know that, even with an apparent conflict between officer statements and video proof, that opportunity was missed with this verdict. The Chicago Urban League will continue to support efforts at real police reform and equitable and fair treatment of African Americans and other underserved communities."
One day, our children will ask: Where were you during the Fyre Festival documentaries war?

The notoriously disastrous music festival - which, it should be noted, lacked both live music and proper festivities - is at the center of two films released this week by streaming rivals Hulu and Netflix. Each takes viewers back to early 2017, when millennial entrepreneur Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule attempted to organize a luxury music festival in the Bahamas to promote their music-booking app, Fyre.

Nothing went as planned, largely because of an extremely tight schedule and a lack of funding for McFarland and Ja Rule's extravagant vision. Musical acts canceled after sensing some shadiness, and guests who paid thousands of dollars to attend were greeted with tents and soggy sandwiches in lieu of the villas and gourmet meals they'd been promised. McFarland is currently serving a six-year jail sentence for fraud.

There's a lot for the documentaries to tackle, as you can imagine. Among the most pressing inquiries: Why and how did this happen? But Hulu's "Fyre Fraud" and Netflix's "Fyre" approach this task from different perspectives. To help you decide which to watch, we've answered a few questions of our own.

- When did each documentary come out?

Hulu dropped "Fyre Fraud" on Monday, just four days before "Fyre" hit Netflix. While Netflix's release date had been announced in advance, its rival took the public by surprise. Hulu hadn't clarified a date beyond sometime in 2019. "Fyre" director Chris Smith told Business Insider on Tuesday that he had been tipped off to Hulu's documentary, directed by Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason, but that Netflix didn't really care.

Now, we have a new pair to tack onto Hollywood's long history of twin films. Which one do you think is the "Deep Impact" to the other's "Armageddon"?

- How long are they?

Netflix's "Fyre" clocks in at just over one hour and 37 minutes, while Hulu's "Fyre Fraud" is literally a second under one hour and 36 minutes. The difference is a bathroom break.

- So, they're just two films about the same thing?

Not quite. Netflix's "Fyre" focuses quite a bit on the how, particularly regarding how Fyre Festival reached its catastrophic end. It documents the nitty-gritty of how the festival fell apart, ranging from the basics (McFarland's pilot friend Keith says in an interview that Fyre team members focused more on influencers and festival promotion than making sure there would be working plumbing on the island) to the bigger-picture stuff (McFarland commits wire fraud to make fast money).

Hulu's "Fyre Fraud" focuses on the why. Yes, it touches on some individual blunders that led to the eventual fiasco, but it's much more interested in the culture that allowed McFarland to do what he did. What made the college dropout decide to scam rich millennials? What does it say about our society as a whole that this many people would pay thousands of dollars to attend a festival they had never even heard of before?

While the Netflix documentary strikes a more serious tone, Hulu's employs more humor. In one scene, a former employee describes McFarland's management style as "like 'The Office,' except with no redeeming qualities." The latter film also uses pop-culture clips to really drive home points in a way that winds up feeling reminiscent of an Adam McKay film.

- Who shows up in each one?

Netflix's "Fyre" includes interviews with a solid number of people who worked with McFarland and Ja Rule in planning the festival: Fyre Media employees, Fyre Media consultants, scorned Bahamians and employees of Instagram influencer F---Jerry's social media agency, Jerry Media. That last one is controversial.

Hulu's "Fyre Fraud" mostly interviews external commentators - social media experts, journalists and so on - but also features a scorned Bahamian, a former Jerry Media employee and McFarland himself. That last one is, you guessed it, also controversial.

- How ethical are these documentaries?

Now for the promised controversies! Hulu's "Fyre Fraud" points out that Jerry Media, whose employees created Fyre Festival's promotional videos featuring models Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski, is one of the companies that produced Netflix's "Fyre." As a result, "Fyre Fraud" is much more wary of Jerry Media's involvement in the scam.

"I feel like there's a bigger ethically compromised position, and that's going and partnering with folks who marketed the Fyre Festival and were well aware that this was not going to happen as planned," Furst told the Ringer of the rival Netflix documentary.

That ethical comparison refers to the fact that Hulu paid McFarland for behind-the-scenes footage and an eight-hour interview, according to the Ringer. Smith, who directed the Netflix film, says McFarland told him he was offered $250,000 from Hulu. Furst says it was less.

"After spending time with so many people who had such a negative impact on their lives from their experience on Fyre, it felt particularly wrong to us for (McFarland) to be benefiting," Smith told the Ringer. "It was a difficult decision, but we had to walk away for that reason."

- What are some of the wildest quotes from each documentary?

From Netflix's "Fyre," sans context:

"If we want to go ... see the pigs, we go see the pigs. That's it."

"We're selling a pipe dream to your average loser."

"Instead of thinking about models, you have to think about toilets."

"We knew very little about what was happening on the festival side - except, you know, the persistent feeling of growing dread."

"I was, like, 'Oh my god, Billy. Jeepers.'"

"Nobody died, but we did flat-out lie to the public about what we were giving them."

From Hulu's "Fyre Fraud," which wins this round:

"Once you attach Ja Rule to something, you know it's legit."

"Teeny-tiny crayon-based businessman."

"There's just random white guys there for who knows what reason."

"Nobody's eating, so nobody's pooping."

"You say that Billy tried to get you to rob Customs?"

"If you've never been out on bail before, that's the time in your life where you want to be committing the least amount of crimes."

"In the millennial era, scamming is the air we breathe."
"Wild Geese" was trending on Twitter on Thursday, and poetry lovers - not naturalists or ornithologists - were responsible. Mary Oliver, arguably America's most beloved best-selling poet, had died earlier in the day, at the age of 83. Her poem "Wild Geese," from her 1986 collection "Dream Work," was written in the second person, so the poet seems to be speaking directly to us. It ends this way:

(BEGIN ITAL)Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,(END ITAL)

(BEGIN ITAL)the world offers itself to your imagination,(END ITAL)

(BEGIN ITAL)calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -(END ITAL)

(BEGIN ITAL)over and over announcing your place(END ITAL)

(BEGIN ITAL)in the family of things.(END ITAL)(BEGIN ITAL)(END ITAL)

As the news of her death spread across the country and around the world, my social media feeds filled with poems, quotes, links to Oliver's work and personal stories. What struck me was how many people were moved to tears by her death, people who had never met her. Her work touched millions of people deeply, and not only those who consider themselves poets or poetry lovers. Oliver's work managed to do something rare: It reached people who didn't particularly like or "get" contemporary poetry.

She once told NPR that simplicity was important to her. "Poetry, to be understood, must be clear," she said. "It mustn't be fancy." But her work has been criticized by some for its simplicity. Oliver's poems have been labeled "inspirational" and "accessible," and while those adjectives may sound positive, they are too often backhanded compliments. I think this criticism comes from a deep misunderstanding of her work, and also from an ugly disdain for poetry that consoles and inspires. Dare I call it snobbery?

Oliver certainly received critical acclaim in her lifetime, too. Her fifth collection of poetry, "American Primitive," won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1984. Her "New and Selected Poems" (1992) won the National Book Award. Her many honors and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America and a number of honorary doctorates.

Yes, Oliver's poems are eminently quotable. Yes, they inspire. They speak to people who have found much of contemporary poetry befuddling. But the poems also speak for themselves. They are full of wisdom and joy and deep loneliness and gratitude. As someone who loves challenging, genre-bending poetry, I also love the poems of Mary Oliver.

Oliver was born in Ohio, so I like to claim her as a fellow Ohio poet. She lived in Provincetown, Mass., from the 1960s until the death of her partner, Molly Malone Cook, in 2005. She was living in southern Florida at the time of her death. Though the bulk of Oliver's poems are set on the northwest tip of Cape Cod, I can't help but see in them so much of our shared Ohio landscape: the deer, the birds, the grass, the water, the trees, the light and the darkness.

"I spent a great deal of time in my younger years just writing and reading, walking around the woods in Ohio, where I grew up," Oliver said in a 2011 interview in O Magazine. "I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded."

I, too, spent much of my Ohio childhood walking among trees or with my nose in a book. Like Oliver, I started writing in my teens and published my first book at 28. And, yes, my work is concerned with place. It is full of deer, birds, fields, rivers, trees, light and darkness.

In a sense, Mary Oliver, and another Ohio poet, James Wright, gave me permission to write about Ohio's flora and fauna. It was only natural - no pun intended - for me to write about what I saw every day and to build metaphors using my surroundings. It did not surprise me to learn that Whitman, Emerson, Keats and Rumi were some of Oliver's favorite poets. These are poets of big ideas, poets who used metaphor - often based in the natural world - to build a bridge or open a door.

I learned from Mary Oliver how attention is a kind of love, how shining your mind's light on a thing - a grasshopper, a bird, a tree - is a way of showing gratitude. I learned that poems do not need to be "difficult" to be intelligent, that poems can be both inspirational and investigative, that poems can be tender without being soft. I learned from her to own my wonder and to stay open to uncertainty.

The most famous, most shared Mary Oliver quote has to be from her poem "The Summer Day," from "House of Light" (1990), which ends, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?"

What did Mary Oliver do with her one wild and precious life? She survived a difficult childhood. She loved a woman for 50 years. She wrote poems that will stand the test of time. She touched us.

---

Smith's most recent book of poems is "Good Bones." Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Tin House, American Poetry Review, the Paris Review and Best American Poetry.
Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn't

By Edward Humes

Dutton. 306 pp. $28

---

One reason that Jo Ann Parks has served 27 years of a life sentence for a triple murder she probably did not commit is jurors' tendency to play amateur shrink. After her garage apartment in the Bell City section of Los Angeles went up in flames on April 9, 1989, and she escaped, with her three young children still inside, Parks repeatedly asked a police officer if they were OK; each time he assured her that they were. Without demanding to see them, however, she complied with the cop's request that she wait at a police station a few blocks away.

Some jurors made Parks' acquiescence the deciding factor in their vote to convict her of murder by arson. In "Burned," his riveting account of the fire and its repercussions, Edward Humes sums up those jurors' reasoning as follows: "There was no way any mother - any mother who wasn't a killer, that is - would hear her kids were OK and then leave the scene without first seeing them for herself."

Yet the prosecution had not made that argument, perhaps because the defense could easily have explained such behavior by a mother in Parks' situation. (On her lawyer's advice, Parks herself did not testify.) For example, she may have had a foreboding that the kids were not OK, so putting off seeing them was a way to keep hope alive.

Unfortunate as the jurors' mind-reading attempts may have been, Humes' main objection to the Parks trial has to do with evidence-gathering. Before he is done with it, the small fire that killed Parks' kids grows into a conflagration threatening the integrity of the American criminal justice system.

Arson experts' opinion that Parks was the perpetrator rested in large part on their mapping of the fire's path. Humes charges them with a faulty understanding of flashover, which occurs when a fire gets so hot that "every flammable surface in the room not already burning will ignite in rapid succession."

The same year that Parks went on trial, an experiment was conducted at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga. After setting on fire two "stand-alone fake rooms," the experimenters asked veteran arson investigators to examine each burned room and pick out the quadrant where the fire had started - "not the area of origin itself," Humes emphasizes, "but just the quarter of the room that contained it." Although the participants had expected the assignment to be "child's play," more than 90 percent of the time they chose a wrong quadrant. This and other tests have confirmed what a few arson experts were already coming to believe: that flashover can make domestic fires impossible to sort out afterward.

Although flashover had occurred in the Parks apartment, investigators confidently read patterns they discerned in the burnscape as implicating the mother. (Her then-husband had been out working a night shift and thus was not a suspect; Humes seems to regard their 4-year-old son's habit of playing with matches as the likeliest cause of the fire.) In the investigators' defense, they were adhering to the consensus at the time, but they, along with most other arson experts, have since clung to their old certainties and refused to question verdicts based upon them.

Widening his scope, Humes notices that other forensic standbys are being discredited, too. Comparing bite marks on a body with those made by a suspect's teeth has been shown time and again to be a highly subjective exercise, often producing false positives. Hair and fiber comparisons are sketchy, too, as are the judgment calls involved in matching fingerprints. Even lineups from which witnesses are asked to pick out the culprit can be flawed. How do we know all this? From later comparisons of DNA samples, which speak for themselves.

Common to all these problems, Humes argues, is cognitive bias arising from the way crime investigations are often handled. The cops and the technical specialists work together, so that the latter enter a crime scene with a pretty good idea of what the cops expect - and want - them to find. Humes' proposed solution is to adapt to police work the double-blind procedures used in scientific research. This would mean, for example, that those in charge of a lineup would have no idea which member of the line had been nabbed by their fellow cops; all too often, Humes suggests, the lineup conductor's tone of voice or body language serves as a tell.

One might think that judges would take note of the growing number of wrongful convictions uncovered by DNA analysis and do something about it. But even bite-mark evidence, the least trustworthy of all in Humes' opinion, is still being admitted because judges are so enamored of precedent. And the Trump administration has abolished an Obama-era commission charged with recommending solutions to forensic failures.

The California Innocence Project looked into Parks' case and managed to get her a habeas corpus hearing. At that hearing, the defense's expert witness testified that dramatic changes in fire science over the past quarter-century have made Parks' conviction untenable; the prosecution's expert downplayed the importance of those changes. Parks' lead attorney, Raquel Cohen, came away from the hearing believing, in Humes' words, that "every prosecution expert in the ... case ... has been influenced by unconscious cognitive bias."

On Nov. 2, 2018, the habeas judge rejected Parks' request for a new trial, ruling in essence that the expert witnesses had fought to a draw. Cohen wants to appeal - if, that is, she can raise the $100,000 it would cost to fund a project that might sway the appeals court: a staged re-creation of the apartment fire.

Humes makes no mention, however, of what might be the strongest weapon in Cohen's arsenal: "Burned" itself, a powerful brief not only for Parks but also for a recognition of the weaknesses in forensic science generally.

---

Drabelle is a former contributing editor of The Washington Post Book World.
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This German periodic table classroom poster, dating to 1885, may be the oldest surviving in the world.

The periodic table of elements is a familiar sight to anyone who's ever sat in a chemistry classroom  and apparently, that's been the case for nearly 150 years.

Conservators at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland announced the discovery of what they say is the world's oldest surviving example of a classroom periodic table of elements, dating to 1885.

The old classroom poster, printed in German on linen-backed paper, was discovered in 2014 while staffers from the university's School of Chemistry were cleaning out their storage room, according to a news release from the university. Among the clutter of decades-old lab equipment and chemical vials, staffers found an old cache of huge, rolled-up teaching charts.

One of the scrolls contained the aforementioned periodic table  inked onto paper so old that it started to crumble at the touch.

School records showed that the chart was purchased in Vienna by a St. Andrews chemistry professor in 1888, and the table likely hung in his classroom until his 1909 retirement. Researchers were able to further narrow down the poster's print date by looking at the elements represented (and those left out) on the chart. For example, "both gallium and scandium, discovered in 1875 and 1879, respectively, are present, while germanium, discovered in 1886, is not," the news release said.

According to the university, this table seems to be the only one from its period surviving anywhere in Europe.

In any case, the old chart dates closely to the conception of the periodic table, itself. Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev developed the world's first periodic table when, following days of work and a vivid dream, he ordered the known elements according to their atomic mass and ability to bond with other elements. Mendeleev presented his findings to the Russian Chemical Society in 1869, and the first periodic tables were published soon after.

According to professor David O'Hagan, former head of chemistry at the University of St Andrews, the "remarkable" table will be available for research at the university and will go on public display later this year.

"We have a number of events planned in 2019, which has been designated [the] international year of the periodic table by the United Nations, to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the table's creation by Dmitri Mendeleev," O'Hagan said in the statement.

Originally published on Live Science.
About 25,000 years ago, ice age hunters in what is now Poland threw a light spear known as a javelin at a mammoth. Now, the discovery of that javelin has revealed a major surprise.

Previously, researchers wondered whether our ancestors had killed mammoths by trickery, for instance, by chasing them into pits or off cliffs. Or, perhaps ice age hunters targeted weak or sick mammoths that were easy to finish off.

But now, "we finally have a smoking gun, the first direct evidence of how these animals were hunted," Piotr Wojtal, an archaeozoologist at the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals at the Poland Academy of Sciences in Krakow, told Science in Poland, a site run by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. [Photos: A 40,000-Year-Old Mammoth Autopsy]

Deadly weapon

Researchers initially found the mammoth rib in 2002, at a mammoth hotspot in Krakow, where scientists, over the years, have discovered the remains of at least 110 mammoths that lived between 30,000 and 25,000 years ago, the researchers said.

"Among tens of thousands of bones, during a detailed analysis of the remains, I came across a damaged mammoth rib," Wojtal told Science in Poland. "It turned out that a fragment of a flint arrowhead was stuck in it."

It wasn't until February 2018 that they took a detailed look at the specimen.

During this examination, scientists found the 0.3-inch-long (7 millimeters) fragment of the flint tip, which likely broke when a hunter drove the spear into the mammoth's body.

"The spear was certainly thrown at the mammoth from a distance, as evidenced by the force with which it stuck into an animal," Wojtal told Science in Poland. "The blade had to pierce 2-centimeters-thick [0.7 inches] skin and an 8-centimeter [0.04 inches] layer of fat to finally reach the bone."

This blow probably didn't kill the mammoth, but if the hunt involved several armed hunters, it's likely that strikes from other weapons, "probably directly into soft tissues and one of the organs," killed the giant, Wojtal said.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Ice age hunters?

Over the past 20 years, researchers have found mammoth remains containing human-made weapons at two sites in Siberia, but "I believe this is the first find of a weapon embedded in a mammoth bone in Europe," said Adrian Lister, a professor of vertebrates and anthropology at the Natural History Museum in London, who wasn't involved with the finding.

"It is important because it proves beyond reasonable doubt that mammoths were hunted," Lister told Live Science. Until now, there was only circumstantial evidence that ice age people in Europe hunted mammoths. For instance, the Polish site of Krakow Spadzista Street contains burnt bones involved in supporting the tongue, indicating that ancient people feasted on roasted mammoth tongue, Lister said.

"But you can never be absolutely sure that such animals were actually hunted rather than scavenged," Lister said. Or, if the mammoths did appear to be hunted, it remained a mystery what weapons were used against them, such as spears or traps.

The new find shows, without a doubt, that a spear was used against the beast, Lister said.

What killed off the mammoths?

Mammoths lived in Europe starting about 500,000 years ago and started dying out about 15,000 years ago. However, they survived longer in Alaska and lived on Wrangel Island, off northeast Russia, until about 4,000 years ago. [In Photos: Mummified Woolly Mammoth Discovered]

A mix of changing climatic conditions (the ice age was ending) and hunting likely caused the mammoth's extinction, but researchers still debate which played a larger role. In this case, however, this specific example is not necessarily evidence that humans played a big role in their extinction, Lister said.

"That doesn't prove people killed them in [large enough] quantities to drive them to extinction," Lister said. Moreover, this particular mammoth died about 25,000 years ago, at least 10,000 years before mammoths died out in Europe, "so 'sustainable' hunting is implied, at least at that time," Lister said.

Originally published on Live Science.
The tiny, immortal hydra is a freshwater animal that can regenerate an entirely new animal from just the tiniest sliver of its body. Usually, it does this perfectly: One foot, one long skinny body, and one tentacled head.

But with a single genetic tweak, researchers can create monstrous hydras that sprout fully functional heads all over their bodies  appropriate for an animal named for an ancient Greek monster that had somewhere between six and nine heads.

These many-headed hydras aren't just a trick of mad science. For the first time, researchers have figured out what keeps hydra head regeneration in check. The findings could inform everything from human developmental studies to cancer research. [The 12 Weirdest Animal Discoveries]

The hunt for an off switch

Though hydras are simple animals, regrowing body parts is no minor achievement. With each regeneration, the animal has to organize its body plan so that just one head ends up on top, and just one foot, or basal disc, sprouts on the bottom. Researchers had some of the pieces of this puzzle. They knew the gene Wnt3 is crucial for prompting the growth of the head. They also knew there must be some molecular check on Wnt3. Without that inhibition, the hydra would just grow heads all over. They also knew that a particular receptor and genetic activator, called beta-catenin/TCF, were activated by Wnt3 to start the head-growth process.

But they were missing the "off" switch. Something, they knew, had to prevent the hydra from growing head after head after head, said Brigitte Galliot, a professor of genetics and evolution at the University of Geneva.

So Galliot and her colleagues went hunting. They started with a close relative of hydras, planarians, or flatworms, which also regenerate. In the planarian genome, they found 440 genes that become less active when beta-catenin/TCF signals were blocked, giving them a starting point for the search for other genes involved in this cycle. Of those, 124 also existed in the hydra genome. [In Photos: Worm Grows Heads and Brains of Other Species]

Of those, they found only five genes that are most active at the top of the hydra's tubular body and least active at its foot, meaning they had to be specific to head growth. Among those five, they looked for genes that became increasingly active during regeneration. That left three: Wnt3, Wnt5 and a gene called Sp5.

A careful balance

The team already knew that Wnt3 and Wnt5 got the head-growing process rolling. So they focused on Sp5. They soon found that beta-catenin/TCF prompts the activity of Sp5  but Sp5 also tamps down the beta-catenin/TCF signals by repressing Wnt3.

This might sound a little strange, but it was just what the researchers were looking for: a compound that could put the brakes on an otherwise runaway feedback loop. To check their work, they grew hydras engineered not to express the Sp5 gene.

"In 100 [percent] of these animals you get ectopic [extra] heads," Galliot told Live Science. "Which is really amazing."

What happens, Galliot and her colleagues reported today (Jan. 19) in the journal Nature Communications, is that when a hydra needs a new head, it releases Wnt3, which clings to beta-catenin/TCF, which activates a whole bunch of genes, including more Wnt3 and Sp5. Without Sp5, the Wnt3 keeps the cycle going, and tons of heads pop up all over the regenerating hydra. These heads, Galliot said, are totally functional. They have a nervous system and tentacles and a working mouth.

When Sp5 is in the picture, as it is in nature, it binds to Wnt3, keeping that activator from finding and binding to beta-catenin/TCF. In the absence of Wnt3, beta-catenin/TCF stops sending out "make a head!" messages, and only one head grows.

The process, Galliot said, is all about the balance between activation and repression. And that's where things get interesting. It turns out that Wnt3 isn't just in flatworms and hydras and other simple, regenerating animals. It's also in mammals, including humans. The gene appears to affect embryonic development, which means that understanding its function could help scientists understand what controls early human development. Wnt3 is also a crucial driver of some sorts of cancer, Galliot said. It might be that Sp5 manipulation could halt the proliferation of such cancers, she said.

That kind of medical research is still far in the future, but the hydra's tentacle-studded heads point the way, Galliot said.

"What we learn from simple organisms like this tell us what kind of test we can do in mammals to understand better," she said. "It gives us a direction."

Originally published on Live Science.
In a report issued Wednesday, Chicagos Inspector General Joseph Fergusons office recommended the commander face possible firing for having officers pick up his son from school in a squad car and bring him back to the district station, at 5555 W. Grand Ave., and watch him for as long as two or three hours at a time. This arrangement went on most Wednesdays from September 2017 to at least July 2018, according to the report, which did not identify the commander by name.
In fact, there are likely trillions upon trillions of objects just like 'Oumuamua drifting through the Milky Way galaxy, Greg Laughlin, an astronomer from Yale University, said during a lecture here at the 233rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society. More precisely, he estimated that there are about 10^26 of them in our galaxy alone.

So, though 'Oumuamua may be the first and only interstellar visitor astronomers have spotted in the solar system, this kind of interstellar object may not be that rare, astronomers say. Rather, it's possible we just haven't seen them, because we haven't been looking hard enough. ['Oumuamua: The Solar System's 1st Interstellar Visitor Explained in Photos]

Artist's illustration of 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever spotted in our solar system. (Image credit: M. Kornmesser/ESO)

A new study from Harvard University suggests that about two 'Oumuamua-like objects swing past the sun every year. The paper, published Jan. 4 to the pre-print journal arXiv.org (and not yet peer-reviewed), offers a new way to learn about 'Oumuamua's composition and origin: by comparing the object to other comets and asteroids observed in the solar system. By factoring in the estimated density of interstellar comets, the researchers found that 'Oumuamua-like objects "collide with the sun every 30 years, while about two pass within the orbit of Mercury each year."

At its closest approach, on Sept. 9, 2017, 'Oumuamua was about 0.26 AU (astronomical units, or the average Earth-sun distance) away from the sun. Astronomers using the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii discovered the object about one month after its closest approach to Earth. Pan-STARRS 1 is tasked with searching for potentially hazardous asteroids near Earth.

Officially designated 1I/2017 U1, the space rock was given the Hawaiian nickname 'Oumuamua, meaning "scout" or "visitor from afar arriving first," according to the International Astronomical Union, which is in charge of naming bodies in space. But astronomers have yet to figure out exactly what 'Oumuamua is, because it has properties of both comets and asteroids.

"There's lots of mysteries over 'Oumuamua, but it doesn't appear that there's anything completely crazy," Laughlin said, adding that 'Oumuamua's discovery "implies that there's lots of them out there. The fact that Pan-STARRS was able to observe 'Oumuamua means that there are on the order of 10^26 such objects in our own galaxy floating freely."

Those objects have a combined mass of about 100 billion Earths, Laughlin said. To become an interstellar traveler, an object like 'Oumuamua could be slung out of its own solar system by getting a gravitational boost from a giant gas planet resembling those in our own solar system  Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

While Earth's sun may see an 'Oumuamua-like space rock swing by twice per year, 'Oumuamua "will never encounter another star," Laughlin said. "The odds of it coming close to another star are roughly 1 in every 10^14, 10^15 years, so those brief and exciting moments in September and October were wonderful for us, but they were really the time of 'Oumuamua's life."

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
2. Van Dyke almost certainly wishes he had the option of a bench trial in front of Stephenson. Though a jury convicted Van Dyke last year of second-degree murder and aggravated battery, Stephenson suggested the officers actions and mindset should not be second-guessed by the video because it does not show the incident from his vantage point. It is clear from the testimony in this case that an officer could reasonably believe that an attack was imminent based upon McDonalds actions, she said. Only the officers involved in the incident know what their belief was at the time of the incident. We cannot view the actions of the officers with hindsight as to what they should have believed.
The national group Womens March Inc. faces mounting accusations of anti-Semitic rhetoric and ties to Louis Farrakhan, whose Chicago-based organization Nation of Islam is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many groups and individual activists have withheld support, calling for leaders to resign. In a written statement, Women's March Inc. said its leaders have dedicated themselves to liberating women from all forms of oppression, including anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, white supremacy, xenophobia and Islamophobia.
Its going to look like someone took a bite out of the moon, but what youre actually seeing is the earths shadow, Nichols said. People ask me all the time, whats your favorite thing about lunar eclipses? I tell them, look at the shape of the shadow  its curved. You can see the curvature of the earth. Ancient Greeks and others knew the Earth was round because of its shape on the shadow of the moon.
A TAKEAWAY in a Limerick village has reopened for business after a closure order, imposed earlier this week, was lifted.

Orient Express at Main Street, Bruree was ordered to close on Tuesday following an inspection by Environmental Health Officers with the HSE.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has confirmed the closure order, which was served under the provisions of the FSAI ACt 1998, was lifted on Thursday after the matters of concern were resolved by the owner.

Its not known if Tuesdays inspection was routine or if a complaint was received in relation to the premises.

The exact reasons for the closure order  the first to be served on any food outlet in Limerick in 2019  have not been disclosed.
IT WAS a day of mixed emotions as the family of the late Dolores ORiordan and her fellow bandmates were honoured by the University of Limerick this Friday.

As UL Winter Conferrings drew to a close this Friday afternoon, Eileen ORiordan, the mother of the late rockstar, was presented with a special posthumous Honorary Doctorate of Letters for Dolores.

This week marked the one year anniversary of her sudden passing in London last January.

I know Dolores would be so proud to receive such an honour from her hometown, Ms ORiordan said.

It would mean so much to her. No matter where she travelled or lived, her heart was always in Limerick and would take any opportunity to return and spend time here with her family, friends and band members.

The Cranberries band members Noel Hogan, Mike Hogan and Fergal Lawler were also presented with Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the university.

Speaking at the university this Friday, Noel Hogan said it was a day of mixed emotions to return to the UL campus.

Noel Hogan of @The_Cranberries when asked what the late Dolores O'Riordan would make of the ceremony at @UL this Friday @Limerick_Leader pic.twitter.com/sYXnV7pdUY  Jess Casey (@Jess_JCasey) January 18, 2019

It's amazing to be back here because in many ways we began here, playing in this university, in The Stables and playing to a handful of people, Mr Hogan said.

Its nearly come full circle, nearing the end of The Cranberries career now and were back here under very different circumstances.

It feels like 30 years of hard work has brought us to this moment.

Dolores would have gotten a great kick out of the ceremony, he added.

Dolores O'Riordan's family with Mike and Noel Hogan of @The_Cranberries for conferring of honorary doctorates @UL today @Jess_JCasey pic.twitter.com/sqvYnhwTZu  Limerick Leader (@Limerick_Leader) January 18, 2019

These kind of things shed get a great skit at.

When this award was first brought up to us, I think it was about four years ago, timing was just never right.

But I remember her telling her brothers who had different degrees that she was going to be more qualified then they were! That was her personality you know, so I think shed really, really be loving this today.

When asked if she thought Dolores had known how loved she was in Limerick, Ms ORiordan said: No. I dont think she did.

She loved Limerick, she was very proud. She loved Limerick more than anywhere else.

I didnt realise how much she was loved here, Ms ORiordan said, adding that tributes following her death have been a great comfort to the late rockstars family.

I keep telling the children how much everyone loved her.

I just wish she was here but Id say she is here with us today in spirit, Ms ORiordan added.

Mr Lawlor's award was accepted by Noel Hogan on his behalf as he was unable to attend this Friday.
A FIFTEEN-year-old boy who is charged in connection with an attempted robbery at a County Limerick village supermarket is alleged to have sent a text to another youth saying houses would be empty once schools re-opened after the Christmas break.

The youth was remanded in detention after his bail was revoked.

The teenager, who cant be named because of his age, was previously granted bail after he was charged following an incident at Spar, Croom on August 4, last.

At Newcastle West Court, Detective Sergeant Mike Reidy said the defendant had breached the conditions of his bail on several occasions and that he was concerned he was planning to break into homes.

A series of text messages between the youth and another person were submitted to the court in support of the application.

Det Sgt Reidy said the messages, which were sent to a person who is known to gardai, show the youth intended to rob a few houses.

When the respondent suggested it was too dodgy the defendant is alleged to have replied the houses would be empty once schools re-opened after the Christmas break.

Judge Mary Larkin was told the youth, who was living with his mother in west Limerick, was observed by gardai on a number of occasions in recent weeks out and about at times outside of his court-imposed curfew.

He said on a date earlier this month, he was located by gardai in the city at around 6am  a number of hours after he was reported missing by his mother.

He had boarded a private bus which was passing through, he was under the influence of an intoxicant when located, said Det Sgt Reidy.

He told the court the defendant was not at home when gardai called on a number of occasions and that he did not answer his mobile phone which was a specific condition of his bail.

Judge Larkin was told gardai were seeking to revoke the teenagers bail as they have serious concerns he will engage in further criminality.

Det Sgt Reidy said he was particularly concerned about the content of the messages which were found on his phone.

Solicitor Kate Cussen said her client accepts he breached the conditions of his bail but she submitted there was no evidence that he has been involved in criminality.

Having viewed a print-out of the texts, Judge Larkin said the contents were extraordinary.

You broke your promise, you brought yourself here today, she said as she remanded the defendant to Obserstown children detention campus in Dublin.
THE DOOR of Dromkeen Post Office closed for the final time this Wednesday and with it went a way of life.

Locals lost much more than a premises, they lost their postmistress, Mary McKenna. If an elderly person didnt collect their pension on a Friday, Mary would send her brother to check that they were OK.

Mary, nee Redfearn, loves her job and her customers so much that at one point she didnt take a holiday for 22 years in a row. The 69-year-old didnt actually want to retire but her son, Tony, said she really had no option. It follows the retirement package hammered out last year between An Post and the Irish Postmasters Union.

Friday was the last pension day in Dromkeen. The Leader visited the post office attached to a thatched cottage - the only one of its kind in Europe believes Marys brother, Packie.

Located on a quiet road off the N24, birds are chirping and spring is in the air despite it being the middle of January. Inside, there is a vase full of flowers and a poster of our All-Ireland hurling champions.

Sitting behind the counter, where she has sat for half a century, is Mary. Her mother, Mary Redfearn, took over the Post Office contract from Packie Hayes, of Oyster Ballroom fame, in 1968.

I was born and reared in this house. I started when I was 19. I was on the switchboard as well as the counter - you needed two. I used work from 8 in the morning until 10 at night, said Mary. It is hard to believe now as we all have smartphones that phone calls had to be manually connected with cords on a board. She gave 11 years on the switchboard before it went automatic. Mary and her mum then focused solely on the post office.

She says it is amazing how things have changed over the years and all the services post offices offer now. But one thing never changed and that was Marys warm smile when you came in the door.

Sadly, she lost her husband, Liam, in 1993. Her children - Tony and Shirley - were only ten and eight at the time. Two years later her mother, who handed over the post office to her in 1979, died. Mary also cared for her sister, Noreen, who had MS and was confined to a wheelchair.

For 22 years Mary didnt take a holiday.

I just didnt bother taking one. I loved being in the post office, loved my customers and I hated being gone. I had a lovely life here. I really enjoyed it, said Mary, who was given great support by her two brothers - Packie and the late John - and her sister-in-law, Breda. Daughter Shirley is also a dab hand behind the counter.

Mary says she didnt want to close it.

I dont actually know would I ever have given it up. They gave me the redundancy, they gave me the option but the new contract is so different, said Mary.

Tony said there was really no option to continue as is it is a two or three year contract with no guarantees for the future. Mary wasnt sure what she was going to do on Thursday morning with no post office to open.

I will probably get out of bed and automatically think to come down here. It is just my life. I know nothing else but this since I was 19 years of age. I am 69 now, said Mary, who certainly doesnt look it.

Theres a knock on the door of the thatched cottage where we are chatting and Jimmy Blackwell said: I just wanted to say thanks for being so polite and kind.

It was a pleasure serving you, said Mary, who had the hankie at hand in case it

was needed.

I am going to miss my customers so much. They are so sincere and so trustworthy, I really wish them well. I will be meeting them out and about. I often gave out a hundred or one time two hundred too much and they always came back to me. They are the salt of the earth, said Mary.

Her fondness for her customers is exemplified by the story told by her brother, Packie.

If somebody didnt come down for their pension she would ring me to go up, check the house and see are they alright. These are people living by themselves. Id go up then and see if everything was alright. If nobody was there Id come down and Mary would ring the family then to know if everything was alright. Thats not going to happen anymore, said Packie.

After collecting her pension and her husbands, Bridie Hartnett, from Kilteely, said they are going to miss Mary very much.

She is a lovely person, very pleasant and very helpful. We came to Dromkeen after Kilteely Post Office closed eight or nine years ago. This is my second post office closing, Im going to Oola now. It is a big loss to us because it was so near and Mary is a real lady, said Bridie.

Tony Tuohy, from down the road, said it is a massive loss to the area.

It was lovely to come in here. You always got a big smile from Mary and you felt better leaving than you did coming in - she would cheer you up which meant a lot. There is a lifetime of service from the Redfearn family gone in here. It is a sad day, said Tony.

Despite having a touch of flu, one of Marys oldest customers Joe Rodahan came down.

The 93-year-old said he has been going to Dromkeen Post Office since he was 65.

Ive a lot of money taken, he laughed.

You couldnt meet nicer than Mary. Im sorry to see her go. Shes very obliging, any problem youd have shed fix it up. I wish her the best, said Joe.

Mike ORiordan, son of another of Marys oldest customers - 91-year-old Mikey, said confidentiality was Marys middle name.

All the years Im going in and out there and youd never hear Mary talking about the previous person. You never knew anybody elses business - she is dead straight, said Mike.

Son and daughter, Tony and Shirley dont know what she is going to do now as they say she loves being busy.

Shirley said: Im getting married in September so that is going to keep her busy for a few months. It will be hard for her to come down in the morning and not do anything. She would have worked until she is 90.

Tony says the closure of Dromkeen Post Office will be a big loss to her mum and all the community.

Everyone comes in for the chat. When youre older you just want to get out of the house. It is a social occasion. In the summer time she puts out chairs and they used to sit outside chatting and have a cup of tea. It is a social occasion. Thats all gone, said Tony.

Post offices in the future will offer many new and excellent services but none that will match the service of Mary McKenna in Dromkeen.
A PERMANENT reminder of the legacy of Dolores ORiordan is to take pride of place in the mayors office at City Hall in Limerick.

To mark the first anniversary of the passing of Dolores ORiordan, Mayor James Collins this week received a special presentation from music collector Nicky Woulfe.

Nicky presented a poster from one of The Cranberries and Dolores early gigs in Limerick, and a 1993 photograph from the time the band were signed to a major record label, Island Records, which was taken by former Limerick Leader photographer Dermot Lynch for the newspaper at the time.

Both the poster and the photograph are from the Music Memories and Memorabilia collection, Nickys personal cache of local and international rock and roll treasures, which he hopes to open as a permanent visitor and tourist attraction in the city.

Mayor Collins said he was delighted to receive the memorabilia.

We here in Limerick are so proud of The Cranberries and all they achieved as international stars. But despite the magnitude of their success they never forgot their home place. And while we are all saddened by Doloress death, her great gift of music will live on for many generations, he said.

Nicky Woulfe said the posters and photograph from 1993 were a reminder of the long and successful career the band had since their humble beginnings performing in the city, and he wanted to make sure they were shared with the people of Limerick to mark the first anniversary of Doloress death.

Despite sales of forty five million albums they were essentially of Limerick and spoke of their city across the world. The Presentation to Mayor Collins as the first citizen will ensure that the message of their wonderful music and where it all began takes pride of place at City Hall.
LIMERICK College of Further Education (LCFE) will hold its annual open day in Mulgrave Street on Thursday, January 24, from 10am to 4pm.

Staff at LCFE are looking forward to welcoming future learners to its main campus to showcase what the facility has to offer.

At LCFE opportunities include progressing to further or higher education, gaining employment, checking out a study area before committing to a four-year course, upskilling or retraining. The college has numerous links to many colleges and universities around Ireland.

The open day attracts large numbers of people each year who are interested in learning more about the colleges courses and facilities.

Teaching staff will be available to impart all information required to prospective learners, parents and guidance counsellors.

Details are also available on maintenance grants as well as social welfare information.

The open day features exciting exhibitions in art, design, fashion, photography, IT and multimedia produced by LCFE learners and staged by academic staff.

LCFE principal Pat Maunsell, said: This is an opportunity not to be missed by potential learners, guidance counsellors and the general public. The event not only gives a great insight into the wide variety of courses we offer, but also, the LCFE way of approaching further education and training.

LCFE is now accepting applications for its more than 70 full-time day courses for the 2019/20 academic year. Apply online through the college website www.lcfe.ie.
BUSINESSWOMAN and councillor Elenora Hogan has added to the chorus calling for a memorial to the late Dolores ORiordan in the heart of Limerick city centre.

On the first anniversary of the tragic death of the Cranberries frontwoman, Cllr Hogan has suggested the Urban Village outside Penneys or Cruises Street would be ideal places to remember one of Limericks biggest stars.

It would be a fitting memorial to an international Limerick superstar, she said.

Apparently, Doloress grave in Ballybricken regularly receives visitors from America, Canada and many European countries. The University of Limerick will confer an honorary degree on the Cranberries and I believe now is the time for Limerick Council to erect a suitable memorial.

Cllr Hogan was speaking as she recalled the RTE 2FM Lark in the Park festivals of 1989, 1990 and 1991, which she helped facilitate as co-ordinator of the Limerick Summer Festival.

Based in the Long Meadow of the Peoples Park, the event hosted the Cranberries in one of their first big gigs, just months after signing a major record deal.

The event was always very popular and very successful. All age groups came, she recalled. I remember the one in 1991 drew around 6,000 people.

They always attracted a good crowd. The purpose was to give Limerick bands an opportunity to perform in front of large crowds as part of the concert series. It was a good opportunity to make people familiar with their music and songs, said Cllr Hogan.

As for her memories of Dolores, she added: Even then, the singularly unique beautiful voice of Dolores ORiordan was a pleasure to listen to.
A LIMERICK woman who crashed into a ditch after she looked down at her mobile phone was disqualified from driving at the time, a court has heard.

Jessica Kennedy, aged 31, who has an address at Crannog, Dublin Road, Limerick was convicted of a number of charges relating to an incident at Rowerbeg, Adare, at around 4.30pm on March 16, 2018.

Garda Patrick Buckley told Newcastle West Court when he responded to reports of a road traffic accident around 1km from the village he observed a red Toyota Corolla car which was embedded in the ditch on the left hand side of the road.

The occupants of the car, he added, were trapped in the vehicle as the overgrowth was preventing them from opening the doors to get out.

There was no evidence that any of those in the car sustained injury as a result of the single vehicle accident.

Garda Buckley said he spoke to the driver  Ms Kennedy  at the scene and that she informed him she had gone straight in the ditch when she looked down at her phone when it rang.

The defendant, who was in the early stages of pregnancy at the time, was asked to produce documentation, such as her insurance certificate and licence, to gardai but failed to do so.

It was later established that Ms Kennedy, who has a number of previous convictions, was disqualified at the time and was not insured.

Noting her previous convictions, Judge Mary Larkin commented that it appeared Ms Kennedy had been driving for a good period after she was disqualified for four years having been convicted, in January 2017, of a drink-driving offence.

She imposed a four-year disqualification and a fine of 2,000 in relation to the no insurance charge while a 300 fine was imposed for driving without a licence.

A separate driving ban of two years and a 300 fine were imposed in relation to the careless driving charge relating to the same incident.

The defendant was not present in court for the hearing and recognizances were set in the event of an appeal being lodged.
MORE THAN 30 older people from across county Limerick have been presented with special tablet devices as part of a programme to reduce incidents of social isolation and to open them up to a new world of communication.

Age Friendly Limerick, which is coordinated by Limerick City and County Council, in partnership with Cliffrun Media is delivering the project aimed at reducing levels of social isolation among older people. They intend to do this through the use of the Acorn Tablet.

The Acorn is a specialised tablet, tailored to address the needs of seniors in a closed secure network. It opens up a world of relevant online content for seniors, encouraging users to engage and interact at both social and commercial level.

The interface has clean lines, is simple to navigate, provides easy access to a help button, and provides remote technical assistance when required.

A workshop has been hosted by Limerick City and County Council at which the 30 older people from across the county have been provided with their tablets and given instructions on how to use them.

A major element of this project will be engagement between the older people and Transition Year students from Desmond College in Newcastle West.

Deputy Mayor of the City and County of Limerick Cllr Michael Collins welcomed the move.

I am delighted to welcome this project today spearheaded by Age Friendly Limerick, Mayor Collins said.

In a world, which is becoming more technology driven, it is important that we support and encourage our older citizens in embracing the digital world, he added.
When it was her turn to speak, Jackie Paige said it bothered her that a case that was brought on behalf of African-American families, was mainly handled by white attorneys and executives. She pointed out that the attorneys, as well as large-scale developers, earned millions of dollars through the remaking of public housing. But lower-income, black residents are battling many of their same problems.
A LIMERICK man who assaulted a garda after he was arrested on suspicion of drink-driving was fined 300 and told to have a good look in the mirror.

Edmond Dore, aged 63, of Pairc Luachra, Abbeyfeale, was convicted last May following an incident at Newcastle West garda station on January 23, 2017.

During a contested hearing, Judge Mary Larkin was told the defendant was verbally abusive towards gardai and that he hit a member of the force with his elbow as he attempted to leave the medical room following his arrest at the Square, Abbeyfeale shortly before 12.30am.

Mr Dore, who was five times the legal alcohol limit, was previously disqualified and fined 250 in relation to a drink-driving offence.

At Newcastle West Court last Friday, Judge Mary Larkin noted the contents of a Probation Report in which Mr Dore stated he was quite happy with his drinking patterns and does not believe he has a problem with alcohol.

However, the judge said alcohol has clearly dogged him over the years and that he needs to have a good look in the mirror the next time he is drunk.

Inspector Alan Cullen said the garda who was struck by Mr Dore was not injured and had declined the opportunity to submit a victim impact statement for the court.

There was a degree of pushing and shoving in the intoxilyser room, he said.

Solicitor Charlie OConnor submitted the offence was one of obstruction rather than assault and he asked the court to note his clients poor health.

Imposing a 300 fine in relation to the assault charge, Judge Larkin commented that a man of Mr Dores age should know how to conduct himself.

Noting the defendants poor health and his age, she said a custodial sentence was not warranted.
As the Brexit deadline approaches for Britain to exit the European Union, Border Communities Against Brexit (BCAB) are planning a major demonstration against the return of a hard border in Ireland.

The demonstration will be held at Carrickarnon on the old Newry Road at the Louth/Armagh border to take place on Saturday, January 26 at 3pm.

BCAB was founded by people living and working on both sides of the border and the group has campaigned in Ireland, London and Europe.

BCAB spokesperson, Declan Fearon said: Amidst the Brexit chaos that currently dominates British politics, the people who live along the border in Ireland are being forgotten.

It is clearer than ever that politicians in Westminster such as Reece Mogg, Boris Johnston and Sammy Wilson simply do not care about the impact that a hard border or a no-deal Brexit will have on our families and on our communities.

People living here are very worried about what the future holds. At the beginning many people did not believe it would come to this. Thats why we set up Border Communities Against Brexit."

Mr Fearon said that the group wants to "ensure that the people of the border werent ignored. We wanted to highlight how Brexit could detrimentally impact on the border and on the North as a whole.

We have worked hard in Ireland and in Europe to explain how Brexit will damage and undermine our communities and economy. Unfortunately, the people of this region are being written off as those in Westminster continue to squabble and jockey for position.

As the Brexit deadline looms, we urgently need to send a very clear, very loud and unequivocal message to the British and Irish Governments and indeed the European Union, that the people who live along the border are not going back to the past."

Mr Fearon said that the border communities of the island of Ireland "will not be collateral damage in Britains Brexit mess".

"We are not going back to a hard border. We are not going back to checkpoints, to customs posts or to British military paraphernalia," he said.

Any attempt at imposing a hard border through our communities and our lives will not work and will not be tolerated by any section of the people who live here. Indeed, former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern said 'if you tried to put it there you wouldn't have to wait for terrorism to take it down, people would just physically pull it down - the ordinary people'.

The communities of this area, on either side of the border, will not tolerate or acquiesce in any construction of new border installations, posts or on any restriction of movement in their own country."

BCAB are encouraging as many people as possible to attend the protest in a show of solidarity on January 26.
Tickets are now on sale for the third edition of the West Wicklow Festival which takes place from May 15 to 19.

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Building on the success of previous festivals, the 2019 West Wicklow Festival boasts an incredible line-up of musicians and artists from all over the world with concerts being held at Russborough House and St. Marys Church, Blessington.

Having doubled in size last year, the festival has once again expanded its programme and this year will feature 15 incredible artists over five days.

The 2019 programme features performances from captivating Australian soprano Lauren Fagan, internationally acclaimed violinist Elena Urioste with pianist Tom Poster, renowned string quartet Quatuor Voce, prominent French ensemble Trio Atanassov, the dynamic Duo Jatekok and the festivals founder and artistic director, celebrated Irish pianist Fiachra Garvey.



This years programme marks two very important events  namely the 200th anniversary of Clara Schumanns birth and the centenary of the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence.

"We join in celebrating the music of Clara Schumann this year as well as music by other female composers and we have commissioned two new works in memory of the Irish War of Independence. I look forward to welcoming everyone to the stunning Russborough House in May to enjoy this fantastic programme in a uniquely intimate setting, said Fiachra Garvey.

Mr Garvey said the festival will be presenting some of Ms Schumann's finest works alongside those of other influential Irish and international female composers, including Amy Beach, Lili Boulanger, Rhona Clarke, Rhoda Coghill and Joan Trimble.

West Wicklow Festival has commissioned two new pieces of music to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence.

The first of these new compositions is by prominent Irish composer Sam Perkin, with this highly anticipated new piece receiving its world premiere on Wednesday May 15, performed by Mr Garvey. The other new commission, written by young British composer Lilly Vadaneaux, will be performed for the first time by Lauren Fagan (soprano), and accompanied by Mr Garvey, on Sunday May 19 at St. Marys Church, Blessington.

Last year, West Wicklow Festival teamed up with the National Concert Halls Learning and Participation team to deliver an interactive family concert as well as an innovative programme of musical activities for children and families which transformed Russboroughs intricate hedge-maze and mystical Ladys Island into interactive musical playgrounds. This collaboration will continue in 2019 with full details of the festivals family and educational activities being announced shortly.

Founded in 2017 by award-winning Wicklow pianist Fiachra Garvey, the West Wicklow Festival was established in order to promote the beautiful area of West Wicklow by staging an annual festival featuring some of the world's premiere artists, with a healthy Irish offering.

The inaugural West Wicklow Festival featured three sold out concerts in the stunning Russborough House, one of the finest examples of Palladian architecture in Ireland and the second edition in 2018 successfully doubled in size with twice as many concerts, a family concert and an innovative music trail. Guests are invited to enjoy the intricate beauty of Russborough House in addition to experiencing some of the worlds finest musicians in a beautiful, intimate and awe-inspiring setting.

For further information about the West Wicklow Festival and to book your tickets, please visit westwicklowfestival.com.
Irish Water is being asked to replace the water main in Celbridge which recently burst and left large sections of the town without water for a days.

At the Kildare County Council Celbridge-Leixlip Municipal District meeting on January 18, Cllr Michael Coleman said the replacement of the pipe should be a priority, following a second major failure, since last July.

Last summer there was a severe burst on the main pipe going through Castletown estate, leading to shortages.

Recently a another burst occurred leaving many people in some areas of the town without water for three days.

Cllr Coleman said in the recent burst the Slip Hall at Castletown gates may have been seriously damaged if it were not for the intervention of Kildare Fire Services.

He said bursts will probably happen again as this was a very old pipe, installed, probably, in the 1960s.

Cllr Coleman said Irish Water needed to put a plan in place to have a new pipeline.

SEE ALSO: New permanent community Garda for Celbridge

The committee is to invite Irish Water to a meeting and raised questions over communications with the public, which, said Cllr Coleman, was very poor.

There was also criticism of the speed it took water tankers to get to the town following the water cut.

Cllr Brendan Young said that it was thought that last years burst might have been caused by shrinkage due to dry ground putting pressure on the pipe.

This time it may have been the root of trees which did the damage. The pipe needs to be replaced, he said.

Raising the question of an emergency crew to fix the pipe, Cllr Young said there needs to be a a stepped up emergency response.

He said that if this burst had happened in Dublin city centre there would probably be a crew working overnight.

Cllr Ide Cussen said the response time by Irish Water was poor.

It was clear on Sunday that 600 houses in St Raphaels Manor and 700 in Oldtown Mill were affected, she said.

Cllr Bernard Caldwell said that it took a long time before water tankers arrived in the area.
A Naas man who faces a charge of possession of a knife told Gardai that he had it to defend the honour of a lady and would do harm with it if needed.

Thats according to evidence given by Garda James Smyth at Naas District Court last Wednesday at the commencement of the case against Shane Keogh, 46, with an address listed as 31 Our Ladys Place, Naas.

Gardai allege that he was stopped by them on October 31 last at Our Ladys Place.

Its alleged that the defendant had a knife and a hammer on his person at the time, and that he gave that answer after Garda James Smyth cautioned him. He was subsequently arrested.

Judge Desmond Zaidan accepted jurisdiction and the matter was adjourned to April 17 for hearing.
Work has started on Phase 2 investigations to a Laois primary school building, the first on a list of 22 Irish schools.

Presentation Primary School in Portarlington is first to receive further construction investigations, following a nationwide safety alert last November.

The school with over 700 pupils, has had steel fencing cordoning off the perimeter of its two storey extension, and making safe walkways since last November in case the building collapsed.

It followed the closure of a Dublin school building after the walls were found to be unsafely constructed. In all 42 schools built by the same company, Western Building Systems, around the same time were inspected by the Department of Education which had built the schools in its Rapid Schools programme.

Of them 22 schools needed protective fencing last Halloween with four in Laois. The others are Portlaoise Educate Together NS, Gaelscoil Phort Laoise and Maryborough NS all in Summerhill campus.

On Thursday January 17, the Portarlington school's principal Cathal Ruane was notified by the Department of Education that they were first on the list of schools around Ireland to get further works.

He notified parents that night and on Friday January 18, teams of workmen arrived on site.

"We are delighted to be the first school," he said.

The building affected was a two storey extension that included junior classrooms, a hall and an ASD unit. It was opened in 2012.

"We have full use of the building inside, but there is a fence around it the width of the height of the building, so if it fell it wouldn't hit anybody, not that that would have happened. The health and safety of the kids was fully looked after. This was all precautionary to make the building 100% safe," the principal said.

"We are lucky in that we have a big playground and an extra yard," he said.

He said parents were very supportive since November.

"We kept them informed and they have been very supportive," Mr Ruane said.

The Department of Education and Skills said the investigations are following up on initial work, and will be carried out by John Sisk & Co. The first five are Presentation Convent NS Portarlington. Carrigaline ETNS, Scoil Chaitlin Maude NS, Tallaght, Gaelscoil Eiscir Riada, Lucan and St Paul's NS Ratoath.

"Investigation work will take place at weekends to prevent disruption to the schools. The investigations will inform the permanent works required in the schools. The delivery of these works will be planned when the extent of the work needed is established. Works will be prioritised for delivery with the aim of maximising use of school holiday periods," the dept states.
Donald Trump claims his medieval idea of border security is necessary to keep out terrorists and criminals. And yet terrorists and criminals are far more likely to come in through our airports. Most of the people here illegally simply overstayed their visas. By Trumps thinking, shouldnt we shutdown the international airports and keep out foreign tourists?

During the two years the Republicans controlled the presidency and Congress they never included funding for his wall in their budget proposals. Its only now that the (failed) great dealmaker suddenly demands immediate action on funding his wall that would take years to build. In the meantime Trump is jeopardizing our national security and safety by shutting down the very agencies and laying off many of the people responsible for our national security and safety.

Trumps motive for forcing a partial shutdown is less about keeping a campaign promise (while ignoring the part about Mexico paying for the wall) and almost entirely about distracting the American people away from the Russia Investigation. Its also a devious attempt to set up the despicable claim that because his (alleged) motive is to keep us safe, we should just ignore any crimes he has committed.

So none of this is really about border security because Trump has rejected proposals for large increases in border security funding. Even if Trump were to instantly get every penny he wants for his wall, he would have to dream up something else to divert the publics attention.

Timothy Gruber

Salisbury Township
Christopher Valianatos and his wife were on their way to Florida two weeks ago when they passed through the security checkpoint at Lehigh Valley International Airport. Two TSA agents were there. One told the other it was time to take a break.

"Why go on break? We're not getting paid anyway. Might as well stay and work," Valianatos recalled the other agent saying.

Valianatos said his wife suggested that should do something for the Transportation Security Administration officers left unpaid during the ongoing government shutdown. He owns the Borderline Restaurant on the edge of Bethlehem and Allentown, and instructed his son to bring plenty of food on Thursday evening when they returned home.

The delivery of ziti, wraps and salad was captured on video by a bystander and posted on the airports Facebook page, where it has been shared more than 1,200 times. (The video is embedded below.)

Supporting Those Affected By Shutdown The owner of a local restaurant landed at Lehigh Valley International Airpot (ABE) today. His family met him at the checkpoint to provide a delicious dinner for TSA officers affected by the federal government shutdown. #thankyou #generosity #shutdown #neighborhoodairport #flylocal Posted by Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE) on Thursday, January 17, 2019

In the video, a TSA worker at the security gate thanks them for the gift -- "That's absolutely amazing," he says -- and directs them to bring it to a break room, since they are not allowed to accept gifts at a checkpoint.

They were emotional. There were hugs, Valianatos said in a brief phone call Friday during the lunch rush at his restaurant, where he says officers will sometimes eat. They work hard. They keep us safe.

Its not the first time someone has donated food to the TSA or air traffic controllers at LVIA. Airport spokesman Colin Riccobon said it has happened four or five times, Thursdays included, and that airport staff are providing both groups with a weekly meal.

"These are jobs that are critical to the operation of the airport, period," Riccobon said. "I think you're seeing people helping other people who are in a tough time right now."

The officers, he said, are in "good spirits" and continue to come in every day, even though they aren't getting paid. Riccobon said passengers have been thanking the officers as they go through the checkpoint.

Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for the TSA, said the shows of public support "underscores the importance of TSAs work."

They are grateful for everyones gratitude, Kelly said.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter@SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Findlehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A Lehigh County credit union employee was ordered Thursday to pay back $642,000 she took from the financial institution where she worked and to spend 30 months in federal prison, according to an online docket report.

Julie Ann Turk took the money between 2009 and April 2016 from Allentown Federal Credit Union, according to court documents. She pleaded guilty to bank fraud, bank embezzlement and three counts of money laundering.

She was 46 when she was charged in 2017. She lives in the 4600 block of Lovers Lane in Washington Township, Lehigh County.

She was ordered to report to prison March 5. Once her 30 months are up, she will spend five years on supervised release, the docket says. She was sentenced in Reading by U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Schmehl.

An indictment says Turk worked as a teller, Master Card coordinator, teller supervisor and general ledger coordinator at the credit union.

Memorandums with sentencing recommendations and background information about the case are sealed, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Melanie Babb Wilmoth. She confirmed the sentence but had no further comment. Defense attorney Nancy MacEoin didnt return a message seeking comment.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
Former Congressman Charlie Dent will be Northampton Community Colleges winter commencement speaker Saturday, Jan. 26.

After seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Dent announced he would not seek re-election in 2018 and then resigned in May with a few months left on his term.

Currently, the Allentown native is a senior policy adviser to DLA Piper, providing strategic advice and counsel to clients at the federal, state and local level on issues ranging from defense and veterans to healthcare and homeland security. Hes also a political analyst for CNN and a visiting fellow for the University of Pennsylvania, Perry World House.

Northampton is holding its winter commencement at 11 a.m. on Jan. 26 in the Spartan Center on the Bethlehem Township, Pa., campus.

During his tenure in Congress, the Republican created a reputation as an outspoken moderate, who was willing to reach across the aisle and was not afraid to call out President Donald Trump. He was a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee and chair of the subcommittee on military construction, veterans affairs and related agencies. He also chaired the house ethics committee from 2015-17.

Before heading to Washington, D.C., Dent spent six years in the Pennsylvania Senate and eight years in the General Assembly.

He holds a bachelor of arts degree in foreign service and international politics from Penn State and a master of public administration from Lehigh University. In 2015, Moravian College awarded him an honorary degree of doctor of laws.

Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter@sarasatullo and Facebook. Findlehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
But first, you absolutely did the right thing when you took a screenshot. I always say, "When in doubt, take a screenshot." You were in doubt. You should have been. It turns out Priceline had several room choices, some which allowed refunds, and others that didn't. Priceline should have said that at the top of the screen.
A 19-year-old man suspected of stealing $33 from off-campus housing near Lehigh University had a loaded gun, numerous alcoholic drinks, drugs and the stolen cash on him, Bethlehem police said.

Gabriel Garofalo, of the 600 block of Pierce Street in the city, was arrested early Thursday morning and faces nine charges, including burglary, criminal trespass and carrying a firearm without a license.

He was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $150,000 bail.

Bethlehem police said they were called to housing in the 300 block of East Fifth Street for a report of a man who broke in and stole $33. The man was wearing a black puffy jacket and had a black Nike bag.

Officers found Garofalo behind a home on Easton Morton Street, and he was wearing a black puffy jacket with a bandana over his face, and carrying a black Nike bag, police said. The homes owner told police Garofalo did not have permission to be in the backyard.

Police said they found a semiautomatic 9 mm handgun on Garofalo, and that he had numerous alcoholic beverages, 12 Xanax pills, marijuana, and cash, including $33 folded separately.

Garofalo reportedly admitted to taking the $33. He allegedly told officers he got the firearm last fall from a friend, but refused to name the friend for police.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Senator Dino Melaye, representing Kogi west senatorial district, has been granted bail by a high court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Maitama, Abuja.

The presiding judge, Justice Yusuf Halilu, granted the bail on health grounds.

The Nation reports that Justice Halilu said Melaye should be granted bail because he cannot be arraigned on the stretcher or on his hospital bed.

The senator was asked to produce three sureties, one must be a clerk of the National Assembly. The other two sureties must be owners of properties within the Abuja metropolis.

READ ALSO: Breaking: Atiku to be questioned when he returns from US - Lai Mohammed

The senator, who was accused of criminal conspiracy and attempted culpable homicide, surrendered to the Nigeria Police Force on January 4, after the police eight days siege on his Abuja residence.

He was admitted at the police hospital, Abuja where he was receiving care before he was transferred to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) headquarters.

Legit.ng earlier reported that an Abuja high court sitting in Maitama on Thursday, January 17, ordered the police to show cause over its continued detention of Senator Melaye.

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Melaye, who has been in police custody since Friday, January 4, approached the court for enforcement of his fundamental right.

Justice Yusuf Halilu gave the order after Melayes counsel, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), informed the court that his client has been in police custody since January 4, against what the law stipulated.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better!

News Nigeria Today: What happened to Dino Melaye? - on Legit TV

Source: Legit
The Clean & Environmentally Sustainable Transportation (CEST) Programme under the Gas Flare Monetisation Projects, a strategic alliance between Nigerias biggest Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) distributor and pioneer in Virtual Gas Pipeline Supply, POWERGAS, and the Austrian clean tech company ETEFA have Introduce gas-fired city buses for public transport.

The introduction of the gas-fired city buses is expected to save Nigeria over US$ 2.5 billion per year by reducing fuels costs in the transportation and power generation sector by over 30%.

L-R: Commercial Counsellor, Austrian Embassy, Guido Stock; Chief Executive Officer Austrian Technologies Nigeria Limited, Johann Rieger; Managing Director, Test and Training International (TTI), Franz Wurz; Lagos State Sector Commander, FRSC, Hyginus Omeje and Director, Powergas, Sumeet Singh during a business networking conference on two new investment and technology transfer opportunities hosted by the Austrian Embassy in partnership of Powergas and ETEFA in Lagos.

This was revealed during the ETEFA and Powergas Nigeria press briefing and business networking cocktail event hosted by the Commercial Counsellor of the Austrian Embassy, Guido Stock, as part of the CEST program for Nigeria (Clean, Economic and Safe Transportation), with the support of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) in Lagos.

The development comes as Austrian Technologies Nigeria Limited (ATN) and Test- & Training International (TTI) - the world leading drivers safety training company - have partnered to introduce world class Drivers Safety Training and Certification (DSTC) for commercial and professional drivers in Nigeria.

Natural Gas Flaring is one of the biggest environmental disasters of Nigeria. Annually over 7 billion Standard Cubic Meter (SCM ) of Natural Gas is being flared in Nigeria, leading to casualties of up to 2,500 individuals in the Niger Delta Region (due to gas flare related pollution & emissions). Gas flare emissions are contributing to 20% of the entire Greenhouse Gases (GHG) of the country and are causing a massive waste of energy and financial resources.

In his welcome address, the Director, Powergas, Sumeet Singh reiterated the companys commitment to positively contributing to the clean environment of Nigeria. According to him, Nigerias annual diesel importation is the same as the Natural Gas being flared. We know that Diesel imports are US Dollar dependent, hence increasing the cost of fuel and decreasing the countrys scarce forex reserves.

Natural Gas on the other hand is one of the most environmentally friendly energy sources. With abundant reserves of 188 tcf (Trillion Cubic Feet), Nigeria has the largest gas reserves in Africa. As a domestically available natural resource, effective utilization is extremely important for import substitution (of liquid fuels) and forex savings. Gas Flare Reduction Program sponsored Projects can clean and process flare gas into Natural Gas, along with other by-products like Propane, Butane, LPG, etc.

Sumeet bared that, as a company, we believe that if all of Nigerias Gas Flare is captured and processed  it can power up to 200,000 city buses (public transport) or 200,000 trucks (commercial transport), or even double Nigerias power generation capacity, while significantly improving the quality of the air (lower carbon & particulate emissions). Introduction of gas-fired city buses for public transport would significantly lower ticket prices for passengers. This would especially have a positive impact on the lower income populace who spend up to 40% of their monthly income on public transport.

In his keynote speech, the CEO ETEFA GmbH, Johann Rieger, explained that CEST Programs targets include improving environmental and health conditions by reduction of emissions, lowering the cost of public and commercial transportation, while fostering local talent employment with technology transfer and strategic knowledge sharing.

According to Johann, in order to show the full potential of the economies of the CNG city buses, ETEFA developed together with leading European partners a high quality 12-meter CNG City Bus prototype for the special needs and infrastructure requirements in Nigeria. The prototype is currently built, and local testing shall start with strategic local partners mid-2019.

He explained that Powergas will provide all the necessary infrastructure for supply of flare gas based CNG and ETEFA will supply highly efficient gas engines and associated technology.

The bus will especially fulfil Euro 5 / EEV emission standards and European norms in economics and sustainability with a targeted lifespan of a minimum of 15 years, low operating costs and costs of investment close to the level of Chinese buses.

ETEFA is ready to support local manufacturers with transfer of technology to manufacture this world class buses in future under license directly in Nigeria. Depending on test results and respective orders, local serial production could be started by one of the well-established car manufacturers in Nigeria already in 2020.

This will create additionally hundreds of high skilled working places in manufacturing and maintenance of buses, and support local partners to build a sustainable, cost efficient and clean transportation platform in the country and dramatically reduce damages to the local environment and health of people.

According to the organisers of the drivers safety training programme, DSTC will be implemented in collaboration with Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC). The main objective is to develop a network of drivers training tracks with the participation of local investors throughout the country. Driving instructors, fleet managers, and drivers will be trained, evaluated, and certified; each in tailor-made programs on state-of-the-art safety training tracks, according to international standards.

DSTC is led by former Formula One driver and two times Le Mans winner Alexander Wurz and his father Franz Wurz, himself a European legend in racing (three times European Champion in Rallycross), and inventor of modern Road Safety Training in Europe.

Hyginus Omeje, Corps Sector Commander of FRSC Lagos State stated: The human factor in road accidents is fundamental. Lack of traffic education and basic understanding of the consequences of careless driving, improper driving training and training in road and safety procedures, are the most significant factors contributing to traffic accidents. Hence, driver education and training programs are highest priority in Nigeria.

In 2018, fatalities from road accident in Nigeria were 5,121 and another 31,094 people injured.

Most Nigerian truck drivers are schooled by experienced colleagues with inadequate training, after years of serving as Motor Boys. Demonstrating that Lack of well-trained drivers hampers on fleet utilization, safe driving behaviours and add to the total number of fatal accidents

[Sponsored]

Source: Legit.ng News
- Heineken Lokpobiri has denied rumours of his defection from the ruling APC to the PDP

- According to the minister, he remains a strong and committed member of the ruling party

- Lokpobiri said reports of his alleged defection is an act of desperation from the opposition

The minister of state for agriculture and rural development, Heineken Lokpobiri, has debunked claims that he led 3,000 defectors from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Lokpobiri said he dissociates himself from the alleged report as he remains a strong and committed member of the ruling party.

A statement signed by the special adviser to the minister, Gerorge Oji, also noted that the ward chairman of the party in Ekeremor is Columbus Japan, who remains a very committed and unrepentant member of the APC.

According to Oji: "The minister recognises that this is political period and that politicians are targets of malicious reports by mischievous elements, who are bound to take advantage of any undue opportunity that presents itself to rubbish political opponents."

Describing the report as an act of desperation, Oji said the authors of the report laboured to drag his name into the story.

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Oji said: "For the avoidance of doubts, the minister also restates that the Ekeremor community and indeed the entire Bayelsa State remains very stronghold of APC and nothing has happened in the recent times to change this position.

"It is the position of the minister that notwithstanding the activities of some of the misguided politicians in the state, the people of Bayelsa State are committed and looking forward to delivering the state to President Muhammadu Buhari come February 16.

"The APC members and teaming supporters in Bayelsa are already in very high spirit and looking forward to hosting the Presidential campaign team of President Muhammadu Buhari in the State next month, to demonstrate their support and loyalty to the party, which will ultimately result in overwhelming electoral victory for the party."

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Tiwei Orunimighe, a former chairman of the APC in Bayelsa, has defected from the ruling party to the PDP alongside no fewer than 5,000 supporters in the south-south state.

Orunimighe defected to the opposition party alongside a serving lawmaker in the Bayelsa state House of Assembly, Watson Belemote and ex-militant-turned politician, Africanus Ukparasia.

Orunimighe was received alongside other defectors by the state governor, Seriake Dickson on Saturday, September 8 at a political rally held at the Oxbow Lake Pavilion.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better.

News Nigeria Today: Will Senators, Lawmakers Defection from APC Change Power in 2019?- on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- Nigerians have reacted to the proposed shutdown of power plants by the Gencos

- Joy Ogaji, the executive secretary of APGC, had said that the electricity generation companies would shut down power plants across the country due to gas constraints

- The federal government was urged to take the necessary steps to prevent the planned shutdown

Some Nigerians have expressed mixed reactions over the move by the Electricity Generation Companies (GenCos) to shut down power plants across the country due to unavailability of gas supply.

Legit.ng regional reporter, Subair Mohammed, reports that while some people see the proposed shutdown as a bad omen for the country, others feel that the federal government should take the necessary steps to prevent the planned shutdown.

It was gathered that the executive secretary of the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), Joy Ogaji, had said that the electricity generation companies would shut down power plants across the country due to gas constraints, maintenance of power plants and low demand by electricity distribution companies (Discos) which he said affected stable electricity supply to homes and businesses in Nigeria.

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Speaking to Legit.ng, an artisan, Lawal Akanbi, said GenCos especially the DisCos are necessary evil that can't be ignored.

He lamented that poor power supply has crippled his welding trad the federal government to consent to their demands to prevent shutting down electricity supply.

He said: My business has been badly affected with poor supply of electricity which they bring at least two hours in one day. I want to appeal to the federal government to accede to the needs of the GenCos for them not to cut off the little electricity they supply because either they shut down the supply or not at the end of the month they come with estimated bill which we cannot but pay.

"So, it will be better to avert the shutdown and manage with the epileptic supply than subject Nigerians to double jeopardy of not having electricity at all and also pay at the end of the month.

A civil servant, Olushola Bakre, is more concerned with the implication of the shut down on the countrys economy.

According to him, many businesses would have to run on power generator if the threat to shut down is not averted and according to him, it would adversely affect prices of goods and services.

He said: I am looking at the shut down from the perspective of a salary earner like myself. If electricity supply is shut down, this will mean paying more for goods and services because many of the businesses will have to run on generators.

"So, what is the sense in subjecting Nigerians to hardship when the issues can be discussed and settled amicably?

While Bakre considered the shutdown from his salary perspective, Lawrence Anthony, said shutting down power plants is good riddance to bad rubbish as he said he could not recollect when last he set his eyes on electricity in his home.

Who cares if they shutdown electricity or not? I cannot recollect when last I set my eyes on electricity in my home. I leave for work as early as 7am and get back at 9pm. I get to know about electricity supply through a neighbour who told me they brought it daily around 11am and 2pm.

"But between 9pm and 7am that I will be at home, I run my generator to watch TV. So, if they shut it, what difference does it make? In fact I will so much appreciate it because it will stop them from bring their monthly crazy bills", he said.

The executive secretary, APGC, Joy Ogaji, had said while explaining the reason for the proposed electricity shutdown that the, Available generation capability experienced a drop due to various factors such as Gas constraints, on-going maintenance by some gas suppliers and low load demand by Distribution Companies (DisCos) which resulted in reduced generation or outage of some power plants.

"The decline was not an act of rebellion by the GENCOS neither was it deliberate but was beyond their control.

"It can be traced to the various challenges experienced by the GENCOS in the electricity market such as liquidity issues, power rejection by the DisCos and Gas constraints due to the sorry state of the market.

"This should serve as a wake-up call to the federal government to the on-goings in the industry with regards to the GENCOS and if the actions are not taken by the necessary agencies, GENCOS will be forced to shut-down business.

READ ALSO: Shehu Sani: Any politician who is a saint should publicly declare his assets

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that electricity generation companies (Gencos) in the country called on the federal government to address the challenges facing them or they would be forced to shut down their power plants.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better.

Fashola EXCLUSIVE Interview: How Nigeria Can Have Uninterrupted Power Supply | - on Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
- The Niger state police command has deployed 1,711 officers to provide security during President Buhari's visit

- The police officers will be stationed at each of the expected places the president will visit

- The commissioner of police in the state warned political parties to shun violence during the visit

The police command in Niger had deployed 1, 711 security officers to provide adequate security before, during and after President Muhammadu Buharis one day official visit to the state.

The presidents official visit to Niger is billed for Saturday, January 19.

Dibal Yakadi, the commissioner of police in the state, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna on Friday, January 18.

Yakadi said that an effective operational order on how to provide security at each of the places that the president was expected to visit had since been issued to the officers deployed for that purpose.

READ ALSO: Victory for Buhari will affect your re-election - PDP warns southeast governors

He said that President Buhari was expected to inaugurate the Baro River Port, Presidential Lodge at Baro in Agaie local government area , as well as launch the All Progressives Congress (APC), presidential campaign rally at the Trade Fair Complex in the metropolis. He said that the command had taken concrete security measures to ensure a peaceful visit.

In his words: We have mobilised sufficient armed personnel with modern working facilities to provide security cover for our president during and after the visit.

"We have since embarked on 'Operation Show Force' with other security agencies to show our preparedness for the August visitor."

The commissioner warned politicians and party supporters against thuggery before during and after the visit.

According to him, the police will arrest and charge to court, any politician or youth caught perpetrating violence. He said that the police would not fold their hands and watch any politician or group of youths carry arms before, during and after the visit.

Yakadi added that the command had been proactive in responding to emergency calls across the state at all times.

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He said: I wish to also solicit the cooperation of the public through the provision of timely and useful information to all divisions of the command across the state with a view to helping us respond to distress calls on time."

Recall that Legit.ng earlier reported that Buhari will on Saturday, January 19, inaugurate the new Baro River Port in Niger, which has just been completed by the federal government at a cost of N6 billion.

Tayo Fadile, general manager in charge of Corporate Affairs, National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), who made this known in Lokoja on Thursday, January 17, said that the port was built by CGCC Global Project Nigeria Ltd. According to him, the new port is fitted with a Mobile Harbour Crane, Transit shed and an administrative block.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have updated to serve you better

Former IGP Hands Over To New Police Boss | Legit TV

Source: Legit
- The government of Czech Republic has said that it would pay Nigerian migrants to leave its country and never return

- It was gathered that the gesture is being run by the countrys interior ministry under a programme tagged Returns

- The migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Russia and Vietnam would also benefit from the programme, according to the report

The Czech Republic has promised to pay immigrants from Nigeria and five other countries to leave the country and never return.

Remix, a newspaper based in Czech Republic, reports that the gesture is being run by the countrys interior ministry under a programme tagged Returns.

Legit.ng gathered that the report said the country has promised to pay Nigerian immigrants and their counterparts from Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Russia and Vietnam if they voluntarily decide to leave.

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Each individual could get funds ranging between 40,000 and 100,000 CZK. First funded returns should be processed in the third quarter of 2019.

The programme focuses particularly on migrants. Anyone who voluntarily leaves the country and promises not to return not only to the Czech Republic but to the EU, will be eligible for the money.

Returns is supposed to help them fund transportation costs and integration in their country of origin including accommodation, household equipment or domestic animal expenses, the report read

Remix further quoted the Czech Republic interior ministry as saying the programme will be suitable for all categories of foreigners, including those, legally in the country, illegals and asylum seekers.

Allocation for the programme amounts to 60 million CZK, 75 percent is to be covered from the European Asylum, migration and integration fund. Each individual could get funds ranging between 40,000 and 100,000 CZK. First funded returns should be processed in the third quarter of 2019.

It was gathered that the similar programmes were already underway in other European states and they aim to encourage migrants, who are unwanted in the respective country and would not be granted asylum to leave. Many migrants who werent granted asylum nor temporary protection avoid deportation.

Statistically, only 40 percent of rejected asylum seekers are deported from the EU. And while the allocation will be a burden for the taxpayers, the cost is by far less than deportation would.

The ministry was quoted to have said that especially detention of illegals is extremely costly, which goes hand-in-hand with administrative procedures and healthcare expenses.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari said migrants, as human beings, are entitled to their fundamental human rights.

READ ALSO: FG begs striking lecturers, says their demands will be met soon

Buhari expressed this view while declaring open the 2018 National Migration Dialogue at the State House Banquet Hall, on Monday, December 17, in Abuja.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better.

Nigerians speak on slavery in Libya | - on Legit TV

Source: Legit
- The natives of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) declare that they will not vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in February 2019

- The natives claim President Buhari promised to appoint a minister from their area while contesting in 2015

- A special assistant to the SGF, Ayuba Musa Burma, promises that their complaint will be channeled to the right quarters

The actual natives of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have declared that they will not vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in the forthcoming election except he decides to appoint someone from their place as a minister.

Daily Trust reports that the natives said this while embarking on a peaceful protest at the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) in Abuja, on Thursday, January 17.

According to the report, the protesters barricaded the Aso Drive linking the back gate to the SGF office.

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They also carried placards with different inscriptions: PMB forget our votes if we dont have minister, It is one year now FG is disregarding court judgment on appointment of FCT indigene as minister.

Yunusa Ahmadu Yusuf, the spokesperson for the group, explained that they decided to protest to the office of the SGF because President Muhammadu Buhari allegedly reneged on the promise he made in 2015 at a town hall meeting.

He claimed that at the meeting, Buhari promised that he would appoint a native as minister.

According to him, the Abuja natives have often been treated like second class citizens in their ancestral homes adding that this was unfortunate.

We have sacrificed so much for Nigeria but today, they have turned us to second class citizens, while such cannot happen in Niger Delta. It is injustice of the highest order to the natives of the FCT, he said.

The protesters vowed not to vote for the president if he did not meet the promise

They added that the president should obey a court ruling that granted political appointment to natives of the FCT.

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The report quoted a special assistant to the SGF, Ayuba Musa Burma, as commending the protesters for the peaceful manner they went about their grievance. He promised that he would channel their complaint to the right quarters.

Legit.ng earlier reported that Tunde Anifowose-Kelani, the national chairman of the Action Alliance (AA), declared that the party has decided to support the re-election bid of President Muhammadu Buhari as against Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Anifowose-Kelani said in a statement the party did not adopt Atiku as was being claimed.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better.

Buhari, Atiku, Sowore, Ezekwesili? Who will win if election is held today? | Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
- The Oba of Benin has decried the lack of adequate electricity supply in Benin city by the BEDC

- According to the Oba, the BEDC has failed in its responsibility of supplying electricity to the people of the state

- The Oba also pleaded with President Buhari not to renew the licence of the company

The Oba of Benin, Omo NOba Ewuare II, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to resist move to renew the licence of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC).

The Oba in his plea accused the BEDC of inability to provide electricity for the people of the state.

Speaking during a courtesy visit by the president in the palace in Benin city, Oba Ewuare II said that while electricity supply is key to development, it is unfortunate that the BEDC has failed in its sole responsibility to the people of Benin.

He also said the Edo council of traditional rulers and chiefs have also issued a communique over the inadequate service rendered by the BEDC.

READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda

In fact, during one of the meetings of the Edo state Council of Traditional Rulers and Chiefs, we issued a communique condemning the inefficient performance of BEDC, including its estimated billing method.

We also called for the withdrawal of the operational license of BEDC. In its place, Traditional Rulers appealed to the federal government to encourage and support the efforts of Edo state government in seeking alternative sources of providing electricity to meet the demand of the people," the Oba said.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Edo state governor Godwin Obaseki, had sent the managing director of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), Funke Osibodu, away from his office for leaving residents and the state in darkness for many weeks.

The mild drama happened while the governor was receiving members of the House of Representatives committee on power who were in the Government House on a courtesy visit.

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A statement from the Edo state government, said Obaseki was surprised to see Osibodu among the lawmakers as her name was not on the list of expected guests.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better.

Nigerian Electricity Crisis Explained On Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
- The convoy of the APC governorship candidate in Taraba, Alhaji Sani Danladi, was attacked by hoodlums

- No fewer than 10 vehicles in the convoy were reportedly looted and burnt while several others were vandalised

- The opposition and chairman of a local government (name withheld) in the state have been accused of being behind the attack

Hoodlums in Wukari, Taraba, on Thursday, January 17, attacked the motorcade of the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Taraba, Alhaji Sani Danladi.

Also in the convoy, which lost no fewer than 10 vehicles burnt in the attack, was Nigerias ambassador to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Alhaji Hassan Ardo, NAN reports.

Legit.ng gathers that Danladi, who is currently on a campaign tour of the southern senatorial district of the state, was on his way to Ibi local government area when some youths ambushed the motorcade at a junction in Wukari.

They barricaded the junction, which forced the convoy to slow down, and in the process, attacked the vehicles and the occupants, inflicting injuries on many of them and looting the vehicles.

READ ALSO: Why I chose Nwosu to succeed me - Okorocha

The whereabouts of the governorship candidate and the envoy could not be ascertained after the crisis as some persons on the convoy escaped into Wukari and to the Police Area Command in the town.

The spokesperson for APC in the state, Aaron Artimas, who was at the scene of the incident, accused the opposition of being behind the attack.

Artimas also accused the chairman of a local government (name withheld) in the state of masterminding the attack.

We got information that the chairman had allegedly sponsored some youths to burn down APC billboards and facilities in the area.

So it is not surprising that they have taken their frustration to this extent of organizing the youth to attack our convoy and attempt to assassinate the ambassador and our governorship candidate," he said.

He also confirmed that no fewer than 10 vehicles in the convoy were looted and burnt while several others were vandalised.

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Efforts to get the divisional police officer in Wukari as well as the police spokesman in Jalingo did not yield positive results as calls to their phones were not picked or returned.

The incident has reportedly created tension in the area.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Youths Vanguard in Taraba state accused the Economic and Financial Crime Commission and the presidency of shielding Taraba APC governorship candidate, Alhaji Sani Abubakar Danladi, from facing corruption trial. 

Danladi, a former acting governor of Taraba, is facing a two-count charge of conspiracy and violation of financial regulations preferred against him and two others - Senator Joel Ikenya and Mark Useni - accused of collecting the sum of N450 million from the former national security adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, to prosecute the 2015 election in the state.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have updated to serve you better!

With everything happening around us, there's really no hope for Nigeria - on Legit TV:

Source: Legit
Dear Answer Angel Ellen: My regular hair stylist, A., has been out sick, and it seems as if she won't be coming back soon. I went to another stylist, B., at my stylist A.'s salon (she's the owner) and got a decent haircut. Recently I needed another haircut. A. (out sick) suggested D., another person at her salon, but I decided to go to the one I went to previously, B. This time B. acted really bizarre, holding up her arm and yelling in pain as she was cutting my hair, among other odd behavior! Finally I'd had enough and told her to stop. The haircut was barely OK. I had to make a few adjustment cuts on my own.
- Oby Ezekwesili has said she is the candidate Nigerians can trust with the presidency as she has what it takes to rule

- The presidential candidate of the ACPN insists that she is the only candidate with the capacity and competency to deliver the country from its complex problems

- The former education minister says she is running in the forthcoming elections because Nigeria has no reason to be a failure

Prof Obiageli Ezekwesili, the presidential candidate of Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), has stated that she is eminently qualified to lead Nigeria to the Promised Land.

Ezekwesili made the comment while addressing a group of artisans, youths, students, people with disabilities and some market women at the popular Arewa House, Kaduna on Thursday, January 17, The Nation reports.

READ ALSO: US Chamber of Commerce confirms meeting with Atiku

Legit.ng gathers that the former education minister lamented that over the years, Nigeria has lacked quality leadership to take the country where it ought to be in the comity of nations.

Ezekwesili insisted that she is the only candidate with the capacity and competency to deliver the country from its complex problems.

She said: We have lacked quality leadership in Nigeria. It doesnt matter that all those that have governed us are men. It doesnt make any difference in quality of life of Nigerian persons.

I am that candidate with competence and capacity to solve the complex problems that seem to have eluded us for so long.

We cannot afford to have many more millions of Nigerians to join more than 87 million that are already poor.

Therefore, anyone who is thinking of me being a woman has not come in term with other Nigerians I have interacted with in the course of our campaign. They have always said Oby is the candidate we can trust.

According to her, when Nigerians are tired of mediocrity, the only person they can think of is Oby Ezekwesili, who is offering herself to lead.

She said she has always been known in this society as one who has a strong voice for the fact that Nigeria can be better than it is now. Nigeria has no reason to be a failure and that is why I am running in this election," she added.

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Asked if the fact that she wasn't given any political assignment was what made her angry with the current government, she responded: "I rejected to be a minister many times since I was a minister in this country. I dont need to be a minister.

What I need is that this society must be mobilised immediately to see how we can come out of the whole failure and incompetence they have thrown us into.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Ezekwesili said she would chart a new direction toward making Nigeria great if elected president in the February 16 election.

Ezekwesili spoke on Tuesday, January 15, in Akure while flagging off her south-west presidential campaign that drew party members from Ekiti, Osun and Ondo states.

She said the ruling All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party had failed the country, arguing they lack the capacity take the country to the desired great heights.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have updated to serve you better!

Oby Ezekwesili's Presidential Ambition In 2019 | Legit TV:

Source: Legit.ng
- Oba Ewuare II of Benin Kingdom asks President Muhammadu Buhari not to renew the license to the electricity distribution company in the state

- Oba Ewuare also demands the dualisation of the Benin-Auchi-Lokoja highway to ease movements of travellers, vehicles and goods

President Buhari promises to look into the demands made by the monarch

Oba Ewuare II of Benin Kingdom, on Thursday, January 17, asked President Muhammadu Buhari asking him not to renew the license of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) for its inability to provide electricity in Edo.

The Nation reports that the top Nigerian monarch also appealed to the president to support the effort of Governor Godwin Obaseki in seeking alternative sources of providing electricity to meet the demand of the people of the state.

He also asked that the Benin-Auchi-Lokoja highway be dualised and completed to ease the movement of goods and services as well as save lives of motorists and travelers.

READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda

The report added that Ewuare II spoke when he received President Buhari who paid him a courtesy visit at his palace in Benin City during his campaign tour of the state.

Electricity supply is no doubt key to the development of any society.

Unfortunately, over the years the people of Edo state have experienced inadequate electricity supply by the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC).

In fact, during one of the meetings of the Edo State Council of Traditional Rulers and Chiefs, we issued a communique condemning the inefficient performance of BEDC, including its estimated billing method.

We also called for the withdrawal of the operational license of BEDC. In its place, Traditional Rulers appealed to the federal government to encourage and support the efforts of Edo state government in seeking alternative sources of providing electricity to meet the demand of the people, he said.

The Oba commended Buhari for the sustained fight against corruption, insecurity in the country.

He pleaded with politicians to be more patriotic and concerned about the security and welfare of the people adding: Politicians on their part should endeavor to be more patriotic and be concerned about the security and welfare of the people which of course is the primary purpose of government.

As the 2019 general elections draw near, it is pertinent to call on politicians to let the interest of Nigerian and Nigerians be uppermost in their mind.

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Consequently, they should not do anything that would undermine our collective peace, unity and progress. They should not engage in acts that could truncate our democracy.

President Buhari, while commending the monarch for helping to stabilize the nations politics, assured that he would not relent in fighting corruption.

He promised to look into the requests of the monarch.

Legit.ng earlier reported that Godwin Obaseki recently sent the managing director of the BEDC, Funke Osibodu, away from his office for leaving residents and the state in darkness for many weeks.

The Punch reports that it was a mild drama that happened while the governor was receiving members of the House of Representatives committee on power who were in the Government House on a courtesy visit.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better.

Nigeria Latest News: Emir Sanusi Says Mosques Should be Converted into Schools | Legit TV

Source: Legit
According to the U.S. federal law, Nigerian applicant must apply on their own for a visa to the United States. However, this person can be invited by someone who already lives in the U.S. which can make the process of getting a visa a little easier. If you were thinking about traveling to the USA, you might need to know what documents are needed. A letter of invitation is a good way to prove that you are a reliable citizen who has a valid reason for visiting and is not expected to ruin the welfare and stability of the country. So, here we are going to talk about how to invite someone from Nigeria to USA and how to write an invitation letter.

Photo from nigerianpassports.com

What is an invitation letter for a U.S. visa?

An invitation letter for U.S. visa is an informal document, a letter that is sent to a person who is requesting his or her presence to make a visit to the USA. An invitation letter should be sent to the recipient in advance as he might need some extra time to prepare for the trip.

Recently, getting a visa to the U.S. from Nigeria is quite challenging. Over a long period, the U.S. government has registered many cases when Nigerians entered the USA and overstayed the visit or never left. While an invitation letter is not an official document required to get the U.S. visa but it helps to show to the consular officer that visitors intention is genuine.

Therefore, if someone is traveling to visit a family member or a friend, on business, attend a conference in the USA, it would be better if the host could write and send an invitation letter for visa.

READ ALSO: American Embassy in Nigeria: visa requirements

Photo from travelwahala.com

How can I invite someone from Nigeria to USA?

It is totally understandable that if you are the U.S. citizen or resident who has relatives in Nigeria, you would like to have them visit the United States. However, this can be not an easy thing to do. The reasons why a Nigerian citizen needs to visit the United States are not always clear to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria. For this purpose, the U.S. citizen or resident might need to send a letter of invitation to the U.S. Embassy to reassure the consular officers that an invited person is not going to break the U.S. law.

In general, an invitation letter to the USA cannot guarantee that the visa will be issued. The thing is an invitation letter is not even an official document, but it helps to clarify the travel intentions of the Nigerian visitor. While an invitation letter cannot be based on the sponsors assurance, an invited person must apply for the visa according to his/her own circumstances. On the basis of the invitation letter, visa application, and interview, consular officers determine whether or not the visa applicant will get a visa.

Once you agreed on the trip details with your friend or relative from Nigeria, you can write a letter of invitation. It may seem a little awkward, but you will have to explain the consular officer why your invitee should be allowed to enter the country. So, tell them why he/she is not a dangerous person but not in such a direct manner.

As mentioned above, in the invitation letter you need to include information that a visitor has strong ties to the home country, for example, close family, property, a good job, studies, etc. that he would not normally abandon.

Writing a letter of invitation is not necessary, but it helps in getting your family member or friend from Nigeria approved for a tourist or business visa. There actually is no form or regulation for the invitation letters. It should be addressed either to the U.S. Embassy located in Abuja, Nigeria or to the person you are inviting to the U.S. In both cases, all the necessary information should be provided in an appropriate form.

Photo: pulse.ng

For the adresser, the following details should be included:

the complete name of the host

date of birth

the address and telephone number in the United States

occupation and status of the host in the USA

a copy of a document proving his status in the USA

For the addressee, the following details should be included:

complete name

date of birth

the persons address and telephone number

hosts relationship to the person being invited

the purpose of the trip

the period the person being invited is going to stay in the USA

information about accommodation and living expenses

You can start the first paragraph with the statement about your occupation and income as well as a possibility to provide your visitor with a place to stay. You might ask why do you need to prove your income? The thing is you are the only person who can vouch for the person who is coming to the U.S. This way, you will show the U.S. Embassy that you care for your visitor during his stay.

You can continue your letter of invitation by explaining who is the person you are inviting and what is their reason for a visit. List his or her name (as stated in his/her international passport), an address of his/her residence in Nigeria, your guests international passport number, telephone number, e-mail address. Explain what relationship you are in with the visitor. You may even be a translator which can also help to ease the process of application.

The reason why he/she is visiting the U.S. may include traveling on business or tourism. He/she might like to see the country, enjoy the culture with a family member, spouse, etc. Remember that tourist or business visa excludes the possibility of permanent work or stay.

The last paragraph must include the details about the applicant's stay including location and time frames of entry and exit from the USA. It is essential to state when the visa applicant is planning to leave the USA which has to be agreed with the host in advance.

End the invitation letter with a respectful request for a visa for the applicant. For example, "I respectfully request that you issue a visa so that (name of friend) may enter the United States as my guest".

READ ALSO: Likely interview questions at the US embassy

Photo: aboundingwisdom.com

How to write an invitation letter?

Below are two examples of how to write an invitation letter addressing it to the U.S. visa officer and the person you are inviting.

An invitation letter to the Nigerian family member

2d November 2018

Mazi Adichie

3497 St. Catherine

Kentucky, KY 74732

USA

Tel: 435-543-6545

Email: mazi_adichiegmail.com

To: Yaa Adichie

15 Freedom Street, Lagos, Lagos State

Tel: +6547665476543

Dear Yaa,

How are you doing? How are father and Ngozi? I hope you are doing well. I am writing to invite you to spend this Christmas with me. As you remember we planned to visit many famous tourist destinations like Mammoth Cave, Dog Slaughter Falls, the Appalachians, African American Museum, Dallas world aquarium, and many more. I hope you will be happy to experience the American culture and spend Christmas in the USA this year. It is a good thing that you will be coming on the 15th of December 2018 and leaving on the 5th of January as my leave will be ending on the 3rd of January.

Be sure that I will take care of all your expenses during your visit to the USA. This will include accommodation, food, the travel cost, and your personal expenses.

I will send all the needed documents that are required to get a visa from the U.S. Consulate in Abuja, Nigeria:

U.S. Embassy, Abuja

Plot 1075 Diplomatic Drive

Central District Area, Abuja

Nigeria

Truly Yours,

[Sponsors signature]

Mr. Mazi Adichie

An invitation letter addressed to the U.S. consular officer

10th of January, 2019

U.S. Embassy, Abuja

Plot 1075 Diplomatic Drive

Central District Area, Abuja

Nigeria

Dear Honorable Consul,

ASHANTI AZIKIWE - PASSPORT NO A0654765 - DATE OF BIRTH (07 NOVEMBER, 1968)

My name is Afolabi Balewa, and I reside at 7654 Military Road, New York, IL 60765. I am a surgeon and a permanent resident in the USA. I am requesting that you issue a tourist (81/62) visa to my friend Ashanti Azikiwe who resides at 7 Makurdi Street, Lagos, Nigeria. Ashanti and I have been very close friends for the past 5 years. I would like to invite her this summer to visit me in the USA.

Ashanti is planning to visit me from 20th of 2019 to the 30th of January 2018. I think this will be a wonderful time for us as I will be on leave. During this time, I promise to be fully responsible for her stay and all the personal expenses. Ashanti will be staying with me at the address stated below.

She will be returning to Lagos, Nigeria on the 30th of January 2018.

Ashanti will be presenting to you this letter as well as other proofs of ties with Nigeria. Your kind consideration of this request will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Afolabi Balewa

7654 MIlitary Road

New York, IL 60765

+1897-987-7654

Photo from sampleinvitationletter.info

How to send invitation letter from USA to Nigeria

Make sure you mailed the invitation letter to your friend in Nigeria so he/she includes it with the visa application. In case, you are writing an invitation letter to the U.S. Embassy, you must send it directly to the address you included in the letter.

How can a Nigerian come to America

There are some important requirements Nigerian visa applicants must fulfill when traveling to the U.S. for business or pleasure. They are the following:

the applicant must have a residence in Nigeria to which he will return after the temporary visit

the applicant intends to enter the USA for a specific period

the applicant goes to the U.S. to engage in legitimate activities like a business, tourism, visiting family members or friends, etc.

The proof of residence is basically determined by applicants ties to his country. These ties may include property ownership, university studies, family and/or employment. Each applicants situation is unique and is considered individually by the U.S. Embassy.

The second requirement refers to the duration of the visit. Most of the time, business/tourist visa implies short visits. The visa applicant from Nigeria must demonstrate to the consular officers that his travel intentions fall within the particular visa classs parameters. Applicants must also be able to demonstrate that he is planning to return from the U.S. to his residence in Nigeria in a timely manner. Remember that the person should be going just for a few weeks or so. If the visitation is longer than that, the U.S. Embassy may become suspicious. If someone would like to visit for 4,5 or 6 months, he/she will probably be denied unless there is a strong reason to do so.

The third requirement refers to the appropriate use of the visa. The applicant must convince the consular officers that the activities in which he will be engaged in during the visit to the U.S. are legal and consistent with the visa class.

Note that young people are under a higher risk of being denied. If the young person has no money, property, he or she will be probably denied as they will be suspected in an attempt to live and work illegally in the USA. People who are traveling with their spouse or children are also at risk because they have less significant ties. This is not a definite rule, but this is to give you a general idea of how the system works. In any case, the trip must be sponsored, so the absence of the sponsor is highly important. Otherwise, you must be able to sponsor yourself and have something reasonable in your account.

There often happens that Nigerian students are concerned with the chances of getting a visa to the USA as they lack experience and money. The truth is that student is a category of applicants that are at the lower risk of being denied because of the strong tie to the home country, that is studies. If the person who is inviting is students parent, family member living and working in the USA legally, that is enough to get a visa. One condition is that students age must be no more than 18.

Photo: queensofvirtue.com

If the student meets the above criteria, his host can write an invitation letter to the U.S. embassy. Other documents may include sponsors account statements, receipt of payment, certificate of birth, statement of the income and other.

In most cases, counselor officer does not even look at the documents, he asks 3 questions to determine applicants eligibility. These questions are: Where in the USA are you visiting? What do you do for a living? Who is your sponsor?

Remember that all the ties to the home country must be proved officially. For example, if one of the applicants proves is a job, business or property, he must be able to prove his ownership or position by providing specific documents. Also, he would need to fund his account with a reasonable amount and do it prior to the date of the interview.

So, if you have a valid reason for visiting, a legal way to support yourself financially, significant ties to your home country, and intent to Nigeria, all this information must be included in the invitation letter written by a person from the U.S.

An invitation letter can help in getting a visa to the USA for someone from Nigeria. While there are many nuances, this is one of the most effective ways to make the process much easier.

READ ALSO: How to get a job in the USA from Nigeria

Source: Legit
Gold is a precious metal. It is the 3rd most valued after platinum and palladium. Can Nigeria boast the extraction of this mineral resource? Where is gold found in Nigeria? Read to find out all the answers.

Picture from redimin.cl

Gold mining in Nigeria

Gold mining started in Nigeria back in 1913. Unfortunately, by the beginning of 1930, the process of precious metal mining began to decrease, and at the beginning of World War II, gold production was zero. The process resumed in the 1960s, but rapid development did not happen. The Civil war in Nigeria interfered.

The 1980s marked the rebirth of precious metal mining. It was done by a Nigerian Mining Corporation (NMC). But this period did not last long, because government bodies poorly funded the company.

In general, mining in Nigeria did not develop much due to the indifference of the government authorities. It was since all the forces and funding went to the development of the oil industry in 1956. Today, oil is the most sought-after product in Nigeria.

So, where can gold be found in Nigeria? How many states in the country are rich in this precious mineral?

Photo from shipsandports.com.ng

READ ALSO: How much is a gram of gold in Nigeria?

States where gold is found in Nigeria

Gold is a natural resource deposit which is mostly found in Iperindo in Osun State and other areas near Maru particularly Gurmana, Tsohon Birnin Gwari-Kwaga, Malele, Anka, Okolom-Dogondaji, and Bin Yauri.

Other Nigerian states that also have gold resource deposits are, Abuja, Abia, Bauchi, Cross River, Edo, Osun, Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi, Oyo State, Kogi, Zamfara, and Kaduna.

The biggest problem in the development of the gold industry is the lack of information on the location of the precious metal. Also, the government does not have all the necessary data on the current gold mining by small companies. Since individuals do not keep honest record of the mined mineral, the result and value of the metal are minimized. The government still has a lot of work on licensing and accounting for gold production.

Source of the picture: upload.wikimedia.org

Gold is a precious metal that is highly valued throughout the world. However, gold mining in Nigeria today is not as developed as the oil industry. Government authorities should pay attention to the activities of small mining companies to improve the quantity and quality of mined gold.

READ ALSO: See place where Nigerians mine gold illegally (photos)

Source: Legit
Throughout my childhood, I always remember my mother trying to finagle stuff with the car, Milchtein said in a phone interview. The oldest child of ultra-Orthodox Jewish parents, she said she felt at odds with her conservative upbringing and often sneaked off to the library to read the books banned at home. My mother was married for 25 years with 15 kids, so most of the time she was pregnant. I remember wishing she knew how to do more. I wish she had more understanding of how things can be done  but it never really crossed my mind to get into the automotive field.
Shillong, January 18: Indian Customs law disallowed 33 Bhutanese coal-laden trucks at Dawki integrated check post (ICP) in Meghalaya to transit to Bangladesh following a Supreme Court order banning the transportation of extracted coal in Meghalaya, an official said on Friday.

"A total of 33 trucks transporting coal originating from Bhutan have been stopped at Dawki ICP (in Meghalaya's West Jaintia Hills district) from January 15 from transiting to Bangladesh citing the Supreme Court order ban on transportation of coal," Meghalaya International Exporters' Chamber of Commerce Secretary, Dolly Khonglah, told IANS.

Khonglah said that she tried to convince the customs officials at Dawki ICP that the Supreme Court's order does not apply to a third country exports with transit through India but they refused to acknowledge it.

"For the last two months, they have been exporting coal to Bangladesh without any hiccups. They have no right to stop them at best they can check the documents of each truck.

"All the coal-laden trucks are sealed covered by tarpaulin and adheres strictly to the specified weight as per the rules of the India," she said.

The Bhutanese Consulate in Guwahati is in touch with the Customs officials at Dawki ICP and Commissioner and Secretary for Mining and Geology, Tining Dkhar on the matter.

"We are hopeful that the matter will be resolved soon so that the Bhutanese coal trucks can transit to Bangladesh," Consular General Phub Tsering told IANS.

A Supreme Court bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and S. Abdul Nazeer on Tuesday banned the transportation of coal in Meghalaya till the next hearing fixed on February 19 for its failure to curb illegal mining in the state.

The ban on transportation of coal was of significance in the wake of a coal mine tragedy in the state in December 13, in which 15 miners were trapped inside an illegal 370-feet deep flooded mine in Ksan village in East Jaintia Hills district.

They were digging coal despite the National Green Tribunal ban on coal mining. Bhutan is exporting coal to Bangladesh via India as per the South Asian Preferential Trade Arrangement.

India had notified Dawki-Tamabil and Dalu-Nakugaon land customs stations as dedicated port for Bangladesh-Bhutan for trans-shipment export-import trade.

IANS was unable to reach Commissioner of Customs, K. Ashi Kheiya for a comment.

But a customs official who wished not to be named told IANS that they have sought for clarity from Meghalaya Chief Secretary and Union Finance Ministry on the Supreme Court order since the order was in a "genera nature".

Advocate General of Meghalaya, Amit Kumar said that transit coal originating outside Meghalaya is not hit by the order of the apex court.

When contacted, Chief Secretary in-charge P.S. Thangkhiew said he has taken up the matter with the competent authority.

The trade between Dhaka and Thimpu is significant with imports from Bhutan standing at $18.48 million as against exports from Bangladesh worth only $3.12 million in 2010-11, showing Bhutan enjoying a comfortable trade balance.

Dhaka had earlier offered Thimpu duty-free access of some products and to use Chittagong and Mongla Ports while Thimpu extended cooperation to meet the power deficit of Bangladesh.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 18, 2019 06:24 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
New Delhi, January 18: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday appointed senior party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka as the Leader of Opposition in the recently elected Telangana legislative assembly. The party issued a media release confirming Vikramarka as Gandhi's choice, adding that the Congress legislators have agreed en masse.

Earlier, on Thursday, the Congress MLAs, MLCs and MPs had convened to decided who should be the new LoP -- the post which the party has earned after emerging as the single largest Opposition entity in the state. Chandrababu Naidu Sees PM Modi's Ploy Behind KCR-Proposed Federal Front.

At the meeting, it was decided to authorise the Congress chief to take a final call on the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader. Subsequently, the names of shortlisted leaders were sent to Gandhi -- who took a final call today.

Vikramarka, a post-graduate, is now set to be the LoP in the Assembly, where Congress occupies 19 seats in the 119-member House.

Electorally, Vikramarka has maintained a stronghold in the reserved constituency of Madhira -- from where he has been elected consecutively since 2009. Among earlier posts held by him includes the deputy Speaker of the Assembly in undivided Andhra Pradesh from 2011-2014.

Between 2009-11, he served as the party's chief whip in the Andhra assembly. Vikramarka was also entrusted with the key charge of heading the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee. Ahead of the 2018 assembly elections, the party high command had decided to appoint him as the chief of the campaign committee.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 19, 2019 12:11 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Shillong, January 18: After more than a month, the body of one of the 15 trapped miners in the illegal coal mine in Meghalaya was pulled out by the Navy divers on Thursday. The search operations to look for the other trapped miners is still underway. However, the family members of the trapped miners urged the rescue agencies to extract the dead bodies anyhow as per the Supreme Court order so that they can give them a decent burial. The body was detected 32 days after the miners got trapped inside the mine on 13th December 2018. What Is Rat-Hole Mining? 15 Meghalaya Miners Trapped in Illegal Mine Waits for Help From Government.

According to reports, experts believe that the bodies of the trapped miners could be retrieved only after it is disintegrated. For this, the district authorities sought the consent of the family members of the trapped miners on whether the body could be taken out from the mine. After skeletons were spotted by the Navy team, the sources said the water inside the mines has high Sulphur content which can decompose the bodies very fast. Miners Trapped in Meghalaya's Illegal 'Rat-Hole' Mine Feared Dead.

Reports inform that divers of the Indian Navy used an underwater ROV (remotely operated vehicle) at a depth of about 160 feet in a rat-hole mine to look for the miners. The body will be extracted under the supervision of doctors, said a Navy spokesperson in a tweet. Meghalaya Mining Tragedy: One Body Recovered, Rescue Operation Continues to Find Other Trapped Miners.

According to a report by IANS, the rescuers showed the family members the video footages of a dead body stuck inside a coal mine in a computer (underwater ROV). "We dont know whose body it is. We want the government to follow the Supreme Court order to get the bodies out of that coal mine, said Malik Ali, brother of Munirul Islam, who is among those trapped inside the mine. Ali further added saying that they want his body back so that they can give him a decent burial.

On December 13 last year, 15 miners were trapped in an illegal rat-hole coal mine in Lumthari village of East Jaintia Hills district 13 after water from a nearby river gushed in. However, five miners managed to escape and alerted the people about the tragedy at Ksan village, about 130 km from Shillong. Several agencies including the Navy, NDRF, Air Force, National Disaster Response Force, Odisha fire service have been pressed into service for more than a month now to look for the trapped miners in the coal mine.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 18, 2019 11:46 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Sofia, Jan 16 (AFP) The prime ministers of Bulgaria and Libya have said they are working for a "positive outcome" to a dispute over the alleged illegal seizure and sale in Bulgaria of a Libyan oil tanker.

In a phone call late Tuesday Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov and his Libyan counterpart Fayez al-Sarraj discussed the case of the 61,000-ton tanker "Badr", which was detained in Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas in November 2017.

"The Libyan premier thanked Boyko Borisov and the Bulgarian government for their timely intervention and the demonstrable desire for the case to end with a positive outcome for both sides," Borisov's press service said in a statement.

Sarraj added that "a favourable development in the case will give a very strong signal for future cooperation between Bulgaria and Libya", the statement said.

The vessel, owned by the state-run Libyan General National Maritime Transport Company, was held by the Bulgarian company Bulgargeomin, which claimed it as collateral for a USD 9.2-million (7.9 million-euro) Libyan state company debt dating back to 1989.

The regional court in Burgas refused to honour Bulgargeomin's claims or to allow the sale of the "Badr" vessel.

Despite this, and higher court judgments to release the vessel, it remained moored in the port of Burgas for over a year.

The case drew an angry response from Tripoli when in late December 2018 the ship's Libyan captain and Indian crew were forced off the vessel after a private debt collection agent disregarded all court orders, seized the tanker and sold it to the same company that sought it as compensation.

The tanker then left Bulgarian territorial waters with a new crew, the name "Bdin", and under a Panamanian flag.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
University of Wyoming President Laurie Nichols speaks to students during the New Student Convocation in August. At right, Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, served as guest speaker at that event. Nethercott has sponsored a bill that would give community colleges to ability to offer bachelors degrees.
Whenever I see a report touting possible new peanut allergy treatments, I devour it. I can't help it. It's an occupational hazard for any health journalist whose reporting specialty and medical history intertwine.



I write about the business of health care, focusing on how consumers interact with the system, what we pay, what we get and why American care costs so much. But in this particular instance, I have another kind of authority: 26 years of life-threatening allergies to nuts and peanuts.



So, when California-based Aimmune Therapeutics sparked optimistic headlines after releasing clinical trial results that its allergy product, AR101, would reduce the risks linked to an accidental exposure to peanuts, I received the usual wave of questions from friends, co-workers and my parents: Would you try it? Could this help?



Aimmune is just one company eyeing the prize. Childhood peanut allergy diagnoses increased more than 20 percent in the United States from 2010 to 2017. The global market for relief is worth as much as $2 billion. The French drugmaker DBV Technologies is also working to commercialize a peanut allergy patch. Other companies, including industry giant Sanofi, are following their lead.



If any one of them succeeds, it could change my life.



My friends call nuts "Shefali poison." My allergies first surfaced when, as a 15-month-old, I picked Thai noodles off an aunt's plate and developed hives on my face, and then a few months later when I tasted my mom's kaju barfi an Indian dessert with cashews and ended up in the hospital. Nobody in my family had ever heard of peanut allergies.



I've carried epinephrine since I was 7 years old. My friends are trained to inject it in my leg, the standard procedure for an emergency allergen exposure. Though I luckily haven't had to take a shot of it since I was 4. (Another child in my Montessori class had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.)



My mom also recalls another incident when she had to pick me up early from day care because the class was making peanut butter bird feeders. And I spent too many years of pre-adolescence eating lunch at the designated "peanut-free table." Now, I can only dream of flying to visit my parents for Christmas without worrying about whether my seatmate's snacks might induce anaphylaxis. And yes, kissing someone who has just eaten peanut butter would put my life in danger.



But are these pills and patches a true breakthrough for people like me?



I approached the question as I would any other assignment. I read the research, called immunologists, and spoke with economists and drug pricing experts about whether these treatments offer meaningful benefit.



One of the first things I heard: "We are still in the infancy of these treatments," said Dr. Corinne Keet, a pediatric allergist at Johns Hopkins University.



Medically, there's a lot we don't know about the risks, how much these drugs could help and how long any effects would last.



"None of these treatments have been shown to prevent fatal reaction," Keet emphasized.



The idea behind them is to desensitize people. Aimmune's "peanut pill" is modeled on the oral therapies some specialists use to wean allergic kids back on to nuts. This approach has gained popularity in recent years, especially for children with multiple allergies, or when it's a substance particularly hard to avoid.



A colleague's young daughter, who was born with multiple allergies, used that very treatment, as did a younger cousin of mine who, for the first several years of her life, was allergic to not joking almost everything but fruits and vegetables. In my case, this therapy came into vogue after I was too old to have a good chance of it weakening my sensitivities.



How it works: Kids ingest tiny, escalating doses of peanut protein. They then stay on peanut protein Aimmune recommends the pill, though other doctors I spoke to suggested a little bit of peanut as a maintenance drug.



But it's unclear how much the new therapies would improve upon that ad hoc oral immunotherapy allergists are already offering. Instead of drugs, they use store-bought peanut protein, usually de-fatted peanut flour available online for as little as $1 a pound. This method isn't approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and often isn't covered by insurance though doctors' visits can be billed as "food challenges" or other visits that are typically covered.



In contrast, Aimmune's product is expected to cost between $5,000 and $10,000 for the first six months of use, and $300 to $400 per month after. Analysts predict DBV's will cost more than $6,000 for a year's supply, though the company says it has not yet determined a price. DBV, Aimmune's chief rival, has come up with a wearable skin patch that would transmit tiny, desensitizing protein doses. It declined to estimate a price, but it does not view oral immunotherapy as a competitor, said Joseph Becker, a company spokesman.



"There's excitement, there's caution and a lot of unanswered questions," warned Dr. Erwin Gelfand, a pediatrics and immunology professor at the University of Colorado.



According to Aimmune's results, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, two-thirds of allergic children could ingest 600 milligrams of peanut without harm after going through treatment.



To be clear, even with Aimmune's help, someone like me still couldn't safely eat PB&J. But it would desensitize me enough that I could taste a friend's wine even if he recently ate pad thai.



Still, the treatment comes with caveats.



While 496 children started the trial, only 372 completed it. Of the 20 percent who backed out, half did so because of adverse events. About 14 percent of kids getting treatment still had to take epinephrine, and one experienced anaphylaxis, a severe reaction that can involve rashes, vomiting, a tightening throat and difficulty breathing. (For an allergic kid, even the possibility is maybe one of the most terrifying things you can imagine.)



Children who completed the regimen still had to take small doses of peanut protein daily, either the Aimmune drug or a controlled peanut serving. Statistically significant benefits were clear only in patients through age 17, though Dr. Daniel Adelman, the company's chief medical officer, said Aimmune plans to do a follow-up trial for adults.



And the results don't indicate who is likely to benefit, or how long improvements would last. That's impossible to know, Adelman said, though he suggested accidental peanut exposure is scary enough and pure avoidance ineffective enough that the treatment is still worth it.



But all this means that anyone who has gone through Aimmune's regimen would still want to carry epinephrine, and try to avoid peanuts.



"Not everybody responds well," Gelfand said. When you factor in those details, the results are "not all that impressive," he argued.



Dr. Tina Sindher, a pediatric allergist at Stanford University, pointed out that the Aimmune pill is a repackaged, clinically tested version of that homegrown oral therapy many allergists have already been using. DBV's peanut patch, Viaskin, to a lesser extent, is the same more convenient, perhaps, and more regulated, but still a variation on the existing medical approach.



"This concept has been around for a long time," she said.



What's new is the addition of labor, standardization and federal oversight which companies then say demonstrates increased value.



It highlights a pattern I've noticed from my reporting: Drugmakers develop medication that refines a low-tech remedy, run a clinical trial to secure FDA approval, and then sell it at a higher price. For pharma, it's a logical way to profit. But it puts patients in a bind.



"The hard outcome is we have these new products and they're just about as good or slightly better than what we have," said Nicholson Price, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School, who studies drug pricing. "And they're a lot more expensive." He noted: "That's when the choices get hard, and we're not good at making hard choices."



Also skeptical? The closest authority I know: my mother, who raised me with peanut allergies when they were more or less unheard of, and is now doing it all over again for my 10-year-old brother. (My other brother, my twin, was allergy-free until about a year ago.)



"It's not worth it," my mom told me. Her concern? Getting any of us to maintain a peanut dose without knowing how long that reduced sensitivity would last could induce what she called "a false sense of security."



This thinking isn't out of line, Sindher suggested. The way these studies are touted, she said, often "gloss over the fact that there's a lot we don't know."



So for now, I'll have to maintain my distance from the newsroom stash of Reese's Pieces. My epinephrine and I aren't parting ways anytime soon.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 18)  While the decision on the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) will be made soon, peace talks with insurgent groups might not yet be over.

President Rodrigo Duterte, in a speech delivered to campaign for a favorable vote for the BOL in Cotabato City, said that he wants to meet with Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) founder Nur Misuari in the coming days.

"Though he is not here, still he is a critical factor to the overall process not only on Mindanao but the Philippines," Duterte said about Misuari, who he also called his "beloved friend."

The president did not go into detail on what the talks will be about except for how it would also be for peace in Mindanao. Duterte has made no secret of his close contact with Misuari, the embattled former Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor.

"We can also talk and come up with something that could come to the barest minimum, para lang makuha natin yung (so we can achieve) a peaceful Mindanao," Duterte said.

During the speech, Duterte also opened up about possible continued talks with the communist rebels and with Lanao del Norte 2nd District Representative Abdullah "Bobby" Dimaporo, who is against the inclusion of several towns in his region to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

"Sana makausap natin (I hope we can talk to) si Satur pati si ano (and). There's a difference in our views, but the fact that they would listen, pati si Bobby Dimaporo. I just want to go to them magpasalamat lang (and thank them), just for being able to listen," Duterte said.

But while Duterte said that he is willing to open talks with communist rebels, he drew the line when it comes to the Abu Sayyaf.

"Itong komunista, pakapin ito (the communists can be an extra task). But I will never, never talk with the Abu Sayyaf. Kailanman, terrorista (They've always been terrorists)," Duterte.

The plebiscite for the ratification of the BOL and inclusion of some areas of Mindanao to the BARMM will be on January 22 and February 6.
Delaware Democratic Senator Tom Carper, center, along with Ellen and Christopher Magee at Magee Farms. Carper spoke with farmers about the impact of the government shutdown.
Paul Post is a freelance writer in eastern New York. He can be reached at paulpost@nycap.rr.com.
Phil Gruber is the news editor at Lancaster Farming. He can be reached at 717-721-4427 or pgruber@lancasterfarming.com. Follow him @PhilLancFarming on Twitter.
Afragola, January 18 - If more Naples area mayors refuse to apply Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's migrant-security decree like Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris "it doesn't bother me but it bothers the Neapolitans", Salvini said Friday. "An interior minister can't change a mayor's mind by decree", he said. Mayors including de Magistris and Palermo's Leoluca Orlando have rebelled against the decree saying it strips migrants of basic rights to housing and healthcare. In other remarks, Salvini said "the State is here" over a recent spate of bombs at Afragola, and said squatters must be evicted.
Now that things have loosened up with regard to the pandemic, are there precautions you are still practicing? Which have you relaxed?
So Wojciechowski and friends hit hard from the first notes, in Eddie Harris Cryin Blues. Wojciechowski, who played tenor saxophone during the evenings first set, told the audience he long has considered Harris a personal hero. Its easy to understand why, considering Harris honored place in a regal line of Chicago tenor giants, his art as versatile as it was imposing. Harris often played the Showcase, his last performances there  at the old Grand Avenue location, a few months before his death in 1996  attested to the mans heroism against the ravages of bone cancer and kidney disease.
- The talking heads are not spared the interviewer's ruthless questioning. At one point Lynch and another influencer provide unintended comedy when, after saying that their goals as influencers were to spread the ideals that they stand for, the interviewer asks what it is they stand for. Both essentially say, "Um positivity, and um yeah." Similarly, Brooks compellingly describes the days leading up to the festival and knowing that a disaster was coming: "So I set up a mini-war room." (the interviewer presumably then asks him to describe it), "Okay the war room was in my house and it was just me, but I had my computer open and was watching Twitter "
Supporting actress: Regina King is guaranteed to be nominated - and will probably win - for her ferociously powerful turn in "If Beale Street Could Talk," in which she brings fearlessness and deep tenderness to her role as a steadfastly protective mother. To which we can only say: Brava! It will also be altogether fitting to see Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone recognized for their outstanding work in the caustic court satire "The Favourite," since comedies are so often bulldozed by more self-serious dramas. But this humble kibitzer would also include Sissy Spacek, whose quietly wise, wryly funny performance opposite Robert Redford in "The Old Man and the Gun" leavened the film and elevated Redford's crafty but remote character into someone we could care about.
The Brindille menu has a different look; the ruffled-edge paper with the embossed B has been replaced with a single page that looks distinctly Naha-ish in style and typeface, though the menu headings are pour commencer and la mer et la ferme. The new, smaller typeface also allows the chef to offer more dishes and to indulge her penchant for detailed descriptions.
MISSOULA - After a retired Forest Service smokejumper died, his widow is not only grieving from his death, but financially stranded. She says she can't access his benefits due to the government shutdown.

Curt McChesney retired in 2005 after a 35-year career as a smokejumper for the Forest Service, according to the Ravalli Republic.

Curt died on New Year's Eve, 2018.

Peggy said in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper that when she reached out to the Office of Personnel Management to ask about benefits, she didn't get an answer.

Peggy said she's never had trouble contacting the office until the federal government shutdown. She feels like she's been forgotten.

"I feel like Curt dedicated a lot of his life to the federal government and I just wonder where along the way we lost track of the people of the United States," Peggy McChesney told CNN. "It just seems like we've taken the wrong path."

Peggy also said she lives paycheck to paycheck because her husband underwent five surgeries in two years.

So far, the GoFundMe for her has raised more than $15,000 of a $20,000 goal.

Curt is fondly remembered by the Western Montana fly-fishing and firefighting community.

Curt was a feller that liked everybody, and was liked by all. Fishing and guiding around Curt was always a pleasure, writes a friend at Headhunters Fly Shop.

From carving beautiful turns to catching those pretty cutties, Curt was an amazing person and will be deeply missed, writes a friend on the GoFundMe.

Curt and Peggy met at Snowbowl in the 1970s and both loved to ski, according to the Ravalli Republic.

A GoFundMe is set up for the McChesney family to help with the memorial. Click HERE for link.
Great Falls High School students are preparing for their Business Partners of America (BPA) competition for this Monday, January 21st.

BPA is a program that helps students prepare for their future careers and the types of situations theyll potentially be facing in a business environment.

Their competition has several different categories; including topics such as banking, accounting, website design, etc.

However, students from the video production team described how this competition is much more than business preparation.

It isnt just helping me in BPA. Like, outside of school, outside of BPA, even at my work, its taught me to be a lot more open and talk to more people and be more confident, explains team member John Milton, a junior at GFHS.

Its taken the team several months to prepare for the competition, having to do everything from planning and shooting video; to editing it all together.

Over 200 students will be competing at the event this Monday at C.M. Russell High School.

From here, the top finalists will go to the State competition in Billings.

If Great Falls High students are able to make it into the finals during the State competition, they will continue onto Nationals in Anaheim, California.
(KTUU) - A mysterious black cow is running amok in Anchorage, Alaska.

After reports of several sightings, Will Ross finally got proof last month, when he snapped a picture of the cow and shared it on Facebook.

Frank Koloski, owner of Rodeo Alaska, responded to the post, saying the cow was his, and asked for help finding her. Calls, texts, emails and a visit to his home were all met with no response.

One of the first people to spot the cow was skier Eric Parsons.

"I kind of jumped and it kind of jumped too, and as we were both kind of reacting, I was like 'That's a black cow. That's a giant big black cow,'" Parons said as he got ready to cross country ski at Hilltop on a chilly Tuesday morning.

"I definitely feel vindicated," said Parsons. "People didn't believe me at first. Now it's really become this urban legend of this mysterious black cow."

Everyone who says they've seen the cow says it was able to get away from them. No word yet on if it's actually been captured.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2Rx6s5e
Levinsohn, 55, joined Tribune Publishing in 2017 as publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times, which was then owned by the Chicago-based company. He was placed on unpaid leave in January 2018 in the wake of published reports that he was a defendant in two sexual harassment lawsuits while an executive at other media companies.
Henny Scott, a 14-year-old girl from Lame Deer, was found dead near Lame Deer last month.

On Wednesday, Senator Steve Daines, Charlie Addington, the director of the BIA Office of Justice, and Senator Jon Tester met to discuss the Henny Scott case.

The death of Henny Scott remains under investigation, but the three men discussed broader ways to deal with the epidemic of missing and murdered women.

They all agreed that there needs to be improved communication on all levels. Federal agencies are being asked to do a better job with communicating to families.

In many of the missing and murdered indigenous women cases, the families will go months without answers.

Addington says they're working with Fort Peck and Northern Cheyenne on their agreement to better use local and state authorities to help with manpower.

Daines, Addington and Tester also discussed Montana's growing meth problem. The cases involving Montana's tribes are often related to substance abuse, many of which are tied to meth.
UPDATE:

A 13-year-old boy was arrested today on suspicion of intentionally setting fire to the Laurel Post Office Thursday.

According to Laurel Police Chief Stan Langve, there was also a second attempted arson in the Laurel Walmart around 2 am Thursday.

Langve says the boy was arrested on suspicion of arson, attempted arson, and criminal endangerment.

Langve says a post office employee went into Walmart Thursday to buy safety masks after authorities assessed the damage that the fire caused in the post office.

Langve says that's when authorities learned of the attempted arson at Walmart.

The 13-year-old boy was arrested today around 12:30 pm.

The Laurel Post Office is now open for business following some quick repairs and restoration.

ORIGINAL STORY:

The United States Postal Service distributed a press release discussing the impacts of a fire in the front lobby of the Laurel location.

Fortunately, no mail was harmed during the fire and there were no delays to delivery.

However, retail operations at the Laurel postal service have been temporarily moved out of the current building and the postal service is in the process of exploring alternate retail services until the building can be assessed and necessary repairs are made.

USPS Customer Relations Coordinator Linda Neill told me about some temporary fixes they have in place.

"They are referring customers to the Downtown Billings office. Their P.O. boxes are currently suspended. They are asking customers to go to the rear entrance and just bring their ID and they can pickup their P.O. box mail from the rear entrance," said Neill.

This is an emergency suspension of services, but nothing that is permanent. Additional details will be provided as they become available regarding retail services returning.

Neill also added that utilizing postal services online serves customers just as well as actually visiting the post office in person.

"Everything that they can do in a post office, they can do online at USPS.com; or pretty much anything. They can buy stamps, they can print postage and labels and request a carrier to come pick up that package. So they can do all that from the comfort of their home.

Now we did reach out to the Fire Marshall of Laurel Fire, Jason Shovar, who told us a lot of this case is in the hands of the federal government since the USPS is a federally ran business.

He also told us the investigation, as far as their end of it goes, is still going on. He told KULR-8 he would keep us updated as more information became available.
We talked with the Great Falls Police Department today to see if there's any new information on the kidnapping of Brook-Lyn Arrowtopknot. They say Arrowtopknot is still missing but they're still investigating and have received several leads.

Arrowtopknot (aka Katelyn White) was last seen on December 26th near Chowen Springs Loop and may be in the company of Guadalupe Galicia.

Since then the Great Falls Police Department has issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Galicia who has prior convictions for robbery and aggravated assault. He is considered armed and dangerous.

Police say Galicia may not even be in Montana, but in a surrounding state. Police tell us, Galicia has family in Browning, Washington, and Oregon - which is where they say he's most likely to be seen.

Arrowtopknot is described as a 21-year-old Native American woman with brown hair, and brown eyes. She's 5 feet tall and 110 pounds.

If you have any information on her whereabouts, GFPD asks you to call 911.
Anderson, who could not be reached immediately for comment, eventually confessed, and NGE offered a refund or credit to more than 100 clients who may have been affected, totaling $150,000, according to the complaint. Kirkland Ellis also offered to repay or offer credits to clients, but the complaint does not say how much. Neither firm was immediately available for comment. A hearing date for Andersons case has not been set, according to a spokesman for the disciplinary commission.
Officer Andrew Delke (L) is charged with criminal homicide in the death of Daniel Hambrick.
(CNN)  The world's loneliest frog is finally close to relationship status.

Scientists have found a potential mate for Romeo, the Sehuencas water frog who's been alone and single for the last 10 years. Housed in a museum in Bolivia, Romeo was considered possibly the last living water frog of his kind.

The big-eyed amphibian won hearts worldwide last year after conservationists created a playful Match.com profile for him.

Now Romeo and his love interest -- who scientists have named Juliet, of course -- will be set up on a blind date this Valentine's Day as part of an effort to save their species.

No pressure, kids.

It all started when Bolivia's Alcide d'Orbigny Natural History Museum partnered with Global Wildlife Conservation to raise money to search for a mate for Romeo.

Zoologist Teresa Camacho then led a frog-search expedition last month through Bolivia's cloud forest. She and her team would stick their hands in creeks and feel for water frogs, since the creatures can't easily be spotted where they live  underwater.

"We were tired, wet and disappointed," says Camacho, who believes that climate change and contaminated waterways have driven the Sehuencas water frog close to extinction. "Then I said, 'Let's do one more creek.'"

That's when she noticed a frog hop in the water. It wasn't the species she was looking for, but it led her to a tiny waterfall ... and there it was  an orange-bellied water frog under the shower. The team jumped for joy, but it wasn't their Juliet.

It was a male frog.

Still, "I noticed the habitat was in good condition, so we had hope," says Camacho.

They went back the next day and found four more frogs  two female and two male.

Juliet is at the perfect age for reproduction. The others are younger and not ready yet.

She's also ... pretty cute.

"She has beautiful eyes," Alcide d'Orbigny Museum Director Ricardo Cespedes says about Juliet, who is quarantined until lab tests come back. Scientists need to make sure she's free of the dangerous chytrid fungus, known to have killed entire frog populations, before she meets Romeo.

But Romeo and Juliet may not even be compatible.

"We're hoping opposites attract," says Cespedes, noting Romeo is shy, doesn't swim much and is "a little overweight."

Juliet, on the other hand, is extroverted and full of energy -- she's already tried to escape her tank.

"We'll have to provide some sort of current to get him a little more exercise," Camacho says.

The museum, which also helped preserve the rare Titicaca water frog, is relying on the newly found younger frogs should the Romeo-Juliet encounter not go as planned. As another fallback, scientists also can try in vitro fertilization.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "He's spent 10 years alone. Now Romeo, the world's loneliest frog, may have finally found a Juliet that can save his species."
File image of previous pet food bank hosted by the Oregon Humane Society for federal workers affected by the partial government shutdown. (KPTV)
'Lift Every Voice Oregon' organizers plan to introduce two bills to state legislatures on gun control
Auburn, IN (46706)

Today

Some clouds early with showers likely late, and a thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Some clouds early with showers likely late, and a thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) officials announced that February food benefits are being provided early to thousands of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients due to the ongoing partial federal government shutdown.
Angola, IN (46703)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to cloudy skies and rain overnight. Thunder possible. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to cloudy skies and rain overnight. Thunder possible. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
FHWA and MDT propose impacts to recreation and refuge areas along U.S. Highway 93 south of Ronan
Kevin Winston (center), 25, and Martina Chambers (left), 20, were charged with aggravated promotion of prostitution, compelling prostitution, and trafficking of a person. Mikia Collins (right), 19, was charged with compelling prostitution and trafficking of a person.
The FDA has five weeks till money runs out for approving new drugs
Police say these two men stole $3,500 worth of tools from a Benton Park West home under construction. They also stole a security camera while it was still on while the victim watched on an app on his phone.
Buena Vista, CO (81211)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High near 85F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. Low near 55F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Corps says Rayburn may set new pool record, disaster declaration issued with threat of water flowing over spillways
Jeremy Leibler writes in The Spectator:

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel once famously wrote what hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.

New Zealands actions at the UN General Assembly in December were those of a stand-for-nothing bystander, choosing to have a bet each way rather than follow the moral imperative to unequivocally condemn terrorism in all its forms.

Despite 87 countries, including Australia, supporting a US-backed resolution condemning the terrorist tactics waged by Hamas against Israel, the resolution was sabotaged by an earlier vote instigated by the Arab League that required a two-thirds majority for it to pass.

Although New Zealand voted to condemn Hamas for what it is  an extremist terrorist organisation committed to the destruction of the State of Israel and Western values  it abstained from the Kuwait-driven vote to impose the two-thirds majority hurdle.



New Zealands shameful abstention allowed the motion to pass with 75 countries in favour, 72 countries against and 26 countries abstaining. Had New Zealand exercised moral clarity like its other Western allies and voted against the motion, the result could have been very different.
(Kitco News) - Wall Street analysts are caught in a three-way tie regarding where gold is going next week, but Main Street remains bullish in the short term, according to the Kitco News gold survey.

Eighteen market professionals took part in the Wall Street survey. There were six votes each, or 33%, for all three categories  higher, lower and sideways/neutral.

Meanwhile, 440 respondents took part in an online Main Street poll. A total of 255 voters, or 58%, called for gold to rise. Another 94, or 21%, predicted gold would fall. The remaining 91 voters, also 21%, see a sideways market.

Wall Street Bullish Bearish Neutral VS Main Street Bullish Bearish Neutral

Last week, 73% of Wall Street and 57% of Main Street were bullish on gold. As of a.m. EST, Comex February gold futures trading 0.5% lower for the week so far to $1,283.30 an ounce.

Adrian Day, chairman and chief executive officer of Adrian Day Asset Management, acknowledged that there are factors that could hurt gold but nevertheless looks for prices to rise since the fundamental backdrop is overall favorable.

Gold is, no doubt, at this point vulnerable to any good news, on the U.S. government shutdown or China trade, Day said. It may also have to tackle the psychologically important $1,300 level more than once before breaking through. And lastly, momentum has slowed over the past 10 days or so as stock markets have recovered.

But the fundamentals are bullish and the risks seem to the upside with little progress on the shutdown, or Brexit, China or Italy.

Richard Baker, editor of the Eureka Miner Report, also looks for gold to climb, looking for $1,380 sometime in the first half of 2019.

It is likely gold will push up next week against a backdrop of a prolonged U.S. government shutdown and continued turmoil in Washington, he said. Optimism is up that the U.S.-China trade negotiations are back on track for a deal this spring, but this could flip-flop in the coming weeks. I expect U.S. dollar strength will falter and resume decline towards its 200-day average.

Bill Baruch, president of Blue Line Futures, is among those looking for a retreat in gold prices in the near term.

I am welcoming the lower prices. This is a very healthy correction, Baruch said.

Independent technical analyst Darin Newsom sees prices falling in the next week, commenting that a weekly chart for the most-active February contract shows a potential secondary or intermediate-term top.

Weekly Stochastics are in position to establish a confirming bearish crossover above the overbought level of 80%, with the initial occurring the week of Dec 31, Newsom said. The contract continues to consolidate within the range from the week of Dec. 31, between $1,300.40 and $1,278.10. Confirmation of an expected secondary downtrend would be a bearish breakout below $1,278.10.

Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, said that he is bearish on gold in the short term but sees long-term potential for the yellow metal.

The reasons for holding gold havent changed, he said. But gold is doing what its supposed to as a hedge; it's taking a breather as other asset classes rally.

Nicholas Frappell, global general manager with ABC Bullion, looks for gold to remain in its recent range with a steady tone.

There are signs of gamma hedging resulting from options interest around the $1,300 strike, which should act to restrain golds movement, Frappell said.

Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at SIA Wealth Management, is neutral.

Gold has started to run into resistance near $1,300 and appears to be leveling off between there and $1,280 with more support near $1,265, he said. In the coming week, I think gold may continue to digest its recent rally and work off an overbought RSI [Relative Strength Index] that had developed. Looking out a bit farther, the VIX [fear index] continues to drop back and with fear easing, gold may lose some of its tailwinds, but this could be offset by the U.S. dollar leveling off.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top North Korean nuclear envoy began a new round of talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and could also meet President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday during a visit aimed at clearing the way for a second U.S.-North Korea summit.

The diplomatic encounter with Kim Yong Chol, Pyongyangs lead negotiator with the United States, marked a rare sign of potential movement in a denuclearization effort that has stalled since a landmark meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last year.

Kim Yong Chol and Pompeo, with tight smiles, posed together for photographs at a Washington hotel before heading into the talks that could determine whether the two sides can make headway. There has been no indication of any narrowing of differences over U.S. demands that North Korea abandon a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States or over Pyongyangs demand for a lifting of punishing sanctions.

Hours before Kim Yong Chols arrival on Thursday, Trump - who declared after the Singapore summit in June that the nuclear threat posed by North Korea was over - unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy that singled out the country as an ongoing and extraordinary threat.

Following his meeting with Pompeo, Kim Yong Chol, a hardline former spy chief, could also go to see Trump at the White House, a person familiar with the matter said.

The high-level North Korean visit could yield an announcement of plans for a second summit, which both Trump and Kim have expressed an interested in arranging.

Their first meeting produced a vague commitment by Kim to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, but he has yet to take what Washington sees as concrete steps in that direction.

TRUMP LOOKING FOR POLICY WIN?

Pompeo had planned to meet Kim Yong Chol to discuss a second summit last November, but the meeting was postponed at the last moment.

At the start of Fridays talks, Pompeo, joined by Stephen Biegun, U.S. special representative on North Korea, stood alongside Kim Yong Chol at the Dupont Circle Hotel in front of a bookcase with a photo of slain U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. prominently displayed.

The men did not respond to a reporters shouted question of whether a venue for the next summit had been selected.

Communist-ruled Vietnam, which has good relations with both the United States and North Korea, has been widely touted as the most likely site.

On his last visit to Washington, Kim Yong Chol delivered a letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump that helped overcome obstacles ahead of the summit in Singapore.

CNN quoted a source familiar with the U.S.-North Korea talks as saying that Kim Yong Chol would be carrying a new letter for Trump.

U.S.-based analysts said that North Korea, which has developed missiles and nuclear weapons in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, would likely be seeking a clearer message from the Trump administration on any concessions it may be willing to make.

The North Koreans need a real indication of what the U.S. is willing to put on the table, said Jenny Town, a North Korea expert at 38 North, a Washington-based think tank.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said on Wednesday that if North Korea took concrete steps toward abandoning its weapons programs, Washington could offer a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War, humanitarian aid or a permanent channel for bilateral dialogue.

Victor Cha, a former White House adviser on Asia under President George W. Bush, suggested that Trump may be so desperate for a policy win that he could be vulnerable to a bad deal with North Korea.

I worry that the timing works to North Koreas benefit, Cha said, citing pressures on Trump such as the partial U.S. government shutdown and the ongoing investigation into alleged Russian ties to Trumps 2016 presidential campaign.

Earlier this month, Trump defended the stuttering progress on North Korea by saying that Pyongyang had stopped missile and bomb testing and if it had not been for his administration youd be having a nice big fat war in Asia.
(Kitco News) - Improving investor optimism is picking up as the U.S. and China appear to be moving closer to resolving their trade dispute, which could weigh on gold prices in the near-term, according to some analysts.

A four-day rally in equity markets is taking its toll on gold as the yellow metal looks to end a four-week winning streak. February gold futures last traded at $1,282.8 an ounce, down 0.5% since last week.

Investor sentiment in the precious metals market is not expected to change in next weeks shortened trading schedule. Markets are closed Monday in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Gold has struggled to find momentum into the weekend after news that China has offered to boost its U.S. imports over the next six years. The deal, valued at $1 trillion, would aim to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China to zero, reports have said.

The U.S. and China could be closer to a trade agreement than markets are thinking and that will provide some relief for investors, said Chris Vecchio, senior market analyst at DailyFX.com. In the near-term, we could see equities, the U.S. dollar, and bond yields push higher, which are all negative for gold in the near-term.

Despite a bearish short-term outlook, Vecchio said that there is still potential for the yellow metal in the long-term, adding thathe will be watching critical support at $1,276.50 an ounce very carefully.

If gold gets down there and we see some really strong buyers come in, then that would be a sign that the market is not ready to turn over and this weakness could be just a short-term correction on a bigger uptrend, he said.

Vecchio said that gold still looks good as a safe-haven asset as there is a lot of uncertainty swirling throughout financial markets. Even if the U.S. makes a trade deal with China, it still faces the growing risk of slower economic growth, he pointed out.

Gold Is Still Doing What Its Supposed To

Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank said that he expects to see lower prices in the near-term but remains a long-term gold bull. He added that its still uncertain if the recovery in equity markets is just a bluff.

He noted that gold is holding its own in an environment of rising equity markets, growing momentum in the U.S. dollar, and rising equity markets. He highlighted that despite the selling pressure, gold is still within its monthly range.

The world is still an uncertain place and we can see that there is still some strong underlying demand for safe assets, he said. The reasons for holding gold havent changed. But gold is doing what its supposed to as a hedge: it's taking a breather as other asset classes rally.

Hansen said that in the near-term he could see prices fall to as low as $1,245 an ounce. He added that prices could still drop even lower and remain in an uptrend.

Bill Baruch, president of Blue Line Futures, said that he is also looking for gold to continue to weaken, saying that the market is seeing a very healthy correction.

He added that since the start of the new trading year, he has recommended investors take some profit in gold, as prices hit significant resistance around $1,300 an ounce.

We have been telling our clients to capitalize on strength, so you dont have to chase weakness, he said.

Although Baruch expects to see lower prices in the near-term, he added that he remains a long-term bull. He said that he is looking to buy gold in a range between $1,282 and $1,262 an ounce.

For investors who want to limit their risks, Baruch said that April $1,300 call options are attractively priced. He added that options investors should pay close attention to the time decay of their contracts.

I think we can get to $1,310 or $1,320 with the current economic environment that we have, but we really need to see signs of lower growth for gold to see a sustained push above $1,300 an ounce.

U.S. Shutdown To Hit One-Month Mark

Next week, the partial government shutdown will hit the one-month mark and according to political pundits, there is no end in sight as nearly one million government workers are furloughed or work without pay.

Economists have noted that the longer the shutdown lasts the more significant the impact it will have on the economy.

Our rough estimate is that if it lasts to the end of January, annualized GDP growth for Q1 would be about 0.5% weaker, said Avery Shenfeld, senior economist at CIBC World Markets. Should it extend to March end, disruptions would start to impact the movement of goods and people, key regulatory functions and so on, and growth could end up near zero, which is why such a lengthy shutdown seems unlikely.

Because of the government shutdown, the U.S. economic data remains relatively light. However, there are still a few reports for investors to chew on, including existing home sales and preliminary manufacturing and service sector sentiment data.

Outside of the U.S., investors will be paying close attention to the Bank of Japans monetary policy meeting and the European Central Bank meeting. Markets will be sensitive to any comments regarding the health of the global economy.

Finally, politicians and corporate executives from around the world will head to Davos Switzerland next week for the annual World Economic Forum; except for the U.S., which pulled out its delegation from the international conference last week, citing the government shutdown.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed lifting some or all tariffs imposed on Chinese imports and suggested offering a tariff rollback during trade discussions scheduled for Jan. 30, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the internal deliberations. But Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has resisted the idea, and the proposal had not yet been introduced to President Donald Trump, according to the Journal.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy on Thursday that called North Korea an ongoing and extraordinary threat, seven months after he declared the threat posed by Pyongyang had been eliminated.

The Missile Defense Review, which also detailed concerns about the burgeoning capabilities of Iran, Russia and China, was a broad examination of efforts to shield the United States from enemy missiles, including a push to develop space-based sensors and study the development of space-based weapons.

Our goal is simple: To ensure we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States - anywhere, anytime, anyplace, Trump said at the Pentagon as he unveiled the report.

Trump did not mention the North Korean missile threat in his remarks. But acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan called North Koreas missiles a significant concern.

The document was even stronger.

While a possible new avenue to peace now exists with North Korea, it continues to pose an extraordinary threat and the United States must remain vigilant, the report said.

For Trump, who is trying to revive efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear arsenal, the reports release came at an awkward moment. Senior North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol was headed for Washington on Thursday for expected talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday and a possible encounter with Trump, a person familiar with the matter said.

The talks could lead to an announcement of plans for a second Trump summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after their meeting last year in Singapore, the source told Reuters.

Trump wrote on Twitter after the June 2018 summit that there is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.

SPACE-BASED SENSORS

The Missile Defense Review recommended studying experimental technologies, including prospects for space-based weaponry that might be able to shoot down enemy missiles, a throwback to former President Ronald Reagans 1980s Star Wars initiative.

It also called for investments in space-based sensors that can better detect and track incoming missiles, and perhaps counter super-fast hypersonic technology, an area in which China has made major advances.

We will protect the American people from all types of missile attacks, Trump said. In the past, the United States lacked a comprehensive strategy for missile defense that extended beyond ballistic missiles. Under our plan, that will change. The U.S. will now adjust its posture to also defend against any missile strikes including cruise and hypersonic missiles.

We are committed to establishing a missile-defense program that can shield every city in the United States. And we will never negotiate away our right to do this, Trump added.

Trump specifically mentioned Irans capabilities. The report said Iran possesses the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East.

Its desire to have a strategic counter to the United States could drive it to field an ICBM, the report said, referring to an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Trump said the United States would not impose any limits on U.S. development of missiles defenses against any America target - whether before or after launch.

We will not take any chances. We will only take action, Trump said.

The United States previously announced plans to increase the number of ground-based interceptors over the next several years, hiking the number positioned at Fort Greely, Alaska to 64 from 44.

U.S. military officials have said American missile defenses are primarily designed to counter attacks from countries with more-limited arsenals like North Korea, which U.S. intelligence officials believe is still advancing its nuclear program despite a halt to missile launches last year.

Pentagon officials contend that American missiles defenses are too few to counter a first-strike on the U.S. homeland by a major nuclear power like Russia or China. Washington hopes those countries will instead be deterred from attacks by Americas nuclear arsenal.

The report underscored that point, but also acknowledged that in a war with a major power, the United States would use the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) defenses at its disposal.

The GMD system is designed to defend against the existing and potential ICBM threat from rogue states such as North Korea and Iran, but in the event of conflict, it would defend, to the extent feasible, against a ballistic missile attack upon the U.S. homeland from any source, the report said.

Russia views U.S. missile defense advances as a threat. The chairman of Russias upper house defense and security committee, Viktor Bondarev, said after Trumps announcement that the new U.S. missile-defense strategy would ramp up global tensions, according to Interfax news agency.

The Pentagon has made no secret about its concerns about Beijings pursuit of hypersonic technology that would make missiles far harder to detect and destroy.

Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Mike Stone and Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Polina Ivanova in Moscow; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday that her trip to Belgium, Egypt and Afghanistan had been canceled over the partial government that has run into its 27th day. Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed, Trump wrote in a letter to the top House Democrat. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over. Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Doina Chiacu

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
By Silvia Aloisi

MILAN, Jan 17 (Reuters) - An array of crises will keep several world leaders away from the annual World Economic Forum in Davos next week, which takes place against a backdrop of deepening gloom over the global economic and political outlook.

Anxieties over trade disputes, fractious international relations, Brexit and a growth slowdown that some fear could tip the world economy into recession are set to dominate the Jan. 22-25 Alpine meeting.

The WEF's own Global Risks Report set the tone this week with a stark warning of looming economic headwinds, in part because of geopolitical tensions among major powers.

Some 3,000 business, government and civil society figures are due to gather in the snow-blanketed ski resort, but among them are only three leaders of the Group of Seven most industrialised countries: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte.

Donald Trump, who stole the Davos limelight last year with a rare appearance by a sitting U.S. president, pulled out of this year's event as he grapples with a partial U.S. government shutdown.

On Thursday, the White House said Trump had also canceled his delegation's trip to Davos because of the shutdown, now in its 27th day. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been expected to lead the U.S. team, according to two senior administration officials. French President Emmanuel Macron is also skipping the meeting as he seeks to respond to the "yellow vest" protests, while British Prime Minister Theresa May battles to find a consensus on Brexit.

Outside the G7, the leaders of Russia and India are shunning Davos, while China - whose president, Xi Jinping, was the first Chinese leader to attend the elite gathering in 2017 to offer a vigorous defence of free trade - is sending his deputy instead.

That will leave the likes of British Finance Minister Philip Hammond, Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan and a host of central bankers with the task of trying to reassure business chiefs.

"Davos will be dominated by a high level of anxiety about stock markets, a slowdown in growth and international politics," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit.

"The leadership presence is lower than last year but those who are going ... will be seeking to impart a sense of confidence and calm business and investors' nerves."

REVAMP

Before the U.S. cancellation, a Trump administration official had said the U.S. delegation would also discuss the importance of reforming institutions such as the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Trump has harshly criticised globalisation and questioned U.S. participation in multilateral institutions such as the WTO, calling for a revamp of international trade rules.

Davos watchers said the absence of so many top leaders this year did not mean the glitzy forum had lost its status as a global stage for top politicians to present their agendas.

"Abe is going to Davos not just as Japanese prime minister but also as chair of the G20. It will be a perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork of upcoming G20 meetings," said a Japanese government source familiar with international affairs.

"Of course there may be inconveniences such as missing opportunities to hold bilateral meetings, but that won't undermine the importance of Davos," he said.

A Chinese official who has attended Davos regularly but will not go this year said China had never expected to make progress at the meeting on the trade dispute with the United States. "It's just an occasion for making a policy statement," he said.

The low turnout among major Western leaders may also give more prominence to political personalities who may otherwise be upstaged. Davos will be the first major international outing for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, elected on a wave of anti-establishment and conservative nationalism also seen elsewhere.

He said on Twitter he would present "a different Brazil, free of ideological ties and widespread corruption".

For business chiefs, the value of Davos lies not so much in the public sessions but in the networking and dealmaking opportunities on the sidelines of the main conference.

"It's the best place to pitch for ideas, build connections and get your brand known," said Chen Linchevski, chief executive of Precognize, an Israel-based start-up developing software that prevents technical or quality failures at manufacturing plants.

"It's the kind of place where in a few days you meet people you wouldn't easily meet otherwise," said Linchevski, who is paying 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,495) to attend the event.

($1 = 0.9902 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington, Yawen Chan in Beijing, Kaori Kaneko, Tetsushi Kajimoto and Linda Sieg in Tokyo, Tom Miles in Geneva, Dmitry Zhdanikov in London and Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Editing by William Maclean and Peter Cooney)
ROME (Reuters) - The Italian government on Thursday approved flagship reforms of the welfare and pension system, election pledges of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League, which mark a major overhaul of the countrys welfare state.

The reforms, providing income support for the poor and allowing people to retire earlier, are the centre-piece of the governments expansionary 2019 budget. Critics say they are unsustainable for Italys strained public finances.

These are two measures...this government is proud of, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told reporters after the cabinet signed off on the legislation. This is a government that keeps its promises.

It must now be approved by parliament within two months.

The need for an income support scheme, dubbed the citizens income has been a 5-Star battle cry since its foundation a decade ago, and its determination has strengthened as poverty levels have grown to record highs in recent years.

This reform will improve the quality of life for 5 million Italians in difficulty, said 5-Star leader Luigi Di Maio. We have founded a new welfare state in Italy.

Italians in absolute poverty, defined as not having enough money to buy a basket of basic goods and services, rose to 5.1 million in 2017, according to the latest data from statistics office ISTAT. That represents a more than three-fold increase in a decade.

The largest proportion live in southern regions which were the bedrock of 5-Stars support at last Junes election, when it was Italys largest party with some 32 percent of the vote.

However, public finance constraints forced the movement to drastically scale back its original blueprint of the citizens income, which envisaged an outlay of 17 billion euros ($19.37 billion) in the first year.

The latest version will not take effect until April and will cost state coffers around 7 billion euros this year and 7.8 billion in 2020. It will provide means-tested income support of up to 780 euros per month for a single person living in rented accommodation with no other income.

A family of two adults and a child can receive up to 1,080 euros, while a family of two adults and three children can get up to 1,280 euros. Home-owners do not receive the standard rental contribution which is 280 euros. [L8N1Z851N]

LOWER RETIREMENT

The pension reform, championed by the League, rolls back a 2011 law which had sharply raised the retirement age to 67 for many Italians, with further increases scheduled to match rising life expectancy.

Under the new rules, people will be able to retire when the sum of their age (62)and the years of their pension contributions (38) adds up to 100. [L8N1ZF5WD]

I am very happy to have turned words into facts, said League chief Matteo Salvini, standing alongside Conte and Di Maio, adding he hoped to govern with them for the next 10 years.

The changes, which will take effect from April for private sector workers and August for state employees, will cost 4 billion euros this year and just over 8 billion in 2020.

The 2011 reform, passed at the height of a debt crisis, left hundreds of thousands of Italians who had quit work early expecting to retire shortly afterwards, stranded for years with neither a job nor a pension.

The government says the new rules will end their plight while allowing older, less motivated workers to retire and free up jobs for the young unemployed.

Critics argue that in the long-term Italys large public debt and ageing population mean it cannot afford to lower the retirement age.

($1 = 0.8775 euros)
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Chinas envoy to Canada on Thursday warned Ottawa of possible repercussions if it banned technology firm Huawei from supplying equipment to Canadian 5G networks, in the latest blast in a deepening bilateral dispute. Ambassador Lu Shaye, speaking at a news conference, did not give details. Canada is currently studying the security implications of 5G networks but unlike some allies has not announced a ban on Huawei equipment. Reporting by Dale Smith, writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
(Corrects quote in third paragraph to read "the quarterly point-in-time full-year earnings", instead of "the poorly point-in-time full-year earnings")* Does not provide EBITDA forecast, shares reverse course* Sees global consumption growth for aluminum between 3-4 pct* Expects global aluminum deficit to continueBy Sanjana Shivdas Jan 16 (Reuters) - Top U.S. aluminum producer Alcoa Corp beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit on Wednesday, buoyed by strength in its alumina segment, but shares slipped after the company did not provide a closely watched profit measure for the full year. The company's shares were down 1.6 percent in extended trading, reversing course after rising as much as 3.5 percent to $30. Alcoa Chief Financial Officer William Oplinger said on a post-earnings call that the company was eliminating "the quarterly point-in-time full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization outlook" given the unprecedented market volatility. Alcoa said it expected the global aluminum deficit to extend into 2019 and estimated that its aluminum shipments woulddecline 500,000 to 600,000 tons year over year. "Demand growth for primary aluminum in 2019 is expected to be robust, with global consumption growth in the range of 3 percent to 4 percent, driven by continued strong growth in China," Chief Executive Officer Roy Harvey said on the call. The company said it expected an alumina surplus in China in 2019, driven by refinery expansions and lower-than-expected smelting production.

Strong sales of alumina to third-party smelters, which jumped 20.8 percent to $1.13 billion, helped the company counter a fall in aluminum prices. Pittsburgh-based Alcoa has reaped mixed benefits from President Donald Trump's decision to impose tariffs on aluminum and steel imports into the United States. The company has been hit by imports from its smelter in Canada. Alcoa, which is shuttering two of its aluminum plants in Spain, said it expected an annual net income improvement of $70 million to $80 million beginning in the third quarter of 2019 from the closures. Benchmark three-month aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange fell 5.7 percent in December, the steepest monthly drop since June, as the United States said it would withdraw its sanctions on Russian aluminum giant Rusal . Net income attributable to Alcoa was $43 million, or 23 cents per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $196 million, or $1.06 per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 5.4 percent to $3.34 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 66 cents per share. Analysts on average had expected a profit of 50 cents per share, according to I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv. (Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Peter Cooney)

223 8780, outside U.S. +91 80 6749 1642; Reuters Messaging: sanjanasitara.shivdas.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Before the ink had much time to dry on the finalized Barrick-Randgold deal, Newmont Mining Corp. announced it was buying Goldcorp, Inc. on Monday for $10 billion to create a gold producer that will top Barricks now $24 billon market cap once completed. The agreement will combine two gold industry leaders into Newmont Goldcorp, to create an unmatched portfolio of operations, projects, exploration opportunities, reserves, and people in the gold mining complex.

This deal brings more investor attention to an undervalued sector, which may have formed a significant bottom late last year. While gold was forming an accumulative rounded bottom, junior developers, who are in the process of proving up high-margin projects, were being sold for tax-loss. Many of these sub-$200M market cap companies remain deeply undervalued in comparison to where they were trading the last time gold was being bid near $1300 in early 2018. Once gold climbs above $1300, the market will be gradually re-rating high-margin project developers, or producers will be acquiring them, as I expect M&A to continue this year.

Meanwhile, the overbought gold price continues to consolidate in a $20 range above $1280 after making an eight percent move higher in just eight weeks. Although the overall trend in gold is clearly higher, it has run into strong resistance after a long rally and is attempting to work off an extreme overbought situation by consolidating in this tight range. As mentioned in last weeks missive, gold has very strong resistance in the $1300-$1309 region and an overbought consolidation, as opposed to a breakdown from this area, is encouraging.

Another positive scenario taking place is gold beginning to rally with the stock market and remaining well bid despite the recent strength in the U.S. dollar. Bullion accumulation is being driven by political events as are the currencies and share markets and is reflecting investors uneasiness about what lies ahead.

Together with these political events, the recently dovish Fed has also been supporting the gold market and placed the overbought U.S. dollar into a downtrend since early December. This Fed induced weakness in the worlds reserve currency, along with global market volatility, influenced the market to begin pricing in the possibility of a rate-cut. If the Fed indeed cuts rates later this year, it could easily be the catalyst to break gold out of the rounded base below $1375 it has been forming for nearly six years.

Since the Fed is data-dependent in its approach to rate hikes, high on that list currently is the Chinese economy. More evidence of a material slowdown in the Chinese economy could downgrade global growth prospects, so the Fed is closely monitoring Chinese trade tensions with the U.S. and any major moves in the Chinese currency, the renminbi.

The other thing to keep a close eye on for a possible future rate-cut, though not directly controlled by the Fed, is the slope of the U.S. yield curve. An inversion between 2- and 10-year yields is a closely watched signal as that has preceded almost all the American recessions of the past half century. An inverted yield curve is when short-term rates are above longer-term rates and has historically been very bullish for gold when remaining inverted for a long period of time.

However, in the short-term, both the GDX and silver have begun to underperform gold, while the stock market has reached overhead resistance. Volume in the major miner ETF has slowed to a trickle as it awaits a catalyst to resolve the consolidation in gold which began with the new year. The catalyst for either a breakout, or breakdown, from this 3-week consolidation may be the outcome of the first FOMC meeting of 2019, which takes place on January 29-30th. In an effort to become more of a presence to investors, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will be holding news conferences after every central bank meeting this year.

I am giving a presentation at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) this Sunday, January 20th, at 11:20am in Workshop 2. I will be discussing investment and research strategies for building a successful junior gold stock portfolio. If you are planning to attend, please stop by and say hello.

Stop by my website at www.juniorminerjunky.com and sign up to be on the free email list. You will receive this column in your inbox each week, along with interviews and updates on my subscription service availability.
Story

Leaders representing King County, Port of Seattle, City of Seattle, Sound Transit, Delta Air Lines, and Alaska Airlines today launched a unified public awareness campaign to stop human trafficking, encouraging survivors to call a national hotline for assistance.

It is modeled after a successful campaign led by the King County Council in 2013 that dramatically increased the number of trafficking survivors who called for resources, including medical care, financial assistance, and housing.

The campaign launched today will expand the approach to a regional scale with additional public, private, and nonprofit partners sharing resource signs at airports, buses, trains, health clinics, libraries, law enforcement offices, public defender offices, community centers, and elsewhere throughout the region.

Victims and survivors are encouraged to call the national hotline at 888-373-7888, text 233-733, or visit WATraffickingHelp.org.

We have the dedicated employees, strong partnerships, and shared commitment needed to stop labor and sex trafficking in our region, said King County Executive Constantine. Human traffickers prey on people in our community who are vulnerable, specifically targeting people of color. Our united effort will connect survivors with the resources they need to break free and thrive once again.

We all must do our part to see an end to human trafficking. The Port of Seattle is committed to addressing this issue  leveraging our roles as a county-wide government, large employer and manager of significant trade and travel facilities, said Port of Seattle Commissioner Courtney Gregoire. We want to make sure that places like Sea-Tac Airport, our cruise terminals and our marinas are not used as transit points for traffickers and their victims, and we want the more than 50 million annual visitors to our facilities to join us in our fight to end trafficking here in our region.

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Graphics are available in English, Spanish, Amharic, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

Other partners include Expedia Group, Uber, Lyft, the Snohomish County Lodging Association, and several King County cities.

Preying on those who are vulnerable

Contrary to the popular myth, many people who are trafficked for labor or sex are not brought here from Asia or other parts of the world. Most victims and survivors already lived in the United States but were vulnerable, with many experiencing homelessness. Victims and survivors are disproportionately people of color while the majority of people charged with trafficking are white.

According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, Washington ranked 12th among states for the highest number of signals  either phone call, email, or website form  from people who are victims of sex or labor trafficking. The national hotline has received more than 3,600 calls from people in Washington since 2007, including 266 last year. That includes people who were lured here from other countries and people who already live here and are exploited for labor or sex.

Local human service providers receive nearly 800 referrals each year.

The Bridge Collaborative  YouthCare, Friends of Youth, Nexus Youth and Families, Kent Youth and Families, and the Organizations for Prostitution Survivors  provided outreach services 212 people between the ages 12 of 24 who are either survivors of the sex trades and trafficking or at high risk to become exploited with about 90 percent of being U.S. citizens

In 2018, Washington Anti Trafficking Response Network, or WARN, received 75 referrals for sex and labor trafficking survivors with nearly 90 percent being foreign nationals.

In 2018, Real Escape from the Sex Trade, or REST, provided services to 517 survivors of the sex trade with about 90 percent being U.S. citizens.



Executive Constantine joined other leaders to launch the unified public awareness campaign at Sea-Tac International Airport.



The Port of Seattle Commission passed a motion in January 2018 directing staff to implement a port-wide anti-trafficking strategy, including the development of a trafficking awareness campaign. The King County Council passed a motion in July 2018 requesting that Executive Constantine convene a workgroup to implement a Stop Human Trafficking public awareness campaign. The three jurisdictions now comprise a formal workgroup that launched this joint Human Trafficking Awareness Campaign.

The 2013 campaign led by the King County Council resulted in a 63 percent increase in the number of people from Washington who called the national hotline.

The goals of the public awareness campaign are to raise public awareness about the nature of human trafficking, how and where it occurs locally, and how to prevent and stop it; help identify victims and survivors and promote access to services, and decrease demand through awareness.

The regional Human Trafficking Awareness Campaign plans to renew the effort each January, which is national Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

Partners

Relevant links

Quotes

We have the dedicated employees, strong partnerships, and shared commitment needed to stop labor and sex trafficking in our region. Human traffickers prey on people in our community who are vulnerable, specifically targeting people of color. Our united effort will connect survivors with the resources they need to break free and thrive once again. Dow Constantine, King County Executive

We all must do our part to see an end to human trafficking. The Port of Seattle is committed to addressing this issue  leveraging our roles as a county-wide government, large employer and manager of significant trade and travel facilities. We want to make sure that places like Sea-Tac Airport, our cruise terminals and our marinas are not used as transit points for traffickers and their victims, and we want the more than 50 million annual visitors to our facilities to join us in our fight to end trafficking here in our region. Courtney Gregoire, Port of Seattle Commissioner

This is a crime that is an assault against our core values of human dignity and liberty. We must continue to reach victims and educate the public on how they can help. This effort hasand will continue to  make a difference in the lives of so many men, women, and children living in King County. Reagan Dunn, King County Council

Knowledge is power and public awareness is key in combating the scourge of human trafficking, including labor trafficking and sexual exploitation of children and vulnerable adults. Although our State and County, along with other local jurisdictions, have led the public sector efforts dating back to the early 2000s, the impetus has been, and continues to be, our community partners who have organized to create visibility around the issue, mobilized advocates and lifted up victims and survivors. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, King County Council

The King County Sheriff's Office is committed to combating the dark crime of sex trafficking in our region. And we're determined to seek justice for those who have been victimized. Mitzi Johanknecht, King County Sheriff

This integrated approach focused on education and prevention is exactly whats needed, in addition to the important work being done by our community partners. Our office will continue to do our part to support victims and survivors by holding the people committing these crimes accountable and deterring others. Dan Satterberg, King County Prosecutor

We implemented training for flight attendants on human trafficking in 2015 as part of their required recurrent training. Flight attendants are often the first line of defense in identifying and reporting potential human tracking situations. Our flight attendants do an excellent job caring for our guests. Their training and safety-first mindset go a long way in helping all of our passengers feel safe. Ron Calvin, Vice President of Inflight Operations at Alaska Airlines

As one of the world's largest airlines, we have a responsibility to fight for those who can't fight for themselves. In addition to partnering with organizations like Polaris, as well as King County, City of Seattle and Port of Seattle, we're fighting the issue of human trafficking head-on by training more than 56,000 of our employees, engaging our customers, volunteering, and supporting legislation to drive change. Today and throughout the year, were taking a stand to help raise awareness and send a clear message to traffickers to stay off our planes and out of our airports. Tony Gonchar, Delta Air Lines Vice President for Seattle

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Chad Lewis, Executive Office, 206-263-1250

Perry Cooper, Port of Seattle, 206-787-4923

David Shurtleff, King County Council, 206-477-2181
GOODHUE COUNTY, Minn. - Authorities have released the name of a man killed in a Thursday morning crash in southern Minnesota.

Austin Tolle, 22, of Rosemount, Minnesota, died in the two-vehicle accident on Highway 52.

The Minnesota State Patrol said a 1995 Buick LeSabre was southbound on Highway 52 near County Rd 7 north of Zumbrota when it left the roadway, went through the median and hit a 2012 Ford Fusion.

The occupant of the Fusion, 76-year-old Cletus Pfeiffer, of Rochester, was taken to St. Marys Hospital with life-threatening injuries. The driver of the Buick, Tolle, died.

Road conditions were snowy and icy, according to the State Patrol.
AUSTIN, Minn.  A man who held a teenager hostage at a grocery store is going to prison.

Jeremy Reid Johnson, 50 of Austin, was sentenced Friday to three years and nine months behind bars, with credit for 428 days already served.

He was arrested on November 15, 2017, after police say Johnson came up behind a 17-year-old cashier at Jims Marketplace at held a pair of scissors to her throat. Witnesses described Johnson as rambling on about the government and police.

In a deal with prosecutors, Johnson pleaded guilty to 2nd degree assault and charges of terroristic threats and false imprisonment were dismissed.
GARNER, Iowa  Another arrest has been made the case of a man who stole from his grandparents.

Colby Anthony Olhava, 23 if Garner, was charged Thursday with 1st degree theft, 2nd degree burglary, two counts of trafficking in stolen weapons, transfer of a firearm to an unauthorized person, and two counts of possession of a controlled substance. Hes accused of helping Anthony Fickel Schoneman steal over $10,000 worth of items from the home of Fickel Schonemans grandparents.

The stolen items included cash, collector coins, prescription pills, and a handgun.

According to court documents, some of the stolen property was kept at Olhavas home and he transferred the handgun to a convicted criminal who Olhava knew was not allowed to own a firearm.

Fickel Schoneman previously pleaded guilty to 2nd degree burglary and was sentenced to five years of supervised probation.
MASON CITY, Iowa - It was a scary situation Thursday night as a private plane had to make an emergency landing at the Mason City Municipal Airport.

Just before 7 p.m., first responders arrived at the airport for a plane that was suffering from a faulty engine, according to authorities on scene.

The plane, carrying less than a half dozen people, was able to land safely. No injuries were reported.

The plane was traveling from Ohio to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, according to authorities.
MASON CITY, Iowa  A second 100 mile per hour pursuit results in no extra jail time for a Mitchell County man.

Eric William Jensen, 37 of Osage, was arrested in April and September of 2018 after twice getting into high speed chases in Cerro Gordo County. The April incident ended with Jensen hitting a power pole. He was sentenced to 100 days in jail for that.

The September chase resulted in two damaged sheriffs vehicles. Jensen pleaded guilty to eluding and possession of methamphetamine-3rd offense. Hes been sentenced to five years of probation for that.
WAVERLY, Iowa  A Minneapolis man is accused of groping several Wartburg College students as they slept.

Bryan Patricio Malone, 22, is charged with 3rd degree sex abuse, two counts of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, 1st degree burglary, two counts of 2nd degree burglary, 3rd degree burglary, and 4th degree theft.

Law enforcement says Malone used his Wartburg ID to enter Grossman Hall in the early morning hours of February 4, 2018. Hes accused of going into the rooms of three female students and groping them as they slept. Authorities say Malone also entered the room of a 4th female student who was gone overnight, stealing $300 in cash from her room and leaving a semen stain on the comforter of her bed.

Police say the three female victims identified Malone from photographs and he was also photographed sleeping in the commons area of Grossman Hall on February 4 by other Wartburg students. Authorities also say Malones DNA matched the stain on the comforter.

A warrant was issued for Malones arrest on November 13, 2018. He made his first appearance in Bremer County District Court Thursday and was ordered held on $100,000 bond.
FREEBORN COUNTY, Minn. - A number of first responders are on scene of a structure fire.

The fire is at a rural location northwest of Albert lea, and authorities say a press release is expected shortly.

Fire departments from Geneva, Manchester, Clarks Grove and Hartland were on scene along with Gold Cross Ambulance.

The location of the fire is 72576 270th St. in Albert Lea.

Freeborn County officials have battled multiple fires this month.

KIMT photo

KIMT photo KIMT photo KIMT photo

On Monday, authorities responded to a fire of a vacant house.

There was also a fire at a home in Albert Lea on Jan. 6 that was blamed on batteries.

It was announced earlier this month that a fire at Mason Auto Sales was being investigated as arson.

We will have more information on Friday's fire as it becomes available.
BRITT, Iowa - If you've driven through Britt, you may notice a lack of places to spend the night. During a recent social media survey with residents to gauge interest on ammenities they would like to see in the community, a hotel gained the most interest. And one developer is looking to make that happen.

A developer with Brookstone Lodge & Suites, which has hotels in Algona and Emmetsburg, is looking to build a hotel on the site of the city's recently completed Burgardt Commercial Park off Highway 18, and is planned to have 32 rooms.

Jane Johnson grew up near Britt, and has seen changes to the town over the years. With Britt hosting events that draw crowds such as Hobo Days, she says the proposal would help fill a void that has existed for some time.

"They desperately need a hotel here. A lot of different activities, different events going on, and there's nowhere to stay, unless if they have to drive quite a ways. So it's desperately needed."

As the nearest hotel is in Garner, about 10 miles away, a hotel in Britt would beneficial when winter storms hit the area.

"If something were to come up, at least they'd have somewhere to stay. Highway 18 is very, very, very busy, so when different weather situations come up, I'm sure it would fill up."

For the building to become reality, the developer is looking for an initial investment from the city and local investors to buy shares. Construction is anticipated to begin when a formal agreement is presented and approved by the city, as well as weather permitting.
AUSTIN, Minn.  A Mower County man is pleading guilty to providing meth to a confidential police informant.

Michael Scott Fadden, 33 of Austin, was arrested in November 2018 and charged with 3rd degree sale of drugs. He was accused of selling 12.714 grams of methamphetamine to the informant on May 30, 2018, after meeting the informant in Austin and driving them both to Albert Lea.

Faddens trial was scheduled to begin on January 28 but his sentencing is now set for May 17.
A very special evening of appreciation took place recently at the Parade Tower when a number of community ventures were acknowledged.

Kilkenny County Council and An Cathaoirleach Cllr Eamon Alyward hosted the reception to congratulate and thank a number of community groups who have gained recognition both nationally and internationally.

Director of Services, Mary Mulholland welcomed the representatives from all the organisations and thanked them for the massive contribution they make for their local community.

Cathaoirleach Cllr Eamon Alyward praised the endless dedication and commitment and added that community-based initiatives are a significant driver of the overall prosperity of every city and town'. Thirteen communities from across Kilkenny represented their county at a number of international and national competitions - Entente Florale, The Bank of Ireland National Enterprising Town Awards and the IPB Pride of Place Awards and Supervalu Tidy Towns.

Entente Florale

The village of Inistioge was one of only two locations in Ireland nominated by the Department of Rural and Community Development for the 2018 Entente Florale Awards and they were rewarded with a gold medal. The Cathaoirleach praised the committee and described it as a fantastic achievement for the small village.

Enterprising town

The Bank of Ireland National Enterprising Town Awards competition which aims to promote enterprise by bringing business and community groups together to showcase was also recognised at the ceremony.

2018 saw over 80 entrants from across the country with four entrants coming from Kilkenny - Kilkenny City in the Larger Town Category and Castlecomer, Graignamanagh and Piltown in the Smaller Town Category. The final awards night took place in the Lyrath Hotel Kilkenny on late November where Kilkenny City was named winner of the Regional Large Town in Leinster while Castlecomer were placed Runner Up Small Town in Leinster.

Pride of place

Four communities represented Kilkenny at these awards  Open Circle Arts Project, Thomastown Community Network, Kells Regional Economic Enterprise and Slieverue Community Resource Centre Limited. Open Circle received a Special National Award, Thomastown were runners up in the Town Population 2000-5000 Category with Kells awarded Runners Up in the Community Tourism Initiative.

Tidy Towns Scheme

The SuperValu Tidy Towns Scheme recognises the hard work and dedication of volunteers who work tirelessly to improve their towns, villages and community life.

Kilkenny had 18 applicants with all groups recording an increase in points from the previous year. Four groups were in receipt of National Awards

 Kilkenny Tidy Towns /Keep Kilkenny Beautiful were Gold Medal Winners, County Winners and Regional Winners in the South East while also recipients of a Water & Community Award for the South East,

- Tullaghought Tidy Towns achieved Silver medal in their category while the village was also awarded the Lets Get Buzzing Pollinator Award for the South East for their pollinator project. In addition Paddy and Mary Egan, two stalwarts of the community in Tullaghought for many years were highly commended in the Community Heros Category.

- Inistioge Tidy Towns were awarded a silver medal in their category

- Windgap Tidy Towns were awarded an Endeavour Award in the Special Awards Category.
The family of a Pullman woman and University of Utah student-athlete who was killed on campus last fall is planning to take legal action again
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 15)  President Rodrigo Duterte will head to Cotabato City on Friday ahead of the Bangsamoro plebiscite to campaign for the law's ratification.

His spokesman Salvador Panelo confirmed the President will join a peace assembly for the referendum.

In a media briefing Tuesday, Panelo said the Palace is optimistic Duterte's voice will be "powerful" enough to gain support for the ratification of the Bangsamoro law despite the recent incidents in Mindanao.

"The President's voice is a powerful, influencing one," Panelo told reporters in Malacanang. "Yes, kung impluwensiya ang boses bakit naman hindi." [Translation: If his voice is influential then why not.]

During a speech in Zamboanga City on July 26, President Rodrigo Duterte announced he had signed the Bangsamoro law creating the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Mindanao.

The region will replace the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The landmark measure is the result of decades-long peace negotiations between the government and Muslim rebel groups in Mindanao. It is also seen to resolve the issues of conflict and rebellion in the area.

"The President supports the BOL (Bangsamoro Organic Law). 'Yun ang sinabi niya sa (that's what he said to the) Cabinet. He said he will campaign for it," Panelo said. "From the point of view of the President, the BOL will solve the age-old problem of the Muslim rebellion."

Enough funds for plebiscite

The presidential spokesman also belied House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr.'s claim of a "missing" budget for the Bangsamoro plebiscites, which are scheduled on January 21 and February 6.

"As far as I know, hindi maapektuhan ang funds. 'Yung sa Comelec, hindi maapektuhan. 'Yung sa BOL, meron. Merong pondo," Panelo said of the claim.

[Translation: As far as I know, the funds will not be affected. Comelec will not be affected. The BOL, there's fund for the BOL.]

"Unang-una, kung walang pondo, eh di sana cinancel na 'yun. Sana ni-reset na 'yun, pinostpone na. But obviously tuloy, so may pondo."

[Translation: First of all, if there are no funds, then the plebiscite should have been cancelled. It should have been reset or postpooned. But obviously it will push through, meaning there are funds.]

"His statement is misplaced and without basis. There are funds for the plebiscite. Baka naman (Maybe) he was just misinformed," Panelo said.

Andaya, in a statement Monday, said the Budget Department did not allocate the 857 million requested by Comelec for the plebiscite in its 10-billion budget for 2019.

Budget Secretary Ben Diokno and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) have refuted the claim.

The plebiscite will determine which other areas-- apart from those covered by the ARMM-- will be part of the new Bangsamoro region.

READ: The Bangsamoro Organic Law: Everything you need to know

Residents from the other provinces and cities in Mindanao will vote whether or not they would want to be part of the new autonomous region.

Panelo said the executive department will still respect the decision of Mindanaoans on the BOL.

"Despite the support and campaign of the overwhelming majority-- or if the slight majority says ayaw nila (they do not want it), you cannot do anything but to comply with the sovereign voice of the people," the spokesman noted.

"We cannot determine the pulse of people. We can only speculate. But as a I've said, what is important is that the President will abide by the decision of the voters there."

CNN Philippines Digital Producer Alyssa Rola and Multi-platform Writer Xave Gregorio contributed to this report.
After last weeks debacle on the tarmac at Oakland International Airport, its hard to imagine why anyone would want to fly Aeromexico. The airline held passengers trapped in the sweltering plane for more than four hours with no air conditioning or offers of water or food. One woman passed out, another had an anxiety attack and passengers were calling 911 for help.

Theres still no sign of apology from the airline. Rather, in a statement, Aeromexico tries to shift blame to the passengers. It seems as indifferent to the public perception as it was to its customers discomfort.

This whole fiasco stemmed from the airlines apparent push for profits. Its shameful. Federal authorities  if the partial federal government shutdown ever ends  should investigate.

Meanwhile, potential passengers are likely to vote with their feet  and it will be hard to blame them. As chintzy as airlines have become, they usually dont cross certain boundaries of respect for their clientele.

But from all accounts, Aeromexico crossed the line.
Like any Nebraska state trooper, Capt. Sean Caradori has an area to patrol. Its just larger than most.

Caradori oversees two Nebraska State Patrol areas  Troop H, based in Lincoln, and Troop C, headquartered in Grand Island.

He took command of Troop C on Nov. 1. He succeeded Jeromy McCoy, who is now the State Patrols process improvement coordinator in Lincoln.

Troop H includes southeast Nebraska as well as Lincoln.

Two other troop areas, D and E, have also combined.

The lines between troop areas are becoming somewhat blurred, Caradori said. Its not really uncommon now to have a Troop C trooper cross a little way into Troop H, and vice versa, to help out, he said.

Col. John Bolduc, superintendent of the State Patrol, had the idea of putting the four troop areas under the command of two captains.

Hes got a pretty good vision for the agency, Caradori said. Bolduc sometimes says, Hey, were going to try something and if it works, great. If it doesnt work, well change it and try something different.
Kulwicki had the closest bid with $725, winning the phone. She immediately went on stage with host Drew Carey where she played the Bulls-eye game.

According to The Price is Right website five grocery items are shown to the contestant who must choose one item and determine how many of that item is necessary to total between $10 and $12.

If the contestant is successful within three attempts, then the contestant wins a bonus prize. If the contestant is unsuccessful, they still can win the bonus prize if a hidden bulls-eye is behind one of the items with which the contestant achieved a total of less than $10.

Kulwicki didnt hit the bulls-eye with her three attempts, but won the bonus prize, and the trip to Canada.

Ive never been to Canada, Kulwicki told host Drew Carey during the show.

While on stage Kulwicki gave a thumbs up a couple of times for her success. She also gave a shout out to her husband, family and friends back home.

The win sent her on to The Wheel where three contestants get two chances to spin a big wheel divided into 20 sections with values from 5-cents to $1. The contestant who spins closest to $1 goes on to the Showcase against one other contestant at the end of the show.
HUNTINGTON COUNTY, Ind.  After a no-doubt harrowing adventure, an escaped indoor cat is safe after rescuers in Indiana recovered it from the face of a dam.

A fisherman first noticed the cat stranded on the dam spillway and called authorities.

"In the one picture you can see the cat in the very center," the Huntington County Sheriff's Department said in a Facebook post. "It is unknown how the animal got there, as there is no way to access that area, it is possible it had fallen off of SR 5 or was thrown off."

The Sheriff's department said that the cat was "clearly in distress" and had huddled into the metal structure on the face of the dam, just above the spillway.

"There was not anyway to gain access to the animal, short of taking a boat out and hoping we could coax it down. It was decided it was worth a shot to attempt the help the cat versus doing nothing," the agency said.

The Army Corp of Engineers also came to the scene  acquiring a boat and getting permission to shut off the flow of water down the dam spillway so that rescuers could get below the cat and hope to catch it.

With the water off, rescuers set out in their boat. As soon as they hit the concrete spillway, the Sheriff's department said, the imperiled cat came loose from its perch and slid down the spillway to the rescuers in their boat  allowing Army engineers to nab the cat just as it was hitting the surface of the water.

According to reporting from WPTA in Fort Wayne, the cat was later identified as one "Mr. Vanjie" and returned home to his owner. Mr. Vanjie was an indoor-outdoor cat who had gone missing a little over two weeks before the rescue.

Mr. Vanjie's owner said that the feline has lost a lot of weight but seems to be healthy.
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- Southern Oregon farmers and ranchers who haven't been able to prepare for tax time because of the government shutdown are finally catching a break.

The United States Department of Agriculture is temporarily re-opening some Farm Service Agency offices across the U.S., sending 2,500 federal employees back to work.

The FSA office in Klamath County is among those offices re-opening for a short period of time. FSA employees are being temporarily recalled to finish processing payments made in 2018 to insure the FSA provides 1099 tax documents to borrowers by the deadline.

The office will only be open Thursday, the 17th, Friday, the 18th, and Tuesday, the 22nd. Monday, the 21st is a federal holiday.

County Executive Director Laura Hall said workers can only help farmers with existing loans.

"If you are wanting a new loan, then you can request some information, but processing is not happening at this point, but we will be able to process once we get going again," Hall said.

Hall said it's important to remember the office can only help with a small scope of what they normally could.

Workers won't be able to assist with these services:
ROSEBURG, Ore.  A host of charitable organizations and non-profits in Southern Oregon have received an influx of funding, thanks to the philanthropic endeavours of the Cow Creek Umpqua Indian Foundation. The Foundation has given money to community organizations in the area since its beginnings in 1997.

According to the Foundation, their priorities are to ensure that no-one in our area goes hungry, that every child should feel safe, that education builds character, and that healthy bodies and minds translate into healthy communities.

During this round of giving the Cow Creek Umpqua Indian Foundation donated a total of $496,550 to local organizations. It donated more than $1 million over 2018, and has donated upwards of $17 million since 1997.

Below are all of the local non-profits that benefited from the Foundation's philanthropy this time around:

Jackson County - $107,250 to Nineteen Non-Profits



1St Phoenix Community Center: $5,000 to purchase protein items for the food pantry in Phoenix, Oregon that serves 800-1000 people per month.

Ballet Folklorico Ritmo Alegre: $3,500 to provide operational support for Southern Oregons only Hispanic Youth Dance Troupe.

Butte Creek Mill Foundation: $7,500 to assist with the rebuild and restoration of the Butte Creek Mill and Ice House.

Community Works: $7,500 to provide emergency assistance for clients in the Transitional Living Program for Homeless Youth.

Heart and Hope Musical Ministries: $7,500 to provide therapeutic music experiences to low-income elderly and disabled people.

Jackson County School District #6: $3,000 to help construct the Hanby Hillside Natural Playground at Hanby Middle School, making usable outdoor space for younger students.

La Clinica del Valle Family Health Care Center: $7,500 to support a Mobile Health Unit in Jackson County serving children, teens, and families.

Medford School District - Project Dove: $5,000 to help underwrite Project Dove, an in-school support group for students at the elementary and middle school levels in Medford who live in an unstable home environment.

Miracle Theatre Group: $3,000 to help support Teatro Milagros residencies and performances in Southern Oregon.

Peace House: $7,500 to provide operating support for Uncle Foods Diner that provides community meals and services to those in need in Ashland.

Rogue Valley Chorale Association: $3,250 to provide students with concerts presented by children for children including transportation.

Rogue Valley Mentoring: $7,500 to assist in providing one-on-one mentors and mentoring groups to at-risk youth in Jackson County.

Rogue World Music: $4,000 to support low-cost singing and dance classes for children in low-income schools.

Set Free Christian Fellowship: $5,000 to provide operating support for Set Free Community Services that provides food, clothing, and personal services in West Medford to those in need.

St. Mark's Episcopal Church: $7,500 to provide whole foods for those in need in West Medford.

Talent Maker City: $5,000 to purchase equipment needed to open Talent Maker workshop providing facilities and equipment for collaborative hands-on learning for all ages.

The Neighborhood Food Project: $3,000 to provide incentives for school teams in the Student Hunger Strike Force.

Ashland Family YMCA: $7,500 to provide financial assistance for youth and families utilizing the Ashland YMCA resources and activities.

Rogue Valley Family YMCA: $7,500 to provide financial assistance for after school programs.

Josephine County - $30,000 to Four Non-Profits

Grants Pass Museum of Art: $5,000 to provide exposure to art history and the fundamentals of art for 5th grade students in Josephine County.

Siskiyou Community Health Center: $10,000 to work with at-risk families in the Healthy Families Program in Josephine and Jackson Counties screening families for risk factors and providing home visits to monitor progress and assist families to improve their lives and reduce cases of abuse.

St. Vincent de Paul Our Lady of the Valley Council: $7,500 to provide emergency assistance with rental and utility costs to families in need.

The Salvation Army: $7,500 to provide emergency food bags and basic hygiene items through The Salvation Army food pantry.

Klamath County - $42,500 to Five Non-Profits

CASA for Children of Klamath County: $10,000 to reduce numbers of unserved foster children on the CASA wait list and to recruit and train new volunteers.

EagleRidge High School: $5,000 to help underwrite a construction course for students at EagleRidge High School in Klamath Falls.

Integral Youth Services: $7,500 to help pay for installation of a HVAC and camera security system at Exodus House, a shelter for homeless, foster, and runaway youth.

Klamath & Lake Community Action Services: $10,000 to prevent child abuse by building family skills and self-sufficiency.

Klamath Basin Senior Citizens Center: $10,000 to provide meals, health classes, other programs and assisted transportation to seniors.

Multiple-Counties - $49,000 to Seven Non-Profits

Asante Foundation: $10,000 to support the development of trauma informed Sanctuary Model education modules for training staff and community partners to better care for mentally ill individuals.

Eugene Science Center: $5,000 to provide access to the museum for low-income families, as well as outreach and marketing to increase awareness of this opportunity.

Josephine County Foundation: $7,500 to assist this student run foundation to provide clothing, hold vision clinics, and offer after school training of middle and high school students.

Muscular Dystrophy Association: $5,000 to help provide a summer camp experience for children living with Muscular Dystrophy.

Sanctuary One: $6,500 to support for an internship program at the care farm.

The Dental Foundation of Oregon: $12,000 to provide dental care to children throughout Oregon with a mobile dental van staffed by dentists and hygienists.

Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon: $3,000 to provide scholarship assistance to reduce economic barriers for the participation of serious young musicians in the Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon.
The Kansas City Police Department is investigating if impairment was a factor in a head-on, wrong-way, rollover crash that happened this morning. One driver died and the other has minor injuries.
Were still a few days from summer, but temperatures are dangerously hot already. As we get ready for whats expected to be the hottest day of the year, some organizations in the metro are making sure people in the community are protected.
USDA robotics initiative funds research to reduce chemical application and advance crop production



Friday, Jan. 18, 2019

Ajay Sharda, Kansas State University assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering | Download this photo.





MANHATTAN  Agricultural producers annually spray nearly $15 billion worth of chemicals yet still lose 37 percent of crop yield to pest damage. As the industry moves to sustainably intensify production to feed a growing population, a high priority is to reduce farmers' costs by making fewer, more efficient chemical applications, and at the same time limiting impact on the environment.

This is the focus of research at Kansas State University recently funded by a five-year, $882,920 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the National Robotics Initiative 2.0: Ubiquitous Collaborative Robots.

Ajay Sharda, assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering, is principal investigator for the project titled "An autonomous insect Sense, Identify, and ManagePLatform, or SIMPL, to advance crop protection."

Co-principal investigators are Dan Flippo, assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering, and Brian McCormick, associate professor of entomology and interim head of the entomology department.

The goal of the project is to develop a vision system to sense and identify presence of insects in order to conduct site-specific targeted chemical applications using autonomous robotic systems.

"This research will create a paradigm shift in sustainable crop production and provide new opportunities for using intelligent operating systems to improve pest control applications and reduce yield gaps," Sharda said.

The proposed computer vision approach to locate insect incidence and severity, as well as use of a decision tool to conduct directed spray employing an autonomous robotic system, he said, will be a fundamental change from existing techniques of agricultural chemical spray applications.

"Involving both graduate and undergraduate students in creating this platform to advance crop protection," Sharda said, "will help to make Kansas State University one of the top institutions engaged in the development of smart autonomous systems for agriculture."






The Truth and Dignity Commission has recovered 745 million Tunisian dinars [220 million euros] for State coffers thanks to the arbitration and conciliation mechanism. We could have done better if the State had not obstructed the work of this mechanism, said Khaled Krichi, chairman of the Arbitration and Conciliation Commission and vice-chairman of the Truth Commission, on radio and television stations last week, just a few days after the end of the IVDs mandate.

On December 14 and 15 during the IVDs closing symposium, he presented the results of four and a half years of work by the commission. Regrets and bitterness could already be heard in his voice. We have been undermined by the draft law on economic and financial reconciliation, he said, and the authorities promise to businessmen and senior officials suspected of corruption that they would get amnesty after the promulgation of that law.

Interior Ministry refused to cooperate

The failures pointed up by the commissioner are not only in the financial sphere, but also concern arbitration and conciliation on human rights violations. This other prerogative of the commission headed by Khaled Krichi is, he said, particular to Tunisian law. No comparable experience has included human rights violations in arbitration and conciliation, he pointed out.

The figures speak for themselves. Of the 25,998 requests for arbitration and conciliation that have been filed, 21,177 concern human rights abuses (rape, sexual violence, torture, arbitrary detention, deprivation of sources of income), and only 4,821 concern financial crimes. The Interior Ministry has opposed any reconciliation session that could have been held between government officials and suspected perpetrators, and victims claiming to know why they were subjected to abuses. And yet the victims demands seem simple: confessions and acknowledgement of the facts in return for a pardon and, at the end of the process, the abandonment of criminal proceedings, as provided for under the Transitional Justice Act.

The resilience, tolerance and generosity of survivors of State violence have unfortunately encountered only denial, arrogance and silence on the part of the perpetrators. The Ministry of the Interior has refused to cooperate with us, both in arbitration and in the investigation of abuses, says Khaled Krichi.

Of the 4,821 requests for arbitration relating to financial corruption, 20 came from business magnates close to ex-president Ben Ali. According to Commissioner Krichi, as of 15 December 2018, thirteen arbitration agreements had been signed with these people. Only two arbitration decisions have been published. In addition, 685 cases were submitted by the State as the subject of financial losses. In both the first and second case, the potential for negotiations between the parties was obstructed. Khaled Krichi links this deadlock to the refusal of the States litigation officer to cooperate. Hence our recommendation in the final report of the Commission that the State litigation officer should now come from an independent structure, so that the interests of the public authorities are not subject to political pressure and considerations, explains the Commissioner.

The unresolved case of Imed Trabelsi

The case of Imed Trabelsi, favourite nephew of former First Lady Leyla Ben Ali, illustrates the dialogue of the deaf between the IVD and the government. This man, who enriched himself on many markets (international trade, real estate, alcohol trafficking, banana market monopoly, illegal trade in cigarettes), faces fifteen lawsuits for embezzlement. He submitted his request for arbitration to the IVD in June 2015. In July and August 2015, two private hearings of this business magnate were organized by the IVD at the Mornaguia prison, where Imed Trabelsi has been since January 2011. He eventually met all the conditions required by this procedure, namely to acknowledge the facts that led to unlawful profit and its value, provide supporting documents, make a written confession and apologies, which he did at a public hearing in May 2017.

(While for human rights violations the IVD cannot force a perpetrator to confess publicly to violations committed, the procedure differs for crimes of corruption.) According to the law, requests must include the acceptance of the arbitration decision, which is considered final and not subject to appeal or annulment.

Imed Trabelsi answered all these conditions. And yet the State litigation officer kept postponing an arbitration session with the lawyers of Leyla Ben Alis nephew, right up to the end of the IVDs mandate in December 2018.

For observers of the transitional justice process in Tunisia, the sabotage by government authorities is clear. The government has given the impression of seeking by all means to prove the IVD inefficient in resolving economic problems, so as to promote another conciliation commission proposed by the law on economic reconciliation (subsequently called administrative reconciliation) proposed by the Tunisian president in July 2015.

Missed opportunity for a peaceful settlement of disputes

The names of some people close to Ben Ali seeking arbitration  Slim Chiboub and Slim Zarrouk, sons-in-law of the former president, Imed Trabelsi, Sassi Bouthouri, Lazhar Sta, Lobna Touil  are known. But the IVD has given no details of the sums it seeks from each of them, in the absence of a proposal from the State litigation officer. Nor is it known how much of the money would come from the assets of these people confiscated by the State (a procedure introduced in January 2011) or from their cheque books.

In a statement on his Facebook page on January 1, 2019, former Minister of State Property and Land Affairs Mabrouk Korchid said that the 745 million dinars the IVD claimed to have returned through the arbitration and conciliation process was fictional, given the implementation which will last many years.

You dont shoot the ambulance! IVD President Sihem Bensedrine replied a few days later on Shems FM radio, noting that Mabrouk Korchid had recently lost his position in the government. The war that has opposed them for years does not seem to be lessening. And there is one main victim: the opportunity offered by this peaceful mediation mechanism to rehabilitate the victims, to reveal the truth, to reform institutions and return the money stolen from the State during the dictatorship.
Trust women

I am distressed that U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx has introduced a bill to defund Planned Parenthood (Foxx bill would defund Planned Parenthood, Jan. 10). While her intent is to limit abortions, it would likely have the opposite effect by leading to more unplanned pregnancies, which account for most abortions in this country.

As a minister, I support a womans right to make vital decisions about her health care and the timing and size of her family.

Before Roe v. Wade legalized abortions, I served as a hospital chaplain in Atlanta and counseled desperate women who had attempted to self-abort with coat hangers or other methods. In 1970, while serving a church in Raleigh, I joined a national association of clergy who provided non-judgmental counseling for women and families with problem pregnancies as they considered alternatives, including having the baby, adoption and safe and legal abortion.
In recent days, new revelations have surfaced. We have learned that after Trump fired James Comey as FBI director, the FBI launched a separate investigation into whether Trump was actively working on behalf of Russian interests. We now know Trump went to extraordinary lengths to conceal his communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even shielding them from his own top advisers.

We have also learned that Mueller is closely scrutinizing whether Trump was directly informed by longtime adviser Roger Stone of the latter's advance knowledge of a coming dump of Russian-hacked Democratic emails.

If Mueller determines that the Trump Tower meeting constituted conspiracy, or if more comes out about that meeting or about other collusion we've already seen, or if still other conspiring that we don't know about yet surfaces, Trump's team will have to build a wall between that and Trump himself - which Giuliani is now doing.

"The insulation of Trump from the campaign is meant to remove him from the circle of any illegal conspiracy," Bauer told me, adding that Giuliani is moving "to narrow the defense against collusion by arguing that the president is not responsible for what his campaign did."
LONDON -- The poet Rupert Brooke voiced the exhilaration of those Britons who welcomed the war in 1914 as a chance to escape monotonous normality, "as swimmers into cleanness leaping." They got four years mired in Flanders' mud. In a 2016 referendum, Britons voted, 52 percent to 48 percent, for the exhilaration of emancipation from the European Union's gray bureaucratic conformities. They thereby leapt into a quagmire of negotiations with an EU determined to make separation sufficiently painful to discourage other nations from considering it.

On Tuesday, Parliament emphatically rejected the terms of separation that Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated with the EU. So, there is no majority, in Parliament or the country, for anything other than, perhaps, a second referendum, which might be impossible to organize before the March 29 deadline for leaving the EU -- although the EU might extend the deadline, hoping for a British reversal. Another democracy recently rethought something momentous. On Sept. 29, 2008, with the U.S. financial system nearing collapse, the House of Representatives voted 228 to 205 against the George W. Bush administration's bailout plan. The Dow promptly plunged 7 percent (777 points off 11,143) and four days later the House reversed itself, 263 to 171.
When you receive your paycheck and look at the withholding for federal, state and sometimes city taxes, along with Social Security and Medicare, you probably dont think youre underpaying governments and want them to take more.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio believes that if you have played by what used to be called the rules and are making a decent living, taking care of yourself and your family and not relying on government, your taxes should be increased.

In his State of the City address last week, de Blasio said, ... Brothers and sisters, theres plenty of money in the world. Theres plenty of money in this city. Its just in the wrong hands. He continued: You havent been paid what you deserve for all the hard work. You havent been given the time you deserve. Youre not living the life you deserve. And here is the cold, hard truth: Its no accident. Its an agenda. He blamed presidential administrations from Reagan to Trump.

The mayor ignores the tax cuts and in some cases spending reductions that have fueled an economic boom, producing more wealth for individuals and more revenue for governments.
Frigid air will arrive Sunday night in the Triad and Northwest North Carolina, with temperatures dropping to single digits and wind-chill factors in the single digits to below-zero in the region, forecasters say.

Sunday nights low temperature in Forsyth and Surry counties will be around 16 degrees, the National Weather Service said on its website. The wind chill will make it feel like zero to 10 degrees in Winston-Salem Sunday night into Monday morning, said Mike Strickler, a weather-service meteorologist in Raleigh.

The wind chill will be 5 degrees Sunday night in Mount Airy, said Jack Ruckman, a weather-service meteorologist in Blacksburg, Va. Sunday nights low temperature in Watauga County will be 10 degrees with a wind chill of 5 degrees below zero.

An arctic high-pressure system from Canada will move into the Southeast producing the extreme low temperatures and strong winds in the Triad and the states northwestern counties, said Frank Strait, a senior meteorologist with Accuweather in State College, Pa.

Strait predicted that Boones low temperature Sunday will be 8 degrees with a wind chill of 10 below zero.

Wind speeds Sunday will range between 35 and 40 mph in Forsyth County, Strait said. Wind gusts could reach 60 mph in Boone.
Two men are under arrest in the 2017 shooting death of a 25-year-old Lexington man, according to a news release from police.

Officers responding to a reported shooting on April 17, 2017, found Jonathan White injured at 51 Jamaica Drive. White died a few hours later from his injuries, Lexington police said.

Detectives investigated many leads and, with assistance from the Davidson County District Attorneys Office, charged Joshua Norman and Rashemel Good this week in connection with the homicide, according to the release.

Detectives believe robbery was the motive in the shooting.

Norman, 19, was arrested Wednesday and charged with first-degree murder, robbery with a dangerous weapon, breaking and entering, two counts of felony conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon, according to the release.

Norman was arrested at the Davidson County Jail, where he was being held under a $1.25 million dollar bond related to a Jan. 3, 2018, shooting that occurred in Davidson County.
A sharp reduction in VF Corp.s income-tax expense, coupled with an 8 percent boost in sales, led the apparel marketer to a 61.3 percent increase in third-quarter net income to $463.5 million.

Investors also were encouraged that VF raised its full-year 2019 guidance for a second time. The share price jumped as much as 15 percent during morning trading before closing up 12.4 percent, or by $9.08, to $82.34.

Greensboro-based VF had $103.1 million in tax expense for the third quarter of fiscal 2019.

By comparison, in the third quarter of fiscal 2018, VF reported a $90.7 million loss, in large part because it had $533.1 million in tax expense.

The federal corporate tax rate cut from 35 percent to 21 percent went into effect Jan. 1, 2018.

Steven Rendle, VFs chairman, president, chief executive, said in a statement that the marketer had strong growth in our largest brands and balanced growth across the core dimensions of our portfolio.

Rendle said VF plans to spend an additional $45 million on growth-focused investments aimed at accelerating growth and value creation into fiscal year 2020.
Re: No sympathy here, Jan. 4

Mr. Quesnel states that he has no sympathy for Alberta, yet is uninformed about the facts as to why Alberta is in the current situation and what it wants.

To begin with, Alberta does not want anything from the rest of Canada other than the right to let the private sector build and pay for pipelines to get Canadas natural resource to world and domestic markets. We did not ask the federal government to buy TransMountain nor are we asking Canada to spend billions more if not trillions of our tax dollars to build unwanted pipelines."

Further, if those pipelines ever get built, I cant fathom why he thinks he would be paying more for gas. In addition, wouldnt it be better for all of us if all the petroleum products used in Canada were from Canadian sources rather than having to import from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, Algeria and Nigeria?

The U.S. has been a great trading partner recently  what about the environmental and human rights record of Russia, Algeria, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia?



Mr. Quesnel should also inform himself of the benefits that Alberta has provided in the past and is currently providing to the rest of Canada via equalization payments. According to Statistics Canada, in 2017 Albertans paid $50.3 billion in taxes to the federal government and received $28.5 billion in return. So we contributed $21.8 billion to the rest of Canada while running about a $10 billion deficit for that year.

On a per capita basis, our contribution works out to be $5,147. Ontario ($1,179 per capita) B.C. ($1,162 per capita) and Saskatchewan ($323 per capita) were the only other net contributors. If even one-half of that net amount of $21.8 billion sent in 2017 stayed in Alberta, we wouldnt have had a deficit.



Quebec received $1,981 per capita in 2017 and will receive a total of $13.1 billion in equalization payments this year. However, Quebec doesnt want dirty energy from Alberta flowing through a pipeline in their province yet feels comfortable taking money via equalization from Alberta and buying oil from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Algeria along with the U.S.



We are big contributors to Canada. Were not asking for a handout. All we want is the opportunity to have the private sector build and pay for pipelines to get our resource to market to benefit Alberta and Canada. Fossil fuel use is not going away anytime soon, so doesnt it make sense to use products that are produced by a country having some of the highest, if not the highest, standards in the world?

Mark Bragagnolo, Calgary
Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer File photo of Teneycke leaving the Penticton Courthouse in May 2017

Designated dangerous offender Ronald Teneycke appeared briefly in Penticton court Friday on a new charge related to the Christmas letter he mailed the man he shot the last time he was out of prison.

Teneycke appeared via video from the Kent maximum-security prison in Agassiz where he is serving an indefinite jail term.

Better come get me! he shouted, when the courts went through the formality of executing the warrant for his arrest on the new charge.

He is facing one count of failing to comply with a non-communication order for the letter he mailed to Wayne Belleville last month. Teneycke shot Belleville in the back after the Oliver man picked the fugitive up hitchhiking, unaware he was the subject of a region-wide manhunt for the armed robbery of a local grocery store.

"He said three years later he feels no empathy for me, Belleville described the letter to Castanet last week, adding Teneycke signed the letter Merry Christmas, your unknown Ron.

Teneycke appeared without a lawyer Friday. When asked by the judge if he would like one he laughed I guess so, you are probably going to put me in jail over this one.

Are you going to place me under arrest first? he interrupted the clerk as the new charge was read out against him.

The last time Teneycke was in a Penticton courtroom he was recently diagnosed with malignant lymphoma, but the dangerous offender appeared in decent health Friday.

The judge adjourned the matter for three weeks to allow Teneycke to obtain a lawyer.

Corrections Canada has refused to comment on how he was able to send Belleville the letter despite a no-contact order from the courts.

In a general statement the agency said it only has the ability to intercept inmate communications when it believes on reasonable grounds that the safety of the public or of the institution will be jeopardized.

Prior to shooting Belleville, Teneycke had 37 previous convictions for offences including sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and uttering threats, in connection to the rape of an Okanagan teenager in 1993.

He was out on an intermittent sentence when he robbed the store and shot Belleville.
(CNN)  The reclusive founder of Huawei has denied allegations that his telecoms company spies for the Chinese government.

Ren Zhengfei also praised President Donald Trump as a "great president," shrugging off allegations by Washington that Huawei is a threat to U.S. national security.

Speaking to foreign media for the first time in three years, Ren, 74, said he loved China and supported the Communist Party but had never been asked to share "improper information" about Huawei's partners.

"I personally would never harm the interest of my customers and me, and my company would not answer to such requests," he told reporters in Shenzhen, according to the Wall Street Journal.

U.S. government officials say Beijing could use Huawei equipment to snoop on Americans. The company has also been prevented from supplying next-generation 5G equipment to Australia and New Zealand.

The company has attracted even greater scrutiny following the arrest of its chief financial officer, Ren's daughter Meng Wanzhou, last month in Canada.

Meng has been released on bail but faces a lengthy legal fight over extradition to the United States. The U.S. government alleges that Meng helped the company dodge sanctions on Iran.

Ren told reporters during the rare interview that he misses his daughter "very much." Huawei has repeatedly said it's unaware of any wrongdoing by its CFO.

Huawei is one of China's leading tech companies. It sells more smartphones than Apple (AAPL) and builds advanced telecommunications networks in countries around the world, competing with Nokia and Ericsson.

The company has repeatedly denied allegations that it operates under the influence of the Chinese government, saying it's a private business owned by its employees.

"There is no external institution that owns our shares  even 1 cent," Ren said.

In addition to the Wall Street Journal, journalists from publications including the Financial Times and Bloomberg attended the media briefing. Huawei sent a transcript of the interview translated into English to CNN.

The founder played down the tensions between Huawei and the United States.

Huawei is "like a small sesame seed, stuck in the middle of conflict between two great powers," Ren said, according to the transcript. Trump "is a great president, in the sense that he was bold to slash taxes," a move that will benefit business.

But it's also important to treat all countries and companies "nicely" so they will invest in the United States, he added.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Huawei's founder praises Trump and denies claims his company spies for China."
Evelyn "Berniece" Anderson, age 89, of Pierce City, Missouri, passed away following an illness on June 12, 2021. Berniece was born on April 22, 1932, in Neosho, Missouri, to Truman and Louella (Ball) Patrick. At 21 years old, Berniece married her best friend, Millard Anderson. Before his pas
Emily Mieure covers criminal justice and emergency news. She also leads the News&Guides investigative efforts. She has reported for WDRB TV in Louisville, Ky., WFIE TV in Evansville, Ind., and WEIU TV in Charleston, Ill.
Allie Gross covers Teton County government. Originally from the Chicago area, she joined the News&Guide in 2017 after studying politics and Spanish at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Photo: Parks Canada Mount Kobau

South Okanagan residents are very divided on a national park proposed for the region and would like to see a referendum occur, according to a new poll released Friday.

The South Okanagan Similkameen Preservation Society, a group opposed to the park, commissioned a telephone poll last month that contacted 300 residents in Oliver, Osoyoos, Keremeos and Cawston.

The poll conducted by the Innovative Research Group found that 45 per cent of respondents are opposed to the park, compared to 41 per cent in favour.

That difference, however, is within the polls margin of error of 5.72 per cent.

The poll was more conclusive on the desire for a local referendum on the park, with 76 per cent strongly or somewhat in support of holding a vote.

Just 24 per cent of respondents felt the federal government has done a good job on public consultation so far.

The region is split on the parks impact on tourism, with 49 per cent believing it would be a net positive. Forty-three per cent believe it would create too much stress on infrastructure.

A plurality of 47 per cent believe the park will result in higher protection to the area despite the increase in visitors while 41 per cent think existing protections are good enough and new visitors would do harm.

The poll was conducted between Dec. 12-19, 2018 on both landlines and cellular phones. Nearly half (146) of respondents lived in Oliver, with 111 Osoyoos and 46 residents Similkameen included.

Parks Canada is currently running public consultation on the proposed park through to the end of next month. An online survey to provide feedback can be found here.

SOSPS National Park Reserve Survey Report by Colin Dacre on Scribd
Funeral services for June Ann Leadbetter Arnold will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 16, 2021, in the Chapel at Boren-Conner Funeral Home, Jacksonville with Bro. George Folmar officiating. Burial will follow at the Jacksonville Old City Cemetery. June was born April 15, 1932 in Hidalgo, Te
School of Music to Hold 44th Annual Jazz Festival

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.  Illinois Wesleyan Universitys School of Music will host its 44th annual Jazz Festival from Friday, Feb. 1 to Saturday, Feb. 2 at Westbrook Auditorium in Presser Hall. All festival events are free and open to the public.

The IWU Jazz Festival provides a unique opportunity for junior high and high school jazz bands to perform non-competitively in front of the Bloomington-Normal community, as well a chance to meet with both peers and accomplished jazz musicians.

More than 20 groups from out-of-state and across Illinois will travel to IWU to perform in front of expert jazz performers. The lineup of clinicians who will provide feedback on the bands includes: drummer Matt Endres from the University of Wisconsin, bassist Jeff Halsey from Bowling Green State University, trombonist Tim Pitchford from Lovett School in Atlanta, trumpeter Robert Sears from Illinois Wesleyan University, pianist Chip Stephens from the University of Illinois and director of Illinois Wesleyans Jazz Program Glenn Wilson.

The bands will perform on Feb. 1 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Feb. 2 from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The IWU Jazz Ensemble, joined by the clinicians, will also perform at 1 p.m. on Feb. 2. The clinicians will hold an additional concert preceding the festival on Thursday, Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. in the Normal Theater (209 W North St, Normal). All concerts are free and open to the public.

For more information, please contact the School of Music at (309) 556-3061. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

By Rachel McCarthy 21


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Photo: The Canadian Press

Canada's wheat exports to China jumped nearly 200 per cent from January to November 2018 as the Asian country stopped buying from American farmers amid a tariff dispute.

Statistics Canada data released Thursday shows total Canadian wheat exports grew nearly 13 per cent during that time from about 15 million tonnes to roughly 17 million tonnes.

Wheat exports to China grew from about 436,000 tonnes between January and November 2017 to nearly 1.3 million tonnes in the same months of 2018.

Data for December is not yet available.

The U.S. Wheat Associates says on its website American farmers have been shut out of the Chinese market since March 2018 after China announced it would impose a retaliatory 25 per cent import tariff on American wheat.

The group put out a statement in July saying the ongoing trade conflict is already hurting farmers, adding that over the past three years Chinese customers purchased an average 20 million bushels of wheat from March to June compared to no new purchases since March 2018.
Huntsville, TX (77320)

Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 71F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 71F. Winds light and variable.
News Yangon Sets Date For Municipal Elections

Yangon City Hall. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Municipal elections will be held in Yangon on March 31, according to the citys Municipal Election Commission.

The elections will be held under the new Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) Law, which came into effect on June 28 and supplements the 2013 Municipal Law.

There will be a total of 105 seats up for grabs, 99 at the township level  three seats each in 33 townships  and six for the YCDCs executive board, U Aung Khine, chairman of the Municipal Election Commission, told reporters on Wednesday.

The YCDCs executive board initially consisted of nine members  the mayor, four appointed members and four elected individuals  but has been expanded to add two more elected positions.

One of the six elected members will become the vice mayor, a post created by the new law to ease the workload of the mayor of Myanmars largest city and commercial capital.

Candidates are to submit applications to contest the elections from Jan. 18 to 28, said U Aung Khine. Candidates for township-level positions are allowed to spend up to 10 million kyats ($6,519) while those running for the executive board may spend twice that, he added.

The list of qualified candidates will be announced in the second week of February. According to eligibility criteria, candidates must have been born to Myanmar citizens, must be more than 25 years old, must have lived for three consecutive years in the township they intend to represent, must not owe taxes to the YCDC, and must be loyal to the country.

Myanmar Army personnel and their family members who live in cantonments, as well as police and their family members who live in police staff quarters, are barred from casting votes in the election, according to the Municipal Election Commission.

Yangon saw its first-ever municipal elections in December 2014.

One month after the National League for Democracy took office in April 2016, the Yangon mayor announced that the YCDC by-laws had been amended so that the elected members terms coincided with the governments.

The Yangon chief minister then sent notices of dismissal to the sitting elected members, who had assumed they would serve until the next election.

The new YCDC Law, unlike its previous version, allows for the replacement and recall of appointed and elected members.

According to the new law, the term of the committee coincides with that of the president, and municipal elections must be held within three months of a new government taking office.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
World China's Envoy to Canada Says Huawei 5G Ban Would Have Repercussions

A woman stands at the booth of Huawei featuring 5G technology at the PT Expo in Beijing, China on September 28, 2018. / REUTERS

OTTAWAChinas envoy to Canada on Thursday warned Ottawa there would be repercussions if it banned technology firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from supplying equipment to Canadian 5G networks, the latest blast in a deepening bilateral dispute.

Ambassador Lu Shaye, speaking at a news conference, did not give details. Canada is currently studying the security implications of 5G networks, but unlike some allies has not announced Huawei equipment will be excluded.

If the Canadian government does ban Huawei from participating in the 5G network, then as for what kind of repercussion there will be, Im not sure, but I believe there will be repercussions, Lu said through an interpreter, urging Ottawa to make a wise decision on this issue.

Relations between China and Canada turned frosty last month after Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, on a US extradition request.

China subsequently detained two Canadian citizens, and this month a court retried a Canadian man who previously had been found guilty of drug smuggling, and sentenced him to death.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Beijing of arbitrarily using the death penalty and called world leaders to solicit their support.

Lu said when Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland goes to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week she should avoid microphone diplomacy and not try to rally support.

If Canada has a sincerity of resolving these issues, then Canada will not do such things. We hope Canada thinks twice before making any actions, he said.

In response, Freeland said Canada had no intention of changing its approach.

We will continue to speak every day with our allies about this situation, she told reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet retreat in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

She declined to give details about the review into 5G technology. A Canadian source directly familiar with the case said the study would not be released in the immediate future.

Huawei has a relatively small Canadian operation, employing just shy of 1,000 people. But the company said early this year it had become the 25th largest research and development funder in Canada, thanks to partnerships with local universities.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced bills that would ban the sale of US chips or other components to Huawei, ZTE Corp or other Chinese firms that violate US sanctions or export control laws.
News Exile Group Declares Independence for Kachin State

The KNO holds a three-day conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Jan. 12-14. The group announced independence for Kachin. / Network Media Group

The Kachin National Organization (KNO), a Kachin exile group, ended its conference in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand early this week with an announcement declaring Kachin to be an independent country.

Over 200 Kachin community leaders including rights activists and representatives of political parities and literary and cultural organizations attended the three-day conference from Jan. 12-14. The delegates unanimously decided to declare independence for Kachin.

Naw Latt, a spokesperson for the KNO, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that, When we look at the situation in Kachin State, including political conflicts, armed conflicts and Kachin refugees, we are not happy about it.

He added: The central government has not delivered the political rights sought by the Kachin people. The Army has even blocked humanitarian aid to our refugees. We made this decision to announce our independence after analyzing the situation in Kachin State. All representatives at the meeting agreed to declare Kachin an independent country, he said.

Most ethnic Kachin live in northern Myanmar near the Chinese border. Under British rule before independence, the Kachin were to allowed to govern their own affairs to a large extent.

We have a history of ruling our own region. Therefore, the Kachin will have no problem establishing our own independent country, Naw Latt said.

The announcement was met with heavy criticism on Facebook. Kachin residents of Myitkyina reported that Myanmar Army (or Tatmadaw) helicopters could be seen flying above the town and Laiza yesterday. Some locals interpreted this as a sign that the Tatmadaw and government were displeased by the KNOs announcement.

Gumgrawng Awng Hkam, the chairman of the Kachin Democratic Party (KDP) based in Myitkyina, said his party didnt attend the meeting in Chiang Mai, but he heard that other Kachin political parties had attended.

They announced independence. But the KNO was acting on its own authority. Personally, I think they should consult ethnic Kachin residing in Kachin State. They should have held a referendum before announcing this. Then it would have a strong impact, Gumgrawng Awng Hkam said.

He did not consider Kachin to be independent as a result of the announcement, he said.

The KNOs use of the word independence in its announcement caught the attention many Kachin in the state, according to Gumgrawng Awng Hkam.

Before the country won independence from the British in 1947, Kachin leaders asked the Union government to let them rule their own region as an independence state, but the central government has never allowed that to happen, Gumgrawng Awng Hkam said.

It is quite natural for the people. They want independence for their region. But there are those who agree with the KNO statement and those who disagree, he said.

Kachin State did not yet have the structures required for independence, Naw Latt said, though he added that Kachin leaders could learn the necessary procedures from the international community.

In the past, when Shan groups announced independence for Shan State, it prompted the Myanmar government and Army to take action against them.

Instead of taking similar action, Naw Latt said, the government should consider its response to the KNO announcement carefully because the Kachin living in Kachin State itself are suffering. The government needs to find the best solution for the Kachin issue, he said, otherwise, the people will take matters into their own hands.

On his Facebook account, General Gun Maw from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) posted a comment by Khin Zaw Oo, a former Myanmar Army general who serves as the Myanmar Peace Commissions secretary, in which he asked the KIO for its view on the KNOs announcement. Gen. Gun Maw responded that Khin Zaw Oo should ask the KNO directly.
Photo: The Canadian Press Michel Cadotte

A Montreal man on trial for the killing of his ailing wife told a senior nurse at the long-term care facility where she lived that he had suffocated her, a jury has heard.

Linda Desgagne testified at the second-degree murder trial of Michel Cadotte that the accused asked to speak to her alone after informing other staff on Feb. 20, 2017 that his wife was dead.

Desgagne says that is when a tearful Cadotte told her he had smothered Jocelyne Lizotte with a pillow and that he couldn't deal with his wife's advanced Alzheimer's anymore.

The nurse, who has more than 30 years experience, says she had attended a meeting requested by Cadotte a year earlier at which he asked whether Lizotte qualified for medically assisted death.

Desgagne says that Cadotte was told his wife did not meet the criteria for the life-ending procedure. He did not react strongly but said he would seek a legal opinion.

Lizotte, 60, was in the late stages of the neurodegenerative disease and was entirely unable to care for herself.
Burma Irrawaddy Region Deputy Speaker Submits Resignation

Former NLD party member U San Min Aung who handed in his resignation as deputy speaker of the Irrawaddy regional parliament on Thursday. / Salai Thant Zin / The Irrawaddy

PATHEINThe deputy speaker of the Irrawaddy regional parliament has handed his resignation to parliament following his expulsion from the National League for Democracy (NLD) for the alleged misappropriation of funds.

He has verbally asked to me to allow him to resign, but I havent approved his resignation, Irrawaddy Region parliamentary speaker U Aung Kyaw Khaing told The Irrawaddy.

The Irrawaddy regional chapter of the ruling party will hold a meeting with U San Min Aung which will also be attended by U Myo Nyunt, a member of the NLDs central. A decision on U San Min Aungs resignation will be made during the meeting, said U Aung Kyaw Khaing.

The Irrawaddy has not been able to contact U San Min Aung for his comments.

Following the filing of a complaint by a Pathein resident against deputy speaker U San Min Aung, who allegedly embezzled government funds in the purchase of five vehicles for the regional parliament, the NLD party launched an internal investigation into the case in December, leading to his dismissal following a meeting of the partys central executive committee on Jan. 13.

U Myo Nyunt, who is also a spokesperson for the NLD, said that the ruling party would inform the Irrawaddy regional parliament and the national anti-graft body of the financial matters of U San Min Aung so that necessary action can be taken against him.

They may take necessary action according to their procedures depending on our report, U Myo Nyunt told The Irrawaddy.

U San Min Aung, 38, worked as a lawyer before his success in the 2015 election in Bogale Township, Irrawaddy Region after which he was appointed deputy parliamentary speaker.
Asia Vietnam Prepares for Kim Jong Un Visit Amid Talk of Second Summit With Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet at the start of their summit at the Capella Hotel on the resort island of Sentosa, Singapore, on June 12. / Reuters

HANOI  Hanoi is preparing to receive North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a state visit, two sources told Reuters, while officials and diplomats said Vietnam is keen to host a second summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump.

A source familiar with the matter said Kim will travel to Vietnam for an official state visit after the Feb. 4-8 Lunar New Year. A separate source confirmed Kims visit but did not give any dates.

The United States and North Korea are holding high-level talks in Washington this week to discuss a second meeting between Trump and Kim to seek an interim deal to revitalize nuclear talks, U.S. and South Korean media have said.

Communist-ruled Vietnam, which has good relations with both the United States and North Korea, has been widely touted as the most likely venue for a second meeting.

The Southeast Asian country is keen to host the summit as a demonstration of its normalized ties with the United States, its foe during the Vietnam War, a Vietnamese government official and two diplomatic sources told Reuters.

The Vietnamese source did not confirm if a state visit by Kim would be combined with a U.S.-North Korean summit.

Media is heavily censored in Vietnam and the ruling Communist Party retains a tight control on information. The officials who spoke to Reuters did so on the strict condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the situation.

Vietnams foreign ministry did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Hanoi said the embassy did not have anything to announce regarding the summit location, and referred questions to the White House.

Trump told reporters in Washington on Jan. 6 that the United States and North Korea were negotiating a location for a second summit and that it will be announced probably in the not too distant future. White House officials have declined to comment further.

Kim and Trump met for a historic summit in Singapore in June, but have since struggled to make progress towards denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Top North Korean officials, including former spy chief Kim Yong Chol, were seen at Beijing airport on Thursday and are believed to be headed to the United States for meetings with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and possibly Trump.

Asked about a possible high-level meeting this week, a State Department spokesman said: We have no meetings to announce.

A1 visit in Danang

Both Hanoi and the central Vietnam city of Danang have been viewed by analysts as possible locations for a second summit.

A senior Danang-based official said the city had not been asked to host such an event, but had received instructions to prepare for a possible A1 visit, referring to a high-profile foreign leader.

A senior South Korean official earlier told Reuters that the United States has various options on the location, which would be decided after consultations with North Korea, while another official said that Vietnam is only one of the countries keen to host the summit.

Vietnam, which rose from the ashes of a victorious but costly war with the United States and transformed itself into one of Asias fastest-growing economies, has developed close strategic ties with Washington.

In 2016, Washington ended a decades-old arms embargo on Vietnam, and last year a U.S. aircraft carrier visited Vietnam for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War.

Vietnams exports to the United States, its largest export market, rose 14.3 percent last year to $47.53 billion, accounting for nearly 20 percent of Vietnams total exports.

North Korea can learn from Vietnams experience in building ties with the United States, said Le Dang Doanh, a Vietnamese economist and former government adviser who has given lectures to North Korean delegations visiting Vietnam.

They asked a lot about how Vietnam can normalize relations with the United States after losing so many Vietnamese lives during the war, Doanh said. I told them we never forget the past, but we also look to the future.
News AA Must Give Up Goal of Confederation: Myanmar Military

(From left to right) Major-General Tun Tun Nyi, Major-General Soe Naing Oo and Brigadier-General Zaw Min Tun of the Tatmadaws True News Information Team hold a press conference on the current situation in Rakhine State and the peace process, in Naypyitaw on Jan. 18, 2019. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

The Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) said peace talks with the Arakan Army would be able to move forward only when the AA changes its political view and gives up its goal of Rakhine becoming part of a confederation of states.

Tatmadaw leaders held a press conference regarding the current situation in Rakhine State and the ongoing peace process in Naypyitaw on Friday.

It depends on the AA whether they join the path of political negotiation, said Major-General Soe Naing Oo, the chairman of the Tatmadaws True News Information Team, on whether the Tatmadaw would hold political negotiations with the group.

We will think about whether to move forward, depending on the AAs actions, he said. They have spoken of a confederation [as their preferred political system], but that is the opposite direction from the current path to building a democratic federal union that the government, Tatmadaw and the people have agreed upon.

He reiterated the Tatmadaws stance that the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA)agreement on which was achieved after many hurdles had been overcomehas all the elements needed to build a democratic federal union.

The Tatmadaw announced a unilateral ceasefire applying to its five Military Commands in the north and northeast of Myanmar on Dec. 21 after three ethnic armed groups (EAOs) released a statement claiming they would give up armed struggle and seek a political settlement. The groups were the Taang Nationalities Liberation Army (TNLA), the AA and Kokang-based Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

However, fighting between the Tatmadaw and AA troops continues in western Myanmar. Tensions mounted after the AA attacked police outposts in Rakhine States Buthidaung Township on Jan. 4.

There were more than 170 clashes between the AA and the Tatmadaws troops between March 2015 and Jan. 16 of this year. Some 60 AA soldiers and undisclosed numbers of Tatmadaw soldiers have died in the clashes, and the Tatmadaw has seized weapons and ammunitions from the AA, according to Major -General Tun Tun Nyi, the vice chair of the Tatmadaws True News Information Team.

He declined to reveal the number of casualties sustained by the Tatmadaw, saying the Tatmadaw does not release such data on casualties unnecessarily while operations are ongoing.

The AA has consistently published information on captured soldiers or police and seized ammunition and weaponry over the past four years, releasing pictures and videos. According to the group, dozens of Myanmar military soldiers have been killed.

On Friday, Tatmadaw generals justified the exclusion of the Western Military Command from their truce by saying that Rakhine is still under threat from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, adding that they do not consider the AA to be based in Rakhine.

The AA was initiated in the Laiza area in the Kachin Independence Armys stronghold and still based there, thus the truce was intended for the northern and northeast based EAOs, said Maj-Gen. Tun Tun Nyi.

He said the Tatmadaw is acting to prevent further attacks by ARSA in the west, particularly in the

Mayu mountains, near Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, where ARSA launched coordinated attacks against Border Guard Police outposts in October 2016 and August 2017.

The Army would completely destroy ARSA, if they happen to enter into these areas, he said.

Another spokesperson, Brigadier-General Zaw Min Tun, added that engagements between the Tatmadaw and troops belonging to EAOs are between combatants, which are different from attacks upon police.

Police are not combatants. Thus the AA took advantage, like ARSA, by attacking outposts with less security [in Rakhine State] and it is an attack on the government mechanism, he added

Thus, the generals said they were following instruction by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to destroy the insurgency, as the AA were regarded as insurgents.

The Army quoted Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, saying that, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said the AA is an insurgent group at a meeting on Jan. 7 at the Presidential House. She instructed us to effectively crush the AA and if not, there will be finger-pointing that [the Tatmadaw] does not crush the AA as it is an ethnic group, but it crushed ARSA, who practice a different religion.

It added The Presidents Office order on Jan. 4 instructed the Tatmadaw to coordinate with the police and to use more military force and to use military aircraft to crack down on the AA.

The generals said that while the Tatmadaw has the right to act independently under Chapter 7 of the Constitution (which confers upon the Commander in Chief the right to exercise absolute power to safeguard the country), they would work together with the government when important matters come up.

Article 339 of Chapter 7 states that The Defense Services shall lead in safeguarding the Union against all internal and external dangers.

Seven and a half years of fighting between the Tatmadaw and EAOs in the northeast, north and west have left some 180,000 internally displaced people sheltering in some 167 camps in government-controlled areas, according to the Tatmadaw. There are another more than 37,000 IDPs are taking shelter in EAO-controlled areas.

The officers also talked about the Tatmadaws stance on the current peace process. Regarding the issues of a single army and self-determination, Maj-Gen. Soe Naing Oo added that the Tatmadaw stands firmly by its policy that there can be only one Army, as in any other country. It said the issue of self-determination would have to be resolved in accordance with the NCA.

In addition, the general reiterated the Tatmadaws policy towards the EAOs by saying that, We want to officially tell the EAOs that if they want to take part in politics, they must disown armed struggle and form political parties; if they want to enter business, they must establish a company, and if they want to protect the countryjoin the Army.

The generals reaffirmed that the Tatmadaw firmly intends to achieve peace for the people by 2020, as the Army chief envisioned one-and-a-half years ago.

However, fighting continues between EAOs based in Shan State despite the announcement of a four-month truce. There was one engagement between the Tatmadaw and the RCSS near Mong Pan on Dec. 27; the Tatmadaw accused the RCSS of attacking one of its military columns.

The generals added that they had fulfilled the demands of the ethnic groups that the Tatmadaw initiate a unilateral ceasefire, which had started with five military commands, but added, look what is happening now in the northeast, citing that the inter-ethnic fighting.

The Army said troop movements by almost every EAO in the regionRCSS, SSPP, KIA, TNLA, MNDAA and UWSAcontinued. They accused some EAOs of conducting new recruitment of local residents and extorting money.

The Tatmadaw added that it had been wrongly blamed for the interethnic fighting in Shan State, where the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and the Taang Nationalities Liberation Army (TNLA), Shan State Progressive Party/Shan State Army North (SSPP/SSAN) are fighting, as well as the PaO National Liberation Organization.

EAOs often accuse the Tatmadaw of using a divide and rule policy in states with different EAOs and local militia groups.

Citing the continuous clashes in Shan State, the Tatmadaw warned the EAOs that if any of the groups violated section 5, 6 and 7 of its truce, they would take the necessary actions.

Section 5 urges all EAOs to comply with four of its policies: to respect the ceasefire agreements, not to exploit the peace agreements, not to burden local residents, and to abide by existing laws. In section 6, the Tatmadaw urges the EAOs not to have interethnic fighting and not to cause a burden to the local residents. In section 7, the Tatmadaw says, EAOs must take responsibility not to destroy the governments administrative mechanism, not to damage the livelihoods of the people and to ensure safety in road transport.

The Army wont tolerate any violations of these section 5, 6 and 7, added Maj-Gen. Soe Naing Oo.

As regards the rise of demands for a confederation and having their own states made by some minority ethnic groups like the AA and Kachin groups based in exile, the Tatmadaw made it clear that it wont tolerate damaging the Three National Causes.
The predictable decision by MEP Brian Crowley not to stand again to be an MEP brings down the curtain on one of the most successful politicians this country has ever seen, writes Daniel McConnell.

An electoral phenomenon, Crowleys remarkable record as a poll-topper in the Ireland South constituency is without parallel.

In 2014, with 180,329 first preference votes and 27.42% share of the vote in the Ireland South Constituency, he exceeded the quota by 48,829 votes to be elected on the first count.

But his inability to take his seat in parliament even once since 2014 has been the source of ongoing controversy amid calls for his resignation, which ultimately made his retirement from politics inevitable.

Steeped in Fianna Fail, Crowley is the son of former TD Flor and his wife Sally, and is one of six children.

As a lad, weekends were spent touring West Cork and sitting in pubs or hotels in Clonakilty, Dunmanway and Skibbereen while his father held constituency clinics.

In his biography, entitled Against the Odds, it is clear how even as a young man, Crowley was a handful and his mother once broke a wooden spoon over him when trying to rein him in. He kept the broken spoon as a proud memento of his independence.

Such intransigence has stayed with him throughout his political career and led him ultimately to fall out with his beloved Fianna Fail, with whom he has been estranged since 2014.

Now 54 years old, he has been paralysed from the waist down since the age of 16 after a fall off a roof. He had been playing rugby with his friends, on the flat felt roof, when he tripped over.

So horrific were his injuries, he was to spend many months in hospital in Dublin where senior politicians including former taoiseach and Fine Gael leader, Liam Cosgrave, were among his visitors.

His entry into national politics came in 1993 when newly elected taoiseach Albert Reynolds called him up and told him he was keen to nominate him to the Seanad. Reynolds said he would be a glorious example to the youth of the country and secondly to those with a disability.

Crowley was urged by some, including his father Flor, to cut his well-developed mullet in order to fit in but was backed by Reynolds who quipped there were enough bald people in the parliamentary party at the time.

He first stood in the Munster constituency in the 1994 European Elections where he managed to top the poll, taking 84,463 first preference votes.

He proved immensely popular on the campaign trail, both with the public and his own supporters.

Canvassing with Brian was always a dream. He was exceptionally good with people, very warm and engaging. He is a very charming character, said Fianna Fails finance spokesman Michael McGrath.

But not everyone felt the love.

In 2004, Crowley disregarded orders from headquarters to divide the constituency with Gerry Collins, which led to severe tensions.

It was a bare-knuckle war between them. Brian was certainly not one for dividing the ground up, said one party member.

People should vote for candidates in order of preference and that is the only type of democratic electioneering I will participate in, Crowley said defending his stance.

On that occasion, Collins lost his seat and Mr Crowley became the Fianna Fail leader in the European Parliament.

Relations with current leader Micheal Martin were severely strained primarily because of Martins refusal to allow Crowley contest the 2011 Presidential election.

The public clash with Crowley was an early setback for Martin, who had taken over the ravaged party earlier in the year.

Illness in 2012 and 2013 would prevent Crowley from attending for much of the last two years of that EU parliament, thus ending his previous stellar record.

Debilitating leg sores that resulted in him having to be hospitalised for months at a time, it was stated.

Despite the prolonged absence, he romped home in the 2014 election, promising to fulfil his mandate.

He would sever ties with his party later that year when Crowley, as Fianna Fails only MEP, moved from the partys chosen group in the European Parliament  the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe (ALDE) which it had joined in 2009  to the European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) group.

Deeply religious and conservative in his views, Crowley felt he was no longer willing to live with the change in the grouping.

His health problems have been so severe he was unable to attend a single session of the current European Parliament  earning him the ignominious record of having the lowest attendance of all 750 MEPs.

Even though he failed to attend, he has been entitled to a monthly salary of 8,484 as well as a 4,342 monthly allowance to cover office rent and constituency work.

As his hospitalisation continued throughout 2017, calls emerged from his substitute Kieran Hartley for Crowley to resign, but he did not.

Hartleys calls were received poorly within the greater Fianna Fail family who felt Crowley was entitled to sympathy and forbearance.

Martin and Fianna Fail bosses, who had severed ties with Crowley in 2014, refused to force the issue and Crowley rebuffed media requests to explain his position.

When it emerged this week that he was due to speak to the media about his situation, it was widely expected he would bow out  but he kept everyone guessing, in keeping with his enigmatic persona.

Now he departs the political scene in a bid to be a private citizen, although it is hard to imagine this poll-topper slipping into the shadows.
Although unthinkable, a no-deal Brexit could see Northern Ireland become a remote region of the UK with which it would be difficult to do business, writes Diarmuid Pepper.

Sitting right along the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is Newry. In the midst of the chaotic Brexit negotiations, it has symbolised the problem of the Irish border.

A decade ago, Newry was lauded as a shoppers paradise by the New York Times. It received this accolade because of its unique geographical position; sitting directly between Dublin and Belfast, its perfectly poised to avail of custom from both sides of the border.

Because of the value of the euro against the pound, shoppers from the Republic flock to Newry in their droves, often making six-hour round journeys to avail of the deals on offer.

This led to Newry being hailed by the New York Times as the hottest shopping spot within the European Unions open borders. But these open borders are at risk of closure due to Brexit.

Brexit threatens Newry in an acute way, since it will be in the middle of the only land border between Britain and the EU. If this land border becomes a hard border, it will hit the local economy hard.

Sinn Feins Mickey Brady is the MP for Newry and Armagh. In his view, the British government is in turmoil. For something so important, they have almost day to day changes and there seems to have been no preparation. In terms of the border, it was never factored in as an issue and has come back to bite them.

Sinn Fein famously doesnt take their seats at Westminster, but Mr Brady is strident on this point: We have been pilloried for not taking our seats at Westminster.

You only have to look at the British parliament to see the shambles its in; why would anybody want to take their seat?

Were elected on an abstentionist mandate. My majority went up between 2015 and 2017. We make very clear that, if elected, we will not be taking our seats. We have offices there, we lobby, we talk to people who have influence. But the reality I have learned from going to Westminster is that they have absolutely no interest in this place, absolutely none.

Mr Brady also questions how a hard border could be implemented: How do they enforce it? There are around 200 crossings from Donegal to Killean. When there was a hard border, there were around 12 official crossings.

"The British Army couldnt control it when there were thousands of them here, so how is it going to work? They try to talk about technological solutions; maybe in the future, but they are certainly not available at this point in time.

.@MickeyBradySF calls on the Irish government and EU to stand firm to protect the interests of the people of Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement and prevent a hard border pic.twitter.com/cBgk7KlsSg  Sinn Fein (@sinnfeinireland) January 15, 2019

Peter Murray is the centre manager of Newrys Buttercrane Shopping Centre. He shares these worries over a hard border. He says that many retailers have concerns as large quantities of their produce comes to Northern Ireland via the Republic of Ireland, and these traders are facing stock holding challenges.

A deal which includes a backstop has been negotiated by Theresa May, but is roundly rejected by the DUP, with whom her party has a confidence and supply deal. The backstop is meant to act as a safety net which ensures that there would be no hard border on the island of Ireland. But with the backstop being fiercely opposed by some, a hard border is looking more and more likely.

This resistance to Mrs Mays deal is a source of frustration for Sinn Feins Megan Fearon, who is an MLA for Newry and Armagh.

When asked for her opinion on why the DUP is so against the backstop, she points to the murky nature of donations made to the DUP during the Brexit referendum: Questions remain over their dealings with the Constitutional Research Council and the donation of 425,000 in Dark Money.

For many, it appears that Northern Ireland faces the choice between being a privileged part of Britain which enjoys frictionless trade with the EU (which the backstop would arguably allow for) or becoming a remote region of the UK that is difficult to do business with.

The latter is unthinkable, especially for a city like Newry.

However, with many British newspapers and politicians pushing for a no-deal Brexit, it seems more and more likely.

Ms Fearon insists that the recklessness of the British government has made the prospect of a no-deal crash out more likely. Leaving the EU with no terms of departure would drive our economy over a cliff edge and would be disastrous.

Her party, like most political parties in Northern Ireland, are against Brexit but feel that Mrs Mays deal is the best that can be hoped for. She said that Sinn Fein and the other pro-Remain parties have all agreed that there is no such thing as a good Brexit  it is wholly unwanted here. The backstop as contained in the withdrawal agreement is the bottom line, thats the reality. Its far from perfect but it is the least worst option and the alternative is a catastrophic crash out.

The DUP positions itself as the party of business, but the business community has turned its back against the party.

Mr Murray, the Buttercranes centre manager, says that he supports the backstop which will ensure there is no hard border scenario and says that as a retail destination, all we can do is to continue to lobby Dublin, London, and Brussels in this regard.

It is crystal clear the DUP live in a fairytale world, thinking there is a deal without a backstop. They are happy to sacrifice the interests of business and people in the north to deliver their hard Brexit - as usual the DUP are losing the run of themselves  Michelle ONeill (@moneillsf) January 16, 2019

Mr Brady added: A lot of businesses realise now that the DUP dont represent them. The farming community have come out very strongly against the DUP Brexit vision. The DUP has talked a lot about the backstop, but they havent given any alternatives.

Mr Brady further feels that during the EU referendum, the DUP canvassed not on socio-economic issues, but on the fact that it would strengthen partition and harden the border. He further says that the DUP doesnt care what type of Brexit they have, as long as they are out of Europe.

All of this chaos makes the prospect of a united Ireland enticing, even for some unionists.

Ms Fearon notes that a new and agreed united Ireland has always been our principal aim.

However, she says:

The European Union has helped mitigate the worst excesses of partition. Brexit has opened more people to the idea of a united Ireland as it has exposed the sheer folly of partition. Even the most unlikely sources are open to at least discussing what a united Ireland would look like.

Mrs May has asked parliament to consider what a no-deal Brexit (would) do to strengthen the hand of those demanding a border poll in Northern Ireland.

To that end, Ms Fearon insists that if Westminster drives toward a no-deal crash, then a referendum on Irish reunification, as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement, must be called as the only sensible, logical, and entirely rational response to provide a pathway for the North to be readmitted to the European Union.

Mr Brady takes a similar tone:

"It is entirely up to the secretary of state, but it is almost as if they have done something terrible in a previous life to be sent over here.

"They have to make an almost arbitrary decision on whether there has been a change which would merit a border poll; if Brexit doesnt trigger that change, Im not sure what possibly could.
UPDATE: 1:15 p.m.

One firefighter was taken to hospital after part of the second-floor facing of a building on fire on Pandosy Street crashed down on him.

Platoon Captain Tim Light says what amounted to an explosion inside the building blew part of the facing onto the street below, hitting the firefighter in the chest.

"When you get a dirty fire like this, the combustion isn't complete. It's so smoky that there isn't enough oxygen in the confined area," explained Light.

"Sometimes when air is let in very quickly, it tends to complete the combustion process in a very violent manner."

The firefighter walked under his own power to the waiting ambulance. Light says he's in satisfactory condition.

Light says the fire began on the roof as a result of roofers putting on a torch-on roof. It was identical he says to what caused a fire that destroyed the Water's Edge North condo building on Truswell Road in the summer of 2017.

Light says Friday's fire got into the sawdust insulation in the ceiling. Firefighters had to open up the roof to extinguish the fire.

"There's lots of smoke damage. In the upper floor on the front side there was quite a bit of fire damage inside the walls.

"The ceiling has been pulled in the upstairs area and, just due to us chasing the fire through the sawdust, there's quite a bit of water damage in the building as well."

One resident in an upstairs apartment was home at the time. He evacuated as soon as the smoke began entering his apartment.

Light says the owner of the building also lives in a ground floor apartment. She was not inside when the fire started.

The Original Joe's Restaurant adjacent to the building was evacuated for a short time as a precaution.

UPDATE: 12:45 p.m.

The fire appears all but out.

Firefighters remain at the scene.

UPDATE: 12:40 p.m.

Smoke is starting to dissipate from the Pandosy Street fire.

The tenant of the apartment, an 85-year-old woman, was not at home at the time of the fire, neighbours say.

She has been taken into the care of Emergency Social Services.

UPDATE: 12:30 p.m. A large section of stucco wall fascia has blown off the second storey of the building burning on Pandosy Street. The flying chunk of wall struck a firefighter on the sidewalk and knocked him to the ground. The firefighter was immediately taken to an ambulance on scene, and it's believed is on his way to Kelowna General Hospital. There is no word on the severity of his injuries. Five fire engines are on scene.

UPDATE: 12:22

White smoke that was coming from the structure fire on Pandosy Street has now turned thick and dark, and is billowing out of the building.

Firefighters have a ladder up to the roof.

UPDATE: 12:15 p.m.

Pandosy Street has been closed in both directions between Raymer and KLO roads.

RCMP are on scene redirecting traffic.

ORIGINAL: 12:09 p.m.

Fire is reported at a two-storey structure on Pandosy Street in Kelowna.

The fire is reportedly in an apartment above Pope's Gallery and Studio, in the heart of the Pandosy commercial district.

Castanet has a reporter headed to the scene.

More details to come
Now that I have told my story, I have one request: please help us. Show the world what's going on in Moria. We are human beings. We deserve to be treated that way.

These are the words of Quentin (whose name has been changed to protect his identity), a 31-year-old man from the Ivory Coast who now lives in Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesvos, writes Oxfam chief executive Jim Clarken

Quentin is almost blind in his left eye and has serious problems with his kidney and knee. The doctor gave him a paper saying that the authorities must allow him to go to Athens for medical treatment  that was five months ago and Quentin is still waiting for his transfer to be arranged.

And Quentin is not the only one vulnerable and abandoned. Oxfam has been working in Lesvos since 2015 and our recent report highlights how Greece and its EU partners are failing to protect those seeking safety and dignity in Europe. People living on the Greek islands endure dangerous and inadequate conditions while the system to identify those most vulnerable has broken down due to chronic understaffing and flawed processes.

Moria had been described as hell, a place where pregnant women and mothers with new-born babies attempt to survive winter in makeshift tents without heating, while children who arrived on their own are placed in detention after being wrongly registered as adults.

One woman told us how she knew women who had given birth by Caesarean section and been returned to the camp after only four days  they had to recover from major surgery and care for their new-born in cold, dirty and life-threatening conditions.

Life for people in the camp is unimaginably difficult at the best of times. This Christmas, Moria was at more than double its official capacity of 3,100 places, with just under 5,000 migrants living inside the camp and another 2,000 living in an informal camp next to Moria, known as the Olive Grove.

In the Olive Grove, people have limited access to running water, toilets and electricity and the ground is littered with rubbish, attracting rats and stray dogs. Many people living in both Moria and the Olive Grove have told us that they do not feel safe and for the countless people who have experienced sexual abuse and other traumas, this causes further fear and fuels mental health problems.

For much of the last year there has been just one government-appointed doctor in Lesvos who was responsible for screening as many as 2,000 people arriving each month. In November, there was no doctor at all so there were no medical screenings happening to identify those most in need of care.

But winter compounds all of these challenges making life even more unbearable.

Recent months have brought heavy rain to Lesvos turning the camp that thousands call home into a muddy bog. The temperature is expected to drop below freezing in the next week and it could snow.

A child stands outside of his family tent in the rain in an area just outside Moria Camp known as the Olive Grove. Hundreds of refugees are living in extremely poor conditions in an olive grove without running water and electricity. They live in the dark while being exposed to worsening weather conditions. Picture: Oxfam / Giorgos Moutafis

People in Moria and the Olive Grove are housed in a combination of small camping tents and larger family tents as well as in more permanent structures such as containers and large tent-like structures that can house more than 100 people each. Others have to live in makeshift shelters. Only a few tents have heating and there is no hot water in Moria camp  parents must wash even their new-borns outside in the cold.

The situation is particularly horrifying for the people who live in the Olive Grove. Their tents are pitched on a sandy hill and muddy streams of water run through the camp whenever it rains, frequently flooding the floors of tents and drenching the few belongings people have.

For some people, open fires are the only way to keep warm and the burning of plastic bags and bottles creates a hazardous, acrid atmosphere.

For the most vulnerable - unaccompanied children, women who are pregnant or with young babies, people with disabilities and survivors of trauma, among others  such cruel living conditions make them even more desperate and at risk.

We are particularly concerned about a worrying trend of authorities detaining teenagers and survivors of torture after failing to recognise them as vulnerable. Legal and social workers told Oxfam they frequently came across detainees who should not have been locked up because of their age or because of poor physical or mental health. Once in detention, it is even more difficult for them to get the medical or psychological help they need.

In one case, a 28-year-old asylum seeker from Cameroon was locked up for five months based on his nationality, despite having serious mental health issues. No one checked his physical and mental health before he was detained and it took a month for him to see a psychologist.

He said: We had just two hours a day when we were allowed to get out of the container...The rest of the time you are sitting in a small space with 15 other men who all have their own problems.

Oxfam is calling for the Greek government and EU member states to deploy more expert staff, including doctors and psychologists and to fix the screening system on the Greek islands. When people arrive in Greece and seek asylum, they must undergo a vulnerability assessment, that includes an assessment by a medical specialist and, if needed, by a psychologist. This is vital to ensure that vulnerable people are quickly identified and given the support they need.

We are also asking that more people seeking asylum should be transferred to mainland Greece on a regular basis  particularly the vulnerable.

Everyone has the right to seek asylum  we are calling on EU member states to share responsibility for receiving asylum seekers with Greece and believe Ireland has a role to play in this.

We recognise that Ireland has already welcomed 1,022 asylum seekers and refugees from Greece through the EUs relocation programme. However, more people continue to arrive in Greece while thousands languish in inadequate and treacherous conditions, and globally the number of displaced people continues to rise. Ireland can and should do more to uphold the commitment made in 2015 to welcome 4,000 people by the end of 2017 through the Irish Refugee Protection Programme.

By fairly sharing responsibility with Greece and other European countries on the borders, Ireland can help to ensure that asylum seekers, especially those most in need, can live in safety and with dignity while their applications are considered.

Ireland should also work to ensure that people seeking protection can do so safely so that they do not risk perilous journeys to Europe in the first place. This could be through expanding opportunities for refugee family reunification, enabling refugees in Ireland to reunite with their dependent loved ones.

We must remember that the vast majority of the worlds 68.8 million people forced to flee have been welcomed by some of the worlds poorest countries. All EU members can and should do more.

Jim Clarken is Oxfam Irelands Chief Executive.

Oxfam has been working in Lesvos since 2015 to ensure that people seeking asylum are protected.
Nic Sheff got addicted to crystal meth when he was a teen. New film Beautiful Boy shows how his father helped him overcome years of drug abuse. He spoke to Esther McCarthy.

As Nic Sheff sat down for the first time to watch his real-life story unfold onscreen, he felt understandably anxious.

Its not every day you revisit your lowest points of a life-threatening drug addiction and the despair it has brought to those you love most, dramatised on the big screen.

The result is Beautiful Boy, a drama starring Timothee Chalamet and Steve Carell as Nic and his journalist father David, the story of a deep descent into crystal meth addiction and its impact on a loving father and family.

It was hard to watch of course, I guess because it was so authentic and so real, the real-life Nic tells me.

It really brought me back in a way that I wasnt expecting.

"But then the other side of that is because it has been such a long time, I celebrated a nine-years-sober birthday in December, my life has changed so much that I guess it was such a reminder of everything wed been through as a family.

"I felt really kind of grateful coming out of it.

The whole process of talking to people about the film and talking about these issues, its been kind of amazing for me.

"It makes me feel grateful for my life now that my family is so close now. That we made it through and out the other side. Its been a really positive experience.

LOWEST POINT

For many years, it didnt look like Nic would be here to tell his tale. He was deep into addiction, a disease that had left him homeless and estranged from his family.

At his worst point, his father would periodically check in with morgues and hospitals to see whether he had died or overdosed.

Though there were times he was close to dying, he doesnt think twice when asked about his lowest point.

I really regret the impact that I had on my little brother and sister. I was eleven or twelve when my little brother was born and I wanted so badly to be a good influence on him, be a good role model for him.

Nic Sheff (left) and David Sheff attend the Premiere of "Beautiful Boy" in London, October 13. (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for BFI)

The fact that I ended up hurting him and my little sister, scaring them, thats the thing I regret the most.

"That scene in the movie where I steal money from my little brother, that really happened, and thats the thing I look back on.

"Even though there were other moments that I was closer to dying, thats the thing I regret the most.

There are fears that the growth of highly addictive crystal meth is still an evolving story in Ireland and that its impact has yet to make itself fully known here.

Nic, who now works extensively with the recovery community, offers some insights.

Its the tough question. Prevention is such an important topic that my dad and I have really tried to focus on.

"How do we help young people?

"I think theres a big myth around substance use in general, that the reason young people use drugs and alcohol is because theyre wanting to have fun or party or because of peer pressure.

But studies have shown that the number one reason young people use drugs or alcohol is because of stress that they feel.

"We can be really proactive in helping young people to learn alternative methods of coping with stress. Letting them know that theyre not alone, there are lots of people out there who can help.

Did you watch #BeautifulBoy? Would you like to meet the author of this true life story? Join @david_sheff at our book signing event on 24 January at 3:15pm at the #UNBookshop. pic.twitter.com/hMg2dRgiIW  UN Publications (@unpublications) January 17, 2019

And for people who are already going down this path, I think the really important thing to express to them is that its not just that recovery is possible.

"The people that I know that have gotten sober, their lives universally have gotten so much better and so much fuller.

"Ive seen it over and over again that when people who are struggling ask for help, that help really is out there.

"Ive seen families that were completely torn apart by this disease come back together and relationships heal. It can take time but it really is possible.

MIDDLE CLASS

David is a successful journalist and his family live in comfortable middle-class surroundings, which debunks the myth that addictions such as this are always class related.

Its one of the things we were hoping that people would take away from the film, that addiction is an equal-opportunity destroyer.

"It doesnt matter what kind of socio-economic background you come from, what cultural background, addiction can affect anyone.

Before he first took crystal meth at the age of 18, an experience described in the film as like going from black and white to technicolour, Nic was already dabbling in marijuana and alcohol from a very young age.

Even at that young age, when I started drinking, I could see the way that my body and my brain processed it was different from my peers.

"I remember my friends and I stole alcohol from my parents when we were only eleven, I think.

"My friends drank a little bit, thought it was disgusting, and stopped drinking.

"For me, I drank a little bit and the feeling it gave me I liked so much, and it felt like such a relief from the anxiety that I felt, that I kept drinking.

"I ended up getting sick. I think that whether I found crystal meth or not, I was already on this path of substance abuse.

"If anything, when I found crystal meth it just accelerated things.

"In that way, it made my problem way more apparent because that drug just made me so out of control and crazy. But I was already well on my way.

MEETING THE STARS

Hes enjoyed being involved in the movie and says getting to meet stars like Brad Pitt (a producer on the film) has been fun.

Hes enjoyed spending time with Chalamet, whos emerging as one of cinemas young stars.

Getting to know him before Call Me By Your Name came out, I was struck by what an incredibly talented actor he is but also hes a genuinely good person, a good role model for young people.

"Hes so sensitive and thoughtful. To see Call Me By Your Name come out, for him to get so much recognition for that, and to watch his rise in popularity has been cool.

"It couldnt be more deserved. Hes handling it with so much grace, really staying true to who he is.

One of the most famous crystal meth dealers of all was Walter White in Breaking Bad.

Of course he watched the series, Nic laughs. I think that Breaking Bad was really positive.

"I wish growing up that I had seen something like that because when I first did crystal meth I really didnt know what it was.

"A friend of mine offered me some speed and I tried it not even knowing that it was crystal meth.

"What Breaking Bad shows is what meth use can look like and how destructive it can be.

Beautiful Boy is in cinemas from today
Look at the location data that Google has collected about you, and youll see yourself in a whole new way, writes NYT's John Herrman.

In August 2018, the Associated Press published an investigation into how Google handles the data it collects, following a curious discovery by a graduate researcher at UC Berkeley.

For years, the company has allowed users to control their location history, a detailed record of where theyve been, based on their activity in Google Maps.

This, the researcher suggested  and The AP confirmed  did not work as advertised.

Some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking, the reporters found. The revelation has since resulted in at least one lawsuit, and has renewed public criticism from lawmakers.

Were aware that Google is logging our whereabouts. Google Search, for example, helps us find things, and it uses our location to supply more relevant information (by guessing the language we speak, for starters).

Obviously, Google Maps gives us particulars about where we are and where were going.

The more creative, indirect ways in which Google employs our location data can be helpful, too, or at least technically impressive. (Yes, Google, good guess. That is the restaurant I went to  but I would not like to review it, thanks.)

More often, however, the details of place and movement are being processed in the background, where that information is recorded because it can be, and made available to tools we largely take for granted.

These tools are good at showing us what Google wants, as well as what it thinks it knows.

To its credit, the company has long given users ways to see portions of the data collected from, and about, them.

Google Takeout, a tool for downloading your own Google data, debuted in 2011 and now enables you to export material from at least 50 different services, including Gmail, Search, chats and payments.

The overwhelming volume of this information demonstrates just how deep, and inescapable, our relationships with the company have become. And it can be sneakily transformative. To see months of your own search history repeated back to you in list form is to suffer a strange mixture of your most mundane and anxious  and largely forgotten  moments.

Takeout offers some straightforward utility: The ability to download your photos, for example, lets you upload them elsewhere. And it is genuinely good that Google doesnt hold your contacts hostage.

Google also makes it possible for users to browse their recorded location history.

This interface is very Google-ish, in that it makes a huge amount of information feel approachable; it is less like Google in the way it makes the material feel useless and hardly worth investigating.

In Takeout, however, location data can be exported in raw form. In my case, this produced a file containing hundreds of thousands of entries, each encoding time (down to the millisecond), latitude and longitude (with an estimate of their accuracy) and a guess at my activity (ON_BICYCLE, for instance).

Laid out in a vast spreadsheet and isolated from Googles own interfaces, this data becomes both conceptually clear, as quintessential surveillance, and literally incomprehensible.

In 2014, a high school student named Theo Patt released a tool, location history visualiser, to give shape to this information, placing users entire Google location histories on an intensely colour-coded map, like something that might hang on the wall at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It became a minor sensation, and tens of thousands of visits to his site followed.

It was a rare chance for Google users to see their own slice of the companys same old data, presented just outside the context in which it was gathered, rendering it utterly new.

Google Data Centre.

When you stare down from on high at the last few years of your life  as recorded by your laptop and phone, and then self-subpoenaed from your Google account  your first impulse is forensic. And whether you assume the role of defence, prosecution, judge or juror, youll have plenty to work with.

If you fully opt into certain Google products (in my case, various Google apps on an iPhone, including Google Maps), years of location history will be rendered as glowing circles, shaded from violet to green to yellow to red and overlaid on a map of the world. To explore this data is to toggle, in seconds, among wildly disparate emotional states: surprise, disorientation, curiosity, disappointment.

I first looked at my map zoomed all the way out and thought, Thats it?

A glowing-red blast radius surrounded New York City, where I live; fainter orbs floated over towns where I visited family.

That time in Nashville, for a conference. A failed reporting trip to northern California. A few vacations, some layovers at airports, some weekend trips near the city.

The full force of Googles apparatus had been summoned here, it seemed, to tell me to travel more. (According to Google, the company does not share users location histories with advertisers, nor does it serve ads to users based on specific places in their location histories.) Then, I zoomed in.

Trips to see family were rendered in cold detail.

They showed a town where I spent the first 18 years of my life reduced to the skeletal routine of a repeat outside visitor.

The purple haze over the airport resolved, on a closer look, into dots at Gates C18 and C25, where Ive arrived or departed, and from or to which I walked to use a bathroom near Gate C9, just before Christmas in 2017. Another faint trail led to my mothers home, which glowed red; a few jogs around the neighbourhood ringed the house in blue.

#HeyGoogle, take me to work.



Now you can use the Google Assistant hands-free to have a productive and safe commute  https://t.co/nfIuqi3Glm pic.twitter.com/wOjLTIPf1g  Google Maps (@googlemaps) January 14, 2019

I could pick out the restaurants in town that we went to together and the bar downtown where I met an old friend.

I followed a mysterious series of faint dots down the highway, remembering halfway that they would lead to the regional fast-food place I loved as a kid.

I zoomed in on a dot just north of the house and found myself at church, for the yearly family Christmas service. I scrolled in further and saw my annual stations: the parking lot, the chapel, the pews just left of the lectern and, finally, the columbarium to visit my dads remains.

I came to resent this data in a number of ways: that a cache of coordinates from Google could trigger grief or joy  that was such a nice morning, up in the park, with all those dogs  or that it, rather than a friend or a co-worker or a missed stop on the train, would be what triggers a familiar, guilty reminder that the city I live in is so much bigger than the routine Ive created within it.

Announcing the Advanced Protection Program, our strongest security for those most at risk of online attacks  https://t.co/xOylIlAtwN pic.twitter.com/VDYMoomn8R  Google (@Google) October 17, 2017

There were also moments, deep in this incidental personal data diary, when I almost wished for more  when I thought about how nice it would be to be able to zoom in even further, to get back into a room and look around. These moments were brief.

An intensely personal diary is the sort of thing you could only be happy to discover in your own attic, in your own handwriting, not on the servers of a multibillion-dollar advertising corporation.

Theo Patt created the first version of location history visualizer while in his mid-teens. Shortly after its release, requests for new features started trickling in.

I got an email from this father whose daughter had been accused of shoplifting, Patt told me. He was trying to take the defence into his own hands.

Patt started work on a more advanced version of the tool, which he eventually began to sell.

There are people who think their spouses are cheating on them, he said, which are a surprisingly large cohort. He recalled a woman who contacted him directly for help; she thought her husband was being unfaithful and had exported his Takeout data to find out.

After a lengthy tech-support session, she finally got the visualisation pulled up, Patt says. Then, she went silent. A few days passed, and she sent a solitary message: Thank you.

People use it to keep track of travel to bill their companies; some users want to reconstruct trips or create visual maps as travel keepsakes.

But regarding their own location data and the data of others, users imaginations seem to have darkened over time.

There are still plenty of worried partners  sales double around Valentines Day, Patt says  but suspicious bosses, too, who have wanted to track employees whereabouts during the day.

Inevitably, law enforcement took an interest.

Patt is somewhat less candid about this, citing agreements with clients.

There ended up being some pretty big international customers  government arms and police agencies. Patt is 18 now and working on a new start-up. He starts at Stanford this month.

But hes still accepting new clients.

After using visualiser, Id seen enough.

This level of biographical data is alarming enough when collected and used by a company I trust; moved just slightly out of context, it becomes an open-ended accumulation of exposures in a world where assurances of data privacy are being made more frequently and insistently  and to users ears, less credibly  by the day.

I turned my location history off, or at least as off as Google would allow.

I took this step knowing full well that plenty of other location-aware apps on my phone  social apps, local guide apps, even lowly weather apps  could be compiling nearly identical data. (Never mind wireless providers or credit-card companies.) But not to take the step would have felt like giving up.

Patt leaves his on. For me, its the story of my entire teenage years, he said.

Where I saw a surveillance file, he saw a biography. Google was the author of both, but, for now, at least, it was interested in neither.

The New York Times
Two men facing a charge of obtaining two cheques worth a total of 6,500 by deception have been released on bail - with one of the conditions that they stay out of West Cork apart from court attendances and legal appointments.

Thomas O'Driscoll of 3 Boherbuoi in Rathkeale, Co Limerick and Patrick O'Driscoll of 4 Wolfburgess East, also in Rathkeale, appeared before Bandon District Court on the alleged charge.

The two men face the charge that on November 21 last at Carnawee, Goleen in Co Cork that they did dishonestly by deception induce a woman to sign one cheque worth 3,000 made payable to another woman, and to sign another cheque worth 3,500 and payable to Thomas O'Driscoll.

Judge James McNulty heard that Thomas O'Driscoll was arrested on January 17 last and that the 38-year-old said "no reply" when the charge was put to him.

The court heard that Patrick O'Driscoll was arrested at around the same time on January 17, and that the man, who will turn 37 this Sunday, made no reply after caution.

Both men were released after lodging separate sums of 3,500 and are now subject to agreed bail conditions, including that they sign on three times weekly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at Newcastlewest Garda Station in Co Limerick; that they reside at the addresses provided and surrender their passports and not apply for new passports; that they provide contact details to gardai on which they can be reached, and that they have no contact with the alleged injured party in the case.

The two men must also remain out of West Cork bar court appearances or solicitor appointments. The men will next appear before court in Bantry on January 24.
A truck driver who crashed into a broken down car on the M50 causing the death of its driver has received a fully-suspended sentence.

Barry Grogan (38) of Thornville Ave, Kilbarrack, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to careless driving causing the death of Ms Martina Loughlin near the M50 Lucan junction on November 11, 2015.

Judge Martin Nolan sentenced Grogan to one year's imprisonment but suspended the entirety of the sentence for a year providing he keep the peace and be of good behaviour. He also suspended Grogan from driving for four years, starting on March 18 this year.

Sergeant Padraig Jennings told Paul Murray SC, prosecuting, that just before 5am on the morning in question, Ms Loughlin was driving to her job in UCD when her car broke down and halted on the M50 near the Lucan junction.

She sat in her car for approximately 17 minutes prior to the collision, attempting to contact her insurance company while vehicles navigated around her. Witnesses reported being able to see the car's hazard warning lights, despite the torrential rain.

Grogan was driving a Volvo lorry which struck Ms Loughlin's car and propelled it 60 meters forwards down the road. A second vehicle drove into Ms Loughlin's car approximately seven seconds after the first collision. The driver of this truck does not face prosecution.

Ms Loughlin was taken from the scene and pronounced dead on November 14, 2015 as a result of numerous injuries caused by the collision.

In a voluntary statement given to gardai a month after accident, Grogan said he did not see the hazard warning lights before the collision. He said the collision had changed his life forever and he really wished it had never happened.

File photo

'Our hearts froze'

In a victim impact statement which was read out in court, Ms Loughlin's partner and extended family described the devastating loss they had suffered and said that Ms Loughlin had been the link who kept us all together.

Our hearts froze in November 2015 and we fear they may never thaw, they revealed.

Sgt Jennings agreed with John D Fitzgerald SC, defending, that the collision had been caused by inattention. He accepted that one would not expect to meet a car stopped along the M50.

Mr Fitzgerald extended an apology on behalf of his client to the Loughlin family and remarked that Grogan was visibly upset in court.

He said that Grogan will lose his employment as a result of the disqualification from driving and said that all he had ever wanted to do was to drive. Grogan is married with two children and has no previous convictions.

In considering the sentence, Judge Nolan said he took into account Grogan's plea of guilty, his co-operation, his making a voluntary statement, his lack of previous convictions, his good work history, the fact that he will lose his job as a result of the disqualification and his obvious remorse.

He remarked that he did not think there is a person in this court who hasn't been inattentive and said that he himself had been guilty of inattention while driving.
Transport Minister Shane Ross has lashed out at Government and opposition critics of his hard-line drink-driving laws, insisting he will ensure the law is implemented fully despite the extraordinary opposition in some quarters.

Mr Ross criticised Fine Gael ministers, ex-Independent Alliance colleague Sean Canney and Independent TD Mattie McGrath after being accused of making gardai conduct more drink-driving checks instead of chasing real criminals.

At Tuesdays Cabinet meeting, Mr Ross was attacked by a number of Fine Gael ministers, with one minister saying the checkpoints clampdown is over the top.

The view was repeated yesterday by junior minister and ex-Independent Alliance TD, Sean Canney, who told Newstalk Breakfast show that Joe Public is feeling persecuted and that only the ordinary person going to work is being pulled in  it is annoying.

Independent TD Mattie McGrath similarly told radio station C103s Cork Today show with JP McNamara that he believes the Government should put more resources into fighting rural crime instead of breathalyser checks.

Claiming that people going to Mass on a Sunday morning and others taking their children to school or going to work are being unfairly targeted, Mr McGrath said gardai and Mr Ross should cop on.

However, in a statement to the Irish Examiner, Transport Minister Shane Ross insists he is putting the lives of people first: I will absolutely defend the drink-driving campaign to save lives and the gardai who enforce the law.

I will continue to do this despite the extraordinary opposition in some quarters.

Mr Ross was strongly supported yesterday by a number of groups representing families whose relatives have died or suffered severe injuries due to accidents involving drink-drivers.

They include Irish Road Victims Associations Leo Lieghio, who told The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk that the new laws absolutely could have saved his daughter Marsias life if they had been enacted in previous years.
Photo: The Canadian Press Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street, in London, Friday.

Prime Minister Theresa May held talks Friday with European leaders and British Cabinet colleagues, but efforts to end Britain's Brexit stalemate appeared deadlocked, with neither May nor Britain's opposition leader shifting from their entrenched positions.

May has been meeting with politicians from several U.K. parties this week to try to find a way forward after her European Union divorce deal was overwhelmingly rejected by Parliament.

Despite that, May has been unwilling to move her "red lines" in the Brexit negotiations, which include taking Britain out of the bloc's customs union. And opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has refused to meet with May unless she rules out the possibility of Britain leaving the EU with no deal  a scenario that many believe would hurt the British economy.

May on Friday also spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and planned more calls to European colleagues over the weekend.

But the talks yielded little progress.

The European Commission said tersely that the May-Juncker call was "an exchange of information on both sides" and that the two had "agreed to stay in touch."

May, who narrowly defeated a no-confidence vote in her Conservative government triggered by Corbyn this week, said it was "not within the government's power to rule out no-deal" because by law Britain will leave the EU without an agreement on March 29 unless Parliament approves a deal before then.

May is due to publish her revived Brexit blueprint on Monday, before British lawmakers debate it  and doubtless try to alter it  on Jan. 29.

The prime minister is in a bind. Many lawmakers think a "soft Brexit" that keeps Britain in the EU's single market or customs union is the only plan capable of winning a majority in Parliament. But a large chunk of May's Conservative Party is vehemently opposed to that idea.

Britain's political chaos has spurred EU nations to step up preparations for a disorderly British exit. France and other countries are spending millions, hiring thousands of workers and issuing emergency decrees to cope with the possibility that Britain will crash out of the bloc, sparking major disruptions to travel and trade.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Friday inspected some of the country's preparations for a no-deal Brexit, visiting the Eurotunnel complex and meeting with small businesses on the English Channel coast.

France is paying special attention to the Channel tunnel, which carries millions of passengers annually between Britain and France, as well as freight trucks that play a significant role in Britain's trade with the continent.

On Friday, a group of high-profile Germans made an emotional appeal to Britain to stay in the bloc. A letter published in the Times of London said "without your great nation, this Continent would not be what it is today: a community defined by freedom and prosperity."

It went on to list things Germans would miss about Britain, among them "tea with milk" and "going to the pub after work."
One man was killed and another seriously injured in a double shooting outside a gym in Swords in north Co Dublin last night.

The incident occurred at around 7.30pm at Applewood Close in Swords when two men in their 20s were shot in the gym car park in the residential area.

In a statement, the Garda Press Office said: A number of shots were discharged and two men were injured, one man (early 20s) was fatally injured. The second man (mid 20s) was removed to Beaumont Hospital and his condition is described as serious.

The body of the deceased remains at the scene.

Its understood the men were leaving the gym when they were approached by at least one assailant who opened fire.

It is believed the man who was killed sustained wounds to his arm, chest, and head while the other man was shot in the chest and arm.

The emergency services and Gardai were quickly at the scene, with the injured man rushed to Beaumont hospital.

A large number of gardai attended the scene as the area was cordoned off for examination.

Gardai confirmed that the shooting took place at a gym on Applewood Close.

An investigation is underway and gardai are asking any witnesses to contact them.

Local Sinn Fein councillor Ann Graves said she was shocked at the double shooting.

Its awful, she said. Its frightening for the people living around there and for the people in Swords in general.

While a car was burnt out in Applewood Close late last year, the area is not known for anti-social behaviour or serious crime.
The States longest-serving prisoner is seeking extra time to appeal his unsuccessful High Court bid for two days temporary release per year.

English national John Shaw (aged 73) has been in custody in Ireland since September 1976 when both he and another English man, Geoffrey Evans, were arrested for the abduction, rape, torture and murder of Elizabeth Plunkett (aged 22) in Wicklow and Mary Duffy (aged 24) in Mayo that year.

Shaw and Evans were both given life sentences at the Central Criminal Court on February 9, 1978.

Evans died in 2012 from an infection after spending more than three years in a vegetative state. He had been at the Mater Hospital, under round-the-clock guard by prison officers, at a significant cost to the State.

Over the years, Shaws case has been the subject of a number of reviews first by the Sentence Review Group and subsequently the Parole Board.

In April 2016, the Prison Review Committee noted Shaw was very frustrated that he has never got a day out of prison in his 38 years in custody He has no family in Ireland and has only received one family visit over the course of his sentence.

The following June, a dynamic risk assessment of Shaw found him to be at a high-level risk of re-offending. Areas of particular concern to the assessors were poor problem-solving skills; negative emotionality; deviant sexual preference; cooperation with supervision; significant social influences; hostility towards women; general social rejection; and lack of concern for others.

In 2016, the Parole Board recommended Shaw remain in Arbour Hill prison to allow speedy access to medical treatment and that he be granted two days of escorted outings per year

However, the Minister for Justice did not support the recommendation for two days of escorted outings, which Shaws lawyers challenged in the High Court.

In a judgment delivered last March, Ms Justice Mary Faherty said she was satisfied that Shaw had been afforded the full panoply of fair procedures due to him.

She said the function of the Parole Board was to provide an advisory role to the Minister for Justice in the exercise of the Ministers discretion. There was no suggestion that the Parole Board did not abide by the processes set in place in order for it to be in a position to assist the Minister in the consideration of the management of the Shaws sentence.

She said the opportunities afforded to Shaw to make his case to the Parole Board were clear from the process in which he engaged. He participated in two interviews with the two members of the Parole Board who were designated to interview him.

Furthermore, he wrote to the Parole Board taking issue with what was said to be the interviewers misstatement of answers given by him in the course of the interview and with their having raised certain matters which the applicant contended were outside of their remit, Ms Justice Faherty said.

She dismissed his application for judicial review.

Shaw lodged an appeal against the High Court judgment six months out of date. He is seeking an extension of time to appeal the High Court judgment, which lawyers for the State are opposing. February 4 was fixed today as the date for the hearing of the application to extend time to appeal.

Shaw was not in court for the procedural matter.
The rural economy and rural employers will suffer most with Brexit, an economic conference has heard.

Mark Kennedy, managing partner for Mazars Ireland said there was considerable uncertainty in most scenarios still  but given that 50% of exports by weight from here go through UK landbridge, there would be very significant challenges from a logistical perspective in the case of a hard Brexit.

Agrifoods and tourism are at risk and the areas likely to suffer most, Mr Kennedy told the Killarney Economic Conference.

Mr Kennedy warned also of the uncertainty posed to financial services businesses by a no-deal Brexit scenario, which would do away with the effective transition period to 2020. Such challenges included the requirement of financial services firms to be ready for the March 29 exit deadline.

There is also a challenge for the unregulated service elements of financial services businesses  in that it is not clear how challenges around the recognition of professional qualifications, recognition of standards and precedents, and holding of data will be affected.

Practically, this makes the provision of services relevant to the running of a financial services firm  whether outsourced or internal  across borders potentially problematical.

Scottish MP Michael Russell, who is cabinet secretary for government business and constitutional relations in the Scottish Parliament, outlined the strengths of Ireland as an independent country compared to Scotland, which was still part of the UK.

Mr Russell referred to a speech given by the late Garret FitzGerald in 1990 at Edinburgh University where he forecast how the traditional complex of superiority in the case of Britain and inferiority in the case of Ireland arising from British self-delusion would change.

However while Ireland had changed, Britain seems to have reverted to type, Mr Russell said.

Perhaps that is because Ireland  like Scotland  has risen to the challenges of the modern world, and driven by the democratic will of its people has delivered changes that even he might not have foreseen  in our case devolution, in yours the Good Friday Agreement, marriage equality, womens reproductive rights.

The remarkable capacity of self-delusion by Britain had led many Brexiteers, including Nigel Lawson as chairman of the Leave Campaign, to cheerfully suggest that the solution to the Irish border problem is for Ireland to leave the EU and rejoin the UK.

In other words, the solution to a problem created by them is to ensure that others simply implement the same crazy prescription that has led to the disaster, Mr Russell said.

However, Ireland as an independent state and member of the EU remained in control of its destiny and the EU had been staunch in its defence of Ireland, he said.

Our own experience in Scotland as part of the United Kingdom has been very different. You have solidarity, he said.

We have been patronised, neglected and sometimes treated with outright hostility.

The conference, examining the legal, economic and political implications of Brexit continues today.
The National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP) has today called on the Minister for Health Simon Harris to hold an independent commission of investigation into the spiraling cost of the National Childrens Hospital.

Dr Andrew Jordan, Chairman of the NAGP said, at 1.7bn, Ireland was about to build the most expensive childrens hospital on planet Earth

"This will not deliver any extra beds for the children of Ireland. This is absolute madness. It is a national scandal. The apparent level of incompetence involved in this project is frankly preposterous.

Dr Jordan continued: In the private sector, if such a project quadrupled in price those responsible would be held to account and relieved of their duties.

"The negative effects of this overspend will be felt in the health service for years to come.

Dr Maitiu O'Tuathail, President of the NAGP said every citizen of this country would feel the negative effects of the overspend.

"Other essential services will pay the price through the reduction of funding for a multitude of key health projects, such as nursing home beds, home care packages, extra nursing staff, new emergency departments and resources for community support services.

Dr O'Tuathail continued: Essential projects such as the building of a new Emergency Department in University Hospital Galway appear to have been put on hold as a result of this overspend. This will have a negative effect on the entire population of Connacht.

Furthermore this will starve General Practice of the resources so badly needed to prevent its imminent collapse.

What we need from Minister Harris is less running commentary and more running of the health service.
Free smear tests announced by the Government during the CervicalCheck crisis are set to cost 10m, the Public Accounts Committee has been told.

The figure is contained in a memo from the Department of Health to the PAC, outlining how 4.7m will be spent to provide women with a free GP consultation, alongside another 2.36m for repeat smear test consultations.

When additional costs of around 3m for laboratory testing of the smear tests are factored in, it brings the total to approximately 10m.

However, potential delays rather than the potential cost were at the forefront of discussions within the PAC about the issue.

PAC chairperson Sean Fleming quoted the HSE memo: Women who availed of an early, repeat smear test with the CervicalCheck will be called for their next routine test according to their individual screening recommendation.

This means that most women screened will be recalled for screening in either three or five years. As a result future costs of providing smear tests will be offset to a degree by this out of cycle smear tests.

He said it indicated a bringing forward of a planned screening that women would have had in any case, adding: There is no extra screening being offered here at all.

Referring to the decision by government last May, Labour TD Alan Kelly said: During the crisis the minister made the decision, which has had profound consequences, to provide free screening.

There are now 20 weeks of a delay. This is affecting womens health in a detrimental way.

Furthermore, it has been determined that they have no prioritisation mechanism or way of dealing with priorities.

He added that the minister or the department did not have the capacity or put in adequate resources to be able to deal with the excessive demand created by the decision.
Tanaiste Simon Coveney says Ireland and the EU will respond in a "positive way" to any potential move by Britain to relax its Brexit "red lines" amid claims the DUP wants all of Britain included in any future EU customs union deal.

Mr Coveney said Dublin and Brussels are open to responding to any potential future relationship declaration changes despite insisting that the separate withdrawal agreement and backstop stance will not be re-opened.

Speaking at an event in Cork, as British prime minister Theresa May prepares to publish a 'Brexit plan B' on Monday and as Conservatives MP Boris Johnson claimed the backstop has "got to come out", Mr Coveney said Ireland remains steadfast on the backstop.

However, asked about reports that the DUP may want the EU plan to keep Northern Ireland in the customs union to be expanded to all of Britain, thereby reducing the need for a backstop - claims which DUP leader Arlene Foster yesterday denied - the Tanaiste said Ireland and the EU would respond in a "positive way" to such moves.

"I know the DUP well enough to know that if I encourage them in one direction they may go in the direction. Theyll make their own decisions. I respect the DUP and recognise that they have a view. Its not a view that I share in relation to their concerns about the backstop. Nobody wants to ever use it [the backstop], because we want a comprehensive future relationship that makes it unnecessary and should it ever be used, the intention is only to use it on a temporary basis until something more permanent is agreed."

"Our position on the backstop remains consistent. The EUs position remains in complete solidarity with Ireland and that is why youve heard Michel Barnier, Donald Tusk and Jean Claude Juncker all saying that the withdrawal agreement isnt up for negotiation and the backstop is part of that. That said, I think if it is possible to see a change in the red lines that the British government have outlined to the conditions of Brexit that theyre looking for, then the context around the future relationship discussion, and therefore any potential use of the backstop in the future, could change quite significantly," he added.

Michel Barniers been very clear this week, and I think I and the Taoiseach have too, if Britain chooses to change its red lines, I would like to think that the EU is ready to respond to that in a positive way and a helpful way. But that is a matter for the British parliament, which of course the DUP are part of," Mr Coveney said.

The Tanaiste's comments came as British prime minister, Theresa May, prepares to publish a Brexit plan B after the initial EU-UK Brexit deal was defeated last week in the worst defeat for a British government in parliamentary history.

The plan B document will be published on Monday, before it is also voted on by the House of Commons on January 29 - exactly two months before Britain is due to leave the EU.

Preparations for the plan were complicated yesterday when Conservatives MP Boris Johnson said that the backstop "has got to come out" and that last week's vote has given Ms May a "mandate" to seek the change.

Meanwhile, DUP leader Arlene Foster has downplayed reports yesterday that her party may be open to a softer Brexit which would allow the existing plan to keep Northern Ireland in the customs union to be extended to all of Britain.

Ms Foster said: We want an agreement which returns control of our money, our laws and our borders through a UK wide FTA with the EU. The story in the Times [of London] is an attempt to cause division."
Irelands longest-serving MEP who announced his retirement from politics has defended taking his EU salary while he was in hospital for nearly four years and claimed he hasnt spoken to his party leader since mid-2014.

Brian Crowley, who has served as an MEP since 1994, said he had done nothing wrong by claiming his 95,484 annual salary while he was in hospital. He said during that time he was constantly working on constituents enquiries, as were his staff, and therefore he was also entitled to claim a flat-rate monthly allowance of 4,299 to cover office expenses, phone bills, computer equipment, and other costs.

I have been in hospital for a long period of time  over three and a half years with a number of surgeries. Because of that, I could not attend the parliament in Strasbourg.

Over the period of time I was in hospital, the work has not stopped. I was working from hospital and via my staff. I was working through my contacts within the EU Commission and EU Parliament, said Mr Crowley.

The 54-year-old said the last time Micheal Martin spoke to me was in July 2014.

Mr Crowley said that despite not being chosen by Fianna Fail to contest the presidential election in 2011, and being expelled from the parliamentary party three years later for leaving the Fianna Fail grouping in the European Parliament, he bore no ill-feeling towards Mr Martin.

Mr Crowley thanked Mr Martin for the tribute he paid to him yesterday.

He said he was forced to leave the FF-aligned ALDE Group in Europe because it failed to agree employment contracts for some existing Irish staff and he subsequently joined the ERC grouping.

Mr Crowley said he did not personally inform Mr Martin he intended to step down as an MEP, even though he remains a paid-up member of his party.

Were not enemies, were not at loggerheads. He had to make a decision on the presidential (bid) and expulsion from the parliamentary party.

He said that he was hoping to resume his visits to the European Parliament shortly and would continue in office until May 1.

He declined to endorse any replacement candidate.

Last night, Fianna Fail Cork North Central TD Billy Kelleher declared his intention to formally contest the forthcoming European election.

Mr Martin and other senior party TDs are said to have reacted with anger and deep surprise at Mr Kellehers declaration.
Hard-line Brexiteers will have no one to blame except themselves if they get everything they want from the crisis, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has warned.

Mr Donohoe said the rise of Brexit and US president Donald Trump is due in part to an ongoing battle between the political centre and populist, nationalistic movements.

Speaking at a specially arranged Institute of International and European Affairs event at the Gresham Hotel, Mr Donohoe said if a no-deal Brexit leads to a cut in British living standards, hard-line Brexiteers will have questions to answer.

A populist agenda achieves either government or power but cannot achieve the objectives of a defining project. Who is left to blame?

As a thought experiment, imagine the very hardest of Brexits consciously occurs in line with the agenda of the hardest Brexiteers.

But the consequences include a significant reduction in living standards across the UK and there is limited scope to achieve big trade deals without further impacting on the living standards and working conditions of the UK population.

Who is left to blame? None of the answers to this question are good, he said.

During the same event, in which Mr Donohoe declined to take on-the-record questions from the media, the Finance Minister noted the rise of US president Donald Trump and Brexit in recent years.

While saying the issue is not as prevalent in Ireland, he said it is important the political centre ground holds firm against extreme populist movements, provided it also acknowledges some of their concerns.
A woman was left dangling half way out of a moving getaway car after she chased down the man who had snatched her wallet, a court has heard.

Tony Carrick (41) was given a partially suspended sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after he admitted robbing Aoife O'Reilly as she was standing in line for a coffee at a petrol station in Finglas, north Dublin.

After asking her for the time Carrick grabbed her wallet and fled to a car. Ms O'Reilly pursued and ended up half in and half out of the vehicle. Both Carrick and the driver shouted at her to get out or I'll fucking kill you and Carrick punched her in the head.

The driver drove 200 yards while Ms O'Reilly's legs were dangling outside of the car. Carrick told her that if she got out of the car he would throw her the wallet, but the driver pushed her out and drove away.

Carrick of Knowth Court, Poppintree, Dublin pleaded guilty to robbery and endangerment on December 13, 2016.

Carrick is already serving a five and a half year jail term for burglaries and an attempted car-jacking. Today Judge Karen O'Connor directed that the sentence for these latest crimes run consecutive to this sentence, as Carrick was out on bail for the earlier crimes when he offended again.

This brings Carrick's total sentence to eight years for all matters. Judge O'Connor suspended the final two and a half years from the total sentence of eight years. She backdated the sentence to December 2016 when Carrick went into custody.

Carrick also admitted a second robbery at another filling station on the same day in which he only managed to make off with an apron.

Detective Sergeant Shane McCartan told Sinead McMullan BL, prosecuting, Barbara Macken was starting work at Topaz in The Ward, Dublin, when she was approached by Carrick.

Carrick again asked for the time and then attempted to grab her handbag but only succeeded in taking her apron. When he realised this he threw it down before jumping into the same car as the earlier robbery.

The court heard the driver, who was involved in both incidents, is now deceased.

Carrick's 110 previous convictions include assault, criminal damage, burglary, endangerment, robbery and unlawful possession of ammunition.

Det Sgt McCartan agreed with Luigi Rea BL, defending, that Carrick was in a drug induced state at the time of the incidents. Mr Rea remarked that his client had been using crack cocaine which drives people a little bit crazy, people say.

Mr Rea said that Carrick was seeking treatment for his addictions. He handed into the court a two-page letter of apology written by his client.

Judge O'Connor described the incidents as horrendous behaviour. She noted that Ms O'Reilly has recurring nightmares, suffers panic attacks in crowded places and has lost confidence.

She further noted that Ms O'Reilly had stated that she is unlikely to help strangers as a result of feeling unsafe.

The judge accepted that Carrick has poor cognitive functioning, has a significant history of substance abuse and institutional abuse and that he had entered an early plea.
Photo: The Canadian Press Teen migrants at the Tornillo detention camp in Texas.

Thousands more migrant children may have been split from their families than the Trump administration previously reported, in part because officials were stepping up family separations long before the border policy that prompted international outrage last spring, a government watchdog said Thursday.

It's unclear just how many family separations occurred at the U.S.-Mexico border; immigration officials are allowed under longstanding policy to separate families under certain circumstances. Health and Human Services, the agency tasked with caring for migrant children, did not adequately track them until after a judge ruled that children must be reunited with their families, according to the report by the agency's inspector general.

Ann Maxwell, assistant inspector general for evaluations, said the number of children removed from their parents was certainly larger than the 2,737 listed by the government in court documents. Those documents chronicled separations that took place as parents were criminally prosecuted for illegally entering the country under President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy.

"It's certainly more," Maxwell said. "But precisely how much more is unknown."

Maxwell said investigators didn't have specific numbers, but that Health and Human Services staff had estimated the tally to be in the thousands.

Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who sued on behalf of a mother separated from her son, said the separation policy "was a cruel disaster from the start. This report reaffirms that the government never had a clear picture of how many children it ripped from their parents."

Most of the tens of thousands of children who come into government custody cross the border alone. But the report found that in late 2016, 0.3 per cent of children turned over to Health and Human Services had crossed with a parent and were separated. By the summer of 2017, that percentage had grown to 3.6 per cent, officials said. The watchdog did not give exact numbers, but the total number of migrant children who passed through the agency's care during the 2017 budget year was 40,810. The separated children had already been released to sponsors, who are generally parents or other close relatives.

The inspector general did not say why the children had been separated before the zero-tolerance policy. Immigration officials are allowed to take a child from a parent in certain cases  serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns. That policy has long been in place.

Katie Waldman, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security, said the report reinforced what officials have long said. "For more than a decade it was and continues to be standard for apprehended minors to be separated when the adult is not the parent or legal guardian, the child's safety is at risk" or there's a record of a "serious criminal activity by the adult," she said.

In some cases, however, Homeland Security officials said a parent had a criminal history but did not offer details on the crimes, the watchdog reported.

The number of families coming across the border has grown even as overall illegal border crossings have decreased dramatically compared with historic trends. Over the past three months, families made up the majority of Border Patrol arrests.

The Administration for Children and Families, the division under Health and Human Services that manages the care of unaccompanied minors, said it generally agreed with the findings and noted the report did not find that the agency lost track of children under its care. It also noted new policies were in place to help track newly separated children. And the court never instructed officials to determine the number of children separated before the June 26 ruling.

Last spring, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said anyone caught crossing the border illegally would be criminally prosecuted. Families were brought into custody by U.S. Border patrol officials, then their parents taken to criminal court. If the parents were gone longer than 72 hours  the length of time Border Patrol is allowed to hold children  the children were transferred to the custody of Health and Human Services.

The practice prompted an outcry, with church groups and lawmakers calling the separations inhumane.
A woman who was described as a kleptomaniac in court by her solicitor agreed with her family that she would not give Christmas presents last month - in case she was tempted to steal them.

The woman from Cork City was appearing before Bandon District Court on charges that she stole 15 worth of cosmetics from Kevin O'Leary's Centra in the town on August 26 last and then, on leaving the shop, stole a gas cylinder worth 61.55 which she placed in her car before driving away.
A vast new wave tank and lab facility in Cork Harbour will help the country move towards a greener future, the Tanaiste said.

Simon Coveney was speaking at the official opening of Lir, a state-of-the-art facility in the 20m UCC Environmental Research Institute (ERI) Beaufort building in Ringaskiddy.

Its vast 2,600 sq metre tank hall houses four wave tanks that can replicate real ocean conditions to test marine innovations and cutting-edge technologies. One of the tanks has an adjustable beach.

Researchers will test scale-models of their devices in the tanks, before moving them to a pre-commercial testing facility in Galway Bay, and from there to real-world testing in Belmullet in Co Mayo.

Among the technologies currently being tested at Lir is a small wave-powered turbine that can be attached to fish-farm platforms to provide on-site power.

But Lir can also be used to test scale-models of oil and gas platforms, aquaculture cages, vessels, breakwaters and coastal defences.

This country has a challenge when it comes to emissions and climate change - it has a challenge to move away from a carbon-based economy towards a much more renewable and green future, Mr Coveney said.

We are doing that in wind and have been for quite some time. We can also do that in relation to ocean renewable. This piece of infrastructure will be a big part of that."

UCC President Professor Patrick OShea said research at Lir will help unlock the potential of our oceans, while UCCs Dr Jimmy Murphy, who is based at Lir, said they will help companies by de-risking their technologies through an extensive and robust testing.
A rise in sterlings value on the back of a Brexit deal would be a necessary boost for tourism in Cork and Kerry, which sees a fifth of annual visitors come from the UK.

That is according to the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC), which warned that tourism businesses were becoming increasingly worried about the implications of a hard Brexit.

Chief executive Eoghan OMara Walsh said: Certainly no deal in 10 weeks is the worst outcome for Irish tourism  sterling would likely fall thereby reducing Irish competitiveness.

A deal of some sort would hopefully help sterling stabilise and thus protect Irish tourisms value-for-money perception.

Mr OMara Walsh said the value of UK visitors, who have dropped off in numbers since the Brexit vote in 2016, was crucial to Cork, Kerry and other regions dependent on tourism.

It has been estimated that a hard Brexit could cost Irish tourism 390m in its immediate aftermath with a weakened sterling, aviation disruption, and possible border checks on the island, he said.

Britain is by far Irelands largest single source market for tourists, with well over three million British visitors coming to Ireland each year, Mr OMara Walsh said, adding that the most recent Failte Ireland data showed that 22% of tourism spend in the South West is from British tourists.

It is vitally important that there is a Brexit mitigation fund for vulnerable tourism and hospitality businesses to help them pursue market-diversification, he said.

ITIC has urged Failte Ireland, who received an increase of 17m in the last budget, to roll out a Brexit fund for the tourism sector comparable to how Bord Bia and Enterprise Ireland support businesses.

Mr OMara Walsh reiterated his criticism of the Vat increase brought in by the government from January 1.

The 50% Vat hike imposes a tax of 466m on the tourism sector just as Brexit is about to come to pass  businesses in Cork and throughout Ireland will find trading conditions that much harder in 2019, at the very time that they should be being supported rather than undermined, he said.

The reduced Vat rate brought in during the recession to boost tourism was raised back to 13.5% from 9% in the last Budget.
Aughinish Alumina workers in Limerick will be mightily relieved after the US Senate backed the US Treasury Departments decision to lift sanctions on companies linked to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

That is according to Daniel Mulhall, Irish ambassador to the US, as he hailed the decision from US lawmakers that he said would help preserve 75,000 jobs across Europe linked to the industry.

Around 700 workers and contractors are employed at the Aughinish Alumina plant near Askeaton, which has been described as one of Limericks best employers.

Aughinish owner Rusal is in turn majority-owned by a company controlled by Mr Deripaska, who has come under fire from Democrats and Republicans over perceived close tied to the Kremlin.

The US imposed sanctions on Mr Deripaskas companies last April, throwing the market into weeks of instability, and leaving the jobs in Aughinish under a cloud.

The sanctions means Rusal could only work with existing customers and not sign new long-term deals.

However, a threatened rebellion from Republican senators earlier this week to vote to overturn the Treasurys decision to end sanctions on companies like Rusal did not materialise.

Mr Mulhall wrote on Twitter that while he had no sympathy for the likes of Mr Deripaska, the Irish position was that sanctions should punish the guilty oligarchs while sparing innocent workers in the west of Ireland who do not deserve to lose their jobs.

Those whose jobs have been saved will be mightily relieved. Sanctions need to be deployed carefully so as to punish guilty parties while avoiding economic damage to friendly countries.

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said sanctions were intended to target Mr Deripaska and not the companies involved.
FiberPass, a new solution from iBwave, reportedly is being used by some of the largest network operators in North America to deploy FTTH networks inside commercial and residential buildings, enabling faster and more reliable service to businesses and residents.

For the last few years, we've seen that many of the large operators who use our wireless design software need a solution to help them accelerate the deployment of the FTTH networks inside buildings to keep up with customer demand. Before FiberPass, the in-building design process typically took several weeks. But with the introduction of our FiberPass solution, the design process was reduced to days, said Claude Echahamian, CEO, iBwave Solutions.

With a strong focus on automating the design and deployment lifecycle of a FTTH project, iBwave's new FiberPass solution has already helped major operators expedite their fiber deployment initiatives.

We've chosen iBwave FiberPass because it helps automate the FTTH in-building planning and design process. We've already seen significant gains through several successful trials in the Northeastern part of the country, deploying fiber quickly and effectively to multi-dwelling units, said Kevin Smith, VP, Network Planning, Verizon.

We're very proud of our continued partnership with Verizon, which started back in 2008 with iBwave Design for indoor wireless projects. As Verizon leads the way deploying FTTH networks across the USA, we're happy to be by their side, enabling wireless and wireline in-building network convergence thanks to the combination of iBwave Design with our ground-breaking FiberPass solution. For us, it's all just part of laying the groundwork for a 5G future, said Claude Echahamian.

Edited by Ken Briodagh
As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information

January 18, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) In junior mining, having deep expertise at the management and board level can be worth its weight in gold, or in this case, copper. Many a junior has embarked on the long, hard and expensive journey of developing a mine - even those with top-tier deposits - only to find the trip ends abruptly due to some insurmountable technical challenge, or a problem requiring so much extra funding to fix that the project must be shelved.

Experience is one of the basic tenets of due diligence that must be done in evaluating any exploration company, along with the strength of the property(ies), resources, grades, access to infrastructure, share structure, etc.

Fortunately for Rockridge Resources (TSX-V:ROCK), which recently started trading on the TSX Venture Exchange, they have it in spades. Led by President & CEO Jordan Trimble, a corporate financing veteran, Rockridge today announced that the company has established a technical advisory board and appointed Ron Netolitzky as its first member.

Those who follow Canadian mining will have heard of Netolitzky. An accomplished geologist, he is associated with the discoveries of three exceptional mineral properties that were put into production: Snip and Eskay Creek in British Columbia, and Brewery Creek in the Yukon.

Netolitzky's first success came at Eskay Creek, which had a fruitless exploration history dating back to the 1930s. Seeing the potential, Netolitzky invested in Consolidated Stikine Resources, which held the rights, then teamed up with Calpine Resources to drill-test the prospect. Eventually, renowned Vancouver stock promotor Murray Pezim gained control of Calpine and half the deposit, but Stikine held out until Placer Dome and International Corona launched takeovers; Stikine employed Netolitzky as their technical person. He was also one of five controlling shareholders. The company was taken out for $67 per share in what has become one of the more famous transactions in Western Canadian mining history.

As President of Loki Gold, Netolitzky transformed the Brewery Creek project into an open-pit heap leach operation. Producing 200,000 gold ounces a year from 1996 to 2002, the project is currently owned by Golden Predator. An entity that Netolitzky created from the merger of Noki and Viceroy Gold would go on to acquire the Gualcamayo gold project in Argentina, sold to Yamana Gold in 2006.

At Spectrum Gold he obtained the rights to Galore Creek, a copper-gold-silver project in BC, and later merged Spectrum with NovaGold Resources. Newmont Mining acquired 50% of Galore Creek in July 2018 and formed a partnership with Teck Resources, who owns the other half. He was also chairman of Brett Resources which acquired the Hammond Reef gold project in Ontario later sold to Osisko Mining. His international experience includes helping to acquire the Segala gold deposit in Mali, and developing the Onca-Puma nickel deposit in Brazil.

For his achievements, Netolitzky was honoured with the Prospector of the Year award from the Prospectors &Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), and Developer of the Year award from the BC & Yukon Chamber of Mines. In 2015, he was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.

Netolitzky will be providing his technical expertise to a management team at Rockridge that also has decades of mining experience under its belt. Head geologist Richard Kusmirski has been exploring North America for over 40 years, and specializes in Saskatchewan, the site of the Knife Lake project Rockridge is developing. He was previously Exploration Manager at Cameco, where he oversaw uranium exploration projects in the Athabasca Basin.

Director Jim Pettit has 25+ years of mining industry experience including as Chairman and CEO of Bayfield Ventures, which he sold to New Gold in 2014.

"I am excited to work with management and the geological team at the newly formed and well-structured Rockridge Resources," Netolitzky said in a press release. "I have worked in the area around the Knife Lake Project and believe there is robust discovery potential there which the Company plans to test with its upcoming drill program."

Rockridge has an option on the Knife Lake Copper VMS project currently owned by Eagle Plains Resources (TSX-V:EPL).

Under terms of the agreement, Rockridge can acquire the project by incurring exploration expenditures of C$3.25 million over four years, along with issuing 5,250,000 Rockridge shares and paying a total of $150,000 in cash.

The 85,196-hectare property is about 50 kilometers northwest of Sandy Bay, SK and within the Flin Flon-Snow Lake mining district, a prolific greenstone belt. Since the initial discovery of mineralization in 1915, the Flin Flon camp has produced over 170 million tons of sulfide ore from 31 volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits, worth over $25 billion.

Historically explored with over 400 diamond drill holes, Knife Lake is a VMS deposit with a 15m-thick mineralized zone containing copper, silver, zinc and cobalt.

The first work was carried out between 1969 and 1973, including airborne geophysical surveys and soil sampling. The 1969 discovery hole returned 2.37% copper over 4.48m, including 3.5% over 2.5m. These days, anything over 1% is considered high-grade copper.

Exploration picked up again in the 1990s, but ceased when metals prices dropped. A company called Leader Mining punched in 350 holes between 1996 and 2001, and published a resource estimate in 1998, consisting of 20.3 million tonnes grading 0.6% copper, 0.1 g/t gold, 3.0 g/t silver, 0.06% cobalt and 0.11% zinc. Within this shallow resource is a higher-grade zone of 11 million tonnes grading 0.75% copper in addition to other metal credits (The resource estimates are historical in nature and are not NI 43-101 compliant).

Of interest to potential investors is Rockridge's tightly held share structure. Out of 23 million issued and outstanding shares, about 85% are held by insiders, management, funds and close associates, leaving only 3 million shares in the public float. The company currently has an enterprise value of roughly $4 million - which is low considering the potential of the project.

A $700,000 drill program to begin this spring will focus on confirmation drilling in the deposit area, as well as expansion drilling and some exploratory holes.

Click here for more on Knife Lake

Rockridge is entering the market at the perfect time for a copper explorer, with demand forecast to outstrip supply as early as 2020. By 2034, the shortfall is expected to be more than 15 million tonnes.

While the copper price has lagged in recent months over fears of slowing Chinese growth and the US-China trade war, the market fundamentals are solid. Over 200 copper mines currently in operation will reach the end of their productive life before 2035. Most of the low-hanging copper "fruit" has been picked. New copper mines will be lower-grade and farther afield, meaning higher capex and production costs.

Demand for the "red metal" needed for construction (copper wiring), communications and transportation, is now being wired in, pun intended, to the electrification trend. Copper is an essential component of EVs. An average electric vehicle contains 85 kilograms of copper compared to 25 kg for regular vehicles.

That means copper demand is going to soar even higher than it already is.

Second, we are on the cusp of a major change in the copper market, where supply is not going to be able to keep up with demand. There are already signs. Copper stockpiles at London Metal Exchange warehouses are at a decade low.

Another sign of trouble on the horizon for copper buyers, considering the price rise likely to result, is the shift to underground mining at Grasberg, the world's second largest copper mine. Bloomberg reports that copper concentrate exports will drop 83%, and output will almost halve, as operations move from open pit to underground. That's a plunge from an estimated 1.2 million tonnes last year to just 200,000t of concentrate, which will be smelted to make copper cathodes.

Every year copper analysts predict a flood of supply from copper mines overwhelming demand, but they fail to take into account the usual work stoppages due to strikes and "force majeures" from bad weather or other factors. Add that Chile is having water supply problems near the world's largest copper mine, Escondida, and the fact that the South American nation has seen a 25% decline in copper ore grades over the last decade, and you can see why a coming deficit in the copper market is predicted.

This, of course, will mean higher prices, and more interest in copper mining equities including juniors like Rockridge that can help bring more supply onstream.

Richard (Rick) Mills

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This document is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment. Richard Mills has based this document on information obtained from sources he believes to be reliable but which has not been independently verified. Richard Mills makes no guarantee, representation or warranty and accepts no responsibility or liability as to its accuracy or completeness. Expressions of opinion are those of Richard Mills only and are subject to change without notice. Richard Mills assumes no warranty, liability or guarantee for the current relevance, correctness or completeness of any information provided within this Report and will not be held liable for the consequence of reliance upon any opinion or statement contained herein or any omission. Furthermore, I, Richard Mills, assume no liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage or, in particular, for lost profit, which you may incur as a result of the use and existence of the information provided within this Report.

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California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced new members of his executive team, including the first Latina chief deputy in the history of the California Department of Insurance.

The new executive team members join an existing leadership team.

I am proud of naming our first Latina chief deputy in the Departments history because I believe all levels of government should reflect Californias diverse communities, Lara said in a statement. Our team will embrace innovation, with the first in the nation executive-level position engaging the insurance industry in the fight against climate change. Protecting Californias consumers demands we confront the growing threats from wildfires, fraud, and the rising cost of health care in partnership with the Governor and Legislature.

Chief Deputy Catalina Hayes-Bautista joins the CDI after serving as deputy legislative affairs secretary in the office of Gov. Jerry Brown. She previously served as deputy secretary for legislative affairs at the California Environmental Protection Agency, was a principal consultant in the office of Speaker Toni Atkins, was legislative director for Lara when he was a state Senators, and was legislative aide in the office of California State Assemblywoman Fiona Ma.

Senior Deputy Commissioner and Legislative Director Michael Martinez rejoins the CDI, where he was deputy insurance commissioner and legislative director under Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. He was previously a deputy legislative affairs secretary and deputy appointments secretary for Brown.

Michael Peterson will serve as deputy commissioner for climate and sustainability, believed to be the nations first executive-level position focused on engaging the insurance industry in the fight against climate change. He previously served as legislative consultant to Senator Lara, focusing on climate change, natural resources and energy policy, and as a consultant for the California State Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water.

Director of Community Outreach Julia Juarez will lead the CDIs engagement with California communities. She previously served as District Director for Senator Lara when he represented the 33rd Senate District.

Special Assistant David Green joins the Department after serving in the Capitol office of Senator Lara.

Michael Soller will serve as deputy commissioner for communications and press relations in Northern California. He previously served as communications director to Senator Lara and as communications director for the California Democratic Party under former Chairman and Senate President pro Tempore-Emeritus John Burton.

Lara is the eighth Insurance Commissioner of California since voters created the position in 1988, and the first openly LGBTQ person to be elected to statewide office in California.

Related:

Topics California Pollution
PG&E Corp. is so cash-starved that it wont commit to paying settlements reached with people who lost their homes in a 2015 wildfire caused by a tree falling on a power line.

The disclosure by a lawyer for the utility giant was greeted warily by a state judge at a hearing Thursday in Sacramento. He declined to grant PG&Es request, in light of its plan to file for bankruptcy this month, to put off an April trial over damages from the Butte Fire that torched 70,000 acres and destroyed almost 500 homes.

The September 2015 fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills did modest damage compared with Northern California blazes in PG&Es service area in 2017 and 2018 that, taken together, killed more than 100 people, razed tens of thousands of homes and burned hundreds of thousands of acres.

Financial uncertainty over as much as $30 billion in liabilities from the 2017 and 2018 wildfires has created a state of limbo in which PG&E cant commit to previously reached settlements, said Kristin Bird, a lawyer for the company.

PG&E is in a mode of trying to conserve resources, Bird told Superior Court Judge Allen Sumner. We are not in a position to tell anybody if they are going to get paid or how much.

Steve Campora, who has settled cases with PG&E from the 2015 fire, said the companys claims that it cares about victims and the rebuilding of communities is the height of hypocrisy if its unwilling to stand by its settlements. Property owners have litigated the case for three years, arrived at a settlement, and now you cant tell them whether theyre going to get paid? he said.

Bird told Sumner the company has settled with about about 2,800 plaintiffs, or 1,500 households, in the case. The trial set for April 1 is over unresolved claims involving an additional 150 households.

PG&E has paid insurance claims of almost $1 billion from the Butte Fire and faces about $75 million in unresolved claims, according to lawyers representing victims. One of those attorneys, Amanda Riddle, said PG&E is refusing to say if it will honor 11 of its settlements.

PG&E continues to be more concerned with its executives and investors compensation than it is with the victims that have suffered so greatly due the companys recklessness, Riddle said.

Sumner ordered PG&E to confirm by Jan. 22 whether it will honor the outstanding settlements.

PG&E said it plans to file for bankruptcy around Jan. 29. Under federal law, the filing would automatically put on hold thousands of claims filed in California courts by victims of fires. Criminal and regulatory actions can advance.

Bankruptcy has not been filed, Sumner said at the hearing, adding that until then this court has jurisdiction. The judge scheduled a Feb. 4 hearing in the case, adding that he is fully aware that by then this courts authority may have turned into a pumpkin. But if PG&E does not file we need to have something on the calendar.

Bird declined to comment after the hearing and PG&E didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Related:

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.

Topics California Wildfire
A Florida jury has awarded nearly $500 million to the family of a woman fatally shot during an argument in a car in 2011.

The family of 20-year-old Kalil McCoy of Jacksonville filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the man who shot her and two other men who helped dump her body.

Frederick Lee Wade was sentenced to 45 years for second-degree murder in 2017. The other men pleaded guilty to accessory charges.

On Tuesday, a Duval County jury awarded McCoys family over $495 million for emotional distress and punitive damages.

The familys attorney, John M. Phillips, said he sought an eight-figure award to send a message that violent criminals will get prosecuted and get punitive damages in Florida.

Phillips said the case will be turned over to collection attorneys.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Auto Florida
Photo: Contributed

The Juneau Arts and Humanities Council changed the theme of its annual fashion show following a complaint by Alaska Airlines.

The Wearable Art show scheduled for mid-February in Alaska's capital changed its theme of turbulence to tailwind, the Juneau Empire reported this week.

The Seattle-based airline, a sponsor of the event, suggested the change, citing the word's negative connection to air travel.

"From our side of the house, tailwinds are much more favourable than turbulence," said Tim Thompson, spokesman for Alaska Airlines.

Alaska Airlines donated $25,000 to the council in December and gave more than $25,000 in travel credit. Its drill team is also the opening act for the two-day event.

"It came to our attention that turbulence perhaps isn't positive when connected to an airplane," said Nancy DeCherney, the council's executive director. "We thought about what we could do to ameliorate the situation."

The council's board members and the airline felt the new theme was a positive change, DeCherney said. The council announced the change Monday, about a month before the event.

"Naturally, it came abruptly, and the artists were taken by surprise," DeCherney said.

The art pieces featured in the show are not required to match the theme, she said.

"I'd imagine we'll find some things on the runway that are still referencing turbulence, and that's just fine," DeCherney said.
An unlicensed insurance adjuster has been arrested over unlicensed public adjusting activities and the filing of false and fraudulent liens on individuals homes following Hurricane Irma, according to a statement from the Florida Department of Financial Services.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jimmy Patronis reported Mary Bruce is accused of stealing $14,000 in total from homeowners.

Following Hurricane Irma in September 2017, DFS investigators discovered that Bruce approached roofing companies and homeowners in Central Florida and falsely identified herself as a claims manager.

Bruce is alleged to have told homeowners she could increase prior hurricane insurance claim settlements up to $30,000, but would require homeowners to sign a Power of Attorney document in order to do so.

Once signed, Bruce submitted an adjusted claim to the insurance company, doubling the original cost estimates submitted previously. If the insurance company refused to pay the increased adjusted amount, Bruce would then place a lien on the homeowners property.

Bruce was arrested and booked into the Volusia County Jail on charges of unlicensed public adjuster and filing of false and fraudulent lien. If convicted, Bruce faces up to 10 years in prison.

After a hurricane, Florida families are incredibly vulnerable and my fraud teams ensure that scammers who take advantage are found and thrown in jail, Patronis said. If you need repairs to your home and an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Report these incidents so we can get these criminals off the streets and deter others from committing these crimes.

Source: Florida Department of Financial Services

Topics Florida Fraud Hurricane Homeowners
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has acquired Shreveport, Louisiana-based Interstate Insurance Underwriters LLC, the company announced.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 1963, Interstate Insurance Underwriters is a managing general agency (MGA) offering a variety of property/casualty coverages through agents and brokers throughout the state of Louisiana, with a focus on general liability, property, garage and inland marine risks.

Lawrence, Taylor and Logan Calhoun and their associates will remain in their current location as a satellite of Risk Placement Services Inc.s Covington, Louisiana, office, operating under the direction of Joel Stinson, head of RPSs South Central region.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., a global insurance brokerage, risk management and consulting services firm, is headquartered in Rolling Meadows, Illinois.

Source: Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Topics Mergers Louisiana Underwriting A.J. Gallagher
Nashville-based auto insurer The General has appointed veteran insurance executive Tony DeSantis to the new position of president and chief executive officer, joining Chief Operating Officer Steve Tjugum as the companys top leaders. Elicia Azali has been named Marketing senior vice president.

The General, which specializes in auto insurance for consumers who have less than perfect driving histories, operates in 46 states and employs 1,300 people at its Nashville headquarters and other offices. The company has more than doubled its policy count since 2015 to nearly 400,000, and plans to expand all 50 states within the next several years.

DeSantis has served as president and chief executive officer at AIG Direct where he was for more than 20 years, and president and CEO of 21st Century Insurance, as well as president of personal insurance product lines at Farmers Insurance and, most recently since 2017, CEO of Ironshores Syndicated Risk Services, a startup managing general agency.

In 2009, Farmers acquired AIGs U.S. Personal Auto Group, which included 21st Century Insurance. In addition to 21st Century Insurance, the acquisition includeD the former AIG Direct business and Agency Auto business.

His background in both personal and commercial insurance includes experience with non-standard auto insurance and direct and agency-based sales channels.

DeSantis joins Tjugum who became COO in late 2018. Tjugum moved to The General from American Family Insurance, the parent company of The General, where he worked for more than 30 years, starting as an agent in 1988 and advancing in the organization in both product line and sales leadership roles.

Azali comes to The General from Nationwide Insurance where she held multiple leadership roles in marketing, advertising, product lines and innovation.

The General, or Permanent General Companies, offers non-standard auto insurance products. It writes business through multiple distribution channels in 46 states and District of Columbia.

Topics Auto Agribusiness AIG
An intensive care doctor ordered significantly excessive and potentially fatal doses of pain medicine for at least 27 near-death patients in the past few years after families asked that lifesaving measures be stopped, an Ohio hospital system announced after being sued by a family alleging an improper dose of fentanyl actively hastened the death of one of those patients.

The Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System acknowledged the doses were larger than needed to provide comfort for dying patients. That raises questions about whether there was an intentional or possibly illegal use of the drugs to accelerate deaths.

The system said it has fired the doctor, reported findings of an internal investigation to authorities and removed 20 employees from patient care pending further investigation, including nurses who administered the medication as well as pharmacists.

Mount Carmel said the situation came to light because an employee reported a safety concern. The health system shared no information about what might have prompted employees to approve and administer the excessive dosages.

Regardless of the reason the actions were taken, we take responsibility for the fact that the processes in place were not sufficient to prevent these actions from happening, Mount Carmel President and CEO Ed Lamb said in a video statement. Were doing everything to understand how this happened and what we need to do to ensure that it never happens again.

The attorney who brought the lawsuit said, in that case, either layers of safeguards repeatedly failed to flag a grossly excessive dosage of fentanyl, or the medical professionals intended to accelerate the death of the patient, 79-year-old Janet Kavanaugh.

On balance, its hard to believe the former occurred rather than the latter.  This is not just a simple situation of an error, lawyer Gerry Leeseberg said Tuesday.

The lawsuit was filed Jan. 14 in Franklin County against the health system, a pharmacist, a nurse and the doctor, whom it identifies as William Husel.

Case records listed no attorney yet to comment on Husels behalf. There is no public personal phone listing for him, and other numbers linked to him werent accepting calls Tuesday.

Husels case emerges amid a national debate over physician-assisted death. In such cases, physicians prescribe medications in life-ending amounts to terminally ill patients.

Five states  California, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Colorado  allow the practice, and 20 have considered but not passed legislation to do so, according to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. A Montana court also legalized it there, though theres no regulatory framework in place. In Ohio, the practice remains illegal. A bill that would have allowed terminally ill, mentally competent patients to self-administer a prescription to end their lives failed to gain traction in the last legislative session.

But Joe Carrese, a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, said that such laws are carefully crafted. He said that if Husel administered lethal quantities of drugs to unwitting patients in order to end their lives, his acts didnt meet the definition of physician-assisted death.

In this case, if that was the intent, this was essentially euthanasia, which is not legal anywhere in the United States and not at all the same as physician-assisted death, he said.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron OBrien confirmed that his office has met with doctors, hospital executives and attorneys and that an investigation is underway, but he wouldnt discuss details. He said theyve received cooperation from Mount Carmel, which operates four hospitals around Columbus, and from parent organization Trinity Health, one of the countrys largest Roman Catholic health care systems.

Records show the State Medical Board in Ohio has never taken disciplinary action against Husel. Its unclear whether that board ever received a complaint or conducted an investigation about him, as such records are confidential under Ohio law, and outcomes are made public only if the board takes formal action.

Husel was a supervised resident at the Cleveland Clinic from 2008 to 2013, according to a statement from the medical center. Its now conducting an internal investigation of his work, but it said a preliminary review found that his prescribing practices were consistent with appropriate care provided to patients in the intensive care unit.

Carrese, from the bioethics institute, commended Mount Carmel for encouraging a culture in which medical staff and other employees can come forward without fear, but he said the extent of the allegations is concerning.

The fact that there may be other patients, up to 26 other patients, really calls into question whether the culture of safety and reporting that theyre shooting for, whether theres more work that needs to be done, he said.

The allegations carry echoes of prior Ohio cases in which patients were killed.

Nurses aide Donald Harvey, dubbed the Angel of Death, claimed responsibility for killing more than 50 people in Cincinnati and Kentucky hospitals during the 1970s and `80s, mostly by poisoning. Many were chronically ill patients, and Harvey claimed he was trying to end their suffering.

Admitted serial killer Michael Swango, the former physician dubbed Dr. Death, pleaded guilty to killing four people, including one while interning at an Ohio State University hospital, and was believed to have poisoned dozens as he moved between hospitals in various places.

Leeseberg, the attorney in the Mount Carmel lawsuit, said an important difference in this case is that multiple people were involved in the patients receiving the drugs.

The pharmacist has an obligation to question an order, and the nurse has an obligation to question the order as well, Leeseberg said. All of those safeguards were overridden or ignored. Its like nothing Ive ever seen.

Associated Press reporters Julie Carr Smyth and Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Mark Gillispie in Cleveland, John Seewer in Toledo and Dan Sewell in Cincinnati contributed to this report.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Ohio Medical Professional Liability Drugs
Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal has been thrown out by Parliament. Shes now in talks with rival politicians to find a way forward before presenting a Plan B on Monday. If her plan isnt convincing, then British lawmakers will try to take over the process. That could mean keeping much closer ties to the bloc, or even a second referendum.

With just 10 weeks to go until the U.K. is due to leave the European Union, what are the most likely scenarios?

1. Brexit in Name Only, and Not Quite Yet

Keeping close ties to the EUs single market and customs regime might be the best way of getting a Brexit deal that Parliament can support, though May has ruled it out. Its known as Norway-Plus or Common Market 2.0 to its supporters and Brexit in Name Only to its detractors.

Critics have a point: this scenario would leave the U.K. taking rules from Brussels and wouldnt address one of the main pledges of the referendum campaign  that uncontrolled immigration from Europe would stop. Businesses would mostly be pleased.

To get there, members of Parliament propose motions or amendments that show theres support for the idea. The government asks for an extension to the Brexit day deadline of March 29 and reopens talks with the EU. The Withdrawal Agreement remains unchanged, including the much-loathed Irish border backstop. But the declaration on future ties is rewritten, making it very unlikely the fallback option will ever be used.

The plan then needs to get through the House of Commons. May might lose a couple of pro-Brexit ministers along the way, while the governing Conservative Party would be more divided than ever. Britain could then leave in late 2019 or 2020 and most people wouldnt notice anything different.

2. Sign Up to a Customs Union

May has long promised not to sign up to a customs union as it would prevent the U.K. from striking new trade deals with other countries, another key pledge in the 2016 campaign. She reiterated that stance in private to Brexit hardliners on Thursday. Shed risk euroskeptic ministers resigning and would lose some support from her party too.

But it might just be enough to win over those pro-EU Conservatives  and some Labour MPs  who would see it as close enough to the partys official policy as to be acceptable.

This one also comes with an extension of the negotiating period, so Brexit wont happen on March 29. And the Irish border issue wont be completely fixed just by staying in the customs union. Theres a risk pro-Brexit Conservatives and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party could be so outraged that they oust Mays government by lending their support to Corbyns next no-confidence vote.

3. General Election

Several paths lead to this one. Labour wins a no-confidence vote with the help of angry Brexit supporters and an election is triggered. Alternatively, May could call an election as the only way to get a mandate for her deal. Still, it might not change the parliamentary arithmetic much. So the impasse remains unresolved.

4. Second Referendum

If Labour repeatedly fails to get the general election Corbyn is clamoring for, he said the next option is to consider backing a second referendum. His partys members voted at their conference last year that one should be on the table, so if Corbyn backs a re-run, theres a fair chance it will happen. About 10 Conservatives have already come out in favor of going back to the people, as have the smaller opposition parties.

It emerged on Thursday the government has researched the logistics of a second referendum. The main takeaway is that it would take more than a year to arrange  another reason Brexit might not happen on time.

5. Extend, Extend, Extend

European officials are already working on the assumption that the U.K. will ask for an extension to the Brexit deadline. Its not clear for how long. Neither side wants perpetual negotiating limbo, but neither can the option be ruled out.

6. No Deal

This is the default option and its also the one both sides want to avoid. The U.K. Parliament is overwhelmingly against it and has tools to block it. Britain can also unilaterally reverse Brexit, according to a court ruling last month  another safety net. But May doggedly refuses to rule out no deal, and so businesses still have to prepare for the worst.

Related:

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.

Topics Europe Uk Brexit
Commodities broker Marex Spectron was warned by one of its executives about the risk of fraud before it finalized a metals financing deal with French bank Natixis that triggered a $32 million lawsuit by the lender, court documents seen by Reuters show.

Natixis filed the lawsuit against Marex in May 2017 after the bank said warehouse ownership receipts for nickel provided by Marex had turned out to be fake. Natixis holds Marex responsible for not identifying the fraud before the financing deal was completed.

Court proceedings are due to start next week in Londons High Court.

The receipts were part of a repurchase agreement, arranged by Marex, between Natixis and a Hong Kong firm. None of the parties in the case have disputed that the receipts were fraudulent but no accusation has been made as to who faked them.

Marex has rejected the lawsuit and issued a claim against Glencore unit Access World, which stored the metal. Marex said it had been diligent in verifying the receipts and had received assurances from Access World about their validity.

According to court documents filed in December and seen by Reuters, concerns were aired by one of Marexs executives when Marex was in negotiations with Hong Kong firm Come Harvest Holdings Ltd (CHH), which allegedly said it would supply nickel ownership documents in exchange for financing from Natixis.

Marex and Natixis declined to comment. Reuters was unable to contact CHH for comment. CHH is not a party to the lawsuit.

The documents by Marexs insurers, who rejected a claim for indemnity from Marex, stated that concern about potential fraud was raised within the brokerage in November 2016 by Kevin Nutt, chief operating officer of metals at Marex, and Judi Ferrari, a trader.

The concern among Marex staff revolved around whether it was safe to accept warehouse receipts that had been passed on from one holder of the nickel to another rather than demanding original receipts, the court documents said.

Both Mr Nutt and Ms Judi Ferrari  expressed concern that there was a risk of fraud on the warehouse receipts and the underlying nickel, the documents from Marexs insurers said.

Mr Nutt expressed concern that those warehouse receipts were not in the name of CHH.

Reuters attempted to contact Nutt via Marex, but a Marex spokesperson said he declined to comment. Reuters was unable to contact Ferrari, who no longer works at Marex.

Natixis has also sued warehousing company Access World after it was discovered that the warehouse receipts were fake. Access World has denied that it validated all of the warehouse receipts provided by Marex.

Glencore declined to comment.

In its defense, Marex said Nutt subsequently contacted Access World, where the nickel was stored. Access World said there would be nothing unusual about the endorsement of warehouse receipts, according to the documents.

Despite the initial concerns  Mr Nutt was reassured following a telephone conversation and an email exchange (with Access World), Marex lawyers said in the court documents.

The practice of using metal as collateral in warehouse repo deals has come under increasing scrutiny since a $3 billion fraud four years ago at Qingdao port in China, which led to a $440 million fine for the firm involved, Dezheng Resources, and a 23-year jail sentence for its chairman.

(Reporting by Eric Onstad; editing by Veronica Brown and Dale Hudson)

Related:

Zurich Policyholder Dispute Highlights Danger of Calling Out Cyber Attackers: Opinion

Topics Lawsuits Fraud
Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance (BHSI) announced it is expanding into the property construction insurance market in the UK and Ireland and has appointed Simeon Seamer to lead the effort as head of Property Construction, UK and Ireland.

With the current uncertainty surrounding available capacity for the construction industry in London, BHSI is pleased to provide a stable, reliable solution. We enter the property construction market with substantial capacity backed by stellar financial strength, BHSIs long-view market commitment, and the expertise of Simeon to lead our growing team, said Chris Colahan, head of UK and Europe, BHSI.

In addition to property construction, BHSI in the UK and Ireland now offers a wide range of insurance products for the construction industry including contractors all risks (CAR) insurance, liability and professional indemnity coverages.

Seamer comes to BHSI after nearly two decades in the construction insurance and reinsurance industry, having led underwriting for some of the largest infrastructure projects in the U.S. and Europe. He was most recently EMEA head of Construction & Senior Underwriter at SCOR Global P&C. Prior to that he was senior construction underwriter at Zurich Global Corporate UK. He began his insurance career as a London market broker specializing in construction.

BHSIs construction team for the UK and Ireland also includes James Emson, VP of Casualty, who joins BHSI from QBE in Hong Kong, and Farhad Dabestani, senior underwriter, Professional Indemnity, who comes to BHSI from AXA XL.

Seamer, Emson and Dabestani are all based in BHSIs office in London.

Source: Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance (BHSI)

Topics Property London Construction
Hiscox, a specialist in small business and cyber insurance, recently staged a real world hack to demonstrate what a cyber attack would look like for small businesses.

The insurer collaborated with UK bike manufacturer Brompton Bicycle, constructing overnight a complete clone of Bromptons east-London store, hiring look-a-like staff and even stocking the shelves with counterfeit merchandise.

Reactions of astonished staff and passersby were captured as the fake store, called 3rompton, opened its doors to the public on the opposite side of the road and subsequently launched a series of cyber-attack simulations on the genuine Brompton store in Shoreditch, explained Hiscox.

Common hacking techniques such as ransomware and phishing were brought to life through a series of simulated offline attacks:

The real store was boarded up, displaying a ransom note demanding Bitcoin in exchange for re-entry

Genuine stock deliveries were diverted to the fake 3rompton store, highlighting the potential effects of a phishing scam

The real Brompton store was flooded with imitation customers overwhelming staff, simulating a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

The frequency and severity of cyber attacks on UK businesses is alarming, commented James Brady, head of Cyber at Hiscox. Cyber criminals are swift, sophisticated and consider businesses of all shapes and sizes worthy targets so its vital that organizations are both aware of these risks and prepared to manage them.

Hiscox said one in three (33 percent)* UK small businesses have suffered a cyber breach and this simulation is the latest initiative in its cyber awareness campaign that aims to highlight this risk.

(Editors note: Here is the video of the simulation filmed by Hiscox).

Businesses need to take ownership of their cyber security and put solid preventative measures in place, added Brady. Unfortunately, attacks will still get through and being prepared for those attacks is critical.

Cyber crime is one of the biggest security risks facing businesses today but many arent taking it seriously and many more are underprepared, said Robert Hannigan, former director of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and special advisor to Hiscox. (GCHQ is a UK intelligence and security organization).

Its a less tangible risk than burglary or a fire which can make it hard for businesses to grasp, so bringing cyber crime to life with an exercise like this is a useful way of conveying an important message, Hannigan continued.

The hacking techniques being simulated such as ransomware and phishing are extremely commonplace and have been for many years. At the same time, new types of cyber crime continue to emerge, which makes staying on top of cyber security an ever-evolving challenge, he said.

Our business is about our bike  the design, function and support we give to our customers over the life of the product, said Will Butler-Adams, CEO Brompton Bicycle.

We have spent 40 years developing the Brompton brand and continue to take risks to innovate and improve the design. When people copy us, with little understanding of the engineering and care behind the design, they are trying to fool our customers who may go on to buy a potentially dangerous product, Butler-Adams emphasized.

We wanted to work with Hiscox to highlight these risks, as it is a serious issue and is not limited to the product but also to online cyber fraud, spam emails and viruses, that hurt businesses and their customers alike, he affirmed.

Cyber security incidents cost the average small business 25,700 ($33,181) a year in direct costs (e.g. the costs of IT experts in response to the incident, lost revenue and replacement systems), said Hiscox, quoting its own Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report, based on a survey taken in October-November 2017 of 4,103 professionals who responsible for their organizations cyber security strategy.

Hiscox said direct costs are just the beginning. Indirect costs such as damage to reputation, the impact of losing customers and difficulty attracting future customers, means the true figure can be significantly higher, the company explained.

* Figure taken from the December 2017 YouGov Survey of 2,056 decision makers at small and medium-sized enterprises (SME).

Source: Hiscox

Topics Cyber Commercial Lines Business Insurance Small Business
The New York State Workers Compensation Board has launched a new tool that makes it easier for injured workers, attorneys and other participants to attend workers compensation hearings remotely.

The Boards virtual hearings give injured workers a way to move the claim process forward without having to travel for a hearing, which could be especially beneficial depending on the extent of their injuries.

The Board is now offering an app that may further improve the user experience for those attending virtual hearings. The WCB VHC app is free in the iOS App Store and does not require users to install any additional software on their mobile device. It employs an interface that guides the user from sign on to the virtual waiting room and to the video hearing once a judge calls the case.

The feedback weve received about virtual hearings has been overwhelmingly positive, and now were making it even better with an easy-to-use app, Board Chair Clarissa M. Rodriguez said in a Board press release. This will help injured workers not just here in New York, but in other parts of the country as well, by removing the burden of travel, which can be treacherous this time of year.

In addition, the new app may be particularly helpful for attorneys and licensed representatives who attend hearings regularly because it saves sign-on profile information, allowing users to log in faster. Users can also remove a hearing from their schedule if information was entered incorrectly or if they are no longer appearing for a case.

Parties using the app can still use other apps or features on their mobile devices while waiting for their hearing to be called. A notification will automatically alert them when its time to join a hearing, even if theyre in another app or their screen is off.

The New York State Workers Compensation Board developed virtual hearings in partnership with the Office of Information Technology Services to give all parties involved the option of using a smart phone, tablet or computer to attend hearings. With this high definition, all access system for legal hearings, multiple users in different locations log in once and then move from one hearing to another. Virtual hearings are entirely optional, and parties can always choose to attend in-person if they prefer.

The app release is just one more example of how the Board is committed to growing and improving the workers compensation system, Rodriguez said in the release. With virtual hearings, this new app and other recent initiatives, were also demonstrating that were a new and improved Board  one thats better for workers and better for business.

Virtual hearings were first tested in the Capital District Office in Menands in November 2017 and are now available at all Board locations except Newburgh and Allegany.

Source: The New York State Workers Compensation Board

Topics Workers' Compensation New York New Markets
However, when it comes to responding to environmental challenges, global action is not matching global concern. According to Zurich Insurance Group chief risk officer, Alison Martin, the world seems to be sleep walking into catastrophe.

Extreme weather events and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation are the two risks of the biggest concern [in the Global Risks Report 2019]. This is exacerbated by a failure we see in political will and collective unity to actually tackle [environmental risks together]. Divisions are hardening and were now drifting deeper into global problems that were going to really struggle to extricate ourselves from, said Martin.

Its looking increasingly unlikely that well be able to meet either the two-degree upper limit of the Paris Climate Agreement, and every tenth of a degree really matters because its the poor and the most vulnerable who will be hardest hit if we fail, she added. As we see these environmental risks increasing in terms of frequency and severity, theres a real urgent need to fuel resilience. We need to do that for human health, food, water security, for critical infrastructure protection and the entirety of the global value chain.

Insurance organizations can play a vital role in helping organizations understand how to mitigate and adapt to their ever-evolving environmental exposures. Helping insureds to comprehend the interconnectedness of risks is the first important part of the puzzle, according to Barry Franklin, head of risk for Zurich North America. Global companies with business operations across countries and continents will have to adapt their risk transfer and mitigation to their localities.

Theres a lot that individual companies can do to help make themselves more resilient as opposed to waiting for some silver bullet solution to come from the global leadership community, Franklin told Insurance Business. Its important for organizations to look at prevention as well as recovery, but oftentimes the focus is on recovery. At Zurich North America, were encouraging our customers to look at resilience. We have risk engineers who will analyze their exposures and will advise around what steps might be taken to make themselves more resilient.

Increasingly today, organizations have hyper-optimized supply chains that are spread all over the world. Understanding the high-value supply chain vulnerabilities and those interconnected risks is vitally important today. For example, you could have an extreme weather event in Thailand, causing supply chain disruption, which then severely impacts the automotive industry in the US. The growing interconnectivity of risks is something that all business leaders and risk managers need to understand.

According to Martin, the interconnectedness of risk is here to stay. She advised caution when dealing with environmental risks in isolation, because positive action for one exposure could have unintended negative consequences on another. She added: As the risks increase in terms of frequency and severity, the need to build resilience remains paramount. We need to open our eyes wide to all risks and all opportunities.
Photo: The Canadian Press Snow falls on the Capitol as the partial government shutdown continues in Washington, Thursday night, Jan. 17, 2019.

She imperiled his State of the Union address. He denied her a plane to visit troops abroad.

The shutdown battle between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is playing out as a surreal game of constitutional brinkmanship, with both flexing political powers from opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue as the negotiations to end the monthlong partial government shutdown remain stalled.

In dramatic fashion, Trump issued a letter to Pelosi on Thursday, just before she and other lawmakers were set to depart on the previously undisclosed trip to Afghanistan and Brussels. Trump belittled the trip as a "public relations event"  even though he had just made a similar warzone stop  and said it would be best if Pelosi remained in Washington to negotiate to reopen the government.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," wrote Trump, who had been smarting since Pelosi, the day before, called on him to postpone his Jan. 29 State of the Union address due to the shutdown.

Denying military aircraft to a senior lawmaker  let alone the speaker, who is second in line to the presidency after the vice-president, travelling to a combat region  is very rare. Lawmakers were caught off guard. A bus to ferry the legislators to their departure idled outside the Capitol on Thursday afternoon.

The political tit-for-tat between Trump and Pelosi laid bare how the government-wide crisis has devolved into an intensely pointed clash between two leaders determined to prevail. It took place as hundreds of thousands of federal workers go without pay and Washington's routine protocols  a president's speech to Congress, a lawmaker's official trip  became collateral damage.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said the speaker planned to travel to Afghanistan and Brussels to thank service members and obtain briefings on national security and intelligence "from those on the front lines." He noted Trump had travelled to Iraq during the shutdown, which began Dec. 22, and said a Republican-led congressional trip also had taken place.

Trump's move was the latest example of his extraordinary willingness to tether U.S. government resources to his political needs. He has publicly urged the Justice Department to investigate political opponents and threatened to cut disaster aid to Puerto Rico amid a spat with the island territory's leaders.

Some Republicans expressed frustration. Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted, "One sophomoric response does not deserve another." He called Pelosi's State of the Union move "very irresponsible and blatantly political" but said Trump's reaction was "also inappropriate."

While there were few signs of progress Thursday, Vice-President Mike Pence and senior adviser Jared Kushner dashed to the Capitol late in the day for a meeting with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And the State Department instructed all U.S. diplomats in Washington and elsewhere to return to work next week with pay, saying it had found money for their salaries at least temporarily.

For security reasons, Pelosi would normally make such a trip on a military aircraft supplied by the Pentagon. According to a defence official, Pelosi did request Defence Department support for overseas travel and it was initially approved. The official wasn't authorized to speak by name about the matter, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the president does have the authority to cancel the use of military aircraft.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California slammed Trump for revealing the closely held travel plans.

"I think the president's decision to disclose a trip the speaker's making to a war zone was completely and utterly irresponsible in every way," Schiff said.

Trump's trip to Iraq after Christmas was not disclosed in advance for security reasons.
We are committed to going the extra mile for those who go the extra mile for our country, said Aflac US president Teresa L. White in a statement. This encompasses federal workers furloughed due to the government shutdown, including those active duty members of the Coast Guard, TSA employees and all other impacted government agencies.

White explained that the gesture is Aflacs way to give back to Americas dedicated civil servants, and that the insurer will still honor claims made by federally-employed policyholders despite the shutdown.

We have a tremendous appreciation for these committed employees and want to do our very best to support them during this difficult time. We are not only committed to maintaining their coverage, but also to providing benefits should a covered event take place, she remarked.

Aflacs core promise is to be there for our policyholders when they need us most by paying claims fairly and promptly, and this is another way we are making good on that promise, White added.
However, when it comes to responding to environmental challenges, global action is not matching global concern. According to Zurich Insurance Group chief risk officer, Alison Martin, the world seems to be sleep walking into catastrophe.

Extreme weather events and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation are the two risks of the biggest concern [in the Global Risks Report 2019]. This is exacerbated by a failure we see in political will and collective unity to actually tackle [environmental risks together]. Divisions are hardening and were now drifting deeper into global problems that were going to really struggle to extricate ourselves from, said Martin.

Its looking increasingly unlikely that well be able to meet either the two-degree upper limit of the Paris Climate Agreement, and every tenth of a degree really matters because its the poor and the most vulnerable who will be hardest hit if we fail, she added. As we see these environmental risks increasing in terms of frequency and severity, theres a real urgent need to fuel resilience. We need to do that for human health, food, water security, for critical infrastructure protection and the entirety of the global value chain.

Insurance organisations can play a vital role in helping other organisations understand how to mitigate and adapt to their ever-evolving environmental exposures. Helping insureds to comprehend the interconnectedness of risks is the first important part of the puzzle, according to Barry Franklin, head of risk for Zurich North America. Global companies with business operations across countries and continents will have to adapt their risk transfer and mitigation to their localities.

Theres a lot that individual companies can do to help make themselves more resilient as opposed to waiting for some silver bullet solution to come from the global leadership community, Franklin told Insurance Business. Its important for organisations to look at prevention as well as recovery, but oftentimes the focus is on recovery. At Zurich, were encouraging our customers to look at resilience. We have risk engineers who will analyse their exposures and will advise around what steps might be taken to make themselves more resilient.

Increasingly today, organisations have hyper-optimised supply chains that are spread all over the world. Understanding the high-value supply chain vulnerabilities and those interconnected risks is vitally important today. For example, you could have an extreme weather event in Thailand, causing supply chain disruption, which then severely impacts the automotive industry in the US. The growing interconnectivity of risks is something that all business leaders and risk managers need to understand.

According to Martin, the interconnectedness of risk is here to stay. She advised caution when dealing with environmental risks in isolation, because positive action for one exposure could have unintended negative consequences on another. She added: As the risks increase in terms of frequency and severity, the need to build resilience remains paramount. We need to open our eyes wide to all risks and all opportunities.
Understanding risk at a global level is important for businesses of all sizes in Australia, says Scott Leney, CEO of Marshs Pacific operations. Trends and predictions on risk issues help us anticipate events that could impact our organisations and prepare ourselves to mitigate or find risk financing solutions for them.

Considering the wider risks identified in the report, Leney pointed to three key takeaways for the Australian market.

Businesses should be proactive in identifying potential sources of business disruption in their organisation and initiate or continue senior level conversations on how to best mitigate those risks, he says.

However, mitigating risk is not the sole focus  Leney says firms should be increasingly investing in their response and recovery capabilities too.

Risk response is as important as risk prevention and firms should focus on how to respond to fast moving events with a high degree of uncertainty, he says.

Finally, Leney urged businesses to keep track of global political instability as international relations are currently in a period of change with years of globalisation giving way to nationalism.

Consider geographic shifts in risk and how this might change strategies relating to investment decisions or supply chains, he said.

Sean Walker, chief underwriting officer of general insurance at Zurich Australia, also weighed in on the report, drawing particular attention to environmental risks.

For the third year running environmental risks have dominated the report, which is no surprise in a year thats been characterised by bushfires, heatwaves and flooding, he said.

This week alone, heat records have been broken in Western Australia, New South Wales and South Australia, and Walker warned that, if these conditions persist, there will undoubtedly be an impact on local business.

Australian businesses should be building climate change resilience and adaptation strategies into their broader business plans, he advised. These plans need to be real and tangible, not treated as some horizon 3 or Black Swan conceptual event but as something to be addressed as part of a new operating environment.
Led by GC vice chairman David Priebe, the new Global Capital Solutions Group will consist of Global Capital Solutions and GC Securities. The latter will continue to be headed by GC Securities president Shiv Kumar while the Global Capital Solutions practice will be under the leadership of Ed Hochberg, the current North America chief executive of JLT Re.

Meanwhile the senior appointments include that of Keith Harrison, CEO of UK & Europe at JLT Re. Upon completion of the MMC-JLT deal, Harrison will lead the London division of GCs North America business in his new capacity as head of London North America.

Part of Harrisons remit is being in charge of setting up a new London-based operation to service and source business non-affiliated with GC. He will become part of GCs executive committee, supporting the overall integration of JLT Res UK and European businesses.

Simon Keeley, the current head of London North America for GC, will be reporting to Harrison. Also reporting to Harrison is Mark Higgins, the head of London North America for JLT Re.

In Asia, change will come in the form of JLT Re Asia Pacific CEO Jeremy Fox becoming chairman of GC Asia Pacific.

As for GC Global Specialties, its chief executive Kevin Fisher will chair GC UK & Specialties. Replacing him as CEO is his deputy James Boyce, who also serves as head of Non-Marine Specialties. Taking over the latter post is GC Global Specialties managing director Richard Morgan. The appointments of all three are effective immediately.

JLT Res deputy CEO of UK & Europe Bradley Maltese, meanwhile, will assume vice chairmanship of Global Specialties. David Flandro, global head of analytics at JLT Re, will become GCs global head of economics and franchise risk advisory.

The combination of Guy Carpenter and JLT Res capabilities and expertise will create an exciting opportunity to deliver enhanced value to clients across the globe through a structure that is intuitive and aligned with our strategic priorities, said GC president and CEO Peter Hearn.

These roles will be filled by experienced and talented leaders who will have a positive impact on our business. I congratulate them and look forward to working with them in their important new roles.
The emerging Southeast Asian market was able to continue the momentum it had in the first half of the year, maintaining a similar growth rate.

There are currently 64 insurance operations in Vietnam, composed of 30 general insurance companies, 18 life insurance companies, two reinsurance companies, and 14 insurance intermediary firms. A foreign general insurer also has a representative branch in the market.

According to the Insurance Supervisory Authority, the Finance Ministry will, within the year, introduce revisions to Vietnams insurance law to improve transparency, safety, and efficiency in the market. It will also seek to align domestic insurance activities with international practices, and meet the insurance needs of all population sectors.
According to the police, Angkhana conspired with Surachai Saensawang, her supposed lover, to shoot Winfret to death. She later told authorities that her husband was shot by a teenager in a road rage incident.

However, the CSD found inconsistencies in her testimony and launched an investigation, which found that Angkhana may have conspired with her lover to kill her husband, in order to claim THB10 million (US$315,000) of life insurance money in his name.

Angkhana managed to evade the law for almost 13 years, until she was located in Kanchanaburi, where she worked as a roti vendor. Saensawang remains at large.

She was charged with collaborating with another to commit a premeditated murder, possessing a firearm without a licence, and carrying a gun in public, which she all denied, the report said.
Local Twin Cities artists Enzyrose, Eyenga Bokamba, Noah Lawrence-Holder, LeShon Lee, and Meadow Gillispie, talk about their reaction to the murder of George Floyd, the trial of Derek Chauvin, and life as a black artist during this time.
Photo: The Canadian Press Credit cards are displayed in Montreal, Wednesday, December 12, 2012.

Investment planning can often be seen as a luxury for the financially stable but advisers say that it's especially important for those who are starting out in their careers or are struggling with debt.

"Sometimes people think they're not earning enough money to go and sit down with a financial adviser or talk to a professional," said Sara Zollo, an adviser and financial planner with Sun Life Financial.

"I think that's a mistake. I think the sooner you do... the sooner your situation will reverse itself and head into the black faster. Having a plan is valuable."

Zollo says her clients range from wealthy individuals with $1 million or more in liquid assets to recent college graduates embarking on their first job to those who are dealing with spending more than they earn.

The initial advice she gives all clients is to first work out a budget and do a cash flow analysis that will show whether the client is running a surplus or a deficit each month.

While it is vital to reduce debt, Zollo suggests the allocation should be comprised of 80 per cent of available funds being put towards debt, with 20 per cent set aside in a temporary savings account.

"Let's say there is a miscellaneous expense like your car breaks down, then these people are going to use their credit card and add to their debt because they don't have an emergency fund," she said. "They end up being like a hamster on a hamster wheel."

It can take four or five years to pay down debt, and to go that long without any savings or financial plan would be a critical mistake, says Zollo.

A general rule of thumb is to have three to six months of household expenses set aside in the event of an emergency.

Jason Heath, a fee-based financial planner, notes that those with low to moderate incomes may not benefit, and in some cases, even be penalized if they invest in a registered retirement savings plan.

"The real benefit of an RRSP is getting a tax deduction when you're in a high tax bracket and pulling the money out when you're in a low tax bracket," he said.

"When your income is low to begin with, it's not inconceivable that you're putting the money in at a low tax bracket and pulling the money out at a high tax bracket. Sometimes the higher tax in retirement isn't even necessarily specifically from income tax, it can be from government tax benefits."

In that case, Heath said a tax-free savings account may be a better option, but only if debt has already been paid off.

"For someone in a low tax bracket or low income who may have debt, saving money in a TFSA at one per cent (interest) when they have mortgage debt at four per cent, a line of credit at eight per cent or credit card debt at 18 per cent or more doesn't really make any sense," he said.

"Whether you pay down debt or save, the ultimate goal is to increase your net worth. Debt repayment can be the best investment they can make. The less debt you have, the more you can save for the future."

Laurie Campbell with Credit Canada says the best financial advice for someone with a low income is to ask for help if you need it.
This time of year usually means one thing: graduation! Whether students are graduating from high school, community college or from a university, a new crop of talented and motivated individuals is entering the workforce. Workforce development has become a top-three priority for the Tucson Me
Real-time social media posts from local businesses and organizations across Northern Virginia, powered by Friends2Follow. To add your business to the stream, email cfields@insidenova.com or click on the green button below.
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American travel writer and yoga instructor Colleen Grady was forced to freeze her social media accounts after her post, implying Indians are not only too poor to buy an iPhone X but are also not intelligent enough to understand how it functions, was met with significant backlash. (pixabay.com photo)
Photo: CTV News

Envoys from the United States and North Korea took part in an unannounced high-level meeting in Stockholm on Friday, an official said.

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Diana Kudhaib said the talks included North Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui but declined to give further details. Sweden's TT news agency said U.S. special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun and Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom also were attending.

"These are just talks in a minor format where international experts take part," Kudhaib said.

Sweden has had diplomatic relations with Pyongyang since 1973 and is one of only a few Western countries with an embassy there. It provides consular services for the United States.

In March, Wallstrom held talks with her North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong Ho, in Stockholm, leading to the first-ever meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in June in Singapore.
Late past year, Philips chief executive, Frans van Houten told the Independent newspaper that Philips would have to rethink its manufacturing footprint in Britain if the United Kingdom were to leave the European customs union. The factory makes products for babies.

The company did not refer to Brexit specifically in its statement but said that it needed to... The majority of products made in Glemsford were intended for export, the company said.

The decision comes just months after the company's chief executive Frans van Houten expressed his concerns about Britain maintaining frictionless trade following Brexit.

In October, van Houten said a customs union between the United Kingdom and the EU was "a minimum" requirement for a negotiated Brexit.

Philips, which was once best known for consumer electrical items such as light bulbs and televisions, has in recent years narrowed its focus to more profitable healthcare technology.

Philips is reducing its global manufacturing sites from about 50 to 30 and Neil Mesher, chief executive of Philips UK and Ireland, insisted the Glemsford closure was "absolutely part of that programme".

"Philips has a long, established history of serving customers within the United Kingdom, and we remain committed to them". Philips now employs some 2,000 people in the northern town, who make shaving apparatus and develop household products.
A new report by the Center for Law and Social Policy reveals that Asian American college students have the highest rate of unmet financial needs. The studys author, however, did not comment on Indian American H-1B children, who are no longer considered dependents once they turn 18, and must apply to universities as international students. Seen above is a file photo of a group of international students at the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, on Jan. 21, 2004. (representational image/Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
Vietnamese doctors pumped five litres of beer - which is equal to 15 cans of beer - into a patients stomach in a bid to save his life. Nguyen Van Nhat was suffering from alcohol poisoning when doctors decided to pump beer into his stomach.

As reported by Daily Mail, the 48-year-old Nhats methanol level was found to be 1,119 times higher than normal. To slow down the livers processing of methanol, a team of doctors first transfused one litre of beer into his belly. Later, one can of beer was pumped every hour.

Nguyen Van Nhat/Twitter

After 15 cans of beer were transfused in Nhats stomach, he regained consciousness. The doctors later explained that alcohol comes in two variants, methanol and ethanol and the stomach continues to release alcohol into the bloodstream even after someone has stopped drinking. This results in a spike in alcohol levels.

Nhat became unconscious when the methanol in his system oxidized to formaldehyde which in turn produced acid, according to the reports.

"The therapy with 15 cans of beer is rather unusual, but well understood. Maybe the Vietnamese colleagues had no other alcohol on hand. Much more important (than the kind of alcohol used) is that the therapy is immediately initiated. emergency physician, Hans-Jorg Busch, from the University Hospital of Freiburg, told a DPA.

Nhat was discharged from the hospital after three weeks and is now recovering at his home.
After the allegations against Jadavpur University professor Kanak Sarkar were proved, he was debarred from teaching. Social media posts against him triggered outrage among the womens rights activists and students.

Jadavpur University professor Kanak Sarkar who made controversial remarks in a Facebook post has been divested of his duties with immediate effect. pic.twitter.com/OlmdshSSUI  ANI (@ANI) January 16, 2019

But the buck hasn't stopped there as another disturbing incident has come to light. A student accused him of allegedly asking a female student whether she would like to bathe with him in "any river". The student further said that he asked the question when she went to his office to submit a presentation.

However, the latest reports say that the student has not filed a complaint yet.

Read More: Professor Who Called Virgin Brides Sealed Bottles Told Student She Had A Figure Men Would Enjoy

A few days ago, a student took her ordeal to Facebook and narrated her experience with Sarkar. She was giving a presentation in the class when Sarkar interrupted her and told her that her figure was model like and men would enjoy it.





He also wrote a Facebook post, titled as Virgin Bride- Why Not? in which he compared virgin brides to sealed bottles. He claimed that boys were fools if they were not aware of the benefit of having a virgin girl as a wife.

Facebook

Read More: Jadavpur University Professor Compares Virgin Girls To Sealed Bottle, Deletes Facebook Post After Controversy

Only time will tell how many more disturbing stories are yet to be told.
Marie Jean Pierre who has been working as a dishwasher at the Conrad Hotel, Miami, for nearly 10 years was fired because she was not ready to work on Sundays.

Pierre said that she had informed the hotel from the beginning that she will not work on Sundays because she was a missionary for the Soldiers of Christ Church.

"I love God," Pierre, 60, told NBC Miami on Wednesday. "No work on Sunday, because Sunday I honor God."

Up until October 2015, the hotel respected her beliefs and allowed her to take a leave on Sundays. This changed when a kitchen manager forced her to schedule work on Sundays.

Twitter

Her pastor in the church wrote a letter explaining to the hotel staff that it would be a violation of her religious beliefs to schedule her work on Sundays, according to a copy of the complaint she filed.

The kitchen manager asked her to switch her shifts with her co-workers to take an off on Sundays. This happened till March 2016, when Pierre was terminated for alleged misconduct, negligence, and unexcused absences, the complaint said.

After this, Pierre filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying that the hotel had discriminated against her religious beliefs.

After that, she even filed a lawsuit against Park Hotels and Resorts of Tysons, Virginia saying that the hotel had violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which bans employment discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin.

Twitter

On Monday, a federal jury decided to award Pierre $21.5 million that equal to Rs 1,53,11,22,500 (Rs 153 crore). Of this amount, $36,000 (that equal Rs 25,63,380) is meant to cover lost wages and benefits, while $500,000 (that equal Rs 3,56,02,500) for mental anguish and emotional pain and the remaining $20.964 million (that equal Rs 1,48,84,03,950) for punitive damages.

Despite these figures, Pierre will receive at most $300,000 that equal to Rs 2,13,64,650 out of the $21 million because of a cap on punitive damages.

"For them, it wasn't really money. It was trying to right the wrong," Pierres attorney - Bruner said. "It's just a great day for religious freedoms and protection of workers."

"We were very disappointed by the jury's verdict and don't believe that it is supported by the facts of this case or the law," Hilton said in a statement to the news station. "During Ms Pierre's 10 years with the hotel, multiple concessions were made to accommodate her personal and religious commitments."
A businessman who helped others build their business fell prey to terror attacks twice but was killed the second time. Jason Spindler an American businessman who survived the ghastly 9/11 World Trade centre attack was killed in Kenya on January 16.

The terror attack took place at a luxurious five star hotel DusitD2. At least 21 people were killed in a drawn-out assault that saw hundreds of civilians trapped in the hotel complex.

DusitD2 is one of the few hotels in Nairobi which share its neighbourhood with three main western embassies, Australian, Dutch and German which makes it a popular destination for Western businessmen and Kenyan diplomats.

Photo: Jason Spindler/Facebook

Spindlers death was confirmed by his family members on Facebook, a post which was only visible to their friends, news agency AFP reported. Its with a heavy heart that I have to report that my brother, Jason Spindler, passed this morning during a terror attack in Nairobi, wrote Jasons brother Jonathan.

The attack was claimed by Somali terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab that is linked to Al-Qaeda. According to the Telegraph, almost five gunmen were involved in the assault and one of them even have been identified.

The Police has arrested 11 people in relation to this case. Jasons father Joseph described him as the kind of person who spent his life helping others. He was the type of guy that worked very hard, played very hard and would stay with you up all night and talk to you and help you through your problems.

During the firing at the hotel, Jason didnt have his phone with him. The mobile phone had broken therefore he had left it in the office. Later, the family received a call from the American Embassy saying that Jasons body is lying at a morgue.

On September 11 when Al-Qaeda based terrorist organisation reduced the worlds tallest trade centre to a rubble, Jason was working in building 7 of the World Trade Center. He arrived late to work that day, emerging from the subway as the first tower fell. He went inside to help people and came out when building 7 fell and he was covered in cloud of dust.

The 9/11 attack changed his perspective about life and he decided to join the Peace Corps in Peru. A Houston native, Spindler was a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and the New York University law school.

Photo: Facebook

He later co-founded consulting and investment firm I-DEV that aimed at bringing technology to developing countries. He had been living in Nairobi for the last three years and was working on a mini power grid project.

All over the world, for people that met him even once and yet touched them to such an extent that he helped change their lives, said Mr. Spindler. A week away from his 41st birthday, Jason spent his entire life in building businesses, relationships and most importantly building successful people.
Raju Mahli and Manki Devi of Charkatnagar village in Gumla district of Jharkhand have been living together for more than 20 years, but not out of choice.

Neck deep in poverty, they couldn't organise a wedding feast, a must in the community if a marriage is to be recognised. On Monday, the 40-year-olds finally got married at a mass wedding for 132 others like them, all too impoverished to feed friends and relatives as part of the wedding ritual.

The tradition of living-in among couples without marriage is common among Oraon, Munda and Ho tribes of Jharkhand, where a couple unable to pay for a wedding simply moves in together and starts a family.

toi

They are called Dhukua in local parlance. The female partner gets the societys approval to live with her chosen male partner, but instead of being a wife, she is branded with the title of Dhukni  a woman who has entered a household without marriage. The weddings, says the NGO organising it, are an attempt at redressing this.

I cultivate a small plot of land and never had enough to marry my partner. We have a teenage son and a daughter. When the NGO Nimitt told us about the mass wedding, I readily agreed, Mahli said.

toi

Though Dhukua women are as much a part of the family of the man as a wife, they and their children have no rights or official documents to show.

We organised mass weddings of 21 such couples in 2016 and 43 in 2017. This year, the numbers have increased to 132 couples, said Nimitt secretary Nikita Sinha on Saturday.

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In our village, children of Dhukua couples cannot participate in religious rituals or get married. Though the female partner is every bit like a wife, she is like a second-class citizen with her children treated as social outcasts, said Rahil Tete, who was at the event to witness the wedding of her son, as she held her eight-month-old granddaughter.

The latest mass wedding had people from various religions  76 couples followed the traditional tribal religion of Sarna, 36 were Hindu and 20 Christian  from different blocks of Khunti and Gumla districts. Each couple was allowed to bring 10 guests.

toi

Budhishwar Gope, a resident of Basia who officially wed his partner of four years Urmila Devi, said, Be it a plain feast of rice and meat or of hadiya (rice beer), the village elders dont bless a wedding until a feast is held. They are not very happy with us coming here and getting married like this.

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Sangain Manjhain, who wed her partner of 12 years said, My partner is disabled and we have no money. But the village wont let us get married unless we invite them to a feast. My second child has been taken into protection by the authorities a year ago.
From an abysmal 832 girls per 1000 boys in 2012 to an optimist 924 girls per 1000 boys by December 31, 2018, Haryanas sex ratio has seen an unprecedented improvement in last six years. The figures were released by the state government on Wednesday.

In 2017, the sex-ratio was 914 girls per 1000 boys.

As far as districts are concerned, Karnal is placed at the top with 979 girls per 1000 boys and the improved it has shown is remarkable as in 2012, the districts sex ratio was 797.

According to 2011 census, the districts of Jhajjar, Rewari and Kurukshetra were among the worst in the country with 781, 780 and 743 girls per 1000 boys respectively. Several programmes were launched by the state government including the centre famous Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao campaign which seems to have paid the dividends.

By 2018 end, the three districts have seen improvement in sex ratio with Jhajjar (911), Rewari (904) and Kurukshetra ( 942) recording massive improvement

The Haryana government claimed has given credit to schemes like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana, which was launched by PM Narendra Modi. Team work has brought good results. Effective roles played by deputy commissioners and SPs, and coordination between various departments in implementation of various schemes, has worked out really well, the additional principal secretary to Haryana CM, Rakesh Gupta told TOI.

The official said the strict adherence to Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act has paved way for nearly 650 raids on ultrasounds or diagnostic centres across the state have shown the positive results.

Year wise increase:

2012 | 832

2013 | 868

2014 | 871

2015 | 876

2016 | 900

2017 | 914

2018 | 924
Photo: yorkregion.com

Canada Summer Jobs Deadline and Recognition for Veterans

Employers considering using the Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ) have until Jan. 25 to apply.

Following feedback from stakeholders last year, the government has also made the process easier.

Everything can be submitted online through the Government Grants and Contributions Online Service where employers can complete the application at their leisure and track its status once it has been submitted.

The government has also expanded eligibility to:

include all youth between the ages of 15-30 who are legally entitled to work in Canada  not just students

updated the eligibility criteria to set out more clearly what is and isnt eligible for funding;

ensured better job matching by posting all positions on jobbank.gc.ca and the app to help match young people with employers.

CSJ funding is available for not-for-profit organizations and public and private sector employers with 50 or fewer employees.

Non-profit organizations can receive up to 100 per cent of the provincial/territorial minimum hourly wage, as well as employment-related costs, while public-sector employers and small businesses can receive up to

50 per cent of the provincial/territorial minimum hourly wage.

In the last three years, with additional funding, our government has worked with local employers to double the number of CSJ jobs available in Kelowna-Lake Country.

As many of you have expressed, it is a mutually beneficial experience, and I hope you will once again choose to participate to help our young people gain the skills and the confidence needed to find meaningful employment in todays labour force.

More information on CSJ can be found at Canada.ca/Canada-summer-jobs, or by calling 1-800-935-5555.

Veterans

As we welcome our new minister of Veterans Affairs, Jody Wilson-Raybould, our governments work to support Veterans continues.

Responding to a call for action by Canadian Armed Forces members, veterans, and the Veterans Ombudsman, our government has introduced the Veterans Service Card, which will be distributed to former and releasing Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members who completed basic training and have been honorably released.

The new Veterans Service Card provides a tangible symbol of recognition for former members, encouraging an enduring affiliation with the CAF and ensuring linkages to VAC support programs as members transition to post-service life.

The new Veterans Service Card will be distributed in stages depending on when veterans were released from the Canadian Armed Forces.

More information can be found at canada.ca/veterans-service-card

Once again, Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) is inviting Canadian schools, individuals and organizations to show their appreciation for Canadian Veterans by making valentines for Vets.

This program began in 1989 when columnist Ann Landers encouraged her readers to send valentines to veterans.

Since 1996, VAC has distributed the hand-made valentines to veterans in long-term care facilities across the country in recognition of the enduring service our veterans have provided to our country.

More information on ways to participate in this program can be found at veterans.gc.ca.
It feels like its an annual activity for Karni Sena. Last year, around this time, Karni Sena was protesting against the release of Padmaavat. From threatening the director, cutting Deepikas nose to violent protests across the nation that including the burning of a bus, they did everything to express their anger because they thought the movie distorted historical facts.

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Yet again, this time, before the release of Kangana Ranaut starrer Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi, they have once again issued a threat to the makers that if there is distortion of facts, they will have to bear the dire consequences.

But Kangana Ranaut, being the bold and beautiful woman she is, didnt choose to ignore this. Without mincing words, she said that Karni Sena continues to harass her, she will destroy them. She is also a Rajput, she stated.

Four historians have certified 'Manikarnika...'. We have got censor certificate as well. Karni Sena has been conveyed this but they are continuing to harass me. If they don't stop then they should know I am also a Rajput and I will destroy each one of them, she was quoted as saying by IANS.

The movie based on the life story of Rani Laxmibai, Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi is slated to release on Jan 25.
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Exactly around the same time last year, Rajput Karni Sena had gone violent in its protest against the release of the Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Padmaavat. From assaulting the filmmaker to burning down his sets, Karni Sena went on to another level in its massive protests against the release of the movie, which they felt distorted history.

Twitter

Now, that Kangana Ranaut is gearing up for the release of Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi, the Maharashtra Karni Sena has once again created a ruckus. Launching another threat, the Maharashtra Karni Sena has said that if the shooting of Manikarnika isnt stopped, the makers will face dire consequences.

They have written a letter to the director, producers and the writers of the movie threatening them that if the image of Rani Laxmi Bai is maligned in the movie or if she is shown to be the lover of some Britisher, the makers will have to bear the repercussions. They have also claimed that the movie shows the Queen of Jhansi dancing on a special number, which is against their tradition.

Meanwhile, before the official release of the movie on Jan 25, a special screening of Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi will be hosted for President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Friday.

Based on the life and struggles of Rani Laxmi Bai of Jhansi and her war against the East India Company, period drama Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, also stars Ankita Lokhande, Atul Kulkarni, Suresh Oberoi, Danny Demzongpa and Jisshu Sengupta in pivotal roles.
Bordeaux speaks at SD Legislature

By Talli NaumanNative Sun News Today Contributing Editor

PIERRE - Noting that his is the fourth State of the Tribes speech at a South Dakota Legislature annual session, Rosebud Sioux Tribal President Rodney Bordeaux spoke for all nine Indian jurisdictions the state overlaps when he reminded the attending parliamentarians and the governor that the problem of racism hasnt diminished in that time.

Some of the challenges that have been facing Indian Country the last several years still plague us to this day. Racism is still present, and we read about the incidents in the newspaper and on social media, Bordeaux said.

He offered the lawmakers a full course in the challenges of overcoming the problem. Respect for the U.S. Constitutions recognition of treaty rights as the supreme law of the land headed the list, and opposition to the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline finished it.

It is also important to remember that part of Art. 6 of the U.S. Constitution where is declares that  all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, he noted.

So, if South Dakota wants better relations with tribal governments, South Dakota must honor and respect the treaties that were made with us, he said.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting: State of the Tribes Address

Bordeaux lauded incoming Gov. Kristi Noem for wanting to be the governor for the next generation, adding, One of the things that we tribal leaders are charged with is making decisions for the betterment of the next seven generations for our people. I guess that makes us Lakota big-picture people.

Convoking a moment of silence for what he called the rising rate of suicides in our communities, he urged lawmakers to foster partnerships to boost mental health resources for rural and reservation populations. This would assist future generations of South Dakotans, he said.

While reservations have innovative initiatives, such as equine therapy, mentorship and some other counseling services, tribal calls for federal appropriations and grants for mental health services have gone unanswered as they are not considered budget priorities for the Congress, he stressed.

Bordeaux invited lawmakers to visit his reservation and suggested a government-to-government meth and opioid summit for interaction between tribal and state leaders, saying, We routinely have drug dealers who are not from our reservations come onto the reservation. They are doing our people a great deal of harm.

We have learned through experience that what happens in your communities affects our communities and vice versa.

President Rodney Bordeaux of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe gave this year's State of the Tribes Address before the South Dakota Legislature. Posted by South Dakota Department of Tribal Relations on Thursday, January 10, 2019

South Dakota Department of Tribal Relations on Facebook: State of the Tribes Address

He reminded listeners that the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty provided for Indian health care. We do not believe that the federal government is living up to this responsibility, he stated.

The Rosebud federal Indian Health Service hospital is funded at 1989 levels, he noted by way of example. Due to this situation, our people are forced to go to other hospitals and face the prospect of financial ruin, he said.

He admonished legislators to back Medicaid expansion, saying, It will cover more people and bring jobs and other economic benefits to the state. It has the added benefit of being the right thing to do. Federal money would account for 90 percent of the expansion, he noted.

His tribal budget is 75-percent funded by federal sources, meaning that the 2019 national government shutdown due to the standoff between the U.S. Congress and Administration over the issue of building a wall on the Mexican border has stark consequences in Indian country, he pointed out.

It underscores our need as tribal people to become self-sufficient and work to expand our economic activities, he said. He called on South Dakotas U.S. Congressional delegation, Sen. John Thune, Sen. Mike Rounds, and Rep. Dusty Johnson to do what it can to end this shutdown.

Bordeaux invited legislators and the governor to continue negotiations with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe as well as the other tribes on a new tax compact, which would establish revenue sharing of a levy recently required on purchases made over the internet.

The Rosebud Economic Development Corp., REDCO, a holding company with 14 business subsidiaries, is supported by an ever more robust legal system, assuring investors secure operating circumstances, Bordeaux said.

Rosebud is open for business, and I can say this about the other eight reservations: The key to impact on employment is the small, independent local business, he stipulated.

REDCO has created approximately 50 new jobs over the last several years. These are well paying jobs with health insurance, retirement, and other benefits, he said. Weve created a food sovereignty initiative to help people eat healthier and begin growing their food. We are promoting self-reliance.

Bordeaux said youth are more likely to be in school when parents have employment. Addressing education, he again cited his reservation as an example. On average, 290 children start high school; 120 of them graduate in four years; 30 of them enroll in colleges and 20 percent graduate from college, which leaves us with six college graduates.

We hope that partnerships with Teach for America, the South Dakota Board of Regents, and South Dakota Jumpstart and the American Indian College Fund continue to work together, he said. We feel this is especially important that local schools and organizations should align their goals and work with the goals of our tribal nations, he added.

Finally, he said, I want to address the one subject that gives our people great anxiety. It is the Keystone XL Pipeline and the prospect of all that the project would bring. There are a great many things that trouble us about this project."

Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com

Copyright permission Native Sun News Today

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War and consumerism killed Christmas

By Ivan Star Comes OutNative Sun News Today Columnist

Like every other person on this earth, I grew up with warm memories of Christmas.

Looking back at my life though, it is as if my life was predestined by the unknown. I did my best to stay the course by making the right choices but the events in my life were just too powerful. It is as if someone else had determined or paved the path to where I stand today.

First there was the warm comfy feeling closely associated with Christmas at the reservation boarding school, Holy Rosary Mission. Christmas break was when we got to go home for about a week. For ten years, I arrived at the school in late August and usually did not see my parents until Christmas, so the idea of seeing them again was very comforting.

Then, due to the racially motivated atmosphere at the school, I became a high school dropout in May 1965. My youthful holiday fascination began to dissipate at that point. I spent two holidays (1965, 1966) at home, which I recall to be memorable but different. Then I enlisted in the military in August 1967 with a personal plan for my future, to go on to higher education upon completing my enlistment.

My first leave was at home in early December before my deployment to Germany in early 1968. Then for my second military Christmas, later that year, I was in the northernmost tactical zone known as I Corp in the Republic of South Vietnam. That year ended my fond youthful memories of Christmas as well as my plans for college.

Ivan F. Star Comes Out. Photo courtesy Native Sun News Today

I turned 19 on December 4 and was exposed to an actual firefight on the same day. Then in late May, as Chi-com .51 caliber rounds tore up the ground beneath me forcing dirt into my nasal cavities, eyes, and mouth, and in the grip of absolute terror, I screamed Mom!

Momentarily, I had envisioned my mother and felt the freezing cold of white sparkling snow around her. I came home in late November of 1969.

Then, in 1971, a beautiful young Lakota lady married me. Through the years, she tolerated my sullen disposition and kept our union together and I am grateful to her for all of that. Initially, the wife would cook a huge Christmas meal for the family and we would go all out to celebrate the holiday in accordance to Christian protocol.

Lakota is our first language but we also realized that was all we had. We could not truthfully call ourselves Lakota because we knew very little of our ancestral worldview, culture, and history. So, following our instincts, we made a conscious effort to relearn all that was taken from us in that church boarding school.

It was not hard for us to see how much we had conformed to the new world order. Gradually, we became aware of the sharp and hostile cultural contrast affecting our lives and we eventually quit doing Christmas. If we celebrated, it was for our grandchildren but even that is awkward for us.

Three years later, in 1972, The Great Plains sub-zero temperature ended my mothers life just days before Christmas. Immediately, the idea that my life was spared and exchanged for my mothers became prominent.

I fought it vainly as it consumed my mind and soul. Those warm feelings of Christmas and my pre-war innocence have been elusive since. The once meaningful Christmas songs are now mournful. I tried not to let it affect my family, relatives, and others around me.

I played the part for decades and shed tears of regret, anger, and loneliness during this holiday. I regret having enlisted and angry for the way my life turned out and feel alone because of the premature deaths of my mother and my dear friends.

Ivan F. Star Comes Out can be reached at P.O. Box 147, Oglala, South Dakota, 57764; via phone at 605-867-2448 or via email at mato_nasula2@outlook.com.

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CONCORD  Since the inception of Simon Youth Foundation (SYF) in 1998, shoppers at Simon Malls, Mills, and Premium Outlets have been among SYFs most ardent supporters, contributing millions of dollars to support SYFs mission to help students graduate. As a thank you to these loyal supporters, SYF is proud to once again help a deserving graduating senior living near Concord Mills pursue a college education.

Simon Youth Community Scholarships are awarded in every community across the country that is home to a Simon Mall, Mills, or Premium Outlets center. Students may apply until February 20 at syf.org/scholarships.

Scholarship recipients are eligible for a one-time $1,500 scholarship, which may be applied to tuition at an accredited college, university, vocational or technical school. Students who will be graduating high school in 2019 and live in the community surrounding Concord Mills are eligible.

The Simon Youth Community Scholarship program is one facet of the Simon Supports Education initiative. As part of this initiative, visitors at Simon centers can purchase SYF VISA Simon Giftcards, redeemable wherever VISA is accepted. One dollar from the sale of each bright orange, SYF-branded card will go directly to support SYF and its mission.
Photo: Nicholas Johansen Sgt. Brenda Winpenny spoke about B.C.'s gang problem at the annual Central Okanagan Crime Stoppers appreciation lunch Thursday.

At the annual Central Okanagan Crime Stoppers appreciation lunch Thursday, a prominent B.C. police officer shared her passion  ending gang life.

Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, community relations with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of British Columbia, told the assembled police officers, politicians and members of Crime Stoppers about the CFSEU's End Gang Life program

The program, which began in 2013, looks to educate young people in the province about the dangers of joining gangs.

In the past two years, CFSEU members have spoken to 60,000 students at 150 schools across B.C.

Sgt. Winpenny showed several End Gang Life advertisements they've used to promote their message, including one that was based on real-life events.

We got a call from a school teacher who was calling us in a panic because a 12 year old at the school actually came to her and ratted out the 10 year old because the 10 year old approached him asking to sell drugs, because he knew (the 12 year old) was selling drugs, Sgt. Winpenny said, adding the 12 year old had been dealing cocaine.

This is actually what's going on.

In her presentation, she touched on the gang violence that has led to dozens of deaths in the Lower Mainland over the past several years, which began as the Townline Hill conflict in Abbotsford.

The gangs are so loosely connected and the alliances and allegiances are changing all the time ... really, it's far reaching, it involves the entire province and even nationally, Sgt. Winpenny said.

As we know locally here when we had the Bacon murder happen, what was happening at that time is that some of the prominent members from various gangs were coming together to join and collaborate to form these sorts of power blocks with the goal in mind to become those power blocks that make the most money.

Last May, three of the men involved in the 2011 Jonathan Bacon pleaded guilty to being involved in the gangland shooting.
On Wednesday, an exciting announcement was made in our community: the former Philip Morris plant (now known as The Grounds at Concord) will be demolished. Bootsmead LeaseCo LLC (Bootsmead), who currently owns the property, issued a release that detailed its plans to tear down the facility in an effort to create a blank slate that will be more appealing to future users.

Why is this exciting?

Because of the tremendous opportunity this represents for both Concord and Cabarrus County residents.

When Bootsmead hired JLL Carolinas to market this site, they knew that there was a good story to be told about the site itself. To a potential employer, it is rich with amenities: convenient interstate access, quality utility infrastructure, rail access and the ability to tap into the Charlotte regions competitive labor pool.

While the Philip Morris plant was a substantial facility, it was not meeting the needs of the current market. By taking this step to remove the plant, Bootsmead is taking a proactive step to attract users and employers to the 2,000+ acre site.

So what does that mean for our community?
Our state also depends heavily on a state gas tax for funding, also facing revenue declines. Todays vehicles are more fuel efficient and use less gas, there are growing numbers using electric or solar fuel that help little in offsetting costs of construction or maintenance, and the price of gas is dropping, meaning fewer total dollars are being collected. Meanwhile, the addition of 100,000 new residents each year adds to the strain on our roads and traffic congestion. You, like the audience at the Transportation Summit, are probably getting a picture of a transportation system soon to be in crisis.

Gas taxes will likely always be a funding source, however supplemental funds are needed. Among the options are tolls, the mere mention of which raises the dander of most Tar Heels. No elected official who wishes to remain in office is willing to either raise the gas tax to levels needed to build and maintain our roads or to accept tolls. But tolls are coming, likely through public-private partnerships that build optional hot lanes on multilane freeways. Motorists can choose to escape congestion by paying a toll. Many favor a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) funding mechanism, but there are privacy issues for folks not wanting big brother to know where and how often they drive. Besides, nobody has perfected how to record each motorists annual usage or, more significantly, how to bill and collect the taxes from millions of resident motorists, much less visitors using our roads. Then there are dedicated sales taxes, yet another option that generally presents opposition.
President Donald Trump has met a North Korean envoy in the Oval Office to discuss efforts to get the country to give up its nuclear programme.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Mr Trump was meeting Kim Yong Chol to discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Koreas final, fully verified denuclearisation.

The former North Korea former spy chief earlier met Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Washington hotel.

Expand Close Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean senior ruling party official (Carolyn Kaster/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean senior ruling party official (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Mr Trump has spoken several times of prospects for a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un early this year.

He has also exchanged several letters with Mr Kim despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearisation agreement reached at their historic first meeting last June in Singapore.

Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology.

A planned meeting between Mr Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. US officials said at the time that North Korea had cancelled the session.

The talks have stalled over North Koreas refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them.

The North has demanded that the US end harsh economic penalties and provide security guarantees before the North takes any steps beyond its initial suspension of nuclear and missile tests.

Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday that the Trump-Kim Jong Un dialogue was promising but that we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.

Mr Trump has offered assurances that a second summit would allow him and Mr Kim to seal a deal resolving the nuclear stand-off and improving a relationship marked by decades of animosity and mistrust since the Korean War.

Mr Kim expressed frustration in an annual New Years address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community, according to Chinas official Xinhua News Agency.

Mr Kims latest trip to China, his fourth since last year, came as the Norths strongest ally has encouraged negotiations with the US while at the same time arguing in favour of immediate easing of sanctions.

The US and North Korea seemed close to war at points during 2017. The North staged a series of weapons tests that brought it closer to its nuclear goal of one day being able to target anywhere on the US mainland.

The two sides then turned to insulting each other, as Mr Trump called Mr Kim Little Rocket Man and North Korea said Mr Trump was a dotard.

Mr Kim abruptly turned to diplomacy with Seoul and Washington last year, possibly fearing the economic effect of the penalties imposed over the weapons tests.

Still, even after the Singapore summit, the first between US and North Korean leaders, there has been little real progress in nuclear disarmament.

Independent analysts are highly sceptical that North Korea will easily abandon a nuclear arsenal constructed in the face of deep poverty and probably seen by Mr Kim as his only guarantee of his governments survival.
Ryanair has warned over profits as the budget airline counts the cost of lower than expected airfares over winter amid over capacity in Europe.

The Irish carrier on Friday lowered its full-year post-tax profit guidance from between 1.1 billion euros (966 million) and 1.2 billion euros (1 billion) to a new range of one billion euros (878 million) and 1.1 billion euros (966 million).

Ryanair said that winter fares are expected to fall 7%, a much bigger drop than the previously guided fall of 2%.

Last year, Ryanair booked profit of 1.45 billion euros (1.2 billion) and the downgrade represents the second warning in quick succession.

In October the airline said profits would be knocked a spate of crew strikes and rising fuel prices.

Ryanair boss Michael OLeary also warned that he cannot rule out further downgrades to profit guidance.

He said: There is short haul over-capacity in Europe this winter, but Ryanair continues to pursue our price passive/load factor active strategy to the benefit of our customers who are enjoying record lower air fares.

While we have reasonable visibility over forward quarter four bookings, we cannot rule out further cuts to air fares and/or slightly lower full-year guidance if there are unexpected Brexit or security developments which adversely impact yields between now and the end of March.

However, the firm also expects stronger traffic growth of 9% to 142 million and stronger ancillary sales as more customers choose lower cost optional services.

Mr OLeary also said that the competitive environment will shake out some of Ryanairs rivals.

We believe this lower fare environment will continue to shake out more loss making competitors, with Wow, Flybe, and reportedly Germania for example, all currently for sale, he said.

Ryanair will release its third quarter results on February 4.
Jose Rosello, left, the father of Julen who fell down a borehole. Photo: AFP

The leading engineer in Spain's search for a two-year-old boy trapped in a deep, narrow borehole says rescuers are rushing to finish in days massive digging work that usually takes months.

Efforts to rescue Julen Rosello from the 110-metre deep, 25cm diameter borehole have gripped Spain since the boy fell into the waterhole on Sunday.

Adults do not fit through the shaft and machinery has hit an obstruction of strong material that is about two-thirds down the vertical hole. It is not known if the boy is even alive.

Angel Garcia, of the Malaga province civil engineers' association, told reporters that the workers' priority is now to dig two parallel vertical tunnels.

That plan came up after a horizontal hole bored in the past 24 hours from a hillside hit heavy stone.
Ailing radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir is to be freed from jail (Dita Alangkara/AP)

The ailing radical cleric who inspired the Bali bombers and other extremists in Indonesia is to be released from prison halfway through a 15-year jail term, the countrys president said.

The announcement of Abu Bakar Bashirs imminent release came during campaigning for a presidential election due in April in which opponents of President Joko Widodo have tried to discredit him as insufficiently Islamic.

I have considered this decision for a long time, involving the National Police chief and legal experts, Mr Widodo told reporters. This release was decided because of humanitarian considerations and also related to his healthcare.

Expand Close A total of 202 people were killed in the Bali atrocity (Steve Parsons/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp A total of 202 people were killed in the Bali atrocity (Steve Parsons/PA)

The 2002 bombings on the popular tourist island of Bali by al Qaida-affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah militants killed 202 people, many of them foreigners including dozens of Australians.

Australia urged Indonesia last March against any leniency towards Bashir when the government was considering house arrest and other forms of clemency.

Stunned that he is about to be released, said Jan Laczynski, an Australian who lost five friends in the bombing of the Sari Club and narrowly avoided being at the venue himself.

Truly devastating news as effectively he gets on with his life whilst everyone else suffers from seeing him walk out of jail, he said.

Bashirs lawyer Muhammad Mahendradatta said that Bashir, who was sentenced and imprisoned in 2011, would be released within days.

We havent had the exact date of his release, but because Bashir badly needs serious health care the release will be carried out no later than next week, he said.

Also due to be released from prison next week is the former governor of Jakarta, a Widodo ally and minority Christian who was toppled by a conservative Islamic movement in 2016 and subsequently sentenced to two years in prison on blasphemy charges.

Mr Mahendradatta said he wanted Bahirs release to be without any conditions, enabling him to meet supporters and give sermons.

However, another Bashir lawyer who is also an adviser to Mr Widodo, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, told Indonesian TV that the cleric accepted conditions and would do nothing except rest and be close to his family.

Mr Widodo said Mr Mahendra was among the legal experts he sought advice from.

The firebrand cleric was arrested almost immediately after the Bali bombings but prosecutors were unable to prove a string of terrorism-related allegations. He was instead sentenced to 18 months in prison for immigration violations.

In 2011, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting a military-style training camp for Islamic militants.

The 2002 bombings were a turning point in Indonesias battle against violent extremists, making heavy security a norm in big cities and forging closer counter-terrorism cooperation with the US and Australia.
A one-armed explosives expert belonging to Colombias last remaining rebel group has been blamed for a car bombing against a police academy that left 21 people dead.

Defence Minister Guillermo Botero said the man who carried out Thursdays attack, Jose Aldemar Rojas, was a member of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and known by his alias Mocho Kiko.

Even though Rojas had no criminal record, intelligence reports and testimony in legal cases indicate Rojas lost his arm making explosives during a long career in the ELN rebel cell near the border with Venezuela, Chief Prosecutor Nestor Martinez said.

Overnight, the death toll from the Thursday morning bombing more than doubled to 21, making it the deadliest attack in Colombia in over a decade.

It proved especially unsettling because the target, the General Santander school, is one of the most protected installations in the capital and indications it may have been the result of a suicide bombing  something unprecedented in decades of political violence in the South American nation.

President Ivan Duque, visiting the academy in the aftermath, was careful not to attribute blame to any armed group even while condemning what he called a miserable terrorist act that recalled some of the bloodiest chapters of Colombias recent past.

The terrorists are looking to intimidate us as a society and attack the state, Mr Duque said in a televised address in which he declared three days of mourning. Colombia will demonstrate that it is a strong state, united and wont break in the face of the dementia of these aggressions.

Expand Close Family members of victims of a bombing gather outside the entrance to the General Santander police academy (John Wilson Vizcaino/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Family members of victims of a bombing gather outside the entrance to the General Santander police academy (John Wilson Vizcaino/AP)

Among those killed was a top-of-class female cadet from Ecuador, while two visiting students from Panama were among those injured

With the help of security cameras, authorities identified the bomber as 56-year-old Rojas, who also died in the attack.

Mr Martinez said Rojas drove a 1993 Nissan pick-up loaded with 80 kilograms of explosives past a security checkpoint and on to the schools leafy campus, where a start-of-the-year ceremony had just finished.

There were reports that when bomb-sniffing dogs detected the explosives the driver got nervous and floored the vehicle past the barrier and on to the campus, where it exploded moments later in front of a red tile-roofed dormitory for female cadets.

Little is known about Rojas. Records show he bought the car last year and had it inspected six months ago in the eastern city of Arauca, near the border with Venezuela.

The same volatile area is a stronghold of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, the countrys last remaining rebel group following a 2016 accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) that saw some 7,000 rebels disarm.

Investigators are reportedly looking into Rojas possible ties with the rebel group after reports that he was an explosives expert for an ELN cell who went by the alias Mocho Kiko.

The ELN has been stepping up its attacks on police targets and oil infrastructure amid a stand-off with the conservative Duque government over stalled peace talks.

A year ago, the group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a police station in the coastal city of Barranquilla that left five officers dead.

But until now the Cuban-inspired group, which is believed to have around 2,000 guerrilla fighters, has never been capable or much interested in carrying out such a high-profile act of violence.

Thursdays attack was the deadliest since a 2003 car bombing against the elite Bogota social club El Nogal that left 36 dead, an incident that hardened Colombians resolve against the Farc.

Mr Duque has demanded the ELN cease all attacks and kidnappings as a condition for restarting the talks and has condemned Venezuela and Cuba for allegedly providing a safe haven for rebel leaders even as their troops continue to sow violence in Colombia.
Photo: The Canadian Press

The City of Kelowna is clarifying its position concerning provincial regulations around ride sharing.

A year ago, the city sent a letter to the Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, detailing its position on 11 questions around proposed legislation.

Last month, the committee again engaged the city, asking for a response to questions around boundaries, regulations to balance the supply of service with consumer demand, fees and class of licence for prospective drivers.

Staff have drafted a series of responses which council will be asked to approve at Monday's meeting.

Boundaries - Drivers should have the flexibility to serve the entire region without restrictions as taxi drivers have.

Supply and Demand - There should be no cap on the number of drivers. It would result in an undersupply of service at peak times.

Price - Controls should be as flexible as possible. To compete fairly, taxis should be able to respond with similar price adjustments for rides hailed through a mobile app.

License - Class 5

Ride hailing service was expected to come to B.C. last fall. However, no date has yet been set for an introduction of the service.


Denials: President Donald Trump after being introduced by Vice President Mike Pence, left, at the Pentagon yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Donald Trump has unveiled a revamped US missile defence strategy involving a new layer of space-based sensors to detect and track enemy missiles.

The president announced the results of the review, the first compiled since 2010, during a speech at the Pentagon.

He called for an investment into new missile defence technologies and pointed to the development of advanced weapon systems by both China and Russia.

It drew comparison to Ronald Reagan's costly and ambitious project to create a space-based anti-missile system at the height of the Cold War in the Eighties, which was derisively dubbed "Star Wars" by critics.

In the review, US intelligence agencies also warned Iran and North Korea's missile capabilities present existing threats to US and global security.

"The world is changing and we're going to change much faster than the rest of the world," the president said. "The United States cannot simply build more of the same or make incremental improvements ... We must pursue advanced technology and research to guarantee the United States is several steps ahead of those who wish to do us harm."

Mr Trump outlined six major changes to the current set-up, calling for 20 new ground-based missile detectors, new radars and sensors to detect foreign missiles launched by "rogue states" and a new system that could potentially shield all major US cities.

Speaking about the possibility of the new "space-based layer" of the nation's defence capability, the president said: "It's ultimately going to be a very, very big part of our defence and obviously our offence."

"The system will be monitored and we will terminate any missile launches from hostile powers, or even powers that make a mistake," Mr Trump continued.

"The stronger you are, the less you will need whatever that strength may be."

Pentagon officials have previously said the US has too few resources to counter a first strike on the US homeland by a major nuclear power - with Washington believing deterrence a more worthwhile strategy.

Acting defence secretary Pat Shanahan said competitors such as Russia and China are aggressively pursuing new missiles that are harder to see, harder to track and harder to defeat. The new proposals come on top of previously announced plans to increase the number of ground-based interceptors over the next several years, lifting the number positioned at Fort Greely, Alaska to 64 from 44.

The new review is likely to stoke tensions with Russia, which views US missile defence advances as a threat.

The chair of Russia's upper house defence and security committee, Viktor Bondarev, said that the new US missile defence strategy would ramp up global tensions, Interfax news agency reported.

China, in turn, has also alarmed the Pentagon with advances in super-fast "hypersonic" technology, which could allow Beijing to field missiles that are far harder to detect.

In a report earlier this week that singled out the hypersonic threat, the Pentagon warned China's military was "on the verge of fielding some of the most modern weapon systems in the world".

"In some areas, it already leads the world," the report said.

US officials, including under-secretary of defence for research and engineering Michael Griffin, believe a space-based sensor layer could help to detect missiles moving at hypersonic speeds.

However, seemingly recognising the potential concerns surrounding any perceived weaponisation of space, the strategy pushes for studies. No testing is mandated, and no final decisions have been made.

For Mr Trump, who is trying to revive efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear arsenal, the report's release comes at an awkward moment.

Three North Korean officials, including the top envoy involved in talks with the United States, are booked on a flight to Washington, suggesting possible movement toward a second summit between the president and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to South Korean media.

"While a possible new avenue to peace now exists with North Korea, it continues to pose an extraordinary threat and the US must remain vigilant," the report said.

"Space, I think, is the key to the next step of missile defense," a senior Trump administration official told reporters ahead of the document's release. ( Independent News Service)
A great white shark thought to be Deep Blue - the biggest great white in the world - has been spotted off the coast of Hawaii in a rare-sighting that was a "fun surprise" for divers. (Tanya Houppermans/www.comedywildlifephoto.com)

A great white shark thought to be Deep Blue - the biggest great white in the world - has been spotted off the coast of Hawaii in a rare-sighting that was a "fun surprise" for divers.

The shark was feeding on a dead sperm whale 14km off the coast of Oahu, a Hawaiian island.

Melanie Hutchinson, a shark researcher at the University of Hawaii, said the female - which is around 6.5 metres long - was seen by a team of divers looking for tiger sharks.

"I have a few friends that were out there.

"They were looking for a tiger sharks so it was a fun surprise to see this big lady," Ms Hutchinson said.

"What they're doing when they're in Hawaii is really deep dives during the day. And so that's why people don't typically interact with them.

"The sperm whale kind of presented an opportunistic foraging opportunity so that's probably why people saw this animal," said Ms Hutchinson.

Kimberley Jeffries, a member of the team of divers who encountered the shark, posted on Facebook: "If you asked me a few days ago what the most amazing thing I've ever seen in Hawaiian waters the answer probably would be pretty different.

"If you asked me yesterday the answer would be free-diving with Deep Blue, a great white, the largest ever documented, who was last seen in 2013 in Mexico."
An American supporter of Isil has been arrested after he allegedly plotted to blow a hole in the White House with an anti-tank rocket and storm the building. Stock photo

An American supporter of Isil has been arrested after he allegedly plotted to blow a hole in the White House with an anti-tank rocket and storm the building.

Hasher Jallal Taheb (21), from the town of Cumming, Georgia, was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday, on the eve of his planned attack.

He had been watched since March, after police were tipped off that he had become radicalised, changed his name, and was trying to sell his car to fund his travel to territory held by Isil.

He was thwarted by not having a passport, and so changed his plans, intending, he told an informant, "to conduct an attack in the United States against targets such as the White House and the Statue of Liberty".

In December, Taheb met with an undercover agent and showed them "a hand-drawn diagram of the ground floor of the West Wing of the White House" and "described his plan for attacking" it.

A week later, he met with the agent again and "broadened his prospective targets in the Washington DC area and indicated he wished to attack the Washington Monument, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial and a specific synagogue".

He also explained which weapons he wanted to buy - semi-automatic weapons, explosive devices, an anti-tank rocket and some grenades.

"His alleged intent was to attack the White House and other targets of opportunity in the Washington DC area," said the US attorney for the northern district of Georgia.
The jury in the trial of Hillsborough match commander David Duckenfield has heard of the "scene of horror" in the pens where the fatal crush happened.

Richard Matthews QC, prosecuting, said calculations showed the density at the front of pen three of the Leppings Lane end at 3.03pm - three minutes after the 1989 FA Cup semi-final kicked off - was as high as 10 people per square metre.

Mr Duckenfield (74) who denies the gross negligence manslaughter of 95 Liverpool fans, and former Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell (69), who denies breaching a condition of the safety certificate and a health and safety offence, sat with their legal teams in the well of Preston Crown Court for the third day of the trial.

Mr Matthews said the court would hear from Liverpool fans who were on the terrace on April 15, 1989, including off-duty police officer Stephen Allen. He said: "We will hear from him what, in short, I can describe now as the remarkable help he gave and the scene of horror around him."

Mr Matthews said they would also hear evidence from fan Colin Moneypenny about the experience in the pens.

"He described that he was just shouting and screaming and trying to get people to help with no effect for the whole of the period," Mr Matthews said.

"He could see police officers on the other side of the perimeter fence and it appeared they were doing absolutely nothing."

The court was shown video of the crowd building up outside the turnstiles in Leppings Lane before kick-off, before an exit gate was opened to allow them into the ground.

Mr Matthews said Mr Duckenfield failed to get any assessment of the "desperate situation" and to deal with the ever-growing crowd.

Cameras

He said: "Mr Duckenfield's role was to use the resources he had at his disposal to get a proper assessment of what was going on - he did not have the burden of personally coping with an encompassing crowd but instead the responsibility of command from a bird's eye view and a host of cameras and screens to assist him."

The jury was told three requests were made by Superintendent Roger Marshall for exit gates to be opened to relieve the crush outside the turnstiles and on the third occasion he said people would be killed if the gates were not opened.

Mr Matthews said a witness described Mr Duckenfield responding: "If people are going to get killed, open the gates."

The court was shown CCTV footage of exit gate C being opened at 2.48pm and 2.52pm on the day, allowing more than 2,500 fans to enter the stadium and make their way down the tunnel to the central pens of the Leppings Lane terrace.

Mr Matthews said: "It is the prosecution case that it was David Duckenfield, the match commander, his duty to consider the consequences of opening the gates; that there was time to have done so even between the first and third request to open the gates; also, that there was sufficient time to make contingency plans for the inner concourse.

"It is also the prosecution case that it was obvious to anyone ordering, permitting or even observing on the cameras in the police control box, by opening gate C there would be no room going down the tunnel into the pens and there was going to be a serious problem in the central pens three and four."

Ninety-six men, women and children died in the crush at the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

Under the law at the time, there can be no prosecution for the 96th victim, Tony Bland, as he died more than a year and a day after the disaster.
Prince Philip: His Land Rover turned over on to the drivers side. Photo: Reuters

Prince Philip had to climb from the wreckage of his car following a crash in which his Land Rover overturned on its side.

The 97-year-old was said to look distraught and "quite shaken" after the accident yesterday afternoon, which left two other people in hospital with minor injuries.

He was recovering at Sandringham with Queen Elizabeth by his side, after being checked by a doctor as a precaution and found to have no injuries.

Police confirmed that both Philip and a female driver had been breathalysed at the scene and had not been drinking.

A witness said the queen's husband appeared "shocked and shaken" after the crash, describing the fact he was uninjured as a "miracle".

The witness said he had seemed "quite distraught" in the aftermath of the incident, as police arrived at the scene.

"He looked at me as I approached the junction. Police were already on the scene, helping him. There's a police station not far away.

"The fact anybody walked away from that is incredible. If a 30-year-old had walked away from that unhurt it would be a miracle.

"For a 97-year-old man, that is something else," the witness said.

He is understood to have been helped out of his vehicle, which had flipped over, trapping the driver's door shut.

Photographs of the wreckage appeared to show that the car had been hit on its passenger side, with heavy scrapes and dents in what would have been a "reinforced" vehicle made for the British royal family.

The second car, a Kia, was left on a verge after the crash on the A149 near the Sandringham estate shortly before 3pm.

There were conflicting reports about precisely how the crash unfolded, but locals believed Philip was leaving a small private side road, intending to cross the A149 as he headed back to Sandringham when he was in collision with a car travelling south.

Philip, who was wearing casual attire, was seen speaking to uniformed police as a group of about five people comforted one another near to the second car.

Ambulance crews were called to the scene. ( Daily Telegraph London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is to stand for the European Parliament in May, he said yesterday.

It will be the 82-year-old media mogul's first run for office since he was found guilty of tax fraud in 2013.

He was barred from office after his graft conviction, but the ban was lifted last May.

"At my ripe old age, I have decided out of a sense of responsibility to go to Europe, which lacks a deep world vision," he said yesterday.

Having his name on the top of his Forza Italia party's EU ticket will boost its visibility and almost certainly ensure his election. But there is no guarantee he will spend much time in Brussels.

Italian leaders often stand in European votes only to focus on domestic politics after the ballot.

Mr Berlusconi said he wants to stand to fight the 5-Star Movement, which has formed a coalition with his traditional ally, the League.

"We need to change this government, which includes the 5-Star Movement that is led by people who have no experience and are incompetent," Mr Berlusconi added.

"The alliance [with the League] is not natural and I do not think it will last long."

Mr Berlusconi campaigned for Forza in last March's national election but said his inability to stand hurt its chances and for the first time the group trailed the League, by 14pc of the vote to 17.35pc.

Since then, Forza Italia has slid further, with most recent surveys putting it on 8.2pc against 32.2pc for the League, which has jumped above 5-Star to become Italy's most popular party.

Mr Berlusconi has been prime minister of Italy four times in a political career beset by corruption and sex scandals.
US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last year (Kevin Lim/The Straits Times/AP)

President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to broker a deal to coax the North to give up its nuclear programme, the White House has announced.

News of a second meeting with the reclusive North Korean leader came after Mr Trump met at the White House for 90 minutes with a North Korean envoy, Kim Yong Chol, who had travelled to Washington to discuss denuclearisation talks.

Mr Trump and Kim Jong Un are to meet near the end of February at a place to be announced at a later day, said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

She called the Oval Office meeting productive and said the US and North Korea would continue to have conversations with hopes that North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons capabilities.

President @realDonaldTrump looks forward to a second summit with Chairman Kim, which will take place near the end of February. Location will be announced at a later date.  The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) January 18, 2019

The United States is going to continue to keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea until we see fully and verified denuclearisation, Ms Sanders said.

Weve had very good steps and good faith from the North Koreans in releasing the hostages and other moves.

And so were going to continue those conversations and the president looks forward to the next meeting.

Expand Close US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, right, and Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean senior ruling party official (Carolyn Kaster/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, right, and Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean senior ruling party official (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

South Korea said it expects the second summit to be a turning point in firmly establishing a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.

In May, North Korea released three American detainees and sent them home with US secretary of state Mike Pompeo after his 90-minute meeting with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang.

Weeks later, Mr Trump had his first, historic meeting with Kim Jong Un in June in Singapore, but little tangible progress has been made on a vague denuclearisation agreement crafted at that summit.

No details have been released about how denuclearisation could occur.

The North Korean emissary met earlier with Mr Pompeo at a Washington hotel and they were reconvening after the White House meeting.

Expand Close President Donald Trump is keen to press Mr Kim on denuclearisation (Evan Vucci/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp President Donald Trump is keen to press Mr Kim on denuclearisation (Evan Vucci/AP)

Mr Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with Mr Kim.

Since the first one, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology.

A planned meeting between Mr Pompeo and the envoy, who is North Koreas former spy chief, in New York last November was called off abruptly.

US officials said at the time that North Korea had cancelled the session.

The talks have stalled over North Koreas refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them.

The North has demanded that the US end harsh economic penalties and provide security guarantees before the North takes any steps beyond its initial suspension of nuclear and missile tests.

Expand Close Kim Jong Un during a recent visit to Beijing (AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kim Jong Un during a recent visit to Beijing (AP)

Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday that the US is still awaiting concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.

Mr Trump has offered assurances that a second summit could allow the two leaders to seal a deal resolving the nuclear standoff and improving a relationship marked by decades of animosity and mistrust since the Korean War.

Kim Jong Un expressed frustration in an annual New Years address over the lack of progress in negotiations.

But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community, according to Chinas official Xinhua News Agency.

Expand Close Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore (Kevin Lim/The Straits Times/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore (Kevin Lim/The Straits Times/AP)

Mr Kims latest trip to China, his fourth since last year, came as the Norths strongest ally has encouraged negotiations with the US while at the same time arguing in favour of immediate easing of sanctions.

The US and North Korea seemed close to war at points during 2017.

The North staged a series of weapons tests that brought it closer to its nuclear goal of one day being able to target anywhere on the US mainland.

The two sides then turned to insulting each other: Mr Trump called Mr Kim Little Rocket Man and North Korea said Mr Trump was a dotard.

Mr Kim abruptly turned to diplomacy with Seoul and Washington last year, possibly fearing economic harm from the penalties imposed over the weapons tests.

Still, even after the Singapore summit, the first between U.S. and North Korean leaders, there has been little real progress in nuclear disarmament.

Independent analysts are highly sceptical that North Korea will easily abandon a nuclear arsenal constructed in the face of deep poverty and probably seen by Mr Kim as his only guarantee of his governments survival.
Police investigators at the scene where Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe was found in Melbourne, Australia (Stefan Postles/AAP Image via AP)

Police in Australia are hunting the killer of a 21-year-old exchange student who was attacked in Melbourne while speaking to her sister on a FaceTime phone call.

Aiia Maasarwe, an Israeli student who was visiting Melbourne as part of her studies at Shanghai University, had attended a comedy show and was walking from a tram stop to her accommodation in the suburb of Bundoora at about 12.10am on Wednesday when she was assaulted.

Police said Ms Maasarwe was talking to her sister, who was overseas, when she was attacked. Ms Maasarwe's body was found at about 7am on Wednesday behind a hedge near a shopping centre.

Two other Melbourne murders led to an outcry about violent attacks against women. Last year, Eurydice Dixon (22) was killed, and in 2012 Jill Meagher, a 29-year-old Irish woman, was killed walking home from a pub.
A Belarusian model, who claimed last year that she had evidence of Russian involvement in helping to elect Donald Trump as US president, has been deported from Thailand, police said.

Anastasia Vashukevich, along with seven co-defendants, pleaded guilty this week in a case related to holding a sex training seminar in Thailand.

They were arrested almost a year ago in the seaside resort town of Pattaya, which is especially popular with Russian tourists.

Thailand's immigration police chief Surachate Hakparn said flights had left Thailand heading for Russia and Belarus. Ms Vashukevich and at least one of the other deportees hold passports from Belarus.

While in custody, Ms Vashukevich claimed to have recordings of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska talking about interference in the 2016 US election, but never released them.

Mr Deripaska is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and also had a working relationship with Paul Manafort, Mr Trump's former campaign manager who was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller and convicted last year of tax and bank fraud.

Ms Vashukevich - also known on social media as Nastya Rybka - and her co-defendants were convicted of soliciting and conspiracy and given suspended 18-month prison terms. The group had said that they were conducting a class on sexual relationships.

In the early stages of their detention, the sex training group sent a note to the US embassy via an intermediary seeking help and political asylum. Ms Vashukevich indicated she would turn over the recordings she claimed to have if the US could help secure her release, but later withdrew the offer, suggesting that she and Mr Deripaska had reached an agreement.

A public scandal erupted in early February last year when Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny published an investigation drawing on Ms Vashukevich's social media posts suggesting corrupt links between Mr Deripaska and a top Kremlin official, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko.

The investigative report featured video from Mr Deripaska's yacht in 2016, when Ms Vashukevich, who has also worked as an escort, was aboard.

On Wednesday in Washington, the US Senate narrowly upheld a Treasury Department decision to lift sanctions from three companies connected to Mr Deripaska. The sanctions hit Limerick refinery Aughinish Alumina because they were imposed on its parent company - Russian business Rusal, which has links to Mr Deripaska.

The Treasury Department said the Russian companies have committed to separating from Mr Deripaska, who will remain blacklisted. He was one of 24 Russian officials and tycoons hit with sanctions imposed by the US last year as Washington stepped up its condemnation of Russia's actions in recent years, including its 2014 annexation of Crimea, support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, hacking attacks and meddling in Western elections.

The metals tycoon controls a business empire with assets in aluminium, energy and construction and is worth $5.3bn (4.6bn), according to 'Forbes' magazine.
Photo: Contributed A 12-year-old boy has a nearly new bike, thanks to the kindness of strangers.

What do two truckers and a Vernon bike shop have in common? They all came together to help a young man in need.

It all started when Dave Lewis gave Francis a ride to Vancouver.

The 12 year old often catches rides with truckers going from Kelowna  where he visits his brother  back to the Lower Mainland, where he lives with his mom.

Lewis and Francis began chatting, and Lewis learned someone had stolen Francis' bike around Christmas time.

The story touched Lewis, who contacted fellow trucker Glen Anderson and told him the story.

Anderson, who has children about the same age as Francis, said he had a BMX bike Francis could have, so Lewis took it to Sun Country Cycle in Vernon for a few repairs.

Josh, the mechanic there, did all the repairs, I heard, to the tune of $800  new tires, new pedals, new seat, said Lewis. He also donated an indestructible $90 lock that came off his own bike.

Lewis was billed $375 for the work that was done, which he paid out of his own pocket.

I just wanted to help out. A 12 year old has to have a bike, he said.

Lewis delivered the bike Tuesday night to a very excited young man.

Without Josh, I wouldn't have been able to do it. They went above and beyond, said Lewis.
A Zimbabwean activist facing subversion charges has accused the government of acting like deposed former leader Robert Mugabe.

Pastor Evan Mawarire, who could be jailed for up to 20 years, said the situation in his country was "heartbreaking".

Alarm is growing about a violent crackdown on people protesting against a dramatic rise in fuel prices.

"We thought we had a new country and a new way of doing things," said Mr Mawarire as he arrived at court in Harare. "None of what I am being accused of is what I have done at all."

When asked how police were treating him, he replied: "Not very good. I could be better."

Mr Mawarire is one of more than 600 people arrested this week in the worst unrest since the post-election violence in August.

Fuel in the economically shattered country is now the world's most expensive.
Flurries of sleet and "wet snow" are due to sweep in as the thermometers drop below zero.

After a period of unseasonably mild weather, cold conditions took grip on Wednesday with the possibility of more frosty days to come.

Snow fell across parts of Britain yesterday as freezing wintry conditions grip much of the country.

So far Ireland has escaped the worst of the cold snap, although temperatures have plunged, and last night saw the mercury hover between 0C and 2C.

Met Eireann says that a weather front coming in from the west will bring precipitation.

This could fall as sleet or even snow in parts of Connacht, the midlands and Ulster, according to forecaster Matthew Martin.

But those expecting a thick blanketing could be disappointed.

The weekend is likely to bring cold temperatures that will linger into next week.

"A cold regime for the weekend and well into next week. Temperatures below normal with frost most nights and a high risk of icy patches," a spokesperson for Met Eireann said.

Sunday night is likely to be cold and very frosty overnight, with icy roads.

Temperatures are likely to dip as low as -3C.

"Frost and ice clearing slowly. Mainly dry with sunny spells. Top temperatures 5C to 8C. Cold overnight," the Met Eireann spokesperson added.

The UK Met Office has issued an ice warning for Northern Ireland, as well as most of England and for all of Wales and for southern Scotland.

There are currently no national weather warnings in place for the Republic of Ireland.

Met Eireann will be liaising with local authorities over ice and frost.
Your otherwise cogent reporting on Theresa May's humiliation in the House of Commons vote on Tuesday ('Humiliation for May after huge Brexit deal defeat', Irish Independent, January 16) contains one surprising comment and one white elephant in the room.

The surprising comment is that Boris Johnson is a hardline Brexiteer. This totally misunderstands, or misrepresents Johnson's raison d'etre.

During France's wars of religion in the 16th century, Henry IV, a Protestant converted to Catholicism, was quoted as saying that "Paris was worth a Mass".

Similarly, when, to the bewilderment of his sister and brother, Boris Johnson turned from being an ardent European to a Brexiteer, one could almost hear him whispering: "No 10 is worth the scorn of people of principle."

The white elephant is what is Theresa May's endgame?

May was, maybe is, a Remainer, who stood on the fence at the time of the Brexit vote, vastly superior in her political understanding than Johnson. In the event, she took the chalice, in her naivety not realising how poisoned it was.

During two years of negotiations, with the inane David Davis as her European agent, absolutely nothing was resolved or agreed, except that the hapless Davis and the Brexiteers didn't have any idea of what to do; that they had no plan for exiting the EU and, because of this, they were the most irresponsible group of spoilers.

Because, there is no answer.

There is no Plan B for Monday. There is no room for further discussions with the EU, which the leaders of the EU have told the UK.

The Tory Brexiteers and the DUP are living in a wonderland of their overworked fantasies; there is no chance of movement on the backstop; this has been made more than clear by the EU. In short, they are all in a state of denial because none of them has a policy, which begs the question of the reason of their political existence. They are all running about like March hares precisely because they do not know, and have never known, what they want other than pouring oil on the flames on the despondence of the British working class, which itself has been brought about by the class warfare waged against it for decades and centuries by that very Conservative Party.

There will be no hard Brexit.

The UK will remain in the EU after March.

It may be that the UK will remain in the economic union, accepting free movement through the EU and Britain, but no political union.

Or there may be no Brexit at all.

Harry Charalambou

Muswell Hill, London, England

Healy-Rae's meat claims cook up some controversy

Further to Danny Healy-Rae's claim that "them fellas that are talking about stopping eating meat never worked hard", I can only assume he is referring to lazy layabout ne'er-do-wells such as Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Benjamin Franklin, George Bernard Shaw, Paul McCartney, Mike Tyson, Carl Lewis and Steve Jobs, all of whom gave up eating meat?

Come to think of it, as God himself has presumably never eaten meat, I take it that Mr Healy-Rae believes he was resting every day during his creative period and not just on the seventh?

Rob Sadlier

Rathfarnham, Dublin 16

Soft Border plan could be copied around the world

Your editorial heading warns that "May fiasco shows we must be ready for a hard Border" (Irish Independent, January 17). This headline refers to UK Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal with the leaders of the EU being rejected in the House of Commons by a wide margin of 230 votes, leaving open the real possibility that the UK might crash out of Europe and close its market to Irish exports, with Irish goods being held up for long periods at a manned hard Border with Northern Ireland.

But if hard-to-see high-flying drones could have security cameras attached to them while they are in the air over our Border with Northern Ireland, then perhaps the whole length along with its crossing points could be safely watched from above.

This might help to keep the Border soft like it is at present. It might also help if farmers who own land on both sides of the Border could wear satellite-linked monitoring devices when they cross the Border that goes through their property. Farm machinery, goods or cattle could carry similar monitoring devices in order to watch their movements in and out of the Border in a discrete fashion.

The same devices could be worn on a more temporary basis by tourists, too, so as to distinguish them from smugglers.

But there could be some good news that few of the long-time, hard-pressed Irish, British and European Brexit negotiators might ever have dreamed would actually be derived from out of all their many months of hard work. This good news, I believe, is their innovative attempts to keep a permanently soft Border in Ireland could be starting a gradual process of making all national borders in the world in the years ahead a lot softer. So perhaps something good might after all come out of Brexit.

Sean O'Brien

Kilrush, Co Clare

All sides in divisive debate should be shown respect

At a time when relations between Ireland and the UK are strained by Brexit, it is disappointing that misrepresentations about our UK neighbours appear in your admirable paper. Colette Browne ('Our Government cannot allow Brexit charlatans to take us down with them as they sacrifice UK's future', Irish Independent, January 16) starts her article by stating "Brexit is a cult supported by fanatics". What do you think the statistical probability of 17.4 million fanatics existing in the UK is?

She goes on to misquote Liam Fox's argument that, as the UK starts in total regulatory alignment with the EU, a trade deal should be one of the easiest, as "would be one of the easiest", thus completely misrepresenting Mr Fox's point.

Trade deals usually take significant time to reach regulatory alignment.

Our friends in the UK voted narrowly for Brexit for many reasons including ones I expect Irish people agree with, such as a desire to make its own laws.

They are not cultists nor fanatics; my five English-born children disagreed agreeably on the issue. I encourage my children to read the Irish Independent and often highlight excellent articles to them; they do not deserve to have smears from one side of an unfortunately divisive debate applied to them.

Frank Devine

Kenilworth, England
Rarely, a moment arrives in a nation's history when reality hits, and it realises that it is not the power it was, not the force it fancies itself to be, and that it cannot get what it wants because other, stronger nations, won't allow it to. It is becoming more obvious that Brexit is just such a moment for the UK.

As Theresa May asks us to consider what the historians will say, it is a nice moment to suggest that they shouldn't heap the blame on her. She made her mistakes, heaven knows, but the fundamental problem for her is that the EU is, roughly, 10 times bigger than the UK. In population, in economic heft, in terms of the scale it can bring to its negotiations with other economic superpowers such as the US, China, India and Japan.

The British were not able to get the Brexit they'd like - to have their cake and eat it - because the EU could say no to that proposition, and it did. The UK had few cards to play - the budget contributions, keeping EU citizens as "hostages", the EU's loss of the City as a pool of capital, and impeding the "import" of everything from French cheese to Polish plumbers. In the end, the EU had far more.

So it told the UK where to get off: what did the UK expect? It has happened before. Politicians occasionally mention "Suez" as a moment of similar national crisis and humiliation. The parallels are close. Back in 1956, the British government believed that it could still play a global role, as a "great power". It disliked the Egyptians nationalising the Suez Canal, through which all of the UK's oil and much other trade used to flow, to and from what is nowadays termed "global Britain". The UK joined with the French, a similarly post-imperial medium-sized European power, and the Israelis to collude in an invasion of Egypt. The idea, entirely pre-planned, was the Israelis would invade Sinai, and then the British and French would invade, secure the canal for international security and to break up the fight.

All went well - it was a military success - until the Americans found out about it. They were furious, because it interfered with their Cold War policies, and told the British to pack it in and get out. If they didn't, they told the government, they would crush the pound, and thus inflict huge economic damage on the UK's economy and banking system. The British thus came face-to-face with the limits of their power. They couldn't do what they want. So the British and the French retreated. Humiliation. Bitter recriminations. Reputations trashed. Fall of the prime minister.

The contrasting sequels to that are instructive. The British decided to rebuild their "special" relationship with America and become its closest and most trusted ally, co-operating on security and nuclear weapons. The French, by contrast, were confirmed in their belief that they should look to Europe for their national and international ambitions. Suez was October 1956; the Treaty of Rome was March 1957.

And so we find the EU now in the same position the Americans were in the 1950s; revealing uncomfortable economic realities to the UK. In Britain, the events created and opened up deep passions and divisions, just as they do today.

The EU, like the US then, is too big to ignore, too rich to dictate to, and too powerful to say "no" to. The economic realities behind diplomacy drive events far more than we'd like to think in our personality-obsessed media.

The UK relies on the EU for half of its foreign trade, roughly a fifth of national income. The EU relies for about 10pc of its exports on the UK, and less in terms of its overall national income. It varies - it is rather larger for the Netherlands than Bulgaria, for German car makers than for Romanian retailers, but the broad economic imbalance is there. For BMW, for example, the integrity of the vast single market is more important than the money it makes in Britain; it is a global concern with plants from Spartanburg, South Carolina to Shenyang, China. The UK is useful, lucrative as a market and has been an excellent place to build Minis and BMW engines; but it is not as important to the group as the British might imagine.

Think, if you will, about the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014 that preceded the UK's vote on the EU. That, too, was dominated by economic, material issues, though with traditional patriotism, or nationalism, also in the mix. The Scots wanted, from the English in effect, to be able to stay in the (former) UK single market; to keep the pound sterling; and to have various other benefits that they currently enjoyed, but without making many other concessions. The government loftily said, basically, that they could take a hike along the high road. The British Treasury had no special wish to favour Scotland, and the Bank of England would not run monetary policy to suit the Scottish.

The Scots, in effect, would be granted independence if they voted for it; but they would have to accept English terms. Mercifully the Scottish people were canny enough to see the realities facing them.

The disparity in power was clear - the remaining UK (England, Wales, Northern Ireland) was about 10 times larger than Scotland in national income and population just like the UK vs the EU. If the UK has any sense now, just like after Suez, it would retreat and accept its diminished status in the world, with as much dignity as it can muster, and hope time heals the wounds. ( Independent News Service)
If I wanted to take the Facebook 10-year challenge (and I don't), I only have to look to the drawer where I keep old passports.

There, documented in roughly 10-year intervals, are excruciatingly objective photographs of my past selves, staring out at me with the same nervous eyes that have stared at humourless border guards for almost four decades.

Taken together, they capture all the cliches of ageing: A kid in his 20s, looking for romance on other continents; a young professional in his 30s feeling self-important about his first real job; and then some relative of my current self, a man in his mid-40s (when the passport was new), working his way through the bucket list.

Of course, the 10-year challenge - the posting to social media of two portraits, taken at an interval of 10 years, to show the impact of ageing - is a game, perhaps an innocent one. But it animates many of the worst things about social media and the culture it is crafting.

If it is a game, then what does it mean to win it? To have aged well, perhaps so imperceptibly that all one's friends and acquaintances post flattering comments: "Why, you haven't a changed a bit!"

It plays into our narcissism, and our competitive instincts, and it is little different from a game of "Hot or Not", but for old people on Facebook who know their friends will be kind, if not truthful.

It encourages malice and feeds our appetite for schadenfreude ("The years haven't been kind to him ...").

It abets the industries of youthfulness, purveyors of wrinkle creams and Botox and cosmetic surgeons. It is also curiously moralistic with its implicit assumption that we have a duty to ourselves to keep our carcass in good shape.

And it awakens atavistic beliefs about morality and the body, as if our face, like the painting in Dorian Gray's old schoolroom, is a physical record of our deeds.

Is that, perhaps, why so many of the images posted as part of the challenge feel strangely like mug shots submitted for juridical evaluation?

It also distorts our understanding of how time affects us. Illness and death are physical, but ageing is an intellectual and emotional process, and it can't be captured in photographs.

If one separates ageing from mortality (the two are connected but not identical), ageing loses most of its fearsome aspect.

It is, one hopes, about wisdom and the gathering of maturity, the resilience that comes from loss and grief, and the deepening of ties to people and things we love.

In Richard Strauss's opera 'Der Rosenkavalier', there is a haunting scene in which a woman of a certain age, who is enjoying perhaps her last great love affair, recounts how, at night, she walks the halls of her palace and stops the clocks from ticking.

The music grows quiet and thin, not just to imitate the silence of the stilled clocks, but to tell us that it is in these moments when we encounter time intimately and in deep privacy that we are most attuned to ourselves. "One must not be afraid of it," she says to her teenage lover.

Of course, social media games like these are all about digital engagement. They help convey the illusion that media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are as old as we are.

We are encouraged to think of this very recent and possibly ephemeral cultural phenomenon (Facebook will turn 15 in early February) as inevitable, omnipresent and ageless, like gravity and weather.

Facebook doesn't just want to own your images, it wants to own your temporality. Slowly, and steadily, we outsource our relationship to time to a corporation, which reminds us every morning where we were last year, or a decade ago. Not only does it distort memory, it distorts forgetting, an essential tool of happiness.

The 10-year challenge is just another technique whereby the same corporation that monetised the destruction of democracy can monetise the destruction of authentic memory.

It is fun to "remember" that last year, on this date, we were on a beach. But it is uncanny and bizarre to be reminded that four years ago we cooked a pot of red cabbage and served it with cheap prosecco. ( Washington Post)
Remember Theresa May said 'Brexit means Brexit'?

It was in July 2016 before she was even prime minster. The meaningless slogan was central to her campaign to take over from David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party.

"There will be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it by the back door, and no second referendum," she said.

"The country voted to leave the European Union, and as prime minister I will make sure that we leave the European Union."

Two-and-a-half years later she is still scrambling to define Brexit against the backdrop of a national meltdown in the UK. This crisis was not created by the voters who were hoodwinked and lied to during the referendum but by politicians who have been afraid to admit the truth in the vacuum since.

The question of the Irish Border never crossed their minds at any stage in advance of the vote, and if it did they certainly did not want it become part of the public discourse.

So when former Taoiseach Enda Kenny began his whistlestop tour of European capitals to plead our case it caught many, particularly in the UK press, by surprise.

But a solution was eventually found. The EU, along with Ireland, came to Mrs May's aid with a workable way of securing frictionless trade and protecting peace.

The backstop is an Irish solution to a British problem which may well be why so many in the Conservative Party and DUP are opposed to it.

Its emphatic rejection by the House of Commons has set the progress back dramatically, although the Irish Government is still clinging to the hope that it will be resurrected. What isn't being said in Dublin is that the DUP's strength has only increased this week.

Arlene Foster's party, which remains steadfastly opposed to the backstop, saved Mrs May's bacon in the no-confidence vote on Wednesday. Had the DUP's 10 MPs gone against the prime minister then her race would finally have been run.

Mrs May has been unwilling to fall down despite the barrage of criticism, confidence motions and chaos. But standing up isn't the same as moving forward.

So we must now start to contemplate what happens if she can't secure enough support for the backstop.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has a very rehearsed line when asked that question.

"The onus is on Westminster to come up with solutions that they can support," he said this week.

"But they must be solutions the EU and Ireland can accept. We have always said that if the UK were to evolve from its red lines on the customs union and the single market, the European position would evolve also."

The Taoiseach reckons it is "up to those who rejected that deal to come up with an alternative solution to honour their commitment to avoiding a hard Border".

In other words we are relying on Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jeremy Corbyn and Arlene Foster to devise a Plan B for the Border.

Think about that. Johnson and Rees-Mogg couldn't give a toss about Ireland. Corbyn has had to repeatedly deny he was a supporter of the IRA during the Troubles. And Foster believes talk about a hard Border is "a bit of a nonsense". She argued: "We never had a hard Border in Ireland."

There are obvious reasons why the Irish Government must keep the dream of the backstop alive as long as possible. Almost everybody on this island is hoping for a turn in the course of history that makes Brexit less painful than the current diagnosis.

But the time has come for our own politicians to tell us the difficult truth. Even Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald told the Dail yesterday it's time "to say out loud" that in the absence of a deal we'll be faced with a hard Border.

EU rules say as much so we certainly can't rely on the UK to salvage this disaster.
Where will we be in this Brexit farrago in January 2020? Well, when you pore over all we know, and try to factor in things most likely to happen, we are left with four diverging answers to that question.

Those four options can be summarised like this: 1. We could be looking at a Border going back in some visible form. 2. Brexit could have effectively been reversed. 3. Brexit could have been 'softened' into something which makes little difference to our lives. 4. We could still be stuck in this shoddy Brexit waiting room talking much the same dreary interminable things to one another.

Clearly, most of us want either option two, or at least option three, to come to pass. The vast bulk of people in Ireland North and south, and pretty well half the people of England, do not want this Brexit disruption. But we could live with the UK making a close-up and workable trade deal with the EU in a post-Brexit world.
The parade of possible 2020 Democratic presidential candidates is under way. They now seem to come in batches.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand - once a Blue Dog congresswoman, now a progressive with a gender-focused message - announced her candidacy for president this week. If the Democrats are looking for a female senator from New York with strong ties to Wall Street and, shall we say, flexible views on policy, Gillibrand will do well.

The 'Washington Post' reports on her metamorphosis when she went from the House to the Senate: "Some of her policy positions rapidly changed. The night before her appointment was announced, she called a gay-rights group to profess her full support for same-sex marriage. As she voted for gun-control measures, her NRA rating fell to an F."

Meanwhile, Senator Amy Klobuchar told the 'Morning Joe' talk show hosts her family supported her bid but that she had not yet made a decision. She has talked about her victories in rural counties in 2018 and the need for a "heartland sensibility" for the party. She certainly sounds like a candidate these days. Unlike some candidates, Klobuchar has avoided defining herself as a pure progressive - for example, supporting expanded healthcare coverage but not signing on to Senator Bernie Sanders's single-payer idea.

At the hearing on Tuesday for William Barr's nomination for attorney general, Klobuchar was characteristically sober and methodical. She asked: "If you're confirmed, will the Justice Department jail reporters for doing their jobs?" After a painfully long pause, Barr refused to rule it out.

Klobuchar's biggest advantage might be geography. Hailing from Minnesota, she would have her best shot to break out of the pack with a strong showing in neighbouring Iowa. Can she edge out undiluted progressives? Time will tell.

Then there is perhaps the most underrated potential candidate, Senator Sherrod Brown. He, too, had news: he's launching a tour of the first four early primary states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina).

Like Klobuchar, Brown won re-election handily in 2018. He has long been a favourite of progressives, but also has a focused appeal to Rust Belt, working-class voters. He has adopted a "dignity of work" message that might provide a compelling theme for his race.

In an interview in December with 'Newsweek', Brown pitched himself as a unifying figure who could connect with all segments of the party: "I think we have several presidential candidates that talk about things partly to differentiate themselves; they want to eliminate ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] or have free college for everybody or certain kinds of healthcare programmes. I don't think that makes us divided. I think Democrats are overwhelmingly for expanding the ability of middle-class and working-class kids to go to college without student loans.

"Almost every Democrat wants to see Medicare at 55, and [most] want to reform ICE. I don't think the differences are so great or that the party is divided. It's just a cacophony of voices. When 25 people have been mentioned for president, you're going to have 25 identities and 25 voices."

Which, if any, of these candidates will connect with primary voters is anyone's guess. The possible addition of these candidates underscores a question for at least two older, male candidates who have not yet declared. With both moderates and progressives who have working-class appeal in the race, many with experience but not yet old news, is there still a felt need for Sanders and former vice-president Joe Biden? Stay tuned. ( Washington Post)
The Coombe Hospital is currently the only one of the three main maternity hospitals which is not providing full service under the abortion law. Photo: PA

The new abortion law has been operational for nearly three weeks and apart from the medical concerns about the rushed roll out and a few minor pro-life demonstrations it has been without major controversy.

The claims in the Dail yesterday that a woman who was diagnosed as carrying a baby with a fatal foetal abnormality after being certified for a termination by two doctors was later denied an abortion in the Coombe Hospital marks the first storm to emerge so far.

It was alleged the board of the hospital told her to wait for spontaneous miscarriage. The Coombe has since said its board has no role in determining whether the right criteria have been met and said the reports are untrue.
Earlier this month Norways prime minister issued a desperate plea to its citizens to have more children.

She raised concerns over the amount of children being born amid fears that there will be fewer people of working age to pay taxes.

Norway is known for its generous system of parental leave and heavily subsidised childcare, all paid for by very high taxes.

But in the first three months of last year, Norway recorded the lowest birth rate in 33 years.

And the governments fear is that there wont be enough people working to fund its welfare model.

Norway needs more children, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said. I don't think I need to tell anyone how this is done.

In the coming decades, we will encounter problems with this model.

There will be fewer young people to bear the increasingly heavy burden of the welfare state.

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Norway ranked the happiest country in the world in the 2017 UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network's (SDSN) 2018 World Happiness Report. This was based on its GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.

Ireland still enjoys a relatively young population, and its fertility rate (the number of babies among women of child-bearing age) was 1.8 in 2016, the third highest just after France and Sweden.

According to economist Dan OBrien the trend of falling fertility rates throughout Europe have spawned many fears of 'demographic crises' and 'pensions time-bombs'.

The ageing of societies will undoubtedly create economic and societal problems and tensions, he wrote in last weeks Irish Independent.

For now, Ireland enjoys a relatively young population. Much of Europe does not. It'll be worth paying attention to how they tackle the challenges that will arise. Their demographic present may be our future.
Photo: Darren Handschuh/file photo

The man behind the wheel in a tragic car-surfing death will spend the next nine months in jail.

Earlier this month Byron Walterhouse, 42, pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death.

Charges of dangerous driving causing death and failure to stop at an accident causing death were stayed by the Crown.

The charges stem from an incident in June 1, 2016 when Justin Roger Martyn, 27, of Spallumcheen, was riding on top of Walterhouse's vehicle along Tronson Road.

However, the road comes to a sudden end just past Garmisch Road and Walterhouse was unable to stop resulting in his vehicle rolling over, killing Martyn.

Along with the jail sentence, Justice Richard Hewson also imposed a three-year driving ban on Walterhouse.

Crown Council Juan O'uinn was seeking a sentence of 24-36 months to be served in a federal penitentiary.

Defence was seeking a sentence of 60-90 days, to be served on weekends at the Vernon RCMP detachment.

In rendering his decision, Hewson noted Walterhouse and Martyn had been friends for a decade and the support for Walterhouse from Martyn's family was obvious.

Mr. Martyn's sister, Amber Corkum, wrote a letter which has been filed in court. The letter reads in part, Byron is a sweet, kind and genuinely caring man, said Hewson, noting Martyn's mother also wrote a letter in which she said Walterhouse is an honest, loving and very supportive friend. He has so suffered with me ever since the accident happened and stood by to help out through this agonizing time. I do not know what I would have done without him.

Hewson also noted that while Martyn and the other two passengers in the car had consumed alcohol prior to the accident, Walterhouse had not.

Hewson noted Martyn climbed on top of the car  something he had done in the past - and Walterhouse continued to drive until crashing at the end of Tronson Road.

Hewson said there were three mitigating factors in his decision: Walterhouse's genuine remorse, forgiveness from Martyn's family and Walterhouse's guilty plea, lack of criminal record and good character.
Model employee: Ms Madigan at the launch of the Winter of Heritage this week. Photo: Peter Cavanagh

Culture Minister Josepha Madigan is hiring a social media expert to manage her online image at a cost of 20,000 to the taxpayer.

The job specification, seen by the Irish Independent, says the contract will only run "until the next General Election (spring/summer 2019)".

The renewal of the Confidence and Supply deal between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail before Christmas should ensure the Government's survival into 2020, although many in Leinster House still speculate on an election this year.

Asked why the job only runs until this summer, a spokesperson said despite the dates the minister is "working on the generally agreed assumption that this Government will run until at least the spring/summer of next year in light of the continuance of the Confidence S arrangement with Fianna Fail".

The recruitment of a person specifically to manage a minister's social media channels is unusual, although all Cabinet ministers have at least one policy adviser and one press adviser, who tend to control their output on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms.

Ms Madigan says the role will be "flexible" and "part-time" but the successful applicant will be expected to produce "daily posts" based on her departmental and constituency work programme.

They must also attend up to two ministerial events each week "to live post and prepare video posts". And attendance at weekly team meetings in the Department of Culture will be required.

A spokesperson for Ms Madigan said the salary will be funded using an allowance available to all Dail deputies.

Members have the option of spending up to 41,092 for the employment of two temporary employees.

The fund is managed by the Oireachtas rather than the Department of Public Expenditure, which sanctions the appointment of other ministerial advisers.

Ms Madigan's office has confirmed that she began employing a person under this scheme last year.

This person was paid a total of a total of 15,317 during 2018 as her employment began several months into the year.

This contract has now been ended. Ms Madigan has been a long-time critic of social media companies, previously stating that if left unregulated, they "could pose one of the biggest threats to western democracy".

She supports proposals to establish an electoral commission to deal with digital political campaigns financed from outside the State.

She has written legislation which, if adopted by the Government, would allow for social media companies to be hit with unlimited fines if they fail to remove posts which risk prejudicing criminal trials.

Both the Supreme Court and the Law Reform Commission have called for such laws.
Astronomy experts have encouraged people to "take a day off" to see the best lunar eclipse for the next 14 years.

A total lunar eclipse will take place on Monday morning, and with clear skies predicted, it might be the only time Irish people can see one as clear for another 14 years.

According to Astronomy Ireland, the total part of the eclipse runs for 62 minutes from 4:41am to 5:43am on Monday morning, when the Moon will be high in the West as seen from all of Ireland.

"There will be other total lunar eclipses between 2019 and 2032 but they will happen as the Moon sets or rises from Ireland thus spoiling the view," said editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine, David Moore.

"This total lunar eclipse on the morning of Monday January 21st will be entirely seen in Irish skies from start to finish so we are recommending everyone take a day off work or school and watch this amazing spectacle of nature when the brilliant full moon turns to a dim 'blood moon' for 62 minutes."

The full moon is known as a blood moon when it turns a reddish-brown colour, as it is lit up by light bent into the Earth's shadow by sunsets and sunrises.

"Irish people will not see an eclipse this good again until October 2032 so we want everyone to stay up late, or get up early and witness one of the most spectacular sights in nature," Mr Moore said.

A partial eclipse will also be visible in lead up to the total eclipse and after it is completed. This happens when the moon slips in and out of the earth's shadow.

This partial phase will happen both before totality, from 3:34am to 4:41am, and after totality from 5:43am to 6:51am on Monday morning.

Astronomy Ireland are encouraging members of the public to photograph the eclipse and send them to magazine@astronomy.ie.
Kayden Fleck, who died after being swept away in a fast-flowing river in Northern Ireland Credit: PSNI/PA Wire

The mother of a five-year-old boy who drowned in a Co Antrim river has said the arrival of a baby daughter has "shone a wee bit of light" on the grieving family.

Less than a year after her son Kayden's tragic death, Leanne Fleck and her husband Darrel have welcomed the arrival of baby Ellianna.

Kayden was out playing with twin brother Jayden when he fell into the River Braid near the Ecos Centre in Ballymena on Saturday, February 10, 2018.

After a major search and rescue operation, Kayden was pulled from the water around 45 minutes later, four miles away near the Tullygarley Bridge.

Expand Close Kayden Fleck, who died after being swept away in a fast-flowing river in Northern Ireland Credit: PSNI/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kayden Fleck, who died after being swept away in a fast-flowing river in Northern Ireland Credit: PSNI/PA Wire

He was airlifted to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children but sadly passed away.

As the family prepare to mark a year since Kayden's death, Leanne says her daughter, born seven weeks ago, has been a "wee blessing".

She only learned she was expecting another child less than a month after losing Kayden.

"We didn't know she was coming. But about three weeks after we lost Kayden, through all the pain and darkness of that time, we discovered I was pregnant," Leanne told the Daily Mirror.

"It was a huge shock. And more than anything, it was just so bittersweet because we were going through all the emotions of losing Kayden and trying to figure out what way our family was going to go from there. Then suddenly, she came along.

"She shone a wee bit of light on our family. We had people telling us it was too soon for us to cope after losing Kayden - but then we had others offering us support as well, and they said she was our wee blessing. And I think she was.

Expand Close Kayden Fleck (right) with his twin brother Jayden (left) Credit: PSNI/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kayden Fleck (right) with his twin brother Jayden (left) Credit: PSNI/PA Wire

"I'm never going to forget Kayden. I'm never going to forget that day. And when the anniversary comes around I don't know how we're going to be, but at least now we have our baby to focus on.

"She's healthy, she's here, she's our wee girl and we will love and care for her like we did Kayden, and our other children," said Leanne, who also has a four-year-old daughter Amelia and son Daniel (15). Leanne says the family will ensure Ellianna grows up knowing all about Kayden.

"He's always going to be part of our family. Even though we can't see him and we can't hear him, he's going to live on in us, and in the other wee ones."
HOSPITAL patients still face strike disruption at the end of the month as there was no breakthrough at talks on a nurses' pay dispute tonight.

General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, said there was a "very frank exchange of views" at a meeting of a body that oversees compliance with the public sector pay deal.

She said her members are preparing for a 24-hour strike in 12 days.

"We're doing everything we can to avert it," she said.

"We have set out the reality of what it is to provide a safe service in the health service and we want to be very assured that the other side understand that because the recruitment and retention problem is real. It is significantly interfering with the business of providing safe care. And that's the nub of it."

She said there was a long exchange on the crucial issue of whether the nurses' demands could be dealt with within the parameters of the public sector pay deal.

The Psychiatric Nurses Association, which is also planning industrial action, did not attend the meeting.

Members of her union plan to go on strike on January 30 and five days in February to get pay rises.

Ms Ni Sheaghdha said the proposals should "tell them someone was taking account of their working conditions and the terrible conditions in which they were trying to care for patients".

She said she hoped the government side was in the same mindset.

The INMO is meeting an Oversight Body that oversees compliance with the current public sector pay deal.

The government has warned nurses they are in breach of the deal by demanding pay rises above what is already due under the agreement.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has warned that there is a major risk that giving the increase would trigger knock on claims by public servants.

Nurses want a 12pc increase to put them on a par with other health care professionals.

Meanwhile, a teacher union indicated a ballot for strike action may soon be on the cards over its rejection of a government proposal to reverse two tier pay.

ASTI President Breda Lynch said a ballot for strike action would be a natural follow on from her union's rejection of government proposals to deal with pay equality.

The ASTI executive will consider a ballot at a meeting on January 26.
Tracey Martin, mother of Shea, at his inquest at Armagh Courthouse yesterday. Photo: Freddie Parkinson

The mother of a teenager who died after being hit by a train feared the worst when she discovered he was missing on the morning of his death, an inquest has heard.

Shea Martin (19) was fatally injured at the Bells Row railway crossing in Lurgan, Co Armagh - close to where he lived - on May 21 last year.

He was due to celebrate his 20th birthday three days later.

His mother, Tracey Martin, was visibly upset and tearful as she attended an inquest into Shea's death yesterday in Armagh Courthouse, which concluded the teenager had taken his own life.

Coroner Joe McCrisken heard how the night before the tragic incident, Mr Martin had spent the evening in his bedroom.

Hours later, when Ms Martin was getting up for work early, she discovered he had left the family home without telling her.

"His shoes weren't behind the door where they normally were. And he wasn't in his bedroom," she recalled.

Alerting the police, her fears were raised further when she learned the local railway line had been closed "due to an incident".

"I kind of knew it was him," she told Mr McCrisken.

"I knew before the police came to contact me."

The inquest heard that Mr Martin had been the victim of bullying from the age of 14 and was experiencing mental health problems - including depression as well as difficulty sleeping - for which he had been prescribed various medications.

He had also been availing of services provided by a community mental health team.

Mr Martin's mental health issues had been compounded by tinnitus - an ear condition that results in constant 'buzzing' or ringing sounds which are not caused by an external source.

Such was its acute impact on Mr Martin, he had resorted to taking cannabis to alleviate the tinnitus, which has no known cure.

The inquest also heard very distressing details of the last moments of Mr Martin's life - including testimony from the Translink worker stationed at the railway crossing.

Crossing keeper Paul Curran said that when he saw Mr Martin at the crossing, he thought the teenager was waiting to be picked up - a common occurrence at Bells Row, he explained.

As Mr Martin continued to wait, however, Mr Curran recalled he felt uneasy about the situation, phoning a colleague to raise concerns.

He then watched Mr Martin move, prompting him to drop the phone to help the teenager, shouting to warn of an oncoming train.

Rushing to his aid, the railway worker phoned the emergency services - but despite their best efforts, Mr Martin passed away at the scene.

The driver of the train said that in all of his 39 years working on trains, he had never experienced an incident like it until then.

Sam Todd said sadly "there was no hope of the train" stopping in time to avoid the tragedy, due to the short distance involved, adding he could only "blow the horn and pull the emergency brake" in those situations.

A post-mortem report showed that Mr Martin had sustained multiple injuries which were "unsurvivable".

Ruling that the student intended to end his life that day, the coroner offered his condolences to the deceased's family, including his father Liam, who was also in attendance.

Paying tribute to those who had tried to help the teenager, he stressed more needed to be done to tackle the "unacceptably high" suicide death rate in Northern Ireland.

"Everyone needs to pull together to address this growing problem," he said.

Speaking afterwards, Ms Martin also insisted better services are required, stressing her child had been "let down" by the system.

"Shea's my son and I love him and I miss him," she added.
Campaign group Solidarity with Repeal holding a rally calling for abortion rights outside Belfast City Hall. Photo: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Women from Northern Ireland who want to have a medical abortion in the Republic will have to pay the 450 fee.

The service is free to women in the Republic but this is not being extended.

The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) in Dublin, which provides abortion up to nine weeks, would charge 150 for the first appointment, and a combined fee of 300 for the second and third appointments.

This is based on the Department of Health fee structure for abortion care.

More than 900 women from Northern Ireland travelled to England for an abortion in 2017.

The number was an increase of more than 25pc on the year before and the highest level since 2011.

The law is much stricter in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the UK.

It is permitted only if a woman's life is at risk, or there is a permanent or serious risk to her mental or physical health.

Free

Fatal foetal abnormalities, rape and incest are not circumstances in which abortions can be performed legally.

In June 2017, the UK government announced women from Northern Ireland will be able to have free abortions in England.

There has been an increase in the number of women from the North to have a termination in England and Wales since the funding announcement.

Nine out of 10 abortions were carried out under 13 weeks. The highest abortion rate is among women aged 20-24.

Some 98pc of abortions were funded by the NHS, which has been the same level since 2013, but an increase from 88pc in 2007.
Much-anticipated legislation creating exclusion zones to prevent intimidation and protests around healthcare facilities providing abortion is not expected to be ready until March.

The legislation is the second prong of new laws pledged after Ireland's historic repeal of the Eighth Amendment allowing for the legalisation of abortion for the first time here.

Activists and campaigners have called for the law to be passed as soon as possible to protect women and doctors. However, the bill has not made it onto the Government's priority list of legislation which has been whittled down in order to ensure time for the so-called Brexit mega-bill providing for emergency laws needed in the event the UK crashes out in March.

There are plans to combine 17 pieces of legislation into one bill that will be published at the end of February, which will then need to be rushed through the Houses of the Oireachtas in order to prepare for a no-deal scenario on March 29.

Health Minister Simon Harris had pledged to bring legislation to Cabinet within weeks but the bill is still in the pre-publication stage. Only bills that were almost ready to go before Christmas are expected to make it to publication in the coming weeks. Bills relating to the timing of planned referendums this year are among those on the priority list.

Work has been ongoing on the proposals since before the abortion law was passed and is continuing with the latest meeting between the Attorney General's office and the Department of Health scheduled to take place this week.

The planned zones would provide "safe" areas at and around premises where the health services are provided. It is intended to prevent protests and intimidation of healthcare workers and people attending the facilities for an abortion or any other service.

The legislation will ban oral, written and visual displays in relation to abortions and forbid people interfering or communicating with a person in a safe access zone in a way to "cause distress".

It is also expected to outlaw the capturing of a "disturbing image" of someone in the zone.

The prospect of protests as seen in other countries where abortion is available prompted the decision to legislate for the so-called safe access zones.

Anti-abortion activists gathered outside a Galway GP clinic within days of abortion services becoming legal in Ireland.

Signs such as 'real doctors don't terminate their patients' and 'say no to abortion' were being held outside Galvia West Medical Centre.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar hit out at the protest at the time, saying "there are other ways to protest". He said the proposed laws must strike a balance between "protecting women and patients from being impeded from entering a hospital or GP clinic and also not doing anything that unduly restricts free speech".
A distraught woman whose unborn baby was diagnosed with a fatal foetal abnormality was refused a termination at one of the country's biggest maternity hospitals, it was claimed yesterday.

The woman who was attending the Coombe hospital in Dublin was certified by two doctors as eligible for an abortion under the new legislation, which has been in operation for nearly three weeks.

It's understood the woman was 13 weeks into her pregnancy.

The Dail was told the termination was turned down by the hospital board and the woman was informed she should wait for four weeks until she had a miscarriage.

The explosive allegation was made in the Dail by Solidarity-People Before Profit TDs Ruth Coppinger and Brid Smith. Ms Coppinger told the Dail she was contacted by a woman "who has a fatal foetal abnormality that has been certified by two consultants".

Ms Coppinger claimed the Coombe Hospital denied her a termination.

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"Instead they have told her that she must wait another four weeks to see if there is a spontaneous miscarriage.

"At 13 weeks this woman went for her 12-week scan and they could clearly see at that point that the organs of the foetus were outside of the body. They brought her back a week later where that was fully confirmed when they got a better image.

"One doctor, her consultant and another consultant was brought in who said, yes, it is a fatal foetal abnormality but a week later, it went to the board, and the board over-ruled that," Ms Coppinger said.

Her party colleague, Brid Smith, said she spoke to the woman who is "pregnant with a much-wanted baby. But she has been told by her doctors, you can go to England. Her words to me were: 'This was not what I voted for, I have constitutional rights'. She finds it hard to sleep knowing that the condition that her much wanted child is in."

Last night, the Coombe insisted its board had no involvement in determining whether the criteria for an abortion had been met.

In a statement, the hospital said that while it did not comment on individual cases, it insisted its board "has had no role in determining whether or not the criteria for certification have been met. Those reports are untrue."

The Department of Health confirmed Health Minister Simon Harris is aware of the case. It pointed to Section 11 of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 which sets out the law on access to termination of pregnancy in cases "where there is a condition present affecting the foetus that is likely to lead to the death of the foetus before or within 28 days of birth."

The operation of the legislation is entirely a matter for attending clinicians.

Neither the Minister nor the Department of Health has any role in the medical management of cases, said officials.

Orla O'Connor, director of the National Women's Council of Ireland, said: "The Master of the Coombe Hospital must provide immediate clarity on the position of the hospital in providing for a termination".

"The legislation is clear; two doctors are required to certify a termination. As reported in this case, the two doctors were in agreement, however an abortion has been denied. This must be a very distressing situation for the woman who had no option but to contact her public representatives."

"The full facts of the decisions made in the Coombe Hospital surrounding need to be made clear. This case has the potential for widespread anxiety for women in Ireland. The wishes of the woman and her doctor must be respected."
A young student who lost her mother to cancer during her Leaving Cert exams has appealed to ministers to put a bereavement process in place for students sitting State exams.

Last June, Rhona Butler had sat three of her exams when her mother Margaret (50) died of breast cancer on June 13.

Rhona, who was student of the year for five out of her six years at Scoil Mhuire in Carrick-on-Suir in Co Tipperary, still had four exams to do after her mother died. She said she had no choice but to sit the remaining exams.

Ms Butler told the 'Ryan Tubridy Show' she sat one exam 12 hours after her mother died, another on the same day as her mother's wake, and another two in the days after the funeral Mass.

She recently emailed Government ministers to outline her case but she says she only received automated responses back from them.

"I sent letters to all the ministers.

"There really needs to be changes," she added.
The growing reliance of Irish third-level colleges on fees from foreign students and other non-State funding is laid bare in a new report out today.

Third-level enrolments hit a record high of 232,000 in 2017/18, including 17,237 non-EU students, according to data from the Higher Education Authority (HEA).

Non EU students, mainly from Asia, made up 7pc of students across third level, up from 5pc five years earlier and, within the universities, the figure is 10pc - up from 6pc.

Higher fees paid by foreign students are an increasingly important source of revenue for the sector in the face of a severe cut in State funding for higher education in the past decade.

Non-EU as well as postgraduate students pay what is known as non-Exchequer fees and between them they contributed more than 850m of the 2.4bn total income to the higher education sector in 2015/16, compared with about 465m five years earlier.

Over the same period, State grants and fees to the sector for general running costs fell from about 1.2bn to about 916m.
Photo: Wayne Moore - File Photo

Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran has weighed in on the prospect of Costco relocating to property on Westbank First Nation lands on the Westside.

Basran was responding to a story published on Castanet Wednesday, suggesting the retail giant will move across the lake after leasing property on Westside Road just north of Highway 97.

With our ongoing dialogue with Costco, the report comes as a surprise to us, said Mayor Basran.

We have been in regular discussions with Costco; asking that they consider sites in Kelowna to address their relocation needs. Staff continue to work with Costco exploring options that would allow them to remain in Kelowna.

We believe there are options in our city that could meet Costcos needs, but in the end, Costco will make a business decision that works for them.

The City of Kelowna and council value the business, employees and their members in the community.

We look forward to continue working with Costco to address their business need and the needs of their members in Kelowna.

Costco has outgrown its current location and has been looking for a new site for several years.

The company is hoping to find a site that will allow for more square footage, more parking, and a gas bar.
Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae has claimed that avoiding meat to help the climate is "crazy" and has become a "fad".

Like his brother Danny, he is vehemently opposed to suggestions that the population should reduce its consumption of meat and dairy.

"You're telling people so that if we don't all stop eating meat, the world is going to end as we know it. I think that's a load of absolute rubbish. I don't mean that in a dismissive way, it's my honest opinion," he said.

"The world has continued up until now with people eating what they wanted to eat, and this seems to be a new fad at the moment, telling people, well, it's really all our fault because we're eating too much meat... I think that's crazy."

Mr Healy-Rae appeared on RTE Radio One during a sometimes heated debate on veganism and climate change.

It follows a new Eat-'Lancet' Commission report that warns that meat consumption worldwide must be slashed by 90pc to avert climate catastrophe.

"We're a farming country, the backbone of our history has been agriculture," he said.

"And there is nothing wrong with people eating meat and for people to come out today with a report saying that we should cut back on our meat consumption by 90pc and trying to encourage people to stop drinking milk and using dairy produce, I think that's outrageous."

When it was put to the TD that the report relied on facts while he only held an opinion, he replied: "Well, I'll tell you now about science, if you go back on history, there are different people holding different views on facts all throughout the history pages.

"I'm just telling you that I don't agree with it."

At one point he told presenter Philip Boucher-Hayes that you "brought me on to the programme to insult me" and to "ridicule me".

"You're perfectly entitled to do so because you're in charge of the microphone," he said.

"I'm not trying to ridicule you, I'm just trying to hold you to account," replied Mr Boucher-Hayes, who had pointed out that Mr Healy-Rae was a lawmaker with certain responsibilities. "If you're factually incorrect, I'm going to correct you," he told the TD.

"We've done this 'balanced programme' nonsense when it comes to climate change for years ... not when it comes to accepted, proven measured facts," said Mr Boucher-Hayes. "There is no case to be made for presenting the other side any longer."

The debate followed Danny Healy-Rae criticising Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who this week admitted he was aiming to cut back on meat consumption.

Danny Healy-Rae said workers needed a meat-based meal like "bacon and cabbage" to get them through the day.

Meanwhile, farming groups have insisted the 'Lancet' report failed to recognise carbon-efficient production in Ireland.

President of the Irish Farmer's Association Joe Healy said: "We have very efficient food production systems in Ireland from a climate perspective. We are the most carbon-efficient dairy producer in Europe and amongst the top five in beef. "
The Bullet damage done to a car when an innocent man was targeted mistakenly

The Bullet damage done to a car when an innocent man was targeted mistakenly

The Bullet damage done to a car when an innocent man was targeted mistakenly

A FAST-FOOD delivery driver feared that he was going to die when his car was shot up in a case of mistaken identity.

The shocking incident happened in Greenfort Avenue, Clondalkin, on Sunday night when a gang blocked the mans car and fired though the windscreen and door directly at him.

One bullet deflected off the dashboard, missing his head. The second bullet lodged in his seat.

Whoever they were targeting they wanted to kill. I dont know how Im still alive, the terrified man told Independent.ie in an exclusive interview.

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I just keep thinking, the road was dark and quiet. If they had shot me I would have bled out there on my own with no one to save me.

Our exclusive photos show the damage caused to the innocent mans car in the capitals latest gun attack.

The driver, who is aged in his 40s, was left so shaken by the incident that he does not want to be identified, but he wanted to explain what happened to show how much an innocent person can be at risk in Dublin today.

I have no criminal record. I have no involvement in anything. I just go to work to pay the bills, he said.

I dont even drink or go out. I just keep myself to myself.

He described how the sequence of shocking events unfolded.

I delivered food in the evenings. Im a driver by profession, and this was a night like any other, he said.

I had dropped an order off to a customer in the Shancastle estate at around 8.40pm and I was driving back out on to Greenfort Avenue and turning left when a car came racing toward me.

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I slammed on the brakes and stopped just inches away from it.

All I could see was headlights. I couldnt see anyone.

Then I heard bang, bang, bang and I just froze in the seat.

I didnt have time to duck or jump or anything. I just sat there stunned, and then they drove away.

I didnt know what was after happening. It was over in four or five seconds.

I put my foot down on the accelerator and drove straight to the garda station.

But as I took off I suddenly had this fear that the gunmen might see that they hadnt killed me and come back to finish the job.

I could see the windscreen had been hit, but I didnt know the door had been shot and there was a bullet lodged in my seat until I got to the garda station.

One of the detectives said someone must have been looking down on me because I was shot at from front and back and not hit.

Three bullet casings were later found at the scene, most likely from a 9mm handgun favoured in Dublin gangland killings.

Nobody said a word during the whole shooting. There were no threats, no demands, just gunfire, the driver said.

They were there to murder whoever they thought I was. I was afraid I was going to be killed.

Still shaking from the ordeal, the man said he couldnt work delivering food again, and his wife and family were all equally as shaken.

I dont know who these people are, and I dont know who they were after, but it was me they shot at, he said.

Im still getting flashbacks of it now. If Im out driving Im almost paranoid.

The gun attack is being investigated by Ronanstown gardai.

While there have been no arrests and a definite motive for the gun attack has not yet been established, sources told Independent.ie that the most likely explanation was that it was the latest instalment in a bitter local feud that has been escalating in recent months.

In all probability, the gunmen mistook this innocent delivery driver as being one of the participants in the feud  a criminal who is living in the nearby Shancastle area, one source said.

Tensions have been building here since the turn of the year and there have been a number of incidents.

The most serious incident so far in the bitter dispute was when local criminal Craig Carroll was shot once in the stomach with a handgun in Chaplains Terrace, Clondalkin, in a late-night attack last October.

It is understood that the vendetta between Carroll (31) and his Neilstown enemies began over three years ago when Carrolls associates were blamed for a botched machine gun attack outside Finches pub in Clondalkin against a notorious local drug dealer.

In the aftermath of the attempted murder of Carroll, gardai carried out a number of special operations in a bid to keep a lid on the warfare.

These included the arrest of three suspected gang members travelling in a stolen car on the M50 near Blanchardstown during an intervention into the dangerous mobs activities.

This happened days after detectives recovered a revolver, ammunition, mobile phones and documents when they raided a property in the Shancastle area of Clondalkin.
A fire safety expert has told the inquest into the tragic Carrickmines halting site blaze that the mobile home that became rapidly engulfed in flames was a modified security hut with a steel lining that acted "like an oven".

The units on the site, which was provided for 'temporary emergency accommodation' by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, were required by Department of Environment guidelines to be six metres apart.

However, the inquest has previously heard that fire spread rapidly from the first mobile home to the second because they were just 81cm apart.

Five adults and five children died in the tragic fire at the Glenamuck Road halting site in south Dublin on October 10, 2015.

The jury heard the chip pan that caused the fire was sitting on a hot plate powered on to the highest setting.

Mechanical engineer Paul Collins said tests showed the rear right hot plate on the electric cooker was switched on to setting number six. The cooker was relatively new and there were no electrical faults detected.

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Asked by the coroner if the chip pan was the definite cause of the fire, Mr Collins replied it was.

Thomas Connors (27), his wife Sylvia (30), their sons James (5) and Christy (3) were recovered from the main bedroom of the mobile home after the fire.

Willie Lynch (25), his pregnant partner Tara Gilbert (27), and their two daughters Jodie (9) and Kelsey (4) were recovered from a second, smaller bedroom.

Jimmy Lynch (39), a brother of Willie Lynch, was removed from the kitchen area.

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Six-month-old Mary Connors, daughter of Thomas and Sylvia Connors, was pronounced dead in hospital.

David O'Connor, a certified fire safety engineer, said he was asked by gardai to carry out a fire safety assessment of the site, approximately three weeks after the event.

Fire safety requirements of building regulations did not technically apply to the dwellings as these units were considered temporary emergency accommodation and were exempt from requirements, he said.

The Department of Environment guidelines note that "temporary" sites providing Traveller accommodation should not be in place for more than five years - the Glenamuck Halting Site was operating for seven years.

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New safety guidances issued after the fire, on December 2, 2015, compiled by the National Directorate for Emergency Management, advise the provision of a smoke detector, escape windows, and where a minimum distance of six metres between units is not possible, a firewall should be installed.

The fire had grown in two stages, he said, with an initial "local fire" filling the living room with "untenably hot smoke" in a number of minutes.

Petroleum-based polystyrene insulation in the walls meant that temperatures would have been much higher than that of a normal house fire. "It was off the charts," he said, describing it as being like "an articulated truck going on fire".

Mr O'Connor said he could find no evidence of a fire alarm but agreed with coroner Myra Cullinane that he could not be certain what was there because of fire damage, with the first mobile home "completely destroyed" and the second "very badly destroyed".
A 56-year-old publican was beaten, tied up and left to die on the toilet floor of his pub having suffered blunt force trauma to his head, neck and upper body, a manslaughter trial has heard.

Marian Lingurar Jr (24), with an address in Claregalway, Co Galway, is on trial before Galway Circuit Criminal Court for the manslaughter of John Kenny at his pub in Oughterard on September 25, 2011.

He denies the unlawful killing of Mr Kenny on that date and also denies trespassing at Mr Kenny's pub on the same date with intent to commit theft.

The trial was told the injuries to Mr Kenny were caused by a large object of some kind, and from multiple kicks.

Those involved in the attack fled the scene, leaving behind a safe containing over 25,000 in cash.

The defence told jurors it was the State's case that the accused was acting as a bouncer at Mr Kenny's pub that night.

He said it was the prosecutions case that the accused, after clearing the pub that night and having got a lift back to Galway with his father, Marian Lingurar Sr. and Florin FItzpatrick, at 1.30a.m., returned to Oughterard at 2.20a.m and stayed there for 40 minutes.

"It's our contention that the defendant returned to Oughterard and the only one inference we can draw from that is the desire to steal from the premises and from John Kenny and for that purpose, visit an assault on John Kenny," he said.

The third day of the trial heard evidence from now retired State pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy that while the deceased sustained numerous fractures and bruising over most of his upper body, none of which would have led to rapid death.

She said the cause of death was blunt-force trauma to Mr Kenny's trunk or upper body and positional asphyxia, hypoxia and lack of oxygen.

Contributing factors were his level of intoxication at the time and evidence of early stage heart disease.

Nearly all of his ribs, front and back had been broken in the attack.

He had suffered two large blows to his upper body, front and back, from a "fairly large object".

The hands and arms had defensive-type cuts and scrapes, she added.

The trial heard yesterday that Mr Kenny had been a well respected teacher at Presentation College Athenry, and had opened the pub in Oughterard where he lived at weekends.

Mr Kenny's body was found the following Sunday evening, around 5pm, in the pub by his daughter Gillian Kenny and her mother, Kathleen.

The trial continues tomorrow.
A paedophile former scout leader was allowed to continue driving a school bus for a month after his conviction for child sex abuse, it has been revealed.

Parents at the west Dublin secondary school where James Leddy Snr (55) worked are furious he was allowed continued contact with children.

Leddy was found guilty in December at Dublin Circuit Court of abusing Colm Bracken on three occasions in 1981 when his victim was just 12 and a member of the Ardlea Scouts in Artane.

The paedophile, who now lives in Blanchardstown, will be sentenced next month.

But the Irish Independent has learned that he continued driving the school bus until last week - a month after his conviction.

Last week, he drove around 60 students to the BT Young Scientist Exhibition.

Concerned parents of students at the school were outraged a convicted paedophile was working around their children.

"I actually can't believe our kids have been exposed to this, even after he was convicted," one parent said.

"He was found guilty four weeks ago and was still driving a school bus.

"I rang the school on Monday and they didn't answer, other parents were onto them as well but there was no response."

The parent added they were furious the school had allowed it to happen.

"There has to be a duty of care here, how was the school not notified?" they said.

The parent, who asked not be named, added that Leddy had been working for around three years with the school.

"The victim came forward to stop him (Leddy) working around kids, so it's a slap in the face that he was still working as a school bus driver even after being convicted," the parent said.

When contacted, the school said it acted as soon as the conviction was brought to their attention.

"It came to our attention on January 14, 2019, that a bus driver organised by parents to bring students to [the school] had been convicted of a historic sexual offence," a statement said.

"The school immediately contacted the bus company and asked that this driver be removed from the school run.

"The bus company has confirmed that it has done so."

The statement added that the school has a "very rigorous child protection policy" .

In an interview with Irish Independent, Leddy's victim Colm Bracken described the scouts as a "sweet shop" where predators were able to prey freely on vulnerable children.

"It was like a sweet shop and they were coming in to buy. It was like a candy store," he said.

He added he came forward after learning Leddy was working as a school bus driver, because he didn't want him to harm any other children.
A DUBLIN mother whose grieving son missed almost 300 days of school has been spared jail for neglecting his education.

The woman has pleaded guilty at Dublin District Court to breaking the Education (Welfare) Act by not complying with official warnings about school attendance.

Her son was described has having no education as a result of truancy.

The court also heard he had struggled after the death of a close family.

Judge Anthony Halpin heard the teenager had fallen so far behind in school that he would not be able to catch up with continual assessment work which is now part of the new Junior Certificate curriculum.

The minimum school leaving age is 16 years, or the completion of three years of post-primary education.

The penalty on first conviction is a fine of up to 1,000 and a possible one-month sentence per charge. She was prosecuted by the Child and Family Agency (CFA).

An education and welfare officer told the court the third year pupil had missed 292 days since he began sixth class in primary school.

The boy missed 59 out of 181, 33 per cent of days, in sixth class and 78 out of 167 days in his first year of secondary school a absentee rate of 37.5 per cent.

In his second year of secondary school he was not present on 95 out of 162 days, a rate of 59 per cent.

So far, in third year, he had missed 60 days and has absentee rate of just over 70 per cent, Judge Halpin heard.

His mother had been invited to attend several meetings at the school but only attended one. Counselling supports and life skills courses were offered as well as learning support, the court heard.

A school completion co-ordinator called to her home on eight occasions but only met here twice. An alternative to mainstream education placement was offered but the teen failed to attend.

The mother did not go to numerous meetings with an education and welfare officer.

The school principal confirmed that the boy did not have special education needs. He said the boys difficulty stemmed from failing to attend school and was not as result of an inherent disability.

With the changes to the junior cycle involving more on-going assessments it would be very difficult for him, the principal said.

Judge Halpin remarked that the teen was miles behind his friends in school, there is now way of catching up.

The principal said the boy would benefit from an alternative to the junior cycle and perhaps do a small number of subjects one year and more the following year. It was the principals belief the boy would benefit from a practical, vocational education rather than a desk-bound book-based education.

The boy will turn 16 later this year and time was running out, the headmaster warned.

Judge Halpin said when it comes to looking for employment the boy will lose out, adding, anyone else with a mediocre Junior Certificate and would be miles ahead of him at interview and selection stages.

He said the boy has no education and missed out on life skills learned at school such as an ability to deal with conflict situations.

The defence asked the court to note the mother was apologetic and did not have a previous conviction for this type of offence. Her other children had finished school with Leaving Certificates.

Solicitor Orla Crowe, for the CFA, said the woman was never prosecuted over her other kids' schooling but welfare agencies had been involved.

Asked what her son did with his time, the judge enquired, Does he read at all?. No, answered the mother. Television?, the judge asked, to which she shook her head and quietly replied, games.

Judge Halpin said a vocational education for her son should now be considered.

The mother explained her son had not understood when he was previously offered a place in an alternative to mainstream education training course.

However, he now would like to try it, she said.

Judge Halpin fined her 100 which must be paid within six months.
Lawyers for a man given life for the murder of two elderly brothers with special needs have been asked to outline the status of his appeal to the Coroner for Mayo, as an inquest into their deaths is being held up.

Alan Cawley (31) of Four Winds, Corrinbla, Ballina, Co Mayo had admitted killing Thomas Blaine (69) and John (Jack) Blaine (76) at New Antrim Street in Castlebar on 10th July 2013, but denied it was murder.

The Central Criminal Court heard that Cawley had bludgeoned them with a shovel and one of their walking sticks. He argued that he had three mental disorders that had diminished his responsibility and was therefore entitled to a manslaughter verdict.

However, he was unanimously found guilty by a jury after an hour and 42 minutes of deliberations and given the mandatory life sentence by Mr Justice Paul Coffey on July 25, 2017.

Tom Blaine had schizophrenia and his brother had dementia, a tremor and a severe hunch in his back, having been involved in a serious accident on a building site years earlier.

Both brothers also had speech impediments. They were under the care of the HSE, and a home help called to them three times a day.

Cawley was released from Castlerea prison four days before the killings and was provided with B&B accommodation in Castlebar. He bought a bottle of wine around 5pm on July 9th and was seen drinking three pints of Guinness in pubs later that evening

He had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other disorders as a child. He had also been diagnosed with two personality disorders as an adult, was often on heavy medication, had developed a dependence on alcohol and prescription drugs and was in and out of both hospital and prison.

Cawley has lodged an appeal against his conviction which is progressing through the Court of Appeal but legal submissions are awaited. Transcripts were provided to the parties in October 2017.

During case management procedures on Friday, President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham asked Cawleys lawyers to communicate the status of the appeal to the Coroner for Mayo.

Mr Justice Birmingham said the coroner felt he couldnt proceed with the inquest into the deaths of the two brothers until Cawleys appeal had concluded. This was a cause of concern to the deceaseds family, Mr Justice Birmingham said, and he asked Cawleys lawyers to communicate their instructions to the coroner.

Cawley was not in court for the procedural matter.
The States longest serving prisoner is seeking extra time to appeal his unsuccessful High Court bid for two days temporary release per year.

English national John Shaw (73) has been in custody in Ireland since September 1976 when both he and another English man, Geoffrey Evans, were arrested for the abduction, rape, torture and murder of Elizabeth Plunkett (22) in Wicklow and Mary Duffy (24) in Mayo that year.

Shaw and Evans were both given life sentences at the Central Criminal Court on February 9, 1978.

Evans died in 2012 from an infection after spending more than three years in a vegetative state. He had been at the Mater Hospital, under round-the-clock guard by prison officers, at a significant cost to the State.

Over the years, Shaws case has been the subject of a number of reviews first by the Sentence Review Group and subsequently the Parole Board.

In April 2016, the Prison Review Committee noted Shaw was very frustrated that he has never got a day out of prison in his 38 years in custody He has no family in Ireland and has only received one family visit over the course of his sentence.

Expand Close MURDERERS: Geoffrey Evans, pictured, and John Shaw are taken to a court hearing after their arrest in 1976. The two Englishmen were given mandatory life sentences in 1978. Photo: Courtpix / Facebook

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Whatsapp MURDERERS: Geoffrey Evans, pictured, and John Shaw are taken to a court hearing after their arrest in 1976. The two Englishmen were given mandatory life sentences in 1978. Photo: Courtpix

The following June, a dynamic risk assessment of Shaw found him to be at a high-level risk of re-offending. Areas of particular concern to the assessors were poor problem solving skills; negative emotionality; deviant sexual preference; cooperation with supervision; significant social influences; hostility towards women; general social rejection; and lack of concern for others.

In 2016, the Parole Board recommended Shaw remain in Arbour Hill prison to allow speedy access to medical treatment and that he be granted two days of escorted outings per year

However, the Minister for Justice did not support the recommendation for two days of escorted outings, which Shaws lawyers challenged in the High Court.

In a judgment delivered last March, Ms Justice Mary Faherty said she was satisfied that Shaw had been afforded the full panoply of fair procedures due to him.

She said the function of the Parole Board was to provide an advisory role to the Minister for Justice in the exercise of the the Ministers discretion. There was no suggestion that the Parole Board did not abide by the processes set in place in order for it to be in a position to assist the Minister in the consideration of the management of the Shaws sentence.

She said the opportunities afforded to Shaw to make his case to the Parole Board were clear from the process in which he engaged. He participated in two interviews with the two members of the Parole Board who were designated to interview him.

Furthermore, he wrote to the Parole Board taking issue with what was said to be the interviewers misstatement of answers given by him in the course of the interview and with their having raised certain matters which the applicant contended were outside of their remit, Ms Justice Faherty said.

She dismissed his application for judicial review.

Shaw lodged an appeal against the High Court judgment six months out of date. He is seeking an extension of time to appeal the High Court judgment, which lawyers for the State are opposing. February 4 was fixed today/yesterday(FRIDAY) as the date for the hearing of the application to extend time to appeal.

Shaw was not in court for the procedural matter.
The financial regulator "raised no quibble" about transactions which deceived people about the true financial state of Anglo Irish Bank in 2008, the Supreme Court has heard.

Counsel for former Irish Life and Permanent (IL&P) chief executive Denis Casey claimed he authorised the transactions on the basis the regulator was fully aware of them and they were encouraged as part of the "green jersey agenda" involving Irish banks supporting each other during the financial crisis.

The claims were made during an appeal by Mr Casey of his conviction for his role in a 7.2bn conspiracy to defraud.

Mr Casey, who attended the appeal before a five-judge court, served a sentence of two years and nine months after he was found guilty of a conspiracy to defraud.

In 2016 a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court found he conspired with Anglo's John Bowe and Willie McAteer to engage in transactions between Anglo and IL&P aimed at fooling people into thinking Anglo had received an extra 7.2bn in customer deposits. The appeal centres on whether Mr Casey was entitled to use the role of the financial regulator, the Central Bank and the Department of Finance as a defence in his trial.

Mr Casey contends he honestly believed that, in September 2008, Anglo could not have approached IL&P for support without the knowledge of the regulator.

That defence of officially induced error was not permitted to go to the jury by the trial judge, who ruled it could only be used in seeking to mitigate a sentence rather than as a defence.

Mr Casey had told the trial, during arguments in the absence of the jury, he did not inform the regulator about the transactions giving rise to his prosecution before they occurred in March and September 2008 with Anglo.

The core legal issue being examined by the Supreme Court is whether or not a defence of officially induced error is available under Irish law to Mr Casey.

If the Supreme Court finds such a defence is available, it will also consider the parameters of that defence and whether, on the evidence, it was open to Mr Casey.

In submissions for Mr Casey, Michael O'Higgins SC agreed with Ms Justice Iseult O'Malley the essence of his case was that the State cannot prosecute or convict Mr Casey for this offence because a State agent got him "into this mess".

The trial judge had accepted, in the hearing in the jury's absence, Mr Casey had given believable evidence asserting he would not have authorised the disputed transfers but for the role of the regulator, Central Bank and Department of Finance, counsel said.

Given the size of the September 2008 transaction leading to Mr Casey's prosecution, and its timing, Mr Casey was confident the transaction would be scrutinised by various "gatekeepers", the Anglo board, its audit committee, internal auditors and its statutory auditors to ensure obligations that the accounts presented a fair and accurate view would be met.

The "green jersey" agenda involved "unashamedly" massaging key elements of balance sheets and, in the case of Anglo, boosting that bank's corporate deposits and the message amounted to "do what you have to do", he submitted.

Paul O'Higgins SC, for the DPP, argued the defence of officially induced error relies on a representation having been made, in advance of the alleged offence being carried out, as to the legality of the alleged offence.

There was no such representation here and the defence was thus not available.
A husband and wife have been ordered to stand trial accused of the rape and sexual abuse of a young girl.

Gary and Heather Talbot from Newcastle, Co Down, appeared at Downpatrick Magistrates Court yesterday.

They were present for their preliminary enquiry, the legal step necessary to refer all cases upwards to the Crown Court.

Standing in the dock, both Gary Talbot (59) and Heather Talbot (58) confirmed their identities and said they were aware of the charges.

The Talbots, from Kinghill Avenue in the seaside town, are jointly accused on 10 charges including two of indecent assault, two of committing acts of gross indecency with the female child and six of taking or making indecent photos of a child. Gary Talbot faces two counts of raping the alleged victim. His wife is accused of aiding and abetting the alleged rapes.

Those offences are alleged to have been committed on dates between January 1, 2001 and October 6, 2003. Gary Talbot faces a further count of sexually assaulting the same victim on a date unknown between July 21, 2012 and July 21, 2014. He is also accused on three counts of distributing indecent images of children on May 21, 2011.

Nothing of the facts were opened in court yesterday but a prosecuting lawyer submitted there is a prima facie case against the couple, a submission that the defence conceded.

Previous courts have heard claims that Heather Talbot allegedly bought stockings and underwear for the infant female before her husband allegedly raped her.

There are also claims the police uncovered photographic evidence that showed Gary Talbot and his wife engaging in sexual acts, including rape, with the girl who would have been aged between two and four at the time of the alleged offences.

When the married couple first appeared in court almost a year ago, a detective constable told the hearing the couple's home was searched in October 2017 when a number of devices, computers and a laptop were seized.

The officer revealed that when the devices were examined "a number of digital images were found which clearly show Gary and Heather Talbot engaging in sexual activity with a child two to four years old at their home address".

In his interviews, Gary Talbot admitted "making a collection of sexy videos ... admitted rape, sexually assaulting and gross indecency with the child".

In court yesterday both Gary Talbot and his wife declined to comment on the charges or call evidence.

District Judge Amanda Brady remanded the pair back into custody and ordered them to appear at the higher court for their arraignment on February 19.
Photo: The Canadian Press Garry Taylor Handlen

A man accused of murdering a 12-year-old British Columbia girl over 40 years ago has been found guilty of first-degree murder.

Jurors began deliberating the fate of Garry Handlen on Tuesday after an 11-week trial in B.C. Supreme Court, where Monica Jack's mother tearfully testified she last saw her daughter riding her bike on a sunny Saturday in May 1978.

Jack's family members wept in the courtroom after the verdict was released on Thursday.

The trial heard that Handlen told an undercover RCMP officer in November 2014 that he sexually assaulted and strangled Jack after abducting her from a highway pullout in Merritt.

His defence team had maintained the confession was coerced.

A first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

In a hidden-camera video shown in court, Handlen told the crime boss of a so-called Mr. Big operation that he grabbed Jack, threw her bike in a lake, forced the girl into the bathroom of his camper and drove up a rough hill where he killed her and burned her clothes and parts of her body.

Jack's skull and some bones were found in the area 17 years later.

Her mother, Madeline Lanaro, told the trial she was driving her old Mustang home with her other children when she saw her daughter on the highway and that the girl waved at them.

"I honked and the kids yelled out, 'Do you want a ride? And she said 'No.' "

Lanaro said her daughter had asked for permission to ride her new bike down the highway for the first time that day.

The nine-month undercover operation that began in Minden, Ont., in early 2014, involved a fictitious crime group that hired Handlen to do legal and illegal jobs such as loan sharking, the trial heard.

Handlen was paid almost $12,000 by the gang that promised him a middle-management job as he was gaining favour with the boss, who told him in the video that police had DNA linking him to Jack's murder but the crime could be pinned on someone else if he provided enough details.

"The bottom line is, they got people that saw you and they got your DNA. That's not good, Garry," the crime boss tells him in a hotel room, in video shown to the jury.

Handlen was also told he would have to travel to British Columbia's Interior with other members of the group to point out the spot where he said he'd abducted Jack so an ailing man taking the fall for him would have that information.

Handlen told the supposed crime boss he picked up an Indigenous girl and sexually assaulted her, then repeated at least half a dozen separate times that he strangled her before tossing her body behind a log and leaving the area.

"It's a weight off my shoulder now, I've told you. So I'm not the only one that knows now," he tells the crime boss in the video.

The boss tells him he could continue working for the group to repay the debt.

"I'm indebted for life now," Handlen says, before repeatedly thanking him.

Handlen's defence lawyers told the jury their client was set up by the RCMP with inducements that had him believing he'd get his dream of a new truck and continue being part of a group he called a band of brothers.

However, the Crown said Handlen had no motivation to confess to a crime he didn't commit and felt relief at having unburdened himself from a secret he'd carried for 36 years.
A proposal to launch a new television show fronted by three dominant male hosts may not get past first base with television chiefs in a modern era that demands gender neutrality.

Yet political correctness has never been high on the list of priorities for Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

After their infamous exit from the BBCs Top Gear following Clarksons fight with Irish producer Oisin Tymon in 2015, it appeared to be the end of the road for a trio whose exploits on what started out as a show reviewing the latest cars had become a global hit.

However, their fall from grace turned out to be a pothole in the path of these broadcasting giants, who are back on our screens again today for the third season The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime.

As the boys sat down with Independent.ie for a chat in London recently, it was evident that their unexpected change of career path has, in fact, opened new doors and Hammond believes the success of their partnership should never be tampered with.

What we have in our trousers should not matter, but if we were starting this show now, it is possible that someone would say you cannot have three men leading a show, began Hammond.

What makes this show work is it is three blokes talking about and driving cars and there has never been any need to change that. We werent created by any television company or a in a laboratory. We just fell together and are just three mates doing what we do. This is not a cynical television format, this is our own show that has appealed to a global population.

We started out with the aim of making a car show and never imaged it would have this kind of impact. We are proud of what we do and the scale of what this has become continues to amaze us, so we dont need to change what we do and it has never been suggested we should change it.

Things that we get upset and aerated about in the papers every day dont exist as problems for my daughters, so a lot of these political correctness debates are only important to those who are talking about it.

It seemed like the end of a television era when the BBCs wildly successful Top Gear was shaken by Clarksons momentary loss of control, yet the leader of this pack seems content to be making the television he enjoys on a whole new platform.

I wish the people on Top Gear well, but we have moved on and working with Amazon has been a delight, he told us.

They give us freedom to make the programmes we want, they pay on time, they seem to like us because we are their top rated show and everything has moved on very nicely for us.

What we were never going to do is change what has made this successful. The three of us have a formula that works.

We know what will be funny, what will be interesting and we know what our audience wants. It takes time to work all that out. You need to be focused and have a good vision of how its going to work out.

The Grand Tour season three sees Clarkson, Hammond and May travel to a host of improbable locations including Mongolia, Georgia and China, with the leader of this pack revealing he formulates the itinerary for their adventures.

Its always my plan, Im the ideas guy, states Clarkson. Hammond and May go along with what is decided and its a formula that has worked for us.

It doesnt mean I get paid more, not at all. We all get paid exactly the same. All the most successful bands pool the money. It always goes wrong when one member gets more money than the rest, so we have always avoided that and it has worked well.

The fusion of diverse characters in this television dream team is what makes them special, with May telling us their friendship is very much an on-screen affair.

We spend a lot of time together filming, so we tend to stay away from each other when the cameras stop rolling, states May with a smile.

We insult each other on Twitter occasionally, but thats part of the TV machine in a lot of ways.

I probably wouldnt describe us as mates. Rock bands famously hate each other and yet they can still perform on stage when they need to. U2 have been going strong for 40 years now and I bet they hate each other, but thats irrelevant if they are still doing what the fans want.

My real friends are high minded intellectuals who enjoy art, write poetry and know a lot about engineering. So nothing like Jeremy and Richard!

Hammond has been involved in some high profile crashes during the filming of Top Gear and The Grand Tour, so he was delighted to report he came through his latest batch of filming unscathed.

I can confirm there were no major accidents in this season, apart from Jeremy slightly cutting his finger and making a real scene over it, he adds. Thankfully there were no major injuries this time and our insurance company will be delighted.

I dread that phone call every year asking if I have had any accidents. Health and safety people are not big fans of ours and insurers really dont like us, but that is primarily my fault!

A wonderfully interactive computer game is being launched to coincide with latest series of the The Grand Tour, allowing viewers to watch the show and then play racing game replicating the locations where Clarkson, Hammond and May have visited.

Its the latest innovation from three television icons who continue to rewrite the rule books.

The Grand Tour Series 3 launches on Prime Video today.
'In Ireland, the Iseq Overall Index fared better than other European peers, adding 0.1pc to 5,705' Stock photo

A profit warning from Societe Generale and new frictions over Chinese tech giant Huawei weighed on European shares on Thursday, as investors turned their focus to the start of the earnings season.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.1pc, having fallen as much as 0.6pc in early trade.

Investors worried that action against Huawei could further complicate trade talks between Washington and Beijing at a time when signs of a global economic slowdown are growing.

Some US politicians introduced bills on Wednesday that would ban the sale of US chips to Huawei and other Chinese firms that violate US sanctions.

"China is unlikely to shrug this off, which is creating a risk-off environment. Signs of retaliation from China could see stocks sink further," said Jasper Lawler, head of research at London Capital Group.

Carmakers, which are highly sensitive to trade and have large exposure to both the Chinese and US economies, were the biggest losers on European markets yesterday.

In Ireland, the Iseq Overall Index fared better than other European peers, adding 0.1pc to 5,705.

Movers included Cairn Homes, which advanced 4.1pc to 1.26 after it said that it completed 804 homes last year compared to 418 in 2017. Its gross margin was ahead of estimates. There were a number of decliners, including forecourt retailer Applegreen, which was down 3.4pc at 5.64, and Permanent TSB, which fell 5pc to 1.52.

The UK's Ftse-100 fell 0.4pc. Germany's DAX shed 0.1pc. France's CAC-40 fell 0.3pc.
Patisserie yesterday unveiled the "devastating" extent of irregularities in its accounting

The deputy chairman of Patisserie Valerie resigned yesterday, a day after the group revealed the extent of an accounting scandal which pushed it close to collapse last year.

Lee Ginsberg will leave Patisserie Holdings, the cake chain's parent company, with immediate effect. His departure leaves chairman Luke Johnson as the only remaining board member from before the crisis.

The company said Mr Ginsberg would be focusing on his other commitments.

Patisserie yesterday unveiled the "devastating" extent of irregularities in its accounting, which included thousands of false entries into the company's ledgers.

The firm said an initial investigation pointed to cash flow and profitability being worse than previously thought when the problem was first discovered in October.

It has also hired advisers at KPMG to carry out a review of all its options as it seeks to "recover from the devastating effects of the fraud, and to preserve value for its stakeholders going forward". A rescue plan was passed by shareholders in November, resulting in the issue of 15m worth of new shares.

Press Association
Rental pressures: An artists impression of what Salesforce Tower could look like. The building will sit beside the new Central Bank offices (on far right) at Dublins Spencer Dock.

Dublin's inner city is to get a fresh influx of thousands of tech jobs.

Software giant Salesforce is to announce a plan to build a new 'Salesforce Tower' development that will house thousands of new positions.

The highly paid jobs are expected to put new pressure on rents around Dublin's city centre.

The move follows announcements from Google, Facebook, Amazon and WeWork, which will see a handful of tech giants dominate Dublin's city workforce.

Salesforce's plans, first revealed by the Irish Independent's Ronald Quinlan last summer, will be confirmed by the company and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar this morning.

The announcement indicates that tech companies are starting to spread to Dublin's northside, having filled the south docklands.

Salesforce currently has the tallest building in San Francisco and the third tallest building in London, both called 'Salesforce Tower'.
Options: Indeeds Chris McDonald said employees still have scope to pick and choose the roles they want

Two-thirds of employers have opted not to interview someone who has had short-term jobs, according to research from job site Indeed.

On average, employers consider six months to be a short-tenure to spend in a job, while employees consider 11 months a short period of time.

In addition, in the minds of most employers, having four short-tenure jobs on their CV would qualify a candidate as a job-hopper, while 44pc of employers feel that three such roles would. Job-hopping is more of a concern in smaller companies with less than 10 employees, with one in four such employers admitting to not interviewing a candidate for that reason.

In contrast, for companies with more than 500 employees, fewer than one in seven employers said they would not interview a candidate that they felt was job-hopping. From an employee perspective, only 29pc felt job hopping would ultimately hurt their career, while 57pc felt it wouldn't really have any impact.

Meanwhile, a small proportion of employees (14pc) felt that moving among various short-tenure jobs was a positive, presenting a chance to learn new skills, demonstrate their adaptability, boost their CV, and make connections to further their career.

Employees believed that 19 to 20 months was an acceptable amount of time to stay in a job in order to contribute, gain experience and progress their career. This compares to employers, who on average believed 16 months to be acceptable.

"There remains a perception that moving from job to job too frequently looks bad on a CV, and this is evident in our research among employers," said Chris McDonald, Indeed's vice-president of EMEA.

"Times are changing, however. It's no longer uncommon to change jobs, companies and even industries several times over the course of our working lives, and when you combine this with a still-tightening labour market, employees have considerable scope to pick and choose the roles they want."
Irish based oil and gas exploration company Providence Resources has received government approval to convert option licence 16/27 to a Frontier Exploration Licence (FEL).

The acreage involved is in the southern Porcupine Basin offshore Ireland, and the primary target at present is the undrilled Avalon prospect.

The licence is operated by Total, which has a 50pc interest.

Total has also agreed to pay 60pc of a well on the licence, up to a cost cap of $42m (37m).

Providence has a 40pc share in the licence.

"We are very pleased to confirm approval from the Minister to progress the Avalon licensing option to frontier exploration licence status," Dr John OSullivan, technical director at Providence, said.

"Avalon is a very large and exciting prospect, which lies adjacent to Dunquin North, and the joint venture partners look forward to progressing it further under the operatorship of Total."
Jet set: First Officers Niall McCauley, Laura Bennett and Paul Deegan at the unveiling of the new livery. Photo: Naoise Culhane

More than 20 years ago it was the tilting shamrock that caused a stir, but now the three-leafed plant has once again been reinvented by Aer Lingus as part of a rebrand.

As it was revealed yesterday, the reaction across social media was already mixed. Some missed the greener aircraft livery, arguing it's what signalled to them that they were 'home' before they'd even boarded.

Others welcomed the change, with one describing it as "smart and snappy".

As 250 guests gathered at the Aer Lingus hangar at Dublin Airport for the big reveal, leaked photos of the new brand had already showed that, as expected, the shamrock had been tinkered with.

This is not the first time the carrier has done this. In 1996, the last time the Aer Lingus brand underwent a major overhaul, the new 'tilting shamrock' was introduced. It was also given a stem, and the shade of green used by the airline was softened (it was 'meadow green', no less).

The cost of that rebrand exercise attracted some criticism. Then chief executive Gary McGann defended the IR8m spend, saying "it's a small number in the context of the size of the business we are".

A troupe of in-vogue Irish dancers, flush with the success of a fledgling Riverdance, was on hand back then to unveil the new logo.

This time around, the twee was banished. The shamrock is still important. It just needed to be tweaked with an almost 2m makeover.

New Aer Lingus chief executive Sean Doyle said the airline was an "iconic Irish brand woven deep into the fabric of Irish life".

The airline's chief operating officer Mike Rutter said Aer Lingus had been conscious that "any new imagining of the brand must remain true to those who feel the brand is part of their life and their landscape".

"We're also deeply aware that the brand must reflect Ireland in 2019, a society that is open, progressive, liberal, outward-looking and dynamic," said Mr Rutter, who was clearly on a roll. "An Ireland that is proudly European and has become the destination choice for inward investment."

If you ever wonder what's behind a decision to paint a jet mostly white and rejig a shamrock, director of marketing and digital experience Dara McMahon gave a flavour of it.

Research began a year ago, with focus groups from across Ireland, continental Europe and North America asked for their opinions on the brand, she said. A key objective was to project Aer Lingus as a "modern airline, but one that's also proud of its heritage".

Meanwhile, the new uniform for airline crews will match the livery of the new aircraft with a striking shade of teal and navy. Fleeting images of illustrations showed in video format yesterday revealed strong tailoring looks from designer Louise Kennedy.
A Derry businesswoman has revealed she was removed from the finals of an Irish awards ceremony because she lives in the North.

Bubblebum founder and CEO Grainne Kelly said she was contacted "out of the blue" to be told she was a finalist in the Irish Women's Business Awards.

The company behind the awards is UK-based Creative Oceanic, which holds awards ceremonies across Canada, the UK and Ireland. Mrs Kelly's company makes car booster seats for children and distributes them worldwide.

She told BBC Radio Ulster she had been asked to promote the awards on social media.

After not hearing from the awards for a number of weeks, she contacted them to ask for details of the presentation night, only to be told "because you don't live in Ireland we can't actually have you as a finalist in the award".

Mrs Kelly said she "was not complaining" at not being nominated, but told the organisers, "last time I checked I actually do live in Ireland".

The businesswoman said she had won all-Ireland awards in the past with no issue.

She said that she told the organisers she lived in Derry, but was told "that's not in the South of Ireland".

"Ireland is an island, it's the island of Ireland split into two, it doesn't matter if you live in Northern Ireland or Southern Ireland," Mrs Kelly told them.

Mrs Kelly claimed the organisers told her that they were planning Northern Ireland awards, which she declined to be part of. "Once you are doing an all-Ireland award, a Northern Ireland award isn't as competitive, you want it to be as competitive as it possibly can," she said. "Derry is right on the border, I could live in Donegal if I want five days a week," she joked. "I'm very confused about my identity now with all this Brexit chat. I don't know whether I'm allowed to be British, am I allowed to be Irish?"

A spokesperson for Creative Oceanic said the Irish Women's Awards aim to "recognise women from the Republic of Ireland" and that a separate ceremony for women in the North will take place this year.

"The Irish Women's Awards 2019 aim to recognise women from the Republic of Ireland and are either resident, or have a registered business fully-operating, in the Republic."

The company added: "It is vital that we create a level playing field and create boundaries for the smooth running of the awards and for the sake of fairness that all finalists satisfy the criteria mentioned above.

"There are exceptional women in Northern Ireland and Creative Oceanic is delighted to announce the inaugural Northern Ireland Women's Awards in Belfast later this year."
Photo: CTV News Jaswinder Sidhu

The Department of Justice says two British Columbia residents accused of hiring assassins to kill a young woman and her new husband in India will be extradited to that country within days.

Malkit Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha are accused in India of conspiracy to commit murder for their alleged involvement in the slaying of Sidhu's daughter and Badesha's niece, Jaswinder "Jassi" Kaur Sidhu.

She was killed and her husband was severely beaten after Sidhu travelled to India to marry the man her family did not consider acceptable.

The victim's mother and uncle were earlier ordered extradited to face charges and were en route to India in September 2017 when their trip was halted in Toronto when defence lawyers filed a last-minute application for a judicial review.

Last month, the B.C. Court of Appeal denied their requests for a stay of proceedings and a judicial review.

An email from the Justice Department says Badesha and Sidhu will be transferred before Jan. 25.

Sidhu and Badesha had 30 days following the December ruling to file another leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada but that period expired earlier this month, meaning Canada is in a position to "fulfil the extradition request," says the statement from Department of Justice spokesman Ian McLeod.

Lawyers for Badesha and Sidhu went to the B.C. Court of Appeal to argue their clients weren't given the chance to review the federal justice minister's decision to extradite them and that they were denied access to counsel.

The court ruled unanimously that while the minister's conduct did amount to an abuse of process, it did not warrant a stay of proceedings.

"This is a close case but we conclude the balance favours denying the stay," wrote Chief Justice Robert Bauman and Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein on behalf of a three-judge panel in December.

"The charges these applicants face are the most serious in our criminal justice system and the interests of India, and of our own community, in seeing them heard in court on their merits is very substantial."

The pair have enjoyed a very "long and full day in court," the judges added, noting their case has been considered by two justice ministers, the provincial appeal court and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Sidhu and Badesha have long opposed their surrender to India, arguing they would face violence and torture in Indian prisons.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in September 2017 to set aside a previous B.C. Court of Appeal ruling that had stopped extradition proceedings.
The new chief executive of Aer Lingus has insisted the carrier remains committed to its franchise arrangement with Stobart Air.

The comment comes as Stobart Air's operations are set to be amalgamated with those of a new entity -backed by Stobart and Virgin Atlantic - that is buying Flybe.

Speaking as Aer Lingus unveiled its new brand identity at Dublin Airport, Sean Doyle said the Flybe takeover is in "very early stages". He insisted that Aer Lingus Regional worked for the IAG-owned carrier, and that it's "very committed" to retaining Aer Lingus Regional as a franchise operation.

Ailing Flybe will be rebranded as Virgin, which hopes to use the operation to feed its long-haul network - exactly what Aer Lingus Regional does for Aer Lingus. It threatens to put Virgin and Aer Lingus on a war footing if both ultimately vie for the same regional UK passengers.

Stobart Air, part of the UK's Stobart Group, will be subsumed into a new vehicle called Connect Airways.

That entity is 40pc-owned by funds managed by US investment firm Cyrus, while Stobart Aviation and Virgin Travel Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Virgin Atlantic, equally own the remainder.

Aer Lingus uses Aer Lingus Regional to feed its long-haul network from Britain. The service operates on a franchise basis with a contract that runs to 2022.

Connect Airways has pledged to support Flybe with as much as 100m (111m) in much-needed cash. This week, the consortium rushed a 10m loan to Flybe to keep it flying.

"For us, Aer Lingus Regional works. It works for Stobart and we're very committed to retaining Aer Lingus Regional as a franchise operation in our network," said Mr Doyle.

Aer Lingus Regional operates 20 routes between Britain and Ireland, while Dublin-headquartered Stobart Air employs more than 500 people.
Farmers could liable for any damage they might do when clearing roads during severe snow storms, FarmIreland.ie can reveal.

During Storm Emma, access to many parts of the country would not have been possible without the efforts of farmers and others in local communities with plant equipment.

However, farmers have claimed they continue to have no reassurance in relation to the liability while carrying out such work.

This feeling is compounded by the fact that in the Winter Service plans of a number of Co Councils they advise that the treatment of rural roads by third parties should be carried out in accordance with a national policy. But this national policy has yet to be published.

A spokesperson for the National Emergency Coordination Group (NECG) advised that if a farmer has an accident while clearing local roads "that [it] would be a matter for the farmer and his insurance company."

Some local authorities state that they "endeavour to work with rural communities and the Irish Farmers Association where possible during snow emergencies".

Expand Expand Previous Next Close Pictured at Kilbraney, Co. Wexford with tractors even finding the going tough. Picture: Patrick Browne Farmer Pat Barron out helping stranded motorists in the snow. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Pictured at Kilbraney, Co. Wexford with tractors even finding the going tough. Picture: Patrick Browne

But, given the scale of the resources involved in delivering the winter service, most county councils have highlighted that it is not possible to provide the service to all parts of the roads network.

Wexford County Council have said they will hire in agricultural contractors to assist with gritting operations on local roads during snow emergencies.

However, many local authorities treat less than 20pc of their road network.

A spokesperson for the NECG also said that the Office of the Attorney General has advised that liability does not arise when snow is cleared from footpaths in a safe manner.

In relation to people gritting roads with grit supplied by the local authorities, she said the legal advice is that the issue of liability does not arise where the material is delivered, stored and used in a safe manner and does not cause a hazard.

She also said when you are clearing snow it is important that you dont create an obstacle for pedestrians or traffic and ensure that the snow is removed to a location that wont create a hazard.

Meanwhile, the President of ICMSA, Pat McCormack said last years heavy snowfalls was the graphic illustration provided in how different sectors of Irish society were viewed and how their work was evaluated.

Mr McCormack said many will remember the demands of some organisations that the work carried out by their members during, for instance, Storm Emma must be rewarded over and above even normal overtime rates and their insistence that tasks like ensuring that public roads were kept clear and as safe as possible was worthy of extra, extra payment outside all the normal overtime arrangements.

Mr McCormack said the contrast this made with the farming community was both instructive and stark:

The states payment to hundreds and hundreds of farmers all over the country, who used their own machinery and their own time and fuel, to keep clear public roads during the snowstorm was a pat on the head and an assurance that they wont be held liable for any accidents on the public roads that they had cleared through their own efforts and at their own expense.

"The reward for all the extra work involved in milking their cows and trying to get the milk collected so it could be processed was a cut of up to three cents per litre on their next milk cheque after the storms and snowfalls.

"It tells you a great deal about the way our work as farmers is just taken for granted and Im determined that that attitude is going to be challenged, said Mr McCormack.
Pictured are Brexit panels members at the National Manufacturing and Supply Chain Conference, held at Citywest, Dublin. L-R: Simon McKeever, CEO Irish Exporters Association, Fergal OBrien, IBEC, and Colin Murphy, CEO Premier Events. Photo: Paul Sherwood

Businesses are a long way from being "Brexit ready" and continued uncertainty over its outcome is set to impose yet more costs on companies, business leaders from both sides of the Border have warned.

The rejection of UK Prime Minister Theresa May's withdrawal agreement has raised the likelihood of a disruptive 'no-deal' Brexit, which could have serious consequences for business here.

"We now find ourselves with a 70-day window where I don't think we are prepared as a country," said Simon McKeever, chief executive of the Irish Exporters Association.

"We are, to put it bluntly, screwed," he added, speaking at a manufacturing industry conference in Dublin.

The additional burdens imposed by a hard Brexit would include extra forms that businesses need to fill in so as to cope with new customs rules, and the redrawing of shipping routes.

Food and agriculture exports from both sides would be hit as many products such as milk cross and re-cross the Border.

The imposition of World Trade Organisation (WTO) tariffs would make Northern Irish goods more expensive in the Republic, and vice versa.

Tariffs on agrifoods average 22pc under WTO rules, according to Michael Bell, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association.

"WTO rules are designed to stop the movement of agrifood products," he said.

Many speakers said British and Irish businesses needed more time to prepare, with a no-deal Brexit more likely.

"The real risk for business is the cliff edge," said Fergal O'Brien, director of policy and public affairs at business group Ibec.
Two Irish MEPs could be elected in May but unable to take up their seats in the European Parliament if Brexit is delayed, Tanaiste Simon Coveney has suggested.

Amid growing speculation that Brexit could be postponed until later this year or even 2020, Mr Coveney said such a move could a strange situation.

EU countries go to the polls in late May to elect a new parliament which was not expected to include members from the UK who are currently leaving on March 29.

A carve up of the UK seats was to see Ireland gain two MEPs, one extra in Dublin and Ireland South.

However, if an extension of Article 50 is sought by the UK it could have a significant impact on the elections.

Mr Coveney said there would be a question for the UK of whether or not they would be required to elect MEPs.

"I think they are issues the UK will have to think about and manage appropriately. Obviously it would be a strange thing to do to have a European election for a union you're about to leave," he said.

The Tanaiste added the extra seats assigned to Ireland "could be impacted on a temporary basis" until the UK officially exits the EU.

But he said Ireland "can put up with a bit of disruption in the European Parliament" if it helps ensure an orderly Brexit.

Meanwhile, during a Dail debate on the Government's contingency plans, Mr Coveney staunchly rejected assumptions that a hard Border will have to be erected in a no-deal scenario.

He described Ireland's obligations under the Good Friday Agreement and the EU single market as "competing responsibilities".

"We are not going to be supporting Border infrastructure even in a no-deal scenario," he said, adding the issue was "highly political and highly sensitive".

However, a senior German MP told the BBC yesterday Ireland would have no choice but to erect a border in the event the UK crashes out.

Gunther Krichbaum, chair of the EU affairs committee in the German parliament, said: "It will take time but order controls would be the consequence of a no-deal scenario."

He added: "It cannot be avoided because it's an outside border of the European Union."

Mr Coveney described the disunity in Westminster as "unbelievable" and said MPs arguing a border won't happen in any event are not being honest.

"That is a bogus argument because to simply assume that it won't happen because you don't want it to doesn't actually deliver what we need," he said.

Mr Coveney ruled out "technology or slick camera systems" as an alternative.

Fianna Fail's Brexit spokesman Lisa Chambers said everybody was "a little Brexit fatigued at this point" but we seemed "further away than ever before from a workable solution to the problem we face".

"The chaos in Westminster provides a stark contrast to the political stability and united front we have displayed here in Ireland," the Mayo TD said.

She added the UK government needed "to get its act together for all our sakes".

"People's livelihoods, their jobs, their future and potential opportunities are on the line, both here in the Republic and in the UK, and Northern Ireland is particularly vulnerable."
Ballot box: Theresa May is under increasing pressure since the UK parliament rejected her Brexit plan. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

What odds on Brexit being extended beyond the March 29 deadline?

Shortening by the day as both London and Brussels walk their way back from insisting no such thing can happen. Things have moved painfully slowly in the UK since the shock decision by voters on June 23, 2016, to end 40-plus years of EU membership.

It is only now the country is having a real debate on issues which should have been dealt with ahead of the vote. Strongest hint of delay came when UK Finance Minister Philip Hammond told British business leaders there would be no hurtling towards a crash-out Brexit in 10 weeks' time.

What is the view from Brussels on an extension?

Well, they have been looking at the option of delay for some time. The technical term is extending Article 50, the provision which allows a member state to leave. Its spare terminology only tells us that an extension must be specifically sought by London and unanimously approved by all the other 27 member states.

Nothing formal has happened yet - but the EU has signalled it needs some kind of plan from the UK government rather than more of the same chaos.

What length of extension is being talked about?

EU officials fear available time for any extension is very short. European Parliament elections are due to held in late May, meaning we could be talking mere weeks. Given the volume of issues to be decided in London and the additional time needed for some of the potential remedies - notably either another UK general election or a second referendum - an extension of weeks appears to be of little value.

Some engaged in the process believe an extension should run until the end of this year or early 2020. But the MEP elections, due in Ireland on May 24 next, are a major complication.

How do the European Parliament elections complicate things?

The assumption in London and Brussels was that the UK would be gone from the EU by May 2019 and those European Parliament elections.

So the UK's 73 MEP seats have been abolished, with 46 seats held back for new member states in the future, and 27 of them allocated as extras to existing member states.

The Republic of Ireland gains two seats but the North clearly loses its three of the UK seats as part of Brexit. Those changes could be questioned if the UK is still an EU member state come election time.

In theory the UK would still be entitled to their complement of MEPs. In practice many other member states risk having their elections rightly messed up.

Another complication is that a remedy definitely must be found before July 2 when the new European Parliament opens. The parliament must also ratify the Brexit deal at some stage.

Surely there are some remedies from all those EU legal brainboxes?

In the past, EU politicians have come up with clever fixes and ever-so-clever EU lawyers have managed to navigate these through potential legal minefields. But this one is more complex.

The EU could proceed with extended talks, perhaps with the collusion of London, on the assumption that the UK has effectively left. But some UK citizen is bound to ask the EU courts to rule on a denial of their democratic rights to representation.

In the other member states, including Ireland, the extra seat allocations could be "boxed off", but still put out to elections. Those lowest in the polls could ultimately lose out.

But that is another court case waiting to happen. How do you measure "lowest polled?" Would it be relative to the electorate, or valid poll, or population?

Cue more legal cases.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May is being warned by Cabinet ministers she will face mass resignations unless she allows MPs to try to stop a no-deal Brexit.

The prime minister said yesterday it was "impossible" to rule out a no-deal Brexit under the terms of Article 50 and said it was "not in the Government's power" to do so.

However, as many as 20 mid-ranking ministers have indicated they are prepared to quit the Government so they can support back-bench moves to stop a no-deal Brexit.

It is understood a delegation of five ministers from the group visited the prime minister in No 10 yesterday and warned her directly they were prepared to quit.

A cabinet minister said: "The prime minister will come under a lot of pressure to give ministers a free vote on it. I think she would be wise to do that because she doesn't really want people to resign, and there are definitely people who would resign over it.

"It is hard to see the Government defeating it if people vote in line with their views. It damages people's credibility to have to take a leave of absence to avoid having to vote against something. I don't think people want to do that."

Expand Close Hoping for a lift: First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon arrives at the Scottish Parliament to answer questions on Brexit yesterday. Photo: Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Hoping for a lift: First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon arrives at the Scottish Parliament to answer questions on Brexit yesterday. Photo: Getty Images

The row erupted after a recording was leaked of a conference call between Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond and business leaders in which he set out how a back-bench Bill could take no deal "off the table".

He claimed the Bill, which will be tabled on Monday and would force the Government to extend Article 50, is likely to win support and act as the "ultimate backstop" against a no-deal Brexit.

The chancellor faced a cabinet backlash yesterday, with one minister describing him as a "rogue element" and accusing him of attempting to "bounce" the cabinet into abandoning the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.

Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, warned taking a no-deal Brexit off the table would be "incompetent".

A Treasury source insisted Mr Hammond was simply "setting out the facts as they exist" in response to questions from business leaders.

Mrs May appeared directly to contradict Mr Hammond's claim yesterday in a letter to Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, after he refused to take part in cross-party talks on Brexit. She said: "I note that you have said 'ruling out' no deal is a precondition before we can meet, but that is an impossible condition because it is not within the Government's power to rule out no deal. Let me explain why.

"Under article 50 of the Treaty on European Union and the Withdrawal Act 2018, we will leave the EU without a deal on March 29 unless Parliament either agrees a deal with the EU or the UK revokes article 50 and chooses to stay in the EU permanently.

"So there are two ways to avoid no deal: either vote for a deal, in particular a withdrawal agreement, that has been agreed with the EU, or to revoke Article 50 and overturn the referendum result."

Mrs May's comments also appeared to be a criticism of the cross-party Bill tabled by Nick Boles, a Tory MP, which would force the Government to extend Article 50 if a Brexit deal could not be reached by February 26. Mr Boles will table a new "streamlined" version of his Bill on Monday in an attempt to ensure it attracts cross-party support.

The prime minister held a series of meetings yesterday with both Tory MPs and those from other parties in a bid to develop a new Brexit plan.

Tory Eurosceptics said their meeting had been "constructive" amid suggestions the prime minister had ruled out tacking to a customs union.

A group of Tory MPs who support a Norway-style Brexit met Mrs May after lunchtime and also said they felt she had been receptive.

However another source said it sounded as if the Prime Minister had been "all things to all people", with one MP saying she had been "like a sphynx".

Mr Corbyn had ordered his MPs not to take part in Mrs May's bid to win support for her deal unless no deal is taken off the table. However, he was defied by backbenchers including Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn.
Irish motorists will need a special "green card" as proof of insurance cover in the North and Britain if there is a no-deal Brexit.

The new measure will be especially relevant for drivers in Border areas who travel in and out of Northern Ireland frequently.

North drivers will also need the document as proof of insurance cover in the south.

The Motor Insurers' Bureau of Ireland has announced the industry is prepared to issue these green cards where necessary.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney told the Dail that the measure was an example of preparing for a no-deal Brexit, which he again stressed he thought was not likely to happen.

"What the industry is saying, and what we are saying, is that this is an example of contingency planning," Mr Coveney said.

Under EU insurance directives, Irish drivers' national insurance documents are acceptable in other European Union member states without additional documentation.

But if, as feared, a no-deal crash-out Brexit happens on March 29, then Irish drivers travelling in Britain and the North must revert to the green card system which operated for decades before being overtaken by the EU.

The same obligation will apply to UK motorists driving in EU member states.

An agreement struck between UK and EU insurance bodies last May to waive the need for green cards has yet to be ratified by the European Commission.
TANAISTE Simon Coveney vowed that Ireland and the EU will react in "a positive and helpful way" if Britain now revises some of it red-line Brexit demands to Brussels at the eleventh hour.

Mr Coveney stressed that, should Britain revise red-line demands over the future relationship with the EU and issues such as Single Market alignment, the Irish back-stop may effectively be removed as a thorny issue in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement negotiations.

The Cork TD also warned that it was now vital Westminster sets out clearly what Britain wants with just 70 days left until Britain is set to leave the EU.

"I think if it is possible to see a change in the red lines that the British Government have outlined in relation to the conditions of Brexit that they are looking for, then the context around the future relationship discussion and therefore any potential use of the back-stop in the future could change quite significantly," he said.

"Michel Barnier has been quite clear this week as have I and the Taoiseach - if Britain chooses to change its red lines I would like to think that the EU is ready to respond to that in a positive way and in a helpful way.

"But that is a matter for the British parliament which of course the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) are part of."

Mr Coveney refused to comment on suggestions the DUP were now softening their stance on Brexit following the chaotic scenes in Westminster over the past week and mounting fears over what will happen in Northern Ireland if Britain crashes out of the EU without a withdrawal deal.

"I know the DUP well enough to know that if I encourage them in a direction, they may go in the other direction," Mr Coveney said.

"I am not going to say anything about the DUP - they will make their own decisions.

"They are one party in Northern Ireland, the largest party. Obviously they have been a big part of the debate in Westminster because they have 10 seats there.

"I respect the DUP and recognise that they have a view - it is not a view that I share in relation to their concerns about the back-stop.

"For me, the back-stop is about a protection for everybody.

"It is a fall-back position - it is an insurance mechanism. To reassure people, Unionist and Nationalist, on this island and in Northern Ireland in particular that they are not going to face the impact of the consequences of border infrastructure in the future. That is all it is.

"Nobody wants to ever use it because we want a comprehensive future relationship that makes it unnecessary.

"Should it ever be used, the intention is only to use it on a temporary basis until something more permanent is agreed.

"Our position on the back-stop remains consistent. The EU position remains in complete solidarity with Ireland and that is why you have heard Michel Barnier, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker all saying that the Withdrawal Agreement is not up for renegotiation and that the back-stop is part of that."

The Tanaiste warned it was important no one lecture Britain about domestic politics.

"I don't think we should be telling anybody what to do here," he said.

"This is a sovereign parliament - it is extraordinary in some ways that with just over 70 days to go to formally leave the EU we still don't know what a majority of MPs in Westminster are willing to vote for.

"We know that they don't want a 'no deal' Brexit but we don't know what they do want.

"It is not for me to make that judgement (Theresa May reaching out to other UK parties) - my understanding is that she is reaching out now.

"My hope is that both large parties, in particular, will talk to each other seriously about how to move forward.

"Any stand-offs that may be there will end quickly because the decisions that are made in Britain impact more than on Britain and British people.

"They certainly impact on their closest neighbour in a very major way.

"Everybody wants to see progress here.

"There are options now - the Prime Minister will outline how she intends to proceed in Westminster on Monday.

"My understanding is that she is going to table a motion that is amendable and that motion won't be voted on until January 29.

"I think we will see a lot of political movement in that time in terms of the direction of travel of the British Parliament and British Government.

"But until we know what the British Parliament and British Government are actually asking for, it is very hard for the EU to respond generously to that.

"The one thing that is very clear is that EU unity is not going to change - EU solidarity on the Irish issues, because they are EU issues as well, is not going to change.

"We do want to be helpful to find a way forward that is good for Britain and that is good for the EU.

"We are going to have to work together in the future post-Brexit. Nobody wants a crash out Brexit where the relationships between Britain and Ireland and Britain and the EU in general are strained for the foreseeable future. That is not what is needed.

"I hope that we will see a really pro-active effort in the British Parliament to move things forward and away from the concerns of a 'no deal' Brexit and towards a compromise that can get majority support in the British Parliament.

"Of course, when that happens we will respond in as constructive a way as we can but also in a way that is consistent with what we have been saying for the last two years.

"We have been focused on trying to protect the island of Ireland as a whole and the interests of everybody living here - as well as the interests of Irish people living in the UK."
Some insurance products may no longer be available to Irish consumers if there is a no-deal Brexit, the Central Bank has warned.

Deputy Governor Ed Sibley said yesterday that the supply of "niche" products may reduce or end altogether.

That's because policies underwritten from the UK or Gibraltar would face more regulatory friction after a hard Brexit.

Although the Bank does not comment on individual products, products with smaller markets, such as gadget insurance or pet insurance, would be more likely to be affected than bigger markets like motor or home insurance.

Mr Sibley said the Irish financial system should be able to withstand even a hard Brexit.

"I am satisfied that from a financial stability perspective that the most material and immediate risks are now manageable," he said.

"This is not to say that a hard Brexit will not be bumpy for the economy, and for the financial system.

"Indeed, some level of market disruption would be inevitable, but the system as a whole should be resilient enough to withstand these bumps."

He also said yesterday that certain existing policies underwritten from those jurisdictions will be able to continue, if legislation being drafted comes into force.

But those policies can't be renewed under the planned legislation.

"The draft legislation provides for a temporary run-off regime, which will allow certain UK/Gibraltar insurers and brokers to continue to service existing insurance contracts with Irish policyholders in the event of a 'no deal' Brexit," Mr Sibley said.

"The legislation does not allow these firms to write new business... it is exclusively for the servicing of contracts... that were in place prior to Brexit."

The planned legislation was welcomed yesterday by the insurance industry. "Ensuring customers maintain the benefits of their insurance cover in the event of a no-deal Brexit has been an industry priority since the UK's referendum," said Insurance Ireland CEO Kevin Thompson.

"It is recognised that the vast majority of UK-based insurance companies servicing the Irish market have taken appropriate action to ensure the continued servicing of contracts.

"However, given the complexities of Brexit, certain inbound providers may not have had sufficient time to implement their plans," he added.
An investigation is under way after gardai seized a possible replica firearm following an incident at a protest against Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

The seizure came after a man was seen shooting pellets at a plastic bottle during the protest outside Leinster House on Tuesday.

It is understood the possible replica firearm was a BB gun.

A possible replica firearm was later seized from a man, aged in his 30s, in the Talbot Street area of Dublin on Tuesday at about 8pm.

Gardai said that no arrests were made and an investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Expand Close People protesting outside Leinster House (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook

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The law states that airsoft pellet guns  with a muzzle velocity of more than one joule  are legal in Ireland but owners have to be licensed.

The protest, under the slogan Not My Taoiseach, was organised on social media as a planned demonstration against Mr Varadkars policies.

However, it was called off early due to low turnout.

The demonstration, which more than 2,000 respondents said they were attending on Facebook, saw around 30 people gather outside Leinster House.

Despite the small turnout, a large number of gardai blocked off the roads surrounding the main gates to Leinster House, and erected barricades along Kildare Street.
Photo: Google Street View

Perhaps Mayor Basran and council should conduct a poll on what group the majority of voters belong to. I doubt the homeless and drug dependant carried you to another term. It is great to recognize and cater to our minorities, but they are a small percentage and I am sure most dont patronize Costco. Council deviates almost daily from plans and zoning, but the Costco situation is just another in their list of epic fails.

Bruce Williams

Rumour in my area is that Kelowna expected Costco to pay for a new overpass within Kelowna boundaries, if Costco would stay on this side of the lake.

Catherine Knox

We live in Vernon, and have been members over 20 years. West Kelowna location will benefit Peachland, Summerland and Penticton residents. Unfortunately for us, and Im sure other members North of Lake Country, the extra drive time will deter us from using the new location. I hope Costco looks at building a store in the North Okanagan, to avoid losing members.

Alan Renaud

Sadly, I am not happy with the move from Kelowna to West Kelowna. Kelownas location was convenient. As a busy working mom, I cant always find the time to drive farther than needed. Most likely, I wont be able to go as much as I would like too. This will also affect the type of membership one holds.

Jennalee Schnurr

I believe that a Costco would better serve the South Okanagan if it were located in the Penticton area, as that would cover a larger purchasing area. I suppose West Kelowna would be better in that one doesnt have to cross the bridge and fight your way through Kelowna, but Id still vote for Penticton, if it were even being considered.

P. Douglas

Big mistake moving to the Westside, it will add greatly to bridge congestion. Huge loss of revenue for a very shortsighted Kelowna city council. Council should have done everything possible to keep Costco on this side of the bridge.

David Poersch

We live in Vernon, and my wife and I are seniors. We will be cancelling our Costco membership if the location is moved to the Westside. We do not feel that the additional travel time and travel costs would be worth it. We currently pay over $120 annually for membership. Admittedly, we will miss some of the products though.

Johnny Lysholm

We live in Lake Country, and our visits to Costco will certainly not be as frequent when/if they move to West Kelowna. We feel that Kelowna made a mistake in not allowing Costco to build in the airport area. We are sure that Costco will see a big change in their bottom line.

Gordon Joyce

Terrible idea! The bridge is a nightmare at most times. Costco would add to that. Love going to Costco, so will miss it, for sure.

Linda Fenrick

This is wonderful. Finally a Costco gas bar! Maybe now theyll be some better gas prices here. Competition is wonderful!

Judy Keegan

The only folks who complain about the bridge are the ones who never have to cross it. We who live on the Westside as a rule dont complain. How about focusing on the positives this move will make  larger store, gas station, opening their market to those who live further south. Since Costco opened here, I have made the trip across the bridge and across town to Rutland and didnt complain. We live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Suck it up, Kelowna, and enjoy the scenic drive.

Laurie Munday

They need to keep the one they have now and build another in West Kelowna. The one on corner of Highways 33 and 97 also services the Kootenays. People come up 33 for their shopping. If you close that store, there will be a lot of congestion on the streets and bridge. Kelowna is going to continue to grow and is heading out towards Winfield as well. And Vernon is growing, so it's only time before they'll need one in that direction anyway.

Edna Pictin

I think it is great and necessary because Costco is far too small now compared to other Costcos in the region. This will be a great move and allow expansion, greater employment, and better facilities. A good move  thank you.

Ray Bouvier
It was the summer of 1987. I had just returned from a two year stint in Saudi Arabia with my family and I had a three-year-old toddler who was like Speedy Gonzales, constantly on the move. I had been feeling very tired for months, but I put it down to living in intense heat and having an active child.

Then my sister got diagnosed with a rare disease called hereditary haemochromatosis (HH). As you can probably guess by the name, its a genetic illness  and when she was told by her doctors that she had it, she was also advised to tell all of her other siblings to get tested. Each of us had a 50 per cent chance of inheriting the same condition  and I won the medal.

Put simply, haemochromatosis is a disorder caused by an accumulation of iron, almost like the opposite of anaemia. People who have haemochromatosis absorb much more iron from food than other people due to a faulty gene, and it builds up in levels the body finds it difficult to deal with. Iron overload causes pain, tiredness and damage to the liver and heart.

The consultant who I first met about my condition told me if I didnt have regular phlebotomies  basically procedures where doctors drain some of your blood specifically to lower the iron overload in your body  then my lifestyle would deteriorate significantly after 10 years, and I would most likely be dead before 20 years were up. I have a major needle phobia and dont relish having the things stuck into me on a regular basis, but at that point I had very little choice.

It was expected I would have a pint of blood drained off every week in the same way a blood donor would give a pint annually  except my blood would be destroyed rather than donated. This procedure is the only way to manage HH and to balance out my iron levels. But after a while, it became clear my body couldnt cope with the shock of it: I would get very weak and faint sometimes while it was happening.

So instead I did the procedure every two weeks, and took a day off to go up to the hospital for it (luckily I had an understanding boss). Thirty years ago things werent quite as sophisticated as they are now, and all the checks and tests took much longer.

In 1990 I was asked, along with my sister, to form a support group for people like ourselves, and so the Irish Haemochromatosis Association was started. The main aim of the association was to get HH recognised, to fundraise for research into the disease and to support likeminded people. HH is a Celtic disease which has become a worldwide problem because of immigration. It is thought that one in nine people of Celtic origin are carriers of the mutation and one in 200 has it. Its worth bearing in mind that its easily treatable if its detected early.

Because of the association, I ended up doing a few media appearances and radio shows to raise awareness. At one of the radio interviews there was a GP present to give the medical slant on proceedings. Before the actual interview, he quizzed me on HH as his own knowledge of the subject was almost nonexistent. He showed me the only paragraph he could find in all his medical books. There was no information as to how one got HH, how to treat it, what the side effects were and whether or not it could be avoided.

For this reason, educating the medical profession and in particular GPs became paramount. This was not an easy task. Many doctors were as unaware of the disease as the doctor Id met on the radio programme that day. As a matter of fact my own GP, who had a very big practice, told me that for years I was his only diagnosed patient.

Today there are approximately 5,000 people diagnosed with HH in Dublin alone  so HH is not as rare as you might think. HH screening has become more or less the norm for medicals but recognition of the condition as a chronic disease  which would get much-needed government funding for things like research and treatment plans  has yet to be realised.

The major concern now is to have HH recognised as a disease for life so regular phlebotomies can be done free of charge. At present, unless a patient has a medical card or private health insurance, the charge is 80 (70) per session. If blood is taken off four times in a month, which is usually whats needed, that adds up to 320. Thats an unacceptable financial burden on someone who has a genetic condition they cant affect.

HH hasnt held me back  Im a 72-year-old young lady who looks 60 and lives a full life  but if I went undiagnosed Id be pushing up the daisies by now. I avoid any food with fortified iron and dont take multivitamins. By choice I drink virtually no alcohol and so Im always the designated driver.

The main thing I would say to people is that if you have northern European ancestry  especially Irish  then its worth getting checked if you have the symptoms of weakness, tiredness, weight loss and joint pain. The disease is surprisingly common, so it doesnt hurt to be aware.
For a man once described as Donald Trumps fixer, Michael Cohen is doing quite an effective job in fixing his old boss. The pitbull lawyer has turned on Trump. Few business tycoons are able to keep many secrets from their lawyers, and it seems that Mr Cohen is singing like a canary in an old film noir to the FBI about his time as the presidents personal counsel.

Having been convicted of lying to congress about some putative plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow  and sent to jail for three years  it is now reported that Mr Cohen is telling anyone who will listen  including the Mueller probe  that Mr Trump himself instructed him to lie to congress about the scheme. It has prompted further calls for the impeachment of the president, and the grounds would seem to qualify for the kind of high crime and misdemeanour envisaged in the US Constitution, and thus be sufficient for congress to initiate proceedings. Indeed, during his confirmation hearing with the Senate, William Barr, Mr Trumps nominee for the new attorney general, said explicitly that a president convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction of justice.

A serious matter, then, but very likely not the end of the tale. Mr Cohen will be testifying, under oath, to the House Oversight Committee on 7 February, which should be a rich source of fresh and damaging revelations about Mr Cohens time with the president. Mr Cohen was in the habit of recording phone conversations, and various prosecuting authorities have in their hands a wealth of information raided from his law firm and home already.

Mr Cohens newly candid attitude may yet yield more information about the presidents dealings, direct and indirect, with the models Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, with Russian interests, business and political, fundraising and the conduct of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, Mr Trumps business activities more generally, what members of the Trump family may have known about controversial issues, and much else besides. It should make for entertaining viewing. The congressmen and women might even think of asking whether it is true that Mr Cohen paid someone to use social media to persuade a sceptical world that he was sexy.

All that said, the barriers to a successful impeachment of the president are high, necessarily so as it should be no easy matter to unseat an incumbent duly elected by the American people. Crucially, a successful prosecution of Mr Trump, assuming he is still in office, would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate. The Democrats are some way short of that and, disdainful as many of them are to Mr Trump, it seems improbable that sufficient Republicans would defect to end Mr Trumps time in office. It will be a slow process, by which time Mr Trump might have decided not to run for a second term, and would be spending more time with his money.

It is also an uncomfortable truth  a word to be used with care  that many in Mr Trumps base will either dismiss the accusations against him as baseless Democrat machinations, or dont care in any case. For them, what matters is Mr Trumps ability to deliver on the pledges he made to them in the election  on jobs and the economy, on immigration and the Wall, on Americas national security, bringing the troops home, repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes. On most of these Mr Trump has something to show for his two years in office (the anniversary falls on Sunday). He was even able to limit the expected losses he suffered in the midterm elections.

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He is, also, famously combative in defending himself, to the point of vindictiveness. His refusal to provide official air transport for speaker Nancy Pelosis foreign visits is evidence of that, and of the deep partisan hostility that has grown between the two parties. All of that means that the president will be more likely to see a determined effort to try and impeach him  but also that its chances of ultimately removing him from office, or even preventing him winning a second term, are poor.
There is a lot of talk these days in the Labour Party about the need to respect the 2016 referendum result and bring the country back together.

In the real world people voted for Brexit for all sorts of reasons, many of which were contradictory. Some because they thought it would open us up to the world, some because they thought it would bring down immigration, others because they wanted to put a break on globalisation and still others because they wanted to see more migrants coming from outside Europe. There was one conception of what it meant to vote Remain, but there were many, many conceptions of what it meant to vote Leave.

Satisfying all these contradictory motivations will never be possible, but as a potential answer Norway-plus does not work.

Under this plan we would stay in the both the single market and customs union, implementing European directives, accepting freedom of movement, executing the decisions of the European court but losing any meaningful say over all of this, while continuing to pay large sums into the European budget.

Last year I voted to keep the UK in the single market  Norway without the plus. We lost and the prime minister refused to budge, and that ship has long since sailed.

As a supporter of a Final Say and an MP for a city that voted Leave, I have sought to be honest with my voters about why I still think leaving the EU would be a bad outcome, above all for working people. I am used to having difficult conversations on the doorstep about Brexit, and its vital that we do this. People respect honesty and integrity even when they disagree.

I cannot stand in front of my electors and tell them I think that Norway-plus is the right outcome for our country. They can see its faults, just as clearly as I can; they would know I wasnt being straight with them, just as clearly as I would. It has always been a patronising myth that Leave voters were stupid, and like everyone else they will see through the Norway-plus distraction in an instant.

I have to ask the advocates of Norway-plus: to exactly what problem do they think they are providing a solution?

Taking back control? It would leave us with less control than ever. Rather than sharing power as we do today, we would be surrendering it, wholesale.

No Irish backstop? No chance. The backstop will come with any Brexit deal we sign and given that Norway-plus is not some off-the-shelf arrangement, it is quite likely not to come into force for at least some time as the negotiations drag on.

More accountability and democracy? It would not just be our ministers who would be excluded, we would lose our MEPs, councillors would be thrown off the Committee of the Regions, trade unionists excluded from social partnership. Norway-plus would make real the imagined EU of anti-European myth  remote and unaccountable.

New trade deals with the US, India or Australia? Membership of the customs union  the plus part of this deal  means we will not even get the trade deals the EU signs or indeed on the terms the EU signs them. We will have to open up our markets to all countries outside the EU with whom the EU has negotiated trade deals on the same terms as the EU has but will not get the access to their markets which the EU will have in return. And, it is nothing but fantasy to think we would be allowed into the room as a third negotiator.

 Anand Menon explains to Question Time audience the ramifications of a no-deal Brexit

A platform for the creation of a social Europe with a stronger and revitalised left? Sorry, but again no. We certainly should not mistake Norways strong and effective welfare state  a consequence of the decisions of Norwegian politicians  with its relationship with Brussels. Not surprisingly, quitting the EU will radically diminish and never strengthen any voice Labour might hope to have in reforming the bloc.

And what about freedom of movement? If thats the issue then this is definitely not the answer. Only the micro-state of Liechtenstein has single market membership and restrictions on freedom of movement. And, of course, leaving the EU means leaving behind any chance of modernising the freedom of movement rules.

The benefits  supposedly  of this would be that we would leave the common agricultural, fisheries and foreign and security policies of the EU. In reality, it is dubious whether we really could quit the farming and fishing arena: Norway is out of them, but Norway is not in the customs union and its farming and fisheries imports into the EU are subject to tariffs and quotas. Telling the EU you want to opt out of their rules but wont accept any restrictions on selling your products sounds like the ultimate have-your-cake-and-eat-it fantasy.

The long and short of it is that Norway-plus doesnt deliver on the claims its supporters make.

But even before we get to that, theres one problem: it is not on offer.

It is true that the EU offered, at the very start of the negotiations, to explore the Norway option and I voted for it on that basis, but this is not the same thing. The bigger blockage, though, is that Norway and the other EFTA members of the European Economic Area are simply not willing to see the UK crowd them out of the space they have fashioned over the last three decades.

We think of Norway as an oil-rich, wealthy economy. But Britains economy is actually eight times bigger. It is not difficult to see why they would see British EEA membership as closer to a hostile takeover than a merger.

I do not claim that giving people a Final Say, which I support, will magically unify the country. But I do think that, by offering a clear choice between staying with our current deal as EU members or leaving with the governments deal, this is more likely to give us a settled decision than opting for something that might be labelled as Brexit but leaves everyone unhappy.

Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters

This country desperately needs change. We need a world where the benefits of automation mean more interesting work for everyone, not mass unemployment; a world where your chances are not about your parents and school but about your willingness to learn and work; a world where having children doesnt bankrupt you and their education doesnt bankrupt them; a world where food is safe, lives are healthy, and old age is without fear. All of that is much easier to pursue and achieve within the EU rather than outside.

We have to be honest enough to say that, and not be afraid that some people might disagree. I dont buy the idea that a fresh referendum will unleash some newly horrendous backlash. In the real world, people are not angry at being asked for their views. Those who feel the same can vote as before; those who have changed their minds can change their votes. A far-right fringe might feel otherwise, but since when did we let the far right set public policy?

Our society is already divided: between haves and have-nots even more than between Remain and Leave. Only a peoples vote can sort out the mess the European referendum created, and leave the way clear for the next Labour government to start building the better, more equal society we so urgently need.

Bridget Phillipson is the Labour MP for Sunderland South
In the Arab Spring of 2011 much of the foreign media covering the protests in Egypt gathered in or around Tahrir Square in Cairo to report the daily confrontations between demonstrators demanding the overthrow of the regime and security forces seeking to preserve it.

The scene in Tahrir was the backdrop to countless television interviews with opposition activists and what happened there was portrayed as a barometer which would tell the world if the Egyptian revolution would succeed or fail. When President Hosni Mubarak resigned on 11 February many television viewers and newspaper readers got the impression that the revolutionaries had won and Egypt was entering an era of freedom and democracy.

Except this was not true: the state and army never lost control of the essential levers of power and two years later Egypt was back under the rule of an even more brutal and authoritarian government.

The journalists who had focused their reporting on Tahrir had got their facts right, but they necessarily got a very selective and, as it turned out, misleading view of what was happening in Egypt, a country of 90 million people.

During the uprising in Libya a few months later, the television cameras were similarly trained on a square in Benghazi that protesters had permanently occupied. Intelligent, articulate English-speaking opposition leaders were available for interview in a nearby building. None of this was necessarily phoney, but it was a highly sanitised version of developments in Libya. Talking to people away from that much-televised square, it became swiftly apparent that the leaders so frequently interviewed had little authority and that Libya was likely to fall apart after the defeat of Gaddafi.

I was reminded of Tahrir and the crowded square in Benghazi when watching journalists and politicians interviewing and being interviewed on College Green opposite the Houses of Parliament over the last week. It has long been a favoured venue for broadcasters because it is a convenient location for MPs, with the dramatic parliament buildings as a backdrop.

Watching this relentless Brexit coverage, I had the same uneasy feeling as I had had in Cairo and Benghazi  that the focus was too narrow and, for all the talk of crisis, dangerous trends were being ignored or given insufficient weight.

The scene on College Green is probably the nearest one could get to seeing the famous Westminster Bubble in the flesh, its most regular inhabitants being journalists rather than politicians. Though frequently accused of being out of touch, MPs have to visit their constituencies, meet voters and speak to party activists. Political journalists are more exclusively metropolitan by the nature of their jobs and less in touch with the rest of the country. MPs speaking in the Commons talk about a wider range of topics than when they are giving interviews to news outlets.

All professions suffer from deformation professionnelle and this is certainly true of journalism. Some of this is unavoidable: news means supposing that something new and significant is happening day by day, even when evidence for this is scant. This inevitably leads to a short-term take on events.

A negative aspect of venues such as College Green or its equivalent around the world is that they foster a dangerous herd instinct in which some themes are relentlessly pursued and others marginalised or ignored.

Journalists traditionally give good marks to people who talk to opponents, even when nobody is giving any ground on matters of substance and conversations or negotiations are a waste of time. But by treating the near dead heat of the 2016 Brexit referendum as a case of winners and losers the government destroyed the basis for compromise, if it ever existed.

Everybody believes that everybody else cannot be quite so attached to their beliefs as they claim and will blink at the last, This is dangerously over-optimistic in the present case. I was talking to people in Dover this week, Remainers, who said they had no doubt that if there is a second referendum or Brexit is cancelled then there will be sustained violence.

They add that the EU may well have been unfairly scapegoated and blamed for grievances for which it was not responsible, but these grievances themselves are real, run very deep and have been further envenomed by the referendum. Any hope that the crisis can be defanged at this late stage is wishful thinking.

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The extreme Brexit wing of the Conservatives, for all their talk of taking on the world, remain aggressively ignorant about the way it works. They assume Britain has cards in its hand that are not there, so the EU will always come out on top in any negotiation. This is then blamed on incompetent negotiators, a failure of will or, most dangerous of all, a stab in the back.

The same parochialism extends to the UK. The DUP is now treated as a respectable party representing the interests of Northern Ireland, despite its long record as a sectarian Protestant party in permanent confrontation with the Catholic and nationalist population. The DUP alliance with the Conservative Party is destroying an essential precondition for peace in Northern Ireland, which was British government neutrality between the two communities.

President de Gaulle once said that the most common error of all statesmen is to believe firmly that there exists at any one moment a solution to every problem. There are in some periods problems to which no solution exists. He was speaking in 1958 about ending the war in Algeria, a conflict so violent and complicated as to make Brexit seem clear cut by comparison.

De Gaulle did succeed in ending the Algerian conflict, which might give some hope to the British as they grapple with Brexit. But Julian Jacksons magnificent book, A Certain Idea of France: the Life of Charles de Gaulle, points out de Gaulles practicality and avoidance of wishful thinking. This is what was lacking among the politicians and journalists in Tahrir Square and Benghazi eight years ago  and much the same is true of College Green today.
In Boris Johnsons defence, he did once claim he would lie in front of a bulldozer, and now he has. For 40 straight minutes, with a giant JCB behind him, he lied without stopping. And not just your straightforward, honest lies, either. Every kind of mistruth was here, their timbres and textures timed to augment the next, like an intricate firework display. The whoppers went up like rockets. But then there were the softer, subtle lies.

The evasions, the equivocations, the promises that could never be kept.

The ideas for how to sort out Brexit that have, for the past two years, been shown in glorious super-slow-motion technicolour to be singularly impossible; which restated now would be no more than lies.

And then there was the fact that the whole thing was encased in a porky. That it wasnt a Tory leadership pitch, no, not at all. It was a chance to show a way forward (or, rather, backward) to the tried and failed, to the absolutely, unequivocally, definitely cannot-be-done.

Alright, it wasnt, technically, a bulldozer. It was a digger  a backhoe loader, to be exact  and the staff who had been compelled to gather at the paused production line at JCBs global headquarters were left, I would imagine, in absolutely no doubt about what unsavoury substance was being dug up and thrown at them in industrial quantities.

JCB might be the world-leading manufacturer of this kind of thing, but even it is yet to come up with the kind of highly specialised equipment that might allow you to dig all the way down into Boris Johnsons soul and find the bit where the shame is meant to be.

At one point, Channel 4 Newss Michael Crick asked him about the scaremongering the Vote Leave campaign had engaged over immigration from Turkey. I never said anything about Turkey throughout the entire campaign, was Johnsons reply. In the week before the referendum, he and Michael Gove sent an open letter to David Cameron, asking him to promise he would veto any attempt for Turkey to join the EU. It was arguably, the most cynical moment of the entire referendum. Gove knew Cameron would always use this veto if he had to but he also knew, as a member of the privy council, that Cameron could not say so publicly, due to intelligence-sharing relationships with Turkey and the threat of Islamist terror.

In any event, here was Boris Johnson, denying the whole thing had ever happened.

But the most worrying thing with Johnson is not that hell say anything or do anything to become prime minister, its that there is nothing that can ever happen that will cause him even for a second to question his suitability for the job.

Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Show all 14 1 /14 Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Internal divisions in the Conservative Party have exploded into a bitter public row over Boris Johnsons disgusting criticism of Theresa May. Some senior Tories furiously denounced the former foreign secretary after he accused the prime minister of having wrapped a suicide vest around Britain Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Sajid Javid, Home secretary Sajid Javid, the home secretary, rebuked his former cabinet colleague and said: I think there are much better ways to articulate your differences. He told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that the public wanted politicians to use measured language BBC/PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide But other MPs leapt to Mr Johnsons defence, as dividing lines ahead of a possible leadership contest begin to take shape. The Uxbridge MP has repeatedly criticised Ms Mays Chequers plan and used a newspaper article on Sunday to suggest it amounted to wrapping a suicide vest around the British constitution. His latest salvo at the prime minister prompted immediate condemnation, with one minister publicly vowing to end Mr Johnsons career over the matter PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alan Duncan, Foreign minister Alan Duncan, a foreign minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team for two years, wrote on Twitter: For Boris to say the PMs view is like that of a suicide bomber is too much. This marks one of the most disgusting moments in modern British politics. Im sorry, but this is the political end of Boris Johnson. If it isnt now, I will make sure it is later. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide James Brokenshire, Housing secretary Housing secretary James Brokenshire added his voice to the criticism, calling Mr Johnsons comments wrong He said: I think he is wrong on this...I think the tone that he has used isnt right and I think that we just need to be very focused on actually moving forward with the Chequers plan. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Zac Goldsmith But as Tory hostilities spilled over into open public warfare, Richmond Park MP Zac Goldsmith, an ally of Mr Johnson, hit back at Mr Duncan. He wrote: There are a number of possible motives behind this tweet, but given its author, we can be certain principles arent one of them. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Jacob Rees-Mogg Senior Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Independent he thought Mr Johnsons suicide belt accusation was little more than a characteristically colourful catchphrase. He added: I agree with the sentiment. The criticism of Boriss wording merely serves to highlight his point. It means more people hear of Boriss criticism of Chequers and many will agree with him. Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Nadine Dorries Nadine Dorries, another Brexit supporter, said Mr Johnsons opponents were terrified of his popular appeal, adding: Dont underestimate the vitriol thatll be directed towards Boris today. He delivered the Leave vote, Remainers and wannabe future PMs hate him. If Mr Johnson became leader and prime minister he would deliver a clean and prosperous Brexit, she said Rex Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Andrew Bridgen Andrew Bridgen said Ms May was to blame for her leadership problems. Asked if Mr Johnson had put a bomb under her leadership, Mr Bridgen said: I think that Theresa May did that herself when she put forward the Chequers proposals without consulting widely prior to that. Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Steve Baker, former Brexit minister Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, warned Ms May the Conservatives faced a "catastrophic split" if she did not jettison her Chequers plan. Mr Baker, who quit the government in July over the scheme, said: When negotiating, the prime minister needs to demonstrate her intent and also her power to deliver. "If we come out of conference with her hoping to get Chequers through on the back of Labour votes, I think the EU negotiators would probably understand that if that were done, the Tory party would suffer the catastrophic split which thus far we have managed to avoid. But he insisted he did not want a change in the Conservative leadership, saying Brexiteers did not want to be in a position of conflict with our own prime minister Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Tom Tugendhat The deep divisions on the Tory benches were laid bare as Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee and is a possible leadership rival to Mr Johnson, also hit out at the former foreign secretary. Recalling how he encountered a suicide bomber in Afghanistan during his time in the army, Mr Tugendhat told Mr Johnson to grow up. He said: A suicide bomber murdered many in the courtyard of my office in Helmand. The carnage was disgusting, limbs and flesh hanging from trees and bushes. Brave men who stopped him killing me and others died in horrific pain. Some need to grow up. Comparing the PM to that isnt happy. PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alistair Burt Alistair Burt, another Foreign Office minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team, said: Im stunned at the nature of this attack. There is no justification for such an outrageous, inappropriate and hurtful analogy. If we dont stop his extraordinary use of language over Brexit, our country might never heal. Again, I say, enough. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide It comes amid that Ms Mays former aides drew up a dossier on Mr Johnsons sexual encounters with the aim of undermining his leadership prospects. The document was compiled in 2016, when the Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP was seen as the main rival to Ms May in her bid to enter No 10. Downing Street and Conservative Campaign Headquaters (CCHQ) both denied having leaked the 4,000 word memo after it was circulated around Westminster AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Mr Johnson confirmed that his 25-year marriage to wife Marina had ended AP

Not two years as the worst foreign secretary in modern times, with his departure from the department still referred to as Liberation Day by everyone who works there. Not the undisguised loathing of at least 50 per cent of the population.

Here he was, telling Theresa May to go back to Brussels, ditch the backstop, and leave by March 29.

He is not so stupid as to think this is not totally impossible. Mays deal was defeated by 230 votes on Tuesday. Before Christmas 117 of her own MPs voted to chuck her out. They did so because of the backstop. If all that was required to save her from this neverending ritualised public humiliation was to go to Brussels and have the backstop removed, she would, very obviously do it.

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Normal people tend not to be allowed to reach these kinds of levels of self-delusion. Normally, this would be the point where the family steps in but unfortunately for Boris Johnson, the family has already stepped out. And not just out of the family home, out of the government as well. And this really is the problem. In other families, Boris Johnson would just be the one you dont talk about. Not so easy when talking about Boris Johnson is what half of you do for a living.

But there is one way forward. Would it not be easier, and very much in the national interest, to just let him have the job, and then after a single day, remove him? He would get the picture of him walking into 10 Downing Street, which is all he wants anyway. And the nation would not have to carry on being brought down to Boris Johnsons level.
Europes biggest budget airline has warned investors that its profits will be around 100m (88m) lower than expected for the financial year that ends in March 2019.

The predicted range for profits after tax is now 1-1.1bn, down 9 per cent from the anticipated level. But new figure still represents a profit per passenger of 7, which is way ahead of most of its rivals.

Winter fares were originally expected to fall by 2 per cent, but the airline says they are down 7 per cent.

Ryanair operates a price passive/load factor active strategy, which means it will cut fares to whatever level is necessary to fill its planes  currently at a load factor of around 95 per cent.

It has been selling seats from the UK for as little as 9.99, which means it takes an instant loss as it is required to pay 13 in air passenger duty.

But its earnings from ancillaries are increasing  partly because of a drastic reduction in the amount of free cabin baggage passengers may take.

Ryanair expects to fly 142 million people in the current financial year, one million more than previously predicted. The term includes the troubled summer of 2018, when a series of strikes by pilots and cabin crew grounded hundreds of flights.

The airline was also hit by air-traffic control strikes and staff shortages.

The figures exclude start-up losses from its investment in the Austrian airline, Laudamotion, expected to total 140m (123m).

The airlines chief executive, Michael OLeary said: There is short haul over capacity in Europe this winter.

We believe this lower fare environment will continue to shake out more loss making competitors.

Last week Flybe was sold for 2m to a consortium involving Virgin Atlantic and Stobart Air.

The low-cost airline Norwegian is closing some of its bases in Europe and North America in a bid to cut losses.

Mr OLeary warned: We cannot rule out further cuts to air fares and/or slightly lower full year guidance if there are unexpected Brexit or security developments which adversely impact yields between now and the end of March.

The airline warns investors: Ryanair is exposed to Brexit-related risks and uncertainties, as approximately 24 per cent of revenue in fiscal year 2018 came from operations in the UK.
In case you havent noticed, it is a fairly horrible time to be a budget airline.

On Friday Ryanair made its second profits warning since the winter season began in October. Yet the Irish carrier is still on course to make almost 1bn in profits this financial year, while filling its planes to within 5 per cent of capacity  the kind of problem that any other budget airline boss would love to have.

Its low-cost rival Norwegian is having a much tougher time. Last month its capacity increased by 34 per cent, year-on-year, but passenger numbers rose only 24 per cent. What does that mean? The average Norwegian Boeing 737 flight in December 2018 had 11 fewer paying passengers than a year earlier. No wonder it has dropped free spirits in its premium cabin; only beer and wine are now complimentary.

On Thursday, the Oslo-based airline said it would close its bases at Palma, Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Norwegian will end its short-lived UK-US secondary airport strategy by closing the final link from Edinburgh to Stewart International in upstate New York in March; fares in February are as low as 227 return if you want to grab one while stocks last.

Yet the short-haul airline whose staff deserve the most sympathy is surely Flybe.

The loss-making regional airline is being bailed out by a consortium of three parties, each with their own aims: Virgin Atlantic and Stobart Group have 30 per cent each, while the New York hedge fund Cyrus Capital Partners has the remaining 40 per cent share.

I have spent the week delving into the detail of what the deal means. The conclusion: whatever happens in the next couple of years, the airline will not look much like it does today.

The planes, for a start, will be different. The sale contract insists there is: A commitment to bring the Flybe fleet up to standard which is befitting of the Virgin brand.

Sir Richard Bransons airline has the right to confirm that the fleet refit is adequate having regard to the Virgin Atlantic brand. And in terms of timing: The entire Flybe Fleet is to be refitted at the earliest possible opportunity and in any event no later than two years from the completion of the acquisition.

Virgin Atlantic gets 1 per cent of all the revenue for the use of its name.

Next, where will it go? The core of the current operation involves connecting geographical blocs: Scotland; northern England and the Midlands; southwest Britain (Cardiff, Newquay, Exeter and Southampton); the Channel Islands; and the island of Ireland.

Beyond this, Flybe operates a scattering of European services that lack coherence. Cardiff to Berlin, Doncaster-Sheffield to Paris and Southampton to Nantes may be viable business routes, but only at a frequency of one or two a day rather than the current one or two a week.

Jet cemetery: Where do aircraft go when airlines go to the wall? Show all 3 1 /3 Jet cemetery: Where do aircraft go when airlines go to the wall? Jet cemetery: Where do aircraft go when airlines go to the wall? 273484.bin JOHN LAWRENCE Jet cemetery: Where do aircraft go when airlines go to the wall? 273485.bin JOHN LAWRENCE Jet cemetery: Where do aircraft go when airlines go to the wall? 273486.bin JOHN LAWRENCE

Every route will be assessed for its profit or loss. There is a lot more of the latter than the former right now.

The other dimension to deciding the shape of the new network: the benefit it can bring to the two aviation partners.

Stobart Air will be keen on anything that starts or ends at one of its two airports, Southend and Carlisle. Virgin Atlantic wants to improve connections to its long-haul network at Glasgow, Heathrow and Manchester  as well as Paris CDG and Amsterdam, with Air France-KLM taking a 31 per cent share in Virgin.

Existing relationships with Thomas Cook or IAG  British Airways parent company, which includes Aer Lingus  will be renewed only if all the partners agree. And I would not be amazed if Virgin Atlantic decided to veto anything it perceives as helping rivals, thereby chopping off connections.

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The final discovery as I trawled through the details of the deal: Virgin Atlantic has been a bona-fide potential offeror for Flybe for a couple of months. I can disclose that a non-disclosure agreement was signed on 8 November.

The deal announced on 11 January saw the shares in Flybe valued at just a penny each, with the sale price just above 2m. A bargain? Not necessarily, given the tens of millions that need to be pumped into Flybe to keep it afloat. But if you happen to be a Flybe pilot who agreed to receive pay increases in shares, you have just seen the value of that equity implode to almost nothing.

Turbulent times.
Yemens Houthi rebel group has rounded up, forcibly disappeared and tortured dozens of women, while blackmailing their families, rights groups have revealed, as violence soars in the war-ravaged country despite peace talks under way in Jordan.

Over the past few months Houthis have begun to stage mass arrests of women, on charges of prostitution and collaboration with the Saudi-led coalition they are fighting, according to Nabil Fadel, the head of Sanaa-based Yemen Organisation for Combating Human Trafficking.

Mr Fadel told the Associated Press said that women were then sent to secret detentions in villas across the rebel-held capital.

The anti-trafficking group said it had obtained new information showing that the rebels were carrying out atrocities such as abuse, torture, and forced disappearances of women and girls in secret and illegal prisons.

A Yemeni human rights lawyer working on the issue said women were taken from cafes and parks over the past months, and their families had begun searching for their missing daughters.

Recommended Child soldiers from Darfur fighting at front line of war in Yemen

An AP investigation revealed last month that thousands of Yemenis have been imprisoned by the Iran-backed Houthis during the four years of the war that has ripped the country apart and sparked the worlds biggest humanitarian crisis.

Within Houthi jails inmates were allegedly subject to extreme torture, including being strung by their wrists or genitals for weeks at a time, and doused in acid or melted plastic. One survivor, Monir al-Shariq was so horrifically tortured he was left unable to speak.

So far most of the detainees are believed to men. However, the anti-trafficking organisation said this week that mass arrests of women started after the Houthi appointment a year ago of Sultan Zabin as head of the Sanaa criminal investigation division.

The rebel-run Interior Ministry vehemently denied the allegations, calling them rumours from the mouthpieces of the mercenaries that are tarnishing the image of security apparatus.

It also denied the existence of secret prisons and illegal and arbitrary detentions and vowed to prosecute those behind the reports.

The news of the targeting of women comes as representatives of the warring factions in Yemen meet in Jordan to work on implementing a prisoner-swap agreed to during the last round of talks, in Sweden in December.

The talks are also focused around the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, the main gateway for over 80 percent of Yemens supplies of food and medicines.

Under a ceasefire deal, both sides agreed to withdraw from the city and hand it over to local government together with UN monitors.

On Thursday, unknown gunmen fired at the convoy of the head of a UN mission charged monitoring the truce as the officials left a key meeting.

Retired Dutch Major General Patrick Cammaert was not in the vehicle that was hit and he and his team returned to their base safely, according to Stephane Dujarric, the UNs spokesman.

Food aid for Yemenis stolen Show all 21 1 /21 Food aid for Yemenis stolen Food aid for Yemenis stolen People walk in a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen People stand near their rooms inside a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A baby sleeps inside a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A woman sits with her baby inside a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen Sisters play in their room at a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen The entrance of the hangar of the United Nations in Aden, Yemen, in this 23 July 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A man sells aid supplies at a market in Aden, Yemen, in this 23 July 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen The entrance to the port where aid is received, in Aden, Yemen, is shown in this 23 July 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen This 24 July 2018 photo shows a gas station on a road in Shabwah, Yemen. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A worn-out list of registered names for aid by Relief International, part of the World Food Program, is posted in Aden, Yemen in this 23 July 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A truck carries aid on a road in Aden, Yemen, in this 23 July 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A man fixes his scarf at a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen Children play in a room at a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen Children look out of their room at a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A woman holds her baby as she leaves her room in a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A family poses for a photograph in their room at a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A family sits in their room at a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A bucket filled with bread at a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, is shown in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A family poses for a photograph in a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A child stands in a room at a shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty) Food aid for Yemenis stolen A shelter for displaced persons in Ibb, Yemen, is shown in this 3 Aug 2018 photo. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

I can assure you that General Cammaert and his team are supplied with the strongest possible security measures the UN can supply, Mr Dujarric said on Thursday.

But it is important to add that all the parties in Yemen are also responsible for the safety of all UN personnel in Yemen  We are dealing with a highly volatile environment in Hodeidah.

Maj Gen Cammaert had been in the port city since late December trying to get the internationally recognised government and the Houthis to redeploy their forces as per the Swedish agreement.

Houthi television channel al-Masirah branded him biased in favour of the government, however, after Maj Gen Cammaert expressed disappointment at the rebels failure to open humanitarian corridors between Hodeidah and the capital.

Instead, the Houthis pretended to cede control of the port to naval forces by dressing their fighters in coastguard uniforms.

Both the rebels and officials from the government side blamed the other for the shooting.

Yemen plunged into civil war in late 2014, when the rebels captured the capital, Sanaa. A Saudi-led coalition intervened a year later, fighting alongside government troops.
The decision on Agassiz Road is not about whether we support homeless people or not. It is a decision as to whether we do so with intelligent, evidence-based planning or whether we reject all good precedent and repeat the same planning mistakes made in numerous other cities across North America.

Kelowna is not the first city to attempt to address its homeless problem by simply providing housing for homeless people. It makes sense economically, but more importantly it reflects on our values as a society. Any so-called top-10 country should be embarrassed that humans are left to sleep on the streets.

As a supporter of the City of Kelownas Journey Home initiative, I am delighted to see this is going to be addressed in Kelowna over the coming years. We do, however, need to be cognizant of the impact on others that our strategies to address homelessness have.

While it may not be fashionable to say so, we can not ignore the fact that homelessness, substance abuse, mental health and criminality are all interlinked.

Information provided by the John Howard Society, BC Housing and Interior Health shows who is likely to be housed at 2025 Agassiz Rd. The population they serve is one of the most challenging to deal with. 70-80 per cent or more will have an active addiction, with the most common being heroin and crack cocaine. In this harm reduction supportive housing building, little will be done to address these addictions.

Residents are permitted to store illegal drugs in their units and are permitted to use them on site. Statistics also show the success rate of these programs: upon completion around 80 per cent of participants continue to struggle with their addictions.

Addiction to hard drugs makes people a threat to the personal safety and security of others around them.

Government needs to be very careful where such harm reduction facilities are sited.

To date, prior to the Agassiz Road proposal, the City of Kelowna has engaged in intelligent planning regarding the siting of similar buildings.

Firstly, they are all in commercial-institutional zoned areas in alignment with their institutional character. Secondly, they are away from high-density residential areas and thus any issues that do arise at such buildings impact very few people. Reports by BC Housing show regular attendance by RCMP to deal with threats to staff and other matters at similar buildings, yet few people know this because few people are impacted by it.

The current proposal for Agassiz Road throws this precedent out the window. Other than Sunset Drive, there is no higher density neighbourhood in Kelowna.

This mis-match of facility to neighbourhood has been tried already. Examples from Vancouver include the Marguerite Ford Apartments, which produced no fewer than 729 police calls in its initial 16 months of operation; a facility on Princess Avenue which produced around 60 calls a month during its first six months of operation.

Victorias Burnside Gorge area is blighted with problems that are all centred around similar buildings.

With all this in mind, residents have been forced to obtain legal counsel to defend our rights and protect the safety and security of our neighbourhood.

The best interests of all concerned, and particularly Kelownas homeless population, are served by BC Housing withdrawing its applications immediately.

There are plenty of other sites in Kelowna that would be considerably more suitable for a low-barrier harm reduction facility. The old Ponderosa Motel site for example, or the acres of land near the RCMP station that is being redeveloped.

Our homeless population deserve our support. It's time the powers that be behind this initiative admit their mistake and begin working collaboratively to achieve our collective goal of safely housing our homeless.

Richard Taylor


South Africa: SA calls for continued peace efforts in Sudan

South Africa has urged the African Union (AU)/United Nations (UN) Hybrid Mission (UNAMID) to continue to provide technical and logistical assistance to support peace efforts in Sudan.

South African representative at the United Nations, Ambassador Jerry Matjila, made the call during a debate at the UN Security Council briefing on Sudan sanctions.

We remain concerned at the continued violations of the arms embargo including the transfer of weapons to Darfur which destabilises the situation on the ground.

In this regard we urge UNAMID, in accordance with resolution 2429 to continue to provide technical and logistical assistance to the Sudan disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) Commission, said Matjila.

While South Africa welcomed the improvements in the security situation in Darfur, it urged the UNAMID to continue to ensure the protection of vulnerable civilians, especially in internally displaced peoples (IDP) camps and in the prevention of gender-based violence.

Women and children are the most affected by sexual violence which has also increasingly become a weapon of war and conflict affecting the long-term prospects for peaceful and prosperous communities.

In this regard we would like to commend the government of Sudan for its efforts in trying to combat sexual violence in conflict, said the Ambassador.

Matjila also expressed concerned with the growing presence of Darfuri armed groups in Libya.

Further violations of the embargo could potentially fuel the conflict in the region. This undermines any progress made towards stability and lasting solutions for peace and sustainable development, he said.

Furthermore, South Africa welcomed the gains made in advancing the Darfur Peace Process and the implementation of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) and called on all parties to continue their commitment to the negotiations process under the auspices of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel.

The council had set out through resolution 1591 to put pressure on parties which were impeding the peace process.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
A centre-left minority government has been formed in Sweden following four months of political deadlock after no party was able to secure a majority in Septembers general election.

Stefan Lofven, who has been serving as the countrys caretaker prime minister, managed to form a government with the support of 115 politicians, while 153 voted against him and 77 abstained.

Mr Lofvens Social Democrats were backed by the Greens while the centre-right bloc voted against the arrangement. Three smaller parties abstained.

In Sweden, a prime minister can govern as long as there is no majority against him or her.

Swedish politicians have been trying to form a government without the Sweden Democrats, who came third in the election, due to their alleged ties to neo-Nazis.

It will be a tough four-year period, Mr Lofven told a news conference, adding: Sweden is getting a powerful government that is not dependent on the Sweden Democrats.

The party had made signicant strides in the 9 September national election but has not been a serious part of the coalition talks.

Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson, who had hoped for more political influence, repeatedly used the word absurd to describe the coalition talks.

My ambition now is that the Sweden Democrats will be a dominating force in a new strong centre-right opposition, he said.

Jan Bjorklund of the Liberals, whose party supported Mr Lofven by abstaining, noted how racist and populist parties have strengthened their positions across the world.

He cited US president Donald Trump, Frances Marine le Pen and Hungarys Viktor Orban as examples.

We have chosen another path, he said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The September election produced a hung parliament with the left-leaning side and the centre-right bloc securing about 40 per cent of the vote each, leaving neither with a majority and paving the way for months of complex coalition talks.

To get the support from two centre-right parties, Mr Lofven had to compromise over labour laws, causing irritation from his partys union backers and those within his party.

Mr Lofven will present his government and start his second term as prime minister on Monday.

Agencies contributed to this report
Drilling machines have been brought in to help in the search for a two-year-old boy who has been trapped in a well in Spain for five days.

Julen Rosello fell into the 110-metre (360-foot) shaft while walking with his parents in a mountainous area in Totalan, northeast of Malaga.

The well is so narrow rescuers are not able to get down it, so have been forced to use machinery to drill tunnels.

However a blockage was found two thirds of the way down and now further tunnels will need be drilled to create alternative routes to the toddler.

The terrains geology is complicated, and thats slowing down the works, Angel Garcia, the leading engineer coordinating the search-and-rescue operation, said.

Authorities have said there are hopes Julen could still be alive if there is enough oxygen under the obstruction.

More than 100 professionals and volunteers had earlier found a bag of sweets in the well but two cameras were lowered into the shaft were not able to capture any trace of the toddler.

Later rescuers found several strands of hair, which were DNA tested and shown to belong to the child.

The boys dad, Jose Rosello, told reporters the family were not going to give up and have hope that he is not dead.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

He said: I feel like we have [been] here for months, adding while he feared the worst, he had hope for an angel to help us bring him back alive.

Agencies contributed to this report
More than a million French women were forced to endure sexist insults in 2017 with only four convictions for breaches of sexual harrassment laws, a report has found.

The report by Frances High Council for Gender Equality (HCE) is the major first investigation into sexism to be carried out in France.

Sexist insults are described in the research as daily violence faced by women. The most frequently reported insults were salope (slut), pute (whore) and connasse (bitch).

But these experiences were found to be rarely reported to the police, with the report finding official complaints were filed in just 3 per cent of cases in 2017.

Sexism in France is still prevalent, widespread and yet still very rarely condemned, the report said.

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Last year politicians approved legislation which introduced fines of up to 750 (650) for wolf-whistling or sexual harassment on the street.

French president Emmanuel Macron said the legislation was introduced to ensure women are not afraid to be outside.

The move came after footage of a young French woman being punched in the face after confronting a man harassing her in Paris provoked fury around the world.

The assault was captured on CCTV and shared widely on social media  sparking a debate about sexual harassment and the treatment of women.

Marlene Schiappa, the French equalities minister said shortly afterwards: It is not acceptable that in France, in 2018, women are hit in the street because they refuse to be insulted when they walk. It is a fundamental issue of liberty.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The latest report found women represent the overwhelming majority of victims of sexist insults and most offenders were men.

The HCE called on the government to encourage increased awareness about sexism through campaigns and training, deliver greater support for victims and push for more convictions of perpetrators.

It also called for an annual poll of citizens to increase understanding of the scope of the problem.

Sexism is not inevitable and it is not natural. It is a deadly ideology, which must be fought vigorously, HCE president Danielle Bousquet said.

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In 2016, a report revealed half of women in France opt to wear trousers rather than skirts when they take public transport to avoid having to suffer sexual harassment.

Its often in the Metro, Chloe, a 19-year-old student in Paris told French newspaper Le Parisien. The last time was three weeks ago: I got a comment that my trousers molded my buttocks. I did not answer so he called me a little slut.
A man has been arrested over the death of an Israeli exchange student who was raped and killed while walking home at night in Melbourne.

Aiia Maasarwe was on the phone to her sister when she was attacked, shortly after getting off a tram on her way back from a comedy night on Tuesday. Her body was later found near La Trobe University in the city's north.

Police said a 20-year-old was taken into custody on Friday morning in the neighbouring suburb of Greensborough. They did not say whether any charges have been filed.

The 21-year-old victim was studying at La Trobe as an exchange student from Shanghai University in China.

Police have not detailed the attack on Ms Maasarwe, which they assume was random and opportunistic.

A 20-year-old man sits in a police car after he was arrested for questioning over the death of Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe in Melbourne (AP)

Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed that she had been raped before her body was found behind a hedge not far from the tram stop.

"I just want to begin by saying how devastated I am by the despicable, tragic and violent killing and rape of Aiia Maasarwe," Mr Morrison told reporters in Fiji.

Recommended Israeli women killed in Melbourne after being followed home from night

"Every woman in Australia - every person in Australia - should be able to travel home in safety. I can't begin to think of what I could say to her family," he added.

Her uncle, Abed Kittani, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp that Ms Maasarve was speaking by phone to a younger sister when she was attacked.

"She heard the cars passing by and she was helpless, she couldn't do anything," Mr Kittani said of the sister. The sister sent messages, but there was no response.

"Instead of coming home with a diploma, she is coming back in a coffin," Mr Kittani said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Another uncle, Rame Maasarwe, said: "We cannot believe that something like this happened in Australia, we think it's very safe there."

On Friday, her father Saeed Maasarve stopped by a floral memorial to his daughter at La Trobe University. He travelled to Melbourne to bring her body home.

The Melbourne community organised a vigil outside Victoria state parliament. A tram carrying only flowers will depart from there following the route of her final journey later on Friday.

"Tonight, on the steps of parliament, Victorians will gather to remember Aiia Maasarwe. Positive. Fun. 'The kindest girl.' A 21-year-old just making her way in the world, with her whole life ahead of her. A student on her way home after a comedy show with friends," Victorian premier Daniel Andrews tweeted.

Additional reporting by AP
The US Navy could still send an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait in spite of Chinese military technology advances which pose a greater threat to American warships than ever before, the US chief of naval operations has said.

Such an operation would inevitably increase the risk of military conflict between the world's largest superpowers, which are currently locked in an escalating trade war and ongoing disputes over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Washington sent ships through the strategic waterway, which separates Taiwan from the Chinese mainland, three times last year, but has not dispatched a carrier in more than 10 years.

During that time, China has modernised its forces with missiles specifically designed to strike enemy ships.

We dont really see any kind of limitation on whatever type of ship could pass through those waters, Admiral John Richardson told reporters in Tokyo, Japan, when asked if more advanced Chinese weapons posed too large a risk.

We see the Taiwan Strait as another [stretch of] international waters, so thats why we do the transits.

Aircraft carriers, which are typically equipped with around 80 aircraft and crews of around 5,000 personnel, are key to the US militarys ability to project power globally.

Admiral Richardson, who visited China before travelling to Japan, said he told his Chinese counterparts the US was opposed to any unilateral action by Beijing or Taipei.

He also urged China to stick to internatioanl rules during unplanned naval encounters.

The request came after a Chinese destroyer approached the USS Decatur in October and forced it to change course as it challenged Chinese territorial claims in the contested South China Sea during a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP).

We have made this very clear that this was an excursion, a departure from the normal adherence to those rules and we would hope that behaviour in the future would be much more consistent, Admiral Richardson said.

We should not see each other as a threatening presence in these waters.

The US Navy continues to send warships through waters in the South China Sea that Beijing considers its territory.

Last week, a US guided-missile destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese-occupied island in the South China Sea, prompting Beijing to complain it had gravely infringed upon Chinas sovereignty.

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China claims almost all of the strategic waterway, through which around $3trn (2.3trn) of shipborne trade passes each year. Competing claims have been made by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Taiwan.

It has threatened to further fortify its military installations on artificial islands and reefs amid escalating tensions with the US.

Additional reporting by Reuters
A Chinese police traffic officer reportedly collapsed and died after working continuously for 24 hours.

Jiang Ruihua is thought to have suffered a brain haemorrhage while on duty in the southwestern city of Chongqing on Wednesday.

The senior traffic officer, who had been working non-stop for more than a day at the time of his death, was preparing to start morning rush hour duty when he collapsed in his office at around 6.40am.

After discovering he had not been present during his shift, an assistant police officer went to investigate more than two hours later and discovered his body.

Paramedics were unable to resuscitate the 55-year-old and he died around 30 minutes later, police sources said.

Colleagues of Jiang, a senior officer with more than 30 years experience in the job, paid tribute to him, describing him as a model of excellence at work.

Yang Yi, police captain for Chongqings northern Yubei district, said the officer had been the first person into work every morning and the last to leave every night.

It was hard to accept yesterdays sudden news, how can a person just go away? It hurts, he told the Chongqing Daily.

Pengbei He, a young police officer working in the city, was reduced to tears as he described the influence Jiang had on his career.

Every time I encounter an urgent and dangerous task, he has always taken the initiative as the leader, he added.

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In a final social media post before his death, Jiang had reportedly lamented that more than 400 police officials had died on duty across China during 2018.

In 2018, 301 public security police officers and 141 police assistants died in public. 301+141=442, this is the toughest math problem in 2018, he wrote.

442 comrades have never seen the new year and 442 families have lost their children, loved ones, and parents.
The central role of Chinas police force is to protect the Communist Party regime from popular uprisings, the countrys most senior police official has said.

Speaking in an address marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of modern-day China, public security minister Zhao Kezhi said that maintaining social control and safeguarding political security were top priorities for the security forces.

It comes as Human Rights Watch identified China in an annual report as one of the biggest threats to human rights worldwide, listing incidents in the past year where the authorities cracked down on individuals freedom of expression and public protests.

China stopped publishing its interior security budget in 2014, after figures showed it had outstripped military spending for three years in a row.

And while its police force has long been tasked with stamping out any challenges to the Communist Partys supremacy, such efforts have intensified under Chinese president Xi Jinping, who has displayed increasingly autocratic tendencies, according to Human Rights Watch, and last year did away with presidential term limits.

Mr Xi and other party leaders attribute grassroots movements for political change to Western influence, and likewise refer to concepts like democracy as tools wielded by the West to further its own aims. In July last year, a court sentenced prominent political cartoonist Jiang Yefei to six and a half years in prison for subversion of state power.

(We) must firmly defend our national security, with regime and system security at its core, and firmly defend the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and our nations socialist system, Mr Zhao told the meeting of ministry personnel in Beijing.

Chinas police must stress the prevention and resistance of colour revolutions and firmly fight to protect Chinas political security, he said.

The term colour revolution refers to popular uprisings experienced in the mid-2000s by the former Soviet states Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, which saw the removal of long-established rulers and the election of new heads of state.

China cancels Christmas Show all 7 1 /7 China cancels Christmas China cancels Christmas A man sells Christmas decorations on a street of Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas a promoter dressed as a teddy bear rest along a retail street in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas A family walk past images of Santa Claus in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas A worker guards the entrance of a shop decorated with images of Santa Claus in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas Sales staff from an apparel shop dance wearing Christmas themed costumes to promote a year end sales in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas Sales staff from an apparel shop dance wearing Christmas themed costumes to promote a year end sales in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas a sales person waits for customers near a Christmas tree decoration in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Historians have since argued that these movements created periods of great instability without a corresponding breakthrough for democratic values.

Chinese officials have previously mentioned such uprisings as a warning to their own people about the trouble that might result from overthrowing long-standing governments.

The Xi government is pulling out all the stops in 2019 to show off the achievements of the Peoples Republic as it marks its 70th year.

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The centrepiece of the celebrations will be the Beijing Expo, a five-month long trade fair featuring exhibits from more than 100 countries and international organisations, which organisers say will attract 16 million visitors.

The Expo will run up until the 1 October, 70 years from the day the Peoples Republic was founded, when Mr Xi will oversee a grand military parade in Tiananmen Square of unseen scale, according to state media.
US lawmakers revived a bill on Thursday that could pave the way for sanctions against China over its mass internment of Muslim ethnic minorities in the western region of Xinjiang.

The Senate bill, which would create new positions within the State Department, FBI and US intelligence agencies to study issues related to the ongoing internment programme, represents a steady escalation of pressure from Washington over a Chinese campaign that has held as many as 1 million people, mostly ethnic Uighur Muslims, in extrajudicial indoctrination centres.

The introduction of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act by Senators Marco Rubio, R-Fla, and Robert Menendez, D-NJ, come at a time when sentiment towards Beijing in Washington is hardening - across political parties and branches of government - over a litany of issues from trade disputes to technology theft to geopolitical competition to human rights.

A similar bill was introduced in November but was not taken up in the Senate before the congressional session ran out.

In the past two years, China has established a network of indoctrination centres in Xinjiang that operate outside its courts and have systematically interned up to 1 million people, according to the United Nations. The detentions have been accompanied by efforts to dilute Uighur language and culture as well as all-encompassing digital surveillance and collection of DNA on a practically unprecedented scale.

Beijing has bristled at international scrutiny and the threat of US sanctions over the programme, calling it an example of American overreach into its domestic affairs. After initially denying the detention centres existence, China in October began rolling out a vigorous defence of the programme as a counterterror measure to purge Islamic extremism from a vast, unstable territory bordering Central Asia.

As part of the new Senate bill, which is accompanied by a similar measure in the House, the FBI would be tasked with investigating whether Uighurs living in the US have been intimidated by Chinese state security in its globe-spanning efforts over the last two years to repatriate them for indoctrination.

The bill also reiterates calls for financial and travel sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials involved in the detention program, something Mr Rubio has previously called on the Treasury Department to pursue.

The State Department is currently leading a US interagency effort to develop policies in response to the Xinjiang crackdown, Mr Rubio said in a statement. "The time to act is now," he said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The proposed act come at a time when US-China relations are fraying on several fronts despite fitful progress in trade negotiations. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that federal prosecutors could soon indict Huawei for stealing trade secrets, adding a fresh allegation against a Chinese company that is already in US crosshairs for its alleged deals with Iran.

Earlier this week, bipartisan lawmakers from both houses introduced legislation that would ban the sale of US chips to Huawei and ZTE, a prospect that would potentially cripple the operations of the two globally successful Chinese firms. The Chinese Foreign Ministry called the measure American "hysteria" and said it represented the bill's sponsors' "arrogance" and lack of self-confidence.

In a statement, Mr Menendez said the Uighur human rights bill was part of a broader, tougher US tack against Beijing.

"This legislation is an acknowledgment that we are now in a new era of strategic competition with China," he said. "I am proud to help lead this important effort so we don't abandon our values and simply turn a blind eye as a million Muslims are unjustly imprisoned and forced into labour camps by an autocratic Chinese regime."

Amid growing criticism coming from a coalition of 15 Western countries, the United Nations and hundreds of scholars worldwide, Chinese officials this month invited media and diplomats, almost all from Muslim-majority countries, on tightly managed tours of Xinjiang to show what they said were happy Uighurs singing and receiving education voluntarily.

The government-sponsored tour, which excluded all Western countries, suggests the possibility that China may eventually invite United Nations inspectors to Xinjiang.

China said in January it would welcome the UN to inspect the region if it abided by Chinese law and procedures and was "unbiased."

The Washington Post
Donald Trump has quoted a right-wing newspaper's anonymous source who made an entirely unsubstantiated claim that "prayer mats" had been found at the US-Mexico border.

In an apparent attempt to stir up Islamophobic sentiment in his ongoing effort to secure funding for his wall along the southern border, the president used an early morning tweet to refer to a story in conservative publication The Washington Examiner.

"Border rancher: 'Weve found prayer rugs out here. Its unreal.' Washington Examiner," he wrote, referring to the headline of the story before adding, "People coming across the Southern Border from many countries, some of which would be a big surprise."

The tweet arrived as Mr Trump refuses to budge on his demands for $5.7bn to be included in the next federal spending bill to go towards his campaign promise of a wall stretching the entirety of the US-Mexico border  a battle that has spurred the longest government shutdown in American history. The newly-elected Democratic Congress has also refused to back down over its rejection of the presidents demands.

Mr Trump  who has regularly railed against major news outlets as the fake news media and regularly downplays anonymous sources leaking information from his White House  faced immediate backlash over the apparent hypocrisy in sharing the unsubstantiated claims.

The controversial tweet was just the latest suggestion from the president that Muslims were flocking into the country from the nations southern border, following previous claims that terrorists and members of ISIS were included in the thousands of refugees and migrants forming caravans from Latin American countries to safely travel to the US.

Ranchers and farmers near the US-Mexico border have been finding prayer rugs on their properties in recent months, according to one rancher who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by cartels who move the individuals, the story begins, going on to explain that mats are pieces of carpet that those of the Muslim faith kneel on as they worship.

"Theres a lot of people coming in not just from Mexico," the anonymous rancher reportedly told the publication. "People, the general public, just dont get the terrorist threats of that. Thats whats really scary. You dont know whats coming across. Weve found prayer rugs out here. Its unreal. Its not just Mexican nationals that are coming across."

The president has previously implored his supporters to avoid reading any articles attributing quotes to unnamed officials, writing on Twitter in August of last year, Anytime you see anonymous source, stop reading the story, it is fiction!

The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Show all 15 1 /15 The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Texas and Mexico are connected by entry points like these. US Border Patrol in Laredo, Texas conducts daily patrols throughout the Rio Grande, snaking between the US and Mexico, where it searches for migrants and drug traffickers. The legal entry point to Mexico can be seen above the riverines frequently used by cartels to funnel narcotics into the US. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol US Customs and Border Protection oversees its side of the entry point. US Customs and Border Protection officers oversee the processing of nearly two million trucks and three million pedestrians annually at the Laredo sector, which also processes the majority of trade between the US and Mexico. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The Rio Grande snakes between Mexico and the United States. The US and Mexico have bordering coastlines in Laredo Texas, where the Rio Grande's occasionally rough currents splash onto both nations' shores. For migrants attempting to enter into either country, the swim is much more dangerous than it appears. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Drug traffickers and migrants use "highways" to cross the border. US Border Patrol agents call worn pathways like these "highways," as they are frequently used by drug traffickers and migrants entering into the US. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The journey is still far from over. If they're able to make it onto land, many obstacles still remain for migrants and drug traffickers. US Border Patrol agents are equipped with high-tech security, K-9 units and aerial camera footage surveilling 40 miles of borderlands. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Border Patrol uses classic methods and high-tech to surveil the border. A control room at the Laredo sector headquarters is fully-manned 24/7 with a team of local employees who alert agents on the ground of border crossings in real-time. Their cameras live-stream 40 miles of the 170 mile territory the sector covers. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The US provides trusted traveler programs on both its southern and northern borders. Officers lead the way to Sentri offices, which runs a trusted traveller program from US and Mexican local residents who regularly cross the border for work or leisure purposes. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The pathway to freedom. Once travellers are processed, they walk up this ramp towards the US. Many Mexicans cross the border each day with collapsable shopping carts to buy goods while visiting the country. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol But first, the wait. A dog waits for their owner to go through processing with US Customs and Border Patrol. On a good day, processing can take under an hour. On a bad day, well, there's just no telling how long one might be stuck inside the Laredo sector field offices. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The first lady of CBP. Inside the Laredo field offices, US Border Patrol agents keep a framed photo of Christine Davis, the first female agent to join the federal agency in 1975. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol "The hall of fame." US Border Patrol also honors those who have served in the agency for over thirty years. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Officers inspect a vehicle in secondary processing. Outside, officers are conducting secondary inspection on a vehicle that's been pulled aside for further investigating. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The waiting room for detained migrants. A US Customs and Border Protection officer shows the inside of a holding room where people requiring further questioning go through secondary processing. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol A man and his daughter go through processing. US Customs and Border Protection also regularly provides humanitarian visas and other temporary permissions for people with valid reasons seeking entry to the US. Here, a father and his daughter await to see whether they will be provided one of those visas. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Laredo processes over three million pedestrians annually. Thousands of legal asylum seekers, migrants and refugees seek entry to the US through the southern border annually, where they go through processing at offices like this after arriving at a legal port of entry. For many, the trip can take days, if not weeks or even months. Chris Riotta

The notion that ISIS or other terror groups could be operating near the US-Mexico border is a rightwing conspiracy theory that has been routinely debunked since the rumours became popular fodder amongst conservative circles beginning in 2014, when a Republican lawmaker took to Fox News to claim ISIS militants were being apprehended during border crossings.

Mr Trumps tweet also arrived after a explosive report in BuzzFeed News claimed the president had instructed his longtime former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to lie during his Congressional testimony about a Trump Tower deal in Moscow he was reportedly exploring throughout the 2016 presidential campaign.

Later on Friday morning, the president tweeted, Another big Caravan heading our way. Very hard to stop without a wall!
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un will meet for a second time at a summit in February, the White House has announced.

The announcement came shortly after Mr Trump and secretary of state Mike Pompeo met with a North Korean envoy on Friday.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Mr Trump met with Kim Yong-chol for 90 minutes to discuss denuclearisation and a second summit.

The president has discussed having a second summit with Mr Kim several times since their historic first meeting in Singapore.

The second summit was announced despite reports that North Korea is still developing nuclear and missile technology.

Recommended Trump meets with North Korean envoy in the Oval Office

On Wednesday, vice president Mike Pence said dialogue between Mr Trump and Mr Kim has been promising but that we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.

During the first summit, North Korea pledged to take steps towards denuclearisation.

But according to an NBC report citing US intelligence assessments in July, North Korea had increased production of fuel for nuclear weapons in recent months.

The Trump administrations newly released missile defence review also makes it clear that North Korea is still an extraordinary threat to the United States due to its missile and nuclear programme, and that the US must remain vigilant.

The reports contradict Mr Trumps previous claim that there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.

Mr Kim has also expressed his frustration with the lack of progress by the US on its side of the agreement, which would see Mr Trump lift economic sanctions on North Korea.

According to Ms Sanders, the United States plans to keep sanctions in place until North Korea adopts a verifiable denuclearisation plan.

Despite evidence that North Korea is not following the terms of the agreement, Mr Kim has also discussed the possibility of a second summit recently. During a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would be pursuing another meeting to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community, Chinas official Xinhua news agency reported.

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The stalemate has continued between the two leaders despite Mr Trumps insistence in September that himself and Mr Kim fell in love after exchanging beautiful letters.
Big Bear and Snow Summit were open Thursday, although rain was in the forecast with highs in the 40s. For the Martin Luther King long weekend, the resorts were predicting highs in the 50s Saturday and Sunday and in the 40s on Monday.
Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States two years ago, standing in front of a crowd far smaller than that of Barack Obama, but with a slate of campaign promises arguably just as long as his predecessors was before taking office.

The first two years of Mr Trumps tenure in the White House featured a learning curve for the president, who held zero political experience upon assuming the Oval Office in 2016. He would soon learn that promises are much easier to make along the campaign trail than they are to actually fulfil while serving in elected office.

For example, Mr Trump vowed to bring US forces home from the Middle East before becoming president, then sent thousands of additional forces to Afghanistan the year after his election; as a businessman, he said hed be able to produce the best trade deals in history but has since become entrenched in a tit-for-tat trade war with Chinese president Xi Jinping; his plan was to repeal Mr Obamas landmark healthcare initiative on his first day in office, and yet thousands of Americans have enrolled into the program since his presidency.

Hes revived the decades-old political slogan promises made, promises kept, and yet the truth surrounding Mr Trumps campaign vows is more complicated than a four-word catchphrase.

Heres where the presidents major campaign promises stand two years after his inauguration.

Promises kept

Nominating conservatives to the Supreme Court: The president doubled up on his promise of nominating a conservative justice, selecting both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the nations highest court.

Both justices were confirmed despite contentious battles  especially for Mr Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault by numerous women who came forward during his nomination process.

Now, as 85-year-old liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg draws headlines over a cancer scare and three broken ribs, the White House has reportedly taken steps to begin reviewing a third potential conservative nominee to the Supreme Court.

Withdrawal from Paris Climate Accord: Despite outcry from Democrats, climate activists and world leaders, Mr Trump announced the US would withdraw from the agreement his predecessor helped broker a few short years before his election.

While the US has continued to attend negotiation meetings over the agreement, the nation remains officially withdrawn from the accord, which seeks to reduce the adverse impact global societies have on carbon emissions and climate change.

Delivering tax cuts: Besides his hardline stance on immigration issues and calls for Republican judges on the Supreme Court, Mr Trumps campaign was buoyed by his vows to deliver tax cuts to Americas working class.

The corporate tax cuts the Republicans passed last year did in fact provide reductions for many Americans, though those are set to expire and will require another vote to be reinstated. The corporate cuts will remain in effect, however.

Promises abandoned

Mexican-funded border wall: Mr Trump kicked off his presidential campaign by railing against Mexican immigrants entering the United States and vowing to have the nations southern neighbour pay for a wall sprawling the entirety of the US-Mexico border.

His battle for border wall funding has spurred the longest government shutdown in American history  and Mexico has no plans on paying for the wall.

The story has changed in recently, with Mr Trumps White House suggesting he never actually said Mexico would pay for the wall. To be clear, here is his statement from the launch of his campaign: I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and Ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and Ill have Mexico pay for that wall.

The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Show all 15 1 /15 The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Texas and Mexico are connected by entry points like these. US Border Patrol in Laredo, Texas conducts daily patrols throughout the Rio Grande, snaking between the US and Mexico, where it searches for migrants and drug traffickers. The legal entry point to Mexico can be seen above the riverines frequently used by cartels to funnel narcotics into the US. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol US Customs and Border Protection oversees its side of the entry point. US Customs and Border Protection officers oversee the processing of nearly two million trucks and three million pedestrians annually at the Laredo sector, which also processes the majority of trade between the US and Mexico. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The Rio Grande snakes between Mexico and the United States. The US and Mexico have bordering coastlines in Laredo Texas, where the Rio Grande's occasionally rough currents splash onto both nations' shores. For migrants attempting to enter into either country, the swim is much more dangerous than it appears. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Drug traffickers and migrants use "highways" to cross the border. US Border Patrol agents call worn pathways like these "highways," as they are frequently used by drug traffickers and migrants entering into the US. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The journey is still far from over. If they're able to make it onto land, many obstacles still remain for migrants and drug traffickers. US Border Patrol agents are equipped with high-tech security, K-9 units and aerial camera footage surveilling 40 miles of borderlands. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Border Patrol uses classic methods and high-tech to surveil the border. A control room at the Laredo sector headquarters is fully-manned 24/7 with a team of local employees who alert agents on the ground of border crossings in real-time. Their cameras live-stream 40 miles of the 170 mile territory the sector covers. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The US provides trusted traveler programs on both its southern and northern borders. Officers lead the way to Sentri offices, which runs a trusted traveller program from US and Mexican local residents who regularly cross the border for work or leisure purposes. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The pathway to freedom. Once travellers are processed, they walk up this ramp towards the US. Many Mexicans cross the border each day with collapsable shopping carts to buy goods while visiting the country. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol But first, the wait. A dog waits for their owner to go through processing with US Customs and Border Patrol. On a good day, processing can take under an hour. On a bad day, well, there's just no telling how long one might be stuck inside the Laredo sector field offices. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The first lady of CBP. Inside the Laredo field offices, US Border Patrol agents keep a framed photo of Christine Davis, the first female agent to join the federal agency in 1975. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol "The hall of fame." US Border Patrol also honors those who have served in the agency for over thirty years. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Officers inspect a vehicle in secondary processing. Outside, officers are conducting secondary inspection on a vehicle that's been pulled aside for further investigating. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The waiting room for detained migrants. A US Customs and Border Protection officer shows the inside of a holding room where people requiring further questioning go through secondary processing. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol A man and his daughter go through processing. US Customs and Border Protection also regularly provides humanitarian visas and other temporary permissions for people with valid reasons seeking entry to the US. Here, a father and his daughter await to see whether they will be provided one of those visas. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Laredo processes over three million pedestrians annually. Thousands of legal asylum seekers, migrants and refugees seek entry to the US through the southern border annually, where they go through processing at offices like this after arriving at a legal port of entry. For many, the trip can take days, if not weeks or even months. Chris Riotta

The prosecution of Hillary Clinton: Lock her up was another infamous rallying cry from Mr Trumps 2016 presidential campaign that failed to come to fruition.

Mr Trump quickly walked back his frequently repeated promises to incarcerate the former secretary of state upon taking office, though he has since nominated an attorney general pick who has said the Justice Department has a stronger legal basis to investigate her charity foundation that it did his alleged obstruction of justice.

So, for now, this is another promise abandoned.

Repealing and replacing Affordable Care Act: The president vowed to scrap Mr Obamas healthcare legislation, otherwise known as Obamacare, on his first day in office.

Despite several attempts to repeal the law and additional attempts to replace it with a Republican substitute, the Republican-held House of Representatives and Senate failed to push through an alternative option. Lawmakers also decidedly voted against an all-out repeal of the bill without any substitute, leaving Mr Trumps campaign promise all but shattered.

Labelling China currency manipulator: As president, Mr Trump also promised to begin labelling China a currency manipulator immediately after assuming the White House.

His administration has stopped short of doing that, however. In a 2018 interview, the president claimed Beijing actually was not a currency manipulator and had been actively working to prevent weakening its currency.

Mr Trump gained nationwide attention along the campaign trail by boldly stating China  one of the worlds largest economic powers  was raping the US economy.

Historic infrastructure improvement: The president demanded $1.5tn in infrastructure spending after winning his election, promising along the campaign trail that Americas infrastructure will become, by the way second to none.

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Instead, he received just $21bn for the initiatives in 2018, with little progress done on nationwide improvements to the countrys failing bridges and roadways, as well as major airports.

Approving the use of torture: Mr Trump made an unusual case throughout the 2016 election for something that isnt typically a campaign promise, telling stadiums of supporters, torture works.

The president vowed he would immediately approve the use of waterboarding, but has since backed his former CIA director Mike Pompeos belief the US should not reinstate the practice.
Ten days before he was even sworn into office in 2017 Donald Trump was tweeting about the political witch hunt against him  and since then the phrase has appeared in more than 150 other tweets.

As for Russia, that has appeared more than 300 times since the president was elected. The vast majority of mentions related to what has become special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

The Mueller probe has been a constant presence around Mr Trumps White House, and after two years in office it has never been closer to the president. From former associates appearing in court, to current officials testifying to Congress, the drip-drip of details about the investigation continues.

Unlike in other areas of his presidency, Mr Trump has been consistent in stating that has been no collusion between his administration and Moscow. But as investigators continue to nibble away at his former inner circle  five former Trump advisors are among the more than 30 people who have indicted or pleaded guilty to crimes  the scope of the investigation expands.

Take Mr Trumps former lawyer Michael Cohen for instance. Last year he pleaded guilty to financial crimes and campaign finance violations relating to hush money payments to two women, adult actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who have claimed affairs with the president. Mr Trump has denied the accusations of affairs, but Cohen has claimed he was working at the behest of the president over those payments  something the White House has also denied.

Recommended Mueller disputes report claiming Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress

That financial case was passed to New York federal prosecutors by Mr Muellers team, with Cohen later pleading guilty to another charge from the special counsel of lying to Congress about a Trump building project in Moscow. Cohen is due to start a three-year prison sentence over the charges in March, but will publicly testify to Congress about his work for the president on 7 February.

Another two stories this week have come out around Cohen. He has acknowledged paying an IT firm to try and manipulate online polls in 2014 and 2015 in favour of Mr Trump. Again, he has claimed it was at the direction of the president. A second, and seemingly more serious, report by Buzzfeed News alleges that Mr Trump asked Cohen to lie to Congress about the details of plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, a project that did not come to fruition. The report, citing two law enforcement officials, says that Mr Trump received reports from Cohen on the project at a time when the president was saying publicly he had no business ties to Russia.

Democrats in Congress have pledged to investigate the report, with Mr Trump having repeatedly denied ever asking his former lawyer to break the law. A number of Democrats have called on Trump to resign if the allegations prove to be true.

The special counsel's office has since disputed the accuracy of the story, however, in a rare on-the-record statement.

Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Show all 23 1 /23 Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Joe Biden The former vice president - poised to be a frontrunner - has announced his run. He recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Bernie Sanders The 2016 runner-up has announced that he will be running again in 2020 Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Hillary Clinton The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State says she is still considering whether she will run again. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Pete Buttigieg The Indiana mayor and war veteran will be running for president. If elected, he would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kamala Harris The former California attorney general will be running for president in 2020. Introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony, she has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts Senator has formally launched her bid for president in 2020. A progressive Democrat, she is a major supporter of regulating Wall Street. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Beto ORourke The former Texas congressman told Oprah Winfrey that he has been thinking about running for presidency, but stopped short of formally announcing his bid to run in 2020. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam has announced his bid. He intends to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. Vice News Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has announced that he will be running for the presidency in 2020. If he secures the nomination he said finding a female vice president would be a priority. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but is likely to face tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Andrew Yang The entrepreneur has announced his presidential candidacy, and has pledged that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual advisor has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Kerry The former secretary of state has said he is still thinking about whether to run. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Michael Bloomberg The entrepreneur and former New York mayor with a net worth of around $50bn  has said he will decide by the end of February whether to seek the presidency. AFP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Howard Schultz Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has not yet ruled out running for president in 2020, despite criticism that his bid could help re-elect Mr Trump by dividing the Democrat vote. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Holder The former attorney general has said he will decide in the next month or so whether to run as a 2020 presidential candidate. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Swalwell The California congressman said he is ready to do this and will decide before April whether to run. MSNBC Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Terry McAuliffe The former Virginia governor, who worked to elect Democratic governors during 2018 midterms, said there was a 50 per cent chance he would run. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Sherrod Brown The Ohio senator is still undecided about whether to run for president in 2020. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Mitch Landrieu The former New Orleans mayor said he doesnt think he will run for president, but never say never. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

In the main, Mr Trump has always seemed to want to take the route of letting the storms of outrage surrounding the Mueller investigation to play out around him; repeating his denials and displaying his frustration about the probe without taking further action. However, the action he has taken has been high-profile. He forced out his former attorney general Jeff Sessions after months of complaining about how he had recused himself from overseeing the Mueller probe, and fired former FBI director James Comey  who had been in charge of the federal probe  are examples of that.

As the president moves into the second half of his term, the clamour over the Mueller investigation will only grow more frenzied. Given the flurry of court cases in the last few months, including that surrounding Mr Trumps former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the odds are that Mr Mueller is close to wrapping up his probe. However, with the Democrats now in charge of half of Congress  having taken the majority in the House of Representatives  investigations into Mr Trumps personal and business life will only likely increase.

Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trumps lead lawyer dealing with the Mueller investigation and a former New York mayor, has repeatedly called for the probe to end. He had predicted in May last year that the special counsels investigation would end in September, so as not to risk affecting the midterm elections.

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In a sign that Mr Trump will face more strife from the Mueller investigation during his next two years in office, Mr Giuliani  who has become known for his contradictory statements to the press  suggested earlier this week that he never said there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, claiming only that Mr Trump himself was not involved in collusion.

Before the latest Cohen reports were published on Thursday, Mr Giuliani attempted to clarify his comments, saying that he had no knowledge of collusion taking place.

All of this adds up to the fact that Mr Trump will have to be ready for Mr Muellers investigation to hang like an albatross around his neck for some time yet. Even if the special counsel does submit his report soon, there will likely be arguments about how much will be made public. Mr Trumps latest pick for attorney general to replace Mr Sessions  William Barr  spent much of his confirmation hearings this week assuring the Senate that as much of the report as possible would be put into the public domain. And that Mr Mueller would be able to finish his work unencumbered.

Then there are the Democrat-led committees in the House who will no doubt try to arrange as many hearings as possible around the issues raised by the Mueller investigation.

It will likely mean weeks or months more of fallout that the White House will have to deal with, with the potential for it to still be the defining issue as the 2020 presidential campaign picks up into next year. If Mueller finds Mr Trump culpable for any wrongdoing, you can guarantee that being the case.
 Close Donald Trump denies involvement in Moscow project claiming Michael Cohen 'lying'

The White House has denied allegations that Donald Trump ordered former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Law enforcement officials claimed Mr Trump had instructed Cohen to claim negotiations over the Russian project ended months earlier than they actually did, according to explosive new claims.

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders vehemently denied the allegations, reported by Buzzfeed News, during a brief exchange with reporters on the White House driveway.

Look, thats absolutely ridiculous, Ms Sanders said when questioned about the claims. She said the presidents lawyer Rudy Giuliani had addressed the subject and called the report categorically false.

In response to the allegations Mr Trumps lawyer Rudy Giuliani said: Any suggestion  from any source  that the President counselled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false and todays claims are just more made-up lies born of Michael Cohens malice and desperation, in an effort to reduce his sentence.

Ms Sanders was also asked whether Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to rig any polls, referring to the former lawyers admission that he paid a small technology firm thousands of dollars in 2015 to rig online polls at the direction and of the sole benefit of the president.

I think again that one statement  those two words  sum it up better than anything anybody else can say, and that is categorically false, Ms Sanders responded.

Michael Cohen, who last year pleaded guilty to federal crimes while implicating Mr Trump, admitted to paying between $12,000 and $13,000 to the owner of RedFinch Solutions LLC.

The officials said Cohen confirmed to special counsel Robert Muellers team - which is investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia - that Mr Trump instructed the attorney to lie to the Senate and House intelligence committees.

Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures The US Capitol on the first morning of a partial government shutdown in Washington EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures President Trump speaks with children who called the North American Aerospace Defense Command Santa tracker in the State Dining Room of the White House. He earlier in the day, tweeted that he was 'all alone in the White House' waiting for Democrats to make a deal on border security EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Furloughed federal workers pick up free food at a pop-up store of Kraft Heinz Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Hundreds of federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Reuters Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures From left, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Dick Durbin and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi walk to speak to reporters after meeting with President Donald Trump about border security in the Situation Room of the White House. Trump declared he could keep parts of the government shut down for "months or even years" as he and Democratic leaders failed in a second closed-door meeting to resolve his demand for billions of dollars for a border wall with Mexico Evan Vucci AP Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures A sign alerts visitors to the closure of the National Archives on the fifth day of a partial government shutdown EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Hundreds of federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Visitors read signs announcing the closure of the White House Visitor Center EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures President Donald Trump speaks during a round-table discussion on border security and safe communities with State, local, and community leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures A sign alerts visitors to the closure of the White House Visitor Center on the first day of a partial government shutdown EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall  in pictures Furloughed federal workers show their IDs for entering a pop-up store of Kraft Heinz Getty Images

It prompted immediate calls for the president to resign or face impeachment if the allegations were confirmed by Mr Muellers office.

With the US president still mired in deadlock over the government shutdown, the new allegations relating to Mr Cohen  sentenced to three years in prison in December  have prompted calls from top Democrats for his resignation or impeachment.

House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee chair Jerrold Nadler have both pledged to investigate. Mr Schiff said: We will do whats necessary to find out if its true.

Mr Cohen is set to testify before a congressional panel of the House of Representatives on 7 February about his role as Mr Trumps right-hand man, following FBI special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into the presidents alleged ties to Russia.

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A Republican congressman apologised for shouting Go back to Puerto Rico on the House floor on Thursday, said Californias Democrat representative, Tony Cardenas, who Democrats had believed was the target of the verbal attack.

The remark came after Congress had adjourned for the week but politicians exchanged insults as they fought over issues related to a bill to fund the government, according to Politico.

I was shocked, because I often heard those kinds of comments when I was a kid growing up in Pacoima, California, where I was born and raised, Mr Cardenas said in an emailed statement, adding he had been waiting to speak at the moment.

It was initially unclear who made the remark, which came on the same week Republican representative Steve King was stripped of his committee assignments over racist comments.

Missouri Republican representative Jason Smith later admitted to making the statement. But Mr Smiths communications director, Joey Brown, said in an email that the congressman was speaking to all the Democrats who were down vacationing in Puerto Rico last weekend during the shutdown, not any individual.

Mr Cardenas, the youngest son of immigrant parents from Mexico, is the chairman of Bold PAC, the electoral arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which organised a delegation to visit Puerto Rico over the weekend. The trip has been attacked by conservative media and Donald Trump as the longest government shutdown in history continued, The Posts David Weigel reported.

The White House seized on the idea of Democrats partying on the beach instead of negotiating, as polls have found most voters blaming Mr Trump for the 24-day impasse over funding the federal government, the longest shutdown in history. We were not going to let Donald Trump stop us, whether he created a shutdown or whether he wrote mean tweets about us, said Mr Cardenas. Millions of people are being affected all over the country, including in Puerto Rico. Projects are being stopped, right now. And the president is exacerbating this situation, from Puerto Rico to California.

Mr Weigel also reported that politicians flew to Puerto Rico as the White House was reportedly considering ways to divert disaster funds earmarked for hurricane relief towards the construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

On Thursday afternoon House majority leader Steny Hoyer implored members of Congress of the need to be civil to one another.

I would hope that we could refrain from any implications that have any undertones of prejudice or racism or any kind of -ism that would diminish the character and integrity of one of our fellow members, Mr Hoyer said on the House floor.

Mr Cardenas, who has represented Californias 29th District since 2013, told the Hill on Thursday he had immediately confronted his Republican colleagues after hearing the controversial remark, but no one acknowledged saying it.

There was about 50 mostly male Republicans staring at me, and no one would admit that they said it. I asked several times but no one owned up to the fact that they said it, he said.

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Hours later Mr Smith called and took responsibility for the comment and sincerely apologised, Mr Cardenas said. Mr Smith did not respond to a subsequent email asking for comment about his call to Mr Cardenas.

But the congressman from California said he accepted the apology, then shared a saying he said his parents taught him.

De todo lo malo, siempre sale algo bueno, which in English means: From everything bad, something good will come of it.

The Washington Post
Mike Pence has defended his wifes decision to take on a new job teaching art classes at a school that bans LGBT+ employees and students, as well as the children of gay parents.

The vice president referred to media coverage surrounding Karen Pences new job at Immanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia  where she previously taught elementary school classes for 12 years  as deeply offensive, decrying criticism of religious education in the United States.

To see major news organisations attacking Christian education is deeply offensive to us, Mr Pence said in an interview with the Catholic television channel EWTN. We have a rich tradition in America of Christian education and, frankly, religious education broadly defined.

We celebrate it, he continued. The freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.

He added, Well let the other critics roll off our back, but this criticism of Christian education in America should stop.

Ms Pences new role at the elementary school drew a fierce online backlash this week, with reports revealing the school requires potential employees to sign a pledge affirming they will not engage in homosexual activity or violate the unique roles of male and female, HuffPost reported on Tuesday.

The second lady previously worked at Immanuel Christian School for 12 years and her daughter, Charlotte Pence, attended the school as a child.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Mrs Pence has returned to the school where she previously taught for 12 years, her spokesperson, Kara Brooks, said in a statement. Its absurd that her decision to teach art to children at a Christian school, and the schools religious beliefs, are under attack.

Mr Pence has long espoused a hardline view on religious freedoms and marriage, suggesting a traditional union can only exist between a man and woman while passing bills as governor like a religious freedom law, which was criticised for allowing Christian business to allegedly discriminate against the LGBT+ community.

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In a statement announcing her decision to go back to the school, Ms Pence said: I am excited to be back in the classroom and doing what I love to do, which is to teach art to elementary students.

I have missed art, and its great to return to the school where I taught art for 12 years.
At federal law enforcement agencies from the FBI to the DEA to Customs and Border Protection and others, the frustration about having missed a pay-check last week because of the partial government shutdown is growing into fear and anger amid signs the lack of funds is affecting investigations.

The government shutdown, the longest in American history, has dragged down morale across federal agencies as tens of thousands of workers are required to show up with no idea when their pay will resume.

Among agents and prosecutors the concerns are twofold: anger about the lack of pay and alarm the shutdown is hindering more and more investigative work.

Most travel and training among the law enforcement agencies has been cancelled. Many law enforcement officials said some undercover cases, including corruption probes, have been stymied in recent weeks because supervisors feel they cannot approve travel or cash for those operations.

Investigators have been told there is no money to pay informants in some cases, or to covertly buy drugs, or to obtain cash for other criminal investigations, according to law enforcement officials.

Recommended Furloughed NASA employees call on Mitch McConnell to end shutdown

The lack of funding is impacting agents ability to travel to forward their cases, said Thomas OConnor, president of the FBI Agents Association. As we go forward, those funds are not going to be available and in some cases are not available now.

Senior law enforcement officials are increasingly concerned that the anger among the rank and file is growing exponentially and could skyrocket next week if a second straight pay-check is skipped. Those who are charged with protecting the nation from criminals and terrorists could be facing enormous external financial stressors as they try to stay focused on their work.

This isnt PlayStation, this is peoples lives were talking about, said one law enforcement official, who spoke like others on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak publicly about the shutdown. Its awful.

A veteran prosecutor in a US attorneys office said she has stomach pains from the anxiety of not getting paid. The prosecutor said she is her households sole source of income.

I was due for a mammogram, the prosecutor said. Im not at risk, theres no reason to think anythings wrong, but I put it off because I dont want to pay the co-payment ... Its incredibly frustrating and enraging, and Im trying not to think about it.

But it is difficult to ignore, she said. The stress keeps her up at night. One of her children came to me in tears, the prosecutor said, unsure if the family could afford to pay for an upcoming school function.

Thats one of those real consequences that people dont think about, the prosecutor said. Ive got a kid whos stressing out about money. Thats obviously upsetting. We are OK for a while, but we shouldnt have to live like that.

The prosecutor said she is contemplating leaving government work for something more stable in the private sector. And I hate that, she said.

 Cardi B berates Donald Trump over US government shutdown

The spouse of one federal law enforcement official said their family has been eating mostly rice and pasta since the shutdown began, but a relative sent them a grocery store gift card so they could buy protein. The family expects to miss at least one more pay-check, and if they miss two more, they plan to borrow money from relatives.

People do these jobs to protect the community, because they believe in the mission, the spouse said. The public views this as a consumer issue, how it directly affects them. Does anyone care out there that we are not being paid? The answer seems to be no.

At FBI field offices, some employees are discussing setting up food banks for employees if the shutdown lasts much longer.

Adding to the frustration are agency rules making it difficult  and in some cases impossible  for federal agents to get second jobs. Historically, FBI supervisors usually reject requests from agents or employees for outside employment, fearing such work could raise ethical concerns. In recent days, FBI headquarters has changed course, urging field offices to approve such requests as quickly as possible, according to an official familiar with the matter. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment.

At the Secret Service, agents working to protect president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence are among those not being paid for their work. But other than Mr Trumps recent trip to McAllen, Texas, they are largely staying put in Washington, dramatically reducing the travel demands on the agents.

For some, the uncertainty about the shutdown is the most difficult part. Without knowing when pay might resume, people are having to make difficult decisions about what things to cut and how long their savings might last.

We started talking about short-term plans, medium-term plans, long-term plans, said Cher Muzyk, 44, of Nokesville, Virginia. Her husband is an attorney doing national security work for the federal government. Do we use credit cards? Do we take loans? What do we cut back on? We need to hoard cash right now. Our estimate is ... we can pay our bills for about two months.

Nathan Catura, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents more than 26,000 officers in dozens of agencies, said he worries about the strain these financial concerns are putting on agents in the field.

My biggest concern is theres going to be an agent who is not going to be focused on his job, Mr Catura said. Hes going to be out on the street doing some enforcement of something, and hes going to get hurt. Heaven forbid theres an agent who gets killed because his mind isnt on the job.

Mr Catura added: Other law enforcement people I continue to speak to, they share the same concerns. The longer this drags out, the more Im concerned that somethings going to happen.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Law enforcement officials throughout the federal government have been deemed essential during the partial shutdown, which means they have to continue working without pay-checks, prosecuting federal crimes, conducting criminal investigations and more.

They will receive pay for that work when the government reopens, but there is little indication of when that might happen amid a political standoff between Democrats in Congress and Mr Trumps demand Congress include money to build a border wall in its budget.

The level of frustration, I dont know how to articulate it, Mr Catura said. Its so high right now ... People dont want to come into work. Theyre not being paid, and they dont want to come in, and I cant blame them.

The longer the shutdown continues, the more these people feel like pawns, Mr Catura said. He also worries the shutdown could hinder recruitment of good agents down the line, because some might have second thoughts about leaving the stability of state or local law enforcement jobs.

Here we are, these guys are the men and women of federal law enforcement, on the job protecting our country, doing what theyre supposed to do, risking their lives every day, and theyre not getting paid, he said. Thats a tough pill to swallow, especially when your mortgage payment is coming ... your rent is due, you have child support, you have to put food on the table.

According to the Justice Department, most of its employees were deemed essential during the shutdown because a significant portion of the departments mission relates to the safety of human life and the protection of property. In a breakdown of employees deemed essential and exempted from being furloughed, the department described about three-quarters of them as necessary to protect life and property.

The department said employees remaining on the job include those involved in everything from counterterrorism issues and patrolling federal prisons to conducting gun background checks and narcotics investigations. The National Security Division will continue investigations and prosecutions as part of its broad range of duties encompassing terrorism and espionage issues, the Justice Department said in a plan dated 10 January.

The FBI has to be able to continue ongoing investigations and open new ones, so it remains open for business, and all FBI agents and support personnel in the field have been deemed essential, according to the DOJ document. That includes nearly all federal employees supporting the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which conducts background checks for gun purchases.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents in the field and some personnel at headquarters are staying at work, as are agents scattered among Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives field divisions. US Marshals, tasked with a range of duties, from protecting judges to apprehending fugitives, are still on the job.

The Department of Homeland Security said in its shutdown procedures that among those it deemed essential are law enforcement officers protecting lives and property, a list that includes the US Secret Service and authorities involved in inspecting cargo at ports of entry and maintaining law enforcement operations, including drug and illegal alien interdiction.

The Washington Post
Donald Trump has cancelled a planned visit by a US delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, citing the ongoing government shutdown.

Hours after the president refused Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi the use of a military plane for a congressional delegations visit to Afghanistan, the White House said Mr Trump had decided not to send a delegation to Switzerland next week.

Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has cancelled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

Mr Trump visited the forum last year, typically attended by world leaders and major financiers, and delivered a speech in which he said putting America first did not mean America intended to go it alone. Historically I guess theres never really been a businessman or business person elected president, he said. Its always been a general or a politician.

He had been due to attend this years event as well, but changed his plan as the government shutdown, caused by his failure to agree a funding compromise with Democrats that does not include $5.6bn for a border wall, entered its fourth week.

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Instead, the US was to have been represented by Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, trade representative Robert Lighthizer and deputy chief of staff for policy coordination, Chris Liddell, were also scheduled to travel to Switzerland.

Earlier on Thursday, the president denied permission for Ms Pelosi and her delegation to use a military plane for an overseas visit. He claimed it had been done to try and persuade her to stay in Washington to negotiate and end to the partial shutdown that has now reached its 28th day, though many suspected it was pay-back for her suggestion he delay the upcoming State of the Union address.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Ms Pelosi had been scheduled to travel on a military aircraft as part of a congressional delegation to Belgium, where Nato is based, and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there.

In a letter to Pelosi denying her delegation the use of a plane, the president called the trip an excursion, even though the Democrats spokesman said the trip to the Afghanistan war zone was for security and intelligence briefings.

In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate, Mr Trump wrote.

He told Ms Pelosi that if she wish to make the trip flying by commercial aircraft, that would certainly be your prerogative.
A newborn baby girl was found dead in a rubbish bin inside a womens bathroom at an Amazon distribution centre in Phoenix, Arizona.

Investigators have located and spoken with the babys mother, who is co-operating with officers, according to Phoenix Police Department.

Sgt. Vince Lewis said police were not commenting on whether the mother is an Amazon employee to prevent her identity from being revealed.

The Phoenix Police Department said it received a 911 call about a newborn baby found dead inside a womens bathroom around 8.30pm on Wednesday. Firefighters responded to the call and confirmed the baby was dead.

A police investigation was opened in consultation with the Maricopa County medical examiners office.

Recommended Amazon employees taken to hospital after robot unleashes bear spray

Amazon has said it is working with authorities over the tragic incident. This is a terribly sad and tragic incident. We are working with local authorities to support their investigation, the statement read. The safety and wellness of our team is our top priority.

The Amazon warehouse remained in operation while the authorities were on the scene. The distribution centre is one of several company sites in Phoenix.

Under Arizonas Safe Haven Law, people are able to safely turn over their babiesup to three days oldto any qualified childcare authority or health professional.

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In some hospitals, there are special drawers where people can leave their babies without having to speak or explain to anyone their reasoning.

The law, passed in 2001, also states the mothers who follow those instructions will not face prosecution.
Donald Trump met with North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol in the Oval Office to discuss denuclearisation, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has confirmed.

The press secretary released a statement Friday after reports revealed an Oval Office meeting had been scheduled between the president and North Korea's lead negotiator, saying the two "will discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Koreas final, fully verified denuclearisation."

Mr Trump's meeting followed a preliminary exchange between the North Korean official and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who met Mr Yong Chol at a hotel in Washington before travelling to the White House. The two were expected to discuss arrangements for a second summit between the US president and North Korea's regime leader Kim Jong Un.

That meeting lasted under an hour, according to reports, and Mr Pompeo arrived to the White House without the North Korean official shortly after. He did not respond to questions shouted by journalists about how the meeting went. The White House confirmed the second meeting was scheduled for 12:15 p.m., though there was no sign of Mr Yong Chol on the White House grounds by that point.

A State Department spokesman, Robert Palladino, said Mr Pompeo and the North Korean official had a good discussion toward progress on commitments Mr Trump and Mr Kim made at their June summit in Singapore.

The president has spoken several times of having a second summit early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with Mr Kim despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearisation agreement reached at their historic first meeting.

Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology. A planned meeting between Mr Pompeo and Mr Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. US officials said at the time that North Korea had cancelled the session.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Independent analysts are highly skeptical that North Korea will easily abandon a nuclear arsenal constructed in the face of deep poverty and likely seen by the dictator as his only guarantee of his governments survival.

Mr Kim expressed frustration in an annual New Years address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community, according to Chinas official Xinhua News Agency.

Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that the dialogue between Mr Trump and Mr Kim was promising but that we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.

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Mr Trump has offered assurances that a second summit would allow him and Mr Kim to seal a deal resolving the nuclear standoff and improving a relationship marked by decades of animosity and mistrust since the Korean War.

Reporting by AP
A macabre and illegal array of clothing and trinkets made from the parts of endangered animals including elephants and hippos has been found on open sale at a gathering of hunters in the US.

Furniture made of elephant skins and hippo skulls, paintings on ears ripped from dead elephants and belts made of stingray skins were being sold at the annual celebration in Nevada of wildlife trophy-hunting.

The undercover investigators have reported their findings to the authorities, asking them to prosecute.

The 2019 Safari Club International (SCI) convention, held last week, is organised for hunters who kill wildlife worldwide for their heads, hides, teeth and bones.

The investigators from Humane Society International (HSI) said they found more than a dozen stallholders selling apparently illegal products, including:

Paintings on elephant ears and skins

An elephant skin bench

Elephant leather boots, belts, and saddles

An entire mammoth tusk

Stingray skin boots, shoes, belts and purses

Hippo hide belts and boots

Shark skin belts

A narwhal tusk handle knife

They were also offered canned lion hunts, in which buyers may shoot an African lion bred in captivity for the sole purpose of being shot in an enclosed area.

A boot sample made from elephant skin is displayed for custom ordering (HSUS)

SCI said it does not allow such hunts to be sold at conventions but vendors showed investigators sample pictures of lions to kill, priced according to age, size and mane.

One told the undercover investigators he and his children had killed a lion within 90 minutes. Another offered to order an especially large lion to kill.

Kitty Block, president of HSI, said: Seeing these wild animals reduced to nothing more than useless items is grotesque.

The worlds leading trophy-hunting industry group is apparently promoting, enabling, and profiting from the illegal wildlife trade and unethical hunting practices.

Conservation laws and hunting ethics are thrown out the window when profit is involved, driving iconic wildlife such as African elephants toward extinction.

Making money off the opportunity to kill these animals for bragging rights is something that most people find appalling.

Its an elitist hobby of the one per cent, and there is no place for it in todays world.

Audrey Delsink, HSI Africa wildlife director, said: South Africas benchmark role in the captive breeding of lions for trophy hunting is a conservation and welfare disgrace.

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Nevada law makes it illegal to buy or sell parts of species including lions, elephants, rhinos, tigers, leopards, rays and hippos.

Africas wild elephant population is in crisis, with 55 killed on average each day, WWF estimates.

The Independent has asked SCI to comment.
Towson makes sense for us to get in that area, said Jerry Altland, the companys vice president for real estate. Weve tried to get in that area for a long, long time. Its our customer there. Its perfect for us.
Ben, make sure you play Take My Hand, Precious Lord. Play it real pretty, are said to be the last words of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, just before he stepped out onto a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee where a gunman shot him a single time, ending his life half a century ago.

That gunshot 53 years ago put an end to the life of a man who is one of the most revered figures in American history  not to mention one of the most quotable individuals with a persistent relevance to the condition of the country and its people.

Before King made that plea for the sounds of beauty to Ben Branch, a musician scheduled to play at a planned event that evening in Memphis, he was known for using his words to inspire a generation to peaceful action in the fight for civil rights.

Here is the late reverend, in his own words.

I have decided to stick with love. hate is too great a burden to bear

Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty we are free at last.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights 4510050.jpg AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights 4608656-low_res-martin-luther-king-and-the-march-on-washington.jpg BBC In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights martin-luther-king-6.jpg Getty Images In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights martin-luther-king-7.jpg Getty Images In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights georgiamlk.jpg In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights malcom-x-and-martin-luther-king.jpg Library of Congress/ Wiki Commons In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights martin-luther-king-8.jpg Getty Images In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights 359983.bin AP In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights 4260367.jpg AP In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr's campaign for civil rights MLKAFP.jpg AFP/Getty Images

If you cant fly then run, if you cant run then walk, if you cant walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

The time is always right to do what is right.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Lifes most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?

 Martin Luther King Jr's iconic I Have A Dream speech

Faith is taking the first step even when you dont see the whole staircase.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

Every man must decided whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

 March For Our Lives: Martin Luther King's grandaughter Yolanda's speech in Washington DC

There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breath.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think thats pretty important.

All labour that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

"It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of white society.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But the good Samaritan reversed the question: If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?

If I wish to compose or write or pray or perch well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.

A right delayed is a right denied.
Three Chicago police officers have been found not guilty of covering up details related to the 2014 killing of black teenager Laquan McDonald.

Cook County Associate Judge Domenica Stephenson said in her ruling it had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Detective David March, former Officer Joseph Walsh, and Officer Thomas Gaffney had engaged in a conspiracy to keep the 17-year-olds killing from being investigated.

The ruling comes roughly a month after the officers stood for a five-day trial, with each having their own attorney.

Defence lawyers said then that the prosecution had presented a weak case against their clients, and that they had not met the burden of proof requirements to convict the men of the crimes.

Special prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes, however, had argued the men had written false reports in order to keep Jason Van Dyke  who is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of second-degree murder and aggravated in Laquans death  from being prosecuted.

Recommended Chicago officer found guilty over fatal shooting of black teenager

We are here because these officers and others tried to make the case against Van Dyke go away, Ms Brown Holmes said. Laquan McDonald was a human being. He deserved due process in the law and not to have police officers write false reports and shape a false narrative to justify his killing.

In addition to second-degree murder, Van Dyke was found guilty in the fall on 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm for each shot he fired at the teenager.

It took over a year before video of the killing was released to the public, resulting in especially fervent protests of the police department and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Police reports had indicated that Laquan had battered three officers before being shot, but those reports were found to be false. And, while dash cam video showed Laquan walking away from police with a knife, police had also indicated that he had lunged at officers with the four-inch knife.

Other reports claiming that Laquan had threatened Van Dyke with the knife were also untrue, according to the indictment filed in against the officers acquitted of conspiracy on Thursday.
Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez described her extramarital love affair with Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman  and his wild escape from authorities through an underground tunnel  during an explosive testimony at the El Chapo trial under way in New York.

The mistress and former politician says she found herself fleeing with El Chapo and others in 2014 from a safehouse that had been uncovered by Mexican marines, telling a crowded courtroom Thursday the drug lord was naked during his escape.

He took off running, she said. He left us behind.

The account of the mad dash and her tortured romance with Guzman while he was on the run came at a drug trafficking trial that has detailed El Chapos rise and fall as a near-mythical cartel boss.

Guzmans lawyers say the allegations have been fabricated by cooperators seeking leniency in their own cases.

Sanchez, a 29-year-old former local politician in Sinaloa, took the witness stand in jail smocks after pleading guilty earlier this year to drug charges following her arrest last year. She told her tale with Guzmans wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, sitting in the gallery.

The petite and soft-spoken witness said she met Guzman in 2010 and by 2011 was visiting him at his hideouts in Cabo San Lucas and elsewhere, and texting with him on cell phones protected by encryption he gave her. Over time, they began mixing business with pleasure that caused her distress, she said.

Until this day, Im confused because I thought we were in a romantic relationship, she said toward the start of her testimony before she began sobbing and needed a break to compose herself. Later, she said of Guzman, Sometimes I loved him and sometimes I didnt.

As Sanchez continued crying outside of the courtroom, her lapel mic captured her sounds and continued transmitting them through the rooms speakers.

Meanwhile, the New York Post reported Ms Coronel Aispuro  who has regularly attended the hearings  was gleeful and even cackling at one point.

 'El Chapo' Guzman's legal team arrives at court

For Sanchez, the trouble began when El Chapo drafted her to purchase marijuana for him, with instructions to ready 400kg (882 pounds) for each plane used to transport it from the countryside. Prosecutors showed the jury intercepted texts where the pair called each love as they plotted how best to move drugs, though some of Guzmans messages sounded more menacing.

During the 2014 escape, Sanchez testified that Guzman led her into a bathroom where the bathtub was lifted with hydraulics to expose a fortified trap door leading to a dark, damp sewage tunnel. It led to a more remote part of the city, where they made their escape, she said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

She was asked how long she was in the tunnel. Long enough to be traumatised, she said, before her testimony ended for the day.

El Chapo was later captured at a hotel in the resort town of Mazatlan, though he escaped from a Mexican jail in 2016 before being recaptured once again.

Reporting contributed by AP
Theresa May will consider axeing the Human Rights Act after Brexit, despite promising she is committed to its protections, a minister has revealed.

The government will decide on the future of the landmark legislation once the process of leaving the EU concludes, a letter to a parliamentary inquiry says.

The wording was described as troubling by the Lords EU Justice Sub-Committee, which warned the letter casts doubt on repeated pledges to protect the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Is the government sincere in its commitment to the ECHR?, asked Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, the committees chair.

If so, why has it failed to give assurances that it will not repeal or reform the Human Rights Act, which in essence incorporates the rights set out in the ECHR into domestic British law?

The committee wrote to the Ministry of Justice after the alarm was raised by the wording of the political declaration, which was agreed with the EU in December alongside the legally binding divorce deal.

The declaration said the UK would merely agree to respect the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights  dropping the previous pledge of being committed to it.

In response, Edward Argar, a junior justice minister, wrote: The difference in wording does not represent a change in the UKs position on the ECHR.

A central tenet of our future relationship with the EU is our mutual belief in the importance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

But he then suggested that the Human Rights Act could be scrapped when Brexit is concluded.

Our manifesto committed to not repealing or replacing the Human Rights Act while the process of EU exit is underway, he wrote.

It is right that we wait until the process of leaving the EU concludes before considering the matter further in the full knowledge of the new constitutional landscape.

Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: This new Conservative threat to repeal the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights is a scandal.

Before the act was passed in 1998, anyone who believed their human rights had been breached could not pursue a ruling in a domestic court  and had to go to Strasbourg.

Pushed through by Tony Blairs government, it is hailed by many as among his finest achievements, but is a bete noire for many Conservatives for giving too many rights to criminals and even for undermining personal responsibility.

Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters

The threat to undo it comes despite the Brexit white paper insisting, last summer, that the UK would remain in the ECHR, after the EU warned that pulling out would jeopardise a future security deal

The peers said it would imperil human rights if the government intend to break the formal link between the UK courts and the EHCR.

Baroness Kennedy said: Again and again we are told that the government is committed to the European Convention on Human Rights, but without a concrete commitment, and with messaging that is changing and becoming diluted.

There is suspicion because the prime minister has previously backed leaving the ECHR, expressing frustration there was no Commons majority for doing so.

In her 2016 Conservative leadership campaign she said she believed ECHR membership had made it harder to deport terror suspects and criminals.

On the eve of the Brexit referendum, Ms May said: The ECHR can bind the hands of parliament, adds nothing to our prosperity, makes us less secure by preventing the deportation of dangerous foreign nationals  and does nothing to change the attitudes of governments like Russias when it comes to human rights.

She became an opponent when she was home secretary during her attempts  which eventually took eight years  to extradite hate preacher Abu Qatada to Jordan to face terrorism charges

Ms May, then the home secretary, tore into the Human Rights Act in 2013, blaming it for the long delay in extraditing Qatada, a radical Islamist cleric.

He was first jailed under anti-terror laws in 2002, while living in London as an asylum seeker, but was described as a leading extremist and al-Qaeda associate.

Never convicted of a crime in the UK, the future prime minister protested it was unacceptable that Qatadas removal had taken 12 years and cost over 1.7m in legal fees.

She blamed the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, for having moved the goalposts by establishing new, unprecedented legal grounds for blocking his deportation

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In a statement released on Friday night a Ministry of Justice spokeswoman did not deny the Human Rights Act could be scrapped.

She said that leaving the EU would not change the UKs longstanding tradition of ensuring rights and liberties are protected here and abroad.

The country was committed to membership of the ECHR post-Brexit, she added, saying that Equality Act rights for minority groups, including LGBT people, would still be protected.
Theresa Mays pledge to reach a cross-party consensus to solve the Brexit crisis appears to have fizzled out with no further talks planned.

Downing Street said the prime minister would instead be meeting with a large number of her cabinet, both in small groups and in one-to-one conversations.

There are also no plans for cabinet members Michael Gove and David Lidington  who have met senior backbenchers from other parties  to hold further talks, a spokesperson said.

Asked about the prime ministers focus, she added: Today is about discussing this week with her cabinet colleagues.

The impasse comes after opposition MPs who emerged from the earlier talks suggested ministers had shown no willingness to compromise on the Brexit red lines.

And it increases the odds that when Ms May presents her plan B to the Commons on Monday, it will simply be a holding statement  rather than including any proposed changes to her deal.

Crucially, the statement can then be amended by supporters of a Final Say referendum, or those who prefer a softer Norway-plus exit, or to try to block the threat of a no-deal Brexit.

The prime minister has spoken with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, despite no date for her to reopen negotiations officially with the European Union.

No 10s spokeswoman said: That is just part of her ongoing engagement with the European leaders and you can expect her to continue that type of engagement through the course of the weekend.

Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters

And, asked if Ms May was ruling out a snap general election, after a report that civil servants had been asked to draw up contingency plans, she replied: Yes.

In the talks held so far, pro-Brexit Tories have come out the happier, convinced the prime minister will stick to ruling out a customs union, an Article 50 extension or a fresh referendum.

The cabinet talks are likely to confirm it is deeply split between some members urging compromise, while others tell Ms May she must fight on to pass her deal on a second vote.

Penny Mordaunt, the international development secretary, heightened the pressure by calling for a tougher commitment to crashing out of the EU without an agreement if necessary.

Its only when #nodealisbetter than a bad deal is believed by the EU that well maximise our chance of a deal, she tweeted.

And Arlene Foster, the Democratic Unionist Party leader, dismissed a claim that the DUP were willing to embrace a softer Brexit, provided Northern Ireland will not be treated differently.

The prime minister is very clear on our position. We have been consistent that for us it is the backstop which needs to be dealt with, she said.

Although Ms Mays motion can be amended, that cannot happen until a debate on 29 January  and could reveal there is no majority for any alternative course of action.
Boris Johnson has denied talking about Turkey during the Brexit referendum campaign, despite having warned on several occasions in the run-up to the vote that Turkish immigration posed a threat to the UK.

Answering questions during a speech in Staffordshire, the former foreign secretary claimed he didnt say anything about Turkey in the referendum ... I didnt say a thing about Turkey.

But during the referendum campaign, Mr Johnson discussed the issue of immigration from Turkey numerous times, including writing to then prime minister David Cameron to warn him about the issue.

The Vote Leave campaign, of which Mr Johnson was a prominent member, also repeatedly warned voters that the UK faced the prospect of up to 77 million Turks  the entire population of Turkey  coming to the UK if the country was allowed to join the EU.

Speaking after delivering a wide-ranging speech that is likely be seen as a relaunch of his Conservative leadership ambitions, Mr Johnson denied having mentioned Turkey at all during the Brexit campaign.

Asked whether his claims that up to 80 million Turks could enter the UK was evidence that he would say anything just to win an election  in this case, the Conservative leadership election, he replied: Actually, I didnt say anything about Turkey in the referendum. I didnt say a thing about Turkey.

I think anybody who has followed my utterances over the last 20 years would know that Ive always been in the camp of those who defend and support [immigration].

Pushed on whether he was disowning the comments he made in 2016, he said: Since I made no remarks I cant disown them. I didnt make any remarks about Turkey.

Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Show all 14 1 /14 Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Internal divisions in the Conservative Party have exploded into a bitter public row over Boris Johnsons disgusting criticism of Theresa May. Some senior Tories furiously denounced the former foreign secretary after he accused the prime minister of having wrapped a suicide vest around Britain Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Sajid Javid, Home secretary Sajid Javid, the home secretary, rebuked his former cabinet colleague and said: I think there are much better ways to articulate your differences. He told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that the public wanted politicians to use measured language BBC/PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide But other MPs leapt to Mr Johnsons defence, as dividing lines ahead of a possible leadership contest begin to take shape. The Uxbridge MP has repeatedly criticised Ms Mays Chequers plan and used a newspaper article on Sunday to suggest it amounted to wrapping a suicide vest around the British constitution. His latest salvo at the prime minister prompted immediate condemnation, with one minister publicly vowing to end Mr Johnsons career over the matter PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alan Duncan, Foreign minister Alan Duncan, a foreign minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team for two years, wrote on Twitter: For Boris to say the PMs view is like that of a suicide bomber is too much. This marks one of the most disgusting moments in modern British politics. Im sorry, but this is the political end of Boris Johnson. If it isnt now, I will make sure it is later. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide James Brokenshire, Housing secretary Housing secretary James Brokenshire added his voice to the criticism, calling Mr Johnsons comments wrong He said: I think he is wrong on this...I think the tone that he has used isnt right and I think that we just need to be very focused on actually moving forward with the Chequers plan. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Zac Goldsmith But as Tory hostilities spilled over into open public warfare, Richmond Park MP Zac Goldsmith, an ally of Mr Johnson, hit back at Mr Duncan. He wrote: There are a number of possible motives behind this tweet, but given its author, we can be certain principles arent one of them. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Jacob Rees-Mogg Senior Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Independent he thought Mr Johnsons suicide belt accusation was little more than a characteristically colourful catchphrase. He added: I agree with the sentiment. The criticism of Boriss wording merely serves to highlight his point. It means more people hear of Boriss criticism of Chequers and many will agree with him. Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Nadine Dorries Nadine Dorries, another Brexit supporter, said Mr Johnsons opponents were terrified of his popular appeal, adding: Dont underestimate the vitriol thatll be directed towards Boris today. He delivered the Leave vote, Remainers and wannabe future PMs hate him. If Mr Johnson became leader and prime minister he would deliver a clean and prosperous Brexit, she said Rex Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Andrew Bridgen Andrew Bridgen said Ms May was to blame for her leadership problems. Asked if Mr Johnson had put a bomb under her leadership, Mr Bridgen said: I think that Theresa May did that herself when she put forward the Chequers proposals without consulting widely prior to that. Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Steve Baker, former Brexit minister Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, warned Ms May the Conservatives faced a "catastrophic split" if she did not jettison her Chequers plan. Mr Baker, who quit the government in July over the scheme, said: When negotiating, the prime minister needs to demonstrate her intent and also her power to deliver. "If we come out of conference with her hoping to get Chequers through on the back of Labour votes, I think the EU negotiators would probably understand that if that were done, the Tory party would suffer the catastrophic split which thus far we have managed to avoid. But he insisted he did not want a change in the Conservative leadership, saying Brexiteers did not want to be in a position of conflict with our own prime minister Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Tom Tugendhat The deep divisions on the Tory benches were laid bare as Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee and is a possible leadership rival to Mr Johnson, also hit out at the former foreign secretary. Recalling how he encountered a suicide bomber in Afghanistan during his time in the army, Mr Tugendhat told Mr Johnson to grow up. He said: A suicide bomber murdered many in the courtyard of my office in Helmand. The carnage was disgusting, limbs and flesh hanging from trees and bushes. Brave men who stopped him killing me and others died in horrific pain. Some need to grow up. Comparing the PM to that isnt happy. PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alistair Burt Alistair Burt, another Foreign Office minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team, said: Im stunned at the nature of this attack. There is no justification for such an outrageous, inappropriate and hurtful analogy. If we dont stop his extraordinary use of language over Brexit, our country might never heal. Again, I say, enough. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide It comes amid that Ms Mays former aides drew up a dossier on Mr Johnsons sexual encounters with the aim of undermining his leadership prospects. The document was compiled in 2016, when the Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP was seen as the main rival to Ms May in her bid to enter No 10. Downing Street and Conservative Campaign Headquaters (CCHQ) both denied having leaked the 4,000 word memo after it was circulated around Westminster AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Mr Johnson confirmed that his 25-year marriage to wife Marina had ended AP

In April 2016, Mr Johnson warned: I am very pro-Turkish but what I certainly cant imagine is a situation in which 77 million of my fellow Turks and those of Turkish origin can come here without any checks at all. That is mad  that wont work.

And in a joint letter with fellow Brexiteer Michael Gove in June 2016, just a week before the referendum, he wrote to Mr Cameron to insist that the only way to protect the UK from mass immigration from Turkey was to leave the EU.

The letter said: Despite the rapidly accelerating pace of accession negotiations, In campaigners maintain that Turkey is not an issue in this referendum and it shouldnt be.

Others assert that the UK has a veto on Turkish accession. This claim is obviously artificial given the governments commitment to Turkish accession at the earliest possible opportunity.

If the government cannot give this guarantee, the public will draw the reasonable conclusion that the only way to avoid having common borders with Turkey is to vote Leave and take back control on 23 June.

The Vote Leave campaign also included prominent references to Turkey on many of its campaign materials.

Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters

One online advert asked: Turkeys 76 millon people are joining the EU  good news???.

And a campaign poster said: Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU. Vote Leave, take back control.

Responding to Mr Johnsons latest claims, Labour MP Virendra Sharma, a supporter of the Best for Britain campaign, said: Boris puts the moron in oxymoron. Hes now trying to act the great liberal by championing migration, after shamelessly pushing anti-Turkish messages as a leader of the Vote Leave campaign.

But the government must love it when he gets up and gives these speeches. Hes a helpful clown, distracting from the governments failures by pushing a no deal that parliament wont let happen.

Its time to stop giving his ill-thought through ideas oxygen, and hand the Brexit decision back to the public through a peoples vote.
Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has been accused of misleading parliament about UK weapons sales to repressive regimes, amid growing pressure on the government over the lucrative trade.

British arms sales to Saudi Arabia have come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the devastating civilian death toll from the war in Yemen.

The UK government has licensed nearly 5bn worth of arms to Riyadh since the conflict began in 2015, despite widespread civilian casualties and accusations of war crimes.

Mr Hunt has defended the lucrative trade, and the sale of UK weapons generally, telling parliament in October that restrictions on selling to repressive governments had been strengthened under the Conservative-led coalition in 2014.

Recommended UK sought arms deals with Saudi Arabia in weeks after Khashoggi death

But that position has been challenged by Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who sits on the Committees on Arms Export Controls and claims that restricions on weapons sales have in fact been chipped away. He has now written to the foreign secretary and asked him to correct the record, pointing to a report by the committee that had discovered a substantive weakening of UK arms export controls.

By representing the weakening of UK arms export controls as a strengthening of said controls, particularly in an argument for the approval of UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia [...] it appears to constitute an unintentionally misleading of parliament, Mr Russell-Moyle wrote in the letter last week.

The MP for Brighton Kemptown told The Independent: The government has learned how to bypass UK arms export control law to ensure that Paveway bombs flow uninterrupted from the Raytheon factory to the British-made and maintained planes used by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.

At issue is a 2014 change to the wording of the rules that govern which countries can be sold weapons and military equipment made in the UK. According to the Committees on Arms Export Controls, the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government changed the criteria from refusing arms exports which might be used for internal repression, to refusing if there is a clear risk that items might be used for internal repression.

The committee concluded that the change made it easier to sell weapons to countries which might use them for repressive means.

In 2017, arms sales to countries on the governments own watchlist of human rights abusers doubled compared to the previous year.

The foreign office disputes the findings of the committee, however. A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesperson told The Independent that changes made in 2014 included an update to the list of international obligations and commitments and an explicit reference to international humanitarian law.

In addition to this was the inclusion of a new gender-based violence clause contained within criterion two, strengthening the governments efforts to tackle violence based on gender across the world, as a result of the UKs signature to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said Mr Hunt has distorted the truth around British arms sales to rights abusers.

Hunts claims that the government is tightening regulations couldnt be further from the truth. He has followed the same appalling policies as his predecessors. The UK Government routinely arms and supports human rights-abusing regimes and dictatorships across the world, he said.

The arms sales that Hunt and his colleagues are promoting today could be used in atrocities for years to come. Its time for him to end the distortions and stop the arms sales.

Opposition to the sale of British arms to Saudi Arabia has been growing steadily since the Yemen war began in 2015, and reached a high point following the murder of Khashoggi.

Riyadh intervened in Yemens civil war in 2015 to reinstate the internationally recognised government of Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was ousted by Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The fighting has killed at least 10,000 civilians  most of whom were victims of airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition  and left nearly 16 million people on the brink of famine.

The United Nations has accused the Saudi coalition of widespread and systematic strikes on civilian targets.

Within the Kingdom itself, Saudi authorities have been accused of carrying out a violent crackdown against Shia residents of the Eastern Province. Riyadh maintains those targeted were terrorists.

Despite those concerns, UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia rose from 1.8bn in the three years prior to the war in 2015, to 3.6bn over the next three years.

The coalition has admitted causing civilian casualties but attributes the deaths to unintentional mistakes, and says it is committed to upholding international law. The Houthis have also targeted civilians throughout the conflict, according to the UN.
Three men have been jailed for life for murdering five people by setting off a bomb-like explosion at a shop in a bid to claim a 300,000 insurance pay-out.

Aram Kurd, 34, and Arkan Ali, 38, were sentenced to serve a minimum of 38 years behind bars for orchestrating a plot to blow up a Polish supermarket in Leicester during an arson attack in February last year.

Hawkar Hassan, 33, was also jailed for life and will serve at least 33 years for his role in the scheme to fraudulently acquire hundreds of thousands of pounds.

A five-week trial at Leicester Crown Court had heard the defendants left shop worker Viktorija Ijevleva, 22, to die in the explosion because she knew too much about the insurance policy taken out less than three weeks earlier.

Along with Ijevleva, Mary Ragoobeer, 46, her teenage sons Shane and Sean and 18-year-old Leah Beth Reek, who was Shanes girlfriend, were all killed in the blast as they sat in their flat above the shop.

Leicester shop explosion Show all 12 1 /12 Leicester shop explosion Leicester shop explosion The scene on Hinckley Road in Leicester, where four people were killed after a suspected explosion and the subsequent fire destroyed a shop. PA Leicester shop explosion Emergency personnel continue to work at the scene. PA Leicester shop explosion The fire burning after the explosion in a three-storey building in Leicester. AFP/Getty Images Leicester shop explosion Snow begins to fall at the scene of the explosion in Leicester as emergency services crews to continue to work. AFP/Getty Leicester shop explosion Debris lies in the street after the explosion on Hinckley Road. PA Leicester shop explosion Members of the emergency services worked at the scene of the explosion overnight. EPA Leicester shop explosion Emergency personnel continue to work at the scene. PA Leicester shop explosion Debris at the site of the explosion. Reuters Leicester shop explosion The gap in between the buildings after an explosion destroyed a shop. PA Leicester shop explosion A Leicestershire policeman wearing a face mask at the scene of the explosion which destroyed a shop. EPA Leicester shop explosion The police declared the explotion "major incident" Sunday evening. PA Leicester shop explosion Emergency personnel at the scene. PA

Sentencing, High Court Judge Mr Justice Holgate said: None of the defendants has shown the slightest bit of remorse for their wicked crimes.

They were exceptionally callous and deceitful. They pretended to be concerned about the victims and even to grieve for Ms Ijevleva.

Kurd had his prepared story ready for the media and the police. Ali and Hassan pretended to comfort and help the mother of Ms Ijevleva.

Kurd, Hassan and Ali (left to right) all receieved life sentences for their roles in the plot (SWNS)

In truth all three were only concerned to try and save their own skins. They repeatedly lied both inside and outside court.

Ali, Hassan and store owner Kurd were unanimously convicted of five counts of murder and a further charge of conspiring with Ijevleva to make a gain, by dishonestly pursuing an insurance claim in respect of the fire.

During the course of the trial, jurors were told the trio acted purely out of greed so they could fraudulently obtain a 300,000 insurance pay out.

The court heard Ali, Hassan and Ijevleva had purchased 26.6 litres of unleaded petrol from a garage the day before the blast, later dousing the basement of the property in huge quanities of the highly flamable liquid.

The three men had claimed for loss of stock, contents and future loss of business before the explosion took place.

After triggering the deadly blaze, Kurd went on to shamelessly give interviews to media outlets describing how lucky he had been to escape alive.

Family members of the deceased read tearful impact statements before sentencing on Friday, branding the killers of their loved-ones callous.

Reeks mother Joanne Reek told the court: The light went out of our world on that terrible night.

Kurds shop in Leicester was destroyed in the explosion caused by the group (PA)

We have a Leah-shaped hole in our hearts. Leah was one in a million. She left a lasting impression on everyone she met.

Seeing the men on trial showing no remorse truly broke our hearts  they seem to have no value for human life.

In a statement read to the court, Ijevlevas mother, Natalija, said she felt she had failed as a mother to protect my child because her daughter had not told her about the plot.

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My sense of loss is unbearable, she added. My thoughts go out to the families of the other four wholly innocent victims.

The judge told the trio that the blast, which also seriously injured several people walking in the vicinity of the property, had caused an exceptionally high level of harm.

The arson attack on this terraced building was exceptionally dangerous and put the lives of neighbours and other members of the public at a high level of risk, he added.

Additional reporting by agencies
Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and his criminal defence lawyer Benjamin Brafman have parted ways.

A representative for the pair said they had separated amicably and the lawyer would co-operate fully with Weinsteins new counsel.

Weinstein is charged with raping an unidentified female acquaintance in 2013 and performing a forcible sex act on a different woman in 2006.

His sexual assault trial in New York is scheduled for 6 May. He denies all allegations of non-consensual sex.

Mr Brafman must remain on the case until judge James Burke signs off on the separation.

The joint statement read that Mr Brafman wished Weinstein the best of luck in court.

It said: Both parties have agreed to part ways amicably and Mr Brafman has agreed to co-operate fully with new counsel for Mr Weinstein so as to ensure an orderly transition.

Mr Weinstein praised Mr Brafman for his legal work to date and Mr Brafman reiterated his belief that Mr Weinstein would be exonerated of the charges that have been filed against him and Brafman personally wished Mr Weinstein the best of luck as he defends the case and the accusations that Mr Weinstein has vehemently denied.

Weinstein said the names of his new defence team would be announced by the end of the week.

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As well as the case in New York, the Hollywood producer is being investigated by police in London and Los Angeles.

His accusers include Mexican-American actress Salma Hayek, who alleges he sexually harassed her, and British model Cara Delevingne, who said he tried to kiss her.

Press Association
Tesla is to cut thousands of jobs across its global workforce, the company announced on Friday.

The electric car manufacturer said it would reduce staff numbers by 7 per cent in order to counteract cutting the price of its Model 3. The companys chief executive, Elon Musk, recently said headcount had grown to 45,000 worldwide.

Tesla will need to make these cuts while increasing the Model 3 production rate and making many manufacturing engineering improvements in the coming months, Mr Musk told staff.

Earlier this month, Tesla stock dropped after the company cut prices across all models in the US to compensate for a reduction in subsidies for low-emissions vehicles.

On Friday, Mr Musk told staff that 2018 had been the most challenging in Teslas history.

The company needs to continue making progress towards lower priced variants of Model 3. The price of a Model 3 is set to rise again in July when US tax credit will drop again, making the car $1,875 (1,453) more expensive.

Mr Musk said the group will have to deliver at least the mid-range Model 3 in all markets as we need to reach more customers who can afford our vehicles.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

This is not new for us  we have always faced significant challenges  but it is the reality we face. There are many companies that can offer a better work-life balance, because they are larger and more mature or in industries that are not so voraciously competitive.

Attempting to build affordable clean energy products at scale necessarily requires extreme effort and relentless creativity, but succeeding in our mission is essential to ensure that the future is good, so we must do everything we can to advance the cause.

Russ Mould, AJ Bell investment director, said: There cant be a person on earth who doesnt want Elon Musk to succeed in its quest to drive the internal combustion engine out of business (apart from maybe a few oil executives and some hedge fund managers who are short of Tesla stock) but he isnt helping himself when it comes to persuading investors to keep the faith.

Todays profit warning from Tesla comes hot on the heels of a disappointing fourth-quarter sales update at the end of the month and will confirm the suspicions of some that the bumper third-quarter operating profit of $417m was just too good to be true.

Shares in the group fell more than 9 per cent on Friday.
I have seen some great passion in online discussions regarding the issue of charter government  essentially, a county council with an executive. Some has been constructive, and some has not. In this, we must take great care to be respectful of one another. We cannot demonize, insult or dismiss anyone on any side of this issue. The other side is not the enemy, no matter which side we come down on. We are family, friends and neighbors. We all want what is best for Carroll  but what that might be is where we diverge.
Espionage fears surrounding Huawei deepened this week as a growing number of companies, governments and academic institutions call into question the technology firms close links to the Chinese state.

Oxford University suspended research grants from Huawei while German Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration is looking at ways to exclude Huawei from the country's 5G networks.

UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has said he has very deep concerns about the Chinese company's involvement in super-fast mobile infrastructure.

The company denies that its network technology is used for spying by Beijing but its public statements have done little to quell fears.

What are the accusations against Huawei?

A number of governments have suspicions that Huawei, the biggest supplier of mobile network technology in the world, may be involved in espionage for the Chinese government.

The US has been by far the most strident of any nation in its criticism. According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Huaweis smartphones can be used to maliciously modify or steal information, and conduct undetected espionage. However, no hard evidence of this has so far entered the public domain.

In August, Donald Trump banned US government officials from using Huawei devices and those made by another Chinese company, ZTE.

Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany and the UK are among countries to have since reviewed their own ties to Huawei but have not made specific allegations against the company.

Is Huawei operating a global spying network?

Huaweis key role in building the plumbing of global communications networks is potentially of far greater concern than its smartphones.

Huawei is a leading supplier of the equipment that underpins the fifth generation of mobile network that is soon to be rolled out around the world. 5G is 100 times faster than current 4G and will billions more devices from cars to gadgets to traffic lights to connect and share data.

This will give a boost to the global economy but securities services are concerned that the network could also act as a vast spying tool for those who might wish to exploit it.

Alex Younger, the head of MI6 said last month the government would have to make some decisions about foreign technology firms involvement in the UKs 5G infrastructure.

Why has this become an issue now?

Tensions have escalated significantly in recent weeks after the arrest of Huawei finance chief Meng Wanzhou in Canada at the behest of the US government, sparking an unprecedented diplomatic row between Beijing and Washington.

Ms Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, is said to be known internally as the princess and her arrest provoked anger in China.

Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer at Chinese technology giant Huawei, was arrested on suspicion of fraud charges (Reuters)

In response China re-sentenced a Canadian serving 15 years for drug smuggling to death and detained two other Canadian nationals - a move that did little to support HUawei's assertion that it is not a tool of the state.

But these are merely the latest chapters in a long-running story. Fears of spying can be traced all the way back to 1987 when Huawei was founded by Mr Ren, a former officer in the People's Liberation Army who is said to have maintained close links to the military and senior Communist Party officials. He said this week that he had never been asked to share improper information by the Chinese government.

Huaweis opaque ownership structure has provided additional fuel to these fears. Unusually for a firm turning over more than $90bn, Huawei is still privately owned. Ostensibly, employees hold most of the shares but there are suspicions that in fact Mr Ren controls a majority stake.

Broader geopolitical implications

The dispute goes far beyond national security and is another front in a battle between the US and China for global economic and political dominance that encompasses intellectual property, naval lanes and tariffs on billions of pounds worth of goods.

Donald Trumps combative approach to international trade and diplomacy has led to an especially hostile approach to Huawei.

For Beijings part, it wants to develop Chinas status as a technology powerhouse, overtaking the US as the pre-eminent innovator. Huawei is seen as a key player in achieving that goal.

Huawei last year surpassed Apple to become the worlds second-largest smartphone manufacturer behind Samsung, a milestone that will certainly not have gone unnoticed in the corridors of power at the White House.

Critics of the US say that it has attacked Huawei, not because it is a genuine security threat, but because it is a rival in a crucial sector of the world economy in which America has enjoyed unrivalled supremacy for decades; and that supremacy may be waning.
The Huawei squeeze is tightening.

The Chinese telecoms giant could scarcely have had a worse week. Germany is exploring ways of excluding the company from its 5G network over security concerns while Oxford University has suspended donations and sponsorships.

When a western university that happily slurps at the trough of big oil turns down your money you know youve got problems.

We are told the move has been made as a result of worries about possible restrictions that the UK government may impose on the company.

BT, meanwhile, has already removed Huawei equipment from parts of its 4G network amid a purge across the West coinciding with US President Donald Trumps trade war with China. Moves against the company have also been made in Australia and New Zealand. Theyre generally quite sensible places, but they're susceptible to US influence all the same.

Its fair to ask how much the concerns Huawei has sparked are genuine and how much they are being driven by its status as a Chinese economic champion.

Theyve largely been raised by spooks and unnamed sources and spooks and unnamed sources dont, as a rule, share their evidence so that it can be tested.

Founder Ren Zhengei, a former Peoples army officer, has, of course, argued that his company is an independent employee owned business. Hes said that he supports the Chinese Communist Party (because if didnt hed be in trouble) but has repeatedly insisted that Huaweis motivations are benign and that it wouldnt do anything to harm any other country. That includes a denial of any involvement in alleged stealing of trade secrets.

On there other hand, his attempts to ease fears that Huawei is an instrument of the Chinese state werent helped when in response to Canadas arrest his daughter and finance director Meng Wanzhou, at the behest of the US, China re-sentenced a Canadian serving 15 years for drug smuggling to death and detained two other Canadian nationals.

Execution as a foreign policy weapon? The dispute between the countries, and Huaweis place in it, certainly turned very ugly very quickly.

The truth of the matter is that Huawei may very well be both villain and victim, a proxy caught up in a wider conflict that could still pose a risk if it is allowed to extend its influence. Where you stand on this question depends as much on your politics and prejudices as anything else.

Its worth pointing out that tech company spying is nothing new. US tech firms constantly spy on their customers, and probably upon each other too, and Americas tech champions have gone beyond posing a risk in some cases. Just look at the way Facebooks platform was used to interfere with elections both at home and in the UK.

Then there were the stories about PR dirty tricks against its critics that subsequently emerged.

Now heres a question: Would Oxford turn down future funding from the social network? Doubtful.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

While this has been going on, consumers have been happily purchasing Huaweis phones, which have earned rave reviews. Its now the number two maker after Samsung.

They seem rather less perturbed about the company than their governments.

Everyone spies on them and theyve become so used to it that the identity and/or the nationality of the company doing the spying doesnt seem to matter so much.
France's agriculture minister Didier Guillaume has provoked controversy after claiming wine is different from other alcohols and can rarely be the cause of binge drinking.

I don't think wine is comparable to other alcohols, Guillaume told BFM television this week.

He noted that alcohol addiction is a real problem, notably among young people with binge drinking.

Guillaume added: But I've never seen, to my knowledge - unfortunately perhaps - a youngster leaving a nightclub drunk because they drank Cotes-du-Rhone [French wine].

The politician went on to blame youth binge drinking on spirits and mixers.

The comments sparked a backlash, with Michel Reynaud, head of France's Addiction Action Fund, suggesting the minister visit hospitals to see people being treated after consuming too much wine.

What blindness! Mr. Guillaume, all doctors invite you to take a tour of the emergency room on a bullfighting night, Reynaud said.

(iStock (iStock)

To be more precise, every day there are people with acute alcohol poisoning due to wine.

Bernard Basset, vice president of the National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction (ANPAA), also criticised the minister.

He highlighted that nearly a fifth of young people in France binge drink wine and 25 per cent admit to getting drunk on champagne, citing figures from the French Observatory of Drugs and Addiction (OFDT).

Wine is alcohol like any other for getting drunk, Basset wrote on Twitter.

The ministers comments come a week after specialists criticised a new anti-addiction plan from the French government for lacking what they claim to be any concrete provisions required to tackle alcoholism.

This isnt the first time a French official has come under fire for defending wine.

Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Show all 11 1 /11 Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures Vegan winemakers Freya - In pictures

Last year, President Emmanuel Macron made a staunch defence of drinking wine twice a day and promised not to tighten the so-called Evin law, which restricts advertising on alcoholic beverages.

"It is a blight on public health when young people get drunk at an accelerated speed with alcohol or beer, but this is not the case with wine," said Mr Macron, adding that critics shouldnt "bug the French" over their appreciation for the beverage.

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Macron's comments came a month after health minister Agnes Buzyn caused anger among winemakers in France by denouncing claims that wine could be beneficial and increase longevity.

The French population is led to believe that wine protects them, that it offers benefits that other alcohol does not, Ms Buzyn, a haematologist, said in a television interview.

Its false. Scientifically, wine is an alcohol like any other, she said.

A recent survey by the French government, published by Europe1 radio, revealed that more than a third of men (36 per cent) and 15 per cent of women in France drink alcohol to a level considered at risk.

According to the OFDT, wine represents 58 percent of alcohol consumption in France.

France has one of the highest alcohol consumption rates in Europe, topped by Estonia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic, according to data from the World Health Organization.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey would not necessarily ban Donald Trump from the platform even if the US President publicly called for his followers to murder journalists.

In an interview with Huffington Post, Mr Dorsey responded to a hypothetical question about whether Trump would be removed from Twitter if he asked each of his followers to murder one journalist.

He said: "That would be a violent threat. We'd definitely... You know we're in constant communication with all governments around the world. So we'd certainly talk about it."

When pressed by the journalist on whether or not Trump would be subject to a ban if he made such a tweet, Mr Dorsey still failed to commit to such a ban.

"I'm not going to talk about particulars," Mr Dorsey said. "We've established protocol, it's transparent. It's out there for everyone to read. We have, independent of the US president, we have conversations with all governments. It's not just limited to this one."

11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Show all 11 1 /11 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Turn on Night Mode Twitters dark blue Night Mode is a lot easier on your eyes than its regular, vibrant theme. On the site, you can enable it by clicking your profile photo (on the right-hand side of the bar at the top of the screen) and selecting Night Mode. On Android and iOS, you need to tap your profile picture at the top of the screen and select Night Mode. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Lengthen your tweets A small group of users are no longer restricted by Twitters 140-character tweet limit. Even if youre not a chosen one, you can double your limit to 280 characters on desktop by downloading the Tampermonkey plugin, going to https://gist.github.com/Prof9/c16fc4997e0ef5b22a15c43edd7f5f49, clicking Raw and then Install. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Improve search Twitters regular search tool can be a little messy, but Advanced Search makes it much easier for you to find specific things. Go to https://twitter.com/search-advanced and filter your search by word, hashtag, exact phrase, location, date and account. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Disable read receipts Like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, Twitters direct messaging service shows you when your messages have been seen by the person you sent them to. You can disable read receipts though. On Android, iOS and the site, go to Settings and Privacy, click on Privacy and Safety and disable read receipts. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Monitor your tweets Retweets and Likes only form part of the story, as far as tweet engagement is concerned. You can view a lot more information about how people have reacted to your updates, including the number of times theyve been seen and the number of times people have interacted with them. Just open your tweets and hit the View Tweet Activity button. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Trim the fat If you feel like youre drowning in push notifications, you can cut down the number you receive from Twitter by going to Settings, Notifications, Push Notifications and deselecting the types of notifications you wouldnt like to receive. You can also enable sleep settings, which allow you to switch off all mobile updates during certain hours of the day. On the site, go to Settings, Mobile and select your hours. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Save data You can stop videos from playing automatically on desktop and the Twitter app. On the site, you can do this by going to Settings, Account, Video Tweets and unchecking Video Autoplay. On both the Android and iOS versions of the app, go to Settings, General, Data Usage, Video Autoplay, and choose between Mobile data & Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Only, and Never. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Save even more data You can save even more data and completely transform your timeline in the process by disabling images. Just go to Settings, Data Usage and uncheck the Image Previews box. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Customise your profile Editing your Twitter profile is really straightforward, just go to your profile and click the large Edit Profile button. However, theres one customisation option thats easy to miss. As well as your name, bio and profile photos, you can change your colour scheme. The option is only available on the Twitter site, and is sandwiched between the Website and Birthday sections. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Browse properly One of the Twitter apps most annoying features is its in-app browser, which links automatically open up in. You can sacrifice it for your favourite mobile browser by going to Settings, Display and Sound and unchecking the Use In-App Browser box. 11 useful Twitter features you might not know about Subscribe to tweets You can set up alerts that let you know whenever a certain account tweets, but its a two-stage process. First, on the app, go to Settings, Notifications, Push Notifications, Tweets and turn the toggle button on. Then open the profile page of the account you want to receive notifications from, tap the Bell icon next to the Following button and choose between All Tweets, Only Live Video and Off.

The Twitter boss has received several high-profile calls to deactivate Trump's account in the past, with US Congressman Keith Ellison calling the president a "social media bully" when calling for a ban in 2017.

Trump has previously made calls for violence, most notably during his 2016 election campaign when interrupted by various protestors.

"I'd like to punch him in the face," Trump said at the 23 February rally.

In the same month, at ann event in Iowa, he told the crowd: "If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, ok. Just know the hell  I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise."

The US President has even used Twitter to promote violence, retweeting a video that depicted him attacking a person with a CNN logo superimposed over their head.

The interview with Mr Dorsey questioned Twitter's previous decisions to not remove Trump's inciteful tweets.

After Trump posted a threat to war with North Korea in 2017, there was a widespread call for the tweet to be deleted and Trump to be removed.

Twitter responded in a series of posts that clarified its position when it came to Trump's tweets.

"We hold all accounts to the same Rules, and consider a number of factors when assessing whether Tweets violate our Rules, Twitter's Public Policy account tweeted.

"Among the considerations is "newsworthiness" and whether a Tweet is of public interest... Twitter is committed to transparency and keeping people informed about what's happening in the world. Well continue to be guided by these fundamental principles."
The coming months are packed with exhibitions, panel discussions and summits dedicated to championing womens achievements and challenging gender bias.

From a drawing workshop on female sexuality to a panel discussion about women's careers, there is a rich mix of events on the agenda.

And looking forward to International Womens Day 2020 on 8 March as the WOW (Women of the World) Festival celebrates its 10-year anniversary.

Here is our go-to guide of the most inspiring feminist events around the world making a positive difference for women.

Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Show all 30 1 /30 Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Berlin AFP/Getty Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures New York Reuters Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Washington Reuters Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures New York Reuters Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London EPA Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Washington REUTERS Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures New York Reuters Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Berlin AFP/Getty Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Washington Reuters Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures New York AFP/Getty Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Washington REUTERS Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Washington Reuters Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Berlin Getty Images Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Reuters Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Berlin Getty Images Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Berlin EPA Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Berlin EPA Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Reuters Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Reuters Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Berlin Getty Images Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures Berlin EPA Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019  global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent

March

Brutality and the female flesh: panel talk, London

This talk - hosted by the Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation in Haggerston - will look at how we frame the female figure in art.

Artists Shannon Bono, Camilla Hanney and Paloma Tendero will be in conversation with Charlotte Jansen to talk about how society sees female bodies and the impact this has on artistic representation.

And get there early as they'll be handing out Bloody Mary cocktails before the talk starts!

Sunday 8 March, London. Find out more information here.

BOXPARK celebrates activism for #IWD2020, London

(Boxpark (Boxpark)

To celebrate International Womans Day, BOXPARK Croydon has teamed up with feminist arts and culture platform, Polyester Zine, for a live debate and all-womaxn panel made up of artists, activists and entrepreneurs.

Kicking off with a live recording of their namesake podcast, Polyester founding editor Ione Gamble will be sitting down with artist and Queerty 'Game Changer of 2020', Wednesday Holmes.

There will also be a limited edition cocktail menu to celebrate the day.

Tuesday 10 March 7pm, London. Find out more information here.

WOW  Women of the World Festival, London

Visitors can expect panels discussions (Women of the World Festival)

Celebrating 10 years since its launch, the WOW  Women of the World Festival - returns this year to explore the state of gender equality and celebrate women and girls across the globe.

This three-day event, which is set to coincide with International Womens Day 2020, will see well-known guests like Naomi Wolf, Scarlett Curtis, Edward Enniful, Sandi Toksvig and Shazia Mirza, talking big ideas and analysis of gender equality today.

London, 6-8 March 2020. Find out more information here.

WomenBeing Festival, Edinburgh

WomenBeing Festival 2020 coincides with International Womens Day 2020 (WomenBeing) (WomenBeing Festival)

WomenBeing is a Scotland-based independent feminist magazine, and next March it is hosting the second-ever international interdisciplinary conference on gender studies and the status of women at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

The programme promises to address the challenges facing women in todays society, on the issues of gender equality and womens rights around the world.

The event will feature talks, workshops, networking and more to showcase diverse female role models to inspire women and girls to view entrepreneurship as a career option.

Edinburgh, 8-11 March 2020. Find out more here.

#SheStartedIt Live, London

#SheStartedIt

The second year of #SheStartedIt live will see yet more amazing speakers, workshops and meditation classes, in celebration of female empowerment.

This year's guests include Pippa Murray, founder of Pip & Nut, Serena Guen, founder of SUITCASE magazine, Shola Kaye, a public speaking coach, and former Great British Bake Off star Kimberley Wilson (who is also a chartered psychologist).

The festival runs over two days and aims to give guests inspiration and advice on everything from your career, your goals, potential side-hustles, family plans, finances and self-love.

Clerkenwell, London, 13-14 March 2020. Find out more information here.

April

Women in the World Summit, New York, USA

Next years summit celebrates 100 years of American women being able to vote (Women in the World Summit)

Celebrating a milestone in the American womens movement, this years Women in the World Summit will mark 100 years of American women winning the right to vote.

Their website describes the event as a masterclass in female leadership and an accelerator for activism.

Speakers range from CEOs and world leaders to artists, activists and peacemakers.

Previous speakers and panellists include American Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, filmmaker Ava DuVernay, Oprah Winfrey and PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi.

New York City, United States, 2-3 April, 2020. Find out more here.

Female sexuality drawing group, London

This day-long workshop held in the halls of the National Gallery, aims to question the role of female sexuality in the history of art.

In a small group you will be invited to explore the nuance of the nude and how the male gaze has permeated notions of female sexuality throughout history.

Not only will you get a guided tour around the gallery but you'll also get behind the scenes insight from a resident art history tutor.

London, 4-5 April 2020. Find out more here.

Unfinished business exhibition, London

British library (PA)

From bodily autonomy and the right to education, to self-expression and protest, this new exhibition explores how feminist activism in the UK has its roots in the complex history of womens rights.

Protest fashion and banners created by organisations such as Sisters Uncut, Southall Black Sisters and the Womens Liberation Movement are among the many diverse items featured in the exhibition.

Fri 24 April-23 August, British Library, London. Find out more information here.

May

Guilty feminist podcast UK tour

If you're a fan of the podcast, you'll love the live tour - join comedian Deborah Frances-White and special guests as they discuss all things feminism (along with their deepest hypocrisies and fears).

The podcast has won a host of awards including best entertainment podcast and best comedy podcast at the British Podcast Awards, so you'll be in for a treat.

Just make sure to book tickets in advance.

At locations across the UK including Brighton, Sheffield, Cardiff, Bournemouth, Newcastle, Birmingham and others. 1 May - 7 June. Find out more here.
Donald Trumps love of over-long ties is well documented, and the reason behind his sartorial choice has finally been revealed.

Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, shares the presidential fashion tidbit in his new memoir, Let Me Finish, where he describes the conversations hes had with Trump regarding appearance, according to The Guardian.

In 2016, Trump told his potential running mate that he should wear a longer tie so he would appear thinner during the presidential campaign.

Trump lives by his advice  as he regularly makes appearances in ties that extend far past his belt.

But according to GQ, the presidents style choices may be backfiring  as the mens fashion magazine says a mans tie should fall right in the middle of his waistband or his belt.

Trumps ties often fly away (Getty)

In addition to committing a fashion faux pas when it comes to the length of his ties, the president is also guilty of affixing tape to them so they stay put, a method that has repeatedly proved ineffective.

Mr Trump clearly believes appearances are important; during one conversation in 2005, Trump reportedly told Christie you gotta look better to be able to win in politics.

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Chris Christies memoir will be released later this month.
News of Prince Philips car crash on Thursday afternoon has sparked a debate around the safety of elderly drivers.

The Duke of Edinburgh, 97, was not hurt as a result of the road accident, which took place near the Sandringham Estate, but two people in one of the vehicles are thought to have suffered minor injuries.

There is no age limit for drivers in the UK, but there are some rules and regulations that may apply to elderly people and subsequently prevent them from going behind the wheel.

At what age are UK drivers required to renew their licence?

British drivers must legally review their licence when they reach 70 years old should they wish to continue driving. This does not involve retaking a driving test, its simply a case of filling out an application form.

They can do so for free with DVLA and can register for the service up to 90 days prior to their 70th birthday.

From then on, they will be required to renew their licence every three years.

Drivers can apply for their renewed licences either online or by post. The new licences will arrive within a week for those who choose to do the former and within three weeks for those who choose the latter.

Why arent there set age restrictions for UK drivers?

There is no legal age at which people have to stop driving in the UK because the conditions that could prevent someone from driving are not limited to a persons age.

For example, the DVLA website has an A to Z of conditions that can impact your ability to drive safely.

These include broken limbs, cancer and diabetes in addition to several mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression.

F1 2018 cars Show all 20 1 /20 F1 2018 cars F1 2018 cars Mercedes (front) Drivers: Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. F1 2018 cars Mercedes (side) Last season: 1st F1 2018 cars Ferrari (front) Drivers: Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen. F1 2018 cars Ferrari (side) Last season: 2nd F1 2018 cars Red Bull (front) Drivers: Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. F1 2018 cars Red Bull (side) Last season: 3rd F1 2018 cars Force India (front) Drivers: Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon. F1 2018 cars Force India (side) Last season: 4th F1 2018 cars Williams (front) Drivers: Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin. F1 2018 cars Williams (side) Last season: 5th F1 2018 cars Renault (front) Drivers: Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jr. F1 2018 cars Renault (side) Last season: 6th F1 2018 cars Toro Rosso (front) Drivers: Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gazly. F1 2018 cars Toro Rosso (side) Last season: 7th F1 2018 cars Haas (front) Drivers: Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen. F1 2018 cars Haas (side) Last season: 8th F1 2018 cars McLaren (front) Drivers: Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne. F1 2018 cars McLaren (side) Last season: 9th F1 2018 cars Alfa Romeo Sauber (front) Drivers: Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc. F1 2018 cars Alfa Romeo Sauber (side) Last season: 10th

So long as you don't have a condition that hinders your driving skills, it's legal and safe to take to the roads, regardless of the year you were born.

When might an elderly person be advised to stop driving?

There are many medical conditions that might mean someone should stop driving, and while none are necessarily exclusive to older drivers, there are some that might be more common for people of a certain age.

Examples, as featured on the DVLA's list, include memory problems, hearing loss, mobility issues, epilepsy, heart conditions, Parkinsons Disease. See the full list here.

If you suffer from a serious medical condition and wish to continue driving, you may have to declare it to your insurer and the DVLA. Failure to do so could result in a fine of up to 1,000.

Elderly people who want to get their driving skills assessed can do so via the DVLA, who will then refer drivers to a mobility centre where they will undergo a simple assessment designed to suit their needs.

Find your nearest mobility centre here.

Alternatively, organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and I Am Road Smart carry out similar assessments.

What are the rules regarding eyesight?

Poor eyesight can affect anyone, but given that a persons vision can worsen in old age, its particularly important for elderly drivers to ensure they meet these requirements before driving.

For example, in the UK, citizens are required to meet the standard of vision for driving as set out by the DVLA.

These state that you should be able to read a car number plate (one that has been made after 1 September 2001) from 20.5 metres away. It does not matter if you need to wear glasses or contact lenses in order to read the number plate, so long as you can read it.

You must also have a decent field of vision and a visual acuity of at least 0.5 measured on the Snellen scale - this goes up to 0.8 for lorry and bus drivers. An optician will be able to measure these things for you.

What should someone do when they want to stop driving altogether?

When you decide you would like to stop driving, or your doctor advises you to do so, you're required to inform the DVLA and surrender your driving licence.

You can download a decleration of voluntary surrender here and post it to DVLA along with your licence.
Michael Cohen, a once loyal confidante of the president turned man who has done a plea deal over hush money payments made to two women on the eve of the election, is back in the news.

Two months before he is due to show up to prison to serve a three-year sentence as part of the deal in which he admitted arranging payments to Stormy Daniels and former model Karen McDougal  a breach of campaign finance laws  the presidents former personal lawyer is at the centre of new allegations; that he rigged an online poll in Donald Trumps favour before the election, and that he lied to Congress about the extent of Trumps dealings with Russia to set develop a Moscow Trump Tower.

BuzzFeed News set off a series of reverberations, when it reported that according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation, Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the negotiations. He said he also supported a plan hatched by Cohen to visit Moscow to meet Vladmir Putin. Make it happen, the sources said Trump told Cohen.

The revelations have resulted in a call for action from Democrats and others. California congressman Adam Schiff said congress would do whats necessary to find out if the contents of the report were true.

The allegation that the president of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date, he told reporters.

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A no-deal Brexit could cost the UK 2.2bn every year as the network connecting the nations electricity supply with its European neighbours would no longer function effectively.

Environmental think tank Green Alliance issued the warning as Britains future clean power supply looked uncertain following a string of failed nuclear power projects.

With Japanese firm Hitachi pulling out of the planned Wylfa plant in Wales, the UK now faces a nuclear gap of about 15 per cent in its future electricity supply.

Environmental groups say the gap can be plugged with renewable energy, and business secretary Greg Clark acknowledged the tumbling price of wind power was making it a more desirable option than nuclear.

However, concerns still remain around how variable power supplies, such as wind and solar, can provide the grid with reliable power.

One way around this problem would be to invest in networks that span multiple countries, meaning when the wind is not blowing in Britain energy can be provided from somewhere else.

Such a network would also provide a market for the countrys renewable electricity at times of surplus. In 2017, energy trading across borders brought 700m into UK markets.

Despite these benefits, and projects in the pipeline to link the UK up with Belgium and Norway, Britain remains one of the least connected countries in Europe.

Thousands skip school to attend climate protest Show all 5 1 /5 Thousands skip school to attend climate protest Thousands skip school to attend climate protest A girl wears a face mask and has a message written on her forehead that reads 'no planet B' during a demonstration against climate change in Brussels on Thursday 17 January 2019. Thousands of students as part of the Youth for Climate movement took time off school to call for stronger action against climate change. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP Photo) Thousands skip school to attend climate protest Students and others hold placards as they march during a demonstration against climate change in Brussels, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019. Thousands of students as part of the Youth for Climate movement took time off school Thursday to call for stronger action against climate change. Sign in center reads in Dutch 'shortly everyone will have a house on the sea'. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP Photo) Thousands skip school to attend climate protest Thursday, 17 January 2019. Thousands of students as part of the Youth for Climate movement took time off school to call for stronger action against climate change. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP Photo) Thousands skip school to attend climate protest Students and others hold up placards with climate messages during a demonstration against climate change in Brussels, Thursday 17 January 2019. Thousands of students as part of the Youth for Climate movement took time off school to call for stronger action against climate change. Banner at right in Dutch reads 'we are truant for more forests' and at centre-rear reads 'no money if it melts'. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP Photo) Thousands skip school to attend climate protest Two girls hold up a banner during a demonstration against climate change in Brussels, Thursday 17 January 2019. Thousands of students as part of the Youth for Climate movement took time off school to call for stronger action against climate change. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP Photo)

Green Alliance estimates that doubling current interconnection within the next two years and  in doing so  importing cheaper power from Europe, could save consumers 1bn a year.

However, this future is under threat as departing the EU will complicate the exchange of electricity between nations.

The economics will get affected in a no-deal Brexit scenario, in the sense that there will be inefficient sharing of electricity across orders, Chaitanya Kumar, senior policy adviser at Green Alliance told The Independent.

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While the physical infrastructure for sharing electricity will remain, this added complication will likely rack up significant costs for UK consumers.

No-deal doesnt mean youll suddenly snap all the interconnected wires, said Mr Kumar.

The wires will still exist, we will still keep trading  [but] we will be trading on ineffective, inefficient terms.

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While the UKs climate ambitions are immediately threatened by the failed nuclear plans, Mr Kumar noted that they can only be guaranteed if existing alternatives are scaled up.

Luke Clark from trade body RenewableUK said it is vital that the government secures a long-term arrangement for power trading with other European countries as Britain exits the EU.

This is vital for Northern Ireland, in particular, as it forms part of a single power market with the Republic of Ireland, he said.

A spokesperson from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said Brexit would not have any implications for the countrys energy supply.

Were committed to using renewables, storage, interconnectors, new nuclear and more to deliver a secure and dynamic energy market at the least possible cost for consumers, they said.
Japanese officials have claimed a new piece of graffiti discovered in Tokyo could be the work of Banksy.

The drawing bears a striking similarity to Umbrella rat, a former painting by the anonymous artist.

According to officials, the artwork has been on their radar for some time but only now do they believe it could have been drawn by Banksy after being contacted by local residents.

Yuriko Koike, the citys Governor, called the artwork a possible gift to Tokyo.

The piece of art was found on a door near the Hinode monorail station in the centre of the city. It has now been removed and placed in storage for safe-keeping, a government official named Koji Sugiyama told AFP.

Officials are currently attempting to verify whether the graffiti was drawn by Banksy.

Best of Banksy Show all 68 1 /68 Best of Banksy Best of Banksy Westwood, California A Banksy piece in California depicting a child wielding a machine gun, in black and white surrounded by colored flowers AFP/Getty Best of Banksy Manhattan, New York A rat on the clock of an old bank building Getty Best of Banksy Camden Town, north London Near the Oval Bridge PA Best of Banksy 'Sweeping It Under The Carpet' The piece, commissioned by this newspaper, is intended to represent a metaphor for the west's reluctance to tackle issues such as Aids in Africa Getty Images Best of Banksy 'Di Faced Tenners' In 2004, Banksy printed one million pounds worth of his 'Tenners' PA Best of Banksy 'Love is in the Bin' During Sotheby's Contemporary Art Sale on 5th October the Banksy artwork 'Girl with Balloon' shredded through the bottom of the frame as it was sold. Getty Images Best of Banksy 'Urban decay' Seen on the side of building on Wilder Street in Bristol PA Best of Banksy 'Glory' Previously on view at Sotheby's New Bond Street, London PA Best of Banksy 'Balloon Debate' Banksy headed to Palestinian territories and created images on Israel's highly controversial West Bank barrier Getty Best of Banksy 'Kissing Coppers' Pictured on display in Lazinc Gallery in London in 2018 AFP/Getty Images Best of Banksy 'Spy Booth' On the side of a house in Cheltenham. PA Best of Banksy 'Escape' A Banksy artwork piece on Israel's highly controversial West Bank barrier in Abu Dis Getty Images Best of Banksy 'The Son of a Migrant from Syria' Artwork representing Steve Jobs, founder and late CEO of Apple, at the migrant camp known as the "Jungle" in Calais, northern France AFP/Getty Images Best of Banksy Artwork in 'Walled Off Hotel' Banksy launched a hotel in Bethlehem. The rooms of the hotel were filled with the artist's work, much of which being about the conflict Getty Images Best of Banksy 'One Nation Under CCTV' In the yard of a Royal Mail depot in Newman Street, central London PA Archive/PA Images Best of Banksy 'Brexit' A painted mural depicting a workman chipping away at one of the stars on a European Union flag in Dover Getty Best of Banksy 'Art Attack' Seen on Israel's highly controversial West Bank barrier Getty Best of Banksy Artwork in 'Walled Off Hotel' A piece of artwork in Banksy's 'Walled Off Hote'l in the Israeli occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem Getty Best of Banksy 'Let Them Eat Crack' A large mural of a rat wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase on a wall on Howard St and Broadway in New York PA Best of Banksy Artwork in 'Walled Off Hotel' An installation hanging inside one of the rooms Banksy's 'Walled Off hotel' AFP/Getty Best of Banksy Paris Napoleon Bonaparte wearing a headscarf inspired by the original painting by Jacques-Louis David AFP/Getty Best of Banksy 'Burning Tyre' A Banksy mural which was painted on the side of one of the classrooms at Bridge Farm Primary in Bristol during a half-term PA Best of Banksy 'Les Miserables' Artwork depicting the girl from Les Miserables affected by tear gas, opposite the French embassy in Knightsbridge, London PA Best of Banksy Zehra Dogan Banksy's 70-foot-long mural in New York, made to draw attention to the imprisonment of Zehra Dogan, a Kurdish painter from Turkey AFP/Getty Images Best of Banksy Paris A girl painting over a swastika cross AFP/Getty Best of Banksy 'Girl with Balloon' Originally on the stairs to Waterloo Bridge on the South Bank, London AFP/Getty Images Best of Banksy 'Cardinal Sin' On display at the Walker Art Gallery in 2012 Getty Best of Banksy Rage, Flower Thrower Painted on a wall of a gas station in the West Bank city of Bethlehem AFP/Getty Images Best of Banksy "Madonna with a pistol" In Naples AFP/Getty Best of Banksy 'No Ball Games' In Tottenham, North London PA Archive/PA Images Best of Banksy 'Cash Machine Girl' In Finsbury, North London PA Best of Banksy 'Peckham Rock' Installation of Banksy's at the British Museum in London. The artist secretly placed the mock historical piece in a gallery at the museum in 2005 and it went unnoticed for three days PA Best of Banksy Stained Window' A collaboration between Banksy and the City of Angels public school in Los Angeles AFP/Getty Best of Banksy Barbican Centre, London One of two murals near the Barbican Centre in London PA Best of Banksy Clerkenwell Green, London Described by its creator as "a monument to liars, thieves and bullies" Getty Images Best of Banksy 'Civilian Drone Strike' Capstan House in East London PA Best of Banksy 'Armoured Dove' In West Bank town of Bethlehem AFP/Getty Best of Banksy 'The Painter' Portobello Road, West London PA Best of Banksy 'Yellow Lines Flower Painter' Pollard Street, London Getty Best of Banksy "Kids on Guns" AFP/Getty Best of Banksy Barbican Centre, London The second of the two murals painted by on the Barbican Centre, London PA Best of Banksy "Cans" London AFP/Getty Best of Banksy 'Sorry' East London AFP/Getty Best of Banksy 'Napalm, (Can't Beat That Feeling)' Displayed in an unauthorised 2006 retrospective in London Getty Images Best of Banksy Calais, France A child with a suitcase looking through a telescope with a vulture perched on it, in tribute to migrants and refugees on a beach in Calais AFP/Getty Best of Banksy 'Banksus Militus Vandalus' Displayed in an unauthorised 2006 retrospective in London Getty Images Best of Banksy London Artwork depicting former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill AFP/Getty Best of Banksy 'Donkey Documents' Moved from Jerusalem PA Best of Banksy 'A Girl with a Pierced Eardrum' A defaced piece of art on a wall in the city of Bristol, at Hanover Place PA Best of Banksy 'Sperm Alarm' Banksy's name is reflected in the glass covering his piece. One of seven initially stolen works by the artist. Getty Best of Banksy 'Art Buff' In Folkestone, Kent PA Best of Banksy 'The Mild, Mild West' Stokes Croft, Bristol PA Best of Banksy Paris A man holding a handsaw behind his back and offering a bone to a dog which leg has been cut off AFP/Getty Best of Banksy Peeing Dog Los Angeles PA Best of Banksy Bethlehem Painting on a wall in Bethlehem in the West Bank Getty Best of Banksy 'Slave Labout' A poor child making Union Jack flags on a sewing machine, located on the wall of a Poundland discount shop in the Wood Green area of north London Getty Best of Banksy Lower East Side, New York Painted during Banksy's month in New York Getty Images Best of Banksy 'Jay Zeavis' Glastonbury, Somerset PA Best of Banksy Paris Banksy said that he "blitzed" Paris with up to a dozen murals as a tribute to the May 1968 uprising and even took aim at the French government's hard line on migrants AFP/Getty Best of Banksy "I Love New York" A large mural of a rat wearing on Wooster and Grand Street in New York PA Best of Banksy Camden Town, north London A piece under Camden Street Bridge, almost directly behind the British Transport Police building in Camden Town PA Best of Banksy 'Very Little Helps' A child raising a Tesco's plastic bag as a flag in London Getty Best of Banksy 'I Don't Believe in Global Warming' Camden Town, north London PA Best of Banksy Camden Town, north London PA Best of Banksy Bataclan concert hall, Paris Artwork on a side street to the Bataclan concert hall where a terrorist attack killed 90 people in 2015 AFP/Getty Best of Banksy New Orleans, Louisiana Getty Best of Banksy 'Christ with Shopping Bags' Lazinc Gallery in London AFP/Getty Images Best of Banksy "Stop and Search" Shown at Artcurial French auction house sale in Paris AFP/Getty Images

In the past, his artworks have sold for up to millions with a recent one, which appeared on a garage in Wales. recently going for an undisclosed sum that reached six figures.
Amid the peeling paint and damaged walls of Maputos largest hospital, the medical staff are working on the front line of a global epidemic that sees a teenage girl infected with HIV every three minutes in Mozambique.

It is a statistic  one meaning some 750,000 girls aged between 15 and 19 around the world live with HIV  that is particularly resonant in the capital of Mozambique which, along with its neighbour South Africa, is one of the countries worst affected by Aids.

Here we have 120,000 people in treatment, said Maputos HIV supervisor Dr Sheila Issufo of Clinic 1 Maio, the colonial-era hospital that is the citys HIV treatment centre. In a month we can identify 2,000 new cases.

Dr Issufo is honest about the limitations staff operate under. There are no computers, meaning records risk being lost, and there is also often a risk of a lack of adequate medicines.

This is an old building, she said. Some blocks are not used at the moment. It is not safe.

Faced with such a situation, help often has to come from outside sources, particularly the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Britains Department for International Development.

The UK is the second largest donor to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which last year disbursed 445m to Mozambique.

Britain is also focusing on trying to help the countrys teenage girls avoid infection, and unwanted pregnancy, with 8m to help provide access to contraception and family planning facilities.

Low access to contraceptives, and a prevalence of early marriage, means that almost half of girls have two children by the time they are 18.

 Elton John launches The Independent's AIDSfree campaign

We are channelling funding to the Global Fund as that is for treatment such as antiretrovirals and other commodities such as tests, said Etelvina Mahanjane, DfIDs local health adviser. It also provides technical support to the ministry of health.

Similarly the Elton John AIDS Foundation supports programmes in the city, including to provide counselling for young people with HIV, which will now be kept going with the help of funds raised though our AIDSfree appeal.

Adelia was 19 when she learnt she was HIV positive. She believes she contracted the virus from her then boyfriend.

Adelia was diagnosed with HIV aged 19 (Carlos Litulo)

I could not accept it, she said. But when I started talking to people [through the EJAF-supported programme], I realised I was not alone. Hearing other peoples stories made me realise I was not in the worse position. There were people who contracted HIV from rape, or were born with HIV. That helped me accept myself.

Some 13 per cent of people in Mozambique have HIV and 1.16 million people are being treated, which is believed to be just half of those that need it.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said: We are proud that through UK Aid Match, the Elton John AIDS Foundation will accelerate access to HIV testing and treatment for vulnerable young people in Maputo city.
The 2017 Women's March in Washington, D.C., may have been the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. Two years later, millions remain inspired by what it's accomplished--but after controversial revelations about some of the march's co-founders surfaced in December, some women are feeling ambivalent about participating.

Vanessa Wruble, one of the organizers, said she felt forced out of the organization because of anti-Semitism on the part of fellow organizer Tamika Mallory. While the march organizers have issued statements denouncing anti-Semitism, the allegations have tarnished the event in the minds of some female founders. "I don't have the bandwidth right now to research what the issue is, and whether it's real or not," says Jenn LeBlanc, founder of 10-person marketing agency ThinkResults. She marched last year, but this year says, "I wouldn't want to be associated with anti-Semitism."

Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, with about 1,200 employees seasonally, sees support for women as a defining characteristic of her business. On February 2, Britton Bauer will be donating all profits from Ice Cream for Breakfast Day to not-for-profit She Should Run, which aims to convince more women to run for elected office. Britton Bauer marched in Washington last year, calling it "healing and inspiring," and says a group of employees will march in Columbus this year. Says Britton Bauer: "It's time to refocus and remember there is only forward."

Also enthusiastic is Jill Angelo, the founder of 10-person Genneve, which recently launched the first online clinic for women in menopause. "I'm going to one-hundred-percent march this year!" she says. "Last year, I marched because I was pissed off at our national government. This year, I march because I have hope."

Angelo, as well as several other women, mentioned the historical success of women in the midterm elections as a galvanizing factor. "We have to maintain momentum after the stunning midterm wins," says Eileen Scully, founder of consulting and advisory service the Rising Tides. "We have to show solidarity with each other."
Green Zebra is the anti-7-Eleven.

The healthy corner-store chain, which is known for grab-and-go salads and kombucha slurpees on tap, is based in Portland, Oregon, and now has three outlets. It's also a rising star in the convenience store market, which in 2018 accounted for $138 billion in U.S. sales, according to research firm Nielsen. However, the company's founder says its good food aspirations extend far beyond dominating the local-foods-obsessed Pacific Northwest.

"In the future, I hope that every urban neighborhood has a Green Zebra," says founder and CEO Lisa Sedlar. "Oftentimes, a neighborhood only has a traditional convenience store and there's no quality food to be had."

Six-year-old Green Zebra--named after an heirloom tomato that was bred in the Northwest--has a noble mission: make healthy food convenient and accessible for all. Sedlar came up with the concept--an inspired hybrid of Whole Foods and 7-Eleven--when she lived in Boulder and worked as a sales and marketing executive at a pharmacy and wellness company. From her office, which abutted the University of Colorado campus, she'd watch dumbfounded as college students returned from bike rides in the Rockies only to grab junk food at the local mini-mart.

She wondered why no one was making healthy snacks convenient to access, but she kept that thought in the back of her mind because in 2005 she was recruited to be the president of Portland-based grocery store chain New Seasons.

Then, in 2013, she made her move--opening her first Green Zebra in the North Portland neighborhood of Kenton. Since then, two others shops have opened: one in the Lloyd District and one at Portland State University. (A fourth opens in Southeast Portland in mid-2019.)

As at 7-Eleven, snacks are within reach but instead of sugary slurpees and hot dogs, you'll find superfoods like broccoli salad with kale, dried cranberries, cabbage, walnuts, chia seeds and ground turmeric, and chimichurri freekeh, an ancient grain that topples even quinoa in the protein and fiber categories. It's all made from scratch with local ingredients, of course. Each 5,000-square-foot store is also stocked with organic produce, a curated beer and wine selection, and regionally-sourced meats, milk, and cheeses.

Naturally, costs are higher at Green Zebra than at other corner-store chains, but Sedlar is attempting to tame them. The company partners with local farmers and brands to try to keep prices affordable--and it offers a 10 percent discount to SNAP recipients, 10 percent off for seniors every Tuesday, and 10 percent off for students every Wednesday. Ideally, the goal is to open in "food deserts," which are neighborhoods that are short on grocery stores.

Adam Haber, an avid startup investor based in East Hills, New York, came across Green Zebra on equity crowdfunding platform CircleUp. He met with Sedlar and admired her zeal for healthy food and walkable communities; then he visited the Kenton store as a mystery shopper. "The employees are engaging and believe in the mission. People really love working there," he says. "I couldn't find the chink in their armor." He has invested in the company twice. "I wish there were a Green Zebra in my town," he says.

Maybe, someday soon, there will be. Sedlar is amidst a Series B funding round to raise $10 million, and is planning to open three stores outside Oregon next year, starting in Seattle. Eventually, she hopes to expand to the East Coast.
Want to build a business from scratch?

Get excited about managing P&L?

Do you excel at developing successful pivot strategies and managing burn rate? (Coincidentally, two of Barbara Corcoran's most despised words.)

You might be a great fit for Walmart. Check out their job posting for CEO. You'll need 10 years of experience, preferably in the technology or e-commerce space.

But here's the catch: The company is top secret. The job posting is for a Walmart-backed company that's in stealth mode. The location is listed as Hoboken, New Jersey.

The CEO position is posted on Store No. 8, which is Walmart's incubator. There are currently three companies in its portfolio: Jetblack (personal shopping service over text message), Spatialand (a virtual reality startup), and another top-secret one called Franklin, which is being led by a Google alumna.

So what could the yet-to-be-disclosed Walmart company be? It's anyone's guess. But Walmart's overall strategy is pretty clear: Beat Amazon at their own game and come out on top in the retail wars.

Last year Walmart outbid Amazon to purchase FlipKart, an Indian electronics commerce company. They paid $16 billion for a 77 percent stake. Walmart also purchased Jet.com in 2016 to build their online e-commerce dynasty.

And now, it's clear that Walmart is also going all-in on building startups from scratch. It's why store No. 8 exists.

The story behind Store No. 8

Walmart introduced their incubation arm about two years ago. Here's how Katie Finnegan, the CEO of incubator company Spatialand, described what Store No. 8 does in a blog post.

We're a standalone incubation arm within Walmart, which means we get to do things from a unique position: Not only do we have the benefit of Walmart's vantage point into the heart of America, but by operating somewhat apart from the corporation, we have the freedom to develop new ideas that can thrive outside existing definitions of retail.

In other words, leverage Walmart's knowledge of how customers shop without getting bogged down by the company's size. Walmart is currently the biggest retailer in the United States.
(The Center Square)  A bill that recently passed in both state legislative houses outlaws the use of deception in criminal interrogations of juveniles and is the first of its kind in the nation.
Welcome to the IFJ Asia-Pacifics monthly e-bulletin. The next bulletin will be sent on February 1, 2019 and contributions from affiliates are most welcome. To contribute, email ifj@ifj-asia.org

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Join the IFJ Asia-Pacific mailing list here

In this bulletin:

IFJ & SEAJU launch first South East Asia Media Report: Underneath the Autocrats Asia Pacific remains deadliest region for journalists Appeal rejected for Myanmar Reuters journalists Journalist unions need to adapt to a digital ecosystem Bidding farewell to Ujjwal Acharya IFJ welcomes Ratna Ariyanti to AP team Sri Lankan unions launch petition to action on impunity Bangladesh: Internet throttled, journalists attacked during parliamentary elections State-owned media threatened in Sri Lanka Trolling is not part of the job HK govt must guarantee Access to Information in new legislation Pakistan: Over two thousand jobs lost as newspaper shuts Afghan radio director & owner abducted, driver killed Cambodia: Joint letter calls for charges against former RFA reporters be dropped - RFA

IFJ & SEAJU launch first South East Asia Media Report: Underneath the Autocrats

On December 19, the IFJ and SEAJU launched the first South East Asia Media Report  Underneath the Autocrats: A Report into Impunity, Journalist Safety and Working Conditions. The IFJs major research into South East Asias media canvassed the views of nearly 1000 journalists and media workers across the region in 2018 and included extensive research into legislative controls hampering independent journalism, as well as asking questions of governments, media owners and other key players on journalist safety and working conditions. The IFJ-SEAJU survey found an overriding consensus on poor wages and working conditions as the dominant threat to journalists in the region. This was followed by censorship and targeted attacks, while legal issues was the top safety concern for journalists, followed by cyber-attack and threats. The IFJ and SEAJU also established a country ranking system for both impunity and justice. As a whole the region scored 7 out of a total possible low score of 10, for both impunity efforts by South East Asian governments and the efficacy of their justice systems to deal with attacks and threats to journalists.

Read more here and read the report here.

Asia Pacific remains deadliest region for journalists

On December 31, 2018 the IFJ published its 29th Killed List, documenting the 94 journalists and media workers killed in 2018. The IFJ list for 2018 paints a situation of an on-going safety crisis for journalists, highlighted by the cruel murder of the Washington Post columnist and Saudi national, Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. This was the latest in a series of devastating attacks on media professionals, including the multiple bomb attacks which turned Afghanistan into a killing zone for journalists and the reign of violence by organised crime in Mexico which remains firmly trained on journalists.

In the Asia Pacific region, 32 journalists were killed in 2018, making it the deadliest region. Afghanistan topped the global list with 16 murders; India was fifth with 7, followed by Pakistan with 5. The Philippines has 3 journalists killed during the year.

IFJ President Philippe Leruth said: Once again, the IFJ is asking United Nations' Members States to adopt at their general Assembly the Convention on the security and protection of journalists which the IFJ presented to diplomatic missions at the UN in New York last October. This Convention, supported by the profession as a whole, is a concrete response to crimes committed against journalists in full impunity.

See more here.

Appeal rejected for Myanmar Reuters journalists

On January 11, a Myanmar court rejected the appeal of Reuters journalist Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo who were charged under the Official Secrets Act and sentenced to 7 years in jail in 2018. The pair were detained in December 2017, after they were set up by police with a promise of official leaked documents. This followed their extensive investigation into war crimes against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmars Northern Rakhine State, specifically the September 2017 massacre of 10 Rohingyan men and boys, with strong allegations that connected responsibility to the Myanmar army leadership.

During sentencing in September, the Myanmar judge Ye Lwin, in his sentencing, denounced both Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo with his disparaging comment that the reporters tried many times to get their hands on secret documents and pass them to others. They did not behave like normal journalists."

Read more here.

Journalist unions need to adapt to a digital ecosystem

Journalist unions need to adapt to the digital ecosystem and become inclusive to digital media workers to remain strong and relevant was one of the key messages from the two day workshop of the union leaders and digital media activists from the Asia pacific region. The meeting held in Bangkok on November 3 and 4, explored the growing issues that unions need to address in order to adapt to the changing media industry and to ensure the protection and regulation of digital media.

Read more here.

Bidding farewell to Ujjwal Acharya

This month IFJs South Asia coordinator Ujjwal Acharya bids farewell to the IFJ after five years developing and strengthening the IFJs monitoring and advocacy work in this important region for journalist unions. Ujjwal first joined the IFJ team to lead its work for South Asia under the UNDEF Media for Democracy project in 2014. Under his lead, Ujjwal continued to support the development of the SAMSN network as a leading regional voice on journalist rights and freedom of expression issues. He was also a pivotal driver of the launch of the IFJs SAMSN Digital Hub as the central portal for journalist advocacy in the region. He also led IFJs digital advocacy and safety initiatives and trainings and represented the IFJ at missions in Sri Lanka and Nepal and facilitated trainings and meetings across South Asia.

Ujjwal said: The job was personally very satisfying because of the ability to work for the cause of journalists in South Asia who continue to work despite the risks. I made so many friends and I am proud of them. I would like to thank them, and my IFJ colleagues for the supported extended to me.

Ujjwal leaves to take up an exciting role with BBC Nepal but will remain connected to the IFJs advocacy efforts in the region and on issues affecting Nepalese journalists in particular.

Asia Pacific Acting Director, Jane Worthington, said: Ujjwal is a great loss to the IFJ AP team. South Asia remains one of the most challenged regions for journalists globally but Ujjwal has taken on this monumental task with professionalism, unwavering commitment, resilience and respect. He is a dedicated activist and friend to many in our industry. We wish him all the very best for his next professional chapter.

IFJ welcomes Ratna Ariyanti to AP team

The IFJ is pleased to welcome Indonesian journalist and activist Ratna Ariyanti into a new role for the IFJ as South East Asia Coordinator. Ratna is an experienced journalist working at a number of leading Indonesian newspapers, and an important leader and keen activist for AJI Indonesia, at its Jakarta branch and for the past five years as a member of its national executive. Ratna brings with her a wealth of journalism skills, strong organising credentials as a union leader and advocate on journalist rights and gender equality as well as a wealth of experience in developing new strategies for journalists organisations in both monitoring and journalism development. Ratna has experience with research, editing and writing, as well as project coordination. She has recently worked with AJI and the IFJ on several projects including the Indonesia chapter for the South East Asia Media Freedom Report and AJIs National Youth Program.

We are thrilled to welcome Ratna to the IFJ AP team and to develop IFJs work in South East Asia. This is a testament to the strong development of the SEAJU network over recent years, including the development of the report  Underneath the Autocrats: A Report into Impunity, Journalist Safety and Working Conditions  that has been supported by UNESCO.

Sri Lankan unions launch petition to action on impunity

IFJ affiliates the Free Media Movement, the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association and FMETU, along with several other local media union and associations have launched a petition calling on the UN Sri Lanka Resident Coordinator to demand answers from the Sri Lankan government on failures to properly investigate outstanding cases of impunity in Sri Lanka.

The petition will be presented to the UNRO on January 29, 2019.

You can sign the petition here.

Bangladesh: Internet throttled, journalists attacked during parliamentary elections

During parliamentary elections in Bangladesh on December 30, 2018, all 3G and 4G internet services were shut down and journalists were attacked.

In the lead up to and on Election Day, the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) ordered the shutting down of 3G and 4G internet services. On December 27 they were shut for 10 hours, and on December 29, until the evening of poll day, services were taken offline.

On poll day, at least seven journalists were assaulted in Dhaka and Chattogram, while a number of journalists covering polls faced obstructions from activists of political parties and law enforcers. Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo of The Daily Star and Al Amin, a staff reporter of Chattogram-based online news portal Cvoice24.com, were attacked by the AL cadres while senior reporter of Bangla daily Manab Zamin Kafi Kamal was assaulted after casting his vote in Dhaka. Meanwhile, a private television station Jamuna TV claimed that was taken off the air on the eve of the election by the cable operators without any explanation.

Read more here.

State-owned media threatened in Sri Lanka

Supporters of the United National Party (UNP) gathered outside the state-owned Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL), also known as Lake House, threating security while demanding the removal of the posters of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa on December 13. The incident took place after the Supreme Courts ruling that the dissolution of the Parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena was unconstitutional. A group of UNP supporters also insisted that the management of Lake House must be returned to the UNP following the ruling. Police intervened and removed the UNP supporters.

Read more here.

Trolling is not part of the job

To mark International Day on the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25 November, the IFJ launched a global survey which found that 66 % of female respondents suffered online trolling with the majority of them claiming that the harassment was based on their gender.

Read survey results here and testimonies here.

HK govt must guarantee Access to Information in new legislation

In early December, the Hong Kong Law Reform Commission (LRC) launched a three-month consultation into the publics access to information and the management of public records, which will feed into access to information legislation.

The HKJA issued a statement expressing concerns about the public consultation. The statement said that the consultation was nothing but a tactic to further delay the introduction of two legislations that are crucial to the monitoring of public servants. HKJA said that the recommendation from the Access to Information sub-committee was about turning the current non-mandatory code into legislation, without addressing the key inadequacies of the current code, particularly lack of an enforcement authority to monitor its implementation.

Read more here.

Pakistan: Over two thousand jobs lost as newspaper shuts

Pakistans largest publication house, the Jang Group of Newspapers, shut down five newspapers in various cities rendering hundreds of journalists and media workers jobless on December 16, 2018. The Jang Group announced the closure of Peshawar and Faisalabad editions of Jang daily and shut down its Karachi-based Urdu-language daily Awam and English-language Daily News along withLahore-based Urdu daily Inqibal without a prior notice to the employees. The PFUJ also noted that Century Publications Urdu daily Express had closed its bureaus in Sukkur, Quetta, Gujranwala and Multan while the Herald Group of Publication shut down Herald monthly. The PFUJ estimated the total job loss in all these closures to be around 2,500.

Read more here.

Afghan radio director & owner abducted, driver killed

Unidentified armed men abducted Engineer Zalmay, director and owner of the Enikass radio and television stations, after killing his driver on December 4 at Jalalabad, Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. Zalmay was kidnapped at 5 pm during a shopping trip. He was taken by a group of armed men who arrived in an armoured vehicle. His driver was shot and taken to hospital where he later died. The police arrived at the area soon after the incident and cordoned off the scene. Enikass is a popular media group in eastern Afghanistan near Pakistani borders where the ISIS, the Taliban and other terrorist groups have an active presence.

Read more here.

Cambodia: Joint letter calls for charges against former RFA reporters be dropped - RFA

More than three dozen journalists in Cambodia published an open letter on January 10 urging the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to drop all charges against two former RFA reporters who have lived under police surveillance for more than a year while awaiting a trial for espionage. The 38 journalists said they affixed their names and thumbprints to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by RFAs Khmer Service, to express our concern over the seriousness of the charges facing Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, who were taken into custody on Nov. 14, 2017 and charged with illegally collecting information for a foreign source, but released on bail nine months later.

Read more here.
A group of organisations for the protection of human rights, freedom of information and journalists associations demand from the Prime Minister to drop proposals on regulation of online media. The International and European Federation of Journalists (IFJ and EFJ) join their Albanian affiliates, the Association of Professional Journalists of Albanian League of Albanian Journalists, and the rest of organisations on their request to the government to drop an amendment that will put in risk online media freedom in the country.

Here is the full letter:

We inform the public that the two proposals endanger freedom of expression and could turn Albania in an undemocratic country and in the same time, are not helpful in tackling existing problems of the media, including hate speech, defamation, propaganda or disinformation.

The two draft-laws[1] aim to create a registry of online publications and provide rights to an institution known as the "Complaints Council" to sanction online media based on third-party requests, to order their closure or block of the access on such media in the territory of the Republic of Albania.

The draft-laws provide legal mechanisms for Audiovisual Media Authority (AMA) and Tax Authority to fine or close down online media without clear procedures. As such they pose a threat to seriously increase the level of censorship and self-censorship already present in Albanias media scene.

We observe that the argument provided repeatedly by AMA and other officials, including Prime Minister Edi Rama, that the proposals are based on "Croatian model" is inaccurate. We have investigated such claims and found that no such laws exist in the Republic of Croatia.

If the ruling socialist parliamentary majority will enact these proposals, our hybrid democracy will inevitably slither toward an authoritarian regime. In democratic countries, the aim of the law is to protect citizens from the government and not to protect the government from the citizens.

Since 1 January, the government imposed a new 20% vat on online media, which creates distortion due to the fact that audiovisual media is taxed by 6% while print media is tax-free.

While acknowledging the numerous problems that currently plague online communications, including unnecessary offensive language, libel and hate speech, we believe that the current proposals fail to tackle such issues while in the same time, they have the potential to be used as pressure tools by the government against journalists and critics.

Self-regulation of the media, education and public awareness campaigns aiming to improve media literacy; awareness of propaganda, disinformation and fake news are the adequate tools to counter these problems  both online and offline.

Being aware that Albania has to align its legislation with that of the European Union, we observe that the two proposals risk setting back the process of European integration of the country.

List of signatory organisations:
The city of Taneytown has placed its chief of police, William Tyler, and another officer on administrative leave after federal law enforcement agents executed a sealed search warrant at the Taneytown Police Department on Tuesday.

Agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives executed the search, Jim Wieprecht, acting city manager, told the Carroll County Times.

We dont know the full nature of the matter, Wieprecht said Thursday. Were looking into it.

Wieprecht said Tyler was placed on administrative leave, but said he was not allowed to identify the other officer.

A voicemail left on Tylers cellphone Thursday evening was not immediately returned.

The FBI visited the Taneytown Police Department on Tuesday for court authorized law enforcement activity, said Dave Fitz, a public affairs specialist with FBIs Baltimore field office.

Fitz said the FBI also made stops in Fairfield, Pennsylvania, for similar law enforcement activity.

There was no threat to public safety, Fitz added.

The Gettysburg Times on Wednesday reported FBI activity on Mile Trail in Fairfield, in the area where Barbara Jane Jestes runs a day care out of her home.

The paper reported Barbara and Brian Jestes, a sergeant with the Taneytown Police Department, reside on Mile Trail, according to the Adams County Tax Services Department. A phone call from the Carroll County Times to their home was not returned Thursday night.

The city would not confirm Thursday if Jestes was the officer placed on leave.

Wieprecht said the city does not know the reason for the search warrant.

Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Baltimore, said there was no additional information available Thursday.

Tyler, a 1981 graduate of Francis Scott Key High School, has been Taneytown police chief since 2002. According to his LinkedIn profile, Tyler started with the department in 1994.

Lt. Jason Etzler will serve as interim police chief, Wieprecht said.

CAPTION A trooper fatally shot a Carroll County man in Westminster on Monday morning, after the man stabbed the trooper, according to Maryland State Police. A trooper fatally shot a Carroll County man in Westminster on Monday morning, after the man stabbed the trooper, according to Maryland State Police. CAPTION A trooper fatally shot a Carroll County man in Westminster on Monday morning, after the man stabbed the trooper, according to Maryland State Police. A trooper fatally shot a Carroll County man in Westminster on Monday morning, after the man stabbed the trooper, according to Maryland State Police. CAPTION Miles Taylor, a 2013 Westminster graduate with cerebral palsy, weighs just 99 pounds. He recently gained widespread social media attention when a video of him deadlifting 200 pounds went viral. Miles trains at NEVERsate Athletics in Westminster with his coach, Nicolai Meyers. Miles Taylor, a 2013 Westminster graduate with cerebral palsy, weighs just 99 pounds. He recently gained widespread social media attention when a video of him deadlifting 200 pounds went viral. Miles trains at NEVERsate Athletics in Westminster with his coach, Nicolai Meyers. CAPTION Kate Maerten of Gerstell Academy, 1st place winner of the Poetry Out Loud regional competition, reads an original poem which she won a 2nd Place for, at the Carroll Arts Center on Saturday, Feb. 2. Kate Maerten of Gerstell Academy, 1st place winner of the Poetry Out Loud regional competition, reads an original poem which she won a 2nd Place for, at the Carroll Arts Center on Saturday, Feb. 2. CAPTION Firefighters contain barn fire at Baugher's Farm and Orchard in Westminster. Firefighters contain barn fire at Baugher's Farm and Orchard in Westminster. CAPTION Recruits in the Carroll County Sheriff's Office Training Academy get hands-on training behind the wheel of a police car at the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commissions Driver Training Facility in Sykesville. Recruits in the Carroll County Sheriff's Office Training Academy get hands-on training behind the wheel of a police car at the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commissions Driver Training Facility in Sykesville.

alex.mann@carrollcountytimes.com

667-367-4291

twitter.com/alex_mann10
The Shopko pharmacy in the Pine Ridge Mall store location in Chubbuck will likely be sold when a buyer is found because the company is getting out of the pharmacy business. But the Pine Ridge Mall Shopko store itself is not on the list of planned closures after the retailer's recent filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
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The lawyers for the universities previously sought to have some academic programs transferred from traditionally white universities to the historically black universities. They also proposed creating programs at the HBCUs to attract a diverse student body and sought more money for scholarships and marketing.
She said in an email that Roe "would not have taken the meeting had he been aware of Mr. Johnsons previously expressed views  which he believes are abhorrent, were not alluded to in the meeting, and were not readily discoverable when Congressman Roes staff looked into the name 'Charles Johnson,' which is how he was presented."
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Malaysian Minister impressed with Maoris fishing rights

January 15,2019 | Source: Borneo Post

Malaysia's Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr James Masing is impressed with the Maoris of New Zealand for their success in fighting for and getting their fishing rights, courtesy of the countrys administration.



Masing, who is also Minister of Infrastructure Development and Transportation, said he learned a thing or two on this from the countrys deputy chief judge Caren Fox who came for a visit to his residence here yesterday.



She (Fox) visited me at 11.30am along with staff from New Zealand High Commission in Kuala Lumpur comprising deputy High Commissioner Gareth Pidgeon and Policy and Public Advisor Cameron Evans. We exchanged views on Maori land rights and laws. We also sought her view on Maori fishing rights in New Zealand, said Masing.



Masing said he has invited Fox to come over and give a talk to all Dayak NGOs here.



I am more keen to know how the Maoris obtained their fishing rights so that our coastal communities like the Malays and Melanaus can reclaim their fishing rights. I was tasked by the late Tok Nan in 2015 to

visit New Zealand for this purpose, which is fishing rights, he said.



Unlike the Maoris, the Malays and Melanaus do not have fishing rights in the seas surrounding their villages. Other people cant fish in seas assigned to the Maoris, he said.



Joining Masing to welcome Fox were the newly appointed advisor to the Chief Minister Datuk Alexander Nanta Linggi who is also Kapit MP, Deputy State Secretary Datu Jaul Sameon and Masings close aide Datuk Wilfred Nissom.



Fox, from the Ngati Porou tribe of New Zealand, was appointed to the Maori Land Court prior to her current appointment as deputy chief judge.

 2010-2018 BorneoPost Online

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
An island crusader takes on the big brands behind plastic waste

by Christopher Joyce

January 15,2019 | Source: WBUR News

Plastic waste washes in from Manila Bay and the ocean, covering the beach and mangrove trees of Freedom Island, a protected area in the bay.

closemore

Try this: Write a list of every piece of plastic you touch in a day.



I did it. I stopped counting at 56 items.



Plastic is to our time what wood was for millennia. But unlike wood, most plastic doesn't go away. It ends up as trash in streets, rivers, lakes and oceans. It breaks down into microplastic  particles a tenth of an inch or smaller  and gets into our food and water. The health effects are largely unknown.



News stories feature dead whales and turtles with stomachs full of plastic. Activists built a huge floating net to collect it (which recently failed). Concerned citizens clean up beaches.



But that's not helping much. Eight million tons of plastic wash into oceans every year.



What's the alternative? Is it feasible to persuade the wealthiest, most profitable corporations in the world to completely change the way they make plastic and package consumer goods?



There's a group of people in a very unlikely place who are aiming to do just that. Their story starts in 2001, in Southeast Asia.



Froilan Grate doesn't come across as a fire-breathing revolutionary. At 35 and just maybe 5 feet tall, with a wispy goatee, he has the kind of sincerity you might expect from someone who once wanted to be a priest. He carries a backpack and could pass for a college student.



He grew up in a village in the province of Iloilo in the Philippines  a self-described "island boy" who loved the feel of hot sand on his bare feet and swimming in the ocean. But the city beckoned. He was accepted by one of the country's best universities in the capital. He chose school instead of the priesthood. At age 18, he took a 19-hour boat trip to Manila.



Grate remembers grabbing his suitcase and rushing up on deck as the captain announced their entry into Manila Bay. "It was just excitement," he says. "And then slowly, as you come closer to the port ... I see ... garbage."



He felt sick. "The contrast of where I grew up, beautiful white sand beaches, clear water, and arriving in Manila where it's black water with countless plastic," he says, "that was shocking to me."



His first thought at the time, he says, was that his own island would someday end up strewn with plastic as well. His next one was: What can I do to stop it?



Now, Manila Bay is much worse. With a growing economy and a swelling middle class, people are consuming at a torrid pace  electronic devices, packaged foods, fancy toiletries  goods either made of plastic or wrapped in it. In fact, that's the story of many Southeast Asian countries.



But waste management is rudimentary and often nonexistent. In many places, informal cadres of waste pickers collect what they can sell to recyclers. But much of the plastic cannot be recycled. So no one collects it, and it drifts. Everywhere.

 WBUR 2019

Theme(s): Others.
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Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick were inaugurated this week as they begin their second terms as the top elected officeholders in Texas. Each made a solid commitment to funding public education while the House and Senate offered their initial budget proposals, each reflecting that commitment. It's a far cry from the beginning of the last legislative session two years ago when divisive public restroom restrictions, cracking down on undocumented immigrants, and sweeping abortion restrictions topped the agenda. Why the change?

Lisa Krantz, Staff Photographer / San Antonio Express-News

Former San Antonio Mayor and HUD Secretary Julian Castro launched his campaign for president in the Alamo City and Ryan was on the scene while Jeremy has the latest on why Beto O'Rourke says he's "in and out of a funk." Plus Ted Cruz gives a lesson on how to grow a beard.
Three years ago, on Jan. 17, 2016, freelance journalist Almigdad Mojalli was on assignment for Voice of America outside the Yemeni capital of Sanaa where a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition jet had dropped a bomb weeks earlier, despite the lack of obvious military targets nearby. Mojallis coverage had been dominated by a staggering number of civilian casualties. In an article written for IRIN, he wrote about covering an air strike and finding his own relatives among the wounded. The death and destruction had taken on a cyclical quality.

And then on that day, he became part of that cycle when a warplane belonging to the coalition dropped a bomb near him and his colleagues. Mojalli was sprayed with shrapnel from the explosion and died as his colleagues frantically tried to drive him to a nearby hospital.

Three years later, Mojallis death has become part of a grim and growing list of journalists killed at the hands of Saudi Arabia  in many cases with the outright support or else acquiescence of the U.S. government. Mojalli was killed while on assignment for a media outlet funded by the same U.S. government that has supported the Saudi military coalition that killed him  providing it with arms, refueling support and targeting assistance.

On the third anniversary of Mojallis death, and amid the ongoing furor over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the U.S. government should move to ensure it is no longer complicit in these killings.

Before his elevation to Saudi Arabias crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman was appointed Saudi Arabias defense minister, a position he continues to hold even now. One of his first acts as defense minister in 2015 was to begin a military campaign with the support of Arab and African nations against neighboring Yemens Ansar Allah movement, commonly known as the Houthis, who were fighting the Yemeni government. Since then, Salmans eventual rise to the top of the Saudi regime has been characterized by a vicious campaign against journalists domestically, which culminated in Saudi military and intelligence officials murdering and dismembering Khashoggi inside a Saudi consulate in Turkey. Evidence quickly mounted that Salman had directed the operation.

But while Khashoggis murder was exceptional in its brutality, it was unexceptional in the context of Saudi Arabias imprisonment and killing of journalists under Salman. Under Salmans command, the Saudi-led coalition has for years further silenced Yemens already besieged journalists and drawn closed a curtain on the conflicts staggering civilian toll.

Mojalli is one of at least seven journalists killed by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen since the campaign started in March 2015. At least three journalists killed in Yemen were working for Houthi-affiliated outlets, though others killed by coalition airstrikes have not been affiliated with the group and some had even themselves been detained by the Houthis. Even international media, including 60 Minutes reporters, have had their access severely restricted.

Saudi authorities have not indicated that they have conducted any credible investigation into the killings of Yemeni journalists. In fact, their public statements have indicated the opposite: Just days after the military campaign started, local media quoted a spokesman for the military coalition saying that Houthi-affiliated media outlets were considered legitimate military targets. The spokesman, Ahmed Assiri, would later become deputy chief of Saudi intelligence, is now among the senior officials implicated in Khashoggis murder.

Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, columnists critical of corruption and women reporting on the driving ban and womens rights  the very journalists in a position to critically report on whether Salman was stewarding the kingdom into a new age  now languish in prison cells.

The 116th U.S. Congress could vote soon on ending U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabia, as well as formally holding Salman responsible for Khashoggis death (the Senate passed both measures in late 2018, but they were not taken up by the House before the end of session). As lawmakers debate the U.S.-Saudi relationship, they must recognize that they are not only debating Salmans culpability in Khashoggis murder and civilian deaths in Yemen, but also the U.S. governments role in assisting a long campaign against journalists. By voting to end U.S. assistance for Saudi Arabias military operations in Yemen, and holding Salman to account, the U.S. could also regain its role as a global leader in defending press freedom. Journalists are under threat around the world, and cutting off arms sales and moral support to one of the worlds biggest predators of journalists would send a powerful message in support of press freedom at a critical time.

Shilad is a Middle East and North Africa researcher for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
If you ever think your vote doesnt count, just look at the difference Election Day made in Harris Countys criminal justice system.

For years, a group of misdemeanor county court-at-law judges  all Republicans  had fought reforms ordered by federal district court Judge Lee Rosenthal to fix a money bail system she had ruled unconstitutional. She found the form of wealth-based detention violated inmates right to due process and equal protection.

The judges obstinacy was as baffling as it was frustrating since most members of the Harris County Commissioners Court and several county officials had long agreed that the system unfairly penalized poor people who cant make bail payments. Some judges argued they had done enough to reform the system on their own and that Rosenthals order robbed them of discretion.

Excuses got us nowhere fast. And so, the unnecessary jailing of people accused of low-level, nonviolent offenses  most of whom hadnt even been convicted  continued, exacerbating jail overcrowding and wasting taxpayer money.

Why commissioners  nearly all Republican  shelled out $9 million in taxpayer money for expensive high-powered attorneys to defend the judges in the 2016 class action lawsuit was also a mystery. Some pointed fingers, saying the other side didnt want to settle. Plaintiffs, including civil rights groups, denied that claim.

There we were stuck. Nothing on the horizon but endless appeals.

Until the midterm election.

A record turnout  largely spurred by anti-Trump fervor but also inspired by the U.S. Senate campaign of Democrat Beto ORourke  led to a Democratic sweep in Harris County that turned over every bench on the ballot.

The bad news is that we lost some really good Republican judges. The good news is that the Democrats who took over misdemeanor courts in January have no interest in continuing an unconstitutional system. And the new Democratic majority on Commissioners Court  led by new County Judge Lina Hidalgo  has no interest in authorizing taxpayer money to defend it.

Weeks after being sworn in, the new judges agreed to settle the lawsuit. They began working with Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and District Attorney Kim Ogg.

Neal Manne, attorney for the plaintiffs, said the election took negotiations from stalemate to the fast lane: Its fun and exciting that we can now sit down in a conference room at my law firm with judges who have the goals of reform and fairness, Manne told the editorial board a couple of weeks ago.

On Thursday, the new judges approved dramatic changes to the bail system that they will ask the federal judge to approve as part of the settlement.

Presiding Judge Darrell Jordan estimates that 85 percent of people arrested on misdemeanors would qualify for release on no-cash bonds under the new system, the Chronicles Gabrielle Banks reported. Exceptions include those who must wait  up to 48 hours  for a hearing for bond violations, repeat drunken driving offenses and domestic violence charges. After 48 hours, they may also qualify for personal recognizance bonds.

I never thought this day would get here, Jordan was quoted saying.

Neither did we. All the more reason to credit Jordan, who was elected in 2016 and had been the only Democrat among the judges being sued. Early on, Jordan opposed his colleagues appeals, declined private representation in the lawsuit, and supported a settlement. The only other judge to acknowledge the merits of the lawsuit was Mike Fields. Both are black. Fields is a Republican and lost his seat.

Fields applauded the new judges proposed reforms, saying it was a human rights issue  not a Democratic or Republican issue. Thats true. But in this case, most Republican judges had grown too comfortable with their power, and too reliant on a tough-on-crime mantra that pushed them to oppose fairness in the name of safety  even though safety wasnt really at risk.

It took an electoral shakeup to pry power from judges who were impeding justice. The new judges are doing what they believe their constituents want  and that happens to be the right thing. But we hope they have the courage to go even further.

Why stop at misdemeanor cases? There are people being held for nonviolent felonies in Harris County who pose no real threat to society but remain jailed simply because they cant pay. The new Democratic judges should seriously consider expanding reforms to cover them.

Dallas is headed in that direction. The same civil rights lawyers involved in the Harris County lawsuit filed a similar one in Dallas  but that case includes defendants facing felony charges. As in Harris County, the Dallas federal judge, David Godbey, took aim at judges use of predetermined schedules to set bail amounts in hastily conducted hearings that often dont consider a defendants ability to pay.

Unfair is unfair  no matter the court. While we celebrate the citizens whose vote made monumental change possible, we encourage the new judges to continue to use their power for good. There is much work to be done.
[Thumbs twiddled] Forget, ad astra (to the stars), because it looks like NASA has a new slogan: ad vias  to the streets! Employees at the Johnson Space Center lined up outside the NASA HQ on Tuesday to protest the ongoing federal government shutdown, which has caused them to miss their paychecks. One engineer even set up a GoFundMe page help cover furloughed workers bills. How about this as a solution? Put the NASA guys in charge of the rest of the government. They successfully sent a probe to the furthest reaches of the solar system, so congressional budgets should be a cinch.

[Thumbs up] Just dont get BBQ sauce on the mission control panels. Killens BBQ provided free meals for government employees (with government ID of course) on Friday. Restaurants like DAmicos Italian Market Cafe in Rice Village, Bistro Provence in the Energy Corridor, Ouisies Table near River Oaks and the Rainbow Lodge on White Oak Bayou are also offering deals for furloughed workers. Stellar.

[Thumbs up] President Trump might be saying et tu, Brute to his fellow Republican, but were hailing U.S. Sen. John Cornyn as a conquering hero for rallying the Texas delegation against a White House plan to divert Hurricane Harvey recovery funds and spend them instead on a border wall. Freshman U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw also pushed back against the presidents bizarre idea on Fox News. Heres a compromise: Build Trumps wall, but put it along the Gulf Coast and call it the Ike Dike.

[Thumbs up] It was with arte et marte, skill and valor, that Jeff Lindner offered a steady hand during Hurricane Harvey as the Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist, so were glad to see hes a finalist to be named weather person of 2018 by the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes. Lindners steady, straight advice to citizens as the flood waters rose, gave Houston-area residents the knowledge they needed to know whether or not to evacuate, an accompanying press release said. Hes one of five finalists. The winner will be named on Feb. 1.

[Thumbs down] Another case of caveat emptor  buyer beware. Houstonians paid nearly 18 percent more for electricity in 2018 than the previous year while nationwide electricity costs were up only 1.1 percent. Thats not a problem folks have in San Antonio, where the citys electric utility held off rate increases last year. Houston went down the deregulation route years ago and were still paying for it.
Colbert said he was sincerely moved by the Gillette ad, particularly by the boys featured at the end, but still asked: Are our public institutions so weak that we need to be taught moral lessons by razor companies? Because first its Gillette, and the next thing you know, every company is going to try to jump on the woke bandwagon.
Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip, was involved in a car crash Thursday while driving in rural England but was not injured.

In this Sunday, Dec. 25, 2016 file ., Britain's Prince Philip waves to the public as he leaves after attending a Christmas day church service in Sandringham, England. [File Photo: IC]

Buckingham Palace said Philip, 97, was checked by a doctor after the accident and determined to be fine.

The palace said the two-car accident happened Thursday afternoon near Sandringham Estate, the queen's country retreat in eastern England.

Witnesses told the BBC Philip appeared "very shocked" and shaken after the collision, which caused the Land Rover he was driving to overturn.

Norfolk Police said the drivers of both cars, a Land Rover and a Kia, were given alcohol breath tests under routine procedures following a collision. The force said both drivers tested negative.

"The male driver of the Land Rover was uninjured. The female driver of the Kia suffered cuts while the female passenger sustained an arm injury, both requiring hospital treatment," the police force said in a state.

The two women from the Kia were treated at nearby Queen Elizabeth Hospital and discharged, the statement said.

Witnesses described seeing broken glass and debris at the scene. Police did not say how the accident happened. There was no indication anyone was arrested for a driving offense.

Philip had a passenger in his car, but the palace did not identify the person. It is likely the prince was traveling with a protection officer, a standard security procedure for Britain's senior royals.

Philip has largely retired from public life. He has seemed to be in generally good health in recent months.

He and Elizabeth, 92, have been on an extended Christmas holiday at Sandringham, one of her favored rural homes.
A man who was accused of killing his estranged wife and critically wounding his daughter at a church parking lot in Cypress is dead after a standoff at a west Harris County hotel Friday morning, authorities said.

Deputies launched a manhunt for 62-year-old Arthur Edigin Thursday night after he fired into a car carrying his wife, Graciela Torres, 66; his daughter, Penny Edigin-Zapata, 31; and his 17-month-old grandchild.

He fled to the Extended Stay America hotel at 2424 West Sam Houston Parkway near Westheimer, where he had a room. Friday morning, he was found in the bathtub dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Sr. Deputy Thomas Gilliland with the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

Now Playing: A man who was accused of killing his estranged wife and critically wounding her daughter at a church in Cypress is dead after a standoff at a west Harris County hotel Friday morning, authorities said. Video: Metro Video, Houston Chronicle

The SWAT scene came to a close after nearly six hours of attempting to negotiate with Edigin, said Gilliland.

After it became known that Edigin was in a fourth floor room of the hotel, deputies attempted to relocate civilians in the adjacent areas. As negotiations broke off and the SWAT scene stretched on, deputies and HFD officials attempted to move all guests out of the hotel.

"You have a very dangerous subject, and the most important thing was the citizens of the hotel," Gilliland said.

During the negotiations, deputies broke through Edigin's window to deploy gas canisters in the room, letting off some loud bangs. Some guests were treated for minor respiratory issues, Gilliland said.

HOUSTON HOMICIDES: The city saw a slight uptick in 2018. HoustonChronicle.com delves into the numbers.

Deputies then released another round of gas into the room after. They last made contact with Edigin several hours before the conclusion of the standoff, but no significant progress was made in getting him to surrender, Gilliland said.

A robot entered the room at 6:50 a.m. and found Edigin deceased in the bathroom, with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the sheriff's office.

'A TERRIBLE ACT OF VIOLENCE': Church where woman was shot by estranged husband holds service

Hotel guest Tommy Armstead said he didn't think much of it when deputies came to his bedroom and told him to evacuate. After about an hour of waiting outside during the standoff, he heard the suspect was wanted for murder and couldn't believe it.

"The guy, he could have went crazy and shooting wildly," Armstead said while sitting in a car outside the building.

Another guest, Don Thomas, said he was staying at the hotel while looking for a place to live in Houston, but might rethink that now.

"We might have to go back to the country somewhere," Thomas said. "We're not used to this at all."

Desiree Hollander stepped outside in her bathrobe to walk her dog after the scene cleared. She woke up early this morning and turned on the news to see that the man sleeping just two doors down and a floor above was a suspected murderer.

Hollander said she heard pops, which caused her dog to start running in circles. She called the front desk, and they told her to stay put.

"I was afraid," she said. "I was like, I hope he doesn't start shooting because he was so close and I couldn't get out."

In Thursday night's shooting, Edigin is accused of opening fire on his estranged wife and her adult daughter, who were in a car in a parking lot of Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church, at the 11500 block of Huffmeister Road. He fired possibly five to six gunshots, deputies said.

Torres died while her daughter is in critical condition at a hospital. They were coming to the church for ESL classes and had just arrived, the church said.

The wife and daughter were in the car with a 17-month-old child, which Gilliland referenced as Edigin's grandchild.

"It shows you how heinous the crime was," Gilliland said. "It kind of shows you the mindset of the person we're deailng with."

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Three years after the Womens March drew millions of people into the streets to protest Donald Trumps election, the womens march movement is in turmoil. But Houston  which expects roughly as many people this year as attended its first march  seems to have lost no energy at all.

Despite a prediction of cold weather, Houston Women March On expects between 20,000 and 25,000 people to march from Buffalo Bayou Park to City Hall on Saturday  about the same number of people who participated in the previous two years marches. It will likely be the largest march in Texas.

By comparison, New York and Philadelphia will each have two competing marches this weekend, organized by womens-march organizations at war with each other. But Chicago, where previous marches drew hundreds of thousands, wont field even one citywide protest.

Theres no march in Austin, either. March On Texas, the statewide womens group that organized Austins marches in 2017 and 2018, issued a statement that said it didnt arrange one this year because organizing a march in Austin has become increasingly challenging, and requires a lot of advanced notice and funding to accomplish. Instead the group urges Austin-area women to attend the annual Texas Reproductive Rights Rally celebrating the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

National Womens March Inc., the national group organizing the third Womens March on Washington on Saturday, has been embroiled in controversies related the diversity of its leadership and anti-Semitism. A black organizer was criticized for participating in an event held by Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who is often condemned as anti-Semitic.

In April, the Houston group, then known as the Houston Womens March, called for the national organization to get its act together. The unifying work of the Womens March is too crucial to let the world wonder whether its national leaders are anti-Semitic and racist or whether theyre unwilling to rise above personal agendas, the groups board wrote in an opinion piece published by the Chronicle.

Soon after that, the Houston group changed its name to Houston Women March On and affiliated instead with the umbrella group March On. Anyone who buys a T-shirt will know that weve changed, that its not the same as last year, said Robin Paoli, a march organizer.

It comes as no surprise that the national womens-march movement is hitting turbulence, said Marcia Chatelain, a Georgetown University history professor who studies social movements. The transition from a single event to a sustainable movement is always challenging. Theyre dealing with the types of issues that any movement trying to be broad and ethical will have, Chatelain said.

Chatelain notes that the midcentury Civil Rights Movements March on Washington incubated for decades, giving time to build the local organizations and coalitions propelling it. The first Womens March, on the other hand, came together in only eight weeks. Its remarkable what they were able to, she said.

Janice Character, vice president of the Houston group, is annoyed by criticism that the leadership of Houston Women March On lacks diversity. Our leadership team is three black women, two Hispanics and three white women, said Character, whos black. If thats not diverse, I dont know what is.

The Houston groups broad base has been a source of its strength, she said. Other cities, with all the backlash, had to cancel because they didnt have the support of their communities. But weve been able to move on. It speaks to the diversity of Houston.

Saturdays march, named the 2019 March for Justice, will focus not just on womens issues, but on topics including voting rights, immigration, health care, criminal justice reform, education, housing, the environment, gerrymandering and gun violence.

Speakers will include Lizzie Panill Fletcher, newly elected to the U.S. House of Representatives; and Rhonda Hart, whose daughter was killed in the shooting at Santa Fe High School.

Marchers will gather starting at 8 a.m. outside the Cistern in Buffalo Bayou Park. Woman-owned food trucks will sell coffee and breakfast food there, and Sarah Grace, a Houston teenager who appeared on NBCs The Voice, will sing.

At 10 a.m., marchers will head to a rally outside City Hall. Theyll be urged to dedicate themselves to long-term change  to register to vote, to register voters, to volunteer with campaigns and social-action groups, or to run for office themselves.

Houston Women March On has become a political force in Houston-area politics, said Letitia Plummer, the groups candidate liaison. The organization sponsors an event somewhere in Houston almost every week, and has a mailing list of roughly 20,000 names.

Plummer knows first-hand what sorts of help candidates need: Trumps election inspired her to enter politics last year. She lost her bid for Congress in the primary, but in the coming year, she plans to run for an at-large seat on Houston City Council.

The marches are incredibly important, but theyre just the first leg of creating change, she said. We have to work for change every day of our lives.

lisa.gray@chron.com
Houston ISD trustees will hold 12 community meetings over the next two weeks to solicit feedback about the districts ongoing superintendent search.

Trustees will kick off the listening tour Monday evening at Peck Elementary School on the citys southeast side. A districtwide meeting will be held the following Saturday, Jan. 19, at the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center. The final meeting will take place Jan. 24 at Madison High School on the citys south side.

The 12 meetings are spread across the district, with all nine trustees hosting at least one session. Representatives from the districts superintendent search firm, Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, are expected to attend. All members of the public are invited to attend each session.

HISD officials initially said Thursday that they would hold 15 community meetings, but later removed two student-only gatherings and a Jan. 22 meeting on the citys east side from their schedule. It is not immediately clear whether trustees still will meet with students.

Houston ISD also has posted an online survey for feedback about the superintendent search, available at www.houstonisd.org.

More Information Here is the full schedule of public meetings: Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, 6 p.m. Peck Elementary School 5001 MLK Blvd., Houston, TX 77021 Host: Trustee Jolanda Jones Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019, 6:30 p.m. Pershing Middle School 3838 Blue Bonnet Blvd., Houston, TX 77025 Host: Trustee Sue Deigaard Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019, 2 p.m. Long Academy 6501 Bellaire Blvd., Houston, TX 77074 Hosts: Trustees Sue Deigaard, Holly Maria Flynn Vilaseca, Anne Sung Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019, 6 p.m. Revere Middle School 10502 Briar Forest Dr., Houston, TX 77042 Host: Trustee Holly Maria Flynn Vilaseca Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019, 7 p.m. Barbara Jordan Career Center 5800 Eastex Fwy., Houston, TX 77026 Host: Trustee Rhonda Skillern-Jones Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, 6:30 p.m. Wisdom High School 6529 Beverly Hill St., Houston, TX 77057 Host: Trustee Anne Sung Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019, 9 a.m. Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center 4400 W. 18th St., Houston, TX 77092 Districtwide meeting Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, 6 p.m. Chavez High School 8501 Howard Dr., Houston, TX 77017 Hosts: Trustees Diana Davila and Sergio Lira Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, 1 p.m. Black Middle School 1575 Chantilly Lane, Houston, TX 77018 Host: Trustee Rhonda Skillern-Jones Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, 9 a.m. Northside High School 1101 Quitman, Houston, TX 77009 Host: Trustee Elizabeth Santos Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, 6 p.m. Heights High School 413 E 13th St., Houston, TX 77008 Host: Trustee Elizabeth Santos Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019, 6:30 p.m. Madison High School 13719 White Heather Dr., Houston, TX 77045 Host: Trustee Wanda Adams See More Collapse

HISD leaders are seeking a permanent replacement for former superintendent Richard Carranza, who left the district in March 2018 to become chancellor of New York City Public Schools. Trustees elevated Grenita Lathan, who previosuly served as chief academic officer, to interim superintendent following Carranzas departure. It is unlikely Lathan will get the job permanently given that five trustees covertly maneuvered to replace her last October, reversing course two days later when her chosen replacement backed out of the job.

Trustees have said they want to complete their search before April 30. The search will be closed, meaning the names of applicants and finalists will not be disclosed publicly. Trustees said some interested candidates working in other school districts may not apply if their names are publicly released, fearing reprisal from their current constituents. Texas law requires the public naming of a lone finalist at least 21 days before a contract is signed with a chosen candidate.

jacob.carpenter@chron.com

twitter.com/chronjacob
A Republican congressman apologized for shouting "Go back to Puerto Rico" on the House floor on Thursday, said Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., who Democrats had believed was the target of the verbal attack.

The remark came after Congress had adjourned for the week but lawmakers exchanged insults as they fought over issues related to a bill to fund the government, according to Politico.

"I was shocked, because I often heard those kinds of comments when I was a kid growing up in Pacoima, California, where I was born and raised," Cardenas said in an email statement, adding that he had been waiting to speak at the moment.

It was initially unclear who made the remark, which came on the same week Republican Rep. Steve King was stripped of his committee assignments over racist comments.

Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., later admitted to making the statement. But Smith's communications director, Joey Brown, said in an email that the congressman was "speaking to all the Democrats who were down vacationing in Puerto Rico last weekend during the shutdown, not any individual."

Cardenas, the youngest son of immigrant parents from Mexico, is the chairman of Bold PAC, the electoral arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which organized a delegation to visit Puerto Rico over the weekend. The trip has been attacked by conservative media and President Donald Trump as the longest government shutdown in history continued, The Post's David Weigel reported.

- - -

The White House seized on the idea of Democrats "partying on the beach instead of negotiating," as polls have found most voters blaming Trump for the 24-day impasse over funding the federal government, the longest shutdown in history. "We were not going to let Donald Trump stop us, whether he created a shutdown or whether he wrote mean tweets about us," said Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., chairman of Bold PAC. "Millions of people are being affected all over the country, including in Puerto Rico. Projects are being stopped, right now. And the president is exacerbating this situation, from Puerto Rico to California."

- - -

Weigel also reported that "lawmakers flew to Puerto Rico as the White House was reportedly considering ways to divert disaster funds earmarked for hurricane relief toward the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border."

On Thursday afternoon House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer implored members of Congress of the need "to be civil to one another."

"I would hope that we could refrain from any implications that have any undertones of prejudice or racism or any kind of -ism that would diminish the character and integrity of one of our fellow members," Hoyer said on the House floor.

Cardenas, who has represented California's 29th District since 2013, told the Hill Thursday that he had immediately confronted his Republican colleagues after hearing the controversial remark, but no one acknowledged saying it.

"There was about 50 mostly male Republicans staring at me, and no one would admit that they said it. I asked several times but no one owned up to the fact that they said it," he said.

Hours later Smith called and "took responsibility for the comment and sincerely apologized," Cardenas said. Smith did not respond to a subsequent email asking for comment about his call to Cardenas.

But the congressman from California said he accepted the apology, then shared a saying he said his parents taught him.

"De todo lo malo, siempre sale algo bueno," which in English means, "From everything bad, something good will come of it."
Adding to the trips appeal, Chincoteague Island holds their Polar Pony Plunge on New Years Day each year. Hundreds of people dress in wild costumes to plunge into the ocean at the National Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island. There are prizes for the best costumes of the day, so people go all out. Participants are encouraged to shout a famous quote or famous last words as they enter the ocean. You can learn more about the Polar Pony Plunge st www.chincoteaguechristmas.com.
Freshman Texas State Rep. Gina Calanni of Katy has filed her first bill, House Bill 880, aimed at lowering costs of losing school superintendents.

The bill, filed Jan. 17, would ensure school districts in Texas will not pay outgoing superintendents more than one years salary in their severance package.

According to the bill, The board of trustees may not make a severance payment to a superintendent in an amount greater than one years salary under the superintendents terminated contract.

At a time when our schools are sorely underfunded at the state level and property taxes are skyrocketing on the local level, Texans rightfully demand accountability and diligent stewardship of our taxpayer dollars, Calanni said in a news release. As a working, single mom of three boys in Katy ISD, I want every penny of our tax dollars going to prepare our children for their futures and paying teachers a salary they can live on  not to several hundred thousand dollar, multi-year payouts to former school officials.

KATY ISD: Embattled superintendent Lance Hindt resigns top job, will get $750,000 payout

HB 880 is not about one event or one individual, but about putting an end to wasteful spending in our school districts. I look forward to working with my Democratic and Republican colleagues to restore state funding for public education this session and to safeguard funds meant for our kids.

Katy ISD paid outgoing Superintendent Lance Hindt the equivalent of two years salary, a sum of more than $770,000. Hindt was the fifth highest paid superintendent in Texas with a base pay of more than $386,000, according to October 2017 data from the Texas Education Agency. After being embroiled in a controversy over bullying a fellow student decades ago, Hindt announced in May 2018 he was leaving the district effective Jan. 1, 2019.

The KISD trustees subsequently released a revised contract with Hindt that paid him more than $770,000.

Calannis bill will have to be assigned to a committee for its next action.

rkent@hcnonline.com
I avoided Walt Disney World so passionately and for so long that I accidentally went at exactly the right time.

My reasons for putting off a trip to the most magical place on Earth were many, but top of mind was traveling as a single parent. How would I navigate the lines and crowds on my own? Could I conquer the parks without another adult to share my cynicism at the end of a long day? If a mom cries from fatigue alone at Disney, does she make a sound?

To this point, our threesome  me, my daughter, Louise, 8, and son, Thomas, 6  have mostly traveled by way of Texas highways, so Ill admit I was daunted as much by planning logistics as the prospect of wearing Mickey Mouse ears. (I did not wear Mickey Mouse ears.)

Eventually, I came to the same conclusion many parents have: A trip to Disney might cost the same as a European vacation, but my kids will enjoy the Orlando theme parks more.

Instincts told me I couldnt endure the enchanted lands during a school break with throngs of other families. Theres no low season at Disney, but I gathered intel that the weeks between Thanksgiving break and winter break are less crazed. And, seeing the parks dressed up for Christmas would add an extra Tinkerbell-sized dash of magic.

I booked what I think most would agree is the bare minimum for Disney World: three days. We would do one day each at Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and Epcot. I secured reservations for sit-down lunches at all three because I knew Id require a midday glass of wine. And I kept the entire trip a surprise from my kids.

If you go GETTING THERE Multiple airlines fly nonstop to Orlando, Fla. To save money, we flew budget carrier Spirit from Houston and packed a single carry-on suitcase, for a total cost of $407; spirit.com. WHERE TO STAY We stayed in a Preferred Room with two queen beds with one child-sized pull-down bed at Disney's Port Orleans Resort Riverside. There are several dining options, including Riverside Mill Food Court, where many families use the available paper goods to take their food to-go to eat in the room. A complimentary ferry boat goes from the hotel to Disney Springs.1251 Riverside Drive, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.; 407-934-6000; disneyworld.disney.go.com. Rates start at $252 per night. WHAT TO DO One-day, one-park admission at Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios is $109-$122 per person. Lunch at Cinderella's Royal Table costs $81.63 per adult and $48.32 per child, including tax and gratuity. The prix-fixe meal is paid in full at booking. Cloud of Goods stroller rental starts at $15 per day and includes delivery and pick-up; cloudofgoods.com. -Allison Bagley See More Collapse

Early one Wednesday, I woke my kids up by showing them our bags and told them we were ditching school for the rest of the week. They tried to guess our destination but didnt come close even when we arrived at our gate marked Orlando. (So insistent Ive been that Im not cut out for Disney World, my kids never bothered asking where its located.) Midflight, a very kind Spirit Airlines attendant helped me reveal the surprise. She called Louise and Thomas out by name over the intercom and told them where they were headed. I got the whole thing on a video I think is cute enough for a Disney commercial.

Maybe fairy tales are my thing, after all.

An accidental benefit to keeping my kids in the dark was they didnt do any pre-research or conspire with friends to find out the coolest attractions. We rode the rides for which we had time, skipped the rest, and they were none the wiser.

Armed with this attitude  along with ride shares, food-delivery apps and other modern-parent hacks I rely on at home  I survived Disney World. And because I think you can too, Im going to dispel some myths that may be keeping reluctant parents away. And offer a few tips. Consider them your mouseketools.

Myth No. 1: You have to stay at a Disney hotel.

We booked our trip about 10 weeks out  dont let parents with color-coded Disney binders tell you you need a full year to plan. The number of on-Disney properties is overwhelming (26). I checked availability at the hotels on the Monorail (Disneys Contemporary Resort, Polynesian Village Resort and Grand Floridian Resort & Spa) because of their easy access but soon learned theres no perfect hotel if youre visiting more than one park. Disney Worlds top attractions are spread throughout the 40-square-mile compound.

So, consider Uber your fairy godmother. For airport transfers to and from our moderate-level, plantation-style Disney's Port Orleans Resort Riverside and to reach the parks each day, we opted out of Disney's complimentary Magical Express bus  for me, multiple stops is not magical  in favor of Uber. Each ride was between 5 and 9.3 miles and cost about $8. Our drivers were timely and courteous, and the designated Uber drop points were near the entrances. Our Uber airport transfers were $27 and $37.

There are perks for staying at a Disney hotel, including extra hours at certain parks on certain days, but no need to feel beholden to the system. After a day of Disney, some parents might want to get away from all things Disney. Others might want to use hotel points at a national chain or book an Airbnb. Ride shares free up more lodging options.

Myth No. 2: You must get a dining plan  and if you dont make meal reservations exactly six months out, your trip is doomed.

Some called me a renegade for not opting into a meal plan, Disneys pre-paid option that allows for an allotted number of meals and snacks per day at the parks and Disney entities.

The same friends told me Id never get a reservation at Cinderellas Royal Table, a restaurant that allows you to access Magic Kingdoms iconic castle and meet all the good princesses in one fell swoop (Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel and Sleeping Beauty).

On my third call, the reservationist on the phone seemed as surprised as me that a spot for lunch had opened up. I had similar luck getting a table at T-REX in Disney Springs, where we sat under stalactites in an ice cave that changed colors, near wooly mammoths whose eyes moved.

At our sit-down meals, I felt smug freedom we were able to order outside the dishes marked with the meal-plan icon. Thomas is a picky eater. On certain days, Louise is a vegetarian. Sometimes we have to order creatively. And I didnt have to quibble about whether my adult beverage was allowable.

Outside our lunch reservations, we were free to eat how we pleased. In the mornings, we chose fruit from our hotels food court to eat on the way to the parks. In the evenings, when our legs felt wobbly, we could retire to our room with no guilt about veering off-plan. We ordered room service one night, used Postmates to get pizza delivered another and ate our refrigerated leftovers the third.

Myth No. 3: Your kids will be happy the entire trip.

There are as many meltdowns at Disney World as there are families in matching T-shirts. Kids are over-stimulated and off-schedule. You cant reason with them or wave a magic wand to improve their mood because when does that work at home?

Even at Disney, siblings bicker. Parents issue mostly idle threats because the consequences available at, say, Pandora: The Land of Avatar are few. Quit pinching your sister or were leaving the park I just paid $327 to enter  Im taking you back to your hotel room painted with colorful cartoon characters as punishment!

Instead, temper expectations. Consumerism and temptation are all around  every overpriced dessert is adorably mouse-shaped, and some rides have dedicated toy stores at their exit. I told my kids in advance they could pick out one toy and one T-shirt each during the entire trip. (Im not virtuous; I completely caved on concessions.) You cant avoid all the begging and pleading, but you can try to manage it up front.

Speaking of nagging, give yourself some grace. Youll want your kids to experience every magical element of Disney, but thats impossible. You may find that after 11 hours at a park, your kids are too exhausted to stay for the fireworks. Youll waste a FastPass on a ride no one liked, then run out of time to shoot bows and arrows with Princess Merida. After all, when it comes to the offerings at Disney World, its to infinity and beyond.

Back in reality earlier this month, we were driving in the rain to a winter-break day camp  late, frantic, looking for parking and groaning about Houstons endless construction  when I heard Louise sigh quietly from the backseat. I wish we were at Disney World.

I had to agree.

________________________________________________

One last single-parent pep talk

You can do this. Because of FastPass  included in your park admission, it allows you to access the quick line at a certain number of rides per day  and Disney Worlds new price structure that spreads crowds out with fluctuating park admission by day, its not necessary to have two parents to split up and do line holding. Approach the theme parks like a trip to Target  there are fewer crowds earlier in the day.

As the only adult, I was relieved we were able to sit together in the same row or pod on every ride. I also managed to hit Disney at an ideal time  before my kids needed to conquer every roller coaster for bragging rights and long past a desire to stand in line to meet characters. Have kids who are into different things? When my daughter opted out of two rides we thought would give her motion sickness (Soarin and the 65-mile-per-hour Test Track, both at Epcot), she was able to stay with us until we strapped into our seat, then stood nearby in a designated area with an employee to wait for us to return.

Rent a stroller  youll have room for your own snacks and water bottles that are permissible to bring in, all the swag you bought you swore you wouldnt and your kids, should they need to take a load off. Havent owned a stroller since your kids were in diapers and think you can get by without one? According to my health tracker, we walked 9.8 miles at Magic Kingdom. If your kids have that kind of stamina, then youre probably the type of family that enthusiastically runs 5Ks on Thanksgiving morning and you can skip the stroller. If you get one, tie a ribbon or something distinguishable to it  a white flag in surrender?  because every wise family at Disney has a stroller.

Allison Bagley is a writer in Houston. Email: travel@chron.com.
Editors note: This is the seventh column in a series in which J.C. Reid explores the origins and influences that make Southeast Texas barbecue unique.

Theres not much to see today at the intersection of Lyons and Jensen, at the western boundary of Houstons Fifth Ward. Three corners are vacant lots with only the foundations of long-lost buildings visible among the clumps of grass and weeds. The fourth is a parking lot for a high school named after Mickey Leland, the prominent U.S. congressman and community activist who grew up in this predominantly African-American neighborhood northeast of downtown.

The secrets of the intersection  and there are many  can be found in the zydeco, blues and soul music for which the area is known. During its heyday in the 1940s and 50s, Fifth Ward was dubbed the Harlem of the South, referring to the grand musical heritage of that New York neighborhood.

Lyons was the center of this musical culture, and its stories are still told in the recordings of the areas best-known musicians, including Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Weldon Juke Boy Bonner.

Bonners song Stay Off Lyons Avenue is one example. For a time in the 40s and 50s, this intersection was known as one of the citys most dangerous because of the brawls and fights that took place there: You better stay off Lyons Avenue/Cause you go there, you go there green/Somewhere on Jensen, the last time you be seen.

And yet just to the east, the stretch of Lyons between Gregg and nearby Denver Harbor became one of the most vibrant African-American neighborhoods of that era, giving rise to the Harlem comparison.

One of the more vivid descriptions of this street can be found in an article from January 3, 1951, by Sig Byrd, a Houston Press columnist at the time. In his column The Stroller, he documented the dark underbelly and hidden neighborhoods of the city. (His columns can be found on the fascinating Digital Sig Byrd Archive website,

thedigitalsigbyrdproject.wordpress.com.)

Byrd refers to many of the colorful businesses along Lyons: the Monte Carlo Night Club, Poor Man Cafe, Huckle-Buckle Inn, Harlem Shine Parlor and the Peacock Record Shop. In front of the record shop, he runs into a lean young man with a sharp mustache and pigskin gloves who turns out to be none other than Gatemouth Brown.

Byrd also refers to the long tradition of barbecue in Fifth Ward, mentioning Congo BBQ (listed as Congo Beer Bar in a 1951 city directory) at 4204 Lyons and Silver Shoe Barbecue & Hot Links at 3602 Lyons.

Lyons Avenue Renaissance Festival When: April 13 Information: lyonsavenuefestival.com See More Collapse

He visited Rochelles Market at 3902 Lyons, too. Meat markets of that era often featured wild game, specifically raccoon, possum, rabbit and squirrel. Wild game has a long history in Southeast Texas-style barbecue, reflecting the influence of Southern U.S. dishes such as Brunswick stew, which was originally made with meat from squirrel, possum or rabbit.

Byrd covered the classic Cajun/Creole dish of baked possum and sweet potatoes as well. Indeed, Fifth Ward is home to Frenchtown, a neighborhood where Creoles from Louisiana settled in the 1920s.

These days Lyons is a street in transition, bound by the Saint Arnold Brewing complex to the west and the now mostly Hispanic and gentrifying Denver Harbor neighborhood to the east. Many of the older buildings and businesses have been torn down and replaced with newer apartment complexes and chain stores.

There are still a few remnants of Fifth Wards long tradition of Southeast Texas-style barbecue. Davis Meat Market, Burts Meat Market and Nickel Sandwich Grill still serve barbecue and boudin. On weekends, you might find vacant lots with shade-tree barbecue operations  smoked-meat entrepreneurs set up their trucks or trailers on the side of the street, under the shade of a tree, and serve barbecue.

Still, the neighborhood is starting to re-engage with its past. In April, the sixth annual Lyons Avenue Renaissance Festival will feature the food and music that makes Fifth Ward unique.

J.C. Reid is the Chronicle's barbecue columnist. He also is the co-host of BBQ State of Mind, a podcast covering barbecue news from Texas and around the world, and co-founder of the Houston Barbecue Festival. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook, or send barbecue tips and questions to jcreid@jcreidtx.com.
Color is life, explains Dame Zandra Rhodes.

With her signature pink bob and bright-blue eye shadow, the petite yet charismatic British fashion designer makes a statement much like her eccentric, theatrical designs. She has dressed royalty and rock stars from Princess Diana to Freddie Mercury, and as her namesake business approaches its 50th anniversary, the 78-year-old, international icon has no plans of slowing down.

In 2001, she expanded her colorful career into the world of opera, first creating costumes for San Diego Operas The Magic Flute and, three years later, designing its entire production of The Pearl Fishers. To date, the latter has been performed in 18 different cities, she says.

On Friday, it will premiere at the Wortham Theater Center, marking Houston Grand Operas second collaboration with Rhodes, who designed Aida for the organization in 2007. With one of the most famous duets in all of opera, Bizets work is a rarely performed gem, featuring a romantic love triangle among two best friends and a priestess on the island of Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka.

They said to me, It doesnt have to be real. So the palm trees are red and turquoise, Rhodes says, laughing. Only the sea is blue.

The Pearl Fishers When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Feb. 2, 5, 8; 2 p.m. on Jan. 27 Where: Brown Theater, Wortham Theater Center Details: $20-270; 713-228-6737; houstongrandopera.org See More Collapse

Straight outta Sri Lanka

Although the setting is a fantastical version of reality, Rhodes found inspiration in authenticity while on a weeklong trip to the island where she drew sketches of her ideas upon studying the rich cultural diversity found in the art and architecture. Since Bizet had never visited Ceylon, Rhodes had free rein in her creative process.

Id hoped that it (the island) was Indian enough that I could really use a lot of my Indian influences, she said, and I was able to do that. Early on, I did sketches of a temple going up into the background, but in the end, we looked to the sea. Its just a beautiful opera.

The Pearl Fishers has certainly been stamped with the identity, and the pizzazz, of this legendary designer. The sets and costumes complement the productions musical beauty with their lush, kaleidoscopelike colors and motifs that parallel the work she has created throughout her career.

Initially interested in book illustration, Rhodes said she has always painted and drawn. In fact, she was wearing a design from one of her sketchbook collections, she noted as she stood to reveal the full breadth of the intricate, bold patterns interspersed along her vivid blue garment.

After attending Medway College of Art, Rhodes studied printed-textile design at The Royal College of Art in London, but when manufacturers declined to purchase her early work, deeming it too outrageous, she pioneered a different tactic.

I really taught myself to be more about printing, she said, and my business is based around the fact that I print the fabrics that go into the garments.

Run, Freddie, run

Her fascination with fabrics and the endless possibilities in which they move on the body is beneficial for performers for whom suppleness is of utmost importance. When fitting the band Queen, Rhodes asked Mercury and his bandmates to run around the room to see how the clothing would feel onstage. Similarly, opera stars must feel comfortable enough to sing, first and foremost, requiring Rhodes to have some flexibility in her designs.

You have to shift certain bits, she said. The dresses dont have to be practical in one sense. In this production, we concentrated on using lengths of fabrics, so they were like saris and tunics and things that are quite fabulous to wear. Its worked out that they can clip it together, and the bit goes over the top so that it looks like a sari, but it isnt. That side of it is wonderful.

From textiles to fashion to opera, Rhodes certainly does not shy away from new ventures  and with that comes travel. In the first week of January, she flew from her home in California to fit the operas four main stars, but shell be visiting her rainbow penthouse in London and attending an interior design fair in Sweden before returning to Houston to oversee the operas production at the end of the month.

Wherever she goes, and whatever she does, rest assured, there will be color.

Lawrence Elizabeth Knox is a Houston-based writer.
Oil prices spiked to a six-week high after China was said to offer a ramp-up of imports from the U.S. to settle a trade dispute between the world's biggest economies.

Futures rose as much as 3.5 percent in New York on Friday after Bloomberg News reported China has proposed a six-year buying spree of American goods. The offer to boost purchases by $1 trillion eased concerns that the dispute will lead to a prolonged slump in energy demand.

Signs of progress on trade "have greased the wheels in commerce globally," Bob Iaccino, chief market strategist at Chicago-based Path Trading Partners, said in an interview. "The perception of diminished demand which was turning up in the economic numbers is turning around, and that's going to bring the speculators back."

PREVIOUSLY: Oil advances on report U.S. weighs rolling back China tariffs

Oil is on track for a third straight weekly increase, with gains totaling almost 20 percent, as worries about a global oversupply fade. OPEC production fell by the most in almost two years in December after the cartel and other top exporters agreed to rein in crude output. Still, prices remain down by about a third from the peak reached in October.

West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery rose as much as $1.83 to $53.90 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and was at $53.62 as of 12:25 p.m. local time. The contract is up 3.9 percent this week.

Brent for March settlement advanced $1.36 to $62.54 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude was at an $8.70 premium to WTI for March.

GAS: Record production of natural gas to continue through 2020

Crude demand is on course to grow this year, as the enticement of lower prices counters a softening economy, the International Energy Agency said on Friday. Schlumberger Ltd. offered more reassuring news for those worried about a glut of American crude. The world's biggest oilfield service company said North American shale drillers were likely to slow activity in the coming year as their finances come under pressure.

Production from OPEC's 14 members sank by 751,000 barrels a day last month, with just over half the reduction accounted for by Saudi Arabia, according to a report from the group's secretariat. It's the biggest cut since the organization kicked off a previous round of curbs in early 2017.

"OPEC's releasing information on how much they've cut, and Saudi Arabia keeps talking about how much more they're going to cut," said Ellen Wald, president of Transversal Consulting, an energy and geopolitics consultancy in Jacksonville, Florida.

Prices are likely to keep climbing at least until April, she said, when the U.S. is due to decide whether to extend waivers against sanctions for buyers of Iranian oil.

--With assistance from Tsuyoshi Inajima and Heesu Lee.





2019 Bloomberg L.P.
In late 2017, Jeff Gramm and James Pappas, hedge fund managers and longtime friends, were the headline speakers at a $40-a-plate luncheon hosted by the Chartered Financial Analyst Society of Houston. Over the din of silverware clinking on plates, Gramm and Pappas discussed the rise of activist investors engaged in high profile battles to shake up company boards and management, agreeing on the importance of holding corporate leaders accountable for underperforming companies and protecting the interests of shareholders.

A year later, Gramm found himself turning that philosophy against the struggling restaurant chain Lubys and in doing so, taking aim at Pappas father and uncle who control the Houston company, seeking to unseat them from the board of directors. The challenge, which will be decided next Friday at the annual meeting, is not only testing the friendship of Gramm and Pappas, but also pitting two prominent Texas families against each other.

Gramm is the son of former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm; Pappas of Chris Pappas, the co-founder and owner of Pappas Restaurants.

You feel bad for everyone involved since Jeff and James are good friends, said Jason Leder, president of the Chartered Financial Analyst Society of Houston. Im sure Jeff thinks there is a legitimate business reason to do it, but he cant feel good from a personal level and James probably doesnt either.

The fight over Lubys has, in fact, turned personal. As Jeff Gramm seeks to put his own candidates on the board, even recruiting his father for the slate, he has criticized Lubys management  led by Chris Pappas, the CEO, and his brother, Harris  as bloated and overpaid, and echoed an independent proxy advisers assessment of Lubys board as out of touch and deceptive.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Lubys faces proxy fight with activist investor

Lubys has fired back that Phil Gramm, at 76, is too old to serve on its board and pointed to articles that blame him for the 2008 recession by spearheading deregulation of the financial industry as a senator. In pushing back against Jeff Gramm, the company has even gone as far as criticizing his leadership on corporate boards and his shareholder activism  which also casts a shadow on James Pappas, who has been involved on the same boards and activism as Gramm.

Whether the quarrel is affecting the friendship of Jeff Gramm and James Pappas is unclear. Gramm declined to comment on the matter, and Pappas did not respond to requests for comment.

James is in a tough spot with his dad on one side and his friend on another, Leder said. My guess is theyre still good friends. Thats the nature of a proxy fight. Theres always a bunch of mud spilled.

The extended Gramm and Pappas families are not particularly close, but they have run in the same social circles. Chris Pappas, in fact, was a longtime political donor to Phil Gramm, who served in Congress, first in the House, then the Senate, from 1979 to 2002.

The two families are ardent supporters of Texas A&M University. Phil Gramm and his wife, Wendy, taught economics at A&M; she also served as university regent for several years. Several members of the Pappas family are graduates of the university, including Harris and James Pappas. The families bump into one another on occasion at university events, Chris Pappas said.

Jeff Gramm, 43, and James Pappas, 38, first met in 2008 at a new Lubys restaurant in Cypress. Chris Pappas had invited Gramm as a shareholder to experience the companys revamped design, which featured outdoor seating, an open kitchen and a Texas Hill Country ambiance designed to make the staid cafeteria chain feel more like a modern casual dining restaurant.

Gramm and the younger Pappas hit it off immediately. Gramm, who invested in chains such as Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and Famous Daves BBQ, was interested in learning more about the restaurant industry from Pappas. Pappas, on the other hand, was planning to launch his own hedge fund and was eager to hear how Gramm did it. They soon became friends.

Gramm, who lives in New York, has stayed at Pappas Houston home when he was in town. Pappas for several years has been a guest speaker at Gramms Columbia Business School class. The two chat by phone frequently.

Gramm and Pappas also have a professional relationship, serving on several company boards together. They sat on the board of Indiana food processor Morgans Foods before it was sold in 2014, and now oversee Tandy Leather, a Fort Worth-based leathercrafter. The hedge fund managers both subscribe to a strategy pioneered by legendary investors Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffet called value investing, where one seeks to capitalize on undervalued companies and stocks that have the potential for significant appreciation.

Related: Lubys, activist investor spar over cafeteria chains future

Meanwhile, Gramm and Pappas earned a reputation as activist investors who buy large shares in a company to pressure its management and board into change. Nationally, disgruntled shareholders and activist investors, such as Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman, launch between 100 and 130 proxy fights each year.

James Pappas, the founder of Houston hedge fund JCP Investment Management, is one of the most energetic activist investors in Texas, targeting companies such as Frisco smoothie chain Jamba Juice and Casella Waste Systems, a Vermont waste management company. In 2017, Pappas launched a proxy fight against Fiesta Restaurant Group, the Dallas operator of Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabana. Gramms hedge fund supported Pappas efforts, but shareholders rejected their slate of board candidates.

Jeff Gramm, a co-founder of New York hedge fund Bandera Partners, which oversees about $150 million in assets, has written several public letters pushing for changes on other company boards and is the author of Dear Chairman, a well regarded book on shareholder activism. Gramm, however, has never launched or led a proxy fight before Lubys.

Gramm, who first bought Luby shares more than a decade ago, hopes to replace the Pappas brothers, Lubys chairman Gasper Mir III and director Frank Markantonis with his slate of four candidates, including Gramm himself and his father. But its an uphill battle for Gramm, who has 9.8 percent of Lubys shares, compared to the Pappas brothers 36.8 percent.

Lubys, started in San Antonio in 1947, was for decades a popular destination known for its comfort foods, such as the LuAnn Platter. Chris Pappas, 71, and his brother Harris Pappas, 73, joined Lubys management in 2001  after a proxy fight led by a group of dissatisfied shareholders. Three years later, they moved Lubys headquarters to Houston.

The Pappas brothers; successful owners and operators of Houston restaurants such as Pappasitos Cantina, Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen and Pappas Bar-B-Q, saw sales improve early in their Lubys tenure. They closed underperforming locations, tinkered with the menu and redesigned some locations.

In recent years, however, the cafeteria chain has struggled to retain diners amid changing tastes and the growing popularity of fast-casual restaurants that appeal to younger patrons.

As foot traffic fell, so too did Lubys sales and stock. The company lost $33.6 million in fiscal 2018 while its stock fell more than one-third to $1.64. In July, the company issued a statement of going concern, calling into question whether it can stay in business.

Lubys runs 146 restaurants nationally under the Lubys, Fuddruckers and Cheeseburger in Paradise brands, but its real estate, valued at about $200 million, is worth more than the operating company, which has a stock valuation of $48 million dollars. Lubys, which has shuttered 70 restaurants over the past two decades, has sold real estate to fund operations and pay down debt.

Gramm believes Lubys strategy of selling its real estate to support unprofitable restaurants is unsustainable, and argues Lubys needs fresh faces on its board.

When I first invested in Lubys, I knew the turnaround would be hard, but I knew the Pappas and their restaurants and knew they were going to give it a shot, Jeff Gramm said. I thought my downside would be protected by Lubys huge real estate value, but I was wrong.

Related: Lubys hopes more discounts will boost sales

Lubys has raised the possibility that if Gramm gains the board seats, he would steer the company to liquidation and sell off the real estate to pay off investors  which Gramm denies.

I still believe that the Lubys enterprise with all its pieces is more valuable for shareholders than a strategy that the other side would put forward, Chris Pappas said. Lubys is one of the most popular restaurant brands with a loyal customer following. The Fuddruckers brand is an excellent brand as well. Yes, I believe that the value is there and it exceeds the value of anything they would plan.

Since Gramm launched his proxy fight in December, the two sides have exchanged barbs in so-called fight letters as they try to sway shareholders. Gramm issued a cheeky holiday-themed postcard with a chart of Lubys declining stock price, and Lubys sent out a colorful slidedeck outlining their reasons why Gramms board candidates were unqualified to sit on the board, chief of which is their lack of restaurant experience.

The Gramms and Pappases maintain their dispute over Lubys is not personal. The two families, toughened by years in politics and business, say their skin is plenty thick.

We have nothing but the highest regard for the Pappas family, Phil Gramm said. Our disagreement is over the strategy of running Lubys, pure and simple. Nothing personal about it.

This is all about business and not about family, Chris Pappas said. Ive learned a long time ago to separate the two. When this is all over with, its just business.

paul.takahashi@chron.com
YNW Melly was locked up a few weeks ago on marijuana charges, but he didn't let that stop him from coming through with a new album. The police are very, very dirty and racist, he told FADER. They wanna kill me. I had to get out of that environment. The fact people are still being thrown in jail for weed is ridiculous, but that's a conversation for another time.

The South Florida product teased We All Shine prior to his lock up, and now the album has arrived. This is Melly's sophomore effort following his debut I Am You, which touched down last August. Kanye West and Fredo Bang are the only guest appearances on the 16-track album. The West-assisted "Mixed Personalities" came along with a new music video directed by Cole Bennett. Stream We All Shine on Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal now.
MMA fighter Sergio Da Silva could face up to seven years in prison now that he has been found guilty of robbing a bank in New York City back in August of 2017. According to TMZ, Da Silva was convicted of third-degree robbery which was a decision that was made after a jury was able to review video surveillance footage of the event.

The robbery took place at the Astoria Citibank and in the TMZ report, it is stated that Da Silva actually threatened to shoot employees if they didn't provide him with the cash.

It was also stated that Da Silva was facing two robbery charges. He was looking at first-degree and third-degree robbery but the surveillance camera didn't show him with a gun so they couldn't prove the first-degree charge. Had Da Silva been convicted of first-degree robbery, he could have been looking at 25 years in prison.

According to TMZ, David Fish who is Da Silva'sattorney, says the MMA fighter plans to appeal the decision. "Thanks to the insight of the jury, he walked out of court a free man Thursday and was not convicted of any violent offense," Fish added.

Da Silva will be back in court on February 28th where he will be sentenced.
As you may have heard, a Michael Jackson documentary titled Leaving Neverland is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25th. Cops are preparing for the worst, in light of the fact Leaving Neverland explores every the remote possibility that MJ's sexual abuse allegations were indeed factual. In the leadup to the inaugural screening, MJ fans have taken to delegitimizing director Dan Reed and Sundance organizers for showing lecherous pride with its selection.

Law enforcement officials in Park City Utah have been informed of the documentary controversial appeal. Cops are paying special attention to the Q&A portion of the screening - which as they put it, remains the "boiling point" in events of this nature. It should be noted, a Park City PD rep states that officers on the scene have no intention of preventing protesters from exercising the First Amendment, as long as no one blocks the flow of traffic in the street, or on the nearby sidewalk.

Michael Jackson's estate published the following message in response to HBO's subsequent acquisition of the project. "This is yet another lurid production in an outrageous and pathetic attempt to exploit and cash in on Michael Jackson." Sundance staff will follow suit with police protocol in checking every bag that enters the premises. "Bomb dogs" have been added as a precautionary measure as well.
Killer Mike was among the guests invited to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night. The first order of business was to address his forthcoming Netflix series, Trigger Warning - where the Run The Jewels' member hopes to settle a few scored with the American public. The economy, gang culture, education and several articles of faith, will all be up for debate when series debuts.. Today.

Before settling on platitudes, Killer Mike took a moment to describe his inner-psyche as a model of faith he calls "The Church Of Sleep." His solution to many of the contentious issues tabled in his Trigger Warning series would be easily remedied if only the imaginary sidekick he created named Sleepy came to fruition. Killer Mike tried in jest to explain his figurative agenda.

"Jesus, the character in the Bible, is amazing. Hes a superhero, right? He fights injustice with the church; he rallies against government.  It'd be a great graphic novel. The only problem is that we dont get our black Spider-Man," Killer Mike told Stephen Colbert while sitting in the hot seat. "For me, I think that, to raise a confident child in terms of divinity and matters of spiritualism, they need to see people who look like them or they need to see a deity who looks like them."

Killer Mike's portrayal of ulterior motives rivals only Wakanda. So without further ado, check out his abridged theory in the Colbert video recap (down below). Since the imaginative World of Wakanda works to better define the delegation of power in America, so can Killer Mike's new religion. Jokes aside, Trigger Warning looks like a goodie.
In the interest of full disclosure I participated in a minor research role in 1967, in the initiative that failed in 1968, when the voters in Carroll County rejected both charter government and code home rule. In the late 1980s, I served as the secretary on the initial Committee for Charter Government. That effort also failed in 1992, when charter government was defeated at the ballot box. Since the mid-1960s, I have written and had published quite a number of articles and research papers on the history of Carroll County government. A portion of this research has been published before, most notably on Aug. 22, 2010 and Sept. 27, 2005.
Meek Mill, Michael Rubin, Jay-Z have united to form an alliance with the primary goal of improving the odds in their cumulative criminal justice reform efforts. The organization (and its name) will be unveiled next week (January 23rd) in a joint press conference will be led by the three-person coalition of Meek, Rubin, Jay-Z, and a supporting cast of Robert Kraft, Daniel Loeb, Michael E. Novogratz, Robert F. Smith, and Clara Wu Tsai.

Jay-Z's efforts in steering Meek Mill down the "righteous" path of criminal justice reform have been widely publicized. Before Meek was granted his premature release from prison, Jay-Z penned a New York Times editorial in support of Meek, but also in summation of the problems at play.

"On the surface, this may look like the story of yet another criminal rapper who didn't smarten up and is back where he started," Jay-Z wrote in the op-ed piece. "But consider this: Meek was around 19 when he was convicted on charges relating to drug and gun possession, and he served an eight-month sentence. Now hes 30, so he has been on probation for basically his entire adult life."

Meek Mill is believed to have played a meaningful part in garnering the public's attention in the push for Cyntoia Brown's clemency. As reported, Brown was granted her release from prison (in a few month's time) after months of deliberation. Brown was initially found guilty of killing a man who was in some way involved in her longtime captivity. Keep it locked for next Wednesday's press conference.
After saying goodbye to 2018, were starting the new year with fresh priorities and goals. January is a great time for hoteliers to reflect on last years strategies and analyze results in order to create a blueprint for a successful new year. Determining your hotels most successful digital marketing initiatives is the first step to executing a strong plan that will achieve greater results this year than last year.

After saying goodbye to 2018, were starting the new year with fresh priorities and goals. January is a great time for hoteliers to reflect on last years strategies and analyze results in order to create a blueprint for a successful new year. Determining your hotels most successful digital marketing initiatives is the first step to executing a strong plan that will achieve greater results this year than last year.

With new technology and digital innovations announced daily, it can seem overwhelming for hoteliers to stay on top of trends and work them into their own strategies. With voice search and AI, omnichannel marketing, and the use of influencers on the rise, hoteliers have the opportunity to reach potential guests at more touchpoints than ever before.

It's important to start 2019 with a strong foundation to your digital strategy and be able to incorporate new initiatives as the year goes on. To get you started, we put together the top resolutions for hotels based on current and forecasted trends.

1. Understand the importance of an updated website and technology. Implement design trends on your website that follow UX and are backed by the right technology that leads user towards a booking.

Selecting the right CMS is important for your hotels digital strategy. Content management systems can help your hotel implement website personalization, present real-time rates and inventory, promote offers and specials, and more. All of these factors will showcase the property and can turn website visitors into bookings and revenue.

As mobile continues to dominate, you should also make sure that you have a mobile-first, fully-responsive website design. Last year, Google began to use the mobile page versions of a domain for indexing and caching in its search results, and subsequently, for ranking. Historically, the desktop version of a page was primarily used when evaluating the relevance of a page to a users query.

2. Make CRM a priority. The goal of customer relationship management is fairly straightforward  improve your hotel relationships with guests. A CRM solution can help to understand customers through data and deliver them messages that they want and care about.

By engaging guests before, during, and after their stays, hotels can fuel loyalty throughout the customer lifetime journey. Own the conversation from the moment a booking is made, nurture the experience with marketing automation, and retain your best guests by showing them how much you value their business.

3. Learn about the importance of omnichannel marketing. Multi-channel marketing has been around for some time now and has proven to be a successful strategy for hotels. Now, with consumers expecting more personalized communication from brands, comes omnichannel marketing. This refers to providing a seamless experience, regardless of channel or device.



Consumers expect their experiences with a brand to be the same in a physical location, on a website or app, through social media, and across online advertisements on any device they use. All of these touchpoints create an omnichannel experience for the user. Hotels can take advantage of omnichannel marketing by monitoring what guests are responding to best (on social media and on the website) and create content that reflects the brand and property. Utilizing data can help hotels understand what guests really want from the brand. From there, hotels should make sure all digital touchpoints represent the brand. This can include look and feel, the tone of voice, and the use of colors. Multi-channel and omnichannel campaigns can help achieve high results on a fairly small budget, sometimes generating over 10X ROAS.

The final aspect of omnichannel marketing is personalization. As mentioned above, personalization can connect users to brands and help develop relationships. By personalizing content, hotels can achieve the omnichannel experience where guests will feel noticed and appreciated no matter what platform they interact with the hotel on.

4. Give website visitors a personalized experience. A personalized online experience is more important than ever for hotels as customers expect brands to remember them and present them information that is relevant to them.

Data doesnt lie. Its evident that customers expect a personalized experience when they visit your hotel website. 74% of consumers feel frustrated when website content is not personalized (Infosys) and 77% have chosen, recommended, or paid more for a brand that provides a personalized experience.

Its no longer enough to present potential guests with static website content and expect them to find what theyre looking for and make a reservation. In fact, a Salesforce study found that, by 2020, 51% of consumers will expect brands to anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions.

Through personalization, hotels can create a dynamic user experience. Rather than a broad experience that attempts to reach all possible travelers, hotels have the ability to create unique content that appeals to different segments in order to achieve specific business needs. In this way, the hotel website canand shouldbe the primary channel for engaging your best guests.

5. Invest in video. Video continues to dominate.70% of consumers have shared a brands video (Wyzowl) and 52% said that watching a product video makes them more confident in online purchases (Invodo).



Although investing in video assets can be costly, the payoff can be huge for hotels. Videos can be utilized on websites, shared on social media channels, and provide a great way for potential customers to get a feel for their experience before ever stepping foot on the property.

A video on The Grand Ely Lodge homepage recently helped the property increase the time spent on the website and decrease bounce rate, both of which impact search engine rankings and the overall health of the website.



6. Optimize for voice. As the use of voice assistants grows, hotels need to optimize their websites in order to capture this audience.



Although still in the early phases of being a viable distribution channel for hotels, voice search is already shaping consumer behavior, with the use of digital assistants higher than ever. In order to stay on top of the changing landscape, hotels must optimize their website content for voice by combining traditional SEO, technical SEO, and incorporating patterns inherent to voice commands.

A robust content strategy also helps in voice search optimizations for those in the beginning stages of the travel planning journey. At this stage, users can have their devices search for destination information. Further into planning, they may say to their device, Siri, find me the best hotel rates in downtown Boston.

The impact of voice search will have on the hospitality industry is still uncertain, but, based on current trends, we can anticipate that the voice search landscape will continue to evolve and hotels can expect to see new opportunities for engagement and revenue.

7. Be aware of AI & BI. Over the past few years, weve heard about artificial intelligence. Advancements and innovations will have even more people talking about its potential impact on different industries, including travel.



AI & BI (business intelligence) can analyze consumer behavior by utilizing data from across the web to help businesses understand users. By beginning to plan for AI technology this year, hotels can have an edge over competitors.



8. Dont ignore the upper funnel. Often times, when analyzing the success of a campaign, hotels are led to believe the most important KPIs are bookings and revenue. While these metrics are significant, its also important to understand the purchase funnel. Marketing to users who are still in the early phases of their travel planning journey means engagement metrics are equally as imperative as reaching those who are ready to book.

When a customer is in the upper funnel, or the dreaming phase of the travel planning journey, they are undecided on which accommodation they will book, with 67% of users more likely to book with a brand that provides relevant information for the destination theyre interested in (Google). Consider adopting or investing in some of the following initiatives to capture the attention of those beginning to think about their next getaway:

SEO-Optimized Destination Content  feature local neighborhood guides on the hotel website

Lifestyle & Editorial Blog  create long-form editorial content about the destination

Destination Video  create and share video so travel planners get a better sense of the destination and hotel property

Destination-Focused SEM  target keywords promoting destination-specific content

Native Advertising  reach potential guests with relevant content on websites where they spend their time

Social Media  be visible on social media where travelers ask for advice from friends and family throughout the dreaming phase

Metasearch  have a presence on Google and TripAdvisor to ensure the hotel website is discovered during the early phases of travel planning



9. Try influencer marketing. Its been a hot topic in the hospitality industry, but with 92% of consumers saying that they trust word-of-mouth recommendations more than any other type of advertising (Nielsen), its clear that influencer marketing isnt going away anytime soon.

Using influencers can be a very effective method to attract new customers to your property as well as a way to generate fresh content for your brand. The first step is to identify key advocates that embody your brand and can deliver the messages you want to convey in an organic way. Additionally, you need to look at the follower loyalty of the influencer. Having a high follower count is much less important than the engagement their content receives (i.e. how many people interact with their posts).

10. Invest in a virtual concierge for your hotel. As a form of AI, chatbots or virtual concierges will make a splash in the coming year. This technology allows for instant messaging in real-time with website visitors.



Many people are already used to interacting with chatbots online and 80% of businesses are already using or plan to use bots by 2020 (Oracle). And with the development of Facebook Messenger bots, its easier than ever for hotels to utilize bots in their online presence. The bots are programmed to understand questions and provide answers.

The benefits of chatbots include reaching an audience directly, saving time and money on customer care, qualifying customers, handling transactions, and re-engaging users. A good example of this is Marriots Facebook Messenger chatbot The bot helps customers link rewards accounts and was so helpful that the company transitioned it into a booking bot.

Overall, as you begin to execute your 2019 strategy, its important to be aware of the continuously changing trends and technology updates. Your resolutions can be a guide for your digital plan and should adapt throughout the year as business needs change and as technology innovations become available to you. Using this as a checklist can help ensure that your strategy stays on the right track and that your digital performance is successful through 2019.

ABOUT HEBS DIGITAL:

Founded in 2001, the firm is headquartered in New York City and has global offices in Las Vegas and Asia Pacific. Through its Smart Guest Acquisition Suite, including the smartCMS, Smart Personalization Engine, Smart Data Marketing, and full-service digital consulting and marketing solutions, HEBS Digital helps hoteliers drastically boost direct bookings, lower distribution costs, and increase the lifetime value of guests.

Part of NextGuest Technologies, HEBS Digital and Serenata CRM, the most comprehensive Hotel CRM Suite today, are the creators of the hospitality industrys first Fully-Integrated Guest Engagement & Acquisition Platform.

A diverse client portfolio of top-tier luxury and boutique hotel chains, independent hotels, resorts and casinos, franchised properties and hotel management companies, convention centers, spas, restaurants, DMO and tourist offices across the globe are all benefiting from HEBS Digitals direct online channel strategy and digital marketing expertise.

HEBS Digitals technology, website design and digital marketing services have won more than 500 prestigious industry awards, including World Travel Awards, HSMAI Adrian Awards, Stevie Awards (American Business Awards), Travel Weeklys Magellan Awards, and more.

The HEBS Digital team is comprised of thought leaders, a diverse team of experts comprised of over 33 nationalities speaking over 22 languages. Contact HeBS Digitals consultants at 1 (800) 649-5076 (North America), +64 (0) 9 889 8489 (Asia Pacific) or success@hebsdigital.com.

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Press Release

18 January 2019

HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee  The Canadian hotel industry recorded negative year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 6-12 January 2019, according to data from STR.

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In comparison with the week of 7-13 January 2018, the industry reported the following:

Occupancy: -6.9% to 46.4%

Average daily rate (ADR): -0.9% to CAD139.72

Revenue per available room (RevPAR): -7.7% to CAD64.82

Among the provinces and territories, British Columbia reported the largest increase in RevPAR (+2.8% to CAD41.90), due primarily to the largest jump in ADR (+5.3% to CAD115.53).

Manitoba experienced the highest rise in occupancy (+3.6% to 52.3%), which resulted in the only other jump in RevPAR (+2.2% to CAD60.98).

British Columbia saw the second-largest lift in ADR (+1.7% to US$171.91).

The Northwest Territories registered the steepest decreases in occupancy (-24.6% to 44.6%) and RevPAR (-24.7% to CAD73.50).

Saskatchewan posted the largest decline in ADR (-7.3% to CAD109.73).

New Brunswick experienced the second-largest drop in occupancy (-16.9% to 36.1%), which resulted in the second-steepest decrease in RevPAR (-18.9% to CAD41.68).
Appointment

18 January 2019

Embassy Suites by Hilton Chicago Downtown Magnificent Mile, owned by Host Hotels & Resorts, LP and managed by Hilton Management Services, today announced Kathy Heneghan has been appointed as the hotel's new general manager. Embassy Suites by Hilton is a global brand of upscale, all-suite hotels from Hilton (NYSE: HLT).

In her new role, Heneghan will be responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the 455-suite hotel including guest services, hotel administration and marketing efforts.

A 29-year hospitality veteran, Heneghan has spent her career in Chicago. She started in food and beverage at Hilton Chicago, holding leadership roles such as senior catering sales manager and meetings & conventions manager. She then joined Palmer House, a Hilton Hotel as assistant director of events before returning to Hilton Chicago as director of catering & events and executive assistant manager, where she won 2012 Director of Events of the Year, Hilton Hotels & Resorts. Most recently, Heneghan held the position of hotel manager at Hilton Chicago, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the 1,544-room hotel.
Pipeline

18 January 2019

RIU Hotels & Resorts has announced the construction of a hotel in its Riu Plaza urban line, in Toronto, the largest city in Canada and the cultural, business and financial centre of the country. The Spanish company intends to invest around 100 million dollars in the project, that will establish the first RIU hotel in Canada and will add continuity to the hotel company's plan to expand into the world's great cities.

The project, designed in a sophisticated avant-garde style, as a part of the Riu Plaza line, is now near the end of the design phase and is set to open in 2021. The building, a newly-built modern tower block, will be located in the city's financial district and is mixed use. RIU's investment in the part intended for the hotel will have 350 rooms, meeting rooms, a gym, bar and restaurant; while the upper floors will be for residential use.

Luis Riu, CEO of RIU Hotels & Resorts, has made it clear that the opening of the first hotel in Toronto "is a big step forward in our commitment to expanding the Riu Plaza hotel line in the world's key cities, establishing the RIU brand beyond more traditional vacation destinations. We hope this hotel attracts RIU customers around the world to discover the city of Toronto with us, and also hope that the loyal customers we have in Canada decide to discover our urban product. This project means a new drive to raise awareness of our brand within and beyond the country."

RIU Hotels & Resorts has had a relationship with Canada for years, with the country being one of the main markets for RIU hotels in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, but it is only now with the opening of this new hotel that it is physically establishing its presence in the country.

The Riu Plaza line has important projects in store for upcoming years. The first to be opened, next spring, is Riu Plaza Espana, the first RIU urban hotel in the country, located in the iconic Edificio Espana in the city of Madrid. In London RIU has acquired a building in one of the best areas of the city, beside Victoria Station, in order to open a hotel in its urban line there in 2020, while in New York, Riu Plaza's second hotel is already under construction and is set to open in 2021.

Toronto is the fifth largest city in North America and is considered one of the best large cities in the world to live in; it is famous for the CN Tower, that at 553 metres tall, lets you see the whole city, Thousand Islands and the Royal Ontario Museum are a couple of the attractions you can visit. The city is considered to be at the heart of Canadian culture and plays host to many national and international celebrations including the Toronto International Film Festival, one of the most important in the world; being close to Niagara Falls means visiting this natural wonder is a must.

RIU currently has six Riu Plaza hotels worldwide, as well as three under construction: Riu Plaza Espana, Riu Plaza London and a second one in New York. The first city hotel opened its doors in Panama in 2010 and has since been joined by the Riu Plaza Guadalajara hotel in Mexico, Riu Plaza Miami Beach and Riu Plaza New York Times Square in the USA, Riu Plaza Berlin in Germany and Riu Plaza The Gresham Dublin in Ireland.
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The company sells a line of bagged teas and canned iced tea energy drinks that are blended to contain about three times more caffeine than traditional teas, giving them a kick similar to coffee. Its teas are available in nearly 2,000 locations across the country, including Harris Teeter, Safeway, Wal-Mart and Whole Foods as well as online on its website, www.zesttea.com, and Amazon. Its canned drinks are being rolled out in 7-Eleven convenience stores in the Mid-Atlantic.
You bet - Ill be there all weekend.

I plan to be there at least part of the time.

Im still a little leary because of the crowds.

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Our new, curated global platform is the place to discover what flavors are on the horizon, what everyone will be talking about, what you should be experimenting with and what flavors we dare you to try now, Kevan Vetter , McCormicks executive chef, said in an announcement.
Fancy footwork convinced crowds teens could chat with the dead

American Schemers

Since the birth of this great republic, millions of bored teenagers have concocted clever schemes to torment their parents, but only one teenagers scheme became a quasi-religious movement attracting millions of followers. That teenager was Maggie Fox. The movement she spawned was spiritualism.

She did it with her toes.

In 1848, Maggie Fox was 14 and grumpy. Her family had moved from bustling Rochester, N.Y., which she loved, to a farmhouse 31 miles away in the tiny hamlet of Hydesville, which was, like, sooooooo boring.

One night, to amuse themselves, Maggie and her sister Kate, 11, tied apples to strings and bounced them down the stairs, sending their mother searching for the source of the noise. That was fun, so the girls added another trickmaking loud rapping noises by moving their toe joints. That, too, set Mother Fox on a fruitless midnight search.

On March 31April Fools eveMaggie and Kate cracked their toes loud enough to wake both parents. Feigning fright, the girls blamed the noise on a ghost. Maggie clapped four times and asked the spirit to reply. Four raps followed as Kate cracked her toes.

Is it a spirit? Mrs. Fox asked the darkness. If it is, make two raps.

Rap. Rap.

Flummoxed, the Foxes summoned neighbors, who also fell for the toe-crack trick. Soon, hundreds were flocking to the Fox farmhouse. A rumor spread that the place was haunted by the ghost of a murdered peddler. Bent on finding the peddlers bones, neighbors dug up the cellar floor. Maggie and Kate soon tired of their ruse but kept mum. We could not confess, Maggie wrote decades later, without exciting very great anger on the part of those we had deceived.

Word spread further. Newspapers ran stories. The local church expelled the Fox family for blasphemy and witchcraft. To escape the ruckus,

Maggie and Kate moved back to Rochester to live with their sister. Leah Fox Fish, 35, had married at 14. Her husband had deserted her and she was supporting herself and her daughter by teaching piano. When Maggie and Kate came clean about their toe shenanigans, Leah had an idea: They could make money faking a supernatural ability to communicate with the dead.

The sisters began staging seances, admission $1. After a prayer and a hymn, Leah summoned the spirits, customers asked questions, and Maggie and Kate answered by cracking their toes. Doubters scoffed but many left believing theyd communicated with departed kinfolk.

Business boomed. It was an era of spiritual experimentation. The Second Great Awakening had spawned new religionsMormonism and Adventism, to name twowhile idealists preached Transcendentalism or founded utopian communities based on primitive communism or free love or both. The newly invented telegraph had shown it was possible to send and receive information across vast distances, so maybe folks could communicate with the dead. The Fox sisters touted their seances as a spiritual telegraph.

In 1850, Leah booked the trio into Rochesters largest meeting hall. At one sold-out show, skeptics rioted, heckling and throwing firecrackers. The uproar terrified the girls but the publicity made them famous. In New York City, their act attracted prominent intellectualsjournalist Horace Greeley, historian George Bancroft, novelist James Fenimore Cooper. At one seance, the girls summoned the spirit of Benjamin Franklin, who dutifully endorsed spiritualism. At another, the spirit of John C. Calhoun was asked if he favored abolishing slavery, andshock!he said yes.

Countless newspaper stories about the Foxes helped make spiritualism a nationwide craze. It has spread like wild-fire over this Continent, The New York Times reported, so that there is scarcely a village without its mediums and its miracles. New mediums introduced new tricks. One bowed a fiddle. Another played the piano without touching the keys. Others transcribed messages from the Great Beyond. Prominent Quaker abolitionist Isaac Post, a Fox family friend, published a book of communiques ostensibly dictated by Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and other dead heroes.

The Civil War, which killed more than 700,000 Americans, generated massive interest in summoning the dead. Mary Todd Lincoln, believing she could communicate with her deceased son Willie, held seances in the White House. Her husband was skeptical but also

tolerant of anything that might assuage his wifes grief.

The Fox sisters ran their seance game for decades. Meanwhile, Leah married a wealthy insurance executive. Kate traveled to England, wed a barrister, and, after his death, returned to New York. Maggie fell for Elisha Kent Kane, a famous Arctic explorer. Kane, who scorned spiritualism, urged his sweetheart to quit this dreary life of scam seances. His snooty Philadelphia family despised Maggies low trade, so the couple married in secret. He soon died in Cuba.

Heartbroken by genuine loss and tormented by guilt over their mendacious money-making, Maggie and Kate took to drink. Friends arranged for them to dry out at a New York hospital but the sisters kept relapsing. Kate was arrested for public drunkenness. Maggie was found staggering soused through Manhattan during a snowstorm, searching for her dead husband.

Suddenly, in 1888, Maggie and Kate renounced the specialty that had made them famous. Spiritualism is a fraud, Maggie told the New York World. It is a branch of legerdemain. Kate called spiritualism one of the very greatest curses the world has ever known. Leah, rich and retired, remained silent. Before a packed crowd at the New York Academy of Music, Maggie removed her shoes and cracked her toes, demonstrating how she and Kate had made their supposedly supernatural sounds. When I began this deception, I was too young to know right from wrong, Maggie said. I hope God Almighty will forgive me and those who are silly enough to believe in spiritualism.

Leaving the spiritualist movement reeling, Maggie hit the lecture circuit. Ill make more money by showing people how the raps are made than I did telling lies to them, she bragged. She had that wrong. Few people would pay to hear her confess again.

A year later, destitute and drinking, Maggie and Kate recanted their recantation. Newspapers responded with mockery but the sisters went back to staging seances, sometimes while blotto. Soon, the two drank themselves to deathKate in 1892, Maggie six months later.

During Maggies brief stint as an anti-Spiritualist crusader, she published a book called Death-Blow to Spiritualism. But spiritualism never died. The phenomenon lives on in multiple forms, from the utterly respectable National Spiritualist Association of Churches to countless freelance mediums and New Age channelers like Mystical Man Robert Shapiro, who interviews penguins and redwoods about their alien origins and claims to be able to communicate with any personality anywhere and anywhen. Spiritualism, created by the Fox sisters in 1848, will no doubt survive as long as human beings yearn to communicate with the dearly departed.
He was an SS expert in dirty deeds done well, charged with making Poland appear a villain

On the afternoon of August 31, 1939, close to the Polish border in the German town of Gleiwitz, SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Alfred Naujocks was waiting nervously in a hotel room with a team of seven SS men. They had arrived in town two days earlier and, posing as mining engineers, reconnoitered their target. Now they were waiting for the word to go. Their task was to stage an attack to give Hitler the excuse he wanted to declare war on Poland. They were starting World War II.



As an early SS recruit, Naujocks (above) became the go-to operative for SS security chief Reinhard Heydrich. (Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy Stock Photo) As an early SS recruit, Naujocks (above) became the go-to operative for SS security chief Reinhard Heydrich. (Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy Stock Photo)

Naujocks, a 27-year-old from Kiel on Germanys Baltic coast, had been an early convert to Nazism. Joining the SS in 1931, he had briefly attended university where he developed a talent for brawling and had his nose flattened by an iron barwielding Communist. Described by one contemporary as an intellectual gangster, Naujocks had risen swiftly within the SS hierarchy, falling under the patronage of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the German police network and SS security service, the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD. In that capacity, Naujocks assassinated a dissident Nazi in Prague in 1935 and helped establish a notorious high-class brothel in Berlin, Salon Kitty, patronized by visiting VIPs who could then be easily blackmailed; the rooms were bugged and the madam was an SS agent.

Having thoroughly proven himself to Heydrich, Naujocks was the SD leaders agent of choice to run the mission in Gleiwitz. And it was Heydrichs high-pitched, nasal voice down the telephone line from Berlin that gave him the code words to commence: Grossmutter gestorben (Grandmother has died). With that, Naujocks called his men together for a final briefing, reiterating their respective tasks and objectives. The mission was on.

TENSIONS BETWEEN Germany and Poland, which had rumbled on for some two decades, had spiked in the preceding few months. The ostensible reason for the friction was Germanys territorial losses to Poland in the aftermath of World War I, as dictated by the Treaty of Versailles: primarily a swath of what had been eastern Germany on the Polish border, including parts of Upper Silesia and the provinces of West Prussia and Posen. Those losses, which amounted to over 25,000 square miles (about the size of West Virginia), not only contained upwards of five million people, including a sizable German minority, but cut the German territory of East Prussia off from the remainder of Germany by creating the so-called Polish Corridor.

Hitlers irestoked by his racial prejudices and belief that Germanys national destiny lay in expansion to the eastwent deeper than losses of land, however. Growing more reckless in his saber-rattling, eager to capitalize on what he saw as Western weakness, and anxious for a war he thought would define him and his Third Reich, Hitler began to target Poland, ramping up the rhetoric and complaining continuously of Polish perfidy.



SD commander Reinhard Heydrich. (AKG-Images/Fototeca Gilardi) SD commander Reinhard Heydrich. (AKG-Images/Fototeca Gilardi)

By the summer of 1939, even if the Poles had offered territorial concessionsthey had notit would not have been enough. Hitler wanted his war. But he faced a two-fold problem. For one thing, Poland had allies in the British and French, both of whom had pledged to stand by that nation in the face of foreign aggression. For another, although the vast majority of German people supported Hitler wholeheartedly, they had no stomach for another world war.

Hitler, therefore, had to dress up his belligerent intentions to appear defensiveto show Poland as the aggressor. In this way, he reasoned, the German people might be persuaded to support the war, and Poland might even lose its international allies support. Hitler summed up his attitude in a speech to his senior military commanders at his Alpine retreat above Berchtesgaden on August 22, 1939. The destruction of Poland has priority, he declared, adding, I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth.

Throughout that summer, the world had seen much of Hitlers propaganda offensive. While he railed publicly about Polish intransigence and the iniquities of Germanys post-war territorial losses, his lieutenants quietly worked to drive relations to a breaking point and to cast Poland as the instigator. To that end, Heydrich removed all politically unreliable elements from the area along the Polish frontier. Within that zone, isolated properties, barns, and farmsteads were targeted in arson attacks to propagate the fiction in the German press that Polish insurgents were responsible. Through the summer of 1939, German newspapers carried countless lurid reports on what they called Polish terror, complaining of Polish bandits, growing nervousness, and the frightful suffering of the German minority. By the end of the summer, newspaper reports would claim that Poles had murdered some 66 Germans.

While the German media was busy slandering their eastern neighbors, the SS established a training center at Bernau, north of Berlin. There, more than 300 volunteersmostly from the German province of Upper Silesia, a much-contested region on the Polish border that included Gleiwitz and that today is part of southwestern Poland and the Czech Republicwere preparing for infiltration and sabotage operations against Poland, training with Polish weapons and uniforms, and improving their grasp of the Polish language. By the end of August, those agents were ready for action.

They would be deployed on the night of August 31 in three staged raids, all in Upper Silesia. Aside from the attack at Gleiwitz, there would be a raid on an isolated hut for forestry workers and on a German customs post in the Hochlinden district, where, by smashing windows, firing into the air, and singing and swearing in broken Polish, the SS men were to simulate border incursions by Polish forces. Were it not for the bodies of six concentration camp inmatesgiven the contemptuous code name Konserven (canned goods), dressed in Polish uniforms, and then shot and left at the customs post to add authenticity to the sceneit almost would have been comical.

AMID THIS MURDEROUS PRETENSE, the action at Gleiwitz held special significance. By accident or design, it was only there that the attackers were required to give voice to their mission and broadcast their intentions to the world. To that end, Naujocks believed he had developed the perfect plan. From his earlier reconnaissance, he had identified the radio transmitter station at Gleiwitz, with its 380-foot wooden tower, as an ideal target. He reckoned that he and his men could easily take control of the site, lock up the station staff, fire a few shots into the ceiling, and broadcast an incendiary message in Polish over the airwaves before fleeing into the darkness. He had concluded that 8 p.m. would be the best time for the assault: dusk would provide cover, and most people would be at home then, listening to their radios.

Initially, Naujockss Gleiwitz plan was to proceed without bloodshed. But his superiors had decided that in order to make the propaganda all the more effective, the attack required a clinching piece of evidence. Heinrich Mullerhead of the Gestapoinformed Naujocks that a Pole would be supplied, whose bloodied corpse was to be left at the radio station as irrefutable proof of Polish responsibility for the attack. For this reason, it was not enough to use one of the Konserventhe random concentration camp inmates used at Hochlinden; it had to be an ethnic Pole with a known history of anti-German agitation. That man was Franciszek Honiok.



Franciszek Honiok was an ethnic Pole living in Germany and a supporter of Polish causes. These traits singled him out for slaughter, after a brief incarceration at the police barracks in Beuthen, Germany. ( Stuart Clarke/Shutterstock) Franciszek Honiok was an ethnic Pole living in Germany and a supporter of Polish causes. These traits singled him out for slaughter, after a brief incarceration at the police barracks in Beuthen, Germany. ( Stuart Clarke/Shutterstock)

Those who saw Honiok during the operation described him as almost entirely unremarkable. At five foot two, the 43-year-old farmer was shorter than average, and his dark blond hair was beginning to recede at the temples. But he was otherwise very ordinarywearing a crumpled gray suit and possessing a slightly disheveled air.

Honiok had most likely been selected for his grim role from a file in Gestapo headquarters, far away on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin. If anything, he was rather too well qualified. Born in Upper Silesia in 1896, he had fought on the Polish side during the Silesian Uprisings that followed World War I. After a brief spell living in Poland, he returned to Germany in 1925, where he was forced to fight deportation back to Polanda case he successfully pursued all the way to the League of Nations in Geneva. Though his firebrand days may have been over by 1939, Honiok was still well known in his German home village of Hohenliebenabout 10 miles north of Gleiwitzas a staunch advocate of the Polish cause.

As Gestapo captors hauled him away from there on the afternoon of August 30, 1939, Honiok had little idea of what was in store for him. They first drove him east to the police barracks in the ancient city of Beuthen, where he was given food and water, then to the Gestapo headquarters at the nearby city of Oppeln, where he spent an uncomfortable night locked in a file room. Throughout, his captors noted, he was apathetic, his head constantly bowed. He never spoke, and no one spoke to him except for a few words of instruction from his Gestapo escort. Moreover, despite the German mania for paperwork, he was not registered in any of the locations through which he passed; it seemed they wanted him to remain untraceable. The following morning, August 31, his captors took him to the police station at Gleiwitz and placed him in solitary confinementagain with no records filed. It would be the last day of his life.

ACROSS TOWN THAT EVENING, Alfred Naujocks and his men, outfitted in civilian clothes to resemble Polish insurgents, climbed into two cars for the short journey northeast to the transmitter station. Arriving precisely at 8 p.m. as planned, and with dusk rapidly falling, they rushed into the building. Pushing past the station manager, who rose to meet them, the SS agents overpowered the staff and took them down to the basement, where they were ordered to face the wall and had their hands tied behind their backs. Meanwhile, Naujocks and a radio technician on his team tried to work out how to make their incendiary broadcast.

One of the problems that Naujocks had needed to solve in his planning was how to ensure the proclamation would be heard. He had considered targeting the main radio station in Gleiwitza much larger facility where the studios were located, closer to the city centerbut had decided against it. The larger station would have presented an increased logistical challenge, and there was the likelihood that the transmitter station would monitor its broadcasts and cut them off. So he decided instead to hit the transmitter station itself, which greatly reduced the possibility of the broadcast being silenced.

However, the transmitter station had only a storm microphone, used to interrupt local programming to warn of extreme weather. Naujockss technician found the microphone in a cupboard but was unable to connect it, so Naujocks hauled the stations staff from the basement at gunpoint, one by one, until one of thema technician named Nawrothsuccessfully connected the device. With that, the groups only fluent Polish speaker, Karl Hornack, pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and stepped forward. As someone fired a pistol into the air to provide an appropriately martial atmosphere, he read:

UWAGA! TU GLIWICE! ROZGOSNIA ZNADUJE SIE W POLSKICH REKACH!

(Attention! This is Gleiwitz! The radio station is in Polish hands!)

What followed was supposed to be a call to arms from the fictional Polish Freedom Committee, demanding that the Polish population in Germany rise up to resist German authorities and conduct sabotage operations, promising that the Polish army would soon march in as a liberator. But for reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained, only the first nine words were broadcastand those only to the district of Gleiwitz itself. The remainder was lost in a cacophony of static. Heydrich, listening eagerly in Berlin, heard nothing at all.



An innocuous-looking radio transmitter station in Gleiwitz, Germany, played an outsize role in giving Hitler the war he wanted with Poland. (SZ Photo/Bridgeman Images) An innocuous-looking radio transmitter station in Gleiwitz, Germany, played an outsize role in giving Hitler the war he wanted with Poland. (SZ Photo/Bridgeman Images)

While Naujocks was busying himself with the broadcast, SS handlers delivered an unconscious Franciszek Honiok to the building. Shortly before 8 p.m., an SS man in a white coat, purporting to be a doctor, had visited Honiok in his cell at the Gleiwitz police station and given him an injection. Honiok was then driven the short distance to the transmitter station, where two of Naujockss men carried him into the building and laid him down near the back door. At some pointits not clear whensomeone shot him. As Naujocks left the radio station, he stopped briefly to examine the now-dead Honiok, his face smeared with his own blood. Naujocks would later maintain that neither he nor his men had shot him. He knew nothing about the man, he would tell prosecutors, not even his name: I was not responsible for him, he said.

Franciszek Honiok was expendable. He was simply a corpsea bloodied, silent witness to be paraded before the German and international press as proof of Polish aggression. His murder demonstrated in full measure the sneering, contemptuous brutality of the Nazi regime, and was a grim foretaste of the fate that would befall Poland. But its significance was even more profound than that. It was a single death that prefaced at least 50 million others: an individual tragedy presaging a collective slaughter.

It did not matter that the ruse to which Honioks body had given spurious credenceNaujockss radio broadcasthad failed; the German media were already primed and ready to run the story regardless. Within hours, radios were blaring and newspaper presses rolling, churning out headlines about the Polish attack and the inevitability of German retaliation. By the time most Germans read those words the following morning, Hitlers tanks were already advancing into Poland. World War II had begun.



On September 1, 1939, with the German invasion already underway, German papers ran news of the supposed Polish attack on the Gleiwitz station. (AKG-Images) On September 1, 1939, with the German invasion already underway, German papers ran news of the supposed Polish attack on the Gleiwitz station. (AKG-Images)

BUT WHAT OF ALFRED NAUJOCKS? How did his war pan out? At first glance, he went on to an impressive wartime career. As Heydrichs cats paw, Naujocks appeared to have led a James Bond-like existence, participating in and leading some effective clandestine operations. He masterminded the kidnapping of two British secret agents in neutral Holland in November 1939the so-called Venlo Incidentwhich compromised the entire Western European network of Britains MI6 secret intelligence service. He also headed a brutal suppression of the Danish Resistance in 1943, and was one of the brains behind Operation Bernhard, an ingenious German plan to forge huge numbers of Sterling bank notes, which were to be dropped over the UK to collapse the British economy. Though Naujocks did not see the project through to its fruition, and the air-drop was never carried out, the operation produced some 150 million in counterfeit notes ($195,525,000 at the time, or nearly $3 billion today)some of the best forgeries that the Bank of England had ever seen.

Yet Naujockss stellar career was not all it may have seemed. Life as Heydrichs chosen one was evidently not a bed of roses. His master was demanding and vindictive, andpresumably due to the weight of compromising knowledgedid not permit his agents to leave his employ easily. Naujocks would later claim that his relationship with Heydrich was a highly toxic one, marked by a series of acrimonious clashes. Naujocks balked at some of the more extreme assignments and claimed to have refused to carry out a high-profile assassination. As a result, Heydrich branded him a coward and reprimanded him. Yet when Naujocks resolved to leave the SD in 1940, Heydrich vetoed five requests for transfer. In 1941, Naujocks was charged with corruption, stripped of his rank, and sent to the Eastern Front as a simple soldier in the ranks of the Waffen-SS. He had little doubt Heydrich was trying to have him killed.

After Heydrichs assassination in Prague by British-trained Czechoslovakian agents in June 1942, Naujocks claimed that for the first time in the war he was able to breathe again. He took a desk job in the German administration in Brussels, in occupied Belgium, and settled into a comfortable routine, enjoying the perks of a German officer. Thanks no doubt to his reputation, former SD associates continued to approach him with secret missions, but he usually demurred, claiming ill-health and citing the shrapnel injuries he had incurred on the Eastern Front.

Then, in the autumn of 1944, Naujocks defected. Surrendering to approaching American troops in Belgium, on the frontline near the German border, he told them his name was Alfred Bonsen and asked to be taken to a commanding officer. In his kit bag, he had a change of clothes, a large sum of money in three currencies, and a letter addressed to an official in the Foreign Office in London. When he confessed his true identity, the Americans handed him over to the British, who transferred him to the infamous London Cage, a facility in Kensington for the interrogation of high-profile prisoners.

The British were condemning of Naujocks. Though his interrogators conceded that he was a goldmine of information, praised his truthfulness and frankness, and noted admiringly that he never asked to cut a deal, they were nonetheless damning in their assessment of him. He was, they said, an effeminate sadist, a killer without shame, and a callous murderer who was capable of any underhand activity, a man who would sell his own mother. At best, they summarized, he was a coward; at worst, he was engaged in another diabolical plot. The report concluded starkly that, this man should most certainly be put to death.



Now a museum in Gliwice, Poland, the transmitter station bears a plaque noting its history as a place of Nazi provocation. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Now a museum in Gliwice, Poland, the transmitter station bears a plaque noting its history as a place of Nazi provocation. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

And, when the British had finished milking Naujocks for information, that was what they had in mind for him. On August 31, 1945six years to the day after the Gleiwitz operation, and nearly four months after the war endedthey transferred Naujocks to the American occupation zone in Germany, where he would again be interrogated, his affidavits transcribed for later use in the Nuremberg trials. Naujocks did not take the stand at Nuremberg, however; instead the Americans handed him over to Denmark, which tried him for war crimes alongside numerous former heads of the SS and Gestapo. Sentenced to 15 years in 1949, he served barely a year in a Danish jail before he was deported back to Germany. There he disappeared into postwar obscurity, living in Hamburg under a false name.

By that time, Naujocks was scarcely remembered. Like Franciszek Honiok, he had become a footnote to the wider history of World War II. When he died in 1966 at age 54, all he left behind was a breathless 1960 biography by an Austrian journalist and historian, Gunter Peis, whom Naujocks had met at the Nuremberg trials. Naujocks wrote the foreword. It begins: I am the man who started the war. 

This story was originally published in the February 2019 issue of World War II magazine. Subscribe here.
A top North Korean officials visit to Washington is the strongest sign yet that President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are on the verge of announcing a second summit. This time, Kims likely to raise his price.

In speeches, state media commentaries and meetings with his Chinese and South Korean counterparts, the once-reclusive North Korean leader has laid out a remarkably transparent list of demands to break the deadlock in nuclear talks. His agenda ranges from restarting economic projects frozen by sanctions to formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War to weakening the U.S.-South Korean military alliance.

The question for Trump as he prepares to host top Kim aide, Kim Yong Chol, on Friday, is what hes willing to give up -- and can he get enough to justify the cost? In the seven months since Trump and Kim Jong Un agreed to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, his regime has made no commitments to let North Koreas arsenal be inspected or dismantled.

Heres what we know Kim Jong Un wants:

Sanctions Relief

Since Trump withdrew his war threats and launched talks with Kim Jong Un last year, the U.S.-backed sanctions against North Koreas economy remain his strongest bargaining chip. Kim has made clear his expects to get at least some penalties lifted, denouncing them as vicious and threatening in his New Years address to take a new path, if the U.S. doesnt ease off.

Until now, Trump administration officials have insisted that all the penalties remain until Kim agrees to the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea. Kim Yong Chol, who arrived in Washington on Thursday, will be looking to firm up recent clues that the U.S. position is softening.

Vice President Mike Pence told NBC News that the U.S. would seek a verifiable plan to declare North Koreas nuclear sites and weapons stockpiles as the result of a second summit, not before it, as officials had earlier insisted. And South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Wednesday that the country was discussing corresponding measures with the U.S. to reward North Koreas steps toward denuclearization.

Kim Jong Uns New Years address, in which he cited joint railway, tourism and manufacturing projects with South Korea, may offer clues into what those measures could entail. Getting those projects moving will require exemptions or repeal of U.S., South Korean and United Nations sanctions. He also made an unusually frank acknowledgment about his countrys power shortages, which could be aided by relaxing UN fuel embargoes.

The U.S.s envoy to North Korea talks, Stephen Biegun, said in December that the administration was considering looser restrictions on getting humanitarian aid and workers into the country. Biegun told a meeting with U.S. nongovernmental organizations last week that they should resume applications for permission to visit, said Keith Luse, the executive director of the National Committee on North Korea.

Nuclear Status

Seven months since shaking hands with Trump in Singapore, Kim has shown little interest in giving up the nuclear arsenal that his regime views as essential to ward off a U.S. attack. In fact, independent analysis shows the countrys weapons production likely expanded last year, probably adding several intercontinental ballistic missiles and enough fissile material for about six more nuclear bombs.

Hes also resisted U.S. demands for a detailed list of his nuclear assets, with state media last month comparing it to handing over a target list. Still, Kim has repeatedly shown a willingness to dismantle facilities used for provocative weapons tests, which experts say he no longer needs.

Similarly, North Korea might be willing to dispense with its plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear plant, something he offered in exchange for U.S. concessions during a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in September. While Kim has since moved on to uranium-fueled bombs, the move could help jump start the denuclearization process.

In the long run, non-proliferation analysts say Kims strategy appears to be quietly fortifying his arsenal while creating the diplomatic climate necessary for North Korea to be tolerated as a nuclear state, such as India or Israel.

Weaker U.S. Alliance

From the moment Kim offered talks to participate in South Koreas Winter Olympics last year, he has put increasing pressure on the countrys 70-year-old alliance with the U.S. Trump has provided him an unusually receptive audience in the White House, exemplified by his unilateral decision to suspend major U.S.-South Korea military training exercises after their summit in June.

North Koreas recent statements have upped the ante, asserting that Kims agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula included an expectation that American nuclear-capable planes and warships also leave the region. In his New Years speech, Kim called on South Korea to stop all military exercises with foreign forces given that the North and South have committed themselves to advancing along the road of peace and prosperity.

Even North Koreas desire for a declaration formally ending the Korean War -- a concession the U.S. has so far withheld -- could support that goal. Replacing the 1953 cease-fire with a peace treaty would remove a rationale for having some 28,500 troops stationed on the peninsula, even if Kims nuclear weapons and Chinas rising military remain.

To contact the reporters on this story: in Seoul at ylee582@bloomberg.net;in Washington at nwadhams@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
US president Donald Trump on Thursday pulled the plug on Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosis trip to Afghanistan in apparent retaliation after she asked him earlier to postpone his upcoming state of the union address because of the ongoing partial shutdown of the federal government.

Trump conveyed his decision to the speaker, who is second in line to the presidency and one of the most powerful people in US politics, in a letter just minutes before she and other Democratic leaders on the congressional delegation were to board a bus for a nearby airbase to catch their military flight to Afghanistan, via Brussels, where they were to meet NATO alliance leaders.

Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed, Trump wrote. In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure that you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate, he said.

He also derided their trip as a seven-day excursion. When, in fact, it was a visit to a battlefront, like the one Trump himself undertook recently to Iraq and those that lawmakers from both parties routinely go on, using military air transport.

As commander in chief Trump has the authority to cancel the trip, some people have argued. But in doing so he also made public a trip that would have remained secret until the delegation was on its way back, as is the practice with battle-zone visits for security reasons.

The presidents letter was an apparent retaliation to Pelosis letter to him on Wednesday in which she had suggested he either postpone his upcoming State of the Union address on January 29 because of the impact of the shutdown on the Secret Service, the lead agency for arranging security around the address, and other departments involved.

Or, she had suggested, the president could consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress. She had pointed out, helpfully, there was precedence for this; in fact, that was the tradition for all of the 19th century and till the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

Trump and the White House have not addressed Pelosis suggestions, but his letter postponing her trip was his way of responding in spirit, if not in letter.

Pelosis office shot back at the president, point for point. The Brussels stop was for pilot rest and to meet NATO commanders, US military leaders and allies, her spokesperson Drew Hamill said in a statement. And Egypt was not on the delegations itinerary.

The purpose of the delegations visit to Afghanistan was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines, Hamill continued.

The President traveled to Iraq during the Trump Shutdown as did a Republican CODEL (Congressional delegation such as the one Pelosi was leading to Afghanistan), he added.

The tit-for-tat marks a new escalation in a fight triggered by the presidents demand for $5.7 billion for a wall or a barrier, as he now calls it, along the border in the south, which the Democrats, who control the House of Representative and, therefore, the governments pursestrings, have refused.

The resulting shutdown, which is the longest in US history, is now in the 28th day, forcing many affected federal employees to dip into savings, sell household items, or seek alternative sources of income like driving Uber cabs. An estimated 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed or are working without pay.
From the moment he launched his campaign for president, Donald Trump compared the barrier he wanted to build along the U.S. southern border to Chinas Great Wall. With the U.S. government now shuttered by the standoff over funding Trumps wall, both he and his Democratic opponents might want to take a closer look at the Chinese fortification -- and why exactly it failed.

The Great Wall visited by tourists today is the handiwork of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was primarily constructed in the mid-to-late 16th century. The common perception is that the wall was conceived as a single, massive infrastructure project to protect Chinas tumultuous northern border from foreign invaders. It was nothing of the sort. The Great Wall was built to a great degree by default, by a political system too paralysed by infighting to come up with anything better.

Border security had been a preoccupation of Chinas imperial court from its earliest days. Barbarians from the northern steppe -- whether Xiongnu, Turk, Jurchen, Mongol or other -- routinely threatened the Middle Kingdom. Some, such as Genghis Khans Mongols in the 13th century, managed to overrun the entire empire.

The long northern boundary ran through inhospitable terrain that made it difficult to defend. Chinese emperors had tried a variety of methods to secure the border, from buying off the barbarians to mounting massive military expeditions against them. The problem would always return when a new batch of tribesmen appeared across the frontier.

The Ming Dynasty compounded the usual difficulties of securing the border with a combination of arrogance, division and indecision. The Ming court was an especially raucous place where hostile factions were almost constantly at each others throats. The border issue often got dragged into these contests for palace power.

Generally, the Ming, having reclaimed the empire from Genghis Khans descendants, leaned towards a tough line against their northern neighbors, often denying them the opportunity to trade with China. The Mongols were dependent on such trade for the grain and other supplies they needed to survive on the inhospitable steppe. So they were left little choice but to launch raids into China to plunder what they needed. The attacks both hardened opinion in China against the Mongol tribes and heightened the urgency for more border security.

The fractured Ming court groped for a solution. Some officials advocated a more diplomatic approach that would restore trade and alleviate the pressure on the Mongols to raid. They were usually shouted down by more hawkish mandarins who thought such policies smacked of appeasement. The latter argued that Mongol requests for trade relations were just a ploy by the untrustworthy barbarians to lull the Chinese into a vulnerable complacency.

These hawks often favored military action to push the raiders away from the border. But, sending troops into the northern wastes to chase nomadic horsemen was costly, difficult to organize and widely unpopular. Proposals often got entangled in the arcane, personal intrigues between palace notables jockeying for imperial favor.

That seemed to leave the court with one option: building defensive barriers to keep the barbarians out. Unwilling to trade with the Mongols, and unable to defeat them militarily, by the middle of the sixteenth century the Ming had no policy choice left but  to attempt to exclude the nomads by building walls, historian Arthur Waldron wrote in his exhaustive study The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth.

The strategy proved effective in blunting Mongol raids -- where walls were built. The problem was that the mobile horsemen could easily shift their assaults to undefended areas of the border. Thats exactly what a large Mongol force did in 1550 when it penetrated to the Beijing suburbs. The response of the court was to build more walls. The Great Wall was the result of this haphazard defense policy.

The tragedy is that the Mings big, beautiful wall failed to fulfill its sole mission: to protect China from invasion. The Ming were still tinkering with the massive structure when the dynasty collapsed in 1644. Amid the resulting chaos, a new steppe power, the Manchus, descended from the north, snatched Beijing and ruled as the Qing Dynasty.

Maybe the Manchu conquest was beyond repulse. A China divided was bound to fall. But, the Ming clearly contributed to their own catastrophe. A court environment that prioritizing defeating ones internal rivals over cooperating on policy stymied any hope of developing an effective solution to a serious problem. Emperors, coddled in luxurious palaces and lacking any real knowledge of conditions along the border, preferred looking tough on foreigners to compromise. Resistance to mutually beneficial trade deepened the causes of instability along the border. Treating those others across the frontier as bandits to be thwarted rather than poor people in need doomed Ming policy to failure.

Sound familiar? The ultimate lesson of the Great Wall of China is that a physical barrier, no matter how expensive and impressive, will fail if detached from a broader set of policies to alleviate the sources of insecurity along the border. The Ming never figured that out. Hopefully Washingtons mandarins will.
A former mistress of Mexican crime boss Joaquin El Chapo Guzman testified Thursday that the cartel leader lured her into a life as a drug trafficker, shifting hundreds of kilos of marijuana a time on planes.

Until today I was confused because I thought it was a romantic relationship, Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, 29, told the New York City court where Guzman faces trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges.

Sanchez, who was arrested in 2017 crossing from Mexico into San Diego and stands accused of conspiring to traffic cocaine, told the jury she met Guzman when she was 21.

He sent her to work the Golden Triangle along the Durango, Sinaloa and Chihuahua Mexican state borders, buying good, beautiful and cheap marijuana, Sanchez said.

She would then load airplanes with up to 400 kilograms (900 pounds) of the drug. Sanchez said she never received payment for her work.

She said her relationship with Guzman, 61, who is known for maintaining romantic relationships with four or five different women at a time, began in February 2011.

The kingpins wife, Emma Coronel, was pregnant with the couples twins.

The prosecution said Sanchez and Guzman discussed her marijuana transactions through encrypted messages and referred to each other as Lovely or M in text messages they exchanged on Blackberries that they switched out every few weeks.

Sanchez said she was afraid Guzman would hurt her.

The mafia kills people who dont pay or who snitch, but not those who are serious, he wrote to her.

Sanchez faces 10 years to life in prison but is hoping for a reduced sentence for her cooperation with the prosecution.

Guzman, who is accused of trafficking more than 155 tons worth of drugs to the US, could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty.
A 34-year-old Indian-origin man was on Friday charged with the murder of a woman, who was found dead in a rented apartment in Singapore, according to a media report.

Singaporean M Krishnan allegedly killed 40-year-old Mallika Begum Rahamansa Abdul Rahman in the apartment in the northern housing estate of Woodlands late on Wednesday night, revealed a court document.

Police said the two knew each other and were understood to be in a relationship. Both had frequent quarrels, Today, an online portal, reported.

When police arrived at the murder scene shortly after receiving a call at 1.34 am on Thursday, Mallika was lying motionless inside a room. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene, the report said.

Though Krishnan fled the scene by then, police apprehended him hours later as his identity was quickly established, authorities said.

Krishnan, who faces death penalty if convicted of murder, was not represented by a lawyer on Friday. Bail was granted and he was remanded at the Central Police Division. The next hearing has been set on January 25.
A Canadian geologist kidnapped at a remote gold mine in northeast Burkina Faso by suspected jihadists has been found dead, the ministry of security told AFP on Thursday.

A body found with gunshot wounds late Wednesday is that of Kirk Woodman, the Canadian who was kidnapped the day before yesterday, ministerial spokesman Jean-Paul Badoum said.

Earlier, a security official said the body of a white man with gunshot wounds had been found in Siega in Soum province.

The body is being taken to Dori for identification, the source said. Another security source said the remains would then be flown by helicopter to Ouagadougou.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said her country was appalled and deeply saddened by the killing.

Canada condemns those responsible for this terrible crime. We are working with the government of Burkina Faso and other international partners to pursue those responsible and bring them to justice, she said.

Woodman is one of two Canadians who have gone missing in Burkina Faso, an impoverished country in the front line of a jihadist rebellion in the Sahel.

He was vice president of a Canadian company, Progress Minerals, which owns a gold mine at Tiabangou, located in Yagha, a volatile province near the Niger and Mali border.

He was at the mine when the site came under attack from about 10 armed men, Security Minister Clement Sawadogo said on Wednesday.

The assailants rounded up the staff. They searched the base camp and made off with some equipment. They took the expatriate with them, he said.

Woodman had arrived in the country just on January 10, Sawadogo added.

In mid-December, 34-year-old Canadian aid worker Edith Blais was reported missing with an Italian friend, Lucas Tacchetto, 30, as they were travelling between the western town of Bobo-Dioulasso and the capital Ouagadougou.

- Troubled region -

The vast region on the southern rim of the Sahara is struggling with a bloody Islamist insurgency and a wave of lawlessness.

After chaos engulfed Libya in 2011, an Islamist insurgency gained ground in northern Mali, Burkinas neighbour, while Boko Haram rose in northern Nigeria.

Jihadist raids began in northern Burkina Faso in 2015 before spreading to the east, near the border with Togo and Benin.

Most of the attacks have been attributed to Ansarul Islam and the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM).

Smaller groups are also active, with the overall number of fighters estimated to be in the hundreds, according to security sources.

The groups are believed to be responsible for more than 270 deaths since 2015. Ouagadougou has been hit three times and almost 60 people have died there.

Eight foreigners have been abducted in the last four years, according to an AFP tally.

Among them is 84-year-old Australian doctor worker, Kenneth Elliott, who was kidnapped with his wife Jocelyn in April 2015 in Djibo, where the pair ran a clinic for the poor.

Jocelyn Elliott was released after a year. Her husband, whose whereabouts remain unknown, has been declared a citizen of Burkina Faso, under a decree issued last November.

Canada has 250 soldiers and eight army helicopters deployed in Mali as part of a UN peacekeeping mission.
Latimer, who is affected by the federal government shutdown, is a mother of three children whose oldest son is deployed in the military. She has been undergoing treatment for breast cancer and struggling to pay medical bills.
Former BJP MP Uday Singh, who has represented Purnea Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar twice, announced his resignation from the party in Patna on Friday alleging that it has surrendered before the discredited JD(U) headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Singh did not reveal his cards, saying that until he resigned from the BJP, he had no right to negotiate with any other party, but gave ample hints saying he may join a Grand Alliance constituent.

He said he saw Congress president Rahul Gandhis popularity growing even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi of whom he had been an ardent supporter, seemed to have withdrawn himself from reality even if he has good intentions.

He also said that even while in the BJP, he never approved of the slogan of Congress-mukt Bharat. A democracy cannot survive if the opposition is wiped out. It will degenerate into a totalitarian regime, he said.

Singh, whose elder brother NK Singh is the chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, had lost his seat in 2014 to JD(U)s Santosh Kushwaha by a margin of more than one lakh votes notwithstanding the strong Modi wave.

With the BJP and JD(U) having agreed to fight 17 seats each, leaving six for Ram Vilas Paswans LJP, and Purnea being a sitting seat of Nitish Kumars party, there is little likelihood for Singh being considered for the seat, which he had won in 2004 and 2009, and his mother Madhuri Singh had represented as a Congress nominee in the 1980s.

Singh, however, maintained that his decision had nothing to do with the possibility of getting a ticket from his seat as NDA constituents are yet to finalise which constituency will be fought by which party.

Replying to a query, he said so far he had no talks with Rahul Gandhi or (RJD supremo) Lalu Prasad. But he was looking forward to speaking to them after taking his supporters into confidence.

He claimed that there is widespread resentment among the party cadre over the undemocratic style of functioning of the current leadership and remarked it is very difficult to meet BJP president Amit Shah.

RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha kept requesting for an appointment, which was never given, and he ultimately had to resign from the Union council of ministers and quit the NDA in sheer disappointment, he said.

Committed BJP workers are appalled over the manner the party agreed to share power with Nitish Kumar, forgetting our bitter experiences with him in the past, and also over the fact that his government is rapidly losing goodwill. Now, the BJP will end up sharing the blame for his misdeeds. And as if that was not enough, he was given such a massive share of seats, he remarked.
Kicking off the Shiv Senas poll campaign, party chief Uddhav Thackeray will hold a mega rally in Nagpur  chief minister Devendra Fadnaviss home turf  on February 2.

Even as there is no clarity so far on an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Sena has gone ahead with chalking out rallies and other tours of its party chief.

However, Sena leaders maintained that Thackerays address in Pandharpur on December 24, 2018 was its start of the poll campaign. Senior Sena leader Anandrao Adsul, an MP from Amravati, dismissed suggestions that Nagpur was chosen to kick-off the campaign as part of sending out any signal to the BJP, which has a strong presence in the region. We did one (rally) in Pandharpur, now well do one in Nagpur. There is no specific reason behind selecting Nagpur; It is an important city in Vidarbha. It should not be viewed as Nagpur is a stronghold of the chief minister or [Union minister Nitin] Gadkari. Then whose stronghold was Pandharpur? he asked.

Adsul added that Thackeray is going to hold rallies in Nashik in north Maharashtra and in south Maharashtras Sangli. However, the dates for the same are yet to be fixed. One thing is clear, that the elections are around the corner, therefore we are going ahead with our plan. There are rallies being planned; in Nagpur we are expecting about 3 lakh people, said Adsul.

The Sena has a sizable influence in Mumbai, Thane, Konkan, parts of Marathwada, etc, but its base is weak in regions such as western Maharashtra and Vidarbha. Out of the 10 Lok Sabha seats, the Sena won four seats in Vidarbha in the 2014 general elections, which it contested in alliance with the BJP. Out of the 62 Assembly seats in Vidarbha, the Sena managed to win only four in the 2014 Assembly polls, which it contested solo.

Meanwhile, Sena leaders maintain there is no movement on discussions on alliance with the BJP. A Sena MP said the BJP tells newspapers and television channels that it intends to have an alliance with the Sena, but no leader has come to Thackeray to hold talks so far.
The Mumbai Fire Brigade is set to get an integrated command and control room at Byculla by the end of this month, to improve its response time to disasters by 5-6 minutes and facilitate real-time coordination between firemen and officials at the control room.

According to fire officials, currently, the time taken by fire vehicles to reach a spot in the island city is 15-20 minutes, whereas it is 20-22 minutes for suburban areas. From tracking movement of fire engines to directing them to reach the spot by taking the shortest route, the integrated command control system is programmed to upgrade the response and avoid manual errors.

Currently, all communication is carried out manually through the wireless system. The officials write down the details of the fire call and pass it on to the fire station concerned. However, the control room is unaware if the fire engines have actually left for the spot. Also, if the response vehicle is stuck in traffic or takes a different route, the control room will not be able to direct them properly without knowing the exact location of the vehicle, said a senior civic official.

The new system will direct the fire engines to avoid routes that have traffic and take the shortest route possible. In its second phase, the fire brigade plans to track the nearest vehicles to the fire spot. At times when the fire vehicles are taking a longer time than usual, we can direct the nearest vehicles available to the spot, he said.

The cost of the project is 60 crore, which includes the maintenance of the system for seven years. Eight officers, headed by a divisional fire officer will operate from the control room.

P Rahangdale, chief fire officer, said, The fire brigade is dependent on telephonic communication to exchange messages during disasters. The new system has been installed at all fire stations. Once started, all details of a disaster call will be simultaneously sent to the fire stations. Saving five to six minutes will make a huge difference in controlling fire.
From hosting public reception for Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin to holding mammoth political rallies  many of them on anti-central government planks, the sprawling Brigade Parade Ground in the heart of Kolkata is steeped in history.

A day before it welcomes stalwarts from a wide spectrum of political parties, the 18th century colonial era venue looks majestic as labourers and volunteers work at a frantic pace to give the final shape to the giant stages and other makeshift facilities.

The mega rally, convened by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for showcasing a united stand against the centres ruling BJP in the coming general elections, is being billed as the biggest in the venue both in terms of the prospective huge crowd and large gathering of parties and leaders from across the country.

Watch: Mamata Banerjees mega Kolkata rally to show opposition unity

However, a time travel to the past brings out the rich history of the ground, located in the backdrop of the iconic Victoria Memorial and the Indian Museum, and under the control of the Indian Army whose Eastern Command headquarters Fort William lie in the vicinity.

Developed as a parade ground of the forces at the Fort William in the second half of the 18th century by the British after their victory in the battle of Plassey, the wide grassy stretch is part of the Maidan (or open field), considered the lungs of the metropolis.

The ground perhaps hosted one of its first political meetings in 1919, when Chittaranjan Das and other nationalist leaders railed against the Rowlatt Act before the Ochterlony Monument (now called Shaheed Minar).

After the country gained independence, the vast space has been used by government agencies, various political parties and other organisations to hold events involving huge turnouts.

A landmark meeting was the one on November 29, 1955, when Soviet premier Nikolay Aleksandrovich Bulganin and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Khrushchev received a tumultuous adulation from a sea of humanity as they were felicitated by then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the presence of West Bengal Chief Minister Bidhan Chandra Roy and leader of the undivided Communist Party Ajay Ghosh.

On February 6, 1972, a million people cheered wildly as the Prime Minister of newly liberated Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Indian counterpart Indira Gandhi held a joint meeting on this parade ground. Those were the days when passions ran high in West Bengal where people had felt one with the freedom struggle in erstwhile East Pakistan.

In an emotion-choked speech, Bongobondhu Mujibur Rehman had raised the slogan Jai Bharat, Jai Bangla and expressed his gratitude for the blood, toil and sweat given by the Indian soldiers to make his country free.

Then came the 1970s, the emergency in the country, followed by the defeat of the Congress in 1977 both at the Centre and in West Bengal where the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front took over the reins of power.

Even as the Congress came back to power at the Centre in 1980, the Left Front went from strength to strength in the eastern state and their rule continued uninterrupted till 2011. Two vital ingredients in the Left Fronts political line then were anti-Congressism, and a vigorous campaign against stepmotherly attitude of the Centre.

As part of its anti-Centre and anti-Congress planks, it played a prominent role in organising opposition conclaves and conference of non-Congress(I) parties and chief ministers.

One such conclave was held in Kolkata in January, 1984, that culminated in a rally at the Brigade Parade ground. The Speakers included stalwarts like Jyoti Basu, NT Rama Rao, Ramakrishna Hegde, Farookh Abdullah, Chandra Shekhar and EMS Namboodiripad.

Four-and-a-half years later, the Shaheed Minar was witness to another gathering of opposition leaders after VP Singh resigned from Rajiv Gandhis Congress government on the issue of corruption, alleging kickbacks in the Bofors gun deal, and won a famous by-election from Allahabad as a Jan Morcha candidate.

The meeting at Shaheed Minar, convened by the state unit of the Jan Morcha to celebrate the Allahabad bypoll win, brought together opposition leaders of all shades  Atal Bihari Vajpayee, George Fernandes, Madhu Dandavate, VP Singh, Jyoti Basu, and other Left leaders.

The abiding image of the rally was of Basu and BJP stalwart Vajpayee along with other leaders holding each others raised hands in a spirit of camaraderie. However, the image has been referred to again and again by the CPI-Ms opponents through the decades to mock at the communists anti-BJP stance.

Mamata Banerjee, who rose fast in the states political arena through the mid 1980s and the 1990s during her days in the Congress, was the chief organiser of a youth Congress rally on November 25, 1992.

She had then rung a huge symbolic bell called CPI-M-er mrityu ghanta (CPI-Ms death knell), in a bid to give some message to the people to inspire them to fight against the CPI-M.

Now, 26 years after, Banerjee has created for herself a political space where anti-BJP opposition leaders of practically all hues were likely to gather for her Brigade meeting on Saturday. How far the meeting succeeds in realising her dream of emerging as the face of the Opposition after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, only time can tell.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said on Friday that it will fight the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana on its own, putting at rest months of speculation that it would ally with the Congress in a bid to take on their common political rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The AAP will contest all Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana on its own. The party has always been against the principles of the Congress. The AAP was the only party to start a movement against corrupt Congress rule, said Gopal Rai, who heads the Delhi unit of the party.

In national interest, AAP had been ready to ally with the Congress, but recent comments by Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dixit and Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh show the party still retains an arrogant streak, Rai told a press conference at the residence of Delhi chief minister and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwals residence.

His reference was to comments by Dikshit that the Congress was a national party and AAP was not, and Singhs remarks that Delhis ruling party didnt have a significant enough presence in the Punjab assembly.

Together, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana account for 30 Lok Sabha seats, and there had been speculation, which intensified after three-time chief minister Dikshits appointment this month as head of the Congresss Delhi unit, that the party may ally with the AAP to put up a joint fight against the BJP.

Dikshit was the longest-reigning chief minister of Delhi, serving for 15 years from 1998 to 2013, when the advent of AAP ended Congresss rule.

The Congress then propped up an AAP government that lasted 49 days before chief minister Kejriwal resigned following his failure to introduce a bill for appointing an anti-corruption ombudsman, Jan Lokpal.

The Congress and AAP failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat from the Capital in the 2014 general elections, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) grabbing all seven, and could not win a single seat in the 2015 assembly elections, which the AAP won by a landslide .

Rai said leaders of like-minded parties, such as Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Telugu Desam Party chief and Andhra Pradesh CM N.Chandrababu Naidu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief MK Stalin and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah had insisted on the AAP and Congress coming together to defeat the BJP in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana.

Rai, who is also Delhis labour minister, said the Punjab CM had belittled the AAP by calling it an insignificant opposition party in the state assembly. In Delhi, Dikshit, over the past one week, has been saying the AAP is a small party and that the Congress, being a national party, would not compromise in any way. One should not forget that it was the AAP that brought down the 15-year Congress rule in Delhi, he said.

Over the past few weeks, Kejriwal has met AAP representatives and volunteers and urged them to tell voters that voting for the Congress would mean victory for the BJP.

In the last Lok Sabha election, (in Delhi) the BJP got 46% votes, the AAP obtained 33 % and the Congress 15%, Kejriwal told AAP workers during one such meeting. Surveys reveal the BJP is going to lose 10% of its vote share this time. You need to tell people that if these votes are polled by the AAP, it will win all seven seats in Delhi by securing 43% votes. You have to explain to people that voting for the Congress means victory for the BJP.

The speculation of a possible alliance with the AAP had been discounted by Dikshit. A resolution passed last month by the Delhi assembly demanding that the Bharat Ratna awarded to late former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi be withdrawn over the 1984 anti-Sikh riots had upset the Congress leadership, party members said.

Who was stopping them earlier, Haroon Yusuf, working president of the Delhi Congress, said about the AAPs announcement. We have maintained right from the beginning that the Congress party is capable of fighting the elections on its own under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi.

Amarinder Singhs media adviser Raveen Thukral said a tie-up with AAP didnt figure at his recent meeting with the Congress president.

The CM had earlier conveyed the feelings of the entire cabinet and the state Congress that there is no need for an alliance with the AAP in Punjab and it has become a defunct organisation in the state. However, he had also said that the state unit will abide by the party high commands decision on an alliance, Thukral said.

The BJP said the Congress and AAP had been trying to forge an alliance out of concern that the good work done by the BJP-led central government would undermine their prospects in the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi.

AAP was trying to forge an alliance with the Congress as it is apprehensive of its defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. But with Dikshit ruling out the possibility, the party says that it will contest on its own Kejriwal has only worked to mislead the people of Delhi by indulging in the politics of falsely accusing other parties, said Manoj Tiwari, Delhi BJP chief.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is unlikely to form an alliance with the Congress in Delhi and Punjab for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections owing to opposition from its local units, according to a senior party functionary privy to the negotiations who asked not be named.

The leader added that the party was set to announce its candidates for all 13 parliamentary seats of Punjab and all seven in Delhi, and that meetings to finalise the names were being held in the Capital.

There was pressure on the AAP from several leaders, including West Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee, DMK leader MK Stalin and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, to not let the anti-BJP vote split in the upcoming elections, the leader said.

But the partys Punjab and Delhi units are opposed to any alliance [with the Congress] due to local conditions. For instance, the Punjab unit has always maintained that they were in the opposition and the Congress was the ruling party. An alliance with the Congress in these two states was a dilemma. After recent statements by Punjab CM captain Amarinder Singh and Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit ruling out an alliance, it has become easier to convince the parties that the Congress is not in favour of a pact, he added.

Asked about the poll preparations, senior AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said: Preparations for fighting Lok Sabha elections on all seats in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana are on. The process for candidate finalisation is also in progress. A meeting in this connection is likely to be held in Punjab soon.

Speculation that the AAP and the Congress could join hands in Delhi and Punjab has been rife of late.

Mamata Banerjee has called huge rally of the opposition parties on January 19 in Kolkata that both AAP and Congress leaders are likely to attend.
Work on the Kartarpur corridor on the Pakistan side is in a full swing with the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), which controls temples and gurdwaras in the neighbouring country, executing the project.

Heavy earthmoving machines are working round the clock to make the corridor a reality at the earliest, ETPB secretary Tariq Wazir told HT over telephone.

Nearly 35% work is already complete and the entire project will see the light of day by September. In the first phase, ETPB will refurbish Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara, build a sarovar, a langar hall, quarters for granthis, four kilometre passage from the India border to the gurdwara, a terminal for check-in by pilgrims from the Indian side and parking on the India-Pak border, Wazir said.

After check-in, pilgrims from the Indian side will be taken to the shrine in Pakistan governments vehicles, he added.

The Pakistan government is preparing a master plan of the area which will have hotels, serais and other facilities for the pilgrims in phase 2 of the project.

We started construction work the day after the groundbreaking ceremony, said Wazir.

Our government will develop 1,176 acre around the gurdwara in two phases, with a budget of 2 to 3 billion (Pak currency), he added.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had laid the foundation stone for Kartarpur corridor on November 28 last year which was attended by two Union ministers from India  Hardeep Singh Puri and Harsimrat Kaur Badal besides Punjab cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu .

Speaking on the discussions with the Indian government about connecting the corridor constructed on Indian side, Wazir said Pakistan law and foreign ministries are working on the memorandum of understanding (MoU) to be signed with their Indian counterparts and a meeting was expected to take place shortly. Wazir said religious affairs minister Norul Haq along with a delegation of Sikh leaders visited the construction site last week to assess the progress.

Ramesh Singh Arora, a former MLA in the Punjab assembly from the Narowal constituency where the gurdwara is located, said the Pakistans federal government is directly involved in the work and has assigned tasks to various departments. The funds for the project are allocated by the federal government from the annual development plan, he said.

Also a member of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC), Arora said the committee was also involved in monitoring of works, especially for the development of the gurdwara complex.
The Maharashtra government on Friday said that, if needed, an ordinance will be brought to enforce rules to regulate dance bars in the state, a day after the Supreme Court paved the way for their reopening by relaxing stringent conditions imposed by the government on their licensing and functioning.

After analysis of the Supreme Court order and discussions on it with the law and justice departments, if needed, we will issue an ordinance to stop dance bars in Mumbai, news agency ANI quoted state Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar as saying.

The Supreme Courts order on Thursday brought reprieve to dance bar owners and employees by striking down rules that virtually prohibited their running. The court ruled that there could be regulations but not total prohibition.

A bench of justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan struck down certain provisions of the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurant and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (Working therein) Act, 2016, and rewrote rules framed under it, in a bid to maintain a balance between public interest and the constitutional right to earn a livelihood.

The court noted that the conditions were hardly in the nature of regulations as the real effect was prohibition of dance bars. It brought on record that the state had granted no licences since 2005 despite a top court verdict that declared two provisions of the Bombay Police Act barring dance bars as unconstitutional.

The verdict came on a petition filed by restaurant owners association and a bar girls union challenging the 2016 Act that set conditions for operation of dance bars. The petition contended that by bringing the law, the Maharashtra government had tried to circumvent a previous top court order allowing re-opening of dance bars. This was after Maharashtra had first banned dance bars in August 2005 .
Asserting that it was united, Karnataka Congress on Friday took its MLAs to a resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru after a key party meeting, in order to thwart a rebellion in the party and an alleged attempt by the BJP bring down the alliance government led by JD(S)s HD Kumaraswamy in the last few days.

Former chief minister Siddaramaiah announced the move after four rebel MLAs, Ramesh Jarkiholi, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumathahalli, gave the Congress legislature party (CLP) meeting a miss.

To escape the onslaught of the BJP, and as a pre-emptive measure, we will do that, he said.

Congress leader and state minister DK Shivakumar confirmed that the MLAs will be taken to Eagleton resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru. This is the same resort where Gujarat Congress MLAs were kept in 2017 during the Rajya Sabha elections from that state.

According to a tweet by ANI, the MLAs had reached the resort around 9 pm.

Bengaluru: Karnataka Congress MLAs reach Eagleton resort after CLP meeting. pic.twitter.com/sKX5eVyV72  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

Of the four rebel MLAs, B Nagendra had sought to skip the meeting due to a court hearing he had to attend, whereas Umesh Jadhav sought to be excused as he was unwell and far away.

Ramesh Jarkiholi and Mahesh Kumathahalli did not contact the leadership, Siddaramaiah said, adding that they will be asked to prove the reason for their absence. Notices will be issued, and their responses will be discussed with the party president, he said.

The four rebel MLAs were reported to have been staying at a Mumbai hotel and have been in touch with the BJP.

Congress leader Siddaramaiah addressing the media after the CLP meeting in Bengaluru. (ANI/Twitter)

BJP trying to destabilise govt

In a sharp attack on the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, Siddaramaiah said Congress MLAs were offered Rs 50-70 crore and promised minister posts. I have proof, he said, and asked how come a chowkidar (gatekeeper, referring to PM Modi) has so much money?

BJP was trying to create a conspiracy and twice now they have faced humiliation. They are trying to destabilise Karnataka government. This is because they are strong in only one southern state. For this reason, shamelessly, they have instigated this (rebellion), he said.

Hence, to show that speculation was wrong, we have showcased our unity. Our party is intact, united, he said, citing the 76 MLAs present at the CLP meeting.

Congress has 80 MLAs and is part of the 118 members in the JD(S)-Congress coalition, well above the majority mark of 113. A few days back, two independent MLAs had withdrawn support from the alliance.

Analysis | The BJP doesnt have too many options in Karnataka

Earlier, Karnataka BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa had dismissed the allegations, saying it was the grand old partys responsibility to keep its flock together and his party had nothing to do with the confusion in the ruling coalition in the southern state.

He also said the allegations that the BJP was trying to poach Congress MLAs were far from the truth.

It is far from the truth that we are causing confusion in the Congress-JD(S) coalition. We 104 people (BJP MLAs) are together and one. Our only intention is to win 20 Lok Sabha seats (in Karnataka) and we are making preparations for it, Yeddyurappa said.

The 104 BJP MLAs were reported to be kept in a resort in Gurgaon, fearing poaching by the ruling parties.

In a warning to dissenters, Siddaramaiah made it clear that proceedings under the anti-defection law would be launched.

What worked in the partys favour was the fact that the dissidents could not muster much support.

The problem is that no legislator is in a position to resign and face the people once again for a bye-election. This is why we decided to force their hand in the matter and issued the notice to attend the meeting, the Congress leader said.

(With agencies inputs)
Suspected militants lobbed a grenade on Friday in the Lal Chowk area, the heart of Srinagar, and also targeted a security forces camp in south Kashmirs Shopian district, but caused no serious casualties or damage to property, the police said.

The twin attacks came a day after three policemen were injured in a grenade blast in the city, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, and ahead of Republic Day on January 26 and caused security forces to go on a high security alert.

These are terror crimes and we are investigating, said inspector general of police Swayam Prakash Pani.

Mohammad Hassan , a spokesman for Jaish-e-Mohammad, said in a statement to a local news agency the group was responsible for the attacks. Police said a grenade was hurled towards a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) vehicle stationed near the clock tower in Lal Chowk, in the afternoon on Friday. Locals said the resultant blast caused a tyre of the vehicle to burst and caused some damage to a car parked alongside. Glass panes of nearby shops were damaged.

I was just some distance away from the spot when I heard a bang and people started running helter-skelter. Owing to the Friday prayers, not many people were present in the area. Otherwise there would have been many injuries, said an eyewitness who didnt want to be named.

In Shopian, suspected militants lobbed a grenade towards a camp housing personnel from the Reserve Police and CRPF.

...officers did not receive any report pertaining to the loss of life or property, the police said in a statement, appealing to the people to contact the police if they had any information that could help investigators.

On Thursday, three policemen, including an assistant sub-inspector of police, were injured in a grenade blast in Srinagars Rajbagh area..

Security forces were on a high state of alert across the city. The militants have to show something. It doesnt mean our security has been jeopardized. We are after them. I am sure, we will find them very soon, said a senior police officer who did not want to be named.

The attacks on Friday came as police claimed to have arrested a man carrying a grenade in north Kashmirs Kupwara district.

A police statement said Mohd Aslam Beigh, a resident of Lolab, was intercepted at a check point and a search found him carrying the grenade and some incriminating material. The police said Beigh had been planning to join a terrorist group, and carry out an attack in Kupwara along with other terrorists.

Initial investigation revealed that he was motivated to turn to terrorism through social media by entities based in Pakistan, the statement said.

So far in January, six militants have been killed in gun battles across the Kashmir valley; The militants targeted a policeman and a civilian, the brother of a Sarpanch, in south Kashmirs Pulwama.
The England high court has dismissed a multi-million dollar claim brought by an Egyptian businessman against a member of the Bahraini royal family for allegedly reneging on a contract to get paid for facilitating meetings with 26 Bollywood stars, including Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Ranveer Singh.

The ways and costs of meeting the Indian stars were set out in much detail in the court that heard the case brought by the businessman, Ahmed Adel Abdallah Ahmed, against Sheikh Hamad Isa Ali al-Khalifa, a distant cousin of the king of Bahrain.

Ahmeds claim was that there was a contract between him and the royal based on a conversation of January 7, 2016; that he was the latters exclusive agent to organise meetings with the stars for a fee of $ 1.5 million for each meeting and a bonus payment of $ 500,000 on the completion of every third meeting.

The defence denied the existence of such a contract or to pay the amounts mentioned. Sheikh Hamad brought the relationship to an end in March 2016 after five meetings with four stars. Ahmed claimed that by doing so, Sheikh had acted in repudiatory breach of the contract.

Ahmed claimed $ 1.5 million in respect of each of the five meetings, together with one bonus of $ 500,000. He also claimed damages in respect of the meetings that did not take place as a result of the premature termination, calculated on the basis that he was contractually entitled to arrange a further 22 meetings.

Prior to the arrangement being stopped, Ahmed arranged for Sheikh to meet Shah Rukh Khan (on January 16, 2016 in Mumbai), Salman Khan (on February 11, 2016 in Mumbai), Ranveer Singh (on March 6, 2016 in Dubai), Aditya Roy Kapoor on (March 16, 2016 in Dubai); and a second meeting with Ranveer Singh (on March 17, 2016, in Dubai. He was paid various sums of money for the meetings.

Justice Jacobs said: I reject Mr. Ahmeds account of the phone conversation on 7 January 2016, and I reject his case that there was any agreement on the terms alleged. Since I have rejected Mr. Ahmeds case as to all aspects of the 7 January 2016 agreement, it does not seem to me that the claim can succeed at all.

The claim for sums owing for the meetings that did take place, including the bonus, fails because there was no agreement to pay US$ 1.5 million per meeting plus bonus. The claim for damages for repudiation, in respect of the 22 meetings which did not take place, fails because there was no agreement which committed the Sheikh to meeting a list of 26 stars.

No list of 26 stars that Sheikh Hamad was to meet was produced in court. He was described as a man with a passion for Bollywood films, having been introduced to them as a child by his Indian nanny.

The order said that after terminating the arrangement with Ahmed, Hamad met several Bollywood stars during a trip to India in April 2016, arranged by one Sameer Qureshi, who was paid a fraction of the amount that Sheikh Hamad had paid Ahmed. Qureshi was paid $ 1 million in total in relation to the approximately 13 actors that the Sheikh met.

In the lengthy judgment that included transcripts of messages between Ahmed, Sheikh Hamad and others, the judge said: The defence to the claim was straightforward. Sheikh Hamad denied that any agreement, as alleged by Mr. Ahmed, was made in the January 2016 phone call.

If, however, any agreement can be spelt out of that phone call, then there was no intention to create legal relations. The Sheikh also contended that any arrangement was terminable at will, so that there could in any event be no claim for damages in relation to the meetings that were arranged, or could have been arranged, during April 2016 or subsequently.
The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Kerala government to provide round-the-clock security to two Kerala women who entered Sabarimala earlier this month defying traditionalists opposed to females of menstruating age offering worship at the hill shrine

The two Bindu Ammini (40) and Kanakadurga (39), fearing for their lives, had petitioned the top court seeking security.

Having heard the lawyers we deem it appropriate to close this petition at this stage by directing Kerala to provide round the clock. Beyond the above we do not consider it necessary to go into any other issues.

Hailing the order, Ammini said, Our faith in judiciary has increased manifold. The judiciary has come to our rescue at a time when certain sections of the society are treating us as criminals as if we committed a big sin. We did only what is permitted by the highest court of the country. The latest directive will encourage many other women to trek to the temple.

She said that after their entry, they were forced to go in hiding and the latest order of the Supreme Court will help them lead a normal life. We were facing many threats. Even our children and relatives were not spared.

The top Court rejected the plea of two women to tag their matter with the review petitions.

The Kerala government told court it was providing full security to the two women. At this the court said, if so, you continue to do the same even after our order.

Following threats by hardline groups, the two women had gone into hiding for almost two weeks after entering the hill shrine. But when Kanakadurga returned home on January 15, she was attacked by her mother-in-law and landed in hospital with injuries.

The two had moved the top court on Thursday citing threat to life after. Senior advocate Indira Jaising appeared before a bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and requested an urgent hearing, saying it was a matter of life and liberty for the two women.

The plea sought a court direction to all authorities to allow women of all age groups to enter the temple without any hindrance and to ensure security and safe passage, including police security to women wishing to enter the temple.

A Supreme Court bench had in September ordered the shrines doors to be thrown open to women of all ages, overturning a decades-old ban on the entry of female devotees of childbearing age, imposed on grounds that the presiding deity, Lord Ayyappa, is a celibate.

The court order enraged traditionalists, who won the support of both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in their fight to keep women in the taboo age group out of the temple.

Protestors foiled the entry of women aged below 50 years into Sabarimala until Kanakadurga and Bindu Ammini, with a police escort, entered the shrine.

Their entry sparked widespread unrest in Kerala. Fearing a backlash, the two women stayed in an undisclosed location under state protection for almost two weeks.
A day after senior RSS leader Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi created a buzz by setting 2025 as deadline for Ram temple in Ayodhya, the organisation on Friday clarified that the date was for the completion of construction.

Delivering a lecture in Kumbh mela premises on Thursday, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) leader had said: Our mission is to get Ram temple constructed by 2025 and establish India as a Vishwa Guru (global leader).

The remark, which came amid reports that the RSS leadership is unhappy with the BJP over delay in temple construction, created a buzz across the country as well as within the RSS cadre.

Critics claimed that the RSS was trying to push the dates to take pressure off the BJP.

Taken aback by the remark, RSS leaders were quick to clarify that Joshi announced 2025 as the year of completion of the temple construction and not its start.

We are very clear what he meant. It took more than five years to construct the modern day Somnath temple in Gujarat. Obviously, Ram temple will also take time. It is this date (of completion) that he (Joshi) was referring to, an RSS member, visibly unhappy over the inferences being drawn, said.

Irrespective of the RSSs clarification, the opposition accused the Sangh of using delaying tactics for poll benefits.

UP Congress spokesman Kishore Varshney said, The BJP and the RSS have no interest in the construction of Ram temple. They only want to play with the sentiments of Hindus to ensure support in elections.

He said that after making tall claims, the BJP government was unable to move ahead or bring in an ordinance to pave way for the temple. The RSS has very cleverly come out with the new deadline of 2025 to give a breather to the BJP for not only 2019 general elections but also for 2022 UP assembly elections and 2024 general elections.

Claiming that Kumbh always ushered in changes, Joshi on Thursday said, History has been a witness to the fact that Kumbh has always brought transformation in the country. Kumbh 2019 will also bring some significant change which the Hindus have been waiting for a long time.

He said the Ram temple would be an asset for India in the next 150 years.

He claimed that many important developments like the first war of independence of 1857, Quit India Movement of 1942, the reconstruction of Somnath temple in 1951-52 or imposition of Emergency by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975 coincided with the Kumbh.

He said Ram Temple in Ayodhya was not only a symbol of being Hindu but also the sign of culture, tradition and consciousness of Hindus.

Efforts should be made to ensure Ram temple by 2025 but there are challenges too which should be handled carefully and tactfully, he said.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi has written to West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee extending his support to the mega opposition rally she is hosting on Saturday.

The rally is being seen as the gathering of parties against the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Lok Sabha election to be held later this year.

The entire opposition is united... I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together, Gandhi wrote in his letter on Friday.

The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Mr (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi are intent on destroying, he said.

The Congress chief also talked about powerful forces fanned by anger and disappointment of hundreds of millions of Indians who had seen through false promises and lies peddled by the Modi government.

These forces are moved by the hope of a new tomorrow; a tomorrow filled with the idea of an India in which the voice of every man, woman and child would be heard and respected, no matter what their religion, economic status or region, he said.

The West Bengal chief minister has said the rally in Kolkata would sound the death knell for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections and regional parties would be the deciding factor.

Banerjees Trinamool Congress is hosting the rally, which will be attended by a host of regional party leaders from across the country.

The Congress president and his mother Sonia Gandhi will not attend the rally and the party would be represented by leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge.

The BJPs Arun Shourie and Shatrughan Sinha and former party leader Yashwant Sinha, all of who are staunchly opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP, have said they will go to the rally.

BSP chief Mayawati, who recently struck an alliance pact with Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, has deputed party general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Satish Chandra Misra in her place.

Akhilesh Yadav, former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and son Omar will be among those attending the rally. Former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, his son and Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal are also going.

DMK president MK Stalin, RLD chief Ajit Singh, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Lalu Prasads son Tejashwi Yadav would join the rally.

Banerjee has also invited CPI(M) leader and Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, but he is yet to confirm attendance.
A day before West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjees mega-rally at the Brigade Parade ground, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday sent her a letter of support, possibly in an effort to showcase the unity among opposition parties ahead of the April-May general election.

Across India, there are powerful forces afoot. Forces that are fanned by the anger and disappointment of hundreds of millions of Indians who have seen through the false promises and lies peddled by the Modi Government, Gandhi wrote.

These forces are moved by the hope of a new tomorrow; a tomorrow filled with the idea of an India in which the voice of every man, woman and child will be heard and respected no matter what their religion, economic status or region, he added.

Gandhis message signals the hope for a national-level alliance against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), despite the Congresss Bengal unit and Banerjees Trinamool Congress (TMC) not being on the best of terms.

The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Mr Modi are intent on destroying, Gandhi wrote to Banerjee. We commend the great people of Bengal who have historically been at the forefront of defending our ideals. I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together, he concluded. Gandhis letter comes after what appears to be a setback to his party in forging an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress, however, continues to be hopeful that after the general election, all non-NDA parties will come together to form an alternative government.

Political analysts said Congress presence at the Brigade rally may seem to be a damper for its Bengal units plans for a seat-sharing deal with the Left Front, led by Communist Party of India (Marxist), in the state.

At the mega rally to be attended by leaders such as SPs Akhilesh Yadav, Telugu Desam Partys Chandrababu Naidu, Rashtriya Janata Dals Tejaswi Yadav and others, Gandhi will send Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the Congresss Rajya Sabha MP from Bengal, to represent the party.

Its good for us. People of Bengal now know which the real force against TMCs atrocious regime is, BJP state unit president Dilip Ghosh said. Congress will be in no position to play spoilsport by dividing anti-TMC votes in Bengal.

Over the past five years, Trinamool has eaten into the state Congress badly. The party will become irrelevant in the state soon, Ghosh added.

The Congress, which won four of Bengals 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, won 44 Assembly seats in the 2016 elections. But it has lost as many as 17 of its MLAs to the ruling party so far.

State Congress chief Somen Mitra, however, said, Rahul Gandhi has been supporting every initiative against the BJP. This is based on the same principle. The national perspective is different from the perspectives in different states. Rahul Gandhi has also welcomed the alliance between SP and BSP in Uttar Pradesh but that has not restricted us from fighting SP and BSP in the state. The presence of the Congresss national leaders on Mamata Banerjees dais will have no effect on the state units opposition to the TMC regime, Mitra claimed.

If the Congress and the Left come to a seat-sharing understanding, people would be confused to pick between them and the BJP as TMCs main opponent. If they fight separately, BJP is more likely to emerge as the principal opposition to TMC in most seats, said Amal Mukhopadhyay, former principal of Presidency College and a political science professor.

Left parties are boycotting Saturdays rally arguing that they want to end Banerjees regime and would in no way support TMCs cause.
The Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Friday gave approval to a proposal on renaming Mughalsarai tehsil in Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh after Bharatiya Janata Party ideologue Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay.

The decision was taken during a meeting of the state cabinet chaired by chief minister Yogi Adityanath. There is no tehsil named as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar tehsil. A recommendation to change the name of Mughalsarai tehsil as Deen Dayal Nagar was considered during a high-level meeting held at the state revenue board here on September 14, 2017, a government spokesperson said.

Uttar Pradesh has witnessed a several changes in names of places in the recent past since the Adityanath-led government assumed charge in 2017.

In August 2018, the Mughalsarai railway station was renamed after Upadhyay. The state government had, in October last year, also renamed Allahabad as Prayagraj and Faizabad division and district as Ayodhya.

Both the Centre and the state government have drawn much flak from the Opposition for the renaming spree.

Nod to 10% quota

During the cabinet meeting, a proposal to implement 10% reservation for economically weaker sections in general category in all government jobs and government educational institutions with effect from January 14, 2019, was also approved.

We will implement the union governments notification, following the Constitutional amendment, in letter and spirit. We will provide 10 per cent reservation without any impact on quota for other categories, said Uttar Pradesh government spokesman and minister for energy Shrikant Sharma without divulging any further details.
Arvind Kejriwals Aam Aadmi Party on Friday firmly shut the door on the possibility of any alliance with the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections later this year, declaring that the party was going to contest all seats in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana.

Delhi minister Gopal Rai said the AAP had been open to an alliance with the Congress to beat the BJP but now, had had given up. We were ready to drink poison (compromise with the Congress). But now, we have decided that AAP will contest on all seats in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana with its full strength and will not have any alliance with the Congress, Rai said, according to news agency IANS.

Rais statement was a departure from his stand just yesterday when he signalled that AAP had an open mind on a pact. It is very difficult to say, he had told reporters.

Today, Rai elaborated on the change in stance.

Also Read | Ajay Maken, HS Phoolkas exit fuels buzz about AAP-Congress pact

He said AAP leaders had reservations about tying up with the Congress. (But) we, too, were ready to think about joining hands to save the nation from the dictatorship of (Narendra) Modi-(Amit) Shah, he said.

The AAP leader said Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singhs statement that the AAP does not have any value in Punjab and Congress Delhi Chief Sheila Dikshit remarks on AAP being a small party had persuaded Arvind Kejriwals party to change its stance.

The first hint that AAP is revisiting its stand had come on Twitter before the formal announcement when AAP leaders started retweeting jibes at Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit, accusing her of corruption in her last stint as chief minister.

She's #CorruptSheila and she's unhappy that Delhi has an honest government. https://t.co/lUgekcJ6wM  Ankit Lal (@AnkitLal) January 18, 2019

Sheila Dikshit led the Congress in the 2013 assembly elections when AAP made its debut in electoral politics. The BJP emerged as the largest party but it was still short of the majority mark. AAP, which emerged as the second largest party, came to power with outside support of the Congress.

Also Watch: No alliance with AAP as of now: Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit

But Arvind Kejriwal, who became the chief minister, resigned after 49 days and sought a fresh mandate. In the state elections held after a spell of Presidents rule, Arvind Kejriwals AAP captured a record-smashing 67 of the 70 assembly seats and wiped out the Congress. Three seats went to the BJP.

Dikshit initially appeared open to the possibility of an alliance, particularly when she stressed that it was a decision to be taken by the party brass. But AAP leaders have pointed to Dikshits subsequent statements that they feel, were designed to slight the party by raising questions about the AAP governments track record.
PM Modi inaugurates 3D laser projection show at Dandi Kutir in Gujarat

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates 3D laser projection show at Dandi Kutir in Gujarat.

Gandhinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates 3D laser projection show at Dandi Kutir in Gujarat. pic.twitter.com/JjS7GG4nA5  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

PM Narendra Modi at the inauguration of 3D laser projection show at Dandi Kutir

PM Narendra Modi at the inauguration of 3D laser projection show at Dandi Kutir in Gujarat.

US-India Business Council seminar presents a unique opportunity for business and government leaders

US-India Business Council (USIBC) seminar presents a unique opportunity for the business and government leaders, of both the countries, to strengthen the relationship, but also promises to stand the technological and strategic challenges of the future.

Seminar on Australian industry capability on at Vibrant Gujarat summit

Seminar on Australian industry capability on at Vibrant Gujarat summit to provide an opportunity for Indian businesses to learn about the country and explore business, investment and partnership opportunities.

During Vibrant Gujarat 2019, Thailand country seminar was organized

During Vibrant Gujarat 2019, Thailand country seminar was organized at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar.

Govt making effort to ensure every citizen get fruits of development: PM Modi

The Government of India is making every effort to ensure the fruits of development reach every citizen with ease and efficiency, says PM Narendra Modi.

Doing business in India is easier, cheaper, faster and smarter: PM Modi

Doing business in India is easier, cheaper, faster and smarter, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

B2B and B2G meetings that are taking place at Vibrant Gujarat 2019

B2B and B2G meetings that are taking place at Vibrant Gujarat 2019 will boost the scope of building new business relations and further cooperation on global front.

Next generation Industrial development will help in creating jobs: Amitabh Kant

Amitabh Kant says, Next generation Industrial development and Industry 4.0 shall necessitate big political and bureaucratic will to come together and create manufacturing hubs along industrial corridors across the most populous regions of the country, thus creating jobs.

We are reducing government and enhancing governance: PM Modi

We are reducing government and enhancing governance, says PM Narendra Modi.

Those who have been visiting India in the last four years have seen first hand the series of transformations taking place.



We are reducing government and enhancing governance. pic.twitter.com/KAVoPe0m5D  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 18, 2019

Vibrant Gujarat Summit has dignity of the presence of top political leaders: PM Modi

The Vibrant Gujarat Summit has dignity of the presence of top political leaders, says PM Narendra Modi.

The Vibrant Gujarat Summit has:



Dignity of the presence of top political leaders.



Energy of CEOs and corporate leaders.



Gravitas of institutions and opinion makers.



Vitality of young enterprises and start-ups. pic.twitter.com/roIIDySB2I  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 18, 2019

India is honoured to host the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan: PM Modi

India is honoured to host the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Mr. Shavkat Mirziyoyev, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India is honoured to host the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Mr. Shavkat Mirziyoyev.



We had fruitful talks on the sidelines of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Gandhinagar. We discussed various aspects relating to India-Uzbekistan ties. @president_uz pic.twitter.com/Y14sqvBFtt  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 18, 2019

Great meeting with Malta PM Joseph Muscat: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweets, Great meeting with PM @JosephMuscat_JM of Malta. Our talks will add tremendous strength to bilateral ties between our nations and benefit the people of our countries.

Great meeting with PM @JosephMuscat_JM of Malta. Our talks will add tremendous strength to bilateral ties between our nations and benefit the people of our countries. pic.twitter.com/pHwdnNcBCt  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 18, 2019

PM Modi meets his Denmark counterpart Lars Lkke

Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Lkke on the sidelines of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, 2019.

Gandhinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Lkke on the sidelines of #VibrantGujaratGlobalSummit, 2019. pic.twitter.com/RLYYQ5rYer  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

Mukesh Ambani urges PM to take steps against data colonisation

Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps against data colonisation, specially by global corporations

Gujarat govt. is organizing a seminar on Opportunities for Industry in Defence & Aerospace

Aligned to the Make in India program, Government of Gujarat under the umbrella of Make in Gujarat series is organizing a seminar on Opportunities for Industry in Defence & Aerospace.

Vibrant Gujarat is providing a stage to Jharkhand to showcase its states assets

Vibrant Gujarat 2019 is providing a stage to Jharkhand to showcase its states assets for inviting new investment.

We need to revamp our education system: Ramesh Abhishek at Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit

Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary DIPPGOI at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit says, We have to do a number of things to improve our skills. We need to revamp our education system and rework our skilling system. All of these need to be done in parallel.

In the next 5 decades, we will do more urbanisation than ever: Amitabh Kant

Amitabh Kant, CEO NITI Aayog at the Vibrant Gujarat Denmark Country seminar says, Indias challenge is to make 2.5 Americas in the next few years. In the next 5 decades, we will do more urbanisation than ever.

India, Uzbekistan sign agreement on uranium import

India and Uzbekistan signed an agreement on importing uranium from the Central Asian nation following a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on the sidelines of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2019 here on Friday.

Both leaders witnessed the exchange of the contract between the Department of Atomic Energy of India and the Novoi Minerals and Metallurgical Company of the Republic of Uzbekistan on long-term supply of uranium ore concentrate for Indias energy requirements, the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

Reliance to invest Rs 3 lakh cr in Gujarat in next 10 yrs : Ambani

Indias richest person Mukesh Ambani Friday committed to invest Rs 3 lakh crore in various projects in the next 10 years in Gujarat, that may range from energy and petrochemical to new technology and digital business.

We have so far invested nearly Rs 3 lakh crores in the state of Gujarat. And created and catalyzed over one million livelihood opportunities in Gujarat. In comparison to the past decades, Reliance will double this investment and employment numbers over the next ten years, he said.

India aims Top 50 rank next year in ease of doing business: PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday said India is aiming at being in the list of top 50 countries in ease of doing business by next year.

The countrys ranking has jumped 75 places in the World Banks ease of doing business rankings, Modi said. India is now ranked 77th in the list.

I have asked my team to work harder so that India is in the Top 50 list in ease of doing business next year, Modi said in his inaugural address at the 9th edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Gandhinagar.

Vibrant Gujarat has become a truly global event: PM

Vibrant Gujarat has become a truly global event. It is graced by the presence of senior political leaders, CEOs & corporate leaders, prestigious institutions, opinion leaders as well as young entrepreneurs, said PM Modi

Will continue with the pace of reforms and deregulation: PM

We will continue with the pace of reforms and deregulation, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit.

Asked my team to work harder so that India is in the top 50 next year: PM

In the last 4 years, we have jumped 65 places in the Global Ranking of World Banks Doing Business Report. But we are still not satisfied. I have asked my team to work harder so that India is in the top 50 next year, said PM Modi at Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2019.

At 7.3% , the average GDP growth has been the highest for any Indian govt since 1991: PM

At 7.3%, the average GDP growth over the entire term of our government, has been the highest for any Indian Government since 1991.At the same time, the average rate of inflation at 4.6% is the lowest for any Indian Government since 1991, said PM Modi.

From start to closure of business, weve paid attention in building new institutions, processes and procedures: PM

From the start of business to its operation and closure, we have paid attention in building new institutions, processes and procedures. All this is important, not just for doing business but also for ease of life of our people, said PM Modi.

Worked hard to promote manufacturing to create jobs for our youth: PM

We have worked hard to promote manufacturing to create jobs for our youth. Investments through our Make in India initiative, have been well supported by programmes like Digital India and Skill India, said PM Modi.

We have also made Doing Business cheaper: PM

We have also made Doing Business cheaper. The implementation of GST and other measures of simplification of taxes have reduced transaction costs and made processes efficient.We have also made Doing Business Faster through digital processes and single point interfaces,  said PM Modi.

India is now ready for business as never before: PM

India is now ready for business as never before. In the last 4 years, we have jumped 65 places in the Global Ranking of World Banks Doing Business Report. But we are still not satisfied. I have asked my team to work harder so that India is in the top 50 next year, said PM Modi.

The mantra of my government has been reform, transform and further perform: PM

The mantra of my government has been reform, transform and further perform. In the 4.5 years, the mantra of our government hasnt been government but governance, said PM Modi

In India, our challenge is to grow horizontally and vertically: PM

In India, our challenge is to grow horizontally and vertically. Our achievement here in India will directly impact one-sixth of humanity, said PM Modi.

Gujarat represents best of business spirit which exists in India: PM

Vibrant Gujarat has emerged as a global forum, said PM Modi adding, Gujarat represents best of business spirit which exists in India.

Gujarat symbolises connection between India and Israel: Israeli PM Netanyahu

Gujarat symbolises the powerful connection between our 2 peoples (India and Israel). Together were building limitless possibilities for the future, said Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in a special message.

India is rising fast: Governor of Kentucky, USA

India is rising fast. It is now the 10th largest trading partner of USA. Both India and America must hustle, be bold and be visionaries, said Matthew Griswold Bevin- Governor of Kentucky, USA & leader of USIBC delegation.

India a key strategic partner: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank president

India is a key strategic partner and the 2nd largest shareholder of our institution. About $2 bn has been committed to infra projects in the last 3 years, said Jin Liqun, President- Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank at Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2019.

Gujarat is Reliance s janmabhoomi and karmabhoomi: Mukesh Ambani

Gujarat is Reliance s janmabhoomi and karmabhoomi. We believe in India first- and within India, Gujarat first. Reliance will double its investment and employment in the next 10 years, said Mukesh Ambani at Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2019.

PM inaugurates Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2019

PM Modi inaugurated Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2019.

PM Modi had conceptualised the summit as Gujarat Chief Minister in 2003 to position Gujarat as an ideal investment destination.

Vibrant Gujarat Summit a platform for brainstorming on agendas of global socio-economic development: official release

The Vibrant Gujarat summit provides a platform for brainstorming on agendas of global socio-economic development, knowledge sharing and forging effective partnerships, an official release said.

PM Modi will inaugurate the 9th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Summit at the Mahatma Mandir today. Modi had conceptualised the summit as Gujarat Chief Minister in 2003 to position Gujarat as an ideal investment destination.

Over 30,000 national and international delegates to attend the biennial three-day event in Gandhinagar

More than 30,000 national and international delegates, including CEOs of major firms from India and abroad, are expected to attend the biennial three-day event in Gandhinagar.

The Vibrant Gujarat Global Trade Show is being held on a two lakh square metres plot of land situated in Gandhinagar. More than 20 industrial and business sectors will showcase their products at the event.

PM Modi meets foreign dignitaries ahead of 9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit

Trade, economic ties, healthcare were the major issues discussed in the meeting held between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat in Gandhi Nagar, ahead of the  9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit on Friday.

The two leaders also agreed to enhance mutual cooperation in sectors such as renewable energy, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, air connectivity and tourism.

Apart from Muscat, Prime Minister of Czech Republic Andrej Babis, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Lkke Rasmussen have also arrived in Gujarat to attend the Summit.

MoUs deal with mobility management, waste-to- energy conversion among others

The MoUs deal with mobility management, waste-to- energy conversion, delivery system in diagnostics, saline farming, and protected cultivation of horticultural crops.

Netherlands to sign 10 MoUs at Vibrant Gujarat Summit

The Netherlands said Thursday it is signing 10 MoUs at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit starting Friday with focus on sectors like smart city and waste management, healthcare and agricultural cooperation.

Out of 10 MoUs, five were signed Thursday and the rest will be inked during the summit

Dy CM Nitin Patels picture missing from Vibrant Gujarat posters

Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived on Thursday for the high-profile three-day Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2019, pictures of Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel went missing from all posters and banners across the state capital Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad.

PM meets Prime Minister of Malta on the sidelines of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat in Gandhinagar, on the sidelines of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.
The BJP, which seemed to have been pushed to a corner in Assam and rest of the northeast not just by the opposition but several allies who have come out in an open protest over the citizenship bill, is trying to allay their fears.

Senior BJP leader Ram Madhav said on Thursday he will reach out to other allies over the bill even. He also said lies and misinformation are being spread over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, but that there were some genuine concerns.

In the protests, there are some who have genuine concerns and we respect those concerns. But some people are doing it just for political expedience, Madhav said while addressing a press conference in Guwahati and added, that an atmosphere is being created where there is a fear of violence breaking out.

Madhav said organisations like ULFA are trying to disrupt peace in the state by opposing the bill. He specifically mentioned ULFA(I), the banned insurgent outfit which is opposed to the proposed amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955, passed by the Lok Sabha.

Both the pro-talk and anti-talk factions of the ULFA are against the proposed amendment. After a low-intensity bomb blast in Guwahati last year, ULFA(I) commander in chief Paresh Barua told local channels that it was triggered as a mark of protest against the proposed amendment.

The bill is pending in the Rajya Sabha and Madhav said till the matter was in Parliament there was no need for the Centre to think about bringing an ordinance even as it was confident of passing the bill. This despite the fact that it does not have a majority in the Upper House.

The recent spate protests over the bill in the northeast have gained momentum since January 7 as the news of the Joint Parliamentary Committee submitting a favourable report came in.

In Assam, the Asom Gana Parishad, which fought the assembly elections in a pre-poll alliance with the BJP pulled out of the government. Allies in other states, the National Peoples Party (NPP) in Meghalaya, the Mizo National Front (MNF) in Mizoram, and even the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) in Nagaland have opposed the proposed amendment.

Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh said the BJP-led government would oppose the bill if it does not have a clause to protect indigenous people, PTI reported on Thursday.

And in Assam, some BJP MLAs have also come out against the bill.

The BJP general secretary said he has requested the AGP to reconsider its decision and, as of yet, the resignation of its ministers have not been forwarded to the Governor by chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

Explaining the rationale of the bill, Madhav said how Assam has been lucky to not have been affected by partition. But if those who suffered during partition, if they face religious persecution, where will they go? They will look to Hindustan, he said.

Madhav assured the Centre would take all measures to preserve and protect the identity of the indigenous people of Assam as he mentioned the Union governments recent decision to appoint a committee to implement Clause 6 of the Assam Accord which he called the soul of the Assam Accord.

The committee has failed to take off, with at least five members refusing to join.

Madhav said the bill has December 2014 as the cut-off date for migrants who can apply for citizenship and their claims will be checked by the district administration and vetted by the state government.

Earlier, chief minister Sonowal also tried to address concerns over the bill. As a son of the soil, I would like to assure everybody that there is no need of being apprehensive in Assam, he said in a statement.

Sonowal said the BJP government has taken steps to implement clause 6 of the Assam Accord and passed a bill in the Lok Sabha to grant Scheduled Tribe status to six communities from Assam.

The decision to grant ST status, too, has infuriated existing groups. Madhav, however, reassured, existing reservations would not be affected.
The families of the trapped miners inside an illegal 370-ft flooded coal mine in Meghalaya on Thursday said they want the dead bodies of the miners to be taken out as per the Supreme Court order even as Navy divers captured pictures of a body inside the flooded mine.

The Indian Navy divers on Wednesday used an underwater ROV (remotely operated vehicle) at a depth of about 160 feet in a rat-hole mine at Ksan village in East Jaintia Hills district, with pictures of a body which was pulled up to the mouth of the mine.

The body will be extracted under the supervision of doctors, said a Navy spokesperson in a tweet.

The rescuers showed us video footages of a dead body stuck inside a coal mine in a computer (underwater ROV). We dont know whose body it is. We want the government to follow the Supreme Court order to get the bodies out of that coal mine, said Malik Ali, brother of Munirul Islam, who is among those trapped inside the mine.

We want his body back so that we can give him a decent burial, Ali told IANS over phone.

The body has been detected 32 days after the miners got trapped inside the mine on December 13 as water gushed in.

Five miners managed to escape and alerted the people about the tragedy at Ksan village, about 130 km from Shillong. Rescue efforts are on to salvage the remaining 14 miners.

Pressmeky Dkhar, the uncle of the two brothers, Dimonme and Melambok, said over phone: We were told that a body was spotted inside the mine. They are trying to retrieve it. We want the body.

With the body showing signs of decomposition, the district authorities sought the consent of the family members of the trapped miners to furnish their views by Friday on whether the body could be taken out from the mine.

Deputy Commissioner F.M. Dopth invited the family members from Lumthari village and two from Assams Chirang district to view the video footages, said Rescue spokesperson Reginald Susngi.

As per expert opinion, the body could be retrived only after it is disintegrated. The body has been pulled up to 100 feet from 210 feet. Many body parts have already started falling apart, Susngi stated.

A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices A.K. Sikri and S. Abdul Nazeer had expressed dissatisfaction with the rescue operation and ordered : No matter whether they (trapped persons) are all dead, some alive, few dead or all alive, they should have been taken out by now. We pray to God that they all are alive.

The Meghalaya government has roped in several central agencies including a team from Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute and Chennai-based Planys Technologies in the rescue operation.

Coal India Limited, Odisha firefighters, Kirloskar Brothers Limited are dewatering the abandoned coal mine shafts and the main shaft where the miners are trapped.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has completed its survey in the Dera Baba Nanak area of Punjabs Gurdaspur district to demarcate the passage up to the international border for the corridor to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistans Kartarpur, the last resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak.

After Pakistans federal minister for religious affairs and inter-faith harmony, Noor-Ul-Haq Qadri, said they have completed 35 per cent work for construction of the corridor, the Indian authorities also claimed to have speeded up the work on the Indian side.

Small red flags have been put up in the fields near the Indo-Pak border, for the upcoming passage that will connect the darshan asthan (the place where devotees watch the shrine on Pakistan side with the help of a binocular) with the corridor that the neighbouring country will construct.

We are checking the revenue records of the farmland for the purpose of acquisition. We are seeing, how much land and whose land needed to be acquired. After that we will finalize the blueprint of the land acquisition, said Dera Baba Nanak sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Ashok Sharma.

Land in three villages  Jaurian, Chandu Nangal and Pakhoke  is part of the acquisition plan, he said. The authorities, however, have not yet clarified the same with the farmers concerned.

Also, a team of senior Border Security Force (BSF) officials on Wednesday visited the passage site for constructing a base for which they demanded 70 acre land. But no progress has been made to construct offices of departments concerned such as the immigration bureau and the customs.

The digital foundation stone of the corridor project was laid by Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, in the presence of Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh at Mann village near Dera Baba Nanak town on November 26.
A tense end game in Karnatakas latest political drama is set to play itself out on Friday, when the Congress has summoned a meeting of its legislators for a show of hands, seeking to identify turncoats with a warning that absentees will be expelled from the party.

The Congress, which has an alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular) in the southern state, and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) resumed an acrimonious verbal battle after a days rest, accusing each other of trying to poach their members of the legislative assembly (MLAs).

Some of the Congresss 80 MLAs were still missing (3-5, according to PTI), and thought to be in Mumbai, keeping up the suspense over their intentions. One of the alleged dissenters, B Nagendra, arrived in the state capital to attend a court hearing and rubbished speculation that he had been poached by the BJP, but was unsure if he would attend Fridays meeting.

Watch | Congress holds protest against BJP alleging involvement in MLA poaching

I have come to the city for a court hearing. There is no operation (to poach Congress MLAs). I went to Mumbai for personal reasons as I have business there. I keep going there often, Nagendra said, insisting that he had never been out of contact.

Analysis | The BJP doesnt have too many options in Karnataka

I dont have any reason to be unhappy (with the Congress). Regarding the CLP {Congress Legislature Party} meeting, I have to see what happens with the court, if I have a hearing tomorrow as well, it might be difficult to attend, Nagendra said.

The arrival on Wednesday of another dissident, LBP Bheema Naik, had boosted the Congresss morale and sent a signal that a crisis confronting the Congress had blown over. Former chief minister Siddaramaiah made it clear that proceedings under the anti-defection law would be launched against those who fail to turn up at the meeting of lawmakers, scheduled to take place at 3:30 pm in the state legislature.

The state assembly is not in session, and it wasnt clear if a party whip would be binding on legislators. State Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao told HT that the party had sought a legal opinion on the powers of the CLP chief to issue such a notice and only after that had the Congress gone ahead with the move.

The legislature party chief has all the powers to issue such a notice. Let us see what happens on Friday, Gundu Rao said.

Also Read | Karnataka Congress rules out rebellion as missing MLA returns

A senior Congress leader, who did not wish to be named, said the dissidents had been thwarted in their attempt to muster more support.

From the beginning, it was clear that there were at best around five people who would even think of such a move (switching sides), this person said.

What worked in the partys favour was the fact that the dissidents could not muster much support.

The problem is that no legislator is in a position to resign and face the people once again for a bye-election. This is why we decided to force their hand in the matter and issued the notice to attend the meeting, the Congress leader said.

Assembly elections in May produced a hung assembly with no party receiving a majority on its own although the BJP emerged as the single largest with 104 seats in the 224-member assembly.

A BJP government headed by BS Yeddyurappa was formed, but quit without facing a floor test when it became clear it didnt have the numbers, paving the way for a hastily cobbled coalition between the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular), with 117 seats between them, to assume office under the latters HD Kumaraswamy. On Tuesday, two independents withdrew support to the coalition.

BJP has herded its 104 legislators at a resort in Manesar, near Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi. A majority of them will stay put at the resort until after Congress CLP meeting, PTI reported.

Also Read | BJP creating nuisance, crisis to fizzle out soon: Karnataka CM Kumaraswamy

Senior leader CT Ravi said that no legislator had been kept captive as alleged by the Congress. Ravi said the BJP had not tried anything new in the state.

The politics that you indulged in, in the past, is what we have done, he said. Dissidence is within your party, and, of course, we will add fuel to that fire, thats politics. But if your MLAs do not respect you, then dont blame us.

In Maharashtras Aurangabad, Karnataka irrigation minister DK Shivakumar claimed that the Congress and JD(S)-led coalition was stable and accused the BJP of trying to create chaos.

The Congress-JDS government in Karnataka is stable and will be stable. Its just that my BJP friends are trying to create chaos. They dont want stability and dont want to respect the mandate of the people. They dont want the arithmetic number to be in good shape. They are trying to orchestrate the situation; however, nothing will happen, Shivakumar said.

According to Congress functionaries who didnt want to be named, a few ministers from the party have even offered to step down in the larger interest and to keep the coalition intact, PTI reported. The party leadership is also at the option, the report added.

BJP Karnataka chief BS Yeddyurappa said no colleague of his had been involved in any operation to topple the Congress-JD(S) coalition, referring to media reports that the opposition party had launched an Operation Lotus to destabilise the state government. Lotus is the BJPs electoral symbol.

Yeddyurappa said BJP legislators had been discussing preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections at the resort in Manesar.

Tomorrow, they (Congress) have called their legislature party meeting. How many will come, it will be known, their true colours will come out tomorrow, Yeddyurppa said, accusing Kumaraswamy of offering money and ministerial posts to BJP MLAs to leave the opposition party.
The Congress on Friday took its lawmakers to a resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru after four of them skipped a key party meeting, according to senior party leaders.

Former chief minister Siddaramaiah announced the move after four MLAs  Ramesh Jarkiholi, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumathahalli  gave the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting a miss.

The move is seen as an attempt to thwart a reported rebellion within the party and an alleged attempt by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to topple the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government.

Earlier, Siddaramaiah, who is also the CLP leader, had made it clear that those skipping the meeting will face action under the anti-defection law, which disallows MPs/ MLAs to switch parties after elections (unless they make up more than a third of the partys strength) and make the members follow the whips issued by their party.

Addressing the press after the CLP meeting, Siddaramaiah said notices would be issued to Jarkiholi and Kumathahalli seeking their response. In the case of Jadhav and Nagendra, their reasons for not attending would be checked, he said. Jadhav had sent a message over fax to Siddaramaiah, saying he was unwell and would be unable to attend the meeting. Im issuing notices to the absentees and seek their response. Once they respond we will discuss with party president, Siddaramaiah added.

This meeting was called because media has been speculating that many MLAs were deserting us. We have said that nobody has gone with the BJP and that they are the ones creating such rumours. This has been proven true because all the MLAs, apart from the absentees, have attended. Of 80 MLAs, 76 were present and one nominated member, Siddaramaiah said.

Congress leader and state minister DK Shivakumar confirmed that the MLAs will be taken to Eagleton resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru.

This is the same resort where Gujarat Congress MLAs were kept in 2017 during a high-voltage Rajya Sabha election that finally saw senior party leader Ahmed Patel emerge victorious.

Explaining the reason why Congress MLAs were being taken to a resort, Siddaramaiah said, There is a drought and we have to discuss that as well as the parliamentary election. Our MLAs will not go with them [BJP] but as a pre-emptive measure we will do that.

On Tuesday, the Congress-JD (S) government in Karnataka had received a jolt after two Independent MLAs, who had been part of the government, withdrew support. With this, the strength of the coalition is down to 118 in a house of 224 members  80 of the Congress, including speaker KR Ramesh Kumar, 37 of the JD(S) and a lone MLA of the Bahujan Samaj Party. Even without the four MLAs, the coalition would have 114 lawmakers on its side, a wafer-thin majority.

Siddaramaiah also alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and other central leaders were trying to destabilise the Karnataka government.

They [BJP] won 17 seats in the last Lok Sabha polls [in south India]. And according to information I have received, they have conducted a survey that tells them that they will win only four. For this reason, shamelessly, they have instigated this. Hence, to show our unity and strength and to show that speculation was wrong, we have showcased our unity. Our party is intact, united, the former CM said.

He also alleged that the BJP had offered money to the tune of 50-70 crore to the MLAs and promised to make them ministers. I have proof... They dont know that our anti defection law is very stringent, Siddaramaiah said.

Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, the partys general secretary KC Venugopal said the Congress had done nothing wrong in taking its MLAs to a resort. The MLAs will be near Bengaluru, which is the capital of the state. So there is no question of taking them away, he said.

Responding to the developments, senior BJP leader KS Eshwarappa said it was amply clear that there is a rebellion within that party. As many as 23 MLAs attended the meeting today and they did so under duress, Eshwarappa said, although he did not specify how he got that information. It is clear that this government is set to fall in a day or two.
The mother and maternal uncle of Jaswinder Sidhu or Jassi, who was allegedly murdered at the behest of her family in 2000 for eloping with a man, may be extradited to India before the end of this month. Their lawyers failed to utilise the one-month period provided to file an appeal before the Canadian Supreme Court after an application to stay extradition proceedings was rejected by the British Columbia Court of Appeals last month.

The two, Malkit Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha, may be transferred to Indian authorities as early as January 25. They are expected to stand trial for the alleged killing of 25-year-old Jassi Sidhu. Their lawyers had argued before the Court of Appeal that new evidence pertaining to prison conditions in India had not been considered by Canadas justice minister in deciding to surrender Sidhu and Badesha to a team of Indian law enforcement officials.

In a report on this matter, Canadian national broadcaster CBC quoted the department of justice as stating, Canada is now in a position to fulfill the extradition request from India regarding [Malkit] Sidhu and Badesha. Appropriate arrangements will be made for their safe transfer to India.

Jaswinder, alias Jassi, a Punjabi-origin beautician from Canada, and Sukhwinder Sidhu Mithu, a village boy and kabaddi player, had met in 1994 in Jagraon, where Jassi was visiting her maternal uncles.

They secretly got married in March 1999, against the wish of their families. Jassi went back to Canada after the wedding, only to return in May 2000. On June 8, 2000, the couple was attacked at Narike village of Malerkotla in Sangrur (Mithus maternal village).

Jaswinder, alias Jassi, a Punjabi-origin beautician from Canada, and Sukhwinder Sidhu Mithu, a village boy and kabaddi player, had met in 1994 in Jagraon, where Jassi was visiting her maternal uncles.

They secretly got married in March 1999, against the wish of their families. Jassi went back to Canada after, to return in May 2000. On June 8, 2000, the couple was attacked at Narike village of Malerkotla in Sangrur (Mithus maternal village). Jassis body was found several days later, dumped in a drain with her throat slit while Mithu survived.

Seventeen years after the killing, the Supreme Court of Canada, in December 2018, gave a go-ahead to the extradition of Malkit Kaur, Jassis mother, and Surjit Bandesh, her maternal uncle (mothers real brother), who will now face trial at a local court in Sangrur. They had allegedly hired contract killers for the job.

Seven persons, including a Punjab police inspector Joginder Singh, were convicted in 2005 for supari killing. Later, three of them were acquitted by Punjab and Haryana high court. All four convicted accused then moved the apex court. In 2015, the Supreme Court of India upheld conviction and life imprisonment of three accused  Ashwani Kumar alias Ashu, Anil Kumar and police inspector Joginder Singh but another accused Darshan Singh was acquitted. The extradition of the main accused and conspirators, her mother and uncle, who were arrested by Canada police in 2012, was pending.

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New Delhi on Friday summoned the Pakistani deputy high commissioner to lodge a strong protest over an order of the Pakistan Supreme Court on Gilgit-Baltistan, describing it as interference in Indias internal affairs.

While giving an order regarding the constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistans Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that its powers extended to the region. Gilgit-Baltistan is claimed by India as part of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Last year, India had lodged a similar protest after Pakistans federal cabinet approved an order that was seen as part of Islamabads efforts to incorporate the disputed region as the countrys fifth province. Pakistan has already given Gilgit-Baltistan near provincial status.

Pakistans deputy high commissioner Syed Haider Shah was summoned to the external affairs ministry and a strong protest was lodged on the recent order by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on the so-called Gilgit-Baltistan which is an interference in Indias internal affairs, an official statement said.

The Indian side reiterated that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, which also includes the so-called Gilgit-Baltistan, has been, is and shall remain an integral part of India.

The Pakistan government or judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it and any action to alter the status of these occupied territories by Pakistan has no legal basis whatsoever, the statement added.

The statement further said that India has rejected such continued attempts by Pakistan to bring material change in these occupied territories and camouflage grave human rights violations, exploitation and sufferings of the people living there. It added, Pakistan was asked to immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation.
Jai Pradhwani is all ready to welcome his guests at his home in the temple town of Varanasi for the three-day Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.

The chartered accountant has done up his house to welcome three non-resident Indians (NRIs), who will be visiting the city to attend the convention from January 21 to January 23.

He says he is looking forward to providing a traditional stay for his NRI guests  Dr Chandrashekhar Mishra (US), Amit Wanikar (China) and Rajpal Tyagi (Oman)  who will be staying at his house in Siddhigiri Bagh area of holy town. He has his plans chalked out.

I will receive the guests at Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport on January 21. After garlanding them, we will offer delicious Banarasi paan to them so that they may have a feel of Varanasi, Pradhwani said.

The family has then planned to welcome the guests at the house amid chanting of Vedic mantras, drumbeats, traditional tunes of shehnai and customary aarti.

We will shower flower petals on them and offer Banarasi delicacies like malaiyo, kheer mohan, malai paan and malai roll to them. In the morning, they will be served the breakfast of their choice as well as fruits like apple, banana, guava and other fruits, he said.

Pradhwani has also decided the gifts for his guests  a book on Banarasi culture and heritage along with the Bhagwad Gita and a Banarasi stole.

The maximum number of 432 NRIs from Malaysia will attend the convention. Likewise, 375 NRIs will come from the UAE, 340 from Mauritius, 187 from the United States, 134 from Qatar and 109 guests from Oman. NRIs from Germany and a few other countries too will also attend the event.

The district administration has also arranged for 450 Saraswati cottages, 120 Triveni cottages and 50 Kashi villas in the tent city for the guests. As many as 100 NRIs will stay in 50 Kashi villas. The cottages are equipped with all the facilities.

And Pradhwani is not alone is opening his home to these guests. There are over 200 families in Varanasi which will host them at their houses. According to district magistrate Surendra Singh, 350 NRIs have opted for homestay in the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Some 4,150 NRI delegates from 85 nations have registered for the event, and approximately 1,000 of them will be staying in the tent city.

Purushottam Kumar Sukhwani, a professor, is also set to welcome Hong Kong-based Harzani Dayal Narayan Das and his wife at his house in Luxa. Das, he said, is a businessman, writer and a diehard follower of mystic poet and saint Kabir.

It is a matter of great joy that we have been given an opportunity to welcome NRI guests. We will offer them Sindhi delicacy karhi chawal along with other popular dishes of Varanasi, Sukhwani said.

Doctoral fellow Dr Sunil Mishra and his lecturer wife Swati S Mishra of Bajardeeha area will host Poland-based guests Dr Jagdish and his wife Bogumilla Babur Gheek. The couple will reach Varanasi on January 20.

This will entirely be a new experience for us. We will welcome them in a grand manner following the tradition of Atithi Devo Bhava (a guest is akin to god), Mishra said.

Likewise, social worker Divya Ratan Chaturvedi and his wife Pratibha Chaturvedi, a teacher, have decided to serve homemade delicacies to Rajiv Chaturvedi and Pramila Chaturvedi, their guests from Australia. The couple said they make special dishes like Banarasi stuffed paratha, matar kachauri and homemade malai (cream) with bread for them.

Industrialist Ashok Gupta said he would host three guests, including US-based NRI Anshuman Trikha.

We will serve Banarasi delicacies, including malaiyo, rabri, kachauri, lassi and baati chokha to the guests. We will show them Subah-e-Banaras (morning of Varanasi) and take them for boating. We will also take them to Kashi Vishwanath Temple for darshan. We have completed all the preparations, he added.

Kashi DM, SSP to play hosts too

District magistrate Surendra Singh and senior superintendent of police (SSP) Suresh Rao Anand Kulkarni will also host NRIs at their homes.

Singh and his wife Garima will have London-based Dr Rajpal Singh and his wife Vijay as guests. They will stay with us. In spare time, we will take them to ghats and temples for darshan, the DM said.

Rakesh Pathak from the US will be Kulkarnis guest. Pathak is keen on knowing about Kashi, its heritage and lifestyle. We will take him to a tour of Kashi so that he may get to know about the culture of the city, Kulkarni said.

Prime Minister Modi will participate in the event on January 22 and President Ram Nath Kovind on January 23. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj will be in Varanasi on January 21.

At least 7,000 people have registered for the event, which will have Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth of Mauritius as the chief guest. Jugnauth is the first person to be accorded this honour who has his roots in Uttar Pradesh. Jugnauths ancestors belonged to Rasra village in Ballia district of the state, and he will travel to his ancestral village during his stay in India, people familiar with developments said.

Though Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, a biennial event since 2015, is held on or around January 9, the date for this years gathering was changed so that participants could also experience the ongoing Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj and the Republic Day parade in Delhi on January 26.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday said the nation is waiting for a new prime minister and a message of change would go out loud and clear from the mega opposition rally of Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress on Saturday in Kolkata.

Yadav alleged the incumbent government at the Centre was responsible for causing distress to people from all walks of life across the country, including farmers, youth, poor and traders, and everyone was looking for a change.

The country wants a new prime minister. The country is waiting for a new prime minister, Yadav said at the Kolkata airport after reaching the city to attend the January 19 public rally at the invitation of West Bengal chief minister Banerjee.

Praising Banerjee for inviting all leaders for the rally, Yadav said she is giving a strong message by doing so to the entire country. The message that will go from Bengal and from Didi (Banerjee) will be the message for change, he said.

Several opposition leaders are scheduled to attend the rally, which is being touted as Trinamool Congress supremos attempt to galvanise a federal front against the BJP and as a show of strength before the upcoming general elections.

Yadavs Samajwadi Party (SP) a few days back announced an alliance with erstwhile arch-rival Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the general elections to defeat BJP in Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 Lok Sabha members and from where the saffron party had bagged 71 seats in 2014.
 Elsewhere, the storm is forecast to have a much bigger impact. Western Maryland was under a winter storm warning, with as much as a quarter of an inch of ice accumulations possible in Hagerstown and points west. And more than a foot of snow is expected from Ohio into New England, with blowing snow producing blizzard conditions in many areas.
The defence ministry on Friday reiterated its contention that the Rs 59,000-crore Rafale jet fighter deal signed in 2016 was better than the one that had been pursued in 2007 in terms of price, delivery and other terms, as the Congress again demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the contract.

The Congress based its demand on a report in The Hindu newspaper that claimed the decision by the Narendra Modi government to buy the 36 jets caused the price of each plane to shoot up by 41%.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments acceptance of the cost of 1.3 billion claimed for the design and development of 13 India-Specific Enhancements (ISE), and the distribution of this non-recurring cost over 36 instead of 126 bare-bones aircraft was the major reason for the price hike, the report said.

A defence ministry spokesperson said the article was factually inaccurate and all the issues it raised had been answered in detail by the government and most recently by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament. The pricing details which are of confidential nature and covered by the Indo-French security agreement of 2008 were shared with the Supreme Court in a sealed cover, the spokesperson said.

The NDA governments decision to enter a government-to-government deal with France to buy 36 Rafale warplanes made by Dassault Aviation in fly-away condition was announced in April 2015 replacing the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regimes decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. The deal has become controversial with the Opposition, led by the Congress, claiming that the price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is Rs 1,670 crore for each, three times the 526 crore, the initial bid by the company. The NDA has not disclosed details of the price, but the UPA deal, struck in 2012, was not a viable one, former defence minister Manohar Parrikar has previously said

The defence ministry spokesperson noted that the apex court had gone through the details of the procurement and not found anything adverse in the deal. He added the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), the government auditor, had been given access to all the files related to the Rafale deal and it is best to await the report of an authoritative agency like the CAG.

In a unanimous decision by a three-judge bench, the SC said in December that there was no reason to doubt the process of acquiring the fighter planes and dismissed petitions seeking a court-monitored probe of the purchase.

The spokesperson said ISE were part of the air forces requirements to achieve tactical superiority over adversaries adding that The Hindu report had failed to include the in-built escalation factor for ISE that would have worked between 2007 and 2015.

Firing a fresh salvo at the government, Congress leader P Chidambaram said at a press conference, It seems to me that Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank...The government has purchased two squadrons that will cost about 25 million more per aircraft. At the 2016 exchange rate, 25 million is equal to 186 crore! India will pay Rs 186 crore more per aircraft!

Citing the news report, he said, The Hindus story raises many other serious issues about the process of decision-making in the NDA government. The man who got away was Mr Manohar Parrikar (defence minister at the time, and current Goa chief minister) who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security! Clever man! We will not comment on the process... it is necessary to compliment the three officers of the Indian negotiating team who stood up to pressure and forced a vote of 4-3 on every issue, Chidambaram added, reiterating the Congresss demand for a JPC to probe the contract .

The report said the newspaper had reviewed official documentation which revealed that three senior defence ministry officials in the seven-member Indian negotiating team objected to the high cost.

The defence ministry addressed the element of dissent in its 11-point rejoinder.

The issue of dissent within the Indian Negotiated Team has also been answered by the Raksha Mantri in the Parliament. In the highest traditions of the Civil Service, all views are aired and recorded and a collegiate decision taken after considering such opinions, the spokesperson said.

On EADS offering a 20% discount on the Eurofighter jet that lost to Rafale, the ministry said, Even the UPA Government had rightly rejected the EADS offer of 20% discount in 2012 after opening of bids as violative of procedureIt is best to avoid the pitfalls of a corporate battle which has been going on since 2012 which has adversely affected the capabilities of the IAF.

When the Supreme Court has spoken, the defence minister spoke for an hour and a half... the CAG has all the files, they [the Congress] are repeatedly making malicious attempts to play politics. Congress has been exposed, Union minister Smriti Irani said.

Taking a dig at the National Democratic Alliance governments last interim budget Congress leader P Chidambaram Friday said that the government would not be able to revive the state of the Indian economy.

Nothing that they do in the next 60 days will alter the status of the economy which is quite perilous. Net direct tax collection is also falling short of the budget estimates...

(With inputs from Anisha Dutta)
The BJP and its allies on Thursday came down heavily on Congress after its General Secretary BK Hariprasad mocked Amit Shah, who has been admitted to AIIMS due to swine flu infections, demanding his ouster from the party and his post.

The BJP hit out at Congress and dared Rahul Gandhi to oust Hariprasad as General Secretary of the party while its ally and LJP leader Chirag Paswan went one step ahead demanding his ouster from the party.

BJP spokesperson GVL. Narsimha Rao said if the Congress leader, who is General Secretary at AICC, is not sacked or he did not tender public apology, it would be evident that his comments had full support of Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress always has two faces. On one side is Rahul Gandhi and on the other, you have people like Hariprasad with toxic comments. Their behaviour is widely known to the people, he said.

He said silence of the Congress leadership clearly establishes that all such comments have the sanction of the Congress leadership.

If they really want to disapprove of his remarks, Rahul Gandhi must sack him or ask him to publicly apologize.

Hariprasad has said that Amit Shah has got a fever due to panic as some MLAs (of the Congress from Karnataka) have returned, alluding to the political crisis in the state.

If he topples the Congress-JD(S) government, then he will have vomiting and loose motions. That is why he got swine fever, Hariprasad said, referring to the ongoing drama in Karnataka politics.

Rao said the comment showed the moral degeneration of the Congress, complete bankruptcy of thoughts and the lack of moral values in the party.

Shah (54) was admitted to AIIMS on Wednesday owing to swine flu infection.

Chirag Paswan, who is chairman of LJP parliamentary borad, described Hariprasads statement as shameful which shows his mentality.

I expect that Rahul Gandhi will take it seriously and oust him from the party, he tweeted.

Meanwhile, the party has postponed Amit Shahs various programmes.

He was to address a rally in Odisha, which has been postponed. He was to address some rallies in West Bengal too, which has been postponed. The new dates will be fixed after he is discharged from AIIMS, said BJP general secretary Arun Singh.

However, sources said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath may lead the BJPs yatra in West Bengal if party president Amit Shah fails to reach Malda on January 20.

Shah was to kickstart BJPs campaign in West Bengal with a series of rallies beginning January 20.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidus son and state IT minister Nara Lokesh will lead a delegation of officials and industrialists to the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland.

This is for the first time that Lokesh would be representing Andhra Pradesh at the WEF after Naidu, who had been attending the meetings regularly, opted out this time due to official and political engagements.

State finance minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu also will not be attending due to prior engagements, an official release in Hyderabad said.

According to the official release, Lokeshs visit is aimed at strengthening Andhra Pradeshs network with the global investment community, explore possibilities of collaboration and promote the state as an investment destination. He will be speaking in as many as 12 sessions, besides participating in 30 high-level bilateral meetings.

Andhra Pradesh has set its lounge at Davos showcasing the prowess, strength, citizens, economy and culture of the state. It will also host the Annual Global CEO Roundtable, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and government of Andhra Pradesh, the release added.

The 49th WEF annual meeting is expected to be attended by over 3,000 leaders across the world, including India, from January 22 to 25.
Supporters of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh and outgoing Himachal Congress president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu clashed at the formal takeover by new chief Kuldeep Rathore at the Congress Bhawan in Shimla on Thursday .

Workers exchanged blows and flung chairs at each other in the presence of senior leaders, including Virbhadra Singh, All India Congress Committee (AICC) in charge Rajni Patil, Kuldeep Rathore, Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu and all party MLAs. The brawl resulted in a free- for- all in which one person sustained head injuries.

Trouble began when two separate groups of workers owing allegiance to Virbhadra Singh and Sukhwinder Singh started indulging in provocative sloganeering to demonstrate their respective strengths. The loyalists of rival factions hurled abuses at each other even as senior leaders on then dais made efforts to pacify them. Virbhadra Singh, leader of opposition Mukesh Agnihotri and Rajni Patil were seen making an early exit from the party office. In the past few days, both Virbhadra and Sukhu have been engaging in a verbal duel since the latters removal as state party chief.

A case was registered against five Congress workers for allegedly assaulting party worker Rajeev Rana under Section 323, 506, 147, 148 of the Indian Penal Code. Earlier in the day, Congress leaders had gathered at Ambedkar Chowk here to welcome the new party chief.

While senior party leaders, including Virbhadra Singh, Vidya Stokes, Kaul Singh Thakur, Mukesh Agnihotri and Asha Kumari, participated in the function, party deputy leader in Rajya Sabha, Anand Sharma, and Rajya Sabha member Viplove Thakur, gave a skip citing personal reasons .

Though Sukhu did not attend the rally, he was later seen welcoming the new chief at the Congress office.

Indiscipline wont be tolerated, says Rathore

In his address, Kuldeep Rathore elaborated on his services to the party and called upon leaders to put a united face in the Lok Sabha elections. Rathore also praised the absent leader saying that Sukhu had supported his appointment.

The party chief sent out a strong message stating that indiscipline will not be tolerated. No one is above the party. Individuals come and go but organisations last forever. Workers should not become complacent and should now fan out in the field as there is hardly anytime left for the elections, Rathore said.

He further said the party will not be tolerant towards inactive office bearers. You either work for the party or quit, he said.

Extending support to the new chief, former chief minister Virbhadra Singh said, I am hopeful that Rathores wisdom and experience will take the party a long way. If we all work together, winning all four seats is not difficult for the party.
Rubbishing Pakistans contention that India has no role in Afghanistan, New Delhi on Friday made it clear that Islamabad could not decide the position of another country in regional or global affairs.

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal, while responding to a question on US President Donald Trumps remarks about India playing a role in the war-torn country, had said on Thursday: India has no role in Afghanistan.

Reacting to Faisals comments, external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said: It is not for Pakistan to decide as to what role another country has in regional or global affairs. Pakistan also cannot decide on behalf of an independent and sovereign country, Afghanistan, and dictate to them as to how to conduct their foreign policy.

Kumar said Pakistan should instead introspect its own role and responsibility in the precarious situation in Afghanistan; put an end to all kind of support to cross-border terrorism from territories under Pakistans control, and join international efforts to bring inclusive peace to Afghanistan.

Both Kabul and New Delhi blame Islamabad for backing terror groups such as the Taliban and Haqqani Network that are active in Afghanistan. India has also conveyed its concerns about Pakistans destabilising role in Afghanistan to the US and other allies.

Concern has grown in New Delhi over the past few weeks over Islamabads efforts to shape the process for talks with the Taliban, whose leadership is based in Pakistan.
The governments effort to prevent citizens from watching pornography by directing internet service providers to block users access to 827 websites in October last year hasnt quite worked, according to website analytics data.

On the contrary, overall consumption of internet porn may have increased over the past few months with traffic shifting to other sites and the use of proxy servers.

Fifty-nine of the banned websites, data of which was shared by SimilarWeb, a web analytics company, received an average of 1.7 billion monthly visits between January and October 2018.

In November and December, the figure dropped to 0.8 billion visits per month.

While it marked a 50% decline in user visits, indicating that the ban may be working, this has been more than compensated for by visits to at least 441 other websites that are not banned, the data shows. These websites together received an average of 0.6 billion visits per month between January and October, and an average of two billion in November and December.

In effect, the banned and non-banned websites that were analysed together received 2.8 billion visits in both November and December, which is more than their monthly average of 2.3 billion visits between January and October.

SimilarWeb said it could not share the data for the other banned websites because the data was not reliable due to the relatively low popularity of those websites. But the trend is clear: Indias overall consumption of pornographic content on the internet has not diminished.

The ban was ordered in October 2018 following a direction by the Uttarakhand high court, which asked the government to restore its 2015 order banning websites with pornographic content on the grounds that watching porn encourages sexual assault.

Several factors explain why the ban is not working the way it was supposed to.

First, at least 42% of the websites in the banned list (345 of the total 827) are still accessible on the internet, the analysis found. Indians are able to access these websites if they write https (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) instead of http in the web address.

These accessible websites include the top three porn websites in India  Xnxx, Xvideos and Pornhub. In December, Pornhub announced that a third of its traffic in 2018 came from India. In fact, visits to its website increased after the ban, according to SimilarWeb data.

The site received more than 60 million visits from India in November and December 2018, its highest since March. Pornhub also announced a mirror domain, pornhub.net, for Indian users after the ban was announced. This domain received nearly seven million visits from India in the following two months.

Second, Indians are also accessing the banned porn websites through easily available proxy networks or virtual private networks (VPN) that hide their identity and location, and in turn let users bypass any such ban. A sudden surge in the number of visits to some of the most popular proxy service websites makes this fact evident.

For instance, proxy site kproxy.com received 2.3 million visits from India in November, according to ComScore, another web analytics company. This was more than twice its average of 0.9 million visits in the previous three months. Another website, hide.me, received 0.7 million visits from India in November, over three times more than its average of 0.2 million visits in the previous three months.

The increased use of proxy services by porn consumers in India is also evident from data on Google Trends, a tool that quantifies the popularity of search queries over time. The popularity of search terms like porn proxy, porn site proxy and porn vpn in India rose seven to 10 times in the week the ban was announced.

Third, the list of the 827 websites that were banned does not cover a wide enough of such sites. Among the 500 most visited porn websites in India, according to ComScore data, only 59 websites have been banned. Among the top 10, only five have been blocked.

Aditya Gautam, author of Pornistan: How to Survive the Porn Epidemic in India, said he was not surprised by the findings. Its not possible to ban anything on the internet. Its futile. China banned 20,000 porn websites last year but people there still consume porn in different ways, he said. Even if they had banned 20,000 websites, the results we got would have been similar as there are new websites coming up every single day.

Suresh Shukla, founder of parental control application Filternet, said the list of the banned websites was too small in todays context and estimates from data compiled by his application suggest that there are at least 1 lakh porn websites live today.

Reacting to the fact that many of the banned porn websites were accessible with https, Shukla said it should not have been technically impossible to block these websites. Its the will, not tools, which is important, he said.

The ministry of electronics and information technology and the department of telecommunications did not respond to requests for comment.
The army should provide a conducive work environment for its women officers, the Supreme Court said on Friday, as it asked the defence ministry to consider a representation by a 39-year-old female lieutenant colonel against her assignment at a place that does not have a creche.

A bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud was hearing Lt Annu Colonel Dogras petition questioning her temporary posting that requires her to travel from Jodhpur to Nagpur to conduct court martial proceedings against an officer. The proceedings in Kamptee (Nagpur) deprive her of the fundamental right of tending to her infant child, she has stated in her petition. Dogras husband is also an army officer and is deputy judge advocate general (JAG) in Jodhpur.

The court found merit in Dogras arguments and told the counsel for the Centre to consider her request on humanitarian grounds. We do not want to pass orders and expect you to respond to her representation and propose a workable solution for her, Justice Chandrachud told the Centres advocate.

Senior advocate Rana Mukherjee and advocate Aishwarya Bhatti submitted on behalf of Dogra that her current assignment requires her to travel over 1,600 km alone with her two-year-old child at short notice. Also, the place of duty does not have family and community-based care arrangements, leading to neglect of her child.

After looking into the facts of the case, Justice Chandrachud said if the ministry wanted her to continue conducting the court martial proceedings, it must have amenable working conditions for her. Somebody has to take care of her baby. You arrange for someone who can be there to look after the baby, the judge said.

On being told that Dogras husband had taken one years advanced leave to stay in Kamptee to look after the child, the judge told the government counsel to transfer him along with his wife. Why dont you attach him there for a year until the court martial enquiry gets over? the judge suggested.

He went on to say: If you have women officers in the army, then you need to have workable conditions for them. Times have changed and you have so many women officers now. You cannot compare all army duties with combat duties. A place like Kamptee is not Siachen where you cannot have facilities [such as a creche].

The court will hear the case next on January 23.

Dogras petition also said that her representations to higher authorities to relieve her of her duties in Kamptee on compassionate grounds had gone unheeded. The armys move to post a woman officer with an infant in a place that does not have creche and adequate day-care facilities is in violation of the National Policy for Children, 2013, she said.
Four people died and six were trapped under snow after an avalanche in Ladakhs Khardung La pass on Friday morning. Rescue operations are underway and sources say some vehicles are also trapped.

Jammu and Kashmir has been witnessing heavy snowfall in the past few days. The Met department on Thursday issued an avalanche warning for nine districts of Jammu and Kashmir Anantnag, Budgam, Baramulla, , Bandipora, Ganderbal, Kargil, Kulgam, Kupwara and Leh.

Divisional administration had warned people not to move around in avalanche prone areas, store enough edibles and other essentials as both surface and air connectivity is likely to remain disrupted during this period.

The weather office has forecast another spell of snow from January 19 to 23 in Kashmir due to heavy precipitation.The MeT department has asked people to plan their travel accordingly.

The administration has kept at least 23 snow clearance machines ready. If snowfall continues and there is some substantial accumulation on roads, we will be putting the snow clearance machines into service after midnight so that the arterial roads are clear by Thursday morning, executive engineer, mechanical engineering department, Abdul Rashid Bhat said.

Srinagar weather office has been the busiest centre in January owing to four spells of snow so far.

The Valley received its first snow of the year on January 2 bringing respite in the chilly conditions followed by widespread snowfall on January 5, which had closed the national highway and disrupted air traffic. January 11 also witnessed snowfall across the Valley.

Tourists are pouring in to experience the snow covered meadows, picturesque Himalayan mountains, pine forests and ice streams flowing across the Valley.

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We havent yet found a better way of selling knickers than a beautiful bottom, says Sarah Stagliano, one of a new breed of French lingerie designers grappling with how to make exciting underwear in the age of #MeToo.

With G-strings and push-up bras losing their allure as ultra sexiness gives ways to comfort, and the whole idea of seduction being questioned, designers are grappling with how to be interesting without objectifying women.

Aubade, one of Frances leading lingerie brands, does not shy away from sex in its advertising.

But it found itself at the centre of controversy last month over a huge poster of a pair of perfectly rounded buttocks wearing embroidered panties.

Hung from the facade of one of Paris biggest department stores, it sparked a furious response from the citys deputy equality chief who called for it to be taken down.

Communist councillor Helene Bidard accused the brand of objectifying a faceless woman and demanded the immediate withdrawal of this sexist campaign.

Others, however, countered that womens rights tended to be the least respected in countries where such billboards were banned.

We were not expecting the fuss, said Aubade boss Martina Brown.

The brands Lessons in Seduction ad campaign sparked similar horror 25 years ago, she said, when it urged women to keep it spicy and let the situation work to your advantage.

It shocked people but that did not stop women buying the lingerie nor the brand evolving, said the German-born managing director.

Women love to see fine embroidery and lace; it talks to them, and that is why we have been zooming in on the underwear.

We have to cut off the models heads in the photos otherwise we cant show the detailing, she insisted.

Let women dream

Nor did she feel that impossible body standards were being set for women.

Twenty years ago some brands used ordinary women rather than models for their ads. We prefer to let people dream, Brown added.

Aubade will be showing alongside 15 other big French brands at a huge Lingerie Rocks show this weekend during Paris fashion week.

The line-up also includes Henriette H, a young label at the other end of the spectrum which works mostly on Instagram.

Its creator Stagliano opened her boutique on a street in central Paris once known for its bordellos.

Stagliano has tried to capture something of that risque air by putting her changing rooms in the window. It is up to the customers whether they pull the curtain or not.

Nor is her label averse to some rather provocative embroidery, with an explicit come-on delicately sewn into the arm of a chemise.

I can see how all this could be taken badly, she told AFP. But a woman should be at liberty to put herself in the window if she wants to. Its about reappropriation.

And according to Stagliano, 36, that also extends to women being free to choose whether they want to be a sexual object.

No more Photoshop

She backs her model, Jazzmine, who is in her 30s, and refuses to be photoshopped even if her breasts have fallen perhaps a little after she breastfed her baby.

Jazzmine has been the face of the brand for six years and will still be in 10 years, Stagliano declared.

In this line of fashion, sensual photo shoots are a must, she said.

To sell a pair of knickers you need a pair of buttocks because that is where you wear them, the designer added.

We havent yet found a better way to sell them than a beautiful bottom.

If I was using a womans rear end to sell cream that would be another thing, Stagliano argued.

The Simone Perele brand takes a far more restrained view.

For last year it has been showing its creations in still life draped on the end of a sofa, or glimpsed on a sportswoman or writer.

There is another way of doing it, said Stephanie Perele, the grand-daughter of the labels founder, who says women have had enough of photoshopped images.

Renaud Cambuzat, a fashion photographer who is now artistic director of the Chantelle group, said there were still nowhere near enough underwear choices for modern women, who are complex, multifaceted and ever changing.

At one extreme you have the ailing American giant Victorias Secret, he said, which seems totally oblivious to #MeToo and whose difficulties show that we could be seeing the end of an era.

On the other there is the opposite extreme where you can no longer see the form of the body and we are in a kind of cartoonish plus-sized universe.

Even after #MeToo we are stuck with a lot of stereotypes. Lots of things are changing but there is still a way to go, Cambuzat argued.

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A person wounded in a knife attack on a family died on Thursday, a day after his wife succumbed to her injuries suffered in the same incident.

The police have arrested the accused, who allegedly attacked the couple and their son in west Delhis Khyala after a quarrel over a trivial issue. Police have also recovered a knife allegedly used in the crime.

While 35-year-old Sunita died on the spot, her husband Veer Pal and son Aakash were battling for their lives after being stabbed multiple times in a neighbourhood located a few hundred metres from the Khyala police station. Police said Veer Pal, 41, succumbed to his injuries around 1.30am on Thursday. Aakash, 18, remained critical.

Videos of the attack, recorded by eyewitnesses, showed the alleged 43-year-old killer repeatedly stabbing Pal around 7pm on Wednesday. The video also showed a host of onlookers, mostly local residents and passersby, screaming in horror.

On Thursday, many of those who witnessed the attack said they were too horrified to react to the murders that unfolded for nearly 10 minutes. Pal was brutally stabbed. We did not know how to react. The killer was waving a long knife at us and threatened if we approach him, said Manpreet, a local resident.

Manpreet claimed that the killer stopped the stabbing after her husband and another man hurled bricks at the suspect. The killer thought that people were pelting stones at him. So he walked into his house and then emerged a few seconds later and walked away, Manpreet said.

Pals 20-year-old daughter, Khushboo, alleged that no one among dozens of onlookers rushed her parents to hospital for over 45 minutes.

The problem culminating into the double murders had begun a few months ago. My eight-year-old sister is the only member of our family who goes to school. One day, she had returned from school and was playing with us when her water bottle fell from the balcony of our rented flat on the second floor, said Khushboo.

The bottle nearly hit the suspected killer and it resulted in a quarrel between him and the victims family. The man would often follow me to work only to abuse my mother and sisters. I regret not being in the neighbourhood at the time of the attack. I would have thwarted the attack and save my parents, said Aman,14, Pals another son.

Wednesdays attack was triggered by a confrontation between the suspect and Sunita while she was returning home after buying vegetables around 7 pm.

The man began abusing my mother. She did not respond, but came home and told us about it. My brother Aakash went down to warn him. He had barely knocked a few times on the mans door when he emerged with a big knife and stabbed Aakash, said Khushboo.

Moments later, Aakashs parents rushed to his defence, but they too were pinned to the ground and stabbed repeatedly.

The suspected killer was caught from Zakhira in west Delhi in the early hours of Thursday, said Monika Bhardwaj, DCP (west).
He should know what his awesome responsibilities require him to do in his role as Senate majority leader. Do he and the members of his party have no concern for the welfare of the country? Does he have no empathy for the government employees who must work for no pay for the foreseeable future?
Thieves tend to hate Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras, but this one just couldnt get enough of them. A 26-year-old graduate allegedly plucked out CCTV cameras from residential societies and markets in east Delhi and was making a tidy enough living by selling them, until a police team arrested him on Tuesday.

When a local police team raided Deepak Bansals house in Shahdara on Tuesday, they found 28 CCTV cameras ready to be sold in the citys chor bazaars (black markets).

He was selling each camera for as little as Rs 300-400. He believed it was an easy and sustainable business, a police officer said on Thursday on condition of anonymity.

On an average, a CCTV camera costs around Rs 1,200.

Police said Bansals working method was simple. He would cover his face with a handkerchief and head out to unguarded neighbourhoods and markets that relied more on CCTV cameras and less on security guards.

He would pluck out multiple cameras in one outing. It hardly required any effort, said the officer cited above.

Bansal never bothered about the digital video recorders (DVRs), which were anyway beyond his reach.

He was getting captured by cameras day after day, and we would see his footage from the DVRs left behind, but he was careful to never take off the handkerchief, the officer maintained.

But there was one thing in the footage that the investigators noticed and remembered. He wore a grey jacket during all the five thefts he committed.

That also helped the police confirm that all the five thefts of CCTV cameras in different neighbourhoods had been committed by the same person.

We constituted a special team of officers from the Mansarovar Park police station and spread them out in neighbourhoods where the suspect was likely to strike again. As it turned out, the suspect returned to steal again in the early hours of Tuesday, said Meghna Yadav, deputy commissioner of police (Shahdara).

It was Bansals presence on the street around 2.30am that aroused the polices suspicion. They checked his jacket and it was the same one worn by the thief caught by the DVRs. Bansal was questioned, but he denied his involvement in the thefts.

So, we came up with the idea of masking him with a handkerchief that was similar to the one worn by the suspect in the footage. There was a striking similarity. We searched Bansals home to find 28 cameras hidden there. He confessed after that, said an investigator.

The investigator quoted Bansal as confessing that he had stolen CCTV cameras for many weeks, adding that he may have committed more than the five thefts in which he was caught on camera.

Bansal has been arrested and booked for theft.
One day, she will fulfil Babasaheb Ambedkars dream! claimed Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Ram, pointing to the woman who had just served us tea. We were at his official residence in Delhi on a lazy winter afternoon in the early 1990s. I almost did a double take before faintly nodding at the salwar kameez-clad lady who had stayed mostly silent during our animated conversation on caste and politics. Mayawati still hadnt quite burst on to the national stage and it was only a few years later that she became Uttar Pradesh chief minister and transformed herself into a politician not to be trifled with.

I was reminded of that early encounter with Behenji when I watched Samajwadi Party leader, Akhilesh Yadav, last week express the hope that the next prime minister would be from UP and then gently turn in Mayawatis direction at a joint press conference. Is Behenji really a serious candidate to be Indias first Dalit prime minister? At one level, that question must seem rather absurdly fanciful given the decline in BSP fortunes in recent elections. Moreover, Mayawati and her family remain mired in multiple charges of corruption. She has also acquired the damning reputation of being an erratic, transactional politician, someone who will make or break alliances based on short-term conveniences.

And yet, at another level, Mayawati is still held up as a powerful symbolic figure of social mobility, her father once a humble postal employee in a dusty western UP town. For the countrys upper class, upper caste metropolitan elite, Mayawatis failings represent the darker side of Indian politics but for the Dalit-Bahujan multitudes, she is an inspirational figure. An elitist disdain is visible in some of the criticism of her flaunting of wealth: how many Brahmin-Bania politicians are lampooned for being weighed in gold and silver at election time? And what of the cutout culture and endless self-promotion by other contemporary netas or, indeed, the serious corruption charges that swirl around so many of them?

The caricaturing of Mayawati as a venal autocrat does not fairly or fully represent the complex persona of a politician who, after all, has completed a remarkable journey from the margins of society to the heart of Indian politics. As a four-time chief minister of UP, she is seen as a tough, no-nonsense administrator, especially strong on law and order. And while the corruption charges are grave, there is another reality of a relatively successful doer chief minister cutting through red tape to fast-track major infrastructure projects like the Yamuna Expressway between Noida and Agra.

Which is why Mayawati being projected as a potential non-Congress, non-BJP leadership alternative is a distinctly strategic option for those, especially in the crucial battleground of the Hindi heartland, who would like to see anyone but Narendra Modi become prime minister again. One of Prime Minister Modis more successful calling cards during the 2014 wave election was his image as the chaiwallah from the nondescript town of Vadnagar who was making the great leap to 7 Lok Kalyan Marg. As the meritocratic kaamdar who has battled his way against the dynastical naam-dars , it gives the prime minister a distinct edge in perception as the non-privileged neta taking on the Rahul Gandhis of the political universe.

By contrast, a Mayawatis life offers an even more compelling narrative of a battle against caste, gender and income discrimination to conquer Indias most populous and complex state. The gareeb Dalit ki beti (daughter of a poor Dalit) is a storyline that is difficult to combat even for a master political communicator like Mr Modi, who has consistently played up his modest origins. In a fractured polity in which caste identities still shape voter choices, Behenji for PM is the kind of sloganeering that can unite Dalits and create the basis for a broader coalition of those social groups who are fearful of the rising tide of political Hindutva, especially in Uttar Pradesh.

Which might explain why an Akhilesh Yadav has chosen to bury 25 years of Yadav-Dalit animosity and thrown up an early trial balloon to test the political winds. Other opposition leaders with an eye on the top job may not bite the bait just yet, but in a national election, in which localised alliances could play a key role, dont be surprised if the haathi (elephant) of the BSP looks to ride on the Samajwadi Party cycle to reshape political equations in Delhi via Lucknow. The demure, short-haired lady I first met all those years ago has evolved into a feisty political warrior who maybe ready for a serious tilt at the big prize her mentor had once prophesied for her.

Post-script: Mayawati, much like Modi, is an imperious political figure who doesnt like being questioned. So on the one rare occasion when I was able to interview her, I remember her angrily responding to a question on corruption. You mediapersons are all upper caste Manuwaadis! she retorted. She isnt entirely wrong: most newsrooms, like the rest of society, have negligible space for Dalits in positions of power and influence.

Rajdeep Sardesai is senior journalist and author

The views expressed are personal
301pp, Rs599; Penguin

Were dinosaurs fuzzies or techies? Did our hunter gatherer ancestors gain a survival advantage by being a fuzzy or a techie? Paleontologists and anthropologists are best suited to answer these questions. But what are fuzzies and techies? Scott Hartley, author of the Fuzzie and the Techie, explains that, at Stanford, a fuzzie was a student of humanities while a Techie was a student of computer science. Hartleys book looks at the challenges thrown up by the extraordinary contemporary advances in technology. So should students today immerse themselves in acquiring the technical skills  computer programming, to be specific  that will make them highly sought after professionals? Should students stop studying history, anthropology, philosophy, literature, political science and similar liberal arts or humanities subjects? His answer is an emphatic No. Using examples of successful entrepreneurs and innovators with a liberal arts education, he makes the case that it is precisely a strong grounding in a broad spectrum of subjects that will equip the students with the ability to see the big picture and imagine innovations. A couple of Pakistanis from non-technical backgrounds who launch a successful logistics start-up and an American who majored in theatre arts and launched a healthtech startup are the examples the author details early on to give us a flavour of the variety of people launching successful startups. Using examples of a senior executive at Palantir Technologies, an analyst with the US military, and others who are startup founders -- often these Americans are of Indian origin, a country where the author worked for a few years before entering the world of Silicon Valley venture capital  Hartley shows how these people have succeeded precisely because of their liberal arts education.

Georgia Nugent says it best in an article for Fast Company that Hartley has quoted: Its a horrible irony that at the very moment the world has become more complex, were encouraging our young people to be highly specialized in one task. We are doing a disservice to our young people by telling them that life is a straight path. The liberal arts are still relevant because they prepare students to be flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances.

You could be a writer interviewing American presidents one day and turn into an Amazon delivery guy ten years later.

In our ever faster changing world, Hartley writes, the demand for intellectual agility, creativity, and the curiosity to explore new terrain is higher than ever. A liberal arts education exposes students to a broad range of knowledge and ways of thinking. He adds that it is about learning to learn, and to love learning.

Will Indian parents who push their kids towards careers in engineering and medicine be persuaded by Hartleys passionate defence of the value of a liberal education? He makes a strong case for it when he writes: It is both about intellectual adventure and about building the fundamental intellectual skills that equip one to continue to pursue new interests for the rest of ones life, whether or not you have a formal education in those pursuits. These fundamental skills  critical thinking, reading comprehension, logical analysis, argumentation, clear and persuasive communication  also prepare students very well for work life.

According to studies by LinkedIn and others, while employers believe a liberal arts education is the best way to prepare for success in todays global economy, data shows that liberal arts grads are joining the tech workforce more rapidly than technical grads. Between 2010 and 2013, the growth of liberal arts majors entering the technology industry from undergrad outpaced that of computer science and engineering majors by 10 per cent.

Scott Hartley (Courtesy the publisher)

Google once hired a philosophy professor from Columbia. The technology issues facing us today  issues of identity, communication, privacy, regulation  require a humanistic perspective if we are to deal with them adequately Getting a humanities PhD is the most deterministic path you can find to becoming exceptional in the industry, says Damon Horowitz. It is no longer just engineers who dominate our technology leadership, because it is no longer the case that computers are so mysterious that only engineers can understand what they are capable of. There is an industry-wide shift toward more product thinking in leadership  leaders who understand the social and cultural contexts in which our technologies are deployed.

The author offers the example of Rishi Jaitley  who headed Twitter India for a while  as the kind of intellectually flexible person with a diverse educational background who sees a meteoric rise in their careers. Innovators in education are making use of blended learning where the focus is on learning-by-doing rather than memorizing information and reciting it in tests. Sugat Mitras innovations in education offer one more example.

In summary, Hartley notes the need to prepare Indias tens of millions of students for a post-industrial, globalized world that requires more than excellence in technology and science. And he adds that while some of the newer universities such as Ashoka, Azim Premji, and Shiv Nadir (sic) University have softened attitudes around career preparation, there is still a nagging belief that the humanities are either a luxury or a waste of time.

The best engineers, Hartley writes are those who are also deeply versed in and passionate about philosophy, psychology, and ethics. They play music, are refined in culture and have a deep sense of their own values. Hartley was a member of the graduating class at Stanford when Steve Jobs delivered his famous commencement address. He wholeheartedly endorses the Jobsian values of staying hungry and foolish.

Read more: Why liberal arts and the humanities are as important as engineering

The symbolic systems program brought together courses in computing with ones in philosophy, logic, linguistics, and psychology. All this will come as a welcome relief for someone who is equally interested in both von Brauns feats with rockets and von Frischs research into bees, someone curious about both Plato and Paulis exclusion principle, and someone who finds both Hegel as well as Heisenbergs uncertainty principle interesting. At a young age, most human beings tend to be incredibly curious. It should be the aim of our education systems to foster this innate quality rather than suppress it.

It will take an Apollo Mission type of effort to make the necessary changes in existing engineering curricula in India. It would be breathtaking if engineering students pursuing degrees in computer science/IT learned not only about microprocessor architecture but also micro and macroeconomics and architecture or the history of the Second World War and if Python, Ruby, LAMP, Hadoop, Kotlin, Swift and EC2 were combined with Carl Sagan, Oliver Sacks, and Paul Kalanithi. Scott Hartleys book with its voluminous notes and references at the end spanning 40+ pages would perhaps deserve a place in such an eclectic curriculum.

Sachi Mohanty is an independent writer interested in science and technology.
A sharply dressed and clean-shaven young man with blue eyes is looking intensely out of the comic book cover. He pretty much looks to be from the same universe where suited men, and women, turn into superheroes with a finger snap.

As it turns out, thats a young Karl Marx, a superhero no less among believers in China, in a new avatar in a Chinese comic book.

The Lingfengzhe or The Leader, the first comic book about Marx to be printed and released in China, is an effort to make the ideologue accessible and popular among teenagers in the country.

The comic book, released in January, steps aside from only talking about Marxs philosophy  it humanises him and reflects his life and struggles as a man.

It shows his family, love, friendship, theory and struggles. The first issue depicts Marxs early life Berne and Berlin and his love story with his wife Jenny von Westphalen.

Using Marxs life, the book explains the Marxist theory in a simple and vivid way, the Hangzhou-based Zhejiang Juvenile and Childrens Publishing House, the publisher of the book told the tabloid Global Times.

The bid to make Marx more popular in China began last year, which marked his 200th birth anniversary.

Two centuries on, despite huge and profound changes in human society, the name of Karl Marx is still respected all over the world and his theory still shines with the brilliant light of truth, President Xi Jinping had said last year.

Xi had called him the greatest thinker of history and shows our firm belief in the scientific truth of Marxism.

Late last year, a cartoon series on Marx  with the same name The Leader  was produced to be shown on a video streaming site. The production was commissioned by the Communist Party of China-led governments Marxism office.

The comic book is the latest effort.

From emojis, stage plays and animation to comic book, China is producing various products about Karl Marx, who is regarded as the millenniums greatest thinker, in a bid to popularise the political figure among Chinese teenagers, the news report said.

It tells young readers that Marx is not only a great thinker as they learned in textbooks, but also a diligent, romantic and rebellious teenager like a normal teenager would behave.

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Why Cheat India

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Shreya Dhanwanthary

Director: Soumik Sen

Rating:1.5/5

The Why is existential. India cheats. It may even be the one thing were good at as a people, the spirit of jugaad that ties us together and keeps this makeshift raft above water. It is hard not to be awestruck by artful dodgers, with the foresight and gall to wheedle their way through life on an impressive, unprecedented scale.

Watch Why Cheat India movie trailer here

Soumik Sens Why Cheat India is based on such a man, one who trumps the daunting entrance examination gateways by sending well-prepared students to answer papers for wealthy aspirants. The actor chosen for this cocky, audacious operation is ideal: the eternally amoral Emraan Hashmi.

Hashmi appears to be stifling a yawn. Apparently based on a real conman, the film travels the country to show us students diligent and debauched, but never finds momentum. The writing is flat. The wheeze is ingenious enough to fill a great film, but Sen revels in obvious filmy cliche. There is no other way to explain the films mastermind Rakesh Singh (urf Rocky) announcing his entry with a fight scene.

10 kisses in my first film to 1 now - Ive progressed: Emraan Hashmi

Hashmi plays Rakesh, and hes sitting in a movie theatre to watch the 1997 film Gupt. He beats up a bunch of bullies and, before leaving the theatre, tells them a climactic spoiler that would ruin their experience of the whodunnit. This scene could work wonderfully well without the fight, demonstrating a sly, canny protagonist who knows how to strike where it hurts. Now the joke feels like a tacked-on end to a generic scene.

The film tries to appear funny without being smart. There is a running gag about the actress playing Hashmis relentlessly talkative wife, but the joke is not in what she actually says, just the fact that she talks a lot. There are self-contradicting old-school characters, like an inspector who sits at a police station writing FIRs but announces himself as a member of the Special Branch, but there isnt a single memorable line.

Why Cheat India travels across India to show us students diligent and debauched, but never finds momentum.

The actors are fine, especially some wonderfully unfamiliar old men, but the film doesnt use them right. I wish debutant Shreya Dhanwanthary  so entertaining in the web-series Ladies Room  was given more to do than make smitten eyes. The film pretends to give her a pivotal role, but never lets her be proactive.

Greed is good, Hashmi spits the line from Oliver Stones classic Wall Street, missing the point of how that film applauded the smoothness of the operator. Why Cheat India moralises without taking a stand. The film has three endings, indecisively shown one after the other  one of which uses a refrain to Hum Honge Kamyaab as an afterthought, pasting it on immediately after another song, diluting any potential impact. This movie doesnt appreciate trick or trickster. It takes craft to be crafty.

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Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas wedding and the celebrations that ensued were nothing short of fairytale. From the Rajasthan wedding that had clothes designed by Ralph Lauren and Sabyasachi Mukerjee to multiple wedding receptions attended by Indias whos who, it was a true power wedding. The honeymoon  in Europe and the Caribbean  was a dream too.

Now that Priyanka and Nick are back home in Los Angeles, it is time to start their life in real earnest. Living in their $6.5 mansion in LAs tony Beverly Hills  a gift from Nick  the couple is back to their professional commitments. While Priyanka will be seen promoting her Isnt It Romantic in the coming days, including an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show, the newlyweds decided to take some time out for each other.

The duo was seen at the Peninsula Hotel on Thursday. Priyanka and Nick walked hand in hand as shutterbugs clicked photos. While the Quantico star was dressed in a black jacket and ripped jeans, Nick wore dark trousers and a brown jacket.

Also read: Inside Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas $6.5 million LA mansion

Priyanka is currently based out of LA, New York and Mumbai. The actor had earlier shared a snapshot of her LA house, writing that she is back at home, at least one of them.

Also watch: Priyanka-Nick groove to Desi Girl at their reception

Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas during their honeymoon in the Caribbean.

Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas during their wedding in Jodhpur.

Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas during their Hindu wedding.

Priyanka will also soon resume work on Shonali Boses upcoming film, The Sky is Pink, which also stars Farhan Akhtar and Zaira Wasim. She plays a yoga ambassador in her Hollywood film with Isnt It Romantic starring Rebel Wilson and Liam Hemsworth in lead roles. Isnt It Romantic is directed by Todd Strass-Schulson and is scheduled for release on Valentines Day.
Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif is a cine jodi made in blockbuster heaven and their off-screen chemistry just goes to bolster their image. The actors, who will be seen together again in Ali Abbas Zafars Bharat, were in party mode ahead of the films teaser launch on January 26.

Katrina looked luminous as she arrived wearing a deep red dress with sister Isabella. Salman, as always, chose all-black. The films lead cast was joined by Katrinas sister Isabella, co-actors Tabu, Jackie Shroff and Sunil Grover among others.

Katrina Kaif with sister Isabella.

Katrina Kaif with Sunil Grover.

Bharats teaser will launch on the Republic Day and is said to be almost a minute and half in length. Zafar had written earlier on social media, All the @BeingSalmanKhan fans, dont lose your hearts, it was our conscious decision not to release anything about @Bharat_TheFilm on Bhais birthday, we are still shooting the film, Naye saal mein nayi film ki baat karegein, Naam Bharat hai ..date bhi special Hogi.

Also read: Vicky Kaushal proposes to Katrina Kaif and Salmans reaction is priceless

Bharat teaser will be very different from that of most of Salman films. This time around, the team is playing more on emotions and giving out a patriotic feel, than the action. There will be a few stunt scenes as montages, but director Ali Abbas Zafar and Salman are very clear that the first teaser has to give out the vibe and theme of the movie, a source told DNA.

Earlier, Salman had shared a dialogue promo from the film, Kuch Rishte Zameen se hote hai.. Aur kuch Khoon se...Mere Paas Dono Thee!

Bharat, also starring Disha Patani, Sonali Kulkarni, Nora Fatehi and Aashif Sheikh, is an official adaptation of the 2014 Korean film An Ode to My Father and is slated to release on June 5.
"I represent only the president, not the campaign," he told The Associated Press in an interview. "And I can only speak of what I know, and that is that I have no knowledge that anyone on the campaign illegally colluded with Russia. But I can only speak definitively about the president, as he is my client."
He said Duke Energy used to say that not one site in North Carolina would be excavated. And now eight of 14 have been excavated  not because of what the state did, not because of what Duke did, but because communities like this took action and made it happen.

John Ong, who lives in the Lake Norman area, said the mission of DEQ is to protect the natural resources of the state and the health of the people in it.

Given that  and the fact that we all know that science is clear that unlined pits pose a danger, I would ask that the department and the rest of the state government step up to protect our health and safety, he said.

Cost is not a factor, Ong added. Duke Energy is a profit-making machine.

Applause and cheers drowned the rest of his comment except for two words that he repeated: Step up.

And thats what State Sen. Vickie Sawyer did when she followed Rep. John Fraley in addressing the crowd.
Hickory police are investigating at least five open homicide cases from 2020 and the first six months of 2021. Only one arrest has been made i
California authorities are asking that a man arrested in Iredell County on drug charges last month be extradited back to his home state to face robbery charges.

Andre Lamont Ingram Jr., who is from San Jose, California, was served a fugitive from justice warrant last week in relation to four counts of second-degree robbery, Iredell County court records showed.

Ventura County officials in California requested his extradition back to that state on Jan. 10, according to court documents.

Iredell County Clerk of Court staff said Ingram waived his right to an extradition hearing on Jan. 14, meaning he agrees to be taken back to California.

Ingram, 32, was arrested in Iredell County on Dec. 26 after being found unconscious in a car on an exit ramp along Interstate 77, the Iredell County Sheriffs Office said. Authorities say he was spotted incapacitated in his car by a witness.

The witness awoke Ingram and his vehicle struck the witnesss car and he lost consciousness again, according to a news release.

Authorities said a deputy from the Iredell County Sheriffs Office arrived on the scene and woke Ingram again, noticing Ingram had an open alcohol container in his car, which smelled of marijuana.
Prior to jury deliberations on Thursday afternoon, the jury heard from the defenses expert witness John Combs.

Combs, a law enforcement officer and instructor in the use of force, testified Georges actions were reasonable, consistent and standard, since George said Doolittle refused to exit the car.

The video footage does not contain audio, however, Doolittles foot and head can be seen attempting to exit the vehicle prior to George removing her.

During closing arguments, the jury was asked by the prosecution to rely on the video evidence and testimony from witnesses in the case to render a guilty verdict on both charges.

He throws her down like shes in the WWE, federal prosecutor Kimlani Ford said.

The falsifying a report charge stems from George not properly filling out the use of force report after the incident and omitting key details. The prosecution also argued he closed the document out himself in an effort to cover up the incident. The defense, however, urged the jury to look at the video footage frame by frame, much like officials do in the NFL.

Her injuries dont prove he intended to harm her, defense attorney Anthony Martinez said.
(JNS)Ever since President Donald Trump astounded the world by announcing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, commentators have been trying to work out the significance of this decision.

Among those conservatives who believe America should make alliances against the enemies of the West and then stand by those allies, there has been shock and consternation. A number of Israeli analysts have expressed similar dismay.

The cause of the concern is obvious. By withdrawing the 2,000 or so U.S. troops stationed in the border area between Iraq, Syria and Jordan, Trump seems be removing a buffer against Irans aim to establish a land bridge from Iran to Syria and Lebanon via Iraq.

Critics say that not only will this strengthen Iran but also Russia, which will move into the vacuum.

It makes a perverse ally of Turkeys Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a baleful enemy of the West. It exposes Israel to greater threat from Syria. And it abandons the Kurds, the Wests brave and natural allies who now face possible slaughter at Turkish hands.

Trump says the United States has achieved its aim in Syria to destroy ISIS. But ISIS may regroup and revive. Some think Trump has thus made a wider war more likely and America will find itself sucked back into territory it has left.

Others, though, take a more sanguine view. Israel says it already acts alone in thwarting Irans most dangerous military advances into Syria. American troops, whose attacks on Iranian or Syrian militias have been small and infrequent, hardly constitute a decisive factor.

Other analysts suggest the move will bind Russia more tightly into Israels own defenses in Syria, since although President Vladimir Putin wants a Russian presence there, he doesnt want Iran to become too powerful. Trump has thus ensured that its Russia, not America, that gets sucked deeper into the Syrian quagmire. And Turkey may end up fighting Iran and Russia for regional hegemony.

However contradictory, all these arguments may have some validity. There are many different ways in which a geopolitical situation as complex as this can play out.

But for the West in general, Trumps decision has significance far beyond Syria or Iran. It signals the end of Americas role as world policemanthe end of what might be called the Pax Americana dependency culture.

Since World War II, Europe and the rest of the West have relied on the United States to keep them safe by inserting its military, diplomatic and intelligence-gathering muscle into the worlds most dangerous hotspots.

By contrast, Trump is said to be an isolationist. That, though, is to miss the point. He has certainly set his face against the aim of democratizing the world. While willing to combat threats to America such as posed by ISIS, he doesnt see any point in sending American soldiers into harms way in countries where theres no such immediate danger.

But more than that, he is scandalized by the way in which Europe and the rest of the West have leached off American blood and treasure to safeguard their own security. Thats why he has insisted that other members of NATO increase their contributions to the budget.

Thats why he is so disdainful of E.U. countries that rail at America even while they are relying on its military and intelligence umbrella to keep them safe.

Thats why, announcing that Saudi Arabia had responded to the U.S. pullout from Syria by saying it would help finance the rebuilding of the country, he tweeted: See? Isnt it nice when immensely wealthy countries help rebuild their neighbors rather than a Great Country, the US, that is 5000 miles away.

In other words, hes trying to end the worlds dependency on America. He wants other countries to take responsibility for themselves, rather than relying on the United States to underwrite their security (even while they bad-mouth it or burn the American flag). Hes trying to teach the world to end its infantilism and grow up.

And he has a point.

Whats crucial, however, is that any occupant of the White House understands that America is not a planet in another galaxy. What it does or doesnt do has an impact on the rest of the world. What happens 5,000 miles away may well affect its own security and well-being. And unless it deploys its massive power in one way or another to help the good guys, the bad guys may win.

Thats why Trumps resumption of sanctions against Iran in order to destroy its regime is vital. And thats why many think that withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria is so perverse since this will strengthen the regimequite apart from abandoning the Kurds.

But look at it from the other end of the telescope, and it begins to make more sense. Syrias President Bashar Assad is winning, or has won. The American soldiers in the north could easily be drawn into a firefight between the various factions, and the United States would then be sucked further into the Syrian disaster. Why should America sacrifice its soldiers for a lost cause?

The important thingthe overwhelmingly important strategic aim which, unlike his critics at home and abroad, Trump really getsis to defeat the Iranian regime.

Which is why his resumption of sanctions is so important. And which is why the Senate vote to end Americas military assistance for Saudi Arabias war against Iran in Yemen, a resolution moved by the Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, was this months really stupid American isolationist gesture.

Lawmakers of both parties want to punish Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Mohammed, whom they hold responsible for the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

Aside from this hypocritical moral grandstanding, the most ignorant comment came from Republican Sen. Mike Lee who said: ... we have been led into this civil war in Yemen, half a world away, into a conflict in which few Americans that I know can articulate what American national security interest is at stake.

Well, someone should give Sen. Lee and his colleagues a map of the world pretty damn quick. For if Iran takes Yemen, it will not only encircle Saudi Arabia by water but will gain access to overland routes through Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan. It would thus threaten not just Saudi Arabia but also Egypt, Jordan and Israel, and become as a result a vastly greater danger to America and the West.

Yet while the air is thick with outrage over Trumps decision to withdraw 2,000 soldiers from Syria, the Senates decision to end support for Saudi Arabia in defending the Wests crucial security interests in Yemen has been received with little more than a passing shrug.

The Trump administration lobbied intensively against the Senates resolution. Thats because the Trump administration understands Americas vital strategic interests in a land thousands of miles away. But hey, its Trump whos the dangerous isolationist, right?

Maybe his decision over U.S. troops in Syria is a mistake. But for the most morally bankrupt isolationism and strategic incoherence about defending America and the West, we need to look elsewhere.

Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a column for JNS every two weeks. Currently a columnist for The Times of London, her personal and political memoir, Guardian Angel, has been published by Bombardier. Her work can be found at her website, www.melaniephillips.com.
(Research Institute for European and American Studies via JNS)In the course of almost 40 years, Iran is the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism and has a long and bloody history of terror attacks.

Since 2017 the Iranian regimes terrorist activities appear to be on the rise on European soil. Thanks to good intelligence the Iranian latest terrorist plots has not resulted in heavy casualties, but these plots are just the tip of the iceberg.

The latest Iranian terror plots in Europe are a warning and a wake-up call to governments in Europe to re-examine the appeasement polices towards the Iranian regime.

To carry out such terror operations, Iran uses a wide network of the IRGCs: al-Qods Force, the Ministry of Intelligence and proxies like Hezbollah. Iran has an organized terrorist network established in Europe and the people who were arrested in connection with the terror plots lived and worked in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Norway and Denmark.

Despite the many terrorist attacks carried out by Hezbollah around the world and on European soil, so far most of the European Union countries have not put Hezbollah on its list of terrorist organizations.

Irans effort to exert influence over the Western Balkan and its governments poses a grave security threat. Iran is using Soft Power to maintain and even extend its influence in the Balkans, through economic, cultural and religious ties. Iran is supporting centers for religion studies and NGOs in the Balkans to promote the Iranian radical religious doctrine. The European countries must be aware to the potential threat from Shia jihadists and the radicalization of European Muslim youths, by the Shia revolutionary doctrine.

Iran and Hezbollah are the main potential threats to the interests of the United State, Israel and the European Union. This is something not yet realized by Western governments. The European Union and its member states must understand the need to prevent the Iranian threat to their security and interests and take the necessary tough measures against the Iranian regime and Hezbollah.

As the tension between Iran and the United States, and its allies in Middle East, are on the rise and the sensitive domestic situation in Iran, the foiled attacks in Europe mark an escalation in Irans willingness to undertake violent covert operations, after years of relative restraint.

The Iranian regime appears committed to a strategy of targeting Iranian dissidents, and Western and Israeli interests, not only in places where countermeasures may be comparatively underdeveloped but even in Europe.

As it appears from the various Iranian and Hezbollah terrorist plots on European soil since 2012, their apparatuses use a wide range of militants of Iranian, Lebanese origin or others, as well as asylum seekers, for intelligence missions or as terrorist infrastructure.

There are hundreds of Iranian al-Qods Force, MOIS and Hezbollah members within E.U. borders, many of whom could be activated should Iran or Hezbollah decide to operate against E.U., U.S. or Israeli targets on European soil.

U.S. President Donald Trump, former U.S President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have urged the E.U. to proscribe all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Making distinction between Hezbollahs military, political and social activities is a fiction, and the E.U. must change its mind and include Hezbollah in its list of terrorist organizations.

Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Shay is the director of research for the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Israels IDC Herzliya research college and former Deputy Head of Israels National Security Council.
(JTA)A great American Jewish jurist once argued against the idea of a hyphenated American. He said there was no place in America for immigrants and their children to hold on to differences based on race or creed.

[T]o keep alive difference of origin or to classify men according to their religious beliefs are inconsistent with American ideas of brotherhood, and are disloyal, he argued.

A few years later, a great American Zionist leader argued that there is nothing more American or patriotic than holding multiple loyaltiesto God, to country, to your land of origin.

Multiple loyalties are objectionable only if they are inconsistent, he wrote. Every Irish American who contributed towards advancing home rule was a better man and a better American for the sacrifice he made. Every American Jew who aids in advancing the Jewish settlement in Palestine, though he feels that neither he nor his descendants will ever live there, will likewise be a better man and a better American for doing so.

Of course, it was the same leader who said both things: Louis Brandeis, the Supreme Court justice and Zionist leader of the first half of the 20th century. Brandeis contradictory views on dual loyalty represent his own evolution (the first comment was in 1905, the second in 1915). But they also hit on a tension that American Jews still deal with more than 100 years later.

The Brandeisian notion that multiple loyalties make you a better American has guided and justified Jewish activism for Israel even before its founding in 1948. Its based partly on Brandeis theoretical notion that loyalty itself is an admirable and fungible quality, like honesty or sobriety. And it assumes, as Brandeis did famously, that American values, Jewish values and Zionist values are fully aligned.

As Jeffrey Rosen explained in his biography of Brandeis, the jurist envisioned the Jewish state as a secular, liberal democracy ruled by ethical values of equality and social justice, and not by Jewish law.

Brandeis did not have the last word, of course, and in almost every decade since he defended the hyphen, the loyalty of Jews has been called into questionwhether for their support of a Jewish state, for Jews being persecuted under the Nazis or for Jews trapped behind the Iron Curtain.

Its not clear whether or not Rashida Tlaib knew or forgot this history in her tweet this week suggesting that backers of a series of pro-Israel bills forgot what country they represent. Jews quickly called her out, saying the new congresswoman from Michigan seemed to be leveling the despicable dual loyalty charge: that Israels supporters put its interests ahead of those of the United States. (Critics of the legislation, which would make it easier for states to legislate against those who back the Boycott Israel movement, say it violates the Constitution.)

When backers of the bill, like Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., complained that the dual loyalty canard is a typical anti-Semitic line, Tlaib returned to Twitter to insist that she hadnt directed her comments at Jews.

Sen. Rubio, its clear my earlier tweet was critical of U.S. Senators like yourself, who are seeking to strip Americans of their Constitutional right to free speech, she wrote.

That may be, but she is either uninformed or being disingenuous about the history of a phrase like forgot what country they represent. As the Anti-Defamation League pointed out, Though the legislation discussed is sponsored by four non-Jewish Senators, any charge of dual loyalty has special sensitivity and resonance for Jews, particularly in an environment of rising anti-Semitism.

Suggestions that the pro-Israel camp works against American interests is a staple of pro-Palestinian activism, given a scholarly veneer by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in their 2007 book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Pro-Palestinian media also track the ways that Jews are sensitive to the dual loyalty charge, and defend the right to criticize the pro-Israel lobbys influence without being called anti-Semites.

My point being that even if she didnt aim her tweet at Jews, Tlaib should have been aware of the toxicity of her formula and avoided it. Progressives, in making their case against President Trump, will note how he traffics in dog whistlesand say that whether or not he does so on purpose is beside the point. A dog whistle is a dog whistle. If Tlaib was unaware of the dual loyalty debate, which I doubt, she should at least acknowledge the ways that words like hers have been used against Jews and, yes, Palestinians and Muslims.

The American Jewish Committee tried to make that point in a tweet, but stumbled. Sharing a photograph of Tlaib embracing a fan wrapped in a Palestinian flag, AJC wrote, Tell us more about dual loyalty, @RashidaTlaib. Not helping! The point is not that if Jewish Americans are disloyal, so are Palestinian-Americans.

The point is this: It is not dual loyalty or unpatriotic for an American to love her homeland and lobby for its people. And Tlaib, of all people, should know that.

And then there were critics of Tlaib who were completely off base, like the foreign policy pundit who shared the AJC photo and complained that Tlaib, as a candidate for Congress, covered herself in the flag of a foreign people, not the American people. Again, no. Israeli flags hang in nearly every American synagogueand I bet in not a few congressional offices. Tlaibs support for the Palestinian cause is no more un-American than American Jewish support for Israelis.

Brandeis defense of what Rosen calls the value of group differences for preserving American ideals has benefited any ethnic or religious group that advocates for its causes overseas. It has allowed Irish Americans to back independence for Ireland and Cuban Americans to lobby over U.S. policy toward the island.

It also made it safe and fully American for Rashida Tlaib to be sworn in as a United States congresswoman wearing a thobe, a Palestinian embroidered dress. Anyone who celebrated that image should also celebrate the history and legacy of American diversity that owes no small credit to Brandeis, the Jewsand yes, Zionists.

Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor in chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
Our hearts go out to the family of Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician Shannon M. Kent who was killed in the attack earlier this week in Syria. Chief Kent was stationed at Fort Meade and made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. We thank her for her service to our state and our nation, and send prayers to her loved ones in this time of grief.
(JNS)The Australian government has decided that Israels capital should be torn in half, resuming the apartheid-like status that prevailed the last time the Arabs occupied part of Jerusalem.

Would the Temple Mount be in Israels part of Jerusalem? Nope. Judaisms holiest site is Palestinian, according to the Australians.

What about the Western Wall? Not that, either. Its occupied territory.

How about the Old Citys Jewish Quarter, where Jews have lived since time immemorial? Off-limits to Jews.

The Mount of Olives, the worlds oldest Jewish cemetery? Not a chance.

What about other Jewish sacred sites in and around the Old City walls, such as Solomons Pools or the Tower of David? If Australia has its way, they will be renamed Suleimans Pools and the Tower of Daoud.

Australias decision to recognize only western Jerusalem as Israels capital is not a step in the right direction, as some pundits have claimed. Its an outrageous attempt to promote the redivision of Jerusalemto give the most Jewishly significant part of the city to the Palestinian Authority.

The Central Bus Station is not where the priests of ancient Israel led the temple service, and the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian walkway is not where countless Jews have prayed and wept throughout the centuries for the return of the Jewish people to their land. The construction of neighborhoods to the west of the Old City walls began in modern times to alleviate overcrowding within the city walls.

The Jewish people have never regarded those areas as having a religious or historical significance comparable to that of the Old City. King Davids throne was not situated in French Hill or in the food court at the Malcha Mall.

Ironically, the Palestinian Authority is denouncing the Australian decision for giving the Jews anything at all. You would think the P.A. would be delighted. After all, J Street and the State Department crowd have been telling us for years that if Jews would just hand over the parts of Jerusalem that it liberated in 1967the Temple Mount, Western Wall and the restthen the Palestinian Arabs would make peace. Just stop building settlements in the Old City, says U.S. envoy Martin Indyk.

But lo and behold, when the Australians this week proposed just that, the P.A. exploded in angry denunciations. Of course, they did because in their eyes, every inch of Jerusalemeastern or western, like every inch of Israelis occupied Palestine.

What Australia, like many other Western countries, fails to understand is that the Palestinian Arabs will never accept 50 percent of anything. They will sign temporary peace agreements that will give them pat of the territory and other advantages. But they will never sincerely or permanently accept anything less than 100 percent of the land of Israel.

Some supporters of Israel think that they have to be grateful for whatever few crumbs the world throws our way. They think the Jews will look unreasonable unless they praise that which deserves no praise.

I disagree. I say that turnabout is fair play.

Jewish and Zionist organizations should announce they recognize only western Canberra as the capital of Australia, and should launch a campaign to return the eastern part of the city to the indigenous Aborigine tribes from whom the white colonialist settlers stole it. Down with the Australian occupation! Justice for the Aborigines!

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. His book, A Fathers Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror, has just been published and is available on Amazon.
Netanyahu wants to face his accusers on TV

By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a chance to take on his accusers on live television.

Speaking Monday night, the prime minister said that during investigations into the corruption cases against him he demanded a face-to-face confrontation with states witnesses. He said he was denied several times.

Today I repeat that demand, and as far as I am concerned it should be on live television, Netanyahu said.

His statement was carried live on Israels major news programs and streamed on his Facebook page, but no reporters were invited.

Netanyahu also said that police have ignored potential witnesses that could have testified on his behalf.

There is nonstop pressure on the attorney general to indict me, he said. Maybe if I proposed a new disengagement or divided Jerusalem or abandoned our security they would leave me alone, but I will never do that.

Netanyahu scoffed at the idea that he bribed Yediot Acharonot publisher Arnon Mozes to get good coverage, saying Me? The person most hated by the media? Its absurd.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is expected to make a decision by February on whether or not to indict Netanyahu in three corruption cases. The police have recommended that the prime minister be charged in each case.

Netanyahu has said he would not step down if called to a pre-indictment hearing in order to defend himself against the charges.

Israel is holding national elections on April 9, and Netanyahu is predicted to win another term.

Michigan synagogue vandalized for second time in 2 months

By Marcy Oster

(JTA)A synagogue in Battle Creek, Michigan, was vandalized for the second time in two months.

A concrete carving of a menorah on the front of Temple Beth El was spray-painted with an unknown but deliberate symbol, and the word lier, presumably a misspelling of liar.

The vandalism was reported on Sunday morning, according to the local media.

On Nov. 23, an unknown vandal took a hammer and chisel to the concrete menorah, damaging the carving.

https://twitter.com/WWMTsPhotogRay/status/1082036715181748231

Israel strikes Hamas targets after Iron Dome intercepts rocket from Gaza

(JNS) In response to a rocket fired by terrorists into Israel early on Monday, Israeli Air Force fighter jets and helicopters struck several Hamas targets in Gaza.

The Iron Dome missile-defense system intercepted the rocket, and Israel retaliated striking at least one Hamas training site in northern Gaza.

The IDF holds Hamas responsible for all that takes place in the Gaza Strip, the army said in a statement following the incidents.

The rocket launches allegedly occurred after the IAF hit two Hamas positions in eastern Gaza after an explosive device was flown into Israel attacked to a cluster of colorful party balloons on a model drone craft. The device landed in a carrot field in Sdot Negev and was neutralized by a police bomb disposal robot.

The IDF will continue to act in defense of the citizens of Israel and against terrorism from the Strip, the army said.

Police urged residents of Israels south to maintain vigilance and to report any suspicious objects to law enforcement.

Rioters from Gaza have launched hundreds of incendiary kites and balloons into Israel over the last nine months, causing arson fires which have burned thousands of acres of farm, residential, and protected natural lands and cause millions of shekels in damaged.

John Bolton: No timeline for US withdrawal from Syria

By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA)U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said in Israel that there is no timeline for a U.S. withdrawal from Syria and that American troops will remain until the Islamic State is defeated.

Bolton met Sunday with Israeli security and intelligence officials to reassure them over the withdrawal unexpectedly announced by President Donald Trump last month, especially that the U.S. will help Israel if as expected Iranian aggression against Israel from Syria increases. Bolton reportedly disagrees with the withdrawal decision.

Trump also walked back the timetable on Sunday, telling reporters he had never said we were doing it that quickly.

We have the best Israel-U.S. relationship in our history, and on our side we are certainly determined to continue that, Bolton said during a joint appearance before reporters with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday night.

President Trump has said repeatedly that he backs Israels right to self-defense. He says it proudly and unequivocally. And I would just say to any nation in this region  or not in this region  that has any doubt about Americas support for Israels self-defense  it better think about it again.

Netanyahu called for the United States to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and said he would take Bolton on a helicopter tour of the Golan on Monday.

I think that when youre there, you will be able to understand perfectly why we will never leave the Golan Heights, Netanyahu said, and why its important that all countries recognize Israels sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

RBG misses Supreme Court arguments for first time

By Josefin Dolsten

(JTA)Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is missing arguments for the first time in her 25-year tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court in the aftermath of surgery to remove cancer from her lungs.

The Jewish jurist is working from home following the Dec. 21 operation, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Monday, according to The Associated Press.

The high court returned to hear arguments on Monday following a recess.

Ginsburg, 85, has had two other bouts of cancer. Following the surgery last month, she was declared cancer-free.

She leads the courts liberal minority and in 2018 vowed to serve another five years, past a second term for President Donald Trump if he is re-elected.

Iraqi delegations secretly visit Israel

By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA)Three delegations from Iraq have secretly visited Israel in recent months and met with Israeli officials.

The delegations, which totaled 15 people, were made up of influential Iraqis including Sunni and Shiite religious leaders, Hadashot television news first reported Sunday night.

The tours were socio-cultural, including visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and meetings with academics and organizations dealing with Iraqi Jewry, according to the report.

The visits were considered unofficial and were held in secret to avoid angering neighboring Iran.

Marco Rubio calls Rashida Tlaibs jibe on anti-BDS bill anti-Semitic

By Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA)Sen. Marco Rubio is pushing a bill that would protect states that penalize Israel boycotters, spurring a freshman congresswoman to question his loyalties.

On Monday, the Florida Republican decried the statement from Rep. Rashia Tlaib, D-Mich., as anti-Semitic.

This dual loyalty canard is a typical anti-Semitic line, Rubio said on Twitter, quoting a tweet from the previous day by Tlaib, a Palestinian American. #BDS isnt about freedom & equality, its about destroying #Israel.

BDS stands for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

Tlaib in the earlier tweet had attacked a Senate bill initiated by Rubio and Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, that incorporates four Middle East-related bills that languished in the last Congress. One of the measures protects states that pass anti-BDS bills, including those that ban work with contractors who boycott Israel, from lawsuits. Civil libertarians have decried the state laws as impinging on speech freedoms.

They forgot what country they represent, Tlaib said in her tweet. This is the U.S. where boycotting is a right & part of our historical fight for freedom & equality.

Tlaib was quoting a tweet by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that described Rubios bill as absurd at a time that the government is shut down over President Donald Trumps refusal to advance funding bills as long as they do not include the more than $5 billion he is demanding for a border wall with Mexico.

Also weighing in on Tlaibs tweet was the American Jewish Committee.

Tell us more about dual loyalty, @RashidaTlaib, AJC said in a tweet attached to a photo of the newly elected congresswoman embracing someone draped in the Palestinian flag.

Spielvogels give $2 million to US Holocaust Memorial Museum

By Marcy Oster

(JTA)Carl Spielvogel, a former U.S. ambassador to the Slovak Republic, and his wife, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, have donated $2 million to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Diamonstein-Spielvogel was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as a Museum Council member in 1987, and served as founding chair of the subcommittee that commissioned the original artwork created for the museum.

The New York couples gift will go to the museums endowment. The museum will name a gallery in its permanent exhibition that houses the artwork Consequence, by Sol LeWitt, as the Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Ambassador Carl Spielvogel Gallery.

Spielvogel was appointed ambassador under President Bill Clinton.

Amazon buying Israeli startup CloudEndure for $250 million

By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA)Amazon is buying the Israeli startup company CloudEndure for an estimated $250 million.

Through its subsidiary AWS, Amazon is the worlds biggest supplier of cloud services. CloudEndure, a cloud computing company founded six years ago, creates business software for disaster recovery, backup and live migration in the event of a system crash. It places data on multiple clouds operated by providers including Amazon.

The final deal is expected to be announced in the coming few days, the Israeli business daily Globes reported.

If Amazon added this kind of disaster-resilience service to AWS, it could help attract clients with a particular focus on security or those who were particularly spooked by high-profile ransomware attacks, CNBC reported.

CloudEndure has raised over $18 million from leading venture capital firms and strategic investors including Dell technologies Capital, VMware, Mitsui, Infosys and Magma Venture Partners. The company is based in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv.

In primetime address, Netanyahu dismissed accusations of corruption

(JNS)Billed ahead of time by his spokesperson as something dramatic, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied the series of allegations that have been leveled against him, with Israeli police recommending last month that the prime minister and his wife be indicted.

In a primetime address on Monday that ran several minutes long, Netanyahu said it would be unjust for him to be charged ahead of the April 9 elections.

He also offered to confront accusers on live television: What are they afraid of? What do they have to hide?

Netanyahu has said that he would not step down if indicted. He said on Monday that he is 4,000 percent sure that he is innocent, appearing to mock one of the probes against him, known as Case 4000.

Samsung in talks to acquire Israeli firm Corephotonics

By Hili Yacobi-Handelsman

(Israel Hayom via JNS)Electronics giant Samsung is reportedly in talks to acquire the Israeli firm Corephotonics for some $150 million.

Corephotonics, based in Ramat Hachayal, develops multi-aperture camera technologies for smartphones.

Samsung is a major investor in Israeli high-tech companies. In 2016, Samsung and its investment branch, Natures, invested $15 million in Corephotonics. Thus far, Corephotonics has raised $50 million.

Corephotonics was founded by former Chief Scientist at the Science and Technology Ministry Professor David Mendlovic, who serves as CEO; Dr. Gal Shabtay, vice president of Research and Development; and Eran Kali, vice president of licensing.

In response to a query from Israel Hayom, Mendlovic said that Samsung is an investor in our company. They have expressed interest by investing in us. There is nothing concrete [about an acquisition] at this stage. We will be happy to inform the public when we know anything.

London mosque cancels Holocaust exhibit following protest

By Shimon Yaish

(Israel Hayom via JNS)A London mosque has canceled an exhibit on the rescue of Jews by Albanian Muslims during the Holocaust.

The editor of the U.K. Muslim news site 5 Pillars, Roshan Salih, had led the calls for a boycott of the Centre for Islamic Understanding in Londons Golders Green neighborhood, according to a report in the Jewish News of London on Friday.

Citing the exhibits ties to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, Salih said, Commemorations must never be done in conjunction with Israeli oppressors or their supporters.

In a statement announcing the cancellation of the event, the mosque said: The aim of the program was to show Muslims in a good light by telling the story of Muslim Albanians who saved Jews in World War II.

It said mosque officials did not know of the international connections some organizations had or of the political affiliations... Once that was made clear the event was canceled.

Salih welcomed the events cancellation, saying the mosque is to be commended for responding to community concerns.

Karen Pollock, who heads the London-based Holocaust Educational Trust, said it was a great shame the event had been canceled.

What would have been a positive initiative to highlight the role of Albanian Muslims who saved up to 1,800 Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust has been canceled due to a targeted campaign against this mosque and its members, she said.

IDF captures Arab terrorist who killed two Israeli soldiers

(JNS)Asem Barghouti, the Palestinian Authority Arab accused of killing two Israeli soldiers and injuring two others at the Givat Asaf community north of Jerusalem on Dec. 13, was captured by Israel Defense Forces near Ramallah after a nearly four-week manhunt.

Pulling up to a bus stop outside the Jewish community near Beit El in southern Samaria, Barghouti shot and killed IDF soldiers Cpl. Yosef Cohen and Sgt. Yuval Mor Yosef, seriously injured IDF soldier Netanel Felber and wounded a civilian woman before fleeing the scene.

Barghouti is believed to have taken part in another shooting four days earlier with his brother, Salih. Seven Israelis were injured in the attack at the Ofra bus stop just minutes from Givat Asaf, including a seven-month pregnant woman, Shira Ish-Ran, whose baby was delivered by emergency Caesarean section but passed away just three days later.

Salih was shot and killed by IDF forces on Dec. 12 while trying to evade arrest.

Asem Barghouti was found with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, multiple full ammunition magazines and night-vision equipment. He was transferred to the custody of the Shin Bet for questioning.

The arrest by the Israel Security Agency and soldiers from the Yamam Brigade was the culmination of an intelligence and operational effort which began immediately after the attack, during which the Shin Bet and IDF used intelligence, operational and technological means to locate the terrorist, the Shin Bet said in the statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the Shin Bet, IDF and Yamam forces for their successful operation, adding that the long hand of Israel will reach all those who harm our citizens, and the State of Israel will bring them to justice.

Former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman lamented that because the death penalty has not been implemented in Israel, the terrorist will remain alive.

He should not have been caught alive. He has no right to be caught alive, the mother of Yuval Mor Yosef, Ilanit, told Israel Army Radio on Tuesday morning.

The news is not consoling; he was already in prison and released, so what is the point? she said. The result is that he is alive, and we are dead, she added. He murdered, and he sits alive. In what normal country does this happen?

She called on the government to destroy Barghoutis house.
Students from a World ORT Kadima Mada Youth Village in Israel scored a historic "first" after their peace-making efforts were acknowledged at a major international forum.

A short film, "Peace for Israel," made by teenagers from the Kfar Silver Youth Village, was screened at a UNESCO conference in Paris last month. The 90-second video on the use of drones and robots for peace, which was created by the students at the height of the conflict on the Gaza border in 2018, was selected as one of 10 winning entries in a competition to mark the UN's "International Day of Peace." The production was chosen from more than 100 entries from around the world.

Scores of fire kites and Molotov cocktail kites have been launched into Israel from Gaza, destroying tens of thousands of acres of agricultural crops, since the spring. The Kfar Silver Youth Village is set in hundreds of acres of agricultural land on the outskirts of Ashkelon, less than nine miles from the Gaza border. In November, the village was evacuated after the region came under heavy rocket fire.

Avi Ganon, World ORT director general and CEO, said, "ORT has been a member of UNESCO's NGO Liaison Committee for more than a decade and this recognition is hugely welcome for our organization and our students." He observed, "ORT's dynamic STEM curriculum is giving thousands of students a head start to transform their lives using 21st century skills, with drone technology classes proving particularly popular. To receive international appreciation of this work makes a real difference to our students."

Henri Levy, World ORT representative to UNESCO, said: "The fact that a piece of work done by Jewish children in Israel, appealing for peace in the face of Palestinian violence, was chosen to be shown by a UN organization, is historic. It is something that ORT, and especially Kfar Silver students, should be very proud of."

Shimon Solomon, Kfar Silver principal, explained, "The video put together by our students reflects the educational values and messages that they receive at school and at home. The children's courage to travel to the Gaza border when incendiary balloons were being launched on a daily basis demonstrates the yearning for peace in our region. I see great importance and pride in our students who chose to send a clear message of peace."

Kadima Mada's "Flying Drones and Aviation" course is one of the school's most popular offerings. It teaches students to design, build and fly the unmanned aerial devices.

The video can be viewed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrbttaCXot8&feature=youtu.be.
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Sen. Bernie Sanders said it was "absurd" for Republicans to introduce as the Senate's first bill of this Congress a measure that would protect states that penalize Israel boycotters.

"It's absurd that the first bill during the shutdown is legislation which punishes Americans who exercise their constitutional right to engage in political activity," Sanders, I-Vt., said Sunday on Twitter, linking to an article in The Intercept about the legislation.

President Donald Trump says he will not sign any funding legislation that does not include over $5 billion for a wall with Mexico, triggering a government shutdown entering its third week.

"Democrats must block consideration of any bills that don't reopen the government," Sanders said. "Let's get our priorities right."

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and James Risch, R-Idaho, last week introduced the first bill to be considered in the Republican-led Senate, consolidating four measures that languished in the last Congress. One codifies into law $38 billion in defense assistance for Israel over 10 years; another protects states that pass laws targeting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, including states that ban contracts with Israel boycotters. Civil libertarians have decried the laws as infringing on free speech.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., a Palestinian American newly elected to Congress, quoted Sanders' tweet and appeared to allege that the senators backing the bill were more loyal to Israel.

"They forgot what country they represent," she said. "This is the U.S. where boycotting is a right & part of our historical fight for freedom & equality."

The bill's other two provisions strengthen the U.S.-Jordan relationship and enhance sanctions against Syria's Assad regime.

Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, mounted a surprisingly strong challenge in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries against Hillary Clinton, becoming the first Jewish candidate to win major-party nominating contests. He has hinted he may run again in 2020. Sanders has emerged as the leader of progressives in the Senate.

The first bill to be considered in the U.S. House of Representatives, newly led by Democrats, tackles political corruption and voting rights.
Temple Israel recently signed a 9.5-year contract extension with Rabbi Joshua Neely. This is the synagogue's third contract with Rabbi Neely, who has been the spiritual leader of this progressive Conservative congregation since 2010. Temple Israel President Adrian Share explained "the length of the contract is the strongest testament to our commitment to each other and the long-term stability this provides to our congregation and prospective members."

Congregants enjoy engaging with Rabbi Neely, as well as his family-wife Penelope, children Hannah and Nathaniel, and mother Charlene-at Shabbat services, holidays, the MAGAL Religious School, and various educational and social events. Penelope has led a popular monthly Tot Shabbat program on Saturday mornings as well as L'dor v'dor events on Sundays after religious school. She is also the congregation's Facebook page manager, Junior Congregation coordinator, proofreader, frequent Shabbat greeter, and provider of snacks. Hannah has served as a religious school madricha (teacher's aide), regular Shabbat service leader, assistant for Tot Shabbat and L'dor v'dor, and is a TIUSY board member. Nathaniel is a MAGAL student and helps set up for Shabbat and holidays. Charlene is an active Sisterhood member and synagogue office volunteer and will be leading an adult education program in the spring.

"Many outside Judaism are surprised to learn that rabbis and congregations get to choose each other; there is no central organization which forces us together," explained Rabbi Neely. "This means synagogues and rabbis have to be the right fit for each other. From my first interview, I knew Temple Israel would be a great community to be a part of, and I look forward to being part of its long history for many years to come."

Rabbi Neely was born and raised in San Diego, California, and was ordained in 2006 after studying at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles. He then served as the second rabbi at Beth Israel in Baltimore for four years before calling Temple Israel home in 2010.

"We are proud to look up to Rabbi Neely as our spiritual leader," added Share. "He captivates us with his weekly sermons that draw on our deep history and tradition, and he ties these so well to today's world events. His empathy for others, not only in our community but across the world in times of need, keeps us grounded. He is a great teacher for our youth and was integral in the formation of our collaborative school (with reform synagogue Temple Shir Shalom), the Meitin Alliance for Growth and Learning (MAGAL). Finally, he is central to our mission of inclusiveness and welcoming to all Jews and those interested in converting."

In addition to being the spiritual and pastoral leader of the congregation, Rabbi Neely also co-directs the MAGAL Religious School and teaches "Judaism in a Nutshell," Lunch & Learns, Mishna, conversion classes, and all the b'nai mitzvah students. Despite his busy schedule, he always makes time to talk personally with congregants and offer a friendly smile. That is just one of the reasons he fits in so naturally with Temple Israel's warm and welcoming congregational family.

"When I dreamed of becoming a rabbi, I knew I wanted to be in a welcoming family of all ages and with all types of people who had come together through the power of our faith and heritage. Temple Israel has shown me that dreams can come true," said Rabbi Neely.

Temple Israel is a Progressive Conservative Temple located in Winter Springs and has been serving Central Florida since 1954. For more information, visit tiflorida.org.
(JNS)-It shouldn't take 10 years to get permission to build a synagogue, but it did in Clifton, N.J. Finally, after a mediation overseen by the state's former attorney general, a community in Clifton will be able to worship in peace, in a new building. Synagogue leadership stated repeatedly that they were being illegally discriminated against through an array of arbitrary zoning-code interpretations (which judges ruled as incorrect), arbitrary planning-board requirements and excessive public appearances. They were also required to spend seemingly endless amounts, hiring outside engineers for consultations demanded by the city.

One of Shomrei Torah's attorneys, Yehudah Buchweitz, of the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, perhaps described it best. "Shomrei Torah had been commanded to appear before the Planning Board 25 times between March 2013 and October 2015, and before the zoning board seven times between November 2008 and January 2013. They had to appear in state court four times." Buchweitz also contended that the city was more amenable to other houses of worship, such as churches, which have faced far fewer hurdles.

"It was a long, lonely battle, but at the end of the day, this law, the RLUIPA [Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act], developed by Sen. Orrin Hatch, was created to protect religious liberties," said David "Duvy" Gross, president of Congregation Shomrei Torah/Tiferes Boruch in Clifton. With Weil Gotshal representing the synagogue, a mediation resulted in a settlement of $2.5 million in its favor. Additionally, Clifton agreed to furnish the roadway in front of the building with sidewalks, a request that had been made for nearly a decade after the death of a community resident on Shabbat.

Land-use provisions of RLUIPA, a federal law established in 2000, protect individuals, houses of worship and other religious institutions from discrimination in zoning and landmarking laws. The monetary portion of the settlement is believed to be one of the largest-ever recoveries nationwide under RLUIPA.

The background

Shomrei Torah contracted to buy the property approximately 11 years ago, expecting a relatively simple process, though they planned to build a large structure to welcome its membership. The architectural plans and documents worked to support and be in compliance of the property's zoning status. No variances were required for additional zoning. "We had enough parking, we had enough setbacks, height requirements-everything was done according to the current zoning," said Gross.

The Clifton neighborhood now welcomes around 400 families, with 600 children who go to school at the local Passaic yeshivah. Rabbi Schachne Weinberger leads Shomrei Torah, which now comprises approximately 100 people attending Shabbat services. In addition to the shul's recent name change to Tiferes Boruch, to honor the memory of Gross's father, the shul is also referred to in Passaic and beyond as "Rabbi Weinberger's Shul." The Clifton property neighbors the city of Passaic, known for its vibrant Jewish community, and the shul initially met in a house.

When it became clear that the property would take longer to build than initially estimated, they moved into the basement of the Yeshiva Ketana, a large, local Passaic elementary school, and later, into a warehouse they renovated across the street from the school. Clifton, by then, had started to grow, and more Jewish families moved there from within Passaic and outside the area. "This shul will really anchor this location. Importantly, there's only one mikvah in town, and so this was going to include a Friday-night mikvah," so women will not have to walk more than a mile on a Friday night or Jewish holiday, explained Gross.

But still, no construction. After almost a decade of planning and zoning delays created by Clifton zoning-board commissioners, planning-board members and citizens, Gross began to realize that the issues the council found with the synagogue's plans would never go away. "It was like if my son told me he couldn't do his homework because he didn't have a pencil. I'd get him 12 pencils and wait for the next excuse," he said.

Examples of the delays created by Clifton's council and boards included arbitrary directives that the water pressure on the property had to be at 800 gallons per minute or 20 pounds of pressure per minute in order to effectively fight a fire; otherwise, "they said if there was a fire in the building, all the houses in the neighborhood could burn down," said Gross.

After three years, the fire department changed the initial water-pressure requirement to 3,500 gallons per minute.

When the synagogue had reports issued from its own engineer and another outside engineer hired by the city-all agreeing that the property had met every requirement, and that the street had the most water pressure of any street in the city, more than any building in the area-it still wasn't enough. Agreeing, despite advice that they didn't need it, to have the entire synagogue fully outfitted with sprinklers wasn't enough either. "They made us establish a fire road. This added expense; we had to redo our design, change the handicapped parking spots to be further away from the entrance," said Gross.

Another example he gave was that the Friday-night mikvah that the synagogue planned to build was considered by the town to be a "business." How did the city planner determine it was a business? "He looked in the Yellow Pages and found a listing for a Chabad mikvah. Therefore, a mikvah is a business," said Gross. A mikvah, used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism, generally only collects funds for its upkeep, when necessary. There are no known "for-profit" mikvahs.

Yet another headache Gross described involved the 32 allotted parking spaces. The size of any religious institution's sanctuary, or primary meeting place, determines the size the building, and the number of parking spaces is calculated from that. "The city ordinance states that you don't count all the uses of a house of worship at the same time," he said.

"There was the requirement that you have one parking spot for every four seats in the sanctuary, but we had tables and chairs," described Gross. "Both the zoning and planning commissioners said 'because it's not fixed seating, we're changing your parking requirements, therefore you need 140 parking spaces instead of 32.' It didn't make sense. A local mosque has virtually no parking lot at all, and the cars spill into the neighborhood, blocking driveways and fire hydrants for blocks around, at certain prayer times. Their parking space allotment is legal, apparently, because there are no chairs in the mosque; they sit on the floor, they explained.

"They also said for every nine parking spaces, there must be one landscaped island. We researched 20 different large developments in town, and none of them had this arbitrary restriction. We saw developments with 50 parking spaces without any islands.

"They were warned about this by their own planning-board attorney on the record, Bob Ferraro. They can't do what they want to do. They have to follow the ordinances of the city," said Gross.

At their final meeting, the council reduced the size of the building the congregation could build, from a 14,000 square foot property to 7,000 ... totally arbitrary and capricious," said Gross. "This led to a consent judgement where we retained the right to sue under RLUIPA."

Bringing in the experts

One of Gross's longtime advisers throughout this process, Bruce Shoulson, a retired partner at the law firm Lowenstein Sandler, decided to ask Weil, Gotshal & Manges for advice on the situation. Weil, a global law firm, is known in the Jewish community for defending the constitutionality of eruvs, and has successfully fought, pro bono, virtually every federal eruv case in America starting around 2000, establishing and re-establishing the legality and First Amendment protections of individual eruvs nationwide. In each case they have brought, there was also a RLUIPA claim because the public-utility poles that are usually used for eruv lechis must adhere to RLUIPA guidelines.

Weil partner Yehudah Buchweitz and Weil counsel David Yolkut have been involved as pro bono consultants with Shomrei Torah since early 2016. Once Weil decided to take action, the Weil team was led by Buchweitz, Yolkut and Pro Bono Senior Counsel Robert Sugarman. It also included associates Alyson Warhit, Kaela Dahan, Michael Nagelberg, Aaron Curtis and Benjamin Ritholtz.

"The goal posts were changed repeatedly for the congregation. There were times when the congregation met with the planning board or the zoning board and were made to believe they had managed to comply with their obligation, and then at the last minute, oftentimes at the public hearing, everything was changed, and they were not able to comply and had to go to another proceeding and get another expert to prepare another report, and go to court again," said Buchweitz. "It took 10 years of going to one board, to another board and another court, getting experts, lawyers, engineers, water folks, preparing reports, spending money on things. There were other construction projects in Clifton during this 10-year period that were not required to do this," he said.

"It was very inappropriate, and in our view, it was discriminatory," said Buchweitz.

The city lost a case to the synagogue in 2015, but after the synagogue was still unable to move forward with any real plans, Buchweitz wrote a letter to the city in March of 2018, detailing Clifton's violation of the RLUIPA laws.

After this letter was sent, both Clifton and Shomrei Torah hired the same mediator, former New Jersey Attorney General Chris Porrino, with the understanding that if the two sides did not reach a settlement, Weil would sue in federal court. The settlement meeting was held on Dec. 20, 2018, with Clifton agreeing to pay the synagogue $2.5 million and agreeing to install sidewalks on the neighborhood roadway around the property in places where unsafe walking conditions have been cited by residents for more than a decade. The sidewalks must be completed by Sept. 1, 2020. A final condition of the settlement was that the specifics of the case be made public after the settlement's approval, which took place on Jan. 3, 2019.

While a welcome relief, the conclusion of the proceedings was most appreciated for the fact that the congregation can now finally start construction. "The settlement just compensated us for our damages. We are not building a shul on the city's dime," said Gross. "We just want this to be over because we want to move forward and have our building," he said, noting that taking the case to federal court likely would have yielded a significantly larger monetary reward.

"I hope this will deliver a clear message for any other municipality that is trying to abuse its land powers to prevent religious worship. This was not logical. This was why there was a $2.5 million settlement," said Buchweitz.

"We were in shock. It was a textbook RLUIPA violation. A religious applicant has to be treated on equal terms with others, such as a data center or a church. The disparate treatment that came out in our review of the file really spoke for itself," said Yolkut, from the Weil team.

"Another problem that they have, which frankly I have seen in other municipalities in both synagogue cases and in eruv cases, is the board didn't remember that their job is to do the right thing on behalf of the entire community, as opposed to a vocal minority of individuals who had bias and hatred," said Buchweitz. "We've seen local officials in many, many towns listen to the squeaky wheel and listen to the people who have hate, and what they should have done is say, 'No, we're not going to listen to you. We're going to do the right thing.' "

"Part of their job as a public official is stand up against bias and hatred," said Buchweitz.

The synagogue plans to dedicate a Sefer Torah this upcoming Shavuot in honor of Shoulson and the Weil Gotshal pro bono attorneys," said Gross, who "have worked on behalf of their community and communities nationwide."
(JNS)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton on Sunday for the United States to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

The prime minister raised the issue with U.S. President Donald Trump and did so on again with Bolton, who is in Israel as part of a trip that also includes visiting Turkey on Monday.

When youre there, youll be able to understand perfectly why well never leave the Golan Heights and why its important that all countries recognize Israels sovereignty over the Golan Heights, said Netanyahu at a joint press conference with Bolton.

Netanyahu hoped to show Bolton the Golan Heights, but the trip was scrapped due to weather conditions, according to the prime ministers office.

Although the United States does not recognize Israeli control over the Golan Heights, it voted for the first time in November against an annual U.N. resolution condemning the Israeli position, hinting at a possible shift in U.S. policy.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) expressed support for American recognition of Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights, especially with geopolitical concerns north of Israel.

Israels northern border has become increasingly dangerous in recent weeks with the discovery of Hezbollahs terror tunnels and Bashar al Assads continued efforts to consolidate control of Syria with the assistance of Iranian shock troops, said Cruz and Cotton. Responding to the threat posed by Iran and its proxies requires ensuring that Israel can defend its territory and its citizens from attacks.

The senators introduced a resolution last month, calling for the U.S. recognition.

In words and deeds

In the Sunday press conference, Netanyahu praised the Trump administration for its support of Israel.

Your visit has given us an opportunity to do two things, Netanyahu said to Bolton. First, it has given us an opportunity to thank the Trump administration for their extraordinary support. Secondly, the president decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital and moved the embassy to Jerusalema historic decision which we welcome.

Third, youve unequivocally backed Israel at the United Nations, which is deeply appreciated by Israelis around the world, he added. You have backed both in words and deeds Israels right to defend itself.

Bolton echoed America.s strong alliance with Israel, saying that the Trump administration has exemplified the best U.S.-Israel relationship in our history.

Weve got the continuing threat of Irans quest for deliverable nuclear deal, and despite getting out of the Iranian nuclear deal and despite the sanctions, we have little doubt that Iran is strategically committed to achieving deliverable nuclear weapons, United States and Israel are strategically committed to making sure that doesnt happen, he said.

He assured Netanyahu that amid the announced U.S. withdrawal of troops from Syria, the administration will make sure [the Islamic State] is defeated and  make sure the defense of Israel and our other friends in the regions is assured.

Trump backs Israels right to self-defense; he says it publicly and unequivocally, said Bolton. Any nation  that has any doubt about American support for Israels self defense it better think about it again.
(JTA)Jewish federal employees who are struggling with expenses due to the government shutdown can now find some relief.

The Hebrew Free Loan Association of Greater Washington approved an emergency program last week to provide loans of up to $2,000 per household to affected Jews living in the Washington, D.C., area.

Several people have applied and two have been approved, the organizations president, David Farber, told JTA on Wednesday. The association has allocated some $30,000 to the program, and its reaching out to local synagogues and Jewish organizations to help in case the demand extends beyond that threshold.

Some 800,000 federal employees are not being paid due to the government shutdown that started on Dec. 22 after President Donald Trump and the Democrats failed to reach a deal on whether to fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In an effort to aid the struggling workers, the organization has expedited the approval process and relaxed some of its requirements for those seeking loans. Workers will have to pay back the loans when the shutdown ends; they are expected to receive their back pay.

There are many federal employees both in the Greater Washington area and across the country who are not making that much money and unfortunately live paycheck to paycheck, Farber said. For those people in our Jewish community, they will be very much affected by this shutdown as it continues on and their cash flow may be seriously disrupted.

Farber said his organization was happy to step up and respond to what we see as an emerging need and hopefully one that will end soon to fill the gap.

Founded in 1909, the Hebrew Free Loan Association of Greater Washington provides interest-free loans to members of the Jewish community to help with needs such as medical and emergency bills, credit card debts and student loans.

Hebrew Free Loan organizations in San Francisco and Austin, Texas, also are providing loans to those affected by the shutdown, the Forward and J. Weekly reported.
(JNS)-This time six years ago, Israel completed its high-tech border fence with Egypt, marking the start of a transformation in the situation along this restive frontier.

With its network radars and cameras, the obstacle-dubbed "Hourglass" by the Israeli Defense Ministry-issues alerts to Israel Defense Forces units regarding suspicious movements.

The barrier has almost completely stopped the mass movement of illegal migration from Africa, Dr. Ofer Israeli, a geostrategist and international security policy expert told JNS on Thursday.

Israeli, who lectures at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, said the quantity of human trafficking "is almost zero now."

In addition, the fence has significantly boosted Israel's ability to defend itself against Salafi-jihadist terror organizations that are active in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, he added.

"The obstacle separates two entities: Israel and Egypt. Today, inside Egypt, there are groups that view Israel as a target for attack. Here, too, the fence has managed to decrease friction both because of the physical obstacle, which is difficult to overcome, and because of the sensors installed on it," said Israeli.

The setting up of dedicated IDF units whose goal is to patrol the fence and prevent cross-border infiltrations into Israel, is a major part of the barrier's success, he stated. A positive side effect has also been the decrease in cross-border narcotics-smuggling, according to Israeli. "The quantity of drugs coming has significantly dropped," he said.

Professor Hillel Frisch, a political scientist from Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, and an expert in Middle Eastern affairs, said part of the barrier's effectiveness comes from Egyptian-Israeli security cooperation.

"There is likely a lot of Egyptian support for curtailing this immigration because it's their problem as well," said Frisch. "It's also effective because it's very sparse country, and there are no major population centers along either side of the border."

Frisch added that "the fact that there are no population centers nearby allows the barrier to be militarized."

The model of advanced border barriers is spreading. In May last year, Israel announced that it completed the construction of a 34-kilometer border fence between southern Israel and Jordan. The unusually tall structure towers to a height of 26 meters, and is designed, among other things, to protect civilian aircraft landing at the newly built Ramon International Airport at Timna against the threat of Kornet missile attacks.

"The fence along Jordan works because there's cooperation between the two sides. That is a very important variable," said Frisch.

According to Israeli, "in general, the State of Israel has adopted the model of border barriers. We are seeing similar fences expanding to other areas, including on the Lebanese border," he added.

'Defend against hostile elements'

The primary goal of barriers on dangerous borders like Lebanon and Gaza is "not to stop civilians, refugees or illegal migrants, but to defend against hostile elements on the other side," said Israeli. On the other hand, such obstacles have led Israel's enemies to come up with creative ways to overcome them, such as the combat tunnels dug by both Hamas and Hezbollah.

"We saw that on the Gazan border, Israel responded by developing an underground barrier that goes down to a depth of tens of meters, to deal with the tunnel threat," noted Israeli. "But Hamas is trying to overcome the barrier with rockets. If we look at the north, we see that there, too, Hezbollah is working to get over the barrier with tens of thousands of projectiles. This is the negative aspect-the other side always looks for a way around the fence," he said.

Around the world, border barriers seem to be in vogue. Hungary built one on its borders with Serbia and Croatia in 2015 to deal with an influx of migrants. Turkey is barricading its troubled border with Syria with a wall and fence. And Saudi Arabia is building a massive 1,600-kilometer fence on its border with Yemen.

Meanwhile, in the United States, President Trump has controversially cited the Israeli-Egyptian barrier as a model for the wall he wishes to build on the Mexican border-an issue that has led to a political feud with the Democrats, leading to an ongoing government shutdown.

"The U.S. and Mexico are not hostile entities," said Israeli. "There is a wish to prevent human trafficking from Mexico, where Latin American migrants, as well as migrants from other countries, pour into. If they set up a significant obstacle that is high-quality with sensors, it will be extremely costly because the border is over 3,000 kilometers long."

The great distances between the stations that monitor the barrier would mean that it would not be fool-proof in stopping the migration flow, explained Israeli. "The question is whether the U.S. is willing to invest this huge sum."

Frisch agreed that such a barrier on the U.S.-Mexican border would be far from being hermetic. "The migrants that would reach it are the most entrepreneurial kind of people," he said. "The people who manage to cross it will be the best and the brightest."
Kim Hicks, a 32-year-old Annapolis resident, was sentenced to five years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to one federal drug charge of distributing more than 550 grams of cocaine. Hicks admitted in a plea agreement he was found with a bag with at least three kilograms of cocaine and, in a search of his home, another 550 grams in his master bedroom.
(JNS)After 18 months of secret research with the help of an international accountancy firm, Israel is preparing to officially demand compensation for assets abandoned by Jews who were forced to flee eight Arab countries after the establishment of the Jewish nation, to the tune of $250 billion.

According to a report on Israels Hadashot TV news, the demands are being finalized for the first two of eight countries. Israel is preparing to sue Tunisia for $35 billion in lost assets and Libya for $15 billion.

In total, Israel will demand $250 billion from Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Iran.

Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) has estimated that approximately 856,000 Jews fled from 10 Arab countries (including Algeria and Lebanon) as violent riots swept the region following the establishment of the State of Israel.

The time has come to correct the historic injustice of the pogroms against Jews in seven Arab countries and Iran, and to restore to hundreds of thousands of Jews who lost their property what is rightfully theirs, said Israeli Minister for Social Equality Gila Gamliel, who is coordinating the compensation suits.

The compensation initiative is taking place as the U.S. administration plans to unveil an Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal. A 2010 Israeli law states that any peace deal must also include compensation for Jewish-owned assets that were stolen or abandoned by Jews who were forced to flee from their homes in Arab countries and Iran.

According to the report, if Israel succeeds in obtaining the reparations, they will be distributed by the state via a special fund.
(JNS)-A medical resident fired from the Cleveland Clinic last year posted on Twitter that supporters of Israel should have their immune cells killed.

"Studying for my med micro final, came across this. Clearly, I pay attention in class and write very useful notes," tweeted Lara Kollab in 2013.

The Twitter post included a handwritten note: "People who support Israel should have their immune cells killed so they can see how it feels to not be able to defend yourself from foreign invaders."

Kollab was relieved of her duties for making such anti-Semitic posts. Last week, she apologized for her remarks.

"As a girl in my teens and early twenties, I had difficulty constructively expressing my intense feelings about what I witnessed in my ancestral land," she said in a blog post. "Like many young people lacking life experience, I expressed myself by making insensitive remarks and statements of passion devoid of thought, not realizing the harm and offense these words would cause."

"These posts were made years before I was accepted into medical school, when I was a naive, and impressionable girl barely out of high school," she continued. "I matured into a young adult during the years I attended college and medical school, and adopted strong values of inclusion, tolerance and humanity."

"I have learned from this experience and am sorry for the pain I have caused. I pray that the Jewish community will understand and forgive me," she added. "I hope to make amends so that we can move forward and work together towards a better future for us all."

According to state records, Kollab's medical license, which was issued by Ohio in July 2018, is still active and expires in June 2021. The Zionist Organization of America and the American Center for Law & Justice have called for it to be revoked.
This February, Chabad Centers throughout Orlando will offer Crime and Consequence, a new six-session course by the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) exploring 3000 years of Jewish perspective on conviction, sentencing, and criminal rehabilitation.

Beginning the first week of February, participants in the course will challenge their thinking, ponder the implications of ancient Talmudic wisdom for complex modern cases, and get to the heart of the most pressing injustices facing our criminal justice system today.

DNA testing is proving that weve been convicting innocent people. When we incarcerate first-time offenders, were turning them into hardened criminals. Known murderers are able to walk free on a technicality. How can we stand by and remain silent to these serious flaws in our criminal justice system? Rabbi Mendy Bronstein of Chabad of Altamonte Springs, told The Heritage. I believe the first step is for us, as a community, to acknowledge the issues and explore possible solutions. And can you think of a better place to look for guidance than Judaisms wisdom of the ages?

Participants in the course will ponder foundational questions: What is the goal of criminal punishmentto gain retribution for the victim, to keep criminals off the streets and safeguard from future crime, to set an example and instill the fear of law, or to rehabilitate the criminal and reintroduce him to society? Should we consider testimonies given in exchange for a reduced sentence as reliable evidence?

The course also boldly addresses societys most serious sentencing questions: Is life-without-parole a justifiable penalty? May we sentence a person to death? When would these options be warranted? Is there a better way?

Crime and Consequence is for people who care deeply about humanity, who are enraged at injustice, and who are fascinated by real-life catch-22 scenarios, remarked Rabbi Sholom Dubov of Chabad of Greater Orlando. Participants in the course will uncover the humanity within all peopleincluding criminals, question judicial practices that seem unethical and unfair, and explore effective crime deterrents.

It is a profound irony that the United States is a true beacon of democracy, freedom, and the rule of law while it imprisons more of its own citizenry than any other country, wrote Professor Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, in his endorsement of the course. Crime and Consequence... brings rigorous legal analysis, statistical data on incarceration and rehabilitation, and case studies into a uniquely profound dialogue with the values undergirding our entire political tradition.

The course will begin on either Tuesday or Wednesday, Feb. 5 or 6 and be held in the evening (see Chabad locations below for start dates). New for this course, the Longwood location will be offering a daytime class from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. on Wednesdays in addition to their Tuesday night option.

Over the years, weve gotten many requests from stay at home parents, retirees and those that are self employed requesting that we offer a day time class. We are glad to finally be able to offer this option to accommodate everyones schedules, said Rabbi Yanky Majesky.

Interested students may visit http://www.myJLI.com for registration and for other course-related information. The course will be offered at these Chabad locations:

Longwood: Tuesday, Feb. 5, 7:30 p.m.- 9 p.m. and Wednesday, Feb. 6, 11 a.m. at Nates Shul, 1701 Markharm Woods Rd. 407-636-5994.

Altamonte Springs: Tuesday, Feb. 5, 7:30 p.m.-9 p.m. at Chabad of Altamonte Springs, 414 Spring Valley Lane. 407-280-0535.

Maitland: Wednesday, Feb. 6, 7:30 p.m.-9 p.m. at Chabad of Orlando, 708 Lake Howell Rd. 407-644-2500.

Orlando: Tuesday, Feb. 5, 7 p.m.-8:30 p.m. at Chabad  Center of Jewish Life, 7347 W. Sand Lake Rd. 407-354-3660.

Crime and Consequence is accredited in Florida for attorneys and other law professionals to earn continuing education credits. Like all JLI programs, this course is designed for people at all levels of knowledge, including those without any prior experience or background in Jewish learning. All JLI courses are open to the public, and attendees need not be affiliated with a particular synagogue, temple, or other house of worship.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers a speech on the Trump administration's Mideast policies at the American University in Cairo on Jan. 10, 2019.

(JNS)-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the Obama administration's Mideast policies, which were outlined in a similar venue almost a decade ago, and touted their reversal under U.S. President Donald Trump, saying that "America is a force for good in the Middle East."

Without mentioning former President Barack Obama by name, he said at the American University in Cairo: "It was here, in this city, another American stood before you. He told you that radical Islamist terrorism does not stem from ideology.

"He told you that 9/11 led my country to abandon its ideals, particularly in the Middle East," he continued. "He told you that the United States and the Muslim world needed 'a new beginning.' "

Pompeo said that as a result of Obama's mindset, U.S. policies created a "dire" situation that allowed for the rise of the Islamic State and for Iran to spread its influence to countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, including proxies such as Hezbollah and the Houthis. He said that this realignment threatened America's ally, Israel.

"Our penchant-America's penchant-for wishful thinking led us to look the other way as Hezbollah, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian regime, accumulated a massive arsenal of approximately 130,000 rockets and missiles," he said. "They stored and positioned these weapons in Lebanese towns and villages in flagrant violation of international law. That arsenal is aimed squarely at our ally Israel."

He also accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of genocide towards his own people, similar to what Saddam Hussein did to his people, including the Kurds, in Iraq during his own rule.

"Our eagerness to address only Muslims and not nations ignored the rich diversity of the Middle East and frayed old bonds. It undermined the concept of the nation-state, the building block of international stability," continued Pompeo. "And our desire for peace at any cost led us to strike a deal with Iran, our common enemy."

"So today, what did we learn from all of this? We learned that when America retreats, chaos often follows," he said. "When we neglect our friends, resentment builds. And when we partner with enemies, they advance."

"The age of self-inflicted American shame is over, and so are the policies that produced so much needless suffering," he said.

'This isn't a change of mission'

The top U.S. diplomat proceeded to highlight the Trump administration's accomplishments in the region in that "we've learned from our mistakes. We've rediscovered our voice. We've rebuilt our relationships. We've rejected false overtures from our enemies."

Pompeo cited examples such as the U.S. launching missile strikes in response to Assad chemically gassing his own people in 2017 and 2018; the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal; and the reimposition of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. And that "99 percent of the territory ISIS once held is liberated," he said.

"The Trump administration has moved quickly to rebuild links amongst our old friends and nurture new partnerships," added Pompeo.

Moreover, announcing future plans, he said that "America will not retreat until the terror fight is over."

"We will labor tirelessly alongside you to defeat ISIS, Al Qaeda and other jihadists that threaten our security and yours," he said. "President Trump has made the decision to bring our troops home from Syria. We always do and now is the time, but this isn't a change of mission" in eradicating ISIS and other Islamic terrorism.

Pompeo reiterated that the United States will continue airstrikes against ISIS and support regional forces, such as Israel, to stop Iran in Syria and other places.

Finally, Pompeo said that the Trump administration "will also continue to press for a real and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians," and touted its accomplishments there such as relocating the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the latter as the Jewish state's capital.

"It's never easy to recognize truth," said the secretary of state. "But when we see it, we must speak it. America has been criticized for doing too much in the Middle East, and we've been criticized for doing too little. But one thing we've never been is an empire-builder or an oppressor."

The speech was part of a weeklong visit to the Middle East by Pompeo.
Super Bowl Sunday is Feb. 3rd this year, just weeks away. That means the annual World Wide Wrap sponsored by the Mens Club of Congregation Ohev Shalom is just around the corner.

Each year, Mens Clubs from Conservative and Masorti synagogues throughout the United States and beyond present this Federation of Jewish Mens Clubs program to encourage greater participation in the ancient and deeply meaningful ritual of wrapping tfilin. This years event is being sponsored in partnership with Womens League for Conservative Judaism.

Congregation Ohev Shalom Mens Club invites the community to its showing of the film The Ties That Bind, which will talk about tfillin and its meaning and significance. After the film COS Cantor Robuck will perform the Wrap Rap followed by brunch and a discussion of the film and tfillin.

The program will be held at Congregation Ohev Shalom, 613 Maitland Concourse Parkway South in Maitland, starting at 9 a.m. sharp on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 3, 2019. Admission is free, but donations at the door are welcome and appreciated.
(JNS)-Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) called on the U.S. Department of Justice to end funding for the Nation of Islam.

The Washington Examiner first reported this development and the funding of "at least $364,500 in contracts and awards" from the DOJ and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons between fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2019.

"The fact that hard-earned American tax dollars are being funded to this extremist group is not only unacceptable, it's downright immoral," the congressman wrote in a letter on Monday to Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.

"As you may know, the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have designated the Nation of Islam as a hate group for its racist and anti-Semitic beliefs," he continued. "Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has used hateful rhetoric pronouncing that 'Hitler was a very great man' and routinely denounces Jews and white people as 'evil.' "

The funding was allocated towards "Nation of Islam religious services," "Nation of Islam spiritual guide services," "Nation of Islam study services" and other programming administered by the group's leaders, according to Bureau of Prisons records.

"The federal government should not use taxpayer dollars to subsidize one of the most infamous hate groups in the United States," said Buchanan. "That's why I'm demanding your department immediately cease all contracts with the Nation of Islam and prohibit it from receiving any contracts in the future."

The Bureau of Prisons declined to provide specifics to The Washington Examiner about the funding, citing a regulation that federal correctional institutions "may contract with representatives of faith groups in the community to provide specific religious services which the chaplain cannot personally deliver due to, ordinarily, religious prescriptions or ecclesiastical constraints to which the chaplain adheres."

"The Nation of Islam considers whites to be devils and aspires to break off a blacks-only country from the United States. It's an ugly phenomenon that minimally overlaps with the normative religion of Islam," Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes told JNS. "It's not exactly something the American taxpayer should be subsidizing."

The Republican Jewish Coalition, the National Council of Israel and the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) commended Buchanan's letter.

"We share Congressman Buchanan's interest in getting answers to the troubling questions raised by the Examiner's report," RJC spokesperson Neil Strauss told JNS.

"Because we believe that the Trump administration agrees with Rep. Buchanan that the federal government 'should not use taxpayer dollars to subsidize one of the most infamous hate groups in the United States,' we are confident that these serious concerns will be addressed promptly and definitively," he added.

"We completely support the efforts of Congressman Buchanan and share his outrage," National Council of Young Israel president Farley Weiss told JNS. "We supported the [FIRST STEP Act] and see contracting with this anti-Semitic organization as being the antithesis of rehabbing prisoners. We call for such funding to be stopped."

"EMET applauds Rep. Vern Buchanan's call on the DOJ to stop funding the highly anti-Semitic, racist group, the Nation of Islam. Under the leadership of renowned anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam regularly disseminates conspiracy theories about Jews and the State of Israel," the organization's founder and president, Sarah Stern, told JNS.

"In one instance, Farrakhan said, 'Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit' and are his 'enemy.' In another, he exclaimed, 'I am not an anti-Semite, I am anti-termite,' comparing Jews to sub-humans, indeed to parasitic insects," she continued.

"It is outrageous that the U.S. government would fund such a despicable group to propagate its hateful rhetoric, and as Rep. Buchanan has expressed in its letter, federal funding for the Nation of Islam must be halted immediately," she added.
WASHINGTON (JTA)Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas again called on the United States to recognize Israels sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Israel is stepping up its campaign for international recognition of its claim to the strategic plateau.

A joint statement by the two Republican senators came on the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged John Bolton, the U.S. national security adviser, to recognize Israels claim to the Golan. Israel captured the heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed them in 1981.

Responding to the threat posed by Iran and its proxies requires ensuring that Israel can defend its territory and its citizens from attacks, Cruz and Cotton said Sunday in their statement. To support Israels right to self-defense, Washington should take the long overdue step of affirming Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

In their statement, the senators noted that in the last Congress, they had introduced a nonbinding resolution calling for recognition of Israels claim to the Golan. The resolution languished, and the senators did not say whether they would reintroduce it.

Bolton is in Israel to assuage Israeli concerns that President Donald Trump is no longer invested in getting Iran and its proxy, the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, to leave Syria. Trump wants to pull 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, where Iran and Hezbollah have propped up Assad during Syrias seven-year civil war, which is winding down.
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Moshe Arens, a veteran Israeli politician and defense minister under three prime ministers, has died.

Arens, who first hired Benjamin Netanyahu and is credited with helping him get his start in politics, died Monday in his sleep at his home near Tel Aviv. He was 93.

Arens was a member of the Knesset for the Likud party from 1973 to 1992 and again from 1999 to 2003. As ambassador to the United States beginning in 1982, Arens brought on Netanyahu as part of the diplomatic corps and later appointed him as ambassador to the United Nations.

Arens served as defense minister under prime ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Netanyahu, as well as as foreign minister.

"I loved you as a son loved his father," Netanyahu said in a tribute on Monday. "There was no greater patriot. Moshe Arens' great contribution to our people and our state will be remembered forever."

"Misha was one of the most important ministers of defense the State of Israel ever had. He was not a commander or a general, but a devoted man of learning who toiled day and night for the security of Israel and its citizens," Israel's President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement on Monday.

The Israel Defense Forces in a statement said that Arens "led the shaping of the face of the Israeli defense establishment over the years," noting that Arens "laid down important elements in the IDF's building of strength, its power, and its technological renewal."

"A man of vision, Moshe Arens succeeded in creating a long list of important, forward-looking changes in the defense establishment and the IDF that have enabled and still enable a more correct and adapted confrontation to the challenges of the present and the future," the army said.

Prior to entering politics, Arens was deputy director general at Israel Aircraft Industries, where he oversaw major development projects, including the Kfir fighter jet project. Before that, from 1957 to 1962, he was a professor of aeronautics at The Technion.

Arens, a Lithuania native, immigrated to the United States with his family in 1939. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a technical sergeant. Arens moved to Israel shortly after it declared independence in 1948 and joined the Zionist paramilitary organization the Irgun.

In 1951 he returned to the United States to study engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and aeronautical engineering at the California Institute of Technology.

In his later years, Arens was a columnist for the left-wing Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz. He also was chairman of the International Board of Governors of Ariel University Center of Samaria.

Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog in a statement called Arens "a true leader with integrity, reason and eloquence who made great contributions to Israel's security and global standing. Despite our differences, there was always mutual respect between us."

He is survived by his wife, Muriel, four children and nine grandchildren.
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger meets with Minister of Defense Moshe Arens (l) of Israel in the Pentagon on July 27, 1983.

(JNS)-Reactions and memories from the Jewish and pro-Israel community have filled news pages and social media following the death of Moshe Arens, former Israeli Defense Minister and mentor of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday at the age of 93.

"The Conference of Presidents mourns the loss of a great leader of Israel and dear friend of the Presidents Conference, Minister Moshe Arens. Minister Arens served Israel in many capacities, including as a very impactful and successful Ambassador to the United States, Foreign Minister and Minister of Defense," said the organization's chairman, Arthur Stark, and executive vice chairman and CEO Malcolm Hoenlein.

"Beyond his many accomplishments in these positions, Minister Arens was known for his integrity, thoughtfulness and deep devotion to the Jewish state and Jewish people," they continued. "Minister Arens continued to appear at Conference events in Israel, including our annual mission last year."

"As ambassador, he worked to strengthen the ties between the U.S. and Israel, and was a visionary about the need for Israel to utilize modern technologies and methods to get its message across," they added. "His clarity of thought and well-reasoned arguments never failed to impress even Israel's opponents."

"AIPAC mourns the passing of Moshe Arens," tweeted the organization. "A strong champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship, he served as Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Defense."

AIPAC mourns the passing of Moshe Arens. A strong champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship, he served as Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Defense.

- AIPAC (@AIPAC) January 7, 2019

"Moshe Arens, an English-speaking US-educated aeronautical engineer who rose to become Israel's three-time defense minister & mentored a young Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of his career, died on Monday at age 93," tweeted StandWithUs. "May his memory be a blessing."

Arens died at his home in Savyon in central Israel. He leaves behind his wife Muriel, four children and nine grandchildren.

More about his legacy here: https://t.co/lmN4Ey5vRh

- StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) January 7, 2019

J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami expressed his condolences over "a great man who dedicated his life to the service of Israel and the Israeli people."

"I have long had a personal, familial connection to Arens through my late father, Yitshaq Ben-Ami, who was like a mentor to him in the Betar Youth Movement and the Irgun," he said. "I remember well that when I first moved to Israel in the 1990s, 'Misha'-as we knew him-was among the first people I met with, given our long family history."

"When it came to questions of politics, diplomacy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Arens and I disagreed about most everything," he continued. "Yet like so many of those who disagreed with him politically, I always found him to be, on a personal level, impeccably courteous and kind."

Sarah Stern, founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth, told JNS: "Moshe Arens was a remarkable individual, a rare breed of politician who was cut out of a cloth of a different generation. He was someone who had placed pure ideology, pure principle, idealism and the good of the nation above any sort of personal consideration."

"He was one of the greats, in a small class, together with David Ben Gurian, Zev Jabotinsky, Yitzchak Shamir and Uzi Landau," she added.
Nelly Ben-Or sitting by one of her two pianos in her London home, Dec. 13, 2018.

LONDON (JTA)-Like countless world-class pianists, Nelly Ben-Or began playing piano at the age of 5 and never stopped.

That discipline helped Ben-Or, 86, became an international concert pianist and the person most widely recognized for adapting the Alexander technique for posture and movement improvement for musicians.

But unlike most of her peers, much of Ben-Or's musical training in her native Poland took place while her family was hiding in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, where her mother, Antonina Podhoretz, time and again risked everything to afford her daughter access to the then scarce instrument.

Ben-Or, who now lives in London and still teaches master classes in piano and the Alexander technique, unfolds the story of her unlikely survival in an English-language autobiography that was published this year titled "Ashes to Light: A Holocaust Childhood to a Life in Music."

The frank and short account tackles personal issues like the author's bouts of depression and her unprovoked cruelty toward one of her music teachers after the war. It was celebrated as a "brilliant and deeply moving personal account" by Jonathan Vaughan, a director of the prestigious Guildhall School of Drama & Music.

Rabbi Andrew Goldstein, the president of Britain's Liberal Judaism movement, called it "an inspiring story, beautifully written" in a forward he penned for the book.

The strength of Ben-Or's story, which was featured on the BBC World Service radio in July, stems partly from the author bearing witness to momentous wartime events, including the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But its uniqueness lies in how it marries opposites, such as betrayal and heroism, hunger and artistic creativity, and survival and self-sacrifice.

Throughout the packed 180-page narrative, one character-the piano-makes repeated and unlikely appearances.

The instrument features in Ben-Or's earliest memories, from her childhood home in Lwow, which was part of Poland before World War II, now Lviv in Ukraine. She recalls that at 6, German soldiers carried off the piano on which she had practiced in her family's living room.

"I shivered in fear and despair, huddled against my mother's body as I watched them taking away the instrument which had become for me such a wonderful source of magic," Ben-Or writes.

Her family was about to lose much more than their prized possessions.

Ben-Or's father, Leon, was taken away and, she later learned, killed at the Janowska concentration camp.

Her mother and older sister were able to obtain false "Aryan" identities, but they became homeless, exchanging one hiding place for another. Her sister was left to hide on her own. Ben-Or and her mother scrambled to leave Lwow for Warsaw, where they had a better chance of surviving.

Through one of many twists of fate, the pair missed the last train to Warsaw. They ended up leaving as hitchhikers aboard a military train full of Nazi SS officers. One SS man even tucked in Ben-Or with his green army coat when she feigned sleep on the long journey, she recalls in the book.

That civilian train they missed ended up being searched. Several Jews traveling under false identities were caught and sent to be murdered, Ben-Or's mother later learned.

In Warsaw, mother and daughter became subtenants of a Polish working class family, the Topolskis. Their hosts quickly caught on that Ben-Or and her mother were Jewish but, at great personal risk, did not report them. Still, neighbors became suspicious, forcing the two Jews to seek a new hiding place. Ben-Or's mother found employment as a maid with a wealthier non-Jewish Polish family, the Kowalskis.

That's where Nelly, then 7 or 8, again saw a piano.

"My desire to get to that instrument and play it made me nag my mother" to ask the Kowalskis for permission to play, Ben-Or writes. But doing so would have blown their cover as a working class maid and her daughter, her mother feared.

"Musical gifts were so often associated with the Jewish people," Ben-Or writes.

But "a part of my mother wanted me to keep playing," Ben-Or told JTA in an interview at her home near London, where she keeps two pianos in a study full of books and orchid plants. Antonina relented, but only on the condition that Nelly pretend not to know how to play, recalled Ben-Or, a frail-looking woman with lively eyes.

At the height of World War II, when the Nazis were hunting and executing people on the streets just below her home, Ben-Or was playing music on a grand piano that brought her brief hope of normalcy.

Noticing her talent, the Kowalskis suggested that Ben-Or join their granddaughter's weekly piano lessons, to which her mother reluctantly agreed. The teacher suggested that Ben-Or attend a music school, but Antonina vetoed it.

"The fewer people who noticed me, or you, the safer we were," Ben-Or's mother told her.

As a little girl, "playing the piano for chosen periods in the day became moments of paradise on Earth," Ben-Or recalls. The teacher insisted that Nelly play at a students' concert, and she was allowed to play, becoming the talk of the block for a while.

But her mother's fears turned out to be justified. Soon after the concert, rumors that Antonina and Nelly were "not who they pretended to be" started circulating among the neighbors, forcing the two to leave yet another hiding place, Ben-Or writes.

They were rounded up in German army operations targeting Warsaw citizens who had joined a massive resistance operation that followed the doomed uprising of Jews inside the Warsaw Ghetto.

In yet another narrow escape, Nelly and Antonina eventually were released in the countryside because the concentration camp where the Germans had planned to place them was full. Penniless and hungry for food, the two found shelter in a pig sty that locals had made livable for refugees like them from Warsaw.

But even there, "my ear caught the sound of piano from a neighboring house," Ben-Or writes in her book. It was the home of the piano teacher in the town of Pruszkow, and again Ben-Or's mother reluctantly allowed her daughter to play. The teacher allotted the girl half an hour each day.

"I went on eagerly from one piece of music to the next, playing anything that was available," including Johann Strauss waltzes considered too demanding for 8-year-old piano pupils, Ben-Or writes.

"Yet today, as a concert pianist, I am convinced that I owe to that unorthodox but invaluable experience of piano playing," she writes. It helped her hold on to her humanity and hopefulness in hours of despair and panic, she says.

After the war, Ben-Or was enrolled in a school for gifted musicians. She and her mother emigrated from Poland to Israel in 1950. A decade later, Ben-Or went to study in England and stayed. She married in 1964. She and her husband have a daughter who lives in London.

The book describes her development as an artist and her experiences as a survivor in three countries.

"It seems as if my voracious appetite for academic and musical progress was partly a reaction to the years of repression," Ben-Or writes. "It was as if the darkness of the war years had been lifted, and the bright light and fresh air of freedom filled my whole being with the need to receive as much as possible of all that I had missed before."
By Lisa Levine

If you are an American Jew, chances are good that you have encountered many non-Jews who know little or have misconceptions about Jewish religion or culture. So if you or a loved one were moving into a senior care facility, it probably wouldnt surprise you to find that it did not occur to the non-Jewish caregiving staff to wish you a happy new year on Rosh Hashanah or offer you matzoh instead of a dinner roll on Passover.

But in greater Orlando, most of the facilities have staff that are aware of Jewish traditions and work to make sure that those traditions are observed and respected so that their Jewish residents feel at home. Thats because Jewish Pavilion staff and volunteers have been working for many years to educate these caregivers about Jewish culture.

One of their best teaching resources is a 12-page glossy color pamphlet called A Guide for Caregivers of the Jewish Elderly. It was conceived about seven years ago when Pamela Ruben, then a Pavilion volunteer, and Nancy Ludin, Pavilion CEO, realized that culturally, there are a lot of gaps if youre a Jewish senior, Ruben recalled. For the most part, the seniors werent having their holidays and traditions acknowledged by most facility staff membersnot out of malice, but through lack of awareness.

So Ruben, who as an educator had written several informational booklets, volunteered to help the Pavilion develop an easy-to-follow guidebook that would explain the Jewish holidays that are most widely observed: Shabbat, the High Holidays, Chanukah and Passover.

A Guide for Caregivers of the Jewish Elderly features lots of photos of seniors celebrating their heritage with Jewish Pavilion staff and volunteers. It explains the Jewish Pavilion and its mission, and describes the Jewish holidaysboth how the Pavilion celebrates them with residents at its programs and how facility staff can also help residents observe and celebrate them on days when the Pavilion is not on site.

To make it user-friendly, said Ruben, we really broke it down to the most basic elements. The booklet contains brief explanations of holidays along with such fundamentals as supplies needed for candle lighting and blessings over wine and challah, with the corresponding Hebrew prayers in transliteration and translation, plus appropriate greetings for each holiday. The booklet also covers traditional foods for each holiday, with some recipes or suggested sources for certain items.

The Jewish Pavilion has distributed the guide to facilities all over the area and continues to give it to newly hired key staff members. It has served as a springboard for ongoing cultural connection between staff and Jewish residents, and it widely is appreciated as a valuable resource.

About three years ago, after inviting feedback from facility staff, Ruben updated the guide, this time in her capacity as the Jewish Pavilion marketing director, a role from which she stepped down early last year to pursue other opportunities.

Today, as she once again serves Jewish Pavilion seniors as a volunteer, Ruben is happy to see the evidence of the Pavilions successful efforts to introduce some Yiddishkeit (Jewish culture) to the facilities she visits, in the form of mezzuzahs on some entrances, menorahs among the Christmas decor, or a happy Chanukah or good Shabbos wish from staff to Jewish residents.

If you understand the culture of others, its so easy to make someone happy with such a small gesture, she said.
WASHINGTON (JTA)Bryant Johnson says pressure creates diamonds, and I think I just upped the carat level.

Ruth Bader Ginsburgs personal trainer did not know that his two other clients on the Supreme CourtStephen Breyer and Elena Kaganare Jewish, too. Until I told him.

I never thought about it that way, he says when I tell him that hes responsible in part for the health of the courts entire Jewish contingent. Ginsburg is 85, Breyer is 80 and Kagan is a spritely 58.

Where Johnson takes the conversation from there is interestinghe says hes gotten pushback from conservative radio over his clients politics.

Do you train conservative judges? Johnson says hes been asked in interviews. (Answer: He trains whoever asks.) Ginsburg is a liberal icon, and the other two Jewish justices also are part of the courts liberal minority.

Johnson, who met me last month in his office here at the District Court, is acutely aware of his role in maintaining the well-being of Ginsburg, whose health status is tracked obsessively by court watchers. Johnson is voluble about Ginsburg, who speaks publicly about her fitness regimen, but will not volunteer much about Kagan and Breyer.

She says she wants to stay on the bench for another five years, he says. Left unsaid is the likely reason that Ginsburg has made the commitment: She wants to outlast Donald Trumps presidency if it should reach into a second term.

Someone asked me, do I feel the pressure, he says and laughs. Pressure creates diamonds.

By which Johnson means, yes he does, and has for a while.

I help her with her quality of life, he says. This is not new to us.

By this he means keeping Ginsburg fit, which hes been doing since 1999 after she survived a bout of colorectal cancer.

Whatever its pressures Johnson, an Army reservist and a records specialist at the District Court in addition to running a personal training business, appears to relish his role as something of a health guru. When I arrive at his office, he is dispensing advice to a colleague who has come seeking the healthy munchies he leaves out.

Ginsburg wanted to get back in shape after her chemo treatments in 1999.

You look like an Auschwitz survivor, her late husband, Martin, told the justice, she has recalled.

Ginsburg asked her former colleagues on the D.C. District Court for a recommendation of a trainer who could accommodate a judges schedule. Judge Gladys Kessler (yes, also Jewish) recommended Johnson, who as a court employee had become popular among District Court judges. Johnson designed a program to build up the bone and muscle density that chemo costs a patient. In 2017, it became a book, The RBG Workout. (How She Stays Strong... and You Can TOO!)

Since then, save for a deployment to Kuwait from 2004 to 2007, Johnson has met with Ginsburg twice weekly for an hour or so.

They dont chat much during the exercise routineJohnson was raised in Virginia by a grandmother who was deaf and did not know sign language, so hes become adept at nonverbal communication. During their sessions, he has acquired a taste for Ginsburgs favorite background noises: classical music and PBS Newshour.

Johnson was aware of Ginsburgs role in advancing civil liberties as a litigant before the Supreme Court in the 1970s and 80s, and then in protecting them since her appointment in 1993. It wasnt until recently, however, that he internalized how important they were to him personally: Johnson, who is African-American, is an equal opportunity adviser in the Army Reserves.

Ginsburg, Johnson notes, cut her teeth on a Supreme Court decision in 1973, Frontiero v. Richardson, that determined that servicewomen were entitled to housing allowances. He faces similar challenges, he says, in his Army Reserves work.

I told a couple of soldiers You wouldnt have these rights if it werent for Ginsburg, he says.

Ginsburg over the years has given Johnson a number of books about her, and a table in his office is decorated with them (although pride of place is reserved for his RBG workout).

Johnson confesses to not having read the books, saying She didnt pay me to be her fanboy! (He wont say how much he charges, but suggests that his fee for Ginsburg has not hiked much since 1999.)

Now, in this Ginsburgian moment fueled by liberal anxiety about whether Trump might have the opportunity to replace her, he is curious about the justice. He saw last years CNN documentary RBG, and the new Hollywood movie based on her 1970s breakthroughs, On the Basis of Sex.

It was amazing, he says of the documentary.

The documentary, while bordering on the hagiographic, is seeded throughout with concerns that Ginsburg is less than aware of her own mortality. (She survived another bout of cancerpancreaticin 2009, and last month had malignant growths removed from her lungs.) She still pulls all-nighters, and it is clear the absence of her husband, who died in 2010 and was the only person capable of talking her away from the office, has unsettled those close to her.

Bubbe, you were asleep during the State of the Union, you cant do that, her granddaughter Clara Spera recalls telling her in RBG.

In Martin Ginsburgs absence, Johnson appears to have become something of a rock for her.

I am often consumed by the heavy lifting Supreme Court judging entails, reluctant to cease work until Ive got it right, she writes in a foreword to his book. But when time comes to meet with Bryant, I leave off and join him at the gym for justices.

Ginsburg asked Johnson to come with her to a swearing-in session for new citizens last month at the National Archives, and he called the session to order, temporarily establishing the archives as a court. He says his commanding voice, developed in the military, has led to him being asked to open court sessions.

In the documentary, Johnson is the man who nay says the naysayers.

Shes like a cyborg, he says. When I say cyborg, shes like a machine.

I get similar reassurances.

Shes never used that four-letter word cant, Johnson says. Shes tough as nails.

But then it becomes clear that he, too, is concerned. Johnson speaks of her fall last month that led to three broken ribs (and the discovery of the growths on her lungs).

That was a result of her being tired, he says. If you know the justice and her relentless work ethicsometimes I have to protect her from herself.

Still, she has some limits. Kagan likes to box, and Johnson once caught Ginsburg eyeing gloves that her high-court colleague had left in the gym.

Are you into that? Johnson asked Ginsburg.

No, she replied. Well just leave that.
St. Joseph, MI (49085)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread and possibly severe overnight. Storms could contain damaging winds. Low 67F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread and possibly severe overnight. Storms could contain damaging winds. Low 67F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
When furloughed federal workers get repaid, they will have to refund the unemployment benefits. They also might not be counted in the labor force if they report that they are not looking for work because they anticipate returning to their positions, Bauer said.
Staff reports

The Herald-Mail

Calling the Holocaust part of Gods plan is offensive

To the editor:

We are deeply bothered by a recent discussion in this paper regarding Gods power and human governments, in particular Carl E. Lewis assertion that Hitler and the resulting Holocaust was a part of Gods plan to create the national state of Israel. (Jan. 4 letter to the editor: Gods divine plan used Hitler to create Israeli state)

More than 6 million men, women and children were systematically abused, enslaved and murdered in the Holocaust. It is a deeply painful remembrance for the Jewish people  people who are our co-workers, neighbors and friends. We remember those victims who chanted Ani Maamin  I believe  on their way to the gas chambers, who held hope in the eternal.

Can Mr. Lewis and others understand how offensive and arrogant it is to state that the enslavement and murder of two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe was an essential part of Gods plan?

It is human to ask where God was in the Holocaust. But to claim to know the mind of God in the midst of such horrors is not something any of us should lay claim to. Instead, let us give blessing and support to the Jewish people  in Israel and in our own community. Let us stand side by side and declare together, never again!

The Rev. Kyle Powderly, Church of the Holy Trinity UCC

Rabbi Ari Plost, rabbi of Bnai Abraham and founder of the Thomas Kennedy Center

GOP now reacts to racist comments as election looms

To the editor:

This week House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., feigned outrage at recent comments by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, regarding white supremacists and nationalists. A firestorm of criticism of Kings remarks came from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, new Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and other members of Congress.

Rep. King has made outrageous comments about Hispanics and others in the past that were ignored by the Republican leadership. What is different now? The Republicans took a beating in the 2018 midterm election and they are trying to clean up their public face for the 2020 election. They are trying to bamboozle the public into thinking that the Grand Old Party actually cares about them when they only care about being re-elected.

The cowardly leadership in Congress is ignoring a rogue presidents behaviors that are destroying Americas reputation on the world stage, creating havoc with our traditional trading partners that is hurting our agricultural community and holding the government hostage over a wasteful border wall that will not solve any of our border or immigration issues, but they are acting so self-righteously over Kings comments. Is the American public so naive?

The election of 2020 is coming. The people will chose.

Bob Ayrer

Falling Waters, W.Va.

Our community suffers when the government shuts down

To the editor:

The Harpers Ferry Park Association and Harpers Ferry Merchants Association commend our U.S. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin for their concern and public support of our furloughed federal employees across the state of West Virginia.

Here in the Eastern Panhandle, the list of federal agencies that have largely been shuttered is staggering: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Advanced Training Facility in Harpers Ferry, National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, Internal Revenue Service in Martinsburg, U.S. Coast Guard Operations Systems Center in Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in Harpers Ferry.

But the shutdowns impact spreads far beyond the furloughed government employees and the work they do for the American people. Here in Harpers Ferry, with no park support and fewer park visitors, the shop owners, retailers, small businesses and nonprofit partners also suffer. For the Park Bookshop, which donates all its profits to enhance the parks interpretive and education programs, the doors remain shuttered. Unlike federal employees who will undoubtedly receive back pay, the employees of these many businesses  and the families that depend on them  will not get back pay or reimbursement.

Doug Perks

Shepherdstown, W.Va.

Visit the border to develop an informed opinion

To the editor:

I am always amazed at the opinions expressed about our southern border, which is more than 1,700 miles away.

I lived in Texas and have traveled the state on business.

I would suggest that those who have strong opinions visit McAllen, Texas, or one of the border cities and spend a few days there. Then they can write a letter to the paper expressing an informed opinion.

Len Lindenmeyer

Fayetteville, Pa.
Staff reports

The Herald-Mail

Cut pay of Congress:

I (wish) Trump (could) cut off the pay to the members of the House and Senate until they resolve the border-immigrating debacle. If the average working citizens dont do their jobs, they get fired. You cant fire those two government entities, so why should taxpayers continue to pay them for doing nothing? Open up the government and shut down the pay for the House and Senate.

 Fred Johnston, Hagerstown

Support for civil servants:

The civil servants of this country are some of the most underpaid and overworked people we have. So, Mr. President, put aside your pettiness and your 15th-century wall, and let them go back to work.

 Mark Grim, Sharpsburg

Pelosi, Schumer care for illegals first:

It looks as though Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer dont want to disrupt the flow of drugs into this country. They want to make sure that they can take care of illegals before they do anybody in this country. Theyre not worried about the people in this country being safe. ... It looks to me like they have no desire to protect the people of this country. Thats a sad situation.

 Bob Keller, Middletown, Md.

Doing good work:

In the paper Monday, Jan. 7, it is so good to see the picture of the young lady on the front page, the South High junior who is doing so good working back with the Boys and Girls Club. Its wonderful to see. All that we see and hear is the bad news. Its so good to see something good and that these young people are doing wonderful things. Im so proud of them. Keep up the good work.

 Shirley Robers, Smithsburg

Gods hand was on 2016 election:

I have had talks with friends of all (political) parties. We all have our rights to feelings. With coming through the worst president in history, we feel Gods hand was on this election in November 2016. It gave me chills of sickness to think Hillary Clinton could have won.  Build the wall.

 Elaine Smith, Frederick, Md.
Matthew Umstead

mumstead@herald-mail.com

MARTINSBURG, W.Va.  A misdemeanor drug charge against a now-former Berkeley County, W.Va., teacher aide was dismissed Thursday in county circuit court after she sought rehabilitation after her arrest in September, when she was suspected of being under the influence at school.

Alexandria Callie Tost, 26, was charged with a misdemeanor count of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription after the incident Sept. 14 at Eagle School Intermediate.

Tost, who began working for the school district in August, resigned shortly after the incident and didnt return to the school, according to district officials.

Berkeley County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Ray Boyce said Thursday that the prosecution didnt object to the dismissal of the charge, citing relatively new state law that allows individuals to seek immunity if they participate in, comply with and complete a court-approved substance-abuse-treatment program after initially receiving emergency-medical assistance.

Tost was taken from the school by emergency-medical personnel for treatment at Berkeley Medical Center in Martinsburg, according to court records and Berkeley County Schools Superintendent Manny Arvon.

Defense attorney Kevin D. Mills said Thursday that Tost subsequently was treated in the behavioral-health unit at Berkeley Medical Center for seven days before completing a 28-day rehabilitation program at Westbrook Health Services in Parkersburg, W.Va.

Boyce said he was advised that the rehabilitation program included six to seven hours of daily group therapy, and noted it is his understanding that Tost since has moved out of the Eastern Panhandle.

Mills said Tost still is actively participating in after-care as part of her recovery efforts.

Tost was reported by school officials to be speaking and acting unusually Sept. 14, and later admitted to police that she had used heroin before coming to school that morning, court records said.

A Berkeley County Sheriffs Department deputy wrote in a complaint that Tost told him that she was in a vehicle crash in March, lost her job and didnt have money for her pain pills, records said.

Tost told the deputy that she then turned to heroin because it was cheaper, records said.

The defendant also admitted that she had heroin in her possession at the school, and a subsequent search of a restroom where she previously was led to the recovery of a folded piece of paper with an off-white powdery substance inside it, court records said.

The substance later tested positive for fentanyl, records said.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid used to treat severe pain. Because it is cheaper than heroin, drug dealers often mix the drugs to decrease production costs.
Matthew Umstead

mumstead@herald-mail.com

MARTINSBURG, W.Va.  A Bunker Hill, W.Va., man charged in connection with the fatal shooting of another man in October 2017 entered an Alford plea Thursday in Berkeley County (W.Va.) Circuit Court to one count of voluntary manslaughter.

Joshua Clyde Newill, 30, was charged with second-degree murder in May 2018 stemming from the Oct. 6, 2017, slaying of Claude E. Triplett, 46, also of Bunker Hill.

An Alford plea is not an admission of guilt, but an acknowledgment by a defendant that the prosecution has enough evidence to gain a conviction.

Newill is on track to be sentenced April 1 by 23rd Judicial Circuit Judge Michael D. Lorensen, who conditionally accepted the defendants plea pending review of an investigation report by the circuits probation office. The report is expected to include a statement by at least one member of the victims family.

According to a proposed plea agreement reviewed by the judge Thursday, Newill would be placed on home confinement for three years instead of serving time in prison.

Newill also would receive credit for time already served on home confinement and in jail while awaiting trial. He also would be ordered to pay the funeral costs of the victims family as part of the agreement.

Newills trial was set to begin Jan. 29. He was released from Eastern Regional Jail and placed on home confinement in May, court records said.

Newill initially was charged with first-degree murder, and Lorensen ruled in February that the defendant was a flight risk when denying bond for Newills possible pretrial release from jail.

Newill fled to Florence, S.C., more than 400 miles away, after the fatal shooting of Triplett and didnt voluntarily return to the state.

He was captured Oct. 11, 2017, in Winchester, Va., where authorities found him asleep in his vehicle in a Walmart parking lot, and wasnt returned to West Virginia custody until Oct. 23.

Triplett was found Oct. 6, 2017, by a West Virginia State Police trooper with a gunshot wound to the stomach at 200 Manicure Lane in Bunker Hill, court records said.

A witness told police that the defendant entered the home and shot the defendant in the living room after a verbal altercation and initially confronting him with a shotgun, records said.

Newill shot Triplett after the victim continued walking toward the defendant despite being told repeatedly to stop, a witness testified at Newills preliminary hearing in 2017.

Kevin D. Mills, Newills attorney, said during Thursdays change-of-plea hearing that the defense was prepared to present arguments at trial that Newill acted in self-defense.

Berkeley County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Ben Hiller also acknowledged Thursday that the victim had a criminal history that included violent crime.
Staff reports

The Herald-Mail

HARRISBURG, Pa.  State Sen. Richard Alloway II is retiring after 10 years in the Pennsylvania Senate.

The Republican lawmaker, whose district covers Franklin, Adams, York and Cumberland counties, announced in a news release Friday that he would retire Feb. 28.

It has been an honor and a privilege to hold this position and to be the voice for local communities in Harrisburg for the past decade in the Senate, he said in the release. I am extremely grateful for the trust that has been placed in me by community residents, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank all of my constituents for giving me that amazing opportunity and for helping me to be a better elected official.

I treasure the personal relationships that I have forged over the years with various citizens and with my colleagues in the Capitol, he said in the release. Every single one holds a special place in my heart. However, our forefathers never envisioned public service as a lifetime vocation. After a decade of fighting to ensure our interests are represented in the General Assembly, the time has come for me to move on to other endeavors and pursue new opportunities. I wish all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle nothing but the best.

Alloway, lives in Hamilton Township outside Chambersburg. He was first elected in 2008, replacing long-time Sen. Terry Punt who retired for health reasons. Punt died in 2009.

Alloway was most recently re-elected in 2016.

He has served on the Senate Republican leadership team as majority caucus secretary since 2014, according to the release. He was responsible for overseeing and reviewing all executive nominations submitted to the Senate for confirmation.

He previously served as Senate majority caucus administrator and as chairman of the Senate Game and Fisheries Committee, where he authored several laws to protect sportsmen and promote outdoor activities, according to the release.

Alloway was the leading advocate for passage of Libres Law, legislation to protect animals against abuse and neglect.
Jennifer Fitch

waynesboro@herald-mail.com

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa.  Franklin County, Pa., had 32 overdose deaths in 2018, compared to 35 in the previous year.

Franklin County District Attorney Matt Fogal said he doesnt know whether most people will consider the two numbers to be comparable, a beneficial decrease because of the value of each life, or a sign of a potentially changing tide in the opioid crisis.

His take is that the countys social services, law-enforcement officers, criminal-justice professionals and recovery specialists are in the middle of a fight.

We, in the Franklin County Overdose Task Force, know the fight continues, he said Thursday afternoon.

Fogal, chairman of the task force, presented a state of the crisis to the media and task force members Thursday. The event also was attended by several people in recovery.

Among the challenges identified by Fogal were needed transportation, nicknamed Sober Uber, for recovering addicts to attend meetings and get to work; a shortage of beds in sober-living homes; stigma; effective prevention; viewpoints on medication-assisted treatment; unintended outcomes of Pennsylvanias Good Samaritan Law; and winning convictions on drug-delivery-resulting-in-death charges.

Franklin County juries twice have provided not-guilty verdicts in cases in which alleged drug dealers supplied substances that then killed a user. Fogal was awaiting a third verdict Thursday afternoon.

After the task force meeting, word came that the third defendant  Jeffrey Coulter  was found not guilty of drug delivery resulting in the 2016 death of Lori Wassil.

If found guilty, a defendant with that criminal count would have faced between five and 10 years in prison based on factors that include previous convictions.

Some of those charged with that count have entered a plea agreement to lesser charges in exchange for cooperation in reaching someone higher on the drug-supply chain, which often originates in Mexico, Fogal said.

Franklin County Court of Common Pleas President Judge Carol L. Van Horn said she wants to join the overdose task force after she retires from the bench later this year. She updated the group on Good Wolf Treatment Court, which seeks to support sobriety and recovery for defendants.

Since its start in April 2017, the treatment court has had 20 discharges for unsuccessful participation and one successful graduation.

The judge is not necessarily discouraged.

I believe that speaks to the fidelity of the program, she said, noting that key components of the program are rules and consequences.

Fogal said the first overdose death attributed to fentanyl occurred in 2016. That drug now causes the most overdose deaths.

Some people unwittingly purchase heroin laced with fentanyl, while others purposely buy it believing it is strong, he said.
Singh said even though he works the day shift at the 7-Eleven, he worries about the gunman. It is disturbing that someone could so easily walk in and shoot someone who did nothing wrong, he said.
Don Aines

daines@herald-mail.com

A Pennsylvania woman was ordered to pay restitution of more than $23,000 Thursday after pleading guilty to stealing the money from the Hagerstown business where she once worked.

Lori Jo Harne, 56, of Chambersburg, Pa., pleaded guilty to a charge of theft scheme between $10,000 and $100,000 for stealing money from Hagerstown Management Corp. between April 2016 and May 2018, according to a statement of facts.

Washington County Circuit Court Judge Mark K. Boyer gave Harne a 10-year suspended sentence and five years on probation.

Assistant States Attorney Beverly Plutnick told Boyer that Harne collected money from renters, but kept it rather than paying the property owners. Harne hid the thefts by making false entries in the businesses books, she said.

The owners of the business, Craig and Staci Harshman, discovered the thefts, but allowed Harne to continue working, with money being deducted from her pay, Plutnick said. Despite that, she said, Harne later resumed stealing from the business.

We gave her a second chance because I believe everybody deserves a second chance, Craig Harshman told Boyer. We just wanted her to make it right.

It was a lot of money for us, Staci Harshman said of the couples loss.

Harne apologized to the couple, adding, I dont want you to worry that you wont get paid back.

Boyer ordered Harne to repay the Harshmans $400 a month in restitution.

The terms of probation also include evaluation, testing and any recommended treatment for substance abuse during the first two years of probation.

Harne had no prior criminal record. She told Boyer that years of cocaine use had become a serious addiction.

Boyer warned Harne that a failure to pay restitution on schedule would result in a violation of probation.

The goal of the court is to get this paid, he said.
Julie E. Greene

julieg@herald-mail.com

Washington County is considering adjusting steps on its pay scales down 1 percent to increase the likelihood of rewarding employees more often with step pay increases.

In the past 12 years, the county has only awarded step pay increases four times, Chief Financial Officer Sara Greaves said. Step increases, which are a step up on the pay scale, are 3.5 percent.

But if the county lowered the difference between steps on the pay scales to 2.5 percent, the hope would be to provide yearly step raises because they would be more affordable, Greaves said.

The cost of providing a 2.5 percent step increase would be $1.5 million, compared with $2.1 million for a 3.5 percent step, according to a county document. The costs include wages and fringe benefits such as pension costs.

The cost of moving employees to new pay scales would be $730,000. The pay scales would be adjusted up, so no one gets a pay cut from a change to 2.5 percent, Greaves said.

The commissioners didnt make a formal decision Tuesday, but asked to see more data. They are expected to start getting budget presentations in February.

Commissioner Randy Wagner said his only concern is employee morale because employees might just see the cut from 3.5 percent to 2.5 percent.

Commissioner Cort Meinelschmidt said his only difficulty with supporting a 2.5 percent raise every year is that it wasnt always merit-based and, in the private sector, guaranteeing a raise is very, very difficult.

County Administrator Robert Slocum said step increases would continue to be merit-based, while cost-of-living increases are for all employees.

Cost-of-living increases, or COLAs, were provided five times in the past 12 years, Greaves said.

Issuing COLAs and not steps for several years creates a difficult situation with employees because an employee with three years experience is still on step one and being paid the same as a new employee, she said.

The other suggestion Greaves made was to align the COLA with the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers and cap it at 1 percent.

The moves would make it more likely the county could afford a step increase and COLA, keeping the pay scale in alignment, she said.
C.J. Lovelace

cj.lovelace@herald-mail.com

Two years ago, the birth of his second child caused Jerry DeWolf, the chairman of the Washington County Republican Central Committee, to miss President Donald Trumps inauguration.

History repeated itself for the DeWolf family this week, as another addition forced them to miss Gov. Larry Hogans second-term inauguration in Annapolis.

DeWolf said his wife, Chrystal, delivered a healthy baby boy, Benjamin Chase, just before 7 a.m. Monday at Frederick Memorial Hospital.

The family was getting ready to head home Wednesday, just as Hogans historic inauguration  as the first Republican governor to be re-elected in Maryland since the 1950s  was taking place.

I couldnt believe the timing of it, DeWolf said in a phone interview from the hospital.

DeWolf said he and his wife attended Hogans inauguration four years ago and were excited to witness the second.

Benjamin was due on Jan. 24. DeWolf said he and his wife joked that he would arrive on Jan. 16 and spoil their plans.

I wasnt too far off, he laughed. ... This wasnt planned to miss the inaugurations back to back like this. It just defies logic. You couldnt plan this if you wanted to.

A doctors office visit last week prompted the couple to head to the hospital for a few tests. On Saturday afternoon, DeWolf said, his wife was admitted to the hospital and she went into labor.

Thirty-seven hours later, the couple welcomed their first son.

This is our last child. We both made that decision, DeWolf said. Were done, but were blessed to have three wonderful children.

Each of the children is about two years apart. The DeWolfs first daughter, Eleanor, was born about a month after Hogans first inauguration in 2015. Evelyn arrived in the early-morning hours of Trumps inauguration day on Jan. 20, 2017.
Matthew Umstead

mumstead@herald-mail.com

MARTINSBURG, W.Va.  West Virginia State Police said Friday that two troopers have been terminated for their involvement in a Nov. 19 incident in which officers are alleged to have used excessive force while arresting a 16-year-old boy.

Trooper First Class Michael Kennedy and Trooper First Class Derek Walker have been discharged from the West Virginia State Police effective January 17, 2019, the state police said in a brief press statement. No further comments will be made at this time.

The terminations were the result of an internal investigation, state police said.

The announcement comes after Berkeley County (W.Va.) Sheriff Curtis Keller moved on Tuesday to terminate Deputies Austin Ennis and Chris Merson in connection with the incident.

The sheriffs actions are subject to a board review and an appeal before the civil service commission under state code. A civil service commission decision could be appealed in state court.

Keller said Thursday that both deputies requested a board review hearing Tuesday, when he took the action to terminate them.

The personnel move was related, in part, to violations of policy and procedure stemming from the November incident, Keller said.

There were other (alleged) violations in addition to that, he said.

The involvement of other deputies who responded to the incident is being reviewed as part of the departments investigation, Keller said.

Merson was hired by the sheriffs department in October 2008 and Ennis joined the law enforcement agency in December 2015, according to county records.

Ennis, Walker and Kennedy were placed on unpaid administrative leave after the incident, which occurred after the teen rear-ended a cruiser Merson was driving.

Merson, who was placed on administrative leave with pay until Tuesday, was en route to a call off U.S. 11 near Spring Mills, W.Va., when the crash occurred.

Merson pursued the boy after being rear-ended. Keller has said the teen eventually crashed farther down the road and was apprehended.

Merson received a few stitches on his hand and didnt require time off due to the injury, Keller has said.

The incident was subject to an investigation by the FBI; an internal probe by the county sheriffs department; an outside investigation by the Jefferson County (W.Va.) Sheriffs Department requested by Keller; and a review by an investigator with Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney Catie Wilkes Delligattis office.

When asked about the status of her offices review of the incident, Delligatti said she is waiting on the FBI to complete its investigation.

Dash-cam video footage that apparently shows at least some of the officers alleged actions in the incident came from two Berkeley County Sheriffs Department cruisers and later was provided to West Virginia State Police.

State police Superintendent J.L. Cahill has said the video footage shows a series of blows and resistance, as well as the teen being picked up and thrown by police after being removed from the vehicle in which he was driving.

Cahill has said that five officers appear on the video footage. Keller noted that multiple sheriffs deputies also responded.

Officials agreed not to release the video footage while the investigation continues, Delligatti said.

The police officers alleged excessive use of force with the boy began after he crashed into a utility pole, police have said.

Police said the crash occurred shortly after the teen rear-ended the sheriffs department cruiser.

The crash into the utility pole can be seen on video, and the vehicle began smoking, Cahill has said.
The Herald-Mail

ANNAPOLIS  Gov. Larry Hogans new $46.6 billion budget proposals will fully fund education formulas, send more highway user revenues back to local jurisdictions and provide tax cuts for retirees and others.

What it wont do, he said, is raise taxes.

Following a heady day of inauguration festivities, Hogan returned to work Thursday, briefing reporters on the Fiscal Year 2020 budget proposal that will be released Friday morning.

While the breakdown of what each county will receive wont be available until then, Hogan and Budget and Management Secretary David Brinkley offered a general overview of whats included.

The budget Hogan will submit to the General Assembly on Friday includes $6.9 billion for public schools, which Hogan said is above state funding formulas. The budget also includes $200 million reserved for implementing the recommendations of the Kirwan Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, if and when they are submitted, he said.

Theres a 3 percent pay raise in store for state employees. Hogan noted that the state had successful negotiations with other unions representing state workers, but not the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Nevertheless, he said, workers represented by AFSCME will get raises, too.

Correctional officers will get 4 percent, according to the governors office, and $7.6 million is set aside to continue a recruitment bonus program.

Theres $1.45 billion in the budget for the University System of Maryland and full funding according to the formula for the states 15 community colleges. Hogan said undergraduate tuition increases at public four-year colleges and universities will be limited to 2 percent.

Hogan plans to send nearly $256 million in highway user revenues back to local jurisdictions  an increase of $24 million from this years levels.

A portion of this money, collected from gasoline taxes, titling fees and other taxes and fees associated with operating a vehicle, is returned to local governments each year to help with their transportation projects.

The local portion was dramatically diminished during former Gov. Martin OMalleys administration, however. Brinkley said the new money should help offset that loss.

The budget includes $56.5 million to attract new or expanding business and for workforce development.

Other budget highlights include:

 Expanding tax relief under the Hometown Heroes program as well as some retirement income, businesses in Opportunity Zones and others

 $11.5 billion for Marylands Medicaid program

 $438 million for school construction as part of a five-year, $3.5 billion school construction program

 $10 million in capital grants for safety-related improvements to public school facilities and $3.5 million for non-public schools

 $1.7 billion for state highways

 $247.8 million for substance abuse disorder services

 Full funding for Program Open Space

 $55.4 million for aid to local health departments

 $1.3 billion for developmental disabilities community services

 $6.3 million to help newly employed recipients of public assistance for up to three months as clients transition to new employment

Hogan plans to meet with members of the fiscal committees of the General Assembly to discuss the budget Friday morning. Afterward, the budget document will be released to media and will include allocations to local governments.

The final budget likely will look a little different, however. Lawmakers must review the budget and approve the budget, and while they cant increase the budget without identifying new funding sources, they can make changes.
Staff reports

The Herald-Mail

Weather-related delays, closings and cancellations include:

Maryland

School delays

 Frederick County Public Schools will operate on a two-hour delay on Friday.

 Frederick Community College will open at 11 a.m. Friday.

 Mount St. Marys Universitys campuses in Emmitsburg, Md., and Frederick, as well as the ARCC and the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes will open at 10 a.m. Friday.

Pennsylvania

School delays

 Central Fulton School District schools will operate on a two-hour delay on Friday.

 Chambersburg Area School District schools will operate on a two-hour delay on Friday.

 Greencastle Area School District schools will operate on a two-hour delay on Friday.

 Southern Fulton School District schools will operate on a two-hour delay on Friday.

 Penn State Mont Alto classes are delayed Friday and the school is running on a modified schedule. Classes will begin at 10 a.m.

 Wilson College will operate on a two-hour delay Friday with liberal leave status. Classes scheduled to be completed before 10 a.m. will be canceled. Classes scheduled to be in progress at 10 a.m. will begin at that time. All classes scheduled to start at 10 a.m. or after will meet at their regular times.

West Virginia

School delays

 Berkeley County public schools  All Berkeley County public schools will operate on a two-hour delay Friday. Prekindergarten classes are not scheduled Friday.

 Jefferson County public schools  All Jefferson County public schools will operate on a two-hour delay Friday.

 Morgan County public schools  All Morgan County public schools will operate on a two-hour delay Friday.

 Blue Ridge Community and Technical College will open at 11 a.m. Friday.
I dont mean to be snarky, I said recently to a young waiter, who said no problem three times  when I thanked him for explaining the soup of the day, when I thanked him for stuffing blue cheese in the olives for my martini and when I thanked him for the check.
WASHINGTON  Half or a quarter of the way through this interesting experiment with an incessantly splenetic presidency, much of the nation has become accustomed to daily mortifications. Or has lost its capacity for embarrassment, which is even worse.

If the countrys condition is calibrated simply by economic data  if, that is, America is nothing but an economy  then the state of the union is good. Except that after two years of unified government under the party that formerly claimed to care about fiscal facts and rectitude, the nation faces a $1 trillion deficit during brisk growth and full employment. Unless the president has forever banished business cycles  if he has, his modesty would not have prevented him from mentioning it  the next recession will begin with gargantuan deficits, which will be instructive.

The president has kept his promise not to address the unsustainable trajectory of the entitlement state (about the coming unpleasant reckoning, he says: Yeah, but I wont be here), and his partys congressional caucuses have elevated subservience to him into a political philosophy. The Republican-controlled Senate  the worlds most overrated deliberative body  will not deliberate about, much less pass, legislation the president does not favor. The evident theory is that it would be lese-majeste for the Senate to express independent judgments.
If the court were to strike down Tennessees admittedly weird law on the grounds that the interstate commerce doctrine bars liquor-law discrimination against out-of-staters, it might have the effect of invalidating the common requirement that production, wholesale and retail business be carried on separately by in-state firms. Isnt that the next case? Justice Neil Gorsuch wondered during Wednesdays hearing. No doubt it would be; no doubt that is why Total Wine is eager to set a broad precedent. And no doubt market efficiency would be maximized if beer, wine and spirits could be sold freely over the internet, like books and shirts.

However well it might correspond to modern consumer expectations, that result would not fit the clear intent and meaning of the 21st Amendment, a product of a very different time and culture but no less binding a piece of constitutional text for all that. Fortunately, opponents of the Tennessee law have offered an alternative rationale for striking it down: that it violates the constitutional clause guaranteeing citizens of each state  all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. This language seems to encapsulate better the alleged harm in this case, which is arbitrary discrimination against individual business owners, not obstruction of commerce.

The Supreme Court can either send the case back to lower courts for reconsideration on this basis or issue a ruling itself. Either way, the goal should be to attack one states vestigial, irrational law while leaving the bigger wine cases for another day.
 Tolls on commercial vehicles would be excessive in relation to the benefits conferred;

 The plan favors noncommercial vehicles over commercial vehicles, which power interstate commerce.

ATAs letter cited two court cases evaluating the constitutionality of a highway toll and said the U.S. Supreme Court has explained that, under the Commerce Clause, a transportation user fee is permissible only if it is based on some fair approximation of use of the facilities, is not excessive in relation to the benefits conferred, and does not discriminate against interstate commerce.

The association has filed two lawsuits regarding tolls in the past six months. In a lawsuit filed against the director of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, ATA charges that the Rhode Island tolls violate the Commerce Clause of the Constitution by imposing discriminatory and disproportionate burdens on out-of-state operators and on truckers who are operating in interstate commerce.

A second lawsuit was recently filed against Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, the Indiana Finance Authority, the Indiana Toll Road Concession Co., and the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Transportation challenging the increased tolls on heavy vehicles on the Indiana Toll Road. They were implemented last October.

The Alliance for Toll Free Interstates has launched a website called www.keeptollsoff81.com designed to rally those opposed to the plan.

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KINGSPORT, Tenn.A 16-year-old girl believed to be endangered was last seen this morning at a Tri-Cities hotel, according to Metro Nashville Police.

An arrest warrant charging kidnapping has been issued against German Rodriguezz, 19, after he picked up his ex-girlfriend, with whom he has a child, Thursday afternoon at McGavock High School, according to a Nashville news release.

Sixteen-year-old Maricsa Beltran-Lopez reported last Friday that Rodruguezz had been harassing her, following her, and showing up at school, the release staets. Her family made phone contact with her last night, but the conversation ended abruptly and her cell phone has since been turned off.

Beltran-Lopez and Rodriguezz were last seen in the Tri-Cities area today at 10:30 a.m. at the Comfort Inn and Suites South, 4624 Fairlane Drive, in Kingsport. A Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper went to the motel but the couple had already left.

Beltran-Lopez and Rodriguezz are believed to be traveling in a 2000 Honda Civic bearing Tennessee tag W0789X.

Anyone knowing their whereabouts is urged to contact the Emergency Communications Center at 615-862-8600.

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In October, at the request of Sullivan County District Attorney General Barry Staubus, Tennessee Bureau of Investigations Special Agents began investigating allegations of voter fraud involving Judy Guinn, 70. During the course of the investigation, agents determined that Guinn cast a ballot during early voting for the November general election despite being a convicted felon, according to a news release.
The First Thoughts and Final Thoughts commentaries from Lahren essentially bookend the day on Fox Nation at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m, respectively. The subscription service seems to be going out of its way not to compete in the evening with the top-rated, prime-time programming on the Fox News channel starring Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. (Fox Nation subscribers can only hear audio of those programs  and only after the programs have aired on cable TV.)
UPDATE: BRISTOL, Va.  A man charged with robbing a local credit union Thursday morning was quickly captured in a wooded area behind the bank.

At approximately 11:23 a.m., the Bristol Virginia Police Department received a call that the United Southeast Federal Credit Union on Lee Highway had been robbed. A man walked up to the drive-thru window, indicated he was armed and demanded money by handing the teller a note, police said.

The man, later identified as Larry Byington, 38, received an undisclosed amount of money and dropped some cash in the drive-thru lane. He walked away with some of the money, according to city police Capt. Maynard Ratcliff.

In addition to city officers, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Washington County Sheriffs Office and the Virginia State Police quickly responded to the scene near Interstate 81s Exit 5. Authorities set up a perimeter around the area and began searching for the suspect. VSP brought in a helicopter to assist in the effort.

Police vehicles blocked off the entrance and exit to the bank and the helicopter swirled slowly overhead as snow began to fall.
BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn.  I snapped.

Thats what Robert Seth Denton told his friend, Thomas Miller, minutes after his mother, grandmother and stepfather were gunned down at a home in rural Bristol in 2015, Miller testified on Thursday, the fourth day of trial for Denton in Sullivan County Criminal Court.

Denton, 22, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths on Aug. 29, 2015. He is accused of shooting them in front of six children, most of them siblings, between the ages of 2 and 12. One child was injured, which added two counts of aggravated assault and one count of reckless endangerment to Dentons charges.

Miller testified that Denton called him at 5:47 p.m. on the day of the shootings and was nonchalant when he made the statement. A 911 call from Curtis Rose, Dentons grandfather, was answered at 5:45 p.m. the day of the shootings, according to testimony from the dispatcher who took the call.

Miller described his conversation with Denton as laid back and normal and friendly. Denton, he said, didnt sound upset. Denton thanked him several times for being a good friend and told him he could have some of his belongings, Miller said.

Miller said he asked Denton if something was wrong, but he didnt answer him.
A second person was arrested Wednesday in connection with an Abingdon pharmacy robbery, following an hourlong standoff with police.

Logan Parsons, 27, was wanted for two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon and eluding police in Washington County, Virginia, in connection with a Dec. 27 robbery at the Highlands Community Pharmacy in Abingdon. He also had a pending warrant in Sullivan County for aggravated assault, according to a statement from the Sullivan County Sheriffs Office.

The U.S. Marshals Service contacted the Hawkins County Sheriffs Office Wednesday afternoon and requested the tactical unit assist in apprehending Parsons, according to the Sheriffs Office.

Police spotted Parsons enter a mobile home at the Choo Choo Trailer Park off Carters Valley Road in Mount Carmel, Tennessee. Parsons refused to come and a standoff ensued.

It started about 8 p.m., but Parsons surrendered without incident shortly after 9 p.m., police said. The trailer park was evacuated during the standoff, and no one was hurt.
Anderson, IN (46016)

Today

Clear early followed by cloudy skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Clear early followed by cloudy skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
This weekend marks an annual fair that will bring 700 students together, competing for scholarships and awards in the largest pre-collegiate STEM competition in Southwest Florida.

Lee Hughes said the traditional science fair, Thomas Alva Edison Kiwanis Science and Engineering Fair, began in 1958 and the Thomas A. Edison Festival of Light Regional Inventors Fair began in 1988.

The two fairs occurring on the same weekend helped solidify STEM as far as research the students conduct, as well as the inventiveness and entrepreneurial side of STEM and business, he said.

Participation in this weekends fair starts at the school level. Teachers and fair directors promote the opportunity and recruit students. The students participate in STEM activities and projects, as well as in after-school clubs that offers students an opportunity to work .

The STEM projects are entered into their schools fair where the students compete at the school level. The winners of those fairs move onto the regional competition.

Hughes said across the two fairs they have 700 students represented, with 650 STEM research projects and inventions.

This year they had 20,000 projects at the school level.

Seven hundred projects moved forward to the regional level, Hughes said. We certainly have a rich tradition. This is the fourth consecutive year weve seen a rise in participation level.

Students who will compete at Alico Arena on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University come from public, private and home-schools from around Southwest Florida.

Edison Festival of Light, as well as an affiliate of the State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida and Intel International Science and Engineering Fair sanctions the event.

The judging for the fairs will take place Saturday. The Inventors Fair judging will take place in the morning and opens to the public at 1:30 p.m., with award winners being identified at 3 p.m.

The Science Fair will open at 3 p.m. for the public, or when the judging is complete.

In the past, projects have included students working with cancer research and, more recently, blue-green algae and red tide. At the high school level, students are working with college and university professors for short-term and long-term solutions for the blue-green algae and red tide.

At the elementary school level, projects look at dealing with bullying, and other elementary issues, as well as physical education using various devices to track health.

Students are coming up with a wide array of inventions and project ideas, Hughes said.

This year marks Hughes 14th year participating in the Science Fair, the ninth year as an administrator. It began at Cape Coral High School when he recruited and promoted students to get involved in the program.

Hughes was a co-director for a number of years before becoming the director.

We have a steering committee of 20 to 25 community members. We meet monthly to plan these events. Its a 12-month planning operation, he said. We started planning for this weekends event in July.

Hughes said he enjoys the outpouring of support from the community, Fort Myers Kiwanis, Sony Electronics, FGCU and Edison Festival of Light. The community, parents, schools, administrators and teachers are the behind the scenes supporters of STEM interest.

That culminates with the projects and energy level and excitement you will see from the students, Hughes said.

The students participating in the fairs compete for more than 30 college scholarships and thousands of dollars worth in prizes.

Projects and students recognized will receive a winners notification. The awards program for the Edison Festival of Light Regional Inventors Awards Ceremony, presented by Sony Electronics Inc., will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23, at Edison Park Creative and Expressive Arts School, 2401 Euclid Avenue.

Edison Park Elementary, which originally opened in 1927, was one of the first auditoriums in Lee County where Thomas Edison attended community programs.

The Thomas Alva Edison Kiwanis Science and Engineering Fair Award Ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 29, at FGCUs Alico Arena.

There are scholarships to local colleges and universities, cash prizes, special award donations and grand prize trips to the next level fairs, Hughes said.

The inventors fair will include the best of for elementary, middle and high school students. The science fair will grant best of fair awards to middle and high school students.

We will select 28 projects to represent the region at the Science Fair in Lakeland, Florida in March, Hughes said. We will identify our Best of Fair winners, six projects that will go onto international fair (in Phoenix) in May.

Overall, 125 students will be recognized from the two fairs. In addition, FGCU will award more than 20 middle school students who competed at the Kiwanis Science Fair with a two-week Summer Research Opportunity at the Whitaker Center for STEM Education.

The Best of Fair Award winners in the Science and Inventors Fair will ride as honored guests in the Edison Festival of Light Parade Saturday, Feb. 16.

For more information, visit www.edisonfairs.org. two fairs occurring on the same weekend helped solidify STEM as far as research the students conduct, as well as the inventiveness and entrepreneurial side of STEM and business.

Participation in this weekends fair starts at the school level. Teachers and fair directors promote the opportunity and recruit students. The students participate in STEM activities and projects, as well as in after school clubs where the students have the chance to work .

The STEM projects are entered into their school fair where the students compete at the school level. The winners of those fairs move onto the regional competition.

Those students competing at Alico Arena on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University, are comprised of public, private and home-school from around Southwest Florida.

Edison Festival of Light, as well as an affiliate of the State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida and Intel International Science and Engineering Fair sanction the event.

The judging for the fairs will take place Saturday, Jan. 19. The Inventors Fair judging will take place in the morning and open to the public at 1:30 p.m., with award winners being identified at 3 p.m. The Science Fair will open at 3 p.m. for the public, or when the judging is complete.

In the past, Hughes said the projects have comprised of students working with cancer research, and more recently blue-green algae and red tide. He said at the high school level students are working with college and university professors for short-term and long-term solutions for the blue-green algae and red tide.

At the elementary school level, Hughes said they look at dealing with bullying, and other elementary issues, as well as physical education using various devices to track health.

Students are coming up with a wide array of inventions and project ideas, he said.

This year marks Hughes 14th year participating in the Science Fair, the ninth year as an administrator. It began at Cape Coral High School when he recruited and promoted students to get involved in the program.

Hughes was a co-director for a number of years before becoming the director.

We have a steering committee of 20 to 25 community members. We meet monthly to plan these events. Its a 12 month planning operation, he said. We started planning for this weekends event in July.

Hughes said he enjoys the outpouring of support from the community, Fort Myers Kiwanis, Sony Electronics, FGCU and Edison Festival of Light. He said the community, parents, schools, administrators and teachers are the behind the scenes supporters of STEM interest.

That culminates with the projects and energy level and excitement you will see from the students, Hughes said.

The students participating in the fairs are competing for more than 30 college scholarships and thousands of dollars worth in prizes.

Projects and students recognized will receive a winners notification. The awards program for the Edison Festival of Light Regional Inventors Awards Ceremony, presented by Sony Electronics Inc., will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23, at Edison Park Creative and Expressive Arts School, 2401 Euclid Avenue.

Edison Park Elementary, which originally opened in 1927, was one of the first auditoriums in Lee County where Thomas Edison attended community programs.

The Thomas Alva Edison Kiwanis Science and Engineering Fair Award Ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 29, at FGCUs Alico Arena.

There are scholarships to local colleges and universities, cash prizes, special award donations and grand prize trips to the next level fairs, Hughes said.

The inventors fair will include the best of for elementary, middle and high school students. The science fair will grant best of fair awards to middle and high school students.

We will select 28 projects to represent the region at the Science Fair in Lakeland, Florida in March, Hughes said. We will identify our Best of Fair winners, six projects that will go onto international fair (in Phoenix) in May.

Overall 125 students will be recognized from the two fairs. In addition, FGCU will award more than 20 middle school students who competed at the Kiwanis Science Fair with a two-week Summer Research Opportunity at the Whitaker Center for STEM Education.

The Best of Fair Award winners in the Science and Inventors Fair will ride as honored guests in the Edison Festival of Light Parade Saturday, Feb. 16.

For more information, visit www.edisonfairs.org.
Shane Ragsdale, formerly of Greenville, beloved son of Sheila June Winters and father Sariah Vanderwal-Ragsdale, passed away May 31, 2021 in the ICU of Hilo Hawaii hospital of pneumonia. Hi memorial service was held June 12, in Makapala, Hawaii. His fellowship on Earth will be missed; antici
Two road improvement projects, one in the city and another in North Fort Myers, are anticipated to make travel for motorists a little bit easier.

One project, passed by the Cape Coral City Council during its regular meeting Monday, is to award Ajax Paving Industries of Florida a contract to re-pave 22 lane miles of six major roadways at a cost of just over $1.4 million.

The roads to be resurfaced include two stretches of Chiquita Boulevard south of Pine Island Road and Cape Coral Parkway, Gulfstream and Yucatan parkways from Burnt Store to Old Burnt Store roads, Southeast 47th Terrace from Palm Tree Boulevard to Coronado, and Vincennes Boulevard.

The project includes other related work such as milling, utilities adjustments, limited structural repair and restriping, and has a completion time frame of 120 days after the notice to proceed is issued.

On Dec. 10, the City Council approved an additional $4.6 million for 82 lane miles of minor roads. Pavement Management was awarded the contract for that. An additional $500,000 is spent to repair potholes.

Cape Councilmember John Gunter, from District 1, said there are some areas being done in his district, which covers the South Cape. Portions of Cornwallis and Blanco Grande are being done, as well as Southeast 47th Terrace and Vincennes.

We budget $6.5 million every year for repaving projects. We get a lot of complaints for some of the conditions of the roads, Gunter said. During the recession nothing was getting done and were still trying to play catch-up.

City Manager John Szerlag has budgeted $6.5 million for road repaving for each of the past five years as some roads had not been repaved in decades.

Another project, which is slightly more long term, is one that was approved the Lee County Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday which will widen a 1.2-mile stretch of Littleton Road to three lanes from Corbett Road to U.S. 41.

The plan will include two 11-foot travel lanes and one 12-foot bi-directional lane with on-road bike lanes and 6-foot sidewalks on both sides. A minimum right-of-way width of 92 feet is needed to accommodate these improvements.

Among the comments we heard was what kind of an impact a four-lane road would have on the community. We looked at the alternatives and we found we can add a central turn lane and right turn lanes into the community and still improve traffic flow and still keep the appeal, County Commissioner Brian Hamman said.

The original plan was to make Littleton four lanes. However, that would have required the relocation of 36 residential units and the purchase of rights-of-way for roadway improvements, which alone would have added nearly $14 million to the cost. A four-lane highway would have cost $31.2 million, as opposed to $14.2 million for three lanes.

This is actually more in line with the communitys vision and saves the taxpayers money, Hamman said.

The widening is part of another plan to connect Littleton Road to Kismet Boulevard in Cape Coral to create one road and another east-west corridor into Cape Coral. Currently, drivers on Littleton need to take a left and an immediate right to access Kismet.
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A woman carrying a baby with a fatal foetal abnormality (FFA) was refused a termination at one of Dublin's biggest maternity hospitals, it has been claimed.

Two doctors at the Coombe Hospital certified that the woman - who was more than 13 weeks pregnant at the time of the diagnosis - was eligible for an abortion under new legislation, which has been in force for nearly three weeks.

However, she was then reportedly told to wait another four weeks to see if there was a spontaneous miscarriage.

Allegation

The allegation was made in the Dail by Solidarity-People Before Profit TDs Brid Smith and Ruth Coppinger.

Ms Smith said: "She's pregnant on a much-wanted baby. But she is being told by doctors you can go to England.

"Her words to me were, 'This is not what I voted for. I have constitutional rights'."

In response, the Coombe Hospital said it did not comment on individual cases, but insisted that its board "has had no role in determining whether or not the criteria for certification have been met".

The Department of Health confirmed that Health Minister Simon Harris is aware of the case.

Section 11 of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 sets out the law on access to termination of pregnancy in cases where there is a condition present affecting the foetus that is likely to lead to the death of the foetus before or within 28 days of birth.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "The operation of the legislation is a matter for attending clinicians. Neither the minister nor the department has any role in the medical management of cases.

"In addition, the board of any institution, including that of the Coombe, has no role in such decision making.

"However, it is clear that where a patient requires care not available in a particular location, the patient should be transferred to a hospital where the necessary care is available."

The department said it had "been advised that the Coombe Hospital is currently providing terminations in emergency situations and in cases of fatal foetal abnormality".

The Coombe announced last month that it was not ready to provide a full rollout of services as set out under the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, including taking referrals of women who were seeking a medical abortion at between nine and 12 weeks.

Patient

When the matter was raised yesterday by Ms Coppinger, the Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail intervened and said it was not appropriate for the Dail to discuss the experience of an individual patient.

Ms Coppinger addressed Tanasite Simon Coveney and said: "I want to raise with you what I believe is the first test case for the new abortion legislation.

"It would seem to me that it's because of the chilling effect of criminalisation that maternity hospitals are acting in this way."

Ms Coppinger also accused the Rotunda Hospital of enforcing the law up to 11 weeks into a pregnancy, not the 12 weeks that is allowed.

She asked Mr Coveney to get Mr Harris to meet the woman involved in the case.

"She should not have to pay to travel if she doesn't have her constitutional rights affirmed," she said.
A judge has ordered the arrest of a teenage mugger who was "fed" drugs and alcohol from the age of 10 by his aunt and uncle. (stock photo)

A judge has ordered the arrest of a teenage mugger who was "fed" drugs and alcohol from the age of 10 by his aunt and uncle.

The then 16-year-old boy pleaded guilty in December to attempted robbery of a woman walking her dogs at Marina Village, Malahide, on the night of April 15, 2017.

Dublin Children's Court heard the teen and another male approached her and demanded money. She said she did not have any and they fled.

The boy was due to appear for sentencing yesterday, but did not turn up. Judge O'Connor issued a bench warrant.

At his previous hearing, Judge O'Connor had indicated he was minded to apply the Probation Act if the youth stayed out of trouble over Christmas and came back to court with a letter of apology.

Gda Matthew O'Connor had agreed with defence counsel Nora-Pat Stewart that the teen was remorseful when he was later interviewed at a care facil-ity and wanted to apologise.

Ms Stewart said he had a difficult upbringing. The boy's mother, who was present for the hearing last month, was 14 when she gave birth to him.

He went to live with the aunt and uncle, who gave him alcohol and drugs.

He was later placed in a care home, but while there he would be collected by men who brought him out to sell crack cocaine. He was then moved to another children's home outside Dublin.

Counsel said the teen was taking part in an educational course and had a girlfriend who was a good influence on him.

Recently turned 18, he hoped to get steady employment. He had a good relationship with his mother's partner who was like a father to him, Ms Stewart said.

Addressing the court, his mother said the boy was not aggressive and she had prayed he could turn his life around.

She described the incident as "totally out of character" for him, but he had been easily led.

She had spoken about her own health problems and added that her son "helps me with shopping and so much".

Coma

"He can see that without drink and drugs you can have a happy life," she said.

The boy's grandmother could not cope with him and left him on his own with his uncle.

"At 10, 11, 12, he had five overdoses and was in a coma at one stage," said the mother.

"It was a very bad coma, for a kid at 14, for having cocaine, Valium and some things I'm not too sure about myself.

"It was a list of endless tablets, he wasn't right for a week after it".
A woman who handed pharmacy staff a prescription with misspelled medication on it has been found not guilty of knowingly using a forgery.

Rita Langley (36) accepted the doctor's script was not genuine, but insisted she did not know this and had asked a friend to pick it up for her.

Dismissing the case, Judge Mary Cashin said she was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Ms Langley knew the prescription was forged.

Ms Langley, of Allenton Avenue, Bohernabreena, Tallaght, pleaded not guilty to using a false instrument.

Gda Michael Waters told Dublin District Court he was called to Lloyds in Rathgar last July 3. The pharmacist showed him a prescription that Ms Langley had handed in, indicating his "reservations".

The doctor had prescribed only the first option to her. Three more were never on her prescription, and were "all spelled incorrectly".

Signature

The terminology of the doses was incorrectly formatted, and the doctor's signature was false.

Ms Langley told the garda that she had paid someone to get a taxi to pick up the prescription for her.

In evidence, she said she was not aware the prescription was false when she got it.

She had been on medication but could not go to get her prescription, so she asked a friend to collect it for her, telling the court: "Sometimes the prescription is left for me."

The friend gave the prescription to her and she had not seen him since, she said.

She was interested in only one item on it, she said.

Defence barrister John Griff-in said there was no intention to use a forgery.

Dismissing the case, the judge said "the whole issue of collecting other people's prescriptions might be looked at".
Irish-born BBC news editor Fergal Keane has spoken of the pain and loneliness of growing up in a household with an alcoholic parent.

The BBC News Africa editor, whose late actor father Eamon was an alcoholic, welcomed a new service from Alcohol Action Ireland for children.

"As someone who experienced parental alcohol misuse while growing up, I am delighted that Alcohol Action Ireland has launched the Silent Voices initiative, which will start a conversation and foster a better understanding of what I believe is a deep societal issue with alcohol.

"For those who know the loneliness, the confusion and pain that can come from being the child where parental alcohol misuse is a pattern in their life, Silent Voices will be a vital resource: it will tell people that they are not alone."

Silent Voices aims to end the silence of this experience, by promoting an understanding of the adverse impacts of parental alcohol misuse on the lives of children, including those who are now adults. It also plans, with existing service providers, to secure supports for those who have lived, or are living, with parental alcohol misuse.

Misuse

The driving force behind Alcohol Action Ireland's Silent Voices initiative are three women who experienced parental alcohol misuse as children: Carol Fawsitt, Marion Rackard and Barbara Whelan.

Speaking at the launch, Carol Fawsitt, who is also the chair of Alcohol Action Ireland, said: "Parental alcohol misuse - and its negative impacts on children - is something that rarely gets an airing in Irish society.

"Many of us - from all walks of life - have grown up under a shadow of alcohol misuse.

"The harms and negative impacts of growing up under this shadow can manifest themselves in different ways, but especially at a time of life change, such as a family bereavement, redundancy or pregnancy.

"It's my experience that life change with a backdrop of parental alcohol misuse can take its toll, and services - such as counselling - often don't recognise the link between parental alcohol misuse and trauma in adult children.

"For adult children, our message is this: if you are experiencing trauma in your life, seek help and don't be afraid to do so. It is our experience - as the instigators of Silent Voices - that by seeking help, many latent fears and coping mechanisms adopted in childhood can be addressed with significant personal benefits."

Alcohol Action Ireland estimates that approximately 400,000 people in Ireland today are adult children from alcohol-impacted families.

Recent data from the HSE's The Untold Story indicates that today, approximately 200,000 young children are likely living with and being affected by parental alcohol misuse.

"For service providers, a greater recognition of parental alcohol misuse harm is critical. Over the coming years, Silent Voices wants to grow awareness," Ms Fawsitt said.
Fire safety engineer David OConnor gave evidence at the inquests into the ten people who died in the blaze

Fire safety engineer David OConnor gave evidence at the inquests into the ten people who died in the blaze. Photo: Colin Keegan

A brave 14-year-old boy who rescued his nephew from a blaze that killed 10 people was "extremely lucky" to survive, a fire safety expert has said.

John Keith Connors had a "tiny window" of opportunity to enter the burning mobile home and rescue Tom Connors at a halting site in Carrickmines, Co Dublin, on October 10, 2015.

He grabbed the four-year-old seconds before a "flash-over scenario" as a chip pan of oil boiled over, creating an inferno that engulfed the unit.

Fire safety engineer David O'Connor told Dublin Coroner's Court that the time frame within which anyone could be rescued was "very small".

"The flashover scenario created temperatures of between 500 and 600 degrees Celsius in the unit, with hot gases, smoke and carbon monoxide," he said.

"It was extremely lucky they could do it at that time. Another minute and they would not have been able to survive."

The mobile home, a former portable building that had been used as a security shed, was significantly more vulnerable to fire than a modern house, the court heard.

Its exterior was made of a metal lining from which the heat could not discharge, Mr O'Connor said.

"This became the equivalent of the articulated truck on fire," he said. "If it was timber, the timber would have failed and the heat escaped."

The fire spread to another unit less than a metre away.

The mobile homes were the responsibility of the occupants, Mr O'Connor told the court.

He noted that under Department of Environment Guidelines for Traveller Accommodation (1998) there should have been at least six metres between homes on the site.

The guidelines note that "temporary" sites providing Traveller accommodation should not exceed more than five years.

The Glenamuck Halting Site had been established as emergency temporary accommodation by Dun Laoghaire- Rathdown Council in 2008.

Risks

Safety guidance issued in the wake of the fire, on December 2, 2015, advises the provision of escape windows and, where a minimum distance of six metres between units is unavailable, a firewall should be installed.

Dublin Fire Brigade's Acting Chief Fire Officer, Denis Keeley, agreed that mobile homes and caravans carried particular fire risks.

The jury heard the chip pan that caused the fire was sitting on a hot plate powered on to the highest setting. The cooker was relatively new and no electrical faults were detected, the inquest was told.

Asked by the coroner if this was the definite cause of the fire, Mr O'Connor replied it was. "In our belief this definitely caused the fire," he said.

CCTV footage revealed the fire started at 4.15am. The inquest heard that within minutes, the inferno had spread through the entire unit.

Emergency services arrived at 4.34am. The second mobile home caught fire between 4.34 and 4.38am.

Thomas Connors (27), his wife Sylvia (30) and their sons Jimmy (5) and Christy (3) were recovered from the main bedroom after the fire.

Willie Lynch (25), his pregnant partner Tara Gilbert (27) and their two daughters, Jodie (9) and Kelsey (4), were recovered from a second, smaller bedroom.

Jimmy Lynch (39), a brother of Willie Lynch, was removed from the kitchen area. Baby Mary Connors, daughter of Thomas and Sylvia, was pronounced dead in hospital.

The inquest into all 10 deaths continues on Monday.
First Officers Laura Bennett, Niall McCauley and Paul Deegan at Aer Linguss hangar at Dublin Airport in front of an A330-300 painted in the carriers new livery. Photo: Naoise Culhane Photography

Aer Lingus has unveiled its first major brand refresh in 20 years.

The new 'brand identity' includes a reboot of its iconic green livery and shamrock logo, with uniforms designed by Louise Kennedy due later this year.

Over 250 guests gathered in the Aer Lingus hangar at Dublin Airport for the big reveal yesterday, with the rebrand receiving a mixed reaction on social media.

Challenging

The shamrock logo has been retained but an extra tilt has been added "to symbolise dynamism and speed" as well as heart-shaped leaves to reflect "warmth and hospitality", the carrier said.

Aircraft will now be mainly white, with a rich teal replacing the old green and a light green for its stripes and shamrocks.

An A330-300 is the first plane to sport the new hues. The 'St Munchin' was painted in Shannon and will fly to New York today as flight EI105.

"Re-imagining this great brand was both challenging and stimulating," said Sean Doyle, who replaced Stephen Kavanagh as the airline's chief executive this month.

The tilting shamrock was introduced in 1996, the last time the Aer Lingus brand underwent a major overhaul.

The carrier's chief operating officer, Mike Rutter, said Aer Lingus had been conscious that "any new imagining of the brand must remain true to those who feel the brand is part of their life and their landscape".

"We're also deeply aware that the brand must reflect Ireland in 2019, a society that is open, progressive, liberal, outward-looking and dynamic, an Ireland that is proudly European and has become the destination choice for inward investment," he said.

Research began a year ago, with focus groups from across Ireland, continental Europe and North America asked for their opinions on the brand.

New York-based creative agency Lippincott was hired to help come up with potential designs. It has previously worked on rebrands for airlines including Virgin Atlantic, Delta and Cathay Pacific.
The latest batch of land parcels that Lee County has decided to pursue for its Conservation 20/20 program may be on the smaller side, but local experts say theyre important pieces of the conservation puzzle.

At Tuesdays Board of County Commissioners meeting, a motion passed unanimously to allot $30,000 for county staff to begin acquisition of seven parcels  two in the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve, two in Pine Island Sound, and three in the Cecil B. Webb Wildlife Management Area off Burnt Store Road.

Lee County Conservation Lands Manager Cathy Olson said these parcels will fill in the gaps in existing county and state preserves.

Its always really good to try to build onto existing conservation lands, because you get more bang for your buck that way rather than having an isolated parcel, she said.

Three parcels, a combined 249 acres, are grouped together in the Yucca Pens unit off Burnt Store Road north of Cape Coral.

That region along the Burnt Store corridor is some of the nicest pine flatwoods we have left in Lee County, said Olson.

Carl Veaux, president of the Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife, is encouraged by the move to acquire more parcels in that area.

Thats good theyre doing something in the Cape Coral area. We dont get too many nominations, and this will help add to what little we have in Cape Coral, he said.

Lee County Commissioner Brian Hamman, whose district includes Cape Coral, said because the area was pre-platted into residential lots, its difficult to find land large enough to preserve there.

As a person that was born and raised in Cape Coral, we look for opportunities wherever we can to try and purchase land that is going to benefit Cape Coral, and I believe several properties were going to pursue here around the Yucca Pens will be a great addition to that preserve, he said.

Hamman thinks its important to grow existing preserves to maximize environmental benefit, and Olson agrees.

For conservation use, its much better to have bigger parcels than smaller parcels, and although these are small individually, they add onto a much bigger portion of super important hydric flatwoods in the area, she said.

Hydric flatwoods are a unique ecosystem that function as both a wetland and an upland, depending on season.

They have the highest plant diversity of any habitat in South Florida and are also the least protected, according to a report by Florida Fish and Wildlife.

The parcels are located within the Charlotte Harbor Watershed and straddle a small creek called Greenwell Branch, which creates an opportunity for water quality improvements.

Its always good to buffer the creeks from potential pollution. That area definitely recharges the water table, so that would be an important consideration as well, said Olson.

The other parcels are mostly made up of mangroves, a vital ecosystem.

Mangroves are obviously important because they provide shoreline stabilization, particularly during large storm events such as hurricanes. Theyre like a buffer against storms and theyre also major hatcheries for both commercial and recreationally important fish, Olson said.

Two of those parcels in Pine Island Sound are directly adjacent to existing conservation lands  one 133-acre parcel south of Charlotte Harbor State Park, and another 181-acre parcel south of Carver Preserve, a Conservation 20/20 property.

We need to add to our preserves. Im thankful theyre getting the Pine Island ones, thats going to add to whats over there, Veaux said.

The other two are located within the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve  one is a 9.6-acre manmade island within the Mound Key Archeological State Park, and another 91 acres of mangroves on Big Hickory Island.

Theres potential for these parcels to be managed by the state, as theyre already located within state preserves, but Olson said its still too early in the process to say whether that will happen.

If were able to negotiate a successful deal, thats certainly something we would look at, particularly for Mound Key, since the state is managing the rest of the preserve and it wouldnt really be cost effective for us to manage it. We havent had those conversations yet, she said.

The Mound Key property is owned by Ted, Todd, and John McGee, who offered to sell it to the state in 2006 for $15 million, according to news accounts.

In 2009, according to a previous Observer report, Lee County offered $500,000 for the property, and the owners countered with $5 million.

In May last year, the property hit the market for $2.9 million, well above asking prices for the other parcels the county is pursuing.

The 91-acre parcel on nearby Big Hickory Island is listed for sale by Barron Collier Partnership for $750,000, and the 32-acre and 125-acre parcels in the Yucca Pens are listed for $72,000 and $281,250, respectively.

The next step in the process is to have the properties appraised and begin negotiating the purchases.

At this point, we will go and get appraisals on these properties. The appraisals will tell us what the market value is of the property, if the value is over $500,000, well order a second appraisal, just to make sure that we get a correct price on it. Then they go into negotiations similar to any other real estate transaction its just dependent upon how those talks go, said Hamman.
Posted 1/18/19

Jan. 15, 1959Plans and blueprints for a swimming pool and park were handed to the Buffalo City Council at its regular meeting last Thursday. Both were made by Matthews & Hillman, Architects, of 
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ATLANTA  Covington Police Officer Matt Cooper was recognized by Gov. Brian Kemp and received cheers and an extended standing ovation from Kemp and the Georgia General Assembly Thursday during the governors State of the State address. Cooper, who was seriously wounded while chasing a shoplifter last year, was present with his wife Kristen in the second floor gallery at the state Capitol for the address.

Cooper was wounded in a line-of-duty shooting on Labor Day. He was shot in the head, and the bullet lodged in his carotid artery, clotting his blood and saving his life. The shooting suspect was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.

Cooper was initially taken to Grady Memorial Hospital and then transferred to the Shepherd Center for rehabilitation. Since the shooting the community has rallied to support him and his family through prayer, fundraisers and other events. A record-setting crowd turned out for the 35th running of the Covington Police Fuzz Run, which generated funds in support of Cooper.

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Cooper was able to celebrate Christmas at home with his family before returning to the Shepherd Center to continue his rehabilitation.

Making his first State of the State address since being elected governor in November and sworn into office on Monday, Kemp recognized the officer during remarks related to continuing criminal justice reform in Georgia, which began under the leadership of his predecessor, former Gov. Nathan Deal.

Today Im honored to have one of Georgias most distinguished members of our law enforcement family here with us, said Kemp. He is a fighter in the strongest sense of the word and a true hero among us.

Last year he was wounded in the line-of-duty and nearly lost his life. While chasing a criminal he was shot literally right between the eyes. After multiple surgeries, Im proud to tell you that he is with us today, next to his wife Kristen in the gallery. Help me in thanking Covington Police Officer Matt Cooper.

Following the ovation, Kemp spoke to Cooper directly.

Coop, just know that we are continuing to pray for your recovery.

Gov. Kemp also recognized the six law enforcement officers who were killed in the line of duty last year, including Locust Grove Police Officer Chase Maddox and Henry County Police Officer Michael Smith, and told their families they remain in the states thoughts and prayers.

Kemp went on to state that it is time for Georgia to renew its commitment to public safety and to honor those who were lost by taking action.

As governor, Im committed to addressing the rise of gang activity in our state, a growing threat requiring our immediate attention, he said.  My budget proposal includes $500,000 in initial funds to form a gang task force within the GBI. This highly qualified group of experienced law enforcement personnel and prosecutors will work with local district attorneys and law enforcement to stop and dismantle gangs in Georgia We can undermine organized crime and together we can build a safer future for all Georgia families.
A CONCERT pianist from Henley will be lifting the lid on some of her all-time musical favourites in the coming weeks  with a series of winter recitals in Wallingford.

Anita DAttellis of Norman Avenue is looking to expand on the success of last years series at the church of St Mary-le-More in Market Place, which was the first she had organised.

That was the trial run! she laughs. Just to see how it went and how I coped with it  and in the end it was a success and I enjoyed the whole process.

Highlights of the 2018 series, which ran from January to March, included a Bring on the Youth! concert  an idea that is set to be reprised this year.

The format is pretty much the same, agrees Anita. There are four recitals and one of those is dedicated to young people. So Im doing the same as that because I think its important to keep that side of it going. And then the other three are with adults but with completely different programmes to last year. So yes, something different!

The first concert takes place next Saturday evening (January 19). Beethoven meets Brahms features the talents of violinist Marian Givens and French horn player Andrew Sutton alongside Anita on piano.

Works due to be performed include Beethovens Horn Sonata in F major and Rondo a capriccio, alternating with Brahmss Violin Sonata No 2 in A major and Horn Trio in Eb major.

All of which represents a fair amount of practice time  not that this seems to faze Anita.

Last year, because I was playing in it as well as devising it and getting things organised it did seem that it was quite a lot of work, but it was really enjoyable because at the same time I was doing the things that I wanted to do  I was playing the pieces I wanted to play and working with the people I wanted to perform with. So the upsides counterbalanced al the hard work!

As was the case last year, the proceeds from the recitals will go to the St Mary-le-Mores tower fund.

The church were delighted, says Anita. They got some 3,000 out of it for the tower fund, so financially it also worked out okay. And theyre nearly at the end of it now  theyre just doing the last few thousand now, so hopefully these concerts will help.

Featuring the talents of the All Saints Marlow Choristers and a number of outstanding young instrumentalists, Bring on the Youth takes place on Saturday, February 9.

Then on Saturday, February 23, Anita and Shiplake saxophonist Huw Wiggin present a Classical Journey  from Bach to Gershwin featuring an eclectic mix of popular classical pieces.

Matters then take a continental turn on Saturday, March 9, with the final recital in the series, Vive la France!

Joined by Giles Wade on violin and Jacqueline Johnson on cello, Anita will be tackling a programme that includes Saint-Saenss Cello Sonata No 1 in C minor, Chaussons Poeme, Ravels Sonata for violin and cello, Debussys Piano Preludes and Faures Trio in D minor.

Im excited about this series of recitals because I had really good feedback from the last one and each concert was a sell-out, says Anita.

I sort of thought over the summer, Well, shall I do it again? I talked to a few people and it was as though it was meant to be because I was talking to all these musicians, and theyve all got their different things that theyre involved in, but when it came down to me fixing some dates they were all free on the different dates  so it fell into place like a miracle.

Its an unfair question to ask, but is there perhaps any one of the four concerts that Anita is most looking forward to performing in?

I couldnt say! she laughs. I really wouldnt want to single one out. For all different reasons Im really looking forward to each of them. With the first and the last particularly, I collaborated with those people to get the programme we wanted.

Most of the pieces are kind of

all-time favourites that Ive played before but years ago and I cant wait to play them again. But there are also some new pieces that Im looking forward to doing.

In the French one, the Saint-Saens cello sonata is a new piece. I mean, Ive learnt it now but it was new when we were choosing it. I havent performed that one before but its a great piece and Jacqueline introduced me to it. So yeah, brilliant.

Im also doing a few solos within these programmes as well, which I didnt last time, but they just fitted into what we were doing.

For example, if youve got a French horn player, youve got to give them a break [during the concert]  they cant just play for a whole day!

And the same with Huw Wiggin  so Im doing a few solos in his concert as well, because its actually quite demanding to continue playing without a break.

So Ill be doing a few solos in between to break up the programme  and also I think it makes it more interesing for the audience because they get a different sound.

While the details of this years Henley Festival line-up are yet to be confirmed, it is understood that Huw Wiggin is due to perform there with the Henley Symphony Orchestra.

The past year has been a busy one for Anita, 41, who is married to former Fleet Street photographer John Downing MBE. At one point, prior to performing a full cello programme in Marlow, she was practising for around 10 hours a day.

How many engagements does she tend to take on in an average year?

Its difficult to say because sometimes things can be a lot of work but its not necessarily a big concert. So it might just be that Im playing for someones audition. I played for a couple of peoples diplomas over the summer, so thats quite a lot of work  its like a 40-minute recital. Theyre the one being examined, Im not, but I feel like you can be quite busy even if you havent got any concerts on!

All four Wallingford recitals start at 7.30pm and will be performed in the round. Seats are unreserved, so concertgoers are advised to arrive early to secure the best spots. Refreshments will be available and a donation bar open.

Tickets for each recital are 12 in advance or 14 on the door. For more information and to book, visit www.anitapiano.com/wrw2019
A Melbourne company and two individuals have been penalised $335,664 for underpaying Chinese workers at a 7-Eleven franchise and a Japanese restaurant in Melbournes CBD.



Xia Jing Qi Pty Ltd, which operated the 7-Eleven outlet until March 2017, was penalised $154,225 for requiring three international students to repay part of their wages in an unlawful cashback scheme.



The company was penalised a further $145,800 in the Federal Circuit Court for underpaying a migrant worker at an Ajisen Ramen franchise in the Melbourne Central shopping centre.



Former manager Ai Ling Irene Lin has also been penalised $9,590 for her involvement in the 7-Eleven convenience store breaches. Moreover, the companys director Jing Qi Xia, who has a Chinese background, was penalised $26,049 for her involvement in the restaurant breaches.



The three workers underpaid at the 7-Eleven store were from China and aged between 21 and 24 while employed with the company.



After the public exposure of 7-Eleven underpayments in 2015, Lin tried to disguise underpayments of three employees by requiring them to pay back thousands of dollars in wages.



Lin told the three employees in late 2015 they would be paid through the payroll system but then specified a weekly sum for each of the workers to pay back via a safe drop box in the 7-Eleven store or to Lins bank account.



After returning this portion of their wages, the employees were left with hourly rates ranging from $8.53 to $26.52, leading to various underpayments of their ordinary hourly rates, casual loading, and weekend and public holiday penalty rate entitlements.



Moreover, the three employees were underpaid a total of $6,674 for various periods of work between November 2015 and October 2016. They were back-paid in August 2017.



The worker underpaid at the Ajisen Ramen restaurant was also from China and in Australia on a 462 working holiday visa. She was underpaid $9,616, after being paid $11.50 per hour between May and October 2016 and then amounts equating to just $3.98 per hour in her final week of work, significantly below the minimum hourly rate, casual loading and penalty rates she was entitled to.



The underpayments left the worker struggling to meet living expenses despite working four to six days per week. The worker was back-paid in August 2017.



Judge Norah Hartnett said the use of the cash back scheme at the 7-Eleven store was particularly egregious.



[I]t involved a deception of 7-Eleven head office and circumvented attempts by head office to stamp out the underpayment of employees by 7-Eleven franchisees, said Judge Hartnett.



The Court recognises that conduct such as implementing a system requiring employees to repay wages they are owed, and making, keeping and producing false records to disguise employees true employment situation, is reprehensible conduct and denies to all employees the minimum wage standards that they, in Australia, should expect and are entitled to.



In relation to the Ajisen Ramen breaches, Judge Hartnett said the conduct of the company and Ms Xia was deliberate and grave.



It was only in circumstances where the [Fair Work Ombudsman] had independently uncovered the truth, that the [company and Ms Xia] admitted to the underpayments.



Moreover, acting Fair Work Ombudsman Kristen Hannah said that employers who exploit migrant workers will be discovered and met with serious legal consequences.



The Fair Work Ombudsman will not tolerate any employers requiring any workers to pay back any of their wages, said Hannah.
A detailed review has commenced to confirm how penalties, allowances, and loadings should have been calculated and applied over the past six years to about 2,500 flat-rate casual staff, she said.

The broadcaster has also informed the Fair Work Ombudsman of the incident. The company is now examining its processes and reaching out to employees who may have been affected.

This error should not have occurred, and we apologise to any casual employee who has been underpaid. The ABC is actively working to remedy this for affected employees as soon as possible, Donaldson said.

The CPSU had been auditing the pay rates of casuals since August 2018 when it noticed the discrepancies.

As recently as 2016, the CPSU was assured by the ABC that it was paying casual employees in accordance with the terms and conditions of the ABC staff agreement  clearly that is not the case, Sinddy Ealy of the CPSU said in a statement.
Neal Communities names

two new sales associates

Neal Communities, a Southwest Florida private homebuilder, has hired Jason Clifford and Ingrid McDowell as new sales associates in its south region, which encompasses Lee and Collier counties.

Clifford will supervise sales at Richmond Park while McDowell will spearhead sales at Watermark. In their new roles, the two are responsible for the tours, transactions and models within their respective communities.

Before joining the team at Neal Communities, Clifford served as an in-house sales representative for two vacation home clubs in Marco Island and Orlando for more than 5 years.

With more than 16 years of experience in real estate, McDowell has worked for several homebuilders selling town homes, single-family homes and condominiums throughout southwest Florida. She has a Florida real estate license and is fluent in Spanish and Swedish.

Richmond Park is a multifamily community with luxury carriage homes in the fastest-growing area of north Naples.

Watermark is a maintenance-assisted community of single-family homes and paired villas in Fort Myers.

With over 40 years of building award-winning homes, Neal Communities has over 90 successful communities throughout southwest Florida. To date, Neal has built over 14,000 homes in southwest Florida. For more information, please visit www.NealCommunities.com.

Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Property Southwest Florida announces promotions, new hires

Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Property Southwest Florida begins 2019 by announcing the promotion of two leaders, a broker and the addition of one new employee to the firm.

Heather Adams was named vice president of operations, Marina Joel was named director of finance and Gretchen Smith was named director.

Adams, with a 13-year background in facilities and property management, has been with the firm since 2016. She is an expert in establishing and maintaining cost controls and reporting procedures for assets.

Joel, with more than 11 years of experience in real estate and finance combined, has also been with the firm since 2016. passed the Community Association Manager (CAM) licensing process and examination in 2018, adding to her list of attributes.

Smith was named Costars Top Office Leasing and Retail Broker in 2018, as well as Top Leasing Broker in Southwest Florida in 2017. She has been with the firm 4 years this May and has vast knowledge of the real estate market. She has held an active real estate brokers license since 2014 and licensed for over 14 years.

Fort Myers-based Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Property Southwest Florida also welcomed new employee, Michelle Jumalon, who joined the firm as accounts payable specialist respectively. She brings 25 years experience and knowledge in the accounting arena.

In addition to the promotions, the firm closed the year with record activity and overall growth in business in all departments facilitated the need for increased staff.

For more information or to learn more about Commercial Property Southwest Florida, contact Gary Tasman at gtasman@cpswfl.com or visit www.cpswfl.com.
Montana Rep. Joshua Kassmier, R-Fort Benton, said during Thursday's teleconference with the public that there are more important priorities in Montana than worrying about building a wall on the southern border.

Rep. Jacob Bachmeier, D-Havre, said he agreed with Kassmier in the wall, proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, is a federal issue and that he was unsure if Montana Senate President Scott Sales was serious when he proposed the bill.

Sales said in the beginning of this year he will introduce a bill during the legislative session that will propose sending $8 million to help Trump b...
Tuesday in Chinook stockmanship clinician Tom Curtin spoke to a crowd of more than 50 people about low-stress cattle handling.

Montana State Beef Quality Assurance Coordinator, and volunteer for Curtin, Bill Pelton said Curtin's methods are a great asset to ranchers and livestock owners because it's beneficial for the livestock and increases the quality of the meat.

He said he has known Curtin for years and has traveled with him all around the world teaching these methods of low-stress livestock handling. He added that the cattle are the ones that benefit the most from low-stress handling...
Griggs Printing and Publishing sits empty Jan. 4 after closing its doors in Havre two days earlier.

A Havre businessman this month ended five decades of local printing. Jim Griggs said he has closed the doors to Griggs Printing and Publishing.

Griggs said that at 11:25 a.m. Jan. 2 he had turned the key for the last time.

He said he and his wife, Bonita, sold the building in 2013 to the H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation as the future home of the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum, with the provision he had up to 10 years in which he could keep operating his business there.

"Happiest day was when I bought that building, my worst day was when I sold it to them and t...
Havre Police Department

A 17-year-old was arrested on a Justice or City court warrant Thursday after a suspicious call to 911 from Lila Drive Thursday at 1:21 p.m.

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A caller on Second Street Northeast reported Thursday at 9:19 p.m. an Xbox was stolen.

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A caller reported at 5:30 a.m. today that someone had stolen a Chevy S-10 pickup from is Curve Drive residence.

Hill County Sheriff's Office

An 11-year-old girl from Hays was issued a summons on a shoplifting charge after a caller at a US. Highway 2 West business reported a shoplifter at 6:45 p.m. Thursday.

Havre Fire Department...
A story and headline about Ken Robisons presentation Tuesday at Montana State-University Northern afternoon that ran on the front page of Wednesdays edition of the Havre Daily News misreported that Robison is a professor and has a Ph.D. Also, Robison did not say that the Montana Historical Society offered a pathetic excuse regarding the lack of African American history catalogued. Robison said that he could not give this kind of presentation two decades ago because the knowledge and stories about Montanas African Americans was not available with a pathetic excuse generally given that Montana had so few black residents.
By Emily Mayer

The meeting organized by the Havre Chamber to discuss the promotion of the welfare and prosperity of Havre was successful. A program for community betterment and the advancement of the material prosperity of Hill county had been proposed, as well as a committee to encourage former Chamber members to rejoin the Chamber and recruit new members was formed. Reorganization of the business club was at stake, and another meeting had been called for Jan. 23, 1919.

Also reported in the Jan. 18, 1919 issue of The Havre Plaindealer was the advancement of the Havre Rotary Club becoming part of the International association. Havre Rotary President Frank T. Merrill and Secretary Treasurer Frank W. McCarthy, along with members the Reverend L. J. Christler, Sidney Hirshber, L. V. Beaulieu, Lou Lucke, J. P. Grandy, A. E. Wilkie, E. C. Carruth, C. B. Koepke, James G. Holland, Earl Becwar, G. N. Funk and C. C. Brundage were at a lunch meeting at the Havre Hotel to welcome the Great Falls delegation. The Great Falls Rotary Club came up to Havre to hand deliver the Havre clubs International Charter.

Reports of two local funerals were printed.

FULL MILITARY HONORS AT LORANGER FUNERAL

Son of Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Loranger Laid Away Today

The funeral of Sidney Raymond Loranger, who died in the service of his country, will be held this afternoon with military honors. Mr. Loranger died at Los Animas, Colorado, and his parents arrived in Havre Thursday morning with the body of their son about 2 a.m. They were met at the station by an escort of 18 soldiers in uniform and escorted to the home on Third Avenue.

Out of respect of the deceased and in recognition of the manner in which the community should honor such a military occasion the stores and business houses will remain closed between the hours of 2 and 4 oclock p.m. The two theatres will also not begin their usual matinee performance until 4 oclock. A firing squad will perform the usual military duties at the grave. The church proper was placed in readiness yesterday by a band of workmen for todays services as the chapel was deemed inadequate to accommodate the large circle of friends and neighbors who will desire to attend the obsequies.

MANY ATTEND FUNERAL OF MRS. W. E. WILTNER

Simple and Impressive services at St. Marks Church

The funeral of Mrs. W. E. Wiltner was held from St. Marks Episcopal church Monday afternoon, Rev. L. J. Christler conducting the simple and impressive services assisted by the vested choir. The church was filled with neighbors and friends having their last tribute to the departed and showing sympathy with the husband and son so sadly bereaved. The burial was in Highland cemetery where the services at the grave were in charge of the Rebekah lodge of which Mrs. Wiltner was an honored member. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Wiltner of St. Paul, parents of W. E. Wiltner, arrived early Sunday morning to attend the funeral.

The woes for Rev. E. J. Huston, O. G.Larson and Henry Kurtz continued. In the Commissioners Proceedings, the following was recorded:

The following resolution was presented to the board:

Resolution

Whereas authority has been heretofore granted the county attorney to employ special counsel to prosecute the case of the State of Montana vs. E. J. Huston, O. G. Larson and Henry Kurtz, the county to pay a fee of $50.00 for such special counsel, and

Whereas, the county attorney has appointed as such special counsel to prosecute the case, Mr. O. W. McConnell of Helena, Montana.

Therefore, be it resolved, that this board herby confirm and ratify the appointment and employment of said W. O. McConnell, as special prosecutor in the case of the state of Montana vs. E. J. Huston, O. G. Larson and Henry Kurtz, the county to pay the said special prosecutor fee of $50.00.

The above resolution was approved of by Commissioners Jos. T. Berthelotte and Wm. F. Watters, Commissioner Abe Crosson objecting.

In this day and age, Crosson would have had to recuse himself from the resolution, being as he bailed Huston out of jail not once, but twice, related to this very issue.
The Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees will meet Tuesday at 12:15 p.m. in the Robins School Administration Building.

The agenda for the meeting is:

A. Call to order

1. Pledge of Allegiance

2. Roll call

3. Welcome to visitors

4. Agenda deletions or correction; and additions allowed per policy, if any

B. New business

1. Personnel

Open Agenda  An opportunity for any member of the audience to bring to the attention of the board questions or relevant comments concerning district matters not on the agenda. The board will not discuss or take action on items not on the agenda, but may refer a matter presented to a future agenda.

C. Superintendents report

1. Havre Middle School science project

D.. Closing

The next board meeting will be Tuesday, Feb 12, at 6:30 p.m at Havre Middle School
Editor: Well I read in the news that Scottsdale had an unwelcome surprise recently
Faith Concert Series at Faith Presbyterian Church

Faith Presbyterian Church in Cape Coral will present a Faith Concert Series  Karin, Ed & Friends  at 4 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 27. Soprano Karin White, baritone Ed Pember and pianist / organist Michael Helman will present an afternoon of sacred music and musical theater favorites.

The first half of the program will include classic and contemporary sacred selections featuring chichi soloists and Faith Choir! The second half will entertain with show-stoppers from popular musical theater shows. It will be A Grand Night for Singing! There will be a free-will offering for this event.

Faith Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian community of joy and excitement that promises to love, comfort and respect everyone through the challenging power of Christ. The church is located at 4544 Coronado Parkway, Cape Coral. For more information, visit www.fpcfl.org/ or call 239-542-2858.

Knights of Columbus Ladies Auxiliary Card Party and Salad Buffet Luncheon

The Knights of Columbus Ladies Auxiliary will be having a Card Party / Salad Buffet Luncheon Friday, Jan. 25, in the Parish Hall. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. and cards begin at noon. Tickets can be purchased at the Church Office for $5 prior to the party or $6 at the door. There will be a 50/50 drawing as well as door prizes. The public is invited. If you prefer not to play cards, no problem, just use your ticket to join us and enjoy a light lunch, including beverages and dessert.

For information call Nancy at 878-6594, or Stella at 205-6611.

Fort Myers Congregational United Church of Christ to hold Attic Treasures sale

Come to Fort Myers Congregational United Church of Christ at 8210 College Parkway on Saturday, Feb. 8, from 8:30 a.m. top 12:30 p.m., to find Attic Treasures  housewares, clothing, small appliances, tools, jewelry, holiday decorations, linens, books, toys and more.

For those with an appetite, there will also be baked goods and hot dogs for sale.

The Womens Group is sponsoring the event. Proceeds from the sale will support local community organizations such as the Destiny Diaper Bank, Footsteps to the Future, Gladiolus Learning and Development Center and Voices for Kids.

Sunday Drive trio to perform at First Community Congregational Church in Lehigh Acres

Sunday Drive is coming to First Community Congregational Church, 200 Leeland Heights Blvd., E, Lehigh Acres. This trio is known for their family harmony, warm, smooth voices and humor. They are coming for an exciting musical event Sunday evening, Jan. 20, at 6 p.m.

Jeff Treece, Misty Treece and Dusty Treece make up this award-winning trio. Their God-given talent has garnered them numerous awards including album of the year, song of the year, vocal group of the year and many others. Sunday Drive has a unique ability to communicate through song and humor creating an experience you wont forget.

For additional information regarding this musical event, call 239-33- 8574. There will be a free will offering and a complimentary light supper at 5 p.m. Everyone is welcome.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers Casino Night Fundraiser

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers will sponsor a Casino Night Fundraiser Saturday, Jan. 26, from 7-9:30 p.m., in Hobart Hall at the church at 13411 Shire Lane. This event is open to area adults and families. The $25 entry fee will include $3,000 worth of playing chips, light refreshments and a cash bar. Games will include roulette, black jack, poker and Wheel of Fortune, administered by our Scout Troop 3300. Prizes will be awarded to game winners at end of the evening. All proceeds will go to the Unitarian Church of Fort Myers.

Church of the Epiphany card party, luncheon Feb. 8

The Epiphany Church Women will hold a Card Party/Luncheon, Friday, Feb. 8, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the church, 2507 Del Prado Blvd., S., in Cape Coral.

Cards or games may be played. There will be door prizes, raffles, crafts and bakery goods. Funds raised are for the churchs Outreach Programs, such as the Cape Coral Caring Center, Guardian Ad Litem, Ronald McDonald House and others.

Reservations are required. Tickets are $10. Call Ruth McConnell, at 574-4299.

Bill Gaither and Gaither Vocal Band to perform in Fort Myers next Friday

On Friday, Jan. 25, at the First Assembly of God in Fort Myers, multi-Grammy Award-winner Bill Gaither will host an evening of music, laughter and encouragement featuring the talent of the prestigious Gaither Vocal Band

The Gaither Vocal Band will share timeless gospel classics, as well as refreshing, inspiring new favorites embraced by audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Few events have the ability unite individuals from all walks of life the way Gaither concerts do.

This past fall, the Gaither Vocal Band celebrated the release of its brand new recording, We Have This Moment, produced by famed country and gospel music performer and studio musician Gordon Mote. The recording is a musical snapshot of a special season for this lauded quintet, featuring Gaither, Wes Hampton, Adam Crabb, Todd Suttles and Reggie Smith, the newest addition to the iconic group.

Year after year, Bill Gaither has brought the Homecoming Tour into cities worldwide, performing to packed houses with collective attendance figures exceeding a million people and being ranked among the top concerts for tickets sold worldwide in any music genre during the past two decades. Each concert showcases gospel musics finest talent and draws new listeners with every city.

Complete information on the concert, including ticket pricing and group ticket information, is available by visiting www.gaither.com or www.premierproductions.com or by calling 1-855-484-1991 or 239-936-6277.
Published on 2019/01/17 | Source

SHINee's Key and Choi Minho are heading out to serve their country in 2019.

Advertisement

According to sources, they are the second and third members to be admitted to the military after Onew who left in December last year. Key plans on joining in March after the release of the movie "Hit-and-Run Squad". He's also applied for a position in the military band. Choi Minho has completed filming the movie "The Battle of Jangsari".

Several movie sources say, Key and Choi Minho are rising stars of the movie industry, but all casting for them have been put on hold because they have to do their part in National Duty".

Key starred in several dramas such as "Drinking Alone" and "Lookout", and "Hit-and-Run Squad" is his first movie. "Hit-and-Run Squad" is a car chase action movie about an ace policeman named Min-jae (Ryu Jun-yeol) in the hit and run department with a knack for cars, a detective named Si-yeon (Gong Hyo-jin) who was demoted, and Jae-cheol (Cho Jung-seok) who is crazy about cars and speed.

Choi Minho is starring in "The Battle of Jangsari", which is a story of the Battle of Jangsari, which initiated the Incheon Landing that turned the tide for South Korea and its allies during the Korean War. Hundreds of teenaged soldiers tried to cut off military supplies for North Korea. It stars Kim Myung-min, Kim In-kwon, Kim Sung-cheol, Kwak Si-yang, and Megan Fox. Choi Minho plays chief student soldier Choi Seong-pil and the movie comes out next year.




Haiti - Culture : Launch of the 3rd edition of the Carnival of Croix-des-Bouquets





Thursday at a press conference to the Town Hall, the Mayor of Croix-des-Bouquets, Rony colin, announced that the 3rd edition of the carnival of Croix-des-Bouquets will take place on February 22, 23 and 24, 2019, around of the theme "Kwadebouke se ke m".



Alongside the two deputy mayors Jean Jonas Saint-Juste and Mrs. Geraldine Cetoute, his Head of Cabinet Me Jacky C. Pierre, the Director General of the City Council, Jacques Cesar and the Chairman of the Committee in charge of organizing the carnival, Belizaire Raphael Mayor Colin announced novelties this year.



Two great tenors of Haitian music for decades in the country, "T-Vice" and "Djakout # 1" will be the special guests at the Carnival of Croix-des-Bouquets. "Roody Roodboy", the champion at the 2018 national carnival with his meringue "ou Mechan", the root group "Koudjay" and the group of Senator Anthonio Cheramy "Brothers Posse" among others, will also assume the atmosphere on the macadam to sides of the musical groups of the Commune, DJs and walking bands.



Emphasis was also placed on the cultural, artistic and historical values of the Commune, particularly through the artisans of the "Village de Noailles" who will have an allegorical float for the exhibition of their works.



In addition, in order to offer a showcase to the talents of the young graphic designers of the Commune, the Mayor announced the launch of a logo contest and encouraged those interested in removing on the Facebook page of the Town Hall and his personal Facebook page the registration form and send their work as soon as possible.



The first day of the carnival, Friday, February 22, will be devoted to the parade of disguised and masked students of the various schools of the Commune which will leave the place Marassa to arrive on the communal place Beauvais.



The other two days, February 23 and 24, the Carnival will be held in the usual format. The official route is: Carrefour Marassa, Duval road (national road #8), Calvaire crossroads, street of the Republique in front of the Town Hall and national road #3.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Army : 250 aspiring soldiers of the FAd'H in training





Thursday, as part of the Haitian-Mexican cooperation, Enold Joseph the Minister of Defense who announced in mid-December the training in January of 500 young aspiring soldiers https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26422-haiti-army-500-haitian-soldiers-in-training-from-january-2019.html , proceeded on the military base completely rehabilitated "Anacaona" in Gressier, in the presence of a delegation of Mexican soldiers at the launch of a training of 5 months for 250 young recruits from the first Promotion of the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAd'H) selected from nearly 4,000 candidates.



Recall that during the first call for applications (17 to 21 July 2017 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21481-haiti-flash-the-army-recruits-call-for-candidates.html ) more than 2,200 postulants of which 200 young women have registered https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21629-haiti-army-more-than-2-000-candidates-soldier-enrolled.html . Last November, during the resumption of recruitment (November 12 to 16 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25995-haiti-flash-recruitment-of-a-class-of-soldiers.html ) nearly 1,700 new aspiring soldiers have registered.



In addition, 50 non-commissioned officers and 15 professionals will travel to Mexico for military training.



In his speech, Minister Joseph insisted on the values of the military institution "Being a soldier in Haiti is symbolizing the pride of our ancestors [...]" and the role of the Haitian military whose mission includes to intervene in case of disaster and major natural hazards while respecting human rights.



Colonel Jean-Robert Gabriel, Assistant Chief of Staff G1 / G3 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23809-haiti-flash-appointments-of-the-staff-of-fad-h.html urged the young recruits to make the most of their training reminding them "your mission will be to defend the national territory and serve the Haitian population."



Note that in addition to cooperation with Mexico, the Haitian Armed Forces also benefit from cooperation with Chile, Brazil, Ecuador and Taiwan.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26422-haiti-army-500-haitian-soldiers-in-training-from-january-2019.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25999-haiti-flash-recruitment-of-professional-executives-for-the-haitian-armed-forces.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25252-haiti-flash-resumption-soon-of-the-registration-process-of-1st-class-of-soldiers.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25995-haiti-flash-recruitment-of-a-class-of-soldiers.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23809-haiti-flash-appointments-of-the-staff-of-fad-h.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21629-haiti-army-more-than-2-000-candidates-soldier-enrolled.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21481-haiti-flash-the-army-recruits-call-for-candidates.html



TB/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : Shortage of diesel avoided in Haiti





In a note dated Thursday, January 17 the Ministry of the Economy informs the public in general and distributors of petroleum products in particular, that all the provisions are made to supply the market to avoid any out of stock and invites the population to not panic and go about his business normally. Second call for calm after that of the Secretary of State last January 8 which had ensure that fuels would be available shortly https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-26611-icihaiti-fuel-do-not-panic-call-for-calm.html



Maarten Boute, Maarten Boute, President of Digicel Haiti said "We have received confirmation from our suppliers that Novum Energy's vessels are docked and are starting to unload ! The out of stock diesel https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26678-haiti-news-zapping.html seems to be narrowly avoided. Hoping that a lasting solution is found to this recurring problem..."



According to the National Association of Oil Distributors (ANADIPP), there is a first ship that docked on Thursday evening at 7:00 pm at the Thorland terminal (Carrefour) with on board 205,000 barrels of diesel and a second ship loaded with 150,000 barrels of gasoline at the port of Tevassa (Varreux)



For its part, the Private Sector Economic Forum recalls that by resolution adopted in the Council of Ministers on January 10, 2018, the Ministry of the Economy is authorized to take all the measures deemed useful to ensure the availability, at all times and throughout the country, of petroleum products. The same resolution states that BMPAD is the only one authorized to order the said petroleum products to make them available for consumption throughout the country.



In a note, "The Private Sector Economic Forum is under the obligation to note that the institutions responsible since January 2018 have failed to take steps to ensure regular supply on the Haitian market with petroleum product while they were predictable [...] since there is no indication today of a sustainable solution aiming at a nominalization of the situation and guaranteeing all citizens and all businesses the conditions allowing them to go calmly and without constraints to their occupations, the Forum asks the national authorities to review the provisions of the resolution of 10 January 2018 and to let the operators legally authorized to operate in this sector, to take care of the supply and distribution of petroleum products (diesel, gasoline and kerosene), while maintaining ongoing administrative processes for price determination for the consumers."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26678-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-26611-icihaiti-fuel-do-not-panic-call-for-calm.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26608-haiti-politic-towards-the-end-of-fuel-scarcity-in-gas-stations.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26213-haiti-news-zapping.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Next months roster of activities at Cape Coral Lee County Public Library offers topics for all ages. The following activities are free to the public:

Adult Programs

English Caf

10 a.m., Fridays, Feb. 1, 8, 22

6 p.m., Tuesdays, Feb. 5, 19, 26

Free, informal conversation sessions for adult ESOL/ESL students.

Interactive Movie

1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 2

More than just a movie showing, there will be audience participation in this screening about a superhero who must lead his people into a new future and confront a challenger from his countrys past. Rated PG-13.

Writing Club

5 p.m., Monday, Feb. 4

Do you love writing fanfiction? Poetry? Short stories, novels or essays? Then join other interested writers for a writing session followed by a chance to share your work for feedback. (Sharing your work is optional.) For ages 11 and up, no registration needed.

Download Drop-in

11 a.m., Tuesday, Feb. 5, 19

Receive personalized help downloading e-books, movies, music, and more from Overdrive and Hoopla, two of Lee County Library Systems largest online content providers. Bring your fully charged tablets, phones, e-readers, and other digital devices for a hands-on help session. Note: Please also bring any passwords you may need for downloading apps.

Crime Prevention: Residential Safety

2 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 5

Presented by Crime Prevention Specialist Peggy Lince, Lee County Sheriffs Office

This presentation will teach you ways to reduce the likelihood of your home becoming a target for criminal activity. No registration required.

Chess Anyone?

5:30 p.m., Tuesdays, Feb. 5, 19

Rise to the chess challenge and join in the fun. Bring a personal chess set, if desired. Sponsored by the Friends of the Cape Coral Public Library.

Coloring for Grown-ups

1 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 6

10 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 21

The repetitive motion involved in coloring has a calming effect and adults have found this childhood activity a refreshing way to release their creativity, relieve stress and meet other participants. Materials provided. Sponsored by Friends of the Cape Coral Public Library.

Exploring Arts & Crafts: Paper Flowers

1:30 p.m., Friday, Feb. 8

Explore arts and crafts through demonstrations and hands-on practice. Each session will begin with a demonstration followed by an opportunity to create, practice and explore. Everyone is welcome to bring carpet-friendly arts and crafts supplies and work on their own projects. Sponsored by the Friends of the Cape Coral Public Library.

Fun with Musical Duo Cracked Walnuts

1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 9

Join musical duo Cracked Walnuts for a fun afternoon featuring the music of Vaudeville. This engaging program features the music, trivia and humor of Al Jolson, Fanny Brice and Eddie Cantor. Sponsored by the Friends of the Cape Coral Public Library. Please note: while children may attend, this performance is not suitable for preschoolers.

Adult Fandom  Dystopia

2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 16

Celebrate your love of dystopia in all its many forms; from The Handmaids Tale to the Walking Dead and everything between, theres a place for you here. Make buttons to show off your favorite series and learn the basics of making a go bag for when the dystopia hits the fan.

Game Night

5 p.m., Monday, Feb. 18

Come to this monthly drop-in program to try your hand at a variety of board and video games.

Crime Prevention: Internet Safety

2 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 19

Presented by Crime Prevention Specialist Peggy Lince, Lee County Sheriffs Office

Safeguarding your computer against viruses and malware is only part of internet safety. Learning what not to post, whats safe to look at and how to present yourself while interacting with your online community could also impact your personal safety and assets. This presentation is not designed to teach you technology, but to use it in a manner that protects your family from too much exposure. No registration required.

Exploring Arts & Crafts: Sheet Candles

1:30 p.m., Friday, Feb. 22

Explore arts and crafts through demonstrations and hands-on practice. Each session will begin with a demonstration followed by an opportunity to create, practice and explore. Everyone is welcome to bring carpet-friendly arts and crafts supplies and work on their own projects. Sponsored by the Friends of the Cape Coral Public Library.

Local Authors

at Cape Coral Public Library

1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 23

Spend an engaging afternoon with four local authors:

n Lisa Black  Mystery/thriller writer and forensic expert

n J. D. Daniels  Novelist, short-story writer and poet

n Marta Elva  Novelist and TV/film producer

n Amy Bennett Williams  Local history author, essayist, journalist and editor

Learn more about these authors and their writing as they participate in a panel discussion and take your questions during a Q&A session. The authors will sell and sign books after the program. No registration required.

Book Discussion in Spanish: Ms all del invierno (In the Midst of Winter)

2 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 27

La discusin del libro se llevar a cabo en espaol. Isabel Allende parte de la clebre cita de Albert Camus  en medio del invierno aprend por fin que haba en m un verano invencible- para urdir una trama que, a ritmo de thriller, presenta la geografa humana de unos personajes propios de la Amrica de hoy que se hallan en el ms profundo invierno de sus vidas una chilena, una joven guatemalteca ilegal y un maduro judo norteamericano. Los tres sobreviven a un terrible temporal de nieve que cae en pleno invierno sobre Nueva York y acaban aprendiendo que ms all del invierno hay sitio para el amor inesperado y para el verano invencible que siempre ofrece la vida cuando menos se espera.

Note: Book discussion will be in Spanish. In the Midst of Winter begins with a minor traffic accident that becomes the catalyst for an unexpected and moving love story between two people who thought they were deep into the winter of their lives. Richard Bowmaster, a 60-year-old human rights scholar, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega-a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala-in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes an unforeseen and far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professors house seeking help.

Storytime

Family Storytime

10 a.m., Tuesdays, Feb. 5, 12, 19, 26

10 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 9

For children up to age five. Please pick up a storytime ticket at the Youth Services desk the morning of the program. Your whole family is invited to this enjoyable all-ages storytime that encourages the development of prereading skills through songs, rhymes, fingerplays and stories.

Preschool Storytime

11 a.m., Tuesdays, Feb. 5, 12, 19, 26

For ages 3-5 years. Please pick up a storytime ticket at the desk the morning of the program. Space is limited. Your preschooler will continue to build relationships with other kids, books, and the library in a storytime designed specifically for them. The stories and activities are more complex, but just as fun.

Toddler Tales

10 a.m., Wednesdays, Feb. 6, 13, 20, 27

For ages 18-36 months. Please pick up a Storytime ticket at the Youth Services desk the morning of the program. Space is limited. This interactive and active time for toddlers and their favorite caregiver is designed to advance prereading and social skills. Theyll experience storytelling, wordplay, felt board stories, fingerplays, puppets, singing, music-making, socializing, dancing, and, of course, books.

Baby Rhyme Time

10 a.m., Thursdays, Feb. 7, 14, 21, 28

For babies up to 18 months. Please pick up a Storytime ticket at the Youth Services desk the morning of the program. Space is limited. During this special storytime, you and your baby will learn new nursery rhymes and fingerplays, interact with puppets, sing, read books and dance.

Childrens Programs

Chess Anyone?

5:30 p.m., Tuesdays, Feb. 5, 19

Rise to the chess challenge and join in the fun. Bring a personal chess set, if desired. Sponsored by the Friends of the Cape Coral Public Library.

Special Needs Storytime

10 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 16

This storytime emphasizes books, music and sensory experiences designed for children with special needs. The librarys welcoming environment will create a positive experience for children. Each child must be accompanied by a parent or caregiver, who will be an active participant in the program. Class size is limited to 10 children, plus parents or caregivers. For children ages 3  12 with special needs. Registration begins Jan. 16.

Monster Monday

1 p.m., Monday, Feb. 18

When you are the Last Kids On Earth after the zombie apocalypse, sometimes you have to get creative in order to stay alive. You need all of the allies you can get. Build a monster city while creating your own monster allies, who might be just the thing to get the other monsters on your side. Registration is required.

Game Night

5 p.m., Monday, Feb. 18

Come to this monthly drop-in program to try your hand at a variety of board and video games.

Kids Read Down Fines

1-2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 23

Children and teens can earn a credit for every 15 minutes they read in the designated area for a total of $8 in one session. Credit may be applied to cards issued to patrons age 18 and under only and applies only to charges on overdue materials. Please bring your library card.

Cape Coral Kids Book Club: The Hero Two Doors Down**

3:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 28

What if you lived next door to your hero? Februarys book club pick explores just such an unlikely friendship. Come prepared by reading the book and meet other readers to discuss plot, characters and more.

Teen Programs

Interactive Movie

1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 2

More than just a movie showing, there will be audience participation in this screening about a superhero who must lead his people into a new future and confront a challenger from his countrys past. Rated PG-13.

Writing Club

5 p.m., Monday, Feb. 4

Do you love writing fanfiction? Poetry? Short stories, novels or essays? Then join other interested writers for a writing session followed by a chance to share your work for feedback. (Sharing your work is optional.) For ages 11 and up, no registration needed.

Escape Room: Fortnite

4:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 5

Test your mettle with this Fortnite-themed Escape Room. Can you solve the puzzles and unlock the loot crate before the storm moves in? For ages 11-18.

Chess Anyone?

5:30 p.m., Tuesdays, Feb. 5, 19

Rise to the chess challenge and join in the fun. Bring a personal chess set, if desired. Sponsored by the Friends of the Cape Coral Public Library.

Fun with Musical Duo Cracked Walnuts

1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 9

Come join musical duo Cracked Walnuts for a fun afternoon featuring the music of Vaudeville. This engaging program features the music, trivia and humor of Al Jolson, Fanny Brice and Eddie Cantor. Sponsored by the Friends of the Cape Coral Public Library. Please note: while children may attend, this performance is not suitable for preschoolers.

Fandom Therapy: Dystopia

4:30 p.m., Monday, Feb. 11

Celebrate your love of Divergent, the Maze Runner and the Hunger Games. Make your own rainbow loom keychains with bottle cap charms to show off your favorite series. For ages 11-18.

Anime Club

4:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 12

For teens and tweens interested in anime, manga and Japanese culture. We watch anime together and make themed crafts. For ages 11-18.

Game Night

5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 18

Come to this monthly drop-in program to try your hand at a variety of board and video games.

Teen Homeschool Program: Paper Circuits

1 p.m., Monday, Feb. 18

Make cards that light up using conductive tape, batteries and LED lights. For ages 11-18. Registration is requested.

Kids Read Down Fines

1-2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 23

Children and teens can earn a credit for every 15 minutes they read in the designated area for a total of $8 in one session. Credit may be applied to cards issued to patrons age 18 and under only and applies only to charges on overdue materials. Please bring your library card.

Local Author Meet n Greet for Teens

3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 23

Meet local authors Jamie Ayres and Trish Doller. These young adult fiction writers will discuss their books and careers then answer audience questions. The authors will sell and sign books after the program. No registration required.

Teen Advisory Group

4:30 p.m., Monday, Feb. 25

Need volunteer hours? Want to give back to your community? Then join us each month for a different community service project at the library. All materials provided, no registration needed. For ages 11-18.

The Cape Coral Lee County Public Library is located at 921 SW 39th Terrace in Cape Coral. For more information about a program or to register, please call the library at (239) 533-4500. Check the Lee County Library Systems website at www.leelibrary.net to find out about programs at other locations. Call the host library, or Telephone Reference at (239) 479-INFO (4636), for more information about a specific program.



In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Lee County will not discriminate against qualified individuals with disabilities in its services, programs or activities. To request an auxiliary aid or service for effective communication or a reasonable modification to participate, contact Joan LaGuardia, (239) 533-2314, Florida Relay Service 711, or jlaguardia@leegov.com. Accommodation will be provided at no cost to the requestor. Requests should be made at least five business days in advance.
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Netflix just posted its annual stats recording a revenue of $16 billion in 2018. That's around 35% growth year-over-year while doubling its operating profit to $1.6 billion.

The revenue growth is primarily due to an increase in paying subscribers - in 2018 the company lured 29 million new paying subscribers the year and 9 million of them came in the last quarter. Now the current count of paying subscribers is 139 million and Netflix expects around 8.9 million to come in this quarter.

The streaming company also boasted about the success of Bird Box, which earned 45 million views in the first seven days of its release and foresees 80 million more views in the first four weeks. Another great success is the Spanish original film Elite - 20 million views in the first four weeks.

Source
Cape Coral City Council debated a pair of issues Monday with each ultimately failing to get a unanimous nod.

Mayor Joe Coviello was the lone dissenting vote involving a resolution to authorize City Manager John Szerlag to pay up to maximum when hiring the new Economic Development manager, presumably Ricardo Noguera, who received a conditional offer of employment contingent on Council action.

The city manager can, at his discretion, pay a newly hired employee up to the mid-point of a pay grade. With Council approval, he can hire in at a higher rate for the position, in this case at the top of the scale.

The position pays $74,672  $119,516.80 per year. Szerlag would like Noguera to start at the maximum, $119,516, with the possibility of a job classification, and so a raise, six months after hire based on performance.

Councilmember John Gunter said an EDO manager is one of the most important positions in the city, as he or she is responsible for attracting and retaining business.

Councilmember Jennifer Nelson said she was impressed by Nogueras credentials.

According to his resume, Noguera has a Masters in City & Regional Planning: Emphasis: Land Use & Community Economic Development from U.C. Berkeley and 27 years of experience, including tenure in South Florida.

A city interview panel, consisting of Lee County Manager Roger Desjarlais, interim Assistant City Manager Connie Barron, Community Development Director Vince Cautero and Szerlag, independently and unanimously rated Noguera as the top candidate.

Mr. Noguera has extensive experience (more than 25 years) in municipal economic development and redevelopment in the states of California, Florida and Washington  With his broad knowledge base and enthusiasm for the job, he will bring a new direction to our economic development efforts, Szerlag said in his memo to Council.

An attached background check outlined allegations of discrimination with regards to a hostile work environment in Tacoma, Washington, where Noguera served as the Community and Economic Development Director. It was ultimately resolved via a mediated settlement with neither side accepting fault. Based on positive references and a review of the investigation (or lack thereof), Cape Coral Police Chief David Newlan found that  the investigation lacked accuracy and was not meticulous to define a proper disposition. Therefore, it is my recommendation that the City of Cape Coral should move forward and offer Mr. Noguera the position he applied for with the City.

Coviello asked about the six-month probation period contained in the citys offer and whether it was standard practice to have it be six months.

He did not specify if that was the reason he voted against the higher starting compensation.

If Noguera accepts the position, he is expected to start Feb. 4.

In other business, Gunter and Councilmember Rick Williams disagreed with the decision to approve the appointment of Kevin Shedd to the Construction Regulation Board.

Despite Shedds 40 years of experience in the electrician field and being the holder of a journeymans card, he is not licensed by the state, which was a deal breaker for Gunter.

Williams was concerned that since the positions open were for roofing and plumbing, even though Shedd had installed roofs, if that was the best fit.

I feel it is important if we had a plumbing or roofing contractor for the position. I feel a person should be a licensed contractor here who is familiar with the codes and regulations, Gunter said.

Also, even if it didnt come to a vote, City Council debated who will go on a scheduled visit to China as part of a Sister City program.

Nita Whaley spoke to Council about a scheduled visit from a delegation from Baise, China, set for the end of February. She added that part of the agreement would be for a delegation from Cape Coral to go to China, preferable in late April or early May.

The delegation would likely include Coviello, Noguera, if hired, Whaley, Barron, JoAnne Killion, Vince Cautero and possibly one council member, along with some private entities who would pay their own way.

Coviello said he wanted his assistant, Pearl Taylor, to go, since she had attended the meetings. He said bringing another council member could result in a Sunshine Law issue.

But Gunter and others on Council thought it was a bit much.

Szerlag agreed the EDO director would be a great choice to go, and said he declined to go himself.

City Council voted unanimously to approve $10,000 for the visiting delegation.

In other business, the city also formally approved the issuance of $60 million in General Obligation Bonds to finance a wide range of parks and recreation projects. That vote was unanimous.

Council also approved an interlocal agreement for joint water quality and storage improvements to Yellow Fever Creek Preserve.
GREENWICH  The Board of Education will be discussing the appointment of a new superintendent of Greenwich Public Schools in a special meeting at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18, in the Havemeyer Building in downtown Greenwich.

The meeting was announced Thursday evening.

Board members were originally scheduled to come to a decision on a new superintendent in December and make a public announcement in January, Kathleen Stowe, the head of the superintendent search committee and a board member, previously said.

The board has been working with Ray and Associates Inc., the Iowa-based educational executive firm that helped the school board select Jill Gildea to replace Sal Corda, who served as the interim superintendent after William McKersie left to lead the Weston Public School District. Ray and Associates has been recognized by The School Administrator journal as one of the top search firms in the country.

Gildea announced her resignation in May, after serving less than a year as superintendent. She was hired by the district in March 2017 for a term that began July 1, 2017.

She left to take the superintendent job in Park City, Utah, after her family relocated there. Her annual salary in Greenwich was $250,000, along with a $15,000 annuity and a $3,500-per-month housing allowance. McKersie was paid $238,368 in his last year.

The school board spent about $35,000 on the search that resulted in Gildeas hiring.

In June, the school board voted unanimously to appoint Ralph Mayo, the longtime principal at Eastern Middle School, to be interim superintendent in Greenwich, where he has been a student, teacher and administrator.

The position of Greenwich schools superintendent has seen turnover a dozen times in the past two decades  including interim school chiefs who filled in for a year while the school board searched for a new permanent leader.

jo.kroeker@hearstmediact.com
As we start a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year, my next door neighbor asked me to explain what a minyan is and why it is needed.

It led to an interesting discussion, and I found myself recalling an episode of the old television show Northern Exposure.

If you are not familiar with the show, the main character was a young Jewish doctor from New York who was required to live in a small, isolated town in Alaska.

One episode found the doctor in need of a minyan so he could say Kaddish.

His Alaskan friends help him search far and wide to locate 10 other Jews so the doctor could recite the Mourners Kaddish.

I had a somewhat ambivalent response to the episodes conclusion because in the end, the Jewish doctor decided to not gather the Jews who were strangers to him, and instead count for his minyan his non-Jewish friends who were the ones who cared for him and his personal loss.

On the one hand, I admire the message that our non-Jewish family and friends can bring us comfort and support when we most need it.

However, I think there is something to the power of belonging to the Jewish People that is properly promoted when we require that a minyan consist of at least a quorum of 10 Jews who are minimally of bar or bat mitzvah age.

Jewish history has always traditionally preferred communal worship vs. personal worship.

The Call to Worship (Barchu) can only occur when a minyan is in place.

The repetition of the Amidah with the prayer of Kedushah can only occur with the minyan.

It is within the Kedushah that the Jew can proclaim LDor VDor, from Generation to Generation, seemingly an acknowledgment that without the presence of Jewish community there is no means of effective transmission of Jewish law, traditions, customs, and/or values.

In this same spirit, the public reading from our sacred Torah scroll cannot occur without the presence of a minyan.

And, finally, the Jew who wishes to fulfill their obligation to say Mourners Kaddish cannot traditionally do so unless they also find a minyan.

Growing up in Palo Alto, Calif., in the 70s, I found that my small synagogue consisted of families who lived as far as 30 miles away.

A daily minyan could only be maintained if each Jewish household that belonged to the congregation adopted at least one day a month by which they took on the obligation to help make the minyan.

When I became Bar Mitzvah, I felt the power of being counted when I accompanied my father for the monthly commitment to help make the minyan.

Within Temple Sholom, I routinely lead shiva minyans in peoples houses as they observe their period of home mourning.

Sometimes calls need to be made to help secure a minyan.

One of the more inspirational aspects of my rabbinate is the overwhelming positive response to help make a minyan even if the person in mourning is a stranger to their fellow congregant.

The minimum quorum of 10 is rabbinically derived from the verse in Psalms that states that God stands in the congregation of God.

The Hebrew word for congregation, EDAH, is also used in the Torah verse that was connected to the sin of the ten spies who provided to their fellow Israelites a poor report on the Promised Land.

Its also noteworthy that 10 was the stopping point by which Abraham negotiated with God trying to save Sodom and Gomorrah; he secured Gods promise to spare these wicked cities if Abraham could find at least 10 righteous people with the community.

Ten is, of course, the number of the Ten Commandments; and the number 10 has always been understood as the numerical symbol for both good luck and power.

While the quorum is preferential, and helps to foster Jewish communal life and meaningful connections with one and another, it is important to note that the Jew is required to pray even when a minyan isnt possible.

A rabbinic midrash teaches that God encourages us to pray first in the synagogue, but if we cannot do so then we are to pray to God in our own home. If this also is not possible then we are to pray at our work place. If this is too inconvenient, then we are told to pray to God when we lie down to sleep. And, even if this is not possible then we should at least pray to God within our heart.

Prayer is the opportunity to come together as a particularistic Jewish community; to help foster an internal Jewish communal strength; and to forge a mechanism by which to help guarantee a Jewish future for our children, and our childrens children.

But we are always able to additionally welcome to our prayers our non-Jewish family and friends.

Northern Exposure would have been better served to gather the 10 Jews along with the Jewish doctors local non-Jewish friends and neighbors. Then individual human support would have been bolstered by also supporting Jewish communal life and ties.

We have just started a new secular year. I encourage you to consider attending your own monthly minyan.

If we manage to do this once a month, we will surely prompt greater spiritual meaning within our lives.

Rabbi Mitchell M. Hurvitz is senior rabbi at Temple Sholom of Greenwich, co-founder of the Sholom Center for Interfaith Learning and Fellowship and is president of the Greenwich Fellowship of Clergy. For an archive of past columns, visit www.templesholom.com.
GREENWICH  Greenwich Public Schools announced the appointment Friday of Toni Jones of Fairfield to be the next superintendent of Greenwich schools, effective July 1.

But for the first time, the vote of the Board of Education on a new school leader was not unanimous. The outcome was 7-1, with board member Peter Sherr dissenting.

Jones is currently the superintendent of the Fairfield Public Schools and will be the 14th superintendent to lead Greenwich in the last 20 years. She has eight years of experience as a superintendent, two of which she spent in Fairfield.

She has successfully initiated personalized, digital and virtual learning strategies in the districts she has led, Greenwich school board Chair Peter Bernstein said. She is well acclimated to Connecticut, and understands the value of open dialogue and involvement with and from the community.

Her starting salary will be $236,640 a year, plus benefits, as part of a three-year contract.

The school board will also award her a retention bonus of $50,000 if she is still employed and in good standing five years from now, a common practice in the corporate world but a first in the education sphere, according to board member Kathleen Stowe, head of the superintendent search committee.

Interim Superintendent Ralph Mayo will continue in his role for the rest of the school year.

The Board of Education would like to thank Interim Superintendent of Schools Ralph Mayo for his unyielding commitment to the Greenwich Public Schools and his steady leadership this year, Bernstein said. We look forward to him continuing as a senior leader in the school system thereafter.

Mayo, a Greenwich native who had been the principal at Eastern Middle School, took over the post last summer after the unexpected resignation of Jill Gildea after less than a year on the job.

While Im disappointed that I was not chosen to be the new superintendent, Im grateful to be working with the new superintendent to continue to make our district great, Mayo said after the appointment.

The first thing (I would tell Jones) is how wonderful our children, staff and parents are. Those are our best resources, he said.

The board is making a mistake in not appointing Mayo, Sherr said.

We have a great superintendent who is making tremendous progress, but my colleagues have decided to hit the reset button yet again, he said. Meanwhile, we are telling every principal and administrator who aspires to be superintendent or cabinet that you have no future here in Greenwich.

Sherr pledged to support Jones, but he said the decision begs the question whether the school board has learned anything from the last five times a superintendent was hired.

Three permanent superintendents have cycled through Greenwich in the last decade: Sidney Freund, who stayed for two years before departing over strained relationships with members of the board; William McKersie, who remained for four years before moving to Weston Public Schools; and Gildea, who lasted less than one year before relocating to Park City, Utah.

In between, the school board hired three interim superintendents to lead while members searched for replacements.

The dissension shows that Sherr has a different vision of the future of Greenwich public schools, Bernstein said.

While we value the stability that Ralph has brought to the district in this year of transition, we continue to look to the future, Bernstein said. Ralph will still be a part of our leadership and will still share his calmness and knowledge while we bring in Jones to drive forward student growth, achievement and personal-interpersonal skills.

More Information In the past 40 years, 14 superintendents have led the Greenwich school district. Ernest Fleishman's 13-year tenure was the longest stint during that period. 1976-1989: Ernest Fleishman 1989-1990: Douglas Fainelli (interim) 1990-1997: John Whritner 1997-1998: Karen Lang (interim) 1998-2002: Roger Lulow 2002-2003: Herb Pandiscio and Maria Melendez (interims) 2003-2006: Larry Leverett Summer 2006: Mary Capwell 2006-2009: Betty Sternberg (Kathy Grieder was acting superintendent in the summer of 2008) 2009-2011: Sidney Freund 2011-2012: Roger Lulow (interim) 2012-2016: William McKersie 2016-2017: Sal Corda (interim) 2017-2018: Jill Gildea 2018-2019: Ralph Mayo (interim) 2019- : Toni Jones See More Collapse

The national average retention rate for superintendents is three years, with urban districts holding superintendents for an average of two years, Stowe said.

The search for a new superintendent was essentially free, with the board covering minimal costs, Director of Communications for Public Schools Kim Eves said. The committee footed the search bill because Gildea stayed for less than a year, she said.

Ray and Associates  the company that the district has previously used to conduct searches  pooled together candidates from across the country, including many in Connecticut.

The quantity and quality of the candidates demonstrated the strong brand of the Greenwich Public Schools and, ultimately, made for a very difficult decision, Stowe said. Dr. Jones stood out for her positive attitude, forward thinking approach, proven success in comparable districts, and the value she places on community involvement.

Jones had leadership experience in Australia, Oklahoma and northern Virginia, in both private and public schools, before settling in Connecticut.

She has led elementary and middle schools, and has worked at the high school and district levels, an unusual array of experiences among superintendents, Jones said.

I understand what you need in an elementary school, but also what a high school needs, she said.

Jones has been thinking about leading Greenwich schools since Gildea announced her retirement, she said. Gildea sent a message to all Fairfield County superintendents notifying them of an opening, she said.

Philip Dwyer, a Fairfield Board of Education member, said he will miss Jones, but wishes her well.

She achieved the board goals set for her, managed the district well and was especially good at communicating with parents and the school staff, Dwyer said. Fairfield has an excellent school system. However, Dr. Jones challenged us to constantly find new ways to improve our programs.

Jones signed a three-year agreement through June 30, 2022. Her starting salary is $236,640 for 2019-20, up for negotiation after that. She will receive $30,600 a year in annuities.

She will also receive a $3,000 a month housing allowance, provided she lives in Greenwich.

Gildea left to take the superintendent job in Park City, Utah, after her family relocated there. Her annual salary in Greenwich was $250,000, along with a $15,000 annuity and a $3,500-per-month housing allowance.

The move to Greenwich made sense for Jones personally and professionally, as her husband, John Jones, is a science teacher at Greenwich High School.

The Jones live in Milford, so the new superintendent is excited to have her family work and live in the same corner of Connecticut.

Its wonderful, Jones said. July 1 seems so far away.

jo.kroeker@hearstmediact.com
Ella Briggs, an ebullient fifth-grader from East Hampton with a platform centered on support for LGBTQ youth, was sworn in as Kid Governor Friday at the Old State House.

Ella, who spoke with an eloquence and confidence beyond her 10 years, told the crowd of elected leaders that included Gov. Ned Lamont, dignitaries, and students that she learned to talk when she was only seven months old.

I havent stopped talking or asking questions since, Ella said. I certainly dont plan on stopping now.

Ella, who is a student at Ana Grace Academy of the Arts Elementary Magnet School in Avon and identifies as a lesbian, said she knew early that she couldnt imagine marrying a man.

Ellas three-point platform includes encouraging schools and districts to establish alliances for gay students and their supporters; promoting adoption for LGBTQ youth who are homeless; and training teachers and support staff to work with LGBTQ youth.

The training will help adults in our schools prevent and respond to bullying that is based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, Ella said.

She also hopes to start conversations around the state about what it means to accept and respect everyone, including those in the LGBTQ community, and provide action steps to bring pride, hope and love into schools.

Ella, who wore an elegant blue suit with a rainbow tie and sparkling heels, was sworn into office by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill who urged all of the students in attendance to vote when they are of age.

As the fourth kid governor in the state, Ella replaces Megan Kasperowski, of Portland, whose year-long project focused on programs to lift the spirits of cancer patients, as well as supporting cancer research.

Lamont encouraged the students to speak up, noting that Mozart did his first concert at age 5 and Tiger Woods broke 80 when he was 8.

Dont think youre too young to be involved, Lamont said. We really want to hear your point of view too. Great things happen when you speak out when youre young.

He said its often been young people who moved the dial by standing up for their beliefs.

I just want you to remember, as Ella knows only too well, youre never too young to stand up and tell people what you believe in., Lamont said. Roll up your sleeves and get involved.

Rep. Jeff Currey, D-East Hartford, who is gay, told the crowd he remembers being 10 and 11 and  telling my mom I was different And I also remember not having a school community that I could be honest with  not being able to be out as a gay person with them.

Currey spoke of Ellas bravery and urged the students to commit to helping Ella with her platform. So are you going to help Ella really make a difference this year? he asked. Are you going to help Ella?

When newly elected Congresswoman Jahana Hayes and Ella met, the two embraced and Hayes told her: Im so proud of you and you did it being you.

Hayes told the group that she is a person who asks but why when she sees something going on that she doesnt understand.

She spoke about the power of but why questions and said, I think Ella is forcing the questions of but why, forcing people to understand the challenges that she and members of the LGBTQ community face and helping them to understand.

Hayes invited Ella to visit her in Washington, D.C.

More than 6,400 Connecticut fifth graders registered to vote in this years statewide election, choosing among students nominated by their classes. The program was created by the Connecticut Democracy Center  formerly the Connecticut Public Affairs Network.

Brian Cofranceso, head of Connecticuts Kid Governor program for the Connecticut Democracy Center, said the program teaches students about civics and the power they have to make a difference.
It was an underwhelming performance for the U.S. hedge fund industry last year. The predicament extended to some of the top asset managers in Connecticut.

As markets grew more volatile, the likes of AQR Capital Management and Point72 Asset Management could not match the lofty investment returns of the industrys halcyon years. But the struggles of those firms  which invest in a range of assets  have not created much of an opening for challengers to lure away large investors because the sectors growth has stagnated.

Recently, the quantitative factor-based liquid (alternative-investment strategies) that we favor at AQR have had tough times, AQRs co-founder and chief investment officer, Cliff Asness, wrote last September . Every time any of our strategies go through tough periods, we take a step back and consider specific hypotheses as to whether the recent returns are a harbinger of the future.

Mixed results

Greenwich-based AQR produced in the past year positive returns in only two of its 41 mutual funds, while Stamford-based Point72 returned less than 1 percent for its investors , according to Bloomberg.

In what was likely a related move, AQR confirmed last week that it had made layoffs.

Recent small reductions in headcount reflect the need to balance our workforce growth with the current needs of our business, the company said in a statement.

Before the cuts, the firm had made record headcount growth over the past three years, the statement also said.

Last year, AQR employed about 770 in Connecticut, according to the state Department of Economic and Community Development. The company is eligible for up to $35 million in state tax credits and grants, based on it reaching certain job targets.

For Point72, the past year marked its first as a hedge fund. It raised about $5 billion in outside capital, bringing its total assets under management to approximately $13 billion.

It had previously operated as a family office that mainly invested founder and CEO Steven Cohens multbillion-dollar fortune, following a two-year federal ban on managing third-party investments that was linked to 2013 insider-trading violations at Cohens previous hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisors.

At its peak, SAC yielded average estimated returns of approximately 30 percent.

Point72 declined to comment when reached this week.

Westport-based Bridgewater Associates, the worlds largest hedge fund by assets under management, fared much better. Its cornerstone Pure Alpha fund posted a 14.6 percent return last year.

The firms investment strategy could point to its anticipation of an economic slowdown.

A lot of optimism about future earnings growth has been baked into equity valuations, Bridgewater Co-Chief Investment Officer Bob Prince said in an interview last October with the Financial Times . But we are at a potential inflection point where the economy is moving from hot to mediocre.

Bridgewater officials could not be reached for comment this week.

Local firms results did not surprise Connecticut Hedge Fund Association President Bruce McGuire, who cited their varying specialties in assets including stocks, bonds and futures contracts.

It would surprise me only if they all managed equity long/short funds, and there was great dispersion in returns, McGuire said.

Overall, U.S. hedge funds lost an average of 0.09 percent on their investments in 2018, according to financial-services data firm Preqin. In 2017, they recorded an average gain of 11.3 percent.

As markets become more unstable, hedge funds are increasingly hard-pressed to find sure-fire investments. Nearly every major asset class  including the S&P 500 stock index, which last year finished with a 4.4 percent loss  saw returns decline or change negligibly during the past year.

It is difficult to make money when all assets go down, said John Knopf, an associate professor of finance at the University of Connecticut. The only way you were going to make money was to short things.

Institutional support

Institutional investors such as corporate and public pension funds, university endowments and foundations remain linchpins of the industry.

Yale Universitys endowment comprises the largest Connecticut-based institutional investor with hedge funds, according to Preqin. It allocates about $6 billion to such asset managers.

Messages left for a Yale spokeswoman were not returned.

The pension fund of Farmington-based United Technologies Corp. ranks second in the state. It allots about $3.5 billion to hedge funds.

UTC declined to comment when reached.

Status quo

Despite the inconsistent results, Connecticut remains one of the worlds top hedge fund hubs.

Among the states, Connecticut hosted last year the third-largest number of active hedge fund managers, 211, according to Preqin. Only New York and California had more.

After New York, the state ranked No. 2 in assets under management, with a total of about $384 billion.

A handful of firms still dominate the industry in the Nutmeg State. As the worlds largest hedge fund, Bridgewater operated with about $163 billion of assets under management, according to Preqin. AQR is No. 2 in the state, with holdings of about $114 billion.

Those companies are unlikely to soon be surpassed by startups.

The number of active hedge funds in Connecticut shrunk by 9 percent between 2016 and 2018, to about 700, according to Preqin. In five of the past six years, fund liquidations have exceeded fund launches in Connecticut.

A diminishing industry reflects doubts about its effectiveness.

Some investors balk at the annual management fees and share of returns commanded by hedge funds. Connecticut-based firms average management charges equaled 1.47 percent of their assets, Preqin reported.

The question is asked, Can I expect an active fund manager to do better than the overall market? Lawrence J. White, a professor of economics at New York University, said in a recent interview.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott
Greensburg, IN (47240)

Today

Clear to partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
A donation shortfall over the winter holidays has prompted the American Red Cross to issue an emergency call for blood and platelet donors to prevent a blood shortage from continuing throughout winter and affecting patient care.

The Red Cross collected more than 27,000 fewer blood and platelet donations the weeks of Christmas and New Years than needed to sustain a sufficient blood supply.

During this period, about 1,350 fewer blood drives were hosted by volunteer sponsor groups than required to meet patient needs as busy holiday schedules kept many donors away.

Many people may not realize that blood products are perishable, and the only source of lifesaving blood for patients is volunteer blood donors, Cliff Numark, senior vice president of Red Cross Biomedical Services, said in a news release. When donations decline  as they did around the holidays and may further decline if severe winter weather and flu season pick up  lifesaving medical treatments could be delayed.

Right now, the Red Cross has less than a three-day supply of most blood types on hand, well below the ideal five-day supply needed to respond to emergencies and daily hospital needs. Blood products are currently being distributed to hospitals faster than donations are coming in.
We are worried that Duke and other utilities may continue to seek rate increases on a more regular basis, said Al Ripley, director of energy, housing and consumer affairs for the N.C. Justice Center, a nonprofit that focuses on social justice issues. And for low-income ratepayers, these rate cases are just not affordable.

He said it is fair for Duke to recover some of the storm costs, but added that North Carolina needs to do more to help low-income people so they can afford electricity. That includes programs to provide better energy efficiency for low-income residents, he said.

It could also include setting rates based on income, Ripley said. For example, low-income residents could pay less than wealthier customers, he said.

Duke has its own programs to help customers lower bills, including a  Share the Warmth  project that helps customers with high winter heating bills.

In last years rate case, which saw a hike for residential customers, Duke lowered bills for commercial and industrial clients. That reduction was in response to a ruling by regulators who called for a net decrease to bills across all customer types.

Storm costs
GREENSBORO  When students pull into Grimsley High School, they now travel on North Josephine Boyd Street instead of Westover Terrace.

City workers installed new street signs earlier this month after Greensboro City Council last year voted to make the name change to honor Boyd, the first black student to integrate what is now known as Grimsley High School.

The former North and South Aycock streets and part of Westover Terrace (the total area goes from West Florida Street to West Wendover Avenue) are now North Josephine Boyd Street and South Josephine Boyd Street. The section from Wendover Avenue north remains Westover Terrace.

Josephine Boyd Bradley, who died in 2015, became the first black student to attend the all-white Greensboro High, now Grimsley, in 1957.

Lewis Brandon, a longtime community activist, had asked the council to rename a one-mile segment of the street from Gate City Boulevard (where it was Aycock) to West Wendover Avenue (where it is Westover). Brandon said his request had nothing to do with the controversy about the Aycock name. Former Gov. Charles B. Aycock (1901-1905) played a central role in building a long-lasting system of white supremacy known as Jim Crow. Brandon said his goal was honoring Bradley for the key role she played in the local civil rights movement.

The change was expected to cost the city $15,000, to replace street signs and make other administrative changes.
Hyde applauded the council for verbally agreeing to two of the familys other demands: to add mental health workers to their staff and ban the use of hog-tying.

However, that does nothing about the fact that there are officers who violated their own policy, killed someone and then covered up for someone, Hyde said.

Former civil rights attorney Lewis Pitts said that Greensboro has more than a 40-year history of police misconduct by inaction and deliberate efforts to conceal and prevent the public from knowing the facts.

Harmony Lee, a representative of Greensboro Southerners on New Ground, a group that advocates for the LGBTQ community, told the audience that the council only seems to do the right thing when the pressure gets to be too much, and then those responses are only political.

But she added that a move the council made Tuesday to remove two members of the Police Community Review Board contradicted their current stance on the Smith case.

They have told us that they dont have the power to do what were asking them to do, which is to put pressure to reopen this case, Lee said. They say they dont have any influence to fire anybody when there is wrongdoing and thats just simply a lie.
GREENSBORO  A 17-year-old was shot and killed Sunday morning at a house owned by a deputy chief of the Greensboro Police Department.

Matthew Jurado, 17, of 1316 Maple St. in Greensboro was shot and killed at a house that tax records indicate is owned by Deputy Chief James Hinson Jr., police spokesman Ronald Glenn Jr. confirmed Wednesday afternoon.

Glenn said Hinson does own the house but was not present when the shooting happened. Hinson said Wednesday that the house is a rental property and that he doesnt know the victim.

I had nothing to do with the homicide, Hinson said. Its an unfortunate situation.

The department has made no public announcement about the shooting, which is counter to its usual procedure. The News & Record learned about the shooting Monday night from a caller who was concerned that it had not been reported.

A reporter emailed Glenn on Tuesday morning to inquire about the shooting. Glenn identified the alleged shooter, Alejandro Galarza Villegas, 19, of 47 Garibaldi Place in Greensboro, and the address of the crime scene but would add no other details.
GREENSBORO  Greensboro police are searching for a man who threatened to hurt a McDonald's clerk while stealing money out of a cash register.

Officers said in a news release that on Jan. 5, a heavy set male entered the McDonalds at 1101 Summit Avenue in Greensboro and when the clerk opened the register he reached over and began taking money.

The man walked away from the business and the police are seeking help identifying the man through a surveillance photo.

Anyone with information about the robbery is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at (336) 373-1000.
HPUs Hillel, the Department of History and the Office of Jewish Life are sponsoring Brodts visit as part of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemoration designated by the United Nations General Assembly. With only about 100,000 Holocaust survivors still living, these events are intended to keep their memories in the forefront and prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

Originally from Boryslaw, Poland, Brodt was born on Dec. 1, 1925, and spent his teenaged years as the unwelcome guest of five Nazi prison camps and a forced labor camp, including Plashov, Matthausen and Ebensee from which he was liberated on May 6, 1945, by the troops of the U.S. 80th Infantry Division. The horrors he lived before liberation included a forced march with other prisoners for three days and nights without food or water.

Brodt testified in a war crimes trial at Dachau in 1946. In 1967, he gave testimony against a Nazi war criminal in Bremerhaven, Germany. In 1949, Brodt immigrated to the United States with the help of a soldier who had befriended him and helped him secure the necessary paperwork. In 1950, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and stationed, ironically, in Germany. He also served in the Korean War.
| BY Lynchy |

Downy Vietnam and The Sunny Side Singapore have launched a film and integrated campaign encouraging the men of Vietnam to share the responsibilities of preparing their households for the Tet festive season.

The team uncovered a societal tension in Vietnam, where the Tet festive season has become an unexpected source of anxiety and stress for women. This is because even though Vietnam has made strides in gender equality, one thing that has not changed is that domestic chores are still considered a womans job. This perception is amplified during Tet, when women are expected to shoulder the entire responsibility of ensuring a happy festive season for the whole family. This is no different for career women.

The centrepiece of this campaign is a film that captures the day in the life of a career woman whos preparing for Tet. While it portrays the stress and overwork of the woman, it also provides an elegant solution that starts with the man of the house. The team made a creative decision to portray the positive side of a man who realizes on his own accord that he needs to do more for his wife, out of his love for her.

The cause is being amplified through social media conversations, on-ground activations, and partnerships with celebrity couples. The goal is to not just stop with a film, but also to stimulate a behavioural change in Vietnamese society so that it will shed the last remnants of its patriarchal past and move forward into a future of complete equality.

Le Thi Tuyet Mai, Communications Leader & Brand Operations, P&G Vietnam, said: I am very proud of this Tet campaign of Downy, which tackles a very real social issue with women across Vietnam. The stress of being perfect for Tet is a heavy load for women and it is time for other family members, especially the men, to start taking part and sharing the responsibility with her. With the strong insight, accompanied by beautiful execution, we do hope we will help to spread the loving scent this Tet to all Vietnamese households.

Vasanth Seshadri, Founder and Creative Director of The Sunny Side, added: We didnt want to create a piece of advertising. We wanted to create a piece of culture. What really encourages us is the sheer number of Vietnamese who have told us that the cause resonates with them.
To help businesses navigate through the possibility of a no deal Brexit, FTA Logistics is hosting a webinar to explain how transporting goods would work.

No Deal Brexit Briefings for Logistics Managers will be held on 25 January 2019 at 10am. Hosted by FTAs team of Brexit experts, the two-hour webinar will cover customs declarations and duties, non-customs checks and EU27 workers, and provide a comprehensive guide to no deal planning across all transport modes: road, sea, air and rail.

Pauline Bastidon, Head of European Policy and Brexit at FTA, said: With the rejection of the withdrawal agreement in Parliament this week, the chances of the UK leaving the EU without a deal in place has now increased significantly.

A no deal Brexit would be highly damaging for trade, for business and for Britain. FTA is continuing to urge the government to reach an agreement with the EU which will keep goods and services flowing with minimal disruption, as no deal is no option for logistics.

Meanwhile, businesses should continue to plan for the worst  a no deal outcome  to mitigate against further problems as much as possible.

For further information or to book a place go to https://fta.co.uk/events.
James O'Dea Williams, 77, passed away Jan. 6, 2019, at his home. He was a longtime resident of Rock Springs and former resident of Green River. Williams died following a lengthy illness.

He was born Nov. 19, 1941, in Rock Springs, the son of Marion Etta Williams and Gloria May Bell DeChemin.

Williams attended schools in Rock Springs and received his GED. He graduated from the police academy in Douglas.

He was employed by Union Pacific Railroad Company as a yard man for 18 years. He held various jobs throughout his life including a police officer for Green River Police Departmen...
For at least the past five years, Sweetwater County has participated in a nationwide homeless population count to determine just how many homeless people are in the county.

The annual Point in Time Count will take place from sundown Jan. 22 to sundown Jan. 23 to gather this information. The national PIT county is an unduplicated count on a single night of the people in a community who are experiencing homelessness. This includes both sheltered and unsheltered populations.

Kathy Tacke, member of the Wyoming Homeless Coalition Board of Directors, said she has personally participated in the...
While the Green River URA/Main Street organization continues to finalize its plans for the new year, there is one event it hopes will continue public support for a downtown property.

Jennie Melvin, administrator for the organization, said it plans to host a dinner at the Union Pacific Depot building in May. Melvin said she hopes the dinner will help convince residents and potential businesses the building would be a viable location for commercial development.

The whole point is to showcase the depot, Melvin said.

Tours of the building were guided by the Sweetwater County Historical Mu...
As levels of ozone and fine particulate pollution (PM 2.5 ) rise, more patients end up in the ER with breathing problems, according to the largest US study of air pollution and respiratory emergency room visits of patients of all ages. The study was published online in the American Thoracic Societys American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

In Age-specific Associations of Ozone and PM 2.5 with Respiratory Emergency Department Visits in the U.S., Heather M. Strosnider, PhD, MPH, and colleagues report on the associations between ground-level ozone and fine particulate pollution and ER visits for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and respiratory infections.

Previous studies of ER visits related to respiratory illness have shown that children are particularly susceptible to air pollution, but those studies were mostly confined to a single city, said Dr. Strosnider, lead health scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program (Tracking Program).

In the new study, the researchers leveraged the data available through the Tracking Program to look at the association between air pollution and respiratory ER visits across hundreds of US counties.

Ozone, the main ingredient of smog, and fine particulate pollution, microscopic particles that penetrate deep into the lung, are two important forms of air pollution in the US.

The study looked at the levels of these two pollutants in 869 counties in the week prior to an ER visit for a breathing problem. The study included nearly 40 million ER visits for breathing problems from the counties, which represent 45% of the US population.

The researchers divided patients into three groups: children under the age of 19, adults under the age of 65 and adults over the age of 65. The study found:

An association between ozone and respiratory ER visits among all age groups, with the strongest association in adults under age 65. Per 20 parts per billion (ppb) increase in ozone, the rate of an ER visit for respiratory problems increased 1.7% among children, 5.1% among adults under 65 and 3.3% among adults over 65.

Increased levels of ozone resulted in increased ER visits for asthma, acute respiratory infections, COPD and pneumonia. Overall the association was strongest for asthma among adults under 65.

An association was found between fine particulate pollution (PM5) and respiratory ER visits among children and adults under the age of 65, with the strongest association among children. Per 10 microgram per cubic meter (g/m 3 ) increase in PM 2.5 , the rate of an ER visit increased 2.4% in children and 0.8% among adults under 65.

Increased levels of fine particulate matter resulted in increased visits for asthma, acute respiratory infections and pneumonia.

The authors wrote that their study findings support the Environmental Protection Agencys determination of a likely causal relationship between PM 2.5 and respiratory effects and a causal relationship between ozone and respiratory effects. However, they emphasized that their study also found important variations in those relationships based on the age of the patient, the pollutant, and the respiratory illness under consideration.

Dr. Strosnider said that study findings should guide efforts to protect those most vulnerable to air pollution.

For example, we observed strong associations for ozone among adults under 65 and for fine particulate pollution among children. This information can be used by public health officials and governments to make important decisions about air pollution and respiratory health in our communities. Dr. Strosnider

Study limitations include the fact that county air pollution measurements do not measure personal exposure and counties in the Northwest and mid-Atlantic were under-represented in the study.

This study was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program.

Resources
British Airways has introduced an electric cab service at its Heathrow home. The taxis will join British Airways fleet of chauffeur-driven executive vehicles, to drive premium customers at risk of missing their connecting flight to meet their next aircraft. Customers are met by the driver at the aircraft side and are driven directly to the aircraft side of their onward flight.

The London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) taxi features WiFi, phone, laptop and USB charging and a panoramic roof.





The initiative is part of British Airways long-term plan to reduce emissions from all vehicles at Heathrow and follows the introduction of electric aircraft pushback vehicles.
The US Department of Energys Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced $11 million in funding for 7 projects in the fourth and fifth cohorts of the agencys OPEN+ program: Energy-Water Technologies and Sensors for Bioenergy and Agriculture.

Energy-Water cohort teams will develop new, energy-efficient processing technologies for industrial (particularly oil and gas) and municipal wastewater.

The Sensors teams will develop ultra-low-energy distributed sensors to improve production efficiency in agriculture, boosting viability for bioenergy crops and reducing the energy and water requirements for agriculture more broadly.

Energy-Water Technologies cohort

Columbia University, Expanding the Boundaries of Autotrophic Nitrogen Removal for Energy-Efficient Clean Water Production  $1,620,136.

Columbia University will produce clean water by removing nitrogen from wastewater streams through a process that uses up to 60% less energy and up to 80% less organic carbon, compared to conventional approaches. The new approach cleanses water through a bacterial process and advanced control solutions. The treated water streams can achieve the most stringent effluent water quality standards in the United States with a new cost-efficient, energy-positive model. The team will work with major public water treatment providers to develop and test its technology.

Oregon State University, Freshwater Recovery System for Hydraulic Fracturing (FRESH-Frac) Using a Thermally-Actuated Nozzle-Demister  $2,972,000.

Oregon State University (OSU) is developing a system for extracting clean irrigation water from hydraulic fracturing wastewater using low-grade solar or industrial waste heat. The system would efficiently separate, condense, and reclaim water vapor from wastewater using a heat-activated swirling nozzle combined with an in-line demister. OSUs technology would be modular, portable, scalable, and deployable at a fraction of the cost of existing treatment systems.

University of Oklahoma, An Innovative Zero-Liquid Discharge Intermediate-Cold-Liquid Eutectic-Freeze Desalination System  $608,333.

The University of Oklahoma will develop a novel, zero-liquid discharge freeze system to remove dissolved salt from contaminated water, such as is produced by industrial processes like oil and gas production and fracking. The project will take advantage of how salt and water separate as water freezes, using a cooling approach that maximizes efficiency and avoids the need for energy-intensive evaporation methods. The system is constructed of low-cost material, operates under atmospheric pressure, and is suitable for highly concentrated/contaminated water.

Sensors for Bioenergy and Agriculture cohort

Geegah LLC, Integrated Gigahertz Ultrasonic Imager for Soil: Towards Targeted Water and Pesticide Delivery for Biomass Productions  $500,000.

Geegah will develop an inexpensive wireless sensor, using ultrasound from MHz to GHz, that can measure water content, soil chemicals, root growth, and nematode pests (a type of small worm), allowing farmers to improve the output of biofuel crops while reducing water and pesticide use. The reusable device will include a sensor suite and radio interface that can communicate to aboveground farm vehicles. This novel integration of sensing and imaging technologies could provide a low-cost solution to precision sensor-based digital agriculture.

Northeastern University, Zero-Power Wireless Infrared Digitizing Sensors for Large Scale Energy-Smart Farm  $1,630,925.

Northeastern University will develop a maintenance-free sensor network to improve energy and agricultural efficiency by monitoring water content in plants. The teams zero-power sensors will form distributed networks that can capture, process, and communicate in-field data to help farmers determine how to maximize yield. Specifically, sensors will monitor water stress-related plant characteristics, relaying these data wirelessly to a control center in the irrigation system. The proposed technology does not consume any power in standby mode, eliminating the cost of battery replacements.

University of Colorado, Boulder, Precision Agriculture using Networks of Degradable Analytical Sensors (PANDAS)  $1,690,415.

The University of Colorado, Boulder will develop 3D-printed, biodegradable soil sensors that enable farmers to precisely understand crop water and fertilizer needs. These sensor nodes can be embedded in a field, to accurately and continuously monitor soil and crop health for an entire season before degrading completely and harmlessly into the soil. This approach could enable real-time soil monitoring by farmers, enabling them to reduce agricultures energy footprint and water needs and increase soil carbon.

University of Utah, Low-Cost Wireless Chemical Sensor Networks for Early Detection of Invasive Parasitics in Biofuel Crops  $2,164,314. The University of Utah will develop low-power sensors to enable the early detection of invasive weeds and/or insects in biomass crop production. This would increase the overall energy efficiency of crop production. Farmers currently lose about 40% of biomass crops due to weeds and insects that ideally need to be removed within a week of detection. Early detection could minimize such a loss even with much smaller applications of pesticides and herbicides, significantly increasing the economic viability of biomass generation.

ARPA-E created OPEN+ cohorts to focus on targeted, high-value opportunities to innovate technologies and create new communities. To date, ARPA-E has announced OPEN+ projects in materials science for nuclear energy; low cost, ultra-durable concrete; and new ways to create high-value carbon and hydrogen from methane.

ARPA-E plans to announce a total of nine OPEN+ cohorts throughout late 2018 and early 2019.
There is absolutely no question the group is better off than their counterparts from last year were, when those rookies spent their first NFL offseason entirely in the virtual realm thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Goshen, IN (46526)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening. Thunderstorms likely late. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening. Thunderstorms likely late. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
US$2,994/t Li2CO3 US$338m US$1,036m 34 % Avg Operating Costs

(incl. 5% contingency) Initial Capital

(incl. $59m contingency) NPV8% (Pre-tax) IRR (Pre-tax) US$125m 20,000 tpa US$762m 30 % After Tax Annual Free

Cash Flow Production of

Battery Grade Li 2 CO 3 NPV8% (Post tax) IRR (Post tax)

US$762 million after-tax NPV at 8% discount rate and IRR of 30%



CAPEX estimate of US$338m, with 34% of estimate at PFS level accuracy



OPEX of US$2,994/t of lithium carbonate over life of mine



Mine life of at least 20 years with initial production in 2021 and steady state in 2024



Designed for production of 20,000tpa of battery grade lithium carbonate



Combined PPG Project Resource of 2,617,000 tonnes LCE in Measured and Indicated category and 938,500 tonnes LCE in the Inferred category 1



Process development supported by benchscale test work. Pozuelos brine chemistry, in particular is amenable to excellent process performance

LSC controls over 90% of the area of the Pozuelos salar and its surroundings. This advantageous position makes siting of infrastructure, extraction of fresh water and preparation of brine-extraction models extremely simple. In this way, sustainable pumping of brine can be ensured.



Geotechnical conditions in the mature portion of the Pozuelos salar are such that construction of evaporation ponds can occur on the salar surface at low cost.



For the two reasons above, it was decided to locate all infrastructure at Pozuelos, with only extraction wells and a pipeline located at Pastos Grandes.



Pozuelos proximity to the existing Fenix gas pipeline ensures that only a 26km connection needs to be constructed. LSC has been allocated gas capacity on this pipeline by the gas supply company.



At least three separate sources of fresh water have been identified and road access is readily available.



The brine chemistry of the Pozuelos and Pastos Grandes salars complement each other. Test work has shown that an efficient evaporation path can be pursued to produce a high grade and high purity concentrate for feeding into the lithium plant ensuring high recovery rates.



The Argentine fiscal regime is very supportive of mining projects. A reduced corporate tax rate of 25% will be effective for the industry from 2020. A royalty of 3% is applied to all exported products. Salta Province in particular, is actively encouraging mining investment and therefore requires no additional royalties or government participation in the project.



Pozuelos hosts no communities in the immediate vicinity or environmentally sensitive flora or fauna. This increases the likelihood of a fast and efficient project approval and implementation.



LSC has developed a processing method that is based on conventional and proven unit operations for lithium brines.

TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 - LSC Lithium Corporation (LSC or together with its subsidiaries, the Company) (TSXV:LSC) is pleased to announce that it has filed the technical report for the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for its Pozuelos-Pastos Grandes (PPG) Project titled Preliminary Economic Assessment  Pozuelos-Pastos Grandes Project NI 43-101 Technical Report, Salta, Argentina which can be found on Sedar (www.sedar.com) and the Companys website (www.lsclithium.com).LSCs President and CEO, Ian Stalker, noted, The filing of this technical report is another important milestone. These results support our view that PPG is one of the most advanced and economically viable lithium projects in Argentina. Operating costs are in the lowest quartile globally, the capital requirements are manageable, and we are excited by the large resource, which leaves room for future upsizing.The PEA is based upon brine grades across LSCs Measured, Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources only. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that the PPG Project envisioned by the PEA will be realized. The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reservesThe PPG Project enjoys certain unique advantages, which support a rapid development schedule, and low capital and operating costs:The information contained in this news release relating to the PEA has been reviewed and is approved by Lawrence D. Henchel, P.Geo., of Stantec Consulting International LLC. Mr. Henchel is a qualified person as the term is defined in NI 43-101 and is independent of LSC. GHD of Santiago, Chile, has also reviewed and approved the presentation of the PEA information in this news release.GHD is one of the worlds leading professional services companies operating in the global markets of energy and resources, water, environment, property and buildings, and transportation. Established over ninety years ago and privately owned by its employees, GHD delivers engineering, architecture, environmental and construction services to public and private sector clients across five continents and the Pacific region. Committed to creating lasting community benefit, GHD connects the knowledge, skill and experience of nearly 10,000 diverse people with innovative practices, technical capabilities and robust systems. www.ghd.com Lithium Corp. has amassed a large portfolio of prospective lithium rich salars and is focused on developing its tenements located in five salars: Pozuelos, Pastos Grandes, Rio Grande, Salinas Grandes, and Jama. All LSC tenements are located in the Lithium Triangle, an area at the intersection of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile where the worlds most abundant lithium brine deposits are found. LSC Lithium has a land package portfolio totaling approximately 300,000 hectares, which represents extensive lithium prospective salar holdings in Argentina.Ian Stalker, President & Chief Executive Officer40 University Avenue, Suite 605Toronto ON Canada M5J 1T1+416 306 8382Email: info@lsclithium.comWeb: lsclithium.comCertain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance, including statements as results and use of data from the pump test work on Pozuelos, ability, timing and successful completion of the drill program and seismic survey at the PPG Project, timing and likelihood of relocating accommodation to Pozuelos, timing of completing engineering work on the PPG Project, LSCs overall contained lithium inventory, and ability to produce more results on the Companys properties. The use of any of the words could, anticipate, intend, expect, believe, will, projected, estimated and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on LSC's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Whether actual results and developments will conform with LSC's expectations is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including factors underlying management's assumptions, such as risks related to: title, permitting and regulatory risks; exploration and the establishment of any resources or reserves on the LSC properties; volatility in lithium prices and the market for lithium; exchange rate fluctuations; volatility in LSCs share price; the requirement for significant additional funds for development that may not be available; changes in national and local government legislation, including permitting and licensing regimes and taxation policies and the enforcement thereof; regulatory, political or economic developments in Argentina or elsewhere; litigation; title, permit or license disputes related to interests on any of the properties in which the Company holds an interest; excessive cost escalation as well as development, permitting, infrastructure, operating or technical difficulties on any of the Company's properties; risks and hazards associated with the business of development and mining on any of the Company's properties. Actual future results may differ materially. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and LSC is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein. For more information, see the Company's filing statement on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.See Technical Report titled Mineral Resource Estimate and Technical Report on the Salar de Pastos Grandes Project, Salta Province, Argentina with an effective date of October 28, 2018 filed on the Companys SEDAR profile. Also Technical Report titled Mineral Resource Estimate and Technical Report on the Salar de Pozuelos Project, Salta Province, Argentina with an effective date of November 22, 2018
I think we have several presidential candidates that talk about things partly to differentiate themselves; they want to eliminate ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] or have free college for everybody or certain kinds of health care programs. I dont think that makes us divided. I think Democrats are overwhelmingly for expanding the ability of middle-class and working-class kids to go to college without student loans. Almost every Democrat wants to see Medicare at 55, and [most] want to reform ICE. I dont think the differences are so great or that the party is divided. Its just a cacophony of voices: When 25 people have been mentioned for president, youre going to have 25 identities and 25 voices.
It teaches you how to survive not only in the church, but outside in the real world, Willard said.

Hundreds of students, faculty and staff gathered in Pritchett Auditorium in the Violet T. Frith Fine Arts Center to hear from alumni speakers for the Founders Day event.

Franks told those in attendance of the growth Averett has undergone in its 160 years. To provide perspective, she asked alumni and students to think how much they have changed since first stepping foot on campus, and about how much Averett has changed since 1859.

Can you imagine what it was like in 1859? she said.

It was a growth mindset that carried Averett through the Civil War, World War I and World War II, and advancements in technology, Franks said.

Averett alumni Afira Arrastia-DeVries and Torrey Dixon spoke of the personal growth they experienced during their times at Averett.

Arrastia-DeVries, a 1998 Averett graduate who grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, said the schools professors and students from different backgrounds enabled her to see beyond the limitations imposed by her upbringing.

They shaped my path and helped me to believe in myself, she said.
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U.S. Says 'No New Ground Broken' With Russia On Missile Treaty Impasse

By RFE/RL January 17, 2019

The United States has rejected a Russian proposal on saving a key Cold War arms control treaty because the pact cannot be properly verified.

The comments, made on January 16 by U.S. Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson, sets the stage for Washington to withdraw next month from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as the INF.

Speaking after a meeting in Geneva between Russian and U.S. officials, Thompson said Moscow was refusing to allow proper inspection of a new Russian missile system that Washington says violates the bilateral treaty.

"We weren't able to break any new ground yesterday with Russia," Thompson said of the January 15 meeting with Russian Foreign Ministry officials.

"Based on yesterday's discussions and corresponding rhetoric today, we see no indication that Russia would choose compliance," Thompson told reporters.

In Moscow, meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States of seeking to dismantle the system of weapons pacts and said that Moscow is willing to try and preserve the INF.

Holding his annual press conference on January 16, Lavrov lashed out repeatedly at the United States amid severely strained relations between Moscow and Washington.

"Unilateral actions by Washington that are aimed at the demolition of very important international legal instruments that provide for strategic stability have not added to optimism," Lavrov said.

He claimed that this aim was "confirmed very clearly" at talks in Geneva on the INF treaty, asserting that the United States ignored Russian explanations of a missile that is allegedly in violation of the INF.

The treaty bans ground-launched cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. Nearly 2,700 missiles were eliminated by the Soviet Union and the United States -- most of the latter in Europe -- under the treaty.

Russia has warned that if the United States abandons the pact and deploys such missiles in Europe, Moscow will respond in kind.

Without agreement between Moscow and Washington, a U.S. withdrawal over six months will start on February 2.

European allies are worried about the deployment of U.S. missiles in Europe, as happened in the 1980s, while being caught up in nuclear competition between Moscow and Washington.

Lavrov also repeated suggestions that Moscow would like to preserve the 2010 New START treaty governing U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear arms, which is set to expire in 2021 but can be extended for five years by mutual agreement.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-says -no-new-ground-broken-with-russia-on- missile-treaty-impasse/29714853.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
293 million deal for Apache fleet

The MOD has awarded a five-year, multi-million-pound deal to Leonardo Helicopters (UK) for the support of the existing fleet of 50 Apache attack helicopters.

17 January 2019

Defence Minister Stuart Andrew announced the 293 million contract with Leonardo Helicopters during a visit to the company's site in Yeovil where some of the vital work on the aircraft will take place. The Apache AH MK1 Integrated Operational Support (IOS) contract will maintain the fleet until it's out of service date in March 2024.

The Apache MK1 is being incrementally replaced by the latest Apache AH-64E aircraft that will begin entering service with the British Army in 2022. The new AH-64E model will have improved sensors and avionics as well as greater performance that will enable the Army to sustain its battle-winning capabilities in future operations.

Defence Minister Stuart Andrew said:

"The Apache has provided years of crucial battlefield support to UK and coalition troops in operations in Libya and Afghanistan. This multi-million-pound contract will ensure our Armed Forces continue to benefit from this vital capability as we integrate the latest Apache model into service in 2022."

The IOS contract secured by Defence Equipment and Support, the MOD's procurement agency, includes deep maintenance, repair and overhaul of the MK1 aircraft as well as the provision of technical and spares support. The contract has been awarded in three tranches, to maintain value for money, with this latest investment covering the final five years of the fleet in service.

This contract reaffirms the MOD's committed investment in Leonardo's Yeovil site. Last May, the MOD announced the delivery of the first Commando Merlin Mk4 helicopters designed for Royal Marine aircraft carrier operations. This saw the fruition of a 388 million contract supporting 175 skilled jobs in Yeovil and a further 500 across the UK supply chain. The MOD also provides Leonardo with the 271 million Wildcat support and training contract securing 500 jobs in Yeovil.

The South West benefits from MOD expenditure of 920 per person each year and a huge investment in local industry and commerce of 5.1 billion. Defence spending in the region supports one in every 60 jobs  the highest proportion of jobs supported by MOD expenditure in the UK, totalling 33,500 jobs.

Director Helicopters at Defence Equipment and Support, the MOD's procurement agency, Graham Russell said:

"This latest multi-million-pound investment in the existing Apache fleet not only demonstrates our positive collaboration with industry in achieving value for money, but also ensures that these battle-proven helicopters remain in-service and readily available for the British Army until their out of service date."
UK government calls up army reservists to help prepare for no-deal Brexit

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 03:01PM

The British government has called up the army reservists to deal with a potential disorderly exit from the European Union.

Government ministers issued notices to the military on Thursday urging the deployment of reservists as London reinforces its preparations for a no-deal Brexit on March 29.

The ministers said in their formal notices that the call-up was meant to help tackle the impact of a no-deal Brexit "on the welfare, health and security of UK citizens and economic stability of the UK".

The Ministry of Defense said it was supporting no-deal preparations across government to ensure there are "effective and proportionate contingency plans in place".

The chance of a no-deal Brexit has become more serious in the wake of a vote in parliament on Tuesday, when lawmakers rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the EU.

"A new order has been made under section 56(1B) of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 to enable Reservists to be called into permanent service in support of the [government's] contingency planning for a no deal EU exit scenario," said junior defense minister Mark Lancaster on Thursday.

Previous reports had suggested that the British military will deploy troops on the streets across the UK to cope with potential unrest that could be caused by lack of food and medicine in the time of no-deal Brexit.

According to government plans, troops should remain on the streets for one year, starting from February 10.

The government has insisted that it would not accept calls for an extension of a two-year Brexit negotiating period with the EU nor it would bow to pressures for a fresh referendum that could allow Britain to cancel the 2016 popular decision to leave the EU.

That would mean that the country would crash out of the EU on March 29 without an agreement to regulate trade and many other issues.
Turkey Wants Patriot Missile System Tech Transfer as Condition for Deal With US

Sputnik News

15:20 17.01.2019(updated 15:48 17.01.2019)

Earlier, the US State Department approved the sale of $3.5 billion-worth of Patriot PAC-3 air defence systems to Turkey in a bid to convince Ankara to ditch its $2.5 billion S-400 deal with Moscow.

Turkey is counting on the US to provide it with the technology behind the Patriot missile system before a deal can be reached, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said.

"We received a proposal [on the Patriots] from the delegation that came from the US. For us, the timing of the delivery of the systems is important. We purchased the S-400, but we still need more similar systems. Our criteria are also joint production and technology transfer," the Turkish foreign minister said, speaking to reporters on Thursday.

In earlier negotiations with Ankara, Washington was reticent to transfer its patriot missile technology to Turkey. Moscow, meanwhile, promised Turkey joint production and technology transfer as part of the $2.5 billion S-400 deal.

A US team wrapped up two days-worth of talks with its Turkish counterparts on Wednesday. Earlier, Turkish media reported that the US team would look at "express specific concerns" about Turkey's purchase of the S-400s from Russia and how this would affect the "flight safety of F-35 aircraft."

On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu said Ankara would go ahead with its S-400 purchase despite US concerns, saying there was "no link" between the S-400s and the Patriot missile systems. "Turkey may buy Patriot systems in the future. But it will be impossible if abandoning S-400 will be one of the conditions for the purchase," he said.

Moscow penned a $2.5 billion deal with Ankara on the sale of four battalion sets of S-400s in December 2017. The first of the systems are expected to be delivered later this year. Designed to stop enemy aircraft, drones, cruise and ballistic missiles, the S-400 is currently the most advanced mobile air defence system in Russia's arsenal.

Washington has spent months lobbying Turkey to pull out of the S-400 deal. US officials have characterised the possible deployment of S-400s in areas where F-35s are set to operate as a 'threat', usually without providing details on why this would be so. Observers have argued that the S-400s will allow Turkey to test just how formidable the fifth-gen US jet's stealth systems are when matched up against the Russian air defence system. Last year, the US halted the delivery of F-35s to Turkey amid disagreement over the S-400.

 Sputnik
Militants Who Planned New Terror Attacks Arrested in Syria  Manbij War Council

Sputnik News

11:24 17.01.2019(updated 12:43 17.01.2019)

On Wednesday, over 20 civilians were killed and 19 others wounded as a result of an explosion in the centre of the city of Manbij, while a US military patrol was passing.

The military council of Manbij, Syria said that militants who had been plotting new terror attacks and who were getting orders from Turkish intelligence have been arrested.

"The antiterrorist squads of the council detained a cell of seven militants  members of opposition groups that participated in Operation 'Euphrates Anger' and were supported by Turkey, acting in concert with Turkish intelligence," the statement said.

"They planned several explosions and acts similar to terrorist acts, following instructions directly from the 'Euphrates Anger' groups and Turkish intelligence," the press service added.

A large number of weapons and ammunition, including grenades, Kalashnikov assault rifles and M6 rifles were seized from the militants during the searches.

A blast rocked a busy street in the Kurdish-held city of Manbij on 16 January. United States Central Command has confirmed that four Americans died as a result of the suicide attack. The Daesh* terrorist group reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack. According to the local military council, the blast occurred near a military patrol of the international coalition in the city.

The news came amid President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria.

In mid-December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey was ready to launch a military operation against the Kurdish-led People's Protection Units in Syria's Manbij if the United States did not remove the militia from there.

After a phone conversation with Donald Trump on 14 December, Erdogan said the military operation in Syria would be postponed.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia

 Sputnik
Manbij bomb attack won't impact Trump's planned troop pullout from Syria: Erdogan

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 09:54AM

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he believes the recent deadly bomb attack in Syria's flashpoint northern city of Manbij, which killed several American soldiers, would not impact US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw troops from war-torn Syria.

Speaking at a joint press conference with his Croatian counterpart, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, in Ankara, Erdogan said Wednesday's bomb attack in Kurdish-controlled Manbij "might have been meant to affect Trump's decision to pull out from Syria."

"But as I saw Mr. Trump's decisiveness, I don't think a backward step would follow such a terror attack," he said.

Erdogan said that at least 20 people, including five US troops, were killed in the bomb explosion that struck near a patrol of the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Manbij.

A US official had earlier told Reuters that four American troops had been killed and three wounded in the blast claimed by Daesh terrorist group. Others said only two had been killed.

"The information I have is news pointing toward that there are five US soldiers and 20 died in total," the Turkish leader said.

Following Manbij's bomb attack, US Vice President Mike Pence said that the withdrawal of American troops from Syria would go ahead as planned, but US forces would remain in the region to ensure that "ISIS (Daesh) does not rear its ugly head again."

The attack was the first such attack by Daesh since Trump's last month announcement that he was bringing home the American troops deployed in Syria - some 2,000 - alleging they had succeeded in their mission to defeat the terrorist group.

His abrupt move sparked concern among officials in Washington, prompting Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to step down in protest.

Trump announced the plan amid plans by Turkey to launch an operation against anti-Damascus Kurdish militants.

The Kurdish militants in northern Syria, who have long enjoyed US support, feel abandoned by Washington.

Ankara and Washington engaged in a war of words over the fate of the Kurdish militants in Syria following the planned withdrawal of American troops. Turkey views the Washington-backed militants as terrorists.

Trump threatened to devastate NATO ally Turkey economically if it launches attacks against the Kurdish militants in Syria when US troops leave the Arab country.

Trump's national security adviser John Boltonhas said that a US withdrawal would only occur after the US had drawn up a contingency plan with its allies in the region to protect Kurdish militants.

Likewise, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that "ensuring that the Turks don't slaughter the Kurds" was "still part of the American mission" in Syria.

The Turkish military, with support from allied militants of the so-called Free Syrian Army, has launched two cross-border operations in northern Syria, dubbed "Euphrates Shield" and "Olive Branch", against the YPG Kurdish militants and Daesh Takfiri terrorists.
Syria arrests Turkish-backed militants planning terror attacks

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 01:46PM

Syrian Kurdish officials have arrested a group of Turkish-backed militants from the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), who was apparently plotting new terror attacks in the country's northern province of Aleppo on orders from Turkey's intelligence agency (MIT).

"Counter-terrorism units of the Manbij Military Council (MMC) have disbanded a cell, comprising of seven militants who ... were supported by the Ankara government and were acting in full coordination with MIT," the MMC said in a statement on Thursday.

It added, "They were planning several explosions and acts of terror."

The statement went on to say that large amounts of weapons and munitions, including grenades, Kalashnikov assault rifles and Chiappa Firearms M6 M6 rifles was seized from the militants.

The development came a day after at least four US servicemen and 14 other people were killed following a massive bomb explosion, which struck near a patrol of the US-led coalition forces purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Manbij.

Reuters, citing an unnamed US military official, reported that three other American troops were also wounded in the Wednesday afternoon blast.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) identified nine of the fatalities as civilians, adding that the rest were members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

The Britain-based monitor added that the blast targeted the al-Ummara restaurant in the center of Manbij on Wednesday afternoon.

The Observatory noted that the death toll is expected to rise as some of the wounded victims are in critical condition.

Daesh later claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, saying the attacker detonated his explosive-laden vest as US-led coalition forces were passing by.

Manbij has been a major bone of contention between Turkey and the United States.

Ankara has complained over the slow implementation of a deal reached with Washington in June 2018, which would see the YPG ousted from the town and moved back to the eastern bank of the river.. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984.

Over the past few weeks, the Turkish military has been sending reinforcements to frontline areas with YPG militants in northern Syria.

US President Donald Trump said last month that he was bringing home the American troops deployed in Syria - some 2,000 - alleging they had succeeded in their mission to defeat the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

His abrupt move sparked concern among officials in Washington, prompting Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to step down in protest.

On January 10, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country would launch an offensive against YPG forces, in case the US delayed the planned withdrawal of its troops from Syria.

"If the (pullout) is put off with ridiculous excuses like Turks are massacring Kurds, which do not reflect the reality, we will implement this decision," Cavusoglu told Turkish-language NTV television news network in an exclusive interview.

The top Turkish diplomat then underlined that the Ankara government would go ahead with its incursion plan.

Cavusoglu said Ankara would fight the YPG whether or not US soldiers pulled out of Syria.

The Turkish military, with support from allied militants of the so-called Free Syrian Army, has launched two cross-border operations in northern Syria, dubbed "Euphrates Shield" and "Olive Branch," against the YPG and Daesh Takfiri terrorists.
US Failed to Provide Proof for Claims of Russian Missile Violating INF - Moscow

Sputnik News

10:27 17.01.2019(updated 10:59 17.01.2019)

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The United States has not provided Russia with specific proof to substantiate its claims that the ground-launched SSC-8 cruise missile (Russian designation 9M729) violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Sputnik Thursday.

"We fulfill the contract in full, without exemptions, without exceptions, without deviations from the requirements. Our 9M729 system has never been tested for a range banned by the contract. We see no other reasons why the United States would make claims to us regarding the treaty and specifically regarding this system. The United States was unable to provide us with specific reasons why it concluded that this missile did not not meet the requirements of the treaty," the official said.

According to Ryabkov, US claims on Russia's alleged violations are nothing more than "sweet icing used to cover a void position."

"We will continue to emphasize that this icing has nothing under it: there is no dough, no content, no substance at all. It's all fake. They are illusionists in the field of arms control policies who are trying to mislead NATO allies and the international community as a whole," the diplomat said.

The United States must turn to fulfilling its own obligations under the deal to ensure the treaty's survival, Ryabkov said, adding that if Washington is not ready to the dialogue with Russia, the responsibility for the failure of the pact would rest with the US party.

Russia does not understand whether the United States wants the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to be ended or is ready to work jointly with Russia to preserve the agreement, Ryabkov added.

"We don't understand the essence of the US current position. Do our partners in Washington want us to work toward preserving the treaty or have they finally decided that following suspension of the treaty, as they told us clearly at the consultations [in Geneva], the official and complete withdrawal from the treaty will follow?" the official added.

Ryabkov recalled Russia's statements on US deploying Aegis Ashore systems in Europe and the capacity of these systems to fire missiles banned under the treaty.

"Therefore, in asking how Russia is going to fulfill the treaty, the US side is wrong, to say the least, and strictly speaking provocative," the diplomat added.

Russia is ready to meet its US partners to discuss the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty at any time, Ryabkov stressed.

"We are ready to meet any time that is convenient and acceptable for the United States. If they name time and place, we will be there. We have always said this and we repeat it again. But so far we do not see readiness for such contacts," the diplomat said.

Earlier, US Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison said that Washington would completely withdraw from the INF Treaty after a six-months transition period starting on February 2, and urged Moscow to provide convincing evidence of compliance with the INF during this period to save the 1987 pact.

The United States has repeatedly raised concerns about Russia developing the SSC-8 cruise missile whose range is between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (311 and 3,418 miles).

In early December, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would suspend its adherence to the INF Treaty within 60 days unless Russia returns to full compliance with the agreement.

Russia has repeatedly refuted US allegations that it violates the INF Treaty, saying Moscow has very serious questions regarding the accord's implementation by the United States.

 Sputnik
Russia Detains Belarusian Escort Claiming Trump Secrets

By RFE/RL January 17, 2019

Russia has detained a Belarusian model who claimed she had evidence of the Kremlin's efforts to help Donald Trump win the presidency, reports from Moscow say.

Anastasia Vashukevich, who also goes by Nastya Rybka, was held for questioning at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport on January 17 after being deported from Thailand with others who were convicted of soliciting sex, AFP reported.

Aleksandr Kirillov, a self-styled Russian sex guru aka Alex Lesley, was also among four people who were detained by Russian authorities at the airport.

They were taken away by officials in plainclothes, said a fellow passenger on the plane named Kristina, who said she was Kirillov's wife.

Kristina said she heard the four arguing with the officials about being detained.

An unnamed law enforcement source told the Russian state agency TASS that the four were detained at the airport on suspicion of "recruiting for prostitution."

The development is is the latest twist in a saga that started in February 2018, when Russian anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny published an expose appearing to show a former deputy Russian prime minister off the coast of Norway on a yacht belonging to the Kremlin-linked oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Navalny's report, which drew on photographs and video that Vashukevich published on Instagram in 2016, appeared to show then-Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko being offered lavish treatment on Deripaska's yacht. The two also appear to discuss U.S. politics.

Vashukevich, who was pictured on the yacht, says she had an affair with Deripaska.

Vashukevich and her partner, Aleksandr Kirillov, known as Alex Lesley, made international headlines again when, shortly after their arrest in Pattaya, they asked for U.S. asylum.

Vashukevich claimed that she could reveal details about Russia's alleged meddling in the U.S. election.

Deripaska, one of several Russian tycoons hit by U.S. sanctions, was once an associate of U.S. President Donald Trump's ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/belarusian-escort -nastya-rybka-co-defendants-deported -from-thailand/29715069.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Legislation To Maintain Sanctions On Deripaska Companies Fails In U.S. Senate

By RFE/RL January 17, 2019

The U.S. Senate has failed to pass a resolution that could have stopped sanctions on companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska from being lifted.

The January 16 vote was a victory for President Donald Trump's administration, which had lobbied senators hard to not pass the measure.

Lawmakers voted 57-42, which ended debate on the resolution since it was short of the required 60 votes to advance it to a final passage vote. Still, 11 senators from Trump's Republican party joined with Democrats in the effort, a sign of how many congressional lawmakers feel about Trump's Russia policy.

The resolution was pushed by Senate Democrats, in response to last month's announcement by the Treasury Department that it would lift sanctions on the core businesses of Deripaska. That includes aluminum giant Rusal, its parent company En+, and power firm EuroSibEnergo.

The sanctions were initially imposed in April, but they roiled global metals markets, unnerving businesses in the United States and Europe; Rusal is one of the world's largest aluminum producers.

Deripaska, who is widely believed to have close ties to the Kremlin, has agreed to pare back his controlling stakes in the companies. He himself remains subject to U.S. sanctions.

The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said ahead of the vote that the timing of the sanctions decision was wrong, given the larger Russia investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and other congressional committees.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last week testified before a House committee about the effort to lift the sanctions, telling lawmakers that the Trump administration would keep control over the companies.

A similar measure will be brought up for a vote on January 17 in the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats. It likely will pass the House, but the failure of the Senate vote means its long-term fate is uncertain.

In addition to his ties to the Kremlin, Deripaska also was a former business partner with Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman.

With reporting by Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-senate-deripaska -sanctions/29714757.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Analysts: Seoul-Tokyo Diplomatic Rows Unlikely to Have Lasting Effect

By Steve Miller January 17, 2019

Relations between South Korea and Japan continue to sour as a pair of diplomatic disputes creates a renewed strain on bilateral ties between Seoul and Tokyo.

However, analysts tell VOA that the crisis facing the East Asian nations stems from long-standing, unresolved issues that could ultimately affect how the countries interact on regional security issues.

Keeho Yang, a professor at the Department of Japanese studies at Sungkonghoe University, traces the current downward trend in bilateral ties to 2012, when then-President Lee Myung-bak visited Dok-do, a small set of islets also claimed by Japan and referred to as Takeshima.

"There have been no significant changes in the two countries' relationship," since then, he said. "It's bad."

Currently, both governments are embroiled in a tit-for-tat exchange over whether a South Korean naval vessel targeted a Japanese Self Defense Force fighter with fire-control radar last month and Seoul looking to seize the assets of Japanese companies following a recent court decision that requiring the firms to compensate forced laborers during World War II.

Dispute's impact on regional issues

Despite the discussions taking place between Seoul and Tokyo to resolve the issue of asset seizure and military interactions, Yang doesn't see the disputes affecting how the two governments communicate or work together to maintain regional security.

"The Japanese government endorsed the Panmunjom declaration. So two governments share the same view on denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula," Yang said.

The Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University's Cho Jin-goo also agreed that Tokyo's support for North Korea's denuclearization is important, but if the current disagreements can't be resolved in a relatively short period of time, it could affect larger issues.

"So the longer the dispute lasts, the worse the relationship [between Seoul and Tokyo] will get," Cho said.

When you "look at what actually goes on between the two countries, economically, tourist-wise, militarily ... it doesn't really change all that much. But it's not as good as it should be," said Grant Newsham, a senior research fellow with the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo. "Particularly on the military front."

He sees the current cycle of good and bad relations between Seoul and Tokyo continuing for the foreseeable future.

Yang recommends both governments continue to work together to resolve the ongoing differences and for the leaders to meet to establish "forward-looking relations."

Ongoing radar row

South Korea and Japan met in Singapore Monday to discuss a Dec. 20 incident involving a radar lock between a South Korean warship and a Japanese P-1 maritime patrol aircraft.

Seoul requested that Tokyo apologize for the aircraft flying low and possibly posing a threat against its vessel, which was on a humanitarian operation.

Japan disputes South Korea's version of events, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged Seoul to put in place procedures to prevent similar incidents in the future.

In addition, Japanese media reports that Tokyo's defense ministry summoned the South Korean military attache to lodge a formal complaint and demanded a retraction of Seoul's claim.

South Korea's defense ministry said Japan failed in those talks to provide definitive evidence backing its claim.

"Japan did not disclose the radar frequency data that it has about our warship, which is a smoking gun, and instead only asked for information from South Korea. Such a demand is extremely rude and unacceptable," said ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun Soo.

She further told reporters Tokyo's request indicated a lack of desire on Japan's part to resolve the matter.

Both sides are expected to continue to hold discussions on the matter.
South Korea's First F-35s to Arrive in March Amid Easing Tensions With North

Sputnik News

22:08 17.01.2019

Two F-35A stealth fighter aircraft will be delivered to South Korea's air force in March, beginning a process that will send two F-35As to South Korea each month until the end of the year.

The twin F-35As will likely be deployed by April or May, multiple insiders told South Korea's Yonhap News Agency January 13. The aircraft will be a vital component of South Korea's so-called Kill Chain pre-emptive attack system, a program designed to "deter" the North, reports the Diplomat.

Even though South Korea and North Korea have made numerous peaceful overtures toward one another over the past year, Seoul signed on to purchased 40 F-35A aircraft from US manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin appears to be on the verge of delivering 25 percent of the 40-strong-fleet. At a pace of two aircraft deliveries per month, starting in March, there will be 10 F-35As in South Korea by the end of 2019, sources told Yonhap.

The remaining 30 F-35A aircraft will then be delivered by 2021 "as planned," Yonhap notes. The deal to acquire the 40 F-35As was worth $7 billion. Lockheed secured the contract by offering 25 proprietary technologies on the F-35 to South Korea for Seoul's indigenous, $15 billion K-FX fighter development program, the Diplomat noted.

Still, Washington stepped in and reportedly refused to share four technologies on the F-35A, "which detrimentally affected bilateral defense relations for a while," the Diplomat report notes. These included the active electronically scanned array, the infrared search-and-rescue system, a radio frequency jammer and the electro-optical targeting pod.

Pilots from South Korea have trained on six F-35A aircraft at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona; these first six have technically been delivered, just not delivered to a physical location in South Korea. Seoul's Defense Acquisition Program Administration is reported to be mulling a deal for 20 more F-35A aircraft, according to Yonhap.

South Korean President Moon Jae In and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un proclaimed an end to a state of war between the two countries last September, though scholars told Sputnik News the announcement was primarily symbolic and did not constitute a formal peace treaty. Rather, it showed they wanted to ease tensions along the border.

"They wanted to defuse the situation and don't feel that they are in a state of hostilities anymore, but in order to really end the war, in order to get a peace treaty, you have to get the United Nations Command involved, you have to get China, the United States, Australia" involved in a formal truce, Howard Stoffer, associate professor of national security at the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, told Sputnik last September.

On Tuesday, South Korea's Defense Ministry published its new Defense White Paper. The document reflected changes in the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the improved state of relations between the two Koreas, abandoning the word "enemy" as a term used to refer to North Korea, Sputnik News reported.

 Sputnik
IDF Air Force Invited to Take Part in Joint 'Cobra' Drills With British RAF

Sputnik News

03:17 17.01.2019

Cobra Warrior is the UK Royal Air Force's largest training exercise, in which different countries take part after being invited by the UK. In 2018, the RAF invited Germany and Italy to become a part of the training.

The Israeli Air Force, which is a part of Israeli Defense Forces, will participate in the joint exercises with the UK's RAF for the first time ever, the Jewish Chronicle reported.

The joint drills will take place at Coningsby air base in Lincolnshire this September.

Israel, in its turn, holds annual "Blue Flag" military exercises in which RAF will reportedly take part in for the first time in 2020, marking the first time RAF would train in Israel's airspace.

The defense cooperation between two countries has been intensifying in recent years, which was reflected in particular in 2018 in a joint training seminar between a group of Israeli combat pilots and the UK's Royal Air Force Typhoon pilots.

In 2017, the UK's Air Force, alongside with Israel's, completed three days of joint exercises to test sea rescue capabilities in stormy conditions, also exchanging their experience operating F-35 stealth fighters.

The Cobra Warrior is an exercise of the RAF with allied air forces that are intended to conduct jointly complex combat scenarios.

 Sputnik
Iraq: UN demining agency rejects desecration accusations, involving historic Mosul churches

17 January 2019 - The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Iraq issued a statement on Thursday rejecting allegations made earlier this week by a non-profit organization there, alleging that personnel had carried out explosive hazard clearance inside two historic churches in Mosul "in a barbaric and arbitrary manner."

The allegations, published earlier this week on the website of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization (HHRO), the Iraqi non-governmental organization in question, accused UNMAS of "crimes no less grievous and insolent than the crimes of Daesh," and claimed that the clearance was conducted without church authorization, "in a barbaric and arbitrary manner with utter disregard for the holy and religious sanctity" of the two churches, located in the Hosh al-Khan area of the Al Maedan district, in Mosul.

Although UNMAS  and its partner for the clearance project, G4S  were not directly named, UNMAS Iraq said in a statement that it was taking the allegations seriously, open to further investigation of the allegations, and continuing to work closely with the Iraqi Government.

The agency has invited HHRO and officials of the Syriac Catholic Archbishopric in the Nineveh Plains, "as well as other relevant Iraqi authorities, to meet in person to carefully consider the facts relative to their statements and hope they will offer to correct the record when known."

UNMAS said it was "keen on safeguarding all archeological, religious and historical sites", from the assessment phase of de-mining and other clearance operations, working "closely with the Iraqi State and religious authorities to ensure this national treasure is secure and safe, to prevent any additional damage to that inflicted by the terrorists and the conflict".

To date, UNMAS Iraq and G4S teams have cleared and safely removed 53 suicide belts from the church sites, 74 munitions of various types, seven improvised bombs, and assorted ammunition and materials such as home-made explosives. According to the agency, the site and the accumulated debris remain heavily contaminated with explosives and will require further clearance.

The UN's demining agency further explained that, since it started operating in Mosul in November 2017, over 1,500 clearance tasks have been carried out, resulting in the removal of approximately 48,000 explosive hazards of all types, heretofore without any complaints.

In 2014, the jihadist terrorist group ISIL, known in Arabic as Da'esh, occupied Iraq's second city of Mosul, an historic centre of Christianity in the Middle East for centuries, demanding that they convert to Islam, pay tribute, or face execution. More than 100 churches and other religious sites were destroyed or demolished.

Many other Christian enclaves across northern Iraq, and those of other religious minorities, were overrun and destroyed by Da'esh fighters during more than three years of occupation.
Iran, Azerbaijan sign agreement on defense cooperation

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 06:40AM

Senior defense officials of Iran and Azerbaijan have signed an agreement aimed at boosting defense and military cooperation between the two neighbors.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was inked in the Azerri capital, Baku, following a meeting between Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri and Azerbaijan's Defense Minister Lieutenant General Zakir Hasanov on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Baqeri said both sides explored ways to bolster bilateral defense ties during the meeting.

He said Iran reiterated its support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and underlined the need for expanding cooperation in the fields of logistics and training as well as an exchange of military experiences.

Hasanov, for his part, welcomed Baqeri's visit, saying the two sides discussed "highly important" issues.

The Azeri minister expressed confidence that the visit would further enhance "bilateral military cooperation to the highest level."

He further said Baqeri's visit provided the opportunity to review the activities of Iran-Azerbaijan Joint Defense Commission, saying necessary recommendation has been made to enhance its performance.

The joint commission held its first meeting in Baku in October 2017, with a high-ranking delegation from Iran's Defense Ministry in attendance.

Heading a high-ranking military delegation, Baqeri traveled to Azerbaijan on Wednesday for a two-day visit at the invitation of the Azeri defense chief.

He also held talks with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev as well as Chairman of National Assembly Ogtay Asadov.

The Iranian official is scheduled to hold meetings with other Azeri officials, including Prime Minister Novruz Mamedov, on Thursday.
Senior cleric questions Iran's stay in JCPOA amid EU inaction

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:09AM

A senior Iranian cleric has censured Europe for dragging its feet on adopting practical measures to save the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement following the US's withdrawal, saying he thinks the Islamic Republic will ultimately have to "set fire" to the deal.

"Some imagine they could rely on the Europeans when the US withdraws from the JCPOA," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's Assembly of Experts, said on Thursday, using an acronym for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name of the nuclear accord.

"The Europeans are however dragging their feet and would do nothing in our interest," he added. "The Europeans are worse than the Americans. If not, they are not any better."

He further complained that the officials failed to respect statements by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in June 2016, which came in response to US threats back then to withdraw from the Iran deal.

In May 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew his country from the JCPOA in defiance of objections from the entire international community.

In response, Iran's other partners in the deal, especially Washington's own allies, stressed their commitment to the deal and vowed efforts to compensate for the US's absence and keep the deal in effort.

In turn, Iran also said it would only stay in the deal if the Europeans manage to make sure Tehran will be able to collect the economic dividends of the JCPOA when the US leaves and unleashes fresh economic pressure against the Islamic Republic.

Ayatollah Khamenei said following Washington's exit that "the European sides are obligated to provide necessary guarantees with regard to the JCPOA, but the country's economy must not be tied to this issue."

Jannati's comments come amid efforts by the European Union to set up the so-called Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), a payment mechanism aimed at facilitating business with Iran irrespective of the US bans.

The 28-nation bloc has come under fire for failing to speed up efforts to launch the SPV, which many analysts view as a question of sovereignty for Europe in the face of the US.

Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tehran would not stand by for Europeans to fulfill their commitments.

He also emphasized that the Islamic Republic has many options to deal with the US withdrawal from the JCPOA and would consider them based on its national interests.

Additionally, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Seyyed Abbas Araqchi complained that European countries' political support for the JCPOA is "valuable," but not enough, urging them to take "operational steps" to safeguard the nuclear accord.
FM Zarif: US officials have no right to meddle in Iran-Iraq ties

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 02:18PM

Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif says US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- who was recently on an anti-Iran tour of the Middle East -- and other American officials have no right to meddle in neighborly and deep-rooted ties between Iran and Iraq.

Zarif made the remarks following a business forum in the Iraqi city of Najaf on Thursday, adding that Iran's relations with Iraq, unlike those of certain other states, are "not fake."

The two neighbors have had ties since before the United States came into existence and will maintain their relations in the future, the top Iranian diplomat said.

Zarif arrived in Iraq on Sunday for talks with senior officials in Baghdad and the country's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region on ways to enhance cooperation in different areas, over a year after Iraq managed to clear its entire soil of Daesh terrorists on the back of a Tehran-backed military campaign.

The Iranian minister further highlighted the contrast between Pompeo's recent unannounced visit to Iraq and that of his own.

He described his trip to Iraq as his "lengthiest ever" visit to a foreign country, hailing it as a sign of "special relations" between the two nations.

"I can confidently say that Iran-Iraq relations have a bright future," the minister said.

"The affinities between the Iranian and Iraqi nations are cultural and historical. The blood of their youths has mingled amid their fight against terrorism; therefore, no power can divide them," he added.

"Outsiders forced their way into this region one day, but they will eventually leave. It is the regional nations that will remain," said Zarif. "We must not allow the parties that do not favor better conditions for us to hinder Iran-Iraq relations."

Zarif's visit follows that of Pompeo, who visited Baghdad and Erbil as part of a seven-day tour of the Middle East, which had a hostile anti-Iran agenda.

Prior to Pompeo, US President Donald Trump had paid a controversial secret visit to American troops in Iraq, which triggered wave of condemnations from the Arab country's political and military leaders.

In Iraq, Pompeo made no official mention of Iran, but he repeatedly attacked Iran in his other destinations.

Pompeo described the US as a "force for good" in the Middle East, and accused former US President Barack Obama of having sowed chaos by abandoning the Middle East.

Zarif scolded his US counterpart and said actually the opposite of Pompeo's comments was true. "Whenever/wherever US interferes, chaos, repression, and resentment follow," he tweeted last week.

Since its withdrawal in May 2018 of the Iran nuclear deal, the US has been putting pressure on Baghdad to decrease its trade ties with Tehran.

Baghdad -- which heavily relies on Iranian electricity and natural gas imports to meet its energy needs -- has said it is "not obliged" to abide by unilateral US sanctions against Iran.

It says it is considering options to bypass those bans and maintain trade ties with its neighbor.

'US cannot harm Iraq-Iran alliance'

Commenting on Zarif's remarks, spokesman of Iraq's Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba Hashim al-Mousawi, in an interview with Press TV, described Iran-Iraq ties as not only political but also "intellectual, religious, spiritual and friendly."

"There are continuous coordination and cooperation between the two sides whether politically, militarily or economically," he told Press TV.

He further pointed to Washington's attempt to "provoke" the Arab world against Iran, stressing, however, that the US will to bring Iraq on board in the hostile pressure campaign.

"Iraq will not let go of [its] alliance with Iran, because Iran has stood with the people of Iraq" during difficult times, Mousawi added.
Biggest IAF Transport Aircraft Lands Near Chinese Border in Arunachal Pradesh

Sputnik News

14:02 17.01.2019(updated 14:05 17.01.2019)

In a bid to enhance its reach at an Advanced Landing Ground (ALG) along hostile international borders, the Indian Air Force (IAF) landed its largest transport aircraft, the C-130J, in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh for the first time.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  A transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force's Eastern Air Command has successfully carried out day-and-night operations at the Tezu Advanced Landing Ground, situated in the border province of Arunachal Pradesh. Advanced Landing Grounds are airfields in very close proximity to enemy territory.

"Two Dornier and one Avro in coordination with C-130 and AN-32 carried out validation of Casualty Evacuation and Disaster Management sorties," Wing Commander Ratnakar Singh, spokesperson for the IAF's Eastern Air Command, told Sputnik.

"This effort of the Indian Air Force will boost the mobility of troops and materials in the strategically important north-east region many-fold," Ratnakar Singh added.

The landing of the C-130J is seen as part of the Indian Air Force's move to strengthen its military capabilities in the strategically key border state.

Earlier, the IAF landed a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft in Arunachal Pradesh's Tuting airfield, near the India-Chinese border.

Last week, an all women crew from the Hornbill (59th Squadron) of the Indian Air Force Eastern Air Command also landed for the first time at the Tezu ALG. The squadron is based in Guwahati and participates in operations involving air combat, troop deployment, airdrops, and provides support to special forces.

India and China have numerous longstanding border disputes with each other. Earlier, troops from both countries were locked in a 73-day long standoff in Doklam in June 2017 after Indian forces stopped road construction by Chinese troops in the disputed area.

Although both sides agreed to maintain the status quo after the standoff, certain media reports suggest that China has been keeping its forces in north Doklam and is also building roads and helipads in the area.

 Sputnik
Macron: France to Keep Military Presence in Syria-Iraq Region Over Next Year

Sputnik News

19:59 17.01.2019(updated 20:29 17.01.2019)

French President Emmanuel Macron explained that the recent terror attack that claimed the lives of US soldiers in the Syrian city of Manbij showed that the battle against Daesh* is not over.

Macron also stressed that France will continue being militarily engaged in the Middle East in the international coalition throughout 2019.

"The announced withdrawal of our American ally should not deflect us from our strategic objective to eradicate Daesh", Macron said on Thursday addressing the armed forces in the French city of Toulouse.

The French leader's comments come after, the day before, a suicide bombing claimed by Daesh militants killed at least 16 people, including two US service members and two American civilians, in northern Syria.

Last month, US President Donald Trump announced that he was ordering a full troop pullout from Syria, saying the war against Daesh was won.

This announced withdrawal was condemned by a number of US officials and resulted in two resignations: US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis and Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the US coalition in Syria.

*Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State) is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries.

 Sputnik
Beijing Calls New US Arms Development Policy 'Double Standards'

Sputnik News

16:49 17.01.2019

BEIJING (Sputnik) - The United States demands that other countries cut their spending on arms research and development activities, while not implementing the same standards to their weapons of mass destruction research programs, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, commenting on the new US missile doctrine.

"We have heard for many times how the United States was demanding other countries to limit the development of weapons, but they [the Americans] also say that they will continue the development of weapons of mass destruction, in my opinion, it is double standards," the spokeswoman said at a briefing with journalists.

Hua noted that China hoped the United States would work on the maintenance of the global peace and stability.

"China hopes that the United States, as the biggest world power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, will, together with other members of the Security Council, be able to contribute greatly to the global peace and stability," the spokeswoman said.

US President Donald Trump will present a new missile defence strategy at Pentagon later in the day. The US Missile Defence Review will be the first official update to the US missile doctrine in nine years, and will call for urgent investments in missile-defence technologies, including a relaunch of the research projects that were closed after the end of the Cold War.

According to a White House representative, the strategy will emphasize the reliance on nuclear deterrence rather than the development of a global missile defence system as a response to Russian and Chinese recent advancements in missile technologies.

In October, Trump announced his country's intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia. The treaty prohibited the development of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles whose ranges are between 500 and 5,500 kilometres (from 311 to 3,317 miles). The withdrawal means that the United States can now deploy ground-based missile systems in Asia, in high proximity to China.

In turn, the Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted to the US withdrawal by saying that such unilateral decision will have many negative effects on the international relations, adding that China is strictly following a defensive strategy in its military policy.

 Sputnik
Public welfare a priority for justice system

People's Daily Online

(China Daily) 07:41, January 17, 2019

Xi urges law enforcement andjudicial agencies to better fulfill their obligations

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has urged law enforcement and judicial agencies to better fulfill their obligations in safeguarding the country's political security and social stability and make all-around efforts to promote justice and guarantee a safe living environment for the people.

Xi, also China's president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the statement at a two-day central conference on political and legal work, which concluded on Wednesday.

Commending the performance of law enforcement and judicial agencies since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, Xi stressed the importance of the absolute leadership of the Party over political and legal work and urged them to pursue a people-centered approach.

He called for stepping up law enforcement in key areas that concern people's immediate interests to allow them to have better chances to enjoy blue skies, drink cleaner water, breathe cleaner air, eat safer food, have better transportation and live a more harmonious life.

The Party's leadership and the strength of the socialist system must be leveraged to improve the efficacy of social management, Xi said.

Additional efforts must be made to crack down on gang crimes, with a focus on major cases involving mafialike crimes, and to destroy the financial support and shelter of wrongdoers, Xi said.

He called on political and legal agencies to push forward judicial reforms, step up optimizing the configuration of duties, and improve the quality, efficiency, and credibility of judicial work.

Since political and legal agencies bear responsibility for providing public services, they should make efforts to simplify procedures to make services more convenient and efficient, he added.

Xi demanded efforts be stepped up in building an overseas security protection system to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese nationals and organizations abroad.

He emphasized the training of high-quality political and legal professionals. They should be fully dedicated to working as builders and guardians of the socialist undertaking. "Bad apples" in the staff of law enforcement and judicial agencies must be removed, he added.

Xi urged Party committees and leading officials to support all judicial and law enforcement agencies to perform their duties independently and fairly in accordance with the law.

Over the past year, China has made progress in reforming its judicial and law enforcement system as part of the effort to make it fairer, as well as more efficient and authoritative.

China launched the Shanghai Financial Court, the country's first court specializing in handling finance-related cases. Two international commercial courts were set up by the Supreme People's Court.
PLA South China Sea Fleet sets sail for far-sea drill

Global Times

Source:Global Times Published: 2019/1/17 14:48:40

A formation of Chinese naval ships consisting of four advanced warships under the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command's South China Sea Fleet set sail Wednesday for deepwater exercises with the PLA's Air Force, Rocket Force and Strategic Support Force.

The PLA forces will conduct joint exercises focusing on anti-terrorism, anti-piracy and joint search and rescue missions under real combat scenarios, the South China Sea Fleet announced in a statement released on its WeChat account on Thursday.

The four vessels participating in the drill, the Type 052D guided missile destroyer Hefei, the Type 054A guided missile frigate Yuncheng, the Type 071 amphibious transport dock Changbaishan and the Type 903A supply ship Honghu, are PLA Navy's new battle vessels, the statement said.

The Navy's "deep integration and joint exercise with other military branches like the Air Force, the Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force are the highlights of this far-sea joint drill," the statement said quoting an unnamed leader of the formation. Testing and research on these subjects will be the main focus of the exercises, said the leader.

These offshore drills are routine and in accordance with the PLA Southern Theater Command's annual plan. It conforms to related international laws and conventions and is not aimed at any specific country or target, reads the statement.

The statement did not disclose where the drills would take place or how long they will last.

Last year's far-sea drill of the South China Sea Fleet took place in February and lasted 25 days, as vessels conducted exercises in the South China Sea, East Indian Ocean and West Pacific Ocean, the PLA Daily reported.
North Korean, Iranian Missiles Remain a Significant Concern for US - Pentagon

Sputnik News

01:54 18.01.2019(updated 01:55 18.01.2019)

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The missile capabilities of US adversaries such as North Korea and Iran continue to play a significant role in America's defense strategy, acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said on Thursday during the rollout of the 2019 Missile Defense Review.

"While we are forging a new path to peace on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea's missiles remain a significant concern, so do Iran's," Shanahan said during his address at the Pentagon.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood told reporters on Thursday that as North Korea produces additional systems and they grow in sophistication, the United States response must be robust and effective.

"North Korea has a long range missile capability that's capable of reaching the United States," Rood said. "The sizing construct for the size of our missile defense force will be sufficient to outpace the scale of the North Korean threat."

Earlier on Thursday, the Trump administration rolled out the 2019 Missile Defense Review  a new strategy intended to set the path to strengthen the United States' missile defense capabilities and make the case for urgent investment in new ones.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula has improved since beginning of 2018 after Pyongyang and Seoul concluded important agreements and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump held a historic summit in Singapore. The two leaders concluded an agreement stipulating that Pyongyang would make efforts to promote the complete denuclearization in exchange for the United States and South Korea freezing their joint military drills and a potential lifting of the sanctions.

The new US Missile Defense Review also suggested that Pyongyang has allegedly obtained Russian missile defense technology and has begun developing mobile missile defense capabilities that resemble those of Russia.

The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported Sunday, citing sources, that North Korean military tested in December telemetry equipment used for tracking launched intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) despite Pyongyang's claims that the country has suspended missile-related tests.

According to the sources, North Korea tested radio wave detectors that are installed in ballistic missiles to allow the military to track the missiles' speed, location and trajectory, the outlet reported, noting that such tests had often preceded Pyongyang's ICBM launches.

The sources added that the telemetry tests are an integral part of North Korea's nuclear program development.

Meanwhile, the successful launch of Iran's Simorgh Satellite in July 2017 has marked a significant progress in Tehran's space program. Last week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Tehran would continue launching orbital vehicles in the near future. Rouhani's statement came amid rising concerns among certain countries that Iran's rocket launches use ICBM technology.

Moreover, the newly released US Missile Defense Review also notes that Iran's continued advancements in the area of missile technologies poses a threat to the United States as the Middle Eastern country could seek to field an operational ICBM.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Iran would face additional economic and diplomatic consequences if it carried out the other scheduled space launches in the coming months. In turn, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has stressed that country's rocket launches do not violate UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231 deals almost exclusively with Iran's effort to make nuclear weapons with barely a mention of missiles.

 Sputnik
Trump Unveils Space-Based Missile Defense Strategy

By Carla Babb January 17, 2019

President Donald Trump unveiled the military's long-delayed Missile Defense Review (MDR), the first overhaul of U.S. missile defense policy since 2010.

Speaking at the Pentagon Thursday, Trump said his plan will allow the United states to detect and destroy missiles "anywhere, anytime, anyplace."

"It is not enough to keep pace with our adversaries, we must outpace them at every turn," he said.

Officials say the doctrine, initially expected in 2017, has been frequently rewritten to keep up with changing missile threats posed by North Korea, China, Russia and Iran.

Trump added that the upcoming Pentagon budget "will invest in a space-based missile defense layer."

The MDR orders a study of space-based technologies that officials have said are "key" to the next level of defense, including weapon sensors and interceptors in space.

These technologies could help detect an enemy missile launch sooner and shoot it down in space, or possibly even as the missile is launching.

The idea is reminiscent of former President Ronald Reagan's so-called "Star Wars" initiative in the 1980s.

U.S. officials have said a space-based defense could help protect against weapons traveling at hypersonic speeds.

In a report released earlier this week, the Pentagon warned that China has made advances in hypersonic technology that, "in some areas" "already leads the world," potentially allowing Beijing to develop weapons that are far more difficult to detect.

Defense at home and abroad

In addition to a space focus, the MDR breaks down the threat into two camps: protecting the U.S. homeland and defending U.S. forces abroad from any missile source.

Concerning the homeland, the U.S. had already announced plans to add 20 new ground-based interceptors, increasing the number positioned at Fort Greely, Alaska, from 44 to 64 by 2023.

"We are committed to establishing a missile defense program that can shield every city in the United States, and we will never negotiate away our right to do this," Trump said Thursday.

Trump's rollout of the Missile Defense Review comes amid reports of possible movement toward another meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Three North Korean officials are expected to meet with White House officials in Washington this week to discuss a potential second summit between the two leaders.

The increased defenses to the homeland are scaled with respect to projected threats from rogue states such as North Korea and Iran, not the much more robust threat from China and Russia.

The United States will continue to rely on nuclear deterrence, the assurance that an attack on the U.S. homeland from a major power would insure mutual annihilation, to protect against large attacks from Russia or China.

Finally, to protect against adversary advances abroad, the MDR calls for "expanding and modernizing" regional missile defenses.

The review says North Korea is fielding regional missiles capable of threatening allies and deployed forces, while Iran has a ballistic missile force that could strike throughout the Middle East and southeast Europe.

Speaking ahead of the president Thursday, Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan said North Korean and Iranian missiles "remain a significant concern" across the globe.

"To our competitors, we see what you are doing, and we are taking action." he said.
US Missile Defense Systems in Europe Needed to Counter Iran Threat - US Official

Sputnik News

05:04 17.01.2019(updated 05:33 17.01.2019)

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US missile defense forces positioned in Europe are there to deter threats from rogue states like Iran, a senior US administration official said during a conference call previewing the 2019 Missile Defense Review (MDR).

"Our missile defense capabilities are primarily postured to stay ahead of rogue state threats.The forces, for example, that we have positioned in Europe are there to deal with extra-regional threats like those that come from Iran," the official said on Wednesday.

The same senior US administration official said that the new MDR will address cruise missile and hypersonic weapons in addition to ballistic missile threats.

"This Missile Defense Review is responding to an environment in which we have not just ballistic missile threats but also cruise missile threats and other types of weapons like hypersonic so expanding the scope of what we're postured to defend against with this new review," the official said.

The White House official has also commented on a key point of the new MDR's emphasis.

"Space-based capabilities are a significant point of emphasis, it's something we want to invest in.We think that's very important for going beyond the current types of capabilities we have. Space is key to the next step of missile defense," he said.

The MDR will call for further studies into missile defense concepts such as space-based interceptors or direct-energy satellites (lasers), but it will not direct the development of anything specific, the official said.

The United States is looking into a concept of having a layer of satellites in space to help get early warning detection when missiles are launched, according to the official.

Continuing his speech, the official highlighted that the US continues to rely on its nuclear deterrence to deter potential nuclear attacks.

"The United States still relies on nuclear deterrence to deter a potential Russian or Chinese nuclear attack," he said.

The statements were made during a conference call previewing the 2019 Missile Defense Review (MDR), which is to be presented on Thursday morning at the Pentagon. According to the official, the previous US missile defense review to be put out was in 2010.

The new MDR will present a new strategy and posture that will set the path to strengthen the United States' current missile defense capabilities and make the case for urgent investment into new missile defense capabilities.

 Sputnik
New US Missile Defence Strategy to Include 20 New Interceptors in Alaska - Trump

Sputnik News

19:36 17.01.2019(updated 21:31 17.01.2019)

The Trump administration began a review of US missile defence capabilities in 2017, saying the evaluation, the first of its kind since 2010, was aimed at countering alleged North Korean and Iranian threats, as well as the advanced strategic missile capabilities being developed by Russia and China.

Speaking at the Pentagon on Thursday, President Donald Trump called on the US military to significantly expand its missile defence capabilities. The US' goal was "simple", Trump said, and included gaining the ability to "detect and destroy" any incoming missile, whether ballistic, cruise or hypersonic.

"We gathered together to outline the steps that we must take to upgrade and modernise America's missile defenceIn a time of rapidly evolving threats, we must be certain that our defensive capabilities are unrivalled and unmatched anywhere in the world," Trump said.

Trump said the updated missile defence strategy was a direct response to "foreign adversaries, competitors and rogue regimes" and their attempts to build "bigger and stronger missile arsenals" capable of reaching targets in the US.

"I will accept nothing less for our nation than the most effective, cutting edge missile defence systems. We have the best anywhere in the world; it's not even close," Trump stressed.

Major Change to US Missile Defence Strategy

The president outlined six major changes in Washington's missile defence policy, including the deployment of 20 new ground-based interceptors in Alaska, as well as new radars and sensors "to immediately detect foreign missiles launched" against the US.

"We are committed to establishing a missile defence program that can shield every city in the United States, and we will never negotiate away our right to do this," Trump said.

The strategy also calls for investment into "new technologies," Trump said. "It is not enough to merely keep pace with our adversaries. We must outpace them at every single turn. We must pursue the advanced technology and research to guarantee that the United States is always several steps ahead of those who would do us harm," he noted.

The new strategy extends beyond ballistic missiles, Trump emphasised. "The US will now adjust its posture to also defend against any missile strikes, including cruise and hypersonic missiles. And we are by the way very advanced also on hypersonic technology and missiles."

Space a 'New Warfighting Domain'

Furthermore, Trump said that the US would "recognise that space is a new warfighting domain, with the Space Force leading the way. My upcoming budget will invest in a space-based missile defence layer. It's new technology. It's ultimately going to be a very, very big part of our defence and obviously of our offence," he said.

"We will ensure that enemy missiles find no sanctuary on Earth or in the skies above. This is the direction that I'm heading."

Trump also promised to "remove bureaucratic obstacles to dramatically speed up the acquisition and deployment of the new technology."

Finally, the president said Washington would "insist on fair burden-sharing with our allies," including the sharing of early warning and tracking information to detect missile launches.

"Today marks the beginning of a new era in our missile defence program," Trump said. "For too long we have been held back by self-imposed limits, while foreign competitors grow and they advance more than we have over the years."

"Our strategy is grounded in one overriding objective: to detect and destroy every type of missile attack against any American target, whether before or after launch," the president said.

 Sputnik
Trump To Unveil New Missile-Defense Policy Amid Concerns From Moscow, Beijing

By Mike Eckel January 17, 2019

WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump was set to release the United States' new, long-delayed policy on missile-defense capabilities, providing indications whether the administration's approach toward Russia and China has changed significantly.

Trump was scheduled to formally unveil the document -- known as the Missile Defense Review -- at a ceremony at the Pentagon on January 17.

Some preliminary details of the new policy have leaked out to U.S. media, which have reported that the Trump administration was considering possibly adding a layer of satellites in space to detect and track missile launches.

The administration's approach is expected to include more efforts to stop missiles either before they are launched or just after launch, when their booster engines are still burning.

For years, U.S. administrations have focused missile defense policy on defending against regional actors like Iran or North Korea, and tried to convince Moscow and Beijing that missile-defense systems were not aimed at their arsenals.

That was reflected in Trump's National Security Strategy, a broader policy document released in late 2017.

"The United States is deploying a layered missile-defense system focused on North Korea and Iran to defend our homeland against missile attacks," the document said. "This system will include the ability to defeat missile threats prior to launch. Enhanced missile defense is not intended to undermine strategic stability or disrupt longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China."

However, any expansion of U.S. missile defenses is likely to upset Moscow, which has long opposed even the most rudimentary U.S. defenses, arguing that they are destabilizing.

In recent months, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly boasted about new Russian weaponry, including hypersonic missiles, that would evade any missile defense.

China, meanwhile, has worried that longer-range U.S. missile defenses in Asia could undermine Chinese security.

The Missile Defense Review is a policy document mandated by Congress. It was supposed to have been released last year, but was postponed.

With reporting by AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-us- missile-defense/29714752.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Trump Announces Expansion Of U.S. Missile Defense

By RFE/RL January 17, 2019

President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will develop new technologies -- including in space -- to acquire unrivaled missile-defense capabilities and maintain an advantage over adversaries such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

His comments were part of the results of a U.S. missile-defense review -- the first since 2010 -- that Trump unveiled at the Pentagon on January 17.

Speaking after acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Trump said the U.S. goal was simple: "that we can detect and destroy" any incoming missile launched against the United States "anywhere, any time, any place."

Trump mentioned increased threats from hypersonic and cruise missiles with upgraded abilities that Washington needs to counter.

He said his call for an expanded missile-defense system would better protect the United States.

'Space-Based Defence'

Trump said a new strategy would include a "space-based defense layer of new technologies, such as sensors that could detect, track, and destroy incoming enemy missiles."

The space-based shoot-down technology is similar to what U.S. President Ronald Reagan suggested in his "Star Wars" initiative in the 1980s.

Trump said the United States's space-defense capability would "ultimately be a very, very big part of our defense -- and our offense."

Shanahan said before Trump that competitors such as Russia and China were pursuing new missiles that are "harder to see, harder to track, and harder to defeat."

He also said that Washington was not interested "in keeping pace with potential threats, but in outpacing them."

Shanahan added that North Korea's missiles were a "significant concern." The comments come as North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol is expected in Washington for talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program on January 18.

Though he didn't mention Russia or China during his speech, Trump specifically named Iran and it's effort to develop ballistic missiles with ever-increasing ranges.

Missile Interceptors

The Missile Defense Review report mentioned that Iran's "desire to have a strategic counter to the United States could drive it to field an [Intercontinental Ballistic Missile]."

Trump also announced that the United States would deploy 20 new missile interceptors in Alaska as part of a new missile-defense strategy. There are already 44 such interceptors deployed at the Fort Greely U.S. base in Alaska.

A new missile-defense program that could defend "every city in the United States" would be developed, he said.

Trump pledged to share all new technology and missile-defense systems with U.S. allies but added that they must pay more for U.S.-sponsored security of their countries.

"We are going to be with NATO 100 percent, but [other countries] are going to have to step up [and pay for defense]," he said.

Viktor Bondaryov, the chairman of the Defense and Security Committee in Russia's upper house of parliament, said "an additional layer of space-based sensors to detect missiles can be viewed as a component of a policy of increasing tensions."

He added that the Russian position was clear.

"Under no circumstances should attack weapons be based in space. This is fraught with catastrophe.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and Interfax

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-announces -expansion-u-s-missile -defense/29716083.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Jan. 17, 2019

News

By David Vergun

Defense.gov

Trump Pledges to Protect America from Any Enemy Missile

WASHINGTON -- When it comes to defending America against the threat of a missile attack from any nation, President Donald J. Trump said today that "the goal is simple. It is to ensure we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States, anytime, anywhere and any place."

Trump gave his remarks at the Pentagon at the announcement of the release of the 2019 Missile Defense Review.

Missile defense is so important in a time of rapidly evolving threats from around the world, he said. Adversaries are acquiring bigger and stronger arsenals. They're increasing their lethal strike capabilities and they're focused on building long-range missiles that can reach targets within the United States.

"As president, my first duty is the defense of our country," he said.

Trump then outlined six missile defense priorities, which he said will be reflected in upcoming Defense Department budgets:

First, 20 new ground-based interceptors are being constructed, which will bring the total to 64, he said.

Currently 40 GBIs are at Fort Greely, Alaska, and four are at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Second, Trump said DOD will focus on developing new missile defense technologies, such as more powerful sensors and radars that will be deployed to detect missile launches and track them so countermeasures can be taken.

Third, he said, that besides protecting "all American cities" from ballistic missile attacks, DOD will develop an effective missile defense against emerging advanced cruise and hypersonic weapons.

Fourth, Trump said, a big part of future DOD budgets will reflect the importance of the space domain. "It will be a big part of both defense and offense. The system will terminate any missile launches from any type or place."

Fifth, he said bureaucratic obstacles that hinder speedy deployment of cutting-edge missile defense technologies will be eliminated.

And finally, Trump said the U.S. will work with allies on missile defense protection, such as prioritizing the sale of American missile defense and technologies so they can be defended as well. The U.S. will also share with them early warning and tracking to detect missile launches.

Other Missile Defense Information

During a news briefing following Trump's remarks, Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves, the director of the Missile Defense Agency, said a determination will be made where the new GBIs mentioned by the president will be placed, with more than one site now under consideration.

Greaves added to the president's remarks about cutting bureaucratic obstacles. He said DOD will pursue a disciplined acquisition process with timelines, disciplined milestones and decisions based on rigorous experimentation and analysis of the effectiveness of new missile defense technologies.

Michael D. Griffin, under secretary of defense for research and engineering, noted that space-based sensors will enable "global awareness" of missile launches and targeting data and he added that "rapid progress" will be made in this endeavor.

He also mentioned that more weapon systems are being developed for the F-35 Lightning II that will enable the aircraft to take out enemy missiles. The F-35 can already take out certain types of missiles, but not more advanced weapons such as hypersonics.

Also, the MDR report mentions that DOD is pursuing the development of small but powerful lasers that can be mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles that could potentially destroy enemy missiles.

According to the MDR, one impetus for the new missile defense strategy is that hypersonic glide vehicles are being developed by Russia and China that can fly at Mach 5 plus  meaning in excess of 5 times the speed of sound. North Korea has successfully tested its road-mobile Hwasong-13 and Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile, which could potentially hit portions of the United States. Also, Iran's progress in its space program could shorten its path to an ICBM.

In particular, hypersonic weapons have been a concern because they can fly low, fast and can quickly change course. Therefore that makes them hard to target, according to the MDR.

The goal, perhaps in a decade, is to develop space-based sensors that can detect the launch of a ballistic or hypersonic weapon, the review explains. Ideally, the aim is to detect the missile at the initial boost stage and then use missiles or lasers to shoot these down or during the mid-course phase and hopefully, at least by the terminal stage when it's about to lock onto its target, it said.

The new missile defense initiative is not a strategy for a preemptive strike, according to the MDR. It is purely a defensive action "if deterrence fails and conflict with a rogue state or within a region ensues."

Russia and China have their own versions of missile defense already, the review notes.
Jan. 17, 2019

News

By David Vergun

Defense.gov

Strong Missile Shield Protects U.S., Allies

WASHINGTON -- President Donald J. Trump, Vice President Michael R. Pence and Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan announced the release of the 2019 Missile Defense Review today at the Pentagon. The MDR is the last of four strategic guidance documents that Trump directed the national security establishment to create to better guide decision-making on critical defense policy issues.

The MDR is essentially a policy framework that emphasizes the priority of protection for the nation against emerging and future rogue states' missile threats, and calls for robust regional missile defense for U.S. forces abroad and allies and partners against all potential adversaries.

For a number of years now, potential adversaries like Iran and North Korea, have been developing and testing new missiles, such as advanced cruise missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons, while the U.S. has lagged in enhancing its own missile defense systems.

The MDR addresses those threats. To counter a potential threat from North Korea, it will strengthen the defense of the nation against the ICBMs they've developed. Trump has directed a 50 percent increase in homeland defense interceptors  from 44 to 64  and supporting radars. These interceptors can also defend the homeland against an Iranian ICBM threat should it materialize.

The MDR also seeks to counter the regional missile threat to U.S. and ally forces posed by Russia and China's increasing number and types of short, medium and intermediate- range missiles, to include hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles. The review calls for a layered approach that includes integrated air and missile defense, cooperation with allies, increased numbers of missile defense interceptors, and new technologies for intercepting advanced threats.

To ensure that the U.S. stays ahead of these threats, the MDR calls for pursuing advanced technologies and innovative concepts. Priority is given to space-based sensors to track missile threats and an emphasis is placed on intercepting missiles in the boost phase  just after launch  and utilizing directed energy weapons on unmanned aerial vehicles and modified air-to-air missiles carried by fighter aircraft.

Evolving Threat Environment

The current security environment is challenged by states such as North Korea and Iran, who are modernizing and expanding their offensive missile capabilities.

While a possible new avenue to peace with North Korea now exists, North Korea's capabilities continue to pose a significant threat to the United States and its allies. Over the past decade, North Korea, in addition to a vigorous nuclear testing program, worked aggressively to develop nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that can reach the continental U.S. as well as its allies and partners.

Additionally, Iran possesses the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East and is modernizing and extending the range of its ballistic missile systems.

China and Russia are carrying out military modernization programs to increase the capabilities of their existing missile systems while adding new and sophisticated types of missiles to their arsenals, including hypersonic weapons and advanced cruise missiles.

Missile Defense Roles, Policy, Strategy

To address these evolving challenges to national security, the Defense Department is taking a comprehensive approach to prevent and defeat adversary missile attacks through a combination of deterrence, active and passive missile defense and offensive operations.

Within this framework a number of key policy principles will shape missile defense capability and posture:

 Develop and field missile defenses to stay ahead of the projected missile threats to the homeland from states such as North Korea and Iran.

 Rely on nuclear deterrence to address the large and sophisticated Russian and Chinese intercontinental missile capabilities.

 Missile defenses will continue to defend U.S. forces deployed abroad and support the security of allies and partners.

 Work with allies and partners to help them better defend themselves against the full range of regional missile threats from any potential missile armed adversary.

 Pursue new missile defense concepts and advanced technologies  including disruptive capabilities such as boost phase intercept  to address the pace and scope of evolving missile threats.

U.S. Missile Defense Programs and Capabilities

The MDR framework ensures that capabilities flow from policy to counter these threats, and the first priority remains to deploy a layered missile defense system to protect the U.S. and stay ahead of the rogue state ICBM threats.

Today, the U.S. is protected against the threat of a rogue state ICBM attack by the ground-based midcourse defense interceptors based in Alaska and California. The review calls for a number of improvements to the GMD system. These include:

 Expanding the GMD system with 20 additional GBI in Alaska, bringing the total to 64 fielded interceptors;

 Developing a new kill vehicle for the GBI;

 Improving the performance of existing sensors and deploying new missile tracking and discrimination sensors in Alaska and Hawaii; and

 Fielding a new space-based kill assessment capability.

To address the regional offensive missile threat the MDR focuses on:

 Strengthening regional missile defense posture through the deployment of additional Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, and Aegis interceptor systems;

 Fielding mobile and relocatable missile defense capabilities to provide the flexibility to respond to evolving crises or conflicts;

 Improving the integration of regional ballistic missile and cruise missile defenses with offensive operations.

 Enhancing the interoperability of U.S. missile defenses with allies and partners to increase the overall effectiveness of collective capabilities.

In the future, DOD plans on improving missile defense capability on a number of fronts, including the development of space-based sensors and exploring options involving laser technology.

The Bottom Line

DOD looks to meet the growing risks and dangers from missile threats through a balanced and integrated approach that combines deterrence, active and passive missile defense, and offensive operations if, and only if, deterrence fails.

By doing so, DOD will meet the president's guidance to strengthen its ability to protect the nation, enhance deterrence, protect and assure allies and partners and hedge against future threats.
Problem of Kosovo Will Not Be Solved Soon  Serbian President Vucic

Sputnik News

00:04 18.01.2019

BELGRADE(Sputnik)  Earlier on Thursday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic held a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The problem of Kosovo will not be solved soon because the Albanians living in the split region are not ready for a compromise, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday.

"You know that we are always discussing this problem. Everyone likes to hear good news but I am a realist. I could not be an optimist and speak about the solution [of the problem] because currently I do not see it. I hope that there will be a solution but I do not think it will be found in the near future," Vucic said.

He accused the Albanians of being not ready for any compromise on the issue.

"Of course, we discussed the issue of Kosovo but the problem is that the Albanians do not want any compromise. Maybe one day they will want to do this, we would like to see that," Vucic said after the talks with Putin.

Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia in 2008 and is recognized by over 100 UN member states. Serbia, as well as two members of the UN Security Council  Russia and China  and some other countries do not recognize Kosovo's independence.

 Sputnik
Giuliani: Trump Campaign May Have Colluded With Russia, but Not Trump

By Ken Bredemeier January 17, 2019

Rudy Giuliani, one of U.S. President Donald Trump's lawyers, is acknowledging that some officials with Trump's 2016 campaign may have colluded with Russia to help him win, but says that Trump himself did not.

"I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or between people in the campaign," Giuliani, a former New York mayor, told CNN late Wednesday.

"I said the president of the United States," he added. "There is not a single bit of evidence the president of the United States committed the only crime you can commit here, conspiring with the Russians to hack" the opposition Democratic National Committee.

On Thursday, Giuliani sought to clarify his remarks, saying, "I represent only President Trump not the Trump campaign. There was no collusion by President Trump in any way, shape or form. Likewise, I have no knowledge of any collusion by any of the thousands of people who worked on the campaign."

Giuliani's comments in the CNN interview about Trump campaign involvement with Moscow were sharply at odds with what Trump himself has tweeted at least 13 times, that his successful campaign for the White House did not collude with Russia.

Russia has rejected the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that Moscow's agents meddled in the election to help Trump win, although President Vladimir Putin acknowledged at last July's Helsinki summit with Trump that he wanted the then-real estate mogul to defeat his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors have been investigating Trump campaign links to Russia for 20 months and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe.

Mueller is believed to be writing a report on his findings, after already securing guilty pleas or convictions of key officials in Trump's orbit, including his personal attorney Michael Cohen, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, one-time campaign aide Rick Gates and foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, among others.

Giuliani's CNN acknowledgement about Trump campaign ties to Russia came days after news surfaced, inadvertently, that Manafort shared campaign polling data with a former business associate of his in Ukraine alleged by U.S. prosecutors to have ties to Russian intelligence.

But Giuliani said Trump never shared polling data with anyone.

"Donald Trump wasn't giving polling data to anyone," he said. "He did not know about it until it was revealed a few weeks ago in an article."

Challenging Mueller

Giuliani challenged Mueller to produce evidence of wrongdoing by Trump.

"Let's see if he's got anything," he said. "I challenge him to show us some evidence that the president was involved in anything approaching criminal conduct."

Earlier this week, Trump, after news reports suggested he might be beholden to Russia and Putin, declared, "I never worked for Russia" and told a reporter, "I think it's a disgrace you even asked that question."

The New York Times reported last weekend that two years ago Federal Bureau of Investigation officials started investigating whether Trump "was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence" because of his behavior after he fired former FBI chief James Comey in May 2017 when he was leading the investigation into Russian meddling during the election.

A Washington Post report said Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to hide details of his conversations the five times he has met with Putin over the last two years, including one time Trump took possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructed the linguist to not discuss what had transpired with other Trump administration officials.

At the Helsinki summit, Trump and Putin met with only their interpreters in the room and there have been no transcripts released of their conversation. Trump said they talked about a number of issues, including security for Israel and a planned natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
Pakistan Trying to Arrange US-Taliban Meeting

By Ayaz Gul January 17, 2019

Pakistan has intensified efforts to keep the U.S.-led dialogue with the Afghan Taliban on track by attempting to arrange a meeting between the visiting chief American negotiator and insurgent representatives, highly placed sources told VOA Thursday.

These official sources appeared confident about bringing the two sides to the table, but maintained that the responsibility for the "success or failure" of the fledgling Afghan peace process rests "exclusively" with the two negotiating sides.

The caution comes as U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, landed in the Pakistani capital Thursday amid expectations a direct meeting could take place between his delegation and Taliban negotiators during his stay in the country.

Prior to his departure Wednesday from Kabul, Khalilzad told reporters that talks with the Taliban will "happen very soon. That's what we're working toward." He did not elaborate.

Officials representing the insurgency were not available immediately to respond to queries about the latest developments.

Official sources in Islamabad expected "important developments" in the coming days but would not share further details. "There is no room for missed opportunities" under the circumstances, they said.

Meanwhile, in a significant move, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani telephoned Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday and discussed the efforts being made for bringing peace to Afghanistan.

Khan's office said in a statement that Ghani expressed his gratitude for Pakistan's "sincere facilitation" for Afghan peace and reconciliation.

It said the prime minister "assured President Ghani that Pakistan was making sincere efforts for a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan through an inclusive peace process, as part of shared responsibility."

Pakistani officials maintain in background interviews with VOA that the U.S.-Taliban talks are being facilitated in the hope that they would ultimately lead to an intra-Afghan dialogue for political settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan. All sides in the peace process will share "the credit and benefits of a success," they insisted.

"Similarly, given sincere desire and efforts of everyone, no one should be exclusively blamed if the main interlocutors fail to agree due to own lack of flexibility that is very much required from both the U.S. and the Taliban at this stage," a senior official privy to the Pakistani peace diplomacy told VOA.

Khalilzad arrived in Pakistan from Afghanistan where he briefed Ghani and other top officials of Afghan government on the U.S.-led peace initiative.

Khalilzad's team held a delegation-level meeting Thursday with Pakistani Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and her team.

Khalilzad together with U.S. commander of international forces in Afghanistan, General Austin Scott Miller, also met with Pakistan's military chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa to discuss the reconciliation process. An army statement said Bajwa "reiterated that peace in Afghanistan is important for Pakistan and assured continued efforts for bringing peace and stability in the region."

"It was noted that taking the Afghan peace process forward remained a shared responsibility," according to a foreign ministry statement issued after the meeting. "Both sides agreed that ultimately the intra-Afghan dialogue would be vital to agree upon the contours of a future Afghan polity where Afghanistan becomes a stable and prosperous country and at peace with its neighbors."

The Taliban has held several meetings with Khalilzad's team in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but the insurgents have persistently refused to engage directly with the sitting administration in Kabul. Their refusal is blamed for a lack of progress in negotiations that started last summer, after American diplomats gave in to a major Taliban demand and met them directly.

Khalilzad, however, made it clear on Wednesday the insurgent group would have to engage with the Afghan government for the process to move forward.

"The road to peace will require the Taliban to sit with the Afghan government. There is a consensus among all the regional partners on this point," the Afghan-born U.S. special envoy told reporters in Kabul.

He went on to warn that if the Taliban chose to fight over peace talks, the United States would support the Afghan government.

The Taliban threatened earlier in the week to pull out of all negotiations if the United States backed away from discussing the key insurgent demand for a troop withdrawal plan and pressured the insurgents into speaking to the Afghan government.

Diplomats privy to the peace process support the U.S. effort for the Taliban to speak directly to the current administration in Kabul to resolve internal Afghan matters. They see the Ghani-led National Unity government as a "legitimate" entity possessing official representation at the United Nations and maintaining diplomatic missions in world capitals.

The last substantial talks between Khalilzad and Taliban officials took place in Abu Dhabi about a month ago and Pakistan took credit for arranging it and bringing an authoritative team of insurgent negotiators to the table.

Officials in Islamabad say that Pakistan's "biggest contribution" has been that it has "broken the political stalemate that was there in Afghanistan for several years."

Prime Minister Khan has repeatedly stated that finding a political settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan is a top foreign policy priority for his government. While speaking to Khan on Thursday, Ghani invited him to visit Kabul at his earliest convenience and the Pakistani leader reciprocated by inviting the Afghan president to visit Islamabad.

Pakistan has long been accused of sheltering Taliban leaders and covertly helping them orchestrate insurgent attacks, charges Islamabad rejects.

U.S. officials, however, acknowledge the "positive role" Pakistan has played in the current Afghan peace effort. The thaw in traditionally mistrusted bilateral ties was visible earlier this month when U.S. President Donald Trump announced he intended to maintain a "great relationship" with Pakistan.

"So, I look forward to meeting with the new leadership in Pakistan. We will be doing that in the not too distant future," said Trump.

Islamabad swiftly welcomed the remarks, which raised official expectations in Pakistan for an official invitation to Prime Minister Khan to visit Washington, though the Trump administration has so far given no such indication.
Trump Vows to Exit Syria Despite Manbij Attack Killing US Soldiers

Sputnik News

09:24 17.01.2019

The statement comes as a spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve said that several US servicemen had been killed in a suicide bombing in the northern Syrian town of Manbij. The Daesh* terrorist group reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.

During a meeting with a group of Republican senators on Wednesday, President Donald Trump signalled his readiness to adhere to his plan to withdraw US troops from Syria and Afghanistan, according to Senator Rand Paul.

"Not only is he following through with his Syria policy, I really do think there will be changes in Afghanistan as well. If you look at the polling data for the American people, I think the American people are with the president and they're tired, frankly, of both parties, who are unwilling to stand up and say enough is enough", Paul said.

He declined to elaborate on what Trump said about exact timelines for US forces' pullout from Syria and Afghanistan.

"We talked extensively about Syria. He talked about how we will continue to make sure that ISIS (Daesh) is not a problem but at the same time, we will not just go into theater and stay forever. I think he was steadfast in that", Paul underscored.

His comments came hours after an Operation Inherent Resolve spokesperson tweeted that several US service members had been among the 16 people killed in a bombing in the northern Syrian town of Manbij. The Daesh terrorists reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The spokesperson added that the US servicemen were killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol in Manbij.

The announcement came as US Vice President Mike Pence claimed that Daesh has been defeated and its Caliphate has crumbled, adding that Washington is "now able to hand off the fight against ISIS to our coalition partners".

The remarks followed Trump announcing plans to withdraw roughly 2,000 US troops from Syria within the next several months, in a move that he claimed can be explained by the fact that American forces had implemented their task of obliterating Daesh in the Arab country.

The decision was slammed by some US officials and prompted two resignations: US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, who announced that his views were no longer aligned with Trump's, and Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the US coalition in Syria.

Washington's Push for Leaving Afghanistan

In a separate development, The Washington Post quoted two senior White House officials as saying that President Trump has yet to make a final decision on the possible withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

"Trump still wants to remove troops from Afghanistan  eventually all of them  but the current withdrawal probably will be far fewer than 7,000," the officials pointed out.

The developments come after The Wall Street Journal reported on 20 December, citing unnamed US officials, that a pullout of American troops in Afghanistan could begin in several weeks.

The US and NATO initially launched military operations in Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 terror attack. While most of the US troops had left the country by the end of 2014, NATO launched a new mission in 2015, called Resolute Support, to provide training and assistance to Afghan security forces.

Over 16,000 soldiers from 39 NATO countries are currently serving in Afghanistan as part of the mission, with the majority of the contingent from the US.

*Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State), a terrorist group banned in Russia and a number of other countries

 Sputnik
Daesh Not Defeated, US Commanders Reportedly Warned Trump Ahead of Syria Pullout

Sputnik News

17:01 17.01.2019(updated 17:09 17.01.2019)

Announcing the planned pull-out of US troops from Syria in December 2018, President Donald Trump mentioned Daesh's apparent defeat, insisting there is no reason to keep forces deployed in the Arab Republic.

During US President Donald Trump's surprise visit to Iraq on 26 December, military commanders warned him that Daesh* has not entirely been defeated in Syria despite his claims to the contrary, CNN cited sources familiar with the matter as saying.

According to the sources, the commanders told Trump that pockets of Daesh terrorists "remained in the Euphrates River valley and that US military had not yet eliminated all of their strongholds".

Trump was informed that the US military successfully took back other areas from Daesh but the job is yet to be finished.

The sources stressed that the officers' remarks were "eye-opening" for Trump, who earlier claimed that Daesh was "badly" defeated in Syria, announcing the start of US withdrawal from the Arab Republic.

On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence claimed that Daesh had indeed been defeated, adding that the US is "now able to hand off the fight against ISIS [Daesh] to our coalition partners" after the group's caliphate "crumbled."

Earlier that day, a spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve announced in a tweet that several US service members had been among the 16 people killed in a bomb attack in the northern Syrian town of Manbij. Daesh reportedly claimed responsibility for the bombing.

In December, Trump signalled the White House's plans to withdraw roughly 2,000 US troops from Syria within the next several months.

The decision was slammed by some US officials and prompted two resignations: US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, who stressed that his views were no longer aligned with Trump's, and Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the US coalition in Syria.

*Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State) is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries.

 Sputnik
On Visit to Serbia, Putin Accuses Kosovo Of 'Illegally' Setting Up An Army

By RFE/RL January 17, 2019

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on a visit to Serbia, has accused Kosovo of taking provocative measures, including establishing an army.

Speaking at a joint news conference after talks with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade on January 17, Putin said Kosovo's steps had ratcheted up tensions with Serbia and could destabilize the region.

Serbia lost control over its Kosovo province in 1999 after NATO launched air strikes to stop the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians by Serbian forces during a two-year counterinsurgency war.

Relations between Pristina and Belgrade have been tense since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. More than 110 countries, including the United States, recognize Kosovo's independence, but Serbia and Russia do not.

Putin said he thought Kosovo's decision to set up an army was illegal.

"Regrettably, Kosovo's authorities took a series of provocative steps lately, thus greatly aggravating the situation. First of all, I have in mind their December 14 decision to form a so-called Kosovo army," Putin said.

Kosovo's parliament on December 14 voted to convert its 2,500-member Kosovo Security Force (KSF) into a national army with some 5,000 personnel and more substantial weaponry.

Belgrade and most of the 120,000 ethnic Serbs in Kosovo have vehemently opposed the creation of a Kosovar military, arguing that it would violate UN resolutions and be used against the Serbian minority -- a claim denied by officials in Pristina.

"It goes without saying that this is a direct violation of the UN resolution which does not allow for the creation of any paramilitary forces except for the international UN contingent," Putin said.

The United States has expressed support for Kosovo's move to create a national army, while NATO said the move was "ill-timed."

Putin also said that the European Union's mediation between Serbia and Kosovo has not produced the desired results.

"We know that the European Union has acted as a mediator in resolving a number of issues, but unfortunately hardly anything has been implemented," he said.

Vucic said he hoped for better relations between Belgrade and Pristina but added, "I am not sure that it's going to happen anytime soon."

Free-Trade Zone

The Russian leader also said he hoped that an agreement on a free trade zone between Serbia and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) would be signed as early as this year.

He said Moscow was ready to invest some $1.4 billion in infrastructure development in Serbia to allow the multiline TurkStream pipeline project to transit through Serbia.

TurkStream is a natural gas pipeline running from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea and has replaced the canceled South Stream project.

Russia's state energy giant Gazprom has said that it sees Serbia and EU member-states Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, and Hungary as potential markets for Russia's natural gas supplied via TurkStream.

The United States has warned that Moscow is using the pipeline to establish control over the region's energy security.

"Russia is using a pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, and the multiline Turkish stream, to try to solidify its control over the security and the stability of Central and Eastern Europe," Energy Secretary Rick Perry said last November in Prague.

Putin arrived in Serbia on January 17 to a lavish welcome by Vucic and other Serbian officials at Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport on January 17, as many billboards around the Serbian capital featured a mix of Russian and Serbian flags.

"Welcome honored President Putin, dear friend," read one of them.

Putin's one-day trip included a visit to the Church of St. Sava, the biggest Orthodox church in Serbia, where he was greeted by thousands of people.

People who were bused in from various parts of Serbia marched through the streets of Belgrade on their way to the church waving Serbian and Russian flags and holding placards with Putin's portrait.

Traffic in downtown Belgrade was completely blocked for hours because of the crowds and the parked buses.

Putin, who was accompanied during the visit to the church by Vucic and Serbia's Orthodox Patriarch, Irinej, addressed the crowds, thanking the Serbian people "for its friendship."

The two countries have long shared close economic and Slavic cultural and religious ties, forcing Belgrade to balance its historic ties to Moscow with its desire to join Western organizations such as the EU.

Serbia has rejected calls to join Western economic sanctions against Moscow while Russia supports Belgrade by refusing to recognize the former Serbian province of Kosovo as an independent state.

Russia has also worked to maintain strong military ties with Belgrade by supplying it with hardware and holding joint maneuvers with Serbian forces.

However, most Serbs believe that the EU offers a better model for their future than Russia, according to London School of Economics professor James Ker-Lindsay.

On the eve of his trip, Putin criticized the United States and other Western countries, asserting that their policies were "aimed at fostering their dominance in the region," which he said is "a major destabilizing factor."

In an interview with Serbian pro-government newspapers published on January 16, Putin argued that Montenegro joining NATO in 2017, without holding "a relevant referendum," has led to "political instability" in the Balkan country.

But Montenegro's accession to NATO has put added pressure on Moscow to maintain tight relations with Belgrade, its last foothold in the Balkans. So has Macedonia's success toward ending a dispute with Greece that will open the doors to Macedonia's membership in the EU and NATO.

Like Montenegro, Macedonia was part of Yugoslavia until the country disintegrated amid the wars of the early 1990s.

Russia "has always viewed [the Balkans] as a space for constructive cooperationand the strategic partner Serbia holds a special place," Putin said.

In a show of the Kremlin's aim to curry favor with Serbia, Putin last week awarded Vucic with the Order of Aleksandr Nevsky, a prize that is usually bestowed upon civil servants for at least 20 years of "highly meritorious service" and is rarely given to foreigners.

The award, which Vucic is likely to receive during the visit, underlines Putin's popularity among the majority of Serbs. A recent survey by Faktor Plus showed 57 percent naming the Russian leader as the most-trusted foreign politician.

"Vucic is the first Serb to receive this high award in our time, which in itself speaks volumes," said Aleksandr Chepurin, Russia's ambassador to Serbia.

"Protecting the interests of our countries, Russia and Serbia, instead of satisfying the interests of the West -- that's basically the philosophy of both the Russian and Serbian leadership," he told Serbia's state news agency Tanjug on January 2.

Chepurin said the tense situation in Kosovo between the ethnic Serb minority and Kosovar Albanians would be high on the Putin-Vucic meeting agenda.

Also under discussion will be strengthening bilateral relations and cooperation in economic spheres such as energy, trade, innovation, technological development, and the digital economy, he said.

The delegation of ministers and other officials joining Putin in Belgrade includes Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Gazprom head Aleksei Miller.

The Kremlin press service said Russian and Serbian officials will also discuss a possible extension of the Turk Stream natural gas pipeline into Serbia. The pipeline currently runs under the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey and then into Greece.

Some analysts say the close relations with Russia are not all as promising as they often appear.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said last month that Serbia's foreign policy priority remains joining the EU, and that "we can be even more efficient in the reforms that we conduct, primarily because of our citizens."

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and TASS

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ahead-of-high- level-visit-to-serbia-putin-blasts-west-s- role-in-balkans/29714843.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
US training UAE aircrew in Yemen bombing campaign: Report

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 07:04AM

A recent report has revealed the US's active complicity in the deadly Saudi-led war on Yemen, saying the Pentagon runs an aerial combat training program for UAE personnel.

According to an official December 2017 US Air Force Central Command document obtained by Yahoo News on Wednesday, the US "escorted 6 UAE F-16s to RED FLAG; assisted 150 airmen in challenging ex[ercise] to prepare for combat ops in Yemen."

The file, released via the Freedom of Information Act, also detailed additional support provided by the US Air Force's Air Warfare Center at al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi.

"Unit fighter personnel advanced the UAE's F-16 fighter pilot training program; 3 pilots flew 243 instructor sorties/323 hrs that created 4 new instructors & 29 combat wingmen who immediately deployed for combat operations in Yemen," the document read.

William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, said the training program is yet another example of the deep US involvement in the military aggression against Yemen ongoing since March 2015.

"Training pilots who go on to bomb civilian targets in Yemen is yet another US form of complicity in a brutal war that has gone on for far too long," he told Yahoo News. "If the [Donald] Trump administration is serious about getting Saudi Arabia and the UAE to negotiate in good faith for peace in Yemen, they should cut off training and other forms of military support until they play their part in ending the war."

With the West's support, Saudi Arabia and its regional allies, including the UAE, launched the devastating military campaign against Yemen to bring the Riyadh-backed former government back to power.

In January 2016, Saudi Arabia said the US and UK military advisers were in the command and control center for strikes on Yemen and had access to lists of targets.

Representatives from the Houthi Ansarullah movement and militants loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed ex-regime held peace talks in Sweden last December, during which they reached a truce in the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah, among other agreements.

Hartung complained about the UAE complicity in the war on Yemen, saying, "The UAE's role is often overlooked, but they, and the militias they train, arm and finance, have been implicated in widespread human rights abuses, including torture."

"The UAE is a least as responsible as Saudi Arabia for the slaughter in Yemen, but it has not been held responsible for its actions in any significant way," he added.

The US has repeatedly denied its role in the offensive against Yemen.

Washington is "not a participant in the civil war in Yemen nor are we supporting one side or the other," General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff claimed last month.

"We are thoroughly aligned with the Saudi and Emirati actions in Yemen  both the war against the Houthis and the counterterrorism campaign  and it's really important that we not only make claims about expecting our partners to abide by high standards of conduct, but also that we can prove that they are doing so," said Luke Harting, former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

Last November, the US decided to stop refueling Saudi-led coalition aircraft conducting airstrike on Yemen.

The following month, the US Senate voted for a resolution to end American military assistance for the Saudi aggression against Yemen, but the measure failed to pass in the House.

"The end of US refueling is an important step, but it is woefully inadequate if the goal is to stop Saudi bombing of civilian targets. It should be supplemented by an end to the sale of bombs and other weapons used in the conflict; a stop to training of Saudi and UAE forces; and a cut-off of spare parts and maintenance for US-supplied weapons being used to prosecute the war," Hartung said.
Russia, Japan far from being partners: Lavrov

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 08:19AM

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Russia and Japan are still "far from being partners" on the international stage, despite renewed efforts to resolve a decades-old conflict over a group of Pacific islands claimed by both sides.

Lavrov made the remarks at a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday, ahead of a scheduled meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the Russian capital on January 22 for talks on the strategic Kuril Islands, taken over by the Soviet army in the final days of World War II.

In November last year, the two leaders agreed to increase efforts to finally sign a treaty ending territorial disputes over the islands, which are known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.

Moscow, however, maintains that Japan must recognize Russian sovereignty over the islands before progress can be made in bilateral peace talks.

"We are still far not only from being partners in international relations but also in finding constructive ways to make our relations better," Lavrov said.

"Why is Japan the only country in the world that cannot accept the results of World War II in their entirety?" he said, adding that a call to recognize the results of the war was "neither an ultimatum nor a precondition but an inevitable and indispensable factor in today's international system."

Lavrov also pointed to some moves by Japan that had slowed the peace process between the two countries since the conclusion of the Second World War, such as Tokyo's support for a number of sanctions against Russia and its votes against Moscow on some United Nations (UN) resolutions.

"It is hardly in line with the idea of bringing relations to a new level. Japan joins the G7's statements aimed against Russia; but as for resolutions that Russia is interested in and that are put to the vote, Japan votes against us," he said.

"We need to feel like partners with the Japanese on the international stage rather than two countries that are on the opposite sides of the fence," Lavrov said, however.

The Kuril Islands lie less than 10 kilometers from Japan's Hokkaido, consisting of Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan, and Habomai. Three are inhabited, while Habomai is a group of islets with only the presence of a border patrol.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the four islands were incorporated into Russia but Japan continues to lay claims to the islands.

According to a joint declaration signed in 1956, the former Soviet Union agreed to return two of the islands provided that a bilateral peace treaty is signed, while Japan refused to sign such an agreement, insisting on the return of all four islands.

Lavrov and his Japanese counterpart, Taro Kono, failed to reach consensus on the disputed islands in talks in Moscow on Monday.

Moscow has for long stated that Russia's sovereignty over the islands cannot be called into question. Opinion polls also show most Russians oppose handing back the islands to Japan.
US 'deal of century' doomed to hit dead end: Palestine

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 09:44AM

The Palestinian Authority (PA) says US President Donald Trump's yet-to-be-unveiled proposal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will hit a "dead end" after an Israeli TV report released what it called details of the so-called "deal of the century."

PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh stressed on Wednesday that any imitative short of a sovereign Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 boundaries with the entire East Jerusalem al Quds as its capital would fail.

"Rumors and leaks about the deal of the century, as well as ongoing attempts to find regional and international parties that would cooperate with this plan, are failed attempts that will reach a dead end," he said.

"Any peace plan that does not include an independent Palestinian state - with all of East Jerusalem as its capital - on the 1967 borders, is destined to fail," he added.

Citing a source who took part in a briefing in Washington on the so-called peace plan by a senior American official, Israeli Channel 13 TV reported that the bid provides for a Palestinian state in 85-90 percent of the West Bank, with the capital in "most of the Arab neighborhoods" of East Jerusalem al-Quds.

The plan also endorses the Israeli grip over parts of East Jerusalem al-Quds and the Holy Basin, which includes the Old City and its adjacent territories, according to the report.

Moreover, the initiative stipulates various land swaps and Israel's annexation of major settlement blocs.

However, the Israeli settlements, defined as isolated, would not be evacuated and expanded, but "dried out."

The White House rejected the Channel 13 report as mere "speculations."

"As in the past, speculations regarding the peace plan are inaccurate. We have no further reaction," it said in a statement.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Abu Rudeineh said that any proposal meant to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should have "international legitimacy."

"The address for achieving a just and lasting peace is the Palestinian leadership, which affirms that any proposals regarding the political process must be based on international legitimacy and the principle of the two-state solution," he said.

Palestinians have already rejected Trump's plan, with President Mahmoud Abbas calling it "the slap of the century."

Last month, eight European Union member states warned that Trump's initiative would not be successful if it fails to take into account internationally-agreed parameters for peace.

The United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden  which are all member states to the UN Security Council - as well as Belgium, Germany and Italy said in a joint statement that the so-called Middle East peace plan should support the Palestinian statehood and end the Israeli occupation.

Israel occupied the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem al-Quds during the Six-Day War in 1967. It later annexed the Palestinian city in a move not recognized by the international community.

Israel lays claim to the whole city, but the Palestinians view its eastern sector as the capital of their future sovereign state.

Trump recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the Israeli "capital" in December 2017 and moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to the ancient city in May 2018, sparking global condemnations.
US Army to acquire Israeli Iron Dome missile systems

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:55AM

The US Army is in the process of acquiring two batteries of the Israeli-made Iron Dome missile system, a new report suggests.

The army would use the missile systems to protect US ground forces overseas against unmanned air vehicles, mortars, rockets, artillery and cruise missiles, Inside Defense reported Wednesday.

The batteries will include 12 launchers, two sensors, two command centers and 240 interceptor missiles, the report said.

The Pentagon is said to be rushing the deal due to its "urgency" and plans to acquire the system's Israeli-made radar as well because adjusting the system to American radars means its deployment would face delays.

The US military has already tested the system. In September 2017, Israel loaned the US an Iron Dome battery, which was flown to the missile range in White Sands, New Mexico.

The report suggested that Iron Dome was also significantly cheaper than similar American missile systems.

For example, a system based on the AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles cost the Pentagon around $12 million for each launcher and $800,000 for each interceptor missile while the Iron Dome would only cost $1.37 million for each launcher and$150,000 for each interceptor missile.

The US Army has been working with Israeli weapons maker Rafael to develop an American version of the interceptor system since 2017.

In order to integrate the missile system, the US military was going to invest $289.7 million in the missile system in the current fiscal year and another $83.8 million for the next fiscal year, Israeli media reported, citing US congressional documents.

In total, the US Army would spend $1.6 billion for Iron Dome's full integration until 2024, the report added.

How effective is the system?

The Iron Dome was originally developed to counter small rockets that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups fired into Israeli occupied territories in retaliation for the regime's crimes against Palestinians.

The system has proven largely ineffective in serving that purpose, an issue that became clear during the latest Israeli aggression against Gaza Strip.

The military confrontation lasted only a day after Hamas fired hundreds of domestically built missiles into Israel. Iron Dome's failure to intercept much of the missiles forced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call for truce, a move that prompted his war minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to resign.

Saudi Arabia is also said to have purchased the missile system from Tel Aviv following US-mediated secret meetings in Washington.
Fatah trying to drag Gaza into new war with Israel: Hamas co-founder

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 03:38PM

A high-ranking leader of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has accused the West Bank-based Fatah movement of attempts to provoke the Israeli army to launch a new military campaign against the impoverished Gaza Strip.

"Fatah-affiliated people are trying to force the Gaza Strip into a fresh battle with Israel by launching rockets during this sensitive time," Mahmoud al-Zahar said in an exclusive interview with Arabic-language Palestine Today television network.

Zahar added, "Some of these people are linked to Israel and are commissioned to get on with the task. These people are well-known to us. Fatah stands behind them. We have talked with their field leaders about their dangerous acts. Sometimes, they are arrested."

The Hamas leader noted that Gaza-based resistance movements are closely monitoring Israel's acts of aggression against the coastal enclave, stressing that they would never wait too long to respond to such moves.

Zahar's remarks came after Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum warned in a statement on Sunday that the movement "will intensify the confrontation with Israel" in the coastal sliver if the Israeli military launches new attacks against the enclave.

"The Israeli occupation [regime] bears the consequences of continuing to commit its follies against peaceful protesters and deliberately killing them in cold blood as well as bombing sites of resistance," he stated.

The Palestinian official further noted that the escalation of situation in Gaza and "playing with fire" will never led to security for Israel and its people.

The statement came after Israeli military aircraft carried out several airstrikes against multiple locations across the besieged Gaza Strip late on Saturday.

Palestinian Ma'an news agency reported that Israeli warplanes fired at least one missile towards a military site belonging to Hamas east of Gaza City. Two other sites were targeted in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip and in the city of Khan Yunis south of the enclave. The Israeli airstrikes caused fires to erupt in several targeted sites; however, there were no reports of human casualties.

The Israeli military frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, with civilians being the main target of such attacks.

Israel has also launched several wars on the Palestinian coastal sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014. The military aggression, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians. Over 11,100 others were also wounded in the war.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

The Israeli regime denies about 1.8 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate healthcare and education.
Yemen's Houthis, former govt. meet for 2nd day to hammer out prisoner swap

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 17, 2019 04:18PM

Representatives of Yemeni warring parties, the Houthi Ansarullah movement and the country's former Saudi-backed government, have held their second session of talks in Jordan in an attempt to thrash out the details of a major prisoner swap, a UN source says.

Last Month, the two sides signed an agreement for a partial ceasefire at the end of UN-brokered peace negotiations, mediated by Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy for Yemen, in Rimbo, north of the Swedish capital Stockholm.

According to the agreement, the Houthi fighters, who are in control of the port city of Hudaydah, and former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi's allied militia together with Saudi-led forces  who have placed the city under a tight siege since June  must withdraw from the port and hand it over to UN observers.

The two sides further agreed to exchange prisoners of war and issued a statement of understanding on the southwestern city of Ta'izz, another flashpoint area in the war-ravaged country.

As for the prisoner swap, Jordan hosted a round of talks between the warring sides, upon a request from Griffiths, the first session of which was held on Wednesday, when the two sides met separately with the mediators and submitted lists of prisoners they wanted to be released.

On Thursday, the Houthis and Hadi's delegation were expected to meet face-to-face in Amman to hammer out the details of the swap and the circumstances of its implementation.

The two sides reached an agreement on prisoner swap, which could involve up to 15,000 detainees from both sides, in principle as a confidence-building measure ahead of the December negotiations in Sweden.

The second session of talks in Jordan was held a day after the UN Security Council unanimously approved the deployment of up to 75 monitors to oversee the truce in Hudaydah, a lifeline for the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid.

According to the UN, the fragile ceasefire has largely held since it came into force in December, but there have been delays in the agreed withdrawal of the Houthis and Hadi's forces.

The limited ceasefire and withdrawal, if implemented, could offer a potential breakthrough in a nearly four-year Saudi-led war that has brought Yemen to the brink of starvation and created the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Leading a coalition of its allies, Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Hadi, who had resigned amid popular discontent and fled to Riyadh, and to eliminate the Houthis, who have been running state affairs and defending Yemeni people against the Saudi brutal campaign during the nearly past four years.

The massive aggression, which has failed to achieve any of its goals, has reportedly killed over 56,000 people. It has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.

The UN officials have already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.

With the war drawn into a deadlock, Saudi Arabia is virtually mired in a quagmire, having faced repeated military backlashes in Yemen and reprisal attacks inside its own territories.
NMCB 133 Opens the Door for Wiggins Police Department

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS190117-08

Release Date: 1/17/2019 2:23:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist Second Class George M. Bell, Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 Public Affairs

WIGGINS, Miss. (NNS) -- Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 133 and Wiggins city officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Jan. 15, 2019.

The ceremony marked NMCB-133's completion of a renovation project for the Wiggins Police Department and Municipal Court House. The project included completion of multiple tasks including interior framing, rough in and finish of electrical and plumbing features, interior sheetrock, suspended ceilings, and various floor finishes for the twenty-one interior spaces, nine restrooms, kitchen, utility room, and three hallways in the 7,417 square foot facility.

Wiggins Mayor Joel T. Miles and Cmdr. Luke Greene, commanding officer of NMCB-133, were both in attendance for the ceremony and expressed how impressed they were with the finished product of the project.

"I remember coming in for the first time in early 2018 with the walls studded out and no sheetrock up yet trying to visualize how the building will look at the end," said Cmdr. Greene, "from then until now, what an amazing transformation this building has had."

The renovated facility will incorporate the judicial branch of the city as well as all city law enforcement officials. The project also provided a labor cost savings to the city equal to approximately $600,000.

"I don't believe we ever would've been able to get back in here without the help of the Seabees," said Mayor Miles, "it is great and deep gratitude that I say thank you."

NMCB-133 is preparing for the battalion's next deployment in early 2019.
10th AAMDC Soldiers Integrate aboard USS Donald Cook

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS190117-11

Release Date: 1/17/2019 2:32:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ford Williams, Navy Public Affairs Support Element Det. Europe

MEDITERRANEAN SEA (NNS) -- Three Soldiers from the 10th Army and Air Missile Defense Command (AAMDC) embarked the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75), Jan. 12, in order to integrate with the ship's ballistic missile defense (BMD) team.

10th AAMDC helps to strengthen ties while building partnership capacity for U.S. Army Europe, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and NATO, integrating with joint and multinational partners in all aspects of air and missile defense.

While embarked, the Soldiers got a firsthand look at the air missile defense capabilities and processes on a U.S. Navy destroyer.

"It was really helpful to see how the Navy operates in a BMD environment," said Army Sgt. 1st Class Ashley Phillips. "I think I speak for all of us here when I say we learned some valuable information we will be taking back to the team in Germany."

Observing how the air missile defense mission is carried out within different branches is crucial to EUCOM integration, said Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Cleveland Butler.

"During their stay, Donald Cook provided onsite technical demonstrations and discussions to tactical scenarios in which they acted as ballistic missile defense watch officers during a BMD exercise to experience the operational side of the mission," said Cmdr. Matthew J. Powell, commanding officer of Donald Cook. "Their integration and addition to the Donald Cook team has increased understanding and joint capability throughout the EUCOM area of operations."

From his perspective, Army Staff Sgt. Spencer Nichols said being shore-side only gave him a small view of the BMD picture. Following his time on the ship, he could better understand the BMD process from platform to shore.

Along with their mission, the Soldiers got a chance to see how the Navy operates on a daily basis. All three Soldiers agreed that the Navy's customs and courtesies differ drastically from the Army.

"I loved the experience," said Nichols. "It's unique for us to be able to get a glimpse into the life of a Sailor."

This is Donald Cook's eighth forward-deployed naval forces patrol since becoming forward deployed at Naval Station Rota, Spain, in February 2014.

While on patrol, Donald Cook is scheduled to conduct naval operations in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe and Africa.

U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied and interagency partners in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa.
CNO Visits 7th Fleet Waterfront

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS190117-03

Release Date: 1/17/2019 10:51:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joshua Mortensen,

YOKOSUKA, Japan (NNS) -- Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson engaged 7th Fleet Sailors during a regional visit to Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka (CFAY), Jan. 17.

Sailors of various ratings and ranks sat down with the CNO who spoke on topics such as current expectations and future goals for the region, all of which affect Sailors operationally in 7th Fleet.

"I first met the CNO when he came aboard the Antietam a few years back," said Sonar Technician (Surface) 1st Class Darron Thomas, Jr. from Akron, Ohio. "But meeting him now I'm surprised how personable and honest he is when talking with the junior enlisted. I felt he really cared, and to see him this way made me feel better going into the fight knowing he is that kind of leader. His conviction is really appealing to me."

Richardson went on to tour the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65) and held an all-hands call with the crew.

"Everyone, myself included, is watching what 7th Fleet is accomplishing," said Richardson. "Each and every one of you are at the tip of the spear protecting our nation and our allies in an area of the world that demands much from you. I can't thank you enough for your dedication and service so that our friends and family can enjoy the freedoms and privileges back home."

Junior officers and chief petty officers (CPO) also met with the CNO at the base CPO Club for an all-hands call where he discussed the idea of "being biased to getting the job done."

"We came here today to interact and understand [the CNO's] goals," said Chief Yeoman Corey Singleton from Allendale, S.C. "I love his communication flow, it's awesome. He is very effective in delivering information that makes its way all the way down to the deck plates and it is very impactful."

Richardson also met with Vice Adm. Phil Sawyer, commander, U.S. 7th Fleet, to discuss current and future operations within the 7th Fleet area of operations.

Richardson recently traveled to Beijing to meet with the People's Liberation Army (Navy) (PLA(N)) commander Vice Adm. Shen Jinlong to discuss professional interactions at sea, specifically addressing risk reduction and adherence to maritime rules of behavior.

Following his visit to CFAY, Richardson will travel to Tokyo to meet with Government of Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) Chief of Maritime Staff Adm. Yutaka Murakawa for discussions on continued maritime cooperation as allied nations on the water front.

Seventh Fleet spans more than 124 million square kilometers, encompasses 36 maritime countries and 50 percent of the world's population with between 50-70 U.S. ships and submarines, 140 aircraft, and approximately 20,000 Sailors.
January 15: CJTF-OIR Strike Summary Dec. 30, 2018  Jan. 12, 2019

U.S. Central Command

Release No: 19-006 Jan. 17, 2019

January 15, 2019

Release # 20190115-02

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- Combined Joint Task Force  Operation Inherent Resolve and its partners continue to target and pursue the enduring defeat of ISIS.

CJTF-OIR and its partner forces' operations are exerting pressure on ISIS senior leaders and associates, as well as degrading, disrupting and dismantling ISIS organizational structures throughout Iraq and Syria.

CJTF-OIR remains committed to the enduring defeat of ISIS to improve conditions for peace and stability in the region, and to protect all our homelands from ISIS's terrorist threat.

Strike Summary

Between Dec. 30, 2018 and Jan. 12, 2019, CJTF-OIR conducted 575 strikes consisting of 1,147 engagements in Syria, and conducted 13 strikes consisting of 19 engagements in Iraq.

In Syria, 575 strikes engaged 485 ISIS tactical units, and destroyed 308 staging areas, 220 fighting positions, 105 mortar, rocket and artillery systems, 57 supply routes, 50 manufacturing facilities for improvised explosive device and vehicle borne improvised explosive device, 31 command and control nodes, 26 vehicles, 19 weapons caches, 18 mortar launching sites, 18 petroleum oil and lubricant storage facilities, 11 heavy and light weapon systems, eight reservoirs and tankers for petroleum oil and lubricants, eight pieces of heavy equipment, seven vehicle borne improvised explosive devices, six tunnels and caves, four buildings, two unmanned aircraft systems, one weapons facility, one logistics hub and one fuel storage.

In Iraq, 13 strikes engaged 11 ISIS tactical units, and destroyed 10 staging areas, five buildings, three tunnels and caves, one fighting position, one vehicle and one logistics site.

Between Dec. 30, 2018 and Jan. 12, 2019, CJTF-OIR detected 373 strikes from other actors that crossed the Euphrates River Valley. CJTF-OIR is committed to avoiding and in every case minimizing civilian casualties; CJTF-OIR calls on all other actors in the area to observe the same precautions.

This Coalition strike release contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing, or remotely piloted aircraft, rocket propelled artillery and ground-based tactical artillery.

A strike, as defined in the Coalition release, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative effect in that location. For example, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined.

CJTF-OIR does not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. The information used to compile the daily strike releases is based on 'Z' or Greenwich Mean Time.
Huawei founder denies accusation of stealing trade secrets

Global Times

By Fan Lingzhi in Shenzhen and Chen Qingqing in Beijing Source:Global Times Published: 2019/1/18 0:08:39

US trying to curb China's high-tech rise: analysts

Ren Zhengfei, founder of China's Huawei Technologies, who usually keeps a low profile, appeared before journalists Thursday and stressed that his company does not steal trade secrets. But this has not deterred aggressively hostile attitude from the West.

The Shenzhen-based company has been facing growing pressure from Western countries, particularly the US, as local politicians consider it an arm of the Chinese government.

The few US politicians who make noise do not represent US society. I believe US industries, enterprises and technology sectors firmly support us and seek greater cooperation with us, Ren noted.

Commenting on his military background and being a Party member, Ren said don't confuse business model with ideology. He expresse gratitude to the Chinese government for providing consular protection to Chinese citizens.

Meng Wanzhou, Ren's daughter, was arrested on December 1, 2018 by Canadian authorities following a US request. She is now facing an extradition through Canadian courts, and US charges may stem from alleged Huawei's violation of US sanctions against Iran.

Ren told the Global Times at an interview with multiple Chinese media outlets in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province on Thursday that he calls Meng frequently and tells her jokes to relax. "She is very strong," Ren said.

The 75-year-old Chinese entrepreneur also expressed his gratitude toward the Chinese government for providing consular protection to Chinese citizens.

"We anticipated the problems that Huawei might encounter a dozen years ago. We are not totally unprepared for the current situation," Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said.

On the alleged theft of trade secrets, Ren reiterated that the company absolutely respects intellectual property rights of others.

"Huawei now has 87,805 patents, of which 11,152 core patents were granted in the US, and our technology patents are valuable to the information society of the US," he said.

Huawei has been heavily investing in research and development (R&D) and making major breakthrough in core technologies.

Federal prosecutors are now pursuing a criminal investigation of Huawei for allegedly stealing trade secrets from US business partners, including local carrier T-Mobile, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The investigation stemmed from civil lawsuits against the Chinese company, which is also the largest telecom equipment provider worldwide.

The recent move of federal authorities is seen as part of growing pressure being exerted by the US government on Huawei, in line with its aggressive stance to curb the rise of Chinese high-end technology.

T-Mobile sued Huawei in 2014, claiming that two employees of the Chinese company in its US affiliate spied on a smartphone-testing robot that the US carrier had in its Bellevue lab, and the lawsuit had been settled in federal court in Seattle in 2017, the Seattle Times reported in May 2017.

The jury determined that T-Mobile should be awarded $4.8 million in damages because Huawei had breached a handset supply contract with T-Mobile but it did not award any damages from the trade secret claim, the media report said.

Difficult time

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday urged the US government to stop politicizing multinational litigation and business disputes, which will seriously damage its judicial reputation as neutral and independent.

"The dispute between Huawei and T-Mobile is a civil lawsuit that has been properly settled in accordance with US law," Hua Chunying, spokesperson of Foreign Ministry, told a press briefing on Thursday.

"We're concerned about US federal prosecutors who are reportedly investigating the case, and we have doubts about their real intentions," she remarked.

Politicizing civil lawsuits will not only be inconsistent with the rules of free and fair market competition, but will also violate the spirit of the rule of law, Hua noted.

In 2017, Huawei invested 89.7 billion yuan ($13.3 billion) in R&D, or 14.9 percent of its total revenue, according to the company's website.

Huawei's profits were about $9 billion in 2018 and the company invested $15-$20 billion into R&D, according to Ren.

The Chinese company also ranked fifth in the world's top 50 companies by their R&D investment in 2018, and Huawei was also the only Chinese company listed, according to 2018 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard released in December 2018.

Huawei will invest $100 billion in network restructuring in the next five years to make networks highly secure while protecting privacy by following EU General Data Protection Regulations, Ren said.

"The latest move of US federal authorities is abnormal, as Huawei had not lost its edge in the previous civil lawsuit," Long Z. Liu, an attorney licensed in California and US federal courts, told the Global Times on Thursday.

In patent disputes between technology companies, a court usually awards multimillion-dollar damages, Liu noted.

"Based on the relatively small amount T-Mobile was awarded in previous disputes, I would not say Huawei completely lost the lawsuit," he said.

Huawei also filed a lawsuit against T-Mobile for mobile patent infringement, following talks between two countries over a licensing agreement for the 4G patents in 2014, media reported in 2016.

McCarthyism in high-tech

Chinese officials and analysts also criticized the US government for politicizing normal business disputes, and some see this move as a further crackdown on China's rise in high-tech fields, especially in the 5G technologies.

"The US side is likely to be unsatisfied with the ongoing China-US trade negotiations, so it needs to seek different ways of suppressing China," Huo Jianguo, a research fellow at Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Thursday.

"Apparently, Huawei has been growing into a tech giant that could challenge other foreign players in the telecoms sector, which motivated the US government to curb its further growth," he said.
Prominent Global Law Firm Agrees to Register as an Agent of a Foreign Principal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Civil settlement resolves Department of Justice national security inquiry into violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP has entered into a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice, resolving its liability for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), announced Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers.

According to the Agreement, Skadden acted as an agent of the Government of Ukraine within the meaning of FARA, 22 U.S.C.  611 et seq., by contributing to a public relations campaign directed at select members of the U.S. news media in 2012. Moreover, in 2012 and 2013, Skadden received multiple inquiries from the Department's FARA Registration Unit about its role in that campaign. A partner then at Skadden made false and misleading statements to the FARA Unit, which led it to conclude in 2013 that the firm was not obligated to register under FARA. The facts, when uncovered, showed that Skadden was indeed required to register in 2012, and, under the Agreement, it will do so retroactively.

"Law firms should handle inquiries from the federal government the same way they would counsel their clients to: with appropriate due diligence to ensure the honesty of their response," said Assistant Attorney General Demers. "Skadden's failure to do so, and reliance on only the representations of the lead partner on the matter, hid from the public that its report was part of a Ukrainian foreign influence campaign. FARA protects the integrity of the American political system by enabling Americans to consider the identity of the speaker as they evaluate the substance of the speech." Assistant Attorney General Demers added, "The Department appreciates Skadden's more recent extensive cooperation in the investigation of this matter, which facilitated its resolution."

In addition to agreeing to register under FARA, Skadden has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury more than $4.6 million, which it received in fees and expenses for its work with Ukraine, and will ensure that it has formal, robust procedures for responding to inquiries concerning its conduct from any federal government entity and ensuring FARA compliance as to its engagements on behalf of foreign clients.

The Agreement acknowledges that Skadden has already taken substantial steps to comply with its terms, and so long as the firm continues to comply with it, the Department will not undertake any action against the firm relating to any of the conduct described in the Agreement and its Appendix.

Background of the Investigation

According to the Agreement, in the spring of 2012, Ukraine, Ministry of Justice (MOJ), with the assistance of Paul Manafort, hired Skadden to write a report (Report) on the evidence and procedures used during the 2011 prosecution and trial of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and to address various questions regarding its fairness. Skadden also agreed to advise Ukraine in connection with a second, potential future prosecution of Tymoshenko. Although the engagement letter between Skadden and the MOJ stated that Skadden would be paid its customary fees and expenses, the contract Skadden signed with the MOJ, and which the MOJ made public, stated that the law firm would be paid only 95,000 Ukrainian hryvynas, which is approximately $12,000. Skadden understood that a Ukrainian business person would be paying its fees, which the law firm received from a Cypriot bank account of an entity named Black Sea View Ltd., which Manafort controlled. Skadden was eventually paid $4,657,568.91 for its work on behalf of the MOJ. The arrangements with the Ukrainian business person, the amounts paid, and advice on a second criminal prosecution of Tymoshenko were not disclosed in connection with the issuance of the Report.

Soon after it began work for the MOJ, Skadden became aware that Ukraine intended to use the Report as part of a public relations campaign to influence U.S. policy and public opinion toward Ukraine. After that point, Skadden's lead partner for the Ukraine engagement took steps to advance the public relations campaign. In the fall of 2012, shortly after a meeting in New York with Manafort and a representative from Ukraine's public relations firm to finalize the Report and discuss the media strategy for its rollout, the lead partner contacted a journalist at a national newspaper and asked whether the journalist would take a call from a lobbyist for Ukraine about the Report in advance of its release. Then, shortly before Ukraine released the report on December 13, 2012, the lead partner again contacted the journalist and arranged for delivery of the Report to the journalist, both via email and in person. On December 12, 2012, the lead partner spoke with the national newspaper about the Report and provided a quotation for attribution.

The lead partner's pre-release outreach to the journalist was consistent with Ukraine's media strategy for the Report, which including leaking the Report prior to its official release so as to "effectively set the agenda for subsequent coverage."

FARA requires those in the U.S. who engage in political activities on behalf of foreign principals, which include foreign governments, to make a variety of written public disclosures to the Department of Justice. Based on its awareness of and involvement in Ukraine's public relations campaign, Skadden had an obligation to register with the Department of Justice under FARA, but it failed to do so. If Skadden had registered, it would have had to disclose, among other things, the full amount it was being paid, the source of those payments, and the full scope of the work it was doing on behalf of the MOJ.

Five days after news articles appeared about the Report, the FARA Unit sent Skadden a letter, seeking information about its activities on behalf of Ukraine in order to assist the FARA Unit in determining whether Skadden had a registration obligation. This was the first of several requests for information the FARA Unit made to Skadden.

In both written and oral responses to the FARA Unit between February 6, 2013, and October 11, 2013, Skadden, in reliance on the lead partner, made false and misleading statements including, among other things, that Skadden provided a copy of the Report only in response to requests from the media and spoke to the media to correct misinformation about the report that the media was already reporting. The firm also submitted documents to the FARA unit that were false.

The FARA Unit made a determination that Skadden did not have a registration obligation in connection with its work for Ukraine, and it based that conclusion on the false and misleading information Skadden had provided. Before making its representations to the FARA Unit, Skadden had conducted no investigation to confirm the information the lead partner was providing to the FARA Unit and to other partners at the firm.

The investigation and negotiation of the Agreement was handled by Jason B.A. McCullough, a Trial Attorney in the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, which includes the FARA Registration Unit, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Counterintelligence Division.

Attachment(s): Download Skadden Settlement Agreement

Component(s): National Security Division (NSD)

Press Release Number: 19-7
Panel to consider repurposing Regional Center rather than selling it
Jio vs BSNL vs Vodafone Idea: Best annual prepaid plans News oi-Priyanka Dua State-run telco BSNL has three annual plans and the first one is priced at Rs. 1312 in which users are getting unlimited calls to any network across India along with 5GB 2G / 3G data and 1,000 SMS

Almost all telecom players are launching new tariff plans to cope up with the growing competition. These plans start at Rs 35 and go up to Rs 2,099. So in order to give you a better perspective of these plans, we are going to compare them annual prepaid plans from telecom players.

BSNL Rs. 1,312, Rs. 1,699 and Rs. 2099 prepaid plan

State-run telco BSNL has three annual plans and the first one is priced at Rs. 1312 in which users are getting unlimited calls to any network across India along with 5GB 2G / 3G data and 1,000 free SMS for 365 days.

However, this plan is not valid in Mumbai and Delhi.

Both Rs. 1,699 and Rs. 2099 offers unlimited calling, personalized ring back tones, besides Rs. 1,699 provides 2GB data, whereas users are getting 4GB data at Rs 2,099.

Reliance Jio Rs. 1,699 prepaid plan

There is no doubt that Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Jio has disrupted telecom sector and incumbents are sitting on huge debt.

Jio also has an annual plan of Rs. 1699 in which users are getting free voice calls, 100 SMS daily along with 1.5 GB of 4G data daily.

Meanwhile, Jio has reported a jump of 65 percent in its net profit to Rs 831 crore during the December 2018 quarter, mainly on account of a rise in customer base.

Vodafone Idea Rs. 1,499 prepaid plan

India's largest telecom player Vodafone Idea has launched Rs. 1, 499 for its prepaid customers with a validity of 365 days. Under this new plan, the telco offers unlimited calls within the country, 1GB of data per day along with 100 daily SMS. Besides these users will get a free subscription to the Vodafone Play app.

However, there is a catch as this plan is only available in only five circles and there is a cap on voice calls such as 250 minutes per day and 1000 per week.

Meanwhile, Vodafone launches new campaign dubbed as #StrongerEveryHour. This campaign aims to highlight the improved network of 'Vodafone SuperNet 4G - India's Data Strong Network' especially in crowded zones, where a tower is being added every hour.

Best Mobiles in India

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China planning Mars mission after landing on Moon's far side News oi-Vishal Kawadkar China recently reached the far side of the moon for the first time in history.

China recently landed its robotic mission on the far side of the Moon and it to the history books. But, it seems that China is planning another ambitious mission over the next 10 years.

At the end of this year, the China National Space Administration plans to launch another Chang'e 5 mission to bring first samples of the lunar soil and bring them to Earth. The nation plans to retrieve more samples from the moon or scout for water on the surface. The mission will also examine potential areas where it can set up a base for humans, according to Chinese state media.

China is also exploring opportunities beyond the moon and has plans to go to Mars. "China's first Mars exploration mission will be implemented around 2020," Wu Yanhua, the agency's deputy director, said during a briefing.

The mission will be called the Mars Global Remote Sensing Orbiter and Small Rover, or HX-1. NASA and other key members of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group have described the new mission as an "orbit, landing, and roving mission," that will study Mars' "topographical and geological features, physical fields and internal structure, atmosphere, ionosphere, climate, and environment."

The mission will include the launch of a lander and a satellite to the Red Planet. The lander and rover will be ferried to Mars through the orbiter. Once the satellite enters the orbit of the planet, it would detach itself from the orbiter. It will drop towards Mars' surface and a supersonic parachute will be deployed.

The rover will then roll down from the lander, a process previously seen on the Chang'e 4 and Chinese lunar-landing missions. The rover will be solar-powered and will have six wheels. it would feature a radar that would be able to penetrate through the ground to learn the internal structure of the planet. The rover will also search for water ice pockets, according to reports from the state media.

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Samsung Galaxy S10+ with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC visits Geekbench 4 News oi-Vivek Samsung Galaxy S10+ will launch on the 20th of February 2019

Samsung will launch the Galaxy S10 family of smartphones on the 20th of February 2019, where the company is most likely to launch the Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite, Samsung Galaxy S10, and the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus. With these three smartphones, the company will compete against the likes of the Apple iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and the iPhone XS Max.

A new Samsung smartphone with the model number SM-G975U has been spotted online, running on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC. Rumors suggest that the SM-G975U is the Samsung Galaxy S10+, the most advanced Samsung Galaxy smartphone to date.

Galaxy S10+ on Geekbench 4

According to the Geekbench 4 listing, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ scores 3411 points on the single core and 10256 points on the multi-core performance. These scores are in line with the other smartphones based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC.

The smartphone comes with 6 GB of RAM with Android 9 Pie OS. Considering the previous leaks, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ is also expected to come with 8/10 GB of RAM with up to 512 GB of internal storage.

Do note that the Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite, S10, and the S10+ launching in India will be powered by the Exynos 9820 SoC, instead of Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC. Except for the chipset change, the Exynos and the Qualcomm variants of the Galaxy S10 devices will offer an identical design with the same set of features.

Just like the previous generation S series of smartphone, the S10 trio smartphones are expected to come with QHD+ Super AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection (6th Gen). Leaks suggest that all three Galaxy S10 variants will have an in-display fingerprint sensor (ultrasonic sensor), which will be faster than the standard optical in-display fingerprint sensors used on the OnePlus 6T, Vivo V11 Pro, Vivo NEX, and more.

The Geekbench 4 listing does not reveal any additional information about the upcoming flagship smartphone from Samsung.

Source

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Redmi Note 7 Pro will launch on Chinese new year: Expected to cost Rs 15,000 News oi-Vivek Redmi Note 7 Pro comes with a 48 MP primary camera

Xiaomi awestruck everyone by launching a smartphone with 48 MP camera for just 999 Yuan (Rs 10,000). And now, the company is all set to launch the premium iteration of the Redmi Note 7, the Redmi Note 7 Pro in February, which will be the first smartphone from the company with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 SoC, again with a 48 MP primary camera.

According to a post on Weibo, the Redmi Note 7 Pro will be launched in China in the Chinese New Year (Tuesday, 5 February), and the base variant with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage is expected to cost 1499 Yuan (Rs 15,000). The Redmi Note 7 Pro is also expected to launch in India in the later part of the year, and expected to cost Rs 16,000 to Rs 17,000.

The Redmi Note 7 came with a 48 MP Samsung sensor (Samsung ISOCELL GM1), whereas the Redmi Note 7 Pro will come with a 48 MP Sony sensor, to be precise, the Sony IMX586. The latter is a much powerful camera sensor, which can offer better image and video capability compared to the one found on the Redmi Note 7.

Redmi Note 7 Pro specifications

The Redmi Note 7 Pro comes with a 6.3-inch IPS LCD grade screen with 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection with FHD+ resolution (1080x2340 pixels). The display supports 84 percent NTSC color gamut and offers 19.5:9 aspect ratio with a peak brightness of 450 nits.

The Redmi Note 7 Pro will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 SoC, which is the first chipset from the company to utilize the 11nm manufacturing process. The SoC comes with Adreno 612 GPU and also supports UHD (4K) video recording capability.

The device will have a dual camera set up at the back with a 48 MP primary camera and a 5 MP depth sensor. On the front, the is most likely to feature a 13 MP selfie camera with 1080p video recording capability.

Like most of the Redmi Note smartphones, the Redmi Note 7 Pro will have a 4000 mAh Li-ion battery with support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0 via USB type C with a dedicated 3.5 mm headphone jack. The smartphone comes with MIUI 10 based on Android 8.1 Oreo, and the device will be updated to Android 9 Pie and MIUI 11 in the future.

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Lenovo A5s leaked renders hint MediaTek Helio A22 chipset and Android Pie OS News oi-Sandeep Sarkar The MediaTek Helio A22 processor onboard will be paired with PowerVR GE8300 GPU and 3GB RAM.

The Chinese tech giant Lenovo had released an entry-segment smartphone called Lenovo A5 back in October 2018. Now, it appears that the company is currently working on a new variant of the Lenovo A5 which it will be introducing soon. The upcoming Lenovo affordable smartphone is the Lenovo A5s which is an upgraded version of the A5 smartphone. A leaked press render of the Lenovo A5s is making rounds over the web revealing the design along with some of the key specifications and features which the device will pack.

As per the leaked specifications, the smartphone is said to feature a display that will offer a screen resolution of 720 x 1440 pixels, which can be seen on other affordable devices as well. It is currently unknown how big the display panel will be, but, it will have an aspect ratio of 18:9 and offer a screen density of 320 DPI.

The Lenovo A5s will make use of an entry-segment octa-core MediaTek Helio A22 chipset. The MediaTek Helio A22 processor onboard will be paired with PowerVR GE8300 GPU to render the graphics and 2GB of RAM for multitasking. This is the same processor which the Xiaomi's affordable Redmi 6A packs. Besides, the device is said to be shipped with Android 9 Pie out-of-the-box which is seen less on the budget smartphones.

In terms of pricing, the Lenovo A5s is said to carry a price tag slightly higher than the regular A5 smartphone which was released last year. The Lenovo A5 carries a price tag of Rs 5,999 for the 2GB RAM variant and Rs 6,999 for the 3GB RAM variant. It remains to be seen how much difference there will be in the pricing of the Lenovo A5s and A5 smartphone. The availability of the device is also unknown and we are still waiting for more information to surface on the same.

Source

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Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Writing thank-you notes seems to have gone out of style, but the United Steelworkers have revived the tradition to show their appreciation to members of Oregons congressional delegation for their help in securing millions of dollars in government benefits for Wah Chang employees.

Under the federal Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, people who contracted certain cancers as a result of radiation exposure while working for the U.S. nuclear weapons program are entitled to financial compensation and reimbursement of medical expenses. In cases where the worker has died, the Department of Labors EEOICPA program provides the benefits to their surviving family members.

ATI Specialty Alloys and Components in Millersburg (still widely known by the facilitys former name, Wah Chang) was added to the program in 2011 because the plant once processed depleted uranium for Americas nuclear arsenal.

Hundreds of current and former Wah Chang employees or their survivors were compensated through the federal program, but the effort ran into a hitch in March 2016, when ATI outsourced its employment verification process, making it much more difficult to prove that a qualified individual had worked at the Millersburg metals refinery during a particular time frame.
One of biggest moments of Paulas life came on July 7, 1990, the day she married the love of her life, Jack W. Adams, at their home in Beaverton. They were a good match, at home and abroad, and together enjoyed many opportunities to travel across the world. But for all the places they visited, serious tests were on the horizon. When Jack was stricken with both Parkinsons disease and dementia/Alzheimer's, Paula became his full-time caregiver and served his needs with selfless devotion. When his declining health reached a point she could no longer care for him on her own and he entered a memory care facility, she continued to visit him for a couple hours each day, and when she finally couldnt do that due to being in the hospital herself, she missed him.

Once it became clear she would precede him in death, her biggest concern was not for herself, but for Jack. Her biggest relief was seeing his needs met, even as her own life was slipping away. The last time they saw each other, when he was brought to her hospital room, he could not carry on a conversation, yet they were also able to communicate in ways that didnt require words. They were soulmates, with a love story for our time. That story was put on hold on December 17, 2018, a minute past midnight, when she drew her last breath at the age of 72.
 A neighborhood meeting to discuss changing the zoning on a pair of properties in north Corvallis is at 5:30 p.m. at Osborn Aquatic Center, 1940 NW Highland Drive. The properties are the 26-acre McFadden Ranch parcel near the HP Inc. campus and 3.36 acres of land at the Circle Boulevard-Walnut Boulevard intersection. The city plans to change the zoning on both properties to RS-20, or high-density residential, to help meet state requirements.

 The Albany City Council meets at 7:15 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall.

Thursday

 The Corvallis City Council meets in a 4 p.m. work session at the Madison room, with the key agenda item a discussion of the strategic operating plan.

 The Albany Budget Committee meets in a 6:30 p.m. work session in the council chambers at City Hall.

 A neighborhood meeting to discuss changing the zoning on a pair of properties in South Corvallis is at 7 p.m. at the Tunison Community Room, 365 SW Tunison Ave. The two properties combined equal 66.4 acres and are located along Highway 99W south of Wake Robin Drive. The city also plans to change the zoning on these properties to RS-20 to help meet state requirements.

Friday

 The subcommittee of the Corvallis Climate Action Advisory Board working on communications and outreach meets at 3 p.m. at the Madison room.

Contact reporter James Day at jim.day@gazettetimes.com or 541-758-9542. Follow at Twitter.com/jameshday or gazettetimes.com/blogs/jim-day.

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The Corvallis School Board voted to reauthorize the charter of Muddy Creek Charter School at a meeting Thursday night.

The vote isn't the end of the rechartering process: the school and district administrators still need to negotiate the contract under which the school will operate.

Muddy Creek opened in 2008 and is up for its second charter renewal.

The board also voted on parameters for the contract negotiations, including a five-year length for the contract, a possibility of increasing the number of students Muddy Creek can enroll, and negotiations about the amount of funds the district passes through to Muddy Creek and the value of services the district provides to the charter school.

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Superintendent Ryan Noss said the goal of the financial negotiations would be for the district to not subsidize Muddy Creek through funds or services, but to allow the school to continue to exist.

Board members expressed concerns about statements by Muddy Creek supporters at last week's board meeting about how the school does not advertise, and parents who apply all hear about it through word-of-mouth.
Dan Patrick should be more careful with his words
Democrats have become party of radical socialism
Events for Faith Focus should be submitted at least two weeks in advance. Rick Cousins can be reached at rick.cousins@galvnews.com
Morgan never met a stranger and was loved by all who knew her. Morgan was Born on June18 1997 in Las Vegas Nevada to Ralph and Candy Dalrymple, She attended elementary school in Gainesville Texas and then her family moved to Jacksonville Florida where she completed her schooling there. Unfor
Fort Wayne, IN (46808)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening. Increasing clouds with periods of showers late. Thunder possible. Low 69F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening. Increasing clouds with periods of showers late. Thunder possible. Low 69F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.




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What happened to the veto override?

The greatness of America comes from a balance of power between the three branches of government. When one branch tries to exert or grab too much power, it is the duty of the other branches to put a stop to it.

Why has the legislative branch of government given up its rightful power to the executive branch?

Every Congress has overridden a veto for every president since World War II, except for Kennedy and Johnson. Often the override was well supported by the presidents own party; sometimes to regain their power, not because of the specific issue.

Presidents Clinton and Obama had vetoes overridden because they were trying to exert too much power that rightfully belongs to the legislative branch. This president has gone way beyond the attempts of any other president in history, yet our legislators have acted like a rubber stamp.

The members of the Senate who are part of the presidents party act is if they are a wholly owned entity of the executive branch.
RICHMONDA Republican-led subcommittee in the Virginia House of Delegates voted down more than a dozen Democratic gun control bills Thursday, including a red-flag proposal endorsed by President Donald Trumps school safety committee.

In a packed hearing room, Republicans on a House Militia, Police and Public Safety subcommittee used their 4-2 majority to methodically defeat the gun bills over the course of more than two hours.

For the first time, the panel heard arguments about a bill to create extreme risk protection orders, which would allow authorities to take guns from people whose behavior gives law enforcement reason to believe they may hurt others or themselves.

The idea gained bipartisan support after last years school shooting in Parkland, Fla., but Thursdays vote indicates Virginia wont join the 13 states that have risk protection laws.

I had hoped that this bill would show itself as one that could break the partisan logjam that we seem to be stuck in when it comes to gun safety bills, said Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, the bills sponsor. This is a bill that Republicans all across the country support.
manassas woman

killed in crash

A Manassas woman died in a two-vehicle crash Wednesday night at U.S. 29 and State Route 674 in Culpeper County.

Shortly after 6 p.m., a tow truck driver pulled into the crossover at Route 674 to make a left turn to head south on 29, leaving the rear of the wrecker partially in the northbound travel lane. It was then struck from behind by a northbound Nissan Maxima that then flipped several times, according to State Police Spokesman Sgt. Brent Coffey.

The driver of the tow truck, Nathan J. Williams, 19, of Culpeper, was not injured. He was wearing his seat belt. Williams has been charged with failure to yield right of way.

The driver of the Nissan, Gloria L. Felder, 46, died in the wreck. She was wearing a seat belt. Coffey said the crash remains under investigation.

Star-Exponent staff
FROM STAFF REPORTS

A duplex near the Eagle Village shopping center in Fredericksburg caught fire Friday morning, closing southbound U.S. 1 for about a half hour.

Firefighters were dispatched at 11:20 a.m. to a reported structure fire at 1315 Powhatan St., Deputy Fire Chief Mike Jones said. They arrived a short time later and found flames showing from the front windows and a side window of a duplex.

No one was home when the fire broke out, but as soon as firefighters entered the home, a cat ran out, Jones said. A dog was also rescued, and both pets were taken by animal control officers until they could be reunited with their owners.

Firefighters extinguished the fire in about 10 minutes. The cause was still under investigation, but it appears to have started in an upstairs bedroom of the rental unit.

Jones said the fire damage was contained mainly to the second floor, but there was water and smoke damage on the first floor. Fire did not spread to the other unit, and no firefighters were injured.

Heavy smoke was visible at the scene, which is near the popular Allmans BarBQ, with passersby expressing concern that the landmark eatery was on fire.

Police detoured traffic around the scene for about 30 minutes and then reopened one lane of southbound U.S. 1 while firefighters finished their work.
Keep the conversation about local news & events going by joining us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Recent updates from The News-Post and also from News-Post staff members are compiled below.
LINK Staffing Expands into Waco, Texas Grand Opening Celebration

WACO, Texas - (BUSINESS WIRE) - January 17, 2019 - LINK Staffing is hosting a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony on January 17th, 2019 to celebrate their entry into the Waco market. The event is being hosted at their new office located at 801 Washington Ave., Suite 602, Waco, TX 76701. This location is part of a rapidly expanding national franchise organization that is the premier provider of light industrial, skilled trades, administrative and professional talent on a contract, project, and direct hire basis.

It is a great time to be at LINK Staffing and we are thrilled to expand into the Waco market. Zachary Collard and his team have helped thousands of job seekers find jobs in other markets and we are confident that he will repeat that success in his newest location

With offices in Katy, Bryan, and Temple, this is the fourth LINK location that franchisee, Zachary Collard, has opened in the LINK franchise system since 2013. When asked why he chose Waco as his fourth office location, Zachary stated, The greater Waco area is incredibly diverse in its people and its industries, which makes this community an amazing opportunity for a business like LINK. We identified this location in Waco and believe it represents the ideal site to expand our presence in a market where we see strong demand for our services.

Samantha Baker, Marketing & Communications Specialist from the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, will host the ribbon-cutting ceremony. LINK Staffing executives President Marc Rosenow, COO Gary Valentine, Vice President Kathryn Mujezinovic, and Vice President Michelle Bearden will attend the event.

It is a great time to be at LINK Staffing and we are thrilled to expand into the Waco market. Zachary Collard and his team have helped thousands of job seekers find jobs in other markets and we are confident that he will repeat that success in his newest location, said President Marc Rosenow.

For more information about LINK Staffing in Waco, please contact Zachary Collard at (254) 655-5465. For information about LINK Staffings franchise opportunities, please contact Kathryn Mujezinovic at (713) 784-4400.

About LINK

LINK Staffing is the premier provider of light industrial, skilled trades, administrative and professional talent on a contract, project, and direct hire basis. Founded in 1980, we operate nationwide, employing over 17,000 employees per year. Based in Houston, TX, we have over 40 locations in 12 states. We provide competent, dependable talent who will get your job done, by offering some of the most flexible and reliable programs in the industry. For more information, please visit http://www.linkstaffing.com, or call 1-888-929-LINK.

Media Contact:

Kathryn Mujezinovic

Vice President

LINK Staffing

800-848-5465

kathryn@linkstaffing.com

SOURCE LINK

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RALEIGH, NC (FOX Carolina) - The Speaker for the North Carolina House of Representatives has extended an invitation to President Trump to deliver the State of the Union address in North Carolina.

Today I extended an invitation to President @RealDonaldTrump to deliver his second State of the Union address in the chambers of the North Carolina House of Representatives. https://t.co/e6Ano6ohJ5 #ncga #ncpol  Speaker Tim Moore (@NCHouseSpeaker) January 18, 2019

On Friday, Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) released a letter sent to the White House inviting the president to deliver the address in the state's general assembly chambers. The invitation comes as a spat between the president and congressional Democrats in Washington continues amid the partial government shutdown.

Part of the spat involved Trump denying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's request for military aircraft for an overseas trip to Afghanistan, Egypt, and Brussels:

Trump denies Pelosi military aircraft for overseas trip after she urged him to move State of the Union address President Donald Trump responded Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's letter suggesting they reschedule his State of the Union address by informing Pelosi that an apparent trip she had planned to "Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed" while the government shutdown continues.

The full text of the letter follows below:
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (AP)  The road to this years Westminster Kennel Club dog show passed through a pandemic and a major change of date and venue. The road also proved dangerous for one of the nations best known dog handlers. His wife and fellow star handler said Saturday that Bill McFadden wa
UNION COUNTY, SC (FOX Carolina)- The Union County Sheriff's Office says that it arrested two suspects that are accused of attempted murder and murder for shooting incidents that occurred in 2015, according to a release.
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Officer Jacinto Rivera said 32-year-old Larissa Dos Santos Lima was jailed early Friday on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge at a home east of the Las Vegas Strip.
The Clark County Coroners Office has identified the man killed in the west valley last Thursday as 26-year-old Cristobal Sanchez.
Byron Worthey-Avila, 16, was last seen near Desert Inn Road and Cabana Drive around 2 p.m. on Jan. 17, 2019.
(CNN) -- President Donald Trump responded Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's letter suggesting they reschedule his State of the Union address by informing Pelosi that an apparent trip she had planned to "Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed" while the government shutdown continues.

It was not immediately clear what trip Trump was referring to as Pelosi had yet to publicly announce a trip to those countries, or whether Trump has the authority to prevent the California Democrat from traveling abroad on government aircraft.

The White House released Trump's letter to Pelosi, a day after the House speaker had sent the President a letter suggesting they reschedule his planned State of the Union address scheduled for later this month until the government shutdown is resolved.

"Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed," Trump wrote Pelosi on Thursday. "We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over."

The President of the United States has the authority to direct the Defense Department to not use military assets to support a congressional delegation to military theaters. This support includes air transport and additional security procedures.

It was not immediately clear whether the Defense Department was notified of the decision prior to the President's announcement.

Trump's penned retort amounted to his first public response to Pelosi's Wednesday letter in which she wrote: "I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after the government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29."

Trump's response did not address the scheduling of his address to Congress and the White House has yet to say what the President plans to do about the State of the Union.

Instead, Trump delivered a tit-for-tat response.

Just as Pelosi pointed to security officials working without pay as a reason to delay his State of the Union address, Trump said he was postponing Pelosi's trip "in light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay."

Trump also used the letter to jab at some of the time Pelosi has spent outside of Washington during the shutdown, saying that "it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown."

Even though Afghanistan -- an active US combat zone -- was one of the countries on her planned itinerary, Trump suggested she fly commercial.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," Trump wrote.
PHOENIX (AP)  Phoenix police say a newborn baby girl was found dead in a women's restroom inside an Amazon distribution center and that investigators have located and spoken with the mother.

A police statement Thursday didn't say whether the mother of the newborn found Wednesday night is an Amazon employee and says her identity is being withheld.

The statement says firefighters confirmed that the baby was dead and that the investigation is continuing in consultation with the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office.

Amazon says in a statement it was working with police to support the investigation and called the incident "terribly sad and tragic."

The company's massive distribution center on Phoenix's southwest side is one of several Amazon sites in metro Phoenix.
(Meredith)  A hotel dishwasher who was fired after missing work to go to church has been awarded more than $21.5 million in a lawsuit against her former employer.

Marie Jean Pierre worked at the Conrad Miami, for nearly 10 years when her boss fired her in 2016 for "unexcused absences," according to the Sun Sentinel.

Pierre reportedly missed six Sunday shifts to attend worship services at Soldiers of Christ Church.

According to Pierre, she informed her employer at the start of her job in 2006 that she could not work on Sundays due to her religious beliefs. But in 2009, her schedule began to change.

After Pierre threatened to quit her job, the hotel accommodated her request and stopped giving her shifts on Sundays until 2015. That's when her schedule changed yet again. In response, Pierre began switching shifts with co-workers -- but her boss eventually demanded that Pierre work her own shifts. Her refusal led to her termination.

They accommodated her for seven years, and they easily could have accommodated her [again], but instead of doing that, they set her up for absenteeism and threw her out, her attorney Marc Brumer told NBC 6 Miami.

Pierre decided to take legal action in May of 2017, filing a lawsuit against the Conrad Miami's parent company, Park Hotels & Resorts -- formerly known as Hilton Worldwide -- for violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The jury ruled in Pierre's favor on Monday, awarding her $35,000 for lost wages, $500,000 for emotional distress and $21 million in punitive damages.

But Pierre, a 60-year-old mother of six, will likely receive far less than that amount due to a cap on punitive damages. She'll likely get around $500,000, according to the Sun Sentinel.

Still, Pierre said it's about the principle.

I asked for $50 million, knowing that I was capped at $300,000, Brumer told NBC News on Wednesday. I didnt do this for money. I did this to right the wrongs.
(CNN) -- As the government shutdown stretches towards a fifth week, FBI field offices across the country are opening food banks to help support special agents and staff struggling without pay.

In Dallas, Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, the FBI has set up or planned for areas where employees can drop off non-perishable food items for other employees to pick up, according to multiple law enforcement officials.

On the West Coast, at least two FBI field offices are considering establishing food banks as one of a number of ideas to help employees hurting from the shutdown, a law enforcement official said.

"We're all in this together and we're banding together to help each other out in any way we can," said Melinda Urbina, a spokeswoman for the FBI field office in Dallas, where a volunteer employee group set up the food bank now filled with pastas and canned goods in one of the main break rooms.

Some 35,000 FBI employees, including administrative and support staff, missed a paycheck last week as negotiations between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats over government funding and border security have stalled.

That has left many also searching for outside employment, despite limitations on the type of work employees can do and still keep a security clearance or not violate government employment rules.

Justice Department component agencies have had a number of requests from employees, including law enforcement agents and officers, seeking guidance on outside employment, two senior law enforcement officials told CNN. Lawyers have been doing research to determine what type of outside employment would be allowed, the officials said.

RELATED: State Department orders staff back to work, says they will be paid

Another law enforcement official said that the number of requests for outside employment at one FBI field office has "significantly increased." All FBI employees must get approval through an established process before they engage in other work.

Law enforcement officials have also warned that FBI investigations are being damaged as operational budgets dwindle.

Pay for informants and surveillance work as well as drug buys in trafficking operations are all endangered as resource shortages restrict the tools available to investigators, according to Tom O'Connor, the president of the FBI Agents Association, which represents most of the bureau's active duty special agents.

Still, throughout the country's longest government shutdown, FBI special agents remain in the streets carrying out law enforcement activities.

On Wednesday, undercover FBI special agents in Georgia met 21-year-old Hasher Taheb in a parking lot with a trailer filled with inert assault rifles and explosives.

After Taheb, who was later charged by federal prosecutors for a plan to attack the White House and other DC monuments, exchanged his car for the weapons, agents, working without pay, took him under arrest, according to a criminal complaint.

CNN's Evan Perez and Jessica Schneider contributed to this report.
Spotify India launch was long coming; while there were many rumors and reports in the past, nothing materialized yet. However, things are happening faster than expected and latest we hear is that the company is on the verge of bringing their service to India. The launch is scheduled to take place as soon as January 31st.

The companys Terms and Conditions page on their website lists the effective inclusion of India which will become effective as of January 31, 2019. This is surely a surprise launch from Spotify. The company has recently signed a content deal with T-Series to bring Indian content to the platform, which was our first clue. However, launching the service doesnt mean success. Spotify will face stiff competition from home-grown platforms like Saavn, Gaana, Amazons Prime Music among others.

Apart from T-Series, Spotify is yet to sign deals with Sony and Warner Music for full-blown content availability in India, so if Spotify is dead serious about January 31st launch, things should happen fast. As of this moment, we only believe January 31st as the possible launch since the company didnt officially announce the same. No other details such as pricing, availability are known. India is a price sensitive market, we hope Spotify understands the market dynamics and prices it right. Stay tuned for more details.

Source | Via
Zimbabwe imposed a total shutdown of the internet on Friday, a major provider told customers, after protests over fuel prices early this week triggered a ruthless security crackdown

Harare: Zimbabwe imposed a "total shutdown" of the internet on Friday, a major provider told customers, after protests early this week triggered a ruthless security crackdown.

The internet had been partially restored after a first shutdown started on Tuesday.

"We were served with another directive for total shutdown of the internet until further notice," Econet, the country's biggest provider, said in a text message on Friday.

"Our lawyers advised we are required to comply with the directive pending the court decision on its legality. The earlier directive(s) are already the subject of pending high court application.

"We sincerely apologise for all inconveniences caused by the acts of government." The EU on Thursday joined the US and Britain in criticising the authorities' response to the protests.

"The escalation of violence in Zimbabwe over recent days has been aggravated by the disproportionate use of force by security personnel," European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said in a statement.

"The shutdown of access to the internet should also be reversed." The US embassy in Harare it was "alarmed by credible reports that security forces are targeting and beating political activists and labor leaders".

Nationwide demonstrations erupted on Monday after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced that fuel prices were being doubled in a country suffering regular shortages of fuel, food and medicine.

Mnangagwa, who succeeded ousted authoritarian president Robert Mugabe in 2017, had promised a fresh start for Zimbabwe after decades of repression and economic decline.

Trade unions called the national strike on Monday and the demonstrations took place in several cities with widespread rioting and looting.

Security forces have made about 600 arrests.

Police and soldiers have been accused of indiscriminately dragging people from their homes and beating them.
Trade disputes,international relations, Brexit and a growth slowdown that sparked concerns of a recession are set to dominate the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Milan: An array of crises will keep several world leaders away from the annual World Economic Forum in Davos next week, which takes place against a backdrop of deepening gloom over the global economic and political outlook.

Anxieties over trade disputes, fractious international relations, Brexit and a growth slowdown that some fear could tip the world economy into recession are set to dominate the 22-25 January Alpine meeting.

The WEFs own Global Risks Report set the tone this week with a stark warning of looming economic headwinds, in part because of geopolitical tensions among major powers.

Some 3,000 business, government and civil society figures are due to gather in the snow-blanketed ski resort, but among them are only three leaders of the Group of Seven most industrialised countries: Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian premier Giuseppe Conte.

Donald Trump, who stole the Davos limelight last year with a rare appearance by a sitting US president, pulled out of this years event as he grapples with a partial US government shutdown.

On Thursday, the White House said Trump had also cancelled his delegations trip to Davos because of the shutdown, now in its 27th day. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been expected to lead the US team, according to two senior administration officials.

French president Emmanuel Macron is also skipping the meeting as he seeks to respond to the "yellow vest" protests, while British prime minister Theresa May battles to find a consensus on Brexit.

Outside the G7, the leaders of Russia and India are shunning Davos, while China  whose president, Xi Jinping, was the first Chinese leader to attend the elite gathering in 2017 to offer a vigorous defence of free trade  is sending his deputy instead.

That will leave the likes of British finance minister Philip Hammond, Chinese vice president Wang Qishan and a host of central bankers with the task of trying to reassure business chiefs. "Davos will be dominated by a high level of anxiety about stock markets, a slowdown in growth and international politics," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit.

"The leadership presence is lower than last year but those who are going... will be seeking to impart a sense of confidence and calm business and investors nerves."

Revamp

Before the US cancellation, a Trump administration official had said the US delegation would also discuss the importance of reforming institutions such as the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Trump has harshly criticised globalisation and questioned US participation in multilateral institutions such as the WTO, calling for a revamp of international trade rules.

Davos watchers said the absence of so many top leaders this year did not mean the glitzy forum had lost its status as a global stage for top politicians to present their agendas. "Abe is going to Davos not just as Japanese prime minister but also as chair of the G20. It will be a perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork of upcoming G20 meetings," said a Japanese government source familiar with international affairs.

"Of course there may be inconveniences such as missing opportunities to hold bilateral meetings, but that wont undermine the importance of Davos," he said.

A Chinese official who has attended Davos regularly but will not go this year said China had never expected to make progress at the meeting on the trade dispute with the United States. "Its just an occasion for making a policy statement," he said.

The low turnout among major Western leaders may also give more prominence to political personalities who may otherwise be upstaged. Davos will be the first major international outing for Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, elected on a wave of anti-establishment and conservative nationalism also seen elsewhere.

He said on Twitter he would present "a different Brazil, free of ideological ties and widespread corruption."

For business chiefs, the value of Davos lies not so much in the public sessions but in the networking and dealmaking opportunities on the sidelines of the main conference. "Its the best place to pitch for ideas, build connections and get your brand known," said Chen Linchevski, chief executive of Precognize, an Israel-based start-up developing software that prevents technical or quality failures at manufacturing plants.

"Its the kind of place where in a few days you meet people you wouldnt easily meet otherwise," said Linchevski, who is paying 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,495) to attend the event.

($1 = 0.9902 Swiss francs)
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Afghan-born Sakandar Khan, 30, was among the first nine new Danish citizens who shook hands with Denmark's immigration minister under a new law that makes a handshake the final step in the naturalisation process. 'This is a huge thing for me. I am thrilled,' the former practicing Muslim dressed in shirt and tie said with a smile

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Afghan-born Sakandar Khan, 30, was among the first nine new Danish citizens who shook hands with Denmark's immigration minister under a new law that makes a handshake the final step in the naturalisation process.

"This is a huge thing for me. I am thrilled," the former practicing Muslim dressed in shirt and tie said with a smile.

For Khan, who fled Afghanistan with his family in 2001, shaking the hand of the minister, who happens to be female, was not a problem. But the law has been criticised for breaching freedom of religion, as some observant Muslims and Jews avoid touching unrelated members of the opposite sex.

The government says the handshake is an important part of Danish culture and values, and no one who refuses can be Danish.

"If you don't shake hands, you don't understand what it means to be Danish, because in Denmark we have equality and that is something generations before us fought to achieve," said Immigration Minister Inger Stojberg, who led the first ceremony.

The handshake ceremony will be performed by mayors and deputy mayors of the municipalities where immigrants live. Not all of them are pleased.

"When you can be rejected because of a handshake we may have gone too far," Thomas Andresen, mayor of the town of Aabenraa, told Danish broadcaster DR.

Danes pride themselves on their 'hygge' - a word roughly meaning "to be cosy" - on being among the happiest people in the world and on their progressive laws, such as the legalisation of pornography in 1969, long before most of Europe.

But increasingly they are also becoming known for taking an ever harder line against immigration in the historically tolerant Nordic region.

HARDER LINE

Stojberg's Liberal Party is part of a three-party minority government that depends on the anti-immigration Danish People's Party to pass laws. Since the crisis that brought more than 1 million asylum seekers to Europe in 2015, Denmark accepted fewer migrants than its neighbours and moved faster to change its laws in ways designed to limit the welcome to foreigners.

Denmark's parliament last year banned wearing the Islamic burqa and niqab in public and approved a plan to hold foreign criminals on a tiny island, despite criticism from the United Nations and Human rights group Amnesty International.

In 2016, Denmark came under international criticism when it passed a "jewellery bill", allowing police to confiscate refugees' valuables to help pay their costs.

Immigration is expected to be high on the agenda when Denmark hold general election in the first half of the year.

With the rise of the Danish People's Party, which became the second biggest in parliament in an election held at the height of the refugee crisis in 2015, being tough on immigration has become mainstream in Danish society and politics.

"People don't want to end up like Sweden or Germany. You don't have a chance of becoming prime minister if you don't stand on a platform that is fewer refugees," said political commentator Jarl Cordua.

Denmark, with a population of 5.7 million, accepted just 45,000 asylum seekers between 2014 and 2017. Its southern neighbor Germany accepted more than 1.6 million, while Sweden, with about twice Denmark's population, took in nearly 300,000.

After the ceremony, Khan and the other eight new Danish citizens joined immigration minister Stojberg in a separate room for drinks and snacks.

"Now we'll go 'hygge' together," Stojberg said.

(Reporting by Emil Gjerding Nielson; Editing by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Peter Graff)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Katharine Jackson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump spoke in a prerecorded video to thousands of anti-abortion activists in Washington on Friday for the 46th March for Life, vowing to veto any legislation that 'weakens the protection of human life.' The event is the largest annual gathering in the United States of opponents of the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling in Roe v.

By Katharine Jackson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump spoke in a prerecorded video to thousands of anti-abortion activists in Washington on Friday for the 46th March for Life, vowing to veto any legislation that "weakens the protection of human life."

The event is the largest annual gathering in the United States of opponents of the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade. That ruling found that certain state laws outlawing abortion were an unconstitutional violation of a woman's right to privacy, effectively legalizing abortion nationwide.

"I will always defend the first right in our Declaration of Independence, the right to life," Trump said in remarks recorded in the Oval Office, a right he said extended to "unborn children."

Vice President Mike Pence appeared onstage at the rally to introduce the video, calling Trump, who before entering politics said he supported abortion access, "the most pro-life president in American history."

During his 2016 campaign, Trump vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices he believed would overturn Roe. He has since appointed two justices to the court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, cementing the court's 6-3 conservative majority.

Since the heated Senate confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh, the court has steered clear of some cases on volatile social issues, including abortion.

Marchers trudged through muddy slush on the National Mall holding signs saying "Pray to End Abortion," "My unexpected pregnancy is now 30!" and calling for the federal defunding of Planned Parenthood, a national healthcare provider that offers abortions as well as birth control and cancer screenings.

One marcher said she had an abortion at the age of 17 but had been opposed to abortion ever since she became religious.

"No matter how you look at it, it's taking a life and it's wrong," said Marcy Blunier, a 57-year-old real estate broker from New Mexico.

A circle of women bowed their heads in prayer as they waited to start the march down Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court. Two men navigated the crowd hauling a large wooden cross.

Supporters of abortion access say bans infringe on women's rights and health, and lead to greater rates of injury and death among pregnant women.

About half of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll last year, with about 68 percent of Democrats supporting abortion access compared with about 31 percent of Republicans.

The anti-abortion march comes a day before thousands of women descend on Washington for their third march opposing Trump's presidency.

(Additional reporting and writing by Jonathan Allen; editing by Scott Malone editing by Jonathan Oatis)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy on Thursday that called North Korea an ongoing and 'extraordinary threat,' seven months after he declared the threat posed by Pyongyang had been eliminated. The Missile Defense Review, which also detailed concerns about the burgeoning capabilities of Iran, Russia and China, was a broad examination of efforts to shield the United States from enemy missiles, including a push to develop space-based sensors and study the development of space-based weapons. 'Our goal is simple: To ensure we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States - anywhere, anytime, anyplace,' Trump said at the Pentagon as he unveiled the report.

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy on Thursday that called North Korea an ongoing and "extraordinary threat," seven months after he declared the threat posed by Pyongyang had been eliminated.

The Missile Defense Review, which also detailed concerns about the burgeoning capabilities of Iran, Russia and China, was a broad examination of efforts to shield the United States from enemy missiles, including a push to develop space-based sensors and study the development of space-based weapons.

"Our goal is simple: To ensure we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States - anywhere, anytime, anyplace," Trump said at the Pentagon as he unveiled the report.

Trump did not mention the North Korean missile threat in his remarks. But acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan called North Korea's missiles a "significant concern."

The document was even stronger.

"While a possible new avenue to peace now exists with North Korea, it continues to pose an extraordinary threat and the United States must remain vigilant," the report said.

For Trump, who is trying to revive efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear arsenal, the report's release came at an awkward moment. Senior North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol was headed for Washington on Thursday for expected talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday and a possible encounter with Trump, a person familiar with the matter said.

The talks could lead to an announcement of plans for a second Trump summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after their meeting last year in Singapore, the source told Reuters.

Trump wrote on Twitter after the June 2018 summit that there is "no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea."

SPACE-BASED SENSORS

The Missile Defense Review recommended studying experimental technologies, including prospects for space-based weaponry that might be able to shoot down enemy missiles, a throwback to former President Ronald Reagan's 1980s "Star Wars" initiative.

It also called for investments in space-based sensors that can better detect and track incoming missiles, and perhaps counter super-fast hypersonic technology, an area in which China has made major advances.

"We will protect the American people from all types of missile attacks," Trump said. "In the past, the United States lacked a comprehensive strategy for missile defense that extended beyond ballistic missiles. Under our plan, that will change. The U.S. will now adjust its posture to also defend against any missile strikes including cruise and hypersonic missiles."

"We are committed to establishing a missile-defense program that can shield every city in the United States. And we will never negotiate away our right to do this," Trump added.

Trump specifically mentioned Iran's capabilities. The report said Iran possesses the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East.

"Its desire to have a strategic counter to the United States could drive it to field an ICBM," the report said, referring to an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Trump said the United States would not impose any limits on U.S. development of missiles defenses against "any America target - whether before or after launch."

"We will not take any chances. We will only take action," Trump said.

The United States previously announced plans to increase the number of ground-based interceptors over the next several years, hiking the number positioned at Fort Greely, Alaska to 64 from 44.

U.S. military officials have said American missile defenses are primarily designed to counter attacks from countries with more-limited arsenals like North Korea, which U.S. intelligence officials believe is still advancing its nuclear program despite a halt to missile launches last year.

Pentagon officials contend that American missiles defenses are too few to counter a first-strike on the U.S. homeland by a major nuclear power like Russia or China. Washington hopes those countries will instead be deterred from attacks by America's nuclear arsenal.

The report underscored that point, but also acknowledged that in a war with a major power, the United States would use the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) defenses at its disposal.

"The GMD system is designed to defend against the existing and potential ICBM threat from rogue states such as North Korea and Iran, but in the event of conflict, it would defend, to the extent feasible, against a ballistic missile attack upon the U.S. homeland from any source," the report said.

Russia views U.S. missile defense advances as a threat. The chairman of Russia's upper house defense and security committee, Viktor Bondarev, said after Trump's announcement that the new U.S. missile-defense strategy would ramp up global tensions, according to Interfax news agency.

The Pentagon has made no secret about its concerns about Beijing's pursuit of hypersonic technology that would make missiles far harder to detect and destroy.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Mike Stone and Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Polina Ivanova in Moscow; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Will Dunham)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has canceled his delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week, due to the partial U.S. government shutdown, according to a statement Press Secretary Sarah Sanders released on Thursday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has canceled his delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week, due to the partial U.S. government shutdown, according to a statement Press Secretary Sarah Sanders released on Thursday.

Trump, who attended last year's Davos event, had planned to go again this year but last week pulled out as he grapples with Democrats in the U.S. Congress over funding for a border wall that has led to a partial shutdown of the U.S. government.

In place of Trump, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were expected to lead the American delegation, two senior administration officials said this week.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Lisa Lambert and Chris Reese)

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By Erwin Seba HOUSTON (Reuters) - Sixteen coal ash pits in Texas are leaking contaminants into groundwater, including arsenic, boron, cobalt and lithium, according to a report released on Thursday by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). Coal ash is the residue left after coal has been burned to generate power, and can include sludge from plant exhaust stacks. Coal ash is placed in pits or ponds next to coal power plants.

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Sixteen coal ash pits in Texas are leaking contaminants into groundwater, including arsenic, boron, cobalt and lithium, according to a report released on Thursday by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).

Coal ash is the residue left after coal has been burned to generate power, and can include sludge from plant exhaust stacks. Coal ash is placed in pits or ponds next to coal power plants.

The report from the national environmental group also said a federal rule governing coal pits would not prevent groundwater contamination.

"A history of weak regulatory oversight has led to this problem, and only a stronger regulatory framework can fix it," the report said. "Unfortunately, neither the federal Coal Ash Rule nor Texas's proposed coal ash program rise to that challenge."

The pollutants leaking into groundwater from coal ash pits can potentially can cause cancer and damage the human brain, heart and lungs, the EIP report said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed for looser regulations for coal plants as part of a campaign pledge to boost coal production.

A 2016 federal law allows states to develop their own coal ash regulations. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) issued a draft coal ash program in August.

TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said on Thursday the agency does not comment on reports from other organizations.

The EIP was one of three environmental organizations that asked a federal court in September to invalidate a coal ash program adopted by the state of Oklahoma.

Abel Russ, an attorney and co-author of the report, said Texas may face a legal challenge to its coal ash program.

"If the Texas rule is weaker than the federal standard, it's safe to assume there will be a legal challenge," Russ said at a news conference on Thursday.

Morrow said the draft Texas rule was being revised to match changes in the federal rule.

"A rule to create a program for the management of coal ash in Texas is in development," she said. "The TCEQ continues the process of revising the draft rule due to changes to the federal coal ash rule."

Three of the power plants covered by the EIP report were shuttered in 2018, but the coal ash pits remain.

Texas receives 24 percent of its electrical power from coal.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Peter Cooney and Bill Berkrot)

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By Alastair Macdonald and Michel Rose BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - EU Brexit negotiators are 'watching the BBC and eating popcorn', in the words of one of them, as Britain's domestic rows over leaving make for compelling TV but frustrate Europe's hopes for a clean break.

By Alastair Macdonald and Michel Rose

BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - EU Brexit negotiators are "watching the BBC and eating popcorn", in the words of one of them, as Britain's domestic rows over leaving make for compelling TV but frustrate Europe's hopes for a clean break.

Unsure whether Britain will crash out of the European Union 10 weeks from now, prolong the agony in the hope of salvaging an orderly divorce or even change its mind and stay, its neighbours are torn between "Brexit boredom" and a worry it is distracting from their own pressing problems as campaigning gets under way for EU parliament elections in May.

Hours after a packed and rowdy House of Commons tore up the deal Prime Minister Theresa May spent two tortuous years arguing over, only a few dozen of their 751 counterparts in Strasbourg showed up on Wednesday to hear EU negotiator Michel Barnier tell them all he could do is wait for Britons to make up their minds.

Several in the debate praised Britain's democratic history and were bemused by its poisonous meltdown over Brexit. Among them was Dutch conservative Esther de Lange: "Collectively, they don't know what they want," she said of watching the Commons in action. "But, boy, do they hold great speeches about it."

Compared to a full house to mark the 20th anniversary of the euro, the EU currency Britain snubbed, the hundreds of empty seats around her were a mark of Europe's weariness with Brexit.

But it also belied anxiety that paralysis in London will distract and divide leaders on other EU problems, from a slowing economy amid global trade disputes to deep divisions over money, migrants and Brexit-inspired Brussels-bashing by many members.

French President Emmanuel Macron says he does not want to "waste time" on Brexit as he presses to reshape the euro zone and the broader Union after the European elections in four months' time.

His EU affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau said Brexit took up a third of her time: "It's too much," she said, "Because we have many other things to do in Europe than dealing with a divorce."

"TIME TO MOVE ON"

Manfred Weber, an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who is leading the centre-right campaign, said that "Europe's door is still open" should Britain decide to stay. But he told Reuters: "It is now time to move on and get Brexit over with."

Weber complained that a "never-ending Brexit process" had taken "huge amounts of time, money and expertise" from the EU.

"It has consumed valuable political energy, especially in this election year," he said, "And has held us back from shaping a real positive European agenda for the future."

Nearly three years after Britain's shock referendum vote to leave put supporters of European integration on the back foot, a push to regain momentum lies behind a summit of the remaining 27 leaders to be held in the Romanian town of Sibiu on May 9.

It was intended by EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker to focus minds on a future without one of Europe's three biggest economies and two nuclear military powers, and be the culmination of efforts to end divisions threatening EU cohesion.

During last month's EU summit, which they hoped would be the last on Brexit, leaders were visibly weary of it: "The fatigue was palpable," said one diplomat in the room. "They don't want to be bothered with it. They want to get it over with."

UNITED ON BREXIT, DIVIDED ON EUROPE

If there has been a positive from Brexit, leaders say, it has been the exceptional unity the 27 have shown in negotiation -- though a scary end-game could yet test that togetherness.

Many also believe turmoil in Britain has dampened appetites to follow suit, with European voters warming to the Union and eurosceptic governments, such as in Italy, Hungary and Poland, stressing their criticisms of the EU do not presage an exit.

Yet Sibiu and the EU elections on May 26 are set to expose continuing schisms on how to move the Union forward. Founders France and Germany disagree over tightening monetary union, as do Italy and its northern neighbours over sharing out migrants arriving by sea. Rich contributor states and the ex-communist east are split over filling a Britain-sized hole in the EU budget and over some eastern governments' manoeuvring to stifle their opponents.

"On Brexit, the EU has shown exceptional unity -- if only we could show the same kind of unity on everything else," lamented one diplomat involved in preparing the summit.

One result of May's troubles could be that Britain is still a member come Sibiu and the EU elections -- a new headache that makes some wary of extending the Brexit deadline. Few, however, seem willing to force Britain out against its will -- yet.

Prolonging the process, though, is bad news, said an envoy to Brussels from a non-EU country. Leaders have tried to drive it down their list of priorities and ring-fence the negotiations in Barnier's task force: "But Brexit sits around like a bad penny," he said. "You can't ignore it. It's in your face and will continue to be in your face until it's resolved."

(Additional reporting by Paul Carrel in Berlin, Padraic Halpin in Dublin, Gabriela Bazcynska in Brussels and Peter Maushagen in Strasbourg; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Iranian-American businessman who gave money to Democrats including former President Barack Obama should be released early from his 12-year prison term for a $292 million bank fraud and moved to home confinement, his lawyers said on Friday. Lawyers for Hassan Nemazee, 68, who has spent nearly 8-1/2 years in prison, said he qualified for early release under a prison reform law signed by President Donald Trump last month

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Iranian-American businessman who gave money to Democrats including former President Barack Obama should be released early from his 12-year prison term for a $292 million bank fraud and moved to home confinement, his lawyers said on Friday.

Lawyers for Hassan Nemazee, 68, who has spent nearly 8-1/2 years in prison, said he qualified for early release under a prison reform law signed by President Donald Trump last month.

The bipartisan First Step Act lets judges release to home confinement some older prisoners who have served at least two-thirds of their sentences.

Nemazee's lawyers said their client has been a model prisoner, has a job and housing lined up for after his release, and "embodies the very paradigm" of the type of person Congress intended for home confinement.

The lawyers said the Federal Bureau of Prisons has not responded to Nemazee's request for home confinement, possibly because of the partial government shutdown, and asked U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in Manhattan to grant it.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan declined to comment.

Nemazee, a U.S. citizen whose family left Iran after the 1979 revolution, pleaded guilty in 2010 to obtaining $292 million in loans from Bank of America Corp , Citigroup Inc and HSBC Holdings Plc by using fake documents to show he had the necessary collateral.

His criminal case was separate from his political activities. These included being a top "bundler" of contributions to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and donating money to Hillary Clinton, who was Obama's first secretary of state and lost her own White House run in 2016 to Trump.

Other prisoners have also invoked the First Step Act to seek home confinement.

On Jan. 7, another judge rejected that relief for Bernard Madoff's longtime secretary Annette Bongiorno, who is serving a six-year prison term over her role in her boss's Ponzi scheme, saying it was initially in the prison bureau's discretion.

The case is U.S. v. Nemazee, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 09-cr-00902.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A North Korean envoy arrived in Washington on Thursday for expected talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a possible encounter with President Donald Trump aimed a laying the groundwork for a second U.S.-North Korea summit. The envoy arrived on the same day Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defence strategy that singled out North Korea as an ongoing and 'extraordinary threat,' seven months after he declared after his first summit with leader Kim Jong Un that the North Korean threat had been eliminated

By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A North Korean envoy arrived in Washington on Thursday for expected talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a possible encounter with President Donald Trump aimed a laying the groundwork for a second U.S.-North Korea summit.

The envoy arrived on the same day Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defence strategy that singled out North Korea as an ongoing and "extraordinary threat," seven months after he declared after his first summit with leader Kim Jong Un that the North Korean threat had been eliminated.

Kim Yong Chol, Pyongyang's lead negotiator in denuclearisation talks with the United States, was due to meet Pompeo and could also go to the White House on Friday, a person familiar with the plan said, a sign of potential movement in a diplomatic effort that has appeared stalled for months.

The North Korean visit could yield an announcement of plans for another summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There has been no indication, however, of any narrowing of differences over U.S. demands that North Korea abandon a nuclear weapons programme that threatens the United States or Pyongyang's demand for a lifting of punishing sanctions.

Kim Yong Chol, a hardline former spy chief, arrived in Washington on a commercial flight from Beijing, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Pompeo had planned to meet his North Korean counterpart to discuss a second summit last November, but the meeting was postponed at the last moment.

Diplomatic contact was resumed after Kim Jong Un delivered a New Year speech in which he said he was willing to meet Trump "at any time," South Korea's ambassador to the United States, Cho Yoon-je, told reporters last week.

Kim Yong Chol was last in Washington in June, when he delivered a letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump that opened the way for the June 12 summit in Singapore.

That meeting yielded a pledge from the latter to work towards denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and Trump declared the next day that there was "no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."

There has been little obvious progress since, however, which was underlined by the Missile Defense Review unveiled on Thursday.

Introducing the report, acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan noted that North Korean missiles remained a "significant concern." Trump himself only mentioned North Korea in passing at the same event, saying negotiations he had conducted should have been done years ago.

"CONCRETE STEPS"

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged on Wednesday that efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal had not made headway.

"While the president is promising dialogue with Chairman Kim, we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region," Pence said in an address to U.S. ambassadors and other senior American diplomats at the State Department.

Trump said on Jan. 2 that he had received a "great" letter from Kim Jong Un and would probably meet him again in the not-too-distant future, but there was no rush.

Pyongyang had stopped missile and bomb testing and if it had not been for his administration "you'd be having a nice big fat war in Asia," he said.

CNN quoted a source familiar with the U.S.-North Korea talks as saying that Kim Yong Chol would be carrying a new letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump.

Kim Yong Chol will be the first top North Korean official to stay overnight in Washington since the late Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok did so ahead of talks with then-President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000.

Communist-ruled Vietnam, which has good relations with both the United States and North Korea, has been widely touted as the most likely venue for a second meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un.

The Washington Post quoted people familiar with recent diplomatic activity as saying that if announced soon, the summit would probably take place in March or April, with the coastal city of Danang the most likely venue.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, David Brunnstrom and Phil Stewart in Washington and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Editing by Nick Macfie and Sonya Hepinstall)

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By Sofia Menchu TAPACHULA, Mexico (Reuters) - Hundreds of mostly Honduran migrants entered southern Mexico on Friday, joining around 1,000 other people from Central America who crossed a day earlier and putting to the test Mexico's vows to guarantee the safe and orderly flow of people. The cohort crossed into Chiapas state before dawn without needing the wrist bands that officials on Thursday gave migrants to wear until they could register with authorities, several migrants and an official told Reuters.

By Sofia Menchu

TAPACHULA, Mexico (Reuters) - Hundreds of mostly Honduran migrants entered southern Mexico on Friday, joining around 1,000 other people from Central America who crossed a day earlier and putting to the test Mexico's vows to guarantee the safe and orderly flow of people.

The cohort crossed into Chiapas state before dawn without needing the wrist bands that officials on Thursday gave migrants to wear until they could register with authorities, several migrants and an official told Reuters.

"The road today was open," said Marco Antonio Cortez, 37, a baker from Honduras travelling with his wife and children, ages 2 and 9. "They didn't give us bracelets or anything, they just let us pass through Mexico migration."

A migration official at the entry point, who asked not to be named because she was not authorized to speak to media, said that at least 1,000 people crossed from Guatemala into Mexico by around 5 a.m., without needing wrist bands.

Migration officials did not reply to requests for comment on why the wrist bands were not required on Friday.

The migrant group proceeded on foot alongside cars on a highway, accompanied by federal police officers, arriving at a shelter in the city of Tapachula around midday.

Sitting by the side of the road rubbing cream onto his children's feet, 40-year-old Honduran migrant Santos Pineda said he and his family entered Mexico easily, and without having to provide documents or wear any wrist bands. The family's plan was to press on to the United States, he said.

Mexico's migration institute said in a statement the migrants can stay in temporary shelters in Mexico until they receive humanitarian visas allowing them to remain in the country, or they wait in Guatemala for their document to be ready.

Groups of migrants left El Salvador and Honduras earlier in the week, the latest in a string of caravans of people largely fleeing poverty and violence.

The caravans have inflamed the debate over U.S. immigration policy, with President Donald Trump using the migrants to try to secure backing for his plan to build a wall covering the country's southern border with Mexico.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is pursuing a "humanitarian" approach to the problem, vowing to stem the flow of people by finding jobs for the migrants. In exchange, he wants Trump to help spur economic development in the region.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Susan Thomas and Leslie Adler)

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North Korea, backed by ally China as well as South Korea's dovish government, is hoping for an easing of international sanctions, but the United States insists on maintaining maximum pressure until Pyongyang moves forward on giving up its nuclear weapons.

Washington: A top North Korean general is in Washington on Friday for a rare visit, during which he is expected to meet President Donald Trump as the two countries seek to finalise a new summit aimed at denuclearisation and easing decades of hostility.

Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, arrived on Thursday evening in the US capital, the latest peace-making mission just a year after once-soaring tensions began to abate.

The North Korean negotiator abruptly cancelled his last planned talks in the United States  a meeting set two months ago in New York with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo  and this time the administration has treaded cautiously, not announcing his visit in advance.

But an American source, who could not be identified as the schedule has not been announced, said that Pompeo would welcome Kim on Friday for a meal in Washington before the two are expected to head together to the White House.

Trump has repeatedly voiced eagerness to see Kim Jong-un again after their landmark June summit in Singapore, the first meeting ever between sitting leaders from the two countries that never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Trump has repeatedly hailed his diplomacy as a triumph, recently saying there would have been "a nice big fat war in Asia" if it were not for him. He has said to expect an announcement soon about the second summit, with diplomats seeing Vietnam and Thailand as possible venues.

In a sign that frictions have eased since the official's no-show in November, Trump, who has mused that he and Kim Jong-un are "in love", said he received a warm new letter from the North Korean leader earlier this month.

For Trump, the made-for-television summitry with the young and elusive North Korean leader also offers a welcome respite from news at home.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is probing whether Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia, and his insistence that Congress fund a wall on the Mexican border has shuttered the US government for nearly a month.

For Kim, the stakes are more existential as he seeks guarantees of the survival of his regime. Kim, backed by ally China as well as South Korea's dovish government, is also hoping for an easing of international sanctions, but the United States insists on maintaining maximum pressure until Pyongyang moves forward on giving up its nuclear weapons.

In Singapore, Kim promised his "unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula." But the two sides appear to have different ideas on how to define that, with the United States expecting North Korea to give up nuclear weapons assembled over decades of work and Pyongyang more broadly seeking an end to what it sees as US threats.

"I think there is somewhat of a general consensus of what denuclearisation means. I think there is obviously still disagreement on how to get there  whether denuclearisation is the end of the process or the process itself," said Jenny Town, managing editor of the 38 North web journal on North Korea policy at the Stimson Center.

"Realistically, they can talk about it all they want to, they can define the end goal, but if you don't have a common understanding of how to get there, you're not going to reach that common goal," she said.

She noted that Americans have traditionally preferred to hash out the details of agreements before big summits, while the type of leader-driven diplomacy favoured by Trump is more common in Asia. "People have been very sceptical of this top-down approach, but we won't know unless we try it," she said.

Pompeo in a recent interview voiced hope at reaching a deal with North Korea that would "create a much better, safer America" but cautioned that it was unlikely to be finished during the next summit.
A bombshell BuzzFeed story that details investigators claims that Donald Trump told his lawyer to lie to Congress about his deep Russia connections during the 2016 election campaign is being hailed as a gamechanger in the American political scene. Political analysts are comparing this to the Titanic coming at the iceberg and Trump is the Titanic.

New York: A bombshell BuzzFeed story that details investigators claims that US president Donald Trump told his lawyer to lie to Congress about his deep Russia connections during the 2016 election campaign is being hailed as a gamechanger and "Watergate 2.0" in the current American political scene. "The Titanic is coming at the iceberg and Trump is the Titanic is a soundbite heard on telly today symptomatic of the mood before another tension filled weekend in Trumpworld.

Elizabeth Holtzman, author of 'The Case For Impeaching Trump' and Watergate era prosecutor says bluntly we are in Watergate 2.0.""In Watergate, the man who lied for Nixon went to jail and Nixon resigned. Thats where we are today, Holtzman told MSNBC.

What's new in the BuzzFeed story that has (re)ignited calls for Trump's impeachment is that law enforcement sources are saying Trump told Cohen to lie about his Russia project. That's more than what's already known from Robert Mueller probe's court filings about Trump's Russia connections. These are the precise conditions surrounding both the Nixon and Clinton impeachment proceedings: perjury and obstruction of justice.

If the latest BuzzFeed report is true, its perjury and it could define how the US presidency ends. Thats the big if/ then conclusion everyone in Washington is coming to, except, of course, the White House, which predictably, continues to call Cohen a liar and expects that Trumps base will buy it wholeheartedly.

Then again, this story is explosive because its not about Cohen, its coming straight from the investigators who will not be saying this unless they have solid corroborating evidence that can be proved in court.

Lets not forget, Clinton was impeached for perjury. This is history repeating itself in front of us, presidential historian Jon Meacham said hours after the story broke.

High crimes and misdemeanours remain undefined in the Constitution; many have said openly that impeachment is not something to rush into but now, after this BuzzFeed story, historians are saying it's less about Trump and much more about testing the durability of the 242 year experiment that the US Constitution represents.

Even the president's nominee for attorney general, William Barr, said at his confirmation hearing this week that a president or anyone else who instructs a witness to lie or change his testimony commits illegal obstruction of justice.

The BuzzFeed story goes straight to the core of Trumps Achilles heel - it implicates the US presidents adult children Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Quoting unnamed investigators involved in an investigation of the matter, the BuzzFeed report quotes sources saying that Trump and his children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. received regular, detailed updates about a prized Moscow real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project.

Will this be the moment when Republicans pull the plug on Trump?

That question has been asked before and the answers are before us: The US government has been shut down for nearly a month, 800,000 workers are living without pay and not a single Republican has broken ranks.

So, why does the BuzzFeed report matter when even the threat of a Mueller report isnt moving the needle?

Because, if true, its the first time we are hearing from investigators that Trump told his lawyer to lie about Russia to mitigate the downside of the story getting out. Mueller has not told us this but Mueller knows this. Again, if true, this will be in the Mueller report and because we dont know if the American public gets to see the report or not, every leaked story matters. Its how we piece together whats behind the redacted portions of Muellers court filings and how the 2016 election was won.

So far, the parallels to the Nixon era have dominated but equally, the end days of the Clinton are coming into sharper focus. Clinton stonewalled for seven straight months that he had had sexual relations with that woman referring to Monica Lewinsky and through all that time, the public had already processed the situation so it wasnt such a shock when Clinton finally confessed in August 1998. Trump has stonewalled ever since he took office about connections with Russia and hush payments to women. Bill Clinton was impeached on the narrowest grounds of all - perjury. Trump is way beyond both Watergate and the Clinton scandal already, say historians.
By Robin Emmott and John Irish BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - In Tehran on Jan. 8 during a meeting with European envoys, Iranian officials abruptly stood up, walked out and slammed the door in an extraordinary break with protocol.

By Robin Emmott and John Irish

BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - In Tehran on Jan. 8 during a meeting with European envoys, Iranian officials abruptly stood up, walked out and slammed the door in an extraordinary break with protocol.

The French, British, German, Danish, Dutch, and Belgian diplomats in the Iranian foreign ministry room had incensed the officials with a message that Europe could no longer tolerate ballistic missile tests in Iran and assassination plots on European soil, according to four EU diplomats.

"There was a lot of drama, they didn't like it, but we felt we had to convey our serious concerns," one of the diplomats said. "It shows the relationship is becoming more tense," a second said.

An Iranian official declined to comment on the meeting.

The next day, the European Union imposed its first sanctions on Iran since world powers agreed the 2015 Vienna nuclear arms control deal with Tehran.

The sanctions were largely symbolic but the stormy meeting encapsulated the unexpected shift in European diplomacy since the end of last year. Smaller, more dovish EU countries have joined France and Britain in a harder stance on Tehran, including considering new economic sanctions, diplomats say.

Those could include asset freezes and travel bans on Irans Revolutionary Guards and Iranians developing the Islamic Republic's ballistic missile programme, three diplomats said.

The new approach moves Europe closer to U.S. President Donald Trump's policy of isolating Iran with tough sanctions even though European governments still support the 2015 Vienna deal from which he withdrew in May.

Although there are diverging views in Europe, the shift could have consequences for President Hassan Rouhani's government as it looks to European capitals to salvage that deal.

It could also strengthen anti-Western sentiment in Iran and lead to more aggressive Iranian moves around the Middle East, where the Islamic Republic is involved in proxy wars with its main regional rival Saudi Arabia.

Iran's firing of short-range ballistic missiles into Syria on Sept. 30, missile tests and a satellite launch this month have niggled Western powers.

For Europe, alleged assassination plots by Iran on French and Danish soil in 2018 were the last straw, diplomats say.

Tehran denies the plots and says the missile tests are purely defensive.

"The accusations against Iran over the past few months have awoken a few countries in Europe that were against a tougher line on Iran," a European-based Middle East diplomat said.

The same day as the meeting, the Netherlands publicly blamed Iran for killings on its soil in 2015 and 2017. Tehran denies any involvement. Then on Jan. 9, the EU designated a unit of Iran's intelligence ministry a terrorist organisation, froze its assets and those of two men.

"Take the Dutch for example. They had kept very quiet until the Danish attack and now they are more hawkish than the French," said the diplomat.

Alarmed by Trump's "America First" policy, Europe considered his May 8 decision to pull out of the Iran accord a severe setback but Iran's international ambitions appear to offer Brussels and Washington a chance to work more closely.

A U.S. State Department official said there was now "a growing international consensus" on the range of Iranian threats.

"The U.S. welcomes Europe's efforts to counter Iranian terrorism on European soil, its missile launches, human rights abuses, and other threats," the official said.

DIALOGUE FALTERS

As the Trump administration accused Iran last year of harbouring nuclear ambitions and fomenting instability in the Middle East through its support for militant groups in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, the EU sought dialogue with Tehran.

At meetings between European and Iranian diplomats last year, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, pressed for gestures on Iran's role in Syria's war and for help to end the conflict in Yemen.

But multiple bilateral talks on the ballistic missile programme have yielded no results.

The EU tried to show Iran that compliance with the nuclear accord would still mean economic benefits despite Trump's decision to reimpose U.S. sanctions and choke off Iranian oil exports by pressuring U.S. allies.

The European Union is set to officially launch a mechanism, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) to trade with Iran later this month but it will not be operational for several months. It will be registered in France, run by a German and likely to include Britain as a shareholder.

"There's a feeling of frustration among Britain, France and Germany, and others, after the first phase of diplomacy with Iran," another senior EU diplomat said. "We thought we could get some effort from the Iranians in several areas."

Iran says Europe may not be able to safeguard the nuclear deal anyway and accused European officials of dragging their feet.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and senior nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi said last week "operational steps" were needed from Europe as political support not enough.

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's powerful Assembly of Experts said on Thursday Europe "would do nothing in our interest."

"The Europeans are worse than the Americans. If not, they are not any better," he said, state TV reported.

EU DISAGREEMENTS

Last March, as part of efforts to convince Trump to stick to the nuclear deal, France, Britain and Germany proposed asset freezes and travel bans on the IRGC and Iranian companies and groups developing the missile programme, according to a document seen by Reuters.

Now, a similar set of measures is being prepared, three diplomats say.

"We'd prefer not to take these measures, but they need to stop trying to kill people on our territory and over the last three years they have beefed up their ballistic programme," said one senior European diplomat.

The diplomats say getting all 28 EU members to agree will take time.

The EU's top diplomat Federica Mogherini, who helped seal the 2015 deal, is wary of moving too fast for fear of provoking a complete collapse of the accord, four diplomats said.

EU foreign ministers planned to issue a rare joint statement on Jan. 21 about what they say is Iran's interference in the region and calling for an end to missile tests. Diplomats said Mogherini wants to see the SPV established first.

An EU official denied any split in policy between Mogherini and EU governments, saying the statement will be published as soon as the SPV is launched.

EU diplomats said eastern European governments could also go too far against Iran to please Trump in return for security guarantees against Russia.

EU diplomats said there was a risk that a two-day conference in Poland in February focused on the Middle East, particularly Iran, convened by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, could divide eastern and western Europe.

Mogherini is unable to attend due to another official engagement, an EU official said, and it is not clear at what level France, Britain and Germany will be represented.

"There are clearly risks in attending," another diplomat said. "While we don't think Iran will withdraw from the nuclear deal, we don't need to force them into the abyss and deepen an arms race in the Middle East."

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; editing by Anna Willard)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Amanda Becker WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two years after filling the streets of U.S. cities to protest the start of Donald Trump's presidency, women will march again this weekend to try to build political pressure against him ahead of the 2020 elections

By Amanda Becker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two years after filling the streets of U.S. cities to protest the start of Donald Trump's presidency, women will march again this weekend to try to build political pressure against him ahead of the 2020 elections.

The loose movement around the marches has splintered as it enters its third year, and one of the various groups now involved has faced criticism it is anti-Semitic, which it denies. But leaders of the groups say momentum has not slowed, and the rallies will celebrate unprecedented gains for women in congressional and state races in last year's midterm elections.

Millions of people took part in the women's marches in Washington and other cities in the United States and abroad on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after the Republican president was sworn in.

Vanessa Wruble, a co-founder of the original Women's March on Washington who left to start March On, a separate grassroots coalition, said the movement has evolved from being a reaction to Trump's presidency.

It was "essentially the resistance movement, and now you see the movement being far more proactive," she said.

Women's March, a national nonprofit organisation that evolved from the initial Washington march, is using its #WomensWave marches in Washington and elsewhere on Saturday to roll out a 10-part policy platform that includes raising the federal minimum wage and protecting reproductive rights.

"Women are just not on the agenda in this current administration," Women's March Chief Operating Officer Rachel Carmona said.

March On will kick off an initiative to mobilise women voters by hosting a "March on the Polls 2020" on Saturday in dozens of cities, including Boston and Denver.

Dozens of like-minded organizations will host training sessions for activists and prospective candidates.

More than 400 women have applied to attend a candidate training session this weekend in Washington hosted by Emily's List, an organisation that works to elect women who support abortion rights, said spokeswoman Tonya Williams.

Wruble said the 2018 elections showed the movement had "shifted the balance of power" in American politics. More women were elected to the U.S. Congress than ever before and many of the new Democratic women lawmakers cited Trump's presidency among the reasons they decided to run for office. [nL2N1XI2CH]

Of course, women are not all united around the same causes. The annual "March for Life" by anti-abortion campaigners, which takes place in Washington on Friday, is a movement of people who broadly embrace Trump and Republicans.

GRASS-ROOTS EFFORTS

At the outset, March On was bankrolled by leaders covering expenses out of pocket, but it raised a "sizeable" amount of money in 2018 and aims to raise $2 million in 2019, Wruble said.

March On distributes funds to local affiliates for on-the-ground planning, provides design assistance for websites and logos and gives access to a public relations firm. In February and March, the group's leaders will meet with affiliates to determine how best to support their efforts over the next election cycle.

"This year is really going to be about increasing our tool chest of what we offer to them," said March On's Natalie Sanchez, an organizer of the 2017 Boston Women's March who is also with March Forward Massachusetts, which is leading Saturday's march there.

The Women's March now counts national progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Move On among its partners. March On partners include the ACLU, Rock the Vote and Emerge America, which recruits Democratic women to run for office.

Women's March's Carmona said she spends 60 hours a week on planning calls, including "chapter" calls with 30 to 45 local organizations. The group did a 10-state tour ahead of last year's congressional elections and is developing a nationwide strategy that would train more local leaders ahead of the 2020 presidential contest, she said.

There have been growing pains in a movement that grew out of hundreds of loosely affiliated marches in 2017.

In cities such as New York, there will be multiple events on Saturday hosted by different organizations, largely due to calls by some religious leaders to boycott Women's March over criticism that some of its leaders are anti-Semitic.

Women's March leader Linda Sarsour issued a statement condemning all forms of anti-Semitism and bigotry. Leaders Tamika Mallory and Bob Bland reiterated on ABC's talk show programme "The View" this week that they were committed to a movement that fought all forms of oppression.

Leaders of Women's March and March On insist the divisions are not a weakness.

"I know there have been controversies this year and rifts and divides and those may or may not affect numbers on particular marches, but I haven't seen that have any effect on the movement's strength over all," Wruble said.

Carmona said "there is a role for everyone" no matter which group they join, adding decentralized movements had a kind of power that is "hard to strike at."

(Reporting By Amanda Becker; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Frances Kerry)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
A US think tank has claimed that H-1B workers are 'vulnerable to abuse' and frequently placed in 'poor working conditions', seeking reforms like a substantial increase in wages to those holding the visa, popular among Indian IT professionals.

Washington: A US think tank has claimed that H-1B workers are "vulnerable to abuse" and frequently placed in "poor working conditions", seeking reforms like a substantial increase in wages to those holding the visa, popular among Indian IT professionals.

In a report, the South Asia Centre of the Atlantic Council also sought safeguards like providing fair working conditions, and greater employment rights for those working under the visa programme.

The report comes days after US president Donald Trump said he is soon coming out with reforms that will give H-1B visa holders certainty to stay in America and an easy pathway to citizenship.

H1-B holders in the United States can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship. We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the US, Trump had tweeted on Friday.

The H-1B visa, popular among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

The think tank report has been authored by Ron Hira from Howard University and head of South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council, Bharat Gopalaswamy. The current system not only harms Americans, but it also enables H-1B workers to be exploited, according to the report."H-1B workers themselves are underpaid, vulnerable to abuse, and frequently placed in poor working conditions.

"Adopting safeguards to ensure H-1B workers are paid appropriate wages, provided fair working conditions, and given greater employment rights would not only improve their lives, but would also better protect US workers, it said.

The report said adopting adequate safeguards would also ensure the H-1B programme contributes to the US economy by filling genuine shortages in the labour market with foreign workers who possess rare skills and can be rightly characterised as the best and brightest".

The think-tank suggested three key reforms and said these should apply to all employers and not simply a subset of them. The first, and most important, reform is to substantially raise the wages of H-1B workers. If the United States is going to invite in the best and brightest workers, they ought to be paid in the top quartile, the report said.

Second, employers should demonstrate they have actively recruited US workers, and offered positions to qualified people, prior to turning to the H-1B programme, it said. The rationale of the H-1B programme is to fill labour gaps and not simply to swell the pool of candidates for employers, the report observed.

Third, the programme needs an effective and efficient enforcement mechanism, the think-tank said, claiming that the current programme compliance is complaint-driven, resting almost entirely on whistleblowers to reduce fraud. This is a poor design, it said.

The Atlantic Council said there should be adjustments to the allocation process. It makes no sense to allocate H-1B on a first-come, first-served basis or, even worse, by random lottery  as occurs when the program is immediately oversubscribed, it said.
US president Donald Trump has postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to meet military officials and troops in Afghanistan and Brussels, saying she was needed in Washington DC for negotiations to end the partial government shutdown.

Washington: US president Donald Trump has postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to meet military officials and troops in Afghanistan and Brussels, saying she was needed in Washington DC for negotiations to end the partial government shutdown.

Trump's move came on Thursday a day after the House Speaker urged him to reschedule his annual State of the Union address slated for 29 January, citing security concerns triggered by the shutdown that has entered its 27th day.

"Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over," Trump said in a letter to Pelosi, a copy of which was released to the press. The president also said postponing this "public relations event" was totally appropriate.

The longest-ever shutdown in US history has rendered over 8,00,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including Security and State department.

In light of the 8,00,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that, Trump said.

However, Pelosi's spokesman Drew Hammaill said the visit's purpose was to express appreciation to US troops and obtain "critical" briefings from them. The trip did not have Egypt as a stop, he said.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divide over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House have refused to approve a legislation approving $5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border.

"I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the strong border security movement to end the shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative, Trump said.

The president said: I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!

Trump's letter to Pelosi came soon after the House Speaker told reporters at the US Capitol that the president has been silent for more than 24 hours on the issue of rescheduling his annual State of the Union address.

We haven't heard. It was a very silent more than 24 hours, to your question that you ask me every time I step out of the office, have you heard? No, we haven't heard yet. Pelosi said taking a dig at the president.

The House Speaker's spokesman, Hammill, said the Congressional Delegation to Afghanistan included a required stop in Brussels for pilot rest.

In Brussels, the delegation was scheduled to meet with top NATO commanders, US military leaders and key allies  to affirm the United States' ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance. This weekend visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt, the spokesman said.

The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines, Hammill said.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, We want to keep her (Pelosi) in Washington. If she leaves, she guarantees that the second round of paychecks to 8,00,000 federal workers won't go out. The deadline to make that deal is midnight on Tuesday."

She wasn't scheduled to be back until Wednesday. The president wants her here to negotiate," she said.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.

The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.

The ongoing shutdown on 12 January broke the previous record of 21 days of US government shutdown under the Bill Clinton administration from 16 December, 1995 to 5 January, 1996.
China is also improving its existing domestic airfields to handle heavier payloads, constructing airfields on islands and outposts in the resource-rich South China Sea, and restructuring airfields to support military and civilian use.

Washington: China has planned to construct about 1.3 million kilometres of roads and 26,000 kilometres of expressways by 2020 to bolster its military's ability to mobilise more expediently across greater spans of the country, the Pentagon has told the US Congress.

The Chinese rail network has about 100,000 kilometres of track, 10,000 kilometres of which is high-speed track supporting trains running at up to 250 kilometres per hour, the Pentagon said in its 2019 China Military Power report.

Beijing is initiating infrastructure projects and targeted funding allocations, it said.

"Future transportation network improvements will bolster the People's Liberation Army (PLA's) ability to mobilise by moving higher numbers of units more expediently across greater spans of the country," it said.

The PLA is the world's largest standing army.

"China expects to build about 1.3 million kilometres of roads and 26,000 kilometres of expressways by 2020," the Pentagon said in its report to Congress.

China is also improving its existing domestic airfields to handle heavier payloads, constructing airfields on islands and outposts in the resource-rich South China Sea, and restructuring airfields to support military and civilian use, it said, adding as of June 2016, about one-third of China's airports supported military and civilian use.

The PLA exercises control of China's airspace, filling a role similar to that which the Federal Aviation Administration plays in controlling airspace in the United States, it said. Although the Civil Aviation Administration of China administers Chinese civil aviation, the PLA authority takes precedence over the airspace, the Pentagon said.

Consequently, the PLA regularly adjusts civil aviation schedules and flight paths to avoid PLA activities, such as exercises and other operations, it said.

In mid-2016, China allocated $600 billion as part of a three-year plan (2016-2018) to continue improving its transportation network and passed the Defence Transportation Law (DTL) authorising the management, development and production of dual-use facilities and equipment to support national and regional PLA operations, the report said.

According to the Pentagon, transportation is also at the heart of President Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which consists of establishing roads, railways and ports to connect to countries from Asia to Africa and Europe.

"Although the BRI is marketed as primarily an effort to increase trade and development, China's improved domestic transportation infrastructure and access to transportation infrastructure abroad also would benefit the PLA by enhancing PLA access to transportation hubs and road systems," the report added.
The bomber  who authorities confirmed was killed in the attack  struck at Colombia's General Francisco de Paula Santander Officer's School in the south of Bogota during a promotion ceremony for cadets

Bogota: Colombia's government declared three days of mourning on Thursday after at least 21 people died in a car bomb at a Bogota police cadet training academy, and 68 were wounded  the worst such incident in the city in 16 years. The defense ministry said the "terrorist act" was carried out using a vehicle packed with 80 kilograms of explosives.

"Unfortunately, the preliminary toll is 21 people dead, including the person responsible for the incident, and 68 wounded," Colombian police said in a statement, adding 58 of those injured had been discharged from hospital. The defense ministry had previously reported 11 dead and 65 injured.

"All Colombians reject terrorism and we're united in fighting it," President Ivan Duque tweeted in the aftermath.

Later in a statement to the nation, he said he had ordered reinforcements to Colombia's borders and routes in and out of cities.

"I have also requested that priority be given to all the investigations ... to identify the masterminds of this terrorist attack and their accomplices," he said.

The bomber  who authorities confirmed was killed in the attack  struck at the General Francisco de Paula Santander Officer's School in the south of Bogota during a promotion ceremony for cadets.

No group has claimed responsibility, but public prosecutor Nestor Humberto Martinez named suspect Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez as the "material author of this abominable crime."

Martinez said Rojas Rodriguez entered the school compound at 9:30 am driving a grey 1993 Nissan Patrol truck, but gave no details about the explosion.

He said the truck underwent an inspection in July in the Arauco department on the border with Venezuela  a traditional stronghold of ELN Marxist guerrillas.

"Brutal act of terrorism"

Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno said one of the dead was an Ecuadoran cadet, while a second suffered light injuries.

"The brutal act of terrorism in Bogota took the life of a compatriot," Moreno said on Twitter.

"My sincerest thoughts go to the family, friends and companions of Erika Chico."

Meanwhile, Panama's President Juan Carlos Varela said that 45 Panamanian cadets were present during the attack, with two injured.

Fanny Contreras, the Colombian armed forces' health inspector, told local radio that the truck "entered (the school compound) suddenly, almost hitting the police, and then there was the explosion."

Carol Oviedo said her brother Jonathan, a cadet, told her on the phone he had been injured, before the connection was cut.

"In two years since he joined the police, he's never had to face a situation like this," she said.

Like other families, she was lingering in the vicinity of the academy hoping to hear some news.

United States assistant secretary of state in charge of Latin America, Kimberly Breier condemned the attack and said: "Our condolences and sympathies go to the victims and family members of those killed."

The US embassy in Bogota offered its "help in investigating this reprehensible attack."

"Horrible, horrible"

Rosalba Jimenez, 62, was opening her confectionary store near the school when the bomb went off.

"When we turned to look at the school the sky was grey with smoke. People were running, sirens...horrible, horrible, it seemed like the end of the world," Jimenez said.

Authorities sealed off the area to the press and increased security service patrols in the south of the city, AFP reporters said.

Right-wing Duque, who assumed power in August, has peddled a tough line against Marxist rebels and drug traffickers in the largest cocaine producer in the world.

Peace talks with ELN guerrillas  who in the past have claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on police  stalled before Duque replaced Juan Manuel Santos as president, and have not been restarted.

Duque has made several demands, including the release of all hostages, as prerequisites to kick-starting the peace process, but the ELN has dismissed those as unacceptable.

After the 2016 peace accord signed by Santos and FARC guerrillas, turning the former rebels into a political party, the ELN is considered the last active rebel group in a country that has suffered more than half a century of conflict.

That cycle of violence has also involved paramilitaries, drug traffickers and other Marxist rebels, including FARC dissidents.

A year ago, six police died and 40 were injured in an attack on a police station in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla that was claimed by the ELN.

In February 2017, the ELN claimed responsibility for an attack on a police patrol in the Macarena neighborhood of Bogota that left one officer dead and several seriously wounded.

In June, three people  including a Frenchwoman  were killed and nine others wounded in an attack on a Bogota shopping mall that authorities blamed on a fringe left-wing group called the Revolutionary People's Movement (MRP).
On Michelle Obama's birthday, nearly a million likes on both Instagram and Twitter, have poured in for the picture of the power couple who first met at a law firm in Chicago in the late 1980s where Michelle in fact mentored Barack for a time

As former first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama celebrates her 55th birthday on 18 January 2019, it is an Instagram post by her husband, the former president Barack Obama, that is doing the rounds on social media.

The post reads, I knew it way back then and Im absolutely convinced of it today  youre one of a kind, @MichelleObama. Happy Birthday! and the picture is a throwback to the early 1990s, taken when the couple had just gotten engaged.

I knew it way back then and Im absolutely convinced of it today  youre one of a kind, @MichelleObama. Happy Birthday! pic.twitter.com/ejqm0uC9J4  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 17, 2019

Nearly a million likes, on both Instagram and Twitter, have poured in for the picture of the power couple who first met at a law firm in Chicago in the late 1980s where Michelle in fact for a time, mentored Barack who was fresh out of Harvard Law. They were married in 1992. The former FLOTUS took to Twitter to express her gratitude for all the wishes. "Feeling so incredibly thankful for my South Side roots, my soul-affirming partner and daughters, and every unimaginable twist and turn over these 55 years," she wrote.

Thank you all so much for the birthday loveI love you all right back! Feeling so incredibly thankful for my South Side roots, my soul-affirming partner and daughters, and every unimaginable twist and turn over these 55 years. Cant wait to see what becomes of the next one! https://t.co/XPiPpFY4HT  Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) January 17, 2019

Praise has also gushed in for Obama in spades with people commenting that they missed having a president who cared about his family. Thousands of Instagrammers and Twitterati have also commented and shared the picture wishing the former first lady on her birthday, whose bestselling work Becoming, that released in 2018, has proved to be an insightful read into the inner workings of her eight years in the White House, her marriage and her life growing up in Chicago, Illinois.

I miss having a president who truly cared about his wife. Happy Birthday Michelle!  Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) January 17, 2019

I'm crying . True love & power https://t.co/wlKHGxkC9I  Fresh Green T !  (@FreshGreenT) January 18, 2019

Happy Birthday to the best First Lady ever! Thank you both of you for all that you have done for our country and continue to do. We are so lucky to have had you guiding our country.  HiHo HiHo Its Off to Jail He Goes (@TerriAgloro) January 18, 2019
It looks like how and whether to spend more on K-12 schools this year will dominate this years legislative sessions.

Almost all 50 states legislatures will be in session this year and a large portion of them have budget surpluses as a result of recent federal tax cuts, buoyed property tax revenue, and for natural resource-dependent states, an uptick in oil prices.

Many of the governors elected last fall are looking to deliver on promises they made on the campaign trail to provide more funding to schools and boost teacher salaries. More than 29 states still have not restored school funding to pre-recession levels and many districts continue to make dramatic cuts because of other obligations such as pensions and health-care costs.

But expanding pre-K, boosting teacher pay, and assuring that new money is spent on the classroom is a complicated and politically arduous task . Most voters are still hostile toward new taxes, though they say they sympathize with protesting teachers, and many states are bracing for a potential recession.

Some states, such as Massachusetts and Colorado, are looking to scrap wholesale their decades-old funding formula in an effort to redistribute resources toward schools most in need. Others, such as Kansas and Washington state, are responding to court rulings to spend more on schools while others, such as Tennessee, will try to preempt the school funding lawsuits making their way through their states court systems.

Following is a list of states where fights over school funding will be especially politically contentious:

Arizona: After a five-day-long statewide teachers strike last year, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey promised to provide teachers with a 20 percent raise by 2020. This year, the state has a surplus of more than $1 billion, but Ducey said in his state-of-the-state address that the state should prepare for a recession and put the money in savings.

New Mexico: Democrats swept the statehouse during last years election and promised early on to replace the states school accountability system and boost school funding. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said this week she wants to boost teacher pay by 6 percent and increase the states K-12 spending by more than $500 million.

Massachusetts: While celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Massachusetts Reform Act last year, many public school advocates in the state say the funding formula is now antiquated and must be replaced by one that is more responsive to the states contemporary needs. A recently proposed bill that would add more than $1 billion to the states school spending has support from several legislators and Marty Walsh, the mayor of Boston.

Maryland: The states legislature determined late last month, weeks before this years session was set to begin, that the Kirwan Commission tasked with designing a new funding formula wont be able to finish its recommendations in time for the legislature to take action next year. The announcement came just weeks after the commission led by former University System of Maryland Chancellor William Brit Kirwan released a preliminary estimate that it would take more than $4.4 billion over the next decade to provide Marylands increasingly diverse student body an adequate education. Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has feuded with Democrats over how to spend new revenue generated from the states casinos .

Kansas: Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly shocked the nation when she upset Republican Kris Kobach in last years election by running almost exclusively on the issue of school funding. The states legislature has been caught up in a longstanding battle with the states supreme court over how much the states public schools are owed after Gov. Sam Brownback slashed state taxes, sending a wave of budget cuts to its schools. The states Republicans this year are looking to again overhaul the states funding formula while Gov. Kelly wants to use a large portion of a surplus to answer the courts demand that the state spend an additional $364 million over the next four years on schools.

Idaho: Republican Gov. Brad Little recently said school funding will be a top priority  this year. In a rare joint session, both chambers this week met for an informational session on how to overhaul their states funding formula. The new formula would allow money to follow the student in the mostly rural state, though the states department of education has said in the past that it struggles to track where students attend school .

Texas: After Texas supreme court said in 2016 that its not the courts role to determine how the state legislature spends its money, politicians raced to replace the states infamous funding formula known for its Robin Hood effect of taking money from oil-rich districts and spending it on poor districts. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has promised to cut taxes, while a blue ribbon committee set up to find a replacement for the states funding formula stopped short of placing a sticker price on how much the state should spend on schools in order to avoid future legal battles over funding. A bill proposed in the senate would provide the states teachers with a $5,000 raise . It would cost the state $3.7 billion over the next two years.
Abu Bakar Bashir, a radical cleric, thought to be the spiritual leader of the Bali bombers will be released from prison on medical grounds, Indonesia's president said Friday

Jakarta: A radical cleric thought to be the spiritual leader of the Bali bombers will be released from prison on medical grounds, Indonesia's president said Friday.

Abu Bakar Bashir, 80, is believed to have been a key figure in terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which was blamed for the 2002 bombings on the holiday island which killed more than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists.

It was Indonesia's deadliest militant attack and prompted Jakarta to beef up anti-terror cooperation with the US and Australia, which has previously opposed clemency for Bashir.

Indonesian leader Joko Widodo said on Friday that he had agreed to order the ailing preacher's release from a prison on the outskirts of the capital.

"The first reason is humanitarian," Widodo told reporters.

"He is old... and his health condition was also part of the consideration." In 2011, the firebrand preacher  once synonymous with militant Islam in Indonesia  was sentenced to 15 years in jail for helping fund a paramilitary group training in the conservative Islamic province of Aceh.

Bashir, the co-founder of an infamous Islamic boarding school known for producing militants, was jailed after authorities in the world's biggest Muslim majority country broke up the camp.

Several militants convicted over their involvement in the Bali bombings have been executed while two others, including Malaysian Noordin Mohammed Top, were killed in police raids in 2009 and 2010.

Bashir, who has repeatedly denied involvement in terror attacks, was also previously jailed over the Bali bombings but that conviction was quashed on appeal.

Al-Qaida-linked JI was founded by a handful of exiled Indonesian militants in Malaysia in the 1980s and grew to include cells across Southeast Asia.

As well as the 2002 Bali bombings, the radical group was blamed for a deadly 2003 car bomb at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta and a suicide car bomb the following year outside the Australian embassy.

An anti-terror crackdown weakened some of Indonesia's most dangerous networks, including Jemaah Islamiyah.

The Islamic State (IS) group proved to be a potent rallying cry for Indonesia's radicals, with hundreds travelling to the Middle East to join the jihadists.

Last year, a wave of deadly suicide bombings at churches and a police post rocked Indonesia's second biggest city Surabaya.

Those attacks were carried out by families  including children  linked to local extremist network Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
Reuters

Vodafone is teaming up with IBM to offer businesses a way to link different cloud computing systems to support the next wave of digital advances, such as machine learning, on super-fast fifth-generation telecoms networks.

As part of the deal, the UK-based telecoms operator will pay $550 million to IBM under an eight-year managed-services agreement that will offer tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to networked businesses.

The two companies are pitching the venture as a combination of cloud computing and connectivity that would, for example, enable super-fast communication between robots on a factory floor without the need for a big pipe back to a data centre.

And, with an estimated 70 percent of organisations using up to 15 different cloud systems, the ability to link them should make it easier for firms to adapt and innovate without having to redesign their networks from the ground up.

Businesses are beginning to embrace digital ... as they do that they get a lot of complexity, Greg Hyttenrauch of Vodafone, one of the co-leaders of the project, told Reuters in an interview.

We predicated this venture on the ability to simplify that complexity.

Vodafone has built a strong position in mobile services for business, it is the number 1 or number 2 provider in Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain, and is stepping up its battle against BT, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia and Telefonica in the fixed-line business market.

It aims to grow business service revenue, which currently accounts for 30 percent of its total, by combining fixed-line and mobile services with new technology in areas like AI and the Internet of Things.

The venture will focus on Vodafones British, German and Irish markets, targeting multinationals and national enterprises operating in industries such as retail, manufacturing, utilities, agriculture or transportation.

It is expected to be operational in the first half of 2019.

The partnership seeks to bring IBMs prowess in handling multiple cloud-based systems to bear, and reflects the priorities behind its $34 billion takeover of Red Hat, a software firm that specialises in Linux operating systems, said IBMs Michael Valocchi, the other co-lead.

Analyst Dave Bartoletti at Forrester Research said the deal recognised Vodafones need for a partner to build out its cloud computing services.

At the same time, IBM is moving away from competing head on with hyperscale cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google that offer hosted memory, network and storage services that can grow with the needs of big, data-intensive businesses.

Instead, it is aiming to be the go-to company for enterprises who need to stitch together multiple cloud platforms, said Bartoletti.

Analyst Carla Arend at IDC estimates the global cloud market at $420 billion this year, with the market for global cloud connectivity worth another $2 billion.

The combined global market opportunity is huge, she said.

Ireland and Britain have already allocated 5G spectrum and Germany is about to auction frequencies for a mobile technology that will offer downloads far faster than on existing networks, as well as ultra-low latency, or reaction times.

Combining these characteristics with significant computing power will make it possible to deploy applications such as AI, or computerised problem solving, in the field.

Telecoms operators say they expect to start offering 5G services from next year in European markets that have moved to allocate spectrum and build out networks.
tech2 News Staff

The Vivo APEX concept smartphone sporting a full-screen display with a 98 percent aspect ratio and a retractable selfie camera made its first appearance at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in 2018. After a positive response, the company launched its flagship  Vivo Nex and Nex S smartphone with a motorised pop-up camera.

Now the company seems to be following the tradition of experimenting and attaching quirky elements to its smartphone.

As per a post on Weibo by the company, the Chinese company now is set to bring in something new with its upcoming phone called Vivo APEX 2019.

The company through the post has teased the launch of the new phone on 24 January in China.

The caption in the post roughly translates to: A year ago, Vivo APEX portrayed a new world of full screens. A year later, #vivo APEX 2019# evolved again, using technology to wake up to the future. See you on January 24.

The report in GizmoChina mentions the phone to be codenamed as 'The Waterdrop' and is expected to come with a curved design with no notch, no physical buttons and no bezels.

Also, the phone is also expected to come with a sixth-generation in-display fingerprint sensor with a larger area and an improved sensor.
Mamata Banerjee said the mega Opposition rally being hosted by the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata on 19 January would sound the 'death knell' for the BJP.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said the mega Opposition rally being hosted by the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata on Saturday would sound the "death knell" for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls and regional parties would be the deciding factor.

She also claimed that the BJP's seat count in the general election will not cross more than 125. The number of seats that the state parties will win will be much more than the BJP's, she further claimed.

Who's in?

Among the list of politicians who will attend West Bengal chief minister's rally on Friday are Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who have already arrived in West Bengal for the Friday rally, reported Times Now.

Banerjee said that Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Abhishek Manu Singhvi will attend the rally.

Chief Ministers Arvind Kejriwal, H Kumaraswamy, N Chandrababu Naidu, former prime minister HD Devegowda, former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, DMK's MK Stalin, BSP's Satish Mishra, besides dissident BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, are among those likely to attend the mega rally.

Former BJP leaders Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie will also attend the rally.

Who's out?

The most conspicuous absence from Banerjee's rally will be that of Congress president Rahul Gandhi and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

According to PTI, West Bengal Congress had wanted the Gandhis to stay away from the rally and send in another leader as Banerjee had also skipped the swearing-in ceremony of Kamal Nath as Madhya Pradesh chief minister last month and had instead sent party MP Dinesh Trivedi.

Odisha chief minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief Naveen Patnaik will also not be attending the event.

Another important politician who has decided to skip the rally is BSP chief Mayawati. "BSP chief Mayawati is known for her political ambitions. And she is known to give events a miss if she is not the centre of attraction. Mayawati has not been seen at a rally where she does not have an upper hand," said this article in India Today.

Leaders from CPM and CPI will also not attend the rally. Sources told NDTV that they were not invited for it too.

Even though Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao had met Banerjee last month, he will also not be attending the rally.

With inputs from PTI
CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury will discuss the possibility of formation of a secular front in the State with like-minded parties during his two-day visit to Tamil Nadu from 22 January

Coimbatore: CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury will discuss the possibility of formation of a secular front in the State with like-minded parties during his two-day visit to Tamil Nadu from January 22, the party's state secretary K Balakrishnan said Friday.

Yechury will visit Tirunelveli on Tuesday and participate in a function to unveil a statue of Lenin, Balakrishnan told reporters in Coimbatore.

The next day Yechury would address a rally organised by Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), a Dravidian Tamil nationalist party, in Tiruchirapalli, Balakrishnan said.

Asked about the CPM participating in the opposition rally organised by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee at Kolkata tomorrow, CPM politburo member G Ramakrishnan said the main aim of his party was to form a secular and alternative government at the Centre.

The party was evolving a strategy across India to defeat BJP, he said.

As far as West Bengal was concerned, the ruling Trinamool Congress was functioning in a "pseudo-fascist" manner and indulging in violence against workers of left parties, he alleged.

"The party is in the election arena opposing both the BJP and Trinamool Congress," he said.

Ramakrishnan and Balakrishnan were here to unveil the portrait of late CPI leader Jeeva at the CPI-M's district office.
Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah on Friday said his party was shifting its MLAs to a resort to 'escape' from the BJP's 'onslaught.'

Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah on Friday said his party was shifting its MLAs to a Bengaluru resort to escape from the BJP's "onslaught." The former Karnataka chief minister also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah of destabilising the coalition government as they "fear getting just three our four seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls".

"All our MLAs will stay together, we will discuss drought situation. All our MLAs, MPs and ministers will stay together in one place... We will stay as long it is necessary," Siddaramaiah said. Speaking to reporters, he said, "We will discuss party issues... to escape from the onslaught by the BJP. We will discuss drought, Parliament election also."

Siddaramaiah, Congress: Including Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and central ministers are also involved in this process of destabilising our Govt. They approached our MLAs with huge offers of 50-70 crores. I have proof. How come a Chowkidar has so much money? #Karnataka https://t.co/qlVytYgdfe  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

According to top Congress sources, at least eight party MLAs had committed to jumping ship. To avoid this, MLAs were shifted to a resort on the outskirts of the city, the sources said. Siddaramaiah, however, said they will discuss preparation for parliamentary elections during their stay. Responding to a question about on resort politics while Congress was chiding the BJP for the same, he said: "...because they (BJP) are troubling our MLAs by offering money... we have to escape from that."

"None of the Congress MLAs will go (to BJP), he said adding "but, still as a precautionary measure we are going (to a resort)." Accusing BJP of involving in a "conspiracy" to destabilise the government, he said they been snubbed two or three times in the past, but still started going down an anti-democratic path. "They (BJP) don't believe in democracy, Constitution. Yeddyurappa says they have gone to Delhi to discuss parliament polls. What are 104 MLAs doing in the seven-star hotel at Gurugram?" he questioned.

Bengaluru: Karnataka Congress MLAs reach Eagleton resort after CLP meeting. pic.twitter.com/sKX5eVyV72  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

Not only state leaders of BJP, central leaders of the party, including Modi, Shah and central ministers were involved in attempts to destabilise the coalition government in Karnataka, Siddaramaiah alleged. He further said BJP wanted to destabilise the government because in the south of India, Karnataka is the only state where the saffron party has a presence.

"Last time they had won 17 seats (in Lok Sabha), they can't win even a seat in other states like Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala. Here somehow they want to win some seats, that's their intention. As there is coalition government they know we (Congress and JD(S)) will go together," he said.

"According to the information that I have, BJP has done an internal survey. According to them, if they win three or four seats it is a great thing. All others we Congress and JD(S )will win. In other parts of the country also it is a disappointing picture for the BJP, so shamelessly prime minister, (BJP chief) Amit Shah themselves, being a national party are indulging in such things," he said.

Asserting that Congress MLAs were together, Siddaramaiah said, "Our team is intact; our party is intact and united." "BJP's allurements of money amounting Rs 50 crore, 100 crore, 25 crore. How chowkidar's party is running? Mr Narendra Modi calls himself chowkidar, where is chowkidar getting the money from?" he questioned. "I will give you evidence. They have spoken to our MLAs like Anil Chikkamadu, Shivalli, Hebbar, Anajali and Ramappa, among others," he said, claiming the BJP lured them with money and ministerial posts.

Meanwhile, Karnataka chief minister Kumaraswamy reiterated that his government was stable and assured that he was in touch with all the MLAs who skipped the CLP meet.

Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy on 4 MLAs not attending CLP meeting: Nothing will happen, they will also come and join us. I am regularly in touch with them. pic.twitter.com/QloCQoiGyw  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

With inputs from PTI
Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria asked Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to specify how many farmers had benefitted from the loan waiver and how much money had been deposited in their bank accounts so far.

Jaipur: The Rajasthan Assembly was adjourned for half an hour on Friday following an uproar in the House as the opposition BJP sought clarity from the ruling Congress over the farm loan waiver order.

On 19 December last year, two days after being sworn in, the Congress government in Rajasthan waived short-term crop loans from cooperative banks and loans of up to Rs 2 lakh taken by farmers from other banks.

In the run-up to the assembly elections, the Congress had promised to waive the farm loans in Rajasthan within 10 days of coming to power.

Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria dubbed the state government's loan waiver order as "handicapped" and claimed it was creating confusion among the farmers. Kataria asked Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to specify how many farmers had benefitted from the loan waiver and how much money had been deposited in their bank accounts so far.

"What was the purpose of bringing out a 'handicapped' order? It should be clarified how much money was deposited in the farmers' bank accounts as the government had promised to waive the loans in 10 days," the BJP leader said.

Deputy Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore asked the government the date when the funds will be deposited in the bank accounts of the farmers and said rhetoric will not suffice.

Responding to the opposition, Gehlot said the government had taken a decision and its implementation will take time. The government's intention is that maximum farmers benefit from the loan waiver, he said.

The chief minister said a committee had been formed to decide the eligibility criteria and his government had also written to the Centre to help the state get the farmers out of financial crisis.

Gehlot attacked the BJP for describing the order as "handicapped".

"I object to the opposition terming the government order as 'handicapped'. Order can never be handicapped but it thinking of the opposition. Our ideology and policies are clear," he said.

Following Gehlot's reply, the opposition MLAs raised slogans and trooped into the Well of the House, alleging that the Congress' 10-day promise was deceiving. Amid the din, Speaker CP Joshi adjourned the House for half an hour.
Biju Janata Dal is unlikely to participate in the 'united opposition rally' in Kolkata in pursuance of its policy of keeping an equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress

Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal is unlikely to participate in the "united opposition rally" in Kolkata in pursuance of its policy of keeping an equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress, a BJD leader said Friday.

The mega rally is being organised by TMC president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday to show opposition unity ahead of the crucial general election this year.

Sources in the Trinamool Congress said an invitation has been sent to all anti-BJP parties for the mega rally.

The absence of Odisha chief minister and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik or his representative at the event is bound to set the tongue wagging in the political circle.

"The BJD has been maintaining equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress since 2009. Therefore, it is not possible for the regional party to join the united opposition rally tomorrow," BJD spokesman PK Deb told PTI.

Patnaik had made it clear that the BJD will not be a part of the Mahagathbandhan, a national level alliance against the BJP-led government at the Centre.

BJD's political stance holds significance as Odisha, where they are in power since 2000, sends 21 members to Lok Sabha.

In December, Patnaik met Telangana Chief Minister and TRS president K Chandrashekar Rao, who is trying to bring all regional parties together. Rao's agenda is to unite all non-Congress and non-BJP parties.

"We are state parties and BJD is maintaining equal distance from both the Congress and BJP," Patnaik had said after meeting Rao. The Telangana chief minister had also met his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee a day after meeting Patnaik.
The AAP on Friday ruled out the possibility of an alliance with Congress for Lok Sabha polls, and added it will field candidates on all parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana.

Ending months of speculation, the AAP on Friday ruled out the possibility of an alliance with Congress for Lok Sabha polls, and added it will field candidates on all parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana.

Senior AAP leader and party's Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai said the decision came in the wake of the recent statements of Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh and Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit, opposing an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party. "In the interest of the country, we were ready to drink the poison of Congress, but the statements show that the Congress is still seeped in its arrogance. The AAP will contest all Lok Sabha seats in the three states on its own," Rai said at a press conference. Dikshit refused to comment on the development. "I do not have to react on what he said. It's his opinion," she said.

Rai said AAP in collaboration with "like-minded" parties in the country, will defeat the BJP in Delhi and get a new government installed at the Centre. He said the "vision" of an alliance with Congress came into being on suggestions of leaders like Mamata Banerjee, MK Stalin, Chandrababu Naidu and Farooq Abdullah. "Like-minded leaders like Farooq Abdullah, MK Stalin, Chandrababu Naidu, Mamata Banerjee among others stressed that despite disagreements with Congress, we (AAP) should fight the elections together in the interest of the country," he said.

The AAP, despite objections of its Delhi and Punjab units, was ready to go with Congress to end the "dictatorship of Modi-Shah combine" and to save the Constitution, he said. "The way Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh issued a statement that AAP has no takers in Punjab and Sheila Dikshit said that Congress is a national party and it can not ally with a small party like AAP, made it clear that Congress kept its arrogance above the interest of the country." Delhi Congress working president Devender Yadav said AAP's decision proved that only it was vying for an alliance for the coming polls. "They were running after us for an alliance and now rejecting it. It shows that they had interest in it and when we declined, they backed out," Yadav said. He said that Delhi Congress is of firm view that it will contest Lok Sabha polls alone.

The AAP, which is the main opposition party in Punjab, will launch its campaign for Lok Sabha polls in the state with a rally in Barnala on 20 January which will be attended by party chief Arvind Kejriwal. The candidates on the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi will be announced soon, Rai added.

Meanwhile, Delhi BJP took a dig at AAP describing the party as "sour grapes" after hopes of an alliance with the Congress had been struck down. The Aam Aadmi Party's announcement that it will contest all the Lok Sabha seats alone in Punjab, Delhi and Haryana shows that it was "not accepted" in the political world, said Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari. "The AAP saying it will have no alliance with the Congress and contest alone amounts to it being sour grapes," Tiwari said.

The party was "scared" of defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and was trying to forge an alliance but that was not possible because of the newly appointed president of Delhi Congress Sheila Dikshit, he said. "The Lok Sabha elections will be contested on the issues of leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the development works under his policy 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas'," he asserted.

The leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta claimed that there was "panic" among the opposition parties due to the fast implementation of public welfare schemes under the leadership of Modi and they are trying to forge alliances for survival.

With inputs from PTI
The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) met under the sword of disqualification of those who skipped the meeting.

Indicating that the threat of defection of its legislators to the BJP still loomed large, the Congress in Karnataka shifted its legislators to a luxury resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru, immediately after the legislature party meeting convened on Thursday evening to conduct a head count.

The Congress Legislature Party (CLP), which met under the sword of disqualification of those who skipped the meeting, witnessed the abstention of only four legislators, much to the temporary relief of the party leaders.

While Umesh Jadhav of Chincholi wrote to CLP leader Siddaramaiah, pleading his inability to attend the meeting due to illness, B Nagendra of Ballari Rural claimed that he was busy with a court matter.

Former minister Ramesh Jarkhiholi, MLA from Gokak and the principal dissident, and Mahesh Kumatalli of Atheni, boycotted the meet without offering any reason.

The CLP began more than two hours behind schedule as the leaders were anxious to ensure the presence of all 79 party MLAs, minus the Speaker, KR Ramesh Kumar. News cameras captured Basavakalyan MLA Narayana Rao virtually running towards his car at Bengaluru airport to rush to Vidhana Soudha on receiving a call from Siddaramaiah.

After a brief meeting, which lasted less than half an hour, Siddaramaiah told reporters that he would be issuing notices to four absentees  two of them who had sought permission and two others, Jarkhiholi and Kumatalli, who deliberately stayed away  and seek their explanations. After consulting the party high command, disciplinary action would be initiated against them.

He accused the BJP leadership, including Prime Minister Narandra Modi and party president Amit Shah, of being involved in Operation Lotus to destabilise the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka.

There were unconfirmed reports late Thursday evening that Ramesh Jarkhiholi would resign as Congress MLA on Friday.

Soon after the CLP meeting, the legislators were huddled together and sent to Eagleton resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru city. The central observer, KC Venugopal, said the legislators would stay in the resort as long as required.

Reeling under the BJPs determined bid to woo dissident legislators for the past few days, Congress decided on calling the CLP meeting to take a head count and to clearly identify those who were wavering. The notice for the meeting included a whip invoking provisions of the anti-defection law and threatening disqualification of those who stayed away.

Legal experts were not convinced whether a whip would be applicable for a CLP meeting held outside the legislature. Disqualification is usually invoked when members leave the party individually and associate themselves with another party or vote against the wishes of the party.

BJP, meanwhile, decided to bring back to Bengaluru its 100-odd legislators confined to a 5-star hotel at Gurugram, Haryana for the past one week.

BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa ridiculed the Congress leaders for holding CLP meeting under the gun of disqualification and said the Congress was even now trying to lure BJP legislators with offers of crores of rupees to defect to its side. The BJP, after moving its legislators from Gurugram to Bengaluru, is likely to keep them together at a safe hideout for some more time.

The battle to woo legislators is likely to intensify when the state legislature begins its budget session on 8 February.
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State BJP president BS Yeddyurappa is keeping his hopes up of ousting the government so that he can replace Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy

It seems the obituary was written far too prematurely for the BJPs so-called 'Operation Lotus' to dislodge the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government in Karnataka. Even as the BJP extended the confinement of its MLAs in Gurugram by a day or two, the Congress on Friday night quarantined its legislators in a plush Bengaluru resort. The Congress decided to keep its MLAs in safe custody after four legislators didnt show up at the legislature party meet earlier Friday. The four abstentions are too few to pose an immediate threat to the coalition government, but enough to send fresh jitters through the Congress camp, considering the alliances thin margin.

Before the crisis began, Congress and JD(S) had a strength of 118 members in an Assembly of 224 (against BJPs 104), while the mark of simple majority stands at 113. Of the four who didnt show up, one said he was too sick to make it, and another claimed he was busy with a court appearance. Two Independents supporting the government seem to be perched  rather conveniently  on the fence. State BJP president BS Yeddyurappa is keeping his hopes up of ousting the government so that he can replace Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy of the JD(S), with the silent approval from his central leaders, who believe that grabbing power in Karnataka might give BJP an edge in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

On the face of it, it seems the BJP has a tough task to get the numbers it needs. Even if the four MLAs who gave the Congress meeting a miss continue their defiance, at least nine more must desert the party to destabilise the government. This will lower the target of a simple majority in the Assembly to a level that's easier for thr BJP to reach. But what keeps Yeddyurappa's hope alive is that the mess in the Congress of its own making is serious enough to make more dissidents vulnerable to the allurements that the BJP is dangling before them.

Yet, the BJP can hardly claim the moral high ground in this sordid drama. The saffron party is as scrupulous as the burglar saying he tried to empty a house because the family was busy squabbling. It's too early to declare that the government is safe or is about to fall. With each side guarding its flock to stave off poaching by the other, the only thing certain at this point is that the curtains haven't fallen on the nataka in Karnataka.

Karnatakas four wars

In the normal circumstances of an Opposition trying to topple a government, the ruling party proving its flock is intact  more or less should end all confusion. But no one is saying that the mess in Karnataka fits into the normal template of political coups. Thats because this crisis is not a simple case of BJP fighting the Congress-JD(S) combine and trying to break its seven-month government. Its not just one war: There are four wars being fought at the same time. The most obvious one is between BJP and the alliance. The second is the war between Yeddyurappa, who is in a hurry to take the seat of the chief minister, and his enemies within his party who want to leave the government alone and focus on winning the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The third war is between JD(S) and Congress over who calls the shots in the government. And the fourth and the most terrible tussle is among the different factions of the Congress.

It is the Congress infighting that most threatens the longevity of the coalition government. At its very centre is Siddaramaiah, whose tenure as chief minister ended when the Assembly elections in May 2018 threw up a hung verdict. Left to his own devices, Siddaramaiah would have retired to the sidelines to lick his electoral wounds. But Congress president Rahul Gandhi hit upon the idea of manufacturing a miniature mahagathbandhan for Karnataka. Rahul thrust on his party an alliance with JD(S) to earn himself accolades as the only man capable of saving India from the "evil designs" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP.

But Siddaramaiah didnt know what hit him when Kumaraswamy, the son of his one-time political godfather and arch enemy HD Deve Gowda, became chief minister. And G Parameshwara, a Dalit leader of Congress for whom Siddaramaiah has no particular love, became deputy chief minister. What further added to Siddaramaiahs chagrin was that DK Shivakumar, an upper caste Vokkaliga leader of Congress and one of Indias richest politicians, began to flex his political and economic muscles and earned himself the nationally telecast title of "troubleshooter" by thwarting Yeddyurappa's attempt to steal Congress MLAs after the election.

When all this happened, Siddaramaiah embraced Deve Gowda and his son Kumaraswamy. But that was only for the TV cameras. Behind their backs, Siddaramaiah had other ideas. Just what those ideas might be, Karnataka is discovering only now. For his part, Rahul kept Siddaramaiah in good humour, keeping in mind his backward classes clout. Siddaramaiah declared himself on Twitter to be the partys official troubleshooter.

But it was alleged that when there were no troubles for Siddaramaiah to shoot, he created them: so that he could be seen to be busy sorting them out. The latest trouble Siddaramaiah created was by appropriating for his acolytes ministerial berths in the 22 December cabinet expansion. But this became too much of a fire for even him to douse. That was when the original troubleshooter Shivakumar stepped in, and it became a question of who held the party in his hands. And as this went on, Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy took the matter into their own hands. Gowda had a heart-to-heart talk with Rahul, while Kumaraswamy commissioned Congress leaders to talk to disgruntled MLAs.

This meant that the JD(S) chief minister himself became a third troubleshooter. This, for Siddaramaiah, was two troubleshooters too many. But dissidents fell in line after apparently being promised Lok Sabha tickets, ministerial berths and freedom to transfer officials as they pleased (in their constituencies). This was not to Siddaramaiah's liking. Then came Siddaramaiah's move to call the meeting of the legislature party  as its leader  to tell Kumaraswamy who controlled the fate of his government. Which was not to Kumaraswamy's liking.

In the middle of all this, Kumaraswamy bemoaned on Thursday that it is my misfortune to be serving as the chief minister in a coalition government for the second time. Hence, I am unable to deliver programmes as expected by the people. This might sound suspiciously like the melancholic outburst of a chief minister beleaguered by enemies out to topple him, but it was an adroit way of telling the world particularly Rahul  that the crisis has the Congress hand written all over it.

Thats where matters stand today. But as the last line of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind goes: After all, tomorrow is another day.
Union minister Jayant Sinha on Thursday denied media reports that he had predicted an unstable government as the 'most likely' outcome of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Sinha tweeted that the media 'misquoted' him.

Union minister Jayant Sinha on Thursday denied media reports that he had predicted an unstable government as the "most likely" outcome of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Sinha tweeted that the media "misquoted" him.

"My most likely scenario is that the 2019 elections have already been won under the inspiring leadership of the honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modiji," he said in a tweet.

Media is misquoting me from the #CNBCTV18IBLA Countdown To 2019 Lok Sabha Polls. My most likely scenario is that the 2019 elections have already been won under the inspiring leadership of the Hon. PM Shri Narendra Modi ji.https://t.co/unAdvUr4TB  Jayant Sinha (@jayantsinha) January 17, 2019

Earlier on Thursday, PTI quoted Sinha as saying, "If indeed we end up in a situation where we don't have a strong, stable government, (which) I think that is in fact the most likely case, I think that will be something that will not be good for India going forward," speaking at the CNBC-TV18's India Business Leadership Awards in Mumbai. The country has transformed and the priority now is to inform the people about this change, the minister also said.

"For us, the goal is to inform, to ensure that people understand all that we have done and all that is at risk consequently," Sinha had reportedly said. Sinha's remarks come in the backdrop of the setback the ruling BJP suffered in Assembly elections in three states recently.

Industrialist Sajjan Jindal also spoke at the event, and termed the general elections as one of the biggest risks (to the economy) the country is staring at. On his expectations from the next government, he said the influence of state-run companies should diminish.

Agreeing with him, banker Uday Kotak said we need to reimagine the financial sector, and the next government should be "seriously considering" how to handle state ownership in this crucial sector. He was quick to clarify that he is not pitching for the private sector to take over the state ownership, but for the ownership to be broadened in such a way that the general public's ownership in the companies grows.

Kotak also pitched for a 0.50 percent cut in the repo rate by the Reserve Bank along with a cut in the cash reserve ratio.

With inputs from agencies
For about a year, Mamata Banerjee toured the country in an effort to shore up a strong and united Opposition front to fight the Lok Sabha election against the BJP. In the run up to the major gathering of anti-BJP parties, several cues and controversies ensured all eyes remained on the 19 January rally as the political circles kept buzzing.

Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is set to host a mega Opposition show of strength in Kolkata on Saturday. For about a year, Mamata has toured the country in an effort to shore up a strong and united Opposition front to fight the Lok Sabha elections against the BJP.

In the run up to a huge gathering of anti-BJP parties, several cues and conjectures ensured all eyes remained on the 19 January rally as the political circles kept buzzing.

The Congress issue

A major talking point of the rally is the potential absence of the top leadership of BJP's biggest challenger at the national level. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi are likely to skip the event, and will instead send senior Congress leaders, the likes of Mallikarjun Kharge and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, for the party's representation.

Speculations have been rife over the absence of the Congress 'biggies'. However, reports have said that it was the West Bengal unit of the Congress that didn't want Rahul and Sonia to attend the event. Also, the state leadership is believed to have told the party chief that Congress workers were ready to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections alone.

The West Bengal Congress leaders were reportedly also annoyed over the fact that the TMC supremo did not invite any state leader for the rally. Rahul in the past had assured the West Bengal unit that any decision in regard with forging an alliance with the TMC will be taken after considering state leadership's view. Mamata hasn't addressed any of these matters yet.

Importance given to regional leaders

Throughout her outreach exercise, Mamata ensured that prominence was given to the regional parties. Leaders of non-BJP parties from "Kashmir to Kanyakumari" would be present at the rally, Mamata told reporters.

Though the West Bengal chief minister hasn't verbally pushed for an anti-Congress federal front, she has asserted that the regional parties will be the deciding factor in the Lok Sabha elections. The maximum she did to keep the Congress involved was when she went to Delhi to invite Rahul and Sonia.

Among the regional bigwigs expected to address the rally are former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Karnataka counterpart HD Kumaraswamy, Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.

Patidar leader Hardik Patel, Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani and Babulal Marandi of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha will also be present. DMK president MK Stalin, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh and Lalu Prasad's son Tejashwi Yadav would also be among the political leaders at the rally.

Though Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati has decided to stay away, she has deputed senior leader Satish Chandra Mishra. Samajwadi Part and BSP joined hands in Uttar Pradesh only last week to take on the BJP during the Lok Sabha election. Despite Mayawati move, Mamata said that the presence of Satish Mishra "is a big thing for us".

National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah have also confirmed their participation. Though the Left parties were invited too, they haven't confirmed their presence at the rally.

Interestingly, BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha will also attend the rally. Over the years, Sinha has been attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a number of issues. However, he will attend the rally as a representative of "Rashtra Manch", a political action group launched by former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha.

Differences over PM candidate

An obvious question that ails the parties batting for a united Opposition front is who will be their prime ministerial face.

In December, 2018, MK Stalin had proposed Rahul's name as the prime ministerial candidate of the united Opposition. However, Mamata refused to agree with the suggestion and said that whatever the "political parties (referring to united Opposition) decide, will be the answer".

The TMC supremo argued that the timing wasn't right to pick a candidate for the prime minister's post. "Let the election come. We all are strongly together and working together. Whatever all the political parties will decide, will be the answer. It is a good step as all parties and their leaders are coming together," she had said.

Mamata's constant criticism of the NDA government has, however, indicated that she, in fact, wants to be seen as the secular alternative to Modi. The only support for this ambition of hers came from the West Bengal BJP unit, when state president Dilip Ghosh said, "If there is any chance of a Bengali prime minister, she (Mamata) has a possibility." Even he later backtracked, saying that he was speaking about a "distant future", reported The Indian Express.

Great expectations

The Trinamool Congress is expecting a turnout of 40 lakh at the 19 January rally. Hindustan Times quoted Bengal food minister Jyoti Priya Mallick as claiming that the turnout will be bigger than the one in 1977 on the same Brigade Parade Ground that was attended by tall figures like Jyoti Basu and Jayaprakash Narayan.

Chandrababu Naidu, who has also led the efforts to forge a grand alliance, is hoping that Opposition parties will decide their "future course of action" on Saturday.

In view of the rally, the West Bengal government will deploy as many as 10,000 police personnel across the city to ensure foolproof security. Drones will be flown over the venue to keep tabs on the proceedings.

Mamata has expressed her wish to be a "listener" at the event. "I don't want to say anything, let them (Opposition leaders) say. I want to hear them. Everything will be based on consensus," she told reporters on Thursday. With several issues ailing the Opposition, what the Saturday gathering will amount to remains to be seen.

With inputs from agencies
Uday Singh, whose elder brother N K Singh is the Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, had lost his seat in 2014 to JD(U)s Santosh Kushwaha by a margin of more than one lakh votes notwithstanding the strong Modi wave

Patna: Former BJP MP Uday Singh, who has represented the Purnea Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar twice, announced his resignation from the party on Friday alleging that it has surrendered before the discredited JD(U) headed by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Singh did not reveal his cards saying until resigning from the BJP, he had no right to negotiate with any other party but gave ample hints saying he may join a Grand Alliance constituent.

He stated he saw Congress president Rahul Gandhi's popularity growing even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi of whom he had been an ardent supporter, seemed to have withdrawn himself from reality even if he has good intentions.

He also said that even while in the BJP, he never approved of the slogan of Congress-mukt Bharat. "A democracy cannot survive if the opposition is wiped out. It will degenerate into a totalitarian regime," he had said.

Singh, whose elder brother N K Singh is the Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, had lost his seat in 2014 to JD(U)s Santosh Kushwaha by a margin of more than one lakh votes notwithstanding the strong Modi wave.

With the BJP and the JD(U) having agreed to fight 17 seats each, leaving six for Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP, and Purnea being a sitting seat of Nitish Kumar's party, there is little likelihood for Singh being considered for the seat, which he had won in 2004 and 2009 and his mother Madhuri Singh had represented as a Congress nominee in the 1980s.

Singh, however, maintained that his decision had nothing to do with the possibility of getting a ticket from his seat as NDA constituents are yet to finalise which constituency will be fought by which party.

Replying to a query, he said that so far he had no talks with Rahul Gandhi or (RJD supremo) Lalu Prasad. But he was looking forward to speaking to them after taking his supporters into confidence.

He claimed that there was widespread resentment among the party cadre over the undemocratic style of current leadership and remarked it is so difficult to meet BJP president Amit Shah. "RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha kept requesting for an appointment, which was never given, and he ultimately had to resign from the Union council of ministers and quit the NDA in sheer disappointment," he said.

"Committed BJP workers are appalled over the manner the party agreed to share power with Nitish Kumar, forgetting our bitter experiences with him in the past, and also over the fact that his government is rapidly losing goodwill. Now the BJP will end up sharing the blame for his misdeeds. And as if that was not enough he was given such a massive share of seats," he remarked.
Rahul also writes about 'powerful forces...that are fanned by anger and disappointment of hundreds of millions of Indians who had seen through false promises and lies peddled by the Modi government

A day ahead of Mamata Banerjee's 'United India rally' in Kolkata, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday wrote to the West Bengal chief minister extending support. The rally, which is likely to be attended by leaders of over 20 opposition parties, is seen as a united fight against the "misrule" of the BJP government ahead of the Assembly elections in May, 2019.

"I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together," Rahul wrote.

"The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Mr Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) are intent on destroying," the letter read.

He also writes about "powerful forces...that are fanned by anger and disappointment of hundreds of millions of Indians who had seen through false promises and lies peddled by the Modi government. These forces are moved by the hope of a new tomorrow...in which the voice of every man, woman and child will be heard and respected no matter what their religion, economic status or religion."

Congress President @RahulGandhi writes to @MamataOfficial to extend his support & send a powerful message of a united India. pic.twitter.com/bf9taiTxle  Congress (@INCIndia) January 18, 2019

Rahul and Sonia Gandhi are not attending the event and the Congress party will instead be represented by Mallikarjun Kharge and Abhishek Manu Singhvi. BSP supremo Mayawati will also not attend the rally.

Those likely to attend it are chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal, HD Kumaraswamy, N Chandrababu Naidu, former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Akhilesh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's MK Stalin, besides dissident BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha. Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, who had quit the BJP on Tuesday, will also be a part of the event.

The Trinamool Congress hopes to use the mega rally to project Banerjee as a leader who can challenge the ruling BJP. On Friday, Banerjee also said how it would sound the "death knell" for the BJP in the coming Lok Sabha polls.

"It will be a United India Rally against the misrule of the BJP. It will sound the death knell for the BJP ... The saffron party's seat count in the general election will not cross 125. The number of seats the state parties will win will be much higher than that of the BJP's. The federal parties, that is the regional parties, will be the deciding factor after the elections," she claimed.

Meanwhile, the BJP leadership mocked the rally, saying the Opposition should first decide on its prime ministerial candidate before thinking of ousting Modi.

With inputs from PTI
Congress will issue notices to four MLAs seeking an explanation from them for their absence at the Congress Legislature Party meeting here on Friday, CLP leader Siddaramaiah said.

Bengaluru: Congress will issue notices to four MLAs seeking an explanation from them for their absence at the Congress Legislature Party meeting in Bengaluru on Friday, CLP leader Siddaramaiah said.

Briefing reporters after the CLP meet, Siddaramaiah said after receiving the replies from the absentee lawmakers, the issue would be discussed with the party high command and state leaders before deciding on the next step. Four dissidents skipped the CLP meet that was called as a show of strength in a counter to an alleged bid by the BJP to topple the coalition government in Karnataka.

The absentee MLAs were: Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was dropped as a minister in the recent cabinet rejig and is said to be extremely unhappy over it, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli.

Siddaramaiah said Jadhav had written saying he would not be able to attend the meet as he was unwell, while Nagendra had spoken to AICC general secretary KC Venugopal conveying his inability to attend because of a court case. The other two MLAs had not communicated anything, he said.
Though partition caused a communal rift in Assam, after Independence, the Language movement overshadowed the problem of illegal immigration into Assam.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2016 seeks to amend the existing Act of 1955. The Bill recently passed in the Lok Sabha, aims to grant citizenship to persons belonging to six persecuted faiths  except Muslims  from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of residence (reduced from 11 years) in India. This is partly in keeping with BJPs poll promise in 2014 to welcome Hindu refugees. Furthermore, the sectarian nature of the Bill also does not extend to persecuted Muslim sects like Ahmediyas and Shias. While the Bill has garnered criticism from many quarters, it's most vocal opponents come from Assam and other states in the North East. Assams regional force Asom Gana Parishad has exited the alliance with the ruling BJP government in Assam, arguing that the Bill is in direct violation of the clauses of the Assam Accord.

The Assam Accord, a socio-legal compact signed in 1985 between AASU leaders and Government of India, was a culmination of the anti-foreigners movement led by the influential student body between 1979-85. The mass movement was triggered by allegations that names of thousands of illegal immigrants were detected in the electoral lists for a parliamentary constituency in the state. Political paralysis in the state finally resulted in the Accord that sought to detect foreigners who came to Assam on or after 24 March 1971, their names deleted from electoral rolls and deported in accordance with law. Interestingly, the Assam Accord does not make any exceptions based on religious identities of foreigners so detected. It is this crucial aspect that the Citizenship Bill fails to recognise thereby undermining the historical nuances of subnational politics of borderland states like Assam.

The ongoing National Register of Citizens of India (NRC) update process in Assam is part of the larger process in identifying Bangladeshi infiltrators is the state that have arrived illegally after 24 March 1971. First published after the 1951 census, the updated NRC is expected to be a reference point against which an individual can check her citizenship status. Although contemporary politics in Assam is predicated on the fear of illegal immigrants swamping land belonging to indigenous communities, the sons of the soil movement was not a direct result of the settlement of Mymensinghias (Bengali Muslims) into the wastelands of colonial Assam.

Far from being against immigration, the upper caste Assamese as early as 1874, expressed a desire in increasing the population of Assam by importing people from outside. Evidently, the Assamese landed gentry stood to gain from immigration as it promised more income and hence it even supported British policies of settling Bengali Muslim peasants in Assam. Instead, Assamese sub-nationalism began as a protest against the dominance of Bengali Hindu migrants, who came to occupy offices in government and other middle-class occupations in the province. Bengali was the court language as well as medium of instruction in new government schools of Assam from 1837 to 1873, a move widely resented by the Assamese speaking population.

Though partition caused a communal rift in Assam, after Independence, the Language movement overshadowed the problem of illegal immigration into Assam. In fact, in the first two decades after Independence, Bengali Muslims were politically allied with the Assamese against Bengali Hindus. Bengali Muslims even returned to Assamese as their language in the Census and sent their children to Assamese-medium schools. Language riots broke out in the 1960s after the Assam government decided to make Assamese as the only official language of state thereby marginalising not only Bengali Hindus but many other indigenous groups as well.

As seen in Assams case, historically constructed social cleavages can be re-appropriated by political entrepreneurs. In the late 1970s, the issue of illegal immigration and inclusion of aliens in electoral rolls began to gain traction, the kind that was seen in 1930s-40s, in the communalised context of Partition. This movement propelled a class of student activists, both Assamese and tribal, hitherto marginalised by the Congress, to mainstream politics.

AGP, thus created, mounted a successful challenge against the one-party system of the Congress and provided the state with a regional alternative. This reworking of political alignments also brought into sharper focus religious divisions. Thus while rhetoric against immigrants mostly remained non-sectarian, targeted violence against Bengali Muslims in 1980s was institutionalised. The worst incident was the Nellie massacre in 1983 when 14 villages were simultaneously attacked killing over 1,000 people. Unofficial figures are much higher. Culturally, the Bengali Muslim is othered more systematically than the Bengali Hindu in Assam. This community has been at the receiving end of ethnic violence in Assam in recent years as well. The community is referred with a pejorative Mia to reinforce prejudiced views about their sartorial and marital practices, albeit the fact indigenous communities regularly hire them for farm work and casual labour.

Assam sub-nationalism is fraught with complex fault lines. It is shaped both by religious and linguistic cleavages as well as ideas of the territorial indigene and outsider. The Citizenship Bill, embedded in the BJPs sectarian politics out rightly irons out these complexities. It is another case of the Centre failing to understand the periphery.

The author is Assistant Professor, FLAME University, Pune.
Nagendra B, Ramesh Jarakiholi, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumtalli were four Karnataka Congress MLAs who did not turn up for the meeting of the Legislature Party on Friday.

Bengaluru: Four Karnataka Congress MLAs did not turn up for the meeting of the Legislature Party here on Friday which was convened to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculation of defections.

The Congress, which shares power with JD(S), has 79 MLAs in the 224-member Assembly and the Speaker.

Accordingly, 79 MLAs were expected to attend the CLP meeting but only 75 turned up for the meeting held under the supervision of central leaders KC Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge.

Those absent were Nagendra B, Ramesh Jarakiholi, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumtalli, the party sources said.

Ahead of the meeting, the Congress MLAs were warned that those abstaining will be expelled from the party under anti-defection law.

The Congress had said it has called the meeting of its legislators to take stock of the prevailing political situation.

"If somebody doesn't attend this (CLP) meeting, action will be taken against them under the anti-defection law. Also, it will be assumed that the member himself has decided to leave primary membership of the party," senior party leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah said on Wednesday.

The Congress' alliance partner JD(S) has 37 seats and its supporter BSP has one. The BJP is the single largest party with 104 seats but 9 short of the simple majority mark.

The meeting was called amidst allegations that the BJP was poaching on the Congress MLAs.

The BJP has been denying this allegation and in turn claimed that its MLAs were being poached upon by the Congress.

The charges of horse-trading were triggered after three Congress MLAs visited Mumbai earlier on Monday, reportedly along with some BJP MLAs.
Known for his emotional outburst, Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy Thursday appeared to have been taking a veiled attack at his alliance partner Congress as the latter party struggles to put its house in order.

On Thursday, Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy appeared to take a veiled attack at his alliance partner Congress as the latter party struggles to put its house in order.

According to CNN-News18, Kumaraswamy said it was his misfortune that he had to lead a coalition government, not once but twice. "I am unfortunate to have led the coalition government twice. Even back then, there were speculations about the government falling. The same continues now. Due to this, I am unable to work for the people although I want to meet their expectations," said Kumaraswamy at an event in the city.

Speaking to India Today, the Karnataka chief minister further said that he was unable to work due to the undue pressure of running a coalition government. He also rued about the continuous threat on his government which relies on Congress support to remain in majority. "I can't even explain the kind of obstacles I am facing in running the government. I can't work properly if my government is under threat daily. I would have performed better if I had got a majority in the Assembly," Kumaraswamy told the news channel.

Kumraswamy had led a coalition government in 2006 as well with the support of BJP. The government only lasted 20 months before the alliance was shattered.

The Karnataka chief minister, however, added that he was confident that all Congress MLAs will continue to support his party and blamed the BJP for trying to spread misinformation. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Kumaraswamy said that the Congress-JD(S) ties were "strong" and the parties will fight the upcoming Lok Sabha election together.

On Wednesday, the chief minister made a similar statement: "MLAs (Congress MLAs in Mumbai hotel) are unreachable to the media, not to me. I am in touch with everybody and I am speaking to everybody, they will come back. Our coalition is going on smoothly. I was relaxed and I am relaxed. Don't worry, be happy."

Kumaraswamy's comments come in the backdrop of allegations that the BJP was trying to pull Operation Kamala in a bid to topple the current government. However, many reports also said that the real threat to the alliance was from the discord within Congress, which was caused by unfulfilled ambition of party workers sidelined to accomodate the JD(S). The Congress allowed the JD(S) to lead the government despite gaining a larger number of seats.

With inputs from PTI
Actor-turned politician Prakash Raj said he will not join any political party and will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from the BJP stronghold of Bengaluru Central on his own.

Bengaluru: Actor-turned politician Prakash Raj on Friday said he will not join any political party and will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from Bengaluru Central on his own.

"I am going to contest independently. An MP is a statesman, he is not a corporate. You need to have an MP who can work for the constituency. Nowadays, every parliamentarian is being sucked into some political party and are not raising questions for upliftment of the people," Raj told reporters.

He also said "All are thieves. They judge people by caste and money. That's why I don't want to join anybody."

It is believed that winning the Bengaluru Central seat, which has been held by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be an uphill task for the 53-year-old actor.

The south Indian actor was not upbeat about the prospects of a single political party gaining power with a majority in the upcoming Assembly elections.

"I think India is moving towards another decade where we will not have single political parties. Every regional party is trying to stake its claim I think we are in denial if you say that one political party will do everything for us," Raj said.

He said," We have been disillusioned by one single party which can rule throughout the country. We all are in denial mode that one large party will come to power."

The actor pointed out that the country required diversity in thought and various leaders need to come together to ensure an multidimensional approach to find solutions for the country.

The popular actor termed the BJP "shameless" and blamed it for creating a "tamasha" over the MLA poaching issue in the state.

"BJP is shameless. They are not in power and are pulling down the government's legs. People are calling this a tamasha," the actor said.

In a veiled attack on the BJP, Raj said "the politics of Ram Mandir is being played from inside the air-conditioned rooms of Delhi and Lucknow."

"Look at the streets of Ayodhya and see how people are living there. What kind of Ram Rajya they want to bring in?" he asked.
Spearfish, SD (57783)

Today

Mostly sunny. High 86F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 57F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
Narendra Modi's appeal to investors went thus: India is in the throes of a major transformation and offers an opportunity in various sectors

In 2003, few would have though the humble beginnings of the vibrant Gujarat summit  initiated by then chief minister Narendra Modi  would gradually turn into an international event more on the lines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. In 2019, Narendra Modi  now prime minister  declared, in the presence of a powerful international audience, that his dream of Vibrant Gujarat has all the features of an international summit. Heads of State, captains of industry from across the globe, international investors and top CEOs lined up to learn about India. And Modi did not disappoint. He gave a crisp, but powerful speech in English directed at the international audience.

His passionate appeal to industrialists sounded much like the entreaty of Chinese reformist Deng Xiaoping, who roped in international money to promote growth. Modi's appeal to investors was simple: India is in the throes of a major transformation and offers an opportunity in sectors ranging from digital and housing to consumer goods. He emphasised that India is a bigger market than the United States, Mexico and Canada put together. His appeal of come and invest in India to take advantage of the change resonated with the audience.

Dismissing the prophets of doom, Modi effectively highlighted India's improvement in the Ease of Doing Business ranks, the reduction in red tape and simplification of the tax structure. At the same time, Modi offered the assurance that he would look out for those willing to invest in India's future, no small thing from a prime minister facing an election.

Interestingly, Modis India pitch is nothing but widening the scope of a similar pitch he made as Gujarat chief minister at previous events. As Gujarat chief minister, Modi showcased Gujarat as a "unique investment". Now, Modi is simply taking that pitch national. For the past two days, Modi has been holding meetings with delegates, top industrialists and commerce bodies to assure them about the continuity of policy. Modi's actions countered any impression of political uncertainty.

The global investor summit, held at Mahatma Mandir Convention and Exhibition Centre at Gandhinagar, is perhaps the most modern and stylish convention Centre in the country. This was a creation of Modi, when he was chief minister, and his imprint is everywhere. Fifteen countries partnered with the summit, five Heads of States turned up including Uzbekistan president Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Denmark prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Czech Republic prime minister Andrej Babis and Malta prime minister Joseph Muscat. Eight Indian states sent their representatives to engage in business talks with potentials investors, both foreign and domestic.

One of the highlights of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2019 was a special message by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu via video-conferencing, who said, Gujarat symbolises the powerful connection between our two people. Together, we're building limitless possibilities for the future.

Modi added, In India our challenge is to grow horizontally and vertically. Horizontally, we have to spread benefits of development to regions and communities that have lagged behind. Vertically, we have to meet enhanced expectations in terms of quality of life and quality of infrastructure. In four years we have reduced government and enhance governance. India is now ready for business as never before. In the last four years, we have jumped 65 places in the global ranking of World Banks Doing Business Report. But we are still not satisfied. I have asked my team to work harder so that India is in the top 50 next year.

Modi then gave some facts as to how India has advanced in the past four years, how India became an exporter of electricity for the first time, and how India has become the world's fourth-largest wind energy producer and fifth-largest solar energy producer.
Tihar Jail officials moved an application in a Delhi court seeking review of the court's earlier order allowing AgustaWestland middleman, Christian Michel to make calls to his family and lawyer for 15 minutes in a week.

New Delhi: Tihar Jail officials on Friday moved an application in a Delhi court seeking review of the court's earlier order allowing AgustaWestland middleman, Christian Michel to make calls to his family and lawyer for 15 minutes in a week. The matter will be heard on 21 January.

The Jail officials cited that the Tihar manual only allows 10 minutes' time for phone calls.

A special CBI court on Monday gave permission to alleged AgustaWestland middleman Christian Michel to speak to his family and lawyers. The court granted Michel 15 minutes a week to speak over the phone.

On 10 January, Michel had moved an application before a special CBI court, seeking permission to make calls to family, friends and his lawyers. In his application, Michel said that he wants to contact his family and friends as well as his lawyers over the telephone.

Based on his application, he has also been granted permission to make international calls.

On 11 January, the British High Commission in India got consular access to Michel.

"Our staff are supporting a British man who is detained in India, and have visited him to check his welfare," British High Commission in India confirmed to ANI.

The British High Commission had sought consular access to Michel in December, 2018.

Sources in agencies also confirmed that a team of the British High Commission in India had met Michel.
Philip Kotler spoke exclusively to Firstpost on the ongoing controversy over the award given to Narendra Modi and said that a jury would have further complicated the selection process.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first head of state to receive the prestigious Philip Kotler Presidential award on 14 January. The Prime Minister's Office, while congratulating the prime minister, said, "The award focuses on the triple bottom-line of 'People, Profit and Planet' which will be offered annually to the leader of a nation."

However, controversy erupted soon after the award was announced with senior Opposition leaders, including Congress president Rahul Gandhi, questioning the authenticity of the award. Rahul mocked Modi and the award saying it was so famous that it has no jury.

The award, which was given by the World Marketing Summit India, has previously been given to recognise achievements in advertising and marketing. The award is named after celebrated marketing and management guru, Philip Kotler, who is also the founder of the World Marketing Summit (WMS) Group. Kotler spoke exclusively to Firstpost on the ongoing controversy and said that a jury would have further complicated the selection process. "We did not want to make this a public vote with all the clamor this would raise of persons favoring different heads of state."

According to the citation of the award, Modi was selected for his "outstanding leadership for the nation".

Here are the edited excerpts from the interview:

***

What is your reaction to the controversy surrounding the first-ever Philip Kotler award given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

No national head of state in the world could receive this award without some persons objecting to one or more his or her policies. I was not surprised that some opposition party members arose to complain about (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi receiving the award. We wanted the award to represent the good work done by the prime minister to advance India's prestige in the world and kick starting the Indian economy and following the triple bottom line of people, profits, and the planet.

Were you part of the decision-making with regard to the award?

Yes.

Why was there no jury?

A committee within the World Marketing Summit researched different national leaders and concluded that Modi deserved the award. We did not want to make this a public vote with all the clamor this would raise of persons favoring different heads of state.

Were any other candidates shortlisted for this award?

Yes, three other names came up. I would not list them for the same reason because it would lead to political pressure.

What was the criteria on which the award was given?

We looked for a head of state who met these four criteria:

1. Believes in representative government and in social justice

2. Believes that a good society will build a healthy business climate

3. Encourages businesses to practice the triple bottom line, namely to balance profits, people, and the planet in their deliberations

4. Sincerely and wholeheartedly works for the Common Good - education, health and living standards of average citizens

Has the clarification regarding the award come from you or the World Marketing Summit India?

My clarification comes from the World Marketing Summit which is headquartered in Canada. The World Marketing Summit India did not select the awardee. That would conflict with our objectivity. The World Marketing Summit holds meeting in several different countries to come to a decision.

What would you say to the controversy raised by Opposition leader and Congress president Rahul Gandhi about this award and lack of a jury?

I am a great admirer of Mahatma Gandhi who would have certainly won this Award in earlier days. Today's Opposition leaders must criticise the choice we made to satisfy party members. Please ask Rahul Gandhi to name the present head of state of a country to whom he would have given the award.

Has this controversy made you wary of associating your name with this award next year?

No. The World Marketing Summit will continue giving this award. Our aim is to make the public aware that they need and want a top qualified person to run their government, one who they could be proud of. We can easily agree on who the world's worst heads of state are. We need to start defining the characteristics of the world's best leaders. We want citizens in the world to start demanding better heads of state.
Senior Advocate Indira Jaisingh submitted that Bindu Ammini and Kanaka Durga were living under constant fear after their trip to Sabarimala, and they needed police protection and security from the agitated mob who protest their temple entry.

The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Kerala government to provide adequate security to Bindu Ammini and Kanaka Durga, the two women who entered and offered prayers at the Sabarimala temple on the intervening night of 1 and 2 January.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices LN Rao and Dinesh Maheshwari said it was only going into the aspect of security to the two women and would not like to entertain any other prayer.

Senior Advocate Indira Jaisingh submitted that the women were living under constant fear, and they needed police protection and security from the agitated mob who protest their temple entry, Live Law reported.

The bench refused Jaisingh's plea to tag the matter along with the pending petitions in the Sabarimala case.

The apex court's decision comes after Kanaka Durga who was attacked by her mother-in-law, has sought round-the-clock security for herself and Bindu. She was on Tuesday admitted in a hospital at Perinthalmanna in Malapappuram district with injuries after being hit on the head by her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law had been upset with her for flouting custom to enter the Lord Ayyappa shrine.

The plea sought directions to all authorities to allow women of all age groups to enter the temple without any hindrance and to ensure security and safe passage, including police security to women wishing to enter the temple in future. It also pointed to danger to her life and liberty.

"Issue writ of mandamus directing authorities to provide full security, 24x7, to the two women who have entered the temple, and to deal with protesters indulging in acts of violence, physical and/or verbal on social media or otherwise against them in accordance with the law," the petition said.

It sought directions declaring all authorities not to conduct the rite of purification or to shut the temple on account of any woman between the ages of 10 and 50 having entered the temple.

"Issue directions to declare that the rite of purification diminishes the dignity as human beings and violates their fundamental right," it said.

It also sought directions declaring that any form of prevention of women aged between 10 to 50 years from visiting the hilltop shrine is contrary to the 28 September, 2018, judgment of the apex court.

Kanaka Durga and Bindu, both below the age of 50, were the first women to enter the shrine, which has traditionally been off-limits for women of menstrual age for decades, and offered prayers. Their entry caused statewide protests and clashes in Kerala, with both women being unable to return home.

With inputs from PTI
The reasons cited for the delay in process varied from absence of the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha (a position which remains vacant in the 16th Lok Sabha as no party managed to win the requisite number of seats) to inability to pass an amendment Bill in the Upper House.

One nationwide stir, two prolonged hunger strikes by a septuagenarian, and five years after framing of a law, the wait for an anti-corruption ombudsman remains insufferably long. The Narendra Modi-led government, which ousted United Progressive Alliance on the plank of corruption in 2014, has been dragging its feet on appointing the Lokpal, even as it was hauled up by the Supreme Court over the delay in the process, no less than on three occasions.

The reasons cited for the delay in process varied from absence of the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha (a position which remains vacant in the 16th Lok Sabha as no party managed to win the requisite number of seats) to inability to pass an amendment Bill in the Upper House. But a closer look at the facts reveal that none of these reasons were strong enough to hold up a process for full five years.

Although the demand for a Lokpal was first raised in Parliament 56 years ago, the current chapter of the story begins from 2014, when the longstanding demand finally took the shape of a law.

The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 came into force on 16 January 2014, just a few months before the then Congress-led government was unseated from power. The then government initiated the process for appointment by convening the Selection Committee meeting on 03 February 2014 and also constituted an eight-member Search Committee on 21 February, 2014 under section 4(1) of the Act. However, the process had its first run-in with obstacles when eminent jurists Fali S Nariman and KT Thomas refused to be a part of the Search Committee.

Then comes the NDA government in power. The government did not hold even a single meeting of the Selection Committee for at least the first 45 months; the first meeting under the Modi government was held in 2018. It promised to bring an amendment to fix the anomaly of the absence of a Leader of Opposition and instead give the same rights to the leader of largest Opposition party, but that still remains in the pipeline.

The government's failure to include the Opposition leader in the committee has given Congress grounds to allege it wants to keep the Opposition out of the process. The government has invited Mallikarjun Kharge as a non-voting special invitee, but he has refused to attend the meeting at least six times in the last year, stating he does not want to attend the meeting merely to munch on snacks.

However, the Supreme Court has already clarified on 27 April 2018 that this can be no ground for delay. The court said that a Lokpal can be appointed under the current law and the government is not obliged to wait for the amendment to be passed. Yet this particular technical snag seemed to have held up the process the longest.

Almost a year after this observation, the first meeting of the Selection Committee was held in March 2018 followed by few others after which the government finally managed to nominate a Search Committee in September last year, headed by former Supreme Court judge, Justice Ranjana Prakash to recommend the chairperson and members of the anti-corruption ombudsman Lokpal.

Another snag that the government hit was the death of eminent jurist PP Rao, who was a part of the Selection Committee. The government took its own sweet time in naming his replacement, MukulRohatgi, former Attorney General of India.

The Selection Committee comprises the Prime Minister, Lok Sabha Speaker, Chief Justice of India or his nominee and an eminent jurist. The panel will have to nominate at least seven persons as members of the Search Committee.

Meanwhile, the Selection Committee is yet to meet for the first time four months since its constitution. Now anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare, whose stir against corruption during UPA rule, made the Lok Pal Act a reality has again threatened to go on a hunger strike from 30 January.

The 81-year-old has already fasted for the cause twice before to have his demands met but the government has been rather slow to respond.

Finally, the Supreme Court has fixed a February-end deadline for the Search Committee to recommend a panel of names for appointment of the on Lokpal. However, the country's first anti-graft ombudsman still seems a long time away as the government continues to cite infrastructural problems in picking the Lokpal. General KK Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, told the Supreme Court that there were certain problems like lack of infrastructure and manpower due to which the search committee was not able to hold deliberations on the issue. Whether or not the government manages to iron out these difficulties within a months time depends on its resolve to give teeth to the anti-corruption body.
It is entirely in keeping with the times that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have conferred on him the first Philip Kotler Presidential Award

It is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the times and the climes of political India that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have conferred on him the first Philip Kotler Presidential Award. Many have cavilled at this conferment. Let us not partake of the pettiness of this spirit of criticism.

For the record, however, we feel it is incumbent on us to clear up the fundamentals  not the market fundamentals, of course. Most awards are accompanied by citations setting out the reasons for the conferment. Modi was recognised, according to the Prime Ministers Office (PMO), for his 'outstanding leadership for the nation. His selfless service towards India, combined with his tireless energy has resulted in extraordinary economic, social and technological advances in the country'.

So far so good. We must not be too concerned that the original text of the full citation does not seem to be available. A hunt for the website of the organisation that conferred the award, the World Marketing Summit India, proved infructuous. The site couldn't be reached. Attempts to access it threw up the message that this site couldn't be reached because its 'IP address could not be found'.

But that, in itself, is a small matter. After all, a newspaper reported that someone associated with the bestowal of the award had said that it was 'a very confidential award'. One hopes it will not continue to remain sub rosa. The statement issued by the PMO also said that the award focused on the triple-bottom-line of 'people, profit and planet' and that it would be offered annually to the leader of a nation. This being the first Kotler Award, Modi finds himself, as always, in the vanguard.

The statement also said, concretely, that the citation had mentioned initiatives such as Make in India, Startup India, Digital India and Swachh Bharat, that had 'positioned India as one of the most lucrative manufacturing and business destinations in the world'. As citizens of the 'world's largest democracy', we should be proud indeed.

Some naysayers, and there is no dearth of those lurking in the nooks and crannies of the liberal world and numbering amongst them undesirables and malcontents like urban Maoists, civil rights campaigners, tribal rights activists and the like, might be inclined to say, "Huh! There are people out there who dont get enough to eat. They are being rapaciously exploited by crony capitalist cowboys."

But let us pose a counterfactual. Supposing it is true that hunger, malnutrition, lack of access to education, basic healthcare, housing and clean drinking water, stalk the land, can it be demonstrated in any way that the good prime minister is responsible for the delinquencies of the establishment that allows all this to happen? Look at the raft of schemes he's announced for the provision of crop insurance, minimum support prices for agricultural produce, houses for the homeless and toilets for everyone. And, of course, demonetisation to help put lakhs into everybody's bank accounts.

If people still have zilch in their bank accounts, defecate in the open, scavenge manually, live under the blue skies that can hardly be discerned and sell their onions, no pun intended, of course, for a rupee a kilo, can the prime minister truly be blamed. He's the leader of the country, literally (albeit in German) the fuhrer, it's hardly his job to micromanage all the problems facing the people and the country to which they belong. He has a duty to travel to lands about which they have barely heard. There are any number of people who are paid to solve the problems of the country.

In any case, all of this misses the point of the award. The clue stares us in the face and it is in the nomenclature. The award is named after Philip Kotler. Kotler, as we all know, or should, is the world's first marketing guru. He made the idea of marketing sexy and desirable. He might not actually have created marketing as an academic discipline, but certainly contributed massively to making it mainstream, as a teacher at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management (where he has been a chair professor for decades), and integrating it with the discipline of Economics. He wrote over 60 books on marketing and remains the greyest of the grey eminences of marketing.

So, what has India's poverty, if, indeed, such a thing exists since 2014, got to do with Modi being the first recipient of the Philip Kotler Presidential Award? Forget the citation for a while and think Kotler and soon you will be thinking marketing. It can hardly be gainsaid that Modi is the most talented marketing man among world leaders, which is why he is the first recipient of the award.

He marketed himself all the way from some Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh shakha to 7 Lok Kalyan Marg, the residence of the Indian prime minister. On the way, he somehow became the most devoted disciple of development, never mind what happened in Gujarat during his tenure as chief minister. And we bought it, hook, line and sinker. If that doesn't make him a worthy disciple of Kotler, whatever will?
The Shiv Sena on Friday hit out at the BJP-led Maharashtra government over the construction of the Shivaji memorial and asked why it was unsuccessful in putting its stand on the issue before the Supreme Court.

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Friday hit out at the BJP-led Maharashtra government over the construction of the Shivaji memorial and asked why it was unsuccessful in putting its stand on the issue before the Supreme Court. This, the Sena said, was despite the fact that the government never failed on other issues like "buying wins" in elections.

The Sena said the apex court has once again stopped the construction of the Shivaji memorial, adding that it was happening again and again which raised questions on whether the government was serious about building the memorial.

The party, an ally in the BJP-led governments in Maharashtra and at the Centre, added that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue was successfully constructed on the banks of the Narmada in Gujarat without any environmental or technical issues cropping up to stop work.

The Sena said that while the government made amendments in the Constitution to give 10 percent quota to economically weaker sections of the general category and solved the triple talaq issue similarly, the issues of constructing a Ram temple in Ayodhya and Shivaji memorial in Mumbai remain unresolved.

"Is the court coming between the construction of the memorial or is it that somebody, who does not want the construction to take place, is using the judiciary as a shield?" it asked in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'. The Sena said the project was worth Rs 3600 crore but the government was not serious about it from the start.

"Some ask what the use of the memorial is to Chhatrapati Shivaji and Balasaheb Thackeray. Had Shivaji not been there, Pakistan's boundaries would have come to your doorstep and had Balasaheb not been there, even Hindus would have had to offer namaz," the Sena claimed. It termed as "shameful" the issue of Shivaji memorial construction languishing in court.

"Why has the government been unsuccessful in putting its stand before the Supreme Court? The government is never unsuccessful in issues like buying wins during elections. Then why on this issue? On other issues, the government takes political decisions swiftly. However, it is being a laggard in this," the Sena editorial said.

The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Centre and Maharashtra government on a plea challenging a Bombay High Court order which had refused to restrain authorities from taking steps regarding the proposed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Memorial project in Arabian Sea.

Advocate Nishant R Katneshwarkar, who appeared for Maharashtra, had on Wednesday said that while issuing notice on the plea, the bench orally told him to ask the authorities not to proceed with the construction activity.

The petitioner NGO, Conservation Action Trust, had moved the high court challenging a 23 February, 2015 order of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF and CC) granting environmental and coastal regulation zone clearance to the Rs 3,600 crore project in Mumbai.

It had sought interim relief that stay should be granted on the order and the authorities restrained from taking further steps with regard to the project.
The Kerala government submitted a list to the Supreme Court containing the names of as many as 51 women between the ages of 10 and 50 who have allegedly entered the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala since the Supreme Court verdict lifted the ban on the entry of women of menstruating age into the shrine.

The Kerala government on Friday submitted a list to the Supreme Court containing the names of as many as 51 women between the ages of 10 and 50 who have allegedly entered the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, since the Supreme Court verdict lifted the ban on the entry of women of menstruating age into the shrine.

The claim came as the apex court was hearing a plea for round-the-clock security for Kanaka Durga and Bindu Ammini, the two women who were believed to be the first to enter the shrine on 2 January. The two women, aged 39 and 42, respectively had been forced into hiding since that day in the aftermath of statewide protests over the fact that they had overturned a decades-long custom that barred the entry of young women into the shrine of Lord Ayappa.

On 15 January, Durga lodged a complaint at the Perinthalmanna police station, alleging that she has been thrashed by her mother-in-law. She has been undergoing treatment since then.

Their plea, voiced by advocate Indira Jaising, also asked the Supreme Court to issue directions to authorities not to conduct "purification" rituals on account of any young woman entering the temple, but the court refused to entertain the other contentions raised by them, Indian Express reported.

India Today reported the Kerala government as having said in court that 7,564 women between 10 and 50 years of age had registered to enter the shrine under the digital system.

Kerala governments senior counsel in court Vijay Hansaria informed the apex court of the fact that 51 women had gone into the temple, and not just two, but the bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice L Nageswara Rao and SK Kaul did not entertain the issue further.

Live Law quoted CJI Gogoi as having said, "We are not concerned whether there were 51 or 500 women...you have made your point."

One of the Kerala government's counsel, G Prakash, told The News Minute, "Almost 7,000 of the people who had entered Sabarimala in this season scanned their tickets after they returned from the Sannidhanam. Of these records, 51 turned out to be women under the age of 50."

The unusually large number quoted by the government has come as a surprise especially seeing that the two who did visibly enter the temple are now in danger.

Activists who are against the entry of women into the shrine questioned how the women could have entered the temple without the intervention of the Kerala High Court's overseeing committee, formed to ensure that the Supreme Court's verdict allowing women is followed. One such activist, Deepa Ishwar, told News 18, "The government should stop making a joke out of this. I would like to challenge the government to submit footage of the women."

A purported list containing the women's names, but ostensibly missing Bindu's, has been circulating on social media, but its authenticity could be verified.

On 3 January, a Sri Lankan woman had reportedly entered the temple.
In the euphoria of Alok Verma's victory against the government, the nuance was lost. The Supreme Court had brought Alok Verma back as a lame duck only because the government was wrong in the strict procedural and legal sense.

One of the first things young reporters are trained to write is a good intro to an article. It is the opening para of a report or any journalistic piece of writing crafted to draw the reader in. Not unoften, journalists go overboard by mixing fact with fiction to induce this effect.

Even in journalism, it was never considered to be a healthy trend. But that malaise seems to have now afflicted even academicians who tend to write journalistic pieces on all subjects. One such recent piece is by Ashoka University vice chancellor Pratap Bhanu Mehta on the transfer of Alok Verma as the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in The Indian Express.

To borrow from Mehta's academic jargon, he seems to have "overdetermined" the case for the so-called supplication of the Supreme Court in a manner that goes beyond even the worst cases of journalistic infraction.

Unfortunately, he is not an exception. There are many others who seem to have made it their life's mission to elevate a police officer of dubious conduct to sainthood. So his "crucifixion" by a "venal executive and a pusillanimous judiciary" must be dutifully decried. It is of no consequence, obviously, that Verma was leading one half of a factional war in the CBI. A war that would serve only his self-interest  against that of his deputy's  and drag the name of the CBI into the mud no matter who else won or lost.

Another lesson taught in every newsroom is: Comment is free, facts are sacred. So, let us turn to facts to see who or which institution has been saved and who sullied. Facts as established by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), another important institution of public trust, just like the CBI (actually, its the CBI's boss).

As things stand, we need not worry about the integrity of the CVC. It's a given that the CVC is a tainted office for two glaring reasons: One, it is headed by a person appointed by the Narendra Modi government and, two, it has questioned Saint Alok Vermas actions.

Toothless as a wag the CVC might be but it had a job to do, assigned by no less an authority than the Supreme Court of India (which institution shall continue to be held in high esteem for a few minutes more till such time as it does not deviate from the script written by the many saviours of Alok Verma).

The CVC reported to the Supreme Court that four of the ten charges brought up against Alok Verma stick. The Supreme Court labelled some as "very uncomplimentary" to Verma. Let's examine just one of them closely, not only because it is pretty shocking but also because it is the genesis of the mess that is the CBI today.

This dates back to 21 October, 2017 (a year before Verma was sent on forced leave on 23 October, 2018). The CVC Selection Committee had convened to consider the promotion of Rakesh Asthana (the then additional director of CBI) to special director. Verma, who himself moved the papers for the promotion in July 2017, now handed over a 'secret note' to the Selection Committee. The sum and substance of the note was that Asthana had received Rs 3.94 crore slush money from an industrialist. But Verma did not confirm the recipient of the alleged payouts, was indeed Asthana (for reasons you will know a little later).

Stupidly, without regard to Vermas independent spirit or his right to submit any document he pleases, the Selection Committee deliberated on the contents of the secret note and took a considered decision to promote Asthana.

Promptly, Prashant Bhushan moved a PIL in the Supreme Court against Asthanas appointment. The Court threw it out just as promptly.

But since a secret note alleging payouts to a senior officer was brought on record by no less a person than the Director of the CBI, the committee initiated a probe. The CVC wanted to know the source material for the secret note which led Alok Verma to believe that Asthana had received Rs 3.94 crore bribe. For this, it needed to access CBI records. Beginning with the first letter on 9 November, 2017, the CVC wrote repeatedly to Verma seeking records, without luck.

For one whole year nothing happened. It was only in early November 2018 that the CVC got access to the records after the Supreme Court set up the probe committee following Verma's petition against his forced leave. Alok Verma, it seemed was stalling the probe for good reason because it threw up shocking details of how the CBI had been criminalised from the top.

The secret note that Alok Verma gave the CVC showed 23 payments to one RA which Alok Verma readily assumed was Rakesh Asthana. While all the 23 entries added up to an alleged bribe payout of Rs 3.94 crore, the 23rd entry alone accounted for Rs 3.88 crore in favour of RA.

After questioning many senior CBI officers, the CVC discovered that the source material for Alok Vermas secret note was a report prepared by the Special Unit of the CBI. That source report had only 22 entries.

Read this passage from the CVC report to the Supreme Court:

While the secret note prepared by the Special Unit had 22 entries, the one submitted to the committee had 23 entries and the crucial conclusion at the end of the note (Ed: reference is to Alok Vermas secret note) on page 3 As of now, 23 suspected entries in hard as well as soft data have been detected for a total amount of Rs 3,94,72,106 with resepect to Shri Rakesh Asthana.

The secret note handed over to the CVC by Alok Verma was signed by Additional IGP S Balasubramaniam. The latter confirmed to the CVC that the note he had signed to be submitted to the CVC on the instructions and with the approval of Director, CBI contained only 22 entries. So, what happened between the time the note traveled from his office to the CVC? Who added entry no 23 and with whose permission? Was Verma not aware of this tampering? Or did he play along?

Let the import of this sink in. The honourable director of the venerated CBI had relied on a fabricated  we still dont know by whom  document to try and stop Asthanas promotion.

Tampering with evidence is a criminal offence (maximum jail term of three years). Not to mention of forgery and fraud (up to seven years in prison). The fact that this has been perpetrated under the very nose of the Director of CBI should make it a colossal crime, the kind where no punishment can be enough. A transfer out of the CBI is not even a slap on his wrist.

All this is on record as part of the report that the CVC turned in to the Supreme Court but got little or no play in public discourse because it does not quite suit the narrative of Alok Verma the knight in shining arms fighting valiantly to protect the independence of the institution. Should the Supreme Court have turned a blind eye to this because Saint Verma was waging a holy war on behalf of the CBI? Where is the institution in this murkiest of murky personal fight at the top echelons?

The Supreme Court rightly gave the government a bloody nose for sending Alok Verma on leave without the sanction of the Selection Committee, reinstated him and remitted the case to the Selection Committee for a decision within a week.

With this decision the apex court bought itself a short-term insurance from attack because it was on the lines of what those lined up on Alok Vermas side wanted. The court was hailed for closing the last loophole in the law to fire-wall the CBI director from the government of the day. This it did indeed, but in this holy war to save the reputation of Alok Verma, over and above that of the CBI or CVC, even the Supreme Court was not to be spared, as you will see shortly.

In the euphoria of Alok Verma's victory against the government, the nuance was lost. The Supreme Court had brought Alok Verma back as a lame duck only because the government was wrong in the strict procedural and legal sense. But it recognised the seriousness of the charges against the director to merit ordering an urgent meeting of the Selection Committee to decide Alok Verma's fate.

Hereabouts, it was time to turn the heat on the Supreme Court which, 36 hours earlier, was being hailed as the protector of the Constitution and institutions of India. That is understandable. Because somewhere in the unwritten constitution of India that our academicians, intellectuals and media seem to be following of late, the countrys institutions are considered safe and independent only as long as they get a particular type of ruling from the courts, the type that have them always on the winning side.

So, when Verma ultimately lost his chair, they lost their shirts, and even perhaps their heads, the heavy artillery came out. Now, even the reputation of the Supreme Court was par for the cause. His transfer by the Selection Committee was termed as hurried, malicious and malafide. Verma, they said, did not get a fair hearing, he did not get to present his side to the Selection Committee. It did not matter that Verma had two sittings with the CVC during the probe and the investigation report itself had gone through one former apex court judge and was examined by a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

Justice AK Sikri, the second senior-most judge of the Supreme Court was brought down in one felt swoop. Sikri, who was the toast of the media for fast-tracking Yeddyurappas vote of confidence from 15 days to 48 hours, had miraculously become a government agent overnight. His crime: He voted with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in favour of Alok Vermas transfer. And a bigger crime, one month before the CJI decided to nominate him (Justice Sikri) as his representative at the Selection Committee meeting was that Justice Sikri had signed up for the most insignificant post-retirement sinecure from the government.

It didnt matter to the holders of Vermas brief that by sullying Justice Sikris name they were in effect implicating CJI Gogoi for tangoing with the government.

If we now believe that three trips a year to London are enough to tempt the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court to barter his reputation and that of the apex court, it is because that is exactly what these wise people have implied. We have been led to believe that the reputation of a CBI director  who doesnt feel a twitch of conscience while serving up fabricated documents to the CVC  is more important than the integrity of the CBI, the CVC, the Constitutional office of the Prime Minister of India, the Chief Justice of India, his senior-most brother judge and the Supreme Court itself. So many sullied institutional and personal reputations to protect the self-interest of one individual must rank as lowest point in Indias journey to build institutions.

Which, of course, brings us to the crucial question of how such officers make the grade to head sensitive institutions in the first place and how much the government is willing to learn from another adage: You reap what you sow.
Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday said that the Navi Mumbai airport is likely to be operational by the mid-2020.

Mumbai: Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday said that the Navi Mumbai airport is likely to be operational by the mid-2020.

Speaking at the Global Aviation Summit, Fadnavis also said that as many as nine more airports are in the pipeline in the state besides the Navi Mumbai airport. "The Navi Mumbai airport will be operational by mid-2020," Fadnavis said. The airport has the capacity to add 1 percent to our GDP, he added.

While Pune airport is being developed to cater to one of the major IT hubs in the country, Nagpur airport is being developed for its strategic location in national and international flight routes, he further said. All metros in India are around an hours distance from Nagpur by flight and this connectivity has called for more attention to its infrastructure development, the chief minister added.

A passenger and cargo hub will also be created in Nagpur, Fadnavis said adding the state is looking to increase cargo capacity to 40 percent by 2025 from 28 percent at present.
Winds of change are blowing across the country with a younger and grittier generation determined to express their personal choices upfront.

A recent incident regarding one of their young daughters is still resonating in the village of Chamateri, tucked away in the Himalayas between Dehradun and Mussorie.

Sixty-year-old Bimla Devi, mother of four daughters and three boys, had made all the preparations for the tilak ceremony of her eighteen-year-old daughter Ranjana in an arranged marriage with a boy from Chamba in Tehri Garhwal. Eight members of the grooms family arrived at their house but just as the ceremony was about to start, Ranjana blurted out something that shocked the gathering.

She did not wish to marry the groom as she liked another boy from her village. Bimla Devi and her three middle-aged and married sons tried to persuade Ranjana to no avail. Finally, the disappointed groom and his entourage left. Bimla Devi had no alternative but to accept her daughters choice.

When asked if she had been embarrassed by Ranjanas behaviour, Bimla Devi said philosophically, "The world has changed. Young people have changed. They do not hesitate to express their feelings. I am a widow and I have to bend with the times. My sons felt humiliated but I told them they had to accept their sisters decision."

Winds of change are blowing across the country with a younger and grittier generation determined to express their personal choices upfront. What is surprising is that a large number of these girls belong to the lower socio-economic group who, till just a few years ago, did not dare to appear before their family elders with their heads uncovered.

The Jaipur-based Dr Renuka Pamecha, heading the Pragatishil Mahila Samiti, describes these as 'family-based changes which are here to stay. Working in the field of womens rights for the last four decades, she said, "Girls are demanding the right to exercise their choice. Partly, access to education is the prime trigger but access to films, TV and mobiles are also catalysts for change."

Of course, this has created a sense of apprehension within families and within the village community at large. This is where grassroot organisations, Pamecha believes, have a key role to play. They must be in the forefront in discussing gender issues with the villagers in order to keep tensions at bay. Wherever grassroot workers have succeeded in building up a rapport with the village community, as in villages around Udaipur and Ajmer, the voices of the younger people get heard but where they have no presence, this can create problems.

"That is why the first point we emphasised with the new Gehlot government was on the need to re-open the 3,000 or more government schools the earlier Vasundhara Raje government had shut down during her tenure as chief minister," said Pamecha.

Kavita Srivastava of PUCL is dealing with such cases all the time. "Rajasthan remains a feudal state where families do not hesitate to kill their daughters rather than see them marry outside their caste and community. There is a small sliver of hope for some girls. Two girls, one the daughter of a senior RSS member, chose to marry two Muslim brothers. That created a great deal of turmoil within their families but the younger daughter-in-laws parents reconciled themselves to her decision and they meet each other freely," said Kavita, who feels a great deal of work needs to be done in this area.

Jagmati Sangwan, member of AIDWA and the Haryana Janwadi Mahila Samiti, believes that girls from the lower socio-economic status are determined to create a space for themselves. "Their growing self-confidence can be seen from the way they talk, the way they dress, the way they assert themselves. Earlier, they were shy and subdued and dared not open their mouths before the menfolk. Now the situation is altering," said Sangwan.

"Our organisation receives a large number of cases from across Haryana where young women tell us that they want to have an inter-caste marriage or marry a man outside their community. These girls do face societal pressure but many insist they are willing to take the risk. We counsel their parents and sometimes, the parents, however conservative, do see reason," said Sangwan.

Sangwan also accepts the catalytic role of education. Last year, girls from a school in Rewari in Haryana undertook an eight-day hunger strike demanding their high school be upgraded to senior secondary school and finally, the state government was forced to relent. "But I think internet and connectivity are crucial social triggers. Girls want to delay marriage. When they visit organisations like ours, they tell us that they want an end to social exclusion. 'We must be allowed to talk to boys of our choice, these girls tell us."

"Girls from villages and kasbas face the maximum amount of social pressures. But now, these same girls will put their foot down and tell their parents that you cannot force us to marry a man against our choice. Many object to giving dowry, others object to being forced to marry a man much older than them," added Sangwan.

Five years ago, Indu Dhawan, a social activist and assistant librarian at the Punjab University, Chandigarh, conducted an informal survey with 54 girls between the age group of 13-18 years belonging to the lower socio-economic strata living in urban slums around Chandigarh.

"My conclusions were disturbing. A large number of these girls were school dropouts. With drug abuse being rampant in Punjab, parents are scared that their daughters should not become victims of violence inflicted by young men hooked to drugs. Such a fear makes parents adopt an even more conservative approach and they will try and get their girls married off at the earliest," said Dhawan.

The situation on ground is changing but Dhawan believes the menace of drugs needs to be tackled on a war footing. "The apprehension that boys will misbehave cuts across all strata of society. But there is no doubt that as girls are becoming increasingly economically independent, they do start dictating choices within the family unit," she concedes.

Despite Bengaluru having the sobriquet of being the IT city of India, families in the poorer social brackets continue to be wrapped up in a traditional mindset. This is the view of social worker Tabassum who works for the Karnataka-based womens organisation Vimochana.

"There is a great deal of migration going on into our cities and life in these urban slums is very difficult for the younger generations. Families are living in chawls and young girls are witness to a great deal of familial violence. To escape these pressures, they often get attracted to young boys who woo them with a lot of false assurances. I do a lot of counselling with parents to get them to accept their daughters pregnancy or else her decision to elope with a boy who is totally unequipped to become a husband," said Tabassum.

Tempers in these bastis run high. Young people have created a sub-culture of their own and Tabassum, like many other counselors, admits to having sometimes face abuse and even threats from belligerent fathers and other family members.

Pre-marital sex remains one of Indias best kept secrets. According to a survey conducted by the Population Council, an advocacy group in 2016, in Bihar, of more than 10,400 adolsecents (15-19 years) surveyed, 14.1 percent of unmarried adolescent boys and 6.3 percent of unmarried adolescent girls had premarital sex, from which 22 percent of the boys and 28.5 percent of the girls had premarital sex before 15 years of age.

The study found that 20.3 percent of unmarried boys and only 8.2 percent of unmarried girls used a condom consistently. Similar results emerged in the advocacys survey in Uttar Pradesh, where around 17 percent of the adolescent boys and around 6 percent of adolescent girls were found to be sexually active. UP and Bihar together account for 30 percent of Indias adolescent population of 253 million.

Even the three national health surveys (1992-93, 98-99, 2005-06) report an almost equal proportion of pregnant and adolescent mothers (59.1 percent, 59.8 percent and 58.2 percent respectively) and also a steady increase in the first pregnancy among adolescents, up from 11.7 percent in the first survey to 14.4 percent in the latter one.

Sunil Mehra, executive director of MAMTA, a Delhi-based NGO working on adolescent and reproductive health issues, confirms that Indian adolescents, like adolescents the world over, are sexually active but services for unmarried adolescents are practically non-existent.

Akhila Shivdas, heading CFAR, accepts that knowledge of sexual and reproductive health is a must for all adolescents. Her own organisation is working with adolescent girls across the country, imparting them with knowledge of menstrual hygiene. "Our team of counselors and experts have found that when a dialogue is started with the young people, they are keen to discuss subjects which earlier had been considered as taboo," said Shivdas.

Sujata Madhok, an activist who has a long record of working with construction and domestic workers, the latter organised under the banner of Nirmala Niketan, believes that migration in search of work has played a key role in breaking down social barriers.

"Girls who travel to the metros from Jharkhand, West Bengal and other states in search of work, often refuse to marry boys from their village who have been selected by their parents," said Madhok. "Often, this can create conflicts within families but the girl is now an important earning member, adding to the family kitty and so, her feelings are being increasingly taken into account," Madhok believes.

Pune-based Hutokshi Doctor, co-founder for the Centre for Communication and Development, believes there is an inter-play of factors at work. "No one can downplay the role of cinema and the tremendous impact movies like films Sairat and Masaan have had on youngsters. Youth today are becoming globalised," said Doctor.

Professor Ashish Nandy, a leading political psychologist and social theorist, believes it is difficult to make a generalisation about the extent of this change. "There is little data on this subject so far and perceptions differ from community to community. But there is a normal process of change going on, with society today getting more and more individuated and individualistic. Up to a point, this change is good because parents were exercising too much control over their children without giving any consideration to personal choices," said Nandy.

Nandy believes that in the mid-twentieth century, he himself knew of several families where women were allowed to exercise their choice in terms of education and job preferences. He cites his own example where as a student of medicine in the Medical College Calcutta, 35 percent of his batchmates were women.

"Somewhere along the line, women seemed to have lost their initiative but now, it is coming back. Such a trend needs to be encouraged," Nandy added.
A man was arrested on Friday after he was found in possession of a hand grenade in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district, on a day when there were two attacks in the state.

Srinagar: A man was arrested on Friday after he was found in possession of a hand grenade in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district, police said.

The arrest at a motor vehicle checkpoint in Lolab area of Kupwara district came on a day when militants carried out two grenade attacks on security forces in Kashmir, including one in Lal Chowk area of the city.

Initial investigations have revealed that the accused, Mohammad Aslam Beigh, was planning to join militant ranks, a police spokesman said, adding, he was motivated to take up arms through social media by "entities based in Pakistan".

Beigh was found in possession of a grenade and some incriminating material, the spokesman said.

On Friday, ultras lobbed a grenade at a Central Reserve Police Force bunker at Ghanta Ghar (Clock Tower) in Lal Chowk. Militants also hurled a grenade at security forces in Shopian district of south Kashmir. No casualties were reported in the incidents.

The attacks came around a week ahead of Republic Day celebrations.
Mahila Morcha Kerala president VT Rama, who was on a hunger strike before the secretariat over Sabarimala issue for ten long days, was arrested and shifted to a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram. Reportedly, PK Krishnadas has replaced her in the hunger strike.

Thiruvananthapuram: Mahila Morcha state president VT Rama, who was on a hunger strike before the secretariat over Sabarimala issue for ten long days, was arrested and shifted to a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram. Reportedly, PK Krishnadas has replaced her in the hunger strike.

Notably, the Mahila Morcha is the women wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

This wing of the BJP is staging a strike demanding the withdrawal of all restrictions imposed on the Sabarimala shrine and dropping of the police cases against their leaders, who were a part of the protests and strikes. They are also demanding stringent action against those officers for allegedly manhandled devotees while on a pilgrimage.

A couple of weeks ago, violent protests also broke out across Kerala after Bindu Ammini and Kanaka Durga climbed the Sabarimala temple. Protesters blocked highways and forced closure of shops and markets located in various parts of the region.

On 28 September, 2018, the Supreme Court had lifted the ban on entry of women of age group between 10 to 50 years into the Lord Ayyappa shrine.
The Congress has asked all its MLAs to meet at the Vidhan Soudha in Bengaluru on Friday. The party has issued a whip that any MLA who fails to turn up for the meeting will be expelled from the party and will face action under the anti-defection law.

After four days of intense political drama over allegations of MLA poaching and horse trading, Friday is set to be a decisive day for the Karnataka Congress as the party will take stock of its tally by calling a meeting of its MLAs.

The Congress has asked all its MLAs to meet at the Vidhan Soudha in Bengaluru on Friday. The party has issued a whip that any MLA who fails to turn up for the meeting will be expelled from the party and will face action under the anti-defection law. However, it was reported that despite the whip, four Congress MLAs are likely to skip the event.

The whole issue had erupted after four miffed Congress MLAs stayed at a Mumbai hotel and during their stay, the hotel was reportedly frequented by top Karnataka BJP leaders. However, on Thursday, the Congress claimed that the four MLAs were still its members and will attend the meeting on Friday. "All MLAs will take part in this meeting. The small issues will be solved by our senior leaders. Our MLAs won't go to the BJP," Karnataka minister UT Khader told India Today.

Meanwhile, Congress carried out a demonstration at Maurya Circle in Bengaluru against alleged horse trading attempts by BJP and was attended by senior leaders including BK Hariprasad, Easwar Khendre, UT Khader, HK Patil, among others. "Operation Lotus has failed. There is no question of our MLAs being disqualified as they all will attend the meeting tomorrow," the report quoted Easwar Khendre as saying.

On the other hand, BJP MLAs from Karnataka have been lodged at a resort in Haryana's Gurugram. However, some senior BJP leaders, including former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, returned to Bengaluru on Thursday evening. Speaking to the media, the Karnataka BJP chief said, "There was no operation nor was there any attempt at horse trading. The Karnataka BJP MLAs were taken to the resort to relax. This was to prepare for the Lok Sabha polls. My only advice to the Congress and JDS is to keep their MLAs together. I cannot be blamed." Yeddyurappa also said that he was not bothered about the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting. They are saying so many things, I am not responsible for that, he said.

Attacking Congress leaders for blaming the BJP for the political turmoil in the state, Yeddyurappa had on Thursday said: "The true colours" of the Congress would be revealed at its legislature party meeting on Friday.

However, senior Congress leaders in Karnataka asserted on Friday that there was no threat to the coalition government in the southern state while hitting out at the BJP for making "futile attempts" to destabilise it, saying the saffron party's conspiracy had been "exposed". "All are in contact, you cannot say that any one person is not in contact...you (media) had listed out the names of those who may switch from the party. Most of them have come, the others will also come," Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief Dinesh Gundu Rao said.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the CLP meeting, he said, "Let whatever happen, there is no threat to this government. It will complete five years. The BJP is making futile attempts to destabilise the government." Rao also said that he felt "pity" for the BJP leaders who are locked in the Gurugram resort. "There is no threat to this government... whatever they may try to do, the government cannot be toppled. The BJP's conspiracy has been exposed. Wait and watch what will happen in the days to come," he added.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy met Congress general secretary in-charge of Karnataka KC Venugopal on Friday and held discussions on the ongoing developments. "They (BJP leaders) will keep continuing with their 'Operation Kamala' (lotus). I am not bothered about it. It is (state BJP chief) Yeddyurappa's duty," Kumaraswamy told reporters.

Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara also reiterated that all the Congress MLAs will attend the meeting. Parameshwara said, ...all of them will come for the meeting, they have spoken to us, we will discuss at the meeting. Stating that the agenda of the CLP was yet to be decided, Parameshwara said two-three issues like the preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and the political developments in the state will be discussed.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Dinesh Gundu Rao said, Were confident everybody is going to be there. Were confident of our numbers. Were confident of the stability of this government." "We extend a hearty welcome to all Karnataka BJP MLAs who are returning home after an extended holiday at a luxury resort near Delhi," Rao quipped. "Now that they are sufficiently rejuvenated, let us hope they will attend to the work of their constituencies which they have neglected for long."

In the 224-member Karnataka Legislative Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress has 79, JD(S) 37 and BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides the Speaker. Two Independents had earlier withdrawn support from the coalition government.

With inputs from PTI
With the appointment of Justices Maheshwari and Khanna, the total number of judges in the Supreme Court has risen to 28 against the sanctioned strength of 31

New Delhi: Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna were on Friday sworn in as Supreme Court judges amid a raging controversy over the functioning of the Collegium which recommended their elevation by ignoring some senior judges of various high courts.

Both the judges were administered the oath of office by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi during a ceremony held in court no. 1 of the apex court. Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who had earlier said that his elevation to the apex court has come as a surprise, on Friday shared the bench along with Justices SA Bobde and Deepak Gupta in Court no. 2, which has the portrait of his uncle Justice HR Khanna who was superseded in the CJI race during Emergency after his minority judgement.

Justice HR Khanna had disagreed with the remaining four judges of the bench and ruled that fundamental rights cannot be suspended even during such periods like the Emergency. Justice Sanjiv Khanna, son of late Justice DR Khanna of the Delhi High Court, had reminded at a farewell function about the controversy on his elevation in 2004 to the Delhi High Court which had come after some delay as his name "went up and down" before he was finally appointed as an additional judge. The issue of ignoring judges senior to Justice Sanjiv Khanna was mentioned at the farewell function by the Delhi Bar Council chairman KC Mittal who said there was a feeling among the lawyers that other senior judges and the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court "should have been given their due". "But destiny nobody can change," Mittal added.

With the appointment of Justices Maheshwari and Khanna, the total number of judges in the Supreme Court has risen to 28 against the sanctioned strength of 31. Justice Maheshwari was the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court. The appointment of both the judges has been marred by controversy as Justice Khanna superseded several judges senior to him in various high courts to become the apex court judge. Justice Maheshwari made a comeback, six weeks after he was not considered for elevation and a judge junior to him, Justice Ajay Rastogi from their parent High Court of Rajasthan, was preferred over him.

Speaking on the controversy, former Chief Justice of India RM Lodha had said the only remedy is that the Collegium in future considers the names which have been overlooked as it happened with Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, the Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court who was from Rajasthan. "He was superseded six weeks back and his junior Justice Ajay Rastogi was brought to the Supreme Court and now within six weeks, Justice Maheshwari is the most deserving by the Collegium. So those who have been overlooked can always be considered so there is no bar," Justice Lodha said.

Sources, who are in the know of Collegium system's functioning, said it was surprising as to why the decision of the Collegium meeting of December 12, 2018, was not made public and why no reason was cited for ignoring Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Rajendra Menon for elevation. The sources said Justices Nandrajog and Menon, Chief Justices of Rajasthan High Court and the Delhi High Court respectively, were in the zone of consideration for elevation.

But the January 10, 2019 decision of the Collegium has surprised both the Bar and the bench and that is why Justice S Kaul of the apex court circulated a note to the five-member Collegium consisting of the senior-most judges of the Supreme Court suggesting that ignoring senior judges would send a wrong signal, they said. The government had on Wednesday notified the appointment of justices Maheshwari and Khanna as judges of the apex court.

The five-member Supreme Court Collegium, comprising CJI Gogoi and justices AK Sikri, SA Bobde, NV Ramana and Arun Mishra, had on 10 January recommended the names of justices Maheshwari and Khanna for elevation as apex court judges. The names of the chief justices of the Rajasthan and Delhi high courts, justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Rajendra Menon respectively, were considered by the collegium on 12 December, 2018 for elevation, but the deliberation remained inconclusive and one of the members of the collegium, Justice MB Lokur, retired on 30 December, 2018. His place in the collegium was taken by Justice Arun Mishra. The new collegium had, on 10 January, ignored the prospect of elevation of justices Nandrajog and Menon as apex court judges.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) had, on Wednesday, protested the Supreme Court Collegium's recommendation to elevate Justice Khanna by superseding several other judges and termed the decision as "whimsical and arbitrary". Before the BCI made a statement protesting the collegium's decision, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Supreme Court had written the note to the CJI and other members of the collegium against ignoring the seniority of justices Nandrajog and Menon. The sources said Justice Kaul was of the view that a wrong signal would go out if the two chief justices, who were above Justice Khanna in the seniority list, were not elevated to the apex court.
Within 24 hours of a grenade attack near Zero Bridge in Srinagar, the city saw two more grenade attacks within hours of each other, one at Lal Chowk in the heart of Srinagar and the other at a police camp at Gagran in South Kashmir's Shopian, on Friday.

Within 24 hours of a grenade attack near Zero Bridge in Srinagar which injured three traffic police personnel on Thursday, Jammu and Kashmir saw two more grenade attacks within hours of each other, one at Lal Chowk in the heart of its summer capital and the other at a police camp at Gagran in South Kashmir's Shopian, on Friday. Militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) has claimed responsibility for all three attacks.

Elections in Jammu and Kashmir are due in the next few months.

While no one was reported to have been injured in the latest attacks which took place in the afternoon, the Lal Chowk strike saw damaged vehicles and shops.

The intended target of the Lal Chowk attack, reported News18, was a CRPF bunker that was in the area. In Shopian, the possible target was the Special Operations Group which has a camp in the area.

Jammu and Kashmir: Blast at Ghanta Ghar Chowk in Srinagar. More details awaited. pic.twitter.com/fG6a1TRmMT  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

The Lal Chowk area, which is otherwise hustling and bustling, was less crowded on Friday as the attack had coincided with prayer timings, reported India Today.

The attack on Thursday had taken place close to the National Conference party headquarters. JeM had claimed responsibility for it and in a statement to Srinagar-based news agencies claimed that two security personnel were killed and six critically injured, reported Kashmiri news outlet Harmukh News. News 18 reported that JeM have claimed to have carried out these attacks to avenge the outfit's chief Azhar Mahmood's two nephews, Masood and Mehmood, who were killed by security forces in July, 2018.

However, the three injured are stated to be stable. In the same statement, Jaish members also reportedly warned of more attacks in the run-up to Republic Day on 26 January, leading security forces to believe that they may be behind the Friday attacks as well, reported India Today.
Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat visited India earlier this week and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss issues related to bilateral relations, including the advancing of security deals.

Jerusalem: Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat visited India earlier this week and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss issues related to bilateral relations, including the advancing of security deals, according to an official statement issued at Jerusalem on Friday.

NSA Ben-Shabbat, who was in India on the invitation of his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, also held a series of meetings with senior officials of Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and security organisation, a statement from the Prime Minister's media adviser said.

Prime Minister Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke over phone during the visit of the Israeli NSA to New Delhi.

Ben-Shabbat returned to Israel on 15 January, on the Air India flight that flies through the Saudi Arabian airspace, the statement said.

During his visit, the Israeli NSA discussed issues related to bilateral relations including the advancing of security deals, it said.

Additional measures were agreed to on advancing security, technology and civilian-economic cooperation between Israel and India, it said.

Ben-Shabbat is said to have briefed his interlocutors on regional issues, including "Iran's efforts to entrench itself militarily in Syria and its actions that undermine regional stability".

He was accompanied by Israeli Ambassador to India Dr Ron Malka and Defence Attache Colonel Efraim Defrain in the meetings.
The curtailment of the tenure of four officers of CBI on Thursday, including Rakesh Asthana and AK Sharma, shows the government is not interested in surface decoration but a serious cleanup of the agency

New Delhi: After Alok Verma's exit from the Central Bureau of Investigation, the cleanup has officially begun. And, it is not just a surface decoration but a serious attempt by the government to strengthen the foundation of the now shaky institution, which requires complete modification.

The curtailment of the tenure of four officers of CBI on Thursday including Rakesh Asthana and AK Sharma is the first sign of renovation of the premier investigation agency by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The appointment of Asthana, a 1984-batch Gujarat cadre IPS officer as Special Director in October 2017 had triggered cold war in the CBI. Then Director Verma had opposed the government decision and launched offensive against Asthana which finally culminated in all-out war in the CBI and an FIR against his deputy. The real nightmare for the government in this entire controversy has been the creation of two so-called camps and the officers' willingness to choose the sides. The knives were out in October and the government was embarrassed due to ongoing tussle between the Verma and Asthana camps. While Asthana is seeking courts intervention to quash the FIR against him lodged on the direction of Verma, two other officers  Sharma and MK Sinha  shunted out on Thursday were seen as close to the Verma camp.

Chaos is an unbalanced state of affairs with serious pitfalls and dangers in an important institution like the CBI. According to officials privy to the ongoing developments, the government approach is to bring symmetry in the functioning of the agency just days before the prime minister-led panel is expected to meet to appoint the new CBI Director.

"There was a complete break down and with opposition spreading disinformation and mounting attacks on the government, certain wise and intelligent mechanisms were needed to set the house in order. Since questions were being raised about Asthanas position since Vermas ouster, the government made it clear the priority is to reestablish the sanctity of the institution, an official said.

Sharma, an IPS officer of 1987 batch Gujarat cadre, has been shunted out from the CBI through a latest directive. He was seen as a close confidant of Verma. Interestingly, Sharma was made Joint Director (Policy), an important position the agency just a month after Verma took over the charge of CBI. Earlier, Asthana, in his letter to the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) had levelled serious charges against Sharma alleging that his family was operating shell companies in partnership with persons who figure in CBI's list of undesirable contacts. Sharma was transferred to MDMA unit during the massive shake up in October. According to sources, the government is keen on further probe into the allegations against Sharma including several companies that have come under the scanner.

"The details of around eight companies which are allegedly run by his family and relatives is with the CVC and the Cabinet Secretariat. These allegations will be probed to get to the bottom of the entire affairs, Sources said.

Another officer, whose tenure at CBI has been curtailed by the prime minister-led ACC is MK Sinha, a 2000 batch IPS officer of Andhra Pradesh Cadre. Sinha, considered close to the Verma camp was DIG of the anti-corruption unit probing bribery charges against Asthana before he was transferred to Nagpur following a midnight sweep in October last year. Subsequently, Sinha moved to the Supreme Court levelling allegations against a Union Minister and other top officials of the government. He had also alleged that the levers of CBI are controlled by powerful persons just to fit it into their personal objectives of exonerating or implicating certain individuals, irrespective of the merit of the case. Sinha's application, seen more as mudslinging, had perturbed the government, which was fighting the Vermas removal case in the apex court.

The infighting within the CBI had made the investigation agency an unsettled establishment for the government and a new order was needed for its resurrrection. With Verma gone and the process to pick a new boss for the agency gathering momentum, it was the right time to clean the agency. With this firm directive, the government has also send a clear message that it will not hesitate in imposing the order upon squabbling group of officers.
In March 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the JNU Students Union, was arrested on charges of sedition, locked up in Tihar jail and beaten up by lawyers in Patiala House court. He

In March 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the JNU Students Union, was arrested on charges of sedition, locked up in Tihar jail and beaten up by lawyers in Patiala House court. He came out of the crisis as a young political star.

Bihar to Tihar is his story  from his childhood in rural Bihar, college days in Patna, to his political coming of age in Delhi  told in his own words. The book, published by Juggernaut, also provides a window into the lives of small-town young Indians and their aspirations.

The following excerpt from the book is being reproduced in the light of the recent filing of charges against Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and others in the February 2016 case, on counts of sedition, rioting, unlawful assembly and forgery.

***

You can never forget your first encounter with JNU.

But I have to admit I felt a twinge of disappointment on my first visit, standing at the main entrance  the North Gate. It looked so ordinary. You couldnt tell a prestigious university lay beyond those gates.

I had to go to Brahmaputra Hostel. Some friends of friends lived there and I needed their help to prepare for my vivas. The guard at the gate told me that the hostel was located furthest from the entrance and advised me to take a bus. But I decided to walk instead.

The distance between North Gate and Brahmaputra Hostel is a mere two kilometres. But I had no idea then that it was going to be the most important journey of my life. With every step I took I would be leaving my earlier life far behind.

The disappointment I had felt as I entered the gates vanished as I walked. I couldnt believe this was Delhi. It was the monsoon and the scene around me was lush and green with hills in the distance. Ive always loved the mountains. With winding paths, neelgai and peacocks, this was truly an enchanting place. It felt like another world altogether.

That day I had another unique experience. A person riding a bike was hit by a bus. There was no serious damage but a crowd of students collected around the accident site. Soon they were divided into two groups. One group was upset with the bus drivers careless driving inside the campus. They wanted to thrash him. The other group disagreed.

They felt that if the driver was at fault he should be handed over to the police.

This was unbelievable. What kind of a university was this where where students were talking of letting the law take its own course? So far I had only seen brute force being used on such occasions  in Patna a fight was sure to break out during such incidents. But here, minds were being applied.

That night I stayed on campus.The student I had come to meet didnt have place for me in his room but he sent me to another hostel  Jhelum  to spend the night. I loved the atmosphere in the hostels. All of them had a great collection of books and there were mattresses strewn around, with three to four men sleeping side by side. The hostels were either girls only or boys only or had separate wings for girls and boys; girls came and went freely to boys rooms. This phenomenon, which I initially found odd, later started to seem natural, correct and beautiful. It was the viva season and the place was full of candidates who had come to stay with friends to prepare for the test. And so the number of students on campus was far more than the number to whom rooms were allotted. One look at the hostels and you could tell that this was not home just for those who were from the university. Anyone who needed a place to stay in Delhi and prepare for admission in JNU could find shelter here. I felt that I was in a university for the first time. This is how all centres of learning should be, I thought to myself.

Finding your way in JNU as a newbie is like trying to find your way in a maze. As I wandered, dazed, from the eating mess to Jhelum, I didnt mind getting lost. Something else surprised me. It was 2 a.m. And girls were walking on the campus streets on their own. There were so many forests and hills; how could it be safe for girls to be alone in such an environment?

Somehow I managed to go to sleep. But soon I was up again  there was an aircraft flying above the hostel and its noise woke me up. I asked my host how he could sleep through all the noise. He said, Prepare well for the interview and youll get the answer, and went back to sleep.

On the day of the viva, I came well prepared. I found the appearance of some ofthe candidates odd. They didnt look as if they had come for an interview. There seemed to be two kinds of applicants. One lot, like me, who had arrived in borrowed belts and shoes, and the other lot, with a jhola hanging over their shoulder, who seemed not to bother at all about how they looked  whether they wore shoes or chappals, whether they had shaved or not. I walked into the interview room nervously. The facultys attitude put me completely at ease. The first question they asked was whether Id like to speak in Hindi or English. I said Hindi and was asked all the questions in my mother tongue.

The results were announced and I discovered to my great joy that I had been selected for my MPhil. I gave up the room in Nehru Vihar and moved to JNU carrying only one bag. I was allotted a room in Sutlej Hostel, right next to Jhelum. For me, who had come from a village, lived in the city briefly and finally reached JNU, a new chapter was unfolding.

Everything felt fresh and new. For instance, there was no discrimination between seniors and juniors. Brahmaputra is considered JNUs seniormost hostel, as it houses only PhD scholars in their later years. But everyone there treated me as an equal and I didnt for a moment feel that I was a fresher.

One day I got over-involved during a discussion, and found myself arguing vehemently. At one point I felt I was talking too much. I said to a senior, self-consciously, that I had probably spoken too much and that he should forgive me if I had caused offence. He replied, Dont embarrass me by asking for forgiveness. No one coming from the feudal set-up of Bihar could have expected a response like this.

Living on campus was a culture shock. The atmosphere was free. Boys and girls walked about together late into the night. In colleges in Bihar, boys and girls had to look for places to be together. There was hardly anywhere they could sit in privacy. And if they were caught doing so they could be punished. In JNU there were no such restrictions.

Women were not just more confident on campus but were also very conscious of their rights. Whether it was to do with sloganeering, helping new students with the admission process or recruiting people to ones political organization, they had complete equality in all activities. Girls were present in equal numbers to boys  in

classrooms, in protests, at the dhaba. In fact, sometimes they outnumbered men. In my class I was the only man, the remaining nine were girls.

The classroom didnt feel like a classroom at all. With its round table, it felt more like a conference room. On

my first day, I stood up when the teacher entered, as was my habit. He asked me, Why are you standing? Is this a school? I said, Of course its a school. School of International Studies.

He laughed at my response and asked me to sit down. Even the faculty was different. Instead of being aloof as most teachers were, they were friendly with the students and preferred to talk to them as equals. I quickly discovered that I could challenge any professor and disagree with him or her. Our discussions were always held on equal terms. And in our own language too.

Every day I seemed to learn something new; every day I discovered something astonishing in that early period. I hadnt ever been exposed to people from different cultures and places before JNU. Now I was encountering them from all over the country and indeed the world. Of my two initial roommates at Sutlej, one was Bihari, the other Rajasthani. I got along with my Rajasthani roommate much better. This was the first time I had a good friend who was not from Bihar. To see people from all over the world you usually have to go to different countries. In JNU youll find them without having to step outside the campus. Here it is easy for the common man to enter, but for VIPs it is difficult. The special treatment that they desire is not laid out for them.

The JNU guards job is not just to keep outsiders away, it is also to help them. Of course he will chase away troublemakers but then not verybody falls in that category. So why view everyone with suspicion? In our society being poor is equivalent to being a criminal. If youre poor it is assumed youre in the category of thieves and thugs, whereas the fact is that poverty is created by the corruption of a few. A man becomes poor when hes deprived of the fruits of his hard work. To then view him as a criminal is the case of the pot calling the kettle black. All that I saw changed the way I viewed the world and shaped my politics. For instance, ones first response on seeing the Taj Mahal is to admire its magnificence. We are humbled and awed by its beauty and grandeur.But if you visit the Taj Mahal after JNU you will think of it as a monument built out of the sweat and toil of ordinary, oppressed people like you and me.

I learnt in JNU that it is not essential to be proficient in English to be in politics. Spotless white clothes are not required. Having money is not a must. Sometimes the backing of a large organization is not essential. If you come from a poor or deprived background and talk about it, your voice is more effective than that of someone who owns a car or wears fancy clothes. In JNU, if someone is not really poor but indulges in politics for the poor, nobody will believe him.

Throughout the world the people who walk on footpaths  the downtrodden  are those on the margins of politics,butthe same people lead politics in JNU.They have also been able to literally save the footpaths. The downtrodden may not have a roof above their heads and may have to make the footpath their home but in JNU they become thinkers and leaders.

The world outside JNU works the other way around. There the belief is that someone who is himself needy cannot do much for others. And so the display of power becomes important. But within JNU, power lies with those on the side of truth and those who give it its rightful due.

Politics takes place everywhere. In classrooms, in dormitories, in meetings and above all over long chats in the dhabas. This is the true home of chai and charcha. The most legendary of the dhabas is Ganga dhaba. I once heard a song about JNU. It said Forget McD and CCD, come lets go to Ganga dhaba. Here discussion is more important than

tea, company more important than food. And the company and tea you can find at Ganga dhaba are hard to find anywhere else.

I took to spending most of my evenings there. In the 2014 elections, Modiji was also doing chai pe charcha and talking of how to sell the people of the nation over tea in a dhaba. Now when the administration attempts to close down the JNU dhabas, it is actually trying to end the debatediscussion culture of the university. It is afraid of the culture of openness and questioning that flourishes here.
From Gujarat taking up the #10YearChallenge, Ruskin Bond talking about his horror tales to the CVC report exposing Saint Alok Verma, here are today's must-read stories

Analysis: From BJP's 'remove one family' push, Narendra Modi now claims Opposition wants to remove 'one man'

Political rallies of leaders such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, BJP chief Amit Shah, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and many such others, give us a glimpse on how politicians cycle, recycle and sometimes even invent new rhetoric to capture the minds of the voters.

For example, after the Congress-mukt Bharat lost the charm following the BJP's defeat in the recent Assembly elections, the saffron party rather smartly spun an old message  Modi wants to rid the country of 'dynastic' politics and usher in a new age of democratic politics  to:

Opposition wants to get rid of Modi versus Narendra Modi wants to get rid of One Family.

Opinion: The many sullied reputations in the canonisation of Saint Alok Verma

If we now believe that three trips a year to London are enough to tempt the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court to barter his reputation and that of the apex court, it is because that is exactly what these wise people have implied. We have been led to believe that the reputation of a CBI director  who doesnt feel a twitch of conscience while serving up fabricated documents to the CVC  is more important than the integrity of the CBI, the CVC, the Constitutional office of the Prime Minister of India, the Chief Justice of India, his senior-most brother judge and the Supreme Court itself. So many sullied institutional and personal reputations to protect the self-interest of one individual must rank as lowest point in Indias journey to build institutions.

https://www.firstpost.com/india/pm-sc-cji-justice-sikri-cvc-cbithe-many-sullied-reputations-in-the-canonisation-of-saint-alok-verma-5918781.html

#10YearChallenge: A look at Gujarat's throwback pics raises questions on promises vs reality

The 10-year challenge is ruling the Internet. Havent heard of it yet? Its nothing but posting your old pictures alongside the recent ones. The photos will show how you have changed in the last 10 years. The Internet will reward you with all sorts of feedback. Even the Indian economy, which typically keeps low-key and content with itself most of the time, too got wind of the 10-year challenge and posted a few pics the other day. The feedback wasnt bad. Enthused by this, Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modis home state joined the 10-year challenge. Gujarat looked for some old pics and thought those were worth posting, but the pics have instead raised questions on promise versus reality.

Ruskin Bond on his horror stories, adaptations of his work and the fear of running out of ideas

https://www.firstpost.com/business/10yearchallenge-a-look-at-gujarats-throwback-pics-raises-questions-on-promises-vs-reality-5921591.html

India vs Australia: Despite long stay on sidelines, Yuzvendra Chahal reminds us of his skills, ability to make every chance count

The constant exclusion would have discouraged and frustrated any bowler, especially someone who happened to be India's leading ODI wicket-taker in 2018. But the lack of continuity has never affected Yuzvendra Chahal. He has a canny knack of going about his business in a professional manner. He trains hard and can switch on instantaneously. At practice sessions, he loves to emulate real match scenarios and then bowl accordingly. It is all part of his visualisation and preparation.
The DMK on Friday moved the Madras High Court challenging the recent Constitutional amendment, which grants 10 percent reservation to economically weaker sections of society.

The DMK on Friday moved the Madras High Court challenging the recent Constitutional amendment which grants 10 percent reservation to economically weaker sections of society.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam organising secretary RS Bharathi filed a writ petition in the court and said that the "reservations are not poverty alleviation programmes but are more in the nature of social justice to uplift communities which have not had access to education or employment for centuries," according to a report by The Times of India.

DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) organising secretary RS Bharathi files a writ petition in Madras High Court challenging recent constitutional amendment for granting 10% reservation to economically weaker sections of society. (file pic) pic.twitter.com/IRfsitDZIo  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

The Centre brought in a 10 percent reservation in government jobs and education on 7 January for "economically backward" sections of upper caste communities during the recently-concluded Winter Session of Parliament. The move is seen as an important strategy of the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha election.

On 8 January, the DMK had said that the BJP-led Centre had started a "disastrous game" with backward classes by introducing the amendment.

DMK chief MK Stalin also demanded that the Tamil Nadu government adopt a resolution against the Centre's order in the state's Assembly. Stalin, leader of the Opposition, reminded the AIADMK-led state government of the 69 percent reservation already in place in Tamil Nadu.

The Central cabinet has given approval to offer 10 per cent reservation for poor among upper castes. This is against social justice and it can destroy social justice. It has been clearly stated in the 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution that reservation should be given only for socially and educationally backward people," he said.

In response, the state government said that the Union Cabinet's move was only a "policy decision" and that it had not receieved any notification from the Centre on the matter, according to a PTI report.

Stalin also claimed that quota should be based on social backwardness and not economic criteria, and noted that the proposal was not in tune with Constitutional provisions on reservation.

With inputs from agencies
Delhi, routinely suffering from air pollution accompanied by thick fog caused by vehicular exhaust and coal burning, witnessed yet another bad day on Friday. Flights into and out of Delhi were delayed and diverted, and trains delayed.

New Delhi: Delhi, routinely suffering from air pollution accompanied by thick fog caused by vehicular exhaust and coal burning, witnessed yet another bad day on Friday. Owing to the low visibility, ten trains were delayed in the morning after the minimum temperature settled at 7 degrees Celsius.

Delhi: Visuals of dense fog from Delhi Cantonment area. pic.twitter.com/QW2q9ioFpB  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

Moreover, flights into and out of Delhi were delayed and diverted from 5:30 am to 7 am after the fog reduced visibility to 50 metres. According to CNN News18, international flights coming into Indira Gandhi International airport from Singapore has been diverted.

#TravelUpdate Due to dense fog in Delhi and Bangalore, flight delays are expected for both arrivals and departures with likely consequential impact on flights across network. pic.twitter.com/Wy0eCgAww2  Vistara (@airvistara) January 18, 2019

Low visibility has deterred road traffic as well. To prevent any untoward incidents caused by the fog, the Delhi traffic police has issued a set of guidelines for safe road travel.

The official data maintained by the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) put the condition at severely polluted. The Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 level was recorded at 146 while the PM 10 was docking at 233 in New Delhi.

At Dhirpur, the AQI was 420 at 8 am, while in Mathura Road area, it dipped to 'hazardous' category with AQI 423. AQI near Pitampura, Airport Terminal 3 and Delhi University stood at 434, 397 and 448, respectively.

An AQI between 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 is satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor and 401-500 is marked as severe/hazardous.

People residing in Delhi have been advised to avoid all physical activity outdoors and move activities indoors. "If asthmatics, keep relief medicine handy. Sensitive groups must stop outdoor activity at early morning and after sunset times. Avoid prolonged or heavy exertion. Go for a short walk instead of a jog and take more breaks. Stop any activity level if you experience any unusual coughing, chest discomfort, wheezing, breathing difficulty, or fatigue. If the room has windows, close them. If the air Conditioner provides a fresh air intake option, keep that closed," stated an advisory published by SAFAR.

According to the latest report published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), as many as one million lives in the world can be saved if all the countries reduce the menace of air pollution in accordance with the Paris Agreement by 2050. WHO presented this report at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Katowice last month.

"The Paris Agreement is potentially the strongest health agreement of this century," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO.

"The evidence is clear that climate change is already having a serious impact on human lives and health. It threatens the basic elements we all need for good health-clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply, and safe shelter-and will undermine decades of progress in global health. We can't afford to delay action any further," the report read.
Over the last two years, Delhis pollution levels were high enough to affect the respiratory and cardiac systems of even healthy people

New Delhi: Toxic levels of air pollution monitored over Delhi almost every week from 1 November, 2018, to 6 January, 2019, showed that the government's emergency plans to tackle the citys annual crisis have failed, said a report of United Residents Joint Action (URJA), a collective of the citys resident welfare associations (RWA).

The report comes at a time when Delhi's air-quality rose above hazardous levels on 17 January, 2019 in some areas to up to three times higher.

Children across states of Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh (Kanpur, Varanasi), Bihar experiencing extremely polluted air this morning. Schools need to recognise this and take necessary steps (call it a day off). No point forcing people to step out on a day like this #AirPollution pic.twitter.com/9G0Ls7CM0i  UrbanSciences (@urbansciencesIN) January 17, 2019

Today the Delhi average AQI is one of the highest in a long time, AQI 795. The average in #Delhi is based on more than 100 monitors which means majority of the monitors are ranging around #AQI 500-1000. If this is not a #health #emergency, what is?#AirPollution pic.twitter.com/Xq6w5TUzgt  AQI India (@AQI_India) January 17, 2019

The report summarised the findings of 45 right-to-information applications filed to 14 government departments. Responses were sought from central, state and municipal bodies to assess the effectiveness of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), the strategy launched by the government in January 2017.

The analysis of data collected by URJA for 68 days showed that except one day in central Delhis ITO region, the capitals air quality was continually above permissible limits.

To curb rising air pollution in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), the ministry of environment, forests and climate change had notified the implementation of GRAP through the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority. In November 2016, air pollution in Delhi had reached 16 times above safe levels, and the Delhi government had declared an emergency.

Over the last two years, Delhis pollution levels were high enough to affect the respiratory and cardiac systems of even healthy people. The health impacts of this pollution may be experienced even during light physical activity, as IndiaSpend reported on 15 June, 2018.

GRAP entails a number of actions to be taken as soon as the citys air reports toxic particulate matter, or PM 2.5, at levels between 61-120 g/m3 and 300+ g/m3. The World Health Organization (WHO) standard for permissible level of PM 2.5 in the air (24-hour average) is 25 g/m3 while Indias National Ambient Air Quality standard allows levels 1.4 times higher at 60 g/m3.

The GRAP system categorises pollution levels based on national air-quality index (AQI) readings generated by the air-quality monitors of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The steps taken under GRAP are graded as per the level of pollution. These include a ban on garbage burning and entry of trucks into the city, and the closure of power plants, brick kilns and stone crushers depending on how bad the air quality is, as IndiaSpend reported on 9 November, 2017.

The problem has worsened in Delhi due to a number of reasons  crop burning in neighbouring states, construction activity, traffic and emission from power plants. In winter, the problem becomes more acute because stagnant winds do not allow the pollution to disperse.

Air quality unhealthy through the study period

As we mentioned earlier, data showed that Delhis air quality was unhealthy throughout the 68-day period of the study except for a small exception. The nine monitors yielded 612 readings and PM 2.5 levels were observed to be above 300 g/m3 in 104 cases. When ambient PM 2.5 levels persist at above 300g/m3 for more than 48 hours, all the emergency steps listed under GRAP are activated.

"The information received from the RTI responses shows that despite such detailed process and notification to act when air quality levels are bad, there is a lack of proper implementation of measures and awareness levels of departments responsible for overseeing implementation to curb pollution under GRAP," said the URJA press release.

All the regions covered in the study reported average PM 2.5 levels at least five times above the permissible limit in this period. Anand Vihar in east Delhi and Ashok Vihar in west Delhi showed an average of PM 2.5 levels about 1o times above the permissible limit.

The CPCB, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) and the India Meteorological Department (IMD)  the three agencies responsible for keeping tabs on the citys air quality--are supposed to work in tandem to process data and inform the EPCA about their findings. The EPCA then formulates measures to combat pollution and convey them to the respective authorities. However, the coordination between the agencies was not smooth.

Only 39 percent attendance recorded at meetings

GRAP cannot work effectively unless various agencies across the NCR and neighbouring states work together, IndiaSpend had reported on 9 November, 2017. There are 12 agencies responsible for the implementation of GRAP.

It is evident from the URJA report that the attendance of the responsible agencies was low at 39 percent.

Of the 18 GRAP meetings held, the Public Works Department (PWD), Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and the DISCOMs attended just one. Of the 12 agencies involved, seven attended less than half these meetings.

The Graded Response Action Plan is a well-thought-out policy, the need is to implement it on the ground and tackle the air pollution levels rising every year in Delhi, said Atul Goyal, the president of URJA. However, the RTI replies show that most agencies and departments are unaware of their duties and responsibilities as clearly mentioned under GRAP. But with many important questions remaining unanswered by the agencies, it is evident that they are either not aware of the steps under GRAP or not ready to perform their duties. In both situations, the policy is a failure, leaving the citizens of Delhi gasping for breath.

The author, a data scientist and a graduate of computational and data journalism at Cardiff University, is an intern with IndiaSpend
Today's top stories: Modi to inaugurate Vibrant Gujarat Summit; Supreme Court to hear plea of two women who entered Sabarimala; Karnataka Congress to hold key meet; and more.

Modi to inaugurate Vibrant Gujarat Summit

The summit is being held in Gandhinagar from 18 to 20 January. Heads of five countries and over 30,000 national and international delegates, including CEOs of major companies from India and abroad, are expected to attend the 9th edition of the summit.

Indian business tycoons who are expected to attend include Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries; Uday Kotak, chairman and managing director, Kotak Mahindra Bank; Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman, Aditya Birla group; Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej group; Gautam Adani chairman and founder, Adani Group; and Pankaj Patel chairman and managing director, Cadilla Healthcare.

The Vibrant Gujarat Summit was conceptualised in 2003 by Modi who was then the chief minister of Gujarat to re-establish the state as a preferred investment destination. The Summit provides a platform for brainstorming on agendas of global socio-economic development, knowledge-sharing and forging effective partnerships.

The CEOs and top executives of global companies like BASF, DP World, Suzuki, Vanguard and Maersk among others would also be present.

SC to hear plea of women who entered Sabarimala

The Supreme Court will hear on Friday a plea of two women  Kanakdurga and Bindu  seeking round-the-clock security after they recently entered the Sabarimala temple in Kerala despite protests right-wing Hindu groups.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices LN Rao and SK Kaul said on Thursday that it would hear the plea on Friday after senior advocate Indira Jaising contended the matter should be heard urgently as one of the women was assaulted by her mother-in-law.

The plea also sought directions to all authorities to allow women of all age groups to enter the temple without any hindrance and to ensure security and safe passage, including police security to women wishing to enter the temple in future.

Karnataka Congress to hold key meet

After four days of intense drama over allegations of poaching and horse-trading, the Congress in Karnataka will take stock of its tally by calling a meeting of its MLAs on Friday.

The meeting is scheduled to be held at 3:30 pm at the state Assembly in Bengaluru. The party has made it clear that any MLA who fails to turn up for the meeting will be expelled from the party and will face action under the anti-defection law.

India elect to bowl first in the series decider after winning toss at Melbourne

Virat Kohli decided to bowl first after winning the toss at Melbourne amidst overcast conditions. India handed Vijay Shanker his ODI debut cap, also came into the side Kedar Jadhav and Yuzvendra Chahal. They will replace Mohammed Siraj, Ambati Rayudu and Kuldeep Yadav. India have never won a bilateral ODI series in Australia.

Dinesh Maheshwari, Sanjiv Khanna to be sworn in as SC judges

Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice Sanjiv Khanna of the Delhi High Court will be sworn in as judges of the Supreme Court at 10.30 am on Friday.

The government had notified on Wednesday the appointment of Maheshwari and Khanna as judges of the apex court. Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi will administer the oath of office to the two judges on Friday, an official circular said.

The elevation of Maheshwari and Khanna generated controversy as top court collegium recommended their elevation while revoking its 12 December, 2018 decision. The collegium had on 12 December decided to recommend the elevation of Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Justice Rajendra Menon to Supreme Court.

Navy detects body of miner, several skeletons in Meghalaya mines

Navy divers have found a body of one of the 15 trapped miners and also spotted several skeletons in the flooded rat-hole coal mines in Meghalaya East Jaintia Hills district, weeks after a multi-agency search operation was launched to rescue them.

The naval personnel spotted the decomposed body of one of the miners about 200 ft along the horizontally dug small hole and managed to pull it about half-way to the bottom of the shaft. But the body, which is yet to be identified, could not be extracted out of the shaft due to apprehension that further moving it could result in its disintegration.

The navy divers on Thursday also spotted through a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) a number of skeletons inside one of the rat-hole mines and are waiting for the state administration's directive on the future course of action. They said it was not clear if the skeletons were of the missing miners.

Apple CEO calls the FTC to help users with new tools to control data

Apple CEO Tim Cook decided to go after the "shadow economy" of firms profiting from people's personal data in a column for Time Magazine. Calling upon the US government to introduce new tools to help users control personal data being collected everyday, Cook said that consumers should have the power to "delete their data on demand, freely, easily and online, once and for all."

Nawazuddin Siddiqui film Photograph heads to Berlinale

Photograph, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, will be screened at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival next month. Director Ritesh Batra took to Twitter to share the news.

"Hello all, 'Photograph' will be screened at the #Berlinale2019," Batra posted on Thursday.

According to the official site of the festival, Photograph will be part of the Berlinale Special Gala at the Friedrichstadt-Palast where it will have its European premiere. It also features in Berlinale Special films category. The fest will start from 7 February and will run till 17 February.

Wipro Q3 results today

The Wipro board of directors will declare on Friday the results for the quarter ended 31 December, 2018. India's third-largest IT company may also consider a proposal for issue of bonus shares, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said the Army was replying befittingly to Pakistan's aggression along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

Jammu: Security forces met considerable success in anti-militancy operations in Jammu and Kashmir in 2018 by eliminating several top ultras who were targeting security forces and civilians, Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said on Thursday.

He said the number of terrorists killed last year in the valley was highest in the past 10 years. "From the security point of view, 2018 has been the best year for the forces. More than 250 terrorists were killed, nearly 54 arrested and four surrendered," Singh told reporters in Poonch.

He was replying to questions regarding the security situation in the valley in the backdrop of the 'Operation All Out'.

He also said the Army was replying befittingly to Pakistani aggression along the Line of Control (LoC) in the state. "Our operation has been successful. We have been able to eliminate a number of militants, who were targeting security forces and civilians. We have foiled their designs," he said.

Replying to questions about the continuous ceasefire violations along the LoC and five Pakistan soldiers reportedly being killed in Indian retaliation, Singh said, "The report you (media) said about the killing of five Pakistan soldiers in the last few days, it shows that the Indian Army is giving a befitting reply to every nefarious act of Pakistan."

He said the Army was a step ahead of Pakistan as far as giving a befitting reply is concerned.

About the planting of IEDs along the LoC to target security forces, the official said it "is nothing new".

"For the past several years, they have been planting IEDs in our areas. We take care of it. Sometimes the IEDs explode and cause casualties but our endeavour is to remain vigilant along the border," he said.
In Assam, Asom Gana Parishad which was the key coalition partner of the ruling BJP quit the state government, accusing the Centre of being anti-Assam.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955. This shall make the migrants belonging to the six minority communities namely Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who had suffered persecution, eligible for Indian citizenship.

The passage of the Bill in the Lok Sabha has led to the political backlash in Assam and has caused unrest in the rest of the North East, with protests being led essentially by ethnic Assamese groups, who are of the view that the burden of illegal migrants will be passed on to their state alone.

Though Home Minister Rajnath Singh had clarified in the Rajya Sabha on 9 January and has reiterated his views on several platforms that his government is committed to preserve North Easts identity, confusion on some aspects of the bill has only added to the controversy and has further led to intense posturing by certain groups.

In Assam, Asom Gana Parishad which was the key coalition partner of the ruling BJP quit the state government, accusing the Centre of being anti-Assam.

PRS Legislative Research in its analysis of the Bill has highlighted two key issues which can be an important point of analysis of the Bill as they have added substantially to the controversy, leading to the opposition of the Bill.

It is said that the Bill makes illegal migrants eligible for citizenship on the basis of religion. This may violate Article 14 of the Constitution which guarantees right to equality. Another point of contention is a presumption that the bill allows cancellation of OCI (Overseas Citizenship of India) registration for violation of any law. This is a wide ground that may cover a range of violations, including minor offences (eg. parking in a no-parking zone).

Commenting on these two issues DP Singh, senior advocate, Supreme Court of India, at a discussion organised by Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) said, The law (The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 will withstand the scrutiny under Article 14 of the Constitution because it conforms to the principles of intelligible criteria of differentiation and rationality. He also said that it is a wrong interpretation and a wrong assumption that cancellation of OCI registration can take place even if one violate a traffic or a parking rule.

Ajit Lal, former chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee (National Security Council Secretariat) and former interlocutor, Naga Peace Talks while touching upon the history of illegal migration highlighted the fact that how Muslim migrants pose a larger threat to Assams demography as compared to Hindu Bangladeshis, be it due to illegal occupation of char lands or radicalisation.

Subimal Bhattacharjee, who works in rural Barak Valley through his initiative Jookto highlighted the fact that the beneficiaries of the bill are the people who have been persecuted on religious grounds in Bangladesh, and as such the penance of partition need not be borne by the same people.

He also said that Bangladeshs Sylhet district is more prosperous than the neighbouring districts and it is highly unlikely that more than a few people would apply for Indian citizenship anew.

Nitin Gokhale, journalist and defence expert pointed out that Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 is not Assam-centric and the burden of the illegal migrants would be shared across the country. He also highlighted various policies adopted by the successive governments to protect the interests of the Assamese people that includes implementation of clause 6 of the Assam Accord.

Gokhle pointed out to the latest decision by the government to constitute a committee to look into various aspects of the implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord as a positive development.

Among other steps pointed out by Gokhle to show that how the Central government has tried to protect the interests of the Assamese people, Gokhle said that the home ministry-appointed committee had recommended on 29 December to grant scheduled tribe (ST) status to six communities of Assam namely Tai Ahom, Koch Rajbongshi, Chutia, Tea Tribes, Moran and Matak and the government accepted the recommendations.

Gokhle said that by giving ST status to these communities, it will be ensured that interests, rights and privileges of the existing tribes there will be fully protected.

While the confusion and controversy over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill continue, the experts rightly point out that any misgivings regarding the Bill can be shed only by separating the law from the politics.
Though religious identities are important in the North East, they are interpenetrated by other identities based mainly on ethnic (often tribal) and linguistic solidarities, which is why the BJPs Citizenship Bill, designed to consolidate Hindus outside the Hindutva constituency did not go down very well in the region

Ever since the Lok Sabha passed the ill-intentioned Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, on 8 January, protests have broken out across the North East. Before we get to the details of the Bill, it must be mentioned that the idea of giving citizenship to immigrants of particular religions from some countries appears, on the face of it, unconstitutional. That it is based on a misreading of the Indian realities is a different issue altogether.

A recapitulation of the details of the disastrous Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, is necessary. It seeks primarily to grant citizenship to Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Hindus, Parsis and Sikhs from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who are in India as (often illegal) immigrants. According to the provisions of the original Act, a person could apply for citizenship by naturalisation if he or she had been resident in India for the past 12 months and 11 of the 14 years preceding that. The amendment envisages the curtailment of the 11-year provision to six for immigrants in the categories mentioned above.

You dont really need to have a doctoral degree in astrophysics to figure out that the BJP and the government it runs at the Centre targeted this legislative exercise at current and prospective Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan. It was clearly intended, in the collective wisdom of the wise heads of the party and its ideological and political mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to play to the gallery of its committed constituency: Hindus who are Hindutva fanatics as well.

Unfortunately for the Hindutva peddlers, the wise heads of the BJP and RSS, well versed though they are in politics and social engineering, had failed to do their Indian Sociology 101. If they had, they would have known that India is divided and fractured along many lines and religion is only one of them. You have divisions along regional, linguistic, cultural and ethnic identities, senses of belonging and many more. That is what, in fact, makes India an incredibly plural, if often fractious, nation.

In the North East, though religious identities are important, they are interpenetrated by other identities based mainly on ethnic (often tribal) and linguistic solidarities, which is why the BJP governments proposal to give citizenship to a large number of Bengali-speaking Hindus did not go down very well, to put it mildly.

The natives of Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya and other states have protested vehemently against the passage of the Bill. Violence has broken out, not unsurprisingly, practically all over the North East. The political fallout is likely to be significant as we shall see in a bit.

The largest of the northeastern states is Assam. The BJP first came to power in the state after the 2016 elections in alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). The AGP has pulled out of the alliance over the Bill. If that is a blow to the ruling party, four of its legislators have spoken out against the Bill. Most damaging for the party was the opposition to the Bill from the Speaker of the Assembly, Hitendra Nath Goswami, who regretted the haste with which the Bill was passed on 9 January, the day after the deed was done.

This opposition from within the party has prompted the BJP central leadership to send national general secretary Ram Madhav to fight the fires in the state. He only got there on Thursday, but if he persists with the line that misinformation about the Bill has stoked unrest, it is unlikely that he will achieve anything to write anywhere about.

The civil society has also voted against the Bill with both its feet and voice. Several popular cultural figures have been sharply critical. Not least among them is Rima Das, the young filmmaker who has made waves with the film Village Rockstars, which unexpectedly became Indias entry for the Oscars.

The BJP government in Assam has reacted to the criticism in the manner all BJP governments seem to react. It has charged noted octogenarian academic Hiren Gohain, activist Akhil Gogoi and journalist Manjit Mahanta with sedition for criticising the Bill at a public meeting attended by ordinary citizens and 'notables' like former chief ministers Tarun Gogoi (Congress) and Prafulla Mahanta (AGP), and former director-general of police Harekrishna Deka. As usual, the BJP conflates itself and its governments with the nation and the state.

This sanguinary action is unlikely to cut much ice though. It appears unlikely that the BJP will retain the seven seats it won in the state during the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Assam contributes 14 seats to the Lower House of Parliament.

Whats happening in Assam is happening in other states in the North East as well. After coming to power in 2014, and with a swollen war chest at its command, the BJP came to power in various states in the North East in alliance with local parties. In 2018, the party won a resounding majority in Tripura, sweeping aside the Left Front, which had been ruling the state for decades. But Tripura has been ravaged by violence over the Bill since last week, and a number of parties including the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT)  a BJP ally  have called for the resignation of Chief Minister Biplab Deb. The IPFT is reconsidering its ties with the BJP.

In the 2018 Assembly Election in Meghalaya, the Congress won 21 of the 60 and was the single largest party in the Assembly, but the BJP with just two seats teamed up with the National Peoples Party, which won 19 seats, to become a part of the government. It now claims the state as its own. The Meghalaya Cabinet has now passed a resolution opposing the Bill. A similar story has unfolded in Nagaland. The BJP was part of an alliance that came to power in the state in 2018. The main alliance partner, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party led by chief minister Neiphiu Rio, has made it clear that the state has been given enough powers constitutionally to reject the Bill. It will presumably do so.

Earlier, the BJP became a partner of the ruling alliance in Manipur executing a manoeuvre, not unlike the one it executed in Meghalaya. Though the Congress emerged the largest party with 28 seats in a 60-strong House, the BJP, with 21, managed to win over the smaller parties and form a government with N Biren Singh made the chief minister.

Manipur has been badly rocked by violence. Its own government has rejected the Bill and has sought an exemption from it despite the fact that over 40 percent of the population is Hindu. An umbrella organisation of the Kuki tribe, which comprises a substantial percentage of the population, has disapproved the Bill and will oppose it.

Elections to the Mizoram Assembly were held late 2018. The Mizo National Front won the elections winning 26 of the 40 seats; the Congress won five seats and the BJP won one seat. Chief Minister Zoramthanga has told the prime minister that his state vehemently opposes the Bill; even the state BJP has asked the prime minister to reconsider the proposed law.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has been trying to deal with the fallout of the cynical piece of legislation, the only purpose of which is to consolidate Hindus outside the Hindutva constituency behind his party. He hasnt had much to offer. Perhaps he hasnt been given much to offer the North East by his political masters. He has said that the Centre is contemplating offering incentives to prospective Hindu citizens to settle outside Assam and that the National Democratic Alliance (meaning the BJP) is committed to preserving the identity and heritage of Assam. Whatever that may mean, it sounds distinctly like very cold comfort in an unusually cold north Indian winter.

Apart from the fact that it is distinctly possible that the Bill wont survive a judicial challenge if it becomes an Act, the BJPs cynical attempt at manipulation will have alienated an entire region, which till recently, it had been crowing about having conquered electorally. Whether much will accrue by way of majoritarian consolidation remains to be seen.
The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside some provisions of a 2016 law imposing restrictions on licensing and functioning of dance bars

Mumbai: After the Supreme Court's verdict paving the way for reopening of dance bars in Maharashtra, the BJP-led state government is considering bringing an ordinance to stop their operations.

Stating that there can be "regulations" but not "total prohibition", the Supreme Court on Thursday set aside some provisions of a 2016 law imposing restrictions on licensing and functioning of dance bars.

Senior minister Sudhir Mungantiwar on Friday said that in order to protect the cultural fabric of the state, the state government is considering bringing an ordinance to stop dance bars from operating.

Mungantiwar said while the state government respects the apex court's decision, it is firm on its stand that dance bars cannot be allowed to operate.

The Minister for Finance and Planning said the issue will be discussed in detail during the weekly state cabinet meeting next week.

"In the interest of people and for saving the cultural fabric of the state, we will not hesitate in bringing an ordinance to stop dance bars from operating," he said.

"Once we receive the written orders of the court, our lawyers will study it and based on their recommendations, we will bring an ordinance in the next two weeks, making changes and strengthening the existing law," Mungantiwar said.

Asked if such an ordinance would violate the SC orders, he said there have been court rulings in favour of dance bars. "All parties came together for a law against dance bars. We will do it this time as well," Mungantiwar said.

The SC has allowed tips to performers but disallowed showering of currency on them.

It also quashed some provisions of the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (Working therein) Act, 2016, like the mandatory installations of CCTV cameras in dance bars saying they violated privacy.
For all his enviable accomplishments, Anand Teltumbde fears he is likely to end up in jail for a crime he says he did not commit.

Here is a simple quiz for Firstpost readers. Predict the future of a man who did his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, worked as executive director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, was managing director and CEO of Petronet India Ltd, an energy concern, was professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur for five years, is currently designated senior professor, Goa Institute of Management, specialises in Data Analytics as well as in Dalit politics, has a long list of books and writes a column for a prestigious weekly?

Wow, you will exclaim, the future is his for the asking. He must have, at the least, made his millions to live the life of the mind.

You have got the answer horribly wrong.

For all his enviable accomplishments, the man fears he is likely to end up in jail for a crime he says he did not commit. But the Indian state thinks otherwise  and the Indian state is always right, or so it has been dinned into us.

In case you havent yet guessed who the person is, he is Anand Teltumbde.

On 16 January, Teltumbde released a statement, a veritable plaintive cry for help. This was because the Supreme Court on 14 January refused to quash the first information report filed by the Pune Police against him in connection with the violence at Bhima Koregaon on 1 January, 2018. He was, however, given protection from arrest for four weeks, during which period he can seek pre-arrest bail.

You will wonder: Who will ever deny bail to Teltumbde? He does not seem a Nirav Modi or Vijay Mallya or even a Lalit Modi who will scoot off to another country. For the record, Teltumbde does not suffer from paranoia.

Teltumbdes fears are real as he has been booked under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA, which has stringent bail provisions. Simply put, a police officer has to merely claim that he has evidence against the accused  and he or she is doomed to languish in jail until exonerated after a prolonged trial.

That is why, in the statement released to the public, Teltumbde assumes he will have to hop from one court to another seeking bail. He wrote,  My hopes stand completely shattered and I am left with just seeking bail right from the sessions court in Pune to the Supreme Court. The time has come to build a visible campaign in support of me from various sections of people so as to save me from imminent arrest.

Chicken, you will exclaim.

Perhaps anticipating such a response, Teltumbde explained: The arrest for me is not simply the hardship of prison life, it is keeping me away from my laptop, which has been integral with my bodymy students who staked their future or my professional reputation Forget his reasons, it is, anyway, legitimate for anyone to wish that his freedom is not taken away even before he is proved guilty.

Teltumbde should appeal to the political class instead of the public, you will suggest. Let us face it the Indian political class is hypocritical and callous.

About its hypocrisy, here is an illustration  Teltumbde is married to the granddaughter of Babasaheb Ambedkar, who we fete as the architect of the Indian Constitution.

From Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, to Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati, there isnt a political leader who does not lay claim to the legacy of Ambedkar. Yet none of them will stand up for a man who is married into Ambedkars family, not even wonder whether he could have fomented violence at Bhima Koregaon and have links with the Maoists.

Questions pop up in your mind: What if Teltumbde is indeed guilty of the charges levelled against him? Isnt it for courts to determine his innocence? Without even going into the evidence that Teltumbde furnishes in his public statement to establish his innocence, there are compelling reasons why bail should be granted to him at the least.

To understand rewind to the arrest of 10 activists whose houses were raided and arrested in two batches. On 6 June, Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale were arrested. Then, on 28 August, the Pune Police swooped down on Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj and Varavara Rao. Of them, only Navlakha remains free, having secured protection from arrest for the moment. It is hard to tell when his luck too would run out.

Soon after the first batch of rights activists was arrested on 6 June, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves, then free, wrote a piece describing the drama around it as sinister sensationalism. They spoke of how the police were leaking fabricated letters to the media. The purpose, they said, was to trigger a media trial to build upon a false narrative to create a fanciful impression on the minds of people at large. Both Ferreira and Gonsalves were among the five who were arrested on 28 August.

But dont think theirs was a wild charge. They said they have experienced first-hand how the police craft a media trial, obviously, at the behest of their political masters.

When Ferreira was arrested in May 2007, the media was told that he was the communications chief of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and was plotting to bomb the Deeksha Bhoomi in Nagpur, where Ambedkar converted to Buddhism. The media went to town with it. But during the trial, which lasted for more than four years, there was not even a single attempt to mention either of these charges, leave aside producing any evidence to support them, they wrote.

Ferreira was acquitted in 2012.

Likewise, when Gonsalves was arrested, he was accused of being a top Naxalite, possessing explosives and financing the Maoists. In fact, a delegation which approached then Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil on Gonsalves behalf was told that the Anti-Terrorism Squad had evidence of large amounts of money in his bank accounts. Ferreira and Gonsalves wrote, The trial went on for almost six years without any evidence regarding the funds being ever brought before the court.

Gonsalves was acquitted in 2013.

Obviously, the police did not befriend Ferreira and Gonsalves during their incarceration. Ferreira went on to write Colours of the Cage to detail the torture he underwent in jail. To make me more amenable to their demands, they stretched out my body completely My arms were tied to a window grille high above the ground while two policemen stood on my outstretched thighs to keep me pinned to the floor, Ferreira wrote.

Look at their plight from another perspective. When Ferreira was arrested, his son was just two and a half years. Five years later, his son, now seven years old, perhaps would have had a hard time recognising his father, let alone understand why he was in prison. Ferreira was quoted saying he had to rebuild his relationship with his son anew.

Ferreira is back in jail, once again, for his Maoist links. During the interrogation, he was repeatedly slapped so hard that he, as was recently reported, had to be admitted to hospital for treatment.

After the second batch of human rights activists was arrested on 28 August, five public intellectuals petitioned the Supreme Court requesting that it should constitute a special investigation team for probing the charges against the 10 activists. In a majority verdict, justice Dipak Mishra and justice AM Khanwilkar dismissed the plea. Justice DY Chandrachud dissented from the majority opinion.

It is pertinent to point out what Chandrachud said in the minority judgement: Sufficient material has been placed before the Court bearing on the need to have an independent investigation. Not only did justice Chandrachud order the appointment of the Special Investigation Team, but he also wanted the petition to be listed after three days of the judgment, delivered on 28 September, to decide on who its members should be.

His order spawned media stories that speculated whether Chandrachud was to deliver a unanimous judgment, but the other two judges had second thoughts so late that it became impossible to alter the sentence asking the petition to be listed three days. Why would a judge do that when his was a minority opinion and therefore, could not be implemented? (A footnote in the judgment was added to clarify the matter.)

That could well have been an example of media over-reaction. Yet what is irrefutable is the statistics reeled out in Chandrachuds judgment: VV Rao, arrested on 28 August, had been previously implicated in 25 similar cases out of which 13 ended in acquittal, three in discharge and nine in the withdrawal of the prosecution. Ferreira was acquitted in all the 11 cases in which he was implicated before being arrested, once again, last year.

Likewise, Gonsalves had been acquitted in 17 out of the 19 cases in which he was accused. In the remaining two, Chandrachud noted, a discharge application is pending in one case while an appeal against conviction in another case is pending before the Nagpur bench of the High Court, where he has already served his sentence. Imagine the wasted years if Gonsalves was to win an acquittal in the 19th one. It is another matter that the spectre of 20th case stares at him now.

Given this backdrop, there is no reason why Teltumbde should undergo the harassment because of the states propensity to fabricate cases against those who disagree with it. If a man married to Ambedkars granddaughter, with accomplishments that are extraordinary, can be treated with such disdain and so callously, you then know you are in the heart of darkness.
The Mirwaiz claimed many Army officers have in their write-ups and lectures admitted that Jammu and Kashmir is a political problem that has to be resolved politically

Srinagar: Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq criticised Northern Army Commander Lt General Ranbir Singh for his remarks terming 2018 as a remarkable year for the force for killing 250 militants.

"The statement of Army (commander) that 2018 was a remarkable year for them in Kashmir as they killed over 250 militants is extremely unfortunate," the Mirwaiz told a Friday congregation at Jamia Masjid in Srinagar.

He was responding to the remarks of Lt General Ranbir Singh in which he reportedly said that 2018 has been a great year for the security forces as more than 250 terrorists were killed, 54 were caught alive and four surrendered to the forces.

The Mirwaiz claimed many Army officers have in their write-ups and lectures admitted that Jammu and Kashmir is a political problem that has to be resolved politically.

"Instead of admitting this, the armed force of a country that prides itself in the history of its freedom struggle...sells the killings of these armed youths as a great achievement to people of India," he added.
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The North West frontier of the ITBP, tasked to guard the 3,488-kilometre-long China-India border in peace times, is headed by an Inspector General of Police-rank officer, which is equivalent to a Major General-rank in the army.

New Delhi: Amid growing concerns over the Chinese military buildup along the eastern flank of the country, the government has ordered moving a strategic ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police) command from its current base in Chandigarh by over 960 kilometres to the border of Leh in Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said on Thursday.

The North West frontier of the ITBP, tasked to guard the 3,488-kilometre-long China-India border in peace times, is headed by an Inspector General of Police-rank officer, which is equivalent to a Major General-rank in the army.

The frontier, according to documents accessed by PTI, has been ordered to move 'lock, stock, and barrel' by March-end and will have to be operationalised at the new location from 1 April.

The Leh district in the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir is the base for the 14 Corps of the army that is headed by a Lieutenant General-rank officer and the new shift will allow a better interaction between the two forces "for strategic and defence planning", official sources said.

The army, which carved out a separate corps in Leh after Jammu and Srinagar following the Kargil intrusion in 1999, has been demanding operational control over the ITBP, a proposal rejected by the government time and again.

Having the ITBP and the army at the same operational location will resolve these issues as well, the sources said.

ITBP director-general SS Deswal confirmed the move to the news agency, saying the new frontier will be moved from Chandigarh to Leh and will be made operational from April this year.

"We have to be on the border and that is why the frontier is being sent to the forward area," the director-general said. The Union home ministry had first mooted the proposal for this strategic move in 2015 but it did not materialise owing to some "administrative reasons".

As per the blueprint of deployment approved by the government for the ITBP, the Leh frontier of the border guarding force will have three sectors that will be based in Leh, Srinagar and Chandigarh and each of these will be headed by a Deputy Inspector General (DIG)-rank officer.

The ITBP, at present, has about half a dozen battalions deployed along the Chinese border that runs along Jammu and Kashmir and official sources said once the frontier starts operating from its new base in Leh, it will oversee the induction of more battalions that the force is inducting to enhance its presence on this icy, blizzard-prone mountainous border.

The ITBP has recently inducted a mechanised column of vehicles and communication equipment and all the weapons, artillery and combat paraphernalia will now be moved to Leh, that has both road and air connectivity.

The force also has sanctions to create and refurbish 40 Border Out Posts (BoPs) in these icy heights of Ladakh, where personnel have to face hostile weather as the mercury slips to as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius and the altitude ranges from 8,000-14,000 feet.

Modern 'composite' BoPs, which have weather control mechanism and facilities for better drinking water and rest and recuperation, are also being created for the ITBP troops in this region.

Leh, till now, had an ITBP sector establishment headed by a DIG-rank officer. The about-90,000-strong force not only guards the scenic Pangong lake in this area but also the upper reaches of the Himalayan mountain ranges that run across China.

As a part of its efforts to strengthen the military muscle along the China border, the government had similarly moved the North East frontier of the ITBP from Shillong in Meghalaya to Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh in 2016.

Both the Arunachal Pradesh and the Leh regions have seen frequent incidents of incursions, standoffs and few instances of physical pushing and shoving between the troops of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the ITBP and the army personnel over the last few years.

The 73 day-long military standoff between India and China in Doklam (Sikkim) in 2017 is a grim reminder of these instances.

Sources, however, added that 2018 saw an about 60 percent decline in these incidents all along the eastern border front that the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh share with China.
The Netherlands delegation to Vibrant Gujarat Summit is being led by the Minister of Finance for Taxation and Customs, Menno Snel, representatives from 45 companies, three trade associations and government agencies.

Ahmedabad: The Netherlands said on Thursday it is signing 10 MoUs at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit starting today (Friday) with focus on sectors like smart city and waste management, healthcare and agricultural cooperation.

The European country is being represented by a delegation, which has more than 100 members, at the three-day business conclave being held at Gandhinagar.

The delegation, led by Netherlands' Minister of Finance for Taxation and Customs, Menno Snel, consists of representatives from 45 companies, three trade associations and government agencies.

"We met Chief Minister (Vijay) Rupani...We have 45 companies, out of which 10 are signing MoUs. Our delegations have been growing. Lots of MoUs are on strategic cooperation," Snel told reporters on Thursday. Out of 10 MoUs, five were signed Thursday and the rest will be inked during the summit, he said.

The MoUs deal with mobility management, waste-to-energy conversion, delivery system in diagnostics, saline farming, and protected cultivation of horticultural crops.

A Dutch company, Pal-V, which makes flying cars, is also participating in the summit. Pal-V plans to deliver its first vehicles, which will have seating capacity for two persons, to customers in Europe by 2019 or early 2020.

"We think India has a good opportunity for our client base...we are planning discussions about some regulations for India as well as governmental use. We are also looking to develop in the Indian market," said the company's CEO, Robert Dingemanse. "We are having discussions at governmental and private sector-level for cooperation to develop markets and investigate possibilities to supply parts (from here) to our company," he said.

As part of the Smart City project, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation will sign an MoU with Dutch company ARST and TT with an aim to explore potential collaboration-based on technical expertise and vast experience of the company in traffic and transport area.

Netherlands' AWECT will sign an MoU with the VMC to set up a high-efficient waste and energy plant in Vadodara. Dutch company Philips will sign an MoU with the state government in healthcare delivery system with the company willing to set up a radiology and cardiology centres in every district for Gujarat.

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Narendra Modi held a meeting with Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat in Gandhi Nagar on Friday.

Gandhinagar: Trade, economic ties, healthcare were the major issues discussed in the meeting held between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat in Gandhi Nagar, ahead of the 9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit on Friday.

The two leaders also agreed to enhance mutual cooperation in sectors such as renewable energy, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, air connectivity and tourism.

Apart from Muscat, Prime Minister of Czech Republic Andrej Babis, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Lkke Rasmussen have also arrived in Gujarat to attend the Summit.

More than 30,000 national and international delegates, including CEOs of major firms from India and abroad, are expected to attend the biennial three-day event in Gandhinagar.

The Vibrant Gujarat Global Trade Show is being held on a two lakh square metres plot of land situated in Gandhinagar.

More than 20 industrial and business sectors will showcase their products at the event. This mega trade show will continue till January 22 and will be open for general public on the last two days (21 and 22 January).

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Ambani, who was speaking at the 9th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Gandhinagar, said that Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail will launch e-commerce platform in the state.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani on Friday said that his company will double investment and employment numbers over the next 10 years in Gujarat.

Ambani, who was speaking at the 9th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Gandhinagar, added that Reliance Retail will launch an e-commerce platform in the state.

#NewsAlert -- Reliance is committed not just to make digital cities but also digital villages: Mukesh Ambani at Gujarat Global summit pic.twitter.com/NvwLn1YiqO  News18 (@CNNnews18) January 18, 2019

RIL has invested Rs 3 lakh crore so far in Gujarat and is committed to make the state fully digital, Ambani said.

"Gandhiji launched a movement against political colonisation. We need a revolution against data colonisation. India's data should be controlled only by India. I hope PM will make this the goal of Digital India mission," Ambani was quoted as saying by CNN-News18.

The three-day investors' meet was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Mahatma Mandir facility for international events in the state capital on Friday.

Heads of five countries and over 30,000 national and international delegates are attending the summit. Some of the major events during the three-day meet include a round-table interaction with the heads of global funds, 'Africa Day' and an MSME convention.

Vibrant Gujarat Summit was conceptualised in 2003 by the Modi who was then the chief minister of Gujarat, to re-establish Gujarat as a preferred investment destination.

The Summit provides a platform for brainstorming on agendas of global socio-economic development, knowledge sharing and forging effective partnerships.

With inputs from agencies

(Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd)

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As a quintessential business hub, aided no doubt by sustained publicity efforts, Gujarat has been able to promote its biennial Global Investor Meet (GIM) on a grand scale.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the ninth edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Gandhinagar on Friday. Over 36,000 delegates from over 100 countries, five world leaders including chief guest President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan, several senior ministers, and industry leaders will be attending the biennial three-day Summit this year.

As a quintessential business hub, aided no doubt by sustained publicity efforts, Gujarat has been able to promote its biennial Global Investor Meet (GIM) on a grand scale. However, Gujarat isnt the first state to take its businesses to global investors. In fact, the honour goes to Karnataka which in 2000 organised what many consider Indias first GIM.

By the turn of the century, Bengaluru, Karnatakas capital, had become Indias Silicon Valleya hub for Information Technology. With such a solid reputation, Bengaluru played host to the first-ever GIM on 6 and 7 January 2000. The credit for ideating the meeting has often been given to then Chief Minister SM Krishna and his Cabinet colleague RV Deshpande.

The Karnataka government declared the Summit a success after reportedly gaining investments worth over Rs 20,000 crores, including one involving Rupert Murdoch-led News Corp. Whether the MoUs signed at the GIM successfully converted into investments is a separate debate. However, the Karnataka model laid the ground for Kerala, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and nine other states to launch their own GIMs.

The proliferation in GIMs across states has coincided with the boom in the economy as well as the renewed push for federalism in India.

GIM, an economic paradiplomacy

The period after 2000 saw India regularly achieving growth rates of over 6 percent each year. The growth rate in the first decade of the 20th century averaged about 8 percent. Consequently, India became the fastest-growing economy in the world by 2018. Over the course of two decades, India has also succeeded in bringing extreme poverty levels (by international standards) down to 3.1 percent of its population, according to the latest World Poverty Check data.

Indias economic success story has been arguably credited to the post-liberalisation free market policies. Such policies have made India a preferred destination for Foreign Direct Investment, attracting over $370 billion in investments since FY 2000-01. But it would be imprudent to think of a direct link between FDI inflows and the tons of MoUs signed in state-sponsored Summits. If various reports are to be believed, the rate of conversion of MoUs into real investments has remained abysmally low.

So, what do GIMs have to do with Indias growth story? If anything, Global Investor Meets are good optics in the context of political economy, helping governments to promote their states as business-friendly and politically stable. Moreover, these meets help state governments steal the limelight while announcing promised investments worth billions of dollars.

Nevertheless, GIMs can become a major paradiplomacy tool in India. In his book, Federalism and International Relations: The role of subnational units, Panayotis Soldatos introduced the concept as [] direct and, in various instances, autonomous involvement in external-relations activities of federated states. This simply means scenarios where a sub-division like a province or a city conducts diplomacy with another country.

Paradiplomacy has remained an underdeveloped idea in India since the Constitution only allows the Centre to conduct diplomatic relations. However, as India continues its economic march, economic considerations will increasingly become the driving force of its foreign policy. In this regard, investor summits provide state governments the platform to directly deal with international players for securing their local interests. As noted by an Observer Research Foundation (ORF) article, economic paradiplomacy will help states like Kerala which has a huge stake in West Asia, where over 5 million of its residents work.

The two biggest examples of economic paradiplomacy in India have been Narendra Modi and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

Under sanctions from the US and the West, Modi as Gujarat chief minister utilised Vibrant Gujarat Summit to woo the international community. In fact, Modi developed close ties with Japan, South Korea and China during his tenure as chief minister.

During his first term in office (1995-2004), Naidu promoted Andhra Pradesh as a cyber hub at investor summits across the world. After the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, Naidu has been touring the world to hardsell Amravati as a world class capital city.

Modi and Naidus examples highlight the possibility of state governments undertaking diplomacy within the framework of the federal system.

As states compete for foreign investments in the 21st Century, the Centre's financial leverage will continue to decline. This is likely to dramatically alter Centre-State relationship in India, creating the opportunity for states to play a more proactive role in economic diplomacy. Consequently, the Centre will have to play more of a supervisory role in keeping the states under check.

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Jaitley underlined that there have been precedents of interim budgets containing major policy announcements to tackle an urgent situation

Mumbai: Amid speculation that the BJP-led central government may introduce an income support scheme, finance minister Arun Jaitley Thursday said food surpluses have caused both food prices and farmers' income to plunge, posing a policy challenge.

Speaking a fortnight ahead of the Budget, he underlined that there have been precedents of interim budgets containing major policy announcements to tackle an urgent situation.

"Our farmers have increased productivity and we have moved into a surplus area. Management of the surplus is constituting a challenge for us for the last several years....

The prices have fallen," Jaitley said.

The finance minister, currently undergoing treatment in New York, was speaking through video conferencing at CNBC-TV18's Indian Business Leadership Awards in Mumbai.

The fall in food prices in the last few months indicated the poor income farmers are making, he said.

"Situations like calamity, drought, stress...(spending to tackle them) can't be considered as populist expenditure," he said, exuding confidence that markets can distinguish between a populist measure and something driven by a compelling situation.

Stating that the government has notched up success in many areas but is also facing challenges, he said some of them need urgent action.

"Some of those challenges really can't afford to wait. Therefore, obviously, there will be a necessity to address some of them. It has happened in the past. Therefore, we intend working within the parameters of the conventions that exist," he said.

Jaitley, however, refrained from shedding more light on the government's plans ahead of the Budget.

The government has been moving on "a glide path" on the fiscal consolidation front, unless some "unsual situation" demanded something, he said.

It can be noted that as per the data available till November, the government has already breached its budgeted fiscal deficit target of 3.3 percent. Economists have raised fear that the government may announce populist measures ahead of elections, which may lead to a higher fiscal deficit.

On the RBI, Jaitley said the government and the central bank have always had consultations despite some differences that played out recently.

The government raising its concerns should not be construed as a breach of RBI's autonomy, as in a consultative process one has to express oneself freely and frankly, the finance minister said.

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The ruling BJP on Friday launched a new Twitter campaign, the #5YearChallenge, to highlight the changes it brought into India during its tenure. The Twitterati, along with BJP leaders, also cited media reports to showcase the change brought about by the Modi government.

Ahead of Lok Sabha polls less than six months away, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday launched a new Twitter campaign, the #5YearChallenge, to highlight the changes it brought into India during its tenure. Party leaders, along with the national and state BJP Twitter accounts, used cartoons and visuals to emphasise the Narendra Modi-led government's achievements.

Among the schemes mentioned were the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), Beti Bachao, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and other infrastructure developments. The saffron party in its Twitter campaign also launched an attack on the Congress over the National Herald and Bofors scams among others.

Here is our #5YearChallenge. In 2013, only Rs. 1,300 crore were allocated for Kumbh. In 2019, Rs. 4,200 crore budget provided for Kumbh 2019. pic.twitter.com/5m0dVQTJu0  BJP (@BJP4India) January 18, 2019

Here is our #5YearChallenge. Rural road connectivity has risen to 91% in 2018 from 55% in 2014. pic.twitter.com/iDorvPs7BE  BJP (@BJP4India) January 18, 2019

Here is our #5YearChallenge. 2013 - No electricity connection in 18,452 villages. 2019 - Electrification completed for all the villages. pic.twitter.com/ExP1jxE7FQ  BJP (@BJP4India) January 18, 2019

The party also called out the Congress over the various scams and discrepancies of the UPA's rule:

Corruption & scams were hallmarks of previous government where every deal & scheme was marred with cheat & loot. What changed in last five years is not a single scam, zero tolerance towards corruption & boost to transparency. #5YearChallenge pic.twitter.com/DM60EPdhul  Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga (@TajinderBagga) January 18, 2019

In addition, the party also shared the achievements of its schemes and other projects:

Focus on sanitation led to sharp improvement in girl child education... #5YearChallenge pic.twitter.com/VvqqpzVQjC  Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) January 18, 2019

PM Shri @narendramodi has transformed Kashi like never before. Beautification of the ghats is one such remarkable work. #5YearChallenge pic.twitter.com/CSy2YT8Ehq  BJP (@BJP4India) January 18, 2019

Here is our #5YearChallenge. Western Peripheral Expressway, providing world-class infrastructure, became operational in a time-bound deadline. pic.twitter.com/P4O1e3nLG3  BJP (@BJP4India) January 18, 2019

Here is our #5YearChallenge. Bogibeel Bridge, which was pending for decades, eventually saw the light of day under Modi government. pic.twitter.com/V4DD0hz1Z0  BJP (@BJP4India) January 18, 2019

The Twitterati, along with BJP leaders, also cited media reports to showcase the change brought about by the Modi government:

Last five years have seen tough action against the Maoists. While it may have upset the Urban Naxals, hinterlands have seen massive development. #5YearChallenge pic.twitter.com/kWBGGozhhk  Dr. Thawarchand Gehlot Office (@TcGehlotOffice) January 18, 2019

Here is #5YearChallenge on Ease of doing business. pic.twitter.com/sbtxy3ZxnI  Pon Radhakrishnan (@PonnaarrBJP) January 18, 2019

This really encapsulates the entire spirit of #5yearchallenge and the difference the 5 years of Modi government has brought. From 'Fragile Five' to the "Fastest Growing' in a span of five years. pic.twitter.com/uHAYXiVbAK  Akhilesh Mishra (@amishra77) January 18, 2019

This #5YearChallenge has not just been cosmetic but has made real life transformation possible. Maternal mortality rate is a topic which never excites the talking heads in media or becomes an agenda for the divisive Congress party. But it did become an action point for Modi govt. pic.twitter.com/dXTRrj2cv8  Akhilesh Mishra (@amishra77) January 18, 2019
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) -PORTOFINO RESOURCES INC. (TSXV: POR) (FSE: POT) ("Portofino" or the "Company") wishes to announce that all management resolutions proposed in the Management Proxy Circular were approved by shareholders at its Annual General Meeting ("AGM") held Friday January 18, 2019, including:

The number of Directors for the Company was set at three. The three members elected to the Board of Directors include: David G. Tafel, Stephen J. Wilkinson and Kenneth A. Cawkell. Manning Elliott LLP, Chartered Accountants, was re-appointed as auditor of the Company for the ensuing year. The Company's Stock Option Plan was ratified.

Subsequent to the AGM, the Board of Directors appointed the following officers:

Mr. David Tafel - Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Jeremy Wright - Chief Financial Officer, Secretary

Mr. Stephen Wilkinson- Chairman of the Audit Committee

About Portofino Resources Inc.

Portofino is a Vancouver-based Canadian company focused on acquiring, exploring and developing mineral resource projects in the Americas. The Company maintains an interest in several prospective lithium salar properties located within the world-renowned "Lithium Triangle" in Argentina.

On Behalf of the Board,

"David G. Tafel"

Chief Executive Officer

For Further Information Contact:

David Tafel

CEO, Director

604-683-1991

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may contain forward looking statements concerning future operations of Portofino Resources Inc. (the "Company"). All forward- looking statements concerning the Company's future plans and operations, including management's assessment of the Company's project expectations or beliefs may be subject to certain assumptions, risks and uncertainties beyond the Company's control. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual performance and exploration and financial results may differ materially from any estimates or projections.
Hello Investor:

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Belmont Resources Inc. (TSXV: BEA) (FSE: L3L1) will be exhibiting at the 2019 Vancouver Resources Investment Conference on January 20-21, 2019.

We would like to invite you to meet the Belmont Resources team at Booth #301 celebrating 40+ years of being in business.

Belmont Resources Inc. (TSXV: BEA)

January 20-21, 2019 (Sunday & Monday)

Vancouver Convention Centre West, 1055 Canada Place

Trade Booths

Sunday: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Monday: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Click here to Register for Free (up to January 19th, 2019) please click on:

https://cambridgehouse.com/register/76/start?promo=

ENTER PROMO CODE: "CHI" click "apply" to receive your FREE ADMISSION

The Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) has been the bellwether of the junior mining market for the last twenty-five years. It is the number one source of information for investment trends and ideas, covering all aspects of the natural resource industry. The VRIC will provide current and prospective investors an opportunity to speak with management and consultants about the Company's active Kibby Basin, Nevada Lithium project. Pick up your free copy of the latest Rockstone Research Report #20.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the office at 604-683-6648.

Sincerely,

Gary Musil,

Corporate Secretary/CFO/Director

Email: gmusil@belmontresources.com

About Belmont Resources Inc.

Belmont is an emerging resource company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties in Canada and Nevada, U.S.A.

For further information see our Website at:www.BelmontResources.com

-Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Nevadalithium/

-Twitter https://twitter.com/Belmont_Res

Belmont owns the Kibby Basin Lithium project covering 2,056 hectares (5,080 acres) in Esmeralda County, Nevada, U.S.A. The Kibby Basin property is located 65 km north of Clayton Valley, Nevada the location of the only US Lithium producer. MGX Minerals Inc. (CSE: XMG) has currently earned a 25% interest in the Kibby project and has the right to increase this to 50% by expending an additional $300,000 and become the operator.

In 50/50 ownership with International Montoro Resources Inc., Belmont has acquired and is exploring joint venture opportunities for its significant Uranium properties (Crackingstone -982 ha) in the Uranium City District in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

"James H. Place"

James (Jim) H. Place,

CEO/President/Director

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Buccaneer Gold Corp. (TSXV:BGG) announced it had entered into a binding letter of intent (the "LOI") with a company carrying on business in the cannabis market in the United States of America ("TargetCo"), with the goal of effecting a business combination between them (the "Transaction"). Buccaneer has established a Special Committee to shepherd the Transaction to a successful conclusion. Buccaneer's due diligence of TargetCo is underway and the parties expect to disseminate a more fulsome press release concerning the Transaction in the near future. Please refer to the December 12, 2018 press release for the terms of the LOI.

The TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") has to date not approved the listing of the securities of any company carrying on business in the cannabis market in the United States, and there is no reasonable basis to believe that this policy will change in the near future or ever. Therefore, to accommodate the Transaction, Buccaneer announces its intention to immediately delist its shares from the TSXV following written shareholder approval and customary filings. To delist, Buccaneer will require 'majority of the minority' shareholder approval, meaning officers, directors and persons holding more than ten percent of the Buccaneer voting shares cannot vote to approve the delisting.

Assuming delisting takes place it is Buccaneer's intention to then effect the Transaction and apply for the listing for its shares on another Canadian stock exchange, subject to necessary regulatory approvals.

Buccaneer Gold Corp.:

Peter M. Clausi

Director and Special Committee Member

1 416 890 1232

pclausi@brantcapital.ca

Forward Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements which reflect Buccaneer's current expectations regarding future events, including with respect to performance, business and future events, including but not limited to express or implied statements and assumptions regarding Buccaneer's intention to negotiate for or complete the Transaction. The forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. In particular, there is no guarantee that the parties will successfully negotiate and enter into a definitive agreement or complete the Transaction contemplated herein, that Buccaneer's due diligence will be satisfactory or that Buccaneer will obtain any required shareholder or regulatory approvals, including the listing of the shares of Buccaneer or of the resulting issuer on the Canadian Securities Exchange and the delisting of shares of Buccaneer from the TSXV. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information, which are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The Company does not undertake any obligations to release publicly any revisions for updating any voluntary forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable securities law.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. Not for distribution to U.S. newswire services or for dissemination in the United States. Any failure to comply with this restriction may constitute a violation of U.S. securities laws.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) has reviewed this news release and neither accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
Vallarta IFC Supports Charitable & Community Projects

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - "If you haven't got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble," said the comedian, Bob Hope, and he was serious. However, many, many people in Puerto Vallarta are very generous in their giving and they want to know their money is wisely used.

Last season, the International Friendship Club (IFC) gave away over 1.2 million pesos to local charities and programs in Puerto Vallarta and the surrounding area. The club raises money every year from the community by running IFC Home Tours, collecting membership fees, and charging for lectures, bridge, movie night, etc., and they take the stewardship of this money very seriously.

Each CEO of a charity requesting the club's support must complete a "Request for Proposal" form (RFP). This form, once completed, shows the name of the agency, the contact's name and position, the phone, email and address of the agency, the objectives of the project to be supported, a description and the expected outcomes of the project.





The RFP also requires a detailed breakdown of how the money will be spent. A Final Report detailing the completion of the project must be received by IFC before the calendar year ends and failure to provide this may result in denial of future project funding.

A committee member is assigned responsibility for communicating with each particular charity or program and meets with their representatives to assess the necessity for funding. All members then meet as a committee and the committee decides how the basket of available funds is to be shared amongst those requesting support. The next season the committee ensures that all final reports have been received.

As an example, last season the Banderas Bay Women's Shelter completed a RFP. The description of the project states: "In May 2018 we are scheduled to open two external resource centres in Puerto Vallarta. The centres will provide professional services from psychologists, child psychologists, social workers and lawyers to women, men and children in situations of domestic violence. We are requesting that the International Friendship Club help us with the start-up costs of the centres."

The Outcomes of the Project states: "Short term success will be measured by the number of people who seek assistance at the centres. Long term success will be evaluated by using the Endireh Poll which provides us with valuable information about violence throughout Mexico." That is followed by a detailed list of beds, dressers, linens, computers, desks and chairs needed for the start-up.

IFC takes the responsibility of good stewardship seriously. The club members are dedicated to making life better in Puerto Vallarta for Mexicans who are suffering and we want to get the best available benefits for the money you give us in so many ways. If you would like to donate to IFC, please visit the clubhouse at the corner of Libertad and Miramar, or click HERE for more information and to make a donation online via PayPal.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 18, 2019 / Polarity Minerals Corp. ("PMC" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointments of Kevin Beaulieu, Michael Sweatman and Darren Prins to the Company's Board of Directors.

Bios for Newly Appointed Directors:

Kevin Beaulieu, 41, has over 20 years of executive experience in both private and public ventures in natural resource development and technology driven enterprises. He served as Vice President, Director of North American Potash Developments Inc., CEO of One World Investments Inc., CFO of Ethos Consulting Ltd., President / CEO of Ymir Capital Corp., and Executive Director of Union Energy Corp. Mr. Beaulieu also worked with public and private companies in North and South America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East in addition to establishing a network of finance, legal and oil and gas professionals to assist western business interests in their pursuit of assets in the MENA Region-(Middle East, North Africa). Mr. Beaulieu, as Co-founder of Union Energy Corporation, was instrumental in the development of Union Energy "Jennings Field Water Flood Project" in Zapata Texas, USA.

Darren Prins, CPA, CA, (age 37) is a Partner at Invictus Accounting Group with extensive experience in corporate development, capital markets, mergers & acquisitions, financial reporting, auditing, risk management, budgeting and forecasting, as well as international tax planning. Since 2012, Darren has served as Chief Financial Officer for TSX, TSX Venture and NYSE listed companies, as well as privately-held entities, across multiple industries including mining, oil & gas, agriculture and private equity. As CFO, Darren has led a variety of capital markets initiatives and oversaw several mergers & acquisitions transactions. Earlier in his career, Darren worked at Ernst & Young, where he led audit engagements across a variety of industries. Darren graduated from Simon Fraser University with a Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance Major).

Michael Sweatman, 67, is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA CA) who possesses in excess of 30 years' experience in public and private practice and has worked with and provided services and advice to many companies listed on the TSX Venture and Toronto Stock Exchanges. Mr. Sweatman was admitted to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia in 1982 and in the Yukon in 1990. He has been the principal of Michael Sweatman Limited, Chartered Accountant, from 1999 until 2015 and has operated MDS Management Ltd., a Vancouver-based management consulting and investment company, since November 1992. In addition, he has served as a director and officer of a number of public companies over the past 25 years. He is currently CEO and Director of Eureka Resources Inc. (TSXV-EUK), Director and Chairman of Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp. (TSXV-NEV), and Director of Marifil Mines Ltd (TSXV-MFM) former Director of Mega Precious Metals Inc. (TSXV-MGP), Director of Cortez Gold Corp. (TSXV-CUT) and Director Red Hut Metals Inc. (TSXV-ROB), including serving on the audit committees of these companies. Mr. Sweatman has substantial experience in the mineral exploration and development industry as a result of these prior and existing appointments.

For further information please contact:

Kevin Beaulieu, Director

E-mail: info@xmin.io

Forward-Looking Information: This press release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business of PMC. Forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the management of PMC. Although PMC believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based on are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because PMC can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. PMC disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws.

SOURCE: Polarity Minerals Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/533019/Polarity-Minerals-Corp--Announces-Newly-Appointed-Directors
Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) (NYSE: PM) is pleased to announce that its Mission Winnow initiative is expanding in 2019 to include the Ducati Corse racing team.

Mission Winnow is a PMI-led campaign to raise global awareness of our passion and determination to constantly improve and evolve, as well as highlight the power of science, technology and innovation to build a better future.

PMI has partnered with Ducati Corse since 2002 and has extended the relationship for another three years until the end of 2021. As of the start of this year's MotoGP season, the team will be officially known as Mission Winnow Ducati.

Mission Winnow was first launched in October 2018 with Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow, which like Ducati Corse has a passion for innovation and a relentless drive to improve in the team's pursuit of victory.

Ducati Corse is one of the most inspiring and resilient teams in MotoGP, with a 70-year history in racing. Ducati fans form a passionate community who appreciate the sophistication of the bike and the unique skills of the riders, who compete in one of the world's most exhilarating motorsports.

MotoGP and Formula 1 each attract a global audience of approximately 400 million viewers. Mission Winnow provides a window into PMI and our partners, as well as our shared commitment to constant improvement.

Miroslaw Zielinski, PMI's President Science and Innovation said: "Mission Winnow encapsulates our dedication to strive for better in everything we do. To winnow, or discard old approaches and focus on the good is what we are doing at PMI we take learnings from past mistakes and use them to continuously improve as we strive to achieve our ambitious vision of a smoke-free future.

"This is not about PMI-branded products. It is about our people and their dedication to leveraging the power of science, innovation and technology to transform not only our company but an entire industry for the benefit of the world's 1.1 billion smokers and society as a whole.

"Mission Winnow highlights the passion and commitment of individuals and organizations to set a path for constant progress. The Ducati Corse racing team embodies Mission Winnow with its drive to develop, innovate and create new designs and new technology for better motorbikes."

For more information, see our Mission Winnow website or find @missionwinnow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

About Philip Morris International

Philip Morris International (PMI) is leading a transformation in the tobacco industry to create a smoke-free future and ultimately replace cigarettes with smoke-free products to the benefit of adults who would otherwise continue to smoke, society, the company and its shareholders. PMI is a leading international tobacco company engaged in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes, smoke-free products and associated electronic devices and accessories, and other nicotine-containing products in markets outside the U.S.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005347/en/

Contacts:

Philip Morris International

Simon Dowding

T: +41 (0)58 242 4500

E: simon.dowding@pmi.com
Regulatory News:

After having successfully integrated Goldcar the N1 low-cost car rental leader in less than 9 months in 2018, Europcar Mobility Group (Paris:EUCAR) is now reinforcing the management of its Low Cost Business Unit, with the appointment of three managers at key positions: Jose Blanco, as Deputy General Manager, Michel Kisfaludi, as Operations Director, and Paulo Pinto, as Director of Mid-Tier brand.

The low-cost car rental segment is one of the most dynamic in Europe, representing a size of approximatively 1.5 billion euros, enjoying an historical 12% annual growth rate and expected to continue to grow at a similar pace, especially in Leisure destinations like France, Italy, UK or Portugal.

Europcar Mobility Group Low Cost Business Unit entered a "new league" end of 2017, with the acquisition of Goldcar, leader of the low-cost car rental in Europe, thus experiencing a significant growth in 2018 (+219 YTD revenue Q3 results). The BU is now displaying 2 brands Goldcar and InterRent present in 17 countries out of which 8 directly managed.

The BU is managed by Juan-Carlos Azcona, Goldcar's former CEO, as Managing Director, under the leadership of Fabrizio Ruggiero, Europcar Mobility Group Deputy CEO, Head of the Business Units.

Now that the BU is fully operational in its new format, ready to seize the opportunities of the growing leisure market, Europcar Mobility Group is reinforcing the top management of the BU:

Jose Blanco is appointed Deputy General Manager of the Low Cost BU. He was previously Sales and Marketing Director for Europcar in the UK and before that, he held the same position in Spain. Jose Blanco has over 20 years of experience in leisure and tourism, managing sales marketing areas in companies such as Portaventura park and Resort, Grandvalira Ski and Pullmantur Cruises (Royal Caribbean Group).

Michel Kisfaludi is appointed Operations Director of the Low Cost BU. Before that, he was Operations Director for Europcar in Spain. Prior to that Michel Kisfaludi held senior management positions in the technology and banking industries.

Paulo Pinto is appointed Director of Mid-Tier brand of the Low Cost BU. He was previously Head of InterRent Portugal for 2 years and, before that, Paulo Pinto held senior management positions in several companies within the car rental industry.

Supporting Juan Carlos Azcona, newly appointed managers will focus on accelerating the value creation plan embedded in the integration program, securing revenue at the right margin level, while improving the customer journey and satisfaction. In that perspective, they will complement a team that helped position Goldcar as the number 1 company of the low-cost segment.

The repositioning of InterRent as a mid-tier brand is also part of the 2019 roadmap which the BU management will be handling, with an expected launch of a new service for Q2 2019.

With these moves, Europcar Mobility Group supports the acceleration of its BU and ensures that the synergies are fully leveraged.

About Europcar Mobility Group

Europcar Mobility Group is a major player in mobility markets and listed on Euronext Paris.

The mission of Europcar Mobility Group is to be the preferred "Mobility Service Company" by offering alternative attractive solutions to vehicle ownership, with a wide range of mobility-related services: vehicle-rental, chauffeur services, car-sharing, scooter-sharing and peer-to-peer car-rental.

Customers' satisfaction is at the heart of the Group's mission and all of its employees and this commitment fuels the continuous development of new services.

Europcar Mobility Group operates through multi brands meeting every customer specific needs; its 4 major brands being: Europcar the European leader in vehicle rental services, Goldcar the most important low-cost car-rental company in Europe, InterRent 'mid-tier' brand focused on leisure and Ubeeqo one of the European leaders in car-sharing (BtoB, BtoC).

Europcar Mobility Group delivers its mobility solutions worldwide through an extensive network in 135 countries (including 16 wholly owned subsidiaries in Europe, 2 in Australia and New Zealand, franchises and partners).

Plus d'informations sur :

www.europcar-mobility-group.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005340/en/

Contacts:

For further media information:

Europcar Mobility Group

Valerie Sauteret Marie-Anne Benardais

+33 1 30 44 98 82

europcarpressoffice@europcar.com

Publicis Consultants

Salima Djeziri

+33 (0) 1 44 82 47 48

salima.djeziri@publicisconsultants.com
The Board of Photocat A/S, Danish CVR No. 32 35 79 03 (the "Company") hereby calls for an extraordinary general meeting to be held







Monday 4 February 2019 at 2:00 PM in the Company's offices at Langebjerg 4, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark





Agenda



Proposal to authorise the Board on one or more occasions to increase the share capital with up to nominally DKK 2,751,072 shares at market price by payment in cash, conversion of debt or contribution in kind without pre-emption rights for the existing shareholders. Proposal to authorise the Board on one or more occasions to obtain loans, which on market terms determined at the time of obtaining the loans will allow the creditors to convert the loans into shares in the company with up to nominally DKK 2,751,072 shares without pre-emption rights for the existing shareholders. Proposal that the Board's authorisations according to sections 5.3 and 5.4 of the company's articles of association may not be used to issue more shares than a total of nominally DKK 2,751,072 new shares.

Complete motions

Ad 1. Proposal to authorise the Board on one or more occasions to increase the share capital with up to nominally DKK 2,751,072 shares at market price by payment in cash, conversion of debt or contribution in kind without pre-emption rights for the existing shareholders











The background for the Board's proposal is to make it possible for the Company to raise capital without drawing up a prospectus, and thereby save costs and time for the Company.

The Board wishes to use the authorisation to strengthen the Company's balance sheet, and increase the free cash and working capital, especially to accelerate the Company's growth strategy with focus on Scandinavia, Germany, Spain and Canada (existing markets).

The Board is aware that subscription shall take place at market price. The trading volume of the Company's shares is modest at present, and especially in connection with a larger fundraising, the Board is of the opinion, that the market price can be below the currently listed share price.







It is proposed that the following wording is inserted as a new section 5.3 in the articles:







"The Board of Directors is authorised on one or more occasions until 3 February 2024 to increase the share capital with up to nominally DKK 2,751,072 shares at market price by payment in cash, conversion of debt or contribution in kind without pre-emption rights for the existing shareholders and effect the related increases of the Company's share capital."











With respect to other terms for new shares, the attention is drawn to section 5.3 of the current articles, which will be renumbered to section 5.4 (5.5 if the Board's second motion is approved. Section 5.3 reads as follows:







"All new shares shall be subject to the same rules as the existing shares of the Company. The shares shall be registered in the name of the holder in the Company's register of shareholders and shall be negotiable instruments. The shares shall be subject to the same rules on pre-emption rights, voting rights and redeemability as the existing shares"







The title of section 5 is proposed changed to "Authorisations"

Re 2. Proposal to authorise the Board on one or more occasions to obtain loans, which on market terms determined at the time of obtaining the loans will allow the creditors to convert the loans into shares in the company with up to nominally DKK 2,751,072 shares without pre-emption rights for the existing shareholders

The background for the Board's proposal is to make it possible for the Company to obtain loans that may be converted into shares of the Company as an alternative to issue new shares in accordance with the authorisation proposed under item 1 above.

Among other things this will make it possible to let the conversion rate depend on future events. In all events, the conversion rate shall reflect the market price at the time of granting the conversion right.











The conversion rate can - and it is very likely that it will - deviate from both the presently listed share price as well as the listed shares price at the time of conversion.







It is proposed that the following wording is inserted as a new section 5.3 (5.4 if the Board's first motion is approved) in the articles:







"The Board of Directors is authorised on one or more occasions until 3 February 2024 to obtain loans, which on market terms determined at the time of obtaining the loans will allow the creditors to convert the loans into shares in the company with up to nominally DKK 2,751,072 shares without pre-emption rights for the existing shareholders."







With respect to other terms for new shares, the attention is drawn to section 5.3 of the current articles, which will be renumbered to section 5.4 (5.5 if the Board's second motion is approved.

Re 3. Proposal that the Board's authorisations according to sections 5.3 and 5.4 of the company's articles of association may not be used to issue more shares than a total of nominally DKK 2,751,072 new shares

The reason for this proposal is that the proposals made under item 1 and 2 shall be considered alternatives, and not allow for a double issue of new shares.

The proposal is only relevant if both item 1 and 2 above are approved.







It is proposed that the following wording is inserted as a new section 5.6 in the articles:







"The Board's authorisations according to sections 5.3 and 5.4 may not be used to issue more shares than a total of nominally DKK 2,751,072 new shares"

Voting requirements for passing resolutions

The motions under items 1 and 2 are passed by a qualified majority of votes, cf. section 106 of the Danish Companies Act.







The motion under item 3 is passed by a simple majority of votes.

Share capital and voting rights

At the time of the notice convening the general meeting, the share capital of Photocat A/S is nominally DKK 3,248,928 divided into shares of each DKK 1. At the general meeting, a share amount of DKK 1 carries one vote, see Article 14.1 of the Articles of Association.





Admission cards and power of attorney

A shareholder's right to attend and vote at the general meeting is determined on the basis of the number of shares held by the shareholder in question at the date of registration. The date of registration is one week before the general meeting. Attending the general meeting also requires that the shareholder has requested an admission card to the general meeting at least 3 days before the meeting, i.e. Wednesday 30 January 2019 at 23.59. An admission card is issued to a shareholder who is registered in the register of shareholders at the date of registration or to a person from whom, at the date of registration, the Company has received proper notice for the purpose of entry into the register of shareholders.





Shareholders holding shares in the Company at the date of registration are entitled to attend and vote at the general meeting. The date of registration is 28 January 2019. The shareholding of a shareholder at the date of registration is determined on the basis of the number of shares held by the shareholder according to the register of shareholders and of notices to the Company concerning shares which have not yet been registered in the register of shareholders but which have been received by the Company before the end of the date of registration (at the end of the day).





For attending the general meeting, it is a condition that, at least 3 days prior to the general meeting, the shareholder or his/her attorney has obtained an admission card to him/herself and his/her advisor. Admission cards to the general meeting can be obtained by contacting the Company, Langebjerg 4, DK-4000 Roskilde, photocat@photocat.net, tel +45 7022 5055 until Wednesday 30 January 2019 at 23.59.





Shareholders prevented from attending the general meeting may issue a power of attorney to the Board or a named third party. Where a shareholder chooses to attend the general meeting by proxy, the power of attorney must be, signed and returned to the Company, Langebjerg 4, DK-4000 Roskilde, photocat@photocat.net, to the effect that the power of attorney is received by the Company by Thursday 31 January 2019 at 23.59 at the latest. A power of attorney may also, by the same time, be issued by completing the power-of-attorney form via the Company's website www.photocat.net (http://www.photocat.net/).





Access to information

This notice calling for a general meeting with agenda and complete motions will be available for inspection by the shareholders at the Company's website ( www.photocat.net (http://www.photocat.net/)) and at the Company's offices, Langebjerg 4, DK-4000 Roskilde, tel +45 7022 5055 as from 18 January 2019.





Questions from shareholders

Shareholders may ask questions in writing to the agenda and any document for the extraordinary general meeting by contacting the Company's offices, Langebjerg 4, DK-4000 Roskilde or by sending an email to michael@photocat.net.













Roskilde, 18 January 2019

The Board

Attachment
Richmond, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Alpha Peak Leisure Inc. (TSXV: AAP) ("Alpha Peak") has previously mailed materials in respect of a special meeting of shareholders to be held on January 24, 2019 (the "Meeting"). At the Meeting, shareholders will be asked to consider, and vote on, proposals to (i) to sell (the "Transaction") all of the shares of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Total Wonder Enterprises Limited to certain shareholders of Alpha Peak and (ii) to effect a cash distribution of $0.075 per common share of Alpha Peak to shareholders by way of a return of capital (the "Distribution") and to correspondingly reduce the stated capital (the "Stated Capital Reduction") of Alpha Peak's common shares.

ALPHA PEAK'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS HAS UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMENDED THAT SHAREHOLDERS VOTE FOR THE RESOLUTIONS APPROVING THE TRANSACTION AND DISTRIBUTION/STATED CAPITAL REDUCTION.

Alpha Peak has noted that some shareholders may have voted, or are considering a vote, FOR one of the proposals but AGAINST the other proposal. Shareholders are reminded that the transactions contemplated by two proposals are conditional on each other. The consequences of this inter-relationship are as follows:

The Distribution will not be made if the Transaction is not approved at the Meeting; and

The Transaction will not proceed if the Distribution is not approved at the Meeting.

Alpha Peak urges shareholders to read the management information circular dated December 21, 2018. The circular contains detailed information about the proposals, the transactions underlying those proposals, how to vote at the Meeting and other information to assist shareholders in considering the matters to be voted upon at the Meeting. The circular was mailed to shareholders in connection with the Meeting. It is also available electronically under Alpha Peak's issuer profile at www.sedar.com. Shareholders are also urged to consult with their financial, legal and other professional advisors.

Shareholders who held common shares as of the close of business on December 17, 2018 are entitled to vote at the Meeting. Shareholder who have not yet voted are encouraged to vote on both proposals. Shareholders may also change their votes by executing a new proxy, revoking a previously given proxy or (if a shareholder is a registered shareholder) attending the meeting and voting in person, all in the manner set forth in the circular. Shareholders should consult the circular for information on how to vote.







About Alpha Peak







Alpha Peak, via its wholly-owned subsidiary, Total Wonder Enterprises Limited, has a 40-year operating and development right with the Hailuo Valley Scenic Area Administration for Swallows' Gully, a national scenic location in China encompassing an area of approximately 593 km2.







For more information, please contact:







Jin Huang; Corporate Secretary



Telephone: (86) 1376173979

Email: jin.huang@alphapeak.ca

Forward-Looking Information

Except for statements of historical fact contained herein, information in this press release may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Other than statements of historical fact, all statements that involve various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors are "forward-looking statements", including with respect to the dates of the special meeting of shareholders, the Distribution Record Date and the effective date of the Distribution, the ability of Alpha Peak to implement the Distribution, Stated Capital Reduction and Transaction on the terms described or at all, as well as the status of Alpha Peak and Total Wonder Enterprises Limited after the Transaction. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove accurate.

Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Alpha Peak in light of management's experience and perception of current conditions and expected developments, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Known and unknown factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, the risk factors set out in the Circular, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements and information. Except as otherwise required by applicable law, Alpha Peak expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Citi (NYSE: C) has been awarded a mandate from Apex Group Ltd. ("Apex"), one of the world's largest fund administrators, to provide custody services to its global client base. The partnership between Citi and Apex will deliver integrated custody services and streamlined operational processes to Apex's asset management clients.

With over $21.3 trillion of assets under custody and administration1 and the industry-leading proprietary network spanning over 60 proprietary branches as well as agent banks in 106 markets, Citi's custody business combines in-depth local market expertise with an extensive global platform to deliver consistent, scalable and flexible solutions that support clients' most complex custody needs.

"Partnering with Citi to deliver custody services to our global client base will add great value to the Apex offering through the bank's proprietary network and complementary global operational and service models. Citi's institutional capabilities fit well with our ongoing growth trajectory and recently acquired banking and depositary services", said David Rhydderch, Head of Regulated Product, Apex Group Ltd

The Apex Group has offices across 40 locations worldwide and is the world's fifth largest fund administrator with $560bn in assets under administration. The Group delivers a full range of services from fund administration and corporate services, to comprehensive middle office solutions, depositary services, and now custody services via its partnership with Citi.

"We are very pleased to have been selected by the Apex Group and look forward helping them achieve their impressive growth objectives," Sanjiv Sawhney, Global Head of Custody and Fund Services at Citi said. "As we continue to build on the momentum of our custody platform, this mandate highlights our commitment to serve our clients across jurisdictions with an integrated custody model that delivers accuracy, risk mitigation, market intimacy and low latency, whilst driving operational efficiencies."

About Apex

The Apex Group, established in Bermuda in 2003, is the world's fifth largest fund administrator. The Group has continually improved and evolved its product suite and offers a full service solution to its clients: from fund administration, middle office, custody and depositary to corporate services and fund platforms. Apex now administers $560bn in assets, including the investments of some of the world's largest funds and institutional investors. www.apexfundservices.com

About Citi

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://blog.citigroup.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi

________________________

1 Q3 2018

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190118005300/en/

Contacts:

Anja Klein

anja.klein@citi.com

+44 207 508 3835

Rosie Guest, Global Marketing Director

rosie@apexfunds.co.uk

+44 203 961 1436
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Transcanna Holdings Inc. (CSE: TCAN) ("TransCanna" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that TCM Distribution, Inc. ("TCMD"), the non-profit entity managed by the Company has received from the state of California its temporary distributor license. On December 31st TCMD submitted its permanent distribution license application to the state of California.

On November 23rd, 2018 TCM Distribution, Inc. had received a formal approval from the City of Adelanto regarding the transfer of TCMD's city issued medical marijuana transportation & distribution permit, as originally issued on December 5th, 2017, to an existing facility. The permitted facility, which is less than one thousand square feet, is located on a parcel of land in which the landlord is scheduled to build two, twenty thousand square foot cannabis related facilities, and has offered to lease one of the facilities to TCMD. TCMD is currently in negotiations with the landlord to lease one of the twenty thousand square foot facilities which when completed will have all the required power and electricity necessary to operate its distribution operations, which the previously leased property did not. As a result, TCMD is no longer seeking to build its own facility in Adelanto.

"The transfer of the Adelanto permit to an existing facility with the possibility of leasing a twenty thousand square foot facility allows us to expedite the process of getting an operational footprint in Southern California," states Jim Pakulis, CEO of TransCanna and owner of TCMD. "We look forward to completing our negotiations with the existing landlord and reaching a favorable outcome."

About Transcanna Holdings Inc.

TransCanna Holdings Inc. is a Canadian based company providing branding, transportation and distribution services, through its wholly-owned California subsidiaries, to a range of industries including the cannabis marketplace.

For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.transcanna.com or email the Company at info@transcanna.com.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

James Pakulis

President and Chief Executive Officer

Telephone: (604) 609-6199

The information in this news release includes certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward looking statements. These statements are based upon assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, the actual results, expectations, achievements or performance may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to the future leasing plans of the company. Any number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements as well as future results. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in forward looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward looking statements will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward looking statements or otherwise.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Edmonton, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Camino Minerals Corp. (TSXV: COR) (OTCQB: CAMZF) (WKN: A116E1) ("Camino" or the "Company") has completed an extensive surface exploration program within the Diva trend at the 20,000 hectare Chapitos Copper-Gold project, near Chala, Southern Peru.

As reported on November 22, 2018, Camino has conducted intensified surface exploration at the Chapitos project. Results from the detailed mapping are being compiled and the results of the soil and rock sampling within the Diva trend are discussed below.

CEO John Williamson commented, "We are excited to see the surface results come together and new copper and copper-gold anomalies have been identified through soil and rock sampling results. In particular, we are excited by the extension of the Diva trend northwest of the Adriana Copper Occurrence and await the granting of our new drill permits early in 2019."

Diva Trend

In total, 851 rock samples have been collected and have now delineated a 7km by ~1.5km area that we have named the "Diva trend." The rock samples were submitted to ALS Global for analysis and their copper results ranged from less than detection up to 15% Cu, with an average of 0.69% Cu. The Diva trend is host to the Lourdes, Adriana, Katty, Maria, Pilar, and Vicky copper occurrences. The Diva trend is open to the northwest and to the southeast and to date less than 20% of this trend has been drill tested (Adriana, Katty, and Vicky occurrences) and the rest remains open.

Figure 1





To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/1384/42273_762241e814970b8a_001full.jpg

The Diva trend comprises a broad zone of Copper (rock and soil) anomalies (Figure 1) that is parallel/sub-parallel to the northwest trending contact between a Jurassic Volcano-sedimentary sequence (to the north) and a Cretaceous Monzonite Intrusive complex (to the south). The Diva fault, which lies within the Diva trend at or near this volcanic-intrusive contact, and was confirmed by the 2017-2018 Adriana drilling programs, appears to be an important control for copper mineralization and/or surface anomalism along the trend, although additional parallel structures also appear to be present. In addition, several intense zones of silica replacement, referred to as aplitic dykes on regional government maps, are also spatially associated with the Diva fault at, and northwest of, the Adriana area.

Soil sampling was conducted at 25m intervals along northeast trending grid lines with 100-200m line spacing. A total of 2750 soil samples have now been collected along the Diva trend, as illustrated in Figure 1, which comprise an initial group of 1550 samples collected along wide-spaced lines that were analyzed in Chala by the Company using a portable XRF unit and a further 1200 infill soil samples that were submitted to ALS Global for ICP analysis (note: duplicate sampling has confirmed that there is no statistical difference between the pXRF and ICP Cu soil data). The Diva trend copper (Cu) data is illustrated in the accompanying figure (Figure 1) with both colored symbols (circles) at each sample site on top of a gridded (kriged) copper image (TIFF). Rock samples were collected from rock outcrops throughout the property and are also illustrated in Figure 1 (triangles).

Along the Diva trend, surface copper mineralization comprises mainly copper oxides (malachite and chrysocolla) with minor sulphide (chalcopyrite and pyrite). The Company has recently completed a review of the 2017 and 2018 drill core from the Adriana zone and has identified copper mineralization and hydrothermal alteration associated with several discreet breccias. As a result, the Company is now examining the applicability of the Chilean Manto Cu deposit model to certain parts of the Chapitos Property, including the Adriana Zone within the Diva Trend. This is based not only upon the recognition of mineralized breccias that appear to be a primary control on Copper mineralization, but also upon the recognition of possible albite (sodic) alteration of volcanic host rocks proximal to breccias and possible metal zonation throughout the Adriana drill core with Cu-rich chalcocite dominant mineralization in the core of breccia zones and a 'lower weight %' Cu assemblage of bornite-chalcopyrite-pyrite peripheral to the breccias. Additional petrographic and geochemical work is underway to further investigate these observations. Images can be viewed at the Company's website.

New Targets

Newly delineated soil anomalies and high-grade rock samples exist along the Diva trend at the Maria and the Lourdes copper occurrences. The Maria copper occurrence lies approximately 2.5km SSE of the Adriana area and is defined by a ~600m-long Cu-in-soil anomaly near the south end of the Diva Trend, where recent sampling of copper-oxide mineralized volcanics has yielded high grade results. This target has not yet been drill tested. At Lourdes, which lies approximately 1.5km NNW along strike from the Adriana occurrence, an ~800m-long Cu-in-soil anomaly has been identified with coincident high-grade rock samples and also remains to be drill tested.

To date 17,500m of drilling has been conducted primarily at the Adriana, Katty, and Vicki occurrences. The Cu mineralization encountered remain open along strike and at depth. In addition to the identification and testing of new drill targets, the planned 2019 drilling and exploration program will include work intended to further define and potentially expand upon the mineralized zones that have already been identified at the Adriana and Katty zones where drilling has intersected 1.31% copper over 82.5m (Adriana DCH-024, press release October 2, 2017) and 1.20% copper over 21.4m (Katty DCH-014, press release August 22, 2017). The Company is working to gain a better understanding of the geology and the structural controls of the mineralization along the Diva trend with the intent to gather information for a future resource estimation effort.

During December 2018, Camino filed application for an expanded drill program with up to 200 new drill pad areas in which to continue the expansion of the Diva trend copper mineralization. The permit for this work is expected to be approved in the first quarter of 2019.

About Camino Minerals Corporation

Camino is a discovery-oriented mineral exploration company. The Company is focused on the acquisition and development of high-grade copper and precious metal projects. For more information, please refer to Camino's website at www.caminominerals.com. John Williamson, P.Geol., President, CEO and Director of Camino, is the Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this press release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

/s/ "John Williamson"

President and CEO

For further information, please contact:

Jeremy Yaseniuk, Director

jeremyy@metalsgroup.com

Tel: (604) 773-1467

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may contain certain "forward looking statements". Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this news release and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 18, 2019 / Far Resources Ltd (CSE:FAT) (FSE:F0R) (OTC:FRRSF) is pleased to announce that is has completed 16 diamond drill holes at its 100% owned Zoro Lithium Project near Snow Lake in mining friendly Manitoba, resulting in both new discoveries and expansion of known mineralisation.

This round of drilling, the company's fifth successful campaign at Zoro, has resulted in the expansion of Dyke 8, a high-grade spodumene-bearing pegmatite dyke discovered last year by Far, and has led to the discovery of additional spodumene-bearing dykes and unique lithologies suspected of being lithium and caesium-enriched to the north and north west of the existing dyke swarm.

Three additional drill holes from the planned 21-hole program have also been completed for the collection of core samples for metallurgical testing. The remaining exploration holes will be drilled in January/February 2019.

Toby Mayo, President and CEO of Far, stated: "We continue to make great advances at Zoro. These new discoveries provide further assurances of the potential for scale at the project. Furthermore, with Dyke 8 open in all directions, we are in a strong position to build on our resource, adding to that currently defined on part of Dyke 1 last year."

Figure 1 illustrates completed drill holes to date and outstanding holes planned for drilling in 2019. All assay results are pending.

Figure 1. Location of drill holes completed in 2018 and those planned for 2019 in relation to Dykes 1 and 8.

Significant Expansion of Dyke 8 Mineralisation

Hole FAR18-017 was the first to be completed during the fifth drill campaign. It targeted newly discovered Dyke 8 (DDHFAR18-34 and -35; February 2018) and intersected 13 metres of well-mineralised spodumene, extending the zone of lithium mineralisation to the east by approximately 30 metres.

Subsequent drill holes (FAR18-039, -040, -041 and -058) were drilled to define the geometry of Dyke 8: it currently has a strike length of at least 90 metres, a width varying between 5 and 15 metres, and extends vertically to a depth of more than 100 metres. Dyke 8 remains open in all directions and is potentially related to Dyke 3 by way of folding and/or faulting. Deformation, including tightly folded pegmatites, have been documented recently by Benn (2018a) in a 1:4000 scale mapping project and again by Benn (2018b) as part of an M.Sc. thesis study of the area. Dyke 8 and related drill holes are illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Plan view and long and cross sections of Dyke 8 with related drill holes and Dyke 3.

Discovery of New Dykes

New spodumene-bearing pegmatite dykes were intersected by drill testing some of the 50+ Mobile Metal Ion anomalies defined by soil surveys on the Zoro lithium project. This is significant as it proves the potential to add significant tonnes through further drilling on these targets.

The new discoveries were intersected by five holes (Far18-043 to -047, inclusive) along a 1.5 km lithium-caesium anomaly developed within and adjacent to a prominent overburden-covered lineament (Figure 1). This anomaly was described in an earlier news release (October 2, 2018). By comparison, the existing mineralisation at Dyke 1 covers a strike length of approximately 400 metres.

Core samples have been submitted to Activation Laboratories to assess lithium and caesium contents in the quartz porphyry and pegmatite dykes.

Metallurgical Holes

Drill holes FAR16-07 (central Dyke 1), 017-012 (north Dyke 1) and 017-012R (south Dyke 1) were re-drilled in 2018 to acquire spodumene-mineralised pegmatite for metallurgical testing. Spodumene intercepts were cut with a saw leaving quarter core in the core box for future reference. Material representative of the hangingwall and footwall to the pegmatite intercept were also included with the samples. Metallurgical testing will be undertaken by SGS Mineral Services at their Lakefield facility.

Subsequent to the Christmas/New Year shutdown the drill will be mobilised to test the four remaining targets. These targets occur south and along trend from Dyke 1.

All drill core assays are currently pending.

Sampling, Preparation and Analysis

Core samples are being logged, cut, bagged and shipped from Far's core logging and preparation facility in Snow Lake and shipped to Activation Laboratories (Ancaster, Ontario) for the analysis of lithium and a multi-element suite of elements referred to as UT-7. This method is based upon a sodium peroxide fusion which captures total amounts of lithium and related elements in the sample.

Options Issued

Pursuant to its Stock Option Plan, the company has granted incentive stock options to certain officers, employees and consultants to purchase up to an aggregate of 8,600,000 common shares in the capital stock of the company.

The options are exercisable at a price of $0.12 per share and will vest immediately. They expire on January 17, 2024.

About Far

Far Resources is a Canadian battery and technology minerals exploration and development company with exploration projects in Canada and the USA. More information on Far is available at www.farresources.com.

Qualified Person

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mark Fedikow P.Geo., a qualified person as defined under National Instrument 43-101.

References

Benn, D., Linnen, R.L. and Martins, T. 2018a: Geology and bedrock mapping of the Wekusko Lake pegmatite field (northeastern block), central Manitoba (part of NTS 63J13) in Report of Activities 2018, Manitoba Growth, Enterprise and Trade, Manitoba Geological Survey, p. 79-88.

Benn, D., Linnen, R.L. and Martins, T. 2018b: Bedrock geology of the Wekusko Lake pegmatite field (northeastern block), Central Manitoba (part of 63J13); Manitoba Growth, Enterprise and Trade, Manitoba Geological Survey, Preliminary Map PMAP 2018-2, (1:4000).

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF

FAR RESOURCES LTD.

Toby Mayo, President and CEO

Terri Anne Welyki

VP Corporate Communications

778-238-2333

CorpCom@FarResources.com

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance (including our planned exploration for the Winston Project and the Zoro Lithium Property) and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the company. Readers are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. All of the forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements and those in our continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required under applicable securities legislation. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell securities and the company is not soliciting an offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

SOURCE: Far Resources Ltd

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532986/Far-Resources-Announces-Continued-Drilling-Success-at-its-Zoro-Lithium-Project-Manitoba-with-Significant-Expansion-of-Dyke-8-Mineralisation-and-Discovery-of-New-Spodumene-bearing-Pegmatite-Dykes
COEUR D'ALENE, ID / ACCESSWIRE / January 18, 2019 / Timberline Resources Corporation (OTCQB: TLRS; TSX-V: TBR) ("Timberline" or the "Company") invites investors to visit its Booth #1104 at the 2019 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference to be held January 20-21 at the Vancouver Convention Centre West. Management will be available to discuss this year's plans for the Elder Creek-Paiute porphyry copper-gold and the Eureka Carlin-type gold projects in Nevada.

Options Grant and Warrant Issue

The company also announced that in connection with Mr. Ted Sharp's appointment as chief financial officer, he has been granted 100,000 options to purchase common shares of the Company, pursuant to the 2018 stock option plan. These options have an exercise price of US$0.10 per common share for a period of 5 years from date of grant, and are subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval.

Furthermore, pursuant to terms of the Elder Creek and Paiute property acquisition agreement with Americas Gold Exploration Inc ("AGEI"), 5,000,000 common stock purchase warrants were issued by the Company to AGEI, with each warrant exercisable to acquire one share of the Company's common stock for US$0.24 for a period of three years.

About Timberline Resources

Timberline Resources Corporation is focused on advancing district-scale gold exploration and development projects in Nevada. These include its 23 square-mile Eureka property, comprising the Lookout Mountain, Windfall, and Oswego projects which lie along three separate structural stratigraphic trends defined by distinct geochemical gold anomalies, as well as being operator of both the Paiute joint venture project with a subsidiary of Barrick Gold, and the Elder Creek joint venture with McEwen Mining. All of these properties lie on the prolific Battle Mountain-Eureka gold trend. Timberline also owns the Seven Troughs property in Northern Nevada, which is one of the state's highest-grade former gold producers. Timberline has increased its owned and controlled mineral rights in Nevada to over 43 square miles (27,500 acres). Detailed maps and NI 43-101 estimated resource information for the Eureka property, and NI 43-101 Technical Reports for the Elder Creek and Paiute Projects may be viewed at http://timberlineresources.co/.

Timberline is listed on the OTCQB where it trades under the symbol "TLRS" and on the TSX Venture Exchange where it trades under the symbol "TBR".

Forward-looking Statements

Statements contained herein that are not based upon current or historical fact are forward-looking in nature and constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements reflect the Company's expectations about its future operating results, performance and opportunities that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. These include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the advancement of projects, and exploration potential. When used herein, the words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "upcoming," "plan," "target", "intend" and "expect" and similar expressions, as they relate to Timberline Resources Corporation, its subsidiaries, or its management, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to the Company and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the Company's actual results, performance, prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements.There are no assurances that the Company will complete the earn-in on the Elder Creek project as contemplated or at all. Factors that could cause or contribute to risks involving forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, changes in the Company's business and other factors, including risk factors discussed in the Company's Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2018. Except as required by law, the Company does not undertake any obligationto release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For Further Information Please Contact:

Steven A. Osterberg

President and CEO

Tel: 208-664-4859

E-mail: info@timberline-resources.com

Website: www.timberline-resources.com

SOURCE: Timberline Resources Corporation

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532985/Timberline-to-Attend-Vancouver-Resource-Investment-Conference
Puerto Vallarta Medical Matters Conference, February 11

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Are you a Banderas Bay area resident or visitor interested in your health and wellbeing? If so, you won't want to miss the Medical Matters Conference on February 11 from 9 am to 3 pm at the Hotel Marriott CasaMagna Marina Vallarta. Meet physicians, ask questions, learn about local labs and diagnostic centers, hospitals  anything and everything to do with your health and well-being.

Sponsored by HealthCare Resources Puerto Vallarta, the U.S. Consular Agency and the Hotel Marriott, this no-charge event is open to all nationalities and features 50 health care-related exhibitors from the Banderas Bay area covering everything from insurance to hospitals, plastic surgery to orthopedics, and everything in between.

In addition, Medical Matters 2019 features a non-stop speakers program throughout the day with local physicians addressing a wide variety of health care topics. No reservations required. Keep checking this page for speakers programs, bios on each speaker and topics and lots more information!

Save the date! February 11, 2019 from 9 am until 3 pm at the Hotel Marriott CasaMagna Marina Vallarta. For further information, contact Pamela Thompson at pamela(at)healthcareresourcespv.com, or 322-107-7007.



 B E L O W T H E F O L D 





Don't miss the 2019 Medical Matters Conference on February 11 at the CasaMagna Marriott Marina Vallarta. At this no-charge event you can meet local doctors, dentists and other healthcare providers, and attend informative medical talks by local physicians and specialists.Puerto Vallarta Medical Matters sponsors are proud to be hosting some very distinguished physicians as featured speakers at this year's health and well-being conference, covering everything from Atrial Fibrillation and Osteoarthritis to Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / January 18, 2019 / Pelangio Exploration Inc. (PX: TSX-V; OTC PINK: PGXPF) ("Pelangio" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding letter of intent with Pancontinental Resources Corporation ("Pancontinental" or "Pancon") pursuant to which Pancon can earn up to a 75% interest in Pelangio's Strachan Property. Under the terms of the letter of intent, Pancontinental has the right to earn an initial 60% interest in the Strachan Property over a three year period through the issuance of 400,000 common shares, payments of $40,000 to be issued in four equal installments, and completion of a $250,000 work commitment. Upon acquiring the initial 60% interest Pancontinental may elect to earn a further 15% interest in the property by incurring an additional $500,000 in exploration expenditures over three years. The Strachan Property will be the third copper, nickel, cobalt property that Pelangio will have under option to Pancon in the emerging Montcalm battery metals district, along with Pelangio's 50% interest in the Nova and Montcalm properties. On January 7, 2019, Pancon announced the launch of its initial drill program on the Montcalm property (see Pancon press release dated January 7, 2019).

"We are very pleased with the ongoing collaboration with Pancontinental", commented Ingrid Hibbard, President and CEO of Pelangio. "The optioning of the three properties to Pancon provides Pelangio with direct and indirect exposure to a substantial battery metals exploration program with camp size potential."

Strachan Property

The Strachan property is located approximately 65 kilometres ("km") northwest of Timmins, Ontario or about 19 km south of Glencore's former Montcalm Mine which had historical production during 2004-2009 of 3,931,610 tonnes of ore grading 1.25% nickel, 0.67% copper and 0.051% cobalt, and which produced in excess of four million pounds of cobalt (Source: Ontario Geological Survey, Atkinson, 2011).

The Strachan property was acquired by Pelangio, along with the 50% interest in the Nova and Montcalm properties when it completed the acquisition of 2522962 Ontario Inc. ("5SD Capital") in December of 2018 (see press release December 10, 2018).The Strachan Property is comprised of 114 claim units (2280 hectares) and covers a strategic portion of the Strachan Gabbro Complex, a gabbro complex similar to the Montcalm Gabbro Complex which hosts the former Montcalm Mine.

In proximity to the Strachan property are the Montcalm and Nova properties, which are currently under option to Pancon. Pelangio now has indirect exposure to both of these properties through its acquired share position in Pancontinental and, in the event that Pancon completes the earn-in, Pelangio's retained royalty. Pancon has the right to earn a 100% interest in the Montcalm and Nova properties by making a further cash payment of $52,500 and issuing 450,000 common shares to Pelangio over the next two years.

In 2018, both the Montcalm and Nova properties had successful and substantial target development work completed (see Pancontinental press releases September 17, 2018 and October 30, 2018) resulting in Pancon's recently announced maiden diamond drill campaign on the Montcalm property to evaluate a series of new Virtual Time Domain Electromagnetic VTEM max airborne targets (see Pancon press release January 7, 2019).

Qualified Person

Kevin Filo, P.Geo. (Ontario), is a Qualified Person within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Filo has verified and approved the data disclosed in this release.

About Pelangio

Pelangio acquires and explores large land packages in world-class gold belts in Ontario, Canada and Ghana, West Africa. In Canada, the company is focusing on the 25 km2 Birch Lake Property located in the Red Lake Mining District and the Dalton Property located 1.5 km from the Hollinger mine in Timmins. In Ghana, the Company is focusing on two 100% owned camp-sized properties: the 100 km2 Manfo Property, the site of seven recent near-surface gold discoveries, and the 284 km2 Obuasi Property, located 4 km on strike and adjacent to AngloGold Ashanti's prolific high-grade Obuasi Mine. Ghana is an English-speaking, common law jurisdiction that is consistently ranked amongst the most favourable mining jurisdictions in Africa.

For additional information, please visit our website at www.pelangio.com, or contact:

Ingrid Hibbard, President and CEO

Tel: 905-336-3828 / Toll-free: 1-877-746-1632 / Email: info@pelangio.com

Location of the Strachan property in reference to the Montcalm Mine and the Montcalm and Nova projects

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements herein may contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements or information appear in a number of places and can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements and information include statements regarding the Company's ability to complete the planned work programs, the Company's strategy of acquiring large land packages in areas of sizable gold mineralization, the Company's plans to follow-up on previous work, and the Company's exploration plans. With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, we have made numerous assumptions, including assumptions about the state of the equity markets. Such forward-looking statements and information are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement or information. Such risks include the changes in equity markets, share price volatility, volatility of global and local economic climate, gold price volatility, increases in costs, exchange rate fluctuations, speculative nature of gold exploration including the risk that favourable results may not be obtained, and other risks involved in the gold exploration industry. See the Company's annual and quarterly financial statements and management's discussion and analysis for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to the forward-looking statement and information. There can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information referenced herein will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Also, many of the factors are beyond the control of the Company. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward- looking statements or information. We undertake no obligation to reissue or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law. All forward-looking statements and information herein are qualified by this cautionary statement.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Pelangio Exploration Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532978/Pelangio-Options-Strachan-Property-Battery-Metals-Project-to-Pancontinental-Resources-Corp
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 18, 2019 / LED Medical Diagnostics Inc. ("LED" or the "Company") (TSX-V: LMD) is pleased to announce that Mr. Alexander Ryzhikov has been appointed to the board of directors of LED.Mr. Ryzhikov, who holds a Chartered Financial Analyst designation, currently serves as Partner at Ewing Morris & Co., an independent Canadian boutique investment firm. Prior to joining Ewing Morris in 2014, Mr. Ryzhikov worked as an Investment Analyst at Burgundy Asset Management, where he was part of the U.S. large cap team. Mr. Ryzhikov graduated with distinction from Concordia University in 2011 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting and a Minor in Finance. He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology and Immunology from McGill University. Following the recent convertible preferred share placement, Ewing Morris & Co. Investment Partners Ltd. has become a significant investor in LED Medical.

"I welcome Alex to our Board and look forward to his contributions to LED's business," commented Dr. David Gane, CEO of LED Medical Diagnostics.

About LED Medical Diagnostics

LED Medical Diagnostics Inc. is a dental imaging technology provider focused on delivering state-of-the-art imaging software and systems. Through its wholly-owned subsidiaries LED Dental Inc., LED Dental Ltd., and Apteryx, Inc., LED Medical provides dentists and oral health specialists with advanced diagnostic imaging devices and software. LED's proprietary technologies include the VELscope Vx Enhanced Oral Assessment and TUXEDO Intraoral Sensors, in addition to Apteryx's XrayVision, XVWeb and XrayVision DCV imaging software solutions.

Backed by an experienced leadership team and dedicated to a higher level of service and support, LED is committed to providing dental practitioners with the best technology available by identifying and adding leading products to its growing portfolio. The Company is currently listed on the TSXV under the symbol LMD, the OTCQB under the symbol LEDIF, as well as the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol LME.

Media Contact:

LED Dental

Chris Koch

Phone: 678.293.9413

Email: chris.koch@leddental.com

Corporate Contact:

LED Medical

David Gane, CEO

Phone: 604.434.4614 ext 227

Email: david.gane@leddental.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy

SOURCE: LED Medical Diagnostics Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532943/LED-Medical-Diagnostics-Announces-Appointment-of-New-Director
Toronto, Ontario and New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Canada Cannabis House, co-hosted by the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE), KAPOOR KAPITAL, and OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), is pleased to announce agenda details of next week's pavilion panels and speakers. Confirmed participants include Ehud Barak, the 10th Prime Minister of Israel and Chairman of InterCure with Anthony Scaramucci, and cannabis industry leaders including Bruce Linton (Canopy Growth), Kevin Murphy (Acreage Holdings), Richard Carleton (Canadian Securities Exchange), and Saul Kaye (CannaTech Global).

With support from pavilion partners iCAN and CannaTech Global, along with lead sponsor Canaccord Genuity, the exclusive Canada Cannabis House will be situated at the center of all activity in Davos, Switzerland and run from January 22-24. With the rapidly advancing global expansion of cannabis legalization, this iconic international location will convene industry leaders and senior executives from publicly-traded cannabis companies influenced by the Canadian listing and trading experience.

Confirmed panelists and speakers include:

Tuesday - January 22nd

4:00pm - Cannabis in the Capital Markets - What's Getting Funded Next?

Featuring: Richard Carleton (CEO - CSE) / Jason Paltrowitz (EVP - OTC Markets Group) / Dan Daviau (CEO - Canaccord Genuity)

5:00pm - How to Capitalize on the U.S. Cannabis Opportunity - Navigating Regulatory Uncertainty

Featuring: Bruce Linton (CEO - Canopy Growth Corporation) / Kevin Murphy (CEO - Acreage Holdings)

Wednesday - January 23rd

3:00pm - "Cannabis 3.0"

Featuring: Lorne Gertner (Chairman - Tokyo Smoke)

3:10pm - "The Next Investment Opportunities in Global Cannabis Expansion"

Featuring: Jason Warnok (CEO - TheraCann International) / Prakash Hariharan (CFO - Radient Technologies) / Boris Blatnik (CEO - KannaSwiss)

4:00pm - "The Road to Building the First International Cannabis Brand"

Featuring: George Kveton (CEO - Invictus MD) / Mike Dacks (SVP Global Affairs - Plena Global Holdings)

Thursday - January 24th

3:30pm EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW - A Discussion with Ehud Barak - the 10th Prime Minister of Israel and Chairman of InterCure, interviewed by Anthony Scaramucci, SkyBridge Capital

4:15pm - "The Next Emerging Markets for Cannabis - Navigating Asia and Latin America"

Featuring: Philip Gu (CEO - Stemcell United Limited) / Santiago Londono (CEO - NEWCANNA HUB)

5:00pm - "Exporting Cannabis Innovation to the World from Israel"

Featuring: Yona Levy (Alvit LCS Pharma) / Roie Zerahia (CEO - CANNDOC) / Eyal Barad (CEO - Cannabics Pharmaceuticals)

5:45pm - "Closing Remarks - Cannabis 2020 and Beyond"

Featuring: Antonio Costanzo (CEO - EMMAC Life Sciences PLC)

For more information on the Canada Cannabis House, please visit https://www.thecse.com/en/about/event/canada-cannabis-house-at-davos

About CSE - Canadian Securities Exchange

The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) is home to more than 460 uniquely listed issues covering a broad range of industry sectors. The exchange provides trade execution, smart routing, risk management, compliance and market information services for Canadian listed securities. Recognized as an exchange by the Ontario Securities Commission, the CSE is designed to facilitate the capital formation process for public companies through a streamlined approach to company regulation that emphasizes disclosure and the provision of efficient secondary market trading services for investors. Learn more at www.thecse.com

About OTC Markets Group Inc.

OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market and the Pink Open Market for 10,000 U.S. and global securities. Through OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN, we connect a diverse network of broker-dealers that provide liquidity and execution services. We enable investors to easily trade through the broker of their choice and empower companies to improve the quality of information available for investors.

To learn more about how we create better informed and more efficient markets, visit www.otcmarkets.com.

OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN are SEC regulated ATSs, operated by OTC Link LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.

Subscribe to the OTC Markets RSS Feed

About iCAN: Israel-Cannabis

iCAN: Israel-Cannabis is building the Global Cannabis Ecosystem. iCAN is committed to accelerate Israel's Canna-Technology industry, capitalizing on Israeli innovation and a leading cannabis regulatory environment to bring premier products to market. iCAN is powered by CannaTech, the premier international cannabis summit held annually in Tel Aviv, and around the world including London, Sydney, Hong Kong and now Panama in 2019.

Media Contacts

OTC Markets Group Inc.: +1 (212) 896-4428, media@otcmarkets.com

CSE - Canadian Securities Exchange: (416) 367-7360, richard.carleton@thecse.com

KAPOOR KAPITAL: 001416-602-6396, Kapoorvik@gmail.com
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Pancontinental Resources Corporation (TSXV: PUC) ("Pancon" or the "Company") announced today it has entered into a binding letter of intent ("LOI") with Pelangio Exploration Inc. (TSXV: PX) to acquire up to a 75% interest in the Strachan Project, covering 2,280 hectares within the Montcalm Greenstone Belt, 65 kilometres northwest of Timmins, Ontario. Strachan is Pancon's fourth early stage Ni-Co-Cu exploration project in the emerging Montcalm battery and energy metals district, and it consolidates Pancon's control over most of the highly prospective gabbro intrusives across 15,760 hectares.

The Strachan Project binding letter of intent (LOI) forms the basis for an Option and for a future Joint Venture Agreement. Under the binding LOI, Pancon can earn a 60% interest in the Strachan Project for total cash payment of C$40,000 and issuance of 400,000 common shares over an initial three-year period as well as a C$250,000 work commitment over those three years, including C$50,000 within the first year. Pancon can earn a further 15% interest, for a total 75% interest in the Strachan Project, by completing an additional C$500,000 work commitment over an additional three-year period.

Pancon President and CEO, Layton Croft, stated: "Pancon now controls more than 157 square kilometres in a proven nickel-cobalt-copper mining location west of Timmins. Glencore's former Montcalm Mine property covers less than 5 square kilometres of the Montcalm Gabbro Complex. With Strachan, in addition to our Montcalm, Gambler and Nova projects, Pancon is the dominant player in an emerging battery and energy metals exploration district. Pelangio is an excellent company led by high quality exploration and mining professionals, and we are excited to be their partner."

The Strachan Project

The Strachan Project covers 22.8 square kilometres and is located in Strachan and Melrose Townships, due south of Montcalm Township. The Strachan Project is approximately 5 kilometres south of Pancon's Gambler Project, 10 kilometres east of Pancon's Nova Project, 13 kilometres south of Pancon's Montcalm Project, and 19 kilometres south of Glencore's former Montcalm Mine.

The map below shows the regional Gabbro Complex intrusive geology in blue. The former Montcalm Mine is hosted in the Montcalm Gabbro Complex, which is the same geology hosting Pancon's Montcalm and Gambler Projects. The Strachan Project is hosted by the Strachan Gabbro Complex, geologically similar to the Montcalm Gabbro Complex.

Montcalm Area Holdings Map

To view an enhanced version of Montcalm Area Holdings Map, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5156/42264_3d705f19441f4880_003full.jpg

The Montcalm Mine was discovered and developed based on a single airborne electromagnetic anomaly identified in the 1970s and previously mined 3,931,610 tonnes of ore grading 1.25% nickel (Ni), 0.67% copper (Cu), and 0.051% cobalt (Co), producing in excess of 4 million pounds of Co (Ontario Geological Survey, Atkinson, 2011). Pancon cautions that the mineralization on the former Montcalm Mine is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization that may be identified on the Strachan Project.

Pancon intends to explore the Strachan Project by using both state-of-the-art airborne versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) and airborne gravity geophysical surveys. This is the same approach the Company took in 2018 at the nearby Montcalm Project, which resulted in successful delineation of more than a dozen new high priority targets not detected by previous operators over the past four decades.

In addition, the Company announces that it has granted a total of 1,100,000 options to directors, officers, consultants and an advisor of the Company to purchase common shares at an exercise price of $0.08 cents per common share, expiring on January 17, 2024.

Qualified Person

The technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements as set out in NI 43-101 and reviewed and approved by Kevin Filo, P.Geo., a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, a member of Pancon's Technical Advisory Committee, and Pancon's Project Advisor for the Montcalm, Nova, Gambler and now Strachan Projects. Certain technical information within this news release is historical in nature and pre-dates NI 43-101 standards, this information is believed to be reliable however the Company has not verified this material.

About Pancontinental Resources Corporation

Pancontinental Resources Corporation (TSXV: PUC) is a Canadian-based exploration company with five nickel-cobalt-copper projects in Ontario - four within the Montcalm Greenstone Belt near Timmins: Montcalm Project, Gambler Project, Nova Project and Strachan Project; and the McBride Project near Bancroft. Pancon's mission is to generate value through responsible exploration, focusing on prospective battery metals assets in proximity to former/producing mines or existing resources. The Company holds a 100% interest in the Jefferson Gold Project near the Haile gold mine in South Carolina, USA. In 2015, Pancon sold its interest in its Australian rare earth element (REE) and uranium properties, formerly held through a joint venture, and retains a 1% gross overriding royalty on 100% of future REE production.

For further information, please contact:

Layton Croft, President & CEO or Jeanny So, Manager, External Relations

E: info@panconresources.com

T: +1.416.293.8437

For additional information please visit our new website at www.panconresources.com and our Twitter feed: @PanconResources.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information is characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, changes in the state of equity and debt markets, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in obtaining required regulatory or governmental approvals, and other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, including those risks set out in the Company's management's discussion and analysis as filed under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information in this news release is based on the opinions and assumptions of management considered reasonable as of the date hereof, including that all necessary governmental and regulatory approvals will be received as and when expected. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable securities laws.
All amounts stated are in Canadian dollars

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Ely Gold Royalties Inc. (TSXV: ELY) (OTCQB: ELYGF) ("Ely Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has completed the second and final tranche of its non-brokered private placement of units (the "Units") announced on December 6, 2018 (the "Offering"). Pursuant to the Offering, Ely Gold raised aggregate gross proceeds of $1.43 million through the issuance of a total of 13,000,000 Units.

The Offering closed in two tranches. The first tranche closed on December 31, 2018 and consisted of 10,000,000 Units at a price of $0.11 per Unit, for gross proceeds of $1,100,000 (the "First Tranche"). The second tranche closed on January 17, 2019 and consisted of 3,000,000 Units at a price of $0.11 per Unit, for gross proceeds of $330,000 (the "Second Tranche"). Each Unit consisted of one common share in the capital of Ely Gold (a "Share") and one non-transferable common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one additional Share at an exercise price of $0.22 for five years, subject to an acceleration provision under which, if at any time after April 30, 2019 (if the Warrant was issued in the First Tranche) or May 17, 2019 (if the Warrant was issued in the Second Tranche), the daily volume weighted average trading price of the Company's common shares is higher than $0.60 per share on the TSX Venture Exchange for more than 20 consecutive trading days, Ely Gold may, within three trading days, issue a news release announcing that the Warrants will expire on the date which is 30 calendar days after such 20th trading day (the "Acceleration Provision").

In connection with the Second Tranche, Ely Gold entered into a finder's fee agreement with PI Financial ("PI"), pursuant to which Ely Gold paid a cash finder's fee equal of 6% of the gross proceeds raised from subscribers introduced to Ely Gold by PI and issued 10,000 non-transferable finder's warrants ("Finder's Warrants"). Each Finder's Warrant entitles PI to purchase one Share at a price of $0.135 for two years, subject to the Acceleration Provision. For information regarding finders' fees paid in the First Tranche, please refer to the Company's press release dated January 2, 2019.

As part of the First Tranche, Exploration Capital Partners 2005 Limited Partnership ("Exploration Capital Partners"), subscribed for 9,069,030 Units. As a result of this subscription, Exploration Capital Partners holds, immediately following the closing of the Offering, 9.74% of the issued and outstanding Shares on a non-diluted basis, and 17.75% of the issued and outstanding Shares of Ely Gold on a partially diluted basis.

Trey Wasser, President and CEO of Ely Gold Royalties commented; "One of our capital finance goals for 2018 was to introduce the Ely Gold story to institutional investors. We are very pleased to have gained the support of Exploration Capital Partners, who has a successful track record of investing in project generators and royalty generation companies. This capital investment will help to increase the liquidity of our shares and allow us to seek out additional royalty purchases".

The net proceeds from the Offering will be used by Ely Gold for project generative activities and for general working capital purposes. All securities issued and issuable in connection with the First Tranche will be subject to a hold period expiring May 1, 2019 and securities issued and issuable in connection with the Second Tranche will be subject to a hold period expiring May 18, 2019.

About Ely Gold Royalties

Ely Gold Royalties Inc. is a Vancouver based, emerging royalty company with development assets focused in Nevada and the Western US. Its current portfolio includes 27 Deeded Royalties and 24 properties optioned to third parties. All 51 of these properties are being explored by third parties. Ely Gold's royalty portfolio includes producing royalties, royalties on fully permitted mines, mines under construction and development projects that are being permitted for mine construction. The Company is actively purchasing existing third-party royalties for its portfolio and all the Company's Option Properties will produce royalties, if exercised. The royalty and option portfolios are currently generating significant revenue. Ely Gold is well positioned with its current portfolio of over 26 available properties to generate additional operating revenue through option and sale transactions. The Company has a proven track record of maximizing the value of its properties through claim consolidation and advancement using its extensive, proprietary data base. All portfolio properties are sold or optioned on a 100% basis, while the Company retains net smelter royalty interests. Management believes that due to the Company's ability to generate option and royalty transactions, its successful strategy of organically creating royalties, its equity portfolio and its current low valuation, Ely Gold offers shareholders a low-risk leverage to the current price of gold, exploration in Nevada and low-cost access to long-term mineral royalties.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Signed "Trey Wasser"

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

For further information, please contact:

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

trey@elygoldinc.com

972-803-3087

Joanne Jobin, Investor Relations Officer

jjobin@elygoldinc.com

647 964 0292

Disclaimer: This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding the anticipated use of proceeds and any stated plans for further near-term exploration and development of the Properties. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include the risk of accidents and other risks associated with mineral exploration, development and extraction operations, the risk that its partners will encounter unanticipated geological factors, or the possibility that they may not be able to secure permitting and other governmental clearances, necessary to carry out their stated plans for the Properties, and the risk of political uncertainties and regulatory or legal disputes or changes in the jurisdictions where the Company carries on its business that might interfere with the Company's business and prospects. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's reports, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effect.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "1933 Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons (as defined in the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration is available.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.



Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for dissemination in the United States
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Delrey Metals Corp. (CSE:DLRY) would like to cordially invite you to visit us at Booth #638 at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) to be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre West (1055 Canada Place, Vancouver) on Sunday January 20 - Monday January 21, 2019.

The Vancouver Resource Investment Conference has been the bellwether of the junior mining market for the last twenty-five years. It is the number one source of information for investment trends and ideas, covering all aspects of the natural resource industry.

Each year, the VRIC hosts over 60 keynote speakers, 350 exhibiting companies and 9000 investors.

Investment thought leaders and wealth influencers provide our audiences with valuable insights. C-suite company executives covering every corner of the mineral exploration sector as well as metals, oil & gas, renewable energy, media and financial services companies are available to speak one on one. This is a must-attend for investors and stakeholders in the global mining industry.

For more information and/or to register for the conference please visit: https://cambridgehouse.com/vancouver-resource-investment-conference

We look forward to seeing you there.

For further information:

Delrey Metals Corp.

Morgan Good

6046208904

info@delreymetals.com

www.delreymetals.com
BLACKROCK THROGMORTON TRUST PLC

LEI: 5493003B7ETS1JEDPF59

Change in Directorate

BlackRock Throgmorton Trust plc ("the Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Mrs Louise Nash as a non-executive Director of the Company with effect from 21 March 2019. Mrs Nash will also serve as a member of the Company's Audit, Nomination & Management Engagement Committees.

Louise currently acts as a consultant to her family business, Hopler Winery, assisting in all the commercial aspects of the business with the aim of improving the general efficiency, operating and financial performance of the company. Louise is also a Non-executive Director of Stockdale Securities, an integrated corporate advisory and securities business and also acts as a consultant to JLS Investor Relations. Prior to this Louise spent 16 years as a UK Small and Mid-Cap fund manager, most recently as Director of UK smaller companies at M&G Investments and previously at Cazenove Capital. Louise is a UK smaller company specialist with experience of developing corporate strategy, investor relations and promoting the highest levels of corporate governance. Louise holds an M.A in German and Politics from the University of Edinburgh and the IMRO Investment Management Certificate.

Mrs Nash has not held any directorships of publicly quoted companies in the last five years.

Mrs Nash does not have any interest in the ordinary shares of the Company at the present time.

There are no further details or disclosures required under Listing Rule 9.6.13R in respect of Mrs Nash.

Christopher Samuel, Chairman of BlackRock Throgmorton Trust, commented:

"We are delighted that Louise has agreed to join the Board. We are confident that her extensive UK smaller companies experience and expertise will prove invaluable and that her appointment will both enhance and diversify the existing Board."

Mr K Mayger

For and on behalf of BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited

Company Secretary

Date: 18 January 2019
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2019) - Fremont Gold Ltd. (TSXV: FRE) (FSE: FR2) (OTC Pink: USTDF) ("Fremont" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that drilling will be underway at the Company's Gold Bar project by the end of January, with drilling to start at the Gold Canyon project soon thereafter. Fremont's Gold Bar and Gold Canyon are both past producing gold mines in the Gold Bar District, Eureka County, Nevada.

The 1,000-metre reverse circulation drill program at Gold Bar will target a coincident gold and mercury geochemical anomaly that may represent an extension to the historic Gold Bar mine (see Figure 1 and the October 30, 2018, news release). Gold Bar was exploited by Atlas Precious Metals Corp. from 1986-1994 and produced 286,354 ounces of gold (1).

The 500-metre diamond drilling program at Gold Canyon will be focused on further defining a previously unrecognized mineralized zone approximately 50 metres below the pit floor (see the July 25, 2018, news release).

"We believe that there is excellent potential to find new zones of gold mineralization at these past producing gold mines," said Blaine Monaghan, CEO of Fremont. "Our focused drill program at Gold Bar and Gold Canyon has been designed to help unlock that potential and create value for shareholders."

Gold Bar and Gold Canyon Projects

Fremont's Gold Bar and Gold Canyon projects are both former mines in the Gold Bar District, Eureka County, Nevada, an active mining district within the Battle Mountain-Eureka Trend. The district contains several Carlin-style sediment-hosted gold deposits, including McEwen Mining Inc.'s ("McEwen") Gold Bar project, which is scheduled to begin production in early 2019.

Fremont's Gold Bar and Gold Canyon projects are adjacent (west) and immediately north of McEwen's Gold Bar project. While McEwen's project and Fremont's project share the same name, the historic Gold Bar mine is held by Fremont. McEwen's project comprises four of the five satellite pits to the historic Gold Bar mine, whereas Fremont controls the remaining satellite pit, Gold Canyon (see Figure 2).

Fremont's Gold Bar project encompasses the historic Gold Bar mine, which produced 286,354 ounces of gold from 1986 to 1994 (1), and the Millsite deposit, which hosts a historic resource of 147,000 ounces of gold (1.62 Mt @ 2.57 g/t gold) (1,2). Millsite is believed to be a faulted offset of the historic Gold Bar mine and is located to the northwest of the open pit. Fremont recently completed a soil sampling program based on a new structural interpretation and identified coincident gold and mercury geochemical anomalies to the southeast of the historic Gold Bar mine. This new interpretation and data suggest that gold mineralization related to the historic Gold Bar mine may extend to the southeast.

Gold Canyon is adjacent to and directly northwest of McEwen's project, approximately 800 metres from McEwen's Gold Ridge deposit. Gold Canyon produced approximately 41,000 ounces of gold from 1990-1994(1) and a stockpile of previously mined ore still exists at site.





Figure 1: Gold in Soil Anomalies to Southeast of Historic Gold Bar Mine

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3169/42276_c9a06e0f74f6db11_002full.jpg





Figure 2: The Gold Bar District

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3169/42276_c9a06e0f74f6db11_003full.jpg

About Fremont Gold

Fremont's mine-finding management team has assembled a portfolio of high-quality gold projects in Nevada with the goal of making a new discovery. Fremont's Gold Bar and Gold Canyon are past producing gold mines adjacent to McEwen's Gold Bar project, where mine construction is underway. Other projects include North Carlin, Goldrun, Hurricane, and Roberts Creek. We are aligned with our shareholders: Insiders own approximately 20% of Fremont.

The content of this news release was reviewed by Dennis Moore, Fremont's President, a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

"Blaine Monaghan"

CEO

Telephone: +1 604-676-5664

Email: blaine@fremontgold.net

www.fremontgold.net

1 Internal report, Atlas Precious Metals, Mines, December 13, 1995, prepared by Pincock, Allen & Holt

2 The Company has not verified these historical resources and is not treating these historical estimates as current mineral resources

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward looking statements

Certain statements and information contained in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable U.S. securities laws and "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, which are referred to collectively as "forward-looking statements". The United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for certain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements and information regarding possible events, conditions or results of operations that are based upon assumptions about future economic conditions and courses of action. All statements and information other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "seek", "expect", "anticipate", "budget", "plan", "estimate", "continue", "forecast", "intend", "believe", "predict", "potential", "target", "may", "could", "would", "might", "will", "hope", "will be", "expected" and similar words or phrases (including negative variations) suggesting future outcomes or statements regarding an outlook. Forward-looking statements in this and other press releases include but are not limited to statements and information regarding the start of drilling at Gold Bar by the end of January, and Gold Canyon soon thereafter, and the amount and type of drilling. Such forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Fremont undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements included in this press release if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as otherwise required by applicable law.
LONDON, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- On January 14, 2019, led by Liao Dongyun, Deputy Secretary General of Chengdu Committee of the Communist Party of China, the "Venture Tianfu" event was successfully held in Silicon Roundabout which is the center of science and technology in London. The Chengdu Municipal Office, Chengdu Science and Technology Bureau, Chengdu New Economy Committee, Chengdu Exposition Bureau (Chengdu Municipal of CCPIT) and other institutions also participated in organizing this event.

Venture Tianfu is aimed at further gathering innovative global resources, strengthening the driving force of entrepreneurship and building up the innovative channel Chengdu and global prestigious colleges and universities for high-end talents communication, application development and market transformation. More than 100 people, including social groups, top universities, international incubators, renowned experts and youth innovation and entrepreneurship teams from China, Britain and other countries, explored and shared the newest trends and cooperative opportunities of global innovative and entrepreneurial incubation.

The event was hosted by Laura-Jane Silverman, head of the LSE Generate, LSE Research & Innovation, the London School of Economics and Political Science. During the event, Liao Dongyun, Deputy Secretary General of Chengdu Committee of the Communist Party of China, made a speech. Hua Chengke, the vice inspector of the Science and Technology Bureau of Chengdu, shared the innovative and entrepreneurial policies and the blueprint of Chengdu's future development with the guests. Mr. Kartik Varma - MD, Barclays Accelerator, Techstars and Mr. Raphael Levy, the partner of DealGlobe also made keynote speeches. During this event, deep exchanges and cooperation between Chengdu and the UK government, universities and enterprises were discussed in the fields of financial technology, information networks, bio-medicine, clean energy, economic and trade exchanges, conventions and exhibitions, etc.

The success of this event not only established the communicative and cooperative platform of innovation and entrepreneurship between Chengdu and London, but also expanded the width and depth of both side's cooperation in innovation and entrepreneurship; talent exchange; deep integration of universities and colleges; development of new economy, economic and trade exchanges; as well as conventions and cooperation, creating ideal conditions for continuously promoting and accelerating the ecosystem and innovative ecological chain of Chengdu and forging it into a center of innovation and entrepreneurship with international influence.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/809766/VENTURE_TIANFU_chengdu_london.jpg
And so within each of those apples seeds was not just a mix of McIntosh Wijick and Gala, but one of the other four breeds as well. Walsh planted 1,500 of the varieties they created, and ever since has been narrowing them down, checking for fire blight and watching how they grow. The work has been funded with grants from the State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania and the Maryland State Horticultural Society, and through the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the universitys ag school.
Chinese workforce management system provider GaiaWorks has completed its Rmb300 million $44.3 million Series C funding led by Tiger Global, along with existing investor Warburg Pincus and Matrix Partners China.

Proceeds will be used to develop machine learning and artificial intelligence applications for staff scheduling and other labour management tools.

Asia has the largest labour market in the world. China makes up most of it and is viewed as the manufacturer of the world. According to research site Chyxx.com it had a working population of 824 million in 2016, most of them in the manufacturing and retail sectors....
Ajay Devgn, Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor starrer Total Dhamaal First Poster gets REVEALED | FilmiBeat

A few days ago, Ajay Devgn had dropped the first look of Inder Kumar's upcoming film Total Dhamaal featuring him with the monkey Crystal from the Hollywood flick 'Hangover 2'. Since then, we were eagerly waiting for the makers to drop some more surprises. Well folks, the wait has finally come to an end!

The first poster of Total Dhamaal is out and it promises to be the wildest adventure ever! With an ensemble star cast which includes names like Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, Javed Jaffery, Johnnny Lever, we just can't wait for this comic-caper to tickle our funny bone.

The first poster has the star cast literally holding each other's back. But what's caught our attention is the silhouette of animals in the backdrop. Is this film got to do something with the jungle? Guess, we will have to wait till the movie hits the big screens.

Sara Ali Khan Might Go CRAZY; Her Dream To Work With Kartik Aaryan Is In 'Work In Progress' Mode

Total Dhamaal brings back the iconic jodi of Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit back on the celluoid after a gap of 17 years.

Speaking about this reunion, Madhuri was earlier quoted as saying. "I know our pairing has been popular over the years and the fans will get to see us as a couple again in 'Total Dhamaal' after a long time. But you'll get to see a totally new side to our pairing. This film has put a new spin on my chemistry with Anil Kapoor and I'm sure people will like that."

When director Indra Kumar was quizzed about getting such a dreamy ensemble together, he was quoted as saying by Mumbai Mirror, "It was more nostalgic as I was teaming up with Ajay, Anil and Madhuri after a long time. There was no trouble getting any of the actors on board because their tracks had them laughing out loud. It took just one narration to get the cast in place. And as a director, I've played to everyone's strengths."

Produced by Fox Star Studios, Ajay Devgn Films, Ashok Thakeria, Indra Kumar, Shri Adhikari Brothers, Anand Pandit and co-produced by Sangeeta Ahir and Kumar Mangat Pathak, Total Dhamaal is slated to release on 22nd February, 2019.

URI Available On Torrent For Download; Vicky Kaushal & Yami Gautam TROLL The Users In EPIC Way!
After the massive success of Baahubali: The Beginning and Bahhubali: The Conclusion, all eyes are towards Prabhas' spy-thriller Saaho which has him playing a stylish cop. Bollywood actress Shraddha Kapoor plays his ladylove in the film.

After the makers dropped the first sneak-peek of the film on Prabhas' birthday, everybody is now eagerly waiting with bated breath to watch the trailer of the movie.

Meanwhile if reports are to be believed, the makers of Saaho have planned a grand musical song in the film. According to a Bollywood Life report, the song which will be shot in the coming weeks will be set in a carnival theme with Brazilian dancers in hundreds and will be choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant.

Sonu Sood BREAKS SILENCE On His UGLY SPAT With Kangana Ranaut; Reveals Why He Was IRKED With Her!

What's even more exciting is the news that the Les Twins, who have been a part of tracks such as "Blow" and "Jealous" from Beyonce's self-titled fifth studio album will also be starring in the song. Now that's quite fun, isn't it?

Speaking about the action sequences in the film, Prabhas was earlier quoted as saying, "Kenny Bates [Hollywood stunt choreographer behind films such as Fast & The Furious] wanted to do everything live. We prepared a lot for them. What you see on screen will all be real. He wanted the cars to fly and we have done something new after a long time."

He further added, "There's very little computer graphics involved making it an authentic experience for the viewers."

On the other hand, Shraddha had opened up about her working experience with Prabhas and said, "He is such a gentleman, and an amazing human being. I think it translates in his energy on set and is so inspiring for everybody."

Directed by Sujeeth, Saaho will have a trilingual release in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. The film will lock horns with Akshay Kumar's Mission Mangal and John Abraham's Batla House on Independence Day this year.

Priyanka Chopra- Nick Jonas Enjoy The Winter In LA After Their Caribbean Honeymoon! [PICS]
Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a special CBI court in Panchkula on 17th January, in the murder case of a journalist.

Reportedly, the three other convicts, Kuldeep Singh, Nirmal Singh and Krishan Lal have also been awarded life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 50,000 each. As per PTI, the quantum of sentence was pronounced to Ram Rahim and the others through video conference after the Haryana government filed a plea seeking the appearance of sect's leader via video in the murder case of Ram Chander Chhatrapati, according to CBI Counsel HPS Verma.

Meanwhile, the journalist's daughter Shreyasi Chhatrapati said that her family is satisfied with the quantam of punishment awarded by the court to Baba Ram Rahim.

Why Cheat India Movie Review: Emraan Hashmi Passes The Test With His Enjoyable Performance!

She was quoted as saying, "Though we were demanding capital punishment, this sentence is no less than the death sentence as he will not be able to come out of the jail for his entire life. He will be behind bars till his last breath."

She further added, "Gurmeet will now remember his crime every day and then weep while being in jail. We are satisfied with the quantum of punishment pronounced by the court."

For those who ain't aware, Ramchander Chhatrapati was shot in October 2002 outside his house after his newspaper 'Poora Sach' published an anonymous letter narrating how women were being sexually exploited by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh at the Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters in Sirsa. Chhatrapati succumbed to the bullet injuries after 3 weeks.

Currently, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is serving 20-year prison term in Rohtak's Sunaria jail for raping two women followers.

A Stray Dog Crashed Sidharth Malhotra's Ramp Walk; What Happened Next Will Leave You In Splits!
'I Did Not Choose This Film'

In an interview with Bollywood Life, Amrita Rao said, "I didn't choose this (film). Meena Tai's character fell into my lap. One fine day, I got a call from Sanjay Raut's office saying the director will come and meet and I was given a narration. Soon after, before I could open my mouth, the director just closed the script on me and said, I'm taking it for granted. You are our Meena Tai.'"

Amrita Had No Reference Point To Prep For The Role

On prepping for the role which had a limited reference point, Amrita said, "I had no reference point for Meena Tai. Even Sanjay Raut and Udhhav Thackeray ji tried to dig in the old videotapes but there was none. My only reference was the limited photographs and a rare Marathi interview where Bala Saheb's daughter described her traits."

Working With Nawaz Was A Smooth Ride For Her

Amrita described working with Nawaz as a nice and smooth journey. "There is a lot to learn from Nawaz. I don't know what is the method to his madness because he is new every time I see him. When he steps out, he comes thoroughly prepared. There is no confusion, no waste of time and so professional and very secure as an actor. It was a nice and smooth journey working with him," she said

Amrita Will Be Seen On The Big Screen After So Long

Amrita will be back on the big screen after a long hiatus. When quizzed about the break, she said, "I started so young and I have given quite a few years to the industry. Most actresses by now would have been asked to pack their bags and leave."

"There were a lot of moments where I found myself taking a sigh and letting go some big offers because I knew I was not comfortable with the intimate scenes that were a part of the character's journey in the film."
Ankita's Parents Are Her Pillars Of Strength

Ankita Lokhande is all set to make her entry into Bollywood with the release of her first big screen project, Manikarnika. Grateful for the journey she has had so far, Ankita told IANS that she owes her success to her parents. She said, "I owe every bit of my career and appreciation I have been receiving to my parents, they have been my pillars of strength through all the ups and downs."

'I Am Overwhelmed To See The Pride In My Parents' Eyes'

Her parents accompanied her on the promotions, press conferences and other visits for Manikarnika when Ankita visited Indore. Apparently, her parents were overwhelmed with the reception Ankita got in during her visits to her hometown. "They have always taught me to stand for what is right and never let anyone bring you down. I am overwhelmed to see the pride in my parents' eyes," she added.

They Have Always Had Her Back

"Every time I was low, they were there to boost my self-esteem. I started out very young on the small screen and they were immensely happy even back then and now I am finally here making my Bollywood debut all I can say is I have never seen them happier. I thank my parents for being the best parents. I am truly blessed."

'Jhalkari Bai' Looks Awe Inspiring

Ankita will be playing the role of Jhalkari Bai in Manikarnika. Jhalkari Bai who was one of Laxmibai's most trusted aide, was also a fierce warrior who used to sometimes disguise herself as the queen and fight her enemies. When the first look of Ankita as Jhalkari Bai came out, everyone was in awe of the image. Her ex-boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput even took to his social media to congratulate Ankita and wrote, "It looks absolutely great Ankita. I am extremely happy to see this. May God bless you with lots of success and happiness."
FILE- In this circa 1950 photo shows a bronze plaque of the poem by Poet Emma Lazurus on Statue of Liberty in New York. In 1903, the poem was engraved on the bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal's lower level. Senior White House aide Stephen Miller told reporters Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017, that the poem written by Emma Lazarus about the "huddled masses" is not part of the original Statue of Liberty. Miller says the Statue of Liberty is a "symbol of American liberty lighting the world" and suggested the statue had little to do with immigrants. (AP Photo/File) (AP)
2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning --

4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS.

We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover.

We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come.
A man has been given a 12 month community order and ordered to pay out nearly 1,000 after his dog killed at least 13 sheep.

At least 13 sheep were killed and a further six injured following a dog attack in the village of Much Hadham, Hertfordshire on March 18 2018.

The dog owner, 55-year-old John Coughlan of Widford Road, Much Hadham, was charged on January 10 with two counts of dogs being dangerously out of control and two counts of being the owner of dogs worrying livestock.

He was ordered to pay out 985, as well as compensation to the livestock owners.

He was also given a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) which bans him from keeping a dog for three years. If breached, he could face a custodial sentence.

Mr Coughlan was convicted of similar offences back in 2016.

Sergeant Duncan Wallace said: We are particularly pleased to have secured the Criminal Behaviour Order as it is believed to be one of the first in the country to relate to dogs attacking sheep.

Sheep worrying and offences involving the control of dogs have a significant financial and emotional impact on farmers and the wider rural community as a whole.

I hope this case proves that we take all aspects of rural crime very seriously and will seek to bring perpetrators to justice.

The case follows another man who was also found guilty on January 10 of livestock worrying crimes.

Steve Young, 43, from Otley, West Yorkshire, was ordered to pay more than 800 in compensation after his puppy attacked a flock of sheep, killing four lambs.

And last year, a man was ordered to pay over 2100 after being found guilty of worrying livestock with his out-of-control dogs.
The government has been accused of being 'ill-prepared' to take on the regulation of chemicals and maintain chemical trade after Brexit.

This is according to the House of Lords EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, which has written to Defra highlighting renewed concerns.

The Committees report 'Brexit: chemical regulation', published in November 2018, warned that unless the government can negotiate continued UK participation in REACH, the EUs chemical regulation system, chemicals registered by UK companies wont be valid for sale in the EU.

This means the UK will have incomplete safety information about chemicals being used in the UK after Brexit.

The chemicals sector is the UK's second biggest manufacturing industry, with an annual turnover of 32bn.

For decades, it has been managed by the EU's regulatory regime for chemicals, known as REACH, which is in turn managed by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

At European level, the ECHA is one of the key agencies responsible for governing pesticides, along with the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA). For example, the body declared glyphosate to be non-carcinogenic.

And although the government has now identified the body that will be in charge of chemical regulation, the overall response is vague and insufficient, the Committee said.

Lord Teverson, Chair of the Sub-Committee, said: Last year we were hugely concerned about the scale of work that needed to be done to maintain adequate chemical regulation in light of Brexit, and frankly the Ministers response to our report has done little to alleviate our concerns.

It seems Brexit could leave us without a functioning and populated UK chemicals database, without an independent and transparent process for risk assessments, and without access to the thousands of chemicals produced by EU-led companies.

I hope the Minister can provide further assurances on the measures that are being put in place, otherwise we risk a severe impact on the UK chemical and manufacturing industries, and potentially on human and environmental health, he said.
Many British farms will struggle to survive if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union with 'no deal', the NFU president has warned.

During a speech at the Semex dairy conference in Glasgow on Monday (14 January), NFU President Minette Batters said farmers 'want clarity' amid growing political uncertainty.

She also covered issues such as the forthcoming Agriculture Bill, the need to uphold UK food standards and the importance of food production.

The Brexit warning comes as MPs prepare to vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday (15 January) on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal.

The PM appears to be on course for a crushing defeat in the vote, making a 'no deal' Brexit a possible outcome.

Mrs Batters said due to the ongoing uncertainty, there has never been a more important time to talk about home grown food.

I want to broaden the conversations around food - it is more affordable, diverse, traceable and available than ever before, but around the world the landscape for food is changing and we face significant challenges in sustaining ourselves in the future, she told the conference.

For example, a no deal Brexit could lead to an immediate reliance on overseas imports, produced to lower standards, while many UK farms struggle to survive.

Farmers want clarity on what the future trading relationship with Europe will be. We have argued for free and frictionless trade with the EU to continue, with no tariffs or non-tariff barriers.

The UK's farming unions have repeatedly urged the government for 'free and frictionless' trade in any Brexit deal.

With tariffs, farmers fear a nightmare scenario. For example, around a third of Wales lamb crop is exported each year, with 90% of that going to the EU.

If the UK were to crash out of the EU and have to trade on WTO terms, exports of lamb would face an effective tariff rate of 46%.

For beef, effective rates are much higher at anything between 48 and 84% according to the cut.

Mrs Batters added: Our focus will also be to continue to engage with MPs to ensure the new Agriculture Bill delivers for British farmers. Its vital that it establishes a framework that supports farmers as food producers and custodians of the countryside.

Whatever happens, Brexit or no Brexit, deal or no deal, we have 66 million mouths to feed and British dairy farmers will continue doing what they do best  producing safe, traceable and affordable food for the nation, she said.

Meanwhile, the National Sheep Association (NSA) has called for MPs to back the Prime Minister's deal in order to offer stability to the sheep industry.

NSA Chief Executive, Phil Stocker said: We need to know that we can continue sending lamb to the EU as freely and frictionlessly as we do now, and we need MPs to consider farming and food interests in considering how they vote.

The NSA has repeatedly warned of the wide variety of risks attached to a no deal Brexit and is concerned MPs not accepting the deal will move the country one step closer to this outcome.

He added: For our industry many of the lambs being born in the coming months will be intended for European markets and there is increasing concern that our exports to the EU will be stopped or delayed if the deal is not accepted, with no assurances as to when access may be regained.
A new initiative which aims to raise the profile of Welsh pork and champion local pig producers will launch next week.

Starting from January 21st to 27th, Porc.Wales, a branch of Hybu Cig Cymru (Meat Promotion Wales), will work with Menter Moch Cymru, a new Welsh government-funded initiative to develop the pig sector in Wales.

As the pork market in Wales currently stands, local pig producers only produce around 5% of the pork Welsh consumers eat.

Although pork is consumed more than lamb and beef combined, Wales only has around 23,000 pigs, in comparison to over 9,300,000 sheep and over 1,000,000 cattle.

But, as Melanie Cargill of Menter Moch Cymru explains, educating consumers is of upmost importance to overcome this issue;

There is a huge demand for pork in Wales, but some consumers are still unaware of the fantastic work and innovative approaches by Welsh farmers, to ensure Wales produces some of the tastiest and highest quality pork available," she said.

What we do here in Wales is special  and it shows in the quality of the meat. Celebrating the unique work that Wales farmers and suppliers carry out on our doorstep, during moments like Porc from Wales Week, is key to raise awareness and change perceptions; helping the industry move towards a more sustainable pork market.

Porc.Wales have a network of suppliers that produce and distribute pork from Wales all year round.

As the number of pigs in Wales is currently at its lowest recorded figure since 2009, Porc from Wales Week gives the industry a chance let people know why local is best.

Kirstie Jones, Market Development Officer at Hybu Cig Cymru said: Pigs in Wales are generally reared in smaller herds and for longer, which allows for a much bigger flavour. As well as that, the climate and landscape in Wales helps to provide a natural environment to produce high-quality pork.
There is a 20% chance of African swine fever reaching the UK's pig population, according to a new document published by Defra.

The UK risk assessment, written in November 2018, was released in the public domain earlier this month.

The document calculates the risk of introducing African swine fever (ASF) to the UK pig population from EU member states.

In it, officials highlight how the risk level for ASF entry into the UK has been increased to 'medium'.

The cost of an outbreak in the UK could be around 45 million, but could go even further to as high as 70 million, Defra officials estimated.

An outbreak reaching 30 farms would be a reasonable worst-case scenario.

Despite the disease being fatal to pigs, it presents no risk to humans. There is no effective treatment or vaccine.

The document reads: We consider there is an overall medium annual probability of introduction of ASF into the UK pig population considering all the pathways. From a management perspective, this is considered 'likely'

Importing live pigs is not the only pathway for disease incursion, the document says. Disease can also be spread by sharing animal and feed transport vehicles and from contact between one farm and another or with feral pigs.

ASF around the world

The assessment comes as the disease was found in the Belgian region of Luxembourg in September 2018.

The Belgian government has since released 1m (880m) for the culling of more than 4,000 commercial and domestic pigs in the infected zone.

Elsewhere, China has culled almost a million pigs as numerous outbreaks grip the country's $128 billion pork industry.

China is a major pig producing country and accounts for approximately half the global population of swine, estimated at 500 million.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to minimise disease risk in the UK, the government's Chief Veterinary Officer has warned haulier organisations, including the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association, of potential disease risks.

Christine Middlemiss stressed the need for everyone travelling between the continent and the UK, including all types of hauliers, to take several precautions to reduce the risk of ASF entering the UK.

In the UK, the pig population consists of around 4 million animals in commercial pig farms, not including non-assured or small holdings or backyard pigs.

The feral pig population is several hundreds in isolated populations, the largest of which is the Forest of Dean.
Future Food-Tech is an international innovation and investment summit held annually in London, San Francisco and New York.



Harnessing technology to address the critical issues facing the worlds food industry, the summit brings together global food-tech brands, investors and entrepreneurs to accelerate the adoption and commercialisation of new products and solutions.

Rural Accommodation near this Show




by Brad Richter | Hornets Correspondent | Fri, Jan 18th 7:59am EST

Malik Monk scored five points on 2-of-3 shooting Thursday night against the Kings. He added a rebound and assist to his final line in 13 minutes off the bench.

Fantasy Impact:

Monk continues to see limited playing time off the bench for the Hornets. They might try to give him more of an opportunity down the stretch if the Hornets fall out of playoff contention but for now, he should not be on fantasy rosters.
by Sean Fitzpatrick | Clippers Correspondent | Thu, Jan 17th 11:38pm EST

DeMarcus Cousins will make his Warriors debut on Friday and start against the Clippers. Cousins will bring the Warriors yet another option on offense. (Anthony Slater on Twitter)
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My first night on the job, I was sternly told at the Eastern District station that the community was my enemy. I was driven to my first midnight foot post by two officers who spent the frigid night sleeping in their heated squad car, parked where no one could see them. I would learn that one was a racist who liked to joke that the squad cars tires were black because of the n-word he ran over. He was also a coward who refused to turn on his siren and drive to the scene of a cops murder. His partner turned out to be a thief who stole $30,000 from a drug dealer.
While Los Angeles teachers have been on strike, principals and other administrators have been handling instruction. And the situation, some say, is untenable.

On Thursday, Juan Flecha, the president of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, which represents the districts principals, assistant principals, and some central office administrators, asked Superintendent Austin Beutner to consider closing schools until the strike is over.

Administrators, he said, are experiencing distress and outright anxiety and dire and unsafe working conditions.

See also: Principals Are Taking Over Teaching in L.A. While Staff Is on Strike

But Beutner refused, saying that students and families are counting on schools to stay open. More than 80 percent of students in the nations second-largest district live in poverty, and Beutner said the district has a responsibility to provide meals and a safe space for all kids.

Districtwide, attendance has lagged, with just about 84,000 of the half-million students coming to school on Thursdaythe smallest number all week. District officials have said that schools with high numbers of low-income students have higher attendance rates, according to the New York Times . (The district also loses state money every day that students stay homeso far, the school system has lost about $97 million.)

According to the letter obtained by the news outlet LAist , Flecha shared a handful of messages he has received from his members that cited concerns about an overwhelming workload and a lack of clear communication from the district. Some include:



The expectation that principals are both filling the operational role and at the same time teaching students is unrealistic. This is not OK.

Working conditions were untenable before the strike. The situation is now impossible. Learning is not happening. Schools should have been closed.

The lack of communication with school site principals is difficult as I do not know whether to strategize for the long term.

Flecha also demanded that his members receive extra-duty pay for every additional hour beyond the workday, saying that administrators have had to put in long hours to keep schools open. (One princiapl told Education Week that he left his school around 9:45 p.m. on the strikes first day.)

In his response , Beutner said that although he couldnt close schools, extra-duty pay will be provided for administrators. We know we are asking a lot from our principals and staff during this challenging time, he wrote.

The district and the United Teachers Los Angeles resumed bargaining on Thursday, with negotiations continuing today. Teachers are striking for a pay raise, smaller class sizes, and more support staff in schools. The district has said it cant afford all those demands.

For more on how principals are handling both instruction and school operations during the strike, see Denisa Supervilles story .

Image: Students Ayden Hernandez, Joshua Castro, Max Lopez, and Adonay Miranda, from left, participate in a classroom exercise at Vine Street Elementary during the Los Angeles teacher strike on Jan. 14. Morgan Lieberman for Education Week


And that work has a long way to go. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, chairs the preservation board and called its meeting on Jan. 11, with the only substantive item on the agenda the removal of the plaque. There was no debate, no discussion, and no explanation for why, after more than a year of foot dragging, he had finally decided to move forward with the plaques removal. Obviously, it had become politically untenable to support something so blatantly racist as the plaque, but thats a far cry from enlightenment. In Texas, as in Baltimore and scores of other cities and states across the nation, we have confronted the obvious monuments to racism in our midst. Now we need to confront the subtle ones, too.
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HARTFORD  Four lawmakers representing Stratford have requested the governor award $5 million in state bonding assistance to rebuild the towns iconic Shakespeare Theater, which burned to the ground last weekend.

State Sen. Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, Rep. Joe Gresko, D-Stratford, Rep. Ben McGorty, R-Shelton, and Rep. Phil Young, D-Stratford, sent a letter to Gov. Ned Lamont and Melissa McCaw, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, laying out their join request on Friday.

The Shakespeare Theater was once one of Connecticuts top tourist destinations, the legislators wrote. Rebuilding would be an opportunity to revitalize the arts, boost our economy and commemorate an integral piece of our history.

The request will be analyzed by government staff before being presented to Lamont and McCaw, who will decide whether the item will appear on the state Bond Commission agenda for a vote, said Chris McClure, a spokesman for the governors office and OPM.

Lawmakers have previously asked for $1.5 to $5 million to invest in the theater  which was mostly idle for nearly 30 years before the fire  under previous administrations.

Kellys first job was at the theater, working alongside his mother and aunt.

The tragic loss of our theater, a integral part of our community history, is devastating, he said in a written statement.

The theater, which opened in 1955, was modeled after the Globe Theatre in London, built in 1599. In its heyday, many Oscar-winning actors performed at the Stratford landmark. It closed after its last run of productions in 1989, though special events and fundraisers had been held there in the years since.

The town of Stratford acquired the theater in 2005, along with the 14 acres of waterfront property it sits on. The theater had fallen into disrepair before it caught fire early Sunday morning.

Conversations about how to revitalize the property are beginning.

emunson@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
Early last Sunday morning, while we slept in our home, just 10 minutes away from the Shakespeare Theater (aka Stratford Festival Theater and American Shakespeare Theater), this icon of theatrical history burned to the ground. I was very sad to hear that.

Fortunately, according to a Connecticut Post piece, buildings and resources for the Shakespeare Academy at Stratford survived the blaze, and the academy does plan to do outdoor performances of some Shakespearean plays this summer. That made me feel that at least a part of the theater, which opened in 1955, will live on as the town decides the fate of this once beautiful building and property.

When my wife and I moved to Fairfield in June 1982, we immediately heard about the Shakespeare Theater from our late friend, Mort, a brilliant writer and playwright, who lived in Philadelphia. Mort announced that he was coming to Fairfield so we could all take in a production of Hamlet. Knowing how much Mort loved Shakespeare, we scrambled to purchase tickets for the following Saturday evening, but the best seats we could find were in the second-to-last row.

The last time I had seen a Shakespeare play was Henry IV at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis when I was 16, so this was a real treat and it was 15 minutes away in Stratford. Before the production, which featured actors Christopher Walken and Anne Baxter, we walked around the grounds, which looked out on the Housatonic River. It was just a beautiful spot.

While our seats were in the back, the acoustics in that theater were spectacular and in the Connecticut Post account, a local Stratford resident shared the same comment. It was acoustically perfect anywhere you sat in the theater  so my Elizabethan English teacher told me.

We all loved the show and Mort raved about the acting. He vowed to return, but sadly the Shakespeare Festival Theater closed at the end of that season, so Mort never got the chance to see another performance. Im so glad we had at least one experience with the theater as patrons.

I did get the opportunity to return to the Shakespeare Theater once more about eight years ago when the Fairfield Museum, where I was doing public relations, created an amazing theater exhibition. The museum displayed incredible pictures from all the early theaters in Fairfield County and the Shakespeare Theater was well represented.

At the time, I learned that friends of the theater were giving tours and I was able to travel to the Shakespeare Theater one evening after work. While the theater interior was just a shell, I could remember the one performance wed seen and visualize the theater alive and vibrant.

In those nearly three decades of performances, brilliant actors like Kathryn Hepburn, Christopher Plummer, James Earl Jones, Christopher Walken, Roddy McDowell, Ann Baxter and a host of other well-known celebrities not only performed but spent summers as temporary residents of Stratford. Some of our tour guides on the evening I visited had seen actors enjoying picnic lunches on the grounds or walking along the river between performances.

I read an editorial by Hugh Bailey, editorial page editor, in this past Tuesdays Connecticut Post, which I believe captured the essence of this special theater.

For a generation of theater lovers, it was a destination to see the biggest stars on a Connecticut stage. For school children, it was the site of trips for what might have been many peoples first experience with live theater. For history buffs, it was a connection between Stratford, Conn. and Stratford-on-Avon, England, the 16th century birthplace of William Shakespeare. ... And for residents who saw it every day, even as it fell out of use and was the subject of innumerable resuscitation efforts, it was a point of pride. Without question, it is irreplaceable. .. There might not have been a viable future for the theater, but no one wanted to see it end this way.

One of the classes where I assist in the charter school Im at in Bridgeport has been reading Hamlet and has really developed an appreciation of Shakespeare from the experience. How wonderful it would have been if the Shakespeare Theater Academy would have been able to do a special performance of Hamlet for students like ours and others. But sadly, those kinds of performances will only happen outdoors during the summer.

I can only hope that the town of Stratford will at least consider restoring the Shakespeare Theater, perhaps as a museum with a smaller auditorium for performances. For now, ardent fans will just have memories of performances and the outstanding actors who made the Shakespeare Theater the gem it was.

Steven Gaynes is a Fairfield writer, and his In the Suburbs appears each Friday. He can be reached at stevengaynes44@gmail.com.
GREENWICH  Greenwich Public Schools announced the appointment Friday of Toni Jones of Fairfield to be the next superintendent of Greenwich schools, effective July 1.

But for the first time, the vote of the Board of Education on a new school leader was not unanimous. The outcome was 7-1, with board member Peter Sherr dissenting.

Jones is currently the superintendent of the Fairfield Public Schools and will be the 14th superintendent to lead Greenwich in the last 20 years. She has eight years of experience as a superintendent, two of which she spent in Fairfield.

She has successfully initiated personalized, digital and virtual learning strategies in the districts she has led, Greenwich school board Chair Peter Bernstein said. She is well acclimated to Connecticut, and understands the value of open dialogue and involvement with and from the community.

Her starting salary will be $236,640 a year, plus benefits, as part of a three-year contract.

The school board will also award her a retention bonus of $50,000 if she is still employed and in good standing five years from now, a common practice in the corporate world but a first in the education sphere, according to board member Kathleen Stowe, head of the superintendent search committee.

Interim Superintendent Ralph Mayo will continue in his role for the rest of the school year.

The Board of Education would like to thank Interim Superintendent of Schools Ralph Mayo for his unyielding commitment to the Greenwich Public Schools and his steady leadership this year, Bernstein said. We look forward to him continuing as a senior leader in the school system thereafter.

Mayo, a Greenwich native who had been the principal at Eastern Middle School, took over the post last summer after the unexpected resignation of Jill Gildea after less than a year on the job.

More Information In the past 40 years, 14 superintendents have led the Greenwich school district. Ernest Fleishman's 13-year tenure was the longest stint during that period. 1976-1989: Ernest Fleishman 1989-1990: Douglas Fainelli (interim) 1990-1997: John Whritner 1997-1998: Karen Lang (interim) 1998-2002: Roger Lulow 2002-2003: Herb Pandiscio and Maria Melendez (interims) 2003-2006: Larry Leverett Summer 2006: Mary Capwell 2006-2009: Betty Sternberg (Kathy Grieder was acting superintendent in the summer of 2008) 2009-2011: Sidney Freund 2011-2012: Roger Lulow (interim) 2012-2016: William McKersie 2016-2017: Sal Corda (interim) 2017-2018: Jill Gildea 2018-2019: Ralph Mayo (interim) 2019- : Toni Jones See More Collapse

While Im disappointed that I was not chosen to be the new superintendent, Im grateful to be working with the new superintendent to continue to make our district great, Mayo said after the appointment.

The first thing (I would tell Jones) is how wonderful our children, staff and parents are. Those are our best resources, he said.

The board is making a mistake in not appointing Mayo, Sherr said.

We have a great superintendent who is making tremendous progress, but my colleagues have decided to hit the reset button yet again, he said. Meanwhile, we are telling every principal and administrator who aspires to be superintendent or cabinet that you have no future here in Greenwich.

Sherr pledged to support Jones, but he said the decision begs the question whether the school board has learned anything from the last five times a superintendent was hired.

Three permanent superintendents have cycled through Greenwich in the last decade: Sidney Freund, who stayed for two years before departing over strained relationships with members of the board; William McKersie, who remained for four years before moving to Weston Public Schools; and Gildea, who lasted less than one year before relocating to Park City, Utah.

In between, the school board hired three interim superintendents to lead while members searched for replacements.

The dissension shows that Sherr has a different vision of the future of Greenwich public schools, Bernstein said.

While we value the stability that Ralph has brought to the district in this year of transition, we continue to look to the future, Bernstein said. Ralph will still be a part of our leadership and will still share his calmness and knowledge while we bring in Jones to drive forward student growth, achievement and personal-interpersonal skills.

The national average retention rate for superintendents is three years, with urban districts holding superintendents for an average of two years, Stowe said.

The search for a new superintendent was essentially free, with the board covering minimal costs, Director of Communications for Public Schools Kim Eves said. The committee footed the search bill because Gildea stayed for less than a year, she said.

Ray and Associates  the company that the district has previously used to conduct searches  pooled together candidates from across the country, including many in Connecticut.

The quantity and quality of the candidates demonstrated the strong brand of the Greenwich Public Schools and, ultimately, made for a very difficult decision, Stowe said. Dr. Jones stood out for her positive attitude, forward thinking approach, proven success in comparable districts, and the value she places on community involvement.

Jones had leadership experience in Australia, Oklahoma and northern Virginia, in both private and public schools, before settling in Connecticut.

She has led elementary and middle schools, and has worked at the high school and district levels, an unusual array of experiences among superintendents, Jones said.

I understand what you need in an elementary school, but also what a high school needs, she said.

Jones has been thinking about leading Greenwich schools since Gildea announced her retirement, she said. Gildea sent a message to all Fairfield County superintendents notifying them of an opening, she said.

Philip Dwyer, a Fairfield Board of Education member, said he will miss Jones, but wishes her well.

She achieved the board goals set for her, managed the district well and was especially good at communicating with parents and the school staff, Dwyer said. Fairfield has an excellent school system. However, Dr. Jones challenged us to constantly find new ways to improve our programs.

Jones signed a three-year agreement through June 30, 2022. Her starting salary is $236,640 for 2019-20, up for negotiation after that. She will receive $30,600 a year in annuities.

She will also receive a $3,000 a month housing allowance, provided she lives in Greenwich.

Gildea left to take the superintendent job in Park City, Utah, after her family relocated there. Her annual salary in Greenwich was $250,000, along with a $15,000 annuity and a $3,500-per-month housing allowance.

The move to Greenwich made sense for Jones personally and professionally, as her husband, John Jones, is a science teacher at Greenwich High School.

The Jones live in Milford, so the new superintendent is excited to have her family work and live in the same corner of Connecticut.

Its wonderful, Jones said. July 1 seems so far away.

jo.kroeker@hearstmediact.com
Police say the incident all started with a 911 call last year on the evening of Sept. 15 when a caller reported a kidnapping. A police officer from Greensboro and a neighboring jurisdiction arrived to find Black dragging a 12-year-old boy down the street, according to a report by Maryland State Police. Black ran after they instructed him to put his hands behind his back. During the pursuit an officer used a taser a to try to subdue him. According to the police report, he attempted to flee police again before biting two officers and punching one in the face. The officers then noticed he was in medical distress and called an ambulance. He was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
NEWS FLASH

The Middle East's largest airline will be hiring cabin crew from Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina over the coming weeks.





Emirates will host an open day in Rijeka on January 25 at Hotel Jadran (Setaliste XIII divizije 46) starting at 08.00 local time. This will be followed by a recruitment event in Zagreb on January 27 at the Westin Hotel (Izidora Krsnjavoga 1).





In Serbia, the Middle East's largest airline will host an open day in Belgrade on January 29 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (Vladimira Popovica 10) starting at 08.00. On February 27, it will hold another recruitment event in the Serbian capital, with the venue yet to be announced.





Finally, Emirates will be hiring cabin crew from Bosnia and Herzegovina on February 1, with the open day to be held at Hotel Europe (Vladislava Skarica 5) at 08.00 local time.

City Recruitment date Rijeka 25.1 Zagreb 27.1 Belgrade 29.1, 27.2 Sarajevo 1.2

Candidates are requested to bring an updated CV and one photo. Crew requirements at Emirates include: at least 21 years of age at the time of joining, arm reach of 212 cm while standing on tiptoes, high school graduate, fluency in English (written and spoken), no visible tattoos while in Emirates uniform and the applicant must be physically fit to meet crew requirements. If all requirements are met, final interviews will be scheduled over the course of the same week. Further details, as well as the application form, can be found here





Benefits of working as Emirates crew include an approximate average monthly pay of 2.115 euros, layover expenses, free accommodation in Dubai, staff travel benefits, one firm free annual leave ticket to the country of origin and thirty days of annual leave.
Re: Castro makes his first move from West Side to West Wing, by columnist Gilbert Garcia, Metro, Sunday:

I find unnecessary Gilbert Garcias use of Latino Barack Obama in an otherwise excellent summary of Julian Castros rise to presidential candidate.

Castro is his own man. He is an authentic minority, deeply rooted in evolution of Hispanic culture, close family support and a passion for truth, honesty and commitment. Educated, cultured, polite and politically astute, his path to public service was delineated early and realistically planned.

Castro is experienced in nuance of governance as mayor of a major U.S. city and in corporate-level management as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He has proven to understand and manage compromise, encourage collaboration and understand requirements for consensus-building, and clearly recognize and avoid polarization  qualities that are absolute as president  to reconstruct the deconstructed.

Castro is a Latino, period.

Carlos Hernandez

Whats his hook?

Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro faced the nation with a telegenic face but with smooth delivery of tired rhetoric. It was probably too early, although keeping that face before the public for the longest time possible may prove to be an effective strategy.

His camp needs to produce much more specific suggestions and plans to reform government. It needs to come up with something innovative. He needs a hook to grab interest from his ultimate opposition, which is blaring and brash.

Tax the rich and overhaul health care are just words that have been heard too often from unsuccessful campaigns. Prospective, bright leadership can be an effective lure, but concrete plans presented confidently and loudly are needed to sell the divided votership.

Informed voters will recognize good ideas, but the uninformed need a train whistle to get on board.

Norm Loukinen

Keep driver fines

Re: A program that unfairly tags the poor, Editorial, Tuesday:

I respectfully disagree with the suggestion to repeal the Driver Responsibility Program.

Income level considerations should not dictate who gets punished for DWI violations. If so, why not make the fines and monetary assessments much greater for those who can afford to pay more? But do not eliminate fines for first offenders. This might possibly serve to encourage rather than dissuade irresponsible consumption.

Very simple: Dont drink and drive (regardless of your income).

Guillermo Benavides, Laredo

Ivy League High

Texas education problem should not be solved by raising property tax rates but by using those taxes more wisely.

Look at the new high schools these days, and you would think theyre Ivy League colleges. Its ridiculous to build such extravagant schools. For the price of one, they could build two, if not three, normal high schools.

As for college, the first year should be minimal payment  if any  and the following years should be free if the student maintains a 95 percentile average or above. This will cut the students who just went to party, but whose folks have a lot of money. The cream will come to the top for a better, smarter Texas and America.

Michael B. White

Wants over needs

Re: Your or youre? Your Turn, Monday:

To respond to Ginger Burkholders question, Cant the seventh largest city in the U.S. show some educated leadership in correct grammar usage? the answer is a profound No. There are too many important things on this progressive sanctuary citys agenda of wants over needs. Get used to it.

Durand C. Waters, Windcrest

Respect, please

Re: Not rational, Your Turn, by Malcolm T. Kirven, Tuesday:

Mr. Kirven , although we do not share the same views, I respect your opinion. I did not refer to you as MTK or Special K but as Mr. Kirven.

Referring to the president of the United States as 45 is inappropriate and at most disrespectful. If you do not respect the man, at least respect the presidency of the United States and refer to it appropriately, whether or not you feel President Donald Trump has earned your respect.

Alfred Laborde

Why he cant lie

Having listened to Donald Trump the last two years and, more specifically, his erratic rant over a border wall during his recent photo-op trip to our lower Rio Grande Valley, surrounded by the usual backdrop of sychophants, I realized Trump cannot lie.

Lying requires knowledge of facts and the truth  things alien to him. Trump is just full of bull.

Carlos Valle, Jr., Laredo

Not for $5 billion

I have no doubt there are sections of border fencing that need to be repaired, reinforced and/or extended. If the president were asking for $10 million to do this, Id have no problem. Or $100 million? Perhaps. But hes asking for $5 billion!

After World War I, France spent a huge amount on an impregnable barrier along its border with Germany. It was called the Maginot Line. In 1940, Hitler did an end run around the Maginot Line and defeated France in two months!

No wall along the border with Mexico can keep drugs or terrorists out. Drugs come in through ports of entry; terrorists can cross our long, unguarded border with Canada via air or even be homegrown in the U.S.

The wall may have sounded like a good idea when it was free  another country was paying for it  but $5 billion? No way!

Thomas N. Lee
Heres what we know about the citizenship question the Trump administration proposes for the census  the one a federal judge for entirely good reasons blocked this week:

The Census Bureau doesnt want it, telling the Commerce Department, its parent agency, that this would result in 630,000 households refusing to fill out the 2020 questionnaire.

The Constitution says every person shall be counted, not every citizen or eligible voter.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lied  no other word for it  to Congress about the origins of the question, claiming that the Justice Department asked for it to help enforce the Voting Rights Act.

The Justice Department told Commerce it had no such interest. (If this administration is crazy about the Voting Rights Act, it is hiding this very well as it backs states trying to thwart the measure through voter ID laws and gerrymandering).

Ross told Congress he didnt talk to anyone at the White House about the question. But subsequent revelations show he talked to then-White House adviser Steve Bannon about it, who urged him to talk to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, champion of voter restrictions ostensibly to block voter fraud  of the type that is virtually nonexistent.

The Justice Department did finally ask for it after Ross prevailed on now-departed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to force the department to do so.

Judge Jesse M. Furman of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan didnt buy it, saying that Ross broke a veritable smorgasbord of federal rules in ordering the citizenship question.

Heres what we can also reasonably surmise about the policy preference at play here. That policy is mostly about forcing advantage for Republicans in elections.

Its simple: Immigrant undercounts will affect predominately urban areas that are traditional Democratic strongholds  such as the cities of San Antonio and Houston. These areas will get fewer of the federal dollars that are divvied up according to census figures.

But, as to the partisan motivation, the question will warp the numbers that legislators use in the redistricting that occurs after each decennial census. An undercount also could provide the data that fuels a movement to count only citizens or eligible voters for redistricting purposes.

Which brings us back to what the Constitution instructs about the census. Every person must be counted, it says.

The government lawyer told the federal judge ruling in this case that all of the above is immaterial because the secretary has wide leeway to impose the question, though it is a clear policy preference.

The matter will now likely go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Its conservative majority could simply agree with the governments lawyer that the statistical data that undermine the need for a citizenship question on the census is immaterial and that the commerce secretary has wide discretion to impose any policy preference he pleases.

Or the court could decide that the rules governing such changes matter, as do motives and consequences, particularly when such a question will short Americans of their own tax dollars  returned to them in the form of services  and short many of them also of fair representation.

Our hope is that the court is mindful of the motivations and consequences. In the meantime, despite Ross belated assurances that he just incompletely remembered the sequence of events, his actions have just received the exposure and condemnation they deserved.
One useful development has come out of this pointless shutdown: It has revealed how little Republican politicians actually care about many of the principles they claim to champion.

Eliminating waste, fraud and abuse? Youd never know this mattered, given their insistence that Democrats agree to spend only $5 billion on a wall that is a nonsolution to a nonproblem.

Valuing freedom and property rights? Hard to square with proposals to invoke eminent domain to build a border wall and use asset forfeiture money to pay for it (an idea endorsed by the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, no less).

But perhaps the biggest swindle revealed by the shutdown is Republican officials commitment to the dignity of work.

For years, the GOP has tried to slash the safety net on the premise that lazy Americans need to be weaned off government handouts. The objective is not to punish the poor, they say, or even to save money. Rather, its to imbue dejected Americans with greater feelings of self-worth through an honest paycheck.

And yet, with astounding callousness, Republicans have brushed aside the hundreds of thousands of Americans now being denied the dignity of that paycheck thanks to an unnecessary government shutdown.

Government workers are selling their childrens toys on Craigslist, rationing their insulin, delaying surgeries. The White House and other Republicans have largely dismissed such hardships, insisting that its no biggie for these civil servants to go without pay for a little while. After all, they note, federal workers will likely be awarded back pay when the government reopens.

Whenever that is.

In fact, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett told PBS NewsHour that workers laid off during the shutdown are better off, since they can go on vacation but they dont have to use their vacation days.

This, of course, ignores the estimated 420,000 air-traffic controllers, TSA screeners, corrections officers, Border Patrol agents and others deemed essential whove had to continue working without pay (and in some cases cancel scheduled vacations). For these and the 380,000 workers on furlough, a promise of eventual back pay hardly feels like being better off.

Not only because that back pay may arrive weeks after mortgage payments and other bills come due. And not only because many have had to turn to the handouts  free meals, trips to food pantries, unemployment insurance  that the GOP has spent decades stigmatizing.

But also because they truly do find meaning, pride and feelings of self-worth through their jobs.

Consider the legions of federal employees who safeguard the natural world through their work at the Environmental Protection Agency or the National Park Service; who help businesses make informed decisions through data they collect for the Census Bureau; who inspect food for the Food and Drug Administration to prevent outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli or listeria.

These public servants took such positions not just for the paycheck. They took them because they find meaning in the work that theyre currently barred from doing. Being told to stay home  or even to report to work but indefinitely forgo compensation for their labor  is demoralizing.

And finally, there are the federal contract workers who have also been laid off during the shutdown.

Historically, these workers have gotten zero back pay after the government reopens, in part because getting them made whole is complicated. Unlike those on federal payrolls, the government doesnt necessarily know who all of these contract workers are, making it challenging to cut them a check directly. Its also not clear how to get private contractors to reimburse such workers for the lost time without amending thousands of existing contracts.

In the meantime, these workers are not on vacation. Many  such as Larry Howard, a furloughed National Zoo guest-services contract worker who makes $13.50 an hour  live paycheck to paycheck. About a third of the estimated 1 million contract employees at unfunded agencies make less than $15 per hour, according to the labor organization Good Jobs Nation.

These workers, like their counterparts on federal payrolls, would like to show up for their jobs and get paid. Theyd like elected officials to see the dignity in their work, too.

Or at least, said Howard: Id like them to treat us as well as they treat the pandas.

crampell@washpost.com
Political consultants will say that running for president is about raising money, hiring staff, building organization, studying issues and lining up endorsements.

Thats wrong.

Take it from a journalist: Running for president is about telling a story.

This is especially true at a time when Americans are standing in front of fire hydrants that spew information and their attention spans are shorter than ever. You have to boil down everything you are, believe in and have ever done into a short and clear narrative that tells people who you are, what you stand for and why you want this crazy job.

Julian Castro has one heck of a good story to tell, and now the 44-year-old former San Antonio mayor and U.S secretary of housing and urban development has a national soapbox from which to tell it.

Castro has announced that he is running for president in 2020. His first decision was brilliant  choosing his twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, as his campaign chairman. Who better to shepherd you through this meat grinder than someone who has loved you since birth, knows you better than anyone and isnt afraid to tell you what you need to hear?

In what will be a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls vying for their partys nomination, Castros first goal has to be to make it onto the short list.

As someone who has known the San Antonio native for 15 years, interviewed him dozens of times and written thousands of words about him, take it from me, he is not running for vice president or applying for another Cabinet post. Hell be perfectly content, and highly employable, in the private sector if this White House thing doesnt work out.

If it does work and Castro finds himself on a national debate stage in March or April of next year, it will be because of one thing above all else: his story.

The most important part of my friends story isnt family. Its geography.

We got a preview of that part of the story  for the Netflix generation, consider it a trailer  during Castros official announcement on the West Side of San Antonio, where he and his brother grew up.

This is the place that sculpted and shaped Julian Castro. Before Stanford University and Harvard Law School, before getting elected mayor of the nations seventh-largest city and being vetted as a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton, before being chosen by Barack Obama to give the keynote speech at the 2012 Democratic convention and later join the Cabinet, before writing his memoir for a major publishing house  before all the accomplishments and accolades  it was the West Side that formed how Castro sees the world and his place in it.

If you dont understand it  or neighborhoods like it, all across America  youll never understand him.

It was here  in this hardscrabble neighborhood, built by immigrants, where the only way out is your dreams and the hard work that makes them real  that the twins were raised by a single mother with grit. Just as their mother had been raised by her mother, a Mexican immigrant who worked as a housekeeper, cook and babysitter.

Rosie Castro is the Rose Kennedy of San Antonio, except that she raised her prodigies on a budget.

I once asked Joaquin Castro why neither he nor his brother had swagger. He said it came from their humble upbringing on the West Side where, as teenagers, with no money for a family car, they rode the bus  in fact, on the same bus route that the two rode the morning of Julians special announcement.

At 23, Rosie Castro ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1971 as part of a slate of candidates calling itself the Committee for Barrio Betterment put forth by the Raza Unida Party. She would go on to a career in higher education.

Oh, and it turned out, she was pretty good at raising children.

As Julian recalled in his speech, after she lost her election, Rosie told a reporter: Theyd be back.

Well, Mom, the candidate said in front of a cheering crowd. I think were back.

You had better believe it  and to the delight of those of us who love a great story.

ruben@rubennavarrette.com
Coal is Texass second largest electricity producer after natural gas, but its trajectory is headed the opposite direction. Unlike gas, coal isnt booming, but instead preparing to leave its legacy behind. After much of the air pollution dissipates and the surface mines get filled in, that legacy may be one of coal ash.

For decades power companies have discarded this toxic byproduct of burning coal in the most convenient, and affordable, way possible: by dumping it into nearby pits or lagoons.

A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) reveals that coal ash pollutants are leaking into groundwater surrounding all 16 of Texass power plants for which data are available, with unsafe levels of arsenic, cobalt, lithium, and other pollutants seeping from the dumps.

The worst groundwater contamination in Texas from coal ash can be found south of San Antonio, at the San Miguel Electric Co-Op power plant near Jourdanton, according to utility data made public for the first time in 2018 because of new federal coal ash regulations.

There, the groundwater beneath a cattle ranch owned for five generations by the Peeler family is being polluted by leakage from the power companys three coal ash waste ponds. Arsenic (a carcinogen) is in the groundwater beneath the farm exceeding EPAs maximum contaminant level by up to 12 times; and cadmium, which causes kidney and bone damage, exceeds safe levels by 130 fold, among other pollutants.

The toxic pollution leaking from these coal ash dumps is threatening our familys ranch and our heritage, said Jason Peeler, who helps run the Peeler Ranch. Weve asked the power company to stop polluting our land and clean up the mess. But their response has been to threaten to seize our land through eminent domain instead of cleaning it up. Its outrageous  and an example of how coal ash pollution can cause real damage.

Here is the backstory. In 1953, the Peeler family leased a portion of their large property to allow surface mining for lignite coal; and later, the construction of a 400-megawatt coal-fired power plant by the San Miguel Co-Op.

Under the terms of the lease agreement, after the mining stopped, the power company was supposed to clean up the mess and restore the land to a healthy condition. When the mining ended in 2004, however, the company failed to keep its promise, and instead kept using the land as a pit for the dumping of power plants ash waste. This dump is now leaking a plume of toxic chemicals into the groundwater under the Peeler ranch, poisoning the soil, killing vegetation, and likely causing a fish kill in a farm pond.

To the family, it has been like watching a cancer spread slowly through a relative and not knowing how to cure it.

The Peelers are in court with the San Miguel Co-Op, fighting for the survival of their 25,000-acre ranch. Their worst fear is the companys threat to claim eminent domain authority and attempt to condemn about a third of the ranch that is contaminated, instead of investing the money to clean up the pollution. Were this to happen, the Peelers would lose a chunk of their family history.

Texas has long been sensitive to the needs of the energy industry. But it also proudly champions property rights. Across the state, property owners like the Peelers will witness the gradual destruction of one of Texas most precious resources  clean, drinkable groundwater  if state regulators fail to stand up to the threat of coal ash contamination.

Stronger state regulations are needed to require the cleanup of leaking ash dumps. And, in the long run, Texas needs to continue its shift away from coal and towards more clean energy sources such as wind and solar.
A little more than a decade ago, Texas prisons were bursting at the seams, a problem only exacerbated by the fact that the majority of those released from prison eventually returned. The Legislative Budget Board in Austin estimated that in the next five years, Texas would need as many as 17,000 additional beds to house the growing prison population.

In no uncertain terms, then-House Speaker Tom Craddick told then-chairman of the House Corrections Committee Jerry Madden, Dont build new prisons; they cost too much.

State legislators listened and, under the leadership of then-Gov. Rick Perry, began consulting with experts to find the root of this pervasive problem and come up with solutions. The result was an innovative bill that invested $241 million in treatment programs within prisons with the goal of reducing recidivism: that is, to stop the revolving door and make sure people who get out of prison stay out of prison. Additional resources were provided for things such as drug treatment programs, education and job training for offenders. The bill also expanded halfway houses as a prison alternative and reduced the caseload of parole officers to allow for closer supervision.

In short: Texas didnt stop being tough on crime, we just started being smart on crime, too, and the results could not be disputed. Both incarceration and crime rates dropped by double digits. Not only did this prevent the state from having to build new prisons to house additional inmates, it allowed us to close eight prisons and led to more than $3 billion in taxpayer savings. Other states were quick to notice, and we began to see similar reforms moving through legislatures in Georgia, North Carolina and other states. Despite the positive impact in Texas and other states, efforts to replicate these changes at the federal level were slow-moving.

After years of attempting to take the Texas model nationwide, we were proud to fight for the First Step Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last month. This law borrows from many of the changes implemented by Texas more than a decade ago and applies them to the roughly 180,000 federal prisoners.

Just as we saw in Texas, the First Step Act will expand evidence-based drug treatment, education and faith-based programs to rehabilitate individuals who are serving their sentences. As an incentive to complete these programs, certain nonviolent offenders will be eligible to earn time credits that will not shorten their sentences, but allow them to be completed in less restrictive custody, such as a halfway house or home confinement. Not only is this beneficial to the individual, it also equates to savings for taxpayers.

We worked to ensure that violent criminals are not able to earn these credits and that a low-level offense alone is not enough to qualify. The person must also be deemed low-risk, meaning he or she isnt likely to reoffend. That determination is made using a risk-assessment tool developed by the Department of Justice, and relies on the experienced law enforcement officers and wardens who work with these individuals every day. Put simply: Its important to rehabilitate the men and women in prison, but not at a cost to public safety.

The First Step Act also moderates mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes, including nonviolent drug offenses, which have disproportionately affected minorities. By providing judges greater discretion to make sure the penalty fits the offense, we can refocus taxpayer dollars on preventing violent crime and keeping communities safe.

This legislation is an investment in the future of our country, and in the people who want to build better lives and earn second chances. We believe that prisons should serve as a place for rehabilitation, not just punishment. That serving time doesnt have to mean wasting time. And that our criminal justice system can work for, not against, Texans.

As the name of this legislation states, this will not fix every problem in our criminal justice system. This is the first step in building a smarter, more responsible federal prison system. We are proud to have supported this law and will continue working to bring smart reforms like those weve seen in Texas to the federal prison system.

Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.
In the context of todays world, maybe it sounded like earth-shattering kinds of things, but you know, a lot of that stuff I said four years ago in my speech, and Ive said it every time, Hogan said. I just got sworn in, 24 hours ago, I think, so Im going to focus on that for right now and have no further interest at this point in time. Im not ready to make any announcements today, lets put it that way.
The peaceCENTER has tried mightily to export the idea of naming a peace laureate to other cities, but as far as its leaders can tell, San Antonio is still the only one that selects such honorees.

This year, for the first time, the center has chosen three women  Nickie Valdez, Rebecca Flores and Patricia Castillo  to serve concurrently. Each has followed disparate but parallel paths as advocates for peace and justice for marginalized groups.

One has looked out for survivors of domestic violence, another for farmworkers and immigrants and the third for LGBTQ individuals.

Together they have more than 140 years of experience, said the Rev. Ann Helmke, the City of San Antonios faith-based liaison and the peaceCENTERs co-founder.

The three honorees will be recognized at the Blessing of the Peacemakers, a free event at 3 p.m. Jan. 27 in the Whitley Theological Center on the campus of the Oblate School of Theology, 285 Oblate Drive.

The peaceCENTER will bless everyone in the room  not just the citys peacemakers  while expressing its gratitude to new laureates described as giving light to the future.

In Spanish, dar a luz al futuro is a beloved expression that carries with it cultural and religious connotations that Helmke finds particularly appropriate this year.

Dar a luz  literally, to give light  is also used to describe giving birth, as in Marys birth of the Christ child in the Nativity.

OnExpressNews.com: San Antonio faith leaders: Gather in gratitude

Helmke said Valdez, Flores and Castillo long have used their gifts to shed light on people whove been cast aside, looked down upon, gone unbelieved or unnoticed. The honor isnt just about recognition but about expressing gratitude for everything theyve done, Helmke said.

She said San Antonio wants to learn from them and lift them up as faithful models.

Valdez, 78 and a native of San Antonio, came out as a lesbian in the early 1960s and began organizing and leading. By the 70s, she was volunteering at the San Antonio Free Clinic, serving the LGBT community.

When Dignity USA, a Catholic LGBT organization, was organized 50 years ago, Valdez was there. Within a decade she was helping found Dignitys San Antonio chapter.

Flores, 75, who grew up in Atascosa County, was the longtime Texas director of the United Farm Workers, working alongside UFW co-founders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Flores organized field workers, led boycotts and ran union campaigns. She lobbied state lawmakers on abolishing the short-handled hoe and establishing a pesticide right-to-know law, and on wages, unemployment insurance and field sanitation.

In 2017, she and former City Councilwoman Maria Antonietta Berriozabal founded the Pro-Immigrant Coalition, which advocates for human rights of immigrants, documented or undocumented.

Flores regards her biggest achievement as getting workers to speak for themselves.

Castillo, co-founder and longtime executive director of Putting an End to Abuse through Community Efforts, or the PEACE Initiative, has been one of the citys leading voices on domestic violence.

A licensed master social worker, Castillo has championed ending violence against women and families by getting them out of the reach of their abusers. But she also has been on the forefront of turning attention to men in the criminal justice system to stem family violence.

She has talked and trained internationally in Mexico City and Monterrey and other cities in Mexico, as well as in Honduras, Brazil, China, Russia and Guatemala. She did family violence work in five Nicaraguan cities on behalf of the U.S. State Department.

OnExpressNews.com: Pub Theology attracts diverse following

Helmke said the peace laureates will discuss their visions for the future and how to continue to birth peace into the world at the Jan. 27 event. Each will bring a person theyve mentored, who will talk about how the laureate inspired them.

For their work, the peaceCENTER will offer to publish a book from each laureate.

The center has named laureates since 2008. Among them have been environmentalist Ruth Lofgren; the Rev. Claude Black; affordable housing advocates Patty and Rod Radle; Imam Omar Shakir; political activist Rosie Castro; and, last year, neighborhood activists T.C. Calvert and Mario Marcel Salas.

Elaine Ayala covers religion and minority affairs in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | eayala@express-news.net | Twitter: @ElaineAyala
WASHINGTON  Twenty Texas Republicans broke ranks with President Donald Trump on Thursday in a failing effort to block the administration from lifting sanctions against Russian companies controlled by an ally of Vladimir Putin.

The bipartisan 362-53 House vote came a day after the Democratic-led measure fell three votes short in the Senate. Both Texas U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz opposed a Democratic resolution aimed at companies tied to Putin associate Oleg Deripaska, who has been ensnared in the ongoing investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential elections.

The 20 House Republicans from Texas who opposed the sanctions relief  only three supported it  joined 116 other GOP crossover votes in the House.

The votes came at a fraught time for an administration trying maintain party unity in a government shutdown battle with Democrats over a border wall, while heading off Special Counsel Robert Mueller's expanding investigation of Trump campaign ties to Russia.

Although 11 Senate Republicans had joined the Democrats' rebuke of the administration's sanctions move on Wednesday, the measure failed to clear a 60-vote procedural threshold, thereby rendering the House vote moot.

Texas Take: Get the latest news on Texas politics sent directly to your inbox every weekday

Some Senate Republicans attributed the large number of GOP defections in the House to the largely symbolic nature of the vote, inoculating rank-and-file Republican lawmakers from the perception of being too close to Russia.

Although the House vote could not undo Trump's sanctions relief, the House and Senate votes together represented the biggest split in Republican ranks in Congress since Trump took office two years ago.

Cruz derides 'political gamesmanship'

Deripaska, who has strong links to the Kremlin, is reported to have lent money and funded consulting work done by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for a pro-Putin political party in Ukraine.

Among those voting against the administration's sanctions relief were San Antonio Republican Will Hurd, a former CIA officer, and newly-elected Houston Republican Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL.

"Russia will stop at nothing to erode trust in our democratic institutions and threaten our allies," Hurd said. "We must continue to show Vladimir Putin and other bad actors across the globe that there are consequences for their actions. America cannot tolerate Moscow's aggressive behavior."

Lawmakers backing the administration move argued that it would leave in place sanctions against Deripaska while rewarding three Russian companies, including aluminum companies, for loosening their ties to him. They also cited the support of key European allies in the agreement.

"As Senate Democrats know well, this agreement weakens Deripaska, a very bad actor," Cruz said in a lengthy statement defending his vote. He called the resolution, led by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, "simply political gamesmanship."

Only three Republican House members from Texas stuck with the GOP caucus to uphold the sanctions relief: Kevin Brady of The Woodlands, Brian Babin of Woodville, and Randy Weber, a Friendswood Republican who made headlines in July for a meeting involving alleged Russian spy and gun-rights activist Maria Butina.

Weber said at the time that while Butina was scheduled to take part in a 2015 meeting he had with then-Russian Central Bank Deputy Governor Alexander Torshin, he did not recall whether she actually attended.

For subscribers: Texas Rep. Weber's foray into Russian politics may include meeting with alleged spy Maria Butina

Brady said the administration move would better target U.S. sanctions and is no favor to Putin. "The strongest Russia sanctions are the smart ones," he said. "Adjusting sanctions on companies that help us punish and isolate Russian bad actors like Oleg Deripaska will encourage more companies to cooperate with America to severely hobble Russia."

Supporters of sanctions relief also argued that it would allow aluminum conglomerate Rusal and other Russian companies Deripaska controlled to reenter the market, increasing competition and lowering the price of aluminum products for consumers in the U.S. They maintain that if the companies violate the terms of the agreement with the Treasury Department, the sanctions could be re-imposed.

Former Homeland Security chair McCaul joins Democrats

The House vote came at the end of a 30-day deadline for Congress to block the administration's decision to ease the Russian sanctions, which was announced December 19. Rusal stock shares soared on the news.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Treasury Department said the three Deripaska-controlled companies, Rusal, En+ Group and JSC EuroSibEnergo, had agreed to corporate governance changes that would reduce Deripaska's shareholding stake to below 50 percent, "thereby untangling and protecting these companies from the controlling influence of a Kremlin insider."

The deadline to block a sanctions de-listing was set under bipartisan legislation passed by Congress in 2017 which targeted Russia and confronted Trump with the threat of a veto override.

Critics of the administration move argue that Deripaska's purported divestment is a paper fiction that belies his continued influence with Putin's inner-circle and his operational control of the companies.

"Because we cannot be sure that we have removed the heavy hand of this Russian oligarch, I cannot support the delisting of these sanctioned entities at this point in time," said Texas Republican Michael McCaul.

Much of the opposition was focused on Rusal, one of the largest aluminum producers in the world.

"If only President Trump were as eager to reopen our government as he is to reopen this sanctioned Russian company," said Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett. "The sanctions law against Russians, enacted over President Trump's objection, was designed to deter Russian aggression against our democracy and beyond  to change Russian misconduct, not to yield right of way."

Doggett, who represents parts of San Antonio and Austin, was one of many Democrats who questioned a tariff exemption for Rusal affiliate Rusal USA granted last July, days after Trump met with Putin in Helsinki. The exemption was later withdrawn, he said.
Four months ago, Matt Mackowiak orchestrated a miracle.

Mackowiak, the chairman of the Travis County Republican Party, directed the campaign of Pete Flores, a Republican retired game warden, to a special-election runoff win in reliably Democratic Texas Senate District 19.

In doing so, Flores captured a seat that had been held for more than a decade by disgraced San Antonio Democratic lawmaker Carlos Uresti, who resigned last year after being convicted on 11 felony counts, including money laundering and fraud.

At the moment, Mackowiak is attempting a repeat performance, as the campaign manager for Republican longshot Fred Rangel in the special election to fill the Texas House seat vacated when Justin Rodriguez resigned to join the Bexar County Commissioners Court.

OnExpressNews.com: Lone finalist for San Antonio city manager says he wanted the job since high school

Rangels biggest ally, aside from Mackowiak, might be the odd logistics of special elections, which provide only a few weeks to campaign and generate little interest from voters. Under those circumstances, the standard voting patterns of a district can start to feel irrelevant.

With a special election, the most important word in the phrase is special, not election, Mackowiak said. Theyre very unique. I mean, this is a one-month race.

Viewed from one angle, Rangels campaign would seem to offer little promise. The 64-year-old architectural consultant has been a failed perennial in City Council District 7, running four times over the past 18 years and never getting close to victory.

In 2001, Rangel ran into a buzz saw named Julian Castro, then making his first bid for political office. Rangel finished a distant second, with 12.9 percent of the vote, to 61.8 percent for Castro.

In subsequent races, Rangel never registered more than 14.5 percent and never finished higher than third.

On the plus side for Rangel, Democratic districts in Bexar County have shown a tendency to go loopy during special elections.

Three times in the past four years, weve seen local Democratic legislative districts slip out of the partys hands  twice to Republicans (Flores and John Lujan) and once to an independent (Laura Thompson).

Rangel will be competing against former state Rep. Art Reyna, former San Antonio City Councilman Ray Lopez and progressive advocates Coda Rayo-Garza and Steve Huerta. Rangel will be the lone Republican.

One of the key elements that has boosted upset-minded Republicans in recent special elections has been the presence of intense division among Democrats.

In 2015, Tomas Uresti and Gabe Farias fought an intraparty grudge match that enabled Lujan, a retired firefighter, to sneak into the Texas House runoff and pull off a win. Last year, state Rep. Roland Gutierrez and former Congressman Pete Gallego verbally wrestled with each other while Flores found a path to victory.

Theres no indication that well see the circular-firing-squad effect with the Democrats in this race, but they will be competing for the same votes. And that works to Rangels favor.

Theyre all going to be fishing out of the same pond, Mackowiak said. And their pond is bigger. There are more Democrats in this district than Republicans. But were fishing in a pond by ourselves.

Making contact with voters will be easier for Rangel than it was for Flores, who had to cover a 17-county Senate district that stretches from San Antonio to West Texas. By contrast, House District 125 is entirely contained within West Bexar County.

OnExpressNews.com: Lopez emerges as likely fron-runner for vacant Texas House seat

Flores had set the table for his 2018 upset, however, by challenging Carlos Uresti in 2016 and drawing more than 97,000 votes (40.4 percent).

Flores also benefited from voter disgust with Uresti, which poisoned the atmosphere for Urestis fellow Democrats.

In addition, the top two Democrats in the Senate special election  Gutierrez and Gallego  faced controversies of their own. Gutierrez had to answer for a series of tax liens and breach-of-contract suits, while Gallego never adequately addressed questions about whether he lived in the district.

While Flores could at least count on some solid-red rural counties in his race, Rangel will be swimming in a deep blue sea. District 125 is so thoroughly Democratic that no Republican even bothered to challenge Rodriguez over the past three election cycles.

But with a turnout likely to be less than 5,000 voters, an energized local GOP can have a disproportionate effect. Rangel has been a loyal party foot soldier, serving as a precinct chair and building strong personal connections with party activists. This could be the time for him to cash in those IOUs.

Its a sprint. Turnout will be low, Mackowiak said. Well see who can put a good campaign together quickly. In some ways, were not really competing with anyone. Were competing with ourselves.

Im not going to make any bold predictions here. Ill say this: I think Freds going to be competitive. I think hes got a great chance to be competitive.

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
In front of a crowd of more than 1,000 gathered at Plaza Guadalupe on the West Side last weekend, Julian Castro became the first San Antonian to declare a campaign for the White House.

Castro is an early entrant in what likely will be a jammed field of a dozen or more Democrats competing for a nomination that is viewed as especially significant given the partys strong feelings about President Donald Trump.

Three San Antonio Express-News columnists  Metro columnist Gilbert Garcia, Editorial Page columnist Josh Brodesky and Editorial Page Editor and columnist O. Ricardo Pimentel  offer their takes on his candidacy.

Does Castro have a prayer of being elected?

Garcia: The short answer is yes. This is going to be a wide-open election cycle for Democrats, probably their most open presidential contest since 1992, when a little-known governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton emerged from the pack. While we know that there will be an outrageous number of candidates in the primary race (possibly more than 20), there is no clear front-runner. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have name recognition, but they also carry some serious question marks.

Democrats are looking for a new generation of leadership and they want to energize Latino voters. Castro answers both of those needs. Also, unlike many of the other candidates, he doesnt hold an office and will have the freedom to campaign 24/7 for as long as it takes. That was a big advantage for another Democratic long shot, Jimmy Carter, in 1976.

Brodesky: Anything is possible, but he faces long odds. The Democratic field will be crowded and deep. His resume would be excellent for someone running for U.S. senator or governor, but its thin for a presidential candidate. And I think Beto ORourke, who also has a thin resume, has stolen some of his thunder. Theres just more excitement about that other young Democrat from Texas possibly running for president.

Pimentel: Yes, just a prayer. But consider, for different reasons its the same prayer that pundits said Trump had for the 2016 election. He lacks as much name recognition as others in the race  in officially or unofficially  and much will depend on how much his personal story resonates. Key: It will need to resonate beyond Latino voters, much as the its time, lets make history mindset worked for President Barack Obama, our first black president. But, at this moment, his chances look slim.

On ExpressNews.com: How Julian Castro prepared to announce his presidential run

Cite three reasons why he should be viewed as a serious contender for the Democratic nomination.

Garcia: His appeal for generational change should resonate. Also, his personal narrative is unique and compelling: When he speaks about immigration, he can connect it to the story of his grandmother, who came from Mexico as a small child. When he talks about political engagement, he can connect it to his mothers history of activism. And the fact that he has an identical twin brother in Congress is endlessly fascinating to people who follow politics. Finally, he is a driven, disciplined politician who has mapped out his strategy carefully and cultivated the support of young Democrats around the country.

Brodesky: He was mayor of the nations seventh-largest city and Pre-K 4 SA is a national model for early childhood education. He oversaw the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he raised awareness about income inequality. His candidacy has the potential to be inspirational, reaching voters who might tune out other candidates.

Pimentel: His views are firmly in line with other candidates, announced or unannounced, in his party. He is well within the ever-shifting mainstream of the Democratic Party. He is not significantly an outlier  both a good and bad thing. The New Green Deal and Medicare for All will be actively debated in the Democratic Party, which will fear being tagged as socialist. And they could be tougher sells in the general election. Best case scenario: The growing realization that the Affordable Care Act was broadly beneficial might mean more of the electorate has already crossed that hurdle and no longer falls for the knee-jerk description of more government involvement for the public good as socialism.

Political views aside, it could shape up to be the right time and the right place for a Latino presidential candidate. The demonization that has occurred over the immigration issue and the tolerance for the presidents nationalist-tinged bluster on the topic in the GOP might make this so among Democrats, Independents and those Republicans uncomfortable with the direction Trump has taken the party. Much of this will depend on whether Castro can muster the charisma to match his story. My view is that he can, if he stops being so cautious.

Though others have higher name recognition, Castro is no longer a stranger to national politics. His keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2012 raised his profile, and he has carefully worked at keeping that profile out there, with varying success. HUD secretary isnt a natural stepping stone for the presidency but at least demonstrates that he knows the workings of the federal government. It could be, as was once said of Al Gore, competence is the new charisma. If there is a whole lot (more) wreckage inflicted by the Trump administration, competence should be as or more important as ideas. Remains to be seen, however, if our personality politics will continue. I suspect they will.

On ExpressNews.com: How Julian Castro prepared to announce his presidential run

What are his main strengths as a candidate?

Garcia: He is thoughtful and nuanced and conveys humility and empathy.

Brodesky: He has a commanding, yet personable style. He is an excellent public speaker who makes public policy both cool and accessible. And his personal story  how his grandmother immigrated from Mexico  is particularly salient given Trumps anti-immigrant views and border wall rhetoric. His very candidacy is a living rebuttal to Trumps worldview, and no one should underestimate the power in that.

Pimentel: His smarts. His personal story. And his empathy for those under attack and in need.

What are his main weaknesses?

Garcia: He is an introspective, introverted person who is not a natural campaigner. He has a low-key personality that plays well with people in small settings but does not necessarily electrify large crowds or jump off the TV screen. He also lacks expertise on the foreign-policy front.

Brodesky: Again, his thin resume hurts. From mayor to overseeing HUD to  POTUS? Its hard to see voters going for that. They will wonder if he has the experience to be in the Oval Office. I also think his decision not to run for anything during the midterm hurts. He was on the sidelines while others rode the blue wave to office, or, at least, prominence. Imagine if he had run for governor and shared the ballot with ORourke.

Pimentel: The potential that he will not be viewed as a candidate with broad appeal, merely as the Latino or Mexican-American candidate. Unfair, yes. Id match his ideas along a broad spectrum of issues  not just immigration  with any of the Democratic hopefuls. But for better or worse, we are at a political moment where identity can matter. Though she had the Clinton baggage, part of the appeal of Hillary Clinton  aside from not being Trump  was, after all, that she was a woman. But unfair in the sense that no one was credibly saying of any white male candidate that he is the white candidate. Remains to be seen if that changes, too. And then there is the prospect that the Beto effect might come into play  that ORourke, if he runs, will suck up much of the enthusiasm Castro will be counting on among both millennials and, yes, Latinos. He might not be the only youngish new guy with bold ideas coming out of Texas, and ORourke is more recently and most prominently on the national stage.

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Where do you expect Castro to be in 2020  on the Democratic presidential ticket or back in San Antonio, trying to figure out his next chapter?

Garcia: If the 2020 Democratic nominee wins the general election (and if that nominee isnt Castro), I would expect Castro to get a Cabinet offer. If its something in his wheelhouse (like, say, secretary of education), that would be hard for him to turn down.

Brodesky: Hmmm, Id say he has a decent shot as a vice presidential pick. But if he is not on the ticket, he would certainly be under consideration for a Cabinet post should Democrats win in 2020. And, of course, he could always run for governor in 2022. Austin is a proven step toward the White House.

Pimentel: All things considered, I think he will be mulling nonpolitical options. But lets go through the possibilities. His decisions might precede 2020. If his candidacy has no legs but he stays in long enough to still be talked about, he will naturally be among those named in the VP sweepstakes. Whoever the Democratic nominee is will naturally consider him. So, he will need to make a decision in 2019 on whether he wants to be considered. In making that decision, he will need to mull whether he is seriously being considered  whether the nominees campaign is floating his name just to see what sticks or whether he has a shot. If its all window-dressing, he should not let himself be used. He might also be considered for another Cabinet position. I think the latter is more probable. Whatever Julian Castro chooses, I suspect he will land on his feet and make his mark. My hope is that, if his presidential campaign founders, he at least makes a good showing in the presidential election, comes home and runs for statewide office.

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470 |Josh Brodesky is a columnist and member of the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbrodesky@express-news.net | Twitter: @joshbrodesky |O. Ricardo Pimental is the editorial page editor for the San Antonio Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | o.ricardo.pimentel@express-news.net | Twitter: @oricardopimente
As Erik Walsh tells it, hes wanted to be San Antonios city manager since he was a freshman at Central Catholic High School in the early 1980s.

Then-City Manager Lou Fox would jog down St. Marys Street near the school grounds, and Walsh said his English teacher would point Fox out to the students.

Now, as a ninth-grader, nobody knew what a city manager was, Walsh said Thursday. The teacher went on to explain who Fox was, what his job entailed and why it mattered.

A lot of people can point to a moment of time in their history, Walsh said, and that was my moment.

The city manager runs day-to-day municipal operations in San Antonio, the countrys seventh-largest city. Late Wednesday, City Council members chose Walsh, one of outgoing City Manager Sheryl Sculleys two top deputies, as the sole finalist to replace her.

The council is expected to vote Jan. 31 to formally appoint Walsh to the citys most important staff position.

Public Forum When Wednesday, Jan. 23, 6 p.m. Where Buena Vista Theater, UTSA downtown campus 501 W. Cesar E Chavez Blvd, Can I participate? The public is welcome and will be accommodated on a first-come, first-serve basis. The theater can hold 300 people and an overflow room will hold an additional 140. City officials are encouraging people to RSVP at SAspeakup.com. The city is exploring whether it can live-stream the event on its online TV channel and its government access cable channel. Can I talk to Erik Walsh? The city is accepting questions in several forms: Online at SAspeakup.com On social media, use #SAspeakupCM Written questions can be submitted to your city council member's office, and they will also be accepted at the door. See More Collapse

On ExpressNews.com: Finalist for city manager picked

Walsh, 49, has been a deputy or assistant city manager under Sculley for most of her 13-year tenure. He has handled some of the citys toughest assignments, including overseeing the police and fire departments and negotiating contracts with their unions. A third of the citys $2.8 billion operating budget falls within his portfolio.

He began his career in city government in 1993 as a budget analyst. Those who have worked with Walsh describe him as even-tempered in dealing with some of the citys most intractable problems, and they say he also has the compassion and heart for the job.

Alex Briseno, a professor at St. Marys University, was city manager from 1990 to 2001 and watched Walsh develop. He said it was remarkable to see him on the verge of realizing a long-held dream.

If that was his goal from when he was 14 years old, and here he is 35 years later achieving that goal, I mean wow, thats just fantastic, Briseno said. If he uses the same methodology and the same thinking to deal with the citys issues, then hell be on the right track.

Sculley announced she would retire soon after the Nov. 6 election, when voters overwhelmingly approved a city charter amendment  pushed by the city firefighters union  that put limits on the salary and tenure of city managers. Although the amendment didnt apply to Sculley, it was widely regarded as a referendum on her highest-in-the-nation compensation: a $475,000 salary with up to $100,000 more in annual bonuses based on performance.

During her tenure, which spanned four mayors, Sculley is credited with stabilizing city finances and improving services. But she was also seen by some as polarizing and imperious.

Asked what he had learned from Sculley, Walsh said: Results matter, but there needs to be that community relationship.

Under the city charter amendment approved in November, Walsh  if confirmed as city manager  could not serve for more than eight years or make more than 10 times the salary of the citys lowest-paid employee, which currently works out to $312,000. Walsh said those limits dont bother him.

I applied for this job, he said. This is a career achievement  to be the city manager in your hometown. That does not happen very often, so Im not worried about (the limits).

Joe Krier, who served on the City Council from 2013 to 2017, said he couldnt muster a negative thought about the councils choice.

I particularly appreciated his even-tempered personality, Krier said. He had some tough assignments, especially dealing with the public safety unions, which is no easy task for anybody, and hes one of these guys who didnt let his feelings get ruffled, and he didnt let issues get personal.

Geraldine Garcia, who worked with Walsh when she was assistant police chief from 2008 to 2016, said she was confident Walsh could heal the citys rift with the firefighters union. The two sides have been locked in a stalemate over the unions contract.

Eriks his own man. Once he steps into the position, hes going to create his own legacy, Garcia said. I think he can fix things, I really do  He understands it better than anyone else.

The other finalist for city manager was Maria Villagomez, an assistant city manager who oversees the office of management and budget. Several of those who lauded Walshs selection said Villagomez would also have been an excellent choice.

She said Thursday she was honored to make it to the final round and was excited to continue working with Walsh.

Hes a smart man. Hes compassionate. He listens to what somebody has to say, Villagomez said, and I think hell do a great job and use those skills if he is our next city manager.

On ExpressNews.com: Fitch downgrades city bond rating

Walsh emphasized his Alamo City roots in explaining his desire for the job. After Central Catholic, he played football as an undergraduate at Trinity University, where he also earned a masters degree in urban administration.

One of the things that has always struck me is that San Antonio is my home, and I want it to be on the top of everybodys list, Walsh said. Whether its the best place to live, the best place to work, the best place to raise a family. Those goals are as personal to me as they probably are to any of you.

He outlined four areas of focus for city staff: the Texas legislatures 2019 session, now under way in Austin; the citys affordable housing plan; a long-term funding strategy for Haven for Hope, an organization battling homelessness; and the citys pilot program for e-scooters and other dockless vehicles.

Everything is a priority, and thats the beauty of this job and of public service, is that you have to keep your eye on all the balls, all the time, every day, Walsh said.

Dylan McGuinness covers local politics and the Bexar County government for the Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness
San Antonio was well-represented as seven women were inducted into the Texas Womens Hall of Fame on Thursday.

San Antonio resident and Grammy winner Vikki Carr joined state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, who represents part of San Antonio, for the induction ceremony at the Governors Mansion in Austin. The late Sister Elizabeth Anne Sueltenfuss, longtime president of Our Lady of the Lake University, also was inducted.

Others honored at the ceremony were former Texas and U.S. first lady Laura Bush, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, philanthropist Susan Dell and pilot Tammie Jo Shults. Hundreds of applications are received for the biennial award.

OnExpressNews.com: San Antonio hospital on Southeast Side expands services amid increased demand for surgeries

Today, we recognize seven extraordinary women, Gov. Greg Abbott said. Women whose strength, perseverance and passion embody what it means to be a Texan. Each of these women have left their own unique mark on our state, and Texas is better because of their contributions.

Zaffirini was honored for her decades-long career as a Texas legislator, in which she has amassed more than 60,000 consecutive votes while representing a far-flung district that has stretched from near Austin to the Rio Grande Valley, but has always included a part of San Antonio. Since she was first elected in 1987, Zaffirini has written more than 1,000 bills that have become law.

We who are honored today must accomplish even more things in the future than we have already, and only in that way will we prove ourselves worthy of this prestigious award, she said.

Zaffirini concluded her speech with a prayer and a blessing for the governor, receiving laughter and applause when she added a plea that he see the light and not veto any of my bills during the current legislative session.

OnExpressNews.com: No Julian Castro's preschool program in San Antonio is not 'universal'

Neither Bush nor Biles attended the ceremony; a representative read a letter from Bush while Biles mother accepted the silver bowl on behalf of her daughter, noting her daughter would have said, Never give up!

Sueltenfuss, who died in 2009, was honored for her record of uplifting people in need in San Antonio during her two decades as the president of Our Lady of the Lake. Current university President Diane Melby accepted the award on Sueltenfuss behalf, noting the former presidents ongoing legacy at the university and in San Antonio.

She saved my life, she changed my life and she transformed me into the person I am today, Melby said.

When it was her turn to speak, Carr talked about her faith and led the audience in a singalong of her 1968 hit, Cant Take My Eyes Off Of You.

Thats what Im supposed to be doing, she said. To reach people with my singing, with my gift, as all of you have done with your gifts to help so many others.

Carr, born in El Paso, sings in the choir at her San Antonio church.

When I first came here, I said I love San Antonio, I would love to live here someday. Well, be careful what you wish for, Carr said in an interview after the ceremony. Ive loved San Antonio  the people here, they have all taken me in as a San Antonian.
San Antonio was well represented as seven women were inducted into the Texas Womens Hall of Fame on Thursday.

San Antonio resident and Grammy winner Vikki Carr joined state Senator Judith Zaffirini, who represents part of San Antonio and former Our Lady of the Lake University President Sister Elizabeth Anne Sueltenfuss joined former Texas and U.S. First Lady Laura Bush, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, philanthropist Susan Dell and pilot Tammie Jo Shults in being honored at a ceremony at the Governors Mansion in Austin.

Today, we recognize seven extraordinary women, Abbott said. Women whose strength, perseverance and passion embody what it means to be a Texan. Each of these women have left their own unique mark on our state, and Texas is better because of their contributions.

Sen. Zaffirini was first honored for her decades-long career as a Texas legislator, where she has amassed more than 60,000 consecutive votes while representing a stretch of land from San Antonio to her native Laredo since 1987. She has written more than 1,000 bills that have become law.

We who are honored today must accomplish even more things in the future than we have already, and only in that way will we prove ourselves worthy of this prestigious award, Zaffirini said.

Zaffirini concluded her speech with a prayer, receiving laughter and applause when she included a plea to Abbott to see the light and not veto any of my bills during the current session of the Texas Legislature.

Neither Bush nor Biles attended the ceremony, each having the award accepted by someone else on her behalf.

Sueltenfuss, who died in 2009, was honored for her record of uplifting people in need in San Antonio during her two decades as the president of Our Lady of the Lake University. Current university President Diane Melby accepted the award on Sueltenfuss behalf, noting the former presidents ongoing legacy at the university and in San Antonio.

She saved my life, she changed my life and she transformed me into the person I am today, Melby said.

When it was her turn to speak, Carr led the audience in a singalong of her 1968 hit rendition of Cant Take My Eyes Off You.

Thats what Im supposed to be doing, Carr said. To reach people with my singing, with my gift, as all of you have done with your gifts to help so many others.

Carr now sings in the choir at her San Antonio church.

When I first came here, I said I love San Antonio, I would love to live here someday. Well, be careful what you wish for, Carr said in an interview after the ceremony. Ive loved San Antonio  the people here, they have all taken me in as a San Antonian.
Comparing the price of giving birth at San Antonio hospitals may not be as simple as it sounds.

Beginning this month, hospitals across the country were required to post their prices online as part of a new federal rule that seeks to improve transparency in health care. The rule mandates that each hospital disclose the standard charges in its chargemaster, which lists the billing costs for various procedures, services and items.

How to format such information for the public was left to each hospital.

As a result, trying to figure out the cost of having a baby delivered means navigating hospitals lists with thousands of items that are written using inscrutable medical language and ample abbreviations.

For example, one spreadsheet for The Childrens Hospital of San Antonio lists VAGINAL DELIVERY W/O COMPLICATING DIAGNOSES at $18,988 and a CESAREAN SECTION W/O CC/MCC at $28,156.

St. Lukes Baptist Hospital, by contrast, itemizes hours of labor  LABOR SIMPLE 1ST HR costs $319 and LABOR SIMPLE ADD HR is $308  and lists the price of delivery separately based on its complexity ($2,364 if its simple, $3,143 if its not). Other costs associated with delivery, including care for the baby, constitute separate line items.

Searches for Cesarean or vaginal delivery in the 223-page PDF document posted by University Hospital yield no results. Thats because the procedures are categorized under the various services associated with a birth, such as charges for the obstetrician and hospital room, said Awoala Banigo, chief revenue officer for University Health System.

You wouldnt see baby delivery in the chargemaster. You would see all the supplies that would go into delivery of a baby, he said, adding that chargemasters vary widely between hospitals. No two facilities could report the same thing the same way because it all depends on how their chargemaster is built.

Such differences are at the heart of the debate over the new requirement. While some experts say disclosure of hospital prices is a step in the right direction, many agree the information in its current form is of little utility to consumers.

Most notably, the chargemaster lists do not reflect the amount that patients would ultimately see on a hospital bill. Hospitals negotiate rates with insurance providers that may pay only a fraction of those costs. Even uninsured patients typically qualify for discounts and do not pay the full sticker price of their care.

Sticker prices The cost of an abdominal MRI in San Antonio can vary widely depending on the hospital, according to their "chargemaster" lists. University Hospital:$4,056.25 Methodist Hospital: $7,284.69 St. Luke's Baptist Hospital: $6,292 Christus Santa Rosa Health System: MRI is not listed as a standalone procedure See More Collapse

Related: Inpatient hospital bills can vary widely

Its not all that helpful, said Vivian Ho, a professor at Rice University who studies the economics of health care. Its the first step that has to be taken to let hospitals know that the government is serious in the long run about price transparency. But unfortunately, this information, I would be surprised if its useful to any particular patient.

Lance Lunsford, chief marketing and business development officer for the Texas Hospital Association, said the requirement may have created a scenario where people are comparing apples to oranges. But it has sparked a conversation about how consumers make decisions about their care, as well as the complicated nature of pricing and billing practices in modern American health system, he said.

This has highlighted just how complex health care is and will be, Lunsford said. Thats not to say hospitals arent in favor of figuring out some ways that we can make more clear some pricing.

Typically, pricing is not the only factor important to a patient, who may also be interested in quality of care, safety ratings and whether the hospital is considered in network in their health plan, Lunsford added.

Improving price transparency in medical care has long been a point of discussion in the industry. Dana Forgione, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio who leads an MBA program in the business of health, said it has taken decades for the industry to disclose this information, even if it appears cryptic right now.

Now is the opportunity for consumer advocacy groups and watchdog groups and insurers and others to work on hospitals to improve the usefulness and the meaningfulness of the information, Forgione said.

Some hospital systems have been more proactive, he said, by designing systems that allow patients to access pricing information under different insurance providers, allowing them to shop for comparable services. As price disclosure becomes the standard, he said it will be incumbent upon the hospitals to make the information more understandable to patients.

On ExpressNews.com: ER billings 'totally rigged against patients'

CHRISTUS Health, which operates several hospitals in San Antonio, including the childrens hospital, went a step beyond simply posting its chargemaster lists. For each hospital, the system also uploaded a set of diagnoses related lists more oriented toward consumers, spokesman Steven Alford said. That information is likely more in line with what patients may be looking for before a hospital visit, such as the ballpark cost of a knee replacement, he said.

However, a shortcoming of that format is that some procedures independent of a diagnosis may not be included. For example, an abdominal MRI is listed by University as costing $4,056, while Methodist Hospital charges $7,284 for the same procedure without contrast.

Nothing comes up for a keyword search within CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Health Systems diagnoses list. After checking with the systems finance department, Alford said the procedure without contrast costs about $1,600.

UHS is in the process of migrating to a new provider for electronic medical records that could allow patients to search for price estimates of procedures and services at the hospital based on an algorithm, Banigo said. The current system cannot support such searches, he said. The new records system is expected to be implemented in 2020.

Even by making such information available, health system officials and industry experts acknowledge that only so much can be done to estimate an individual patients hospital stay before it happens. Two patients could go in for the same procedure and one might be promptly discharged, while the other may experience complications that require additional specialists and treatment or a longer stay.

Read more: Big disparities found in the charges local hospitals bill to Medicare

Another way to improve pricing transparency would be to follow the lead of some states that have created databases where insurers submit reimbursement claims, Ho said, giving economists like her an opportunity to analyze what patients pay based on the facility and insurance provider.

But for the time being, Ho recommended that customers seek pricing information from their health insurers, which are better positioned to tell patients what they could expect to actually pay out of pocket.

Lauren Caruba covers health care and medicine in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | lcaruba@express-news.net | Twitter: @LaurenCaruba
Nichol Leila Olsen quarreled with her boyfriend the night before she and her two daughters were found shot to death in a luxury home in a gated neighborhood near Leon Springs, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Thursday.

I think thered been an argument at the very least ... and he went to another residence, Salazar said.

That boyfriend, Charlie Wheeler, 31, is a person of interest, but not a suspect in the case, Salazar said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News.

A person of interest is just somebody that were interested in talking to, Salazar said.

Wheeler is not the only person drawing such scrutiny. The sheriffs office is looking at others as well, Salazar confirmed.

Wheeler has cooperated fully with the investigation since the day of the shootings and willingly submitted to tests scanning his hands for any traces of gunshot residue, the sheriff said. Those test results are still pending.

Were not calling anybody a suspect at this point, Salazar said.

One of Wheelers attorneys expressed frustration with the sheriffs comments Thursday and said there is no probable cause to indicate Wheeler committed any crime.

We think it is regrettable that this young man is being demonized, that hes now being publicly identified, said San Antonio attorney Mark Stevens, one of three lawyers representing Wheeler. He is a young man with no criminal record for violence whatsoever.

What we would ask is that people not jump to conclusions, that they not demonize this young man who does not deserve it, that they let the professionals do their jobs and complete this investigation. And respect the privacy of presumptively innocent people and of Charlie Wheeler, who did not commit a crime here.

Attorneys Therese Huntzinger and Patrick Hancock also are part of Wheelers legal team.

Wheeler has not responded to requests for comment.

Olsen, 37, and her daughters, Clark High School cheerleader Alexa Denice Montez, 16, and London Sophia Bribiescas, 10, were found dead at Wheelers home in the 11300 block of Anaqua Springs on the morning of Jan. 10. Olsen and her daughters lived with Wheeler at the residence, located inside a gated community in far northwest Bexar County.

On ExpressNews.com: Three found dead in Northwest Side home

Olsen, a local hairstylist, died from a gunshot wound to the head. Her death was ruled a suicide by the Bexar County Medical Examiners office. But Olsens friends and family have flatly rejected that ruling, insisting she would never harm herself or her children.

The childrens deaths were ruled homicides. Montez died from a gunshot wound to the head, while Bribiescas died from a gunshot wound to her head and neck, the medical examiners office said Thursday.

The three were found close together on the floor of a common area on the second story of the house, Salazar said. He declined to be more specific about the area where they were discovered.

A handgun was found in close proximity to Olsens body, he said. No suicide note was found.

Olsens hands also were tested for any traces of gunshot residue, Salazar said. Investigators havent yet received those test results.

There were no signs that anyone had forced their way inside the residence, the sheriff said.

Investigators havent determined the exact time of the shootings, but believe they occurred between 10 p.m. on Jan. 9 and 9 a.m. on Jan. 10.

Wheeler told officers he found the victims bodies when he returned home around 9 a.m. that morning after staying at a relatives home in another city the night before, the sheriff said. Wheeler reported he had left the night before after getting into a conflict with Olsen. Investigators are still working to verify Wheelers whereabouts during the time period in question.

Were not necessarily doubting him or calling him a liar at this point, Salazar said Thursday. What we are doing is trying to verify or refute that independently Cell phone tower records are probably going to be one of the big determining factors of that. Chances are wherever he was, he continued to use his cell phone.

Wheeler had been romantically involved with Olsen for around two years. She had been living with him in his home for the past year, friends said at a candlelight vigil Wednesday night.

People have told us that this wasnt the happiest of relationships, Salazar said of the couple. We take that information into account ... But we cant just rely on that as a determining factor.

On ExpressNews.com: Medical Examiner rules mothers death a suicide

Salazar said he currently has no reason to doubt the medical examiners rulings, but noted the shootings arent the most clear-cut case in the world. He said there are too many unanswered questions.

His investigators are pressing forward to independently verify whether Olsens death was a suicide and to find out who killed the children.

Im pushing my investigators hard because Im just as interested as everybody else to find out whats the truth here? What really happened? Salazar said.

In addition to the gunshot residue tests, investigators are still waiting on the results of ballistics tests, DNA tests, toxicology reports, cell phone records, data from cell phone towers showing the whereabouts of peoples cell phones and GPS records showing vehicles locations.

A 2013 Ford pickup registered to Wheeler was towed away from his neighborhood hours after the shootings. Sheriffs officials escorted that vehicle as it was hauled away that night.

Salazar was unable to say who owned the handgun found near Olsens body. Theres a common misconception - people say Who was it registered to? In Texas, we dont register guns, he said.

He asked anyone with information about the case or the people involved to contact the sheriffs office by calling 210-335-6070 or sending an email to BCSOTips@bexar.org.

Were not going to stop digging until weve exhausted all leads in this case ... We want to get to the truth, Salazar said.

Wheelers attorney said the medical examiners determination that Olsen died by her own hand is significant.

It being a suicide is frankly absolutely inconsistent with criminal culpability of another person, Stevens said.

Olsen worked as a hairstylist at Salons by JC on the North Side. Montez was a sophomore at Clark High School, while Bribiescas was a fifth grader at Leon Springs Elementary School.

Bexar County Clerk records show Olsen was arrested by the sheriffs office in March 2014 on a misdemeanor charge of assault bodily injury after she was accused of striking another man with her hand. The alleged victim wasnt Wheeler. That case was dismissed in 2015 when the man failed to appear in court, records show.

Wheeler hails from a family known in the South Texas oil and gas industry and on the rodeo circuit, according to a 2014 article published in Shale Oil & Gas Business Magazine. He competed as a team roper for three years in rodeos and has owned several successful businesses, the article stated. His family owns a ranch in Tilden, according to the magazine.

The house where the shootings occurred was purchased by Wheeler in 2017 and is appraised at almost $1 million. The four-bedroom, four-bathroom house spans 4,500 square feet and sits on 2.7 acres of land.

Friends of Olsen who dont believe she committed suicide have established a GoFundMe page called Searching for the Truth to help fund further investigation. Their fundraising goal is $50,000. Contributors had already donated more than $6,500 one hour after the page was established Thursday.

Peggy OHare is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pohare@express-news.net | Twitter: @Peggy_OHare
A Bexar County jury took just 25 minutes Friday afternoon to sentence a San Antonio man to 70 years in prison for killing his ex-girlfriend.

Antonio Nunez Jr., 63, had been on trial in Felony Impact Court since Tuesday. After closing arguments, jurors deliberated for about five hours Friday before finding him guilty in the death of Lisa Carter, 47, on Aug. 17, 2015.

The punishment phase began shortly after the verdict was read. Nunez will have to serve at least 30 years before hes eligible for parole.

Details of the gruesome case emerged during testimony. Carters body was set on fire and then dumped on a Southeast Bexar County road.

In closing arguments, prosecutors Leo Gonzalez and Melissa Saenz told the jury that Nunez had motive to kill his ex-girlfriend because Carter had accused Nunez of assault, and he spent three months in jail before the case was dismissed.

She had a case on him, he was in jail for 90 days, and then shes dead right after he gets out of jail, Gonzalez told the panel. He was the only person who was a threat to her.

Gonzalez asked the jury to dismiss the argument put forth by defense attorney John Economidy that a member of the Aryan Brotherhood who lived near where the body was found likely killed Carter, whom he called a snitch because she was an informant for the Bexar County Sheriffs Office.

The prosecutor also reminded the panel that Nunez admitted to relatives that he killed his ex-girlfriend, doused her body with gasoline and set her afire.

Economidy argued throughout the trial that his client didnt kill his ex-girlfriend and accused the Sheriffs Office of coercing those relatives into making their statements by implying they could lose their children if they didnt. He asked that they find Nunez not guilty.

On Thursday, before prosecutors and the defense rested their case, jurors saw a video of the defendant telling Sheriffs Detective John Perez that he didnt kill Carter. Perez also told the jury Nunezs sister told authorities her brother admitted to the killing and burning of Carters remains.

But Nunez insisted his sister didnt understand what he meant.

I didnt kill her, he told Perez on the video. I threw her out. I killed her by throwing her out to the wolves.

Nunez went on to explain that he viewed the wolves as people she ratted out to authorities.

Around 4:45 a.m., Aug. 17, 2015, Bexar County Sheriffs Office deputies were called to the 8200 block of South W.W. White Road in Southeast Bexar County, where a man on his way to work saw a burning body on the side of the road.

The case went cold until Dec. 19, 2016, when authorities positively identified the woman as Carter by using DNA testing and a partial fingerprint and jewelry recovered from the body at the scene.

Elizabeth Zavala is a courts and crime reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863
Under the governors plan, each of the states local school systems would receive more state money in the next fiscal year than in the current year  even though funding formulas used to calculate how much systems should receive would have recommended a decrease for some of them.
JOURDANTON  A study of groundwater pollution allegedly caused by coal ash at 16 coal-fired electric plants in Texas, including two near San Antonio, has found dangerous contaminants at every site.

The highest levels of pollutants were found in Atascosa County at the San Miguel Electric Cooperative plant, off Texas 16 south of Jourdanton.

The groundwater at San Miguel is grossly contaminated, with hazardous levels of many coal ash constituents, according to the study by Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit that says it is a nonpartisan watchdog advocating for effective environmental enforcement.

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The study, released Thursday, compiled publicly reported pollution readings from test wells drilled around the plants.

The San Miguel utility rejected the study as a hit and run report created by an anti-coal special interest group, based on flawed methodology and data pulled out context in order to arrive at premature and unfair conclusions.

It is glaringly apparent that EIPs report is part of the organizations biased, agenda-driven mission  to destroy the coal industry with scare tactics that are skewed and not grounded in sound science, said Mike Nasi, an environmental counselor for the utility.

He said the study ignores the possibility that contamination detected in the wells could be naturally occurring.

The San Miguel plant also polluted the groundwater on the adjacent Peeler family ranch, according to the report and a lawsuit filed last year. The Peelers have leased thousands of acres to the plant for decades, but they say the operation has damaged their pastures and failed to reclaim land that was mined for lignite coal.

The utility disputes their claims.

It was a progressive thing. They would never follow through on cleaning up their mess. There are at least 7,300 acres that are affected, said Jason Peeler, 51, whose parents own the 25,000-acre ranch that has been in the family for more than a century.

Last summer, the Peelers tried to evict the utility from the leased acreage, an effort blocked in court by a restraining order.

In the most recent round of the legal fight, the utility has begun condemnation proceedings against the family, seeking to take possession of thousands of acres it leases.

The coal ash study also found groundwater pollution at the Calaveras Power Station operated by CPS Energy south of San Antonio.

Michael Fisher

Until recently, CPS had three coal-fired plants that produced more than 350,000 tons of coal ash at the site in 2017. One of the plants, the J. T. Deely, was retired last year after 41 years of operation.

The groundwater at Calaveras is unsafe, with multiple pollutants exceeding their respective health-based thresholds in multiple wells, the report concludes. There is no indication that Calaveras has polluted drinking water supplies.

According to the report, CPS disputes this finding, claiming that the elevated levels of hazardous elements including beryllium, cobalt, lithium, cadmium and selenium found in the test wells are naturally occurring.

Asked by the Express-News to comment, CPS did not respond directly to the findings, but touted its commitment to reducing its reliance on coal. The utility said it safely recycles the coal ash as a building material.

Spills led to coal-ash rule

The EIP studys findings were based on test well data compiled under the 2015 federal Coal Ash Rule, which regulates the disposal of coal ash, a dirty byproduct of electricity production. The first set of data was published last spring from the wells, which are drilled around coal-ash settling ponds and disposal sites.

The report says that about 100 million tons of coal ash are generated each year by coal-fired electric plants around the country. Historically, much of the ash waste was stored in large ponds, some of which are poorly sealed and subject to leaks.

A series of disastrous coal-ash spills, including one in Tennessee in 2008 in which a containment dike burst, flooding more than 300 acres with waste, destroying homes and polluting two rivers, led to the new federal rules.

In 2014, an estimated 39,000 tons of coal ash from the Duke Energy plant in Eden, N.C., poured into a nearby river, discoloring it for 70 miles.

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At times, coal waste also ruins drinking water sources. In Colstrip, Minn., an estimated 200 million gallons a year of contaminated water have leaked into groundwater, making it undrinkable.

The study of the 16 coal plants required to monitor their groundwater found pervasive contamination, making the groundwater unsafe for human consumption.

The report revealed that 14 plants have unsafe levels of cobalt, 11 of lithium, 13 of arsenic, a carcinogen, and 10 have unsafe levels of boron.

The San Miguel plant, which has been burning locally mined lignite coal for more than four decades, was repeatedly mentioned.

Multiple wells at the San Miguel plant south of San Antonio have boron concentrations of more than 30 milligrams per liter, exceeding EPAs health advisory by ten-fold, the report stated.

Michael Fisher

It also said the plant, along with two others in Texas, has cobalt levels in groundwater that are 100 times higher than safe levels.

There are no claims that the San Miguel plant has contaminated local drinking water supplies. Wells in the area tapping into the Carrizo Aquifer are several thousand feet deep, far below the test wells.

Burning lignite coal

The 400-megawatt San Miguel plant was built in 1975 on 330 acres purchased from the Peelers to provide electricity to rural Texans.

It now generates 20 percent of the electricity of the South Texas Electric Cooperative, which has 241,000 customers spread from Uvalde to Matagorda counties.

The plant was built close to the plentiful local seams of lignite. Also called brown coal, lignite produces less energy and more waste and air pollution than hard, black coal.

Over the decades, San Miguel leased another 7,300 acres from the Peelers to provide a buffer zone around the plant and for other operations.

At first, the plant burned coal mined from deep open pits on the Peeler Ranch, but that ended in 2004. Since then it has used coal mined on other nearby ranches, but according to the Peelers, continues to dispose of coal ash waste on their ranch.

The various agreements required the plant operators to reclaim the mined and disturbed ranch land, and hundreds of acres have been reclaimed. The Peelers and their lawyers, however, charge that San Miguel has failed to hold up its end of the bargain.

The agreement was that after they mined the lignite, theyd come back and reclaim it, and that someday it would be good for grazing, said Mary Whittle, who represents the family. Instead, for $12,000 a year (in lease payments), they have used the Peeler Ranch as a solid waste disposal site for coal ash.

When the Peelers last August tried to terminate the perpetual leases and evict San Miguel from the property, the utility sued them in district court, claiming the actions would endanger plant operations.

San Miguel has complied with the Peeler Lease and other agreements between the parties in all material respects, according to San Miguels lawsuit.

The judge ordered the Peelers to halt their eviction effort, but also told San Miguel to quit dumping coal ash on their property.

Recently, according to the Peelers, San Miguel made them a cash offer for the leased land, the required first step in the condemnation process.

It feels like when we put the heat on them, their response was well just condemn it and take it. Its not for sale, said Peeler.

The company said condemnation was only raised after the Peelers attempted to keep them off the leased land.

Nasi said San Miguel meets or exceeds state and federal requirements to restore areas disturbed by plant operations, and that the Peelers are complaining about a tiny fraction of the thousands of acres that San Miguel has restored.

Peelers damaged pastures

On Wednesday, Peeler led a small group of journalists on a muddy tour around the plant and other sites that he says are being harmed by seeps, leaks and releases of contaminated water.

This was grassland once, but over time its changed. You can see all the dead trees, he said at a boggy site below the plants vast coal ash holding ponds.

The tour included stops at other sickly pastures where he said plant wastewater has been dumped. The released water eventually flows into the La Parita Creek and the San Antonio River, he said.

Later, he led reporters to a huge, water-filled open pit on Peeler land that he said was mined decades ago but has yet to be filled. At one end he pointed out a mountain of freshly dumped coal ash.

It takes $100,000 to build a large stock pond. What would it take to fill this in? Millions? It just keeps filling up with water. They have no plan, he said.

Im worried about permanent contamination of the land which affects wildlife and cattle, and totally devalues the land, he added.
Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer

Henry Cisneros, the former San Antonio mayor and a secretary in the Clinton Cabinet, didnt get a speaking role at Julian Castros announcement that hes running for president.

But Cisneros commented on what Castro must do to make a real run at the job.
Express-News file photo

A New York real-estate firm has purchased the Hotel Valencia property in downtown San Antonio  nearly two years after a Houston company bought the land for more than $14 million.

Safety, Income and Growth Inc. bought the half-acre lot at 150 E. Houston St. on Friday, county property records show. The New York company now owns the land but Houston-based Valencia Group, which owns seven hotels across Texas, owns the 12-story building and leases the land.
For almost a decade, the San Antonio area and South Central Texas have mirrored the national drop in bankruptcy cases.

The streak has come to an end, though, with a slight rise in area bankruptcy filings in 2018 after eight straight years of declines. Nationally, bankruptcies fell for the ninth straight year.

While the number of cases is modest, the latest figures included a jump in the number of businesses seeking refuge from creditors. There were 69 Chapter 11 filings last year versus 44 in 2017 in the San Antonio division, an increase of more than 50 percent.

By comparison, the number of businesses filing for bankruptcy reorganization nationally fell 5 percent to 5,470 last year from 5,762 in 2017. The national figures were compiled by Epiq Systems Inc. and reported by the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Overall, there were 3,076 consumer and business bankruptcy filings last year in the San Antonio division of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Texas. That represented just 100 more filings than in 2017, a 3.4 percent increase. The San Antonio division is comprised of Bexar County and 19 other counties. Bankruptcies fell 2 percent to 755,182 nationally.

Its difficult to pinpoint why San Antonio didnt remain in lock-step with the nation. There wasnt a wave of local foreclosures or a major area employer folding and throwing people out of work.

Its somewhat of a statistical anomaly, San Antonio bankruptcy lawyer Ray Battaglia said. I mean, a hundred cases is not a lot. Theres certainly not anything in the local economy, writ large, that suggests why consumers are having a tougher time.

The last time bankruptcy filings rose locally was 2009, which marked the end of the Great Recession. Filings soared about 30 percent to 5,123 that year.

Bloomberg noted that the number of business bankruptcies can be skewed because one big case can account for dozens of filings. For example, San Antonio-based iHeartMedia Inc. filed at least 39 separate bankruptcy cases in March.

The radio giant would have easily been the largest San Antonio-area bankruptcy had it filed here. Instead, it chose Houston for the proceedings. The company reported $12.3 billion in assets and $20.3 billion in debts in a first-day court filing.

On ExpressNews.com: Radio powerhouse iHeartMedia files for bankruptcy

The types of area businesses that entered bankruptcy ran the gamut from oil and gas companies to retailers to home health care agencies.

The largest bankruptcy  based on liabilities  filed last year in the San Antonio court was All American Oil & Gas Inc. The oil and gas company, with operations in California, reported more than $15.3 million in assets and $160.1 million in liabilities.

All American blamed a dispute with a company that acquired the energy firms secured debt for the bankruptcy in November. Two All American subsidiaries also filed for bankruptcy protection. All American is in the process of negotiating a sale of its assets to the entity that bought the debt.

ExpressNews.com: All American could be sold to largest creditor

Two other energy companies based in San Antonio ranked among the biggest local bankruptcies last year. Logistics company First River Energy filed for Chapter 11 on Jan. 12, 2018, reporting $42.7 million in assets and $57.8 million in liabilities. It was the third largest local bankruptcy.

The ripple effects from the 2016 slide in oil prices led to First Rivers bankruptcy. The price drop adversely affected its volumes and profit margins. The company has ceased buying oil and is in the process of winding down its business, according to a November court filing.

Rock Springs Energy Group ranked as the ninth largest local bankruptcy in 2018. It filed for Chapter 11 on Nov. 28, listing $10.8 million in assets and $9.1 million in liabilities.

According an online archive of the companys website, Rock Springs Energy has a facility in Rock Springs, Wyo., that is designed to process up to 5,000 barrels a day of sweet crude oil, condensate and related feeds. It processes feeds into paint solvents, marine diesel and other products.

More retailers littered the bankruptcy landscape in 2018. Among them were iconic names Sears and Toy R Us, both buckling under pressure from online competitors.

Locally, womens apparel and accessories retailer AGaci wasnt immune from the shift in consumer preferences to online shopping. It also blamed its Jan. 9, 2018, Chapter 11 filing on a failed store expansion and hurricanes that forced some of its stores to close. AGaci reported assets of $37.3 million and liabilities of $54.7 million, making it the fourth largest local bankruptcy last year.

AGaci sought to auction its assets, but chose to reorganize the business after receiving no qualified bids. It closed unprofitable stores and obtained new financing. Its reorganization plan was approved less than seven months after it filed for bankruptcy, a rare success story in a retail landscape littered with companies that have gone under.

On ExpressNews.com: AGacis bankruptcy plan OKd

Making a return engagement in bankruptcy court last year was the Arlington partnership that owns Cowboys Dancehall, which filed for Chapter 11 in August to stop a foreclosure. It was the second time it had filed for reorganization in the span of a little more than two years. The partnership has been trying to find a buyer for the property.

Other major area bankruptcies last year included: Eden Home Inc., the operator of a New Braunfels retirement community; WiseWear, a maker of designer fitness jewelry; and Kerrville-based HJH Consulting Group Inc., which does business as the Salt Group, and two related firms.

Chapter 7 liquidation filings rose 10 percent last year to 1,606 from 1,454 last year in San Antonio, while Chapter 13 filings declined by 75 to 1,400. Chapter 13 is for individuals who plan to pay some or all of their debts.

San Antonio bankruptcy lawyer Heidi McLeod said Chapter 13 has become cost prohibitive for some individuals.

Because of the Chapter 13 plan, if youre behind on your house (payment), the (bankruptcy) trustee makes the mortgage payment, in addition to the arrears payment, and charges a fee on that, McLeod. So if you have a 4 percent mortgage, and she charges 10 percent, it just changed your mortgage from 4 percent to 14 percent.

McLeod is afraid mortgage problems may soon crop up again because people wont be able to save their house unless they can do some type of loan modification. That may move more debtors to file Chapter 7 to shed unsecured debt while seeking a loan modification with their mortgage company, she said.

Samuel J. Gerdano, the American Bankruptcy Institutes executive director, attributed the national decline in bankruptcy cases to the high filing costs that continue to weigh on struggling businesses and families.

The nonpartisan organization, which is focused on research and education relating to insolvency, has made recommendations to remove barriers to filing Chapter 11 for distressed businesses.

Two federal lawmakers in November introduced legislation that would make the Chapter 11 process cheaper and faster for companies that file for protection with about $2.5 million or less in debt, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The ABI expects to make recommendations later this year on ways to improve the bankruptcy system for financially strained consumers, Gerdano said in a statement.

Patrick Danner is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering banking and civil courts. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD
UPDATE: Political gridlock continued through Fridays session with media headlines focusing on the political rift between the ruling Conservative government and opposition Labour Party which threatens to scupper cross-party efforts to put forward an alternative EU withdrawal agreement.

Despite elevated political turbulence, Pound Sterling (GBP) exchange rates held firm through the session after marginally shedding gains from Thursdays multi-month highs.

Market strategist, Tapas Strickland, of National Australia Bank (NAD) commented, Sterling has rallied quite a bit over the past week-and-a- half and the weakness today is a bit of check on those gains and a bit of profit taking, adding The market is pricing out the risk of hard Brexit and some kind of agreement... so against this background, youd expect sterling to grind higher above $1.30.

Against the Euro, the GBP looks set to record its largest intraweek gains since November 2017.

At the time of writing, the Pound-to-Euro exchange rate was trading at 1.1350, up 1.42% over the week.

The current refusal to participate in cross-party negotiations by Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, comes in response to PM Mays refusal to rule out a no-deal Brexit scenario. In a written statement, she said I note that you have said that 'ruling out' no deal is a precondition before we can meet, but that is an impossible condition because it is not within the Government's power to rule out no deal.

A no deal Brexit remains the default outcome should the UK and EU not reach an overarching agreement before the UKs departure date, which currently stands at March 29th despite growing expectations of an extension.

Corbyn, speaking in Hastings, offered a sharp rebuke, highlighting his continued scepticism with regards to the current leadership, With no-deal on the table, the prime minister will enter into phony talks just to run down the clock and try to blackmail MPs to vote through her botched deal on a second attempt by threatening the country with the chaos that no-deal would bring."

Nevertheless, the pound Sterling (GBP) remained uncharacteristically (given recent market volatility and price swings) firm with support attributed to lowered expectations of a disorderly Brexit. Portfolio manager, Ross Hutchison of Aberdeen Standard Investments commented It is our understanding that markets, and I think rightly, see the risk of no-deal Brexit as having receded substantially.

Pound Sterling (GBP) exchange rates edged lower against a basket of peers into Fridays European session after posting substantial gains against a number of currencies throughout Thursdays session amid elevated expectations of a Brexit resolution as PM May seeks cross-party input to form an agreement in the wake of her withdrawal agreements staggering defeat earlier in the week.

However, the 11th hour panic to form a deal which needs to receive not only majority backing in Parliament but also be endorsed by EU leaders, who have constantly reiterated that the deal  which was rejected overwhelmingly during Tuesdays meaningful vote  is not open for renegotiation, hit a stumbling block as leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, refused to engage in cross-party talks.

Corbyn, who tabled a failed motion of no confidence in the Government earlier in the week, has refused to take part in discussions in lieu of an unequivocal pledge from the Government to block a no deal Brexit scenario. In response, PM May called it an impossible condition, elaborating in a letter she said You have always believed in the importance of dialogue in politics. Do you really believe that, as well as declining to meet for talks yourself, it is right to ask your MPs not to seek a solution with the government?

Despite Corbyns misgivings, PM May reported that she held constructive talks with a number of MPs on Thursday, including some ministers from the labour party  boosting hopes that a majority-backed deal can be reached.

Prime Minister May has until Monday (21st January) to table a proposition on how the Government intends to proceed with regards to Brexit .

As it stands, the UK is due to exit the European Union, with or without a deal on March 29th as dictated by the terms of article 50. While May has consistently rejected calls from UK lawmakers to appeal to the EU for an extension to the deadline, given the timescale expectations of a delay have risen.

On the other side of the channel, EU officials have spoken out in support of a resolution which retains ties with the UK, as opposed to the potentially bilateral economic damage a no-deal scenario could bring. Heiko Maas, German foreign minister, said We will do everything we can so that Britain exits with, and not without, an agreement.

Fridays session saw German politicians, industrialists and artists put forward an emotive plea to the UK to remain in the EU. In a letter published by the Times Newspaper, they wrote Without your great nation, this continent would not be what it is today. After the horrors of the Second World War, Britain did not give up on us. It has welcomed Germany back as a sovereign nation and a European power.

The letter continued We would miss the legendary British black humour and going to the pub after work hours to drink an ale. We would miss tea with milk and driving on the left-hand side of the road. And we would miss seeing the panto at Christmas, ending with But more than anything else, we would miss the British people  our friends across the Channel.

Following Mondays proposals from the PM, MPs will be given a week to come up with their own counter-proposals ahead of a January 29th debate and vote which should give investors some indication of whether a majority-backed proposition is a realistic outcome.

EUs Chief Negotiator Suggests the Bloc May Accept More Ambitious Deal

If the PM manages to secure a consensus among enough MPs, its expected that she will put her demands to EU officials. While EU members have remained adamant that the rejected deal wont be revisited, the EUs chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, commented that the bloc would possibly consider a more ambitious deal. While this may in theory garner engagement from pro-EU MPs who wish to retain as close ties as possible to the EU (or not leave the bloc at all), hard-line Brexiteers are unlikely to be swayed by the prospect.

The Labour party have maintained their stance that they would be willing to pursue a deal which sees the UK remain in a customs union with the EU, therefore enabling frictionless trade to continue as well as moot the issue of a hard border in Ireland as well as provide greater protection for workers and consumer on both sides of the channel.

Brexit purists, including a substantial number of Conservative Party MPs however are likely to reject the idea of the UK remaining in a customs union as it would prevent the UK from creating independent trade policies and force the UK to continue to operate under EU regulations.

While a UK exit from the EU would see trade between the two parties revert to the terms laid out by World Trade Organisation (WTO), manufacturers, exporters and importers would face significant new barriers.

Finance chief of Associated British Foods (ABF), John Bason, wrote If anybody believes that you can just go ahead without some sort of an agreement here, I think that that is reckless.

Near-term, Pound Sterling (GBP) exchange rates are likely to remain Brexit-driven with recent price action indicating market participants are reacting pound-positive to any developments which reduce expectations of a disorderly, no-deal, Brexit scenario. Given upcoming parliamentary sessions and ad hoc commentary from MPs on the state of developments, volatility could fluctuate rapidly.
Harris has ties to Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who held a fundraiser in Los Angeles featuring the senator during Mosbys re-election campaign. Mosby also has said she consulted with Harris after being elected, seeking to draw on her experience as a prosecutor in San Francisco and as California's attorney general.
The University of Colorado Center for Pharmaceutical Value (PValue) has been established with a Value Assessment Center of Excellence Award from the PhRMA Foundation.

The foundation grant of $500,000 was awarded to Jonathan Campbell, PhD, R. Brett McQueen, PhD, and Melanie Whittington, PhD, who have primary faculty appointments in the field of Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research with the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences on the Anschutz Medical Campus.

PValue will be a center of excellence within the D2V initiative, a Transformational Research Funding project supported by the Dean's Office of the University of Colorado School of Medicine. D2V will support PValue through a matching award of $500,000. Additional D2V support will include peer review, shared professional research assistance, project management expertise, and institutional accountability. The total award will be allocated over three years to establish PValue initiatives.

Every day, U.S. payers, employers, and others are making decisions related to what drugs are included in an insurance benefit and who is eligible for the payment of the drug (i.e. coverage and reimbursement decisions). While decisions on coverage and reimbursement should always involve human deliberation, there are ways to improve transparency, consistency, and fairness of these important decisions, and thus improve the coverage and reimbursement decision making process. PValue's mission is to apply and test novel methods to improve pharmaceutical coverage and reimbursement decision-making. Specifically, PValue researchers will test multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) as a decision tool. PValue pilot experiments will help determine where expanded decision tools should be used alongside existing approaches to maintain transparency and consistency while introducing more fairness in pharmaceutical coverage and reimbursement decision making in the U.S.

PValue builds on prior research including a D2V pilot award granted to Campbell and McQueen in May 2017. That project demonstrated feasibility of gathering health care decision makers to discuss and prioritize characteristics that are important to consider for designing and funding future research. PValue will also build off prior research collaborations and scientific contributions to pharmaceutical value assessment to achieve its mission.

"It is an honor to be selected for this prestigious funding granted by PhRMA Foundation and matched by the D2V initiative here on the Anschutz Medical Campus," said Campbell, who will serve as director of PValue. "PValue will foster a growth mindset and attitude toward learning from our collaborators as well as the patients and other health stakeholders we serve. PValue plans to make a positive difference in the pharmaceutical value assessment field. With the PhRMA Foundation partnership, D2V matching financial support, and an eager, nimble, and cutting-edge team of researchers, PValue will flourish."

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The PValue Center is supported by the PhRMA Foundation Value Assessment Program. This program supports multi-disciplinary, collaborative centers of excellence that build evidence, tools and partnerships to inform value assessment strategies and value-driven decision making. The awards are designed to improve patient outcomes while reducing inefficiencies in health care by better assessing the value of medicines and health care services. The foundation's Value Assessment Initiative is aimed at encouraging more evidence-based research on how the true value of medicines can be accurately defined and quantified. To date, the Foundation has awarded more than $2.8 million.

The School of Medicine Dean's Office is supporting five proposals through the Transformational Research Funding initiative. D2V and four other programs were selected in 2016 after a competitive process and independent evaluation. Each program is receiving funding support for a five-year budget totaling between $10 million and $20 million per program. Funding for the proposals comes from clinical earnings of the faculty, from annual financial support from the University of Colorado Health and philanthropy, including a commitment of $15 million by The Anschutz Foundation. No state-appropriated funding or student tuition or fees are being used for the Transformational Research Funding awards.
The reintroduction program for the green turtle in the Cayman Islands is crucial in order to recover this species, which are threatened by the effects of human overexploitation, according to a study published in the journal Molecular Ecology and led by the experts Marta Pascual and Carlos Carreras, from the Evolutionary Genetics laboratory of the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona.

The new study, with its first author being Anna Barbanti (UB-IRBio), represents the first genetic study of the reintroduction project of this endangered species, and the wild population of green turtles in the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory.

According to the conclusions, the current wild population of green turtle in the Cayman Islands has been recovered as a result of the reintroduction process; it presents a high genetic diversity and shows no difficulties regarding breeding. However, the authors of the study recommend conducting a genetic monitoring of the species in this Atlantic Ocean region since it shows a differential genetic heritage compared to other populations of the Caribbean. Other participants in this study were Clara Martin and Victor Ordonez (UB-IRBio), and other experts from the University of Exeter, the Cayman Turtle Farm (CTF) and the Department of Environment of the Cayman Islands Government (United Kingdom).

At the limits of survival due human overexploitation

The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is a migratory species globally distributed in tropical and subtropical latitudes -nesting beaches in the Mediterranean basin- which has been quite exploited by human activity. This species is the biggest one within the family of Cheloniidae -adults can weigh over 200 kg- and one of the species of marine turtles with a more natal phylopatric behaviour (it comes back to their birth place to lay its eggs). Factors such as marine pollution, loss of natural habitat, fishing pressure and bycatches endanger the survival of these turtles, classified as an endangered species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

During the eighties, overexploitation of the green turtle in the Cayman Islands caused the disappearance of nesting populations. To recover this endangered population, a program of reintroduction of the species was launched, with individuals of the Cayman Turtle Farm (CTF). Forty years later, data show that the nesting population of the Cayman Islands has been restored but researchers did not know if this was the result of the reintroduction process or the natural recovery of the population for the improvement of threatening factors.

In the new study, experts analyse several genetic markers to see the degree of parentage of the natural population of the green turtle in the Cayman Islands with the breeding individuals in the farm, and therefore evaluate the effect of the reintroduction process on wild population.

"In wildlife, genetic diversity is a key factor that eases the adaptation of populations in the natural environment and their tolerance to environmental changes. In this context, it is crucial to conduct a genetic monitoring of the reintroduction processes to evaluate their success and the potential consequences for the target species of the reintroduction", says Carlos Carreras, member of the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the UB and IRBio. "A threatened population -he continues- reduces their survival options due excessive inbreeding but a poorly planned reintroduction can have negative consequences because of the mix of genetically different beings, since they could create hybrids that are not feasible to the environmental conditions of the population".

The population of the wild green turtle has a tight genetic relationship with the ones in CTF, the new study reveals. According to Marta Pascal, member of the mentioned Department and IRBio, "90 % of the wild individuals were related to the captive stock. This means the reintroduction process was very important in the recovery of threatened populations".

The reintroduction process started in the farm with individuals of distant populations, and this explains why the genetic diversity of first generation turtles is higher than their parents'. This genetic diversity of the initial population has been changing as a consequence of the captivity process -as expected- but also because of the effects of the CTF population management. For instance, they use beings from the same cohort as reproductive adults to replace the losses hurricane Michelle caused in 2001, a strategy that has increased the degree of parentage among reproductive individuals in the farm. Therefore, scientific studies like the one in Molecular Ecology, are essential tools to take the right decisions in the management of threatened species.

Lights and shades in the reintroduction of endangered species

Current labelling studies show that there is a population between one hundred and one hundred and fifty reproductive female adults in the Cayman Islands. In this situation of biodiversity protection, the reintroduction programs for endangered species can become an effective tool of preservation but can also be inefficient, and can even have negative consequences for the threatened populations and natural ecosystems. "Therefore, it is essential to design these programs of reintroduction of threatened species with scientific rigor and to conduct a long term scientific monitoring to assess its success and the potential consequences for the species", warn the experts.

The genetic studies carried out by the Evolutionary Genetics team of the UB and IRBio are part of the first scientific initiative to assess the global impact of the reintroduction of the species Chelonia mydas in the Cayman Islands from different sides: social and economic, commercial, and even gastronomic. This research study has been funded by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), as well as the Darwin project, with the support of Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG) of the UB and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (United Kingdom).

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A student-led startup team, affiliated with UNIST is getting ready to head to Silicon Valley.

Puri-Medi, a UNIST-based student tech startup, has announced that their AI-based industrial safety management system has been selected for the TRC (Technology Revolution Together) project.

Being carried out by the Korea Innovation Center (KIC) in Silicon Valley, the TRT project aims to support SMEs to maximize opportunities for business cooperation with global conglomerates, while focusing on the 4IR Technology sectors, such as AI, Big Data, Cloud, Security, AR/VR, Digital Media, and Fintech.

Through the project, Puri-Medi will engage in various entrepreneurial activities from September 2018 to May 2019. This will include the development of customized business models, as well as providing on-site mentoring for engineers, associated with Facebook.

Puri-Medi's new AI-based software system for safety management, namely Canaria played a crucial role in the TRC project selection. Canaria collects and provides analysis of occupational injury data, offered by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency and informs of the potential risk factors in industrial settings. The main function of Canaria is to provide a list of items to be checked for work safety by priority, according to each company's work environments and assist them in analyzing the causes when accidents occur.

"Safety has emerged as an overriding concern for our industry. But, in case of SMEs, utilizing industrial safety professionals has been difficult with the matter of costs," says Dongyong Lee, CEO of Puri-Medi. "Canaria is not as complicated as many industrial safety platforms that large conglomerates operate, yet it provides decent industrial safety management services at a reasonable price."

Puri-Medi is currently researching schemes for putting their prototype Canaria to good use in local businesses in Ulsan region. Being affiliated with the Ulsan Disaster Management Cluster, Puri-Medi has been also actively collaborating with related companies.

"The term Canaria for their product comes from the name applied to Canaries (birds) that were once regularly used in coal mining, as an early warning system," says Dongyong Lee, CEO of Puri-Medi. "We hope our software will serve as a great early warning device for use in industrial settings, thereby creating a safer workplace."

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Led by founder and CEO Dong-yong Lee, Puri-Medi is composed of seven students, including Jin Hee Mun (UNIST), Dong-Cheol Lim (UNIST), Da Bin Lee (UNIST), Jae Ho Lee (Korea University), Song Hwa Park (Sookmyung Women's University), and In Jun Choi (KonKuk University). They are making various efforts to enter into both domestic and U.S. industrial safety markets.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also referred to as Industry 4.0, has been widely discussed at various venues, such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos. However, its concept has from early times been somewhat blurred.

A research team, affiliated with UNIST has presented a study that contributes to clarify the concept and scope of Industry 4.0, using big data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). This breakthrough has been carried out by Professor Chiehyeon Lim and Changhun Lee in the School of Management Engineering at UNIST.

In recognition of their exemplary work in identifying important research areas and application issues of Industry 4.0, the team has been awarded the minister prize from the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) at the '2018 Future Convergence Forum', held on November 21, 2018.

Their work has been also selected as the best paper among many other outstanding research projects, supported via the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) Convergence Research Policy Fellowship program.

In this work, the team identified the important research areas and application issues of Industry 4.0 by analyzing 686 scientific articles (all available data related to the topic in the Web of Science Core Collections as of September 8, 2018) and 3,907 news articles (all available data related to the topic in the LexisNexis Business & Industry News Database as of September 17, 2018) through text mining with unsupervised learning algorithms.

According to their findings, scientific articles were able to define the notion and scope of Industry 4.0, while news articles were able to grasp Industry 4.0 technologies, application industries, as well as help address various social and national challenges.

Based on the analytics outcomes and further qualitative studies, their work identifies key convergence R&D issues of Industry 4.0. The issues are described in the hierarchy of Industry 4.0: (1) Infrastructure development for connection, (2) Artificial intelligence development for data analytics, (3) System and process optimization, (4) Industrial innovation, and (5) Social advance from the perspective of 6Cs of Industry 4.0 (Connection, Collection, Communications, Computation, and Control for Creation). In addition, their study also classified 19 major research fields for each of the stages for the realization of Industry 4.0.

Using their findings, the research team also uncovered 28 'Major R&D themes of convergence for the realization of Industry 4.0'. These themes are, then, categorized into five stages and are to make significant contribution to promoting convergence R&D, related to Fourth Industrial Revolution.

"The concept of Fourth Industrial Revolution has from early times been somewhat blurred," says Professor Lim. "This work will contribute to clarify the concept and scope of Industry 4.0 and promote relevant convergence R&D work." He adds, "Our study also shows the possibility of collaboration between humans and AI for the advancement of knowledge."

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A detailed Korean report of this study, entitled 'Data-driven Understanding of Industry 4.0 through Text Mining' can be found in the November 2018 issue of Convergence Research Review (ISSN: 2465-8456).
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has entered into two exclusive licenses to develop the drug pentosan polysulfate sodium for the treatment of mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS), with Australia-based company Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. (ASX: PAR) and ReqMed Company, Ltd. of Japan.

MPS is a group of 11 lysosomal storage diseases, metabolic disorders caused by genetic defects that affect the skeletal system, skin, heart, brain, and other organ systems and can lead to disability or death. These conditions occur in about 3.5 out of 100,000 births. Calogera Simonaro, PhD, Research Professor in the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine, demonstrated the potential use of the drug through several proof-of-concept studies carried out in animal models of MPS. Pentosan polysulfate sodium, normally used as an anti-inflammatory for bladder pain, was repurposed in Dr. Simonaro's lab to improve connective tissue affected by MPS. Current therapies that exist for these diseases, such as enzyme replacement therapy and bone marrow transplantation, are costly, require highly invasive procedures, and can have limited efficacy. These therapies can slow, but often do not halt, progression of the disease.

"By using a drug that is already approved, we should be able to fast-track [pentosan polysulfate sodium] to patients and address an important unmet medical need," said Edward Schuchman, PhD, the Genetic Disease Foundation - Francis Crick Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine and the Department's Vice Chair for Research. "Using one drug for several different lysosomal storage diseases changes the approach currently used for treating these diseases." Paradigm will develop the drug in the United States, the European Union, and other territories, and ReqMed will develop the drug in Japan and other select Asian territories. The financial backing and infrastructure provided by these partnerships will facilitate blinded studies for regulatory approval. Drs. Schuchman and Simonaro believe pentosan polysulfate sodium can also be used to treat other lysosomal storage diseases, including Fabry and Gaucher diseases.

"Mount Sinai innovators recognized the value of repurposing an existing therapeutic for a new indication," said Erik Lium, PhD, Executive Vice President of Mount Sinai Innovation Partners. "We look forward to working with Paradigm and ReqMed to advance pentosan polysulfate sodium for the treatment of MPS."

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About ReqMed Company, Ltd.

ReqMed Company, Ltd. is a privately held, Japanese company established in 1998 to serve as a bridge between biotechnology ventures and pharmaceutical firms in Japan. In 2008 Reqmed entered an exclusive license agreement with Asahi Kasei Pharma Corporation, in partnership with Bene pharmaChem, to develop and sell PPS in Japan for patients with osteoarthritis. Reqmed also has obtained small business grant funding from the Japanese government to conduct PPS proof-of-concept studies in patients with MPS. A phase 1/2 clinical trial in adult patients with MPS II has been completed, and studies are currently underway in adult and pediatric patients with MPS I and VI, and in patients with a related disorder known as a mucolipidoses type II. For more information please visit http://www. reqmed. co. jp .

About Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP)
A team at Tokyo Medical and Dental University(TMDU) has revealed the molecule to cancer development, showing that the absence of the lead to dysregulation of the cell cycle, albeit with differing cancer-related outcomes

Tokyo, Japan - The abnormal expression of different classes of molecules is known to be linked to various types of cells becoming cancerous. This is also true for the recently discovered group of small, noncoding molecules called microRNAs (miRNAs), although much remains to be discovered in detail about how they can prevent or induce tumors.

A new study reported in the journal Blood Advances has extended our knowledge of the link between miRNAs and cancer by showing that the absence of miR-146b, as well as miR-146a reported previously, in mice led them to develop cancers of the blood such as leukemia and lymphoma. However, the researchers also identified differences in features of the cancer cells themselves depending on which miRNA was absent, along with variation in which type of cancer developed and at what rate.

The Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU)-based team used a genome editing technique to knock out the gene encoding either miR-146a or miR-146b, and then subjected the mice to a number of analyses to reveal the effects of this.

"After the mice had been established, we determined the rate at which they developed tumors, analyzed and characterized their tumor tissue at the cellular and molecular levels, and also focused on key features of their immune cells, specifically their B cells," says Hiroshi Asahara of TMDU's Department of Systems BioMedicine. "This allowed us to see if the effects of lacking miR-146a differed from those for miR-146b, and also to compare these mice to those without any knockout at all. We could also detect any similarities in their cancers to those that develop in humans."

The results showed that both miR-146a and miR-146b suppress the expression of a range of molecules that in turn prevent the activation of a protein complex called NF-B. If either of these miRNAs is knocked out, NF-B is overactivated, which leads to excessive progression of the cell cycle and rapid cell duplication, generating inflammation and tumorigenesis. In the mice, this manifested as high rates of B-cell lymphoma and acute myeloid leukemia.

"Although there were many similarities in what happened to the mice when we removed miR-146a or miR-146b, which is unsurprising given their identical seed sequences and mRNA targets, we also found some differences," lead author Takahiro Mitsumura says. "For example, mice lacking miR-146b developed malignancy less than those without miR-146a. There were also differences in histological features within the cells in B-cell lymphomas, including regarding positivity for various tumor markers."

The team hopes that this work will contribute to efforts to combat diseases involving miR-146a and miR-146b dysregulation, given that this has been identified in a number of human cancer types.

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The article "Ablation of miR-146b in mice causes hematopoietic malignancy" is published in Blood Advances at doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2018017954.
Sechenov University together with their German colleagues suggest a new highly sensitive, quick, and pain-free method for diagnosing kidney cancer. This method is based on measuring of the immune response to arrestin-1, a retina protein that is synthesized in the cancerous cells of kidneys.

Tumors can be benign or malignant. The first ones are not extremely dangerous but they can evolve into the latter ones, and those, in turn, are a cause of every sixth death in the world. Around 90-93% of all kidney growths turn out to be malignant, and there are currently no effective methods for early diagnostics. The initial stages of kidney cancer have no signs or specific symptoms, and therefore patients often get diagnosed with kidney cancer when it has already metastasized. At this point, the doctors make prognosis not about the possibility of recovery, but about a patient's life expectancy.

Cancerous cells are the cells with considerable deviations in their behavior, such as abnormal division, development, or protein synthesis. Proteins may be synthesized in wrong quantities, in a wrong place, or they may be of a poor quality. Normally arrestin-1 is synthesized in the eye retina only, and its occurrence in another body organ may cause intensive autoimmune response (i.e. a reaction against the body's own proteins). It's already been discovered that arrestin-1 is present in melanoma (malignant skin tumor). However, the idea to check the kidney tumor cells for this type of protein and to measure the intensity of the immune response to it turned out to be new for the scientific world.

The scientists wanted to find out whether it is possible to use the antibodies to arrestin-1 as well as the protein itself as a marker of cancerous kidney diseases. To do so, they dyed tissue sections, carried out blood tests, and sequenced the samples. The samples for the experiment were collected from patients that suffered from malignant and benign kidney growths. The antibodies to arrestin-1 were found in the blood serum of 75% of the patients; the protein itself was identified in 90% of benign tumors and in over 50% of cancerous ones. Increased levels of arrestin-1 were also noticed in metastasis, especially in the brain metastasis.

All subtypes of kidney tumors synthesize arrestin-1, which makes this method inefficient for differential diagnostics. However, due to its high sensitivity to benign growths, the method helps diagnose a disease on early stages when the chances for recovery are at the highest. The diagnostic procedure is reduced to simple blood test for the antibodies to arrestin-1 instead of a biopsy that is technically complicated and painful for a patient. "The discovery of arrestin-1 synthesis in cases of kidney cancer suggests the possibility of developing anti-cancer vaccines on the basis of this protein in the near future," says Andrey Zamyatnin, a co-author of the work, and the head of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Sechenov University.

###

The research was carried out by Sechenov University, a Project 5-100 participant, together with scientists from the Medical and Genetic Scientific Center, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology at Lomonosov Moscow State University, the National Medical Research Center of Radiology, and the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

This research supported by the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) grant 15-15-00100 will be published in the February issue of the Biochimie journal
New research suggests that policy makers should remain focused on issues that have been demonstrated to impact criminal behaviour, such as family environment, mental health, poverty and education.

Claims about PG-13 rated movie violence and its link to violence in society are not consistent with available evidence, according to study published in the Springer journal Psychiatric Quarterly. Authors Christopher J. Ferguson at Stetson University and Patrick Markey at Villanova University in the United States, examined possible associations between violence and gun use in PG-13-rated movies, and levels of gun related homicide, homicide and aggravated assault in US society.

Some previous research, including studies conducted as recently as 2018 has suggested that parents may become desensitized to violence in PG-13 rated movies. Such studies have speculated that this desensitization may make them more likely to bring their children to see such movies.

Christopher J. Ferguson said: "Evidence suggests that edgier, more violent content may increase in PG-13 and PG movies over time. This is because PG-13 rated movies may be considered particularly marketable as action-oriented fun but without the graphicness that parents may consider inappropriate for younger children. This had been called a 'ratings creep'. However, whether it is an actual problem for public health remains unknown; that's the research gap we aimed to fill in this study."

To test trends in PG-13-rated movie violence against trends in violence in society, including homicides and youth violence, the authors examined several different datasets. They assessed data on PG-13-rated movies collected by other researchers during previous research, violent crime data provided by the FBI, youth violence data sourced from the National Crime Victimization Survey, and US Census Bureau data on socioeconomic factors such as poverty, education and economic stability.

Analysing data from 1985 to 2015, the authors hypothesized that years in which films were more violent would also exhibit higher rates of violent crime, and that a rise in gun violence depicted in PG-13-rated movies would be associated with changes in gun related homicides. Contrary to their hypothesis, the authors found that although movies tended to become more violent over time, rates of violence and homicides declined during the same time period. This remained the case even after the authors controlled for other variables previously related to violent crime, such as poverty, education, or economic inequality. The findings suggest that PG-13-rated movie violence is unrelated to violence in society.

Ferguson said: "Our analysis of data on violent crime and depictions of violence in PG-13-rated movies shows no evidence of a public health concern. Thus, the 'low hanging fruit' argument that suggests parents should reduce their children's exposure to violent movies as a simple way of reducing exposure to risk factors for crime, may cause more harm than good. It may distract from the hard work of dealing with real pressing problems by focusing society, parents and policy makers in an illusory simple fix."

Patrick Markey said: "Evidence suggests that violent and antisocial behaviour result from a complicated interaction of numerous factors but media violence does not appear to be one of these factors. This may be because individuals perceive media exposure differently than they do real-life exposure to violence."

The authors suggest that policy makers remain focused on issues that have been demonstrated to impact criminality, such as family environment, mental health, poverty and education.

###

Further Information

About the journal

Psychiatric Quarterly fills an important niche by focusing on assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation of persons with psychiatric disabilities, with emphasis on care provided in public, community, and private institutional settings such as hospitals, schools, and correctional facilities. Launched as The State Hospital Quarterly in 1915, the journal received its current name in 1927. https:/ / link. springer. com/ journal/ 11126

Contact

Anne Korn | Springer Nature | Communications

tel +44 20 3192 2744 | anne.korn@biomedcentral.com
Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN) and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have shown that treatment using gene therapy leads to a faster recovery after nerve damage. By combining a surgical repair procedure with gene therapy, the survival of nerve cells and regeneration of nerve fibers over a long distance was stimulated for the first time. The discovery, published in the journal Brain, is an important step towards the development of a new treatment for people with nerve damage.

During birth or following a traffic accident, nerves in the neck can be torn out of the spinal cord. As a result, these patients lose their arm function, and are unable to perform daily activities such as drinking a cup of coffee. Currently, surgical repair is the only available treatment for patients suffering this kind of nerve damage. "After surgery, nerve fibers have to bridge many centimeters before reaching the muscles and nerve cells from which new fibers need to regenerate are lost in large numbers. Most regenerating nerve fiber do not reach the muscles. The recovery of arm function is therefore disappointing and incomplete," explains researcher Ruben Eggers of the NIN.

Combination of treatments

By combining neurosurgical repair with gene therapy in rats, many of the dying nerve cells can be rescued and nerve fiber growth in the direction of the muscle can be stimulated.

In this study, the researchers used regulatable gene therapy with a growth factor that could be switched on and off by using a widely used antibiotic. "Because we were able to switch off the gene therapy when the growth factor was no longer needed, the regeneration of new nerve fibers towards the muscles was improved considerably," says Ruben Eggers.

A stealth gene switch

To overcome the problem of the immune system recognizing and removing the gene switch, the researchers developed a hidden version, a so-called 'stealth switch'. Professor Joost Verhaagen (NIN) explains: "The stealth gene switch is an important step forward towards the development of gene therapy for nerve damage. The use of a stealth switch improves the gene therapy rendering it even safer."

The gene therapy is not yet ready for use in patients. While the ability to switch off a therapeutic gene is a large step forward, the researchers still found small amounts of the active gene when the switch was turned off. Therefore, further research is needed to optimize this therapy.

###

The research was funded by Wings for Life, the International Spinal Research Trust and a donation from the Dwarslaesiefonds.
The Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI) announces a new "labs@location" partnership agreement between the MPFI Electron Microscopy (EM) Core Facility and Germany-based microscopy company ZEISS, known for its cutting-edge imaging technologies. As a "labs@location" partner institution, MPFI will have access to state-of-the-art ZEISS technology before it is commercially available, providing researchers with innovative imaging tools that will empower their search for new insights into how the brain works. MPFI is the only the third institution in the United States to earn the labs@location designation.

"ZEISS and MPFI have a long-standing relationship--we have been closely cooperating to push the boundaries of visualizing the brain ultrastructure since MPFI was established in 2012," said Dr. Naomi Kamasawa, Head of EM Facility. "Our facility might be small compared to other institutions, but the scientific excellence and technology feedback we provided, together with the continuous effort and passion to push boundaries in our research, made us a special partner for ZEISS."

Kirk J. Czymmek, Head of the Global ZEISS Microscopy Customer Centers praised the EM Lab in his remarks, saying "The team that you have here is special, and they are internationally recognized for their expertise."

MPFI and ZEISS launched the partnership on January 17, 2019 at an event that included lectures focused on Correlative Light-Electron Microscopy (CLEM), facility tours, and a partnership signing and reception held in MPFI's Dreyfoos Atrium.

The first piece of equipment made available to MPFI scientists is known as the "Focal Charge Compensation module (FCC)", which is integrated onto a Serial Block Face Scanning Electron Microscope system. The FCC introduces a local stream of nitrogen gas onto the sample inside the microscope, which absorbs unwanted electrical charges that interfere with imaging. "This new technology results in much higher quality images and allows us to collect data from even more challenging samples," Dr. Kamasawa explained. "Anything that allows us to better visualize the structure of neurons and correlate it to their function will allow us to achieve a more complete understanding of neural networks, and ultimately, of the brain itself." MPFI received the FCC equipment in August of this year, and was the first institution in the United States to use the technology after ZEISS made a number of significant improvements to the current commercially available model.

"The role of high-resolution imaging in unraveling the functional complexity of the brain cannot be overstated. This partnership is a great recognition of the unique know-how and research expertise provided by our electron microscopy facility. It underlines the importance of connecting core facilities, scientists and commercial partners, providing MPFI access to cutting edge technologies to push the boundaries of neuroscience research" said Dr. David Fitzpatrick, Scientific Director and CEO of MPFI.

"Science is transitioning to utilizing 3D data sets and correlative microscopy, to this end we are pleased to partner with Max Planck Florida. These types of relationships are vital for us to better understand the issues and advantages of our hardware and software," said James A. Sharp, President Carl Zeiss Microscopy LLC.

###

In attendance were: Abdel Barraj, Head of Sales at ZEISS Microscopy North America; Kirk J. Czymmek, Head of the Global ZEISS Microscopy Customer Centers; Geoff Perumal, Academia Life Science EM/XRM Specialist at ZEISS Microscopy; Roger Unger, Regional Sales Manager, ZEISS; Oliver Tress, Systems Specialist, 3D Imaging, ZEISS; Robert Celestine, Area Manager, MICRO OPTICS OF FLORIDA, INC.

About the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience

The Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI), a not-for-profit research organization, is part of the world-renowned Max Planck Society, Germany's most successful research organization with over 80 institutes worldwide. Since its establishment in 1948, 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists. As its first U.S. institution, MPFI brings together exceptional neuroscientists from around the world to answer fundamental questions about brain development and function and to develop new technologies that make groundbreaking scientific discoveries possible. Their research is shared publicly with scholars, universities and other organizations around the globe, providing the necessary foundation of knowledge to develop treatments and cures for brain disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. For more information, visit http://www. maxplanckflorida. org .

About ZEISS

ZEISS is an internationally leading technology enterprise operating in the fields of optics and optoelectronics. The ZEISS Group develops, produces and distributes measuring technology, microscopes, medical technology, eyeglass lenses, camera and cinema lenses, binoculars and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. With its solutions, the company constantly advances the world of optics and helps shape technological progress. ZEISS is divided up into the four segments Research & Quality Technology, Medical Technology, Vision Care/Consumer Products and Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology. The ZEISS Group is represented in more than 40 countries and has over 50 sales and service locations, more than 30 manufacturing sites and about 25 research and development centers around the globe.

In fiscal year 2016/17 the company generated revenue approximating 5.3 billion ($6.1 billion US) with around 27,000 employees. Founded in 1846 in Jena, the company is headquartered in Oberkochen, Germany. Carl Zeiss AG is the strategic management holding company that manages the ZEISS Group. The company is wholly owned by the Carl Zeiss Stiftung (Carl Zeiss Foundation).
Ever since then, The Baltimore Sun has periodically posted the calendar for our readers to see and highlighted some of the most interesting events. With the third week of the 2019 session starting Monday, we thought wed do it again this year.
Researchers explore how maternal sleep habits, including lengthy periods of sleep without waking more than once in the night, may be associated with fetal health

ANN ARBOR, Mich.- Sleeping more than nine hours per night during pregnancy may be associated with late stillbirth, a new Michigan Medicine-led international study suggests.

Researchers analyzed online surveys involving 153 women who had experienced a late stillbirth (on or after 28 weeks of pregnancy) within the previous month and 480 women with an ongoing third-trimester pregnancy or who had recently delivered a live born baby during the same period.

The findings, which appear in journal Birth, suggest an association between lengthy periods of undisturbed maternal sleep and stillbirths that were independent of other risk factors. But researchers caution that further research is needed to better understand the relationship and what it means for pregnant women.

"Pregnant women often report waking up and getting up in the middle of the night," says lead author Louise O'Brien, Ph.D., M.S., a University of Michigan researcher in the Division of Sleep Medicine, Department of Neurology and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Michigan Medicine.

"While multiple awakenings during the night may concern some women, in the context of stillbirth it appears to be protective."

O'Brien says further studies need to delve deeper into what may drive the relationship between maternal sleep and stillbirths, with particular focus on how the autonomic nervous system - the control system that regulates bodily function - and the hormonal system are regulated during sleep in late pregnancy.

She notes that blood pressure reaches its lowest point during sleep but when someone is awakened, there is a surge in the nervous system activity that causes transient increases in blood pressure. It's possible that these brief increases in blood pressure are able to prevent long periods of relatively low pressure. This is important, O'Brien says, because low blood pressure has been linked with fetal growth problems, preterm birth, and stillbirth.

O'Brien also cautions that "pregnant women should not be waking themselves up at night." Very disruptive sleep has also been associated with poor pregnancy outcomes, including growth restriction and preterm growth.

She notes that while there is already evidence that very disrupted sleep and clinical sleep disorders are associated with poor pregnancy outcomes, few studies have looked at the opposite end of the spectrum, such as long periods of undisturbed sleep

"Our findings add to research indicating that maternal sleep plays a role in fetal wellbeing," she says. "Studies aiming to reduce stillbirths should consider maternal sleep as this is a potentially modifiable risk factor. Understanding the role of maternal sleep may help us identify interventions that would put us in a better position to advise women."

Stillbirth effects about 1 in 160 pregnancies in the U.S., with about 24,000 babies stillborn in the country every year - 10 times as many deaths that occur from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). About half of all stillbirths happen after 28 weeks of pregnancy and many remain unexplained.

Rates are even worse in low income countries but the stillbirth rate in the U.S. is still higher than in many other Western countries

Smoking, advanced maternal age, diabetes, obesity and drug abuse are among well-established risk factors for stillbirths. Maternal sleep practices, however, cover a relatively new area of investigation.

The new study follows other research looking at possible ties between maternal sleep and fetal wellbeing in recent years, including studies suggesting that women who report that they sleep on their backs have an increased risk of stillbirths. While the current study asked about maternal sleep position, not enough women reported sleeping on their backs for any meaningful analysis.

"Maternal sleep has been overlooked as a potential area for maternal and newborn health interventions even though it is related to many of the major, well-established risk factors for poor pregnancy outcomes. Until recently, it hasn't been on the radar for stillbirth research," O'Brien says.

"Many risk factors for stillbirths are not able to be modified once pregnancy has begun. But we should be looking at every possible intervention that may prevent poor outcomes. Progress in reducing stillbirth deaths has been slow but stillbirth is an urgent global health issue that should be at the center of more research programs."

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Trump cancels US delegation's trip to Davos

Move comes after president canceled his own trip to forum, citing ongoing government shutdown.

U.S. President Donald Trump has canceled his delegations trip to a global economic summit this month, according to the White House.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement late Thursday.

The announcement came hours after Trump postponed a planned overseas trip by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with other members of Congress shortly before they were scheduled to depart, citing the partial government shutdown.

APOLOGIZED FOR HIS ABSENCE

The trip was to include stops in Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan. Last Thursday, Trump canceled his own trip to Davos, citing the ongoing shutdown, and apologized to the hosts for his absence.

He attended the economic summit last year. This year's forum is slated to begin on Jan. 22 and run until Jan. 25. Trump continues to pressure Democrats to approve $5.7 billion in funding for the construction of a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

THE LONGEST CLOSURE IN US HISTORY

Shattering the 21-day record set in 1995, the ongoing partial government shutdown has become the longest closure in U.S. history as he continues to insist on funding for his border wall, a demand that Democrats have staunchly resisted.

Many federal agencies are either shuttered or have limited their operations due to a lapse in funding that began on Dec. 22 due to the shutdown.
French president keeps supporting YPG terrorists

Macron said on Thursday the death of four Americans in Syria this week showed that the battle against Daesh militants would continue.

French President Emmanuel Macron explained that the recent terror attack that claimed the lives of US soldiers in the Syrian city of Manbij showed that the battle against Daesh is not over.

"FRANCE WILL KEEP ITS TROOPS IN THE REGION THIS YEAR"

Macron also stressed that France will continue being militarily engaged in the Middle East in the international coalition throughout 2019.

The announced withdrawal of our American ally should not deflect us from our strategic objective to eradicate Daesh, Macron said in a speech in Toulouse to the armed forces.

Citing the death of 16 people, including four Americans, in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria, near the border with Turkey, Macron said the next few months would be decisive. We will remain militarily engaged in the Levant in the international coalition () over the coming year, he said.

Last month, US President Donald Trump announced that he was ordering a full troop pullout from Syria, saying the war against Daesh was won.
Colombia mourning 21 killed in police academy attack

Turkey condemns deadly terror attack in Bogota before police academy graduation ceremony.

Colombia Friday is mourning the loss of 21 policemen in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in recent years.

DOZENS INJURED

Dozens were also injured Thursday in the attack on General Santander Police Academy in the capital Bogota before a graduation ceremony. Prosecutors identified the attacker as Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, but no group has claimed responsibility.

THE TERRORIST DROVE HIS CAR INTO CROWD

The terrorist drove his car full of explosives into a crowd, according to Colombian officials. Ivan Duque, Colombias president, called it an "insane terrorist act" and declared three days of national mourning.

TURKEY CONDEMNED THE ATTACK

Turkey on Friday condemned the attack in a statement. We strongly condemn the atrocious terror attack that took place in the south of Bogota at Santander Police Academy, which caused the loss of the lives of many policemen and injury of police academy graduates, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The ministry also extended its condolences to the families of the victims and the people of Colombia.
British government calls up army reservists for no-deal

The UK government plans to issue an order enables army reservists to be called up to support troops as they prepare for the possible impact of a no-deal Brexit.

The Ministry of Defence said it was supporting no-deal preparations across government to ensure there are effective and proportionate contingency plans in place.

DOMESTIC CONTINGENCY PLANNING REQUIRED THE ORDER TO BE ISSUED

In a written statement to parliament, the Defence Minister Mark Lancaster said the order had been made under the Reserve Forces Act to allow military chiefs and other government departments to call on the reserves. Defence is committed to assisting the cabinet office coordinated work programme to ensure that there are effective and proportionate contingency plans in place to mitigate the potential immediate impacts leaving the EU, under a no-deal scenario, might have on the welfare, health and security of UK citizens and economic stability of the UK. he said.

The troops will initially be deployed for one year, starting from 10 February. The order will last until February 2020. Reservists will make up one in ten of the troops prepared to be deployed before the scheduled Brexit date of 29 March.

The act says this can be done "for the alleviation of distress or the preservation of life or property in time of disaster or apprehended disaster".

It comes after the defence secretary said 3,500 troops were "held at readiness" to help if the UK crashes out of the EU.
The absence Tuesday of Martin Luther King Jr., on what should have been his 90th birthday, was made sadder by how far we continue to fall short of his dream.

An obvious example came Jan. 10, when Rep. Steve King of Iowa wondered aloud how white supremacy and white nationalism became offensive.

Less obvious, but no less dangerous, are the underlying fears surrounding two trending topics of the last week: the Gillette ad, which suggests men not be cowards when they see men or boys being abusive, misogynistic arseholes; and a report that Americans arent reproducing fast enough to replace ourselves.

Gillette pitted the passions of the #MeToo movement against the easily played insecurities of wannabe alpha males.

The Help me, Im a repressed white man! crowd took the bait, racking up 17 million views and 900,000 dislikes on YouTube as of Thursday afternoon, generating a fear-mongering firestorm thats been marketing gold for Gillette.

As comical as the ginned-up outrage has been, it reveals real and dangerous fears festering in our society. One commenter said the commercial is an affirmation of dark, Satanic forces subverting the West while many more called it a war on masculinity.

Piers Morgan, whos regained a tenuous grasp on celebrity status by making himself the go-to advocate for fake masculinity, with all the ductile strength and inner meaning of an empty eggshell, proclaimed it a pathetic global assault on masculinity.

The premise of all this outrage is the mere suggestion men should hold each other accountable to basic standards of (gentlemanly) decency, treat women and each other with respect, and teach our sons to do the same is somehow an attack on masculinity.

To carry that train of thought to its unnatural conclusion, wed have to accept being masculine means feeling entitled to harass, objectify and physically force your will on those around you. And, theres the rub.

Its not masculinity thats at risk. Its male privilege. Most men already know masculinity need not entail being a jerk.

As our society continues to evolve (sweet Jesus, I pray it does), being male no longer will be cause for innate privilege. And thats scaring the bejeezus out of the 1950s reactionaries.

In unrelated but also related news, the CDC released a report last Thursday showing Americans arent having enough babies to replace the population.

Most of the women who commented on the original ABC News post said they couldnt afford a big family in the declining American middle class, or they had their own career goals, or it wasnt anyone elses business, thank you very much.

Im not commenting on the size of anyones family, or whether or how they use their uterus. Thats a deeply personal issue, and none of my damn business.

But, you dont have to scratch the surface to find comments of another sort: comments concerned with the changing demographics of America, and just how scary that is (if youre scared of people of color and/or other faiths).

Comments on the report are laced with fears of migrants and Muslims reproducing (egad!), and it somehow meaning the death of our (immigrant) society.

It is true white Mericans soon will not be the majority. Thats been predicted by 2045, but may occur sooner, since the only demographics reproducing at replacement level in the U.S., well, dont look like June and Ward Cleaver.

But, were 7.7 billion people, on a planet thats projected to max out at roughly 10 billion people by 2055. So, the only cause for concern would be if we 1) believe the growth in humanity is of the wrong kind of people; and 2) we dont want those others coming to America.

This race-based fear was reflected by our reliably xenophobic president this week, when he retweeted Sunday passages from an op-ed by white-supremacist standard-bearer Pat Buchanan  a man Trump called in 1999 a Hitler lover, an anti-Semite and a man who doesnt like the blacks.

In his hate-laced screed, Buchanan accused Democrats of engineering Americas changing demographics to attack poor, beleaguered white men.

The only way to greater diversity, the golden calf of the Democratic Party, Buchanan wrote, is to increase the number of women, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics, and thereby reduce the number of white men.

Buchanan, like Gillette, knows how to play on peoples fears. And, for Trump and his progeny, there is no greater motive force than the fear of losing some privilege to women, minorities, migrants, Muslims and others in general.

Fear is powerful. But, as Martin Luther King Jr. told us, Courage is the power of the mind to overcome fear.

What our country needs desperately right now is women, men and youth of all kinds, who have the courage to focus less on gender, race, ethnicity, orientation and national origin, and more on our shared humanity. Even a few brave souls, armed with such courage, can begin to break our nations bonds of fear, and set us back on course to Dr. Kings dream.
I am a retired Naval Officer and small business owner, outside of my work at the News & Eagle. My wife Tammy and I enjoy serving together at church and attending Gaslight and ESO. We have two daughters, three dogs and little free time.

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I was born near Denver, later moved to Selah, Washington and then attended the University of Kansas, graduating in May 2017. Prior to Enid News, I interned with the Yakima-Herald Republic and wrote arts and features for the University Daily Kansan.

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Four years ago Baltimore officials blamed growing protests after Grays death on outside agitators. Former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake referred to some of the protesters as thugs. A police union official called them a lynch mob for calling for the immediate arrest of the officers involved in Grays detention. And Gov. Larry Hogan sent the Maryland National Guard to Baltimore to quell unrest after a day that featured young students hurling rocks and bricks at police and a night of looting and fires.
ENID  The funeral for Estella Irene Green is this morning at 10:00 in the Central Christian Church. Burial will follow in Memorial Park Cemetery under the direction of Henninger-Hinson Funeral Home.
Marty R. Montgomery, 63, of Athens, passed away on Tuesday, June 15, 2021, at his residence. Mr. Montgomery was born on September 10, 1957, to John Montgomery and Lawson Farris Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery is survived by his son, K.B. Montgomery (Elizabeth); grandchildren, Madelyn Montgomery a
First issued as a service ribbon referred to as the Victory Ribbon, the World War II Victory Medal was established by an Act of Congress in 1945. Any member of the U.S. military who served in active duty, or as a reservist, between Dec. 7, 1941 and Dec. 31, 1946, is eligible to receive it.
Elkhart, IN (46516)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening. Thunderstorms likely late. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening. Thunderstorms likely late. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Sao Paulo, Jan 18 (epa-efe).- No one was hurt Friday when a fire broke out at a hospital in this Brazilian metropolis and the flames were quickly brought under control, authorities said.

The blaze originated inside an air-conditioner compressor in the external area of the Heart Institute, located near Avenue Paulista in busy downtown Sao Paulo.

A score of fire trucks and other emergency vehicles were deployed to put out the flames and aid in the evacuation of patients and hospital staff due to the enormous amount of smoke.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze within 40 minutes reported.
Ronald E. O'Dell, 60, of Altamont, died at 1:08 p.m., Sunday, June 13, 2021 at home surrounded by his family. Graveside services will be held at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, June 19, 2021 at Sidener Cemetery, rural St. Elmo with Robert O'Dell officiating. Visitation will be from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m., F
When it comes to setting a child up for success in Americaat least when it comes to crucial education and socioeconomic factorsplace matters more than ever.

Thats the picture that emerges from analysis of the latest data in the Quality Counts 2019 Chance-For-Success Index.

A rapidly evolving economy, dramatic demographic shifts, and political discord at the federal, state, and local levels over the last half century have left in their wake a jagged K-12 landscape among the states. In some places, schools are well equipped with the newest technology, a stable teaching force, and the ability to assure their graduates head off to college at an enviable rate, while others fall short on those markers and others.

These disparities may put education policymakers under even greater scrutiny in the era of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which gives states more say over how to oversee their public schools and is focusing attention on states school governance models, K-12 spending schemes, and ability to identify and replicate success.

Clustered at the Top

In its Chance-for-Success Index, the Education Weeks Research Center looks at indicators in early childhood, the school years, and adult outcomes such as steady employment and educational attainment.

Most of the top five states are clustered in the Northeast, which also happen to be places with generally strong economies and pockets of extreme wealth, according to U.S. Census Bureaus 2017 American Community Survey. Though debates over funding equity continue even in high-performing states, some of that wealth inevitably trickles into schools. And parents with full-time, stable jobs can often affordand are willing to spend money onpreschool, after-school tutoring, and college, things that contribute to their childrens chances for success.

All five top states are perennial top-performers on the index overall, but theyre not immune to pressures that bedevil other states. For instance, New Hampshire ranks 42nd for kindergarten enrollment, and Minnesota is 35th for high school graduation.

In fact, fundamental problems continue to confront a large portion of Americas schools including teacher shortages, concentrations of poverty, and funding crises spurred on by outdated taxing models and school funding formulas.

And this years report once again reflects the head winds states face in assuring a strong foundation for their residents. This years national grade of C-plus on the Chance-for-Success Index is effectively unchanged over the last decade, with high-performing states and improvements in the middle of the pack still unable to budge the nations overall score upward to any significant degree. Only one stateMassachusettsreceived an A-minus, also unchanged from last year.

Whats so special about the high performers?

Overall, they tend to score well in all of the 13 indicators the Chance-for-Success Index measures. These run the gamut from factors like families with stable jobs, good incomes, and strong parental educationfactors largely beyond the control of K-12 policymakersto academic achievement, which is often bound up with debates over school governance and standards.

With all that in mind, here are some highlights from the cluster of states that top this years list of best places in America to raise a child with an eye toward lifetime success.

Massachusetts (A-minus): In 1993, Massachusetts lawmakers passed the Massachusetts Education Reform Act that featured statewide academic standards, a new accountability system, and millions more dollars into its school system. Many argue that having a long-standing statewide consensus on what teachers should expect from their students can significantly increase the likelihood that students meet and exceed those expectations.

Under the category of School Years, Massachusetts lands almost half its 8th graders as proficient on NAEPs math exams and more than half its 4th graders were proficient on reading exams. In that same category, more than 87 percent of Massachusetts high school students graduate with a diploma and 72 percent of those young adults go on to enroll in a postsecondary school.

And while its not something captured by Chance for Success, the states department of education has gained attention for its efforts to improve its worst-performing schools, a process that includes both state and local input.

Challenges remain in other areas, however: Many school districts are squeezed financially, for example, and the states growing number of English-language learners continue to struggle on state exams. Education and political leaders are debating how to overhaul the school spending formula and some parts of the states accountability system.

New Jersey (B-plus): States that can get children enrolled in prekindergarten early and assure that they stay in the school system through the end of their senior year of high school are more likely to set them up for success later on in life.

New Jersey has one of the highest levels of preschool enrollment in the nation, according to the Education Week Research Center. More than 90 percent of its students end up graduating from high school.

But its not just K-12 policymakers that have been behind the wheel: New Jerseys courts have been among the most active in the nation in pushing state officials to improve schools. The states supreme court in recent years has mandated small class sizes, pre-K enrollment, and minimal teacher qualifications for 31 of its mostly poor, urban districts.

And the states overall high performance comes against the backdrop of plenty of political and policy ferment over the years. Under former-Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, the state was entrenched in a debate over how to compensate and hold accountable the states teachers, test its students, and improve its worst-performing schools. And Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat elected in 2017, has pushed to change the way the state tests its students and expand its pre-K programs.

New Hampshire (B-plus): This high-performing state has focused plenty of attention on the career end of the educational pipeline. Amid a statewide workforce shortage, Spaulding High School, Great Bay Community College, and aerospace component manufacturer Safran, all based in Rochester, partnered to create a program for high school seniors to take classes in the high-demand field of composites manufacturing. The program has gained accolades for its ability to pair soon-to-be high school graduates with local in-demand jobs.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said in his State of the State address this month that he wants to create a New Hampshire Career Academy in order for high school students to gain associates degrees in high-demand fields before their graduation.

Looking at both the earlier and later ends of the school spectrum, nearly 51 percent of eligible New Hampshire children enroll in preschool. And 60 percent of young adults go on to postsecondary education.

But New Hampshire also struggles with social issues including an opioid crisis thats led to fractured home lives and problems such as students missing time in school. And its population has declined as many students leave the state after high school, as in many other Northeastern states.

Connecticut (B-plus): Connecticut has long been known for its wealthy enclaves: 49 percent of its adults have two- or four-year postsecondary degrees, 61 percent of its adults have an income at or above the national median, and 72 percent of its adults have steady employment.

That means its student body on average is less transient, and there are fewer schools with concentrated poverty that can overwhelm school officials. The state spends on average $17,000 per student, $5,000 more than the average state.

But that money is often not spent in equitable and efficient ways. In a 2016 ruling, a superior court judge issued a sweeping condemnation of the states teacher-quality standards, special education spending, and the dwindling academic performance of the states poor, black, and Hispanic students.

That ruling was struck down by the state supreme court early in 2018, but politicians, including Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, have promised to address many of the concerns raised in the ruling.

Minnesota (B-plus): Despite being mostly rural and situated far from the top-ranking states in the Northeast, Minnesota ranks as the fifth-best state to raise a child.

Many attribute Minnesotas standout performance over the years to the states consistently high standards, stable leadership at the states department of education, and a heavy focus on teacher quality.

Stable governance models, consistent leadership, and high expectations can bode well for childrens future. The most-recent statistics show that 46 percent of Minnesota 8th graders performed proficient on the NAEP math exam, helping to keep the state among this years top Chance for Success rankings.

But Minnesota has long struggled to close the performance gap between its wealthier white students and its growing number of poor black, Latino, and immigrant students.

And on the leadership front, the state is in for a shakeup: Newly elected Democratic Gov. Tim Walz recently replaced the states longtime state chief, Brenda Cassellius, who had been in office for eight years, with Mary Cathryn Ricker, the former vice president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Editors Note: Staff Writer Denisa Superville covers districts, leadership, and management. This analysis is part of a special report exploring pressing trends in education. Read the full report: 10 Big Ideas in Education.

Its been nearly 65 years since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka decision, and yet American schools remain deeply segregated.

In fact, researchers at the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, say the nations K-12 public schools have become doubly segregated for large numbers of black and brown students, many of whom attend schools where the majority of their peers are also brown, black, and poor.

Despite research showing the benefits of attending schools with diverse student bodies, integration proposals have often been met with acrimonious backlash and fierce pushback, even in ostensibly liberal havens such as New York City, where just last year a firestorm erupted on Manhattans Upper West Side in response to a diversity initiative. And there is still rancorous disagreement about how to increase the number of black and Hispanic students in the citys prized specialized high schools.

But can a budding program in San Antonio that focuses on economic integration offer a feasible alternative to districts wrestling with this intractable American problem?

Mohammed Choudhury runs the San Antonio program, Diverse by Design, which launched last year with his arrival from Dallas, where he first started working on school integration. As the name makes clear, the goal is to build diverse schools and to be open and intentional about the objective.

San Antonio is a special case. There are 14 school districts within the city limits, with some of the poorest students concentrated in San Antonio Independent School District. While the city itself is 63 percent Hispanic and only 27 percent of those under 18 live in poverty, San Antonio ISD is 90 percent Hispanic and 92 percent economically disadvantaged. Those with means have long fled to the more affluent school districts and charter schools.



Desegregation initiatives wont succeed until parents and educators address the central issue that perpetuates education inequality. Scroll down for more from Amy Stuart Wells.

Along with providing transportation for low-income students, the steps that the school district is taking to approach school integration are:

 Building with diversity in mind: Districts can design schools with 50-50 enrollment models, with 50 percent of the students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and the other half from more privileged backgrounds. Principals are responsible for ensuring that leadership is shared within their schools, and that leadership also reflects their schools diversity. Closing academic and other opportunity gaps are also priorities.

 Redefining measures of poverty or disadvantage: San Antonio goes beyond the single measure of free and reduced lunch to find and define disadvantage. It takes a block-by-block approach, using census and other demographic data to examine such factors as income, adult educational attainment, the presence of single-parent households, and homeownership. The block-by-block work not only finds those in the most abject forms of poverty, but also promotes racial diversity as well. A quarter of the seats in the 50-50 schools are reserved for students who are more likely to live in low-income households with a single parent with low-educational attainment.

 Creating smart attendance zones: In San Antonio, some schools will have no attendance zones at all, drawing students from all over the city, including those who attend the more affluent districts. Attendance zones can be drawn to exclude certain tracts or include certain residential developments to ensure a diverse student body, bypassing the legacy of red-lining and other discriminatory housing and lending practices that impact attendance boundaries to this day.

 Offering attractive academic programs: The district is developing new schools and programs like Montessori schools, dual-language programs, and STEAM and STEM programs to woo parents who have left the school system for more affluent districts or for private or charter schools. Those schools not only attract middle-class families, but they also offer the kinds of programs that require peer-to-peer interaction and collaboration to create truly integrated spaces.

 Putting a heavy emphasis on outreach and access: For parents who arent in the know or who dont know how to jump through hoops, the district has made it easy for them to find out about new schools and programs, and how to apply. A family engagement team is in charge of outreach. There are hubs at schools across the city where parents can find out more about the new programs. Parents can register in person, on the phone, online, or using an app.

 Keeping it up: If the initial student demographic of a diverse by design school is not what the district seeks, the district returns to its applicant pool or goes in search of the families whose children qualify for those slots. And it has policies that will allow it to take steps in future years to restore the socioeconomic and racial balance in schools.

Choudhury has seen positive results, with applications far outpacing the number of available slots in those schools, and he believes there are lessons for other districts.

When San Antonio opened its first in-district Montessori school last year with the 50-50 enrollment model, an attendance zone that spanned a 3-mile radius around the school, and 25 percent of the seats set aside for non-district families, it was flooded with 750 applications for just 62 slots.

The San Antonio initiatives are not a panacea and will not magically transform schools overnight. For one, they are directed at new schools. The intentionally diverse schools are also currently serving a small number of students. When the new schools are completed, they will serve about 7,500 of the districts 48,500 students. A drop in the bucket.

Districts can take steps to diversify already existing schools, including examining their choice programs to remove barriers or hurdles that have allowed schools to choose students and not students to choose schools, which is what San Antonio is seeing. And they can also funnel resources to existing schoolsfrom additional dollars to their best teachers and principals.

But a great deal of segregation is rooted in housing patterns, so its not up to districts alone. Municipalities must also play a role. Until they do, districts can take steps like San Antonio has to avoid exacerbating the problem.

PERSPECTIVE

How to Redefine Good in Education

By Amy Stuart Wells

San Antonios integration program Diverse by Design offers a new strategy to address a separate and unequal educational system. This is a bold approach to targeting concentrated poverty and segregationtwo key predictors of low student achievementin public schools. But more emphasis must be placed on a central issue that perpetuates inequality in education: How do race, ethnicity, and culture shape the way we define good students, schools, and communities? And how do those definitions reproduce segregation time and time again?

In our research and the professional development at Teachers College, Columbia University, we are learning about the process by which racial, ethnic, and economic segregation is reproduced and legitimized by a hierarchical understanding of different races and cultures in our society. This racial hierarchy, which is often vehemently denied by many who perpetuate it, fosters implicit racial biases that shape the choices of educators, parents, and home buyers.

We learned in our research on Long Island, for instance, that property values for virtually the same house in different school districts can vary as much as $50,000 based on the percentage of black students enrolled. Without any knowledge of the quality of the public schools or the education they provided, home buyers we interviewed assumed schools with more black students were not as good.

Similarly, the white and affluent parents moving into now-trendy urban neighborhoods their ancestors fled 50 years ago, have many school choicespublic, private, or charter schools. Too often, they bypass the neighborhood public schools that have served students of color for decades, assuming they are not good schools. At one meeting of these gentrifying parents when I talked about the strong early childhood program at the predominantly black and Latinx public school nearby, one parent yelled that it was a terrible school, before admitting that he had never set foot inside of it.

This research makes me wonder if educators should spend less time reassigning students to diverse public schools that their parents may or may not ever enroll them in and more time examining a racial hierarchy in how we define good students, schools, and communities. How do our curriculum and assessments perpetuate this hierarchy and doom certain schools and students to failure as defined through one narrow lens of success? The ethnic studies movement in the Southwest and the culturally relevant pedagogy movement in the Northeast are two reform efforts that are beginning to address these issues. However, true integration may be elusive without this reexamination. Schools are the best sites for transforming our understandings of goodness and dismantling the racial hierarchy.

Amy Stuart Wells is a professor of sociology and education and the director of Reimagining Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the president of the American Educational Research Association.
Meanwhile, Howard County officials say there has been a slight decline in teenage birth rates in recent years. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonprofit focused on health issues, there were eight births per every 1,000 females age 15 to 19 in the county last year, down from 10 and 11, respectively, in 2017 and 2016.
(Photo: Ecumenical News/Peter Kenny)A crowd attends the interreligious service held during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva on January 21, 2013.

Pope Francis has appealed to Christians across the world to pray and to work for full Christian Unity saying that the faithful have a duty to work for it.

Linda Bordoni reports for Vatican News that the Pope has reminded the faithful that "Ecumenism is not something optional" during his Jan. 16 weekly General Audience.

Francis looked ahead to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that takes place from Jan. 18 to 25.

For its part, the World Council of Churches said that from Jan. 18-25, Christians will embark on the largest prayer gathering in the world, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

"Whether praying together, exchanging preachers or planning ecumenical services, they will bear witness to Jesus's prayer for his disciples that they may be one so that the world may believe," said the WCC.

The WCC's members include most Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches but not the Roman Catholic Church, with which it cooperates on many issues.

Pope Francis noted that the annual "Week of Prayer", on the theme "Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue," starts with the celebration of Vespers in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on Friday.

"Again, this year we are called to pray so that all Christians may once again be a single family, according to God's will 'so that they may all be one'" he said.

Pointing out that "ecumenism is not something optional," the Pope e said it aims "to develop a common and consistent witness that promotes true justice and support for the weakest through responses that are concrete, appropriate and effective."

The annual "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" is a time in which Christians are reminded of Jesus' prayer for His disciples that "they may be one so that the world may believe" (John 17.21).

It is an occasion for Christians of different denominations to come together to pray for their unity and participate in special ecumenical celebrations and prayer services.

The theme in 2019, "Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue ..." is inspired by the Bible's book Deuteronomy 16:18-20.

Traditionally the week of prayer's celebration between Jan. 18-25, between the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul.

In the southern hemisphere, where January is a vacation time, churches often find other days to celebrate it, for example around Pentecost, which is also a symbolic date for unity.

The text for the prayers for the week is jointly published by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the WCC, through the WCC's Commission on Faith and Order, which also accompanies the entire production process of the text.

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit said that, as people around the world pray together, they will share a sense of joy, concern and accountability, a sharing that forms the heart of the ecumenical movement.

"As we celebrate a unity in diversity, we become more able to strongly pursue justice in our many contexts," he said. "In all cultures and continents, we can pray for each other and pray together as a living fellowship for justice and peace."
By Dan Nosowitz

Nebraska is the country's second-leading producer of beef, and is in the top ten of pork producers.

That makes Nebraska one of the meatiest states in the country, and now Nebraska lawmakers are seeking to protect their meat industry in a similar way other states have treated dairy: by proposing a ban on labeling any meat substitute as "meat."

The debate over whether oat, soy and almond milks are "milk" has galvanized the dairy industry to pressure the FDA to ban the use of the word "milk" from the packaging of those non-animal-based beverages. The arguments put forth by the meat industry, and the Nebraska lawmakers pushing this proposal, are roughly similar: that by using the word "meat" or "milk," consumers will be confused about the contents of the product.

They also argue that the word "meat" has a distinct definition, referring to an animal product. Interestingly, they specifically want to define "meat" as coming from "livestock or poultry," and excluding not only plant-based alternatives but also lab-grown meat and insect meat. (Apparently insects aren't animals, or at least not as much animals as cattle and hogs.) The Associated Press notes that one of the bill's supporters is, surprisingly, a vegetarian, who supports the bill because she grew up on a farm and wants to protect her home state's vital industry.

Opponents of the bill state that there is no confusion, that nobody really mistakes Tofurkey for turkey, and that the bill is designed to protect one industry's interests, rather than the interests of the public.

Reposted with permission from our media associate Modern Farmer.
The Endangered Species Act works. That's the conclusion of a peer-reviewed study undertaken by scientists at the Center for Biological Diversity and published in PLOS ONE Wednesday.

The study looked at 31 populations of 19 species of marine mammals and sea turtles in the U.S. that had been granted endangered species protections and found that around three-quarters of them had increased in size.

"The Endangered Species Act not only saved whales, sea turtles, sea otters and manatees from extinction, it dramatically increased their population numbers, putting them solidly on the road to full recovery," Center for Biological Diversity scientist and study coauthor Shaye Wolf said in a press release. "We should celebrate the Act's track record of reducing harms from water pollution, overfishing, beach habitat destruction and killing. Humans often destroy marine ecosystems, but our study shows that with strong laws and careful stewardship, we can also restore them, causing wildlife numbers to surge."

In total, 77 percent of the populations studied increased, six percent declined and 16 percent did not follow an observable trend. Seventy-eight percent of marine mammal populations increased while nine percent, representing two species, decreased. Seventy-five percent of sea turtle populations rose, and none of the turtle populations studied declined.



Here are some of the success stories, and one key failure.

Hawaiian Humpback Whales

There were only 800 of these whales in 1979, nine years after they were first listed. By 2005, there were more than 10,000. They had recovered enough by 2016 to be removed from the endangered species list.

Southern Sea Otters

Southern sea otters live off the coast of central California, where they are essential to the kelp forest ecosystem. Their numbers have increased from 1,443 in 1979 to to 2,688 in 2017, nearing their recovery goal.

North Atlantic Green Sea Turtle

In 1979, there were only 62 nests for this species in all of Florida. By 2017, there were 53,102. The massive increase was due to the protection of nesting beaches, a ban on killing turtles and taking eggs and efforts to reduce deaths caused by fishing equipment.

Southern Resident Killer Whales

Southern Resident killer whales were the only population studied whose numbers are still in serious decline. This is because the government has not actually protected their full habitat as required by the act. The other species whose numbers declined, Hawaiian monk seals, are now seeing a rebound.

The 24 species studied that had recovered most successfully were all listed 20 years ago or more, suggesting that it does take time to help a population recovery.

"Conservation measures triggered by ESA listing such as ending exploitation, tailored species management, and fishery regulations, and other national and international measures, appear to have been largely successful in promoting species recovery, leading to the delisting of some species and to increases in most populations," the study authors wrote.

The study comes at a crucial time for the Endangered Species Act, however, as both Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration have made moves to weaken its protections.

"The recovery of listed species depends ultimately on the adequate implementation of the ESA's tools and other conservation measures," the study authors wrote. "Studies have demonstrated that the government's failure to fully implement the ESA's protections and adequately fund conservation actions have been major impediments to species recovery."
Power plants across Texas are leaching toxins into groundwater, according to new research. A report released this week from the Environmental Integrity Project found that all of the state's 16 coal-fired power plants are leaching contaminants from coal ash into the ground, and almost none of the plants are properly lining their pits to prevent leakage.

"We found contamination everywhere we looked, poisoning groundwater aquifers and recreational fishing spots across the state," EIP attorney and report co-author Abel Russ told the Texas Tribune. "This confirms that dumping large volumes of toxic waste in poorly-lined pits is a terrible idea."

As reported by the Texas Observer:

"While power plants' propensity to foul nearby air is well-documented, the danger of coal ash dumping has seen much less play in the news media.

...

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has loosened coal ash dumping rules, relaxing pollution thresholds for certain contaminants and allowing states to waive some groundwater monitoring requirements. The action fits within the larger trend of Trump and U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry trying their damndest to prop up coal despite it being a wildly inefficient vehicle for energy generation. At the state level, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) proposed in August a "deeply flawed" plan to regulate coal ash disposal, the report says. The TCEQ plan was later withdrawn.

Representatives from TCEQ did not respond to a request for comment.

Many of the plants identified in the report are also major air polluters."

For a deeper dive:



Texas Tribune, Texas Observer, Reuters, ThinkProgress, Courthouse News

For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for daily Hot News.
GUJARAT  Waterless textile dyeing using super-critical CO 2 technology could be coming to India for the first time, with Dutch engineering company DyeCoo confirming to Ecotextile News that its in talks with several Indian textile companies  including Arvind Mills  to ship new dyeing technology to the region.

DyeCoo technology, which has been in commercial use in mills in Thailand since 2010 and more recently in Taiwan, uses supercritical CO 2 fluid as a solvent to replace water in dyeing in a process that eliminates both process chemicals and wastewater.


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Chinese sellers have been using a number of underhanded techniques to boost their global rankings and profits on Amazon, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Grabbing the high ground on a search results page is critical for any seller trying to rise above the din created by the more than 500 million products offered on Amazon, which is why some sellers feverishly search for ways to get an edge in the rankings.

"To get one of those spots, some sellers are ready to do anything -- fake reviews, artificial sales and even bribes," WSJ Clement Burge said in a video report.

Unscrupulous sellers use a variety of techniques to vault over competitors in Amazon rankings, according to the report. One of those methods is to undermine the reputation of a rival's products. Negative reviews can cause serious damage to sales.

"Every day you wake up and the first thing you do is check in your reviews," Amazon seller Meir Simhi said in the video report. "You want to know if you're still in the business or not."

It's easy to manipulate Amazon's automated system to hurt competitors, Burge maintained. Flagging a product as "dangerous" or "fake" can get it suspended immediately, for example.

That happened to Simhi two years ago during the Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend.

"I wake up in the morning one day, I look at my computer and I see zero sales. The reason was my main products were suspended," he said. "It happens all the time. For me, it can cost tens of thousands of U.S. dollars a year."

Eternal Problem

Product reviews are an important component of getting a choice spot in Amazon search results. The more positive reviews a product receives, the higher it rises in the rankings, so unprincipled sellers will seed their products with manufactured positive reviews.

"There's always been a fake review problem, but it extends beyond Amazon," said Greg Sterling, vice president of strategy and insight for the Local Search Association, a not-for-profit association of companies engaged in local and location-based marketing.

"It's a problem that's existed since reviews began appearing online and continues today, especially now that there's a lot of evidence that reviews are very influential in consumer buying and rankings," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Although Amazon suspends sellers it catches generating fake reviews, that can be like a game of whack-a-mole.

"Many Chinese sellers have multiple selling accounts," Burge pointed out, "so if they get banned from one, they'll just switch over to another. And if that one gets banned, they'll just make even more."

Paralyzing Number of Choices

Just how influential reviews are to consumers was highlighted in a survey conducted by Cone Communications in 2011. Four out of five participating consumers reported changing their mind about purchasing a recommended product or service based solely on negative information they found online.

Eighty-seven percent of participants agreed that a favorable review online confirmed their decision to purchase a product, the survey also found.

Reviews not only point consumers to products, but also can determine if a product ever appears on a consumer's radar at all.

"The way buyers rely on reviews has grown over time. For example, you can sort by reviews," Sterling said.

"People can exclude products in a category that falls below a certain 'star' review threshold, so there's a lot at stake for manufacturers, he noted.

"Consumers do that to narrow down the available choices, because in a shopping environment where there are thousands and thousands of choices, you need to find a way to screen your volume of options," Sterling added. "Otherwise, it can become paralyzing."

Alleged Bribery

Another factor contributing to rankings is sales. Hucksters have found a way to game that metric, too. Companies can commission a third-party to buy their products and inflate sales figures.

"Some professionals told us they even sent empty boxes to random U.S. addresses and claimed genuine transactions," WSJ's Burge noted.

If all else fails, there's old-fashioned bribery.

Amazon currently is investigating some of its employees in China to see if they've been accepting bribes to give advantages to sellers, Burge said.

Sellers have paid bribes ranging from US$80 to $2,000 to Amazon employees to delete negative reviews, restore banned sellers' accounts, and obtain restricted Amazon data that will help them boost sales, he noted.

Working Hard to Foil Bad Actors

"We work hard every day to earn and keep trust from our customers and sellers," Amazon said in a statement furnished to the E-Commerce Times by spokesperson Cecilia Fan.

"Bad actors that try to break that trust and abuse our systems make up a tiny fraction of activity on our site. We use sophisticated tools, including machine learning, to combat them, and we are making it increasingly difficult for bad actors to hide," the company maintained.

"We block bad actors before they reach our site, and we work with sellers and law enforcement to hold them accountable by withholding funds and pursuing civil and criminal penalties," Amazon pointed out.

"These bad actors show a flagrant disregard for our community, our policies, and in some cases, the law, and do not reflect the flourishing community of honest entrepreneurs that make up the vast majority of our sellers," the company added.

Because of the volume of work needed to thwart bad actors, automation is a necessity, but it can be a boon for hucksters.

"Automation will lead to a lot of loopholes," Howard Thai, who specializes in optimizing Amazon rankings, observed in Burge's report.

"Their system right now is very vulnerable," seller Simhi noted. "They don't do enough, and many sellers are getting hurt."

A Matter of Trust

More artificial intelligence may be necessary, not less, if Amazon wants to protect the innocent and nail the guilty, suggested Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Oregon.

"Amazon needs to implement deep learning-based protection for this, because the numbers are so high and the efforts to game the Amazon system so pronounced," he told the E-Commerce Times.

"Otherwise, they are likely to tag -- accidentally -- legitimate sellers, and not catch the most aggressive and innovative cheaters," Enderle added.

Amazon's existing AI systems aren't smart enough to do that, he said.

"One of the advantages Amazon has over its competitors is it has a very strong brand. People trust Amazon," LSA's Sterling observed.

"If this becomes a problem with too much visibility, it will impact Amazon's brand, and it will impact consumer behavior," he continued.

"Much like Yelp," said Enderle, "if you lose trust in Amazon, you are likely to fall back on brick-and-mortar stores where you can again touch and test before you buy."

John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John.


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To enlist parents in their childrens education, schools are increasingly sending text messages home. Theres evidence to suggest parents appreciate the trend.

But can such an approach actually help young children develop concrete literacy skills, such as building vocabulary?

A new project out of Temple University in Philadelphia, dubbed Text to Talk, is showing promising early results.

Funded by the William Penn Foundation and tested in 49 pre-K classrooms along with the School District of Philadelphia, Text to Talk relies on carefully crafted messages with tips for parents on talking about the new words their children are learning in school. The messages are send straight to family members mobile phones using popular services such as Remind and ClassDojo. The idea is to give children the opportunity to learn about and practice specific new words in a variety of settings, with a mix of trusted adults.

Preliminary results from a small randomized-control trial found that children whose families received the messages learned more of the vocabulary words (the findings have yet to be peer reviewed.)

The project isnt the only such effort happening in K-12. A recent working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, for example, looked at the details of an effort in Dallas, where parents of pre-kindergarteners received text messages with tips and facts about supporting their childrens learning. And many schools are now using texts as ways to communicate schedules and other logistical information to parents.

But in an interview, the Temple researcherseducation professor Barbara A. Wasik and research scientist Emily K. Snellsaid Text to Talk stands out because its directly tied to the literacy materials that children are seeing in their early childhood classrooms.

I think the most important part is connecting it to the curriculum, Wasik said. Theres much more to crafting these messages than just saying, OK, heres cat.

Following is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Whats the problem youre trying to solve?

Wasik: Text to Talk came out of a bigger issue were looking at: vocabulary development in young children. One of the things we think is important is that not only should teachers be emphasizing vocabulary in the classroom, but we should also be making connections with the vocabulary children use at home.

Why does building vocabulary in young children matter?

Wasik: Theres been an enormous amount of research suggesting early vocabulary development is predictive of kids readiness to read.

Snell: There are also studies that show that childrens language skills predict other facets of learning in the classroom, including math, their ability to understand the social science and science curricula, and even their social-emotional learning and classroom behavior.

And why does the home-school connection matter?

Wasik: Kids dont learn just by hearing words once or twice during the day. Its multiple meaningful exposures to words that helps them develop vocabulary. Our hypothesis is that if theres an opportunity both in school and at home to hear a word and get explanations of what that word means, it will reinforce the learning of that word.

Snell: Its about giving children the chance to practice using words in different settings, with different caring adults.

Why text messages, rather than email or paper?

Snell: Especially in pre-K, teachers use a lot of paper, and they have a lot of personal communication with parents, usually at pickup or drop-off. But we were interested in seeing whether there was a more efficient way of reaching parents, especially those who maybe arent coming to school everyday. And texting has been used in other settings, like public health, to reach more folks with more personalized messages. We did focus groups to see if that would be of interest to pre-K teachers, administrators, and parents, and we found that they were quite open to it.

What do the text messages, and the communications they are intended to spur, look like in practice?

Snell: Pre-K teachers in Philadelphia use whats called the Creative Curriculum, and there are particular books they are asked to read to their students. We ask teachers on a weekly basis to send out two texts that are related to one of the books they are reading that week. One text just introduces the word, then provides a link to a website where we have more information, including child-friendly definitions and activities they can do with their child. The other text has additional ideas of activities they can do.

Whats the role of apps like Remind and Class Dojo?

Snell: We found that teachers were already sending text messages, using their own personal phones. But when we designed this study, we didnt want to ask teachers to do that. In the last five years, though, thereve been some wonderful free text messaging systems that send messages straight to parents phones.

Did Text to Talk help children learn vocabulary?

Snell: In our randomized control trial, we found that children whose parents had received the text messages did learn more of the curriculum-aligned vocabulary words, compared to children whose families didnt receive the text messages. The effect size was about .16, which is considered small to moderate. We were pleased with that, given the fairly small amount of effort it takes for teachers to send out the messages.

Wasik: Other vocabulary intervention programs that have required more effort and resources have gotten less significant effects. Our question was, Can we do something thats cost effective, that doesnt require a whole lot of teacher time but can still have an impact? Thats where we think Text to Talk may fit in.

Is this concept something that an enterprising ed-tech entrepreneur could try to bring to market?

Wasik: I think the most important part is connecting it to the curriculum. Theres much more to crafting these messages than just saying, OK, heres cat. Emily spent an inordinate amount of time crafting these texts.

Snell: We tried to base the texts around what we know around the research in early-childhood language development. We invited parents to talk to children about what the word is, and we tried to craft texts around principles of how kids learn language. We also looked at the literature around family involvement, and how parents participation is often shaped by how effective they feel helping their children, and whether they think its easy and fits into life, and how appealing they find the invitation. So, we really tried to make the texts friendly and encouraging, with definitions that parents can use that would be easy for children to understand. We always tried to make the texts very encouraging and supportive of parents own efforts.

There are always implementation challenges with efforts like this. What surprised you?

Wasik: Initially, we were naive enough to think teachers were going to construct the texts themselves. We realized early on that was not going to happen. One of the things that makes this partially appealing to teachers is that it doesnt take a lot of effort on their part. Theyre busy.

Snell: Another thing that was interesting was that there were many families where multiple family members were getting the texts. That is almost impossible to do with papers coming home in backpack]. Helping everyone be on the same page was really appreciated by families.

Based on what youve learned, what advice would you give to other early childhood providers?

Wasik: Find out what your audience needs, and adapt to that. Dont go in with an idea and try to make it fit your audience.

Snell: Historically, early childhood teachers dont use a lot of technology in the classroom. But I think they were surprised by the usefulness of apps like Remind and how easy they were to learn and use.

See also:

for the latest news on ed-tech policies, practices, and trends.
PAUL BILODEAU/Staff photo. Demetrius Tragiou, left, David and Donald Plourde and Lisa Lavoie stand in the dock at Haverhill District Court in Newburyport during their arraignment in 2017 in connection with a stabbing and kidnapping. The Plourde brothers both pleaded guilty to assault and were sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. Tragiou remains held without bail awaiting trial. All charges against LaVoie have been dismissed.
His family came first, however, his daughter wrote. He took many of them to 4-H meetings and took animals to the Harford and Maryland fairs to be shown and sold. He also taught them to ice skate on the farm pond in the winter and swim in the summer.
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Media Release

Australias national science agency, CSIRO and rural technology start-up Digital Agriculture Services (DAS) today launched an innovative new platform that combines artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud-based geospatial technology to deliver reliable, independent and robust farm data and analytics.



The Rural Intelligence Platform is the first ever software to comprehensively assess and monitor rural land anywhere in Australia, drawing on information from trusted data sources on productivity, water access, yield, land use, crop type, rainfall, drought impact and more.

The platform brings together in one place and refines a range of technologies developed by CSIRO in order to provide a picture of what has happened on a property over the years as well as the current situation, CSIRO Agriculture and Food Deputy Director, Dr Michael Robertson said.

The platform uses satellite imagery to track paddocks and their performance over time. Information from Australias digital soil map is incorporated and climate information interpreted to show drought, frost, heat stress for livestock and other risks (screenshot below).

The Rural Intelligence Platform will help the agribusiness community calculate the risks associated with certain investments or management decisions, Dr Robertson said.

DAS estimates that annually around $125 billion in agricultural economic decisions in Australia are based on unreliable or incomplete data.

The platform provides accurate information that can help to identify vulnerability or the most promising options for investment that will build resilience, Dr Robertson said.

This is a whole new model for rural analytics which will make it easier to quantify risk and prepare for challenges like climate volatility and change.

The Rural Intelligence Platform analyses data from a range of sources using machine learning algorithms to make sense of the data with a clarity that wasnt possible before.

The platform incorporates an AI-initiated Automated Valuation Model that is capable of valuing rural properties instantly with up to 90 per cent accuracy. Previously this was only possible for residential properties, where there are a wide range of valuation and analytic tools for real estate.

Since it was established in partnership with CSIRO in 2017, Melbourne-based DAS has secured a total of $4.25 million in funding from founding equity and R&D partner CSIRO, Australian ASX-listed agribusiness Ruralco and private investors.

DAS is already working closely with a number of leading companies to pilot the Rural Intelligence Platform, with some of the strongest uptake coming from the property, financial services and insurance sectors.

Digital agriculture is far more than just on-farm technology, its also about improving off-farm decision making and this platform lays the foundation for Australia to become a leader in new generation agricultural analytics, DAS CEO Anthony Willmott (right) said.

This is about supporting the ecosystem that supports the farmer  ensuring that farmers, business, policy makers and anyone invested along the agricultural ecosystem has the right rural data to make more informed decisions.

The market for digital agriculture in the Asia Pacific region is estimated to be worth $10-25 billion by 2028, fueled by pressure to meet challenges from population growth and climate change.
As has been reported earlier in the week, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, motorists in the Republic of Ireland will be obliged to carry proof of insurance known as Green Cards if they intend to drive in Northern Ireland or the rest of the UK on or after March 29 2019.

Liberty Insurance have provided some details on how it will affect motorists.

It should first be noted that a Green Card will only be required in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to Liberty.

A Green Card is an internationally recognised insurance document which provides proof of the minimum compulsory motor insurance cover required by the country you are visiting. It is a hard copy document which is printed on green paper and demonstrates to relevant authorities that the vehicle being driven in their jurisdiction has valid motor insurance cover.

In the event of a no deal scenario, from 29th March 2019, you will be required to carry a Green Card when driving in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As there is currently no requirement to have a Green Card they are not yet being issued to customers(of Liberty Insurance).

If however you plan on driving in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on or after the 29th March 2019, then you should contact your insurance provider four weeks before your anticipated travel to request a Green Card.

You can find out more about the Green Card here

The Motor Insurers' Bureau of Ireland have also complied a set of questions and answers on Brexit and the Green Card which may be of some help.
In its proposal, the commission has called for an increase of $325 million in state spending in the budget for the coming year that would be focused on specific priorities, including providing more money for pre-kindergarten for four-year-olds and a 3 percent increase in pay for teachers, with half of that to come from the state and half from local governments. The commission also recommends new spending for school-based health centers and for initiatives to support community schools with large numbers of poor students.
Local online spirits auctioneer Irish Whiskey Auctions' charity sale of exceptional spirits has raised more than 2,000 for Dundalk charity, the Zoe Murphy appeal.

The final total raised at auction was generously matched by the Great Northern Distillery who donated the three exclusive, limited edition bottles into Decembers online auction. Irish Whiskey Auctions also donated the commission sales to ensure the maximum amount was raised for Zoe and her family  bringing the final total donated to the local charity to 4,222.

Anthony Sheehy, Founder and Director of Irish Whiskey Auctions comments: We are delighted and feel privileged to be involved in such a fantastic cause and hope by facilitating the sale of these unique bottles of Irish whiskey that in some way we are helping to make life better for Zoe and by extension her whole family.

Our users really engaged all aspects of this fantastic auction and helped spread the word on all Irish Whiskey Auctions social platforms which ultimately helped us raise this sum for the Zoe Murphy Appeal.

It was particularly exciting watching the bidding during the closing moments of the auction... There were a lot of bidders who knew exactly how special these bottles are and we were delighted at the final bid of 1850.

The three First Born bottles that went under the hammer mark the coming of age of the Great Northern Distillery, Dundalk and were released to mark the launch of its first spirit. Distilled in 2015, the Single Grain, Tripled Distilled Malt and Blended Irish Whiskey bottles were part of the exclusive first casks and are individually numbered and hand-signed by John Teeling, Chairman and Founder of Great Northern distillery. The winning bid came from John McKenna and his business partner Bevin Tumulty both from Northern Ireland.

Anthony continues: Alongside the three bottles of First Born we also had a limited-edition bottle of Portmagee 9 donated into the auction  with proceeds going to the Zoe Murphy appeal - which attracted almost 30 bids and sold for 170 to Seamus ODowdens an award-winning publican from Vermont, USA. The bottle was part of a limited collection and thought to be the only nine-year old Whiskey in Ireland  so it was very special to have this as part of Decembers lot.

Two-year-old Zoe was born with a PVL brain injury causing quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy. She is now a candidate for surgery in the USA  at a cost of 100,000  and the people of Dundalk are supporting the Murphy family in their efforts to raise 100,000 for the life-changing surgery, which will dramatically improve Zoes chance of a better life.

Irish Whiskey Auctions runs online every month and with hundreds of notable bottles in the auction there really is something for everyone.

Running for nine days, the next online auction launches on February 8th at 5pm. For more information visit: www.irishwhiskeyauctions.com or follow along on social @irishwhiskeyauctions
Local volunteers have vowed that the St. Patrick's Day Parade for Dundalk this March will go ahead, albeit on a smaller scale.

The Dundalk Democrat attended a meeting chaired by Pat McCormack, President of Dundalk Chamber of Commerce and Paddy Malone, PRO of Dundalk Chamber of Commerce, at the Louth County Museum last night to discuss the future of the parade in Dundalk.

Attendees expressed concern that none of the planning has been completed for this year's parade.

Cllr Anne Campbell, who joined the parade committee last year noted: "By January, the entire parade would normally be organised bar a few small things that would need to be tied up."

Ms Campbell said that it would be "catastrophic" for the parade not to go ahead this year considering it could be "just 12 days from Brexit". "This is not the year to stop having a parade," Ms Campbell added.

There was a small turn out of local volunteers, councillors, and representatives from local organisations, some of whom have volunteered to be on this year's planning committee.

Speaking at the meeting attendee Garda Brendan Keane said he was shocked that none of the beneficiaries of the St Patrick's Day parade had turned up for the meeting such as local pubs, restaurants, and representatives from the Vintners association.

The Garda, who said the Gardai would be happy to lend support to this year's event in terms of security, added: "We need someone to take ownership of this event. This year could be a wake-up call."

One of the previous organisers of the parade noted that he and another former volunteer had "walked the length of the town from Bridge Street to Tesco" and asked publicans for a 150 donation towards this year's parade.

The former volunteer, who cannot commit this year due to work commitments, said that they were kicked out of the majority of pubs after they asked for donations.

He also said that just three local pubs gave a donation and just one of those pubs donated the 150.

The parade committee revealed that they have around 9,000 "in the pot" for this year's parade.

Meeting chair Pat McCormack added that a minimum of between 15,000 and 25,000 would be needed to pull off a parade.

Paul Hayes, Director of An Tain Arts Centre added that with arts events, the problem is usually with arts funding but ascertained that in this case: "If someone walked in the door and said here's 25,000 for your parade, it wouldn't solve any of the problems being faced this year."

Mr McCormack agreed that the problem was down to a lack of volunteers as the previous volunteers had to step down from their roles due to other commitments.

He said: "I have been really concerned since last April at the lack of people running the 2019 parade" but added that he had had "very little feedback from anyone" on the matter.

The current works on Clanbrassil Street were also discussed at the meeting and the fact that the parade could not run down the street as there is currently only one lane in use. Mr McCormack explained that if an ambulance needed to get down the street in the case of an emergency, it would not be able to.

A shorter route which would run from the Long Walk Shopping Centre to Tesco on the Dublin Road was discussed as was the possibility of a static stage at Market Square where bands could perform.

The idea of setting up a GoFundMe page for the people of Dundalk to donate money towards the parade in 2020 was also discussed at the meeting.

Louth County Council said that they would assist financially and with aspects such as erecting barriers and the clean-up after the parade.

At the end of the meeting, Pat McCormack thanked the Louth County Museum for the use of their building for free for the evening.

The new committee for the St Patrick's Day Parade will meet again on Monday, January 21 to begin the task of organising this year's parade. The new committee members are: Meave Yore, Anne Campbell, Shane McBride, Conor Keelan, Maria O'Toole, Kevin Meenan and Kayleigh Mulligan.
POTTSBORO [ndash] Thelma Irene Toney passed away on June 11, 2021, in Denison, Texas. She was born on Feb. 28, 1924, in Francis, Oklahoma to John Franklin and Essie Akins Scroggins. She attended grade school at Cedar Grove School and then attended and graduated from Francis High School. She 
It didnt take long for the chickens to come home to roost for embattled Gordon Mayor Elbert Melton. A Houston County jury deliberated only 45 minutes before finding the now-former mayor guilty of two counts of voter fraud related to his most recent election to office.

Melton had been charged with three counts, but one charge was dismissed because the victim of a fraudulent absentee ballot died before the case came to trial.

Meltons removal from office is likely welcomed by his colleagues on the town council. That panel voted to strip Melton of mayoral power following Hurricane Michael, accusing Melton of being absent when the storm struck the town causing widespread damage. Mayor Pro Tem Shana Ray said Melton didnt turn up until the next day when relief supplies were to be distributed.

He came back into town to be the first in line for emergency supplies that were available to our residents, Ray said. He refused to give the supplies to those in need.

Melton was indicted in September on charges related to his 16-point August 2016 mayoral race victory over Priscilla Wilson. He still faces a charge of knowingly obtaining or exerting unauthorized control over $1,700 belonging to the Town of Gordon.

Melton continued to serve until this weeks conviction ejected him from office, leaving the town without a mayor. Its up to Gov. Kay Ivey to appoint a replacement to serve the remainder of the term. We suggest first right of refusal be given to Wilson, who may well have been elected in the absence of voter fraud.
While others  including UniFirst President and CEO Steven Sintros  endeavored to make Thursday special for Mittie Barber, she eventually returned to work.

Im on the clock, she said to a chorus of laughs.

The day provided joyous moments for Barber, who recently marked her 50th year of work for UniFirst-Dothan (and its predecessor Bishops Uniform Services). Most of the companys executive team, including Sintros, flew from corporate headquarters near Boston as part of a luncheon to recognize Barber for her achievements in the past half-century.

My family was a big surprise. They slipped that one in on me, Barber said. I didnt think they would be here.

Having her family there served as an integral part of the celebration since her loved ones have fueled her desire to work as long as she has. At 71, Barber  who currently works in mending and alterations  plans to work until the end of 2020 to ensure her grandson gets through college.

Barber said she always wanted to model a spirit of dedication to the generations that followed her.

You have to be committed. You just can't flip-flop, she said. A mindset thing  youve just got to do it and get to it.
Spark Theater, which was started four years ago, has competed at the Junior Theater Festival for three years. Many of the young actors involved also participate in their high school theater groups  if their school has one  or with other community theater groups.

Lydia Smith, 16, who attends Northside Methodist Academy, plays the leading character Ti Moune in Sparks production of Once on This Island. Shes been performing in plays since she was 8 years old.

I had no clue what I was doing, she said. Ive just grown a lot over the years with Spark and Ive matured a lot. It helps you as a person not just as an actor.

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The Junior Theater Festival (JTF) is hosted by iTheatrics, the New York-based company that adapts Broadway and Disney musicals for school and after-school theater groups. There are different divisions for the JTF competition. Spark is competing in the advanced division this year.

Our goal is if were going to do it, were going to do it the right way  more of a teaching experience, said Caleb Brooks, the creative director for Spark Theater Company. We are expecting 10 of our seniors this year to go to school with a scholarship for theater.
There are six mobile phone blackspots in County Donegal according to data provided by Donegal County Council (DCC) to the Department of Communications as part of an initiative to identify priority blackspots and take action to address the issue.

The information came to the fore as a result of Deputy Dara Calleary asking the Minister for Communications, Sean Canney, which local authorities had supplied his department with information regarding local mobile phone blackspots in their area, the number of blackspots identified by each local authority and the funding and guidance supports that are available to the authorities to map the blackspots.

Seventeen of the thirty one local authorities have provided data on blackspots.

According to the figures, Longford has the most blackspots with 84 being identified, Galway has 64, Kerry has 56, Carlow has 36 whilst Mayo and Sligo have 2.

The Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce was established in July 2016 to examine broadband and mobile phone coverage deficits in Ireland and identify tangible actions to improve the quality of these services.

A call was issued to all Local Authorities in 2018 to map local blackspots and identify infrastructure that could potentially be used to improve telecommunications services.

The number of blackspots changes as new telecommunications infrastructure is rolled out and upgraded.

The imminent publication of ComReg's national coverage map will give a more accurate reflection of mobile phone coverage throughout the country.

The Department of Communications recently awarded a grant of 35,000 to erect a mobile phone mast in Malin Beg under the Digital Innovation Programme.
Erecting a footbridge from one side of the Bunbeg bridge to the other is going to be an environmentally sensitive project' as freshwater pearl mussels grow on both sides an engineer has informed councillors at a meeting of the Glenties Municipal District.

Roads Engineer, Brendan McFadden said that getting a footbridge from one side of the river to the other, without going into the river, would be a complex issue due to the fact that the mussels were growing on both sides of it.

He said: its an environmentally sensitive project and we are trying to work our way through the steps that might work.

Information about the freshwater pearl mussel

The freshwater pearl mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) is a large filter-feeding bivalve, which is found in near-pristine freshwater habitats. They have a long life and can survive to up to 140 years making them Ireland's longest living animals.

Freshwater pearl mussels are filter feeders, inhaling and expelling up to 50 liters of water per day through siphons, while retaining food particles.

Populations in slow decline

This filtering activity means that pearl mussels can help to maintain and improve water quality, where they are present in high numbers. European freshwater pearl mussel populations have declined by 90% over the past century. In Ireland, 27 freshwater pearl mussel populations are protected within Special Areas of Conservation (SACs).

Eight of these populations contain 80% of the total Irish freshwater pearl mussel population, and are known as the Top 8 catchments'.

The Top 8 catchments have some of the highest remaining numbers of freshwater pearl mussels in Ireland however these populations are also undergoing a slow decline, and face extinction unless action is taken.
'Compulsive contrarians' subverting democracy, says Jaitley

Finance minister Arun Jaitley has termed opposition parties as 'compulsive contrarians', and accused them of manufacturing falsehood and subverting democracy by weakening an elected government.

Nations are built by those with positive mindsets and a national vigor, not by the 'Compulsive Contrarians', he said in a Facebook blog without naming Congress or other opposition parties. "Didn't left-liberals find fault with the various actions that Gandhiji took during the freedom movement? Weakening a sovereign elected government and strengthening the unelectable is only a subversion of democracy," he wrote.

Jaitley, who is in the US for a medical checkup, accused the opposition Congress party, without naming it, of using corruption cover-ups as crusade against corruption, and going against the interests of the country by aligning with other corrupt parties.

"The Compulsive Contrarians had no qualms about manufacturing falsehood. They could concoct arguments even if they went against the general interest of the country. They could masquerade corruption as crusade. They could adopt double standards whenever it suited them, he said in a Facebook post titled 'The Compulsive Contrarian and his Manufactured Logic'.

He cited the tirade mounted by political parties on various issues like the Rafale fighter jet deal, the 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections, without going into details as the 'Compulsive Contrarians' believe that this government can do no good and hence its every act must be opposed, he pointed out.

Nations are built by those with positive mindsets and a national vigor, not by the Compulsive Contrarians. Didn't left-liberals find fault with the various actions that Gandhiji took during the freedom movement? Weakening a Sovereign Elected Government and strengthening the unelectable is only a subversion of democracy, he wrote.

"AADHAAR which became an instrument for saving money to ensure that it is fruitfully spent for the poor was questioned on the ground of violating personal liberty," he wrote, highlighting the oppositions double standards.

On demonetisation, the FM wrote, "Steps taken against black money were described as 'Tax Terrorism'. The virtues of cash which was a source of black money and fuelled corruption were discovered after demonetisation.

He also wrote on issues like the Justice Loya case, the CBI vs CBI controversy and the RBI independence issue among others.
Isro sets 25 March-30 April window for Chandravaan-2

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) h set a tentative date of 25 March-30 April for it second moon mission for Chandravaan-2, chairmanK Sivan said while addressing a press conference in New Delhi today.

He said Isro has planned 32 missions this year. Elaborating on the priority areas of Isro, the chairman said that these include Gaganyaan project, reaching out to students, outreach programmes, planned missions of this year and Vikram Sarabhai Centenary celebrations.

Sivan said Isro has initiated Samvad with students programme this year, where Isro chairman meets the students during his outstation visits and address their queries and quench the scientific thrust. The youth have boundless energy and endless curiosity, he added.

For the first time, Isro announced an Young Scientists Programme to encourage the scientific talent and increase scientific pool in the country. Under this programme, Sivan said, three students from each state and UT will be selected for Isro programme for one month during which they will visit Isro centres, interact with senior scientists and will have access to research and development facilities. All the expenses of travelling and boarding will be borne by Isro. Sivan appealed to the state governments and the state education departments for their active cooperation in making the programme a success.

Sivan said Isro also planned to set up six incubation centres in various parts of the country - North, South, East, West, Centre and North-East. The first such centre has been established in Agartala. Sivan also announced the establishment of six R&D centres. Students will be able to conduct R&D at these centres as well as incubation centres. Isro, he added, inaugurated `UNNATI programme yesterday with the purpose of training participants on nano satellite assembly.

Speaking on the Gaganyaan, Sivan said the first unmanned space flight will be launched by December 2020, second unmanned mission by July 2021 and the first manned mission by December 2021. He said a Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) has been set up for Gaganyaan project.

Elaborating on the upcoming missions in 2019, he mentioned about reusable launch vehicle technology which will be demonstrated this year where the helicopter will take shuttle to a height at on the runaway. This will help in saving the costs involved in launch vehicles, he added.

He said that small satellite launch vehicles first flight will be in July 2019, which can carry payload up to 500 kg.

Isro chairman said that Isro has so far launched 9 student satellites and KALAMSAT will be launched by PSLV-C44 on 24 January this year. He also spoke on other future projects, including GSAT-20, RISAT and GMAT series of satellite.

The year-long centenary celebrations of Vikram Sarabhai will commence from 12 August 2019. Various national and international events will be organised to honour the father of Indian Space prgoramme.

Sivan also announced the inauguration of a Satish Dhawan Centre for Space Sciences in Jammu.
But in the motion, Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby and assistant states attorney Traci Robinson wrote that West is a flight risk because he faces a life sentence for first-degree murder. After West allegedly shot Beamon, a witness heard West utter that he would not be disrespected. Furthermore, the motion said, West owned a handgun even though he was prohibited from doing so because of a previous drug conviction.
Singapore's low-cost airline Scoot to expand operations in India

Scoot, the low-cost arm of the Singapore Airlines Group, has announced plans to strengthen its presence in India with flights to three new cities, including Coimbatore, Trivandrum and Visakhapatnam.

Scoot, launched in June 2012 and merged with Tigerair Singapore in July 2017, retaining the Scoot brand, currently operates on seven routes between Amritsar, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Lucknow, and Tiruchirappalli in India.

"The new routes are due to be transferred over from sister airline, SilkAir, and Scoot will be the only airline operating direct non-stop flights from Thiruvananthapuram and Visakhapatnam to Singapore," according to a statement released by Scoot.

Flights from Trivandrum to Singapore will commence from 7 May 2019, and flights from Coimbatore and Visakhapatnam will start from 27 October 2019, all subject to regulatory approval, it said.

The airline has announced a limited-time sale on flights from all its India points - including Trivandrum, Coimbatore and Visakhapatnam - starting from 14  28 January 2019 on its website. "One-way promotional fares (inclusive of tax) begin from as low as Rs4,500 for economy, for trips to 27 cities in Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam via Singapore," it said.

Scoot currently operates a fleet of 18 widebody Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 29 Airbus A320 family aircraft, with two more Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 37 Airbus A320neo aircraft on order. Scoots network presently encompasses 66 destinations across 18 countries and territories with 16 more destinations from Laos, India, China, Malaysia and Indonesia to join the network by the second half of 2020.
DGCA bars IndiGo, Go Air from flying Airbus A320 Neo planes to Port Blir

Aviation regulator Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has barred top service providers IndiGo and Go Air from using accident-prone Airbus A320 Neo engines in their aircrafts in India as the aircraft continued to risk lives of flyers.

DGCA specifically barred the carriers from using the A320 Neos fitted with Pratt & Whitney engines for operating flights to Port Blair in Andaman Nicobar islands. The regulators decision comes after an Airbus 320 New suffered a technical glitch in the engine while on a flight.

The DGCA restrictions come after Qatar Airways rejected the delivery A320 Neos citing engine failure.

Airbus started delivery of Airbus A320 Neo engine in India in March 2016. Over the last couple of years, several incidents have been reported where the flights suffered technical glitches. Early this month, smoke was detected inside the aircraft on a Chennai-Kolkata IndiGo flight, forcing the flight to make an emergency landing in Chennai.

As per a DGCA report, 69 instances of in-flight shutdowns were reported in 18 months due to glitches in the A320 Neo engine.

Meanwhile, the aviation ministry held a meeting chaired by minister of state of civil aviation Jayant Sinha, which reviewed the issue.

In a statement, the DGCA said that the Interglobe Aviation, which operates IndiGo, and Go Air have been ordered to identify the problems with the aircraft and fix them. The statement further added that both the airlines were prohibited from flying A320 Neo aircraft to Port Blair.
Rolta India to downsize as debt restructuring fails

Technology bellwether Rolata India plans to downsize operations globally and trim its workforce of 3,000 employees after the company failed to push through a Rs2,500-crore deal to divest the products and solutions business and restructure bonds to secure some financial leeway.

The company, which was ranked among the `Best 200 under a Billion four times in six years by Forbes Global, is expected to ask several of its employees to resign, retaining only a core team to service customers and safeguard its hi-technology assets.

Rolta, which has a total debt of around Rs8,000-10,000 crore, is learnt to have defaulted on payment of bonds - it hold bonds worth $200 million maturing in 2018 and $300 million maturing in 2019  and sought restructuring. However, some bondholders refused to oblige and demanded upfront cash.

One of the lenders, Union Bank of India, has filed a petition against the company in the Mumbai bench of the NCLT, making it one of the first major IT companies to be dragged into insolvency proceedings.

Rolta had tried to raise cash through sale of an asset worth Rs2,500 crore and has engaged likely buyers including UK-based Spectris, Germanys ABB and Tech Mahindra. A deal could not be arrived at as some of Roltas domestic creditors did not give their assent, and instead, dragged the company to the NCLT for initiating insolvency proceedings.

Last month, Central Bank of India (Capital Market Service Branch) sold 970,151 shares of Rolta India Ltd through bulk deal window in NSE. The shares were dumped at a price of Rs8.88 per share.

In a letter to its employees dated 3 January, Rolta said it suffered a major blow recently in its efforts to deleverage completely by paying off the entire debt in India and completing the bond restructuring agreement.

Rolta India, which won a Rs50,000-crore battlefield management project jointly with Bharat Electronics in 2015, claims the project, when implemented over the next 10 years, has a revenue potential of more than Rs10,000 crore. It is expecting payments from the government from 2020.

Rolta also claims to have executed projects in 40 countries and was included in the S&P Global Challengers List.

We will downsize the present strength of Roltaites worldwide to form a core team of competent and dedicated Roltaites who will look after the various functions of the company to protect its hi-tech assets and technology, service its existing customers and enable it to come out of the current crises. All Roltaites who have already resigned will be released on or before January 31, 2019, KK Singh, executive chairman, Rolta, said in his letter.

During late 2017, we decided to look for disinvesting some assets consisting of our IPs and solutions which had heavy demand worldwide. From early 2018, these efforts started bearing fruits, and in fact, we received a firm Letter of Intent from a reputed international company valuing our offered products and solutions at about ?2,500 crore. At the time of closure of this transaction in first week of August, we, unfortunately, could not fulfil certain pre-conditions and, therefore, the deal fell through. This was a big blow to our efforts to deleverage the company completely by paying off all Indian debts and completing the restructuring agreement of bonds which the company had entered in mid-July 2018. As of today, our efforts on disinvestment are still on. We are also pursuing our debtors. But all this will take some time, and there is no solution for the immediate cash crunch which we are facing, Singh further wrote in the letter.

Singh said though the promoter companies led by him have injected more than Rs500 crore, the conditions continued to deteriorate, particularly after the lenders approached the NCLT.

Rolta is a leading provider of innovative IT solutions for many vertical segments, including central and state governments, defence and homeland security, utilities, process, power, financial services, manufacturing, retail, and healthcare.
Reliance Industries Q3 net rises nearly 9% to Rs10,251 crore

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has reported an 8.82 per cent year-on-year increase in consolidated net profit for fiscal third quarter at Rs10,251 crore, becoming the first private corporate to report quarterly profit of over Rs10,000 crore.

The oil to telecom giant had posted a profit of Rs9,420 crore in the same quarter last year.

RIL also saw its profit rising for the 16th straight quarter.

The spike in profit for the October-December quarter was backed by solid performance across the petrochemical, retail and digital services.

Consolidated revenue from operations for the quarter recorded an annual rise of 56.38 per cent to Rs1,60,299 crore in Q3FY19 over Rs1,02,500 crore in the same period last year.

RILs gross refining margin (GRM) for October-December stood at $8.8 per barrel, beating Singapore complex margins by $4.5.

Revenue from retail operations for Q3 FY19 grew 89.3 per cent YoY to Rs35,577 crore from Rs18,798 crore. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBDT) for the segment rose 210.5 per cent to Rs1,512 crore from Rs487 crore. Reliance Retail now has 9,907 stores with a reach across 6,400 plus towns and cities.

RIL's telecom arm Reliance Jio, in its second year of operation, crossed quarterly revenue of Rs10,000 crore. Net profit from telecom operations rose 22 per cent sequentially to Rs831 crore in the October-December period.

Revenue rose 12.37 per cent quarter-on-quarter to Rs10,383 crore. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation rose 13.44 per cent to Rs4,052 crore. The companys margin swelled 37 basis points on a quarterly basis to 39.03 per cent for the October-December quarter.

Average revenue per user (ARPU) per month during the quarter stood at Rs130 per subscriber.

Revenue from the oil and gas segment, however, decreased by 27.5 per cent YoY to Rs1,182 crore.

Basic earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter ended 31 December 2018 stood at Rs17.3 against Rs16 in the corresponding period of the previous year.

In our endeavour to consistently create more value for our country and stakeholders, our company has become the first Indian private sector corporate to cross Rs 10,000 crore quarterly profits milestone... In our new-age consumer businesses, we maintained robust growth momentum across retail and Jio platforms...," Mukesh Ambani, chairman and MD, RIL, stated in a release. "I am confident Reliance is well-positioned for the future and for the next cycle of growth.

At the end of the October-December 2018019 quarter RIL had outstanding debt of Rs274,381 crore ($39.3 billion) compared to Rs218,763 crore as on 31 March last year.

Cash and cash equivalents stood at Rs77,933 crore ($11.2 billion) against Rs78,063 crore in the previous year quarter. These included in bank deposits, mutual funds, CDs, government bonds and other marketable securities.

RIL also incurred capital expenditure of Rs27,274 crore ($3.9 billion), including exchange rate difference, for the quarter.

In October, Reliance Industries announced a Rs5,200-crore deal with Den Networks Ltd and Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd to expand its broadband and direct-to-home service. The company is awaiting regulatory nod for completion of the deal.

Post-completion of the deal, Reliance and Jio will strengthen the business model of 27,000 local cable operators that are aligned with Den and Hathway across 750 cities, the company said.
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MADRID (AP)  Spanish government figures show the country received a national record of 82.6 million foreign tourists last year.

Industry, Trade and Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said Wednesday the figures show Spain remains competitive as it battles to overtake France, the world's top destination in 2017 with almost 87 million arrivals.





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By ANGELA CHARLTON

Associated Press

iStockPhoto [enlarge] A no-deal Brexit could shake up the rest of the continent in ways that many Europeans havent yet fathomed, from snarled air traffic to paralyzed ports and millions of workers in legal limbo.





PARIS  One by one, European Union nations are spending millions, hiring thousands of workers and issuing emergency decrees to cope with the increasingly likely possibility that Britain will leave the bloc on March 29 without a plan.





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SEATTLE  An apartment building at 418 12th Ave. E. has sold for just over $3.8 million, according to King County records.

The seller was Seattle Investors Group Capitol Hill LLC, which acquired the property in 2013 for a little under $2 million.





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The move could unleash a flurry of lawsuits against foreign companies that have invested on the island.



By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN

Associated Press

HAVANA  The Trump administration is weighing what could become the most serious tightening of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba in more than two decades  a move that could unleash a flurry of lawsuits against foreign companies that have invested on the island.

A 1996 law known as the Helms-Burton Act give Americans the right to sue companies profiting from properties confiscated by Cuba's government after its 1959 socialist revolution. That potentially could allow hundreds of lawsuits against corporations around the world, from Spanish companies that run Cuban hotels to Chinese and Turkish firms renovating Cuban ports.





. . .
His measure targets so-called community solar developments on rural land zoned for conservation. Community solar projects let people who cant put panels on their roofs help pay for solar developments by signing up as subscribers. In return, they can lower their electric bills by as much as 10 percent. The goal is to make solar energy available to more consumers and help the environment by reducing the use of fossil fuels.
Wall Street analysts have given Global X MSCI Greece ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but Global X MSCI Greece ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
We've just spent the last couple of days at Microsoft India's Bengaluru campus, learning about the things it accomplished this past year and hopes to accomplish in the years to come. Division heads came up on stage to wax proud about a variety of services, challenges, and accomplishments Microsoft saw in 2018 across industries like information technology, health care, agriculture, etc. What's worth noting is that almost every one of the slides they showed during the two days had a mention of that unforgettable new buzzword, 'AI'.

Anant Maheshwari, President of Microsoft India, kicked off the event by asserting the company's belief in the incorporation of AI models in its services. He presented the idea of 'Tech Intensity', a formula that can be derived by raising 'Tech Adoption' to the power of 'Tech Capability'. According to him, Tech Adoption denotes Microsoft's AI-powered services and Tech Capability denotes what Microsoft's customers create with them. To support his formula, he invited representatives from customers like Wipro Technologies, Future Generali, and Apollo Hospitals on stage to understand how they used Microsoft's AI-powered services and what their 'secret sauce' in the execution was. Products discussed included Azure, Power BI, and Teams.

PowerPoint Designer and Excel Ideas

Explaining how its AI technology is gradually being incorporated in many of its offerings, Microsoft demonstrated a couple of recently added features in Office 365, its long-standing suite of productivity tools. The first is called PowerPoint Designer. Appearing as a sidebar within PowerPoint, what it does is suggest design ideas for your current slide after you've thrown in elements like, say, a few images and some text. For example, you could enter 'Leadership Team' in the slide title and drag and drop a couple of images. Designer will rearrange these elements to present slide design ideas that you can readily pick without having to bother with the styling.

As a second example, Microsoft demonstrated Ideas in Excel. Appearing again, as a sidebar within Excel, Ideas suggests relevant actions to perform on user-selected data. For example, you could select a number of rows and columns in the spreadsheet and expect Ideas to suggest possible graphs and charts using the values in the selction. While I found both these features impressive, I didn't see anything new about them since Microsoft introduced them in Office 365 some two years ago.

Microsoft Research India

The Indian Microsoft Research team showcased the GesturePod, a tiny device that clamps to a walking cane to help the blind control their smartphones using gestures they make with their cane. For example, a double tap of the cane on the floor could answer a call, and a clockwise twist of the cane could end it. Powering the tiny low-power add-on is a Bluetooth Low Energy module, an Arduino MK1000 board, and a small rechargeable lithium polymer battery. Apparently, the team had to go with a newly formulated algorithm instead of compression to make the wakeword detection feature less than one kilobyte in size.

Microsoft also demonstrated its Garage-developed smartphone apps like Kaizala, a phone number-based chat app for intra-network coordination, and Seeing AI, an AI-powered accessibility app for those with weak vision. During the demonstration, Seeing AI could tell the phone's camera was pointed at a currency note, whose value was one hundred rupees. Microsoft also demonstrated Soundscape, another AI research project aimed at helping those with low vision. Soundscape gives the user a description of their surroundings using synthesised binaural audio, thereby creating a 3D sound effect.

Microsoft and its partners

According to Microsoft, it has over 9,500 partners in India, out of which one third (or 2,995 of them) are cloud partners. Through a series of presentations, the company stressed on the importance of partnering with Microsoft through the Microsoft Partner Network for building cloud-based applications. It went on to show how its initiatives like ScaleUp, which invovles co-selling of the partners' products, are helping Series A-funded startups to get their products out on the Azure Marketplace. The power of the AI-powered Azure is what Microsoft provides to these startups. Microsoft also talked about M12, its corporate venture capital subsidiary that was originally established in 2016 as Microsoft Ventures.

Summary: Commitment towards responsible AI

Over the course of the two days, Microsoft walked us through many of its services (of which many were enterprise-grade) and presented several ideas for the future, along with a list of challenges they pose. All of them were peppered with the commitment not just to use its AI models for better software but also to use them responsibly. By the time the event ended, we were left feeling a sense of awe towards everything the big American software giant had planned for the future. Will AI really pave the way for an easier and smarter future? Only time will tell.
Samsung has finally disclosed a set timeline for the launch of its foldable Galaxy F also being dubbed Galaxy Flex or Galaxy Fold. In an interview with Digital Trends, Director of Product Strategy and Marketing at Samsung confirmed that the foldable smartphone will launch in the first half of 2019. When asked by the interviewer if the device would launch in the first quarter of the year, Suzanne De Silva from Samsung categorically said first half not first quarter.

Currently, rumours going around the web claim that Samsung may unveil its Galaxy F foldable phone on February 20, alongside the Galaxy S10 series of smartphones. Samsung will be holding its annual Unpacked event on February 20 in San Francisco and very recently, the company put up some billboards in Paris with the words The future unfolds and February twentieth written on them. This, accompanied by the statements made by De Silva in Digital Trends interview, could further strengthen expectations that the foldable phone from Samsung will indeed launch on February 20. Launch does not necessarily mean availability so Samsung could wait until it actually brings the phone to market.

Till now, all Samsung has revealed very little about the foldable Galaxy smartphone. What we do know is that the foldable smartphone uses an Infinity Flex Display which measures 7.3 inches with a 1536 x 2152 resolution and an aspect ratio of 4.2:3 when it is in an unfolded state. It folds in half to reveal a second display called cover display on the front. When folded, it functions like a 4.58-inch phone with a resolution of 840 x 1960 pixels with an aspect ratio of 21:9. Samsung says that the phone can be folded up to fit into a pocket.

In the Interview mentioned above, Samsungs De Silva says that the Infinity Flex was created to give consumers the biggest display. In November, DJ Koh, CEO of Samsung's Mobile Business Division announced that Samsung will manufacture at least one million units of the foldable device which runs on Samsung's One UI, based on Android 9 Pie.
Highlights:

Phone from Moto G7 lineup spotted on Geekbench.

The hardware suggests that it could be the Moto G7 Play.

Motorola is expected to launch the phone line-up at MWC next month.



There are strong reports that Motorola may be launching four models under its Moto G7 series. While the design of all the models have been leaked in press renders, Moto G7 Play had already been spotted on the EEC website. In the latest development, a smartphone of the Moto G7 lineup has been seen listed on Geekbench. Given the hardware specs, it is being assumed that the phone could be the Moto G7 Play. The listing shows the phone scoring 1260 points in single core test and 4759 points in multi core test.

The listing shows this particular phone being powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, which is coupled with a 3GB RAM. Previous reports have claimed that some of the models of the series may have more powerful SoCs like Snapdragon 632 and Snapdragon 660 SoCs. This could further point in the direction that this featured Moto G7 is the Play model. It also runs on the Android Pie 9.0, which we have already seen in the EEC listing.

The Moto G7 Play is said to be the part of the four-model lineup which is expected to launch later this year. Last year, a report said that the company could launch the G7 series of handsets in Brazil, ahead of the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2019 event. Motorola is speculated to announce four phones in its G7 lineup, the Moto G7, the Moto G7 Plus, the Moto G7 Power, and the Moto G7 Play.

Reports have claimed that the Moto G7 and G7 Plus are speculated to come with a waterdrop notch design and as a result, are expected to offer higher screen-to-body ratio in comparison to their predecessors. The other two models, the Moto G7 Power and G7 Play, are said to sport the contemporary notch that we have been seeing in other smartphones. The Moto G7 Power will reportedly feature a single camera on the back.

Related Read:

Moto G7 series devices leaked in press renders

Moto G7, Moto G7 Plus renders hint at 'waterdrop' notch design, dual-rear cameras
Highlights:

NVIDIA is working on a new mid-range GPU, say reports.

The new GPU could be called GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

It uses the company's Turing architecture.

NVIDIA has been in the news quite a lot of late. The American technology company launched the much-awaited GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card at CES only a couple of weeks ago, as part of its new ray tracing-enabled GeForce RTX series. It also showcased its DRIVE AutoPilot system, an off-the-shelf self-driving system for cars. Now, there are reports of a new mid-range graphics card from NVIDIA: the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

Graphics-card news website VideoCardz.com recently reported hearing from a couple of sources that NVIDIA may be working on a mid-range GTX-series graphics card called GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. If a report like this is to be believed, the upcoming card will become the companys first GTX-series card to use the Turing architecture.

Not belonging to the RTX seriesand therefore not supporting ray tracingthe GeForce GTX 1660 Ti should sell for a relatively lower price. But well know if thats true only when the card comes out. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is supposedly powered by a 12-nanometre FF TU116 processor, which has 1,536 CUDA cores. Similar to the GeForce RTX 2060, the memory bandwidth is estimated to be 192-bit, and the GDDR6 RAM, 6GB.

Bear in mind that we havent got so much as a peep out of NVIDIA about the new graphics card; everything we know so far about the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti comes from reported stories. So, we dont yet know when NVIDIA plans to launch the new card. When the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti comes out in the market, we expect its performance to be in and around that of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070. Only time will tell if all we predict and speculate is true.

Inline and cover image courtesy: VideoCardz.com

Related Read: CES 2019: Samsung unveils Notebook Odyssey gaming laptop with Nvidia RTX 2080
Highlights:

Spotify may launch in India on January 31.

The company is said to be hosting a launch party on Jan 31.

It is said to launch with support for music in five languages and expand later on.



Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming services overseas and there have been plenty of reports that it will soon be entering India. Now, Variety reports, citing sources, that the company could launch its services in the country by the end of this month. As per the report, Spotify is speculated to host a launch party in Mumbai, where its office is, where it might announce the availability of its services in India. Additionally, Spotify has reportedly entered into a deal with T-Series but has not accomplished the same yet with other bigger players like Sony, Universal and Warner. Nonetheless, the company might go ahead with its reported plans to commence its services in India by January 31.

If the report of Spotify securing a deal with T-series is true, the music streaming service would not have many problems in catering to users with mainstream Hindi and Bollywood music. However, it will still need to secure deals with other labels for regional music like Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and more. Spotify is said to support music in five languages at launch and is expected to expand its regional offerings later. If the launch is happening by the end of this month, Spotify is probably working hard to secure deals from labels that specialise in providing local music.

A previous report suggested that Spotify may finally launch in India in the next six months and might offer an extended free trial period, maybe for more than 30 days. Only time will tell, or an official announcement by the company, if the launch is being hastened or not. The free trial that users might initially get was reported to give them complete access to Spotify Premium, which the Swedish streaming giant offered in Vietnam and South Africa when it launched earlier this year. It was speculated that the cause of delay in Spotifys launch pertains to the length of the free trial period but Variety says that royalty bein that Spotify initially offered for the free-trial period. It is said that the royalty was considerably lower than what the competitors.

Spotify recently entered many international markets like North Africa and the Middle East, expanding its services to 78 markets globally. Spotifys India plans have been years in the making and it hinted towards an impending launch with opening an office in Mumbai and hiring 300 people in March after it was publicly listed. Even if the music streaming service finally launches in India, it will face tough competition from the likes of Gaana, JioSaavn (previously JioMusic and Saavn), Amazon Prime Music, Apple Music, Google Play Music and others.

Gaana has over 80 million subscribers and the company raised $115 million in funding from Chinese giant Tencent and Bennett Colemans Times Internet, while Saavn merged with JioMusic in a $104 million deal. There are other music services too like Airtel Wynk, Hungama, and more. Spotify would have probably launched earlier in India, were it not for the companys plans to bypass the record labels and license acts directly. The move reportedly made major music labels in India threaten to spoil Spotify's progress in the region by blocking its licenses. Although, the report states multiple sources claim the hurdle has been cleared with Daniel Ek downplaying the rumours during Spotifys earnings call in July.

Related Reads:

Spotify may finally launch in India in the next six months, could offer an extended free trial period

Netflix and Spotify given access to users' messages to integrate messaging functionalities: Facebook
Statement by Tanaiste Simon Coveney T.D. on the terrorist attack in Bogota

Press release

Statement by Tanaiste Simon Coveney T.D. on the terrorist attack in Bogota

The Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Coveney T.D., has condemned the car-bomb attack that took place on 17 January in Bogota, killing at least 21 people and injuring dozens more.

The Tanaiste stated:

I wish to extend sincere condolences to the families and friends of those killed and injured in yesterdays explosion in Bogota. The victims of this despicable attack are foremost in our thoughts at this tragic time.

I unreservedly condemn this attack, which is made all the more deplorable by the fact that the majority of the victims were police offers, either in training or serving in the line of duty.

Ireland is a strong supporter of the Colombian peace process, and we will continue to stand behind the Colombian people, and the Government of Colombia, as they strive to achieve lasting peace in their country.

ENDS

Press Office

18 January 2019

 Previous Item | Next Item 
Press release

Architecture Competition to Design New Ireland House in Tokyo Launched

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in conjunction with the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) today, January 18th, announced an international competition to create an architectural design for a new Ireland House in Tokyo, Japan.

Ireland House will be a tangible architectural expression of Irelands official relationship with Japan as well as the warm friendship with the people of Japan. When constructed, it will be the platform for Irelands official presence in the country and will include embassy premises and offices for state agencies as well as offering facilities to promote cultural exchange and to foster interaction between the Irish and local communities.

The competition, which is being administered by the RIAI, is open to architect-led design teams to design and manage the delivery of the construction of a new Ireland House in Tokyo.

The brief to entrants is to design a building that demonstrates that Ireland is at the forefront of modern international architecture, a building that captures the spirit of Ireland, including all aspects of our rich heritage, culture and Irelands position as a modern, forward looking and technology-driven nation.

The competition begins today, January 18th, and the final winner will be announced in the second half of the year.

Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Coveney T.D., said:

Japan and Ireland are strong international partners. As we celebrated 60 years of diplomatic relations in 2017, the Government decided that it was the right time to make a strong statement of our commitment to that relationship with one of the worlds most advanced economies with a rich cultural heritage. This project also forms part of the Global Ireland initiative, which aims to double our impact globally between now and 2025. I am delighted that, with a site secured, we are now moving to the next phase and I look forward to the development of a really strong design for what will be a flagship platform for the promotion of Ireland for decades to come.

Kathryn Meghen, RIAI CEO said:

The RIAI is delighted to partner with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on this competition to design Ireland House in Tokyo and welcomes the investment by Government in architecture-led design. This competition is an opportunity to promote a strong international identity of Ireland as a nation that values quality design in the built environment and the public realm.

She added: Irish architects are working internationally across all areas of construction including education, healthcare, workplace, data centres and housing. Irish architecture is in a golden period currently as the profession receives global recognition for both projects completed overseas as well as for international clients in Ireland. We look forward to continuing this partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Government to build the profile and image of Ireland across the world.

ENDS

Press Office

18 January 2019

For further information, please contact:

RIAI Contact Details: Dr.Sandra O'Connell, Director of Communications, soconnell@riai.ie, T: 016691474.

Note to Editors:

The competition is an open two-stage design contest for an Architect-led design team and their architectural design for a new Ireland House, Tokyo. It will open for registration today, 18 January 2019. Stage 1 submissions are due on 17 April, after which the Jury will select 5-7 entries for Stage 2.

The final competition outcome is expected in the second half of 2019.

Stage 1 and Stage 2 submissions will be assessed anonymously and in accordance with the requirements of the briefing information and the Competition Regulations provided to the competitors.

Full details of the competition can be found here:

https://www.riai.ie/competitions/detail/ireland_house_tokyo

The Competition Jury comprises 6 eminent persons drawn from the fields of architecture, design and diplomacy. They are:

Anne Barrington, Irish Ambassador to Japan, 2014-2018, (Chair of the Jury)

Sou Fujimoto, Director Sou Fujimoto Architects, Tokyo, Japan

Karen McEvoy, MRIAI, Director Bucholz McEvoy Architects, Ireland

Ciaran OConnor, FRIAI, State Architect, Office of Public Works, Ireland

Raymund Ryan, HRIAI, Irish architectural curator and critic, Pittsburgh, USA

Joseph Walsh, internationally-renowned Irish furniture designer, Ireland

About DFAT and Global Ireland

An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Coveney launched 'Global Ireland  Irelands Global Footprint to 2025', the Governments initiative to double the scope and impact of Irelands global footprint in the period to 2025 in June 2018.

It represents the most ambitious renewal and expansion of Irelands international presence ever undertaken in terms of diplomacy, culture, business, development cooperation, tourism and trade.

Under the initiative, the Government has already announced new Embassies in Chile, Colombia, New Zealand and Jordan, and new Consulates in Vancouver and Mumbai.

Global Ireland will expand our presence in the Asia-Pacific region. The new flagship Ireland House in Tokyo is key deliverable of this policy.

Link: https://merrionstreet.ie/MerrionStreet/en/ImageLibrary/20180622_Global_Ireland.pdf

About Ireland and Japan

Ireland has strong connections with Japan. Diplomatic relations were established in 1957 and there has been a long-term mutual commitment to partnership with Japan. It will reflect the richness and depth of the relationship, our shared values and principles, and of our respective cultures, languages and traditions.

As the countrys 10th largest trading partner and the largest source of FDI from Asia into Ireland, Japan is a significant trade partner for Ireland. According to CSO figures, total trade between Ireland and Japan was valued at 10.5 billion in 2017.

The partnership between Ireland and Japan is set to grow further with the signature of the EU Japan Strategic Partnership Agreement and the EU Japan Economic Partnership Agreement in 2018. The latter is due to enter into force on 1 February 2019 and will present significant benefits for Irish and Japanese companies.

Approximately 20,000 Japanese tourists visit Ireland every year and the number of students coming to Ireland is growing annually, while more than 1,200 Irish students have taken part in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme since Ireland began participating in 1987.

A Working Holiday arrangement is also in place between Ireland and Japan that facilitates several hundred young Japanese and Irish people to travel and work in each others countries.

About the RIAI

Founded in 1839, the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland supports and regulates the architectural profession and promotes the value that architecture brings to society for everyones benefit. Follow us on Twitter for regular updates: @RIAIonline
Hot on the heels of reaching a deal to sell its Albanian operations, OTE Group is reportedly now discussing a sale of its majority stake in Telekom Romania to a consortium of investors.

Bulgarian news website Capital quoted local businessman Spas Roussev as saying that he was working with a partner on a possible acquisition of the unit. If this deal was successful, Roussev added that they would then seek to obtain a wireless business in Macedonia.

Roussev also controls the company that earlier this week agreed to buy Telekom Albania for 50 million, subject to regulatory approval. He also controls the owner of Bulgarian operator Vivacom, and has confirmed that he is seeking to expand his involvement in the telecoms sector in the Balkans.

OTE Group holds a 54% stake in Telekom Romanias fixed-line business and around 70% of its mobile operations. It is the third largest operator in the market. If it is able to divest its holdings in both Albania and Romania, its remaining business will be focused on Greece.
Deysi, who has a 4.19 grade-point average, has already been accepted to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, but she's waiting to hear from the University of Maryland, College Park and Syracuse University before selecting her college destination. She is planning to major in cinematic visuals, journalism, or radio, television and film.
PROVO  Crews worked overnight Thursday and late into Friday to clear up to 30-feet-high snow that spilled on the highway in Provo Canyon.

"It's going really well. We've cut through a big chunk of it, and you can see through to the other side now," Utah Department of Transportation spokesman John Gleason told the Deseret News.

The canyon was reopened early Friday evening.

The department closed the canyon Thursday evening before triggering the avalanche as part of avalanche control efforts, Gleason said. The canyon remained closed after the snow overflowed onto all lanes of U.S. 189 just east of Bridal Veil Falls.

"This was really the best-case scenario. The whole idea behind avalanche control is to target these areas that are potential threats to the public and bring down these types of slides," he explained.

"I don't think anybody was anticipating this amount of snow to come down, but it's really a good thing that it did come down when we were in the middle of avalanche control work and the canyon was closed, and there were no cars in the canyon," Gleason added.

While crews were trying to clear up the snow, traffic moved "pretty smoothly" through the frontage road, Gleason said.

He said if the avalanche had happened when there was traffic in the canyon, "the results could've been catastrophic."
SALT LAKE CITY  The state approved the continued diversion of deep well water in Emigration Canyon despite some homeowners' concerns it is drying up the creek and compromising private wells.

But in the decision rendered this week by State Engineer Kent Jones, he determined he was unable to "reasonably connect the concerns" lodged over the diversion of the same quantity of water that has been happening for 22 years.

Jones said the continued diversion would not interfere with beneficial use, affect public recreation or the stream environment or prove detrimental to the public welfare, a test which must be met under state law.

"Changes in population density, climate and land development choices may affect the environment and may at times be unpopular, but these changes are more connected to the protestants' opposition than the approval or rejection of a particular water right application," the order stated.

Jones added, however, that the approval of the continued diversion of water by Emigration Improvement District and the additional wells comes with some strict requirements of hydrological monitoring.

The district, over 22 years, has been withdrawing the water to serve about 300 households in the canyons via a temporary change application that had to be renewed on an annual basis.

Because of continuing concerns over the withdrawal of 600 acre-feet of water, Jones asked the district to undergo the review process and make the diversion either permanent or discontinued.

That process kicked off a hearing and the ability for canyon residents to lodge formal protests over the district's groundwater pumping.

About 30 canyon residents on private well systems objected, asserting the district's deep wells are drying up the creek, ruining the riparian environment and drawing down their own water supplies.

The district has a monitoring system in place and blamed the drying of the stream on drought, pointing to signficant reductions in flows of Red Butte Creek as well.

Jones said a groundwater study for the Emigration Canyon area would be beneficial to "dispel fears over unknowns as uses approach the limits of the resource."

Funding from the Utah Legislature, he added, allows his office to financially participate in such a study.

A statement released by the homeowners association said the members believe Jones disregarded his statutory obligations and they are reviewing their legal options.

A decision on another application for a smaller water diversion by the district is pending.
SALT LAKE CITY  Friday marks the 28th day of the government shutdown  the longest in U.S. history. Not only has the shutdown impacted 800,000 federal employees and millions of Americans who rely on government services, it has also stoked tensions between President Donald Trump and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California.

On Wednesday, Pelosi sent Trump a letter suggesting that the presidents State of the Union address, which was scheduled for Jan. 29, be pushed back because of the shutdown. Because federal agencies including the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security havent been funded in almost a month, Pelosi wrote, it is unreasonable to expect them to be able to coordinate and provide adequate security during the speech.

Trump fired back on Thursday with a letter of his own, canceling Pelosis scheduled trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan to meet with American troops stationed abroad. Pelosi would have made the trip  which was kept secret due to security concerns  in a U.S. military plane.

In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate, Trump wrote in the letter. I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.

He followed up the letter with a tweet Friday morning:

Why would Nancy Pelosi leave the Country with other Democrats on a seven day excursion when 800,000 great people are not getting paid. Also, could somebody please explain to Nancy & her big donors in wine country that people working on farms (grapes) will have easy access in!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2019

The heated exchange has provoked frustration from both Congressional Republicans and Democrats.

Speaker Pelosis threat to cancel the State of the Union is very irresponsible and blatantly political, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said in a statement to The New York Times. President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel is also inappropriate.

The inability of Trump and Pelosi to come to terms has implications that reach far beyond Capitol Hill.

Here is a look at some groups that have been most impacted. Some may surprise you.

1. Native Americans

As Democracy Now reported Thursday, the shutdown has had a particularly significant impact on Native American communities, as the Indian Health Service is critically understaffed and a federally funded program that delivers food to Native American reservations has been stopped in its tracks. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was also forced to furlough over 50 percent of its employees, The New York Times reported.

Mark Trahant, the editor of Indian Country Today and a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, told Democracy Now, One stat that most people dont know is that 60 percent of the Indian Health system is actually run by tribes or nonprofit organizations, not the federal government. So to have those organizations have to basically bail out the federal government is really extraordinary.

He added, Indian Health Service  (is) the lowest-cost health care system in the country. And taking resources out of that just makes it worse.

2. Space agency workers

NASA employees have begun to protest the shutdown. According to the Houston Chronicle, 96 percent of all space agency workers have been impacted by the shutdown. Only 200 of the 3,055 federal employees at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston are still working  and theyre doing so in order to keep the three astronauts aboard the International Space Station alive.

3. TSA employees

TSA employees are among the 420,000 federal employees required to work because they are deemed essential. However, CNBC reported that many arent showing up to work.

David Borer, general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA, told CNBC that many are looking for paid employment because they cant feed their families.

In other words, TSA agents are beginning to look for other jobs as financial constraints become increasingly tight.

4. Federal law enforcement

The Washington Post reported that law enforcement officials have been affected by the shutdown as there is no longer enough funding for travel or training programs. Some undercover cases have also been hampered by lack of funds.

Those who are charged with protecting the nation from criminals and terrorists could be facing enormous external financial stressors as they try to stay focused on their work, the Post wrote.

Many law enforcement officials are still being required to show up to work.

5. National parks

National Geographic reported that national parks are brimming with waste due to the government shutdown, as employees havent been able to attend to toilets and trash cans. The Department of the Interior has decided to divert funds from park entrance fees to pay for cleanup and increased law enforcement. This has sparked concerns as the park service already has an $11 billion maintenance backlog that the entrance fees were going to be used against.

6. Families relying on food stamps

Around 40 million Americans depend on food stamps. Government officials in charge of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) decided to issue February food stamps early, because they werent sure if the funds would be there in several weeks. There are also concerns over whether the government will be able to issue food stamps in March, Kaiser Health News reported.

As The New York Times reported, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which is used by around 7 million Americans, has already run out of funding, with states forced to make up the deficit.

The shutdown has also impacted Utahs food assistance program, the Deseret News reported earlier this week.

7. Lyft and Uber drivers

Lyft and Uber drivers have also been hit hard by the shutdown, as fewer and fewer customers are demanding rides in the nation's capitol, according to radio station WTOP in Washington, D.C.

The riders just started disappearing and the calls just stopped coming, Luke Cho, a student at George Mason University who relies on money earned through Uber to pay for his tuition, told WTOP.

This problem has been exacerbated by federal employees taking on second jobs as Lyft and Uber drivers in order to make ends meet, Business Insider reported.

It is unclear how or when the government shutdown will come to an end. The Deseret News recently wrote an editorial suggesting a solution to bring the shutdown to a close.

If the shutdown continues, federal district courts will run out of funds by Jan. 25, The New York Times reported. This could bring civil cases to a halt, although criminal cases are expected to keep moving forward.
SALT LAKE CITY  BuzzFeed News reported Thursday night that President Donald Trump directed his then-attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow Tower project.

According to the report, Trump supported a plan to visit Russia during the presidential campaign to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to kick-start tower negotiations.

Special counsel Robert Muellers office learned about these details through an interview with witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, texts and documents, according to the BuzzFeed News report. Cohen then acknowledged the instructions during interviews, BuzzFeed report.

Other news organizations, like CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times, have not backed up this reporting.

According to the Associated Press, "Democrats are vowing to investigate whether President Donald Trump directed his personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a Moscow real estate project."

Reaction: Trump has not reacted yet to the report.

Trumps lawyer Rudy Giuliani said, If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge.

A White House spokesman did not deny the report in a Fox News interview.

WATCH: White House Spokesman Refuses to Deny Trump Directed Michael Cohen to Lie to Congress https://t.co/eUhTcD523Z pic.twitter.com/HYGenNYoTX  Mediaite (@Mediaite) January 18, 2019

BuzzFeeds report ignited a spark on Twitter. Members of Congress, pundits and experts spoke out about the report and how it will impact the president.

Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro said, "If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached."

If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached.  Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) January 18, 2019

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said, "Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP. Mueller shouldn't end his inquiry, but it's about time for him to show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act."

Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP. Mueller shouldn't end his inquiry, but it's about time for him to show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act. https://t.co/ekG5VSBS8G  Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 18, 2019

California Rep. Ted Lieu said, "Based on the BuzzFeed report and numerous other articles showing @realDonaldTrump committed Obstruction of Justice and other possible felonies, it is time for the House Judiciary Committee to start holding hearings to establish a record of whether @POTUS committed high crimes."

Based on the Buzzfeed report and numerous other articles showing @realDonaldTrump committed Obstruction of Justice and other possible felonies, it is time for the House Judiciary Committee to start holding hearings to establish a record of whether @POTUS committed high crimes.  Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 18, 2019

California Rep. Adam Schiff said, "The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date. We will do whats necessary to find out if its true."

The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date. We will do whats necessary to find out if its true. https://t.co/GljBAFqOjh  Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 18, 2019

Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said, "Incredible. @realDonaldTrump suborned #perjury so that @MichaelCohen212 would lie to #Congress and obstruct its investigation into whether a hostile foreign power subverted our democracy  oh, and his campaign may have colluded, too."

Incredible. @realDonaldTrump suborned #perjury so that @MichaelCohen212 would lie to #Congress and obstruct its investigation into whether a hostile foreign power subverted our democracy-oh, and his campaign may have colluded, too #trumprussia #Collusion https://t.co/DLObIV2fZ3  Sheila Jackson Lee (@JacksonLeeTX18) January 18, 2019

Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline said, "If the President directed Cohen to lie to Congress, that is obstruction of justice. Period. Full stop."

If the President directed Cohen to lie to Congress, that is obstruction of justice. Period. Full stop.  David Cicilline (@davidcicilline) January 18, 2019

California Rep. Eric Swalwell said, "MORE evidence of collusion. If @realDonaldTrump directed his lawyer to lie, it was to conceal the underlying allegation from being exposed as true. #TheyColluded."

MORE evidence of collusion. If @realDonaldTrump directed his lawyer to lie, it was to conceal the underlying allegation from being exposed as true. #TheyColluded https://t.co/2Uvze6vl4B  Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) January 18, 2019

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz said, "I mean everything feels like a bombshell and we are all numb but Im pretty sure if this story is true its  Im going to be careful with my words here  something that congress must investigate thoroughly."

I mean everything feels like a bombshell and we are all numb but Im pretty sure if this story is true its - Im going to be careful with my words here - something that congress must investigate thoroughly.  Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) January 18, 2019

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said, "If this report is true, Donald Trump committed obstruction of justicea felony and a potentially impeachable offense. I am glad that the House will be investigating this serious issue."

If this report is true, Donald Trump committed obstruction of justicea felony and a potentially impeachable offense. I am glad that the House will be investigating this serious issue. https://t.co/pBg8Agytk5  Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 18, 2019

Georgia Rep. Doug Collins said, "Its disappointing that leaks from law enforcement sources about an admitted liars account of his own lies continue to populate the newsfeed and leave us without concrete evidence. Im still looking forward to the long-anticipated, closely-held report from the Special Counsel."

Its disappointing that leaks from law enforcement sources about an admitted liars account of his own lies continue to populate the newsfeed and leave us without concrete evidence. Im still looking forward to the long-anticipated, closely-held report from the Special Counsel.  Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) January 18, 2019

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said, "We cant let the constant stream of shocking news from this administration make us numb. These allegations are extremely troubling. We need answers."

We cant let the constant stream of shocking news from this administration make us numb. These allegations are extremely troubling.



We need answers. https://t.co/ZpQYHHqNiu  Michael Bennet (@SenatorBennet) January 18, 2019

This story will be updated.
SALT LAKE CITY  As early as a week and a half before her murder, Lauren McCluskey and her mother told University of Utah police that they were concerned about her safety.

"Im worried that hes dangerous, Jill McCluskey, Lauren McCluskey's mother, told emergency dispatchers on Oct. 10 about the man her daughter had been dating.

"He was lying to her. Hes actually a sexual offender, and lied about his age and things that like."

On Thursday, the U. released 911 calls that dispatchers for University police received from the McCluskey family, as well as calls dispatchers made to officers in the field.

Lauren McCluskey, 21, was shot and killed near her campus dorm on Oct. 22 by Melvin Shawn Rowland, 37, a convicted sex offender who was on the Utah Sex Offender Registry at the time of the killing. Rowland lied to McCluskey about his name and age. When McCluskey found out who he really was, she told police that Rowland attempted to blackmail her by demanding money in exchange for not distributing intimate pictures of her. He also seemingly tried to lure McCluskey out of her dorm alone.

In a tweet Thursday, Jill McCluskey said the recordings were "painful" to hear.

"Hopefully they will have a positive impact on safety for women on college campuses going forward," she wrote.

Im so worried about her that something will happen to her. Shes dealing with a bad person who lied to her.  Jill McCluskey, Lauren McCluskey's mother, to a police dispatcher

The calls began on Oct. 10. An emotional Jill McCluskey called dispatchers requesting help for her daughter. She said Rowland was trying to arrange a place and time that he could give Lauren's car back to her. But she didn't want her daughter meeting with him alone.

"She found out hes a bad person and she broke up with him and he has her car, she tells a dispatcher in a recording.

For the next two hours, several calls were placed between Jill McCluskey, Lauren McCluskey and a police dispatcher.

Lauren McCluskey, who speaks slowly and sounds unsure during her calls, initially declines an offer by the dispatcher to either have an officer or a campus security officer with her when the car is returned, or to have the car dropped off at the police station.

She eventually agrees in the recordings to have a security officer in the area as a standby. The dispatcher then calls Jill McCluskey back to inform her of the plan.

"Im so worried about her that something will happen to her, McCluskey again tells the dispatcher. "Shes dealing with a bad person who lied to her."

The dispatcher calling the officer to be on standby tells him, "The mom was really worried her daughter was going to get hurt tonight."

About 30 minutes after the initial call, and apparently after talking to her mom, Lauren McCluskey called police back and agreed to have a security officer escort her to the parking lot of Rice Eccles Stadium where she would retrieve her car.

Jill McCluskey sounds relieved when informed of this decision.

"I feel like he has a little bit of control over her, she tells the dispatcher, referring to Rowland.

Two days later, on Oct. 12, Lauren McCluskey began receiving odd messages saying that Rowland had been in an accident, followed by subsequent messages saying that he was in the hospital, had died, and then messages asking if she wanted to go to his funeral.

"I think theyre trying to lure me somewhere, she told dispatchers in a call.

According to U. police, that call started "a formal police investigation." An officer contacted McCluskey, but university officials say that call was not recorded.

The next morning, just before 9 a.m., Lauren McCluskey called 911 again, this time saying that Rowland was trying to extort her.

"Im dealing with a situation where Im being blackmailed for money. A photo of me and my ex, theyre threatneing to send it out to everyone and hes asking for $1,000, she tells the dispatcher.

But at that time, University Police Chief Dale Brophy said Rowland was one of several suspects as he was "spoofing" other phone numbers to make it look like several people were contacting McCluskey. Still, Brophy admitted that officers never attempted to make direct contact with Rowland.

Later that afternoon, about 5:45 p.m., McCluskey called Salt Lake police dispatch. According to Jill McCluskey, the calls to Salt Lake City were made "out of desperation," hoping they might be able to do something. Dispatchers, however, could only transfer her call back to the U. Once she was transferred, Lauren McCluskey told the dispatcher, "I came in earlier today and filled out a report, and that she called 911 because she wanted to "speed things up."

The next call to University of Utah police dispatchers came on Oct. 22 at 8:19 p.m. Matt McCluskey's call to 911 from his home in Washington was transferred to the U.

"My daughter, Lauren McCluskey, was talking to her mom, and then she just started saying, No, no, no, no, no like someone might have been grabbing her or something, he tells dispatchers in a recording of the call.

Jill McCluskey told dispatchers that her daughter's phone line was still open, like the phone was dropped, but no one was talking. About seven minutes into the father's call, another student picked up Lauren McCluskey's phone and can be heard saying she found the phone on the ground and Lauren's backpack nearby.

A report released by an independent panel assigned to look into how U. police handled the McCluskey case concluded, among other points, that the department was understaffed, inexperienced, and that there was a need for better communication between police and other departments on campus. The report also found none of the officers had conducted a proper criminal background check on Rowland.

Despite the many mistakes, the report and U. President Ruth Watkins stated that it was impossible to say whether McCluskey's death could have been prevented. The McCluskey family issued a strongly worded three-page statement the next day, saying they believe the murder could have been prevented and that the school "failed" their daughter due to the police department's "unforgivable lapse of judgment and professional competency."

On Thursday, Brophy admitted, "Those tapes are extremely hard to listen to knowing the outcome."

The dispatcher on Oct. 10 who arranged for a security officer to accompany Lauren McCluskey did an "excellent job," he said. But those calls also prompted additional training among dispatchers and officers about how to recognize signs of domestic violence, he said.

The chief said several times Thursday that he is always evaluating his department and the internal process and working to make improvements. In the McCluskey case, he said there has been a lot of hindsight by the public.

"If we knew that was the outcome, any of my officers would do anything they could to help somebody," he said. "We knew what we knew, when we knew it."

Among the policy changes that have been made since McCluskey's death, officers are now required to do a "mandatory offender information check when a suspect has been identified in criminal cases and all matters more significant than routine traffic stops," according to the university.

Other changes include making face-to-face contact with victims, when possible, the same day a complaint is filed, routinely "making use" of law enforcement databases. A new system was also put into place so that critical voicemails and emails are received even when an officer is off duty.
At one time, the world was dominated by god-kings. This ancient idea of divine kingship  that the king is either an incarnate god or the son of a god  was found throughout the world of antiquity, among peoples as separated and isolated as the Tibetans and the Maya.

Though once perhaps the dominant political ideology of the world, it has now essentially disappeared. In one well-known case, for example, the United States insisted that Emperor Hirohito reject his divine status as part of Japans surrender in World War II. Some might say that the Dalai Lama of Tibet is the last divine king. But, although he is considered to be the reincarnation of the Avalokiteshvara Buddha, and thus divine, he is no longer a king, since Tibet's sovereignty has been rejected by both the Republic of China and the current People's Republic of China. But until 2008, Nepal was ruled by god-kings, who were considered to be incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu.

Kingship in Nepal was thus the one last manifestation of the Hindu devaraja (god-king) ideology that was once widespread throughout India and southeast Asia. The Muslim conquest of India, followed by that of the British, and the rise of democratic ideals in the 20th century fundamentally changed the basis of political power in Hindu majority countries.

As divine kings, the rulers of Nepal held both political and spiritual power  to the extent that those concepts could even be separated in the divine kingship. As such, their duties included securing the favor and blessings of the gods, which in large part was achieved by temple building and by participating in and supporting ritual worship.

Early Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, could thus be accurately described as a royal temple city whose main function was the establishment and maintenance of temples and temple rites. To show his respect for the gods, each king of Nepal was expected to build at least one temple as well as to maintain the numerous temples built by his ancestors. Some of the ancient temples still have copper plates that praise the gods and honor the royal builder.

Kathmandu thus became known as the city of temples, with more than 60 major ancient examples of them, not to mention innumerable small Hindu shrines and several large Buddhist stupas.

The temples generally surround the durbar or central plaza of the city. The Nepalese kings also built their palace nearby, allowing them to better fulfill their divine ritual duties at the temples. In this, they resemble the biblical Solomon, who built his palace adjacent to the Jerusalem temple (1 Kings 7:1-9), where he offered sacrifice and called upon the Lord to bless Israel (1 Kings 8). But as time progressed, the continual building of temples transformed much of the durbar into a warren of alleys. If one temple pleases the gods, the thinking went, many temples will certainly please them more.

Unfortunately, the Nepalese royal family frequently behaved in an all too human manner. In 2001, Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah, the heir to the throne, massacred his father and 10 other members of the royal family, including most of the line of succession. The senior survivor, the former kings brother, Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah, was crowned shortly thereafter. But the Nepalese people, facing political anarchy, Maoist insurrection, and civil war, deposed him in 2008, creating a parliamentary government. Thus ended the last divine king.

In 2015, a tragic and devastating earthquake struck Nepal, near the capital Kathmandu, killing nearly 9,000 people and destroying many of the countrys marvelous temples. Since then, relief and reconstruction money has poured in, but it doesn't seem to have gotten through to the temples. Thus, many of Nepals great temples now lie in ruins. Some traditionalists blame this disaster on the countrys abandonment of the traditional order of divine kingship.

But divine incarnations have not ceased in Nepal. The Kumari, Princess, or Living Goddess, is widely believed to be a divine manifestation of the female divine power. This divine power becomes repeatedly incarnate in a pre-pubescent girl, leaving her when she reaches puberty to select another vessel while the former Kumari returns to ordinary life. Although she does not rule, the current Kumari, Trishna Shakya, appears each day on a balcony in her palace in the Kathmandu Durbar, manifesting divine power and blessing her worshippers.

Daniel Peterson founded the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, chairs The Interpreter Foundation and blogs on Patheos. William Hamblin is the author of several books on premodern history. They speak only for themselves.
SALT LAKE CITY  The Democratic candidates to replace Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah, as Salt Lake County mayor will participate in two special election events next week.

On Sunday, Jan. 20, the four hopefuls  Salt Lake County Councilman Arlyn Bradshaw, Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jennie Wilson, Shireen Ghorbani and Stone Fonua  will join the Young Democrats of Utah for a forum to explain their vision for Salt Lake County and how their policies will matter to young people.

The event, which will take place at 3 p.m. at the Utah Democratic Party headquarters, 825 N. 300 West, is free and open to the public.

The candidates will then debate each other on Thursday, Jan. 24, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., at Jordan High School, 95 Beetdigger Blvd. in Sandy.

That event, sponsored by the Interest and Identity caucuses of the Democratic Party, is also open to the public.

The Salt Lake County Democratic Partys central committee will then meet on Saturday, Jan. 26, at 10 a.m. at Corner Canyon High School in Draper to choose who will serve out the remaining two years of McAdams mayoral term.
SALT LAKE CITY  Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.'s work and sermons helped inspire the nation  and our leaders  to change century-old racist laws and later, give many of workers a three-day weekend. If you're looking for something to do for the weekend or your day off, we've got you covered. From "The Little Prince" opening to Sunday night's lunar eclipse, there's plenty to pack your three-day weekend.

Booker T. Jones

After a sold-out show at the State Room last year, R&B legend Booker T. Jones returns to Utah Friday night. This time around, the Joe McQueen Quartet opens the show. The chance to see Jones and McQueen  a 99-year-old saxophonist who has lived in Ogden for more than 70 years  together is an opportunity you shouldn't miss. Jan. 18, 7 p.m.-10 p.m., Peerys Egyptian Theater, 2415 Washington Blvd, Ogden, $25 in advance, $30 day of show, $23 for students and seniors (866-472-4627 or egyptiantheaterogden.com)

The Little Prince

The Utah Opera is bringing composer Rachel Portman and playwright Nicholas Wright's The Little Prince to life this weekend. The production is based on French writer Antoine de Saint-Exuperys famous novella, and we're hoping it captures the story's childlike wonder for familes to enjoy.

Its about becoming as a little child. You could say its a rather Christian message, actually, Wright previously told the Deseret News. Utah Opera's production stars 11-year-old Madeleine Choir School member Nitai Fluchel as the little prince. Jan. 19 and 25, 7:30 p.m.; Jan. 21 and 23, 7 p.m.; and Jan. 27, 2 p.m., Capitol Theatre, 50 W. 200 South, $15-$112 (801-533-5626 or utahopera.org)

Butterfly Biosphere

Thanksgiving Point has a new attraction opening Friday, and it's a warm one.

"We wanted to feel like you're on the beach in Central America, which is kind of unbearably hot and humid if you're used to a Utah winter," Thanksgiving Point's head entomologist, Zak Gezon, told the Deseret News about their new Butterfly Biosphere. Opening Jan. 18, Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. with timed ticketing, 3003 N. Thanksgiving Way, Lehi, $20 for adults, $15 for children 3-12 and seniors, free for Thanksgiving Point members and children 2 and under (thanksgivingpoint.org)

Total lunar eclipse

Keep your fingers crossed that the sky is clear Sunday night  if so, we've got a chance to see a full lunar eclipse. The moon should be totally covered at 9:41 p.m. and begin to emerge about an hour later. For best viewings, youll want to get as far away from light pollution as you can. However, if youre hoping to see it closer to the city, you have two free options: the Salt Lake Astronomical Society will have telescopes in the Taylorsville Harmons' parking lot, and the University of Utah is holding an eclipse watch in the South Physics Observatory. Jan 20, 8:30-11:50 p.m., Harmons Taylorsville, 5454 S. Redwood Road, Taylorsville (www.slas.us); and University of Utah, South Physics Building, 125 S. 1400 East (observatory.astro.utah.edu)

Nova Chamber Music Series

The Nova Chamber Music Series is opening 2019 with Earthbound, a concert performed by some of Utahs top musicians. The performance celebrates nature and our connection to it, and embraces composers old and new. There will also be a choreographed performance of Chance Has Spoken, a chamber ballet composed by Iranian-American composer Gity Razaz. Jan. 20, 3 p.m., Libby Gardner Hall, 1375 Presidents Circle, $20 general admission, $18 for seniors, free for students (novaslc.org)
SALT LAKE CITY  The couple who called 911 about finding Jayme Closs have a request: Give the girl the $50,000 reward.

Whats going on: Closs, a 13-year-old girl from Wisconsin, went missing back in October 2018. She recently turned up in Gordon, Wisconsin, on Jan. 10by approaching Jeanne Nutter, who was walking her dog at the time. Nutter brought Closs to her neighbor's house, Peter and Kristin Kasinskas, who called 911 saying Closs had returned home.

Reward: Authorities dont know what to do with the $50,000 reward. Peter Kasinskas wants Closs to receive it since she got herself out of danger, he told The Associated Press.

The FBI and The Jennie-O Turkey Store each contributed $25,000 to the reward, which is still currently under review, USA Today reports.

Authorities are deciding whether to offer the reward money to anyone since Closs was found alive, CNN reports.

But Closs heroics are not lost on authorities: "Jayme was the hero in the case. Jayme was the champion that finally said enough is enough," Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said. "We can't be more proud of Jayme."

Fitzgerald said he will work with the FBI to discuss the reward and where it ends up, according to CNN.

How she escaped: According to CNN, Closs was kept in captivity for three months after she was kidnapped by Jake Patterson, who confessed to killing Closs parents. She said to investigators that she was often forced under her captor's bed and blocked in by weights.

One day last week, Patterson left the home for hours so Closs pushed aside the weights blocking her, put on a pair of his oversize shoes and ran outside the home. Thats when she found Nutter.

Read more: As The New York Times reported this week, Patterson eluded those living in Gordon, Wisconsin, often hiding in plain sight.
SALT LAKE CITY  Impeach Donald Trump.

Thats the title of The Atlantics March cover story, written by senior editor Yoni Appelbaum. Its not the first article that argues for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. But it is one of the few articles that emphasizes process over product  it is less interested in the actual impeachment of Trump than in the benefits of going through the impeachment process. Its also an argument for why Congress shouldnt be afraid to exercise its power to impeach our country's chief executive in general  sometimes the process can help to heal a fractured nation, Appelbaum argues.

Here are five key takeaways from Appelbaums article.

1. Whether or not Trump is actually impeached matters less than beginning the process of impeachment.

Appelbaum writes that many of the benefits of impeachment accrue irrespective of its ultimate result. Impeachment is a process, not an outcome.

This stance is essentially analogous to saying, Its not about the destination, its about the journey.

Appelbaum argues that even if Trump isnt impeached, going through the process of impeachment will achieve its intended effect in five ways. First, it will take the ability to control public conversation out of the presidents hands. Second, because impeachment proceedings take up so much time and energy, they would curtail Trump's efforts to advance the undemocratic elements of his agenda. Third, the proceedings would help separate fact from fiction by distilling the list of things Trump has been accused of into a list of things that it can be proven he did. Fourth, it would minimize political violence by centering the Trump debates in Congressional hearings, not the public sphere. Fifth, an impeachment process would reduce Trump's future political prospects.

2. Trump deserves to be impeached because he has violated the presidential oath of office.

Appelbaum argues that Trump has violated the oath of office in several key ways. He has prioritized his personal gain over the common good, as exemplified by his use of the presidential platform to promote his own financial interests, including Mar-a-Lago and Trump International Hotel on Washington, D.C.s Pennsylvania Avenue. He has also required that government officials pledge their loyalty to him, rather than to the public  he told ex-FBI director James Comey, whom he later fired, I need loyalty. I expect loyalty.

Trump has also shown a lack of respect for the rule of law, attacking Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Special Counsel Robert Mueller and complicating Muellers ability to conduct the Russia investigation. Lastly, he hasnt respected Constitutional liberties, blocking entry to the United States based on religion (although this decision was later upheld by the Supreme Court) and referring to the press as the enemy of the people.

Appelbaum takes pains to point out that key Republicans have also questioned Trump's worthiness to bear the presidential title, including the late John McCain, R-Arizona, and freshman Utah senator Mitt Romney, both recent Republican presidential nominees.

3. The power to impeach a president exists for a reason, and we shouldn't be afraid to exercise it.

Many people fear that impeaching a president would lead to prolonged political and social instability.

But why would the Founding Fathers have included a provision for impeachment in the Constitution, if it endangered the peace, order and stability of the United States? Appelbaum asks rhetorically.

Of course, he points out, the most important check on the presidency is voters, who every four years have the opportunity to vote a president out of office if he or she isnt performing satisfactorily.

But the framers (of the Constitution) were concerned that a president could abuse his authority in ways that would undermine the democratic process and that could not wait to be addressed. So they created a mechanism for considering whether the president is subverting the rule of law of pursuing his own self-interest at the expense of the general welfare  in short, whether his continued tenure in office poses a threat to the republic. This mechanism is impeachment, Appelbaum writes.

4. Trumps impeachment would hinge on congressional interpretation of the constitutional phrase high crimes and misdemeanors.

In the Constitution, impeachable offenses are Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Treason and bribery have pretty straightforward definitions, and Trump can't be accused of either of them. However, the phrase high crimes and misdemeanors has proved harder to pin down, Appelbaum writes.

According to Yale law professor Charles L. Black, an authority on the interpretation of the clause, not all crimes are impeachable offenses, and not all impeachable offenses are crimes, Appelbaum reports.

Black has argued high crimes and misdemeanors should share key characteristics with treason and bribery: they are extremely serious, they corrupt and subvert government and the political process, and they are self-evidently wrong to any person with a shred of honor.

Appelbaum further clarifies the phrase with a 1974 House Judiciary Committee staff report, written during the Watergate investigation to impeach Richard Nixon, which defines impeachable acts as those that undermin(e) the integrity of office, disregard of constitutional duties and oath of office, arrogation of power, abuse of the governmental process, adverse impact on the system of government.

5. Impeaching Trump would not backfire or make things worse.

Some worry that moving to impeach Trump would only weaken the presidency and force the president to bow to Congress will, which could set a dangerous precedent.

Appelbaum argues that defenders of executive prerogatives should be the first to recognize that the presidency has more to gain than to lose from Trumps impeachment, because Trump has done more to weaken executive authority than any recent president.

Because of some of Trumps orders, Appelbaum writes, judges have set precedents that will hem in future presidents' ability to make their own orders. In addition, Congress is considering measures to curtail his authority, and members of his own administration and party have written scathing op-eds against him.

His opponents repeatedly aim at the man but hit the office, Appelbaum writes.

In addition, Appelbaum dismisses the concern that a move to impeach Trump would only make him more popular (which happened with former president Bill Clinton).

Appelbaum ends his essay by writing, "The gravest danger facing the country is not a Congress that seeks to measure the president against his oath  it is a president who fails to measure up to that solemn promise."

Although some members of Congress and other activists have introduced measures to impeach Trump, they haven't gone anywhere.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, recently told USA Today, If there's to be grounds for impeachment of President Trump  and Im not seeking those grounds  that would have to be so clearly bipartisan in terms of acceptance of it before I think we should go down any impeachment path.
SALT LAKE CITY  A bill to repeal and replace the Medicaid expansion ballot initiative approved by voters is now being revised to reverse a possible delay in getting health coverage for at least some of the low-income Utahns.

"We changed our minds," the bill's sponsor, Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, said Thursday. "The people around me  and myself included  felt like we could do something now."

Earlier this week, Christensen told the Deseret News he intended the bill to hold off on additional coverage until the federal government approved a waiver needed for a scaled-back version of Medicaid expansion with a lower cost to the state.

Now, the bill will create what the senator called a "bridge plan," partially expanding Medicaid to Utahns earning below 100 percent of the federal poverty level using money raised by the 0.15 percent sales tax rate increase in the ballot initiative.

Christensen's new approach comes the day after Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox said he and Gov. Gary Herbert are not anticipating any delay in implementing expanded Medicaid coverage.

Proposition 3 puts in place the full Medicaid expansion available under the Affordable Care Act that provides coverage to those earning below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, starting April 1, the same time the tax increase takes effect.

Christensen said under his bill, both the sales tax increase and the partial plan would also start April 1. He said about 100,000 Utahns would be covered under his proposal, compared to 150,000 under full expansion.

The plan would stay in place, he said, while Utah officials try to negotiate the same 90-10 federal funding match offered for full Medicaid expansion. A similar effort last year failed.

He said the state would have to pay the traditional 30 percent share of Medicaid for the partial plan and there may only be enough money available to keep the program going for six months.

The sales tax increase is anticipated to collect some $88 million annually, money that's supposed to cover the state's share under a 90-10 match while bringing in more than $800 million in federal funding.

Under a 70-30 match, the additional revenue would not last as long or result in as much federal funding.

Just how the state would continue to pay for the bridge plan if the federal government doesn't agree to cover a bigger share of the costs is yet to be determined, Christensen said.

"We don't have the details worked out but it'll stay," he said. "We're not going to kick them off."

The governor's deputy chief of staff, Paul Edwards, said in a statement that given the impact of Medicaid on the budget, it's not surprising lawmakers "would want to examine the fiscal soundness" of expanding the program.

"Any modifications would need to be done in a compassionate and responsible way," Edwards said. He said the governor's office will be watching closely for "reasonable efforts to improve and sustain" the voter-approved expansion.

"We trust that all involved in this review understand the importance of honoring the voters' desire to see coverage expanded to those previously excluded from federal support," he said.

Cox said Wednesday the administration doesn't "think there's going to be a delay in implementation on Medicaid expansion. I could be wrong. (In a) 45-day legislative session, anything can happen."

But the lieutenant governor said the administration is "moving forward as if it's going to be implemented under the original timeline as expected." Cox said, however, money is an issue with full expansion.

"It's very clear that tax increase is not going to cover the entire amount of the expansion," he said, adding the governor's office and lawmakers are grappling with "how are we going to pay for this."

Christensen said that legislative analysts have calculated that it would take $105 million to pay for full expansion next year, not the $88 million expected from the sales tax increase and that by 2023, the program would fall $45 million short.

Legislative leaders have expressed concerns about the price tag for the Medicaid expansion approved by voters, but promised any alternative plan would be similar to what Proposition 3 provided.

Under Christensen's original proposal, the full expansion passed by voters would have in effect been repealed and his more limited plan would not have been put in place until the 90-10 funding match was approved.

The 2018 Legislature approved a partial Medicaid expansion plan but was unable to get the Trump administration to approve the waiver needed for the additional federal match.

"I don't understand why people in any way think this would be different," said Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful, a medical doctor and longtime supporter of expanding Medicaid coverage.

He said if the state wants to pursue a waiver for a more limited plan, it makes more sense financially to let Proposition 3 take effect and then replace it should the federal government OK the 90-10 match.

"I just cannot understand, in the name of trying to save the state's budget, why we would choose a plan that would force us to pay 30 percent instead of 10 percent," Ward said.

Christensen has said it would be difficult on the 50,000 Utahns who earn between 100 percent and 138 percent of the federal poverty level to first be eligible for Medicaid expansion and then have the program taken away.

But Ward said if there is finally federal approval for the higher match for a more limited program, those same Utahns are still able to purchase heavily subsidized insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

"To me, it seems pretty simple," he said, acknowledging that the proposed bridge plan would be better than a delay. "Honestly, I'm glad people are talking about this in the context of making sure people have coverage."

Contributing: Katie McKellar
MILLCREEK  Two armed men were arrested following a chaotic scene in Millcreek on Thursday that included a hit-and-run crash and an elderly couple being carjacked.

Just after noon, there was a hit-and-run crash near 3900 South and 900 East, said Unified Police Sgt. Melody Gray. No injuries were reported.

The suspect vehicle was able to continue driving for a little bit before it stopped and two men got out, she said. The men, both armed with handguns, jumped into the back seat of a car driven by an elderly couple that was stopped and they ordered the couple to drive away, she said.

Unified police were responding to the area by that time, Gray said. One officer happened to see one of the suspects pop his head up from the back seat of the elderly couple's vehicle, she said. That car was then pulled over and both men again attempted to run.

One man was quickly arrested but fought with officers, according to Gray. Officers were forced to deploy a Taser. The other man was also arrested a little while after that.

Cory Terry Webb, 24, and Justin R. Sheridan, 24, were both arrested, according to Unified police.

According to an affidavit filed in 3rd District Court, Webb had "a large amount of narcotics" in his possession when he was arrested.

Students at nearby Olympus Junior High and Crestview Elementary schools were briefly instructed to shelter in place as police looked for the outstanding suspects.

The incident happened on the two-year anniversary of the death of Unified police officer Doug Barney, who was killed in the line of duty. Barney was investigating a hit and run in the Holladay area when he was shot by a fleeing suspect.

Court documents show that Webb has an extensive criminal history in Utah dating back to 2013.

In 2016, Webb pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery, theft by receiving stolen property and failure to stop or respond at command of police. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to shoplifting.
SALT LAKE CITY  Get ready, Utah: Winter is coming.

A Pacific storm will run through Utah and cause all sorts of changes to the local weather.

Rain will begin to fall on Thursday before turning into snow, which will fall above 8,000 feet on Thursday.

The snow will drop on the valley floor on Thursday night, according to KSL-TV.

WINTER STORM WARNING to pass on.... pic.twitter.com/X2Q6wgIhVi  Grant Weyman (@KSLweyman) January 17, 2019

Utah residents will wake up to snow on the ground Friday morning with 1 to 3 inches.

The National Weather Service offered expected totals:

Salt Lake City can expect 2 to 3 inches.

Park City will see 8 to 12 inches.

Provo will have 3 to 4 inches.

See details of the coming storm below.
LOGAN  Utah State's track and field teams are slated to travel to Bozeman, Montana, for the Montana State Dual Meet Invite on Friday, Jan. 18. The one-day event will feature USU, Idaho State, Montana and the host school, Montana State.

The action is slated to begin at 2:30 p.m., at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse with the men's and women's weight throws, as well as the men's and women's shot put. The day concludes at 8:35 p.m., with the women's and men's 4x400-meter relay.

Fans can watch the meet live at WatchBigSky.com.

Utah State's indoor track and field teams won 11 events and collected 53 top-five finishes last weekend at the Boise State-hosted Bronco Invitational. On the women's side, senior Brenn Flint won the shot put with a heave of 15.91 meters, while senior Jennifer Christensen won the high jump with a personal-best height of 1.71 meters. Senior Presli Hutchison won the 3,000 meters with a time of 10:14.87, sophomore Katie Struthers won the mile with a personal-best time of 5:11.87 and sophomore Karen Christensen won the 600 meters with a time of 1:37.29.

Junior Kyle Morris led the Aggie men as he won the weight throw with a toss of 16.22 meters and placed second in the shot put with a personal-best-tying throw of 16.25 meters. Sophomore Josh Barclay also performed well as he won the shot put with a distance of 16.57 meters.

Other event winners on the men's side included junior Kyle Brost in the triple jump with a leap of 14.61 meters, junior Dylan Barker in the 600 meters with a time of 1:22.78, sophomore Luke Bailey in the 3,000 meters with a time of 8:16.79, freshman Chandler Obray in the high jump with a leap of 2.05 meters and freshman Roman Ruiz in the pole vault with a height of 4.95 meters.

Utah State's 4x400-meter relay teams also performed well. On the men's side, junior Chad Artist, freshman Mikhail Kidd, junior Tyler Lloyd and freshman Spencer Eldridge placed first with a time of 3:20.74.
SALT LAKE CITY  There arent any late fees when you stream.

HUM (or Hear Utah Music), a new service from the Salt Lake City Public Library, offers streaming music from a wide array of Utah-based musicians. Anyone with an internet connection can access HUM for free. (If you want to actually download the music to a device, youll need a library card.)

The collection is modest at this point  40 albums from a wide range of artists  but thats growing: Every August and February, the library accepts submissions during a three-week period, which are then assessed by a jury of local music experts, and the artists selected for the collection get $200 for participating.

Its an interesting development  one that shows how modern libraries are adapting both to new technologies and a communitys needs. Its also part of a growing movement among libraries across North America, which are starting to offer similar streaming services revolving around local music.

There is this real need for this specific thing. Theres not a great way for libraries to share local digital content like this online.  Kelly Hiser, cofounder of Rabble

Filling a unique niche

As it turns out, making a streaming service is pretty hard.

We always came across the same hurdles, said Jason Rabb, a librarian at the downtown branch who oversees its music collections. Like building a website: We didnt have resources to build and maintain a website that can stream and download music. And licensing was always an issue. How do we track down the people that have the copyright for this music?

Rabb is a musician himself, and said hes wanted something like HUM for the past five years. The library has an extensive local music collection, in the form of CDs. But logistically, a streaming service was beyond the librarys normal capabilities.

Enter Rabble, a Wisconsin-based startup that tackles these exact problems. The company currently works with about a dozen libraries across the U.S. and Canada, including ones in Seattle, Nashville, Portland and Austin. Providing efficient software for both streaming and licensing, Rabble gives libraries the necessary infrastructure and assistance for building their own streaming collections.

While its software is billed as open source, the logistics of making Rabble functional requires a lot of expertise. According to their website, participating libraries pay a $14,000 setup fee, plus an annual subscription fee scaled to library's population size. According to Jason Rabb, Salt Lakes subscription fee is approximately right there in the middle of the bottom ($1,500) and top ($16,000) tier.

That cost may seem high, but launching a streaming service like this is complicated. Participating libraries have to work with a citys IT department, with the participating musicians, a collections jurors, learn how to operate the sites back end  the list goes on and on.

According to Rabb, Rabble does a lot of this coordinating for the libraries: Theyre sort of fluent in all these languages, he said. Its such a unique and specific program that theyve built.

Kelly Hiser, one of Rabbles cofounders, told the Deseret News that most e-content vendors use a pay scale based on the size of a collection or how much its used, rather than population size.

I think public libraries have done an incredible job on many fronts, in terms of keeping up with technology, Hiser said. But in terms of digital lending  things like e-books and music libraries  libraries have really not gotten great deals from their vendors in those arenas.

There is this real need for this specific thing, she added. Theres not a great way for libraries to share local digital content like this online, especially in a way that empowers libraries to work with musicians to build the collection.

Sound judgment

So, how does Rabble work? The companys software (called MUSICat) gives an interface for musicians to submit their music and bios. From there, libraries and jurors use the interface to hear and rate the music, leave comments for other jurors to see and process licensing agreements with musicians. A library can then host the music/photos/bios on its streaming website.

When the Salt Lake Library closed its call for submissions last August, it had received approximately 200 entries.

There were a lot of submissions, but the library made it so easy to digest that stuff, said Brad Wheeler, KUAAs director of programming, who was among HUMs jurors last August. And I liked that we were able to have a dialogue with each other, and read each others comments about the music that wed listened to, and why we liked it.

The jurors kind of give the collection credibility in the community, Rabb added.

Conquer Monster, a Salt Lake electronic band composed of Joshua Faulkner and Daniel Romero, was among those selected for the HUM collection last August. According to Faulkner, a lot of local buzz for submissions came from owners of Diabolical Records, and from the musicians who regularly perform at the downtown record store.

From a historical standpoint, HUM preserves a cross-section of the local music scene, and it was exciting to be a small part of the local music history, Faulkner said in an email. The $200 was a nice bonus, but we wouldve submitted regardless of the pay.

More to come

So, are people actually using HUM? Rabb said the site averages approximately 3,500 streams and 900 downloads per month. In August, HUMs biggest month, it tallied nearly 5,000 streams and more than 1,500 downloads. Since the MUSICat software is still fairly new, Rabble frequently updates it. Rabb said the company will soon have an app for patrons to use, instead of accessing the streaming collections through a web browser.

Hiser said Rabbles participating libraries are constantly working with one another, which drives the MUSICat software into new territory. This has spawned an accompanying archive for old concert posters, which each library can host on its own customized streaming site. HUMs concert poster archive, which is donation-based, is growing, and features numerous Salt Lake bands and venues that have come and gone. Combined with the music, it provides an enriching peek into Salt Lakes music scene.

For Wheeler, who's been a radio DJ in Salt Lake for decades, it helped him realize how vibrant certain subsets of the scene really are: He hadn't realized how much synth and jazz music Utah was producing. Thanks to HUM, now he does.

Something like this just makes you realize there are so many bands here in the Salt Lake valley and beyond that sometimes slip through the cracks and dont get noticed, he said.

Even people who really know the local music scene, they dont know all of it, right? Hiser added. So for the library to be able to step in as a respected curator, and bring in a variety of voices to the table, thats a big deal.

In HUM, theres a lot of music to digest. Here are five noteworthy albums to get you started

HUMs next call for submissions is Feb. 1-22. Submitted music must have been made within the past five years. More information can be found at hum.slcpl.org.
Empower Texans now has a press pass to the Texas Senate. What interest group will be next?
MICHAEL WEAR is chief strategist of The AND Campaign and author of Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned In the Obama White House About the Future of Faith in America. He worked in the White Houses faith-based office during President Barack Obamas first term.
Phillips mother told The Capital in 2014 that Phillips had been friends with Mason since eighth grade and were once so close they shared each others shoes. She did not know what could haven been behind a possible falling out.
Jodine Mayberry is a retired editor, longtime journalist and Delaware County resident. Her column appears every Friday. You can reach her at jodinemayberry@comcast.net.
A major winter storm is headed our way and while it should provide an opportunity for kids to play, it also presents serious problems for the elderly and homeless. Delaware County is implementing its winter weather plan.
Washington: An explosive report alleging that Donald Trump ordered his lawyer to lie to Congress about a Russia skyscraper project prompted opposition Democrats Friday to pledge an investigation into whether the US president had committed a felony.

Buzzfeed reported that Michael Cohen told investigators Trump personally instructed him to lie about the Moscow Trump Tower plan in testimony in 2017 to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

The White House sought to brush the report off by questioning Buzzfeed's credibility and accusing Cohen of serial lying -- while not directly addressing the allegations in the story.

Lying to reduce his jail time! Trump said of Cohen, who was convicted last year of fraud and perjury.

This is just another in a long line of ridiculous charges without any corroboration or credibility whatsoever, White House deputy spokesman Hogan Gidley told Fox News.

The premise is ridiculous. We are also talking about a person in Michael Cohen, who now quite frankly has been proven to be a liar, Gidley said.

Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's lawyers dealing with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign, likewise suggested to several journalists that Cohen was lying.

If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge, Giuliani, the former New York mayor, is reported to have quipped.

No other media has confirmed Buzzfeed's allegations which, if true, constitute a felony crime -- suborning perjury -- and an impeachable offense. But Democrats took the report seriously.

The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date, said Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

We will do what's necessary to find out if it's true.
Smith, one of several dozen people gathered at the offices of Baltimore technology company Fearless at the Inner Harbor, told the senators that people might not realize the wide-ranging impact of the shutdown, and how it even extends to makers of musical instruments. About half of the electric guitars made in the United States are exported, he said, and before they can be shipped out they require permits approved by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, part of the Department of the Interior.
The Pentagon's announcement in the 81-page 'Missile Defence Review' report released by President Donald Trump gains significance in view of India placing a USD 5 billion order to purchase S-400 air defence system from Russia, for which the US had publicly expressed its displeasure. (Photo: File)

Washington: The Trump administration has discussed a potential missile defence cooperation with India as part of its effort to deepen the bilateral strategic partnership, the Pentagon has said, asserting that New Delhi is a "key element" in America's Indo-Pacific strategy.

The Pentagon's announcement in the 81-page ''Missile Defence Review'' report released by President Donald Trump gains significance in view of India placing a USD 5 billion order to purchase S-400 air defence system from Russia, for which the US had publicly expressed its displeasure.

Noting that the threats posed by offensive missile capabilities are no longer limited to a few regions around the world, the Pentagon in its report said there were now a number of countries in South Asia that are developing an advanced and diverse range of ballistic and cruise missile capabilities.

"Within this context, the United States has discussed potential missile defence cooperation with India. This is a natural outgrowth of India's status as a Major Defence Partner and key element of our Indo-Pacific Strategy," said the Pentagon report on Thursday.

The report, which identifies missile development projects by Russia and China as major threats to the US, did not give any further details about its potential missile defence cooperation with India.

The US has shown reluctance to offer its missile defence system to India.

Given the tough neighbourhood that India is in, New Delhi several years ago had approached US and expressed its desire to acquire a missile defence system from it, particularly the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system popular as THAAD.

The previous Obama administration was not very forthcoming in sharing its advance missile defence system with India, following which New Delhi went ahead to procure it from Russia.

As part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, the Trump administration now seems to be more than inclined to let India procure its missile defence system with talks between the two countries having already started.

"We will deepen our strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region," said the 2017 National Security Strategy of the US, which has been mentioned in the Pentagon report.

The Missile Defence Review report said that the cornerstone of US' security and diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific region is its strong bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea and Australia, and emerging security relationships with others such as India.

Japan and South Korea are working with the US to build missile defence systems that are increasingly interoperable with American defences and increasingly capable against regional offensive missile threats and coercion.

This cooperation includes bilateral missile defence training exercises with the US.

Australia participates in a trilateral discussion on missile defence with the US and Japan. The US and Australia meet annually to discuss bilateral missile defence cooperation. New areas of focus include joint examination of the challenges posed by advanced missile threats, it said.
The bills were introduced shortly before the Wall Street Journal reported federal prosecutors were investigating allegations that Huawei stole trade secrets from T-Mobile US Inc and other US businesses.

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced bills on Wednesday that would ban the sale of US chips or other components to Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, ZTE Corp or other Chinese telecommunications companies that violate US sanctions or export control laws.

The proposed law drew sharp criticism from China where Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying called the US legislation hysteria, intensifying a bitter trade war between Beijing and Washington.

The bills were introduced shortly before the Wall Street Journal reported federal prosecutors were investigating allegations that Huawei stole trade secrets from T-Mobile US Inc and other US businesses.

The Journal said that an indictment could be coming soon on allegations that Huawei stole T-Mobile technology, called Tappy, which mimicked human fingers and was used to test smartphones.

Huawei said in a statement the company and T-Mobile settled their disputes in 2017 following a US jury verdict that found neither damage, unjust enrichment nor willful and malicious conduct by Huawei in T-Mobiles trade secret claim.

Hua urged US lawmakers to block the bills.

I believe the action of these few representatives are an expression of extreme arrogance and an extreme lack of self-confidence, Hua said.

Actually the whole world can see very clearly that the real intent of the United States is to employ its state apparatus in every conceivable way to suppress and block out Chinas high-tech companies, she added.

The legislation is the latest in a long list of actions taken to fight what some in the Trump administration call Chinas cheating through intellectual property theft, illegal corporate subsidies and rules hampering US corporations that want to sell their goods in China.

In November, the US Department of Justice unveiled an initiative to investigate Chinas trade practices with a goal of bringing trade secret theft cases.

At that time, Washington had announced an indictment against Chinese chipmaker Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co Ltd for stealing trade secrets from US semiconductor company Micron Technology relating to research and development of memory storage devices.

Jinhua, which has denied any wrongdoing, was put on a list of entities that cannot buy goods from US firms.

On Capitol Hill, Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Mike Gallagher, both Republicans, along with Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representative Ruben Gallego, both Democrats, introduced the bills that would require the president to ban the export of US components to any Chinese telecommunications company that violates US sanctions or export control laws.

The bills specifically cite ZTE and Huawei, both of which are viewed with suspicion in the United States because of fears that their switches and other gear could be used to spy on Americans. Both have also been accused of failing to respect US sanctions on Iran.

Huawei is effectively an intelligence-gathering arm of the Chinese Communist Party whose founder and CEO was an engineer for the Peoples Liberation Army, Cotton wrote in a statement. If Chinese telecom companies like Huawei violate our sanctions or export control laws, they should receive nothing less than the death penalty - which this denial order would provide.

The proposed law and investigation are two of several challenges that Huawei, the worlds biggest telecommunications equipment maker, faces in the US market.

In addition to allegations of sanctions-busting and intellectual property theft, Washington has been pressing allies to refrain from buying Huaweis switches and other gear because of fears they will be used by Beijing for espionage.

Huaweis founder, Ren Zhengfei, denied this week that his company was used by the Chinese government to spy.

Canada detained Rens daughter, Meng Wanzhou, who is Huaweis chief financial officer, in December at the request of US authorities investigating an alleged scheme to use the global banking system to evade US sanctions against Iran.

For its part, ZTE agreed last year to pay a USD 1 billion fine to the United States that had been imposed because the company breached a US embargo on trade with Iran.

As part of the agreement, the US lifted a ban in place since April that had prevented ZTE from buying the US components it relies on heavily to make smartphones and other devices.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
The policy would delay or derail some investment plans and push companies such as Amazon and Flipkart to create new, more complex business structures. (Representational image/ Photo: AFP)

Indias new foreign investment restrictions for its e-commerce sector, which includes giants such as Amazon.com Inc and Walmart-owned Flipkart, could reduce online sales by USD 46 billion by 2022, according to a draft analysis from global consultants PwC seen by Reuters.

Under the changes, e-commerce firms in India will from Feb. 1 not be able to sell products via companies in which they have an equity interest or push sellers to sell exclusively on their platforms.

Announced in December, just months before a general election due by May this year, the rules were seen as an attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modis government to appease millions of small traders and shopkeepers, who form a key voter base and say their businesses have been threatened by global online retailers.

Industry sources told Reuters the policy would delay or derail some investment plans and push companies such as Amazon and Flipkart to create new, more complex business structures.

In a private analysis PwC conducted based on estimates provided by the industry and using publicly available information, it forecast that online retail sales growth, tax collections and job creation would be severely hit if companies changed their business models to comply with the new policy.

The draft analysis has not been made public. PwC India, in response to Reuters questions, said it does not endorse any of these assumptions or conclusions, nor have we conducted any independent study on this.

As a matter of policy, we do not comment on company-specific issues, PwC said.

The analysis produced by PwC showed that the gross merchandise value of goods sold online could reduce by USD 800 million from expectations in the current fiscal year that ends in March, a document seen by Reuters showed. Then, the sales would dip drastically below previous forecasts, lopping off USD 45.2 billion in the next three years, the data showed.

To be sure, sales would still be growing, but at a less robust rate than envisaged before the policy change.

Online retailers often use gross merchandise value, or GMV, based on monthly online sales as a measurement of performance, as they typically make revenue from the commissions they get from sellers.

The analysis also said that by March 2022 the Indian policy could lead to the creation of 1.1 million fewer jobs that may have been previously expected and lead to a reduction in taxes collected of USD 6 billion.

Amazon and Flipkart have both sought an extension of the Feb. 1 deadline, but a source at Indias commerce ministry told Reuters the government was unlikely to agree.

Amazon said in a statement it remains committed to being compliant to all local laws but has asked the government for an extension of four months.

Flipkart has sought a six-month extension, a source said. Though the company did not respond to Reuters questions, it told Indias Economic Times newspaper that it believed an extension is appropriate to ensure that all elements of the policy were clarified.

After Reuters story was published, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) issued a statement saying it disputed PwCs analysis. CAIT has supported tougher scrutiny of large e-commerce players, saying they indulge in predatory pricing that hurts smaller traders.

The e-commerce investment policy is the latest flashpoint between India and US multinationals. US companies have in the past two years protested against a wide array of regulations - from policies calling on tech companies to store more data locally to those capping prices of imported medical devices.

Morgan Stanley had estimated, before the latest government move, that Indias e-commerce market would grow 30 per cent a year to USD 200 billion in the 10 years up to 2027. With the rising use of the Internet and smartphones in India, online retailers have doled out discounts to lure people to shop online for everything from basic groceries to large electronic devices.

The new policy, which followed intense lobbying by groups representing millions of Indias small traders and shopkeepers, was aimed to prevent such deep discounting by big online retailers.

Trader groups had alleged that online firms used their control over inventory from their affiliates, and through exclusive sales agreements, to create an unfair marketplace that allowed them to sell some products at lower prices. Such arrangements would be barred under the new policy.

A second official at Indias commerce ministry said on Wednesday there may not be any relaxations in the policy. We have already done whatever was required, the official said.

Amazon has committed to invest USD 5.5 billion in India, while Walmart last year spent USD 16 billion to acquire Flipkart.

After one of the biggest foreign investments by Walmart, the government has again blindsided foreign investors, said Pratibha Jain, a partner at law firm Nishith Desai Associates, which advises e-commerce companies, adding that such policy moves made India a difficult place to do business.

Indias commerce minister, Suresh Prabhu, has said the e-commerce policy was very clear, though the government was open to hearing views of companies.

We would like to assure all foreign investors and domestic investors we will have a stable, clear policy, Prabhu told ET Now news channel last week.

The CAIT on Wednesday said it would fight tooth and nail if the government made any changes to the e-commerce policy under pressure from US companies.

If they want to exit the country they should do it as soon as possible, said the groups secretary general, Praveen Khandelwal, adding they planned to hold meetings with the commerce minister to ensure the new policy was not compromised.

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Canada is currently studying the security implications of 5G networks. (Photo: AP)

Chinas envoy to Canada on Thursday warned Ottawa there would be repercussions if it banned technology firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from supplying equipment to Canadian 5G networks, the latest blast in a deepening bilateral dispute.

Ambassador Lu Shaye, speaking at a news conference, did not give details. Canada is currently studying the security implications of 5G networks, but unlike some allies has not announced Huawei equipment will be excluded.

If the Canadian government does ban Huawei from participating in the 5G network, then as for what kind of repercussion there will be, Im not sure, but I believe there will be repercussions, Lu said through an interpreter, urging Ottawa to make a wise decision on this issue.

Relations between China and Canada turned frosty last month after Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, on a US extradition request.

China subsequently detained two Canadian citizens, and this month a court retried a Canadian man who previously had been found guilty of drug smuggling, and sentenced him to death.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Beijing of arbitrarily using the death penalty and called world leaders to solicit their support.

Lu said when Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland went to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week she should avoid microphone diplomacy and not try to rally support.

If Canada has a sincerity of resolving these issues, then Canada will not do such things. We hope Canada thinks twice before making any actions, he said.

In response, Freeland said Canada had no intention of changing its approach.

We will continue to speak every day with our allies about this situation, she told reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet retreat in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

She declined to give details about the review into 5G technology. A Canadian source directly familiar with the case said the study would not be released in the immediate future.

Huawei has a relatively small Canadian operation, employing just shy of 1,000 people. But the company said early this year it had become the 25th largest research and development funder in Canada, thanks to partnerships with local universities.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced bills that would ban the sale of US chips or other components to Huawei, ZTE Corp or other Chinese firms that violate US sanctions or export control laws.

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The Supreme Court collegium has recalled its own December 12 decision to fill two vacancies in the nations highest court, and bring in two other judges instead on January 10, raising suspicions about judges selection and judicial administration.

The Supreme Court collegium has recalled its own December 12 decision to fill two vacancies in the nations highest court, and bring in two other judges instead on January 10, raising suspicions about judges selection and judicial administration.

Dismay has been caused in judicial and legal circles by the unusual developments, for which there is no formal explanation. A sitting Supreme Court judge, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, has shot off a letter to Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and other members of the collegium, expressing his displeasure.

In December, the collegium led by Chief Justice Gogoi had selected the Chief Justices of the Rajasthan and Delhi high courts, Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Rajendra Menon respectively. But it didnt place the decision on its website.

The names cleared in January  Karnataka high courts Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice Sanjiv Khanna of the Delhi high court  have hastily been notified by the President. There is a mystery over why both names were changed. The only major change in the collegium between December and January is the retirement of Justice M.B. Lokur and his replacement by Justice Arun Mishra. Was this in any way significant?

When four judges of the Supreme Court  including the present CJI  took the unusual step of holding a press conference just over a year ago, they were concerned about the executive influencing the judiciary surreptitiously, and relatively junior Supreme Court judges being earmarked for benches handling politically sensitive cases. Justice Mishras name had cropped up then. There is some worry that the present CJI may not have lived up to his billing.
Britains PM Theresa May might have narrowly survived a no-confidence 325-306, but Brexits fate remains unclear as a March deadline looms. She remains PM after a major threat to her government was overcome with rebel Conservatives and Democratic Unionist Party MPs rallying behind her. But unless she finds a compromise to ward off a disastrous no-deal Brexit, Britain faces a longer period of uncertainty while embroiling the EU in a fog over Britains compulsions in withdrawing. The red lines the PM and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are drawing over an alternate deal are bound to come in the way as time runs out on a parliamentary deadline for the PM to present her Plan B. The Irish backstop issue, triggered by the porous border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, will be a stumbling block that the UK must remove.

A very serious blow was struck at Ms Mays authority as PM in an overwhelming House of Commons vote on Tuesday that rejected her EU withdrawal agreement, a deal she worked on with focus for almost her entire two-and-a-half years in power. Never in British history has a PM suffered such humiliation, with her government losing by a 230-vote margin. So emphatic was this 432-202 rejection that a modified deal with Brussels may not pass muster, which means the UK will have to go back to the drawing board to find an entirely new method to effect the divorce from the EU with even a modicum of order. At stake in the larger issue is not the question of how diminished the British PM is and whether she will survive this tricky dilemma of Brexit Britain and the European Union. The hidden hand behind the calls for a no-deal or hard Brexit is the kind of nationalism that has been rising in most recent times along with dollops of populism in the United States and Europe, and elsewhere too. Support for nation first calls and a total red line on immigration are behind the desire of the British people to leave the EU. The issue has been complicated by the wishes of some to walk out of the EU freely without accepting any Brexit-related cost. The assertion that, deal or no deal, Britain will leave the EU on March 29 means India will be among many countries that will have to negotiate its trade deals with the EU and Britain separately.

The truism that no man is an island and not even an island can isolate itself applies to Britain today. Brexit disrupts the globalisation that seemed to have benefited the world over the last couple of decades.
The rise of populist, right-wing leaders across the world, such as US President Donald Trump, raises questions about the groupings that India has assiduously helped to build in the past decade. Brics - one such grouping of five major emerging powers from different continents - was to bridge the divide as the world underwent an economic and political power shift from the Atlantic to the Asia-Pacific (or what is today called the Indo-Pacific). Although annual summits of the founding members - Brazil, China, India and Russia - began in 2009, South Africa was added to co-opt an African member in 2010, despite neither its population nor its GDP rivalling that of the other four.

Political churn in each nation is likely to impact Brics future. South Africa under its former President Jacob Zuma had faced an economic meltdown rendering South Africas membership lame duck till his replacement by Cyril Ramphosa in February 2018. The cleaning up of the financial mess is still underway, with the alleged state capture by outside agents like the Gupta brothers, who are of Indian origin. Reform of the National Prosecuting Service (NPA) and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) is also incomplete. Meanwhile, South Africa faces a general election in May this year, coincidently like India. To unify the ruling African National Congress (ANC), President Ramaphosa is compelled, paradoxically, to woo his predecessor while exorcising his ghost from governance. The African President will be the chief guest at this years Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi, when Mahatma Gandhi will be remembered with much warmth and fondness.The guest, on the other hand, will be focused on investment and trade to help revive the South African economy. So far China, the Saudi-UAE combine and Germany have shown interest in the tangled South African economy.

The nation most likely to rupture Brics is Brazil, under its recently-elected populist President Jair Bolsonaro. Brazilian foreign policy, whether under authoritarian rule till 1985 or as a democracy since then, has been conditioned by the legacy of the Baron of Rio Branco, foreign minister in 1902-1912. He settled the Brazilian borders with all 10 neighbours, combining respect for international law, peaceful deal-making and soft power. The appointment of a relatively junior serving diplomat Ernesto Araujo as foreign minister, who proclaims God is back and the nation is back, and thus swears by religion as the touchstone of diplomacy, has shocked several of its neighbours as well as the Brazilian elite. He is additionally a China sceptic and during the campaign had visited Taiwan, which would not have gone unnoticed in Beijing. He debunks globalism in a nation that has been at the forefront of various multilateral issues, including climate change. President Bolsonaro himself announced that Brazil will withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement. Not surprisingly, he is also candidly enamoured of US President Donald Trump and other populist-nationalists in Italy, Hungary and Poland.

It is possible that this new evangelism may be moderated by the pragmatic economy minister Paulo Guedes, but President Bolsonaro is unlikely to abandon his core beliefs, which could well disrupt Brics, particularly as Brazil is due to host the next summit. Brics had been nurtured by Brazilian governments led by the charismatic Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and his successor Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party in 2003-16. Although Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a populist-nationalist himself, he has kept his politics for domestic vote consolidation while adopting a more liberal stance abroad. How he deals with a kindred soul in Brasilia will be a post-election challenge, if he retains power after the mid-2019 election. A non-BJP Indian Prime Minister may find Brazil a less palatable partner.

Russia and China are the other two legs of Brics. It was the Chinese need to successfully hold the Xiamen Brics summit in September 2017 that had facilitated a resolution of the Sino-Indian standoff at Doklam that year. But there has been a growing Sino-Russian convergence alongside the escalation of the Sino-US trade standoff, which they are trying during a three-month time-out to resolve by discussions. But Chinese President Xi Jinping on January 2, in a speech marking 40 years of the 1979 message that moderated the Chinese approach to Taiwan from liberation to peaceful unification, conveyed his impatience with the delay in annexing Taiwan and held out the possibility of the use of force to achieve it. If anything, this has hardened Taiwanese domestic opinion against unification, with one poll indicating only three per cent of the islanders in its favour. A close reading of the report delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 19th Party Congress on October 18, 2017 reveals the Chinese strategy to get to the envisioned China 2025. The national rejuvenati-on touted is about moving China closer to the global centrestage to transform global governance as per the Chinese vision of their centrality. Prof. Xiang Lanxin has thus called the Belt and Road Initiative as a post-Westphalian integration of a 21st century Eurasia. This is a resurrection of Tianxia or Mandate of Heaven that the Chinese have used historically to rearran-ge other nations in a dynamic equilibrium, ensuring Chine-se supremacy. This bodes ill for the unity of Brics.

Russia under President Vladimir Putin has reinvented its role as the arbiter of peace in West Asia, Afghanistan and the Pacific, by drawing Japan into negotiations over the Kuril islands return. President Putin is now using China as an economic and strategic partner and main foil to the United States, ceding it supremacy in the Chinese maritime periphery in exchange for China accepting a similar lead role for Russia on the Eurasian continent. This deal may not hold beyond the Sino-US standoff but is the basis of a new order. The fate of Brics thus hangs in the balance with President Bolsonaro likely to pull in a different direction. India will be the outlier balancing the pulls and tugs of old players with new moves. Meanwhile, both the Indian and South African people are to decide in May their next governments. The old saying appears apposite - the Brics are now loose bricks!
Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will be skipping the meet; however, Congress party has deputed senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge to represent the party. (Photo: File | PTI)

Mumbai: Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday wrote to Mamata Banerjee extending his support to her United Opposition rally to be held in Kolkata on January 19. The entire opposition is united, Rahul said in his letter to the West Bengal chief minister.

"I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together," Rahul Gandhi wrote in the letter.

The letter further read, "The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Mr Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) are intent on destroying."

Rahul also said there were powerful forces that were fanned by the anger and disappointment of millions of Indians, who had seen through the "false promises and lies peddled by the Modi government". "

These forces are moved by the hope of a new tomorrow; a tomorrow filled with the idea of an India in which the voice of every man, woman and child will be heard and respected no matter what their religion, economic status or region is," he added.

Congress President @RahulGandhi writes to @MamataOfficial to extend his support & send a powerful message of a united India. pic.twitter.com/bf9taiTxle  Congress (@INCIndia) January 18, 2019

On Thursday, Mamata Banerjee had said that the mega Opposition rally would sound the "death knell" for the BJP in the coming Lok Sabha polls. Leaders of more than 20 opposition parties are likely to attend the rally aimed at forming an anti-BJP front for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will be skipping the meet; however, Congress party has deputed senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge to represent the party.

BSP supremo Mayawati is another big absentee. However, the party will send it general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra to attend the meet.

Other prominent leaders who are expected to the attend the rally are chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal, H D Kumaraswamy, N Chandrababu Naidu, former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Akhilesh Yadav, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, DMK's M K Stalin and NCP's Sharad Pawar besides dissident BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha.

Former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie are also billed to attend the grand rally.
While the government says the errors could have crept in while feeding the information digitally, many say the authorities should have verified the details before submitting the list to the Supreme Court.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The list submitted by the LDF government in the Supreme Court, claiming that 51 women aged less than 50 had darshan at Sabarimala temple this season, has triggered a controversy following discrepancies related to age and gender.

Discrepancies came to light when media persons cross-checked the list of 51 young women.Some of the young women on the list were actually above 50.

But the most glaring misrepresentation was the case of Paranjothi, 47, who was listed as a female, 21st on the list.

TV crew traced out Paranjothi. He had gone to Sabarimala along with a group of 16 men. Im no woman, Im gents (sic), he told the TV channel.

DC checked on mobile number 9844366613 given against the entry of Ms Gowri Arumugam, 49, from Chennai, on the list of 51 young female devotees.

The number belonged to Mr Rajesh, a businessman, residing at Rajaji Nagar in Bengaluru. I am distressed by so many calls. I am not Gowri. I was part of a 22-member group that booked online for the darshan. We had darshan on December 20. There were four women in the group and they were all above 50 years, Mr Rajesh said.

Many other numbers were switched off, possibly after the controversy surfaced. Reporters contacted a few others on the list, which was submitted by the government to show more young women had darshan. Many numbers on the list were those of men who had registered for darshan online on behalf of women devotees. In such cases, the women devotees could not be contacted individually to cross-check.

While the government says the errors could have crept in while feeding the information digitally, many say the authorities should have verified the details before submitting the list to the Supreme Court.

Earlier at a press conference, Devaswom minister Kadakampally Sure-ndran said that 7,564 wo-men had registered onl-ine for Sabarimala darshan. The reports received from the Virtual Qu-eue system indicated th-at women in the 10-50 age group visited the temple. We have no information whether all managed to have darshan at Sannidhanam, he said.

One Vasanthaiyya said his relative had gone to Sabariala but her age is 59. Sreeramulu from AP said his relative Rama-devi, 54, visited the temple. Kalavathy Manohar of Vasco in Goa, whose name figured in the list, she is 52. Similarly Hyderabad resident Padmavathy informed a section of media that she was 53 and her age on the Aadhaar was wrong.

However, in the affidavit submited in the court, the government stated: "It is submitted that a total of 7,564 women in 10-50 group had also registered for darshan and as per the digitally scanned records around 51 women in this group have already visited the shrine and had darshan without any issue.
Bengaluru: Loan waiver alone is not the solution to bail out distressed farmers and dissuade them from committing suicides, there is a need to make these farmers self reliant and financially strong, said Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Friday.

Inaugurating Organics and Millets International Trade Fair 2019, Mr Kumaraswamy said the state government has been encouraging farmers to grow weather resilient and less water intensive crop to make the farmers financially stable. The state government has also been encouraging Israeli model of farming, which uses less water to grow crops and studying the rain pattern to decide on the crop to be grown. Agriculture should be made more profitable by transforming the way of farming, he observed. The state government has plans to introduce millet based recipe in mid-day meals and Indira Canteens, considering the health benefits of this protein rich food, he said. The trade fairs help farmers get better prices for their produce as it provides a platform and roots out middlemen, who pocket a large chunk of money which is meant for the farmers, he added.

Over the last two to three years, the Government has been focusing on organics and millets and it is the commitment of my Government to stand by the farmers and do everything possible for their welfare. The Government is keen to introduce millets as part of the States midday meal scheme, in Government Hostels and in Indira Canteens, the Chief Minister said. He expressed the hope that the current Organics and Millets Fair will increase awareness through exchange of knowledge and direct interaction between farmers and buyers and other stakeholders. Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said, By organising organics and millets fair, the Government is creating a win-win situation for farmers of the state. New lines of opportunities can be opened up through this trade fair. Millets are being positioned as the smart food of the 21st century. Whether it is to address the issue of climate change, temperature rise, increasing health issues, sustainable development or new job opportunities, the answer is millets.

Karnataka has been torch bearer when it comes to millets and UN has decided to hold 2023 as the International Year of Millets and Karnataka has been the pioneer in encouraging millets. Agriculture Minister N.H. Shivashankara Reddy said, Karnataka is a pioneer in the organic movement of India. We have already formed 15 regional federations of organic farmers associations in the state and are planning to create a state level organic federation to facilitate processing, packing and marketing which would result in better pricing. Bengaluru is a leading marketing hub for organic and millets in the state and with the Governments pro-active policies Bengaluru could become a global hub for organics and millets in the near future.
Scenic beauty draws tourists to and from all corners of the world, and some of the most stunning sites of all dont even look like they belong on this planet. These natural wonders are fascinating and beautiful in their strangeness and distinctive features.
It can be raised in all parts of Tamil Nadu apart from Cauvery delta and is a Kuruvai and summer crop.

Thanjavur: In a significant development, the Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute (TRRI) at Aduthurai, near Kumbakonam, has released a new paddy variety ADT53 that promises to raise farmers hopes for a better summer crop.

This short term variety has a maturity period of 105 to 110 days. It is compared better with ADT43 which is being used by the farmers for the past 20 years said Ravi, Director of TRRI in a press release issued here on Friday.

A compact crop, ADT53 was derived from ADT43 and JGL 38.It has a milling capacity of 62 per cent and full rice capacity of 65 per cent. It can yield 6334 kilos per hectare as minimum and 9,875 kilos per hectare as a maximum yield, officials said.

A quantity of 1000 grains of the variety weigh 14.8 grams, said the director. It can be raised in all parts of Tamil Nadu apart from Cauvery delta and is a Kuruvai and summer crop.

It can be raised after October in years when water release from Mettur dam is delayed, added the Institute director.
New Delhi: In a desperate bid to keep the emotive issue of Ram Mandir lingering ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the RSS on Friday had to issue a clarification after its second-in-command Bhaiyya Joshis remarks on setting a new deadline for the temple, was perceived as a jab at the Narendra Modi government.

Both the RSS and Mr Joshi had to later assert that he had not said, a day earlier, that the temple construction would begin in 2025 but had said that its construction should begin now so that it is completed by the time next Mahakumbh takes place in 2025.

The Sangh parivar affiliated Dharamsansad of saints and seers are likely to announce some major announcement during their meet starting on January 31 in Prayagraj, the venue of ongoing Kumbh Mela.

With the crucial Lok Sabha polls just around the corner, Mr Joshis remarks at Prayagraj on Thursday at an event setting a new deadline of 2025 led the political circle abuzz that the RSS had lost hopes that the temple would be construction in the BJP regime.

For the past few months, the RSS-led Sangh Parivar had been building pressure on the Modi government to start the construction of the temple, with the VHP setting the deadline of recently-concluded winter session of Parliament for a legislation or an ordinance on the issue.

However, the Prime Minister said that an ordinance on Ram Mandir arises only after legal process gets over and Supreme Court gives its verdict.

1952 mein Somnath mandir ki sthapana ke sath desh gati se aage ba-dha.... 2025 mein Ram janambhumi ke upar mandir bananae ke baad fir is disha ko aur gati prapt hone wali hai... Ayodhya ke mandir nirmaan ke baad desh agle 150 saalon ke liye punji praapt karega, the RSS leader said at the event at the ongoing Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj on Thursday.

However, when asked about his remarks on Friday Mr Joshi said that the RSS wants the temple to be constructed and it should be constructed by 2025.
Kolkata: A day before Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjees grand United India rally at the historic Brigade Parade Ground, Congress president Rahul Gandhi wrote to her rallying support behind her initiative to stich an alliance against the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections.

In his letter to the West Bengal Chief Minister on Friday he described her rally on Saturday a show of unity and hope. The Congress termed its chiefs letter a powerful message of a united India. Ms Banerjee however, did not react to Mr Gandhis letter.

Her nephew and Trinamul MP of Diamond Harbour Abhishek Banerjee in the evening only made an observation.

He said, Many leaders from various political parties are coming to attend this rally. You have seen Rahul Gandhi has sent a message to the Chief Minister. So, I think it is going to be a crucial political juncture.

Sources revealed that Ms Banerjees speech on Saturday may cover her replies to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi who along with his son is not attending the rally. They will however be represented by two Congress MPs: Mallikarjun Kharge and Abhishek Manu Singhvi will attend the rally.
Bengaluru: With more commuters preferring app based cabs and Metro trains, Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation has been incurring losses.

Recently the state government had announced a subsidy of Rs 100 crore to shore up its finances, but the city transport provider claims the money was not adequate as a major chunk of it was spent on clearing the pension dues of its former employees.

The BMTC has an existing ridership of 50 lakh passengers per day and it should meet the projected demand to maintain the current share of public transport. But of late we have been incurring losses. The money released by the government was spent on clearing the long standing dues for retired employees and also those who died in harness. We need more to come out of losses" a senior BMTC official told Deccan Chronicle.

In the year 2017-18, 38 BMTC employees died and and 127 retired. It had to clear the dues of hospitals and those related to students and free bus passes.

The rise in diesel prices also affected the corporation and its proposal for a fare hike was shot down by the state government.

The corporation now wants to approach the government provide Rs 260 crore to come out of the losses.
Sources said, at around 2 pm, a man in his early 30s hurled two bottles of petrol bomb inside the shop However, the employees could not identify the perpetrator of the crime.

Chennai: An unidentified person hurled a bomb at an Ice cream parlour in Perungalathur on Friday afternoon. However, no one was injured, police said.

According to police, the petrol bomb was hurled at the shop at Gundumedu in Perungalathur owned by ex.DMK councillor Issac. Only two employees of the shop were present and there were no customers at the time of the attack. The petrol bomb hit the floor of the shop, police said.

Sources said, at around 2 pm, a man in his early 30s hurled two bottles of petrol bomb inside the shop However, the employees could not identify the perpetrator of the crime.

The Perungalathur police have registered a case and combed through the CCTV footage recovered from the shop. Further investigations are on.
Bhopal: An alleged fake screenshot of chat between Shahdol district collector and his deputy in which he was purportedly asking the latter to ensure victory of BJP in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, has gone viral sparking a row.

The Shahdol sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) of Puja Tiwari who was shown as chatting partner of Shahdol district collector A. Srivastav in the screenshot, filed a FIR in the Kotwal police station in Shahdol town against unknown person for manufacturing the chat.

Sources said that Madhya Pradesh chief electoral officer B.L. Kanta Rao spoke to Shahdol district collector and his deputy on the matter.

Mr Rao was briefed by the two officers that the chat screenshot was forged and the matter was handed over to the cyber cell of the police, a senior district officer told this newspaper.

We have registered a case against unknown person under appropriate sections of cyber law for forging the screenshot. Probe is on into the incident, the investigating officer said.

Police suspected that it might be a conspiracy by vested interests to manufacture the screenshot to taint the two senior district officers.
The incident took place at Godhna village in the district Wednesday evening, police said. (Representational image)

Muzaffarnagar: Police have pulled out the body of a 50-year-old woman from the funeral pyre at a village and booked the husband and four others suspecting foul play behind her death.

The incident took place at Godhna village in the district Wednesday evening, police said.

Police reached the spot on the basis of information received from a villager and pulled out the body from the funeral pyre that had already been lit, allegedly by the woman's in-laws, Station House Officer Amardeep Lal said.

The woman's brother lodged a complaint, alleging that her in-laws had killed her and were secretly trying to cremate the body in order to destroy evidence, he said.

The body was sent for post-mortem and five people, including the woman's husband, identified as Vijaypal, were booked, the SHO said, adding that all the accused have gone absconding.

The complainant alleged that the in-laws used to harass the woman and she was killed over domestic dispute.

A case has been registered and efforts are on to arrest the accused, the SHO said.
Rai said the decision came in the wake of the recent statements of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit, opposing an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). (Photo: ANI | Twitter)

New Delhi: Putting all speculation about a pact to rest, the Aam Aadmi Party on Friday declared ruled out any alliance with the Congress in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Senior AAP leader and the party's Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai said, No alliance with Congress, AAP will contest all Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.

Rai said the decision came in the wake of the recent statements of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit, opposing an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

"In the interest of the country, we were ready to drink the poison of the Congress, but the statements show that the Congress is still seeped in its arrogance. The AAP will contest all the Lok Sabha seats in the three states on its own," Rai said.

The names of the candidates for the Lok Sabha polls will soon be announced by the party.

(With PTI inputs)
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said government did not buy 90 more aircraft needed by Air Force and paid Rs 186 crore more to Dassault for 13 India-specific enhancements in the MMRCA. (Photo: ANI)

New Delhi: Firing a fresh salvo on the Rafale issue, the Congress on Friday alleged that the NDA government has wronged the country by reducing the number of aircraft bought under the deal as it "denied" the IAF the fighter jets it "desperately" needed and gave a "windfall" to Dassault Aviation by paying more per aircraft.

Addressing a press conference, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the government did not buy the 90 more aircraft needed by the Air Force and paid Rs 186 crore more to French firm Dassault, maker of Rafale, for 13 India-specific enhancements in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).

The former finance minister reiterated his party's demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale jet deal, saying the decision is not amenable to court but to a parliamentary panel.

The Congress has alleged earlier that the Prime Minister increased the Benchmark Price' of Rafale deal from 5.2 billion Euros to 8.2 billion Euros and that the NDA government paid over Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft against UPA's negotiated price of Rs 527 crore per aircraft, demanding answers as to who is responsible for the loss to the state exchequer.

Chidambaram's press conference came in the backdrop of a media report claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 aircraft instead of the 126 asked for by the Indian Air Force pushed the price of each jet up by 41.42 per cent.

"The government has wronged the country in two ways - firstly, it has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force 90 fighter aircraft that they desperately need. Secondly, it has purchased two squadrons that will cost about 25 million euro more per aircraft. At the 2016 exchange rate, 25 million Euros is equal to Rs 186 crore. India will pay Rs 186 crore more per aircraft," Chidambaram told reporters.

"There is no doubt any longer that Rafale aircraft deal deserves to be examined thoroughly by a joint parliamentary committee. The Congress reiterates its demand for constitution of a JPC," he said.

The Congress leader said he feels that Dassault "is laughing all the way to the bank", as the NDA government gave a "gift" to the French firm over amortization or recovery on the cost of 13 India-specific enhancements sought in the aircraft that cost 1,300 million Euros.

He said the cost of these enhancements has been recovered by Dassault in 36 aircraft and the same should have been recovered by it for 126 aircraft instead.

"That is a windfall for Dassault. That is the gift that the NDA government has given to Dassault and that is why I said that Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank....The windfall to Dassault was a deliberate decision of NDA government and is highly questionable," he said.

"The increased price per aircraft is a gift to Dassault that the NDA government gave between April 2015 and August 2016," he also said.

Chidambaram earlier said that in the light of new facts and revelations, "the question gains greater urgency: why did the government buy only 36 Rafale aircraft instead of 126 aircraft required by the Air Force?

"The government has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needs," he tweeted earlier.

Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia also took to Twitter to demand answers from PM Modi on the increased cost of aircraft. "The PM's unilateral decision to buy 36 Rafales resulted in a price escalation of 41.42 per cent per jet. When will the prime minister answer?" he asked.

Chidambaram said serious issues are being raised in media reports about the process of decision-making in the NDA government and alleged that "the man who got away was Manohar Parrikar who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security. Clever man."

"We will not comment on the process today. However, it is necessary to compliment the three officers of the Indian Negotiating Team who stood up to pressure and forced a vote of 4-3 on every issue," he said, adding that he has never seen such a decision on a defence deal happening in any government so far in the country.
Talking about the CLP meeting, G Parameshwara said upcoming Lok Sabha elections and other issues like present political scenario in Karnataka will be discussed in the meeting. (Photo: File)

Bengaluru: Congress CLP leader Siddaramaiah has asked Karnataka Forest and Environment Minister Satish Jarkiholi to call up his brother and disgruntled MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi and tell him to attend the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting to be held later on Friday.

Congress MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi is believed to be upset with his party after he was dropped from the Karnataka cabinet on December 22. The BJP is reportedly trying to woo him in order to topple the Karnataka government.

The BJP is also asking him to mobilise other disgruntled MLAs from the Congress who lost the Cabinet berth like him to bring down the incumbent Congress-JD(S) coalition government and form its own government.

Speaking to media, Siddaramaiah said: "I spoke to Satish Jarkiholi to call up Ramesh Jarkiholi and ask him to attend the CLP meet. I am not ordering them. It is a BJP's allegation. (BS) Yeddyurappa was chief minister and has been alleging against me of poaching. Does he have any self respect?"

Meanwhile, coming down heavily on BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa and accusing him of horse-trading, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara said that the BJP has stooped down to a low level and is approaching the Congress MLAs to topple the incumbent government.

"Yeddyurappa is president of BJP, he need not worry about the Congress MLAs, and all our MLAs will attend the CLP meeting. It is pathetic that BJP stooped to this level. They approached our MLAs and are still doing it but they will not succeed," Parameshwara said.

Talking about the CLP meeting, Parameshwara said that upcoming Lok Sabha elections and other issues like present political scenario in Karnataka will be discussed in the CLP meeting, which is going to take place on Friday in Bengaluru.

"CLP leader Siddaramaiah has called for a meeting. We will discuss about Lok Sabha elections and other issues including present political developments. All the MLAs will attend, including those whom you are saying disgruntled," he said.

However, Yeddyurappa said that he is not bothered about the CLP meeting. "I am not bothered about their (Congress) CLP meeting, that is left to the Congress and the JDS, why should I comment about it? They are telling many things, I am not responsible for that. Our 104 MLAs are worried about our party and preparing for Lok Sabha elections."

After allegations and counter-allegations of poaching have cast shadow on the state government led by Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, the Congress has called a meeting of its legislators today to take stock of the prevailing political situation.

Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah issued a warning of strict action under the anti-defection law against those MLAs who abstain from the meeting. He even threatened them with the possibility of expulsion from the party.

Karnataka was thrown into a political frenzy on Monday when Congress leaders alleged that three of their MLAs were taken to Mumbai by the BJP in an attempt to lure them to their fold. This was followed by two Independent MLAs -- R Shankar and H Nagesh -- withdrawing their support from the Congress-JD (S) coalition government in the state.

Both BJP and the Congress-JD(S) alliance have traded allegations of poaching against each other, with the BJP camping all 104 of its elected lawmakers from the state in a Gurugram hotel.

The BJP also used the situation to put pressure on the incumbent government, saying that the withdrawal of support by the two MLAs indicates unrest within their ranks and a possible premature end to their term.

However, Congress and JD(S) leaders have expressed calm, saying that the situation does not affect them in any way and that their government is well under control.
Today in Gay History  January 18th.

1726, Germany  The man who might have been the first gay king of America was born in Berlin. Prince Heinrich of Prussia (pictured right above) was the brother of Frederick the Great who tried have him made King of America. The fledgling US even considered it during the period ruing the Article of Confederation, but, by the time the fickle prince agreed, the equally fickle American public had opted for the Constitution and a republic.

1928  Betty Berzon (January 18, 1928  January 24, 2006) is born. She was an American author and psychotherapist known for her work with the gay and lesbian communities. She was among the first psychotherapists to assist gay clients. After coming out as lesbian in 1968, she began providing therapy to gays and lesbians. In 1971, during a UCLA conference called The Homosexual in America, Berzon became the first psychotherapist in the country to come out as gay to the public. Also in 1971, she organized the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center as well as an organization of gays and lesbians within the American Psychiatric Association (the Gay Psychological Association, now known as the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues); the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental illness two years later. She is survived by Teresa DeCrescenzo, the president of Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services, whom Berzon met in 1973 and married during a mass wedding ceremony at the 1993 March on Washington.

In 2007, Ventura Place in Studio City was renamed Dr. Betty Berzon Place in her honor, making it the first street ever officially dedicated to a known lesbian in California. Also in 2007, the LGBT magazine The Advocate named Berzon one of 40 heroes. The Betty Berzon Papers (1928-2006) are at the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives.

1936  Rev. James Lewis Stoll (January 18, 1936  December 8, 1994) is born. In 1969, he becomes the first ordained minister of an established denomination to come out as gay. He led the effort that convinced the Unitarian Universalist Association to pass their first gay rights resolution.

1958  Marci Lee Bowers (born January 18, 1958) is a US gynecologist and surgeon who specializes in gender confirmation surgeries. Dr. Bowers practice is at the San Mateo Surgery Center in Burlingame, California. From 2003 to 2010, she practiced in the town of Trinidad, Colorado, where she had studied under Stanley Biber before his retirement. Bowers married eleven years prior to her surgery, and remains married to her female spouse.

1973  Viewers of An American Family 12-part television documentary shown on PBS about the lives of an average American family, the Louds, discover that son Lance (June 26, 1951  December 22, 2001) is living as an openly gay man in New York City. Lance was an American television personality, magazine columnist and new wave rock-n-roll performer.

Lance Loud died of liver failure as a result of hepatitis C and a co-infection with HIV in 2001. He was 50 years old.

1975, Canada  The founding conference of the Coalition for Gay Rights in Ontario (CGRO) opens at Don Vale Community Center in Toronto.

1977  In Miami, Florida: Anita Bryant, a former beauty queen, launches a nationwide crusade against gay and lesbian rights in response to Dade Countys new municipal rights ordinance forbidding housing and employment discrimination against lesbians and gay men. Accusing lesbians and gay men of corrupting the nations youth, Bryant dubs her crusade the Save Our Children campaign. Miami-Dade County commissioners passed the ordinance with a vote of 5-3. Anita Bryant vows to defeat the ordinance at the ballot box. On June 7, 1977, Bryants hateful promise is fulfilled. Nearly 70 percent of voters opt to repeal the ordinance.

1996  The wedding of Rosss ex-wife Carol and her girlfriend Susan airs on Friends. Candace Gingrich (born June 2, 1966) guest stars as the minister. Candace is an American LGBT rights activist at the Human Rights Campaign. She is the half-sister of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who is more than 20 years their senior.

1999, Zimbabwe  the first president of Zimbabwe, Canaan Sodindo Banana (5 March 1936  10 November 2003), already retired from the post, is convicted on 11 counts of sodomy. At the time, president Mugabe is scapegoating homosexuals as the reason for Zimbabwes ills. Banana serves six months of a 10-year sentence and moves to the UK for political asylum.

2004  The L Word premieres on Showtime. The L Word is an American/Canadian co-production television drama series portraying the lives of a group of lesbians and their friends, connections, family, and lovers in the trendy Greater Los Angeles, California city of West Hollywood. The series originally ran on Showtime from January 18, 2004 to March 8, 2009, and subsequently in syndication on Logo and through on-demand services.
A lot has changed with the PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests since they were first launched in 2015. Here are a few things you need to know about them to keep your cocktail party conversation scintillating and accurate. [wink-wink]

PARCC isnt just a test now. Its an item bank, too.

Q: Thats confusing. Whenever people I know talk about PARCC, theyre talking about a test. Whats an item bank?

A: Fair enough. Let me explain. PARCC did start out as a full-length test that students take at the end of the year. But the PARCC consortium changed its business model in 2015 , recognizing that fewer states wanted that full-length test anymore. It decided to let states take a more-customized approach.

Under the revised model, states can now license the full PARCC exam, or just some individual questions. That allows them to build a test thats a mixture of PARCC questions and questions they write themselves. In 2017, the states in the PARCC consortium hired a nonprofit called New Meridian to oversee that collection of 10,000-plus test questionsknown as an item bank.

Q. Does that mean states are now giving a partial PARCC test?

A. Yes and no. A few states still give the full PARCC exam. A few others are licensing questions from the item bank that contains all of PARCCs original content. But theres an additional twist: New Meridian has developed test questions for the item bank, too. So some of those questions are also in circulation.

Q. Then can we still call these things PARCC tests?

A. That answer is a moving target. Right now, most of the questions in the New Meridian item bank were designed by the PARCC states. But by the spring of 2020, most items that states license will likely have been designed by New Meridian, in consultation with state departments of education and teachers.

Smarter Balanced is still a full-length test, and only a full-length test.

Q. Oh, so Smarter Balanced doesnt let states use just some questions from its item bank?

A: No. Smarter Balanced stuck closer to its original model. It offers states two options: buy the full test by itself, or buy the full test plus a package of other resources, such as formative toolsexercises that are designed to support and gauge learning as it happensand interim tests.



The PARCC consortium disbanded. The Smarter Balanced consortium still exists.

Q: Oh, man. I thought PARCC and Smarter Balanced were tests. Now Im confused again. What are these consortia youre talking about?

A: Sorry. Hang in there. Youre right; They are tests. But those tests got their names from the big groups of states that designed them.

Q: States? Wait, that rings a bell. Refresh my memory.

A: The U.S. Department of Education wanted to create tests that states should share to measure students mastery of the Common Core State Standards, which came out in 2010. The feds handed out $360 million in grants for that project. But they required that big groups of states band together to design the tests.

Two groupsum, consortiaof states won that money: The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. For reasons that are obvious when you start to run out of breath, they each got nicknames: PARCC and Smarter Balanced.

Q. But you never hear anyone say consortium anymore when theyre talking about PARCC and Smarter Balanced. They always mean tests.

A: Yeah, the consortia arent getting the attention they once did. From about 2011 to 2013, the testing world was obsessed with which states joined PARCC and which joined Smarter Balanced. Interest was so keen that EdWeek actually ran a regular feature online called consortium watch, with dozens of updates, and a map, tracking states shifting loyalties. At one point, 45 states and the District of Columbia planned to use one of those federally funded tests.

Eventually, the dust settled, and by the time the tests were ready to use in 2015, only about half the states used PARCC or Smarter Balanced . The rest chose tests from other designers. By 2017, only 20 states were using consortium tests . State membership in the two consortia declined, too.

Q. So do the consortia exist anymore? Arent PARCC and Smarter Balanced just tests?

A: Each group evolved differently. There is still a consortium of 12 Smarter Balanced states that stay in touch and share decisionmaking about test design and other business. All 12 administer the Smarter Balanced assessment.



There is no longer a PARCC consortium, though. It disbanded in 2017 after transferring all of its test questionsknown as PARCC content"to the Council of Chief State School Officers, an organization that represents state school superintendents.

The only PARCC that still exists is in the form of test content: those legacy questions in the New Meridian item bank. This year, four states and the District of Columbia are giving tests that are 100 percent PARCC content, while two states license just some PARCC items for their tests.
BJP's state vice president Jay Prakash Majumdar went to the West Bengal secretariat and submitted the letter which mentioned about holding four yatras in the state. (Representational Image)

Kolkata: The West Bengal BJP unit Thursday submitted a letter to the state government, giving details about their 'Save Democracy Rally' in the state.

BJP's state vice president Jay Prakash Majumdar went to the West Bengal secretariat and submitted the letter which mentioned about holding four yatras in the state. The Bharatiya Janata Party requested the state government to consider the programme with "utmost expedition" under the guidelines of the Supreme Court.

The BJP said the yatras would be "a political endeavour of connecting with the people in a peaceful manner. It will not sponsor or subscribe any communal message or insinuations". The state BJP unit also described that the four yatras would be aiming "to connect people towards strengthening the democratic as well as secular system and practices of our nation, of which the state is a significant part".

"All kinds of law of the land and regulations will be maintained and a close coordination with the local administration will be maintained for mutual cooperation," the party's letter mentioned. "Sensitivity of people from different caste, creed and religion will be adhered in an exemplary manner," the letter added.

The BJP also urged a meeting between the state government authorities with them in case of any required discussions. The proposed 'Rath Yatras' of the BJP in West Bengal were put on hold by the Supreme Court Tuesday, which asked the party to seek a fresh approval from the Mamata Banerjee government in the state by submitting a revised proposal.

The apex court, however, allowed the West Bengal unit of the BJP to continue with its proposed public rallies and meetings under its 'Ganatantra Bachao Yatra'. The court asked the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the state to consider the fresh, revised proposal of the saffron party, keeping in mind the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution.

The top court said the state government should respond to the revised proposal of the BJP with "utmost expedition", keeping in mind that with the commencement of the CBSE and other board examinations, the use of loudspeakers might be banned.
New Delhi: The Kerala government on Friday told the Supreme Court that more than 50 women have entered the Sabarimala shrine since the apex court turned down the age-old practice of denying entry to women of menstruating age.

The top court was hearing the petitions of two women in their 40s -- Bindu and Kanakadurga  who had entered the Sabarimala shrine earlier this month.

Senior advocate Vijay Hansaria, appearing for the state government, submitted a note stating that till now 51 female devotees, between the ages of 10 and 50 years, have entered the Lord Ayappa shrine of Lord Ayappa.

However, advocate Mathews J Nedumpara appearing for some petitioners, who have filed a review plea challenging the decision of the top court to allow women of all ages to enter the temple, said that none of the female devotees has entered the shrine.

The two women, Bindu, a college lecturer and CPI(ML) activist from Kozhikode district's Koyilandy, and Kanakadurga, a civil supplies department employee from Angadipuram in Malappuram, who visited the shrine on January 2, sought protection following threats.

Kanaka Durga was allegedly attacked by her mother-in-law on Tuesday on her return and was admitted in the hospital. The Supreme Court today directed the Kerala Police to provide round-the-clock security to the two women.

The plea had also sought directions declaring all authorities not to conduct the rite of purification or to shut the temple if any woman of the banned age group enters the temple. It had said that the purification ritual is representative of a cleansing ceremony, signifying the petitioners were impure, which is violative of their dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution.

(With PTI inputs)
Ahead of the meeting, the Congress MLAs were warned that those abstaining will be expelled from the party under anti-defection law. (Photo: ANI)

Bengaluru: Four Karnataka Congress MLAs did not turn up for the meeting of the Legislature Party in Bengaluru on Friday which was convened to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculation of defections.

The Congress, which shares power with JD(S), has 80 MLAs in the 224-member Assembly, including the Speaker.

Accordingly, 79 MLAs were expected to attend the CLP meeting but only 76 turned up for the meeting held under the supervision of central leaders K C Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge.

Those absent were Nagendra B, Ramesh Jarakiholi, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumtalli, the party sources said.

Ahead of the meeting, the Congress MLAs were warned that those abstaining will be expelled from the party under anti-defection law.

The Congress had said it has called the meeting of its legislators to take stock of the prevailing political situation.

"If somebody doesn't attend this (CLP) meeting, action will be taken against them under the anti-defection law. Also, it will be assumed that the member himself has decided to leave primary membership of the party," senior party leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah said on Wednesday.

The Congress' alliance partner JD(S) has 37 seats and its supporter BSP has one. The BJP is the single largest party with 104 seats but 9 short of the simple majority mark.

The meeting was called amidst allegations that the BJP was poaching on the Congress MLAs.

The BJP has been denying this allegation and in turn claimed that its MLAs were being poached upon by the Congress.

The charges of horse-trading were triggered after three Congress MLAs visited Mumbai earlier on Monday, reportedly along with some BJP MLAs.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices L N Rao and Dinesh Maheshwari said it was only going into the aspect of security to the two women and would not like to entertain any other prayer. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Kerala government to provide round-the-clock security to two Kerala women who entered Sabarimala earlier this month.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices L N Rao and Dinesh Maheshwari said it was only going into the aspect of security to the two women and would not like to entertain any other prayer.

The bench also refused to tag the matter along with the pending petitions in the Sabarimala case.

Bindu Ammini (40) and Kanakadurga (39), fearing for their lives, had petitioned the top court seeking security.

In September 2018, the Supreme Court ordered the shrines doors to be open to women of all ages, overturning a decades-old ban on the entry of female devotees of menstruating age.

(With PTI inputs)
The action came on Friday soon after Nowhera Sheikh, head of the company, released a threatening video against those who approach the police with complaints of cheating.

KOZHIKODE: The police has frozen 20 bank accounts of Heera Gold Exim, the Hyderabad-based company that siphoned off huge sums of money from investors of Malabar region.

The action came on Friday soon after Nowhera Sheikh, head of the company, released a threatening video against those who approach the police with complaints of cheating.

The accounts of the company were frozen based on 17 complaints received by the police at Anamangad here, where the company office is located.

Though complaints were filed for frauds worth `20 crore, it is believed that the group had amassed about `300 crore through the Kozhikode branch alone.

Meanwhile, the case will be investigated by the economic offences wing of the Crime Branch as the fraud is above the `2-crore limit set for the local police to investigate, police sources said.

The police has already submitted a proposal to the police headquarters recommending a CB investigation into the case. The threatening YouTube video had warned the investors that they would lose the amount if they persist with legal proceedings. The courts will take over a decade to sort out things, it said.

However, the police action has shocked the company and more investors may file complaints.

Nowhera Sheikh, who has been imprisoned in Mumbai prison in connection with financial fraud, had won an anticipatory bail in the complaints filed against her in the state.
The commissioner said that investigation was on to unearth the total number of pistols sold and the people who have been purchasing these. (Photo: File/Representational)

Hyderabad: Two persons from Thane, in Maharashtra, who were selling firearms in the city were apprehended by the Special Operations Team of the Rachakonda police on Thursday. Two pistols and live rounds were recovered from the duo while another accused from Uttar Pradesh is yet to be nabbed, said a police official.

Acting on a tip-off, the Malkajgiri SOT personnel raided Sri Sai lodge located at LB Nagar on Thursday night and caught two persons, Datthu Veeresh Koli, 31, and Shyam Sunder Bhumaiah Vadepally, 29, both residents of Bhiwandi in Thane. On searching, the team found the pistols and ammunition. They were then taken into custody for questioning.

Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that Datthu had a long criminal background. He was into the illegal firearm business and had contacts with several persons who were selling firearms in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Datthu mostly purchased pistols from his close associate Jamsheer of Azamgarh in UP and sold each weapon for about `1 lakh.

Recently, Datthu and his friend Shyam purchased two pistols and two live rounds from Bhiwandi. They came to the city and were staying in a lodge at LB Nagar when the SOT caught them, said the commissioner.

The commissioner said that investigation was on to unearth the total number of pistols sold and the people who have been purchasing these. Efforts are on to nab Jamsheer, he said.
If you're honeymooning in Hawaii, make sure to add these six awe-inspiring sites across the Hawaiian Islands to your itinerary. (Photo: ANI)

Washington: Every year, thousands of people head to the islands of Hawaii for their honeymoon. Just thinking about the vast beaches and luxury resorts is enough to melt away wedding stress. But those who travel all the way to Hawaii just to sprawl on the sands of Waikiki are missing out on some of the most dramatic scenery in the United States. If you're honeymooning in Hawaii, make sure to add these six awe-inspiring sites across the Hawaiian Islands to your itinerary.

Hanauma Bay, Oahu:

Found on the southeastern tip of the island of Oahu, about 20 kilometers from the state's capital city, Honolulu, Hanauma Bay is all that remains of a once-powerful volcanic crater. This stunning cove is a popular snorkeling spot.

Na Pali Coast, Kauai:

Stretching across more than 27 kilometers of Kauai's northern shore, the Na Pali Coast is the island's most famous juncture with the ocean. The occasional waterfall adds to the already dazzling beauty of these jagged green cliffs. You can experience the Na Pali Coast from the Kalalau Trail, but this hike isn't for the faint of heart. You can also see the coast by boat or enjoy views on the cliffs from the eastern end of Route 560, about 17 kilometers west of the resort town of Princeville.

Waimoku Falls, Maui:

The short hike to Waimoku Falls - located in the southeastern part of Maui's Haleakala National Park - is a worthwhile detour along the island's famous Road to Hana Drive. One can follow the Pipiwai Trail through several bamboo groves and they will find themselves staring up at the 122-meter-high falls.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Big Island:

This honeymoon hot spot was formed over thousands of years by volcanic activity - which one can see first-hand Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the southern coast of the Big Island. This island chain was formed thousands of years ago from volcanic activity, and the Kilauea volcano continues to add layers.

Molokini, Maui:

A less fiery view of Hawaii's volcanic history can be found at Molokinki, a half-moon-shaped islet found about 4 kilometers off the southwest coast of Maui - making it an easy day trip from Maui's resorts. Molokini is all that remains of a violent volcanic eruption that rocked the Pacific around 230,000 years ago. Today, the atoll (and the 31 hectares of ocean floor surrounding it) draws snorkelers and scuba divers, as well as boaters looking for a scenic place to drop anchor.

Waimea Canyon, Kauai:

Although it's not nearly as large as its Arizona counterpart, the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific" boasts some memorable scenery. Numerous lookout points offer panoramic views of the 22.5-kilometer-long, 1,100-meter-deep canyon on the northwest side of Kauai. One can also follow Waimea Canyon Drive, which cuts through the state park and leads down into the canyon, weaving between the rusty buttes. One can also take a helicopter ride here.
Montaut (France): French producers of foie gras, the rich liver delicacy made from force-feeding grain to ducks or geese, have denounced a ban on the product in California, saying they make the creamy pate humanely, following all the rules.

California has formally blocked the sale and production of foie gras (literally fat liver) since 2012. That ban has now been reinforced after the U.S. Supreme Court declined last week to hear an appeal brought by farmers and chefs. Violators will be fined up to $1,000 if caught selling the product.

In France, which makes around 70 percent of the worlds foie gras, farmers and high-end producers see a double-standard, arguing that they treat the animals well, with no harm done to them during the fattening process. Everyone can think what they like, but I know Im proud of what I do, said Julien, a farmer in Montaut, in the southwest of France, one of the main foie gras producing regions. He did not give his last name for fear of reprisal from animal-rights activists.

I really look after them because, like I said, thats how I make a living. If I dont look after them I dont have any money at the end of the month, I cant pay my bills  so theres nothing to be gained for me in mistreating the animals.

In California, animal-rights campaigners have picketed high-end restaurants that serve foie gras, denouncing the manufacturing process as an unnecessary cruelty to animals. The U.S. Animal Legal Defense Fund said the Supreme Courts decision not to hear the appeal by the foie gras industry represented a death knell for the product in California and would spare thousands of ducks from terrible suffering.

The force-feeding, known as gavage, involves inserting a metal tube into the animals throats, allowing them to consume far more grain than they would naturally eat and fattening their livers by up to 10 times the normal size. Some decorated chefs, including Frances Albert Roux, are opposed to foie gras, no longer serving it in their restaurants, while many supermarket chains also will not stock it.

Fabien Chevalier, the managing director of Frances Lafitte Foie Gras, said California was wrong to ban a product he said conformed to global hygiene regulations and was freely traded. If we cant sell it in the U.S. we will go elsewhere, he told Reuters. Today, Asian customers love our product. If we take the example of Japan, its a developed economy, Japan is the second biggest consumer of foie gras in the world.

In France, foie gras has been recognised as part of the nations cultural and gastronomic heritage since 2006. But several European countries ban its production, including the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany and Britain, and there are similar bans in Australia and Argentina.
Mumbai: Sonchiriya which showcases the era of dacoits, has a sequence that was shot with 50-60 men who traveled all the way from Punjab were trained to fire real guns.

As the film is set back in the era where dacoits were prominent, guns were used extensively. In order, to give action sequences a real touch, the makers made sure that these fighters get formal training to use real guns. Also, ample time was spent on training the background artists to make sure they look rough and fearless to add strength to their respective roles.

The trailer depicts the era of 1970s in the Chambal region in Madhya Pradesh. The trailer narrates the story of the famous dacoits of Chambal and their on and off rebel with the local police. It showcases strong and rough characters with talented lead actor Sushant Singh Rajput in an unseen avatar.

Starring Sushant Singh Rajput, Bhumi Pednekar, Manoj Bajpayee, Ranvir Shorey, and Ashutosh Rana in pivotal roles, Sonchiriya presents tale set in the era of dacoits.

Directed by Abhishek Chaubey who has earlier presented 'Udta Punjab' and 'Ishiqiya', 'Sonchiriya' presents a rooted tale set in Chambal.

Producer Ronnie Screwvala who has not only presented blockbusters but also award-winning films is all set to present 'Sonchiriya'. The movie is slated to release on 8th February 2019.
Mumbai: Deepika Padukone, who has been a supporter of pay parity in the industry, recently turned down a film after a filmmaker offered her a fee that didnt match up to her worth. The actress refused the film as the director was penny-pinching in order to pay the hero.

The Padmaavat actress says, I would like to speak for myself in that I have been able to bridge that gap in terms of what my male contemporaries make. In a recent instance, a director offered me a film and creatively, I liked it. There was back and forth on the monies and he said that we wouldnt be able to afford this kind of monies because he wanted to accommodate the male actor in it. So I said, tata good bye!

Explaining her reasons for making the decision, the actress says, I know my track record and I know what I am worth and then his (the male actors) films havent been doing as well as mine. It made absolutely no sense and I said no to that film because it was unfair. I am ready to take those decisions for myself. Because of that I can sleep peacefully at night.

Interestingly, a survey conducted recently stated that five films made over a budget of Rs 50 crore with women as protagonists returned 25 per cent on investments as compared to the Khan films, which made 9 percent, while the real estate market made seven per cent.

When asked about her views on the surveys findings, Deepika says, I think it is amazing. It is nice to say women-centric or female-centric when we talk about female role models. But when it comes to creativity, it has to go beyond male or female. The actress also underscores the importance of a good script when she adds, It is fine to say that the films with the Khans didnt work. But Andhadhun was led by Ayushmann (Khurrana). So, it really boils down to the script, but yes, I see a trend where films being led by women are doing much better.

Deepika also highlights the role played by directors and the audience, as both are open to experimentation. We are in a space today where directors are changing roles. There are scripts that have a male protagonist and the director says, Let me make that into a female protagonist. Roles offered to males, being offered to a female is a huge achievement. But as a creative person, I wont like to make a distinction. Great content is what is really working right now. And a lot of that credit goes to the audience, as they are ready. It depends on the kind of story thats being told. How well the director is telling that story. 2018 was a clear verdict on that. The promo and the poster say it all. When the first trailer goes out, the audience know whether they want to watch the film or not. In some cases, there are films where word of mouth has helped elevate them in the week of the release, says Deepika.

The actress however says that she has never been discriminated against due to her gender. Broadly I have never been made to feel less for being a woman. I never experienced it. Maybe its the way I was brought up. I didnt look at this through those lenses. Maybe there have been instances of male vs female or girl vs boy and maybe, it didnt register. I have grown up in a family where theres just my sister and me. And we were never made to feel that we were lesser or could not accomplish something because we were girls. I started playing badminton at an early age. Girls and boys played together, we travelled together and we stayed together in dormitories. We had the same issues of not having toilets or water to shower. The issues have been the same. Maybe the prize money was more for boys than the girls, she says.
Due to the lack of batteries, the probe disconnected the electricity that controlled the temperature. The sprouted seeds were exposed to temperatures between 120  C during the day and -170  C at night. Establish a space base in the future.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - The first plant to sprout on the hidden face of the moon has died, due to a blackout made necessary by the lack of batteries in the Chang'e 4 probe.

The team following the Chang'e 4 said they were forced to interrupt electricity supplies that kept the shoot alive. In this way it was exposed to temperatures of 120 degrees centigrade during the day and minus 170 degrees at night. Along with the cotton bud, potato and turnip seeds as wells as the eggs of fruit flies have been destroyed. For scientists it is clear that without the control of temperatures, plants and animals cannot survive on the moon.

It is not clear why the probe was not equipped with additional batteries. The hypothesis is that engineers did not want to overload the probe too much. Despite the apparent failure of the experiment, the scientists said they have learned important information on how to grow plants in a situation of low gravity and high radiation. The possibility of growing plants in those conditions will feed into the establishment of a moon base in the future.
Mumbai: Gone are the days when actresses would take online trolls lightly. That they are now quick to hit back at netizens if their comments are offensive, was something one troll, who tried to take a dig at actress Rakul Preet Singh with his mean comments, discovered!

Sharing a photograph of Rakul seen in hot pants, the netizen poked fun at her and said that she had forgotten to wear her pants after having a 'session' in the car.

While Rakuls fans and well wishers lambasted the troll on social media, the actress stepped in herself to give it back.

I think your mother does a lot of sessions in the car so you are an expert!! Ask her to give u some sense also besides these session details...till the time people like this exist women can't be safejust debating about equality and safety won't help.. #sickmind (sic), tweeted Rakul.

For the people who have so much hatred !! This is the tweet( or thread ) I replied to. This guy pulled off his tweet immediately. Now tell me if any of you would react calmly !  pic.twitter.com/7FUkKzCsfl  Rakul Preet (@Rakulpreet) January 18, 2019

Apparently, the actress says that her reply was a typical girls reply.

I woke up to that tweet and naturally I was very angry. It was a girls reply, an emotional and instinctive one, she says, adding, If we are asked to keep quiet as a child, teenager and as a celebrity, then when will we speak? And as a celebrity, I felt it is my responsibility to react, and I would have definitely slapped him, had I come face to face.

Rakul goes on to say, Another reason I replied strongly was because I dont want him to repeat such a thing with other women. We slog the whole day, and we keep seeing such abuses daily. So its natural that we get annoyed. We are all humans at the end of the day.While Rakuls stinging reply has won praise from the majority, a few have criticised her for drawing a reference to a mother.

I am sure his mother would have slapped him had she seen that tweet, she asserts, adding, The reason I used such words was to make such sick minds realise that they too have a family. How would they feel if such a comment is passed at them. And those who are questioning my ethics, why dont they speak up when women are objectified.

Seems like the actresss reply found its mark as the user promptly deleted the offensive tweet!
New Delhi: Trai chairman RS Sharma on Thursday expressed hope that the telecom sector is set to achieve stability soon post consolidation and the country needs heavy investment in fibre if it is to succeed in 5G technology and services roll out.

"My sense is that the sector is going to acquire stability and looking at the examples around the world scene 3+1 (3 private players and a PSU) is a good number and I dont see it going down from that," Sharma said here.

The Indian telecom operators are now reduced to three -Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and Jio and BSNL-MTNL following a bloody battle on tariffs that has seen shut down of operations of many fringe telcos and merger of two big telcos to take on Reliance Jio which unleashed a free and cheap service era that catapulted India to be data consuming nation ahead of US and China combined. But in the process, the incumbent telcos have bled on revenues and profitability and have found it diffcult to even service spectrum loans.

While the talk of India not missing the 5G bus is loud on private telcos and the government, the Trai chairman had a word of caution  India can be a frontrunner in deployment of 5G but a lot will hinge on bolstering investments in fibre infrastructure, which is currently inadequate and trailing countries like China.

"In 5G space, we can leapfrog inadequacies which we have in physical world, all of which can be overcome with use of information and communication technologies...There is a serious concern that while people are talking of 5G as a slogan but it won't happen unless we put a lot of investment in fibre. Without fibre, 5G will not happen. 5G is going to have important use-cases in India because it will be a platform over which all the applications will be run. But it will not happen if there is no fibre", Sharma said. He was speaking at the India Digital Summit organised by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). At the same time, he said the investment need not just come from the TSPs (telecom service providers) it should also come from eco system companies as well.

It is not just telecom companies that will need to invest. There are several avenues to generate investment and we are already seeing it happen now. For instance, telecom service providers are already sharing tower. Infrastructure sharing could be one of the keys for the 5G network," Sharma said. He said the fiberisation of the whole country is a must for the success of 5G.

India has only 22 per cent of mobile towers connected on fibre, while 78 per cent are without fibre, on wireless. China on the other hand, has 80 per cent connectivity through fibre and the rest through wireless. The optical fibre cable laid today till date is equal to optical fibre cable laid in China in one single year," Sharma said adding fixed infrastructure will be critical for attaining a reliable and sustainable growth. Policies need to focus on promoting investments in infrastructure, he said.

"The National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP) contains those set of policies and statements and we need to operationalise those to ensure investment," Sharma said. The new telecom policy - NDCP - aims to attract USD 100 billion investment and create four million jobs in the sector by 2022. It seeks to provide universal broadband connectivity at 50 Mbps to every citizen by 2022, and also talks of enhancing the contribution of digital communications sector to 8 per cent of India's GDP, from the about 6 per cent now.

The TRAI chief further said there would be a need to unbundle service and infrastructure layers at some point, and fibre sharing could be one of the options in infrastructure sharing. "We think end-of-end service provisioning will not happen in 5G," Sharma said. He further said, the connectivity problems in the country need to be solved with urgency, and regulations should not be "constrained" by the fact that only a certain set of service providers should provide a particular service. "No one should have the monopoly of providing services to people of this country, and we should solve this problem by whatever means and instruments we can deploy," he said.
Tata Sons chairperson Natarajan Chandrasekaran shakes hands with Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani at the 9th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit-2019, in Gandhinagar on Friday. (Photo: PTI)

Gandhinagar: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps against data colonisation, specially by global corporations, stating that Indian data must be owned by Indians.

Invoking Mahatma Gandhis movement against political colonisation, Mr Ambani said that India now needs a new movement against data colonisation.

Gandhiji led Indias movement against political colonisation. Today, we have to collectively launch a new movement against data colonisation, he said here at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

Stressing that in this new world, data is the new wealth, Mr Ambani said, Indias data must be controlled and owned by Indian people and not by corporates, specially global corporations.

He further said, For India to succeed in this data driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India. In other words, give Indian wealth back to every Indian.

Later in the day, countering Mr Ambanis call, Governor, Commonwe-alth of Kentucky, Mr Matthew Griswold, asked Mr Modi to think in the opposite in order to realise the tremendous opportunity that lies in Indo-US partnership.

While stating that it is important to put the people of India first, he said, It is important to put their opportunity and our opportunity as citizens of the world to trade with one another and exchange ideas.
The operating revenue of Reliance Jio surged by 50.9 per cent to Rs 10,383 crore during the October-December 2018 period compared with Rs 6,879 crore. (Photo: Financial Chronicle)

New Delhi: Reliance Industries (RIL) on Thursday beat the Street estimates by posting a record third quarter net profit of Rs 10,250 crore, which made the Mukesh Ambani-led petrochemical giant the first private sector company to cross the Rs 10,000 crore-mark in quarterly net profit.

During the October-December quarter, the conglomerates ambitious telecom business, Reliance Jio, clocked a 65 per cent rise in profit at Rs 831 crore.

The operating revenue of Reliance Jio surged by 50.9 per cent to Rs 10,383 crore during the October-December 2018 period compared with Rs 6,879 crore in the year-ago period. Reliances consolidated revenue grew 56.4 per cent to Rs 1.6 lakh crore.

Commenting on the results, Mukesh D Ambani, chairman and managing director, said: The journey of Jio has been truly remarkable and has surpassed all expectations. The Jio family is now 280 million-strong and growing on one of the worlds largest mobile data networks.

The telecoms business is central to Ambanis ambition to make Reliances consumer businesses as big as its energy operations, which contribute the bulk of group revenue and profit. RILs refining and petrochemicals unit, which contribute around three-quarters of overall revenue and profits, revenue rose 47 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively.

On a standalone basis, which includes primarily refining and petrochemicals, Reliances third-quarter profit rose 5.6 per cent to Rs 8,928 crore.

Gross refining margin (GRM), the profit earned on each barrel of crude processed, was $8.8 per barrel for the quarter, outperforming the benchmark Singapore complex margin by $4.5 per barrel. The benchmark GRMs have come down to multi-year lows in the third quarter to below $2 per barrel, hitting all refining companies globally.

Reliances refinery in Gujarat is the worlds biggest single-location refinery, with a capacity to process 1.36 million barrels per day of crude.

"In our endeavour to consistently create more value for our country and stakeholders, our company has become the first Indian private sector corporate to cross Rs 10,000 crore quarterly profits milestone," Ambani said.

Product prices for the refining and petrochemicals business increased in line with the 10.4 per cent higher average than the Brent crude oil price. The higher volumes in petrochemical business were on account of stabilisation and ramp up of new petrochemical facilities, the company said.

Retail business and digital services business recorded an increase of 89 per cent and 51 per cent in revenue, respectively, during the quarter compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

RIL saw Ebit for its petrochemical segment in the December quarter surge 42.9 per cent year-on-year to a record high of Rs 8,221 crore.

The total income raked in by RIL during the December quarter of 2018-19 reached Rs 1,62,759 crore.

The same for the previous quarter was at Rs 1,47,268 crore, whereas the figure from the year-ago period was Rs 1,04,718 crore.

The company saw its exports increase by 35.2 per cent to Rs 62,378 crore during Q3 FY19, according to the regulatory filing by RIL.
Will be based on VW Groups MQB A0 platform, which will be localised in India by 2020.

Will make its world debut at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show in March.

Will be based on VW Groups MQB A0 platform, which will be localised in India by 2020.

Likely to preview a new design direction for future Skoda SUVs.

Skoda has released the first-ever teaser of its smallest SUV yet, which is based on the 2018 Vision X concept. The compact SUV that has been teased will debut at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show in March. This is exactly a year after the Vision X concepts debut at the same venue. What the T-Cross is to Volkswagen, the Vision X-based SUV will be to Skoda.

Volkswagen plans to launch the T-Cross SUV in India in 2020 to rival the Hyundai Creta. Skoda will also enter this segment with its own SUV based on the same MQB A0-IN platform as the T-Cross. So the Vision X concept-based SUV that has just been teased could be the same that comes to India in 2020, or it might serve as an inspiration for Skodas Creta rival in India.

The teaser video released by the Czech automaker has indicated that the series production model of the compact SUV will look quite identical to the 2018 concept. It will have a split headlamp setup wherein the DLRs/dynamic turn indicators are placed above the main lamps. It will have LED projector headlamps. Though theres no teaser for the rear profile, it is likely to be similar to the concept. The dashboard layout is expected to be similar to that of the recently revealed Skoda Scala.

VW had told us that the India-spec T-Cross will feature stylistic changes compared to its international versions, and it will be bigger too. So, we can assume that the Vision X-based Skoda SUV might serve as an inspiration for the India-spec Skoda SUV, which might be bigger and more butch or muscular in the way it looks.

Stay tuned to CD for the reveal of the Skoda compact SUV in March 2019.

Disclaimer: This article has not been edited by Deccan Chronicle and is taken from a syndicated feed. Photos: CarDekho.
During the celebration marking the start of the 52nd Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Francis said It is a grave sin to belittle or despise the gifts that the Lord has given our brothers and sisters, and to think that God somehow holds them in less esteem. When we entertain such thoughts, we allow the very grace we have received to become a source of pride, injustice and division. And how can we then enter the promised kingdom?

Rome (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis kicked off the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity with evening Vespers celebrated in Romes Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. An ecumenical delegation from Finland and students from the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey took part in the service.

In his address, the pontiff noted that Solidarity and shared responsibility must be the laws that govern the Christian family who must acknowledge the gifts God gives to the various Christian communities and must desire to share them. His inspiration came from a reflection on the topic Try to be truly just (Deut. 16-18-20), proposed by an Indonesian ecumenical group

The Christians of Indonesia, said Francis in his homily, reflecting on the theme chosen for this Week of Prayer, decided to draw inspiration from these words of Deuteronomy: Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue (16:20). They are deeply concerned that the economic growth of their country, driven by the mentality of competition, is leaving many in poverty and allowing a small few to become immensely wealthy. This jeopardizes the harmony of a society in which people of different ethnic groups, languages and religions live together and share a sense of responsibility for one another.

But that is not simply the case in Indonesia; it is a situation we see worldwide. When society is no longer based on the principle of solidarity and the common good, we witness the scandal of people living in utter destitution amid skyscrapers, grand hotels and luxurious shopping centres, symbols of incredible wealth. We have forgotten the wisdom of the Mosaic law: if wealth is not shared, society is divided.

Saint Paul, writing to the Romans, applies the same thinking to the Christian community: those who are strong must bear with the weak. It is not Christian to please ourselves (15:1). Following Christs example, we are to make every effort to build up those who are weak. Solidarity and shared responsibility must be the laws that govern the Christian family.

As Gods holy people, we too constantly find ourselves on the threshold of entering the Lords promised kingdom. Yet, since we are also divided, we need to recall Gods summons to justice. Christians too risk adopting the mentality known to the ancient Israelites and contemporary Indonesians, namely that in the pursuit of wealth, we forget about the weak and those in need. It is easy to forget the fundamental equality existing among us: that once we were all slaves to sin, that the Lord saved us in baptism and called us his children. It is easy to think that the spiritual grace granted us is our property, something to which we are due, our property. The gifts we have received from God can also blind us to the gifts given to other Christians. It is a grave sin to belittle or despise the gifts that the Lord has given our brothers and sisters, and to think that God somehow holds them in less esteem. When we entertain such thoughts, we allow the very grace we have received to become a source of pride, injustice and division. And how can we then enter the promised kingdom?

The worship befitting that kingdom, the worship demanded by justice, is a celebration that includes everyone, a feast in which gifts received are available to and shared by all. To take the first steps towards the promised land that is our unity, we must first of all recognize with humility that the blessings we have received are not ours by right, but have come to us as a gift; they were given to be shared with others. Then, we must acknowledge the value of the grace granted to other Christian communities. As a result, we will want to partake of the gifts of others. A Christian people renewed and enriched by this exchange of gifts will be a people capable of journeying firmly and confidently on the path that leads to unity.
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HARTFORD  Lawmakers will subpoena eight people involved in running the November election in Stratford to testify next week before the legislative committee charged with determining whether a new vote should be held in the 120th House District.

The four-member, bipartisan committee decided Friday it will call to testify the Democratic Registrar Rick Marcone; Republican Registrar Lou Decilio; election Moderator Malcolm A. Starratt; GOP strategist Ben Proto; Joseph Elliott, Democratic poll moderator; Assistant Registrar David Heriot; and two Stratford ballot clerks.

Committee members did not know the names of those clerks on Friday.

Keep up with public policy every day in Hearst's CT Politics

The committee also asked State Rep. Phil Young, who has been sworn in to represent the district and his Republican challenger Jim Feehan, or their attorneys, to make presentations describing their positions on the election results.

Young won by 13 votes amid charges that 76 voters from a multi-district polling place were disenfranchised because they were given ballots that did not include the 120th district candidates. The state Supreme Court ruled that the House of Representatives, not the courts, must decide whether the results stand  but the secretary of the state was allowed to certify the results.

Testimony will begin at the Legislative Office building Wednesday morning and may last until Friday. The committee has until Feb. 4 to recommend whether a new election should be held. The full House will decide how to proceed.

State Reps. Michael DAgostino, D-Hamden, Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, Jason Perillo, R-Shelton, and Gregory Haddad, D-Storrs, sit on the committee. They reviewed witness lists submitted by Feehan and Young to the committee in order to decide Friday which people to call.

Feehan also submitted a formal complaint to the committee, similar to the one he filed to the Supreme Court, and 18 pages of supplemental documents.

While the committee does its work, Young is fully participating in the legislature, where he is vice chairman of the public health committee.

If they decide on a new election, they decide on a new election, he told Hearst Connecticut Media last week. But I am looking forward to my committees and the session going forward.

A Committee on Contested Elections is rarely convened. The last time a similar committee was formed in the Houser was in 1985. The Democratic winner, Joan Hartley of Waterbury, was allowed to keep her seat. Hartley is now a longtime state Senator.

Staff writer Ken Dixon contributed to this story.

emunson@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
STAMFORD  A Glenbrook man will spend 25 years in jail for killing his estranged wife and abandoning their 6-year-old daughter at a New York City bus depot while he was on the run in 2016.

Dressed in his prison-issued bright orange jumpsuit, Elmer Gomez Ruano, 35, pleaded guilty Thursday to the November 2016 murder. Gomez Ruanos public defender Howard Ehring requested his clients previous not guilty plea be vacated.

Gomez Ruano confessed to using a wet towel to suffocate Dionicia Bautista-Cano less than 48 hours after she moved back in with him. Bautista-Cano had been living with their daughter in New Jersey.

Police said just before her death, Bautista-Cano exchanged a series of panicked text messages with her former boyfriend in New Jersey.

He says he is going to kill us both, she texted to the man in Spanish, according to police.

Police said the disagreement escalated into a physical fight inside their apartment while their 6-year-old daughter was apparently asleep.

Gomez Ruano told police he smothered the 24-year-old woman with a wet towel until she died, according to the confession revealed in his arrest warrant.

He disappeared after abandoning his daughter at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City that same day, police said. The daughter led police back to the Glenbrook apartment where her mothers body was discovered. After being captured in New York City, Gomez Ruano was extradited to Stamford before Christmas that year.

This was a very sad situation. My client had been married to the decedent and the state was very reluctant to come off the murder charge, Ehring said. He made a full confession and recognized the fact that he let his emotions run rampant. He has accepted responsibility for the top charge and the sentence is in line with what other individuals have been sentenced to in similar situations.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
STAMFORD  A city man who claimed to be making news after he was arrested robbing a downtown bank last summer has been sentenced to three years in jail.

Charles Redshirt, 35, of Franklin Street, pleaded guilty to felony counts of second-degree robbery and fourth-degree larceny for walking out of the Summer Street branch of First Bank of Greenwich on July 16, 2018 with more than $1,000 in cash.

Police were called to the nearby Inspirica building where officer Brian McKay and Sgt. Chris Petrizzi apprehended Redshirt at gunpoint in the lobby about 10 minutes after the robbery. Police said Redshirt was in possession of some of the money taken in the robbery.

While he was waiting to be taken to police headquarters, Redshirt said he was just creating the news when asked why he robbed the bank.

Redshirt was given a seven-year suspended sentence and four years probation. If Redshirt violates his parole, he could be forced to serve all or some of the seven years in jail.

Stamford States Attorney Richard Colangelo told Judge Gary White that Redshirt robbed the bank of $1,155, but never showed a gun.

Redshirt has a criminal record dating back to 1999 that includes convictions for assault, burglary, violation of probation, failure to appear in court, having a weapon in a motor vehicle and drunken driving, the bail commissioner said.

Redshirts attorney said his client has drug problems and has gained some clarity in the six months he has been at the Garner Correctional Center where prisoners with severe mental issues are housed.

Mr. Redshirt has a situation where he has had some past difficulties with substance abuse and is trying to straighten out his life, Public Defender Howard Ehring said. This was a good resolution for Mr. Redshirt and he is addressing some of his difficulties while he is incarcerated.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
SHELTON  A city man was charged Friday after an investigation into a sexual assault claim, police said.

Victor Santos, 37, of Shelton, was charged with three counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of fourth-degree sexual assault.

The arrest stems from a complain the Shelton police took in November of 2018 from a female victim, according to a news release from Detective Richard Bango.

The victim told police the assaults took place when she was a teenager.

Santos was held on a $50,000 bond and arraigned in Derby Superior Court on Friday. Court records showed hes expected in court on Jan. 29 to enter pleas for these charges.
3 1 of 3 Stamford police / Contributed Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Stamford police / Contributed Show More Show Less 3 of 3





STAMFORD  Police say a New York man on parole was caught delivering cocaine and ecstasy to an East Side motel this week.

Capt. Richard Conklin said officers in the Narcotics and Organized Crime squad became aware that a man was going to deliver drugs to the Red Carpet Inn on East Main Street Wednesday evening.
Researchers at Dalhousie University have found that frailty, more so than amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain, is a key risk factor for developing Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia.

PhD candidate Lindsay Wallace, lead author, and her supervisor Dr. Kenneth Rockwood, are optimistic their findings will be influential, as they were published this week in Lancet Neurology  one of the highest-impact journals in the field.

This study is the first to examine amyloid plaques and tangles in post-mortem brain tissues, in relation to both the subjects frailty index and the severity of their dementia symptoms when they were alive. The frailty index is a score of relative frailty based on the accumulation of deficits in physical health and ability to function.

We confirmed that there are a lot of people with lots of plaques and tangles who dont have dementia, says Wallace. These people were less frail. Conversely, there were people with very few plaques and tangles who had severe dementia. These people were very frail in fact, they were more frail even than the people who had lots of plaques and tangles and dementia.

Wallace and Dr. Rockwood were joined in the research by Drs. Olga Theou, Judith Godin and Melissa Andrew of Dalhousie and Dr. David Bennett of Rush University in Chicago.

Frailtys role



Wallace  who is in year four of a five-year interdisciplinary PhD  is a member of Dalhousies Public Scholars Program. Public Scholars actively engage in community outreach by giving talks in non-academic settings, sharing their ideas through social media and writing for mainstream publications. They also actively engage with the media by providing expertise and opinions to raise awareness of issues that matter and that help the public make sense of current events.

Wallace analyzed autopsy and clinical data from 456 subjects in Rush Universitys Memory and Aging Project, a long-term cohort study of people in a retirement community. She and Dr. Rockwood applied the frailty index (created by Dr. Rockwood and colleagues at Dalhousie) to the cohort to complete their analysis.

Their results suggest that frailty aggravates the neuropathological effects of plaques and tangles  jumbled strands of proteins that accumulate in some peoples brains  and may even be an independent risk factor with nothing to do with plaques and tangles.

At the same time, resilience may be the most important protective factor against Alzheimers disease and dementia.

We hope this paper will help shift the focus in Alzheimers research from single proteins to much broader issues, says Dr. Rockwood, Dalhousie Medical Research Foundations Kathryn Allen Weldon Professor of Alzheimer Research, professor of geriatric medicine at Dalhousie Medical School, and staff geriatrician at the QEII Health Sciences Centre. The drugs targeting plaques and tangles have not worked to date. Targeting frailty  rather than waiting for a magic bullet  will have by far the greater impact.

Identifying new opportunities



In Dr. Rockwoods view, health researchers and decision-makers should be identifying pivotal opportunities for preventing frailty and dementia, and taking action to do just that. He sees delirium is a key target.

Delirium is a global change in attention, memory and thinking that occurs quickly, and accompanies acute illnesses such as pneumonia or heart failure, especially in people who are frail, explains Dr. Rockwood. Typically it resolves, but it can persist to merge into dementia again, especially in people who are frail.

Delirium often goes unrecognized and untreated. This is why Dr. Rockwood insists researchers and providers need to look more closely at whats being done now and design interventions that screen for risk and target frailty to prevent delirium and downstream cognitive decline and/or dementia.

Seniors housing facilities offer another key opportunity to promote the behaviors that are useful in preventing frailty and therefore dementiasuch as social interaction, physical activity and healthy eating.

My interest is in finding ways we can control the burden of dementia now, says Wallace, who worked as a research assistant with Dr. Rockwood for two years after receiving her undergrad in psychology from Dalhousie. She went on to complete a masters in neuroimaging at McGill University, before returning to Halifax to pursue doctoral studies with Dr. Rockwood. She plans to probe the Rush studys data further in the final year of her PhD, to gain a greater understanding of how frailty relates to the development of dementia symptoms over time.
by Wang Zhicheng

Berlin studies ways to exclude the Chinese company from the 5G network. The University of Oxford bans donations and research grants from Huawei. Ren Zhengfei, the founder, promises to invest even more funds in network security.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - More bad news for Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant. According to press rumors, Germany is studying ways to exclude the Chinese company from the 5G network.

Officially, the German foreign ministry has declared that it is opposed to the ban of any competitor. But a series of security requirements is being investigated that could exclude Huawei, suspected and accused of espionage in favor of China.

United States, Australia and New Zealand have blocked the use of its technology for the new 5G mobile phone generation. Britain has also expressed concerns about its security and Canada wants to revise its relationship with the company.

Meanwhile, yesterday Oxford University announced a ban on the receipt of donations and research grants from Huawei. The academic center's spokesman stated that the decision was made "in light of the public concerns that emerged in recent months regarding the collaboration between Great Britain and Huawei".

Ren Zhengfei, the founder of the technological giant, broke the silence for the second time this week, releasing another interview yesterday, one of the few in all these years.

Days ago, meeting the international media at Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters, he defended himself against espionage charges. Yesterday, meeting with Chinese media, he said that he wants to remain a commercial ally of the US and has promised to invest even more funds on network security.

The United States warned against using Huawei products for security reasons and opened an investigation that would incriminate the company for stealing trade secrets. In Poland, a Huawei employee, Wang Weijing, was arrested for spying and in Canada, the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, Meng Wanzhou, who is the company's financial director, was arrested  later freed on bail - for violating the US embargo on Iran. Meng could be extradited to the United States, where she faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison.
Conclusion of Bangkok meeting between Chairpersons of Doctrinal Commissions, or the Representatives, of the Asian Bishops Conferences with a delegation from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Two Chinese representatives also present.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Concrete ways to make the Gospel more widely known in the vast Asian continent" have been highlighted during the meeting between Chairpersons of Doctrinal Commissions, or the Representatives, of the Asian Bishops Conferences with a delegation from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, held on January 15-18 in the Baan Phu Waan Pastoral Center in Bangkok.

A statement released today in the Vatican recalls that the Vatican delegation was led by Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria, S.J., prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Among the representatives of the episcopal conferences of Asia, the communique cites Msgr. Joseph Guo Jincai. He is one of the two Chinese bishops who took part in the Synod on young people and is one of the seven bishops "reconciled" by the China-Vatican agreement, having been ordained in 2010 without papal mandate. The Vatican also created a new diocese for him, that of Chengde. He is the general secretary of the Council of Chinese bishops, a body not recognized by the Holy See.

A priest, Zhang Qiu Lin, was also mentioned as having been present at the meeting.

The meeting provided a precious opportunity to enhance the collaboration between the Doctrinal Commissions of the Episcopal Conferences of Asia, the FABC Office of Theological Concerns and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It also served to promote the cooperation among the Doctrinal Commissions of this great continent, which continues to be enriched by the invaluable contribution of the Catholic Faith," concludes the statement.
The cardinal led the ordination Mass of the new archbishop of Mosul and auxiliary of Baghdad in St Joseph cathedral. He asked Mgr Najij to rebuild trust with Muslims as well as the social and ecclesiastical fabric of Iraqs largest northern city, once a stronghold of the Islamic State group. He appealed to the faithful to support their bishops in their mission.

Baghdad (AsiaNews)  Fr Najib Mikhael Moussa and Fr Robert Jarjis were ordained today respectively as archbishop of Mosul and auxiliary of Baghdad. During the Mass for the episcopal ordinations, celebrated today (pictured) in Saint Joseph Cathedral, Card Louis Raphael Sako, delivered the homily.

In it, the Chaldean Patriarch urged the two new bishops to love the Chaldean Church "by strengthening its unity" and the relationship with the patriarch and all its members. He told the two to love their "homeland", Iraq, source of "our identity" and "work hard for its stability", so that "it can achieve peace" and "move towards progress and stability".

Noting that they have "inherited the faith of Saint Thomas", the apostle of the Eastern Church, the head of the Chaldean Church said that they will have to "lead" their "people to the Lord".

For Iraqs Chaldean community as well as the country as a whole, today is a day of celebration because it marks the full return of a pastor to the old stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) group, a place that for years was the scene of their terrible atrocities.

Fr Najib Mikhael Moussa, a Dominican, is tasked with rebuilding Mosuls social and ecclesial fabric as well as re-establishing relations with the Muslim population.

Addressing him, Card Sako stressed the difficulties awaiting the prelate in a "devastated" diocese. Nevertheless, his mission is to "deepen the joy of liberation and establish the hope of returning of Christians.

To do this he will have to work closely with those of good will", including Muslims, to build trust among Mosuls various communities.

The bishop, warned the Chaldean primate, must promote coexistence and dismantle what is left of the Islamic State, such as ideology, customs and traditions.

This great challenge, he noted, will require the "active participation of the Church and Christians in public life" in a city whose ancient churches were "almost fully destroyed.

We pray that you will be the new Jonah for Nineveh, the patriarch said to the new bishop.

Card Sako then turned to the new auxiliary bishop of Baghdad, Mgr Robert Jarjis, reminding him of his successful years as parish priest when he lived almost "independently".

Now, instead, he will have to adopt a more communal approach to life and become an active member of the "patriarchal team" working with "eagerness, understanding, love and humility".

Bishops from all over Iraq attended todays ceremony, as did ambassadors, government ministers, Shia and Sunni religious leaders, family members and friends.

Card Sako asked those present to accompany and support the two new prelates in their mission "with love, respect and prayers" because "the people around" the clergy can provide strength.

The episcopal rank, the Chaldean primate noted, is a calling, not a privilege and the bishop "is nothing but a servant of people".

In fact, in the Assyrian-Chaldean tradition, the bishop is called "Abun Maalia" which means "higher father" who treats his children "equally with love and tenderness" without any discrimination.

Last but not least, the bishop must realise that people are his partners and associates working as one team for the growth and prosperity of the Church through wisdom, listening, patience and consultation with his assistants.
A palace spokeswoman later confirmed Philip was at the wheel and was checked by a doctor afterwards.

Philip married Elizabeth in 1947 and has been by his wife's side throughout her long reign. (Photo: AP)

London: Queen Elizabeth's 97-year-old husband Prince Philip escaped uninjured from a car crash while driving on Thursday near the Sandringham estate in eastern England.

Police said two people in a car that collided with that of the prince, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, were both taken to hospital for minor injuries but later discharged.

Pictures from the scene showed a Land Rover overturned on the side of the road. The accident occurred when Philip was pulling out of a driveway onto a main road, the BBC reported, quoting a witness saying he was very shaken.

Philip drove former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle to lunch during their state visit to Britain in 2016.

Buckingham Palace confirmed Thursday's accident.

"The Duke was not injured," it added in a statement.

A palace spokeswoman later confirmed Philip was at the wheel and was checked by a doctor afterwards. He did not go to hospital and was now back at Sandringham, the private country residence owned by Queen Elizabeth in the county of Norfolk.

Famous for verbal gaffes but generally regarded with wry affection by Britons, Philip married Elizabeth in 1947 and has been by his wife's side throughout her long reign.

Since retiring from official solo duties in 2017, he has appeared in public alongside the Queen and other members of the royal family at events and church services.

He had successful hip replacement surgery last year.

Philip drove former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle to lunch during their state visit to Britain in 2016.

The former naval officer did not accompany the Queen to a church service on Christmas Day last month though a royal source said he was in good health.

Kate Williams, a royal historian, said it would be a blow to Philip if the incident ended his driving days. "He really loves driving and takes a great pleasure in it and were he not allowed to drive he would find that quite painful," she said.

There is no legal age in Britain to stop driving, but after 70 people must renew their licence every three years.

Outspoken yet intensely private, Philip developed a reputation for brusque comments and often headline-grabbing remarks during ceremonial events.

A stray comment about "slitty eyes" during a visit to China in the 1980s became symbolic of his gruff and often unguarded manner. Even into his 90s, his off-the-cuff comments could still get him into trouble, such as when he exasperatedly swore at a photographer during an event in 2015.
The CASS said in a report this month that 66 of the worlds 500 largest companies had used incorrect labels for Taiwan.

China last year ramped up pressure on foreign companies including Marriott International and Qantas for referring to Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate from China.

One of Chinas top government-linked think tanks has called out Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and other foreign companies for not referring to Hong Kong and Taiwan as part of China in a report that provoked a stern reaction from Taipei.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said in a report this month that 66 of the worlds 500 largest companies had used incorrect labels for Taiwan and 53 had errors in the way they referred to Hong Kong, according to Chinas Legal Daily newspaper. It said 45 had referred to both territories incorrectly.

Beijing considers self-ruled Taiwan a wayward province of China and the former British colony of Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 and operates as a semi-autonomous territory.

China last year ramped up pressure on foreign companies including Marriott International and Qantas for referring to Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate from China in drop down menus or other material.

The report was co-written by CASS and the Internet Development Research Institution of Peking University. An official at the Internet Development Research Institution told Reuters that it had not yet been published to the public and declined to provide a copy.

A spokesman for Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan would not bow to Chinese pressure.

As for Chinas related out-of-control actions, we need to remind the international community to face this squarely and to unite efforts to reduce and contain these actions, Alex Huang told reporters in Taipei.

Beijing has stepped up pressure on Taiwan since Tsai, from the pro-independence ruling party, took office in 2016.

That has included rising Chinese scrutiny over how companies from airlines, such as Air Canada, to retailers, such as Gap, refer to the democratic island in recent months.

Nike Inc, Siemens AG, ABB, Subaru and others were also on the list. Apple, Amazon, ABB, Siemens, Subaru and Nike did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The plan was to eliminate the Communist parties, which were gaining in influence around President Mohammad Daud in Kabul.

Forty years ago Afghanistan and Iran changed forever. The reason I focus on these historic developments is straightforward  I was present in Kabul and Tehran respectively even as the events unfolded.

In both the events the Western intelligence agencies and the Shah of Irans infamous Savak were involved. The irony is that in both instances the outcome was exactly the opposite of what the agencies had planned.

The plan was to eliminate the Communist parties, which were gaining in influence around President Mohammad Daud in Kabul. Afghanistan in those days had two Communist parties - Khalq and Parcham - roughly corresponding to the CPI and the CPI(M) in India. So botched up was the operation that the Communists came to power instead. Likewise, the Communist Party of Iran, the Tudeh, was the target. The ayatollahs would be the great enablers in this endeavour. Yes, the Tudeh was finished but the students, under the spell of the ayatollahs, laid siege to the American embassy in Tehran for 444 days.

Why were the Communist parties targeted? In the decade of the 1970s, the West learnt a singular lesson the hard way  the stout resilience of the Communist parties. Vietnam was nothing if not a lesson in this direction. A few years earlier the United States had to murder Chiles President Salvador Allende to pave the way for Augusto Pinochets ghastly spell.

As the Portuguese withdrew from their colonies in Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia, the West found itself confronted with the most tenacious brands of Communism in the three former colonies. Then Nicaragua happened. Europe was quaking - Berlinguer, Marchais and Carrillo were knocking at the gates in Italy, France, Spain, in that order.

To prevent it from being a one-sided clean sweep, the US had de-Nasserised Egypt, indeed, an important part of the Arab world, by yoking Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin in the historic Camp David accords in 1978.It was a determination to block Communism in Central and South Asia that Kabul and Tehran were targeted. But the plan to eliminate the Left in Kabul boomeranged.

On April 17, Mir Akbar Khyber, a trade union leader attached to the Parcham faction, was murdered, exposing prematurely the plot to eliminate the Left. Thus alerted, the Communist cells in the Army and Air Force led by Aslam Watanjar and Abdul Qadir were activated. The reinforcements entered the palace and killed President Daud. The coming of the Communists to power paved the way for the Soviet invasion in December 1979.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was back in the region. He visited New Delhi as US President Jimmy Carters national security adviser on New Years Day 1978. This time his destination was Pakistan. Peering over the parapets into Afghanistan, he plotted the worlds largest programme of breeding Salafists, arming them to the hilt, to wage war against the Soviet occupation. After this war had been won, spare ultra-Islamic jihadis, their morale boosted by having helped defeat a superpower, flexed their muscles in Kashmir, Cairo and Algeria, where the West really blundered, by helping the Army upturn the result of the 1991 election which brought the Islamist Salvation Front in the lead. The cancellation of the election results bred more Islamism. Another complicating factor has not been mentioned yet. Since 1990, the US, egged on by Unical, the gas giant, had developed a major interest in TAPI - the Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India Pipeline.

Asked about his role in promoting Salafism, Mr Brzezinski shrugged his shoulders, and said: We wanted to bring down the Soviet Union... we were not worried about some stirred-up Muslims.Was it the ayatollahs first instinct to give the new regime a civilian face? A few days after the revolution, the person I was able to meet was the suave Prime Minister, Mehdi Bazargan. In form, feature and sartorial detail, he was the very antithesis of the ayatollah. He looked very European in a bow tie and spoke English like a French grandee. That he lasted barely nine months in that post was because of his strong opposition to the occupation of the US embassy and the taking of American hostages. Abolhassan Bani-sadr, who escorted Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in Neauphle-le-Chateau, 30 kms from Paris, was made President. He was exiled because of internal conspiracies. There was an intense debate on among the clergy  should they lead the government or guide it? The experiments over Mr Bazargan and Mr Bani-sadr confirm this debate.

From the holy city of Qom came stories of the civilians plotting to oust the ayatollahs. It turned out that the ayatollahs required a civilian front because a true-blue Islamic revolution cannot be deemed to have taken place in the absence of the 12th Imam, whose appearance alone would impart legitimacy to the revolution. The concept of the awaited messiah is common to all Abrahamic religions.

Diverse interests tend to jump into a revolutionary situation to extract advantage. Just the other day Marine Le Pen with her fascist agenda tried to move in sideways into the Yellow Vest agitation in Paris. The confusing chaos in Tehran in yesteryears caused a strong wing of the ayatollahs to dust up the theory of Vali Faqih, or the Intermediate Imam, who could guide the revolution pending the appearance of the Mehdi, or Messiah. Ayatollah Khomeini would be that Vali Faqih. Like the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, the Islamic revolution in Iran was to be the bulwark against the Soviet Union. But for them to Z play this role the pro-Soviet Tudeh party would have to pay a price. They were no longer underground, as they had been during the Shahs days, and therefore easy targets to be eliminated.If the CIA had a hand in eliminating the Communists, by the same token they helped consolidate the ayatollahs. Was it really for this outcome that the whole Iranian project set into motion? Western agencies had planned for the ayatollahs to be an anti-Soviet force. Did the West have no clue that the Islamic revolution would turn upon the West with such intensity?
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"Drain the swamp!" was one of those memorable Donald Trump campaign promises that remains unfulfilled, much like "Mexico will pay for the wall!" and "Repeal and replace Obamacare!" with "something terrific."

Unlike the latter two promises, there's little debate about the need to establish strong ethical standards for government. That makes Trump's failure to keep his swamp-draining pledge  highlighted by the recent Senate confirmation hearing for a former coal industry lobbyist nominated to run the Environmental Protection Agency  all the more disturbing.

Nominee Andrew Wheeler became acting EPA administrator after his predecessor and former boss, Scott Pruitt, resigned in July amid a cloud of self-serving ethics scandals. Wheeler, 54, doesn't carry Pruitt's ethical baggage, but he has devoted himself to a disciplined rollback of environmental safeguards.

Wheeler is one of 188 former lobbyists working in the administration, according to ProPublica, and a fox-guarding-the-hen-house example of someone regulating an industry that once paid him handsomely.

Others include the acting secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt, previously an influential lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry, and EPA senior attorney Erik Baptist, who used to work as a lobbyist and lawyer for the American Petroleum Institute.
Admission rates remain the same as 2019  children under two are free, ages three to 15 are $2, and ages 16 and older are $4.
Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers, based in Madison County, sells dogs to help people with a variety of physical and mental health problems. The company has come under high-profile criticism and in May, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring filed a lawsuit against the company.

Among the state lawsuits allegations were that Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers charged $18,000 to $27,000 for dogs that were unable to carry out tasks like sniffing dangerous blood sugar levels in diabetic patients, as well as violating rules for seeking contributions.

Burchs attorneys said that the lawsuit, among other factors, prompted the student not to want to be associated with the company. But Burch also did not want to return Lesley.

In September, Montgomery County General District Judge Randal Duncan said Burch had to give the dog back to the company. The judge also said Burch had been bamboozled and ordered Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers to reimburse Burch for dog food and vet expenses, and to cover her attorney costs.

Burch appealed the ruling to return Lesley.
Odisha chief minister and Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik has declared that he will go it alone and not joint any front.

The meeting of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) working president K.T. Rama Rao and Yuva Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in Hyderabad on Wednesday may appear strange on the face of it.

Political observers comparing the probable alliance between the two parties with that of the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is understandable, though it was off the mark. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and TDP president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had formed an alliance to oppose the BJP-led NDA of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but the anti-Modi sentiment was missing in the Rao-Reddy meeting. They have indicated that their combined strength of 42 Lok Sabha members  Andhra Pradeshs 25 and Telanganas 17  will be used to protect and promote the interests of the two Telugu states. This presupposes that the YSRCP and the TRS hope to win the maximum number of seats in the April-May Lok Sabha polls. It also leaves the door open for the two regional parties to deal with whichever coalition emerges as the victor at the Centre. The other difference between the Congress-TDP alliance and the bid of the TRS and YSRCP to form a partnership is that the Congress is a national party while the TDP is a regional party, while in the case of the TRS and YSRCP, both are regional parties. Second, the YSRCP does not have a presence in Telangana and the TRS is perforce absent in Andhra Pradesh, while the TDP is present in Telangana and the Congress in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and in the rest of the country. Their exclusive spheres of influence and dominance makes it easier for the TRS and the YSRCP to deal with each other.

The hypothetical federal front mooted by Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao remains nebulous as yet. Odisha chief minister and Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik has declared that he will go it alone and not joint any front. Earlier this month, Mr Chandrasekhar Rao met West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata and he was reaching out to the BSPs Mayawati and Samajwadi Partys Akhilesh Yadav as well, and Ms Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav on their part were keen to meet Mr Chandrasekhar Rao as well. With the BSP and SP keeping the Congress out from their alliance in Uttar Pradesh, the two UP leaders should have no problem in joining the TRS and YSRCP to form a common front. That would leave the Congress and the TDP isolated. It is to be noted that the TDP has not joined the UPA.

This splintered Opposition is good news for the BJP and Mr Modi. The BJP will also try to woo the TRS and YSRCP with promises of economic packages for both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. If the Indian political scene could be inferred from coalition arithmetic alone, then it is easy to predict the outcome of the parliamentary election. But coalitions do not determine voters choice. All that the TRS and YSRCP can hope for at this stage is to win the largest number of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the two states, and then use the combined strength to bargain with those trying to form a government at the Centre. The fact that Jagan Mohan Reddy and K. Chandrasekhar Rao are not hostile to Mr Modi as such makes them potential allies of the BJP.

That brings us to the question about the ideology of the regional parties. What then is the ideology of the TRS and the YSRCP? It seems that these two parties do not entertain any ambitions at the national level, though there is speculation about K. Chandrasekhar Rao leaving Telangana to his son, K.T. Rama Rao, and looking for greener pastures at the national level. But there is no indication of that yet. Even Mr Chandrababu Nadu restricts himself to the role of the kingmaker, and shows no signs of wanting to be a Prime Minister. So, there are three aspiring kingmakers from the two Telugu states  Mr Naidu, Mr Rao and Mr Reddy. And we are tempted to ask  is southern ambition then limited to playing the role of kingmakers and not reaching out to the crown itself the way Mr Modi reached out for it from 2013 onwards? Of course, Mr Modi belonged to a national party, which was an advantage.

At ground zero, Mr Naidu, Mr Rao and Mr Reddy are fighting to control their own territory. Mr Rao has managed to emerge with an undisputed victory in the Telangana Assembly polls last month. Mr Naidu and Mr Reddy will fight it out in the Assembly elections this summer. For them, the Lok Sabha election is not a matter of do-or-die as the Assembly election is. Because of their local commitments and distractions, the TDP, YSRCP and TRS have reduced themselves to playing the role of marginal players. The time when the marginal players with smaller numbers become important is when the two big parties, the BJP and the Congress, fail to score reasonably well enough.

The coalition calculations then are up in the air. It is not the cunning of the political leaders that counts, it is the preference of the people as expressed in an election that will determine who will govern the country at the Centre. But political leaders have to do their bit in the drama and make moves and counter-moves as if that is all that matters. At the end of the day, the best laid plans of politicians come to nothing. But their actions matter most before the finale. Some of the observers are likely to argue that it is the positioning of the parties that will determine the final shape of things. It is a plausible argument. But right now what matters is the fight between Mr Naidu and Mr Reddy in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections.
Also for the Charlottesville area, you have the National Ground Intelligence Center here, and other annexes, Riggleman said. Ive been working with them since about 2007 on big data issues  its really important to be current and thats why I think its really fantastic that UVa is on the forefront of this issue.

Though details are still getting ironed out, Bourne said he hopes the new school  pending approvals from UVas Faculty Senate, Board of Visitors and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia  can begin enrolling graduate students in the programs that already exist at the institute in the fall. Undergraduate programs will be added later.

The gift also will support a building to house the school.

Bourne said he plans to maintain the institutes decentralized format. The school will offer undergraduate and graduate programs and certificates, but rely on interdisciplinary projects and faculty from other schools to teach about data acquisition, engineering, analysis, visualization and ethics.
And student loans, added Ethan Glover, a fellow officer.

Well, this will alleviate some of the burden; it lets them worry about gas instead of groceries, Purdum said.

The delivery contained about 50 bags of potatoes and 50 boxes of nonperishable food supplies. Each box held a weeks worth of soup, beans and pasta.

Abena Foreman-Price, a spokeswoman for the food bank, said the organization also delivered 15 boxes to the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport and 20 boxes to the Lynchburg Regional Airport, and would continue to monitor whether more food was needed.

It feels good, said Glover, of the drop-off. It feels nice to not have to worry about things like that. I guess Ive never been on the receiving end of something like this; Ive always taken care of myself and been self-sufficient.

According to The Daily Press, Virginias secretary of finance, Aubrey Layne, said the shutdown has cut off pay for more than 64,000 state residents who have been furloughed or who are working without pay. Unpaid wages for those workers amount to $127 million a week, on which the state collects $7 million in payroll taxes.
Federal courts will be able to sustain funded-operations through Jan. 25, two weeks longer than originally expected.

The courts have operated using fee balances and funds not dependent on congressional appropriation since the partial shutdown began Dec. 22. Though prosecutors are not being paid, most hearings have continued to happen as scheduled.

Laura Day Rottenborn, an executive assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, which includes the Charlottesville area, said approximately 30 percent of the employees are currently on furlough status. The percentage includes most civil-division and many administrative personnel.

Office personnel dedicated to public safety and national security duties will continue to perform critical operations unpaid if the shutdown doesnt end by Jan. 25.

At the request of the Department of Justice, many civil cases in which the government is a party either have been postponed or suspended.

However, Rottenborn said this will not be possible for all cases.
The students have demanded a revision of the current fellowship from the Ministry of human reso-urce development (MHRD) and funding agencies.

Mumbai: The PhD scholars and masters students of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) are protesting in support of ongoing nationwide fellowship hike movement.

The students have demanded a revision of the current fellowship from the Ministry of human reso-urce development (MHRD) and funding agencies.

Currently, the stipend to the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) is Rs 25,000 per month while it is Rs 28,000 per month for the Senior Research Fellowship (SRF).

Since a couple of years, there has been no hike in the stipend. The last was in the year 2014 before which the JRF students got Rs 16,000 while the SRF got Rs 18,000. The protesting students demand an imm-ediate hike in the fellowship given the expenses, especially the ones who are catering in Mumbai.

Various expenses such as semester fees charged by the institutes, money spent on research and other work, make life in a metro city difficult, a protesting student told this newspaper.

Students have demanded to introduce a hike starting from April this year. They have sent a letter to MHRD and department of science and technology but since there were no response from a long time, students decided to protest.

As per the list of demands from the students of IIT-Bombay for revision of current fellowship, they demand a hike from existing Rs 12,400 to Rs 25,500 for the Masters students.

For the JRF, they want a hike from Rs 25,000 to Rs 45,000. As for the SRF, a hike to Rs 52,000 is demanded which is currently Rs 28,000. For the research associate, who right now gets a stipend of Rs 36,000 wants a hike to Rs 65,000. Currently, various IITs and IISc across the country have been facing similar protests.
Washington

Schools need to do a better job of helping children explore different types of careers as early as middle school, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said Thursday said during a fireside chat at the Gallup Organization hosted by Lemonade Day!, a nonprofit that works to encourage youth entrepreneurship .

The schools Ive visited that are most exciting for students are deliberate about producing a lot of different career pathways at a young age and giving kids exposure to what some of those possibilities are, starting as young as early middle school and developing opportunities after that for kids to really explore what theyre wired up to do, DeVos said.

And she said young people need to get a sense, early-on, of what it means to run a business. Theres very little discussion of what a business is and what businesses do and what kinds of businesses are [out] there, she said.

Since 1977, fewer Americans have been starting up businesses that employ other people, said Joe Daly, a partner at Gallup who interviewed DeVos. He wanted to know what she saw as the problem and what might be a potential solution.

In response, DeVos said that she believes schoolsand parentshave put a premium on protecting students, rather than exposing them to calculated risk. And she cited a long-time talking point, arguing that K-12 schools havent changed much in past decades. (Many educators dispute that, citing big shake-ups from desegregation to the increased use of technology to personalize learning.)

Generally speaking, younger people have grown up in a more protected environment, DeVos said. Weve heard a lot about helicopter parenting and making sure that nobody gets hurt doing something, and we dont take too many risks so that we dont fail. Theres not a lot of real difference in the way we do school today versus decades ago, its only more protected and more safe. And so, I think generally speaking, we have to become more OK with taking calculated risks and encouraging young people to try new things and not protect them from everything.

DeVos, whose late father-in-law, Richard DeVos, co-founded Amway, a multi-level marketing company, also spoke about how her father, Edgar Prince, developed lighted sun-visors for cars. DeVos said she worked at his factory when she was young, inspecting, packing, and shipping the visors.

More recently, DeVos said, her 7-year-old granddaughter, Clara, has been involved in childrens business fairs. She and her friend had a booth selling bath-bombs and lip balms that they made themselves.

DeVos appeared to be using a wheelchair on stage. She explained that she recently had a bicycle accident and broke her pelvis.

Want to learn more about Lemonade Day and youth entrepreneurship? Check out this great story by my colleague, Sarah Sparks.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos listens to a question during a student town hall at National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Sept. 17.

--Matt Rourke/AP

Cant get enough of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos? Check out some of our best coverage:

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
South Africa: SADC leaders call for sovereignty respect in DRC

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders have called upon the international community to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in accordance with the AU Constitutive Act and the SADC Treaty.

The leaders made the statement at the Double Troika Summit held in Ethiopia, which reviewed and assessed the political situation in the DRC following the recently held elections.

In a communique, the leaders called upon the international community to support the government of the DRC to maintain a peaceful and stable environment and avoid actions that are prejudicial to the electoral process.

The summit recognized and underscored the role of the Constitutional Court of the DRC and called upon the international community to respect the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the internal legal and political processes for the finalisation of the electoral process, the leaders said.

Furthermore, the called for the continued implementation of the peace, security and co-operation framework in the DRC and the region.

Last week, the DRC electoral commission, CENI, released provisional results, which declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi Tshilombo as the newly elected President.

Runner-up and opposition leader Martin Fayulu is contesting the election results and has appealed to the DRCs Constitutional Court to cancel the provisional result.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) also joined Fayulu and disputed the interim results.

Despite the tensions, the leaders encouraged the government of the DRC to continue maintaining peace and security in the country as they did when going to the polls.

The summit took note of the election petition filed in the Constitutional Court challenging the provisional results of the presidential election and called upon all the Congolese People and all the concerned political stakeholders to remain calm and act in a way that consolidates democracy and preserves peace, and to address any electoral grievances in line with the DRCs Constitution and relevant electoral laws, the communique reads.

The regional leaders reaffirmed their commitment to continuously support the DRC political processes, especially with respect to neutralising the negative forces and other armed groups operating in eastern DRC, and to remain seized with the matter.

President Cyril Ramaphosa was among the regional leaders who attended the Double Troika Summit.

Others included Angolas President Joao Lourenco, Namibian President Hage Geingob and Zambias President Edgar Chagwa Lungu, among other representatives. - SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The following companies are subsidiares of UnitedHealth Group: 1031387 B.C. Unlimited Liability Company, 1070715 B.C. Unlimited Liability Company, 1st Avenue Pharmacy Inc., 310 Canyon Medical, 310 Canyon Medical LLC, 4C MSO LLC, 4C Medical Group PLC, 5995 Minnetonka LLC, ABCO International Holdings LLC, ACN Group IPA of New York, ACN Group IPA of New York Inc., ACN Group of California, ACN Group of California Inc., AHJV, AHJV MSO, AHN Accontable Care Organization LLC, AHN Central Services LLC, AHN Target Holdings LLC, AMIL International, AMIL International S.a.r.l., APS  Assistencia Personalizada a Saude Ltda., ARC Infusion, ASC Holdings of New Jersey LLC, ASC Network LLC, ASI Global, ASI Global LLC, Access Administrators Inc., Access HealthSource Administrators Inc., Access HealthSource Inc., Access I.V., Administradora Clinica La Colina S.A.S., Administradora Country S.A., Administradora Medica Centromed S.A., Advanced Care, Advanced Care Pharmacy, Advanced Pharma Inc., Advanced Surgery Center of Clifton LLC, Advanced Surgical Hospital LLC, Advantage Care Network Inc., Advocate Condell Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Advocate Sherman Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Advocate Southwest Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Advocate-SCA Partners LLC, Alere Health, Alere Health Improvement Company, Alere Healthcare of Illinois, Alere Wellbeing, Alere Wellology, Alere of New York, Aliansalud Entidad Promotora de Salud S.A., All Savers Insurance Company, All Savers Life Insurance Company of California, Alliance Surgical Center LLC, Aloha Surgical Center LLC, Ambient Healthcare, Ambient Healthcare Inc., Ambient Healthcare of Central Florida, Ambient Healthcare of Georgia, Ambient Healthcare of Northeast Florida, Ambient Healthcare of S. Florida, Ambient Healthcare of West Florida, Ambient Holdings, Ambient Holdings Inc., Ambient Nursing Services, AmeriChoice, AmeriChoice Corporation, AmeriChoice Health Services, AmeriChoice of Connecticut, AmeriChoice of New Jersey, AmeriChoice of New Jersey Inc., American Health Network of Indiana Care Organization LLC, American Health Network of Indiana II LLC, American Health Network of Indiana LLC, American Health Network of Ohio Care Organization LLC, American Health Network of Ohio II LLC, American Health Network of Ohio LLC, Amico Saude Ltda., Amil, Amil Assistencia Medica Internacional S.A., Amil Lifesciences Participacoes Ltda., Antelope Valley Surgery Center L.P., Analisis Clinicos ML S.A.C., Apothecary Holdings Inc., Apothecary Shop of Phoenix Inc., AppleCare Medical Management, AppleCare Medical Management LLC, Aquitania Chilean Holding SpA, Arise Physician Group, Arizona Physicians IPA, Arizona Physicians IPA Inc., AssuranceRx, AssuranceRx LLC, Athens ASC Holdings LLC, Audax Health Solutions, Audax Health Solutions LLC, Austin Center for Outpatient Surgery L.P., Avella Patient Access Program Inc., Avella Specialty Pharmacy, Avella of Austin Inc., Avella of Columbus Inc., Avella of Deer Valley Inc., Avella of Denver Inc., Avella of Gilbert Inc., Avella of Las Vegas II Inc., Avella of Orlando Inc., Avella of Phoenix III Inc., Avella of Sacramento Inc., Avella of Scottsdale Inc., Avella of St. Louis Inc., Avella of Tampa LLC, Avella of Tucson II Inc., Avella of Tucson Inc., Aveta Arizona, Aveta Health Solutions Inc., Aveta Inc., Aveta Kansas City, Aveta Tennessee, AxelaCare Health Solutions, AxelaCare Intermediate Holdings, AxelaCare Intermediate Holdings LLC, AxelaCare LLC, B.R.A.S.S. Partnership in Commendam, Banmedica Colombia SpA, Banmedica Internacional SpA, Banmedica S.A., Beach Surgical Holdings III LLC, Behavioral Healthcare Options, Behavioral Healthcare Options Inc., Belleville Surgical Center Ltd. an Illinois Limited Partnership, Benefit Administration for the Self Employed L.L.C., Benefitter Insurance Solutions Inc., Birmingham Outpatient Surgical Center LLC, Blackstone Valley Surgicare GP LLC, Blue Ridge GP LLC, Bordeaux (Barbados) Holdings I SRL, Bordeaux (Barbados) Holdings II SRL, Bordeaux (Barbados) Holdings III SRL, Bordeaux Holding SpA, Bordeaux International Holdings Inc., Bordeaux UK Holdings I Limited, Bordeaux UK Holdings II Limited, Bordeaux UK Holdings III Limited, Bosque Medical Center Ltda., Brandon Ambulatory Surgery Center LC, BriovaRx, BriovaRx, BriovaRx Infusion Services, BriovaRx Infusion Services 102 LLC, BriovaRx Infusion Services 200 Inc., BriovaRx Infusion Services 204 Inc., BriovaRx Infusion Services 209 Inc., BriovaRx Infusion Services 305 LLC, BriovaRx Infusion Services 402 LLC, BriovaRx Infusion Services Inc., BriovaRx Specialty LLC, BriovaRx of California, BriovaRx of California Inc., BriovaRx of Florida, BriovaRx of Florida Inc., BriovaRx of Georgia, BriovaRx of Georgia LLC, BriovaRx of Hawaii, BriovaRx of Indiana, BriovaRx of Louisiana, BriovaRx of Louisiana L.L.C., BriovaRx of Maine, BriovaRx of Maine Inc., BriovaRx of Massachusetts, BriovaRx of Massachusetts LLC, BriovaRx of Nevada, BriovaRx of New York, BriovaRx of New York Inc., BriovaRx of Texas, BriovaRx of Texas Inc., CDC Holdings Colombia S.A.S., CLISA  Clinica de Santo Antonio S.A., CMO  Centro Medico de Oftalmologia S/S Ltda., CMS  Central de Manipulacao e Servicos Farmaceuticos S.A., CNIC Health Solutions Inc., COI Participacoes S.A., COI  Clinicas Oncologicas Integradas S.A., Cabin Enterprises LLC, Cabin Holdings LLC, California MedTrans Network IPA LLC, California MedTrans Network MSO LLC, California Medical Group Insurance Company Risk Retention Group, Camp Hill-SCA Centers LLC, Capital City Medical Group L.L.C., Cardio Management, Cardio Management Inc., Care Improvement Plus Group Management, Care Improvement Plus Group Management LLC, Care Improvement Plus South Central Insurance Company, Care Improvement Plus Wisconsin Insurance Company, Care Improvement Plus of Texas Insurance Company, Casa de Saude Santa Therezinha Ltda., Casa de Saude Santa Therezinha S.A., Castle Rock SurgiCenter LLC, Catalyst360, Catalyst360 LLC, Catamaran Finance (Ireland) Unlimited Company, Catamaran Health Solutions, Catamaran Holdings I, Catamaran IPA III, Catamaran Mail, Catamaran PBM of Illinois II, Catamaran PBM of Puerto Rico, Catamaran PD of Pennsylvania, Catamaran PD of Puerto Rico, Catamaran Rebate Management, Catamaran S.a.r.l., Catamaran Senior Services, Catamaran of Pennsylvania, Cedar Park Surgery Center LLC, Cemed Care - Empressa de Atendimento Clinico Geral Ltda., Cemed Care  Empresa de Atendimento Clinico Geral Ltda., Central Indiana Care Organization LLC, Central Ohio Care Organization LLC, Central de Compras SpA, CentriHealth Corporation, CentriHealth UK Limited, CentrifyHealth LLC, Centro Medico Hospitalar Pitangueiras Ltda., Centro Medico Odontologico Americano S.A.C., Centro Medico PJ Ltda., Centro de Entrenamiento en Reanimacion y Prevencion Limitada (CERP), Centro de Servicios Compartidos Banmedica S.A., Centromed Quilpue S.A., Centros Medicos y Dentales Multimed Ltda., Centurion Casualty Company, Channel Islands Surgicenter L.P., Channel Islands Surgicenter Properties LLC, Charleston Surgery Properties LLC, Charlotte-SC LLC, Childrens Surgery Center LLC, ChinaGate (Hong Kong) Limited, ChinaGate Company Limited, Citrus Regional Surgery Center L.P., Clinica Oftalmologica Danilo de Castro Sociedade Simples, Clinical Partners of Colorado Springs LLC, Clinica Alameda S.A., Clinica Bio Bio S.A., Clinica Ciudad del Mar S.A., Clinica Davila y Servicios Medicos S.A., Clinica Medico Cirurgica de Santa Tecla S.A., Clinica San Borja (La Esperanza del Peru S.A.), Clinica San Felipe S.A., Clinica Santa Maria S.A., Clinica Sanchez Ferrer S.A., Clinica Vespucio S.A., Clinica del Country S.A., Coachella Valley Physicians of PrimeCare, Coachella Valley Physicians of PrimeCare Inc., Coalition For Advanced Pharmacy Services, Coalition for Advanced Pharmacy Services Inc., Coastal Physicians Management Inc., Collaborative Care Holdings, Collaborative Care Holdings LLC, Collaborative Care Services, Collaborative Care Services Inc., Collaborative Care Solutions, Collaborative Realty, Collaborative Realty LLC, Colmedica Medicina Prepagada, Colonial Outpatient Surgery Center LLC, Colorado Innovative Physician Solutions Inc., Colorado Springs Surgery Center Ltd., Comfort Care Transportation, Comfort Care Transportation LLC, Commonwealth Administrators, Connecticut Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Connecticut Surgery Properties LLC, Connecticut Surgical Center LLC, Connextions, Connextions HCI, Constructora e Inmobiliaria Magapoq S.A., Consumer Wellness Solutions Inc., Country Scan Ltda., Crescent Drug Corp., Cypress Care, Cypress Care Inc., DBP Services of New York IPA, DBP Services of New York IPA Inc., DTC Surgery Center LLC, DWIC of Tampa Bay, DWIC of Tampa Bay Inc., DaVita Magan Management Inc., Danbury Surgical Center L.P., Day-Op Surgery Consulting Company, Day-Op Surgery Consulting Company LLC, Definity Health, Dental Benefit Providers, Dental Benefit Providers Inc., Dental Benefit Providers of California, Dental Benefit Providers of California Inc., Dental Benefit Providers of Illinois, Dental Benefit Providers of Illinois Inc., Derry Surgical Center LLC, Diagnostico Ecotomografico Centromed Ltda., Diasnostico por Imagenes Centromed Ltda., Dilab Medicina Nuclear Ltda., Diplomat Pharmacy, Distance Learning Network, Distance Learning Network Inc., Doctor + S.A.C., Dry Creek Surgery Center LLC, Dublin Surgery Center LLC, Duncan Printing Services, Duncan Printing Services LLC, E Street Endoscopy LLC, ELG FZE, EP Campus I, EP Campus I LLC, East Brunswick Surgery Center LLC, Electronic Network Systems, Electronic Network Systems Inc., Elual Participacoes S.A., Empire Physician Management Company, Empire Physician Management Company LLC, Employers Health Choice PPO Inc., Empremedica S. A., Endoscopy Center Affiliates Inc., Enterprise Life Insurance Company, Equian, Equian LLC, Equian Parent Corp., Esho  Empresa de Servicos Hospitalares S.A., Etho  Empresa de Tecnologia Hospitalar Ltda., Evercare Collaborative Solutions, Evercare Collaborative Solutions Inc., Everett MSO Inc., Excellion Servicos Biomedicos Ltda., Excellion Servicos Biomedicos S.A., Excelsior Insurance Brokerage Inc., Executive Health Resources, Executive Health Resources Inc., Executive Surgery Center LLC, Eye Clinic Oftalmologia Clinico Cirurgica e Diagnostico Ltda., FMG Holdings, FMG Holdings LLC, FOR HEALTH OF ARIZONA, Family Health Care Services, Family Home Hospice, Family Home Hospice Inc., First Rx Specialty & Mail Services, Florida MedTrans Network LLC, Florida MedTrans Network MSO LLC, For Health, For Health Inc., For Health of Arizona Inc., Fortified Provider Network Inc., Fortify Technologies Asia LLC, Fortify Technologies LLC, Foundation Financial Services Inc., Franklin Surgical Center LLC, Freedom Life Insurance Company of America, Freeway Surgicenter of Houston LLC, Frontier MEDEX Limited, Frontier Medex Tanzania Limited, FrontierMEDEX, FrontierMEDEX (RMS), FrontierMEDEX (RMS) Inc., FrontierMEDEX Government Services, FrontierMEDEX Government Services LLC, FrontierMEDEX Inc., FrontierMEDEX Kenya Limited, FrontierMEDEX US, FrontierMEDEX US Inc., Fundacion Banmedica, GRANTS PASS SURGERY CENTER LLC, Gadsden Surgery Center LLC, Gadsden Surgery Center Ltd., Gainesville Surgery Center L.P., Gainesville Surgery Properties LLC, Genoa, Genoa Healthcare Inc., Genoa Healthcare LLC, Genoa QoL Wholesale LLC, Genoa Technology (Canada) Inc., Genoa Technology Inc., Genoa Telepsychiatry Inc., Genoa of Arkansas LLC, Glenwood Surgical Center L.P., Glenwood-SC Inc., Golden Outlook, Golden Outlook Inc., Golden Rule Financial Corporation, Golden Rule Insurance Company, Golden Triangle Surgicenter L.P., Grapevine Finance LLC, Greater Hartford ASC LLC, Grove Place Surgery Center L.L.C., Guardian Health Systems Limited Partnership, H&W Indemnity (SPC), H&W Indemnity (SPC) Ltd., H.I. Investments Holding Company LLC, HCP ACO California LLC, HCP ACO Nevada LLC, HCentive Technology India Private Limited, HMI NewCo LLC, Harken Health Insurance Company, Hayes-Strub LLC, Health Business Systems, Health Care-ONE Insurance Agency Inc., Health Inventures Employment Solutions LLC, Health Inventures LLC, Health Net Insurance of New York, Health Net Services (Bermuda) Ltd., Health Plan of Nevada, Health Plan of Nevada Inc., Health Technology Analysts Pty Limited, HealthAllies, HealthAllies Inc., HealthCare Partners ASC-LB LLC, HealthCare Partners Management Services California LLC, HealthCare Partners RE LLC, HealthFirst IPA Inc., HealthMarkets Group Inc., HealthMarkets Inc., HealthMarkets Insurance Agency Inc., HealthMarkets LLC, HealthMarkets NewCo Inc., HealthMarkets Services Inc., HealthSCOPE Holdings Inc., HealthScope Benefits Inc., Healthcare Partners Plan of Nevada Inc., Healthcare Solutions Inc., Heartland Heart and Vascular LLC, Help S.A., Help Service S.A., Highlands Ranch Healthcare, Highlands Ranch Healthcare LLC, Home Care I.V. of Bend, Home Infusion With Heart, Home Medical S.A., Hospice Inspiris Holdings, Hospice Inspiris Holdings Inc., Hospitais Associados de Pernambuco Ltda., Hospital Alvorada de Taguatinga Ltda., Hospital Ana Costa S.A., Hospital Maternidade Promater Ltda., Hospital Samaritano de Sao Paulo Ltda., Hospital Santa Helena S.A., Hospital de Clinicas de Jacarepagua Ltda., Humedica, Humedica Inc., Hygeia Corporation, Hygeia Corporation (Canada), Hygeia Corporation (DE), Hygeia Corporation (Ontario), INOV8 Surgical at Memorial City LLC, INSPIRIS of New York IPA, INSPIRIS of New York Management, INSPIRIS of New York Management Inc., INSPIRIS of Texas Physician Group, IRX Financing I LLC, Illinois Independent Care Network, Imed Star  Servicos de Desempenho Organizacional Ltda., Impel Consulting Experts, Impel Consulting Experts L.L.C., Impel Management Services L.L.C., Indian River Surgery Center Ltd., Indian River Surgery Properties LLC, Indiana Care Organization LLC, Infusource, Ingram & Associates, Ingram & Associates LLC, Inmobiliaria Apoquindo 3001 S.A., Inmobiliaria Apoquindo 3600 Ltda., Inmobiliaria Apoquindo S.A., Inmobiliaria Clinica Santa Maria S.A., Inmobiliaria Vinamed Ltda., Inmobiliaria e Inversiones Alameda S.A., Inspiris, Inspiris Inc., Inspiris Services Company, Inspiris of Tennessee, Instituto do Radium de Cammpinas Ltda, International Psychological Services Pty Limited, Inversiones Clinicas Santa Maria S.A., Isapre Banmedica S.A., Isapre Vida Tres S.A., Johnston Surgicare L.P., Joliet Surgery Center Limited Partnership, LHI, Laboratorio ROE S.A., Laboratorios Medicos Amed Quilpue S.A., LifePrint Health, LifePrint Health Inc., LifeStyles Marketing Group Inc., LifeWell Ltd. Co., Lifeprint Accountable Care Organization, Lifeprint Accountable Care Organization LLC, Lifeprint East, Lifeprint East Inc., Logistics Health Inc., Lotten-Eyes Oftalmologia Clinica e Cirurgica Ltda., Louisville S.C. Ltd., Louisville-SC Properties Inc., Loyola Ambulatory Surgery Center at Oakbrook Inc., Lusiadas - Parcerias Cascais S.A., Lusiadas A.C.E., Lusiadas S.A., Lusiadas SGPS S.A., MAMSI Insurance Resources, MAMSI Life and Health Insurance Company, MD Ops, MD Ops Inc., MD-Individual Practice Association, MD-Individual Practice Association Inc., ME AHS UC LLC, MEDEX Insurance Services, MEDEX Insurance Services Inc., MGH/SCA LLC, MHC Real Estate Holdings, MHC Real Estate Holdings LLC, MIAMI SURGERY CENTER LLC, MSLA Management LLC, MXMD Centros De Cancer, Mamoeco  Mamografia e Ecografia Centro de Diagnostico, Managed Physical Network, Managed Physical Network Inc., March Holdings, March Holdings Inc., March Vision Care, March Vision Care Inc., Marin Surgery Holdings Inc., Maryland Ambulatory Centers, Maryland-SCA Centers LLC, Massachusetts Assurance Company Ltd. PIC, Massachusetts Avenue Surgery Center LLC, Mat-Rx Development, Mat-Rx Fort Worth GP, MedExpress Development, MedExpress Development LLC, MedExpress Urgent Care Alabama LLC, MedExpress Urgent Care Inc. - Ohio, MedExpress Urgent Care Maine Inc., MedExpress Urgent Care New Hampshire Inc., MedExpress Urgent Care of Boynton Beach, MedExpress Urgent Care of Boynton Beach LLC, MedSynergies, MedSynergies LLC, MedSynergies North Texas, Medalliance Net Ltda, Medalliance Net Ltda., Medica Health Plans of Florida, Medica Health Plans of Florida Inc., Medica HealthCare Plans, Medica HealthCare Plans Inc., Medical Clinic of North Texas PLLC, Medical Hilfe S.A., Medical Preparatory School of Allied Health, Medical Support Los Angeles Inc., Medical Surgical Centers of America Inc., Medical Transportation Services, Medical Transportation Services LLC, Medication Management Systems Inc., Melbourne Surgery Center LLC, Memorial City Holdings LLC, Memorial City Partners LLC, Memphis-SC LLC, Memphis-SP LLC, Mesquite Liberty LLC, Metro I Stone Management, Metropolitan Medical Partners LLC, Metropolitan Medical Transportation IPA LLC, Mid Atlantic Medical Services, Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of Tennessee, Midwest Center for Day Surgery LLC, Mile High SurgiCenter LLC, Mississippi Surgery Holdings LLC, Mississippi Surgical Center Limited Partnership, Mobile Medical Professionals, Modern Medical Inc., Monarch Management Services, Monarch Management Services Inc., Montgomery Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Mountain View Medical Group LLC, Mt. Pleasant Surgery Center L.P., Multiangio Ltda., Muskogee Surgical Investors LLC, Mustang Razorback Holdings, Mustang Razorback Holdings Inc., My Wellness Solutions LLC, NAMM Holdings, NAMM Holdings Inc., NSC Fayetteville LLC, NSC Greensboro LLC, NSC Lancaster LLC, NSC Seattle Inc., NSC Upland LLC, Nashville-SCA Surgery Centers Inc., National Foundation Life Insurance Company, National MedTrans LLC, National Pacific Dental, National Pacific Dental Inc., National Surgery Centers LLC, Neighborhood Health Partnership, Neighborhood Health Partnership Inc., Netwerkes, Netwerkes LLC, Nevada Medical Services LLC, Nevada Pacific Dental, New Orleans Regional Physician Hospital Organization L.L.C., New West Physicians Inc., Newton Holdings LLC, North American Medical Management - Illinois, North American Medical Management California, North American Medical Management California Inc., North Puget Sound Center for Sleep Disorders LLC, North Puget Sound Oncology Equipment Leasing Company LLC, Northern Nevada Health Network, Northern Nevada Health Network Inc., Northern Rockies Surgicenter Inc., Northwest Surgicare LLC, Northwest Surgicare Ltd., Nutritional/Parenteral Home Care, Nutritional/Parenteral Home Care of Huntsville, OC Cardiology Practice Partners LLC, OSB  Tecnologia e Servicos de Suporte Ltda., Omesa S.A., OmniClaim LLC, Oncocare S.A.C., OneNet PPO, OneNet PPO LLC, Optimum Choice, Optimum Choice Inc., Optum, Optum Bank, Optum Bank Inc., Optum Biometrics, Optum Biometrics Inc., Optum Care Inc., Optum Care Services Company, Optum Clinical Services, Optum Clinics Holdings, Optum Clinics Holdings Inc., Optum Clinics Intermediate Holdings, Optum Clinics Intermediate Holdings Inc., Optum Digital Health Holdings LLC, Optum Finance (Ireland) Unlimited Company, Optum Global Finance (Ireland) Unlimited Company, Optum Global Solutions (India) Private Limited, Optum Global Solutions (Philippines), Optum Global Solutions (Philippines) Inc., Optum Global Solutions International B.V., Optum Government Solutions, Optum Government Solutions Inc., Optum Growth Partners LLC, Optum Health & Technology (Australia) Pty Ltd, Optum Health & Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, Optum Health & Technology (India) Private Limited, Optum Health & Technology (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Optum Health & Technology (UK) Limited, Optum Health & Technology (US), Optum Health & Technology (US) LLC, Optum Health & Technology FZ-LLC, Optum Health & Technology Holdings (US), Optum Health & Technology Holdings (US) Inc., Optum Health & Technology Servicos do Brasil Ltda., Optum Health Services (Canada) Ltd., Optum Health Solutions (Australia) Pty Ltd, Optum Health Solutions (UK) Limited, Optum Health and Technology FZ-LLC, Optum Healthcare of Illinois, Optum Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Optum Hospice Pharmacy Services, Optum Hospice Pharmacy Services LLC, Optum Inc., Optum Infusion Services 100 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 101 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 103 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 201 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 202 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 203 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 205 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 206 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 207 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 208 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 301 LP, Optum Infusion Services 302 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 308 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 401 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 403 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 404 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 501 Inc., Optum Insurance of Ohio, Optum Insurance of Ohio Inc., Optum Labs, Optum Labs Dimensions, Optum Labs Dimensions Inc., Optum Labs Inc., Optum Labs International (UK) Ltd., Optum Life Sciences (Canada) Inc., Optum Management Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Optum Management Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Optum Networks of New Jersey Inc., Optum Nevada Accountable Care Organization LLC, Optum Operations (Ireland) Unlimited Company, Optum Palliative and Hospice Care, Optum Palliative and Hospice Care Inc., Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Pennsylvania, Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Pennsylvania Inc., Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Texas, Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Texas Inc., Optum Perks LLC, Optum Pharmacy 701 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 702 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 703 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 705 LLC, Optum Public Sector Solutions, Optum Public Sector Solutions Inc., Optum Rocket, Optum Rocket Inc., Optum Senior Services LLC, Optum Services, Optum Services (Ireland) Limited, Optum Services (Puerto Rico) LLC, Optum Services Inc., Optum Solutions UK Holdings Limited, Optum Solutions do Brasil  Tecnologia e Servicos de Suporte Ltda., Optum Technology, Optum Technology LLC, Optum UK Solutions Group Limited, Optum Women's and Children's Health, Optum Women's and Children's Health LLC, Optum of New York Inc., Optum360, Optum360 LLC, Optum360 Services, Optum360 Services Inc., Optum360 Solutions LLC, OptumCare ACO Florida LLC, OptumCare ACO Holdings LLC, OptumCare ACO New Mexico LLC, OptumCare Clinical Trials LLC, OptumCare Colorado ASC LLC, OptumCare Colorado LLC, OptumCare Colorado Springs LLC, OptumCare Endoscopy Center New Mexico LLC, OptumCare Florida CI LLC, OptumCare Florida LLC, OptumCare Health Plan of California Inc., OptumCare Holdings Colorado LLC, OptumCare Holdings LLC, OptumCare Holdings New Mexico LLC, OptumCare Management LLC, OptumCare New Mexico LLC, OptumCare New York IPA Inc., OptumCare South Florida LLC, OptumHealth Care Solutions, OptumHealth Care Solutions LLC, OptumHealth Financial Services, OptumHealth Financial Services Inc., OptumHealth Holdings, OptumHealth Holdings LLC, OptumHealth International B.V., OptumInsight, OptumInsight Holdings, OptumInsight Holdings LLC, OptumInsight Inc., OptumInsight India Private Limited, OptumInsight Life Sciences, OptumInsight Life Sciences Inc., OptumRx, OptumRx Administrative Services, OptumRx Administrative Services LLC, OptumRx Discount Card Services, OptumRx Discount Card Services LLC, OptumRx Group Holdings, OptumRx Group Holdings Inc., OptumRx Health Solutions LLC, OptumRx Holdings, OptumRx Holdings I LLC, OptumRx Holdings LLC, OptumRx Home Delivery of Illinois, OptumRx Home Delivery of Ohio, OptumRx Home Delivery of Ohio LLC, OptumRx IPA III Inc., OptumRx Inc., OptumRx NY IPA, OptumRx NY IPA Inc., OptumRx PBM of Illinois, OptumRx PBM of Illinois Inc., OptumRx PBM of Maryland, OptumRx PBM of Maryland LLC, OptumRx PBM of Pennsylvania, OptumRx PBM of Pennsylvania LLC, OptumRx PBM of Puerto Rico LLC, OptumRx PBM of Wisconsin, OptumRx PBM of Wisconsin LLC, OptumRx PD of Maryland, OptumRx PD of Pennsylvania LLC, OptumRx Pharmacy, OptumRx Pharmacy Inc., OptumRx Pharmacy of Nevada, OptumRx Pharmacy of Nevada Inc., OptumRx of Pennsylvania LLC, OptumServe Technology Services Inc., Orlando Center for Outpatient Surgery L.P., OrthoNet Holdings, OrthoNet Holdings Inc., OrthoNet LLC, OrthoNet New York IPA, OrthoNet New York IPA Inc., OrthoNet Services, OrthoNet Services Inc., OrthoNet West, OrthoNet West Inc., OrthoNet of the Mid-Atlantic, OrthoNet of the South, OrthoNet of the South Inc., Ovations, Ovations Inc., Oxford Benefit Management, Oxford Benefit Management Inc., Oxford Health Insurance, Oxford Health Insurance Inc., Oxford Health Plans (CT), Oxford Health Plans (CT) Inc., Oxford Health Plans (NJ), Oxford Health Plans (NJ) Inc., Oxford Health Plans (NY), Oxford Health Plans (NY) Inc., Oxford Health Plans LLC, P2 Lower Acquisition, P2P Link LLC, PCCCV, PCCCV Inc., PCN DE Corp., PHC Subsidiary Holdings, PHC Subsidiary Holdings LLC, PHYS Holding Corp., PHYSICIANS DAY SURGERY CENTER LLC, PMI Acquisition, PMI Acquisition LLC, PMSI, PMSI Holdco II, PMSI Holdings, PMSI Holdings LLC, PMSI LLC, PMSI Settlement Solutions, PMSI Settlement Solutions LLC, POMCO Inc., POMCO Network Inc., PPH Holdings LLC, PacifiCare Health Systems, PacifiCare Life Assurance Company, PacifiCare Life and Health Insurance Company, PacifiCare of Arizona, PacifiCare of Arizona Inc., PacifiCare of Colorado, PacifiCare of Colorado Inc., PacifiCare of Nevada, PacifiCare of Nevada Inc., Pacific Casualty Company Inc., Pacifico S.A. Entidad Prestadora de Salud, Paoli Ambulatory Surgery Center, Paoli Surgery Center L.P., Parkway Surgery Center LLC, Pasteur Plaza Surgery Center GP Inc., PatientsLikeMe, PatientsLikeMe LLC, Patrimonio Autonomo Nueva Clinica - PANC., Payment Resolution Services, Payment Resolution Services LLC, Peoples Health, Peoples Health Inc., Pharmaceutical Care Network, Pharmacy Review Services, Pharmacy Software Holdco Inc., PhyServe Holdings, Physician Alliance of the Rockies LLC, Physician Care Partners, Physicians Health Choice of Texas, Physicians Health Choice of Texas LLC, Physicians Health Plan of Maryland, Physicians Health Plan of Maryland Inc., Physicians Plaza Holdings LLC, Plano de Saude Ana Costa Ltda., Plus One Health Management Puerto Rico, Plus One Health Management Puerto Rico Inc., Plus One Holdings, Plus One Holdings Inc., Polar II Fundo de Investimento em Participacoes, Polar II Fundo de Investimento em Participacoes Multiestrategia, Polo Holdco, Polo Holdco LLC, Pomerado Outpatient Surgical Center Inc., Pomerado Outpatient Surgical Center L.P., Precision Dialing Services Inc., Preferred Care Partners, Preferred Care Partners Holding, Preferred Care Partners Holding Corp., Preferred Care Partners Inc., Preferred Care Partners Medical Group, Preferred Care Partners Medical Group Inc., Premier Choice ACO, Premier Choice ACO Inc., Premier Surgery Center of Louisville L.P., Prime Health, Prime Health Inc., PrimeCare Medical Network, PrimeCare Medical Network Inc., PrimeCare of Citrus Valley, PrimeCare of Citrus Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Corona, PrimeCare of Corona Inc., PrimeCare of Hemet Valley, PrimeCare of Hemet Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Inland Valley, PrimeCare of Inland Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Moreno Valley, PrimeCare of Moreno Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Redlands, PrimeCare of Redlands Inc., PrimeCare of Riverside, PrimeCare of Riverside Inc., PrimeCare of San Bernardino, PrimeCare of San Bernardino Inc., PrimeCare of Sun City, PrimeCare of Sun City Inc., PrimeCare of Temecula, PrimeCare of Temecula Inc., ProHEALTH Fitness of Lake Success, ProHEALTH Fitness of Lake Success LLC, ProHEALTH Medical Management LLC, ProHealth Medical Management, ProHealth Physicians, ProHealth Physicians ACO, ProHealth Physicians ACO LLC, ProHealth Physicians Inc., ProHealth Proton Center Management, ProHealth Proton Center Management LLC, Procura Management, Procura Management Inc., Progressive Enterprises Holdings, Progressive Enterprises Holdings Inc., Progressive Medical, Progressive Medical LLC, Progressive Solutions, Promotora Country S.A., Pronetics Health Care Group, Pronounced Health Solutions Inc., Prosemedic S.A.C., Prospero Management Services LLC, Pueblo-SCA Surgery Center LLC, Pulse Platform LLC, QoL Acquisition Holdings Corp., Quality Software Services, QuarterMaster Newco LLC, R&H Family Fitness Unlimited LLC, Rally Health, Rally Health Inc., Real Appeal Inc., Recaudacion y Cobranzas Honodav Ltda., Redlands Ambulatory Surgery Center, Redlands-SCA Surgery Centers Inc., Reliant MSO LLC, Research Surgical Center LLC, River Valley ASC LLC, Riverside Electronic Healthcare Resources Inc., Riverside Medical Management, Riverside Medical Management LLC, Riverside Surgical Center of Meadowlands LLC, Riverside Surgical Center of Newark LLC, Rocky Mountain Health Maintenance Organization Incorporated, Rocky Mountain HealthCare Options Inc., SC Affiliates LLC, SCA Alaska Surgery Center inc., SCA Athens LLC, SCA Austin Holdings LLC, SCA BOSC Holdings LLC, SCA California Surgical Holdings LLC, SCA Capital LLC, SCA Cedar Park Holdings LLC, SCA Clifton LLC, SCA Danbury Surgical Center LLC, SCA Development LLC, SCA EHSC Holdings LLC, SCA EWASC Holdings LLC, SCA Hays Holdings LLC, SCA Heartland Holdings LLC, SCA HoldCo Inc., SCA Holding Company Inc., SCA Holdings Inc., SCA IEC Holdings LLC, SCA Indiana Holdings LLC, SCA Nashville ASC LLC, SCA Pacific Holdings Inc., SCA Pennsylvania Holdings LLC, SCA Premier Surgery Center of Louisville LLC, SCA ROCS Holdings LLC, SCA Rockledge JV LLC, SCA SSC Holdings LLC, SCA SSSC Holdings LLC, SCA Sage Medical LLC, SCA Sage Medical MSO LLC, SCA Southwestern PA LLC, SCA Specialists of Florida LLC, SCA Stonegate Holdings LLC, SCA Surgery Center of Cullman LLC, SCA Surgery Holdings LLC, SCA Surgery Partners LLC, SCA Surgicare of Laguna Hills LLC, SCA Teammate Support Network, SCA eCode Solutions Private Limited, SCA of Clarksville Inc., SCA-Albuquerque Surgery Properties Inc., SCA-Alliance LLC, SCA-Anne Arundel LLC, SCA-Applecare Partners LLC, SCA-Bethesda LLC, SCA-Blue Ridge LLC, SCA-Bonita Springs LLC, SCA-Brandon LLC, SCA-Castle Rock LLC, SCA-Central Florida LLC, SCA-Charleston LLC, SCA-Chatham LLC, SCA-Chevy Chase LLC, SCA-Citrus Inc., SCA-Colorado Springs LLC, SCA-Connecticut Partners LLC, SCA-DRY CREEK LLC, SCA-Davenport LLC, SCA-Denver LLC, SCA-Denver Physicians Holdings LLC, SCA-Derry LLC, SCA-Doral LLC, SCA-Downey LLC, SCA-Dublin LLC, SCA-Encinitas Inc., SCA-Eugene Inc., SCA-First Coast LLC, SCA-Florence LLC, SCA-Fort Collins Inc., SCA-Fort Walton Inc., SCA-Franklin LLC, SCA-Frederick LLC, SCA-Freeway Holdings LLC, SCA-Ft. Myers LLC, SCA-GRANTS PASS LLC, SCA-Gainesville LLC, SCA-Gladiolus LLC, SCA-Grove Place LLC, SCA-Hagerstown LLC, SCA-Hamden LLC, SCA-Hilton Head LLC, SCA-Honolulu LLC, SCA-Houston Executive LLC, SCA-IT Holdings LLC, SCA-Illinois LLC, SCA-JPM Holdings LLC, SCA-Kissing Camels Holdings LLC, SCA-MC VBP Inc., SCA-Main Street LLC, SCA-Marina del Rey LLC, SCA-Mecklenburg Development Corp., SCA-Memorial City LLC, SCA-Merritt LLC, SCA-Midlands LLC, SCA-Midway Management LLC, SCA-Mobile LLC, SCA-Mokena LLC, SCA-Mokena Properties LLC, SCA-Morris County LLC, SCA-Mt. 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The minister said that nations are built by those with positive mindsets and a national vigor, not by the compulsive contrarians.

New Delhi: Labelling the critics of Narendra Modi government as compulsive contrarians present in the political system and those who managed to penetrate into positions of influence irrespective of the government in power, senior BJP leader and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday accused them of manufacturing falsehood and subverting democracy by weakening a sovereign elected government.

There are some in the political system who thought that they were born to rule...There are those who had managed to penetrate into positions of influence irrespective of the government in power. Some who were part of the ideological left and the ultra-left obviously found the new government wholly unacceptable. Hence emerged a new class of Compulsive Contrarians. The Contrarians believed that this government could do no good. Every act of it must be opposed, he wrote in a Facebook post titled The Compu-lsive Contrarian and his Manufactured Logic.

Mr Jaitley further wrote that these compulsive contrarian manufacture falsehood, concoct arguments, masquerade corruption as crusade and adopt double standards to suit them.

Mr Jaitley, who is in the US for a medicial check-up, said while free speech and the right to dissent are critical components of a democracy but falsehood, subversion and institutional destruction are not. The minister said that nations are built by those with positive mindsets and a national vigor, not by the compulsive contrarians.

Citing issues including allegations linked in the Justice Loya death, 10 per cent reservation to general category, Rafale deal, CBI issue, press conference by four Supreme Court judges and the RBI debate, Mr Jaitley said the compulsive contrarians believe that every act of the Modi government must be opposed.

Without naming any political opponent or outfit, Mr Jaitley said these compulsive contrarians picked holes in every proposal that empowered people or strengthened country.

These actions reveal the mindset of the compulsive contrarians. Weakening a sovereign elected government and strengthening the unelectable is only a subversion of democracy, he wrote.

Mr Jaitley questioned, Didnt left-liberals find fault with the various actions that Gandhiji took during the freedom movement?

Referring to the controversy over untimely death of Justice Loya, Mr Jaitley said that every fact alleged in the public space by the compulsive contrarians was manufactured. The Judge died a natural death due to a cardiac stroke, he said.

Accusing critics of concocting falsehood in the Rafale jet deal, the minister said, This is a deal where Mr should be credited with saving thousands of crores of the country.

On the issue of infighting in the CBI and the subsequent transfer of its chief, Mr Jaitley said it is the duty of the sovereign government to ensure the cleaning-up of each of the investigative agencies and the government was only concerned with their accountability and integrity while the contrarians chose to side with the questionable.

He said Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge as a petitioner in the CBI chiefs case before the Supreme Court should have recused himself from sitting on the committee, which took a decision regarding the transfer of CBI chief.

Referring to the press conference by the four judges, Mr Jaitley said it has done more damage to Indias judicial institutions than many would have envisaged. It brought judges into public gaze as factionalised and battling for their own turf space.

On the recent rift with the Reserve Bank, he said there have been many instances when the government has differed with the Reserve Bank.

The government in recent months have strongly felt that certain sectors of the economy needed credit and liquidity support. Squeezing out both would eventually hurt this sector as also hurt growth, the finance minister noted.
KeyCorp operates as the holding company for KeyBank National Association that provides various retail and commercial banking products and services in the United States. It operates in two segments, Consumer Bank and Commercial Bank. The company offers various deposits, investment products and services; and personal finance and financial wellness, student loan refinancing, mortgage and home equity, lending, credit card, treasury, business advisory, wealth management, asset management, cash management, portfolio management, and trust and related services to individuals and small and medium-sized businesses. It also provides a suite of banking and capital market products, such as syndicated finance, debt and equity capital market products, commercial payments, equipment finance, commercial mortgage banking, derivatives, foreign exchange, financial advisory, and public finance, as well as commercial mortgage loans comprising consumer, energy, healthcare, industrial, public sector, real estate, and technology loans for middle market clients. In addition, the company offers community development financing, securities underwriting, brokerage, and investment banking services. As of February 25, 2021, it operated through a network of approximately 1,000 branches and 1,400 ATMs in 15 states, as well as additional offices, online and mobile banking capabilities, and a telephone banking call center. KeyCorp, through its subsidiary, KeyBank National Association, has a strategic alliance with XUP, Inc. to provide digital and physical merchant services. The company was founded in 1849 and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio.

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The SC said the state can neither exercise social control with its own notion of morality nor take exception to staging dance performances per se.

Mumbai/Delhi: Dance bars may return to Maharashtra after the Supreme Court on Thursday held that the state government can regulate them but it cannot ban them. The apex court relaxed some of the tough, moralistic rules that the Maharashtra government had introduced for dance bars through a 2016 law, saying liquor and dance can co-exist.

It, however, upheld some key conditions for getting licences. Dance performances can take place only between 6 pm and 11.30 pm and dancers cannot be showered with cash though they can be handed cash tips by patrons.

The court also ruled that there has to be a work contract between the dancers and bar owners and payments to dancers have to be deposited directly into their bank accounts.

While dealing with the states challenge to Mumbai high courts order that termed the ban on dance as ultra vires to the Article that gives right to practice any profession, the bench of the apex court headed by Justice A.K. Sikri, and including Justice Ashok Bhushan, observed that the end result of prohibition on any form of dancing in establishments covered under Section 33-A leads to the only conclusion that these establishments have to shut down.

From 2005 till date, not a single person has been given licence (for dance bars). It cannot be done. There can be regulations but it cannot amount to total prohibition This has led to the unemployment of over 75,000 women workers, the bench said.

In our opinion, the impugned legislation has proved to be totally counter-productive and cannot be sustained being ultra vires Article 19(1)(g), it added.

The SC on Thursday also quashed the provisions of the 2016 law which mandated that there must be a partition between bar rooms and the dance floor, mandatory installation of CCTVs, disallowed serving of liquor in performance area and that dance bars should be one kilometre away from religious places and educational institutions. The bench called the last provision unconstitutional.

According to the judges, the activities of eating-houses, permit rooms and beer bars are controlled by, among others, the Bombay Police Act, 1951. The bench said that rules under the Act have been framed in the interest of public safety and social welfare and to safeguard the dignity of women as well as prevent their exploitation.

There is no material placed on record by the state to show that it was not possible to deal with the situation within the framework of existing laws except for the unfounded conclusions recorded in the Preamble as well as the Statement of Objects and Reasons, observed the bench.

On Section 294 of IPC, which deals with obscene acts and songs, the court said it cannot be denied that dance performances, in dignified forms, are socially acceptable and nobody takes exceptions to it. It added that since obscenity is treated as immoral, obscene dance performance may not be acceptable and the state can pass a law prohibiting such dances. However, it observed that a practice which may not be immoral by societal standards cannot be thrusted upon the society as immoral by the state with its own notion of morality and thereby exercise social control.

The SC said the state can neither exercise social control with its own notion of morality nor take exception to staging dance performances per se.

The court also quashed and set aside the rule which states that a person is entitled to obtain or hold licence who possesses a good character and antecedents and should not have any history of criminal record in the past 10 years.

The bench held, It is not spelled out as to whether such a criminal record is based on conviction in a case or mere lodging of FIR would be termed as criminal record. We, therefore, quash the provision in the present form, but, at the same time, give liberty to the rule making authority to have suitable provision of precise nature.

On August 15, 2005, the Maharashtra government had banned all dance bars in Mumbai to prevent immoral activities, trafficking of women and to ensure the safety of women in general. As many as 700 dance bars across Mumbai and Maharashtra were shut down. The ban also pushed nearly 75,000 bar girls out of jobs, reportedly forcing many into prostitution.
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(North West) Limited, PPL Pty Limited, PT Network Services Limited, PTI Telecom Limited, Peoples Phone Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Group Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Limited, Plex Limited, Plustech Mercantile Company Private Limited, Prime Metals Ltd., Project Telecom Holdings Limited, Quickcomm Software Solutions, Radio Opt GmbH, Rian Mobile Limited, SBC SMART CITY 1517 B.V., SMMS Investments Pvt Limited, Safaricom Limited, Safenet N.P A., Sarmady Communications, Scarlet Ibis Investments 23 (Pty) Limited, Scorpios Beverages Pvt. Ltd, Silver Stream Investments Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Ltd., Singlepoint Payment Services Limited, Siro Limited, Spar Aerospace (Nigeria) Limited, Sport TV Portugal S.A, Starnet, Stentor Communications Limited, Stentor Limited, Storage Technology Services (Pty) Limited, T.W. Telecom Limited, T3 Telecommunications Limited, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern Beteiligungs GmbH, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern GmbH & Co. KG, TNAS Limited, TSM NZ Limited, Talkland Airtime Services Limited, Talkland Australia Pty Limited, Talkland Communications Limited, Talkland International Limited, Talkland Midlands Limited, Talkmobile Limited, Tele2 Italia SPA, Tele2 Spain, Telecom Investments India Private Limited, Telecommunications Europe Limited, Ternhill Communications Limited, The Cobra Group, The Eastern Leasing Company Limited, The Old Telecom Sales Co. Limited, Thus Group Holdings Limited, Thus Group Limited, Thus Limited, Thus Profit Sharing Trustees Limited, TnT Expense Management LLC, Tomorrow Street GP S.a r.l., Tomorrow Street SCA, Torenspits II B.V., Townley Communications Limited, Trans Crystal Ltd., UMT Investments Limited, UPC Nederland Holding I B.V., UPC Nederland Holding II B.V., UPC Nederland Holding III B.V., Unified Communications, Uniqueair Limited, Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH & Co.KG, Usha Martin Telematics Limited, VAPL No. 2 Pty Limited, VBA (Mauritius) Limited, VBA Holdings Limited, VBA International (SL) Limited, VBA International Limited, VEI S.r.l., VM SA, VND S.p.A, VSSB Vodafone Shared Services Budapest Private Limited Company, Verwaltung Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH, Victus Networks S.A., Vizzavi Finance Limited, Vizzavi Limited, Voda Limited, Vodacall Limited, Vodacash s.p.r.l., Vodacom (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business (Angola) Limitada, Vodacom Business (Ghana) Limited, Vodacom Business (Kenya) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa (Nigeria) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group Services Limited, Vodacom Business Cameroon SA, Vodacom Business Cote Divoire S.A.R.L., Vodacom Congo (RDC) SA, Vodacom Financial Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Group Limited, Vodacom Insurance Administration Company (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Insurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom International Holdings (Pty) Limited, Vodacom International Limited, Vodacom Lesotho (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Life Assurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom Payment Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No 1 (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No.2 (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Tanzania Limited Zanzibar, Vodacom Tanzania Public Limited Company, Vodacom UK Limited, Vodafone (NI) Limited, Vodafone (New Zealand) Hedging Limited, Vodafone (Scotland) Limited, Vodafone 2, Vodafone 4 UK, Vodafone 5 Limited, Vodafone 5 UK, Vodafone 6 UK, Vodafone Albania Sh.A, Vodafone Alternatif Telekom Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Americas 4, Vodafone Americas Virginia Inc., Vodafone And Qatar Foundation L.L.C, Vodafone Asset Management Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Automotive Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Automotive Electronic Systems S.r.L, Vodafone Automotive France S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Iberia S.L, Vodafone Automotive Italia S.p.A, Vodafone Automotive Japan K.K, Vodafone Automotive Korea Limited, Vodafone Automotive SpA, Vodafone Automotive Technologies (Beijing) Co Ltd, Vodafone Automotive Telematics Development S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Telematics S.A, Vodafone Automotive UK Limited, Vodafone Belgium SA/NV, Vodafone Benelux Limited, Vodafone Bilgi Ve Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, Vodafone Business Services Limited, Vodafone Business Solutions Limited, Vodafone Canada Inc, Vodafone Cellular Limited, Vodafone Central Services Limited, Vodafone China Limited (China), Vodafone China Limited (Hong Kong), Vodafone Connect 2 Limited, Vodafone Connect Limited, Vodafone Consolidated Holdings Limited, Vodafone Corporate Limited, Vodafone Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Czech Republic A.S., Vodafone DC Pension Trustee Company Limited, Vodafone Dagitim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Data, Vodafone Distribution Holdings Limited, Vodafone Egypt Telecommunications S.A.E., Vodafone Elektronik Para Ve Odeme Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Empresa Brasil Telecomunicacoes Ltda, Vodafone Empresa Mexico S.de R.L. de C.V., Vodafone Enabler Espana S.L., Vodafone Enterprise Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Austria GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Bahrain W.L.L., Vodafone Enterprise Bulgaria EOOD, Vodafone Enterprise Chile SA, Vodafone Enterprise Communications Technical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Denmark A/S, Vodafone Enterprise Equipment Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited  Czech Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited  DubaiI Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Finland OY, Vodafone Enterprise France SAS, Vodafone Enterprise Germany GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Global Businesses S.a r.l., Vodafone Enterprise Global Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network HK Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network Pte. Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Hong Kong Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Italy S.r.L, Vodafone Enterprise Korea Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Luxembourg S.A., Vodafone Enterprise Netherlands BV, Vodafone Enterprise Norway AS, Vodafone Enterprise Regional Business Singapore Pte.Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Singapore Pte.Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Spain S.L.U.  Portugal Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Spain SLU, Vodafone Enterprise Sweden AB, Vodafone Enterprise Switzerland AG, Vodafone Erste Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Vodafone Espana S.A.U., Vodafone Euro Hedging Limited, Vodafone Euro Hedging Two, Vodafone Europe B.V., Vodafone Europe UK, Vodafone European Investments, Vodafone European Portal Limited, Vodafone Finance Limited, Vodafone Finance Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Finance Sweden, Vodafone Finance UK Limited, Vodafone Financial Operations, Vodafone Financial Services B.V., Vodafone Fixed Ltd, Vodafone Foundation, Vodafone Foundation Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Gestioni S.p.A, Vodafone Ghana Mobile Financial Services Limited, Vodafone Global Content Services Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Hong Kong) Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Italy) S.R.L., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Japan) K.K., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Vodafone Global Enterprise Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Russia LLC, Vodafone Global Enterprise Taiwan Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Telecommunications (Hellas) A.E., Vodafone Global Network Limited, Vodafone Global Network Limited  Slovakia Branch, Vodafone Global Services Private Limited, Vodafone GmbH, Vodafone Group (Directors) Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Pension Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Services GmbH, Vodafone Group Services Ireland Limited, Vodafone Group Services Limited, Vodafone Group Services No.2 Limited, Vodafone Group Share Trustee Limited, Vodafone Hire Limited, Vodafone Holding A.S., Vodafone Holdings (Jersey) Limited, Vodafone Holdings (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Holdings Europe S.L.U., Vodafone Holdings Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Finance Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Receivables Pty Limited, Vodafone IP Licensing Limited, Vodafone India Digital Limited, Vodafone India Limited, Vodafone India Services Private Limited, Vodafone India Ventures Limited, Vodafone Institut fur Gesellschaft und Kommunikation GmbH, Vodafone Intermediate Enterprises Limited, Vodafone International 1 S.a.r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone International 1 S.a r.l., Vodafone International 2 Limited, Vodafone International Holdings B.V., Vodafone International Holdings Limited, Vodafone International M S.a r.l., Vodafone International Operations Limited, Vodafone International Services LLC, Vodafone Investment UK, Vodafone Investments (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Investments Australia Limited, Vodafone Investments Limited, Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Ireland Distribution Limited, Vodafone Ireland Ltd., Vodafone Ireland Marketing Limited, Vodafone Ireland Property Holdings Limited, Vodafone Ireland Retail Limited, Vodafone Italia S.p.A., Vodafone Jersey Dollar Holdings Limited, Vodafone Jersey Finance, Vodafone Jersey Yen Holdings Unlimited, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Field Services GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Kundenbetreuung GmbH, Vodafone Kenya Limited, Vodafone Leasing Limited, Vodafone Libertel B.V., Vodafone Limited, Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone M-PESA SH.P.K., Vodafone M-Pesa S.A, Vodafone M.C. Mobile Services Limited , Vodafone Magyarorszag Mobile Tavkozlesi Zartkoruen Mukodo Reszvenytarsasag, Vodafone Malta Limited, Vodafone Marketing UK , Vodafone Maroc SARL, Vodafone Mauritius Ltd., Vodafone Mobile Commerce Limited, Vodafone Mobile Communications Limited, Vodafone Mobile Enterprises Limited, Vodafone Mobile NZ Limited, Vodafone Mobile Network Limited, Vodafone Mobile Operations Limited, Vodafone Mobile Services Limited, Vodafone Multimedia Limited, Vodafone Nederland Holding I B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding II B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding III B.V., Vodafone Net Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Network Pty Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Foundation Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Limited, Vodafone Next Generation Services Limited, Vodafone Nominees Limited1, Vodafone ONO S.A.U., Vodafone Oceania Limited, Vodafone Old Show Ground Site Management Limited, Vodafone Overseas Finance Limited, Vodafone Overseas Holdings Limited, Vodafone Panafon International Holdings B.V., Vodafone Panafon UK, Vodafone Partner Services Limited, Vodafone Payment Solutions S.a r.l., Vodafone Portugal  Comunicacoes Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Procurement Company S.a r.l., Vodafone Property Investments Limited, Vodafone Pty Limited, Vodafone Qatar Q.S.C., Vodafone Retail (Holdings) Limited , Vodafone Retail Limited, Vodafone Roaming Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Romania S.A, Vodafone Romania M - Payments SRL, Vodafone Romania Technologies SRL, Vodafone Sales & Services Limited, Vodafone Satellite Services Limited, Vodafone Servicios SL.U, Vodafone Servizi E Tecnologie S.R.L, Vodafone Servicos Empresariais Brasil Ltda., Vodafone Shared Services Romania SRL, Vodafone Specialist Communications Limited, Vodafone Stiftung Deutschland Gemeinnutzige GmbH, Vodafone Technology Solutions Limited, Vodafone Teknoloji Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Tele-Services (India) Holdings Limited, Vodafone Telecel-Comunicates Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Telecommunications (India) Limited, Vodafone Telekomunikasyon A.S, Vodafone Towers Limited, Vodafone UK Content Services Limited, Vodafone UK Investments Limited , Vodafone UK Limited1 , Vodafone US Inc, Vodafone Ventures Limited1 , Vodafone Vierte Verwaltungs AG, Vodafone Worldwide Holdings Limited, Vodafone Yen Finance Limited , Vodafone m-pesa Limited, Vodafone-Central Limited Vodaphone Limited, Vodafone-Panafon Hellenic Telecommunications Company S.A., VodafoneZiggo Group Holding B.V, Vodata Limited , Vouchercloud SA (Pty) Ltd, Wataneya Telecommunications S.A.E, Waterberg Lodge (Proprietary) Limited, Wayfinder, Wheatfields Investments 276 (Proprietary) Limited, Wireless Interactions & NFC Accelerator 2013 B.V., Woodend Cellular Limited, Woodend Communications Limited, Woodend Group Limited, Woodend Holdings Limited, XB Facilities B.V, XLink Communications (Proprietary) Limited, Your Communications Group Limited, ZUM B.V., ZYB, Zelitron S.A., Zesko B.V., Ziggo B.V., Ziggo Bond Company B.V., Ziggo Deelnemingen B.V., Ziggo Finance 2 B.V., Ziggo Financing Partnership, Ziggo Holding B.V., Ziggo Netwerk B.V., Ziggo Netwerk II B.V., Ziggo Services B.V., Ziggo Services Employment B.V., Ziggo Services Netwerk 2 B.V., Ziggo Zakelijk Services B.V., and Zoranet Connectivity Services B.V..
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Senior advocate Indira Jaising listed the matter before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices L.N. Rao and S.K. Kaul on Thursday.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on Friday a plea of two women seeking 24X7 security after they recently entered the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising listed the matter before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices L.N. Rao and S.K. Kaul on Thursday.

In the plea, one of the women, who had been attacked by her mother-in-law following her entry into the hilltop shrine, has sought security for both the women.

The plea sought directions to all authorities to allow women of all age groups to enter the temple without any hindrance and to ensure security and safe passage, including police security to women wishing to enter the temple in future. It also pointed to danger to her life and liberty.

Issue writ of mandamus directing authorities to provide full security, 24x7, to the two women who have entered the temple, and to deal with protesters indulging in acts of violence, physical and/or verbal on social media or otherwise against them in accordance with the law, the petition said.

It sought directions declaring all authorities not to conduct the rite of purification or to shut the temple on account of any woman of the age of 10-50 having entered the temple. Issue directions to declare that the rite of purification diminishes the dignity as human beings, it said.

It also sought directions declaring that any form of prevention of women aged between 10 to 50 years from visiting the shrine is contrary to the September 28, 2018 judgment of the apex court.
Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is a publicly owned asset management holding company. The firm specializes in early stage, acquisition, distressed investments, short-term financing to mid-market companies, corporate carve-outs, recapitalizations, convertible, senior and mezzanine financings, operational and capital structure restructuring, strategic re-direction, turnaround, and under-performing midmarket companies. The firm invest in attractive businesses through the public debt and equity markets or by providing financing. The firm invest in Business services, Industrials and Residential sectors. Through its subsidiaries, the firm invests in the property, power, and infrastructure sectors. Its property business includes owning and managing office properties, developing master planned residential communities, and offering clients bridge and mezzanine lending, alternative assets funds, and financial and advisory services. Through its subsidiaries, the firm operates hydroelectric power facilities, interconnections and transmission facilities in Northeast North America, and development of wind power in Canada. Through its subsidiaries, it invests in specialty funds including private equity and makes direct investments in real estate, energy, and resource assets. The firm launches and manages equity and fixed income mutual funds. It also manages real estate and hedge funds. The firm invests in equity and fixed income markets across the globe. It also invest in British Columbia, United States, Brazil, Australia, Chile, Uruguay, New Zealand. It prefers to invest between $2 million and $500 million in its portfolio companies. The firm also prefers to take both minority and majority stakes in its companies. It was formerly known as Brascan Corp. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is based in Toronto, Canada with additional offices in Bogota, Colombia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Calgary, Canada, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Gatineau, Canada, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, London, United Kingdom, Melbourne, Australia, Montreal, Canada, Mumbai, India, New York City, Perth, Australia, Shanghai, China, and Sydney, Australia.

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OGE Energy Corp., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy and energy services provider that offers physical delivery and related services for electricity and natural gas primarily in the south-central United States. It operates in two segments, Electric Utility and Natural Gas Midstream Operations. The Electric Utility segment generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electric energy. This segment furnishes retail electric service in 267 communities and their contiguous rural and suburban areas; and owns and operates coal-fired, natural gas-fired, wind-powered, and solar-powered generating assets. Its service area covers 30,000 square miles in Oklahoma and western Arkansas, including Oklahoma City in Oklahoma; and Fort Smith, Arkansas. The Natural Gas Midstream Operations segment engages in gathering, processing, transporting, and storing natural gas; and the provision of crude oil gathering services, and interstate and intrastate natural gas pipeline transportation and storage services primarily to its producer, power plant, local distribution company, and industrial end-user customers. As of December 31, 2020, the company owned and operated interconnected electric generation, transmission, and distribution systems, including 15 generating stations with an aggregate capability of 7,120 megawatts; and transmission systems comprising 402 substations and 5,122 structure miles of lines in Oklahoma, and 36 substations and 277 structure miles of lines in Arkansas. Its distribution systems included 349 substations; 29,443 structure miles of overhead lines; 3,202 miles of underground conduit; and 11,038 miles of underground conductors in Oklahoma, as well as 29 substations, 2,788 structure miles of overhead lines, 338 miles of underground conduit, and 669 miles of underground conductors in Arkansas. The company was founded in 1902 and is headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

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Ram Rahim, 51, is currently serving a 20-year prison term in Rohtaks Sunaria jail for raping two of his followers.

Chandigarh: Self-styled godman and Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and his three aides were on Thursday sentenced by a Haryana court to life imprisonment for the murder of a journalist over 16 years ago.

Ram Rahim, 51, is currently serving a 20-year prison term in Rohtaks Sunaria jail for raping two of his followers. After the punishment handed down to him for the killing of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, he will have to spend the rest of his life in prison.

CBI special judge Jagdeep Singh in Panchkula sentenced the convicts  Ram Rahim, Nirmal Singh, Kuldeep Singh and Krishan Lal  to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on each of them. All the four were convicted under Section 302 (murder) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. Chhatrapati, 52, was shot in October 2002 outside his house after his newspaper, Poora Sach, published an anonymous letter narrating how women were being sexually exploited by Ram Rahim at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa. The case was registered in 2003 and handed over to the CBI in 2006. The Dera chief was named the main conspirator in the murder.

After Thursdays sentencing in court, Chhatarpatis son Anshul said, This is the triumph of truth, I feel relieved today. The prosecution had demanded capital punishment but we are satisfied with the punishment.

The court also awarded a three-year sentence to Nirmal Singh and Krishan Lal under the Arms Act along with a fine of `5,000 each, said CBI counsel H.P.S. Verma.

The life sentence of Ram Rahim will start after he completes his 20-year jail term in the rape case, said the CBI counsel, citing provisions of Section 427 of the CrPC.

As per Section 427 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973, when a person already undergoing imprisonment is sentenced on a subsequent conviction to imprisonment for life, such imprisonment shall commence at the expiration of the imprisonment to which he has been previously sentenced.

Mr Verma said that the CBI had sought death penalty for the convicts while counsel of Ram Rahim pleaded for minimum punishment in the murder case.

The arguments between CBI and defence counsel on the quantum of sentence lasted almost an hour and a half and the sentence was pronounced at 6.30 pm, Mr Verma said.

The Dera Sacha Sauda chief and the three others appeared before the court through video conferencing after the court accepted Haryana governments plea that physically bringing Ram Rahim to court could result in a law and order situation.

Ram Rahims conviction in the rape case in August 2017 had triggered riots in Panchkula, as his followers went berserk, that left 30 dead and property worth crores vandalized.

Security had been stepped up in parts of Haryana and Punjab ahead of the sentencing. Strict vigil was being kept near the court complex in Sector 1 of Panchkula, adjoining Chandigarh.

Security measures were also ensured in Sirsa town. Most shops remained shut around the Dera headquarters in the town.
First American Financial Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides financial services. It operates through Title Insurance and Services, and Specialty Insurance segments. The Title Insurance and Services segment issues title insurance policies on residential and commercial property, as well as offers related products and services. This segment also provides closing and/or escrow services; products, services, and solutions to mitigate risk or otherwise facilitate real estate transactions; and appraisals and other valuation-related products and services, lien release and document custodial services, warehouse lending services, default-related products and services, title insurance, closing services, and related products and services, as well as banking, trust, and wealth management services. In addition, it accommodates tax-deferred exchanges of real estate; and maintains, manages, and provides access to title plant data and records. This segment offers its products through a network of direct operations and agents in 49 states and in the District of Columbia, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, and internationally. The Specialty Insurance segment provides property and casualty insurance comprising coverage to residential homeowners and renters for liability losses and typical hazards, such as fire, theft, vandalism, and other types of property damage. It also offers residential service contracts that cover residential systems, such as heating and air conditioning systems, and appliances against failures that occur as the result of normal usage during the coverage period. First American Financial Corporation was founded in 1889 and is based in Santa Ana, California.

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Raymond James Financial, Inc., a financial holding company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the underwriting, distribution, trading, and brokerage of equity and debt securities, and the sale of mutual funds and other investment products in the United States, Canada, Europe, and internationally. The company operates through Private Client Group, Capital Markets, Asset Management, RJ Bank, and Other segments. The Private Client Group segment provides securities brokerage services, including the sale of equities, mutual funds, fixed income products, and insurance products to their individual clients; and borrowing and lending of securities to and from other broker-dealers, financial institutions, and other counterparties. The Capital Markets segment offers securities brokerage, trading, and research services to institutions with a focus on sale of the United States and Canadian equities and fixed income products; and manages and participates in underwritings, merger and acquisition services, and public finance activities. The Asset Management segment engages in the operations of Eagle, the Eagle Family of Funds, Cougar, the asset management operations of Raymond James & Associates, trust services of Raymond James Trust, and other fee-based asset management programs. The RJ Bank segment provides corporate loans, SBL, tax-exempt loans, and residential loans. The Other segment engages in private equity activities, including various direct and third party private equity investments; and private equity funds. Raymond James Financial, Inc. was founded in 1962 and is based in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Continental Aktiengesellschaft: A-Z Formen- und Maschinenbau GmbH, ADC Automotive Distance Control Systems GmbH, ALPHALOR 3 EURL, AZ-CZECH s.r.o., Adam Touring GmbH, Advance Tyre Company Ltd., Advanced Imaging Technologies, Advanced Imaging Technologies (Pty) Ltd, Advanced Scientific Concepts, AlMutlak Continental Company Limited Liability Company, Application Solutions (Electronics and Vision) Ltd., Argus Cyber Security Ltd, BENECKE-KALIKO S.A., BENECKE-KALIKO S.A., BEST DRIVE CTM S.A. de C.V., BV Environmental Limited, BV F1rst Limited, Bandvulc Tyres Limited, Belt Concepts of America Inc., BeltTrade Inc., Benecke Changshun Auto Trim (Zhangjiagang) Co. Ltd., Benecke Changshun Eco Trim (Changzhou) Co. Ltd., Benecke-Kaliko AG, BestDrive LLC, BestDrive Sverige AB, Bestdrive Benelux B.V.B.A., CAC Philippines Inc., CAS Munchen GmbH, CAS UK Holding Ltd., CAS-One Holdinggesellschaft mbH, CGH Holding B.V., CGT Referral Resources Inc., CONTINENTAL CPM S. DE R.L. DE C.V., CONTINENTAL ENGINEERING SERVICES PORTUGAL UNIPESSOAL LDA, CONTINENTAL IBERIA SALES AND SERVICES S.A.U., CONTINENTAL INDUSTRIAL SERVICES S A (Pty.) Ltd., CONTINENTAL SURFACE SOLUTIONS INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED, CONTITECH Chile S.A., CPT Automotive Changchun Co. Ltd., CPT GUADALAJARA S. de. R. L. de C.V., CPT MANUFACTURING MEXICO S. de R. L. de C.V., CPT MAQUILA MEXICO S. de R. L. de C.V., Carrel Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH Co. Vermietungs KG, Changshu ContiTech Trading Ltd., Conseo GmbH, Conti Automotive Servicios S.A. de C.V., Conti Temic microelectronic GmbH, Conti Trade Australia Pty. Ltd., Conti Trade Italia S.r.l., Conti Versicherungsdienst Versicherungsvermittlungsges. mbH, Conti-Gummi Finance B.V., ContiTech (Shandong) Engineered Rubber Products Co. Ltd., ContiTech AG, ContiTech AVS France, ContiTech Africa (Pty.) Ltd., ContiTech Anoflex SAS, ContiTech Antriebssysteme GmbH, ContiTech Australia Pty Ltd, ContiTech Belgium BVBA, ContiTech Canada Inc., ContiTech China Rubber & Plastics Technology Ltd., ContiTech Consulting Mexicana S.A. de C.V., ContiTech Dae Won Airspring Systems Ltd., ContiTech Elastomer-Beschichtungen GmbH, ContiTech Finland Oy, ContiTech Fluid Automotive CZ s.r.o., ContiTech Fluid Automotive Hungaria Kft., ContiTech Fluid Automotive Maroc SARL, ContiTech Fluid Distribuidora S.A. de C.V., ContiTech Fluid Korea Ltd., ContiTech Fluid Mexicana S.A. de C.V., ContiTech Fluid Mexicana Servicios S.A. de C.V., ContiTech Fluid Monterrey Servicios S.A. de C.V., ContiTech Fluid Oil & Marine Middle East FZE, ContiTech Fluid Serbia D.O.O., ContiTech Fluid Shanghai Co. Ltd., ContiTech Fluid Technology (Changchun) Co. Ltd., ContiTech France SNC, ContiTech Global Holding Netherlands B.V., ContiTech Holding (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ContiTech Holding Netherlands B.V., ContiTech IMAS A.E., ContiTech India Pvt. Ltd., ContiTech Japan Co. Ltd., ContiTech Kautschuk- und Kunststoffvertriebsges. mbH, ContiTech Kuhner Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, ContiTech Kuhner GmbH & Cie. KG, ContiTech Lastik Sanayi ve Ticaret AS, ContiTech Luftfedersysteme GmbH, ContiTech MGW GmbH, ContiTech Magyarorszag Kft., ContiTech Maroc SARL, ContiTech Mexicana S.A. de C.V., ContiTech North America Inc., ContiTech Oil & Marine Corp., ContiTech Power Transmission (Ninghai) Ltd., ContiTech Power Transmission (Sanmen) Ltd., ContiTech Power Transmission Korea Co. Ltd., ContiTech Print Service (S) Pte. Ltd., ContiTech Printing Blanket Shanghai Ltd., ContiTech Roulunds Rubber A/S, ContiTech Rubber Industrial Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, ContiTech Scandinavia AB, ContiTech Schlauch GmbH, ContiTech Services (Pty.) Ltd., ContiTech Shanghai Rubber & Plastics Technology Ltd., ContiTech Singapore Pte. Ltd., ContiTech Slovenija druzba za proizvodnjo gumenih tehnicnih izdelkov d.o.o., ContiTech South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., ContiTech Techno-Chemie GmbH, ContiTech Thermopol LLC, ContiTech Thermopol Romania S.R.L., ContiTech Tianjin Conveyor Belt Ltd., ContiTech Transportbandsysteme GmbH, ContiTech USA Inc., ContiTech United Kingdom Ltd., ContiTech Vibration Control France SAS, ContiTech Vibration Control GmbH, ContiTech Vibration Control Slovakia s.r.o., ContiTech Vibration Control s.r.o., ContiTech-Universe Verwaltungs-GmbH, ContiTrade (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ContiTrade Africa (Pty) Ltd, ContiTrade France Rechapage, ContiTrade Services s.r.o., ContiTrade Slovakia s.r.o., Conticlub SAS, Continental - Industria Textil do Ave S.A., Continental Adria pnevmatike d.o.o., Continental Advanced Antenna Automotiva LTDA, Continental Advanced Antenna GmbH, Continental Advanced Lidar Solutions US LLC, Continental Aftermarket & Services GmbH, Continental Aftermarket GmbH, Continental Automotive AB, Continental Automotive Aguascalientes S.A. de C.V., Continental Automotive Austria GmbH, Continental Automotive Bajio S.A. de C.V., Continental Automotive Bangkok Co. Ltd., Continental Automotive Benelux BVBA, Continental Automotive Brake Systems (I) Private Limited, Continental Automotive Changchun Co. Ltd., Continental Automotive Components (India) Private Ltd., Continental Automotive Components Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Continental Automotive Corporation, Continental Automotive Corporation (Lianyungang) Co. 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Ltd., Continental Automotive Systems Costa Rica S.A., Continental Automotive Systems Inc., Continental Automotive Systems SRL, Continental Automotive Systems Slovakia s.r.o., Continental Automotive Trading France SAS, Continental Automotive Trading Italia S.r.l., Continental Automotive Trading Nederland B.V., Continental Automotive Trading UK Ltd., Continental Automotive Trading Osterreich GmbH, Continental Automotive UK Ltd., Continental Automotive Wuhu Co. Ltd., Continental Automotive d.o.o. Novi Sad, Continental Automotive do Brasil Ltda., Continental Barum s.r.o., Continental Benelux SPRL, Continental Bicycle Systems GmbH & Co. KG, Continental Bicycle Systems Verwaltungs GmbH, Continental Brake Systems (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Continental Brakes Italy S.p.A., Continental Brasil Industria Automotiva Ltda., Continental Caoutchouc-Export-GmbH, Continental ContiTech de Chihuahua S. de R.L. de C.V., Continental ContiTech de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Continental Daek Danmark A/S, Continental Dekk Norge A/S, Continental Digital Services France SAS, Continental Dack Sverige AB, Continental Engineering Services & Products GmbH, Continental Engineering Services GmbH, Continental Engineering Services Ltd., Continental Finance GmbH, Continental France SNC, Continental Global Business Services Manila Inc., Continental Global Holding Netherlands B.V., Continental HT Tyres s.r.o., Continental Holding China Co. Ltd., Continental Holding France SAS, Continental Hungaria Kft., Continental India Private Limited, Continental Industrias del Caucho S.A., Continental Industria e Comercio Automotivos Ltda., Continental Industria e Comercio de Pecas de Reposicao Automotivas Ltda., Continental Intelligent Transportation Systems (Shanghai) Co. 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OHG, Continental Teves Portugal - Sistemas de Travagem Lda., Continental Teves UK Ltd., Continental Tire Andina S.A., Continental Tire Canada Inc., Continental Tire Chile SpA, Continental Tire Colombia S.A.S., Continental Tire Corporativo S.A. de C.V., Continental Tire Holding US LLC, Continental Tire Japan Co. Ltd., Continental Tire Korea Co. Ltd., Continental Tire Sumter LLC, Continental Tire West Africa Limited, Continental Tire de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Continental Tire the Americas LLC, Continental Tires (China) Co. Ltd., Continental Tires (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Continental Tires Espana S.L., Continental Tires Holding Singapore Pte. Ltd., Continental Trebbin GmbH & Co. KG Sondermaschinenbau, Continental Trebbin Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungs-GmbH, Continental Tyre AS Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Continental Tyre Group Ltd., Continental Tyre Investment UK Ltd., Continental Tyre Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Continental Tyre Management Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Continental Tyre Marketing Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Continental Tyre North Africa SARL, Continental Tyre PJ Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Continental Tyre Services Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Continental Tyre South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Continental Tyre Technology Centre Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Continental Tyres (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Continental Tyres Ltd., Continental Tyres of Australia Pty Ltd, Continental UK Group Holdings Ltd., Continental VUK s.r.o., Continental do Brasil Produtos Automotivos Ltda., Continental of Taiwan Co. Ltd., Continental vyroba pneumatik s.r.o., Contitech Argentina S.R.L., Contitech Botswana (Pty) Ltd, Contitech do Brasil Produtos Automotivos e Industriais Ltda., Contitrade Espana S.A.U., Contitrade Holding, Contitread Renovado Morelia S.A. de C.V., Correx Handelsgesellschaft fur Kautschukprodukte mbH, Custom Machining Services Inc., DRUST, Dekkmann A/S, Dunlop Oil & Marine Ltd., DynaGen Inc., EPD Holdings Inc., Eddelbuttel + Schneider GmbH, Elektrobit, Elektrobit Austria GmbH, Elektrobit Automotive Americas Inc., Elektrobit Automotive Finland Oy, Elektrobit Automotive GmbH, Elektrobit Automotive Korea Limited, Elektrobit Automotive Romania SRL, Elektrobit Automotive Software (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Elektrobit France SAS, Elektrobit India Private Ltd., Elektrobit Nippon K.K., Emitec Denmark A/S, Emitec France SAS, Eu-Retec (Private) Ltd., FSC Franchising Service Company S.p.A., Formpolster GmbH, General Tire International Company, Granite Investments Limited, Holding ContiTech SAS, Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., Hornschuch (Shanghai) Surface Technology Co. Ltd., Hornschuch Consulting GmbH, Hornschuch Group GmbH, Hornschuch Italia S.r.l., Hornschuch Stolzenau GmbH, Hornschuch UK Ltd., Hornschuch-Markt GmbH, INTECH Thuringen GmbH, Kathrein Automotive, Kathrein Automotive Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Kathrein Automotive North America Inc., Kathrein Automotive Portugal Sociedade Unipessoal Lda., Kim Holdings Scotland Limited, Kolubara-Univerzal D.O.O., Konrad Hornschuch AG, Konrad Hornschuch International GmbH, Legg Company Inc., Libra Associates (Properties) Limited, MISA GmbH & Co. KG, MISA-Beteiligungs GmbH, Merlett Belgie B.V.B.A, Merlett Benelux B.V., Merlett Deutschland GmbH, Merlett France SAS, Merlett Group, Merlett Iberica 2016 S.L., Merlett Norway As, Merlett Plastics UK Ltd., Merlett Polska Sp. Z o.o., Merlett RUS LLC, Merlett Tecnoplastic S.p.a., Noviteck SA, O'Sullivan Films Inc., OOO "ContiTech Rus", OOO "Continental Automotive RUS", OOO "Continental Automotive Systems RUS", OOO "Continental Kaluga", OOO "Continental Tires RUS", OOO Hornschuch RUS, OTA Grundstucks- und Beteiligungsverwaltung GmbH, OTA keys, OTA keys S.A., Omitec Group, Otomotiv Lastikleri Tevzi AS (OLTAS), POWERTRAIN MAQUILA MEXICO S. DE R.L. DE C.V., PT Continental Tyre Indonesia, PT Quantum Inventions Indonesia, Parkpocket, Phoenix Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Phoenix Compounding Technology GmbH, Phoenix Conveyor Belt India Private Ltd., Phoenix Conveyor Belt Solutions Inc., Phoenix Conveyor Belt Systems GmbH, Phoenix Fluid Handling Industry GmbH, Phoenix Oil & Marine Ltd., Phoenix Service GmbH & Co. KG, Phoenix Shanxi Conveyor Belt Co. Ltd., Phoenix Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Pneu Egger AG, Profi Reifen- und Autoservice Gesellschaft mbH, Prazisionstechnik Geithain GmbH, QUANTUM INVENTIONS SDN. BHD., Quantum Inventions, Quantum Inventions Private Limited, R & J Strang Tyre Services Limited, REG Reifen-Entsorgungsgesellschaft mbH, REPARATION PNEUMATIQUES DU SUD EST (REPNEU) SAS, ROSEA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Hannover-Stocken KG, Reifen Apel GmbH, Reifen Kauffmann GmbH, Reifen-John GmbH & Co KG, Reifen-Service Clemens & Hegel GmbH, Rengasmaailma Oy, Road-Broad Automotive Electronics (Qufu) Co. Ltd., Rundpneu Beteiligungsges. mbH, S.C. ContiTech Fluid Automotive Romania S.R.L., S.C. ContiTech Romania S.R.L., S.C. Continental Automotive Products SRL, SAS CONTITRADE FRANCE, STEINEBRONN BETEILIGUNGS-GMBH, Semperit (Ireland) Ltd., Semperit (UK) Ltd., Semperit Reifen Gesellschaft mbH, Senior Experts Services GmbH, Siemens VDO Automotive S.p.A., Specialised Belting Supplies Ltd., Specialty Fabrics & Converting Inc., Specialty Yarn & Converting Inc., Stable One Insurance Company LLC, Synerject Taiwan Co. Ltd., Syrma A.E., TON Tyres Over Night Trading GmbH, TOO "Continental Matador KZ", Temic Automotive (Phils.) Inc., Tikka Spikes Oy, Tyre Maintenance Limited, Tyre Reinsurance (Ireland) DAC, Tyre and Auto Pty Ltd, UMG Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Union-Mittelland-Gummi-GmbH & Co. Grundbesitz KG, Unterstutzungskasse mbH der Goppinger Kaliko- und Kunstleder-Werke GmbH, VIVAX Trading GmbH, Vanvulc Tyres Limited, Vaysse SAS, Vergolst GmbH, Veyance Distribuidora de Produtos de Engenharia Ltda., Veyance Hong Kong Co. Ltd., Veyance Industrial Services Inc., Veyance Qingdao Engineered Elastomers Company Ltd., Veyance Technologies, Veyance Technologies Australia Pty. Ltd., Veyance Technologies Canada (NS) ULC, Veyance Technologies Hong Kong Co. Ltd., Veyance Technologies Zambia Ltd., Viking Tyres (UK) Ltd., Vitesco Technologies (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Vitesco Technologies 1. Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Vitesco Technologies 1. Verwaltungs GmbH, Vitesco Technologies 2. Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Vitesco Technologies 2. Verwaltungs GmbH, Vitesco Technologies Automotive Cuautla S.A. de C.V., Vitesco Technologies Canada ULC, Vitesco Technologies Czech Republic s.r.o., Vitesco Technologies Delavan LLC, Vitesco Technologies Eisenach Verwaltungs GmbH, Vitesco Technologies Emitec GmbH, Vitesco Technologies Engineering Romania SRL, Vitesco Technologies France S.A.S., Vitesco Technologies GDL S. de R.L. de C.V., Vitesco Technologies Germany GmbH, Vitesco Technologies GmbH, Vitesco Technologies Group Aktiengesellschaft, Vitesco Technologies Holding 1 Canada Inc., Vitesco Technologies Holding 2 Canada Inc., Vitesco Technologies Holding China Co. Ltd., Vitesco Technologies Holding Netherlands B.V., Vitesco Technologies Hungary Kft., Vitesco Technologies India Private Limited, Vitesco Technologies Italy S.R.L., Vitesco Technologies Japan K.K., Vitesco Technologies Korea, Vitesco Technologies Lohmar Verwaltungs GmbH, Vitesco Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Vitesco Technologies Roding GmbH, Vitesco Technologies Romania SRL, Vitesco Technologies Singapore Pte. Ltd., Vitesco Technologies UK Ltd., Vitesco Technologies USA LLC, Vitesco Tecnologia Brasil Automotiva Ltda., Vogtlandische Reifenwerke Sitz Bad Nauheim GmbH, Vulcanite Holdings Pty Ltd, Vulcanite Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Vulcanite Pty Ltd, Wohlfahrtseinrichtung fur die Arbeiter und Angestellten der Semperit Reifen AG GmbH, Zonar, Zonar Systems Inc., Zytek Automotive, Zytek Automotive Ltd., Zytek Group Ltd., balance GmbH Handel und Beratungsservice im Gesundheitswesen, co-pace GmbH, inotec Innovative Technologie GmbH, and kek-Kaschierungen GmbH.
comScore, Inc. operates as an information and analytics company that measures advertising, consumer behavior, and audiences across media platforms worldwide. The company offers ratings and planning products and services, including Media Metrix Multi-Platform and Mobile Metrix, which measure Websites and apps on computers, smartphones, and tablets; Video Metrix that delivers measurement of digital video consumption; and Plan Metrix, which offers understanding of consumer lifestyle. Its ratings and planning products and services also comprises TV Essentials that combines TV viewing information with marketing segmentation and consumer databases; StationView Essentials to understand consumer viewing patterns and characteristics; Cross-Platform Suite, which integrates person-level linear TV viewership with digital audience data; and OnDemand Essentials that provides transactional tracking and reporting. In addition, its ratings and planning products comprise Comscore Campaign Ratings for verification of mobile and desktop video campaigns; validated Campaign Essentials, which validates whether digital ad impressions are visible to humans, identifies those that are fraudulent, and verifies that ads are shown in brand safe content and delivered to the right audience targets; and Total Home Panel Suite, which capture OTT, connected TV, and IOT device usage and content consumption. The company also offers analytics and optimization products and services that provide solutions for planning, optimization, and evaluation of advertising campaigns and brand protection. In addition, it offers movies reporting and analytics products and services to measure movie viewership and box office results by capturing movie ticket sales in real time or near real time. It serves digital publishers, television networks, movie studios, content owners, brand advertisers, agencies, and technology providers. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.

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Home Ministry plans to implement the project with assistance of Department of Space.

New Delhi: Union home minister Rajnath Singh has approved setting up of a task force which would identify areas for use of space technology in improving border management.

The task force would be headed by joint secretary (border management) in the home ministry with members from BSF, Department of Space and BM Division in the home ministry. MHA had earlier consulted all stakeholders including border guarding forces, ISRO, National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and Ministry of Defence to finalise the report.

Areas like island development, border security, communication and navigation, GIS and Operations Planning System and border infrastructure development have been identified for greater use of space technology.

In order to execute the project in a time-bound manner, a short, medium and long term plan has been proposed for implementation in five years in close co-ordination with ISRO and defence ministry. Major recommendations of the report are to build capacity for border guarding forces to use space resources for security, operational planning and border infrastructure development.

As part of the plan home ministry will procure high resolution imagery and hiring of bandwidth for communications for security forces. ISRO also plans to launch a satellite for exclusive use of the home ministry.

In the long term Home Ministry will develop ground segment and network infrastructure to share satellite resources by user agencies, develop a Central Archival Facility for storing various imagery resources and dissemination of the same to user agencies.

Even deployment of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in remote areas will be also co-ordinated by satellite communications. Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) -based GPS will provide navigation facilities for operational parties in high altitude, remote and difficult borders and Naxal areas. BSF has been designated as lead agency for implementation of ground segment and network infrastructure including establishment of Archival Facility.

Home Ministry plans to implement the project with assistance of Department of Space. This project will strengthen island and border security and facilitate development of infrastructure in border/island areas.
The following companies are subsidiares of Danaher: AB SCIEX, AB Sciex Germany GmbH, AB Sciex LLC, AB Sciex LP, AB Sciex Pte Ltd., Accu-Sort Systems, Acme Cleveland Corporation, Advanced Vision Technology, American Precision Industries, Applied Biosystems, Applitek NV, Aquatic Infomatics ULC, Aquatic Informatics, Armstrong Tools, BC Distribution BV, Beckman Coulter, Beckman Coulter Australia Pty Ltd, Beckman Coulter Biotechnology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter Biyomedikal Urunler Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited [irketi], Beckman Coulter Canada LP, Beckman Coulter Commercial Enterprise (China) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter France S.A.S., Beckman Coulter G.m.b.H., Beckman Coulter Genomics Inc., Beckman Coulter Hong Kong Limited, Beckman Coulter Inc., Beckman Coulter India Private Limited, Beckman Coulter International SA, Beckman Coulter International Shanghai Trading Co., Beckman Coulter Ireland Inc., Beckman Coulter K.K., Beckman Coulter Korea Ltd., Beckman Coulter Laboratory Systems (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter Limited Liability Company, Beckman Coulter Mishima KK, Beckman Coulter Nederland B.V., Beckman Coulter Nippon GK, Beckman Coulter S.L.U., Beckman Coulter Saudi Arabia Co.Ltd., Beckman Coulter Srl, Beckman Coulter Taiwan Inc., Beckman Coulter United Kingdom Limited, Beckman Coulter de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Beckman Coulter do Brasil Ltda., Beckman Finance ApS, Beckman Holdings Ltd., BioTector Analytical Systems Ltd, Biosafe S.A., Blue Software LLC, Cepheid, Cepheid AB, Cepheid Europe SAS, Cepheid GmbH, Cepheid HBDC SAS, Cepheid UK Ltd., ChemTreat, ChemTreat Inc., ChemTreat International Inc., Cispus Hong Kong Holding Limited, Cytiva, Cytiva BioProcess R&D AB, Cytiva Biotechnology (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Cytiva Biotechnology (Hang Zhou) Co. Ltd., Cytiva Europe GmbH, Cytiva Sweden AB, Cytiva Sweden Holding AB, DH Europe Finance II Sarl, DH Europe Finance Sarl, DH Holding Italia SRL, DH Japan Finance Sarl, DH Life Sciences LLC, DH Netherlands BV, DH Technologies Development Pte Ltd., DHKAB Company AB, DTIL Ireland Holdings Ltd., Danaher (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Danaher Hong Kong Limited, Danaher Medical ApS, Delta Consolidated Industries, Devicore Medical Products Inc., Easco Hand Tools, Esko, Esko BV, Esko Finance BV, Esko Graphics BV, Esko Software BV, FHAB Company AB, Fluke, G. Lufft Mess- und Regeltechnik GmbH, GE Biopharma, Gelman Sciences Inc., Gendex, Genetix Group, Gilbarco Veeder Root, Gilzoni Ltd., Global Life Sciences Solutions Austria GmbH & Co. KG, Global Life Sciences Solutions Germany GmbH, Global Life Sciences Solutions Korea Ltd., Global Life Sciences Solutions Manufacturing UK Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions New Zealand, Global Life Sciences Solutions Operations UK Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions Singapore Pte Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions USA LLC, Global Life Sciences Technologies (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Global Life Sciences Technologies Japan KK, Hach Company, Hach Lange Finance GmbH, Hach Lange GmbH, Hach Lange Sarl, Hach Sales & Services Canada LP, Hach Ultra Japan KK, Hach Water Quality Analytical Instru. (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., HemoCue AB, HyClone Laboratories LLC, Hybritech Incorporated, Hyclone Life Sciences Solutions India Private Limited, IDBS Group, IRIS International, Imaging Sciences International, Immunotech SAS, Immunotech Sro, Intabio LLC, Integrated DNA Technologies, Integrated DNA Technologies BVBA, Integrated DNA Technologies Inc., Integrated DNA Technologies Pte. Ltd., Iris International Inc., Joslyn Holding Company LLC, KVHG GmbH, KaVo, KaVo Kerr, Kaltenbach & Voigt, Keithley Instruments, Kipp & Zonen BV, Kollmorgen, Labcyte Inc., Laetus, Leica Biosystems Imaging Inc., Leica Biosystems Melbourne Pty Ltd, Leica Biosystems Newcastle Limited, Leica Biosystems Nussloch GmbH, Leica Biosystems Richmond Inc., Leica Instruments (Singapore) Pte Limited, Leica Microsystems, Leica Microsystems (UK) Limited, Leica Microsystems CMS GmbH, Leica Microsystems Cambridge Limited, Leica Microsystems IR GmbH, Leica Microsystems Inc., Leica Microsystems Limited, Leica Microsystems Ltd. Shanghai, Leica Mikrosysteme Vertrieb GmbH, Life Sciences Holdings France SAS*, Lifschultz Industries, Linx Printing Technologies, Linx Printing Technologies Limited, MDS Analytical Technologies, Marconi Data Systems, McCrometer Inc., Microtest, Molecular Devices, Molecular Devices (Austria) GmbH, Molecular Devices LLC, Navman Wireless, Navman Wireless OEM Solutions, Nihon Pall Ltd., Nihon Pall Manufacturing Limited, Nobel Biocare, OTT Hydromet Corp, Pall, Pall (Canada) ULC, Pall (China) Co. Ltd., Pall (Schweiz) GmbH, Pall Aeropower Corporation, Pall Artelis BVBA, Pall Asia Holdings Inc., Pall Australia Pty. Ltd., Pall Austria Filter Ges.m.b.h, Pall Corporation, Pall Europe Limited, Pall Filtersystems GmbH, Pall Filtration Pte. Ltd., Pall Filtration and Separations Group Inc., Pall France SAS, Pall GmbH, Pall India Pvt. Ltd., Pall International Sarl, Pall Italia Srl, Pall Korea Ltd., Pall Life Sciences Belgium BV, Pall Life Sciences Puerto Rico LLC, Pall Manufacturing UK Limited, Pall Medistad BV, Pall Netherlands BV Irish Branch, Pall Technology UK Limited, PaloDEX, Pantone LLC, Pelton & Crane, Phenomenex, Phenomenex Inc., QHC Ireland Finance Limited, Radiometer, Radiometer Basel AG, Radiometer K.K., Radiometer Medical ApS, Radiometer Medical Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Radiometer Turku Oy, Raytek, Reytek Corporation, SH Switzerland Finance Sarl, Sea-Bird Electronics Inc., SenDx Medical Inc., Shanghai AB Sciex Analytical Instrument Trading Co. Ltd., Sutron, Sybron Dental Specialties, TCIL Ireland Finance Ltd., Tektronix, Thomson Industries, Tianjin Bonna-Agela Technologies Co. Ltd., Trojan Technologies, Trojan Technologies Group ULC, VSS Monitoring, Videojet Do Brasil Comercio de Equipamentos Para Codificacao Industrial Ltda., Videojet Technologies (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Videojet Technologies Europe B.V., Videojet Technologies Inc., Viridor Waste Management Limited, Vision Systems Limited, Willett International, X-Ray Optical Systems Inc., X-Rite, X-Rite Europe GmbH, X-Rite Incorporated, X-Rite Switzerland GmbH, XOS, Yukon Hong Kong Holding Limited, and Zhuhai S.E.Z. Videojet Electronics Ltd..
Oshkosh Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies worldwide. The company's Access Equipment segment provides aerial work platforms and telehandlers for use in various construction, industrial, institutional, and general maintenance applications. This segment also offers rental fleet loans and leases, and floor plan and retail financing through third-party funding arrangements; towing and recovery equipment; carriers and wreckers; equipment installation services; and chassis and service parts sales. Its Defense segment provides heavy, medium, and light tactical wheeled vehicles and related services for the department of defense. The company's Fire & Emergency segment offers custom and commercial firefighting vehicles and equipment; and commercial fire apparatus and emergency vehicles, such as pumpers, aerial platform, ladder and tiller trucks, tankers, rescue vehicles, wild land rough terrain response vehicles, mobile command and control centers, bomb squad vehicles, hazardous materials control vehicles, and other emergency response vehicles. This segment also provides aircraft rescue and firefighting, snow removal, and broadcast vehicles, as well as command trucks, and military simulator shelters and trailers. Its Commercial segment offers front-and rear-discharge concrete mixers for the concrete ready-mix industry; refuse collection vehicles and related components to commercial and municipal waste haulers; and field service vehicles and truck-mounted cranes for the construction, equipment dealer, building supply, utility, tire service, railroad, and mining industries. Oshkosh Corporation provides its products through direct sales representatives, dealers, and distributors. The company was formerly known as Oshkosh Truck Corporation and changed its name to Oshkosh Corporation in February 2008. Oshkosh Corporation was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

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The EC may go by precedent and hold assembly polls in Andhra, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal along with Lok Sabha polls.

The Election Commission is in the process of deciding the number of phases and the months in which polling would be held, report said. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The dates for the Lok Sabha elections are likely to be announced in the first week of March, sources indicated on Friday.

The term of the present Lok Sabha ends on June 3.

The Election Commission is in the process of deciding the number of phases and the months in which polling would be held, they said.

The charting of the phases would also depend on the availability of security forces and other requirements, the sources said, adding the announcement of the mega exercise is likely to be made in the first week of March.

There is a possibility that the EC may go by the precedent and hold assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh along with the Lok Sabha polls.

Since the Jammu and Kashmir assembly has been dissolved, the EC is bound to hold fresh polls there within six months. It was dissolved in November, 2018 and the upper limit ends in May. The poll panel may hold elections in Jammu and Kashmir along with the Lok Sabha polls as well.

But it can be held before that also as much depends on the complex security situation there, they said. In normal circumstances, the J&K assembly's six-year term was to end on March 16, 2021.

The other state assemblies and the Lok Sabha have a five-year term. While the term of the Sikkim Assembly ends on May 27, 2019, the terms of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Arunachal Pradesh assemblies end on June 18, June 11 and June 1 respectively. In 2004, the Election Commission had announced four-phase Lok Sabha polls on February 29. While the first date of poll was April 20, the last date was May 10.

In 2009, the EC had announced Lok Sabha poll scheduled on March 2. The five-phase polls began on April 16 and ended on May 13.

In 2014, the EC had announced the election schedule on March 5 and the nine-phase electoral exercise was spread across April and May. While the first phase polling was on April 7, the last phase was on May 12.
The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. Limited, Abbott Informatics Spain S.A., Abbott Informatics Technologies Ltd, Abbott International Corporation, Abbott International Enterprises Ltd., Abbott International Holdings Limited, Abbott International LLC, Abbott International Luxembourg S.ar.l., Abbott Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Ireland, Abbott Ireland Financing Designated Activity Company, Abbott Ireland Limited, Abbott Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Abbott Knoll Investments B.V., Abbott Korea Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco (Dos) SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Malaysia) Sdn. 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Spectris plc manufactures and sells measuring instruments and controls worldwide. The company provides products and services, which enable customers to determine structure, composition, quantity, and quality of particles and materials during their research and product development processes, when assessing materials before production, or during the manufacturing process; various range of life science services; products for measurement and control of temperature, humidity, pressure, strain, force, flow, level, pH, and conductivity; and data acquisition, electric heating, and custom-engineered products. It also supplies test, measurement, and analysis equipment, software, and services for product design optimization and manufacturing control; and designs and manufactures tooling and monitoring system for installation and acquisition services, data processing services, 24/7 monitoring, and advanced analytics consulting. In addition, the company offers various industrial automation products, including IIoT controllers and gateways, data acquisition and protocol converters, human machine interface operator displays and panel meters, visualisation software products, proportionalA-integralA-derivative controllers, remote terminal units, input/output products, and signal conditioners and sensors; and industrial networking products, which include ethernet switches, wired and wireless routers, and network and device management software products. Further, it provides on-line and off-line measurement and control solutions for the dimensional monitoring of diameter, ovality, wall thickness, eccentricity, length and speed, and other parameters; particle measuring systems; and supplies gas analysis solutions and various related product and services. The company was formerly known as Fairey Aviation Company Ltd. and changed its name to Spectris plc in May 2001. Spectris plc was founded in 1915 and is headquartered in Egham, the United Kingdom.

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The stay at the resort would probably be a one-day affair, as 'a show of strength', Congress leader said.

Congress MLA Sowmya Reddy said, 'We are working together well. Let us work. We are all going to Eagleton resort.' (Photo:Twitter | ANI)

Bengaluru: Four Karnataka Congress MLAs on Friday abstained from a meeting of the Legislature Party in which the party decided to move rest of the 76 legislators to a resort to prevent poaching.

The meeting was convened by the party to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculation that some of the MLAs had switched over to the BJP.

The party, which had threatened to invoke anti-defection law against those absenting themselves, decided to issue show cause notices to those who did not make to the meeting.

Congress leader Siddaramaiah, who chaired the CLP meeting said: "76 MLAs were present physically. I will send notice to absentees and seek an explanation. Then I will speak to the high command."

Congress MLA Sowmya Reddy said, "We are working together well. Let us work. We are all going to Eagleton resort."

The stay at the resort would probably be a one-day affair, as "a show of strength", Reddy said, adding "We will also have discussion on upcoming parliamentary elections."

Siddaramaiah alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and central ministers were involved in the "process of destabilizing" the JDS-Congress coalition government in Karnataka.

"They approached our MLAs with huge offers of Rs 50-70 crores. I have proof. How come a chowkidar (guard) has so much money?" asked Siddaramaiah, apparently referring to the Prime Minister who calls himself a "chowkidar".

The Congress, which shares power with JD(S), has 80 MLAs in the 224-member Assembly, including the Speaker. Accordingly, 79 MLAs were expected to attend the CLP meeting held under the supervision of central leaders K C Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge.

Those absent were Nagendra B, Ramesh Jarakiholi, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumtalli, the party sources said.

Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was dropped as minister in the recent cabinet rejig, is said to be extremely unhappy over it.

Siddaramaiah said Jadhav had written saying he would not be able to attend the meet as he was unwell, while Nagendra had spoken to AICC general secretary K C Venugopal conveying his inability to attend because of a court case.

The other two MLAs had not communicated anything, he said.
Sources said the ED filed the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and pressed charges against those booked by the CBI.

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money laundering case in connection with the alleged illegal sand mining in Uttar Pradesh. Another Central agency  the CBI  has already registered a criminal complaint in this connection and said it was probing the role of former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and some bureaucrats.

Sources said the ED filed the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and pressed charges against those booked by the CBI. The ED is now looking to check the money trail and see if alleged illegal funds earned as kickbacks in these cases were laundered by the accused. It may soon summon the accused for questioning.

The CBI carried out searches at 14 locations early this month in connection with its FIR against 11 people, including IAS officer B Chandrakala and Samajwadi Party MLC Ramesh Kumar Mishra and Sanjay Dixit.

The role of the then mining ministers concerned during the relevant period may be looked into during the course of investigation of the case, the CBI FIR had said. Akhilesh Yadav, who was the chief minister of the state between 2012 and 2017, held the mining portfolio during 2012-13 apparently bringing his role under scanner, according to the FIR. He was succeeded by Gayatri Prajapati, who took charge as mining minister in 2013 and was arrested in 2017 following a complaint of rape by a woman residing in Chitrakoot. Others named in the CBI FIR included Dinesh Kumar Mishra, brother of SP MLC Ramesh Mishra; Ram Ashrey Prajapati (then mining clerk), Ambika Tiwari, Sanjay Dixits father Satyadev Dixit, Ram Avtar Singh (retired mining clerk), Karan Singh (lease holder), and Adil Khan, the illegal excavator.
Matador Resources Company, an independent energy company, engages in the exploration, development, production, and acquisition of oil and natural gas resources in the United States. It operates in two segments, Exploration and Production; and Midstream. The company primarily holds interests in the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring plays in the Delaware Basin in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas. It also operates the Eagle Ford shale play in South Texas; and the Haynesville shale and Cotton Valley plays in Northwest Louisiana. In addition, the company conducts midstream operations in support of its exploration, development, and production operations; provides natural gas processing and oil transportation services; and offers oil, natural gas, and salt water gathering services, as well as salt water disposal services to third parties. As of December 31, 2020, its estimated total proved oil and natural gas reserves were 270.3 million barrels of oil equivalent, including 159.9 million stock tank barrels of oil and 662.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The company was formerly known as Matador Holdco, Inc. and changed its name to Matador Resources Company in August 2011. Matador Resources Company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

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7 hours ago

| June 17th | 2021 8:38 AM

Does Nike (NYSE: NKE) Have What It Takes To Get Back Running Again

For a company whose shares powered to new highs on what felt like a daily basis for much of last year, Nike (NYSE: NKE) has surprised many with its sluggish performance in the first half of 2021. Their shares are trading down more than 10% from the most recent all time high that they tagged at the end of December. In the grand scheme of things, this
Fortis Inc. operates as an electric and gas utility company in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean countries. It generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 433,000 retail customers in southeastern Arizona; and 98,000 retail customers in Arizona's Mohave and Santa Cruz counties with an aggregate capacity of 3,233 megawatts (MW), including 59 MW of solar capacity. The company also sells wholesale electricity to other entities in the western United States; owns gas-fired and hydroelectric generating capacity totaling 65 MW; and distributes natural gas to approximately 1,048,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in British Columbia, Canada. In addition, it owns and operates the electricity distribution system that serves approximately 572,000 customers in southern and central Alberta; owns 4 hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 225 MW; and provides operation, maintenance, and management services to five hydroelectric generating facilities. Further, the company distributes electricity in the island portion of Newfoundland and Labrador with an installed generating capacity of 143 MW; and on Prince Edward Island with a generating capacity of 130 MW. Additionally, it provides integrated electric utility service to approximately 67,000 customers in Ontario; approximately 270,000 customers in Newfoundland and Labrador; approximately 31,000 customers on Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; and approximately 15,000 customers on certain islands in Turks and Caicos. The company also holds long-term contracted generation assets in Belize consisting of 3 hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 51 MW; and the Aitken Creek natural gas storage facility. It also owns and operates approximately 91,000 circuit Kilometers (km) of distribution lines; and approximately 49,500 km of natural gas pipelines. Fortis Inc. was founded in 1885 and is headquartered in St. John's, Canada.

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Suncor Energy Inc. operates as an integrated energy company. The company primarily focuses on developing petroleum resource basins in Canada's Athabasca oil sands; explores, acquires, develops, produces, transports, refines, and markets crude oil in Canada and internationally; markets petroleum and petrochemical products under the Petro-Canada name primarily in Canada. It operates in Oil Sands; Exploration and Production; Refining and Marketing; and Corporate and Eliminations segments. The Oil Sands segment recovers bitumen from mining and in situ operations, and upgrades it into refinery feedstock and diesel fuel, or blends the bitumen with diluent for direct sale to market. The Exploration and Production segment is involved in offshore operations off the east coast of Canada and in the North Sea; and operating onshore assets in Libya and Syria. The Refining and Marketing segment refines crude oil and intermediate feedstock into various petroleum and petrochemical products; and markets refined petroleum products to retail, commercial, and industrial customers through its other retail sellers. The Corporate and Eliminations segment operates four wind farm operations in Ontario and Western Canada. The company also markets and trades in crude oil, natural gas, byproducts, refined products, and power. The company was formerly known as Suncor Inc. and changed its name to Suncor Energy Inc. in April 1997. Suncor Energy Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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Seattle Cannabis Company Capitalizes on Surging Demand (Ad)

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A top North Korean diplomat was travelling to Sweden on Tuesday, she told reporters, as speculation mounts over the next summit between the isolated States leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump.

Choe Son Hui, a North Korean vice-minister of foreign affairs, landed in Beijing on a flight from the North Korean capital Pyongyang. I am going to an international conference in Sweden, South Koreas Yonhap news agency quoted her as saying on arrival at the airport.

Choes trip comes as expectations grow for a second meeting between Kim and Trump -- despite a lack of progress in denuclearisation negotiations -- after the North Korean leader went to Beijing, long Pyongyangs key ally, last week for talks with President Xi Jinping.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Kims trip was a sign a second US-North Korean summit was imminent, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added at the weekend that: Were working out the details.

Suggestions circulating among Korea-watchers for possible venues include Vietnam and Thailand, among others.

Stockholm has a long history of mediating between Washington and Pyongyang -- while the two do not have diplomatic relations, Sweden is the protecting power for US citizens in the Asian country, and Choe has been intimately involved in the US-North Korean relationship.

Before she assumed her current position, she was director general of the foreign ministrys North American department. She was also among the officials who accompanied Kim to Singapore for his first summit with Trump in June.

The meeting, held in a blaze of publicity, saw the two men sign a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

But progress has since stalled with the two sides disagreeing over what that means.

Pyongyang is seeking sanctions relief and rejects demands for what it calls its unilateral disarmament, while Washington insists that the punitive measures must stay in place until it gives up its nuclear arsenal.
The first rally will be held in Lucknow, and the party hopes to get at least 10 lakh supporters to attend it.

New Delhi: Undeterred by the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance in Uttar Pradesh, from which it was left out, the Congress has decided to dig in its heels in the crucial state with party chief Rahul Gandhi planning to address at least 12 rallies there in the next month.

Suddenly in war mode, Congress UP in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad is camping in Lucknow along with PCC chief Raj Babbar and has held several rounds of hectic meetings with state-level leaders and district office-bearers.

Relying on Mr Gandhi to pull in the crowds, the party has decided he will address 12 rallies over the next one month in the pre-election notification phase. The first rally will be held in Lucknow, and the party hopes to get at least 10 lakh supporters to attend it.

The rallies will be an eye-opener for all other parties, a senior Congress leader said. The Congress president had earlier said his party may spring a surprise in the polls.

After the first rally in Lucknow, the other likely venues are Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Meerut, Aligarh, Bareilly, Kanpur, Prayagraj (Allahabad) and Jhansi. The Congress leadership in the state feels with aggressive posturing, large-scale rallies and choice of good candidates, it can be a major attraction for the minorities in many seats.

The Samajwadi Party and BSP, on the other hand fear that the Congress might wean away some upper caste votes from the BJP and help them win more seats.
Tension gripped the top B-school XLRI campus as a second year HRM student of XLRI died under mysterious circumstances on the institute's campus under Bistupur police station area early Friday morning. The student Shashwat Dixit (26) was rushed to Tata Main Hospital, where the doctors on emergency duty declared him as brought dead.

Police have seized the body and kept it in the Tata Main Hospital morgue. The XLRI management has informed the deceased's parents about the incident. The parents who are residents of Kanpur are on their way to the steel city.

A communique issued by XLRI said, We are extremely sad to inform you about the sudden demise of one of our students Shashwat Dixit today morning. He had an accidental fall while walking towards another hostel and was rushed to the hospital. Shashwat was a 2nd year student of Human Resource Management 2017-19. He hails from Kanpur, UP. His parents have been informed and they are on their way to Jamshedpur. We extend our deepest condolence to his family.

According to sources in the B-school, Shashwat stayed at room No 11 on ground floor of St Thomas Hostel and was walking towards another hostel, Mother Teresa Residency in the campus as he fell down in front of the hostel at 5.50 am today. Some faculty members who found him lying near the Mother Teresa Hostel, a girls hostel, rushed him to Tata Main Hospital.

As Shashwat would stay in the single room and none of the students is able to say what happened to him, causing him to die so suddenly. Shashwat was of the 17-19 batch students and was selected for Acceture Talent Accelerator Programme in the pre-placement offer.

As the news spread, OC, Bistupur police station, Srineewash rushed to the Tata Main Hospital and started investigation. Later superintendent of police (city) Prabhat Kumar and deputy superintendent of police (composite control room) Sudhir Kumar also reached the spot for investigation.

"It is too early to comment. The student, Shashwat Dixit was found lying in front of the Mother Teresa Residency at about 5.50 am. There is no apparent reason behind the death and the cause of death can be known only after the autopsy of the body," said Srineewash.

The OC said the deceased student's parents are on their way to the steel city. He said they would shift the body to the MGM Medical College mortuary for post-mortem only after arrival of Shashwat's parents.

Srineewash said they are trying to find out the fact by scanning CCTV footage gathered from the campus.
Punjab Congress elected representatives from the six districts of Malwa region on Friday raised the issue of shortage of doctors and the affected health services due to it during their meeting with the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday.

Intervening, the Health Minister Brahm Mohindra apprised the meeting that 400 doctors had been recently recruited and posted in different hospitals against vacancies.

At the same time, Mohindra urged the Chief Minister to merge the 750 doctors serving in the Rural Development and Panchayats Department in the Health Department, which would ultimately help tide over the situation of shortage of doctors in the state to a considerable extent.

Quick to respond, the Chief Minister asked the Chief Secretary to get the proposal thoroughly examined in consultation with the Additional Chief Secretary (Health) and the Principal Secretary (Rural Development and Panchayats), and take an appropriate decision in this regard.

Mohindra further informed the Chief Minister that the Civil Hospital Mohali had been planned to be upgraded as Medical College from session 2019-20. An inspection team from Medical Council of India would revisit before February 28, and the proposal for 168 posts of faculty and 826 posts of paramedics had been sent to Finance Department for approval, he said.

Capt Amarinder, holding his third phase of pre-budget consultations with MLAs from six districts of Barnala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana, Patiala, SAS Nagar (Mohali) and Rupnagar, assured them that paucity of funds would not be allowed to hamper the pace of development works and wherever funds were needed for smooth completion of projects, the same would be release proactively.

He also directed the Principal Secretary (Local Government) to ensure that those development projects which were stuck up due to non-release of requisite funds should be examined on priority and necessary funds released forthwith.

Capt Amarinder also announced a development grant of Rs 208.40 crore for execution of various infrastructure works in the rural and urban areas of these districts under the umbrella programme of Smart Village campaign and Urban Environment Improvement Plan (UEIP).

He also asked the MLAs to prioritize development works within their assembly constituencies and submit list of works to be undertaken to their concerned Deputy Commissioners by January 31.

Another Rs 300 crore would be spent on the development works to be undertaken in the urban areas under UEIP, he said.

The Chief Minister also constituted a committee comprising Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Principal Secretary (Rural Development and Panchayats), Secretary (Industries), besides MLAs of Rajpura, Ghanaur and Fatehgarh Sahib, to suggest modalities to identify suitable land for setting up of a Mega Industrial Park at Rajpura over an area of 1000 acres.

Dispelling MLAs apprehensions regarding hefty electricity bills raised by the Powercom to the SC domestic consumers to whom the state had extended the facility of free 200 units, the Chief Minister said that he had already asked the Power Minister to examine the matter and find a viable solution.

The Chief Minister also announced that the State Government would soon come up with a special scheme of debt waiver for the rural landless labourers, who were passing through acute financial distress due to the current agrarian crisis.

Taking part in the discussions, Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu requested for more funds for repair of city roads and upgradation of sewerage system, and also sought Rs 50 Crores for construction of an approach road leading to the Hi-tech Cycle Valley.

Responding to a demand of Amloh MLA Randeep Singh, Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal agreed to set up a steel chamber at Mandi Gobindgarh and Sub Tehsil at Amloh.

Ludhiana East MLA Sanjeev Talwar raised the issue of regularisation and transfer of ownership rights to illegal occupants of municipal land, which could fetch substantial revenue to the state.

Fatehgarh Sahib MLA Kuljit Singh Nagra highlighted the role of higher education in resource development and, citing present financial plight of Punjabi University, demanded a special package for it. He also urged the Chief Minister to hold a special meeting in this regard and extend a liberal financial package to GNDU Amritsar and PAU Ludhiana.

Gill MLA Kuldeep Singh Vaid urged the Chief Minister to bring in a legislation for allowing a bull cart race in Kila Raipur Rural Games, besides requesting him for one ITI Centre for his constituency.

Samrala MLA Amrik Singh Dhillon asked for strict enforcement to check smuggling of liquor in order to plug the pilferage of excise and enhance its revenue.
A delegation of Rashtriya Isai Maha Sangh (RIMS) members lead by Fr Anand Muttungal met the Law Minister PC Sharma at his residence on Thursday.

Fr Muttugnal said the Minister has agreed to withdraw the false cases of conversion slapped against Christians. We briefed him that the Bharatiya Janatha Party led Government in Madhya Pradesh has persecuted Christians in the name of conversion to take revenge because they believe that Christians are supporters of the Congress Party.

He said even though many cases have been registered, not even one incident has been proved in the court of law. The BJP and other fundamental organisations believe that Christians and all those who benefit from the works of the Christians too will support the Congress Party. So, they used all means to stop Christian works in the State.

RIMS spokesperson Richard James said there havebeen about 264 cases in Madya Pradesh during the long 15 years of rule in the State. The fundamental organisation, supporting the BJP, has taken help from the police and administration to persecute Christians working in the fields of social work, education and religious activities. They have used power to defame Christians and stop the works done for the poor.

State Secretary in charge of RIMS Office Mohit Ratre said, We are writing letters to all the victims, office bearers of RIMS and in-charges of various Churches to help the victims to avail the benefits of the Government.
The city police on Friday said it has cracked the murder mystery of junk dealer Mohammed Siraj, a resident of Maudhapara locality coming under Maudhapara Police Station Jurisdiction.

Superintendent of Police (SP), Raipur, Neethu Kamal, Additional SP (City), Prafull Thakur and other senior police officials in a press conference informed that police nabbed two accused from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, who were on way to Amritsar in Punjab.

Both of them have executed the crime with an intention of loot, they said.

The arrested accused are Mujahid Raza and Nitu Sardar. A Nano Car used in the crime and Rs 72,000 cash has been recovered from them, the police said.

Notably, family members of Siraj had lodged a missing complaint before Maudhapara Police on January 14 and the body of Siraj was recovered from Village Tendua on outskirts of capital city coming under Amanaka Police Station jurisdiction.

A joint team of Maudhapara and Amanaka police started investigation after receiving directives from SP, Raipur. They, after scanning CCTV cameras and also interrogating the family members of Siraj, came to know that Mujahid Raja and Majinder Singh alias Nitu were last seen with him.

When the police searched the duo, it was informed to the police team that both of them were last seen at the Raipur Railway Station. CCTV footage was also scanned and after confirming a team was sent to Gwalior. The Raipur SP herself contacted Gwalior SP and requested to help nab the accused.

Gwalior police arrested the two accused from Chhattisgarh Express and later the team of Raipur police brought them back to capital.

Police informed that the accused during the interrogation had admitted that they have killed Siraj due to need of money. They called Siraj with cash amounting to Rs 3 Lakh while saying that they will execute a deal of a truck. In car they took Siraj to Tendua village while telling him that the truck was parked there. Later they killed Siraj with a hammer and dumped his body near a culvert. In a bid to mislead police they threw his mobile phone at Gondwara locality, police said.

Meanwhile police has taken the accused into custody and is further investigating into the matter.
Jayanti, a class V student of government primary school number 22 in Kankhal never had a chance to sit on bench and use a writing desk in school.

She had spent four years sitting on a floor mat in class. There was no bench in school to sit on and all students including Jayanti had to sit on the floor mat.

However, members of Haridwar Nagrik Manch have provided good quality furniture to the school. Block education officer Ajay Chowdhary appreciated the efforts made by the organisation.

When this correspondent visited the school and asked one of the boy students why they had gathered in the school lawns on Friday he responded, We are going to receive gifts today. The joy of receiving gifts was well writ on their faces.

There was no furniture in the school, students used to sit on the floor in the cold when I visited this school last month. Today the school principal and the kids are happy to have risen from theground, said SK Batra smilingly. SS Jaiswal of Haridwar Nagrik Manch said that Rs 11,000 will be awarded among meritorious students of Classes I to V every year.
Health, Medical, Education and Family Welfare, Secretary Dr. Nitin Madan Kulkarni has directed the private hospitals of the city to organize Blood Donation Camp. After launching the Haemophilia Day Care Center in the new building of Sadar Hospital, Dr. Kulkarni was directing the officials in the meeting organized with the representatives of the private hospitals of the city in the Civil Surgeon Office Auditorium.

He said that in the last six months, around 343 private hospitals in the city have used around 32,989 units of blood. So if you (hospital) are using more than 100 units of blood in a month, then it is mandatory to organize a camp. For this, a letter has also been issued from the department. It does not seem to have any effect. He said that the help will be provided to the hospitals to organize the camp, he said.

The hospital representatives requested Dr. Kulkarni to simplify the licensing process. On this he told the representatives, You instruct the doctors of your hospital to stop prescribing whole blood. Two or three patients can be benefitted with the amount of blood. Dr Kulkarni also instructed the representatives of private hospitals to install component separator.

Earlier, during the meeting with the representatives of the Haemophilia Society, the Secretary spoke of providing poster banners related to Haemophilia. He said that awareness should be spread by the IEC in the district so that people are aware of it. Representatives of the Hemophilia Society gave information about the data related to haemophilia to the Health Secretary through a presentation. Dr. Nitin Kulkarni, after inaugurating the Haemophilia Day Care Center, went to the Shishu Ward of Sadar Hospital and inquired about the facilities and gave several instructions.

Civil Surgeon Dr V.B. Prasad, D.S. Dr. A.K. Jha, ACMO Dr. Neelam Chaudhary, Dr. S.B. Khkhho, Dr. Vimlesh Singh, Ranjit, Antara and other physicians and health officials were present on the occasion.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has decided to chart its own course and contest next general elections alone. The AAP leadership out the possibility of any alliance with Congress for Lok Sabha polls and added it will field candidates on all Parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. Senior AAP leader and partys Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai said on Friday the decision came in the wake of the recent statements of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit, opposing an alliance with the AAP.

Ending months of speculation, the AAP finally ruled out any truck with Congress in the next Lok Sabha Elections.

In the interest of the country, we were ready to drink the poison of Congress, but the statements show that the Congress is still seeped in its arrogance. The AAP will contest all Lok Sabha seats in the three states on its own, Rai said while addressing the media.

Meanwhile, former Delhi Chief Minister and newly appointed president of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC), Sheila Dikshit refused to comment on the development .I do not have to react on what he said. Its his opinion, she said.

However, Rai exuded confidence that AAP in collaboration with like-minded parties in the country, will defeat the BJP in Delhi and get a new Government installed at the Centre.

He said the vision of an alliance with Congress came into being on suggestions of leaders like Mamata Banerjee, MK Stalin, Chandrababu Naidu and Farooq Abdullah.

Like-minded leaders like Farooq Abdullah, M K Stalin, Chandrababu Naidu, Mamata Banerjee among others stressed that despite disagreements with Congress, we (AAP) should fight the elections together in the interest of the country, he said.

The AAP, despite objections of its Delhi and Punjab units, was ready to go with Congress to end the dictatorship of Modi-Shah combine and to save the Constitution, he said.

The way Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh issued statement that AAP has no takers in Punjab and Sheila Dikshit said that Congress is a national party and it can not ally with a small party like AAP, made it clear that Congress kept its arrogance above the interest of the country.

Delhi Congress working president Devender Yadav said AAPs decision proved that only it was vying for an alliance for the coming polls. They were running after us for an alliance and now rejecting it. It shows that they had interest in it and when we declined, they backed out, Yadav said. He said that Delhi Congress is of firm view that it will contest Lok Sabha polls alone.

The AAP, which is the main opposition party in Punjab, will launch its campaign for Lok Sabha polls in the state with a rally in Barnala on January 20 which will be attended by party chief Arvind Kejriwal.
Ex-FM says Govt paid Rs 186 cr/jet, Defence Ministry denies charges

The NDA Governments decision to buy 36 Rafale jets instead of 126 as was decided by the UPA regime led to escalation of the price of each aircraft by 41 per cent and came as a windfall for French aircraft-maker Dassault, said Congress leader P Chidambaram citing an exhaustive report published by The Hindu newspaper.

The Defence Ministry has denied the charges in detailed statement.

Claiming that the Government paid Euro 25 million more per aircraft compared to the price negotiated by the Congress-led UPA, Chidambaram said the Government did not buy 90 more aircraft needed by the Air Force and paid Rs 186 crore more to French firm Dassault, maker of Rafale, for 13 India-specific enhancements in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).

The former Finance Minister reiterated his partys demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale jet deal, saying the decision is not amenable to court but to a parliamentary panel. The Congress has alleged earlier that the Prime Minister increased the Benchmark Price of Rafale deal from 5.2 billion Euros to 8.2 billion Euros and that the NDA Government paid over Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft against the UPAs negotiated price of Rs 527 crore per aircraft, demanding answers as to who is responsible for the loss to the State exchequer.

Chidambarams Press conference came in the backdrop of a media report claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision to buy 36 aircraft instead of the 126 asked for by the Indian Air Force pushed the price of each jet up by 41.42 per cent.

The Government has wronged the country in two ways  firstly, it has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force 90 fighter aircraft that they desperately need. Secondly, it has purchased two squadrons that will cost about Euro 25 million more per aircraft. At the 2016 exchange rate, Euro 25 million is equal to Rs 186 crore. India will pay Rs 186 crore more per aircraft, Chidambaram said.

There is no doubt any longer that Rafale aircraft deal deserves to be examined thoroughly by a Joint Parliamentary Committee. The Congress reiterates its demand for constitution of a JPC, he said.

The Rajya Sabha member said he feels that Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank, as the NDA Government gave a gift to the French firm over amortisation or recovery on the cost of 13 India-specific enhancements sought in the aircraft that cost 1,300 million Euros.

He said the cost of these enhancements has been recovered by Dassault in 36 aircraft and the same should have been recovered by it for 126 aircraft instead.

That is a windfall for Dassault. That is the gift that the NDA Government has given to Dassault and that is why I said Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank....The windfall to Dassault was a deliberate decision of NDA government and is highly questionable, he said.

The increased price per aircraft is a gift to Dassault that the NDA Government gave between April 2015 and August 2016, he also said.

Chidambaram earlier said in the light of new facts and revelations, the question gains greater urgency: why did the government buy only 36 Rafale aircraft instead of 126 aircraft required by the Air Force?

Chidambaram took to Twitter and said serious issues are being raised in media reports about the process of decision-making in the NDA Government and alleged that the man who got away was Mr Manohar Parrikar who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security. Clever man.

Meanwhile, the Defence Ministry on Friday said the deal for purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets in 2016 achieved the objectives of better price, better delivery period and better terms compared to the earlier proposal. Making this assertion, the Ministry said Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had answered in detail about all issues related to the contract in an open debate in Parliament in the recently concluded winter session.

In a statement, the Ministry said pricing details, which are of confidential nature and covered by the Indo-French security agreement of 2008, were shared with the Supreme Court in a sealed cover. The Supreme Court has gone through the details of pricing and commercial advantage. The Court has not found anything adverse in the deal and has refused to order an investigation. Moreover, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has been given access to all the files related to Rafale deal. It is best to await the report of an authoritative agency like the CAG, it said.

As regards questions raised about India Specific Enhancements (ISE) for the Rafale jets and allegations that the NDA Government paid 41 per cent more than deal being negotiated by the erstwhile UPA Government, the ministry said these enhancements were part of the requirements of the Indian Air Force to achieve tactical superiority over our adversaries.

Also these ISE were part of the 2007 bid and continued to be part of the 2016 deal. The cost of the India Specific Enhancements was on a fixed basis in the 2007 bid which was negotiated down in the 2016 deal. However, to compare the cost for the now scrapped Medium Multi-role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) contract which never materialized with the cost of the 36 aircraft procured in 2016 is fallacious, the statement said.

Allegations about the price of ISE as 1.4 billion Euro in 2007 has failed to include the in-built escalation factor that would have worked between 2007 and 2015. Moreover, comparisons were made between un-escalated price of 2007 with the price of 2016 without considering the escalation factors inherent in the price bid, it said.

The statement said the change from a firm and fixed price to a flexible rate was possible only because the deal was structured under an Inter Governmental Agreement with France.

This factor is expected to lead to a substantial commercial advantage over the delivery period of 36 Rafale aircraft, it added.

On the issue of dissent within the Indian negotiation team while finalising the 36 Rafale jet deal, the statement said it was answered by Sitharaman in Parliament. In the highest traditions of the Civil Service, all views are aired and recorded and a collegiate decision taken after considering such opinions.

Decisions on the deal were taken after due process of inter-ministerial consultation, the ministry said.
The Election Commission (EC) may announce the schedule of the parliamentary elections sometime in the middle of March, while the polls are likely to take place in April and May. The polling is likely to be conducted in several phases across the country and the EC is keen to ensure that the poll-dates do not clash with the school examinations as well as festivals in the States. The term of the present Lok Sabha ends on June 3.

An EC spokesperson, however, said, No decision has been taken as yet on the date when the elections would be announced.

According to sources, the Commission is in the process of deciding the number of phases and the months in which polling would be held. The charting of the phases would also depend on the availability of security forces and other requirements, the sources said, adding the announcement of the mega exercise is likely to be made in first week of March.

The polling to elect the new Assemblies in Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim are likely to take place along with the parliamentary elections. The State Assembly polls in J&K, which is now under Presidents Rule may also be held with Lok Sabha polls in April-May.

The Assembly in Jammu and Kashmir was dissolved in November, 2018 and the upper limit ends in May. In normal circumstances, the J&K Assemblys six-year term was to end on March 16, 2021. The other State Assemblies and the Lok Sabha have a five-year term. The State Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana are scheduled to be held later this year. While the term of the Sikkim Assembly ends on May 27, 2019, the terms of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Arunachal Pradesh assemblies end on June 18, June 11 and June 1 respectively.

The final electoral rolls with January 1, 2019, as the qualifying date were published in all the States and Union Territories. This marked the end of the Summary Revision of Electoral Rolls 2019. The process had started on September 1, 2018.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has already announced the schedule of the Class Xth and Class XIIth examinations, making it sure that both commence and conclude earlier than usual so that the electioneering could not disturb the students preparing for the examinations. The Class Xth examinations will start on February 21 and end on March 29, while Class XII will be held from February 15 to April 3.
Was the Muttahida Qaumi Movement simply engineered by Gen Zia or was there more to its history?

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), once the most dominant political party in Karachi, is in complete disarray. At the moment there are three factions of the party vying for the Mohajir vote and at least two sub-factions within one of the splinter groups. The immediate memory associated with the MQM in the minds of the partys supporters is that of an organisation that was able to stall the political and economic alienation of Sindhs Mohajirs. The other immediate memory of the party  mostly held by its detractors  is of an outfit which plunged Sindhs capital, Karachi, into ethnic turmoil and of heinous crimes allegedly committed by the partys armed wings.

There are also those who have maintained that the party was the outcome of political engineering undertaken by the agencies at the behest of Gen Zias dictatorship. This has often been repeated by various political analysts. Although this claim was convincingly substantiated, its possible that this indeed was the case before MQM broke away from the agencies orbit sometime in the late 1980s.

This perception is largely rooted in comments by some Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) leaders and then those belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). In 1986, when one of the worst ethnic riots in Karachi propelled the MQM into the forefront, the JI claimed that the party had been created by the Zia dictatorship to neutralise the support the JI once enjoyed in Karachi. The PPP, on the other hand, claimed that the party had been engineered to balance out the PPPs influence in Sindh. There are various theories about MQMs formation. But there is enough agreement among historians and analysts about the train of events which led to the formation of a Mohajir nationalist outfit. Dr Tanvir A Tahirs book Political Dynamics of Sindh traces the roots of this evolution all the way back to the 1950s when, according to Tahir, the Mohajir community began to feel it was being pushed out of the countrys ruling and economic elite. Tahir writes that the Mohajirs had become part of this elite immediately after Pakistans creation in 1947 when the Punjabis dominated the military and the Mohajirs were prominent in the bureaucracy.

After the assassination of Pakistans first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan (a Mohajir), the Mohajirs began to feel that they were being nudged out. According to Tahir, the Mohajirs  who had come in droves from various parts of India and had mainly settled in Sindh  did not find the need to become familiar with the Sindhi culture because they became a majority in Karachi. Tahir also writes that this delayed the formation of a Sindhi middle class because the Mohajirs immediately managed to bag important positions in the provinces economy and government from Karachi that had become the countrys first capital.

In 1954, a Mohajir politician, Mahmud-ul-Haq Usmani demanded that Karachi be made a separate Mohajir-majority province. But the imposition of the One Unit system, that clubbed West Pakistan as a single province, somewhat placated the Mohajir community which was suspicious of provinces being based on ethnic considerations. According to Tanvir, the Mohajirs found themselves almost completely ousted from the ruling circles during the Ayub Khan regime in the 1960s. They vehemently took part in the 1968 anti-Ayub movement. But when, after Ayubs departure in 1969, Gen Yahya Khan agreed to do away with the One Unit, the Mohajir groups protested against Karachi becoming part of Sindh.

The February 23, 1969 edition of Dawn reported the formation of a Jeay Karachi Committee. It was mainly led by a faction of the Left-wing National Students Federation. The Committee demanded the creation of a Karachi sooba (province). Another organisation, the Mohajir Mahaz (MM) came into being in late 1969. But it could win just one Sindh provincial Assembly seat during the 1970 election. Mohajir vote largely went to JI and Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP). In 1972, when the PPP-led Sindh government declared Sindhi as the provinces official language, groups of Mohajir students formed the Muttahida Talaba Mahaz Karachi (MTMK). They asked car owners to change their number plates to Urdu and attacked English signboards. Riots broke out between the police and the MTMK in Karachi and between Mohajir and Sindhi youth elsewhere in Sindh.

Usmani, who had demanded Karachi to be made a separate province in 1954, had joined the Left-wing National Awami Party (NAP). But he lost the election in 1970. During the 1972 riots, he formed the Urdu Qaumi Council. The July 15, 1972 edition of daily Jang quotes the Council members as saying that the organisation was launched to inculcate in the minds of Mohajirs, scientific consciousness of their history and culture. The Council also demanded that the state treat Mohajirs as a separate ethnic community as it does the Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch and Pakhtuns. Two years later, in 1974, a Karachi Province Movement was launched but it fizzled out.

The Mohajirs of Karachi played a leading role in the 1977 movement against the Bhutto regime. In 1978, two Karachi University (KU) students, Altaf Hussain and Azeem Ahmad Tariq formed the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation (APMSO). In his 2011 biography, My Lifes Journey, Hussain writes that Mohajir youth were exploited by JI and JUP against the Bhutto regime. In 1981, APMSO became a member of the progressive student alliance, the United Students Movement (USM) at Karachi University (KU). Hussain writes that JIs youth wing expelled APMSO from KU and the party began to establish offices in Mohajir mohallas (localities).

According to their 2011 essay for Berkeley Journal of Social Sciences, Ali Chandio, M Ahmad and F Naseem quote famous Sindhi scholar Ibrahim Joyo as saying that Punjabi economic hegemony increased immensely in Sindh during the dictatorship of Gen Zia. This situation had a negative impact on the interests of Karachis prominent (non-Punjabi) business communities. This concern saw some members of these communities form an organisation called the Maha Sindh (MS) in 1983. It was an organisation set up to protect the economic interests of Karachis Memon, Sindhi and Mohajir businessmen and traders. Chandio, Ahmad and Naseem write that Maha Sindh encouraged the formation of a Karachi-based party. Many APMSO members were involved in the partys activities. MS eventually became a Mohajir-dominated organisation, which then evolved into becoming the MQM in 1984.

(Courtesy: Dawn)
Hashmi may not be in his erstwhile mode of gangster-romantic-eternal lover that he has always played.

Rating:

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Snigdhdadeep Chatterjee

Director: Soumik Sen

Dreams, aspirations, competition, achievements and all that fills the minds of the young in India forms a dangerous concoction that kills creativity, encourages baser instincts to come to the fore, and that snowballs into a major crisis eventually. Thanks to newspaper reports, we are all aware of some young minds in a bid to outdo their peers, or not being able to live up to the expectations of their parents who invest in their childrens careers, becoming hapless victims who fall prey to the growing demands of their families to become engineers, doctors and MBAs. Out of the multitude, the ones who make it, by hook or by crook, are survivors the entire nation looks up to; the ones who dont are losers who have nowhere to go. As many reports suggest, quite a few from among them, commit suicide too!

Education, that is, perhaps, societys most critical responsibility, is at its lowest ebb. So, then, is the faulty education system? Or the over ambitious parents who are to be blamed for all the disastrous mess? Whatsoever is the cause, its the scariest situation that needs immediate attention, and hardly anything is being done to address it!

If you thought that Soumik Sens Why Cheat India comes up with an answer, or at least looks at the aforementioned psychological concerns among children and their behavioural issues that often lead to suicides with grave concern, youd be disappointed. While it does focus on a number of existing malpractices in our countrys education system, or the whole concept of buying ones way through education, jobs and earnings, it loses track midway, and becomes yet another film where there is a hero who may have erred, but still has a heart of gold. In any case, whatever wrong he commits, it wasnt only because the education system has not been evolving, but it was the combined misfortune of too many helpless victims that made him go wrong.

As a theme, Why Cheat India picks one of the most pressing stories on the education system of India, with more and more gullible students desperate to please their families dream get trapped in the quagmire of cheating, only to procure a seat in their desired college. It also focusses on the small towns of Jhansi and Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh where multinational companies have not heralded a vision for middle-class Indians to the extent that they have in cities like Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, to name a few.

Despite three attempts, Rakesh Singh (Emraan Hashmi) could not make it to the medical exams. On the other hand, his brother who earned himself a degree in medicine makes a fortune in the US. He is quick to divert his attention to running a business that decidedly, helps many students attain their achievable dreams: by enrolling some of the brightest students into his game plan, he makes them sit for proxy exams for rich, but undeserving students who are unable to clear the entrance test. And thus, he makes them earn a degree. His so-called humanitarian act serves a twofold purpose: some unworthy students go on to fulfil their parents ambitions and become the prized catch for many. It also fills the coffers of many in the close nexus  professionals, ministers, school authorities, not to forget the go-getting pushy parents, even as quality education goes downhill and scams flourish in the country.

One such bright boy, Satyadeep alias Sattu (Snigdhadeep Chatterjee), comes from a middle-class family and lives in morbid fear of his strict fathers aspirations to dream of a better life. His impressionable mind serves as the most likely prey to Rakeshs scheming plan.

Singh becomes almost ruthlessly smug (both as a character and as an actor too) to spearhead his ambition as the lead of the education mafia, and even behaves as if the entire nexus of many powers that are central to the scam are under his thumb.

To be fair, Why Cheat India opens with some believable shots of Jaunpur and the intricacies associated with the aspirational middle class family. It soon, falls short of ideas to take it forward. Where it also falters is its skin-deep study of the wrongs in the system. The story fails to dig deep into what ails the entire world of men and women that ends in a malaise few can recover from.

Hashmi may not be in his erstwhile mode of gangster-romantic-eternal lover that he has always played. But his slick fixer look is less earnest, and more swag. Whosoever gets into a fulltime business of making millions fraudulently runs the risk of looking hassled and bogged down by pressure, no matter how many strings he could pull to escape any eventuality. Not Hashmi. He delivers lines with an arrogant brash throughout. On the other hand, some unknown faces, especially those of Singdhadeep Chatterjees as Sattu and Shreya Dhanwantharys as Sattus sister Nupur, who falls for the charms of Singh, are far more convincing. One wished there was a little more of them.

For a narrative that has all the elements culled out from real incidents (almost everyday the newspapers are replete with stories of many teenagers unable to cope with the pressures of exam and parents, and taking their own lives) writer-director Sen has not invested much on the underlying grey area of drive, determination and desire getting eclipsed by malpractices. Or, the justification that most people tend to offer and turn dishonest and deceitful. In the climax  taking place in a typical courtroom  Hashmis submission is as dramatic and theatrical as for one who was accustomed to seeing Sunny Deol in the 90s in potboilers. The only difference is: Hashmis decibels dont hurt your ears. Or your sensibilities.

The overstretched film also makes you wonder why the CBFC insisted on affixing Why before the title Cheat India, when in reality, the title serves as a homonym: the first meaning eggs you on to go ahead, and deceive and double-cross to ones detriment or to ones hearts content; the other gives the image of the vast country as the one with unscrupulous morality as the basic fibre. No, I dont subscribe to the latter, but I respect any writer and filmmakers creative efforts, and hence, would not be judgmental about their intents!
OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- A 34-year-old Ocean Springs man was sentenced to 40 years, day-for-day, after pleading guilty to 10 counts of touching a child for lustful purposes and 10 counts of child exploitation.

Jackson County Judge Kathy King sentenced Stevens to 40 years in state prison for the exploitation charges, imposed a $100,000 fine for each count (with $90,000 suspended), and all court costs.

King added a sentence of 15 years of post-release supervision for the lustful touching counts, along with a $1,000 fine per count ($500 suspended) and all court costs.

The two sentences will run consecutively, meaning Stevens will remain in jail for the full 40 years and then remain on post-release supervision for the next 15.

The crimes to which Stevens admitted took place between Sept. 19-21, 2017. Stevens was a family acquaintance of the victims. The Gautier Police Department handled the investigation.

Stevens had previously pleaded guilty to charges of sexual battery, molestation and possession of child pornography in Harrison County.

"The defendant preyed on these young children as they slept and captured his abuse of them on video," said district attorney Angel Myers McIlrath. "The depravity of his acts and the danger he presents to the children in our community justifies this forty-year day for day sentence.

"I'm going to do everything I can within the bounds of the law to keep our kids safe and get justice for the abused."
French carmaker Renault unveiled record sales on Friday of nearly 3.9 million vehicles last year, even as it prepares to turn the page on the era of chief executive Carlos Ghosn who remains behind bars in Tokyo on fraud charges.

The company said sales in 2018 were up 3.2 percent from the previous year putting it ahead of its French rival PSA, whose brands include Peugeot, Citroen and Opel.

Sales were driven higher by demand for Renaults low-cost models, including two light utility vehicles manufactured in a joint venture with Chinas Brilliance, which offset the effect of its pullout from Iran because of renewed US sanctions and a slump in the Turkish market.

Renaults Dacia and Lada brands also continued to book brisk sales, rising seven percent and 19 percent respectively.

Renault said it was aiming for slight growth in sales with an acceleration in the second half of the year thanks to the launch of new models, including an updated version of its flagship Clio compact.
Pakistan, weve been informed, is turning over a new leaf. It has a shiny new Prime Minister, Imran Khan, who wishes to build a Naya Pakistan. For this, he's started early. If conspiracies are to be believed, Khan made it to the PMs chair in a very new manner  nasty critics say, the Army 'selected' him the winner, and then organised an election around him.

But that is idle talk. Ever since Khan came to power, he has taken some tangible, visible, and of course, new steps to make Pakistan the new heaven on earth.

This has involved banning some practices (and people) of Old Pakistan.

Heres a look at some of the very best naya bans of Naya Pakistan:

1.) PIA flights face the music

Pakistan International Airlines has many more than 99 problems, but music choices aint one. The airlines Chief Operating Officer, Air Marshal Arshad Malik, recently ordered that the music currently be playing on flights be replaced with religious hymns.

PIA has a lot of serious problems  luckily, it knows which one must be addressed first! (Photo: Reuters/file)

Now, PIA is neck-deep in debt, several of its employees have been arrested for smuggling drugs, others have been found to have faked their academic certificates. But the COO has his priorities right. If fliers are ever alarmed that their pilot may not be adequately qualified  some have not cleared Class 10  at least, they will have godly music to comfort them.

2.) Ahmadis are cancelled

Ahmadis  or other religious minorities  have never exactly led a charmed life in Pakistan. But the anti-Ahmadi rhetoric of Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) in the run-up to the elections was vicious, even by Pakistans standards.

Atif R Mian is considered among IMFs top 25 brightest young economists  but he wasn't good enough for Khan's non-Ahmadi economic council. (Photo: Reuters)

After coming to power, Khan officially fired an Ahmadi economist  Atif R Mian, the only Pakistani to be considered among the IMFs top 25 brightest young economists  from his economic advisory council, simply because religious extremists did not like him.

3.) Cheese, na-cheez

Pakistan is in deep, deep debt and needs radical ways to improve its economy. The country could have thought about how China is bleeding it dry. It could have tried to generate jobs internally. It could have tried to clamp down on homegrown terrorist and religious extremist networks to attract foreign investment.

What it intends to do is ban the import of cheese.

Making Pakistan grate again. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

If only the evil foreign milk product is banned, Pakistan will turn into a land of milk and honey.

Akshay Kumar was right.

Yeh cheez badi hai mast mast.

4.) VIP buffaloes

As part of its austerity drive, Khans government is auctioning luxury cars belonging to the official machinery. Turns out the Pakistani establishment has a LOT of cars  some imported, some domestic, all fancy. It also has some stray choppers lying about.

Khan is a fitness enthusiast, and has no use for buffaloes. (Photo: Twitter)

But the novel element here is eight buffaloes kept at the PM House  Khans predecessor, Nawaz Sharif, apparently needed them for his gastronomic requirements.

Khan, who believes in both fitness and austerity, had them auctioned off, and they fetched a handsome $19,000.

5.) Ghair-sanskaari Valentines Day

This ban precedes Khans election to office  Valentines Day celebrations were banned by courts in Pakistan in 2017 and 2018. But the ban this time has a naya twist  the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) has decided to observe February 14 as 'Sisters Day.

Love  but only thy sister, mister! (Photo: Reuters/file)

And the idea is not from a Pakistani variant of the Bajrang Dal, it came straight from the intellectual brain of the universitys Vice Chancellor, Zafar Iqbal Randhawa. The VC, however, is no killjoy  he has allowed loving brothers to gift scarves and abayas to their dear sisters on D-Day.

Under the able leadership of its new PM, new Pakistan is indeed marching on the path of new progress and development  its new ban-ners flying high.

Also read: How Pakistans economic future now depends on donkeys, eggs and funny reporters
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said there is still time for negotiations between the European Union and Britain over its departure from the bloc.

Mrs Merkel said she regretted the decision by British MPs to oppose the agreement negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May and the EU.

She told reporters in Berlin that we will of course do everything to find an orderly solution, but we are also prepared if there is no orderly solution.

Mrs Merkel said we still have time to negotiate, but we are now waiting to see what the British Prime Minister proposes.

In Finland, Prime Minister Juha Sipila urged all British citizens living in the Nordic country to immediately register at the immigration service to make sure they receive a living permit in case of a no-deal Brexit.

Mr Sipila told Finnish news agency STT that the temporary permit will be issued so that the 5,000 Britons currently living in the country of 5.5 million can continue their stay if Britain exits the European Union without a deal.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a parliament building in Berlin (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

He said the likelihood of a no-deal Brexit has increased as a result of the British Parliaments decision to reject Mrs Mays deal.

The Finnish governments social benefits office Kela said there may be major changes to what social benefits British citizens in Finland may be entitled to in case of a Brexit without an agreement, but did not provide details.

In France, a top border police official said checks of the English Channel for illegal immigration would not change after Britain leaves the EU on March 29.

Franck Toulliou, the second-in-command of Frances Air and Frontier Police, said French authorities will continue monitoring freight trucks that migrants try to hop on to in Calais before the vehicles enter the tunnel that leads to England.

French maritime authorities are also cracking down on boats carrying migrants, which the area has seen a recent spike in.

Mr Toulliou warned that Brexit will affect travellers with British passports seeking to enter France since they will no longer be EU residents.

Also in France, wine and spirits makers warned that Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal could hurt trade.

The federation of French wine and spirits exporters (FEVS) said the spectre of a no deal could have serious consequences for the economy and the citizens of both parties.

According to the federation, Britain is Frances second-biggest destination for exports of spirits and wine, and France imports a large quantity of British spirits.

FEVS president Antoine Leccia said: This vote is prejudicial to the historical and fruitful commercial relationship between our countries.
The onus is on Westminster to find solutions to the Brexit impasse which the EU and Ireland can accept, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

The Irish premier said if the UK evolved its red lines on the Customs Union and access to the Single Market then the EU could do likewise.

He said he profoundly regretted the vote by MPs to reject the proposed Withdrawal Agreement.

We should never forget that Brexit is a British policy that originated in Westminster, he said.

Leo Varadkar speaks to the media outside Government Buildings in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA)

He recalled the months of negotiations involved in crafting the draft agreement.

That solution has now been rejected by Westminster, the problem now lies there, he added.

The onus is on Westminster to come up with solutions that they can support, but they must be solutions that the EU and Ireland can accept.

We have always said that if the UK were to evolve from its red lines on the Customs Union and the Single Market, that the European position would evolve also.

Mr Varadkar was addressing a news conference on Brexit in Dublin.

He said Irelands plans for a no-deal are no longer theoretical and are actively moving towards implementation.

The statement comes just one day after announcing a Brexit Omnibus Bill, a preemptive legislative Bill to tackle potential fallout from no-deal.

UK prime minister Theresa May suffered a historic defeat over her EU withdrawal deal on Tuesday (House of Commons/PA)

Our plans for a no-deal exit will continue  they are no longer contingency plans, they are being implemented by government. Now businesses and other organisations, if theyre not doing so, must do the same, he said.

For government, this involves legislation including the Omnibus Bill and preparations at ports and airports for customs and SPS (Sanitary and Phytosanitary) checks.

He warned: A no-deal scenario would have a deeply negative impact on jobs, on the economy, particularly the traded and agri-food sectors, our farmers and fishermen, our rural economy, our businessmen and women all over the country.

A no-deal scenario would not protect the peace in Northern Ireland, so we have to work hard to avoid it.

When asked whether he believed a change of prime minister would aid the process of finding an agreeable solution to withdrawal, Mr Varadkar said it was a matter for the British people.

I dont believe so, but again thats a matter for the British people and the House of Commons and well be willing to work with whoever it is, he said.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has accused the Tories of failing the country following the historic Brexit deal defeat.

Speaking at Prime Ministers Questions, Mr Corbyn said any other Prime Minister would have resigned over the biggest Government defeat in history.

But Theresa May hit back, telling the Commons the Opposition leader has no Brexit plan for the country and refused to say if he would campaign to leave the EU.

Cheers from Tory benches as Theresa May comes in for #PMQs - some of the same MPs who helped deliver yesterday's historic defeat for her #Brexit deal.  Jennifer McKiernan (@_JennyMcKiernan) January 16, 2019

Calling again for a general election, Mr Corbyn said: This Government has failed our country  it cannot govern.

It cannot command the support of most people and, facing the most important issue at the moment which is Brexit, they failed again and lost the vote last night.

Isnt it the case, Mr Speaker, that any other Prime Minister faced with the scale of defeat last night would have resigned and this country would be able to choose the Government that they want?

Mrs May responded by criticising Mr Corbyns lack of a Brexit plan and claiming he could not be trusted with the UKs security or economy.

She said: He talked about the importance of the issue of Brexit that is facing this country.

Later today were going to have the no confidence debate  he has been calling for weeks for a general election in this country  and yet on Sunday when he was asked, in a general election would he campaign to leave the EU, he refused to answer.

Not once, not twice, not three times but five times he refused to answer.

So on what he himself describes as the key issue facing this country, he has no answer.

She added: He would abandon our allies, weaken our security and wreck our economy and we will never let that happen.

Mr Corbyn earlier accused the PM of being in denial about the failure of her Brexit deal and asked if she was ruling out any form of customs union with the EU as part of her attempts to secure a consensus.

Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons, London (PA)

Mrs May said she would be listening to the views of MPs to identify what could command the support of the Commons and deliver on the EU referendum result.

The Labour leader responded: My question was about the customs union  the Prime Minister seems to be in denial about that, just as much as shes in denial about the decision made by the House last night.

I understand the Business Secretary (Greg Clark) told business leaders on a conference call last night: We cant have no-deal for all the reasons youve set out.

Can the Prime Minister now reassure the House, businesses and the country, and confirm that is indeed the Governments position, that we cant have no-deal?

Mrs May said Mr Clark was making the point that a deal is required to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

She went on: There are actually two ways of avoiding no-deal  the first is to agree a deal and the second would be to revoke Article 50.

Now, that would mean staying in the European Union, failing to respect the result of the referendum, and that is something that this Government will not do.

Mr Corbyn continued to attack Mrs May on her record, including on Brexit and poverty, and asked her to choose her biggest failure.

He said: The PM has not answered on the customs union, she has not answered on no-deal and continues to spend 4.2 billion of public money on a no-deal scenario.

In denial on a customs union, in denial on a no-deal, in denial about the amount of money being spent preparing for no-deal, in denial on last nights result, and even the UN rapporteur on poverty says the Government is in  a state of denial about poverty in Britain.

Can the Prime Minister tell us, what is her greatest failure?

Mrs May reiterated that Mr Corbyn needed to be clear about his own Brexit policy.

She said: He talks about being in denial, but the only person in denial in this Chamber is him because he has consistently failed to set out what his policy on Brexit is.

I said to him last week that he might do with a lip reader  I think when it comes to his Brexit policy, the rest of us need a mind reader.

Tory Remainer Dr Sarah Wollaston later asked Mrs May if she would consider extending Article 50.

The Totnes MP said: Driving off a cliff never ends well particularly if it results in a crash and burn Brexit with no deal in just 72 days time, but theres another way that we can avoid this and that is to be realistic in extending Article 50 to allow us to put a realistic negotiated Brexit direct to the British people to ask if it has their consent.

Mrs May responded saying she believed the Government should deliver on the vote of the referendum in 2016, adding: She and others have talked about extending Article 50, the European Union would only extend Article 50 in the circumstances in which it was going to be possible to come to an agreement on a deal.

Tory former minister Nicky Morgan, who chairs the Commons Treasury committee, asked Mrs May if she would maintain maximum flexibility in the forthcoming discussions over how to proceed with Brexit.

The Prime Minister said she would approach discussions in a constructive spirit.
Giant posters featuring quotes from prominent Brexit politicians have been pasted onto billboards around Dover.

A pro-Remain group calling itself Led By Donkeys has claimed responsibility for the posters, the latest in a public information campaign to remind the public of the statements and promises made to us by our MPs, according to a statement.

A pre-referendum quote on Brexit from now-Prime Minister Theresa May. (@bydonkeys)

A spokesperson for the group told the Press Association: The news cycle is so fast nowadays, we forget what our leaders once said.

If they want us to trust their judgment as we enter the choppy waters of Brexit its right that we remind ourselves of their record.

The new posters include quotes from arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, Prime Minister Theresa May, former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox.

A quote on Brexit from Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. (@bydonkeys)

The group asked its Twitter followers to choose the quotes by posting them to the social network then turning the most-liked tweets.

The top-voted quote was a Jacob Rees-Mogg statement in 2011 which reads: We could have two referendums. As it happens, it might make more sense to have the second referendum after the renegotiation is completed.

Also included is a line from a speech given by Theresa May shortly before the referendum in 2016, in which she asserted that remaining in the European Union means we will be more secure from crime and terrorism.

A poster featuring a quote from former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab. (@bydonkeys)

The group has also installed posters in London and Essex, featuring Michael Goves assertion that the day after we vote to leave, we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want and David Camerons tweet before the 2015 election asking voters to choose between stability and strong Government with me or chaos with Ed Miliband.

The spokesperson said: The idea  like most half-decent ideas  came in a chat down the pub.

We were talking about whether Cameron would one day delete his chaos with Ed Miliband tweet, and someone said: Lets turn it into a Tweet You Cant Delete. It went from there.

A quote on Brexit from Environment Secretary Michael Gove.

Costs for the billboards are estimated to be in the region of 400, an amount paid for by the individuals involved themselves.

Loads of people have been asking to contribute on Twitter but we havent got our act together to set up a crowdfunder, the group said.

The next poster campaign will feature Boris Johnson, they added, referring to the former foreign secretary as a treasure trove of hypocritical piffle.
A vintage fighter jet crashed killing 11 men when it hit a road and burst into a fireball during a failed airshow stunt purely because of pilot error, a court heard.

Andrew Hill was flying the Hawker Hunter too low when he lost control over the A27 during the Shoreham Airshow in 2015, jurors were told on Wednesday.

The 1950s fighter jet plummeted onto the West Sussex dual carriageway while it was performing a loop stunt at 1.22pm on August 22.

The trained Royal Air Force instructor, who was a British Airways captain at the time, was thrown clear of the aircraft but taken to hospital with serious injuries and placed into an induced coma.

Although an experienced pilot, he had been known to take risks and one of his airshow displays the year before was brought to a halt because of his dangerous flying, the court heard.

The 54-year-old, of Sandon, Buntingford, Hertfordshire, is standing trial after denying 11 charges of manslaughter by gross negligence.

Pilot Andrew Hill, who was charged over the Shoreham Airshow crash, leaves the Old Bailey in London.

Members of the victims families gathered at the Old Bailey as prosecutor Tom Kark QC opened the case.

Describing it as a beautiful sunny Saturday, Mr Kark told jurors Hill was part way through his display when the crash took place.

He said: The aircraft disintegrated and that crash caused a massive fireball.

The effects of that crash were devastating and eleven people lost their lives as a result.

Mr Hill miraculously escaped, because his cockpit separated from the rest of the aircraft ending in a ditch, his seat was thrown out of the cockpit and he was left lying on the ground.

He was saved by the bravery of firefighters, paramedics and a doctor who managed to get to him despite the fires still burning all around.

Mr Kark said the plane was in excellent working condition, adding: Until the moment that it crashed, there was nothing wrong with the flying capabilities of that aircraft.

The crash happened purely because of pilot error.

The pilot was attempting a manoeuvre called a bent loop which requires the aircraft to reach a specific height before it begins its downward trajectory.

Mr Hill did not reach the height required, but nevertheless continued the manoeuvre.

In short, he did not have the height to pull the aircraft out of its dive, back to the level flight at a safe height and, as a result he crashed into the ground.

The prosecution case is that it was Mr Hills serious negligence that led directly to the loss of those eleven lives.

Hill, who sat in the dock wearing a black suit, blue and white striped shirt, blue tie and glasses, will be described as a highly competent and experienced pilot, jurors were told.

He served in the Royal Air Force between 1985 and 1994 where he trained to fly, becoming an instructor and fast jet pilot.

During his military career he completed more than 1,600 hours in aircraft including a Jet Provost and a Harrier. He was also a British Airways airbus captain.

He had flown the Hawker Hunter  a large fighter jet built for warfare which first took to the skies in 1955  a total of 47 hours including at the same airshow the year before.

But when the crash took place Hill fell far below his usual standards, Mr Kark said.

His Display Authorisation  a licence issued by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)  authorised him to fly the plane at a minimum height of 100ft during flypasts and 500ft during standard manoeuvres like the loop  during a performance.

Mr Kark said there was a heavy responsibility on a pilots shoulders to plan their display carefully so no-one is put at risk and it was Hills duty to ensure the plane remained at the height permitted and did not breach no-fly zones around Shoreham airport.

Although described as a careful and competent pilot, Mr Kark said there were times when he had taken risks or flown in a way he would not be expected to.

Just a year before the crash at Southport airshow, in Merseyside, Mr Kark said Hill performed a dangerous manoeuvre causing organisers to halt the display by issuing what is known as a stop, stop, stop call.

Such a call is a rare event and was issued on that occasion because the manoeuvre he performed took him far too close to the crowd and was dangerous.

Unfortunately, on this occasion in 2015 at Shoreham no-one had time to call out a stop and his display ended in tragedy.

The victims are Maurice Abrahams, 76; Dylan Archer, 42; Tony Brightwell, 53; Matthew Grimstone, 23; Matt Jones, 24; Graham Mallinson, 72; Daniele Polito, 23; Mark Reeves, 53; Jacob Schilt, 23; Richard Smith, 26; and Mark Trussler, 54, who all lived in Sussex.

The trial is being heard before senior judge Mr Justice Andrew Edis QC and could last eight weeks.

Jurors were told the Air Accident Investigation Branchs findings on the crash, which were previously published, will not form part of the prosecutions evidence and should be disregarded.
A new one-off grant to help young people with the costs of starting work will be introduced as soon as possible, Scotlands Social Security Secretary has said.

Shirley-Anne Somerville said the Scottish Government is considering who will be eligible for the Job Grant of up to 400, and how it should be paid.

Ministers are proposing those aged between 16 and 24 can get a one-off payment of 250 if they have been out of work for six months or more when they get a job.

A consultation on a Job Grant  a new benefit for young people getting into work  has been launched today by Social Security Secretary @S_A_Somerville at @StartScotland. https://t.co/X96jaR6MLB pic.twitter.com/9yXnVgdUsQ  Scot Gov Fairer (@ScotGovFairer) January 16, 2019

The grant, which would increase to 400 for those with children, could help with transport costs, buying work clothes and other expenses.

Ministers believe the benefit will complement existing schemes aimed at helping young people into employment.

Ms Somerville said: The transition into work for young people who have been unemployed can be a difficult one.

Young Scots could get a grant of up to 400 to help with the cost of starting work.(Gareth Fuller/PA)

Getting to and from their place of work and having appropriate clothing can be costly, especially if youve been managing on the low income provided by out-of-work benefits and dont have savings to fall back on.

Looking forward to welcoming @S_A_Somerville to our #Edinburgh office to kick off the consultation of #JobGrant. The proposed Job Grant will help young people aged 16-24 who have been out of work for a period of 6 months or more make the transition into the work place.  StartScotland (@StartScotland) January 16, 2019

The Job Grant aims to help with those costs and make their first few weeks in employment easier. Keeping young people in work is key to keeping them healthy, both physically and mentally.

We want to introduce the Job Grant as swiftly as we can so are consulting now to get views on the proposed eligibility criteria and the format of the proposed payment.

Our aim is to deliver a benefit that meets the needs of young people entering work and I urge anyone who shares that desire to take part in the consultation.

Ms Somerville launched the consultation as she visited employment provider StartScotland in Edinburgh.

General manager Nick Young said: We know that re-entering the workplace, or even finding employment for the first time, can be a tricky time for people. So anything that supports people as they make the transition can only be a good thing.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney has said the pounds rebound after the Commons vote signals market hope that Brexit can be delayed, but warned over further volatility.

In a hearing with MPs on the Treasury Select Committee, he said financial markets also saw the prospect of the UK crashing out the EU without a deal as having waned.

However, Mr Carney said he did not put much weight on short-term market movements and that the market is waiting.

The hearing with the Banks Financial Policy Committee (FPC) comes after the crushing defeat for Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal in Parliament on Tuesday night, which initially sparked a steep fall in the value of the pound followed by a marked bounceback.

Sterling has since held largely firm, at just under 1.29 US dollars and 1.13 euros.

Mr Carney said the sharp rebound in sterling in the immediate aftermath of the vote would appear to reflect some expectation that the process of resolution would be extended and that the prospect of no-deal may have been diminished.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney has said the pounds rebound after the Commons vote signals market hope that Brexit can be delayed, but warned over further volatility (Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)

He stressed he was not giving his opinion, but the markets initial take.

He added: The markets, like the country, are looking to Parliament for direction and one would expect continued volatility.

The hearing also looked at the risks facing the economy and strength of the financial system following the Banks most recent Financial Stability Report.

Mr Carney warned there was set to be a further slowdown in the powerhouse Chinese economy, but that the UKs exposure was relatively modest.

He told MPs the slowdown in China is partly down to US trade tensions, as well as necessary but difficult reforms of its shadow banking system.

Mr Carney said: There are a variety of indications that growth momentum in China is slowing  and will decelerate further during this year.

He said Chinese growth was likely to reduce closer to 6% this year, but could in time potentially fall to the high 5% level.

Mr Carney said the UK had a single-digit trade exposure to China, but very large and welcome exposure to China through UK banks.

Anil Kashyap, an external member of the banks Financial Policy Committee (FPC), told MPs that a 3% decline in Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) would reduce UK GDP by an estimated 0.5%.

A 10% shock to Chinese GDP would mean a 3% loss to UK GDP, but he said a 10% decline in Chinese growth would be cataclysmic.

When asked if Chinas slowdown was a bigger threat to the UK economy than Brexit, the Banks executive director for risk, Alex Brazier, said: We dont rank them. Theyre both very important.

Mr Carney also raised fears that the mounting trade dispute between the US and China would not be resolved any time soon, given the wide-ranging nature of the row.

He said: These more fundamental issues will take some time to have a meeting of minds about, because the two sides start from very different positions.
ISLAMABAD (AP) - U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with Pakistan's prime minister and other officials Friday as part of efforts aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the 17-year bloody war in Afghanistan, officials said.

The government released few details about Imran Khan's meeting with Khalilzad, saying he "reiterated Pakistan's commitment to facilitate the peace process in Afghanistan."

In a statement, it said Khalilzad briefed Khan "on his recent visits to the region to muster support for the Afghan reconciliation process."

Earlier, on second day of his visit to Islamabad, Khalilzad also met with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to thank him for his continued support in advancing the peace process.

According to the foreign ministry's statement, Qureshi assured Khalilzad of Pakistan's support for a peace process, which has suffered a setback because of the Taliban's persistent refusal to directly talk to the Afghan government in Kabul.

Washington hopes Pakistan can help end the conflict by convincing the Taliban to meet with the U.S. and Afghan officials.

In this photo released by the Foreign Office, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, left, receives U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, Pakistan, Friday, Jan. 18, 2019. Khalilzad has met with Pakistan's foreign minister on the second day of his visit to Islamabad as part of efforts to find a peaceful solution to neighboring Afghanistan's 17-year war.(Pakistan Foreign Office, via AP)

Islamabad says its influence on the Taliban is overstated but it will do whatever is possible for peace amid speculations that efforts were underway to arrange another meeting between Khalilzad and the Taliban in Pakistan.

But, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid in a tweet said there was no reality to the suggestion about a Taliban meeting with Khalilzad in Islamabad.

On his previous visits to the region, Khalilzad held talks with the Taliban in their Mideast headquarters in Qatar.

It was in 2015 when Pakistan hosted the first ever face-to-face talks between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban, but the second round of the scheduled talks collapsed when Afghan government announced the death of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammed Omar.

It strained ties between Kabul and Islamabad at the time.

On Thursday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called Khan to discuss how to advance the peace process.

Pakistan's government says Khan assured Ghani that his country was making sincere efforts for a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan through an inclusive peace process, as part of a shared responsibility.

Islamabad says only an intra-Afghan dialogue will lead to peace and stability in Afghanistan.

___

Associated Press Writer Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
Deepika also highlights the role played by directors and the audience, as both are open to experimentation.

Deepika Padukone talks about turning down a film that didn't meet her pay standards, the changing role of women in the industry and her approach to gender-based discrimination.

Deepika Padukone, who has been a supporter of pay parity in the industry, recently turned down a film after a filmmaker offered her a fee that didnt match up to her worth. The actress refused the film as the director was penny-pinching in order to pay the hero.

The Padmaavat actress says, I would like to speak for myself in that I have been able to bridge that gap in terms of what my male contemporaries make. In a recent instance, a director offered me a film and creatively, I liked it. There was back and forth on the monies and he said that we wouldnt be able to afford this kind of monies because he wanted to accommodate the male actor in it. So I said, tata good bye!

Explaining her reasons for making the decision, the actress says, I know my track record and I know what I am worth and then his (the male actors) films havent been doing as well as mine. It made absolutely no sense and I said no to that film because it was unfair. I am ready to take those decisions for myself. Because of that I can sleep peacefully at night.

Interestingly, a survey conducted recently stated that five films made over a budget of Rs 50 crore with women as protagonists returned 25 % on Investments as compared to the Khan films, which made 9 percent, while the real estate market made seven per cent.

When asked about her views on the surveys findings, Deepika says, I think it is amazing. It is nice to say women-centric or female-centric when we talk about female role models. But when it comes to creativity, it has to go beyond male or female. The actress also underscores the importance of a good script when she adds, It is fine to say that the films with the Khans didnt work. But Andhadhun was led by Ayushmann (Khurrana). So, it really boils down to the script, but yes, I see a trend where films being led by women are doing much better.

Deepika also highlights the role played by directors and the audience, as both are open to experimentation. We are in a space today where directors are changing roles. There are scripts that have a male protagonist and the director says, Let me make that into a female protagonist. Roles offered to males, being offered to a female is a huge achievement. But as a creative person, I wont like to make a distinction. Great content is what is really working right now. And a lot of that credit goes to the audience, as they are ready. It depends on the kind of story thats being told. How well the director is telling that story. 2018 was a clear verdict on that. The promo and the poster say it all. When the first trailer goes out, they (the audience) know whether they want to watch the film or not. In some cases, there are films where word of mouth has helped elevate them in the week of the release, says Deepika.

The actress however says that she has never been discriminated against due to her gender. Broadly I have never been made to feel less for being a woman. I never really experienced it. Maybe its the way I was brought up. I didnt look at this through those lenses. Maybe there have been instances of male vs female or girl vs boy and maybe, it didnt register. I have grown up in a family where theres just my sister and me. And we were never made to feel that we were lesser or could not accomplish something because we were girls. I started playing badminton at a very early age. Girls and boys played together, we travelled together and we stayed together in dormitories. We had the same issues of not having toilets or water to shower. The issues have been the same. Maybe the prize money was more for boys than the girls, she says. Sanskriti Media
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.N. experts monitoring sanctions against Yemen are recommending that the Security Council remind its government that corruption threatens peace and urge rival Shiite rebels to respect the neutrality and independence of humanitarian workers.

The experts also recommended that the council remind Yemen's government of its obligations under international law to provide adequate standards of living for its citizens, including ensuring entry of goods into the country, especially desperately needed food.

The Associated Press on Thursday obtained the nine recommendations the panel of experts made in their latest report to the council.

The recommendations came as U.N. monitors try to strengthen a cease-fire in the port of Hodeida, key to the delivery of 70 percent of Yemen's imports and humanitarian aid, and arrange a withdrawal of rival forces from the area agreed to by the government and the Houthis on Dec. 13.

While the agreement in Stockholm was limited, if fully implemented it could offer a potential breakthrough in Yemen's four-year civil war that has brought the Arab world's poorest country to the brink of starvation and created the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The six other recommendations by the panel are to the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Yemen.

The experts asked the committee to engage with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's office, Yemen's government and donors to "enhance" the U.N. mission inspecting vessels heading to ports in Yemen for illegal arms so it can "identify networks using false documentation to evade inspection."

They also suggested that Guterres organize a conference with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank as well as other "key actors to best manage cash flows and imports of goods," using the principles of the U.N. Global Compact on how companies should conduct business.

And the experts recommended that the secretary-general ask the U.N. inspection mission and monitors at the port of Hodeida "to share information on potential cases of acts that threaten the peace, stability and security of Yemen," including violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, the U.N. arms embargo, and obstructions of humanitarian assistance.

The experts also asked the sanctions committee to consider sending three letters.

One would be to Abu al-Abbas, a militia commander in the flashpoint city of Taiz, asking him to transfer artifacts and items from the Taiz National Museum in his custody to Yemen's government.

A second would be to alert the International Maritime Organization to "the risks posed by anti-ship cruise missiles and water-borne improvised explosive devices in the Red Sea and to encourage it to discuss these threats with the commercial shipping industry with the aim of developing suitable precautions and countermasures."

The third would be to alert the International Civil Aviation Organization of the risks posed by drones and munitions to civil aviation, particularly near busy international airports on the Arabian Peninsula "and encourage it to discuss these threats with airport operators and airlines with the aim of developing suitable precautions and countermeasures."
BERLIN (AP) - The head of German airline Lufthansa has suggested that plans to close Berlin's aging Tegel airport should be reconsidered.

German news agency dpa reported Wednesday that Carsten Spohr cited growing passenger numbers in the airport and doubts about whether a long-overdue airport slated to be opened in 2020 has sufficient capacity.

Tegel is meant to close six months after the new Willy Brandt airport south of the capital opens. Willy Brandt was originally due to begin operations in 2012 but that has been delayed by construction problems, forcing the adjacent Schoenefeld airport and Tegel to remain open.

Spohr said his airline would keep pressing for improvements to what he called the "untenable situation" at Tegel airport, which opened in the 1960s.
ROME (AP) - A popular Naples pizzeria is the latest target of bombings in the area which Italian authorities have linked to mobsters.

A small blast outside Pizzeria Sorbillo in the city's historic center early Wednesday damaged the eatery's metal grating.

The ANSA news agency said eight bombs have targeted Naples-area businesses in recent days. Last month, a pizzeria was bombed in the nearby town of Afragola. The attacks are under investigation.

Chamber of Deputy President Roberto Fico, a Neapolitan, decried "vile" intimidation attacks by the Camorra, the Naples-area crime syndicate.

Gino Sorbillo's pizzeria, which was torched five years ago, draws lines of residents and tourists.

Extortion is a Camorra mainstay. Businesses refusing to pay "protection" money risk attacks. Italy's interior minister said there's state funding to hire 100 more Naples police officers.

A view of the entrance to the historic Sorbillo pizzeria, in the historic center of Naples, where a bomb was detonated in the early hours of Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019, damaging the eatery's metal grating. The Italian news agency ANSA said eight bombs have targeted businesses in the Naples area in recent days. (Cesare Abbate/ANSA via AP)
CAIRO (AP) - A harsh weather front brought sandstorms, hail and rain to parts of the Middle East on Wednesday, with visibility down in the Egyptian capital as an orange cloud of dust blocked out the sky and pedestrians covered their faces from the wind gusts.

The winter's first snow fell on the Syrian capital Damascus by evening, after a day of heavy rain and strong winds. All ports on the Syrian coast were closed due to the prevailing weather conditions.

The state-run news agency said high waves in Tartous caused damage to the coastal city's seaside corniche. Damascus University postponed mid-term exams and some schools in the Damascus countryside closed.

Dusty winds whipped through Israel and the West Bank as well, with hail falling near Tel Aviv and meteorologists announcing that snow was expected later in the day in Jerusalem.

Lebanon was also battered by a storm packing rain and snow that cut off major mountain roads, including the highway that links Beirut with Damascus. Schools were closed all over the country Wednesday because of the storm, the second heavy storm to hit the Mediterranean country this month.

The first storm had a devastating effect on thousands of refugees living in tents in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa valley and areas in the country's north, displacing many whose shelters were either flooded or destroyed by snow.

Pedestrians cross a bridge during a sandstorm in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019 as a thick sandstorm cloaked parts of the Middle East. A harsh weather front brought sandstorms, hail and rain to parts of the Middle East, with visibility down in the Egyptian capital as an orange cloud of dust blocked out the sky. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

In Cairo, winds reached over 50 kilometers per hour (30 mph), bending palm trees along the Nile River, while in Libya rain, wind and cold weather was driving increased demand for electricity that overloaded the electricity grids and led to power outages.

Sandstorms are common in the region in late winter and early spring and Egypt's Meteorological Commission urged caution but did not advise anyone to change their daily routines.

Jerusalem braced for its first snow storm in years, with police preparing to shut down major highways and many local schools and universities said they would close early.

High desert winds swept through Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, carrying sand and dust, while snow was already falling in Israel's mountainous north, where torrential rain and hail stranded some cars and turned streets into rivers of mud.

In Gaza, fishermen returned to port and docked their boats to protect against the stormy sea.

Vehicles drive during a sandstorm in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019 as a thick sandstorm cloaked parts of the Middle East. Sandstorms and harsh weather are blowing through parts of the Middle East, with visibility down in the Egyptian capital as an orange cloud of dust blocked out the sky and pedestrians used fabrics to cover their faces from the gusts. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A woman walks on the beach next to a statue of the first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019. A harsh weather front brought sandstorms, hail and rain to parts of the Middle East, with visibility down in The Egyptian capital as an orange cloud of dust blocked out the sky. Dusty winds whipped through Israel and the West Bank as well on Wednesday, with hail falling near Tel Aviv and meteorologists announcing that snow was expected later in the day in Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Wind surfers ride on waves in the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019. A harsh weather front brought sandstorms, hail and rain to parts of the Middle East, with visibility down in The Egyptian capital as an orange cloud of dust blocked out the sky. Dusty winds whipped through Israel and the West Bank as well on Wednesday, with hail falling near Tel Aviv and meteorologists announcing that snow was expected later in the day in Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) - Vladimir Putin has accused the U.S. and the West of destabilizing the Balkans with NATO expansionist policies as Serbia prepares a hero's welcome for the Russian president.

Putin arrives in Serbia on Thursday for his fourth visit to the Balkan country since 2001. A fountain on Belgrade's main square has been lit in the colors of the Russian and Serbian flags, bookstores in the capital are displaying works about Putin, and a plateau in front of the biggest Orthodox Church in the Balkans is being hastily paved before his planned visit to the temple.

Serbia has maintained close links with traditional Slavic ally Russia even as the country formally seeks European Union membership. Belgrade has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine and has promised it will stay out of NATO.

Putin told two Serbian pro-government newspapers in an interview published Wednesday that "the policy of the United States and certain Western countries aimed to foster their dominance in the region constitutes a major destabilizing factor."

Despite strong Russian opposition, Montenegro joined NATO in 2017 while Macedonia is trying to settle its name dispute with Greece in order to join the Western military alliance. Last week, NATO foreign ministers restarted a program that could also lead to Bosnia's membership. Serbia's four other neighbors are already members.

"In 2017, Montenegro was drawn into NATO in disregard of the opinion of half of its population," Putin said. "They did not dare to hold a relevant referendum. The country is going through a period of political instability as a result."

In this Saturday, Nov. 15, 2014 file photo, a supporter of Serbian ultranationalist leader Vojislav Seselj holds a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin during a protest In Belgrade, Serbia. Vladimir Putin has accused the U.S. and the West of destabilizing the Balkans with NATO expansion policies as Serbia prepares a hero's welcome for the Russian president. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)

Two Russian military secret service operatives have been accused in Montenegro for trying to stage a coup in in the tiny Adriatic state in 2016 to stop it from joining NATO.

Putin said that in Macedonia "last year, the process of adoption of constitutional amendments, renaming of the country, and revision of fundamentals of the Macedonian national identity was launched in the Republic of Macedonia for the purpose of accelerating its inclusion in NATO."

He said that while the West leads wrong policies in the Balkans, Russia "knows and understands the complexity of the Balkans and history of the region."

Putin said Russia "has always viewed (the Balkans) as a space for constructive cooperation. So Russia has many friends here today, and the strategic partner Serbia holds a special place."

Historically close ties between Russia and Serbia have recently been visibly revived after Putin stepped up efforts to restore Moscow's influence in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a signing ceremony during his meeting with Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. (Sergei Chirikov/Pool Photo via AP)

FILE - In this Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016, file photo, a man waves a flag showing Russian President Vladimir Putin, in front of the monument of late Serbian Duke Mihailo Obrenovic, during a meeting where show their support for a referendum in Republika Srpska, in Belgrade, Serbia. Vladimir Putin has accused the U.S. and the West of destabilizing the Balkans with NATO expansion policies as Serbia prepares a hero's welcome for the Russian president. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)
NEW YORK (AP) - Fiserv is buying First Data in a $22 billion all-stock deal, creating a giant player in the payments and financial technology sector.

First Data shareholders will receive about .30 shares of Fiserv for every share of First Data they own, according to the deal announced Wednesday, a premium of about 29 percent.

The deal will leave Fiserv shareholders with 57.5 percent of the combined company. First Data shareholders will own the remaining 42.5 percent.

Fiserv, based in Brookfield, Wisconsin, specializes in financial services technology related to electronic payments and processing. First Data, based in New York, says it facilitates $2.4 trillion in transactions each year.

The deal was approved by the boards of both companies and is expected to close in the second half of the year, pending regulatory approval.
BERLIN (AP) - Officials have ordered residents of a village in southern Germany to leave their homes immediately due to "acute" avalanche risk.

Authorities said Wednesday that villagers of Raiten, near the Austrian border, should take important documents and medicines with them, and inform neighbors who may be unaware of the warning.

Heavy snowfall over the past weeks has greatly heightened the risk of avalanches in parts of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Dozens of people have died in avalanches and weather-related accidents.

The German meteorological service DWD said Wednesday that the amount of snowfall in the Alps recently was unusual, but not exceptional. The agency said heavy precipitation might become more frequent due to climate change, though rising temperatures mean it could come down as rain rather than snow.
DETROIT (AP) - A judge has dismissed a felony charge against a Detroit police corporal in the beating of a naked, combative woman who prosecutors say was having a mental breakdown inside an emergency room triage unit.

The Detroit News reports that Judge Cylenthia Miller dismissed the misconduct in office charge Tuesday against 47-year-old Dewayne Jones. He still faces a misdemeanor assault and battery charge.

A video posted in August on WJBK-TV's website shows the 29-year-old unarmed woman being punched about a dozen times at Detroit Receiving Hospital.

The judge says the woman was "completely out of control" and Jones "had the presence of mind" to get control of her.

Defense attorney Pamella Szydlak says Jones "tried to de-escalate the situation" while the woman spat and tried to bite him. She said Jones "had no choice" but to use force.

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Detroit Police Cpl. Dewayne Jones stands with his attorney Pamella Szydlak as they listen to Judge Cylenthia LaToye Miller during his hearing Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019 in Detroit. Charges of beating a homeless woman at Detroit Receiving Hospital after she allegedly bit him were dismissed. The judge has dismissed a felony charge against Jones in the beating of a naked, combative woman who prosecutors say was having a mental breakdown inside an emergency room triage unit. He still faces a misdemeanor assault and battery charge. (Clarence Tabb Jr./Detroit News via AP)

Information from: The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Aasia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian acquitted of blasphemy, still lives the life of a prisoner, nearly three months after her release from death row, awaiting a final ruling on her fate.

She spends her days in seclusion for fear of being targeted by angry mobs clamoring for her death. In her hideout, she longs for her children who were taken to Canada for their safety.

Pakistani security forces guarding the 54-year-old Bibi prevent her from opening a window in her hiding place, let alone go outside, a friend said.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is weighing a petition by Islamist extremists and right-wing religious parties that rallied against her acquittal and demand her execution.

Her case goes to the core of one of Pakistan's most controversial issues - the blasphemy law, often used to settle scores or intimidate followers of Pakistan's minority religions, including minority Shiite Muslims. A charge of insulting Islam can bring the death penalty.

Just making an accusation is sometimes enough to whip up vengeful mobs, even if the courts acquit defendants. A provincial governor who defended Bibi was shot and killed, as was a government minority minister who dared question the blasphemy law.

FILE - In this Nov. 20, 2010, file photo, Aasia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman, listens to officials at a prison in Sheikhupura near Lahore, Pakistan. In Mid January 2019, the Pakistani Christian woman still lives the life of a prisoner, although she was freed from death row by the country's top court more than two months ago. Meanwhile, a petition by Islamist radicals who rallied against her acquittal of blasphemy charges and who seek her execution awaits a Supreme Court decision. (AP Photo, File)

Bibi's ordeal began on a hot day in 2009, with a row with fellow farmworkers after two Muslim women refused to drink water from the same container as a Christian. They demanded she convert, and she refused. Five days later, a mob accused her of blasphemy. She was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010 for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

After eight years on death row, the Supreme Court acquitted her on Oct. 31.

At the time, her lawyer Saif-ul Malook, who has since been driven into exile fearing for his life, argued that the many inconsistencies in the testimony of her accusers vindicated her. Bibi had always maintained she was innocent.

But the acquittal sparked nationwide protests, spearheaded by the radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, which sees the protection of the prophet as its single-point agenda. The party's leaders - Khadim Hussein Rizvi and Mohammad Afzal Qadri - are in jail, charged with inciting violence, including with calls for Bibi's public hanging and for the death of the three judges who acquitted her. They also called for mutiny in the powerful army and the overthrow of Prime Minister Imran Khan's new government.

As street protests by extremists calling for Bibi's death swelled, Khan's government pledged she would remain in the country until the Supreme Court reviews the petition against her acquittal.

From her secret location, which authorities maintain is for her own protection, Bibi is not allowed by Pakistan's security forces to give interviews. Even her friends and those few who have access to her are afraid to be identified and agreed to talk to a reporter only on condition of anonymity.

One of her friends says Bibi's husband, Ashiq Masih, who was wounded by a gunshot fired by a protester calling for Bibi's death, is with her in hiding. Her two daughters, Eisham, 20 and Esha, 19, were spirited out of Pakistan.

Bibi's hiding place is comfortable enough, but it's still a jail of sorts, the friend said, adding that Bibi's only hope is that someday the family will be reunited abroad.

However, it's unclear when the review of Bibi's acquittal will be completed.

Bibi's friends say she has hoped it would be done before Supreme Court Chief Justice Saqib Nisar retires at the end of the week. Nisar and his successor, Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, were part of the three-member panel that acquitted Bibi. In their decision, a 52-page judgment, they cited both Pakistan's statute law and Islam's holy book, the Quran, to justify the acquittal.

Malook, the defense lawyer, told The Associated Press by phone from the United States that he is confident the petition would be thrown out. But he fears it could take months, even years, if the court is reluctant to decide.

"I have read the arguments for the review, there is nothing there," he said. "It will be thrown out."

Arguing for the petitioners, attorney Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry is just as confident. He told the AP that he too is pressing for an early decision. Without offering any details, Chaudhry said he has a strong case for overturning Bibi's acquittal.

Malook says his life in self-imposed exile has been devastating for his family and that he wants to return to his home in the eastern city of Lahore.

"My daughter calls, and she weeps, my wife calls and she weeps," he said. "I think now I would rather be killed in my country than live in this situation."

Bibi's friend worries about her health and the heart disease she has suffered from for the past five years.

"She is receiving medication for her heart, but she is still in pain," the friend said.

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Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.

FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Ashiq Masih, husband of Aasia Bibi speaks to The Associated Press in Lahore, Pakistan. In mid January 2019, Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges more than two months ago still lives the life of a prisoner, although she was freed from death row by the country's top court. One of her friends said Bibi's husband, Masih, who was wounded by a gunshot fired by a protester calling for Bibi's death, is with her in hiding but their two daughters, Eisham, 20 and Esha, 19 have been spirited out of Pakistan. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 13, 2016 file photo, Saif-ul Malook, left, then lawyer of Aasia Bibi, briefs media with Bibi's husband Ashiq Masih outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad, Pakistan. In mid January 2019, Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges more than two months ago still lives the life of a prisoner, although she was freed from death row by the country's top court. Malook, who has since been driven into exile fearing for his life, argued that the many inconsistencies in the testimony of her accusers vindicated her. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 1, 2018, file photo, Pakistani protesters burn a poster showing Aasia Bibi, in Hyderabad, Pakistan. In Mid January 2019, Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman, still lives the life of a prisoner, although she was freed from death row by the country's top court more than two months ago. Meanwhile, a petition by Islamist radicals who rallied against her acquittal of blasphemy charges and who seek her execution awaits a Supreme Court decision. (AP Photo/Pervez Masih, File)
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - Bulgaria's Parliament has approved a government plan to open talks with the United States on a deal for eight new F-16 fighter jets to replace its aging Russian MiG-29s and bring its air force in line with NATO standards.

Parliament on Wednesday approved the plan in a 130-84 vote after a long, heated debate. Supporters called it a strategic choice for the country, while opponents voiced fears that the jets would be too expensive.

The center-right government preferred the offer for F-16s over Sweden's bid for new Gripens and Italy's offer for second-hand Eurofighters.

Defense Minister Krasimir Karakachanov told parliament that unlike the Swedish and Italian offers the F-16 fighter jets do not need additional agreements for supplies of the necessary weaponry.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - The Latest on Zimbabwe protests (all times local):

10:50 p.m.

In a grim recounting, the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights says it has treated 68 cases of gunshot wounds amid a government crackdown on protests over a fuel price hike.

Its statement reports more than 100 other cases of "assaults with sharp objects, booted feet, baton sticks" and more.

The statement late Wednesday also notes a number of bites from the alleged unleashing of police dogs, and the "dragging of patients with life-threatening conditions" to court.

Zimbabwe has faced three days of protests over what is now the world's most expensive gasoline. The government has blamed the opposition for unrest and announced more than 600 arrests.

Children use a deserted market stall into an exercise bench as business came to a standstill on the third day of protests over the hike in fuel prices in Harare, Zimbabwe, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019. Streets are deserted in Harare on Wednesday as a general strike continues for a third day to protest the government's decision to more than double the price of fuel. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

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8:30 p.m.

Zimbabwe's state security minister says more than 600 people have been arrested countrywide amid protests over dramatic fuel price increases.

Owen Ncube said on state television that 214 of the people have already appeared in court.

He thanked security forces for "standing firm" to restore order and appeals to Zimbabweans to return to work.

The economically shattered country has seen three days of protests after the president announced that fuel prices have more than doubled to become the most expensive in the world.

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5:25 p.m.

Eight-two people have appeared in court in Zimbabwe's capital on charges of public violence amid a government crackdown on protests over dramatic fuel price increases.

Internet service is returning hours after the country's largest telecoms company told customers the government forced a shutdown.

Zimbabweans have been reporting arrests and gunshot wounds by security forces during three days of protests over the shattered economy and what is now the world's most expensive gasoline.

Zimbabwe's president says he is deeply saddened by what he calls "wanton violence and cynical destruction" while authorities blame the opposition for the unrest.

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3:15 p.m.

Zimbabwe's president says he is deeply saddened by what he calls "wanton violence and cynical destruction" during days of protests over dramatic fuel price increases.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa's statement in a Twitter post appears to side with authorities who have blamed the opposition for the unrest. Everyday Zimbabweans, meanwhile, are reporting arrests and gunshot wounds by security forces while the internet is cut off.

Mnangagwa is on an extended overseas trip seeking foreign investment in the shattered economy while hungry people at home face tear gas as they venture into the streets to seek bread.

The president says he understands people's "pain and frustration" and calls for peace. He notes the right to protest but says the past three days' demonstrations are not peaceful and legal: "There can be no justification for violence."

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2:10 p.m.

Armed police and soldiers are breaking up groups of more than five people in Zimbabwe's capital in a crackdown on protests over dramatic fuel price hikes.

Desperation for food has forced some people to venture out in Harare on the third day of protests over what is now the world's most expensive gasoline. But virtually all shops are closed.

Police have fired tear gas after a crowd tried to overrun a shopping center that opened to sell bread. Soldiers with AK-47s took charge of the long line.

"This kind of life is unbearable, we have soldiers at fuel queues and now soldiers again are controlling the bread queue," one man says. "Are we at war?"

Arrests and reported assaults continue as President Emmerson Mnangagwa is on an extended overseas trip trying to encourage foreign investment in the shattered economy.

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9:30 a.m.

Streets are deserted in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, Wednesday as a general strike continues for a third day to protest the government's decision to more than double the price of fuel.

Lawyers for activist Evan Mawarire say armed police are surrounding his house in Harare. Mawarire in 2016 organized the ThisFlag campaign that sparked a string of nationwide anti-government protests.

Zimbabwe's largest telecoms company, Econet, has sent text messages to customers saying it has been forced by the government to shut down internet service. "The matter is beyond our control," said the statement.
Earlier this month, more than 9,000 people fled to Cameroon after an attack on a military base and aid buildings in the town of Rann in northeast Nigeria's Borno state

The United Nations said Friday it was "extremely alarmed" by the forced return by Cameroon of thousands of refugees to northeast Nigeria, where Boko Haram Islamists pose a continuing threat to civilians.

"This action was totally unexpected and puts lives of thousands of refugees at risk," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said in a statement.

Cameroon forced "several thousand" refugees back to Nigeria this week, including 267 on Wednesday, the UN refugee agency said.

"I am appealing to Cameroon to continue its open door and hospitable policy," Grandi said, while calling on the government to "halt immediately any more returns" and meet its obligations under international law.

Cameroon is currently hosting 370,000 refugees, 100,000 of whom are Nigerians, according to the UNHCR.

Earlier this month, more than 9,000 people fled to Cameroon after an attack on a military base and aid buildings in the town of Rann in northeast Nigeria's Borno state.

The attack was blamed on the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction of Boko Haram, which has carried out similar raids against troops since July last year.

The upsurge in violence has forced tens of thousands of people to flee, including internally displaced people who have returned home after previous attacks.
Former prime minister Najib Razak is facing multiple charges related to his alleged role in looting 1MDB

Malaysia's finance minister said Friday an apology from Goldman Sachs for its role in the 1MDB scandal was not enough, and demanded the Wall Street giant pay $7.5 billion compensation.

Huge sums were purportedly looted from Malaysian government fund 1MDB and used to buy everything from yachts to real estate, in a fraud that allegedly involved former leader Najib Razak and contributed to his defeat at May elections.

Goldman's role has come under scrutiny as it helped arrange $6.5 billion in bonds for the investment vehicle, and Malaysia has accused the bank and its former employees of stealing large amounts.

Goldman's chief executive David Solomon earlier this week apologised for the role of a former partner at the bank, Tim Leissner, who has pleaded guilty in the US to bribery and money-laundering charges linked to the scandal.

But Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said "an apology is not enough".

"Apologise with $7.5 billion," he was cited as saying by official news agency Bernama, reiterating a demand he first made last month that Goldman pay the sum to make amends for its role in the controversy.

"Goldman should understand the trauma suffered by the Malaysian people resulting from the 1MDB scandal," he added.

Malaysia in December filed charges against Goldman, Leissner and another ex-employee of the bank, accusing them of misappropriating $2.7 billion, bribing officials and giving false statements in relation to the bond issues.

Asked whether Malaysia would drop the charges if the bank paid up, Lim said: "If they pay us $7.5 billion, then we will discuss it."

During an earnings call this week, Solomon also defended the bank, saying it had been misled by Leissner and senior officials in the Malaysian government about the role of a key intermediary in the scandal, Low Taek Jho.

Better known as Jho Low, the jet-setting Malaysian financier is accused of being the mastermind of the fraud.
The 20-hour siege in Nairobi left 14 people dead and dozens more injured

When an explosion and gunfire rang out at an upmarket hotel complex in Nairobi, people hid under desks, cowered in bathrooms or hunkered down in their cars, some hiding through the entire 20-hour siege.

Here are some of the stories from survivors of the attack in the Westlands district of the Kenyan capital that was claimed by Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab.

- Saying goodbye -

"Please tell my family I love them," 38-year-old Ronald Ng'eno wrote on Twitter in what he believed was his final goodbye.

Ng'eno, who was rescued after 11 hours in hiding, told AFP he was in his office where he worked as a communications officer for the Commission on Revenue Allocation when he heard "a massive blast followed by unending gunshots".

Terrified people waited to be evacuated from an office block attached to the DusitD2 hotel in Nairobi after a deadly attack by Islamist gunmen

He and his colleagues tried to flee but quickly realised the gunmen were already inside.

"They started firing directly towards us and that was when we changed course and ran into the bathrooms located on first floor. Upon entering the bathroom, I saw a small opening in the ceiling and that's where I hid momentarily."

First he sent a tweet to police asking for help.

"But as the gunshots continued to grow louder and louder, my hope of seeing my family again faded by the minute and that is when I decided to tweet my last message to my wife and two sons," he said.

"If I die I love the Lord and believe I will go to heaven please tell my family I love them. I love you Caleb, Mark and Carol," his tweet said.

Relatives sob as they identify the bodies of the victims of the bomb and gun attack on a hotel complex in Kenya

After a while, he climbed down from the ceiling to join about six others also hiding in the bathroom.

He continued to communicate with the police until his battery died at around 11:00 pm with the siege still going on.

"Luckily, police had told us they would knock on the door in a specific way so as to identify themselves and at 2:30 am on Wednesday, we heard the knock and we knew help had finally come."

- Saved by a flat battery -

Brian Gatimu, a tour operator based inside the sprawling office park, which also houses a luxury hotel and restaurants, believes he survived because his car battery died.

A woman hides behind a car during the deadly Nairobi hotel attack

"I had left the lights on. Talk of God's doings," Gatimu told Capital FM News.

He said he was leaving his office but was delayed in the rooftop parking lot as he looked for someone to help him jumpstart the car.

Two minutes after he got it up and running, he heard a loud bang.

"I saw huge smoke billowing from the entrance."

He said he hid in his car, which has tinted windows, for two hours, calling for help on Twitter, before police officers came to rescue him.

"I stayed inside hoping all is well. I was shaken," he said.

- Barista to the attackers -

Reuben Kimani, a barista working at the hotel, said he recognised at least one of the attackers, having served him coffee in the run-up to the assault.

People are evacuated after a bomb blast rocked an office block attached to the DusitD2 hotel in Nairobi

"I knew one of them because he had a big scar on one of his hands," he said. "I saw them. They shot six of my friends, four didn't die but two succumbed."

Before opening fire, he said the attackers had shouted: "Why are you killing our brothers and sisters in Somalia?"

He was rescued after several hours trapped inside the hotel.

- 'Every man for himself' -

Cyprian Otieno, a 23-year-old student, met a friend for lunch elsewhere in Westlands then decided to go to the Dusit where his friend wanted to grab a cocktail.

"All of a sudden we heard a weird BOOM followed by gunfire! Security guards at the entrance screamed 'get back, get back' in English and Swahili," he told AFP via Twitter.

He said some fled while others tried to hide, waiting about half an hour until they heard a voice shouting "kill them, kill them" in Swahili and more gunfire.

A woman is reunited with family after being evacuated from the DusitD2 compound in Nairobi

Terrified, a group of about 20 people fled towards the back of the hotel.

"Sorry to say at that point it was every man for himself. We were all together in the beginning but after a few minutes the attackers began shooting... I can't even really remember what happened afterwards."

- Westgate survivor caught in Dusit -

The attack was claimed by the Al-Qaeda linked Shabaab movement

For Tracy Wanjiru, who manages a salon in the complex, it was the second time she found herself in the middle of a deadly Shabaab assault. In September 2013, she survived the Westgate mall attack while she was six months pregnant.

"I was working (in Westgate) when the attackers stormed in, it was not easy just like today," the 28-year-old told the Nation media group.

"All I can say is that I thank God."

After the first blast at the DusitD2 complex, Wanjiru says she saw "human body parts in the midst of fire flames flying in the air".

Writing briefly on Facebook after being rescued, she told friends she was safe but saying: "The images in my mind are just so scary."

- Anguish at the morgue -

Hundreds of people turned out to donate blood to help those injured in the Nairobi attack

But beyond the miracles, there were 14 people who died, with relatives waiting in anguish outside the morgue.

"Zacharia was a security guard, he was guarding the entrance of Dusit hotel, he was among the first to be exposed so I would be surprised if he has survived," said Francis Magutu, 35, who had been waiting outside the morgue since dawn.

"I am almost certain (he) is dead, but I want us to see his body, we want to be certain."

Another woman called Ida was also waiting, desperate for confirmation.

"All we ask is to see the body with the whole family, and be able to make arrangements for the funeral," she said.

Elsewhere, a tent set up for blood donations was also thronged with people, with organisers saying they would have to set up a second tent due to the high turnout.

"Hundreds of people came since this morning and they continue to come," said Kenneth Kamande. "We will have to put up another tent."

"I do it out of solidarity, because what happened is terrible," Rosemary Gathogo told AFP.

"I know I will save a life because of this."
The 269 hectare reclamation project is envisaged as the site of a new financial district

A Chinese state-owned company marked on Wednesday the completion of an ambitious land reclamation adjacent to Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, part of Beijing's "Belt and Road" infrastructure initiative that has alarmed India and the West.

"Colombo Port City is an important project of the One Belt, One Road initiative in Sri Lanka, which is one of the key countries along the maritime silk route," China's ambassador Cheng Xueyuan said at a ceremony.

"No matter how the international situation changes, China always facilitates great importance to Sino-Sri Lanka relations and actively implements the consensus of the leaders of the two countries," he added.

The $1.4 billion Colombo Port City was agreed between China and Sri Lanka's former president Mahinda Rajapakse, one of several projects to raise fears that the strategically important location was falling into Beijing's orbit.

On another, the $1.4-billion Hambantota deep-sea port also built by the Chinese, China in December 2017 was given a 99-year lease after Colombo said it was unable to keep up with servicing loans made by Beijing to pay for it.

The nearby Hambantota airport also funded by China and built in Rajapaske's constituency in the middle of two wildlife sanctuaries has turned into a white elephant, with no scheduled flights.

Two-thirds of the new 269 hectare (664 acre) reclamation project which is envisaged as the site of a new financial district and has worried environmentalists, goes to China on a 99-year lease.

Patali Champika, the minister in charge of the project, said however that the reclaimed area would not be a threat to Sri Lanka's sovereignty or undermine the security of regional power India.

The port of Colombo is a key hub for Indian import-export cargo and the new real estate is situated at the entrance.

China has also emerged a key political and financial backer of Sri Lanka, dislodging Japan which used to be the biggest funder of infrastructure such as ports in the island nation.

Finance ministry officials said the Bank of China had offered Colombo a $1.0 billion loan to shore up its foreign reserves amid an exodus of foreign capital from Sri Lanka's bond and equity markets.

The Chinese funding becomes crucial at a time when three international credit rating agencies downgraded Sri Lanka after a political crisis in late 2018.
Kenyans began burying the dead from the Nairobi hotel attack as the death toll jumped to 21

Kenyan police scoured the rubble of a Nairobi hotel complex for more victims Wednesday as the death toll from a jihadist attack jumped to 21 and mourners began to bury the dead.

President Uhuru Kenyatta had earlier announced the end of a 20-hour operation at the DusitD2 complex which saw hundreds of people rescued and all five jihadists "eliminated".

The bloody assault was claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked Somali militant group Al-Shabaab, which said it was acting to avenge the decision by US President Donald Trump to declare Jerusalem as Israel's capital, according to the SITE monitoring group.

Chilling CCTV footage broadcast on local media showed four black-clad, heavily armed men calmly entering the luxury complex on Tuesday afternoon. A suicide bomb blast signalled the start of the attack.

Police chief Joseph Boinnet revised the death toll to 21 from 14, saying the victims included 16 Kenyans, one American, one Briton and three of African descent.

"Six other bodies were found at the scene and one police officer succumbed very suddenly to his injuries," he told reporters.

Another 28 wounded people had been admitted to hospital, he said.

As police searched for further victims, bomb disposal experts were looking for any grenades left by the assailants.

"The public must not panic if it hears explosions from the area," Boinnet said.

In downtown Nairobi, dozens of people lined up to give blood

As the first explosion and gunfire rang out in the leafy Westlands suburb on Tuesday, hundreds of terrified office workers barricaded themselves in the complex while others fled.

At least one suicide bomber blew himself up and others traded gunfire with security forces as the assault on DusitD2, a complex which includes a 101-room hotel, spa, restaurant and offices, unfolded.

"There were five terrorists and all of them are no more," Boinnet told AFP earlier. "It is a clearing exercise now going on there."

Al-Shabaab has targeted Kenya since it sent its army into Somalia in October 2011 to fight the jihadist group.

- '9/11 survivor among dead' -

Among the dead was an American citizen, identified by his family as Jason Spindler, whose brother said on Facebook that he had been a survivor of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

The blast the DusitD2 compound in Nairobi was heard five kilometres (three miles) away

In London, the Foreign Office confirmed the death of a British-South African dual national and said another British person was injured.

In downtown Nairobi, dozens of people lined up to give blood at a memorial for the US embassy destroyed in an Al-Qaeda attack in 1998 in which 213 people died.

- Memories of Westgate massacre -

For many Kenyans, news of the attack revived traumatic memories of a 2013 Shabaab raid on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall that left 67 people dead -- a siege played out over four days that led to sharp criticism of the authorities' response.

But this time, local media heaped praise on the security forces for their intervention, which Kenyatta said entailed the evacuation of some 700 civilians.

Kenyan security forces won praise for an operation that many viewed as swift and effective

George Kinoti, the director of criminal investigations, told AFP that "two principal suspects" had been arrested.

One was arrested in the suburb of Eastleigh and the other in Ruaka, northwest of Nairobi, where officers raided a house where one of the attackers lived, he said.

"One of the men was identified by locals, who called police, and they have confirmed that he lived there with his wife," a police source said on condition of anonymity.

A police source said two attackers were shot dead Wednesday after a prolonged shootout.

"The two have red bandanas tied around their forehead and bullets strapped around their chest with several magazines each," the senior police officer said. "Each had an AK47 which has been secured."

- Anguish at the morgue -

Distraught family members gathered outside a mortuary, where they said they had not been permitted to view the bodies.

"My sister is not in any of the hospitals and the last time we spoke she was a bit calm but suddenly she started crying and shouting and I could hear gunshots and her phone remained on but she wasn't speaking," said a woman who gave her name as Njoki.

A woman grieves after identifying the body of a loved one

"We have no doubt her body is here. Let them allow us in", she said, weeping.

Francis Magutu, 35, said he had been at the morgue since 6 am. "I am almost certain that my in-law is dead, but I want us to see his body, because we want to be certain."

The attack sparked a wave of outrage abroad, from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and African Union chief Moussa Faki to the European Union.

At home, an editorial in the Daily Nation newspaper said the attack was a stark reminder that Kenya's security challenges were far from over.

The last major attack in the country took place in 2015, when Shabaab killed 148 people at the university in Garissa, eastern Kenya.

Since then sporadic attacks have targeted security forces mostly in the remote northeastern parts of the country.

"Just when we thought that things were calm, the gangs unleashed mayhem. For Kenyans the chilling reality is that the attacks are not ceasing," the editorial said.
A student reads at Al-Azhar mosque, which developed into a prestigious Islamic university where the female student seen in the viral video studies

An Egyptian university has overturned its decision to expel a male student over hugging his female friend on campus, in an incident that sparked controversy in the conservative country.

The young man appeared in a video carrying a bouquet of flowers kneeling before a woman and then hugging her, in what was meant to be a marriage proposal.

The footage was widely circulated online earlier this month and initially prompted the expulsion of both students from their respective universities.

But late Tuesday the Mansoura University in northern Egypt, where the video was shot, reversed its decision to exclude the male student for two years.

The student's appeal against the expulsion included "his apology for the act committed, a pledge to not repeat it and to commit to the university's values and ethics," a university statement said.

It cited the student's young age, concern for his future and his unfamiliarity with the university's rules, deciding instead to ban him from taking the semester's exams.

On Sunday he was interviewed by telephone by a prominent talk show host on channel MBC Masr, and said that he had brought the flowers to propose to the woman.

"We were supposed to be engaged but after what happened her parents are refusing this completely," said the young man, a first year law student who was identified only by his first name Mahmoud.

A day later, Al-Azhar university in Cairo scrapped the expulsion decision against the young woman who appeared in the video.

The move followed the intervention in her favour of Egypt's top Muslim cleric, Ahmed al-Tayeb, who is the institution's grand imam.

Issuing a lesser penalty, the university said the female student would be prevented for taking the first half of her exams.

Al-Azhar is the most prestigious seat of Sunni Islamic learning in Egypt, a predominantly Muslim country which is largely a conservative society.

Al-Azhar is touted as standing for Islamic moderation, but critics often accuse the institution of failing to modernise its teachings in order to counter extremism.
President Omar al-Bashir has ruled Sudan for nearly three decades

Sudanese police Wednesday fired tear gas at crowds of anti-government protesters in Kassala, witnesses said, in the first such demonstration held in the eastern town bordering Eritrea.

Protesters chanting "Freedom, justice and peace" took to the streets in downtown Kassala but were swiftly confronted by riot police, witnesses told AFP by telephone.

It came just days after crowds held a rally in the town in support of President Omar al-Bashir.

Witnesses said that as protesters came into the streets, shopkeepers shut their stores in the town's main market.

Deadly protests have rocked Sudan since December 19 when people demonstrated in towns and villages against a government decision to triple the price of bread.

At least 24 people have died in the protests that have swiftly turned into nationwide rallies in which demonstrators have called on Bashir to step down.

On January 7, supporters of Bashir had held a rally backing him in Kassala, the first such pro-government rally which was followed days later by another in the capital Khartoum.

Sudan

Hundreds of people from Kassala and neighbouring towns and villages gathered in front of the local governorate to express their support for Bashir.

Kassala has been under a state of emergency since last year, prompted by a government plan to collect illegal arms and to combat drugs and people smuggling.

Sudan, in the Horn of Africa, is a key transit point on the migrant route to Europe.

From Kassala dozens of Eritreans travel across Sudan to Libya or Egypt, experts say, before taking the perilous journey across the Mediterranean on smugglers' boats.

With anti-government demonstration held in Kassala, protesters have managed to stage rallies in most key cities and towns of the country.

Demonstrations initially erupted in Atbara after the government raised the price of bread, but then quickly flared to other regions before spreading to Khartoum.

Protest organisers have called for a march on the presidential palace in Khartoum on Thursday, along with simultaneous demonstrations in several cities including Port Sudan, Gadaref and Madani.

The Sudanese Professionals' Association, an umbrella group of unions representing doctors, teachers and engineers, is spearheading the anti-government demonstrations.
Devotees believe bathing at the confluence of the rivers during the Kumbh helps cleanse sins and brings salvation

More than 20 million Hindu pilgrims ritually bathed in India's holy rivers on the opening day of the Kumbh Mela, a gigantic festival billed as the world's largest human gathering.

The spectacular seven-week festival began Tuesday in Allahabad, an ancient city that rises alongside the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

The meeting point of these rivers is considered among the holiest places in Hinduism and devotees believe bathing there during the Kumbh helps cleanse sins and brings salvation.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, whose Hindu nationalist government is overseeing the enormous event, said 22.5 million Hindus plunged into the icy waters on the first day of the Kumbh.

"I thank all the visitors, religious leaders, common man and officials for the smooth conduct of the mega event," he told the Press Trust of India news agency on Wednesday.

Adityanath, a firebrand Hindu priest who rose to lead India's most populous state in 2017, said the opening day figures were "a record" for the centuries-old festival.

More than 20 million Hindus plunged into the waters on the first day of the festival

The Kumbh attracts astonishing numbers of visitors, outstripping the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca or any other large-scale gathering.

Kumbh organisers say the last major gathering in Allahabad in 2013 drew 120 million people -- nearly the population of Japan.

Nearly 30,000 police have been deployed to oversee crowds for the huge undertaking, and prevent stampedes that have marred previous gatherings.

A gigantic tent city has emerged near the banks of the hallowed rivers with a 45-square kilometre encampment set aside specially for pilgrims.

Adityanath, who hails from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, has heavily promoted this year's festival which comes as India prepares for a general election due by May.

The historic city of Allahabad was even renamed Prayagraj in October by the state's conservative government, stripping its centuries-old name and replacing it with an ancient Hindu title.

But it is still widely known as Allahabad, the name given by Islamic rulers that reigned over India hundreds of years ago.

The Kumbh, which runs until March 4, was recognised as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2017.
The crocodile, named Merry, killed the head of the pearl farm lab after she fell into its enclosure

An Indonesian woman has been mauled to death by a huge pet crocodile on the island of Sulawesi, officials said Wednesday.

Deasy Tuwo, the head of a laboratory at a pearl farm in Minahasa in North Sulawesi, was killed by the 4.4-metre (14-foot) reptile last Thursday, authorities said.

The 44-year old's badly mauled body was found by colleagues the following morning, Hendrik Rundengan, from the local conservation agency, told AFP.

"The indication is that she fell into the crocodile's enclosure," he said, adding the incident was still being investigated by police.

The crocodile, named Merry, had eaten one of the woman's hands and most of her abdomen was missing, Rundengan said.

"These parts may still be inside the crocodile now," he added.

The giant reptile was sedated and removed from its enclosure in a three-hour operation that involved dozens of people, including conservation officials, the army and police

The giant reptile was sedated and removed from its enclosure Monday in a three-hour operation that involved dozens of people, including conservation officials, the army and police.

The reptile, which was owned illegally, will be transferred to a conservation area, Rundengan said.

The Indonesian archipelago is home to a vast array of exotic wildlife, including several species of crocodile that regularly attack and kill humans.

In April 2016, a Russian tourist was killed by a crocodile in the Raja Ampat islands, a popular diving site in the east of the archipelago.
A Catholic Church in China, where around half of the country's 100 million Christians encounters persecution, according to a new report

One in three Christians in Asia faces high levels of persecution after a "shocking increase" of religious-based threats and violence across the world, particularly in China and sub-Saharan Africa, a global advocacy group said Wednesday.

Around half of China's 100 million Christians encounters persecution, "the worst it's been in more than a decade", following "new laws seeking to control religious expression", the Open Doors watchdog said.

Persecution worldwide increased for the sixth straight year, with a total of 245 million Christians -- one out of nine worldwide -- facing high levels in 2018, up from 215 million, or one in 12, the previous year.

"Worldwide, our data reveals that 13.9 per cent more Christians are experiencing high levels of persecution than last year. That's 30 million more people," Open Doors UK and Ireland CEO Henrietta Blyth said in a statement.

More than 4,300 Christians were killed due to their beliefs worldwide last year, over 3,700 of them in Nigeria, according to the 2019 World Watch List.

The number of deaths in Nigeria almost doubled, with attacks from the jihadist Boko Haram group and ethnic Fulani herders posing a "double threat" for Christians, the NGO said.

"Africa has become the home of violence against Christians," said Michel Varton, president of Open Doors France.

More than 4,000 Christians killed in 2018

North Korea topped the NGO's "extreme persecution" ranking of 50 countries, as it has since 2002.

Open Doors said there were signs religious repression there was getting worse, but it was difficult to obtain data in the country, where "Christianity is forbidden and is a political crime".

Following North Korea on the list are Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Iran, India and Syria.

India entered the top 10 for the first time, Open Doors said, as "Hindu extremists act with impunity and violent attacks on Christians and churches rise".

"For many Christians in India, daily life is now full of fear -- totally different from just four or five years ago," said Blyth.

Open Doors, a non-denominational mission supporting persecuted Christians, warned that the rate of discrimination and violence was likely worse than it has reported, as it only records deaths proven to be to be motivated by religion.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari says there will be no withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria and dismisses "ridiculous threats" from arch foe Israel

The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday there would be no withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria as he dismissed Israel threats, conservative news agency Fars reported.

"All military and revolutionary advisers, as well as equipment and weapons necessary for training and empowering the Islamic resistance fighters and for supporting the oppressed people of Syria... will be kept there," the news agency quoted Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari as saying.

It was an apparent response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who on Tuesday warned Iran to remove its forces from Syria.

"Let me advise them -- get out of there fast, because we'll continue our forceful policy of attacking, as we promised and are doing, fearlessly and relentlessly," Netanyahu said.

Jafari dismissed Israel's "ridiculous threats".

"Just know that you are playing with the lion's tail.

"Be afraid of the day that Iran's precision missiles roar onto your head and revenge all the blood you have spilt of innocent Muslims in the region," he said, though he added that Iran was holding back due to its "revolutionary patience".

Israel has pledged to prevent Iran entrenching itself militarily in Syria, where its arch foe is backing President Bashar al-Assad's regime alongside Russia and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

In a rare public confirmation on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel had attacked Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria hundreds of times, including "warehouses containing Iranian weapons in the Damascus international airport" over the weekend.

Tehran denies sending regular troops to fight in Syria, saying it has only provided military advisers and militia fighters from various countries.
Boko Haram's bloody insurgency has left around 1.8 million people homeless and in need of aid

Fourteen people were killed and thousands fled when Boko Haram attacked a remote town in northeast Nigeria, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Wednesday.

The medical charity said Monday's attack in Rann, in Borno state near the border with Cameroon, also destroyed some of its facilities and would affect humanitarian operations.

Fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction of Boko Haram targeted a military base in the town and torched buildings as they left.

MSF's emergency programme manager, Hugues Robert, said a small team returned to Rann on Tuesday to assess the damage, and described the situation on the ground as "chaotic".

"The figures we got yesterday from people who have been there... were 14 people died," he told AFP by phone from Geneva.

Three of the 14 were soldiers, he added.

Military and humanitarian sources said on Tuesday that seven people were killed, including three soldiers.

Rann, which is some 175 kilometres (110 miles) northeast of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, has now been hit three times since March last year.

The first attack killed three aid workers and saw three others kidnapped. Two of the three were later executed. The last attack happened in early December.

The raids are part of a wider pattern of assaults on military positions in northern Borno, which the United Nations has warned is increasingly affecting civilians.

More than 27,000 people have been killed since the Islamist insurgency began in 2009 while some 1.8 million people are still homeless and in need of humanitarian assistance.

Nigeria's government and military have repeatedly insisted Boko Haram is a spent force and over the last year has encouraged internally displaced people (IDPs) to return.

The UN last week said attacks in and around the Baga area, also in northern Borno, had forced more than 30,000 people to flee, mostly to Maiduguri, putting extra strain on resources.

Some 35,000 IDPs were in Rann at the time of the attack. MSF's Robert said about 10,000 had fled to the border.

Another aid worker in Maiduguri, who asked not to be identified, said many of the thousands went to the town of Bodo, and would be taken to a camp in Ngala.

"Ngala, with 80,000 IDPs, is already stretched and you can imagine the situation if these thousands from Rann move in," he added.

Robert said the effect of the attacks on the population in Rann was "worrying" and would likely hit operations.

"Access was very difficult already. The structures and warehouses of humanitarian organisations have been affected," he added.

"People are extremely isolated. Services were already very basic. Even that emergency response is reduced."

The UN has said some 260 aid workers have recently been forced to withdraw from northern Borno because of the fighting.
Fijian workers will work on Australian farms under the expanded Pacific Labour Scheme as Australia sends 1000 hours of television the other way each year.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will visit Fiji on Thursday to also announce an $84 million partnership to provide university education for teachers and lift teaching standards.

"We will work with Fiji to help them access the Pacific Labour Scheme this year, boosting both economies while helping Australian farmers," Mr Morrison said ahead of his visit.

The expanded migrant labour scheme, which was previously capped at 2000 places, allows workers from select Pacific island countries to work in rural and regional Australia for up to three years.

Australia is also expanding its voice in the Pacific, as it pushes back against Chinese efforts to increase its power in the region.

A $17 million program will send 1000 hours of Australian content each year to established media networks in the Pacific for the next three years.

FreeTV will run a study on what Pacific viewers are looking for before the news, sport, drama, lifestyle and children's shows are sent for broadcast.

A six-year, $84 million deal with the University of South Pacific will also help lift teaching training standards.

"Our investment into tertiary education means better teachers, more students accessing study, while creating opportunities for the Australian education sector," Mr Morrison said.

Mr Morrison will meet Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama and the two leaders are expected to announce a significant new economic and security partnership, including upgrading the Black Rock military training base.

He will also face questions over Australia's attempt to strip terrorist Neil Prakash of his Australian citizenship.

The Melbourne-born terrorist, who is awaiting trial in Turkey, has a Fijian father but Fiji says Prakash is not one of its citizens.

Mr Morrison visited Vanuatu on Wednesday, where he promised Australia would directly fund projects to tackle the impact of climate change in the Pacific.
Greys Anatomy is finally back, which means we can finally figure out if the doctors ever make it out of those elevators and ambulances they were stuck in during last season's finale. (Spoiler alert, they do!)

When we last saw our favorite Seattle surgeons, they had all found themselves in various predicaments due to the power cut, and in 'Shelter From the Storm' we pick right up where we left off.

While Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) are forced to figure out their electric chemistry while confined to four walls, other people  like Owen (Kevin McKidd), Teddy (Kim Raver), and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone)  are put in more awkward situations.

Chemistry: While DeLuca and Meredith are stuck in the elevator together after the power cut, they are forced to discuss their feelings for one another

Passion: Schmitt and Nico are hooking up in the ambulance after getting stuck and seem to be having a great time in the storm, though people inside the hospital are seriously struggling

Confession: Owen is forced to come clean to Amelia about Teddy expecting his child and she is surprisingly OK about the news

The midseason premiere begins with Schmitt (Jake Borelli)  aka 'Glasses'  and Nico (Alex Landi) still hooking up in the ambulance. Though they seem to be having a great time amidst the storm, the people inside the hospital are seriously struggling.

Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) finds them in the ambulance later on and reprimands them about being intimate in public. But its already clear these two are seriously into one another.

Cece Colvin (Caroline Clay), the woman who has been in need of a heart transplant for a while, finally has a donor. The only problem? The donor is stuck in an elevator with Miranda (Chandra Wilson) and Dr. Helm (Jaicy Elliot).

Losing it: Both Dr Helm and Miranda suffer mini panic attacks, but they hold it together long enough for Jackson and Link to break down the elevator door

Dying: Cece Colvin, the woman who has been in need of a heart transplant for a while, finally has a donor. The only problem? The donor is stuck in an elevator with Miranda and Dr Helm

Tragic end: Cece gets her donor heart in the knick of time, but during the transplant, her heart starts failing and its clear the surgery is taking too long. Though the doctors try their best to save her, its too late and she dies

Both Helm and Miranda suffer mini panic attacks in the elevator, but they hold it together long enough for Jackson (Jesse Williams) and Link (Chris Carmack) to break down the elevator door and save the day. No easy task.

The donor is able to make it out of the elevator, but Cece is not doing well. Her heart is seriously failing and its clear the donor surgery is taking too long. Though the doctors try their best to save Cece, its too late.

Meanwhile, Owen finally tells Amelia about Teddys pregnancy...while all three of them are stuck in the elevator. Amelia is of course shocked, but she holds it together fairly well, all things considered.

Teddy reiterates she doesnt want Owen back, she just wants him to be in their childs life. But, knowing the long history between Teddy and Owen, feelings always seem to get in the way. In fact, they nearly kiss later in the episode when Owen tells Teddy he wants to be a part of the babys life.

Not to mention, Amelia tells Owen shes OK with him going back to Teddy, if thats what he wants. Amelia knows how much Teddy means to Owen and how badly hes wanted a child of his own. This is going to end well!

Complicated: Teddy reiterates she doesnt want Owen back, she just wants him to be in their childs life. But, knowing their history, feelings always seem to get in the way

Hero: Jackson saved the day by breaking through the elevator door to get to the organ donor for Cece, but sadly it was too late

However, the real story of the episode is the off-the-charts chemistry radiating between Meredith and DeLuca. Because they are both stuck in an elevator together, they are forced to discuss their feelings for one another.

While DeLuca has made it very clear he is into Meredith, shes much more hesitant  but we have no idea why.

While in the elevator, DeLuca tells Meredith about his complicated relationship with his mentally-ill father, who was also a surgeon but got into a lot of trouble back in Italy when he operated on a number of patients when he wasn't of his right mind. Nothing like opening up about your crazy family to set the mood.

Meredith asks him to speak to her in Italian, which he does, saying: 'When you finally let me kiss you, and you will let me kiss you, I wont ever stop,' thinking she doesn't understand. But she does, of course, and this brings their lips closer and closer.

Lust: Meredith asks DeLuca to speak to her in Italian, which he does, saying: 'When you finally let me kiss you, and you will let me kiss you, I wont ever stop,' thinking she doesn't understand

Language of love: But Meredith does understand Italian and this brings their lips closer and closer together  but the elevator doors open before they can kiss

Confused: By the end of the episode, Meredith still isn't sure if she wants to date DeLuca or Link  she may even date both

But, like all good Greys Anatomy episodes, the elevator door opens just as their lips almost touch.

Meredith decides at the end of the episode that shes not sure whether shell date DeLuca or Link. In fact, she may date both! (why wouldn't she?)

While we are so here for this girl power moment, the answer is clear as day  she needs to date DeLuca. Though they didnt end up kissing this episode, its bound to happen sometime soon  and we'll be right here watching and waiting.
She's jets between idyllic locations on seemingly constant vacations, trailed by cameras for her job as a reality star

And Kourtney Kardashian rubbed it in on Friday, as delightedly called herself a 'rich b*tch' on Instagram.

After her BFF Steph Shephard tells her 'seriously, you look rich' as they sit in a hot tub with pals, the mother of three preens: 'I am rich, b*tch.'

She then takes a sip of her margarita.

Drink up! Kourtney Kardashian labels herself a 'rich b*tch' as she sips margaritas in the hot tub on tropical girl's trip

Drink up!After her BFF Steph Shephard tells her 'seriously, you look rich' as they sit in a hot tub with pals, the mother of three preens: 'I am rich, b*tch'

Loving life: Kourtney takes constant holidays

A second video showed Kourtney, 39, washing off in an outdoor shower, the water flowing down over her swimsuit-clad body.

It's not clear if the videos are flashbacks or newly filmed.

Kourtney has certianly fitted in plenty of travel in recent weeks.

She sunned herself in Mexico before Christmas, posting sultry selfies with her ex Scott Disick's new love Sofia Richie, as they united for a family trip.

BFFS: Kourtney's pal Steph Shephard joined Kourtney in the tub

After a pitstop back home at her California mansion to open thousands of dollars worth of designer gifts, it was off to Aspen, Colorado for a ski trip with the extended Kardashian family.

Next up was a road trip around the ski resorts of Cali, with Kourtney and little sister Kendall Jenner sharing pics from their hot tub in snowy Mammoth Lakes.

The mother-of-three is currently single after splitting with her toyboy lover Younes Bendjima last year.

Showering off: Kourt doesn't lack in travel companions, as she jets from one hotspot to the next with her pals

But she doesn't lack in travel companions, as she jets from one hotspot to the next with her pals.

Meanwhile her former boyfriend has hailed her as an 'amazing woman and mum'.

The 25-year-old model split from the Keeping Up With The Kardashians' star in August after almost two years of dating, but it seems he can't get her out of his head.

Younes was reflecting on his year on his Instagram story when he posted a picture of Kourtney - who has Mason, eight, Penelope, six, and Reign, three, with former partner Scott Disick - and wrote: 'let's not forget about this beautiful woman inside and out, I'm not the type of man that forget moments like that. you an amazing woman and mum and I hope you will find happiness for you and your childrens.

'It's all love at the end of the day. we don't know what can happen tmw so there you go.'

Since splitting with Younes, Kourtney romanced 20-year-old Luka Sabbat, but she put an end to their 'fun fling' in October.
She's known for her androgynous fashion sense.

And Noomi Rapace once again had all eyes on her as she attended the Dior Fall/Winter 2019-2020 collection show during Paris Fashion Week on Friday.

The 39-year-old Swedish actress ensured she stood out from the crowd when arriving at the star-studded occasion in the French capital.

Androgynous chic: Noomi Rapace once again had all eyes on her as she attended the Dior Fall/Winter 2019-2020 collection show during Paris Fashion Week on Friday

Looking effortlessly chic, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo star donned an edgy brown suit, which boasted a loose-fitting design.

Oozing glamour, the collared blazer sheathed Noomi's slender frame and featured a single button at the waist.

She complemented the matching bottoms with a pair of high-heeled wedges, boosting her already statuesque physique.

Turning heads: The 39-year-old Swedish actress ensured she stood out from the crowd when arriving at the star-studded occasion in the French capital

Effortlessly chic: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo star donned an edgy brown suit, which boasted a loose-fitting design

The Swedish beauty wore her strawberry blonde locks in a straight centre-parting with a full fringe and accentuated her radiant complexion with vibrant orange eye shadow and a bright lipstick.

Adding some finishing touches to her sophisticated ensemble, the actress sported a dainty gold necklace and an eye-catching ring with an ruby gemstone.

Meanwhile, Noomi recently revealed she was forced to quit working in a play at the age of 20 after the director made unwanted advances against her.

Glam: The collared blazer sheathed Noomi's slender frame and featured a single button at the waist

The actress was speaking candidly in an interview with the Daily Telegraph on Friday, when she explained how she refused to 'play mistress' for the man.

Admitting that it was 'like the actresses were a buffet' at the time, she said: 'I never gave myself to him, which provoked him so much. He became really aggressive and angry.'

'I just thought that was the way it was, because you saw so many situations like that around you.'

While she called the incident an 'early wake-up call', she added: 'There's so much desperation in the acting world and a lot of people will do anything to get a part, it's dangerous.'
Kelly Brook was putting on an effortlessly chic display in a pale pink negligee-style dress on Friday, as she made a low-key exit from the Global Radio studios in London.

The busty model, 39, was incredibly stylish as she teamed the frock with a matching hoodie to battle the chilly climes, along with comfy white trainers.

Kelly has been a guest presenter on Heart FM this week as she joins Jason King (JK) for the weekday drivetime show.

Off-duty style: Kelly Brook was putting on an effortlessly chic display in a pale pink negligee-style dress on Friday, as she made a low-key exit from the Global Radio studios in London

As she arrived at the radio studio, Kelly was embracing a comfy Friday look as she sported the pretty pink silk frock with a midi frock, showing a hint of toned pins as she ditched the tights despite the chilly January weather.

The fashion star turned actress then covered the top with a warm pink fleece hoodie, accessorising the ensemble with a black chain-strap bag.

Letting her gorgeous brunette tresses hang in loose waves, Kelly accentuated her flawless complexion with glamorous makeup.

Warmed up: The busty model, 39, was incredibly stylish as she teamed the frock with a matching hoodie to battle the chilly climes, along with comfy white trainers

Still glam: Kelly has been a guest presenter on Heart FM this week as she joins Jason King (JK) for the weekday drivetime show, and has been regularly seen arriving at the studio

Low-key: Letting her gorgeous brunette tresses hang in loose waves, Kelly accentuated her flawless complexion with glamorous makeup

Her appearances comes after Kelly admitted she was body-shamed by a school teacher at the age of 11, as they accused her of wearing clothes that were too 'flirty.'

She told the Mirror's Notebook magazine: 'The Head Of Year sent me to her office and said: "You can't come to school looking the way you do, flirting with every boy that comes past.' I was 11.

'I didn't know what the word 'flirt' even meant. I dressed the same as everyone else, but my curves made me different.

'After that realisation I felt very uncomfortable with my looks.'

Looking good: Keeping her essentials close to hand Kelly was sporting a small black chainstrap bag as she headed through the capital

During a recent interview with Femail, Kelly revealed that her weight started creeping on after she returned to the UK from a stint in LA two years ago.

And resorting to using editing tools to change the way she looked in her Instagram photos helped her realise she wasn't happy.

Opening up about her past weight loss struggles Kelly, who has always been renowned for her curves, explained: 'I'm a curvy girl and I like my natural shape. It's who I am after all.

'But I'm aware that over the last few years, I've been gradually gaining weight. It didn't really start to bother me until I couldn't get into my skinny jeans anymore.'

She added: 'Suddenly I realised at aged 39, I was beyond my healthy BMI. My wardrobe had became very limited and I wasn't feeling at my best anymore.'

Since starting her weight loss journey back in October, she has lost 15lbs and 4 inches from her hips.
In real life she's been happily married for over 20 years.

Sarah Jessica Parker was spotted lugging a massive bag of laundry around the streets of New York on Friday on the set of her HBO show Divorce.

The petite 53-year-old was dwarfed by the enormous red bag that appeared filled to the brim with clothes.

Hard at work: Sarah Jessica Parker put in some manual labor on the set of Divorce as she filmed a scene hauling a bag of laundry in Manhattan on Friday

The actress and shoe entrepreneur is working on the comedy drama's third season.

During her shoot, the former Sex and the City star wore the SJP version of dressed-down clothes.

A relaxed fit pair of blue jeans tucked into scrunched brow heeled booties with a printed sweater.

On top, her character Frances wore an olive over coat and plum colored leather gloves.

Props: SJP's massive red laundry bag clashed with her fashionable casual ensemble of jeans, boots and a sweater in the scene

Her signature blonde streaked hair was curled into loose waves.

In the scene, Frances was trying to manage getting her laundry done in the bustling city.

Sarah wrestled with an enormous red laundry bag as she conversed with another actor.

Season three of the show is being helmed by a new showrunner and will consist of just six episodes, according to Variety.

Coming back: Divorce is returned for a shortened six-episode season three in 2019

Infidelity: Divorce follows the long drawn out split between Sarah's character Frances and her husband Robert, played by Thomas Haden Church, 58, after she has an affair

Divorce, which premiered in 2016, follows the long drawn out divorce between Sarah's character Frances and her husband Robert, played by Thomas Haden Church, 58, after she has an affair.

Happily for the star, in real life, Sarah's marriage is much more stable.

Sarah has been married to actor Matthew Broderick, 56, since May 1997 when they tied the knot at a ceremony in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

They share son James, 16, and nine-year-old twin daughters, Marion and Tabitha.
Melissa McCarthy stepped out in some fuzzy footwear on Thursday to get some errands done with her husband Ben Falcone.

The 48-year-old actress has been busy recently filming her upcoming mobster flick opposite Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss.

The fashion lover donned a trendy dark teal knee-length leather coat over an all-black ensemble.

Day off: Melissa McCarthy was spotted running errands with her husband Ben Falcone during a break from filming her latest flick on Thursday in Los Angeles

Melissa looked cozy walking in a fabulous pair of black and white fuzzy slides.

The Tammy star opted for a chic pair of black leggings and a black top as she strolled with her husband of nearly 15 years.

The former fashion student sported an oversized black leather cross-body purse and kept her iPhone close in a case that was worn like a purse.

Her chestnut hair was left down in waves and she rocked a large pair of sunglasses.

Cozy chic: Melissa rocked a teal leather jacket and a pair of fuzzy black and white slides

Later the actress looked like she was on mom-duty as she picked up a pineapple printed back pack.

Meanwhile, the Ghostbusters star's 45-year-old husband was dressed casually in a black long sleeve shirt, blue jeans and a pair of white sneakers.

The long time couple chatted as they ran errands and Ben carried a to-go coffee cup.

Happy couple: Ben and Melissa tied the knot in 2005 and have two daughters together Vivian, 11, and Georgette, eight

Melissa married the filmmaker and actor in 2005 and they share two children together, Vivian, 11, and Georgette, eight.

Recently, McCarthy has been working on her upcoming film The Kitchen about a trio of wives whose organized crime-affiliated husbands are imprisoned by federal authorities.

Despite the considerable comedic chops that she and Tiffany Haddish are bringing to the table, the 1970s set flick is a drama.
She has conquered the modelling world after gracing the covers of magazines and she strutted her stuff on the runway.

And Cara Delevingne posed up a storm for the German sport brand Puma's installment of the Muse Women campaign which launched on Thursday.

Despite admitting it took her a long-time to see herself as 'beautiful' in recent weeks, the 26-year-old was the picture of confidence as she showed off her toned tummy.

Posing up a storm: Cara Delevingne exhibited her toned tummy in a crop top and tight leggings as she posed for new Puma sportswear campaign

Cara posed in a green crop top with pink panels which she paired with a matching pair of skintight leggings.

The model hung up her heels as she promoted Puma's new slip-on trainers in the series of fun-filled snaps.

Having found her feet in the limelight, Cara has been breaking out of the modelling industry onto the star-studded film and television sets.

Fit and fantastic! Cara posed in a green crop top with pink panels which she paired with a matching pair of skintight leggings

The actress landed her first big break on the movie scene with her role in Anna Karenina in 2012 and she has gone onto secure more parts.

Recently, the Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets beauty jetted off to the Maldives for a lavish getaway with her rumoured flame Ashley Benson.

In recent weeks, Cara reminisced about the first time she felt 'truly beautiful' was when someone told her they loved her.

Style it out: Despite admitting it took her a long-time to see herself as 'beautiful' in recent weeks, the 26-year-old was the picture of confidence as she showed off her toned tummy

Cara told LOVE magazine: 'I feel like the first time I really felt beautiful was when someone truly told me they loved me. Without anything else, without any of the things I thought it would take me to feel beautiful.'

Having walked in shows for fashion powerhouses from Chanel to Dolce & Gabbana, it may be surprising the model didn't always think of herself as beautiful.

However, the Anna Karenina star's confidence grew when she started modelling and she began to see herself as someone beautiful in the glossy images of magazines.

Raring to go: The model hung up her heels as she promoted Puma's new slip-on trainers in the series of fun-filled snaps

Moving on: Having found her feet in the limelight, Cara has been breaking out of the modelling industry onto the star-studded film and television sets

She confided further: 'My idea of beauty as a kid was that everything was beautiful. But beauty to me was nature and animals and the sky. Everything was beautiful.

'I didn't necessarily think of people as beautiful and definitely not that I was beautiful myself. One of the first times when you start modelling that's a beautiful image that person I guess is that is beautiful but then it doesn't feel like yourself.

'You feel like its a proud of the image but it's not like you feel beautiful. It's lucky to see yourself in that way.'
Nicole Kidman has revealed she transformed her appearance for Destroyer because she wanted her portrayal of a desperate police detective to be 'real'.

The actress, 51, earned a Golden Globe nomination for her depiction as LAPD detective Erin Bell, who is haunted by her past after an undercover job with a gang in the Californian desert ended with tragic results.

Nicole looked virtually unrecognizable in the neo-noir flick as she sported short brown hair, sunken eyes and a haggard look for much of the film's run time.

'Real': Nicole Kidman has revealed she transformed her appearance for Destroyer because she wanted her portrayal of a desperate police detective to be 'real'

And now the Australian star told the i newspaper that she 'existed in limbo' after shedding her glamorous Hollywood image in order to become the troubled character.

She said: 'I just wanted her to be real. Just give me a woman who has not taken care of herself at all, who has drunk a lot, who has done drugs, who has been given no self-care and no self-love and who sleeps in her car sometimes.

'She doesn't sleep much, but medicates and she is in a rough place. She is hanging on for dear life, she is surly and she is p***ed off.

'I wasn't aware that it was blurring so rapidly and I couldn't step out of it. Half the time, I wore the costume home as I couldn't be bothered to change. I really took on, I suppose, the depression and the pain and just the nihilistic approach that she had.'

Transformation: The actress, 51, earned a Golden Globe nomination for her depiction as LAPD detective Erin Bell, who is haunted by her past after an undercover job with a gang in the Californian desert ended with tragic results

Her comments come after the mother-of-four revealed that she 'shut down' while playing Erin.

Speaking to the New York Times, the Oscar winner admitted she would scream on set to prepare for the film's tough scenes, and added that she didn't speak to others during the intense shoot.

She said: 'She's a dangerous person. A lot of times, I would let out a huge yell or a growl before I would start, which I know sounds insane.'

'...When I showed up on set, I don't think I spoke to anybody. I was shut down, but that's Erin.'

Undercover: Nicole looked virtually unrecognizable in the neo-noir flick as she sported short brown hair, sunken eyes and a haggard look for much of the film's run time

Intense: Speaking to the New York Times , the Oscar winner admitted she would scream on set to prepare for the film's tough scenes, and added that she didn't speak to others during the intense shoot

And the Stepford Wives actress also confessed her daughters; 10-year-old Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret, seven, weren't the biggest fans of her striking look in the film and comically said she looked like a "granny".

Speaking to Extra, the Moulin Rogue star laughed: 'They'd say, ''You look like a granny'''.

The film debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in August, and earned rave reviews for Kidman's transformative performance.

It was released in the US on Christmas day.
It was a happy family photo showing Tori Spelling, her husband Dean McDermott, and their five children at a movie screening with their friends - the children of Ian Ziering.

But the sweet moment was ruined after internet trolls attacked the family in the Instagram post's comments, labeling the children 'obese' and 'neglected'.

Now McDermott has hit back in a furious response to the 'haters', saying he was 'horrified and disgusted' by the cruel remarks.

Angered: Tori Spelling's furious husband Dean McDermott hits back at body-shamers who labelled his five kids 'obese and neglected'; Tori posted this shot with Ian Ziering's family

Attack: Fans were quick to judge the children and write comments

Former Beverly Hills 90210 star Tori had posted the snap, writing on Instagram: 'I can't believe Ian Ziering and I once played Beverly Hills teens Steve Sanders and Donna Martin and now we are married to the loves of our lives and between us have 7 kiddos who all adore each other!'

Hitting back: Dean took to Instagram to respond

But fans jumped on to the post to criticise the clothes the McDermott children wore, their weight, and even their appearance.

Wrote one: 'I don't know how the kids are so chubby when their parents are not?'

Another commented: 'Notice how her and Dean are cleaned up and looking good while she let her kids make an appearance with greasy hair and wrinkled clothes.'

Former actor Dean was clearly upset by the remarks, writing: 'I am absolutely horrified and disgusted by the comments being left about my children. Body shaming and bullying my children??!!

'What is wrong with you people??!!'

And he explained: 'For your information we went from a long day at school to the movie. And I don't know any child that is NOT disheveled at the end of the day.

'Not to mention that just before this picture was taken, they were wrestling and running around with all the other kids that were at the movie.'

The father-of-six, he also has son Jack with first wife Mary Jo Eustace, continued: 'So I apologize we didn't get the iron and steamer out to make them perfect for you. Their kids. They're messy and dirty. That's what they do.

'And what's wrong with shopping at Target??!! Over half of America shops there. The way they grow out of clothing so quickly is astounding. Are we supposed to shop at Gucci?? These are kids folks. Messy stinky little bundles of fun, laughter and love.'

Tori, 45, and trained chef Dean were both married to other people when they met on the set of the Lifetime TV movie Mind Over Murder in Ottawa in July 2005.

Family : The couple last summer with kids Liam, 11, Stella, 10, Hattie, seven, Finn, six, and Beau, one

The two started an affair and, after their respective divorces were finalised, married in May 2006.

They have since welcomed children Liam, 11, Stella, 10, Hattie, seven, Finn, six, and Beau, one.

However their marriage hasn't always run smoothly with the two battling with seemingly constant money issues, and undergoing couple counselling after a series of blowout fights made the headlines.
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The lineup for Britain's Got Talent 2019 have been pictured together for the first time, as Ant McPartlin made a triumphant return to the show following his recent drink-drive troubles.

In a snap posted by judge David Walliams with the simple caption: 'The BGT gang', he was joined by Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon alongside hosts Ant and Dec - the first time they have been snapped together since Ant's arrest in March.

It came as Britain's Got Talent kicked off its auditions in the London Palladium on Friday, with the new series expected to air sometime in April.

Reunited: The lineup for Britain's Got Talent 2019 have been pictured together for the first time, as Ant McPartlin made a triumphant return to the show following his recent drink-drive troubles

David also took to Twitter to post a snap with just Ant and Dec, acknowledging the pair's reunion to the delight of fans.

Writing a simple caption the comedian added: 'Back together. @antanddec.'

Amanda was putting on a glamorous display in the group snap as she sported a chic yellow silk dress, while her blonde hair was pulled back into a simple up-do.

And Alesha was flashing her washboard abs as she sported a pale pink bra top with triple-waisted grey trousers, also pulling her dark tresses into a sleek ponytail.

The old gang: David also took to Twitter to post a snap with just Ant and Dec, acknowledging the pair's reunion after almost a year apart

Meanwhile Alesha Dixon certainly looked ready for action on Friday as she arrived at London's Palladium ahead of the start of auditions for the series, channelling the eighties with her eclectic ensemble.

The 40-year-old former pop star looked sensational as she rocked an edgy denim ensemble while touching down alongside hosts Ant and Dec, who made a triumphant arrival following Ant's hiatus from television.

Looking extremely glamorous, Alesha, who joined the show with David in 2012, when they replaced David Hasselhoff and Michael McIntyre for series six, touched down in her denim ensemble which featured huge ruched sleeves which helped add to the retro style of her super chic look.

Denim diva: Alesha Dixon, who sits alongside Simon Cowell, David Walliams and Amanda Holden, certainly looked ready for action on Friday as she arrived at London's Palladium ahead of the start of auditions for the forthcoming series

She slicked her hair back into a sky-high ponytail which helped show off her vast earrings which added a further flare to the look - perfect to nail the perfect judging look.

Ant and Dec were pictured getting back to work together for the first time in almost a year on Friday. The presenters, both 43, who have been best friends since they were 13 and have been presenting together for 22 years, shared a joint snap from their car while on their way to film the new series of Britain's Got Talent in London.

The new series of BGT is thought to air sometime in April this year. Britain's Got More Talent presenter Stephen Mulhern, 41, was also pictured arriving at the London Palladium shortly before the boys, ahead of auditions.

Some time later, judge David, 47, was pictured jumping out of his car outside the venue, suited and booted. The iconic venue was decked out with Britain's Got Talent logos out the front.

Stunner: The 40-year-old former pop star looked sensational as she rocked an edgy denim ensemble while touching down alongside hosts Ant and Dec, who made a triumphant arrival following Ant's hiatus from television

Denim diva: Looking extremely glamorous, Alesha touched down in her denim ensemble which featured huge ruched sleeves which helped add to the retro style of her super chic look

Here he is! The show's head honcho Simon Cowell arrived in his trademark unique style complete with long jeans, a white T-short and Cuban heels while also rocking sunglasses

Oops! Simon seemed to be caught short as he departed his car with his flies unzipped as he held on tight

Simon arrived in his usual lavish style, however he suffered a slight wardrobe malfunction upon departure as the zip on his jeans was flying low - he managed to caught the mishap early on.

After scooping a job on new BBC show The Greatest Dancer, Alesha will be rushed off her feet as she throws herself into the busy life of a working mum to daughter Azura, who she shares with Azuka Ononye.

She welcomed daughter Azura in 2013 with dancer boyfriend Azuka, but despite being together for many years, she recently confessed he has 'run out of ideas' when it comes to popping the question. Alesha told Fabulous magazine: 'He's given up on that. We just go with the flow. It's not really something we've discussed.

She also denied that the ring worn by her dancer boyfriend, who is known as AZ, is a wedding band. She said: 'It's not a wedding ring, it's just a ring that I bought him on his birthday! We're not married!'

Ant and Dec REUNITED! Smiling Britain's Got Talent hosts were pictured back at work together for the first time in almost a year on Friday as they arrived for filming at the London Palladium

Friends forever: On their way to the studios, they shared a sweet snap together from the comfort of their car

How much talent? Britain's Got More Talent presenter Stephen Mulhern, 41, was also pictured arriving at the London Palladium shortly before the boys, ahead of auditions

Suited and booted: Judge David Walliams was also pictured arriving at the iconic London Palladium

Fans will next get to Alesha on-screen in January as a presenter of BBC's newest show The Greatest Dancer, which is set to feature Cheryl as a judge alongside Strictly pro Oti Mabuse and Glee's Matthew Morrison.

The eight-part series is another foray into reality TV competition for Simon Cowell and will follow the search for the UK's best dancers from a broad variety of genres, with the studio audience voting on who comes out on top.

'With the continued success of Strictly Come Dancing, the BBC is undoubtedly the home of dance,' Kate Phillips, controller of entertainment commissioning for the BBC, said at the time the show was announced.

'By launching The Greatest Dancer we want to give the vast array of dance talent across the UK the chance to shine.'

Teasing the show Alesha recently said on This Morning we might get to see the judges take to the stage and show off their own dance skills. She said: 'You might get to see them dance actually. It's a brilliant show, everyone who works on the show is passionate and you see every kind of genre that you can imagine.'
She's the known for flaunting her sizzling figure on beaches worldwide during sunny summer days.

But Alessandra Ambrosio proved that she could brighten up a rainy day in a sexy swimsuit Instagram Friday.

'Just because its grey doesnt mean its a bad day!!', the Brazilian beauty, 37, captioned a black and white shot of herself splashing in the ocean while rain fell from the sky.

The bright side: Alessandra Ambrosio didn't let the rain get her down during her trip back home to her native Brazil. She posted an Instagram of herself swimming in the ocean while it rained on Thursday

Ale, as fans called her, looked stunning in the rainy day photo where she wore a ruffled swimsuit.

She completed the look with diamond earrings and a duo of delicate necklaces.

The model raised her arms in the air while arching her back slightly to accentuate her taut abs.

While she didn't tag a location, it's likely Alessandra was in Praia do Tingua, Brazil - the same place she posted from in an Instagram two days prior.

Feeling boulder! Alessandra posted a photo with son Anja on Tuesday where the pair enjoyed nature as a 'playground'

Hot stuff: In the photos The former Victoria's Secret Angel looked stunning in a burgundy bikini

In those photos the former Victoria's Secret Angel posed between a couple of big boulders with son Anja, 10.

During the scene Ale soaked in the sun wearing a tiny burgundy bikini and mirrored sunglasses with a chunky necklace.

'Wild life... Nature is our favorite playground !!' she wrote as her caption for the mother-son photo.

Family: Alessandra shares her children Anja, 10, and Noah, six, with ex-fiancee Jamie Mazur (pictured in 2016)

Alessandra shares sons Anja, 10, and Noah, six, with ex Jamie Mazur.

Since their split she's moved onto Nicolo Oddi.

Nicolo is the founder and CEO of Alanui, a knitwear fashion label based in Milan which he created with his sister Carlotta in 2016.
Elle Macpherson's former business partner Andrea Horwood was locked out of her office during a stoush over the pair's wellness brand, a report claims.

Horwood, founder and creator of WelleCo, which carries the Super Elixir line of supplements endorsed by Macpherson, is reportedly engaged in a legal battle with the supermodel.

The businesswoman told Private Sydney on Friday that she was 'sacked and 'locked out' of her own office in late November.

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'It's a gut-wrenching experience': On Friday, there were claims Elle Macpherson's (right) former business partner Andrea Horwood (left) was 'locked out of her office' during a legal battle over the wellness brand

'It's a gut-wrenching experience to have this done to me and the business I founded and created, which has become such a success,' Andrea said.

Macpherson's private company Rolico is being sued as a result of the alleged incident.

The model, 54, initially was given 50 per cent share in the business, in exchange for promoting the products.

Big business dispute? Horwood, founder and creator of WelleCo, which carries the Super Elixir line of supplements endorsed by Macpherson, is reportedly engaged in a legal battle with the supermodel (above) over the wellness brand

WelleCo grew into a worldwide $21 million business selling health supplements and wellness products.

Private Sydney reported that Horwood claimed that Macpherson 'reneged' on promises to give her more shares in the company, and she now faces mortgaging her own home to fund legal bills estimated to be $1.2 million.

The column claimed the pair were 'best friends' who had a 'tempestuous' relationship that often left the model 'in tears'.

Mates no more? The businesswoman told Private Sydney on Friday that she was 'sacked and 'locked out' of her own office in late November last year

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Macpherson for comment.

In 2014, Macpherson introduced The Super Elixir by WelleCo, a range of alkalising food supplements, which she described as her 'drug'.

The new product was formulated specially for the star over many years by Dr Simone Laubscher, a London Harley Street nutritional doctor specialising in disease prevention.

The powder, which can be sprinkled over salads or mixed into juices and smoothies, claims to support healthy nutrition and ensure the body is working to its optimum.

Endorsed: In 2014, Macpherson introduced The Super Elixir by WelleCo, a range of alkalising food supplements, which she described as her 'drug'

Packed with 45 key ingredients including alkalising super greens, Chinese herbs and the maitake mushroom, Elle claims that just 10g of the powder daily contains all the vitamins, minerals and trace elements to assist wellness and vitality.

'I've spent years tweaking it and refining it and now the recipe works so beautifully. After a few weeks, my body went into cruise mode and I felt uplifted, lost weight, didn't get sick and didn't crave sugar,' the Australian catwalk queen told the MailOnline in London at the time.

'My body hummed along and functioned properly.'

The supplements run between $35 and $195 for a supply, which Macpherson told Mail on Sunday 'is an investment but it's cheaper than a good face cream'.
She's been showcasing her newfound talent with professional skater Mark Hanretty during her appearance on this year's Dancing On Ice.

And Saira Khan has hailed her stint a 'dream come true' as she revealed she 'grew up without a childhood' and 'wasn't allowed to dance' in her culture during Friday's edition of Lorraine.

The TV personality, 48, also touched on the intimacy of taking to the rink with ice dancer Mark, 33, and how it's helped her marriage with husband Steve Hyde.

Candid: Saira Khan has hailed her DOI stint a 'dream come true' as she revealed she 'grew up without a childhood' during Friday's edition of Lorraine

During a candid discussion with host Lorraine Kelly, 59, the Loose Women star shared her inspiration behind joining the show.

Saira, who is of Pakistani origin, touched on her upbringing: 'I didn't have a childhood, I grew up in a culture where I wasn't allowed to express myself.

'For me, to dance around like that was a no no. I'm letting that inner nine year old come out, it's a dream come true.'

Fancy footwork: The TV personality, 48, has been been showcasing her newfound talent with professional skater Mark Hanretty during her appearance on this year's series

Honest: The former Apprentice star also touched on the intimacy of taking to the rink with ice dancer Mark, 33, and how it's helped her marriage with husband Steve Hyde

The former Apprentice star also reflected on her debut last week: 'For the first time, I was vulnerable and worked myself up. Madonna has been an icon of mine throughout this show.

'I auditioned last year to do it, and they asked me again this year. I was worried, my children inspired me to do it.

I'm 50 next year, women my age have a routine, so to learn a new skill... I didn't think I could do it, but now I can embrace it!'

'I couldn't express myself': During a candid discussion with host Lorraine Kelly, 59, the Loose Women star shared her inspiration behind joining the show

Shocking: Saira, who is of Pakistani origin, touched on her upbringing: 'I didn't have a childhood, I grew up in a culture where I wasn't allowed to express myself'

Happy couple: Saira and husband Steve Hyde have been married since 2004, and they are parents to daughter Amara, seven and son Zac, nine (above in 2016)

The CBB star went on to discuss how the intimacy of dancing with Mark has helped her in the romance department.

'Holding hands with my dance partner has brought the mojo back into my marriage. The attention you give each other is so important.'

Saira and Steve have been married since 2004, and are parents to daughter Amara, seven and son Zac, nine.

Impressive: Earlier this week, Saira performed the famous Dirty Dancing lift alongside skate partner Mark on Monday's edition of Loose Women

Sunday's show saw Saira and Mark twirl along the ice rink to Express Yourself by Madonna.

The former Apprentice star is competing against the likes of fellow TV personalities Gemma Collins, Wes Nelson, and Brian McFadden, on this year's competition series.

Earlier this week, Saira performed the famous Dirty Dancing lift alongside skate partner Mark on Monday's edition of Loose Women.

Having fun: The presenter was clearly pleased with her skilled display as she beamed with delight while the hunk held her up in the air

The presenter was clearly pleased with her skilled display as she beamed with delight while the hunk held her up in the air.

Fellow panelists Coleen Nolan, Denise Welch and Andrea McLean gazed at Saira in awe as she performed her impressive move live on air.

Reflecting on her debut, the Guess This House star gushed: 'It was amazing. I think the best of the whole thing was seeing all of you support me.'
Kate Garraway gave a rare look inside her incredibly messy room where her mum found a hairy grape during Good Morning Britain's segment on Friday.

A horrified Ben Shephard, 44, branded his co-star, 51, a 'disgrace' after witnessing the clutter following their discussion of Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.

Excessive dresses and bags were strewn all over the floor and the dresser's draws were left gaping open in a shocking picture broadcast on GMB.

Shocking! Kate Garraway shared a rare glimpse inside her messy room (where her mum found a HAIRY grape) as horrified Ben Shephard branded her a 'disgrace'

Pictured: Excessive dresses and bags were strewn all over the floor and the dresser's draws were left gaping open in a shocking picture broadcast on GMB

A bottle of washing powder liquid, a big bottle of Evian water, a H&M bag containing goods and a transparent orange folder were also abandoned on the floor.

Ben scolded Kate: 'For heavens sake Kate! How do you live like that? You're like the hoarder next door... just have a tidy room and a tidy mind Kate.'

Kate shamelessly admitted her mother had discovered a hairy grape that exploded in her hands when she picked it up the presenter's bedroom floor.

Naughty! Ben scolded Kate, 'For heavens sake Kate! How do you live like that? You're like the hoarder next door... just have a tidy room and a tidy mind Kate.'

Awkward: Kate shamelessly admitted her mother had discovered a hairy grape that exploded in her hands when she picked it up the presenter's bedroom floor

She said: 'My mum went into my bedroom and touched what she thought was a peach. It was actually a grape with so much fur around it that when she touched it it exploded, throwing spores everywhere.'

Having a messy bedroom, it was inevitable Kate's ITV dressing room was utter chaos as she left several newspapers and a number of make-up bottles across the desk.

Fans were divided when they took to social media to discuss Kate's incredibly untidy room among themselves.

A handful of admirers went as far to say the bedroom disarray had brought a smile to their faces because a room is to be 'lived in'.

Shocking: Having a messy bedroom, it was inevitable Kate's ITV dressing room was utter chaos as she left several newspapers and a number of make-up bottles across the desk

Controversial: Fans were divided when they took to social media to discuss Kate's very messy room among themselves

Leading the troops, one wrote: 'I think I love @kategarraway more now after seeing her messy bedroom floor... gotta love a floordrobe! @GMB #gmb.'

Another added: 'Kate your room brought a smile to my face. Keep it up.'

A third concluded: 'A home is there to be lived in and loved, not a bloody show home for minimalist homes monthly!

'The more stuff you have in your home, the more it's insulated and therefore uses less energy and saving the planet and saving you money so you can buy more "stuff"!'

Love it! A handful of admirers went as far to say the bedroom chaos had brought a smile to their faces because a room is to be 'lived in'

Kate come under fire from fans for her untidy room, with one fan claiming they had seen 'tidier squats'. The viewer wrote: 'I've seen tidier squats.'

Another remarked: '@GMB @benshephard your face is a picture today, wincing at the pictures of @kategarraway.'

A third added: 'There is a tactful way of saying it is a little messy.'

However, one devoted fan even offered to tidy up: 'I would love to come tidy that lot up, my idea of heaven #letmetidyup.'
She's been enjoying a string of lust-worthy getaways in recent months.

And Victoria Silvstedt, 44, continued soak up the sun as she showcased her slender figure in a plunging khaki-coloured swimsuit while holidaying in Miami on Thursday.

The former Playboy model teased at her ample cleavage in the daring one-piece, which she teamed with a pair of embroidered denim Daisy Dukes.

Stepping out: Victoria Silvstedt, 44, continued soak up the sun as she showcased her slender figure in a plunging khaki-coloured swimsuit while holidaying in Miami on Thursday

The blonde bombshell complemented her beach attire with a loose-fitting khaki-coloured shirt, which she opted to keep open.

Victoria teamed the look with a pair of nude studded flat sandals and carried a colourful beach tote for the outing.

The model worked her voluminous locks into a tousled curl and wore a pair of oversized tortoise shell shades as she showcased her sunkissed tan.

Victoria's appearance in Miami comes after she enjoyed a festive break away to St Barts.

Walk this way: The former Playboy model teased at her ample cleavage in the daring one-piece which she teamed with a pair of embroidered denim Daisy Dukes

The Swedish beauty has enjoyed a lengthy stint in the spotlight after being chosen to represent her country in the Miss World pageant in 1993.

After her pageant days, the Scandinavian stunner was spotted by Hugh Hefner and went on to become a Playboy Playmate.

Since her career rocketed, she has modelled for some of the world's most prestigious fashion houses, including Chanel, Dior and Valentino.

Pin-credible: The blonde bombshell complemented her beach attire with a loose-fitting khaki-coloured shirt, which she opted to keep open

Despite the glamorous veneer to her lifestyle as a young model, she revealed there was a dark side in a recent interview with Female First .

Victoria said: 'I started very young to model in Paris when I was 18, I remember like starving myself to fit into the clothes and it was an amazing experience but you know I did shows for Valentino, Chanel, so it was really prestigious.

'But it never felt like it was my thing, I'm not like a runway skinny model, I'm more curvy. It was torture, I put myself through starvation, you know torturing myself.'
They have just hit screens internationally in their respective roles as Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots.

And Saoirse Ronan, 24, has revealed it was quite the emotional experience when, after settling into her role as the titular character in Mary Queen Of Scots, she finally came face-to-face with co-star Margot Robbie, 28, after weeks of being kept apart.

Speaking on the BBC's Graham Norton Show, in an interview set to air on Friday night, the actress explained: 'Mary and Elizabeth never actually met so we took a bit of artistic license and lied about what really happened!

Tears: Saoirse Ronan has revealed it was quite the emotional experience when she and Margot Robbie first met up in full costume while shooting their new movie Mary Queen Of Scots

'We only met once in the film and because of that Margot and I stayed apart so we didn't know what each other looked like. When we finally met for the scene we cried. It was very emotional.'

The New York-born, Ireland-raised actress also spoke about how working with animals on the set of the period piece proved to be particularly challenging. '

'The horse I had to ride had starred with Wonder Woman and was very good looking and he knew it,' she said. 'He just wouldn't do anything, he wouldn't move.

Bitter rivals: The actress, who plays the Scottish queen in the film, said she and Margot Robbie were kept apart so they could experience the shock of each other's royal transformations

'Then I realised that every time someone shouted 'rolling' he would do a little cough. He was actually nervous!'

The Graham Norton Show airs on BBC One on Friday 18th January at 10.35pm, and Saoirse is joined by Laura Linney, Timothee Chalamet, and Stephen Mangan.

In the film, Ronan plays the titular Mary, Queen of France at 16 and widowed at 18, who defies pressure to remarry; instead, returning to her native Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne.

But Scotland and England fall under the rule of her cousin Elizabeth I  played by Robbie.

TV interview: She spoke about her film as she made an appearance on the BBC's Graham Norton Show alongside actor Timothee Chalamet (right)

Show: Guests on the popular chat show also included (L-R) Laura Linney and Stephen Mangan

Speaking of the separation, Ronan said on ITV's This Morning on Thursday: I think sometimes you just have to take artistic license and go... the audience watched a film for an hour, theyve followed these two women, you need that pay off...

'Elizabeth, is this shell of her former self  shes completely not human, Mary is bloody and dirty, its two women meeting who have been pushed to the very limit.

We asked for it (the separation), it was a cool experiment to stay apart, we didn't know what the other person looked like we were revealed to each other the shock of seeing the visual of what they looked like.

Special guests: The celebrity guests were interviewed by titular host Graham Norton (back)

Musical guests: The episode also featured a performance by the members of band The 1975

'How we felt as actors after three weeks of being kept apart was how Mary and Elizabeth would have felt, it gave us so much adrenaline and emotion.'

The Lady Bird actress revealed that she was just 18 when she signed off on the role, but didn't start shooting until she was 23, due to the amount of historical research that went into the film.

On Mary, she said: She was a great ruler, time in Scotland, she was this savvy politician. Mary wanted it all... what a male ruler would want, I love that about her.

She added that Elizabeth I and Mary never met, saying: They could have got on so well.

Talented: She added, 'How we felt as actors after three weeks of being kept apart was how Mary and Elizabeth would have felt, it gave us so much adrenaline and emotion

Iconic: The stars shocked with their transformations into the monarchs, with Margot donning a red wig, facial prosthetics and false teeth for their part

The stars shocked with their transformations into the monarchs, with Margot donning a red wig, facial prosthetics and false teeth for their part.

On the perils of wearing corsets for the period drama, she said: 'It changes your shape, after you take it off, a month after and the girls, we had this weird, it was great, but this weird hour glass shape.

'We would wear a corset every day, the warmer the corset gets, it loosens, but they would tighten it more, so yeah we had different body shapes.

Early morning visit: On Friday morning, she made an early stop at BBC Radio 2 for an interview

Wrapping up: She wrapped up in a full-length black coat, which she teamed with a blue scarf

Talking about women wearing corsets in the past, she added: No wonder they couldn't do anything, exercise much, they couldn't move.

The jet-setting star also admitted to a penchant for morning television when she is travelling the world, saying: 'When Im away, I just miss watching Phil and Holly on the TV, its what i miss watching. I watch it on the hub.'

Guy Pearce, David Tennant and Dunkirk star Jack Lowden also star in the historical epic. Taylor Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn, meanwhile, plays Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester.

Mary Queen Of Scots was released in the United States on 7 December 2018, and opened in UK theatres on Friday.

Restricted: Talking about women wearing corsets in the past, she added, No wonder they couldn't do anything, exercise much, they couldn't move
She is one of the daughters of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna and her husband Harry Hamlin.

And Delilah Hamlin, 20, showed the apple doesn't fall far from the tree at the Margot Los Angeles Rooftop restaurant at Platform, in Culver City on Thursday.

The model, who has been conquering the modelling world with her sister Amelia, paraded her stunning legs in a thigh-grazing blazer-style dress at the opening.

Apple doesn't fall far from the tree! Delilah Hamlin showcased her tremendous legs in a tiny blazer dress as she attended the glitzy restaurant opening on Thursday

A striking contrast to the snow-white dress, the reality star's daughter donned a slim-fit turtleneck in black which she revealed in the plunging neckline.

Delilah exhibited her model frame in a form-fitting dress and six buttons were stitched into the design to fasten the number around her figure.

The brunette bombshell scraped her locks into a low bun which showed off her huge golden hoops and her defining touches of make-up.

Sizzling: A striking contrast to the snow-white dress, the reality star's daughter donned a slim-fit turtleneck in black which she revealed in the plunging neckline

Fresh from her Mexican getaway, the magazine covergirl had spent the start of the year catching rays in Costa Rica with her family.

Delilah and her sister Amelia have been compared to modelling sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid in their bid to take over the catwalks.

Amelia lifted the lid on her very close relationship with her sister Delilah as she unveiled she 'looks up' to her because of her 'cool, confident' style.

Pin-credible: The model, who has been conquering the modelling world with her sister Amelia, paraded her tremendous legs in a thigh-grazing blazer-style dress

The rising star also shared that she never steals clothes from her older sister because they share all of their fashionable outfits.

Amelia told W Magazine in February 2018: 'I never steal anything from Delilah because we share all of our clothes!

'I look up to my sister Delilah in how she always makes a cool, confident statement in her style. Its always so effortless in anything she puts together.'
Luxury women's Italian shoe company Sergio Rossi has opened a pop-up in LA's Century City.

And the brand has partnered with top Hollywood stylist Elizabeth Stewart to create two shoes that will be sold to benefit the Time's Up legal defense fund.

On Thursday night, Molly Sims and Angela Sarafyan were among the celebrities who came out to celebrate the launch of the capsule collection.

Fashionistas: On Thursday night, Molly Sims and Angela Sarafyan were among the celebrities who came out to celebrate the launch of the Sergio Rossi & Elizabeth Stewart pop-up in LA

Sims, 45, wore a pair of Sergio Rossi black slingbacks with a tiered dark red dress.

The frock had a high neck and short sleeves with a black waistband.

She wore her blonde hair in a chignon with tendrils left loose to frame her face.

Stylish: Sims, 45, wore a pair of Sergio Rossi black slingbacks with a tiered dark red dress. The frock had a high neck and short sleeves with a black waistband

Bared cleavage: Westworld actress Sarafyan, 35, flashed skin in a striking monochrome number. The dress had a black bra-style bodice with large bow at the front and shoulder straps

Looking good: The skirt was white had a tight wide waist and fell to calf level and she added a pair of the brand's white pumps

Westworld actress Sarafyan, 35, flashed skin in a striking monochrome number.

The dress had a black bra-style bodice with a large bow at the front and wide shoulder straps.

The skirt was white had a tight wide waist and fell to calf level and she added a pair of the brand's white pumps.

On hand, too was daytime soap star Lindsay Price, who looked lovely in a short-sleeved silver gray dress and navy heels.

Classy: On hand, too was daytime soap star Lindsay Price, who looked lovely in a short-sleeved silver gray dress and navy heels

Big night: Sims, Price and Sarafyan poised for photos with Hollywood stylist Elizabeth Stewart, who collaborated on two shoes that will be sold to benefit the Time's Up legal defense fund

For a cause: The Sergio Rossi & Elizabeth Stewart collaboration features an ankle-strap sandal and stiletto pump. Both come in multiple colors and retail for $795

Beauties: Angela was also joined by The Good Place star Jameela Jamil, who wore a chic black and white suit

The Sergio Rossi & Elizabeth Stewart collaboration features an ankle-strap sandal and stiletto pump.

Both come in multiple colors and retail for $795, with 100 per cent of profits donated to the Time's Up legal defense fund.

'When they asked me to collaborate for a charity, it seemed like a great idea to partner with Time's Up, because fashion is a source of strength and power for women,' Stewart, whose clients include Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis and Gal Gadot, explained to The Hollywood Reporter.

The shoes are embossed with the words 'Strength, Power, Passion, Hope, Kindness, Sharing'.

'They're like a hidden tool in their closet  if you're nervous about an interview, if you have a big meeting, if you have any sort of important day, maybe an appearance on the red carpet, you can put on these shoes and there's a hidden source of strength,' she added.

Teen star: Disney Channel actress Skai Jackson, 16, showed up in a blue jumpsuit tied at the waist
Elle Fanning and Javier Bardem were back to work on the set of their upcoming film Molly.

And on Thursday the onscreen father and daughter duo shot a scene in a garage in Brooklyn, New York.

The actress and her Oscar winning co-star were caught, both in between takes, and when cameras were rolling.

Action! Elle Fanning and Javier Bardem were photographed on the set of the upcoming drama film Molly in Brooklyn, New York on Thursday

Flashing a big beaming smile during downtime, Fanning appeared to be dressed down by wardrobe in a skirt and green shirt ensemble.

The 20-year old covered the outfit with a dark overcoat that came down to her knees, and wore simple black leather shows and socks.

On this cold winter day, the sister of Dakota Fanning had her blonde tresses styled in a somewhat messy look that flowed to the middle of her back, with plenty of volume and soft waves.

Quiet on the set: Fanning and Bardem were filming in a garage on the chilly winter day; Fanning appeared to be dressed by wardrobe in a skirt, green shirt and overcoat

On the mark: Bardem wore a loose black ensemble and a black peacoat when cameras rolled, but added an extra winter jacket when there was a lull in filming

While cameras were rolling, Bardem wore a loose black ensemble and a black peacoat.

But when their was a lull in the action the 49-year old quickly covered up with an extra winter Jacket to stave off the tumbling temperatures.

He appeared to look much less disheveled than previous days when the pair were caught on camera while on the set.

In one scene, the Spanish actor donned swollen fake feet as he wandering through the streets of Brooklyn in his pajamas and a furry bathrobe, and in another he had blood dripping from his head as Fanning's character attended to him.

Premise: The film focuses on a wild day-in-the-life of a man named Leo (Bardem), who is held together by the love of his daughter, Molly (Fanning), as she deals with his chaotic mental state; no release date has been set for the film

The film focuses on a wild day-in-the-life of a man named Leo (Bardem), who is on the edge and held together by the love of his daughter, Molly (Fanning), as she deals with his chaotic mental state.

Leo flows in and out of several parallel lives that includes a passionate marriage with his childhood sweetheart, a struggling career as a drummer in New York and a life of solitude on a remote Greek island.

Filming kicked off last year in Spain and the cast also stars Salma Hayek, Chris Rock and Laura Linney.

At this point, Molly does not have a publicly announced release date.
Supermodel Karlie Kloss is heading out of town for a weekend getaway, and she's taking no shortage of luggage with her.

The new Project Runway host shared a new snap on her Instagram, with the blonde beauty posing next to four green suitcases, one black suitcase and a white shoulder bag with Karlie written on it plus a black handbag.

'Quick weekend getaway,' the 26-year-old model said, adding the smiling face with halo emoji to her post.

Weekend getaway: Karlie Kloss shows off her multitude of luggage for a weekend getaway

Kloss was wearing a black top with a plunging neckline and blue jeans under a long brown fuzzy coat.

She was also wearing leopard print flat shoes, one of which she showed off while stepping on one of her many suitcases.

Kloss wouldn't reveal where she's heading for her weekend getaway, but it comes just days after she revealed a new trailer for Project Runway.

Runway reboot: Kloss wouldn't reveal where she's heading for her weekend getaway, but it comes just days after she revealed a new trailer for Project Runway

Kloss was announced as the new host of Project Runway in October, with the show returning to its original network home on Bravo.

The show debuted on Bravo in 2004, where it stayed until 2008 before moving to Lifetime.

The show stayed on Lifetime through Season 16, but now Season 17 returns to its original home on Bravo in March, though no specific date has been given.

New host: Kloss was announced as the new host of Project Runway in October, with the show returning to its original network home on Bravo

It was revealed in December by Forbes that Kloss was the second highest paid model in 2018, according to Forbes.

The leggy blonde beauty raked in $13 million, well above both Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Chrissy Tiegen who tied for third with $11.5 million.

She was still in a rather distant second, though, behind Kendall Jenner, who nearly doubled Kloss' take with $23.5 million.

Second highest paid: It was revealed in December by Forbes that Kloss was the second highest paid model in 2018, according to Forbes

The Chicago-born Kloss was discovered at the age of 14 in 2006, after she posed for a cover shoot for Chicago Magazine.

The 6-foot-2-inch model married businessman Joshua Kushner in October 2018, after dating for six years.

She was a Victoria's Secret Angel from 2011 to 2015.
American History's Biggest Fibs

Rating:

Death In Paradise

Rating:

Pity the director of Lucy Worsley's jaunty history shows. It must be like working with Violet Elizabeth Bott.

Little Violet, as fans of the Just William tales know, was a precocious, spirited and determined young madam who did whatever she pleased.

She had a secret weapon that not even William Brown and his Outlaws could withstand: if thwarted, she could 'thcream and thcream till I make mythelf thick!'

Behind the scenes on American History's Biggest Fibs (BBC4), did Dr Lucy threaten to thcream and thcream, because it seemed her every whim was indulged?

In her account of the American Revolution of 1776, not only did she get to throw bales of tea into Boston harbour and fire a cannon at the English redcoats, but she seized every other opportunity for dressing up.

On a Fourth of July parade, she donned a yellow tunic, grabbed a flag and started marching and whirling down Main St with the majorettes.

Behind the scenes on American History's Biggest Fibs (BBC4), did Dr Lucy threaten to thcream and thcream, because it seemed her every whim was indulged? writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

This served no purpose: we weren't even told what city she was in. But there was a palpable sense from behind the camera that we might as well let her do as she liked, or we'd never hear the end of it.

Then, after a ride on a school bus, she wanted a turn on a merry-go-round  at which, perhaps, the director tried to put his foot down: 'Lucy, a Victorian merry-go-round really has nothing to do with the American War of Independence.'

And 30 seconds later, after Dr Lucy's face had turned an alarming shade of purple, she was bobbing on the carousel with a beaming smile.

We mustn't be cross with her, though. Her sense of fun extends to history, imbuing her lessons with such mischief that it is impossible not to be provoked and entertained.

Her portrait of George Washington, America's first president and a man held to be a saint by many, painted him as a miserly despot who made a mockery of abolitionist laws by imprisoning and starving his own slaves.

Pictured: Lucy Worsley is pictured in Philadelphia filming American History's s Biggest Fibs

And according to Dr Lucy, the ringing of the Liberty Bell  America's emblem of freedom  was the invention of a best-selling novelist. To the average U.S. patriot, that's like saying J. K. Rowling made up the Battle of Britain.

Next week, it's the Civil War, and we can rely on Dr Lucy to go full Gone With The Wind. Don't try to argue, just hand over the crinolines.

Ardal O'Hanlon was in an unlikely costume of his own on Death In Paradise (BBC1), as he pulled on a wet suit for a charity swim. He might have benefited from one of Dr Lucy's corsets.

The murder was almost incidental  a zookeeper was put to sleep with a tranquiliser dart.

After last week's fiendish crime conundrum, this killing was boringly straightforward, but it left plenty of time for the main event of the episode: the introduction of Shyko Amos as the show's new police recruit, replacing Danny John-Jules.

Her scatty character Ruby, full of squeals and brainwaves, fitted straight in  and why not? Paradise has an open-door policy, not only for the endless stream of guest stars (this time, Call The Midwife's Charlotte Ritchie) but for all the main players.

The wonderful Don Warrington, as Commissioner Patterson, is the only cast original, ever-present since 2011. Raise a rum punch to that man.
Simon Cowell has revealed that he stole the idea for Britain's Got Talent from a rival music show.

Speaking on The Paul McKenna Positivity Podcast, the music mogul, 59, said he began to think up the idea for BGT when he said he would prefer to see a singing dog, over someone taking part in another music show.

It comes as the ITV primetime mainstay is set to kick off auditions for its 13th series on Friday, which will also see host Ant McPartlin's first day back at work following his drink-driving arrest in March.

Surprising: Simon Cowell has revealed that he stole the idea for Britain's Got Talent from a rival music show

Simon explained: 'It was just an idea I had in the kitchen one day, I was watching another competing music show and a girl was murdering Get Here by Olita Adams.

'I thought do you know what I would actually rather watch a show about a singing dog.

'And that's how Got Talent came along. And we developed it over a year and then we sold it. And this show will run for 20 years.'

Beloved: Speaking on The Paul McKenna Positivity Podcast, the music mogul, 59, said he began to think up the idea for BGT when he said he would prefer to see a singing dog

Back soon: Also in the interview Simon vowed that he could see BGT running for 20 years, as auditions are about to begin for the 13th series

The star went on to admit he doesn't like seeing his show business rivals performing well with TV formats of their own, and likes to take inspiration from them and channel it into his own shows.

'We see a competing show and think: we will take a bit of that show and put it into ours,' he said.

'But I am still incredibly competitive. When I see a competing show starting to do well I actually feel physically sick.

'I don't like my friends to do well. I really don't. Jealousy in a weird way is good for you. If you are not jealous of your competitors you are not going to win.'

Coming back: For the new series Simon will be back on the judging panel alongside Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams

The next series of BGT will once again see Simon appear alongside Amanda Holden, David Walliams and Alesha Dixon on the judging panel, with Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly returning as hosts.

Last year Dec was forced to host the live shows solo after Ant took a break from presenting duties in the wake of his drink-drive arrest.

But it was confirmed this week that Ant will be back to present the show when the auditions kick off in London on Friday, with the series set to being airing sometime in April.
Ashley Graham was spotted out and about with her husband Justin Ervin, just days after the model opened up about their sex life.

The model and her videographer husband were spotted in Midtown New York, walking hand in hand.

The couple, who have been married since 2010, looked happy as they were spotted on the Midtown streets.

Hand in hand: Ashley Graham and husband Justin Ervin were spotted walking hand in hand in Midtown on Thursday night

Graham was wearing a white cropped Kith top with drawstrings that exposed her midriff, with tight black pants and heels.

Ervin was wearing an off-white Nike shirt under a tan hooded coat with blue jeans and grey and white sneakers and a grey stocking cap.

Graham smiled while walking with her husband, before she appeared at a screening of Lifetime's American Beauty Star, which she hosts.

All smiles: Graham was wearing a white cropped Kith shirt top with drawstrings that exposed her midriff

Work it: She completed her look with a pair of high-waisted leather-looking skinny jeans with a corset-style fastening

Smitten: Ashley and her husband Justin Ervin looked more loved-up than ever

Graham was spotted wearing the same outfit on the red carpet, posing with new judge Christie Brinkley, who looked stunning in a white mini-dress.

Graham was brought on as the new host for American Beauty Star, replacing Season 1 host Adriana Lima

The new season also includes Cosmopolitan's Chief Beauty Director Leah Wyar and world acclaimed celebrity fashion and beauty photographer Yu Tsai as new judges alongside Brinkley, which debuted January 2.

Ashley and Christie: Graham was spotted wearing the same outfit on the red carpet, posing with new judge Christie Brinkley, who looked stunning in a white mini-dress

Strike a pose: The duo knew how to work their best angles as they posed up a storm

Animated: Ashley appeared in good spirits as she joined the panel on Cocktails and a Conversation

Graham made headlines earlier this month when she opened up about her sex life in an interview with ELLE magazine.

When asked about the secret to her nine-year marriage with Ervin, she bluntly replied, 'Just have sex.'

'Have sex all the time. Even if you dont feel like it, just have sex. I have found that if we havent had sex, we get snippy, and then if we are having sex, were all over each other,' Graham said.

Stylish: The model styled her brunette locks into a sleek blow-dried hairdo

Supportive beau: Ashley's husband sat with her in the audience

Sex life: Graham made headlines earlier this month when she opened up about her sex life in an interview with ELLE magazine

'For us its like, "Oh, lets have sex." And then were just right back in a great mood,' Graham added.

She also revealed how it helped their relationship that they held off on sex until they got married.

'Something that it did for us was build up our friendship, and it also built up our trust and communication. Of course we were sexually attracted to each other; we would make out heavily,' she said.

Great mood: 'For us its like, "Oh, lets have sex." And then were just right back in a great mood,' Graham added

Happy couple: She also revealed how it helped their relationship that they held off on sex until they got married
Instagram model London Goheen has been dating Tammy Hembrow's ex-fiance Reece Hawkins since October.

And things certainly appear to be moving fast for the couple, with London having already met Reece and Tammy's two children: Wolf, four, and Saskia, two.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia at the Boohoo x Afterpay House of Summer party on Thursday, the 21-year-old model said she was smitten with Tammy's Insta-famous kids.

Stepmother? London Goheen (left), who is the girlfriend of Tammy Hembrow's ex-fiance Reece Hawkins (right), spoke to Daily Mail Australia about meeting Reece and Tammy's two children

'Yes, they're sweet,' she said. 'They're lovely. They're really sweet, I liked them a lot.'

The stunning brunette also hinted she could be ready to leave behind her glamorous life in Los Angeles and relocate to Australia.

When asked if she's ready to move Down Under for Reece, she said: 'I love Australia. It's honestly my favourite place.'

Close bond: 'Theyre really sweet, I liked them a lot,' London said of Reece and Tammy's two children, Saskia, two, and Wolf, four (pictured)

'I love Australia. Its honestly my favourite place!' The 21-year-old model also revealed she is considering moving Down Under to live with her boyfriend Reece

She added: 'I like being by the beach, by the water and I just love it. All the people are nice and chill. So, yeah!'

Last Saturday, as Tammy partied in Los Angeles, Reece and London took Saskia and Wolf to a farm in Queensland.

During their family day out, Reece shared several clips of London and his two children to Instagram.

Back to nature: Last Saturday, as Tammy partied in Los Angeles, Reece and London took Saskia and Wolf to a farm in Queensland. Pictured in a photo taken by a fan

The outing, which took place in the Gold Coast suburb of Currumbin, was also spotted by a fan, who shared a candid photo of the group to Instagram.

In the picture, Reece could be seen carrying his daughter Saskia, as London placed an affectionate arm around her boyfriend's shoulders.

Wolf strolled behind the trio, clearly enjoying their outdoor adventure.

Bonding: During their family day out, Reece shared several clips of London (far left, in the striped dress) and his two children to Instagram

Memories: While it seems London is well liked by Reece's children, she chose not to share any photos of them to Instagram - perhaps out of respect for Tammy. Instead, she shared this solo selfie alongside the caption: 'Australia, I love you'

While it seems London is well liked by Reece's children, she chose not to share any photos of them to Instagram - perhaps out of respect for Tammy.

Instead, she shared a solo selfie alongside the caption: 'Australia, I love you'.

The idyllic day out was in contrast to Tammy's Saturday night, which saw her partying at West Hollywood nightspot Catch LA with model Jena Frumes.

Mum's night off! The idyllic day out was in contrast to Tammy's Saturday night, which saw her partying at West Hollywood nightspot Catch LA with model Jena Frumes (left)

Posing for a photograph inside the A-list venue, Tammy flirtatiously smiled at the camera while dancing with Jena.

Tammy appears to be letting her hair down this week, after enjoying a low-key New Year's Eve back home on the Gold Coast.

'Fireworks, junk food, Netflix and in bed before midnight,' wrote Tammy on Instagram as she entered 2019 with her children.
Sailor Brinkley-Cook found time to do a bit of amateur conchology while cooling off in Sydney's heatwave on Thursday.

The 20-year-old American model, who is the daughter of Christie Brinkley, was spotted searching for seashells at Nielsen Park in the exclusive suburb of Vaucluse.

Sailor was all smiles during her journey of discovery, holding a few small shells in the palm of her hand after a dip in the ocean.

Holidaymaker: Sailor Brinkley-Cook, 20, showcased her model figure in a skimpy bandeau bikini while searching for seashells in Nielsen Park, Sydney on on Thursday

She couldn't resist taking a photo of the shells, which she eventually posted to her Instagram Story later that day.

Sailor, who is in Australia on a modelling assignment, showed off her flawless figure in a skimpy bandeau bikini top and white briefs.

She also accessorised with a personalised silver necklace.

Discovery: Sailor found time to do a bit of amateur conchology while cooling off in Sydney's heatwave

Look what I found! The 20-year-old American model, who is the daughter of Christie Brinkley, was spotted searching for seashells at Nielsen Park

A shore thing! Sailor was all smiles during her journey of discovery, holding a few small shells in the palm of her hand after a dip in the ocean

Later on, a smiling Sailor was seen sharing her coastal find with a group of other beachgoers.

The model has been in Australia for just two weeks but already clearly knows the best places to be in the warm weather.

Nielsen Park is one of the eastern suburbs' most popular swimming spots.

Score! Later on, a smiling Sailor was seen sharing her coastal find with a group of other beachgoers

Souvenirs: She couldn't resist taking a photo of the shells, which she eventually posted to her Instagram Story

Sailor has also made no secret of the fact she is enjoying her trip to Sydney.

'Greetings from Aus! Where I can work in a bustling city then take a 10 minute Uber [ride] to the most beautiful beach for a dip,' she wrote on Instagram on January 8.

'Three days into living here and I f***ing love it.'

On her days off, Sailor has been exploring the city and its many beaches.

In the frame: Sailor proved she was quite the amateur photographer, taking out a high-quality Canon camera to record the breathtaking views at Nielsen Park

Meanwhile, Sailor proved she was quite the amateur photographer on Thursday, taking out a high-quality Canon camera to record the breathtaking views at Nielsen Park.

She took a number of pictures of the seashore and the rippling ocean before going in for another dip.

While in the pristine water, she was joined by a group of friends, who formed a circle around her.

Dressed the part: Sailor, who is in Australia on a modelling assignment, showed off her flawless figure in a skimpy bandeau bikini top and white briefs

Coasting along: She took a number of pictures of the seashore and the rippling ocean before going in for another dip

Blue belle: The model has been in Australia for just two weeks but already clearly knows the best places to be in the warm weather

The blonde beauty held court with her pals, sharing jokes and stories.

Indeed, Sailor was having so much fun she seemed unable to tear herself away from the coastal idyll.

Satisfied with her dip in the ocean and seashell discovery, Sailor eventually returned to the sand to dry off in the heat.

Group outing: The blonde beauty held court with her pals, sharing jokes and stories

Tourist: Sailor has also made no secret of the fact she is enjoying her trip to Sydney

Too good to leave! Sailor was having so much fun she seemed unable to tear herself away from the coastal idyll

Sailor's mum, Christie, was a leading supermodel in the 1970s.

But in a 2015 interview on The Wendy Williams Show, the 64-year-old confessed she wasn't sure she would've made it in the modeling industry by today's standards.

'Our industry is getting sort of thinner and thinner. If I tried to be a model today, there's no way. I would never make it in the industry,' she said.

Loving the sun: Satisfied with her dip in the ocean and seashell find, Sailor eventually returned to the sand to dry off in the heat
She's a judge on the Lifetime reality show American Beauty Star.

And on Thursday, Christie Brinkley took center stage at a special screening and panel discussion for the TV series now in its second season.

Naturally, she put her world famous figure on show in a stylish ensemble as she arrived at the event in New York City.

Supermodel: She's a judge on Lifetime reality show American Beauty Star. And on Thursday, Christie Brinkley took center stage at a special event for the TV series now in its second season

Original supermodel Christie, 64, looked sensational in a long-sleeved white mini dress with tassels at the cuffs and along the thigh-skimming hem.

She showed off her gorgeous legs as she stepped out in a pair of pointed toe heels.

The Uptown Girl let her long blonde hair tumble loose around her shoulders and she was made up with black eye-liner and mascara, blusher and glossy red lip color.

She'd arrived wearing a white fur coat draped over her shoulders that added to the glamorous look.

Star: Christie, 64, looked sensational in a long-sleeved white mini dress with tassels at the cuffs and along the thigh-skimming hem

Fun and flirty: The original supermodel showed off her gorgeous legs as she stepped out in a pair of pointed toe heels

Kept warm: She'd arrived wearing a white fur coat draped over her shoulders that added to the glamorous look

Flawless: The Uptown Girl let her long blonde hair tumble loose around her shoulders and she was made up with black eye-liner and mascara, blusher and glossy red lip color

Earlier in the day, Christie had made an appearance on NBC's Today to promote American Beauty Star.

She's a judge on the talent contest which is hosted by Ashley and offers 12 rising hair and make-up artists the opportunity to compete for a $50,000 cash prize.

'It's hard to be a judge actually,' the beauty explained. 'I really don't want to criticize somebody. I want to look for the best thing that I can emphasize and say 'This is what you're doing right', so then maybe then the rest of it will elevate to that level.'

Promotional opportunity: Christie, who has her own brand of Italian Prosecco called Bellissima, worked the photo call like the pro that she is

Cheers: The beauty raised a toast to the Lifetime talent contest that pits 12 rising hair and make-up artists against each other for a $50,000 prize

Co-stars: The ex-wife of Billy Joel shared a laugh with her fellow American beauty Star judge Leah Wyar

Tough job:" 'It's hard to be a judge actually,' Christie said in a Thursday interview on Today. 'I really don't want to criticize somebody. I want to look for the best thing that I can emphasize'

Sharing her wisdom: Christie was part of the panel on Thursday evening

Model beauties: Joining Christie at the event was Ashley Graham, who hosts American Beauty Star and also serves as an executive producer

Joining Christie at the event was Ashley Graham, who hosts American Beauty Star.

The 31-year-old plus size model opted for a sporty ensemble, pairing a white cropped shirt with black skinny pants.

The shirt had long sleeves and a drawstring hem and she left the top button undone to reveal her silver necklace.

The high-waisted trousers highlighted her curves and she added silver studded black sandal heels.

Ashley also wore her hair loose, with the brunette locks crimped into relaxed waves.

She accessorized with silver hoop earrings and wore a smoky eye with rosy blusher and glossy lipstick.

Not their first red carpet! Ashley and Christie proved that they knew how to get all heads turning

Model beauties: The pair posed up a storm on the red carpet

Flashed her bare tummy: The 31-year-old paired a white cropped shirt with black skinny pants. The shirt had long sleeves and a drawstring hem and she left the top button undone

Casual style: The high-waisted trousers highlighted her curves and she wore silver studded black sandal heels

Happy days: Ashley was all smiles when leading the panel for the evening event

Not an easy task: Ashley, who also serves as an executive producer of the show, has previously spoken about how difficult it is to pick a winner from the talented group

Covergirl: At one point Ashley was seen holding up two of her previous Elle covers

Panel stars: Ashley and Christie posed together along with (L-R) Leah Wyar, Norton Herrick and Sir John

Ashley, who also serves as an executive producer of the show, has previously spoken about how difficult it is to pick a winner from the talented group.

'It gets tough,' she said. 'Right now, glam and glam artists are in a moment where they're having a voice and they can have a brand and have a business. Everything is on the line.'

The other judges on American Beauty Star are photographer Yu Tsai and actress Leah Wyar and the show airs Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. on cable channel Lifetime.

Loved up: The plus-size model was spotted holding hands with her husband Justin Earvin as she arrived for the special screening and panel discussion

Found love: Ashley and Justin have been married for eight years, tying-the-knot back in 2010
EastEnders have confirmed that Sean Slater will be returning to the soap, ten years after he exited Albert Square by plunging into a frozen lake.

Actor Robert Kazinsky has hinted that the bad boy will have 'unfinished business' in Walford, after he quit the soap in 2009 to try and crack Hollywood.

During his two years on EastEnders Sean Slater was embroiled in an paternity scandal when he discovered that he was not the father of Roxy Mitchell's baby, and after almost dying in a frozen lake, made a dramatic exit to parts unknown.

He's back! EastEnders have confirmed that Sean Slater will be returning to the soap, ten years after he exited Albert Square as actor Rob Kazinsky reprises his role

Exciting: Robert also took to Twitter to confirm the news soon after it was announced by soap bosses

Speaking about his return Rob admitted it was his involvement in issue storylines that tempted him back to the show, having quit in 2008 to pursue a dream of being a Hollywood star.

He said: 'Throughout my career I have always felt that my best work was on EastEnders as Sean Slater, that there was something there in him that I understood completely, something traumatic, something that we never really got to show the viewers.

'I have unfinished business in Albert Square and am thrilled to be returning to what I still consider to be my home, however briefly.'

Returning: The soap bad boy is set to reprise his role after his character left for parts unknown on New Year's Day 2009, having just survived plunging into a frozen lake

Showrunner Kate Oates added: 'It's exciting to work with an actor with Rob's drive, passion, and eye for detail, and I can't wait to see the impact his arrival has on the Square amidst those who loved or loathed the troubled Sean Slater.'

Robert also took to Twitter to write: 'Happy to be back, I have a short break between projects and Kate Oates is a superstar.

'Its something I always wanted to do to say thank you to Sean and the show, and we have worked to fit it in in the most explosive way. I think youll be... entertained.'

An official date for Rob's return to the show is yet to confirmed, and it remains to be seen how long he will be back on the show.

Awaiting: Speaking about his re-arrival, Rob teased that his character had 'unfinished business' on the show

Screen star: Rob quit the soap in 2008 in a bid to crack Hollywood, and among his recent film roles was 2013's Pacific Rim

After leaving EastEnders Rob did land roles in several big Hollywood blockbusters, including Pacific Rim, Warcraft and upcoming Captain Marvel.

He also played the hunky love interest of Reese Witherspoon in 2015's Hot Pursuit, and last year starred in the Netflix film Mute.

Sean Slater's time in Albert Square proved a turbulent one, as he was left devastated on Christmas Day in 2008 when he discovered he was not the father of wife Roxy's daughter Amy.

Arriving on the show as Stacey Slater's brother, he was also in cahoots in Tanya Branning, when she first plotted to get revenge on her cheating husband Max.

Rob was also briefly suspended from the soap in 2007 when it was alleged in The Sunday People that he had been sending a model 'obscene text messages and photographs' through the now-defunct social media site MySpace.

Explosive: Sean's romance with Roxy Mitchell also took centre stage throughout his time on the show, as he also discovered he was not the father of her daughter Amy

Controversy: Rob was also briefly suspended from the soap in 2007 when it was alleged in The Sunday People that he had been sending a model 'obscene text messages and photographs'

Speaking at the time, the model claimed: 'I can't watch EastEnders now. Every time I see him on screen I think of that horrible picture. It makes my skin crawl.'

Sean Slater made his final departure from Albert Square after an explosive showdown with Roxy on a frozen lake, and as the ice cracked the pair were plunged into its depths.

As Roxy was rescued viewers saw Sean pull himself out of the water, and as she signals him to leave he walks away into the night.

Close call: Sean Slater made his final departure from Albert Square after an explosive showdown with Roxy on a frozen lake
Joe Sugg and Dianne Buswell are said to be getting on the last nerve of their Strictly Come Dancing co-stars by constantly kissing and cuddling.

The couple, who got together when they were partnered on last year's series, have been busy rehearsing for the show's UK tour ahead of the opening night on Friday.

But a source close to the show claims the pair have turned rehearsals into a 'nightmare' for their fellow performers.

It's hell: Strictly's Joe Sugg and Dianne Buswell have made tour rehearsals 'a nightmare for co-stars with constant kissing and cuddling'

The insider told The Sun: 'Nobody objects to them having a romance. But this behaviour belongs in the bedroom.

'The kissing and cuddling is around the clock. They touch each other all the time  its like theyve been glued together.

'Rehearsals have been a nightmare for the rest of us.'

The source added that the couple are evidently in the honeymoon period of their relationship but seem to have forgotten everyone else has to watch it.

When contacted by MailOnline, a representative for Joe and Dianne denied the claims.

PDA: A source close to the show claims the pair have turned rehearsals into a 'nightmare' for their fellow performers

Cute: Dianne brought Joe closer to her by securing her arm around his neck when they posed backstage at the Strictly Come Dancing tour

Great match: The couple got together when they were partnered on last year's series

The tour features viewers favourites from the series, including winner Stacey Dooley who will be patterned with Aljaz Skorjanec, while her winning dance partner Kevin Clifton is tied up with other work commitments.

Judges Bruno Tonioli, Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood and Darcy Bussell are also taking part.

Earlier this month, Joe and Dianne sparked speculation they're engaged with a ring snap.

The new couple sent fans wild as the professional dancer sported a gold band on her wedding finger in a loved-up snap.

Amazing: The showbiz duo have been busy rehearsing for the show's UK tour ahead of the opening night on Friday

Impossible to miss: Dianne looked flirty in a fitted bodice with a feathered skirt in bright pink and orange

It can only be love: The couple, who confirmed their romance after Strictly wrapped up, gazed adoringly into each other's eyes

Romance on the dancefloor: The source revealed: 'Nobody objects to them having a romance. But this behaviour belongs in the bedroom'

Preparations: Joe Sugg, 27, and Dianne Buswell, 29, who got together when they were partnered on last year's series of Strictly Come Dancing, are currently in rehearsals for the show's UK tour but have reportedly been criticised for their PDAs

In love: According to the source the inseparable couple have been 'kissing and cuddling around the clock'

Revealing their romance just last month, they appeared smitten as they cosied up to each other while relaxing on a sofa.

Strictly runner-up Joe captioned the image: 'Last day of chillin with this one before we start the tour', alongside a heart emoji.

However, the image caused fans to question whether the pair had taken their fresh romance to the next step.

Causing quite a stir as the new Strictly lovebirds, Dianne finally confirmed the duo were not engaged with an Instagram post as she replied to her fellow Strictly star Gemma Atkinson's post.

Good pals: Dianne and Joe showed off the fun side to their relationship as they playfully danced backstage away from their co-stars

Keeping it up! The new lovebirds also picked up their old routine for the building job-themed Jive that scored them top points in the competition

Impressive! The hunk lifted his girlfriend up as they showed off their dance routine

It's a skill: The pair, who fell in love on the show dancing together, showed off their fancy footwork when they took to the dancefloor once again

Sexy! Joe went to lift Dianne's long legs over his shoulder in a saucy dance move

She re-posted the 34-year-old soap star's picture which read: 'Instagram flips the camera. My ring is on my right hand (before I read I'm engaged again.'

The Strictly professional added in response: 'OMG same here sister.'

Internet sensation Joe first went public with their romance when he shared a snap of the two of them following the Strictly final saying he had 'won' the love of Dianne.

He wrote: 'I may not have won the glitter ball, but I've won something a million times more special.'

Good together: The pair may not have gained the Strictly trophy but they are delighted to have won each other's hearts

Rumours: The new couple sent fans wild as the professional dancer sported a gold band on her wedding finger in a loved-up snap this month
The characters were far too good to let go.

After an extensive search, British actor Fabien Frankel, 24, has landed the lead role of Theo Sipowicz in ABCs pilot of NYPD Blue, a follow up to the iconic cop drama, according to Deadline Hollywood on Thursday.

The sequel centers on Theo, the son of Dennis Franzs Detective Andy Sipowicz character from the original series, who tries to earn his detective shield while probing his fathers murder.

He's the one: After an extensive search, British actor Fabien Frankel, 24, has landed the lead role of Theo Sipowicz in ABCs pilot of NYPD Blue, a follow up to the iconic cop drama

Theo seems to have taken after his dad as he, too, is a hard-drinking, hard-headed and quick-witted cop.

Like the original 1993-2005 ABC series, the follow-up revolves around a core group of 15th Precinct police officers and detectives.

Fabiens Theo leads the quartet, which includes Detective Nicole Lazarus (Alona Tal). Two cast members from the original series, Kim Delaney and Bill Brochtrup, will reprise their roles as Diane Russell and John Irvin, respectively.

The reboot hails from NYPD Blue alums Matt Olmstead, Nick Wootton and Jesse Bochco.

Tough love: The sequel centers on Theo, the son of Dennis Franzs Detective Andy Sipowicz from the original series, who tries to earn his detective shield while probing his fathers murder

The pilot, a co-production between 20th Century Fox TV  which was behind the original series  and ABC Studios, was written by Matt and Nick

Jesse, son of NYPD Blue co-creator Steven Bochco, who helmed 10 episodes of the original series, is set to direct.

All three also executive produce, while Stevens widow, Dayna Bochco, is a producer.

The first crew: The original ABC series, starring Dennis Franz, center, ran from 1993-2005

Fabien was cast as Theo after a three-month search and multiple tests as the producers cast a wide net for the role of the son of the iconic TV character.

A recent graduate of the London Academy Of Music And Dramatic Art, he earned solid reviews for his role in West End play The Knowledge, written in 1978, about aspiring taxi drivers taking the notoriously difficult test.

He is currently shooting the feature Last Christmas for director Paul Feig, playing a lover of Emilia Clarkes character Kate.
Her 50th birthday celebrations have lasted all week, as Kyle Richards marks the occasion with friends and family.

And on Wednesday night the celebration reached a whole new level for Kyle as she let loose during a karaoke night.

Joined by her fellow Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills cast, the 50-year-old belted out the lyrics to Tina Turner's Proud Mary and Michael Jackson's, The Way You Make Me Feel.

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Girl's night! Kyle Richards let her hair down during her karaoke themed birthday party, hosted by sister Kathy Hilton, on Wednesday night

Joining in on the fun was reality stars Lisa Rinna, Dorit Kemsley, Teddi Mellencamp, Faye Resnick, Erika Jayne and sister Kathy Hilton.

Also in attendance was actress Ali Landry, TV host Justin Sylvester, makeup artist Pamela Brogardi and Kyle's daughter Alexia Umansky.

Notably missing from the night of fun was Kyle's former friend, Lisa Vanderpump.

As detailed on their show Real Housewives, the pair have been feuding in recent months.

And despite going through a period of not even talking in recent years due to a family dispute, the event was held at Kathy's $9.26 million five-bedroom, eight bathroom Bel Air mansion.

Big tunes: Joined by her fellow Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills cast, the 50-year-old belted out the lyrics to Tina Turner's Rolling Down The River and Michael Jackson,'s The Way You Make Me Feel

Letting their hair down: Joining in on the fun was reality stars Lisa Rinna, Dorit Kemsley, Teddi Mellencamp, Faye Resnick, Erika Jayne and sister Kathy Hilton

Gorgeous: Kyle rung in the belated birthday celebrations in a long sleeved blue sequin top and teamed the look black pants with knee-high black boots.

Kyle rung in the belated birthday celebrations in a long sleeved blue sequin top and teamed the look black pants with knee-high black boots.

Her brunette tresses were styled into voluminous waves with her crown pinned back off of her face.

Also letting loose and belting out the lyrics particularly during their rendition of Rolling Down The River, was Lisa Rinna.

This is 50! Kyle's night of fun comes after she spent the weekend celebrating in Nayarit, Mexico

Lisa opted for a form-fitting striped dress and ensured she was heard as well as seen when she snapped up the microphone.

The makeshift private karaoke room saw three round tables with various glasses of white wine with still plenty of space for the attendees to have a dance.

Kyle's night of fun comes after she spent the weekend celebrating in Nayarit, Mexico.

Kyle: 'I am so grateful for this beautiful gift called life. I never imagined I would feel so good, healthy and at peace (most of the time ) I love my children , my husband , my family , my friends , my dogs , my work... SO MUCH'

More singing: And in footage from the girl's weekend, fellow Housewife Teddi shared a video of the ladies busting out their moves and vocals once again whilst enjoying some time by the pool

Sharing a bikini snap of herself, she captioned: 'Im 50. There. I said it. Anyone who knows me knows that I always think Im dying so the fact that I even made it to here is a miracle.'

'I am so grateful for this beautiful gift called life. I never imagined I would feel so good, healthy and at peace (most of the time ) I love my children , my husband , my family , my friends , my dogs , my work... SO MUCH.'

Kyle continued by thanking her fans for their birthday wishes.

And in footage from the girl's weekend, fellow Housewife Teddi shared a video of the ladies busting out their moves and vocals once again whilst enjoying some time by the pool.

The video saw the pair dancing and singing to Teddi's father, rocker John Mellencamp's track Jack & Diane.

'I am sure Dad would be real proud of this,' Teddi hilariously captioned.
Married At First Sight's upcoming sixth season will feature more episodes and bigger personalities in a bid to outdo last year's record-breaking installment.

According to Nine, season six will air 44 episodes across 11 weeks, extending the series by an extra 12 episodes compared to last year.

The supersized season is no doubt a response to last year's blockbuster ratings, which made MAFS the most-watched show on Australian TV in 2018.

Super-sized! Married At First Sight's upcoming sixth season will feature more episodes and bigger personalities in a bid to outdo last year's record-breaking installment

Nine has also promised 'full-blown drama' with the most outrageous cast in the show's history.

'We were concerned - how could we possibly top last year?' relationship expert Dr Trisha Stratford told the Courier Mail earlier this week. 'Because we had such interesting people.

'But, wow, the personalities are bigger, they are more outspoken, they have lower boundaries.'

'The personalities are bigger, they are more outspoken, they have lower boundaries': The new season will also include the most outrageous and unfiltered cast yet

New twists have been added to the super-sized season which will not only challenge the couples, but also the group as a whole.

In addition, producers have brought back the pre-wedding bachelor and bachelorette parties, which were last featured on season four back in 2017.

A preview for the sixth season seen by The New Daily apparently revealed there will be 'fisticuffs' between the grooms, marking the first time that a physical fight has ever taken place on MAFS.

Challenge: New twists have been added to the super-sized season which will not only challenge the couples, but also the group as a whole

The show's 'relationship experts' have also promised catfights between the brides, although it's unknown if these fights will be physical or just verbal.

'The women are the most competitive we've ever seen,' revealed Dr Stratford, before adding: 'I'm trying to be kind.'

Fellow expert Dr John Aiken added that the new season will be 'edgier' and more controversial than last year's, which made headlines when Dean Wells and Davina Rankin 'cheated' on their TV spouses with each other.

'The dinner parties are totally next level,' he said. 'Things happen at these dinner parties we havent seen before. It is absolutely jaw dropping. Shock and awe.'

'The women are the most competitive we've ever seen,' said expert Dr Trisha Stratford

Scandal: The new season will be 'edgier' and more controversial than last year's, which made headlines when Dean Wells and Davina Rankin 'cheated' on their TV spouses with each other

A Channel Nine press release for the new season appears to back up the claims, describing the show as 'extreme'.

'This season, the infamous dinner parties are more intense, the commitment ceremonies more explosive, and the relationships more tumultuous than we've ever seen,' it stated.

'If that wasn't enough, the experts have introduced some surprising new elements that will rock the experiment and test not only the couples but the group as a whole.

'The dinner parties are totally next level,' John Aiken revealed. 'Things happen at these dinner parties we haven't seen before'

'Ten brides and ten grooms will undergo the most extreme experiment yet as they're faced with more confronting challenges and romantic hurdles than ever before.'

It continues: 'Every couple will once again live together under the same roof as relationships are put under the microscope and full-blown drama ensues.

'From day one, the couples experience the highs and lows of marriage at full speed. Some flounder as the pressure mounts, others flourish as they find the joy of true love at first sight.'

Married At First Sight returns for season six on January 28
Joel Edgerton and Vogue executive Christine Centenera are said to be 'inseparable' after sparking romance rumours in October.

But the Boy Erased star, 44, raised eyebrows on Thursday night when he stepped out at a men's style showcase without his fashionista girlfriend.

Attending the Louis Vuitton Menswear Fall/Winter show at Paris Fashion Week, Joel looked dapper as he mingled with other A-list guests.

Dapper: Joel Edgerton (left) cut a stylish figure while attending at Louis Vuitton fashion show in Paris on Thursday without Vogue editor girlfriend Christine Centenera (right)

The Golden Globe-nominated star wore a luxurious, three-quarter length overcoat and white T-shirt.

He completed his look with beige trousers and retro-inspired white trainers.

His accessories consisted of a silver anchor pendant and a single white leather glove which he was seen carrying in his left hand.

Looking good! The Golden Globe-nominated star wore a luxurious, three-quarter length overcoat and white T-shirt

Friends in high places: Taking his seat on the front row, Joel sat beside Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova and Berluti's general manager Antoine Arnault

Taking his seat on the front row, the actor sat beside Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova and Berluti's general manager Antoine Arnault.

Joel and Christine first sparked romance rumours in mid-October, when they were pictured in an intimate embrace outside a Bondi restaurant.

A month later, they seemingly confirmed their relationship by attending GQ Australia's Men of the Year Awards in Sydney together.

The details: He completed his look with beige trousers and retro-inspired white trainers

Afterwards, they were spotted together in both Los Angeles and London.

A fashion director for Vogue Australia, Christine has previously styled the likes of Kim Kardashian and husband Kanye West.

Joel, who rose to fame as an actor in the early 2000s, has recently branched out into directing films.
Her new movie Isn't It Romantic is set to hit cinemas on Valentine's Day next month.

And Rebel Wilson, 38, couldn't help but share a behind-the-scenes peek at the making of the highly-anticipated blockbuster.

Taking to Instagram Stories on Wednesday, the Australian actress shared a photo of herself and co-star Liam Hemsworth posing in front of a green screen arm-in-arm.

'This was literally four in the morning!' Rebel Wilson shared a candid behind-the-scenes snap of herself and Isn't It Romantic co-star Liam Hemsworth on Wednesday

'This was literally 4am in the morning!' she captioned the candid image, presumably referencing her arduous film schedule.

The blonde bombshell looked glamorous in a cleavage-baring crimson gown, while Liam looked slick in a black suit and tie.

On Wednesday, the Australian actress shared another behind-the-scenes throwback snap featuring her co-stars.

Best friends forever! Rebel flaunted her cleavage next to glamorous Priyanka Chopra in another behind-the-scenes photo on Wednesday

This time, the bubbly blonde was seen posing on the streets of New York City with Liam and Priyanka Chopra.

In the caption, Rebel also paid tribute to the film's director Todd Strauss-Schulson.

'That's our fab director far right so give him some love,' she wrote.

Rebel is sure to amuse cinema-goers when Isn't It Romance premieres on Valentine's Day.

Don't miss it! Rebel is sure to amuse cinema-goers when Isn't It Romance premieres on Valentine's Day

The movie is considered quite progressive by Hollywood standards because it features a plus-size female lead

Rebel, 38, stars as Natalie, a woman who grew up idolising the 1990 film Pretty Woman, only to be told by her mother she is 'no Julia Roberts'.

After almost completely giving up on ever finding love, Natalie decides she needs to put herself out there more.

Blimey! Rebel features in some rather steamy scenes with fellow Australian Liam Hemsworth

But when she's mugged on the NYC subway system, she runs into a pole while trying to escape her attacker, and knocks herself out.

When she finally comes to, she notices 'someone has put a beauty filter across New York City'.

Suddenly, Natalie finds herself living in one of the romantic comedies she grew up watching - and it isn't long before she attracts an impossibly handsome suitor.
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United Airlines has unveiled brand new uniforms that will be rolled out to its 70,000 employees from cabin crew to ramp agents.

The US-based carrier has teamed up with women's wear designer Tracy Reese as well as men's clothing brand Brooks Brothers and work wear specialists Carhartt to create the new outfits.

The uniforms will now be tested multiple times over the coming year and the airline hopes to distribute them to all staff in 2020.

United Airlines has unveiled brand new uniforms that will be rolled out to its 70,000 employees. Pictured left are the new cabin crew uniforms which have a flash of purple and right are the customer service agent outfits, which have a flash of turquoise

Customer service agents working for United in Hawaii can wear the 'aloha wear' uniforms of Hawaiian shirts and navy shorts

All of the new uniforms will have a base colour called 'rhapsody blue' and the airline hopes this will make all staff across its business look like one team.

However, a different pop of colour on each outfit denotes the job of the wearer.

For example, the cabin crew uniforms include a flash of purple, while customer service agent outfits have a turquoise pop.

Flight crew suits have burgundy ties while tech operation and ramp agent uniforms stand out with hi-vis colors.

United says it has focused on using high quality fabrics with improved breathability so its staff 'feel good as well as look good'.

All the new uniforms will have a base color called 'rhapsody blue' and a pop of colour depending on the wearer's job. Pictured left is the flight crew uniform, which has a burgundy tie. The flight attendant attendant uniform, right, has a splash of purple

More than 1,300 pilots, flight attendants and customer service agents will be the first to test out the new pieces.

United says that during this time, they will continue to refine the designs based on staff feedback.

Designer Tracy Reese, who created the female uniforms, said: 'I'm excited for United employees and customers to see the designs we've been hard at work on, and for employees to begin to wear-test these new looks to test their fit and function.

'I've travelled the world with United to meet with thousands of employees to better understand their job duties and hear first-hand what is needed in a uniform so that these women look and feel good, but most importantly  perform at their best.'

Both technical operatives, left, and ramp agents, right, will receive new uniforms. United hopes to roll out the new uniforms by 2020

While Brian Lane of Brooks Brothers added: 'These designs represent months of collaboration with United's front-line employees to develop a uniforms programme that the United team will be proud to wear.

'Uniforms are such a critical part of employees' work lives, so no stone was un-turned as we created these designs with enthusiastic employee input.

'This includes high quality fabric, improved breathability, enhanced fit and pops of color. We will continue to refine these garments based on feedback following the upcoming wear test.'
Indonesia is the most chilled out country in the world followed by Australia, a new study has revealed.

Researchers came up with a list of the most relaxing nations by analysing a number of factors including the personal rights of citizens, noise and light pollution, temperatures, the number of public holidays and the number of spa retreats.

Claiming third place in the ranking is Iceland, followed by New Zealand in fourth and Sri Lanka in fifth.

Indonesia is the most chilled out country in the world, a new study has revealed. Pictured is a tropical beach on the Indonesian island of Karimunjawa

The research, which was carried out by lastminute.com, found top ranking Indonesia has over 54,700 miles of coastline - meaning a beach is never too far away.

The study also revealed that the country has over 186 green spaces and an average temperature of 25 degrees centigrade making it the perfect place to watch waves.

Second-place Australia gives workers an average of 30 days annual leave, has over 25,000 miles of coastline and has 187 green spaces.

Despite having an average temperature of 1.75 degrees, third-place Iceland gives workers an average of 36 days of annual leave and is one the best places to enjoy the Northern Lights.

Australia came second in the ranking as it has over 25,000 miles of coastline and 187 green space. Pictured is Shark Bay in Western Australia

Despite having an average temperature of 1.75 degrees, third place is Iceland, pictured, one of the best places to see the Northern Lights

New Zealand was praised for its citizens getting around 31 days of annual leave per year so that they can enjoy the country's 253 green spaces and 15,000 miles of coastline.

While fifth-place Sri Lanka has average temperatures of nearly 27 degrees, lush rainforests and citizens enjoying an average of 40 days holiday.

In sixth placed is Cyprus followed by the Philippines (seventh), Greece (eighth), India (ninth) and Mauritius (10th).

The top 15 is rounded off by Costa Rica (11th), Portugal (12th), Bulgaria (13th), Croatia (14th) and Spain (15th).

Fourth place New Zealand was praised for its citizens getting around 31 days of annual leave per year so that they can enjoy the country's 253 green spaces with over 15,000 miles of coastline. Pictured is Mount Cook on the South Island

Reigo Eljas, country director of UK and Ireland at lastminute.com, said: 'As we welcome 2019 with open arms, many of us are looking to start off feeling refreshed and ready to take on the year ahead.

'By looking to other cultures, we can borrow tried-and-tested traditions - from hot springs to meditation - to help us feel zen.

'Our analysis of the world's most chilled out countries reveals that Indonesia ranks as the most relaxed nation out of all others in our study.

'If intrepid [British] travelers are seeking out relaxation close to home, we also discovered that Europe is home to seven of the top 15 most relaxed countries.'


Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary has said that Brexit could lead to a drop in air fares, as the budget airline issued a profit warning.

The Irish carrier on Friday lowered its full-year post-tax profit guidance from between 1.1 billion euros (966 million) and 1.2 billion euros (1 billion) to a new range of one billion euros (878 million) and 1.1 billion euros.

Ryanair said that winter fares are expected to fall seven per cent, a much bigger drop than the previously guided fall of two per cent.

Ryanair has issued a profit warning and has lowered it full-year post-tax profit guidance

Last year, Ryanair booked a profit of 1.45 billion euros (1.2 billion) and the downgrade represents the second warning in quick succession.

In October the airline said profits would be knocked by a spate of crew strikes and rising fuel prices.

O'Leary also warned that he cannot rule out further downgrades to profit guidance.

He said: 'There is short haul over-capacity in Europe this winter, but Ryanair continues to pursue our price passive/load factor active strategy to the benefit of our customers who are enjoying record lower air fares.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary, pictured, warned that he cannot rule out further downgrades to profit guidance

'While we have reasonable visibility over forward quarter four bookings, we cannot rule out further cuts to air fares and/or slightly lower full-year guidance if there are unexpected Brexit or security developments which adversely impact yields between now and the end of March.'

However, the firm also expects stronger traffic growth of nine per cent to 142 million and stronger ancillary sales as more customers choose lower cost optional services.

Mr O'Leary also said that the competitive environment will 'shake out' some of Ryanair's rivals.

'We believe this lower fare environment will continue to shake out more loss making competitors, with Wow, Flybe, and reportedly Germania for example, all currently for sale,' he said.

Ryanair will release its third quarter results on February 4.

George Charles, from www.MoneySavingHeroes.co.uk, said: 'Ryanair was always known as the airline to go with if you were looking to fly on a budget.

'In recent times they have faced competition from Jet2Holidays, which has given people the choice when deciding what airline they want to go with. This could be a big factor in why their profits have fallen, as people will always look for the better all-round holiday package.

'Despite Ryanair's appealing prices and them announcing that they cannot rule out cutting air-fares further, the startling fact that they have been named the UK's least-favourite short-haul airline for six years running [in a survey by Which?] does not bode well.

'It's hard for any business to recover from such a large amount of negative press, including the coverage of the strikes and hundreds of cancelled flights last summer. However, with the country still facing an uncertain future, Britons will likely continue to fly with Ryanair in an effort to save money in any way they can.'
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If youve ever wondered how Hollywood stars negotiate Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)  all can be revealed.

A frequent flyer experienced the wonders of the airports ultra-exclusive The Private Suite - a $3,000-a-go service that allows the rich and famous to pass through the airport without enduring pesky customs queues.

The service even includes a chauffeur-driven BMW to and from the plane and the terminal building.

Frequent flyer Gilbert Ott (pictured), who runs the God Save The Points flight tips blog, used LAX's Private Suite - and he said it was an airport experience in a league of its own

The frequent flyer  London-based Gilbert Ott, who runs the God Save The Points flight tips blog  said that the experience was so good it ruined him.

He describes on his blog site that after touching down at LAX a Private Suite agent looking like Secret Service was waiting for him and his wife on the jet bridge.

From there they descended by elevator to a BMW 750 sedan that drove them across the tarmac to the Tom Bradley International Terminal where they went through private U.S immigration.

Mr Ott and his wife relaxed in this private suite when they departed

Mr Ott wrote: My wife, an Esta user, spoke to the agent, filled out all the usual forms and received the same formalities as anyone, with one significant difference  she was the only one in line. The only one.

The experience on the way back was equally memorable.

Mr Ott wrote: When our Los Angeles trip came to a close we rang the Private Suite as requested to inform them of our inbound to the facility. Arrival at The Private Suite felt like being in a Jason Bourne film. A heavily armed guard radioed our arrival to the team at the Suite, confirmed our info and the gate was lifted.

In less than a minute we were in a private suite equipped with everything under the sun.

Pictured is the bathroom in Mr Ott's private suite, which was stocked with all manner of pharmacy products

Mr Ott, a keen wine drinker, was impressed with the wines on offer in his suite. They were all highly rated on the Vivino app

Their suite had sweets, fine wines (each rated at least 4.1 on the Vivino wine app), pharmacy products, chargers, a TV and a bathroom.

And total privacy. Even the TSA screening is private, whether or not other Private Suite guests are on the same flight.

Mr Ott wrote: Heres what blew my mind: even if David Beckham and I were on the same flight, theyd stagger our departures by about 3 minutes, so that we wouldnt have to awkwardly go through security together. When they say private they mean PRIVATE.

After being driven to his plane across the tarmac in another BMW, Mr Ott concluded that while hed had some very crazy airport experiences in the past, the Private Suite was in another league.

Visit www.godsavethepoints.com for more from Gilbert Ott.
Facebook wants teens to think it's cool again.

The social media giant is building a new section of its website dedicated to memes, called 'LOL,' in a bid to attract younger users, according to TechCrunch.

The feed will be populated with bite-size clips and GIFs of popular internet memes that are pulled from popular Pages on Facebook.

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Facebook wants teens to think it's cool again. The social media giant is building a new section of its website dedicated to memes, called 'LOL,' in a bid to attract younger users

'LOL' is currently being tested with about 100 high school students who signed on to do the trial with their parents' permission, TechCrunch noted.

A series of leaked screenshots of the feed show what kinds of content might appear there.

One image shows a 'For You' tab with content curated around users' interests.

Another screenshot shows that users can filter content based on specific topics, like 'Savage,' 'Fails,' 'Pranks,' 'Animals' and 'Gaming,' among others.

When users click on a video, it will go into theater mode, where the clip takes up almost the entire screen.

Users can fast forward through different sections of the video by tapping on the screen, similar to how you can advance through someone's Instagram Stories.

A series of leaked screenshots of the feed show what kinds of content might appear there. One image shows a 'For You' tab with content curated around users' interests.

At the end of a video, users can rate the content they watched by clicking on one of the buttons at the bottom of the screen: 'Funny,' 'Alright' and 'Not Funny,' according to TechCrunch.

Users can share a video, as well as submit their own content.

Facebook confirmed that it's currently testing 'LOL' among a small group of people.

Users that are part of the beta test see the LOL feed instead of the Watch tab in the Facebook app, the company told TechCrunch.

The company is still figuring out whether it will launch LOL within the Watch tab or as a standalone app.

WHY DO YOUNG PEOPLE PREFER SNAPCHAT? Snapchats popularity with teens and young adults has grown significantly since the platform first launched in 2011. It has been suggested that the instant messaging apps range of creative and interactive features like filters, lenses and Bitmoji, are partially responsible for its success. These let you add effects to images and create virtual avatars and have since been adopted by rival platforms. However, Snapchats relative privacy and the impermanence of material shared compared with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram may be the crucial factor in its popularity among young people. That's according to Joseph Philleo, a USC undergraduate student in mathematics, economics and machine learning and self-described 'Millennial tech adopter' who discussed his thoughts on Quora. On Snapchat, all content is time-limited and can be sent directly to an individual or small group of friends. This lets you control exactly who sees the pictures and videos you make and for how long. As a result, users feel free to share awkward, embarrassing or unflattering selfies, safe in the knowledge that this wont be visible forever, unlike the permanent posts on other platforms. This leads to a more authentic user experience and is of benefit to everyone who uses the app, but its a particular attraction for younger people. More mature internet users may feel comfortable and confident being themselves in any online forum. Snapchat, through its closed groups and temporary sharing, provides a sense of security for teens and youngsters who are still finding their way in the world to be themselves. Advertisement

It comes as younger users are moving away from Facebook and onto newer social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter.

Facebook has never been a popular destination for memes, instead, teens tend to follow meme accounts that serve up fresh content every day.

To that end, one user who has tried out 'LOL' told TechCrunch that the feed is pretty 'cringey,' with many of the memes being days or weeks old.

It's not the first time Facebook has tried to win teens over.

In November, Facebook quietly launched a clone of TikTok, called Lasso, while years earlier, it attempted to rip off Snapchat by debuting apps like Poke and Slingshot.
Scientists in Antarctica have found preserved carcasses of tiny animals in a mysterious lake buried under more than 3,500 feet of ice.

Mercer Subglacial Lake is a hydraulically active lake that lies more 1000m beneath the Whillans Ice Plain, a fast moving section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Researchers managed to drill into the lake for the first time earlier this year, and have now revealed they found signs of life.

According to Nature, researchers found the remains of crustaceans and a tardigrade, or 'water bear' in the icy depths.

They even say life could still exist there.

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Al Gagnon (left) and SALSA Marine Techs Michael Tepper-Rasmussen and Jack Greenberg (center and right) test the WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Gravity Corer that will be used to collect 10-foot and 20-foot sediment cores from Mercer Subglacial Lake. Scientists in Antarctica have finally drilled into a mysterious lake buried under more than 3,500 feet of ice in a bid to find out if life exists there.

WHAT IS LAKE MERCER? The pool of water, known as Subglacial Lake Mercer, covers 160 square kilometres, twice the size of Manhattan. It might be 1015 metres deep Despite temperatures that are likely to stay below 0 C, the lake doesn't freeze, because of the intense pressure from the ice above. Antarctica conceals more than 400 lakes beneath its ice Advertisement

Discovering the animals was 'fully unexpected', David Harwood, a micro-palaeontologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who is part of the expedition  known as SALSA (Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access), told Nature.

The team are unsure how the creatures got there, but one theory is that they inhabited ponds and streams in the Transantarctic Mountains 50km away during brief warm periods, which occurred in the past 10,000 years or 120,000 years ago, and somwhow were transported to Mercer Lake.

However, when the climate cooled, the animals were left trapped in an icy grave.

The pool of water, known as Subglacial Lake Mercer, measures nearly 62 square miles, was discovered more than a decade ago through satellite images but has never been explored.

It is one of 400 lakes beneath the Antarctic ice - and experts say any life there could raise hopes of finding similar organisms deep inside Mars or on the ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

The team now plans to sequence scraps of DNA from the carcasses to work out if the animals are salt or freshwater species.

It could also reveal if they survived in the underwater environment once the ice returned to lock them in.

WHAT ARE TARDIGRADES? Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world. These small, segmented creatures come in many forms - there are more than 900 species of them - and they're found everywhere in the world, from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans. Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world. They have eight legs (four pairs) and each leg has four to eight claws that resemble the claws of a bear. Boil the 1mm creatures, freeze them, dry them, expose them to radiation and they're so resilient they'll still be alive 200 years later. An illustration of a tardigrade (water bear) is pictured Water bears can live through temperatures as low as -457 degrees, heat as high as 357 degrees, and 5,700 grays of radiation, when 10-20 grays would kill humans and most other animals. Tardigrades have been around for 530 million years and outlived the dinosaurs. The animals can also live for a decade without water and even survive in space. Advertisement

The Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) team said it took two days of drilling to reach Mercer Subglacial Lake on Dec. 26.

The team melted their way through an enormous frozen river with a high-pressure, hot-water drill.

'After four days of troubleshooting components that sustained wear and tear from sitting through two winters on ice, the Drill Team began drilling the main borehole on the evening of December 23 and reached the lake faster than expected at 10:30pm on December 26 with a borehole depth of 1084 meters,' it said.

Lead Driller Dennis Duling (right) and PI Brent Christner (left) with the hot water drill moments before it began its 4,000 foot journey downwards to Mercer Subglacial Lake

A team of researchers  which includes 45 scientists, drillers and other staff members  with the organization were able to send an instrument down a borehole the next day.

They will also lower a remotely operated vehicle down the hole to capture more footage and take more extensive measurements.

It is hoped the submersible's three video cameras might capture images of animals that live in the dark water.

'We don't know what's going to be there,' John Priscu, a lake ecologist at Montana State University in Bozeman and leader of the project told Nature.

'That's what makes it so much fun.'

Some of the researchers drilled into a nearby, smaller subglacial pool called Lake Whillans in 2013, and found it teeming with microbes.

A team of researchers  which includes 45 scientists, drillers and other staff members  with the organization were able to send an instrument down a borehole the next day

The pool of water, known as Subglacial Lake Mercer, measures nearly 62 square miles, was discovered more than a decade ago through satellite images but has never been explored.

The group plans to study the depth, temperature and cleanliness of the lake over the next few days.

Part of the drilling process involves sampling the drill water to test its cleanliness.

The water has been tested twice thus far, and both tests showed the water was 'as clean as filtered water can get', in the words of SALSA PI Brent Christner.
Fears that robots will eliminate your job are unfounded with a growing number of employers planning to increase or maintain headcount as a result of automation, staffing company ManpowerGroup said in a survey published on Friday.

The 'Humans Wanted: Robots Need You' report surveyed 19,000 employers in 44 countries and found 69 percent of firms were planning to maintain the size of their workforce while 18 percent wanted to hire more people as a result of automation.

That was the highest result in three years.

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Just 9 percent of employers in the annual survey said automation would directly lead to job losses, while 4 percent did not know what the impact would be.

THE TEN MOST ENDANGERED JOBS FROM AI Telemarketer / telesales Customer support Warehouse workers Clerks and operational staff Telephone operators Teller/cashier Fast food workers Dish washers Assembly line inspector Couriers (Source: Kai-fu Lee) Advertisement

The report went on to say that 24 percent of the firms that will invest in automation and digital technologies over the next two years plan to add jobs compared to 18 percent of those who are not automating.

Just 9 percent of employers in the annual survey said automation would directly lead to job losses, while 4 percent did not know what the impact would be.

'More and more robots are being added to the workforce, but humans are too,' said Jonas Prising, Chairman & CEO of ManpowerGroup.

'Tech is here to stay and it's our responsibility as leaders to become Chief Learning Officers and work out how we integrate humans with machines.'

More than 3 million industrial robots will be in use in factories around the world by 2020, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

The Manpower survey found that 84 percent of firms planned to help their workers learn new skills by 2020, compared to just 21 percent in 2011.

The global talent shortage is at a 12-year-high, with many companies struggling to fill jobs, according to Manpower.

In Germany, where unemployment is at a record low, a shortage of talent was the top concern of small-to-mid-sized companies heading into 2019, according to a survey by the BVMW Mittelstand association.

The Manpower survey found IT skills are particularly in demand with 16 percent of companies expecting to hire staff in IT.

HALF OF CURRENT JOBS WILL BE LOST TO AI WITHIN 15 YEARS Kai-Fu Lee, the author of AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, told Dailymail.com the world of employments was facing a crisis 'akin to that faced by farmers during the industrial revolution.' Half of current jobs will be taken over by AI within 15 years, one of China's leading AI experts has warned. Kai-Fu Lee, the author of bestselling book AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, told Dailymail.com the world of employments was facing a crisis 'akin to that faced by farmers during the industrial revolution.' 'People aren't really fully aware of the effect AI will have on their jobs,' he said. Lee, who is a VC in China and once headed up Google in the region, has over 30 years of experience in AI. He is set to reiterate his views on a Scott Pelley report about AI on the next edition of 60 Minutes, Sunday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m., ET/PT on CBS. He believes it is imperative to 'warn people there is displacement coming, and to tell them how they can start retraining.' Luckily, he said all is not lost for humanity. 'AI is powerful and adaptable, but it can't do everything that humans do.' Lee believe AI cannot create, conceptualize, or do complex strategic planning, or undertake complex work that requires precise hand-eye coordination. He also says it is poor at dealing with unknown and unstructured spaces. Crucially, he says AI cannot interact with humans 'exactly like humans', with empathy, human-human connection, and compassion. Advertisement

In manufacturing and production, where industrial robots are increasingly doing routine tasks, firms expect to hire more people in customer-facing roles that require skills such as communication, leadership, negotiation and adaptability.

Employers in Singapore, Costa Rica, Guatemala and South Africa expected to add the most staff, while firms in Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Norway, Slovakia and Romania predicted a decrease in headcount, the survey found.
New research on a pair of two million-year-old skeletons is helping to solidify the timeline of human evolution.

After two partial skeletons were found at a South African site known as the Cradle of Humankind a decade ago, debate arose as to whether they were from the same species, or represented two distinct human ancestors.

Now, a series of studies meticulously analyzing the remains has finally put the issue to rest.

Despite apparent differences in certain bone structures, researchers say the two skeletons are, in fact, from the same species  they simply represent two different stages of growth.

New research on a pair of two million-year-old skeletons is helping to piece together the timeline of human evolution. An analysis of 135 fossils has revealed that the remains are from two individuals of the same species of human ancestor. A reconstruction of A. sediba is shown

Researchers from several universities published a total of nine papers in a special issue of the journal PaleoAnthropology this month investigating the two ancient skeletons.

The bones of the juvenile male (MH1) and adult female (MH2) were found at the fossil site of Malapa back in 2008.

At the time, discoverer Lee Berger and colleagues named a new hominin species based on the find: Australopithecus sediba.

Several years later, however, a research group suggested the two individuals may not be from the same species, due to differences in their lumbar vertebrae.

An exhaustive analysis of 135 fossils has now allowed researchers to outline the body proportions and walking mechanics of the two long-deceased human ancestors, along with their skull, vertebral column, and other parts.

After two partial skeletons were found at a South African site known as the Cradle of Humankind a decade ago, debate arose as to whether they were from the same species, or represented two distinct human ancestors

And, they say these two individuals were both of the species A. sediba.

Our interpretations in the paper suggest that A. sediba was adapted to terrestrial bipedalism, but also spent significant time climbing in trees, perhaps for foraging and protection from predators, says NYU anthropologist Scott Williams, who focused on the axial skeleton - or, the vertebrae, ribs, and sternum.

This larger picture sheds light on the lifeways of A. sediba and also on a major transition in hominin evolution, that of the largely ape-like species included broadly in the genus Australopithecus to the earliest members of our own genus, Homo.

The bones of the juvenile male (MH1) and adult female (MH2) were found at the fossil site of Malapa back in 2008. At the time, discoverer Lee Berger and colleagues named a new hominin species based on the find: Australopithecus sediba

The bones of the juvenile male (MH1) and adult female (MH2) were found at the fossil site of Malapa back in 2008. The South African site is within a region known as the Cradle of Humankind

WHEN DID HUMAN ANCESTORS FIRST EMERGE? The timeline of human evolution can be traced back millions of years. Experts estimate that the family tree goes as such: 55 million years ago - First primitive primates evolve 15 million years ago - Hominidae (great apes) evolve from the ancestors of the gibbon 7 million years ago - First gorillas evolve. Later, chimp and human lineages diverge A recreation of a Neanderthal man is pictured 5.5 million years ago - Ardipithecus, early 'proto-human' shares traits with chimps and gorillas 4 million years ago - Ape like early humans, the Australopithecines appeared. They had brains no larger than a chimpanzee's but other more human like features 3.9-2.9 million years ago - Australoipithecus afarensis lived in Africa. 2.7 million years ago - Paranthropus, lived in woods and had massive jaws for chewing 2.6 million years ago - Hand axes become the first major technological innovation 2.3 million years ago - Homo habilis first thought to have appeared in Africa 1.85 million years ago - First 'modern' hand emerges 1.8 million years ago - Homo ergaster begins to appear in fossil record 800,000 years ago - Early humans control fire and create hearths. Brain size increases rapidly 400,000 years ago - Neanderthals first begin to appear and spread across Europe and Asia 300,000 to 200,000 years ago - Homo sapiens - modern humans - appear in Africa 50,000 to 40,000 years ago - Modern humans reach Europe Advertisement

According to the researchers, the discrepancies noted in the lumbar vertebrae of the two specimens occur because one was an individual and the other was a fully grown adult.

The differences in these vertebrae can simply be attributed to their developmental age differences: the juvenile individuals vertebrae have not yet completed growth, whereas the adults vertebra growth is complete, Williams said.

As it happens, the two Homo erectus skeletons we have are juveniles, so MH1 looks more similar to them because it too is a juvenile.
A newborn calf spotted among a population of critically endangered killer whales has a good chance of surviving into maturity, scientists say.

Researchers are hoping that the juvenile whale - which has been given a 50 per cent chance of living into adulthood, is a female.

This will give the group the best chance of producing more offspring, they say.

The calf, known as L124, is part of a group of orcas known as the Southern Residents whose population has been shrinking for decades and currently numbers at 75.

Footage captured in recent weeks revealed several groups of killer whales in Puget Sound, near Seattle, including the calf.

Around 50 per cent of newborn calves do not survive their first few years and no calves born to the group since 2015 have grown to maturity.

A severely depleted food source due to salmon fishing off the West Coast of the US is behind the decline, as well as pollution and noise from motorboats, scientists say.



An orca calf that has been described as looking 'healthy' was sighted last Wednesday next to its mother in a pod travelling through Puget Sound near Seattle. Researchers are hoping that the juvenile whale - which has been given a 50 per cent chance of living into adulthood, is a female and will help the pod propagate.

Currently, two other orcas in the group are known to be sick, and researchers feat they could die within months and not survive until summer.

But scientists are nevertheless optimistic about the calf's survival into maturity and have described it as looking 'healthy' so far.

'I wish I could say that the odds are good, but unfortunately, the Southern Residents aren't doing too well right now,' , Melisa Pinnow, a biologist with the Center for Whale Research in Washington State, told the New York Times.

The calf (right), known as L124, is part of a group of orcas known as the Southern Residents whose population has been shrinking for decades and currently numbers at 75.

'In the last three years, every calf that's been born has died and we've had miscarriages as well.'

The sex of the calf has not yet been confirmed but scientists are hoping that it's female.

David Ellifrit, a biologist on the boating trip to get close the whales, said: 'Hopefully it's a female, because we need more reproductive-age females.'

In the 1990s there were nearly 100 orcas in the group and this number has now reduced to 75.

The low number also increase the risk of inbreeding, which could further hurt their long-term survival.

Nevertheless, another addition to the female population would be a boost to reproductive chances and the of survival for the group as a whole.

The new calf's mother is 31-year old mother and has given birth to two calfs in total. Her first was born in 2010 but died the same year, and her second was a female born in 2012 that managed to survive.

The calf, known as L124, is part of a group of orcas known as the Southern Residents whose population has been shrinking for decades and currently numbers at 75. Footage captured in recent weeks revealed several groups of killer whales in Puget Sound, near Seattle (pictured)

In this Jan. 18, 2014, file photo, an endangered female orca leaps from the water while breaching in Puget Sound west of Seattle as seen from a federal research vessel that has been tracking the whales. Two conservation groups say the federal government is violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to consider how salmon fishing off the West Coast is affecting endangered killer whales. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

The main issue for their survival is the depletion of their main food source, the Chinook salmon.

The southern resident population of orcas differ from some of the other orca populations in eating primarily salmon, rather than seals or other marine mammals.

Last summer, the tragic images of a mother Orca carrying her dead calf on her head for 17 days made international news.

Other environmental factors that are contributing to the species decline include sea pollution and loud noise from boat traffic.

WHAT ARE TYPE D KILLER WHALES? These majestic creatures - which were only identified in 1955 - have only been spotted a handful of times in the past 70 years. When they were first discovered after a mass stranding in New Zealand in the 1950s they were thought to be a mutated type of the worldwide orca species. They are so distinct from other orcas some experts believe they should even qualify as their own species. Compared to normal dolphins, these orcas have more bulbous heads and sharper dorstal fins. These majestic creatures - which were only identified in 1955 - have only been spotted a handful of times in the past 70 years The patches over their eyes are smaller than on other species - A, B and C - which are all known to dwell in Antarctic waters. They are especially distinctive due to their small eye patches. They have been seen eating Patagonian toothfish but it is unknown if they exclusively eat fish. Experts believe that if they are a new species they could be the largest undescribed animal left on the planet. Advertisement

The orcas were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2005.

The following year, the fisheries service designated the inland waters of Washington state as critical habitat. The designation means federal agencies must ensure that activities they pay for, permit or carry out do not harm the habitat.

Last month Washington Govnor Jay Inslee announced a $1.1 billion to help the species recover in number as well as a partial whale-watching ban.
Some Android users may have had their 'protected tweets' exposed to the world thanks to a newly-discovered bug on the site.

Twitter revealed the glitch had been found and thought to date back at least four years.

The issue affected some people on Android who had the 'Protect your Tweets' feature switched on, which hides tweets from public view.

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Protect your Tweets' feature is designed to protect tweets from public view and some Android users may have had this on but their tweets still publicly available (stock)

Users on Android are believed to be affected if they ever made changes to their account's settings, such as changing their log on email address.

The problem spanned between November 3, 2014, and January 14, 2019, Twitter revealed.

Writing on its online help page, Twitter stressed that the issue only affected some users of Twitter for Android and not those on Apple's iOS or using Twitter on the web.

'We recognise and appreciate the trust you place in us, and are committed to earning that trust every day,' the company said.

'We're very sorry this happened and we're conducting a full review to help prevent this from happening again.'

Affected users have been notified, but the social network is urging people to review their account's privacy settings as it is not able to confirm every account using Android that may have been affected.

Users on Android are believed to be affected if they ever made changes to their account's settings, such as changing their log on email address. The problem spanned between November 3 2014 and January 14 2019, Twitter revealed

Twitter's admission comes as the company aims to take a more transparent approach, in response to increased scrutiny of tech giants.

In September, the firm's chief executive Jack Dorsey told a US committee looking into the its algorithms and content monitoring that Twitter's systems unfairly filtered 600,000 accounts, including some belonging to members of US congress.

The Twitter boss said the company's algorithms were to blame for hiding some members from its auto-complete search and latest results - an issue it has since fixed.

'In the spirit of accountability and transparency: recently we failed our intended impartiality,' Mr Dorsey said at the time.
Models designed to track a shift in the North Pole have been unable to keep up with its erratic behaviour over recent years, scientists have warned.

Now Donald Trump's government shutdown is compounding the problem by delaying an update to the World Magnetic Model (WMM).

WMM, which provides a five year forecast of changes to the Earth's magnetic field, is used by consumer and military GPS systems to navigate.

The system, last updated in 2015, is already out of date as the field surrounding the magnetic north of the planet is shifting wildly.

Scientists have been working to issue an update before the regular scheduled forecast in 2020.

The initiative has been delayed, however, as experts have been unable to obtain an official stamp of approval from the US Department of Defense.

The US government oversees the project along with the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Scientists have been unable to post vital updates from the World Magnetic Model, which cellphone GPS systems and military navigators use to position themselves. The charts are used to convert between compass measurements of magnetic north and true north

Experts from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who lead the project, put together a new version in recent weeks.

The World Magnetic Model underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.

Over the last 30 years, researchers found the rate of distance that the magnetic north pole moves per year has sped up from around nine miles (15km) per year to 35 miles (55km).

Earlier this month, researchers said the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that they have to fix the model urgently.

The map is updated every five years to accommodate these shifts. The most recent version of the model came out in 2015.

Donald Trump's administration enacted a partial government shutdown in December 2018 when the Senate failed to break an impasse over the president's demand for more funding to build a wall on the US border with Mexico.

Financing for about a quarter of federal programmes  including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Agriculture  have expired and will not be renewed until a deal is done.

'January 30 is only a tentative release date at this point, assuming the government reopens between now and then,' Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA who works on the project, said last week.

'The World Magnetic Model is distributed by NOAA so we need NOAA to reopen first before being able to release the new model,' Chulliat added.

The moving pole affected navigation, mainly in the Arctic Ocean north of Canada.

Armed forces from NATO, the US and the UK are among those using the magnetic model, as well as civilian organisations.
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Spectators around the world can expect to see a trio of celestial events intertwine to create a spectacular total lunar eclipse in the coming days.

The first full moon of the year is known as the Wolf Moon.

When the Earth's shadow completely blankets the moon, this causes its surface to turn red as it enters the planet's shade, known as a Blood Moon.

'This one is particularly good,' said Rice University astrophysicist Patrick Hartigan.

'It not only is a supermoon and it's a total eclipse, but the total eclipse also lasts pretty long.

'It's about an hour.'

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If the skies are clear, the eclipse will be visible in North and South America, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and the French and Spanish coasts. Pictured, photo shows the lunar eclipse from a blood moon (top L) back to full moon (bottom right) in the sky over Frankfurt, Germany, July 27, 2018.

US SET FOR ECLIPSE VIEWING PARTIES In the U.S., the eclipse will begin relatively early Sunday evening, making it easier for children to stay up and enjoy the show. In Pennsylvania, the York County Astronomical Society has invited the public to peer through its observatory's telescopes for a close-up look. In Los Angeles, Griffith Observatory said it was anticipating 'extremely large crowds,' and its website will live-stream a telescopic view of the eclipse. Advertisement

The moon will also be slightly closer to the Earth, causing it to appear brighter than usual, dubbed a Super Moon.

These unique factors, when combined, result in a 'Super Blood Wolf Moon'.

The eclipse should be visible in North and South America, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and the French and Spanish coasts.

In the U.S., the eclipse will begin relatively early Sunday evening, making it easier for children to stay up and enjoy the show.

Plus the next day is a federal holiday, with most schools closed.

But the weather forecast for much of the U.S. doesn't look good.

Parents 'can keep their kids up maybe a little bit later,' said, Hartigan, who will catch the lunar extravaganza from Houston.

'It's just a wonderful thing for the whole family to see because it's fairly rare to have all these things kind of come together at the same time.'

The rest of Europe, as well as Africa, will be able to see a partial view of the eclipse, while Asia, Australia and New Zealand will miss the spectacle.

This will be the last time that sky watchers in the UK will be able to experience a total lunar eclipse until 2029.

HOW TO WATCH THE ECLIPSE The rest of Europe, as well as Africa, will be able to see a partial view of the eclipse, while Asia, Australia and New Zealand will miss the spectacle. This will be the last time that sky watchers in the UK will be able to experience a total lunar eclipse until 2029 The whole eclipse starts Sunday night or early Monday, depending on location , and will take about three hours. It begins with the partial phase around 10:34 p.m. EST Sunday. That's when Earth's shadow will begin to nip at the moon. Totality - when Earth's shadow completely blankets the moon - will last 62 minutes, beginning at 11:41 p.m. EST Sunday. If the skies are clear, the entire eclipse will be visible in North and South America, as well as Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and the French and Spanish coasts. Advertisement

Spectators can expect the Moon to begin to darken slowly before turning red as it becomes completely caught in Earth's shade.

Dr Mark Birkinshaw, a professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Bristol, told MailOnline that the phenomenon is the same reason the sun appears a dark shade of red when it sits low in the sky.

Spectators around the world can expect to see a 'Super Blood Wolf Moon' lunar eclipse which will happen next week. The eclipse should be visible in North and South America, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and the French and Spanish coasts (file photo). The Empire State building is seen as a full moon rises behind the building in New York, United States on January 31, 2018.

'The light that passes through the Earth's atmosphere hits the Moon and then gets reflected back to us, and it will be red,' he said The entire eclipse lasts for more than five hours, ending at 7:48 am.

The peak of the eclipse will occur at approximately 5:12am GMT for viewers in the UK.

The total eclipse is set to last just over an hour, with the partial eclipse visible for almost four hours.

The first full moon of the year is known as the Wolf Moon. When the Earth's shadow completely blankets the moon, this causes its surface to turn red as it enters the planet's shade, known as a Blood Moon. This graphic shows what people around the world can expect to see

North America is in the best position to view a total lunar eclipse for years. It will pass over the continent late on Sunday night, just before the stroke of midnight. The Super Blood Moon rises over buildings in Beijing last year (file photo)

Mathematically, the longest a lunar eclipse could ever last one hour and 47 minutes.

This is the period of totality, where the moon lies entirely in the Earth's full shadow, known as its umbra, causing it to appear red.

North America is in the best position to view a total lunar eclipse for years.

It will pass over the continent late on Sunday night, just before the stroke of midnight.

The entire eclipse lasts for more than five hours, ending at 7:48 am GMT for viewers in the UK. The peak of the eclipse will occur at approximately 5:12am GMT and it will be widely viewable across the western hemisphere (pictured)

From start to finish, the umbral lunar eclipse will last just over three and-a-half hours, with totality accounting for roughly an hour of this time, according to EarthSky. This is when the moon sits in the shadow of our planet, taking on a reddish hue as a result of light scattering

Sometimes the eclipsed Moon is a deep red colour, almost disappearing from view, and sometimes it can be quite bright. This February 1, 2018, image shows a blood moon rising behind St Paul's Cathedral (file photo)

BEST TIME TO SEE THE BLOOD MOON TONIGHT Maximum eclipse will be visible at these times in our capital cities: Adelaide: 8.48pm. Melbourne: 9.18pm Sydney: 9.18pm Brisbane: 9.18pm Hobart: 9.18pm Canberra: 9.18pm Darwin: 8.48pm Perth: 7.18pm The moon will also be slightly closer to the Earth, causing it to appear brighter than usual, dubbed a Super Moon. These unique factors, when combined, result in a 'Super Blood Wolf Moon'. This graphic shows how a lunar eclipse occurs Advertisement

In January, the full moon is also sometimes known as the wolf moon or great spirit moon.

In the UK, the Moon will be above the horizon throughout the eclipse, although from southeast the sun will have risen as it comes to an end.

No equipment is needed to view the event, with the naked eye more than enough to watch the impressive celestial event.

Unlike a solar eclipse, where the moon crosses the path of the sun, it is perfectly safe to look directly at the lunar eclipse.

Americans will be able to watch the start of the eclipse on Sunday evening.

In the Eastern US, the Moon will be even higher, from south Florida it will be almost directly overhead at mid-totality and from New York at mid-eclipse the Moon will be 70-degrees high.

The UK falls slightly outside of the ideal viewing range, meaning people will have to stay up late or wake up very early to see it.

Some parts of the very edge of western Africa will be able to catch a glimpse of the event, while the rest of Europa and Asia will only get to see a partial eclipse towards the end.

HOW TO TAKE A PICTURES OF THE MOON ON ANDROID HANDSETS Android users have similar options available to them as those on iOS, with a choice between the built in camera app and third party software. Here's a step by step-guide for the two methods: Taking a picture of the moon on Android's in-built camera: Each version of Android may be slightly different, as the operating system can be customised by individual handset manufacturers, so instructions may vary. 1 - Turn off the flash in the camera app. The flash will only light up nearby objects and bounce light back into the lens, which could ruin your shot. Tap the flash icon on the side or top of the screen and make sure to select the lightning bolt in a circle with a line going through it  depicting the flash as off 2 - You'll need to zoom in for the best results. If you need to make the moon more prominent in your image, touch the screen using two fingers and use the spread gesture to zoom in or the pinch gesture to zoom out. However, this will reduce the quality of your image, so it is not advisable to overdo it. My attempt at capturing the Wolf Moon last night, these are taken with my phone. Who wants to by me a real camera? #WolfMoon #moon #supermoon #Maine @StormHour @WGME @CharlieWGME @mainetoday pic.twitter.com/31lmhRSWN7  Jan Jensen (@jandavisjensen) January 2, 2018 3 - Many Android phones have a manual mode to drill-down and customise the camera settings. Open the camera app and then tap the three vertical lines icon in the top left corner, then tap manual. 4 - On the left hand-side of the camera interface, you will see a JPG icon. Tap on it and it will switch to RAW JPG. This will allow corrections to be made to the image while keeping a high-quality image after it has been taken. 5 - Change the Exposure Value by tapping the EV option on screen and selecting a low exposure. 6 - Select the ISO option and choose a value of between 80 and 100. 7 - Increase the shutter speed, using the S option on screen, and choose the longest option. This will keep the shutter open for longer, so ensuring the camera is still while the photo is being taken is crucial . 8 - Once you're happy with the way your image appears on the screen, click the circular capture button at the bottom of the app. Using a third-party app to enhance your image: 1 - Go to the Google Play and download a relevant app. Adobe's Lightroom app, which is available for iPhone, lets you enhance photos once they have been taken and get the most out of your Android's camera. 2 - Open the Lightroom App and click on the camera icon in the bottom right hand corner, if you want to use its inbuilt camera. Alternatively, jump to step 7 to alter images taken with the inbuilt Android app. 3 - Make sure sure the File Format is set to DNG rather than JPG. This is an uncompressed raw format, similar to those used by professional photographers, which captures far greater detail. Adobe's Lightroom app, which is also available for iPhone, lets you enhance photos once they have been taken and get the most out of your Android's camera 4 - Reduce the exposure by swiping left with your finger on the image, until the moon looks grey instead of white. If you take this too far, you can increase the exposure by swiping right. 5 - Make sure your flash is turned off by clicking on the lightning icon in the top right hand corner and selecting off. 6 - Once you are happy with the way your image appears on the screen, click the circular capture button at the bottom of the app. 7 - Edit your image within the Lightroom app, which uses technology from Adobe Photoshop to enhance your pictures. This includes increasing clarity and zooming in on an image once it has been taken. To edit your image, click the X button on the camera window, then select the image you wish to edit. A range of tools are then available at the bottom of the screen. Advertisement

During the eclipse, the Moon will still be visible, but in a shade of red which is why a lunar eclipse is often called a 'Blood Moon.'

The red colour is due to the same phenomenon that causes sunsets to appear pink, orange or red.

'A little bit of sunlight is refracted by the Earth's atmosphere and reaches the Moon, bending around the edges of the Earth,' Walter Freeman, an assistant teaching professor at Syracuse University's physics department, told AFP on January 14.

'This small amount of red light still illuminates the Moon enough for us to see it. Instead of being bright and white, the Moon will be very dim and red, 10,000 or so times dimmer than usual.'

Lunar eclipses always happen at a full Moon as this is when it moves behind the Earth and into line with the Earth and Sun.

During the eclipse, the Moon will still be visible, but in a shade of red which is why a lunar eclipse is often called a 'Blood Moon'. Pictured: The Super Blue Blood Moon sets over downtown Los Angeles last year (file photo)
Amazon is launching a new conference focused on robotics, space and artificial intelligence.

The re:MARS conference, which stands for machine learning, automation, robotics and space, is slated to take place at the Aria Resort in Las Vegas on June 4th through the 7th.

It will be open to the public and is set to include 'visionary talks, interactive workshops, technical deep dives, roundtables, hands-on demos, and more,' an Amazon statement said.

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Amazon's re:MARS conference, which stands for machine learning, automation, robotics and space, is slated to take place in Las Vegas on June 4th through the 7th

The conference grew out of a private, invite-only event, called Mars, hosted by Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos in recent years.

'We're at the beginning of a golden age of AI,' Bezos said in the statement.

'Recent advancements have already led to invention that previously lived in the realm of science fiction -- and we've only scratched the surface of what's possible.'

He said the event would bring together 'leaders and builders from diverse areas to share learnings and spark new ideas for future innovation.'

Amazon said the conference would showcase how it is using advanced technologies for its range of services from online shopping to music and video.

Others noted the conference may also help Amazon deflect some criticism around its use of artificial intelligence, including one case where it was found to be biased against women.

Re:MARS will be open to the public and is set to include 'visionary talks, interactive workshops, technical deep dives, roundtables, hands-on demos, and more,' Amazon said in a statement

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took a creepy robotic dog for a walk around his secretive MARS conference in California. Bezos, who is worth a reported 92 billion ($130 billion), posted the photo to his Twitter account last year with the caption: 'Taking my new dog for a walk'

'Machine learning and artificial intelligence are behind almost everything we do at Amazon,' according to the company statement.

'Some of this work is highly visible, such as autonomous Prime Air delivery drones, eliminating checkout lines at Amazon Go and making everyday life more convenient for customers with Alexa.

'But much of what we do with AI and ML happens beneath the surface -- from the speed in which we deliver packages, to the broad selection and low prices we're able to offer customers, to automatic extraction of characters and places from books and videos.'

Attendees will meet Amazon technology engineers and see the Blue Origin rocket capsule developed by the private space firm owned by Bezos.

Amazon said the conference would showcase how it is using advanced technologies for its range of services. Others noted the event may help Amazon deflect some criticism around its use of AI, including one case where it was found to be biased against women

WHO IS JEFF BEZOS? Jeff Bezos is best known as the founder and CEO of online giant Amazon. Born in New Mexico and raised in Houston, Texas, he went on to attend the prestigious Princeton University and graduated in 1986. After a decade or so of work on Wall Street, Mr Bezos founded his own company in 1994. Jeff Bezos was born in 1964 and is founder and CEO of Amazon. He is also the richest person in the world He initially called his company Cadabra, and then reportedly changed the name to Amazon when a colleague misheard it as 'cadaver'. Initially, it was launched as an online book store working out of Bezo's garage in Seattle but rapidly grew to include a variety of goods and services. Now, Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world and the most successful website in the world. In 2018, the company is worth around $900 (691 billion). Mr Bezos himself has an estimated net worth of $150 billion (115 billion). He has bought and accumulated a variety of different companies and outlets including: Whole Foods, The Washington Post, Twitch and IMDB. He has a controlling share of 17 per cent in his first company, Amazon. In 2017, Jeff Bezos surpassed Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world, and the richest person of the modern world. He has been married since 1994 and has four children. Advertisement

Additionally, Amazon is planning to host robotics demos and AI hackathons, as well as sessions focused on Alexa and Amazon Go, the company's cashierless convenience stores.

Speakers will include researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Harvard Berkman Center.

Amazon also noted that astronauts can attend the conference for free.

Registration for Re:MARS opens in March, at which point ticket prices will also be made public, the company said.
Violent action films don't cause more violence among teenagers, according to a new study that claims there is no link between rises in crime and onscreen acts.

Researchers cross-referenced films that depicted violence and crime rates and found no evidence that violence in society was caused by PG-13 rated movies.

The findings come just days Britain's ratings body ruled that under-15s would no longer be able to see films that depict rape and other sexual violence.

It had been thought that violent scenes in movies and TV were becoming increasingly gruesome.

There has been widespread speculation that each generation of viewers become desensitised to onscreen violence which, in turn, fuels crime and murder.

A new study looking at the on screen depiction of guns and gun crime rates found no effect on violence in society by PG-13 rated movies, equivalent to the UK's 12A.

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A new study looking at the on screen depiction of guns and gun crime rates found no effect on violence in society by PG-13 rated movies, equivalent to the UK's 12A rating. The British Board of Film Classification found it to be among parents' main concerns (stock image)

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) surveyed more than 10,000 people and found it to be among parents' main concerns.

Professor, of Psychology Christopher Ferguson at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, who conducted the new research, says the public health threat of violent movies may be 'difficult to substantiate.'

He said: 'Some parents could become desensitised to violence in PG-13 rated movies and, if so, were more likely to bring their children to see such movies, particularly when gun violence appeared to be justified.

'The worry that violence in films cause horrific acts of violence is certainly not new.

'For example, media scholars previously argued that violent portrayals in cinema seem to encourage copycat killings and even that the apparent rise in school shootings coincides with increases in violent films.'

The findings come just days Britain's ratings body ruled that under-15s would no longer be able to see films that depict rape and other sexual violence. A scene from thriller Cloverfield, which was rated PG-13 or 12A, the rating in the UK

It had been thought that violent scenes in movies and TV were becoming increasingly gruesome. There has been widespread speculation that each generation of viewers become desensitised to onscreen violence which, in turn, fuels crime and murder. This image is taken from Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight 18

Scholars have even claimed that 10 per cent of violence in society can be attributed to the impact of violent media.

'Perhaps not surprisingly politicians, the media, and laypersons often grasp onto such statements and assume researchers have actually found a link between violent films and horrific acts of violence,' Professor Ferguson said.

'However claims about the actual public health threat of violent movies may be difficult to substantiate.'

The study suggested that some parents could become desensitised to violence in PG-13 rated movies and were more likely to bring their children to see such movies, particularly when gun violence appeared to be justified. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx pictured in Quentin Tarrantino's Django Unchained, 18

Researchers hypothesised that years in which films were more violent would also exhibit higher rates of violent crime, and that a rise in gun violence depicted in PG-13-rated movies would be associated with changes in gun related homicides. Jamie Foxx pictured in Quentin Tarrantino's Django Unchained, 18

Professor Ferguson added: 'Evidence suggests that edgier, more violent content may increase in PG-13 and PG movies over time.

'This is because PG-13 rated movies may be considered particularly marketable as action-oriented fun but without the graphicness that parents may consider inappropriate for younger children.

'This had been called a 'ratings creep'. However, whether it is an actual problem for public health remains unknown; that's the research gap we aimed to fill in this study.'

He hypothesised that years in which films were more violent would also exhibit higher rates of violent crime, and that a rise in gun violence depicted in PG-13-rated movies would be associated with changes in gun related homicides.

They examined any link between a rise in violence and gun use in PG-13-rated movies with levels of gun related homicide, homicide and aggravated assault in US society.

It looked at data on PG-13-rated movies collected by other researchers during previous research and crime rates from The FBI and other organisations from 1985 to 2015.

It had been thought that violent scenes in movies and TV were becoming increasingly gruesome. Here, a scene from 1996 Quentin Tarantino horror From Dusk Till Dawn. Tarantino has come under fire in the past for his gory scenes in films.

Professor Ferguson said: 'Our analysis of data on violent crime and depictions of violence in PG-13-rated movies shows no evidence of a public health concern.

'Thus, the 'low hanging fruit' argument that suggests parents should reduce their children's exposure to violent movies as a simple way of reducing exposure to risk factors for crime, may cause more harm than good.

'It may distract from the hard work of dealing with real pressing problems by focusing society, parents and policy makers in an illusory simple fix.'

The authors suggested policy makers remain focused on issues that have been demonstrated to impact criminality, such as family environment, mental health, poverty and education.

There is a difference between the US and UK ratings. For example, the US horror flick Cloverfield was rated PG-13 in the US but received a 15 rating in the UK.

The study was published in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly.
A student fashion designer has come up with an ingenious way of dealing with excess packaging in parcels  by using it to make clothes.

Nav Nangla, 23, was furious at seeing the swathes of brown paper stuffed inside a Boots package delivered to his mother.

In frustration, he crafted a shirt made entirely of the cheap material. Mr Nangla then made a pair of shorts with the leftovers.

Mr Nangla's creation highlights the staggering amount of waste used to package parcels and how the advent of 'fast fashion' is impacting the environment.

The aspiring fashion designer revealed legendary TV naturist Sir David Attenborough's documentaries highlighting the plastic scourge inspired his work.

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Nav Nangla, 23, was furious at seeing the swathes of brown paper stuffed inside a Boots package delivered to his mother. In frustration, he crafted a shirt made entirely of the cheap material. Mr Nangla then made a pair of shorts with the leftovers

Mr Nangla, from Kettering in Northamptonshire, last week made a hooded jacket using only bubble wrap from another parcel (pictured: his brother Bobby wearing the garment)

Photos of the unusual attire went viral after the fashion designer posted pictures of them to the closed Facebook group 'The Basement'.

It received hundreds of likes within hours and has now received almost two thousand likes.

It is not the first time the fashion design student at Liverpool John Moores University has crafted garments from unusual materials to highlight the excess and unecessary amount of packaging accompanying delivered goods.

Mr Nangla, from Kettering in Northamptonshire, last week made a hooded jacket using only bubble wrap from another parcel.

Mr Nangla told MailOnline: 'I was really annoyed when the parcel I ordered got delivered to me with so much excess packaging.

'The global fashion industry produced more CO emissions than international flights and maritime shipping combined in 2015, according to a submission to the MPs' inquiry from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

'All I could hear was David Attenborough's voice in the back of my head going on about waste destroying the planet.'

Mr Nangla plans to make more clothes using materials often thrown away in parcels, including more bubble wrap-based garments

The 'works of art', as he describes them, can all be worn. He said the shirt took two hours to make, while the shorts took even less

How does Britain's addiction to clothes affect the environment? Britain's addiction to buying more and more cheap clothes has come under the spotlight in Parliament. MPs on the environmental audit select committee are probing how the 'fast fashion' industry is harming nature. Their latest report warned that pollution caused by synthetic fibres being machine washed and finding their way into the world's oceans. While an eye-watering 400,000 tonnes of clothes are estimated to be d umped in landfill sites in the UK every year. The MPs have voiced their alarm at the environmental fall-out and its chairwoman Mary Creagh has written to leading retailers demanding to know what they are doing to improve sustainability. The global fashion industry produced more CO2 emissions than international flights and maritime shipping combined in 2015, according to a submission to the MPs' inquiry from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. The select committee say they want to protect the lucrative fashion industry in Britain, but tackle the environmental problems it fuels. Advertisement

Mr Nangla admitted the clothes are not practical because of the fragile materials they are made of.

The 'works of art', as he describes them, can all be worn.

He said the shirt took two hours to make, while the shorts took even less.

Mr Nangla plans to make more clothes using materials often thrown away in parcels, including more bubble wrap-based garments.

Excess packaging is being clamped down by firms in a wide range of industries.

Earlier today it was announced by P&G that they are clamping down on plastic containers for detergents and are replacing them with packets that disintegrate when in contact with water.

Food and retail giant Marks and Spencer also revealed they are ditching plastic wrapping in the sale of loose vegetables.

The advent of 'fast fashion' is sending more waste than ever before to landfill and incinerators which is damaging the environment.

Synthetic fibres from cheap clothes have made their way into oceans after being washed out during laundering.

Initiatives from firms such as Patagonia and Asos has brought the issue of fast fashion to the public's attention but it remains a serious issue in the fight against excess waste.
Failure rates in science, tech, maths and engineering (STEM) subjects among poor pupils could be halved by reducing their anxiety levels immediately before exams.

Researchers found that low-income students who adopted strategies to calm their nerves before a science exam were significantly less likely to fail.

Students from low-income backgrounds are much more likely to fail in STEM subjects at school which can prevent them pursuing related careers.

The latest findings suggest that helping highly-stressed students regulate their emotions could lead to better exam performance.

This was achieved by getting students to face their fears and work with stress to boost their performance, rather than worry about it.

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Scientists at Stanford University have shown that by reducing exam anxiety among school students, failure rates in science subjects among disadvantaged pupils could be halved (stock image)

HOW THE STUDY WORKED Over the course of two years, US students aged between 14 and 15 were given strategies to sooth their nerves before high-stake science exams. Students from both low and high income backgrounds were placed into different groups and given different activities Each lasted 10 minutes designed to regulate and help them be more mindful of their anxiety These exercises included writing down their emotions, reading out the positive effects of heightened anxiety on performance, or a combination of the two Compared to a control group, who were told to ignore their feelings, any one of or combination of the activities significantly improved exam results for low-income students The failure rate of students from low-income backgrounds in these exams were cut by half Advertisement

The study, conducted by Stanford University, was carried out on a group of 1,175 freshman science students at a public high school in Illinois, with 285 students coming from a low socioeconomic background.

Almost 40 per cent of low-income biology students at the school were predicted to fail their course.

The lead psychologist on the study, Dr Christopher Rozek, said that feelings of inadequacy in low-income student groups was likely an important factor behind the academic achievement gap.

While psychological interventions won't close the achievement gap purely through better scores, says Dr Rozek, better exam result will give more students the option of continuing their studies in STEM.

'We want more students from low-income families to pursue STEM subjects because it is a fast growing area with high-income salaries', Dr Rozek told Mailonline.

The effectiveness of the strategies could be applied more widely across schools and workplaces, he says.

'Low income students in our study were the lowest performing and highest in anxiety levels  but the strategies could be effective in any context of high stress created by negative stereotypes,' he added.

'These can be used by women, for example, in an academic or work situations that is over dominated by men, including in STEM classes or careers.'

Researchers at Stanford have previously suggested that emotions are important to exam success and that self-regulation and meta-cognition - awareness of one's thought processes - in particular make up the secret to exam success (stock image)

The latest study saw students placed into different groups before a biology exam and given a number of different 10 minute activities designed to regulate fears and reinterpret their anxiety.

One group of students wrote about their fears, intended to clear their head space before the exam.

Another group read a statement which explained how physiological responses to stress, such as a racing pulse or sweaty palms, can be beneficial to the exam process.

The control group were told to ignore their anxiety and students in a fourth group participated in both activities aimed at easing exam anxiety.

The results showed that while the process had no effect on high-income students, low income students benefited significantly from the 10 minute exercise.

Of those who undertook an activity, 81 per cent passed from low-income groups. Of students from the same income group who were told to ignore their emotions, only 61 per cent passed.

Of those who undertook an anxiety calming activity, 81 per cent passed from low-income groups. The same income level students who were told to ignore their emotions, only saw a 61 per cent passed rate.

Getting into STEM careers can significantly improve social mobility and even lead to lucrative careers, experts say.

But poor students are less likely to complete four years of science at school and therefore even likely to major in science and math in college, which prevents them going into STEM related professions in later life.

The results of the study suggest social economic disparities could be reduced through simple and short measures effective at controlling student emotions.

Previous research from Stanford University published in 2017 showed that even a 15-minute hack getting students to think about their revision strategy could turn a B+ grade into a strong A.

The study suggests that it's much more than ability in STEM and how prepared a student is for the exam, emotions are a huge part of academic success in this area.

The full findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The young man who appears on the TV monitor is speaking to us from inside Singapores notorious Changi jail.

He is sporting a prison regulation shaved haircut and a white T-shirt bearing his inmate number (L218032018) and name: Ye Ming Yuen.

Yuen is a convicted drug dealer.

Normally, the Mail would not travel half-way around the world to conduct an interview  via a special video link  with such an individual.

But his story is uniquely compelling and not without mitigating factors.

London-born Ye Ming Yuen, 29, has also been ordered to serve 20 years in jail after being convicted of seven drug offences, including trafficking

Yuen, 29, was born and raised in London where his parents still live. He must also be the first former pupil of 37,000-a-year Westminster School to find himself locked up in top-security Changi.

He has been ordered to serve 20 years after being convicted of supplying cannabis and methamphetamines (crystal meth or ice) to his friends.

Yet, this is not why Yuen is at the centre of a diplomatic row between the UK and Singapore, which traditionally have close ties, or why he agreed to speak to us.

Any day, as part of his sentence, he will be escorted from his cell, taken to a punishment room in the jail, stripped naked and strapped to a wooden trestle.

Two officers will then take it in turns to inflict maximum pain with a 4ft-long rattan cane, about half an inch in diameter, by flogging him 24 times across his bare buttocks, a fate also dished out to murderers and rapists.

Each stroke is called out by the warder: One . . . two . . . three . . . after three strokes it is not uncommon for the prisoner to pass out.

Yuen's judicial corporal punishment  which will be inflicted by a trained caner taught how to cause the most pain possible. Pictured is a Changi prison officer using a dummy to demonstrate how inmates are caned

Yuen will receive little warning of the caning, so he lives in a state of permanent anxiety; he has been prescribed sleeping pills and drugs to stabilise his mood.

Of course, Im scared, he says hesitantly. Ive heard so many horror stories from fellow inmates who have been caned, of scars left on them, of canes breaking during the punishment and having to be replaced and how, after every few strokes, the caner is replaced to ensure each stroke is of the same intensity.

I am preparing for it as best I can. I think about doing breathing exercises between each stroke to help me deal with the pain. I just pray I dont faint half-way through because Ill have to return to finish my punishment later.

I know the skin normally tears after three strokes and that it will be very painful.

His plight, revealed by this newspaper a week ago, prompted Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and his officials to make it clear that Britain strongly opposes the use of corporal punishment.

Yuen (pictured at school), 29, who went to 37,000-a-year Westminster School, will be stripped naked and strapped to a large wooden trestle

In Britain, Yuen could have expected to receive a 12-month sentence at most.

He was a first-time offender and the quantity of drugs seized was relatively small. He was also using drugs himself and might have escaped jail altogether in this country if he had been prosecuted for the lesser offence of possession rather than supply, as is increasingly happening.

But soft justice Britain is in the grip of a violent, and often drug related, crimewave which is claiming young lives on an almost daily basis, whereas Singapore, with its unflinching, uncompromising approach to law enforcement, is one of the safest places in the world.

The treatment meted out to individuals like Ye Ming Yuen, barbaric by western standards, is why many Singaporeans feel they can stroll the streets and ride the subway in comfort and safety at midnight.

On a human level, though, few outside the former Crown colony, in South East Asia, would wish to inflict such retribution on him, on anyone, whatever the circumstances. The perverse twist is that it was the colonial British who introduced caning to Singapore in the first place.

This is the first time Yuen has spoken publicly about his fate. He is allowed two visits from his family and friends per month  a 20-minute face to face meeting in prison (via a telephone through a glass screen. He is not allowed to touch or hug visitors) and a 30-minute tele-visit like this.

Yuen, who has been in Changi since February last year, sleeps on a bamboo mat on the concrete floor of the cell he shares with three other inmates and where he is confined for 22 hours most days; there is no window.

He is woken at 6am and beds down at 9.30pm. He is allowed, twice a week, an additional hour, outside his cell to attend Bible classes. A small selection of books (most recently Game of Thrones) and board games are available to him.

Yuen, who has been in Changi since February last year, sleeps on a bamboo mat on the concrete floor of the cell

Breakfast is white bread and jam, lunch usually rice and curry, with supper a variation of lunch, with meat, or fish and two pieces of fruit, plus the occasional sweet treat.

Changi holds some of the most dangerous criminals in Singapore, an island city-state, including death row prisoners. Yuen originally faced the death penalty (hanging is the method of execution) but the capital charge was dropped because the amount of the drugs involved was below 500g. But Yuen says he feels safe.

The old Changi jail was demolished and replaced with a high-tech mega-prison complex in 2004. Behaviour is monitored by a computer system that detects high intensity and erratic movements  such as a fight.

Many British servicemen were held in Changi by the Japanese in World War II prior to being shipped north in cattle trucks to work on the Thai-Burma death railway, the subject of the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Though conditions have improved, the name Changi remains synonymous with brutality. Between January and October 2016, the latest figures available show courts in Singapore handed down caning sentences to 1,257 criminals, of which 987 were carried out in that time. Many were performed at Changi, where staff, often skilled in martial arts, practise their art on dummies and sandbags.

Yuen must also be the first former pupil of 37,000-a-year Westminster School to find himself locked up in top-security Changi

Yuen made it clear he was seeking justice, not sympathy, and is writing to the president of Singapore to plead for clemency. Look, Ive done wrong and deserve to be punished, he admitted. But my sentence is excessive. I dont want to be here for 20 years. Asked what he thought would be fair, he replied candidly: Eight years and fewer strokes of the cane.

He pointed out that a child rapist sometimes gets 18 strokes and Im getting 24.

Before being detained at Changi, Yuen enjoyed almost rock star status as a club DJ in Singapore. He was known as DJ Ming. The best DJ in Singapore, according to a leading magazine on the island.

Yuens profile picture on Facebook shows him with a carefully gelled quiff, and other photographs on social media, taken on planes and in hotels in Europe and South East Asia, offer a glimpse into his seemingly jet-set lifestyle.

Changi holds some of the most dangerous criminals in Singapore, an island city-state, including death row prisoners

It was a journey which began in south west London, where Yuen lived with his family. He has two sisters; his father, Alex Yuen, is a businessman who, after arriving in the UK from Singapore where he grew up more than 50 years ago, did well enough to send his son to Dulwich prep school then Westminster, where he excelled.

Yuen gained 11 GCSEs  four A*s, six As, and one B. It was also at Westminster, however, that he got in with the wrong crowd (his fathers words).

In 2007, it emerged that Yuen was wanted by Scotland Yard over an alleged forged driving licence ID scam  sold to pupils at other top fee-paying schools so they could buy alcohol and cigarettes. Yuen, then aged 17, ran away to Singapore where his mother comes from, and began working for his uncle, who owned a club.

But a newspaper eventually managed to track him down. I was making about 1,000 a week, but I was just being silly with the money, he was quoted as saying at the time. I spent lots of it on computer stuff and the rest taking my friends out.

During our interview yesterday, Yuen said he actually began dabbling in drugs when he was at Westminster; first cannabis, then cocaine, to give him confidence

Ironically, he said, one of the reasons for going to Singapore was because he thought it would be more difficult to buy drugs.

In 2007, it emerged that Yuen was wanted by Scotland Yard over an alleged forged driving licence ID scam

But despite the island states strict drugs laws, its vibrant nightlife, in which he worked as a resident DJ at many top clubs (Home, Zouk, and most recently, Canvas), introduced him to easily available recreational substances; he was spending about 150 on Ice (methamphetamines) before he went to prison. He said his drug addiction made him forget the importance and love of his family.

My father has just turned 70, he said. I have not seen him for five years. I wonder whether I will ever see him again.

Mr Yuen, who has been refused a visa to visit Singapore, believes his son was the victim of a miscarriage of justice. My son is a criminal, he said. He knows that. He knows he has to serve time. But the issue is his sentence, which is excessive.

The people he was selling drugs to, six or seven friends, were expats and rich Singaporeans who work in the media and advertising, and they are the people who introduced Ming to the drugs, drinking and gambling in Singapore.

He also co-operated with the police by giving them the name of his supplier, which put him at risk of reprisals.

Not everyone will sympathise, but wouldnt any loving father speak up for his son? Mr Yuen is also helping him launch a fresh appeal. I am encouraged that Mr Hunt (the Foreign Secretary) got involved, Yuen said. The British Government and the British High Commission here have been very supportive. They sent me cards and presents at Christmas.

Yuen gained 11 GCSEs  four A*s, six As, and one B. It was also at Westminster, however, that he got in with the wrong crowd

Public opinion, in Singapore has not been on his side. On a Facebook group called Singapore Matters, there was a strong defence of the punishment handed out to Yuen. Dont do drugs and youll be fine, declared one contributor. Another posted: Fantastic! Example of Singapores success at handling drug related offenders! Think twice before doing sh***y business!!!

This is made chillingly clear to anyone visiting Singapore. Stamped on the immigration cards, in red capital letters, it says: WARNING. DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS UNDER SINGAPORE LAW.

Only three months ago, a Malaysian drug trafficker was hanged in Changi prison, and hundreds more have been caned.

Graphic accounts by those who have experienced the ordeal appear in an Amnesty International report. I was shivering and perspiring with fear, recalled one prisoner . . . I screamed and struggled like a mad animal . . . It went on, one stroke, one minute, some lashes fell on the same spot, splitting open the skin even more. I felt giddy and went limp on the trestle at the last stroke.

There is also testimony from a whipping officer who, at one time, was meting out 100 strokes a week. The power behind an ordinary whipping comes from the wrist, arm, shoulder and swing, he wrote.  You have to do it with a lot of power, the harder the better.

Human rights groups say the practice violates international law and breaches the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

Yuen says he is holding up well but is not hopeful of receiving clemency. When I am awake at night I think about my future, he revealed. My 30s will have gone and I may be too old to have children when I come out.

The caning is scary and I dont want it. But Im most concerned about the length of my sentence. You cant get time back.
The man arrested over the 'horrific'murder an Israeli student shared videos of himself rapping online, with lyrics about drugs, loneliness and suicide.

Codey Herrmann, 20, was arrested on Friday at a park in Greensborough, Melbourne after Aiia Maasarwe's half-naked body was found dumped near a shopping centre.

She was killed in what police believe was an opportunistic and random attack after catching a tram at the end of a night out at a comedy show on Tuesday night.

At the time of the murder, Herrmann was on bail for minor property-related charges but has no significant history with police, a Victoria police spokesman confirmed.

In the days prior to Miss Maasarwe's death, the aspiring rapper was very active on social media, posting 18 times in one day last week.

He also posted several videos of himself rapping online. In one video, he can be heard reciting, 'I'm trying to find the way... but I'm blazed, blazed, and I'm to blame for all my mistakes I ever made.'

Codey Herrman, 20, is believed to be have been unemployed and out on bail for minor charges before he was taken into custody

Aiia Maasarwe was killed on Tuesday night after she caught a tram, as she made her way back from a comedy show at North Melbourne's The Comic Lounge

Saeed Maasarwe had planned to travel from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou to visit the Victorian capital city in two weeks and reunite with his daughter

Heartbroken residents gathered at the site of Aiia Maasarwe's murder at Bundoora

In another rap video Herrmann is dressed down and rhyming: 'I'm an animal and I'm uncontrollable when I'm on the microphone.

'You can't stop me because honestly, honesty has got so far from me that I cannot go back to the past.'

In one video posted in October, he sang: 'Suicidal thoughts, yeah Ill walk the line  keeping all the demons in my mind'.

In another, he rapped: 'No-one ever taught me how to live a normal life' and 'you aint going to mess with me'.

Miss Maasarwe had moved to Melbourne on a one-year exchange program to study at La Trobe University.

Her father Saeed had planned to travel from the Chinese city of Guangzhou to visit the Victorian capital city and meet with his daughter.

Instead of the dream reunion he had envisaged, Mr Maasarwe was joined by devastated Melbourne residents in an outpouring of grief at the spot her body was discovered.

Mr Maasarwe said he wanted his daughter to experience new cultures to broaden her horizons.

'She, all the time, smiled. She loved the people,' he said.

'She have very big opinions, the mind open for everything. She liked to study different cultures and different nationalities. She don't come with a locked mind from another culture: She respected all the people.'

What was supposed to be an overdue reunion between father, daughter and Aiia's older sister Noor turned into a tragic nightmare.

Mr Maasarwe had to identify his daughter's body after it was found on Wednesday morning.

Tears for Aiia: Hundreds mourned the murder of an Israeli student on Friday, hours after a 20-year-old man was arrested

Flowers were laid and a candles lit to remember the tragic death of Ms Maasarwe

'I have many dreams to be with her. I want to be with her more time, but someone decided I cannot be,' he said in halted English.

Mr Maasarwe also inspected the tributes left to his daughter at the crime scene and was pictured crying as he admired them.

'I wish, I pray she is in a more nice place than this place, and in the paradise.'

He spent part of the day visiting La Trobe University where a vigil was held for his slain daughter.

'This has given me (a) good feeling, but also from another way, I am sad because this is the last place my daughter  was here,' he said of the makeshift shrine.

'I have many dreams to be with her.'

Mr Maasarwe said he wished to take his daughter's body back to Israel and bury her as soon as possible in line with Islamic culture.

Just four years ago, police issued a missing person's alert after he disappeared from his Bundoora home in Melbourne, The Australian reported.

The prolific Facebook user even posted a fake-wanted poster of himself on his social media account under the name of Kody Wrex, one of his many identities

A week before Ms Maasarwe's body was found, Herrmann also made the post: 'International girl of mystery You knows who you are'

Just hours after the body of Ms Maasarwe was discovered, Herrmann took to Facebook to share a photo of himself holding a can of Jack Daniels.

The photo was posted next to an older one of himself as a baby and captioned, 'b4 An afta'.

A week before, Herrmann took to Facebook to say: 'International girl of mystery You knows who you are.'

The prolific Facebook user even posted a fake-wanted poster of himself on his social media account under the name of Kody Wrex, one of his many identities.

'Greenzy's most wanted,' was written in the January 11 post.

He posted a meme on the same day encouraging people to treat each other fairly.

'Being raised right is how you treat people, your manners and respect'.

Herrmann also discussed his mental health struggles on the social media site.

In another rap video Herrmann is dressed down and rhyming, 'I'm an animal and I'm uncontrollable when I'm on the microphone'

A friend said Herrmann was frequently spotted around the Bundoora area

Ms Maasarwe had spent the night at a comedy club before boarding the 86 tram from Bourke Street, heading to her home in Bundoora. She left the tram around midnight. Her body was discovered in scrub, nearby, the next day

A January 10 post read, 'Shoutout to all the men going through a lot, with no one to turn to, because this world wrongly taught our males to mask their emotion & that strong means silent.'

The self-proclaimed rapper went by the name of MC Codez on top of others like Codey Kulla Kulla.

Herrmann attended Bundoora Secondary College until 2016, and it is believed he was couch surfing around the time of Ms Maasarwe's death, The Age reported.

A friend said they frequently spotted him around the Bundoora area.

'He was on the 86 tram a lot. He was always on foot, I never saw him transport in any other way. Trams and buses.'

A 20-year-old man (above) has been arrested over the horrific murder of Aiia Maasarwe, 21 - who was killed in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora after getting off a tram on Tuesday night

The arrested man (pictured) was allegedly in a park with a woman, with one witness claiming she had a 'gut instinct' to call police but when she looked again officers had already converged

A former schoolmate said she saw Herrmann a week ago on a street only kilometres away from the murder site of Ms Maasarwe.

At the time, Herrmann seemed disoriented.

On top of that, he was seen walking into oncoming traffic.

The former schoolmate said it looked like Herrmann had a complete disregard for life.

Schoolmate Tim Kefa said Herrmann spiraled into drug and alcohol abuse following his junior years, while others say he was quiet and withdrawn.

Earlier on Friday, the 20-year-old man was arrested in Greensborough at a picnic shelter positioned close to a children's park which is a known hang out for youths to smoke drugs.

He was found by police in a shelter with a woman and a group of young men.

Neighbours said they saw plain clothes and uniformed police arrest the man about 11.20am after approaching him while he was in a rotunda at Pioneer Park.

Herrmann was arrested at a park in Greensborough on Friday and remains in custody

The shelter is a known hang out for local youths who smoke drugs

Tracey Neus said she saw the woman and had a gut instinct to call police.

But when she looked again, police had already converged on the location.

Shane Cairns said he was shaken to learn about the person's presence.

'I'm just shocked. We thought they would have just been some kids,' he said.

Up to eight police were involved in the arrest, the couple said.

He was identified as a person of interest after police forensically tested a hat and blood-stained T-shirt left at the crime scene, it is understood.

'The 20-year-old was arrested in Greensborough by local police working in partnership with homicide detectives about 11.20am,' police said in a statement.

Scene of the crime: Aiia Maasarwe's partially naked body was found in scrub (pictured) near where she got off a tram the night before

It is understood the man, 20, was identified as a person of interest after police forensically tested a hat and blood-stained T-shirt (above) left at the crime scene

Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said it was believed to be a 'random attack' carried out by someone who was 'opportunistic'.

'This was a horrendous, horrific attack inflicted on a completely innocent young woman who was a visitor to our city,' he said.

Forensic officers were combing through a derelict property in the same suburb where the 20-year-old was arrested on Friday evening, according to The Age, and carrying evidence out of the building.

A Grimshaw Street property has been taped off and it is believed squatters used the graffiti-marked place.

Aiia's final moments: Tuesday Aiia was at the The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne 11pm: Her friends dropped her to the tram stop Aiia caught the 86 tram from a Bourke Street stop, heading home Midnight: Aiia got off the tram in Bundoora, about a kilometre from her home Wednesday 7am: Her body is found in scrub near the tram stop and Polaris shopping centre Friday Aiia's father Saeed said he 'dreamed to be with' his daughter and looked at tributes left at the crime scene in her memory 11am: Codey Herrmann, 20, is arrested Advertisement

The case bears similarities to the rape and murder of 22-year-old comedian Eurydice Dixon who was attacked in June while walking home from a gig in Melbourne.

Australia's human rights commission said the country has a 'a disturbingly high rate of violence against women'.

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at LaTrobe University.

The 21-year-old was so scared of the walk from the tram stop to her student accommodation she would call one of her sisters while walking to feel safer, a family member told The Australian.

She was heading home from a comedy gig and was on a FaceTime call with her sister when she was attacked and the phone suddenly dropped, her uncle Rame Masarwe said.

Ms Maasarwe's sister was still on the phone and heard the entire attack unfold, her uncle said.

'She seemed very happy. Then the phone fell down, she heard voices. The phone was on.'

Final moments: Ms Maasarwe getting off the tram before she was killed

Ms Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city.

She likely got off the tram in Bundoora near where her body was found, about a kilometre from her student accommodation.

Homicide detectives released CCTV images of Ms Maasarwe in the aftermath of her death, which show the clothing she was wearing that night, in the hope someone saw her and can help police track her exact movements.

Police said in the days after Ms Maarsarwe's death they were investigating if the student was stalked from the tram and were scouring a list of known sex offenders as an 'active line of inquiry'.

On Friday Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked about the attack while in Fiji. He told reporters: 'It is just so shocking.'

The Prime Minister said his heart went out to Ms Maasarwe's family, though he can't begin to think of what he would say to them.

'I know what I'm thinking about her attacker. I expect it's the same thing that all other Australians are thinking today,' he said.

The Prime Minister stressed everyone in Australia should be able to travel home safely and that the government must remain 'forever vigilant' to the issue of violence against women.

Aiia Maasarwe's (left, with a friend) partially naked body was found by window washers in scrub outside the Polaris shopping centre on Main Drive near Plenty Road in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora at 7am on Wednesday
Former President George W. Bush served up some outside political pressure, calling on 'both sides' to end the government shutdown as he shared an image of himself serving pizza to Secret Service agents.

Bush generally seeks to avoid getting entangled in day-to-day politics, but decided to jump in to shutdown politics as the partial closure of the federal government hit its 28th day.

He tweeted an image of himself carrying pizza boxes to his detail, and attached a message other leaders to 'put politics aside.'

GIVE PIECE A CHANCE: President George W. Bush called on leaders on 'both sides' to 'end this shutdown'

'@LauraWBush and I are grateful to our Secret Service personnel and the thousands of Federal employees who are working hard for our country without a paycheck,' he wrote.

'And we thank our fellow citizens who are supporting them. Its time for leaders on both sides to put politics aside, come together, and end this shutdown.'

Bush didn't mention either President Trump, who is demanding $5.7 billion for a border wall, or Demoratic leaders Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Sen. Charles Schumer by name.

Bush didn't mention either party by name, nor did the Texan mention President Trump's demand for a border wall

President Donald Trump is demanding $5.7 billion for a border wall. Democrats are refusing, and urging him to sign stand-alone bills to open the government

Bush intervened a day after Trump withdrew the military plane for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's planned congressional delegation to Afghanistan. Pelosi told Trump the shutdown should require a postponement of his State of the Union address

Former U.S. President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush attend a memorial service for former President George H.W. Bush in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda December 03, 2018 in Washington, DC

As President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act  but also pushed for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Trump recently stated that a former U.S. president had privately told him they should have built a border wall  but all four living presidents including the office of Bush denied having done so.

'George W. Bush has not discussed the wall with Trump' said spokesman Freddy Ford said this month after Trump's claim that 'some of them have told me that we should have done it.'

Bill promoted but failed to enact a 'comprehensive' immigration plan that would have provided a path to citizenship for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, while beefing up Border Patrol and security on the border.

A core hangup to solving the shutdown is the difficulty in finding a traditional split-the-middle solution as is sometimes possible in spending fights.

Trump made a wall a centerpiece of his campaign, and his rallies where he skewered Democrats as favoring 'open borders' and accused them of being pro-crime also featured chants of 'Build the Wall!'

Pelosi has called the wall 'immoral' and has said Trump is pushing for it for personal political reasons, even privately connecting it to his 'manhood.'

A compromise that gave Trump substantial wall funding could easily antagonize Democratic voters who want the president impeached, while if Trump abandoned his demand his base voters could be disappointed.
The Queen was spotted driving her Range Rover without a seatbelt a day after Prince Philip's crash.

The 92-year-old monarch drove on a public road in Sandringham yesterday little more than a mile from the scene of her husband's accident.

She learned to drive with the Army in 1945, before she became Queen, and does not need a licence.

Under UK law it is compulsory to wear a seatbelt if there is one fitted but the Queen is immune from any civil or criminal proceedings.

The Queen was spotted driving her Range Rover without a seatbelt a day after Prince Philip's crash, little more than a mile from the scene of her husband's accident

Buckingham Palace insisted the monarch was careful to ensure she privately complied with the law.

The Duke of Edinburgh visited hospital in King's Lynn after the 97-year-old's Land Rover was struck and flipped over by a Kia.

The two women involved in the crash, the driver aged 28 and a 45-year-old passenger, were taken to hospital, one with a broken wrist, but later discharged.

'The Royal website says: 'While no longer administering justice in a practical way, the Sovereign today still retains an important symbolic role as the figure in whose name justice is carried out, and law and order is maintained.

'Although civil and criminal proceedings cannot be taken against the Sovereign as a person under UK law, The Queen is careful to ensure that all her activities in her personal capacity are carried out in strict accordance with the law.'

The baby in the car, who was rescued from the Kia's back seat, appears to have been unhurt.

The Duke has made contact with the driver and passenger of the other car and exchanged 'well wishes' with them, Buckingham Palace said.

However he is now facing a police probe over the accident and could be forced to surrender his driving licence.

Norfolk Police said the force would investigate the crash, meaning the duke is likely to be interviewed by officers.

The Queen at the wheel of her Range Rover. She learned to drive with the Army in 1945, before she became Queen, and does not need a licence

Buckingham Palace is under pressure to intervene over Prince Philip's determination to keep driving despite a horror smash near Sandringham (pictured)

A statement said: 'As is standard procedure with injury collisions, the incident will be investigated and any appropriate action taken.'

When asked if Philip had ever passed a driving test, a royal spokesman made no comment.

It also emerged that in the aftermath of the accident, Philip was able to walk over and ask the occupants of the other car: 'Is everyone else alright?'

It is thought that his Land Rover may have been armoured, which could have helped protect him.

Retired barrister Roy Warne and grandfather Glenn Watson bravely rushed to help Philip out of the wreckage.

Mr Warne said: 'I was driving home and I saw a car  a black Land Rover  come out from the side road on the right and there was a huge collision with another car.'
A Democratic U.S. senator on Friday asked the FBI to probe whether Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen committed perjury when she testified to Congress that the administration never had a policy to separate immigrant families.

Senator Jeff Merkley has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration's moves last year to target immigrant families crossing into the United States for enforcement actions.

The administration implemented a 'zero tolerance' policy to criminally prosecute and jail all illegal border crossers, including those traveling with their children, leading to a wave of family separations last year.

The policy and disturbing images of young of children being held in cages sparked a public backlash, causing the administration to subsequently change course on family separation. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end the practice on June 20, 2018.

Perjury? Kirstjen Nielsen's denial to Congress that there was a policy to separate immigrant children from their parents who crossed the border illegally should be probed by the FBI as a lie, Jeff Merkley, Oregon Democratic senator, demands

Ordeal: This picture of children at Rio Grande Valley Centralized Processing Center in Rio Grande City, Texas, was one of the images which led to calls for the zero tolerance policy to be ended

Outcry: The policy of separating all children from the adults they crossed the border with illegally led to outrage at children being held in cages, leading to the Trump administration to end the policy. But the watchdog says separations continued afterwards

In his letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Merkley noted emerging evidence that the Department of Homeland Security, as far back as December, 2017, had been developing a new policy to separate families.

Merkley released a memo on 'Policy Options to Respond to Border Surge of Illegal Immigration,' which he said was created by senior Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice officials discussing family separation as a deterrent for migrants.

Yet, the senator from Oregon noted, during testimony to the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Dec. 20, 2018, Nielsen said, 'I'm not a liar, we never had a policy for family separation.'

The FBI declined to comment and DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Thursday it had identified 'thousands' more separated children in addition to the 2,737 included as part of lawsuit challenging family separations brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) last year.

The auditor said in a report that prior to the officially announced 'zero tolerance' policy, the government began ramping up separations in 2017 for other reasons related to a child's safety and well-being, including separating parents with criminal records or lack of proper documents.

Trump campaigned for president on a promise to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs over the southwestern U.S. border with Mexico.

His demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall on the border with Mexico has led to the longest-ever partial government shutdown, now in its 28th day.
A family desperate for answers is hoping a Barbie doll left on the grave of a young girl will offer some clues in her cold case rape and murder.

On Thursday, which would have been Rosie Tapia's 30th birthday if she had not been brutally murdered at age six, the Utah Cold Case Coalition held a press conference in Salt Lake City.

The coalition, made of attorneys and private investigators, revealed that soon after Rosie was killed on August 13, 1995, someone left a Barbie doll on her grave.

Though they wouldn't reveal their reasons, they believe that the doll is suspicious, and may have been placed by someone with a fixation on Barbies.

Rosie Tapia was six years old when she was abducted, raped and murdered in August 1995

Investigators are seeking any information about who placed this 1994 Barbie Pretty Hearts doll on Rosie's grave soon after her murder, and plan to run DNA tests on the doll

Rosie's gravesite is seen above. The doll was found there not long after her murder, and investigators have reason to believe that there is something suspicious about it

'I can just say there were two things, two factors about the Barbie doll that led us to believe it needed to be tested, and I can't go into any further detail than that. Sorry,' attorney Karra Porter, head of the coalition, said at the press conference.

The Barbie is a 1994 Pretty Hearts model, and has been kept in a glass case memorial in the 22 years since it was found, potentially preserving the DNA of the person who placed it at the grave.

With the help of Francine Bardole, a forensics analyst with the West Jordan Police Department, the coalition used a new technique to extract testable amounts of DNA from the Barbie.

Now, the nonprofit group said it is willing to pay for a private lab to test the DNA.

However, they wanted to let the public know about it first to give the person who put the Barbie on Rosie's grave time to come forward first, Porter said.

Rosie would have turned 30 years old on Thursday, but her life was cut tragically short

'I'm hoping the Lord will let me live until we find the person who took my daughter,' Rosie's mother Lewine Tapia (above) said at the press conference on Thursday

Rosie's mother Lewine Tapia was present at the press conference and made an emotional plea for anyone with information to come forward.

'I'm hoping the Lord will let me live until we find the person who took my daughter,' she told KSTU-TV.

Rosie was abducted from her bedroom in the Hartland Apartments at 1616 Snow Queen Place in Salt Lake City between 1am and 4am on August 13, 1995.

Her body was found several hours later in a canal off the Jordan River.

Rosie's older sister Emilia Eliendo, who was 18 at the time, reported a strange encounter hours before the murder.

Rosie was abducted from her bedroom between 1am and 4am on August 13, 1995

Police previously released this sketch of a man seen with Rosie before her disappearance

The killer took the girl from her bedroom in the Hartland Apartments (above) at 1616 Snow Queen Place in Salt Lake City

Her body was found in this canal off the Jordan River a few hours later

The sister said that around 7pm on August 12, she saw an unknown man with Rosie from her apartment window.

She ran to the door of the apartment and grabbed her from him, and he told her that he was bringing her home after she was hurt on the slide.

But Rosie had no injuries, and the child was unable to explain how the stranger knew her name. Eliendo suspected that the man had created a ruse to discover where the girl lived.

Police released a sketch of man, who was wearing a hat and sunglasses at the time.

Anyone with information about Rosie Tapia's murder or the Barbie left at her grave is urged to contact the Utah Cold Case Coalition anonymously at 385-258-3313.
A Florida man has been charged with raping and battering a pregnant woman after allegedly getting into a fight with her while he was drunk.

Clifton Dwayne Rushing, 36, of Alachua County, Florida, was arrested Tuesday and charged with aggravated battery on a pregnant woman in the second degree and sexual assault in the first degree.

The arrest stems from an incident which occurred on December 30, when Rushing allegedly returned to his home while drunk and started fighting with a pregnant woman who lived with him, according to the Gainesville Sun.

Clifton Dwayne Rushing, 36, faces aggravated battery and sexual assault charges after allegedly beating and raping a woman he lived with who was 13 weeks pregnant at the time

Police said the incident started when Rushing, who was allegedly drunk at the time, started a fight with the woman on December 30. He is now being held on a $510,000 bond

Police said that during the fight, Rushing punched the woman in the face multiple times, bit her, kicked her and slammed her head against a bathtub, which left her with a deep cut above her right eye.

Rushing then allegedly said that he was going to 'make her have a miscarriage' and raped her.

The woman, who is not being named, was 13-weeks pregnant at the time of the alleged assault.

The warrant for Rushing's arrest was issued on New Year's Eve.

Rushing is now being held in jail with a $510,000 bond, according to online jail records.

He is also said to be facing a charge related to withholding child support payments.
A police investigator has been fired and another has resigned for overlooking evidence which may have saved the life of a teenager who was raped and murdered.

Hania Noelia Aguilar, 13, was brutally killed in November.

Michael Ray McLellan, 34, has been charged with kidnapping her from her North Carolina home, raping her and then murdering her.

He has not yet entered a plea. He is accused of forcing the teenager into a vehicle after she left her home in Lumberton, North Carolina, in November.

Hania Noelia Aguilar, 13, was brutally killed in November after being kidnapped from her home in North Carolina

Darryl McPhatter (left) was fired and Major Anthony Thompson (right) resigned on January 9

Hania's body was found in a wooded area three weeks later. McLellan was arrested after police matched DNA found at the scene to his profile.

It has since emerged that police had DNA which linked him to a 2016 rape but that he was never arrested for it.

The revelation prompted Robeson County Sheriff to launch an internal investigation.

On Thursday, the sheriff announced that investigator Darryl McPhatter had been fired for his role in the investigation.

Another cop, Major Anthony Thompson, resigned January 9.

'The dedicated men and women of the Robeson County Sheriff's Office are proud public servants.

'My expectations of them are to serve the public with the utmost respect and to the best of their ability as trained law enforcement professionals,' Robeson County Sheriff Burnis Wilkins, Jr said in an online statement.

'It angers me and I've got to deal with it.

Michael Ray McLellan, 34, has been charged with kidnapping her from her North Carolina home, raping her and then murdering her

'To know that that happened, to know the reports didn't follow the proper channels, that further investigation wasn't done, interviews weren't done properly -- I have a major issue with that,' he added in a recent interview with ABC 11.

An email which described the DNA evidence from the 2016 rape was sent the sheriff's office by the DA in 2017.

But rather than issue a warrant, find him and test his DNA against it, it 'slipped through the cracks.'

'I don't know what happened, if it got lost at the sheriff's department, if it got buried on somebody's desk, if it got placed in records division there and just vanished.

'In all likelihood, had this gone forward and we established a case against him at that time, Hania would not have died.

'And for that, I can't tell you how much that hurts, I can't tell you how sorry I am,' Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt said in December.
A young Marine was killed in Indiana when a wheel flew off another vehicle and crashed into her pickup truck, state police said.

Lance Corporal Olivia Kustes, 18, from Rineyville, Kentucky, died Wednesday after a wheel from a pickup truck fell off the vehicle and barreled into her truck after crossing a median on I-65 in southern Indiana.

Police say a commercial vehicle driver, Alvin Logan, maneuvered his semi-trailer in front of Kustes' truck to slowly bring it to a stop.

Lance Corporal Olivia Kustes, 18, (pictured) died Wednesday after a wheel from a pickup truck fell off the vehicle and barreled into her truck after crossing a median on I-65 in southern Indiana

Investigators attend the scene of the crash to carry out examinations and remove the pickup

Kustes was pronounced dead at the scene from her injuries. The driver of the other truck, a GMC pickup, was not arrested nor given any citations, the Indianapolis Star reported.

It is understood that Kustes was on leave because of the death of her grandmother at home in Rineyville on December 16.

Even though she was on bereavement leave, Kustes continued her duties as a Marine. She was scheduled to return to active duty on January 23.

A post on Louisville Marines Facebook page said that she loved animals and she was home as part of the Marine Corps Recruitment Assistance Programme.

He told Wave3 News: 'She was a lot more than an 18-year-old driver. You see somebody who is serving their country and as police officers we dedicate our lives to helping others as well, you see somebody who has stepped up and it just touches you'.

'She was a lot more than an 18-year-old driver'. While she was in high school, she visited the Marine Corps recruiting office in Elizabethtown.

Staff Sergeant Jason Almodovar was the substations staff non-commissioned officer at the time.

Friends claimed Olivia Kustes (pictured) was a determined young lady 'who would conquer any obstacle in front of her'

It is understood that Kustes was on leave because of the death of her grandmother at home on December 16

He told Wave3 News: 'Her physical fitness was very low. She ran a mile and a half in 18 minutes. She had to almost cut that in half to meet the standards to become a United States Marine. Not everybody can do that.

However she managed to last the pace and completed bootcamp in Parris Island in December 2017.

'I was super proud of her. No matter what obstacle was in front of her she was going to conquer it. She was going to find a way and she was going to conquer it'.

A wheel from another car flew off another vehicle and crashed into her pickup truck

Kustes went on to train in North Carolina, Florida, and Arkansas until she was stationed in North Carolina.

She was scheduled to go back to her base on January 23, a week after the accident that ended her life.

'Moving forward, I dont know. Its the first time Im going through something like this. Its a learning experience for everybody'.

Gunnery Sergeant Paul Borrero said Kustes was like a little sister. He believes she was drawn to the Marines because she was searching for a family like bond.

Gunnery Sergeant Paul Borrero said Kustes was like a little sister. He believes she was drawn to the Marines because she was searching for a family like bond

She was scheduled to go back to her base on January 23, a week after the accident that ended her life. Seen above in a Facebook photo

It is understood that Kustes was on leave because of the death of her grandmother at home in Rineyville on December 16

'I think thats what she was really striving for. She wanted to be a part of something where she could be selfless, which she was.

'We had many conversations about that. When you grow up, youre looking for family but when youre looking for something extra or something bigger than yourself, the ability to say 'hey, I did that.'

'Forever and always I will always be remembered as a United States Marine'.
Youseff Amroche, 37, is pictured Friday in Manhattan Criminal Court, where he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of attempted assault in connection to a domestic violence incident

The husband of a UK diplomat who was accused of domestic violence against his wife stemming from her choice of outfit has avoided jail time after pleading guilty to a reduced charge.

Youseff Amroche, 37, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of attempted assault in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday.

Amroche, who is a Moroccan national, agreed to enter a treatment program as part of a plea agreement with the prosecution.

Amroche's attorney said his client plans to return to his native country next month, reported the New York Post.

The presiding judge said he will be allowed to bid farewell to his children before his departure, but he must stay away from his wife, who has an order of protection out against him.

Amroche, who is a Moroccan national, agreed to enter a treatment program and was spared jail time as part of a plea agreement

Prosecutors said Amroche beat up his wife, who works for a UK diplomat at the UN, because he did not like her outside

Amroche was not arrested until the UK agreed to strip him off his diplomatic immunity two weeks after the attack

Prosecutors said that on December 8, 2018, Amroche attacked his wife at the couple's home in Midtown Manhattan because he was allegedly angry over the clothes she had worn during a night out.

He slapped her, put her in a headlock and dragged her around their apartment.

The attack left the victim, who works as a secretary for a British diplomat at the United Nations, with redness and swelling to her face.

Amroche was initially not arrested or charged because of his wifes diplomatic immunity, which extended to him as well, but in a rare move, the UK authorities rescinded this protection allowing criminal proceedings against him to be go forward two weeks later.

Diplomatic immunity can prevent domestic law enforcement from prosecuting diplomats living in that country.

Following his arrest, Amroche was charged with felony assault, which was later reduced to a misdemeanor due to what a prosecutor described as insufficient evidence.
Jason Van Dyke, the former Chicago police officer convicted of fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014, has been sentenced to six years in prison.

At his sentencing hearing Friday he was given 81 months behind bars - equal to six years and nine months - and two years supervised mandatory release.

It was somewhat a victorious day after a long history of white law enforcement officers in wrongful death cases involving black men in the United States.

His earlier conviction was a move forward where others had not been convicted, but the murdered boy's family and community activists were unsatisfied with the judge's focus on the second-degree murder charge, which carried a lesser punishment.

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Jason Van Dyke said minutes before his sentencing: 'The last thing I wanted to do was shoot Laquan McDonald.' He said he 'prayed daily for the soul of Laquan McDonald'

His attorney said after the six-year sentencing that it was the first time he'd seen Van Dyke 'happy about the prospect of life ahead of him'

Former Chicago police Officer Van Dyke is taken from the courtroom after his sentencing

He was sentenced for the October 2014 murder of black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald

'I assume 100 percent of people will be disappointed,' Judge Vincent Gaughan said.

With good behavior Van Dyke, 40, could be released in three years due to the second-degree nature of the charge. He has already served three months of his sentence so could be 43 when he's free again.

Laquan's great-uncle Marvin Hunter said it was the sentence for a 'second-class citizen'.

'Thats a slap in the face, to us, and a slap on the wrist to him,' activist William Calloway said.

Various mayoral candidates shared the same sentiment that the sentencing was too soft.

McDonald was seen crumpling to the ground in a hail of 16 bullets as he walked away from officers in shocking dashcam footage that stoked outrage nationwide

Van Dyke's attorney Daniel Herbert, said after the sentencing it was the first time he'd seen his client 'happy'. He explained: 'He was happy about the prospect of life ahead of him.'

Van Dyke was described as feeling 'relieved' knowing he's going to be a part of his loved ones lives. The attorney said he spoke to Van Dyke for three or four minutes after the verdict and the pair hugged in a 'special' moment that made the legal rep 'feel good'.

He added that his clients experience 'racist' language in protesters' signs about him and said it was a impossible to get a fair trial in Cook County because the case was '99 percent against them' considering the history of African Americans killed by the police.

Chicago police were overseeing the approximately 30 people protesting but no problems were reported.

Comparing the shooting to doctors making mistakes on the operating table and said: 'Are we going to start criminalizing people based on mistakes?'

Family members of Laquan McDonald, including his grandmother (center) leave the sentencing hearing for former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke

Laquan's great-uncle Marvin Hunter said it was the sentence for a 'second-class citizen'

Laquan McDonald's great uncle reacts to the sentence for former CPD officer Jason Van Dyke, who was found guilty of second-degree murder. "This sentence represents the sentence of a second-class citizen. It reduced Laquan McDonald's life to a second-class citizen." pic.twitter.com/S3pmoqSZht  Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) January 19, 2019

Earlier in the press conference he said the victim had 20 minutes to put down his knife and said he had a long history of offenses.

The defense wanted Van Dyke to be sentenced for the second-degree murder charge, partly because it carries a shorter mandatory minimum prison term of four years.

Prosecutors wanted the judge to focus on the 16 aggravated battery counts. Each carries a mandatory minimum prison term of six years and sentences for each count may have had to be served consecutively instead of concurrently.

Van Dyke - the first Chicago officer to be charged with murder for an on-duty shooting in about 50 years - got off lightly after the 16 counts of aggravated battery for each time he shot McDonald, were given less weight.

'Thats a slap in the face, to us, and a slap on the wrist to him,' activist William Calloway said

A man with a Pan-African flag appeared outside court Friday. A protester held an image of Martin Luther King Jr.

Dyke's attorney said protesters held 'racist signs' outside the courtroom Friday

No incidents were reported as Chicago police oversaw the protesters

If the aggravated battery counts were given as much weight Van Dyke was expected to be sentenced anywhere from 18 to 20 in prison. But the state could have allowed up to 96 years, six years for each gunshot.

Van Dyke said minutes before his sentencing: 'The last thing I wanted to do was shoot Laquan McDonald.'

He added after his attorneys and prosecutors summed up their cases that he has 'prayed daily for the soul of Laquan McDonald'.

'As a God-fearing man and father, I will have to live with this for the rest of my life, taking this to my grave,' he added in the appearance where he wept.

The embattled South Side cop wore a yellow jail jumpsuit and an unruly beard as he faced Judge Vincent Gaughan. His wife and two daughters were present at the hearing.

The 17-year-old was seen crumpling to the ground in a hail of 16 bullets as he walked away from officers in shocking dashcam footage that stoked outrage nationwide.

Judge Vincent Gaughan first heard legal arguments about which is the more serious charge against Van Dyke. In Illinois, judges are typically required to sentence defendants for the most serious crime for which they're convicted.

Former police Officer Van Dyke and his attorney Daniel Herbert (R) listen to the proceedings

Dyke's attorney said it had been impossible for them to get a fair trial in Cook County

January 17, 2019  Mayoral candidate Amara Enyia releases statement on Jason Van Dyke Cover-Up Verdict: pic.twitter.com/sfOglXWRZk  Amara for Chicago (@amaraforchicago) January 17, 2019

Mayoral candidate Willie Wilson at former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke's sentencing

After that legal issue was settled, attorneys called a dozen witnesses to make the case for aggravating or mitigating circumstances before making the final arguments.

Tiffany Van Dyke complained of how her husband was simply doing his job on the night the teenager was murdered.

'My life has been a nightmare,' she said. 'My life has been turned upside down, inside out. My husband is not with me.'

She added testimony on the inconvenience of having to wear a bullet-proof vest and spending $400 to $500 each week so her children could speak to their dad in jail.

Explaining intentions to appeal, she said: 'I just hope justice is served on the next level  [in] the Appellate court. That my husband gets the justice he deserves.'

Tiffany continued about her financial situation: 'I am completely turned off to the city I fell in love with. I am disgusted with the corruption. Unfortunately, I cannot move. I now have new employment that offers us health insurance thank goodness, but it leaves me no availability to leave Chicago.

'I also know it will be hard wherever they send Jason. My only affordable transportation will be our car.'

Tiffany Van Dyke (center), wife of former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, left the Leighton Criminal Courts Building with her daughters by her side

Explaining intentions to appeal, she said: 'I just hope justice is served on the next level  [in] the Appellate court. That my husband gets the justice he deserves'

She was escorted by police as she went home on Friday evening after the long day in court

His wife Tiffany Van Dyke (above) and their two daughters were also present at the hearing. Tiffany said they will appeal and she is 'disgusted with the corruption' in Chicago

Owen Van Dyke (right) father of former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, Friday morning

One of Van Dyke's daughters testified on her father's behalf and blamed the media for shaming 'police officers for doing their jobs'.

Kaylee Van Dyke told the court Friday that she wrote a paper for her high school civics class about 'the harsh reality' of police work.

The 17-year-old - the same age as the victim when he was killed - said she knows the positives of the job, but that she thinks the media 'twists events, making people create negative thoughts.'

She said police officers don't care about people's color, 'they care about your safety.' She also said she regrets all the times she didn't hug her father.

'I receive one phone call a day to hear my dad's voice. My family has to drive three hours only one day out of the week to only see him for one hour,' she said. 'The last time I hugged my dad or gave him a kiss goodbye was on October 5, 2018. Now I touch his hand through a dirty piece of glass.'

Van Dyke's brother-in-law Keith Thompson also spoke, saying he is a 'gentle giant' and isn't the 'monster' or 'racist cop' that he's been portrayed as by the media.

Thompson said Friday at Van Dyke's sentencing hearing that Van Dyke has always treated people fairly. Thompson, who is black and whose wife is the sister of Van Dyke's wife, said he has never seen anything to indicate that Van Dyke is racist in the 13 years he's known him.

He said it will be very difficult for the family moving forward because Van Dyke is a convicted felon.

After Judge Vincent Gaughan's decision (pictured 2016) Dyke, 40, could be released in three years due to the second-degree nature of the charge dictating he has to serve half the time

Dyke was convicted in October of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery - one for each time he shot McDonald in October 2014

Photos and X-rays of the wounds to Laquan McDonald, is shown to the jury last September

Several black men were also called to testify during the sentencing hearing have described their own run-ins with the officer during traffic stops.

Vidale Joy told the court Friday that Van Dyke used a racial slur and put a gun to his head during a 2005 stop.

He said Van Dyke 'looked infuriated' and seemed 'out of his mind' calling him a 'black a** n****r'.

Under cross examination, Joy conceded that he didn't allege in his first accounts of the traffic stop that Van Dyke had used a slur.

Witness Edward Nance wept as he testified that he hasn't been the same since a 2007 stop.

He says Van Dyke pulled him by the arms to the squad car while he was handcuffed and that he has undergone three surgeries to his shoulders as a result.

He also says he has PTSD from the incident.

The man won a $350,000 civil judgment against Van Dyke and his partner. Van Dyke had 20 complaints against him in his career but he was never disciplined.

Edward Nance, who alleged he was roughed up by Officer Jason Van Dyke during a traffic stop on the South Side in 2007, testified at Van Dyke's sentencing hearing

Jeremy Mayers acts out how Van Dyke allegedly choked him in 2011 during the hearing Friday

Prosecutor Joe McMahon addressed the judge at Leighton Criminal Court Building

Just after 2pm local time, a relative of McDonald was allowed to read a victim impact statement from the slain black teen's perspective, saying the Chicago police officer killed his grandnephew without provocation.

Reading from a prepared text in the first person as Laquan McDonald on Friday, the Rev Marvin Hunter said, 'I am a 17-year-old boy' and 'I am unable to speak in my own voice' because officer Van Dyke 'thought he would become judge, jury and executioner.

He added, 'My death has brought inconsolable pain to my mother and my sister ... my family. ... He has not just destroyed my life but the life of his wife and children.'

In asking for a stiff sentence for Van Dyke, he said: 'Why should this person who ended my life forever ... who has never asked for forgiveness ... be free when I am dead for forever?'

Shocking dashcam footage captured the moment Van Dyke fired 16 bullets at McDonald

The testimony came a day after a different judge acquitted three officers accused of trying to conceal what happened to protect Van Dyke, who was the first Chicago officer found guilty in an on-duty shooting in a half century and probably the first ever in the shooting of an African-American.

Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson cleared former officer Joseph Walsh, former detective David March and officer Thomas Gaffney on charges of obstruction of justice, official misconduct and conspiracy.

Stephenson accepted the argument that jurors in the Van Dyke case rejected: that the video that sparked protests and a federal investigation of the police force was just one perspective of the events that unfolded on the South Side.

The judge said the video showed only one viewpoint of the confrontation between Van Dyke and the teen armed with a small knife. She found no indication the officers tried to hide evidence or made little effort to talk to witnesses.

'The evidence shows just the opposite,' she said. She singled out how they preserved the graphic video at the heart of the case.

The testimony came a day after a different judge acquitted three officers accused of trying to conceal what happened to protect Van Dyke. former Officer Joseph Walsh, former Chicago Police Detective David March, and Officer Thomas Gaffney (pictured left to right in court) were facing charges of conspiracy, official misconduct and obstruction of justice

Prosecutor Ron Safer tried to put a positive spin on the verdict.

'This case was a case where the code of silence was on trial,' he said, referring to the long tradition that officers do not report wrongdoing by their colleagues. 'The next officer is going to think twice about filing a false police report. Do they want to go through this?'

The judge in her ruling rejected prosecution arguments that the video demonstrated officers were lying when they described McDonald as moving even after he was shot.

'An officer could have reasonably believed an attack was imminent,' she said. 'It was borne out in the video that McDonald continued to move after he fell to the ground' and refused to relinquish a knife.

The video appeared to show the teen collapsing in a heap after the first few shots and moving in large part because bullets kept striking his body for 10 more seconds.

Both Van Dyke's trial and that of the three other officers hinged on the video, which showed Van Dyke opening fire within seconds of getting out of his police SUV and continuing to shoot the 17-year-old while he was lying on the street. Police were responding to a report of a male who was breaking into trucks and stealing radios on the city's South Side.

City Hall released the video to the public in November 2015 - 13 months after the shooting - and acted only because a judge ordered it to do so. The charges against Van Dyke were not announced until the day of the video's release.
A TSA employee, Miguel Pagarigan, who commutes around 40 miles to work every day says he's put a 'For Sale' sign on his house as the financial toil of the government shutdown takes hold.

Pagarigan, was comforted by newly elected California Governor Gavin Newsom at the Sacramento International Airport, on Thursday.

Because of the shutdown and ... not being paid I had to put a 'For Sale' sign on my house on Sunday,' Pagarigan said crying, as reported by NPR.

California Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured right) hugs TSA employee Miguel Pagarigan at the Sacramento International Airport, Thursday

Pagarigan, who travels from Vacaville, California each day, added he doesn't know how long he can go on without pay.

Newsom announced as he met with TSA workers at the airport Thursday that California will offer workers unemployment coverage, despite the federal government telling the state it can't do so for workers still on the job.

President Trump's labor department sent out instructions saying that states can't legally offer unemployment insurance benefits to federal employees who are required to report to work without pay during the shutdown.

Newsom (pictured above) announced as he met with TSA workers at Sacramento airport that California will offer workers unemployment coverage

The Trump administration does not appear to be opposing unemployment benefits for federal workers who are staying home during the shutdown.

Federal workers considered essential and compelled to work without pay are ineligible for unemployment benefits 'because states may determine that they are still fully employed.'

Newsom's appearance at the airport followed a protest by around two dozen federal workers there a day earlier.

On Wednesday Trump signed into law a bill providing back dated pay after the shutdown to all federal workers.

In Connecticut, three Democrats, Senators Richard Blumenthal, Chris Murphy, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro wrote a letter to Labor Secretary Alex Acosta calling on him to 'expeditiously' allow states to provide benefits.
PayPal said it will offer $25 million in interest-free credit to its users who work with the US federal government and are impacted by the shutdown.

Workers who use PayPal Credit will be able to avail an advance of up to $500 each, without having to pay any interest.

The program will last until the government reopens and employees receive their first paycheck, the company announced on its website.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (left) and Assistant Democratic Leader Patty Murray (right) and Senate democrats carry photographs of furloughed federal workers during a press conference

The partial shutdown, which hit the four-week mark on Friday, is the longest in US history.

It means 800,000 federal workers nationwide would continue to go unpaid and some government functions would remain impaired.

The shutdown also clouds the outlook for spending, retailers and the economy at large because executives and policymakers due to the direct impact of 800,000 federal workers going without pay.

PayPal said it will take up to three business days to deposit the cash advance into user's accounts from the date the company verifies their employment.

President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress remain far apart over Trump's insistence on funding for a wall along the Mexican border as the price of reopening the government.

With the two sides avoiding talks, travel industry analysts and economists have been calculating the potential damage should the shutdown drag into February or beyond.

The cash offer will last until the government reopens and employees receive their first paycheck, PayPal announced on its website

Airlines and hotels would suffer. So would parks and restaurants that cater to travelers.

Eventually, the broader U.S. economy, already absorbing a trade war with China and a global economic slowdown, would endure another blow.

The travel and tourism industries generate about $1.6 trillion in U.S. economic activity - one-twelfth of the economy - and one in 20 jobs, according to the Commerce Department.

Macroeconomic Advisers said it now expects the economy to expand at just a 1.4 percent annual rate in the first three months of this year, down from its previous forecast of 1.6 percent, because of reduced Government spending during the shutdown.

America's air-travel system will face its sternest this weekend, which coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, a federal holiday.

The Transportation Security Administration predicts it will screen over 8 million passengers between Friday and Monday, up 10.8 percent from last year's MLK weekend. And it will do so with fewer screeners.

On Thursday, the TSA said 6.4 percent of screeners missed work - nearly double the 3.8 percent rate on the same day in 2018.

On top of potentially longer airport security lines this weekend, a blast of winter weather could snarl travel this weekend in the Midwest and Northeast.
The autobiography of a highly educated West African scholar sold to a 'depraved man' in the United States has given a rare firsthand account into life as a Muslim American slave.

Scholar Omar Ibn Said, who was captured in West Africa and brought to the US, describes a 'large army, who killed many men' coming to the Futa Tooro region he called home.

He was then put on a ship to Charleston, South Carolina on a journey lasting six weeks, before being sold to slave master Johnson.

Ibn Said said Johnson 'feared not God at all, nor did he read (the gospel) at all nor pray'. He said he was 'afraid to remain with a man so depraved and who committed so many crimes' that he ran away.

Written in Arabic, the autobiography was later translated to English after his arrival in Charleston and is now available after the Library of Congress published it online.

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Omar Ibn Said, a wealthy and highly educated man, was captured in West Africa and brought to the United States as a slave. That memoir is now available online. This portrait is thought to have been taken in the 1850s

In 1831 Omar Ibn Said wrote a 15-page autobiography describing his experiences

The Omar Ibn Said Collection consists of 42 original documents in both English and Arabic

In it Ibn Said writes: 'Then there came to our places a large army, who killed many men and took me and brought me to the great sea and sold me into the hands of the Christians, who bound me and sent me on board a great ship and we sailed upon the great sea a month and a half when we came to a place called Charleston in the Christian language.

'I reside in this our country by reason of great necessity. Wicked men took me by violence and sold me to the Christians.'

Slave Omar ibn Said was 37-years-old when he was taken from his home, what today is Senegal.

Mary-Jane Deeb, chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division at the Library of Congress, said: 'This rare collection is extremely important because Omar Ibn Said's autobiography is the only known existent autobiography of a slave written in Arabic in America.

'The significance of this lies in the fact that such a biography was not edited by Said's owner, as those of other slaves written in English were, and is therefore more candid and more authentic.

'It is an important documentation that attests to the high level of education and the long tradition of a written culture that existed in Africa at the time. It also reveals that many Africans who were brought to the United States as slaves were followers of Islam, an Abrahamic and monotheistic faith. Such documentation counteracts prior assumptions of African life and culture.'

He wrote the memoir in 1831, decades after his capture, when he was in his early 60s, CNN reports.

Written in Arabic the autobiography was later translated to English after his arrival in Charleston. He wrote the memoir in his 60s in 1831, decades after his capture

Pictured is the cover of Omar Ibn Sayyid's Bible. He appeared to convert to Christianity although scholars has questioned if authentic given Christianity was connected to freedom

When Ibn Said ran away from that 'wicked' owner he was jailed soon after before being resold to a family in North Carolina.

He ended up with Jim Owen, the brother of aspiring North Carolina governor John Owen.

Of the Owen family he writes: 'What food they eat they give to me to eat. As they clothe themselves they clothe me. They permit me to read the gospel of God, our lord and saviour and king.

'I continue in the hand of Jim Owen who never beats me, nor scolds me. I neither go hungry nor naked and I have no hard work to do. I am not able to do hard work for I am a small man and feeble.

'During the last twenty years I have known no want in the hand of Jim Owen.'

He appears to convert to Christianity at some point, although scholars has questioned if authentic given Christianity was connected to freedom.

The recollections are part of a 42-document collection. Ibn Said died in 1864 in North Carolina and was thought to have been in his 90s.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said: 'To have it preserved at the Library of Congress and made available to everyday people and researchers across the world will make this collection an irreplaceable tool for research on Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries and will shed light on the history of American slavery.'
The AUDS (Anti-UAV Defence System), pictured, is able to detect, track and ground drones and has been designed to stop them being used for terrorist, espionage or other malicious activities

A large 'commercial drone' that came within 22 yards of an Airbus was one of 120 near misses in the last year - as Heathrow airport finally deploys new technology to combat the gadgets.

The number of near misses between drones and aircraft were up 29 per cent from 2017 - where just 93 were recorded. While in 2014 just six incidents were recorded.

Now an anti-drone system has been placed on top of a commercial vehicle at Heathrow in a bid to stop the rising tide of drone related incidents.

Over Christmas a drone sighting at Gatwick led to 120,000 passengers unable to take off or land at the airport.

Passengers were stuck on planes for several hours and were forced to sleep on floors inside the airport as flights were cancelled between December 19 and 21.

While on January 8 this year flights halted for almost 90 minutes at Heathrow Airport after a drone was spotted at around 5.05pm.

Travel experts estimated that around 40 flights were delayed in the shutdown, with Scotland Yard later confirming that 'military assistance [had] been implemented' to bring the incident to an end.

Now details of 18 of near misses in the past year have been revealed by the UK Airprox Board (UKAB).

An anti-drone system (bottom) has been placed on top of a commercial vehicle at Heathrow in a bid to stop the rising tide of drone related incidents

Four of those investigated by the UKAB involved airliners which were approaching the west London hub.

A pilot of an Airbus A380 spotted a large 'commercial drone' pass along the right side of the aircraft within 20 metres at an altitude of 3,400 feet.

The UKAB assessed that the drone was being flown in a way which was 'endangering other aircraft' and concluded that the incident on July 22 last year involved the highest risk of collision.

Another category A near miss featured an Embraer 190 aircraft at an altitude of 800 feet as it was coming into land at Glasgow Airport on September 7.

A 'shiny white drone' was flown immediately above the plane at just 15-30 metres away.

The UKAB concluded that a 'definite risk of collision had existed'.

Gatwick was 'full to capacity' with no flights coming in or out following a drone sighting on December 20

Passengers were spotted sleeping in Gatwick airport today as the hunt for a drone pilot entered a third day

Police (left) and the Army (right) deployed anti-drone equipment at Gatwick in December in order to shut down multiple drones in December

Now Heathrow Airport hopes a new anti-drone system will help combat the increasing number of issues it is having with drones.

The AUDS (Anti-UAV Defence System) is able to detect, track and ground drones and has been designed to stop them being used for terrorist, espionage or other malicious activities.

Similar equipment has been pictured on the roof of Gatwick's South Terminal.

A Heathrow spokeswoman said: 'Heathrow has always worked closely with the Government and Metropolitan Police to monitor and mitigate against threats to the airport, including the irresponsible use of drones.

'In the interests of safety, we do not comment on issues relating to security at the airport.'

Drone sightings brought chaos for thousands of passengers at Heathrow airport earlier this month with all flights grounded for an hour

Gareth Hutchins revealed he was stuck on the plane with his two-year-old daughter following a drone sighting at Heathrow Airport earlier this month

Assessments of 18 near misses with drones between July and October were included in the UKAB's latest monthly report.

Aviation minister Baroness Sugg said: 'The actions of these drone users were not only irresponsible, but illegal.

'The law could not be clearer that this is a criminal offence and anyone endangering others in this way faces imprisonment.'

Existing rules for drone users include not flying near airports, staying below 400 feet and flying at least 50 metres away from buildings and people.

Last week, the Government announced a package of measures designed to give police extra powers to combat drones.

The exclusion zone around airports will be extended to approximately a 5km-radius (3.1 miles), with additional extensions from runway ends.

Ministers also announced that from November 30, operators of drones weighing between 250g and 20kg will be required to register and take an online drone pilot competency test.
A prominent American-born anchorwoman on Iranian state television who has been jailed in the U.S. has not been accused of any crime.

Marzieh Hashemi has been detained as a material witness, though it's unclear for which case.

She has appeared twice before a U.S. District Court judge, according to an order Friday to partially unseal information about her case.

She was detained by federal agents on Sunday in St. Louis and transported to Washington and has been in custody since then.

Officials said she was expected to be released immediately after her testimony is completed, but it's not clear when that would be.

American-born news anchor Marzieh Hashemi who presents on Iranian Press TV was detained on Sunday in Washington D.C. and appeared in court in Washington on Friday

Her son, Hossein Hashemi says his mother would have been willing to cooperate with the FBI and did not need to be jailed as a material witness.

Hossein said that his mother had not been contacted by the FBI before she was stopped in St. Louis and taken into custody earlier this week.

Hashemi, his brother and sister have been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.

He says no one in his family can fathom why Marzieh Hashemi would be considered a material witness for federal investigators. The 59-year-old hasn't been charged with a crime.

Hashemi was detained while trying to fly out of St Louis where she was filming a documentary after visiting family in New Orleans

Federal law allows judges to order witnesses to be detained if the government can prove their testimony has extraordinary value for a criminal case and that they would be a flight risk and unlikely to respond to a subpoena.

The statute generally requires those witnesses to be promptly released once they are deposed.

The order to unseal some parts of her case came days after she was first detained. It did not include details on the criminal case in which she was named a witness. Her son Hossein not comment on details of the case outside court on Friday.

'We're hoping that it would be complete and she would be out this week. It doesn't look like that's going to happen,' he said. 'So we're just waiting to hear more.'

Hossein Hashemi, son of Marizeh Hashemi leaves federal court in Washington, on Friday. According to partially unsealed federal court documents, Hashemi, who has been jailed in the U.S., has not been accused of any crime

Hashemi has been detained as a material witness, though it's unclear for which case. She is pictured here presenting on Iranian Press TV

Marzieh Hashemi, who works for the Press TV network's English-language service, was detained by federal agents on Sunday in St. Louis, where she had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area, her son said. She was then transported to Washington and has remained behind bars since then.

Hashemi, 59, is a U.S. citizen and was born Melanie Franklin. She lives in Tehran and comes back to the United States about once a year to see her family, usually scheduling documentary work in the U.S., her son said.

Hossein said he, his brother and his sister were also subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury. Asked whether his mother had been involved in any criminal activity or knew anyone who might be implicated in a crime, Hashemi said, 'We don't have any information along those lines.'

Hossein Hashemi is pictured. His mother lives about half the time in Colorado, where her children live, and half the time in Iran

Marzieh Hashemi's detention comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. after President Donald Trump withdrew America from a nuclear deal. Iran also faces increasing criticism of its own arrests of dual citizens and other people with Western ties.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement early Friday expressing concern over Marzieh Hashemi's case and asked the Justice Department to disclose the reason for her arrest. The group's statement noted that 'Iran routinely jails journalists.'

Federal officials have not commented about the case.
JACKSON COUNTY, Mississippi -- Construction is well underway as Jackson County motorists eagerly await the opening of the new bridge over Red Creek on Mississippi 57.

The bridge has been closed since September 2017, when a truck carrying a track hoe rammed the bridge, severely damaging it. Traffic is being detoured and Hwy. 57 has been removed from evacuation routes until the bridge is complete and open to traffic, which is expected by late summer this year.

"This is an important bridge for the Gulf Coast and south Mississippi," said Mississippi Department of Transportation Commissioner Tom King. "This bridge serves residents and businesses in Jackson County as both an evacuation route and connector between the coast and central and north Mississippi."

Tanner Construction Company of Laurel was awarded the contract to construct the new bridge for $7.7 million. According to MDOT, the Red Creek bridge was already on MDOT's priority replacement list prior to the accident, so plans were already complete and the necessary right of ways obtained.

Crews have already set the bridge beams and is forming the closure diaphragms between the beams so the post tensioning process can begin. Once that's complete, construction of the deck can begin.
Two of the UK's biggest drill artists have been handed suspended jail sentences for breaching a gang injunction imposed to prevent them from performing music that police said incited violence against rivals.

Terrell Doyley and Joshua Malinga, known as Skengdo and AM respectively, have appeared on BBC Radio 1, performed at the Reading and Leeds festivals and received a four-star review in the Guardian.

Scotland Yard said the pair, who are both 21, were sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, suspended for two years, at Croydon County Court after breaching an interim gang injunction.

Terrell Doyley and Joshua Malinga, known as Skengdo and AM respectively, appeared on BBC Radio 1

Their manager, TK, told the Press Association the musicians were not involved in gang violence, but pleaded guilty after a video of one of their live performances was uploaded to the internet without their knowledge.

The injunction was made against the men after the court found they were members of a south London gang, and linked with rising violence in the Lambeth borough on August 14, according to the Metropolitan Police.

The force said they breached it by performing 'drill music that incited and encouraged violence against rival gang members and then posted it on social media'.

Detective Inspector Luke Williams, of Lambeth and Southwark's gangs unit, said: 'Gang injunctions are a great way to enable officers to tackle those involved in gangs and serious violence.

'Where intelligence identifies somebody is a member of a gang and the requirements of the Policing and Crime Act are met, we will seek to obtain gang injunctions to suppress serious violence across the Capital.

'I am pleased with the sentences passed in these cases, which reflect that the police and courts are unwilling to accept behaviour leading to serious violence. The court found that violence in drill music can, and did in this case, amount to gang-related violence.'

Skengdo and AM, who are linked to Brixton's 410 group, are one of the country's most well-known drill acts, selling out two tours last year.

Their YouTube videos, including a Radio1Xtra session uploaded this week, have racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

TK, the director of Finesse Foreva, said they were served with an injunction last year, banning them from going to certain areas, associating with named individuals, and placing restrictions on them making music and performing.

He said police at a hearing in January tried to link Skengdo and AM to the history of Brixton crime.

'They didn't find nothing on them in terms of violence because they don't have nothing on them,' he said.

'Last time they might have had any run-ins with the law was when they were 16 and 17.

'They started deciphering slang terms in court, it was all a bit weird.

Skengdo, known as Terrell Doyley (left) and AM, known as Joshua Malinga, were sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, suspended for two years, at Croydon County Court after breaching an interim gang injunction

'Deciphering slang terms to an old-head white woman who probably lives in the countryside or something.'

TK said they 'basically beat the case', but had to plead guilty over a clip from a recent live performance of their track Attempted.

A music video entitled Attempted 1.0 on YouTube has repeated references to associates being 'cheffed', or stabbed, and the rappers make suggestions for alternatives to avoid violent situations.

In the song, one associate is attacked buying chicken wings, which prompts the lyrics: 'Don't nobody know about UberEats?' When another is stabbed on the bus the lyrics ask: 'Don't nobody know about Addison Lee?'

The chorus goes: 'Attempted? Should've been a murder. How you gonna run with your burner? We're active. Let's go halves on a burger. Big Mac-10, can I get fries?'

TK said the rappers are still allowed to associate with each other and other 410 members, but cannot go to Kennington  the home of rivals Harlem Spartans, or mention their name.

TK also denied they had to pay for the Met's costs, as the force has claimed.

'Why the Met's probably done that is because they want to affect their lives, scare big venue owners off,' he added.
Pastor Larry James fended off an armed robber who threatened to kill him at his church in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday. Suspect Michael Kelly, 32, had entered the church under the guise of wanting to become a better Christian, James said. The pastor can be seen above with a scar on his cheek from Kelly's attack

A North Carolina pastor fended off an armed robber who had threatened to kill him after entering the church under the guise of wanting to become a better Christian.

Pastor Larry James was sporting a scar across his cheek as he recounted the ambush on Wednesday afternoon at Southend Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, which ended with suspect Michael Kelly being shot and killed by police.

James said Kelly rang the doorbell at the church and began asking how he could be a better Christian and better his life. The pair then sat down to pray together.

But then, as the pastor was escorting Kelly to the door, things to a violent turn.

'He turned to me with the box knife and said: "I will kill you, give me the money, give me your telephone, give me your car and your keys,"' James told Fox46.

'I felt he thought I was an easy mark to get some money.

'When he said he was going to kill me, I said: "Not today!" I never believed that was going to happen.'

James said that he and Kelly prayed together before the pastor was escorting him out and the situation turned violent. 'He turned to me with the box knife and said: "I will kill you, give me the money, give me your telephone, give me your car and your keys,"' James told Fox46

James refused to give Kelly any money, causing the assailant to slash his face and hands with the box cutter. Then James fought back.

'I looked at him and didn't know what his intentions were. I wanted to hit him with my right hand, but the way he was positioned, if I would've swung, he might have cut me,' he said.

'So I got my left hand and I popped him in the jaw real good.'

Kelly managed to escape in the pastor's car and went on to hold up a Family Dollar before he was ultimately shot and killed by an officer.

James said: 'It's really sad because the last thing I anticipated is that he would end up dead. I wanted him caught, but it was kind of a sad issue. He nowas dead because it appeared he wanted that.'

The pastor was treated at the scene by emergency responders.
The mother of a vulnerable man who died of heart failure after buying drugs from the dark web has said she will live with the pain of his death 'until I meet my end'.

Kathy Livick said she has woken up in 'a lot of pain' every day since finding the lifeless body of her son Charlton on March 29, 2017.

Mr Livick bought drugs from a business run by Lee Childs, Jake Levene and Mandy Lowther who have been jailed for more than 40 years today for selling fentanyl and the much stronger carfentanyl.

From left to right: Jake Levene, 23, and Mandy Lowther, 22, who have been jailed for 16-and-a-half years each, and Lee Childs, 45, who was handed a 10-and-a-half-year jail term at Leeds Crown Court

Kathy Livick (left) said she has woken up in 'a lot of pain' every day since finding the lifeless body of her son Charlton on March 29, 2017. According to the NCA, Mr Livick, was one of six of the trio's customer base to have died from drug-related deaths

Childs, 45, Levene, 23, and Lowther, 22, were told by a Leeds Crown Court judge that they had run a 'sophisticated operation' involving the mass distribution of dangerous substances.

According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), Mr Livick, affectionately known as Charlie by his family, was one of six of the trio's customer base to have died from drug-related deaths.

The court heard how the business, which generated 163,474 in five months operating under the name UKBargins, sold to customers as far away as Australia, Canada, Argentina and Singapore, from an industrial unit in Morley, Leeds, where they mixed the drugs with bulking agents and packaged them.

The court heard how the business, which generated 163,474 in five months operating under the name UKBargins, sold to customers as far away as Australia, Canada, Argentina and Singapore, from an industrial unit in Morley, Leeds, where they mixed the drugs with bulking agents and packaged them

Prosecutors said that over 2,800 packages were sent by the trio, and at least 635 grams of pure carfentanyl, which is described by some experts as being between 3,000 and 5,000 times stronger than heroin, was found at the premises following their arrests.

An exact measurement of the quantity could not be provided as forensic scientists deemed the drug, which is used to put large animals like polar bears to sleep, to be too dangerous to handle.

A raid on the premises by officers following the defendants' arrests in April 2017 is believed to be the largest single seizure of the two drugs in Europe.

The chemicals that the trio were involved with were so strong that in February 2017 Lowther was admitted to Leeds Accident and Emergency in a coma, caused by a hypoxic brain injury linked to exposure to the two synthetic opioids.

Prosecutors said that over 2,800 packages were sent by the trio, and at least 635 grams of pure carfentanyl, which is described by some experts as being between 3,000 and 5,000 times stronger than heroin, was found at the premises following their arrests

The men had all previously admitted two counts of supplying and two counts of exporting Class A drugs between December 1 2016 and April 30 2017.

On Friday, Levene, of Wakefield, and Lowther, of Morley, Leeds, were jailed for 16-and-a-half years each, and Childs, also of Morley was handed a 10-and-a-half-year jail term.

Delivering the sentences, Judge Mushtaq Khokhar told them: 'This was a sophisticated operation. Small, I accept, but nevertheless sophisticated because one only has to look at what officers found when they raided the unit.

'Drugs cause misery, not only on those who have an affliction to them, but to those close to them.'

Paul Mitchell, prosecuting, said the trio were aware of the potentially fatal nature of the drugs they were selling, and their website ran the disclaimer: 'I will not give any information about fentanyl or its analogues as the customer should already have (researched) these chemicals before even contemplating using them as they are extremely dangerous & lethal in the wrong hands.'

According to the NCA, six people from their 443-strong customer list died from fentanyl-related injuries, although it could not be proved that the final, lethal doses were supplied by Levene, Childs and Lowther.

The court head how Levene, described by Michael Gomulka, his defence, as being a former aero-engineering student who enjoyed the challenge of setting up the business, was spearheading the operation.

Mr Mitchell explained how Childs had been employed by the other two, and claimed to be a cleaner when he and his colleagues were arrested on April 24 2017.

An exact measurement of the quantity could not be provided as forensic scientists deemed the drug, which is used to put large animals like polar bears to sleep, to be too dangerous to handle

Alessandro Di Francesco, defending Lowther, explained how the defendant was a young man 'without the mentality required to prevent him from falling into this activity'.

Post-mortem results indicate that 125 drug-related deaths in the UK are known to be linked to fentanyl or one of its analogues, including carfentanyl.

The majority of these deaths occurred before mid-2017, though cases have continued into 2018.

Carfentanyl is generally used to anaesthetise large animals such as elephants and polar bears.

The chemicals that the trio were involved with were so strong that in February 2017 Lowther was admitted to Leeds Accident and Emergency in a coma, caused by a hypoxic brain injury linked to exposure to the two synthetic opioids

The court heard that Lowther almost died after being exposed to the drugs he was sellings.

He was admitted unconscious to Leeds General Infirmary on February 20, 2017, and transferred to the intensive care unit.

He was in a coma and was found to have a hypoxic brain injury. His illness was linked to exposure to fentanyl and carfentanyl.

Lowther later recovered and was discharged on March 2, 2017, but despite his near-death experience continued to supply the deadly drugs until the unit was raided.

Officers discovered the trio had turned over 163,474 during the indictment period between December 1, 2016, and April 30, 2017.

The men had all previously admitted two counts of supplying and two counts of exporting Class A drugs between December 1 2016 and April 30 2017

The men were arrested in April 2017 after National Crime Agency officers and West Midlands Police raided the unit.

Defending Levene, Michael Gomulka said: 'He has been diagnosed with having Asperger's Syndrome. Asperger's brings with this disassociation between one's self and the outside world. This is not a hardened criminal.

'He saw it as a challenge. It's numbers on a screen without thinking of the human cost. This is not someone you would expect to find as a leading role in a Class A drug dealing enterprise.'

Defending Childs, who has 10 previous convictions, Stuart Field said the defendant is a married father-of-two and previously worked as a roofer.

He started to self-medicate because of health problems and then began using heroin.

Ms Livick, who has travelled over 200 miles to witness the trio's sentencing at Leeds Crown Court, said she hopes the case helps prevent others from taking dangerous drugs. She said: 'It's too late. All I want is my son back, and I can't have that, but it's good to see some justice done'

Sentencing the trio, Judge Mushtaq Khokhar said: 'When it comes to Class A drugs the courts are very familar with heroin, crack, crack cocaine and so forth.

'We see that everyday of the week in these courts so anyone who is involved in distribution of drugs can expect higher sentences.

'It's not just those who are addicted to drugs who suffer misery but also society at large. This was a sophisticated operation, small I accept but nevertheless sophisticated.

'One only has to look what the officers found when they raided the unit. There were specific areas set aside for specific tasks to be performed. Given the potency of the drugs in question, it's a different breed to heroin.'
The driver who killed a gas station attendant in Long Island on Monday rather than paying $22 for the fuel he owed has been identified.

Joshua E. Roston, 33, is still on the run after killing Cemal Dageviren, 59, at the Pit Stop gas station on Monday.

Police released his mug shot, taken from a previous crime, on Friday as they continued to appeal for information that could lead to him.

The GMC he was driving has been found but Roston is still at large and Nassau County Police say he is armed and dangerous.

Joshua E. Roston, 33, is still on the run after killing Cemal Dageviren, 59, at the Pit Stop gas station on Monday

'We want his face all over, because we want him arrested and brought into NCPD.

Cemal Dageviren, 59, was killed

'He is armed and dangerous. We want you to make sure that if you encounter him, you can contact your local police,' a police official said on Friday.

Dageviren had worked at Pit Stop gas station in Long Island, New York, for more than 20 years when he was mowed down Monday by an SUV.

Surveillance footage captured the moment Dageviren stepped in front of the GMC Yukon to block the man from driving off without paying.

But instead of stopping, the vehicle continued and ran over Dageviren, tragically killing him.

Roston tried to use a fake credit card beforehand.

The married father-of-two tried to stop a man from driving off without paying

Surveillance footage captured the moment Dageviren stepped in front of the SUV and attempted to block the driver from speeding off without paying

Dageviren was taken to South Nassau Communities Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Neighbor Joe Loliscio told NBC New York he was walking his dog when he passed the scene.

'He was lying in the street,' he said. 'Women were out there who witnessed it, they were crying, yelling it was a hit and run.'

A co-worker of the victim, Rodi Polat said: 'He worked here for over 22 years. He was very helpful, kind. A very good person and honest person.'

The suspect, pictured, stole $22 worth of gas as he ran Dageviren over and fled

Dageviren, pictured with his wife, worked at the Pit Stop gas station for more than 20 years

Polat said that costumers have stolen gas in the past, but this was the first time he knew of that Dagdeviren tried to stop someone from driving off.

'We're offering a $5,000 reward for information,' he said. 'Help us to catch him please.'

Police remained at the scene all day Monday, and the gas station will remain closed for a few days as the investigation continues.

The suspect was last seen driving off southbound on Grand Avenue, authorities said.
Lying in hospital, linked up to monitors and clutching his favourite piglet toy, this image of Ruben Sweet-Harris highlights the reality of Wild West Britain.

The six-month-old, who suffered two aneurisms after being shaken by his father, was one of 25 babies killed in Britain during 2017.

Now, new figures published by the ONS, reveal that children under one have consistently topped homicide statistics by age group since the Millennium.

Ruben Sweet-Harris suffered two aneurisms after being shaken by his father, was one of 25 babies killed in Britain during 2017. He is pictured here in hospital before he died

Rubens mother Aisha (pictured with her son left and right), 20, tells Channel 4 that she used to think her son was with social services or with her grandparents to cope with the grief of losing him

Rubens tragic death is featured a new Channel 4 documentary, A Year of British Murder, which aims to highlight the human cost of homicide.

His father Lee Sweet, 26, was sentenced to five years and four months in prison at Plymouth Crown Court after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

His mother Aisha, 20, told the programme: It feels like a very strange TV episode that I dont have the script for.

I dont know what Im meant to say or do. I think my brain is very good at covering stuff up. I know whats happened, but I dont think its real.

I knew I was an amazing Mum, but it was so much easier thinking he was taken off me by social services and having that chance to see him again.

But you cant sit in your little fantasy land and pretend hes with his grandparents or hes with his aunties or uncles or taken off you by social.

Thats one thing that I did imagine for so long because you dont want to be able to say goodbye to your own child.

Ruben Sweet-Harris' mother Aisha speaks to Channel 4 about the murder of her son in the new documentary A Year of British Murder. She said of the incident: 'I know whats happened, but I dont think its real'

Razvan Sirbu, 21, was left with a broken skull, and fractures to his face and ribs after Charlie White and Alex Macdonald launched an unprovoked attack on him. His mother Marinela is pictured here

Quamari Serunkuma-Barnes, 15, was stabbed outside the gates of his school in north London. His father Paul is pictured here and will appear in the Channel 4 documentary A Year of British Murder

According to the programme, 768 people were killed by another person in Britain during 2017 and 78 per cent of women were killed in their own home.

Lisa Chadderton, 44, was stabbed to death by her boyfriend Mark Tindill, after he accused her of infidelity. Detectives found no evidence of an affair.

The 56-year-old publican was sentenced to life after he punched, strangled and stabbed her five times in the neck and once in the eye.

Lisa Chadderton (right), 44, was stabbed to death by her boyfriend Mark Tindill (left), after he accused her of infidelity. Detectives found no evidence of an affair

Her mother Mandy Steed told Channel 4: I was going to go with her to this night out, but it was pouring with rain and I was tired.

So, I said to her: Im not going to bother. Lisa said: OK then. Dont worry. I will see you tomorrow. Love you. And I said the same back to her.

I keep thinking: If Id perhaps gone that night. I dont know what Id have done, but I think: If Id gone out with her, she might still be here today.

ONS statistics also revealed that 105 people have been killed in terrorist-related incidents since 2000 while 17 per cent have no known motive.

A Year of British Murder is on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday.
A Florida mother has filed a lawsuit against a company operating a Pensacola health care facility, claiming that her severely disabled, wheelchair-bound 23-year-old daughter was raped and impregnated there.

The civil complaint filed on Tuesday in the First Judicial Circuit Court in Escambia County names as defendants the National Mentor Healthcare and three individuals officials.

According to the lawsuit, which seeks $15,000 in damages, the victim, identified only by her initials, 'JEC,' lived at National Mentor Healthcare's Pensacola Cluster facility between September 28, 2010 and February 7, 2018.

The 23-year-old is described in the court filing as non-verbal, immobile and suffering from a rare generic neurological disorder called Rett Syndrome, along with other intellectual and physical disabilities.

A lawsuit alleges that a 23-year-old developmentally and physically disabled woman was raped and impregnated while living at the Pensacola Cluster health care facility in Florida (pictured)

She has trouble using her hands and arms, and requires a feeding tube. The lawsuit say the patient was completely dependent on the caregivers at the 24-bed facility.

While living at Pensacola Cluster, the woman attended Westage School for children and young adults suffering from disabilities, reported CNN.

According to the lawsuit, in January 2018, staff at Westgate School were changing the student's diaper when they found bruising on her hip.

They also noted that the young woman was crying and appeared to be in pain.

School officials repeatedly reached out to Pensacola Cluster administrators by phone and email to let them know of the injuries, but according to the lawsuit, staff at Florida Mentor, which is part of the National Mentor Healthcare, failed to pass the information along to the Florida Adult Abuse Hotline, or seek medical treatment for the woman.

Carol Swanson, executive director of Florida Mentor, said in a statement to multiple news outlets that the company has fully cooperated with the investigation and will continue to do so.

The victim attended Escambia Westgate School, where in January 2018 staff found bruising on her hip, which eventually led to the discovery that the woman was pregnant

We take our obligation to ensure the well-being of those we serve very seriously, including compliance with all reporting requirements, the statement read. As part of our overall commitment to continuous quality improvement, we regularly review our protocols with the goal of enhancing the quality of our services and minimizing any risk to the health and safety of the individuals we support.

Eventually, the 23-year-old patient underwent a medical exam, which revealed that she had a broken hip and that she was two or three weeks pregnant.

Doctors conducting the exam also observed cuts and bruises on the victims vagina, and injuries to her inner thigh consistent with a sexual assault, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit reveals the womans pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. It also points out that having been declared legally incompetent, the woman was in no state to give consent to have sex with anyone.

The Escambia Sheriff's Office investigated the rape allegations last year but could not identify a suspect

Escambia County Sheriffs Office said in a Facebook post Friday that deputies investigated the incident last year but were unable to identify a suspect because a rape kit failed to turn up DNA evidence.

Without the ability to establish a DNA profile of a suspect this procedure will not lend itself to identifying a suspect, the post read. We did however conduct DNA analysis, and interviews, of individuals having contact with the victim. None could be matched due to the absence of an initial profile.

The victims mother, who is her legal guardian, transferred her to a different facility after the alleged rape.

The Florida lawsuit comes on the heels of a similar case out of Phoenix, where a woman in a vegetative state was impregnated and delivered a baby last month, sparking allegations of rape.

Hacienda HealthCare officials have been told to relinquish control to an outside party after the comatose patient shocked staff there by having a baby in December.

In a statement, Hacienda's board of directors says it is taking the matter under advisement after its CEO Bill Timmons already resigned in the wake of the scandal.

It comes as the family of the 29-year-old victim say the center in Phoenix, Arizona, still has not apologized after the 112 pound woman, described as 'incapacitated' and 'unable to make any decisions or give consent due to her disability' gave birth.

Attorney John Micheaels, representing the Native American woman and her family, said they have not said sorry either publicly or privately.

In a statement they said hope an outside review of the facility where she lived will lead to changes 'necessary to prevent further abuse and neglect of its patients'.
More than 17,500 gallons of 'illicit' fuel, worth 56,000, were seized from several petrol stations after three days of raids - with a 30-year-old man arrested.

HM Revenue and Customs officers (HMRC) temporarily closed petrol stations in Leeds, Motherwell, Cowdenbeath, Fife, and the Hillington area of Glasgow.

The petrol stations were closed between Friday and Sunday last week after the discovery of the fuel, thought to be illegal.

HM Revenue and Customs officers (HMRC) closed several petrol stations after three days of raids

A 30-year-old man from the village of Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland, was arrested in Leeds and brought to Scotland to be interviewed.

He has been released pending further investigation.

Two vehicles were also seized in Loanhead, Midlothian, along with a further 1,500 litres of suspected illicit fuel.

The estimated duty loss of all the seized fuel is about 56,000.

They closed petrol stations in Leeds, Motherwell, Cowdenbeath, Fife, and the Hillington area of Glasgow

A 30-year-old man from the village of Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland, was also arrested by officers in Leeds

Joe Hendry, assistant director for fraud investigation service at HMRC, said: 'Fuel laundering is unregulated and dangerous.

'Illicit fuel is sold at reduced prices and motorists may think they are getting a good deal because it is cheaper.

'I would caution them to think again as the true cost is far from a bargain.'

The seizures and arrest come after a suspected fuel laundering plant in Northern Ireland was dismantled last week by HMRC officers.

Two men were arrested and the plant is thought to have the potential to produce more than 10 million litres of illicit fuel every year.
Meghan Markle has been spotted on a business lunch with a new key appointee after Kensington Palace hired the former Brexit speechwriter for David Davis as its deputy press secretary

Christian Jones was seen yesterday leaving Chucs Italian restaurant in Notting Hill with Meghan as she strolled back to her car.

He became deputy director of communications for both Meghan and Harry and William and Catherine in December, after racking up nearly seven years of experience working with two Government departments.

The Duchess of Sussex (right) was yesterday seen leaving a restaurant in Notting Hill, west London, with Christian Jones, one of her new communications directors

The Cardiff University graduate served as Mr Davis' speechwriter at the Department for Exiting the European Union from October 2016 to September 2017, before taking up a new role as the department's press secretary.

Prior to that he was chief press officer at the Treasury from November 2014 to October 2016, serving under George Osborne and, for a brief period, the current Chancellor Philip Hammond.

His major new role, which was advertised publicly, includes liaising with British and international media and supporting the young royals' charitable work and engagements.

Mr Jones will lead the day-to-day press office operations of the two households and advise Meghan, Harry, William and Catherine on how to interact with the media.

Mr Jones (seen left and right, with Meghan yesterday) became deputy director of communications for both Meghan and Harry and William and Catherine in December, after racking up nearly seven years of experience working with two Government departments

During his time at the Department for Exiting the European Union, he was pictured sitting (far left) around a table several seats along from Mr Davis as he spoke to the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier

Mr Jones attended Cardiff University from 2008 to 2011 and graduated with First Class Honours. He is seen in an undated image with a friend

During his time at the Department for Exiting the European Union, he was pictured sitting around a table several seats along from Mr Davis as he spoke to the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

Mr Jones attended Cardiff University from 2008 to 2011 and graduated with First Class Honours.

Kensington Palace did not comment on the appointment.

Alongside her press team and other palace staff, Meghan also has her own assistant, Amy Pickerill.

She accompanies the Duchess on events, and was spotted on Wednesday as she visited the Mayhew animal welfare charity in Kensal Rise, north-west London.

Mr Jones (left, in an undated image) as David Davis' speechwriter at the Department for Exiting the European Union from October 2016 to September 2017
The ex-boyfriend of a young mother who vanished in 2003 on her way to the shops leaving her 11-week-old baby behind today denied killing her at an inquest.

Natalie Putt was just 17 when she left her home in Dudley in the West Midlands on September 1, 2003 but was never seen again.

On the day she disappeared, she had just been dropped off at home by her new boyfriend Chris Millard having broken up with the father of her son, Kevin McCallum, weeks earlier.

Natalie Putt (left) was just 17 when she left her home in Dudley in the West Midlands on September 1, 2003 but was never seen again. On the day she disappeared, she had just been dropped off at home by her new boyfriend having broken up with the father of her son, Kevin McCallum (right), weeks earlier

Despite never finding her body, West Midlands Police are treating her disappearance as murder.

Mr McCallum was quizzed by police on several occasions and arrested on suspicion of murder in March 2004 before being released without charge.

Mr McCallum, of Dudley, gave evidence at her inquest in Oldbury, West Midlands and again protested his innocence.

Black Country Coroner Zafar Siddique asked him: 'Did you play any part in the disappearance of Natalie Putt?' Mr McCallum, 32, replied: 'No'.

He told the inquest how he met Natalie at a training course in the summer of 2002.

He said: 'She was happy, lovely, bubbly and a bit feisty. Our relationship kicked off really quickly - I was 16 or 17-year-old at the time. We would see each other every day.

'I started going to her house, our relationship was fine and normal. I would go on lads' night outs and she wouldn't be happy about that. I was training to be a brick layer at some point.

'We didn't make any plans for the future - the baby was born in June. When the baby was born I stayed over at hers a few times to do some nappy changes and feeds.

'I didn't know what their relationship was between Natalie and Chris. When she started to see him we were on a break.

'I wasn't too happy, I wanted to know who this man was spending time with my son. She felt she needed some space, time on her own.

Despite never finding her body, West Midlands Police are treating her disappearance as murder (Miss Putt in pictured aged 17, in 2003)

'I wasn't happy with it, we would have phone calls over the break about our relationship. We didn't have any heated arguments.'

Describing the day she disappeared, Mr McCallum said: 'We went upstairs to talk about the relationship. We were smoking at the time.

'Then she said she was going to get some more cigarettes. I didn't see her leave the front door. I went back to feeding the baby. It had taken 45 minutes to feed him and then I went down stairs. Later that evening I saw her phone was on the side.'

The inquest heard a taxi driver told police he had been called to the house and a man came out carrying a baby and holding four or five black bin bags.

During the police investigation, bin bags were recovered from the loft as well as a blood-stained T-shirt which matched Natalie's DNA.

Mr McCallum denied putting bags in the taxi. He told the inquest: 'I never said I didn't get a taxi, I'm saying the taxi driver is a liar. I want to make sure the truth comes out. I didn't put anything into the taxi.

Since her disappearance, officers have also searched land near to her home, including underwater searches of rivers and lakes

'I was arrested on suspicion of her murder. I was a released on bail. I had various interviews over the years. I didn't play any part in Natalie's disappearance. I was never shown this bag of clothing.'

Mr Millard, 32, told the hearing he had dropped Natalie off at her home on the day she disappeared in a car he changed a week later.

He said: 'In 2003 I was living with my nan. I was about 17-years-old. I met Natalie through the horses and I think her dad had a horse off me.

'It started off as friends and grew into a bit of a relationship but nothing serious. It happened a month before she went missing.

'She was crazy, fun, always up for a laugh, always wanting to be the centre of attention. I was aware of her relationship with Kevin, they had just broken up.

'She wanted sometime away, she was fed up with things - she just wasn't happy with things. She was with me on that Sunday night -August 31, 2003.

'She used to laugh at one of my vehicles as it reminded her of one of the cars from Barbie and Ken. The baby was with us too.

'On the day she went missing I dropped her off at home in the morning about 8am and Kevin was waiting for her at the house.

'I went off to work, she was never without her phone. I was told she was missing either later that day or the next day.

Mr Millard, 32, told the hearing he had dropped Natalie off at her home on the day she disappeared in a car he changed a week later

'I remember sending her a few messages - it would be 'give me a call when you're free. You usually would have a reply sooner than later. I was 99 per cent sure Kevin was at the house.

'David Putt (Natalie's dad) phoned me to ask if I had seen her and I hadn't. The police came and asked me a couple of questions and I told them what I knew.

'I changing my car a week later as I would change them all the time.

'To be honest the reason why I didn't look for her was because I wouldn't know where to start looking for her. She didn't have any concerns about Mr McCallum

'She, her dad, her baby and the horse were her all.'

Her father Mr Putt last saw his daughter the day before she disappeared when he gave her a lift home.

He said: 'She had left vouchers for child income support and benefits.

'I found that strange in my opinion if I was going to do a runner I would take every penny I had but she didn't. My property was searched, we had to leave and stay in a hotel.

'I was told after about the T-shirt found in the loft. I don't know how it got there. Rubbish would usually be kept in the loft.'

Detective Sergeant Angela Baggott, of West Midlands Police, told the inquest: 'There doesn't appear to have been any reason for her to go missing.

'There didn't appear to be any disturbance at the address.

'Bin liners from the loft of the property were recovered and a T-shirt had a couple of blood spots on it were found. The DNA matched that of Natalie's.'

Describing the claims that a taxi had been called to the address days after she disappeared, she said: 'A man came out with four or five black plastic bags, and then came out with a baby.

'A pram, black plastic bags were put in the back of the taxi. The taxi driver made a statement in November 2003.

'This was put to Kevin and he denied using the taxi company. We have evidence that his phone was used to make the call to the taxi firm. The taxi driver attended a line up and failed to pick anyone out.'

Recording an open verdict, Mr Siddique said: 'The medical case of death is going to remain ascertained.

'I'm satisfied she is deceased. It is unclear as to how 17-year-old Natalie Putts had died. From extensive police inquires and proof of life enquires pointed to the fact that she is deceased. For those reasons I am going to leave an open conclusion.'

Police reopened the cold case after 'The Missing People Choir' featured Natalie in one of their performances on Britain's Got Talent in 2017.

Following the appeal, police searched a graveyard in Upper Gornal after receiving 'crucial information' from a mystery caller.

Four graves were exhumed in Ruiton Cemetery near to her home but nothing was found.

Since her disappearance, officers have also searched land near to her home, including underwater searches of rivers and lakes.

Officers also searched farmland in Wombourne, where she kept her horses after a member of the public remembered seeing a man digging nearby.

Police scoured land hear the stables in South Staffordshire but again nothing significant was found.
A group of migrants said to be the largest ever has illegally tunneled under the southern U.S. border fence and surrendered to Border Patrol to request asylum.

The group of 376 Central Americans 'inundated agents' after crossing the border through a series of hasty tunnels near Yuma, Arizona on Monday, Customs and Border Protection said.

The agency said 200 of the group were minors, and that nearly all the rest said they were their parents, meaning that they will likely be released into the U.S. as their asylum claims are processed.

It is believed to be the largest single group to cross the border illegally to request asylum. The Border Patrol has said that smugglers transport large groups to the border and then instruct them to cross and turn themselves in.

Officials said that most of the group entered the U.S. through seven small openings (one seen above) that were burrowed under the border barrier

The group of 376 Central Americans 'inundated agents' agents after crossing the border near Yuma, Arizona on Monday. They are seen above on the US side in an aerial image

The migrants immediately surrendered to Border Patrol and requested asylum

Officials said that most of the group entered the U.S. through seven small openings burrowed under the border barrier.

The crossings took place at a remote stretch of border where old fencing is about 12 feet high and the ground is sandy. Stretched thin, CBP has only three agents patrolling the 26-mile section of border.

President Donald Trump's administration had tried to forbid migrants from requesting asylum after crossing the border illegally, but that move was struck down by a federal judge in November.

'The only thing that solves that problem is a change in the law,' CBP Yuma Border Sector Chief Anthony Porvaznik told ABC News.

'The only reason they're trying to say that they're family units is that they know if they're a family unit, they're going to be released within 20 days,' Porvaznik said.

Porvaznik said that he had worked for CBP for 30 years and had never been part of an arrest of a group as large as the one on Monday.

He said that 87 percent of the apprehensions in Yuma Sector are family units and unaccompanied alien children

CBP said 200 of the group were minors, and that nearly all the rest said they were their parents

The migrants in the group will likely be released into the U.S. within 20 days, due to rules that prevent detaining parents and children together for longer than that

By Thursday, hundreds of the asylum seekers were being held in cinderblock cells with thick glass windows as CBP agents worked to process them and provide humanitarian needs, ABC reported.

The asylum seekers were separated into cells: fathers with sons, fathers with daughters, unaccompanied minors and mothers with children.

One man in the group told the network that he left Guatemala eight days ago and made most of the trip by bus along with his 12-year-old daughter, paying a coyote $5,000 to get them to the border.

He planned to travel to San Diego after leaving the processing center.

The father said he left a wife and two younger daughters back in Guatemala.

On Wednesday, a separate group of 247 people illegally crossed into the U.S. near the Antelope Wells Port of Entry in New Mexico.

In New Mexico, a separate group of 247 (above) illegally crossed into the U.S. near the Antelope Wells Port of Entry on Wednesday

Border Patrol said that the group in New Mexico (above) immediately surrendered and requested asylum and medical care

The group, which included many juveniles, surrendered to authorities for processing and most requested immediate medical care.

The CBP said that since the beginning of October, 24 groups of more than 100 migrants have crossed the border near Lordsburg, New Mexico.

Parents with children now reportedly make up more than 80 per cent of those caught crossing the southern border illegally.

Last month, CBP said it took 20,000 juveniles into custody after illegal crossings, including both unaccompanied minors and those traveling with parents.

The vast majority surrender immediately upon crossing to claim asylum.

Trump has declared the situation at the border a national security and humanitarian crisis, and demanded $5.7 billion in border wall funding from Congress.

Deadlock over the demand led to the partial federal government shutdown, which entered its 28th day on Friday and is now the longest in U.S. history.

Central American migrants heading to the United States with a new caravan walk alongside the road between Ciudad Hidalgo and Tapachula southern Mexico on Friday

The new caravan of Central American migrants is seen trekking north on Friday

The new caravan (above) crossed into Mexico on Thursday and is determined to reach the US

Caravan migrants load onto a truck in Tapachula, Chiapas State, Mexico on Friday

The showdown comes as another migrant caravan makes its way north toward the U.S. border

Mexico's National Migration Institute said on Thursday that 969 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua had crossed into Ciudad Hidalgo.

One recent study, by the New York-based Center for Immigration Studies, estimated that in 2017 more people entered the U.S. illegally by overstaying temporary visas than by crossing the border illegally.

That study also estimated the number of illegal immigrants currently in the U.S. at 10.7 million. Another recent study by MIT Sloan and Yale professors estimated that number at 22 million.
This is the incredible moment a Royal Marine was spotted using a jetpack to negotiate an assault course.

Footage, captured at the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines in Lympstone, Devon, shows the 'rocket man' soar above the grass with the device strapped to his back.

The commando can be seen flying through the air with a sleek jetpack on his back and directional rocket boosters strapped to his wrists.

The device was part of a test flight performed by the British human propulsion technology start-up Gravity and was simply a demonstration.

The Royal Marine was spotted using a jetpack to negotiate an assault course at the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines in Lympstone, Devon

During the incredible footage, he flies through the air with a sleek jetpack on his back

The device was part of a test flight performed by the British human propulsion technology start-up Gravity

On Twitter the company behind the test flight tweeted: 'Today we flew the Jet Suit over the assault course at the Royal Marine #commando Training Centre, #lympstone. Thanks to @ColMikeTanner for making @takeonGravity welcome.

During the clip, the 'rocket man' lifts off from the ground and circles the assault course.

He demonstrates precise control, landing on top of a high wall before taking off again and swooping in to hover then nod at his commanding officer.

A salute, however, was off the table with rockets attached to Green Beret's arms.

He demonstrates precise control as he navigates his way through the assault course on his jetpack

He then lowers himself back to the ground and navigates his way into the open truck on the course

The man then lowers himself before landing on his feet at the entrance of the truck parked on the ground.

The incredible video was tweeted this afternoon by Colonel Mike Tanner OBE, Commandant of the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines in Lympstone Devon.

Colonel Tanner observed: 'Well you don't see this everyday. A Commando trained 'rocket man' training on our assault course!'
BC Asian Network head of news Arif Ansari, 44, was found not guilty of breaching the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992

BBC Asian Network head of news Arif Ansari, 44, pictured arriving at Sheffield Magistrates' Court, was found not guilty of breaching the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 following a two-day trial

A senior BBC executive has been cleared of breaching the law which gives victims of sex offences lifelong anonymity after a reporter named a complainant in a live radio broadcast.

BBC Asian Network head of news Arif Ansari, 44, was found not guilty of breaching the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 following a two-day trial at Sheffield Magistrates' Court.

The trial centred around what District Judge Naomi Redhouse called an 'honest mistake' in a broadcast by reporter Rickin Majithia from outside Sheffield Crown Court in February last year.

Mr Majithia told the court that he made the error because he wrongly believed the name the woman had been referred to as in court was a pseudonym.

Mr Ansari said he had no reason to doubt what his reporter had told him, especially as not naming complainants of sex offences was 'as basic as it gets'.

The woman who was named in the report sat through the trial and left at the end with a man, believed to be her father, shouting: 'You were lucky she wasn't found dead, mate.'

The district judge said that, on balance, she could not conclude that Mr Ansari had 'reasonable suspicion' to believe that the report would breach the victim's anonymity when he reviewed the script for the broadcast 20 minutes before it was delivered live on air.

But she said: 'There may be lessons in this case for the training of court reporters. That's not going to be a matter for me.'

In a statement issued after the end of the trial on Friday, Mr Majithia said: 'I want to repeat my deepest regret for this mistake to the victim and her family.

'I had previously reported on how much they had suffered at the hands of a grooming gang. It pains me to know that this mistake has caused further hurt.'

The reporter explained that it was the victim herself who had invited him to report on the trial 'with the sole intention of helping her to tell her story'.

He said he made his mistake 'while I was in a state of extreme exhaustion and confusion'.

Mr Majithia said: 'I had never covered a criminal trial before and wrongly believed that the victim was being addressed by a pseudonym in court because she was speaking from behind a screen to protect her identity and because she had previously communicated with me by a different name.

Mr Ansari, pictured leaving Sheffield Magistrates' Court after being found not guilty, said during the trial he had no reason to doubt what his reporter had told him, especially as not naming complainants of sex offences was 'as basic as it gets'

'I didn't know that pseudonyms are not usually used in such trials.

'I had my script checked by my manager, but unfortunately the error wasn't picked up and the script was approved.

'The mistake happened without malice or intent. Nevertheless, it should not have happened at all.

'I was relieved of my reporting duties within days of the mistake. I have also suffered from significant health difficulties as a result of this incident.

'I am truly sorry for what happened and will remain so for the rest of my life.'

Earlier, as he gave evidence in the trial, Mr Ansari said: 'I trusted his journalism. He was a good journalist. This was not a complex legal issue.

'This is as basic as it gets. This is what journalists are taught at journalism school.'

Mr Ansari, who was BBC North West political editor for seven years, said: 'It just struck me as 100% accurate.

'Rickin was a senior journalist, one of my senior reporters.

'He had a background, professional relationship with the victim in question. I didn't. I had never met her. I was in London.

'Furthermore, I knew that he knew that he could not name her, use her real name.

'Put all these factors together, it did not occur to me that this could be wrong.'

A BBC spokesperson said: 'From the start we have accepted that mistakenly naming a victim of sexual abuse during a live broadcast last February was a serious mistake. We apologised directly to the individual concerned and to the court, and we reiterate that again today.

'The CPS had a choice to charge the BBC and or the editor. We firmly believe that it should have been the BBC itself answering in court for this mistake, rather than the individual editor. As we have said previously, we are concerned that the approach taken by the CPS risks creating a climate of fear for editors seeking to cover the courts in the public interest.

'Both our editor and our reporter continue to have our full support. The Judge commented that Rickin was a diligent reporter who had made an honest mistake.

'This has been an incredibly difficult time for Arif. He is a highly-regarded and diligent editor who has had the threat of a criminal record hanging over him for many months

'We are relieved with the court's decision today.'
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Cairo was bathed in a dramatic orange today as a sandstorm swept the Egyptian capital in winds of more than 30mph.

Residents were warned to stay inside over fears of breathing problems while those pedestrians who braved the winds covered their faces to protect against the dust.

As locals battled through the storm the skyline of Cairo was barely visible behind the cloud of orange engulfing the city.

One motorcycle rider said the 'colour of the air is changing' and said he feared for his safety as pictures showed poor visibility on Egypt's roads.

Ports at Alexandria and Suez were closed as a result of the weather, with fierce winds and high waves crashing into the shore, and there were reports of delays at Cairo airport.

The fierce winds bent palm trees along the banks of the Nile, amid harsh weather across the Middle East which saw snow fall in Damascus and power cuts in Libya.

Elsewhere in the region there were fears of a snow storm in Jerusalem while cars were left battling against rain, hail and mud in Israel and Gaza.

Taking cover: A man covers his face with a headscarf and hurries away from the fierce winds in Cairo, as the sky turns a violent orange and palm trees bend in the background amid harsh weather in Egypt and across the Middle East

Poor visibility: Cars and vehicles drive during the sandstorm in Cairo with the orange sky blocking their view, as the fierce weather hit the Middle East this week

Cairo in a new colour: Pedestrians cross a bridge during the sandstorm with the sky cloaked in orange, bathing the stairs and nearby buildings in a sand-tinted light

Faces covered: One women wraps her face in a scarf and wears a woolly hat, leaving just her eyes and nose exposed, whiel another woman holds a tissue to her mouth as pedestrians protect themselves from the sandstorm

Exposed: A man without facial protection walks across a bridge in Cairo with the sandstorm obscuring some of the skyline

Safety masks: People walk in Cairo with masks strapped to their faces to protect themselves from the wind, as Egyptian officials warned people with breathing problems not to go outside

Blocked out: The sandstorm by the Nile river in Cairo with boats and buildings only visible in the foreground

Dramatic: A man walks on the bank of the river Nile as the fierce weather bathes the Egyptian capital in orange this week

Invisible: A man with a face mask walks across a bridge with the skyline of Cairo completely blocked out by the orange sky

Riverside walk: A man ventures outside during the sandstorms in Cairo. Several zoos and parks closed their doors on the same day due to the sandstorm
A pigeon was able to enjoy a drink of water thanks to the help of a passer-by who realized the bird wanted something more.

Steven Pesantez, 25, noticed a pigeon lingering around a public water fountain while waiting for the Staten Island Ferry in New York.

Thinking the bird might be thirsty, Pesantez walked over to the corner and pressed the water fountain's button to give it a refreshing drink.

A pigeon perched on a water fountain near a New York City ferry appeared to be patiently waiting for help

Steven Pesantez thought the bird looked thirst at the Staten Island Ferry terminal so he went over to push the button on the drinking fountain

To his amazement, no sooner had the water started flowing, the bird stuck its beak into the flow and began to take sips from the stream.

His friend Mariel Mitkowski, who shot the video, can be heard in the background saying: 'He was waiting for you!'

Although Pesantez was extremely close to the bird as he pushed the button for water, the bird wasn't scared away.

After about 20 seconds of drinking from the fountain as well as washing its head, the the pigeon flew off.

Uploading the video to Twitter, he wrote, 'I saw that my mans was thirsty so I decided to help him out.'

Pesantez pushed the button for water and the bird started drinking much to his amusement

The bird kept on taking sips of water for about 20 seconds before eventually flying off

He now calls himself 'Steve the pigeon whisperer'. The pigeon hung around long enough for some great photographs of the pair

'We saw the bird hanging out on the water fountain,' Pesantez told The Dodo. 'He was hanging out there for a while.'

'It was an awesome moment helping the little guy get some water,' he said to USA Today.

'He had his head in there, drinking the water. He was absolutely enjoying it.'

The Manhattan-based wildlife rehabilitation center the Wild Bird Fund tweeted that this was a 'regular phenomenon at the Staten Island ferry terminal fountains.'

Meanwhile, reveling in his good deed, Pesantez has since changed his handle on Twitter to 'Steve the pigeon whisperer'.

'It was very zen. I picked up what the bird was putting down,' Pesantez said. 'It was cool to see an animal that needed help, and to be able to help him. I felt so one with nature, in the ferry terminal.'

'He wasn't taking a bath, so I'm pretty sure he was indulging in some of NYC's finest tap water.'

New York's Wild Bird Fund took to Twitter to say that it has heard 'credible reports that this is a regular phenomenon at the Staten Island ferry terminal fountains, not a one-time occurrence.'

While others may be alarmed that the pigeon using the fountain, the New York City Health Department is urging people not to be alarmed saying pigeon droppings pose only 'modest health risks.'
Sergeant Cameron Meddock, an elite army ranger, has become the first U.S. military fatality in Afghanistan in 2019.

Meddock, 26, died in a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, from wounds sustained from small-arms fire during a reconnaissance mission on January 13 in Badghis Province, Afghanistan, as confirmed by the Pentagon, Friday.

The 26-year-old from Spearman, Texas, who was a fire team leader with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, was married to wife Stephanie who is pregnant with the couple's first child, a boy.

Sergeant Cameron Meddock, 26, (pictured above) is the first U.S. military fatality in Afghanistan in 2019

Meddock had been medically evacuated to Germany for surgery where he succumbed to his injuries on January 16.

'Sergeant Cameron Meddock is one of America's precious Sons. The entire Nation should strive to emulate the Warrior, Patriot, and Husband that Cameron was,' Colonel Brandon Tegtmeier, commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment, said in a statement.

Meddock enlisted in the Army on November 14, 2014 as an infantryman and this was his second deployment.

Meddock pictured with his wife Stephanie was expecting his first child, a boy

Meddock died in a military hospital, Landstuhl, Germany, from wounds sustained from small-arms fire during a reconnaissance mission

He'd served as a machine gunner, automatic rifleman, gun team leader and fire team leader.

He was the recipient of numerous awards and decorations including the Purple Heart, the Joint Service Commendation for Combat, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal with campaign star, the Army Achievement Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Ranger Tab, the Parachutist Badge, the Expert Infantryman Badge and the Combat Infantryman Badge.

There are about 14,000 U.S. military forces in Afghanistan. Last month President Donald Trump told Defense Department officials he wanted to cut the troop strength in Afghanistan by half.

A GoFundMe account has been set up to raise funds for Meddock's widow and unborn son.
Two women were killed and four others injured when they were caught in a salvo of celebratory gunfire during a wedding in India on Friday.

Rusum, 43, and Kusum, 50, died on the spot after members of the wedding party began firing shots into the sky around midnight, police said.

Four other women were injured at the ceremony in the Moradabad district of Uttar Pradesh.

Two women were killed and four others injured during celebratory gunfire at a wedding in Uttar Pradesh on Friday, while a 19-year-old bride was shot in the ankle at her wedding in New Delhi the same evening

The Station House Officer of Mudhapande village police station said it was strange and unusual for six people to be shot during a celebration, and confirmed an investigation is underway in to how it could have happened.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Pankaj Singh added that authorities had begun a manhunt to trace the culprits.

Meanwhile a young bride in India's capital New Delhi was injured in a similar but separate incident, also on Friday.

The 19-year-old bride was struck on the ankle by a stray bullet during celebratory gunfire at about 12.45am on Friday at the Shakarpur Community Centre.

Several people have been killed over the last few years in accidents involving gunfire during weddings or parties.

Gunshots are often fired during celebrations in India, but in recent years there have been numerous fatal accidents related to the practice

Last year, a man reportedly shot dead his neighbour by accident when he fired a gun into the air to celebrate his daughter's engagement.

A bullet hit the 22-year-old woman, who was standing on her terrace, in the forehead, killing her instantly.

In December 2016, a 25-year-old dancer was killed while performing at a wedding after she was shot by a drunk man - one of many who were firing into the air during the festivities.

In November 2017, a eight-year-old boy died in similar circumstances at a wedding party.
Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were the 'Karadashians of the gospel' for a good part of the 1980s, raising close to a billion dollars for their PTL ministry.

It all came swiftly crashing down however when it was revealed that the couple had stolen millions of dollars worth of donations from people around the world to fund their increasingly over-the-top lifestyle.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg, with allegations that Jim had raped a secretary emerging around this time while his wife Tammy was forced to check into rehab for a pill addiction.

Their rapid rise and ferocious fall will be the focus of a new episode of 20/20 set to air on Friday at 10pm on ABC.

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Legends Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's fall from grace will b the focus of a new episode of 20/20 airing Friday on NBC (above in 1977)

If they build it: The couple sot to fame and raised close to a billion dollars over 11 years for their PTL ministry, even building a massive amusement-like park Heritage (above in 1986)

Distance: All the while the two made no secret of their lavish lifestyle and the money they splashed out on clothes, cars and jewels (above in 1988)

The Bakkers made no secret of their love for material things prior to the scandal, with Tammy in particular attaining an almost iconic status as a result of her colorful outfits and heavy mascara.

She was also the perfect accomplice for her husband with her ability to burst into tears of joy or sorrow at the drop of a hat.

The couple got their start by appearing on Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network in 1966, and decade later they were in North Carolina delivering their first on-air sermon for The PTL Club.

Over the next 11 years their following grew exponentially until 1986, when PTL reported proceeds of $129 million.

They also opened their own Disney-like park in South Carolina, Heritage - which drew in six millions visitors a year.

It all came crashing down with an expose in The Charlotte Observer, which revealed how the Bakkers were spending those donations to the ministry.

The most damning was the $250,000 that Jim paid to silence secretary Jessica Hahn for what he claimed was a consensual affair.

Tears: It all came crashing down with an expose in The Charlotte Observer, which revealed how the Bakkers were spending those donations to the ministry

The most damning was the $250,000 that Jim paid to silence secretary Jessica Hahn for what he claimed was a consensual affair but she said was rape

It was also revealed that Jim had bee selling lifetime memberships to Heritage that far exceeded the available space, an offense that landed him behind bars.

He was ultimately convicted on 24 counts of mail and wire fraud and conspiracy.

Jim was sentenced to 45 years in prison, which was reduced over time, allowing the disgraced minister to wake free after just five years.

There were problems even before that expose however, with the IRS discovering in 1985 that $1.3 million in ministry funds had been misappropriated and put into the pockets of Jim and Tammy Faye.

It was far more than that however, with jurors hearing at Jim's trial how the couple spent over a million dollars on furs and jewelry, purchased homes and condos, erected biblical statues and spent $2,000 a month on electricity to heat their swimming pools according to a former aide.

That aide also claimed couple spent $105,000 to move belongings by private jet.

Tammy was never charged and stood by her husband's side during their trial, but divorced him while he was in jail.

She then began second life, where she became a popular personality in the gay community, thanks in large part to the years she spent espousing her beliefs of acceptance towards gay Americans and those with HIV/AIDs.

More will be revealed on 20/20 this Friday.
A teenage girl tried to commit suicide to avoid her stalker ex who waited for her outside classrooms and followed her around campus, according to a lawsuit.

The 17-year-old, from Michigan, claims her high school classmate wrote 'whore' in feces on her garage door after they broke up and told her hoped she 'would get raped again' after she confided she had been sexually assaulted as a toddler.

She says she tried to kill herself following the extreme bullying and following the attempt said 'they need to know my 13 reasons why' - a reference to the Netflix show of the same name where a schoolgirl commits suicide.

The bullying is said to have escalated and the lawsuit claims her ex even egged her home, covered it in toilet paper and slashed her tires.

Now the A grade student and member of the school marching band is suing Plymouth Canton community schools district accusing them of mishandling her numerous complaints.

The Canton High School, pictured, student said she was stalked by her ex who wrote 'whore' in feces on her garage door after they broke up and told he hoped she 'would get raped again'

Following her suicide attempt the teen said 'they need to know my 13 reasons why' - a reference to the Netflix show of the same name where a schoolgirl commits suicide, pictured

After taking pills in April 2017 the teen ended up in hospital where The Detriot Free Press reports she cried out: 'Why won't (he) leave me alone. I can't take it anymore. Everyone hates me. I am a whore. They need to know my 13 reasons why.'

She had posted online that she had taken the pills and wanted to die, according to reports.

And even after her suicide attempt the boy is accused of continuing to torment her. One school staff member is even said to have told her mom 'kids will be kids'.

Her attorney, Jennifer Salvatore, told Fox2: 'This boy at school repeatedly harassed her, bullied her, targeted her and humiliated her to the point of attempting suicide.

'My client's mother was told, 'We'll talk to him. But we don't really know what happened. I'm disappointed it wasn't addressed earlier and that it has come to this point.'

Salvatore, who said the girl had to get a personal protection order, claims she contacted the district last year regarding the matter but 'didn't get any sort of response at all'.

The Canton High School student is said to have broken up with the boy after three weeks of dating in 2016 when she was aged just 14.

She says he then began to stalk her, calling her names in the hallway, allegedly in front of teachers and other students. He is also said to have pushed her into a metal fence.

According to the suit the girl reported harassment 10 times over 16 months.

It states: 'Tragically, (the girl's) suicide attempt was not an isolated incident. Three Plymouth-Canton high school students have taken their lives in the past year.'

The school said they would speak with the boy but the girl eventually attempted suicide by downing pills, the suit alleges.

In a statement The Plymouth Canton School District told DailyMail.com: 'The district does not tolerate harassment of any kind. All allegations of harassment are taken seriously, are investigated thoroughly, and responded to with appropriate action. We are unable to comment on any specific student matter.'

If you or anyone you know needs to talk, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), and the Trans Lifeline is available at 1-877-565-8860.
Officials at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest, have been forced to bring in additional TSA screeners to help reduce wait times at the domestic terminal ahead of the holiday weekend.

The move comes as the partial US government shutdown entered its 28th day on Friday.

The shutdown, which is the result of a political stalemate between President Donald Trump and Congressional Democrats over funding for a wall along the US southern border, has led 800,000 federal workers, including TSA agents and air traffic controllers, to go without pay.

Long lines are seen at a Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport amid the partial government shutdown Friday

TSA was forced this week to fly screeners from other cities to Atlanta to help reduce wait times

TSA agents who screen passengers are not getting paid during the shutdown, now in its 28th day

After Hartsfield-Jackson, which typically handles about 270,000 passengers a day, experienced two-hour security lines on Monday, TSA brought in screeners from other cities to Atlanta to reduce wait times, reported Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

Top 10 airports with longest wait times 1. Atlanta International Airport: 47 minutes 2. Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport: 36 minutes 3. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport: 31 minutes 4. New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport: 29 minutes 5. Houston Bush Airport: 28 minutes 6. Bradley international Airport: 27 minutes 7. Laguardia International Airport: 24 minutes 8. Denver International Airport: 24 minutes 9. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport: 23 minutes 10. Baltimore/Washington International Airport: 22 minutes *According to TSA data for Jan 17. Advertisement

But passengers traveling ahead of the Martin Luther King Jr holiday weekend still experienced wait times of up to 45 minutes during the morning rush hour Friday.

In a statement released this morning, TSA said it expects a high volume of travelers this weekend, with Friday being the busiest day with over 2 million passengers being screened at security checkpoints at airports across the US.

TSA estimates that between Friday and Monday, over 8 million passengers will be screened, which is an increase of 10.8 per cent from the Martin Luther King Jr Day holiday weekend in 2018.

Figures provided by the federal agency indicate that Atlanta's airport saw the longest wait times on Thursday, clocking in a 47 minutes, followed by MinneapolisSaint Paul International Airport with 36 minutes and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with 31.

TSA urged travelers to allow enough time to get through the airport and board their flight.

TSA also disclosed that on Thursday, 6.4 per cent of its employees nationwide missed work, compared to a 3.8 per cent one year ago on the same day, with many screeners saying 'they are not able to report to work due to financial limitations.'

Passengers at the Atlanta airport, the world's busiest, waited in security lines up to 47 minutes on Thursday and 45 minutes during the morning rush hour Friday

A group of TSA screeners workers held a rally at Pittsburgh International Airport Friday, demanding an end to the shutdown

The rate of absenteeism among TSA staff spiked at 7.7 per cent last Sunday, two days after they missed their first paycheck because of the shutdown.

Meanwhile, a group of TSA screeners held a rally at Pittsburgh International Airport on Friday, demanding an end to the political impasse in Washington DC.

The demonstration was organized by the union representing the 450 TSA workers employed in Pennsylvania, reported WTAE.

Union President William Reese said 'morale is at an all-time low' among TSA staffers.
A little boy crushed by a car seat suffered internal bleeding likened to a crash injury, a court has heard.

Alfie Lamb, aged three, died after his mother's boyfriend Stephen Waterson, 25, allegedly squashed him by reversing his car seat.

The boy had been in the rear footwell of Waterson's Audi convertible, at the feet of his mother Adrian Hoare, 23, the Old Bailey has heard.

Adrian Hoare (left with her son), 23, allegedly did nothing to stop Waterson and instead told her son (Alfie is pictured left and right) to be quiet as he screamed out for her to help

Stephen Waterson (pictured) is accused of crushing three-year-old Alfie Lamb to death by reversing his car seat into the youngster in his Audi convertible

A jury at the Old Bailey today saw photographs of the interior of the car where it alleged Alfie suffered his crush injuries

She allegedly ignored his cries of 'Mummy' and told him to 'shut up' on the journey back to their home in Croydon from Sutton in south London on February 1 last year.

Alfie was taken out of the car 'unresponsive' and confirmed dead on February 4 after three days in intensive care.

There were four adults and two youngsters in the car but no child seats in use on the day of the tragedy, jurors have heard.

Paediatric pathologist Dr Andreas Marnerides carried out a joint post mortem examination on Alfie's body at St Thomas's Hospital in London on February 9.

The court heard that Alfie was crushed in the footwell behind the passenger seat when the seat in front was reversed by his mother's boyfriend

The court previously heard how Marcus Lamb was driving, Stephen Waterson was sitting in the front passenger seat, and Adrian Hoare was in the back with Emilie Williams. Ms Williams' daughter was sitting in the footwell in front of her, while Alfie was sitting in the footwell in front of Hoare, and behind Waterson

Alfie's mother, Adrian Hoare, 23, who was in the seat behind her son, is charged with manslaughter alongside Waterson

Waterson denies manslaughter and intimidating Marcus Lamb, also known as Marcus Richardson, on 15 February

He told jurors Alfie had been a 'healthy boy'.

He said: 'In this case we had no positive findings of a natural explanation of a death and we had positive findings it was unnatural, it was trauma related.'

There were a lot of external petechial haemorrhages - tiny red spots caused by ruptured veins - on Alfie's forehead, around the eyes, cheeks, upper chest and behind the ears, the court heard.

There were other similar spots elsewhere, including inside Alfie's chest cavity, Dr Marnerides said.

Alfie Lamb, pictured with his mother Adrian Hoare, suffered massive crush injuries

Alfie died following the incident this Audi convertible which was owned by Waterson in February last year

The pathologist ruled out a possible natural explanation such as sepsis, saying there was 'positive evidence there had been injury that would have resulted in increase in pressure in the body, the abdomen and chest'.

Alfie, pictured, suffered ischemic brain injury caused by deprivation of blood or oxygen and compression asphyxia

Evidence of internal bleeding was explained by impact to the right side of the body, he said.

He told jurors such impact or compression injuries were like those seen in road traffic collisions.

He ruled out Alfie's injuries being caused by efforts to resuscitate him after his collapse.

Fat globules in the lungs also indicated a traumatic injury, he said.

The cause of death was given as ischemic brain injury caused by deprivation of blood or oxygen and compression asphyxia, jurors were told.

Waterson, 25, and Hoare, 23, from Croydon, south London, have denied manslaughter.

The trial continues.

The court heard that Alfie's crushing injures were worse than those in a road traffic accident
Iowa Republican Steve King is attempting to raise money off a scandal that lead to passage of a rare resolution of disapproval of his comments about 'white supremacy.'

King was widely condemned by politicians from both parties following his comments, which appeared in a New York Times article last week.

'White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization  how did that language become offensive?' King was quoted saying in the article.

He joined in a House-passed motion of disapproval following his comments. It passed 424 to 1.

Republican Congressman Steve King voted for a resolution condemning himself for comments he made about white nationalism and white supremacy

Afterward, he penned an email to his campaign supporters portraying himself as a victim of a campaign to destroy him.

'The unhinged left has teamed up with Republican 'NeverTrumpers' and is pulling out all the stops to destroy me,' he wrote, the Des Moines Register reported.

He also said the 'rabid leftist media' was coming for him.

Since the interview, King denied that he is racist and said his remarks were 'completely mischaracterized'.

Republican leaders blasted his comments. House leaders stripped King of his committee assignments.

'There is no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind,' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after the comments appeared last week.

Republican Congressional leaders Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (left) and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (right) have condemned King's remarks

The final vote was 424 in favor and one opposed; Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush said he would vote no because he wants King censured, a much stronger punishment

'Rep. King's statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesn't understand why 'white supremacy' is offensive, he should find another line of work.'

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah called for King to 'step aside.'

King went along with the resolution when it came to a vote before the full House  in a move that stopped short of a formal censure.

'I agree with every word that you have put in this,' King told House Democratic whip James C. Clyburn, who sponsored the resolution, in a speech on the House floor shortly before the vote.

'So I want to ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle let's vote for this resolution. I'm putting up a yes on the board here because what you say is true, is right and is just,' he added.

When the comments first appeared, King issued a statement saying: 'Today, the New York Times is suggesting that I am an advocate for white nationalism and white supremacy. I want to make one thing abundantly clear; I reject those labels and the evil ideology that they define,' King said in the statement, which did not deny the accuracy of the quotation.

'Further, I condemn anyone that supports this evil and bigoted ideology which saw in its ultimate expression the systematic murder of 6 million innocent Jewish lives,' he said, bringing up the Holocaust.

The nine-term lawmaker has drawn a potentially serious primary challenger in Iowa state Sen. Randy Feenstra.

King also said on the floor: 'The words are likely what I said, but I want to read them to you the way that I likely said it.' He said he, too, condemns white supremacy.
A woman in Ireland was denied an abortion despite the country recently passing legislation to make it legal.

The woman now plans to travel to England, a well trodden path for Irish woman, to get an abortion to terminate the fetus after it was found to be showing a 'fatal abnormality'.

The Coombe hospital, a leading maternity facility in Dublin, reportedly refused to terminate the pregnancy because it did not 'fall neatly' into a fatal foetal abnormality diagnosis.

Ireland had a constitutional ban on abortions until an historic vote made it legal as of January 1 this year.

The Coombe hospital, a leading maternity facility in Dublin, reportedly refused to terminate the pregnancy

Ruth Coppinger of Solidarity, a socialist party, said that the woman was told by two consultants that the child's organs were outside its body. Pictured speaking on the issue in Irish parliament

Despite this, the hospital board allegedly overruled two of its consultants in defining the unborn child's condition as a fatal foetal abnormality.

This a claim the hospital deny, saying that their board has no rule over certifying decisions like this.

Under Ireland's new abortion laws, a GP can perform the abortion up to nine weeks of pregnancy.

A woman from the 'Yes' campaign reacts after the final result was announced in the Irish referendum on the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution in May last year

After that, between nine and 12 weeks, hospitals perform them with a decision being made afterwards when there are 'exceptional circumstances'.

The woman contacted politicians over the matter and they raised the issue yesterday in Irish parliament.

'Her words to me were: "This is not what I voted for. I have constitutional rights," Brid Smith, of the People Before Profit party, told the Dail chamber.

Posters call for Yes and NO votes for a repeal of the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution in May last year

'She is finding it hard to sleep, knowing the condition her much-wanted child is in. She wants a termination. She is entitled to it. This country voted for it. It is the law.'

Ruth Coppinger of Solidarity, a socialist party, said that the woman was told by two consultants that the child's organs were outside its body and that the diagnosis was confirmed a week later before being overruled.

'One doctor, her consultant, and then another consultant were brought in and said, yes, it is a fatal foetal abnormality. A week later it went to the board and the board has overruled that,' Coppinger told the chamber.

Junior Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor told media in Ireland that 'we need to have the full facts of this case

Junior Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor told media in Ireland that 'we need to have the full facts of this case' after Coombe Hospital denied that their board have no role in the ruling of the case.

'Nineteen maternity hospital have signed up to provide this service, so obviously there are challenges at the beginning of this service - but as I said I'm not going to rush to any judgement,' she added.

However, the woman claims she was told that her foetus's condition - including a displaced heart - 'doesn't fall neatly into a fatal foetal abnormality,' according to The Irish Examiner.

In a statement, National Women's Council of Ireland director Orla O'Connor said it is essential that 'complete clarity' is brought to the case, saying what happened 'has the potential [to cause] widespread anxiety for women in Ireland'.
A 'reclusive' son lived with the bodies of his murdered parents for 'five days' before killing himself.

King County Sheriff Deputy investigators said Matthew Ficken, 34, shot his parents, Lorraine and Robert Ficken, last week on or about January 10.

But he didn't kill himself until deputies came to the house do a welfare check on Tuesday, after concerned family members called authorities after not hearing from them for several days, according to KOMO news.

Lorraine, 68, and Robert, 72, were found with gunshot wounds on Tuesday afternoon in their $700,000 home in Sammamish, Washington, along with Matthew.

The King County Medical Examiner's Office said Matthew died of a shotgun wound to the head and his death was ruled a suicide.

Lorraine and Robert had split amicably ten years ago but still lived together with their son, The Seattle Times reports.

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Real estate agent Lorraine Ficken, left, was found dead alongside her husband Robert. The couple are said to have been killed by their own son, Matthew, right

Lorraine and Robert Ficken were found with gunshot wounds in their home, pictured in Sammamish, Washington, along with son Matthew who is thought to have killed them both before turning the gun on himself

Family members have said Matthew was 'mad at his mom for planning to sell the house and move to Oregon to be near her family, even though detectives said she gave him more than enough money to get started on his own place.'

Lorraine's brother-in-law, John Mance, of Lebanon, Oregon, told Herald.net: 'Lorraine was a very accomplished Realtor. She was pretty upbeat. She liked to laugh a lot.'

Matthew worked for Microsoft from home, according to Mance and public records.

'Matthew always lived at home,' said Sgt. Ryan Abbott. 'From what the family tells us, he just could take it for some reason and didn't want the house he grew up in from being sold from underneath him. And for some reason he shot and killed his parents over this.'

Lorraine had been planning to retire and had bought a home to live near her eldest sister in Sherwood.

Police, pictured outside the home following the murder suicide, said relatives asked for them to carry out a welfare check on the family

Neighbor Jennifer Eiken told Kiro 7: '(Lorraine Ficken's) son was very kind of reclusive. 'She was the sweetest woman in the world. Just so sweet,' Eiken added.

Lorraine had sold homes since 1992. Her husband Robert was a well known local historian and author who wrote books about Washington.

Police said relatives asked for them to check on the family but said there were no recent calls to them from the home before the murder suicide.

Robert was a 'gifted historian' who had written several books and had earned a doctoral degree from the University of Washington

Lorraine's brother-in-law, John Mance, told The Seattle Times: 'Lorraine was a very accomplished Realtor. She was pretty upbeat. She liked to laugh a lot.

'You would never meet a family of sisters that could be closer. They're all helpful and outgoing. The sisterhood bond, I've never seen anything like it.'

Managing broker Marilyn Green said her colleague was 'was one of the nicest people we've ever known'.

She said of Lorraine in a statement: 'She was one of our top producers, and served her clients without fault. We have been hearing from so many clients who are in tears over this tragedy. It is a huge loss for so many and Lorraine will be greatly missed.'

Robert, 72, as described as a 'gifted historian' who had earned a doctoral degree from the University of Washington.

He co-wrote Washington: A Centennial History with Charles LeWarne, who said: 'I just had tremendous respect for him. He was very quiet but not reserved.

He was very confident, very astute. It was really an honor to work with him.'
Daniels pictured at the XBiz awards show on Thursday

Stormy Daniels has praised 'trouble-raising' porn stars while hosting an adult awards ceremony as she pledged to renew her fight for sex worker rights.

Speaking at the adult convention XBiz in California on Thursday, Daniels heaped praise on her fellow performers - having earlier tweeted she was planning a protest against the California Supreme Court.

To the mavericks and the pioneers. To the entrepreneurs and the activists, the innovators and the trouble-raisers that make up our awesome industry,' she said during her speech.

Tonight we honour you. Tonight we recognise your dedication to the craft

If youve earned a nomination tonight its because youre among the best of the best. And I am honoured to join Xbiz in turning the spotlight on you.

Daniels had previously disclosed that she was going to protest with other porn stars against the 'Dynamex decision'.

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The adult actress has been a vocal campaigner for adult workers rights and has appeared at protests across the country

Daniels praised her fellow porn stars during her speech at the ceremony and dedicated her address to the 'trouble-raisers'

She was referring to the case of the Dynamex vs California Supreme Court, earlier this year, which sex workers say denied them their right to determine their own employment status.

'I will be protesting with adult entertainers in Sacramento tomorrow. We oppose the Dynamex decision imposed by the California Supreme Court,' Daniels tweeted.

'State legislators need to give workers a CHOICE. Join me at the Capitol for a press statement and demonstration.'

While on Monday this week she tweeted: 'California continues to push the anti-worker the Dynamex decision on adult entertainers.

Stormy Daniels joined a number of other exotic dancers in October last year at the Louisiana state capitol to protest a new state law that requires strippers to be at least 21 years old

'Workers deserve a right to CHOOSE to be an independent contractor. Join me later this week in a large protest event to get lawmakers to take this issue seriously.'

In October last year, Daniels appeared at a sex worker rights rally outside the Louisiana State Capitol Building.

She and others protested a law passed in Baton Rouge that required female strippers in the state to be at least 21 years old.

More than three dozen sex workers at the protest rallied against what's being called the 'Baby Stripper Law,' which claims the new bill unfairly targets young women and could force girls into prostitution by denying them legal work at strip clubs.
A City firm that invests billions of pounds has an 'aggressive male-dominated culture' and saw 19 women quit in just six months, an employment tribunal heard.

IFM Investments is facing allegations of harassment and unfair dismissal from former analyst and associate Nathalie Abildgaard.

She said she had no choice but to resign from her 94,000 a year post plus a bonus to avoid working with executive director Frederic Michel-Verdier.

The tribunal heard that on top of her bonus Miss Abildgaard, 27, would receive a '100 per cent' bonus, boosting her income to nearly 200,000 a year.

Nathalie Abildgaard, left arriving at the tribunal today, claims she had to leave her 94,000 a year post at IFM Investments to avoid working with executive director Frederic Michel-Verdier, right today, and that she's been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

She says 50-year-old Michel-Verdier made lewd comments to her in a nightclub including 'I know more about sex' and 'I could teach you a lot of things' last March.

She claims he told her: 'If I were 20 years younger I would have been all over you' and sent her messages inviting her to come to his hotel room.

In a witness statement, Miss Abildgaard cites a report from IFM Investments that states 19 out of 25 resignations during a six month period in 2017 were women.

Of the 19, 14 of the resignations were deemed as 'regretted' exits, the tribunal heard.

Miss Abildgaard told the tribunal that at a recruitment meeting just before the incident at the nightclub last year, a female colleague questioned why a list of potential candidates did not include any women.

Mr Michel-Verdier is said to have responded: 'Can women even do this job?'

Miss Abildgaard said she had spoken to a number of other female colleagues at the firm who felt bullied and belittled by senior male staff.

She said a commercial director at the firm worked with Michel-Verdier on a project and said he had told her: 'Don't be so emotional' and also 'Can you read?'

Miss Abildgaard, pictured today arriving at the tribunal in London, said that when a female colleague questioned why a list of potential candidates for a job did not include any women, Mr Michel-Verdier responded: 'Can women even do this job?'

Miss Abildgaard said she had been looking for new employment from September 2017 up until her resignation and had received a job offer from Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) just over a week before the nightclub incident.

But she said she had not signed any contract or agreed to take the job as she did not want to leave IFM until August 2018 - when she would receive her bonus.

Miss Abildgaard said: 'In March 2018 I had met with Annabel Wiscarson, the former European head of investor relations and the most senior woman in the London office, to discuss GIP - which Miss Wiscarson had recently moved to.

'Miss Wiscarson told me that she perceived there to be cultural issues, such as aggressive male-dominated culture and limited recognition and promotion of female staff in the London office.'

City analyst Miss Abildgaard said she was left feeling 'degraded' after Mr Michel-Verdier allegedly told her that if he was '20 years younger I would have been all over you.'

The incident is said to have happened at the Bling Bling nightclub in Madrid and she quit her job with London-based IFM Investments a month later.

Mr Michel-Verdier, pictured arriving at the tribunal today, denies the allegations against him

Ms Abildgaard also claims Michel-Verdier stood 'inappropriately and intimidatingly' close to her before telling her: 'You do not understand, I'm so much older than you.'

She says he added: 'I know more about sex. I can teach you a lot of things.'

Mr Michel-Verdier is also said to have messaged her his hotel room number so 'we could have some fun' on the same night in March last year, which was organised to celebrate the closing of a deal.

Miss Abildgaard said the incident at Madrid nightclub Bling Bling left her feeling anxious and she suffered panic attacks when she started a new job at the rival firm in July.

She was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and signed off from work - which she hopes to go back to in March this year.

The Danish-national told the tribunal: 'It will take time and effort for me to recover from my anxiety before I will 'feel like' working in such an environment again, but it is my intention to do so.

'I felt like years of hard work on my career were wasted and it took me a long time to accept that I was unable to work.

'Once I stopped working I went into a period of depression. I isolated myself as I was unable to appreciate the company of others and was exceedingly short-tempered.

'I had trouble sleeping with frequent nightmares and I suffered intense panic at seemingly insignificant events.'

Mr Michel-Verdier denies the allegations. The hearing at Central London Industrial Tribunals continues.
A principal has resigned from one of the country's top charter schools after he was caught on video pushing and shoving a male student.

Morgan Barth, principal of New Haven's Achievement First Amistad High School, resigned after video showed him grabbing a student who tried to leave his office while discussing previous discipline.

The State Department of Education had reprimanded the leadership of AF Amistad in the past for what the state says amounts to three times more suspensions as any other New Haven public school.

Morgan Barth, principal of New Haven's Achievement First Amistad High School, (pictured), resigned after video showed him grabbing a male student who tried to leave his office

Amanda Pinto, Achievement Firsts senior communications director, told the New Haven Independent that it was clear Barth could no longer leads the school.

She said: 'Its clear that he could not be the leader of the school right now, given his actions and the feelings of the school community.

'I think both of those things became clear to him'. The incident was caught on a security camera in mid- October.

Barth told his colleagues that hed been hit but the video showed that he had initiated physical contact, according to the New Haven Independent.

After the incident happened, Steven Cotton, a behavior specialist at the school who recently quit, posted a 45 minute Facebook Live video which criticized the school's methods.

Cotton questioned why Barth wasn't dismissed earlier he emailed the charter networks co-CEOs about the video, telling them that what he saw was 'over the top and unprofessional, aggressive and almost violent'.

Cotton told New Haven Independent: 'What theyre not telling you is a lot of the oppressive things that are going on at Amistad'.

Footage shows Morgan Barth talking to a student in a corridor with his hand pointing at him

Barth is later seen grabbing the student (left) to try make him go back into his office (right) over a previous disciplinary issue

Other staff members and students (pictured) are seen surrounding Barth and the student to break up the altercation

He claimed it is the school's method of discipline which teachers and students alike say wastes time and beats down the students.

He told Fox61: 'From the time I met that man, very intimidating to the kids. Multiple staff always referred to his style as intimidation, basically.

'[He was] just missing a straw hat and a little piece of straw that would've made you massa [master], looking over your plantation of like slaves basically', Cotton said.

Steve Cotton, a former employee, claimed he was 'very intimidating to the kids'

He claimed that if he had not spoken out, 'hundreds of kids that are now hitting my phone and messaging me and the hundreds of parents that are messaging me would would have never had a voice'.

The school's Chief External Officer, Fatimah Barker, calls the principal's conduct 'unacceptable' in a statement.

She added: 'When this incident happened, we conducted an internal investigation, documented the incident in accordance with state laws, and worked with the students family  including sharing the video with them.

'In addition, Mr. Barth was disciplined and also required to attain additional restraint training'.

The high school is ranked 55th best in the nation and first within Connecticut and 19th overall for charter schools, according U.S. News and World Report.

Minority enrollment is 99 percent, the Advanced Placement participation rate is 100 percent with 37 percent pacing.

The high school (pictured) is ranked 55th best in the nation and first within Connecticut and 19th overall for charter schools

The school's goal is to get 100 percent of students accepted to four-year colleges and universities, according to its website.

Barker also said that Cotton's Facebook video did not portray an accurate depiction of the school.

She added: 'We are proud of the many great things happening for students at AF Amistad High, but we also know there are ongoing issues.

'We will work in the coming days, weeks and months to better understand and address them.

'Were committed to making sure that AF Amistad High is always a place that parents, students, and teachers are proud of'.

Morgan Barth previously worked as a regional superintendent for some Achievement First schools in Connecticut and also worked for the state Department of Education.

During his tenure at Elm City College Prep Elementary the school was ranked first for African-American student achievement in the state, according to the school's website.
Prince Philip's extraordinary Sandringham car crash has sparked debate over whether at 97 he is now too old to drive.

Norfolk Police is investigating the smash between the Duke of Edinburgh's Land Rover and a Kia yesterday that left two women injured and a baby miraculously unhurt.

Prince Philip, who was dragged from the wreckage via his sunroof, is recovering today as Buckingham Palace confirmed he has an up to date driving licence renewed every three years since he was 70.

His friend Gyles Brandreth said that Philip is a 'pragmatist and realist' who will accept he should stay off the road if his wife the Queen tells him: 'Old boy, it's time to hang up the keys and give yourself a break'.

Mr Brandreth added: 'I'm sure he'll accept that, while possibly muttering under his breath'.

But with a new 4x4 delivered to the Duke at Sandringham today it suggests he could still resist with experts claiming younger drivers are statistically more likely to crash.

Prince Philip, pictured driving with his wife the Queen, would give up driving if his wife told him to, friends say, but his crash has sparked debate over whether 97 is too old

Prince Philip was 'conscious but very shocked and shaken' after a dramatic crash near his Sandringham Estate but does have an up to date driving licence, the Palace says

Philip is believed to have just left Sandringham, circled red, and was turning on to the A149 at this junction when he collided with a Kia and his car cartwheeled on to the other side of the road, circled blue

Prince Philip has a driving licence - but his wife is the only legal motorist in Britain without one The Duke of Edinburgh is from the first generation to need to pass a driving test to obtain a licence. He was born on June 10 1921 and compulsory testing for new drivers to obtain a licence was only introduced in Britain on June 1 1935. This applied to all drivers and riders who started driving on or after April 1 1934 - when Philip was 12. Philip lived in both Europe and the UK as a boy, and enrolled at Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, and is believed to have have taken his test around then. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: 'The duke has got a driving licence and follows all of the usual DVLA procedures.' Philip will have had to renew his licence every three years from the age of 70. There is no driving test or medical examination, and it is down to drivers to declare whether or not they are fit to drive. Applicants are urged to check with their doctor before applying and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) may make further investigations based on the declaration made. The only mandatory examination of vision takes place during the practical test, when learners must read a number plate from 20 metres. Once someone has obtained their licence, it is up to them to tell the DVLA if they have a problem with their eyesight. The Queen does not having a driving licence. She is exempt from the law requiring all other citizens to pass a test and hold a licence if they want to drive. The monarch learned to drive with the Army in 1945 when she was 19 after she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the Second World War. She still drives herself around her estates. Advertisement

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: 'The duke has got a driving licence and follows all of the usual DVLA procedures.'

In Britain people over the age of 70 have to renew their driving licence every three years.

But there is no driving test or medical examination, and it is down to drivers to declare whether or not they are fit to drive and if their eyesight is still good enough.

Road safety charity Brake has called for a vision test to be required at least every 10 years when drivers renew their licence photocard.

Critics say this system piles the pressure on relatives to convince loved-ones to hand back their keys or go to the DVLA themselves.

Prince Philip is notoriously impatient and does not take kindly to being told what he can and cannot do.

But some commentators speculated that the World War II naval officer might now accept it is time to give up the wheel - as he did with flying in 1997.

Royal biographer Penny Junor told Sky News: 'It was a horrible thing to happen, but should he be driving?

'I have no idea who the fault lay with - but he is 97 years old and maybe his reactions are not as fast as they once were.'

Royal biographer Hugo Vickers told BBC News: 'Any kind of car accident at the age of 97 is likely to produce shock.

'Some years ago he gave up flying planes long before he needed to because he was scared that if something happened there would be a lot of criticism.

'So he does listen to these things - he's very, very sensible.

'If anyone's involved in a car accident, it's quite a frightening thing. If he thought that he'd lost concentration or something or he hadn't seen somebody he would realise he's not up to it anymore.'

The Prince gave up polo at the age of 50 - but switched to another equestrian sport, carriage driving, which he still enjoys.

And he also gave up flying planes when he accepted that a crash in later life would lead to a great deal of criticism.

Nick Freeman, the lawyer dubbed Mr Loophole, said the duke could be prosecuted for driving without due care and attention if he was deemed to have made a mistake.

But he added: 'If the sun was so low and right in your eyes, sometimes it's impossible to see, and that may well have been the case and that would afford him a defence.'

The duke, who retired from public duties in 2017 but remains active, could also avoid prosecution by surrendering his licence, according to the lawyer known for representing celebrity clients like David Beckham.

When Prince Philip drove the Queen, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle to Windsor Castle three years ago the then US President said: 'I can report that it was very smooth riding'.

Armed police arrived as Philip's new vehicle was checked over and then waved into the Queen's Norfolk estate to replace the old one

Norfolk Police told MailOnline they are treating the crash like any other incident and sent officers to the scene today

How could Prince Philip be punished by police? Experts have said if the Duke is at fault the most likely offence he has committed is driving without due care and attention  also referred to as careless driving. It is defined in law as 'allowing the standard of driving to fall below that of a competent and careful driver'. Aggravating factors include: Excessive speed or aggressive driving

Carrying out other tasks while driving

A lack of concentration causing the crash

Tiredness or driving whilst unwell

Driving contrary to medical advice The punishment may include an unlimited fine, points on your licence or disqualification from driving. Advertisement

Edmund King, president of The AA motoring association, said new drivers were more prone to accidents.

'If driving restrictions based on age and safety were introduced, we would be more likely to restrict young drivers rather than older drivers,' he said.

'Older drivers often self-restrict their driving by not driving at night and only driving on familiar roads.

'The decision to hang up your keys is a tough one but should be based on personal advice from your GP (family doctor) and family, rather than being based on some arbitrary age.'

After his crash many took to social media to suggest that Philip should be forced to give up.

Nick Lloyd, acting head of road safety for RoSPA, who used to have Prince Philip as its chairman, said: 'In the wake of the incident, we have inevitably heard calls for mandatory testing of people of a certain age.

'This is a red herring  age is a completely arbitrary and unreliable measure for assessing someone's ability to drive. Statistically, older drivers have fewer accidents than other age groups'.
This is the amazing moment an octopus amazed a diver with its incredible colour-changing camouflage as it hid in plain view.

Footage was captured by a free-diver as he swam in the crystal clear waters in the French Riviera.

As the diver swims through the water, he uses his hand to point to floor and what appears to be rocks and seaweed.

Footage was captured by a free-diver as he swam in the crystal clear waters in the French Riviera

Heading down to the bottom, the diver swims through seaweed before focusing the camera on ragged mass of rock.

But the rock does not appear to be what it seems, as suddenly an octopus bursts off the rock and swims off into hiding, squirting ink as it flees.

The incredible octopus interchanged between its natural brown complexion and the deep-sea green of its surroundings.

It had settled on a spot and changed colour in order to blend seamlessly with the surrounding reef.

Octopuses are highly-intelligent beasts that have evolved to master their marine environment and are unique in the animal kingdom for many reasons - having three hearts, for example.

An octopus bursts off the rock and swims off into hiding, squirting ink as it flees

Camouflage is just one of their remarkable methods of self-preservation.

Octopuses are part of the family cephalapods, which includes squid and cuttlefish and many of these animals have chromataphores in their skin.

These special pigment cells allow them to control the colour of their skin, much like chameleons.

They can also change the texture of their skin to better blend in.

The diver said: 'During a freedive in the French Riviera, approaching gently around the Posidonia, the octopus uses his best camouflage. When he saw me he changed colors and disappeared.'
A Californian pastor has been ousted from his church after posting a sign outside saying 'Caitlyn Jenner is still a man'.

Presbyterian pastor David Hoke was pushed out of the Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church this week after he erected a sign outside the church that stated, 'homosexuality is a sin'.

'I did not want to leave, I did not quit, and I was willing to stay,' Hoke added.

Hoke posted an image on his church's Facebook page on December 31 proudly displaying the sign to the world.

The pastor of the Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church, Justin Hoke, posted the sign on Facebook on December 31 to a mixed reaction

Justin Hoke, the pastor of the Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church, who put up the offensive sign

Local activists saw this as provocation and a protest against 'hate and slander' - the 'Shastina Love Rally' - was organised by LGBT supporters to 'show love' on January 6.

Hoke believes they are responsible for damage to the sign and wrote on Thursday last week: 'I woke this morning to find that our sign had been vandalized.

'They broke not only the plexiglas and stole some of the letters, they also busted the power box.'

Hoke then defiantly repaired his sign and put the same message back up.

He wrote to his congregation on Facebook, 'If a conservative mountain farming community is no longer a safe place to call sin, sin.

'Then is anywhere in this country still safe for real Christians?'

Hoke posted this picture of the sign after he was sent proof of the damaged sign by a concerned member of his congregation on Wednesday

Hoke giving a sermon in northern California, he is active on social media and uploads recordings of many of his sermons online

The activists told the Sacramento Bee they condemn violence and are not responsible for the damage.

Caitlyn Jenner, 69, came out as a transgender woman in 2015, after being known as Bruce

The LGBT activists say on their Facebook page: 'As a community I hope that we can come together to show our love and support for the LBGTQ community in protest to the hate and slander that is being thrown at them; not only to our community, but world wide.'

The organizers - Amelia Mallory, Charolette Kalayjian, and Mishelle Le Guellec - told the Siskiyou Daily, they were all mothers and the pastor's message is not appropriate for children.

'If that sign can make me sad,' Kalayjian told the paper, 'imagine what it could do to a child.'

They are planning to hold another rally this Sunday.

Caitlyn Jenner came out as a transgender woman in 2015 after dealing with gender dysphoria for much of her life.

She was married to Kris Jenner, the matriarch at the center of the popular reality show, 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians,' before their divorce later that year.

The 69-year-old former Olympic champion is the father of Kylie and Kendall Jenner.
Authorities in Texas have revealed that a San Antonio mother had an argument with her live-in boyfriend the night before the woman and her two daughters were found shot to death inside their home in a gated community last week.

The medical examiner ruled this week that Nichol Olsen's death a suicide, and her daughters London Bribiescas, 10, and Alexa Montez, 16, were homicides, after they were found shot dead in their luxury home on January 10.

But Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar insists it's too early to write the deaths off as a murder-suicide and revealed that the investigation was still ongoing.

'We can't just say, 'Oh, well then she must've been the one that did this to these two little girls,'' Sheriff Salazar told KTXS. 'We still have to go out and find out who it was that killed these two young ladies.'

'Our investigation may concur with the medical examiner,' the sheriff said. 'Or we may find something through the course of our investigation that may change that finding all together. At this point, it's just too early to tell.'

Now it has been revealed that Olsen, 37, fought with her boyfriend, Charles Wheeler, 31, on the night of her death.

Wheeler, who is a person of interest but has not been named as a suspect, reportedly spent the night at a relative's residence out of town after the argument.

'I think there'd been an argument at the very least,' Salazar said of what had passed between the couple prior to Wheeler's departure.

The medical examiner has ruled mother Nichol Olsen's (left) death a suicide and the deaths of her daughters, 10-year-old London and 16-year-old Alexa (right), homicides

Nichol's boyfriend Charles Wheeler, left, is considered a 'person of interest' but not a suspect in the case. He told police he returned to the $1million home where they lived on January 10 and found the bodies

He added that people who knew the couple told investigators that their was 'not the happiest of relationships.'

The boyfriend returned home at 9am the following morning and found Olsen dead of a gunshot wound to the head inside their $1million residence in the 11300 block of Anaqua Springs in San Antonio, along with her daughters London Bribiescas, 10, and Alexa Montez, 16.

Both girls were also shot in the head, and London, a fifth-grader at Leon Springs Elementary School, also sustained a wounded to the neck.

Olsen's death was ruled a suicide, while the deaths of London and Alexa were ruled homicides, raising doubts from the woman's family and friends who argued that she would have never harmed her children of herself.

A gun was recovered near Olsen's body, but no suicide note was found, reported San Antonio Express-News.

Salazar said Wheeler is considered a 'person of interest' but not a suspect in the shootings, reported MySanAntonio.com.

Investigators are looking at other potential persons of interest as well.

He went on to say that Wheeler has submitted to tests inspecting his hands for traces of gunshot residue.

'He's been cooperative with us knowing full well that under the circumstances he's a person of interest,' Salazar said. 'We're not calling anybody a suspect at this point.'

Wheeler's attorney, Mark Stevens, asked the public not to jump to conclusions and demonize his client, who he said did not commit the crime.

On Monday, he revealed that the medical examiner had determined that Nichol killed herself but said his office is still investigating what happened.

It coincides with disbelief from Nichol's many friends and relatives who have spoken out to say she would 'never' have harmed herself let alone the two girls.

Wheeler's attorney asked the public not to jump to conclusions and demonize his client (left, with Olsen)

'The medical examiner's findings are independent to what we may find...

'We owe it to the public, to continue this investigation and so we can't just say well this is what the medical examiner says case closed.

There are way too many unanswered questions... we have to go out and find out who killed these two young ladies

'The fact that Nichol Olsen's death has been ruled a suicide, we can't just say 'well she must be the one who did this to these little girls.'

'We have to go out and find out who it was that killed these two young ladies.

'The evidence my leads us back to somebody in the house but it may not,' Sheriff Salazar said.

As part of their probe, police are looking into cell phone usage and the towers they pinged from.

No one has been arrested for the killings and Bexar County Sheriff's Office did not answer DailyMail.com's multiple questions about the case on Monday morning.

The bodies were found inside the $1million mansion Wheeler bought last year and where they all live. He told police he returned home, found the bodies and called 911

An internal view of the home which is in a gated community in the affluent San Antonio neighborhood

Nichol (pictured with her 22-year-old son Skylar who was not involved in the killings) has been described as a 'fiercely protective' mother and loving friend. It remains unclear what led up to her death or what made the medical examiner believe that she killed herself

Police will not say where Wheeler spent the night before he found the bodies.

Shortly after the bodies were found, authorities from the Bexar County Sheriff's Homicide Division spoke with him but he has not been arrested nor has any evidence emerged to suggest he is responsible.

'We're not necessarily doubting him or calling him a liar at this point,' Salazar said Thursday. 'What we are doing is trying to verify or refute that independently... Chances are wherever he was, he continued to use his cell phone.'

Police say Charles Wheeler has been cooperative since the beginning of the investigation

His Ford 2013 pick-up truck was seen being removed from the street but there have not been any other developments.

He did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's inquiries on Monday morning but police say he has been cooperative throughout the investigation.

'[He] has been very cooperative from the onset. Understandably, he's upset.

'He has someone he was in an intimate relationship with and two children that by all accounts he cared for [who] have all passed in a very violent fashion.

'I can tell you with regard to the information that we have that he was at another location, we're still investigating that,' Sheriff Salazar said.

Now, friends of the mother-of-three tell DailyMail.com that she too must have been killed and her grieving relatives are begging for answers.

'Nichol was a loving mother who cared deeply for her children.

'They were her entire world, and there was nothing she was more proud of than her kids.

London (shown left on New Year's Eve) and Alexa have different fathers. Alexa's father said her death had destroyed his life. London's father is yet to comment

'Everyone close to Nichol knows that she put her children above all, loved them with all her heart, and there's no possible way Nichol would ever hurt her children,' the friend, who wished to remain anonymous, said.

They added that she was preparing to enter London, who was in the fifth grade, in America's Got Talent when they were both killed.

'Nichol was a very caring woman, had so much love in her heart, and too much to live for to ever hurt anyone including herself.

'We pray that whoever did this will be brought to justice soon,' they said.

Others, including Alexa's grieving father, have told how she was a loving mother who would never have brought harm to her children.

One friend said: 'She was an amazing mother who guarded her children like a hawk.

The couple, shown above during a recent trip to San Diego, appeared happy on social media. Wheeler owns an oil rigging and maintenance business

'There was nothing she wouldn't of done for her children...I hope we get justice very soon for this horrible crime & they catch this monster who took life from you and your beautiful girls.'

Another wrote on Facebook: 'She was so beautiful. She would never hurt herself or her girls. Domestic violence is real.'

Olsen's loved ones who do not believe she took her own life are killing her children have started a GoFundMe page titled 'Searching for the truth.' The goal of the campaign is to raise $50,000 to get to the bottom of what happened. As of Friday morning, more than $14,600 has been raised.

Carlos Montez, Nichol's estranged husband, said they had a good relationship for the sake of their daughter.

'I remember the day I met Nichol Olsen. We were both so young that we rushed into marriage thinking we had it all figured out.

'...We tried as best we could to keep things together but life gets messy every now and then.

'Through our differences and divorce we both agreed on what was best for our daughter. Nothing ever changed from then on.

'My mother and sister loved Nichol and she never kept Alexa from us and vice versa.

'We always did what was best for our baby,' he said.

Before their marriage, she was briefly married to James William Nobles. The pair have 22-year-old son together.

A family friend has launched an online campaign in London Bribiescas's memory seeking to raise money to upgrade the monkey enclosure at the Austin Zoo because the 10-year-old loved the animals

She did not marry London's father, Hector Bribiescas. He has not commented publicly since his daughter's death.

The younger sister, described as bubbly and creative, was supposed to try out for the televised talent competition America's Got Talent the day after the incident.

A family friend has launched an online campaign in London Bribiescas's memory seeking to raise $20,000 to upgrade the monkey enclosure at the Austin Zoo because the 10-year-old loved the animals.

The woman who created the campaign wrote movingly about her final encounter with London a short time before her death.

'London spent New Year's and the week before her death with my family in Austin, Texas. During this visit, we went to the Austin Zoo. She could not stop talking about the monkeys. All she wanted to see were the monkeys.

'While there, I shared with her that we were planning to do some sort of addition to the tortoise exhibit, as a memorial to her great- grandmother, who passed away a few months ago, and loved tortoises...In passing, she said, 'When I die, can you do that for the monkeys for me? They need a bigger cage.'... She was 10, so of course I jokingly told her that she would outlive me, and that she should let her future kids know this, so they can do it for her.

'We then laughed about how old I was, and I honestly didn't think about this conversation much, until after we heard the news that she was gone...'
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Two-year-old Julen (pictured with his family), has been trapped down a well for five days

Heavy trucks today brought drilling equipment and giant pipes to the scene where a two-year-old boy vanished down a deep well in Spain.

Rescue workers are preparing to dig a vertical tunnel in an effort to reach Julen Rosello, who has been trapped in the hole in southern Spain since Sunday.

'The priority now is the works on the vertical tunnel,' said a spokeswoman for the regional government in Malaga.

Officials said on Thursday they were not losing hope of finding the boy alive, but the operation would take at least a few days.

Engineers will begin drilling a second tunnel after they have had time to install a platform for the heavy machinery.

Julen fell into the well which is just 25 cm (10 inches) wide and 350ft deep as his family walked through a private estate in Totalan, Malaga.

Julen's devastated parents Jose and Vicky, both 29, have spent most of the past week at the scene, sleeping on inflatable mattresses inside a tent, although they were persuaded to return to their home in the Malaga neighbourhood of El Palo briefly on Tuesday night to shower and pack a change of clothes.

Heavy machinery arrives to the place where rescue teams are working around the clock to find two-year-old Julen, who has been trapped inside a well since last Sunday

The rescue operation is now focusing on the constructing of a vertical tunnel running parallel to the borehole after work on a horizontal tunnel faced technical difficulties

Officials said on Thursday they were not losing hope of finding the boy alive, but the operation would take at least a few days

The case has captivated Spain and the whole country is holding its breath for the outcome, not least because Julen's parents were hit by another family tragedy in 2017.

According to media reports, their three-year-old son Oliver died suddenly while walking along a beach not far from Totalan after suffering a heart attack believed to be linked to a congenital heart defect.

Authorities confirmed strands of the boys hair were found in the borehole

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska thanked public and private entities on Friday for 'putting all their means at our disposal' in what he said was a very complex rescue operation.

A bid to free Julen by digging a horizontal hole from a nearby hillside failed yesterday when it hit heavy stone, which engineers could not break through without endangering him.

The leading engineer in the search, Angel Garcia, said creating an alternative access point involved days of digging work and technical surveying of terrains that normally would take months.

He warned the work was 'extremely difficult' and could be hampered by rain that is forecast for coming days.

Maria Gamez, the Spanish government's representative in the Malaga province, vowed the search would continue until the boy is saved.

'We are not going to stop even one minute,' Ms Gamez said.

'Nobody in the rescue team is putting in doubt that we will bring him out, and we all remain confident that he will be alive.'

Heavy trucks today brought drilling equipment and giant pipes to the scene in Malaga, southern Spain

This photo posted by local firefighters show the small 15in-wide hole Julen fell down on Sunday afternoon

No vocal contact has been made with Julen.

Footage of the tunnel shows a blockage of earth, sand and stones around three-quarters of the way down the 350ft well - believed to have been caused by a mini-landslide during the youngster's plunge - which is preventing rescue teams reaching him.

The toddler is believed to be underneath and the discovery of several strands of his hair by rescuers appears to confirm that theory. But there is no way to tell whether or not he is alive.

Mr Garcia said there was ventilation in at least the upper half of the well. 'Beyond the blockage there may be some or not,' he added.

Creating an alternative access point involves days of digging work and technical surveying of terrains that normally would take months

Julen had been on a walk with his family in the countryside when he vanished down the hole, which his father says was not properly covered

'We're dead, but with the hope an angel will help us get him out alive,' Julen's father Jose said yesterday. 'It feels like it's lasted for months.'

Jose has said the borehole - on family-owned land - was made by a prospector at the request of his cousin's boyfriend last month but no water had been found.

The prospector has told police he complied with the law by sealing the hole after it was made but Julen's family say it had simply been covered with stones that weren't properly laid.

Julen's distraught parents Joke and Vicky have already lost a three-year-old son Oliver, who died from a heart attack in May 2017

The rescue operation is unprecedented in Spain given how difficult it is.

Dr. Werner Weigl, Vice President of the Bavarian Chamber of Civil Engineers warned that as the location of Julen is not clear, steering the shaft into the unknown could be dangerous as could the vibrations from the drilling.

Among the nine companies taking part in operations is Stockholm Precision Tools AB, a Swedish company that in 2010 contributed to the spectacular rescue of 33 Chilean miners trapped 69 days underground.

A bulldozer moves into place as engineers prepare to dig two new tunnels at the site in the countryside north of Malaga
A Chinese surgeon has become the latest internet celebrity for posting videos of himself 'operating' on pieces of fruit.

Dubbed the 'fruit surgeon', 32-year-old Wang Yexiao from Hegang, north China's Heilongjiang province first shot the videos to entertain his two-year-old son, but then saw an opportunity to expand his target audience after the clips went viral.

Now, Dr Wang is using the fruit surgery videos to teach the general public how the most common medical procedures are usually carried out, such as caesarean sections and appendectomies.

Wang Yexiao, 32, from Hegang, north China's Heilongjiang province films himself operating on a cherry (left) and a piece of pink grapefruit. He first shot the clips to entertain his two-year-old son, but then saw an opportunity to expand his target audience after the clips went viral

Now, Dr Wang is using the videos to teach the public how the most common medical procedures are usually performed, such as caesarean sections and appendectomies (above)

Since posting his first video - removing the seed from a grape by 'c-section' - on short video app Kuaishou, the 'fruit doctor' has gained more than 100,000 followers. The clip of his grape patient drew nearly three million views.

One video shows Dr Wang carefully using a scalpel to cut open a mango before removing an 'irregular lump' from it. Another clip shows him removing four 'kidney stones' from a piece of pink grapefruit.

'Mango, male, complained of acute pain in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen and is diagnosed with appendicitis,' Dr Wang wrote under one of the videos, which shows the doctor skilfully applying 'anaesthesia' before removing the 'inflamed appendix' and stitching up his fruit patient.

Dr Wang Yexiao said he thinks it's important for the general public to have a basic understanding on how the most common operations are done in hostpitals

Since posting his first video - removing the seed from a grape by 'c-section' - on short video app Kuaishou, the 'fruit doctor' has gained more than 100,000 followers

Dr Wang's other patients include a piece of jackfruit, a cherry, a peach, a banana and a lotus root.

'I've decided to use fruits as my patients because their colours would probably appeal to a wider audience, especially children,' said Dr Wang, who works as a surgeon at the Hegang People's Hospital.

He told Beijing News that it's important for the general public to have a basic understanding on how common operations are done.

'Nowadays, a lot of patients don't seem to have a lot of trust in doctors as they believe these medical procedures are complicated and mysterious,' he said.

'I hope the videos would improve relationships between patient and doctors,' adding that each clip would take him and his wife about three to four hours to make.

Besides mangoes, Dr Wang's other patients include a peach, a banana and a lotus root

His patient also included a piece of jackfruit which he removed the pit from

Videos of the delicate operations quickly went viral on Chinese microblogging site Weibo, with a trending topic page 'operating on fruits' gathering more than 260 million views.

Many net users have been naming their favourite fruit to become Dr Wang's next patient, with many challenging him to operate on a tiny sesame seed.

'Would you be able to operate on a sesame seed patient?' one typical comment asked.

'This looks exactly like the appendectomy I had! Impressive!' another user said.

'Such a skilful and patient doctor,' one user praised. 'If it were for me, I might just put the piece of fruit out of its misery by eating it!'
Autopsies showed three young children died of accidental asphyxiation when they became trapped in an unplugged chest-style freezer in their yard in north Florida.

Suwannee County Sheriff Sam St. John said Wednesday there were no signs of trauma on the three children.

Officials have not named the children, but it's believed their names are Dawlton Lee DelBridge, six, BrookLyn Leigh Jackson, four, and Kayliegh Mae Meeks, 19 months. It's said that Dawlton and Kayliegh were siblings.

Their bodies were found on January 13 at a home outside of Live Oak, Florida, after they went missing while playing outside.

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Authorities said that the three Florida children who died after getting trapped inside a freezer died of accidental asphyxiation. Dawlton Lee DelBridge, six, and sister Kayliegh Mae Meeks, 19 months are believed to be two of the three victims

BrookLyn Leigh Jackson, four, is said to be the third child who was trapped in the freezer

Video courtesy of WCTV

The Suwannee County Sheriff's Office said the children were outside playing at a residence on 173rd Place in Suwannee County when they climbed into the freezer and became trapped.

During interviews with the adults present at the home, police found out that the freezer had just been brought to the residence but had not been plugged in or brought inside the home.

Authorities said 'for unknown reasons they climbed inside' the freezer while one adult had gone inside the home to use the bathroom.

Its believed the children were stuck inside the freezer for about 30 to 45 minutes before being found by their guardian. Dawlton is pictured here

'When the female returned to the yard, she could not locate the children so she woke up the other adult female who was at home, sleeping, preparing to work the night shift, and they began to search the property and an adjacent vacant home for the children,' a police statement reads.

Finally, the adults, who have not been identified, found the children when they opened the chest freezer.

None of them were breathing. The adults immediately administered CPR and called 911.

Upon arrival, first responders transported the children to a local hospital where they were pronounced dead.

Authorities said they inspected the freezer, which had an after-market hasp that had been installed on the lid in order to secure a padlock on it.

'It is believed at this time, that when the children entered the freezer, and the lid closed, the hasp fell shut, trapping the children inside. There was no padlock on the freezer,' police said.

The three children were said to have been left in the yard by themselves after their guardian went inside the home to use the bathroom. They had disappeared by the time she returned

The chest freezer the children had climbed into and suffocated inside. The freezer was unplugged and had an after-market hasp attached that fell shut, trapping the children inside

The freezer was placed in the yard of this home and had been there for a couple days

Authorities said the children were thought to have been trapped inside the freezer for between 30 to 45 minutes before they were located, but that the medical examiner would be releasing a more specific timeline at a later date.

The Gainesville Sun reported two families lived at the home - a woman and her 4-year-old daughter, and the grandmother of the other two children.

Authorities said they are still investigating the incident and intend to submit the case to the Third Judicial Circuits state attorneys office for possible filing of criminal charges.

It appears as though authorities are looking to build a neglect case by determining whether the children's guardian would have know that the freezer situation could have resulted in injury or harm to a child.

'If you put your kid outside with a mean dog who has always been mean and the dog bites the child, then that is obvious neglect,' St. John told The Gainesville Sun.

'That freezer had been there two days, not two years. So if the kids decided to go jump in there, is that neglect? Is that criminal? Thats what were trying to figure out.'

Detectives are expected to conclude their investigation before the end of next week.

The deceased siblings' children's grandmother is said to not harbor any ill feelings toward the other mother who was at the Suwannee scene at the time, according to First Coast News.

But she did share that the family is heartbroken over the children's death

Two fundraisers were established in the children's names.

A family friend who babysat Dawlton and Kayliegh established a now-defunct GoFundMe for the children's funeral expenses.

'These two children had a tragic ending to their lives too soon or so we all think is too soon but we're told that God has a time for everyone,' the page stated. 'I babysat these two children I bonded with them.'

Another GoFundMe was created to help Brook'Lyn's family pay for funeral expenses and a celebration of her life. The remainder of the funds raised would be donated to the Ronald McDonald House.

The fundraiser wrote: 'Brook'Lyn Leigh Jackson a beautiful little girl taken to soon. She was full of life and joyful. Everyone who came to know her loved her."
PICTURED: Arthur Martinovich, 34, the hammer-wielding madman suspected of killing two workers and critically injuring a third at a Brooklyn restaurant on Tuesday

A second man has died as a result of a hammer attack at a Brooklyn restaurant.

Witnesses say Arthur Martinovich, 34, walked into Seaport Buffet in Sheepshead Bay just before 5.15pm on Tuesday and began bludgeoning the restaurant's 60-year-old owner Kheong Ng-Thang, who was at the front of the buffet.

He went to the back of the restaurant, where he struck 34-year-old chef Fufai Pun and 50-year-old manager Tsz Mat Pung before fleeing the scene.

Cops captured Martinovich about two blocks away from the bloody scene. He reportedly became combative minutes before his perp walk and assaulted an officer.

Martinovich was subsequently secured on a stretcher with restraints on his arms and legs. An ambulance transported him to the psychiatric unit at Kings County Hospital, where he is under evaluation.

All three victims were taken to another hospital, where Pun was pronounced brain dead.

A second victim, whose name has not been released, was confirmed dead on Friday.

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Martinovich is seen secured to a stretcher with restraints after police apprehended him near the scene of the vicious attack on Tuesday

Witnesses say Martinovich walked into Seaport Buffet in Sheepshead Bay just before 5.15pm began bludgeoning the restaurant's 60-year-old owner at the front of the buffet before heading to the back, where he fatally struck 34-year-old chef Fufai Pun and another 50-year-old employee before fleeing the scene

Cops captured Martinovich about two blocks away from the bloody scene. He reportedly became combative in custody, forcing authorities to place him on a stretcher in restraints

Several employees who witnessed the attack have said the perpetrator, believed to be an immigrant from Estonia, appeared to be specifically targeting Chinese victims.

A dishwasher at the restaurant, 41-year-old Francisco Sales, told the New York Daily News that the attacker told him: 'I dont have a problem with the Hispanics, but with the Chinese.'

Despite the attempt at reassurance, Sales sprinted out of the eatery clutching a stick to defend himself if necessary.

Though Sales and others told police Martinovich's actions appeared racially motivated, authorities have no plans to charge him with a hate crime.

He is, however, facing charges for murder, attempted murder and weapons possession.

A police source said of the attack: 'It was unprovoked. It appears random. [Martinovich] is an emotionally disturbed person.'

Law enforcement sources also said he told cops he was inspired by a movie about Chinese mistreatment of women.

'He had problems with Asian men,' one source said. 'He talked about how Asian women are being treated by their men.'

Witnesses said the suspect was also rambling about aliens, and claimed 'voices' told him to hurt the victims.

'He was saying psycho stuff about space aliens,' another police source added.

Several employees who witnessed the attack at Seaport Buffet (above) have said the perpetrator appeared to be specifically targeting Chinese victims

Havoc erupted when Martinovich approached restaurant owner Kheong Ng-Thang and struck him on the head with the curved side of the hammer, causing terrified customers to flee

Ng-Thang and restaurant manager Tsz Mat Pung, 50, were hospitalized with massive head injuries, according to authorities. The chef, Fufai Pun, was taken to the hospital and pronounced brain dead from a blow to the head. A second victim died Friday

Martinovich was transported to Kings County Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. He is facing charges for murder, attempted murder and weapons possession

Sales said Martinovich appeared calm when he first entered the restaurant, wearing construction gloves.

Havoc ensued when he approached the owner and struck him on the head with the curved side of the hammer.

Terrified customers at the buffet ran out of the restaurant and went to Randazzo's Clam Bar next door for cover.

'A guy who worked there ran in. He said: "The guy hammered the manager in the head and there's blood everywhere,"' waitress Kimberly Bisono recalled.

'People were rushing out. One of the customers ran in and said: "Lock your doors. He's attacked people with a hammer and he's on the loose.'"

Samantha Randazzo, who owns the Clam Bar, said she let Seaport Buffet customers take cover in her restaurant.

'We tried helping people who were trying to come in, customers, but we were scared to even walk out,' she told NBC New York. 'We didn't know where he was.'

'They said a guy came in crazy with a hammer and started hammering certain people, random people, said he was just screaming crazy words like "I'm killing everybody, world is hell."'

A police source said of the attack: 'It was unprovoked. It appears random. [Martinovich] is an emotionally disturbed person'
The wife of Interpol chief, Meng Hongwei, is seeking asylum in France for her and her children after her husband was mysteriously detained by Chinese authorities.

Her husband disappeared under clandestine circumstances while on a home visit to China last year, with the government taking weeks to admit that they detained him under bribe-taking charges.

Now, Grace Meng wants asylum for her and her twin seven-year-old boys. They currently live in Lyon, Interpol's headquarter city.

Interpol President Meng Hongwei delivers his opening address at the Interpol World congress, in Singapore

Mrs Meng, who opts not to show her face in interviews, and the children are under police protection, having received threats.

Meng Hongwei, a former vice-minister for public security in China who rose through the ranks of the country's feared security apparatus, was the first Chinese head of the international police organisation.

He was last heard from on September 25 as he left Lyon for China, when he sent his wife a social media message telling her to 'wait for my call', later sending a knife emoji.

Grace, the wife of the missing Interpol president Meng Hongwey, talks to journalists on October 7, 2018 in Lyon

This photo shows the last message sent by missing Interpol President, Meng Hongwei, to his wife, Grace Meng

Mrs Meng said she believes the knife emoji was to let her know that her husband was in danger.

Grace Meng later reported he was missing, and after several days without news Interpol said it had received a short message from Meng saying he was resigning.

China's new National Supervision Commission, an anti-corruption agency, said Mr Meng was being investigated for 'violation of laws'.

'I think the anti-corruption campaign in China has already been damaged. It has become a way of attacking people who are your enemy,' said Mrs Meng during an interview in Lyon.

She told Liberation newspaper that two Chinese businessmen, one of whom she knew, had visited her at home in early October, before China revealed her husband had been arrested, and invited her to travel with them by private jet to the Czech Republic.

Meng Hongwei poses during a visit to the headquarters of International Police Organisation in Lyon, France, May 8, 2018

They asked her for investment advice because she was trained as an economist, but she turned them down, she said.

'That's what I call a kidnap attempt,' she said, adding that this was when she asked for police protection.

She also said that in late October the Chinese consulate in Lyon said they had a letter for her from her husband, but insisted she show up in person to collect it.

She asked that they hand the letter over to French police, or that French police be allowed to go with her to the consulate. She did not receive a response.

In the interview to Franceinfo and Liberation, given on January 10, she said that she had received no news of her husband or of her family back home, and that her Chinese phone and internet accounts had been blocked.

She had also received 'strange phone calls', she said, and was once followed into a hotel by a Chinese couple who attempted to gather information about her.

It's not uncommon for individuals who speak out against the government to disappear in China, but the scope of the 'disappeared' has expanded since President Xi Jinping (right) came to power in 2013. Pictured with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (left)

China's public security bureau has linked Meng's detention to a broader initiative to 'completely remove the pernicious influence' of Zhou Yongkang, a former security czar who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for bribery, abuse of power and leaking state secrets.

Meng was appointed vice-minister of security by Zhou in 2004.

He was replaced as Interpol chief by South Korea's Kim Jong-yang.

It's not uncommon for individuals who speak out against the government to disappear in China, but the scope of the 'disappeared' has expanded since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2013.

Not only dissidents and activists, but also high-level officials, Marxists, foreigners and even a movie star, people who never publicly opposed the ruling Communist Party, have been whisked away by police to unknown destinations.




Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is seeking to recruit Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to run for the Senate from Kansas and keep the seat in Republican hands.

The move would deprive President Trump of a capable cabinet member, while giving McConnell a top-tier candidate in a deeply Republican state where Democrats managed to score a win by snatching the governorship in November.

McConnell reached out personally to Pompeo in a call, the Washington Post reported, and the top diplomat is keeping the door open to a run.

But Trump doesn't want to lose Pompeo, who stepped in after he was confirmed to replace Rex Tillerson, who had become a favorite target of Trump's.

GO WEST!: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is recruiting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to run for an open Senate seat in Kansas

Kansas is not normally the kind of state Republicans have to spend much time worrying about. Democrats haven't won a seat there since 1932, and Kansans have tended to reelect their senators for long stretches.

But the GOP must defend 22 seats in 2020, and would welcome the chance to secure a tested candidate to run in the open seat, allowing them to focus on other battles.

A candidate of his stature could potentially clear away most of a primary field.

One source in contact with Pompeo mentioned the appeal of the diplomat being able to 'parachute out if things get bad,' according to the Post, as President Trump finds himself encircled by the Mueller probe and House Democrats intend on investigating his administration.

'Secretary Pompeo is focused on serving the President and keeping Americans safe as the Secretary of State,' said his spokesman at the State Department, declining to rule out a run.

If he did enter the Senate, Pompeo would be in the position of getting to vote on Trump's cabinet nominees, including his successor, as well as diplomats. Were the House to impeach Trump as some Democrats are calling for, the Senate would be in the position of considering any charges that made it through the House.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky and Republicans must defend 22 seats in 2020
Andrew Meads outside the court where he was told to pay 1000 to the victim

A Ministry of Justice adviser who punched a paramedic who was trying to treat him after he drunkenly fell over in the street after a party has been spared jail.

Andrew Meads, 52, a senior economic guru at the MOJ, was seen staggering around Marlborough Place, Kensington, on December 17 after drinks at the Oxford and Cambridge Club Annual.

Paramedic Craig Cassidy found him slumped by a pavement curb with a gash above his eye and a blood-stained shirt.

While trying to treat the government aide, Cassidy was told: F*** off I want to go home. If you do not leave me alone I will f***** punch you.

Police handcuffed Meads and helped to bundle him into the back of an ambulance.

Freeing his hands briefly so he could treat him, Mr Cassidy leant forward, but Meads punched the paramedic to the right temple.

PC Nikhil Patel restrained him again and was told: Take these f****** handcuffs off or I will f****** kill you.

The York and Bath University graduate formally worked at the treasury but has been employed by the Ministry of Justice since 2014.

Meads told the court he used to go out four or five times a week but has reduced this to only a few nights year.

On the night he attacked the paramedic he said he met a friend he had not spoken to for 30 years and became so engrossed in a long conversation he lost track of what he was drinking.

Before he left the club, he felt the room getting hot and then said he could not remember anything until the police interview.

He said: I have a stressful job it has been stressful now for two years. It was the end of a very stressful day.

The incident took place in Marlborough Place in Kensington after an evening of drinking

I came in that day as part of me job to do some work - some legislation. I had a huge amount of stuff dumped on me. My day particularly in the afternoon became extremely stressful.

Meads claims he has no idea why he reacted in the way he did.

I was horrified with myself. It was like somebody else being described. I had no idea why I was doing it.

Meads has one previous conviction from 2003 for driving while over the limit for which he received a disqualification and a community order.

Paul Dillon, defending, told district judge Vanessa Baraitser that Meads was plied with drink at the exclusive event: Alcohol clearly was an issue as far as this matter is concerned.

He tells me it was not the sort of party whereby you buy drink. As you stand with your empty glass people come to top them up.

He insisted the behaviour was completely out of character for Mr Meads.

Mr Dillon told the judge: This is not someone who is here on a regular basis.

The defence barrister told the court that Meads was already facing disciplinary proceedings in the MOJ.

He said: Disciplinary proceedings have already commenced.

These actions are going to have huge consequences.

Mr Meads injured himself when he drunkenly fell to the floor after a Christmas Part

I would ask you to consider that as part of his punishment.

District Judge Baraitser told the defendant: This was a serious incident, the assault of an emergency worker.

He suffered a short term impact, he immediately felt upset. He now feels more cautious towards people while carrying out his duties.'

But she added: It is clear that you are genuinely remorseful.

I accept that you have already been punished to some degree by the potential consequences for your work.

Meads was given a 12 month community order with a requirement that he do 150 hours unpaid work.

He was also ordered to pay 1,000 compensation to the paramedic and an 85 victim surcharge.

Married Meads, who lives in a 800,000 home in Surrey, admitted assaulting an emergency worker, being drunk and disorderly in a public place and using insulting words to cause alarm.

Meads, of Lesbourne Road, Reigate, was given a community order of 12 months and told to pay 1000 in compensation to the paramedic as well as an 85 victim surcharge.
Truck driver John Rogers, pictured arriving at Winchester Crown Court this morning, was jailed for almost five years for causing the deaths by dangerous driving of Michael James and Susan Curtis in June 2018

A distracted lorry driver ploughed into the back of a car, crushing it and killing two passengers instantly - then shocked rescuers when he declared 'this is all I need, this is my first day back from holiday'.

A court today heard John Rogers failed to pay attention on a busy motorway for nine seconds causing his huge 12-wheel HGV to smash into the back of an Audi Q3 while travelling on cruise control.

Shockingly, Rogers, 65, didn't even apply the brakes of his lorry until three seconds after he had slammed into the back of the Audi with pensioners Michael James and Susan Curtis inside.

Friends Mr James, 77, and Ms Curtis, 67, who were returning from a weekend away together, suffered horrific fatal injuries as their 4x4 was obliterated when it was sandwiched between Rogers' HGV and another lorry.

Rogers was today jailed after a judge heard the driver told rescuers 'this is all I need, this is my first day back from holiday' after failing to spot slow moving traffic from 200 metres away.

Winchester Crown Court heard Rogers' DAF XF was travelling at 52mph on cruise control when he hit the car at 10.20am on the M3 motorway by Winchester, Hampshire.

Rogers tried to blame Mr James, who was in busy traffic and doing just 11mph, for the horrific collision, claiming he had pulled in front of him and even told police he was an 'idiot'.

Judge Susan Evans told Rogers losing attention for nine seconds created a 'substantial risk' to other motorists as she jailed him for four years and eight months.

Rogers sat emotionless as horrifying dashcam footage from two lorries showed the terrifying impact of the crash.

In one video, a passing lorry reveals how little there was left of the Audi as it was concertinaed between the Renault lorry in front of Mr James' car and Rogers' DAF XF.

Footage from the Renault lorry Mr James' car was crushed into shows it then being smashed into the rear of an ERF lorry. The driver of the Renault lorry is heard screaming in pain.

Prosecutor Tom Wright told the court minutes earlier Rogers, who was hauling a 40ft shipping container filled with car parts, had actually pulled out in front of Mr James, causing him to brake.

Mr Wright said despite emergency services rushing to the scene, Mr James, of Broadstone, Dorset, and Ms Curtis, of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, were pronounced dead at the scene on June 5 last year.

The prosecutor said: 'There were signs warning about the traffic, one of those being a kilometre back from the slow traffic.

'The defendant was travelling at a consistent speed of 52mph, while the Audi had been doing about 11mph.

Rogers was driving his HGV carrying a Maersk shipping container full of car parts along the M3 towards London when he ploughed into the back of an Audi Q3 pushing it into a Renault truck, pictured with the blue trailer. Such was the force of the impact, the Renault truck was pushed into a third truck at the head of the queue

The Audi Q3, covered by a white sheet, was completely demolished by the high speed impact. Police believe Rogers was travelling at 52mph on cruise control when he hit the Audi and waited three seconds before applying the brakes - by which time it was too late to avoid pushing the car into the trailer of the truck ahead

'When other motorists went to help the defendant in his cab, he said 'this is all I need, this is my first day back from holiday'.

'He claimed the Audi had pulled in front of him and he could not avoid the collision.

'In interview, he told police 'you know the idiots you get, who try to jump in front of you. [The Audi] came up the outside, the brake lights came on and he whipped into the inside lane.'

'From this, you can infer he was calling Mr James an idiot.

'We are still unable to say what caused the defendant's inattention.

'Shortly before, Mr Rogers had pulled out of lane one, into the middle lane, in front of Mr James. The Audi had to break and then the defendant pulled back into lane one.

'I mention this, because it may be indicative he was not paying attention to other road users.'

Rogers, a grandfather of eight from Trdegar, Gwent, admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving.

Jailing him and banning him from driving for four years, Judge Evans said: 'On June 5, 2017, a tragic collision occurred on the northbound carriageway of the M3 motorway.

'It was caused by dangerous driving and led to the death of two people, Michael James, a much loved father and friend, and Susan Curtis, a much loved mother and friend.

'To say their families have been devastated by this does not do it justice. They have had no chance to say goodbye to a loved one.

'There's nothing this court can do to compensate the loss of their lives.

'Your attention was in some way distracted for a period of nine seconds, it is not known what caused you to be distracted.

Judge Susan Evans, sitting at Winchester Crown Court, pictured, jailed Rogers for four years and eight months and banning him from driving for four years

'You did not, in fact, brake until three seconds after the collision. It seems to me this created a substantial risk of danger - you did not seem to respond to the traffic.

'There was also some degree of blame laid on Mr James, but he was in no way to blame for what happened.'

Mitigating, Alexander Greenwood told the court Rogers 'was not tired' and said the crash had a major impact on his client, who had been an HGV driver for 18 years.

He said: 'Nothing I can say, in any way, can begin to mitigate for the terrible loss of the two families.

'Mr Rogers had a latent heart condition, there's no question of him not being able to drive as he had been medically cleared, but it is right to observe that.

'He is simply unaware of how this collision occurred.

'This has had a big impact on his life, the heart condition has worsened likely through the stress and guilt he has felt.'

Speaking after the sentencing, crash investigator PC Mark Furse said: 'Rogers had at least eight to nine seconds to stop his vehicle and could have done so safely in half that.

'He did not apply any braking until around three seconds after the first impact.

'This absolute tragedy just shows what a few moments of inattention can result in. The need to pay full attention at all times in paramount.

'Even the slightest distraction can have catastrophic consequences and the effects are far reaching and last a lifetime.'
Armed police have swooped on a train station to arrest a man after he was seen with a 'samurai sword.'

Officers tackled the 23-year-old man on a platform at Dartford Station, in Kent, at around 12.45pm today although no weapons were used.

There are no reports of any injuries and reports on social media suggest the blade was a samurai sword.

Armed officers arrested the 23-year-old man, left and right, at Dartford station after receiving reports of a person with a samurai sword. Pictured left an officer appears hold a large blade

The man was first seen on a train and the alarm was raised. He was then detained at Dartford Station.

Eyewitness David Johnson posted pictures of the police on Twitter this afternoon with the caption: 'Dartford platform as armed response to man on train with sword.'

Mike McEvoy tweeted: 'He [the man] was spotted at Greenhithe but staff were not allowed to hold up the train according to what I heard.'

Video from the scene shows a man being escorted by police officers and a member of train staff.

One of the police officers can be seen holding a large blade and a backpack.

The 23-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and is now in police custody.

A British Transport Police spokesman said: 'Shortly before 12.45pm today officers from British Transport Police and Kent Police were called to Dartford station after reports of a man in possession of a large knife.

Two police officers were seen walking along the platform at Dartford station earlier today

'Police officers were quickly on scene and detained a man on the platforms at the station.

'A 23-year-old man was arrested on possession of an offensive weapon, he is being taken to custody. There are no reported injuries.

'During the arrest a Taser device was drawn but not deployed.'

The incident is not currently thought to be terror-related.
Russian boxer and former light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon for an incident in Big Bear California on June 9 that reportedly left a woman with a broken nose, a concussion, and displaced disc in her neck.

Police confirmed to the Daily Mail that Kovalev was arrested before posting bond and being released later that day.

According to TMZ, Kovalev pleaded innocent to charges of assault by means of force likely to cause great bodily injury.

TMZ reported that Kovalev punched the woman in the face.

The woman reportedly rejected the married Kovalev's advances at a party before he and a friend followed her to her cabin, where she was allegedly assaulted.

The arrest was not known publicly in August, when Kovalev was upset by Columbia's Eleider Alvarez. The two will face off in a rematch on February 2

Kovalev's promoter has yet to respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment.

The arrest was not known publicly in August, when Kovalev was upset by Colombia's Eleider Alvarez. The two will face off in a rematch on February 2.

Like Kazakh and former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, Kovalev frequently trains in Big Bear, which hosts many boxers throughout the year.

Kovalev (32-3) reached the pinnacle of his career when he earned a pair of fights against American light heavyweight champion Andre Ward, but he ultimately lost a controversial decision to Ward in 2016 before falling by TKO in 2017.

During the lead-up to the rematch, Kovalev drew criticism for making tweets that included racist and homophobic slurs.

The Russian former champion is known for his power as a remarkable 28 of Kovalev's 32 wins have come by knockout.

Kovalev reportedly has a wife, Natalya, and a young son, Aleksandr.
Yemen peace talks end, no progress on prisoners fate More meetings scheduled

(ANSAmed) - AMMAN, JANUARY 18 - Negotiators from Yemen feuding parties concluded talks in Amman on Thursday with little progress on files of prisoners exchange, the main talking point of the negotiations, officials from the Yemeni government and UN office said on Friday.



Both sides submitted lists of prisoners for revision as they agreed to hold more meetings within the coming two weeks. The lists are to be reviewed by records submitted for the Red cross and the UN in line with the Sweden agreement.



Hanan al Badawee, communication officer at the UN office said the meeting is for the technical committee to follow up on the prisoners exchange agreement." She said the results are not expected immediately as the two sides would review details of the prisoners list. Yemeni government officials said that talks have been complicated regarding fate of political prisoners held by the Iran backed Houthi group. The latter refuses to acknowledge holding dozens of high profile politicians and community leaders in a bid to use them as leverage in future talks, said the officials.



No date has been set for future talks but sources said the two sides could meet again in Amman within 10 days.



Yemen has descended into a humanitarian crisis in light of fierce fighting between Iran backed militia of Ansar Allah and Saudi backed government. Millions have been displaced as fighting spread across the country, causing famine and spread of water borne diseases.



The Sweden meeting last year was the first to bring the two sides under one roof, as they agreed on confidence building measures including freeing of thousands of prisoners and allowing aid delivery to stranded civilians. But a recent fighting in Hudeida port and attacks against government loyalists complicated matters, leaving the peace talks on the brink. (ANSAmed).




House Speaker Nancy Pelosi escalated her fight with President Trump on Friday, accusing him of threatening her security when he publicly revealed her plans to to travel to Afghanistan.

She told reporters that in 'outing' her trip in a letter, the president 'made the scene on the ground much more dangerous, because it's just a signal to bad actors' that she and her Democratic colleagues were on their way.

'We never give advance notice of going into a battle area. We just never do. Perhaps the president's inexperience didn't have him understand that protocol. The people around him though, should have known that,' she said in her first comments on the nixed visit to the war zone.

She said that plans to travel commercially, after the president took away her military jet, were dashed after the administration leaked that information and the State Department doubled down on a risk assessment it provided.

'The fact that they would leak that we were flying commercial is a danger not only to us but to other people flying commercially. It's very irresponsible on the part of the president,' she charged.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Pelosi was 'absolutely' lying as she spoke to press after a Fox News hit on the West Wing driveway.

'Frankly, thats unbecoming of the speaker to make that type of accusation. Its outrageous that she would accuse the president of the United States in jeopardy,' she accused. 'In fact, the reason he didnt want her to go is hes trying to protect American citizens. He wants to secure our border. He wants a solution. He wants her to stay here to help him find it.'

Pelosi's spokesman also accused 'the Administration' of leaking House Democrats' commercial travel plans as he announced that the trip was being postponed indefinitely.

'In light of the grave threats caused by the Presidents action, the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to further endanger our troops and security personnel, or the other travelers on the flights,' Drew Hammill said in a statement.

A senior White House official slapped down Hammill's claims in an email to DailyMail.com on Friday morning.

'When the Speaker of the house and about 20 others from Capitol Hill decide to book their own commercial flights to Afghanistan, the world is going to find out,' the person said. 'The idea we would leak anything that would put the safety and security of any American at risk is a flat out lie.'

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley declined to stop and talk to reporters after an appearance on Fox News about Pelosi's claims. The topic did not come up during the interview.

A source close to the speaker told DailyMail.com that multiple administration sources were shopping the commercial flights story. Outlets that were approached did not publish the information, the person said.

They apparently included Bloomberg News  a White House correspondent for the publication said a source told the outlet today that Pelosi planned to fly commercial.

'Bloomberg didn't publish a report,' Jennifer Jacobs revealed in a tweet.

Still, the threat that an outlet could publish the information was enough for the House speaker to reschedule the congressional delegation's trip.

In his statement, Hammill had accused the administration and the president of sharing damaging information.

'After President Trump revoked the use of military aircraft to travel to Afghanistan, the delegation was prepared to fly commercially to proceed with this vital trip to meet with our commanders and troops on the front lines,' Hammill explained.

'In the middle of the night, the State Departments Diplomatic Security Service provided an updated threat assessment detailing that the President announcing this sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security, and other officials supporting the trip.'

He said, 'This morning, we learned that the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well.'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi escalated her fight with President Trump on Friday, accusing him of threatening her security when he publicly revealed her top-secret trip to Afghanistan

President Trump had assailed Pelosi in a Friday morning tweet, calling her canceled trip to visit the troops an 'excursion' in a tweet that slammed her for trying to 'leave the Country' during a government shutdown

He noted that Pelosi was planning to visit the troops on the trip that she later promised, to cameras, she would take at another time with her caucus.

'The United States Congress is a co-equal branch of government in our system of checks and balances,' she said. 'The Congress has a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight in the war zone where our men and women in uniform are risking their lives every day.'

President Trump had assailed Pelosi in a morning tweet, calling her canceled trip to visit the troops an 'excursion' in his first comment on the spat.

He slammed her for trying to 'leave the Country' during a government shutdown.

Trump asked, 'Why would Nancy Pelosi leave the Country with other Democrats on a seven day excursion when 800,000 great people are not getting paid.

'Also, could somebody please explain to Nancy & her big donors in wine country that people working on farms (grapes) will have easy access in!'

Trump was referring to a rule change his administration is seeking that would lighten the load on farmers seeking seasonal workers to harvest their crops.

He noted earlier in the week, in a speech to the agricultural industry, that he's working to make it 'easier' for farmhands to enter the country and remain in the U.S.

Many of those laborers are illegal immigrants, and California, a border state with a soaring wine industry, relies heavily on such workers.

Pelosi is a California Democrat who represents the Bay Area in Congress.

The president said in his note to Pelosi that he was remanding her plane 'due to the shutdown'  a throwback to her request a day before that he delay his State of the Union speech until after the government reopens

Trump canceled a government-funded trip abroad that Pelosi was due to take with other lawmakers on Thursday afternoon, recalling their military jet, as the White House ratcheted up its assault on Democrats standing in the way of Trump's plans to construct a barrier along most of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Pelosi had been scheduled to visit Afghanistan,, by way of Brussels, with other lawmakers.

They were seen waiting on a bus outside the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill on Thursday afternoon when White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted a letter from the president informing Pelosi that he was grounding her.

Democratic legislators were left circling the U.S. Capitol amid a mad scramble to confirm details of Trump's decision to halt their military aircraft.

'Our Members who were on the bus,' Pelosi recalled on Friday, 'I was ready to join them for a 2:15 wheels up from here to Andrews Air Force Base to visit our troops, pay our respects; to thank them for their service, their sacrifice and their dedication; to get a measure of the leadership of Afghanistan, strength of their military, the morale of their people.'

Then she said she received a letter from Trump postponing the trip.

'It was kind of a funny letter  saying seven days, going to Egypt  somebody didn't tell him it was a quick weekend trip, but nonetheless, that served his purpose,' she said.

The president said in his note to Pelosi that he was remanding her plane 'due to the shutdown'  a throwback to her request a day before that he delay his State of the Union speech until after the government reopens.

'Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over,' he wrote.

A White House official insisted that the president was not exacting revenge on the Democratic leader, however, for calling on him to deliver his speech to Congress at a later date or from the White House.

It came off as retaliatory, nonetheless, and Trump ally Lindsey Graham said both party leaders ought to knock it off.

Hammill did not comment on the politics surrounding Trump's request in his initial statement but noted in tweets that the trip to Afghanistan 'included a required stop in Brussels for pilot rest' that the House speaker planned to fill with NATO and U.S. military meetings.

'The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation & thanks to our men & women in uniform for their service & dedication, & to obtain critical national security & intelligence briefings from those on the front lines,' Hammill said.

Pelosi has been scheduled to visit Brussels and Afghanistan alongside other with other lawmakers, who were on a bus preparing to leave for the trip

Lawmakers were seen waiting on a bus outside the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill on Thursday afternoon when White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted the president's letter

Hammill pointed out that Trump traveled to Iraq on Christmas Day amid the shutdown to visit the troops. A delegation of congressional Republicans was also allowed to travel abroad, he argued.

Other Democrats were quick to make the same point and to light Trump up for allowing members of his administration to use a military aircraft to fly to Davos, Switzerland.

They were scheduled to attend the World Economic Forum next week, but the president called off the trip as they came under heavy scrutiny for the bad optics.

'Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his Delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,' Sanders said in an early evening statement.

All congressional delegation trips have been called off, the White House confirmed, until the shutdown ceases.

A White House official told DailyMail.com on Thursday afternoon that Trump sent the letter to Pelosi informing her that he was calling off her trip before Sanders distributed it.

It was not clear how much of a head start the president gave the House speaker, although the official said that Trump took 'immediate action' to keep her from leaving on a military jet.

'We want to keep her in Washington,' Sanders told reporters gathered outside her office. 'If she leaves, she guarantees that the second round of paychecks to 800,000 federal workers won't go out. The deadline to make that deal is midnight on Tuesday. She wasn't scheduled to be back until Wednesday. The president wants her here to negotiate.'

Pelosi had already called off a congressional recess amid the government shutdown, and the House was due to reconvene on Tuesday of next week. Monday is a federal holiday.

Regardless, Trump informed her in a letter that he was taking the extraordinary step of postponing her trip, which he referred to as an excursion.

'In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate. I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown,' he said.

He added, 'Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.

'I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!'

Hammill clarified in tweets that Pelosi was never planning to travel to Egypt. Her trip was to Afghanistan by way of Brussels on a military aircraft.

Flying to Afghanistan commercially is possible via Istanbul and Dubai from Washington, D.C. But it wouldn't be safe for Pelosi to go there, now, Democratic lawmakers immediately argued.

'We keep trips by government officials to war zones secret for a reason. Trumps action to publicize @SpeakerPelosis trip literally puts the safety of members of Congress and their staff at risk,' Rep. Val Demings said in a tweet.

A White House official declined Thursday to comment on the security aspect of the trip.

House Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff told DailyMail.com and other reporters as he left Pelosi's office during the bus fiasco that he could not comment on the speaker's travel plans.

'I think the president's decision to disclose a trip that the speaker is making to a war zone is completely and utterly irresponsible in every way,' he offered.

On CNN, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he was surprised that Pelosi, who had been spotted vacationing in Hawaii over Christmas break, was planning to leave the country while parts of the government were shut down.

'I couldn't imagine she would even think about going,' he said. 'I'm just shocked she'd even think that she would leave the country? Why would you leave the country with government shut down and you're Speaker of the House?' the lawmaker whose party just lost control of the upper chamber said.

Schiff that Trump's last-minute cancellation of lawmakers' trip was 'completely inappropriate,' especially in light of reported plans for the U.S. to withdrawal troops from Afghanistan.

'The president's concern about a war zone apparently doesn't apply to a delegation of the administration going to Davos the following week,' he argued. 'We got confirmation that is still planned. So, this is obviously an action directed at the speaker. And we think as far as we can tell this has never happened in the annals of history.'

His criticism came before the White House announced the Davos trip was off.

Schiff was among the lawmakers seen climbing down from a bus at the U.S. Capitol. The lawmaker subsequently told reporters: 'The last two years have been nothing but odd.'

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who traveled to Turkey commercially on Friday, said that both Trump and Pelosi were acting childish.

'One sophomoric response does not deserve another. Speaker Pelosis threat to cancel the State of the Union is very irresponsible and blatantly political. President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate,' the South Carolina senator said in a statement.

Graham is working on a bipartisan plan to reopen the government for three weeks while the dispute with Trump over a border barrier continues. He speaks to the president frequently.

'I am glad the Speaker wants to meet our troops and hear from our commanders and allies. I am very disappointed shes playing politics with the State of the Union,' he added. 'I wish our political leadership could find the same desire to work for common goals as those who serve our nation in uniform and other capacities.'

The White House has not formally responded to Pelosi's request that Trump postpone his joint address to Congress on Jan. 29 until after the government reopens.

'We'll keep you posted. Nothing's changed on that front,' Sanders said Thursday.

In a campaign fundraising email after he canceled Pelosi's trip, the president claimed that 'Democrats have illegitimately disinvited me from making my scheduled and VERY important State of the Union Address,' as he asked for contributions.

'Nancy Pelosi asked me to reschedule the State of the Union Address given the security concerns regarding the government shutdown. What about the REAL security concerns at our Southern Border? What about the REAL security concerns of American Citizens and their loved ones?' he demanded to know.

Pelosi did not rescind her invitation to him to deliver remarks to Congress this month in the House chamber, although that is how it was widely interpreted, including by her second-in command, Steny Hoyer.

A senior White House official called the request 'petty' in an email to DailyMail.com on Wednesday.

Trump subsequently called off Pelosi's congressional delegation trip, known as a CoDel, in a letter to the speaker on Thursday.

An official who briefed reporters after insisted, 'It's not a response to that.'

Lawmakers in both political parties begged to differ.

Republicans and Democrats continued to exchange rhetorical fire on Thursday over border security and whether or not the Secret Service can handle the January 29 event, given that officers and agents are working without pay.

Pelosi cited security in her request that President Trump postpone the event during the partial government shutdown.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen insisted her agency is up to the task.

House Democratic leader Steny Hoyer fired back that with the Secret Service lacking shutdown-furloughed support staff, Congress shouldn't take any chances.

Hoyer had already mangled his party's messaging by appearing to say on CNN that the annual spectacle had already been called off.

He said that as long as the federal government is in the midst of a partial shutdown, Trump won't be welcome to deliver the speech to a Joint Session of Congress as scheduled.

He told DailyMail.com after the CNN interview that Pelosi's refusal 'to plan business as usual' applied 'when the government of the country is partially shut down.'

Pelosi wrote to Trump on Wednesday, asking him to delay his speech but not formally disinviting him.

A Hoyer spokesperson said in an email that 'Mr. Hoyer had not read Speaker Pelosis letter and mischaracterized it' on CNN.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (right) formally requested that Donald Trump delay his annual Capitol HIll speech, in a letter she sent the president on Wednesday, sparking a furious tug of war over the speech

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer misspoke on CNN and said the State of the Union Address had been canceled  only to say minutes later that it was being called off only as long as the government is partially shut down

Hoyer's spokesperson told DailyMail.com that Hoyer 'mischaracterized' Pelosi's letter on the air

Pelosi tweeted the letter she sent the White House, which politely asked Trump to reconsider the address she had invited him to give because of security concerns

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pushed back against Pelosi, saying U.S. Secret Service is more than capable and 'fully prepared' to secure the annual speech

Hoyer had appeared to misinterpret Pelosi's meaning in saying on the air that she wouldn't allow Trump to insist on keeping the January 29 date rather than rescheduling.

'No,' he said. 'Our response will be, Mr. President, if you want to open up the government, the Senate has seven bills that it can use.'

Pelosicited 'security concerns' amid the government shutdown that has lasted longer than any other federal closure in history.

She asked him to wait to speak to a Joint Session of Congress until the dispute that limits the functionality of the Department of Homeland Security has been resolved.

She wrote in her letter that no president has ever delivered a State of the Union speech in the midst of a shutdown.

'This requires hundreds of people working on the logistics and on the security of it,' she told reporters at the Capitol. 'Most of those people are either furloughed or are victims of the president's shutdown.'

Pelosi had already invited Trump to address the House and Senate, per tradition, on Jan. 29  a date that the White House accepted  when she took office on Jan. 3.

Republicans noted in the aftermath that the government was shut down at the time of the invitation.

The argument over military-supported trips is part of a broader fight the president is waging right now against Democrats who will not give him the $5.7 billion he's demanding for his border wall.

He has overseen a partial government shutdown for nearly a month over their refusal to approve the funds.
A 20-year-old Russian man has been arrested in Norway for stabbing a woman in a supermarket in 'an act of terrorism'.

The woman was knifed while paying for her groceries in a supermarket in the capital Oslo on Thursday, and remains in critical condition in hospital.

The man was arrested shortly after the attack, upon which he told police it had been an act of terror and that he 'wanted to kill several people'.

The Russian man, 20, was arrested shortly after he stabbed a woman at a supermarket in Oslo, pictured, upon which he told police it had been an act of terror and that he 'wanted to kill several people'

The incident is being investigated as a possible act of terrorism, the head of the Norwegian police's security service (PST) said on Friday.

'The man said under questioning that he wanted to kill several people and that this was an act of terror,' PST head Marie Benedicte Bjrnland told a news conference.

The suspect had arrived in Oslo on Thursday, travelling from Russia via neighbouring Sweden, she said. There were no other suspects.

Police were investigating possible links to Islamist extremism, Bjrnland said, adding that the victim was critically ill in hospital.

Marie Benedicte Bjrnland, head of the Norwegian Police Security Service PST, said they are investigating possible links to Islamist extremism

Russia's foreign ministry and FSB state security service did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment about the stabbing incident and the background of the suspect.

The most recent fatal terrorism attack in Norway was in 2011 when far-right militant Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in a bombing in central Oslo and a shooting spree on a nearby island.

In 2017, a 17-year-old Russian who prosecutors said had frequented Islamist websites was sentenced to nine months in jail for making a small bomb and bringing it to the centre of Oslo on a busy Saturday night. The device failed to go off.
Chinese engineers have started to drill a 9,400-foot-long tunnel in the seabed as part of a 'super' subway line that will cost 2 billion to build.

To dig the sub-surface shaft in north-eastern China, workers need to break through rock as deep as 74.8 feet under the bottom of the Yellow Sea.

The land forms of the seabed are extremely complicated and the construction machines will need to cut through a series of huge caves in the seabed, according to a lead engineer.

The largest cave found so far is 95 feet tall, the equivalent of a 10-storey building.

Scroll down for video

Workers in Dalian, China, started to drill the tunnel today with the help of a boring machine

The underwater passage spans across the Suoyu Bay of Dalian, a city with six million people

The deepest part of the tunnel is about 164 feet from the surface of the sea, meaning the drilling machine will need to bear enormous water pressure, adding to the difficulties of the project, according to Wang Jian, the chief engineer of the project.

The construction, which officially began today, is so challenging that it has been billed as a 'super undersea project' by media.

The tunnel is expected to complete in June 2021.

The tunnel boring machine, the Haihong Hao, is developed and built just for the 'super project'

The Haihong Hao is said to be the most advanced tunnel boring machine developed by China

The underwater passage spans across the Suoyu Bay of Dalian, a cosmopolitan city with about six million residents in the Liaoning Province.

It connects two stations of the Dalian Metro Line 5, which has 18 stations in total and is expected to complete in 2023, according to a verified social media post released by the press office of the Dalian government.

In order to perform the previously impossible, Chinese engineers developed a mammoth tunnel boring machine to drill through the seabed.

The impressive equipment, named Haihong Hao, is 518 feet long with a diameter of 40 feet. It weighs a whopping 2,840 tonnes and is said to be the most advanced tunnel boring machine China has developed.

In a ceremony this morning, the Haihong Hao started to excavate the tunnel from the Suoyu Nan Station - a new station built for the Metro Line 5 - towards the other side of the bay.

The Suoyu Bay tunnel is part of the Dalian Metro Line 5 which is expected to complete in 2023. Commuters are seen riding in a subway train in Dalian in 2017 in the file photo above

The Dalian Metro Line 5 is not the first subway line in China to have an undersea tunnel.

Last November, workers in Qingdao completed a subway tunnel reaching as deep as 288 feet under the surface of the Yellow Sea.

The chute measures five miles long, with 2.1 miles submerged under the sea. It is the longest and deepest undersea subway tunnel in China.

The Qingdao tunnel is about 100 feet deeper than the Bosphorus rail tunnel in Istanbul, which was previously reported to be the world's deepest underwater railway tunnel.
A majority of Britons now say they want to stay in the EU after Theresa May's Brexit plan suffered a massive defeat, a new poll published today has found.

A YouGov survey asked 1,070 voters how they would vote in a second Brexit referendum if it were held today - and found Remain has stretched out a 12-point lead over Leave, with 56 per cent saying they would vote to stay in the EU versus 44 per cent in favour of leaving.

The voters were questioned the day after the PM's Brexit plan suffered a crushing defeat  leaving the machinery of government deadlocked and with the bitter divisions among MPs offering no clear way ahead.

Ministers are now at war over Brexit, openly clashing over whether Britain should be willing to crash out without a deal on March 29, or back a softer Brexit or second referendum.

The Prime Minister must make a statement on Monday where she will lay out her 'next steps' on a Brexit plan B before a week of debate on the various options.

The following week, MPs will vote on their preferred course of action, putting huge pressure on the Prime Minister to adopt it.

With Westminster gripped by chaos, the new poll suggests voters are losing faith in Brexit with growing numbers now backing Remain.

A YouGov survey found that Remain has stretched out a 12-point lead over Leave - at 56 per cent versus 44 per cent

Theresa May's (pictured today leaving Downing Street) senior ministers are deeply split over what to do if her deal cannot be pushed through Parliament after Tuesday's 230-vote rout

The survey for The Times found that 56 per cent of those polled would now back staying in the EU, while the same proportion back a second referendum.

How did voters respond to questions about a second referendum in the poll? The poll asked voters, if there were a referendum today on whether or not the UK should remain a member of the European Union, how would you vote? This is how they responded: Remain: 48 Leave: 38 Would not vote: 6 Don't know: 7 Skipped: 1 Excluding would not vote and don't know Remain: 56 Leave: 44 Thinking about Brexit, would you now support or oppose a public vote on Britains future relationship with the rest of the European Union? Support: 47 Oppose: 36 Don't know: 16 In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union? Right to leave: 40 Wrong to leave: 50 Don't know: 10

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And voters were even more likely to want to stay in the bloc if the only other option was the PM's Brexit deal, with Remain leading by 65 per cent to 35 per cent.

Mrs May's blueprint was defeated by a massive 230 votes on Tuesday night - the biggest defeat ever inflicted on a British PM.

The poll found that among Labour supporters support for a second referendum was far higher - at 78 per cent.

The figure lays bare the bitter spits within Labour over Brexit - with Jeremy Corbyn under huge pressure from his Remain-backing MPs to back a new referendum but hugely resistant to the move fearing that Leave voters in the Labour heartlands will desert his party.

The survey also found that 46 per cent of those asked think the economy will suffer from Brexit, while just 24 per cent think it will get stronger.

Labour MP Chuka Umunna, a leading supporter of the campaign to have a second referendum, told The Times: 'This snap poll shows more than ever why the government needs to change course and hand this decision on Brexit back to the people.

'There is now a clear and expanding majority for staying in the EU.'

Meanwhile, the Cabinet war over no-deal escalated today as ministers openly clashed over Britain's future with Europe.

Penny Mordaunt, International Development Secretary and a leading Brexiteer, went public saying the UK should crash out rather than accept a bad deal in a post on Twitter.

But an hour later Amber Rudd, Work and Pensions Secretary and a Remainer, hit back by tweeting a warning by the CBI about the impact a no-deal Brexit will have on business.

Ms Mordaunt - a Brexiteer - went public in defence of crashing out of the EU - arguing it is better than accepting a bad deal.

She tweeted: 'The upsides of leaving outweigh the downsides of staying/No Deal disruption.

'It's only when no deal is better than a is believed by the EU that well maximise our chance of a deal.

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay (left) and Environment Secretary Michael Gove were among those attending meetings in Downing Street today

Boris Johnson (pictured today speaking at JCB in Staffordshire) condemned Theresa May for failing to even try and remove the Irish border backstop today as he made a pitch for the Tory crown

'Not honouring the result of the referendum would be appalling.'

But Ms Rudd tweeted a link to a CBI warning that a no-deal Brexit is 'unimaginable' - with the comment 'worth remembering'.

Boris blasts May for 'kowtowing' to Brussels as he makes his pitch to lead the country Boris Johnson condemned Theresa May for failing to even try and remove the Irish border backstop today as he made a pitch for the Tory crown. The former foreign secretary said after Tuesday's devastating defeat, the Prime Minister should make a 'final offer' to the EU of a deal that strips out the border plan and withholds half the 39billion divorce bill until a trade deal is finalised. Mr Johnson said he would be 'utterly amazed' if Brussels said no but insisted Britain would flourish even if it had to leave without a deal on March 29. Mr Johnson insisted delaying exit day would further 'erode trust' in politics and fuel suspicion of an 'elite conspiracy to thwart Brexit'. As Mrs May continues cross party talks on a Plan B Brexit, Mr Johnson warned her not to concede to a permanent customs union as the price for getting her deal through the Commons. In a thinly-veiled leadership pitch, Mr Johnson's wide-ranging speech - hosted by major Tory donor JCB boss Anthony Bamford - included promises to cut taxes and limit immigration. Mr Johnson is seen by many as a front runner for the Tory crown - but is also loathed by many Tory MPs who dismissed his pitch for unity today. Advertisement

In the tweet, the business group states: 'Businesses are deeply concerned that we have moved a few steps closer to no-deal.

'The UK is not  and cannot be - ready for no deal.

'While there are ways to temper some of the worst aspects, business is united in saying no deal is unmanageable'

Other ministers - including Business Secretary Greg Clark and Justice Secretary David Gauke - have warned no deal is so bad they would resign to stop it.

The splits come as Mrs May has been holding meetings with many of her Cabinet ministers in No10 today.

The PM and her ministers discussed Brexit and how they can come up with a Plan B in the next few days.

It comes after Mrs May spent the past 36 hours holding talks with rival political leaders to try to come up with a new plan which will win the support of the majority of the Commons.

As she tries to carve a way through the deadlock, the PM also held calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch PM Mark Rutte last night.

Her spokeswoman said the call with Mrs Merkel was 'constructive' and the PM is expected to hold further calls with EU leaders in the coming days.

But as the PM scrambles to try to come up with a Brexit Plan B which she thinks can win the backing of bitterly divided MPs, Mr Johnson was making a rival pitch for the Tory leadership.

The ex cabinet minister delivered a major speech while at a JCB factory in Staffordshire today, where he tore into the PM's over the negotiations.

He said after Tuesday's devastating defeat, the Prime Minister should make a 'final offer' to the EU of a deal that strips out the border plan and withholds half the 39billion divorce bill until a trade deal is finalised.

Mr Johnson said he would be 'utterly amazed' if Brussels said no but insisted Britain would flourish even if it had to leave without a deal on March 29.

What does Yvette Cooper's and Nick Bole's plan do? The text of the Yvette Cooper bill has not been published but comments from Nick Boles suggest it is similar to his. The crucial section tries to force the Government to delay exit day from March 29 if there is no deal. Under the current timetable, Britain leaves the EU two years after it formally triggered talks by using Article 50 of the EU's treaty. The Boles draft said if there is no deal by March 5, the Government must seek a two year extension. The EU has said it will consider an extension if the UK needs more time to implement a deal - but two years for more talks is a very different idea. It could mean the Government is forced to cancel the Article 50 notification altogether to avoid breaking the new law. None of this will happen if the MPs cannot change Commons rules to get their draft laws onto the agenda for votes as by default they will never be debated. Advertisement

Mr Johnson insisted delaying exit day would further 'erode trust' in politics and fuel suspicion of an 'elite conspiracy to thwart Brexit'.

In a thinly-veiled leadership pitch, Mr Johnson's wide-ranging speech - hosted by major Tory donor JCB boss Anthony Bamford - included promises to cut taxes and limit immigration.

Mr Johnson is seen by many as a front runner for the Tory crown - but is also loathed by many Tory MPs who dismissed his pitch for unity today.

Speaking today, he said: 'I believe that there is a very good chance, indeed overwhelmingly likely, that we will leave with a deal  we just wont leave with this deal.'

He added: 'If we mean it, if we are determined, and if we make it clear that this is our best and final offer, I would be utterly amazed if we cannot get agreement on these terms.'

Insisting Britain would succeed under no deal, he said: 'I dont want to pretend there will be no challenges and no changes to cope with.

'Of course there will be. But I say to all those who believe in the democratic freedoms of this country

'We are more than up to it. We have got so far, we are almost there, let us not give up now.'

But as Mr Johnson said there is nothing to fear from a no-deal Brexit, other Tory MPs are plotting to do everything they can to prevent one.

Tory MP Nick Boles has teamed up with Labour's Yvette Cooper to draw up a Bill to delay Brexit by extending Article 50 by nine months.

Mr Boles believes the delay will effectively kill off the danger of a no-deal Brexit.

If it passes, the Bill would force the Government to delay exit day if there is no deal in place by March 5.

But the development of the plan on the Labour benches after it was originally a Tory idea will fuel fears in Downing Street a cross-party alliance wants to remove the Government from talks.

While Remainer MPs across the political divide are expected to table a series of amendments to try to push a softer Brexit - or derail it altogether.

They could table amendments which would call for the UK to stay in a customs union with the EU, and to call for another vote to try to stop Brexit altogether.
A shivering dog is rescued from an icy river it had been stuck in for more than four hours in heart-wrenching footage.

The clip, recorded in Romania, captures three firemen as they paddle a rubber dinghy towards the lost pup on the Somes River.

The dog had been reported missing several weeks before he was found in the frozen water near to the village of Petresti last Wednesday.

The clip, recorded in Romania, captures three firemen as they paddle a rubber dinghy towards the lost pup on the Somes River

The dog had been reported missing several weeks before he was found in the frozen water near to the village of Petresti last Wednesday

A man and his brother-in-law were the first to spot the shivering dog, but their rescue mission was cut short when one of the pair reportedly fell from the boat.

They then contacted the Fire Department in Dej who launched a second boat into the river to rescue the trapped dog.

In the clip, firemen use shovels and paddles to break away ice as they attempt to move closer to the trapped pooch.

The trio then unravel red rope and throw it onto the ice as the terrified pooch watches on.

When the rescuers are finally in reach of the pup, one of the rescuers secures the red rope around the dog's neck

The firemen then paddle back to shore with the pooch and release it into woodland nearby

They keep paddling and breaking through the ice until they finally reach the lost dog near to the river bank.

When they are finally in reach of the pup, one of the rescuers secures the red rope around the dog's neck.

They then use sticks to break the ice around the dog away as it desperately yowls.

Moments later, the dog is pulled from its position and dropped into the freezing water - but is almost immediately lifted aboard the small boat.

The firemen then paddle back to shore with the pooch and release it nearby.
An Indonesian fisherman who previously smuggled asylum seekers to Australia has revealed his fellow boat captains are ready to resume the trade if Bill Shorten is elected as Prime Minister.

Amin Tagana told The Weekend Australian smuggling bosses are still active and watching the Australian election in hope a new government will ease the crackdown.

Mr Tagana, who was paid $5000 to smuggle asylum seekers in 2014, said fisherman in his village of Tablolong were hoping a new leader will weaken borders.

'I am very excited about that. Even though I will be putting my life on the line, for the right opportunity I would do it again,' he said.

An Indonesian fisherman who previously smuggled asylum seekers to Australia has revealed his fellow boat captains are ready to resume the trade if Bill Shorten is elected as Prime Minister

Amin Tagana told The Weekend Australian smuggling bosses are still active and watching the Australian election in hope a new government will ease the crackdown

Mr Tagana claimed everyone was talking about how a new government would make it possible to resume the trade, saying he would also consider doing another run.

He said with the money he earned from his first run - which was more than he could earn fishing for a year - he built a new concrete house to replace his old one.

The fisherman said his previous home was so in need of repair, with its damp floors and leaking roof, that it brought constant illness to his wife and children.

Even though he spent three months in detention on Christmas Island, he said he had hoped to do another run before the crackdown by immigration authorities occurred.

Mr Tagana claimed everyone was talking about how a new government would make it possible to resume the trade, saying he would also consider doing another run

Mr Tagana said if the opportunity to do a second run came up he would probably would take it so he could afford to buy a small village shop or a motorbike.

'On a fisherman's salary I can't do that, so of course I want to try again,' he said.

Mr Tagana's story is like dozens of other fisherman in Tablolong, who have put their freedom in danger to ferry asylum-seekers into Australian waters.

The fisherman said smuggling bosses are still active and watching the Australian election in hope Bill Shorten (pictured) will be elected, which they believe will ease the crackdown

East Nusa Tenggara (pictured) is Indonesia's closest land mass to Australia, where hundreds of people are still based hoping to settle in Australia one day

He said even though the smugglers know they risk getting captured or drowning at sea, the money is so lucrative, which makes their lives better.

East Nusa Tenggara is Indonesia's closest land mass to Australia, where hundreds of people are still based hoping to settle in Australia one day.

East Nusa Tenggara senior water police commissioner Dwi Suseno told the publication he too was monitoring the election very closely,

Mr Suseno said he is grateful for the current policy because it's proven effective as a deterrent, but if the policy changes he admits people-smuggling could resume.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said people-smugglers were no doubt hoping for a new PM, labelling Mr Shorten's policy 'Operation Sovereign Borders-lite'

While Labor has denied its policies would weaken border protection, they have promised to abolish temporary protection visas and endorse doctor-ordered medical evacuations off Manus Island and Nauru.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said people-smugglers were no doubt hoping for a new PM, labelling Mr Shorten's policy 'Operation Sovereign Borders-lite'.

'This is not the first time (people-smugglers) have confirmed they will restart boats if Bill Shorten is elected prime minister,' Mr Dutton said.
A convicted child murderer is said to have joked about the baby he killed while ordering Chinese takeaway with a neighbour, a court has heard.

David Gaut was knifed up to 150 times by Darren Evesham, 47, David Osborne, 51 and Ieuan Harley, 23, after he was released from a 33 year jail term, it is alleged.

They are accused of murdering the 54-year-old in the village of New Tredegar, Gwent, when they discovered he was convicted of the murder of 17-month-old Chi Ming Shek in 1995.

Neighbour Kyle Alford told Newport Crown Court today that once when he and his partner Samantha Jenkins were 'ordering a Chinese takeaway he [Gaut] said he didn't like Chinese but would have a Chi Ming Shek.

'That was the name of the baby that had been murdered.'

David Osborne (left), Ieuan Harley (centre) and Darran Evesham (right) at their trial today

Mr Alford also revealed that he met Gaut when he moved into the village, and had said he had come from a prison term for killing a soldier.

Mr Alford, 31, said: 'Straight away, he said he had been in prison. He said he'd killed a soldier.'

But the court heard how Alford discovered Gaut was convicted for the murder of the toddler and jailed for life.

Mr Alford made the discovery after searching Gaut's name on Google where he found 'a site with all the murders on it'.

He told the jury he felt 'shocked, disgusted and angry' at the discovery and then told fellow neighbour David 'Ozzy' Osborne and Ieuan Harley.

Mr Alford said: 'Osborne was fuming. Angry. Very angry. Just about wanting to beat him up really.

Osbourne (left) and Harley (right) are among three men accused of killing David Gaut

'Ozzy made a comment, want to cut him up and chuck him down the plughole or something.'

Mr Alford said fellow neighbour Harley was: 'Really shocked and angry when I showed him the phone, calling him things like 'dirty f*****' and 'It wasn't even a child, it was a baby''

Osborne is alleged to have lured Gaut to his flat by asking him round to the flat to watch a DVD.

However Mr Alford told the court that he and his partner left the premises.

A short time later Mr Alford sent a text message to Osborne, saying: 'Don't let Dai know we all know he's a baby killer,' the court heard.

Gaut had served 33 years in jail for murdering Chi Ming Shek in the 1980s

A few minutes later, Osborne replied with: 'Okay, bro.'

The jury heard that Mr Alford and Ms Jenkins carried out further Google searches about Mr Gaut and the following day Ms Jenkins telephoned the local council.

Asked to explain why, Mr Alford replied: 'Sam has children of her own and there was a child murderer living near us and we wanted him away from us.'

Earlier, Mr Alford had told the court that Mr Gaut had moved into the flat in Long Row just six weeks before he died.

Osborne, 51, Harley, 23, and Darran Evesham, 47, are alleged to have stabbed Gaut to death before dragging his dead body back next door and trying to clean up the crime scene.

Ben Douglas-Jones, prosecuting, said pathologist Dr Derrick James carried out a post mortem and found at least 150 stab wounds all over Gaut's body from at least one knife and a screwdriver.

He said: 'A screwdriver was found in the folds of his dressing gown. The injuries to his neck appear to have been consistent with the screwdriver found in the folds of the dressing gown.

'Many of the stab wounds are consistent with having been made with knives.

'Dr James found it may be that a larger blade was used to cause the wounds in the belly.

'He had been clearly stabbed many times until he was dead. Even then, he continued to receive stabbing blows.

Gaut had been jailed for murdering a 17-month-old boy but was freed to moved into a flat next door to Osborne in the village of New Tredegar, Gwent

Pictures from the scene show police investigating after Gaut was found dead

'All three wanted him dead. They encouraged each other and played their parts in the lead-up to the murder.'

'Mr James found his finger nails had been cut off after he died.'

Under cross-examination, Mr Alford accepted he was a drug user who was using cannabis, methadone, heroin, benzodiazepine and valium at the time of Mr Gaut's death.

Osborne, Harley and Evesham all deny the murder of Mr Gaut between August 1 and August 4 last year.

Harley and Evesham also deny a charge of perverting the course of justice, which Osborne admits.

The trial continues.
President Trump promoted a news article on Friday that featured an unnamed New Mexico rancher complaining about 'prayer rugs' found in the desert near places where illegal immigrants routinely cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

The rancher vented to The Washington Examiner this week about 'Chinese, Germans, Russians, a lot of Middle Easterners, those Czechoslovakians they caught over on our neighbors just last summer.'

German nationals are covered by a U.S. government waiver agreement that allows them to legally enter the country for up to three months without visas.

Czechoslovakia split into the countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993; both are also covered by the visa waiver scheme.

Trump focused on the 'Middle Easterner', tweeting about the prayer rugs and adding: 'People coming across the Southern Border from many countries, some of which would be a big surprise.'

President Donald Trump used his Twitter platform on Friday to raise alarms about Muslim 'prayer rugs' reportedly found in the desert near the U.S.-Mexico border

'People coming across the Southern Border from many countries, some of which would be a big surprise,' the president tweeted

Prayer rugs in the desert? Observant Muslims who pray five times daily have rugs to prostrate themselves on

Most illegal immigrants who enter the U.S. through the southern border are Mexicans and Central Americans

The Examiner published the story on Wednesday, based on the lone female rancher who was left unidentified aside from a photograph shot from behind.

'Theres a lot of people coming in not just from Mexico,' the woman claimed. 'People, the general public, just dont get the terrorist threats of that.'

'Thats whats really scary. You dont know whats coming across. Weve found prayer rugs out here. Its unreal. Its not just Mexican nationals that are coming across.'

The mention of prayer rugs is a reference to mats used by Muslims, who pray five times each day in accordance with their religious customs.

The rancher claimed Germans were sneaking across the border; citizens of Germany are allowed free passage in and out of the U.S. without visas for up to three months at a time

The president also raised alarms on Friday about a new migrant caravan set to head north from Central America, insisting that it's proof the U.S. should complete its border wall

The rancher complained about 'OTM' immigrants  those the U.S. Border Patrol calls 'Other Than Mexicans'  whose illegal entries have 'really increased in the last couple years., but drastically within the last six months.'

The rancher who spoke with the Examiner linked her claim of prayer rugs in the New Mexico desert with the public's fear of terrorist attacks.

'People, the general public, just dont get the terrorist threats of that,' she said of the multinational nature of illegal immigrants. 'Thats whats really scary.'

Trump also raised alarms on Friday about a new 'caravan' of Central Americans who are set to travel the length of Mexico in hope of entering the U.S. Many will make claims of asylum.

'Another big Caravan heading our way. Very hard to stop without a Wall!' he tweeted.
A Texas woman has been accused of devising a bizarre plan, in which police say she pretended to be her own non-existent autistic twin sister in order to lure a man into having sex with him.

Rachel Childs, 29, of Pearland, was arrested earlier this month on charges of felony burglary of a habitation with intent to commit assault and misdemeanor indecent exposure.

According to police, Childs contacted a male caregiver online and hired him to look after her made-up twin, whom she described as autistic.

Twisted: Rachel Childs, 29, has been accused of pretending to be her own made-up autistic twin sister to dupe a male caregiver into having sex with her

The unnamed caretaker was instructed to pick up the twin at Childs' residence in Pearland, take her to his own house for the night and bring her back the following morning, reported Houston Chronicle.

Police spokesman Jason Wells said while at the caregivers home, Childs, posing as her special-needs twin, engaged in sexually oriented conduct towards the man, which raised alarms bells with him.

The caregiver concluded that the woman's behavior was inconsistent with that of a person with autism and decided to look into Childs background.

After doing some digging, the man learned that Childs has no siblings and contacted the local police department.

An investigation was launched, which determined that Childs had made up the autistic twin for the purpose of sexual gratification, according to police.

Childs turned herself in on January 3 and was later released on bond.

According to an arrest report, Childs works as a clerk at a Houston law firm specializing in family law and divorce cases.

Police are asking anyone who believes they have been a victim of a similar crime to contact them at 281-997-4151.
The mother of a teenage girl who died in a 'bomb-like' shop blast has spoken of her fury as the 'exceptionally callous' killers were jailed for the murder of five people today.

Aram Kurd, 34, Arkan Ali, 38, and Hawkar Hassan, 33, were sentenced to life behind bars over their bungled plot to gain a 300,000 insurance pay-out.

They planned to set fire to Kurd's Polish supermarket, but caused an enormous blast which killed three members of one family as they slept in their flat above the shop.

Care worker Mary Ragoobeer, 46, and her two sons Shane, 18, and Sean, 17, died in the inferno, as did Shane's girlfriend Leah Beth Reek, 18.

The gang even left their co-conspirator Viktorija Ljevleva, 22, who worked in the shop, to die in the blaze as she 'knew too much' about the insurance policy.

Ms Reek's mother, Joanne Reek, faced down the defendants to read an emotional statement in court, in which she said she was 'disgusted' by their actions.

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Aram Kurd, 34, Arkan Ali, 38, and Hawkar Hassan, 33, (pictured left to right) were sentenced to life behind bars over their bungled plot to gain a 300,000 insurance pay-out

The three men planned to set fire to Kurd's Polish supermarket, but caused an enormous blast (pictured) which killed three members of one family as they slept in their flat above the shop

Among those killed in the blast were Leah Reek and Shane Rajoobeer (pictured together), who were both 18 years old and dating at the time

She said: 'We know that nothing will ever bring Leah back. We've lost our daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece and friend, and no conviction or prison sentence will ever match ours and the pain that we will endure forever.

'Seeing the men on trial, showing no remorse for our and the Ragoobeers' loss, truly broke our hearts and disgusted us, showing that they have no value of human life.

'Leah would have made a difference in this world. She was a positive, kind, beautiful human being who was cruelly taken for no reason other than greed.

'I would finally like to say, Leah, we will always love you and the world was definitely a brighter, happier, bubblier place with you in it. We love you forever, until we meet again.'

Passing sentence today at Leicester Crown Court, Mr Justice Holgate said the trio showed 'no remorse' and detailed how shopkeeper Mr Kurd gave interviews to media hours after the inferno killed five.

After the blaze, brazen Kurd shamelessly gave TV interviews describing how he was lucky to escape the explosion.

Scotty Ragoobeer, 15-year-old brother of Shane and Sean, was rescued from the rubble and survived. Passerby Thomas Lindop, 56, was also seriously injured.

Kurd and Ali must serve a minimum term of 38 years, while Hassan must serve at least 33.

Molly Reek, whose sister Leah died in the explosion, reads a statement on behalf of the families outside of Leicester Crown Court

Leah Reek's devastated mother, Joanne Reek (pictured with her husband John), read a statement from the witness box in court

Sean Rajoobeer, 17 (left) and Shane Rajoobeer, 18, and their mother Mary, were all killed when the blast tore through their flat, situated above the supermarket

Leah Reek's devastated mother, Joanne Reek, read a statement from the witness box in court.

She said: 'We know that nothing will ever bring Leah back. We've lost our daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece and friend, and no conviction or prison sentence will ever match ours and the pain that we will endure forever.

'Seeing the men on trial, showing no remorse for our and the Ragoobeers' loss, truly broke our hearts and disgusted us, showing that they have no value of human life.

'Leah would have made a difference in this world. She was a positive, kind, beautiful human being who was cruelly taken for no reason other than greed.

'I would finally like to say, Leah, we will always love you and the world was definitely a brighter, happier, bubblier place with you in it. We love you forever, until we meet again.'

Ali, Kurd and Hassan were convicted of five counts of murder as well as conspiracy to commit fraud after a jury deliberated for 11 hours and 20 minutes.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Holgate told Kurd, Ali and Hassan: 'None of the defendants has shown the slightest bit of remorse for their wicked crimes. They were exceptionally callous and deceitful.

'I agree with the prosecution that it is plain beyond doubt that Kurd and Ali were both centrally involved in the planning of these crimes.

'It is plain from the way they both behaved in court and outside that they are highly manipulative and cunning individuals.'

The judge added: 'The arson attack on this terraced building was exceptionally dangerous and put the lives of neighbours and other members of the public at a high level of risk. The defendants caused an exceptionally high level of harm.'

The aftermath of the Hinckley Road explosion in Leicester, where three members of the same family were killed

Leah Reek's sister Molly bravely spoke outside court and thanked the police and local community for their help and support.

She said: 'While today's sentencing will not bring the ones we love so dearly back to us, it has provided a degree of closure to us all.

'The last 11 months have been the worst months of our lives and sitting through the trial only added to our pain and heartbreak.

'But we will now try to move on as best as we can together, never forgetting those we love so much - who we will always think about with every passing day.

'The support we have received from our family, friends, community and Leicestershire Police has helped us to get through the toughest of years.

'My parents are extremely grateful to their employers for the care and compassion they have been shown and I know that Jose would like to also thank English Martyrs School and the Bodie Hodges Foundation for the support they have shown.

'I would like to thank our family liaison officers for the care and compassion they have shown since that fateful night.

'Their role was paramount and we will be forever grateful for having them on our journey - providing clarity to a process so alien to us and bringing us calm when it all got too much to bear.

'We are also extremely grateful to the investigation team led by Detective Chief Inspector Michelle Keen who has helped bring these men to justice.'

Viktorija Ijevleva helped buy litres of fuel in the days before the fire as she prepared to cash in on the insurance plot

CCTV and traffic camera footage released by police at the end of the trial shows people escaping from a nearby takeaway moments after the explosion, and rubble being blasted into the roadway as cars pass by.

The mother of Viktorija Ijevleva apologised on behalf of her daughter.

Natalija Ijevleva said she felt she 'failed as a mother' to the 22-year-old and that she 'could have stopped' her from going ahead with the fraud.

Her victim impact statement, read by prosecutor David Herbert QC, said: 'I am heartbroken that she didn't tell me because she told me everything.

'I could have stopped her from going ahead and prevented this tragedy. I feel I failed as a mother to protect my child.

Devastated: Jose Ragoobeer whose wife and two sons were killed stands outside Leicester Crown Court

'My thoughts again go out to the families of the four wholly innocent victims, their loss must be indescribable.

'I can only apologise on behalf of Vika, my child, who I also will never have back.'

The husband father of Shane and Sean Ragoobeer said all his 'hopes and dreams for the future have been taken away'.

His statement, also read out by Mr Herbert, said: 'The events of that day have changed our lives forever. All of our hopes and dreams for the future have been completely shattered.

'I have lost a loving wife and two sons whom I adored. My son Scotty, who has only recently turned 16 years of age, has lost his mother and his two brothers.

'We were both extremely close to all of them. Scotty was also close to Leah (Reek) and misses her too. They were our life.'

The statement continued: 'All our hopes and dreams for the future have been taken away from us by what happened on 25th February 2018.

'Mary, Shane, Sean and Leah will be greatly missed and our lives will never be the same without them. They were all good people and did not deserve for this to happen to them.

'They will never be forgotten and will always be remembered for the rest of our lives by both myself and Scotty, along with all of our family and friends.'
Beirut Arab economic summit begins, only 2 leaders show up Tension with Libya weighs heavily

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, JANUARY 18 - The Economic Summit of the League of Arab States(LAS) opened on Friday in the Lebanese capital but only two of the many heads of state invited are taking part.



It will run through Sunday. Lebanese media say that President Michel Aoun has expressed his disappointment over the absence of his Arab counterparts. Only Mauritania and Somalia sent their heads of state, while other Arab states sent second or third-tier ministerial delegations. The reasons for what Beirut media are already calling a ''flop'' reportedly include a lack of security offered by Lebanese authorities to the Arab leaders. Tension between Lebanon and Libya also weighs heavily. Libya was not allowed by Beirut to take part after accusations from Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the political heir to Shia imam Musa Sadr, who disappeared in Libya in 1978.



The Tripoli government has been accused of being behind his disappearance. Berri supporters had threatened to physically attack Libyan delegates, removed Libyan flags from the Beirut boulevard leading to the location of the summit and said they were ready to block the road connecting the city to the international airport, where the Arab delegations began arriving on Thursday.



(ANSAmed).




Stephen Colbert has again mocked President Donald Trump, this time for cancelling an Air Force transport for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's secretive planned trip to Afghanistan in the midst of the government shutdown battle.

On Thursday, Trump released a letter cancelling the military support less than an hour before Pelosi was scheduled to lead a delegation of Congressional Democrats to Brussels and Afghanistan.

'Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative,' Trump added in the letter.

Colbert laid into Trump in his monologue on Thursday for CBS's Late Show, saying: 'Basically, what Trump's letter said was: 'Nancy, feel free to go commercial now that I've told the Taliban that you're coming and staying at the Jalalabad La Quinta Inn.''

'Basically, what Trump's letter said was: 'Nancy, feel free to go commercial now that I've told the Taliban that you're coming and staying at the Jalalabad La Quinta Inn,'' Colbert said

Colbert also ridiculed Trump's letter for addressing Pelosi suing the style 'Madame Speaker' rather than 'Madam', saying that a Madame Speaker would be found at a 'drive-thru brothel'

On Friday morning, Pelosi's spokesman accused Trump of posing a 'grave threat' to House Democrats' personal security and claimed that the Administration had also leaked the delegation's commercial travel plans.

Spokesman Drew Hammill also said in a statement that the trip had been cancelled after a State Department assessment found that 'the President announcing this sensitive travel had significantly increased danger to the delegation & to troops, security, & other officials supporting trip.'

Colbert's monologue also ridiculed Trump's letter for addressing Pelosi as 'Madame Speaker,' rather than the accepted style 'Madam'.

'Nancy Pelosi is actually Madam Speaker without the 'E'. A Madame Speaker is what Trump uses to order at a drive-thru brothel,' Colbert said.

Democrats have also been known to use the style 'Madame Speaker' for Pelosi, most notably wearing buttons adorned with the phrase on the House floor earlier this month to celebrate her return to the post.

On Thursday, Trump released a letter cancelling the military support less than an hour before Pelosi was scheduled to lead a delegation of Democrats to Brussels and Afghanistan

The move was widely seen as a tit-for-tat after Pelosi (above) uninvited Trump from delivering the State of the Union address on January 29 in the House chamber

Trump's revocations of military support for Pelosi's previously undisclosed trip was widely seen as a tit-for-tat after she uninvited him from delivering the State of the Union address on January 29 in the House chamber, citing the government shutdown.

'Why would Nancy Pelosi leave the Country with other Democrats on a seven day excursion when 800,000 great people are not getting paid,' Trump wrote in a tweet on Friday morning.

The President belittled the trip as a 'public relations event' and said it would be best if Pelosi remained in Washington to negotiate to reopen the government.

Pelosi spokesman Hammill said the speaker planned to travel to Afghanistan and Brussels to thank service members and obtain briefings on national security and intelligence 'from those on the front lines.'

He noted that Trump had made a Christmas visit to Iraq during the shutdown, which began December 22, and said a Republican-led congressional trip also had taken place.

Democrat lawmakers were caught off guard when Trump cancelled the trip just 45 minutes before they were set to depart. A bus to ferry the legislators to their departure idled outside the Capitol on Thursday afternoon.

The shutdown, now the longest in the country's history, reached 28 days on Friday.
Millions more have signed up to Netflix in recent months with the streaming giant's hit Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, attracting 80 million subscribers in just four weeks.

The number of Netflix subscribers currently stands at 139 million globally, with 8.8 million added in the last quarter alone. Out of the new subscribers, 1.53 million came from the U.S.

It's been an expensive year for Netflix as it splurged on new content like Bird Box as it faced mounting competition from Disney, Hulu, HBO and Amazon.

The streaming giant's hit Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, (pictured above) has attracted 80 million subscribers in just four weeks

New programs have drawn in big audiences to rave reviews, like Sex Education, a critically acclaimed comedy looking at how high schoolers deal with sex.

It's Bird Box, however, that has broken records.

In December, Netflix said that more than 45 million accounts watched the apocalyptic film in its first seven days, marking a record-breaking debut.

Over a four week period, the company added that the film had been viewed by 80 million subscribers.

Bird Box focuses on protagonist Sandra Bullock who embarks with her two children on a desperate bid to reach safety 'five years after an ominous unseen presence drives most of society to suicide.'

On Thursday, Netflix announced its fourth-quarter earnings, standing at $4.19 billion, falling short of a $4.21 billion estimate for the quarter, as reported by Yahoo Finance.

The financial announcement comes days after it was announced that Netflix's subscription fees were to rise.

Netflix's cheapest basic plan will now cost $9 a month, up $1 from $8. The HD standard plan is $13, up from $11. Its most expensive plan rose to $16 from $14 per month.

New programs have drawn in big audiences to rave reviews. Horror series, The Haunting of Hill House, has proved popular

Stock prices for Netflix dipped on investor concerns with the free-spending streaming service

It's been a mixed run of fortune for the California-based company. It's stock dropped 2.8% immediately after its earnings were announced showing investor concerns over spending and debt.

The company took on new debt last year, reporting free cash flow burn of negative $1.3 billion for the quarter, bringing total outflow to $3 billion for the year. It is thought the cash burn will be similar in 2019 before improving.

It was reported at the close of the third quarter that Netflix plans to spend $8.4 billion on its programming over the next 12 months.

'The fact that investors reacted negatively to what amounted to a strong performance indicates the extent to which Netflix has set a high bar,' Paul Verna, eMarketer media analyst, wrote in an email, as reported by Yahoo Finance.

Netflix has significantly increased spending on new content, like Roma, a family drama, set in 1970s Mexico and now tipped for Oscar success

The company's fourth-quarter earnings announced Thursday stand at $4.19 billion but its stock dropped after the announcement (characters from Sex Education, pictured above)

Other Netflix successes in 2018 include: Alfonso Cuaron's Roma, a family drama, set in 1970s Mexico that won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and is now tipped for Oscar success.

While horror series, The Haunting of Hill House, is another hit that focuses on a family confronting haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.

'Our multi-year plan is to keep significantly growing our content while increasing our revenue faster to expand our operating margins,' the company said in a letter to investors.

Netflix has also been upping its investment in international markets. There is growth in other countries like India and Mexico. Netflix announced in September plans to double investment in France by producing 14 local shows.
Boris Johnson was accused of lying today after he denied saying that 80 million Turks could flood into Britain during the Brexit referendum campaign.

He was quizzed about controversial adverts run by the Vote Leave campaign he fronted warning the UK could end up with open borders with Turkey if it stayed in the EU.

Taking questions after a Brexit speech at a JCB factory in Staffordshire today, Mr Johnson denied making any claims about turkey in the referendum campaign.

He said: 'I didn't say anything about Turkey in the referendum...Since I made no remarks, I can't disown them.'

He said he had always made clear that immigration 'can be a wonderful thing', so long as it is 'controlled'.

But a search of the internet revealed that he had warned of the risk of sky-high immigration from Turkey if the UK stayed in the Brussels bloc.

Boris Johnson (pictured in Staffordshire today) was accused of lying today after he denied saying that 80 million Turks could flood into Britain during the Brexit referendum campaign

In an interview with The Sunday Times in April 2016: 'I am very pro-Turkish but what I certainly can't imagine is a situation in which 77 million of my fellow Turks and those of Turkish origin can come here without any checks at all.

'That is mad - that won't work.'

In a joint letter to David Cameron, Mr Johnson and Michael Gove demanded he rule out Turkey ever joining the EU.

The letter said: 'It is Government policy that Turkey should join the European Union and ''to pave the road from Ankara to Brussels''.

'It is Government policy that the United Kingdom is the ''strongest possible advocate of Turkish accession'' and that Turkish accession will make the UK ''more secure'' and ''richer'', the same argument the Government makes for why the UK must remain in the European Union.'

Boris Johnson's pitch to Britain: the key quotes And if we spend the next few weeks hydraulically straining to move MPs from one camp to the other pointlessly trying to get Corbyn to parley at Number Ten we will be wasting our time. Because this deal  the Prime Ministers deal  was thrown out by a record 230 votes, the largest majority in parliamentary history. And that was for the very good reason that it does not correspond to the result of the 2016 referendum. We need to stop battling each other and focus our efforts on Brussels. We need to escape the trap of the Irish backstop and it is frankly more than disappointing that in the five weeks since the deal was whisked off the table, before parliament could vote it down, we have not even tried to get rid of it. We have not even asked. The only way to extend or revoke article 50 is with the approval of the EU and at the initiative of the UK government. And it would be shameful at this late stage to change that totemic date - the one fact to which the public has been able to cling with absolute certainty. I dont want to pretend there will be no challenges and no changes to cope with. Of course there will be. But I say to all those who believe in the democratic freedoms of this country re are more than up to it. We have got so far, we are almost there, let us not give up now. If we get it right now  and have some courage  we can forestall the years of wrangling and uncertainty that I am afraid will be the legacy of this deal. And we can stop talking about the process of Brexit. And start talking about what Brexit can deliver for the people of this country. And we can use Brexit to bring this country together. Advertisement

Demanding a veto on Turkey ever joining, the letter added: 'If the Government cannot give this guarantee, the public will draw the reasonable conclusion that the only way to avoid having common borders with Turkey is to Vote Leave and take back control on 23 June.'

Labour MP Virendra Sharma, a supporter of the anti-Brexit Best for Britain campaign, told MailOnline: 'Boris Johnson is a liar.

'He shamelessly pushed anti-Turkish messages as a leader of the Vote Leave campaign.

'It's time to stop giving his ill-thought through ideas oxygen, and hand the Brexit decision back to the public through a people's vote.'

Vote Leave produced adverts posted widely on social media which stated that 'Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU' and 'Britain's new border is with Syria and Iraq'.

Some included images of people in Turkey with large red arrows pointing towards the UK.

The row came as Mr Johnson launched a fresh scathing attack on Theresa May over Brexit.

He slammed the PM for not even trying to remove the Irish border backstop in talks with the EU - as he made a thinly-veiled pitch for the Tory leadership.

The former foreign secretary said the PM should have made the demand after her Brexit deal suffered a humiliating Commons defeat on Tuesday night.

He said Mrs May should make a 'final offer' to the EU of a deal that strips out the border plan and withholds half the 39billion divorce bill until a trade deal is done.

Mr Johnson said he would be 'utterly amazed' if Brussels said no but insisted Britain would flourish even if it had to leave without a deal on March 29 - promising there would still be 'Mars bars' and other imports from Europe whatever happened.

Mr Johnson insisted delaying exit day would further 'erode trust' in politics and fuel suspicion of an 'elite conspiracy to thwart Brexit'.

In his speech, Mr Johnson said Britain could keep the 'best parts' of the current deal - including deals on citizens' rights - but strip out what it didn't like.

He said: 'I believe that there is a very good chance, indeed overwhelmingly likely, that we will leave with a deal  we just wont leave with this deal.'

The new developments come as it emerged five Tory ministers warned Theresa May yesterday they would resign if she did not offer a free vote on a Plan B Brexit

He added: 'If we mean it, if we are determined, and if we make it clear that this is our best and final offer, I would be utterly amazed if we cannot get agreement on these terms.'

Insisting Britain would succeed under no deal, he said: 'I dont want to pretend there will be no challenges and no changes to cope with.

'Of course there will be. But I say to all those who believe in the democratic freedoms of this country

'We are more than up to it. We have got so far, we are almost there, let us not give up

Mr Johnson is seen by many as a front runner for the Tory crown - but is also loathed by many Tory MPs who dismissed his pitch for unity today.

His former deputy at the Foreign Office Sir Alan Duncan blasted: 'You are not equipped to unite the Party you have so recklessly divided.'
The ailing Islamist cleric who inspired the Bali bombing in Indonesia is to be released from prison halfway through a 15-year jail term, the country's president said.

Abu Bakar Bashir's followers, the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah, carried out the attack on Bali in 2002, which killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

Bashir's imminent release comes ahead of April's presidential election, and the run-up has seen opponents of President Joko Widodo try to discredit him as being insufficiently Islamic.

Abu Bakar Bashir, the 80-year-old Islamist preacher who inspired the 2002 Bali bombings, is due to be released after serving just half of his 15-year sentence

'I have considered this decision for a long time, involving the National Police chief and legal experts,' Mr Widodo told reporters.

'This release was decided because of humanitarian considerations and also related to his healthcare.'

The announcement has sparked outrage around the world, in particular in Australia where many victims hailed from.

Australia urged Indonesia last March against any leniency towards Bashir when the government was considering house arrest and other forms of clemency.

'Stunned that he is about to be released,' said Jan Laczynski, an Australian who lost five friends in the bombing of the Sari Club and narrowly avoided being at the venue himself.

'Truly devastating news as effectively he gets on with his life whilst everyone else suffers from seeing him walk out of jail,' he said.

Devastation: This picture shows the ruins of the nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, which was destroyed by Islamist terrorists in the 2002 attacks that killed 202 people

A single singed shoe sits on a table inside a destroyed bar at the site of a bomb blast in Kuta Beach on Bali in October 2002

Bashir's lawyer Muhammad Mahendradatta said that Bashir, who was sentenced and imprisoned in 2011, would be released within days.

'We haven't had the exact date of his release, but because Bashir badly needs serious health care the release will be carried out no later than next week,' he said.

Also due to be released from prison next week is the former governor of Jakarta, a Widodo ally and minority Christian who was toppled by a conservative Islamic movement in 2016 and subsequently sentenced to two years in prison on blasphemy charges.

President Joko Widodo has been accused of not being 'Islamic enough' by opponents

Mr Mahendradatta said he wanted Bahir's release to be without any conditions, enabling him to meet supporters and give sermons.

However, another Bashir lawyer who is also an adviser to Mr Widodo, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, told Indonesian TV that the cleric accepted conditions and would do nothing except rest and be close to his family.

Mr Widodo said Mr Mahendra was among the legal experts he sought advice from.

The firebrand cleric was arrested almost immediately after the Bali bombings but prosecutors were unable to prove a string of terrorism-related allegations. He was instead sentenced to 18 months in prison for immigration violations.

In 2011, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting a military-style training camp for Islamic militants.

The 2002 bombings were a turning point in Indonesia's battle against violent extremists, making heavy security a norm in big cities and forging closer counter-terrorism cooperation with the US and Australia.
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Three of the four Americans killed in a suicide bomb blast in Syria have been identified by the Pentagon.

Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida, Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M Kent, 35, of upstate New York and Defense Department civilian Scott A Wirtz of St Louis, Missouri, were all killed in the explosion.

The Pentagon has not released the name of the fourth American, who was working as an interpreter for the Defense Department, because he was not a member of the military.

Wednesday's suicide bombing, claimed by the Islamic State group, was the deadliest to hit US troops since they deployed to Syria in 2014.

Nineteen people were killed when a suicide bomber on foot detonated an explosive vest outside a popular grill house in the central market of the flashpoint northern town of Manbij.

Local reports suggest the soldiers were eating inside alongside their Kurdish allies when they were killed.

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Three of the four Americans killed in a suicide bomb blast in Syria on Wednesday have been identified, including Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida (above). Farmer, a married father of four, had served on six overseas combat tours and received numerous awards and decorations including the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart

Another victim of the terror attack, claimed by the Islamic State, was Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M Kent, 35, of upstate New York (above). Kent, who enlisted in the Navy in 2003, was described by one superior as 'a rockstar, an outstanding Chief Petty Officer and leader to many in the Navy Information Warfare Community'

Defense Department civilian Scott A Wirtz (above) of St Louis, Missouri, was also killed in the attack. Wirtz, a former Navy SEAL, was working for the Defense Intelligence Agency as an operations support specialist

Nineteen people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest outside a popular grill house in the central market of the northern town of Manbij. It was the deadliest attack to hit US troops since they deployed to Syria in 2014

Farmer, a married father of four, had served on six overseas combat tours and received numerous awards and decorations including the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart.

As an Army Chief Warrant Officer 2, Farmer was among the most technically and tactically competent soldiers of differing certain specialties in the Army. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

The Navy issued a statement extending their condolences to the family of Shannon Kent (above) and the military community. One senior official said: 'Although she has left us way too soon, she will not be forgotten, and her legacy will live on with us'

Kent, who enlisted in the Navy in 2003, was assigned to Cryptologic Warfare Activity 66 (CWA 66), based at Ft George G Mead, Maryland, and was deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. She reported to command in August.

'Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family, friends, and teammates of Chief Petty Officer Kent during this extremely difficult time. She was a rockstar, an outstanding Chief Petty Officer, and leader to many in the Navy Information Warfare Community,' CWA-66 commander Cmdr Joseph Harrison said in a statement.

As a Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive), Kent's responsibilities included analyzing encrypted electronic communications, jamming enemy radar signals, deciphering information in foreign languages and maintaining state-of-the-art equipment and networks used to generate top secret intel.

'Chief Kents drive, determination and tenacity were infectious. Although she has left us way too soon, she will not be forgotten, and her legacy will live on with us,' Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician (Collections) Denise Vola with CWA-66 said in a statement.

Kent had earned numerous awards and decorations for her service, including: the Joint Service Commendation Medal (2), Navy/Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, Rifle Marksmanship Ribbon and Pistol Marksmanship Ribbon.

Wirtz, a former Navy SEAL, was working for the Defense Intelligence Agency as an operations support specialist.

A terrifying video shows civilians walking down a street near the restaurant just moments before the bomb goes off

Photos showed blood plastered along the restaurant's pillars when the smoke from the explosion finally settled

A total of 19 people, including at least nine civilians, were killed in the blast

Harrowing images captured the devastation caused by the deadly attack, showing twisted hunks of metal lay in the street in front of shuttered shops covered with scorch marks, as Syrian civilians walk past the destruction and shopkeepers attempt to salvage what they can.

Terrifying video has also emerged showing the moment the bomb detonated from a CCTV camera further down the street.

Next to the blast site, Abu Abdel Rahman lifted an armful of red teddy bears out of his storefront display, carefully avoiding the shattered glass. His shop was hit by the blast.

'I was at the door of my shop and saw a fireball come out of the restaurant. Then, there were body parts on the ground,' he told AFP, a red keffiyeh headscarf wrapped around his face to help fend off the cold winter air.

Manbij has become a flashpoint for military activity since Donald Trump ordered US troops to withdraw from the country, claiming ISIS had been defeated.

Kurdish forces fear that Turkey, which will be taking over anti-terror activities in Syria after America withdraws, is preparing to launch an all-out assault.

They have requested help from Bashar al-Assad's forces stationed in Damascus, which began arriving toward the end of last year.

It was against this backdrop of tensions between Washington's Syrian Kurdish ground partner and its NATO ally Turkey flare that the bomb detonated on Wednesday.

The suicide attack came after Donald Trump ordered US troops to withdraw from Syria, saying that ISIS had been defeated

The soldiers were inside this restaurant in the city of Manbij along with Kurdish troops when the bomber detonated his vest outside. Local reports suggested they were eating at the time

New images have emerged showing the extent of the destruction at the restaurant in Manbij where two US soldiers and two defense workers were killed on Wednesday

A member of Manbij's security forces patrols the site of a suicide attack targeting US-led coalition forces in the flashpoint northern Syrian city

Run by a Washington-backed town council since the US-led coalition and its ground partners pushed out jihadists in 2016, Manbij had previously been a realm of relative quiet.

The town was considered sufficiently secure that a group of top US military commanders and lawmakers strolled through the same market place without body armor during a tour of the area last summer.

But the US military presence in the town has been thrown into question after Donald Trump's shock announcement last month that he would pull all American troops from Syria.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime Trump supporter who was among this summer's visitors, has been one of the most vocal critics of the president's decision and was in Ankara for talks with top officials on Friday.

Ankara views the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) as a 'terrorist offshoot' of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a deadly insurgency for self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened an all-out offensive to clear the group from its border.

At the town's entrance, security checkpoints manned by forces of the US-backed Manbij Military Council meticulously check vehicles and the IDs of people entering and exiting the town.

After sweeping across swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, the jihadists' cross-border 'caliphate' has been erased by multiple offensives and is now confined to a tiny embattled enclave in eastern Syria close to the Iraqi border.

But despite the stinging defeats, ISIS has proved it is still capable of carrying out deadly attacks using hideouts in the sprawling desert or sleeper cells in the towns.

American troops (pictured) began patrolling Manbij several weeks ago in an attempt to stave off attacks by Turkish-backed Syrian forces which occupy several nearby towns

While Trump has made it clear that all 2,000 troops would be leaving with Turkey taking over the fight against ISIS, other administration officials have been less clear

Ground equipment started being withdrawn from the country last Thursday, according to CNN, with the exact timetable for full withdrawal unclear.

While Trump has made it clear that all 2,000 troops would be leaving with Turkey taking over the fight against ISIS, other administration officials have been less clear.

John Bolton, Trump's National Security Adviser, said the US would not leave until it had received guarantees from Turkey that its Kurdish allies would not be attacked.

The attack's timing was seen by critics of the pullout as evidence that it should be stopped - but Pence claimed hours after a bloody attack in Syria on US forces that America and its allies had 'crushed' the terror group known as ISIS.

Pence first made the claim in a State Department speech and doubled down on it in an afternoon statement invoking President Donald Trump.

'President Trump and I condemn the terrorist attack in Syria that claimed American lives and our hearts are with the loved ones of the fallen,' Pence wrote. 'We honor their memory and we will never forget their service and sacrifice.'

He went on to say: 'We have crushed the ISIS caliphate and devastated its capabilities. As we begin to bring our troops home, the American people can be assured, for the sake of our soldiers, their families, and our nation, we will never allow the remnants of ISIS to reestablish their evil and murderous caliphate  not now, not ever.'

Vice President Mike Pence claimed hours after a bloody attack in Syria on U.S. forces that America and its allies had 'crushed' the terror group known as ISIS

Earlier on Wednesday, after news of the attack had spread, he had claimed in a Washington, DC at the Global Chiefs of Mission Conference that ISIS had been defeated.

'Thanks to the leadership of this commander in chief and the courage and sacrifice of our armed forces, were now actually able to begin to hand off the fight against ISIS in Syria to our coalition partners, and we are bringing out troops home,' Pence said. 'The caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated.'

A statement from the White House press secretary handled the matter more delicately.

'Our deepest sympathies and love go out to the families of the brave American heroes who were killed today in Syria. We also pray for the soldiers who were wounded in the attack. Our service members and their families have all sacrificed so much for our country,' Sarah Sanders said.

The deaths prompted a forceful statement from Republican senator Lindsey Graham Wednesday faulting Trump for having 'set in motion' enthusiasm by the enemy in Syria.

Graham's dramatic statement associating Trump's words with the bloody attack Americans came from a loyalist who has golfed frequently with the president, although he has also tried to the president out of a policy he has called dangerous to Americans.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Graham briefly stopped the proceedings to condemn the attack and call out the president for his words.

'I'm glad you mentioned Iraq and other places where we're fighting to help people,' Graham said at the hearing about Trump's attorney general nominee William Barr.

'There was an attack today on a restaurant, I think it's the same restaurant I visited with the Kurds and Arabs and others in Manbij, Syria, to hold on some representative government, and unfortunately I believe some American advisers were killed there by ISIS,' Graham began.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham delivered blunt remarks that called out President Trump for his statements on Syria that he said gave 'enthusiasm' to the enemy

'My concern, by the statements made by President Trump, is that you set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we're fighting. You make people we're trying to help wonder about us,' he added, speaking of the local population and Kurdish fighters the U.S. has supported.

'And as they get bolder the people we're trying to help are going to get more uncertain,' Graham said. 'I saw this in Iraq. And now I'm seeing it in Syria.'

The US soldiers and civilians were in Manbij, which has been occupied by Kurdish YPG forces since they seized it from ISIS in 2016, and has become a flashpoint in the withdrawal plans.

The YPG fear that, after America has gone, towns like Manbij will be attacked by Turkey in an attempt to drive them out.

American troops began patrolling Manbij several weeks ago in an attempt to stave off attacks by Turkish-backed Syrian forces which occupy several nearby towns.

Kurdish forces also reached out to Damascus, which is controlled by dictator Bashar al-Assad, for assistance as tensions grew.

Syrian government troops began massing near the town shortly after Christmas, according to The Guardian.
Nigel Farage has today revealed he will launch a new political party if Brexit is delayed.

The former Ukip leader accused Remainer MPs of plotting to try to overturn the result of the EU referendum.

He said he expects Article 50, which starts the two-year clock on Brexit, to be extended - meaning the UK will not leave the EU as planned on March 29.

Mr Farage said he will make a dramatic come back to frontline politics with a new party with could run in EU elections this May if Brexit is delayed.

And he revealed that he is working with others in the pro-Brexit campaign group 'Leave Means Leave' to build up party structures in preparation.

Nigel Farage (pictured today on the BBC) has today revealed he will launch a new political party if Brexit is delayed

It comes as Tory MP Nick Boles revealed he is working with Labour backbencher Yvette Cooper on a new proposed law to delay Brexit for nine months.

Mr Farage told Sky News: 'I think, I fear that the House of Commons is going to effectively overturn that Brexit.

'To me, the most likely outcome of all of this is an extension of Article 50.

What does Yvette Cooper's and Nick Bole's plan do? The text of the Yvette Cooper bill has not been published but comments from Nick Boles suggest it is similar to his. The crucial section tries to force the Government to delay exit day from March 29 if there is no deal. Under the current timetable, Britain leaves the EU two years after it formally triggered talks by using Article 50 of the EU's treaty. The Boles draft said if there is no deal by March 5, the Government must seek a two year extension. The EU has said it will consider an extension if the UK needs more time to implement a deal - but two years for more talks is a very different idea. It could mean the Government is forced to cancel the Article 50 notification altogether to avoid breaking the new law. None of this will happen if the MPs cannot change Commons rules to get their draft laws onto the agenda for votes as by default they will never be debated. Advertisement

'The remain side is well funded, well organised. They are getting ready for another referendum. It would negligent of the Eurosceptics not to do so.'

He said his old Ukip Party - which has taken a dramatic turn to the far right since he left - is 'unsalvageable' and he is working on a new party.

He told the BBC: 'We are getting ready, we are building branches and a structure all over the country.

'I hope we never ever have to effectively use the vehicle but we are building it and that is Leave Mean Leave.'

On Brexit being delayed, he added: 'If this happens, I will make sure that there is a political party there with a list that I can be part of.'

The warning comes as the Cabinet war over no-deal Brexit escalated today as Aid Secretary Penny Mordaunt went public in defence of crashing out of the EU.

The Brexit-backing Cabinet minister said that crashing out with no agreement is better than accepting a bad deal.

Theresa May's senior ministers are deeply split over what to do if her deal cannot be pushed through Parliament after Tuesday's 230-vote rout.

Ms Mordaunt insisted today the EU had to believe a no deal Brexit was still an option to win new concessions from Brussels and make the deal acceptable to Tory rebels.

Following a debate on last night's Question Time, Ms Mordaunt launched her staunch defence of preparing for no deal today.

She said: 'The upsides of leaving outweigh the downsides of staying/No Deal disruption.

'It's only when no deal is better than a is believed by the EU that well maximise our chance of a deal.

'Not honouring the result of the referendum would be appalling.'

The new developments come as it emerged five Tory ministers warned Theresa May yesterday they would resign if she did not offer a free vote on a Plan B Brexit

Mr Boles confirmed it was from the same team who drafted his plans earlier this week. Neither version can make progress without a dramatic suspension of the normal rules of Parliament

Other ministers - led by Business Secretary Greg Clark and Justice Secretary David Gauke - have warned no deal is so bad they would resign to stop it.

The splits come as Mrs May has been holding talks with rival political leaders to try to come up with a Brexit Pan B in the wake of her humiliating defeat.

She held a 'constructive' calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch PM Mark Rutte last night, and is expected to have more calls with EU leaders in the coming days.

And she will today hold meetings with many of her Cabinet ministers in No10 today to discuss Brexit and how the cross-party talks have gone.

As Mrs May gathers members of her top team for crisis talks today, Tory and Labour backbenchers are trying to seize control of the Brexit talks.

Ms Cooper's Bill is expected to demand a none-month extension to Article 50, and is expected to get the backing of several Tory MPs.
Four migrants accused of trying to hijack a container ship heading to Britain have been hit with fresh charges this morning.

The 770-foot cargo ship Grande Tema, sailing off the coast of Kent, had to call in British special forces in December after stowaways were discovered on board.

Four Nigerian men Samuel Jolumi, 26, Ishola Sunday, 27, Toheeb Popoola, 26, and Joberto McGee, 20, were today charged with attempted hijacking, having previously been accused of affray.

A container ship off the coast of Kent was stormed by special forces after stowaways were found on board in December

The crew of the ship locked themselves in the bridge after the stowaways apparently broke out of a cabin they were being held in.

The stowaways smashed some windows and smeared faeces others, Southend Magistrates Court was told

A note was even passed to the crew which read said there would be 'a big problem' if the ship wasn't moved closer to shore so they could swim to England, it is alleged.

The situation was brought under control after Special Boat Squadron team stormed the ship and arrests were made.

The four men today appeared in the dock two at a time with two guards and interpreters - but did not enter a plea.

Four men have now appeared in court charged with attempting to hijack the cargo ship

Prosecutor Lesley Chipps told the court: 'The defendants were stowaways on a vessel, it was a working vessel.

'The crew then became aware of them and they were then secured into a room and provided food etc.

'The allegation is then they then made good their escape from that room.

'The captain had to secure his crew into a secure room, so they were safe. They then approached the room with iron bars and made the threats.

'The ship was off the port of Tilbury and forces had to board the ship to get them

'At that point they were fully compliant when they were taken off the vessel.'

The case was transferred to crown court. The men were remanded in custody.
John Brandler, 63, has purchased the Banksy artwork in Port Talbot, South Wales, for a six figure sum and said he'll keep it there for now

A Banksy artwork painted on the side of a steelworker's garage has been sold to an art dealer for a 'six-figure sum'.

John Brandler, 63, who owns Brandler Galleries in Essex, said he had agreed the mural could be kept in Port Talbot, South Wales, for a minimum of two years.

The artwork, which shows a child dressed playing in the falling ash and smoke from a skip fire, is Banksy's first to appear in Wales and is believed to be a comment on pollution linked to its steel plant.

Steelworker Ian Lewis, 55, said it was like 'Christmas had come early' after the work appeared on the side of his garage in the Taibach area on December 18.

However he later confessed he was 'struggling' to manage with the attention.

New owner Mr Brandler said he already owned several Banksy pieces, and suggested putting 'five or six' more of the artist's works on public display in the Welsh town to help tourism.

Mr Brandler, from Brentwood, said: 'I'm so chuffed to have it, you have no idea.

'This isn't the most valuable Banksy I own but it's certainly the one I'm most proud of. Because it's so brilliant. It has an instant message, and it's punchy.

The mural appeared on steelworker Ian Lewis' garage in the Taibach area in December

Mr Lewis, left, sold the piece to Mr Brandler, right, who has said he'll keep the artwork in the town for a minimum of two years and might bring 'five or six more' to create an exhibition

'It's not just a girl holding a balloon or a bunch of flowers or something. This is a really strong social message.

'Ian was getting offers from people who wanted to take it away and not work with the town.

'But I want to make Port Talbot a go-to place rather than a go-from place.

'Within a short time I'm thinking of bringing five or six more Banksys to Port Talbot. Let's do an exhibition.

'If we all work together I think we will get tonnes of people coming to Port Talbot.'

The art dealer said he had given a 'written guarantee' the artwork would stay in Port Talbot 'for a minimum of two to three years', and added: 'If it works, it can stay longer. If it doesn't work then I'll move it to a different industrial city.'

The artwork shows a child playing in falling ash and smoke from a skip fire, making residents believe the graffiti references the Tata steelworks plant two miles away

Mr Brandler said he was in Cardiff on Friday morning to meet with representatives from the Welsh Assembly today to see 'what happens next'.

Hollywood actor Michael Sheen has been contributing towards security costs to protect the artwork in his hometown, which included a donation to a protective plastic screen currently covering the artwork.

Banksy confirmed the artwork was his in a video on Instagram in December which had the caption 'Season's greetings'.

At the end of the footage, which is soundtracked by Christmas music, the video pans up to show the industrial landscape of Port Talbot steelworks, which is thought to have inspired the painting.

The artwork appears months after Port Talbot was mistakenly dubbed the most polluted town in the UK.

In May the World Heath Organisation had to apologise after it admitted its figures were wrong.

The global body said Port Talbots air pollution was measured at 9.6853 micrograms, just under half of the figure it had originally given the town, and below WHO national guideline of 10 micrograms.
A simple, yet loving bond between an elderly couple in east China has melted hearts across China.

The devoted wife, Gao Zhenhua, 75, has been guiding her blind husband Wei Hongde, 77, with a stick every day since he lost his eyesight 15 years ago, despite herself having serious hearing problems.

The couple, who have been married for 50 years in Jinan, Shandong province, have sparked many discussions in the value of true love on social media.

The devoted wife, Gao Zhenhua, 75, has been guiding her husband Wei Hongde, 77, with a stick every day since he lost his eyesight 15 years ago, despite herself having hearing problems

Video footage shows Wei clasping onto the stick as Gao takes him on a stroll in their village

Video footage shows Wei clasping onto the stick as Gao takes him on a stroll in their village.

'I'm blind and she's deaf,' the elderly man told BTime.

'She is my eyes and I am her ears,' he later corrected himself, smiling. 'I wouldn't dare step out of the house on my own - everything is blurry.'

'We're going to hold hands like this forever,' the man said proudly, adding that he would describe the things he heard along their journey.

The couple's devotion has sparked admiration from people across China

'I wouldn't dare step out of the house on my own - everything is blurry,' the man told reporters

A villager told reporters that the pair is a living example of a perfect married couple.

'Young people nowadays should learn from them,' the woman told reporters.

The couple's devotion has sparked admiration from people across China, with many net users saying that the pair is the 'true depiction of love'.

'They really have been supporting each other in sickness and in health,' one user commented on Chinese microblogging site Weibo.

'I am in tears. This is what true love looks like!' another comment read.

'I want the same relationship with my future husband,' one user said.
A 62-year-old father has been found dead in a motel room bathroom, bringing his stand-off with police to an end after he shot his estranged wife dead and injured their adult daughter in a church parking lot.

Arthur Edigin was found inside the bathroom of his room at the Extended Stay America Hotel on Friday morning.

SWAT teams and negotiators had descended on the scene to try to coax him out and they were talking with him before he took his own life.

Arthur Edigin, 62, (bottom right) shot dead his estranged wife Graciela (center) and injured their 31-year-old daughter (top center) in a church parking lot

Arthur Edigin (left and right) was then found dead inside the bathroom of his room at the Extended Stay America Hotel on Friday morning

Edigin murdered his estranged wife, Graciela, as she sat in her car in the parking lot of the Christ the Redeemer Church in Cypress at 7pm on Thursday.

He shot into the car multiple times, fatally wounding her and injuring his estranged, 31-year-old daughter, Penny Grace.

A child who was in the back of the car, who is thought to be Penny's daughter, was unharmed.

Edigin opened fire on his family in the parking lot of the Christ the Redeemer church in Cypress on Thursday at 7pm

Police at the scene early Friday during the standoff between SWAT members and the suspect

Authorities say Edigin fled the scene in a 2008 white Suburban which had damage to the right quarter panel.

The couple also have at least one other adult daughter who was not involved.

It is not clear what drove Edigin to carry out the attack.

The church was put on lock-down with around 100 worshipers inside immediately after the shooting.

Graciela was inside the car with her 31-year-old daughter and an unnamed child who was not harmed

It is unclear what drove Edigin (left) to carry out the attack on his wife (right). Police will only say that it was a domestic dispute

He then fled to the Extended Stay America hotel where he barricaded himself into a room on the fourth floor

Edigin fled and it was not until police received a tip that he had checked into the motel that they located him.

He is in a room on the third floor of the hotel and is believed to be armed and dangerous.

The hotel has been evacuated while police try to get him out.

The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston released a statement that said: 'Our prayers are with the victims and families affected by the tragic shooting this evening at Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church. Officials with the Archdiocese and the parish community are cooperating with local authorities in their investigation.'
BEIRUT - The Arab Economic and Social Development summit kicked off on Friday in Beirut, but only two of many Arab heads of state are participating in the event, which runs through Sunday.

Libyan media said Libyan President Michel Aoun expressed disappointment over the absences of his Arab colleagues.

Mauritania and Somalia are the only Arab countries represented at the highest level.

The other countries in attendance sent second-level and third-level ministerial delegations.

The press in Beirut has already defined the summit a "flop", attributing it to Lebanese officials' insufficient guarantees of security to the Arab leaders.

Also weighing on the summit is a climate of tension between Lebanon and Libya, whose participation was rejected by Beirut following accusations by Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri.

Berri is the political heir to the Shiite imam Musa Sadr, who disappeared in Libya in 1978, a disappearance that Lebanon claims the Tripoli government is responsible for.

Berri's followers threatened to physically attack members of the Libyan delegation, and removed Libyan flags from the streets of Beirut leading to the site of the summit.

They also said they were ready to block the road that connects the city to the international airport, where flights of Arab delegations have been arriving since Thursday.
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A litter of four lion cubs froze to death just hours after being born at a dilapidated zoo in Gaza.

Fathi Jumaa, the owner of the zoo, said he covered the cage of the tiny cubs with blankets ahead of a winter storm, but found them dead the next morning at the small zoo in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.

He said that two lions died almost immediately so he took another two home with him to care for them but they died upon returning to the zoo.

A litter of four lion cubs froze to death just hours after being born at a dilapidated zoo in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah

Most of the animals in the zoo were smuggled into Gaza from Egypt via underground tunnels a few years ago, before the Egyptian military destroyed the tunnels running beneath the border.

The wintry weather sweeping the region has made it especially hard for animals that lack proper care.

Jumaa said that the weather, the 'coldest winter for years' according to residents, is partly to blame for the death of the cubs, as well as a long standing Israeli blockade.

'We could not secure the necessary food supplements, medicines and antibiotics to save the lives of the cubs. We do not have enough money and the blockade is exacerbating the situation,' the zoo manager told Middle East Eye.

Fathi Jumaa, the owner of the zoo, said he covered the cage of the tiny cubs with blankets ahead of a winter storm, but found them dead the next morning at the small zoo in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah. A lioness is seen in its enclosure at the zoo

In a previous interview, the owners of the zoo revealed that these taxidermied animals had died because they could not afford to feed them

He added that because of the 12-year blockade, his zoo have been unable to obtain heating systems or plastic rain protection.

He added that the cubs' mother is also at risk now, because of the complimented political and climate mixture.

'We may also lose the lioness, which recently gave birth and whose poor health has been worsening over the past few days,' he said.

In 2016, animals - including a Bengal tiger - were evacuated from the 'world's worst zoo' in the south of the Gaza strip because they were dying from 'stress, disease, and starvation', according to their owner.

International animal care groups have carried out several evacuation missions in recent years to relocate animals and birds in poor condition to sanctuaries outside Gaza.

Palestinians are seen using a shovel to dig a grave for the dead lion cubs, which are pictured on a wooden table. They died in the cold weather after a storm in a zoo at Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza Strip

The man is seen placing the dead lion cub bodies together in a cardboard box, as people at the zoo in the Rafah refugee camp gather round and watch on

A man is seen burying the bodies of the four newly born lion cubs. The zoo owner said that two lions died almost immediately so he took another two home with him to care for them but they died upon returning to the zoo

Children watch on as a hole is buried for the dead lion cubs. The wintry weather sweeping the region has made it especially hard for animals that lack proper care

The bodies of the cubs are pictured together. Most of the animals in the zoo were smuggled into Gaza from Egypt via underground tunnels a few years ago, before the Egyptian military destroyed the tunnels running beneath the border

The owner of zoo in the Gaza Strip has offered up three lion cubs for sale in the past, saying that he can no longer afford to feed them

Lions are seen at a park in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on January 4, 2017. International animal care groups have carried out several evacuation missions in recent years

The zoo owner holds two-month-old lion cubs at a zoo in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah in December 2017. This week, four new-born cubs died just hours after they were born

A Palestinian man looks at a lion at the zoo in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 4, 2017. International animal care groups have carried out several evacuation missions in recent years to relocate animals and birds in poor condition to sanctuaries outside Gaza

Palestinian girl looks at a deer at a park in the southern Gaza Strip two years ago. The wintry weather sweeping the region in recent days has made it especially hard for animals that lack proper care

A Palestinian man looks to ostriches at the zoo. The wintry weather sweeping the region has made it especially hard for animals that lack proper care
Three Cabinet ministers have warned their local activists to prepare for an election, it was claimed today despite Theresa May ruling out a snap poll.

A further six junior ministers have alerted their constituency associations to the risk of a new general election as Westminster is deadlocked by Brexit.

Mrs May has insisted she will not call an election for fear of causing even more chaos if the result is indecisive.

But after her continued denials turned into a snap election in 2017, few in Westminster feel anything is certain.

Britains top civil servant told Government departmental heads to be ready in case an election is needed to break the Brexit impasse.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill met senior mandarins this week to discuss preparations in case Mrs May decides to go to the country.

Tory MPs desperately do not want another vote - fearing they will lose their seats - and today the PM's official spokeswoman insisted that she will not call one.

Asked this morning if Mrs May is ruling out a snap general election, her spokeswoman said: Yes.

Theresa May (pictured outside No10 on Wednesday night) today ruled out calling a general election - even though Whitehall bosses have been put on high alert for a snap vote

One minister who holds a marginal seat in the south has already written election leaflets, the New Statesman said.

Two local associations have move fundraisers to accommodate a potential election, the magazine said, while another in the north east is also preparing literature.

Mrs May ruled out calling an election in 2017 only to U-turn on the pledge and call the vote.

She fronted what many Tories believe was their party's worst ever election campaign - losing her party's majority despite starting with a massive lead in the polls.

Britain is not due to have another election until 2022, as mandated by the Fixed Terms Parliament Act which sets five-year terms.

Boris blasts May for 'kowtowing' to Brussels as he makes his pitch to lead the country Boris Johnson (pictured today speaking at JCB in Staffordshire) condemned Theresa May for failing to even try and remove the Irish border backstop today as he made a pitch for the Tory crown Boris Johnson condemned Theresa May for failing to even try and remove the Irish border backstop today as he made a pitch for the Tory crown. The former foreign secretary said after Tuesday's devastating defeat, the Prime Minister should make a 'final offer' to the EU of a deal that strips out the border plan and withholds half the 39billion divorce bill until a trade deal is finalised. Mr Johnson said he would be 'utterly amazed' if Brussels said no but insisted Britain would flourish even if it had to leave without a deal on March 29. Mr Johnson insisted delaying exit day would further 'erode trust' in politics and fuel suspicion of an 'elite conspiracy to thwart Brexit'. As Mrs May continues cross party talks on a Plan B Brexit, Mr Johnson warned her not to concede to a permanent customs union as the price for getting her deal through the Commons. In a thinly-veiled leadership pitch, Mr Johnson's wide-ranging speech - hosted by major Tory donor JCB boss Anthony Bamford - included promises to cut taxes and limit immigration. Mr Johnson is seen by many as a front runner for the Tory crown - but is also loathed by many Tory MPs who dismissed his pitch for unity today. Advertisement

Only this week, the Prime Minister told MPs that holding a ballot now would be the worst thing we could do, with some Tories fearing that the party would lose seats to Labour, handing the keys to Number 10 to Jeremy Corbyn.

But the PM can call a snap vote as long as two thirds of MPs vote for it in the Commons.

And Cabinet ministers have held conversations about how an election may now be the only way to move forward, with one warning a poll is on the way.

Despite the failure of its attempt to oust the Government this week, Labour has also not ruled out the possibility of repeatedly tabling no-confidence motions in a bid to topple Mrs May.

But an election might receive a weary reaction from voters. When Mrs May called the 2017 snap election, the news elicited the immortal response from one voter, Brenda from Bristol: Youre joking! Not another one!

Civil servants across Whitehall have been ordered to prepare for the possibility that an election could be called.

The Daily Mail has learnt that officials have begun exercises looking at what needs to happen if there is a vote, such as rushing through final pieces of legislation before Parliament is dissolved.

Sir Mark, who was appointed Cabinet Secretary in October, held a meeting with permanent secretaries from across Whitehall this week to talk about how they needed to be ready in the event of all scenarios.

And on Wednesday Former Tory party leader William Hague told City of London figures that he believed the Brexit crisis may lead to a snap general election.

Labour has launched a fundraising drive to prepare for the possibility of a poll and in an email to supporters this week said the party was on a snap election footing.

And the Tories have begun selecting candidates in dozens of seats, although sources insisted this was part of the normal process.

An election could be triggered if rebel Tory MPs and the Democratic Unionist Party choose the nuclear option and  in alliance with opposition parties  collapse the Government by voting it down under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

Alternatively, the Prime Minister could decide there is no way forward on Brexit with the current parliamentary arithmetic and ask MPs to bring about a fresh vote.

If an election is called, it is likely that the two-year Article 50 process for leaving the EU would have to be extended beyond March 29.

Last night, a Cabinet Office spokesman said: The Cabinet Secretary frequently meets with permanent secretaries to discuss a wide range of issues.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill met senior mandarins this week to discuss preparations in case Theresa May called a general election

Some Tories fear that the party would lose seats to Labour is another General Election was called, handing the keys to Number 10 to Jeremy Corbyn




The EU Chemicals Agency ECHA has proposed a ban on adding microplastics to products such as cosmetics, detergents and agricultural fertilisers by 2020 to combat pollution.

The tiny bits of plastic pollution in waterways and oceans are causing growing concern among scientists about their effect on marine ecosystems.

The European Commission, which estimates that between 70,000 and 200,000 tonnes of microplastics enter the environment each year, had requested the proposal from the ECHA as part of its plastics strategy.

The Commission's Vice President Jyrki Katainen, pictured, said an EU ban on microplastics could set a standard for industries around the world

'The aim is to avoid nearly 30,000 tonnes of microplastics ending up in nature a year,' the ECHA's spokesman Matti Vainio said at a conference in Helsinki.

The Commission's Vice President Jyrki Katainen, who also spoke at the event, said an EU ban could set a standard for industries around the world.

'The European Union is the first in the world to have launched a comprehensive plastics strategy which aims at reducing also microplastics,' he said.

A grey mullet is shown next to microplastic found in Hong Kong waters during a Greenpeace news conference last year

The ECHA will present its official proposal within a year for the EU member countries to consider and Katainen said the Commission could approve it towards the end of 2020.

Vainio warned the use of microplastics would continue to increase rapidly without the ban.

'It emerged as a surprise to us that agriculture is the largest user of microplastics', Vainio said, referring to a widely-used technology to encapsulate agricultural fertilisers within tiny plastic shells that emit them slowly into the soil but leave behind microplastics.

The proposed ban would exclude some products such as medicine and paints.
A gang of four mothers who used a specially-tailored skirt with concealed pockets to steal 4,500 of high-end perfume from Boots have been jailed for more than five years.

The four women - who have 25 children between them - travelled from London to Hampshire to target high street store Boots while 'equipped' with the garments adapted by hand, which included pockets which had been sewn into the inside of the skirt in order to conceal the items.

Olga Mihai, 45, Reica Petre, 40, Carmen Stoica, 41, and Cintariata Veriga, 35, have been jailed for a total of five years and three months after suspicious security guards tracked them down on CCTV when they left the store in Hampshire.

The mothers, all from Waltham Forest in London, worked as a team whilst one distracted a member of staff at the store in Eastleigh, so the others could stuff the fragrances into skirts and bags before making an exit.

Carmen Stoica (left) and Reica Petre (right) were part of the gang that stole 4,500 worth of perfume from High Street retailer boots

Olga Mihai (left) and Cintariata Veriga (right) had travelled to the store in Hampshire to steal the perfume

Southampton Crown Court heard when police later stopped them in a car and discovered the stolen goods, they claimed they had taken them to give to their families for Christmas.

Describing the theft, prosecutor Siobhan Linsley said: 'They asked for a shop assistant and they asked them to open the glass cabinet which contained the perfume.

'While the staff member was distracted the ladies placed the perfume in both bags and in their skirts which had been specially adapted with a lining.'

In a bid to cover their tracks after the theft on December 16 last year, the women took perfume worth 1,600 to the checkout, but told the staff member at the till they had no money before leaving the store.

The lining of the skirt (pictured above) used by one of the mothers to steal perfume

Ms Linsley added that all four women had previous convictions, mostly theft-related, with Veriga having 19 convictions.

In mitigation, Charlotte Bellamy said all four were mothers, with Stoic, Petre and Veriga having seven children each and Mihai having four children and two grandchildren.

Miss Bellamy said the women, who had been held in prison since their arrest, missed Christmas and New Year with their families and said jailing them would further impact them.

She also argued the group were also visiting a friend in Eastleigh and had not entered the town solely to steal but that was rejected by Judge Nicholas Rowland, who described the claims as 'manifestly false and wholly inaccurate'.

He also rejected Miss Bellamy's request to hand down suspended sentences for the four women, who each admitted theft.

He said: 'These four women came together from London or that area with the intention of stealing in Eastleigh.

Southampton Crown Court (pictured above) heard when police later stopped them in a car and discovered the stolen goods, they claimed they had taken them to give to their families for Christmas

'They came equipped for the theft with garments. That puts this offence firmly in the highest category.'

Petre and Veriga were given 18 month prison sentences, while Mihai was jailed for 15 months, and Stoicka was jailed for 12 months.

Boots revealed the 4,500 worth of perfume can no longer be sold even though it was returned.
A Washington DC Cuban restaurant has been fined $7,000 for demanding a transgender woman show ID before using the ladies' restroom.

Workers at a restaurant called Cuba Libre in the capital asked Charlotte Clymer for identification in June 2018 when she tried to use a women's bathroom, then followed her inside and told her to leave.

Writing in a Twitter thread that has gone viral, Charlotte explained how when she went to use the restroom in the establishment, she was physically stopped by an attendant who demanded her ID to prove it said 'female'.

Charlotte Clymer, a transgender woman and activist with the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for LGBTQ equality, was asked to show identification June 22 when she tried to use a women's restroom at Cuba Libre, a downtown Cuban restaurant and rum bar

Thread time: She took to Twitter to share her account of what happened at the restaurant

Noteworthy: Her June 2018 story about the Cuban restaurant and bar has since gone viral

When she refused to hand it over, citing a law that says this action was illegal, she was followed into the bathroom and eventually escorted out of the restaurant by force.

Clymer's complaint see Cuba Libre pay a $7,000 penalty to the District for violating the act. The restaurant must also train staff on D.C. laws regarding gender identity and post signs that 'all individuals are allowed to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity or expression'

The restaurant later apologized and says it has complied with requirements to train staff on district law and post signs saying people can use bathrooms aligning with their gender identity.

Cuba said in a statement that the restaurant performed the training and signage requirements, and also plans to offer training open to all D.C.-area restaurant employees to 'help understand the challenges of the LGBTQ community.'

Along with the $7,000 penalty to the District for violating the act, the restaurant must also train staff on D.C. laws regarding gender identity and post signs that 'all individuals are allowed to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity or expression,'

Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine said that the District has settled with Cuba Libre over the violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression in public accommodations.

Stop: After some time, she went to use the women's restroom  which is when a male attendant blocked her and demanded to see her ID

Charlotte used the bathroom anyway, but says a man followed her in to look for her

Clymer called the settlement which sees the restaurant pay a $7,000 fine 'a great outcome'

During the June incident, Clymer showed restaurant managers a government fact sheet which details the District Requirements in Public Accommodations  Gender Identity and Expression and references the DC Human Rights Act.

It reads: 'District law requires two things with regard to access to public facilities: (1) single-occupancy bathrooms must be gender-neutral; and (2) facility managers and personnel must respect a person's restroom choice based on their gender identification or expression.'

It further explains: 'For instance, if an individual, who identifies or presents themselves as a woman, wishes to use the Women's restroom, they must be permitted to do so even if the individual were to be perceived differently. Thus, under District laws, denying access to any restroom, or other gender specific facility that is consistent with a person's gender identity or expression, is unlawful.'

At the time, Charlotte documented her ordeal in detail in a lengthy Twitter thread.

'I was told by the manager of @CubaLibreDC that I couldn't use the women's restroom, and after challenging his discrimination with D.C. law and responding to his threat of calling the police w/ 'please do so', I was forcibly removed from the restaurant,' Charlotte began.

Making a scene: The manager insisted she have ID and told her she would make women uncomfortable

Despite Charlotte showing him proof, the manager dismissed her and talked down to her

The man was dismissive and rude but couldn't counter her claim with a different law

Though they threatened to call the cops at first, Charlotte called their bluff  and then the restaurant wouldn't call the police, even though she wanted them to

Cuba Libre said in a statement that the restaurant performed the training and signage requirements, and also plans to offer training open to all D.C.-area restaurant employees to 'help understand the challenges of the LGBTQ community'

'Near the end our time there, I went to use the restroom with my friend and before I reached the door, an attendant stuck out his arm and said he needed to see my ID. When I asked why, he said that 'female' must be on an ID to use the women's restroom. No one else was asked.

'This is a packed hallway in a packed club/restaurant, and this random staff person specifically picks me out to ask for ID. I told him that's nonsense, turned on my heel, and continued into the restroom. My friend is telling him that he's making a mistake.

'I go into a stall to do my business, and I hear him walk in and search for me in this busy restroom full of women. He is doing everything but opening the stall doors. I ignore him, and after a few moments, he leaves. I do my business, wash my hands, and walk out.

'On the other side of the door are the attendant and the manager, who says it's D.C. law that you must have 'female' on your ID to use the women's restroom. I tell him he's wrong and there's no chance I'm showing him my ID. There are people crammed into this hallway. It's busy.

Awful: However, on that night, she was nearly brought to tears

Kindness: However, she said, there were strangers at the restaurant who came to her aid

Reinforcements: Finally, Charlotte felt compelled to call the police for help

Getting it down: Two patrol cars came and took statements

'He insists I need to show my ID, I tell him that's not happening, and demand to see what law he's citing. He refuses to show me the law and instead says, 'You being in there will make women uncomfortable.' We're in the way of everyone, and a lot of people are watching this.

'I was angry and needed to cool off, so I again refuse to show him my ID and walked out of the restaurant to get my bearings. I brought up D.C.'s law regarding restrooms on my phone and walked in, straight to him, to show him how this is illegal.'

Discrimination: Charlotte Clymer, a transgender US Army veteran, was enjoying a friend's bachelorette party at Cuba Libre in Washington, D.C. when the fun was brought to a halt

'He treated me like I was being irrational, glanced over the text and said 'that's incorrect'. He continued to refuse to show this imaginary law he was citing and threatened to call the cops. I told him he should absolutely call the cops. Please do. He then said I need to leave.

'I told him I work for the Human Rights Campaign, he's making a mistake here, and he needs to adjust his course of action. I told him this is discrimination and said he's being a bigot. He laughed and mocked my workplace. 'Oh, I know you folks at [address].'

'He continued to ask me to leave. I told him I'm not going anywhere until the cops are called. For several minutes near the front door, this manager continued to refuse to call the cops, his original threat, and said I need to leave.

She said the police officers were 'patient and kind' and brought in DC's LGBTQ liaison unit

Pronouns: Charlotte was also please with how this unit treated her

Charlotte says she was told that there would be investigations of the restaurant

'A bouncer came up and said I need to be reasonable. I told him the situation and said I would not be leaving until the cops are called. No chance. I explained the law to him, and he continued his condescending plea for me to leave. He then grabbed my arm and pushed me out.

'I stood there at the curb with a friend, feeling shattered. I wanted to cry, but my adrenaline was so high at that point that I felt blocked up. Our other friends came out along with several people who had witnessed what happened.'

Charlotte said a 'wonderful person' named Nicole Lopez came to speak to her. She was there with her boyfriend Edgar, a staffer for Congresswoman Norma Torres of California's 35th congressional district.

Edgar offered help, and he and Nicole told the rest of their group  many of whom also left the restaurant.

Despite the horrible night, she was touched by how supportive strangers were

Sorry: Cuba Libre has released a statement apologizing and has tried to get into contact with Charlotte directly

'By now, all my friends were outside, and one mentioned that she had seen a non-binary person get asked for their ID almost immediately following what happened to me. And at that point, I went to a place of anger that I do not visit often. Something had to be done,' Charlotte said.

Though she insists she isn't 'the kind of person who calls cops,' Charlotte decided something had to be done and phoned the police. Within minutes, she said, police officers arrived to take statements.

'I could not have asked for a more professional and affirming experience from @DCPoliceDept. The responding officers  all cisgender men  were patient and kind in their communication, assured me I was right on the law, and radioed for their LGBTQ liaison unit to respond.

'The LGBTQ liaison's first question after introducing themselves was: 'Hi Charlotte, may I ask for your pronouns?' They took statements, gave my friends and I space to process this (mostly my friends trying to offer humor and hugs), and fully debriefed me on my rights.

'I'm told @CubaLibreDC will face investigations by the city's licensing authority and the D.C. Office of Human Rights, the latter which I have to initiate using the police report that will on file. The officers told me I had a very strong case.

She wet on to thanks the DC Police department, who 'responded with professionalism and compassion,' as well as strangers who came to her aid. She also noted that despite being discriminated against, she was lucky enough to be white, which may have prevented things from getting worse.

'My privilege helped me in this situation. Transgender people, esp. people of color, without my privilege are not so fortunate.,' she said.

Cuba Libre has responded publicly to the controversy and apologized in a statement.

'We are extremely sorry for the incident that occurred at our restaurant last night,' they wrote. 'As a rule, we support safe bathrooms and welcome guests of all gender identifications. Clearly our staff did not do so and treated you in an unacceptable manner. We are immediately retraining our entire staff to ensure this does not happen again.'
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A huge 30ft-wide and 19ft (6metre) deep sinkhole has opened up in a field, starting a hurried investigation by the Coal Authority.

The public safety and subsidence team at the Coal Authority were alerted to the massive hole, in a field in Midlothian, Scotland, after the landowner spotted it on Friday.

Coal Authority bosses have already sealed the area off and will visit the site in the coming weeks to inspect the hole.

It is believed the sinkhole is related to an abandoned mine known as the Roslin Colliery.

James Hammond, regional project manager for the public safety and subsidence team at the Coal Authority, said: 'In December 2018, we received a report of a hole in a field in North Midlothian.

'Our regional team responded quickly to erect fencing to secure the area.

'We will be undertaking thorough investigations to determine the cause of this incident.

'If these investigations conclude that it is a result of historical coal mine workings, we will undertake ground remediation work to make the area safe.'

A sinkhole opened up in the field in Midlothian, Scotland. The area has had problems with the holes before

Roslin Colliery produced coal for more than 65 years before being abandoned in 1969.

The mine had two shafts, one which was 282 metres deep and another which was 294. The output of coal was 194,250 tonnes per year.

An associated brickworks which was opened in 1937 stayed open until the Seventies.

The mine opened by the Shotts Iron Company employed around 750 men at its peak but has since been landscaped.

In May 2016 several cows were rescued from a 45ft (15m) deep sinkhole in Midlothian.

It is thought a mineshaft collapsed at a farm off Greenhall Road in Gorebridge, taking the animals down with it.
A Question Time audience erupted into cheers and applause after it was suggested that Britain should leave the European Union with a 'no-deal' Brexit.

Spectators at the BBC show whooped as it was suggested that walking away from talks with Brussels was the 'only option' available to Prime Minister Theresa May.

Filmed in the Leave-voting city of Derby, the audience produced the loudest reaction of the night in response to the suggestion by Brexiteer writer Isabel Oakeshott.

Asked by host Fiona Bruce if there was any deal the Conservatives could unilaterally agree on, Ms Oakeshott said: 'Look, I can save everybody a lot of time here.

Filmed in the Leave-voting city of Derby, the audience produced the loudest reaction of the night in response to the suggestion by Brexiteer writer Isabel Oakeshott (pictured)

'The short answer is  no, there isn't. That's why it seems to me the only option for Mrs May now, and I am going to admit that it a sub-optimal position, is to walk away.

Asked by Ms Bruce is she meant a no-deal exit, she replied 'Yes, absolutely, because there isn't an alternative', causing the eruption of cheers from spectators.

The prospect of a 'chaotic' no-deal Brexit is becoming more likely after Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement was humiliatingly obliterated by MPs in a vote this week.

Some economists have warned that such an exit from the EU could tip Britain into a recession worse than the financial crash, shrinking GDP by eight per cent.

Meanwhile, a cross-Government analysis found the UK economy would be 9.3 per cent smaller after 15 years if Britain leaves without a deal.

However proponents of no deal claim it would be a minor hiccup on the path to self-determination, with the UK adopting automatic World Trade Organisation status.

The Question Time audience erupted into cheers and applause after it was suggested that Britain should leave the European Union with a 'no-deal' Brexit

Spectators at the BBC show whooped as it was suggested that walking away from talks with Brussels was the 'only option' available to Prime Minister Theresa May

A no-deal Brexit remains the default if politicians cannot come together in squeaky bum time to formulate an alternative.

Mrs May used the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, and the damage it could cause, as a carrot and stick to convince sceptical MPs to back the Withdrawal Agreement.

But other ministers have been less negative, with International Trade Secretary Liam Fox telling the BBCs Today programme: 'I dont regard no-deal as national suicide.

'This is not Dunkirk, this is leaving the European Union.'

Former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab argue that many of the warnings are overblown, including on the customs and border problems.

They say there may be some minor hiccups but they can quickly be overcome and the UK could do global business on World Trade Organisation terms quite happily.
A good Samaritan who found $8,000 on the side of the road has returned it to a woman whose husband died in a stretch limousine crash in upstate New York.

Terry Brubaker said she was driving through Gloversville, New York, on January 14 when she saw pieces of paper floating through the air.

Brubaker said that she didn't immediately know the flying paper was money.

Terry Brubaker was driving along a road in Gloversville, New York, when she saw money flying around in the air. She stopped and collected $8,000 of the cash and turned it in to police

The money belonged to Kim Steenburg, whose husband, Rich, died in an October limo crash that killed 20 people. Steenburg accidentally left the cash in an envelope on top of her car

'I just saw everything floating in the air, so I stopped on the side of the road. And then I saw a $100 dollar bill, another $100 bill, $50 bills, $20 bills, and Im like wow, its a lot of money,' Brubaker told News 10.

Brubaker was the first to stop and collect the cash while dodging oncoming cars. She then turned in what she had been able to grab at the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, just as Kim Steenburg was filing a report about the missing money.

It turned out that Steenburg had accidentally left the money in an envelope on top of her car after getting distracted after buckling her niece into the car seat.

Steenburg told the Times Union that she actually had $8,500 in cash in the envelope and that she intended to deposit the money in the bank that day.

The money was meant to have been used to pay for her father's property tax and for part of a week-long honeymoon cruise to the Bahamas that she had originally planned with her late husband, Rich.

Rich was one of 20 people who died on October 6 when a limousine filled with family and friends got out of control, careened through an intersection and hit a parked car in New York's Schoharie County.

Brubaker saw the floating money while she was driving on this stretch of road

Steenburg (in pink) said the money was meant to pay her father's property tax and for a cruise she was taking. The cruise was originally meant to be a honeymoon trip with husband Rich (left) and his brother Axel and new wife Amy, but they all died in the limo crash

Four sisters and their three husbands were among the 20 people that died in the limo crash (pictured) that killed Steenburg's husband and brother-in-law

The accident  which killed four sisters and their three husbands  was said to be the deadliest transport accident since February 2009, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed in Buffalo, New York, killing 50 people.

Steenburg was supposed to have been in the limo that day, but decided to stay home because she wasn't feeling well.

Steenburg said that she, Rich and his brother, Axel, and his new wife, Amy, were all supposed to have gone on the cruise together, but they were all victims of the limo crash.

The $8,000 that Brubaker collected and returned was put towards a cruise that Steenburg decided to go on with her sisters and some close friends.

In memory of her husband and brother- and sister-in-law, Steenburg said she brought containers with their ashes on the cruise with her when it departed on Wednesday.

'I brought them all; they're in my purse,' Steenburg told News 10. 'I know this sunshine is them giving me this big warm hug.'

Fulton County Sheriff Richard C. Giardino told the Times Union that if it had been anyone other than Brubaker, the Mayfield Village Clerk, who had picked up the money, that $8,000 might not have been returned to Steenburg.
It is now 20 years since I came here to test drive the 3CX backhoe loader and it is fantastic to discover that you have sold nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand (750,000) backhoes to over 150 countries.

With the optimism and relentless technological innovation that I believe should be the hallmarks of the next phase of Brexit.

And if you are privileged to drive one of these custard colossi you will find that they can move almost any obstacle out of their path. Tonnes of rock or mud or gravel - and they can do it fast.

But if you engage the wrong gear then pow  thats a new entrance youve made to your house.

And as I look now at the barriers in the path of this country and a smooth departure from the EU, there is no doubt that there are still a few boulders lying around.

But I fear that at present we are facing the wrong direction

and trying to change the wrong bit of the landscape

And if we spend the next few weeks hydraulically straining to move MPs from one camp to the other pointlessly trying to get Corbyn to parley at Number Ten we will be wasting our time.

Because this deal  the Prime Ministers deal  was thrown out by a record 230 votes, the largest majority in parliamentary history.

And that was for the very good reason that it does not correspond to the result of the 2016 referendum.

When 118 Tory MPs voted against this ex withdrawal agreement it was because leavers and Remainers were united in their dismay at a deal that keeps us locked in the customs union  unable to do free trade deals.

Unable to cut tariffs on our own  whether to make food cheaper or to help African farmers - a deal that turns us into non-voting members of the EU single market forced to take rules from Brussels.

So that this great company would have to accept whatever whimsical specifications Brussels comes up with for JCBs sold not just in the EU but in the UK too and with no say by UK officials or ministers in the devising of those rules

And that means that if the EU commission decided that there was some innovation taking place here in the UK of which it disapproved - perhaps because it threatened the market share of continental rivals.

Then they could pass a directive and snuff that development out - and the UK would have no choice but to obey.

Unless of course the government was willing to do the unthinkable and give up control of Northern Ireland

Does that seem like a good deal to you?

That is not Brexit; that is not democracy. That is a betrayal of the long term interests of UK companies.

It makes me utterly furious that a UK government could even contemplate such an arrangement.

That is why parliament voted down that deal so heavily

The answer is not to try to heave MPs back into place

And get them to back it at the second time of asking.

Nor is it sensible to use parliament to try to construct some new and desperate expedient.

The Norway option, the Norway plus option, a second referendum, a peoples vote (as opposed to what  an animals vote?)

All of which have been discounted by the PM because they would be an even bigger betrayal of Brexit.

And it seems incredible that anyone could imagine the solution was membership of the customs union  a flat contradiction not just of the referendum but of the Conservative manifesto

The answer is to turn our wheels round to face the real obstacle.

We need to stop battling each other and focus our efforts on Brussels.

We need to escape the trap of the Irish backstop and it is frankly more than disappointing that in the five weeks since the deal was whisked off the table, before parliament could vote it down, we have not even tried to get rid of it.

We have not even asked.

And I know what people will say.

They will say that it is not possible, that we wont have a chance of shifting the great marmoreal edifice of the European Commission.

I really, really do not believe that to be true - because the notional purpose of the backstop is to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland and yet no one in Dublin or London or Brussels wants a hard border, intends a hard border, or thinks a hard border is remotely necessary.

And so it is time for us to go back to Brussels fortified with the emphatic and conclusive mandate of parliament.

And demand real change to that backstop.

And mean it, this time

So that Britain can get out unilaterally

And whatever they are now saying I believe they will be flexible.

Because anyone who has followed the EU can tell you that it is only in the last few weeks and days of a long negotiation that the big concessions are made.

And with their economies stuttering, and with a 95bn surplus with the UK in goods alone the EU leaders have every incentive to listen to us.

And give us what we need  and already we are hearing positive noises from Germany

But we must have the courage to ask and we must mean it.

Will the UK government do it? We have to.

By law, on March 29, the UK must leave.

The only way to extend or revoke article 50 is with the approval of the EU and at the initiative of the UK government.

And it would be shameful at this late stage to change that totemic date - the one fact to which the public has been able to cling with absolute certainty.

In this sea of politically generated confusion.

All this vacuous talk of extending article 50 is not only dishonest - but we are once again weakening our own negotiating position.

It would be preposterous if we were to find ourselves obliged to pay yet more to recruit candidates for another round European parliament elections.

And I am afraid the public would have the strong  and altogether justified impression - of an elite conspiracy to thwart Brexit.

To extend article 50 now would do nothing but erode trust in politics.

And as for the suggestion that parliament might veto what some are calling the catastrophe of No Deal.

It entails the logical peculiarity of trying to stop something from not happening.

It is also a bit of a waste of breath.

I believe that there is a very good chance, indeed overwhelmingly likely, that we will leave with a deal  we just wont leave with this deal.

The best way forward now  as outlined by former Dexeu secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab  is to agree to keep what is good in the deal.

Especially the protections for the 3.2 million EU citizens in this country,

And for the sake of clarity and out of compassion for their families we should unilaterally put those commitments into statute now.

We should agree on all sides that there will be no hard border in Northern Ireland.

But we should take out the Irish backstop and use the transition period.

With a mutual commitment to maintain the status quo  zero tariffs, quotas or regulatory checks  to negotiate a new free trade deal.

And a new partnership, not based on the backstop, as is currently proposed, but on the PMs Lancaster House speech.

And we should withhold at least half of the 39 bn until that deal is concluded.

If we mean it , if we are determined, and if we make it clear that this is our best and final offer, I would be utterly amazed if we cannot get agreement on these terms.

And even if the EU side were so obdurate and self-destructive as to turn us down, and to insist on tariffs and checks.

Even if they decided to try to punish the UK, then the truth is that as we approach that deadline of the end of March we are finding that even in that eventuality bureaucratic and logistical problems that had previously seemed insoluble are melting in the face of human creativity.

It is not just Jean-Marc Puissesseau of Calais who is sounding more confident. Listen to Eurotunnel or indeed to the clarion call of Lord Bamford who wrote last week that he relishes the prospect of a clean Global Brexit and trading on WTO terms as JCB already does around the world.

I dont want to pretend there will be no challenges and no changes to cope with.

Of course there will be.

But I say to all those who believe in the democratic freedoms of this country

We are more than up to it.

We have got so far.

We are almost there.

Let us not give up now.

Because if we hold our nerve I believe we can deliver not a pseudo Brexit in which we leave the EU but end up being run by the EU.

But the Brexit people voted for with all the potential advantages and opportunities.

And if we get it right now  and have some courage  we can forestall the years of wrangling and uncertainty that I am afraid will be the legacy of this deal.

And we can stop talking about the process of Brexit.

And start talking about what Brexit can deliver for the people of this country.

And we can use Brexit to bring this country together.

And the best way to unite us is really to address the issues that drove us to leave.

Yes it was about democracy, yes it was about a desire to run ourselves and a feeling of that the project of political union was not right for the UK.

But that vote, was also triggered by a feeling that in some way the people of this country has been drifting too far apart - and in areas where we need to come together.

We all know about boardroom pay and the huge expansion in the last 25 years of the gap between the remuneration of FTSE 100 CEOs and the average workers in their firms.

We know one of the ways big corporations have held wages down is that they have had access to unlimited pools of labour from other countries.

Now I am a free market capitalist and a passionate believer in the benefits of migration which enriches our country, which brings talent ,and which by the way is a tribute to our country - but there must be a balance.

And if an influx of labour is being used not only to prevent investment in capital equipment.

But also in the skills and prospects of young people then we need to think carefully about how we control immigration.

And if as it seems a tightening of the labour market since the vote is actually contributing to a rise in take home pay.

Then I say that is good news because this country deserves a pay rise and it is good news that companies like Travelodge have announced they are taking on 400 more unemployed parents in this country.

And so if Brexit helps those people to earn a little more and if it holds out the prospect of cheaper food and clothes then we should welcome those developments and instead of treating Brexit as a problem.

Instead of kowtowing to Brussels and keeping ourselves tied to the EU apron strings we should be thinking of all the ways we can use this moment to become more productive and more dynamic.

Because if we want the people of Britain to have a pay rise, as I do, then we cant expect to do it by simply controlling immigration.

We have to address all the causes of the productivity gap that has so massively expanded.

And I dont mean the gap between the UK, France Germany and Italy, though we are behind our main competitors.

The most worrying gap is between London, the most productive part of the whole European economy and other countries and regions in the UK.

And if you look at the distribution of the Brexit vote, it is clear that people felt that gap in attainments and prospects.

And that they wanted something done.

And if we are to bring our nation together that means investing in great public services.

First and foremost safer streets, cutting crime, and holding the mayor of London responsible for his failings  the new guy, not the old one.

Better hospitals, better transport links, better housing and to that end we should be devolving power to cities in coherent regions.

Taking council tax, business rates stamp duty, land tax and the annual tax on enveloped dwellings, bundling them together giving them to local mayors and politicians to spend so that they have clear incentives to go for growth.

We should use the freedoms of Brexit to speed up the planning process and to create freeports

There are now 135 countries in the world that have such freeports with all their power to attract the growth of all kind and it is absurd that Britain will be forbidden by this deal from doing the same.

And the way to generate the cash to pay for this national cohesion is not to attack London or the City.

Because with 24% of GDP London is the motor and the gateway.

The answer is to create the most favourable tax environment in Europe with no new taxes and no increases in rates and no one rich or poor to pay more than 50% of their income in tax.

Not because we want to create a tax haven for the rich but because that it is the way to stimulate the income we need to pay for this national programme of cohesion.

And I want to explain why this matters so much.

This idea of national cohesion

Because I am not a nationalist if by that you mean a xenophobe or someone that deprecates other countries and cultures  far from it.

But I do believe that the idea of belonging to a nation or group can be immensely powerful and positive.

And I remember the moment this country came together during the 2012 Olympics and there were two great emotions at work.

A sense of joy at being able to welcome the world to the UK and to show off our capital and that feeling was globalist and internationalist.

But there was also deep pride in this country.

Because in the end we were rooting for team GB and we were doing it together.

And there should be nothing embarrassing about that feeling because if people have that sense of belonging and being part of the same team then you will massively increase not just their sense of community and obligation to each other but also their sense of what they can achieve.

And if we can harness that spirit of teamwork and self-belief then we will easily meet the challenge of Brexit and indeed I believe if we get it right we can use this experience to reinforce our national optimism and confidence.

Because every study shows that people feel happiest and most successful when they have control over their lives.

And it is that feeling of autonomy, the self-determination which goes hand in hand with pride, that is ultimately what Brexit is all about.

The excitement and satisfaction that comes from the sense of having our destiny in our hands.

And using that autonomy to innovate in tech or data or bio-science or artificial intelligence or robotics or finance in a way that may be undreamt of by the EU commission.

And this should be the greatest place in the world in which to turn a wacky idea into a world-beater.

Joseph Cyril Bamford came up with the idea of mounting a great big shovel on the front of a tractor in 1945.

And the world is now populated with the descendants of that tractor - and nothing and no one will stop their spread.

And to achieve that creative autonomy we must follow the logic of what parliament has voted for.

No to this deal and yes to exit on March 29.

And whatever terms we come up with for exit - and I believe they will be favourable - I confidently prophesy that with their infinite resource the people of this country will manage the change.

And I tell you now that whatever the doomsters may say:

There will still be Mars Bars made in this country from April

There will still be drinking water.

The planes will fly.

And as JCB has demonstrated there is absolutely nothing, no bureaucratic prejudice or impediment, that has been able to stop a British-made backhoe loader from roaring on to building sites around the world - and creating thousands of jobs in this country.

So let us fire up the engines, emulate the spirit of JCB and remove from our path the backstop that is the last Brussels-built obstruction to a global Britain.

:/5=@$
Detectives are desperately searching for a teenage girl who has been missing for a month in a case they have described as 'critical'.

Pamela Horvathova was last seen leaving the college she attends in Sheffield at around 2.05pm on December 18.

South Yorkshire Police have now released CCTV of her last confirmed sighting in a bid to find the 16-year-old. The force is also said to be at Sheffield College today as they continue to hunt for information.

Teenager Pamela Horvathova (pictured above) was last seen at Sheffield College

Police had released the footage as they had wanted to question two men who were seen leaving the building with the teenager.

Speaking to the MailOnline a spokesperson from South Yorkshire Police said the two individuals have been questioned and released and are not believed to be involved in Pamela's disappearance.

She was wearing a dark hooded jacket, blue jeans and was wearing her hair on top of her head in a bun.

The teenager who is from the Slovakian Roma community does not have a mobile phone or any presence on social media.

Pamela (pictured above) was wearing a dark hooded jacket, blue jeans and was wearing her hair on top of her head in a bun

After leaving the college, detectives believe she walked to the city centre, and there was another sighting of Pamela at the iceSheffield arena the following day.

A team of eight detectives and twelve police officers are working around the clock to try and find Pamela, in a case described as 'critical'.

Supt Paul McCurry said: 'Due to the length of time she has now been missing, and the lack of contact with her family, or anyone we have spoken to so far during the course of our enquiries, our concerns for Pamela are understandably growing.'

Officers held a public meeting in Darnall, the area of Sheffield Pamela is from, on Tuesday but said it failed to result in a new fresh leads.

Supt McCurry added: 'The community have really come together to work with the police and support our investigation, for which we are thankful.

'We need the public to get behind us and we need your help to find her. We are particularly keen to speak to her friends and anyone she associates with outside of college.'

He told reporters Pamela's family are 'very upset' but community members have told police Pamela may not want to go home.

Officers are widening their search beyond Sheffield to the rest of the country and Europe, although police have no evidence she has gone abroad.

Asked how worried he was for her safety, Mr McCurry, said: 'I think it's fair to say we are very worried. This is a critical incident, we have a lot off staff involved in this.

'We need information from the public - sightings, any lines of inquiry we will follow.'

The police investigation involved officers visiting Sheffield College to speak to students and hand out posters.

Police urge anyone who sees Pamela to call 999 immediately.
RABAT - Moroccan authorities thwarted 88,761 attempts at irregular emigration in 2018, said the Moroccan Interior Ministry's national observatory on migration, which monitors entries to and exits from the country.

Data showed there were 70,571 transiting migrants in Morocco from other African countries, a 37% increase.

A total of 229 human trafficking organisations were dismantled, 29,715 migrants were rescued at sea, and a total of 5,608 opted for voluntary repatriation to their country of origin.


Heavily armed Chinese police rained bullets on a Golden Retriever and killed it at the scene after the crazed pet reportedly assaulted its owners earlier this week.

Police officers in Xuzhou, eastern China, were said to be armed with guns and massive anti-riot forks as they were tasked to catch the dog.

They cornered the dog into a small alleyway and riddled it with bullets Monday night after receiving permission from their supervisors to kill it, according to local reports.

The Golden Retriever in China ran away after a police officer tried to shoot it but missed

Officers followed the dog, cornered it into an alleyway before raining bullets on it and killed it

It is said that the pet had tried to savage two members of the family that owns it. One victim lost a thumb and the other had her hand tendon severely torn.

The police were informed of the crazed dog at around 8pm by its owner, known by his surname Li, who lives in the Xuzhuang Town, according to Jiangsu TV.

Gao Gongyi, an officer from the Gaozhuang Police Station, told reporters that the injured family members had already been taken to the hospital when officers arrived at the scene.

The pet tried to savage two members of the family that owns it. One victim lost a thumb and the other had her hand tendon severely torn. Pictures released by Pear show the injuries

Officers sent to catch the dog were armed with steel forks (file photo) used to control riots

'In order to prevent the crazed dog from harming more people, we reported the situation to our supervisors and received permission, then we took decisive actions against the crazed dog and shot it dead,' officer Gao said.

An officer first tried to shoot the dog from the top of a wall, but he missed. The officer, assisted by a colleague holding a steel anti-riot fork, then followed the running dog and cornered it into a nearby alley.

Footage released by Pear shows policemen yelling 'carry on shooting', 'shoot again' and 'shoot its head' as the gun-holding officer aimed at the dog.

The officer shot the dog six times until he was sure that it was dead, reports said.

Officer Gao warned the public to be cautious while interacting with pets during the change of seasons or when the animals are in heat.

He suggested the public not go 'too close' to cats and dogs to prevent unnecessary injuries.
An aspiring rapper arrested over the murder of an Israeli exchange student made a sickening post on social media hours after her body was found.

Codey Herrmann was arrested on Friday in relation to Aiia Maasarwe's death after her half-naked body was found near a shopping centre in Bundoora, Melbourne.

Just hours after she was discovered, Herrmann took to Facebook to share a photo of himself holding a can of Jack Daniels.

The photo was posted next to an older one of himself as a baby and captioned, 'b4 An afta'.

Police arrested the 20-year-old at a park in Greensborough in Melbourne and he remains in custody at Victoria Police crime command headquarters.

Ms Maasarwe, 21, was killed after getting off a tram on Tuesday night, and her body was found near a shopping centre on Wednesday morning.

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An aspiring rapper arrested over the murder of an Israeli exchange student made a sickening post on social media hours after her body was found

Codey Herrmann was arrested on Friday in relation to Aiia Maasarwe's death after her half-naked body was found near a shopping centre in Bundoora, Melbourne

A week before Ms Maasarwe's body was found, Herrmann also made the post: 'International girl of mystery You knows who you are'

Herrmann was arrested at a park in Greensborough on Friday and remains in custody

A week before, Herrmann took to Facebook to say: 'International girl of mystery You knows who you are.'

The prolific Facebook user even posted a fake-wanted poster of himself on his social media account under the name of Kody Wrex, one of his many identities.

'Greenzy's most wanted,' was written in the January 11 post.

In a sickening twist, he posted a meme on the same day encouraging people to treat each other fairly.

'Being raised right is how you treat people, your manners and respect'.

Herrmann also discussed his mental health struggles on the social media site.

A January 10 post read, 'Shoutout to all the men going through a lot, with no one to turn to, because this world wrongly taught our males to mask their emotion & that strong means silent.'

The self-proclaimed rapper went by the name of MC Codez on top of others like Codey Kulla Kulla.

In one rap video, the try-hard singer can be heard reciting, 'I'm trying to find the way... but I'm blazed, blazed, and I'm to blame for all my mistakes I ever made.'

In another rap video Herrmann is dressed down and rhyming, 'I'm an animal and I'm uncontrollable when I'm on the microphone.

'You can't stop me because honestly, honesty has got so far from me that I cannot go back to the past.'

The prolific Facebook user even posted a fake-wanted poster of himself on his social media account under the name of Kody Wrex, one of his many identities

In another rap video Herrmann is dressed down and rhyming, 'I'm an animal and I'm uncontrollable when I'm on the microphone'

A friend said Herrmann was frequently spotted around the Bundoora area

Ms Maasarwe had spent the night at a comedy club before boarding the 86 tram from Bourke Street, heading to her home in Bundoora. She left the tram around midnight. Her body was discovered in scrub, nearby, the next day

Herrmann attended Bundoora Secondary College until 2016, and it is believed he was couch surfing around the time of Ms Maasarwe's death, The Age reported.

A friend said they frequently spotted him around the Bundoora area.

'He was on the 86 tram a lot. He was always on foot, I never saw him transport in any other way. Trams and buses.'

A former schoolmate said she saw Herrmann a week ago on a street only kilometres away from the murder site of Ms Maasarwe.

At the time, Herrmann seemed disoriented.

On top of that, he was seen walking into oncoming traffic.

The former schoolmate said it looked like Herrmann had a complete disregard for life.

Schoolmate Tim Kefa said Herrmann spiraled into drug and alcohol abuse following his junior years, while others say he was quiet and withdrawn.

Mourners gather at the site where Ms Maasarwe's body was found

Flowers were laid and a candles lit to remember the tragic death of Ms Maasarwe

'Stop violence against women' were written on balloons at the vigil

The devastated father of the Israeli student who was murdered on the way home from a night out has spoken out after a 20-year-old man was arrested over the killing.

Ms Maasarwe's heartbroken father Saeed broke down and cried while speaking to reporters at the spot where her body was found on Friday.

Through tears, Mr Maasawe thanked the Melbourne community for rallying around his family.

'This has given me a good feeling,' he said. 'But also in another way I am sad because this is the last place my daughter was - I have dreams to be with her but cannot now.

'Someone had decided I cannot be (with her). I wish, I hope, I pray she is in a more nice place than this place in paradise.'

Saeed Maasawe (pictured), the devastated father of Ms Maasarwe has told tearfully of how he dreams to be with his daughter

The father revealed he had originally planned to come later in January to visit his daughter, who was studying at La Trobe University.

Mr Maasarwe also inspected the tributes left to his daughter at the crime scene and was pictured crying as he admired them.

Earlier on Friday, the 20-year-old man was arrested in Greensborough at a picnic shelter positioned close to a children's park which is a known hang out for youths to smoke drugs.

A 20-year-old man (above) has been arrested over the horrific murder of Aiia Maasarwe, 21 - who was killed in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora after getting off a tram on Tuesday night

The arrested man (pictured) was allegedly in a park with a woman, with one witness claiming she had a 'gut instinct' to call police but when she looked again officers had already converged

He was found by police in a shelter with a woman and a group of young men.

Neighbours said they saw plain clothes and uniformed police arrest the man about 11.20am after approaching him while he was in a rotunda at Pioneer Park.

Tracey Neus said she saw the woman and had a gut instinct to call police.

But when she looked again, police had already converged on the location.

Shane Cairns said he was shaken to learn an alleged killer had been hanging around just outside his home.

'I'm just shocked. We thought they would have just been some kids,' he said.

The shelter is a known hang out for local youths who smoke drugs

Up to eight police were involved in the arrest, with the alleged killer going quietly, the couple said.

He was identified as a person of interest after police forensically tested a hat and blood-stained T-shirt left at the crime scene, it is understood.

'The 20-year-old was arrested in Greensborough by local police working in partnership with homicide detectives about 11.20am,' police said in a statement.

Scene of the crime: Aiia Maasarwe's partially naked body was found in scrub (pictured) near where she got off a tram the night before

It is understood the man, 20, was identified as a person of interest after police forensically tested a hat and blood-stained T-shirt (above) left at the crime scene

Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said it was believed to be a 'random attack' carried out by someone who was 'opportunistic'.

'This was a horrendous, horrific attack inflicted on a completely innocent young woman who was a visitor to our city,' he said.

Forensic officers were combing through a derelict property in the same suburb where the 20-year-old was arrested on Friday evening, according to The Age, and carrying evidence out of the building.

A Grimshaw Street property has been taped off and it is believed squatters used the graffiti-marked place.

Tears for Aiia: Hundreds mourned the murder of an Israeli student on Friday, hours after a 20-year-old man was arrested

Ms Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city before she was attacked. Pictured: Mourners at her university

Aiia's final moments: Tuesday Aiia was at the The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne 11pm: Her friends dropped her to the tram stop Aiia caught the 86 tram from a Bourke Street stop, heading home Midnight: Aiia got off the tram in Bundoora, about a kilometre from her home Wednesday 7am: Her body is found in scrub near the tram stop and Polaris shopping centre Friday Aiia's father Saeed said he 'dreamed to be with' his daughter and looked at tributes left at the crime scene in her memory 11am: Codey Herrmann, 20, is arrested Advertisement

The case bears similarities to the rape and murder of 22-year-old comedian Eurydice Dixon who was attacked in June while walking home from a gig in Melbourne.

Australia's human rights commission said the country has a 'a disturbingly high rate of violence against women'.

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at LaTrobe University.

Final moments: Ms Maasarwe getting off the tram before she was killed

The 21-year-old was so scared of the walk from the tram stop to her student accommodation she would call one of her sisters while walking to feel safer, a family member told The Australian.

She was heading home from a comedy gig and was on a FaceTime call with her sister when she was attacked and the phone suddenly dropped, her uncle Rame Masarwe said.

Ms Maasarwe's sister was still on the phone and heard the entire attack unfold, her uncle said.

'She seemed very happy. Then the phone fell down, she heard voices. The phone was on.'

Ms Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city.

She likely got off the tram in Bundoora near where her body was found, about a kilometre from her student accommodation.

Homicide detectives released CCTV images of Ms Maasarwe in the aftermath of her death, which show the clothing she was wearing that night, in the hope someone saw her and can help police track her exact movements.

Aiia Maasarwe's (left, with a friend) partially naked body was found by window washers in scrub outside the Polaris shopping centre on Main Drive near Plenty Road in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora at 7am on Wednesday

Before the arrest, former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina on Friday morning urged witnesses to come forward to stop the attacker killing again.

'If this person or persons strike again, they have to live with that and say could I have stopped that?' he said.

Police said in the days after Ms Maarsarwe's death they were investigating if the student was stalked from the tram and were scouring a list of known sex offenders as an 'active line of inquiry'.

On Friday Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked about the attack while in Fiji. He told reporters: 'It is just so shocking.'

The Prime Minister said his heart went out to Ms Maasarwe's family, though he can't begin to think of what he would say to them.

'I know what I'm thinking about her attacker. I expect it's the same thing that all other Australians are thinking today,' he said.

The Prime Minister stressed everyone in Australia should be able to travel home safely and that the government must remain 'forever vigilant' to the issue of violence against women.
University students are being offered bubble wrap to help them de-stress during the exam season.

The 'stress-relief packs' are being handed out to help undergraduates tackle exam nerves at the student union living room at Bristol University.

But some students have become more stressed by the bubble wrap therapy and its potential to create plastic waste.

The packets of bubble wrap come with instructions: 'For immediate stress relief', it says, 'pop three capsules every 4-6 hours, or as needed'

The university has since faced a backlash from outraged students about the potential environmental damage

The packets of bubble wrap come with instructions: 'For immediate stress relief', it says, 'pop three capsules every 4-6 hours, or as needed'.

But the university has since faced a backlash from outraged students about the potential environmental damage.

Bristol University librarian Oli wrote on Twitter: 'Um, @BristolSU Is this for real? Did anyone think about the environmental impact? Bubble Wrap is not currently recycled in any Bristol postcodes. This stuff will be headed straight to landfill.'

Bristol University Student Union was forced to issue a reassuring statement via the uni paper Epigram.

The bubble wrap was originally used to package new furniture for the new Student Union living room.

Bristol University Student Union was forced to issue a reassuring statement about the impact on the environment

The 'stress-relief packs' are being handed out to help undergraduates tackle exam nerves at the student union living room at Bristol University

A Bristol SU spokesperson said: 'We are aware that a number of students have raise concerns about the environmental impact of the bubble wrap.

'Sustainability is important to us which is why the bubble wrap being offered is being reused - it was originally the packaging that various Living Room items arrived in.'
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Undercover footage has revealed how hippo skull coffee tables, elephant skin furniture and stingray handbags were among wildlife items on sale at a safari convention in Nevada.

Hippo teeth and paintings on elephant ears were also being sold at the Safari Club International (SCI) convention, dubbed 'hunters' heaven', in Reno last week, an investigation found.

The items were shown in images released by the Humane Society International and the Humane Society of the United States. They are reporting their findings to enforcement authorities.

The practice of buying of selling elephant or hippo products is unlawful in Nevada unless the seller can satisfy certain conditions. These include proving with documentation that the item they are selling that contains such animal parts is an antique and at least 100 years old.

Carlton Evans Handmade Knives of TX booth at the SCI show 2019, selling products made from mammoth teeth and mammoth ivory

The same applies to music instruments that must have 'de minimus' - or, minimal - quantity of animal product, and the seller must prove its provenance and that it was legally acquired.

This also applies to weapons and other objects and the provenance and legal acquisition must always be proved according to Nevada law.

Investigators also claimed they found that canned lion hunts - in which customers can pay to shoot a captive-bred African lion in an enclosed area from which it cannot escape- were easily available for purchase in Reno last week.

SCI, one of the world's largest trophy hunting advocacy groups, banned the sale of such hunts at its conventions as of February 4, 2018.

Artist Debra Cooper paints wildlife scenes onto elephant skin and ears, her works are for sale at the SCI show

Artist Debra Cooper (painting in the background) paints wildlife scenes onto elephant skin and ears, her works are for sale at the SCI show

Kitty Block, acting president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and president of Humane Society International, said: 'The world's leading trophy hunting industry group is apparently promoting, enabling, and profiting from the illegal wildlife trade and unethical hunting practices.

THE POTENTIALLY ILLEGAL PRODUCTS ON SALE - MANY MADE FROM ANIMALS UNDER THREAT OF EXTINCTION  Paintings on elephant ears and skins  An elephant skin bench  Elephant leather boots, shoes, chaps, belts, and saddles  Bracelets made from elephant hair  An entire mammoth tusk  Mammoth tusk carvings  Stingray skin boots, shoes, belts and purses  Boxes of hippo teeth  A hippo skull table  Hippo leather belts and boots  Shark skin belts  A knife with a handle made of narwhal tusk Advertisement

'Conservation laws and hunting ethics are thrown out the window by SCI when financial profit is involved, driving iconic wildlife such as African elephants toward extinction.

'Making money off the opportunity to kill these animals for bragging rights is something that most people around the world find appalling. It's an elitist hobby of the 1 percent, and there is no place for trophy hunting in today's world.'

As of January 1, 2018, it is unlawful for any person within the state of Nevada to 'purchase, sell, offer for sale or possess with intent to sell any item that it, wholly, or partially, made of an animal part or byproduct derived from a shark fin, a lion of the species Panthera leo or any species of elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, leopard, cheetah, jaguar, pangolin, sea turtle, ray, mammoth, narwhal, walrus or hippopotamus.'

The investigators found more than a dozen convention vendors offering for sale and possessing with intent to sell wildlife products that appear to violate this law.

Audrey Delsink, HSI/Africa Wildlife Director, said: 'South Africa's benchmark role in the captive breeding of lions for trophy hunting is a conservation and welfare disgrace; sentiments echoed by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee of Environmental Affairs and globally respected scientists and conservationists.

'Despite SCI taking a public stand against this industry and prohibiting the advertising and sale of captive bred lion hunts by its operators, the HSUS/HSI investigation reveals that some SCI operators continue to promote this highly unethical practice, thereby violating SCI's own policy and exposing its own lack of enforcement. The scope and range of products available at the Convention demonstrates that when financial profit is involved, conservation laws are thrown out of the window, with no species  not even the extinct mammoth  being off-limits.'

Undercover investigation exposes wildlife items, including elephant skin furniture, hippo skull table and this rhino tusk, for sale at Safari Club International convention

A rep with Clint Orms Silversmiths of Ingram, TX, selling stingray belts at the SCI show

Many of the items, made from animals listed as vulnerable or threatened by extinction, can make the vendors thousands of dollars. Paintings on elephant ears by artist Debra Cooper can go for anywhere between $2,000 to $3,500.

While an ottoman made from elephant skin is being advertised on one vendor's website at $ 1,595. Belts made from stingrays were being offered at just under $400. Many of the items appeared to be price upon request.

Several of the vendors' websites focus on 'Western' values and craftmanship, yet fail to mention that the products they use come from animals at risk of extinction.

The Trophy Room Collection, which sold - among other things - the elephant ottoman, states on its website that: 'The wildlife products we sell are from animals culled from herds on African Game preserves. The entire animal is processed and all parts are sold at auction and used, especially the meat.'

Elephant culls reportedly only occur very rarely in South Africa.

Other items on sale the conference include an elephant skin bench; elephant leather boots, shoes, chaps, belts, and saddles, an entire mammoth tusk; mammoth tusk carvings; stingray skin boots, shoes, and purses; boxes of hippo teeth; a hippo skull table; hippo leather belts and boots; shark skin belts; and a knife with a handle made of narwhal tusk.

Investigators say they also found 'canned' lion hunts for sale, in which customers can pay to shoot a captive-bred African lion in an enclosed area from which it cannot escape.

Canned hunts are internationally scorned, and SCI claims that it does not allow such lion hunts to be sold at its conventions.

Hippo teeth for sale $3.50/ounce at The African Market Trophy Room Collection booth at SCI

An elephant leather bench for sale by The African Market Trophy Room Collection

Elephant hair bracelets for sale by Safari Jewelry at the convention in Reno, Nevada

Yet vendors appeared to show investigators sample pictures of types of lions that may be killed, priced according to the age and size of the animal and his mane.

One conference attendee told the investigators that he and his children participated in a canned hunt, killing 'their' lion within 90 minutes, according to the Humane Society.

Canned hunt operators described baiting lions with meat, which they said they could do ahead of a trophy hunter's arrival, to save time, investigators said.

Undercover investigation exposes illegal wildlife items, including elephant skin furniture, hippo skull table and stingray belts, also for sale was this stingray skin bag

A Narwhal handled knife for sale by the German company Gaston at SCI

One person also allegedly told investigators if they wanted to kill a really big lion, he could order one specially.

The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International are releasing their investigation while the Dallas Safari Club convention is underway in Dallas, Texas, with some of the same vendors that were at the SCI convention last week.

While Texas does not have the same laws prohibiting the sale of wildlife products as Nevada, the Dallas Safari Club has stated that it too opposes captive bred lion hunting.

A horse saddle made of illegal material. Investigators also found elephant skin furniture, hippo skull table and stingray belts

Undercover investigation exposes illegal wildlife items, including elephant skin furniture, hippo skull table and stingray belts (pictured)

A sample hippo skull table is displayed for custom ordering at the Scottville, Michigan-based booth for Legends Taxidermy, at the Safari Club International 2019 convention in Reno, NV

At least six exhibitors selling canned lion hunts at the SCI convention are also at the DSC convention.

The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International submitted its findings in writing to the Nevada Department of Wildlife on January 10, requesting investigation and enforcement of Nevada law.

Any person who violates this law is guilty of a gross misdemeanor for the first offense, a category E felony for a second offense, and a category D felony for a third offense, in addition to civil penalties of up to $6,500 (5000).

MailOnline has contacted the Safari Club International for comment.

Stingray boots available for sale at the J.B Hill stall at the controversial convention

The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International submitted its findings in writing to the Nevada Department of Wildlife, elephant and beaver boots shown

Elephant hair bracelets for sale at the Mansfield, OH-based African Sporting Creations booth
Top judges today ruled Britain is right to share evidence with the US about two suspected ISIS terrorists without seeking assurances that they won't be executed.

The mother of El Shafee Elsheikh, who is a suspected member of The Beatles execution cell that murdered Western hostages in Syria, lost her case at the High Court.

Maha Elgizouli was challenging Home Secretary Sajid Javid's decision to hand over 600 witness statements to the US without guarantees they won't face the death penalty.

But her legal bid was rejected by two leading judges who ruled that the move by the UK government was not unlawful.

Alexanda Kotey, left and Shafee Elsheikh (right) moments after they were captured by Syrian Democratic Forces last year

Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are accused of belonging to the brutal four man cell, dubbed the Beatles because of their British accents, responsible for killing high profile Western captives.

The pair were captured in Syria January last year, sparking a row over whether they should be returned to the UK for trial or face justice in another jurisdiction.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, sitting with Mr Justice Garnham, said: 'There is no general, common law duty on Her Majesty's Government to take positive steps to protect an individual's life from the actions of a third party and that includes requiring particular undertakings before complying with the MLA request.'

During a hearing in October, Ms Elgizouli's lawyers said Mr Javid's decision, which was outlined in a letter to then US attorney general Jeff Sessions, was 'unprecedented and unjustified' and put the suspects at risk of an 'inhuman punishment'.

Kotey, left, and Elsheikh (right) who were allegedly among four British jihadis who made up a brutal ISIS cell dubbed 'The Beatles,' speak during an interview with The Associated Press at a security centre in Kobani, Syria in March last year

The two men, pictured in light blue top and red jacket, are currently being held by Kurdish forces in the Syria and have been stripped of their British citizenship

Kotey and Elsheikh, who were raised in the UK, are believed to be detained by Kurdish forces in Syria and have been stripped of their British citizenship.

They are said to have been members of the cell which also included Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, who was killed in a US air strike in 2015, and Aine Davis, who has been jailed in Turkey.

Emwazi appeared in a number of videos in which hostages, including British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, were killed.

The Crown Prosecution Service decided there is 'insufficient evidence' to prosecute them in the UK.

Elsheikh (right) was part of the terror cell which also included Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John (left) who was killed in a US air strike in 2015

After Ms Elgizouli launched legal action, the Home Office announced in July that it had agreed to a 'short-term pause' of the MLA process with the US.

Mr Javid faced intense criticism after the letter he wrote to Mr Sessions was leaked, with MPs accusing him of breaching the UK's long-standing opposition to the death penalty.

The Government's former reviewer of anti-terror legislation, Lord Carlile, branded the move 'extraordinary' and said it was a 'dramatic change of policy'.

Prime Minister Theresa May supported Mr Javid's original decision, which was also backed by Boris Johnson when he was foreign secretary.

But the MLA sparked widespread criticism in Westminster from across the political divide.

Gareth Peirce, of Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, which represented Ms Elgizouli, said: 'The court's decision is difficult for Ms Elgizouli to take on board.

'The Government's own evidence supported her assumptions - that the UK's unwavering commitment remains, to oppose the use of capital punishment anywhere in the world.

'The court's decision rests upon the constraints it identifies - that the common law is slow to absorb international legal progression, that Mutual Legal Assistance is provided via a prerogative power, that ministers need only to state that they took relevant factors into account and that the courts should be cautious in forward-moving legal progression of the common law.'

Ms Pierce added: 'Ms Elgizouli hopes that the opportunity will be given for the Supreme Court to consider whether it has a greater ability to explore the important factors raised in the case she has brought.

'She recognises that they have broader (and fundamental) consequences beyond the case she felt compelled to initiate.

'She did so in the belief that if her son is accused, not that no prosecution should take place, but that any prosecution should respect the established protections that she has believed and still believes exist.'

Ms Pierce said Ms Elgizouli 'continues urgently to question' whether her son could not be prosecuted in the UK.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said: 'I am pleased the court has upheld my decision on all grounds in this case.

'My priority has always been to ensure we deliver justice for the victims' families and that the individuals suspected of these sickening crimes face prosecution as quickly as possible.

'Our longstanding opposition to the death penalty has not changed.

'Any evidence shared with the US in this case must be for the express purpose of progressing a federal prosecution.'
Armed police have shut down an area of woodland in Cumbria as negotiators talk to a man with a shotgun.

Cumbria Police confirm they are dealing with an 'ongoing incident' near to the Hardendale Quarry, a short distance from the M6 Motorway near Shap.

The operation began around 8pm last night, when police were trying to track down a missing man in his 60s 'following concern for his welfare.'

Armed police have locked down an area of woodland near Hardendale Quarry in Cumbria

He was traced to the area of woodland near Shap, about six miles from Penrith, and is understood to have armed himself with a shotgun.

Armed response officers are now at the scene along with police trained negotiators and they ask the public to stay away from the area.

Police have said the incident has nothing to do with terrorism.

A Cumbria Police statement said: 'Officers were contacted at 8pm yesterday following concern for the welfare of a man in his 60s.

'A search was conducted and the male was located at approximately 1am this morning in a woodland area near to Hardendale Quarry with a shotgun.

'An armed response is currently deployed as a precaution. A cordon is in place, however there is no perceived risk to the public at this time.'
Councils across the country have claimed that schools are 'coercing' parents to home-educate their children in a bid to avoid exclusion.

A total of 52,770 children across all 152 local authorities were reported as being electively home educated in the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) annual report for September 2017 to August 2018.

The figure shows an increase from a survey in 2015-16 that estimated about 37,000 school children were registered as being educated at home, reports the Guardian.

A total of 52,770 children across all 152 local authorities were reported as being home-educated, a report has found (file picture)

In 2016-17 48,000 children were being home educated in the UK, reports the BBC.

However parents do not have to register their child as being home schooled so the number could be even higher.

In the report Chief Adjudicator to the Secretary of State for Education, Ms Shan Scott, said local authorities were most concerned about children removed from school over their poor behaviour or attendance.

Ms Scott said: 'Local authorities were clearly worried that many of these children were unlikely to receive sufficient education at home and that any existing problems were likely to be exacerbated.

Reasons parents gave for choosing to educate their children at home 1- Not getting their preferred school place One local authority estimated nine per cent of those being electively home educated in its area due to this reason. 2- Thinking that removing their child from school would mean they have a better chance of getting into a more preferred school. 3- Seeking to avoid a potential exclusion of their child. Some parents said they were advised to do this to avoid permanent exclusion. 4- Trying to avoid prosecution for poor attendance. 5- Worries about their childs unhappiness, most commonly related to bullying. 6- Concerns that special educational needs were not being met. 7- Concerns about the standard of education provided. 8- Anxiety (with older students) about school Advertisement

'One local authority told me that 78 per cent of its unplaced children were those seeking to return from what was ostensibly elective home education.'

She explained how one authority reported that parents had told them 'they have been coerced to become electively home educated' with some schools preparing a letter for parents to sign advising of their intention to electively home educate.

Ms Scott said she was told that there tended to be an increase in moves towards elective home education during the key stage four years.

Key stage four covers Year 10 and Year 11 when children, usually aged 14 to 16, are preparing for and taking their GCSE exams.

Although this wasn't the only reason found in the report for children to be home educated, 'off-rolling' - where schools move pupils on without using a formal exclusion - was apparent.

Some parents told Ms Scott that they'd been advised by their child's school to home school them to avoid a permanent exclusion on their record.

Other reasons local authorities were told parents had chosen to remove their children included not getting a place at their chosen school, being worried about bullying and their child's special educational needs not being met.

Several local authorities referred to increases of between 40 to 70 per cent in recent years in the numbers of children electively home educated.

One local authority had registered an additional 100 children in the previous month alone.

Another said that it had received over 1,000 new registrations in the academic year to date (28 June 2018) and that, 'many of these are instantly identifiable as inappropriate.'

Some parents told Ms Scott that they'd been advised by their child's school to home school them to avoid a permanent exclusion (file picture)

The report also showed local authorities were concerned that parents were deciding to take their children out of school without knowing what home education involves.

One authority said: 'It is felt to be too easy for parents to elect for Home Education. This is often done by parents who have no idea of what Home Education involves, often done in haste after a minor falling out with the school.'

What is off-rolling? Off-rolling is where pupils disappear from school registers, usually in the lead up to exams. This means that their results will not affect a school's league table or rating. It is thought more than 30,000 pupils have not had their GCSE results recorded in tables despite previously appearing on school registers over the last three years. More than 19,000 pupils who were in year 10 in 2016 had 'off-rolled' from the school system, a 2018 Ofsted investigation found. Ofsted analysis revealed that pupils with special educational needs were particularly vulnerable. Around 30 per cent of pupils who leave their school between years 10 and 11 have SEN, reports the Guardian. Advertisement

Any parent can take their child out of school and educate them at home.

The Government's website explains that parents have to write to the headteacher to inform them of the plan if their child is currently enrolled in school.

The headteacher has to accept if the child is being removed completely but they can refuse if it's only going to be part time.

Parents must make sure their children receive a full-time education from the age of five but they dont have to follow the National Curriculum.

The council can make an informal enquiry to check the child is getting a suitable education at home and can serve a school attendance order if they think the child needs to be taught at school.

If this order is given parents have 15 days to provide evidence that they're providing an education. If they don't a fine of 60 could be given.
Nearly 'every square metre' of warehouse space in Britain is full as firms stockpile amid fears of a no deal Brexit, Business Minister Richard Harrington has said.

With just ten weeks to go until Brexit day, MPs remain bitterly divided over what to do now Theresa May's deal was overwhelmingly voted down.

Businesses said they are 'pulling their hair out' at the chaos in Westminster - warning uncertainty is putting off investors.

And they are using every spare inch of warehouse space to stock up on food, drink, clothes and other goods.

They fear that a no deal Brexit will mean a heap of extra customs checks at the border - causing massive tailbacks and delays in transporting goods into Britain.

Businesses are stockpiling amid fears a no deal Brexit will mean a heap of extra customs checks at the border - causing massive tailbacks and delays in transporting goods into Britain (pictured, a warehouse in Peterborough)

The revelations by company bosses come as Mrs May continues to hold cross-party talks as she desperately tries to come up with a new Brexit plan which wins their backing.

Boris to make a dramatic pitch for Tory leadership by promising tax cuts, Boris Johnson will today call for tax cuts and immigration controls as he launches a thinly-veiled pitch for the Tory leadership. Setting out his vision for the country after Brexit, the former foreign secretary will appeal to traditional conservative voters with an eye-catching pledge to introduce 'no new taxes'. But in a major speech, he will also argue that the referendum result was about more than restoring democracy  and exposed a 'worrying' gap between London and the rest of the UK. Speaking at the JCB headquarters in Staffordshire, Mr Johnson will say Brexit is an opportunity to unite the country. Echoing Theresa May's attacks on crony capitalism, he will condemn overpaid business executives and firms who have hired migrants and failed to invest in British workers. He is the latest contender for the Tory leadership to set out a wide-ranging vision for the future, following a speech by fellow Eurosceptic Dominic Raab on Monday. Many Tory MPs also saw Environment Secretary Michael Gove's barnstorming speech attacking Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons on Wednesday as a sign of leadership intent. Mr Johnson will urge ministers to focus on the 'issues that drove Brexit', and argue the Leave vote was 'triggered by a feeling that in some way the people of this country have been drifting too far apart'. Advertisement

Brian Palmer, chief executive officer of the robotics firm Tharsus, told Bloomberg: 'Planning for anything other than no deal doesn't make sense, because there isn't any evidence that there will be one.'

He said his company is stocking up on motors and pumps, and increasing its output in the hope it can fulfill April's orders a month early in case there is borer chaos.

Stephen Phipson, head of the EEF manufacturing lobby group, said: 'People have got containers in their car parks building inventory at the moment,.

'There must be thousands of companies out there now running very thinly on their working capital because they're building inventory.'

And he said that it is not just the big multi-nationals who are stockpiling 0 even smaller companies are scrambling to do the same.

He said: 'There's been an awakening in the supply chain over the last few weeks It's gone right down to the smallest companies at the beginning of the chain.'

Alex Ingham, the boss of protective clothing company MI Supplies Ltd, has increased the amount he stockpiles by around a fifth.

He said: 'Companies are tearing their hair out because businesses like stability.

'We've got no choice but to try and take extra stock and do a bit of disaster planning, really. If we don't have the stock we can't sell it, then we don't have the sales and we can't pay the bills and can't pay the wages.'

The sheer scale of stockpiling was revealed as the PM continues to try to find a way through the political impasse.

She has been holding talks with the leaders of all the other main political parties, senior Labour backbenchers and Tory Brexiteer hardliners.

But Jeremy Corbyn sparked fury by snubbing her invite - refusing to sit down for talks unless she rules out a no de al Brexit.

Critics of the Labour leader - including some of his own MPs - pointed out that he has held talks with figures from the IRA and Hamas, but was refusing to even engage with the Prime Minister ta a moment of national crisis.

And some of his own MPs defied his demand that they also snub any invite for talks iwht Govenrment ministers.

Theresa May (pictured in Downing Street on Wednesday night) is holding cross-party talks as she desperately tries to come up with a new Brexit plan which wins their backing

Senior Labour moderates Hilary Benn and Yvette Cooper both met the PM's de facto deputy David Lidington for discussions yesterday.

The PM faces fresh Brexit pressure today as Boris Johnson makes a a dramatic push for the Tory leadership by setting out his blueprint for Britain in a big speech.

The former foreign secretary will call for tax cuts and immigration controls as he tries to appeal to the Tory grassroots in his address.

Mr Johnson will urge ministers to focus on the 'issues that drove Brexit', and argue the Leave vote was 'triggered by a feeling that in some way the people of this country have been drifting too far apart'.

'If you look at the distribution of the Brexit vote, it is clear that people felt that gap in attainments and prospects and that they wanted something done,' he will say.

'If we are to bring our nation together, that means investing in great public services and safer streets, better hospitals, better transport links and better housing.'
Former First Lady Michelle Obama released her memoir just two months ago - and it has now been named the the bestselling book since Fifty Shade of Grey in 2012

Former First Lady Michelle Obama released her memoir just two months ago - and it has now been named the bestselling book since Fifty Shades of Grey in 2012.

The autobiographical memoir Becoming was released in the US and Canada on November 13, and within one week became an instant New York Times bestseller.

It has sold more than any other book published in the US in 2018.

And now Amazon has revealed that Becoming has been the number one 'most sold on Amazon across all formats' for 47 consecutive days, which is the longest streak since Fifty Shades.

Another book briefly took the top spot on day 47, Amazon said, but Becoming returned to Number one and has stayed there practically ever since.

Spot checks of the website this month have showed Obama holding steady at the top of the list, with Marie Kondo and Rachel Hollis following close behind.

This means that the book is one of the decade's bestsellers.

Since 1995, when Amazon started keeping track of sales, only seven other titles had longer streaks at No. 1.

Amazon has revealed that Becoming has been the number one bestseller for 47 days - a number not been hit since E L James' Fifty Shades of Grey (pictured left)

Four of those were by JK Rowling: 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' in 2000, 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' in 2003, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' in 2005, and 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' in 2007.

The other three were 'Da Vinci Code' in 2003; 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose,' which came out in 2005, but hit No. 1 when Oprah Winfrey endorsed it in 2008; and 'Fifty Shades of Grey' in 2012.

The publishing house behind the book, Penguin Random House, declined to provide updated sales totals. But in its first week on sale, Becoming sold more than 1.4 million copies, the company said back in November.

Michelle Obama will bring her book tour to London's O2 Arena next year.

The former US first lady has already visited dozens cities on her tour for her autobiography, including the sold-out Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall in London.

Michelle Obama will bring her book tour to London's O2 Arena next year

The tour has now been extended to include another 21 events in 2019 across Europe and North America, with 11 in the US, four in Canada, and one each in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France and the Netherlands.

Mrs Obama will come to the O2 Arena, which has a capacity of 20,000, on April 14.

The wife of the 44th US president, Barack Obama, will also visit Paris on April 16 after postponing the French capital's original December 5 event to attend the funeral of former US president George H W Bush.

The final leg of her Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama tour will kick off in Tacoma, Washington on February 8 and will conclude on May 12 in Nashville, Tennessee.

The tour sees Mrs Obama discuss the experiences and events, both public and private, that have shaped her, through her childhood in Chicago to her years as a working mother, and her time in the White House.
The Queen is the only person who can tell Prince Philip to stop driving following his miraculous escape from a road crash, a royal biographer has said.

Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, said the Queen would be telling her 97-year-old husband 'this is enough' following yesterday's horror collision.

The royal was at the wheel of his Land Rover Freelander when it collided with a Kia car as he pulled out onto a busy A-road near the Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

The smash flipped his two-tonne 4x4 over onto its side, splintering the windscreen, after telling police officers that he had been 'dazzled by the sun' at a T-junction.

Remarkably, he was said to be uninjured after the incident, however royal watchers now say he will face calls from family members to give up driving as a result.

Scroll down for more video

The smash flipped Prince Philip's two-tonne 4x4 over onto its side, splintering the windscreen, after telling police officers that he had been 'dazzled by the sun' at a T-junction

Philip is believed to have just left Sandringham, circled white, and was turning on to the A149 at this junction when he collided with a Kia

Ms Seward, who claims to know several royals personally following a 20-year career covering the household, said Her Majesty will be 'very annoyed' with her husband.

She told Good Morning Britain: 'I suspect his children and grandchildren will chime in and say "look, come on pa, this is enough. We just don't want to lose you like this".

'But it will be the Queen, she'll be the only person that can really tell him.

'And I'm sure she'll be very annoyed with him this morning - obviously sympathetic -but she will be saying "now Philip this is enough, you've got to stop driving".

A barrister who pulled the Duke of Edinburgh form the wreckage of the car said the royal refused to make a 'big fuss' after his crash.

Roy Warne revealed how the prince walked towards the other victims to ask: 'Is everyone else alright?' before the arrival of police officers at the scene.

Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, said the Queen would be telling her 97-year-old husband 'this is enough' following yesterday's horror collision

Images have since emerged showing the black Land Rover with severe damage to its left side

Norfolk Police told MailOnline they are treating it like any other road traffic collision and an investigation is ongoing, meaning they are likely to question the Duke again.

The incident also raises major security questions after Mr Warne revealed there was no royal protection officer in the car with Prince Philip at the time.

Mr Warne, 75, was driving home from hospital with his wife Victoria, 72, when he saw the Duke's car 'tumbling across the road' after being hit by the Kia.

He helped free the 'very shaken and shocked' royal through the 4x4's sunroof as it lay on its side who had been shouting: 'My legs! Where should I put my legs?'

The Kia was carrying a ten-month-old baby, its mother and another woman, who suffered a broken arm and an injured knee, but the child was unhurt.

Mr Warne said he wasn't sure where the Duke's security detail had been but added 'a lot of people arrived very quickly'.
ATHENS - Greece has bid farewell to another of its heroes of the ongoing migrant crisis after mourners gathered at the fishing village of Skala Sykamnias on Lesvos for the funeral of 90-year-old Maritsa Mavrapidi.

Mavrapidi, who passed away on Wednesday, was one of three elderly women who became symbols of the local Aegean islanders' solidarity with refugees and migrants at the peak of the crisis in 2015. All were nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Greek political leaders have been paying tribute to Mavrapidi.

"Marisa Mavrapidi, one of the three elderly women who welcomed the refugee children landing on the island, is no longer with us. Grandma Maritsa will always stand as a symbol of solidarity and love. My condolences to her family and relatives," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a tweet.

New Democracy's opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis added: "I had the fortune of meeting Maritsa, one of 'the Lesvos grannies' that came to personify the humanity of Greeks. I felt the warmth of her soul. I bid her a farewell filled with emotion." The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR)'s representative in Greece Philippe Leclerc, also expressed the organisation's sadness. "Maritsa Mavrapidi reminded us of our fundamental ideals and respect for human dignity; our thoughts are with her family, loved ones and the people of Lesvos," said Leclerc.

Mavrapidi was the daughter of ethnic Greek refugees from Turkey in the early 1920s. Her her two friends Aimilia Kamvysi and Efstratia Mavrapidi, were always on hand to try to help volunteers to support refugees which landed on the shores near their village in their thousands at the height of the crisis.

Mavrapidi's passing means that Lesvos has lost a second heroic symbol of their solidarity in the migrant crisis in the space of just four months as it follows the tragic and untimely death of Hellenic Coast Guard lieutenant Kyriakos Papadopoulos, also known as "The Hero of the Aegean", who died last October.

Papadopoulos, commander of the patrol vessel PLS 602 stationed on the Northern Aegean island of Lesvos, died of a heart attack unexpectedly. He was just 44 years old and a father of two children. He was revered for his role in in saving the lives of over 5,000 refugees and migrants during the peak of the refugee crisis. An emblematic figure, Papadopoulos was honored by Greece's Academy of Athens and the Greek authorities, and was also a nominee for an Oscar after the film "4.1 miles" was nominated for an Academy Award.
British workers from minority backgrounds are facing 'shocking' discrimination when job hunting and are having to submit 80 per cent more applications then their white counterparts to get a positive response.

A new study by experts at the Centre for Social Investigation at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, found that applicants from minority background are at a disadvantage when it comes to the jobs market.

The study was part of a larger cross-national project funded by the European Union, prompted by concerns that race relation legislation has failed.

Researchers working on the study sent almost 3,200 applications to both manual and non-manual jobs which included jobs in marketing, chefs, software engineers and shop assistants, which were advertised on a popular recruitment site between November 2016 and December 2017.

Researchers sent 3,200 applications to both manual and non-manual jobs

The study included 33 different ethnic minority groups which belonged to five broad groups. This is as well as two minority groups, Nigerian and Pakistani, which were designed to have sufficiently larger numbers of applications for separate analysis.

On average around 24 per cent of white British applicants received a positive response from employers compared with 15 per cent of minority ethnic applicants applying with identical CVs and cover letters.

Researchers said that concerns about poor English language fluency or imperfect recognition of foreign qualifications cannot explain the findings as minority applicants clearly stated that they were British-born or had arrived in the country at aged six and had trained in the UK.

The study included 33 different ethnic minority groups which belonged to five broad groups. This is as well as two minority groups, Nigerian and Pakistani, which were designed to have sufficiently larger numbers of applications for separate analysis

It was found that minority ethnic applicants, including white minorities had to send 60 per cent more applications to get a positive response from an employer, compared to that of an applicant of British origin.

Applicants originating from western Europe and the US were treated almost as well as the majority group, while people of Pakistani origin had to make 70 per more applications.

Figures were even more shocking for those of Nigerian, Middle Eastern and north African (MENA) origin, at 80 per cent and 90 per cent respectively, with researchers saying that there figures were at an 'alarming level'.

On average around 24 per cent of white British applicants received a positive response from employers compared with 15 per cent of minority ethnic applicants

In spite of relatively strong laws prohibiting discrimination on ethnic, racial and religious grounds the level of discrimination recorded in Britain, and its pervasiveness across occupations and groups, is not any lower than that found in the other European countries included such as Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain.

Prof Anthony Heath, co-author of the study, said: 'The absence of any real decline in discrimination against black British and people of Pakistani background is a disturbing finding, which calls into question the effectiveness of previous policies. Ethnic inequality remains a burning injustice and there needs to be a radical rethink about how to tackle it.'

The researchers highlighted that the high levels of discrimination from countries with a sizeable Muslim population echoed 'strong anti-Muslim attitudes recorded in recent surveys'.

Deputy director of race equality thinktank Runnymede, Dr Zubauda Haque said applicants are also having to worry about overt racism and described the findings as shocking.

Applicants originating from western Europe and the US were treated almost as well as the majority group, while people of Pakistani origin had to make 70 per more applications

'It's not just covert racism or unconscious bias that we need to worry about; it's overt and conscious racism, where applicants are getting shortlisted on the basis of their ethnicity and/or name.

'It's clear that race relations legislation is not sufficient to hold employers to account. There are no real consequences for employers of racially discriminating in subtle ways, but for BME applicants or employees it means higher unemployment, lower wages, poorer conditions and less security in work and life.'

The authors of the study described the evidence of enduring discrimination against some minority ethnic groups as striking given the passage of the RaceRelations Act 1976.

While previous surveys had found declining racial prejudice among the public, the authors said the lack of change in the workplace reflected the continued presence of 'employer stereotypes about the linguistic and work-related skills and motivations of minorities'.

There were hints however, that discrimination against applicants of Indian origin may be in decline but the researchers said the sample size of people with Indian names in the study had been too small to draw a conclusion.

Gender equality was also addressed in the report as it found that only female applicants from Western Europe and the US receive equal treatment relative to the majority group, while male applicants from the same countries do experience discrimination.

Male applicants from India and East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam), commonly referred to as model minorities, fare just as well as male applicants from the majority group.

Indian and East Asian women, however, encounter strong discrimination relative to women from the majority group. Moreover, differences in call-back rates between Western and Eastern Europeans are significantly more pronounced among females than among males.

Commenting on the results, Matthew Fell of the Confederation of British Industry said: 'Any bias is bad for business. Companies must act now to eradicate all forms of discrimination, including any bias in recruitment.'

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy also stressed the benefits of diversity, adding: 'Last year, the prime minister launched a series of measures to help employers identify how to tackle ethnic disparities in the workplace, including a new race at work charter and a consultation on mandatory ethnicity pay reporting.'
An Iowa county is planning on offering its middle school students hands-on lessons in how to use firearms after a 15-year-old boy died in an accidental shooting.

Two middle schools in Butler County, Iowa will receive week-long classes that will train students on a variety of survival skills, including gun safety beginning in the Spring.

District superintendent Joel Foster, who implemented the plans, believes he is doing the 'right thing for the community' by introducing the controversial tutorials.

The announcement of the classes comes after a 15-year-old high school student, Kain Allen Schild, died last May from wounds sustained in an accidental shooting while out fishing with friends.

The practice guns which the children will learn to handle safely as part of the week-long classes

'Our job and what we do best is education and educating our kids is a lot better than having them learn about these things on the street,' Foster told Fox News.

'With the number of weapons in our area and the access to them in the homes, I think it's important that we do these things,' Foster said.

'We have conditions in this country that have made this a political debate and it's really not a political debate for us we feel like we're doing right for our community,' Foster said.

Foster says the class will be mandatory under the county's physical education curriculum, but there will be an option for parents to opt out on behalf of their kids.

District superintendent Joel Foster (pictured) has plans to bring the scheme into two Iowa schools this Spring with more set to follow later this year

Although no parents have opted out so far, according to Foster, if they choose to their child will go to a study hall instead while the other class is taught.

Staff from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Butler County Conservation Board experts will be drafted in to give guidance to the students.

DNR staff will spend a week going through gun safety with unloaded guns, basic survival and first aid skills, water safety, wildlife identification, and more.

After students have completed 10-hours of training and homework, they will receive an official DNR certificate of completion.

The school's superintendent said he plans to have all seventh and eighth-grade students enrolled in the day program by fall.
The terrifying moment a white sedan was chased by four masked men before the driver was trapped has been caught on camera.

A black Toyota Prado and white Mazda sedan weaved through traffic and narrowly missed other cars and pedestrians through the streets of Rivervale and Burswood in Perth about 7pm on December 1.

Four masked men emerged from the black SUV before trapping the driver of the Mazda and smashing his car with hammers.

The terrifying moment a white sedan was chased by four masked men before the driver was trapped has been caught on camera

CCTV footage showed the cars driving over a traffic island at a busy roundabout.

The four men allegedly trashed the white car with hammers and caused significant damage to the windows and panels.

The driver of the white sedan fled towards the Great Eastern Highway and was chased by the men in the black car.

Police say the attack on the vehicle was not random.

Two of the four men, Mohamed Ahmed Hirsi, 26, and Ebraheem Mohommed Assad, 24, have been charged in relation to the attack.

Police are still searching for the other men in the black vehicle.

A black Toyota Prado and white Mazda sedan weaved through traffic and narrowly missed other cars and pedestrians through the streets of Rivervale and Burswood in Perth

Assad, from Redcliffe, is accused or threatening to kill, endangering the life or safety of a person and criminal damage.

Hirsi, from Huntingdale, is charged with endangering the life or safety of a person and criminal damage.

Both men are due to appear in Perth Magistrates Court in February and March.
This is the terrifying moment an elephant charges towards tourists as they drive away in panic.

In the clip, two people film as they enjoying a safari in Manyeleti Game Reserve in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

As they drive they come across an elephant who is standing on the dirt path ahead.

In the clip, two people film as they enjoying a safari in Manyeleti Game Reserve in Mpumalanga, South Africa

A huge and angry elephant comes storming out of the bushes and heads straight for their vehicle

But out of nowhere, a huge and angry elephant comes storming out of the bushes and heads straight for their vehicle.

It crashes through the undergrowth and charges towards them, its enormous ears and trunk flailing wildly.

The driver immediately reverses the car and drives away from the elephant which picks up speed as it storms towards them.

Luckily, the elephant stops charging and it eventually turns away. The driver stops the car and they watch it with relief after the near-miss.
A pair of Air Jordans from 1985 are restored to their former glory in impressive footage.

The video, uploaded to YouTube by John Manalo, first shows the Nike Jordan 1's in their beaten-up state: the leather scuffed, cracked and tinted orange with age.

But Mr Manalo, from the US, soon makes it clear that the shoes worn by Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won't be in this state for long.

The video, uploaded to YouTube by John Manalo, first shows the Nike Jordan 1's in their beaten-up state

He said: 'These need a repaint of the upper leather and a whitening on the tongue.'

Mr Manalo sprays the shoes with antimicrobial dish soap and scrubs down the leather as he begins the restoration.

He then uses a leather deep-cleaner to 'add more moisture' to the shoes - which already look significantly cleaner.

The leather of the vintage shoes, from 1985, is scuffed, cracked and tinted orange with age

Mr Manalo begins to spray the shoes with antimicrobial dish soap and scrubs down the leather as he begins the restoration

He said: 'This is going to look a little crazy that I'm doing this, that I'm submerging these shoes in water, but trust me.

'I did it for my pair when I got them from eBay - the collar was crunchy and the leather was stiff as a bone.'

Mr Manalo pushes the shoes underneath the cleaner while massaging the shoes so they become more flexible.

He said: 'So now that the shoes have been deep cleaned we're going to remove the stains that are still on there on the tongue.

'Now with proper use, Clorox is beneficial and will help you whiten certain materials on the shoes. Not all materials, but certain materials.'

The restorer then dips a toothbrush in the bleach and rubs it on the tongue of the shoes as they begin to glow a much brighter white.

During the intricate restoration, Mr Manalo even replaces the Air Jordan's logo on the shoes using a stencil and an air brush

The restoration also includes removing the Nike tick, or 'swoosh', and replacing it with another

He then uses Retr0bright - a chemical mixture which contains hydrogen peroxide - and rubs it onto the rim of the shoes' soles.

Mr Manalo then covers the midsole with electrical tape before swabbing the top of the leather with acetone.

The characteristic tick shape, or 'swoosh', on the shoes is then carefully removed.

He then sandpapers the leather before beginning to repaint the tattered shoes.

The shoes are then left looking as good as new after the painstakingly intricate restoration

During the intricate restoration, Mr Manalo even replaces the Air Jordan's logo on the shoes using a stencil and an air brush.

He even removes the 'swoosh' from another new pair of shoes and glues it onto the vintage Jordans - leaving the shoes looking near-brand new.

The video, which has been viewed more than 617,000 times, is one of many restorations Mr Manalo has uploaded to his channel.
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A severe snow warning has been issued for parts of Britain with up to two inches set to fall today ahead of a bitterly cold weekend.

Forecasters say the band of rain, sleet and snow will move eastwards across the country into this evening, with the north of England, Yorkshire, the Midlands and Scotland all likely to be hit.

It comes after freezing Britain endured the coldest night of the year so far with temperatures plunging to a bitter -10.8C. This weekend is also set to be a chilly one as Arctic air sweeps across Britain.

Sunday is expected to be colder than Saturday with temperatures dropping to -2C in the south east and Scotland.

Meanwhile, snow has already been seen falling in areas such as Liverpool, Wales and Scotland today, bringing with it the potential for travel disruption as commuters head home for the weekend. Authorities are preparing to dig into stockpiled salt while high-tech gritters are also on standby.

Shoppers make their way through a flurry of snow in Liverpool this morning as Britain froze on the coldest night of the year

Snow fell in Wales on Friday morning while temperatures dropped below freezing across both England and Scotland

Fresh snow is pictured at The Black Rock Cottage & Buachaille Etive Mor in Rannoch Moor, Scotland following the cold snap

Fields were blanketed in snow this morning after a freezing cold night. Pictured: Glen muick in Aberdeenshire

It comes after health bosses faced ridicule for warning people to don appropriate footwear and clothing if they did decide to go outside.

The tweet was deleted last night and NHS England North said it had been put up in error. But MPs said the warning was the perfect example of snowflake Britain.

The full tweet from NHS England North said: 'With temperatures dropping and snow beginning to fall in the North East of England, it is vital that you only go outside if it is really necessary. If you do venture outdoors, please make sure you wear appropriate footwear and clothing.'

Although the tweet was deleted, a range of other cold-weather advice posted by the quango remained on Twitter, plus a link to a Met Office advice page urging people to stock up in case of bad weather which means they have to leave home quickly or their power and water are disrupted.

NHS England North also warned people: 'Keeping warm over winter helps prevent colds, flu and even more serious health conditions.'

Tory Andrew Percy, who represents Brigg and Goole, said: Some countries around the world such as Canada have huge amounts of snowfall every winter and people still manage to go out and live their lives.

Of course people need to take care, but we dont need turning into snowflakes because of a few snowflakes.

Icy conditions are expected today and into next week while predictions for the coming months suggest temperatures will plummet.

The coldest temperatures overnight on Friday were recorded in Aberdeenshire in Braemar and Aboyne as they dropped to below -10C.

The rest of Britain was braced to be hit by sleet, rain and freezing temperatures.

Yesterday, parts of Scotland were brought to a standstill by snow and ice amid a spate of accidents. Forecasters said commuters are likely to face further misery as the freezing conditions continue into next week.

A man was seen walking his dog on the high moorland of the Mynydd Epynt range near Builth Wells in Powys on Friday (left). Pictured right is the snow and ice warning across Britain with a chilly weekend in store for much of the UK

Shoppers struggle through snow strorms and blizzard conditions on the high street in Stanley, County Durham yesterday

The early snowdrops at Rococo Gardens in Painswick, Gloucestershire were photographed this week as frost covered much of the country

Wintry weather is expected across the nation this weekend with some of the coldest temperatures hitting on Sunday

Several roads throughout Aberdeenshire and the Cairngorms were badly affected by drifting snow yesterday. A car ended up on its roof near Crathie, Aberdeenshire, but no one was seriously hurt.

Alex Burkill, a Meteorologist with the Met Office told MailOnline: Over the weekend it is still going to be cold by day and night, but I dont think temperatures will be quite as low.

However, next week has the potential to be considerably colder. There is still a lot of uncertainty.

Weve got rain, sleet and mainly hill snow pushing into Wales and parts of south west Scotland and parts of south west England.

We could see 2-4 centimetres of snow in Wales above 250metres, which is not high ground for Wales.

The Met Office also warned of snow, sleet and rain pushing eastward and settling in central and Northern England with the 'potential to cause disruption.

There is also expected to be settling snow in central and northern England, with rain, sleet and snow pushing eastwards from Friday and over the weekend.

Mr Burhill added: I think tonight wont be as cold there will be a lot of cloud

There will be frost in the north of Scotland and temperatures are not as low.

Snow covered fields and their animal inhabitants were left with evidence of the freezing night this morning as they were covered in snow and ice

Water was frozen in patches in Aberdeenshire where the coldest temperature of the year so far was recorded at -10.8C

Councils across the UK are getting ready for call outs and proactively trying to prevent any incidents on the road.

The LGAs annual Winter Readiness Survey revealed 94 per cent have either more salt in stock for this year, or the same level as they did last year when the Beast from the East hit.

As well as an abundance of salt stockpiled, each council has an average of nine full-size gritters, alongside other equipment, the LGA survey showed.

Highway teams are monitoring state-of-the-art weather forecasts with highly-trained staff on standby around the clock and some already deployed to grit thousands of miles of roads whenever temperatures plummet.

To cope with ongoing funding pressures and limited resources, more than half (55 per cent) of councils will share salt stocks, 30 per cent will share gritting machinery, and one in five (22 per cent) plan to team up across their boundaries to send staff to key locations.

Forecasts of a prolonged cold spell also prompted Public Health England to issue advice on keeping warm and keeping an eye on vulnerable relatives and neighbours.

But it was accused of being patronising and treating people 'like idiots' after publishing suggestions on its blog that included 'moving around' and 'wiggling fingers and toes'.

An NHS England North spokesman said its tweet was a slip-up and 'does not reflect official NHS advice'. She added: 'This advice was given to frail and elderly people when the Beast from the East struck last year and posted in error.'

There seems to be no danger of the Beast returning just yet, but the Met Office said more snow is expected over the weekend because of a succession of weather fronts from an area of low pressure attempting to move eastwards and hitting cold air.

Freezing temperatures overnight led to snow and frost on the ground this morning. Icicles were pictured in County Durham on Friday

Local authority stocks of grit and salt are expected to be opened up over the weekend as Britain prepares for a cold blast

Britons are now bracing themselves for another two inches of snow today amid fresh ice warnings from the Met Office.

As well as the ice and snow warning on the east coast, meteorologists have now put out a new yellow warning for snow in Wales on Friday.

A Met Office spokesperson warned that a band of rain pushing in the south west of England would turn into snow covering the Welsh hills and parts of the Pennines.

It is thought that on higher ground in the Chilterns, South Downs, Dartmoor and Exmoor there could be snow going into the weekend.

Severe warnings have been put in place as a blast of Arctic air sweeps across the UK, cutting daytime highs in half from around 11C to 5C, bringing an end to the recent mild conditions and heralding a new spell of wintry weather.

Forecasters said A-roads were likely to be affected by treacherous travel conditions, with longer journey times expected by both bus and train, causing Britons to joke about the impending 'snowmageddon' on social media.

The worst affected areas have been in northern England and Scotland, where snow has settled across the Western Isles, and forecasters expect up to 1.6in (4cm) over the Highlands and Grampians.

Met Office spokeswoman Nicola Maxey said the snowfall is the first at lower levels for 2019 and also marks the first cold spell of the year, with the mercury across much of Britain set to stay in single figures throughout the day.

Walkers are being warned to be careful while out on frosty ground and icy roads across the country this weekend

She said: 'What we have had is a band of showers that have amalgamated, and that has brought a bit of heavier snow for a short period in Newcastle. And that band of showers is going to move down the coast.

'That band will move south throughout the day, bringing some heavier showers, and we are looking at accumulations of maybe 1cm-3cm - but short-lived. So it is not going to hang around for a long time.'

Ms Maxey said the band, as it gets further south and progresses down the coast, is more likely to bring hail rather than snow to parts of East Anglia.

So far, falling snow has been seen in parts of London, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and in the North East of England, where images show a white blanket on Tynemouth beach and Whitley Bay after snowfall of between 1cm-3cm (0.4in-1.2in).

Ms Maxey said 4cm (1.6in) of snow has been recorded in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, and that the weather for this time of year across the UK is 'fairly typical'.

While this is average for the time of year, Met Office forecaster Bonnie Diamond said the contrast after such a mild January will have people reaching for warm coats: 'We're going to really feel the switch to colder temperatures.'

The Met Office said there are signs cold air from the east could make its way to the UK until the end of the month, but it does not automatically mean the return of last year's Beast from the East which brought heavy snow.

Forecasters predicts 'cold conditions are likely to remain for the rest of January'. A 'cold but changeable' outlook remains likely until mid-February, they add, with 'spells of strong winds and rain, turning to snow at times'.

Met Office chief meteorologist Dan Suri said: 'From Thursday colder arctic air will have spread across the country, with temperatures struggling to reach above 5C or 6C for most of us.

'This is close to the average January temperature for the UK - but since it has been quite a mild winter so far, many will notice the difference by the end of the week. It's going to feel very cold overnight with temperatures widely dipping close to or below freezing.'

'The colder weather will bring a range of winter hazards, with a widespread frost and icy stretches expected from Wednesday night and continuing into the weekend.

'Not a lot of snow is expected during this period, though we will see snow showers in some areas during Wednesday night and Thursday.

'Most of the snow showers will be over the hills and mountains, although snow could fall to lower levels in the north, and also some eastern parts of the country during Thursday.'

Several cold weather alerts have been issued following advice from the Met Office to Public Health England.

Dr Emer O'Connell from PHE said: 'Experience shows us that every winter thousands of people are seriously affected and even die from illnesses linked to the cold. Protecting yourself from the cold may seem like common sense but many people don't manage to keep themselves warm enough.

London was covered in a layer of frost on Friday morning as commuters made their way to work in the city

'If you know someone at risk, someone over 65, anyone with dementia or a heart and lung condition, or a young child, check up on them and see if there's anything you can do to help.

'All of us should be heating our homes to at least 18C, keeping up to date with weather forecasts and planning our days around them - simple steps can really help protect against the cold.'

Looking further ahead, Mr Suri said: 'Next week's forecast shows signs of a reduction in winds from our typical westerly direction, meaning we are more likely to see cold winds from northerly and easterly directions later in the week.

'This does not guarantee a repeat of 'Beast from the East' conditions as some media are speculating  yes, it is getting colder, but it is too early to provide detailed forecasts on the potential severity of the weather or snow amounts at this stage.

'We advise the public to keep in touch with Met Office forecasts and warnings over the next few days and weeks so you can be prepared for the cold weather.'
A man beheaded his lover 'because the cabbage soup she cooked wasn't tasty', say Russian police.

Officers found the body of an unnamed 47-year-old woman, with her head severed, in Russia's Smolensk region.

It is the second case in less than a week in Russia where complaints about cooking have allegedly resulted in murder.

A man beheaded his lover 'because the cabbage soup she cooked wasn't tasty', say police. The 43-year-old partner (left) of the woman (right) was detained at the couple's home in Kozlovka

The woman's 43-year-old partner was detained at the couple's home in Kozlovka village.

'The man became angry because his wife cooked tasteless Shchi (cabbage) soup,' reported Readovka News, citing a law enforcement source.

A criminal investigation has been launched according to part 1 article 105 of the Russian criminal code  deliberate murder.

Shchi (pictured) is a Russian-style cabbage soup that the woman made for her partner

Dead body of beheaded woman in Kozlovka village after she was murdered by her partner

Locals said that the man had recently lost his job and had started drinking.

'Previously he never suffered from this bad habit, and nobody could recall any aggressive behaviour,' said a local report.

The man tried and failed to take his own life after murdering his partner, alleged the source.

Locals said that the man had recently lost his job and had started drinking. Pictured: A dilapidated building in the village of Kozlovka

The man tried and failed to take his own life after murdering his partner, alleged a source. Pictured: Kozlovka village

Earlier this week, in a separate case, a woman murdered her husband - stabbing him at least 35 times - because he had criticised her cooking, according to Russian police.

Slava Davydkin, 43, a keen fisherman, was killed after complaining there was not enough salt in a dish she served when guests came to their house in Penza region.

His wife Evgenia, 31, waited until he was asleep and repeatedly stabbed him in front of the couple's four year old child.

She later confessed to the killing using his angling knife - and is under house arrest.
Charles Manson's second in command is now living on a quiet residential street in Upstate New York with her ex-con boyfriend, it's been revealed.

Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme helped run the murderous Manson Family cult that slaughtered five people - including Hollywood actress Sharon Tate - in Los Angeles in 1969.

The 71-year-old is now living in the small town of Marcy, Fromme, where neighbors says she 'happily walks her small dog' and describe her as a nice, quiet woman.

'She's very friendly,' one neighbor told The New York Post. 'She's usually with her neighbor, who also has a dog.'

Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme (pictured during the trial for her attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford in 1975) is now living in a sleepy upstate New York town with her ex-con boyfriend

She's been described as a 'very friendly' neighbor who is seen happily walking her small dog

Fromme moved in with her ex-con boyfriend Robert Valdner, 68, five years ago. He was jailed for manslaughter in 1988 for the fatal shooting of his brother-in-law.

Another neighbor said Valdner works at the nearby correctional facility and is 'hooked up with the sheriffs'.

He is thought to be a Charles Manson fanatic who contacted Fromme while they were both locked up in 1992.

'They don't get involved in drama. They're not ones who are out [saying], "Oh, look who I am," bragging about their past,' a third resident added.

Fromme was Charles Manson's right-hand woman and ran the cult when the leader was out of town. Manson recruited her off the street when she was aged 18 and homeless

Fromme is carried into the courthouse by a US Marshall during her trail for attempting to shoot President Ford

Fromme had been incarcerated for the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford in 1975 in the California State Capitol Park Building in Sacramento. She was released from prison in 2009 after serving 34 years.

She stormed the parking lot in a draped in a red robe with a Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol and pointed it at the president.

The pistol's magazine was loaded with four rounds, but there was no round in the chamber.

When she pointed the gun at Ford she was immediately restrained by Secret Service agent. As she was handcuffed she emphasized that the gun 'didn't go off'.

Fromme tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975 . The pistol she used was loaded, but there was no bullet in the chamber

Fromme said she had deliberately ejected the round from her weapon's chamber before leaving home that morning, and investigators found the round on her bathroom floor.

During her trial she would need to be carried to the courthouse on days she refused to walk - and during closing arguments, she launched an apple at the prosecutors face.

The Manson fanatic was given life, but escaped from federal prison in West Virginia on December 23 1987 to try visit her cult leader, who had been diagnosed with cancer.

Manson orchestrated the killing of five people in Los Angeles in 1969 - but Fromme was never convicted

Fromme published a memoir last year in which she gushed over Manson and left out the sinister aspects of the murderous cult. She is seen being led away from the scene after trying to kill President Ford

Fromme was never charged in connection with the Manson murders, but she remained a devoted disciple who refused to testify at the murder trials, carved an X into her forehead in protest and lived in squalor with 100 others who believed Manson was a manifestation of Jesus.

Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who went on to write about a detailed account about the crimes and trial in Helter Skelter, described Fromme as 'the main gal in the Family'.

'Once Manson left the ranch, if he was anywhere else, she was in charge,' he wrote.

Fromme and Ruth Ann Morehouse are led back to jail after being arraigned for conspiring to poison a prosecution witness with LSD

Despite her past, neighbors said Fromme and her boyfriend 'never caused any trouble'.

Last year, Fromme published her memoir Reflection, which she started writing in 1973.

In it, she details how she was recruited by Manson at the age of 18 while living homeless in Venice Beach.

She had been performer all of her life. By the time she was ten she had joined the Westchester Lariats, a popular Los Angeles-based touring group that did shows on TV and at the White House.

She carved an X into her forehead during Manson's trial to copy his act of protest

She was a straight A pupil at Orville Wright Junior High School, where she took drama classes for about two years.

But for reasons not disclosed in her memoir, she was kicked out of her home by her father.

It has been suggested in other biographies that she'd been sexually abused by him - but she has always denied that claim.

Fromme was exactly the type of girl Manson could recruit and brainwash - young, impressionable and vulnerable.

It took just one five-minute conversation to convince Fromme to follow Manson and join his 'family'.

The memoir largely fawns over Manson and makes no mention of the more sinister aspects of the cult.

In August 1969, Manson orchestrated killing spree that saw members of Manson's hippie cult invade homes in Los Angeles' upmarket Benedict Canyon and Los Feliz neighborhoods, brutally killing all inside.

Among the nine victims was actress Sharon Tate, just 26 years old and eight months pregnant. At trial it emerged she had begged for the life of her unborn baby only to be stabbed and hung from a rafter.

Other victims who died in Tate's Benedict Canyon home on the night of August 9, 1969, included hairdresser Jay Sebring, screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski, and coffee heiress Abigail Folger.
The Cabinet war over no-deal Brexit escalated today as ministers openly clashed over Britain's future with Europe.

Aid Secretary Penny Mordaunt - a Brexiteer - went public in defence of crashing out of the EU - arguing it is better than accepting a bad deal.

But Amber Rudd, the Remainer Work and Pensions Secretary, hit back online tweeting a link to a CBI warning about the dangers of no deal to business.

Theresa May's senior ministers are deeply split over what to do if her deal cannot be pushed through Parliament after Tuesday's 230-vote rout.

Ms Mordaunt insisted today the EU had to believe a no deal Brexit was still an option to win new concessions from Brussels and make the deal acceptable to Tory rebels.

Other ministers - led by Business Secretary Greg Clark and Justice Secretary David Gauke - have warned no deal is so bad they would resign to stop it.

The splits come as Mrs May has been holding talks with rival political leaders to try to come up with a Brexit Pan B in the wake of her humiliating defeat.

She held a 'constructive' calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch PM Mark Rutte last night, and is expected to have more calls with EU leaders in the coming days.

And she will today hold meetings with many of her Cabinet ministers in No10 today to discuss Brexit and how the cross-party talks have gone.

Senior Labour MP Yvette Cooper became the latest politician to draft laws that would seize control of the Brexit process from the Government.

Theresa May's (pictured today leaving Downing Street) senior ministers are deeply split over what to do if her deal cannot be pushed through Parliament after Tuesday's 230-vote rout

The Cabinet war over no deal escalated today as Aid Secretary Penny Mordaunt (pictured in Downing Street today) went public in defence of crashing out being better than accepting a bad deal

Ms Mordaunt insisted today the EU had to believe a no deal Brexit was still an option to win new concessions from Brussels and make the deal acceptable to Tory rebels

Remainer Cabinet minister Amber Rudd warned of the dangers of businesses of a no deal Brexit on her Twitter this morning

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay (left) and Environment Secretary Michael Gove were among those attending meetings in Downing Street today

PM makes 'NO CHANGE' to her Brexit demands in talks with European leaders despite defeat Theresa May made no change to her demands in talks with European Union leaders despite her Brexit plan being defeated by MPs earlier this week, it has been reported. Mrs May's requests continued to focus around either a legally binding time-limit for the Irish 'backstop'; a right for Britain to unilaterally withdraw, or a commitment to a trade deal finalisation before 2021 to prevent the backstop from coming into force, the Telegraph said, citing unnamed senior EU diplomatic sources. The backstop is an insurance policy designed to prevent the return of border checks on the frontier between EU-member Ireland and Northern Ireland. Mrs May repeated her demands in talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Irish leader Leo Varadkar, the paper reported. On Friday night, May was also going to meet Arlene Foster, leader of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party, which has 10 seats in parliament and supports May's government but not her Brexit deal, a Telegraph reporter said on Twitter. The meeting would also be attended by Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the DUP. Mrs May's deal for Britain to leave the EU was defeated earlier this week by 230 votes. She has appealed to lawmakers to come together to try to break the impasse. Advertisement

But the PM faced a fresh onslaught from Boris Johnson, who condemned her for failing to try to remove the Irish backstop as he made a thinly-veiled leadership pitch.

Following a debate on last night's Question Time, Ms Mordaunt launched her staunch defence of preparing for no deal today.

She said: 'The upsides of leaving outweigh the downsides of staying/No Deal disruption.

Boris blasts May for 'kowtowing' to Brussels as he makes his pitch to lead the country Boris Johnson condemned Theresa May for failing to even try and remove the Irish border backstop today as he made a pitch for the Tory crown. The former foreign secretary said after Tuesday's devastating defeat, the Prime Minister should make a 'final offer' to the EU of a deal that strips out the border plan and withholds half the 39billion divorce bill until a trade deal is finalised. Mr Johnson said he would be 'utterly amazed' if Brussels said no but insisted Britain would flourish even if it had to leave without a deal on March 29. Mr Johnson insisted delaying exit day would further 'erode trust' in politics and fuel suspicion of an 'elite conspiracy to thwart Brexit'. As Mrs May continues cross party talks on a Plan B Brexit, Mr Johnson warned her not to concede to a permanent customs union as the price for getting her deal through the Commons. In a thinly-veiled leadership pitch, Mr Johnson's wide-ranging speech - hosted by major Tory donor JCB boss Anthony Bamford - included promises to cut taxes and limit immigration. Mr Johnson is seen by many as a front runner for the Tory crown - but is also loathed by many Tory MPs who dismissed his pitch for unity today. Advertisement

'It's only when no deal is better than a is believed by the EU that we'll maximise our chance of a deal.

'Not honouring the result of the referendum would be appalling.'

Asked about the comment today, Mrs May's official spokeswoman today said: 'The PM has always said that this country's best days lie ahead and her focus is on leaving the European Union with a deal, that is what she believes is the way to leave in a smooth and orderly way.'

Mrs May today held talks with most of her senior ministers in Downing Street today where they will discuss how her talks with rival political leaders to come up with a Brexit Plan B have gone.

But she is not expected to hold any more meetings with MPs from rival political parties today.

Ms Cooper's proposals are an evolved version of a plan produced by Tory Nick Boles earlier this week.

If it were to pass, the Bill would force the Government to delay exit day if there is no deal in place by March 5.

The new version of the draft laws removes the idea of handing control of negotiations to a group of senior MPs after it was criticised.

But the development of the plan on the Labour benches after it was originally a Tory idea will fuel fears in Downing Street a cross-party alliance wants to remove the Government from talks.

The new developments come as it emerged five Tory ministers warned Mrs May yesterday they would resign if she did not offer a free vote on a Plan B Brexit.

Mr Boles confirmed it was from the same team who drafted his plans earlier this week. Neither version can make progress without a dramatic suspension of the normal rules of Parliament

Senior Labour MP Yvette Cooper has become the latest MP to draft laws that would seize control of the Brexit process from the Government

Ministers will QUIT if Theresa May orders them to vote against a backbench plan to let MPs block a no-deal Brexit, warns Nick Boles Ministers in Theresa May's Government are prepared to defy her and to vote for a backbench plan to give MPs power to block a no-deal Brexit, a Tory MP has warned. Nick Boles told the BBC that some non-Cabinet ministers had told him directly they would quit if whipped against a bill allowing parliamentarians to demand Article 50 be extended for fresh talks with Brussels. Speaking to the Radio 4 podcast Political Thinking the Grantham and Stamford MP also said members of his local Tory party in Lincolnshire may try to deselect him because of his stance on Brexit and said he continued to receive death threats. Mr Boles' dropped a planned bill giving more power to the backbenches on Wednesday but has swung behind the cross-party replacement European Union Withdrawal (Number 3) Bill, which is due to be tabled by Labour's Yvette Cooper on Monday. He told the programme's presenter Nick Robinson: 'We have had indications that many ministers, including Cabinet ministers are very, very keen to see it pass and are telling the Prime Minister that they will not vote against it. 'There is a bandwagon rolling, it's got a lot of momentum behind it and I very much hope that any MP who shares my view that a no-deal Brexit would be a disaster, will jump on board. 'I have been told directly by ministers, not in the Cabinet, that they have said that they would resign if they are whipped to vote against it.' Advertisement

MPs are expected to stage a series of votes on possible options on January 29 after Mrs May's Brexit deal was rejected by a landslide on Tuesday.

But Westminster expects the Prime Minister to continue trying to push her deal through largely unamended.

Ms Cooper's draft Bill has been placed on the Commons order paper for Monday.

What does Yvette Cooper's and Nick Bole's plan do? The text of the Yvette Cooper bill has not been published but comments from Nick Boles suggest it is similar to his. The crucial section tries to force the Government to delay exit day from March 29 if there is no deal. Under the current timetable, Britain leaves the EU two years after it formally triggered talks by using Article 50 of the EU's treaty. The Boles draft said if there is no deal by March 5, the Government must seek a two year extension. The EU has said it will consider an extension if the UK needs more time to implement a deal - but two years for more talks is a very different idea. It could mean the Government is forced to cancel the Article 50 notification altogether to avoid breaking the new law. None of this will happen if the MPs cannot change Commons rules to get their draft laws onto the agenda for votes as by default they will never be debated. Advertisement

Mr Boles confirmed it was from the same team who drafted his plans earlier this week.

Neither version can make progress without a dramatic suspension of the normal rules of Parliament.

But the idea was boosted today as former Clerk of the Commons Lord Lisvane said the plans were 'competently drafted' in an interview with Politico.

While MPs work on their own plans for Brexit, Mrs May is expected to continue working with opposition politicians to find a way forward today.

One Cabinet minister told the Telegraph May would be 'wise' to allow a free vote because 'there are definitely people who would resign over it.'

The group of five, thought to be among 20 ministers who could walk, visited the Prime Minister in No 10 and warned her directly that they were prepared to quit.

In other developments today, Boris Johnson is calling on the Government to 'use Brexit to unite the country' and focus on the issues that drove the vote for EU withdrawal.

The pointed intervention comes as Mrs May scrambles to try and get the Brexit agenda back on track after the Commons overwhelmingly rejected her plans.

Speaking at JCB headquarters in Rocester, Staffordshire on Friday, Mr Johnson said: 'Yes, it (Brexit) was about democracy.

'But that vote was also triggered by a feeling that, in some way, the people of this country have been drifting too far apart and in areas where we need to come together.'

Labour former prime minister Gordon Brown used a speech in Edinburgh on Thursday to call on the Government to extend Article 50 by a year in order to consult the public.

Mr Brown said Mrs May's Brexit stalemate has left Britain 'more divided than during the three-day week of the 1970s or during the miners' strike of the 1980s'.

The PM was expected to use the next few days to continue talks on Brexit and make telephone calls to other EU leaders.

Mrs May will not be attending the Davos summit in Switzerland next week, Downing Street confirmed.
Thousands of federal employees and their families are applying for unemployment and food stamps to get by as the longest government shutdown in U.S. history drags on with no end in sight.

The U.S. Labor Department on Thursday reported that the number of furloughed federal employees seeking unemployment benefits has jumped, from fewer than a thousand per week before the shutdown to more than 10,000 during the week that ended Jan. 5.

Trump signed legislation Wednesday to guarantee employees will be given back pay once the shutdown ends. But that also means those who obtain unemployment benefits to get by in the meantime will have to repay the money.

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Gerald Tauzon, left, an unemployment insurance manager for the California Employment Development Department, helps TSA employee James Mudrock, fill out an application for unemployment benefits at Sacramento International Airport yesterday

President Trump's shutdown is nearing its fourth week as his demands for funding for his border wall seem unlikely to be met

The Labor Department has said that federal employees who aren't working during the shutdown can collect unemployment, while those who are on the job without pay cannot.

But the rules are being applied unevenly. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for example, said the state will give benefits to people still on the job despite the federal guidance prohibiting it.

'The good news is we're going to do it, and shame on them,' he told TSA workers during a visit Thursday to Sacramento International Airport.

He said workers in California's employment development department may authorize benefits for federal employees who are still working and that he's confident those workers will pay the state back.

The nearly 4-week-old stalemate over President Donald Trump's demand for funding for a border wall affects about 800,000 employees. When it started, roughly 420,000 were told to work without being paid, and 380,000 others were sent home with no pay. Some of those numbers have shifted in the past week as agencies such as the IRS have called tens of thousands back to work.

TSA employee Kelly Eads fills out an application for unemployment benefits at the Sacramento International Airport on Thursday

Will Kohler, an IRS tax examiner, holds a protest sign as union members and other federal employees rally to call for an end to the partial government shutdown

The benefits rules made no sense to Charisma Banks, whose husband is deployed on a ship with the Coast Guard.

The Chesapeake, Virginia, mother of a 9-year-old boy called the state unemployment office to ask whether her husband could qualify for benefits. She was told no.

'They're like, `Here's where it gets sticky: Even though he's not getting a paycheck, he's still employed,'' she said.

Banks, 34, has signed her son up for free lunch at school and applied for a grant from the American Legion. 'I don't even know how to go to food banks, but I had to learn this week,' she said.

Will Kohler, a furloughed, $38,000-a-year IRS tax examiner in Covington, Kentucky, applied for unemployment but ran into another kind of complication: His application is in limbo because the Treasury Department office that needs to verify his claim is closed as a result of the shutdown.

Kohler said many co-workers are in the same predicament. Not a single one has been approved for unemployment, he said. He said workers like him are stuck in a difficult position, in part because they are restricted by government ethics rules from getting many kinds of outside work.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters on Thursday that California will offer unemployment benefits to federal employees working without pay

Newsom, right, gives TSA employee Miguel Pagarigan a hug of support at the airport after his speech

'When it gets to a point where government employees have to go to a food bank, this is not the America that I grew up in,' he said. 'It's mind-boggling. It really is.'

Mick Devine, the New England vice president for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said some of his union's members have been hesitant to apply for unemployment because they will just have to give it back.

Kathy Catanzaro, an administrator at Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, said she is seeing the same thing: 'People are a little bit apprehensive about filing because they know they'll have to pay it back once they're paid and get back to work.'

An untold number of workers are also tapping other public assistance programs such as food stamps.

In Corpus Christi, Texas, Haley Hernandez, a stay-at-home mother of four and wife of an active-duty member of the Coast Guard, said she has applied for free lunches for her children, and she is awaiting an electronic food stamps card in the mail. She wonders how they will pay their $1,400 mortgage.

'This is a first for us,' Hernandez said. 'Honestly, it's pretty shameful, I feel, that any government employee would have to ask for food stamps or any kind of assistance like that. You would think that they would take better care of their service members.'
11 Palestinian protestors injured in Gaza border clashes As part of March of Return

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, JANUARY 18 - Eleven Palestinian protestors were injured on Friday during ongoing clashes with the Israeli army along the defensive border with Israel as part of the Hamas-backed 'March of Return'. The figure was reported by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, which quoted medical sources. The protests began around 1:30 PM local time. The same sources said that among the 11 injured, reportedly by live bullets, were two journalists and three medical personnel. The day's protest is the 43rd of the 'March of Return', which began in March 2018. (ANSAmed).




The National Trust is launching a programme of events to commemorate protests, marches and demands for social change which helped shaped Britain as a way of getting visitors more involved with their projects.

The conservation organisation is typically known for its upkeep of historic homes and landmarks across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but is trying to stay 'relevant' to attract a new audience.

One of the trust's marquee events will be to commemorate and examine the truth behind the Peterloo massacre on its 200th anniversary, in which 18 people died and hundreds more were injured demanding political reform.

Samuel Greg, the founder of the Quarry bank cotton mill (pictured), witnessed the massacre and following cover-up

Print of a painting of the Peterloo Massacre, which occurred at St Peter's Field, Manchester, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000 to demand change to parliamentary representation

Dunham Massey, a Georgian house in Cheshire (pictured), was owned at the time by the head of the brigade which charged into the protesters

Two properties of the trust have links to the 1819 Peterloo massacre, where the cavalry charged at a group of protesters on a field in St Peter's Field, Manchester.

Samuel Greg, the founder of the Quarry bank cotton mill, witnessed the massacre and following cover-up, while Dunham Massey, a Georgian house in Cheshire, was owned at the time by the head of the brigade which charged into the protesters.

John Orna-Ornstein, the trust's director of culture and engagement, said: 'We recognise that many people want more than a cream tea. They want to feel connected to the places they visit.'

A number of high-profile contemporary artists have been drafted in by the trust to further their engagement with the public, led by the Turner prize winner Jeremy Deller. The aim of the new programme will be for artists to engage with sites where people have gathered to seek cultural change.

Six labourers tried to form a union against their poor working conditions under this tree. Pictured: The Tolpuddle Martyrs tree in Dorset

Four of the six labourers who were shipped to Australia for forming a union against their poor working conditions in Dorset

In Dorset, artist Bob and Roberta Smithwill examine how normal people demanded change at the Tolpuddle Martyrs tree in Dorset, inspired by six labourers who were shipped to Australia for forming a union against their poor working conditions.

Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker is working on a number of events to commemorate the 1932 mass trespass of Kinder Scout, which led to open public access to the countryside.

What was the Peterloo massacre? An estimated 18 people, including four women and a child, died from sabre cuts and trampling. Nearly 700 men, women and children received extremely serious injuries. The Massacre occurred during a period of immense political tension and mass protests. Fewer than 2% of the population had the vote, and hunger was rife with the disastrous corn laws making bread unaffordable. Around 60,000 to 80,000 protesters gathered and most were supporters of parliamentary reform. Areas like Manchester had become increasingly industrialised yet disenfranchised. Inspired by men like Henry Hunt and the journalist William Cobbett, they began to campaign for suffrage. They argued that extending the vote to working men would lead to better use of public money, fairer taxes and an end to restrictions on trade which damaged industry and caused unemployment. Yet soldiers round in, slashing at protesters with sabres. Many were trampled as they tried to escape Advertisement

Film and photograph collective Amber is working with the former mining community of Easington, County Durham, where the National Trust looks after five miles of coastline that were once blackened by mining residue but have now disappeared.

The director of the new initiative, Orna-Ornstein, denied the trust was trying to make a political point in the new 'People's Landscapes' project.

He said: 'Some of our places have borne witness to human suffering; other sites have been places of profound joy; many have been both. If our places are to remain relevant now into the future, we need to be able to tell these complex stories.'

He added that 26 million visitors to the trust's sites would see 'more that is locally relevant but nationally resonant' in order to keep attracting visitors in 2019.

An example he pointed to of the trust bridging the historical gap at their landmarks to the modern day was at one of the grand Georgian homes in Croome, which had been sold to the Roman Catholic church which became a boys school.

Boys at the school had made allegations about sexual abuse and from March, former students at the school and other children in care will talk about the meaning of 'home'.

He added such projects were vital to ensuring the trust stay 'relevant in the lives of modern people'.

He said: 'They are also critical if we are to become relevant to new audiences, because we cannot simply expect people to come to us, sometimes we should be willing to go to them.'

Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker is working on a number of events to commemorate the 1932 mass trespass of Kinder Scout in the Peak district (pictured), which led to open public access to the countryside

The coastline in Durham which was once blackened by the effects of mining which has become a National Trust landmark
A man has been arrested on suspicion of burglary and theft after police were called to a house - and found two stolen penguins.

The officers made the bizarre discovery after receiving a tip-off that the Humboldt penguins, which had been taken from a zoo in November, were being kept at the property in Strelley Village, Nottinghamshire.

The birds were recovered safe and well - and a 23-year-old man was arrested.

Nottinghamshire Police found this two penguins which had been stolen from a zoo in November 2018 after receiving a tip off from a member of the public

The penguins were being held in a house in Strelley Village, Nottinghamshire, file photo

He has been released on bail pending further enquiries.

A spokesman for Nottinghamshire Police said: 'Rather than let this turn into a cold case, we acted quickly on a tip-off that the pair of Humboldt penguins had been taken in November and were now believed to be residing in Nottinhamshire.

'After putting our beak in and making enquiries we recovered the birds safe and well on Wednesday afternoon and returned to the zoo.

'Also going into custody, at our Bridewell custody suite in Nottingham, was a 23-year-old man who was arrested on suspicion of burglary and theft.

The spokesman added that Sergeant Andrew Browning and PC Paul Toon worked together on the investigation.

Sgt Browning said: 'My first thought was this is one for the books, and one to tell the grandkids, because there's no way we thought we would go down there and actually find two penguins.

'It was an unusual one. Even when we went down to custody it made everyone laugh, particularly the custody sergeant who was booking us in. It was a real off-the-wall find.'

Police did not immediately say which zoo the penguins had been stolen in - nor the circumstances in which they were being held.

The Humboldt penguin is a South American species that breeds in the coastal areas Chile and Peru. It is named after the cold water current it swims in, which is itself named after the explorer Alexander von Humboldt. It is listed as Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Humboldts are medium-sized penguins, growing to 56-70 cm long and a weight of 3.6-5.9 kg.

In 2017, a Humboldt penguin was found decapitated in a car park after being stolen from a zoo in Mannheim, Germany.
Two Russian fighter-bomber jets have crashed mid-air over the Sea of Japan during a training exercise.

The Sukhoi Su-34s accidentally collided while flying over the Strait of Tartary in Russia's Far East, sending one of them into the water below.

The two pilots of one of crashed jet ejected and have since been found in the icy sea in 'satisfactory' conditions, said Russian defence sources.

The pilots of the other warplane were able to land safely, albeit with a damaged engine.

Crash: The Sukhoi Su-34s collided mid-air while flying over the Strait of Tartary in the Sea of Japan in Russia's Far East during a training mission (file photo)

The dramatic rescue mission saw one pilot found on a life raft in the sea, and could be picked up by helicopter.

Local news channel TV 360 then reported that the second Su-34 pilot was found.

The aircraft were reported to have been 'manoeuvring without ammunition' when they collided.

'The theory of the pilots' failure to measure a safe distance between the two aircraft' is being investigated, said a source.

One account said the planes 'brushed against each other'.

Going down: The crash took place in the northern gulf in the Sea of Japan known as the Strait of Tartary or the Tartar Strait

Interfax reported that one of the Su-34s landed with a 'defunct' engine after the collision.

'One Su-34 fell after the collision, and the other managed to land with a defunct engine,' a source said.

The bombers were performing scheduled flights from the Hurba airfield located ten miles outside Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

This is not the first time Russia's Su-34 jets have been involved in an accident.

In June, 2015, an Su-34 bomber crashed after a routine training flight in Russia's Voronezh region.

Search and rescue: The pilots of the two-seater fighter-bomber jets are reported to have ejected on impact but their fate is still unknown

The plane's parachute failed to open after landing and the plane skidded off the runway. The plane overturned, but none of the crew was hurt.

The Sukhoi Su-34 is a Russian Air Force twin-engine, twin-seat, supersonic medium-range fighter-bomber aircraft.

It has a range of 680 miles at low altitude and a max speed of 1,200mph.

The fighter jets were also part of the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War.
Shocking footage shows the moment a thug sprays clubbers with a 'noxious substance' in a mass brawl outside a nightclub.

Huseyin Onel, 24, squirted the liquid at the faces of revellers after they tried to stop an attack on man outside the venue in Hackney, east London.

The man, who police have not been able to trace, had been punched and kicked after he approached a group of men who were sitting in cars in Alvington Crescent at 5am on May 5.

Another group leaving the nightclub then tried to stop the attack, but when one of them began filming the scene on his phone, the men turned on him.

As the fight escalated, Onel got a bottle from one of the cars, and then started spraying the noxious liquid in the faces of victims, the Metrpolitan Police said.

The suspects then got into three cars and drove from the scene, shouting homophobic insults at members of the group, and that they 'run Hackney'.

The man who filmed the assault was left with a fractured eye socket and corrosive burns to his eye, the force said, adding that he had made a 'miraculous' recovery.

Seven men were yesterday jailed for a total of nearly 60 years, with Onel sentenced for 17 years for applying a noxious substance causing grievous bodily harm, and three years on extended licence.

He was given nine years each for six counts of casting a noxious substance and three years for violent disorder to run concurrently.

Huseyin Onel, (holding a white bottle) squirted the liquid at the faces of revellers after they tried to stop an attack on man outside the venue in Hackney, east London

Onel (circled) can be seen chasing revellers who run away as he approaches them

Other members of the group  Mehmet Tekagac and Onur Ardic  were also involved in the corrosive substance attack.

Tekagac, 30, of Homerton, in east London was sentenced to 14-and-a-half years in prison for applying a noxious substance causing GBH, and an additional three years on extended licence.

He was sentenced to eight years for robbery and three years for violent disorder, to run concurrently.

Huseyin Onel (left) was sentenced for 17 years for applying a noxious substance causing grievous bodily harm, and three years on extended licence. Tekagac (right) of Homerton, in east London was sentenced to 14-and-a-half years

Onur Ardic, 27, (left) of Hackney was jailed for 14 years. Guven Ulas (right) of Barnsbury, North London, was sentenced to 30 months for violent disorder

Ardic, 27, of Hackney was jailed for 14 years for applying a noxious substance causing GBH, plus three years on extended licence. He was also sentenced to three years for violent disorder, to run concurrently.

Guven Ulas, 20, of Barnsbury, North London, was sentenced to 30 months for violent disorder.

Mustafa Kiziltan, 30, of no fixed abode, but from the Hackney area, was jailed for three years for violent disorder and nine months for dangerous driving. He was also sentenced to three months, to run concurrently, for failing to stop.

Serkan Kiziltan, 22, of Hackney, was sentenced to 18 months for violent disorder.

Mustafa Kiziltan, 30, (left) of no fixed abode, but from the Hackney area, was jailed for three years for violent disorder and nine months for dangerous driving. Serkan Kiziltan, 22, of Hackney, was sentenced to 18 months for violent disorder

Umit Kaygisiz, 21, (left) of Hackney was sentenced to a total of 28 months in prison for violent disorder. Yasam Erdogan, 24 (right) of Edmonton was given an 18 month suspended sentence for violent disorder

Umit Kaygisiz, 21, of Hackney was sentenced to a total of 28 months in prison for violent disorder and attempting to convey a prohibited item into prison, namely a mobile phone.

Yasam Erdogan, 24 of Edmonton and Turgut Adakan, 23, of Hackney were handed 18-month sentences, suspended for two years, for violent disorder.

Turgut Adakan, 23, of Hackney were handed 18-month sentences, suspended for two years, for violent disorder

The men were sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court yesterday.

Det Con David Leitner led the investigation. He said: 'Nine violent and dangerous men have been removed from London's streets today and will now spend a lengthy time locked up in prison.

'The level of violence used in this attack, coupled with the speed that this incident escalated, are truly shocking.

'A group of people who were enjoying themselves at the end of a night out were subjected to a sustained and relentless wave of violence including the use of a corrosive substance  because they acted as good Samaritans to help a male being subjected to a vicious assault.

'The original victim who was attacked by the group has never been traced but I hope he, and all those who were set upon by this violent group of individuals, will take some comfort from the fact that this group has been convicted.'
Bob Katter has hit back at Terri Irwin after she criticised Queensland's crocodile egg harvesting law, accusing her of engaging in a 'publicity trip'.

Ms Irwin, the widow of beloved 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve, is strongly opposed to the move to allow harvesting of wild crocodile eggs for luxury goods including handbags, shoes and meat.

'This lady has no difficulty in telling us what we should and shouldnt do in North Queensland when she lives 2,000km away,' Mr Katter said.

'I hesitate to make a statement where this lady, without the hard intellectual rigour that should be applied to these issues, is just flying in and going on an emotional publicity trip,' Mr Katter said.

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Bob Katter (pictured) has compared crocodile eggs to women's reproductive system as Queensland's new harvesting law comes under fire

Ms Irwin (pictured), the widow of beloved 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve, is strongly opposed to the move to allow harvesting of wild crocodile eggs for luxury goods

The Federal Government introduced new harvesting laws to the state's conservation laws just before Christmas.

Under the change, crocodile hunters can apply for a licence to harvest eggs from wild nests and sell them to private farms.

The new law has come under fire from environmentalists including Ms Irwin.

She said it will be 'catastrophic' for the species and would have a detrimental impact on the ecosystem in Queensland.

'The Queensland State Government is destroying the future generations of an apex predator by allowing the removal of eggs from nests in our most pristine, wild environments,' Ms Irwin said in a statement.

'This flies in the face of the most comprehensive research conducted on crocodiles. Compromising an apex predator initiates a trophic cascade effect, which will reduce the abundance of other animals in the ecosystem.'

Under the change, crocodile hunters can apply for a licence to harvest eggs from wild nests and sell them to private farms. Pictured: Bob Katter

Mr Katter dismissed Ms Irwin's comments, and confirmed his support for egg harvesting.

'I have to remind everybody a crocodile has 50 or 60 eggs a year. Could you imagine if every woman in Townsville had 50 or 60 babies a year?' he said.

'There'd be a bloody lot of kids in this town.'

Goods made from crocodiles have proved to be a lucrative industry in Australia.

The Northern Territory relaxed the harvesting laws since the 1980s and a state government report indicates more than $54 million was brought into the NT economy in 2014-15.
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The devastated father of an Israeli student who was murdered on the way home from a night out has spoken out after 20-year-old Codey Herrmann was arrested over the killing.

Aiia Maasarwe, 21, was killed in the north Melbourne suburb of Bundoora after getting off a tram on Tuesday night, and her partially naked body was found in parkland near a shopping centre on Wednesday morning.

Ms Maasarwe's heartbroken father Saeed broke down and cried while speaking to reporters at the spot where her body was found on Friday.

Through tears, Mr Maasawe thanked the Melbourne community for rallying around his family.

'This has given me a good feeling,' he said. 'But also in another way I am sad because this is the last place my daughter was - I have dreams to be with her but cannot now.

'Someone had decided I cannot be (with her). I wish, I hope, I pray she is in a more nice place than this place in paradise.'

Saeed Maasarwe, the father of 21-year-old Aiia Maasarwe who was murdered on a Melbourne tram on her way home from a night out, weeps as he attends a public vigil for his daughter on Friday

Through tears Mr Maasarwe told the crowd that he was glad to see so many people, but also heartbroken at the loss of his daughter, adding: 'I pray she is in a more nice place than this place, in paradise'

Mr Maasarwe breaks down in tears as he holds a candle during a vigil for his daughter that was attended by thousands of people in central Melbourne on Friday

Thousands of people line the steps of the Victorian state parliament as they applaud while listening to tributes to Aiia Maasarwe, who was murdered on Tuesday

Many people brought flowers and other tributes to the event, which have now been laid in a makeshift memorial to Aiia

Couples embrace as they share their grief at the death of Ms Maasarwe, which has shocked a city that prides itself as one of the most inclusive of any in the world

A woman holds a single rose brought to pay tribute to Aiia Maasarwe, who was studying at La Trobe University when she died

Saeed Maasarwe (bottom right) expresses his grief while attending a vigil for his daughter in Melbourne along with thousands of others who turned out to honour her

Aiia Maasarwe (pictured) was murdered and her body was found outside a Melbourne shopping centre on Wednesday

The father revealed he had originally planned to come later in January to visit his daughter, who was studying at La Trobe University.

Mr Maasarwe also inspected the tributes left to his daughter at the crime scene and was pictured crying as he admired them.

Earlier on Friday, Hermann was arrested in Greensborough at a picnic shelter positioned close to a children's park which is a known hang out for youths to smoke drugs.

He was found by police in a shelter with a woman and a group of young men.

Social media reveals he is a wannabe rapper from the Bundoora area who often posts about mental health issues.

He is well known to people in the area and was often seen riding around on buses and trams. A school friend said he spiralled into drug and alcohol abuse while still a young man.

Neighbours said they saw plain clothes and uniformed police arrest the man about 11.20am after approaching him while he was in a rotunda at Pioneer Park.

Tracey Neus said she saw the woman and had a gut instinct to call police.

But when she looked again, police had already converged on the location.

Shane Cairns said he was shaken to learn an alleged killer had been hanging around just outside his home.

'I'm just shocked. We thought they would have just been some kids,' he said.

Codey Herrmann, 20, has been arrested over the horrific murder of Aiia Maasarwe, 21 - who was killed in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora after getting off a tram on Tuesday night

A friend said Herrmann was frequently spotted around the Bundoora area, and often travelled via tram

Activists also brought signs to the event to protest against violence towards women

Other signs featured the Am I Next? hashtag, which originated in Canada in response to the high rate of kidnap and murder of indigenous women, but has been adopted by campaigners across the globe

A woman holding a sign reading 'Am I Next?' listens as tributes are paid to Aiia Maasarwe in Melbourne on Friday

Thousands of people turned out for the memorial service, which has caused a deep sense of shock and anger in Melbourne

Ms Maasarwe had spent the night at a comedy club before boarding the 86 tram from Bourke Street, heading to her home in Bundoora. She left the tram around midnight. Her body was discovered in scrub, nearby, the next day

Aiia, from Israel, was studying in Australia when she was killed on Tuesday while getting off a tram in the suburb of Bundoora

A card tucked into a bunch of flowers asks for them to be laid on a tram, which Aiia was riding before she died, in tribute to her

Well-wishers hold baskets of tributes to Aiia during a memorial service held outside the Victoria state parliament on Friday

The steps of Parliament House in Melbourne were covered with well-wishers on Friday to honour Aiia Maasarwe

The arrested man (pictured) was allegedly in a park with a woman, with one witness claiming she had a 'gut instinct' to call police but when she looked again officers had already converged

Up to eight police were involved in the arrest, with the alleged killer going quietly, the couple said.

He was identified as a person of interest after police forensically tested a hat and blood-stained T-shirt left at the crime scene, it is understood.

'The 20-year-old was arrested in Greensborough by local police working in partnership with homicide detectives about 11.20am,' police said in a statement.

Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said it was believed to be a 'random attack' carried out by someone who was 'opportunistic'.

This is the shelter at Pioneer Reserve where the young man was arrested on Friday

The shelter is a known hang out for local youths who smoke drugs

Witnesses said the man, 20, was with a woman when he was apprehended by uniformed and plain clothed police at the location above

On Friday afternoon, Ms Maasarwe's father arrived at the scene of her murder

Scene of the crime: Aiia Maasarwe's partially naked body was found in scrub (pictured) near where she got off a tram the night before

It is understood the man, 20, was identified as a person of interest after police forensically tested a hat and blood-stained T-shirt (above) left at the crime scene

Mourners gather for a vigil in the memory of slain international student Aiia Maasarwe at Latrobe University, Melbourne

Tears for Aiia: Hundreds mourned the murder of an Israeli student on Friday, hours after a 20-year-old man was arrested

'This was a horrendous, horrific attack inflicted on a completely innocent young woman who was a visitor to our city,' he said.

Aiia's final moments: Tuesday Aiia was at the The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne 11pm: Her friends dropped her to the tram stop Aiia caught the 86 tram from a Bourke Street stop, heading home Midnight: Aiia got off the tram in Bundoora, about a kilometre from her home Wednesday 7am: Her body is found in scrub near the tram stop and Polaris shopping centre Friday Aiia's father Saeed said he 'dreamed to be with' his daughter and looked at tributes left at the crime scene in her memory 11am: Man, 20, is arrested Advertisement

Forensic officers were combing through a derelict property in the same suburb where the 20-year-old was arrested on Friday evening, according to The Age, and carrying evidence out of the building.

The case bears similarities to the rape and murder of 22-year-old comedian Eurydice Dixon who was attacked in June while walking home from a gig in Melbourne.

Australia's human rights commission said the country has a 'a disturbingly high rate of violence against women'.

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at LaTrobe University.

The 21-year-old was so scared of the walk from the tram stop to her student accommodation she would call one of her sisters while walking to feel safer, a family member told The Australian.

She was heading home from a comedy gig and was on a FaceTime call with her sister when she was attacked and the phone suddenly dropped, her uncle Rame Masarwe said.

Ms Maasarwe's sister was still on the phone and heard the entire attack unfold, her uncle said.

'She seemed very happy. Then the phone fell down, she heard voices. The phone was on.'

Ms Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city.

She likely got off the tram in Bundoora near where her body was found, about a kilometre from her student accommodation.

Ms Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city before she was attacked. Pictured: Mourners at her university

Prayers: A group of students and teachers held hands at a vigil for slain Aiia Maasarwe at her university in Melbourne

On Friday, mourners at LaTrobe University where she was studying gathered to pay tribute. Pictured: A student cries into a tissue

Aiia Maasarwe's (left, with a friend) partially naked body was found by window washers in scrub outside the Polaris shopping centre on Main Drive near Plenty Road in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora at 7am on Wednesday

People leave floral tributes where the body of Isreali student Aiia Maasarwe was found near the Polaris Shopping centre in Bundoora

Homicide detectives released CCTV images of Ms Maasarwe in the aftermath of her death, which show the clothing she was wearing that night, in the hope someone saw her and can help police track her exact movements.

Before the arrest, former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina on Friday morning urged witnesses to come forward to stop the attacker killing again.

'If this person or persons strike again, they have to live with that and say could I have stopped that?' he said.

Police said in the days after Ms Maarsarwe's death they were investigating if the student was stalked from the tram and were scouring a list of known sex offenders as an 'active line of inquiry'.

On Friday Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked about the attack while in Fiji. He told reporters: 'It is just so shocking.'

The Prime Minister said his heart went out to Ms Maasarwe's family, though he can't begin to think of what he would say to them.

'I know what I'm thinking about her attacker. I expect it's the same thing that all other Australians are thinking today,' he said.

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University, but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at La Trobe University. Pictured: Tributes

Today Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Fiji 'it is just so shocking. I mean, I'm speechless.' Pictured: Tributes where her body was found

Derryn Hinch stands by his views, despite was slammed on social media on Thursday night

The Prime Minister stressed everyone in Australia should be able to travel home safely and that the government must remain 'forever vigilant' to the issue of violence against women.

On Thursday night, Senator Derryn Hinch sparked outrage after he tweeted details about the horrific murder.

Final moments: Ms Maasarwe getting off the tram before she was killed

The tweet made graphic and serious allegations about Ms Maasarwe's killer while comparing the case to that of Jill Meagher, a journalist who was raped and murdered in an inner Melbourne suburb in 2012.

'Jesus wept. Shades of Jill Meagher,' Senator Hinch tweeted.

'I'm hearing the rapist-murderer of that stalked innocent Israeli student is a known sex offender who tried to burn ... evidence.

'What has this town become?' he ended the tweet.

People were quick to slam the federal Senator as insensitive, disrespectful, appalling and inappropriate.

'Your willingness to exploit any situation is breathtakingly disgraceful. Shame on you Hinch,' one tweeted.

Another added: 'Think of her family Derryn! You may 'want people to know' but they might not want us to know the details of what happened to their girl. It's beyond horrible but your blatant disregard of their feelings makes it even worse. Shame!'

Another accused Senator Hinch of using the tragedy to try and make a political point.

'Sure we can all just rise above politics when a horrific and tragic event like another murder of a young woman occurs?,' they tweeted.

Many called on Senator Hinch to delete the tweet.

'Aiia Maasarwe's family deserves better than this. If you have any respect for Aiia please delete this tweet and apologise to those who loved her,' one woman commented.

Senator Hinch tweeted that Aiia Maasarwe's death had 'shades of Jill Meagher' (pictured)

The controversial senator responded to the online criticism with this response (pictured)

Many people called on Senator Hinch to delete the tweet and show respect to Aiia Maasarwe's (pictured) grieving family

Senator Hinch has previously been in hot water with the legal system on numerous occasions for contempt of court.

He spent 50 days in prison in 2014 for breaching a suppression order by revealing details of the criminal history of Ms Meagher's killer Adrian Ernest Bayley.

He was given the option of a fine instead, which he chose not to pay 'on principle'.

Senator Hinch responded to Thursday night's backlash and made no apologies for the earlier tweet, which remained online.

'To all the do-gooder Tweeters attacking me for telling the gruesome truth about the Bundoora rape/ murder. This brute is still out there. My tweet was for the memory of Jill Meagher and Eurydice Dixon,' Mr Hinch later tweeted.

His later tweet sparked a war of words with departing federal senator David Leyonhjelm.

'Except you voted against giving women like these the means to protect themselves. Do you have any principles at all,' Senator Leyonhjelm posted.
A mother was stranded by the side of the road with her five children in 37C heat because Australia's cashless welfare card system crashed.

Dakota Rayne claimed her card was first declined when she tried to buy nappies and formula for her baby son, and then left her unable to fix her broken down car.

She was then left stranded in Kalgoorlie, a city in Western Australia located 595 km east-northeast of Perth, with no way to pay the $150 to repair her car.

Dakota Rayne claimed her card was first declined when she tried to buy nappies and formula for her baby son, and then left her unable to fix her broken down car

A mother was stranded by the side of the road with her five children in 37C heat because Australia's cashless welfare card system crashed

'So now I'm stuck with 5 kids in 37C no cash no card to work, I've had it being held prisoners to this card being made to feel like second class citizens,' Ms Rayne said.

Ms Ryane is one of more than 5,000 people using the cards who were unable to access any of their welfare money when the system went down on Tuesday.

About 825 people tried to complete transactions on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, all of which were declined as the system was down.

Indue, which administers the system on a government contract, confirmed the outage and apologised for any inconvenience.

The company said the 'temporary disruption' began about 7pm AEDT and lasted until early the next morning.

'The company immediately implemented its investigation and remediation processes, and services were fully restored early the following morning,' it said.

'The company is continuing to closely monitor the service.'

However, numerous welfare recipients in areas trialling the cashless cards claimed they continued having problems for days aftwerwards.

Peter Carey was one of thousands who were unable to access his Indue online account and money.

Indue, which administers the system on a government contract, confirmed the outage and apologised for any inconvenience

The mother was then left stranded in Kalgoorlie, a city in Western Australia located 595 km east-northeast of Perth, with no way to pay the $150 to repair her car

'Just tried to login into my indue online account and still no joy this morning. Looks like another wasted morning on the phone trying to get help,' he posted to Facebook.

Lee Grubb Whitchurch also had his card decline while ordering dinner one evening, but had it work the next day.

The following day, Mr Whitchurch went to buy lunch and once again the card declined despite having a balance of more than $500 on the card.

'I can still access my account online but not "MY MONEY" at point of sale in all shops,' he said.

Hundreds of reports have been made since Tuesday of app failures and point of sale transaction declines.

There have also been verified reports of Indue removing money from private accounts.

Lee Grubb Whitchurch also had his card decline while ordering dinner one evening, but had it work the next day

Kathryn Wilkes, an advocate for the elimination of the cashless welfare card said she can't believe that Indue is able to withdraw money from private accounts.

'How is it that this company has the ability to withdraw money from private accounts without the signature of the account holder?' she asked.

Facebook community The Say NO Seven revealed that Indue isn't a signatory to the ePayments Code and takes money from private bank accounts.

An anonymous person claimed they transferred money into their private account but it was removed by Indue the following day without authorisation.

The Social Services Department said Indue did not have access to non-card accounts and denied any money was withdrawn.

'Trial participants are recommended to contact Indue or their personal banking service to investigate any unusual account balance activity,' it said.

Hundreds of reports have been made since Tuesday of app failures and point of sale transaction declines

Thousands of people are taking to Facebook to vent their outrage over the cashless welfare card system.

'That card must be stopped. It is totally not right, every one needs to can control their own money. Sometimes everyone needs cash to pay for everything,' one user wrote.

'If they can get away with this, then people will need to keep a seperate account for their own personal use and not let centrelink anywhere near it,' another user said.

'This inability for several thousand vulnerable people across three different areas to access their own money is a disgrace,' another commented.

'Imagine if it were happening to customers of a real bank? The outrage would be palpable nation-wide. But it's only impacting people receiving a social security payment, so it's not an issue anyone cares about.'
A North Carolina nurse saved a state trooper's life after he was shot in the face during a traffic stop.

Sherice Richardson was on her way to pick up her daughter from daycare in Wilson around 5.15pm on Monday night when she suddenly saw flashing blue lights.

'My first instinct was to slow down. But as I came closer, I could not believe my eyes,' she wrote in a Facebook post.

'This car was smoking with bullet holes in the windshield and I just couldn't go past it. The officer was bleeding from his face and I knew I had to help him.'

Richardson got out of the car and immediately ran over to help Trooper Daniel Harrell.

North Carolina nurse Sherice Richardson saved state trooper Daniel Harrell's life after he was shot in the face during a traffic stop

'All I could hear him say was, "I'm hit, I'm hit,"' she told ABC 11. 'I was like, we need to give him help, so I called 911.'

'It was weird,' she continued. 'You're sitting here with someone that is supposed to protect you and he's down but you've got to do something'.

Richardson, a registered nurse, flew into action. She found gauze in Harrell's patrol car and had another bystander put pressure on his face while she called 911.

'He was able to hold it himself actually, and I sat there and comforted him.'

'I just had to stay with him until EMS arrived to take over,' she wrote in her Facebook post. 'This is somebody's son, brother, dad, uncle.'

'He didn't deserve to be shot like this trying to do his job.'

Richardson was on her way to pick up her daughter from daycare in Wilson around 5.15pm on Monday night when she Harrell's car, ridden with bullet holes

Authorities said that Harrell's patrol car (pictured) had 12 bullet holes in the windshield and front-end damage

The moment was especially personal for Richardson, who had watched her own brother lay on the ground 'lifeless in hopes that he would get a second chance'.

John Jones, 36, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, assault on a law enforcement officer, possession of a stolen motor vehicle

'I would not wish that pain on anyone's family, especially in the line of duty,' she continued. 'This was definitely a life-changing experience for me.'

Richardson said she believes that God put her 'on that road for a reason at that time'.

Thanks to Richardson's help, Harrell was rushed to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. He was released on Wednesday.

'I'm just thankful,' she said. 'I had him in my prayers. I'm just grateful he made it out so fast.'

Authorities said that Harrell's patrol car had 12 bullet holes in the windshield and front-end damage.

Richardson shared a picture of the cruiser, which she took after Harrell was taken to the hospital.

Bryan Jeffrey Mullins, 25, (left) and William Allen Boswell, 40, (right) have both been charged with possession of a stolen motor vehicle

Harrell is a third-generation state trooper and a five-year veteran. A GoFundMe campaign has since been created to help pay for his medical bills.

Three men are currently behind bars in connection to Harrell's shooting.

John David Jones, 36, has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, assault on a law enforcement officer, and possession of a stolen motor vehicle.

He is also facing charges for assault on a female, breaking or entering, and larcency after breaking or entering.

Jones (pictured in court on Tuesday) is also facing charges for assault on a female, breaking or entering, and larcency after breaking or entering

Boswell and Mullins (both pictured in court on Tuesday) are being held on a $15,000 secure bond in connection to the shooting

Jones was arrested just after midnight on Tuesday after officers found him in a wooded area, according to WNCN.

He was first taken to a local hospital for minor injuries and is now being held on $1million bond.

William Allen Boswell, 40, and Bryan Jeffrey Mullins, 25, have both been charged with possession of a stolen motor vehicle.

They are being held on a $15,000 secure bond. All three are due back in court on January 29.
Donald Trump was 'startled' after watching William Barr's attorney general confirmation hearing on Tuesday, after the 68-year-old spoke about his tight friendship with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The president complained to his aides that 'he didn't realize how much their work overlapped or that they were so close' when he nominated him, according to CNN.

After watching Barr speak at the Senate Judiciary Committee, POTUS was caught 'off-guard' and 'bristled' as he had to listen to details of their history but he later calmed himself by putting their familiarity with each other purely down Washington business.

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Donald Trump (left) was 'startled' after watching William Barr's (right) attorney general confirmation hearing on Tuesday after he spoke about knowing Robert Mueller

Barr was pressed repeatedly on whether he would allow Special Counsel Robert Mueller to repeat his work. Trump reportedly had no idea they were so close

Barr was AG for George H.W. Bush and Trump, 72, put him forward to take over from acting attorney general Matt Whitaker who was hired as a fill-in after making comments on TV about draining funds from the Russia probe.

Bill Barr told senators Tuesday he would resist pressure to ax Mueller, including from the president, unless there was good cause to do so.

However it's not likely his words will jeopardize the nomination at this stage.

Barr and Mueller worked together when Barr was Bush's attorney general between 1991 and 1993 and Mueller oversaw the department's criminal division. The two men are 'best friends,' Senator Lindsey Graham said, and have known each other for 20 years.

Their wives attend Bible study together, and Mueller attended the weddings of two of Barr's daughters.

Barr introduced about 10 family members who are all government prosecutors or lawyers.

PREPARED: Attorney General nominee William Barr, center, and his wife Christine, right, smile before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019

Asked if he would fire the special counsel  or if he would change Justice Department regulations and then fire him if asked to do so by the president without 'good cause,' Barr responded: 'I would not carry out that instruction.'

He was pressed by Delaware Democratic Senator Chris Coons and multiple other lawmakers on how he would handle Mueller, his longtime friend who President Trump has accused of overseeing a 'witch hunt' against him.

'I don't believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt,' Barr said under questioning.

He revealed he met with President Trump in June 2017 when the president was seeking to expand his legal team, and who asked him at the time how well he knew Mueller.

'I said Bob is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such,' Barr said he told the president.

The comments were among multiple markers of independence Barr put down during the hearing, where he also praised fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision to recuse from the Russia probe and praised deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, another target of the president's.

He also offered explanations for the unsolicited memo he sent to Rosenstein arguing Mueller's probe was 'fatally misconceived' by going after possible obstruction of justice by the president.

And he refused to give Democrats commitments they sought repeatedly that he would yield to ethics professionals if they advised him to recuse himself from the Mueller probe.

'I'm not surrendering that responsibility. I'm not giving it away,' he said.

Sworn in: William Barr takes the oath at the start of his confirmation hearing

Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioned Barr on his written argument that the president's law enforcement powers extend to 'all matters including those in which he has a personal stake'

Asked by Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California under what scenario he would not follow the advice of career ethics officials, he said curtly: If I disagreed with them.

But on other matters, Barr told lawmakers he didn't need the high-level job he has previously held, would not be 'bullied' by anyone, and stated explicitly several instances of interference in prosecution that would be improper or illegal.

Barr said the president would violate his oath of office if he ordered the Justice Department to take an action in which he had a 'stake.'

President Trump's attorney general nominee William Barr William Barr, 68, served as attorney general for George H.W. Bush. He practices law at the firm of Kirkland & Ellis and served as a counsel to corporate boards and amassed an estimated $37 million fortune. Barr penned an unsolicited memo about the Mueller probe and gave it do Deputy Attorney Gen. Rob Rosenstein. He wrote that the probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe was 'fatally misconceived' by going after obstruction of justice. Barr is longtime friends with Mueller and the two men's wives attended bible study together. He attended Columbia University and did a stint in the CIA. Advertisement

He said longtime Trump foil former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was probably right to recuse himself from the Russia probe.

Trump fired FBI Director James Comey early in his term, and according to Comey asked if he could relieve pressure on his former national security advisor Mike Flynn.

As Demoratic Senator. Dianne Feinstein brought up in the hearing, Trump has called for rival Hillary Clinton to be jailed. His son, Donald Trump Jr., has testified to congressional investigators after a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting he attended with Russians.

The Mueller probe has already resulted in guilty pleas by Flynn and longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and the conviction of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort.

In another round of questioning, Barr expressed his view that the president has the view to pardon a family member  but could be held accountable for it.

'Yes he does have the power to pardon a family member, but he would then have to face the fact that he could be held accountable for abusing his power, or if it was connected to some act that violates and obstruction statute it could be obstruction,' he told Sen. Coons.

'In the absence of the violation of a statute  then hed be accountable politically,' he said, referencing elections or impeachment, the two ways to remove a president from office.

Major hearing: The confirmation process for William Barr is a critical moment for the Trump administration

Family presence: William Barr's family sat immediately behind him including (from left): wife Christine, a retired librarian; daughter Meg, legislative assistant to new Republican senator Mike Braun; daughters Patricia, counsel to the House Agriculture Committee; and Mary, coordinator for opioid enforcement in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General; Mary's husband, Mike, an attorney at the Department of Justice in the National Security division; their son Liam; Patricia's husband, Pelham, who is a founding partner of a consulting firm; Meg's husband Tyler,assistant United States attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia

Many panel Democrats acknowledged favorable answers they had gotten from Barr in private, and saved their sharpest stings for Trump.

Barr also answered a question about what would happen if the president used his pardon power to try to change testimony as part of an investigation. Trump has expressed repeated sympathy for former campaign chair Paul Manafort and how he has been treated by Mueller's team, which won a conviction.

'If a pardon was a quid pro quo to altering testimony, then that would definitely implicate an obstruction statute,' he said.

Feinstein also asked a question at the behest of House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler, who has said he would subpoena the final Mueller report if necessary.

Barr maintained a large caveat: 'I am going to make as much information available as I can, consistent with the rules and regulations that are part of the special counsel regulations,' he said.

'On my watch, Bob will be allowed to finish his work,' referring to his friend Mueller by his first name.

He said Mueller wouldn't be terminated except for good cause, that he wouldn't hold up his resources.
After-work drinks could change forever, with European Union officials pressuring Australian food producers to re-brand classic wines and cheese-platter favourites.

The stand-off came to a head after Italian and Greek manufacturers requested new trade deals that would guarantee exclusive naming rights to certain local products.

It would mean that commonly recognised foods like feta, parmesan, mozzarella, as well as wines such as moscato and prosecco would have required re-labelling.

Although an initial EU proposal forcing Aussie food producers to use names such as 'feta-like' has been shelved, trademark negotiations continue.

The deal would require foods of European-origin, such as feta, to be labelled accordingly

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham (left) is flying into Europe to negotiate a trademark deal

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham was flying into Brussels to arbitrate on behalf of the 1500-plus Australian products likely to be affected by the trade deal.

'We will work for the best possible outcomes in net terms for Australia,' Senator Birmingham told The Sydney Morning Herald.

'That means you have to look at what you may need to agree to that you would not entirely wish to do, just as we expect the EU to provide the type of access that they may not wish to provide.'

A likely compromise would see products still labelled by the country of origin of their ingredients, such as 'Australian prosecco' or 'Australian feta'.

Aussie food manufacturers have themselves been on the other side of the trademark debate, objecting to the misuse of region specific labels such as King Island Dairy.

Brown Brothers who have seen 50 per cent growth in prosecco sales year-on-year have accused Italian counterparts of being sneaky.
TRIPOLI - The Amazigh new year (2969) was celebrated in the Libyan village of Yefran during the night between January 12 and January 13 by the Amazigh population, often referred to as the 'Berbers' of North Africa. The day is not recognized as a national holiday in the country. ''The Amazighs could not dare to practice any rites or celebrate this day publicly during Gaddafi's era,'' one Amazigh man told ANSA. The Nafusa Mountains, also known as 'Western Mountain', contains the largest number of Amazigh villages and tribes in Libya and are located in the western Tripolitania region of northwestern Libya.

The Amazigh are the original inhabitants of the country and Yefran is considered one of the most important and oldest Amazigh villages in the Nafusa Mountains.
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Hundreds of students and teachers gathered for a candlelit vigil on Friday to pay tribute to an Israeli student who was horrifically murdered.

Aiia Maasarwe, 21, was killed after getting off a tram on her way home from a gig on Tuesday night before her partially naked body was found in parkland near a Melbourne shopping centre on Wednesday morning.

When she was attacked, Miss Maasarwe was on the phone to her sister who helplessly overheard the 'horrific, horrendous' assault before calling police.

On Friday, mourners at LaTrobe University where she was studying gathered to pay tribute as Miss Maasarwe's father arrived at the scene of her murder and was seen crying as he admired tributes left on the ground.

Prayers: A group of students and teachers held hands at a vigil for slain Aiia Maasarwe at her university in Melbourne

Tears for Aiia: Hundreds mourned the murder of an Israeli student on Friday, hours after a 20-year-old man was arrested

Mourners gather for a vigil in the memory of slain international student Aiia Maasarwe at Latrobe University, Melbourne

On Friday, mourners at LaTrobe University where she was studying gathered to pay tribute. Pictured: A student cries into a tissue

Tragic: Aiia Maasarwe (pictured) was murdered and her body was found outside a Melbourne shopping centre on Wednesday

On Friday afternoon, Miss Maasarwe's father arrived at the scene of her murder where tributes were left on the ground

On Friday morning a man was arrested in Andrew Yandell Habitat Park in the Melbourne suburb of Greensborough. He was said to be in a shelter with some friends when police swooped around 11am.

He was identified as a person of interest after police forensically tested a hat and blood-stained T-shirt left at the crime scene, it is understood.

'The 20-year-old was arrested in Greensborough by local police working in partnership with homicide detectives about 11.20am,' police said in a statement.

Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said it was believed to be a 'random attack'.

Ms Maasarwe was found dead on Wednesday morning not far from where she had taken a tram home on Tuesday night. Pictured a vigil at her university

Miss Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city before she was attacked. Pictured: Mourners at her university

She was heading home from a comedy gig and was on a FaceTime call with her sister when she was attacked and the phone suddenly dropped. Pictured: Mourners at the university

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at LaTrobe University. Pictured: Mourners at the university

Police said: 'This was a horrendous, horrific attack inflicted on a completely innocent young woman who was a visitor to our city.' Pictured: Mourners on Friday

Miss Maasarwe was carrying a bag when she was attacked and some items had been removed and were found nearby, police said. Pictured: Police and mourners at a vigil on Friday

Hundreds of students and teachers gathered for a candlelit vigil on Friday to pay tribute to an Israeli student who was horrifically murdered

'This was a horrendous, horrific attack inflicted on a completely innocent young woman who was a visitor to our city,' he said.

The case bears similarities to the rape and murder of 22-year-old comedian Eurydice Dixon who was attacked in June while walking home from a gig in Melbourne.

Australia's human rights commission said the country has a 'a disturbingly high rate of violence against women'.

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at LaTrobe University.

The 21-year-old was so scared of the walk from the tram stop to her student accommodation she would call one of her sisters while walking to feel safer, a family member told The Australian.

Scene of the crime: Aiia Maasarwe's partially naked body was found in scrub (pictured) near where she got off a tram the night before

Clues: Police believe a t-shirt and cap found near where her body was discovered belongs to her killer

On Friday morning a man was arrested in Andrew Yandell Habitat in the Melbourne suburb of Greensborough. He was said to be in a shelter (pictured) with some friends when police swooped around 11am

She was heading home from a comedy gig and was on a FaceTime call with her sister when she was attacked and the phone suddenly dropped, her uncle Rame Masarwe said.

Miss Maasarwe's sister was still on the phone and heard the entire attack unfold, her uncle said.

'She seemed very happy. Then the phone fell down, she heard voices. The phone was on.'

Miss Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city.

Miss Maasarwe likely got off the tram in Bundoora near where her body was found, about a kilometre from her student accommodation.

Aiia Maasarwe, 21, had spent the night at a comedy club before boarding the 86 tram from Bourke Street, heading to her home in Bundoora. She left the tram around midnight. Her body was discovered in scrub, nearby, the next day

Aiia Maasarwe's (left, with a friend) partially naked body was found by window washers in scrub outside the Polaris shopping centre on Main Drive near Plenty Road in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora at 7am on Wednesday

Aiia's final moments: Tuesday Aiia was at the The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne 11pm: Her friends dropped her to the tram stop Aiia caught the 86 tram from a Bourke Street stop, heading home Midnight: Aiia got off the tram in Bundoora, about a kilometre from her home Wednesday 7am: Her body is found in scrub near the tram stop and Polaris shopping centre Friday Man, 20, is arrested Advertisement

Homicide detectives have released CCTV images of Miss Maasarwe, which shows the clothing she was wearing that night, in the hope someone saw her and can help police track her exact movements.

Miss Maasarwe was carrying a bag when she was attacked and some items had been removed and were found nearby, police said.

Shoes and a mobile phone were found near Miss Maasarwe's body, as well as an abandoned vehicle with its hazard lights on.

Before the arrest, former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina on Friday morning urged witnesses to come forward to stop the attacker killing again.

'It's imperative that those who have knowledge of some sort assist police,' he told radio station 3AW.

'This person will be known to somebody. The potential is there for him to kill again.'

Mr Bezzina said if someone had information but did not come forward, 'they've got to live with their conscience.'

'If this person or persons strike again, they have to live with that and say could I have stopped that?' he said.

On Friday Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked about the attack while in Fiji. He told reporters: 'It is just so shocking.'

People leave floral tributes where the body of Isreali student Aiia Maasarwe was found near the Polaris Shopping centre in Bundoora

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University, but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at La Trobe University. Pictured: Tributes

Today Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Fiji 'it is just so shocking. I mean, I'm speechless.' Pictured: Tributes where her body was found

The Prime Minister said his heart went out to Ms Maasarwe's family, though he can't begin to think of what he would say to them.

The last images of Miss Maasarwe before she was killed

'I know what I'm thinking about her attacker. I expect it's the same thing that all other Australians are thinking today,' he said.

The Prime Minister stressed everyone in Australia should be able to travel home safely and that the government must remain 'forever vigilant' to the issue of violence against women.

Last night Senator Derryn Hinch sparked outrage after he tweeted details about the horrific murder.

The tweet made graphic and serious allegations about Ms Maasarwe's killer while comparing the case to that of Jill Meagher, a journalist who was raped and murdered in an inner Melbourne suburb in 2012.

'Jesus wept. Shades of Jill Meagher,' Senator Hinch tweeted.

'I'm hearing the rapist-murderer of that stalked innocent Israeli student is a known sex offender who tried to burn... evidence.

'What has this town become?' he ended the tweet.

People were quick to slam the federal Senator as insensitive, disrespectful, appalling and inappropriate.

'Your willingness to exploit any situation is breathtakingly disgraceful. Shame on you Hinch,' one tweeted.

Another accused Senator Hinch of using the tragedy to try and make a political point.

Many called on Senator Hinch to delete the tweet- but he made no apologies and refused to do so.

Senator Hinch tweeted that Aiia Maasarwe's death had 'shades of Jill Meagher' (pictured)
A New Zealand pizza chain has taken a hilarious swipe at a British 'gypsy' family accused of scamming restaurants by claiming there is something wrong with their food to avoid paying their bill.

Hell Pizza launched their limited edition pie this week, and named it 'Unruly Tourist Pizza', NZ Herald reported.

A disclaimer under the advertisement warns potential buyers that the pizza 'may contain hair and ants'.

These were reportedly some of the excuses the British family used to get out of paying for food while visiting New Zealand.

Poking fun: The New Zealand based chain Hell Pizza launched a limited edition pizza and named it 'Unruly Tourist Pizza'

Fun meal: A disclaimer under the advertisement warns potential buyers that the pizza 'may contain hair and ants'

The new pizza also comes with its very own terms and conditions, making it clear who is the target customer.

'Terms and conditions: Only available to notorious families of rabble rousers who have stolen a rope, trashed a beach, and received a deportation notice in the last seven days. Drop in to any branch of Hell in New Zealand to redeem your prize,' it read.

A Hell Pizza spokesman told the publication that the chain would love to make the pizza for the British family, but would not disclose whether or not they would include the ants or hair.

'They trashed a beach, threatened people with violence, engaged in petty theft, even dined and dashed from respectable restaurants,' the spokesman claimed.

'Hell Pizza, not content to sit on the sidelines, has decided to join the conversation.'

Air New Zealand also made a subtle swipe at the tourists with its latest advertisement for flights out of New Zealand with Grabaseat

A group of tourists have been filmed leaving beer bottles and piles of rubbish on a busy beach

The family reportedly ordered food at a Nandos store, before demanding a refund

The tourists came to the attention of the nation after they were caught on camera refusing to clean up their mess as they left Auckland's Takapuna Beach on New Zealand's North Island.

One of the family members, Tina Marie Cash, 26, appeared in court on Tuesday.

She pleaded guilty to two counts of theft after being accused of stealing energy drinks, a rope and sunglasses from an Auckland service station on two separate occasions.

Cash was convicted and ordered to pay $55 in reparation, news.com.au reported.

Members of the family have also been accused of littering and scamming their way out of meals by allegedly saying there's ants or hair in their food, Newshub reported.
An elderly man accused of sexually assaulting teenage boys will face court.

A 71-year-old man from South Burnett, near Brisbane, has been charged with 20 offences, including indecent treatment of a child under 16.

Police will allege the offences were committed against several teenage boys between March and November last year.

A 71-year-old man from South Burnett, near Brisbane, has been charged with 20 offences, including indecent treatment of a child under 16 (file image)

Police allege the man worked in a community organisation and had regular contact with juveniles and children in several towns in the South Burnett region between 2000 and 2017.

The man is due to re-appear in the Kingaroy Magistrates Court on January 21.

Police are now appealing for members of the public who may have information that can assist with investigations to contact police.

If you have information for police, contact Policelink on 131 444 or provide information using the online form 24hrs per day.
A terrified woman has discovered a deadly red bellied black snake in her bedroom.

The resident woke up on a Thursday morning and found that her dog was staring intently at her bed.

She immediately contacted Wild Snake Catchers upon finding the snake curled up by her bedside table.

A red bellied black snake was also caught at the back of the same property just two weeks ago in Holsworthy, a suburb located in Sydney's south west.

Scroll down for video

A terrified woman has discovered a deadly red bellied black snake in her Holsworthy bedroom (pictured)

Snake-catcher Kane Durrant (pictured) from emergency rescue service Wild Snake Catchers said the capture was 'very quick and painless'

Snake-catcher Kane Durrant from emergency rescue service Wild Snake Catchers said the capture was 'very quick and painless'.

Upon entering the bedroom, Mr Durrant turned on the lights and was told that the 1.2 metre snake had slithered to the right side of the room.

The video, posted on the Wild Snake Catchers Facebook page, showed that the snake slithered underneath the bed just as Mr Durrant approached.

He went to the other side of the bed with his snake handling equipment ready.

He eventually took hold of the snake by the tail and deftly placed it inside the bag.

'Sometimes it can take much longer but luckily today the snake was out and about and the resident had closed the door and kept an eye on the exit,' he told the Daily Telegraph.

Mr Durrant said it was common to find snakes inside homes because of the soaring temperatures outside.

'I guess the bedroom is quite scary as you sleep in there and should feel safe. Hot weather like this week can push snakes indoors searching for a cool spot to rest,' he said.

Mr Durrant eventually took hold of the snake by the tail and deftly placed it inside the bag (pictured)

The red bellied black snake is often one to two metres in length and is a familiar sight in eastern Australia (stock image)

The public is advised not to approach snakes should they find it in their homes and to call snake catching services instead.

The red bellied black snake is often one to two metres in length and is a familiar sight in eastern Australia.

The red bellied black snake primarily resides in moist habitats, such as streams, swamps, lagoons and forests.

The snake also frequently inhabits deserted properties and rural lands.
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Nearly 1,000 migrants have successfully entered southern Mexico after abandoning their Central American homes in search of a better life abroad.

Mexico's National Migration Institute said 969 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua crossed into Ciudad Hidalgo just days after new US-bound caravans of people set off from Central America.

Children were photographed in tears as they crossed into Mexico after walking for days on end with parents trying to escape poverty and crime-riddled lives back home.

A little girl cries while walking across the Suchiate river bridge with her mother after receiving their processing bands as Central American migrants cross the border between Guatemala and Mexico, near Ciudad Hidalgo

Honduran children receive a processing bracelet from a Mexican migration worker as they enter Mexico from Guatemala

Central American migrants, mostly Hondurans, meet at the Tecun Uman San Marcos park near the Mexican border to discuss the future of the caravan

Honduran migrants gather in a park in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, after arriving to the border with Mexico

Central American migrants are welcomed by a Mexican immigration official after crossing a border bridge between Guatemala and Mexico

Migrants from Honduras, part of a new caravan from Central America trying to reach the United States, show bracelets in an immigration facility in Ciudad Hidalgo

A family enter a Mexican migration station after crossing a border bridge between Guatemala and Mexico to register at an immigration facility

Mexican officials put wrist bands on the migrants as they entered the country to monitor the flow of people. The bands must be kept until the migrants register with authorities.

Once registered, migrants who met the requirements to stay would be issued humanitarian visas, allowing them to work in Mexico or continue to the U.S. border, said Ana Laura Martinez de Lara, director general of migratory control and verification.

Those who entered Mexico at the official border crossing had done so in a 'very orderly' and respectful manner, in contrast to clashes that took place at the frontier in October when a larger caravan began crossing from Guatemala, she said.

Some of the migrants expected to stay in Mexico to find work but it was too early to say how many, she said.

Central American migrants heading to the United States with a second caravan eat a meal as they wait to be checked by Mexican migration officials as they arrive at Ciudad Hidalgo

A Honduran family talk to relatives through Skype while they remain waiting to cross into Mexico at the park of Tecun Uman, Guatemala

A Honduran girls receives a processing bracelet from a Mexican migration worker as she enters Mexico from Guatemala

Honduran migrants wait at the border bridge in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, to receive their processing bands by Mexican officials

A father and his son walk across the Suchiate river bridge as Central American migrants cross the border between Guatemala and Mexico near Ciudad Hidalgo

Central American migrants heading to the United States with a second caravan wait to be checked by Mexican migration officials as they arrive at Ciudad Hidalgo

Martinez de Lara said approximately 700 people were still waiting to cross into Mexico from Tecun Uman on the Guatemalan side of the border. She could not say if any people had tried to cross into Mexico illegally.

Mexico's government said Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard planned to meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo soon for talks on their efforts to address the migration challenge. No date was yet set for the talks, a ministry spokeswoman said.

Caravans from Central America have inflamed the debate over US immigration policy, with President Donald Trump using the migrants to try to secure backing for his plan to build a border wall on the frontier with Mexico.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is pursuing a 'humanitarian' approach to the problem, vowing to stem the flow of people by finding jobs for the migrants. In exchange, he wants Trump to help spur economic development in the region.

The US government has been partially shut down for four weeks as Democrats resist Trump's demand that Congress provide $5.7 billion to fund his planned wall.
A couple have lost their entire life savings of $17,000, which they were planning to put towards buying first home, through a text message scam.

Mi Young Lee and her husband Eunsub Jeong from Western Australia fell victim to hackers who pretended to be from the Commonwealth Bank.

Ms Lee received a text message at 6.30am on January 7, purporting to be from the bank.

Mi Young Lee (top left) and her husband Eunsub Jeong (centre) saved $17,000 to buy their first family home but lost their entire life savings through a text message scam

'*IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM COMMBANK,' the text read.

'Miyoung Lee, your NetBank access has been revoked. Proceed to CommBank Mobile below & follow the prompts or call us on 13 2221 (REF: OX315) to restore your access.'

Included in the text was a fraudulent link to a fake Commonwealth Bank Netbank website.

The mother-of-four gave her personal details, including her Netbank client number and password.

'I entered all my information without any doubt. I had no idea what was wrong,' she told 9News.

Shortly after, Ms Lee received a text message from her mobile phone provider, Vodafone.

'Your Vodafone postpay account payment of 23.0 was successful,' the text read.

Following this, another text was sent - this time from Telstra - reading: 'Thank you for choosing Telstra Pre-Paid. Your transfer is in progress and should be complete within 24 business hrs.'

Suspecting something was wrong, and having never applied for a transfer, Ms Lee rushed to a Vodafone store.

By 1pm, her phone stopped working and Ms Lee was told someone had changed her SIM card to another number.

After getting her mobile back up and running with a replacement SIM, she received an email notification about a bill payment.

'Someone used my money to pay for his or her travels, about $5,000, and used cardless cash to withdraw $500,' she explained.

A total of $17,000 was taken from her bank account.

Commonwealth Bank contacted Ms Lee to refund the $17,000 that had been stolen (stock image)

Ms Lee said she now lives each day in a state of anxiety.

On Thursday, Commonwealth Bank contacted Ms Lee to refund the $17,000 that had been stolen.

'We offer our customers the benefit from our 100 per cent security guarantee against online fraud where they are not at fault,' a spokeswoman told nine.com.au.

A Vodafone spokeswoman said this was a typical case of SIM swap fraud where fraudsters obtain the personal details of customers in an attempt to perform unauthorised number ports or SIM swaps to gain access to the customer's bank account.

The Number Portability Code means that a mobile carrier is required to release a number to another carrier if the personal details match and allows customers to quickly and easily change to a new carrier.
President Donald Trump lashed out Friday at a bombshell report that he directed his attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his ultimately scrapped negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, two federal law enforcement officials close to the investigation have claimed.

Buzzfeed reported Thursday night that the president and his oldest children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. received regular updates about the development, even as Trump repeatedly claimed he had no business in Russia.

The report claims Trump also wanted to visit Russia during his presidential campaign to personally meet with Vladimir Putin and launch talks about building the tower, which he hoped could make him $300 million in profits.

'Make it happen,' the unnamed sources claim Trump told Cohen about the meeting.

Trump lashed out at Cohen Friday morning with a Tweet which attacked the former attorney but did not directly address the allegation of what would amount to the president suborning perjury.

'Lying to reduce his jail time! Watch father-in-law!' Trump tweeted after quoting Fox News' White House correspondent Kevin Corke at length.

Trump has repeatedly raised Cohen's father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, suggesting that Cohen is in some way covering for the millionaire Russian-American immigrant but has made no specific allegation.

Shusterman has been involved in the financing of taxi medallions in New York and Chicago.

President Donald Trump directed his attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, two federal law enforcement officials claim

The sources claim that Cohen told Mueller that, after Trump won the election, he personally instructed Cohen to lie to Congress about when the negotiations for Trump Tower had ended

Buzzfeed's sources also claim Trump had at least 10 face-to-face meetings with Cohen about 'Trump Tower Moscow' during his presidential campaign.

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani warned reporters Thursday night to be skeptical of the report from Buzzfeed, which famously published the anti-Trump 'dirty dossier' full of salacious and unproven allegations.

'If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge,' Giuliani said.

Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in November, admitting he didn't tell the truth about the Moscow real estate deal's timeline. He testified that the project he pursued on Trump's behalf was abandoned by the time of the Iowa Caucuses in January 2016; that would be consistent with Trump's 'political messaging.'

Special Counsel Robert Mueller later filed documents revealing Cohen said he discussed the proposal with Trump on multiple occasions and with members of the president's family, later in the year  even after Trump became the Republican nominee for president.

Mueller's team, who is investigating allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election and so-far unproven claims of Kremlin coordination with the Trump campaign, also noted that Cohen's lies to Congress about when the development ended was meant to 'minimize links between the Moscow Project and Individual 1 in hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia investigations.'

'Individual 1' is Mueller's name for Trump in the investigation.

The report claims that Trump also wanted to visit Russia during his presidential campaign to personally meet with Vladimir Putin and begin negotiations on the tower, which he hoped could make him $300 million in profits - and told Cohen 'Make it happen'

President's lawyer Rudy Giuliani fired back against Cohen, calling him a liar; Cohen has already pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, but claims Trump ordered him to do it

Cohen, who sources said was put in charge of the project, also acknowledged he considered traveling to Moscow to discuss the project.

The two sources claim Cohen told Mueller that Trump personally instructed Cohen to lie to Congress, after he won the election, about when the negotiations for Trump Tower had ended.

According to Buzzfeed, Mueller first discovered that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress via evidence from internal company emails, text messages, and witnesses from the Trump Organization. Buzzfeeed also reported that Cohen later confirmed it during his own interviews with the special counsel.

Cohen had previously told two congressional committees that the talks about the tower project ended in January 2016, a lie he said was an act of loyalty to Trump.

In fact, the negotiations continued until June 2016, Cohen acknowledged.

Cohen had also testified that he only gave Trump three short briefings on the project, only to tell Mueller that this was a lie as well.

Trump's former personal attorney said he far more discussions about Trump Tower Moscow with the president, and also had extensive discussions about it with Trump's children - giving them 'very detailed updates'.

Ivanka has claimed she was only 'minimally involved' in the project; Cohen has alleged that Trump's elder daughter was actually slated to manage a spa at the tower and had personally recommended an architect.

The bombshell report by Buzzfeed alleges that the president and his oldest children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr received regular updates about the development, even as Trump repeatedly claimed he had no business in Russia

Ivanka has claimed that she was only 'minimally involved' in the project, although Cohen alleges that Trump's eldest daughter was actually going to manage a spa at the tower and had personally recommended an architect. Pictured is a rendering of the proposed tower

And Donald Trump Jr. testified before Congress that he had only been 'peripherally aware' of the development, and that most of his knowledge about the project was gained during the hearing.

After Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, Trump defended the project.

'There would be nothing wrong if I did do it,' he said. 'I was running my business while I was campaigning.'

'There was a good chance that I wouldn't have won, in which case I would have gone back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?'

But while Trump was campaigning for president, he repeatedly claimed he had nothing to do with Russia whatsoever.

'I know nothing about Russia. I know  I know about Russia, but I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia,' he said during a debate against Hillary Clinton in October 2016.

'I don't deal there. I have no businesses there. I have no loans from Russia,' he declared then.

Not long after the Buzzfeed report was published, a parade of Democratic congressmen called for an investigation  with some even demanding Trump's impeachment.

Mueller later filed documents revealing Cohen said he discussed the proposal with Trump on multiple occasions and with members of the president's family

'If the President directed Cohen to lie to Congress, that is obstruction of justice. Period. Full stop,' tweeted Rhode Island Democratic Rep David Cicilline.

'This stunning Trump Tower Moscow story establishes a clear case of Obstruction of Justice, a felony,' wrote California Rep Ted Lieu. 'I've lost count now how many times @realDonaldTrump has engaged in Obstruction of Justice.'

'Oh, fyi the first Article of Impeachment for Richard Nixon was Obstruction of Justice,' he added.

'If the @Buzzfeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached,' declared Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said they will 'do what's necessary to find out if it's true'.

'The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date,' he tweeted.

Not long after the Buzzfeed report was published, a slew of Democratic congressmen called for an investigation - or even Trump's impeachment

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz also called for Congress to investigate the report.

'I mean everything feels like a bombshell and we are all numb but I'm pretty sure if this story is true it's - I'm going to be careful with my words here - something that Congress must investigate thoroughly'.

Meanwhile, Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy called on Mueller to 'show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act.'

'Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP,' Murphy tweeted.

Hours before Buzzfeed released its report, Cohen told The Wall Street Journal that he paid a technology company to rig Trump's standing in two online polls before he launched his presidential campaign.

'As for the @WSJ article on poll rigging, what I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of @realDonaldTrump @POTUS,' Cohen tweeted.

'I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn't deserve it.'

Cohen confirmed details in a Journal story that reported how he stiffed the owner of the technology company out of tens of thousands of dollars he promised for work that included using a computer script to enter fake votes for Trump in a 2014 CNBC poll asking people to identify top business leaders and a 2015 poll of potential presidential candidates.

The company owner, John Gauger, told the newspaper that Cohen promised him $50,000 for the work but instead gave him a blue Walmart bag stuffed with between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash, plus a boxing glove Cohen claimed had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter.

Cohen disputed that he paid cash, telling the Journal that 'All monies paid to Mr. Gauger were by check.' He offered no further comment.

Federal prosecutors referred to a payment to Gauger's company  though not by name  when they charged Cohen last summer with violating campaign finance laws by arranging hush-money payments to two women who claim they had extramarital affairs with Trump.

A charging document stated that Cohen had been reimbursed by the Trump Organization for payments to the women, plus $50,000 for 'tech services' that he requested in a handwritten note.
Twitter co-founder and chief officer Jack Dorsey said he would 'certainly talk about' barring Donald Trump from the social networking site if the president provoked a violent threat.

HuffPost sat down with the 42-year-old Internet entrepreneur for a lengthy Q&A last week when Dorsey was asked how he would respond if Trump called on his followers to murder journalists.

Dorsey uttered in response: 'That would be a violent threat. Wed definitely... you know... were in constant communication with all governments around the world. So wed certainly talk about it.'

Twitter users meanwhile have bombarded Dorsey with messages and tweets encouraging him to strip Trump's profile.

Twitter chief Jack Dorsey said he would 'certainly talk about' barring Donald Trump from the social networking site if the president provoked a violent threat. Dorsey is pictured in Las Vegas on Jan. 9

The Internet entrepreneur was asked how he would respond if Trump (pictured in Arlington, Virginia on Jan. 17) called on his followers to murder journalists. Dorsey said: 'Wed certainly talk about it'

'Donald Trump used his account to attack people's careers, incite violence, spread propaganda, push racism, and threaten war,' one wrote. 'His account should have been deleted a long time ago, @Twitter @jack. Please RT if you agree.'

'Trump got special privileges on Twitter because he's the president and it was obvious from the start,' another said.

'So if @realdonaldtrump specifically tweeted that each follower should kill one journalist, you'd "talk about" removing him? How does that possibly align with this commitment you've outlined?' another inquired.

Last month, Dorsey faced a social media firestorm over his 'disappointingly clueless' promotion of Myanmar - a country that has been accused of mass genocide of Rohingya Muslims.

In a series of tweets, Twitter's CEO encouraged his followers to visit the 'beautiful country'.

'The people are full of joy and the food is amazing. I visited the cities of Yangon, Mandalay, and Bagan. We visited and meditated at many monasteries around the country,' Dorsey wrote in a tweet that included a photo of himself in Myanmar.

Twitter users have bombarded Dorsey with messages and tweets encouraging him to strip Trump's profile

Dorsey was seen dressed in all black while visiting the country and participating in a '10-day silent vipassana meditation'.

He said he was visiting Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar, for his birthday on November 19.

'I woke up at 4 am every day, and we meditated until 9 pm. There were breaks for breakfast, lunch, and walking. No dinner,' he tweeted.

Dorsey also shared a video of his favorite moment from the trip.

'The highlight of my trip was serving monks and nuns food, and donating sandals and umbrellas. This group of young nuns in Mandalay and their chanting was breathtaking and chilling.'

In the video, Dorsey was seen sitting in a circle with the nuns as they chant.

Last month, Dorsey faced a social media firestorm over his 'disappointingly clueless' promotion of Myanmar - a country that has been accused of mass genocide of Rohingya Muslims. He told HuffPost he would 'love to go back' and re-examine his trip

'Vipassana is not for everyone, but if any of this resonates with you even in the slightest, I'd encourage you to give it a try. If in the US, this center in Texas is a great start: https://siri.dhamma.org/,' he tweeted.

'And if you're willing to travel a bit, go to Myanmar.'

It didn't take long for Twitter users to call Dorsey out for his promotion of a country that has been accused of decades-long persecution of Rohingya Muslims.

'Jack, you are so disappointingly clueless. With everything going on in Myanmar right now, this is so out of touch. Next up: sightseeing in Yemen I guess [sic],' one Twitter user wrote.

Another said: 'A country ravaged by civil war, where a genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing recently saw tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children die, and a million more driven out into Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations on earth? I dunno.'

One user posed the question: 'Who will go for a tour where daily people are killed in genocide?? You are misleading people.'

When asked if he was surprised by how people reacted to the posts, Dorsey told HuffPost he was not - and that his intention was to simply share his delightful experience.

Dorsey added: 'I would love to go back and really understand that dynamic.

'I went for one particular reason which was meditation. And thats what I was sharing, that one thing right. It wasnt to represent Twitter.'
The 20-year-old man arrested over the horrific murder of an Israeli student in Melbourne has been pictured as witnesses describe the moment police swooped.

Aiia Maasarwe, 21, was killed after getting off a tram on her way home from a gig on Tuesday night.

She was on the phone to her sister who overheard the 'horrific, horrendous' assault and called police. Her partially naked body was found in parkland near a shopping centre on Wednesday morning.

On Friday a man was arrested in a park in the Melbourne suburb of Greensborough while hanging out in a shelter with a woman and a group of young guys.

Neighbours said they saw plain clothes and uniformed police arrest the man about 11.20am after approaching him while he was in a rotunda at Pioneer Park.

A 20-year-old man (above) has been arrested over the horrific murder of Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe

The man was allegedly in a park with a woman when he was arrested, with one witness claiming she had a 'gut instinct' to call police

Tragic: Aiia Maasarwe (pictured) was murdered and her body was found outside a Melbourne shopping centre on Wednesday

This is the shelter at Pioneer Reserve where the young man was arrested on Friday

The shelter is a known hang out for local youths who smoke drugs

Witnesses said the man, 20, was with a woman when he was apprehended by uniformed and plain clothed police at the location above

The shelter is a known hang out for youths who use the area, positioned near a children's park, to smoke drugs.

Tracey Neus said she saw the woman and had a gut instinct to call police.

But when she looked again, police had already converged on the location.

Shane Cairns said he was shaken to learn an alleged killer had been hanging around just outside his home.

'I'm just shocked. We thought they would have just been some kids,' he said.

Up to eight police were involved in the arrest, with the alleged killer going quietly, the couple said.

He was identified as a person of interest after police forensically tested a hat and blood-stained T-shirt left at the crime scene, it is understood.

'The 20-year-old was arrested in Greensborough by local police working in partnership with homicide detectives about 11.20am,' police said in a statement.

Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said it was believed to be a 'random attack'.

On Friday afternoon, Miss Maasarwe's father arrived at the scene of her murder

Scene of the crime: Aiia Maasarwe's partially naked body was found in scrub (pictured) near where she got off a tram the night before

It is understood the man, 20, was identified as a person of interest after police forensically tested a hat and blood-stained T-shirt (above) left at the crime scene

Mourners gather for a vigil in the memory of slain international student Aiia Maasarwe at Latrobe University, Melbourne

Tears for Aiia: Hundreds mourned the murder of an Israeli student on Friday, hours after a 20-year-old man was arrested

Miss Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city before she was attacked. Pictured: Mourners at her university

Prayers: A group of students and teachers held hands at a vigil for slain Aiia Maasarwe at her university in Melbourne

On Friday, mourners at LaTrobe University where she was studying gathered to pay tribute. Pictured: A student cries into a tissue

'This was a horrendous, horrific attack inflicted on a completely innocent young woman who was a visitor to our city,' he said.

On Friday afternoon, Miss Maasarwe's father arrived at the scene of her murder.

He was pictured crying as he admired tributes left on the ground.

The case bears similarities to the rape and murder of 22-year-old comedian Eurydice Dixon who was attacked in June while walking home from a gig in Melbourne.

Australia's human rights commission said the country has a 'a disturbingly high rate of violence against women'.

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at LaTrobe University.

The 21-year-old was so scared of the walk from the tram stop to her student accommodation she would call one of her sisters while walking to feel safer, a family member told The Australian.

She was heading home from a comedy gig and was on a FaceTime call with her sister when she was attacked and the phone suddenly dropped, her uncle Rame Masarwe said.

Miss Maasarwe's sister was still on the phone and heard the entire attack unfold, her uncle said.

'She seemed very happy. Then the phone fell down, she heard voices. The phone was on.'

Miss Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city.

Miss Maasarwe likely got off the tram in Bundoora near where her body was found, about a kilometre from her student accommodation.

Aiia Maasarwe, 21, had spent the night at a comedy club before boarding the 86 tram from Bourke Street, heading to her home in Bundoora. She left the tram around midnight. Her body was discovered in scrub, nearby, the next day

Aiia Maasarwe's (left, with a friend) partially naked body was found by window washers in scrub outside the Polaris shopping centre on Main Drive near Plenty Road in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora at 7am on Wednesday

Homicide detectives have released CCTV images of Miss Maasarwe, which shows the clothing she was wearing that night, in the hope someone saw her and can help police track her exact movements.

Miss Maasarwe was carrying a bag when she was attacked and some items had been removed and were found nearby, police said.

Aya's final moments: Tuesday Aiia was at the The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne 11pm: Her friends dropped her to the tram stop Aiia caught the 86 tram from a Bourke Street stop, heading home Midnight: Aiia got off the tram in Bundoora, about a kilometre from her home Wednesday 7am: Her body is found in scrub near the tram stop and Polaris shopping centre Friday Man, 20, is arrested Advertisement

Shoes and a mobile phone were found near Miss Maasarwe's body, as well as an abandoned vehicle with its hazard lights on.

Before the arrest, former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina on Friday morning urged witnesses to come forward to stop the attacker killing again.

'It's imperative that those who have knowledge of some sort assist police,' he told radio station 3AW.

'This person will be known to somebody. The potential is there for him to kill again.'

Mr Bezzina said if someone had information but did not come forward, 'they've got to live with their conscience.'

'If this person or persons strike again, they have to live with that and say could I have stopped that?' he said.

On Friday Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked about the attack while in Fiji. He told reporters: 'It is just so shocking.'

The Prime Minister said his heart went out to Ms Maasarwe's family, though he can't begin to think of what he would say to them.

'I know what I'm thinking about her attacker. I expect it's the same thing that all other Australians are thinking today,' he said.

People leave floral tributes where the body of Isreali student Aiia Maasarwe was found near the Polaris Shopping centre in Bundoora

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University, but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at La Trobe University. Pictured: Tributes

Today Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Fiji 'it is just so shocking. I mean, I'm speechless.' Pictured: Tributes where her body was found

The Prime Minister stressed everyone in Australia should be able to travel home safely and that the government must remain 'forever vigilant' to the issue of violence against women.

Last night Senator Derryn Hinch sparked outrage after he tweeted details about the horrific murder.

The tweet made graphic and serious allegations about Ms Maasarwe's killer while comparing the case to that of Jill Meagher, a journalist who was raped and murdered in an inner Melbourne suburb in 2012.

Derryn Hinch stands by his views, despite was slammed on social media on Thursday night

'Jesus wept. Shades of Jill Meagher,' Senator Hinch tweeted.

'I'm hearing the rapist-murderer of that stalked innocent Israeli student is a known sex offender who tried to burn... evidence.

'What has this town become?' he ended the tweet.

Final moments: Miss Maasarwe getting off the tram before she was killed

People were quick to slam the federal Senator as insensitive, disrespectful, appalling and inappropriate.

'Your willingness to exploit any situation is breathtakingly disgraceful. Shame on you Hinch,' one tweeted.

Another added: 'Think of her family Derryn! You may 'want people to know' but they might not want us to know the details of what happened to their girl. It's beyond horrible but your blatant disregard of their feelings makes it even worse. Shame!'

Another accused Senator Hinch of using the tragedy to try and make a political point.

'Sure we can all just rise above politics when a horrific and tragic event like another murder of a young woman occurs?,' they tweeted.

Many called on Senator Hinch to delete the tweet.

'Aiia Maasarwe's family deserves better than this. If you have any respect for Aiia please delete this tweet and apologise to those who loved her,' one woman commented.

Senator Hinch tweeted that Aiia Maasarwe's death had 'shades of Jill Meagher' (pictured)

The controversial senator responded to the online criticism with this response (pictured)

Senator Hinch has previously been in hot water with the legal system on numerous occasions for contempt of court.

He spent 50 days in prison in 2014 for breaching a suppression order by revealing details of the criminal history of Ms Meagher's killer Adrian Ernest Bayley.

Many people called on Senator Hinch to delete the tweet and show respect to Aiia Maasarwe's (pictured) grieving family

He was given the option of a fine instead, which he chose not to pay 'on principle'.

Senator Hinch responded to Thursday night's backlash and made no apologies for the earlier tweet, which remained online.

'To all the do-gooder Tweeters attacking me for telling the gruesome truth about the Bundoora rape/ murder. This brute is still out there. My tweet was for the memory of Jill Meagher and Eurydice Dixon,' Mr Hinch later tweeted.

His later tweet sparked a war of words with departing federal senator David Leyonhjelm.

'Except you voted against giving women like these the means to protect themselves. Do you have any principles at all,' Senator Leyonhjelm posted.
A disability advocate with Down syndrome has been left in tears after he was sent vile emails calling him a 'clown' because of his support for a new hospital.

Tim Morrissey is the latest victim in a battle over the site of the Tweed Valley Hospital in Cudgen, in the Tweed-Byron region of NSW.

The debate, between those who support the NSW Government's project to build a new $582 million hospital on the Cudgen plateau and those who prefer a different location, has become increasingly bitter.

Claims that Mr Morrissey, who supports the new project, had received the abusive messages was revealed earlier this week by the Support Our Tweed Hospital Facebook group.

Disability advocate, Tim Morrissey (pictured) was subjected to vicious emails because of his support for a new hospital to be built in Cudgen, in the Tweed Valley, NSW

The new $582 million hospital, to be built at this site (pictured) near Cudgen, has bitterly divided the local community

The group, which supports the site in Cudgen, and its rival, the Relocate Tweed Hospital group, have both condemned the abuse directed at Mr Morrissey.

Mr Morrissey, who would not reveal the source of the abuse he received, has called for unity on the matter.

'We need to start respecting each other more, this has gone too far,' Mr Morrissey said in the Gold Coast Bulletin.

'I don't want to say who sent anything I just want it to be over, we need to be working together as a community.'

Members of the Relocate Tweed Valley Hospital (pictured at a protest against the new hospital site) and those from pro-hospital group, Support Our Tweed Hospital, have both condemned the attacks on Mr Morrissey

Penny Hockings, who runs the Support Our Tweed Valley Hospital Facebook group, said the battle over the hospital as done permanent damage to the town, and said that Mr Morrissey is not the first to have received abusive messages.

'It has been nasty and has gotten out of control to be honest, it is all behind closed doors,' she said.

Hockings has personally received threats, while police were contacted in August last year to investigate complaints of cyber hacking against the family of Hayley Paddon, the head of the Relocate group.

Paddon also thinks the hospital debate has caused permanent rifts.

'Someone who I thought was a close friend and some distant relatives, I'll probably never speak to again, and I think everyone has someone like that,' she told the Tweed Daily News.

'Whether it's a family member or they've lost friendships they never thought they'd lose, the impact has been unbelievable.'
(ANSA) - Berlin, January 18 - Visiting President sergio Mattarella on Friday reassured German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Italy's welfare reforms featuring a basic income and a quota 100 pension overhaul.

Mattarella reassured Merkel that the reforms made financial sense, with the sums contained in the 2019 budget.

The budget is being monitored by the European Commission, Mattarella added.

The president noted that he will shortly get the decree introducing the two flagship measures, and will sign it.


A family of rowdy British tourists who have been accused of causing carnage across New Zealand cannot be deported for at least two weeks.

The group have denied leaving beer bottles and piles of rubbish on a busy beach, before a child threatened to 'knock the brains out' of locals who confronted them.

They were handed a Deportation Liability Notice (DLN) on Tuesday, which could lead to them being banned from returning to New Zealand for at least five years, Newshub reported.

Despite the deportation notice, the group moved and are now located in Wellington, and might not have to leave New Zealand yet.

A group of Irish tourists have been filmed leaving beer bottles and piles of rubbish on a busy beach

Witness Krista Curnow said the group of about 12 tourists, who spoke with an Irish accent, turned violent when she asked them to clean their mess as they left the beach

'Section 157(5) of the Immigration Act 2009 provides for temporary visa holders to be issued with a DLN on a number of grounds, including matters relating to character,' an Immigration NZ (INZ) spokesperson told the publication.

'Deportation Liability Notice is the first stage in the deportation process and activates the individual's appeal rights.

'During this appeal period, the individual cannot be deported from the country, unless they agree to waive their appeal rights. Once an individual's appeal rights expire, INZ may serve the individual with a Deportation Order.'

They now have two weeks to prove to INZ they are worthy of remaining in the country for the rest of their trip, and why they shouldn't be deported.

They are also allowed to appeal the decision of deportation within four weeks of the notice in an independent tribunal.

The Irish family reportedly later ordered food at a nearby Nandos store, before demanding a refund

Pictured: Rubbish left behind by a group of tourists at a popular beach in Auckland

The incident unfolded at Auckland's Takapuna Beach on New Zealand's North Island on Sunday

One of the group members, Tina Marie Cash, 26, faced court on Tuesday and pleaded guilty to two counts of theft where she was accused of stealing energy drinks, a rope and sunglasses from an Auckland service station on two separate occasions.

Cash was convicted and ordered to pay $55 in reparation, news.com.au reported.

Some of the others were accused of littering and scamming their way out of meals by allegedly saying there's ants or hair in their food, the publication reported.

The incident which brought attention to the touritsts unfolded at Auckland's Takapuna Beach on New Zealand's North Island on Sunday, was captured on camera by Krista Curnow.

She claimed the group of about 12 tourists turned violent when she asked them to clean their mess as they left the beach.

'Their response was basically if we have a problem then we can pick it up and that that's what the council is for,' Ms Curnow said.

'I approached the family to ask again if they could not disrespect our country while visiting and pick up their rubbish.

'They turned violent and even grandma and the child got involved saying they wanted to punch my head in.'

'Their response was basically if we have a problem then we can pick it up and that that's what the council is for,' Ms Curnow said

Footage showed a young boy, wearing a wide-brimmed Bunnings Warehouse hat, approach Ms Curnow, telling her: 'I'll knock your brains out'

Footage showed a young boy, wearing a wide-brimmed Bunnings Warehouse hat, approach Ms Curnow, telling her: 'I'll knock your brains out'.

'The mouth on that young boy - absolutely disgusting! What kind of role models are the parents allowing this sort of behaviour,' Ms Curnow said.

'We live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, how dare people come to NZ and disrespect our country, this is our home.'

The Irish family later ordered food at a nearby Nandos store, before demanding a refund, The New Zealand Herald reported.

Another local claimed they confronted the family at a Bunnings Warehouse after seeing the video online.

'We just came across him in Bunnings Hillsborough... he was wearing the same clothes,' the woman wrote on Facebook.

'He's absolutely sh***ing himself after getting a bit of a talking to from my partner about respecting our country.'

One of the members of the group was seen ushering the child away as he threatened Ms Curnow

Ms Curnow said she and her friends cleaned up the tourists' mess with the help of other beachgoers

Footage of the incident has since gone viral and has garnered thousands of comments.

'My big fat gypsy holiday! Imagine having to sit next to them on a 12-hour flight. Horrendous! Glad you said something,' one wrote.

'What did I just watch? That little boy thought he was so tough,' another noted.

A third said: 'Being Irish, this embarrasses me so much. It's people like this that made me leave Ireland. Absolute disgrace.'

Ms Curnow said she and her friends cleaned up the tourists' mess, with the help of other beachgoers.

'I loved how everyone else on the beach came to support and we all picked up the rubbish together! Love NZ,' she said.
Google was forced to backtrack on its use of the word 'family' after staff at its California headquarters kicked off because the term was used in the context of having children, it has been revealed.

The tech giant experienced a backlash from its own employees in March 2017 after a presentation about a product aimed at young people seemed to replace the term with the word 'family', leaving out various groups.

Far-right publication, the Daily Caller News claimed on Wednesday to have viewed internal communications from an insider in Mountain View where one employee stormed out of a meeting and called the company's poor choice of wording 'offensive, inappropriate, homophobic, and wrong'.

Google reportedly had to rethink the word 'family' in March 2017 when staff complained

According to the website, approximately 100 people in Silicon Valley showed they agreed with the person's views by up-voting a statement they posted to the company's board.

'This is a diminishing and disrespectful way to speak. If you mean 'children', say 'children'; we have a perfectly good word for it. 'Family friendly' used as a synonym for 'kid friendly' means, to me, 'you and yours don't count as a family unless you have children',' the employee is said to have written. 'And while kids may often be less aware of it, there are kids without families too, you know'.

The member of staff explained further that while their intention was not to completely obliterate the word at the Google HQ, it should not be used when specifically referring to parents.

Google's employee added that it conjures up reminders of organizations that use the word 'family' to suggest anyone who isn't heterosexual may not be included.

'The use of 'family' as a synonym for 'with children' has a long-standing association with deeply homophobic organizations,' the person continued. 'This does not mean we should not use the word 'family' to refer to families, but it mean we must doggedly insist that family does not imply children.

'Even the sense, 'suitable for the whole family', which you might think is unobjectionable, is totally wrong too. It only works if we have advance shared conception of what 'the whole family' is, and that is almost always used to mean a household with two adults, of opposite sex, in a romantic/sexual relationship, with two or more of their own children.'

Employees at California HQ said the term was 'offensive, inappropriate, homophobic, and wrong' when used in a presentation about a children's product. VP Pavni Diwanji (pictured) told staff to be more conscientious about referring to family

Pre-empting an explanation that the presentation was simply identifying everyone, the writer pointed out that a product for children was unlikely to cater to adults, for example.

They added that such uses should come to a halt.

'If you mean that as a synonym for 'suitable for all people' stop and notice the extraordinary unlikelihood of such a thought! So 'suitable for the whole family' doesn't mean 'all people', it means 'all people in families', which either means that all those other people aren't in families, or something even worse,' the rant continued. 'Use the word 'family' to mean a loving assemblage of people who may or may not live together and may or may not include people of any particular age. STOP using it to mean 'children'.'

Others at Google seemed to agree according to TDC report.

An unmarried person who did not have children at the time admitted it 'bothers me too', and one woman with a boyfriend and no offspring stated: 'It smacks of the 'family values' agenda by the right wing which is absolutely homophobic by its very definition.'

Diwanji said: 'As a team we have very inclusive culture, and want to do right'

Someone who wasn't in a heterosexual partnership explained their definition of the word which pointed out it shouldn't be linked to one household either.

The person commented: 'My family consists of me and several other trans feminine folks, some of whom I'm dating. We're all supportive of each other and eventually aspire to live together.'

A married employee who noted she identified as female, the same sex she was assigned at birth, mentioned she uses the word to refer to 'my husband, my parents, and my pets'.

The uproar caused Google vice president Pavni Diwanji to chime in on the thread with a vow to change the way they operate.

'I realize what we said at tgif might have caused concerns in the way we talked about families. There are families without kids too, and also we needed to be more conscientious about the fact that there is a diverse makeup of parents and families,' Dwiwanji wrote.

'Please help us get to a better state. Teach us how to talk about it in inclusive way, if you feel like we are not doing it well. As a team we have very inclusive culture, and want to do right in this area.'
A Florida commissioner is under fire after she called Muslim congresswoman Rashida Tlaib a 'danger' who could 'become a martyr and blow up Capitol Hill'.

Now Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub is facing censure from the mayor and her own commission following her shocking remarks on social media.

But Lima-Taub has refused to back down, writing subsequent posts defending her criticism of Tlaib, who is one of the first two Muslim women to ever serve in Congress.

The City Commission of Hallandale Beach and Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Adams are formally censuring Lima-Taub for 'promoting bigotry, fueling hatred, and creating a hostile environment for the City's Muslim residents'.

Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub (left) is facing censure from the mayor and her own commission after she called Muslim congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (right) a 'danger' who could 'become a martyr and blow up Capitol Hill'

Lima-Taub first stirred up controversy after she proudly posted a petition she had signed to remove Tlaib from Congress after the Michigan congresswoman said 'we're gonna impeach the m**********r' in reference to Donald Trump

'Commissioner Lima-Taub's comments promote bigotry and fuel hatred,' reads the resolution.

'By vilifying a government official for her religious beliefs and accusing her of being a potential terrorist willing to murder other government officials without evidence, she has created a hostile environment for the city's Muslim residents.'

'Instead of apologizing for her remarks, Commissioner Lima-Taub has doubled down, even going so far as demanding an apology from Congresswoman Tlaib.'

The resolution then went on to say that Lima-Taub had promoted 'a racist stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists'.

'The Mayor and City Commission of the City of Hallandale Beach wish to denounce the Islamophobic comments of Commissioner Lima-Taub and demand an apology on behalf of Congresswoman Tlaib and the citizens of Hallandale Beach,' it concluded.

Lima-Taub first stirred up controversy after she proudly posted a petition she had signed to remove Tlaib from Congress after the Michigan congresswoman said 'we're gonna impeach the m**********r' in reference to Donald Trump.

Lima-Taub later removed the Facebook post, only to post another one in which she said she was 'offended by anyone who is NOT offended by Rashida Talib's hateful rhetoric'

In yet another Facebook post on her official page, Lima-Taub claimed that her 'position' on Tlaib had 'nothing to do with the religion of Islam'

'Proudly signed,' Lima-Taub wrote alongside the petition. 'A Hamas-loving anti-Semite has NO place in government! She is a danger and would not put it past her to become a martyr and blow up Capitol Hill.'

Lima-Taub later removed the Facebook post, only to post another one in which she said she was 'offended by anyone who is NOT offended by Rashida Talib's hateful rhetoric'.

The commissioner went on to claim that Talib had 'radical dangerous views' and 'anti-Semitic rhetoric' because of her support for BDS, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Lima-Taub also claimed that Talib had relabeled Israel as Palestine on a map hanging on the wall in her congressional office. The map shows a Post-It Note with the word 'Palestine' and an arrow pointing underneath where Israel is located.

'This country affords her the right to freedom of speech, and I remain unapologetic for my views that she is a danger to the peace process,' Lima-Taub continued.

In yet another Facebook post on her official page, Lima-Taub claimed that her 'position' on Tlaib had 'nothing to do with the religion of Islam'.

Tlaib (pictured at the ceremonial swearing-in with her family and Rep Nancy Pelosi) is one of the first two Muslim women to ever serve in Congress

Tlaib has since responded to Lima-Taub's comments on Twitter, connecting them to Trump and the Republicans in government

'Islam itself is a peaceful religion; however, it has been hijacked by radicals who use Islam as a shield to justify and commit terror across the globe,' she wrote.

'I am hypersensitive to hateful vitriol spewed from supporters of any hate group. Rashida Tlaib has been unapologetic and steadfast in her support and allegiance with the BDS movement.'

'This dangerous position has no place in the United States of America, and certainly not in Capitol Hill.'

Hallandale Beach Commissioner Michele Lazarow, who sponsored the resolution, said she wanted to do more than speak out against Lima-Taub's remarks.

'I believe we need to take action as a city,' Lazarow said in a statement. 'I believe we must take action to show all who are watching that Hallandale Beach isn't a place that tolerates hatred and bigotry.'

Tlaib has since responded to Lima-Taub's comments on Twitter, connecting them to Trump's presidency.

'This sort of hateful anti-Muslim rhetoric doesn't happen in a vacuum - this President embraced it and Republicans have happily gone along with it,' she tweeted.

Tlaib also told the Miami Herald that Lima-Taub's remarks are part of an effort to punish those who support BDS, which she said is being led by Florida Sen Marco Rubio.

Rubio also responded to the controversy, condemning Lima-Taub's remarks.

'I don't believe supporting BDS means you support bombing anything,' he said. 'I don't know who the commissioner was or why they said it.'
The woman tipped to become Germanys next chancellor has appealed for Britain to stay in the EU, calling it Britains home.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer became leader of Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union (CDU) last month.

Last night, she became the most senior German politician to plead for the UK to cancel Brexit in an unprecedented cross-party campaign.

Mrs Kramp-Karrenbauer, also known by her initials AKK, was joined by more than two dozen German politicians, artists and heads of industry in her plea.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, also known by her initials AKK, was joined by more than two dozen German politicians, artists and heads of industry in her plea (pictured at a CDU meeting earlier this month)

AKK (left) became leader of Angela Merkels (right) Christian Democratic Union (CDU) last month and is tipped to become the next German Chancellor

In a letter to The Times, the group begged Britain from the bottom of our hearts to remain in the EU. It marks a shift to a warmer, less obstinate tone from Berlin.

The letter states the two countries have a special relationship thanks to Britains vital role in rebuilding Germany after the Second World War.

The letter reads: Without your great nation, this continent would not be what it is today: a community defined by freedom and prosperity.

Should Britain wish to leave the European Union for good, it will always have friends in Germany and Europe.

But the group was at pains to tell Britain we believe no choice is irreversible and our door will always remain open as Europe is home.

It states: We would miss the legendary British black humour and going to the pub after work hours to drink an ale.

We would miss tea with milk and driving on the left-hand side of the road. And we would miss seeing the panto at Christmas.

But, more than anything else, we would miss the British people - our friends across the Channel.

Her letter states: 'We would miss tea with milk and driving on the left-hand side of the road. And we would miss seeing the panto at Christmas'

We would miss Britain as part of the European Union, especially in these troubled times. Therefore Britain should know: from the bottom of our hearts, we want them to stay.

The letter was co-signed by Andrea Nahles, leader of the Social Democrats, the coalition partners of Mrs Merkels CDU.

The news comes after Social Democrat Katarina Barley, Mrs Merkels justice minister, yesterday proposed a second referendum with the option to abandon Brexit.

Mrs Barley, whose father is British, said she respects the will of the British people. However, she said the first referendum was on the idea of Brexit while a second one would be on the draft exit deal with the EU.
President Trump will hold a second summit with Kim Jong-un in February at a location that has yet to be determined.

The White House made the announcement after the president met with Kim Yong Chol, the North Korean envoy to the U.S., behind closed doors for an hour-and-a-half on Friday.

Kim was in Washington to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He made an unannounced visit to the White House to hand-deliver a letter from the North Korean leader to the American president at the conclusion of their conversation.

The meeting with Trump resulted in a declaration that a second summit would take place next month.

'President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February,' White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. 'The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date.'

President Trump will hold a second summit with Kim Jong-un in February at a location that has yet to be determined

Kim's trip to Washington was a sign that the two countries considered themselves to be making enough progress on a nuclear deal, following Trump and Kim's first meeting in in June in Singapore, to have another face-to-face conversation.

North Korea recently warned the United States that it could restart nuclear and missile tests if the United States sticks with its 'one-sided demands.' The nation's 35-year-old dictator suggested that he could lean on Beijing harder.

He said in a New Year's day address that he would have 'no choice but to defend our countrys sovereignty and supreme interest, and find a new way to settle peace on our peninsula' without additional action from the United States.

That same week, Trump cryptically left a poster on the table at a Cabinet meeting that cautioned 'sanctions are coming' that was not addressed to any country in particular.

Several days later the president told reporters as he left for Camp David that he'd be discussing the North Korean nuclear threat with his team over the weekend.

'North Korea, we're doing very well. And again, no rockets. There's no rockets. There's no anything. We're doing very well,' he said. 'I've indirectly spoken to Chairman Kim. And when I came here, this country was headed to war with North Korea. And now we have a very good dialogue going.'

Trump said he didn't want to disclose any additional details about the conversations he's having with Kim through private correspondence.

'I'm just going to say it's very special. And anybody else but me, you'd be in war right now,' he said. 'And I can tell you, the previous administration would have been in war right now if that was extended.'

The sitting U.S. president credits his overtures to Kim with preventing a third World War that would have killed millions, especially in the Pacific theater.

'You would, right now, be in a nice, big, fat war in Asia with North Korea if I wasn't elected president,' he claimed earlier this month.

Trump told reporters then that the U.S. and North Korea were 'negotiating a location' for another grand summit that was likely to take place soon.

'They have made it very clear, in fact, they've actually said to the media that they would like to meet. And they do want to meet, and we want to meet, and we'll see what happens,' Trump added. 'But the sanctions remain in full force, in effect.'

Kim Yong Chol arrived in the United States on Thursday, after President Trump rolled out his Missile Defense Review in a speech at the United States Pentagon.

He stayed overnight in advance of his Friday meeting in Washington with Pompeo. It was the first time in decades that a North Korean official had overnighted in the United States.

President Trump's schedule on Friday did not include a meeting with Kim. But the two men met up in the Oval Office, the president's spokeswoman said in a statement to reporters.

'President Donald J. Trump will meet with Kim Yong Chol, Vice Chairman of the Workers Party of Korea and Chairman of the Korea Asia Pacific Peace Committee, today at 12:15pm in the Oval Office. They will discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Koreas final, fully verified denuclearization,' she said.

Sanders said in a readout after the fact that a second summit is on the books for February, with a time and place to be announced at a later date.

'We continue to make progress, we continue to have conversations, the United States is going to continue to keep the pressure and the sanctions on North Korea,' Sanders told reporters a few minutes later, defending the second summit.

North Korean official Kim Yong Chol is hidden by umbrellas as he arrives at Beijing airport on his way to Washington

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to the cameras as he meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in their landmark June 2018 summit in Singapore

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says goodbye to top North Korean official Kim Yong Chol after July 2018 talks in Pyongyang

Trump's critics have complained that the U.S. has received nothing in exchange for the talks that have left North Korea less isolated.

The president says the United States, which has kept crippling sanctions on the rogue nation, has given up nothing.

He'll be under more pressure his second go-around with Kim to deliver a firm commitment to denuclearize, after their first conversation ended with a soft agreement to work toward that end.

A location for their next summit has not been announced, but AFP reported that Vietnam was ready to host the two nations.

A government source told the publication that 'logistical preparations' are taking place and a summit could occur in Hanoi, the capital in the north, or Da Nang, a coastal city in the south.

'We don't know the final decision. However, if it happens here we will do our best to facilitate the meeting,' Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told Bloomberg TV.

Trump traveled to both cities at the end of 2017 during a five-nation tour of Asia.
A super-fit mother-of-two who suddenly died alone on a remote mountain during a bushwalk may have been killed by a deadly snake.

Felicity Shadbolt, 36, disappeared on Sunday after going for a run on Mount Nameless, near Tom Price in Western Australia's Pilbara region.

Her body was found hidden in scrub 400m off the path about 7pm on Wednesday and mystery still surrounds what took her life.

Ms Shadbolt (pictured with her twin girls Macie and Harper) disappeared on Sunday after going for a run in the bush near her home

Ms Shadbolt leaves behind her husband Drew and their two twin daughters after they moved to Tom Price in Western Australia's Pilbara region three years ago

Police said on Friday that they were investigating a range of possibilities at to her death including a medical episode, accident, or even foul play.

Superintendent Paul Coombes said it was less likely Ms Shadbolt was murdered, but because the body had undergone days of decomposition, nothing could be ruled out.

He said it was more likely she suffered from heatstroke on the 46C day or was bitten by venomous snakes that plague the scrubs she was walking through.

'All the indicators are pointing in that direction but we can't be sure until after the post mortem because of the condition and location of Felicity's body,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'There's nothing obvious that presented at the scene that caused us [to believe Ms Shadbolt was murdered].'

The mother-of-two's body was found about 7pm on Wednesday 400m from off the walking path after a frantic search by dozens of volunteers in 46C heat

Ms Shadbolt with her two daughters at the beach in Exmouth at Christmas where they holidayed with close friends

Ms Shadbolt's father David Dick questioned how his daughter, who was in such good shape that she ran Tough Mudder and Spartan races, could die from heatstroke.

'She's incredibly fit and had two litres of water with her so it's hard to tell what happened,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

However, he hoped her death would be confirmed to be the result of the elements or a snake bite, not murder.

'The would make it easier for us to deal with, knowing that she wasn't abused or tortured and there's no killer on the loose to hurt someone else,' he said.

'[Dying from heatstroke or a snake] could happen to anyone, it's just damn bad luck to happen to my beautiful daughter.

'It would take a lot of the anger out of it too - you can't be angry at a snake.'

About 35 people had been involved in a ground search including police, SES and members of the local community in the early hours of Tuesday

Ms Shadbolt may have died from a snake bite as deadly breeds like this death adder slither through the scrub she was walking through on Mount Nameless

Superintendent Coombes said a snakebite was 'definitely a possibility' that detectives and the medical examiner would explore.

'There are are an lot of venomous snakes in and around Tom Price and on Mount Nameless,' he said.

Local snake catcher Tim Salmon said deadly western brown, mulga, and death adder snakes were common in the scrubland around the mountain tracks.

However, he said though sightings were common, he couldn't recall someone being bitten walking there because locals knew how to avoid them.

Heartbroken father David Dick (right) has recalled the moment he found out his daughter Felicity Shadbolt, 36, (left) had died while bushwalking on a remote mountain

Mr Dick, pictured walking Ms Shadbolt down the aisle at her wedding in October 2009, hoped her death would be confirmed to be the result of the elements or a snakebite, not murder

Friends and family send condolences to her husband Drew (right) who she married in October 2009

Superintendent Coombes declined to comment on how much Ms Shadbolt drank of her two-litre CamelBak hydration pack.

He said the bag was being forensically examined and was key to the investigation into her cause of death.

Ms Shadbolt sent her husband Drew a text about 12.50pm on Sunday saying she'd be home in 20 minutes. She never made it.

The main track to the summit of Mount Nameless for a breathtaking view of the landscape and Rio Tinto iron ore mine is 4.5km and takes three hours.

Ms Shadbolt regularly ran the numerous trails around Mount Nameless, knowing them well, and was in such good shape she competed in Tough Mudder and Spartan races (pictured)

All explanations of Ms Shdbolt's death including a medical episode, accident, or murder are still on the table as homicide police flew in to the outback mining town to investigate

Her car was found parked in a car park at the base of the mountain soon after her disappearance, but she was nowhere to be found.

Police said she was wearing an Apple watch for her run, but it was not connected to the internet and so couldn't be used to trace her movements.

Dozens of locals volunteered to help SES crews and police scour the area in scorching heat in an effort to find her, and one eventually did.

Ms Shadbolt's body will be transported to Port Headland then to Perth for a post-mortem that will hopefully determine her cause of death.
A man, 23 and a woman, 18, have been arrested after a gun was found in a rental car parked near a Krispy Kreme outlet at Sydney Airport on Thursday.

The man said he had lost his key to a red Hyundai hatchback he rented from a Sydney Domestic Airport car-rental service on Saturday.

An attendant retrieved the car from the fast food store on Ross Smith Avenue, Mascot and found a gun inside while the car was being driven back.

A rented red Hyundai hatchback was found near a Krispy Kreme store (pictured) at Sydney Airport on Thursday

An attendant found a gun the vehicle and stopped the car outside a domestic terminal to call police

The attendant stopped the car on Shiers Avenue outside a domestic terminal and contacted police.

Officers from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) arrested the pair at the car rental office at 2pm.

New South Wales police told Daily Mail Australia the incident is not terrorism related.

The woman was taken to Sydney Airport Police Station.

The man was taken to Mascot Police Station where he remains and is assisting police with inquiries.

The vehicle has been seized and is being investigated.

Police confirmed no one has been charged.
The president of an Oxford college has asked for octopus to be taken off in a bid to prevent upset among disadvantaged students, it was claimed.

Baroness Royall, head of Somerville College, has reportedly said she wanted to make the college welcoming to all and change its culture.

The Telegraph reported how Baroness Royall had told catering staff to replace an octopus terrine dish with a less exotic alternative, following a complaint from a first-year student.

Baroness Royall (pictured), head of Somerville College, has reportedly said she wanted to make the college welcoming to all and change its culture

Baroness Royall allegedly told catering staff to replace an octopus terrine dish with a less exotic alternative (pictured is a stock image of an octopus dish)

Lady Royall, the former Labour leader in the House of Lords, revealed the incident in a blog post titled I am determined to move fast on widening access to Somerville, published on the colleges website yesterday.

In the blog, she discussed the steps the college had taken to increase the intake of students from disadvantaged backgrounds including a Demystifying Oxford Day for state school students.

The baroness wrote: I feel sure that there is more we can do to  encourage more strong candidates to apply, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I also want to turn the spotlight on ourselves and ask how we should change the culture of Somerville and Oxford to ensure that we are welcoming to all.

One of our students told me of her bemusement at being served an octopus terrine at the Freshers Dinner.

Im sure the cephalopod dish was delicious but it might not be quite right for every-one.

Lady Royall reportedly made the decision to remove the dish following a complaint from a first-year student at Somerville College in Oxford (pictured)

A Somerville student called the move tokenistic. It also implies that octopus, and certain food dishes, are not for people from a particular background and should be reserved for the privileged few, they said.

However, Joe Inwood, president of Oxford Universitys student union, praised the move. It is great to see colleges listen to feedback, he said.

A spokesman for the college told the Telegraph: The point of education is to widen horizons, including introducing students to new tastes. But we want to make sure that, at the Freshers Dinner at least, food is served that everyone is likely to be comfortable with.
The body of a 17-year-old boy who was swept out to sea in a rip four days ago has been found.

Arash Yari, who is from Melbourne, had been fishing with a friend at Parsons Beach in South Australia on Tuesday when they decided to have a swim.

What was meant to be a quick dip became lethal when the pair quickly got taken out to sea by a rip.

Tragic: Arash Yari had been fishing with friends when they decided to have a swim and got taken by a rip

Arash's body was found by a helicopter crew at 10.15am on Friday. Pictured: The 17-year-old in Melbourne

Arash's friend Rafiq Ali, 20, managed to get back to shore. His friend's father had to be rescued by a surfer after dashing into the water fully clothed to search for Arash.

The youngster never made it and his body was found by a helicopter crew at 10.15am on Friday.

Arash's distraught family, who have Afghan heritage, made their way from Melbourne on Tuesday to support rescue efforts.

Mr Singleton saved a drowning man who got sucked out to sea while searching for Arash

His mother and sister had to be taken to hospital because they were so 'overcome with emotion.'

On Thursday, a hero surfer told how he saved the father from drowning.

Gethyn Singleton, 51, desperately paddled 600m after spotting what looked like a man struggling in the distance on Tuesday.

When he got to the screaming man, he noticed he was fully clothed and hauled him on to his board.

'We were in deep water and I thought he was going to drown. He had the look of death on his face,' Mr Singleton told The Advertiser.

But due to a language barrier, the foreign man was unable to explain to Mr Singleton that he was searching for Arash.

'He was exhausted and flipped me off the board. He couldn't understand anything I was saying. He still had shoes on,' Mr Singleton said.

With the man on board, the 51-year-old landscaper then ferociously paddled for 40 minutes, fighting through excruciating cramp to get to shore.

When he got to the shallows, Mr Singleton told the man to put his feet down but he refused because 'he was too terrified.'

Once on shore, Mr Singleton found out that the man had been searching for Arash.
Qantas' non-stop flight from Perth to London has been cancelled due to urgent repairs, leaving passengers facing lengthy delays.

Flight QF9 was due to depart Perth International Airport at 5.05 pm yesterday but was cancelled due to an 'engineering issue', according to an airline spokesman.

'The flight was cancelled due an engineering issue which required parts to be sent across to Perth from Melbourne,' a Qantas spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.

'Passengers were provided accommodation and all customers were accommodated on flights within the next 24 hours'.

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Qantas' non-stop flight from Perth to London has been cancelled due to urgent repairs while passengers face long delays (stock image)

'Were sorry for the delay and we thank customers for their understanding,' the spokesman said.

However, one person claims his mother was made to wait for three days for a flight.

When Qantas confirmed via Twitter that yesterday's flight was cancelled, Lloyd Quinlan tweeted, 'Yes, and they have rebooked my mother on a flight on Sunday, 3 days later!'

'Then when she tried to extend her trip by three days to compensate for missed time they want to charge her $400? How is this reasonable?'

Another Twitter user fumed over how she was booked a flight with a stop and was only offered four hours' accommodation in a hotel as compensation.

'A rebooked flight that's longer, arrives 15 hrs later and needs a change when I wanted non stop and 4 hrs in a hotel is apparently enough compensation for this cancellation??!'

Twitter user Lloyd Quinland claims his mother was made to wait three days for a flight to London (pictured)

Flight QF9 was due to depart Perth International Airport at 5.05 pm yesterday but was cancelled due to an 'engineering issue', according to an airline spokesman

'Also I paid to get an aisle seat on the non stop but that's not guaranteed now for my new flights,' @SophieGooner tweeted at Qantas.

The airline apologised in response to the complaints and asked for their full details and booking reference numbers.

The plane's return flight, QF10 from London to Perth, has also been cancelled.

The 17-hour non-stop Perth to London flight was launched in March and was dubbed a huge success for the airline with an average capacity of 92 per cent.
(ANSA) - Berlin, January 18 - Italy as a founder EU member should work to defend the EU in view of the European elections, also because the EU's "conquests" are not irreversible, Bundestag Speaker Wolfgang Schaeuble told President Sergio Mattarella in Berlin Friday.

The EU goes to the polls on May 23-26.

Mattareall is on an official visit to Germany.


Ossama Hamed is believed to have travelled to Jordan following a murder on London's Park Lane on New Year's Day

The prime suspect in the murder of a sex party bouncer at a 12million Park Lane mansion is believed to have fled Britain and escaped to Jordan.

Ossama Hamed, 25, was spotted in CCTV footage of a brawl in which 33-year-old Tudor Simionov was stabbed to death as he tried to protect other staff from a mob trying to crash the event.

It is not known how Hamed, from Fulham, was allegedly able to flee Britain.

A source told The Sun: 'Hamed left the country very soon afterwards. Police are desperately trying to find him to interview him over the murder.'

Abu Hamza's 26-year-old son, Imran Mostafa Kamel, has been charged with two firearms offences after the fight at 5.30am on New Year's Day.

Hamza was found guilty of terror offences in both the UK and US, where he is serving a life sentence at a high-security prison after being extradited from Britain in 2012.

Ossama Hamed, 25, was spotted in CCTV footage of a brawl in which 33-year-old Tudor Simionov was stabbed to death. His face is circled

Mr Simionov (pictured in undated photos) bravely fought off up to nine men seconds before being stabbed to death outside 80 Park Lane

Mr Simionov bravely fought off up to nine men seconds before being stabbed to death outside 80 Park Lane.

He died protecting wealthy clients at a flamboyant party allegedly run by disgraced self-styled aristocrat Lord 'Fast Eddie' Davenport, it has been claimed.

The peer, known for his opulent sex parties, was seen helping with the payments on the door at the exclusive late night 'after-party' when thugs tried to storm their way into the Park Lane venue where Arab princes, tycoons and revellers were celebrating. This claim is denied by his lawyers.

Mr Simionov moved to the UK with his girlfriend Madalina Anghel for a better life two months ago and the couple believed 2019 would be the year they married and started a family.

She told friends today she is taking his body home to Romania for burial and said: 'On New Year's Eve my boyfriend and future husband Tudor was stabbed in the heart at work. The loss is impossible. His unexpected death has shocked us all.'

A Metropolitan police spokesman said Kamel's firearms charges were not directly connected to the death of 33-year-old Mr Simionov or others hurt in the Park Lane brawl.

He is alleged to have waved a gun at revellers six minutes after Mr Simionov was attacked.

The Met refused to discuss The Sun's report, but urged anyone with information on the murder to contact 101.

It is not known how Hamed, (circled) from Fulham, was allegedly able to flee Britain
GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN

Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence

Flynn was President Trump's former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller's most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired.

He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.

GUILTY AND JAILED: MICHAEL COHEN

Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018

Cohen was investigated by Mueller but the case was handed off to the Southern District of New York,leaving Manhattan's ferocious and fiercely independent federal prosecutors to run his case.

Cohen was Trump's longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump's inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump - and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations - and admitted that he acted at the 'direction' of 'Candidate-1': Donald Trump.

He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million.

And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City.

GUILTY AND JAILED: PAUL MANAFORT

Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges - witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Jailed for total of seven and a half years in two separate sentences. Additionally indicted for mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, using evidence previously presented by Mueller

Manafort worked for Trump's campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.'s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free - in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine.

Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to.

Minutes after his second sentencing hearing in March 2019, he was indicted on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., using evidence which included documents previously presented at his first federal trial. The president has no pardon power over charges by district and state attorneys.

GUILTY AND GOING TO WEEKEND JAIL: RICK GATES

Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Sentenced to 45 days weekend jail and three years probation, December 17, 2018

Gates was Manafort's former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns.

GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS

Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018

Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump's campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank.

GUILTY AND JAILED: RICHARD PINEDO

Pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February 2018. Sentenced to a year in prison

Pinedo is a 28-year-old computer specialist from Santa Paula, California. He admitted to selling bank account numbers to Russian nationals over the internet that he had obtained using stolen identities.

GUILTY AND JAILED: ALEX VAN DER ZWAAN

Pleaded guilty to making false statements in February 2018. He served a 30-day prison sentence and was deported to the Netherlands on his release

Van der Zwaan was a Dutch attorney for Skadden Arps who worked on a Ukrainian political analysis report for Paul Manafort in 2012.

He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about when he last spoke with Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik. His law firm say he was fired.

GUILTY: W. SAMUEL PATTEN

Pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a lobbyist while doing work for a Ukrainian political party. Sentenced to three years probation April 2019

Patten, a long-time D.C. lobbyist was a business partner of Paul Manafort. He pleaded guilty to admitting to arranging an illegal $50,000 donation to Trump's inauguration.

He arranged for an American 'straw donor' to pay $50,000 to the inaugural committee, knowing that it was actually for a Ukrainian businessman.

Neither the American or the Ukrainian have been named.

CHARGED: KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK

Indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At large, probably in Russia

Kilimnik is a former employee of Manafort's political consulting firm and helped him with lobbying work in Ukraine. He is accused of witness tampering, after he allegedly contacted individuals who had worked with Manafort to remind them that Manafort only performed lobbying work for them outside of the U.S.

He has been linked to Russian intelligence and is currently thought to be in Russia - effectively beyond the reach of extradition by Mueller's team.

INDICTED: THE RUSSIANS

Twenty-five Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States. They remain at large in Russia

Two of these Russian nationals were also indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 were indicted for conspiracy to launder money. Fifteen of them were also indicted for identity fraud.

Vladimir Putin has ridiculed the charges. Russia effectively bars extradition of its nationals. The only prospect Mueller has of bringing any in front of a U.S. jury is if Interpol has their names on an international stop list - which is not made public - and they set foot in a territory which extradites to the U.S.

INDICTED: MICHAEL FLYNN'S BUSINESS PARTNERS

Bijan Kian (left), number two in now disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn's lobbying company, and the two's business partner Ekim Alptekin (right) were indicted for conspiracy to lobby illegally.

Kian, an Iranian-American was arrested and appeared in court charged with a conspiracy to illegally lobby the U.S government without registering as a foreign agent. Their co-conspirator was Flynn, who is called 'Person A' in the indictment and is not charged, offering some insight into what charges he escaped with his plea deal.

Kian, vice-president of Flynn's former lobbying firm, is alleged to have plotted with Alptekin to try to change U.S. policy on an exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who is accused by Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of trying to depose him.

Erdogan's government wanted him extradited from the U.S. and paid Flynn's firm through Alptekin for lobbying, including an op-ed in The Hill calling for Gulen to be ejected. Flynn and Kian both lied that the op-ed was not paid for by the Turkish government.

The indictment is a sign of how Mueller is taking an interest in more than just Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

GUILTY AND AWAITING SENTENCE: ROGER STONE

Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime informal advisor to Trump, was indited on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks in January 2019. Convicted on all counts November 15, 2019, awaiting sentence

Stone was a person of interest to Mueller's investigators long before his January indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks.

In campaign texts and emails, many of which had already been publicly revealed before showing up in Mueller's indictment, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails.

Stone, a former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president's face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal.

'They got nothing,' he said of the special counsel's investigation.

Stone gave 'false and misleading' testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a 'rat' and threatened to 'take that dog away from you', in reference to Credico's pet, Bianca. Stone warned him: 'Let's get it on. Prepare to die.'

CLEARED: GREG CRAIG

Greg Craig, President Barack Obama's White House counsel, was indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent. Mueller's investigators uncovered Craig's work on behalf the government of Ukraine while probing Manafort, who did business with Craig.

Prosecutors released a grand jury indictment of Craig in April 2019, after Craig's law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP agreed to pay more than $4.6 million as part of a settlement. The prominent firm also acknowledged it had failed to register, and placed much of the blame on Craig, a senior partner there.

Craig's lawyer blasted the decision as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and prepared to argue that omission of information during an interview is not tantamount to making false statements.

The charges stem from a 2012 report Craig and the firm produced on behalf of the Ukrainian government on opposition figure and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She was an opponent of Manafort's client , former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Craig was cleared on September 9 2019.
Aeromexico has announced the airline is offering Americans reduced rates on fares to Mexico in a comical viral video ad titled 'DNA Discounts' that takes a jab at President Trump's border policy.

The commentator kicks off the ad by saying: 'Mexico's first destination is America, but America's first destination is not Mexico.

'So we went to a typical American town to ask why they don't consider Mexico an option to travel to.'

The ad, released by the airline's advertising agency Ogilvy, takes place in Wharton, Texas, where residents are asked why they don't consider Mexico to be a hot spot to travel.

The interviewer asks a woman sporting a cowgirl hat if she would consider visiting the country, and she replies firmly: 'No way'.

Aeromexico has released a comical new video ad titled 'DNA Discounts'. Filmed in Wharton, Texas, residents are asked why they don't consider Mexico a hot spot to travel

The interviewer asks a woman sporting a cowgirl hat if she would consider visiting the country, and she replies: 'No way'

A man standing in front of his trailer says: 'The idea of going to Mexico is not something that I would foresee'

A woman working an antique shop says Mexico isn't her 'cup of tea'

A cowboy adds: 'Let me stay here in peace and let those folks stay on their side of the border'

A man standing in front of trailer next to the American flag says: 'The idea of going to Mexico is not something that I would foresee.'

A woman working an antique shop then tells the interviewer: 'That's not my cup of tea,' while a cowboy adds: 'Let me stay here in peace and let those folks stay on their side of the border.'

The interviewer further asks a couple if they enjoy tequila and burritos, and the man agrees, but when asked if he likes Mexico, he replies: 'No!'.

'When your company name is AeroMexico... well, how do we increase USA flights to Mexico, if a big part of Americans don't like Mexico?,' the ad inquires.

The interviewer then asks a couple if they enjoy tequila and burritos, and the man agrees, but when asked if he likes Mexico, he replies: 'No'

The following segment shows the Wharton residents' reactions after learning about their percentage of Mexican heritage.

When the interviewer informs them about their Mexican ancestry, some were shocked, angry, and one excited about the deal.

One man said: 'That's b******t', and a woman added: 'I love discounts'.

'The more Mexican they are, the more discount they get,' the ad goes on to say.

The United States is the Aeromexico's largest international market, with Canada following in second.

The United States is the Aeromexico's largest international market

'The more Mexican they are, the more discount they get,' the ad says
Oxford University is suspending research grants and funding donations from Chinese firm Huawei amid growing security concerns about the companys telecommunication technology.

While existing research contracts already received or committed with Huawei will go ahead, the university will not pursue new funding opportunities with the company, it said.

There are two ongoing projects in which Huawei has committed 692,000, the university said.

An Oxford spokesman announced in a statement that the university will not pursue new funding opportunities with Huawei at present.

Oxford University (the Radcliffe Camera, pictured) has two ongoing projects in which Huawei has committed 692,000, but they have suspended any further funding

Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies CFO and daughter of its founder, Ren Zhengfei, has been detained in Canada

The Huawei offices in Warsaw, Poland, last week one of its sales executives was arrested in Poland where authorities have accused him of spying

He added that the decision applies both to research funding and philanthropic donations: The decision has been taken in the light of public concerns raised in recent months surrounding UK partnerships with Huawei.

This latest setback for the company comes after Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said last month that he had very deep concerns about the Chinese companys involvement in the UKs rollout of a 5G telecom network.

Earlier the same month, Alex Younger, the head of MI6, said the UK would have to make some decisions about such firms after other governments had taken steps to block Huawei.

The company was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in the Peoples Liberation Army, prompting questions about possible improper links to the Chinese state.

Mr Zhengfei denies the Chinese authorities have ever asked his company to help spy on its clients.

He told reporters this week that he missed his daughter, Meng Wanzhou  also his companys chief financial officer  who was arrested in Canada last month after being accused of breaking sanctions on Iran.

Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei, laughs during a round table meeting with the media in Shenzhen city, south China's Guangdong province on Tuesday

Mr Zhengfei denies the Chinese authorities have ever asked his company to help spy on its clients

Miss Meng has been ordered to stay in Canada, where she is currently on bail. She now faces extradition to the US, which requested her arrest.

The telecom equipment makers actions are under scrutiny elsewhere. Last week, one of its sales executives was arrested in Poland, where the authorities have accused him of spying. Huawei has since sacked the employee and denied any illegal behaviour was being carried out on its behalf.

A spokesman said of Oxfords announcement: We were not informed of this decision and await the universitys full explanation.

As a private, employee-owned technology company, with a strong track record in R&D we believe partnership decisions should, like research, be evidence based.

We have operated in the UK since 2001, employ 1,500 people here and have long standing collaborations with 20 other UK universities, he added.
Five teenagers who were arrested after pulling out toy automatic pistols in the middle of a shopping centre were may have been part of a social media prank.

The group of boys were dressed in black during their dramatic arrests at Westfield Chatswood on Sydney's North Shore on Wednesday night.

Chaos erupted due to the boys carrying what appeared to be pistols which saw them swiftly arrested at gunpoint on the shopping centre's floor.

Five teenagers who were arrested after pulling out toy automatic pistols in the middle of a shopping centre were may have been part of a social media prank

Police are now investigating whether the stunt was part of a social media prank, according to 7News.

All the 'guns' used in the incident were found to be replicas.

Dramatic images captured outside Coles and Liquorland during the arrests show eight police officers pinning the suspects to the ground and handcuffing them.

Witnesses recalled seeing police run into the shopping centre and scream at the men to get down onto the ground.

'I'll be honest, a lot of people thought it was some sort of terrorist attack or something going on,' said witness Sean Brown.

Once the teenagers were face down, officers searched them and found what appeared to be handguns but was later identified as replica weapons.

A Coles employee told 7News their manager made the quick decision to close the store's roller door to protect staff and shoppers from what was ensuing outside.

Police told Daily Mail Australia no one was injured during the terrifying incident.

Frightened shoppers in Westfield Chatswood watched on as the dramatic arrests unfolded and officers arrested five men

Four of the culprits were 17 and one was 18.

The 17-year-olds will be dealt with under the Young Offenders Act and will most likely be let off with cautions.

The 18-year-old has been charged with offensive behaviour in a public place and has been bailed to face Hornsby Court on February 27.
A bottle made entirely of recycled plastic is to become a permanent part of the Highland Spring range.

Drinks companies, including Coca-Cola, have pledged to increase the amount of recycled plastic in their bottles.

However, Highland Spring is the first UK water brand to offer one that is 100 per cent recycled.

Highland Spring is the first UK water brand to offer a bottle that is 100 per cent recycled (pictured)

The bottle is slightly cloudier than the standard versions. It is also more expensive to produce which may add around 5p to the cost.

The eco bottle is going into stores across the country this month. Efforts by drinks firms to use more recycled plastic will be heavily reliant on the deposit and refund scheme on bottles  promised by the Government  to ensure a ready supply.

Efforts to combat plastic waste follow the Daily Mails Turn The Tide On Plastic campaign which has highlighted the threat it poses to the environment, oceans and wildlife.
Two planes swerved within five metres of each other after taking off from Darwin airport, a new report into the near-miss has uncovered.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released its report on what could have been a deadly collision between two Cessna aircraft on the morning of December 6 2017.

The aircrafts had left Darwin airport within a minute of each other, both headed for Port Keats, Northern Territory, and both operating under visual flight rules (VFR).

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released its report on what could have been a deadly collision between two Cessna aircraft on the morning of December 6 2017

The first plane was a Cessna U206G, operated by Hardy Aviation (HPA) with two passengers on board, and the second was a Cessna 210L, registered and operated by Chartair (SYT).

According to the report, the two aircraft came dangerously close to one another around 46km southwest of the airport.

'The pilot of SYT commented that as soon as he made that request to deviate three nautical miles right of track, HPA came from the left top corner of his windshield across the nose to the bottom right in front of him and filled the windscreen. He estimated the two aircraft passed 34 m apart,' the report said.

The first plane was a Cessna U206G, operated by Hardy Aviation (HPA) with two passengers on board, and the second was a Cessna 210L, registered and operated by Chartair (SYT)

According to the report, the two aircraft came dangerously close to one another around 46km southwest of the airport

'The pilot of HPA was looking out to his 3 o'clock position when the pilot of SYT was in the process of requesting the deviation right of track. SYT appeared in the pilot of HPA's 5 o'clock position and he reported being surprised by its close proximity. He and the passengers in HPA estimated the aircraft came within 5 m of each other.'

No passengers and neither pilot was injured in the near-miss and both planes continued to their destination safely.

The report stated that the approach controller did not verify the initial altitude of the second plane, which was outside the allowable 200ft tolerance.

'That resulted in the two aircraft being significantly vertically closer than displayed and, in turn, the controller issuing a safety alert after the near collision had occurred,' the report said.

The report started that the approach controller did not verify the initial altitude of the second plane, which was outside the allowable 200ft tolerance: 'That resulted in the two aircraft being significantly vertically closer than displayed'

However, it was stressed that the findings would not apportion blame or liability to any individual or organisation involved.

'Pilots and air traffic controllers have a joint responsibility to avoid collisions between aircraft,' the report concluded.

'While air traffic controllers can provide traffic information to pilots of VFR flights, see-and-avoid is the primary means of preventing collisions between VFR aircraft.'
A woman who randomly attacked two people with an axe at a Sydney convenience store has been sentenced to nine years behind bars.

Evie Amati, 26, was jailed on Friday after ambushing Benjamin Rimmer and Sharon Hacker at a 7-Eleven in Enmore in the early hours of January 7, 2017.

She was found guilty of attempted murder in August last year after the NSW District Court rejected her claims she was suffering from mental illness.

Evie Amati (picture) has been jailed over the attempted murder of two people at a Sydney convenience

CCTV footage of the viscous attack showed Amati casually walk into the store carrying an axe

She told the court that just before the attack she heard voices that told her to 'kill and maim' and 'start the rise of hell on earth'.

CCTV footage of the viscous attack showed Amati casually walk into the store carrying an axe - before standing next to Mr Rimmer, who was in line behind Ms Hacker.

In the video, Amati was seen swinging the axe twice into the face of Mr Rimmer, knocking him to the ground, before attacking Ms Hacker.

Blood was seen gushing from Mr Rimmer's head, as he tried to evade Amati before removing his shirt to absorb the blood.

Amati was captured on CCTV swinging the axe twice onto the face of Mr Rimmer, knocking him to the ground

Axe attack victim Benjamin Rimmer arrives at the Downing Centre Local Court on Friday

The court also heard evidence from a third victim, Shane Redwood, who told the jury via audio visual link from the UK he was across the road when he saw a woman hit another woman with what he thought was a baseball bat.

Mr Redwood said it was only after approaching the store to offer assistance he realised Amati was wielding an axe.

Judge Mark Williams sentenced Amati to nine years in jail with a non-parole period of four years and six months at Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Friday.

Amati was seen swinging the axe twice into the face of Mr Rimmer, knocking him to the ground
A family of dark brown rats has been filmed scurrying around the floor of an Oporto restaurant in Sydney.

The footage, taken last night, shows a pack of up to six rats exploring the floor of an Oporto in Broadway.

The disgusting rodent display has left commentators unimpressed.

One user wrote: 'Nope, no more lunch at Oporto Broadway,' while another added: 'Yuck, that's disgusting.'

Another user thinks the rodent infestation won't put off Oporto's customers.

'Yummm rats lol seriously it's not gunna stop anyone from eating Oportos. They'll probably forget about it as soon as they start scrolling again,' they wrote.

A spokesperson for Craveable Brands, which operates Oporto, told the Daily Mail Australia, it is aware of the infestation of rats and has taken immediate action.

The Broadway store was immediately closed after Oporto was notified of the video footage and will remain 'closed, and clean' until Oporto and health inspectors are satisfied that it meets the required standard.

Two rats (pictured) can be seen exploring the floor of the Broadway branch of Oporto in central Sydney

Professional pest control services were brought in to the store where they after an inspection that the rats were not living in the restaurant but had got in from outside.

Because of this all possible entry points have been assessed and re-sealed, and all the products and packaging in the store have been thrown out.

The City of Sydney Environmental Health, Food Safety Division could not be reached for comment, but Oporto has been working with it on the issue, said Graveable Brands' spokesperson.

The store will continue to undergo full pest control and remediation assessments regularly, they added.

The rats (pictured) at Oporto in Broadway, Sydney prompted one user of the Facebook page, Auburn_2144, to comment 'Yuck, that's disgusting'
A 'missing' billboard for Jayme Closs, located near where she was found, has been taken down as the rural Wisconsin community helps the 13-year-old rebuild her life.

Will Hartman shared a photo on Facebook on Monday showing the the work it took to take down the teen's missing billboard.

'I got to take this down today not far from where she was found. It felt good to take it down knowing she made it,' he said in the post.

'So often its not the case. We had people stop and take pictures of us, cars and semi trucks honking there horns. Without words you could feel the joy for this little girl. God bless her and her family and help them in their time of need.'

In the rural Wisconsin town, but also across the country, wellwishers have rallied to offer the young girl support.

A family member launched a GoFundMe for Jayme and her aunt, Sue Allard. It has raised more than $27,000 since it was launched on January 11.

'Our family is working very hard to help out in any way possible whether it be that they use these dollars toward medical appointments, general care or anything other basic needs Jayme may have going forward,' the post added.

Will Hartman shared a photo on Facebook on Monday showing the the work it took to take down the teen's missing billboard

Local Wisconsin photographers, Berglane Photography, shared a photo of an adorable cow calf that they were dedicating to Jayme

Local Wisconsin photographers, Berglane Photography, shared a photo of an adorable cow calf that had been dedicated to Jayme.

'We named our newest heifer calf after a very strong, courageous, and incredible young lady from our community,' they said in a Monday post. 'Say hello to Jayme!'

A page called Healing for Jayme Closs has been posting updates on Facebook about the community's effort to ensure the teen's comfort.

They've also worked to inform the masses of fake accounts that have sprouted claiming to be the teen.

'Please know that Jayme's family is taking precautions to keep Jayme out of danger and these accounts are in no way related to Jayme,' the page said in a Wednesday post.

Another user, Jennifer Halvorson, shared an image of packages that were going to be sent to the teen.

A family member launched a GoFundMe for Jayme and her aunt, Sue Allard. It has raised more than $27,000 since it was launched on January 11

Another user, Jennifer Halvorson, shared an image of packages that were going to be sent to the teen

'The well wishes are starting to roll in for, said Halvorson. 'I might need a bigger vehicle pretty soon for my trips there!!!'

The support for Jayme comes after it was revealed that her captor had applied for a job online on the same day that she fled.

Despite his resume containing inaccuracies about his work experience, Jake Patterson, 21, called himself an 'honest guy' in his job application for a night shift position at Saratoga Liquor Co in Superior, Wisconsin.

The company said Thursday they received the application to work at Saratoga's warehouse midday on January 10, the same day Jayme escaped from Patterson's remote home where he held her captive for three months.

Deputies arrested him minutes later and according to a criminal complaint, Patterson told investigators that he broke into Jayme's house in the middle of the night, gunned down her parents and made off with the teen.

Jake Patterson, 21, applied for a job online the same day Jayme Closs escaped from his rural Wisconsin home, where she was held captive for three months

Jayme (center with family after her escape) was finally able to break free from the Patterson's makeshift lair on January 10, and now is in the care of her relatives

On the resume Patterson submitted in his application, he describes himself as an 'honest and hardworking guy. Not much work experience but I show up to work and am a quick learner'.

Patterson is charged with kidnapping Jayme Closs, 13, and murdering her parents

Company officials said they wouldn't have hired him due to his lack of experience.

The 21-year-old graduated from Northwood High School in Minong in the spring of 2015.

His activities between then and the day he was arrested have largely not been made public, including his employment and how he supported himself.

He had been living in the home in Gordon, Wisconsin, where he kept Jayme captive.

Patterson notes he worked as a 'laborer' from April 2018 to November 2018, but Saratoga officials redacted the employer's name in the provided resume.

He states he served in the U.S. Marines for nine months from April 2017 to December 2017.

Marine spokeswoman Yvonne Carlock has told the Associated Press that Patterson did serve, but only for about five weeks in the fall of 2015.

Carlock said his early discharge indicated the 'character of his service was incongruent with Marine Corps' expectations and standards.'

Patterson also stated he was a 'production worker' from October 2016 to January 2017, specializing in packaging screens.

His employer has been redacted. He goes on to say he graduated from high school in 2016, even though he actually graduated in 2015.

The image above shows the home in rural Wisconsin where Jake Patterson allegedly held 13-year-old Jayme Closs prisoner for nearly three months

Patterson, who is charged with kidnapping Jayme and murdering her parents, was a loner, as seen in a high school group photo obtained by DailyMail.com. Patterson is circled at the right

Patterson's defense attorneys haven't responded to an email request to confirm the resume.

Patterson worked for little more than a day in 2016 at the Jennie-O turkey plant in Barron where Jayme's parents worked. Investigators have said he did not know them.

He also worked for two days at a cheese factory near Almena, Wisconsin, just west of Barron.

Patterson told investigators on his way to work there in October when he spotted Jayme getting on a school bus and decided he wanted to kidnap her.

He faces two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, both punishable by life in prison, one count of kidnapping and one count of armed burglary.

He's due back in court February for a preliminary hearing.
(ANSA) - Rome, January 18 - Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, the head of Italian bishops conference CEI, said Friday that the nation needs to regain its sense of fraternity. "We ask the Lord today to direct His look of love and mercy to His church and the whole of Italian society so that it refinds the path of concord and fraternity and so that every man and woman in this country can see their rights to solidarity and justice recognized," Bassetti said.


A groom had to stump up $4,000 to make it to his own wedding after Jetstar bumped him off a flight and left him stranded.

Ricky Proudfoot planned to fly from his home in Cairns to Brisbane, then take an international flight to Britain in time for the ceremony.

He was also supposed to serve as best man in a double wedding with his childhood friend, before walking down the aisle himself.

Ricky Proudfoot had to stump up $4,000 to make it to his own wedding to Clare Applegarth after Jetstar bumped him off a flight and left him stranded

However, when he arrived at check in 20 minutes in advance he was told the flight was overbooked and the next one wasn't for 24 hours, he told the ABC.

Mr Proudfoot anxiously tried every other airline and waited to see if there was a cancellation, but to no avail.

Jetstar eventually, late that night, put him on a flight to Melbourne in the hope he could get a plane to Heathrow Airport from there.

The airline promised him dinner and a hotel for the night, but when he arrived in Melbourne all they gave him was $6 to buy food.

Mr Proudfoot made it to the weddings, but found his return flight was cancelled because he missed the original flight from Brisbane to London.

When Mr Proudfoot arrived at check in 20 in advance he was told the flight was overbooked and the next one wasn't for 24 hours

Rather than take a different flight to his bride Clare Applegarth to their honeymoon in Tasmania, he paid $4,000 for a new ticket.

When he got back to Cairns he tried to get compensation from Jetstar, but was only given a $200 travel voucher valid for six months with 'zero room for negotiation'.

'They made it sound completely normal. All I got were non-committal, broad statements from Jetstar, like 'this is the risk you take when you fly with us',' he said.

Jetstar said the flight wasn't overbooked, but the service was changed to a smaller aircraft that not all passengers could fit on.

'We understand delays can be very frustrating and sincerely apologise to Mr Proudfoot for the inconvenience the change of flight caused for his travel plans and the miscommunication about the reason for his disruption,' it said.
A prison escapee who notoriously dug his way out of a Bali prison has once again taunted police with claims he's now in Tasmania.

Shaun Davidson, 35, from Perth, tunnelled his way out of Bali's Kerobakan Prison in June 2017 and has been on the run ever since.

He was just three months shy of finishing his one-year sentence for passport fraud at the time of the escape.

Scroll down for video

Shaun Davidson (pictured) who notoriously dug his way out of a Bali prison has once again taunted police with claims he's now in Tasmania

On Thursday night Davidson took to Facebook to inform followers he is now in The Island State

On Thursday night Davidson took to Facebook to inform followers he is now in The Island State.

Captioning the post 'home sweet home', the former prisoner indicated the stay may mark the end of his long journey since fleeing Kerobakan more than 18 months ago.

Friends were also quick to encourage the convict, with one writing 'see you tonight bro we've got the beers on ice already'.

Just before Christmas, Davidson informed followers he was back in Australia for the festive season before checking into Hong Kong Airport on December 30.

'Hey hey I'm back for Xmas ppl (sic),' he said in a Facebook post and tagged Perth Airport.

Davidson (pictured) fled from Bali's notorious Kerobakan Prison in June 2017 and has been on the run ever since

Friends and followers of the prison escapee shared their enthusiasm for his return.

'Welcome home champ,' one man said.

'Be careful mate,' another warned.

Since his escape from Bali, Davidson has continually taunted police on social media by claiming to be in Barbados, Indonesia, Changi Airport in Singapore and Cuba.

Earlier in December, Davidson boasted that he had narrowly dodged the authorities at an airport.

Davidson has been on the run since escaping a Balinese prison more than 18 months ago

'Just went through customs got pulled aside for secondary inspection most nervous I've been so far. Hahaha still walked free positive vibes only,' Davidson wrote on Facebook.

Davidson had less than three months left on a one-year sentence for passport fraud when he escaped the infamous Balinese jail.

He fled through a tiny tunnel along with three other inmates, two of whom were recaptured.

Davidson (pictured) escaped from the Bali jail through a tiny tunnel along with three other inmates, two of whom were recaptured
Brexiteers today boasted of securing pledges from Theresa May that could see a Brexit deal passed by Parliament.

Eurosceptic MPs who met her left Downing Street in upbeat mood, saying she had vowed not to bow to pressure from Cabinet Remainers to accept Labour's idea of a permanent customs union.

Nigel Evans, one of 118 Tory MPs who voted against Mrs May on Tuesday, said: 'The Prime Minister is listening. She wants to get Brexit over the line and she is listening to our concerns.'

A former Cabinet minister added: 'It was good and positive  we are getting onto the same page. I am more optimistic now  I think she will get a deal through.

'She made it very clear to us that she is not going to have a customs union deal, whatever some people in Cabinet might want.'

Jacob Rees-Mogg MP gave the first hint that there might be circumstances in which he could back a version of Mrs May's deal

It came as Mrs May held a full day of meetings with MPs from across the Brexit divide in a bid to revive her deal with the EU which was resoundingly rejected in the Commons on Tuesday.

Former Brexit Secretary David Davis and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith were among the members of the European Research Group invited for talks.

The hardline Brexit group played a key role in the Commons defeat. Former Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers was also present, as was former culture secretary John Whittingdale, who tweeted afterwards that their group's meeting with the Prime Minister had been 'constructive'.

Former Tory cabinet minister Mr Paterson described the meeting as 'thoroughly worthwhile', very constructive' and a 'good exchange'.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the ERG, also gave the first hint that there might be circumstances in which he could back a version of Mrs May's deal.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith was among the members of the European Research Group invited for talks with Theresa May

He said that, unlike some Eurosceptics, he would prefer to leave with the PM's deal than stay in the EU.

'If I was asked to rank the options in order of preference, then no deal would be better than Mrs May's deal and Mrs May's deal would be better than not leaving at all,' he added. 'I don't agree with those who say the deal is so bad it would be worse than staying in.'

Fury at 'dead Leavers' jibe Sajid Javid condemned a newspaper columnist as 'disrespectful' for saying young Remain voters will soon outnumber 'old dead Leavers'. Arguing for a second referendum, Guardian writer Polly Toynbee tweeted: 'What was 'the will of people' is now 'the will of dead people'. From Saturday, new young remain voters on register tip the balance v old dead leavers.' But Home Secretary Mr Javid tweeted: 'How utterly disrespectful.' Miss Toynbee's article was based on the calculation that tomorrow will be the day when there are enough Remain voters on the electoral register to outnumber Leave voters. She wrote: 'This is the day, in theory, when the country turns remain.' Advertisement

His stance opens up the possibility that like-minded Eurosceptics might be persuaded to eventually back a version of Mrs May's withdrawal deal if Remainers in Parliament find a way of blocking a no-deal Brexit.

However, Mr Rees-Mogg said the chances of former Tory ministers like Nick Boles and Dominic Grieve succeeding in their bid to block no deal were 'very, very remote.'

Downing Street declined to comment on the detail of the talks, which were described as 'constructive'.

Following the defeat of Mrs May's deal on Tuesday, senior Tories have been horribly split over what to do next. Several Cabinet ministers wasted no time in urging Mrs May to abandon one of her key red lines and adopt a formal customs union with the EU.

Former Remainers including Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd, Justice Secretary David Gauke, Business Secretary Greg Clarke and Chancellor Philip Hammond all want Mrs May to adopt a softer Brexit in an attempt to bring Labour MPs on board.

But the move has sparked furious opposition from a second Cabinet faction including Treasury chief Secretary Liz Truss, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, Trade Secretary Liam Fox and Transport Secretary Chris Grayling.

Mr Grayling warned that moving to a full customs union would mean having to accept more single market rules, including free movement of workers.
Danny Lim's lawyer has revealed the sandwich board activist could sue police, and has compared his case to a teen who was awarded nearly $40,000 for forceful arrest.

Bryan Wrench confirmed that his client is challenging the $500 fine issued for offensive behaviour after he was arrested by three police officers last Friday.

He is also considering taking legal action over the manner in which he was restrained, once the other matter is finalised.

Danny Lim's lawyer, Bryan Wrench, said police force used arresting his client was 'unjustified'

'It just appears unjustified,' Mr Wrench told AAP.

The lawyer compared Mr Lim's case to teenager Jamie Jackson Reed, who was awarded nearly $40,000 in costs after the forceful arrest at Mardi Gras in 2013.

Mr Lim, the Sydney-based former local councillor, 74, was apprehended outside David Jones in Barangaroo holding a sign that read: 'SMILE CVN'T! WHY CVN'T?'

Mr Lim is a regular on Sydney street corners carrying signs with political and social messages

Video of the arrest was posted on social media with one clip on Facebook getting 1.3 million views.

Hundreds of people also protested in support of Mr Lim outside a Sydney police station last Sunday.

It's understood at least two people have made formal complaints about the use of force by police during the arrest.

Two people complained and hundreds more have protested against Mr Lim's forceful arrest

Mr Lim is a regular sight on Sydney street corners carrying signs with political and social messages.

In August 2017, a NSW District Court judge overturned Mr Lim's earlier conviction and $500 fine after finding a sign worn in 2015 mocking then-prime minister Tony Abbott was poor taste but unlikely to offend the average Australian.

Using an inverted A in the word 'can't', those signs said: 'TONY YOU CAN'T. LIAR, HEARTLESS, CRUEL' and 'TONY YOU CAN'T SCREW EDUCATION.'
A Belarusian model who claimed to have evidence of possible Russian help for President Donald Trump's election has been detained at Moscow airport yesterday.

Anastasia Vashukevich and a group of associates were taken into custody after being deported from Thailand.

The were arrested on suspicion of suspected of recruiting for prostitution, a crime punishable by up to six years in jail.

Vashukevich, 21, and Alexander Kirillov were imprisoned in Thailand last year for running a sex workshop for tourists in Pattaya.

She claims she has audio recordings of a Russian billionaire tycoon which show a possible link to the Trump campaign.

Vashukevich, 21, and Alexander Kirillov were imprisoned in Thailand last year for running a sex workshop for tourists in Pattaya

Vashukevich was detained alongside several others including Kirillov, a self-styled Russian seduction guru, witnesses said.

Plain-clothes officials led away four of the group from the airport including Vashukevich and Kirillov.

Vashukevich, Kirillov and others had been caught up in a police raid last year on their seduction seminar in the seaside resort of Pattaya in Thailand.

They were freed from a Thai prison and put on a flight to the Russian capital.

They believe the Kremlin ordered their arrest because they did not want them to expose corruption within the government.

Vashukevich claims she is the former mistress of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska who has strong ties to the Kremlin.

Anastasia Vashukevich travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in the political scandal

Among Deripaska's associates is Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign adviser, and Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin's personal chef and one of the 13 people charged in Robert Mueller's recent indictment.

Manafort allegedly offered to give him briefings on Trump's progress during the campaign.

Vashukevich, Kirillov and the group were led away by plain clothed police officers, according to a woman named Kristina, who said she was Kirillov's wife,

Kristina said she heard the group shouting and asking for an explanation of 'why they were being detained' and saying they were suspected of recruiting for prostitution, a crime punishable by up to six years in jail.

A law enforcement source told TASS state news agency that four including Vashukevich and Kirillov were detained at the airport over recruiting for prostitution.

Vashukevich said she had travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in a political scandal with Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska -- a one-time associate of Trump's disgraced former campaign director Paul Manafort.

Vashukevich claimed she had proof of Russian efforts to help Donald Trump

Oleg Deripaska talking about interference in the 2016 U.S. election, but never released them

She then promised to reveal 'missing puzzle pieces' regarding claims the Kremlin aided Trump's 2016 presidential election victory.

But the material never surfaced and critics dismissed the claims as a publicity stunt.

In the risque Pattaya seminar led by Kirillov, some participants wore shirts that said 'sex animator' -- though one person at the time described it as more of a romance and relationship course.

Vashukevich pleaded guilty alongside seven others to multiple charges, including solicitation and illegal assembly at a Pattaya court on Tuesday, which ordered the group be deported.

A law enforcement source told TASS state news agency that four including Vashukevich and Kirillov were detained at the airport over recruiting for prostitution.

Vashukevich was held with several others in a police raid last February in the sleazy seaside resort of Pattaya.

On Thursday afternoon, Vashukevich and the majority of the convicted were put on an Aeroflot flight for Moscow

Kirillov, who has served as a quasi-spokesman for the mostly Russian group, told reporters as they arrived at court Tuesday that he believed they were set up.

'I think somebody ordered (our arrest)... for money,' he said.

Vashukevich looked sombre as she entered the courthouse and did not respond to questions from the media.

On Thursday afternoon, Vashukevich and the majority of the convicted were put on an Aeroflot flight for Moscow.

Thailand's immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said the last of the group would leave the country later that evening.

They were also blacklisted from returning to Thailand.

It was unclear what would happen to them on arrival in Moscow but as a Belarusian citizen, Vashukevich was expected to transit to Belarus.

Vashukevich, who has more than 120,000 followers on Instagram and penned a book about seducing oligarchs, already faces legal problems in Russia.

Vashukevich, also known as Nastya Rybka, claimed to have recordings of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska talking about interference in the 2016 U.S. election, but never released them

Deripaska won an invasion of privacy lawsuit against her and Kirillov in July after a video apparently filmed by the model showed the tycoon vacationing with an influential Russian deputy prime minister at the time.

'I don't think she wants to get out in Moscow,' a Russian friend in Thailand who helped with the case told AFP on Thursday.

Both Washington and Moscow publicly shrugged off Vashukevich's story, which the US State Department described as 'bizarre'.

Kremlin-connected Deripaska and Manafort, Trump's ex-campaign manager, did business together in the mid-2000s.

Manafort has since been convicted in the US of financial crimes related to political work he did in Ukraine before the 2016 election as well as witness tampering.
The predator who brutally murdered an Israeli student in Melbourne this week may attack again if not caught soon, a former detective has warned.

Aiia Maasarwe's partially naked body was found on Wednesday morning in parkland near where she got off a tram on her way home from a gig the night before.

Police say the 21-year-old suffered a 'horrific' assault and have launched a widespread hunt for her killer.

Former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina on Friday morning urged witnesses to come forward to stop the attacker killing again.

'It's imperative that those who have knowledge of some sort assist police,' he told radio station 3AW.

'This person will be known to somebody. The potential is there for him to kill again.'

Tragic: Aiia Maasarwe (pictured) was murdered and her body was found outside a Melbourne shopping centre on Wednesday

Scene of the crime: Aiia Maasarwe's partially naked body was found in scrub (pictured) near where she got off a tram the night before - but her attacker still remains on the loose

Clues: Police believe a t-shirt and cap found near where her body was discovered belongs to her killer

Mr Bezzina said if someone had information but did not come forward, 'they've got to live with their conscience.'

'If this person or persons strike again, they have to live with that and say could I have stopped that?' he said.

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at LaTrobe University.

The 21-year-old was so scared of the walk from the tram stop to her student accommodation she would call one of her sisters while walking to feel safer, a family member told The Australian.

She was heading home from a comedy gig and was on a FaceTime call with her sister when she was attacked, her uncle said.

Police believe a T-shirt and cap found near where her body was discovered belongs to her killer and have sent them off for forensic testing.

Miss Maasarwe was at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne earlier on Tuesday night and caught the 86 tram from Bourke Street in the city.

Miss Maasarwe likely got off the tram in Bundoora near where her body was found, about a kilometre from her student accommodation.

Aiia Maasarwe, 21, had spent the night at a comedy club before boarding the 86 tram from Bourke Street, heading to her home in Bundoora. She left the tram around midnight. Her body was discovered in scrub, nearby, the next day

Aiia Maasarwe's (left, with a friend) partially naked body was found by window washers in scrub outside the Polaris shopping centre on Main Drive near Plenty Road in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora at 7am on Wednesday

Homicide detectives have released CCTV images of Miss Maasarwe, which shows the clothing she was wearing that night, in the hope someone saw her and can help police track her exact movements.

During her final FaceTime call with her sister, the phone suddenly dropped, her uncle Rame Masarwe said.

Aya's final moments: Tuesday night: Aiia was at the The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne 11pm: Her friends dropped her to the tram stop Aiia caught the 86 tram from a Bourke Street stop, heading home Midnight: Aiia got off the tram in Bundoora, about a kilometre from her home Wednesday: 7am: Her body is found in scrub near the tram stop and Polaris shopping centre Advertisement

'She seemed very happy. Then the phone fell down, she heard voices. The phone was on.'

He said her sister was still on the phone when she was attacked and heard the entire ordeal unfold.

Miss Maasarwe was carrying a bag when she was attacked and some items had been removed and were found nearby, police said.

Shoes and a mobile phone were found near Miss Maasarwe's body, as well as an abandoned vehicle on Main Drive with its hazard lights on.

On Friday Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked about the attack while in Fiji. He told reporters: 'It is just so shocking.'

The Prime Minister said his heart went out to Ms Maasarwe's family, though he can't begin to think of what he would say to them.

'I know what I'm thinking about her attacker. I expect it's the same thing that all other Australians are thinking today,' he said.

People leave floral tributes where the body of Isreali student Aiia Maasarwe was found near the Polaris Shopping centre in Bundoora

Ms Maasarwe had been studying Chinese and English at Shanghai University, but moved to Melbourne six months ago to study at La Trobe University. Pictured: Tributes

Today Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Fiji 'it is just so shocking. I mean, I'm speechless.' Pictured: Tributes where her body was found

The Prime Minister stressed everyone in Australia should be able to travel home safely and that the government must remain 'forever vigilant' to the issue of violence against women.

Last night Senator Derryn Hinch sparked outrage after he tweeted details about the horrific murder.

The tweet made graphic and serious allegations about Ms Maasarwe's killer while comparing the case to that of Jill Meagher, a journalist who was raped and murdered in an inner Melbourne suburb in 2012.

Derryn Hinch stands by his views, despite was slammed on social media on Thursday night

'Jesus wept. Shades of Jill Meagher,' Senator Hinch tweeted.

'I'm hearing the rapist-murderer of that stalked innocent Israeli student is a known sex offender who tried to burn... evidence.

'What has this town become?' he ended the tweet.

Final moments: Miss Maasarwe getting off the tram before she was killed

People were quick to slam the federal Senator as insensitive, disrespectful, appalling and inappropriate.

'Your willingness to exploit any situation is breathtakingly disgraceful. Shame on you Hinch,' one tweeted.

Another added: 'Think of her family Derryn! You may 'want people to know' but they might not want us to know the details of what happened to their girl. It's beyond horrible but your blatant disregard of their feelings makes it even worse. Shame!'

Another accused Senator Hinch of using the tragedy to try and make a political point.

'Sure we can all just rise above politics when a horrific and tragic event like another murder of a young woman occurs?,' they tweeted.

Many called on Senator Hinch to delete the tweet.

'Aiia Maasarwe's family deserves better than this. If you have any respect for Aiia please delete this tweet and apologise to those who loved her,' one woman commented.

Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper said it was believed to be a 'random attack'.

Senator Hinch tweeted that Aiia Maasarwe's death had 'shades of Jill Meagher' (pictured)

The controversial senator responded to the online criticism with this response (pictured)

'This was a horrendous, horrific attack inflicted on a completely innocent young woman who was a visitor to our city,' he said.

Detectives are scouring a list of known sex offenders as they hunt the killer of the young Israeli woman.

Senator Hinch has previously been in hot water with the legal system on numerous occasions for contempt of court.

He spent 50 days in prison in 2014 for breaching a suppression order by revealing details of the criminal history of Ms Meagher's killer Adrian Ernest Bayley.

Many people called on Senator Hinch to delete the tweet and show respect to Aiia Maasarwe's (pictured) grieving family

He was given the option of a fine instead, which he chose not to pay 'on principle'.

Senator Hinch responded to Thursday night's backlash and made no apologies for the earlier tweet, which remained online.

'To all the do-gooder Tweeters attacking me for telling the gruesome truth about the Bundoora rape/ murder. This brute is still out there. My tweet was for the memory of Jill Meagher and Eurydice Dixon,' Mr Hinch later tweeted.

His later tweet sparked a war of words with departing federal senator David Leyonhjelm.

'Except you voted against giving women like these the means to protect themselves. Do you have any principles at all,' Senator Leyonhjelm posted.
Even one of Jeremy Corbyns backbenchers has pointed out the shocking moral hypocrisy of his refusal to join the Prime Minister for discussions about Brexit when hes been very happy to deal with killers and terrorist groups in the past.

Mike Gapes MP said Corbyn was apparently prepared to hold talks with Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad and Iran without preconditions. But not with the UK Prime Minister. Why?

Here, ROSS CLARK charts Corbyns long and shameful history of meetings with men of violence and opponents of democracy...

HOLDING WREATH FOR HAMAS TERRORISTS

Corbyn called the terror group his friends in 2009. He has also met leaders of the organisation that has carried out a campaign of abductions, torture and unlawful killings against Palestinians it accuses of collaborating with Israel.

There is no indication the Labour leader set any conditions before meeting them  such as that they renounce violence  in the way that he refuses to talk to Mrs May unless she rules out a No Deal Brexit.

He met Hamas leaders in the West Bank city of Ramallah in 2010 and was photographed with Ahmad Attoun, Khaled Abu-Arafah and Muhammad Totah.

Jeremy Corbyn handles a wreath next to the graves of terrorist leaders behind the Black September group which massacred Israeli athletes in Tunisia

The latter two had their ID passes withdrawn by Israel after being suspected of terrorist activities.

Four years later, Corbyn attended a peace conference at the five-star Le Palais Hotel in Tunisia, where he was snapped with a wreath in memory of Palestinian terrorists responsible for the massacre of Jewish athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

Also present were Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar, who has called Jews hungry dogs and wild beasts, and other key figures such as Mousa Marzook, convicted in the U.S. of terror offences, and Osama Hamdan, who has called violence against Israel magnificent. Strangely for an event calling for peace in the Middle East, it did not involve Israel.

Corbyn also attended a meeting in the Houses of Parliament, in 2015, just six months before he became Labour leader, organised by pro-Palestinian pressure group Middle East Monitor.

Corbyns explanation: Initially, he denied being involved with the wreath-laying in Tunisia, but when challenged, he came up with the much-ridiculed reason: I was present when it was laid. I dont think I was actually involved in it. Photos then emerged showing him holding a wreath. As for the meeting with Hamas in the Houses of Parliament, he later said he regretted calling them his friends.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking at St Mary's in the Castle during a visit to Hastings in East Sussex today

PROTEST AT DRONE ATTACKS ON ISIS

The Labour leader took part in a protest at an RAF base in Lincolnshire in 2013, calling for the Armed Forces to be banned from the obscenity of using drones as part of the Wests war against the terror group that has killed hundreds of thousands in the Middle East.

This included the use of drones against ISISs British executioner, Jihadi John. Indeed, the former Westminster University student seems to have been someone Corbyn wanted to be able to walk Britains streets, judging by an interview he gave in 2015 with Arab TV station LuaLua.

Corbyns explanation: He said moves to ban jihadis from returning to Britain were strange and legally very questionable.

At a Stop the War rally (before becoming Labour leader), he said that the ISIS beheading of Alan Henning, a British aid worker, was the price of jingoism.

PAID 20,000 TO HELP IRA SUSPECT

As a newly elected MP in 1983, Corbyn invited IRA apologist Gerry Adams to the Houses of Parliament. The two men met on other occasions during the Eighties, when the IRA was at the height of its terror campaign. Corbyn even put up 20,000 of his own money to stand bail for an IRA terror suspect facing extradition to Germany.

He also invited two convicted IRA volunteers to tea at Westminster in 1984, just two weeks after the Brighton bomb, which killed five people staying at the Grand Hotel for the Conservative Party conference.

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein political party of Northern Ireland at the House of Commons in 1996

In 1986, Corbyn was arrested outside the Old Bailey during the trial of Patrick Magee  later convicted for the Brighton bombing  in a protest against the strip-search of his co-defendants. After the Brighton attack, London Labour Briefing (a far-Left monthly journal Corbyn helped run), published a readers letter stating: What do you call four dead Tories? A start!

The Labour leader also attended the annual gathering of the Wolfe Tone Society, which honours dead and imprisoned IRA members.

In 1986, the event programme said: Force of arms is the only method capable of bringing about a free and united socialist Ireland. In 1987 Corbyn was at a commemoration for eight IRA men shot by the SAS as they attempted to attack a police station in Armagh.

In 1996, the year of the Docklands and Manchester bombings, Corbyn again invited several suspected IRA terrorists to Parliament and tried to host a book-signing by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams  although this was stopped after Tony Blair threatened to eject Corbyn from the Labour Party.

All these meetings were long before the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, when the IRA called an end to its armed struggle.

Corbyns explanation: He told the BBC during the 2017 general election campaign: I never met the IRA. I obviously did meet people from Sinn Fein, as indeed I met people from other organisations, and I always made the point that there had to be a dialogue and a peace process.

He was later forced to retract his claim hed never met the IRA after Labour MP and former lover Diane Abbott said hed shared a platform with IRA members Raymond McCartney and Brendan McKenna, the latter having been jailed for bombing a British Legion hall.

At no point did it appear that Corbyn asked Sinn Fein to renounce violence as a condition for meeting its leaders.

Even when the IRA said it was downing arms, Corbyn struggled to condemn its murderous activities during The Troubles without equating them with the British Armys role in defending Northern Ireland from paramilitary groups.

He infuriated British soldiers by saying: I condemn all bombing. I condemn what was done by the British Army as well as by the other sides.

The Labour leader also attended the annual gathering of the Wolfe Tone Society, which honours dead and imprisoned IRA members. Pictured above in Hastings today

AN INVITATION TO HEZBOLLAH

Officials from the Lebanese group  which is classified by the U.S. government as a terror organisation and which has called for the destruction of Israel  were invited by Corbyn to a meeting in 2009.

He said: It will be my pleasure and honour to host an event in Parliament where our friends from Hezbollah will be speaking . . . Ive also invited our friends from Hamas to come and speak.

Corbyns explanation: Asked during a hearing into claims of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, in 2016, why hed called the terror groups friends, he said: It was inclusive language which, with hindsight, I would rather not have used. I regret using those words.

However, he hasnt used the phrase inclusive language this week when defending his refusal to join Mrs May for Brexit talks.

HIS OTHER LINKS TO EXTREMISTS...

Corbyn travelled to Syria to meet its brutal president Bashar al-Assad in 2009. Millions have been killed and made homeless during the countrys civil war, and Assad has been accused of launching more than 100 chemical attacks against his own people.

Corbyns trip was hosted by London-based lobby group the Palestinian Return Centre, which was later embroiled in controversy for holding a meeting at the House of Lords, where a speaker claimed a heretic rabbi had antagonised Hitler to systematically kill Jews.

Corbyn recorded his trip in the Members Register of Interests, saying it was worth 1,300.

Corbyn travelled to Syria to meet its brutal president Bashar al-Assad in 2009. The trip was hosted by the controversial London-based lobby group the Palestinian Return Centre

Instead of explicitly condemning Assad, he says he abhors violence on all sides. Corbyn has equated the power of Assads police state with the countrys rebels.

He also joined a group to welcome Abdallah Djaballah  a controversial Algerian politician and leader of the radical Islamic party the Movement For National Reform who has called on his countrymen to wage holy Muslim war against Britain and the U.S.

This was at a 2014 event at Finsbury Park Mosque, North London, where Islamist rabble-rouser Abu Hamza once preached.

Corbyn was also photographed at the mosque making the Rabbiah, the four-fingered salute of the Muslim Brotherhood, the theocratic group which was involved in the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt in 2011, but which is regarded as a terror organisation in some Middle East countries.

Corbyns spokesman said that in making the salute, the Labour leader was standing up for democracy, justice and the right to protest in Egypt . . . the four-fingered gesture is a well-known symbol of solidarity with the victims of the 2013 Rabaa massacre in Cairo.

In 1984, Corbyn lobbied a variety of Latin American cultural organisations on behalf of what he called comrades in the Colombian revolutionary socialist group M-19.

These comrades, according to the Sunday Times, have car-bombed, shot, tortured and killed their way across the country in recent years.

Corbyn also criticised the Colombian governments crackdown on M-19, accusing it of repressing them. At the time, M-19 was little more than a glorified drugs gang behind a series of cocaine laboratories. It was also known for funding its activities with kidnappings and ransom demands.

Corbyn also helped the men accused of being the 1988 Lockerbie bombers, who killed 270.

In 1992 he signed a letter supporting their bid to avoid trial in either the UK or the U.S. One has to ask whether they would receive a fair trial in a British or U.S. court, he said.

And after Al-Qaedas 9/11 outrage, Corbyn wrote in the Socialist Campaign Group News, a paper for Left-wing MPs, that the West was responsible with its blanket support for Israels occupation of Palestine.

He was only willing to concede the 9/11 attacks were a tragedy in the context of what he regards as other, equal tragedies  including Osama bin Ladens death, the Iraq War, the attack on Afghanistan, as well as the treatment by Western soldiers of Iraqi and other prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and the Bagram military prison.
More school leavers should join companies and work their way up from the shop floor instead of taking a degree, the Education Secretary says.

Damian Hinds believes three years experience at entry level can be just as valuable as university, as it fosters a deep understanding of the craft.

He wants more youngsters aiming for white collar roles to go straight into work through the Governments new high-quality apprenticeships.

Education Secretary Damian Hinds believes three years experience at entry level can be just as valuable as university, as it fosters a deep understanding of the craft

Workers can earn while they learn rather than being saddled with up to 50,000 of debt at university.

Mr Hindss father started out as an apprentice pharmacist aged 17 and worked his way up to a senior role at what is now Glaxosmithkline.

Apprenticeships fell out of favour over the past few decades, but under radical reforms they are now being brought back in a renaissance for traditional white collar roles.

School leavers can now become apprentice accountants, actuaries and teachers, with more roles in the pipeline. These jobs previously would have required degrees.

There is a real value in actual work as well as study, Mr Hinds said. An apprenticeship is one way of doing that.

When I talk to chief executives, they will tell you there is no more compelling story than being able to identify somebody in a senior or board level position who has worked their way up that company from the shop floor.

Mr Hinds wants more youngsters aiming for white collar roles to go straight into work through the Governments new high-quality apprenticeships. Stock picture of a bricklaying apprentice

The Americans talk about the American Dream. We dont have a phrase to encapsulate that but I think people feel it. You should be able to go as far as your talents can take you.

Girl founded a 1m business ... aged just 16 Most pupils with a string of top marks would be expected to go to university, but not Liv Conlon. Aged 16, she left school to start a business  which now makes 1million a year. The straight-A pupil launched The Property Stagers, which furnishes empty homes. With no financial backing, she has had to work 18-hour days, seven days a week. But her hard work paid off  the business made 30,000 in its first year and turned over 1million in its second. Liv Conlon is pictured with her mother Ali Now 20, Miss Conlon, from Glasgow, furnishes more than 300 properties a year, and has hired a team of ten, including her mother Ali, 52, and her brother Jack, 22. When I was at school I always wanted to leave. I just wanted to be in charge of my own life, she said. It was a pretty scary thing to do. When I told the school that I wanted to leave, they called me into the careers office, sat me down and said, Are you crazy? Advertisement

With a good high-quality apprenticeship to get you on your way, that opens up that possibility to far more people.

Mr Hinds yesterday launched a campaign to make sixth formers and their parents aware of the opportunities his new apprenticeships afford.

The firms involved usually recruit graduates. They include Siemens, Capgemini, Ernst & Young, Lloyds Bank, Glaxosmithkline, Coca-Cola, PwC, IBM and Nestle.

Mr Hindss father, Frank, spent his Saturdays and Wednesday evenings studying while working as an apprentice pharmacist in Belfast, before moving to England to work in a shop and eventually joining the Wellcome Foundation.

Experience in entry-level work  for many of us we would say later on in our careers that we really benefited from having had a chance to do that, Mr Hinds said.

It was always something I was brought up with  understanding work and understanding all the things that go to make up that operation. In the case of my father, being a pharmacist, you start by learning about all the different jars in the pharmacy, and then how you mix up medicines and eventually, when you are a qualified pharmacist, then you can prescribe.

The most basic level things are important to understanding the craft and the profession.

Mr Hinds said many pupils still thought university was the only route, which he called a one-track thought. He added: We have to change perceptions. In the past few years there really has been this renaissance in apprenticeships.

Apprenticeships are partly funded via a levy on firms.

Official figures confirm record number of students are getting first class degrees, as 28% walk out with top grades and universities are accused of 'dumbing down' qualifications

Critics warned last night that first-class degrees were being dumbed down after it emerged that a record proportion of students received them.

Some 28 per cent were awarded the top mark last summer, up from 26 per cent the previous year, figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show.

The proportion has more than doubled in a decade  only 13 per cent were awarded the highest grade in 2008, and in 1995 it was just 7 per cent.

Universities are under pressure to deliver increasing numbers of firsts to attract students. But employers complain they can no longer identify truly exceptional graduates because so many get the top grade.

Chris McGovern, of the Campaign For Real Education, warned of dumbing down and added: Universities are competing to pull in the punters. It is rotten and corrupt.

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the Office For Students  a regulator with the power to fine or even close universities  said: Universities must take swift and decisive action on this issue. If they do not, we will use our powers to intervene.
Melania Trump was in route to Mar-a-Lago on an Air Force jet Thursday - the same day President Donald Trump grounded Speaker Nancy Pelosi's government plane to Afghanistan.

An Air Force plane with the call sign EXEC1F was spotted by the CilMilAir Twitter account, the same account that tracked the first couple's trip to Iraq to visit the troops after Christmas, approaching Florida on Thursday evening.

That call sign is associated with a plane carrying the first lady.

Melania Trump's office did not respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.

Melania Trump was in route to Mar-a-Lago on an Air Force jet Thursday - the same day President Donald Trump grounded Speaker Nancy Pelosi's government plane to Afghanistan

Speaker Nancy Pelosi was scheduled to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan until Trump grounded her flight

The executive branch travel comes after Trump grounded the speaker in retaliation for her letter suggesting he not give his State of the Union address on Jan. 29 if the government is still shutdown.

A White House official argued it was not a vengeance move but it came across as retaliatory.

The president canceled his administration's trip to Davos on Thursday, however.

'Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his Delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,' said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was preparing to lead a presidential delegation of Cabinet members to Davos, for the gathering of elite economic, business and government leaders at next week's World Economic Forum.

The cancelation came after Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who was scheduled to travel with Pelosi to Afghanistan, slammed the president for canceling their trip when he and the first lady went to Iraq to visit U.S. troops over Christmas and the Cabinet trip to Davos was on the schedule.

'The president's concern about a war zone apparently doesn't apply to a delegation of the administration going to Davos the following week. We got confirmation that is still planned. So, this is obviously an action directed at the speaker,' he charged.

He also charged the president with endangering the speaker's safety by publicly announcing the trip. Trips to war zones are usually not announced until the lawmaker has left the area for security reasons.

'I think the president's decision to disclose a trip that the speaker is making to a war zone is completely and utterly irresponsible in every way,' Schiff told reporters outside of Pelosi's Capitol Hill office.

Trump canceled his trip to Davos because of the shutdown, just like he canceled his Christmas plans for Mar-a-Lago.

The first lady spent most of the holidays at the couple's Florida estate, although she returned to the White House on Christmas even to spend the day with the president and then join him in Iraq - a trip that was not announced by the White House until the first couple was preparing to leave the war zone.

The Air Force Jet Melania flew to Florida on over the Christmas holidays

An Air Force plane with the call sign EXEC1F was spotted by the CilMilAir Twitter account approaching Florida

The call sign EXEC1F is used by planes carrying the first lady

The first lady spent most of the holiday season in Mar-a-Lago except when she returned to Washington on Christmas Eve to be the president and join him in Iraq

The speaker was scheduled to leave Thursday afternoon.

A blue Air Force bus was packed with lawmakers outside the Longworth House Office Building - Pelosi was not on board - prepared to head to Joint Base Andrews when the presidential verdict came down.

The bus led reporters on a merry chase around Capitol Hill.

It pulled out from the House office building, which is across the street from the Capitol building, circled the block, pulled into the U.S. Capitol drive way, let some lawmakers off, took off again, returned to the Longworth House Office Building but left when security staff saw the media waiting, and ultimately returned to the Capitol building.

Pelosi's office said the trip was to thank the troops and pointed out the president made a similar expedition to Iraq in December.

'The Congressional Delegation to Afghanistan included a required stop in Brussels for pilot rest. In Brussels, the delegation was scheduled to meet with top NATO commanders, U.S. military leaders and key allies  to affirm the United States' ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance,' said Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill in a statement. 'This weekend visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt.'

'The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines,' Hammill continued. 'The President traveled to Iraq during the Trump Shutdown as did a Republican CODEL led by Rep. Zeldin.'

Trump announced his Cabinet officials would not be traveling to Davos after Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff criticized the president for canceling Pelosi's trip but leaving Switzerland on the calendar

President Trump sent Pelosi a letter to say her trip was postponed because of the shutdown

Lawmakers were in a bus prepared to head to their plane when the trip was cancelled

Trump announced his decision to cancel the codel, as official congressional trips are known, in a letter to Pelosi released by the White House. The speaker's office was told of his decision ahead of the public announcement, however.

'Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over,' the letter wrote. Pelosi's office says she was never scheduled to go to Egypt.

'In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate. I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown,' the president wrote.

'Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative,' he added.

Sanders said the speaker was needed in the capitol for negotiations.

'We want to keep her in Washington,' she said. 'If she leaves, she guarantees that the second round of paychecks to 800,000 federal workers won't go out. The deadline to make that deal is midnight on Tuesday. She wasn't scheduled to be back until Wednesday. The president wants her here to negotiate.'

There are currently no meetings scheduled between the White House and House Democrats. Negotiations to reopen the government remain deadlocked.

The 48-hours of back and forth began Wednesday.

Pelosi had invited Trump earlier this month to address the House and Senate for the State of the Union, per tradition, on Jan. 29  a date that the White House accepted.

But on Wednesday she wrote him a letter stating that no president has ever delivered a State of the Union speech in the midst of a shutdown and suggested he follow that lead.

'The U.S. Secret Service was designated as the lead federal agency responsible for coordinating, planning, exercising, and implementing security for National Special Security Events by Public Law 106-544, December 19, 2000. However, both the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have not been funded for 26 days now  with critical departments hamstrung by furloughs,' Pelosi wrote.

'Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th,' she added.

The White House has not formally responded to Pelosi's request.

'We'll keep you posted. Nothing's changed on that front,' Sanders said Thursday.
Mr. Stern 

I understand the message that Slate wants to send its readers. You hate Trump - noted. I also understand that I cannot stop people from writing what they want, if they toss in a few words like allegedly or likely. But I cannot understand the zeal in trying to destroy an individual who has done nothing to deserve this tearing down. Someone who has never had an ethics complaint. Someone who supported his family though a variety of enterprises, some more successful than others, but never sinister or shady. Are you hoping that all future appointees qualifications are to have sat at a desk and pushed paper around for 30 years? Is life experience, both good and bad, somehow disqualifying? Matt is a really good person and is only serving his country. Hes also going to be back in the private sector at some point. It is a small comfort to me that the people who will want to work with him in the future are, lets hope, really unlikely readers of Slate and similar publications. I happen to like things about Slate and Im also not a fire-breathing Republican dragon, so it does distress me somewhat to read these things. I have ignored a lot of it, because it is all innuendo and/or outright BS, but you should know this is just too much. If you have a conscience, I hope you will consider reporting in a more ethical and fair manner than this article demonstrates.

Literally none of the awful things you and your co-author say are true. There is zero evidence that Matt is homophobic and if you knew how the US Attorneys office worked and how multiple law enforcement agencies participated in the McCoy case, you would not print that. Mr. McCoy has for years attempted to spin it this way and it has never taken hold, except perhaps, to the very negatively motivated and gullible. To imply that Matt had visibility and knowledge of $25 million dollars of wrongdoing is preposterous. Would you characterize a sternly worded letter as threatening? [note: obviously, yes, you did, but really?] It was well-documented that Matt is a capable and affable person. He was at the right hand of Sessions for over a year. But sure, imply that he got the current appointment because of something he said over a year prior before he worked for anyone. The particularly on television part  LOL. What does that even mean? Nothing, thats what. It does sound really suspicious if you put it that way AND when you ignore that he simply was well-liked and competent. Its not in this particular article, but the he auditioned for the job on CNN part of the past months reporting has been among the most absurdly and tragically funny part of this whole experience. Who could have imagined this turn of events? No one. Not us, that is for sure. The idea that it was some calculated plan is silly. Work through that sequence maybe, and see if it seems plausible.

It isnt really or shouldnt be that controversial to state that the Mueller investigation should stay within the parameters given. Particularly when that is said more than a year prior as the investigation is just beginning. Why would a person need to recuse oneself for that mild statement? If abundance of caution is the standard, anyone who ever spent 5 minutes contemplating the topic would need to do so. And by all means, assume that a person who speculated on a hypothetical scenario would then put some dark plan into motion, when by all accounts, the investigation is wrapping up and they [sic] eyes of the nation are upon them. Yeah, thats pretty realistic. Oh, and I guess you missed that the Supreme Court decided not to take up the temporary appointment challenge. Most organizations had given up on that angle of attack quite a while ago. Kudos to your perseverance, misguided though it may be. Finally, I dont know how you print that he is lying about the academic All-American thing, while yourself writing all of these untruths. It is truly bizarre. All of that has been explained, if you cared to find out.

About the only thing that I can applaud you for is having the guts to link your email address. I hope youll consider whether the viciousness of your reporting is warranted. Given your apparent mindset, Im sure there are many ways for your [sic] to turn the mental cartwheels to justify this. Because Trump! Its a simplistic ending to any discussion and absolves you of actual journalistic integrity. Because Trump! And integrity! And if he had a conscience himself he wouldnt be there! Thats sarcasm, btw. Matt is a conscientious and thoughtful person of integrity. I feel like I could write your articles for you. Theyre that cliched.

PS this is my work email and phone. Please do not use it in any ill manner. I like my job and I need to continue to earn a living, particularly in light of this shutdown. Thanks!
(ANSA) - Rome, January 18 - The Bank of Italy said Friday that it forecasts the Italian economy will grow 0.6% this year, down 0.4 of a percentage point on its previous prediction. The central bank said it foresees economic growth of 0.9% and 1% in 2020 and 2021 respectively, while adding that there was a risk of the outlook being revised down.

It also said that Italy may have dipped into recession in the second half of last year.

"After the interruption of growth in Italy in the third quarter (of 2018), the quarter-on-quarter data suggests (economic) activity may have decreased again in the fourth," the bank said. In technical terms, a country goes into recession if it posts two consecutive quarters of negative growth.


A Philadelphia man who punched a Temple University student 38 times before he stabbed and strangled her to death after she refused him anal sex has been convicted of the heinous crime.

Joshua Hupperterz, 30, received a life sentence Thursday of first-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime in the sexually motivated August 2017 murder of Jenna Burleigh, 22 inside his Philadelphia apartment.

Hupperterz pleaded guilty last week to abuse of corpse and tampering with evidence but pleaded not guilty to murder and possession of an instrument of crime.

Prosecutors said Hupperterz physically attacked then killed Burleigh at his apartment before attempting to hide her body in late August 2017, when the pair linked up at a bar in North Philadelphia.

Their encounter started out as consensual but quickly turned violent when they went back to his apartment and Burleigh refused to have anal sex with him.

Joshua Hupperterz, 30, was found guilty Thursday of first-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime in the sexually motivated August 2017 murder of Jenna Burleigh, 22 inside his Philadelphia apartment

Police discovered blood spattered near the kitchen sink, rear door and on a trash can lid at the suspect's apartment (above)

Assistant District Attorney Jason Grenell told jurors last week: 'You're going to watch and you're going to see how her body was beaten and contorted, and how he tried to cover it up.'

Hupperterz beat, stabbed and strangled the 22-year-old Temple student (above) in his apartment before before he attempted to hide her body

Hupperterz met the victim at Pub Webb the night of August 31.

Surveillance footage captured the pair leaving when the venue closed at 2am and going back to his apartment, located a few blocks away.

Jurors heard that Hupperterz and Burleigh started having consensual sex before neighbors heard screaming in the apartment at about 4am.

Evidence showed that the screaming started when Hupperterz tried to have anal sex with the victim.

Burleigh grabbed a kitchen knife as she tried to fight Hupperterz, the court heard.

Hupperter punched her 38 times and then stabbed her.

He also smashed a bowl over the victim's head and strangled her afterward.

Burleigh died from blunt trauma and strangulation.

Hupperterz met the victim at Pub Webb (above) the night of August 31. Surveillance footage captured the pair leaving when the venue closed at 2am and going back to his apartment a few blocks away

Following the murder, Hupperterz stuffed the student's body into a storage bin and moved it to his mother's house in a nearby neighborhood.

He then used the ride-sharing service Lyft to move her body more than 100 miles away to his grandmother's house.

Her body was found in a shed at the property days later.

Hupperterz rejected a plea deal in December and was sentenced to life in prison Thursday.

Hupperterz (pictured left and right) and Burleigh started having consensual sex before neighbors heard screaming in the apartment at about 4am

Hupperter punched the victim 38 times and then stabbed her, he also smashed a bowl over her head before he strangled her

Defense attorneys previously told the court that Hupperterz's roommate, Jack Miley, was the man who strangled the victim after he tried to intervene.

They alleged that Hupperterz started screaming when Burleigh used the knife to stab his hand, and said Miley came running in and tried to stop the victim from screaming by putting his hands around her throat.

But prosecutors said DNA evidence and the defendant's actions proved him to be the killer.

Police also previously said Hupperterzs statement that Miley murdered the victim was a lie.

Evidence showed that the screaming started when Hupperterz tried to have anal sex with the victim (pictured)

Hupperterz's cousin told a court last week he unknowingly helped move the body.

Erik Carlson said on the second day of trial that he lugged a blue tote containing Burleigh's remains but didn't ask what was inside the heavy bag.

He claimed in court last Wednesday: 'I said, "Dang, this is heavy".'

Carlson admitted he saw Hupperterz cleaning up blood inside the property that he visited to buy marijuana, but said that Hupperterz told him he'd cut his hand on a beer bottle.

The man whose uncle was married to Hupperterz's mother for six years, explained how his cousin seemed 'normal' as they smoked together before the assailant loaded the dead woman into his trunk that afternoon.

Hupperterz, who Carlson had known from childhood, arrived at his mother's house nearby then got the help of his ride-sharing driver to load the corpse into another trunk.

Stating that it 'felt like bricks' the driver told the court Hupperterz paid him $200 and asked him to switch off the company's app, which has GPS tracking, as they drove out 100 miles.

The driver said Hupperterz took a nap during the trip to his grandparents house where his grandfather reported he'd found the body in a storage container - just one day after local authorities and an FBI agent visited the rural Pennsylvania property.

It's believed the suspect transferred the body into a container and stored in a shed at the home and the large bin was displayed in court, NBC 4 reported.
Taylor Angell (pictured), who was high on ice when she mowed down and killed a motorcyclist, has allegedly been busted dealing meth just months after she was released from jail

A driver who was high on ice when she mowed down and killed a motorcyclist has allegedly been busted dealing meth just months after she was released from jail.

Marc Leabeater, 26, was enjoying a promising start to his legal career when he was struck by Taylor Angell, then 19, in Caringbah in Sydney's south in 2014.

Angell, now 23, served just over three years of her five year and seven-month sentence after pleading guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death.

At 1.30am last Saturday - six months after her release - Angell was allegedly found in a car 'making no sense' and 'gnawing on her bottom lip', the St George Shire Standard reported.

When officers searched the vehicle, which was parked outside a Caringbah unit block with its engine running, they allegedly found 29.12g of meth and $1,026 cash.

Marc Leabeater (pictured) was enjoying a promising start to his legal career when he was struck by Angell, then 19, in Caringbah in Sydney's south in 2014

Angell was charged with a string of offences, including dealing with proceeds of crime and drug supply. She appeared in Sutherland Court on Thursday.

Her Legal Aid solicitor reportedly told the court her client had attended a friend's funeral the previous day and had been drinking heavily.

'[The case] does appear to be strong because of admissions being made. [However] since then [Angell] denies making those admissions,' the solicitor said.

Reading from police facts, Magistrate Jayeann Carney said the drugs allegedly found in the car had an estimated street value of $15,000.

Angell's bail application was denied and she is due to return to court in March.

At the time of her sentencing over Mr Leabeater's death, the victim's mother told Sydney's District Court her son was 'much loved by so many'.

Angell (pictured), now 23, served just over three years of her five year and seven-month sentence after pleading guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death

At the time of her sentencing over Mr Leabeater's (pictured) death, the victim's mother told Sydney's District Court her son was 'much loved by so many'

'I miss him terribly. It is so difficult living life without him living it,' Tania Leabeater said.

His father, Larry, described his son as a man 'larger than life itself' who was cut down in his prime.

Mr Leabeater, a keen surfer and local rugby league player, was remembered by friends as a 'friendly and outgoing guy'.

In the days after his death, hundreds of surfers gathered at North Cronulla beach where they paid tribute to Mr Leabeater with a circle of honour.

'I miss him terribly. It is so difficult living life without him living it,' Tania Leabeater (right) said of her son (left)
A New York woman forced to undergo multiple surgeries after her coworker tossed acid on her, rejoiced the culprit was hit with a 17-year prison sentence.

Reverend Alexandra Dyer sat patiently listening as 49-year-old Kim Williams received her sentence in a Queens courtroom on Thursday.

'I feel wonderful,' said the permanently scarred victim, according to the New York Daily News. 'It's been a long day coming. I'm thrilled.'

Reverend Alexandra Dyer listened as 49-year-old Kim Williams received her 17-year prison sentence in a Queens courtroom on Thursday

The attack took place on August 9, 2015, just shortly after Dyer was named the executive director of the Healing Arts Initiative.

Williams, a bookkeeper for the charity, concocted the disfigurement plan as her boss began asking questions about the loss of funds.

Between 2013 and 2015, Williams was found to have taken $600,000 for herself and another $150,000 for a friend.

The attack took place on August 9, 2015, just shortly after Dyer was named the executive director of the Healing Arts Initiative

'The lengthy sentence imposed by the court is appropriate given the heinous nature of the crime,' said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Dyer was supported by loved ones while in attendance at the sentencing. She carried a number of photos that showed what her both before and after the attack.

The reverend lost her eyebrows, eyelashes and eyelids in the attack

The reverend lost her eyebrows, eyelashes and eyelids in the attack.

'It's still difficult to fathom that one person would do to another what was done to me,' added Dyer. 'My face and body will carry scars for the rest of my life.'

She asserted that the woman used the cash on clothing, handbags and a Mercedes sedan. The defendant was also found to have been using her office computer to run a sex toy business.

The embezzlement at the hands of Williams forced the Healing Arts Initiative to declare bankruptcy. Dyer shared that she was blindsided by Williams' original personable disposition.

'She started out saccharine sweet and very quickly devolved into something at the other end of the spectrum,' said Dyer.

Jerry Muhammad, the man who actually threw the acid on Dyer, was also sentenced to 17 years after pleading guilty for the attack.

A GoFundMe was made for Dyer, soon after the attack. It raised more than $4,000.
Emotions ran high at the sentencing of the man who stabbed Morgan Freeman's step-granddaughter to death as the defendant's mother screamed that the Oscar winner was to blame because he 'sexually abused the victim'.

Lamar Davenport, 33, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison with an additional five years of post-release supervision.

'Morgan Freeman molested her and he caused this. He did this,' Lamar Davenport's mother screamed as she was ushered out of court in New York Thursday, according to Page Six.

'He's innocent! It was an accident!' Davenport's emotional mom continued.

There were allegations during the trial and previously that Freeman was involved in a romantic relationship with 33-year-old E'Dena Hines. Hines had at one point texted Davenport to reveal she had 'grandpa feelings'. Freeman, 80, has always denied such allegations. Hines is the granddaughter of Morgan's first wife, Jeanette Adair Bradshaw.

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Tragic end: Lamar Davenport, 33, was found not guilty of murder but convicted of manslaughter in the death of his girlfriend E'Dena Hines (Hines and Morgan Freeman above at the 2005 Golden Globes)

Lamar Davenport seen here in court receiving a sentence of 20 years in prison for first-degree manslaughter in the brutal stabbing of E'Dena Hines

E'Dena Hines' mother Deena Adair leaves the courtroom after the sentence was delivered

Davenport had been convicted of manslaughter in the first degree in May of last year for the fatal attack on Hines, who was his girlfriend at the time. He stabbed her 25 times in the street as horrified onlookers bore witness.

Hines mom was seen wiping away tears outside the courtroom on Thursday.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. in a statement: 'Ambitious and driven, E'Dena Hines was deeply loved by family and friends before her life was brought to a horrific and tragic end by her boyfriend, Lamar Davenport.

'I would like to thank the prosecutors in my office for securing a prison sentence commensurate with his extraordinarily violent crime, and offer my sympathies to Ms. Hines' loved ones as they continue to mourn.'

Davenport had been initially charged with murder in the second-degree, but the defense argued he had been in a drug-induced psychosis during the brutal slaying, brought on by his use of PCP. It happened on August 16, 2015, on West 162nd Street in NYC.

One man who witnessed the attack testified at the trial that during the attack Davenport screamed: 'I love you. I always loved you. God would have wanted this.'

After he was arrested, Davenport was taken to a hospital where after he was given sedatives he awoke screaming; 'Why did this happen? No, no! Why God?'

Davenport was found not guilty of murder but convicted of manslaughter back in May of 2018

Hines mom Deena Adair was seen wiping away tears outside the courtroom on Thursday

He also asked the arresting officers if they believed in Jesus and urged them to repent their sins.

Hines and Davenport, a rapper, had been living together in a $780,000 apartment that was paid for by Freeman.

There relationship was tumultuous according to witnesses who testified at the trial, and Davenport fathered children with other women while the pair were together.

He also struggled with drug issues.

Lamar Davenport is led away from court in handcuffs after the sentencing

Deena Adair, shown, and Morgan Freeman were the primary support for Hines 'financially, emotionally, mentally and physically'

Freeman adopted Hines' mother Deena Adair when he married Jeanette, and he writes in his affidavit that is was Adair and himself acting as a surrogate father who raised the young woman after he parents divorced when she was just three-years-old.

'Throughout E'Dena's entire lifetime, my daughter Deena Adair and I were the primary sources of support for E'Dena financially, emotionally, mentally and physically,' writes Freeman.

During the trial Davenport's lawyer told jurors that Hines and Freeman had a sexual relationship.

EODena Hines is seen in March 2015 with her boyfriend, Lamar Davenport, shortly before she died

Freeman said at the time of Hines' death: 'The world will never know her artistry in talent. Her star will continue to shine bright in our hearts, thoughts and prayers. May she rest in peace.'

The young woman would frequently accompany Freeman to premieres, and was an actress herself.

According to her personal website she was an actor and writer living in New York City, where she studied at New York University's Graduate Acting Program.

The university announced shortly after her passing that a scholarship would be dedicated in her name.

Hines also taught under-exposed youth in her native Memphis, Tennessee, where she moved after she failed to land gigs and felt 'unfulfilled.'

Judge Ellen Biben did not elaborate on her decision back in May.
A member of a drug gang called a 'jolly big man' in court was jailed for nearly 20 years after he was arrested with 2.4million of cocaine hidden inside empty shoe boxes.

Sean O'Neill, of Hattersley, Greater Manchester, was part of a 'Breaking Bad' style plot that involved a Hungarian chemist to produce and distribute 3million worth of Crystal Meth.

Former doorman O'Neill was picked up by police on the M6 after they enforced a 'rolling road block' to stop his black Citroen van that was laden with 30kg of high purity cocaine stashed inside the boxes.

O'Neill and his wife Jennifer O'Neill - who had five children together - were jailed for their part in the plot, alongside Gary ORegan, 34, Paul Higginson, 40, Patrick Warde, 52, and Darren Gill, 27.

O'Neill's black Citroen (centre, between two cars) is followed along the M6 by police as they move in to arrest him

A close up of his van (centre) as it is brought to a halt on the motorway and surrounded by police. They set up a rolling road block to stop his vehicle

O'Neill is hauled out of his van by police. They discovered more than 2million worth of cocaine stashed in ladies shoe boxes in the back

O'Neill and his 13 year marriage to his wife is now over, Manchester Crown Court heard.

The court was told group travelled across the UK collecting cocaine and heroin, from destinations in Lancashire, Merseyside, West Yorkshire, parts of the North east, and Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.

O'Reagan, who police said was the gang ringleader, enlisted the help of a Hungarian pharmacist, a convicted gangland assassin and an industrial chemicals expert to install a secret narcotics factory just like that which featured in the hit TV drama Breaking Bad.

O'Regan who had only just been freed from jail for narcotics trafficking, flew in the chemist from Germany, put him up in a hotel and even took him to watch Manchester United in a Premier League match whilst getting his expertise in building the lab and 'cooking' the drugs.

One of his gang's fixers was a former hitman who had also been freed from prison after serving 13 years of a life sentence for helping shoot dead a man with an Uzi submachine gun.

Left to right: Paul Higginson, Sam O'Neill and Gary O'Regan who were all jailed for their part in the drugs plot

O'Neill (left) and his wife Jennifer O'Neill (right) - who had five children together - were jailed for their part in the plot

O'Regan, from Salford, Greater Manchester, was arrested in February last year when armed police stopped his VW Passat as he was driving along the M62 to Liverpool. Officers found a Turkish made Flobert Zoraki 'Streamer' revolver and eight rounds of ammunition under the driver's seat.

At Manchester Crown Court, O'Regan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to produce amphetamine and possession of a firearm. He was convicted of conspiracy to supply cocaine following a trial.

Convicted killer Paul Higginson, 40, of Kirkby, Liverpool was found guilty of conspiracy and was jailed for 21 years.

O'Neill, 35, of Hattersley near Hyde pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine and heroin, conspiracy to produce amphetamine, and possession of a firearm and ammunition and was jailed for 19 years and six months. His wife Jennifer, 31 was found guilty of conspiracy and jailed for four years.

Patrick Warde, 52, of Heywood was found guilty of conspiracy and jailed for 21 years whilst Darren Gill, 27, of Chorley pleaded guilty to drugs offences and was jailed for nine years.

The racket began after O'Regan was freed from jail in November 2017 after being convicted of trafficking cocaine and producing cannabis.

After his release he temporarily set up base in Spain whilst members of his gang made various trips around the UK including Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Kettering, Wales and Slough, Berks, where it is believed they transported cocaine and heroin to potential buyers.

The chemist named in court as Laszlo Viszocsanszki was collected by O'Regan from Manchester Airport in February last year and in the same month was taken to watch United play Newcastle at St James Park and given a mobile phone.

O'Neill and his wife on their wedding day. Manchester Crown Court heard thier 13 year marriage is now over

O'Regan also made contact with a chemicals supplier to pick up 3,000 worth of lab equipment but during a journey to the proposed site in the Midlands, the chemist refused to travel in same car as the various chemicals.

O'Regan was arrested after a police surveillance team saw him accept a bag from one of his accomplices during a rendezvous in Trafford Park. The bag was found to contain the gun and bullets and he also had various mobile phones and a sophisticated encrypted mobile device.

Higginson replaced him as head of the gang but police arrested one of his accomplices in April last year he was driving a Citroen Berlingo Northbound along the M6 from Slough. They recovered 30kg of high purity cocaine from the back of the vehicle.

During a series raids officers searched a cafe and bar in Hyde and recovered 2.5kg of cocaine, 0.5kg of heroin and almost 1kg of MDMA, along with other drug paraphernalia such as scales, vacuum packing equipment and empty kilogram bags. There were also a number of empty shoe boxes which the gang planned to store the drugs in.

When Higginson was arrested he had just over 14,000 in cash and a large amount of designer clothing. Officers searched a storage unit and a discovered large amount of chemicals and laboratory equipment - capable of producing 115 kilos of amphetamine sulphate worth up 3,500 a kilo. A search of a farm yielded glassware and heating stoves which would have helped with production process.

Police said had the chemicals and lab equipment been used, they would have been able to produce over 300kg, which would have an estimated street value of over 3m. In total, the street value of the drugs recovered by the police is estimated at 2,788,390.

Sentencing Judge Patrick Field QC said: 'These are serious offences and this operation was meticulously planned and sophisticated. The effect of drugs not only upon those taken by users, but on those many others, as you will know from your own personal experiences, and also on the community at large.. It can cause misery and harm.'

'If the plan had gone ahead, you would have started to manufacture 115kilos of amphetamine. This was a sophisticated operation.'

After the case Det Insp Lee Griffin, of GMP's Serious and Organised Crime Group, said: 'During this operation we monitored the group closely as they conducted their illicit activities across the country, enabling us to gather evidence through surveillance and unravel the conspiracy.

'It is thanks to the hard work of all the officers in this case that a group of career criminals have been stopped from deluging our streets with such a huge amount of drugs. We have also managed to disrupt an even larger quantity of drugs from being produced and ultimately being distributed nationwide.

'Drugs wreck lives, destroy relationships and blight our communities. Those who are responsible for supplying illegal drugs to vulnerable people deserve no place in our society, and our community is a safer place with them behind bars.

'I hope this sentencing sends a clear message that we will relentlessly pursue those persons who supply harmful drugs and we will go to great lengths to bring them to justice.'
Prince Philip was involved in a crash which wrote off a Mercedes and injured another motorist 23 years ago  just 30 miles from his latest accident, MailOnline can reveal.

The collision, which took place on a cold January morning in 1996, has echoes of today's events in which the Prince was involved in a collision near his Sandringham estate.

Patrick Daynes, then 48, had been driving through Brandon, Suffolk when - after stopping at a pedestrian crossing - he experienced the Duke's Range Rover smash into the back of his Mercedes.

Patrick Daynes (left and right), then 48, was involved in a crash with the Duke in Brandon, Suffolk on January 31, 1996. It has echoes of today's crash - just 30 miles away - near the Duke's Sandringham estate

The force of the collision left him requiring hospital treatment and needing to wear a neck brace while he recovered from his injuries.

Tonight, Mr Daynes, 71, described the shock incident to MailOnline, saying: 'The Prince's Range Rover came into the back of my Mercedes while I was waiting at a pedestrian crossing.

'The accident caused considerable damage  I never saw my Mercedes again afterwards.'

Today two people required hospital treatment after their vehicle was involved in a collision with Prince Philip's Land Rover near the Sandringham Estate at Babingley, Norfolk.

This is just 30 miles from Brandon, Suffolk, where, on January 31, 1996, Mr Daynes's Mercedes 190 was hit from behind on a cold January morning.

Images have emerged of a black Land Rover having rolled on its side following the crash with a people carrier. Police and ambulance rushed to the scene where two people, neither understood to be the Prince, were treated for minor injuries

Prince Philip is 'conscious but very shocked and shaken' after a dramatic crash near his Sandringham Estate which left two women in the other vehicle in hospital and the Land Rover he was driving on its side in a crumpled heap (pictured here)

At the time, Mr Daynes - who is married with three teenage daughters - said he missed a number of days of work because of whiplash injuries.

'It was about 8.45am and I was on my way to a couple of appointments in London. It's a route I know well and I haven't been involved in any similar accidents,' Mr Daynes reported in 1996.

'I noticed that I was being followed by a rather smart Range Rover, but at the time had no idea that Prince Philip was driving.

'I stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a lady cross the road and suddenly there was an almighty bang. My car jolted forward and I knew immediately that it had been seriously damaged.

'It all happened in a split-second and then the detective walked over to me and spoke to me through my open window.

'It was then that I noticed through my rear-view mirror that it was the Duke of Edinburgh who had been driving. It was quite a surprise.'

Prince Philip is 'conscious but very shocked and shaken' after crashing his Land Rover in a dramatic car crash near the Sandringham estate. Images have emerged showing the black Land Rover with severe damage to its left side

Mr Daynes told how the Duke remained impassive in the Range Rover. 'While the policeman was talking to me, the Duke didn't move a muscle. He just sat in his seat staring ahead.'

And noted at the time how the smash was a chance in a billion, saying 'why did it have to happen to me?'.

This evening the Queen is by The Duke of Edinburgh's side following his latest crash which happened just after 3pm when he pulled out of a driveway onto the A149 in Babingley, Norfolk.

At least five police cars and two ambulances rushed to the scene where two women inside the Kia were treated for minor injuries and cuts. Both were taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn and later discharged.

Commenting on the Land Rover crash today, Mr Daynes added: 'I wish him well, and hope he's all right following his latest accident.'
Authorities have seized six pork products containing the contagious African swine fever (ASF) at Australian airports and mail processing centres.

Of the 152 products tested at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, in Geelong, six were found to have the deadly virus, officials said.

Australia currently has not had any cases of ASF, which can kill pigs.

The grim discovery stoked fears that Australia could join the 360,000 global cases of ASF that broke out across 19 countries last year.

African swine fever was found in six out of 152 pork products at airports and mail processing centres in Australia

Early intervention and the destruction of all the food items tested meant the danger of additional transmission to Australian livestock was minimised.

'The detection of the virus in seized products at the border does not change Australia's African Swine Fever free status,' Lyn O'Connell, head of biosecurity at the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, told The Weekly Times.

Speaking on behalf of the country's 2,500 pig farmers and 36,000 pork-supply-chain workers, Australian Pork also urged travellers to respect local biosecurity laws.

'If you are travelling to Australia, do not bring in any pork or animal products with you,' said Australian Pork CEO Andrew Spencer.

African swine fever African swine fever (AFS) is a highly contagious, incurable disease. It is not transmittable to humans and exclusively affects the pig population. ASF can be transmitted through direct contact, poor sanitisation practices, and processed meats. Advertisement

While humans were not susceptible to the disease, ASF could have a devastating effect on Australia's $5.3 billion pork industry.

Certain strains of the virus have a 100 per cent mortality rate in pigs.

Passengers who do not declare pork products when entering Australia can be fined $420,000 and go to jail for up to 10 years.
An Australian woman has been released from a Thai detention centre and deported after overstaying her visa by more than 100 days.

Claire Johnson, 46, from the Gold Coast, spent nine days locked up in Thailand after an 18-month working holiday around the world.

She was due home nine days ago but instead messaged her close friend Juliet Potter from a detention centre in Bangkok, begging for help.

Ms Johnson was eventually released by Thai authorities on Thursday evening and is due to land on a Sydney-bound flight from Bangkok on Friday morning.

Claire Johnson, 46, from the Gold Coast, has been released from a Thai detention centre and deported, after overstaying her visa by more than 100 days

Ms Johnson's sent Miss Potter a string of alarming messages including one which simply read, 'help me'.

It emerged on Thursday that the real reason Ms Johnson has been detained was because she had overstayed her visa by 111 days.

'They are taking my phone... Have to go,' Ms Johnson wrote to Ms Potter in one message.

Ms Potter told Daily Mail Australia her friend was terrified and asking for money to buy supplies from detention centre officials.

'She needs help... She apparently had to pay somebody,' Ms Potter said.

'She called me and asked me to wire her some money. She said something about wanting to buy a blanket in the jail - you must have to buy a pillow and a blanket.'

Ms Johnson's ordeal began on Monday last week when she got in touch with friend Juliet Potter and in a frantic string of messages to 'help me'

In a message to another friend, Ms Johnson said she was 'panicking' as she was taken into custody

In a message to another friend, Ms Johnson said she was 'panicking' as she was taken into custody.

'They said the detention centre is not like a jail. I am praying he is right,' she wrote.

'Now I know what it feels like to be a prisoner. They won't even let me go to the toilet by myself.'

At the time she had just been hauled to an immigration centre in Bangkok after authorities discovered she had overstayed the visa by 111 days

Ms Johnson previously operated a business called Cosmetic Holidays which organised medi-travel trips for Australians going overseas for cosmetic surgery.

The business was voluntarily deregistered after five years of operation in 2017, but Ms Johnson's has continued to promote it on social media.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it had provided consular assistance to an Australian woman detained in Thailand.

On Facebook, Ms Johnson describes herself as a 'international medical tourism promoter, photographer, freelance journalist, world traveller.'

Although most tourists who don't abide by visa rules in Thailand are just hit with a fine, it is believed Ms Johnson's deportation was due to the length of her overstay.
A family has been left heartbroken after a killer python ate their beloved cat whole.

The cat was eaten after a 'scuffle' with the snake while it was out roaming at night in Noosa, Queensland, with the incident shared on snake catcher Luke Huntley's Facebook page, Snake Catcher Noosa.

'This python would have come through, the cat got a bit too curious, they had a scuffle and the cat has been strangled,' Luke told Yahoo7 News.

'The python won this round,' he said.

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Luke Huntley, of Snake Catcher Noosa, shared a photo on his Facebook page showing a python (pictured) just after it ate a local family's pet cat.

Huntley issued a grim warning to cat owners who let their pets roam at night.

'There are so many dangerous things out there  cars, dogs, other cats and the occasional wildlife that that fights back  why do people let them out?' he said.

The snake catcher said it was 'hard to feel sorry' for the cat in this instance as he found frogs legs, bird feathers and chewed bird corpse near the feline.

Huntley's Facebook post unleashed a torrent of comments  some against cats, others supportive  prompting him to release a video on his page to clarify his position.

Luke Huntley (pictured here with another python he caught) urges people to keep their cats indoor at night: 'Your cats stay safe, and our wildlife stay safe, its a win-win,' he said.

'I'm disappointed it turned into a bit of a hate fest with everyone insulting each other, this is not about cat hate,' he said in the video.

'I feel strongly about having cats indoors, where it's safe, because they're not going to be hit by cars, they're not going to be attacked by dogs, they're not going to have fights with other cats, and they're not going to get diseases.'

Keeping felines indoors is also good for the native wildlife as cats kill about 650 million reptiles across Australia annually, he said.

'Millions of native animals Australia wide can be saved if everyone have their cats inside, or in an outdoor enclosure, it's a much much better thing,' said Huntly.

'Your cat stays safe, and also our native wildlife stays safe' 'it's a win-win for everyone'
A condom company is refusing to work with a popular gay club after its controversial photography policy banning pictures of skinny boys was leaked.

Poof Doof, in Melbourne, was forced to apologise this week after its photography brief listing muscled men, hot boys and drag queens as a priority was posted online.

The list ruled out 'indi boys' unless they were 'breathtakingly good looking', as well as thin men and clubbers with bad skin.

Celebrate Condoms announced on Friday it is no longer willing to work with the club due to its 'discriminatory behaviour'.

Poof Doof, in Melbourne , was forced to apologise as its photography brief listed muscled men as a priority and ruled out 'indi boys' unless they were 'breathtakingly good looking' (pictured are attendees at Mardi Gras 2018)

Celebrate Condoms has now come out announcing it is no longer willing to work with the club due to its 'discriminatory behaviour'

'We have previously worked with the venue and management team in the past by running promotions and giveaways of our rainbow condoms and had planned on working with them again for future events this year but will no longer be doing so,' a spokesman said.

'We of course had no idea that this document existed and quite frankly are mortified that it was ever written.

'We are disappointed by this blatant act of discrimination as it does not align with our values as a brand that prides itself on inclusivity.'

The photography brief was initially featured on the club's social media pages to promote the South Yarra venue.

'If you want to lick their faces because they look so delicious, take a photo,' it read.

The photography policy said drag queens and muscly men were a priority (pictured)

The full photographer's brief said: 'If you want to lick their faces because they look so delicious, take a photo. Poof Doof is a gay club for homos. No-one is here to see girls' (file photo)

'Poof Doof is a gay club for homos. No-one is here to see girls. Ever.

'Photos are not to be taken of skinny boys in burgundy t-shirts and chinos. There is nothing interesting or cool about them.'

A spokesman for the club said the photography policy was outdated and 'in no way' a current representation of their values.

'We are absolutely devastated that it has caused pain and upset to a community we love so much,' he said.

'We of course had no idea that this document existed and quite frankly are mortified that it was ever written,' a spokesman for Celebrate Condoms said

A spokesman for the club said the photography policy was outdated and was 'in no way' a current representation of their values

'We have apologised for this and are now focusing on finding ways to better understand the concerns of our community to help them.'

The club claimed the document surfaced after a photographer was terminated last week.

The club is now working to create a new policy following the publish backlash this week.

'We have taken your feedback very seriously and if you want to be involved in helping us write it, you can. We honestly appreciate your input on how we can improve, so much so that we want more of it.'
Shohreh Kohbanani finds herself weeping at odd times. The tears sneak up on her in between working two minimum-wage jobs and caring for her disabled father  often at the most inconvenient moments.

The source of her pain: she hasn't seen her husband, Hamid, in almost two years and has no idea when they will be reunited. The Iranian couple have been divided indefinitely  her in America and him in Turkey  as a result of the travel ban imposed by the Trump administration against seven countries, five of which are Muslim-majority nations.

'I miss everything about him,' Shohreh, 36, told DailyMail.com through an interpreter. 'The times I cry he can't hold me in his arms.'

They were in the process of applying to have Hamid join Shohreh (who has a green card) when President Donald Trump announced the first travel ban  two years ago this month.

While that and a second ban was struck down in federal courts for targeting Muslim nations, a later ban was upheld in a 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court  a victory for the Trump administration, which has maintained its motives have always been national security and the safety of the American people.

'As long as I am president, I will defend the sovereignty, safety, and security of the American people, and fight for an immigration system that serves the national interests of the United States and its citizens,' Trump said in a statement after the high court's ruling, adding that 'hysterical commentary' from Democrats and the media have maligned the ban's original intent.

Shohreh Kohbanani poses with a cake celebrating her two-year anniversary with her husband, Hamid. The couple have had to celebrate their anniversaries, birthdays and other special moments on a long-distance basis because Hamid, as an Iranian, is banned from entering the country

For Hamid and Shohreh, the court ruling meant they would stay in 'limbo' indefinitely.

'When we got to know each other we didn't know how hard it would be for us,' Hamid, 33, told DailyMail.com via an interpreter. 'We have so many dreams, like every other young couple, to build a life together.'

Their story is just one of many among families who have been affected by the ban on travel to the U.S. from seven nations: Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

For example, Shaima Swileh, a Yemeni mother, was barred from traveling to the United States to see her dying 2-year-old son until the U.S. State Department granted her a visa in December to visit the boy following extensive media coverage of the family's heartbreak.

As of November 30, 2,396 applicants from the seven banned countries had been cleared for waivers to enter the U.S., according to the Department of Justice.

Officials declined to provide DailyMail.com with the number of people who applied for waivers during that period, and a Freedom of Information Request for the data remains pending.

But the limited information available indicates that a small fraction of applicants are being granted.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, said on Twitter in June that the State Department had notified him that as of April 30, 2018, only 579 waivers had been approved out of 33,176 applications  roughly 2 percent.

Despite the hardship that families are complaining about, Department of Justice spokesman Steven Stafford said the ban has made Americans safer.

'President Trump took action to keep the American people safe, which is the most important thing that any president is called to do,' he said in a statement provided to DailyMail.com.

Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow for the anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies, said the Trump administration chose the countries to ban based on those nations' inability to assist the U.S. with vetting.

President Donald Trump shows his signature on an executive order on January 27, 2017. That was the day he established the first travel ban, barring people from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the country

In some cases that was because their intelligence leaders don't have a good relationship with the U.S., while in other cases the countries simply lack the infrastructure and record-keeping to verify a person is who they say they are, Bensman said.

'There's a big disconnect between critics of the policy and homeland security people who came up with it,' he told DailyMail.com. 'If a country has no intelligence or policing capacity to help you vet a migrant or a potential entrant on the front end who applies for entry, then you're at a disadvantage, you're at a higher risk if you don't have the ability to find out who that is.'

The challenge for the Trump administration is that it's impossible to prove the ban has prevented a terrorist from entering the country and doing harm to Americans, he said, adding, 'There's no measure for something that doesn't go boom.'

'It's just better to be safe than sorry,' Bensman said. 'It's pre-emptive threat mitigation. It's like parking an empty (police) patrol car at an intersection to make people slow down.'

Leon Rodriguez, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and the former director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Obama administration, disagreed, telling DailyMail.com that we are 'not any safer than we already were at the time these steps were implemented.'

'The assumption is that prior to the implementation of that ban our vetting procedures were inadequate and that therefore we were admitting dangerous people who would go on to do some harm to the United States,' he added. 'There has not been a single instance (since Barack Obama took office)  where anybody admitted as a refugee as an adult either was an active terrorist in the United States or engaged in a conspiracy in the United States.'

Instead, the ban has had a 'human cost,' Rodriguez said.

Shohreh and Hamid Kohbanani pose for a photograph at the airport in Turkey during one of her rare visits to see her husband

Sima Alizadeh, an immigration attorney with the California-based Pars Equality Center said she has seen that cost first hand with her mostly Iranian clients.

'It's been roughly one year that we've been filing waivers for clients to try and come and a very small percentage  of people have been able to come to the U.S.,' she told DailyMail.com. 'I've had cases where people were terminally ill and not able to come in.'

One of her clients is an elderly woman with terminal cancer whose three children are seeking a tourist visa so they can be by their mother's side as she dies. Alizadeh said she has seen countless similar situations, including cases of husbands and wives, like Shohreh and Hamid, being separated indefinitely.

Shohreh now lives outside of Seattle where she cares for her disabled father while her husband, Hamid, is living on a tourist visa in Turkey that is due to run out in about four months.

Hamid, a Muslim, is fearful to return to his home country because of his marriage to Shohreh, who follows the Baha'i faith. People of her religion are persecuted in Iran, and Hamid says he believes he would be arrested and tortured for marrying outside of his religion under the current regime.

A very small percentage of people have been able to come to the U.S. I've had cases where people were terminally ill and not able to come in. - Attorney Sima Alizadeh

Shohreh's faith (and the dangers that come with it in Iran) is the reason she fled her home country - in the hope of starting a new life and having her husband join her soon after. It's also the reason she can't safely go back to Iran.

The lack of information from U.S. officials on where the Hamid is in the application process is the most frustrating part for the couple.

'Give me a number,' Hamid said. 'Tell me how long it would take me to see my wife. There's no information.'

There may still be hope for families affected by the ban in the form of a lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California in July  after the ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The suit  brought by visa applicants and U.S. citizens and permanent residents with family members who are visa applicants  isn't challenging the constitutionality of the ban, but seeking answers from the Trump administration about how it grants waivers under the ban.

The waiver process has lacked transparency, and the suit claims the administration must justify the seemingly large swath of waivers that are being outright denied.

As presented by the Trump administration, the ban was never supposed to automatically veto all applications.

Instead, consular officers in affected countries were supposed to weigh three criteria when reviewing waiver applications: Whether applicants would suffer 'undue hardship' by being barred from entry to the U.S.; whether their entry would harm national security or public safety, and; whether it was in the 'national interest' of the U.S. to grant a waiver.

Applicants meeting all three criteria were supposed to be granted a waiver.

The lawsuit is still making its way through the courts.
A man who killed his mother at the home they shared is forcing his sister to clear out the house.

Ross Taggart, 32, is serving a life sentence for the murder of his mother, Carol-Anne, 52, but controls his mother's estate as executor of her will.

Taggart, of Dunfermline, in Fife, Scotland, has given his sister one week to clear out the house, STV reported.

Ross Taggart, 32, left, is serving a life sentence for the murder of his mother, Carol-Anne, right. He was jailed for life for her murder at the High Court in Edinburgh in November 2015, and was sentenced to a minimum of 18 years in prison

Taggart strangled his mother to death at the home they shared in December 2014 and hid her body under a caravan in Pettycur Bay, Fife.

What is a will 'executor'? A will executor is someone who can implement your will when you die. In England and Wales, an executor can be removed in the High Court under section 50 of the Administration of Justice Act. In Scotland, an executor can be removed via the Court of Session. Advertisement

He was jailed for life for her murder at the High Court in Edinburgh in November 2015, and was sentenced to a minimum of 18 years in prison.

He has since used his power as a will executor to refuse his sister, Lorraine Bristow, access to her mother's house.

Ms Bristow's family started a Change.org petition last year to change the law in Scotland, which has had almost 19,000 signatures to date.

They want to stop convicted murderers from being executors of their victims.
Australians are suffering through the worst heatwave since World War II as temperatures soar close to to 50C, causing roads to melt.

Sweltering conditions had plagued the countrys east coast since Tuesday, with temperatures in New South Wales exceeding 41C for most of the week.

The hot weather proved to be too much for the Okley Highway near Wauchope, a town in the mid north coast region of NSW, where the bitumen was pictured melting under the blistering sun.

Motorists were warned of the deteriorating surface (pictured) on Thursday as an image posted online showed the tar beginning to melt

Walcha Council, which covers the far south-eastern corner of the New England region, told The Macleay Argus they would use a water cart to cool the road down

The majority of New South Wales is forecast to exceed 41C until Friday, as they continue to endure the sweltering conditions which have been in place since Tuesday

Walcha Council, covering the far south-eastern corner of the New England region, told The Macleay Argus they would use a water cart to cool the road down.

A Roads and Maritime Service statement acknowledged water was scarce in drought-stricken NSW, but was needed on the bitumen 'to ensure the safety of motorists and keep the road open'.

Playgrounds were also becoming dangerous, with the metal equipment too hot for children to play on.

Mother Nicky Tongapijit told ABC News she could not risk her kids playing on the scorching slides and other equipment.

'It's very hot, [the slide] is going to burn their bum,' she said.

'I just want some more roofs for them to play under.'

Sydney had sweltered through temperatures of over 40C for five days, for the first time in 80 years.

The last time Australia experienced a heatwave like this week was in 1939.

'When looking at average maximum temperatures across New South Wales, it is likely this will be the most significant heat event since 1939,' a Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.

'...we're only talking about NSW (not Australia), and these are maximum temperatures averaged across the state  some areas haven't been impacted by the heat as much.'

Most parts of New South Wales were expected to exceed 41C from Wednesday to Friday.

Sydney has sweltered through temperatures of over 40C for five days, for the first time in 80 years

Sydney is set to reach a top of 33C on Friday and Adelaide will sweat through 32C

An overall of 27 towns in NSW and ACT suffered through the roasting temperatures on Thursday

Sydney was set to reach a top of 33C on Friday.

Melbourne and Brisbane and Adelaide will see slightly cooler temperatures sitting around 28C.

Canberra will endure the brunt of the record-breaking inland temperatures, as it was set to reach 40C.

According to the NSW Rural Fire Service, as of midday Friday, there are a total of 71 bush and grass fires across NSW with 32 uncontained.

A total of 27 towns in NSW and ACT suffered through 40-plus temperatures on Thursday.

Whitecliff in the northwest, recorded the highest temperature so far with 48.2C just before 3.30pm on Wednesday, and temperatures were set to stay above 40C there until the end of next week.

By midday on Wednesday, the mercury had soared beyond 45C across much of NSW's central west and at 3pm Wilcannia, Mulurulu, Ivanhoe and Hay topped 47C.

There will be some relief this weekend as temperatures take a slight dip, but a second heatwave will begin making its way across the country beginning Monday.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Diana Eadie said 'severe to extreme heatwave temperatures are expected to persist across most of the country'

The majority of the state is forecast to exceed 41C until Friday, before there will be some relief this weekend as temperatures take a slight dip (temperatures on Wednesday pictured)

Perth will be the first to experience soaring temperatures before it gradually makes its way to the countrys east.

Head of climate monitoring at the Bureau, Dr Karl Braganza, said the lack of rain in 2017 and 2018 has led to the drought conditions across Australia.

'This drought sits alongside historic droughts, like the Federation Drought, the World War II drought and the drought period in the 1960s,' Dr Braganza told the ABC.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Diana Eadie said temperatures climbed eight to 12C higher than average this week.

'We've already seen some January maximum temperature records fall and we're likely to see many more before this event is over.

'The humidity and 'feels like' temperature will make for really oppressive conditions.'
The police investigation points to a possible suicide bombing - something unprecedented in decades of political violence in the Andean nation

Videos circulating on social media show officers hauling injured colleagues on stretchers with debris and body parts strewn in front of the cadet barracks

The Colombian defense ministry said 10 people were killed including a Panamanian and an Ecuadorian national

Somehow the driver managed to get through the heavily secure General Santander police academy in southern Bogota

Jose Aldemar Rojas, 56, driving a 1993 Nissan pick-up loaded with 175 pound of pentolite, a high explosive, carried out the attack, according to a prosecutor

A car bomb exploded at a heavily guarded police academy in Colombia's capital on Thursday, killing 10 people and injuring dozens in an attack that recalled the bloodiest chapters of the country's drug-fueled guerrilla conflict.

The scene outside the General Santander police academy in southern Bogota was chaotic in the aftermath of the midmorning attack, the biggest against a police or military facility in Bogota in years.

Chief Prosecutor Nestor Martinez said a 56-year-old man named Jose Aldemar Rojas, driving a 1993 Nissan pick-up loaded with 175 pound of pentolite, a high explosive, carried out the attack.

Videos circulating on social media show panicked officers hauling injured colleagues on stretchers with debris and body parts strewn in front of red tile-roofed cadet barracks.

In this image provided by military personnel, flames rise from a deadly car bombing at a police academy on Thursday

Footage uploaded onto social media shows a gruesome and chaotic aftermath as the flaming car wreckage, as well as human remains, can be discerned from the debris

In the distance, the skeletal steel remains of the truck used in the attack can be seen still burning while approaching ambulances blare.

President Ivan Duque rushed back to the capital with his top military advisers from a visit to a western state to oversee the police investigation, which points to a possible suicide bombing - something unprecedented in decades of political violence in the Andean nation.

'This is an attack not only against the young, the security forces or the police. It's an attack against society,' Duque said in a brief statement after surveying the blast scene. 'This demented terrorist act will not go unpunished.'

In this image provided by military personnel, emergency personnel respond to the scene of a deadly car bombing at a police academy on Thursday, in Bogota, Colombia

The defense ministry said 10 people were killed and another 66 injured. Among the dead were a Panamanian and an Ecuadorian national.

Rafael Trujillo said he was delivering a care package to his son Gerson, who entered the school just two days ago, when he was stopped in his tracks by the blast that destroyed windows in apartment buildings as far as four blocks away.

'I'm sad and very worried because I don't have any information about my son,' said Trujillo, standing outside the facility, where police officers had set up a taped perimeter as forensic specialists surveyed the blast site.

Authorities were at a loss to explain how the vehicle slipped through a gate permanently protected by explosive-sniffing dogs, heavily-armed guards and security cameras.

Members of the Colombia Police Department stand guard near the scene where a car bomb exploded in front of the police academy

Members of the Colombian Technical Investigation Team (CTI) work at the place where a car bomb caused an explosion in Bogota, Colombia

Forensic workers, behind top, work the scene of a deadly car bombing at the General Santander police academy in Bogota, Colombia

Police and security personnel work at the scene where a car bomb exploded, according to authorities, in Bogota, Colombia

There were unconfirmed reports based on leaked recordings of phone conversations of officers on the scene that the driver rammed through the checkpoint on a kamikaze mission.

Health authorities in Bogota appealed for residents to donate blood at one of four collection points in the capital to help treat those injured, the majority of whom were rushed to a police hospital.

For decades, residents of Bogota lived in fear of being caught in a bombing by leftist rebels or Pablo Escobar's Medellin drug cartel.

As Colombia's conflict has wound down, security has improved and residents have lowered their guard.

While authorities had yet to suggest who was behind the attack, and no armed group claimed responsibility, attention was focused on leftist rebels from the National Liberation Army, which has been stepping up attacks on police targets in Colombia amid a standoff with the conservative Duque over how to re-start stalled peace talks.

Family members of victims of a bombing gather outside the entrance to the General Santander police academy where the bombing took place

Family members of victims of a bombing embrace outside the entrance to the General Santander police academy

Family members of victims cry outside the entrance to the General Santander police academy

A man wearing large angel wings that read in Spanish: 'S.O.S. True Peace,' stands outside the General Santander police academy

The group known as the ELN was long considered a lesser military threat than the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (also known as FARC), whose 7,000 guerrilla fighters disarmed as part of a 2016 peace accord.

But in the wake of the peace deal the Cuban-inspired insurgency has been gaining strength, especially along the eastern border with Venezuela, where it has carried out a number of kidnappings and bombings of oil pipelines.

That has hardened Duque's resolve in refusing to resume peace talks that have been stalled since he took office last August, despite a rebel offer of a cease-fire.

Colombia's President Ivan Duque gives a statement inside the General Santander police academy. Duque called the bombing 'an attack against society'

Other possible assailants include the country's Usuga drug cartel, which has suffered a number of setbacks at the hands of the police, and dissident members of the FARC.

Several foreign leaders condemned the attack, as did the former commanders of the disbanded FARC.

The United Nations peace mission in Colombia called it 'an unacceptable criminal act which goes against the efforts the country is making to steer away from the violence, and work ... to build a more prosperous and peaceful future.'

An explosion at the upmarket Andino shopping mall in June 2017 killed three people, including a French woman, and injured another 11.

Citizens and police hold candles during a vigil at the Santander General Police Cadet School in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday evening

Dozens of Colombians gathered at the site to remember those who died in the car bomb attack

Police later arrested several suspected members of a far-left urban guerrilla group called the People Revolutionary's Movement for the bombing.

It has been more than a decade since a police or military installation in the capital has suffered a major bombing. A blast at military university in 2006 left almost two dozen people injured.

Ariel Avila, an analyst who tracks violence, said that in the last four years, there have been 28 attacks in the capital with explosives.

While the majority has been carried out with low-grade homemade materials and grenades that have damaged property but left no casualties, he said police intelligence and checkpoints surrounding the city need to be reinforced to prevent more attacks.

'We need to fortify the city again,' he told Blu Radio.
Microsoft said Thursday it will devote $500million to address the severe need for affordable housing in the Seattle area.

The company acknowledged a problem its own success helped create by encouraging a booming tech industry in the region, where trillion-dollar brand Amazon also has a base.

With the cost of housing has soaring as a result of the giants bringing in jobs, the like of teachers and nurses in the Washington city have been run out to live further from their places of work and it has caused a crisis.

Microsoft (the Microsoft Visitor Center in Redmond, Washington is pictured) has pledged $500million to address homelessness and develop affordable housing in response to the Seattle region's widening affordability gap

A man lies in a tent with others camped nearby, under and near an overpass in Seattle (February 2016). $25million will be used for grants to address homelessness and eviction

Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith spoke Thursday during a news conference in Bellevue, Washington, to announce a $500million pledge by Microsoft. The affordable housing is for low- and middle-income workers in Seattle

As well as those those with good middle-income jobs spending more time and money on their commute, in turn lowering their quality of living, the issues include tent encampments packed with homeless people becoming a common sight.

'A healthy business needs to be part of a healthy community,' Microsoft President Brad Smith and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood wrote in a blog post announcing the financial commitment.

'And a healthy community must have housing within the economic reach of every part of the community, including the many dedicated people who provide the vital services on which we all rely.'

While $25million will be used for grants to address homelessness, including money to provide legal help to those facing eviction, Microsoft will split the rest of the money two other ways.

It will provide market-rate or below-market-rate loans to developers who want to build affordable housing - the latter of which especially can make a big difference in what landlords charge for rent.

A total of $225million Microsoft is putting toward making loans at below-market-rate returns.

Smith (pictured) and Microsoft CFO Amy Hood teamed up with the real estate firm Zillow over the past eight months. They found providing short-term loans can help developers quickly acquire publicly owned land while they raise longer-term financing for construction

Hood (pictured) and Smith wrote: 'While this is just one of the many ways that we'll seek to put money to good use, it illustrates our financial commitment can have a multiplier effect'

Housing policy researcher at the Seattle-based Sightline Institute, Dan Bertolet, said research suggested having to repay loans at 2 percent interest, instead of 5 to 6 percent interest, could allow building owners to cut the rent they charge by roughly half.

Microsoft will loan the rest, $250million, at market rate to finance construction of low-income housing.

In its announcement, Microsoft urged other companies, the state and local governments to step up and make it easier to build affordable housing.

The company asked the state to double the $100million budget for its Housing Trust Fund, which provides grants to developers of low-income housing.

Smith and Microsoft Corp. CFO Amy Hood wrote that Microsoft had teamed up with the Seattle-based real estate firm Zillow over the past eight months to research housing data and that it had worked with others to study best practices for affordable housing around the world.

Among the lessons was that providing short-term loans can help developers quickly acquire publicly owned land while they raise longer-term financing for construction.

Loans could go to King County Housing Authority. Executive Dow Constantine spoke Thursday

The mayors of nine cities east and south of Seattle pledged to tweak building codes and zoning, streamline permitting requirements, and make underused public land available for affordable housing. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan is pictured Thursday

'With these and similar investments, it's possible to lend money, accelerate progress, be repaid and then lend this money again,' they wrote in a blog. 'While this is just one of the many ways that we'll seek to put money to good use, it illustrates our financial commitment can have a multiplier effect.'

Mayor of south Seattle suburb Auburn, Nancy Backus, called Microsoft's commitment exemplary.

Although the neighborhood is known for having some of the cheapest housing in the area, new homes run at least $565,000 - far above the city's median of about $375,000.

'The push of people leaving Seattle and leaving the Eastside because it's no longer affordable has really started to have a strain on Auburn,' she said Thursday. 'We're very hopeful some of the funding that is being made available will help ease some of that burden and be able to keep affordable housing affordable.'

In conjunction, the mayors of nine cities east and south of Seattle - including Microsoft's hometown of Redmond - pledged to tweak building codes and zoning, streamline permitting requirements, and make underused public land available for affordable housing.

Microsoft's initiative comes as Seattle's tech giants face calls to help fix the region's housing crisis.

Last year, Seattle's City Council passed a 'head tax' on employee-hours at large companies - only to abruptly repeal it under pressure from Amazon.

A few months later, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced a $2billion contribution to start a fund that will open preschools in low-income neighborhoods around the US and give money to nonprofits that help homeless families.
Pressure is building on the New South Wales government after a handful of doctors called for pill testing trials to be introduced at music festivals.

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians have contacted NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her counterparts, urging them to follow the lead of the Australian Capital Territory.

The request came after the deaths of five young people from suspected drug overdoses at music festivals in NSW alone since September: Alex Ross-King, Joshua Tam, Callum Brosnan, Joseph Pham and Diana Nguyen.

In April last year at the Groovin the Moo festival in Canberra, 85 substances were tested by the Safety and Testing and Advisory Service at Festivals and Events (STA-SAFE).

Alex Ross-King (pictured) died at last Saturday's FOMO festival at Parramatta from a suspected drug overdose

Joshua Tam (pictured right) passed away after attending the Lost Paradise music festival on the NSW central coast

The highly toxic ephylone, responsible for mass overdoses around the world, was found inside a handful of clear capsules.

Ephylone is a stimulant which can cause circulation problems, lethal heart palpitations and hallucinations.

'The RACP's experts in addiction medicine and public health medicine believe the evidence currently available justifies the introduction of carefully designed pill testing trials in Australia,' Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones said.

'Ideally, we would all like young people and the wider public not to use drugs illicitly, however, the reality is that they do in large numbers and the moral message to abstain from taking drugs is not getting through.'

The RACP have joined the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, who are also strongly encouraging governments to adopt pill testing.

Despite the repeated tragedies in recent months, Ms Berejiklian has rejected calls to introduce pill testing, stating there is 'not enough evidence' to show it can save lives.

The RACP disagree, pointing out a heavy police presence and sniffer dogs isn't deterring revellers from taking illegal drugs at dance festivals.

Diana Nguyen (pictured) died from a suspected drug overdose after attending the Defqon.1 music festival in NSW

Callum Brosnan (pictured) died after he was found in a 'distressed state' at the Knockout Games of Destiny festival in December

Joseph Pham (pictured) passed away from a suspected drug overdose after he was dancing at the Defqon.1 music festival in September last year

'These policies are failing our communities and our young people, leading to unnecessary deaths,' Dr Lloyd-Jones said.

'Pill testing needs to be implemented in conjunction with other evidence-based harm minimisation measures that prioritise the health and safety of festival goers over criminal and legal measures.'
Victor Spink, 74, died in a hotel room on January 7 of a suspected drug overdose

There was no elaborate gangster funeral for crime boss Victor Spink - instead, one of Australia's biggest drug dealers was privately farewelled by a motley crew of family and friends.

The service at Sydney's Northern Suburbs Crematorium on Friday was so low-key the venue would not even confirm the ceremony was on 45 minutes before it began.

'No, I can't - sorry,' the crematorium's receptionist said. 'That one's a private service.

'I can't even tell you if it's today.'

Dozens of old mates - some heavily tattooed, many casually dressed and most wearing sunglasses - had been directed to the north chapel at 10.15am by word-of-mouth or mobile phone.

Among them was Spink's close friend Bruce 'Snapper' Cornwell, whose past drug trafficking exploits were even more notorious than the deceased's.

Cornwell was named as a major drug trafficker as far back as the 1970s and was jailed in 2004 for conspiring to import 120kg of cocaine worth $20million.

Dozens of mourners filed into a chapel at Sydney's Northern Suburbs Crematorium on Friday for the funeral of drug baron Victor Spink. The low-key service was a listed as a private affair

A mourner clutches an order of service for drug baron Victor Spink's private funeral on Friday

Convicted drug trafficker Bruce 'Snapper' Cornwell (in white shirt) was a close friend of Spink

There was no elaborate gangster funeral for Victor Spink - instead, one of Australia's biggest drug dealers was privately farewelled by an eclectic group of family and close friends

Spink, who was a major figure on Sydne's crime scene and race tracks for decades from the 1970s, was jailed for his organising role in a $225million importation of hashish in 1994.

His funeral service began with Don McLean's classic song Vincent and finished with Andrea Bocelli's recording of Con Te Partiro.

In the end, it appeared Spink's life was snuffed out by the trade that once made him infamous.

Spink was found dead in a $79-a-night hotel room near Sydney's Central train station 11 days ago.

The 74-year-old was in the company of a young woman and friends believed he died of an ice overdose.

'Victor had his foot to the pedal,' one associate said last week. 'He left nothing in the tank.'

Spink's body was located at the Great Southern Hotel in George Street about 12.30am on January 7 and investigators said there were no suspicious circumstances about his death.

Victor Thomas Spink had a record commencing in 1960. He began his criminal career as a shoplifter and was jailed in 1996 over the importation of cannabis resin worth $225million

The service began with Don McLean's classic song Vincent and finished with Andrea Bocelli's recording of Con Te Partiro. Drug baron Victor Spink was a keen fan of many styles of music

Northern Suburbs Crematorium was asked not to say exactly where the funeral was being held

The 30-year-old woman who had been sharing his room stayed to assist police with their inquiries.

'She did the right thing,' a police spokeswoman said.

Mystery surrounded Spink to the last, with police giving his date of birth as June 1, 1942 and the funeral's order of service - as well as a 1976 mugshot - stating it was April 10, 1944.

The father-of-two was described by a Swiss tribunal a decade ago as 'one of the most important drug dealers in Australia' who had been linked to organised crime since the 1970s.

Spink, who was a handy boxer and played lower grade rugby league for Newtown and Balmain as a young man, began his criminal career in 1960.

He was jailed then deported for shoplifting in the United Kingdom and was imprisoned in the late 1970s over a $54,000 mailbag robbery at Port Macquarie on the NSW mid-north coast.

Bruce Snapper Cornwell (right) was identified as a major drug trafficker during royal commissions in 1979 and 1984. He was jailed in 2004 for conspiring to import cocaine

Victor Spink's funeral attracted dozens of mourners on a hot summer morning in Sydney

Victor Spink's body was found in a room at the Great Southern Hotel near Central train station in Sydney about 12.30am on January 7. He had been in the company of a 30-year-old woman

Thereafter, he was heavily involved in punting and drug dealing.

In 1994 he had been the 'controlling mind' in the importation of 15 tonnes of cannabis resin from Pakistan which resulted in the arrests of more than 20 people.

Five tonnes of the drug were seized from a boat at Hervey Bay, almost 300km north of Brisbane, and a further 10 tonnes found dumped in deep water about 600km west of New Caledonia.

Victor Spink (pictured) was a handy boxer and rugby league player in his youth

Spink gained further notoriety in 1995 when he was revealed as 'Mr C' in the so-called jockey tapes, recordings made by police which revealed links between racing figures and organised crime.

As a result, champion jockey Jim Cassidy was disqualified for three years, later reduced to 21 months, for tipping to Spink. Cassidy has always denied he was ever involved in race fixing.

The Melbourne Cup winner wrote in his 2016 autobiography Pumper that he met Spink at the races in 1993 and got to know him through Shane Dye, another Group 1-winning hoop.

Cassidy told Sydney's then chief racing steward John Schreck he had never received a cent from Spink.

'He was more a hassle to me than anything,' he said. 'As it has turned out, he has been an enormous hassle.'

Spink told the Herald a decade ago that in the 10 years before his arrest on the drug importation charges he had wagered more than $12million.

'They said I tried to fix races, but all I ever did was ring jockeys and get their tips,' he said. 'There was no racing fixing, I was always ringing jockeys, betting was part of my business back then.'

Spink was sentenced to a surprisingly light sentence for his role in the $225million cannabis importation.

Many of the mourners came casually dressed to farewell the late Victor Thomas Spink, 74

Spink was described in court as the 'controlling mind' in the importation of 15 tonnes of cannabis resin from Pakistan which resulted in the arrests of more than 20 people in 1994

Victor Spink had property worth millions of dollars confiscated when he was arrested over a cannabis resin importation in 1994. He bought this Vaucluse property for $600,000 in 1993

The maximum sentence for the offence was life in prison but Spink served just six years.

In jailing Spink for a maximum nine years in March 1996, New South Wales District Court Judge Reg Blanch took into account his guilty plea and favourable character evidence.

The Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) explained Spink's sentence was further reduced 'because of the other material relating to assistance to the authorities.'

Champion jockey Jim Cassidy (left) was rubbed out of racing for 21 months for tipping to Spink (right). 'He was more a hassle to me than anything,' Cassidy wrote in his autobiography

The CCA judgement revealed Spink had also suffered 'a significant financial loss in terms of wasted outlay in relation to the criminal venture.'

In 2008 Spink told the Herald the botched drug importation had cost him a fortune.

Authorities had seized $1million from a Spink bank account and 10 of 11 properties he owned in Byron Bay, on the NSW north coast, St Ives on Sydney's north shore and Woollahra, Darling Point and Potts Point in the eastern suburbs.

'I lost everything when they arrested me,' Spink said. 'Three of the properties in Byron and two at Potts Point were worth $16.5 million.

'There was no money earned out of that crime. No one made any money out of that, but they came and took just about everything I had.'

'Victor had his foot to the pedal,' one associate said. 'He left nothing in the tank.' Another said Spink, who had previously been addicted to heroin, was known to be using ice heavily

Spink was reportedly a model prisoner and after his release lived in a two-storey home in exclusive Olola Avenue, Vaucluse, which he sold for $4.9million in March last year.

He said he had planned to move up to the north coast after the deaths of his brother and sister.

Spink, also known as George Maurice Saunders, had previously given up alcohol and heroin but was back using ice when he died.

Friends said he had been a charismatic man who enjoyed all the trappings of his drug dealing days but had become erratic at the end of his life.

Police had no further information on the cause of Spink's death on Friday.
Just when you think there are already plenty of Costa, Starbucks and Caffe Nero shops to go around in Britain, think again - new data suggests the number is set to surge.

Currently, there are 25,483 coffee shops - and one in three are a chain, the latest Allegra world coffee report shows.

Britain is firmly becoming a nation of coffee loving connoisseurs, spending a record 10.1billion in coffee shops in 2018, according to the market analysts.

It showed that coffee drinkers in the UK spent 10.1billion last year and that the industry enjoyed a 7.9 per cent sales increase, with it growing every year in the last two decades.

Latte love: While Brits enjoy a good cup of quality coffee the coffee shop sector is set to get hurt by the uncertainty of Brexit

But in these uncertain times it found that coffee lovers were still after a good bargain and are willing to to look at non-traditional coffee outlets for value.

Allegra also warned that economic turbulence caused by Brexit uncertainty could hurt the coffee shop sector as the political impasse over the last 18 months has left it grappling with labour shortages, rising prices, investment and eroded consumer confidence.

Jeffrey Young, Allegra chief executive, said: '20 years of consecutive growth, in terms of outlets, turnover and like-for-like performance is an impressive feat by this robust segment that has become intrinsic to UK lifestyles.

'More growth will continue, albeit at a slower pace, as the economy is subjected to myriad pressures, including structural retail change, technological development, changing consumer habits and deep uncertainty on the numerous potential outcomes of Brexit.'

Allegra found that almost half of the sector's leaders that it surveyed felt that Brexit was negatively affecting their business, with 46 per cent remaining neutral and five per cent reporting a positive impact.

Industry giants Costa Coffee, Starbucks and Caffe Nero remain the three largest coffee-focused branded chains the UK with 2,655 outlets, 992 and 683 stores respectively.

The report found that branded coffee shops secured a robust 8.7 per cent outlet growth in 2018 to reach 8,149 stores.

Coffee quality remained the biggest factor behind a cafe's success, according to industry leaders surveyed.

However, reduced consumer confidence contributed to the success of value-focused chains last year with Greggs and McDonalds - which both launched coffee-focused strategies in 2018 - perceived to offer the best value-for-money.

Not all coffee shops survived though with some smaller cafes being consolidated within the bigger chains.

Despite the uncertainty, major deals were concluded by foreign businesses such as the 3.9billion acquisition of Costa by soft drinks company Coca-Cola, while German conglomerate JAB Holdings bought Pret A Manger for 1.5billion.

Allegra predicts the chains will exceed 10,000 outlets but 2023 displaying a five year compound annual growth rate of five per cent.

It also begs the question - are cappuccinos, lattes and flat whites overtaking tea as the go-to hot drinks in Britain?
Judges have slammed the competition watchdog's handling of the merger between Sainsbury's and Asda.

Lord Justice Roth, supported by two other judges, said the Competition and Markets Authority had made 'unreasonable and unfair' demands of the supermarket groups during its consultations over the deal.

The CMA expected teams from the two grocery chains to prepare responses to 400 pages of complex market analysis in a matter of days.

Lord Justice Roth, supported by two other judges, said the Competition and Markets Authority, led by former Tory MP Lord Tyrie, had made 'unreasonable and unfair' demands

In a judgment that will embarrass the CMA's boss, former Tory MP Lord Tyrie, the judges even raised the question of whether the case showed the watchdog's methods will not be fit for purpose after Brexit.

The judges said that the regulator will have to deal with more large-scale mergers post-Brexit when the European competition authorities will no longer hold sway.

This could 'multiply' the problem caused by the authority's tight timetables. The row started after the CMA shared a large number of complex documents with both supermarkets just seven working days before the deadline for responses.

Sainsbury's and Asda said they needed up to five more weeks to review the information, which was accompanied by a large volume of industry data.

When the CMA granted only a one-week extension the firms launched a judicial review, the process where government bodies' decisions are reviewed by judges.

And the three judges ruled the watchdog had been too wedded to its timetable considering the deal was such a 'large and complex' merger, five times the size of the average tie-up.

The judges told the Competition Appeal Tribunal: 'We have no doubt that imposing that timetable was unreasonable and unfair.'

They added: 'If the departure of the UK from the EU will lead to all large-scale, international mergers affecting the UK which currently fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the EU Commission, being in future also subject to the UK merger regime, this problem is likely to be multiplied.'

Between November 27 and 28, nine different sets of Working Papers were sent. One batch was dispatched at 1 am. All in all, there were 400 pages.

The companies were given just seven working days to analyse the data and send responses before the December 7 deadline.

The three judges said the CMA's timetable should be quashed, but made clear the watchdog retained the power to set a new schedule.

Sainsbury's and Asda said: 'We took the decision to apply for a Judicial Review of the CMA's phase two timetable and process reluctantly but were pleased that the Tribunal ruled in our favour.'

A CMA spokesman said it is 'not unusual for companies to be required to respond in the timelines we were working to with Sainsbury's and Asda'.

He added: 'The court confirmed that it is for the CMA to set its own administrative timetable, in order to meet the legally binding deadline, and that we did not need to give them as much time as they were asking for.'
Plus 500 is the most short-sold firm on the London exchange

Plus 500 is under siege from hedge funds predicting a share-price slump as it battles with tighter regulation.

The spread-betting company is the most short-sold firm on the London exchange, with investors gambling on a drop in 13.1 per cent of its stock.

It is also gearing up for a shareholder vote on Monday on whether to increase the salaries of chief executive Asaf Elimelech and finance head Elad Even-Chen from 233,000 to 360,000, and give them bonuses of 212,000.

Shares tripled in the past three years helped by the boom in online currency bitcoin, but that has plummeted in the last 12 months.

And a European crackdown on the risky contract-for-difference products which Plus 500 punters use to make bets, is making the products much less profitable.

Russ Mould, at broker AJ Bell, said: It looks like hedge funds are predicting the regulatory crackdown on spread-betting will hurt the business.
Airlines are in focus this morning after Ryanair issued a profit warning that has taken its rival Easyjet down with it.

JP Morgan slashed Easyjet's rating to 'neutral' after Ryanair said winter fares were lower than expected and flagged the potential threat of Brexit later in the year. Ryanair's shares slipped nearly 3 per cent after the bell.

Meanwhile, Eddie Stobart Logistics saw sales lurch 35 per cent last year as the road haulier was boosted by new contract wins.

The FTSE closed up 133 points at 6,968.33.
Talking the talk: BlackRock boss Larry Fink

As the world's biggest fund manager with 5 trillion in the kitty, BlackRock ought to be the most influential investor in the world.

So it is brilliant that over the last couple of years its chief executive Larry Fink has taken a greater interest in governance.

In his latest letter to bosses of companies in which BlackRock is invested, Fink embraces a broad definition of the role of companies, beyond profits, which includes employees, customers and communities as well as investors.

He also stresses investment is for the long-term and that millennials regard improving society as more important than earnings.

All of this is hugely valuable stuff. Short-term activist investors, such as Elliott and Ed Bramson's Sherborne, are much more interested in extracting immediate gains, personally and for the funds which they control, than broader corporate and societal interests. It is unconscionable that so many long funds chose to hitch their wagons to the disruptive Bramson engine, which took Electra apart piece by piece, and currently has set its sights on Barclays and its investment banking arm.

As an exponent of better governance BlackRock is particularly important to the UK. Since 2006 it has controlled Merrill Lynch Investors, which previously owned Mercury Asset Management, one of the UK's most renowned fund managers.

Indeed, much of BlackRock's current scale derives from its purchase, at a knockdown price, of Barclays Global Investors  at the height of the financial crisis  in a deal which personally enriched then Barclays president Bob Diamond, by upwards of 20m.

But it is really frustrating then that when it comes to major developments at FTSE 100 companies, it is hugely difficult to engage BlackRock on the issues. One recognises that BlackRock's vast holdings, some 5 per cent or more in many FTSE 100 companies, often are held in passive funds.

But that should not be an excuse for BlackRock executives, following Fink's admonitions, from having a broader societal view. In the last year or so it has been difficult to elicit a BlackRock view on outrageous bonus settlements at housebuilder Persimmon, the attempt by Unilever to move its domicile to Rotterdam and the winning battle by corporate improvers and sellers Melrose to buy GKN and so on.

Currently it might be useful to know where Fink et al stand on the long-term future of Barclays, where it holds 5.91 per cent of the stock (making it a bigger investor than Bramson) and on the Sainsbury's merger with Asda. After all, it has a 3.31 per cent holding in the nation's second largest grocer with an impact on citizens, employees, suppliers and communities alike. Fink and BlackRock talk the talk, but need to walk the walk.

Switched on

With all eyes on Netflix and the use of streaming services, particularly among millennials, ITV is swimming against strong tides.

After a good run for the shares earlier this month they came down sharply largely as a result of a sceptical Bank of America/Merrill Lynch note. Yet in spite of lacking the latest tech gizmos, for the moment ITV has not lost its ability to attract mass audiences others can only crave.

Last year viewing figures were at record levels, with younger people switching in vast numbers to those cultural classics I'm A Celebrity and Love Island. ITV's own productions are breaking new ground with Cleaning Up, starring Sheridan Smith, looking at the City from a worm's eye view using information gathered while washing floors to make money on shares.

ITV needs to embrace streaming and this is very much on chief executive Carolyn McCall's to do list and will be expensive.

She can take comfort from the fact that among the most viewed shows on Netflix in recent times is Bodyguard.

You guessed it: made in ITV studios.

Brooklyn rules

There have been three big recent questions about Weston family-controlled Associated British Foods. Have we seen peak Primark? Was the no-frills fashion retailer's expansion into the US a step too far? And when will its heavy exposure to sugar pay off?

Now we have answers. Primark continues to outperform on the High Street with sales up 4 per cent in 2018, including a strong Christmas, and margins up. The American shops are going great guns with layering garments, in hipster Brooklyn, doing particularly well. Sugar is still a disappointment due to EU pricing. But there are 'signs of recovery'. Sweet.
Dozens of Californian oyster lovers have fallen sick with diarrhea, stomach cramps and vomiting after indulging in mollusks from California's top shellfish farm.

Tomales Bay, just north of San Francisco, bills itself as the oldest shellfish farm in the state, providing produce to restaurants across the Bay Area.

But its glowing reputation was tarnished this week by reports of people falling ill after eating their oysters - many at New Year's Eve parties.

At least four diners testing positive for the norovirus.

Although the farm is set to reopen next week after closing to assess the situation, it has prompted questions over the safety of oysters nowadays.

Warmer waters are more hospitable to dangerous bacteria such as Vibrio vulnificus, which killed a North Dakota lawmaker in November after she ate an infected oyster at a restaurant in New Orleans.

And in October, a new study warned that climate change is pushing more fresh water from rivers into seas and oceans, lowering the saltiness which has long acted as a preservative to protect oysters from Vibrio vulnificus infection.

Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco, bills itself as the oldest shellfish farm in the state, providing to restaurants across the Bay Area. But dozens were sickened by their produce

WHY DO WE EAT OYSTERS?

Humans have been eating raw oysters for thousands of years.

One of the first records of the unusual activity was uncovered by researchers in 2007, who found evidence of humans indulging in the slippery mollusks in a South African cave 164,000 years ago. Later, we know that the Romans had a taste for it, farming and importing them from all over the Mediterranean.

But in more recent times they became particularly American - first on the East Coast before shifting elsewhere.

At the turn of the 20th century, the US was farming more oysters than anywhere else in the world (approximately 160 million pounds), according to Paul Greenberg's book American Catch.

New York City, he says, was the epicenter, producing 700 million oysters a year from 1880 to the early 1900s (a quarter of the world's output - and a vast amount for the one million people living there at the time).

In 1920, the city's oyster farming was shut down entirely over fears the creatures could bring epidemics cholera (caused by the related bacteria Vibrio cholerae) and typhoid fever.

That brought East Coast production crumbling down 80 percent; today, Washington state produces more oysters than anywhere else in the US. Parts of California, Florida and Texas are also home to thriving oyster farms.

Though they were once fodder for the working class, cooked into things like beef, stout and oyster pie, or in a stew, or deep-fried.

Now, they are a high-end delicacy, eaten raw, with a squeeze of lemon, vinegar and/or Tabasco sauce.

WHAT'S THE RISK?

Some people are more at-risk than others.

The bacterium found in some oysters, Vibrio vulnificus, exists in marine waters around the world, thriving particularly in warm waters.

It can make anyone sick, but it is particularly risky for people with any kind of liver disease, a weakened immune system, cancer, or diabetes.

According to the FDA, bacteria-infected oysters carry a death risk of 33 to 50 percent for people with a weakened immune system.

CAN OYSTERS BE TREATED TO BANISH BACTERIA?

Yes.

Most providers will either heat them in warm water before dipping them in cold, or quick-freeze them after farming them, or subject them to intense pressure in a vacuum pack.

The CDC agrees that these three approved methods dramatically reduce the risk of Vibrio vulnificus ingestion.

Oysters can also be cooked, which is another way of killing off bacteria, but it is not 100 percent that cooked oysters are bacteria-free.

Contrary to a popular myth, drinking alcohol with oysters does not balance out the risk since both alcohol and Vibrio vulnificus overwhelm the liver.

IS IT GETTING MORE DANGEROUS?

According to infectious disease specialists and climate change researchers: yes, it is.

Shellfish are very tightly regulated - more than any other edible produce in the United States.

However, the world is warming faster than regulations update.

Speaking to NPR last month, Dr Fred Lopez, and infectious disease researcher at Louisiana State University's Health Sciences Center, said he advises to avoid oysters from the south, such as the Gulf of Mexico, where water is warmer.

'If you're consuming a raw oyster that comes from the Gulf Coast waters ... particularly in the summer months... you have to assume that it has Vibrio vulnificus,' he said.
The Ebola death toll in the Democratic Republic of Congo has jumped to 410 as an expert has warned locals don't even believe the virus exists.

The second worst outbreak in history is expected to rage on for at least six months, health officials fear.

Laurie Garrett, former senior fellow of global health at think-tank Council on Foreign Relations, said cases keep 'popping up unexpectedly out of thin air'.

She repeated widespread claims that warring soldiers are to blame for making this outbreak so hard to control and added there was little trust among the locals to comply with health officials.

In another 'unexpected' twist in the epidemic, about two-thirds struck down by the virus - one of the most lethal in existence - have been women, figures show.

The death toll has reached 410 as of January 17, as Laurie Garrett, former senior fellow of global health at think-tank Council on Foreign Relations, said cases keep 'popping up unexpectedly out of thin air' because locals don't even believe the virus exists

Ms Garrett, an award-winning science author and journalist, said the DRC is playing 'whack-a-mole', with the virus proving impossible to control.

The number of cases currently stands at 668 - 619 confirmed and 49 probable, the latest official figures show.

But Ms Garrett believes the true figure is likely to be higher because locals are not coming forward for tests.

In a piece titled 'Ebola has gotten so bad it's normal' for Foreign Policy, Ms Garrett said: 'A significant unknown is the extent of Ebola in the ranks of warring soldiers, gangs, arms smugglers, and rapists.

'The groups have not only refused testing, but they have threatened health responders with guns and machetes.'

Cases appear daily in North Kivu - the province where the epidemic is focused alongside Ituri - despite the best efforts of health groups to stop the outbreak.

Ms Garrett said: 'Cases are popping up all over North Kivu that don't connect to any known chains of transmission - it's as if they popped out of thin air.

'This is not because of any special attributes of the classic strain of Ebola - the same genetic strain that has been successfully tackled many times before - but because of humans and their behaviors in a quarter-century-old war zone.'

In the DRC, health workers have been kidnapped, had to dodge bullets, been confronted by armed groups and seen treatment centres ransacked.

The World Health Organization have described the DRC as 'one of the most complex settings possible'.

Even with the advances of the last few years, including experimental vaccines, diagnostics and knowledge from the worst ever outbreak in 2014 - which killed 11,300 - the DRC is still struggling.

Experts have said local female leaders spreading message about the disease is showing success, as many women have shown a lack of trust toward male responders. Pictured, a health working giving a vaccine

Political unrest, causing conflict and mistrust in the public, was heightened after the presidential election in December. Pictured, protesters waiting to cast their ballot in Kinshasa, on December 30, 2018

Almost two-thirds of patients have been women due to their role in communities - they often care for the sick, putting them at higher risk of infection. Pictured, a woman cries during the funeral of a child, suspected of dying from Ebola December 17

Ms Garrett said: 'The small army of international health responders and humanitarian workers in Congo is playing whack-a-mole against a microbe that keeps popping up unexpectedly and proving impossible to control.

'The problem: North Kivu is one of the most violent places on Earth, rife with distrust, rumors, conflicts, and multigenerational hatreds.

'Investigators can't find the links in the disease chains because the people there do not trust anything, even the very idea that a virus called Ebola exists, and refuse to comply with investigations.'

More focus on gender disease control has been urged by the WHO, as almost two-thirds of patients have been women.

In past Ebola outbreaks, the proportion of women and men affected was roughly equal, WHO experts said.

'This is unexpected,' said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

'It shows the role of women needs to be taken into account right from the get-go.'

Women have shown a lack of trust toward male responders, but WHO has started to see success in spreading messages about the disease through local female leaders.

The reason for the disparity comes down to the roles of women in communities in various places in the Congo.

In North Kivu, women are leaders and often heads of households, said Julienne Anoko, a social anthropologist working for WHO.

With the care of young girls, women care for the sick, take them to hospital and are involved in burials, all of which expose them to greater risk of infection, she said.

This is the opposite of other countries that have faced Ebola, including Guinea and Sierra Leone, where it is more common for men to accompany family members to hospital.

The results of the December election heightened mistrust, with the outbreak expected to only get worse if political instability continues to break the public's trust, experts fear.
Viewers love to watch as Dr Pimple Popper oozes puss from various growths, cysts and spots, and the latest story did not disappoint.

A mother who had to wear a hat to hide her orange-sized cyst on her head had it drained of yellow liquid by the dermatologist.

Irais, whose surname is unknown, came to Dr Sandra Lee with what the doctor described as a 'serious fatty bump on her head'.

It had started as a zit, Irais, who lives in Laguana Hills, California, explained, but had soon grown to almost the same size as her hand.

The huge bump oozed a runny substance when it was cut into, leaving Irais with a lack of self-confidence.

A mother has had her orange-sized cyst on her head has drained of yellow liquid by Dr Pimple Popper in the latest episode

Irais, whose surname is unknown, has had to wear bandannas and hats to cover her growth

Millions of viewers love to watch as Dr Sandra Lee, AKA Dr Pimple Popper, (pictured) oozes puss from various growths, cysts and spots

It had started as a zit, Irais, who lives in Laguana Hills, California, explained, but had soon grown to almost the same size as her hand

The episode was the third in the latest season, titled 'The Last Unicorn'. It featured three patients all suffering with similar growths.

Spanish-speaking Irias, from Mexico, came to see Dr Lee with her cousin Gil, from Acapulco, who translated her story for the viewers.

'Like many of us, she is here for the American Dream,' she said.

But her dreams were being held back by the sack-like bulge on her scalp. Gil said: 'At first, she thought it was just a zit.

'It just kept growing and growing. She hasn't been able to save money to see a doctor because she has to buy the essentials for her young daughters.'

Irais is forced to wear a hat or bandanna to hide the lump, causing serious issues with her self-confidence.

Dr Lee assumes the lump is a pilar cyst because they normally grow on the scalp.

They can occur after a hair follicle has been inflamed, so they are common in acne. They are also hereditary.

The following gruesome scenes showed the bump start to ooze a strange, runny bright-yellow liquid when she sliced into it.

Dr Lee believes the lump was a pilar cyst because they normally grow on the scalp, calling it a 'serious fatty bump'

The lump starts to ooze out runny yellow liquid when Dr Lee slices into it

Dr Lee manages to remove the full, tumour-like scalp growth

Irais, who came to the US for the 'American dream' said her confidence had been effected

WHAT IS A PILAR CYST? Epidermoid and pilar cysts are common, not cancerous, harmless and not contagious. Epidermoid cysts affect young and middle aged adults. They can come up after a hair follicle has been inflamed, so they are common in acne. Pilar cysts affect women more often than men, and tend to come up in middle age. They run strongly in families, being inherited as an autosomal dominant trait - which means that there is a 1 in 2 chance that each child of an affected parent will inherit the condition. Both types grow slowly. Some become infected. They may then discharge cheesy foul-smelling pus. They are round, sometimes dome-shaped bumps, lying just under the skin surface. A small dark plug is often present, through which it may be possible to squeeze out the contents. The cysts range in size from those that are smaller than a pea to those that are several centimeters across. Source: British Association of Dermatologists Advertisement

Dr Lee managed to remove the full, tumour-like growth, and was delighted Irais' head returned to normal.

Irais, who was overcome with emotion, said: 'I want to show off my hair because now I am pretty.'

Dr Lee began documenting her procedures on social media, and soon gained popularity as millions of viewers found satisfaction in the popping.

This series, on TLC, has shown some of the most extreme cases, with Dr Lee performing on the largest cyst she has ever seen in episode two.



American exotic dancer Yamileth, 22, showed the dermatologist a large itchy bump on her collarbone, 'the size of an avocado', which had been there since she was 10.

Yamileth revealed that it had prevented her from pursuing her dreams of becoming a backing dancer and saw her bullied at school.

She said: 'It has really affected me and my studies.'

In a shocking clip, Dr Lee sliced into the cyst before it releases a stream of thick, yellow puss.

'I've never seen anything like this,' exclaims the pimple popper, as it continues to ooze out. 'It's like chives.'



Yamileth, from the US, appeared on Dr Pimple Popper with a large itchy cyst on her collarbone, which has prevented her from pursuing her dreams of becoming a backing dancer

Before: In emotional scenes, Yamileth explains how she got bullied: 'This kid would say 'argh that's nasty. That's disgusting'
Doctors are warning women to not take the 'irresponsible' advice of putting parsley in their vagina to kick-start their period.

The bizarre suggestion was made by women's magazine Marie Claire alongside other recommendations using food, drink and exercise.

Women may want to make their period come sooner as a means of controlling their cycle ahead of a holiday or special event.

According to the article, parsley is an emmenagogue - a substance that increases menstrual flow - which can 'soften the cervix and level out hormonal imbalances'.

But doctors have now urged women to never insert vegetables into the vagina, as it could lead to health risks - including potentially death.

Marie Clare has now apologised for the article and taken it down because it is 'misguided'.

Doctors are warning women to not take the 'irresponsible' advice of putting parsley in the vagina to kick-start their period. According to the Marie Claire article, parsley is an emmenagogue which can 'soften the cervix and level out hormonal imbalances'

Dr Shazia Malik, a London-based obstetrician-gynaecologist, told The Independent: 'There is no evidence of any benefit to a woman of doing this, and clear risk of significant harm as deaths have been reported.

'I would urge women not to insert anything unless they have taken proper medical advice.'

WHAT DID THE ARTICLE CLAIM? AND WHY ARE WOMEN TRYING TO INDUCE THEIR PERIODS? The bizarre suggestion to use parsley to induce periods was made by women's magazine Marie Claire. The herb was mentioned alongside other unusual recommendations, including other foods. 'Parsley can help to soften the cervix and level out hormonal imbalances that could be delaying your cycle,' the article said. It added that this 'helps your period come faster'. The piece suggested women may want to make their period come sooner as a means of controlling their cycle ahead of a holiday or special event. But two medics hit back and said that vegetables generally aren't something that should be put in a vagina for any reason. The vagina is designed to keep itself clean with the help of natural secretions and there are lots of bacteria inside to protect it. The bacteria help keep the pH balance, produce bacteriocins (naturally occurring antibiotics) and produce a substance that stops invading bacteria sticking to the vagina walls and causing damage to tissue, according to the NHS. If the balance of bacteria is disturbed, this can lead to infection. The most common are bacterial vaginosis or thrush, which can cause symptoms including itching, irritation and abnormal discharge. Advertisement

Dr Sheila Newman, an obstetrician-gynaecologist from New Jersey, also spoke of her concern over the practice, which is not medically advised. She branded it 'irresponsible'.

She said: 'That is not something that is recommended by gynaecologists.

'There are only a few things that should go in your vagina and vegetables generally aren't one of them.'

The Marie Claire article said: 'While few of us would feature parsley as the main part of a dish, it turns out the herb is a mild emmenagogue and can help to kick-start your period, so you might want to look into some parsley recipes ASAP.

'Parsley can help to soften the cervix and level out hormonal imbalances that could be delaying your cycle, helping your period come faster.

'If you're struggling to find a dish based on parsley, don't panic  the most effective forms are said to be parsley tea and parsley vaginal inserts.'

Emmenagogues are defined in herbal medicine as a stimulant for menstrual flow but have no scientific studies to support this, and it is not used in practices.

It is not the first time parsley has been claimed to induce a period.

Bustle wrote in April 2015: 'As any herbalist will tell you, emmenagogues are a family of herbs that stimulate blood flow in the pelvis and uterus, and can sometimes make your period come sooner.

'The recommended dosage for these herbs is two to four cups a day, taken in tea form.'

Parsley has been used before as a herbal-medicine to induce home abortions, seen as 'risk-free' because it is natural.

The article said: 'If you're struggling to find a dish based on parsley, don't panic  the most effective forms are said to be parsley tea and parsley vaginal inserts'

But in August last year, it was reported that a 24-year-old mother-of-two from Argentina had died after trying to induce a miscarriage by using parsley.

Her death happened a week after the Argentine Senate rejected a bill that would have legalised abortion up to 14 weeks.

Clairin, Argentina's largest newspaper, reported that the victim, only referred to as Elizabeth, died of septic shock and infection.

Dr Newman said there are ways to manipulate the menstrual cycle, as the Marie Clare article suggested, but these should be discussed with your gynaecologist.'

Marie Clare spokesperson said: 'Marie Claire prides itself on well researched beauty and lifestyle stories, with advice sought from appropriate industry experts - sadly this feature does not reflect those standards and we have removed the article. It was misguided and we are sorry our usual care and stringency was not followed.'
A Washington man is the first person in the Pacific Northwest to willingly receive a heart from a donor with hepatitis C and be cured of the disease.

Kerry Hayes, from Anacortes, was born with a heart murmur due to a defect in his aortic valve, reported The Seattle Times.

His health slowly declined, resulting in four open-heart surgeries alone and the implantation of an artificial heart in 2017.

Hayes, 49, thought he would have to live with the artificial heart for the rest of his life until doctors at UW Medical Center in Seattle approached him with an unusual alternative.

Surgeons would implant heart from a donor infected with hepatitis C and, after the procedure, they would treat the disease with an eight-week antiviral regimen to cure him.

Kerry Hayes, 49 (pictured), from Anacortes, Washington, was born with a heart murmur due to a defect in his aortic valve

He had his first of four open-heart surgeries when he was 28 and was implanted with an artificial heart in 2017. In June 2018, doctors discussed with Hayes the possibility of receiving a donor heart that was infected with hepatitis C. Pictured: Hayes in the hospital with his wife in December 2017, left, and in the hospital in February 2017, right

The novel approach seemed like a breakthrough for Hayes, who has battled heart woes for 20 years.

Hayes was 28 years old when he had his first open-heart surgery.

In early 2017, his heart began failing so doctors implanted a total artificial heart until a suitable donor could be found.

The device circulates blood from the heart to the lungs and rest of the body and is controlled by an external machine.

Hayes said he was grateful to be alive but disliked being hooked to a machine 24/7.

'It takes a lot of mental strength to live that way. Your whole body pulsates with artificial heart,' he said in an interview with UW Medicine.

'It's in your ears. It's loud inside and out. And I was starting to get to a point where I was getting worried about still having my job and my health insurance.'

In June 2018, doctors discussed with Hayes the possibility of receiving a donor heart that was infected with hepatitis C.

Hep C is a liver disease spread through blood-to-blood contact such as sharing needles, razors and toothbrushes and can be passed on at birth by infected mothers.

Hayes agreed to the protocol and, in July 2018, he received the donor heart. Two weeks later he was infected hepatitis C. Pictured: Hayes with his wife in December 2017, left, and in October 2018, right

In August, Hayes (pictured) began taking the antiviral Mavyret for eight weeks. By mid-December, tests showed that he was cured

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is no vaccine for the disease unlike hepatitis A and B

Hayes's doctors told him that hepatitis C has a 99 percent cure rate when treated, reported The Seattle Times.

'At that point, it convinced me it was worth the risk,' Hayes said. 'I had to do something. Living with a total artificial heart is not a long-term cure.'

Two weeks later, a heart became available. On July 3, he underwent the transplant UW Medicine Medical Center.

Within two weeks, he developed hep C. In August, he began taking the antiviral Mavyret for eight weeks.

By mid-December, tests showed that he was cured.

The US Department of Health & Human Services estimates that around three million people are living in the US with chronic hep C, but most don't feel any side effects.

Additionally around 17,000 new cases develop every year.

Using more organs from donors infected with hep C could mean more people receiving transplants who are having trouble finding a match.

Dr Jason Smith, a cardiac surgeon at UW Medicine, estimates the number of transplants done at the hospital could increase between 10 and 12 percent if recipients elect to receive hep C-positive organs. Pictured: Hayes (third from right) with his family

Hayes he's happy to be be back and working and doing his favorite outdoor activities including hunting, fishing and riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle. Pictured: Hayes with his daughter, Kortney, left, and wife, Kristy, at UW Medical Center in October

'If the recipient is Hep C positive, for example, then a Hep C organ donor could be matched with them,' Dr David Wojciechowski, Director of Transplant Nephrology Clinical Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, told DailyMail.com last year.

'Also, and this is being done under research protocol including here at Mass Gen, but Hep C has become much more treatable in recent years and we can still transplant an organ from a Hep C donor and treat the disease after transplant.'

Dr Jason Smith, a cardiac surgeon at UW Medicine, told The Seattle Times that three other patients have received hearts from donors infected with hep C since Hayes's procedure.

He told the newspaper that he estimates the number of transplants done at the hospital could increase between 10 and 12 percent if recipients elect to receive hep C-positive organs.

'We hope Mr Hayes's positive outcome gives confidence to other transplant candidates who might benefit by opting into this protocol,' Dr Smith said in an interview with UW Medicine.

'Patients have been very receptive to being listed for these organs because it gives them the chance to get a heart potentially much sooner than they would otherwise.'

As for Hayes, he said he's happy to be be back and working and doing his favorite outdoor activities including hunting, fishing and riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle.

'[The transplant] was totally worth the risk,' he told UW Medicine. 'The treatment was a piece of cake, nothing to be scared of'
Every three seconds somebody in the UK has an asthma attack, new figures suggest.

Data from the charity Asthma UK shows that those with asthma are having more attacks every year than previously thought.

It surveyed more than 10,000 people with asthma, who reported having an attack on average twice a year.

With 5.4million people in the UK currently having treatment for asthma, experts calculated that this averaged one attack every three seconds.

Previous data, collected five years ago from prescription information, suggested that attacks took place every 10 seconds.

Kelly May, 31, from London, has had hundreds of asthma attacks since she was a baby. Data from the charity Asthma UK shows that every three seconds, somebody in the US has an attack

But the new figures, based on discussions with patients themselves, suggest attacks are far more frequent.

Asthma attacks can be life-threatening, killing three people on average every day.

The condition affects the airways, narrowing them and making it harder to breathe.

Triggers can include cold air, coughs and colds, and grass pollen.

Dr Andy Whittamore, clinical lead at Asthma UK, said: 'It is shocking to think that every three seconds in the UK someone could be having an asthma attack, a terrifying experience than can cause distress and in some cases prove fatal.

'Asthma attacks do not come out of the blue and if people recognise the tell-tale signs that an attack is about to strike, they can get the help that could save their life.'

The charity warns that if people need to use their reliever inhaler - usually a blue colour - three or more times a week, or are are waking up at night because of their asthma, they should contact their GP.

They should also seek help if their symptoms, such as wheezing or a cough, are getting worse or are interfering with their usual activities.

Those with a preventer inhaler - usually coloured brown - should take it daily to help build up protection against asthma attacks.

Kelly May, 31, a hairdresser from London, has had hundreds of asthma attacks since she was a year old.

She said: 'Having an asthma attack can feel like being a fish out of water and it's terrifying.

'No matter what I do, I can't catch my breath. I try not to panic but in the back of my mind I know I need to get to A&E or it could be fatal.

'People think that asthma isn't serious, but I've had asthma attacks at work and it's terrifying for those around me.

'The aftermath of an asthma attack can also be exhausting and horrible - it can take me weeks until I feel normal again.

'In winter, I must be especially careful as the slightest cold can land me in hospital fighting for my life.'

NHS data shows there were more than 77,000 hospital admissions for the condition last year.

Around 1,250 Britons die from asthma every year and mortality rate is the third highest in Europe, behind only Estonia and Spain.
Viewers were left shedding tears and dishing out praise for the NHS after last night's episode of Hospital on BBC Two.

This week featured the emotional stories of Sophie, 22, and Tom, 18, both of whom have been stuck in Liverpool's Walton Centre after sustaining severe brain injuries.

And it followed the work of 'incredible' staff in the centre, which cares for patients who have suffered life-changing brain and spinal damage.

People watching the show took to Twitter to express their admiration for staff working in the centre and remark on Sophie and Tom's 'sad' and 'inspiring' stories.

Medics working at the Walton Centre were lauded as 'heroes' and one viewer said their skills are 'beyond anything I can comprehend'.

Sophie, 22, was one of the patients featuring on last night's programme because she was left unable to breathe on her own after she developed swelling on her brain stem last year

Tom, 18, suffers from short-term memory loss because he sustained serious head injuries when he was thrown from the window of his car in a crash  he regularly forgets he has brain damage

Sophie and Tom were unable to leave the centre because there was nowhere to send them for the ongoing care they needed.

Sophie suffered inflammation in her brain stem in January last year, which left her unable to breathe on her own.

She has mostly recovered  initially not able to move her eyes or swallow after her illness  but still needs 24-hour care and a ventilator in case she stops breathing.

The Walton Centre has struggled to find funding for at-home care for Sophie, so she has been left living in the unit for an entire year.

Viewers said they were left in tears by her 'sad' story but also called her 'inspirational' as she continued her recovery, having therapy to get her voice back after a tracheotomy.

Ian Wildgust tweeted: 'Sophie on #Hospital how inspirational is she? Amazing!'

Twitter user Kerry added: 'Actually sobbing watching #Sophie on #Hospital ... so sad'.

Jackie Wilcock said: 'What an amazing and beautiful young woman Sophie is. Never complained and is an inspiration'.

And Marina Sans Bateaux tweeted: 'I am in awe and full of admiration for the medical staff. Sophie's story is making me silently count my blessings and wish for things to improve for her.'



Sophie had herself tweeted before the programme aired, saying she couldn't wait for people to see how 'truly amazing' staff at the centre are.

Ian Wildgust was among many Twitter users commenting on how 'inspiring' Sophie's story was

Twitter user Kerry said she was left 'actually sobbing' by Sophie's story, which gave an insight into her life after she suffered a traumatic swelling on the brain in January last year

Jackie Wilcock added 'what an amazing and beautiful young woman Sophie is'  Sophie, 22, lost the ability to breathe unassisted, move her eyes or swallow when she became ill last year

Marina Sans Bateaux said she hopes Sophie's condition will improve, adding she was 'full of awe and admiration for the medical staff' at the Walton Centre

Sophie had herself tweeted before the programme was shown, saying she 'can't wait for everyone to see how amazing the staff at the Walton Neuro Centre are'

Another patient on the programme, Tom, was suffering from short-term memory loss after a car crash left him with serious head injuries.

As a result he couldn't remember that he had brain damage and repeatedly tried to leave the hospital without being discharged.

Staff had to keep him in the centre for his own safety, something which he regularly forgot and was angered by.

Viewers sympathised with the frustrated teenager, with many saying they felt sorry for him and remarking on his joy when he was finally allowed to leave The Walton.

Twitter user Sara said: 'I feel sorry for Tom. You can tell he's not the person who he was before just from that short clip.

'That must be devastating for him, especially at such a young age.'

Sara, alongside other Twitter users, said she felt sorry for Tom, who suffered from a devastating brain injury when he was thrown from his car window in a crash

Tom, who now has short-term memory loss and doesn't remember that he has brain damage, 'seems absolutely lovely', according to Amanda Smith

Amanda Smith added: 'Tom seems absolutely lovely after a serious brain injury. I can only imagine how lovely he was before the accident.

'So happy he got to go to a rehab near his family. Hope it does the trick!'

Most people watching the programme tweeted their support for the NHS and its 'amazing' and 'inspiring' staff.

The British DJ Anton Powers tweeted: 'This #Hospital programme has got me in bits.

'All the staff and patients are absolute [heroes]. I have nothing but respect and admiration for them all'.

Most people tweeting about Hospital were expressing their admiration for the NHS staff at the Walton Centre and across the country more generally  Claire Brown said: 'The medical staff are absolutely incredible, their skills are beyond anything I can comprehend'

Jon Bolger said the BBC Two documentary was 'A wonderful reminder how awesome the @NHSuk is'

Anton Powers, a British DJ, said the programme had him 'in bits', adding he had 'nothing but respect & admiration' for the NHS staff

A Twitter user called Sarah, who claims to be a patient of The Walton Centre herself, said she was 'proud' to be treated by the staff there and was 'forever grateful' for their help

Jon Bolger said: 'A wonderful reminder how awesome the @NHSuk is.'

And Claire Brown added: 'Watching #Hospital on BBC Two now is shocking yet inspiring. The medical staff are absolutely incredible, their skills are beyond anything I can comprehend'.

One woman claiming to be a patient of the Walton Centre herself tweeted: 'Im proud to be a patient of The Walton Centre.

'The staff provide the best possible care for patients even in the most difficult circumstances of the NHS crisis. Im forever grateful'.

Hospital continues on BBC Two at 9pm next Thursday, January 24.
Men can now use their smartphone camera to compare how fertile they are against others from around the world.

The YO Home Sperm Test has been linked to World Health Organization data to test how fertile men are in comparison to global statistics.

Run with a mobile app and a clip-on microscope which costs 46.95 ($60), men simply have to deposit a sperm sample in a pot then test it at home.

The test examines the concentration of sperm in semen and their motility and ranks it on a scale of 10-90, based on the counts of fathers in a WHO study.

The test works by men putting a sperm sample on a slide which is inserted into a microscope attached to their smartphone  the phone's video camera then counts and assesses the motility of sperm in the sample, giving a score based on World Health Organization data

YO does not produce a league table - but does offer men the ability to track their own changes over time.

YO, developed by Los Angeles-based technology company Medical Electronic Systems, claims it will save men the embarrassment of going to a doctor.

The technology was believed to be the first of its kind to be approved by the US's Food and Drug Administration when it gained clearance three years ago.

YO claims its tests are more than 97 per cent accurate at counting sperm, with people rating 40-60 in the 'moderate' range and 60+ with a high sperm count.

The company says a score of 10-30 is the 'low end of normal' but the scale starts at six million sperm per ml of semen, less than half the NHS's low sperm count limit.

In a recent update for the testing kit, the man receives a numerical score based on data from a World Health Organization study of fathers' sperm counts.

The developers say issues with the man are to blame in around 40 per cent of infertile couples, and say it's easier to test sperm than ovaries.

'Its much more invasive to test the woman and its very easy to test the man and our app gives them an assessment,' developer Eric Carver told the Wall Street Journal.

The test works by men producing a sperm sample  without mixing with lubrication or a partner's bodily fluids  which is then mixed with a liquefying powder before being put on a sample strip.

Men receive a score of between 10 and 90  average is between 40 to 60, while below 40 is a lower level of fertility and 60 and above is high. The numbers are produced by the company's algorithm which is based on a study of men around the world who have fathered children

The strip is then inserted into a microscope which clips onto the smartphone camera, which takes a video of the sample and analyses it within minutes.

It counts how many sperm there are per millilitre of semen and how motile  active and able to swim  they are, which correspond's to the man's fertility.

HOW THE YO HOME SPERM TEST APP WORKS Following a download of the app, users purchase a starter kit that comes with a collection cups, liquefying powder to mix with the sample, testing slides, a plastic pipette and a YO clip. The clip attaches to your Android or iPhone to take a video of your sample. To begin testing, users collect their sample in the cup. Then, one vial of liquefying powder is added and the sample is gently mixed for between 10 to 15 seconds. Next, users set aside the sample, which will turn slightly pink, for about 10 minutes. Once the sample is ready, users mix it again and draw some of it into the pipette. Then, on the testing slide, some of the liquid is placed on a red dot, which will slowly fill the base of the slide. The filled slide is finally placed into the YO Clip all the way and then users tap 'start testing'. In about 30 seconds, the app take a video of the sample and then spends a couple of minutes analyzing before the video appears on the screen along with a sperm count and motility. Advertisement

Scientific studies have found men around the world are suffering from falling sperm counts because of modern lifestyles.

In a study published in October last year, researchers in the US and Spain analysed semen samples from two major fertility centers between 2002 and 2017.

Over the period an increasing number diagnosed with oligospermia  male infertility caused by a low sperm count.

And more and more men have a sperm count so low they are likely to need IVF to conceive, while the number of men with a 'normal' sperm count dropped.

Lead researcher Dr Ashley Tiegs told DailyMail.com the drop could be driven by factors like smoking, stress, obesity, and exposures to chemicals in plastics.

The study came after experts in Israel and the US found sperm counts among men living in Western countries had fallen by 59.3 percent in the last 40 years.

'[Our study] supports a lot of the other literature that shows environmental factors like plastics and smoking and obesity are big ones,' Dr Tiegs said.

'We know obesity is on the rise and it does affect sperm quality. It increases the risk of morbidity and mortality, but it can also affect offspring too.'

YO's creators say their test will help people spot signs of infertility  believed to affect one in seven couples  early on and improve their chances of conceiving.

The firm's CEO Marcia Deutsche said in 2017: 'We developed the YO Home Sperm Test to give men a simple, affordable and accurate way to test their fertility at home, in private.

'Couples are realizing that coping with infertility is a shared journey.

'So now while monitoring and testing the woman, there is also an easy way to test her male partner using the YO Home Sperm Test.'
Shoppers were left stunned after spotting a Tesco Easter egg on sale for 96 in an embarrassing pricing blunder.

The 245g hand-decorated Belgian milk chocolate egg, though luxurious-looking, left customers baffled when it was spotted on sale in Somerset for nearly 100.

A photo was posted on the Facebook page Radio Ninesprings this week, showing the egg along with a price tag which read '480 per 100g'.

They wrote: 'Surely, this is a pricing mistake. Would you pay over 90 for a single Easter Egg?'

Egg-stortionate! This 'hand decorated' Belgian Milk Chocolate Egg, though luxurious-looking, had customers baffled when it was spotted on sale in Somerset for nearly 100

Commenters on social media were outraged by the seemingly pricey chocolate treat which has racked up dozens of shares and comments online.

One person wrote in disbelief: 'Oh my God. Who would pay 96 for an Easter Egg?

Another disgruntled chocoholic said: 'Eyewatering. Who in their right mind would pay that for an Easter Egg?'

While one user mocked the price, writing: 'What an EGGSTREME bargain!'

Others were more surprised that Tesco had already rolled out its seasonal chocolate, with Joanna Shortland writing: 'More to the point, Easter eggs are already out?!'

A Twitter user spotted the same pricing blunder in a different store. Commenters on social media were outraged by the seemingly pricey chocolate treat from the supermarket

Tesco confirmed that the price was down to a ticketing error and the egg was closer to 9.60 than it was 96 - insisting nobody else will see that egg on sale at that price.

However the 'eggstortionate' pricing mix-up was also spotted by Twitter user @Knight_Radiant, who wrote: 'Damn, I knew Easter eggs [were] overpriced, but wow! Breaking new ground here.'

A Tesco spokesman said: 'The correct price for the Easter egg is 10 and we've already changed the label in store to the correct price.'
Ivanka Trump looked unusually tense as she left her Washington, D.C. home in a Secret Service vehicle on Friday morning  after once again being linked to the failed Trump Tower project in Moscow, Russia.

The 37-year-old first daughter has a serious look on her face as she rubbed the back of her ear and took a phone call while in the back seat of the black SUV, which left straight from her garage a little after 9 a.m.

Ivanka, who serves as a White House senior adviser, was dressed somewhat casually in a cozy gray turtleneck sweater and what appeared to be a pair of tan dress pants.

Stressed? Ivanka Trump, 37, had a serious look on her face when she left her Washington, D.C. home in a Secret Service SUV straight from her garage a little after 9 a.m. on Friday

Looking tense: The first daughter was dressed somewhat casually in a cozy turtleneck sweater as she rubbed the back of her ear and took a phone call during her commute

Though her long blonde hair is usually curled and styled, she embraced her natural texture and wore her straight locks loose around her shoulders.

The mother-of-three accessorized her business casual look with a pair of eye-catching gemstone earrings and rings on her fingers.

A red string bracelet was seen on her left wrist as she held her hand up to her face during her phone call.

Ivanka hasn't spoken about the purpose of the string, which she has been wearing off and on for the past year or so, but it does bear a resemblance to the type of red string that Kabbalah practitioners wear to ward off the 'evil eye'. The bracelets are also used as similar talismans in Judaism.

The first daughter's tense commute came just one day after a report was published about her alleged involvement in building a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Two federal law enforcement officials close to the investigation have claimed President Donald Trump directed his attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his ultimately scrapped negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Buzzfeed News reported on Thursday evening.

According to the report, the president and his oldest children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka, received regular updates about the development, even as Trump repeatedly claimed he had no business in Russia.

Off to work! Ivanka's decision to leave straight from her garage was a sharp contrast to the bright smile she flashed to the photographers outside her door on Thursday morning

Outfit of the day: The first daughter donned a demure herringbone suit featuring a midi skirt

It also alleges Trump wanted to visit Russia during his presidential campaign to personally meet with Vladimir Putin and launch talks about building the tower, which he hoped could make him $300 million in profits.

'Make it happen,' the unnamed sources claim Trump told Cohen about the meeting.

Buzzfeed's sources alleged that Trump had at least 10 face-to-face meetings with Cohen about 'Trump Tower Moscow' during his presidential campaign.

Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in November, admitting he didn't tell the truth about the Moscow real estate deal's timeline. He testified that the project he pursued on Trump's behalf was abandoned by the time of the Iowa Caucuses in January 2016; that would be consistent with Trump's 'political messaging.'

The two sources claim Cohen told Mueller that Trump personally instructed him to lie to Congress after he won the election about when the negotiations for Trump Tower had ended.

According to Buzzfeed, Mueller first discovered that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress via evidence from internal company emails, text messages, and witnesses from the Trump Organization. The site also reported that Cohen later confirmed it during his own interviews with the special counsel.

Cohen had previously told two congressional committees that the talks about the tower project ended in January 2016, a lie he said was an act of loyalty to Trump.

Claims: Two federal law enforcement officials allege President Donald Trump told his attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow

Serious: The sources claim that Cohen told Mueller that Trump personally instructed him to lie to Congress about when the negotiations for Trump Tower had ended after he won the election

In fact, the negotiations continued until June 2016, Cohen acknowledged.

Cohen had also testified that he only gave Trump three short briefings on the project, only to tell Mueller that this was a lie as well.

Trump's former personal attorney said he far more discussions about Trump Tower Moscow with the president, and also had extensive discussions about it with Trump's children  giving them 'very detailed updates.'

Ivanka has claimed she was only 'minimally involved' in the project; Cohen has alleged that Trump's elder daughter was actually slated to manage a spa at the tower and had personally recommended an architect.

While it's not uncommon for Ivanka to leave her home straight from her garage, the decision to do so on Friday was a sharp contrast to the bright smile she flashed to the photographers outside her door as she headed to work the day before.

There was still snow on the ground when Ivanka stepped out of her home on Thursday morning, but that didn't stop her from showing off her bare legs in a midi skirt.

The first daughter donned a demure herringbone skirt suit as she headed to the U.S. State Department gathering of all U.S. ambassadors who are stationed abroad to discuss the importance of empowering women in their host countries.

Under fire: The bombshell report also alleges the president, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka (pictured with her husband Jared Kushner) received regular updates about the development

He said, she said: Ivanka has claimed that she was only 'minimally involved' in the project, although Cohen alleges that she was going to manage a spa at the tower and had personally recommended an architect. Pictured is a rendering of the proposed tower

Despite the near-freezing weather, Ivanka opted to hold on to her winter coat as she stepped out of the bottom gate of her home and walked the short distance to the Secret Service SUV that was parked at the curb.

The White House senior adviser wore a delicate black top underneath her suit coat, which cinched at the waist with a large black belt.

Ivanka's modest midi-skirt fell just a few inches below her knees and swayed as she walked out of her home with a smile on her face at about 9:10 a.m.

She topped off the look with a pair of delicate drop earrings and classic black suede pumps that matched her belt.

Along with her black wool coat, she also carried a large black leather bag in her right hand as she left home for the day.

On Tuesday and Wednesday Ivanka was seen sitting the backseat of a Secret Service vehicle while on her way to work in the morning. She left straight from her garage last Friday as well.

It's unclear if the first daughter wants to avoid being seen or is simply trying to stay out of the cold.
Jacquie Davis, 60, from Hertfordshire, left the police force in the Eighties to become a bodyguard, becoming one of the first women ever to do so.

Britain's top female bodyguard has had her experiences guarding some of the most famous faces on the planet immortalised in a new film starring Noomi Rapace.

Jacquie Davis, 60, from Hertfordshire, left the police force in the Eighties to become a bodyguard, becoming one of the first women ever to do so.

She has guarded everyone from the Saudi royal family to J. K. Rowling and Bradley Cooper to the chief executives of FTSE 100 companies.

In a new interview she has revealed how she fended off a potential attack on one of her clients over the summer by hitting the 'attacker' on the nose with a knotted up napkin. The incident took place at a restaurant in Knightsbridge and the man quickly ran off.

Now, a new Netlix film loosely based on her life reveals the challenges faced by both a bodyguard of the super famous and a woman in a male-dominated industry.

Speaking today to Cara McGoogan of The Telegraph, Jacquie revealed her pleasure at seeing a female security guard for the first time on the big screen.

She said: 'My fellow female bodyguards and I nodded in agreement as Noomi Rapace, playing close protection officer Sam, took the bratty heiress dog to the kitchen for feeding.

Weve all been there and done that, I thought. Just as we have told our principals  those were protecting  to do what I tell you if you want to stay alive.

Noomi Rapace, right, in Close, which is based on Jacquie's book, The Circuit

'When I started 40 years ago, it would be me in a room with ex-SAS and military guys who had never worked with a woman and who thought I was there to look after the children. But Im not a parent and was never going to sit with a kid on my lap.'

She also revealed that she sometimes had clients offer her their room keys with an invitation to join them - which she found 'quite funny'.

After 20 years risking her life, Jacquie wrote her memoir, The Circuit, the slang name for Britains ring of bodyguards, which was published in 1998, and which Close is based on.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo actress Noomi Rapace plays 'Sam', a character based on Jacquie.

At the premiere of Close Noomi was joined by director Vicky Jewson (L) and Jacquie Davis

Sam is a counterterrorism expert who takes on what should be a babysitting job protecting a rich teenage heiress, Zoe (Sophie Nelisse).

But the pair are forced to go on the run after an attempted kidnapping. The pair are then forced to take lives or lose their own.

Close's writer and director, Vicky Jewson, told The Hollywood Reporter: 'I read her [Jacquie's] book, The Circuit, about her lifes work. I also spent a lot of time talking to her and getting to know her, whereas the plot itself and the story is completely made up.

Real-life inspiration; The film is inspired by the life of bodyguard Jacquie and sees Noomi play Sam, a counterterrorism expert who takes on what should be a babysitting job

'I would ask her questions like, Someones going to get taken, how would they be taken? Why would they be taken?

'Also, on a deeper level than that, we drew the character of Sam from Jacquies personality type and her experience in life through having this very varied, dangerous job, and how that has impacted on her as a person. Noomi also spent a lot with time with Jacquie, sort of soaking up the kind of person that she is.'

Widowed after the death of her second husband, Jacquie now lives in Hertfordshire and runs Optimal Risk Management, providing bodyguard teams worldwide.
Cancer awareness campaigner Deborah James, aka the Bowel Babe, has shared a series of powerful images on social media, in a bid to highlight how looking healthy doesn't mean your body is well.

The deputy head, 37, from London who co-presents the Radio 5 Live podcast You, Me and the Big C, was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2016 and documents her ongoing fight with the disease on Instagram.

Her recent post, inspired by the #10yearslater trend in which people share photos of themselves from a decade age, showed her looking well and glamorous in the months, days and weeks before her diagnosis.

One photo is captioned: 'When I look back at old pictures, I wish I had known the symptoms. Pushed to get a referral.'

She adds on another shot: 'My point being in all the pictures I look healthy but I was pooing blood, was tired and had had a change in bowel habits.'

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Deborah James from London who has stage four bowel cancer, shared a series of images on Instagram this week to highlight how cancer symptoms are often dismissed if a person looks well, as the mother-of-two continued to do in the months, weeks and days before her own 2016 diagnosis

Mother-of-two Deborah, from London, included this photo - taken just a week before she received the devastating news of her illness - of her enjoying a glass of wine

The series, which includes a photo of Deborah and her husband the day before she got her results, ends with a black and white image of the campaigner just seconds before seeing doctors to be told her news

There's a photo of her two months before at a party with her brother and sister, another holding a glass of wine just a week before her devastating results and snuggling up to her husband just 24 hours before.

James writes: 'I would have had the Stage 4 Bowel Cancer - including the 6.5cm tumour - inside me in all of these.'

James was a co-host on the You, Me And The Big C podcast with Lauren Mahon, who's in remission from breast cancer, and Rachael Bland who died age 40 at the beginning of September from a rare triple negative breast cancer, which she was diagnosed with in 2016.

Deborah co-presents the Radio 5 Live podcast You, Me and the Big C

Vowing to carry on with the work she had started with her friend, James told Lorraine show in October: 'I miss her so much. Seeing those photos of her, it breaks my heart actually.

She told Lorraine: 'What we did together is we put cancer on prime time. I am so proud to have done that.

'Her legacy and what we started, were going to carry on with it.'

Deborah, who has written a book 'FU Cancer', confessed she didn't believe that she would be alive to see it in print and said that not knowing if she had a future spurred her on.

The mother admitted it annoyed her that people believed the idea you had to 'fight cancer' instead choosing to live with the disease.

Deborah added of the support she received from her friend: 'She was the most positive, upbeat person, yet she died because of cancer.

Deborah with the late Rachel Bland (left) and their You, Me And The Big C podcast co-host Lauren Mahon (centre)

Deborah's condition is currently stable, something she describes as 'the permission to breathe again, the new window of hope that starts' (pictured here with husband Sebastien, and children Hugo and Eloise)

Candid: Deborah, right, endured a tough Christmas after her body reacted badly to a new drug being used to contain her illness

'Rachael basically said "wipe your tears and get on with it".'

This week, James shared the news that after a difficult Christmas in which her body responded badly to a new treatment, she was stable again.

She wrote: 'STABLE! Every Cancer patient knows that sigh of relief, the permission to breathe again, the new window of hope that starts. Never underestimate the power of one word.

'Yes I still have a challenge, yes I still have cancer, but lets continue to dance through the rain!'
Queen Letizia of Spain was a vision in monochrome today as she hosted an event at her home, Zarzuela Palace.

The monarch, 46, who met with officials and representatives of Vogue Spain, donned a tight black top with long sleeves with a long pleated skirt in on-trend snakeskin print for the occasion.

Her shoulder length brunette hair was worn down and she accessorised with classic hoop earrings.

Meanwhile, her make-up was kept minimal - with light brow eye shadow and a slick of nude lipstick.

Queen Letizia, 46, greeted royal officials as she wore a long pleated skirt, which had a black and white pattern on it.

Queen Letizia poses for photos with guests as she wears a stylish outfit of a plain black top and a long patterned skirt

To tie her look together the mother-of-two wore a chunky black belt and also paired the look with pointed black velvet boots which had a slight slouch to them.

She was pictured meeting guests at her and her husband, King Philip VI's home Zarzuela Palace.

Yesterday Queen Letizia was just as busy - as she was spotted on her way to FEDER, a charity which hopes to increase visibility of rare diseases and help those suffering by defending their rights.

The former journalist is the honorary president of FEDER and attends a yearly meeting at the foundation.

Queen Letizia of Spain (centre) poses for an official portrait as she grants an audience to representatives of Vogue Spain at Zarzuela Palace in Madrid today

Queen Letizia of Spain jokes with a family member (left) while they pose for a family photo and (right) the mother of two is all smiles

Queen Letizia married into the Spanish monarchy in 2004, following a career as a journalist and newsreader.

Felipe and Letizia are parents to 13-year-old Leonor, Princess of Asturias and Infanta Sofia of Spain, 11.

King Juan Carlos I abdicated from the Spanish throne four years ago, making way for his son, now King Felipe VI.

Queen Letizia seemed happy today as she greeted guests at her home, Zarzuela Palace in Madrid
It was business as usual for Princess Anne on Friday as she got back to work following her father's car crash.

The Princess Royal, 68, was at Edge Hill University, Lancashire, this morning just hours after the Duke of Edinburgh crashed his Land Rover near Sandringham on Thursday afternoon.

When asked by reporters how the elderly royal was faring, straight-talking Anne laughingly replied: 'I've no idea. You know where I am? Same place as you.'

The exchange, was overheard by the BBC's Allie Hodgkins-Brown.

Princess Anne (pictured on an overseas tour in November 2018) has said she has 'no idea' how her father is doing following her car crash on Thursday afternoon

The Duke of Edinburgh is said to be 'conscious but very shocked and shaken' after his Land Rover (pictured) collided with a Kia carrying a ten-month-old baby and two women

The Duke was said to be 'conscious but very shocked and shaken' after his Land Rover collided with a Kia carrying a nine-month-old baby, its mother, 28, and another woman, 45, who suffered a broken arm and an injured knee.

Barrister Roy Warne pulled Prince Philip, 97, from the wreckage of his Land Rover and said the royal told officers he had been 'dazzled by the sun' before the collision near the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk at 2.45pm yesterday.

Philip was pulling out of a driveway onto the A149 in Babingley, Norfolk which leads to Sandringham, when the collision took place.

He is believed to have pulled out of a side-road, coming from Sandringham House, on to the busy A149 where the Kia, travelling at up to 60mph, struck his side of the 4X4 in a so-called 't-bone' smash.

The Princess Royal was forced to pull out of an earlier engagement on Friday morning due to 'averse weather conditions'.

Prince Philip (pictured at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in May 2018) has been staying with the Queen at Sandringham since Christmas and was due to be monitored for at least 48 hours

Princess Anne (pictured at a memorial service for the 25th anniversary of a bombing by the IRA in Warrington town centre, Cheshire) was recently named as the hardest working royal

Britain's 'hardest-working royal', who carried out 518 engagements in 2018, had been due to visit the Parbold Equestrian Centre in Parbold.

Princess Anne, who lives with her husband Sir Timothy Laurence at Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, has been named the hardest working royal each year since 2015.

Last year, her engagements included visiting Chile for the 200th Anniversary of the navy and observing the annual census of the swan population on the River Thames in July.

Princess Anne also opened many buildings last year including the Lister Learning and Teaching Centre in Edinburgh in October.
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Monaco's royal family were out in force for the opening night of the Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival.

Prince Albert II, his sister Princess Stephanie and her son Louis Ducruet donned their finery on Thursday night for an evening of dazzling performances.

There was no sign of Albert's wife Charlene, but Louis, 26, brought along his fiancee, glamorous Marie Hoa Chevallier, for the occasion.

The four VIP guests, dressed head-to-toe in monochrome, beamed with delight as they posed with performers before the show kicked off, and gave an enthusiastic round of applause when the event was over.

And in a nod to the evening's carnival theme, the head of the House of Grimaldi donned a colourful novelty tie.

The much-anticipated annual circus has become something of an institution in the principality and has been running since 1974. This year's event runs until January 27.

Monaco royals out in force! L-R: Princess Stephanie, Prince Albert II, Stephanie's son Louis Ducruet and his fiancee Marie Hoa Chevallier with clowns and other performers at the Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival on Thursday. The four VIP guests, dressed head-to-toe in monochrome, beamed with delight as they posed with performers before the show kicked off

Bravo! L-R Marie, Princess Stephanie, Prince Albert II and Louis Ducruet give a round of applause at the opening ceremony of the 43rd Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco. Stephanie, who is President of the extraordinary show, helps to oversee the Circus Festival and is involved in everything from choosing the acts to the choreography

It has been just over 250 years since equestrian Philip Astley 'invented' modern circus as we know it with a performance near London's Westminster Bridge involving jugglers, dogs, monkeys and music before taking the spectacle to France for the court of Louis XVI.

According to tradition, an international jury under the presidency of Princess Stephanie will honour the best acts of the Festival with the famous Golden, Silver and Bronze Clowns awards on the circus's closing night.

Stephanie, who is President of the extraordinary show, helps to oversee the Circus Festival and is involved in everything from choosing the acts to the choreography.

Her father Prince Ranier was the brains behind the first festival, which now as then, specialises in traditional circus acts from clowns to acrobats.

Louis is Stephanie's eldest child with her former husband Daniel Ducruet, who was once the princess' bodyguard.

Performers from the Joy Gartner Family during the opening ceremony of the 43rd Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco. The much-anticipated annual circus has become something of an institution in the principality and has been running since 1974. This year the event, which specialises in traditional circus acts from clowns to acrobats, runs until January 27

The Maslenitsa Ballet from Russia performs during the opening ceremony of the 43rd Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco. An international jury under the presidency of Princess Stephanie will honour the best acts of the Festival with the famous Golden, Silver and Bronze Clowns awards on the circus's closing night

Artists from the Maslenitsa Ballet from Russia perform during the opening ceremony of the 43rd Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco. According to tradition, an international jury under the presidency of Princess Stephanie will honour the best acts of the Festival with the famous Golden, Silver and Bronze Clowns awards on the circus's closing night

Quatuor Prilepin acrobats perform during the opening ceremony of the 43rd Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco. The much-anticipated annual circus has become something of an institution in the principality and has been running since 1974, with this year's event running until January 27

Up, up and away! Quatuor Prilepin acrobats perform during the opening ceremony of the 43rd Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco. According to tradition, an international jury under the presidency of Princess Stephanie will honour the best acts of the Festival with the famous Golden, Silver and Bronze Clowns awards on the circus's closing night

Louis' grandmother was the former Hollywood actress Grace Kelly, who married Prince Rainier III in 1956.

Princess Grace tragically died in a car crash in 1982, which Stephanie survived. As well as Stephanie, 53, and Albert, 60, she had a daughter Caroline, now 61.

Stephanie had another child with Daniel, 24-year-old Pauline Ducruet, and also has a 20-year-old daughter, Camille Gottlieb.

Louis, who has no title but is 12th in the line of succession to the Monegasque throne, will be the first of Stephanie's children to tie the knot - and he recently revealed there were 'lots' of tears when he proposed to his long-term girlfriend last year.

He is set to wed his college sweetheart in Monaco and the pair have already talked babies.

An acrobat of the China National Acrobatic Troupe performs during the opening ceremony of the 43rd Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco on January 17. Stephanie, who is President of the extraordinary show, helps to oversee the Circus Festival and is involved in everything from choosing the acts to the choreography

In an interview with Hello, the young couple, who both describe themselves as 'shy', said it was 'love at first sight' when they first met in North Carolina.

Marie confessed: 'Since we were both equally shy, we spent quite some time trying to catch each other's eye. It took six months for one of us to make the first move. Then it all took off.'

The couple were visiting Marie's native Vietnam in February 2018 when Louis dropped to one knee on the beach, causing her to become 'choked with sobs'.

And there were more tears to come when Louis enlisted his mother and sisters, Pauline and Camille, to help him choose a ring for his future bride.

Prince Albert II of Monaco and his sister Princess Stephanie arrive at the Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival on Thursday night. The much-anticipated annual circus has become something of an institution in the principality and has been running since 1974, with this year's event due to run until January 27

It's a family affair! Prince Albert II of Monaco (centre), Princess Stephanie (left), her son Louis Ducruet and his fiancee Marie attend the opening ceremony of the 43th Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival. Marie and Louis have told how they were visiting her native Vietnam in February 2018 when Louis dropped to one knee on the beach to propose

A royal seal of approval! Prince Albert II of Monaco, Princess Stephanie of Monaco, Louis Ducruet, Marie Chevallier applaud performers. It has been just over 250 years since equestrian Philip Astley 'invented' modern circus as we know it with a performance near London's Westminster Bridge involving jugglers, dogs, monkeys and music

Prince Albert II of Monaco, Princess Stephanie of Monaco, Louis Ducruet and his fiancee Marie Chevallier attend the opening ceremony of the 43th Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival on January 17. In a nod to the evening's carnival theme, the head of the House of Grimaldi (centre) donned a colourful novelty tie

Sealed with a kiss! One of the circus performers plants a peck on the hand of Princess Stephanie. According to tradition, an international jury under the presidency of Princess Stephanie will honour the best acts of the Festival with the famous Golden, Silver and Bronze Clowns awards on the circus's closing night

Recalling the day he took Marie home to meet his mother Princess Stephanie, Louis said: 'The first time Mum met her she said: "She's absolutely perfect, hand on to her, don't let her go."'

The couple revealed they would be tying the knot at Monaco's Saint Nicholas Cathedral to be near Louis late grandfather, Prince Rainier II and 'include him in [their] happiness'.

The Palace's announcement of the couple's engagement last year mentioned Stephanie's 'joy' at the upcoming nuptials but didn't specify a wedding date.

'Her Serene Highness Princess Stephanie has the joy to announce her son Louis Ducruet's engagement with Miss Marie Chevallier,' the message read.
Princess Charlene of Monaco has shared adorable holiday snaps of her twins' first trip to the US with her Instagram followers.

The wife of Prince Albert recently paid a visit to New York with her four-year-old children Gabriella and Jacques who were dressed for the occasion.

Sharing a slide show of the tots' time in the city, they can be seen dressed in the colours of the American flag, with Jacques even sporting a hat decorated with stars and stripes.

The two children can be seen exploring the Big Apple, visiting sites such as the Empire State Building and the Natural History Museum.

Princess Charlene of Monaco has shared snaps of her recent holiday to New York with twins Gabriella and Jacques, including this snap of them outside Ground Zero

Captioning the post Charlene, 40, wrote: 'First trip to NY  Great adventure and a wonderful experience! Thank You US.'

The post has thus far amassed over 28,000 views after the princess shared it with her 105,000 followers on Thursday.

In a second, more somber post, the mother-of-two posted a photo of the twins outside Ground Zero.

Captioning the image she wrote, 'Ground Zero us' accompanied by a prayer emoji.

The mother-of-two shared a slide show of their adventures in what was the twins' first trip to the US

In this snap four-year-old Gabriella can be seen admiring the view of the Big Apple

The family's trip comes just over a week after the brother and sister returned to school following their festive break.

Princess Charlene shared a sweet snap of the twins with her followers to mark the occasion.

Gabriella wore a fluffy red coat, leggings and white trainers and clutched a pink satchel along with a cuddly unicorn toy.

Jacques wore a padded jacket paired with jeans and carried a matching blue satchel to his sister.

The proud mother, who is married to 60-year-old Prince Albert II of Monaco, recently opened up about their twins in a rare interview about family life.

The tots can be seen dressed in the colours of the American flag, with Jacques even sporting a hat decorated with stars and stripes

In another photo Gabriella can be seen dressed as Disney princess Aurora while someone dressed as Spiderman swings by their hotel

She revealed how her 'smart' daughter Gabriella bounces out of bed to go to school on a Saturday - and is left disappointed to find out it's closed.

She told French magazine, Point de Vue, according to People, 'Gabriella even gets up even on Saturdays because she wants to go and is very disappointed when told that there is no school that day.'

She said they feel 'blessed' to have two children who fill them with 'love and happiness', and are also 'well behaved and kind'.

The proud mother shares the twins with her 60-year-old husband Prince Albert II of Monaco. Pictured: The family on Monaco's National Day

The family's trip comes just over a week after the brother and sister returned to school following their festive break

She added that her husband Prince Albert is 'at his happiest' when he's spending time with their twins.

Although the siblings love education, they enjoy eating too many sweets and playtime as well.

Gabriella and Jacques were born two minutes apart on 10 December, 2014.

While Gabriella is actually older than her brother, he is heir to the throne due to succession laws in Monaco that give precedence to the firstborn son.
When Kate Varallo, from Bendigo, Victoria, found out she was pregnant with her daughter Lily she was given cloth nappies by her friend's sister.

She immediately did some research on the brand and found out about elimination communication (EC) - a technique that helps parents use 'non-verbal' cues to work out when their baby needs to use their nappy.

This then allows parents to figure out when their babies to use the toilet - a potty - which parents take them to instead of allowing the child to use their nappy from very early on.

'It just seemed respectful,' the 33-year-old, who saves an average of $672 a year on nappies compared to other Australian parents, told Daily Mail Australia.

Kate Varallo (pictured with her partner and their daughter Lily) told FEMAIL about how she found out about elimination communication, which is about picking up on non-verbal cues to find out when your newborn needs to use the toilet rather than letting them use a nappy

'I don't want to sit in my own filth if it was to come to that and I don't expect anyone else wants to - whether you're young or old. I thought it was a nice way of bonding, being supportive and keeping the baby clean.'

The first time Ms Varallo used EC with Lily was when she was breastfeeding her the day she was born.

'I started to notice that she would not come off my breast but pause and do a wee,' she said.

'It just seemed respectful,' the 33-year-old told Daily Mail Australia

What is elimination communication potty training? Elimination communication (EC), which is about picking up on non-verbal cues to find out when your newborn needs to use the toilet. The practice is extremely old but has largely been lost in the Western world. In 2017, The Guardian reported that two Los Angeles doctors said that there are enormous benefits to going nappy-free. However the publication also pointed out some pediatricians argue a newborn isnt developmentally ready for EC. Advertisement

'After I began to notice that pattern I asked my partner to go and get a bedpan. Next time she paused in her feed we held it under her.'

At 19 months old Lily doesn't wear nappies and tells her parents when she needs to go to the bathroom, sometimes she is even particular about which toilet she uses and who takes her.

'I'll prompt her during the night, or when she wakes up from a nap if she wants to go,' Ms Varallo said.

'Or if we're going out and we're about to leave.'

Lily wore cloth nappies as well as enjoying nappy-free times, meaning she would be wearing training pants, when she first was born.

The first time Ms Varallo used EC with Lily was when she was breastfeeding her the day she was born

'There were times when she was little where we would go a couple of days and every time she went it was in the potty,' she said.

'But we would have a couple of weeks here and there where it felt like almost none of them went into the potty.'

She said it was just working with her, and some milestones like getting her teeth were very distracting to the process.

Ms Varallo said sometimes Lily was testing her boundaries of how long she could hold her bathroom habits.

Hard work: She said it was just working with her, and some milestones like getting her teeth were very distracting to the process

'When she was little she would just get really restless [and that's how I knew she needed to use the bathroom],' the Bendigo woman said.

'But it was in a different kind of restless from when she was hungry or tired.'

Her advice to other mothers was to try it if they're interested.

'If you decide it is not for you, you can go back to nappies. Some people just do it part-time,' she said.

Give it a go! The Bendigo woman's advice to other mothers was to try it if they're interested

'I know people who have just done EC just for poos. There is lots of ways of doing it.'

She said it is about that relationship and bonding with your child in a respectful manner.

'Its just another way of letting you know you're there for them, and respect is a big thing,' she said.
An Australian mother-of-two has warned parents of a little-known disease that if left untreated could cause permanent damage to your child's heart or even death.

Bindy Scott found out the hard way that the rash on her toddler Tommy's body was more than just a viral infection.

Sharing painful photos of his chest, arms and back on her website, Mrs Scott, who is based in Queensland, explained how the unusual redness turned out to be a far greater danger to her little boy's health than first thought.

Mother-of-two Bindy Scott found out the hard way that the rash on her son Tommy's body (pictured) was more than just a viral infection

In October 2017 at their daughter's birthday party, 22-month-old Tommy woke up a little bit 'off', with Mrs Scott describing him as a 'bit grumbly and clingy'.

'He enjoyed the party and spending time with his Nan, but he didn't eat as much as normal and we all agreed it was probably due to a big molar he was cutting,' she wrote.

'That afternoon he started getting lethargic and that night was dreadful. He was awake screaming and had a 38C fever.

'Sunday morning when we woke up he had a rash on his tummy. By the time we had finished breakfast and we changed his nappy again it had spread to his back. So off to the hospital emergency department we went.'

The doctor assumed it was a viral disease like hand, foot and mouth, but when the rash spread even further - and the family rushed back to the hospital - they guessed it might actually be an allergic reaction or scarlet fever.

Tommy's symptoms continued to snowball: He began vomiting and had diarrhoea alongside the raging red rash that wouldn't subside.

On October last year at their daughter's birthday party, Tommy woke up a little bit 'off', with Mrs Scott describing him as a 'bit grumbly and clingy'

On their third trip to the ER Tommy had a blood test and a cannula inserted to rebuild his lost fluids.

'They ran many tests; blood cultures, x-ray and from memory I think they started a broad spectrum antibiotic,' Mrs Scott said.

He was even transferred to another hospital as doctors scrambled to diagnose the 22-month-old.

'The next few days were a blur with lots of tears. I sat in a hospital bed scared out of my mind holding our little man who just slept,' she continued.

'He didn't want to do anything and he was so upset. I felt like a zombie and my heart was shattered. Days earlier he was his normal cheeky self. I was wracking my brain trying to think how he got sick and I didn't stop praying for him to get better.

'Wednesday was a rough day of more tests and this was the day he started to swell up. His little body went puffy, his hands and feet were like little balloons and his eyelids were so swollen.'

'They ran many tests; blood cultures, x-ray and from memory I think they started a broad spectrum antibiotic,' Mrs Scott (pictured) said

WHAT IS KAWASAKI DISEASE? Kawasaki disease, named after the Japanese pediatrician who discovered the condition, is an inflammation of the blood vessels. The condition most often affects children under five years old. It typically manifests itself by a body rash, fever that lasts at least five days, swollen lymph nodes, lips, tongue, feet and hands, and red eyes. In most cases, the inflammation doesn't have long-lasting consequences. But in certain cases, the coronary artery or the heart muscle are damaged. When these complications occur, patients can later suffer from aneurysms and heart attacks, which can be fatal. Source: The American Heart Association Advertisement

During those days the family waited patiently for blood test results to come back, before a paediatrician asked on Thursday evening whether Mrs Scott had heard of Kawasaki disease.

'I hadn't. She and the doctors she had been speaking to believed this is what he had, unfortunately there is no test for this disease - just ruling out other possible problems and that's what we had been doing,' she explained.

They decided to treat him for Kawasaki using intravenous immunoglobulin - a solution of human plasma proteins - which was 'not at all dangerous for him to have'.

'Saturday he did seem to pick up, he was more alert and playing. He was actually playing with toys,' Mrs Scott said.

'He ate more and just seemed brighter. We were so thankful that this treatment had seemed to work, if it hadn't he would've had another round of it and if that failed, then he would receive a lumbar puncture - but thankfully we avoided that.'

Mrs Scott is sharing Tommy's story before Kawasaki Awareness Day on January 26 in hopes other parents can be more aware of the symptoms

Mrs Scott is sharing Tommy's story before Kawasaki Awareness Day on January 26 in hopes other parents can be more aware of the symptoms.

'I want to encourage you, that if your child is sick and you are given one diagnosis and then they worsen or change - go back,' she explained.

'Keep going back until the treatment works or you see improvement. You don't have to accept one opinion. We are our children's advocates. We have to fight for them.

'I knew each time in myself when he needed to go back to the hospital and I didn't care if it turned out to be nothing, I would prefer to be known as the overcautious mother than regret not taking him or leaving it too late.

'If we had just agreed it was some viral thing and tried to ride it out over a week, I hate to think of what the outcome could've been.'

You can find out more about the disease here and the symptoms here, or follow Mrs Scott on her website.
While many homeowners are diligent with their cleaning, there are areas that even the most meticulous people can forget about.

As a result, many of us are surrounded by far more bacteria, harmful mould particles and dusty surfaces than we realise.

The owner of an Australian professional cleaning service, Maid in Melbourne, has revealed some of the most commonly ignored parts of the home and has shared what happens when they are left dirty for long periods of time.

'Many of these things that you would assume people would be doing, they are not. Sometimes they look at the bigger picture and don't notice the little things that need doing,' Rita Dossis, of Maid in Melbourne, told Domain.

Scroll down for video

These are areas of the home that even the most meticulous people can neglect to clean

Door and cupboard handles and light switches

Although they may seem like obvious spots to clean, door handles, cupboard handles and light switches are top of the list of areas that are neglected around the home.

Luckily they don't take long to clean with Ms Dossis recommending a quick wipe with a damp cloth.

Shower

Although many people think the shower is one of the cleanest areas of the home, they are wrong.

Many people may think the shower is one of the cleanest areas of the home, but they are wrong

According to Ms Dossis this is one of the most neglected areas because many people think it 'cleans itself'.

She said: 'Clean this at least fortnight. We had a client who thought his shower glass was opaque. After we cleaned it [spending over one hour on it] he called us to say he had not realised the glass was clear.'

Lisa Ackerley, visiting professor in environmental health at the University of Salford, recommends the shower curtain should be cleaned every two days.

She said the shower curtains provide ideal conditions for the growth of mould, which can release spores that trigger respiratory problems.

'And if you live in a hard water area, it is easier for bacteria to stick to the limescale on the walls,' she said.

Ms Dossis recommends opening windows to stop the build-up of mould and using bleach to get rid of it.

Microwave

Microwaves are one of the most used appliances in the kitchen but are rarely cleaned enough. Ms Dossis has a quick and easy way to resolve that.

She said: 'Get a small bowl, put about one cup of water in it with maybe  cup white vinegar and then put on high for 4-5 minutes. Leave it for about 10-15 minutes, then open the door and wipe it out.'

For those who use their microwave regularly this should be done every few days.

How often should you be cleaning your appliances and kitchen items? Sink: Daily Counter tops: Daily Floor: Daily (minimum once a week) Appliance surfaces: Once a week (including fridge doors, toaster and coffee maker) Drain: Monthly (with baking soda and table salt) Splashback: Monthly Cutting boards: Monthly Fridge coils: Every three to six months Oven racks: Every three to six months (minimum once a year) Range filters: Whenever you use it, replace every six to eight months Advertisement

The dish drying rack

Most people don't think of cleaning their dish drying rack but soap scum and mould build up on the bottom of it.

Ms Dossis also recommends that everyone replace their sponge regularly and wash their tea towels weekly, even if they don't look dirty.

Filters on your range hood

The range hood, also known as an exhaust hood and extractor hood, above the stove or cooktop contains a mechanical fan and filters.

As the fan removes grease, fumes, smoke, heat and steam from the air the metal filters accumulate grime - but are often overlooked.

They can easily be put through the dishwasher or washed in a sink with boiling hot water and detergent.

How often you clean them depends on the how often you cook - some manufacturers recommend every three to four months.

Toothbrush holders

According to a 2011 study by US-based public health organisation NSF International the toothbrush holder is the third most germ-infected item in the home.

Your toothbrush holder could be the most germ-infested item in the home and needs to be rinsed and scrubbed once every two weeks (stock image)

This is due to bacteria from food and saliva on your toothbrush, as well as the yeast and mould that form on moist and wet surfaces.

'Give it a good clean regularly, you dont want to be putting your toothbrush into something that is breeding,' Ms Dossis says.

Toothbrush holders should be cleaned every fortnight by rinsing under hot water and scrubbing inside with a bottle brush or pipe cleaner, says Professor Damian Walmsley, scientific adviser to the British Dental Association.

Placement of your toothbrush holder is also key, according to dentist Dr. Mark Burhenne, who previously revealed to FEMAIL why it's so important to think carefully about where you keep the bathroom essential.

'Every time you flush your toilet with the lid up, poo particles are thrown into the air,' Dr. Burhenne revealed.

'So put the lid down when you flush, wash your hands, and store your brush as far away from this poo-projector as possible.'

Rubbish bin lid

The lid on the waste bin is a haven for bacteria or particles of food so should be cleaned daily.

Spray it with disinfectant, then wipe with a paper towel once a day, advises Sally Bloomfield, chairman of the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene.

Cushions

Cushions can harbour dust mites so should be cleaned every three months.

Either have them professionally cleaned, says Dr Jean Emberlin, Allergy UK scientific director, or place them in a carrier bag and put this in the freezer for 24 hours.

This will kill the dust mites  then, once you take the cushions out and defrost them, just go over them with a vacuum on a high power to get rid of the dead mites.

Television remote

A 2008 University of Virginia study of household surfaces showed the remote control was a hotspot for cold viruses  which can survive on surfaces for up to two days.

Whats more, TV remotes have lots of nooks and crannies where bacteria can linger and are hard to reach with a cursory clean.

The remote should be cleaned regularly, ideally every day, with an antibacterial wipe.
A Los Angeles photographer with an appreciation for irony has spotlighted some of President Trump's flip-flopping opinions  with pairs of literal flip-flops.

Social media users and the news media have already uncovered dozens on instances in which Trump tweets or says one thing, when, several years ago he had tweeted an opposing opinion or fact.

So Sam Morrison, 27, decided to turn these contradictory statements into some seriously pun-tastic footwear, selling a limited run of what he calls President Flip Flops.

In demand! A Los Angeles photographer named Sam Morrison, 27, sold out of all these President Flip Flops in less than a month

At odds: He put pairs of the President's contradicting tweets on each shoe

'Going back on your word, one step at a time,' reads the site's tagline.

The flip-flops have red soles and thick white straps above the foot  and on each strap is adhered one of Trump's tweets.

Of course, the shoes don't match: On one foot is a recent Trump tweet, and on the other is an older one voicing the entirely opposite opinion.

There are three different pairs, which spotlight Trump's flip-flopping views on the Electoral College, Syria, and anonymous sources.

On the Electoral College, he tweeted on November 7, 2012: 'The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.'

But on November 15, 2016  days after Trump lost the popular vote in the presidential election but won the office via the Electoral College  he tweeted: 'The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!'

Flip-floppin'! The flip-flops included his tweets about Syria, anonymous sources, and the Electoral College

Critique: He also include a logo of a flip-flop with Trump's hair

The tweets on the Syria flip-flops follow a similar pattern.

On September 5, 2013, he wrote: 'AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!'

'Take a scroll through Donald Trump's 40,000 tweets, and you're sure to catch some contradicting opinions,' Morrison said

Yet as president on April 8, 2017, he wrote: 'Congratulations to our great military men and women for representing the United States, and the world, so well in the Syria attack.

His final flop was on this August 6, 2012 tweet: 'An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud.'

On September 30, 2016, when unnamed sources offered unflattering information about Trump, he wrote: 'Remember, don't believe "sources said" by the VERY dishonest media. If they don't name the sources, the sources don't exist.'

Sam produced the flip-flops back in 2017, selling them for $27.99. He made 1,000 pairs, and they sold out in less than a month.

'Take a scroll through Donald Trump's 40,000 tweets, and you're sure to catch some contradicting opinions,' he told Business Insider of his motivation for the line. 'I wanted to highlight this hypocrisy.'

He also donated 10 per cent of every purchase to the American Civil Liberties Union.
It's no secret that Michelle Obama looks ravishing whenever she makes public appearances, and now thanks to her personal facialist, we can see why.

In honor of the former First Lady's 55th birthday, Canadian skin expert Jennifer Brodeur has revealed how she manages to keep Michelle's skin complexion looking youthful, dewy and glowing.

The skincare regime involves using products and different techniques that will be effective in reducing hyper-pigmentation on the face and keeping Michelle's skin as 'hydrated and dewy as possible'.

Ravishing! Michelle Obama's facialist Jennifer Brodeur has revealed some of the secrets behind the former First Lady's ever-glowing, youthful complexion

Speaking to Refinery29, Jennifer revealed that she and Michelle met through mutual friend Oprah Winfrey at Michelle's 50th birthday.

After doing a few facials on Michelle at a 'private location', Jennifer was called back for more.

She said: 'Then I got a callback a few weeks later from her team, who wanted me to meet with her again, and we came up with a six-month strategy for her skin.'

Best of friends: Jennifer (pictured) revealed that since the pair began working together, they have built a 'trust' with one another

The skin guru, who is also a go-to facialist for Oprah Winfrey and Ashley Graham, said that she thought Michelle's skin was 'amazing' considering she constantly had events that she would have worn makeup to in order to be 'camera-ready'.

Discussing the 'strategy' she used on Michelle's skin, she said: 'We started with an anti-inflammatory system and then it was about integrating more vitamin Cs and then vitamin A in the evening.'

The skincare specialist has been working with Michelle since 2014, and it's clear that the pair have built up quite a friendship.

Jennifer said: 'There are times when I'm mixing up bespoke serums or potions that show up to her door with no name in little strange pots. Theres a trust there.

'After we helped that hyper-pigmentation, it was about making sure the skin was as hydrated and dewy as possible,' she added.

Connections: Michelle met the skin guru (right) through mutual friend Oprah Winfrey at Michelle's 50th birthday party in 2014, and they have been working together ever since

Skin-savior: The Canadian skin guru says she regularly gives Michelle the withinUs collagen supplement ($59.95) which contains electrolytes and hydrates skin from within

For big events and public appearances, Jennifer said that Michelle usually receives a collagen-based vitamin C facial.

She explained: 'I use a gel-based collagen in which Ill infuse vitamin C and then I'll use oxygen to make sure the skin absorbs as much as possible. And then I always incorporate our LED device, which is called Max.

Holy grail! Jennifer says she regularly uses the Peoni L'extrait oil ($225) on Michelle's skin to keep it hydrated

'Often Ill use the yellow light [setting], and it really helps with that glow of the skin,' she added.

Jennifer revealed some of the go-to products she uses for Michelle's skin, which includes a product from Jennifer's own skincare line, Peoni.

'The one thing I always make sure we have on hand is withinUs ($59.95) - its a collagen supplement thats vital for flying. It has great electrolytes and hydrates from within.

'I always recommend to fly without makeup on; even if the planes are private planes, theres environmental pollution that clogs up the skin.

She added: 'And then our favorite go-to is the Peoni L'extrait oil ($225). Its an anti-inflammatory and makes sure the skin stays very hydrated.

'She can even use it on her cuticles,' she said.

Birthday wishes have been flooding in for Michelle, who turned 55 on Thursday.

Birthday girl! Thousands of birthday wishes flooded in for Michelle as she celebrated her 55th birthday on Thursday, including her husband Barack who posted a throwback photo of them

Husband and former president Barack Obama posted a tribute to his wife on social media in the form of a throwback photo that showed the pair together years ago.

The photo was accompanied by a caption that read: 'I knew it way back then and Im absolutely convinced of it today - youre one of a kind, @MichelleObama. Happy Birthday!'

Followers of the couple also tweeted to the former First Lady to wish her a happy birthday.

One Twitter user @lindakaufman wrote: 'Happy Birthday Michelle! I loved your book and I love the both of you even more now!'

Another user @hotmess_jes added: 'Relationships goals. Happy Birthday #MichelleObama.'

'Happy Birthday Michelle Obama my favorite First Lady and Role model for young girls, boys, teens, young adults and anyone.

'You are a Blessing to your Family and the World,' added a Twitter user under username @kdseekerjust.
A new book written by a journalist and 'wealth guru' Suh Yoon Lee (pictured) claims to reveal the secret to becoming rich

A new book written by a journalist and a 'wealth guru' claims to reveal the secret to becoming rich.

The Having, by Suh Yoon Lee and Jooyun Hong, teaches that 'having' is feeling joy in what you already have and from then on spending your money according to this feeling.

The book begins with Wharton MBA Jooyun seeking out mysterious Korean guru, Suh Yoon, who advises the richest one per cent of South Korea, to ask if she too could be rich.

Suh Yoon was told she would be a wealth guru at the age of six and from then on set off on a course of study, ranging from classical Asian texts, to economics, to an analysis of 100,000 case studies in a bid to find out the secret of growing rich.

She believes that almost everyone has the capacity to earn between three and seven million dollars - and some have a capacity for much more.

Suh Yoon soon became a bestselling author and insightful thinker sought after by the richest people in Korea, but she retreated into seclusion when she became troubled by the impact her guidance to the wealthy may have on income disparity.

When Jooyun wrote to the guru for an interview, Suh Yoon invited her to Lake Como, Italy.

There, they started a conversation about how the average person can achieve their financial goals more easily and quickly by 'living in synch with their true emotions'.

The subsequent book is a philosophical and sometimes abstract approach to changing how you think about money - by becoming more emotional.

The book claims that 'having' changes our lens from seeing what is missing in our lives to seeing what's already there, and taking pleasure in that.

The women say that 'having' is the power that attracts wealth and in learning to feel what you already have, youll be able to have so much more.

The book also suggests that the universe takes the emotional energy that you give it and reflects it back like a mirror, and claims that by changing your emotions about money, you can make every purchase a step toward becoming your true self.

GURU SUH YOON LEE'S TOP QUOTES ON HOW TO BECOME RICH:

If you enjoy your money with positive energy, you will certainly draw in more money. Energy is the cause, and matter is the effect that flows from it.

The book also suggests that the universe takes the emotional energy that you give it and reflects it back like a mirror

Real rich people are those who know how to enjoy happiness as they spend money. How much is in their wallet right at that moment isnt important.

Having begins when you can focus on the thought that right now, I have money even if you only have a single dollar.'

The key to changing your circumstances is emotion, not thought.

Having is the way to change our lens from seeing whats missing to seeing whats there.

Everyone is born with the qualifications to become rich, just as they have the qualifications to be loved.

Having is the power that attracts wealth. It easily enables you to get more water in your glass, even with the same amount of effort. And you have full control over all this with your own feelings.

If you pay attention to what you really want, youll naturally distance yourself from wasteful or ostentatious purchases.'
British women have hailed stick-on pain relief patch made with natural ingredients as a 'magic' solution to period pain.

BeYou 'period relief' patches, are getting rave reviews from users on Instagram and Amazon with women praising the 'amazing' natural remedy and how quick acting they are.

Developed by scientists, the patches promise to last for up to 12 hours and contain eucalyptus and menthol, which are both natural pain relievers and have anti-inflammatory qualities.

According to the British brand's website the active ingredients 'relax the muscles and provide discrete, continuous relief from period pain and muscle cramps'.

The patches, which should be stuck on to the tummy or back or wherever you feel pain and cramps, cost 6.99 for a pack of five, and are getting a flurry of five star reviews online.

Period relief patches from BeYou claim to 'soothe period cramps' naturally and are getting rave reviews online

One person wrote: 'I just wanted to say that I've tried so many other products, both tablets and 'natural' to help my period pain.

'Either it doesn't work, or the effects wear off after an hour or so.

'I thought I'd try these patches given they are 100 per cent natural and I can't thank you enough.

'I wore it to work, and normally I struggle throughout the day.

Reviewers are claiming the stick-on product changed their lives by relieving period pain when nothing else worked, and they'll be recommending it to all their friends (stock image)

'Within a few minutes I felt the ingredients tingle and the pain really started to subside.

'The patch lasted around eight hours for me, and then I used another one before sleeping!

'Thank you so much for this amazing product! I'll definitely be recommending to my girlfriends!'

The product works by sticking the patch on to the area of pain - and promises to provide relief for up to 12 hours

Impressed customers say the product 'really, really works' after testing a lot of different pain relief methods

Another said: 'I don't know how but there magic little things really do help!!

'Thanks to endometriosis my periods are horrendous but these little patches are a must.'

A third wrote: 'I came across these on amazon whilst searching for alternatives to pain killers and honestly cannot fault the product.

The product description reads: 'BeYou Period Cramp Relief Patches are 100 per cent natural, without chemicals, and work wonders for women during periods

'It does exactly what it states on the packaging - soothes period cramps; fast and up to 12 hours.

'I would recommend this product to anyone who suffers from period pains whether mild or severe.'

The product description reads: 'BeYou Period Cramp Relief Patches are 100 per cent natural, without chemicals, and work wonders for women during periods.

'The two active ingredients, Menthol and Eucalyptus oil, relax the muscles and provide discrete, continuous relief from period pain and muscle cramps.

'It's not a heat patch either - after applying it most women describe the feeling as a tingle, while some express it as more of a cooling sensation.

'No more pills or carrying around hot water bottles. Finally, natural relief from period cramps.'
Rylan Clark-Neal's Instagram bio reads 'Started off as the joke... and still laughing...'

As he steps behind the mic of his own Radio 2 show on Saturday afternoon, the raven-haired 30-year-old from Essex might rightly pinch himself.

In just seven short years, Rylan has transformed himself from a novelty act sashaying across the X Factor stage in gold lame to bagging a prime time spot on the nation's biggest radio station - and amassing a 4million fortune from lucrative television and commercial work to boot.

Scroll down for video

The rise and rise of Rylan: the 30-year-old with the mega-watt smile looks transformed from his first appearance on the X Factor back in 2012. This weekend, Rylan will broadcast to middle England with his new Radio 2 Saturday afternoon show

Novelty: With peroxide blonde locks and a hunger for fame, Rylan appeared on the X Factor in 2012, impressing judges including Gary Barlow and Rita Ora with his tenacious approach to the limelight

Rylan's Instagram page, which has 1million followers, reads: 'Started off as the joke... and still laughing...'

While his singing voice didn't set the world on fire, Rylan did impress judges with his performances - and unique outfits including left, a cowl hooded beige number, and, right, a gold lame affair

The television work has rolled in for Rylan since and while his outfits and tan may have been toned down, his on-screen charisma has seen him offered lucrative commercial jobs

That moment: After being told he'd made it through to the X Factor finals, Rylan broke down in tears, fell to the floor and then cried all over presenter Dermot O'Leary outside

In promo shots for his new radio show, Rylan's fake tan is a little less deep, his hair a little more relaxed and he's sporting an unremarkable cashmere jumper.

It's all a far cry from the one-man, three-minute hysteria that followed after being told he'd made it through to the X Factor finals back in 2012. Rylan crumpled to his knees in tears leaving then-judge Nicole Scherzinger looking baffled.

The years that have followed have seen Rylan's star firmly in the ascendant as television gig after television gig followed when his pop career finally stalled.

Clever command of spin-off shows for Big Brother and the X Factor were matched with guest appearances on ITV's This Morning, which evolved into holiday cover when Ruth Langsford and Eammon Holmes couldn't stand in for regular hosts Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield.

Indeed, PR director Claire Shiels thinks Rylan might have the magical 'Holly touch', which has seen Ms Willoughby carve out one of the most successful careers in British television.

HAS RYLAN GOT THE 'HOLLY TOUCH'? HOW THE PRESENTER IS LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK Since stepping on the X Factor stage in 2012, Rylan hasn't stopped working, with an estimated 4million fortune amassed from television and radio work. Here, PR director Claire Shiels estimates what Rylan might have earned so far: Celebrity Big Brother presenting role: 250,000 Channel 5 chat show: 200,000 Xtra Factor host: 500,000 New year, new job: Rylan is expected to pocket around 750,000 a year for his weekly presenting job on Radio 2 This Morning regular slots: 200,000 Radio 2 Saturday afternoon show: 750,000 Best-selling book sales: 100,000 Paid public appearances: 450,000 Various advertising contracts and own fragrance range: 1.2 million Supermarket Sweep presenter role: 350,000 Total earnings so far: 4 million Advertisement

Shiels says: 'Rylan has worked exceptionally hard since he burst onto our screens as an X Factor contestant, seven years ago. But whilst the majority of X Factor failures fade into obscurity once more, Rylan has shown that he does indeed have star quality.'

She continues: 'An absolute natural in front of the cameras with his soft voice, strong Essex accent and loveable, down-to-earth character, he's also savvy, with numerous celebrity appearances, ad contracts with the likes of Just Eat and his own fragrance range. His book, The Life of Rylan, became a Sunday Times bestseller.

'Does Rylan have the Holly touch? It certainly seems so.'

All grown-up: the star married his boyfriend Dan Neal in 2015 and the pair are regulars at red carpet events

Fame climb: Rylan's biggest break arguably came in the shape of Big Brother's Bit on the Side, which he hosted in 2015, after winning the Celebrity version of the show in 2013

Lucrative commercial deals have also followed, with Rylan's 1million Instagram followers regularly updated with posts from the likes of Just Eat, Paypal and his own brand fragrance company Luxenoa.

In November, though, the key to an altogether different door was unlocked.

The TV presenter announced via his Twitter page that his holiday cover role on Radio 2 was to become a permanent fixture.

On Saturday, he'll step into Zoe Ball's shoes in the 3pm to 6pm slot.

This Morning proved a vital stepping stone to Radio 2, with Rylan joining Amanda Holden and other co-hosts to cover Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield on the ITV daytime show

The move comes after Zoe, 47, replaced Chris Evans, 52, as host of the Radio 2 Breakfast Show.

In November, Rylan revealed that he'd bought a brand new 'dream house' with husband Dan.

He told the Mirror: 'The house is unbelievable. Ive put in a Big Brother diary room, next to the downstairs loo.

'You just press the Big Brother Eye button and the door opens. Im just going to sit in there and talk to myself.'
Meghan has showcased a stylish wardrobe of designer labels since marrying Harry last year.

However, there is one small fashion faux pas that appears to plague the Duchess of Sussex - she regularly steps out in ensembles that are creased.

Whether it's the wrinkled hem of a dress or an awkward fold line on a coat, no amount of ironing appears to do the trick when it comes to her crumpled collection.

Meghan most recently stepped out in a creased ensemble when she visited Smart Works, at St Charles Hospital in North Kensington, which provides high-quality interview clothes and training to unemployed women in need.

The Duchess of Sussex appears to be plagued with a creased wardrobe, most recently in the form of a 2,600 tan Oscar de la Renta coat when she visited Smart Works in London last month

Her 2,600 tan Oscar de la Renta coat was heavily creased from the moment she stepped from the car before her engagement had even begun.

And back in December she brought Christmas cheer to a nursing home in Twickenham in an elegant 834 floral dress by Brock Collection.

But when pregnant Meghan turned around, the back of the dress appeared rucked up and creased.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's royal tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga gave the US royal the opportunity to showcase a whole host of looks.

Meghan's 834 floral dress by Brock Collection appeared rather rumpled at the back when she visited nursing home Brinsworth House, Twickenham, where she met actor Richard O'Sullivan

Meghan's striped Martin Grant dress (left) worn to see the Tongan prime minister was relatively wrinkled while her Antoni Beradi tuexdo dress worn to the Invictus Games in Sydney October took a turn for the worse

The pregnant royal's simple white button-down by Maison Kitsune worn in Dubbo during her tour of Australia in October was in serious need of a steam

However, it seems that some of her ensembles didn't travel as well as hoped with the majority of them laced with fine lines.

The 37-year-old's iconic wedding dress was not immune to creasing either.

Designed by Clare Waight Keller, the Givenchy gown wowed spectators at the royal wedding in May 2018, but some claimed it was in need of a steam.

Former creative director of Mulberry Scott Henshall, says it is the choice of fabric that is to blame for the Duchess's wrinkled clothes.

Arriving at the Tupou College in Tonga Meghan's Veronica Beard dress (left) was less than crisp while the cream Zimmermann dress worn for her arrival in Fiji had defined kink to the hem

The navy Antonio Beradi dress worn to the Auckland War Memorial Museum could have done with a little TLC

Meghan wore a rather creased & Other Stories olive green shirt on a visit to Sussex in October

Designed by Clare Waight Keller, Meghan's Givenchy wedding gown wowed spectators at the ceremony in May 2018, but a few royal watchers claimed it was in need of a steam

Former creative director of Mulberry Scott Henshall says that Meghan should choose sturdier fabrics such as wool to avoid wrinkling, a fabric often favoured by the Duchess of Cambridge. Pictured: Kate in a wool blend Oscar de la Renta suit at the Royal Opera House on Wednesday (left) and in a double wool crepe Eponine dress-coat in Rotherham in November

Henshall told the MailOnline: 'With any royal engagement, you want to arrive at your destination looking stylish and polished  a near impossible task when all you're wearing are easily wrinkled clothes.

'All the Duchess or her 'people' have to do is familiarise themselves with the best wrinkle-free fabrics, and keep these in mind next time.

Scott Henshall (pictured) says that Meghan should familiarise herself with wrinkle-free fabric

'Typically synthetic fabrics such as polyester, nylon, acrylic and olefin have a natural resistance to wrinkles and a greater stability since they do not absorb water as efficiently.

'Even fabrics that do have a tendency to wrinkle (i.e. cotton, rayon, and silk) are much less likely to when blended with other fabrics.'

Henshall recommends several fabrics, many of which are favoured by Meghan's sister-in-law Kate.

'Knit, a fabric favoured by the Duchess of Cambridge, technically classified as fabric made from interlocking loops of thread, is usually made of wool yarn, but some knits like jersey can be made of wool, cotton, and synthetic fibres. As a rule of thumb, thicker knits (and fabrics in general) are less wrinkle-prone than thin.

'Lyocell, commonly referred to as its brand name, Tencel, is soft and strong. It's machine-washable and most importantly, resists wrinkling.

'Polyester hasn't caught a break yet, that'll be down to its Seventies connotations. The thing is, it can be surprisingly soft and comfortable for a synthetic fabric. Even better: It's affordable, durable, and wrinkle-resistant!

'This fabric is strong and warm yet lightweight and soft. If it appears wrinkled when taken out of your suitcase, just hang it or lay it flat for a bit. The creases should release.'
With the new year under way, thousands of Australians are on a mission to get on top of their savings and finally pay off long-standing debts.

And while many have a plan in place, others could use a helping hand.

Thankfully, simple budgeting tools can be incorporated into your everyday routine guaranteeing a boost in your bank balance over time.

Pinterest highlights creative ways to take control of your finances, with four popular 'savings challenges' helping Australians save thousands.

How to save thousands in a year: Four genius ways to control your finances and make your goals pay off in 2019, are possible through image-based app Pinterest

1. 52 Week Savings Challenge

Pinterest has already seen an increase of up to 295 per cent in January, for the 52 Week Savings Challenge.

By saving as little as $1 per week, participants can earn themselves $1,000 by the end of the year.

A simple Excel spreadsheet, divided into columns for the week, amount saved, and subsequent balance, makes budgeting easy to follow.

Those wanting more flexibility can modify the amounts on a chart and simply cross off as they go.

Tool: Those wanting flexibility can modify the amounts on a chart and simply cross off as they go

2. 30 Day Savings Challenge

Those wanting a shorter commitment with a bigger pay off, can follow a 30 Day Savings Challenge.

It's a popular search on Pinterest this month, with an increase of up to 391 per cent.

Featuring a more detailed spreadsheet, categories can be broken down into income, fixed expenses, variable expenses, savings and cash flow.

A spreadsheet can also simply list the day, amount saved and its corresponding total.

Breakdown: Spreadsheets can feature a breakdown per day, including amount saved and subsequent balance

3. 365 Day Penny Challenge

This budget plan is all about searching for those extra coins lying around on mantelpieces, and at the base of your handbag.

A simple Excel spreadsheet can be divided into categories, listing the week, deposit amount and account balance.

Spare cash: Collecting spare coins lying around can boost your bank balance by the end of the year

It's proving to be a popular search item on Pinterest, with clicks of up to 139 per cent this month.

4. The Pinterest Lens to save money at the grocery store

This strategy involves using the Pinterest Lens Camera Search, to find recipe solutions with cheap finds at the supermarket.

It involves taking a photo of a food item in the grocery store, using the Pinterest Lens, and viewing recipe searches that pop up.
From the moment the cab hes in drives past Buckingham Palace, its clear the BBCs latest history presenter is like none before.

What happened? asks Danny Dyer, the EastEnders actor, as he points at the famous balcony where so many royal weddings have been celebrated with a kiss.

Why aint I up there, kissing a princess?

Danny has more reason than most to wonder why the Windsors ended up ensconced in luxury, while he was raised in Canning Town, east London.

In 2016, appearing in the genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, Danny discovered that among the workhouse victims and thieves in his family tree, there was a royal link.

Not only is his great-grandfather 22 times removed King Edward III, but hes related to William the Conqueror and Henry VIIIs advisor Thomas Cromwell too.

Danny Dyer, 41, (pictured in the 14th-century armour his forebear, famous knight Henry Hotspur Percy, would have worn) stars in a new two-part series exploring his Royal ancestry

His thrill at discovering this royal ancestry was so entertaining that a two-part series delving into Dannys unlikely forebears has been made and, as Danny might say, its a right rollicking romp through history.

From eating Viking food with his family, including Love Island-winning daughter Dani, to dressing up as a Tudor aristocrat, its illuminating stuff as he discovers not only more kings in the family closet, but a bona fide saint too.

I was bowled over to find Im related to royalty, says Danny, 41.

I remind people at every chance Im a direct descendent of Edward III.

'When youve got a family tree like mine, youve got to explore it.

'I want to smell it, drink it, taste it. I want to feel what its like to be royal.

And he does.

In the first show, he gallops through 800 years of ancestors, starting with Viking leader Rollo, his 35 times great-grandfather.

I want to get Vikinged up, says Danny as he travels to Sweden to meet Viking re-enactors.

Looking at a picture of Rollo, he empathises with his ancestor.

He looks concerned, he has anxiety across his face  Ive had anxious moments too.

Rollo led an incursion into France, attacking Paris and doing so well that the French king offered him land in northern France, named Normandy to this day because it was where the Norse men resided, in return for protecting France from other Vikings.

Danny eats Viking food  a sheeps tongue makes him sick  and leaves Sweden more than impressed with Rollo.

He came from nothing to lead the Vikings. What a start to my journey.

Danny (pictured as a Tudor courtier) first discovered his family's royal link while taking part in 2016's Who Do You Think You Are?

In 1066, Rollos descendent William  Dannys 30 times great-grandfather  defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings.

Danny, who learns to ride and hunt like William, reins in one hand and bow and arrow in the other (I feel proud of myself and William would be proud too), is amazed to hear William had started building the Tower of London.

He won everything, he was the ultimate leader, says Danny. I love him.

Almost as impressive is the next king.

Henry II was Dannys 27 times great-grandfather and he visits one of his homes, the stunning Dover Castle.

He was double rich, gasps the astonished star. And its beautiful.

Danny is perturbed to hear the kings white robes were cleaned with urine, but he can empathise with the monarch who had a famously bad temper.

Blood that works miracles is in my veins

When Henry argued with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, he is said to have yelled, Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? Four of his knights took it upon themselves to do so and Becket was killed in his cathedral.

Henry shouting and being misunderstood, ponders Danny, Ive been like that, I get it.

The final ancestor he examines in episode one is King Louis IX of France, his 26 times great-grandfather and one of the saintliest men to ever rule.

He hated blasphemers so much he had their mouths burned with a hot rod  and famously foul-mouthed Danny is shocked.

Danny (pictured learning to shoot a longbow like William The Conqueror) revealed he felt proud while learning to ride and hunt like William

Hes touched by the godliness of Louis though, who washed the feet of lepers and fed the poor at his table.

He also whipped himself.

After following in Louiss footsteps by walking barefoot through Paris, Danny is bowled over to touch the kings robe  which still has his blood stains  and the whip he used to self-flagellate.

Bless you grandpa, he whispers.

Hes even more inspired at Sainte Chappelle, the stunning cathedral Louis built.

When I walked in, it made me feel a bit sick, admits Danny.

All this beauty. I dont think Ive ever been in a building thats more God-like, where you can see God, up there.

'If God was going to have windows, theyd be like these windows.

Louis was canonised 27 years after his death in 1270, so Danny is the descendent of a saint.

He wells up at this.

To have the blood of a saint is extraordinary, he gulps.

Danny (pictured at Dover Castle dressed as Henry II) had the opportunity to learn to fight like his 19 times great-grandfather, famous knight Henry Hotspur Percy

That blood is sacred, it works miracles and Ive got it coursing through my veins.

In episode two, he learns that his 23 times great-grandfather was Edward II, whose family was so dysfunctional it puts EastEnders scriptwriters to shame.

Edward had male lovers, while his French wife Isabella had a lover too and raised an army against Edward.

His son Edward III is the last king in Dannys family.

Danny then dons 14th-century armour and learns to fight like his 19 times great-grandfather, famous knight Henry Hotspur Percy.

His 15 times great-grandfather Sir John Seymours daughter Jane gave Henry VIII his only legitimate son, while Catherine Cromwell, his 12 times great-grandmother, was an aristocrat.

Dannys family join him at a sugar banquet, held by Elizabethans to show off their wealth as sugar was a precious commodity, using Catherines own recipes.

Its all an emotional experience for Danny, who hugs everyone he meets on his journey.

Ive been regal-ed out of my brains, he sighs.

Danny Dyers Right Royal Family, Wednesday, 9pm, BBC1.
Now Call The Midwife is back on our screens, viewers might notice a change not only in midwife Trixie Franklin  but also in Helen George, the actress who plays her.

'When I came back to film this new series after giving birth to my daughter, the consultant midwife on set, Terri Coates, said to me, 'Goodness, you can tell you're a mum now,' says Helen.

'I suppose I am a bit more caring  not that I wasn't caring with the babies before  and more motherly, something the viewers might notice.

'I think becoming a mother has definitely changed me and helped me with the role.'

Helen's daughter Wren arrived 16 months ago and is known as The Midwife Baby by the cast because her father is the actress's boyfriend and co-star Jack Ashton, who played Trixie's one-time fiance the Reverend Tom Hereward.

Through a bit of clever camera trickery, Helen worked on the last series until she was eight months pregnant, with the storyline seeing Trixie leave part-way through the series on a six-month leave of absence to fight her problems with alcoholism and get over the split of another doomed romance, this time with Christopher the dentist.

Helen George, 34, (pictured) plays Trixie Franklin on hit BBC1 series Call The Midwife and says she's become better at her role since becoming a mother

She returned in the Christmas special, and in this new series she's cleansed and more eager than ever to help the expectant mothers of Poplar.

The alcoholism lurks in the shadows, but it's not such a central theme in this new series.

'There was a scene in the first episode where Trixie went into a pub and there was an awful moment where you thought she might be celebrating with a new father by having an alcoholic drink,' says Helen.

'So her demons are never forgotten about, but they're not necessarily dwelt upon in this series. It's just going on underneath.

Because Heidi Thomas, the writer, has set the alcoholism up so well already it doesn't need to have a spotlight shone on it in this series.'

Instead, we see Trixie become the model midwife.

'The attention she would've maybe paid to gin or men in the past now goes into midwifery and nursing, into the mothers and babies,' explains Helen.

Helen revealed as Poplar enters the Swinging Sixties, her character Trixie (pictured) becomes the model midwife by focusing all her attention on midwifery and nursing instead of men or gin

'We see her when the smear test is first introduced, and she's very much instrumental in pushing that into the local community.

As for love, that's on the back burner.

Tom Hereward, who lost his wife Barbara in the last series, is now thousands of miles away doing missionary work in New Guinea and Christopher the dentist went back to his wife.

I know some people thought there'd be a great romance between him and Trixie but that's what Heidi does. If you think something is going to happen, it probably won't!'

The show, which is based on the memoirs of real-life East End midwife Jennifer Worth and is one of the most popular on TV, has now reached 1964 and this eighth series enthusiastically embraces the nascent Swinging Sixties, with Minis, mopeds and miniskirts on the streets of London's East End.

Helen welcomed her daughter, Wren Ivy, with co-star Jack Ashton (pictured together) in in September 2017

And Trixie is as on-trend as any young woman in the fashionable West End. Watch out for the striking black leather hat she wears later in the series, a replica of one worn by John Lennon and made by the same person, Liverpool artist and designer Helen Anderson.

'The leather dress I wear with it is monochrome and brilliant,' says Helen.

'The only problem with clothes on Call The Midwife is the size of the shoes we're supposed to fit into.

'The nurses' feet were so tiny, so narrow back in the 60s, compared to ours now, that none of their shoes actually fit us!

'One of the ways around this is to take them off whenever we get the chance, and try to persuade the director that our characters would've gone barefoot in a particular scene.

NEW NUNS ON THE BABY RUN Sister Frances (Ella Bruccoleri) Young and innocent, she is a postulant  a probationer nun who is now based at Nonnatus House in Poplar. She has difficulty fitting in and bonding with the midwives. New nuns on the block: Sister Frances, Mother Mildred, and Sister Hilda (pictured left to right) are set to join the new season Mother Mildred (Miriam Margolyes) She arrived at Nonnatus House at Christmas as a sister, but was elected to be Mother Superior and so is now based at the religious orders Mother House head office in Chichester. Sister Hilda (Fenella Woolgar) A kind-hearted nun, shes desperate to make the right impression, both at Nonnatus House and in Poplar. Shes gung ho and prone to putting her foot in it. Advertisement

'I wore Ugg boots for one scene where I thought my feet weren't going to be in the shot, but I got caught on camera and told off.'

Trixie turns life saver in this week's episode after a seemingly routine delivery.

When the new mum complains of feeling odd Trixie spots that she's bleeding heavily and with the woman's pulse rate at a dangerously high 120bpm, Trixie has to move fast to stem the bloodflow and organise an ambulance to take her to hospital.

Other stories that feature in this series include a woman who discovers on the eve of her wedding that she has both female and male genitalia, a baby born with a cleft palate, prostate examinations and, of course, lots of new babies although as yet no sign of Helen's putting in an appearance.

'That's for the producers to decide,' she laughs.

'Wren's been on the set, but I'm not making those decisions for her.

'I'd like her to become a lawyer or a doctor rather than an actor!'

Series eight has some new regular characters, who viewers were introduced to in the Christmas special.

These include Sister Hilda, played by Fenella Woolgar, and Sister Mildred, a role taken by Miriam Margolyes, who made an impression on cast members with her salty language.

'It's ironic that she plays a nun yet she swears like a trooper,' laughs Helen.

Helen missed her co-stars like crazy while on maternity leave.

'I was obviously rather busy with other things, but I was so pleased to return to be a part of a programme that raises topical issues and may even save lives, even though it's set in the 60s.

'I saw something on Facebook last week about how after Jade Goody's death from cervical cancer in 2009 there was a surge in smear tests, and because it's been quite a few years now since her death I'm hoping the smear test storyline we have in this series may lead to another surge.

'It definitely made me take one. I hadn't had one for ages and I suddenly thought 'Oh dear, I've just had a baby  I really need to have my smear test.' So I had one done.'

Helen admits she hasn't found it easy to combine 12-hour working days with the demands of new motherhood.

'It's hard,' she says. 'I'm discovering what it's like being a working mum and, even more challenging, being away from my child.

'But I'm pleased I've got a daughter who's seeing her mum working. It's tough, but it's what mums do, right?'

Call The Midwife, tomorrow, 8pm, BBC1. Episode one is on BBC iPlayer.
Who will keep the lights burning in Britain? That's the question we must all ask after Hitachi withdrew from the UK's plans to replace our ageing nuclear power stations with state-of-the-art reactors.

Be under no illusions  this is a disastrous setback to our nation's energy future.

In a few short months, two Japanese firms, Toshiba in Cumbria and now Hitachi at Wylfa on Anglesey, have fallen by the wayside because of escalating costs.

This leaves the 20billion Chinese-financed Hinkley Point in Somerset as the only potential new nuclear reactor on course to be built.

Britain relies on its nuclear plants to provide electricity for factories, homes and businesses.

Remember, when the wind doesn't blow to keep turbines turning, or the natural gas supplies from abroad are interrupted, we are dangerously exposed. At present, nuclear is providing 21pc of the UK's power supplies.

Japanese firm Hitachi has suspended plans for a muliti-billion pound nuclear power station in Anglesey, north Wales, claiming they failed to reach agreement on financing and associated commercial arrangements for the Wylfa project

Now the Government must make hard choices  and fast  to guarantee the nation's energy security.

It could persist with large new nuclear facilities by finding creative ways of making investment more attractive.

It might, for example, pay dividends to investors before the project is completed. That's how the Thames Tideway, or super-sewer, in London is being built. Or it could take up a Rolls-Royce initiative to build a series of small 'modular' nuclear reactors.

Alternatively, the Government could decide nuclear is simply too expensive and complicated, and that cleaner natural gas is the way forward.

That would require it to renew investment in gas storage and/or find some way of speeding up fracking activity, which promises to produce relatively cheap gas.

The simplest way forward may be to encourage Chinese investors, already financing the new EDF plant at Hinkley, to fill the gap left by Japan's nuclear investors (who got involved only when two German energy giants withdrew).

Dragging in the Chinese might require a promise to pay them a higher price once the electricity comes on stream  and that would be highly controversial. Already the 'strike price' agreed for power generated at Hinkley is far above the usual wholesale price.

The British government signed an agreement with Hitachi for the Wyfla power station in Tregele, Anglesey on October 23, 2013

It would also raise the same delicate national security questions the Government faced from GCHQ when the then chancellor George Osborne embraced Beijing.

Despite this new setback, I have no doubt we should persevere with the construction of nuclear power stations. They will provide a reliable source of energy that is not at the whim of the weather or international strife.

Natural gas is still the cheapest source of energy generation. But most of Britain's gas currently comes from Qatar in the Middle East, or through North Sea pipelines from Norway and Russia.

Supplies from Russia have in the past been interrupted by crises in Ukraine and Georgia, while the Middle East remains a tinder box.

A key way of overcoming these obstacles would be to step up natural gas production in the UK.

This is already happening in the North Sea where extraction is getting cheaper. But the real bonanza would come if large-scale fracking could take place here  as it has in the US, where it has slashed reliance on foreign energy.

The biggest problem has been the Government's refusal to tackle the danger of a looming energy crisis.

The Brexit paralysis means that preoccupied ministers have spent far too little time making sure we have sufficient energy to keep our factories working, and making sure citizens can turn on their lights and not freeze in their beds.

Hitachi's president Toshiaki Higashihara, pictured today in Tokyo, had earlier expressed major concern about Britain's decision to leave the European Union

Japanese firm Hitachi scraps plans for its new 20billion pound nuclear power plant in Wales putting 9,000 jobs at risk amid claims Brexit diverted the Government's attention away from talks with the company

By Francesca Washtell For The Daily Mail

Britain's energy strategy has been plunged into crisis after plans to build a new nuclear power station in Wales were ditched.

Japanese firm Hitachi suspended work on its 16billion Wylfa Newydd nuclear plant on Anglesey as costs mounted, it failed to attract new investors and turned down a deal from the Government.

The plant had been due to be completed by the middle of the 2020s, providing around 6 per cent of the country's electricity  enough to power five million homes. It was expected to create 8,500 jobs during the construction phase and 850 jobs over its 60-year operational lifespan.

Hitachi has also put on hold plans for a nuclear power station at Oldbury in South Gloucestershire.

Last year, Toshiba decided against proceeding with a proposed nuclear power station in Moorside, Cumbria after it ran into several difficulties

Duncan Hawthorne, chief executive of Hitachi subsidiary Horizon Nuclear Power which was developing the Wylfa Newydd site, said: 'Despite the best efforts of everyone involved, we've not been able to reach an agreement.'

The GMB union said Hitachi's announcement  coming so soon after Toshiba abandoned plans in November to develop its Moorside nuclear power station in Cumbria  raised the 'very real prospect of a UK energy crisis'.

Hitachi had been in financing talks with the Government since June. The Government proposed it would take a one-third stake, would finance all the debt during construction and raised the price it would pay for electricity the plant produced. But this was not enough for Hitachi's board, which said it will now write off about 2.2billion it had spent on the project.

Business Secretary Greg Clark told MPs yesterday: 'I was not prepared to take on a larger share of the equity, as that would have meant taxpayers taking on the majority of construction risk and the Government becoming the largest shareholder with responsibility for the delivery of a nuclear project.'

As Britain's coal-fired power plants will be shut by the mid-2020s and existing nuclear reactors will wind down in the early 2030s, the Government is now facing questions about how it will plug the gap left by the abandoned power stations, with experts claiming it will be forced to rely on Chinese investment to keep the lights on.

Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which is being built by French firm EDF with Chinese backing, is now the only new nuclear plant under construction. The two remaining new nuclear power stations in the pipeline  Sizewell in Suffolk and Bradwell in Essex  both have Chinese investment.
Seeking refuge from the Brexit debacle, I decided to lose myself in an old Hollywood movie  The Candidate, starring Robert Redford, made in 1972.

Redford plays an idealistic young man persuaded to run for the U.S. Senate. Yes, I know it might seem somewhat perverse attempting to escape from politics by watching a film about, er, politics.

But in order to understand the present, it always helps if you look to the past. And though The Candidate is set in California, the basic principles of politics are universal.

'This wasnt a vote of confidence in Mrs May, it was a vote of no confidence in Corbyn. And if all you have to offer is a speech stating that the Prime Minister is not as rubbish as the Leader of the Opposition, however true, youre clutching at straws'

Redfords character starts out determined to pursue a new kind of politics, one which listens to ordinary people, addresses their concerns and improves their lives.

Inevitably, as his campaign progresses, he gets swallowed up by the machine, and starts parroting scripted soundbites and cliches, and cutting deals with vested interests in exchange for their support.

Then again, dont they all?

Lets be charitable and accept that most MPs went into politics with the best of intentions, determined to serve their constituents and keep their manifesto promises.

Sadly, with a few honourable exceptions, they become corrupted by proximity to power. And the more time they spend at Westminster, the further they move away from the people they are paid to represent.

Eventually, they end up treating voters with contempt. Which is where we are right now.

Look, I dont want to keep banging on about Brexit. Im as sick of the whole business as most of you. But the shenanigans in Parliament are not just about Britains future relationship with the EU, they go to the very heart of what passes for our democracy these days.

Whether, like me, youre a gung-ho Brexiteer or a full-on federast, is irrelevant. The behaviour of most of our elected representatives has been an absolute disgrace.

Just consider that photograph of them falling all over each other to get into the voting lobby to reject Theresa Mays risible deal. It made me want to puke. They all seemed hugely pleased with themselves, without a thought as to how it appeared to those of us who live outside the bubble.

Most of them couldnt wait to get in front of the nearest microphone or television camera so they could spout their self-serving platitudes.

In total, 432 MPs voted against Mays deal  which, curiously, is almost exactly the number of seats Leave would have gained if the referendum had been a general election.

It would have been considered a landslide. Yet from the moment the Brexit result was announced, the majority of MPs have been plotting to overturn it.

Their promises to respect the outcome, to leave the Single Market and the Customs Union, their votes to implement Article 50, which will take us out of the EU, all count for nothing. They lied to us. They painted themselves into a corner and then walked out through the paint. They have declared war on the very people who put them into office.

And for what?

How many honourable members really went into politics determined to surrender their duties to an unelected, anti-democratic foreign protection racket?

Im not going to revisit all the arguments about why Mother Theresas withdrawal agreement is a crock. What else should we have expected? Shes a Remainer whose heart was never in leaving the EU.

Her repeated attempts to force her sell-out deal through the Commons is not, as some might claim, an admirable display of principled resilience.

It is evidence of bovine intransigence, born of intellectual inadequacy, a complete lack of imagination and non-existent negotiating skills, coupled with an unwarranted sense of entitlement. As Im sure I dont need to remind you, I never thought she was up to the job in the first place.

If shed had a shred of decency shed have resigned after the fiasco of calling an unnecessary general election in which she contrived to lose her parliamentary majority.

Few MPs come out of this well, especially not the shambolic Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a serial opponent of the EU who is now talking about locking Britain into a Customs Union in perpetuity and flatly refuses to take part in talks aimed at ending the impasse.

Yesterday, hardline Remainers started stamping their little bootees and threatening to resign if we leave with no deal.

Meanwhile, the Tory leaders of the official Leave campaign are now parlaying their positions in pursuit of political advancement. I told you before Christmas that Boris was up to something when he lost a bit of timber and had his hair cut.

'Michael Gove, who knifed Boris after the referendum, has his eye on No 10, too. How else to explain his backing for Mays deal, which betrays the very Brexit for which he campaigned so effectively?'

It wasnt just because hes got a young bird in tow. He still thinks, in his words, the ball is going to emerge from the back of the scrum and his Churchillian sense of destiny will be fulfilled.

Michael Gove, who knifed Boris after the referendum, has his eye on No 10, too.

How else to explain his backing for Mays deal, which betrays the very Brexit for which he campaigned so effectively?

Goves speech during this weeks confidence debate was superficially impressive, but it was aimed purely at bolstering his prime ministerial credentials.

This wasnt a vote of confidence in Mrs May, it was a vote of no confidence in Corbyn. And if all you have to offer is a speech stating that the Prime Minister is not as rubbish as the Leader of the Opposition, however true, youre clutching at straws.

Those Tories who fantasise about Labour deposing Corbyn should be careful what they wish for. Any half-presentable successor to Corbyn would wipe the floor with them.

How the hell did we get into this unholy mess? Only the MPs who created it can get us out of it, yet few show any signs of softening their opposition to Brexit or respecting the democratically expressed will of the British people. If anything, their stance is hardening as they sense they can force a second referendum and halt Brexit altogether.

Quite how theyre going to achieve that isnt apparent. But it wont stop them trying. They all think theyre starring in their own movie.

At the end of The Candidate, after hes won the Senate election, Redfords character turns to his campaign manager and asks forlornly: What do we do now?

Precisely. No one at Westminster seems to have the faintest idea. We are all going to hell in a handcart.

P-p-put down that penguin!

Plans to allow people to skate alongside real penguins at a London ice rink have been scrapped after complaints from animal rights headbangers, who claimed it was cruel. The event was to have raised money for Penguin Awareness Day, which is a new one on me.

Sorry, but seeing as the penguins natural habitat is the South Pole, I cant see whats cruel about it. Did anyone ask the penguins?

'Plans to allow people to skate alongside real penguins at a London ice rink have been scrapped after complaints from animal rights headbangers, who claimed it was cruel. The event was to have raised money for Penguin Awareness Day, which is a new one on me'. Stock picture shows a cartoon penguin

Judging by the smug expression on the face of Labour MP for Peterborough, Fiona Onasanya, youd never guess that shes staring down the barrel of a lengthy prison sentence for perverting the course of justice.

Onasanya was found guilty of lying about who was driving her car when it was caught speeding in Cambridgeshire.

She claimed her brother Festus was behind the wheel. While awaiting sentence, she turned up in the Commons this week to vote against Mrs Mays withdrawal agreement.

Given her recent conviction, you might have thought shed keep her head down for a while.

Perhaps she could have asked her brother to vote on her behalf instead.
From that unlikeliest of quarters, technology-mad Japan, comes news this week to lift the hearts of all members of RANT (Rage Against New Technology), a movement of which Ive had the honour to be self-appointed Life President since I founded it two minutes ago.

The news in question is the report that a hotel chain advertised as the worlds first to be staffed by robots has been forced by public demand to get rid of more than half its 243 automatons, and replace them with good old-fashioned members of the human race. Now, thats what I call progress.

For those who missed the story, the decision was taken  whether by a flesh-and-blood person or a robot I cant tell you  after numerous complaints from guests at the Henn-na chain (apparently it means strange or weird), the first of whose hotels opened in 2015.

Hoteliers in Tokyo are trying to lead the world with providing a total lack of human interaction, instead having their hotels staffed by robots (view of the famous Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo)

Some protested that a robot receptionist at the companys Maihama Tokyo Bay hotel, creepily designed to look like a velociraptor, was unable to handle foreign guests, while human staff had to be summoned to photocopy passports.

Others found that Churi  an automated personal assistant installed in every room  couldnt answer basic questions about local attractions or flight times.

When exasperated guests gave up on her (I say her, because the device takes the form of a revoltingly cute doll), they discovered they couldnt ring anyone for guidance because there was no telephone in the room. Churi was supposed to handle all such enquiries.

Snoring

Another frequent complaint was that robots whose job was to carry luggage could reach just 24 of more than 100 rooms because they worked only on flat surfaces. They would also bump into each other, getting stuck in the corridors, and tended to break down in rain or snow.

Perhaps most annoying was the experience of Yoshihisa Ishikawa, woken every few hours during his one-night stay by his personal assistant asking: Sorry, I couldnt catch that. Could you repeat your request?

At last he worked out that Churi had been stirred into life by his snoring. You will understand the problem if you, like me, have been misguided enough to invest in an Amazon Echo  which constantly pipes up with sorry, I dont know that whenever anyone on the radio or TV says anything that sounds remotely like Alexa.

The upshot was that the robots were found to create more work than they saved for the few human staff on the premises, who spent much of their day dealing with complaints and clearing up after the mishaps of their automaton helpers. Hence most of the machines had to go.

An Echo Sub and Echo Inputs, part of Amazon's range of items which allow users to speak to technology to tell it their needs

Many will argue that these were mere teething troubles with a system ahead of its time. They will tell you there can be no escaping the reality that, as the cybernetic science becomes more sophisticated, robot-run hotels will become the norm.

But we at RANT prefer to believe that if even the Japanese, with their passion for cutting-edge technology, are having to acknowledge that people have many advantages over electronic gadgetry  and probably will, for as far ahead as we can see  then there may be hope for us all.

Indeed, other straws in the wind suggest humankind may be falling out of love with the technological revolution, and that visions of a dystopian future in which computers and robots take over every aspect of our lives may be wide of the mark.

Im thinking of the growing evidence that old-fashioned bookshops may be making a comeback, as people find not only that they miss the pleasures of browsing, but that electronic devices such as Kindles simply cant deliver the same all-round sensual and intellectual satisfaction as paper-and-ink books.

Vinyl records are also said to be coming back into fashion (though admittedly they still have a very long way to go before they regain the throne usurped by downloads from the internet). So, too, are first-generation mobile phones, of the sort that do nothing smarter than making and receiving calls.

Then there was this weeks report that old-fashioned radio, with worldwide revenues predicted to rise to 31.6 billion this year, is resiliently holding its own against competition from podcasts and streaming services such as Spotify.

Banter

According to the reports author Paul Lee, the global head of technology, media and telecommunications research at the consultant Deloitte, this is because playlists chosen by computers to reflect our own taste can become somewhat samey and a bit sterile and cold without the banter of a DJ between songs.

Vinyl records and old-fashioned bookshops are said to be coming back into fashion amid the rise of robots

I would add that when we listen to the radio or watch steam TV, we derive a certain something  call it fellow-feeling, perhaps  from the knowledge that many unseen others are watching or listening to the same thing at the same time. For reasons I cant fully explain, I find that programmes seen or heard on catch-up never quite hit the spot in the same way.

There was yet more cheer for RANT in Wednesdays news that the education watchdog is launching a crackdown on smartphones in the classroom, where pupils cause disruption by texting each other, watching videos or checking social media while teachers are talking.

Indeed, many schools ban mobiles altogether  a policy backed by the Education Secretary, Damian Hinds.

But before I go any further, I should say a word or two about my newly founded movement. RANT has no subscription fee, no newsletter or certificate of membership  and, needless to say, no website. But our members are to be found in their millions all around the globe. You may well be among them yourself, without knowing it.

Youll find us at the front of the ever-lengthening queue for the automatic ticket vending machine at the railway station, desperately struggling to work out how to operate the bloody thing.

Youll see us at the self-service checkout in the supermarket, muttering curses and summoning human assistance when, for the umpteenth time, were warned of an unidentified object in the bagging area.

Youll see us in our homes, our heads in our hands, almost weeping with frustration as our laptops refuse to recognise yet another stab at our wretched passwords.

Irritated

Its not that were Luddites. On the contrary, we recognise the many benefits electronic technology has brought us, from the convenience of internet shopping to the unfathomable miracle of sat-nav. Some of us, like me, may have bought devices such as Kindles and Amazon Echoes, before becoming increasingly irritated by them as the novelty has worn off.

Its just that our hearts sing when we see a human face behind the glass in an open ticket-office, or a supermarket checkout manned by a living, breathing person  with a queue less than ten trolleys long.

Tom Utley: 'I cant help observing that a great many commentators have likened our own dear Prime Minister to an automaton, unkindly labelling her the Maybot'

And while we appreciate the plus side of the electronic revolution, were also alarmed by the many horrors it has spawned: the outpourings of fake news and venomous bile on social media; the relentless spread of cyberfraud; the not-so-slow death of the High Street and the mass closure of bank branches; a generation unable to spell, read maps or perform basic arithmetic  unable even to walk ten yards down the street without staring fixedly at a smartphone screen.

Above all, we believe that computers and other such devices should be the servants of the human race, and not our masters.

As for robots, well, Ive tried very hard to avoid mentioning the B-word. But in this week of her anguish over Brexit, I cant help observing that a great many commentators have likened our own dear Prime Minister to an automaton, unkindly labelling her the Maybot.

Though I yield to nobody in my sympathy for Theresa May, I cant help wondering if her unswerving, Duracell bunny-like doggedness is really such a desirable quality in someone heading in the wrong direction.

Just occasionally, dont you wish we had a leader who came across less like a robot, and more like a human being?

And while I applaud her sense of duty to enact the peoples will over Brexit, wouldnt it be even better if she actually believed the people were right?
Pictured from left to right: State Sen. Tom Killion, state Sen. Andy Dinniman, and state Sen. Lisa Boscola stand behind Victoria, a German Shepherd puppy mill survivor, during a press conference in the main rotunda of the state Capitol in Harrisburg. Victoria's Law, introduced by Killion and Dinniman, aims to end puppy mills by prohibitting the sale of commercially raised dogs, cats, and rabbits in pet stores across Pennsylvania.
FILE- This March 30, 2017, file photo shows the Capitol Dome at dawn in Washington. Congress returns to work Monday, June 4, 2018, facing a showdown in the House over immigration while Senate Republicans are trying to stop an all-out trade war after President Donald Trumps decision to impose import tariffs on close U.S. allies. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
The following items are based on information provided by officials in law enforcement and the criminal justice system.
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County's offices are at Kingston Plaza, off Schwenk Drive in Kingston, N.Y.
In this image released by Focus Features, Felicity Jones portrays Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a scene from "On the Basis of Sex." (Jonathan Wenk/Focus Features via AP)
Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via The Associated Press

State Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, takes to the well Wednesday to speak against the Senate committee assignments. Female senators on both sides of the aisle blasted what they're calling sexism in committee assignments after Unterman was moved from her powerful position as the chairwoman of the health committee to the lower-profile science and technology committee.
MATTHEW AYARS

The Daily American

Sitting in the back seat on the way home from church, little Charlie wasnt his normal, chatty self. Mom and dad could tell that something was on his mind. After a little while mom asked, Charlie honey, what did you learn in Sunday school today?

We learned about Jesus again, he said with a little sigh.

Anything in particular about Jesus?

Yeah, he went on, As usual, Ms. Graham kept talking about how Jesus can live inside of us and how important it is that we invite him into our hearts.

And what do you think about that? Weve talked about that lots before too.

I dunno, I guess I kinda get it, but Im a little confused by it too. In my heart I know that its true, but I just cant figure out how its true.

Im sorry honey, I dont know what you mean... mom said a bit confused.

Well, Jesus is a grown up, right?

Yes, said mom with some hesitation, wondering where this was going.

If Jesus is a grown up, then how can he fit inside of my heart? If Jesus lives in my heart, wont he stick out?

With a big smile on her face, and after a short pause, mom responded, Yes, honey! He most certainly will stick out if he lives in your heart. He sticks out so much that everyone can see that he lives inside of you!

God is too big to fit inside of us. In particular, Hes too big to fit in our heads. Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Helper (John 14:26).

The reality is that we cant understand God, including the Holy Spirit, without the Holy Spirits help. We need the Holy Spirits help to both illuminate our minds and calibrate our hearts to understand Him, to relate to Him, to know Him.

That God is so big that He cant fit in our heads is a part of the wonder and mystery of God. This is why being a Christian and thinking Christianly requires childlike faith. We have to be willing to come to a place where we can be perfectly comfortable saying, I dont know how its true, but I know that its true. We have to come to grips with the simple, but world-shaping reality that we are not God. As Jesus says, Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 18:34)

(Matt and Stacey Ayars live and work at Emmaus Biblical Seminary of Haiti (ebshaiti.org). They can be reached through this newspaper or at staceyhaiti@gmail.com, and they blog about daily life at mshaiti.blogspot.com.)
NANCY STOPPE

The Daily American

Acts 20:28, Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

Andrew Brougher, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church posted this last week, from another post, and granted me permission to use it. How many of us can recognize one or more of these statements?

Church is hard. Church is hard for the person walking through the doors, afraid of judgement.

Church is hard for the pastors family, under the microscope of an entire body.

Church is hard for the prodigal soul returning home, broken and battered by the world.

Church is hard for the girl who looks like she has it all together, but doesnt.

Church is hard for the couple who fought the entire ride to service.

Church is hard for the single mom, surrounded by couples holding hands, and seemingly perfect families.

Church is hard for the widow/widower with no invitation to lunch after service.

Church is hard for the deacon with an estranged child.

Church is hard for the choir member overwhelmed by the weight of the lyrics in the song.

Church is hard for the man insecure in his role as a leader.

Church is hard for the wife who longs to be led by a righteous man.

Church is hard for the nursery volunteer who desperately longs for a baby to love.

Church is hard for the single woman/man praying God brings them a mate.

Church is hard for the teenage girl, wearing a scarlet letter, ashamed of her mistakes.

Church is hard for the sinners. Church is hard for me.

Its hard because on the outside it all looks shiny and perfect; Sunday best in behavior and dress. However, underneath those layers, you find a body of imperfect people, carnal souls, and selfish motives.

But, here is the beauty of church  Church isnt a building, mentality, or expectation. Church is a body. Church is a group of sinners, saved by grace, and living in fellowship as saints. Church is a body of believers bound as brothers and sisters by an eternal love. Its a holy ground where sinners stand as equals before the Throne of Grace and is a refuge for broken hearts and a training ground for mighty warriors.

Church is a converging of confrontation and invitations; where sin is confronted and hearts are invited to seek restoration. Its a lesson in faith and trust and a bearer of burdens and a giver of hope.

Church is a family. A family coming together, setting aside differences, forgetting past mistakes, and rejoicing in the smallest of victories. Church, the body, and the circle of sinners-turned-saints is where He resides and if we ask, He is faithful to come.

Even on the hard days at church  when Im at odds with a friend, when Ive fought with my husband, when Ive walked bearing burdens heavier than my heart can handle, yet masking the pain with a smile, when Ive worn a scarlet letter under the microscope, when Ive longed for a baby to hold, or fought tears as the lyrics were sung, or when Ive walked back in, afraid and broken, after walking away  Ill remember, He has never failed to meet me there.

Hell always be there.

Last weeks answer: Uriah was set up in an ambush planned by David. God was displeased and the baby born to David and Bethsheba died. (2 Samuel 11:6-27 & 2 Samuel 12:1-23).

Question: What was the name of the next son born to David and Bethsheba? (2 Samuel 12:24-25)

(Nancy Stoppe of Jenners is affiliated with Jenner Township Baptist Church, Boswell. She can be contacted at stoppe123@comcast.net)
Russia Supported Trump Election Campaign

Two reports prepared for the Senate on Russian disinformation unfold a now-indisputable narrative: The Kremlin engaged in a coordinated campaign to elevate Donald Trump to the presidency, and this countrys technology companies were central to its strategy.

The Russia operation is staggering in its scale, precision and deceptiveness. Pages generated by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency elicited nearly 40 million likes and more than 30 million shares on Facebook alone, reeling in susceptible users with provocative advertisements and then giving them propaganda to spread far and wide.

The aim was not to toss the country into tumult, but to put the preferred candidate of a foreign adversary in the Oval Office. All the while, Americans were entirely unaware of what was happening: What seemed like local Black Lives Matter activists were actually Russian trolls well-versed in the buzzwords of social justice. Ostensible patriots for Second Amendment rights were broadcasting from St. Petersburg.

Republicans have protested over the past year that election interference is neither unusual nor important. This weeks reports comprehensively put both arguments to rest. Russia waged an unprecedented campaign, targeting Americans across all segments of society, on platforms large and small.

The studies do not even cover the entirety of Russias online tampering: The hack-and-leak operation that led to the release of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podestas private emails, orchestrated by the GRU, Russias military intelligence agency, was another crucial salvo in a pro-Trump onslaught.

Russias machinations began more than five years ago. Whether they were decisive in electing Mr. Trump will never definitively be answered.



Given the narrow margin of his victory, it is fair to say that any one of several factors, Ms. Clintons campaign missteps, then-FBI Director James B. Comeys intervention, etc., was decisive. What can be definitively stated is that all Americans should find this foreign intervention absolutely intolerable.

An essential task now is to prevent its repetition. There is plenty that both Congress and companies can do, starting with modernising advertising regulations for the digital age.

Lawmakers should also create carve-outs to current restrictions on information-sharing that would allow companies to offer data to trusted academics and organisations in a way that preserves user privacy. Platforms should coordinate with one other, as well as with the government, to track manipulation campaigns in real time.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has said it does not necessarily endorse the findings of this weeks reports, but its bipartisan decision to commission the reports is encouraging. The question now is whether committee members will be willing to hold Russia accountable in their own forthcoming review.

Candidate Donald Trump once invited Russia to find Ms. Clintons emails, sending the message that it could meddle with impunity. Though sanctions have been imposed since the election, evidently Russia has not been deterred. Until that changes, no reform will be sufficient.

WashPo:

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CultNews101.com: news, links, resources. Cults101.org: resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics. CultMediation.com: offers resources designed to help thoughtful families and friends understand and respond to the complexity of a loved ones cult involvement. Intervention101.com: to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement. CultRecovery101.com: assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
Virginia "Sue" Robinson of Cullman Alabama passed away June 10, 2021 at the age of 82. She was born January 14, 1939 in Cullman to E.R. and Gracie Nix Neal. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband Elwin Ray Robinson, daughter Sharron Fuller, sisters Evelyn Hardin and Norma Bradford
When Liz Hayes joined Infinity Federal Credit Union($349.2M, Portland, ME) in October of 2014, she realized right away she had inherited a top-down culture where decisions flowed down.

I had people coming into my office to ask me questions, the CEO says. It was, We have a member situation. What do you want me to do? or, This has come up. Do you want me to go right or left? We needed to unwind all of that.

Hayes knew the organization wouldnt grow if employees had to consult her every time they needed to make a difficult decision. So, the new CEO convened Infinitys senior team to craft a vision statement and core values. Together, the group built a new culture, brick-by-brick, using input from the staff responsible for living it.
CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger has asked Congress to explicitly grant the agency authority to conduct examinations of financial institutions compliance with the Military Lending Acta move that could settle a fight between the bureau and congressional Democrats.

The Bureau is committed to the financial well-being of Americas service members, Kraninger said, as she sent House and Senate committees with jurisdiction over the CFPB specific legislative language. This commitment includes ensuring that lenders subject to our jurisdiction comply with the Military Lending Act, so our service members and their families are provided with the protections of that law.

When he was running the CFPB, then-Acting Director Mick Mulvaney said the bureau did not have the power to conduct examinations under the MLA.

Democrats disputed that notion, with House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) joined 22 Democrats last month, in asking Kraninger to reverse that decision. They contended that the bureau already had the authority to conduct such examinations.
GUILFORD  The state Department of Transportation plans to install a single-lane modern roundabout to increase safety at the intersection of Routes 1 and 22 , with construction beginning in spring 2020.

The project also will eliminate a spur road currently in use at the intersection.

Matthew Vail, DOTs transportation principal engineer for State Highway Design, said the roundabout will make the three-way intersection, which straddles the Guilford, Branford and North Branford lines, much safer. He also stressed the differences between modern roundabouts and the rotaries more commonly found in New England.

So far, five modern roundabouts have been implemented on state roads and three more are under construction, Vail said. He added these projects are part of a push to construct more roundabouts statewide.

A roundabout is not a rotary

A modern roundabout has a set of combined features designed to maximize safety that most rotaries and traffic circles do not, said Vail. Among its most important aspects is that it is designed to slow traffic to speeds between 15 and 20 mph, he said.

Engineers add splitter islands and introduce curvature on the approach to the roundabout, Vail said. The curve makes drivers less comfortable and induces them to reduce their speeds, Vail added.

Most rotaries do not feature comparable curvature on the approach to their entrances, leading to higher speeds and more severe collisions, Vail said.

Modern roundabouts, including the one slated for construction in Guilford, also feature large center islands, Vail said, which prevent drivers from cutting through the circle. Visual screening on the island, such as signs, limit the visibility of the far part of the circle for approaching drivers and thereby reduce potential distractions  instead of worrying about whats happening far ahead of them, drivers can focus on the traffic to their left, Vail added.

DOT chose the site for a roundabout because of its history of crashes : according to information provided by DOT at an informational meeting, 20 crashes occurred at the site over the past three years, resulting in seven injuries. Angle crashes , which include broadside or T-bone crashes , were the most common type, with 10 collisions that caused five injuries, according to the DOT.

A roundabout will eliminate the risk for broadside collisions, which tend to be severe, said Vail.

Modern roundabouts have improved safety on state roads, Vail said. A 2017 DOT analysis showed that since the implementation of five roundabouts, crash severity had declined by 81 percent among the respective intersections, Vail said, adding crash frequency was cut nearly in half.

A DOT analysis also showed that as of 2017, the five roundabouts had prevented 150 crashes and 100 injuries.

Norman Garrick, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Connecticut, said accident rates are much lower at roundabouts than at traffic lights. He added that he was impressed with the DOT plan, which he said will improve the current intersection.

More information about modern roundabouts and the Guilford plan can be found online.

Residents ask questions

Representatives from DOT gave a presentation about the plans last week at Guilfords Fire Headquarters. More than 20 residents attended the meeting, and many spoke of their concerns during a Q&A session.

A number of questions came from business owners whose properties surround the intersection. Cheri Miller Weymann from Bill Millers Castle in Branford said she worries about people exiting the property late at night, especially elderly drivers. (Bill Millers Castle often hosts weddings).

Project Engineer Justin Giorlando said the roundabout will not limit visibility for cars leaving the Miller driveway.

The size of the roundabout proved a recurring theme. David Young of Guilford pointed to a roundabout in Killingworth, noting that its narrow configuration makes it difficult to navigate.

According to DOT, the road angles at the Guilford intersection makes it better-suited for a roundabout than the Killingworth one.

Residents also worried that large vehicles would not have enough room to drive through the roundabout.

In response, DOT showed images of a turning template program they run to make sure trucks will be able to navigate the design. A truck apron will also surround the center island, providing a section of slightly raised pavement that large vehicles can drive on when necessary, Vail said.

Another recurring concern regarded the cost of the project, estimated at $3.4 million. ( Eighty percent of funding will come from the federal government and the rest will come from the state, Vail said.) Meeting attendees wondered whether putting a traffic light at the intersection would be more fiscally responsible.

Vail said signalizing the intersection would not be as simple as constructing a light. To accommodate congestion, the roads would need to be widened significantly, increasing the cost, he said.

DOT representatives also said the roundabout would be more efficient at handling traffic than a light.

Janice Plaziak, Guilford town engineer, said she reached out to DOT after the meeting to ask for a more detailed analysis of a traffic light installation. As an engineer, she still supports the roundabout. But, she added, information about the cost and physical changes involved in signalizing the intersection would be useful as a basis for comparison.

Under construction

After the meeting ended, Vail emphasized that the project is still in its preliminary design phase and that DOT plans to coordinate closely with the affected towns and businesses in the coming months. He added they will not move forward without support from the towns of Branford, Guilford and North Branford.

Construction is scheduled to take place between April and November 2020, though some finishing touches, such as landscaping features, may be added in 2021, Vail said.

Access to all residential driveways and commercial properties in the vicinity will remain open during construction, Vail said.

The project is open to public comments until Jan. 31. They should be directed to Matthew Vail at the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
Updated Friday 4 p.m.

HARTFORD  Several Democratic lawmakers have filed bills to ban gay and transgender panic as a criminal defense.

Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, introduced this legislation, as did Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan, D-Bethel, and Rep. Jeff Currey, D-East Hartford. Allie-Brennan and Currey are the General Assemblys only openly gay lawmakers.

Looney, an attorney who practices criminal law, wants state statutes to be amended so a criminal defendant may not claim the shock of learning that a person was gay or transgender to justify or excuse the violence perpetrated against that person.

For up-to-date information on public policy issues, sign up for the CT Politics newsletter.

California was the first to ban the defense in 2014, followed by Illinois.

Looney said Thursday he was unaware of the number of occasions the defense has been used in Connecticut.

I think it is needed everywhere basically to make sure this is not a way for people to use bigotry as a defense for the commission of heinous crimes, said Looney. Theoretically, you could say that if this defense is allowed, someone could say they have a visceral hatred of a certain racial or ethnic group, and then that would excuse an act of violence against that group.

The bill will be considered by the legislatures Judiciary Committee. Similar legislation has been discussed in other states.

LGBTQ individuals have seen increased protections and rights in Connecticut in recent years. Former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed legislation banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ individuals in 2017.

Editors note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Malloy signed legislation in 2017 banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression. In 2017, Malloy signed a bill banning conversion therapy.

emunson@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
The General Assembly has reached a bipartisan agreement to meet on Tuesday to enable federal employees to receive unemployment pay.

Gov. Ned Lamont announced Friday morning that the public-private partnership among the state, banks and credit unions will go to a vote in an emergency session of the House and Senate.

Under the legislation that is currently being drafted, non-essential workers, and those required to work without pay, could obtain interest-free loans backed by the state.

Keep up with public policy every day in Hearst's CT Politics

Connecticuts business community is stepping up to the plate to help our states citizens, who through no fault of their own are finding themselves unable to pay for essential bills to support their families, Lamont said in a statement. This is an innovative partnership, and I want to commend the banks who are working with our administration to provide this assistance.

Within the limits of state authority, it is imperative we do all we can for these federal workers who are being victimized by President Trumps extreme and irrational policy, said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said.

I applaud the governor for thinking outside of the box and developing a collaborative approach to assist workers who are facing challenging times, said Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven. Uniting state and private sector efforts is an inventive way to achieve our shared goal of helping federal employees most in need. I appreciate the governors work to unite lawmakers on both sides of the aisle behind this solution. I also congratulate him on his openness to working with Connecticut businesses that are eager to help Connecticut residents.

These are our family, friends, and neighbors who by no fault of their own are being unfairly punished by a breakdown in Washington, Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz and House Majority Leader Matt Ritter said in a joint statement.

I am proud to support the emergency legislation to assist federal workers in Connecticut most adversely affected by the continuing partial government shutdown, said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby. This is a bipartisan response that will positively affect hundreds of workers and their families.

As of Friday morning, participating banks include Webster Bank and Peoples United and Union Savings Bank in Danbury but the list is expected to grow when the legislation gets approved by lawmakers and signed by Lamont next week.

The legislation is also expected to let cities and towns defer local property tax payments for those federal employees affected.
For municipalities throughout Connecticut, the need for cost-savings wherever possible continues to be a top priority, as so many of them can no longer count on the support levels they once received from the state government. And given newly sworn-in Gov. Ned Lamonts recent remarks that state budget constraints could mean continued challenges for many cities and towns, finding new, creative ways to stretch limited resources at the local level to meet citizen needs is more important than ever.

One of the biggest concerns for municipalities is the cost of energy, where frequent volatility can lead to pricing spikes throughout the year that become difficult to afford. This is particularly true right now with the price of natural gas so heavily dependent on weather; this presents a clear burden for a cold-weather state like Connecticut at this time of year, as 50 percent of the power in the region is generated by natural gas. So it becomes a double hit for cities and towns, with potential cost increases for both heating and electricity.

But there is some good news, despite the higher costs and limited resources, and it comes in the form of energy aggregation. Throughout New England, in the 20 years since five of our six states here brought competition to the retail electricity market (the exception being Vermont), municipalities have been able to join together to leverage their buying power in the market, which in turn has resulted in better pricing and better contract terms. This is the power of aggregation, and it can work as well in Connecticut as it has worked in neighboring states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

What needs to be done to make it happen? In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, state legislatures created statutory exemptions from procurement rules which allow municipalities within such buying groups to avoid having to conduct their own competitive solicitations where such solicitations had already been conducted by the buying group. This has saved the buyers time and money, and allowed the buying group to have even more leverage in the market by virtue of providing the suppliers an assured market for their supply. For taxpayer-focused entities, this opens the door for more resources being devoted to their core responsibilities, and similar legislation can be equally effective in Connecticut.

Additionally, the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, while already a successful aggregation, recently realized its members could do even better by joining forces with the power of a larger aggregation, and the decision led to better contact terms, pricing and new products and services  including on-bill financing of energy efficiency, electric vehicle chargers and solar power  for its members. Once more, this is an approach that can work in Connecticut, where 169 different cities and towns are all searching for ways this year to save on energy bills.

Right now in Connecticut, there are loose affiliations around different business sectors, where customers have pooled their buying power around agreements to use a single broker or a supplier, but nothing as robust as aggregation efforts in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The problem with Connecticuts approach is broker agreements merely save customers from having to find and negotiate a contract for services; they still have to pay the broker and they have no buying power with the suppliers. The lack of a statutory exemption for public entities who participate in a buying group where there has already been a competitive solicitation hinders access to buying groups which, in turn, hinders efforts to save money.

As the Connecticut General Assembly begins its work in the 2019 legislative session, now is the perfect opportunity for the state to consider such measures that have worked so well with our neighbors. This is a critical time in Connecticuts cities and towns, which also makes it the ideal time for the state to remove the barriers that keep municipalities from obtaining these much-welcomed cost savings.

Cynthia Arcate is president and CEO of PowerOptions, a nonprofit energy-buying consortium that provides cost savings to more than 400 nonprofits and municipalities in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Your Vote, Your Choice.

So said slogans, banners and signs last November, as millions of people across our nation participated in the midterm elections. But voting is just one form of choice that can help democratize society and level the playing field in ways that our country needs it most. This National School Choice Week (Jan. 20-26), we should remember the way in which school choice empowers parents, and ultimately students, to pick the best possible learning environment for their familys needs.

Here in Connecticut, where the divide between rich and poor is larger than anywhere in the country, school choice is often a luxury afforded only to the privileged few. It might seem impolitic to say, but wealthy families are guaranteed school choice; they can write a check to whatever school or private academy they please, or afford a mortgage in a neighborhood with good schools.

Meanwhile, in our cities, most parents have their options limited by their income. Too many families have no option but their neighborhood public schools, which dont always provide children with the support they need to succeed. Connecticut has among the largest achievement gaps in the country for exactly this reason  because while wealthy families are empowered to choose the best schools for their children, low-income families have that choice taken away.

Over the last several years, school choice has increasingly been used as a political litmus test, twisted and misused into an argument against public education. That couldnt be further from the truth. School choice is a bedrock, foundational value  the belief that every child, and every family, deserves to choose a school that will help them be successful.

I represent an association of public charter schools across the state of Connecticut. As public charters, we receive public dollars for the students we educate. But public charter schools also have the flexibility and autonomy to innovate to meet our students needs. In exchange for more autonomy from a school districts procedural requirements, we must meet explicit performance standards laid out in the charter. In essence, the charter functions as a contract between the school and families; if the school breaks the contract, it could lose its charter and close.

People might find it surprising to hear this from the head of a charter school association, but not every student should attend a charter school. Some students might benefit from a traditional public school environment; others will take advantage of our states leading magnet schools. Some students need specialized instruction in one particular topic; still others might benefit from the added discipline that can be found in some private schools. Every child is different  school choice simply means parents should pick the option that works best for their children.

Regardless of what school parents choose, I support school choice because it democratizes education  it gives every parent a choice. I want to make sure that families of more modest means have the same opportunities that these wealthy families do  to make sure that lack of access to a quality education does not hold a single child back from achieving his or her potential.

This National School Choice Week will see parents, teachers and students gather at more than 40,000 events and rallies during the week of Jan. 20-26. The rallies provide a great way to put faces and names to the abstract concept of school choice. When you see the smile on a young childs face when she tells you how much she loves her new school, you realize the impact that a gift like school choice can have on the next generation of Americans.

As someone who firmly believes in American democracy, I believe that every child  regardless of race, gender or income  deserves access to the best education possible for them. School choice has helped to democratize the education system for millions in this way, and I hope it will do so for millions more.

Anna Hall is the CEO for the Northeast Charter Schools Network, which serves New York and Connecticut. She holds a bachelors degree in politics from Princeton University and a masters degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.
As a new entrepreneur, or even a veteran, you'll find making mistakes disheartening. Whether you simply fudged a number or sent your company in a tragic direction, any mistake can derail your motivation and make you feel that you arent worthy to lead your organization.

Related: 10 Mistakes Millionaires Never Make Twice

Still, there are two positive things to remember about mistakes. First, theyre learning opportunities; as long as your mistake didnt kill anyone (including you), youll have a chance to learn key lessons and walk away as a more experienced, more informed individual. Second, everybody makes makes -- even some of the most successful entrepreneurs in history.

And if you dont believe me, just look at these examples:

1. Reed Hastings almost killed Netflix.

Netflix has become an unstoppable tech juggernaut, with millions of loyal subscribers and a stock price that just keeps climbing. But back in 2011, co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings made a decision that almost sent Netflix into a death spiral. Hastings announced that Netflix would be spinning off its DVD-by-mail service into a new service called Qwikster -- a move that would separate two core services, make things more complicated for consumers and raise prices simultaneously.

The backlash was immediate and fierce. So, the decision was scrapped and Netflix gradually won back the trust of the public. And Hastings? He had this to say on the matter: The hardest part was my own sense of guilt. I love the company. I worked really hard to make it successful, and I screwed up. The public shame didnt bother me. It was the private shame of having made a big mistake and [having] hurt peoples real love for Netflix that felt awful.

2. Tim Cook allowed the iOS 6 Maps fiasco.

With the launch of iOS 6, Apple decided to push its own Maps app and navigation system, rather than relying on Google Maps. However, the product was riddled with bugs and often gave wrong directions, resulting in thousands (if not millions) of people getting lost in the first week of its launch.

Because Apple had developed a reputation for launching only the best, most quality-tested products, the blow was especially harsh. CEO Tim Cook took responsibility for the mistake in an open letter to Apple customers, saying: At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment.

Cook went on to suggest third-party alternatives, like Google and Nokia, to fulfill his customers navigation needs.

3. Richard Branson tried to sell cola.

Virgin founder Richard Branson has been involved in just about everything, from record sales to space travel, but not all of his business ideas have been well-founded. Back in 1994, despite a major market presence from both Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Branson attempted to launch Virgin Cola as a major soft drink competitor.

As he wrote: With Virgin Cola, we felt confident that we could smash our way past Coca-Cola and Pepsi, our main competitors. It turned out, however, that we hadnt thought things through. Declaring a soft drink war on Coke was madness. It certainly was a hasty decision and one that didnt account for all the variables in play, but the parent company clearly survived and is continuing to see success.

Related: 25 Mistakes Successful People Never Make Twice

4. George Lucas sold Pixar.

Pixar, the studio behind legendary titles and franchises like Toy Story and Cars, originally started as a division of LucasFilm, George Lucass company. Though the studio had been intended to produce new imaging technology and an imaging computer, many insiders were more interested in creating animated films.

Lucas, who was not interested in animated films and was on the verge of a cash crisis, decided to sell Pixar to Apple founder Steve Jobs for $5 million. At the time, that made sense, as animated films werent doing well and few could have predicted the massive changes that computer animation and graphics could bring to the film industry. Considering the unbroken string of subsequent hits from the studio, not to mention Disneys acquisition price of $7.4 billion back in 2006, that $5 million was a steal.

5. Masaru Ibuka started with a rice cooker.

Early in his career, Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka used his factory to create an electric rice cooker for everyday life. In theory, the idea was sound; Japanese people were eating lots of rice and needed a convenient appliance for cooking it. Unfortunately, Ibuka's rice cooker was terribly inconsistent, and despite constant his tinkering to try to improve the design, it was a massive failure.

In the wake of that product bomb, Ibuka left behind his rice aspirations to start an electronics shop in a department store in Tokyo with just a handful of employees. Later, with partner Akio Morita, the company built Japans first tape recorder and Sony began to flourish.

So, take heart: Its always beneficial to look at the mistakes of others, especially if theyve been successful in spite of those mistakes. Maybe the silver lining here is the comforting we may take in knowing we arent alone in our flawed natures and that theres always something we can learn.

Related: 8 Huge Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs Don't Realize They're Making

Take inspiration and knowledge from these landmark entrepreneurial and leadership mistakes and dont be too devastated when you inevitably make a few of your own.

Related:

Here's How My Biggest Business Failure Improved My Leadership Skills

The 5 Most Laughable Mistakes of Otherwise Successful Entrepreneurs -- Like Branson, Lucas and Cook, for Starters

Ever Heard Of Henry Ford's Colossal Failed City in the Jungle?



Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Texas, which leads the nation in marijuana-related arrests, may be on the verge of decriminalizing marijuana possession. While thats a small move compared to whats happening in other parts of the country, its significant in a conservative red state where marijuana laws have remained at War on Drugs levels.

Nothing is a given, but marijuana legalization advocates are optimistic that Texas marijuana law could change this year. Jax Finkel, executive director for Texas NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), told the Dallas Morning News that she remembers when legislators laughed at the possibility of changing Texas marijuana laws.

This year should prove different. "There will be change," Finkel said.

Related: Colorado Cannabis Business Leaders Share Lessons From America's First Adult-Use Market

Arrests in Texas

This news may come as a surprise to people -- both those living in and outside of Texas. The state has hardly budged on changing marijuana laws, even as the other biggest state in the country -- California, New York, Florida -- have made changes.

Most people are used to Texas making headlines on the other side of the marijuana debate. For example, Texas holds the distinction of leading the nation in marijuana-related arrested. According to numbers from the FBI as reported in Salon, law enforcement in the Lone Star State made 64,949 marijuana arrests in 2016 -- that's 12 percent of the arrests across the entire nation.

Penalties can include a 180-day jail sentence and a $2,000 fine, along with the lifelong stigma of a criminal record. After the Texas Legislature failed to vote on decriminalizing marijuana in 2017, judges in places such as Houston and San Antonio began offering defendants the chance to enter a pre-trial diversion program and avoid getting a criminal record.

But all this could possible change in 2019.

RELATED: Meet the Martha Stewart of Edibles

Proposed Changes

Both the state Republican Party and GOP Gov. Greg Abbott have endorsed changing Texas marijuana laws and decriminalizing possession of marijuana in small amounts. Those endorsements came in 2018. With that support, two bills have a chance of making it through the legislature. They are:

A bill from Jim Moody, a Democrat from El Paso, would make possession of an ounce or less of marijuana punishable only by a fine (this is Moodys third attempt at getting this bill passed)

A bill from state Sen. Jose Menendez that would expand use of medical marijuana to include those who suffer from cancer, glaucoma, HIV, Alzheimer's, PTSD, autism, chronic pain, nausea and muscle spasms.

That second one includes medical conditions that other states have allowed for treatment by marijuana, and not just on the West Coast and in the Northeast. Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma -- all neighboring, conservative states of Texas -- have more liberal marijuana laws.

The Texas Tribune reports that hundreds are on the states medical marijuana program, and the expansion could lead to thousands. Right now, you can only legally use marijuana in Texas if you have intractable epilepsy.

These are small steps in comparison to the what has happened in other parts of the country but, because its the second largest state in the country, any change in Texas marijuana laws will be watched closely by the cannabis industry.

To stay up to date on the latest marijuana related news make sure to like dispensaries.com on Facebook

Related:

Strange but True: Even Texas Is Getting Serious About Decriminalization and Medical Marijuana

Colorado Cannabis Business Leaders Share Lessons From America's First Adult-Use Market

What Does the New Farm Bill Mean For Legal Cannabis?



Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
This post was written by Thomas Carter, founder of DealBox, a blockchain business accelerator and crowdfunding platform for startups.



Ive been raising capital for 30 years and know firsthand that the process is not an easy one.



Entrepreneurs spend precious time and energy jetting between meetings with potential investors while simultaneously building their business. They squander meaningful bandwidth that could be better utilized developing their company instead of juggling all the complexities of raising capital. Even when the pieces are in place, funding terms can be downright predatory.



I believe tokenization is a better way to raise money for your venture, and as the founder of a venture fund that uses tokenization to capitalize startups, Ive seen firsthand the advantages it can provide entrepreneurs and investors.

Its a method that actually increases liquidity for investors  which means more efficient access to capital for entrepreneurs  and adds to a companys value without massively diluting founder shares.

Heres how it works: Blockchain is the distributed public ledger technology behind popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. But blockchain has applications beyond the fly-by-night initial coin offerings (ICOs) you see in the crypto world  you know, the ones that have been overhyped, pumped, dumped, and shut down by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Entrepreneurs can use blockchain technology to securitize the value created by their companies with a security token offering.



Tokenization, unlike ICOs and cryptocurrencies, has been vetted by the SEC and is slated to become a major part of the entrepreneurial economy.

With tokenization, a company creates its own digital securities, backed by the companys other assets, and then allows investors to buy these digital securities to fund their raise. Because the tokens reflect the companys total asset value, their price moves relative to the companys success and is rooted in fundamental valuation metrics as opposed to pure speculation and use case, as is the situation with cryptocurrency and utility tokens today. That means investors have a claim on a real portion of the companys assets, just as if they owned traditional securities created by the company.



The big difference is that digital securities are far more liquid than current private company securities like phantom stock, convertible notes, or other equity instruments, as the development of security token exchanges progresses. Some of the largest liquidity pools on the planet are deploying meaningful resources to create these exchanges of the future. Theyre also far more friendly to founders than traditional funding options. Instead of hustling for funds, founders get to focus on their companies.

While emerging technologies like this are exciting, they are often met with apprehension on the front end of the adoption curve. Most notably, the director general of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Finance recently announced that Beijing will not allow for financing through this method. It is important to realize China has a restrict first, adopt later stance on new business and technology, so it remains to be seen how greater China begins to adopt the security token economy. As of now, if youre domiciled in Beijing, this funding method may not be appropriate.



That being said, legitimate success cases can be found right here in the United States. Currently, Overstock.com has issued a successful and regulatory compliant security token through its tZERO token. The result is a whopping $134 million in funds raised. As of the third quarter of 2018, tZERO was valued at just over $1.5 billion.



Ive invested my own money using this process and believe that tokenization is a win-win for both investors and founders. Here are the reasons why:

Tokenization increases the enterprise value of companies.

Tokens created by a company have real value and reflect the value of other real assets owned by the company as dictated by the token architecture. The tokens can be traded on exchanges, and rise and fall with a companys prospects just like traditional securities.



Because tokens have value on their own, they increase the size of the overall asset base and are factored into a firms enterprise value. Its an outcome that makes investors, founders, and markets happy, which is why tokenization is used by healthy, established companies like Overstock.com to create even more value for shareholders.

Better liquidity for investors translates into more capital for companies.

Traditional investing is not for the faint of heart. If you put your money into a real estate investment trust or a venture, you may not see returns for five to seven years (or more).



Tokenization, however, offers far better liquidity. Multiple exchanges exist on which to trade company tokens, and the blockchain-based ecosystem grows bigger by the day. Thanks to the technologys adoption, plenty of investors and cryptocurrency enthusiasts are on the other end of these transactions.



That means ready buyers and sellers for tokens, which translates to more liquidity for investors.



This also means more capital for founders because more investors are attracted to investments that dont require locking up capital for half a decade or more.

It sets founders up for success from day one.

Entrepreneurs are great at creating winning products and services, but often theyre not adept at treating their business like a product that needs to be well constructed, which is essential when raising capital.



Tokenization helps here, too. During the tokenization process, entrepreneurs must pay close attention to how their company is structured and how theyre capitalized. On the deals we help architect, tokenization necessitates that companies be structured (or restructured) in sensible ways.



This has a number of positive effects for both founders and investors.



By utilizing revenue share or royalty models for their digital securities, founders are adequately capitalized, so they reap the proper rewards from a sale or exit. This places the company in a far more attractive position for potential buyers from day one because its professionally and intelligently structured. Capital partners are also structured properly for exits.



It turns out when you remove the inefficiencies of the traditional fundraising process, entrepreneurs have the time, energy, and resources to structure and grow their companies the right way. Tokenization mandates a smart structure from the get-go, whether it be for an established business or a newly minted startup.

Capital can be raised without dilution.

Tokenization creates digital assets that are sold to fund the company. These assets create an additional layer of enterprise value, on top of the companys existing assets and capital stack. This allows founders to fund their ventures without diluting their ownership of the assets that back tokens. Founders can also raise funds without dilution by utilizing a digital revenue share or royalty structure attached to the digital asset itself. This is revolutionary because the business can issue these constructs using a liquid instrument as opposed to the existing, predominantly illiquid, model.



Investors benefit as well. Token value should grow in lockstep with company value, as they should be valued according to the discount model of their distributions and financials, which should provide investors more predictable returns. Because tokens can be traded and exchanged, investors can realize returns far sooner, unlocking far more liquidity and potential gains than they otherwise would through traditional equity. Its similar to a preferred share of stock in the sense that it has a principal value and a distribution component; however, it doesnt necessarily require owners to give up equity.



Bottom line: Tokenization offers real benefits for both founders and investors by creating healthier companies and healthier returns. Its a process that makes dollars  and sense  for all participants.

Related:

Opinion: The Case for Using Fintech to Fund Your Next Company

Blockchain Trends to Watch out for in Asia Pacific in 2019

These Sectors Will be the Trendsetters in 2019



Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Theres one simple truth to get clear on the topic of human trafficking: Human trafficking = slavery.

Let that sink in for a minute. Its easy to think that "trafficking is just the latest nonprofit buzzword for helping those in need, but its far more than that. Slavery -- the unconscionable practice of human bondage that many consider a vestige of the past -- is happening right now, all over the world  even right in your own backyard here in the United States.

This month, National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month, proclaimed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is a good time to really give this some thought.

Related: Shannon Keith Is Fighting Sex Trafficking in India, One Beautiful Pajama Set at a Time

Americans tend to assume that the United States brought slavery to an end 150 years ago when we ratified the 13th Amendment. The truth is, though, that human trafficking is very much an American problem. One recent story the American public has become familiar with is that of Cyntoia Brown, who was forced into prostitution at the age of 16, then jailed with a life sentence for killing a man who solicited her for sex. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has just granted Brown clemency.

This story is hardly unique. Brown's horrific experience is just one among thousands of such stories that too often go unnoticed. Not only are an estimated 200,000 women forced into the sex trade in the United States each year, but our countrys largest human trafficking event is the Super Bowl. Yes, the Super Bowl! It doesnt get much more "American" than that.

The latest statistics from the Polaris Project estimate that there are more than 40 million victims of human trafficking worldwide and that 25 percent of them are children. A report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that there are approximately 1.5 million human trafficking victims in the United States.

Feeling heartbroken and hopeless at reading these staggering numbers is a common reaction; but listen up, entrepreneurs, because there is something you can do. This problem affects us all, and its time to do something about it.

Make a nonprofit impact using your marketing skills.

Right now, there are forces on the ground and a vast network of people behind the scenes fighting to end human trafficking. For example, take a moment and check out the incredible, life-saving work of Operation Underground Railroad, a client of mine which works against child sex trafficking. I directed O.U.R.'s documentary Operation Toussaint and on Jan. 11, 2018, worked with the organization and Haitian law enforcement to re-capture that nation's most wanted sex trafficking leader and her fellow traffickers (released by corrupt judges earlier in 2017). Want to know more? Here's a video report on that capture.

What moved me especially was the decision of O.U.R.'s founder, Tim Ballard, to adopt two of the rescued children to be part of his own family.

Of course, to be as effective and impactful as possible, nonprofits like O.U.R. need funding. Thats where we entrepreneurs come in.

Related: Silicon Valley: Human Trafficking Bill 'Overly Broad'

No, Im not necessarily talking about taking out your wallet (though thats a great way to contribute, too). Equally as important is your ability as a business owner or company power player to have a tangible impact on the causes that matter to you in the world. You can make a huge difference with less effort than you might imagine. Here's how:

1. Pick any cause you like.

It should be something you feel passionate about, something that lights you up or infuriates you.

2. Use storytelling to inspire.

Treat your interest in supporting this cause just as you would plan a new product launch. Put storytelling (or "storyselling," as I like to call it) to work for your cause:

Put storytelling (or "storyselling," as I like to call it) to work for your cause: Show those who need help. Focus on one person (or animal) who's in a life-and-death situation, where assistance is desperately needed.

Focus on one person (or animal) who's in a life-and-death situation, where assistance is desperately needed. Show those you've helped on social media. For example, Make-a-Wish foundation shares its video wishes on YouTube. By showing how your your cause initiative actually made a difference, you demonstrate the actual good that donations can do for potential donors.

For example, Make-a-Wish foundation shares its video wishes on YouTube. By showing how your your cause initiative actually made a difference, you demonstrate the actual good that donations can do for potential donors. Show some star power. When Hollywood makes a movie about an actual event or living notable, it doesn't go out and hire the people involved to reenact the story; it hires big-name actors. Why? Because people want to see celebrities. So, if you can get one on board with your cause, you can win even bigger.

When Hollywood makes a movie about an actual event or living notable, it doesn't go out and hire the people involved to reenact the story; it hires big-name actors. Why? Because people want to see celebrities. So, if you can get one on board with your cause, you can win even bigger. "Leave 'em laughing." Humor is definitely not always the best way to motivate action, but it can still be effective. Funny online videos always get a lot of attention, but, again, results from those funny videos can be mixed (which is a reason why a lot of companies actually shy away from humorous advertising).

Humor is definitely not always the best way to motivate action, but it can still be effective. Funny online videos always get a lot of attention, but, again, results from those funny videos can be mixed (which is a reason why a lot of companies actually shy away from humorous advertising). Make a video. Use your resources within your business to help make a video that sheds light on the subject. In my business, my clients help me fund several documentaries on non-profits each year; and we use them to help raise awareness and funds. Dont worry if you dont direct films; you can solicit others to help you.

These are just a few of the most prominent cause-marketing approaches. There are many more, available for viewing on the internet. You just have to choose which narrative will work for you and your specific fund-raising needs.

3. Bonus: Use your live event to support the nonprofit.

Steps one and two will get you rolling, with impactful fund-raising efforts for the cause youre passionate about, but to knock it out of the park, consider that annual live event of yours as another way to raise money. Notice that I didn't say "to target on your cause." Your live event should be all about your business and its wheelhouse -- everything that makes your customers want to work with you and use your products and services in the first place.

Bring your audience together to celebrate your business; then share your cause with this captive audience, including a clear Whats in it for me? element to draw those people into participating. My partners at ClickFunnels did this recently at their annual event in Orlando by offering recordings of all of their conference speakers to the 3,000 entrepreneurs in the audience who made a minimum $250 donation to O.U.R. A million dollars was raised in three days.

Its all about engagement.

The fundamental question for entrepreneurs who want to make a difference in the world is: How can I simultaneously engage my audience and enroll them in my goals? The answer: storyselling. Its the best way to build relationships with your customers online and over time. Ultimately, those customers just may become passionate about what you share with them.

Related: Nobel Peace Prize Winners are Warfare Heroes and Combatants

Beyond your audience, your particular passion project can engage and invigorate your employees, giving them added incentive to build their careers with you and your company -- during this National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month and beyond.

Opening a window into your companys larger purpose in the world is one crucial piece of creating a great company culture. It worked for those beautiful, innocent children rescued in Haiti. It can work for you.

Related:

How Masters of Marketing (Like You!) Can Help Fight Human Trafficking

Bill Gates Reveals His Ultimate Measure of Success -- And How Warren Buffett Helped Him Realize It

A 'Holiday' Thought: Philanthropic Involvement Can Advance your Career. Here's How.



Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
African heads of state gathered in Ethiopia to discuss the Democratic Republic of Congo's disputed presidential election, after questions were raised about the accuracy of the results.

Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi was declared the surprise winner of the Dec. 30 poll, ahead of rival candidate Martin Fayulu, who has disputed the outcome. If the Constitutional Court validates the electoral commission's poll figures, Tshisekedi will succeed Joseph Kabila, who was barred by the constitution from seeking a third term after leading the cobalt- and copper-rich country for almost 18 years.

The leaders will discuss the Southern African Development Community's stance on the election, said Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi, a senior adviser to Kabila. SADC and another regional bloc, the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, last week took the unusual step of calling for a recount of the vote.

Congo views the calls as "blatant interference in internal matters of a sovereign country," Kikaya said in an interview in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where leaders are meeting under the auspices of the African Union. "More importantly it's against all rules of the African Union, even international law. Elections are a matter of national sovereignty."

The Congo Research Group on Wednesday published leaked data it said show Fayulu won the election by a large margin. The figures include a near complete tally of results from the National Independent Electoral Commission's database, and a second more partial set gathered by an almost 40,000-strong observer mission run by the Catholic Church on election day, the New York-based organization said.

"The results contradict those published by the election commission," the CRG said on its website. "These two documents suggest that the elections were dramatically rigged in the favor of Felix Tshisekedi."

Congo's Constitutional Court this week began hearing an appeal by Fayulu for a recount. The 16-member SADC's call for a recount came in a statement emailed by Zambian President Edgar Lungu's office. SADC member countries South Africa and Zambia both sought to soften that language by issuing separate statements on Monday saying any decision about a review of the results should be left to the authorities in Congo.

Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso, the current chairman of the 12-member ICGLR, echoed the statement from Lungu's office, saying a recount would "provide the necessary assurance to winners and losers."

"What's peculiar with the two statements is that they both called for a vote recount and a government of national unity, which for us is mutually exclusive," Kikaya said. "If you want a vote recount, that means that we don't know who is elected yet. How can you at the same time have a government of national unity?"

Kikaya said the court will announce its ruling on the election dispute on Friday.
BRIDGEPORT  A year before Brandon Roberts allegedly killed a young Bethel woman near Bridgeports boat ramp, police had him in their crosshairs for allegedly shooting a woman near Washington Park.

They ended up shelving that investigation because police said the wounded woman was either unable or unwilling to identify Roberts as her assailant.

But Roberts was arrested Friday for that crime, after police said he admitted shooting the woman, telling detectives, I dont know why I did it, I had a lot of hate in me man.

The 26-year-old Roberts, who is awaiting trial charged with murder, felony murder, first-degree robbery and carrying a pistol without a permit for the Dec. 8 killing of 25-year-old Emily Todd, was charged with attempted murder, possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle and possession of a pistol without a permit.

Police said that on June 9, 2017, officers were dispatched to the intersection of Kossuth and Maple streets, where a woman lay in the street, screaming.

The 43-year-old woman was taken to Bridgeport Hospital with a bullet wound in her right shoulder.

Officers found a white Buick Regal with tinted windows parked a short distance away. Police said there was a handgun on the rear floor of the car. The car was registered to Roberts.

Police said witnesses told them they had seen the victim in the Buick with a man shortly before the shooting. And a nearby video camera recorded the woman getting out of the car, police said.

When detectives later interviewed the victim, they said she told them she had been standing on Barnum Avenue when the Buick pulled up to her and the driver offered her a ride. The man drove her to the intersection of Kossuth and Maple streets and parked, police said.

The victim said the driver then told her he wanted to have sex with her, but she refused. Police said she got out of the car and was walking away when the driver came up behind her and shot her.

On June 25, 2017, police said, they called Roberts. They said he claimed his car had been stolen.

When detectives later showed the victim a photo lineup, they said she did not pick out a photo of Roberts as the man she said shot her.

On Dec. 14, police arrested Roberts at his fathers home in Shaker Heights Ohio and charged him with Todds murder.

While being questioned in the Shaker Heights police station, police said, Roberts confessed to Bridgeport Police Lt. Chris LaMaine that he had killed Todd and shot the other victim.

Roberts said that after shooting the woman, he tossed the gun into the back of the car but then left the vehicle where it was because he couldnt get it started, police said.

Todd a therapist at a Danbury senior center, was found lying face down in the sand along the shore in the morning of Dec. 9. She had been shot in the back of the head.

Police said Todds mother later told detectives that her daughter had met Roberts, who was staying with relatives at a Stratford hotel, on an online dating app.

After several dates, police said, Todd called off the relationship. But they said Roberts convinced Todd to meet him one more time, luring her to the area of the boat ramp.
BRIDGEPORT  City officials are poised to try to bump up the size of another high school on the premise that if they build it, students will come.

The School Building Committee voted Thursday to ask the City Council to increase the size of the new Bassick High School to accommodate 1,000 students  rather than the 911 students an enrollment study estimated the school would have at its maximum in 10 years.

The supersizing could increase the cost of the project by $8.4 million, a jump the city alone would have to pay unless the state can be convinced the additional space is warranted.

I personally feel it is not unreasonable to consider that, City Finance Director Ken Flatto said of the larger sized enrollment. Flatto made the remarks after talking with Schools Superintendent Aresta Johnson.

Johnson is pushing for the larger size, theorizing that a new school with an advanced manufacturing focus would likely draw back neighborhood students who now attend the citys Fairchild Wheeler campus as well as Bullard-Havens Technical High School, local charter schools and private schools.

The new Harding High School was held out as an example. Originally designed for 850 students, Harding plans were redrawn to accommodate 1,150 at the urging of the school board. In the 2017-18 school year, enrollment at Harding stood at 967. The building committee was told on Thursday that Harding is now filled to capacity.

Bassicks enrollment has dropped slowly over the last five years, but last year stood at 970 students.

The state is on track to pay up to 70 percent of the new schools $115 million construction cost, but will only contribute to the 911 students reflected in the independent enrollment study it required last fall.

My concern is that while the (independent) study shows 911, there could be more students in the pipeline over the next 10 to 20 years, Flatto said.

The City Council has already committed to bonding $28 million toward the project. Adding 89 students would potentially increase that commitment to more than $36 million.

I dont want to bond extra money unless we have to, City Council President Aidee Nieves said.

She and other members of the City School Building Committee also dont want to lose their place on the states capital project priority list.

If we make changes now, we risk losing our position, said John Ricci, the citys public facilities chief.

City Council member Christina Smith, a chairwoman of the School Building Committee, said she has no problem asking for more, as long as the reasoning is solid.

The committee agreed to ask the project architect to start drawing schematics based on a 1,000-student enrollment, contingent on City Council approval for the extra funding. If the council rejects the increase, the architects would be asked to scale back the drawings.

In the meantime, city officials plan to ask the enrollment consultant to double check projections. If the consultant agrees that the school should be larger, city officials say they would ask the state to revise its grant to cover the additional students  but only after it clears the legislative process.

The difference could shift $6 million of the additional cost to the state, the committee was told.

lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck
Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

Gov. Ned Lamont met over the weekend with two finalists for president of the University of Connecticut, a sign that the six-month search for a successor to Susan Herbst may be nearing an end.

Thomas E. Kruger, the chairman of the UConn Board of Trustees, met Thursday with the governor at the State Capitol, but he declined to comment on the status of the search for a new leader of Connecticuts flagship university.
SHELTON  As the federal shutdown approaches 30 days, food pantries across the state say they are more in need of assistance.

We are starting to seek the ripple effects of this senseless, reckless and avoidable federal shutdown, Blumenthal said Friday, after he and U.S. Rep. Jim Himes  both Connecticut Democrats  delivered boxes of food to Spooner House, which runs a food bank and residential dormitory for families in need.

The shutdown has left 800,000 federal employees without weekly. Blumenthal said Transportation Security Administration workers at Bradley International Airport told him they are going to the Food Share pantry in Hartford for help.

These are people who said they never envisioned seeking help from a food bank are now forced to do so, Blumenthal said.

Blumenthal said there are enough votes in Washington to send an end-the-shutdown bill to President Donald Trump. But the Senator said it is up to Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate majority leader, to call for a vote.

All he needs to do is ask us to return in 24 hours, Blumenthal said. I know I will be there.

And the longer the shutdown drags on the more restaurants, recreational facilities and retailers will begin to feel the pain of federal employees cutting back on non-essentials, Blumenthal said.

As Himes and Blumenthal visited, Susan Agamy, executive director of Spooner House, unveiled a plan to help federal employees with their food needs.

People dont come to a food pantry because they want to, Agamy said. They come because they need to.

To participate in Spooner Houses program, federal employees must bring their employee ID or pay stub from the last quarter of 2018 and complete an application. Since Spooner is aware that the employees may still be reporting to work even though they are not being paid, a family member may pick up the food.

Although Agamy said Spooner has set aside Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. for federal employees to use the food bank, they can come anytime.

To meet what Agamy foresees as growing needs, she is asking anyone who can to contribute any type of non-perishable foods.

We will be in particular need of anything containing protein  canned chicken, canned tuna, powdered or shelf-stable milk, peanut butter and canned soups, she said. Breakfast foods, pancake mix and pasta sauce also will be needed...We need to be prepared to help those who need it most.

Across the river in Derby Town/City Clerk Marc Garofalo has put out a call for donations of boxes of Tuna, Hamburger and Chicken Helper. The boxes will be delivered to the St. Vincent DePaul Food Bank on Reservoir Avenue. Garofalo, a former four-term mayor, said 150 boxes of rice already have been delivered. Individuals can deliver food donations to City Hall, 1 Elizabeth Street, Derby, during normal business hours.

We are asking people who struggle anyway to budget even more carefully, said Spooners Agamy.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps, are expected to arrive this week.

Theres enough federal funding available for the SNAP program to operate through February, Himes said. However he believes that with the SNAP benefits being received next week, those people are going to be challenged by late February.

Thats when youll start seeing the real run on food banks like Spooner, Himes said.

Already, Agamy said, people are being forced to make tough choices  do I buy food or pay the electric bill? Do I get medication or do I pay for the buss pass to get to and from work ... If we can help ease that burden, provide food, great. Maybe we can offer energy assistance or refer people to other other agencies that can help them.
DERBY  It will be some weeks before the citys Representative Policy Board will decide on a proposed million gallon water storage tank that would sit on the high school/middle school complex.

Its supporters  which include Derbys city and emergency officials  told officials at a Jan. 17 public hearing held in the Authoritys New Haven headquarters that the tank is needed.

What keeps me up at night is the fear of loss of water, said Joseph Burnett, the director of safety, security and emergency preparedness at Griffin Hospital, which is just a short distance from the proposed Nutmeg Avenue water tank.

This winter alone, Burnett estimates that Griffin is using 60,000 gallons of water daily for heating and cooling, cleaning and cooking, sterilizing and operating.

Thats 10 truckloads, he said.

Burnett, as well as Ansonia Fire Chief Michael Eheman, Derby Fire Chief Robert Laskowski Jr. and Derby Mayor Richard Dziekan, were among those who urged the 21-member policy board to approve the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authoritys proposal to begin building the one million gallon storage tank this year.

But resident Mary Motasky, who lives in the 70-unit Summit condominiums on Coon Hollow Road, expressed concerns about aesthetics of the tank and sought more specific information on its location.

The proposed site is in a wooded area about halfway between the far end of the school complex and Coon Hollow Road.

How visually is it going to impact my neighborhood? she asked.

Former Ansonia Mayor Thomas P. Clifford IIII, the boards chairman, told those attending the public hearing that a ruling would be forthcoming next month.

This marks the second time in seven years that the Regional Water Authority is seeking permission to build a storage tank in Derby.

Plans to build a two million gallon tank on Telescope Mountain on Summit Street were withdrawn after city officials and neighbors complained about the impact of blasting and the aesthetics of a water tank in a residential area.

The new site was chosen from 105 others because of its wooded location, its proximity to a water main and its availability. If approved, a final project design will be completed this spring with construction to run until next winter, much of it taking place after school ends in June.

The project is budgeted for $5.1 million. Once completed, it will serve some 13,000 customers in Ansonia, Derby and Seymour.

The Authoritys proposal involves leasing 2.15 acres on the north portion of Nutmeg Avenue from Derby for $1 for 99 years with the option for two 99-year extensions.

The Authority also is planning to fund the citys purchase of 1.25 acres of adjacent picnic land owned by St. Peter and St. Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church in Ansonia. The nearby parcel would be used as a construction staging area. Afterward, a portion will be paved for the city to use as a parking lot for the VARCA building. The churchs Board of Directors this week approved a negotiated sale of the land.

The proposed Derby site is bordered by the schools, the Public Works and shuttered VARCA buildings and Osbornedale Park.

We are going to clear trees around the tank but not the entire parcel, said Ted Norris, who with Rose Gavrilovic, presented the Authoritys proposal to the board. He said the tank would be 50 feet tall with a 60-foot diameter. Once completed, the Authority plans to surround it with trees.

Motasky, who suggested the tank be painted green, also asked about blasting.

We do not anticipate blasting, Gavrilovic said. A small portion of rock will have to be removed and well flatten the area. But we dont anticipate blasting.

Motasky and a neighbor appeared to be the only people at the hearing who were not Derby city officials, which caused Marc Garofalo, Derbys former four-term mayor and current Town/City clerk, to why the hearing was held in New Haven.

It should have been held in Derby because it does impact Derby, he said, adding more residents would have attended. Unfortunately, he said, for some Derby residents, New Haven is two time-zones away.

Following the hearing, Clifford, who served as Ansonias mayor from 1987-91, admitted Garofalo raised a valid point on the hearings location. He said the chief executive of a municipality could request a public hearing take place in their town or city.

But under the boards bylaws, only hearings on the Regional Water Authoritys proposals to dispose of land are required to be conducted in the municipality involved.

Ill bring this to the executive committees attention during our quarterly meeting in February, Clifford said. Maybe we will appoint an ad hoc committee to review our bylaws and rules of practice.
BRIDGEPORT - A local woman woke up to find a strange naked man on top of her and her genital area coated in baby shampoo, police said.

Hiram Heredia, 35, a homeless man, was charged Friday with home invasion, fourth-degree sexual assault and attempted fourth-degree sexual assault.

He was being held in lieu of $300,000 bond.

Police said the woman woke up in the bedroom of her Vine Street home in the middle of the night to find a man sucking on her chest. When she realized it was not her husband who was asleep in the bed next to her, police said she screamed, and the naked man jumped off the bed.

The woman then realized her genital area was coated in baby shampoo, police said.

I woke and there was baby soap all over me, they said she complained.

Police said the woman shook her husband awake and yelled at him that a man had just tried to rape her. The husband got up and ended up chasing the naked Heredia out of the house and down the street before losing him, police said.

When officers arrived at the home, they spotted a pile of clothing the assailant had left by the bed. Inside a pants pocket police said they found a wallet containing Heredias Connecticut identification card and his Social Security card.
In a classroom filled with flashier dignitaries, it was easy to overlook Barbara Dalio.

The Greenwich resident, in a casual white blouse, dark slacks and sweater, was quiet, preferring private conversations to the microphone.

She likes to listen, find out what the needs are, and then help.

I look for the best way to make an impact, said Dalio after a crowd that included Gov. Ned Lamont had filtered out from a program at Tracey School in Norwalk. Findings of a new study on the importance of social and emotional learning had just been discussed.

Sometimes it can feel overwhelming, Dalio admitted.

There are not enough resources to do everything, she said.

This from a woman whose foundation has contributed about $65 million to public education programs in Connecticut since 2008. Of that, more than $50 million was donated in the past four years alone.

That does not include separate grants made to higher education.

In October, at Bridgeports Harding High School, Barbara Dalio came with Charles Best, the creator of DonorsChoose  a popular online fundraising site for educators. They announced a new partnership to help jump-start promising teacher projects, including two in Bridgeport, with $10,000 grants.

She is awesome to work with, Best said.

Connecticut Teacher of the Year Sheena Graham, the Harding teacher Dalio visited, called her one of the most humble people shes ever met.

My students fell in love with her, Graham said. They felt she was a good listener.

In Norwalk this week, Schools Superintendent Steven Adamowski told visitors that Dalios presence at a round-table to discuss the report on social and emotional learning was not unusual.

She is a frequent visitor, Adamowski said.

Dalio started volunteering in the Norwalk school district a decade ago, after the last of her four sons left home. It is where she learned where her familys wealth could make the biggest impact, she said.

Learning curve

Dalio is married to Ray Dalio, the states richest man. The couples wealth is said to exceed $18 billion. They lived in Wilton and now Greenwich, raising their sons. Now in her early 70s, Barbara Dalio was born in Spain and immigrated to America in her early 20s. She worked for a time at the Whitney Museum, but eventually settled down to became a full-time mom, focusing on her own childrens education.

It was a full-time job, filled with plenty of visits to her sons schools.

When the last child left home, she turned more deliberately to running the familys growing foundation. Among its eclectic mix of causes is strengthening public education across Connecticut.

She started in Norwalk, contributing to the Carver Foundation, a city provider of after-school, summer and youth development programs. From there, Dalio was introduced to Briggs High School, an alternative school.

It resonated with her. She started visiting twice a month. It soon became once a week, then two or more times a week. Not to tutor, but to ask questions.

I was just trying to understand what their needs were, Dalio said. I would bring different resources  whatever the teachers needed.

It was not lost on Dalio that she was doing the opposite of what foundations often do, which is come in with a ready-made solution to a problem a school may or may not have.

Teachers know what they need, Dalio said. I listen to what the teacher and school leaders need  and just help them.

Picking projects

Dalio has always supported public education, but about three years ago her focus shifted from education reform and public charter schools to more traditional Connecticut public schools.

Her investment in charter schools had begun at a dinner party. As Dalio recalls, the person next to her started telling her what a great job Achievement First  a charter school network that runs schools in New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport  was doing.

I said, wow, this is incredible, Dalio recalls.

It was the same with Teach for America, an organization that recruits bright college graduates with no teaching experience to spend two years in high-needs classrooms. Another introduction. More foundation support.

At the same time, Dalio started spending more time in Norwalk public school classrooms. The lack of resources and supplies  not to mention teachers, social workers or librarians  bothered her.

And it got her thinking.

I realized charter schools have their place and are doing great work, but it really doesnt solve the problem, Dalio said.

Charter school admission is by lottery. The children who apply tend to have parents who are involved, Dalio reasoned. Other children, whose parents are working three jobs, or who just never see the flyer come home about the lottery, miss out.

That is how I started to pull out of the charter school movement, because my heart was not there, Dalio said.

Considering all angles

She is presented with many compelling cases.

It is very very hard to have to say no sometimes. Well, many times, Dalio said.

She said she employs the same holistic approach to philanthropy as she does to the rest of her life. Her aim is to make a difference.

She will seek advice and ideas from everyone, even her husband. Ultimately, Dalio makes the decisions on how best to accomplish her philanthropic goals.

Most of the time she goes with her gut.

Beyond her current efforts to boost the teaching of social and emotional learning through the Aspen Institutes National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development, Dalio supports the Connecticut Opportunity Project, which works with disconnected youth, and the Connecticut RISE Network, which works to empower and get resources to public school teachers.

Recently, she also stepped up efforts to help Bests DonorsChoose.

Her efforts in the area of social and emotional learning came after being introduced to the work of Marc Brackett at Yale Universitys Center for Emotional Intelligence.

Dalio learned about his work through a teacher at a birthday party, as Brackett recalls.

She called me and invited me to have lunch, he said. We connected immediately, and she asked me, What is your dream?

It was to make Connecticut the first emotionally intelligent state.

She said, Lets do it, Brackett said.

Her support, he said, helped broaden the lens of his work beyond a school or district approach.

Weve actually built a task force at the state level, Brackett said. It has helped us think of larger, more systemic change.

Dalio is also fueling programs on restorative justice. It ties into her work with disconnected and disengaged students who attend Briggs.

Do you know there are 39,000 disengaged and disconnected youth in Connecticut? said Dalio, who helped commission a study that recommended more wrap-around services and mentors.

When I hear about something I dont know too much about, I start talking to expert people, she said.

By that, she often means classroom teachers.

Dalio said she sees a bright future that includes the new governor, although she said she really does not know Lamont well.

I am an optimist at my core, she said. I always feel that there is a new beginning.

lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck
Three formerly incarcerated Connecticut residents working for the American Civil Liberties Unions Smart Justice campaign unveiled a pair of legislative proposals on Thursday that dovetail with the organizations nationwide initiative to end racial disparities in the justice system and cut the prison population in half.

The Smart Justice campaign is grounded in the knowledge that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution of mass incarceration, said Sandy LoMonico, who was hired by the ACLU of Connecticut as a criminal justice organizer.

LoMonico, who will be working with ACLU field organizers Anderson Curtis and Gus Marks-Hamilton, said the organization has invested in the leadership of formerly incarcerated people as experts who must be part of the decisions our state makes about the future of this justice system.

The trio are newly minted lobbyists who will lead the organizations charge in pushing for criminal justice reforms at the State Capitol. They detailed their priorities for the years legislative session at a press conference on Thursday afternoon with state lawmakers.

These priorities are reflected in two bills that have been filed but dont yet have bill numbers. The first would expand the scope of Connecticuts anti-discrimination laws to include safeguards for those with a criminal record, and the second would require the collection and reporting of aggregate data regarding prosecutorial work.

ACLU of Connecticut Executive Director David McGuire said the proposed legislation arose out of recommendations made by Gov. Ned Lamonts transition committee on criminal justice reform.

The first bill, proposed by Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, would prevent discrimination for those with a criminal record in areas like employment, housing, public education and accommodations, insurance, credit transactions, and public programs and services.

Curtis, who wore a bright blue T-shirt emblazoned with People. Not Prisons, said former inmates struggle to find stable housing and secure employment to support their families because of discrimination and legal barriers.

The other measure would require aggregate data about defendants demographics, charges, plea deals, bail requests, pretrial detention, diversionary programs, and sentencing recommendations be reported annually to the state Office of Policy and Management. That information would also be made available to the public.

Transparency is critical for our democracywith this legislation Connecticut will join other states, like Florida and Massachusetts, that have passed bills that require prosecutors to release data about their decisions, Marks-Hamilton said.

The states Division of Criminal Justice is currently working on creating a state funded digital case-management system for the states 13 judicial districts. Marks-Hamilton said he hopes the system will make it simple for prosecutors to easily share those statistics.

Chief States Attorney Kevin Kane said the state is still developing that system but is close to a pilot. Kane said releasing the system will allow the division to participate in the states newly implemented Connecticut Information Sharing System (CISS), a comprehensive criminal justice information system.

Kane said he thinks the idea is worthwhile, noting they want transparency and oversight and we want to be able to achieve justice on every case.

And if the momentum they achieve to get oversight helps us get our case-management system in place and working well so we can do our job to achieve justice in every case, it will be good, he added.

Porter, whose son was incarcerated and has been out of prison for three years, described felonies as scarlet Fs that actually crucify people for a lifetime.

And we have people that have done things that have been criminal and theyve been convicted and theyve done their sentence and theyve come home and their hearts desire is to do right and be right, Porter said.
Miller, Mississippi, Boo Killebrews haunting play about institutionalized racism that officially opened Jan. 9 at Long Wharf Theatre, starts, appropriately enough, with maid Doris repeating an oft-told ghost story to the three, young children. John, 10, hangs on Doris every word while Becky, his younger sister, listens quietly and John, the oldest Miller child, lies on the bed stricken with disinterest.

As the African-American Doris, who is also the cook and moral center of the Miller family of Jackson, Mississippi, tells her story, one perceives her purpose in this ritual is not to merely entertain her charges at bedtime with Poe-like diversion, but rather to warn them of the real and present danger of ghosts in the very walls that protected and insulated the Millers during the Jim Crow era  as the play itself travels from 1960 to 1994.

While this seemingly innocent, opening scene unfolds, watch the attentive Becky. As the play settles in and Killebrew discloses the Millers inability to keep in stride with the march of time, one realizes that young Becky is by now all too familiar with the familys demons.

Miller, Mississippi, which continues through Feb. 3 at Long Wharfs Stage II, is an epic ghost story that bravely scrutinizes and regularizes racism, using the fictitious yet palpably real Miller family, whose Baby Boomer progeny grow from adolescence to stone-cold adulthood. To Killebrew, who grew up in Gulfport, Mississippi, the ghosts are indistinguishable from the living.

It may even strike some theatergoers that, though under one roof, the Millers are bifurcated, with young, indiscreet John (Jacob Perkins)  the rebellious, impulsive zealot on social progress and racial equality  eager for greener pastures elsewhere. Hed like nothing better than to bring Becky (Leah Karpel) along, as he becomes aware of her victimization at the hands of the very real family ghosts as well as her reluctance to give up with her role in this living, Gothic nightmare. Its a place in which clocks and calendars are simply set decoration for her, Tom (Roderick Hill) and their frozen mother Mildred (Charlotte Booker). They choose to hang onto vestiges of Jim Crow like an extra from Titanic hugging a secured table stem as the ship sinks.

As one observes at the abrupt end of the opening scene, playwright Killebrew deals with a very real problem in macabre and stylized fashion. In the best Southern Gothic tradition, she fantastically exaggerates the action in order for the audience to empathize with her characters. On the other hand, this device lends predictability, as the family members initially seem archetypical.

Since Killebrew chose to set her story over a 34-year stretch, time is short for full exploration. Yet she nonetheless manages to humanize the three children (not poor old Mildred, fossilized in the same chair, looking at the same, ignored televised news program and nursing the same two fingers of Beefeater as if stuck on a 90-second loop).

Hill, Karpel and Perkins have the daunting challenge of playing kids (10-16 years old), a device that can work effectively yet seldom does. Under Lee Sunday Evans thoughtful direction, one never loses sight of the fact that adults are behaving like kids even if they are playing at it. Yet, as hinted earlier, the scene ends in such catastrophic madness that its over before we have time to mull over the matter. Overall, when all is done, the entire cast works very effectively and truthfully.

If all of this sounds a tad complicated or imaginative, remember that Killebrew exhibits no interest in kitchen-sink realism with Miller, Mississippi. This is, after all, a horrific ghost story concerning standardized racism, one that strikes the correct balance of realism and the macabre. Its scary stuff, which is kind of the idea.

E. Kyle Minor is the Register theater writer.
They are monuments of sorts to a piece of Connecticuts corporate history: a Bavarian tower overlooking the Farmington River outside Hartford, or the glassy Towers office above Norwalks southbound lanes of the Merritt Parkway; bottles of Smirnoff vodka lining the shelves of Bethel Wine & Spirits just blocks from the brands birthplace in America, or that bottle of A.1. Sauce tucked away perhaps in your own refrigerator.

In Connecticut as it would turn out, it was a history living on borrowed time, as the corporation that inherited those legacies and built them into global brands  or sold some to the highest bidders  chose the skyscrapers of Manhattan to hone its American legacy going forward.

With Diageos announcement this past week of plans to move its North American headquarters out of Norwalk, Connecticut is losing to New York City a company with a legacy extending to before Mark Twains earliest days in Hartford, all the way back to the eve of the Civil War.

Its name an esoteric cocktail of the Latin words for day and world  an attempt to bring to mind the everyday search for lifes pleasures everywhere  Diageo was formed by the December 1997 merger of the British alcohol giants Grand Metropolitan and Guinness.

Grand Metropolitans predecessor companies included Heublein, created by a German emigrant named Andrew Heublein and his sone, Gilbert and Louis. Andrew Heublein established a Hartford hotel in 1859, forming the foundation for a company that would eventually achieve worldwide fame.

The Heublein name is forgotten by many in southwestern Connecticut, where Diageo would move its headquarters in 1998, after establishing its new corporate identity  bringing employees from Hartford to join the former Guinness employees.

But its a name still held dear by many in Hartford, where Heublein built up a distillery for vodka and other spirits that would employ hundreds; stumbled onto what would become its Prohibition-era savior in A.1. Sauce; and added over time other household brands like Grey Poupon.

Back in 1892, Heublein pioneered pre-mixed cocktails, by accident  after hosting an event for the Governors Footguard that was twice rained out. Days later, the unused gallons of mixed drinks tasted pretty good to the guy who was asked to throw them out, and a product line was born.

Bethel, Bloody Marys and Coppola

While the Heublein sign on a Hartford high-rise is long gone, a monument stands to that heritage in the Heublein Tower west of the city in Simsbury, above the Farmington River, a 165-foot-tall structure built by a Gilbert Heublein and preserved to this day by a nonprofit caretaker.

The roots of the companys success lie farther west still, in downtown Bethel where a Ukrainian man moved after coming to New York in 1920, holding the rights to the Smirnoff brand with his father operating a massive distillery in his home country.

Rudolph P. Kunett would open his small distillery in 1934 on South Street, and after struggling for several years to wring profits from Smirnoff, found a buyer in Heublein to take it over for $14,000, a decades worth of royalties and a job he would take into retirement (The original Smirnoff distillery building still stands today, a decrepit relic across the tracks from Broken Symmetry Gastro Brewery, among Connecticuts newest microbreweries).

Under company president John Martin, Heublein would hatch a brilliant marketing plan for Smirnoff as white whiskey  as legend has it, the assumption of a bewildered bar owner in cracking open a case for the first time  ideal for mixing Bloody Marys, screwdrivers, Cape Codders and any number of cocktails; or for breathless nipping with no telltale scent of alcohol to be discerned.

The company would find additional success with its Club Cocktails line of mixers in 8-ounce cans, while using its wealth to acquire other brands: Grey Poupon in 1946, Inglenook wines in 1969  owned today by the director Francis Ford Coppola  and Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1971.

In 1982, tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds would acquire Heubleins successor company United Distillers & Vintners in 1982, merge with Nabisco within three years, then break back up under future IBM CEO Lou Gerstner Jr. of Greenwich with backing form the leveraged buyout firm KKR. Smirnoff would go to International Distillers and Vintners, Grey Poupon to Kraft Foods, and RJR Nabiscos 20 percent stake in Bristol-based ESPN to the New York City-based Hearst Corp., parent of Hearst Connecticut Media.

From Hartford to NYC via Norwalk

International Distillers and Vintners would be acquired by London-based Grand Metropolitan. In creating the Diageo brand in the 1997 merger, the new company decided also to pull out of Hartford in favor of Fairfield County where the company had 225 people at a corporate office in Stamford.

The reason: To find a richer pool of marketing talent, same reason Diageo says its moving to Manhattan at the start of 2020.

We had a real legacy in Hartford, not only the manufacturing plant but also in terms of being involved in the community, said Jack Shea, a Fairfield resident and former Heublein and Diageo communications executive who made the move to Stamford, and now works at competitor Pernod Ricard USA in New York.

In 2004, Connecticut awarded Diageo incentives to move its North American headquarters to its current address at 801 Main Ave. in Norwalk. The company did not get the full value of that package after failing to meet its commitment to maintain a workforce of 700 people there, while maintaining offices in New York City that will now be consolidated at 3 World Trade Center  a long commute for Connecticut employees.

Diageo will maintain a smaller satellite office in lower Fairfield County  at a yet-undecided location  that could employ 250 people, if the companys initial projections hold true over time.

We are committed to continuing to operate in Connecticut, North American president Deirdre Mahlan said in a written statement. Our Fairfield County office will house a number of teams, including our innovation center of excellence. We share the governors optimism for the future of the state and look forward to helping deliver on that vision.

Diageo has yet to make Mahlan, of Westport, available for questions from Hearst Connecticut Media on details behind the decision to move its North American headquarters after a quarter century in Stamford and Norwalk.

Going forward, the story of the worlds largest liquor company will be told from a Manhattan office, as it adds to (or subtracts from) its current shelf of brands that include Smirnoff; Captain Morgan rum; Casamigos and Don Julio tequila; and Bulleit, Crown Royal and Johnnie Walker whiskey.

In Norwalk, the days appear numbered for Diageos sign overlooking the Merritt Parkway, as other corporations eye a coming vacancy in what is among the regions most prestigious addresses at The Towers just off Main Avenue. Within eyeshot of the Hartford skyline, however, a piece of Heubleins heritage will continue to be celebrated each October at the tower that bears the family name in Simsbury, at an annual Heublein Tower Toot picnic with grilled bratwurst and family-friendly beverages on the menu.

In a 1997 interview with the Hartford Courant as IDV shut down its operations in Connecticuts capital city, the namesake descendant of Andrew Heublein fretted whether in a decades time anyone would remember the company that turned Smirnoff and A.1. into towering brands.

Its sad, Andrew Heublein told the Courant. Ten years from now, people will mention the name Heublein  in many cases, theyll have no idea what Im talking about, or what its all about.

This report includes prior reporting by Erik Ofgang.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
Cruise & Maritime Voyages (CMV) is set to make another major move in North America and will debut a Puerto Penasco-based cruise program later this year on the 550-guest Astoria, featuring Mexican ports.

Already bookable, there are six 11-day Treasures of the Seas of Cortez sailings on the calendar, starting on Dec. 7. Port stops include Topolobampo, Mazatlan, Cabo San Lucas, La Paz, Loreto and Santa Rosalia.

Pricing starts at $1,349 per person, according to the companys website.

CMV is said to be targeting the Arizona source market, which is a short drive from a new cruise pier under construction in Puerto Penasco (Mexico).

Among major moves from the quickly-expanding CMV, the company is targeting the Mexican source market with a separate program which will kick off this winter with the Cruceros Maritimos Vacacionales brand using the 1,452-guest Magellan.

The Magellan will reposition to offer its first cruise in early February; part of a two-month program of week-long cruises out of Acapulco, with interporting available in Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta, and calls in Manzanillo and Cabo San Lucas.

Among other news in Mexico, Grupo Vidante is also set to enter the local market in short order.

In addition to its new programs in North America, CMV will take delivery of the Pacific Eden this spring as the former P&O Australia ship will be welcomed into the companys Transocean brand, targeting the German source market.
After a near decade-long hiatus, Carnival Cruise Line will be back in San Diego for a seasonal deployment starting in December.

They were drawing quite a few passengers from San Diego (to Long Beach) and you want to capitalize on those markets; we have a strong drive up market, said Adam Deaton, senior account trade representative. The economy is growing and Mexico is doing well.

The Carnival Miracle will thus operate a series of three- to 15-day sailings, most of which visit the Mexican Riviera, in addition to two special longer Hawaii cruises.

There are also two five-day cruises, overnighting in Cabo San Lucas.

The cruise business in San Diego is bouncing back.

Along with Carnival, Holland America Line will up capacity again with a bigger ship in the Nieuw Amsterdam while Disney continues a strong seasonal deployment.

"This season we will be at 295,000 passengers, next season, 340,000 and we are looking at 425,000 after that, said Deaton.

Its crawling back to the glory days, as San Diego narrowly had 1 million guests just before the economic downturn, an untimely Alaska headtax and Mexicos security issues dealt a near death-blow to the West Coast cruise business.

In Mexico the issues have calmed down, according to Deaton, and the demand for land-side tourism has been increasing steadily.

Cruise quickly followed suit, he added.

While terminal improvements may be on the horizon, the port is looking to finalize funding to upgrade its shorepower system, allowing for multiple connections at once.

"The business is growing very well in terms of passenger numbers and we are looking to make some improvements to go along with that growth, Deaton noted.

Excerpt from Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine: Winter 2018-2019
Litchfield Township, MN (55355)

Today

Lots of sunshine. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 86F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mostly clear. Low 62F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
Some people only walk this earth for a short time. Their departure reminds us that angels are watching over us. Last week, Aggie Reed rejoined her heavenly family and gained her wings. Agnes Lee "Aggie" Wilson-Reed passed away unexpectedly in Cookeville on June 11, 2021, at the age of 83. Ag
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The new research from the National Centre for Register-based Research at Aarhus BSS is the first of its kind to offer a comprehensive description of the risks of double diagnosis within the ten major groups of mental disorders - also called comorbidity. Based on register data from 5.9 million people living in Denmark from 2000 to 2016, the study is the most detailed study of comorbidity ever conducted in the field of mental health.

The results have just been published in JAMA Psychiatry, which is one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals in the field of psychiatry. The researchers have also developed an interactive webpage that offers professionals and the general public access to examine the risks of double diagnoses according to age, sex and type of mental disorder.

"This is the first study to provide a comprehensive description of all possible associations between pairs of mental disorders using national registers available for a whole population. We knew from previous smaller studies that some types of disorder tended to occur together. But now we can confirm that comorbidity is the rule, not the exception. Those who receive a diagnosis of a specific major mental disorder are more likely to receive diagnoses for all other types of mental disorders," says Oleguer Plana-Ripoll, who is a postdoctoral researcher at the National Centre for Register-based Research at Aarhus BSS and the main author of the study.

In the study, the researchers uncovered how different types of mental disorders accumulate across a lifespan. Due to the size of the study, the researchers were able to measure the absolute risks of people developing more than one mental disorder later in life. The study showed that people who are diagnosed with one mental disorder are not only more likely to be diagnosed with other mental disorders, but also that this risk persists for many years after the first diagnosis.

The study partly originates from the national psychiatric project, iPSYCH, and partly the Niels Bohr Professorship research programme at Aarhus University, which is led by Professor John McGrath and explores new innovative methods related to psychiatric epidemiology.

"It is a large and comprehensive study that provides never-before-seen details of the relationship between the different mental disorders. We have provided the field with fine-grain details - for example that the risk of developing more than one mental disorder is not constant over time," says Oleguer Plana-Ripoll.

In addition to the scientific publication, all the results of the study are available on an interactive webpage that can be used by physicians and the general public.

"We want to 'democratice' the results so that they are more widely understood by clinicians and people with mental disorders and their caregivers. We hope that this new information will help the clinicians to monitor the development of mental disorders. This is especially important for people who develop a mental disorder when they are young," says John McGrath.

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David Langham Horace, 44, passed away June 9, 2021 in Lufkin. Viewing will be held on Friday, June 18, 2021 at Emanuel Funeral Home of Crockett from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Funeral will be held on Saturday, June 19, 2021 at Antioch Baptist Church in Pennington at 12 p.m. with burial to follow in A
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Not yet angry  but patriotic and bewildered. Fear of betrayal is the dominant emotion at the Leave Means Leave rally

An orderly queue formed last night outside Methodist Central Hall for the Leave Means Leave rally. As we entered we were handed small Union Jacks to wave during speeches by Kate Hoey, Rocco Forte, Iain Duncan Smith, Tim Martin, Nigel Farage and Esther McVey.

The Labour people who gave out Union Jacks to the crowd which applauded Tony Blairs entry into Downing Street in 1997 were onto something. Here is a delightful way to demonstrate patriotism.

But last nights crowd, about 2,000 strong, rather than celebrating victory, were anxiously hoping to avert defeat.

The mood of these Brexit supporters has not yet turned angry. It is one of bewildered patriotism. For although they won the referendum, they now question whether they can trust the very politicians to whom they decided to return power.

As the man sitting next to me put it:

I just dont think its right that we have to concede a second referendum. People had a choice. They voted as they did. I think its right for the country to leave the EU, personally.

He is 45 years old, has a job in insurance, and had never attended such a rally before. His tone was modest, almost apologetic, yet conveyed a sense of incredulity at the outrageous injustice which may be about to be perpetrated.

All six speakers wrestled with the paradox of a Parliament most of whose members yearn to avert Brexit, even though it gives more power to Parliament. Hoey, a Labour MP since 1989, warned that the great betrayal has begun and is now moving apace.

Richard Tice, the clean-cut Englishman, somehow reminiscent of an American evangelist, who runs Leave Means Leave and introduced the speakers, insisted we can begin to smell the betrayal. He urged people to chant Lets go WTO.

Forte, who spoke as a businessman, said I have not known such defeatismby the ruling classsince the Seventies [applause]. He described the elites lack of belief in the British people as almost treasonable.

A heckler interrupted at this point by shouting very loudly. He was quite near to me, but I could not make out what he was saying. Forte, being somewhat inexperienced as a public speaker, fell silent, and members of the crowd started shouting Out, out, out.

Tice poured oil on troubled waters by saying, We respect the right of free speech and we urge them to do the same, for apparently there was more than one protester. The heckler near to me was ushered from the hall and someone shouted after him At least you can leave, which produced rueful laughter.

Duncan Smith started with some jokes, including the funny story he told when interviewed by ConservativeHome in 2013, and went on to talk of this enormous Establishment plot to tell us we are a miserable little nation and a hopeless little island.

He added that Parliament doesnt represent the British people any more. But he and the minority of MPs who think like him will not rest until Britain is fully free once again.

Tim Martin, founder and Chairman of the Wetherspoon pub chain, bore as he came on stage a fleeting but disconcerting resemblance to the satirist Craig Brown.

Martins main message was dont believe Project Fear. He recalled that car manufacturers said theyd all f*ck off to the continent if Britain didnt join the euro.

And he reported that if you really want to annoy people, you should try going into a pub in Sunderland and asking people there if it was true they didnt understand what they were voting for in the referendum.

This produced laughter of the usual good-natured yet rueful kind.

Farage received the most enthusiastic welcome of anyone: a standing ovation before he had said a word.

He walked to and fro across the front of the stage, his amplified voice painfully loud as he warned that we tonight here in Westminster are in the heart of enemy territory, for our political class never respected the referendum result from day one.

Theresa Mays deal with the EU looked more like a surrender document [applause], and was the culmination of 50 years of lies from the British Establishment.

He fears the whole referendum battle will have to be fought all over again, urged everyone to prepare for it, and concluded: Next time, as far as Im concerned, its no more Mr Nice Guy.

One could not help suspecting that as in the first referendum campaign, Farage being nasty could have an off-putting effect on those voters who do not already agree with him.

McVey delivered an apologia for her time in government: We thought we could trust our MPs. On realising last November that the Prime Ministers deal failed to honour the referendum result, she resigned.

And that was that. The event lasted two hours, felt decorous and respectable, and can be watched on Youtube. The audience was almost entirely white, but mixed by age and sex. It wanted to feel reassured that Brexit is going to turn out fine, but none of the six speakers could set at rest the fear that Parliament is about to refuse to do what the people have voted for.

The drawback of upholding an old-fashioned belief in parliamentary sovereignty turns out to be that a majority of MPs would much rather we had remained in the EU.
Simon Allison is founding member of Right to Vote, author of Brexit  a Betrayal of Conservatism? and a former Conservative Parliamentary candidate.

Right to Vote, a new grouping of Conservative MPs and grassroots activists who are calling for the voters to be given a Final Say over the Brexit process, was launched this week. Weve called it Right to Vote because we think that voting on the final outcome of the EU talks is the right thing for people to do and indeed, something that they should  and must  have a right to do.

Theres no question that people are bored to tears with hearing about Brexit, and sick and tired of politicians on all sides telling them half-truths about it  and in some cases, blatant untruths. To make matters worse, the people paid to solve the countrys problems, our MPs, have managed to get themselves into a state of total gridlock, in many cases just scoring political points while time ticks away on saving our future.

What people actually want is for our MPs to set out a clear way forward for the country. That means telling them the truth, however unpalatable and difficult that may be. In fact, if you look at the times when the Conservative Party has defied the odds to win elections, in 1979, 1992 and 2015, our success has been based on levelling with the people of the United Kingdom.

So: lets face facts. The Prime Ministers Brexit deal is dead. She is calling on MPs to unite around a new solution, but theres no Commons majority for any form of Brexit  not for the Prime Ministers deal, not for no deal and not for a Norway-style arrangement. While many moderate Conservative MPs like the idea of a compromise based around some form of Customs Union or EEA/EFTA solution, they miss the fact that the reasons why the public didnt swing behind Mrs Mays deal are the same reasons that they wouldnt back that kind of compromise.

It would still leave us as a rule-taker not a rule-maker, leaves us paying 39 billion without any guarantees about the final deal and wed have to go on bended knee to persuade such global powerhouses as Norway and Liechtenstein to let us in. The whole thing would frankly be a humiliation for a world power like the UK. From a Party perspective, it opens up the prospect of internal war without end around the contents of a final trade deal, almost certainly dominating this Parliament and most probably ensuring a crushing defeat  even to Jeremy Corbyn  in 2022.

Instead, giving people a Final Say is a swift, fair and democratic solution to this sorry saga, allowing us to get back to meeting the challenges that in part fuelled the Brexit vote in the first place.

If you believe some on the Partys far right, this makes us traitors and saboteurs, unrepresentative of true conservatism; many of the Conservative MPs supporting a Final Say are receiving threats of deselection by their constituency associations. But we must not confuse the anguish of hardened activists with the underlying views of the voters. Indeed, across all the seats that elected Conservative MPs at the last election, new research suggests that an average of 55.8 per cent of voters support a new public vote.

Indeed, if the Conservative Party is going to return to its election-winning positioning as the party of common sense, there are two key facts which it must recognise. First, that the Brexit side of this discussion, after nearly three years, cant decide what Brexit means, making it somewhat difficult to implement and, second, that as of today Remain leads Leave by 12 per cent in the polls.

Against that background, to deny the electorate a say and, instead, delivering a Brexit that does not command their support would be a betrayal of the United Kingdom and a suicide mission for the Conservative Party. The right path for our country also happens to be right path for our Party. We, as Conservatives, ought to lead the way in trusting the people with this  not to be forced in to doing so because there is nowhere else to turn.

The Right to Vote campaign has one clear aim: to secure a Final Say vote. This is about breaking the deadlock in Parliament. This is about securing consent for the next chapter in our great country. It is time to trust the people and let them really take back control.
Mohammed Amin: The Government should talk to the Muslim Council of Britain  though talking doesnt necessarily mean agreeing

Mohammed Amin MBE is Chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum. He is writing in a personal capacity.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) was created after three years of community consultation in the 1990s, with the encouragement of John Majors Government.

It was modelled on the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Accordingly, its members are other organisations (affiliates) and not individuals.

For most of the 1997-2010 Labour Government, relations between the MCB and the Government were reasonably good, albeit with some spectacular fallings out. Apart from the occasional contacts with Liberal Democrat ministers mentioned on the MCBs website, the Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition and the subsequent Conservative Government have studiously ignored the MCB. In my view, this is a mistake.

About the MCB

The MCB claims about 500 affiliated organisations. Its transparency was never great (e.g: no accounts on its website) and at some stage the list of local, regional and national affiliates the MCB used to publish on its website has disappeared.

There is no other Muslim organisation remotely approaching it in coverage. During the periods of falling out, the Labour Government regularly tried to big up other Muslim organisations as replacements for dialogue, but the exercise was always risible.

As explained in my websites 2011 article The Muslim Council of Britains Need for Constitutional Reform, effective control of the MCB has always been held by a small number of organisations who act together. That article did not discuss ideology, but the organisations I listed were broadly intellectual followers of either Abul Ala Maududi or Hassan al-Banna (respectively founders of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood.)

From the beginning, the MCB has been dominated by Muslims of South Asian and Arab ethnicity, with relatively little participation by other ethnic groups even though they represent a growing (though still minority) proportion of British Muslims.

The MCBs achievements

Despite always being desperately under-resourced, the MCB can be proud of many things. I will list just a few.

In the early days of Islamic finance in the UK, technical specialists who were also closely involved with the MCB played a major part in helping the Government to understand Islamic finance and how to remove obstacles to it in the UK.

Perhaps its greatest single achievement was the inclusion of a question about religion in the 2001, and subsequently 2011, census. Accordingly, policymakers have a good handle on the number of Muslims in the UK. Equivalent data does not exist in countries such as the USA or France, where one must depend on surveys that often produce wildly different results, or use estimates from immigration and ethnicity.

More recently, the MCBs Miqdaad Versi has done an outstanding job tackling patently inaccurate media reporting about Muslims, despite operating on a shoestring. Visit My Mosque Day has been running for several years and is the kind of initiative that would not happen without an umbrella body to coordinate it.

The MCBs failings

As a close observer of the MCB, I believe its fundamental problem is that it spends its time following rather than leading British Muslims and impairs its effectiveness by trying to keep the entire spectrum of British Muslims happy.

For example, the MCBs objectives, set out in Clause 2 of its Constitution and the way it describes itself on its About page, are domestically focused. That is what one would expect, and its leadership has in the past told me the MCB avoids foreign issues. However, that is selective.

Using Google to search the MCB website for the word Israel returned 274 results, many of them highly critical. Conversely, a search for Taliban had only 14 results. All were about refuting claims that British Muslims supported the Taliban or were neutral references in extracts of other material. I could not find a single unequivocal condemnation of the Taliban. Nor do I recall ever seeing one in any MCB material.

On many issues of great importance to British Muslims, the MCB has nothing to say. For example, searching found nothing about the problem of Muslim religious marriages and divorces. There are only four occurrences of nikah (a religious marriage contract), none of which mentions the growing problem of nikah only relationships with no civil marriage, or the problems Muslim women have getting religious divorces.

In my view, the MCBs greatest failure has been its consistent determination to ignore or downplay the religious motivation of terrorist organisations such as Al Qaeda and of individual terrorists such as the 7/7 London bombers. It has consistently railed against the Prevent policy, but offered nothing useful to help address the problem of radicalisation  because, in my opinion, it is in denial about its reality.

The benefits of talking to the MCB

At present, apart from any back channel contacts that may or may not exist, the Government can only challenge the MCB on its failings via megaphone diplomacy. It really would be much better to do so face-to-face.

At the same time, the MCB is a meaningful conduit for the Government to learn about the views of its many affiliates. Also, the MCB does have some useful things to say, albeit interspersed with other things that are less useful. Ministers should quite capable of distinguishing between them.

Ignoring it does not help Government to achieve its own objectives. For example, just because the MCB is currently hopeless on radicalisation does not mean it cannot be encouraged to help in tackling the problem of Muslim religious marriages and divorces.

Full disclosure

From June 2008 to June 2010, I was an elected member of the MCBs Central Working Committee and chairman of the MCBs Business and Economics Committee, placing me on the periphery of the dozen or so wider leadership team although not one of the key officers. Since then, our relationship has been friendly but relatively distant (I get invited to their annual Muslim Leadership Dinner in what I suspect is the last wave of invitations) and I donate 100 p.a. to the MCB Charitable Foundation.
Brexit 1) Opposition MPs unhappy after talks descend into acrimony

Labour MPs defy Corbyn to attend meetings with the Government  The Times

May slams Labour leaders boycott  The Sun

and tells him it is impossible to rule out no deal  The Guardian

Corbyn faces split  Daily Telegraph

Labour leaders ratings crash amongst Remainers  The Sun

Corbyn could face string of resignations if he backs second referendum  The Guardian

Theresa Mays talks with opposition parties about a Brexit plan B descended into acrimony on Thursday after she told MPs she could not make substantial changes to her existing plan despite it being overwhelmingly rejected by the Commons. Smaller opposition parties who attended talks with Mrs May were left bewildered after Downing Street made clear it would resist demands to shift towards a softer form of Brexit following MPs emphatic vote against her withdrawal agreement on Tuesday. Following a separate defeat at the hands of MPs this month, Mrs May is obliged to outline a Brexit plan B on Monday, but a Commons vote on it will not take place until January 29  two months before the UK is scheduled to leave the EU. Mrs Mays spokesman indicated that the prime minister would not accept the smaller opposition parties demands for an extension to the Article 50 process under which the UK is supposed to leave on March 29, or a second referendum. He added that Mrs May also rejected Labours proposal for a long-term relationship between the UK and EU involving a permanent customs union, and would also not drop her threat of a no-deal Brexit if there were no acceptable agreement with the bloc.  FT

More:

Business groups call for consensus on alternative  FT

May has no choice but to delay Brexit, says Blair  The Sun

Comment:

Until Brexit isnt seen as right-wing there will never be a cross-party plan  Jeremy Warner, Daily Telegraph

Sorry May, theres no talking to Corbyn unless youre IRA, Hamas  Daniel Hannan, The Sun

When prime ministers meet their shadows: an awkward relationship  Nigel Fletcher, Times Red Box

Editorial:

Corbyn will meet the IRA, but not the Prime Minister  Daily Telegraph

>ToryDiary: Decision time for Javid and Hunt?

Brexit 2) but Brexiteer MPs happier

Brexiteers today boasted of securing pledges from Theresa May that could see a Brexit deal passed by Parliament. Eurosceptic MPs who met her left Downing Street in upbeat mood, saying she had vowed not to bow to pressure from Cabinet Remainers to accept Labours idea of a permanent customs union. Nigel Evans, one of 118 Tory MPs who voted against Mrs May on Tuesday, said: The Prime Minister is listening. She wants to get Brexit over the line and she is listening to our concerns. A former Cabinet minister added: It was good and positive  we are getting onto the same page. I am more optimistic now  I think she will get a deal through. She made it very clear to us that she is not going to have a customs union deal, whatever some people in Cabinet might want. It came as Mrs May held a full day of meetings with MPs from across the Brexit divide in a bid to revive her deal with the EU which was resoundingly rejected in the Commons on Tuesday. Former Brexit Secretary David Davis and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith were among the members of the European Research Group invited for talks. The hardline Brexit group played a key role in the Commons defeat. Former Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers was also present, as was former culture secretary John Whittingdale, who tweeted afterwards that their groups meeting with the Prime Minister had been constructive.  Daily Mail

Pro-Leave MPs optimistic that May will stand firm  The Guardian

DUP edges towards customs union  The Times

Remaining would spark extremism, warns Halfon  Daily Telegraph

Editorial:

Brexiteer MPs must not cave in  The Sun

>Today: ToryDiary: Not yet angry  but patriotic and bewildered. Fear of betrayal is the dominant emotion at the Leave Means Leave rally

Brexit 3) Whitehall put on alert for another election

Hague warns that Britain may go to the polls within weeks  The Sun

Britain was on general election alert last night after Whitehall chiefs were ordered to draw up contingency plans for a snap poll. Amid the fragile situation in Westminster, Britains top civil servant told Government departmental heads to be ready in case an election is needed to break the Brexit deadlock. Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill met senior mandarins this week to discuss preparations in case Theresa May decides to go to the country. Today, it also emerged that official guidance has now been drawn up on the possible timeline for a second Brexit referendum. A document, apparently presented at cross-party Brexit talks, suggested that another referendum would take 15 months to arrange and hold. Downing Street has repeatedly insisted the next general election will not take place until 2022, as mandated by the Fixed Terms Parliament Act. Only this week, the Prime Minister told MPs that holding a ballot now would be the worst thing we could do, with some Tories fearing that the party would lose seats to Labour, handing the keys to Number 10 to Jeremy Corbyn. But Cabinet ministers have held conversations about how an election may now be the only way to move forward, with one warning a poll is on the way. Despite the failure of its attempt to oust the Government this week, Labour has also not ruled out the possibility of repeatedly tabling no-confidence motions in a bid to topple Mrs May.  Daily Mail

>Today: Simon Allison in Comment: Parliament is deadlocked. Only the British people can deliver a final say on Mays deal.

Brexit 4) Iain Martin: Leavers must set aside the purity tests to get departure done

Search through the records, or raise the question on social media as I did yesterday, and you will find precious few heavyweight Tories who argued for leaving before 2016. Yet many of them now condemn Mrs Mays deal as impure and insufficiently Brexity. I sympathise with them and dont much like her version of Brexit either. I am keen to get out of the EU and think no-deal would be disruptive but perfectly manageable. I dislike the threat to sovereignty and the Union inherent in the Northern Ireland backstop. But my message to fellow Brexiteers is that times up. Give the purism a rest in the interests of getting the mess sorted out. Anyone who has followed events in parliament this week with the semblance of an open mind can see that the fundamentals have changed and the pure-Brexiteers are badly outnumbered. John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, has created conditions in which Remainer MPs are going to have a good go at banning no-deal Brexit by legislative chicanery or by forcing ministers to seek a delay in Article 50. If that fails, there is a large enough group of anti-Brexit Tory MPs (as many as 30 I am told) prepared to go for the nuclear option of bringing down the government to stop Brexit, leading in all probability to a general election. The risk is very high of a split, incompetent Tory party inflicting a catastrophe on Britain by letting in a Corbyn government.  The Times

Cosying up to big business is only going to fuel Corbynism  Fraser Nelson, Daily Telegraph

May must form a single-issue coalition to sort Brexit  Simon Jenkins, The Guardian

A new referendum could be the life raft both sides are searching for  Sam Gyimah, Times Red Box

Letting MPs vote on every option is a way out of this mess  Philip Collins, The Times

May seeks a talking cure to her Brexit woes  Henry Mance, FT

Multinationals may seek to preserve the status quo, but small businesses want change  John Longworth, Daily Telegraph

Brexit 5) Cabinet ministers warn May of resignations if she wont allow MPs to block no deal

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abinet ministers have warned that Theresa May will face mass resignations if MPs are barred from trying to stop a no-deal Brexit. The Prime Minister said on Thursday that it is impossible to rule out a no-deal Brexit under the terms of Article 50 and warned that it not in the Governments power to do so. However as many as 20 mid-ranking ministers have indicated that they are prepared to quit the Government so they can support backbench moves to stop a no-deal Brexit. The Telegraph has learned that a delegation of five ministers from the group visited the Prime Minister in No 10 and warned her directly that they were prepared to quit

T

he row erupted after The Telegraph obtained a leaked recording of a conference call between Philip Hammond and business leaders in which he set out how a backbench Bill could take no deal off the table.

H

Senior MPs intensify efforts to block no-deal departure  FT

Cabinet ministers to back second referendum  The Sun

Cooper tables laws to let MPs seize control  Daily Mail

Brexiteers call for Hammond and Clark to go  The Times

Chancellor branded traitor  The Sun

e claimed that the Bill, which will be tabled on Monday and would force the Government to extend Article 50, is likely to win support and act as the ultimate backstop against a no-deal Brexit. The Chancellor faced a furious Cabinet backlash on Thursday, with one minister describing him as a rogue element and accusing him of attempting to bounce the Cabinet into abandoning the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.  Daily Telegraph

More:

Army Reserves on standby for no deal  FT

Brexit department uses gagging orders as firms plan  The Guardian

Comment:

Cabinets most prominent Remainer is often gloomy, but seldom incorrect  Daniel Capurro, Daily Telegraph

Why a second referendum is unlikely and would be disastrous  Mark Wallace, The i

>Today: Iain Dales column: Its time for Cabinet members of both sexes to show some balls

>Yesterday: Stewart Jackson in Comment: Dont pivot to the Customs Union, Prime Minister  it could destroy the Conservative Party

Brexit 6) Civil Service warns that progress on trade deals has stalled

Britain has failed to finalise most trade deals needed to replace the EUs 40 existing agreements with leading global economies and will not be close to doing so when Brexit occurs on March 29, according to an internal Whitehall memorandum. The memo, compiled by civil servants as part of contingency planning for the UK crashing out of the EU without a formal Brussels divorce agreement, warned that most of the deals would lapse without a transition period that keeps Britain under the EU umbrella once Brexit occurs. Almost none of them are ready to go now and none will be ready to go by March, said one government official who has seen the internal analysis of the Department of International Trades progress. Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, had vowed to replicate the EUs existing trade deals  which are among the worlds biggest, including bilateral agreements with G7 members Canada and Japan  before Britain left the bloc, and other pro-Brexit campaigners argued they could be easily copied. Were going to replicate the 40 EU free trade agreements that exist before we leave the European Union so weve got no disruption of trade, said Mr Fox shortly after the Article 50 exit process was triggered in 2017. Believe me, well have up to 40 ready for one second after midnight in March 2019.  FT

Downing Street admits plans for re-run have been looked at  The Sun

Official guidance says second referendum will take a year to organise  Daily Telegraph

Poll shows 12-point lead for Remain  The Times

but Sun readers would vote Leave again  The Sun

More:

German businesses warn of economic decline without deal  The Sun

EU chiefs hold back cash owed to Britain  Daily Express

>Yesterday: Garvan Walshes column: The defeat of Mays deal was a consequence of half a decade of negotiation failure

Johnson in bid to revive leadership ambitions with pitch to workers

Boris Johnson will try to revive his leadership ambitions today with a pitch designed to enhance the Conservative appeal among blue-collar workers. In a speech in Rocester, Staffordshire, the former foreign secretary will call on the government to use Brexit to unite the country by focusing on the issues that drove Brexit with a national programme of cohesion. Mr Johnson will try to reclaim his liberal credentials by stressing that he is a passionate believer in the benefits of migration while complaining that wages have been too low because big corporations have benefited from unlimited pools of labour from abroad. He will also call for no new taxes or increases in income tax and more spending powers for devolved regions. Speaking at the headquarters of

JCB, the construction equipment company, less than 20 miles from the potteries factory where Theresa May touted the benefits of her Brexit deal on Monday, he will urge the prime minister to focus on the issues that drove Brexit and use this moment to become more productive and more dynamic

Brexit can unite Britain with low-tax, low-immigration economy, claims former mayor  Daily Telegraph

Johnson wants ban on new taxes and huge public investment boost  The Sun

A not-so-subtle leadership pitch  Daily Express

May to tear up precedent and block Bercows peerage

The productivity gap Mr Johnson wants to address is not the gap between the UK, France, Germany and Italy, though we are behind our main competitors but the worrying gap between London, the most productive part of the whole European economy, and other regions in the UK.  The Times

John Bercow is set to become the first Speaker in 230 years to have his peerage blocked after ministers moved to punish him for bias during Brexit debates, The Times has learnt. Commons Speakers are usually automatically offered a seat in the House of Lords after approval by No 10 but relations between Mr Bercow and the government have broken down. The Speaker tore up years of precedent on Wednesday last week to change Commons rules and allow MPs to control business of the House. Precedents of Speakers getting peerages dont last for ever either, one senior Tory said last night. Mr Bercow, a former Conservative, has been accused of favouring Labour MPs and those who want to block Brexit, but insists that he is a champion of the back benches. A cabinet source said: Its a good job that peerage nominations are in our gift  Im sure well be thinking carefully about which individuals we would choose to elevate to the House of Lords. I cant imagine we would look favourably on those whove cheated centuries of procedure. When elected Speaker in 2009 Mr Bercow promised to serve no more than nine years. Last year he changed his mind, telling friends he planned to see through Brexit. He is now widely expected to stand down this summer if Britain formally leaves on March 29.  The Times

EU media name Speaker European of the Week  The Sun

Buckingham association seeks new candidate for Bercows seat  The Sun

Javid embroiled in row over armed police protections

Home Secretary Sajid Javid is embroiled in a new row with frontline police officers over a shambolic review they claim has failed to protect armed officers from lengthy and damaging investigations if they shoot suspects. The police federation, which represents frontline officers, said the conclusions of a three-year firearms review, revealed in a short Home Office statement, did nothing to allay armed officers fears of being treated as suspects just for doing their job. The review was set up in 2015 after Lord Hogan-Howe, then Metropolitan Police Commissioner, warned the lack of protection for firearms officers would prevent forces recruiting the number they needed to fight terrorists on Britains streets. The federation said police were still short of 600 of the extra 1,500 armed officers subsequently promised by David Cameron, then Prime Minister, and Theresa May, then Home Secretary. The review concluded the right legal and procedural protections are in place for police officers following shootings and that in the great majority of incidents officers were dealt with as witnesses rather than suspects.

I

How thousands of foreign students were failed by the Home Office  FT

Nuclear power strategy in disarray as construction suspended

t confirmed rules that key police witnesses should be separated after an incident to prevent them sharing information but that senior officers had operational discretion to use alternatives such as recording proceedings on body worn video.  Daily Telegraph

Plans for a new generation of nuclear power stations are in disarray after a second company in two months announced that would stop work on the projects. Hitachi said yesterday that it was suspending its nuclear development programme in Britain, placing on hold plants at Wylfa Newydd on Anglesey and Oldbury-on-Severn in south Gloucestershire. The Japanese company is writing off 2 billion spent on preparatory work and is withdrawing despite having been offered several sweeteners by the government. Greg Clark, the business secretary, revealed that the government had offered to take a one-third equity stake in the 15 billion Wylfa plant, finance the borrowing needed to build it and give a guaranteed price of 75 per megawatt hour for its electricity, well above the rate needed by offshore wind farms. Hitachi had been seeking a better subsidy but Mr Clark said the costs of renewable energy had fallen so sharply that he could not justify more support. The government is developing a new method of financing new nuclear power stations and promised to publish proposals in the summer. Hitachis decision puts 370 jobs in Britain at risk. The GMB union said it left the country with a looming energy crisis. Toshiba, another Japanese company, scrapped the Moorside nuclear project in Cumbria in November.  The Times

Jobs blow hits Anglesey hard  FT

Editorial:

The UK needs a more realistic energy strategy  FT

Rees-Mogg to present new LBC radio show

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s a purveyor of the Queens English and with a fondness for classical music, it was only a matter of time before Jacob Rees-Mogg was going to be invited to the DJ decks. But it is LBC rather than classic FM that has given the so-called honorable member for the 18th century his first shot at radio stardom with a new Friday night phone-in show. The Brexiteer backbencher will take to the airwaves at 6pm every Friday, starting on January 18, for his first hour-long outing on Britains biggest commercial speech radio station. It comes after former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has commanded audiences with the same 60-minute slot from Monday to Thursday,covering mainly Brexit politics.

I

News in Brief:

Could the Conservatives be doomed to succeed on Brexit?  Andrew Gimson, CapX

Time to prorogue parliament and sort out this mess  Gerald Warner, Reaction

Its Salmond vs Sturgeon  and whoever wins, the SNP loses  Alex Massie, The Spectator

Corbyn risks keeping Labour out of power for another generation  Brendan Chilton, Brexit Central

Is America bothered by Brexit?  Henry Olsen, UnHerd

t also follows the success of the North East Somerset MPs live half-hour phone-in every fortnight during Nick Ferraris breakfast show, launched last April giving LBCs listeners direct access to the MP. Mr Rees-Mogg has previously hosted a number of one-off programmes on the station. In a press release, LBC said the 48-year-old father of six would bring his formidable insight and personality to LBCs growing audience during this pivotal period in British history. With his in-depth knowledge, he will cut to the heart of the biggest stories of the day in a 60-minute programme packed with callers, opinion and debate, the release added.  Daily Telegraph
The Associated PressIllinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker holds paperwork Thursday after he signed legislation that requires gun stores to get state licenses, at Young Elementary School in Chicago. Gun advocates in Illinois have promised to fight the bill.
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With an emotional performance to Angel by the Wings sung by Sia, Hailey Burbage from the Penn State Beaver campus brought home the first place prize in this years THON Showcase.

Burbage (sophomore-nuclear engineering) said she didnt come to win, but just wanted to do what she loved  dancing for THON.

Its my first year getting involved, Burbage said. My branch campus is really small, so being involved and now being really involved is beyond anything. Its really surreal.

Member representing Penn State Beaver performs Angel by the Wings by Sia pic.twitter.com/eap0HGHUqm  Lauren Lee (@lauren_llee) January 18, 2019

Presented by First National Bank, the competition hosted 16 acts performed by members from THON committees and THON-related organizations across University Park and among the commonwealth campuses at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 17 in Eisenhower Auditorium.

Performances ranged from R.A.M. Squad breakdancing to Preston Hoops of the Dancer Relations Captain Committee playing the piano blindfolded. Members from Kyleigh Grahams COMM Committee and the Hospitality Captain Committee performed original pieces.

After each group performed, judges Cody Heaton, Isabella Webster, Gillian Brooks, Meredith Pritchard, Danielle Negri and Anees Ayaz chose the top four finalists.

Preston Hoops, from the 2019 Dancer Relations Captain Committee, performs on the piano #blindfolded. Take a look: pic.twitter.com/se9RV5AVov  Lauren Lee (@lauren_llee) January 18, 2019

Phi Chi Theta won second place, Whiplash Dance Company won third place and Sigma Delta Tau/Kappa Sigma received fourth place. Each winner won a cash prize towards THON and the top three winners have a spot to perform during THON weekend.

During the Q&A portion of the event, the judges asked Burbage what was the moment that shaped her THON journey.

This right here, has been the surrealist experience of my life, Burbage said. Being able to represent all the commonwealth campuses.

With her win, Burbage said she hopes to bring awareness to other commonwealth campuses. $2,500 is awarded to her organization in donations to THON as well as a performance during THON Weekend and a trip to the Hershey Fashion Show at Penn States Childrens Hospital.

I feel like sometimes we dont get to do as much because were so far away, Burbage said. But I think now that I step forward for commonwealth campuses, other people will come and say I want to do this too. 

Lauren Levine, the president of Whiplash Dance Company, said during the Q&A that its important for her organization to participate in every event for THON.

Every single event creates such a huge impact in the THON community and changes families lives, Levine said.

14-year-old Four Diamonds teen Anees Ayaz, from York, Pennsylvania, said it was amazing to be part of the judges panel. Ayaz said she enjoyed how some of the acts made original songs for the showcase.

It just shows they care and how much they put into it, Ayaz said. Being there for the kids and having something there for the THON families.
While many will spend this weekend indoors binge-watching Netflix, others are anticipating the heavy snow forecast rolling into State College and will head to the slopes of Tussey Mountain.

While the Tussey Mountain Ski Area doesnt need Mother Nature to attract more skiers and snowboarders, general manager Sue Matalavage said it does help.

Natural snow will bring everybody and anybody who wants to ski and snowboard out, Matalavage said. Theres nothing like natural snow.

The weekend rates to ski are between $32 and $45, depending on how long someone plans to ski. All equipment is available for rental as well. Snow tubing is also available for $25 to $32.

Luke Hackman, member of the Penn State Ski Club, said he and his friends are excited to shred some gnar this weekend at Tussey.

Were trying to get the squad to hit the slopes and make the most of the first storm coming through before we go to Park City, Utah for spring break, Hackman (senior-engineering) said.

AccuWeather estimates six to 11 inches of snow will fall on State College this weekend, making roads slippery.

However, CATABUS will provide transportation in the Centre County area  including bussing to Tussey Mountain for those who wish to brave the winter weather.

RELATED
Students, faculty and the State College community gathered in Art Alley in the HUB-Robeson Center for a reception in honor of student Lindsey Kirchers Babe Cave exhibit and Ryoichi Kurokawas Constrained Surface multimedia sculpture.

At the reception, viewers were able to enjoy food, music and write their opinions on the exhibit in a notebook provided by Kircher (senior - fine arts).

Kichers senior honors thesis show, Babe Cave," included 15 total drawings and paintings.

The inspiration for this exhibition came from women empowerment, Kircher said.

Overall I think the paintings are sort of a reimagined landscape of myself, a lot of them are self-portraits in that show, Kircher said. Myself in moments of empowerment or resilience in contrast to moments where I felt powerless, particularly in response to a male gaze.

Her work in the show is also influenced and inspired by being a woman in college, Kircher said.

Being on a college campus where the party culture and sort of the power dynamics of having so much Greek life put women into situations where we often feel powerless...I wanted to create an alternative space for that, she said.

Though her pieces speak about the current times of the day, they are more universal than just 2019 and are inspired by historical cultural references, Kircher said.

Kirchers friend and studio mate, Sophia Capaldi, came to the show to see Kirchers work come together in Art Alley after seeing Kircher work on them for the past year.

It gives it what it needs here because I think they look great in the studio but here they get a little more space to breathe and you get to go through each of the individual stories, Capaldi (senior - visual arts).

The name of Kirchers showcase comes from one of the paintings in the show, also titled Babe Cave.

With that one I was thinking about women reclaiming a feminine space of a cave which is inherently kind of like womb like, Kircher said. All the paintings in the show are of female figures so I wanted the title to relate to that and relate to it being like an exclusively feminine space and subverting the term man cave and designating this space for women, she said.

Student, Georgina Arnott, while looking at the "Babe Cave" painting, said she felt the piece was about raw female experience.

[The painting] is no way similar to a human body its hinting at it and it showing the irregularities of which it can be, Arnott (junior - fine arts) said, I think its purposely trying not be the stereotypical body to showcase the variety of bodies out there.

Paul Brott came to the Babe Cave exhibit with the rest of his art class.

When looking at Kirchers other painting entitled Drums>Space Brott (senior-art) said that though he is not sure what the title of the piece means, it is his favorite of the show.

This is probably my favorite piece in the whole thing mostly because the contrast between the white, blue, and black is really nice. Its kind of rare to see so much variation in something that has such a cool color palette, Bratt said.

Lindseys Babe Cave show will remain on display in the HUB-Robeson Center until Saturday, Jan. 19.

Photo Correction: A previous version of these photo captions incorrectly spelled Lindsey Kircher's name. They have since been updated, and the Collegian apologizes for this error.
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro delivers a speech during the appointment ceremony of the new heads of public banks, at Planalto Palace in Brasilia on January 7, 2019.

Brazil's newly-elected populist President Jair Bolsonaro will take center stage at the World Economic Forum (WEF) next week, taking the baton from Donald Trump after the U.S. president announced he would not be joining the rich and powerful in Davos this year.

Thousands of business, political and cultural leaders are scheduled to return to the Swiss Alpine town of Davos on Monday. The annual forum is seen as an opportunity for international heads of state to come together to try and put the world to rights.

This year's five-day event is without its main attraction of 2018, after Trump abruptly scrapped plans to join other world leaders at the forum due to the ongoing government shutdown.

But, the absence of the U.S. president is likely to thrust Brazil's premier into the spotlight, less than three weeks after his inauguration.

"Bolsonaro will be the first LATAM (Latin America) speaker at Davos, speaking for 45 minutes  but that's where the danger is," Carlos Caicedo, senior principal analyst for Latin America at IHS Markit, a London-based research firm, told CNBC via telephone on Friday.

"At his inauguration, he only spoke for 10 minutes, meaning his advisors could keep him on message. But, this is a man who has made a name for himself by saying whatever he wants and only worrying about the consequences later  Thankfully there is no question and answer session afterwards," Caicedo said.
Passengers wait in a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) line at JFK airport on January 17, 2019 in New York City. - The longest government shutdown in US history continues and impacts travelling through airport.

Airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights scheduled for this weekend as a rapidly-moving winter storm threatened an area from the Midwest to New England with snow, ice and heavy rain, snarling travel and straining airports already grappling with long lines and staffing shortages in the partial government shutdown.

More than 1,100 flights in and out of Chicago's two main airports were called off on Saturday and more than 400 Sunday flights to and from Boston were canceled, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.com.

American Airlines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Delta Air Lines and Spirit Airlines are allowing travelers booked this weekend to or from more than 60 of airports in the Midwest and Northeast, including those serving New York and Boston, to change their tickets to fly as late as Jan. 23 without paying a fee. Cancellation fees were also waived. Southwest Airlines doesn't have a date-change fee but the airline said travelers with tickets to cities that will likely be affected by the storm can fly up to two weeks later without paying a difference in fare.

Airlines urged travelers to check airline websites for travel information. Even if flights aren't canceled in the storm, travelers can expect delays as planes are de-iced.

The travel disruptions come amid an already higher-than-usual absence rate among Transportation Security Administration airport screeners, who have been without regular paychecks since the partial U.S. government shutdown began on Dec. 22. The TSA said the unpaid workers have said they can't come to work because of financial strain. They missed their first paycheck a week ago.

The staffing shortages have been prompting airports including at in Atlanta, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Miami to temporarily consolidate checkpoints.

A shortage of screeners due to "excessive callouts" prompted the closure of a security checkpoint at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Saturday afternoon, TSA said.

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The TSA said the absentee rate on Friday of its 51,000 officers was 7 percent, up from 3 percent a year ago. Waits topped the agency's standard 30 minutes at checkpoints in Atlanta, the country's busiest, Seattle, Newark and Denver but most travelers waited less than half an hour, the agency said.

The TSA workers are among the some 420,000 government employees who have been deemed essential and have been ordered to work during the shutdown.That group also includes air traffic controllers.

Earlier this week the Federal Aviation Administration said it was calling back to work more than 3,000 aviation inspectors and engineers that had been furloughed. Airports, airlines and local businesses have been offering free meals to the unpaid TSA officers and other government employees working without a check. The general public has shown up at some airports with food and other donations.

American Airlines' credit union is offering 1 percent loans of $1,200 or the amount of a single net paycheck to airport security workers.

Airports are bracing for an increase in travelers during the busy Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. The TSA estimates it will screen 8 million travelers from Friday to Monday, an 11 percent increase compared with the holiday weekend in 2018.

Earlier on Friday, a Southwest flight from Las Vegas overran the runway upon landing at Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska, briefly closing the airport. Southwest said no injuries were reported among the 150 travelers and six crew members.

Federal forecasters expect a blast of bitter cold to follow the storm, which could create additional bad road conditions and slow commutes.
urbazon | Getty Images

Your employer is worried about your balance sheet. "Financial wellness"  or improving the overall health of their workers' finances  will be front and center for companies this year, according to a recent survey from Callan. The investment consultancy polled 106 employers in October 2018. "Investing" and "retirement plan contribution levels" round out the top three for company communication topics with employees, Callan found.

"The benefits picture has evolved," said Jana Steele, senior vice president in Callan's defined contribution consulting group. "It's a competitive advantage and it helps with attracting and retaining employees." Here's why your boss is suddenly taking a bigger interest in your wallet.

Losing sleep

When bills are keeping you up at night, it takes a toll on your mental health. Close to half of employees polled by PricewaterhouseCoopers said that they are experiencing stress over their finances. The firm polled 1,600 working adults in February 2018. Their fear isn't unfounded.

"Looking at it from a health perspective, the cost of stress is almost as high as someone who smokes," said Steele of Callan. About half of employees who say they're stressed have less than $50,000 saved for retirement, PricewaterhouseCoopers found. Two out of three say they're consistently carrying credit card balances.

Help at work
North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (L) shakes hands with US President Donald Trump (R) after taking part in a signing ceremony at the end of their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore on June 12, 2018.

"President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February," the White House said in a readout of Trump's meeting with the North Korean representative. "The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date."

The Trump administration said it would announce a location at a later date. The plans emerged after North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol's meetings Friday with both Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in late February as the U.S. pushes Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear and missile programs, the White House said Friday.

While Trump has worked to thaw relations with Kim over the last year, including through an unprecedented face-to-face meeting in Singapore, North Korea is reportedly still working on new missile development projects. In July, an NBC News report, citing U.S. intelligence assessments, said that North Korea had increased production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months.

Meanwhile, under Kim, the reclusive state has conducted its most powerful nuclear test, launched its first-ever intercontinental ballistic missile and threatened to send missiles into the waters near Guam.

Since 2011, North Korea has fired more than 85 missiles and conducted four nuclear weapons tests  which is more than his father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather, Kim Il Sung, launched over a period of 27 years. As it stands, North Korea is the only nation to have tested nuclear weapons this century.

Read more: A timeline of North Korea's defiant rocket launches in 2017

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to CNBC's request to comment.

The second meeting extends a turn toward diplomacy after Trump and the North Korean regime made repeated threats in the early months of the U.S. president's tenure. As Pyongyang continued testing missiles, Trump said in August 2017 that North Korea "will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which the world has never seen before."

On New Year's Day 2018, Kim  who Trump once labeled "Little Rocket Man"  said he had a nuclear launch button ready at his desk at all times. The president responded by tweeting: "I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!"

The two leaders have recently been more conciliatory. Even though reports showed reasons to doubt North Korea's commitment to denuclearization, Trump heaped praise on Kim last year. In September, Trump said the two leaders "fell in love" after exchanging "beautiful letters."

Trump has defended his first summit with Kim as necessary to preserve peace, after critics said he legitimized a dictator with a dismal human rights record.
Chinese officials made the offer during deliberations in Beijing earlier in January, Bloomberg News reported. China would increase its annual import of U.S. goods by a combined value of over $1 trillion.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was higher at around 2.788 percent, an increase of about 11 basis points since Monday. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was also higher at 3.104 percent. Yields rise when bond prices fall.

U.S. government debt yields added to a weeklong climb Friday after Chinese officials offered to boost U.S. imports for six years , a move some investors saw as a positive step in the extended trade dispute between the world's two largest economies.

The latest trade developments came after the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the U.S. could ease trade tariffs against China. The suggestion reportedly came from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, but faced backlash from U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Wall Street rallied on the news but pared some of those gains after a senior government official told CNBC that Mnuchin had not made any such recommendations.

Money managers were also following U.S. politics as the government shutdown continues into its 28th day.

New York Fed President John Williams doubled down on recent calls from other central bank officials that suggest a less aggressive approach to rate hikes in this year following four increases to the federal funds rates in 2018.

"The approach we need is one of prudence, patience, and good judgment," he told bankers at a forum in Somerset, New Jersey. "The motto of 'data dependence' is more relevant than ever."

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell tempered investor concerns earlier this month when he said that the central bank will remain data dependent when considering adjustment to the reduction of its enormous balance sheet and additional increases to the federal funds rate.

Those comments marked a pivot from the Fed's December meeting, when Powell had said that the central bank's balance sheet wind-down was on "autopilot." He has since reversed that impression and reiterated to investors that the Federal Open Market Committee would be flexible in using its policy tools, including the balance sheet.
As the ongoing U.S.-China trade war threatens to dent exports from the world's two largest economies, analysts have projected that other countries may see Chinese and American demand diverted their way.

Vietnam  and Southeast Asia as a whole  is one of the places most expected to benefit from trade war-inspired buying. According to one investor, however, the profit so far has been slight.

"It's a bit early for Vietnam to be benefiting in a big way from trade wars," Bill Stoops, the chief investment officer of asset management company Dragon Capital, told CNBC on Wednesday.

The Southeast Asian nation has been touted as a possible winner in the U.S.-China trade war because of its low cost of manufacturing. Reports indicate that some companies have begun shifting production out of China to avoid tariffs imposed by America.

Vietnam will likely benefit from those adjusted supply chains for a long time, according to Rob Koepp, network director of the Economist Corporate Network.

"It is now set to be kind of a China 2.0, for various reasons, and yeah, it's going to be benefiting and that's going to be long term," he told CNBC on Thursday.

While firms have likely been limited by the logistical constraints of relocating and building new facilities in Vietnam, the country has begun to see new orders "flooding" into its existing industries that have some capacity for increased production, Stoops said.

"We are already starting to see big orders, big export orders flowing, out of nowhere, into the seafood, and the furniture and the garment industry," Stoops told CNBC's Street Signs. "I think this is a harbinger of things to come, as people start to divert business away from China."

"It hasn't happened yet, but it's definitely in the works, and we're starting to see straws in the wind with all these new export orders," he added.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2019 en route to New Orleans, Louisiana to address the annual American Farm Bureau Federation convention.

President Donald Trump said he will make a "major" announcement on Saturday about the border and ongoing government shutdown, amid reports that the White House could offer a major concession on its immigration hardline to end the standoff with Congress.

@realDonaldTrump: I will be making a major announcement concerning the Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border, and the Shutdown, tomorrow afternoon at 3 P.M., live from the @WhiteHouse.

The president did not provide any further details on what he would discuss on what is set to be the 28th day of the partial government shutdown. The White House press team offered no further guidance to reporters when asked about the president's tweet late Friday.

However, both The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that the president is expected to offer protections from deportations for millions of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally, in exchange for the nearly $6 billion he is seeking for a border wall.

Citing unnamed White House officials, the publications say the concessions on so-called "Dreamers" is seen as an olive branch to Democrats, and a potential way to end the nearly month-long stalemate that's shuttered the government.

Axios reported that Trump is prepared to throw his support behind the BRIDGE Act, which would provide three years of temporary legal status and work authorization for the Dreamers. The act was first proposed in 2016 by Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican close to Trump, and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is given to nationals from designated countries affected by armed conflict, natural disaster, or other strife. TPS holders are permitted to work and live in the United States for limited times.
Donald Trump's then-personal attorney Michael Cohen stands behind him as a group of supporters lay hands on Trump in prayer during a campaign stop at the New Spirit Revival Center church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, U.S. September 21, 2016.

President Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to online news site BuzzFeed, which cited two federal law enforcement officials involved in investigating the matter.

NBC News has not independently confirmed the report, which was published Thursday night.

Late Friday, a spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller disputed elements of the report in a statement to CNBC.

"BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate," Peter Carr said in a statement to CNBC.

Trump on Friday morning accused Cohen of lying to reduce his sentence, but did not refer to the BuzzFeed report.

Cohen, who was Trump's personal lawyer and fixer for years, pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress about the proposed Trump real estate project in Russia and the extent of the president's involvement in and knowledge of that deal. The project never came to fruition.

He talked to Senate and House investigators about the Moscow tower negotiations in October 2017.

Prosecutors said Cohen lied in order to minimize links between Trump and his Moscow building project, and to give the false impression that the project had died before the Iowa caucuses in February 2016, the first contest on the path toward a presidential nomination.

After Cohen's plea, Trump accused his former fixer of lying about his admissions in order to "get a reduced sentence."

"He's a weak person and not a very smart person," Trump said.

When Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in December it was for several crimes, including campaign finance violations he said Trump directed him to carry out.

According to the BuzzFeed report, the two law enforcement sources said Cohen told Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller's team that Trump personally told him to lie in order to hide the real estate mogul's ties to the Moscow negotiations. Mueller is investigating potential links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from CNBC sent late Thursday.

The Washington Post quoted Trump's current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, as saying, "If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge." He gave a similar response to The Associated Press and NBC News.

BuzzFeed reported that Mueller's office learned about Trump's alleged order for Cohen to lie through "interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents." Cohen, the report said, then subsequently acknowledged that directive.

Lanny Davis, who is Cohen's legal and communications advisor, declined to comment on the BuzzFeed story "out of respect for Mr. Mueller's and the Office of Special Counsel's investigation."

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said in a Twitter post that the allegation against Trump in the BuzzFeed article "is among the most serious to date."

Adam Schiff tweet: The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date. We will do what's necessary to find out if it's true.

For more, see BuzzFeed's full article.

CNBC's Kevin Breuninger and Dan Mangan contributed to this report.

WATCH: Trump's economy: Here's where he gets credit, and what could go wrong
Just because the president does it doesn't make it legal, President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general says.

William Barr, Trump's nominee for the nation's top law enforcement post, agreed during testimony in the Senate that a president who persuades someone to commit perjury is committing the crime of obstruction of justice.

"Any person who persuades another to," Barr told Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Tuesday. She had asked him whether "a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction."

Barr's televised comment of that otherwise uncontroversial fact rocketed around social media Thursday night after a bombshell BuzzFeed report. Neither CNBC nor NBC News has confirmed the report.

BuzzFeed, citing two law enforcement sources, said Trump directed his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen in 2017 to lie to Congress in sworn statements about details of an aborted effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia.

Late Friday, a spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller disputed elements of the report in a statement to CNBC.

"BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate," Peter Carr said in a statement to CNBC.

Cohen pleaded guilty in November to falsely telling Congress that Trump's personal involvement was significantly less than he had first claimed, and that the project continued much longer into the 2016 presidential campaign year than he had initially claimed.

Observers noted Thursday night the exchange.

Tweet

Trump's current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, attacked the BuzzFeed report by incorrectly attributing it to Cohen.

"If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge," Giuliani said.

Giuliani issued another statement Friday, saying: "Any suggestion  from any source  that the President counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false."

If Barr is confirmed as attorney general, as is considered likely, he will be overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller and other federal prosecutors investigating whether Trump obstructed justice by directing Cohen to lie to Congress.

Cohen is due in March to begin serving a three-year prison sentence for that and other crimes, including ones related to hush-money payments made to purported ex-paramours of Trump.

Klobuchar, in her questioning of Barr, focused on a memo that he sent  unsolicited  to the Justice Department last year.

She also asked him a series of hypothetical questions related to conduct that Trump is suspected by some of committing.

In that memo, Barr argued that Mueller should not be allowed to demand that Trump be questioned by the special counsel's office about "alleged obstruction" related to his 2017 firing of FBI Director James Comey, who has said Trump asked him to "let ... go" of a probe into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's contacts with Russians.

Barr argued that Mueller should not be allowed to pursue an obstruction case against the president merely for exercising a power that he has under the Constitution  terminating a subordinate.

But in that memo, Barr wrote: "Obviously, the President and any other official can commit obstruction in this classic sense of sabotaging a proceeding's truth-finding function."

"Thus, for example, if a President knowingly destroys or alters evidence, suborns perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony," Barr wrote.

Klobuchar zeroed in on this line during her questioning on Tuesday.

Klobuchar: In your memo, you talked about the Comey decision and you talk about obstruction of justice, and you already went over that, which I appreciate. You wrote on Page 1 that a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction, is that right? Barr: That, Yes. Or, any, any, well, you know, any person who persuades another to  yeah. Klobuchar: OK. You also said that a president or any person convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction. Is that right? Barr: Yes. Klobuchar. OK. And on Page 2, you said that a president deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence would be an [obstruction]. Is that correct? Barr: Yes. Klobuchar: OK. And so, what if a president told a witness not to cooperate with an investigation or hinted at a pardon? Barr: You know, I'd have to know the specific  I'd have to know the specific facts. Klobuchar: OK. And you wrote on Page 1 that if a president knowingly destroys or alters evidence, that would be obstruction. Barr: Yes. Klobuchar: OK. So, what if a president drafted a misleading statement to conceal the purpose of a meeting? Would that be obstruction? Barr: Again, you know, I'd have, I'd have to know the, I'd have to know the specifics.

Late Friday, Klobuchar said in a statement to CNBC that she was not aware of the BuzzFeed report at the time she asked Barr these questions.
President Donald Trump on Friday accused his former lawyer Michael Cohen of "lying to reduce his jail time" in the wake of a bombshell report from BuzzFeed News that said the president himself directed Cohen to lie to Congress.

Trump did not directly address the BuzzFeed article in his tweet, but added, "Watch" Cohen's "father-in-law!"

Trump tweet

BuzzFeed reported Thursday night that Trump directed his former personal lawyer and fixer to lie to Congress about talks regarding a possible Trump Tower project in Moscow.

BuzzFeed's report did not rely on Cohen's claims, but rather attributes the information to two federal law enforcement officials involved in the investigation. It also cites "multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents" related to Trump's reported directive that were found by special counsel Robert Mueller's team of investigators.

Confronted with such evidence, Cohen acknowledged that he received the instructions from Trump during his interviews with the special counsel's office, BuzzFeed said.

Neither NBC News nor CNBC has confirmed the BuzzFeed report.

Late Friday, a spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller disputed elements of the report in a statement to CNBC.

"BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate," Peter Carr said in a statement to CNBC.

The president's son, Donald Trump, Jr., called the story "the usual clickbait BS" and "textbook #fakenews" in a tweet.

DJTjr tweet

"I'm not going to give any credence" to Cohen, "who's a convicted liar," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said on Fox News minutes after Trump's tweet.

A lawyer for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Rudy Giuliani, who represents Trump in the Mueller probe, told The Washington Post: "If you believe Cohen, I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge." He made a similar remark to NBC News.
Tesla needs to get cracking on a cheaper car.

The electric vehicle maker said Friday it plans to cut about 7 percent of its workforce, which by the last company headcount would equal about 3,100 jobs. The plan is to cut costs and get closer to making the $35,000 Model 3 the company has been promising since it first unveiled the car in 2016.

Right now the cheapest Model 3 available is the midrange rear-wheel-drive model, which starts at $44,000. A long-range all-wheel-drive model starts at $51,000, and the performance model starts at $63,000.

The sales boost from the $7,500 U.S. federal tax credit is running out, and that stands to hurt demand in the United States.

One of the primary reasons for the job cuts is the fact that the cars Tesla makes are still "too expensive for most people," CEO Elon Musk said in an email to employees announcing the reductions.

For now, Tesla has Europe to lean on, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told CNBC. The company began allowing European reservation holders to configure their Model 3 orders in early December and plans to begin delivering some versions to the region by next month.

Tesla was not available for comment.

"If you think about the trajectory, the first half of 2019 is really Europe coming onboard," said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. That strength in demand will likely offset relative weakness in demand in the U.S., in large part to the waning tax credit and Tesla's relatively high prices. "But then ultimately in the second half you need the mid-range Model 3 to really start to kick in."

Toward the end of 2018, Tesla finally seemed to have pulled itself out of the "production hell" it had been submersed in since it began Model 3 production in the summer of 2017.

With the company clearing Musk's stated goal of producing 5,000 Model 3s per week, Tesla began focusing on reducing costs and improving efficiency. Tesla's third-quarter results were surprisingly strong, making good on Musk's expectation that Tesla would be profitable and cash flow positive from the second half of 2018 onward.

There is still debate on Wall Street over whether Tesla will need to raise capital in the next 12-18 months, Ives said, adding that he thinks there is about a 30 to 35 percent chance the company will need to return to markets for cash. Tesla does have about $1.5 billion in debt due in 2019  one tranche due in March and another in September.

Read more: Here's what every major Tesla analyst had to say about the cuts.

WATCH: How taxpayers have boosted Elon Musk and Tesla
Ryanair cut its forecast for full-year profit for the second time in three months on Friday, this time blaming lower-than-expected winter fares, and said it cannot rule out a further downgrade if Brexit causes unexpected developments.

Europe's largest low-cost carrier now expects profit after tax for its financial year to March 31  excluding start-up losses at its Laudamotion unit  of between 1 billion euros ($1.14 billion) and 1.1 billion euros, compared to a previous estimate of 1.1 billion euros to 1.2 billion euros.

The Irish airline had originally forecast profits of 1.25 to 1.35 billion euros before October's profit warning took account of a series of strikes across Europe during the summer that hit traffic and bookings, but have since subsided.

On Friday, Ryanair lay the blame squarely on lower than expected fares in the second half of its financial year. Those fares were set to fall by 7 percent, rather than the 2 percent previously flagged, due to short-haul overcapacity in Europe, it said.
Russia conducted another successful flight test of its new anti-satellite missile system last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of a classified U.S. intelligence report.

The anti-satellite missile flew for 17 minutes and 1,864 miles before successfully splashing down in its target area.

The latest revelation comes on the heels of the Pentagon's 108-page missile defense review, which marks the first overhaul of America's missile defense doctrine in nearly a decade. The unclassified review, which singles out emerging Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Iranian missile threats, also focuses on anti-satellite capabilities that "could threaten U.S. space-based assets."

According to the missile review, "Russia is developing a diverse suite of anti-satellite capabilities, including ground-launched missiles and directed-energy weapons, and continues to launch 'experimental' satellites that conduct sophisticated on-orbit activities to advance counterspace capabilities."

Russia's PL-19 Nudol, a system U.S. military intelligence assesses will be focused primarily on anti-satellite missions, was successfully tested twice in 2018. The weapon, which was fired from a mobile launcher, was last tested on Dec. 23 and marked the seventh overall test of the system, according to one of the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Russian anti-satellite weapon is expected to target communication and imagery satellites in low Earth orbit, according to the other person, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. For reference, the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope travel in low Earth orbit.

Read more: Trump calls for enhanced missile defenses, stressing evolving threats from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran

While anti-satellite missiles are by no means new, the latest revelation comes less than a year after Putin touted his nation's growing military arsenal.

"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country's development: You have failed to contain Russia," Putin said during a national address in March.
R. Kelly performs at Little Caesars Arena on February 21, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan.

R. Kelly has been dropped by Sony Music, according to reports in Variety and Billboard.

The news comes after Lifetime's documentary series "Surviving R. Kelly" aired earlier this month. In it, several women accuse the R&B singer of sexual misconduct.

Sony Music did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A protest occurred Wednesday outside of Sony's New York headquarters with people calling for the label to dissolve its relationship with R. Kelly. In recent weeks, a plane with a banner stating, "RCA/Sony Drop Sexual Predator R. Kelly" flew over the Los Angeles offices. He began his career working for Jive Records in the 1990s. That label was later acquired by a Sony unit. In 2012, he signed with RCA, which also is owned by Sony.

Allegations against the singer have been circulating for over a decade, and he was acquitted from child pornography charges in 2008. Recently, several artists including Lady Gaga and Chance the Rapper have apologized for working with R. Kelly.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Danish energy business Orsted to work together on offshore wind projects.



In an announcement Friday, TEPCO said that it had been "exploring offshore wind business opportunities" in both Japan and overseas. Orsted is a world leader in wind energy and built the world's first offshore wind facility in 1991.

TEPCO said that the two companies would work on the Choshi offshore wind project. In November 2018, TEPCO announced that it had been carrying out a seabed survey to assess the feasibility of the project. They will also work towards what was described as a "strategic partnership for broader collaboration."



"We are confident that the partnership combining TEPCO's extensive expertise in the Japanese power business and Orsted's unparalleled track record in the offshore wind business will lead to success in the Choshi project," Tomoaki Kobayakawa, representative executive officer and president at TEPCO, said in a statement Friday.



"We hope that this first step paves the way for expansion beyond the coastlines of Japan for the development, construction, operation and ownership of offshore wind projects," Kobayakawa added.



While Friday's news represents Orsted's first involvement with the Japanese offshore wind energy sector, the company does have a wider presence in Asia. It is the co-owner of the first commercial scale offshore wind project in Taiwan, Formosa 1, which is under development. The firm also holds four offshore wind sites located off the coast of Taiwan's Changhua County. These can be developed to have a total capacity of around 2,400 megawatts (MW).



Orsted said that the offshore wind market in Japan was "gaining momentum" after the Japanese government had made commitments to "increase the deployment of renewables."



"This MOU is the first step in Orsted and TEPCO's aspirations to deliver on Japan's ambitions for domestic renewable power generation at a large scale and contribute to making Japan a leading offshore wind market in the Asia-Pacific," Henrik Poulsen, Orsted's president and CEO, said Friday. "We welcome this first opportunity to work with TEPCO and look forward to strengthening our relationship further."
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (R) and Kim Yong Chol (L), a North Korean senior ruling party official and former intelligence chief, arrive for a lunch at the Park Hwa Guest House in Pyongyang on July 7, 2018.

A North Korean envoy arrived in Washington on Thursday for expected talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a possible encounter with President Donald Trump aimed at laying the groundwork for a second U.S.-North Korea summit.

The envoy arrived on the same day Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy that singled out North Korea as an ongoing and "extraordinary threat," seven months after he declared after his first summit with leader Kim Jong Un that the North Korean threat had been eliminated.

Kim Yong Chol, Pyongyang's lead negotiator in denuclearization talks with the United States, was due to meet Pompeo and could also go to the White House on Friday, a person familiar with the plan said, a sign of potential movement in a diplomatic effort that has appeared stalled for months.

The North Korean visit could yield an announcement of plans for another summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There has been no indication, however, of any narrowing of differences over U.S. demands that North Korea abandon a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States or Pyongyang's demand for a lifting of punishing sanctions.

Kim Yong Chol, a hardline former spy chief, arrived in Washington on a commercial flight from Beijing, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Yonhap and other South Korean media said he was greeted at Dulles airport by Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea.

Pompeo had planned to meet his North Korean counterpart to discuss a second summit last November, but the meeting was postponed at the last moment.

Diplomatic contact was resumed after Kim Jong Un delivered a New Year speech in which he said he was willing to meet Trump "at any time," South Korea's ambassador to the United States, Cho Yoon-je, told reporters last week.

Kim Yong Chol was last in Washington in June, when he delivered a letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump that opened the way for the June 12 summit in Singapore.

That meeting yielded a pledge from the latter to work towards denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and Trump declared the next day that there was "no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."

There has been little obvious progress since, however, which was underlined by the Missile Defense Review unveiled on Thursday.

Introducing the report, acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan noted that North Korean missiles remained a "significant concern." Trump himself only mentioned North Korea in passing at the same event, saying negotiations he had conducted should have been done years ago.
A man walking past a Huawei P20 smartphone advertisement is reflected in a glass door in front of a Huawei logo, at a shopping mall in Shanghai, China December 6, 2018.

The German government is considering banning Huawei from providing 5G equipment in the country saying security concerns are of "high relevance."

The German Federal Foreign Office confirmed to CNBC an internal meeting about Huawei was held on Thursday.

"The security of the future 5G network is of high relevance to the Federal Government. The Federal Government will be guided by this in connection with the establishment of a future 5G network," The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy told CNBC via email. It added no decisions have been made at this point.

German newspaper Handelsblatt first reported on Thursday that Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration is actively considering ways to exclude Huawei from the country's 5G networks. The decision would mark a shift from Germany, which has been less vocal than its Western allies, including the U.S. and the U.K., about Huawei security concerns.

Huawei is facing mounting fears that its 5G technology will enable Chinese espionage through the super-fast mobile networks. Both Australia and New Zealand have banned the telecommunications giant from supplying 5G equipment in their countries citing security concerns.

Huawei said in a statement Thursday evening, "we also welcome the approach of verification and standardization of technological solutions publicly communicated by the German Federal Government."

"We see no rational reason to exclude Huawei from building the 5G infrastructure in any country in the world," the statement said.
Alexander Novak, Russia's energy minister, left, speaks as Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Arabia's energy and industry minister, listens during a news conference following the 173rd Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017.

Six weeks after agreeing to slash production, major oil producers are finally giving investors some clarity on exactly how much crude they'll take off the market.

OPEC on Friday released a table laying out production quotas for each of its 14 members and the 10 allied countries participating in the deal. The two dozen nations agreed last month to slash a combined 1.2 million barrels per day in order to prevent a repeat of the oil glut that caused crude prices to tank from 2014 to 2016.

However, over the following weeks, international benchmark Brent crude prices fell another 18 percent. The continued slide reportedly prompted OPEC to urge oil producers to publicly release their production quotas to boost the market's confidence in the cuts.

While oil prices have risen for the last three weeks, OPEC has nevertheless decided to publish the output levels under the deal, which runs through the first six months of 2019. The so-called OPEC+ alliance meets April 17-18 to assess the impact of the cuts.

Here's how much each of the countries in the deal will endeavor to keep off the market:
BEIJING, CHINA - JANUARY 18: Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (R) shakes hands with German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz during the 2nd China-Germany High Level Financial Dialogue at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on January 18, 2019 in Beijing, China.

Germany and China on Friday signed agreements to strengthen coordination in banking, finance and capital markets, and pledged to further open market access and deepen their pragmatic cooperation to broaden economic ties.

The agreements were made at the close of a two-day visit by German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz to Beijing for talks with Vice Premier Liu He, who is President Xi Jinping's top economic adviser.

Both sides reaffirm that "they will strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination and pragmatic cooperation in the fiscal and financial fields and expand strategic cooperation," according to a joint statement issued at the end of their talks.

Trade between the two nations has softened amid uncertainty caused by the U.S. tariff dispute with China, but both have shown willingness to demonstrate that the world remains multilateral.

They agreed to work to improve international economic governance, maintain the global multilateral system, combat trade protectionism and support the rule-based multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization.

"It is important that, contrary to recent trends that we can observe elsewhere, we are seeing progress in our cooperation," Scholz told reporters before the talks at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in the Chinese capital.

A level playing field in terms of market access for banks and insurers is important, added Scholz.

Liu also noted the importance of strengthening trade ties.

"As the world economy slows, market volatility rises, creating greater risks," Liu told reporters.

Berlin has stressed its "close and advantageous" trade ties with China, whose rise has displaced Germany from its ranking as the world's third-biggest economy to the fourth.

At the same time, it increasingly seeks to better protect and strengthen sensitive German and European business sectors from China's state-backed acquisitions overseas in strategic industries.

"If you work closely together, you learn to appreciate similarities, but also to know differences," Scholz said.

"And we have a lot of common interests in financial matters, and then we need to bring different perspectives together. I believe that is the very important task of this financial dialogue," he added.

Both sides agreed that German-Chinese cooperation benefited their economies, and they are committed to ensuring a non-discriminating, open market access environment, and to easing existing market access and investment barriers in both countries.
European stocks closed higher on Friday after a report of progress on U.S.-China trade talks raised hopes of a breakthrough in their long-running dispute.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up more than 1.7 percent following afternoon deals, hitting its highest level since December 5. All sectors and major bourses were trading in positive territory.

For the week Europe's blue chip stocks gained more than 2.2 percent.

Stocks in the baskets of Autos and Basic Resources  with their heavy exposure to China  were among the top gainers.

It comes after the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin proposed lifting all or some of the tariffs on Chinese imports. The goal is to push forward trade talks and get China's support for longer-term reform.

Meanwhile, U.S. stocks opened higher on Friday, with all major indexes in positive territory.
E-bikes coming from China will be subject to tariffs of between 18.8 and 79.3 percent, a filing in the EU's official journal said on Friday, in line with European Commission proposal on which EU countries voted in December.

The European Union will impose duties from Saturday on Chinese electric bicycles to curb cheap imports which European producers say benefit from unfair subsidies and are flooding the market.

A man holding an umbrella rides a electric bicycle through an intersection as rain falls in Shenzhen, China, on Thursday, June 7, 2018.

The anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties are the latest in a series of EU measures against Chinese exports ranging from solar panels to steel, which have sparked strong words from Beijing.

The Commission found Chinese exports of e-bikes to the European Union more than tripled from 2014 until September 2017. Their market share rose to 35 percent, while their average prices fell by 11 percent.

It has also said Chinese producers benefit from controlled aluminium prices as well as advantageous financing and land rights conditions and tax breaks.

Taiwan's Giant, one of the world's largest bicycle makers, which has factories in China as well as in the Netherlands, would be subject to a rate of 24.8 percent.

EU producers include Dutch groups Accell and Gazelle, Romania's Eurosport DHS and Germany's Derby Cycle Holding.

The European Bicycle Manufacturers Association said it applauded the move that it said would shield 800 small and medium sized companies employing 90,000 people.

However, it warned that Chinese e-bike manufacturers were already making their way to Europe via third countries where they were being repackaged.

LEVA-EU, a group including importers opposed to duties, said the tariffs were protectionist and absurd, saying they would hit consumers and other smaller European companies and went against the EU's climate change goals.
Michael Cohen, attorney for The Trump Organization, arrives at Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 17, 2017.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Friday that his committee will increase its efforts to investigate an aborted Trump Tower Moscow deal in light of a bombshell report alleging President Donald Trump directed his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen to lie in sworn testimony to Congress.

That report, published Thursday night by BuzzFeed News, cites two federal law enforcement sources who also allege that Trump supported Cohen's plan for him to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 campaign to discuss the Trump Tower proposal.

Other outlets, including NBC News and CNBC, have not confirmed BuzzFeed's report.

"These allegations may prove unfounded, but, if true, they would constitute both the subornation of perjury as well as obstruction of justice," Schiff said in a statement released by a spokesman Friday morning.

"Our committee is already working to secure additional witness testimony and documents related to the Trump Tower Moscow deal and other investigative matters," Schiff said. "As a counterintelligence concern of the greatest magnitude, and given that these alleged efforts were intended to interfere with our investigation, our Committee is determined to get to the bottom of this and follow the evidence wherever it may lead."

BuzzFeed also cites "multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents" related to Trump's reported directive that were found by special counsel Robert Mueller's team of investigators.

The White House dismissed the report. "I'm not going to give any credence" to Cohen, "who's a convicted liar," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told Fox News on Friday. Trump's lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, told The Washington Post that "if you believe Cohen, I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge."

Late Friday, a spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller disputed elements of the report in a statement to CNBC.

"BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate," Peter Carr said in a statement to CNBC.

Schiff has emerged as one of Trump's chief critics in Congress and has established himself as a watchdog on the president from his prior role as the intelligence committee's ranking Democrat. After BuzzFeed published its report, Schiff said that the allegation that Trump "may have suborned perjury" was "among the most serious to date."

Schiff tweet

In November, Cohen admitted lying to Congress about details surrounding the failed Trump Tower Moscow deal as part of a plea deal with Mueller, who is investigating Russia's election interference and possible collusion with the Trump campaign in the 2016 election.

Cohen has since cooperated extensively with Mueller's probe, court filings show.

Months earlier, Cohen had pleaded guilty to separate charges lodged by federal prosecutors in New York. He directly implicated Trump in his crimes when he admitted his involvement in hush-money payments made to two women who claim they had affairs with Trump years before he ran for president.

Trump tweeted Friday morning that Cohen was "lying to reduce his jail time!" without directly referencing BuzzFeed's report.

Trump tweet

Other Democratic leaders have weighed in on the report.

"Directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime. The @HouseJudiciary Committee's job is to get to the bottom of it, and we will do that work," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., in a tweet.

Nadler tweet

When asked whether the tweet confirms that the Judiciary Committee is investigating the allegations made in BuzzFeed's report, a spokesman for Nadler told CNBC: "That is not what we said. We said we would be investigating obstruction of justice."

A spokesman for House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., did not say if the Democratic leader plans to follow Schiff's lead. But he referred CNBC to prior press releases announcing that Cohen would be testifying before that committee on Feb. 7.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., urged Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to bring Cohen before the committee to testify.

"Our committee must conduct a thorough investigation of the President's involvement in these crimes and whether he obstructed justice to hide them," Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Graham.
The British government has insisted that cross-party talks to find a consensus on Theresa May's Brexit plans have been "constructive," despite the refusal of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to engage in discussions with the prime minister unless she categorically rules out the possibility of the U.K. leaving the European Union without a deal. As leader of the largest opposition party in the Westminster Parliament, Corbyn has issued an order instructing his own MPs (Members of Parliament) that they should not hold meetings with Conservative opponents unless that specific precondition is satisfied. But a Downing Street spokesperson told reporters Thursday night that further government meetings with Labour lawmakers were expected Friday. After her narrow victory in a parliamentary confidence vote late Wednesday, May had said she would be prepared to engage with opposition party leaders in a "constructive" spirit, to find a way forward after her Brexit proposals were crushingly rejected earlier in the week.

But she has responded to Corbyn's demand with a letter of her own, in which she insists that it was not in the government's power to rule out "no deal." She reiterated that such a move was "impossible" unless Parliament had voted in favor of a specific deal, or unless the government were to revoke Article 50 of Europe's Lisbon Treaty. She wrote that a revocation of that treaty clause, which governs a member state's potential exit process from the EU, would mean overturning the result of the 2016 referendum, and this would be "wrong." The heads of the five smaller opposition parties have already agreed to meet with the prime minister, and those conversations will likely continue over the weekend. Corbyn's insistence on this particular precondition seems to have jeopardized his relationship with at least one of those parties. Vince Cable, Britain's former business secretary who now leads the 11-member Liberal Democrat bloc in parliament, criticized Corbyn's approach and said he would not support Labour in any future no-confidence motion if the Labour leader maintained his current stance.
President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 4, 2019.

The hour-long meeting, convened by the National Economic Council and helmed by NEC Director Larry Kudlow, was described as a "status conference" to discuss how best to move forward on a package once the government shutdown ends.

The White House held a high-level meeting Tuesday to chart potential paths forward, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The Trump administration isn't giving up hope of pursuing a "significant" infrastructure initiative during President Donald Trump's first term.

But it's not clear whether the administration will move forward to publicly announce a new plan of its own, or wait for Democrats in Congress to bring their own infrastructure proposal out first.

Vice President Mike Pence, senior advisor Ivanka Trump and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney were among more than two dozen White House officials in the meeting.

Among the issues debated: Reform in the permitting process, support for energy industry projects in the Permian Basin, and potential revenue from a controversial hike of the federal gas tax. Attendees were cautious that raising the gas tax would hurt Trump's prospects in the 2020 election, the people familiar with the sessions said.

Trump made clear he wanted a package to be of "meaningful" size and reiterated his oft-mentioned target of $1 trillion.

An infrastructure proposal released last year by the White House suggested $200 billion in federal spending  coupled with private investment  would spur $1.5 trillion in infrastructure improvements around the country.

Trump criticized the plan, and again argued  as he did before the plan's release  that so-called public-private partnerships, or "P3s" are ineffective.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media before departing the White House for Camp David on January 6, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chris Kleponis - Pool/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump has canceled his delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum, citing the partial government shutdown.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his Delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement late Thursday.

Earlier this week, the White House said it had planned to send Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chris Liddell, assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for policy coordination.

Trump canceled his own plans to attend the forum last week citing the shutdown.

The annual conference in Switzerland gathers world leaders and business executives. This year's theme is "Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution."

Earlier Thursday, the president postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's planned overseas trip with other members of Congress to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan, shortly before they were scheduled to depart on a military plane. That postponement came a day after the California Democrat sent Trump a letter, urging him to either reschedule his upcoming State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress or deliver it in writing because of the shutdown.

A White House official told NBC News that all congressional delegations overseas that would have used federally funded military aircraft have been grounded by Trump until the shutdown ends.

WATCH:
The Food and Drug Administration is exploring ways to help wean teenagers off nicotine as huge numbers of middle and high school students use Juul and other e-cigarettes.

The uptick in vape usage has undercut and even eclipsed progress in reducing cigarette smoking, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says.

Federal data showed teen use of e-cigarettes skyrocketed last year, prompting the surgeon general to declare it an "epidemic" and Gottlieb demanding manufacturers to fix it. Juul, the market leader, suspended sales of its fruity flavors in stores ahead of the FDA effectively pulling these products from convenience stores and limiting them to age-restricted stores like vape shops.

Despite these efforts, anecdotal reports suggest some teenagers find themselves hooked on nicotine and unable to stop using e-cigarettes. Doctors treating kids don't have much information on how to properly treat them since the cessation products available today, like nicotine patches and gums, are meant only for adults. The agency put out the call for insight months ago and is holding a rescheduled public hearing on Friday at its Silver Spring, Maryland headquarters.

"For these addicted young people, the reasons that they tried e-cigarettes may not matter anymore," Gottlieb said in prepared remarks. "These young people are hooked on vaping, and their worried parents, physicians, and the public health community are searching for tools to help them quit."

E-cigarettes are billed as a way to help smokers get their nicotine fix without all the toxins that come with smoking cigarettes. However, the surge in young people using e-cigarettes has enraged parents, teachers and now even regulators.

Gottlieb believes in e-cigarettes as a way to help adult smokers. But on Friday, he said the industry will face an "existential threat" if the number of teens using e-cigarettes does not decrease in this year's survey data. If the trends don't improve, he said, the conversation will shift from where fruity flavors can be sold to whether e-cigarettes can stay on the market.

Gottlieb again dangled the threat of reversing a decision that allowed e-cigarettes to stay on the market. Products that were on the market before Aug. 8, 2016, were supposed to start undergoing review this year until Gottlieb extended the deadline until Aug. 8, 2022, so manufacturers would have more time to file complete applications.

"It will be 'game over' for these products until they can successfully traverse the regulatory process," Gottlieb said. "I think the stakes are that high. And would be a blow for all of the currently addicted adult smokers who, I believe, could potentially benefit from these products."

Gottlieb met with executives from five major manufacturers in the fall and plans to send follow-up meeting requests to the leaders of Altria and Juul.

In December, Marlboro-maker Altria invested nearly $13 billion for a 35 percent stake in Juul. Two months earlier, Altria said it would voluntarily pull its flavors and pod-based products, saying these features, which Juul popularized, drove the surge in young people using e-cigarettes.

"I have real questions about whether there's consistency," Gottlieb told CNBC in an interview last week.

Juul in a statement said it's moving "full steam ahead" on implementing the action plan it announced in November to prevent minors from using its products.

"We will be a transparent, engaged, and committed partner with FDA, state Attorneys General, local municipalities, and community organizations in the effort to combat underage use," a spokesman said in a statement.

In the meantime, the FDA wants to find ways to stop teens from using e-cigarettes. Treatments for nicotine addiction on the market today are intended for adults, not minors. Pfizer's Chantix, a prescription drug to help adult smokers quit, failed a clinical trial last year studying whether it worked for teen smokers.

Researchers, public health groups and vaping associations are slated to make presentations at Friday's hearing, though one group is noticeably absent from the agenda: drugmakers. Everyone who requested to give a formal presentation or share comments during the open session made it onto the agenda, the FDA said, meaning drug companies did not ask to participate.

WATCH: How Juul made vaping cool and became a $15 billion e-cigarette giant
Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. President Donald Trump and European Council President Donald Tusk attend the G7 summit in Taormina, Sicily, Italy, May 26, 2017. Alessandro Bianchi | Reuters

President Donald Trump's unpopularity overseas could be lowering American exports by billions of dollars as foreign demand for U.S. goods moves in tandem with international respect for the Oval Office, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley. The study looked at imports and exports data from over 200 countries between 1948 and 2017 along with Gallup approval polling data for the leadership of five exporters by participants in 157 countries between 2006 and 2017. Andrew Rose, a professor and economist at Berkeley's Haas School of Business Administration, used a total of 6,411 Gallup observations available for the percentages of participants approving and disapproving of the leadership for foreign countries. He supplemented that with surveys from the BBC and the Pew Research Center.

Combining those two datasets, Rose estimates that the roughly 20 percentage point decline in foreign approval of American leadership between 2016 and 2017 lowered American exports by at least $3 billion. "Countries whose leadership is approved abroad tend to sell more exports, holding all else equal," Rose wrote. So-called soft power  the ability of one country to attract or win over citizens in another  is a significant determinant of export demand. In other words, countries buy more goods from countries with leaders they respect.

Popularity contest

That may prove problematic for Trump, whose first year in the Oval Office was marked by a plunge in overseas approval ratings. The median global approval rating of the job performance of U.S. leadership across 134 countries stood at a new low of 30 percent, according to a 2018 Gallup report. That was down nearly 20 points from the 48 percent approval rating in the last year of President Barack Obama's administration, and 4 points lower than the previous low of 34 percent in the last year of President George W. Bush's administration. Trump's average domestic approval rating  which hovers around 40 percent  is also lackluster when compared with his predecessor's. "An increase of one percentage point in net (American) leadership approval boosts (American) exports by around one one-hundredth of a percent," Rose wrote. It's an "economically large effect, given that swings in leadership approval are often over twenty percentage points, as occurred both when Obama succeeded Bush in 2009 or when Trump succeeded Obama in 2017." The economist noted that that calculation is conservative if countries that are large importers of American products also disapprove of Trump disproportionately. The International Monetary Fund data cover bilateral trade between over 200 countries between 1948 and 2017, while Gallup's rating metrics  a proxy for soft power in this study  provide annual percentages of approval and disapproval. "The drop in foreign approval for leadership in 2017 compared with the eight previous years is a phenomenon unique to the United States," the economist wrote, pointing to little changes in foreign perception of German, Chinese and Russian leadership over the past several year.

$3.3 billion
Clinton, IA (52732)

Today

Plenty of sunshine. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 92F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early. Scattered strong thunderstorms late. Storms could contain damaging winds. Low 71F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Beachwood, OH (44122)

Today

Clear skies this evening will become overcast overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies this evening will become overcast overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Its the storm everyone is talking about. After a relatively mild winter, Northeast Ohio is on the brink of a harsh reminder of the punch a Midwest winter can bring with the strongest storm in a decade inching closer to us.

That looming weather system is Winter Storm Harper and its caused area residents to stock up on supplies, change weekend plans and get snow boots and shovels in place for what is expected to be the worst widespread snow storm in years. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning Friday afternoon.

Were going to see a significant snow storm, said Mike Griffin, lead forecaster of the National Weather Service in Cleveland. While amounts are a little bit less than what we saw yesterday, for Cuyahoga County in general were still looking at 7 to 9 inches.

And thats just from the winter storm making its way across the United States. Some parts of Northeast Ohio could see additional lake effect snow as early as Sunday that will make those totals even higher.

Its going to be impactful, Griffin said. This is going to be blowing around. Its going to be a nasty day tomorrow.

Looking at Northeast Ohio as a whole, snow will start Friday evening around midnight and people can expect to see a coating to an inch of snow when they wake up Saturday morning, according to Griffin.

The heaviest part of the storm will hit between noon on Saturday through midnight. Thats the 12-hour window when its not going to be safe to be traveling or running out to the store, Griffin said.

Everything will start to wind down Sunday morning with only light snow showers. However the cold air will move in with highs in the low teens during the day and overnight lows in the single digits with wind chills below zero.

Thats when the lake effect snow could arrive, hitting smaller areas in Northeast Ohio on Sunday and Monday.

There will be a small break where it tapers off, Griffin said. Its a little harder to forecast where the narrow lake effect bands will pop up. If youre under the bands youre going to pick up quite a bit more snow.

Heres what to expect in three key parts of Northeast Ohio, according to the National Weather Service:

Cleveland

Expect Friday afternoons temperatures to remain in the mid 30s with 5 to 10 mph winds out of the Northwest.

Overnight Friday there will be a 50 percent chance of snow with less than a half an inch of accumulation, the majority of it coming down after 3 a.m. Saturday. Winds will be low, blowing between 7 to 9 mph out of the Northeast.

Saturday continues to be the main causes for concern with forecasts calling for a 100 percent chance of precipitation accumulating 3 to 5 inches of new snow. Temperatures will top off at 29 degrees and winds will continue to blow out of the Northeast with some gusts blowing as high as 30 mph.

Through Saturday night expect most of the snow to fall before 3 a.m. Sunday, accumulating 1 to 3 inches. However, winds will pick up, with potential gusts of 41 mph.

Sunday will continue with high winds, but the chance of precipitation falls to 60 percent with new accumulation estimated to be 1 to 3 inches.

Akron

Fridays temperatures will stay steady in the mid 30s with light winds expected around 7 mph.

In the evening, snow will fall mostly after 5 a.m. Saturday, accumulating less than a half of an inch. Winds will remain low, at 5 to 7 mph out of the Northeast.

Snow will begin to fall more heavily after 8 a.m. on Saturday, accumulating 3 to 5 inches with a 100 percent chance of precipitation. Temperatures will top off near 30 degrees. Winds will pick up as well, estimating to blow 9 to 15 mph out of the Northeast.

Saturday evening temperatures will drop to around 16 degrees. A 100 percent chance of precipitation continues and snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches is expected. Winds out of the north will blow 16 to 18 mph.

Sunday will bring less than an inch of snow, with it falling most likely before 9 a.m. and again after noon. Winds will pick up, however, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

Ashtabula/primary snow belt

Friday afternoon expect temperatures in the mid 30s with Northwest winds around 8 mph.

Overnight Friday snow will fall primarily after 3 a.m. with a 40 percent chance of precipitation. Winds out of the north blowing 5 to 8 mph can be expected after midnight. Chance of precipitation will be 40 percent with less than half of an inch of accumulation.

Saturday will bring a 100 percent chance of precipitation with new snow accumulation expected to be 3 to 5 inches and temperatures near 27 degrees. Winds will pick up slightly, blowing out of the Northeast at 9 to 15 mph.

Saturday night snow will fall primarily before 5 a.m., however the chance of precipitation will remain at 100 percent with new snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches.

On Sunday precipitation chances drop to 50 percent with less than an inch of new snow. Temperatures will drop, however, with a high near 15 degrees. Expect most of the snow before 9 a.m.
For roughly 40 years, since Ohio's lieutenant governors stopped being state Senate president, the lieutenant governorship has been a job in search of duties, besides any assignments a governor may make -- or of course the significant duty of succeeding that governor should he or she die or resign.

The last governor to die in office was Democratic Gov. John Pattison in 1906. The last resignation was Republican Gov. George V. Voinovich's, at the end of his second term in 1998, to become a U.S. senator.

In 1983, the late Myrl Shoemaker, elected with Gov. Richard F. Celeste, was the first Ohio lieutenant governor to lead an agency, as director of Natural Resources.

Today, Ohio's lieutenant governor is suburban Columbus Republican Jon Husted, Gov. Mike DeWine's running mate, whose assignment will be to lead the Office of InnovateOhio.

The General Assembly, in its lame-duck December session, among other things approved pay raises for elected officials. Senate Bill 296 set the governor's salary at $154,248 and the lieutenant governor's at $113,947. Or is it $176,426? The answer is, "It depends," thanks to muddled legislation that can keep Ohioans in the dark about the lieutenant governor's pay.

Plainly put, $113,947 is the lieutenant governor's default salary. But in creating InnovateOhio within DeWine's office, SB 296 also set the salary of InnovateOhio's director at $176,426.

Because Husted will direct InnovateOhio, he'll be entitled to a $176,426 salary, not the lieutenant governor's $113,947 salary. Got that? If you bring a volume of the Ohio Revised Code with you into the voting booth, you might.

True, InnovateOhio grew out of a key DeWine-Husted campaign plank, with the potentially important mission of galvanizing private technology talents to upgrade state operations and efficiencies and also to make Ohio more welcoming for high-tech firms and entrepreneurs.

True also, these alternative salaries for Ohio's lieutenant governors are customary and legal. Shoemaker was paid as director of Natural Resources, not as lieutenant governor. Similarly, Gov. John Kasich's lieutenant governor, suburban Akron Republican Mary Taylor, when she ran Ohio's Insurance Department, was paid that job's salary ($150,405 a year) -- not $78,041, the lieutenant governor's annual salary at the time.

Nonetheless, all the legalese wrapped around a lieutenant governor's pay is anything but transparent.

To serve voters, Ohio needs to set one clearly defined salary for its lieutenant governors that reflects the expectation of their ancillary roles.

About our editorials: Editorials express the view of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer -- the senior leadership and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the news organization.

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CLEVELAND -- Donald Trump had scarcely settled into his new digs at the White House in January 2017 when Democrats who still couldnt believe he had actually won the election began clamoring for investigations that might prove he really didnt. Since May of that year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been tasked with trying to find a link between Trump, Republicans and Russian electoral skullduggery.

So, for the past year and a half, Democrats have been waiting eagerly for an indication that the GOP was mixed up in Russian efforts to hijack the election. Unfortunately for them, while Mueller has found evidence that Russian operatives hacked into DNC email files, and had tried to influence voters through phony accounts and fake news on Facebook and Twitter, there has been little to indicate that any Americans were involved in similar efforts to torpedo our political process.

Until now.

Recent stories in The Washington Post and New York Times have revealed that in the 2017 Alabama special election to replace Jeff Sessions as U.S. senator, somebody established phony Facebook and Twitter accounts to distribute false or misleading information to hundreds of thousands of Alabama voters.

But there has been precious little celebrating from the Democrats over the long-awaited proof that fraudulence was afoot in our electoral process  and the reason isnt too hard to figure out:

It was Democrat operatives who were caught red-handed.

Have you heard about it? The chances are you havent  or havent heard much  because it doesnt fit the narrative that most of the nations media have established in separating the good guys from the bad guys. Kudos to the Times and Post, which are not in the habit of carrying water for Republicans, for uncovering and publicizing the plot, but its pretty obvious that this story isnt getting the play that it would if the shoe were on the other political foot.

Briefly, heres what happened:

Toward the end of the campaign between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones, the eventual winner, the Moore campaign noticed that his Twitter followers had zoomed up from 27,000 to 40,000 almost overnight. The names of some of these were written in Cyrillic, the Russian alphabet, and most of the news coverage the revelation got made it look like Moore was being supported by Russians.

Meanwhile, a series of fake accounts were created on Facebook and other social media platforms, including a Facebook page called Alabama Conservative Politics, to deliver misleading messages to 650,000 likely Alabama voters. The operatives called their effort Operation Birmingham, and according to an internal debriefing memo the Times and Post acquired, the goal was to radicalize Democrats, suppress unpersuadable Republicans and faction moderate Republicans by advocating for GOP write-in candidates.

Another Facebook page was called Dry Alabama, which was designed to look like the work of Baptist teetotalers who supported Moore. One post said that Moore would help to Re-Enact prohibition and make Alabama dry again.

Pray for Roy Moore, said a message on the page, written not by the religious conservatives they appeared to be but by liberal Democrats who lived far from the state. The goal, reported Scott Shane and Alan Blinder of The Times, was to get moderate, business-oriented Republicans who didnt want to see the state ban alcohol associate Moores candidacy with the hard-core religious approach, and either not turn out at all, or vote for the Democrat Jones.

All of this was the work of a group of social-media-savvy consultants hired by Democrats. The operation described in the report obtained by The Post and Times was aided by a cybersecurity company called New Knowledge, which ironically had written passionately against the Russian mischief in 2016, in a report to Congress.

Shane and Blinder reported that New Knowledges CEO confirmed some aspects of the operation described in the report but disavowed knowledge of some of the reports assertions, saying others worked on the project. The New Knowledge effort was funded by liberal billionaire and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (who ultimately apologized, admitting he provided money but said he didnt know what it was being used for).

Jones doesnt appear to have had a part in this either, but it is not a stretch to surmise that it could have had an impact on his victory. Out of more than 1.3 million votes cast, he won by less than 22,000.

Bob Garfield, who hosts the weekly On the Media show on NPR, pulled this all together last Saturday in a fascinating interview with Shane, and also with Matt Osborne, the liberal activist who came up with the Dry Alabama idea. You can find the show at tinyurl.com/bamatrick, and its well worth your time.

There are plenty of reasons to be happy that Moore, whose campaign was marked by accusations of mall mopery, did not win a Senate seat. But that hardly justifies the tactics used against him.

It may well turn out that Mueller or somebody else discovers similar cyber-subterfuge on the part of Republicans as things progress. Until then, as Garfield observed, this shameful episode has denied Democrats any claim of the moral superiority they have so eagerly sought.

I spend a good bit of time on Facebook myself, largely because I enjoy the camaraderie and the political give-and-take. But that is with people I know  I cannot imagine my attitude, much less my vote, being swayed by some page that popped up out of nowhere.

But I know that some people are more easily swayed. If youre one of those, it would be well for you to take a lesson from the recent experience of the good people of Alabama, and view with skepticism anything you read on social media that doesnt provide a clear, credible and verifiable source.

Ted Diadiun is a member of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

To reach Ted Diadiun: tdiadiun@cleveland.com

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Rotunda Rumblings

Do it for the kids: In his first public appearance in Northeast Ohio as governor, Gov. Mike DeWine said in Akron Thursday that his administrations first priority will be children, writes Emily Mills for the Akron Beacon-Journal. I want to see every child have an opportunity, he said. If we stand for anything as a people, if theres anything this country stands for, it is that if you work hard, you should be able to succeed.

Not sitting idle: DeWine also described his conversation with General Motors CEO Mary Barra earlier Thursday morning. DeWine traveled to the Detroit Auto Show on Wednesday to discuss the car giants recent idling of its plant in Lordstown. He asked her to consider putting another GM line in the plant. I also told her that if  thats what we would prefer  but if that was not the way it was going to come down that we wanted also to be a partner in making sure another company came in to that great facility, he said. So Im optimistic, optimistic that they will work with us.

Generally murky: Asked on Wednesday whether Lordstown or another plant in Michigan might be re-opened to build any of the 20 electric cars GM plans to roll out in the next 10 years, Barra was noncommittal, according to the Detroit Free Presss Jamie L. LaReau. And Lt. Gov. Jon Husted told Gongwer News Service Thursday theres a low probability that GM will bring a new product line to Lordstown.

Road trip: Mahoning Valley Rep. Tim Ryan announced Thursday that his guest for the upcoming State of the Union address  if there is one  will be Dave Green, the president of the UAW Local 1112, which represents workers at the shuttered Lordstown plant.

Group effort: Green and Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber President James Dignan sent Barra a letter Thursday calling for continued dialogue. We hope this is the beginning of an on-going conversation between you, General Motors, Gov. DeWine, the state of Ohio, the growing coalition of elected officials, business and labor leaders, and the hard working people in the Mahoning Valley, the letter reads.

Kasich goes back to school: Ex-Ohio governor John Kasich is getting another new gig, reports Emily Bench for Columbus Business First. Otterbein University in Westerville, near Kasichs home, has hired him as a senior fellow. His exact duties are unclear, but Kasich will get an office in a university building, where he also will record live television spots for CNN.

Purge plans: New Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose plans to continue his predecessors regular purge of inactive voters, but told the Cincinnati Enquirers Jessie Balmert that he hopes to dramatically reduce the number of removals. Among his suggestions: increasing how long a voter can be inactive before being removed.

Getting the green: The Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program announced that bud sales for Wednesday, the first day the drug was legally for sale in dispensaries, were $75,000. The total volume of product sold was 8.7 pounds.

Working hard for no money: Federal workers in Ohio who arent getting paid because of the partial government shutdown thats lasted for nearly a month are in financial hot water because of a political dispute that seems far removed from their lives, cleveland.coms Sabrina Eaton reports. It is more than a slap in the face, it is disgusting, Elkton Federal Correctional Institution corrections officer Joe Mayle told her. If people are working, they deserve a paycheck, period.

Standing alone: Troy Republican Rep. Warren Davidson was the lone member of Ohios congressional delegation to vote to allow President Donald Trumps administration to lift sanctions on a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, writes Jessica Wehrman for the Columbus Dispatch. The other 11 Ohio Republicans joined the states Democrats in voting nyet. The sanctions were first imposed in April 2018.

Sherrod staffs up in Iowa: As U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown mulls a run for president, he has hired his first Iowa staffer -- Margaret Jarosz, a regional field director for Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign and one of the Des Moines Registers 50 Most Wanted Democrats for the 2020 caucuses. Jarosz will be on the payroll for Browns PAC, America Works, initially as senior trip adviser, according to Buzzfeed News Henry Gomez. Gomez also notes that Browns Senate chief of staff, Sarah Benzing, also has considerable experience in the state and is viewed by many as his campaign manager-in-waiting.

Blast off: Newly-elected Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Rocky River got a second committee assignment on Thursday. In addition to serving on the House Financial Services Committee, he will be a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which oversees scientific research organizations including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I look forward to working with our local universities and the NASA Glenn Research Center to further innovation and bring forth the next generation of jobs for Northeast Ohio, said a statement from Gonzalez.

2020 vision: Its barely 2019, but Kyle Kondiks initial U.S. House ratings list for 2020 is already out  and it includes three Ohio districts. Republican incumbents Steve Chabot in the 1st Congressional District and Troy Balderson in the 12th Congressional District are rated Leans Republican, while Republican Dave Joyces 14th Congressional District seat is listed as Likely Republican. On Twitter, Kondik also wrote hes keeping an eye on Democratic Rep. Tim Ryans race, which didnt make the initial cut and historically has been safe. It may be that the Rs should target districts like this over some of their lost suburban ground, he said.

Horse race: CNNs Chris Cillizza in a Thursday video dubbed Brown the dark horse candidate to win the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. His rationale? Browns liberal record, his Midwestern residence, his populist approach and his distinctive voice. Browns people appreciated the shout-out enough that they shared it with reporters later in the day.

Going digital: The DeWine administration has launched a new awareness campaign and website through which they hope to attract a greater number of adoptive and foster parents, reports Rita Price for the Columbus Dispatch.

In your opinion: Its been suggested that Capitol Letter readers might be interested in links to political opinion pieces as well as the latest news we provide. We occasionally link to a columnist, such as Brent Larkin, or an op-ed from a politician. Would you like to see more of that? Maybe a section devoted some of most interesting opinion pieces? Email us your thoughts at Capitolletter@cleveland.com.

Full Disclosure

Five things we learned from the May 15 ethics disclosure of state Sen. Steve Wilson, a Republican from Maineville.

1. Besides his legislative salary of $67,844, Wilson earned income from six sources, including Social Security and retirement benefits from Lebanon Citizens National Bank, from which he retired as CEO in 2016. He made more than $100,000 from two sources  from his deferred compensation package from LCNB, and from his position as a director for the American Automobile Association.

2. Wilson disclosed fiduciary relationships with 11 organizations. He retired from four positions  board positions for Otterbein Properties, Pentegra Retirement Services, the Warren County Port Authority and Miami University  in January 2017. The seven organizations for which he continues to hold board positions are Lebanon Citizens National Bank, LCNB Corp., Harmon Civic Trust, the Countryside YMCA, the Warren County Foundation, AAA Allied Group and the American Bankers Insurance Services board.

3. Wilson disclosed three investment accounts  an LCNB SEP IRA, an LCNB traditional IRA and LCNB stock. As of a March 2018 SEC filing, Wilson held 60,293 shares of stock in the bank. That amount of stock as of Thursday was worth about $981,500.

4. He owned a house on Water Stone Lane in Maineville. Warren County Auditors Office records show he sold the 3,862 square-foot home in April 2018 for $457,000.

5. He itemized travel reimbursements from three sources  $2,533.44 in state mileage reimbursements, $1,370.05 from GOPAC for a state legislative leaders summit and $172.25 from the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee for a caucus retreat.

On The Move

Gail Crawley has been hired by Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder as the House GOPs new communications director, according to a release. Crawley spent 24 years in communications jobs with the Ohio Department of Development, then held PR jobs in the private sector.

DeWine on Thursday was named vice chair of the Great Lakes Governors Association, a group that focuses on environmental protection, job creation, and economic development.

Birthdays

Saturday, 1/19: Ohio Auditor Keith Faber Sunday, 1/20: Ohio Republican Party Executive Director Rob Secaur

Straight From The Source

"@realDonaldTrump and @SpeakerPelosi - This is getting more juvenile by the second. Heres an idea - Can you both please go sit down and negotiate your way out of this mess?- Cuyahoga County Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez on Twitter Thursday. He was responding to a report that Trump had canceled an overseas trip Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers had planned to visit Belgium and Afghanistan.

Capitol Letter is a daily briefing providing succinct, timely information for those who care deeply about the decisions made by state government. If you do not already subscribe, you can sign up here to get Capitol Letter in your email box each weekday for free.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The National Weather Service in Cleveland issued a winter storm warning for most of northern Ohio in effect from 12 a.m. Saturday until 4 a.m. Monday.

Heavy snow is expected to accumulate eight to 11 inches total, NWS said. Winds will gust up to 35 mph. Blowing and drifting snow will develop Saturday afternoon.

Snow will begin to fall on Northeast Ohio between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. Saturday, with the heaviest snow arriving in the afternoon and evening. Lake-effect snow will develop into the snow belt Sunday morning and continue through Sunday night, according to NWS.

Travel is not recommended since the roads are expected to be slippery and visibility will be limited, NWS said. If you travel, take an extra flashlight, food and water in case of an emergency.

NWS warns that wind chills may reach -10 to -15 degrees, which could result in hypothermia.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Whats the silver lining of a prediction of 10 to 12 inches of snow on Saturday?

Now it might only be 5 to 8 inches.

Thats because the latest forecasts from the National Weather Service have the main part of Winter Storm Harper tracking a bit south of Northeast Ohio when it arrives on Saturday.

So its a bit of good news. However, 5 to 8 inches is still a good amount of snow, and it wont spare us from the extreme cold that will arrive by Sunday night. The Akron area could still see 6 to 10 inches of snow, and the storms track means the Youngstown and Warren areas might get 8 to 12 inches.

An important note: These numbers are not final, says meteorologist Karen Clark with the National Weather Service in Cleveland. The storm is still in its early stages in the western U.S., Clark says. The Weather Channel reports it was dropping snow in parts of the Rockies and Utah late Thursday night and early this morning.

It will really start to take shape more across the southern plains tonight, Clark says. It hasnt fully developed yet.

As the storm takes shape, forecasters should get a better idea of its track and how much snow it will produce, Clark says.

Meanwhile, most counties in Northeast Ohio are under a winter storm watch which took effect at 4 a.m. today. That likely will change into an advisory or warning later today.

The major snow is expected to start between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. Saturday, Clark says. Initially it will be light but it will pick up as the day progresses, with the bulk falling Saturday afternoon and evening. The forecast is calling for strong winds with gusts to 35 mph.

The extreme cold sets in Sunday, with highs in the teens and single-digit lows overnight. Wind chills will be below zero.

A benefit from the cold: It likely will temper the lake effect. Another 1-3 inches of snow could fall in the snow belt on Sunday, with the extremely cold air holding totals down, Clark says.

We will see a window of lake-effect snow but (the cold) eventually will inhibit it, she says.

Earlier forecasts say the northeast portion of the U.S. could take a major hit from the storm. USA Today reports forecasts saying 40 inches is possible in parts of northern New England. As much as 30 inches of snow might fall on parts of central and northern New York state and the northern tier of Pennsylvania.

USA Today also reports the storm has airlines preparing waivers for travelers affected by the storm at major airports across the country, including Newark Liberty and Chicago OHare. At Hopkins Airport, there were no signs of delays early this morning.

Additional weather coverage
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Calling all craft beer lovers! We are in search of the best breweries in Northeast Ohio and we need you to chime in with your nomination before last call.

We have about 50 breweries nominated so far for Clevelands Best Brewery contest. Make sure your choice is included by filling out the quick and easy nomination form, which is below.

Which Northeast Ohio brewery do you think is the best? If you go out to watch a game, have people in from out of town, or just need a cold beer after work, tell us where you go for that local flavor.

Nominate your favorite craft brewery between now and Jan. 20 at noon. The brewery must have at least one brick and mortar location within our seven-county coverage area of Cuyahoga, Lorain, Medina, Lake, Geauga, Portage and Summit counties.

We want to hear from you. Again, all you have to do is fill out this fast nomination form.

How the contest will work:

Nominations will be accepted until Jan. 20 at noon.

Readers will then vote in an online poll to determine the finalists. You will be able to vote in the poll hourly from Jan. 22 until Jan. 29 at 9 a.m.

The finalists will be visited by Clevelands Best reporters Brenda Cain and Yadi Rodriguez, as well as cleveland.coms judging panel.

The panel of beer experts will do the taste tests during two weeks in February to determine the winner and the final standings.

Youre invited to join us on our pub crawls, but please bring a designated driver. Well publish our schedule of visits on Feb. 4.

The winner will be announced in a surprise Facebook Live broadcast on Feb. 26 on cleveland.coms Facebook page.
BROOK PARK, Ohio -- Aggravated menacing, Richard Drive: A man and woman, traveling in a vehicle on Richard Drive, told police that another driver had threatened them with a knife at about 7:15 p.m. Jan. 7.

The other driver was a neighbor -- a 39-year-old Brook Park man -- with whom the man and woman had feuded. The neighbor was upset because the man supposedly had revved his engine in the middle of the night more than once.

The man said he knocked the knife out of the neighbor's hand, then drove away. The neighbor told police that he never had a knife. Police found no proof that the incident occurred as the man and woman claimed, so a prosecutor decided not to file criminal charges.

Overdose, Snow Road: A Carrolltown, Pa., man, 35, was found dead of a heroin overdose at about 8:20 p.m. Jan. 3 in a hotel room at Holiday Inn Express, 16330 Snow.

The man's co-worker had called police after finding the man unresponsive on the bathroom floor. Police and paramedics administered Narcan, a heroin-overdose antidote, to no avail.

Burglary, Zaremba Drive: Someone forced their way through the rear door of a home on Zaremba between 10:30 and 11:50 p.m. Jan. 5. No one was home at the time. Cash was stolen.

Sudden illness, Snow Road: A Brook Park man, 69, was injured at about 1:45 p.m. Jan. 4 after he accidentally backed his car into two parked cars outside Giant Eagle, 14650 Snow.

The crash happened after the man's foot became stuck on the car's accelerator. He was taken to Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights.

Police said the man had recently undergone heart surgery. Witnesses said the man might have fallen while inside Giant Eagle, before he crashed his car.

Grand theft auto, Snow Road: A 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee was stolen between Dec. 13-27 from the parking lot of Howard Johnson by Wyndham, 16644 Snow. The vehicle was later found outside the same hotel.

Criminal damaging, Brookpark Road: A Lakewood man, 57, called police at about 5 p.m. Dec. 26 after finding his mother's grave defaced in Holy Cross Cemetery, 14609 Brookpark. Broken beer bottles and a pink substance were on the gravestone.
1. West Bend / University / Museum District

Purple: Museum

Blue and Green: West Bend, including the Indian Hospital and Expo Center

Red: University

2. Will Rogers Corridor

Green: Regional Park

3. Historic Route 66

4. Downtown District

Dark Blue: Old Town District

Pink: Historic North Main

Light Blue: Downtown Core

Orange: Wagon Wheel District

Green: Regional Park

Map of the four proposed Claremore Districts, for which Velocity Group, consultants partnering with the city, offered a number of recommended next steps.
Grace Louise Archer, age 90, a resident of Aurora, Colorado, a former resident of Chillicothe, Missouri, passed away on Wednesday, June 2, 2021, at Shalom Park, Aurora, Colorado. Grace was born the daughter of Maurice P. Martin, Sr., and Margaret (O'Connor) Martin on October 10, 1930, in Chi
Tower MSA Partners Launches Quarterly Webinar Series

Tower MSA Partners is launching a free, quarterly webinar series to help payers become more proficient in settling workers compensation claims, Medicare Secondary Payer compliance and Medicare Set-Asides.

The first webinar on January 23 at 2 p.m. Eastern features a special guest instructor, Kerri Poe, CSCC, on the topic Simple Cost Savings with a Structured MSA.

One of the simplest ways to lower the cost of a settlement is through a structured MSA that provides the injured worker a consistent stream of funds for injury related medical care over their life expectancy, said Towers Chief Compliance Officer Dan Anders.

Attendees will learn how structured MSAs work, how the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services calculate a structured MSA, and how to convert a lump-sum MSA into a structured one.

Well also look at the role of a structured settlement broker during pre-settlement negotiations and post settlement, Anders added.

Future topics may include MSA cost mitigation, Medicare Advantage plan reimbursement, and effective Medicare conditional payment identification and resolution. To receive webinar notifications, please sign up for Towers MSP Compliance Blog at https://towermsa.com/blog/.

Berkley One Expands to Florida and Ohio and Introduces Flood Insurance Product in New States

Berkley One, a startup insurance provider, begins 2019 by continuing its expansion into the states of Florida and Ohio as the organization marks the beginning of its second year in market. Working with select independent agents, Berkley One offers home, automobile, fine art and collectibles, excess liability and travel insurance solutions. With this launch, Berkley One also extends its flood insurance product to eligible Ohio, New York and Connecticut clients.

With the addition of these new geographies, Berkley Ones reach now covers 46 percent of the U.S. high net worth auto and home market, after just over one year in market.

Insurance solutions from Berkley One are now available in Florida, Ohio, New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Colorado, Arizona, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Residents of these states can obtain a policy from Berkley One by visiting www.berkleyone.com to find an agent or request a quote.

Method Insurance Services Announces New Specialty Workers Comp Program

Method Insurance Services announced the launch of a Specialty Workers Compensation program with Service American Indemnity Company that focuses on an under-served market segment for challenging, high-hazard risks. The program will entertain middle market accounts with manual premiums between $10,000  $250,000 that include a broad range of class codes with emphasis in construction, transportation, agriculture and healthcare industry groups.

Method is seeking to develop an exclusive distribution platform for franchise value to agencies, extensive appetite to write tough-to-place risks, and responsive customer service, loss prevention, and claims management processes.

The Method program will have the ability to support business across a national footprint, while initially targeting distribution partners in AZ, AR, CA, CO, IA, IL, KS, LA, MN, MO, NE, NV, NM, OK, SD, UT, and WI.

Method is a wholesaler and program administrator located in Omaha, Nebraska.
A wheeled robot named Marty is rolling into nearly 500 grocery stores to alert employees if it encounters spilled granola, squashed tomatoes or a broken jar of mayonnaise.

But there could be a human watching from behind its cartoonish googly eyes.

Badger Technologies CEO Tim Rowland says its camera-equipped robots stop after detecting a potential spill. But to make sure, humans working in a control center in the Philippines review the imagery before triggering a cleanup message over the loudspeaker.

Rowland says 25 of the robots are now operating at certain Giant, Martins and Stop & Shop stores, with 30 more arriving each week. Carlisle, Pennsylvania-based Giant says it has two robots now working at stores in the state, and plans to expand to all 172 Giant stores by the middle of this year.

The chains are all part of Dutch parent company Ahold Delhaize.

The robots move around using laser-based lidar sensors and pause when shoppers and their carts veer into their path.

The googly eyes are fake, but each robot has eight cameras  some directed down at the floor and others that can see shelves. Rowland said the robots can eventually be repurposed to help monitor a stores inventory.

A robot observed Tuesday at a Stop & Shop store in Seekonk, Massachusetts, alerted store associates to a price tag that had fallen in one aisle, and a tiny sprig of herbs in another. After moving along for a few minutes, it returned to the scene of each spill and waited until an employee pushed a button to acknowledge that the debris was picked up.

Its not the only robot that U.S. shoppers might spot this year. Walmart and Midwestern supermarket chain Schnucks have deployed robots that help monitor inventory.

A union that represents Giant and Stop & Shop workers says its keeping an eye on Marty. It remains to be seen what the groceries will ultimately use the technology for.

UFCW President Marc Perrone said in an emailed statement that the aggressive expansion of automation in grocery and retail stores is a direct threat to the millions of American workers who power these industries and the customers they serve.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The mother of a suburban Kansas City teenager who was fatally shot by police as he backed a minivan out of his familys garage has reached a $2.3 million settlement with the city.

In the settlement, the city of Overland Park, Kansas, makes no admission of wrongdoing in the January 2017 death of 17-year-old John Albers, The Kansas City Star reported. He was killed after officers responded to a report that he was making suicidal comments on social media.

John is forever gone and there is nothing that can ever excuse such an unreasonable use of force, the teens mother, Sheila Albers, said in a statement Monday, which is the same day The Star obtained the settlement agreement through an open records request.

Dashcam police video shows the van slowly backing out when two shots are fired from the side, and then whipping around backward toward the house again as the officer fired 11 more times. The lawsuit claimed John Albers was incapacitated by the first two shots, leaving the van out of control as the officer continued firing.

The officer, Clayton Jenison, acted recklessly and deliberately when he shot the teenager, who may not have known police were at his home, the lawsuit said. Jenison resigned after the shooting, but prosecutors declined to file charges.

A Johnson County citizens group, JOCO United, formed after the teen was killed and pushed for transparency.

We can only hope this tragedy serves to prevent similar tragedies from happening to other families, Albers said. JOCO United seeks to improve Crisis Intervention Team training when officers encounter citizens in mental distress and to expand transparency of public agencies by allowing access to information in police shootings.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In Time magazines latest issue, which is devoted to the theme of this years Davos conferenceNavigating the Fourth Industrial RevolutionApple CEO Tim Cook has an essay about one of his favorite subjects, online privacy. Its a topic he has returned to again and again over the past few years, and the message is almost always the same: people deserve to have their privacy protected when they are on the internet or while using social services from certain companies (i.e., Facebook), but the current structure of thingsthe digital advertisingindustrial complexis designed to prevent this from happening. In his Time essay, Cook calls for comprehensive federal privacy legislation. Consumers shouldnt have to tolerate another year of companies irresponsibly amassing huge user profiles, data breaches that seem out of control and the vanishing ability to control our own digital lives, he writes.

There are plenty of reasons to agree with Cook that privacy legislation probably should be updated, since the internet and data collection have become part of almost everything we do, and we know surprisingly little about how companies like Facebook use that data. But the subtext of many of these arguments is that only Apple cares about you and your privacy, and that it has no interest in surveilling you or your behavior, and therefore it is somehow more pure or ethical than those other tech companies. And its true that Apple doesnt do anything like the kind of data-mining, active surveillance, and behavior-based targeting that Facebook and to a lesser extent Twitter and others do. One major reason why it doesnt do this is that it doesnt have to, since it generates billions of dollars in profit by selling physical hardware like MacBooks and iPhones. Since it isnt primarily an advertising-based business, it doesnt need to worry as much about things like targeting or data mining.

One thing that Cook and other Apple staffers rarely mention when talking about this topic, however, is that while the company may not engage directly in ad targeting or user surveillance, it still benefits in a significant way from those kinds of practices. In fact, it makes billions of dollars every year from them. Why? Because it has a contract with Google to feature the search giants toolbar in Apple products like the Safari web browser, a contract that is worth an estimated $9 billionthe vast majority of which is pure profit. Googles search function allows people to find things they are looking for, but it also gives the company vast amounts of behavioral data that it uses in a variety of ways, including by tying that behavior to other Google products such as email. Cooks diatribes about digital privacy would be a lot more sincere if he admitted that Apple currently gets paid handsomely to overlook its users privacy.

Your periodic reminder that Apple gets billions of dollars a year from Google  to enable Google's data harvesting/tracking/online advertising. Tim Cook strangely doesn't mention this here: https://t.co/if7xihno46  Shira Ovide (@ShiraOvide) January 17, 2019

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Thats not the only area in which Apple is playing both sides of the privacy fence. Another exampleone that is arguably even more seriousis the way Apple handles user privacy in China. As of last year, all of the user data stored in iCloud by Chinese citizens is under the control of state-owned China Telecom, which means that the government likely has access to whatever data it likes on Chinese users of the service (Apple says the data is encrypted, but the encryption keys are stored locally). And in China, tracking isnt done for the purposes of ad targeting, as it is in North America and Europeits done for actual targeting, so that dissidents can be identified and put on trial, or worse. Cook has said Apple had no choice but to comply with the Chinese governments rules, but that probably isnt much comfort to iCloud users. Apple also removed all VPN (virtual private network) apps from the iTunes store at the request of the government, because they can be used to hide a users location. Former Facebook security head Alex Stamos called Apple out on Twitter after a previous Cook speech.

I agree with almost everything Tim Cook said in his privacy speech today, which is why it is so sad to see the media credulously covering his statements without the context of Apple's actions in China.https://t.co/UIxJovocFc  Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) October 24, 2018

One last point: apart from just appearing to be holier than everyone else in the industry, Apple arguably has a vested interest in promoting the idea of privacy regulation, because any regulatory oversight or complications stemming from such a move would by definition hit its competitors harder than it would Apple, and that could give the company a competitive advantage. If Google faces regulatory difficulties because of its data-collection policies, that might convince some users not to buy Android phones, and to opt for iPhones instead. Or it could convince people looking for cloud services to avoid Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive and instead use Apples iCloud. Or it might just cripple them enough so that they dont develop new and innovative services. None of this is to say that Cooks passion about user privacy isnt genuinehe may legitimately believe that data collection needs to be reined in, and he might even be right. But its also in Apples best interests to promote the idea that it is the only ethical actor in the entire tech industry, even if that isnt actually the case.

ICYMI: What coverage of the viral Stephen King story overlooked

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Mathew Ingram is CJRs chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.
a

Thursday, Jun 10th, 2021

Reading Up on the Race

By Savannah Jacobson

New Yorkersand the citys press corpsare, by and large, ready to move on from the mayoral reign of Bill de Blasio. The next elections primarythe Democrats are the main event this year, as there are practically no viable Republican candidatesis...
In early August, 33-year-old Ilhan Omar became an overnight sensation in Minnesota politics. Her primary victory over 22-term incumbent Phyllis Kahn secured the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL) endorsement of Omars candidacy to represent House District 60B in the state legislature. Minneapoliss Star Tribune trumpeted Omars victory in a huge headline on its front page, proclaiming that the Somali immigrants victory had made history. The paper followed up with two more retrospective stories admiring Omars triumph.

Omars victory shouldnt have come as a surprise. She campaigned hard in the district, which includes the heart of the Cedar Riverside area now known as Little Mogadishu. Omars third DFL primary opponent was Somali, as is her Republican challenger (who has since suspended his campaign). The Star Tribune nonetheless portrayed the win as a remarkable accomplishment, not only because Omar defeated Kahn, who is tied for the longest-serving legislator in state history, but also because of Omars background. She spent time in a Kenyan refugee camp before settling in the Twin Cities in the late 1990s.

As many candidates do, Omar has made her personal background an integral part of her campaign. But neither the candidate nor the reporters who covered her have shown much interest in exploring one aspect of her personal story that recently came to public attention: the fact that she is not legally married to the man she advertises as the husband and the father of her three children. In fact, she is legally married to another manwho may be her brother. A posting on the SomaliSpot discussion board alleged that Omar had married the man touted as her husband in 2002 before marrying her brother for fraudulent purposes in 2009. The post, which seems to have been written by someone from Minneapoliss Somali community, was quickly deleted. By the time it came to my attention, the post was only available via a Google cache (now also deleted). If the story is true, however, it suggests that Omar had engaged in some kind of dishonest activity in connection with her marriage to her brother (which by itself would be illegal).

I originally checked out the SomaliSpot story online through the Minnesota Official Marriage System. Inputting Omars name, I found that the two marriages cited in the discussion board post checked out as indicated. The site reflected Omars 2002 marriage to her advertised husband, Ahmed Aden (later Ahmed Hirsi), and her 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi (identified in the SomaliSpot post as Omars brother). A few days after the primary, I submitted written questions to representatives of the Omar campaign, citing the SomaliSpot post, and asking whether Omars second marriage had been entered into with her brother for dishonest purposes. That same afternoon, I received a message from Omars press contact indicating that the campaign would get back to me later that day. I didnt hear back from campaign officials directly, but I did receive a response from Minneapolis criminal defense attorney Jean Brandl. It provided no answer to my question, and implied that the question itself evidenced bigotry against Omar and her candidacy for public office.

Dear Mr. Johnson:

I have been contacted by the Ilhan Omar campaign. Their response to your email from this morning is as follows:

There are people who do not want an East African, Muslim woman elected to office and who will follow Donald Trumps playbook to prevent it. Ilhan Omars campaign sees your superfluous contentions as one more in a series of attempts to discredit her candidacy.

Ilhan Omars campaign will not be distracted by negative forces and will continue to focus its energy on creating positive engagement with community members to make the district and state more prosperous and equitable for everyone.

If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please direct them to me in writing so we have a record of any further communications.

Sincerely,

Jean Brandl

I posted an account of all this on Power Line. The Star Tribune followed up on the story the following week, but Omar declined to be interviewed. Democratic operative Ben Goldfarb spoke to the Star Tribune on Omars behalf: Allegations that she married her brother and is legally married to two people are categorically ridiculous and false. Omars campaign explained that she had never legally married Ahmed Hirsi and flatly denied that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, her legal husband, is her brother. Omar issued a statement that went back to the royal flush of bigotry accusations and decried the Trump-style misogyny, racism, anti-immigration rhetoric and Islamophobic division allegedly motivating questions about her marital status. When Star Tribune reporter Patrick Coolican requested a comment from me for his story that day, I asked him who Elmi is. They wont tell me, he said.

Controversy continued to mount. The following day, Omar issued a formal written statement explaining that she had requestedbut never formally executeda marriage license for her first marriage, the one her campaign has publicly touted, to her husband and the father of her children. She married him in an Islamic ceremony in 2002, but never filed an executed marriage license with the state. What I found online reflected that Omar had in fact applied for a license to marry Aden/Hirsi. (The entry on the Minnesota Official Marriage System has since been scrubbed.) The statement further explained that Omar had married her current legal husbandAhmed Nur Said Elmiin 2009. Though they split in 2011, with Elmi returning to the United Kingdom, Omar never got around to dissolving the marriage. The statement described Omars 2002 husband as the love of [her] life. Current campaign spokesman Michael Howard has declared that the statement would be Omars last word on the matter. On this point, Omar has kept her promise. She has failed to respond to questions from me, or respond to interview requests from several local reporters. Give Omar credit for consistency.

One wonders, however, whether a candidate for public office can unilaterally declare a significant matter of public interest off-limits from discussion. Its not as though Omar hasnt injected her family into the campaign. She features husband Number One and their three children on her campaign website, though she has omitted any mention of husband Number Twowho is, remember, her current legal husband. One specific question to which Omar has provided no response is: Does she have a brother named Ahmed Nur Said Elmi?

The local media have mostly let the story rest where Omar wants it. There may be good reasons for that; its certainly a difficult story to investigate. Local Somalis who have contacted me express concern for their physical safety. Covering the story is also unpleasant. Unwarranted imputations of bigotry are the stock-in-trade of the Omar campaign on this subject. I can testify to the phenomenon first hand.

One local reporter remains unimpressed and unintimidated by these tactics. Writing for the Minnesota-based site Alpha News, Preya Samsundar is untroubled by the Omar campaigns cries of racism. She comes from a family of Guyanese immigrants who trace their lineage to indentured Indian servants brought to Guyana by the British. Using social media as a primary source, Samsundar has found information suggesting that Elmi, the man Omar married in Minnesota in 2009, is indeed her brother. Omars own Instagram photos from the summer of 2015 place her in London with relatives, and with a man later identified as Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. Soon after her marital history became an issue, however, Omar closed her Instagram account to the public. When the account became public again, Samsundar found that the original photo collage of Omar and Elmi was no longer included. Samsundar also discovered that accounts once connected to Elmi have disappeared since the controversy began. Even LinkedIn pages and Elmis professional portfolio pages have gone missing. New accounts for Elmi have appeared under a different name, and without his identifying photo.

Based on her reporting, Samsundar believes that Omars siblings include Ahmed Nur Said Elmi and Mohamed Nur Said Elmi, both residents of the United Kingdom. Their social media accounts have referred to Omar as their sister. Samsundar found comments and posts by Omar and Elmi showing an intimate relationship even after their supposed 2011 marital split. Samsundar put it to me this way: I think social media prove without a doubt that there is a familial relationship that is not that of a husband and wife.

I met with a Somali source who gave me a screenshot of a 2015 Facebook post in which Mohamed Nur Said Elmi discussed Omars appearance in London and touted her prospective political career. On August 22, I accessed Mohamed Nur Said Elmis Facebook account and viewed a post celebrating Omars primary victory. When I returned to the Facebook page later that evening, the post had disappeared. Samsundar routinely found other related social media accounts had also been deleted. This is a systematic purge of online presence, Samsundar told me.

Samsundar discovered Ahmed Nur Said Elmis professional resume online and tracked him down via e-mail. As for his possible marriage to Omar, Elmi commented: [N]o way am I affiliated with anyone in your articles. Nor do I recall being married to anyone. At least, from what I remember. :) Though much of the evidence in this story has been written in disappearing ink, that quote is a keeper.

Photo: Ilhan Omar for state representative60B, via Facebook
A. There needs to be a traffic light there instead.

B. A roundabout will work just fine in that location.

C. Roundabouts are confusing and terrible. It shouldn't happen.

D. That intersection is not a priority for change, so just leave it the way it is.

Vote

View Results
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., dealt a blow to President Donald Trump Wednesday by telling him he can't deliver the State of the Union while the government is shut down, for security reasons. Trump was at first silent  "very silent," Pelosi said Wednesday.

MORE: Trump denies Pelosi aircraft for planned trip abroad

But on Thursday, Trump parried with a letter saying he is preventing Pelosi from using military aircraft to travel on a planned trip to Brussels, Afghanistan and Egypt (Pelosi's chief of staff Drew Hammill has since tweeted that the visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt, and was intended to thank the troops, meet with NATO commanders, and get briefings from the front lines).

Click through the gallery above for reactions to the exchange

"Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over," wrote Trump in a letter to Pelosi. "I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is appropriate."

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," he continued.

ALSO: Pelosi moves to belittle and undercut Trump in shutdown fight

The exchange quickly launched a flood of memes and reactions on social media, with many rank and file Republicans cheering the move, while others condemning it as petty and dangerous, particularly since, as speaker, Pelosi is second in line for the presidency after Vice President Mike Pence.

"Trump responds with a pea-shooter of petty," wrote Twitter user @mmpadellan.

"BOOM!!! Trump schooled Pelosi like a BOSS," disagreed Patricia Dickson.

Some members of Congress were also at the ready with a chorus of opinions.

"One sophomoric response does not deserve another," wrote Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Twitter, calling Pelosi's letter on the State of the Union "very irresponsible and blatantly political." Graham added Trump denying Pelosi military travel to Afghanistan was "also inappropriate."

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Trump was acting like a "fifth grader."

"This guy is so unbelievably petty," said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

Many raised the point that disclosing the itinerary of the trip, and urging the Speaker to fly commercial, raised security concerns.

"We keep trips by government officials to war zones secret for a reason. Trump's action to publicize Speaker Pelosi's trip literally puts the safety of members of Congress and their staff at risk," wrote Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla.

Some thought the move would ultimately prove to be self-sabotaging.

"Cancelling Pelosi's overseas trip so she can stay in the Capitol and keep making Trump's life hell is quite the strategy," tweeted Ally Maynard.

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter
WASHINGTON  Houston Democrat Al Green, distantly under fire for his embrace of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in a 2006 encounter, broke a long silence Friday and condemned the black nationalist figure as a "bigot."

Green, an outspoken advocate for impeaching President Donald Trump on the basis of his past racial comments, said Farrakhan's attacks on Jews should also be denounced.

"We have reached a point in our history where we cannot allow bigotry  regardless of the source  to be condoned, whether that be from President Trump or Minister Farrakhan," Green said in a statement. "Although there are those who will find reason to condemn one and not the other for their bigotry, I have condemned both."

Green's statement came ahead of this weekend's scheduled marches by a number of women's groups now facing divisions over some of their leaders' associations with Farrakhan. The controversy escalated this week after Women's March co-president Tamika Mallory refused to denounce Farrakhan during an interview on ABC's The View.

ON RUSSIA: Texas Republicans defect en masse as Trump weakens sanctions

The long-festering dispute has sparked a schism among protest organizers, leading to a separate "March for ALL Women Rally" on Saturday in Washington and other cities.

The disagreement has given new life to a simmering argument between some conservative and Jewish groups and African American members of Congress who have met with Farrakhan in the past, including Green.

Green, who has represented Houston's 9th congressional district since 2005, was ensnared in the controversy as one of several Congressional Black Caucus members seen embracing and talking to Farrakhan at a meeting in 2006.

But until now, Green has tried to generally stay out of the fray, refusing to be drawn into statements specifically denouncing Farrakhan, who has called "powerful Jews" his enemy.

In October, however, Green took to Twitter to criticize Farrakhan's remarks comparing Jews to termites.

"If President Trump compared persons of any ethnicity or religion to termites, I would call that statement bigoted," he wrote. "Since Minister Farrakhan has compared Jews to termites, I must call that statement bigoted. Bigotry is unacceptable regardless of the source."

Other black members of Congress have disavowed Farrakhan at various times for his anti-Semitic and anti-white remarks, prompting the 84-year-old minister to lash out at them as sellouts. Jewish civil rights groups have called on more than a half-dozen black lawmakers to speak out against Farrakhan over the 2006 encounter and other events.

Among those facing similar pressure were Andre Carson of Indiana, Maxine Waters of California and Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who was recently elected his state's attorney general.

The controversy also swept up former President Barack Obama, who was photographed smiling with Farrakhan at a 2005 Congressional Black Caucus gathering. The image, taken when Obama was still an Illinois state senator, became fodder for his opponents in the 2008 presidential election.

GRAY MATTERS: Why Houston women keep marching

More recently, the Farrakhan storm has overtaken the planned Women's March because of Mallory's long association with Farrakhan and her attendance at a speech he gave in February that included anti-Semitic remarks.

Pressed to denounce Farrakhan on The View, Mallory would only distance herself from his anti-Semitic pronouncements.

"I don't agree with these statements," she said. "It's not my language, it's not the way that I speak. It's not how I organize."

While Green has similarly criticized Farrakhan's anti-Semitic remarks on Twitter, his statement on Friday appeared to go a step further by explicitly calling out the minister as a bigot  likening him to Trump.

"I refuse to engage in a debate about one being better than the other," Green said. "Although I have met with both of them, I do not condone the bigotry of either. Both are bigots."
The partial government shutdown is now in its fourth week, with no solution in sight, while the hectic scene at the border persists.

It could even be set to intensify: As recently as Jan. 17, a second caravan of Honduran migrants arrived at the Guatemala-Mexico border, heading in the direction of the US-Mexico border in the hopes of gaining entry as asylum-seekers. >>>Take a look at how these borders look now in the gallery above.
San Antonio police arrested a man Wednesday after he admitted taking a shower with a 9-year-old girl, authorities said.

Ernesto Vallejo, 33, was charged with indecency with a child by contact, according to Bexar County Jail records.

FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox

Police began investigating him on Dec. 27, when the girl and her father made a police report against him.

During a forensic interview, the child told investigators that Vallejo made her shower with him and also made her touch him, according to his arrest affidavit.

Later, Vallejo allegedly laid on top of her while they were both fully clothed and "said he wanted to show her how babies are made," police said.

Police interviewed Vallejo on Thursday, shortly before his arrest. He told them "he did a mistake but it was not as bad as the victim's parents were saying," according to the affidavit.

Vallejo admitted showering with the girl, but denied that he asked her to touch him. He also told police he was wrestling with the girl after the shower and admitted to saying "this is how you make babies," according to the affidavit.

RELATED: Previously convicted sex offender among 15 arrested, indicted on child sex crimes in December

"He stated it was stupid of him to say and that they were both fully clothed," detectives wrote in the arrest affidavit.

Vallejo's criminal record includes a 2009 conviction for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, records show. He was sentenced to seven years of prison in that case, but records show he was released early in 2014.

Vallejo was released from Bexar County Jail Thursday after posting a $75,000 bond, jail records showed.

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | fsabawi@mysa.com|@FaresInSA
Voters in Texas 145th House District are trickling to the polls for the first week of early voting in a sluggish special election to replace state Sen. Carol Alvarado in the lower chamber.

Four days in, a mere 359 voters have cast ballots in person or by mail, amounting to less than one percent of the districts registered voters. Polls will remain open each day through Sunday, close Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and reopen Tuesday through Jan. 25.

The five polling locations will open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. each day except Sunday, when the hours are 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Election Day is Jan. 29.

The election has drawn eight candidates, including six Democrats: Elias De La Garza, Oscar Del Toro, Ruben Gonsalez, Christina Morales, Alfred Moreno and Melissa Noriega. Republican Martha Fierro and Libertarian Clayton Hunt also are running.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Texas higher education official says colleges need more funding from state

More Information The five early voting locations, all in Houston, are: The conference center of the Harris County Law Library, 1019 Congress Ave. Moody Park Community Center, 3725 Fulton St. Ripley House Neighborhood Center, 4410 Navigation Blvd. Houston Community College's Southeast College parking garage, 6960 Rustic St. Harris County Scarsdale annex, 10851 Scarsdale Blvd. See More Collapse

The blue-leaning district went to Hillary Clinton with 67 percent of the vote in 2016; to Democrat Wendy Davis with 57 percent in the 2014 governors race; and to Barack Obama with 60 percent in 2012.

However, with few residents turning out this time, Republicans are hoping for a strong showing from Fierro.

The dismal turnout opens up the prospects for really anyone getting to the runoff if theyre able to mobilize a small number of individuals to actually turn out, said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University.

The low turnout is typical for special elections, such as last months Senate District 6 special election won by Alvarado, D-Houston. Less than 5 percent of registered voters turned out, some of whom are being asked to return to the polls once again.

In that race, Fierro received 23 percent of the vote, bringing her close to a second-place finish but far behind Alvarados 50 percent showing.

Even on uniform election dates, turnout tends to run low in District 145, which runs from the Heights through downtown to parts of Pasadena and South Houston. During the 2016 midterms, about 33,500 of the districts 71,000 registered voters cast ballots, the sixth-lowest vote total of Harris Countys 24 state House districts.

Only Morales and Noriega appear to be raising and spending significant funds on the race, according to campaign finance reports filed this week.

Through Dec. 31, Morales had raised about $20,000, lent herself $5,000 and spent $4,000. She headed into the final month of the race with about $23,000 cash on hand, her finance report showed.

Noriega maintained a similar campaign balance  $22,600  on Dec. 31, much of which came from $21,750 in personal loans. She reported raising about $5,200 and spent $2,100.

Otherwise, Del Toro had spent $2,600 of his own funds. The other candidates either did not raise more than $1,000 or had not filed campaign finance reports by the Jan. 15 deadline.
The driver accused of shooting at three egg-throwing teens before a deadly New Year's Day wreck has been arrested a second time for a traffic-stopping stunt under Houston's iconic "Be Someone" bridge.

Christopher Lopez, 48, turned himself in early Friday on a single count of obstructing a highway, just hours before he appeared in court on charges stemming from the north Houston crash that killed a woman.

Lopez's vehicle  the same 1971 Lincoln Continental he allegedly used to chase the 14-year-old driver  was featured in an unauthorized photo shoot on Interstate 45 at Interstate 10, according to court records.

His vehicle and about a dozen other polished rides, known in Houston as slabs, participated in the Dec. 2 incident, and he was one of at least six people charged.

"If people continue to do this, somebody's going to get seriously hurt or lose their life," said Sean Teare, chief of the Harris County District Attorney's Office Vehicular Crimes Division. "It's all of our hopes that these arrests will signal to anyone that decides to do this, we're not going to tolerate it anymore."

The new misdemeanor case against Lopez will have no bearing on the manslaughter charge stemming from the crash, Teare said.

Lopez and his attorney quickly left the courtroom Friday, staring ahead and declining to comment.

Read more: Trio of teens egged cars before Harris County wreck that left woman dead

Court records indicate that the Lonestar Slab club members posed their custom cars under the graffiti-covered landmark for more than 10 minutes, bringing traffic near the busy interchange to a halt.

Video of the shutdown garnered more than 19,000 views on a social media account associated with the club, which Lopez co-founded in June 2018, according to Harris County records.

Annoyed motorists, some of whom were unable to squeeze by the vehicles, honked their horns in protest, the video shows. A handful of the trapped drivers dialed 911 to report the traffic block around 1:23 p.m. that Sunday, according to law enforcement sources.

"Apparently a bunch of cars keep stopping to take selfies somewhere for something," a dispatcher said, according to police radio traffic of the incident.

An officer radioed that the cars near the Milam exit had "large spokes coming out of the wheels."

"They're putting on a car show that has stopped traffic to take pictures on the freeway," the officer said.

Read more: Man accused of chasing, shooting at egg-throwing teens makes bond

A Houston Police Department investigator used video clips from Instagram users Kandy_Red_Bread and EspinoHTX to identify the drivers by their license plates, according to court records.

"Sorry About The Traffic We Just Had A Little Complication But We All Good Now," a caption for Kandy_Red_Bread's video read. The account went private Thursday 1.17 morning.

A purple pickup truck  with cone-shaped metal rims and #EspinoHTX spray painted on the side  was pictured in the incident. The message "You mad?" was spray painted onto the back of the truck for stuck drivers to read.

Five more people, including the man believed to be the driver of the purple truck  Eduardo Espinosa  have been arrested in connection with the case since Thursday, according to law enforcement sources.

Espinosa was booked into the Houston Police Department Southeast Jail on Friday, records show, in addition to Iracheta, Walter Williams, Alexies Stephens and Joseph Deboest. The five have been charged with obstructing a highway.

HPD spokesman Victor Senties said Friday he was unable to comment on the arrest other than to say it is "an active investigation."

Read more: Son forgives his mother's 14-year-old killer 'with his heart' but demands justice

The Lonestar Slab members met up along a grassy field at Fulton and Burnett, according to a series of clips titled "I-45 Shutdown" on Instagram.

The group soon lined up single-file about 12:30 p.m. at Love's Gas Station in the 200 block of Patton, court papers show. The convoy, with Lopez's Continental in the back, drove about 3 miles to the Union Pacific Railroad train overpass, which was first emblazoned with the "Be Someone" message in 2012.

Some of the footage appeared to have been recorded from inside Lopez's vehicle.

Lopez and "the rest of the car club 'Lonestar Slabs' put many lives at risk for serious bodily injury and could have caused serious bodily harm or death to the public," according to investigators.

The group was planning another traffic stop on Jan. 20 to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, according to law enforcement sources.

Lopez's Lincoln Continental was reportedly involved in the Jan. 1 road rage incident that led to the death of 45-year-old Silvia Zavala.

A trio of teens chucking eggs from a GMC Acadia took aim at Lopez's vintage car and he reacted by chasing after them and firing with a semi-automatic pistol, according to authorities. The teens ran a red light and hit Zavala as she entered Aldine Mail Route at Aldine Westfield. She died at the scene.

Lopez was indicted on a manslaughter charge Monday and surrendered to police that night. He was released after posting a $60,000 bond Tuesday morning.

Lopez was indicted on a manslaughter charge Monday and surrendered to police that night. He was released after posting a $60,000 bond Tuesday morning.

nicole.hensley@chron.com
3 1 of 3 Houston Police Department Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Houston Police Department Show More Show Less 3 of 3





A Houston family can thank diligent police officers for reuniting them with their family dog after a burglary in December.

The dog, a bulldog named Max, was stolen from a home in the 500 block of Shawnee Street in southeast Houston on Dec. 30.
An Afghan interpreter for the U.S. military, detained at a Houston airport and threatened with deportation, has been released after a week in custody, advocates and a government spokesman said.

The interpreter, Mohasif Motawakil, 48, who was detained at George Bush Intercontinental Airport Jan. 10 after arriving in the U.S. with his wife and five children, was freed Thursday, his lawyers said.

A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed the news.

State Department has reviewed their initial decision, and Mr. Motawakils visa has been reinstated and he has been deemed admissible for entry into the United States, the spokesman said in an emailed statement.

Afghan and Iraqi interpreters who worked alongside American troops can qualify for special immigrant visas granting them residency in the United States if they receive letters of support from American officials and show that their lives are in danger. The process takes years for many applicants, who undergo extensive security screenings.

RELATED: Houston Marine's military interpreter finally reaches new home in Texas

Motawakils family appears to have raised suspicion in part when he handed customs officers an envelope that was supposed to be sealed containing their medical records. Someone, apparently a family member, had mistakenly opened the envelope, according to lawyers with Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, a legal advocacy group.

Its shocking to see the way this administration is treating those who have supported our troops, Erika Andiola, chief advocacy officer for RAICES, said in an announcement of Motawakils release. The administration is engaged in a systematic attack on all who it thinks do not belong in this country, and this is just the latest evidence of that.

The detention of Motawakil and his family prompted a flurry of protests, and several members of Congress called for his release.

His wife and family were allowed to leave the airport after more than 24 hours, but their visas were revoked, meaning they would have to seek asylum and would no longer qualify for cash assistance and other benefits already allocated to them, such as help finding work and learning English.

Motawakils family arrived late Saturday in San Antonio, where they are staying with another Afghan interpreter. Motawakil was held at Bush Intercontinental Airport for four days, then moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Montgomery County for three days before he was finally released, according to William Fitzgerald, with RAICES. Fitzgerald also confirmed that Motawakils familys visas had been reinstated.

Its exciting the interpreter has been released, said Betsy Fisher, policy director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, which sued the federal government last year over the delay in processing these visas for Afghans and Iraqis. But CBP has a lot to answer for. Why was someone  in danger because they worked for the US. and who secured a visa after years of vetting  arrested and detained with his family on arrival?

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, one of those who pushed for Motawakils release, said she was grateful the process worked.

America must always stand for human rights and dignity, Jackson Lee said Friday. When people sacrifice for the American cause, American values, such as translators in dangerous places, it is important to keep our promise  and our duty to do so. Its very important to the security of our troops and personnel around the world, and in dangerous places.

Thousands of Afghans and Iraqis and their families have entered the U.S. on special immigrant visas since Congress enacted The Afghan Allies Protection Act in 2009 and a similar program for Iraq in 2008.

Many face danger from the Taliban and other militants after working with U.S. troops. In 2014, the International Refugee Assistance Project, a nonprofit in New York City, estimated that an Afghan interpreter was killed every 36 hours.

Under the Trump administration, the number of Iraqis and Afghans coming here through these programs has drastically fallen, particularly after Trump in 2017 implemented a controversial ban on immigrants from certain Muslim countries.

Only about four dozen Iraqis were admitted in 2018 through a program Congress created specifically for those employed with the U.S. government or American contractors. More than 3,000 came in 2017.

Another Afghan translator on the same visa as Motawakil was similarly detained when he arrived at Newark Airport shortly after the so-called travel ban was announced in 2017. After more than a year in prison, he was granted asylum in 2018 and released.

On Friday, advocates for refugees said CBPs actions warranted continued scrutiny.

Jennifer Quigley, an advocacy strategist with Human Rights First, an international nonprofit, said the agency misused its discretion in Motawakils case. Special immigrant visa applicants only receive visas only after extensive background checks that frequently last years.

Its undermining the years of work the State Department and intelligence agencies have put in vetting these individuals, Quigley said.

st.john.smith@chron.com
If you applied for the college of your choice 50 or 60 years ago, you might be in for a surprise when it comes time for your grand darlings to go through the same process. I know I was!

When our oldest granddaughter began thinking about college and all the ifs that followed, I was shocked (to put it mildly) at all the hoops she was required to navigate and how much time she spent, completing paperwork, essays and collaterals needed to complete each application.

Always looking for the easier way, I wondered why colleges dont adopt the approach to applications many Texas medical schools use  if you complete one application, this will be distributed to several others.

Now that our oldest grandson is a junior and has embarked on an application journey similar to that of his sister  and has spent much of this last semester as well as the holidays, completing applications for college, now just 18 months away, I wanted to share what Ive learned as a grandparent  because there are specific ways we can help other than paying tuition, fees, books or travel costs:

1. Encourage your college-bound grandchildren to complete the Free Application for Federal Financial Student Aid form (pronounced faffs-pha, although thats not how it is spelled  FAFFSA. This form is available online, from counselors and at college financial aid offices. Many counselors suggest  even if a student comes from a financially advantaged household  that every college-bound student fill out this form that offers access to federal financial aid awarded each year. These awards include grants, loans and work study funds. The information reported on the form is used by the U.S. Department of Education to calculate Estimated Family Contribution, or EFC, for the student. The number is used by colleges to determine the students familys level of financial need. Each coming years cycle begins the prior Oct. 1.

2. As a grandparent, especially if you are retired, you may be able to help with college campus visits, giving your grandchild an opportunity to get a feel for campus life, the spirit of the school, the vibe and rhythm of the buildings and grounds that may be their new home for the next four years. Campus visits also are a good time to schedule visits with departments of study the student may be considering for their major fields of study. (Campus visits are good for us grandparents, too, providing us with visuals of where our grandchildren will spend time during their college years.

3. If there are no engineers in your family and your granddaughter wants to be an engineer, call friends, family, clergy and anyone you know, seeking an engineer your grand darling can talk with to get insight.

If your grandson is called into a career in health care and you dont know anyone in the profession, call your doctors office and ask for names  or call the local medical school, military recruiter or community college for references for someone who knows about the opportunities in the field.

4. As a grandparent, you also can help by helping your student and their parents find the best possible people to write letters of reference for your student to include in their application, when required.

5. Whether you are an English major or not, if your grandson or granddaughter asks you to read their essays many college now require on specific topics for application. Another pair of eyes always help, and if your student has been asked to describe themselves, who knows them better?

6. If the student is asked to interview in person, volunteer to provide practice interview questions before their scheduled appearances. Your life of experience will be helpful to them. Also, your support will increase their confidence, so offer gentle suggestions when helpful. (A note in their pocket or backpack or an encouraging word from you also helps).

7. As your grandchild goes through the arduous process of taking their next big step in life  whether it is into the workforce, the military or college classroom  check in periodically with them and ask about their progress. These are big decisions and your interest and moral support are key ingredients as they move through the what ifs and their options.

8. In my vast experience (now one college sophomore and one busy applicant), I have found it to be very important to be available  by face time, phone, email, etc.  whenever my grandchildren have questions, want someone else to weigh in as a sounding board or just for words of encouragement.

This process takes time, effort and persistence. Be there as a supporter, no matter what, or as a shoulder to cry on (for about two minutes before urging them to keep trying).

9. The application process is where, as they say, the rubber meets the road. This is where the students resume of volunteer work, leadership experience, extra-curricular involvement and class standing as well as ACT or SAT scores may take on a greater importance than being part of the in crowd, being voted homecoming queen or being a star safety, low-post player or all-region thrower.

10. Finally, and most important of all, make sure your student realizes the world wont end if they get a lower-than-expected SAT or ACT degree or that they miss being in the Top Ten Students or the top 6 percent to be eligible for their school of choice or dont get accepted to the first college of their choice or the school where their parents earned their degrees. Two of my children began their college careers at open-enrollment community colleges.

When I check with them now, 20 years later, theyll say the community college gave them a head-start and a step up in the experiences they needed to move on after two years to a four-year university and earning a bachelors degree.

As loving, caring grandparents, your unconditional love, acceptance, encouragement and support is essential throughout this process, a process the total opposite of my own  where all I had to do was indicate I wanted to attend certain schools and the doors of acceptance swung open.

Its a new, more competitive world these days  and the applicants with the most determination, stamina and support will be the most successful.
The 10-year-old girl found dead with her mother and sister at their San Antonio-area home last week died of a gunshot wound to the head and neck.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office on Thursday positively identified the victim as London Sophia Bribiescas and ruled her death a homicide.

She was in fifth grade at Leon Springs Elementary School.

The death of her mother, Nichol Leila Olsen, 37, was ruled a suicide. The death of Olsens other daughter, Clark High School cheerleader Alexa Denise Montez, 16, was ruled a homicide. Each died of a gunshot wound to the head.

Their bodies were found inside their home in the 11300 block of Anaqua Springs, located in a gated community.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Judges to unveil drastic new plan for releasing defendants on no-cash bail

Also Thursday, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said that Olsens boyfriend is a person of interest but not a suspect in the case.

Charlie Wheeler, 31, has complied with officers and submitted to tests examining his hands for any traces of gunshot residue, the sheriff said.

Hes been cooperative with us knowing full well that under the circumstances hes a person of interest, Salazar said. Were not calling anybody a suspect at this point.

San Antonio attorney Mark Stevens, who represents Wheeler, expressed frustration with the sheriffs comments.

What we would ask is that people not jump to conclusions, that they not demonize this young man who does not deserve it, that they let the professionals do their jobs and complete this investigation and respect the privacy of presumptively innocent people and of Charlie Wheeler, who did not commit a crime here, Stevens said

Wheeler reported finding the bodies around 9 a.m. Jan. 10.

Salazar said his officers arent relying solely on the medical examiners findings and will be investigating fully, noting there are numerous unanswered questions.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Family rejects suicide ruling in triple shooting

Friends and family have disputed the ruling on Olsens death, saying that she would not have committed suicide or harmed her children.

Friends of Olsen who don't believe she committed suicide have established a GoFundMe page called "Searching for the Truth" to help fund further investigation. Their fundraising goal is $50,000. Contributors had already donated $5,600 less than an hour after the page was established.

pohare@express-news.net | Twitter: @Peggy_OHare
The mission of Retirement Center Management (RCM) is to not only serve seniors but to play an active role in the communities it serves. Every year, RCM leads efforts to organize company-wide fundraisers benefitting non-profits. In 2018, RCM supported Habitat for Humanity, AniMeals, Foster Grandparents and The Alzheimers Association.

RCMs fundraising and charitable work for 2018 was phenomenal, as RCM communities collected over 1,800 pounds of pet food for AniMeals, assisted in the building of a beautiful new home for a well-deserving family for Habitat for Humanity, and helped sponsor The Foster Grandparents Appreciation Luncheon.
Another holiday season and Andrea had turned down numerous invitations again this year, trapped in her own home by urinary incontinence  or loss of bladder control.

The leakage from her bladder (called incontinence) had begun with periodic leakage, especially when she laughed, sneezed or lifted something heavy. At first, she used a small pad. When the problem increased, she opted to wear Depends.

Now, the problem had become more severe and she has become isolated from family and friends, preferring to stay home, not too far from the bathroom.

Billy, a long-haul truck driver, has the same problem. He wears mens absorbent underwear, which manages his leakage, but recently, hes begun experiencing fecal incontinence as well.

These problems are common, particularly in todays large aging population. Studies estimate at least 33 million adults experience urinary incontinence, but typically more women than men. Symptoms may occur as early as the 30s. As individuals age, the problem of incontinence typically worsens.

Bidhan Das, M.D., a colon and rectal surgeon with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth and UT Physicians, said he regularly sees patients with these complaints, and assists them in treating pelvic health issues, particularly in women.

There are many possible causes for these issues in women, the largest being trauma during childbirth, Das said, although it may be 30 years before symptoms show up  and some men experience incontinence, particularly as they get older.

He regrets patients often wait for years before discussing incontinence with their physicians. Lets face it. These conditions are difficult to talk about, he said. Socially, it can be crippling, as reported by those who become housebound, afraid to go out for fear theyll have an accident.

The surgeon, who received his medical training from Yale University School of Medicine, followed by surgical residency training at Harvard Medical School, is board certified in colon and rectal surgery as well as general surgery.

When the symptoms of incontinence appear, they may be due to an episiotomy at the time of delivery or traumatic damage to the anal sphincter. The process of giving birth may have caused damage to the nerves and muscles that sustain more damage from age-related changes, such as atrophy (wasting, degeneration of cells), Das said.

With these or similar traumas, certain sacral nerves are damaged, nerves that control the bladder and/or bowel and normal function.

Historically, there is evidence that problems of incontinence have been common for thousands of years. The symptoms of incontinence are mentioned in Papyrus Ebers, an Egyptian medical papyrus of herbal knowledge dating to back to about 1550 BC.

Although solutions to address incontinence have been slow to emerge, Das and his colleagues are optimistic about several new and innovative, non-invasive treatment options as well as the success of these options.

In the 60s and 70s, incontinence was largely not talked about. Then, the manufacturer Kimberley-Clark began advertising adult diapers, Das said. The stigma of leakage or loss of control fell sharply when popular actress June Allison was featured in TV and print advertising, speaking about her own mothers incontinence problems.

If we bring this issue more to the forefront, patients will be more prone to bring up and discuss their urinary or fecal incontinence issues with their primary care physicians or even seek the help of their gynecologist or a colorectal surgeon.

He added that patients with incontinence often lose touch with their social network, and without social stimulation, can experience onset of dementia, and when caregivers become necessary, the seniors incontinence also adds to the caregivers workload.

In a time when efforts are focused on staying healthy with little ongoing medical expense, there is room for low-risk, high-reward options.

One of these options for patients experiencing incontinence (either urinary, fecal or both) is a relatively new procedure (since 2011) called InterStim, a system that electrically stimulates the sacral nerve, which is thought to normalize neural communication between the bladder and brain and between the bowel and brain.

The procedure is covered by Medicare and most health insurance plans.

As Das explained, once you see your physician and have a few tests, and if you are a candidate, there are two steps: first, a temporary stimulation, conducted in an outpatient setting that amounts to a simple needle stick that lasts as short as minutes under a minimal sedation (15 minutes). I

n this procedure, a temporary lead wire sending electrical impulses to stimulate the once-damaged nerves is placed. After awaking from sedation, you can go back to work.

This step  a temporary stimulation procedure  usually produces such dramatic changes, patients call us a day or two after, ecstatic they are no longer dealing with incontinence, said the surgeon.

Closely following the patients progress and keeping a log of occurrences of incontinence and then a clinical evaluation, the temporary stimulation lead is replaced with a permanent lead and a battery, smaller than a pacemaker, is placed into area near the upper buttock, well-hidden under generous, subcutaneous tissue.

The entire procedure is completed in less than 30 minutes under moderate sedation, and any post-op pain can be controlled with Tylenol.

The result is so good and, again, the risk is so low, InterStim allows us to easily treat this ages-old problem, giving patients a new lease on life, free of worry about embarrassing situations and the ability to move on with their normal lives, Das said, adding he recently successfully performed the InterStim procedure on a 101-year-old patient. InterStim is a long-lasting solution that far outperforms more complex, more invasive surgical procedures, and for patients experiencing urinary and/or fecal incontinence, InterStim is a life-changing procedure that resolves both problems.

To learn more, call Das at 713-486-4634.
Every corner of the exhibit hall at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott and Convention Center offered delicious treats Thursday night when thousands of foodies from around the region gathered to feast on bites from local restaurants at The Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerces 33rd annual Taste of the Town.

The event brought more than 45 area restaurants, bakeries, breweries and bars, including local staples like Goode Company, Robards Steakhouse and the newly opened Sorriso Modern Italian Kitchen to the hotel, where unlimited samples awaited guests for only the price of admission.

Were all about expanding business in our community, said Meagen Korenek, the chambers director of special events. This event is perfect because we can showcase all the restaurants in the area and we get to showcase why people should come here and find their new favorite restaurant.

SEE WHAT'S COMING: Visit The Woodlands sets sights on the future attractions

Taste of the Town is meant to showcase the culinary talents of Spring, The Woodlands and Conroe, but there was still room for a little friendly competition. Houston Restaurant Weeks founder Cleverly Stone, Hot Line Pepper Products founder Kerry Stessel, Houston Food Finder Editor and Publisher Phaedra Cook and Houston media personality Greg Onofrio were on hand to judge the evenings Best of Tastes, Best Appetizer, Best Entree and Best Dessert.

Defending champion Avenida Brazil Churrascaria Steakhouse were back with a vengeance, hoping their sirloin steak with creamy Parmesan au gratin potatoes could win Best Entree for the second year in a row.

It made him happy, said co-owner Melissa Abrantes of Executive Chef Vanderlei Bernardi. He loved it  he felt like it would be a good one to bring back because we offer it at the restaurant.

But, it was not to be  Trulucks Seafood Steak & Crab House took the grand prize with their sweet and spicy Icelandic cod with heirloom tomato and avocado salad with sweet chili, each one handcrafted by Executive Chef Shane Flynn.

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Im very proud of him, managing partner Chris Davis said. Hes been working really hard on this.

Robards Steakhouse Executive Pastry Chef Ryan Witchers chocolate ice cream was nothing short of a production  a liquid ice cream base made with Valrhona 70 percent dark chocolate Guanaja was poured into a dry ice bowl, mixed with Meyer lemon olive oil and fleur de sel salt, whipped and served in a chocolate waffle cone. At Robards, he said, its made tableside.

Im going for Best Dessert, Best Table, Peoples Choice  everything, Witcher said.

The production worked  Witcher and his team tasted sweet victory when the Best Dessert award was announced.

And of the generous helping of bacon bits in each serving?

Were in Texas, Witcher said.

MUDBUGS ARE HERE: Check out these 18 Houston area spots

Broken Barrel was able to pull off a repeat for Best Appetizer, its toston with refried beans, Adobo pork, pickled onions and burnt salsa bringing home the award for the second year in a row.

For the first time, too, guests were able to have their voice heard, with a Peoples Choice Award and an award for Best Decorated Booth.

The event is one of the many the chamber does year-round to promote and expand business in The Woodlands, Korenek said. All of the 95 total vendors at the event were chamber members and Taste of the Town is a way for them to not only promote themselves but support their fellow business owners. The event is steadily growing, she added, and the 3,000 visitors expected at the 2019 event were the most theyve seen.

Were on target, Korenek said.

Proceeds from the event, sponsored by Randall Reeds Planet Ford and Visit The Woodlands, go toward business expansion and retention programs in the township.

mrincon@chron.com
Real estate heir Robert Durst has already admitted to dismembering his former Galveston County neighbor Morris Black, but a jury never found him guilty of fatally shooting the man during a 2003 trial.

Fifteen years later, a judge has allowed prosecutors in Los Angeles County to rehash the evidence during an upcoming trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, where Durst has been charged with killing his friend, Susan Berman, in 2000. Prosecutors are also looking to tie him to his wife's disappearance in 1982, court records show.

RELATED: Dramatic video recreation of how Robert Durst says Morris Black died revealed in court filing

Superior Court Judge Mark Windham made the decision during a hearing on Tuesday in response to a 27-page motion claiming Durst is responsible for all three deaths.

His Houston-based defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin, said the ruling could mean they're "going to have to try the Galveston case all over again."

"These Hollywood prosecutors are very critical of our hometown Galveston prosecutors, and they think they could have done a better job," he told Chron.com on Thursday. "That flies in the face of fundamental fairness...and the fact that 12 jurors unanimously said hes not guilty."

DeGuerin said he wasn't sure whether he would challenge the ruling ahead of the Sept. 3 trial.

Despite the fact that Durst has only been officially charged in one killing, motions filed by Los Angeles County prosecutors paint a detailed narrative accusing Durst of killing his wife Kathie in 1982 and engaging in a violent cover-up scheme years later.

The documents claim he killed his wife in their New York home "after years of exerting power and control" over her. He then enlisted his best friend, Susan Berman, to help cover up the crime, the documents say.

Nearly 20 years after Kathie's disappearance, in 1999, New York authorities re-opened the investigating into her disappearance. Durst learned that the local press planned to publicize the update, so he fled to to a low-rent studio apartment in Galveston, where he posed as an elderly mute woman with a fake name, prosecutors say.

From there, prosecutors say he began his "master plan" to cover up his wife's killing. Fearing Berman would disclose his involvement in Kathie's death, prosecutors say he made the 650-mile journey to her home and shot her in the back of the head at point-blank range.

Months later, in Sept. 2001,prosecutors say he tied the last loose end when he shot and killed the only person who knew his true identity in Galveston, his close friend and neighbor Morris Black.

"Defendant's crimes throughout 2000-2001 were the manifestations of his same common design and plan to escape detection for his involvement in the death of his missing wife Kathie," court documents say.

In a 2003 trial in Galveston County, Durst admitted to dismembering the man and dumping his body into Galveston Bay, but his defense team claimed it wasn't related to Morris' death. They said Morris was accidentally killed in a struggle over a gun and described the dismemberment as a postmortem decision. A 12-member Galveston County jury acquitted him of the killing.

According to the Associated Press, Judge Windham said he would allow the evidence in Black's killing because "the events seem to be intertwined." He said jurors would have to decide whether Berman and Black's killing were part of an effort to dodge New York authorities.

His wife's body has never been found.

For Durst's defense team, the admission of the old evidence "dirties up the case," DeGuerin said.

"What happened in Galveston to Morris Black has nothing whatsoever to do with whether Bob Durst killed Susan Berman," he said. "Bob didn't kill Susan and he doesn't know who did, but if they start piling on all kinds of crap, then the jury is going to say 'Well this is all too much ... and we're going to convict.'"

Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message

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A man who was accused of killing his estranged wife and critically wounding his daughter at a church parking lot in Cypress is dead after a standoff at a west Harris County hotel Friday morning, authorities said.

Deputies launched a manhunt for 62-year-old Arthur Edigin Thursday night after he fired into a car carrying his wife, Graciela Torres, 66; his daughter, Penny Edigin-Zapata, 31; and his 17-month-old grandchild.

He fled to the Extended Stay America hotel at 2424 West Sam Houston Parkway near Westheimer, where he had a room. Friday morning, he was found in the bathtub dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Sr. Deputy Thomas Gilliland with the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

The SWAT scene came to a close after nearly six hours of attempting to negotiate with Edigin, said Gilliland.

After it became known that Edigin was in a fourth floor room of the hotel, deputies attempted to relocate civilians in the adjacent areas. As negotiations broke off and the SWAT scene stretched on, deputies and HFD officials attempted to move all guests out of the hotel.

"You have a very dangerous subject, and the most important thing was the citizens of the hotel," Gilliland said.

During the negotiations, deputies broke through Edigin's window to deploy gas canisters in the room, letting off some loud bangs. Some guests were treated for minor respiratory issues, Gilliland said.

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Deputies then released another round of gas into the room after. They last made contact with Edigin several hours before the conclusion of the standoff, but no significant progress was made in getting him to surrender, Gilliland said.

A robot entered the room at 6:50 a.m. and found Edigin deceased in the bathroom, with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the sheriff's office.

'A TERRIBLE ACT OF VIOLENCE': Church where woman was shot by estranged husband holds service

Hotel guest Tommy Armstead said he didn't think much of it when deputies came to his bedroom and told him to evacuate. After about an hour of waiting outside during the standoff, he heard the suspect was wanted for murder and couldn't believe it.

"The guy, he could have went crazy and shooting wildly," Armstead said while sitting in a car outside the building.

Another guest, Don Thomas, said he was staying at the hotel while looking for a place to live in Houston, but might rethink that now.

"We might have to go back to the country somewhere," Thomas said. "We're not used to this at all."

Desiree Hollander stepped outside in her bathrobe to walk her dog after the scene cleared. She woke up early this morning and turned on the news to see that the man sleeping just two doors down and a floor above was a suspected murderer.

Hollander said she heard pops, which caused her dog to start running in circles. She called the front desk, and they told her to stay put.

"I was afraid," she said. "I was like, I hope he doesn't start shooting because he was so close and I couldn't get out."

In Thursday night's shooting, Edigin is accused of opening fire on his estranged wife and her adult daughter, who were in a car in a parking lot of Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church, at the 11500 block of Huffmeister Road. He fired possibly five to six gunshots, deputies said.

Torres died while her daughter is in critical condition at a hospital. They were coming to the church for ESL classes and had just arrived, the church said.

The wife and daughter were in the car with a 17-month-old child, which Gilliland referenced as Edigin's grandchild.

"It shows you how heinous the crime was," Gilliland said. "It kind of shows you the mindset of the person we're deailng with."

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A feast of fun, food and frolic will be served Jan. 25-26 at the fourth annual 24-Hour Potluck Playfest in Deer Park.

There are no fees for actors, writers and directors to participate, and you will be well-fed, promised festival coordinator Susan Mele, who is the artistic managing director of Art Park Players, which is co-sponsoring the event with the city of Deer Parks parks and recreation department.

The festival, which will begin at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25 at 1302 Center St. in Deer Park, will culminate in a supper at 6 p.m. the next day, followed by performances of original scripts by Houston-area playwrights, then voting by the audience for best play, director and actor.

Each play must be no more than 10 minutes in length, said last years winning author, Steve Stewart of Sugar Land.

His script, A Cryptic Farewell, was an amusing look at three women who gathered in New Orleans to spread their late friends ashes at the crypt of a voodoo priestess.

It was a comedy, but also reflective, Stewart said.

Fast-working thespians What: the fourth annual 24-Hour Potluck Playfest featuring 10-minute plays When: Jan. 25-26 Where: 1302 Center St. in Deer Park Admission: $15 Details: Message David Eck at deck@deerparktx.org See More Collapse

The plays generally lean to the comedic side, added Mele.

Jennifer McLaughlin of Deer Park was honored last year for her performance, while Sean Thompson of Houston was voted best director.

This years prospective actors and directors are invited to submit a picture and resume, and authors are asked to submit their short scripts, to David Eck at deck@deerparktx.org.

In order to be considered, you must be available from Friday, Jan. 25 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. and all day Saturday, the 26th, Mele said.

Sped-up preparation

Bring a random prop, which must be incorporated into a production in Saturday evenings performance.

In years past, the props have included a necktie, a stuffed animal, a Broadway top hat and cane, even a hula hoop, Mele said.

On the night of Jan. 25, said Stewart, Everyones names are put into a hat, and actors and directors are assigned at random as far as which play they will work on. That is one thing that makes this event so unique and special.

Once names are drawn, groups disburse with Mele advising participants to make it work, a la Tim Gunn of TVs reality competition show Project Runway.

Thespians usually rehearse until about midnight, then return the next day at 9 a.m. for breakfast and blocking throughout the day.

Throughout the day, we run tech for each show, Mele said.

At 6 p.m., we will begin selling tickets for a meal with a main course plus side dishes and desserts that are brought by volunteers, she said. It is like a Sunday afternoon church picnic.

Admission is $15.

Saturday nights performance moves along nicely with a lot of variety, said Stewart, who praised last years participation by thespians at Art Park Players.

Mele expects as many as 40 actors, including membes of both sexes age 16 and up, to participate in this years festival.

It gets bigger every year, she said.
Within three years, the Houston community should have 240 more psychiatric beds and the nations largest mental health academic hospital.

Construction on the new UTHealth Continuum of Care Campus for Behavioral Health is slated to begin in the Texas Medical Center on McGregor this summer and be completed by the end of 2021. The plans were announced at an unveiling on Friday, Jan. 11.

The campus is a joint project with the Texas State Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). It is being funded by $125 million from the state that the 2017 Legislative Budget Board approved and sent to Gov. Gregg Abbott with the goal of improving mental health care statewide.

Stephen Glazier, the chief operating officer of the UTHealth Harris County Psychiatric Center and future COO of the new campus, explained that the name for the hospital comes from the continuing care that UTHealth and HHSC aim to provide once it opens, giving their patients better health.

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We have a lot of acute care beds, and we have a lot of funding for acute care beds, and we have a lot of funding for outpatient therapy and case management, he said. But there is an array of services between those that are really important for patients that have just not been funded over the years, and theyve kind of disappeared.

The research hospitals two new buildings will be joined by a glazed bridge and include a therapy mall, activity room and communal dining facility as well as internal and external courtyards.

The buildings will be constructed adjacent to UTHealth HCPC on what is now a parking lot that TMC owns and has leased to HHSC for 50 years.

Dr. Guiseppe Colasurdo, president of UTHealth, compared the work by many to bring the new facilities to Houston to the campaign that brought world-renown The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to Houston in 1941.

Now its time for mental health or behavioral health to take the spot, to take the support from the legislative session, from the community and develop, target, treat and cure millions of patients who nobody knows how to heal today, Colasurdo said, referring to the new campus as the miracle on McGregor.

A FIRST FOR HOUSTON: New UT psychiatric hospital will be specially designed for longer-term patients

Dr. Melissa Allen, medical director of the UTHealth HCPC, said the UTHealth Continuum of Care Campus for Behavioral Health has been greatly needed in Houston for a long time and that she is excited for how it will positively impact the lives of mental health patients in the Houston area and beyond.

I think that it will mean more rapid access to care and the ability to provide continuity of care and step-down services that will improve the overall stabilization, she said. It will allow us to address the rapid readmission rates that we tend to see in this population and hopefully address compliance issues so that we can get more patients stabilized and hopefully keep them out of the hospital and doing more active, functional things.

tracy.maness@hcnonline.com
(Image source from: Hindustantimes.com)

Nagarjuna Signs Bangarraju:- King Nagarjuna is left in shock with back to back debacles. His career went down hill from the past couple of years and the actor is on a break. Nag is busy with the shoot of his next film titled Brahmastra directed by Ayan Mukherjee. Ranbir Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan and Alia Bhatt are the lead actors in this action thriller that will release this year. Nagarjuna will be seen in a cameo in this film.

As per the latest news, the actor signed his next film titled Bangarraju. Kalyan Krishna Kurasala who directed Soggade Chinni Nayana will direct this film which is a sequel for Soggade Chinni Nayana. Young actor Naga Chaitanya will be seen in a special role in this village based family drama. The regular shoot commences from April this year and Annapurna Studios will produce Bangarraju.
Retired Katy Independent School District special education teacher Amy Campbell became a member of a special class in the school district on Jan. 15.

She joined other educators and community leaders who have had schools in the Katy ISD named after them.

Amy Campbell Elementary is the districts 41st elementary school, the fourth two-story elementary campus and the second elementary school located in Fulshear. It opened in August 2018 in Cross Creek Ranch subdivision. The gym at Campbell Elementary, 3701 Cross Creek Bend Lane, was filled last Tuesday night for the dedication.

School board president Courtney Doyle said that Campbell has spent her career as an advocate for Katy Independent School District students. May this building honor her life and values, said Doyle.

Superintendent Ken Gregorski said that Campbell has made an impact on generations to come.

Macey Evans, a special education teacher at Tompkins High School, illustrates Campbells impact. Evans said she was a student at Katy High school where she got to know Campbell. Campbell began work in 1982 at Katy High School as an adaptive behavior teacher.

Evans took an active role in the Best Buddies program in which she assumed a leadership role both in high school and at Texas A&M University. Best Buddies is a nonprofit group that pairs a volunteer with a person who has intellectual and development disabilities.

While Evans she she always knew she wanted to be a teacher, it was Campbells influence and encouragement that helped her to focus on special education.

She was there for me and helped me get there, said Evans.

The school dedication program, in part, reads: Amys biggest strength was the way she instilled a sense of confidence, self-esteem and perseverance in students.

She and a colleague piloted a LIFE Skills program and began an occupational lab in 1987. That program has evolved to the Work-Based Learning program which is offered in every high school in Katy ISD. Campbell also is credited with starting a swim program for special-needs students that became known as Adaptive Aquatics.

After moving to Taylor High School, she and a colleague organized the second Texas high school chapter of Best Buddies. She remained a program sponsor until she retired in 2015.

Campbell received a standing ovation when she came to the podium where her analogy focused on an acorn taken from her backyard oak tree and how given the right conditions, its potential is unlimited  just as is a students potential. Given good fertile soil with nutrients and the right amount of rain and sun, it could become a legacy tree, she said. Campbell Elementarys Vision Statement is Building a Legacy.

Campbell credits her mother for her encouraging role.

She encouraged people to do and be their best. I want to be an encourager.

And she gave examples of former students who have stayed in touch with her and their successes in work and personal lives.

After sharing their stories, she listed her wants: I want to have a sense of humor like Lisa and be thoughtful. I want to make people feel welcome.

She challenged those on stage and in the audience to go back to their circle of friends and family and to be the sunshine to others.

Tributes also came from representatives of local legislators. The Office of District 18 Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham; presented a proclamation adopted by the Legislature and the Office of District 28 state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond presented a flag flown over the Texas Capitol.

Fulshear Mayor Aaron Groff welcomed the school to the city.

Were ecstatic that youre here, he said.

karen.zurawski@chron.com
More than 230 people attended the Katy Area Chamber of Commerce State of the City of Katy luncheon on Wednesday to listen to city officials discuss their priorities for region.

City of Katy Mayor Chuck Brawner, along with Director of Tourism, Marketing and Public Relations Kayce Reina and City Administrator Byron Hebert spoke at Wednesdays luncheon that took place at the Embassy Suites Hotel at 16435 Katy Freeway.

The final headcount for the luncheon was 233 people, said Denise Einkauf, Katy Area Chamber of Commerce board member. Einkauf is the owner at Waggin Tail Pet Ranch in Fulshear.

Brawner lead the discussion regarding Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts, local improvements within the city limits and said the citys strong relationships with other municipalities, organizations and governments has helped the city prosper, especially after many residents were flooded out of their homes after Harvey.

We are a very unique city and for us to be able to have relationships with our city is very valuable, Reina told the crowd. Everything we do directly impacts you as a citizen, you as a business owner - so we want to talk about our projects but it couldnt happen without the support of all of you.

Hebert said leading a city that has jurisdictional lines within three counties can be tricky.

Brawner echoed the statement and said that the relationships the city had with the commissioners, state and federal entities helped the city garner support following the flooding in Harvey.

It was during that time that city officials learned that the water that inundated the city of Katy came from north of the city.

Not only did it (flood) the city of Katy, the Houston area, Brawner said. The Cypress watershed was the actual culprit of a lot of the flooding.

Prior to the hurricane, the city signed a contract with a disaster debris removal company in an effort to prepare for the worst of it, Brawner said.

Within days, trucks like you see there with the big arm on it were cleaning our streets, Brawner said. We wanted to make sure we could get some semblance of order in our town. While other cities were waiting to figure out what they were going to do, we had the trucks.

The city was able to use our relationship with Gov. Greg Abbott who promised that (the state) would waive any requirements that would help us get cleaned.

It took 15 minutes to get the requirement waived to move the trash to the city landfill, Brawner said.

Brawner, Reina and Hebert gave brief updates on local improvements such as the Katy Boardwalk, street and drainage renovations within the city.
Friendswood police are looking for two men they say robbed Compass Bank, 113 N. Friendswood Drive, at gunpoint Jan. 3.

The suspects were described as black and in their early 20s with sort hair and no facial hair, police said. The two were described as being between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 8 inches tall, according to a report.

The men fled on North Friendswood Drive toward Pearland in a dark gray Toyota Corolla or Nissan, possibly a 2015 model, with dealer plates, police said. No injuries were reported.

Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the department at 281-996-3300.

In other news, Friendswood police recently investigated reported cases of break-ins and fraud.

Burglary

Glass on a back door was broken to gain entry into a home between Dec. 31 and Jan. 2 in the 1600 block of Keystone Drive, police said. Nothing was reported taken.

A trucks rear window was broken in the 15800 block of Wandering Trail, according to a Jan. 3 police report. Nothing was reported missing from the truck.

Cash, credit cards and jewelry were reported stolen from a home Jan. 4 in the 100 block of Lamar Canyon Lane, police said. The suspect or suspects gained entry by breaking a window in the back door, according to the report.

Theft

Police took a Pearland man, 29, into custody for public intoxication and shoplifting after he reportedly stole two Bud Lights Jan. 1 from H-E-B, 701 W. Parkwood Ave. Officers found the man drinking the beer in the parking lot, police said.

Fraud

A Friendswood residents wallet was stolen Jan. 3 in Alvin, according to a Jan. 4 police report. A credit card from the wallet also was used fraudulently, police said.

A Friendswood resident claimed someone used his identity to file for unemployment benefits, according to a Jan. 5 police report.

Criminal mischief

An older model white truck struck a mailbox in the 500 block of Meadow Bend Drive and fled, according to a Jan. 6 police report.

Assault

Police charged a Friendswood woman, 36, with assault, family violence Jan. 1 in the 3400 block of Queensburg Lane. She allegedly assaulted her husband and broke his glasses.

A 59-year-old Houston woman was charged with public intoxication and assault, family violence after she allegedly punched her boyfriend in the chest Jan. 1 at their home in the 700 block of Hidden Woods Lane, police said. Police found her stumbling in the front yard of a residence in the 600 block of Hidden Pine Lane, according to the report.

Police charged a Friendswood woman, 26, with assault, family violence Jan. 4 in the 400 block of Bellmar Lane. She allegedly assaulted her brother.

Narcotics

A La Porte woman, 35, was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia after a traffic stop for expired license plates Jan. 2 in the 100 block of Brandywyne Drive, police said. She was wanted in Brazoria County on a DWI warrant, and the officer found a meth pipe during a vehicle inventory, according to the report.

Police charged a San Leon man, 38, with possession of a controlled substance after a traffic stop for an unsignaled lane change and an insurance violation Jan. 3 in the 2700 block of West Parkwood Avenue. The man refused consent for a vehicle search, and a police K-9 provided a positive alert for the presence of narcotics, according to the report. An officer allegedly found dimethyltryptamine and cocaine inside the vehicle. At the jail, a bag of methamphetamine was found the mans pocket, and bond was set at $5,000, police said. The mans passenger reportedly had outstanding warrants.

A Rosharon man, 29, was charged with possession of a controlled substance after a traffic stop for license plate and insurance violations Jan. 6 in the 700 block of West Parkwood Avenue, police said. The officer found a glass pipe, a bag of marijuana and two tubes of cannabis oil containing THC during a search, according to the report.

Police charged an 18-year-old Alvin man with possession of a controlled substance after a traffic stop for a license plate violation Jan. 6 in the 1200 block of Twin Oaks Street. The officer found marijuana, 13 doses of Adderall, bags, lighters and marijuana shake during a vehicle search, police said. Bond was set at $10,000.

Driving while intoxicated

Police charged a Friendswood man, 47, with DWI after a witness observed an argument between the man and his son, according to a Jan. 1 police report. The suspect reportedly left in a vehicle before police arrived but was stopped by an officer at John Avenue and Myrtlewood Drive. The driver failed a field sobriety test, and the officer found alcohol inside the vehicle, police said. Bond was set at $1,500.

A 22-year-old Friendswood woman was charged with DWI after a traffic stop for speeding Jan. 4 in the 4400 block of FM 528, police said. She reportedly failed a field sobriety test. Police charged the passenger, a 25-year-old Alvin man, with public intoxication.

Police charged a Texas City man, 35, with DWI after an officer observed him speeding and crossing the medians solid yellow line Jan. 5 in the 1700 block of FM 528. He failed a field sobriety test and agreed to a breath test, police said.

A Pearland man, 36, was charged with DWI after an officer observed him in a vehicle parked with its engine running Jan. 6 in the 400 block of Marys Creek Lane, police said. The man failed a field sobriety test, and bond was set at $1,000, according to the report. A 31-year-old League City man asleep in the passenger seat reportedly had outstanding warrants.

Public intoxication

Police charged a 72-year-old Friendswood man with public intoxication after he reportedly was observed pulling on the doors of closed businesses Jan. 1 near Kroger in the 3100 block of FM 538.

Traffic

Police charged a Texas City man, 27, with no drivers license after a traffic stop Jan. 1 in the 5400 block of FM 2351. He allegedly had an expired registration and was unable to provide his drivers license or proof of insurance. The passenger, a 31-year-old Dickinson man, had an outstanding warrant, police said.

A 26-year-old League City man was charged with driving while license invalid and possession of drug paraphernalia after a traffic stop for an insurance violation Jan. 5 in the 3100 block of West Bay Area Boulevard, police said.
BOSTON  Ah, wilderness! Its our answer to Europes cathedrals, our proof of a unique national identity.

Most citizens were introduced to the wilderness by images. In the early-19th century, Thomas Cole placed the eastern wilderness  his beloved Catskill Mountains  on walls. Later in the century, Carleton Watkins 1861 photographs of Yosemite contributed heavily to Abraham Lincolns decision in 1864 to secure the valley forever for public use, resort and recreation, the first time any government anywhere set aside land to benefit the public.

William Henry Jacksons 1871 photographs of Yellowstone helped persuade Congress to establish the first national park in 1872.

Then, in the 1930s, Ansel Adams (1902-84), a conservationist who had grown up near the windswept dunes of Golden Gate Park, lobbied Congress and sent the government a book of his photographs of the southern Sierra Nevada range. They strongly influenced President Franklin Roosevelts decision to make the Kings Canyon area a national park.

Late in the 19th century, virtually every home had a viewer for 3D stereographs of a West that looked like a fable. Manifestly  in mindset as well as mission  the West was our destiny.

And now it is bracing  if perhaps cautionary  to see, close to the moment that the government shutdown has affected many of the national parks, so many noble and challenging images of our countrys heritage starring in Ansel Adams in Our Time, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is a far-ranging, smartly and instructively installed show of more than 100 of his photographs.

Not a mere retrospective, it also includes about 80 images by 23 contemporary photographers that the curator, Karen Haas, sees as a modern lens on Adams. Although the connections are occasionally a bit tenuous, their addition highlights how Adams, who carried the 19th centurys hymn to America into the 20th century, has remained an inescapable force.

The photographers on view who adapt Adams images simultaneously make radical changes and commentaries. Their inclusion points out major shifts in the way both landscape photography and landscape itself are now regarded.

Although Adams gave his heart to the 19th century, he trained his eye on modernism and the straight photography of the 1930s, with its sharp focus, vivid contrast and compositions that amounted to studies in form and light. His iconic and still breathtaking mountainscapes of Yosemite and elsewhere are on view, as well as such semiabstract landscapes as Sand Dunes, Sunrise, Death Valley National Monument, California, which could stand comfortably beside an Edward Weston.

Most come from the Lane Collection, a munificent gift of more than 450 Adams photographs to the Boston MFA. There are surprises, too, including the breadth of Adams interests (and the extent of his need to earn a living with commissions and magazine work), from Native Americans to ghost towns, from a World War II Japanese internment camp to cemeteries, churches, a cigar-store Indian, a highway interchange.

Like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Adams experienced a heightened spirituality in the wilderness that spoke to a longing for the beauties, peace and spectacle of untrammeled nature  a yearning that lingers strongly in our time, suggesting it might be innate.

He was 14 when he first visited Yosemite. He quickly took his Kodak into that stupendous valley and was so moved by the experience that it changed his life. Adams meant his images to convey the emotions he experienced while taking pictures and heightening their impact in the darkroom. (He was a superb printer.) How lucky it is for the arts that human vision, although it does not register the world in black and white, can respond to colorless representation on a level within reach of its response to color.

Landscape tourism grew exponentially from the post-Civil War years to today, but untouched wilderness has dwindled as the population increased and migrated to cities and suburbs, while mining, drilling and industrialization encroached on open spaces. Adams, although well aware of how commercialized the national parks had become, could scarcely have anticipated that on summer weekends the grounds bordering the Grand Canyon would look like Woodstock.

He preferred the parks pristine, and Eadweard Muybridges 19th-century photograph of Yosemite Valley with a logging road cutting across it is paired at the MFA with Adams image of the same place, the road carefully retouched out.

Photographers took note of how progress had changed the land. In the 1960s and 1970s, the movement called New Topographics signaled a radical shift from traditional depictions of the land to the many ways we had altered it.

Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and others photographed what had once been purple mountains majesty  mountains now more likely to tower above rutted lanes and ticky-tacky houses. Adams took some note as well. His photograph of a housing development is at the MFA, as is his picture of a pensive cemetery statue that makes it clear the cemetery borders on a forest  of oil derricks.

The New Topographers were determined to acknowledge the slow decline of wilderness, which had been trampled in part by the lingering wish to be near nature, a wish that bit its own tail. Many of the houses destroyed by the recent Northern California fires were in whats called the wildland-urban interface, dangerously close to forests.

In the late 1970s, a group called the Rephotographic Project figured out exactly where and in what season some important 19th-century landscape photographers had stood, then made photographs at the exact times and places. The landscape, often enough, was quite recognizable but equally often overrun or partially obstructed by buildings.

Nonetheless, art and commercial photographers today still photograph landscapes beautifully. Landscape photographs are everywhere, thanks to Instagram, providing proof that wilderness still exists.

Beautiful landscapes are good for the eye, the mind, the spirit. One day images of them may be all that we have left.
UPDATE:

The name of the woman who was shot outside the church Thursday has been released. She has been identified as Penny Edigin-Zapata,31, according to a release from the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Click here for continuing coverage on this story.

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Parishioners arrived for mass at Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church the morning after a gunman killed his wife and injured his daughter in the church parking lot on Thursday, Jan. 17, around 7 p.m.

The room was quiet and somber, as were the attendees entering the church.

During mass, Reverend Sean Horrigan mentioned the shooting, saying the suspect and victims were not congregants. The mother and daughter were thought to be attendees of an ESL class being hosted by Cypress Assistance Ministries at the church

"It's a domestic dispute a few weeks ago and it carried over into last night," Horrigan said.

Although unconfirmed but the Sheriff's Office, Horrigan reported a 17-month-old was also in the vehicle with the victims during the shooting, however, the toddler was not injured.

"The police were here late into the night and wrapped up their investigation," Horrigan said. "That's all we know."

RELATED: Standoff ends with apparent suicide of man suspected in wife's death

Horrigan related the incident to other shooting events happening across the country.

"It was an act of violence that happened to take place on our campus," Horrigan said. "We hear about this in the news, we read about it in the paper. You see it on the TV and the internet. It happens in schools and banks and Walmarts and it happens in our parking lot."

During mass, Horrigan led a prayer for those involved in Thursday night's shooting, including Edigin, who killed himself early Friday morning according to Harris County Sheriff's Office.

"It was a terrible act of violence against women and someone who was clearly, probably in a violent situation," Horrigan said. "Therein lies the real travesty: the tragedy of domestic abuse and violence that is so often seen in society in this day and age. Our prayers must be with the family."

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Courtesy Conroe Police Department

Police are asking for the public's help in identifying suspects tied to a string of apartment robberies in the Conroe area.

According to a release from the Conroe Police Department, two black male suspects were caught on surveillance video allegedly burglarizing apartments located in the area of FM 1488 and IH 45 in Conroe.
John Gibson sees carbon tax credits as a step toward what he calls a new atmospheric services industry.

As chairman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.s energy technology efforts, Gibsons job is to help Houstons emerging technology companies with investment bank advisory services. The E-Tech team also focuses on introducing breakthrough companies to energy clients.

Gibson also shares his thoughts in occasional e-newsletters. And in a recent edition, he talked about a possible transformation of the oil and gas industry, using its core competencies to save the planet from greenhouse gases. His thinking stems from the 45Q tax credit, which is a financial incentive encouraging oil and gas companies to capture and store carbon dioxide. Some see it as burdensome regulation. He sees it as opportunity.

Texas Inc. recently sat down with Gibson whothe first decade of his energy career working for Gulf/Chevron. He is also a former president and chief executive officer at Landmark Graphics, Paradigm Geophysical, Tervita and Halliburton.

Q: You recently wrote that the fear of climate change is misplaced. What did you mean?

A: What I mean is that the fear of climate change is normal. In Charles Darwins book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin writes about being at the London Zoo with his hand on a plate of glass with a puff-adder behind it. And he wanted to hold his hand there while the snake struck at it, and he knew he was perfectly safe because he had glass in place. He found he couldnt do it. He immediately jerked away. He couldnt stop himself. Climate change to me is very difficult for mankind to understand yet. But weve evolved understanding snakes and developed a natural reaction to a threat from snakes - whether its venomous or not venomous, we have an identical reaction. Theres a reason for that. Being able to jump away from a snake made you live longer. As a consequence, I look at climate change and I dont want to argue whether its venomous or not, I just want to tell you that our survivability will be greatly enhanced if we jump away from it, if we react to it, no matter what you believe.

Q: How should people react to it?

A: I think we should respond to it as though it was real, whether you believe it is or isnt. Its in our best interest for the planet to treat climate change as though it is venomous. Because I think our survivability will be much greater if we just react to it as if it could harm us. And if it cant, then so what? We have a better place to live. And whats the problem with that?

Q: Is fear the best motivator to get people to address climate change?

A: Fear to me is the greatest motivator. We got Sarbanes-Oxley, not out of the thinking that everything was great, but out of the fear that people were purposely misstating information. We got the Patriot Act out of the fear that our citizens might be involved in terroristic acts in America. Almost everything that we see that has the kind of significance that climate does is motivated by fear.

Q: What about fear mongering?

A: You have a group of people who exploit it for their benefit. Weve had people who have financially benefited and gained research dollars by trying to use climate just for the purpose of fear. And theyve gotten beyond the science, and that hurts their credibility. Just like it hurts the credibility of people who deny it by not looking at the data. Im a scientist at heart and I just want to look at the facts and I want to react in an appropriate way to the snake. I think you have to treat is as though it can hurt you and then its okay.

Q: How has oil and gas industry reacted to this?

A: Slowly at first. I would say it has gone from denial to acceptance and I think were about to move into sort of the commercialization of atmospheric services. Weve gone from this is not a problem to were beginning to understand this is a problem and we need to deal with it to we need to be a part of this to solve the problem.

Q: Explain atmospheric services.

A: To really understand where the world is going, lets start with the atmosphere. Weve got molecules that probably have a negative impact on the planet in one way or another and we want to manage those.

Q: You mean taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

A: Right now, the most intriguing is C02 because thats what were emitting. And actually, the oil and gas industry, oddly enough, is not the problem. Its the transportation and the power industry. Its just happens that we extract the fuel that they use. Were not the ones creating the C02 but we are the ones uniquely qualified to deal with it.

Q: How so?

A: There was a study done at the Bureau of Economic Geology (in Houston) of offshore Miocene gas reservoirs. What they did was think through what the best containers are to put C02 in. Youd like to know that when you put it there it will stay. Well it turns out that if you put it into a gas reservoir, which had already been holding gas for millions of years, it should be able to hold it for millions of years. This is not rocket science here. Were going to look for something that had gas and were going to put gas back.

Q: Where are some of the best reservoirs to turn into C02 storage containers?

A: Youd like to have really good data so that you can understand the container and the faulting and the lateral extent of it. In offshore Texas Gulf of Mexico waters, we have beautiful seismic data so its a lot easier to image and to continuously get images offshore than it is to work onshore where you have obstructions like roads and buildings. Youve also got thousands of wells and well logs that allow you to characterize these containers and then the most significant thing of all is youve only got one owner that you need to deal with and thats the state of Texas. It simplifies things when youre not having to deal with 50 landowners with varying emotions. You can actually deal very scientifically with the state. And you have very little to no risk of drinking water contamination by putting it offshore. You also have huge amount of C02 generation right along the Gulf Coast, because thats where the refineries are, thats where your power generation plants are, so youve got C02 sources along the Gulf Coast.

Q: How much storage is there and how much is needed?

A: The atmosphere carries about 750 to 800 gigatons of C02 naturally. Fossil fuels annually contribute about 30 to 35 gigatons of C02 into the atmosphere to produce energy. So about 5 percent of the C02 in the atmosphere is being generated above the carbon cycle. Weve been adding C02 to the atmosphere over the last 100 years as a result of using hydrocarbons. Weve been blessed because the ocean has been able to take up some of it and the soil has been able to take up some. We now have the ocean probably carrying too much C02. Were going to have to deal with the oceanic levels of C02 someday as well.

Now the (the Bureau of Economic Geology) estimates that Miocene reservoirs (in the Texas Gulf of Mexico), which are at depths of 1,000 feet to 3,000 feet, have a storage capacity of 30 gigatons. Thats a years worth of fossil fuel C02 emissions on the planet. And thats just one set of containers in a place where everything lines up to where it looks like you could put it there. Now the estimates for the U.S. are that we have somewhere between 2,000 and 22,000 gigatons of C02 storage available to us in the subsurface. Say we have just 3,000 gigatons of storage available, thats 100 years of C02 storage available to us in North America alone. Thats at the low end. If we get up to 20,000, thats 600 or 700 years.

Q: So the problem is obviously not having enough space to dispose of the C02.

A: Our problem is getting it out of the atmosphere and transferring it or changing what were doing for emissions so that we capture it. There are two things that we need to do: We need to reduce the amount that were creating, and that doesnt mean getting rid of it entirely, necessarily, it means converting it to a capturable form rather than releasing it to the atmosphere. And then we need direct-air capture so that we can actually modify the atmosphere itself. And this is what makes it so cool to me.

Q: Any examples on how to capture C02 before it releases into the atmosphere?

A: When you get into your car, and you fill up your tank, lets say you have a 20-gallon tank. Gasoline weighs about 6.3 pounds per gallon, so youve got about 120 pounds of gasoline in your car. Now for every gallon of gasoline, you create about 20 pounds of C02, so its about a three times expansion in terms of the amount of C02 by weight that you created in gallons of gasoline. If you had a car that was 100 percent efficient and capturing C02, youd put 20 gallons on one side and put a tank on the other side that when you got done, youd have 400 pounds of C02 in it to dispose. Thats how much youre emitting out of your car from the tailpipe into the atmosphere because of how the molecules combine. Youd have to change the way you think about things, but you could actually use gasoline on one side of the car and capture C02 on the other. Thats not an outrageous vision.

Q: What about capturing C02 from the atmosphere?

A: We havent had a president like (John F.) Kennedy in half a century. He said were going to go to the moon and come back safely. And we need somebody that says, Were going to manage this atmosphere because this is a great planet for life indefinitely and were going to do it in the next decade. Thats a great vision. It aligns research, it aligns industry. Its a vision where globally you can execute that. What Kennedy did with his vision for space was he transformed things where he had no idea what would happen, like telecommunications. We now have revenue-generating objects that are not on the planet. Thats awesome. And the same thing is going to happen when we tackle the atmosphere. Were going to have capabilities that take us well beyond where we are today. Its going to be an enabler for us for colonization of other planets.

Q: How far away are we to this being a reality?

A: My whole goal is to have us think. Its not rational with the technology we have today. But its a way of educating people about what they do when they combust gasoline. In five years, youre not going to see the progress we all want. Well still be fighting (about climate change). But in 10 years, I think were going to have abilities that will surpass your imagination.

Q: What industry do you think has the best shot at being in the atmospheric business?

A: The oil and gas industry will lead this because they own the containers, they own the knowledge of how to fill those containers. Theyre the ones with the competencies to put things in there and take them out. Theyre the ones that understand how to make things stay there, how to abandon wells, how to avoid contamination of aquafers and how to maintain the integrity of the wellbore. The oil and gas industry knows more about putting stuff in the ground and taking it out than any other industry. Period. And thats where we are if we want to manage the climate.

Q: What would it take to get the oil and gas industry to take this on?

A: Its not going to be altruism. Theyve got to make a return to shareholders. The real crux to this is how do we create a carbon industry? Its not just having 45Q (the recently passed tax credit that calls for deployment of carbon capture and storage projects), its making that permanent, so people can count on it long-term for a business. Otherwise, they wont invest in it. I think on the carbon side, were going to have to see a move from policy to permanence. If people can count on this for 50 years, then they can try to understand the viability of it financially. But we really need financial incentives, or nothing changes.

john.roper@chron.com
Texas regulators approved a proposal to change the way wholesale electricity markets work in Texas, a move expected to significantly boost revenues for power generators while increasing electricity prices for consumers and businesses.

The states power companies have long pressed regulators for relief from a competitive market that in recent years has paid low prices and hurt their profits. The companies have argued that without changes that increase prices, they wont have incentives to invest in new power plants as electricity demand grows and potential shortages loom.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas on Thursday approved a change to a market mechanism known as the operating reserve demand curve, which pays higher prices to power companies by increasing the wholesale price of electricity when demand increases and reserves run low. The commission estimated that the change would increase wholesale power costs by nearly $80 million over two years, assuming that new power plants come online to boost supplies, old plants stay online for longer than they would have otherwise and people react to higher prices by cutting their consumption.

A spokesman for the commission said regulators could not estimate how much more consumers might pay.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas power companies quietly lobby for higher prices

But, other estimates are not as optimistic. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank in Austin, said the market change could boost power costs by hundreds of millions of dollars per year, and in one estimate, said electricity prices could increase by as much as 13 percent for the majority of Texans who buy power in deregulated markets.

Its going to raise prices for consumers with no promise that it will solve the problem of lower reserves, said Bill Peacock, vice president of research at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Shrinking reserves

The PUCs action is a win for merchant power companies such Calpine and NRG Energy, which have struggled with low power prices in recent years, sustaining losses and revamping their businesses. NRG in 2017 launched a plan that included selling off as much as $4 billion and increased its focus on its retail electricity business. Calpine sold itself to a group of investors led by a New Jersey private equity firm. Another Houston power company, Dynegy, was acquired last year by Vistra Energy of Irving.

The power companies have long lobbied for the change, arguing it was vital for encouraging investment in new plants to maintain the reliability of the power grid. Unlike other deregulated power markets in the country, Texas does not pay generators through a mechanism known as a capacity market to keep plants open and available to ensure that enough power is available at times of peak demand. The only incentive for generators to bring plants online is price.

With this decision, the Public Utility Commission of Texas has taken an important step to strengthen the market and improve reliability over the long term, Mauricio Gutierrez, NRGs chief executive said in a statement. Electricity is the fuel for our states economy and with more reliable electric power, the state can confidently grow as a business-friendly location.

The PUCs action comes against as backdrop of shrinking power reserves headed into the summer. The shutdown of coal power plants over the past year has contributed to reducing power reserve margins to 7.4 percent, just over half the goal of 13.7 percent set by the states primary grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Low reserves increase the risk of shortages, price spikes and disruptions to the power system.

On HoustonChronicle.com: 15 years after deregulation, should Texas revamp its power markets?

Commissioners at the PUC expressed concern for the shrinking power supply cushion on Thursday, likening the dwindling reserves to buying a new car and taking out the spare tire. PUC Chair DeAnn Walker said at the meeting that she was concerned about low reserve margins over the summer, particularly after the owners of the Gibbons Creek coal-fired plant said recently that they would take it offline.

But, opponents of the change say the market has worked well. Low electricity prices that Texans enjoy are evidence of an adequate supply of power, meaning no additional incentives are needed to build more plants, according to the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Higher bills

Adrian Shelley, the director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a progressive consumer advocacy group, said he was skeptical that the market will react quickly enough by the summer to add capacity, though he said he was relieved that the Public Utility Commission scaled back the power companies initial proposal to reduce the cost increases.

Were not happy with the fact that it raises prices on consumers, said Shelley, the director of the organizations Texas location. We will have higher summer bills.

The PUC twice delayed making the decision on Calpine and NRGs requests at their December meetings. Vistra Energy of Irving, which owns the power generating company Luminant, praised the move by the PUC, stating that it will send proper price signals needed to encourage investment in the market.

But, the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club doubts that the change will be able to help with ERCOTs reserve margins.

Theres not an investor out there that will say, Oh this bump up is worth so much that Im going to suddenly get this new plant built in time for this summer, said Cyrus Reed, the conservation director of the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club. It might encourage investment a year from now.

erin.douglas@chron.com

Twitter.com/erinmdouglas23
A Texas plastic manufacturer was slapped this week with a fine of more than $120,000 after spilling thousands tiny plastic pellets into a creek and bay on the Gulf Coast.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in a 2016 investigation found Formosa Plastics spilled plastic pellets into the Cox Creek and Lavaca Bay near the company's plant in Point Comfort, about halfway between Houston and Corpus Christi. The commission approved the final penalty for the company this week.

The Taiwanese company with U.S. headquarters in New Jersey runs a 2,500-acre petrochemical complex in Point Comfort.

The agency does not have an estimate for how many pellets were released  but it did require Formosa to collect and properly dispose of about 112,000 pounds of debris and plastic pellets from Lavaca Bay and about 327,000 pounds from Cox Creek.

The plastic pellets, called resins, are about the size of the lentils. They can be ingested by fish and turtles, posing a threat to wildlife and the fishing and tourism industries along the Gulf Coast.

The fine came the same week that Formosa and dozens of other petrochemical companies with Gulf Coast operations committed to a $1 billion effort to end plastic waste. The issue of plastic waste is of growing concern for the energy industry  which has invested billions into building petrochemical plants in Texas and elsewhere to takes advantage of relatively cheap supplies of ethane produced along with natural gas and oil in shale formations.

Many of these plants make the chemicals and plastic pellets that feed into making thousands of plastic consumer goods.

Activists shareholders last week filed resolutions with Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66 of Houston, Chevron and DowDupont demanding the petrochemical divisions of the companies disclose to shareholders when plastic pellet spills occur and what they were doing to prevent spills.

MORE: Industry-led effort commits $1B to curb plastic pollution

San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper, a local chapter of the New York-based environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance , argued the state fines were too low for a plant whose parent company's 2017 net income was $49 billion in Taiwanese dollars, or $1.59 billion U.S. Dollars.

"It's a pittance. It's less than a pittance," said Diane Wilson, executive director of San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper said of the state fines. The penalties for wastewater pollution need to be much higher for multinational corporations such as Formosa to take notice and change actions, Wilson said.

San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper is involved in a federal lawsuit against Formosa, alleging the company's Point Comfort plant has violated the Clean Water Act by polluting nearby waterways with plastic pellets for nearly 25 years. Her group says it has collected 2,154 samples of plastic pellets and powders from along 20 miles from Cox Creek and Lavaca Bay. A hearing in the case will occur this spring, Wilson said in an interview.

Company officials said they have installed multiple screening and control systems to control pollution. As a result of the investigation, the state also required the company to install pellet recovery system to minimize future spills.

"We're not contesting it  certainly we've taken a lot of steps for the past three years to address this, including new technology to prevent it from happening," said Steve Rice, Formosa spokesman in an interview. Rice said the plant has 16 full-time contract employees whose main job is to clean up debris and pellets outside the plant.

The plant ships pellets out to customers in rail cars, and sometimes when customers send those cars back residual resin can spill out if the hatches on the cars aren't properly sealed, Rice noted. The company has engaged customers in a "zero pellet loss initiative" to educate them on how to prevent this and to "teach them how to be as responsible as they can be ... just as we're trying to be as a responsible as we can be," Rice said.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the U.S. dollar value of Formosa Plastics' 2017 net income.
(Image source from: Deccanchronicle.com)

YS Jagan Case: NIA Accuses SIT In Andhra Pradesh:- YSRCP Chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy has been attacked in Vizag airport and the case has been handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). YS Jagan filed a petition in a Vijayawada Special Court that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) was not co-operating well and the investigation has been sidelined. NIA asked the AP Police and SIT to share all the records and documents in related to the case. AP Chief Minister Chandra Babu penned a letter to Narendra Modi expressing his displeasure over their move in YS Jagan's case.

The AP Government now decided to move to AP High Court seeking a direction fo Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to withdraw the orders that are issued by the Centre for NIA to investigate the case. NIA accused SIT saying that they have been partial in the ivestigation. YS Jagan was injured by Srinivas who works in a coffee shop in Vizag airport. Jagan got injured and was rushed to Hyderabad for special treatment. The First Information Report (FIR) was registered on a complaint by an officer of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
Government shutdown hurting Trump's approval rating - even among evangelicals

Donald Trump has enjoyed steady support from white evangelicals but new figures suggest even their loyalty is being tested by the government shutdown.

A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll shows Trump's approval ratings within his supporter base down from one month ago as the longest government shutdown in US history drags into its 28th day.

And there is no end in sight as Congress and Trump continue to stand off over his demand for $5.7 billion to help fund a border wall between the US and Mexico.

The latest figures show that those who approve of the US president are down from 42 per cent in December to 39 per cent now.

The numbers disapproving have risen over the last month from 49 per cent to 53 per cent and the cause of that increase lies within his key supporter groups.

Republican support has dropped from 90 per cent approval and 7 per cent disapproval, to 83-to-10 per cent. Among suburban men, the past month has seen a fall from 51 per cent approval and 39 per cent disapproval to 42-to-48 per cent.

White evangelicals also appear to be growing tired of the stalemate, as approval in this group has dropped from 73-to-17 per cent to 66-to-23 per cent.

Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said it was the first time the president's base showed signs of cracking and it could cause problems for him in 2020.

'The president has had his base and not much else and when you look ahead to the election ... he enters with a significant disadvantage. His re-election prospects would definitely be in jeopardy at this point,' he said.

As federal workers take the financial hit for the impasse in Washington, some churches are stepping in to help.

New Birth Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta, Georgia, has given members affected by the shutdown nearly $300 each in financial assistance.

Church pastor Dr Jamal Bryant said the church was looking at other ways to give sustained support, like potluck dinners and gift cards, until the shutdown ends.

'When the government shuts down is when the church needs to be wide open,' Bryant told WSBTV.

'I ain't waiting on the Democrats or the Republicans,' he added.

Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, has taken a similar approach.

Pastor Donald Johnson asked the church board to give whatever came in for the Sunday offerings to eight federal workers in the congregation. The church board then matched that sum to increase the assistance for the affected workers. The eight workers received $1,000 each from the money raised.

'I just realized people were going to be affected by it, and we didn't want to spend any time just arguing and fighting about what the president is doing,' said Pastor Johnson.
Google stopped using the word 'family' after employees complained it was 'offensive'

Google execs dropped the word 'family' from company presentations after employees complained it was 'offensive' and 'homophobic', media reports have claimed.

Right-wing publication the Daily Caller said it had seen internal documents suggesting that members of staff at the tech company became angry after 'family' was used to infer households with children.

It reports that one employee walked out of a March 2017 presentation on unicorn products and started an internal thread to complain that it was 'offensive, inappropriate, homophobic, and wrong' to suggest that a family necessarily included children.

'This is a diminishing and disrespectful way to speak. If you mean 'children', say 'children'; we have a perfectly good word for it. 'Family friendly' used as a synonym for 'kid friendly' means, to me, 'you and yours don't count as a family unless you have children'. And while kids may often be less aware of it, there are kids without families too, you know',' the employee is said to have written.

'The use of "family" as a synonym for "with children" has a long-standing association with deeply homophobic organizations,' they continued.

'This does not mean we should not use the word "family" to refer to families, but it mean we must doggedly insist that family does not imply children.'

According to the Daily Caller, around 100 employees signalled their support for the statement by upvoting it, with one female colleague saying she felt that use of the word 'family' had excluded her and her boyfriend because they did not have children.

'[It's] important that we fix our charged language when we become aware of how exclusionary it actually is,' she is quoted as saying.

The backlash reportedly prompted Google Vice President Pavni Diwanji to write to staff asking them to help Google be 'more conscientious' in its use of language.

'I realize what we said at tgif might have caused concerns in the way we talked about families. There are families without kids too, and also we needed to be more conscientious about the fact that there is a diverse makeup of parents and families,' Dwiwanji apparently wrote.

'Please help us get to a better state. Teach us how to talk about it in inclusive way, if you feel like we are not doing it well. As a team we have very inclusive culture, and want to do right in this area.'
Elementary school principal who banned Christmas has resigned

A Nebraska elementary school principal who sent an internal memo to teachers warning them not to use any Christmas-related messaging and activities in the classroom in December has resigned.

Jennifer Sinclair, the principal at Manchester Elementary School in Elkhorn, has agreed to step down as school principal following her placement on administrative leave last month after she issued the guidance to teachers.

The internal memo outlined several holiday-related displays, objects, and activities that teachers were banned from using, handing out or assigning during the Christmas season.

Sinclair's memo, which she signed as the "the (Unintentional) Grinch who stole Christmas," listed many things that teachers should stay away from including the use of Christmas-related clip art on worksheets, placing Christmas trees in the classrooms, using Christmas-related books and singing Christmas carols with students.

The memo also warned teachers not to give candy canes to students. Sinclair claimed in the document that candy canes are shaped in a "J for Jesus" and that the red is for the "blood of Christ" and "white is a symbol of his resurrection."

On Monday, the Elkhorn Public School Board unanimously accepted Sinclair's resignation letter, according to an international social conservative legal group that opposed Sinclair's memo.

"Due to the level of attention that Sinclair's memo received, Sinclair and the district stand united that it is in the best interest of Manchester Elementary that she not resume the principal position," Elkhorn Public Schools Superintendent Bary Habrock wrote in the email that was sent to parents and staff.

According to The Omaha World-Herald, Habrock said that Sinclair stepped down with a "heavy heart and sadness."

"The district ... would like to thank her for the high level of professionalism during this publicly difficult time," Habrock wrote in the letter. "We support Sinclair as a leader and educator."

Sinclair has agreed to stay on with the school district and assume a curriculum position there, news station KMTV reports.

Sinclair's internal memo drew the ire of the Florida-based conservative Christian legal group, Liberty Counsel, which sent a demand letter to Habrock calling for him to overrule Sinclair's guidance.

The organization argued that Sinclair's memo violated the academic rights of teachers as well as the First Amendment rights of students.

"The First Amendment simply does not require the elimination of all Christmas symbols  religious and secular  in a misguided attempt to be 'inclusive' by eliminating all traditional elements of a federally and state-recognized holiday," the Liberty Counsel letter sent by attorney Richard Mast reads. "The effort to comprehensively eliminate Christmas symbols is Orwellian."

Mast's demand letter states that Liberty Counsel did not desire to see Sinclair's removal as school principal but only wanted her "compliance with the law."

Following the demand letter, a lawyer for Elkhorn Public Schools wrote a response letter explaining that Sinclair's memo to teachers did not comply with school board policy and that the school district would "work with staff to correct any erroneous communications and clarify any misunderstandings."

Courtesy of The Christian Post
Christians in the Holy Land 'systematically discriminated against'

A delegation of Catholic bishops to the Holy Land has called upon Israel to ensure equality for all citizens, including Christians.

In a communique released at the end of the Holy Land Coordination's annual visit to the region on Thursday, the bishops said that the principle of equality upon which Israel was founded 'urgently needs to become lived reality'.

They said Christians they had met during their visit were particularly concerned about the Nation State Law passed last year which defines Israel as 'the national home of the Jewish people'.

'Israel's Christians wish to live as full citizens, with their rights recognised in a plural and democratic society,' the bishops said.

They continued: 'Yet it is clear that at the same time they face profound difficulties across all aspects of their lives.

'We have heard that, along with other Palestinian Arab citizens and migrants living in Israel, many Christians find themselves systematically discriminated against and marginalised.'

The statement echoes the concerns of local Catholic leaders who said after the Nation State Law was passed last year that it would 'provide a constitutional and legal basis for discrimination among Israel's citizens'.

The Holy Land Coordination is an annual pilgrimage of Catholic bishops from Europe, North America and South Africa to advocate for a just peace in the region and express solidarity with Christians living in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

This year's pilgrimage focused on Israel but the delegation also travelled to Palestinian communities where the bishops said 'the misery of occupation has been deepened by severe cuts to humanitarian funding by the US government'.

'Healthcare, education and other basic services for refugees are being increasingly threatened, exacerbating the ongoing violations of their fundamental human dignity. This cannot be ignored or tolerated,' they said.

'We call upon our own governments to help meet the funding gaps now faced by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and redouble their efforts towards a diplomatic solution, with two democratic sovereign states of Israel and Palestine existing in peace.'

Members of the delegation included Bishop Declan Lang, the Bishop of Clifton and chair of the Holy Land Coordination; Bishop William Kenney, from the Archdiocese of Birmingham; the Bishop of Galloway in Scotland, William Nolan; and the Bishop of Down and Connor in Northern Ireland, Noel Treanor. The Anglican Bishop of Southwark Christopher Chessun also joined the pilgrimage.
Christian dishwasher fired by hotel for refusing to work Sundays is awarded $21m

A devout Christian dishwasher and mother of six who was fired by the Conrad Hotel in Miami, Florida, for refusing to work on Sundays was awarded $21 million in punitive damages by a federal jury Monday after she sued for the violation of her religious rights.

"I love God. No, I can't [work on] Sunday because Sunday, I honor God," Haitian immigrant Marie Jean Pierre, 60, said in an interview with NBC 6 South Florida on Wednesday.

The jury found that the Conrad Hotel retaliated against Pierre when they fired her for being unable to work on Sundays even though they were aware of her involvement with the Soldiers of Christ Church that prevented her from working on Sundays, the Miami Herald reported.

Pierre worked at the hotel from 2006 to 2016 but it wasn't until 2015 that her boss, kitchen manager George Colon, decided she would have to work on Sundays anyway. Her co-workers traded shifts with Pierre to accommodate her religious observance but Colon demanded that she show up for her assigned shifts, and when she refused Pierre was fired on March 31, 2016.

The hotel alleged she was dismissed for misconduct, negligence and "unexcused absences," according to the lawsuit.

Pierre responded by suing the Conrad, managed by HEI Hotels & Resorts, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in May 2017. The Conrad Hotel is also part of the Hilton collection.

"Defendant retaliated against Plaintiff by, among other things, creating a hostile work environment for Plaintiff, reprimanding Plaintiff for her religious beliefs, and terminating Plaintiff," Pierre's lawsuit said.

Pierre's lawyer, Marc Brumer, told NBC that the hotel argued in court that it was unaware Pierre was a missionary, and never knew why she always wanted Sundays off.

Pierre alleged that in 2009, the hotel had scheduled her to work on Sundays and she informed them that if they did she would have to resign. To persuade her not to leave, however, the hotel accommodated her request until 2015.

After hearing the case, a federal jury in Miami ordered Conrad Hotel to pay Pierre $36,000 for lost wages, $500,000 for emotional anguish, and $21 million in punitive damages, the Herald said.

Although there is a cap on punitive damage awards in federal court, Brumer told NBC that he expects Pierre will receive at least $500,000.

"I asked for $50 million, knowing that I was capped at $300,000," Brumer told NBC News. "I didn't do this for money. I did this to right the wrongs."

A spokeswoman for Hilton told NBC that the group was "very disappointed by the jury's verdict, and don't believe that it is supported by the facts of this case or the law."

"During Ms. Pierre's 10 years with the hotel, multiple concessions were made to accommodate her personal and religious commitments," she said. "We intend to appeal, and demonstrate that the Conrad Miami was and remains a welcoming place for all guests and employees."

Courtesy of The Christian Post
Worst 50 places for Christians ranked in 2019 World Watch List: India in top 10 for first time

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Open Doors USA has published its 2019 World Watch List of the top 50 countries in the world where Christians face the most extreme persecution for their faith.

While many of the top 10 countries listed this year were also on 2018's list, a significant addition was India, due to the rise in Hindu radical attacks on Christians.

The worlds two most highly populated countries rise on the World Watch List. For the first time since the start of the World Watch List, India has entered the top 10. Additionally, China jumped 16 spots, from 43 to 27, the persecution watchdog group observed.

Each of these countries is home to more than a billion people, so these trends are distressing. Hindu nationalists in India continue to attack Christians with what seems like no consequences, and in China, the increased power of the government and the rule of Xi Jinping continue to make open worship difficult in some parts of the country," it added.

Looking at the numbers, 245 million Christians in the top 50 countries in the World Watch List are expected to face high levels of persecution in the coming year, which is an increase from the 215 million projected last year.

As many as 4,136 Christians were murdered last year because of their faith, while 1,266 churches or Christian buildings were attacked.

North Korea was listed at the very top of the World Watch List for the 17th-consecutive year, with Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, and India rounding up the top 10.

Among some of the main trends, Open Doors observed what it called the "shocking reality of persecution against women."

"In many places, they experience a 'double persecution'  one for being a Christian and one for being a woman. Even in the most restricted circumstances, gender-specific persecution is a key means of destroying the minority Christian community. This kind of persecution is difficult to assess because it is complex, violent and hidden  in many cultures where women are specifically targeted, it is difficult if not impossible to report accurate numbers," the watchdog group writes.

It also noted that seven out of the top 10 World Watch List countries suffer from Islamic oppression, which is the main cause of persecution. It explained that this poses great challenges for millions of Christians who were born into Muslim families but converted and face heavy discrimination for deciding to follow Jesus Christ.

Another main point of concern was the spread of radical Islam across sub-Saharan Africa.

Open Doors said that although the Islamic State terror group's attacks have largely disappeared from headline news, its radical ideology "has inspired, or infiltrated, numerous splinter groups, such as Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a deadly group that broke away from Nigerias Boko Haram that also enslaves Christian women and girls as an integral part of their strategy."

One more trend Open Doors focused on was the increasing state authoritarianism around the world.

It warned that Vietnam, Myanmar, China and North Korea all saw an increase in state control over religion, made possible in part by the "ever-spreading availability of personal digital technology, which governments can increasingly track through facial recognition, electronic chips and so on."

Open Doors President David Curry said he's thankful for the coverage and for the support around his organization's annual list, but added that it's a secondary blessing.

"The point of the World Watch List is to shine a light on the strength and the suffering of the family of God around the world  to drive all of us to our knees in prayer and then to our feet to stand with our brothers and sisters," Curry said.
UK hospitals allowing men to stay in women-only wards if they identify as transgender

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Hospitals in the United Kingdom are allowing male patients to stay in women-only wards so long as they identify as female  a policy that has angered many womens rights activists and patients.

An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has revealed that none of the National Health Service trusts in England require patients to have already begun the process of their physical sex transition in order to stay in women-only hospital wards.

Such a policy exists despite the Department of Healths rules stating that men and women should not have to share sleeping accommodation or toilet/bathroom facilities.

However, the rule has exceptions in cases where it is in the overall best interests of the patient or reflects the patients choice.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the NHS is not able to track how many trans-identified patients are accommodated in wards meant for the opposite biological sex because the patients are recorded in the system under their preferred gender identity, not their actual biological sex.

According to the report, the staff at one hospital were told that they need to consult with a trans-identified patient before making any decisions about patient placement should a female victim of sexual assault object to sharing facilities with a biological man.

One nurse who works for a hospital in a major U.K. city told the newspaper that there was a report at her hospital of a biologically male trans-identified woman becoming sexually aroused while being held in a female-only ward.

Particularly around medics, the patient would become lewd and rub their penis through their nightclothes, the nurse explained. This person was virtually masturbating in front of us all.

The nurse said there were complaints from other patients who felt unsafe by the presence of the masturbating trans-identified patient.

But they were told ... that the patient was a woman and had a right to be there, the nurse said.

The nurse explained that the only thing the hospital staff could do was to offer the services of a psychiatric nurse.

The report also explains that there is a lack of NHS equality impact assessments being done to examine how the transgender policy is impacting other patients (such as women), while assessments obtained by The Daily Telegraph appear only to have investigated the impact the policy is having on trans-identified patients.

Officials at the West Suffolk NHS Trust told The Daily Telegraph that a trans-identified patients right to be in a single-sex environment consistent with their preferred gender identity supersedes objections raised by other patients.

If you arent even considering other groups in your equality impact assessments, your policy cannot be lawful, immigration and public law attorney Amanda Jones of Great James Street Chambers told the newspaper.

Nicola Williams, a research scientist and a campaigner for the womens rights group Fair Play for Women, told the Telegraph that the state is sacrificing the needs of the majority at their most vulnerable.

We have sex-segregated facilities for a reason and Im horrified those rights  for both sexes  have been removed without any consultation, she said.

Philippa Molloy, a 42-year-old with bipolar disorder that she says leaves her thinking that men are conspiring to kill her, opened up in an interview with the Lancaster Guardian about how she was locked in a womens psychiatric ward with an extremely male-bodied trans-identified patient.

Molloy said she was terrified because she suffered a relapse in her condition. She claims that when she raised concerns with hospital staff, her concerns were not taken seriously.

Part of my psychosis was that I was convinced I was being followed by mens rights activists, Molloy said. It sounds ridiculous, but that was it.

She said she felt that the rights of that trans person to feel safe were put above her rights to feel safe as a natural woman.

Conservative member of Parliament David Davies also spoke out about the policy.

Its quite right that a Conservative government made a commitment to end mixed sex wards, he was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraphy. But people with male bodies should be on male wards.

A spokesperson for NHS Improvement explained that decisions should be made in the best interests of all patients and based on the circumstances presented to NHS staff.

Transgender Trend, a U.K. coalition of parents critical of the trend to diagnose gender non-conforming children as transgender, said in a tweet that the NHS is no longer safeguarding children's privacy in hospital wards.

London Assembly member David Kurten also took to Twitter to respond to the report.

Hospital wards are no place to push fringe transgender ideology which risks the safety and well-being of sick patients, Kurten wrote. If a person has male anatomy and chromosomes they are a man, and they should not be placed in women's wards.
This country was removed from Christian persecution list; now it's a 'model' for religious tolerance

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Open Doors USA released on Wednesday its annual list of top 50 countries where Christians are most persecuted. Two countries were taken off the list and two were put on this year.

Bahrain, a tiny Muslim-majority nation in the Persian Gulf, earned its way off the 2019 World Watch List after being ranked in previous editions because of religious freedom and human rights concerns.

In previous editions, the leading international Christian persecution watchdog called out the relatively religiously tolerant kingdom of Bahrain for placing inhibitions on the freedom to assembly, prohibitions against Christians proselytizing and restrictions to religious expression.

In a press conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Open Doors USA CEO David Curry had nothing but praise for Bahrain and stated that the country now represents the hope for change that drives the purpose of the World Watch List.

There is action to be taken. There are things that governments can do  our government here in the United States and elsewhere  to defend the core beliefs of freedom of conscience and religious expression, Curry told the crowd gathered at the Heritage Foundation Capitol Hill office. There are signs of hope. Bahrain, you might notice, has dropped out of the top 50 of the World Watch List.

I want to commend them, he added. Thank you to the royal leaders and the royal family of Bahrain and the government there for what they have done in the last several years. I think it could be a model within that region for how it could be done.

In Bahrain, Curry said, there are Christians, Jews and Hindus and people of various other faiths worshiping more freely than ever before.

It is improving their entire society, he explained.

Johnnie Moore, a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom who has traveled to Bahrain in the last couple of years, told The Christian Post that the removal of Bahrain from the World Watch List is a sign that Bahrain is getting the credit they are due.

In terms of Bahraini culture, they have led the way in this area for centuries, Moore, a religious freedom advocate and an evangelical communications executive, explained. There is a 200-year-old Hindu temple in Bahrain. As you walk up to that temple, they are selling Hindu gods on the streets in this Arab Muslim country. It is an extraordinary thing.

Moore added that the country is home to the oldest synagogue in the region and is also home to thriving Coptic, Catholic and evangelical and Anglican churches as well as a thriving Buddhist community.

When you look at the Bahraini culture, it has always been a culture that has welcomed the other throughout the centuries. It is part of their DNA, Moore stressed.

He noted that the removal of Bahrain from the list reflects that they are doing a better job of telling their story of tolerance.

When asked by The Christian Post what steps the Bahraini government has taken to be removed from the World Watch List, Curry explained that the Bahrain royal family has done a better job of including all minority groups in discussions in the public square.

All of the countries here on the list have minority religions within them but they are often pushed to the side and they are not included in these conversations. I think the first thing has been that they have been talking with these Christian leaders and others, Jewish leaders, and trying to protect the space for people to worship, Curry said. I think what Bahrain has done is they have created a safe place for people to worship and that is critically important.

At the first-ever State Department Ministerial on Religious Freedom last July in Washington, a Bahraini official announced the creation of an ambassador-at-large position for peaceful coexistence and religious freedom within its ministry of foreign affairs.

In July 2017, Bahrain King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa authored and signed The Kingdom of Bahrain Declaration. The declaration calls for an end to religious extremism and greater religious tolerance in the Middle East and other places around the globe.

In 2018, the king established the King Hamad World Centre for Peaceful Co-Existence. The center is housed in a large building in the center of the capital city, Manama.

In 2008, Bahrain became the first Arab nation to assign a Jew to serve as an ambassador to the United States.

Bahrain is modeling for the region that you can have both, Moore said. You can be a distinctly majority-Muslim country in the gulf and be an entirely welcoming society that doesnt see the freedom of worship or belief as a threat but rather an asset.

Even on the gender equality front, progress is being made in Bahrain. In December, a woman for the first time became head of the Bahraini parliament.

Bahrain is, however, still listed as a Tier 2 country of concern for religious freedom by USCIRF.

Another nation that was dropped from the World Watch List in 2019 is the East African nation of Djibouti, which was ranked last year as the 50th-worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution while Bahrain ranked 48th.

Newly added to the World Watch List in 2019 are the Russian Federation (41) and Morocco (35). Though they were not on the 2018 list, they had made the list in previous years.

Christians in parts of Russia dominated by Islam report the highest level of persecution, an Open Doors fact sheet on Russia explains. Additionally, an increase in state control has resulted in more tight controls for any Christian denomination seen as non-Russian, which means evangelical churches are often regarded with suspicion. The government continues to pass more restrictive legislation on religious freedom.

Moore told CP that evangelicals and other non-Orthodox believers like Jehovah's Witnesses continue to face incomprehensible marginalization and persecution from the government in Russia as a law passed in 2016 has restricted evangelism and missionary activities.

What does surprise me is that a country whose Christians were so horrifically persecuted for so long over the last century that their memories would fail them now when they have more freedom of worship now than they did in the Soviet Era, Moore said. It feels like certain leaders in the Russian Orthodox Church are ... in collusion with the government in suppressing certain other groups.
Weekly briefing: Pro-life events, Christian persecution, Karen Pence

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We've compiled the top stories of the week. Here's what you need to know:

Pro-life week

Pro-life events have been taking place across the nation this week, leading up to Fridays 46th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.

At Evangelicals for Life in Virginia, participants delved into adoption, immigration, human trafficking and, of course, abortion. There, Kristen Waggoner, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, said that she is optimistic Roe v. Wade will be overturned.

Its reasoning doesnt hold up in light of the 46 years that have passed and what we know about technology and just reading the text of the Constitution, she said.

A new survey shows that 65 percent of adults want the Supreme Court to reinterpret Roe v. Wade.

Christian persecution ranked by country

Opens Doors USA released its latest World Watch List this week, listing the top persecutors of Christians around the world.

New to the top 10 list is India, where Hindu nationalists have been stepping up their attacks against Christians.

Open Doors reported that 4,136 Christians were murdered last year due to their faith and 1,266 churches or Christian buildings were attacked.

Government shutdown now the longest in U.S. history

The U.S. government shutdown, due to a failure to agree on a budget, entered its 28th day on Friday, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers without pay.

A group of evangelicals is urging President Donald Trump and Congress to end the shutdown and offered a compromise proposal that would secure the border and also provide a path to citizenship for certain immigrants.

In the meantime, churches have been stepping in to help those who havent received their paychecks. Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church raised money and gave nearly $1,000 each to church members who are federal workers.

Karen Pence blasted for teaching at Christian school

In what many Christians are viewing as preposterous, Karen Pence is being blasted by the mainstream media for teaching at a Christian school that affirms traditional biblical beliefs on homosexuality and gender identity.

Rod Dreher, an editor at The American Conservative, maintained, Christian schools having moral codes is not news  The attempted shaming of Karen Pence is a condensed symbol for the elite secular lefts hatred of conservative Christians and our morals and mores.

Vice President Mike Pence responded to the media attack on his wife, calling it wrong.

Actor blacklisted in Hollywood after refusing sex scenes

Actor Neal McDonough of Band of Brothers was fired from ABCs Scoundrels in 2010 after refusing to do a sex scene. Since then, he said, he couldnt get a job because everyone thought he was a religious zealot.

He said he puts God and family first.

Though he had a few hard years during that time, McDonough, who also refuses to kiss when acting, said hes thankful to God and feels blessed.

Pray for

Asia Bibi, who is living in hiding in Pakistan as mobs demand her to be put to death

Jayme Closs, who escaped after being kidnapped and whose parents were murdered

New releases

Albums:

Native Tongue by Switchfoot (Jan. 18)

Rain Part 1 by Planetshakers (Jan. 18)

Books:

Inside the Miracles of Jesus: Discovering the Power of Desperation by Jessica LaGrone (Jan. 15)

God, Where Are You?! Finding Strength and Purpose in Your Wilderness by John Bevere (Jan. 15)
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Life is often about finding the right balance. Too much of anything is bad for a person, even water. Consuming too much water will cause one to lose electrolytes and minerals which could lead to deatha condition called hyponatremia. The point is, balance is important with nearly everything. This same is true of the Christian life and Christian theology.

Consider the issue with divine sovereignty and human freedom. If a person accepts the sovereignty of God without human freedom, then a person accepts a determinist philosophy in which human beings become nothing more than preprogramed robots. If a person accepts human freedom and neglects divine sovereignty, the persons perception of God becomes flawed to the point that the person contends that God does not know anything about the future. Both concepts are beyond the teachings of Scripture in my estimation. Balance is important in ones interpretation of Scripture.

Jesus presents two concepts concerning the Christian life in his classic message: the Sermon on the Mount. On the one hand, Jesus says, You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? Its no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under peoples feet (Mt. 5:13, CSB). On the other hand, Jesus says, You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven (Mt. 5:14-16, CSB). One trait without the other leads to an illegitimate Christian lifestyle and an erroneous biblical interpretation.

Salt  Light = Legalism.

First, Jesus instructs the Christian to be the salt of the earth. Salt was used in biblical days as a purifying agent as well as a substance to add flavor to food. If the salt lost its flavor, then the salt was not good for anything except to be thrown out. The worthless salt would be thrown out to do nothing but kill the grass on which it fell. Salt represents the righteousness of a person as well as the persons stand for truth.

If a person has salt in ones life with no light (representing Gods love and grace), then the person will become a legalist. Legalistic Christianity has led more individuals to atheism than Karl Marx and Charles Darwin combined. Legalism can also lead to the creation of cults and cultic churches which is extremely troubling! Legalism is an inauthentic Christian worldview which Jesus and Paul often combated. Dont let yourself become Pharisaical or a Judaizer in your stance for truth. As Paul says, And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing (1 Co. 13:3).

Light  Salt = Liberalism.

Jesus also tells his disciples to be the light of the world (Mt. 5:14). This is intriguing as Jesus also says that he is the light of the world (Jn. 8:12). Light is a symbol of Gods presence (Ps. 27:1; Is. 9:2; 2 Co. 4:6) as God is light (1 Jn. 1:5). Light represents Gods love, grace, and goodness. Jesus said that if we follow him, we believe in the light so that you may become children of the light (Jn. 12:36). Thus, people can only be the light of the world if they have received the Light of the World into their lives. Furthermore, shining forth the light of God means that we share Gods love and grace to a dark world.

However, if a person lives his or her life with light that is not tempered with salt, then the person accepts a liberal mindset which is as destructive as legalism. Liberalism, in this sense, shares Gods word and extends Gods love but does not hold a standard of truth and moral righteousness. The result is a life that is not undergirded with Gods truth and eventually becomes watered down. This person is ironically one who becomes more susceptible to cults and cult-like movements due to his or her naivety.

Salt + Light = Legitimate.

The only legitimate construct is one that combines both salt and light. Salt with no light leads to legalism, light with no salt leads to liberalism, but salt and light leads to a legitimate Christian walk. Paul notes that a life of love is one that finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth (1 Co. 13:6). You might say, Yeah, but I dont like telling anyone that they may be wrong. Consider this: If you witnessed someone who was unaware that he or she was standing dangerously close to a cliffs edge, would you advise them to be careful or just let them fall to their death? The loving thing to do would be to caution the person of the danger. Likewise, Christians should lovingly stand for truth and lovingly extend Gods grace to all they encounter by acts of kindness. As Jesus said, we need to both be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. As a friend of mine once said, Only Jesus had the appropriate balance. We need to attempt to find that balance ourselves.

 2019. BellatorChristi.com.

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com and is the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has been in the ministry for over 15 years and serves as the Senior Pastor of Westfield Baptist Church in northwestern North Carolina.
(Image source from: Mirchi9.com)

Modi Behind KCR's Federal Front: Chandra Babu:- Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandra Babu Naidu accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is the hidden face behind Telangana Chief's KCR who is forming the Federal Front. He called Modi a jealous politician and he said that Narendra Modi is jealous of Andhra Pradesh. Chandra Babu reacted on KTR - YS Jagan's meet for Federal Front. He said "all the jealous people are coming together against Andhra Pradesh". He made these comments during a teleconference with TDP leaders. Babu said that Modi is quite jealous after watching the rapid progress of Andhra Pradesh.

"Modi is afraid that southern states like Andhra Pradesh will overtake Gujarat and development because of which he is in hunt for alternate options. He is the man behind KCR who announced Federal Front. This is why KTR met YS Jagan in a hurry. With this meeting, the relation between them is exposed. BJP is afraid of making an impact down South and hence Modi is in hunt for alternate options. They are here to create confusion and split the anti-BJP votes in AP and Telangana" said Babu.
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How utterly brazen. How shameless. How bigoted. How inexcusable and unjustifiable. The wife of the Vice President of the United States is a committed Christian who  perish the thought  teaches at a Christian school. What has become of our nation?

Worse still, this Christian school actually holds to Christian principles.

Is there a more serious crime she could have committed?

Of course the nation is outraged. This is a frontal assault on one of todays most sacred political cows. Religious faith (specifically, Bible-based, Christian faith) can have no connection with the public square. We must have freedom from religion  that is, from religion that has any real connection to the Bible.

Had Karen Pence been a liberal (or, progressive) Christian, there would be no problem.

So-called progressive Christianity has exchanged the values of the world for the values of the Word. Thats why the world  meaning, secular society, worldly society  loves progressive Christianity.

As Jesus said to His disciples, If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you (John 15:18-19).

But because Mrs. Pence helps out at a school with biblically-Christian standards, there has been a near-hysterical breakdown in the media.

The FRCs Tony Perkins cited these headlines in a January 17 email:

"Karen Pence teaching art at school that bans gay students, parents" (CNN)

"Vice-president's wife, Karen Pence to teach at anti-LGBT school" (BBC News)

"Karen Pence Is Teaching at Christian School That Bars L.G.B.T. Students and Teachers" (NY Times)

In reality, as Perkins explains, The truth is that Karen, like other Christians faithful to the Bible, believes sexual conduct outside of the marriage of a man and woman is contrary to God's plan. This attack on Mrs. Pence is more evidence of the growing intolerance, if not outright hostility toward biblical truth and those who live by that truth, especially those who hold positions in the public square. The message being sent is quite clear: (1) Biblical faith and adherence must be checked at the door of public service (which is a reverse religious test), and (2) Those who hold to these antiquated views should be relegated to the margins of society.

He is not exaggerating.

Writing from the perspective of an Orthodox Jew (and with typical sarcasm), Ben Shapiro tweeted, BREAKING: Pences wife is working for a Christian school that requires that Christian students pledge to abide by Christian standards of sin that have not changed in 2,000 years.

Oh, the horror!

Matt Walsh, the conservative Catholic blogger, said this: The Left is once again shocked to learn that the Pences are Christian. It seems they learn this fact anew every few months or so and are freshly outraged every time it dawns on them. The epiphany happened again this week when Mike Pence's wife, Karen, got a job at a Christian private school. This has elicited many outraged headlines across the mainstream media, and many shocked and appalled tweets and so on.

He continues, Of course, the stated reason for the outrage is not that Karen Pence, a Christian, is working for Immanuel Christian School, a Christian school, but that the school bans openly gay teachers and does not admit openly gay students. It also prohibits all other forms of sexually immoral conduct, including premarital sex. Teachers are required to officially affirm the Biblical position on all of these subjects.

In other words, in keeping with clear biblical principles, principles which have never been questioned until recently (in the aftermath of the sexual revolution), practicing homosexuals are considered immoral. As such, they are prohibited from teaching at a Christian school or studying at a Christian school. (As Walsh notes, the same holds true for other, willful forms of conduct that violate Gods standards.)

Is this really news? Is it that big of a shock? Just because the world has changed, does that mean Gods Word has changed? Just because many professing Christians have decided that they know better than the Scriptures, does that mean that the Lord now follows human opinion? Seriously?

And heres another shocker. If this was a traditional Muslim school, non-Muslims would be banned. And heterosexual teens who were having sex would be banned.

And if this was a traditional Jewish school, Christian kids would not be permitted to study there, nor would kids who were getting drunk and doing drugs.

Or perhaps thats not so shocking.

After all, we expect traditional Muslims to be, well, traditional Muslims.

And we expect traditional Jews to be, well, traditional Jews.

And Im not so sure there would be outrage if the spouse of a Muslim political leader in America taught at a traditional Muslim school. Or the spouse of a Jewish political leader at a traditional Jewish school.

The outrage is over any connection between the historic Christian faith  the dominant, oppressive religion of America!  and the public square. Such a connection must be severed at once.

Thats why the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is furious with incoming governor Bill Lee and the state of Tennessee. He dares to have a Christian worship service on the day of his inauguration!

The FFRF wrote to him, As a private citizen you may, of course, attend any religious functions you like. But the federal and state constitutions dictate that you as governor may not insert religious rituals into government-sponsored events, including your inauguration.

So Lee, who defeated his Democrat opponent by a whopping 20 percentage points (59 to 39 percent), and who campaigned openly as a committed Christian, must now keep his faith out of the public square.

Yes, as this foundation so plainly states, the goal is freedom from religion.

Thank God that Karen Pence and Bill Lee didnt get the memo.

And thank God that our Founders didnt get it either.

In the famous words of John Adams, Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

We do not check that morality and that religion at the door when we are elected to public office, nor do our family members.

Mrs. Pence, we are with you!
Nebraska principal who banned all things Christmas resigns

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A Nebraska elementary school principal who sent an internal memo to teachers warning them not to use any Christmas-related messaging and activities in the classroom in December has resigned.

Jennifer Sinclair, the principal at Manchester Elementary School in Elkhorn, has agreed to step down as school principal following her placement on administrative leave last month after she issued the guidance to teachers.

The internal memo outlined several holiday-related displays, objects, and activities that teachers were banned from using, handing out or assigning during the Christmas season.

Sinclairs memo, which she signed as the the (Unintentional) Grinch who stole Christmas, listed many things that teachers should stay away from including the use of Christmas-related clip art on worksheets, placing Christmas trees in the classrooms, using Christmas-related books and singing Christmas carols with students.

The memo also warned teachers not to give candy canes to students. Sinclair claimed in the document that candy canes are shaped in a J for Jesus and that the red is for the blood of Christ and white is a symbol of his resurrection.

On Monday, the Elkhorn Public School Board unanimously accepted Sinclairs resignation letter, according to an international social conservative legal group that opposed Sinclairs memo.

Due to the level of attention that Sinclairs memo received, Sinclair and the district stand united that it is in the best interest of Manchester Elementary that she not resume the principal position, Elkhorn Public Schools Superintendent Bary Habrock wrote in the email that was sent to parents and staff.

According to The Omaha World-Herald, Habrock said that Sinclair stepped down with a heavy heart and sadness.

The district ... would like to thank her for the high level of professionalism during this publicly difficult time, Habrock wrote in the letter. We support Sinclair as a leader and educator.

Sinclair has agreed to stay on with the school district and assume a curriculum position there, news station KMTV reports.

Sinclairs internal memo drew the ire of the Florida-based conservative Christian legal group, Liberty Counsel, which sent a demand letter to Habrock calling for him to overrule Sinclairs guidance.

The organization argued that Sinclairs memo violated the academic rights of teachers as well as the First Amendment rights of students.

The First Amendment simply does not require the elimination of all Christmas symbols  religious and secular  in a misguided attempt to be inclusive by eliminating all traditional elements of a federally and state-recognized holiday, the Liberty Counsel letter sent by attorney Richard Mast reads. The effort to comprehensively eliminate Christmas symbols is Orwellian.

Masts demand letter states that Liberty Counsel did not desire to see Sinclairs removal as school principal but only wanted her compliance with the law.

Following the demand letter, a lawyer for Elkhorn Public Schools wrote a response letter explaining that Sinclairs memo to teachers did not comply with school board policy and that the school district would work with staff to correct any erroneous communications and clarify any misunderstandings.
Senate resolution rebukes Democrats for violating Constitution's 'no religious test'

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The U.S. Senate passed a resolution rebuking two Democrat Senators for their critical questioning of a judicial nominee's Knights of Columbus membership.

Senators approved without objection on Wednesday Senate Resolution 19, which was introduced by Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

The resolution stated that disqualifying a nominee to Federal office on the basis of membership in the Knights of Columbus violates the Constitution of the United States.

More specifically, the resolution says that Article VI, clause 3, was violated, which reads, "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

 the Knights have a proud tradition of standing against the forces of prejudice and oppression, such as the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Germany, continued S.R. 19.

 the Knights are founded on the principles of charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism [and] in 2017, the Knights made more than $185,000.000 in charitable contributions and volunteered more than 75,600,000 service hours.

In a Wednesday evening speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Sasse explained that he introduced the resolution on behalf of fellow Nebraskan Brian Buescher, who was nominated by President Donald Trump to be the U.S. District Judge for the District of Nebraska.

Senators Kamala Harris of California and Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii sent him written questions expressing concern over Bueschers membership with the Knights due to the Catholic organizations socially conservative views.

Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a womans right to choose when you joined the organization? Sen. Kamala asked. Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when you joined the organization?

The Knights of Columbus has taken a number of extreme positions. For example, it was reportedly one of the top contributors to Californias Proposition 8 campaign to ban same-sex marriage, inquired Hirono. If confirmed, do you intend to end your membership with this organization to avoid any appearance of bias?

This is nuts, stated Sasse. We're talking about the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the world being called an extremist organization and a nominee for the federal bench being asked if he would resign from this organization so that he could serve without the appearance of bias.

This is the same kind of garbage that was thrown at a member of this body, John F. Kennedy, 60 years ago when he was campaigning for the presidency.

Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is running for president, also denounced the treatment of Buescher in an opinion column published earlier this month by The Hill.

While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Bueschers Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, wrote Gabbard.

The party that worked so hard to convince people that Catholics and Knights of Columbus like Al Smith and John F. Kennedy could be both good Catholics and good public servants shows an alarming disregard of its own history in making such attacks today.
Os Guinness: evangelical critics of Trump are 'dead wrong,' 'havent analyzed the situation rightly'

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Evangelical critics of President Donald Trump and his supporters are dead wrong in their prioritizing of concerns, according to British author and social critic Os Guinness.

Conservative Christian radio host and author Eric Metaxas interviewed Guinness on Metaxas podcast that aired on Tuesday, partly in regards to Guinness newest book, Last Call for Liberty: How America's Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat.

During the interview, Metaxas bemoaned the backlash he received from fellow Christians over his support for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

I was vilified and since have been vilified as everything under the sun. Even my fellow Christians, or I should say, especially many of my fellow Christians, have said things I would have thought them incapable ever of saying, said Metaxas.

You have many people who are professing evangelical Christians, serious Catholic Christians, who are as anti-Trump as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That, to me, is the darkest of this, because I would think that the church would understand that the unborn and a number of other things are vitally important. Something has changed.

Guinness said he agreed with Metaxas on his assessment, saying that he believed anti-Trump evangelicals and Catholics havent analyzed the situation rightly.

Theyve become obsessed with Trump, and theyve failed to see that hes not the cause of the problem, hes the consequence, the symptom, Guinness responded.

While theyre being obsessed with him, the real problems are developing underneath. And Trump wont be forever. So he serves out two full terms and finishes in whatever way. Then you would still have the problem.

Labeling many of the evangelical and Catholic critics friends of both himself and Metaxas, Guinness went on to state that he felt they were dead wrong about their focus on Trump.

Metaxas then added that he found it horrifying that many of these evangelical critics of Trump were demonizing supporters of the president, arguing that their statements prevent civil discourse.

They think that everyone who is a sane person must be viciously against Trump. If youre not that, then youre not part of the crowd anymore. And so, you cant even talk to those people, continued Metaxas.

Guinness believed that Christians needed to adopt a better analysis of whats gone wrong in the United States and to respond to it in a much more Christian way than attacking Trump supporters.

Better public discourse can emerge if Americans would get it out of just the obsession with Trump to better think about pressing issues, like whether to build a wall on the southern border, Guinness added.

You think of the wall and the fact that heres a position which so many of the leading Democrats supported themselves, for the right reasons, not that long ago, said Guinness. Now because Trumps in favor of it, they cant possibly admit anything like that. Well, this is an insanity for the nation.

Released last October by InterVarsity Press Books, Guinness Last Call for Liberty focuses on his concern about the recent decline in political civility.

Our society's conflicts are rooted in two rival views of freedom, one embodied in 1776 and the ideals of the American Revolution, and the other in 1789 and the ideals of the French Revolution. Once again America has become a house divided, and Americans must make up their minds as to which freedom to follow, reads the books Amazon description.

[Guinness] calls for a national conversation on the nature of freedom, and poses key questions for concerned citizens to consider as we face a critical chapter in the American story. He offers readers a checklist by which they can assess the character and consequences of the freedoms they are choosing.

Metaxas recently garnered controversy for his interview last week with controversial right-wing figure Milo Yiannopolis, with Andrew Egger of The Bulwark joking that it proves we live in the worst possible timeline.

Whats interesting is how quickly it becomes clear that Metaxasalthough he has apparently read and enjoyed Diabolicalseems to be blissfully unaware of most of the more revolting moments in the Milo oeuvre, wrote Egger.

In a sense, though, Metaxas has done a real service by hosting Milo: He made clear that the political corruption of the modern evangelical movement is in its very late stages. Metaxas is for Trump. Milo is for Trump. So Metaxas assumes that he should be for Milo, too.
Ohio's new Gov. Mike DeWine swears on 9 Bibles during oath-of-office ceremony

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As President Donald Trump made headlines in January 2017 for swearing on two Bibles during his oath of office, Ohio's new Catholic conservative Gov. Mike DeWine took it to another level on Monday.

The former U.S. senator and state attorney general swore on a stack of nine Bibles during his official swearing-in ceremony that took place on his farm at midnight Monday morning.

DeWines decision, however, was not meant to seven-up the president but rather to honor his children and members of his family that came before him.

According to a press release from the governors office, the nine Bibles include:

DeWine's late daughter Becky DeWines childhood Bible

DeWines great-grandmother Gertrude Budds Bible

DeWines grandmother Ruth Perkins Liddles New Testament that was given to her by her father over 100 years ago

DeWines grandfather Albert Liddles New Testament, which was issued to him by the U.S. Navy while serving during World War I

DeWines Aunt Elizabeth Ann Mickey DeWine Harwoods Bible, which was given to her by her grandmother

A New Testament that the DeWines acquired many years ago in Jerusalem

A study Bible given to DeWine by the former chaplain of the U.S. Senate Lloyd Ogilvie

A Bible that belonged to DeWines mother, Jean DeWine.

A Bible that DeWine was given by his wife, Fran, on their 10th wedding anniversary

Taking over the reins of the state from outgoing Republican Gov. John Kasich, DeWines oath was administered by his very own son, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat DeWine. Meanwhile, DeWines wife, Fran, held all nine Bibles.

During a short ceremony this morning at my home in Cedarville, I took the oath of office to become the 70th Governor of #Ohio, DeWine wrote on Twitter. I was honored that my son @PatDeWine administered the oath as I placed my hand atop nine family bibles held by my wife, First Lady @FranDeWine.A spokesperson for DeWine told The Cincinnati Enquirer that the governor and first lady wanted there to be Bibles representing each of their eight children.

Immediately after taking the oath of office on Monday morning, DeWine issued six executive orders.

At the public swearing-in ceremony that took place in Columbus later that day, DeWine only took the oath while swearing on just two Bibles.

Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted took his oath of office at Riverside United Methodist Church in the suburbs of Columbus while swearing on a family Bible, according to DeWines office.

DeWine was endorsed during the 2018 gubernatorial election by the evangelical social conservative advocacy group Family Research Council. He has served in both the House and Senate.

As attorney general of Ohio, DeWine fought to defend Ohios ban on same-sex marriage in the wake of a federal court ruling against the state law in 2014. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of a national right to same-sex marriage in 2015.

In the Senate, his sponsorship of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, and the Federal Marriage Amendment are evidence of his dedication to the principles of federalism and first amendment freedoms, FRC President Tony Perkins said in a statement. Having helped lead a multi-state amicus brief on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Hobby Lobby, and having supported Ohios constitutional marriage amendment all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell, its clear that he recognizes that religious freedom is a sacred right, and that healthy families are the bedrock of society.
NY Senate passes bills banning gender identity discrimination, sexual orientation change therapy for minors

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The New York Senate has passed bills that ban discrimination on the basis of gender identity and prohibit sexual orientation change efforts therapy for minors.

State Senators approved on Tuesday the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), or S.1047, and S.1046, which prohibits mental health professionals from performing SOCE therapy on youth.

New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, who introduced both bills, said in a statement released Tuesday that he was proud to be part of a Democratic majority that works to safeguard the rights of all New Yorkers.

The passage of GENDA  and legislation to end so-called conversion therapy will codify our progressive reputation and ensure that all New Yorkers, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation are treated with dignity and respect under the law, stated Sen. Hoylman.

As the Trump administration continues to rollback protections for LGBTQ Americans, todays victory sends a strong message to LGBTQ New Yorkers across the state: you are loved, understood, and protected by your state government. We will not let you down.

For years, State Senate Republicans had effectively blocked both legislative proposals, including in May 2018 when the New York Senate Investigations & Government Operations Committee defeated GENDA in a 5-4 vote that fell on party lines.

In 2016, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order banning conversion therapy for minors; however, there remained no actual legislation on the books.

For his part, Governor Cuomo has expressed support for both bills and is expected to sign them into law when they are officially delivered to him.

New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms has denounced the passage of both bills by the Senate, with Executive Director Jason J. McGuire denouncing the conversion therapy ban as a measure that will harm four groups of people.

First, it will harm young people that might benefit from change therapy, but will no longer be able to obtain it legally in the State of New York. Second, it will harm the parents of those young people by removing potential sources of help for their kids, stated McGuire.

Third, it will harm mental health professionals who could now lose their livelihoods if they assist minor clients in overcoming unwanted same-sex attraction. Fourth, it will harm every resident of the State of New York by eroding free speech, religious liberty, and parental rights.

McGuire also took issue with GENDA, warning that the bill is based in several falsehoods, chief among them the notion that the State of New York should consider gender dysphoria an identity to be affirmed, not a psychiatric condition to be compassionately treated.

It means that employers must allow transgender employees to cross-dress and use opposite-sex facilities in the workplace. It means that the preferences of transgender persons now take precedence over the privacy and safety of actual women and girls, McGuire said.

While the sponsors of GENDA doubtless believe that their bill is motivated by compassion for transgender persons, the bill shows a curious lack of compassion toward New Yorkers who will be adversely affected by its contents.
'Will Roe go?' Supreme Court lawyer talks overturning landmark abortion case

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VIENNA, Va.  The 2019 Evangelicals for Life conference was in full force Thursday as believers from across the nation gathered to discuss life-influencing issues such as abortion, illegal immigration, criminal justice reform and racial reconciliation before they participate in the annual March for Life Friday.

Kristen Waggoner, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom who won her first case before the U.S. Supreme Court last year by helping Christian baker Jack Phillips obtain victory over the state of Colorado, spoke during a morning session titled Will Roe Go: Abortion and the Future of Pro-Life Policy.

Waggoner, who serves as senior vice president of ADFs U.S. legal division, detailed avenues in which she believes components of the Supreme Courts 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade could be overturned now that there's seemingly a conservative majority on the court.

Following the segment, Waggoner was awarded the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commissions annual John Leland Award, which honors individuals who stand strong to advocate for religious freedom.

The Christian Post sat down with Waggoner following the morning session to talk about the future of Roe, her inspiration for becoming a lawyer and what cases Christians should be keeping an eye on in 2019.

Below and continued on the next page is an edited transcript of the interview.

Christian Post: What will it take to undo Roe v. Wade? Is that something that could happen in the near future (given the conservative makeup of the court) and what kind of cases will it take to undo that ruling?

Kristen Waggoner: Its not appropriate to try read the tea leaves of where the court is at on a particular issue. We dont know where the court is at. Justices on the court, the majority, should be originalists and appear to be. The court works at a gradual pace and incremental pace. It's hard to know the exact timing of when Roe will be overturned but we're optimistic that it will be overturned.

Its reasoning doesnt hold up in light of the 46 years that have passed and what we know about technology and just reading the text of the Constitution.

[A ruling overturning Roe] will return the abortion battle to the states. When the court overturns Roe, it will overturn it likely based on reviewing a state statute that is a limitation on abortion in some way.

Some of the examples of limitations that we would see can be 20-week abortion bans, 15-week abortion bans. There is a 15-week abortion ban that is up on appeal in Mississippi. Also, informed consent laws and what those mean can kind of undo the framework of Roe and [Planned Parenthood v.] Casey and some of those holdings. There are a lot of different ways it can play out.

CP: Are there any laws being challenged currently that could possibly be elevated to that status?

KW: There are a number of cases at the lower court level and there are three cases that are right before the Supreme Court now that will have an impact.

One of them is the Alabama dismemberment ban, which says that you cant dismember a living child in the womb. That would have an influence on the Roe framework because there is no limitation on that. Someone could try to say that the child is not viable but that law doesnt distinguish between viability.

Another case is the Box [v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky] case, which has to do with limitations on having sex-selective and engaging in disability discrimination and prohibiting those types of abortions. That, the court appears to be interested in. It has been looked at a couple times without a decision.

We also have the Indiana ultrasound informed consent requirement that the court is taking a look at as well.

Something we didnt talk about [on stage] that may be interesting is a new tactic that we are seeing from pro-abortion advocates, which is to challenge the cumulative effect of abortion limitations. This means they take all the limitations that are placed on abortion together and say "All of this adds up to an undue burden on the women."

There are five states that are facing lawsuits right now under this cumulative effects theory and those cases could also go up to the Supreme Court.

CP: Is the effort to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funding dead now with the Democrat-controlled House?

KW: I think there are always things we can do and we can do those things at the state level as well as the federal level. We believe that at the state level, there is great promise and we continue to build momentum at the federal level.

If you may recall a couple of years ago, we came within an inch of getting that done. With any good effort, you keep working at it.

We see the other side do that time and again, and so many times our side says, "Oh, we are not going to keep going." I think we are seeing a vigilance and tenaciousness about this  that it is wrong to use hard-earned taxpayer money to fund an abortion mill.

CP: What inspired you to go into this line of work?

KW: I grew up in a Christian home and my dad talked a lot to me about Gods plan for my life and figuring out what that was. I am really grateful for that repeated influence.

He was just encouraging that as a woman, you could be an Esther or a Deborah and you can follow in the footsteps of Nehemiah and David and that life is not about ourselves.

I felt that calling to go into law at the age of 12. I just pursued that ever since. It has, of course, taken different routes than what I even expected.

I spent about 15 years in private practice in Seattle, Washington, at a firm after a judicial clerkship and transitioned to Alliance Defending Freedom in 2013.

CP: How many cases have you argued before the U.S. Supreme Court?

KW: I have argued one case before the Supreme Court [Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission]. I was co-counsel in the NIFLA case, which was another case this term. [Note: the Supreme Court ruled in NIFLA v. Becerra that the state of California could not force pro-life pregnancy centers to promote abortion].

I oversee all of the cases that ADF does. We have nine Supreme Court victories in seven years.

CP: What was your preparation process like going into the oral arguments for the Masterpiece case?

KW: The process is very intense, not just for the oral argument. A number of people that dont practice before the court dont account for all the briefing that takes place. They say that you can lose a case at oral argument but usually not win a case at oral argument. Its the briefing that matters most.

In a case like Masterpiece that is a high profile case, we had about 100 amicus briefs that were filed. Those have to be read, digested, understood and coordinated in some sense. There is just a lot that goes into it, in both what we say, what others are saying, and figuring out how to respond to the court.

Arguing before the Supreme Court is different than any other court. How you engage in the argument is very different than the techniques you would use in the lower courts.
Pence defends wife amid media attack on her teaching at Christian school

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Vice President Mike Pence has defended his wife Karens decision to teach at a private Virginia Christian school amid controversy over the schools views on homosexuality and transgender identity.

Over the past few days, publications including The Washington Post and CNN have carried pieces criticizing Second Lady Karen Pences decision to teach at Immanuel Christian School of Springfield, Virginia.

At issue was their parent agreement, which among other things prohibited students and their families from engaging in conduct that is counter to the biblical lifestyle the school teaches.

This includes, but is not limited to contumacious behavior, divisive conduct, and participating in, supporting, or condoning sexual immorality, homosexual activity or bi-sexual activity, promoting such practices, or being unable to support the moral principles of the school, read the agreement in part.

In an interview with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Washington Watch on Thursday, Vice President Pence said that he and his wife are used to the criticism due to their years of life in the public sphere.

Pence then went on to stress that the attacks on Christian education by the mainstream media have got to stop.

If we cherish the freedom of religion in this country. This administration stands foursquare for the freedom of religion of people of all faiths, said Pence.

And to see the mainstream media criticize my wife because shes choosing to return to the classroom of an elementary Christian school is wrong. Again, the attacks on Christian education must end.

Notable conservative Christian writer and National Review contributor David French also took issue with mainstream media coverage of Second Lady Pences new job at Immanuel.

Immanuel is a church ministry applying the churchs theology. No one is forced to attend the church. No one is forced to attend the school. Its a voluntary association that is protected by the First Amendment and rooted in the faith that guides the lives of tens of millions of Americans, wrote French.

Whats next? The belief that public figures should not teach Sunday School? Serve in domestic or foreign missions?
Pastor accused of choking woman pregnant with his child at Southside Impact Church

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Rashan Lamar Wilson, lead pastor of Southside Impact Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was arrested and charged Monday for allegedly strangling the pregnant mother of his children until she passed out.

Wilson is the author of books such as 99 & 1/2 Things A Woman Needs From Her Man: How To Establish and Maintain a Healthy Relationship.

A WCSC news report said Wilson, 35, was charged with domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature. He was released on a $20,000 surety bond and was ordered not to contact the victim who court documents say is eight weeks pregnant with his child. He also cannot leave South Carolina.

According to his Facebook page Wilson, who's also a relationship expert, is married to Dashonna Wilson and they have three children together, an online biography says.

Court documents explain that Wilson was at Southside Baptist Church Monday night when the victim arrived to drop off their children.

A witness who is a cousin related to Wilson and the mother of his children, told police that she saw the victim and Wilson standing outside of the victims car. She then watched as they walked around the church out of her sight. She soon heard them talking and getting loud.

About four to five minutes later, the witness said she saw the mother of Wilsons children return to her car and she appeared disoriented, leaning, limping, forehead bleeding, sand and leaves in her hair.

She revealed to the witness that Wilson strangled her and she blacked out, and did not remember anything after that.

The incident report noted that during the meeting between Wilson and the mother of his children, he lunged toward the victim, put both of his hands around her neck, squeezed tightly until she was unconscious for an indeterminate period of time.

She reportedly fell to the concrete, banging her head on the ground, resulting in an abrasion to the right side of her forehead. Once she regained consciousness she called 911 and was treated at a hospital.

The defendant showed extreme indifference to the value of human life and would reasonably cause a person to fear either great bodily injury or death, a statement by the Charleston investigative officer said.

David Aylor, Wilsons attorney and friend, told The Post and Courier that Wilson is known as an upstanding and helpful member of the his church and wider community. He also said he believes the pastor will be exonerated.

Hes not only a client, hes a friend, Aylor said. What so far has been reported would be a horrendous example of domestic violence; however, when the true facts come out, we believe that (Pastor) Wilson will be exonerated of any criminal act as he looks forward to returning to his church and the community that he has diligently served and will continue to.

Wilsons online biography describes him as a seasoned prophet and seer.

The impression and signs that follow his meetings are lasting. ... He is a young man full of the spirit of wisdom, faith, strength, and power. His life exemplifies the methodism of holiness through integrity. Thousands of souls have been led to Christ during the course of his ministry life, it says.
Mike Pence rallies pro-lifers at March for Life: 'They will attack you, but God will never forsake you

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Citing a list of pro-life actions President Trump has taken since he assumed office, Vice President Mike Pence described Trump as being the most pro-life president in U.S. history, in a speech at the 46th annual March for Life rally in Washington D.C. Friday.

This is a movement founded on love and grounded in the nobility and dignity of every human life. When we look into the eyes of a newborn child, we see the beauty of the human soul and the majesty of God's Creation. We know that every life has meaning and that every life is worth protecting, Trump said in a video message to the crowd.

In remarks during a surprise appearance at the march before introducing the message from Trump, Pence presented the president as a champion for the pro-life movement backed by a historic record of supporting the cause.

From the first day of this Administration President Trump has taken action to defend the sanctity of life. Our president reinstituted the Mexico City Policy so now, no American foreign aid flows to organizations that support or promote abortion around the world, Pence said.

Today, because of everyone gathered at the @March_for_Life, all those they represent, and all who have gone before, life is WINNING in America once again. pic.twitter.com/gl7VSOcmSF  Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) January 18, 2019

First announced in 1984 by the Reagan administration, the Mexico City Policy has been rescinded and reinstated by subsequent administrations along party lines and has now been in effect for 18 of the past 33 years, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy via presidential memorandum on Jan. 23, 2017. It was renamed Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance.

Pence also pointed to Trumps record on appointing conservative judges to federal courts and his Administrations efforts to defund the largest abortion business in the country, Planned Parenthood.

In the last two years, President Trump kept his promise and he appointed more conservative men and women to our federal courts of appeal than any president in American history. And this president signed legislation that I had the privilege to cast the tie-breaking vote to empower states to defund Planned Parenthood. The truth is, President Donald Trump is the most pro-life president in American history, Pence declared.

Pence also urged pro-life advocates to stand firm knowing that life is winning and he is looking forward to the day when the controversial 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling is overturned.

We urge you, stand strong. Stand with that love and compassion. You stand for life, and know that we will stand with you until that great day comes where we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law, Pence said.

Beyond the legal protections for life, the vice president also cited Scripture, alluding to Jeremiah 1:5 as a reason for pro-life advocates to be confident in their cause.

And to all gathered here today, we urge you to stand strong. Be prepared to give a reason for the hope you have. Be prepared to defend life, but do so with gentleness and respect. They will attack you. They will question your hearts to silence others, but dont listen to them. Listen to the truth. And know that He who said, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you [also] said, I will never leave you nor forsake you as you stand for the right to life, he said to cheers.

So many great families & young people in our Nations capital for tomorrows @March_for_Life. Honored to meet today at the @WhiteHouse with @StudentsForLife & @HeartbeatIntl to discuss how @POTUS has been STANDING for LIFE. Thanked them for all they do in the fight for life. pic.twitter.com/qRpnsKkJF1  Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) January 18, 2019

And as you stand, Im here to tell you, you can be confident that you do not stand alone. You are joined by tens of millions across this nation and know that you have an unwavering ally in this vice president, in our family, and you have a champion in the president of the United States of America, President Donald Trump, he added.

Life, he said, is winning again in America and its all due to the work of the faith-filled coalition of pro-life advocates.

Because of all of you gathered here, all those you represent and all those whove gone before, we know in our heart of hearts that life is winning in America once again. Life is winning through the compassion of caregivers and volunteers at pregnancy centers across the country. Life is winning through the generosity of millions of adoptive families who open their hearts and their homes. And life is winning through courageous men and women who stepped forward to serve in public office and to now advance the cause of life from our nations Capitol, to state houses across the country, Pence said.
Iraqi Assyrians Are Target of Land Grab

Despite the defeat of Islamic State forces on the battlefields of northern Iraq in 2017 and the advance of democracy in a country once ruled by the brutal Saddam Hussein, these are difficult times in Iraq, especially for beleaguered Christians of various ethnicities who have been dispossessed of their ancestral lands on the Nineveh Plain.

In the aftermath of the liberation of areas once under the control of the so-called caliphate, Shia and Kurdish forces are now attempting to consolidate their positions, vying to take control of land that does not rightfully belong to either of them.

According to a report released late last year by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think-tank that focuses on issues of international peace and security, there are reasons to hope that Iraq can resolve some of its national unity issues.

For example, the ICG contends that recent political developments in Iraq and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region create an opening to negotiate an end to disputes that erupted into open military conflict in 2017. The formation of new governments in Baghdad, Iraq's capital, and Erbil, capital city of Kurdistan, "presents a fresh opportunity to settle longstanding disputes between them," notes the ICG report, which is entitled Reviving UN Mediation on Iraq's Disputed Internal Boundaries.

The Kurdish people, who were effective and reliable allies of the West in the fight against the Islamic State, have long sought the establishment of their own independent, sovereign nation-state. And in 2017, the Kurds defied the Shia Muslim-dominated Iraqi federal government when they went ahead with a referendum on independence.

The tense situation quickly deteriorated into violence, with military clashes between the Iraqi army and Kurdish fighters, with Iraqi forces retaking disputed territories from the Kurds.

"This event shows that the conflict over Kirkuk and its oil fields remains explosive and could reignite without efforts to resolve it," states the International Crisis Group report, which was published on Dec. 14, 2018.

The ICG recommends that the United Nations revive "its stillborn mediation effort of a decade ago and work with regional and international partners to bring the two sides to the table and settle the issues dividing them." And the think-tank also urges the UN to "work to reach a permanent deal on the disputed territories."

Oil revenue dispute & national unity

According to the ICG, the disputed territory "encompasses an area with a rich blend of ethnic and religious communities." However, the think-tank contends that the conflict is driven, at least in part, by both sides' desire to claim the disputed territories' lucrative oil and gas reserves.

The International Crisis Group report also states that "the Kurds, who lay claim to Kirkuk and other disputed territories given their large Kurdish population, want to annex these areas to the Kurdish region."

Not surprisingly, notes the ICG report, "successive governments in Baghdad have strongly resisted this, aware that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) could use Kirkuk's oil to finance a viable independent Kurdish state." As a result, the struggle over the disputed territories "could therefore become one over the territorial integrity of Iraq."

Displaced Christians

Caught in the middle of the territorial dispute between the federal and Kurdish governments are the ancient Christian communities indigenous to Nineveh Plain in northern Iraq.

Assyrians are the original indigenous people of Iraq, Syria, Iran and parts of Turkey. They are not Arabs. And their ancient community predates the establishment of Islam and even Christianity. Many Assyrians still speak Aramaic, one of the languages likely spoken by Jesus Christ.

Many Iraqi Christians are of Assyrian ethnicity. However, many prefer to self-identify by their Catholic rites or Protestant denominations.

According to the U.S. State Department, there were as many as 1.4 million Christians in Iraq in 2002. However, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a Catholic non-governmental organization (NGO), estimates that fewer than 200,000 Christians remain in Iraq today.

According to the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), 120,000 Christians were forced to flee their homes when Islamic State forces swept across northern Iraq in 2014, overrunning the Nineveh Plain.

The Christians sought refuge in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, often referred to as Kurdistan. Flash forward to 2019 and some Christians have returned to their villages on the Nineveh Plain, while others remain displaced in Kurdistan.

After the military defeat of ISIS by an international coalition in the late summer of 2017, approximately 10,000 internally displaced Christians returned to their homes, Carl Hetu, national director of CNEWA, said in an interview.

However, when the Kurds held their independence referendum, all hell broke loose. Military skirmishes between Iraqi military units and Kurdish militias forced many of the returning Christians to turn around and head back to Kurdistan.

Plight of Christians

"The plight of Christians became far worse following the Kurdish independence referendum in September 2017," confirms the Barnabas Fund, a United Kingdom-based Christian NGO that assists persecuted and vulnerable Christians. "This led to the Iraqi security forces seizing control of the oil fields on which the Kurdish government relied for their income and imposing a six-month air blockade, which created huge economic problems in the Kurdish region," the NGO told the Whig Standard.

"Refugees, particularly Christian refugees, were obviously at the bottom of the priority list for the Kurdish government and suffered accordingly," the Barnabas Fund's research department wrote in an email.

"The Iraqi government also seized control of many areas outside of the Kurdish autonomous zone itself which the Kurds had taken from Islamic State. This left Christians in those areas in an even more vulnerable situation."

Land grab and harassment

Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Christians find themselves in a precarious position in northern Iraq. ACN's John Pontifex explained in an email that "the Nineveh region straddles the disputed border between federal Iraq and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan."

According to Hetu, the Kurds are trying to buy up land that rightfully belongs to Christians but was abandoned when the religious minority was forced to flee the Nineveh Plain in 2014. "And the same thing is happening with the Shia-led government who is trying to buy all the land," he added.

"So the Christians are stuck in between, because they are under the gun," Hetu said of the land dispute on the Nineveh Plain. "And that's why right now, many are not going back to their villages, because the fear of more conflict between the Kurds and the state of Iraq."

According to Monica Ratra, a spokesperson for Open Doors Canada, displaced "Christians have recently faced harassment from Kurds." And she alleges that "Kurdish authorities and citizens have been involved in the so-called demographic engineering policies or 'Kurdification' for the Nineveh Plain and other parts of Kurdistan."

This process supposedly involves the purchase and/or confiscation of Christian lands, "thus changing the identity of historic Christian enclaves/villages, resulting in the emptying of Iraq of its Christian minority," Ratra explained in an email.

In addition, Open Doors Canada, which advocates on behalf of persecuted Christians around the globe, reports that "Christians can also face harassment and attacks from Shia militias." For example, the human rights group alleges that Christian women in Qaraqosh were sexually harassed by Shia militias.

However, according to Pontifex, some Christians living in the Kurdish capital of Erbil have "integrated well" into Kurdish society, having secured jobs and learned to speak Kurdish, "a very different language to their native Arabic."

Discrimination and tensions

The Barnabas Fund points out that when Islamic State forces marched across northern Iraq in 2014, "the Christian towns and villages in the Nineveh Plains were abandoned by the Kurdish Peshmerga." For this reason, asserts the Barnabas Fund, "the Christians are therefore understandably wary of trusting the Kurds for their future security."

The Christian NGO also tells of "incidents of Kurdish militia kidnapping Christian young men to use as conscripts in fighting in Syria."

As the Iraqi and Kurdish governments hammer out their relationship, borders, as well as an oil and gas revenue-sharing agreement, both sides should also commit to ensuring the survival Assyrians and other Christians on the Nineveh Plain. And that means recognizing the Christians' rightful claim to their ancestral homeland.
David Platt: Christians cannot remain silent in 'evil' world that 'devalues' children

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In a world of evil that devalues children, obedience to the Great Commission will lead Christians to "treasure the sanctity of human life and refuse to stay silent in the face of abortion, Pastor David Platt said ahead of the March for Life.

Platt, teaching pastor at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Virginia, told those gathered at the Evangelicals for Life event Wednesday night that the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations  directly relates to the sanctity of life.

"For into a world that devalues children," Jesus gave the commission for Christians to make disciples, baptizing and teaching them, Platt said. "The Great Commission was clearly and definitively not a call to sit back and stay silent in a world of evil."

Jesus, the pastor said, commanded His followers "to run to need, not away from it; to engage a world in need, not to turn a deaf ear to it. And when one has a proper view of the Great Commission, they automatically start to value life.

"The first and most fundamental way we can work for the unborn is through the proclamation of the Gospel to see hearts changed to want what God wants," Platt said. "The power of the Gospel message in and of itself possesses a dynamic charge that detonates the heart's desire for abortion."

Through baptism, "God has uniquely designed and equipped the church to care for children and their mothers, he added.

But the sanctity of life doesnt begin and end with the unborn, Platt contended, adding that the Great Commission compels Christians to "decry all forms of oppression, exploitation and see the least of these  immigrants, refugees, and slaves  as created in Gods image.

Evangelicals for Life, held at McLean Bible Church, is a three-day conference sponsored by the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and The North American Mission Board.

The Bible tells us that every human being has dignity and worth, reads the event description. From the tiniest unborn life to the elderly at the end of life, from immigrants and refugees to those trafficked against their will, all life is precious to God. Imagine what it would look like for Christians to come alongside the most vulnerable and to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.

The ERLC and Focus on the Family launched EFL three years ago to help motivate Christians to participate in the March for Life, held every year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in Washington, D.C.

In addition to Platt, event speakers include Russell Moore, J.D. Grear, Kristen K. Waggoner, and more, with music from Steven Curtis Chapman and Keith and Kristyn Getty.
Churches worldwide observe Week of Prayer for Christian Unity,' focus on Deuteronomy 16:20

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Churches worldwide are planning to observe the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity starting on Friday to promote ecumenical practices.

First started in the early 1900s, the Week of Prayer takes place Jan. 18-25, between the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul on the liturgical calendar.

It features worship materials, such as liturgy, developed in cooperation between the International Committee of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

The Garrison, New York-based Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute helps to develop, publish, and disseminate these materials for use in North America and has done so since 1968.

Fr. Tom Orians, SA, associate director of the institute, told The Christian Post that this years theme is "Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, taken from Deuteronomy 16:20.

This years theme, which finds its origins in Deuteronomy, was chosen for its powerful message of promoting truth, equality and unity, Orians said.

It was prepared by a group of representatives from different parts of Indonesia, including the Communion of Churches in Indonesia and the Indonesian Catholic Bishops Conference who felt it spoke powerfully to their situation and needs, and recognized this common need throughout the world.

Orians also noted that this year orders are increasing substantially for the materials used by churches observing the Week of Prayer.

We can say that hundreds of churches from the diverse Christian community across North America are participating this year, among them those from the Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, and Catholic traditions, Orians added.

By annually observing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Christians around the world move toward the fulfillment of Jesus' prayer at the Last Supper that they all may be one.

Margaret Rose, Deputy for Ecumenical and Interfaith Collaboration with The Episcopal Church, told CP that the denomination has always been deeply involved in the Week of Prayer, seeing in it the hope of the unity of the Church.

What we have done in the last few years is that we always, from the churchwide office, send out resources for ecumenical officers and to all the dioceses and churches in the hope that they will do some of these prayers, do some of the scripture study, said Rose.

Our job is to be a bridge for the resources that are offered to make sure that our people know about that in terms of prayer and liturgy.

Rose also told CP that churches have been known to engage in diverse ways of observing the Week of Prayer, including not only joint church services but also volunteer projects.

I think more recently, theres been a sense that our unity is often made even deeper by the relationships we have with one another, continued Rose.

And so oftentimes there will be places that will say lets build a habit house together, lets work together on a soup kitchen. So that its something that actually sends people outside the walls of the churches.
Christians worldwide urged to sign letter thanking family of Muslim man who died saving churchgoers

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Christians around the world are being urged to sign a letter to the loved ones of a Muslim police officer who sacrificed his life to save hundreds of churchgoers in Egypt.

Persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern published the letter online Wednesday, addressed to the family of Major Mustafa Abid, who was killed on duty on Jan. 5.

Abid, along with other officers, was responding to a bomb discovered on the roof of the Virgin Mary and Father Seifin Church in Nasr City, near Cairo, when it detonated and killed him, injuring three others.

The incident took place a day before the Coptic Christian Christmas Eve, and as International Christian Concern noted, fears are that hundreds of Christians, including children, would have been killed if the expositions had gone off as planned.

By signing onto this letter, I wish to express my highest praise, deepest gratitude, and heartfelt sympathy for your injuries and loss incurred while following your conscience and your duty on Jan. 5, 2019. Your actions ensured that hundreds of Egyptian men, women, and children were not unjustly murdered during a deadly attack on the Virgin Mary and Father Seifin Church," begins the letter which is also addressed to members of the bomb squad.

"I wish to thank the members of the bomb squad and various police officers who put themselves in danger for the sake of others. I pray for complete healing for all who were injured. I also join in mourning with the family of Major Mustafa Abid and express my heartfelt sorrow for your tragic loss, it continues.

The Bible says, Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. I believe that Major Abids actions demonstrated that kind of love, and I honor him for it.

In a press release, International Christian Concern said it's rare that advocates for the persecuted Church have the opportunity to thank those who go against the status quo and risk their reputations, livelihoods, and in this case their lives, to protect Christians.

The actions of Major Abid, General Mansour, the other members of the Nasr City bomb squad, as well as Imam Askar, give us such an opportunity, International Christian Concern said.

If they had not moved quickly, the roof of the church would surely have collapsed from the force of the explosion, resulting in a massive number of deaths of Christians at the church and Muslims attending the mosque next door.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi meanwhile observed a moment of silence for Abid at the inauguration of the countrys biggest cathedral, the Nativity of Christ, on the Coptic Christmas Eve on Jan. 6.

Sisi insisted that all Egyptians are united against terror.

"We are one and we will continue to be one," Sisi said as he celebrated the opening of the nearby Al-Fattah Al-Alim mosque.

"This moment is very important in our history," he added, reflecting on the joint opening of the two houses of worship.
Christians attacked 25 times over Christmas in India; pastors dragged, bloodied by mob

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Christian communities in India were attacked at least 25 times over Christmas because of their faith, with pastors dragged by hundreds of radicals, beaten and bloodied.

International Christian Concern documented 25 instances of persecution over the holidays, including one particularly violent incident in Lakhan Mau village, Uttar Pradesh state. There, 200 Hindu radicals armed with clubs and iron rods attacked 50 Christians, including pastors Ashok Massih and Rajeev Kumar.

Massih and Kumar were reportedly dragged by the mob to an open place and beaten. They were accused by the radicals of committing blasphemy.

The image of the cross captured my mind as the blood was flowing from my nose and my mouth, Kumar said. It was horrible as [the] mob dragged me out into the open place.

Another documented attack occurred on Dec. 23, this time at New Life Fellowship Church in Kowad village, Maharashtra state, when masked radicals attacked Christian worshipers.

The believers were attacked with knives, swords and beer bottles, leaving several of them needing medical attention.

New Life Fellowship Church Pastor Bhinset Chowan further revealed that after having rented a building for church services for the past 17 years, the landlord has now evicted the congregation due to pressure from radicals.

ICC reported that it recorded 23 other attacks over the Christmas season, making it a "discouraging and painful" one for Christian communities in the Hindu-majority nation.

There has been a sharp rise in the total number of attacks on Christians in India in the past couple of years. For the first time, India was listed among the top 10 worst persecutors of Christians on Open Doors USA's World Watch List, which was revealed this week.

"The worlds two most highly populated countries rise on the World Watch List. For the first time since the start of the World Watch List, India has entered the top 10," the watchdog group said, referring also to China, at No. 27.

"Each of these countries is home to more than a billion people, so these trends are distressing. Hindu nationalists in India continue to attack Christians with what seems like no consequences," it noted.

Radicals have often accused Christians of attempting to forcefully convert Hindus to their faith, which church leaders have continuously denied.

Pastor Selva Raj of Amathur village in Indias Tamil Nadu revealed that children have also been targeted in attacks, including one incident on Nov. 11 when a mob of 300 Hindu extremists destroyed a shed near a Sunday school class and warned pupils against attending.

They took away the Bible storybooks and some song and activity books from the children and tore them into pieces, Raj told Morning Star News.

"They scared the children away by telling them that they will be beaten up if they are seen in the church premises ever again."
Mario Lopez calls wife's pregnancy 'a miracle' after thinking baby No. 3 wasn't part of 'Gods plan'

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Actor Mario Lopez says he was just about to give up hope of having another child until his wife, Courtney, revealed over the holidays that she's pregnant.

In an interview with People magazine, Lopez, 45, revealed that they had been trying to conceive a child and started to accept the possibility that a third child wasn't to be.

If it didnt happen, it wasnt meant to be. Not part of Gods plan. We have one of each, the "Extra" host, told People about his thoughts before finding out the good news.

But it got in there! It snuck in, toward the end, so a bit of a Christmas miracle, he said.

The Lopezes' two children, Dominic Nico Luciano, 5, and Gia Francesca, 8, disagree on whether they want a baby sister or a baby brother. Gia wants a baby sister and Nico wants a baby brother.

Weve waited for all the kids, [so] its going to be a surprise. Were pretty old school, you know, it being the tie-breaker, Lopez said of waiting to find out the miracle babys sex. It doesnt matter, to be honest, as long as its healthy. Were just very excited. The gender reveal will be when its born!

In his Instagram announcement, the loving father proclaimed that he is so blessed to be having another child.

Lopez has been pretty vocal in Hollywood about his faith in God. In March of 2018, the Saved By the Bell star celebrated being baptized in Israel.

"We are at the Jordan River where John the Baptist baptized Jesus Christ. I'm about to get baptized," Lopez wrote on social media. "It's a beautiful day. There's a really cool Catholic priest that's gonna do me the honors. And there's a sermon going on right now. So I'm going to join these fine folks and then, bam! It's on!"

In a second video, Lopez was standing in the Jordan singing the Christian hymn, "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus." He is then asked by two priests if he believes in Jesus Christ and "intends to serve Him" for the rest of his life.

"Yes, I do," Lopez said.
Teen churchgoers often stop attending as young adults, LifeWay study finds

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Two-thirds of American Christian teenagers who regularly attend worship at a Protestant congregation for at least a year quit going for at least a year when they become young adults.

According to a report by LifeWay Research released on Tuesday titled Most Teenagers Drop Out of Church as Young Adults, 66 percent of young adults who attended a Protestant church regularly for at least a year as a teenager dropped out for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22.

The major reasons respondents gave included moving to college (34 percent), church members seeming judgmental or hypocritical (32 percent), no longer feeling connected to people in their church (29 percent), disagreement with their churchs stance on political or social issues (25 percent), and employment obligations (24 percent).

The report drew from data collected from a survey done Sept. 15  Oct. 13 of last year of 2,002 respondents who attended Protestant churches, with a sampling error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

The 2017 numbers were a slight improvement compared to 2007, when 70 percent of respondents reported leaving for at least a year between ages 18 and 22.

Alex McFarland, national talk show host and author who has hosted dozens of Truth for a New Generation apologetics conferences, told The Christian Post on Tuesday that he believed the LifeWay study was accurate and attributed the numbers ultimately to issues of worldview.

If they are taught the biblical worldview and the responsibility of every Christian to be a steward of their life and their influence and be a part of a church, really all of those things could ultimately be dealt with, said McFarland, who encouraged teaching a more cohesive, consistently proclaimed biblical worldview.

Regarding the 25 percent of respondents who reported leaving over their churchs views on social and political issues, McFarland told CP that this should not lead a church to abdicate its roll to be a voice for righteousness within the culture.

Churches should speak to political and social issues, stated McFarland, who noted that at his conferences, young people normally make up 40 to 50 percent of the attendees.

The number one voice they look to is their parents and secondly, to youth pastor, pastor, or some type of clergy, for biblical truth, about the big questions of life. So what the church shouldnt do is stop talking about the great issues of our day from a biblical perspective. Sexuality, morality, gender, salvation.

McFarland warned that for many youth, the couple of hours they spend in church and Sunday School often competes against something like 32-40 hours a week in a secular classroom, hundreds and hundreds of hours in a year in terms of secular media.
James MacDonald to take 'indefinite sabbatical' amid scrutiny; elders plan 'peacemaking' process

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Harvest Bible Chapel's longtime pastor James MacDonald is stepping away from ministry and leadership responsibilities for an "indefinite sabbatical" as the church elders initiate a "peacemaking process" amid recent scrutiny of the Chicago-area megachurch.

In an email message sent to HBC members that was posted on the church website Wednesday, the elders said that they had tried to address criticisms coming from outside for the past several years but such efforts have not been adequate as it pertains to their own failures. The Executive Committee of elders privately met Monday which "led to the decision to be part of a peacemaking process that seeks both reconciliation and change where needed."

The latest development has come about following an investigative report from Julie Roys, formerly of Moody Radio, in the December issue of World magazine. In the article, Roys detailed how the church, under MacDonald's leadership, had moved around ministry entities in order to redirect funds for suspicious purposes and also reported on an alleged culture of fear and intimidation where MacDonald was allowed to treat people abusively.

The church will be partnering with two ministries "that specialize in helping churches resolve issues in God-honoring ways" patterned after Ken Sande's book The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict, the elders' statement read.

The Christian Post reached out to HBC for comment, inquiring further about how this peacemaking process will transpire and was referred to the Wednesday statement.

MacDonald, who started HBC over 30 years ago with a group of 18 people, will be taking an "indefinite sabbatical" from preaching and leadership at the Chicago location, the elders explained, and he has recused himself from taking part in the peacemaking process but may preach occasionally at the HBC location in Naples, Florida, through some of the winter months.

MacDonald explained in an addendum to the email from the elders that he has battled cycles of injustice, hurt, anger, and fear which have wounded others without cause.

"I am grieved that people I love have been hurt by me in ways they felt they could not express to me directly and have not been able to resolve. I blame only myself for this and want to devote my entire energy to understanding and addressing these recurring patterns," he said.

Prior to publication of the World article, the church sued Roys as well as two former members, along with their wives, who had been blogging critically of MacDonald since 2012 on a site called The Elephant's Debt. The church alleged both Roys and the Elephant's Debt bloggers had broken the law and had spread misinformation about them. HBC ultimately scrapped the lawsuit earlier this month after a judge denied the church two motions in order to keep documents subpoenaed in the case private.

Roys responded on her blog Wednesday that she is skeptical about the most recent announcement.

"Given all thats occurred, including a baseless lawsuit for which Harvest has still not apologized, whats required now is not a 'peacemaking process,' but confession, repentance, and resignations. There can be no true peace without it," Roys said.

Roys previously maintained in a separate post that the church not only told lies about her and the Elephant's Debt bloggers but that they knew what they said was false.

The Elephant's Debt bloggers, Scott Bryant and Ryan Mahoney, were also not moved by HBC's and MacDonald's latest words.

"If MacDoanlds confession is to be taken seriously  and seen as anything other than an attempt to manage public image  it must be complete and accompanied, at a minimum, by public acts of repentance," they said, referencing a previous blog, an open letter they authored demanding that the pastor apologize publicly and reimburse them for costs they incurred as a result of the lawsuit.

"In the absence of that, it is difficult to read this as anything but yet another attempt to spin a story."
He then listed several reasons why Christian movies as a whole are terrible, starting with the accusation that they are not made by artists, but by propagandists.

Christian movies are more akin to propaganda than art, because they begin with wanting to communicate some Christian theme  the power of prayer, the power of believing, the power of something  and then the story is crafted around that message. This is true even when the story is something based on a real-life incident. Delving into the depths of human character and motivation is subservient to getting the message across. This is why so much of the dialogue in Christian movies violates the classic writing proverb, Show, don't tell, wrote Wilson, who is also managing editor of For The Church and director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church.

He clarified that he is not questioning the skills of the cameramen and others working on the faith-based movie sets, but he believes these are "people who don't really know what the job ought to be."

Famous authors C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, he pointed out, "just weren't writing for the Christian market, because that market does not want art that [communicates] truth but art that is being used by a message. And there's a difference. It is the difference between art and propaganda."

In his second argument, he said that Christian movies often suffer from Christian sentimentalism.

Characters in Christian movies don't often sound like people in real life. They sound like Christians imagine (or desire) real life to be. This is why the Christian protagonists are always earnest, even when they don't have all the answers, and why the non-Christian antagonists always sound like the one-dimensional memes Christians tilt against in their Facebook streams, Wilson argued.

Third, he positioned that Christian movies look to portray narrative tidiness instead of nuance.

He used an example from his own writing career when he was trying to get a novel published but an interested publisher told him:

"We can't publish this if the sheriff has his arm blown off in the firefight at the end."

Wilson explained that the scene in question was not gory or indulgent. But it was a narrative choice I made to make the stakes real and high. A good guy can get hurt in real life. Well, my big mistake was mistaking the world of Christian fiction for real life. In the world of Christian fiction  at least, for that publisher  good guys don't get hurt.

Wilson also spoke out against platitudes in Christian movies.

Every prayer sounds scripted. Every dramatic moment sounds cliched. The pastors sound like the phrases on motivational posters. Christians speak to non-Christians in gotcha wisdom, delivering Jesusy fortune-cookie bon mots to souls apparently just a few well-turned phrases away from conversion. The theology of Christian movies can be scribbled on the back of a napkin, he said.

It's Christian bookstore coffee mug-level philosophy. It's Christian T-shirt-level aphorizing.

Finally, he warned that even the best Christian movie will never be cool.

The gospel always sounds offensive to the world. Maybe Christian movies that articulate faith content clearly are destined to be laughed out of the theater, regardless of the excellence of their cinematic context, if only because the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, he pointed out.

What if there isn't a way to make the gospel sound cool? That's something worth pondering for Christian moviegoers and Christian movie-makers alike, he advised.

In any event, if your movie's gonna get laughed at for being Christian, maybe at least make sure it's because of the cross and not because it's corny.

Christian media producer and author Phil Cooke told The Christian Post on Wednesday that he completely understands Wilsons frustrations when it comes to movies made by Christians.

Theres no question that many Christian filmmakers mean well, and have great motives. But the truth is that any compelling story should balance on the verge of going either direction. Most Christian films have the feeling that the end is already decided, and its always positive, Cooke offered.

I understand the desire to share our faith, and position it in the best possible light. But the truth is, that makes an inauthentic and unbelievable story that doesnt resonate with audiences.

He argued that filmmakers need to be able to understand what makes a good story before thinking about the Christian implications.

The bottom line is that if we cant draw people into the film based on a powerful and compelling story, then all the good intentions in the world wont help, he told CP.

As an example, Cooke offered the use of profanity in movies.

My feeling is fairly simple and its all based on the character. One of the greatest criticisms of media created by Christians is that its simply not believable. You cant have an outlaw biker, a member of the Mafia, or a drug addict using nice, family safe words. The truth is that they use profanity on a regular basis, so to not allow that in a movie at some level, is to cheapen the character and undermine the believability of your story, he said.

So my rule is we dont use profanity in a gratuitous way, but when necessary, to help express the nature of the character in his or her present state. To be convincing, it has to be real, authentic, and believable. To do otherwise is to create a fake character, and that does nothing for the presentation of the Gospel.

Looking at the bottom line, Cooke said that unless we show how deep the sin, we cant show how great the salvation.

That doesnt give us a license to use profanity, sexuality, or violence all the time, but it does create the need to show real people, real characters, and real situations, he clarified.

Cooke reflected: When Christian audiences stop being so offended when they see authentic behavior on film, and we have Christian filmmakers with the guts to tell those stories in a compelling way, then well start impacting the culture.

Earlier, film reviewer and teacher Andrew Barber also warned about what he views as problems in Christian filmmaking.

Barber wrote in a Gospel Coalition article in 2014 that many times, Christian films come out as inherently dishonest.

Over the last few years, many church-funded films have featured explicit evangelism encounters. They usually come near the climax of the movie and feature one character explaining to another how he/she is a sinner and needs Jesus, the result of which is usually conversion. Everyone knows this scene is aimed at non-Christians in the audience; its the altar-call sequence of the film and frequently features explicit preaching, he wrote.

The problem is the sense of bait-and-switch. We are saying, on the one hand, Hey, we know you love art; here is our art over here! and then P.S. Now that we have you in the theater, we would like to convert you. While the scenes can be powerful in presentation, they are more akin to interventions than filmmaking.
Image: via Pixabay

Today, there are 844 million people around the world without access to clean water; 2.5 billion do not use a toilet to manage their waste. And 3.4 billion people are unreached with the gospel.

The intersection of all three of these is predominately rural villages dominated by animism and other folk religions. What should be our priority as Christians? Provide communities with access to clean water and improved health, or proclaim the transforming truth of the gospel?

As the leader of a Christian water organization, Ive struggled with this dilemma for years. I firmly believe that we must serve the whole person (body and soul), and I also believe that Christ must be central to all our efforts. If we solely preach the gospel, we ignore their basic physical needs. If we only give them water, teach about hygiene, and build toilets at schools, we feel like weve neglected the Christian nature of our work.

How can we meaningfully address peoples physical needs while fulfilling the Great Commission? Here are some guiding principles we have found helpful:

First, clarify our categories.

I dont believe drilling a well, installing a pump, and teaching people to wash their hands fulfills the Great Commission. It is important work worthy of our support. It can drastically improve peoples lives. However, by itself, it isnt what Christ commissions the church to do.

I also dont believe preaching the gospel while ignoring the crisis and hurt people are experiencing is consistent with biblical ethics. Jesus makes it clear that we have a responsibility to help the person who has been attacked by robbers and left for dead (Luke 10:25-37). To simply walk past is not consistent with the teaching of Jesus to his disciples.

Keeping these categories distinct is extremely important. The disciples kept these categories distinct in Acts 6. They felt the need to make sure widows were being cared for while also maintaining a firm commitment to the proclamation of Gods Word. They werent willing to sacrifice either, and nor should we.

People are hurting, vulnerable, and in crisis around the world. Whether it is their health, personal safety, or economics, the average person living in a rural village lives in the midst of hardship and loss that we cant begin to fathom.

As the church, we cannot act like these crises do not exist or that they lie outside the scope of the churchs mission. Moreover, we cannot ignore the spiritual darkness which often perpetuates and underlies these issues.

Second, keep the local church central.

The local church in villages around the world is in the best position to serve people in crisis and introduce them to the hope of the gospel. Faith-based community development organizations like Lifewater are just part of the supply chain for the local church. We do not specialize in gathering Christians for fellowship or preaching and teaching the Scriptures.

Rather, we are part of the global church who can come alongside churches who want to address the health crisis in their village.

Western Christians cannot (and probably should not) be the face of humanitarianism around the world. Rather, the local church and local believers should be the hands and feet of Jesus to their neighbors. The church was there before clean water and will be there after it arrives.

If a local church doesnt exist, the humanitarian work becomes a strategic opportunity to plant a church in that village.

Parachurch organizations are at their best when they become contractors for the local church. As westerners, we use contractors to do things which are beyond our competence or capacity. The local church is often not skilled at handling job training, drilling water wells, improving sanitation, or disaster relief. We should not expect them to do so.

Likewise, parachurch organizations are not stewards of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1). Humanitarian organizations need to know their role as contractor and treat the local church as the true owner.

What should a local church do when they encounter a village with a health crisis due in part to the lack of clean water? They should maintain their focus on gathering and equipping the saints while also partnering with a Christian organization that is skilled at addressing complex health, hygiene and water issues.

The local church is Gods plan for transforming the world. It always has been and always will be. As the local church carries out its mission in villages around the world, it will encounter people in crisis. As they seek to address the various needs of people in crisis, they will have to draw upon the wisdom and work of parachurch organizations.

Third, integrate everything.

Although parachurch organizations do not preach and baptize, we can still integrate the gospel into every aspect of our work. It starts with our vision statement, permeates our corporate values, influences our hiring decisions, and becomes a measuring stick for our success.

We must not be ashamed of the gospel as we go about our work of helping each and every family improve their health. It is the motivation and goal of our work.

How can we integrate the gospel while provide access to clean water? Here are some examples of the ways we have found to integrate the gospel into everything we do:

Hire only local Christian staff. This one is becoming increasingly difficult as we serve further and further into remote regions. Shared mission is an important element of our work, and misalignment of values will result in compromised priorities and results.

Practice corporate prayer. At our headquarters and in our field offices, teams gather together to pray for the communities that they serve, and the hardships that they faceevery day. This is a discipline that I plan for our organization to retain for generations.

Share your experience. We thoughtfully equip local believers to teach their peers about improving their health through proper water, sanitation, and hygiene practices. As they establish meaningful relationships with their neighbors, they are invited to respectfully share about the God who loves and cares for them. These materials must be culturally appropriate and accessible to even those who are preliterate.

Host Bible studies. The Bible is filled with stories of people in crisis and how God cares for them. We invite people to Bible studies at the local church to learn more about Gods concern for their welfarehere and now. As we train village residents in proper sanitation techniques, we integrate principles and stories from Scripture. Many whom we serve think of God in a negative sense or as removed from their health concerns. By incorporating Scripture into sanitation lessons, it introduces people to Gods lordship over all aspects of life and his desire for his creatures to flourish.

Produce quality and professional work. Water wells that break down after 18 months because of poor craftsmanship or engineering are a poor reflection of Christ and his Church to an unbelieving world. Trainings that dont result in meaningful changes do not strengthen our witness. Parachurch organizations should be at the forefront of their practice, and should provide services that are so good that the poor communities would pay for if the had the means.

Clean water or the gospel? Yes. The answer is both. Like the Good Samaritan, we cannot ignore the crisis people are experiencing. Like the apostles in Acts 6, we cannot abandon the preaching of the gospel while addressing peoples crisis. The apostles found capable people to make sure the widows needs were met.

Today, local churches can draw upon parachurch organizations to help address issues in their local communities.

Justin Narducci is the President and CEO of Lifewater International, the oldest Christian WASH organization in North America.
Asia Bibi living like a prisoner in Pakistan, hiding from angry mobs who want her dead Christian Post Contributor | 18 January, 2019 by Stoyan Zaimov

Three months after her acquittal of a blasphemy charge, Asia Bibi is still living like a prisoner, hiding from angry mobs in Pakistan who want her dead.

A friend of Bibi who wasn't identified told The Associated Press that the Christian mother of five  who was on death row for eight years  is living in fear of being killed and is guarded by security forces who've barred her from even opening a window.

Bibi was accused by Muslim farm laborers of having insulted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, which is an offence punishable by death in Pakistan. She was convicted despite denying the charges, and in October the Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict.

The mother has been living in hiding ever since, with Islamic mobs demanding she be put back on death row and executed for her alleged crime.

Her children have been taken to Canada for their safety, though Bibi herself remains in hiding, awaiting a foreign nation to offer her asylum and secure her safety.

Bibi isn't allowed to give interviews for her own protection, and is with her husband, Ashiq Masih, who was shot and wounded by a protester demanding his wife's death.

Bibi's friend said that while her hiding place is comfortable, she still sees it as a jail, with her only hope being to be reunited with her family one day.

The mother is also receiving medication for various illnesses she suffered while in jail. "She is receiving medication for her heart, but she is still in pain," the friend said.

While various western countries, including Canada, Italy, Australia, and others have been mentioned as possible destinations that could grant Bibi asylum, her fate remains uncertain.

Continue reading about Asia Bibi on The Christian Post.
Israeli Historians' New Study Claims 30-year Genocide Against Anatolian Christians

The Christian population that had made up one fifth of the Ottoman Empire's population was wiped out in waves of violence by successive Ottoman and Turkish republican governments that left Christians a tiny minority in Anatolia, two Israeli scholars have said in a new study.

The controversy over the killings of the Armenian Christian minority living in Anatolia during the last days of the Ottoman Empire is already well known -- while the majority of the scholarly community and many international states recognise the killings as genocide, Turkey accepts that killings took place but rejects they constituted a genocide.

Israeli historians Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi's new book, "The Thirty Year Genocide," makes the even more striking claim that genocide was committed over a thirty year period between 1894 and 1924 against not only the Armenians but against all Ottoman Christian communities.

In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz about the book, Morris quoted the book as saying that between 1.5 million and 2.5 million Christians were killed during this period, basing this figure on the work of Turkish, Armenian and Greek statisticians.

"Our conclusion that between 1.5 and 2.5 million Christians were murdered, from 1894 to 1924, is a cautious estimate," Morris said.

"(The) killing of two million Christians was effected through the calculated exhortation of the Turks to create a pure Muslim nation," the book's blurb on the website of its publisher, Harvard University Press, reads.

Morris says the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was responsible for "the liquidation of the last Armenians who remained in Turkey," as well as hundreds of thousands of Greek and Assyrian Christians.

"Although Ataturk is considered to have been anti-Islamic, he mobilized Islam to execute that scheme, and he is the one who did away with the remnants of the Christian communities in Turkey. Nonetheless, the charge of ethnic cleansing never stuck to him," Morris said.

The Israeli historian is no stranger to controversy surrounding investigations of historic crimes, and in his home country he has faced criticism from all sides for his stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Morris became renowned as a self-styled "new historian" for his revisionist studies of the birth of the state of Israel, in which he found evidence of rapes, massacres and forced displacements committed by Jewish forces in the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict that had been ignored in the official Israeli version of events.

However, the criticism Morris received from conservative Israelis has been matched by outraged liberals since the historian gave an incendiary interview in 2004, in which he said the Israeli forces' actions had been justified despite the massacres and that the situation would be preferable today if they had fully cleared the land of Arab Muslims.

"I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals and the politically correct types. But my feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all," Morris told Haaretz in 2004.

"If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleaned the whole country - the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion - rather than a partial one - he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations," he said.
Three months after her acquittal of a blasphemy charge, Asia Bibi is still living like a prisoner, hiding from angry mobs in Pakistan who want her dead.

A friend of Bibi who wasn't identified told The Associated Press that the Christian mother of five a who was on death row for eight years a is living in fear of being killed and is guarded by security forces who've barred her from even opening a window.

Bibi was accused by Muslim farm laborers of having insulted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, which is an offence punishable by death in Pakistan. She was convicted despite denying the charges, and in October the Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict.

The mother has been living in hiding ever since, with Islamic mobs demanding she be put back on death row and executed for her alleged crime.

Her children have been taken to Canada for their safety, though Bibi herself remains in hiding, awaiting a foreign nation to offer her asylum and secure her safety.

Bibi isn't allowed to give interviews for her own protection, and is with her husband, Ashiq Masih, who was shot and wounded by a protester demanding his wife's death.

Bibi's friend said that while her hiding place is comfortable, she still sees it as a jail, with her only hope being to be reunited with her family one day.

The mother is also receiving medication for various illnesses she suffered while in jail. "She is receiving medication for her heart, but she is still in pain," the friend said.

While various western countries, including Canada, Italy, Australia, and others have been mentioned as possible destinations that could grant Bibi asylum, her fate remains uncertain.

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May was questioned on Wednesday during a session of Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons about what the British government is doing to help Bibi.

May responded by saying that the well-being of Bibi and her family is of "primary concern," but refused to comment on whether the U.K. will offer the family asylum, explaining that engaging in speculation could compromise her "long-term safety."

In the U.S., former Arkansas governor and Southern Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee warned that America is "betraying" its principles by failing to offer asylum to Bibi.

"President [Donald] Trump and his administration have been stalwart and vocal champions for religious freedom across the globe. And in Asia Bibi's case, urgent action is needed RIGHT NOW," Huckabee said last month.

A letter sent to Trump through the My Faith Votes website further noted that the U.S. has been "conspicuous by its absence" in the discussion of granting Bibi asylum.

"The United States is without question the safest place of refuge for Asia Bibi and her family. We have a 230-plus year commitment to religious freedom and tolerance. That the United States isn't being mentioned as her ultimate destination is a betrayal of those principles and an abdication of our responsibilities," reads the letter.

Courtesy of The Christian Post
Rumors of a feud between Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex have been circulating for a few weeks. When Kate turned 37 years old on January 9th, everyone assumed that a lavish party was thrown.

Adding the rumors of the rift between the royal sisters-in-law was the fact that Meghan and her husband Prince Harry were noticeably absent from the event. So, many royal fans want to know, did Meghan and Harry have a previous engagement that they couldnt get out of, or were they simply not welcome at Kates party?

Why werent Meghan Markle and Prince Harry there?

Kates birthday was not all glitz and glamour, but a quiet lunch to celebrate her special day. No members of the royal family, not even Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, or Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, all of whom are very close to the Duchess of Cambridge were in attendance. While Meghan and Harry were enjoying some quiet time out of the spotlight of London, Kate had lunch with her closest friends, followed by quiet time at home with her husband and kids.

Who attended Kates birthday lunch?

Fans of Meghan and Kate can rest assured that there seems to be no feud going on between the two duchesses. Although Meghan was not around to wish her sister-in-law a happy birthday in person, those who attended the celebration include the godparents of all three of Kate and Williams children. It seems to have been a rather informal celebration, at least according to royal standards. So much so, that Kates sister, Pippa Middleton Matthews, was not at the event.

Why are there rumors of a feud between the two duchesses?

It seems that every move that Meghan has made in recent weeks indicate that she and Kate are not getting along. When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their plans to leave Kensington Palace to reside at Frogmore Cottage in the town of Windsor, many fans assumed they were leaving due to bad blood between Meghan and Kate. Additionally, when it was revealed that Meghan would break royal tradition by not giving birth to her first child at the prestigious Lindo Wing at St. Marys Hospital in Paddington, London, it added even more fuel to the fire.

Is Meghan struggling in her new role?

With reports of Meghan struggling in her new role as the Duchess of Sussex, many people are wondering exactly what is going on with the Royals. Is Meghan creating tension in the royal family, or is everything just fine? Luckily, it turns out that while Meghan and Kate have different personalities, interests, and social circles, there are no bad feelings between the two.

Is the dynamic of the royal family changing?

For years, Prince William, Kate Middleton, and Harry have all resided at Kensington Palace, with the Cambridge family living in a 20-room apartment, and Harry in cozy Nottingham Cottage not too far away. It was assumed that after the wedding of Harry and Meghan, that they would be taking up residence in their own multi-floor apartment next door to Will, Kate, and the kids.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markles decision to move out of Kensington Palace is not due to any tension between the two couples. It can simply be attributed to the fact that they each have their own growing families and responsibilities.
The movie, Green Book, is playing at Chattanooga movie theaters and has become one of the frontrunners to win an Academy Award for Best Picture next month after garnering several other prestigious film honors so far.

The actual Negro Motorist (later Travelers) Green Book that was the inspiration for the movie title was much less known outside the traveling black community in America during the days of segregation.

However, many yearly editions of the book can be easily accessed in their entirety online, and I went and looked through several.

And I was almost surprised to learn that the book mentions several places in Chattanooga where a black traveler could have stayed during that era.

With the old books accessibility and the movies attention, perhaps these businesses of long ago in Chattanooga and elsewhere are receiving a little belated recognition for trying to help black people, I realized.

I also thought it might be interesting to document these places and see if they are still there.

One recent TV news story related to the movies release and the book said a small number of these businesses nationwide were white businesses, and that seems to be the case with two businesses here  a pharmacy then on Market Street and a parking garage also in downtown. But most of the places in Chattanooga were apparently black operated, as was the norm.

They included such places as the Martin Hotel, the black YWCA and black YMCA and several homes on East Eighth Street, among others.

The movie that has brought all this attention to the almost-forgotten paperback book is based loosely on the true story of accomplished black pianist Don Shirley (played by Mahereshala Ali). In the early 1960s near the end of segregation, he hires a white man, Tony Vallelonga (played by Vioggo Mortensen) to be his chauffeur on a show tour that goes through the South.

To help them have safe travels in the Jim Crow era, when trying to find accommodations or service at an unwelcome business might result in trouble, they carry a copy of the Green Book.

The real Green Book was published from 1936 to 66, and was begun by New York mailman Victor H. Green to list places friendly to black travelers at that time.

Marty Mitchell, a curator and exhibition director with the Bessie Smith Cultural Center in downtown Chattanooga, said the books were very important for black travelers in that era.

If an African-American was traveling, he had to know where he could stop on the way, she said. You needed to know where to stop, otherwise you could be in real danger.

The movie might cause the price of actual copies of the Green Book to go up for eBay and estate sale shoppers, although an online search found a number of the paperback books for sale in the area of $10 or just slightly higher.

But a number of editions can be easily perused online for free due to digitization efforts by libraries and universities and others.

A sample check of the books revealed that several of the Chattanooga businesses stayed listed for several years, with others appearing only briefly.

And a cross check of the Chattanooga city directories at the Chattanooga Public Library downtown from the same years showed a few discrepancies at a time when the Green Book likely relied in part on word of mouth for information.

The 1938 Green Book says that three hotels were available for black travelers in Chattanooga  the Lincoln at 1101 Carter St., the Martin at 204 E. 9th St. (now M.L. King Jr. Boulevard), and the Peoples at 1104 Carter St.

Chattanooga tourist homes listed in 1938 as offering accommodations for visiting blacks were the residences of Mrs. J. Baker at 843 E. 8th St., Mrs. E. Brown at 1133 E. 8th St., Mrs. D. Lowe at 803 Fairview Ave., Mrs. A. Jackson at 1416 College St., and the YWCA at 839 E. 8th St.

A check in the Chattanooga city directory from 1938 does not have a listing for the Lincoln, but does say that N.L. Bonner furnished some rooms at 1101 Carter. And at the Peoples, it does not have that name, either, but says E.M. Johnson furnished rooms at 1104.

And for the tourist homes, the Mrs. J. Baker is apparently Irene Baker, Henry Pickett is listed as living at the Brown address, Hoyt Hill lives at the Lowe address, and W.T. Bryson lives at the Jackson residence. It is likely these homes still provided accommodations to travelers, but the residents apparently changed at some point, or the publisher got some wrong or outdated information. That would be the case in subsequent editions as well.

By 1949, the Green Book lists that Chattanooga accommodations for black travelers could be found at the James A. Henry Branch of the YMCA at 793 E. 9th St., and again at the Lincoln, Martin and Peoples hotels. Tourist homes were at 843 E. 8th St., 1129 E. 8th St., at 1022 E. 8th St., and at the YWCA at 839 E. 8th St.

Not in the 1949 book but listed in the one in 1947 are such additional places as the Chief restaurant at 215 W. 9th St., Mays beauty parlor at 208 E. 9th St., the Mann Bros. service station at 528 E. 9th St., a taxi service at 915 University Ave., and the Volunteer parking garage that is still standing behind the Volunteer Building. That was definitely a white operated business, so that was unusual.

The 1955 Green Book shows an increase of places in Chattanooga being listed. Besides the previously mentioned hotels and the YMCA, there was also the Dallas at 230 9th St.. And the Peoples was actually referred to as the Harris Hotel in the 1955 city directory.

The same three tourist homes plus the YWCA were offering accommodations that year, and four restaurants were also listed  the Thomas Chicken Shack at 235 E. 9th St., the La Grand operated by Mrs. Annie Ruth Conley at 205 E. 9th, the Manhattan at 324 E. 9th (which the city directory said was an amusement parlor and billiards room), and the Brown Derby at 331 E. 9th St., which was also a beer hall.

Additional taverns listed were Gambles at 108 W. Main St., Dandys at 1101 W. 12th St. And such liquor stores as Pats at the apparently non-existent address of 727 James Blvd., Caps at 422 E. 9th St., and Watts at 220 E. 9th St., which the city directory said was actually the address of Apex Beauty Shop.

The Volunteer parking garage and Simms taxi service were still listed in 1955, as were two drug stores  Rowlands at 326 E. 9thSt. and Moore and King at 836 Market St., which must have been a pioneering white business in terms of reaching out to the black community centered a short distance away.

Places listed in the 1962 Green Book, the last one checked, include the Dallas Hotel, Kats Korner at 601 N. Lincoln St., the LaGrand Eat Shop, the M-Y-B Package Store at 320 E. 9th St., Martins Esso Center at 3701 Alton Park Blvd., Millenders Pharmacy at 1800 E. 3rd St., the Peoples/Lincoln Apartments, Reubens Place at 411 E. 9th St., Rubys Drive-in at 101 E. 46th St., the YMCA at 915 Park Ave. (where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. attended an event two years before), and the YWCA at 924 E. 8th St.

Most of those in 1962 match up correctly with the city directories, so the record keeping among the Green Book editors must have been improving.

The times were changing, and this book was about to become obsolete as the walls of segregation and discrimination were breaking down. However, change was slow and many might argue on this long weekend celebrating the birthday of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that America still has not been made whole and still has some work to do in this realm.

The situation was definitely changing slowly at the time. As evidence, the 1962 city directory still listed Chattanooga black businesses and residents with the (c) symbol for colored.

A quick check in person of some of these old places in Chattanooga where black travelers could visit shows that a number are no longer there. Among those on East Eighth Street where a number of tourist homes were, UTC-related housing and the Tommie F. Brown International Academy have about taken over.

However, the turn-of-the-20th-century brick home at 1133 East 8th St.  listed as a tourist home in the 1938 Green Book -- is still there, although it is now boarded up with a condemned sign on it.

Homes at Green Book listed sites at 1022 East 8th St. and at nearby 803 Fairview Ave. are still there, but it is hard to tell if those are older homes that have been greatly remodeled with new siding, or new homes made to look old. A home at 1129 E. 8th St., which was long a tourist home, is obviously a rebuilt home of more recent years.

The old James Henry YMCA at 915 Park Ave. has apparently been torn down in recent years to make way for newer houses built in the older styles.

On M.L. King Boulevard  formerly known as 9th Street  at least two former buildings that were listed as the sites of former Green Book businesses remain. One is a tan building at 422 M.L. King Blvd., which was listed as being the site of Caps liquor store in the 1955 Green Book. Today it is the site of 2 Sons.

The building at 235 M.L. King is also still standing. It was listed as the site of Thomas Chicken Shack in the 1955 Green Book, and it now houses Chattanooga Barley.

Although a number of older  and renovated  buildings can still be found on M.L. King, many of them were not listed in the book, although the businesses likely were still frequented by black travelers.

The old Martin Hotel at 204 E. 9th St.  which was perhaps the best-known black motel in Chattanooga and where a number of black celebrities stayed in the days of segregation  was torn down in the 1980s in a controversial move.

It was located in the current grassy area in front of the Bessie Smith Cultural Center, and a state historical marker tells its story.

The old hotel buildings in the 1100 block of Carter Street are now the sites of the newer part of the Convention Center and the Siskin Center for Developmental Pediatrics. And Miller Plaza is located where Moore and King Pharmacy was.

The Volunteer Parking Garage is, of course, still there. Many might praise it today as a white-operated business supporting black travelers. Whether it had separate areas of parking for black motorists is not known and would probably require further research to determine.

It and at least one now-condemned house on East 8th Street and at least two old business buildings on M.L. King Boulevard remain from the old days. But most of the other places listed in the old copies of the Green Book have been lost over the years.

But for the out-of-towners who were lost through travel or simply were ready to find a safe place to rest or eat while in Chattanooga, these places were a welcome sign of hospitality far from home.

Jcshearer2@comcast.net
Authorities have charged Askia Witherow in the October 2018 murder of Jacob Dakota Moore of Apison.

An investigation by special agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Polk County Sheriffs Department, the 10th District Attorney Generals Office and the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office resulted in the arrest of the 39-year-old Ooltewah man.

At the request of 10th District Attorney General Steve Crump, on Oct.

29, 2018, TBI agents joined investigators from Polk County and the District Attorneys Office in investigating skeletal remains that were found by hunters on Benton Mountain in the Reliance community.

The remains were ultimately identified as those of Jacob Dakota Moore, 26.

During the course of the investigation, and with the assistance of the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office, agents developed information that they said identified Witherow, an acquaintance of the victim, as a person responsible for his death.

On Thursday night, officers arrested Witherow in Georgia, and charged him with one count of first-degree murder, one count of especially aggravated burglary, four counts of especially aggravated robbery, one count of kidnapping, four counts of false imprisonment, and four counts of interference with an emergency call.

Witherow was booked into the Catoosa County Jail without bond, pending extradition to Tennessee.
In a case closely watched by Tennessees business community, the Tennessee Supreme Court has held that trial courts cannot use evidence outside of the written agreementcalled extrinsic evidenceto interpret a contract if that evidence is used to contradict the contracts written terms.

Beginning in 1999, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Inc., signed agency agreements with insurance agency Individual HealthCare Specialists, Inc., to allow Individual HealthCare to solicit applications for BlueCross insurance policies. Their business relationship lasted over ten years, with new contracts each year that spelled out the commission rates for sales of new insurance policies and renewals of existing insurance policies.



For years, BlueCross paid Individual HealthCare commissions on renewal policies at the renewal rate in effect when the policy was first issued. In 2011, however, BlueCross began paying commissions on renewal policies based on the rate in effect when the policy was renewed, which was substantially less. Individual HealthCare objected, claiming that this was a retroactive change in renewal commission rates and that BlueCross could not change those rates without Individual HealthCares permission. Ultimately, the parties business relationship ended.



Individual HealthCare sued BlueCross in Davidson County Chancery Court for breach of contract. The parties disputed, among other things, whether BlueCross had the authority to unilaterally change commission rates on renewal policies.



At the trial level, in addition to reviewing the written language of the contract, the trial court also considered the oral testimony of former BlueCross executives who participated in negotiating the agency contract. The executives testified that during the pre-contract negotiations neither party intended for BlueCross to have the authority to unilaterally change the commission rate for renewal policies retroactively. This oral testimony contradicted the written contract.



Interpreting the contract, the trial court ruled in line with the testimony of the former BlueCross executives, finding that BlueCross did not have authority to change commission rates retroactively. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Tennessee Supreme Court granted BlueCross permission to appeal.



The Supreme Court commented that Tennessee judges have long used extrinsic evidence of the circumstances when parties entered into a contract to interpret what they intended the written words to mean. However, the Court said, the written words are the lodestar of contract interpretation. Tennessee law does not allow the use of extrinsic evidence of pre-contract negotiations to justify an interpretation of the contract that contradicts the contracts written words.



The Supreme Court found that the language in the contract between BlueCross and Individual HealthCare clearly gave BlueCross the right to unilaterally change all of the commission rates, including the renewal rates. The Court concluded that the trial court erred by using evidence of the parties pre-contract negotiations to contradict the written words in their agreement. Consequently, it reversed the trial courts decision and held that BlueCross did not breach the contract by changing the applicable commission rate for renewal policies.



To read the unanimous opinion in Individual HealthCare Specialists, Inc. v. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Inc., authored by Justice Holly Kirby, go to the opinions section of TNCourts.gov.


Four Georgia Northwestern Technical College students have been selected as the colleges semi-finalists for the Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership (GOAL), according to Dione Waddington, coordinator for the colleges GOAL program.

Students chosen as semi-finalists for the GOAL award, showing the students name, county of residence, program of study, GNTC campus and nominating instructor:



Lorayna Alan, Walker, Marketing, Floyd County Campus, Mark Upton

Sarah Byrne, Bartow, Cybersecurity, Floyd County Campus, Jan Carney

Grace Dunnaway, Bartow, Criminal Justice, Gordon County Campus, Tyler Gayan

Brandon Neighbors, Catoosa, Automotive Technology, Walker County Campus, Troy Peco

The purpose of the GOAL program is to spotlight the outstanding achievement by students in Georgia's technical colleges and to emphasize the importance of technical education in todays global workforce, said Ms. Waddington.



GOAL, a statewide program of the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), honors excellence in academics and leadership among the states technical college students. GOAL winners are selected at each of the states 22 technical colleges.



According to Ms. Waddington, a screening committee of administrators at GNTC selected the four semi-finalists from a list of students nominated by their instructors.



The four semi-finalists will advance to a second round of judging at Rome Floyd Chamber. A panel of business, civic and industry leaders from the community will interview and evaluate the students and select one to be the colleges 2019 GOAL winner.



The student judged most outstanding will be announced at the GOAL and Rick Perkins Awards Luncheon on Tuesday, Jan. 29, at noon at the Coosa County Club in Rome.



The GOAL and Rick Perkins Awards luncheon is sponsored by The Seven Hills Rotary Club, Rome Floyd Chamber and Georgia Northwestern Technical College.



All college GOAL winners will compete in regional judging, which will include students from the other 22 colleges of TCSG. Three finalists from the region will be named and will compete in the state GOAL competition in Atlanta, April 15-18, and vie to be named as the 2019 statewide GOAL winner. The completion will take place at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta in Buckhead.



The state GOAL winner becomes the student ambassador for the Technical College System of Georgia. They will make many public appearances throughout the year, including addresses to the Georgia General Assembly, the Governor and other TCSG functions.



As the grand prize, a new automobile will be awarded to the state GOAL winner.


An update on the status of chronic wasting disease (CWD) was presented during the first meeting of 2019 which concluded Friday at the Ducks Unlimited national headquarters.

Chuck Yoest, CWD coordinator for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, made a presentation on the agencys chronic wasting disease response. Yoest informed the commission the agency has sampled more than 4,800 deer this season in Tennessee. Also, he shared that 62 samples from Hardeman and Fayette counties have been confirmed CWD positive.

The agency anticipates more positive CWD results from these areas since it is placing a heavy emphasis on sampling there according to its response plan. Yoest also said that public meeting held in Bolivar earlier in January in regard to CWD, had an attendance of about 400.

Jamie Feddersen, TWRA migratory gamebird program leader, gave a preview of the 2019-20 season. Changes in the federal framework require the TWRA to update its proclamation each year. The changes presented at the meeting were based mainly on hunter input.

Anticipated federal rules will now allow states to have Jan. 31 as the last day of duck season. Previously federal rules prevented states from having duck season any later than the last Sunday in January. Hunter input indicates the desire to end the duck season Jan. 31. The agency recommends the Reelfoot Foot Zone phase 1 season be Nov. 16-19 and the statewide phase 1 season Nov. 29-Dec. 2. The Reelfoot and statewide zone phase 2 season would be Dec. 7-Jan. 31.

For woodcock season, there was support to provide more hunting days in January so the agency is proposing a split season. For crow, there was support for more hunting days in cooler weather, The agency is also proposing a split season for crow.

There was a presentation from Ducks Unlimited representative DUs Dave Kostersky. On his annual visit from DU Canada, he reported that there was another dry fall and again officials were hoping for a wet spring in the habitat corridor. He annually makes the visit to provide an update on the partnership and conditions in Canada.

Frank Fiss, TWRA Fisheries Division chief, presented an overview of the fish dealer license to address TFWC questions about license requirements. A fish dealer license is required for bait dealers, fish farmers and operators of pay lakes. In Tennessee, anglers who fish at a licensed pay lake are not required to have a fishing license. This exemption is common among most surrounding states.

Dale Hall, Ducks Unlimited chief executive officer, was honored by the TFWC with a resolution. He has been DUs top official since 2010 and previously served the U.S. Fish and Wildlife for 31 years, the four as its director.

The commission will consider four rulemaking changes. The TWRA is establishing rules regarding public record requests and will consider changes to the fees associated with motorized boat registrations.

The commissions established a permanent Tennessees Native Son license. When initially created, the Native Son license had an expiration date of Feb. 28, 2019. The change allows the TWRA to continue selling the Native Son license into the future.

The commission passed an amended rule in regard to permit and access fees for non-motorized vessels the rule creates a permit for outfitters that establishes minimum operating standards and associated fees.
Emma Mullins, a music teacher at Lakeside Academy, received an I Am Hamilton T-shirt for her passion for music and her ability to pass that along to the children in her class.

The district presents the special shirts to individuals for efforts that positively impact Hamilton County Schools and the children it serves.

Emma Mullins builds relationships with her kids in music class, said Andrea Johnson, the principal at Lakeside Academy. She has a passion for music, and it comes through to her students.

She is funny, kind and always available to help people, said Jamarcus Varnell, a student at Lakeside Academy. In class, we are writing our own songs, and I have learned that a song needs a theme, hook, chorus and bridge. Jarmacus shared that he was writing a love song.

I am Hamilton spotlights the contributions of alumni, teachers, parents, students, support workers, and community members providing opportunities for children in the classrooms of Hamilton County Schools.






At this point, most of us are aware of the WWTA debacle on site selection and the half-baked planning for a new treatment plant on Mahan Gap Road.



There were also untruths given to the public about the basis or need for a new treatment plant on Mahan Gap Road by WWTA. That, my friends, is offensive.

Pam Sohn of the Times Free Press outed the WWTAs false contention that our regional treatment facility owned and operated by Chattanooga did not have adequate capacity.

When Ms.

Sohn writes about environmental, I pay attention and read the article twice. For decades Pam Sohn was the go-to for environmental regulators, activists, and anyone with interest in a forefront environmental issue. As a former TDEC NPDES program engineer in the old days, Ms. Sohn was our go to when the politicians attempted to force the issuance of an NPDES discharge permit contrary to state law and promulgated rules.

You see signs called, The Insider, well that is Pam Sohn on environmental issues. Ms. Sohn is well versed on environmental to a technical level. Her politics I would recommend ignoring, respectfully to Ms. Sohn.

Ms. Sohn is the most knowledgeable environmental writer in Chattanooga. She wrote an article worth a second read titled, Would WWTA, County Play Us for Chumps?

On the WWTA's web page of FAQs about the proposed plant is a question asking why WWTA can't just pump the wastewater to the Moccasin Bend facility. Answer: "The Moccasin Bend plant is presently operating at maximum capacity and the WWTA has already reached our current capacity that was recently negotiated with the city of Chattanooga. If a new agreement was in place with the city of Chattanooga, and they had available capacity, the WWTA would have to pump the wastewater approximately 40 miles due to terrain and availability of easements. Pumping such distances increases the risk of failures [spills] and is very costly.

"Most of that is bunk. Moccasin Bend is not - repeat, not - operating at capacity, according to city officials and County Mayor Jim Coppinger. The city's plant has a treatment capacity of 140 million gallons per day. It now treats, on average, 65 million gallons a day - leaving plenty of room for the 10 million to 20 million gallons a day the proposed Mahan Gap facility would have handled. During wet-weather events, the city can pump an additional 90 million gallons a day through its wet weather storage system, creating a total wet weather capacity of 230 million gallons a day."

Lets not sugar coat this, WWTA lied to the public. When a government entity lies, you wonder what else they are fabricating.

I am concerned, because now I read that Hamilton County Attorney Rheubin Taylor has issued a gag order preventing our elected representation, let me repeat, elected representation from discussing the proposed Mahan Gap site, the treatment plant, or WWTA.

The gag order is strategic, and County Attorney Taylor is likely leveraging a pending Agreed Order from TDEC, and using this as an excuse to shut down citizens from discussing their WWTA concerns with elected representation in a public venue.

First and foremost, every wastewater treatment system in our region has a TDEC Agreed Order of some kind. While WWTA plays a TDEC card as a state of emergency, it is simply a common order issued by TDEC to complete specific tasks within a framework of deadlines. I have worked these orders in my career, and it is simply a matter of formulating a plan.

Problem is, WWTAs plan is inappropriate. WWTA proposed to build a plant in a residential area, and pump treated wastewater seven miles or so to the river, and with WWTAs history with pump operations and maintenance. Well, others have published photos and articles, and it aint good.

Now, here comes Hamilton County Attorney Taylor this Wednesday to say, shhh, we cant talk about WWTA and issues a gag order. Given the history of WWTA, that is more the reason for the public to engage their elected representation on concerns.

Foul, County Attorney Taylor.

It is our government, not your legal call because there is no lawsuit pending, and not a scrap of paper has been filed to seek damages from Hamilton County government in any regard, other than a regulatory agreement, and that is not a lawsuit. I am very troubled by the idea that our elected representation cannot discuss WWTA in a public venue or with constituents.

Completely unacceptable.

Of course, I am not surprised at this action. Acquiring WWTA records is a fight. Each time I have attempted to collect open records from WWTA, it has required 1) legal intervention, or 2) filing a complaint to the state of Tennessee Open Records Office.

When I did review open records with a WWTA attorney hovering over me at a desk, I found that WWTA had reissued the same contract for services for over 10 years without advertising for Requests for Proposals (RFP). I was doing the research on behalf of a local effort called Hire HERE. Of course, WWTA did not want review of their contract practices. I found that WWTA reissued the same contract annually with no advertisement for competition, or RFP. Competition in cost and service is core to the best use of public funds.

WWTA has since abandoned their very questionable contracting practices, at least I hope so.

My point, WWTA has a pattern of behavior in conveying untruths as Ms. Sohn has again exposed. WWTA cannot be trusted to disclose to the public a full scope of their activities.

So, acquiring records is challenging from WWTA. That is well established.

Now, County Attorney Taylor is cutting off public access to elected officials to openly discuss WWTA concerns at public meetings.

The county attorney needs to disclose his basis for a gag order, because it has an appearance of impropriety and is unwarranted. It is a very serious matter to encroach on public dialogue with our elected officials without a basis for such action.

County Attorney Rheubin Taylor would not provide PILOT records to me, and stated that all the records were attorney-client privilege. Attorney Taylor advised me that every document in his office is exempt from public records. A lawsuit had not been filed, or had one been threatened in the matter I was researching. Yet, the PILOT records were in his office and were not subject to public review, and I was denied access.

On the contrary, the state of Tennessee Open Records Office stated otherwise. There must be a basis for withholding records, and in this case intervention in communication between elected representatives and the people they represent, or constituents.

Attorney Taylor has issued a gag order to our Hamilton County Commissioners to stop public discussion with elected representation for WWTA concerns in a public venue.

There is no pending litigation, lawsuit filed, so why is there a gag order?

I believe the gag order is to ensure that we the people are locked out of the conversation.

County Attorney Taylor stated the following at the Wednesday Commission meeting,

I must respectfully ask the commission to forgo any discussion right now of the WWTA.

We the people should not trust a gag order from County Attorney Taylor.

Hamilton County government, disclose your basis for a gag order. Shutting down public venue dialogue with our elected officials is a very serious matter.

April Eidson
Iraqi Curriculum Issues Veiled Threat Against Assyrian Women

Questions persist throughout Iraq regarding whether ISIS is truly defeated or will rise again, perhaps under the banner of another terrorist organization. For Iraqi Christians, the question is often not if, but when. Though defeated militarily, the ideology of ISIS remains victorious in Iraq. Nowhere is this undercurrent more apparent than in the educational curriculum.

Last month, Iraq's Ministry of Education released its new curriculum which immediately received heavy condemnation from Iraq's Christians. Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the Chaldean Patriarchate of Babylon, issued a statement condemning the curriculum's content.

He said, "In a book of Islamic curriculum for the first and fifth grades, I read inaccurate, inappropriate and offensives statements that incite hatred and division, which are far from the values of tolerance and the principles of citizenship and coexistence."

"The role of the Ministry of Education is to raise children properly," Cardinal Sako continued. He added that they should "raise children and teach them (how to) accept others in humanity and as citizens. Not as an enemy who should be eliminated."

The textbooks in question are intended for children of the ages 6 and 11. Christians were specifically outraged about a section of the fifth grade curriculum which says that "the woman who is not covered (veiled) is sick." Concerns quickly arose that the curriculum was encouraging violence against Christian women, as they do not wear the hijab (veil).

"Here we would've explained our opinion as a religious and national department which cares about dialogue between different (religious) components and say: the hijab is something further than a piece of fabric. The hijab is something related to the mind to keep our ethics properly. There are a lot of uncovered Muslim women. But they have good ethics and behave in a proper way and vice versa. The hijab is something that should be done with freedom," said Cardinal Sako.

Iraqi Christians were quick to point out that the Ministry of Education's decision to include this kind of statement in the curriculum was unsurprising. "The problem is not only with the curriculum," said Marin, who has 10 children. "The parents come and ask for the hijab for their daughters only during the Islamic class. That's another disaster."

Marin also points to the recent resignation of Shaima al-Hayali just days after her appointment as Iraq's Education Minister. She is an academic from Mosul and resigned after allegations arose that her brother, Laith al-Hayali, was a senior ISIS member.

She claimed on Twitter that "ISIS forced everyone in Mosul to work for them, threatening those who refused to join." She further stated that her brother worked for ISIS under duress. However, the former governor of Nineveh Province, which includes Mosul, says that he has evidence proving her brother's involvement with ISIS. Local media also reported security sources saying that she had two cousins who belonged to ISIS.

The situation underscores the concern that many Christians have about whom to trust. "Can you imagine that the brother of a minister of education is one of the main leaders for ISIS?!" asked Marin. "I can say that I am not surprised about the curriculum, even its effect is wide."

Ayda, a Christian private school principal, is also concerned about the widespread consequences of the curriculum. "The school system in Iraq is bad," he said. "The government stands against those who want to improve it. You know, private schools MUST teach the government's curriculum, in addition to international private curriculums."

This includes the obligation that private schools must teach Islamic classes for Muslim students. "We have the Islamic curriculum from the first grade. I think it should be religious curriculum, instead of only Islam and probably not from the very beginning," added Ayda.

Ayda has much frustration that the quality of education has been compromised for the sake of promoting an Islamic religious curriculum. "We are burdening children with the government's curriculum, which is useless. It is taking most of the children's energy... If children focused [instead] on music or art, those people could not take the terrorism and violence direction when they grow up."

For years, Iraqi Christians have warned against the curriculum as a significant contributor to the persecution they face. Nothing has been accomplished. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education remains weighed down by a scandal that reminds Christians of something they already knew: ISIS is defeated, but not yet gone.
The number of federal employees applying for Tennessee unemployment insurance benefits has more than doubled during the last 10 days as the partial shutdown of the United States government moves into its fourth week.

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Developments Unemployment Security Division processed 400 claims for federal employees from the day the shutdown started through Jan. 8. The latest check of data Friday showed the number of claims has more than doubled to nearly 900.

Depending on the work requirements for each individual, many federal employees in Tennessee may be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits during the shutdown.

The United States Department of Labor has strict requirements claimants must meet to receive benefits, one of which is an unemployed person must be willing and available to work. A federal employee currently not on the job meets this requirement because they are free to work.

Federal employees required to work without pay are not eligible for unemployment benefits because they are not available to work.

If the state approves an application for benefits, unemployment claimants must certify online each week they are available to work. The state is deferring the requirement federal claimants conduct weekly online job searches in order to receive benefits because they are part of a temporary layoff.

The first week a person files for benefits is considered their waiting week and the claimant will not receive money. The earliest a claimant can expect payment is after two weeks of filing certifications. Since this is the peak season for unemployment claims, coupled with the federal shutdown; it could take up to 21 days to make a determination on an application for benefits.

The maximum weekly benefit in Tennessee is $275, which is subject to federal income taxes.

President Donald Trump recently signed a bill that will provide federal employees back wages once the shutdown ends. Per USDOL requirements, anyone who receives unemployment benefits while furloughed will be required to repay the state of Tennessee the amount of money they received or risk being in fraud overpayment.

Claimants can complete the application process for Tennessee unemployment insurance on the states workforce development website, www.Jobs4TN.gov.

Anyone with questions can call TDLWD at 844-224-5818 or they can use the live chat function on tn.gov/workforce Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. CT.


A murder for hire victim said Friday she is devastated by Governor Bill Haslam granting clemency to the gunman.

Gina Sanjines, who was shot in the head three times, said, "I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone where left is right and wrong is right."

On his last day in office, the governor said he planned to let out Jeremy Ingram, who had pleaded guilty to attempted murder of Ms. Sanjines and the murder of Virgil Schrag, who was with her at her Mountain Shadows home.

The governor's office said Ingram would be let out on Jan. 17. The office said he was 18 at the time and that he will be subject to additional supervision conditions. The office said, "He has undergone a transformation during 25 years of incarceration, earning four higher education degrees and actively participating in rehabilitation and faith-based programs and earning the respect of numerous volunteers and prison officials."

Authorities said her estranged husband, Dr. Jorge Sanjines, hired Ingram to kill Ms. Sanjines. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years.

District Attorney Neal Pinkston said he made a plea with the governor's counsel in a phone call on Thursday night shortly after getting the word. He said he was told, "The governor was expecting you to call."

The DA said the clemency was unprecedented in a murder for hire case and just after the state Parole Board turned down parole for Ingram.

Ms. Sanjines said she was extremely distraught at the possibility she could run into Ingram again. She said the shooting left her blind in one eye, right-sided and with blinding headaches.

She said Ingram waited for two hours in her home, then shot her twice in the head, knocking her down. She said he then walked over to her and shot her in the head a third time.

She was in Intensive Care for two weeks and still undergoes rehab.

Her children, who were ages five and six at the time, wrote victim impact statements.

Ms. Sanjines said, "He didn't know me. He took money to kill me."

She said her children "have done well, but this is such a huge setback. They are now so fearful for my life. But my biggest worry is for the citizens. A murderer is going to be let out."

Click here to read the victim impact letters from Ms. Sangines and her children.
Governor Bill Haslam has appointed members to the Governors Juvenile Justice Reform Implementation Council. During the prior legislative session, Governor Haslam proposed, and the Tennessee General Assembly passed, reforms to the states juvenile justice system based on recommendations from the Joint Ad-hoc Tennessee Blue Ribbon Task Force on Juvenile Justice.

This legislation was a positive first step and there is more work to be done with respect to juvenile justice and criminal justice reform in Tennessee, Governor Haslam said. This Council will help ensure that reform is pursued in a responsible manner, and judges and other juvenile justice system stakeholders will have a committed team with whom to collaborate on additional changes to strengthen families and make our communities safer.



The Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2018 will make Tennessees juvenile justice system more effective, improve outcomes for youth offenders, and increase public safety. In addition, the state budget now includes a recurring investment in treatment services for youth.



The Council will promote consistent statewide implementation of the legislation, develop performance measures, consider further policy recommendations, and support improving statewide juvenile justice-related data collection.



The members appointed by Governor Haslam include:



1. Sen. Raumesh Akbari, District 29, Memphis



2. Kathy Benedetto, Senior Vice President of Tennessee Childrens Services, Frontier Health

3. Honorable Andy Brigham, General Sessions Judge/Juvenile Judge, Stewart County

4. Cindy Chappell, Attorney, Nashville

5. Rep. Michael Curcio, District 69, Dickson

6. Dr. Jeff Feix, Director of Forensic and Juvenile Court Services, Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services

7. Brandon Gibson, Senior Advisor, Office of the Governor (Chair)

8. Rachel Harmon, General Counsel, Administrative Office of the Courts

9. Mike Herrmann, Director, Healthy, Safe and Supportive Schools, Tennessee Department of Education

10. Dr. Mary Karpos, Senior Management Consultant, Tennessee Department of Correction

11. Richard Kennedy, Executive Director, Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth

12. Charmaine Kromer, Executive Director, Youth Villages

13. Ray Lepone, Deputy District Attorney General, Shelby County

14. Debbie Miller, Deputy Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Childrens Services

15. Clark Milner, Deputy Counsel, Office of the Governor

16. Chief David Roddy, Chattanooga Police Department

17. Dr. Altha Stewart, Associate Professor, University of Tennessee Health Science Center

18. Julie Warren, State Director, Right on Crime
On his last day in office, Governor. Bill Haslam on Friday granted executive clemency to 23 current or former Tennesseans.

He said, These individuals receiving pardons have made positive contributions to their communities and are worthy of the forgiveness that may help them restore their rights or obtain employment. Those receiving commutations will gain another chance to become contributing members of society.

Clemency requires attempting to balance mercy and justice, and my legal team and I have taken this responsibility seriously during a thorough review of many cases.

Pardons were issued to the following individuals:

1. Gerald Canada for his 1978 burglary of an automobile and larceny convictions in Dyer County as an 18-year-old. He has since led a productive life and served his community as a public employee.

2. Joseph Todd Davis for his 1995 possession and DUI convictions in Williamson County. He now operates his own business.

3. Jonathan Andrew Forsythe for his 1998 theft, forgery, and burglary of an automobile convictions in Hamilton County. He has since pursued and obtained higher education degrees and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

4. Leah Margaret Foy for her 2003 theft conviction in Shelby County. She has been recognized for her signification involvement with military-related and childrens charities and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

5. Ben M. Frizzell III for his 2003 conviction for maintaining a dwelling for the use of controlled substances in Sullivan County. He has been committed to helping others, including those in recovery from substance abuse issues, and is an officer of a large multi-state company.

6. Gary Lee Hill for his 1974 marijuana sale conviction in Roane County as an 18-year-old. Community leaders attest to his character, dedication to his family, and community contributions.

7. Kenny Lee Lambert for his 1983 attempt to commit burglary conviction in Sullivan County. His citizenship rights were restored in 2011 and he received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

8. Shea Langs for his 1992 drug-related conviction in Shelby County. He has obtained higher education degrees and works as a veterans justice outreach coordinator.

9. David Ralph Ledford for his 1991 conviction for 2 counts of bribery in Davidson County. He has since made positive contributions in the Roane County community and received a positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

10. Ryan Christopher Love his for 2010 convictions for reckless aggravated assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, criminal trespassing, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in Washington County. He has completed vocational training and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

11. John J. Manikas for his 2002 convictions for theft. He has contributed positively to his community though professional and civic organizations for many years.

12. Patrick McDuff for his 1984 drug-related conviction in Blount County. He has become a business leader and entrepreneur and serves others through a church ministry.

13. Daniel Johnson Moss for his 1999 theft conviction in Knox County. He later served in the Tennessee Army National Guard and was deployed to Bosnia and Afghanistan.

14. Dennis Ervin Nunley for his 1982 convictions for offering to pass a forged instrument and concealing stolen property in Sullivan County. He works with others to overcome substance abuse issues and has significant community support.

15. Jeffrey Wayne Perry for his 1984 and 1986 grand larceny convictions in Sumner County. Since then, Perry has been gainfully employed in various trades, and he received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

16. Michael Lee Ridley for his 1972 drug-related conviction in Shelby County. He is a decorated Vietnam veteran and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

17. Robert C. Sherrill for his 2002 escape (leaving a Department of Childrens Services home), 2002 simple possession of marijuana, and 2003 and possession with intent to sell less than 0.5 grams of cocaine convictions. Sherrill was named a Most Admired CEO in 2018 by the Nashville Business Journal and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

18. Pamela Spindel for her 2002 forgery and possession of drug paraphernalia convictions in Blount County. She is now a licensed alcohol counselor and nationally certified drug addiction counselor that helps others in recovery and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

19. Rachael Tanner-Smith for her 2003 conviction for facilitation of manufacture of marijuana plants in Davidson County. She is now a licensed counselor pursuing additional higher education degrees. She volunteers extensively and received a unanimous, positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

20. David Vandergriff for his 1973 drug-related convictions in Knox County. He has since obtained masters degrees and works in public service while maintaining active involvement in agricultural and horticultural organizations.

Commutations were issued to the following individuals:

1. Jeremy Michael Ingrams life sentence for his 1995 murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and attempted murder convictions in Hamilton County were commuted to parole supervision beginning January 17, 2020, to last for the remainder of his sentence. Ingram, who was 18-years-old when the crimes were committed, will be subject to additional supervision conditions. He has undergone a transformation during 25 years of incarceration, earning four higher education degrees and actively participating in rehabilitation and faith-based programs and earning the respect of numerous volunteers and prison officials.

2. Teresa Kay Joplins sentence of parole supervision for a 2013 drug-related conviction in Davidson County was commuted, releasing her from active supervision. She lives out-of-state, has complied with parole conditions, and is limited by a debilitating physical condition. Joplin received a positive recommendation from the Tennessee Board of Parole.

3. Thomas Edward Reddick received a commutation to make him eligible for parole consideration by the Tennessee Board of Parole. He is serving a 28-year sentence for his 2002 murder conviction in Knox County, which expires in 2024, and has demonstrated substantial rehabilitation while incarcerated, in addition to suffering from serious health conditions.

His office said, "Executive clemency is an act of mercy or leniency by the governor after a criminal conviction. A commutation is a reduction of the length or type of sentence imposed for a conviction, while a pardon is a statement of forgiveness that may assist with restoration of rights or expungement of a criminal record by a judge or overcoming the collateral consequences of a conviction with respect to obtaining housing and employment."

While in office, Haslam granted a total of nne commutations, 35 pardons, and one exoneration.
As a new legislative session gets underway, the General Assembly will be faced with a number of pressing challenges, but they also are presented with opportunities to implement effective solutions for Tennessee families. The start of the legislative session and first term for newly elected Governor Bill Lee coincides with National School Choice week. This is fitting because there is no more pressing challenge than improving our states education system so that every single child in Tennessee has access to a 21st century education that will prepare them for whatever path they choose, and no more clear solution than implementing a strong school choice program.

Under Governor Haslam, we saw vast improvements in our education system. He made education a priority for our state, which for too long had been overlooked. His commitment to improving education has paid tremendous dividends and set us on a better path.



Yet, much work remains for us as we fight to make sure that every child in Tennessee has access to a high quality education that prepares them with the life skills they will need. Its time to get serious about education reform. To continue doing the same things year after year isnt working. We need a paradigm shift, a new way of thinking, a new way of doing things. It is time for bold reform.



We have heard promising indicators from Governor Bill Lee, who has expressed his commitment to educating the next generation by continuing the successful programs Governor Haslam implemented and looking for new opportunities to improve our education system. Our First Lady Maria Lee has hands on experience as a teacher, and together, they have made their commitment to our next generation clear. I wholeheartedly believe that Governor Lee will continue to lead our education system down the right path.



One of the most effective ways we can do that is through school choice programs, which can take a variety of different forms. School choice programs work not because they are a silver bullet, but because they engage parents beyond bake sales, book fairs, and backpack events. Parents should determine which educational route is best for their child. It is parents - not federal or state bureaucrats - who are best able to evaluate the needs and learning styles of their children.



At their root, school choice programs increase the education options available to a student - that includes everything from a traditional public school, to a public charter school, to a independent school, to virtual learning and homeschooling. One of the best ways to create that choice is through educational savings accounts (ESA). ESAs allow a family to redirect a portion of per pupil tax dollars to invest in their childs education. This opens doors that would otherwise be closed for students permitting them to use these funds on everything from tutoring to tuition. Rather than one size fits all schooling, these accounts allow education to be customized for each student.



This National School Choice week, I encourage you to talk with those parents and children who would benefit from a greater choice. If you see the benefits of these programs, write your legislators in the General Assembly and tell them that ESAs are critically important to improving Tennessees education system for all of its students.



School choice programs have the potential to be transformational for Tennessees children. Now is the time to turn that potential into opportunity for the next generation.



Don Holwerda

Former head of Chattanooga Christian School


The sun, the moon, the stars, and the celebration of the late Martin Luther King are inching towards a perfect alignment for this Sunday night. At just before midnight, every child below the age of 99  and, yes, there are other older children like me  will be able to watch a total lunar eclipse. This super blood moon is going to be fun because we will be able to see the moon and the stars in the same sky  usually the moon is too bright to see the stars at the same time, according to the Cherokee of the early 1800s.

My modern-day chums at AccuWeather are predicting, as of this morning, a clear night for the eclipse  despite freezing temperatures in the 20s  and, no, you will need no special eyewear as is required for a daylight eclipse. What is called the maximum peak of this Sundays eclipse will appear in Chattanoogas skies at 12:12 a.m. (early Monday morning) and thats where Dr. King steps forward  since our nation honors MLK this Monday, schools will be closed so there is one more reason our students can stay up late.

This will be an epic moon event, according to those in the know at Space.com. Overnight from Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019, into Monday, Jan. 21, millions of people in North and South America will have a prime view of a total lunar eclipse. During a special nocturnal hour, the full moon will become fully tinted with the red-orange color of sunset.

The website also explains why this type of eclipse is rare. The Jan. 21 total lunar eclipse will be the last one until May 2021, and the last one visible from the United States until 2022. The first total lunar eclipse to follow Jan. 21's event will occur on May 26, 2021, and will be visible over the Pacific Ocean, with viewing possibilities in North America, South America and east Asia.

The number of eclipse watchers soared higher than the heavens last July when we had a once-in-a-lifetime experience and what is fun about Sunday nights show is that the Jan. 20-21, 2019 total lunar eclipse will last one hour and two minutes, according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center lunar eclipse projections.

What is a blood moon? Lunar eclipses ... reflect our world," astronomer and podcaster Pamela Gay told Space.com in an email. "A blood colored moon is created (by) ash from fires and volcanoes, ... dust storms and pollution all filtering sunlight as it scatters around our world. A grey eclipse is clear skies. Our world can change the appearance of another world, and during an eclipse, the universe lets us see this color play," she said.

It is believed the full experience, from the start of the partial eclipse to the end, will last three hours and 17 minutes. The peak of the total lunar eclipse will happen shortly after day's end on Sunday, Jan. 20, on the U.S. east coast, at 12:16 a.m. EST (0516 GMT) on Monday, Jan. 21, according to the experts at Space.com, This peak is also known as the "greatest eclipse" and is defined as the moment when the moon comes closest to the axis of Earth's shadow.

A fabulous website is timeanddate.com, which was wonderful during the July eclipse. If you are reading this from outside the Chattanooga community, go to timeanddate.com and type in your location. You will immediately receive a time table for this Sundays phenomena.

If you are in the Chattanooga area, here is what our timetable looks like:

* * *

THE STAGES OF THE SUPER BLOOD MOON ECLIPSE OVER CHATTANOOGA JAN. 17-18, 2019

(All times are Eastern Standard)

Duration: 5 hours, 11 minutes, 33 seconds

Duration of totality: 1 hour, 1 minute, 58 seconds

Penumbral begins: Jan 20 at 9:36:29 pm

Partial begins: Jan 20 at 10:33:54 pm

Full begins: Jan 20 at 11:41:17 pm

Maximum: Jan 21 at 12:12:14 am

Full ends: Jan 21 at 12:43:15 am

Partial ends: Jan 21 at 1:50:39 am

Penumbral ends: Jan 21 at 2:48:02 am

* * *

If the clouds block our view, both Space.com and NASA.gov (Shutdown withstanding) will offer real-time coverage of the eclipse from beginning to end.

* * *

WE HAVE ALMOST FRONT-ROW CENTER SEATS

(Note: Jack Rao is an instructor and lecturer at New Yorks Hayden Planetarium. He is believed to not only be an expert in astronomy but very gifted in his ability to explain it. This is an excerpt from one of his recent contributions to Space.com)

To describe a lunar eclipse, I like to use a movie theater analogy. The "theater," in this case, is the night side of Earth. The "screen" is the full moon, and the "movie" is the progression of Earth's shadow across the face of the moon.

Everyone in the theater looking at the movie sees the same thing everyone else around them is seeing. And, similarly, everyone on the night side of Earth who has the full moon in the sky during the eclipse will see the same sequence of events happening at the same moment in time.

The total phase of the eclipse will be visible from the Western Hemisphere, Europe and the western part of Africa, as well as the northernmost portions of Russia. In all, assuming good weather conditions, this shady little drama will have a potential viewing audience of some 2.8 billion people.

Of course, as is the case in a large theater, auditorium or concert hall, some will have a better view than others. For the upcoming eclipse, the "orchestra seats" will most definitely be in North America, which will see this celestial performance high in the midwinter sky. "Front row center" belongs to those who live near and along the U.S. East Coast, where the totally eclipsed moon will climb to extraordinary heights.

From New York City at midtotality, the darkened moon will stand 70 degrees up from the southern horizon  your clenched fist held at arm's length measures roughly 10 degrees in width, so that's "seven fists" from the horizon. The last time New Yorkers could gaze so high at a totally eclipsed moon was in 1797, when John Adams was president; the next opportunity won't come until 2113. Farther south, the moon will appear even higher. From Cape Hatteras, it will reach 75 degrees; Orlando, 80 degrees; and Miami, 83 degrees.

And from eastern Cuba, the moon will appear directly overhead.

* * *

WALTER FREEMAN, PHYSICIST, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: Minutes after 10:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, or shortly past 7:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, Earth's shadow will start passing in front of the moon from the lower left, and about an hour later, the full lunar eclipse appears. This totality lasts roughly another hour, and at about 1:45 a.m. EST on Jan. 21 (10:45 p.m. PST on Jan. 20), the full moon will return to its normal appearance.

"A little bit of sunlight is refracted by the Earth's atmosphere bending around the edges of the Earth" before reaching the moon, causing the reddish tint. The moon doesn't disappear from sight but does become "10,000 or so times dimmer than usual."

* * *

AND, TO THINK: When my boy Willard and I were preparing to register for our freshman year, he got into a froth when he read astronomy was the study of heavenly bodies. The boy hasnt looked up ever since.

royexum@aol.com
The national story that aired on ABC Nightly News on Wednesday does not reflect the state of Georgias handling of unemployment insurance claims for furloughed federal workers. The network did not contact the Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) for information prior to releasing their story. If they had, they would have learned that Georgia has established a task force to process claims for federal employees. The volume of claims has not created a workload issue. The GDOL task force has processed over 2,400 claims.

I understand the difficult position the shutdown has put these federal workers in, said Commissioner Mark Butler. We are making sure all claims are processed quickly and paid appropriately.

It does not take 30 days for claimants to receive payments. Since the federal government does not report quarterly wages to the state as is required of Georgia employers, federal agencies only provide wages upon request. Per federal statute, GDOL must notify federal agencies of each claim filed and allow 12 days for them to provide wages and separation information. In the absence of a response, the state can establish the claim on the thirteenth day based on the information provided by the claimant.

We have more than 40 career centers all over the state and a dedicated Federal Claims Task Force, said the commissioner. My team is ready to serve.
Chattanooga Police are seeking information in the death of Taja Whiteside, 30, which happened on Jan. 11. The death has now been ruled a homicide.

Chattanooga Police responded a t approximately 11:52 a.m. to a CPR in progress call at a residence in the 5800 block of Moody Sawyer Road. Upon arrival, police located the victim who was unresponsive. Hamilton County EMS pronounced Ms. Whiteside deceased at the scene.

The manner of the death was not immediately clear during the course of the preliminary investigation. Police secured the area and called for the CPD Violent Crimes Bureau to respond.The manner of the death was not immediately clear during the course of the preliminary investigation.

The ruling of homicide was made based on the CPD's investigation and discussion with the Hamilton County Medical Examiner.

CPD encourages anyone with information about this incident to call the Homicide Tip Line at (423) 643-5100. You can remain anonymous.
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Call 281-422-8302 or email david.bloom@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun.

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Former Himal Cement Factory provides land for dry port

18 January 2019

The former Himal Cement Factory, which has been shutdown, is providing land for the developing the dry port in Chovar Kirtipur municipality, Nepal, under guidance of the Nepal Intermodal Transport Development Board under the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies with the loan assistance from the World Bank.

The dry port is being constructed in a piece of 11.77ha land allocated by Himal Cement Factory at an estimated cost of NPR1.48bn (US$13.3m). The government acquired the former land of the cement factory and has proposed the development of an international exhibition centre on the remeaining land of the former cement plant.



The dry port will contain warehouses, parking lot, litigation shed, administrative buildings for customs, quarantine, bank and other required facilities for customs clearance. The dry port will have the capacity to accommodate over 600 containers and parking facility for at least 350 trucks.

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Germany and China are working on ways to improve market access for each others banks and insurers, the German finance minister said on Thursday, and he welcomed plans by China and the United States to ease trade tensions through talks.

Germany and China both want to signal that the world remains multilateral and that all countries are trying to cooperate, said Olaf Scholz, who is on a two-day visit to Beijing.

The two countries are expected to sign agreements on Friday to expand cooperation in financial services. The agreements are part of Scholzs effort to convince China that opening its economy is in its own interest.

This is especially important for the financial sector, Scholz told reporters, adding that the talks in Beijing were aimed at improving market access for German banks and insurers in China and the other way around.

This will lead to more wealth on both sides, Scholz said.

Scholz will meet Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Friday. Both are expected to attend a ceremony where Germanys financial- market regulator, Bafin, will sign two agreements with Chinese authorities, a German government official said.

The first agreement is with the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the second with Chinas Securities Regulatory Commission, the official said. A third agreement may be concluded between China and Germanys Bundesbank, he said.

Scholz is also campaigning for Germany to become a hub for Chinese and renminbi-denominated financial products in Europe, after Britains exit from the European Union.

During a panel discussion at a university in Beijing, Scholz urged China to share more information about its lending in other countries to increase debt transparency. China has become one of the largest lenders in emerging markets, but it is not a member of the Paris Club of government creditors.

Turning to the trade dispute between China and the United States, Scholz said that the latest round of talks was a good sign and he hoped that the negotiations were successful.

It is good that patience is paying off and that there are signs that there are further talks between China and the United States, Scholz said.

Liu will visit the United States on Jan. 30 and 31 for the next round of trade negotiations with Washington, Chinas commerce ministry said on Thursday.

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber; writing by Thomas Seythal; editing by Riham Alkousaa, Larry King)
The Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), India's premier Oil and Gas company under Govt. of India has invited online applications from eligible Indian nationals to engage 420 Technical and Non-Technical Trade and Technician apprentices at IOC's Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana units. Interested candidates can apply from 18 January 2019. All applications must be submitted on or before 10 February 2019 by 5 pm.

The recruitment is for various posts comprising Fitter, Electrician, Electronic Mechanic, Instrument Mechanic, Mechanist and Accountant under Trade Apprentice discipline and for Mechanical, Electrical, Instrumentation, Civil, Electrical and Electronics, Electronics posts under Technician Apprentice category. For detailed State-wise classification of Technical and Non-Technical Trade and Technician apprentices refer to the notification below.

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Technical and Non-Technical Trade and Technician Apprentice Organisation The Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) Educational Qualification Class 10 + ITI/Diploma/Graduation in relevant trade Skills Required Desirable Job Location Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana Salary Scale Consolidated Stipend as per the Apprenticeship rules Industry Oil Application Start Date January 18, 2019 Application End Date February 10, 2019

Age Criteria

Candidates applying for Technical and Non-Technical Trade and Technician apprentices posts through IOCL Recruitment 2019 must have attained 18 years of age as on 31 December 2018 and not exceeded 24 years, with a relaxation (upper age limit) of 5 and 3 years for SC/ST and OBC applicants, respectively. Further, a relaxation of 10 years in the upper age limit is granted to PWD candidates.

Also Read: SAIL Recruitment 2019 For 11 Junior Manager Vacancies In Various Trades

Educational Eligibility

Candidates applying for Technical and Non-Technical Trade and Technician apprentices through IOCL Recruitment 2019 must have passed their Class 10th or equivalent plus completed 2 year ITI in relevant course (Trade Apprentice discipline). He/she must have a 3-year Diploma in the relevant engineering field with at least 50% marks (Technician Apprentice category). Those applying for the post of Accountant must be a Graduate in any discipline with at least 50% marks from a recognized University/Board.

Selection And Pay

The selection of candidates for Technical and Non-Technical Trade and Technician apprentices through IOCL Recruitment 2019 will be done based on a Written Test of objective nature.

The selected candidates will be paid a consolidated stipend as per the Apprenticeship rules.

Also Read: IOCL Recruitment For Non-Executive Personnel; Apply Before 27 January 2019

How To Apply

All applications must be submitted through online mode only on or before 10 February 2019 by 5 pm.

To APPLY online click here https://www.iocl.com/

For detailed notification about IOCL Recruitment 2019 for Technical and Non-Technical Trade Apprentice vacancies click here

https://www.iocl.com/download/Notification-Southern-Region-for-the-year-2019-2020.pdf
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This week saw British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal defeat, then confidence-vote victory, all in the space of 30 hours. In the United States, the government has been shut down for almost a month, while both President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponents remain defiant. Despite the obvious differences, Brexit and the Trump presidency remain as inexorably linked, and important, as they were in 2016: signposts of the re-emergence of an overlooked and misunderstood force in Western politics. Both were grassroots rebellions of those who saw themselves as defenders and champions of the losers of a globalised world. They saw a world run by elites who didn't care for the so-called ordinary person, whose leaders (from both political parties) refused to even acknowledge what was being lost by the former manual worker, or their families and communities. So they voted to "take back control" and "drain the swamp" cheered on by great numbers of people in Australia and elsewhere. But the volume of those cheers has faded. A significant part of the problem is that effectively voting to blow up the system from within is an inherently messy undertaking. The idea that a country could withstand a significant political shift without any collateral damage is foolish, at best. And it is not at all clear that everyone or even most who voted for Brexit or Trump genuinely believes the system is so bad it needs to be wiped clean and restarted. No doubt some Trump voters, and some hardline Brexiteers, support genuine upheaval of the social order. For example, they know, or don't care, that Trump's tariffs hurt their country as a whole, but believe they will benefit their town, community and family. And that's what matters. Others, to be frank, naively expect they can impose their own vision on reality and make it happen. You see that most clearly in the calls for May to return to Brussels and, somehow, magically negotiate a far better deal. There is no doubt the British have bungled the Brexit negotiations, but at this stage they have few cards left. They should have developed a far clearer idea what Brexit meant, and a realistic plan to achieve it, two years ago. But a refusal to deal with reality is not limited to one side of these debates. Though there are some individual exceptions, it's clear that neither the Democrats, nor the Remainers, have ever truly accepted the democratic legitimacy of the movements that defeated them. The point is not that they should just throw up their hands and let May get away with a terrible Brexit deal, or sit idly by while Trump trashes the institutions of the United States. But without understanding why these votes happened and acknowledging their own fault they are doomed to repeat these lessons. Far from learning the virtue of limited government, the Democrats seem to be doubling down on the imperial presidency. Instead of returning to the notion of winning hearts and minds at a grassroots level across the nation, they are seeking a king without feet of clay. Democrat supporters in the media have called for the Supreme Court to be stacked and the Senate composition to be altered (in defiance of the US constitution) to make it easier for Democrats in California and New York to impose their will on the country. And, of course, Remainers have been pushing for a second referendum on Brexit since five minutes after the final result was announced in 2016. The refusal to accept the electorate's decisions merely adds to the chaos. It does nothing to dissipate it. The problem with trying to make sense of these events, and glean lessons for Australia, is that seemingly important developments are happening every day. If anything can be determined, it is that change be it economic or social should be approached with caution and deliberate planning. People need to be told, and convinced, of the need for change; not simply bullied into compliance. For example, the idea that Australia should hold a series of referendums on small but fundamental changes to its political system (such as becoming a republic or enshrining an Indigenous representative body in the constitution) without definite plans as to how the new systems would operate, seems to be inviting similar chaos. If these things are good ideas, the detail should be laid out beforehand, not figured out after. Australia is fortunate that the significant discontent being grappled with in the US and Britain seems far less potent here. It would be a mistake to assume this is a naturally occurring phenomenon. As we approach a number of important elections, it's worth thinking about some of the lessons from 2016. Simon Cowan is research director at the Centre for Independent Studies. scowan@cis.org.au

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A man is dead after he shot two police officers in the face and neck in a "horrific" stand-off triggered when the pair attended a domestic dispute at a home in northern NSW on Friday night, police say. Sergeant Mark Johnston and Senior Constable Helen McMurtrie spoke to Eric John Newman, 74, as he stood on the balcony of his Glen Innes home when they responded to reports of an assault about 11pm. Police believe the man fired a shot which grazed the side of Sergeant Johnston's face and then hit Senior Constable McMurtrie in the neck. A third police officer, a female probationary constable, was not injured. The three colleagues took cover in a police car and helped treat their injuries before they heard what was believed to be a second gunshot. Specialist police who were called to the property, on the Church Street section of the New England Highway, found the Mr Newmans' body at the home shortly before midnight. Lesley Ann Newman, 59, was found nearby with minor injuries. She is assisting police with their inquiries. Western Region Commander, Assistant Commissioner Geoff McKechnie said police were "not looking for anyone else in regard to this matter". "Our investigations thus far indicate that's where the shot came from, where that male was standing," he said. The injured officers were taken to Glen Innes Hospital before they were airlifted to the Gold Coast Hospital. Sergeant Johnston is in a stable condition. Senior Constable McMurtrie had surgery and has been placed in an induced coma. "The bullet missed her artery by a millimetre," said her father Barry McMurtrie. "We're very mindful that last night we could have lost two officers very easily here in this incident," said Assistant Commissioner McKechnie. "Thank goodness we haven't and the whole police family wishes them both a speedy and full recovery from their injuries. "The way the officers conducted themselves as a team, as a unit, to extricate themselves from that very dangerous situation is, as a commander, quite gratifying to see them look after each other that way, to help each other resolve that situation." Acting Commissioner Gary Worboys said while the incident was "subject to a critical incident investigation" he sent his well wishes to the "brave officers" involved. "As an organisation, we are rallying around the officers and providing any support they need to assist in their recovery and we look forward to welcoming them back to work when they are ready," he said. "Incidents like this highlight the very real dangers of policing and I thank everyone in the community for their support and well wishes." The Church Street section of the New England Highway was closed in both directions between Oliver Street and Heron Street as forensic investigators scoured the street. A critical incident investigation team from nearby Oxley local area command will investigate the circumstances surrounding the stand-off. That probe will be overseen by the police's professional standards command. A report will be prepared for the coroner. The NSW Police Association described the shootings as "horrific" and said union officials were helping the involved officers, who were attached to New England Police District. "[Two members] have been seriously injured & we will be supporting them & their families," a social media post said. "Please keep these officers in your thoughts." The association's acting president, Kevin Morton, said such incidents were "a stark reminder of the dangers our police officers face every day in order to keep our community safe". Our thoughts are with the officers and their families at this incredibly difficult time. Im sure the whole community is with us when we say we wish these officers a full and quick recovery. The association is currently providing all the assistance we can to the officers, their families and also to their police colleagues. Policing is a dangerous job. Incidents like this are a reminder for all of us of what a great job our police do and the risks they take every day." An online fund-raising campaign set up by the union's charity arm, NSW Police Legacy, to help the officers involved in the attack had raised more than $4700 by 11am. That money would go towards the officers' rehabilitation in the wake of the "shocking" incident, a message on the fund-raising page said. "We will be there to support them as they move through this traumatic experience and into the future."

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James Allen (Letters, January 14) attempts to explain the lack of detection of radio signals from other advanced civilisations in the galactic neighbourhood (the Fermi paradox) by suggesting that humanity's greed and self-interest may be a universal stage of a Darwinian evolutionary process that proves fatal when faced with some existential threat. He goes on to equate this with climate change. But who says we are an advanced civilisation or that we fully understand climate? Our history is one of self-delusion; that we are the pinnacle of creation, the centre of the universe; and within an ace of seeing into the mind of God. Yet we have recurring apocalyptic nightmares and visions. In my lifetime it has been nuclear winter, impact from space, an ice age and climate change. We are fearful and irrational homo sapiens ignoramus suffering collective post-traumatic stress disorder. Our greed and self-interest is driven by existential fear and the paradoxical loneliness of our teeming billions. We lack a sense of connection with each other, the Earth, and a universe that appears hostile to life. What advanced civilisation would attempt galactic communication with glacially slow radio signals? What advanced civilisation would lay claim to a crackpot cosmology that has us a mere impurity in a universe of unidentified dark matter and dark energy, waiting for final blackness? If we are ever to become an advanced civilisation we must understand the origin of our post-traumatic stress disorder. Begin by asking why first civilisations appeared globally "like a thunderclap" and built colossal monuments to warring "planetary gods". Wal Thornhill, Chapman First it was the Linq apartments, then the Wayfarer, now it's the Cirrus and Republic developments. For years on end, Belconnen commuters and businesses have had to put up with apartment developers taking over our street space. Perhaps the Planning Minister could explain why these developers have been allowed to build so close to our major roads and why they have not been required to pay a congestion levy? In other words, why was the welfare of Belconnen commuters disregarded? Glenys Byrne, Florey You can't cut down forests and then graze the exposed ground bare with introduced livestock without having soil erosion. Eroded soils must go somewhere. They end up in rivers, lakes and estuaries which they foul with excessive nutrient, causing the algal blooms which kill fish. Forests have tremendous benefits. Their canopies shield soils from the three great natural forces of wind, sun and rain. They shade the ground. They also turn atmospheric carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen. The carbon is locked away, the oxygen vitalises our atmosphere. We owe our existence to trees. The current devastating bushfires and horrific fish kills are being blamed on summer heat but that's only part of the story. Loss of forests is a major factor. We must begin replacing them. All that's needed is people power. If everyone plants a few trees every year we can begin reversing climate change. The best place to start is on gully floors where most erosion occurs, and along bare stream banks to shade and cool the water while preventing further erosion. Heat resistant trees with extensive root systems which stabilise soils are obviously a good choice, especially if assisted by government nurseries supplying free seedlings. Regular tree planting excursions by schools would help and be a wonderful real-life experience for children. Experience by a few enlightened farmers has already shown that sensible tree planting has enormous long-term benefits for land values, rural production and society generally. If we don't stop climate change then ever increasing temperatures will cause more bushfires and destroy more forest, leading to even higher temperatures in a vicious circle that may wipe us all out. John Turnbull, Kaleen The report "Fish deaths in lower Darling exposes huge data gaps in its ecosystem"' (January 17, pp4-5) states that Labor's Tony Burke, Professor Jamie Pittock of the ANU, and the Greens' Sarah Hanson-Young have strongly criticised the environmental monitoring, or lack thereof, of the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). Professor Pittock pointed out that after the MDB Plan was adopted in 2012, governments led by NSW withdrew funding for the Sustainable River Audit program. That left only the distribution of MDB water being monitored despite $13 billion being spent "to restore environmental health". I'm sure that many concerned Australians, including myself, are inclined to at least partly agree with Senator Hanson-Young when she says that "cotton, corruption and climate change" are destroying the MDB Plan. The cotton-growing industry does seem to have an inordinate amount of influence over the NSW government, in particular on its Regional Water Minister, Niall Blair. All this to prop up the growing of a crop that is highly ill-suited to its environment and requires huge amounts of irrigation. Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin Graham Macafee's letter ("Winning at all costs", January 14) states that he is using water tanks to store rainwater from his roof. He appears to believe that this is helping the environment; but unfortunately he is seriously misguided. The water from his roof would otherwise have gone into the highly stressed Murray-Darling Basin; and there are costs to the environment from the use of energy and non-renewable resources in the manufacture and transport of the water tanks. Max Brown, Mawson Jenny Moxham's letter (Letters, January 9) regarding animals and humans as food reminded me of a visit I made in the mid-1980s to Samosir Island in Lake Toba, Sumatra. It is the ancestral home of the Batak people. During the visit we met an ancient villager who, through an interpreter, claimed to have participated in the last Batak cannibal feast that he said took place around 1905, probably towards the end of the Karo rebellion. It appears a Dutch missionary, Fr Johannes, was on the menu. The elderly villager said the village children were given some cheek seasoned with lime and pepper which he recalled as being very tasty. Jim Graham, Carwoola, NSW I find it comical that our elected monopoly controller of land and housing can reduce the level of social housing to historic lows, then tax the hell out of privately owned rental housing, and then comment with any level of credibility that reduced supply and increased cost of ownership has nothing to do with Canberra's rental vacancy rates hovering just above 0per cent while Canberra's tenants are paying the highest rents in Australia. Legislating a new system to further discourage private investment in rental housing, ("Tenancy law rejig won't raise rents', January16, p3) won't address lack of supply, it will just further constrict it. A significant increase in rental housing requires removal of inefficient, poorly targeted taxes and charges. Nothing would kick this along more effectively than the abolition of land tax. Land tax is nothing more than a tax on being a tenant. Live-in owners don't pay it, tenants do. Maybe those arguing the case for Canberra's renters should focus on the causation of Canberra's ongoing crisis in rental housing, not on further disincentives for new investors. We desperately need to provide this essential community service our elected representatives have waltzed away from. David Shearer, Canberra Recent reports on a monopoly of land by our supposedly Labor government should upset all ACT residents. It bears out the contention that this is not a true Labor government but a quasi-Liberal government. In 2001, only one person  a Labor member of the Legislative Assembly  voted against a motion to sell off public housing. A front-page report on the government's determination to get rid of more public housing came out at a time when people could be relied on to be occupied elsewhere. They were not new plans. They have been determined for at least six years. When we gained self-government, the ACT was gifted some 13,000 public housing units. One of the stipulations on the gift was that before any of the public housing was sold replacement units had to be built. This has not happened. Atthe moment there are some 10,000 public housing units and in all probability about 3000 homeless people. Any resemblance between the ACT Labor Party and a real Australian Labor Party that cares has been well and truly lost. Our present government has sold its soul for an outdated light rail and a unworkable centralisation policy. The prospect of another two years with this lot at the helm will fill many Canberrans with dismay. If I thought the ACT Liberals were a better alternative, there might be some light at the end of the tunnel. But I find they are too quiet on homelessness and land prices for my mind. Howard Carew, Isaacs With due respect to the authors, Martyn Lloyd Jones and Professor Paul Komesaroff ("Evidence backs need for pill testing trials", January10, p19), Idisagree with the statement: "It has taken until now for pill-testing techniques to be developed to a level where they can identify the constituents in analysed samples with sufficient precision, reliability and speed."As long ago as October9, 2017, senior toxicologist Dr Andrew Leibie of Safework Laboratories told us that infra-red spectroscopy equipment will tell you nothing about the dose  a key consideration in determining toxicity and that with backyard/uncontrolled pill or tablet manufacture it is not at all uncommon to find more than 90per cent of the total drug in any given pill in less than half of the volume. The only way to determine the exact contents of any pill to save young lives is to test its entire mass. This would mean crushing and grinding a pill to powder form in your instrument. The unreliability of pill testing equipment is further underlined in the Canberra Times letter "Deadly concept" of January8, 2019, where pill-testing advocate Gino Vumbaca of Pill Testing Australia was reported inter alia as saying: "The testing capabilities are so limited that revellers would be required to sign a death waiver, which includes a warning that tests cannot accurately determine drug purity levels or give any indication of safety." Governments must not approve any more youth festivals until promoters sign a legally binding document accepting duty-of-care responsibilities and we have gold-standard testing equipment. Colliss Parrett, Drug Watch International, Barton Former MLA Bill Stefaniak, (Letters, December27) correctly points out his service as an MLA did not entitle him to a superannuation pension. But in prosecuting his case, he then makes an extraordinary claim that his MLA superannuation entitlements amount to a "fairly basic lump sum". This is more deserving of correction than the issue that prompted his own letter. Mr Stefaniak was one of the original 17 MLAs elected in 1989 who passed legislation that bestowed lump-sum benefits on MLAs that could not be described as "fairly basic". "Fairly generous" would be a better description. In return for MLAs paying a 5per cent contribution of their salary during their period in office, they get a lump-sum benefit equivalent to 29per cent pa of their final salary for each year of service. So not only is the 29per cent pa an extremely generous figure on its own, it is applied solely to their salary prevailing at the end of their term and not the salary they made relevant contributions on during each year in office. While employer superannuation rates for most workers today is around 9.5per cent, it is important to remember that, in the early days of Mr Stefaniak's time as an MLA, employer superannuation contributions were only just being introduced, at a rate of around 3per cent  in stark contrast to the 29per cent MLA rate. It should be noted that just before Mr Stefaniak left the assembly in 2008, a less-generous choice of funds scheme was introduced for MLAs elected post-2008, meaning that very few current MLAs would remain in the original scheme. Rick O'Brien, Weston BACK RIGHT HORSES What a great idea from Maria Greene (Letters, December 14) for horse-drawn trams. It would be a marvellous public attraction, especially if the animals could be trained to deliver horse-laughs as they pass the Assembly building. There's one environmental down-side though to this extension of our already outdated light rail. Oh, I forgot the ameliorating (back)side. Think of the employment opportunities for an army of pooper-scoopers. Eric Hunter, Cook AS GOOD AS IT GETS Bernard Tomic refuses to play Davis Cup for Australia while Lleyton Hewitt remains captain. It just doesn't get any better than that. Mark Sproat, Lyons A ONE-TERM WONDER My prediction for 2019 is that Dr Kerryn Phelps will be ousted from Wentworth at the election . She will be join another "one-term wonder", Maxine McHugh, who once deposed the sitting PM, John Howard, from Bennelong. Once gone she will soon be forgotten, just like Maxine was. Mario Stivala, Spence FIX ALGAL OUTBREAKS I would like to know when high numbers of "red alerts" and blue-green algal outbreaks were decided to be "normal" events in any river. Politicians fix it please. Before it's too late. P. Schoots, Gordon QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE Nicholas Stuart (Comment, January 16, p18) suggests that if university vice-chancellors were given the choice between principles and a bucket of money, he would get knocked over in their rush for the loot. He has managed to somehow forget the ANU decision to reject the lucrative Ramsay Centre proposal on grounds of principle. David Roth, Kambah MAY DOING HER BEST The British parliamentary Conservative Party should admit its leader has been true to her pre-referendum stance and has done and is doing everything she can to slow the Brexit process. G. Wilson, Macgregor TAKE ACTION ON ASSANGE It's time the Australian government did something about Julian Assange. He's been punished enough, and others are going to think twice before dumping classified information. Rod Matthews, Melbourne, Vic FAILED LIBERAL PRESIDENT The flattering portrait of Peta Credlin ("How Peta Credlin has become the Liberal Party's 'great right hope"', canberratimes.com.au, January 12) painted last week by John Ruddick failed to mention he is both a member of the NSW Liberal Party and a failed candidate for president of that same party. E. R. Moffat, Weston Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message eld, not as an attached le. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610. Keep your letter to 250 or fewer words. References to Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).

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Each week The Canberra Times polls a group of committed readers on a range of issues. To join our Insiders panel to have your say and be in the running for prize draws, go to canberratimesinsider.com.au Full survey results are published in each Saturday's newspaper. Here are some of this week's reader responses. Should there be a formal inquiry into the management of the Murray-Darling basin? Yes 86% No 5% Unsure 9% "The Murray-Darling basin is a major ecological disaster. Certain politicians should be held to account. Show them there are consequences for looking after their mates without due regard to the long term consequences." "Water is quite rightly known as the lifeblood of the land. The state of the Murray Darling is a disgrace and could only have become so as a result of gross mismanagement over many years.'" "The Murray-Darling issues are very complex and a formal inquiry will help with this, as distinct from the political point scoring we have seen for so long on this front. As a starting point, acquiring the water rights of the big cotton farms and distributing these equally between other agriculture and the environment will go a long way to protecting the local communities and the helping with many of the environmental problems." "The Murray-Darling basin has been inquired into for far too long: common sense and long time experience has proved more practical in caring for our country than well-meaning politicians trying to be influential. Prosecute severe water thieves in both rivers, stop wasting water on unsuitable crops in unsuitable lands, put the water back into upper reaches of the Darling and its tributaries to restart the river restoration process.'" "If there is to be a formal enquiry into the Murray-Darling basin, it should be independent. There will be no progress towards a better understanding as long as the Nationals and their clients call the shots." "The extensive and embracing work of the late Professor Peter Cullen on the Murray-Darling basin was well received and understood by both the Government and Opposition of the time. The current Government and Opposition need to return not only Prof. Cullens work but to the ongoing work of his colleagues to address the devastating situation threatening OUR land and its waterways.'' "To quote other commentators "corruption, cotton and climate" are destroying the Murray-Darling basin river system. So much money spent over so many years to get to this disgusting tipping point.'' "The management of the Murray-Darling river system is devilishly difficult ... however, it's clear that the cotton growers in Queensland and NSW are taking far too much water, legally and to some extant illegally.'' Should Australia Day continue to be celebrated on January 26? Yes 47% No 39% Unsure 14% "Australia Day could move to date of first Federal Parliament to avoid controversy. May 9? " "I'm a first fleeter. While I'm bloody grateful to be here my love for my country isn't dependent on a date. We are attached to a symbolic day created in another time with a different perspective. Change it, if it will help with reconciliation." "Australia came into being long after the British first arrived here and arrogantly claimed the entire continent. NSW can celebrate Foundation Day on 26 January, if they wish, but for all the people of Australia I strongly believe that another, more appropriate day should be chosen." "The problem is that no-one wants to celebrate Australia's birthday on 1 January. But there is no reason why the celebration of the birthday needs to be on the actual date. So why not celebrate Australia's birthday with a public holiday on the fourth Monday of January.'' "There is no need or general appetite to replace the present Australia Day commemoration. Only ratbag virtue-signalling green/extreme-left trendoids think otherwise.'' "Australia Day should celebrate the coming together of all the different people who form the nation as a welcome to country, showing equal respect to all. The declaration of ownership by the king of England on January 26, 1788 can never fulfil our need for reconciliation with the true owners with their some 60,000 years' history here.'' "Changing the date to appease minority moans will do nothing to mesh the white, black and in-between population of this rapidly changing country.'' "I think it is important to celebrate Australia Day but it can be on a different day to January 26. Other explorers, from other countries, mapped Australia on different days, prior to the English. Why not choose one of those days?'' "The agitation from some regarding changing Australia Day will not achieve the desired unity, it will only insult a different group. A better use of the Left's time is to promote an inclusive day on the 26th that acknowledges indigenous heritage, British heritage & history and the positive aspects of a culturally inclusive society.''

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When Canberra's summer heat hits, veteran posties employ old techniques to keep cool - drinking plenty of water, taking breaks in the shade and keeping their skin covered up. But a little sign on a letter box, inviting them to come inside for a cool drink or collect one from an esky out the front, can make the midday run turn from bearable to a whole lot better. "I really appreciate it and it does amaze me that people think about us that much," said Australia Post officer Richard Hutchings, who delivers to Kambah residents. "Most people I meet on a really hot day ask if you want a drink, but doing it like that, with a sign on the letter box, it's there in front of you and you don't have to ask." An extreme heatwave across the ACT, in which the national capital set a record for its longest run of days above 40 degrees, has seen locals leap to the aid of workers doing it tough outside. Chrystale Langford and her family are just one across the territory who've stuck a sign to their letter box, offering posties, and others working in the heat, an "icy cold drink" when they pass outside. "We keep water bottles in the fridge and one of the triplets is always on the lookout for the postman," said Mrs Langford, who lives in Oxley. "When they see him they run to the door and yell out to the others, 'He's here!"" Amaroo resident and paramedic Richard Forshaw took his mission to help others further than his front yard, starting the Facebook page 'Put Your Eskys Out' to encourage others to offer up a hand in the extreme heat. He says his original post on Facebook, which explained his plan to put out cold drinks and prompted the creation of the page, has since been viewed by about 10,000 people. "The symptoms of heat exhaustion can go on for days. If people get ill and go out again the next day and do the same thing, the cycle repeats itself," he said. "What I wanted from it was just for people to say, that's a good thing to do .... and now I've been getting messages from people [who are doing it]. It gives me a sense of satisfaction. "It's the Australian thing to do." An ACT Government spokesperson said the government has enacted its Extreme Heat Plan to help locals cope during this intense period. Canberras Child and Family Centres in Tuggeranong, West Belconnen and Gungahlin are offering shelter from the weather as well as free water and tea/coffee facilities every day. St Vincent de Paul have been delivering water, especially to homeless and vulnerable Canberrans, in their night patrol services. Contact ACT is providing cold bottles of water at the Griffin Centre shopfront, and Pilgrim House in the CBD is providing frozen water bottles.

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Regardless of how jaded and cynical Australians may be about politics in 2019 they can console themselves with the thought this country is travelling better than many other leading democracies. Parliaments across the world have experienced an almost unprecedented level of stress since the GFC hit just over a decade ago and the gap between the rich and the poor widened dramatically. That social and economic divide contributed to the rise of the "neo-cons" and the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. France, meanwhile, is enduring a weekly battle between the haves and the have-nots over increases in the price of fuel and the cost of living imposed by President Emmanuel Macron, a progressive liberal committed to governing from the middle. Macron's middle of the road policies have managed to alienate both the left and the right and given birth to the Yellow Jackets movement, an alliance of protesters, many from rural areas, who are demographically similar to the supporters of Brexit and of Donald Trump. Yellow Jacket protesters have been taking to the streets of Paris every weekend since November 17. The rallies have resulted in millions of dollars worth of property damage, at least 10 deaths and left well over a thousand people injured. Across the channel the United Kingdom is in the grip of an outbreak of parliamentary paralysis over Brexit the like of which has not been seen in modern times. Prime Minister Theresa May, having repeatedly failed to get her proposed legislation through the House of Commons, should no longer be in Number 10. The only reason she is allowed to remain is a majority of MPs have even less faith in Opposition leader, Jeremy Corbin, than they do in her. The United States, meanwhile, is in the bizarre situation where it is without much of the machinery of government thanks to a standoff between politicians who are clearly prepared to put their own vanity and self-interest ahead of the nation's welfare. While Donald Trump, not unsurprisingly, has set a notably poor example with his own behaviour, the Democrats must also share the blame. It does, after all, take two to tango. Given the government shutdown, now the longest in American history, shows no signs of being resolved anytime soon, Australia's public servants must be thanking their lucky stars that this can't happen here. It is a credit to the foresight of the founders of the Australian federation, and to the good sense and restraint of the majority of Australians, that we have avoided these extremes despite the demonstrable ineptitude of many members of the political caste. We cannot afford to be complacent however given there are many individuals and groups who would like nothing more than to disrupt our democracy and undermine public confidence in the parliamentary process. It is only four months since the NSW Young Nationals expelled one member and suspended at least two others after it was revealed the group had been infiltrated by self-described fascists. The real battleground in the 2019 election may yet turn out to be the struggle to protect and defend the stability of our parliamentary democracy.

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Canberra Hospital's medical imaging department's budget has blown out by almost $10 million since 2014, driven by staffing shortages. Government data shows costs within the troubled department have been steadily increasing with the blame being put on covering the leave of specialists and buying medical supplies. Last financial year the medical imaging department was $4,278.081 over budget, spending $40,078,143. In 2016-17 the department was $2,303,909 over budget, spending 38,224,334. The data, which was released in response to an opposition question on notice, showed that in the three years before, the department was between about $380,000 and $1,000,000 over budget. The government attributed some of the unfavourable results to labour costs due to the need for locums to backfill vacant positions and unplanned leave of staff radiologists. The medical imaging department has come under fire recently for its increasing use of outsourced reporting for scans such as CT scans, X-rays and MRIs. The scans are sent to private company Everlight which allocates a radiologist interstate or overseas to report on them and send them back to the patient's treating doctor. The government said the practice was necessary because of a shortage of rostered on radiologists largely driven by unplanned leave. But doctors have raised their concerns with the practice saying it has led to mistakes and poor outcomes for patients. Canberra Health Services has denied the use of external providers was the reason for cost blow outs last financial year, saying it was due to locums. But it said the use of external radiology providers may impact the budget for this financial year. Cultural and management issues in the department were laid bare in the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists interim accreditation report from March. It said Canberra Hospital's radiology department was at risk of losing its teaching accreditation with its rating dropping from an A rating to a D. The report found a number of training and safety issues with immediate action across "multiple significant issues" was needed to retain accreditation. Opposition health spokeswoman Vicki Dunne said the government and hospital management needed to look thoroughly at the budget for the department and determine the appropriate spending. "The government needs to curtail the amount of expenditure in outsourcing and ensure the reading and reporting of images is done in house and quickly," she said. She said the increase in outsourcing of services was clearly contributing to the budget blowout. "I think that what the government and the hospital authorities need to do is build trust within the medical imaging department," she said. "There has clearly been a lack of trust and poor communication. There needs to be better management of budgets and people." Canberra Health Services deputy director Chris Bone said Everlight was used to ensure timely care for patients to cover unplanned leave of radiologist staff. "Using an offsite radiology service for specialist reporting of diagnostic imaging studies is a recognised strategy in many hospitals," he said. "It ensures the continuity of person-centred, high-quality, efficient patient care at times such as after hours and when unplanned leave arises. "The use of offsite medical imaging services this financial year may impact on the budget, however we expect to continue to improve performance in medical imaging in 2019. "Canberra Health Services has been focused on recruiting to the medical imaging department with three additional radiologists now on board, and additional recruitment due to take place this year."

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The territory government will manage all ACT government workers' compensation claims from March 1 when it becomes a self-insurer. It means federal workplace insurer Comcare will no longer be involved in liability decisions or the management of compensation claims for ACT government public servants. The application for self-insurance was approved in November in a move the government says will give it greater influence over how services are delivered. It's a step back from the ACT's plan to ditch Comcare completely in 2015, which would have required its own legislative framework. Instead, it will use the Comcare framework and legislation but will not have to pay a premium to Comcare, which last financial year was about $68 million. The government has entered into a contract with Employers Mutual Limited which will provide claims administration services. Some current Comcare recipients have expressed concern the new scheme will allow the government greater influence over their claims and present a conflict. But the government said liability decisions on individual workers' compensation would be made by the third party provider. A government spokeswoman said the move would allow the government to directly influence resourcing and be able to monitor the quality of care and services being provided. "As a self-insurer, the ACT government will take on full responsibility for the care and support of its injured workers," she said. "This also allows the ACT government to set service standards that are more appropriate to the context of the ACT government than those provided currently by Comcare. "This includes providing treatment sooner and better co-ordination for rehabilitation and claim services." As a self-insurer liability decisions must be made in accordance with Commonwealth legislation, which is regulated by Comcare. Decisions must comply with the Territorys self-insurance license, and are subject to appeal mechanisms, such as to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. "These design features ensure that decisions will be properly made in accordance with relevant regulation," the spokeswoman said. The government has also legislated a new ministerial advisory council, which will include worker representatives and provide advice on the operation of the self-insurance arrangements. Unions ACT secretary Alex White said he expected to move to self-insurance to improve rehabilitation and return to work outcomes for public servants who are injured. "Thanks to the work of public sector unions, the move to self-insurance under Comcare will ensure that no ACT public sector worker is worse off, and that all existing rights and entitlements are protected," he said. "We also expect that the ACT government will start to build up its own capacity to assess and administer claims. "Unions will continue to campaign strongly to protect the Comcare system from anti-worker attacks from the gederal Liberal government."

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Going public on a stock exchange can allow a company to raise money quickly from a broad pool of investors, as well as gain a stamp of recognition. Most companies do so via initial public offerings (IPOs), which, if well-hyped, can be extremely lucrative. Foxconn Industrial Internet, a unit of the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer that assembles Apple's iPhones, raised 27 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) in its IPO in Shanghai in the summer of 2018, with the stock nearly 1,300 times oversubscribed. Most IPOs in the Chinese Mainland, however, where regulators hold tight control over which companies can list, can be time-consuming and unpredictable. Many Chinese tech companies prefer to float in the U.S. or Hong Kong instead.

Another option is backdoor listings, also known as reverse takeovers, reverse mergers, or  (jieke shangshi). Literally, this means a company borrows a shell to go public. Instead of going through an IPO process itself, a company will just buy a public company thats already done all the hard work. It can then merge with this shell company, give it a new name, and voila  it can raise capital on the stock market. For instance, state-owned BAIC Groups electric-car unit started publicly trading in September via a shell company which BAIC had bought the previous year. Share prices for the freshly named and fleshed-out shell can shoot up during a backdoor listing, although, in BAICs case, the stock tanked instead.

For a backdoor listing to work, you first need to find a shell. Demand for shells means that the public status of a struggling listed company  and the potential access to a huge pool of investors cash that this entails  might be one of the few valuable assets it has left. Speculators can take advantage of this by treating such companies less like investments and more like commodities which can be bought and sold until they are used, much to regulators annoyance. Chinas delisting rules, which until recently were extremely lax, also meant few firms ever got booted off exchanges, so weak performers could just linger until they gained value as a shell for another company.

To increase the quality of listed companies, the government is intensifying its scrutiny of how companies go public  by the front door or the back. Regulators have condemned risky speculation on shell companies, and the numbers of backdoor listings in Chinas markets peaked around 2014 and 2015. A registration-based IPO system like that of the U.S., which could greatly simplify the process and so reduce the demand for shell companies, is still likely far off, although a proposed technology and innovation board in Shanghai will use one. And much tougher delisting rules that were brought in in 2018, in theory, could help clear out companies that are only really worth anything as shells.

But the bruising stock market slump that began last year shows how government priorities can change. Regulators announced in November that they would encourage mergers that helped cash-strapped listed companies. A surge in interest in struggling companies that might have benefited as prospective shells followed, with some strange outcomes  one scandal-hit firm which had fabricated data on vaccines for infants actually saw its shares rise by the daily limit for 6 days in a row. An observer from an investment bank, writing for Caixin, noted that well-meaning government policies like this are just hijacking efforts to improve the pricing system for Chinas stock markets. In the long run, without making Chinas IPO process much simpler and, by doing so, reducing the relative demand for shell companies, the sometimes perverse situation where a company's lack of intrinsic worth can make it an attractive stock may well continue.

Contact reporter Tang Ziyi (ziyitang@caixin.com)
The Social Enterprise Development Fund Showcase Event was launched in Dublin today.

The 1.6m Social Enterprise Development Fund was set up last year by Social Innovation Fund Ireland and Local Authorities Ireland. Over two years it will provide funding and supports to social enterprises from across the country.

The fund is financed by the Department of Rural and Community Development from the Dormant Accounts and IPB Insurance.

The eight social enterprises who received funding in 2018 showcased just how much impact this fund has had on their inspiring projects. These enterprises are proactively tackling some of the biggest social issues facing Irish society including homelessness, mental health, social inclusion and obesity.

Each social enterprise has expanded their impact as a direct result of the funding from the Social Enterprise Development Fund and participation in Social Innovation Fund Irelands Accelerator programme.

Speaking today, CEO of Social Innovation Fund Ireland, Deirdre Mortell said, "Its fantastic to see just how far each of our Awardees have come in such a short space of them and the impact theyre having on their communities through their incredible work. Imagine a social enterprise employing 4 or 5 people in every one of the 1,000 towns and villages in Ireland - small changes create viable sustainable communities."

Here are some highlights from the social enterprises who took part in the first year of the Social Enterprise Development Fund:

 The Shona Project developed online modules which are being piloted in four schools with positive feedback. The also held their first Rise conference in Waterford with 350 TY girls hearing from several inspirational women.

 OCualann Co-housing Alliance has received planning permission and notice of the disposal of land from Dublin City Council where they will build 39 affordable housing units.

 MyMind which provides affordable and accessible mental health services opened their 5th centre in Dublin 8 and had over 200 counselling sessions in the first month.

 Sensational Kids has opened their second centre in Clonakilty in County Cork and has held over 100 therapy (speech and language therapy, occupational therapy & play therapy) appointments in their first 6 weeks. They also received planning permission for their third centre in Claremorris in Mayo.

 Social Farming Ireland continued their growth and hosted 300 participants on 80 farms in 25 counties in Ireland.

 Sailing into Wellness positively impacted on the lives of 118 recovery clients. Through the support of the Social Enterprise Development Fund, that number is set to more than double in 2019.

 GROWBox has had a successful launch, with over 500 families starting to grow their own food and an appearance on The Late Late Toy Show.

 Meals4Health has formulated a viable business strategy and has launched a unique service  producing and delivering fresh ready meals directly to older people at home  the first service of its kind in Ireland.

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Ryanair cut its forecast for full-year profit for the second time in three months on Friday, this time blaming lower than expected winter fares, and said it cannot rule out a further downgrade if Brexit causes unexpected developments.

Europe's largest low-cost carrier now expects profit after tax for its financial year to March 31 - excluding start-up losses at its Laudamotion unit - of between 1 billion euros and 1.1 billion euros, compared to a previous estimate of 1.1 billion euros to 1.2 billion euros.

The Irish airline had originally forecast profits of 1.25 to 1.35 billion euros before October's profit warning took account of a series of strikes across Europe during the summer that hit traffic and bookings, but have since subsided.

On Friday, Ryanair lay the blame squarely on lower than expected fares in the second half of its financial year. Those fares were set to fall by 7%, rather than the 2% previously flagged, due to short-haul overcapacity in Europe, it said.

The lower fares have, however, been partially offset by stronger than expected annual traffic growth - now expected to grow by 9% to 142 million passengers - slightly better than expected unit costs and stronger ancillary sales.

Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said a further downgrade of the profit outlook was possible given uncertainty about the terms of Britain's planned departure from the European Union at the end of March.

"While we have reasonable visibility over forward Q4 bookings, we cannot rule out further cuts to air fares and/or slightly lower full year guidance if there are unexpected Brexit or security developments which adversely impact yields between now and the end of March," O'Leary said in a statement

Still, the better than expected unit cost performance allowed the carrier to cut its projected start-up losses in Lauda to 150 million euros from 140 million.

O'Leary said the fact that the airline was passing on lower air fares to customers would continue to be good for Ryanair's traffic growth and business over the medium to long term. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
More than 3,000 leaders from across the world, including Swiss President Ueli Maurer, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will attend the high-profile WEF Annual Meeting next week to discuss how globalisation can work and to identify new models for peace, inclusiveness and sustainability.

At the five-day jamboree of the global elite in the Swiss resort town Davos, beginning January 21, the top agenda would include climate change, inclusiveness and international governance, Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) said while announcing the programme.

Also Read: Trump to attend World Economic Forum in Davos

The theme of the meeting this year would be 'Globalisation 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution', said the WEF, which describes itself as an international organisation for public-private partnership.

The meeting will be attended by more than 3,000 participants from over 110 countries and more than 65 heads of state/government and top international organisations. These would include leaders from business, government, civil society, academia, arts and culture and media.

Over 100 participants from India are also expected to be present, including union ministers, chief ministers and CEOs. These include Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu.

Earlier, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis were among registered participants, but their names do not figure in the latest list.

The WEF said the meeting's purpose is to identify new models for peace, inclusiveness and sustainability to suit a world where further global integration is inevitable and where existing models of global governance struggle to foster concerted action among the world's powers.

"This fourth wave of globalisation needs to be human-centred, inclusive and sustainable. We are entering a period of profound global instability brought on by the technological disruption of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the realignment of geo-economics and geopolitical forces," WEF's Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said.

"We need principals from all stakeholder groups in Davos to summon the imagination and commitment necessary to tackle it," he added.

There would be more than 350 official sessions during the five-day event. These would include a global dialogue on geopolitics in a multi-conceptual world to enable candid and constructive discussion on how to drive future cooperation along with a global dialogue on peace, the WEF said.

The sessions would also focus on future of the economy to better reflect the structural changes inherent in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and achieve sustainable growth and long-term societal well-being.

Another global dialogue would focus on industry systems and technology policy to define the principles for new and emerging technologies to ensure that they are underpinned by a values-based framework.

Besides, the annual summit would also tackle issues like environmental issues, cyber security, human capital and institutional reforms.

Besides Maurer, Abe and Merkel, top political leaders taking part are Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, China Vice-President Wang Qishan, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Italy Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Iraq President Barham Salih, Afghanistan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Austria Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

Besides the top leaders from Colombia, Ethiopia, Ireland, Libya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Peru, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe would also be present.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump was also expected to attend the meeting, but he is unlikely to come due to the shutdown-related issues in his country.

The leaders from international organisations would include UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, WTO chief Roberto Azevedo, OECD chief Angel Gurria, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

The meeting will host over 900 civil society leaders including International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Sharan Burrow, Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan and Transparency International Chair Delia Ferreira Rubio.

The co-chairs of the annual meeting are Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella.

In addition to a record participation from the public sector, the private sector will be represented by more than 1,700 leaders, the WEF said.

Read More: Yogi Adityanath to inaugurate Noida-Greater Noida Aqua metro line on Jan 25

Also Read: FM Arun Jaitley accuses 'Compulsive Contrarians' of subverting the democracy

IndiGo, GoAir in a spot: DGCA bars A320 Neos with P&W engines from long, overseas routes
Billionaire Dr Azad Moopen-promoted Aster DM Healthcare is planning to invest over Rs 650 crore in the next two years to take its total hospital bed capacity to 6,000 from the current 4,800 beds.

Aster, with 21 hospitals in India and the Middle East, recently added a new hospital at Angol in Andhra Pradesh. A 250-bedded hospital will be operational at Kannur in Kerala next month and another 230-plus-bedded hospital will start in Bangalore by April. Aster is planning a 500-bedded tertiary care hospital in Chennai, which will be commissioned within the next two and a half years. Four more new hospitals will come up in Dubai, Sharjah and Oman, Dr Azad Moopen told Business Today.

"Our idea is to focus only on tertiary care in cities and we are exploring new facilities in Mumbai, Pune and in Thiruvananthapuram, where we have purchased land. Currently our focus is to restrict expansion only to South and West India," said Dr Moopen.

The BSE-listed Aster DM Healthcare had consolidated revenues of Rs 6,721 crore in 2017-18 with an EBITDA of over Rs 700 crore. Dr Moopen said the company was likely to post a growth of 15 per cent in the current financial year. Aster earned about Rs 1,000 crore from its India business last year and is likely to have over Rs 1,300 crore earnings in 2018-19 from the 11 facilities operational in India.

Overall, Rs 5,500 crore has been invested over the years and of this, 40 per cent of the investment has been in India. Aster owns over 100 clinics and a pharmacy chain in the Middle East, both with revenues of Rs 2,000 crore each a year. Half of its consolidated revenues are from operation of hospitals. Aster has started some clinics on a pilot basis in Bangalore, and depending on its success, it will plan to add more clinics on a commercial scale.

Dr Moopen said Aster, which has started a 670-bedded Medicity on a 42 acre campus in Kochi, plans to add more specialties and new services like senior living etc.

The 65-year old Dr Moopen, who gave up a teaching job at Calicut Medical College in his native Kerala and started with a single clinic in Dubai in 1987, had last year pledged 20 per cent of his earnings for charity. He said currently the Aster Group is constructing 250 houses in flood-ravaged regions of Kerala. On average, the group spends over Rs 40 crore a year on charity. The top management operates from Dubai and Indian operations are headed by a CEO for India business, operating from Kochi.

Also read: FM Arun Jaitley accuses 'Compulsive Contrarians' of subverting the democracy
The Modi government's ambitious 2,655 km-long Jagdishpur-Haldia/Bokaro-Dhamra Pipeline (JHBDPL) project, also known as the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga project, has hit a speed-breaker and is unlikely to meet its targeted deadline. India's single-largest pipeline will pass through Uttar Pradesh, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency Varanasi, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha, and is expected to usher in industrial development in the eastern part of the country.

But the latest buzz is that the IL&FS debt default crisis has thrown a spanner in the works. With the financially-troubled contractor unable to make progress on pipeline contracts worth Rs 369 crore that it had bagged, state-owned gas utility GAIL is planning to terminate the contracts and issue fresh tenders, The Economic Times reported.

In December 2017, IL&FS Engineering and Construction Company Ltd, a unit of the troubled IL&FS, had announced landing a Rs 216-crore contract from GAIL for pipeline laying works along a 157.8 km stretch on the JHBDPL project's Dobhi-Durgapur-Haldia section along with 13.28 km long spur-line. In a regulatory filing, the company had stated that the contract was to be mechanically completed in 15 months.

Then last April, the company announced landing another contract from GAIL, this time for a 95.4 km stretch on the Bokaro (Jharkhand) to Angul (Odisha) section of the pipeline project. "The total value of the contract is Rs 129.66 crore plus 18% GST i.e Rs 153 crore, and is to be mechanically completed in 12 months," IL&FS Engineering and Construction Company informed the exchanges.

The mandate for the remainder parts of these two stretches, altogether about 850 km long, have been awarded to other contractors. GAIL had aimed to ready these by the end of 2019 but IL&FS' sluggishness could become a hurdle.

"Due to its financial crisis, IL&FS is unable to pay its subcontractors and suppliers. So, these sub-contractors have stopped working and vendors have stopped supplies. This can delay the entire project," sources told the daily. Some IL&FS executives linked to the two contracts have also quit. Hence, after holding multiple meetings with the company's officials, GAIL has now concluded that new contractors will have to be brought in to meet project deadlines. They added that fresh tenders for the two stretches will be issued by the end of next month.

This is not the only contract that the IL&FS Group has lost in recent times for slow progress. On January 15, the state-owned National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) terminated IL&FS Transportation's contract for building the strategic Zojila tunnel to provide all-weather connectivity between Srinagar, Kargil and Leh in Jammu and Kashmir - a Rs 6,809-crore project. Four days previously, another subsidiary lost a Rs 37.66 crore contact from the Gujarat Metro Rail Corporation.

Meanwhile, such delays don't bode well for the Rs 12,940 crore Urja Ganga project, which will not just supply CNG to automobiles and cooking gas to household kitchens in cities along the five-state route, but also to industries to meet their feedstock or fuel requirement. In fact, this pipeline is seen to be crucial to the planned revival of three fertilizer units in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.

But an undeterred GAIL is already looking to extend the pipeline project to Guwahati, Assam. In November the PSU had announced that it had purchased steel pipes worth Rs 1,100 crore for laying the 729-km Barauni (Bihar)-Guwahati pipeline, which will act as a branch line from main pipeline.

(Edited by Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal; with PTI inputs)

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The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) yesterday banned IndiGo and GoAir from operating their A320neo planes to Port Blair and any overseas route in the wake of problems with their Pratt & Whitney engines.

The latest incident involving a P&W engine occurred on January 3 on an IndiGo Chennai-Kolkata flight. The aircraft stalled mid-air with a loud bang, reportedly followed by sparks and smoke, forcing the A320neo to return to Chennai under emergency conditions.

While the A320neos have reportedly been facing engine problems since their introduction in India in March 2016, the safety concerns over the P&W engines have increased recently due to a spurt in the number of reported snags on aircraft fitted with them. It is the fleet fitted with PW1100 engines from serial number 450 and beyond that have seen repetitive defects.

Due to the above issues, the aviation regulator has issued directions with respect to flying A320neos fitted with P&W engines by the two budget carriers, which reportedly boast around 100 of these planes collectively. "The DGCA has barred the airlines from operating the planes to Port Blair since the nearest landing place in case of any emergency is more than one hour away," an official told PTI.

A senior regulatory official told The Times of India that this decision was also taken with the commercial angle in mind. "When a Neo with faulty Pratt engine gets stuck in Port Blair, it takes longer for the airline to fly in man and material there to repair or replace the same. Examination of the faulty PW engine also takes longer there. And Port Blair is a small airport that has one less aircraft parking bay as long as the Neo remains grounded there, limiting its capacity," said the source.

The official added that the flying restrictions also apply to "any overseas route where an alternate landing place is over an hour away at any point in its journey over the ocean".

Furthermore, after a meeting between P&W officials, the Indian operators and Ministry of Civil Aviation officials last week to review the performance of A320neos with P&W 1100 series engines, the DGCA has issued fresh directives in addition to the existing measures to address the engine troubles. The two Indian carriers have been directed to carry out certain inspections of the P&W engines, at specified timelines in addition to the flight restrictions.

The watchdog has also asked the airlines to create awareness among cabin and cockpit crew about "odour/ burning smell/ smoke (even if slightest) during approach phase and positive reporting to cockpit crew for necessary action". If any odour or smoke is observed in air-conditioning pack air, the cockpit crew need to identify the source of odour by isolating packs one at a time. Certain set of components used in aircraft engines are referred to as packs. Moreover, all such cases have to be recorded for necessary investigation, the DGCA clarified.

In light of the above, IndiGo's plans to fly its P&W engine powered A320neos on long-haul international sectors, including Europe, will be put on ice, yet again.

(Edited by Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal; with PTI inputs)

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Amid speculation that the BJP-led central government may introduce an income support scheme, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said food surpluses have caused both food prices and farmers' income to plunge, posing a policy challenge.

Speaking a fortnight ahead of the Budget, he underlined that there have been precedents of interim budgets containing major policy announcements to tackle an urgent situation.

"Our farmers have increased productivity and we have moved into a surplus area. Management of the surplus is constituting a challenge for us for the last several years..

The prices have fallen," Jaitley said.

Also read: Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus: Leaked image shows near-bezel-less screen, dual selfie camera

The finance minister, currently undergoing treatment in New York, was speaking through video conferencing at CNBC-TV18's Indian Business Leadership Awards here.

The fall in food prices in the last few months indicated the poor income farmers are making, he said.

"Situations like calamity, drought, stress..(spending to tackle them) can't be considered as populist expenditure," he said, exuding confidence that markets can distinguish between a populist measure and something driven by a compelling situation.

Stating that the government has notched up success in many areas but is also facing challenges, he said some of them need urgent action.

"Some of those challenges really can't afford to wait. Therefore, obviously, there will be a necessity to address some of them. It has happened in the past. Therefore, we intend working within the parameters of the conventions that exist," he said.

Jaitley, however, refrained from shedding more light on the government's plans ahead of the Budget.

The government has been moving on "a glide path" on the fiscal consolidation front, unless some "unsual situation" demanded something, he said.

It can be noted that as per the data available till November, the government has already breached its budgeted fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent. Economists have raised fear that the government may announce populist measures ahead of elections, which may lead to a higher fiscal deficit.

On the RBI, Jaitley said the government and the central bank have always had consultations despite some differences that played out recently.

The government raising its concerns should not be construed as a breach of RBI's autonomy, as in a consultative process one has to express oneself freely and frankly, the finance minister said.

Also Read: Microsoft bats for cross-border data flow, says international law needed
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani made a strong pitch on Friday for the protection of Indian users' data in his speech at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit. In order to emphasise on the importance of data protection, Ambani compared data to oil and said global corporations should not be allowed to control India's data. "In this new world, data is the new oil. And data is the new wealth. India's data must be controlled and owned by Indian people and not by corporates, especially global corporations," Ambani said.

"For India to succeed in this data-driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India in other words, Indian wealth back to every Indian," he added.

Ambani's remarks come amid a raging debate in the country over whether data of Indians is safe with foreign companies. In fact, the Reserve Bank of India last year imposed data localisation norms on foreign fintech companies to locally store the data of Indians.

Global firms such as Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Google, Amazon and Facebook have sought the government's help to relax the regulations on data localisation.

Ambani's direct attack at foreign companies comes in the backdrop of Reliance Jio's plans to expand in the fintech sector. Ambani's JioMoney is competing with global players such as Google Pay, Amazon Pay and Facebook-owned WhatsApp Pay in India.

Not just Ambani, Paytm chief Vijay Shekhar Sharma has also been vocal about the matter in the past and welcomed the RBI's mandate that the payments data of Indians must be stored locally.

In fact, Paytm had accused Google Pay of sharing consumer data with the third-parties for monetary gains. The company had complained to the National Payments Corporation of India that Google Pay was storing payments data of Indian outside the country.

"We would like to highlight a very important fact that Google Pay, which is an unregulated payments platform, has the scope of using their customers' data for their monetary gains with complete disregard of the user's need for privacy. The critical payments data collected by them is being processed and stored outside of India, which can have severe security implications in case of a data breach as their policy states that this data is also being disclosed with advertisers and third-parties," the company had said in letter to the NCPI.

Also read: Swiggy beats Zomato, FoodPanda! Top online food-tech company in consumer satisfaction
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PARIS (Reuters) - French carmaker Renault posted a 3.2 percent increase in 2018 vehicle sales, boosted by a new Chinese joint venture, and pledged further "slight growth" this year amid rebounding demand in Russia and Latin America.Renault's sales rose to a record 3.88 million vehicles last year, including some 166,000 sold through its new partnership with China's Brilliance. Excluding the joint venture, however, global sales fell 1.2 percent.While the organic sales decline reflected setbacks in Turkey, Iran, China and India, Renault outperformed a weak market at home in Europe, with a 0.5 ...
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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's finance minister said on Friday the government would be ready to discuss dropping criminal charges against Goldman Sachs linked to the 1MDB scandal if the bank pays $7.5 billion in reparations.Goldman Sachs is being investigated by Malaysian authorities and the U.S. Department of Justice for its role as underwriter and arranger of three bond sales that raised $6.5 billion for 1Malaysia Development Berhad. The bank has denied wrongdoing.U.S prosecutors last year charged two former Goldman bankers with the theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB. Finance ...
By Naomi TajitsuTOKYO (Reuters) - Carlos Ghosn improperly received $9 million in compensation from a joint venture (JV) between Nissan Motor and Mitsubishi Motors, the Japanese automakers said on Friday, raising the possibility of their ousted chairman facing a fresh charge of embezzlement.In the latest twist to the saga of the once-feted official's fall from grace, the automakers have found that Ghosn was paid by their Netherlands-based JV without the knowledge of the unit's two other directors - Nissan Motor CEO Hiroto Saikawa and Mitsubishi Motor CEO Osamu Masuko.Ghosn, arrested and ...
By Michael NienaberBEIJING (Reuters) - Germany and China on Friday signed agreements to strengthen coordination in banking, finance and capital markets, and pledged to further open market access and deepen cooperation to broaden economic ties. The agreements were reached after a two-day visit to Beijing by German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz for talks with Vice Premier Liu He, who is President Xi Jinping's top economic adviser. Both sides reaffirmed that "they will strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination and pragmatic cooperation in the fiscal and financial fields and expand strategic ...
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By David ShepardsonWASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal grand jury in Detroit on Thursday indicted four managers at Volkswagen AG's luxury Audi unit as part of the U.S. government's investigation into the German automaker's diesel emissions cheating scandal, according to court documents.VW admitted in September 2015 to secretly installing software in nearly 500,000 U.S. vehicles to cheat government exhaust emissions tests and pleaded guilty in 2017 to felony charges. In total, 13 people have been charged in the United States, including the four Audi managers.Managers Richard Bauder, Axel Eiser, ...
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- IdriverPlus, a Beijing-based autonomous driving technology startup, was given the T3 license for autonomous vehicle open road test by Beijing municipal government in recent days, making it the second startup in Beijing that is allowed to test autonomous vehicles on roadsthe first one is Pony.ai, according to local media.

According to data released by www.autoinfo.org.cn before January 5, there were a total of 101 licenses for autonomous vehicle road tests having been issued in China to a total of 32 companies related to self-driving technology, including Internet firms, OEMs and car-sharing platforms, across 14 cities in China.

Out of that, Baidu has obtained over 50 licenses, while most OEMs hold no more than 3 licenses per company. As to the license number for each city, Beijing is the champion with 56 licenses, followed by Chongqing and Shanghai who had gained 11 and 7 licenses respectively.

The first batch of licenses was issued by Shanghai municipal government to SAIC Motor and NIO in last March. Then, such companies as Baidu, NIO, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, BAIC BJEV, Pony ai. and Panda Auto got their ICV road test licenses successively last year.

However, it was a bit late for China to legalize the open road test compared with foreign countries. Nevada became the first U.S. state to approve and regulate rules for self-driving cars on its roadways and granted first license to Google's self-driving project (which is later known as Waymo) as early as 2012. Until July 2017, there was still reports in China saying Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, faced fines after being caught riding a self-driving car.

Several months after Baidu delivering the fine, the formulation of relevant regulations was formally initiated in this country. According to Beijing Innovation Center for Mobility Intelligent's latest data, Beijing has so far released 60 licenses to 8 companies. By the end of November, 2018, the country's capital had opened 44 routes spanning 123km for autonomous vehicle road tests and the tested vehicles had experienced safe driving mileage exceeding 125,600km.

Chongqing is also an important testing spot for its unique complex terrain. Local government announced a regulation for ICV road tests last March and one month later, seven companies including Changan Automobile, Baidu, FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor, GAC Group, Geely, and Foton Auto gained licenses. Earlier this month, NEV hourly car rental platform Panda Auto joined the group which is legalized to execute road tests.

Shanghai launched its ICV road test regulation in March, 2018 as well. From the time being, a total of 7 licenses (5 for PVs and 2 for trucks) have been issued to SAIC Motor, NIO, BMW, TuSimple and Momenta and 37.2-km-long road has been put into operation for self-driving road test.
By Josephine Mason, Abhinav Ramnarayan and Helen ReidLONDON (Reuters) - BlackRock and Goldman Sachs Asset Management both plan to temporarily move some British-based fund managers to New York in the event of a no-deal Brexit, two sources told Reuters.The portfolio managers would eventually be transferred to mainland Europe to handle client accounts there once Britain and the European Union agreed a regulatory framework, they added.But neither of the firms, who together employ more than 10,000 people in London, expects a chaotic exit that would force them to carry out the emergency ...
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Fuel loaded from ports in Iran has generated revenue to finance the Yemen Huthi rebel war effort against the Saudi-backed government, according to a report by a UN panel of experts seen by AFP.

The findings are expected to again raise questions about Iran's support for the Huthis in the war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe.

In its final report for 2018, the panel said it had "identified a small number of companies, both within Yemen and outside, which operated as front companies," using fake documents to conceal fuel donations.

The fuel was "for the benefit of a listed individual" who is on a UN sanctions blacklist, it added.

"The revenue from the sale of this fuel was used to finance the Huthi war effort," said the 85-page report sent to the Security Council.

The panel found that the "fuel was loaded from ports in the Islamic Republic of Iran under false documentation" to avoid UN inspections of the cargo, it added.

The experts have in past reports pointed to a possible Iranian link to missiles fired by Huthi rebels at Saudi Arabia, after they traveled to Riyadh to examine weapons debris.

In a previous report, the experts said they were investigating monthly fuel donations from Iran valued at $30 million.

Iran has repeatedly denied that it is providing military support to the Huthis, who seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to intervene a year later to push back the rebels.

The Huthis control the city and key port of Hodeida, a main entry point for imports to Yemen that pro-government forces had planned to capture in a new offensive launched in June.

A ceasefire in Hodeida was agreed during UN-brokered talks last month in Sweden and UN monitors are on the ground to oversee a pullback of forces from the port.

"Throughout the reporting period of 2018, Yemen continued its slide toward humanitarian and economic catastrophe," said the panel, which described the country as "deeply fractured" with a broken economy.

The war in Yemen continues to appear unwinnable. Government forces and the coalition have made "significant progress" on the ground against the Huthis, but "the aim of restoring the authority of the government throughout Yemen is far from being realized," said the report.

The panel reported on its investigations of five airstrikes in Huthi-controlled areas, including the August 9 bombing of a bus carrying children and a shelling attack.

It found that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible in four cases, including the bus bombing that killed 43 people and wounded 63 others, the majority of whom were children.

The panel said the coalition was "likely responsible" in another incident in April 2018 involving the bombing of a building in Hodeida that killed 14 civilians, including seven children.

The coalition has admitted mistakes were made in two cases and has acknowledged that legal procedures could be taken in the case of the bus bombing, but the panel said it was unaware of any prosecution by any state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury will discuss the possibility of formation of a secular front in the State with like-minded parties during his two-day visit to Tamil Nadu from January 22, the party's state secretary K Balakrishnan said Friday.

Yechury will visit Tirunelveli on Tuesday and participate in a function to unveil a statue of Lenin, he told reporters here.

The next day Yechury would address a rally organised by the VCK in Tiruchirapalli, Balakrishnan said.

Asked about the CPI-M participating in the opposition rally organised by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee at Kolkata tomorrow, CPI-M politburo member G Ramakrishnan said the main aim of his party was to form a secular and alternative government at the Centre.

The party was evolving a strategy across India to defeat BJP, he said.

As far as West Bengal was concerned, the ruling Trinamool Congress was functioning in a "pseudo-fascist" manner and indulging in violence against workers of left parties, he alleged.

"The party is in the election arena opposing both the BJP and Trinamool Congress," he said.

Ramakrishnan and Balakrishnan were here to unveil the portrait of late CPI leader Jeeva at the CPI-M's district office.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A second year student of XLRI here died after falling accidentally in the institute's premises on Friday, police said.

The victim, Shashwat Dixit, was on his way to another hostel block from his own inside the campus when he fell down accidentally this morning, Officer-in-charge of the Bistupur police station Inspector Sreenivas said.

When the profusely bleeding Dixit was rushed to Tata Main Hospital, doctors declared him 'broght dead'.

The police officer said that after verifying CCTV footages they found Dixit, who hails from Kanpur, had an accidental fall.

However, his body has been sent for post-mortem and further investigations were on, he said.

In a statement, XLRI condoled the sudden demise of Dixit.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A bitterly disappointed Caroline Wozniacki said she was leaving Melbourne Park with her head held high Friday, despite arch-rival Maria Sharapova ending her dream of defending the Australian Open title.

Sharapova upset her in a three-set thriller to reach the last 16 at the Dane's expense 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.

World number three Wozniacki spent more than a decade chasing her maiden Grand Slam and said it was tough to accept she was now out of the running to retain the trophy.

"I'm a competitor, I love to win, I hate to lose -- I hate losing more than I love winning," she said.

But the 28-year-old refused to beat herself up about the loss, saying she had left everything on the court in her third round clash against the Russian.

"Some days you lose," she said. "As long as you give it your all, as long as I fought for every point and was really trying to do everything in my power to win, I can't really blame myself.

"Of course, I'm disappointed that I'm not through to the fourth round... I did all I could and just came up short."



Wozniacki refused to blame the loss on the rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis she revealed during the off season, which sometimes leaves her so exhausted it is hard to move.

She said that was not the case when facing Sharapova and she felt fine on court.

The former world number one also dismissed suggestions that the pressure of entering the tournament as defending champion had weighed on her, insisting she had enjoyed the experience.

"I actually didn't find it hard at all. I find it kind of pleasurable. It was nice and exciting," she said.

"It's a luxury for me to have achieved winning a slam and being number one and winning a lot of other tournaments."



While Wozniacki was philosophical about the loss, it was clear she has little time for Sharapova, with whom she exchanged barbs after the Russian returned from a drugs ban in 2017.

"Our terms are the same as they have always been," she said.

"She doesn't really talk to anybody and just has her team, has her own thing. And that's that.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Department of Commerce is working on a programme to push exports of agricultural goods from northeastern states of the country, a senior government official said Friday.

"The department is prepared to give a viability gap funding (VGF) for which a programme is being worked out so that the fresh agriculture produce from the northeast (NE) region can be taken to the international market because virtually, the entire region is organic and fertile," Sudhanshu Pandey, additional secretary in the department, said here.

He was speaking at the North East Business Summit here.

Pandey said the region produces one of the best fruits and vegetables, which holds huge export potential.

VGF is a one-time grant provided by the public sector for financial support to public-private partnerships in infrastructure, with the objective of making a project commercially viable.

This will also lead to increased private sector participation in developing infrastructure in the country through the public-private participation mode.

He also said improving connectivity remains a top priority for the government in this region.

"Already plans are underway to convert Guwahati into a hub. Construction plans for new terminal are ready and over Rs 500 crore project is underway ," he said, adding that eight airports are being developed in the region and flights to Bangladesh are set to start.

Further, Pandey said these states are gateway to explore the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) region.

Speaking at the summit, North Eastern Council Secretary Ram Muivah said huge business opportunities exists in this region.

"We need to unleash the hidden talent there and promote entrepreneurs. I would urge investors to explore north east," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior leader P on Friday accused the government of compromising security and asked why did it buy only 36 instead of the 126 required by the Air Force.

His comments come in the wake of fresh revelations on the in a media report which claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 aircraft instead of the 126 asked for by the pushed the price of each jet up by 41.42 per cent.





ALSO READ: AAP MP Sanjay Singh moves SC seeking review of Rafale deal verdict

"In the light of new facts and revelations in THE HINDU, the question gains greater urgency: why did the government buy only 36 Rafale aircraft instead of 126 aircraft required by the Air Force?," asked in a tweet.



In the light of new facts and revelations in THE HINDU, the question gains greater urgency: why did the government buy only 36 Rafale aircraft instead of 126 aircraft required by the Air Force?  P. (@PChidambaram_IN) January 18, 2019

"The Government has compromised security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needs," he said.





ALSO READ: Rahul insulting women by saying one of them defended me on Rafale: Modi

leader Jyotiraditya Scindia also took to Twitter to demand answers from Modi on the increased cost of aircraft.



The Government has compromised security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needs.  P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) January 18, 2019

"The PM's unilateral decision to buy 36 Rafales resulted in a price escalation of 41.42% per jet. When will the prime minister answer?" he asked.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday accused the government of compromising national security and asked why did it buy only 36 Rafale fighter jets instead of the 126 required by the Air Force.

His comments come in the wake of fresh revelations on the Rafale deal in a media report which claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 aircraft instead of the 126 asked for by the Indian Air Force pushed the price of each jet up by 41.42 per cent.

"In the light of new facts and revelations in THE HINDU, the question gains greater urgency: why did the government buy only 36 Rafale aircraft instead of 126 aircraft required by the Air Force?," Chidambaram asked in a tweet.

"The Government has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needs," he said.

Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia also took to Twitter to demand answers from Modi on the increased cost of aircraft.

"The PM's unilateral decision to buy 36 Rafales resulted in a price escalation of 41.42% per jet. When will the prime minister answer?" he asked.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
















Knowing the important role investigative journalists play in society; Ottawa residents can now hire one at Agora Media if they need to have something reported. In a world where a lot can change in the blink of an eye, keeping quiet on sensitive issues is simply not tenable. Agora Media is domiciled in Canada and has been in service since 1997. Through them, one can make the difference between unraveling critical social events or letting it go unnoticed to the detriment of Ottawas populace.

While the meaning of investigative reporting or journalism can be confusingamong Agora Medias expert investigative journaliststhere is a common assertion of what it entails. To them, it is a precise, detailed, and unique in-depth way of reporting. It frequently involves substantial employment of secret, sensitive or classified sources of information, with an attention to promoting social equity and responsibility.

Investigative journalism involves presenting, to the general population, matters that are concealed either intentionally by somebody in a place of authority, or incidentally, through the actions of a secretive section of society. For example, an investigative journalist can present the workings of a drug cartel working in cahoots with the local law enforcement. It can also involve issues that are dire that require urgent public address. For example, an adverse weather phenomenon that is affecting or likely to affect a big section of the population.

Why hire an investigative Journalist and not a lawyer to report a critical issue?
US special envoy on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad Friday held talks with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and discussed efforts to speed up the Afghan peace process by involving the Taliban.

Khalilzad arrived in Islamabad on Thursday from Afghanistan and held delegation level talks with Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and also met Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said Khalilzad called on Qureshi.

"He briefed Foreign Minister Qureshi on his recent engagements in the region for Afghan peace and reconciliation process," Faisal said.

"The FM assured Ambassador Khalizad of Pakistan's support for the peace process," he tweeted.

Earlier, a statement issued by the Foreign Office on Thursday after Khalizad's meeting with Janjua said that the two sides agreed on "intra-Afghan dialogue" to end more than 17-year-long Afghan war.

Khalilzad is touring the regional countries ahead of a proposed meeting with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan's support is considered vital for moving forward the peace process in Afghanistan due to historic influence of Islamabad over the Taliban.

Pakistan's recent efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table have been recognised by the US and Afghanistan.

Afghan leader Ashraf Ghani Thursday called Prime Minister Imran Khan and thanked him for the efforts for peace.

Khalilzad has held three rounds of talks with the Afghan Taliban in order to reach a settlement that would allow the US to withdraw its army and end a 17-year-old war America's longest. It is Khalilzad's fifth trip to the region.

The US State Department said last week that Khalilzad was visiting India, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan from January 8 to seek the settlement of the Afghan problem.

He has already visited India and met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on January 10.

The US official was in Beijing this weekend and held talks with senior Chinese officials.

The Afghan peace initiative has been moving at a snail's pace due to refusal of the Taliban to sit for talks with the Afghan government officials.

Pakistan has been playing a crucial role in the process and last year released senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar from imprisonment, who is reportedly in Qatar.

Baradar was deputy to the late Taliban supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. He was arrested from Karachi in a joint Pakistan-US operation after reports that he was independently trying to conclude a deal with Afghan government.

India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan. It sent two former diplomats in "non official" capacity to a conference on Afghan peace process in Moscow in November which was attended by a high-level Taliban delegation.

India has been maintaining a policy of not engaging with the Taliban and pressing for an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace initiative to bring peace and stability in the war-ravaged country.

Khalilzad visited Pakistan in October before flying to Doha, Qatar where he reportedly held talks with the Taliban representatives.

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The World Health Organization said Friday that it's seeing increasing reports of misconduct reported by staffers within the UN health agency, describing the trend as "a positive thing."



WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said at a press briefing in Geneva the agency has been investigating misbehavior for "years and decades" and would continue to do so.

The comments came after an Associated Press story Thursday which reported that WHO's director-general had ordered an internal probe into claims the agency is rife with racism, sexism and corruption.

The AP obtained three anonymous emails addressed to senior WHO managers charging that there were numerous problems at the agency, including "systematic" racism against African staffers and allegations that some money intended to fight Ebola in Congo was misspent.

Last month, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus instructed the agency's internal office of oversight to investigate the allegations, announcing his decision at a staff meeting in Geneva.

The first email, which was sent last April, claimed there was "systematic racial discrimination against Africans at WHO" and that African staffers were being "abused, sworn at (and) shown contempt to" by their Geneva-based colleagues.

Two further emails addressed to WHO directors complained that senior officials were "attempting to stifle" investigations into such problems and also alleged other instances of wrongdoing, including allegedly misspent Ebola funds.

The last email, sent in December, labeled the behavior of a senior doctor helping to lead the response against Ebola as "unacceptable, unprofessional and racist," citing a November incident where the doctor reportedly "humiliated, disgraced and belittled" a Middle East subordinate.

Some staffers feared that funds donated to help stop Ebola in Congo "have not been used judiciously," the email said, warning such blunders could undermine WHO's credibility.

Tedros a former health minister of Ethiopia and WHO's first African director-general said during the staff meeting that investigators looking into the charges "have all my support" and that he would provide more resources if necessary.

WHO spokesman Jasarevic said WHO has "established procedures and people can report on any concern they may have," and that all such allegations would be assessed by its office of internal oversight.

"There are more reports of concern, and this is a positive trend. It's important for us to know where there are cases of misconduct so we can address them," Jasarevic said.

He added the increased reports also suggest staffers feel "more confident to report concerns." But critics questioned whether WHO could effectively investigate itself, pointing out that it was WHO's internal oversight office that botched the initial investigation into sexual harassment allegations at UNAIDS, which is technically part of WHO.

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Two factions of Malankara Church in Kerala, locked in a long-standing dispute over its control, clashed at a church here resulting in injuries to at least 15 people Friday, prompting the district administration to ask both sides to pull out of the place of worship.

The Orthodox faction members, who have been camping outside the church at Mannamangalam for the last few days, allegedly entered it, resulting in stone-pelting and minor scuffle with the Jacobite denomination, police said.

Over 35 people were detained after the scuffle and a case registered in connection with the incident, they said adding at least 15 people were injured.

Yuhanon Mar Meletius Metropolitan, Bishop of Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, has been arrayed as the prime accused in the case, police said.

Hours after the incident, members of the Orthodox and Jacobite factions Friday evening met District Collector T V Anupama who asked both the groups to pull out its members from the Mannamangalam church and also warned of stern action in case of any more law and order problem.

"We have asked both the groups to leave the church. They have agreed to our proposal. Jacobites have sought more time to discuss the matter with the superior authorities of their church," Anupama told PTI.

"We have also told them that in case of any more law and order issue, the district administration will take strong action against those involved," she said.

Recently, a famous church in Piravom, controlled by the Jacobite faction, had witnessed high tension as police entered the premises to implement last year's Supreme Court order giving control of it to the Orthodox faction.

In its order, the apex court had ruled that 1,100 parishes and their churches under the Malankara Church should be controlled by the Orthodox faction as per the 1934 Malankara Church guidelines.

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US President Donald Trump is meeting Friday with North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol to discuss negotiations on the country's pledge to denuclearize, the White House said.

The meeting in the Oval Office at the White House was due at 12:15 pm (1715 GMT), Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

"They will discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Korea's final, fully verified denuclearization," she said.

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U S President will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in late February on Pyongyang dismantling its nuclear and missile programmes, the White House has announced



The two leaders had met on June 12 last year in Singapore for the first summit.

The White House, however, did not identify a location for the second setting between the two leaders.

The announcement came after Trump met with North Korean envoy, Kim Yong Chol, on Friday for a discussion that included talk about Kim Jong-un's unfulfilled pledge to dismantle his country's nuclear weapons programmes.

President Trump sat down with Kim Yong Chol, a high-level official in North Korea's Communist government, in the Oval Office, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.

"President Donald J Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February.

"The president looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date. she said in a statement.

The press secretary told reporters: "We continue to make progress, we continue to have conversations."



The US is going to continue to keep "pressure and sanctions" on North Korea until "we see fully and verifiable denuclearization", she said.

"We had very good steps and very good faith from the North Koreans with the release of hostages and other moves and so we'll continue this conversation.And the President looks forward to it next February," Sanders' told reporters.

The North Korean envoy arrived at the White House after a closed-door meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun at a hotel here.

Following the White House meeting the North Korean official was invited to lunch by Pompeo.

Last year in Singapore, Trump had described his first-ever historic meeting with Kim Jong-un as "really fantastic" and said they had agreed to "sign" an unspecified document after their "very positive" summit, aimed at normalising ties and complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

The US president had said he believed he and Kim Jong-un will "solve a big problem, a big dilemma" and that by working together, "we will get it taken care of".

The summit at Singapore's Sentosa island - the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader - had marked a turnaround of relations between Trump, 72, and Kim, 36, after a long-running exchange of threats and insults.

The US insists it will accept nothing less than complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
US President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February about dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes, the White House announced Friday.

The two leaders had met on June 12 in Singapore for the first summit.

The announcement came after Trump met with a North Korean envoy, a discussion that included talk about Kim's unfulfilled pledge to dismantle his nation's nuclear weapons programmes.

Trump sat down with Kim Yong Chol, a high-level official in North Korea's Communist government, in the Oval Office, said White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.

"President Donald J Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date. the White House said.

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President Donald Trump is accusing his former personal attorney of "lying to reduce his jail time!" after BuzzFeed published a report saying Trump had asked his ex-fixer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress in 2017.

BuzzFeed said Trump directed Cohen to lie about negotiations over a real estate project in Moscow during the 2016 election.

Trump tweeted that Cohen is "Lying to reduce his jail time!" even though he's already been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to tax crimes, bank fraud and campaign violations.

On Fox Channel, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that the BuzzFeed story was "absolutely ludicrous," but he repeatedly refused to deny the central allegation: that Trump directed Cohen to lie.

One of Gidley's interviewers noted at one point: "That was not a denial of my question." The Democratic chairmen of two House committees pledged Friday to investigate the report, which cites two unnamed law enforcement officials.

The Associated Press has not independently confirmed the report.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President has cancelled the US delegation's trip to the in Davos, Switzerland, next week, due to the partial government shutdown, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday.

The announcement comes as the shutdown entered its 27th day.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his delegation's trip to the in Davos, Switzerland, Sanders said in a statement.

The longest-ever shutdown in US history has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including Security and State department.

Earlier, Trump postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, citing the shutdown.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divided over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House have refused to approve a legislation approving USD 5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling. The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.
Expressing confidence that the TRS would be a decisive force at the Centre, its working president K T Rama Rao Friday claimed that neither the BJP nor the Congress were in a position to get a comfortable number of seats in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Addressing a party gathering here, he said the UPA was not a position get more than 100-110 Lok Sabha seats and the ruling NDA would also not get more 150-160 seats.

"That means, even if the Congress and the BJP come together, they cannot reach the magic number of 273," he said.

He said the the Congress, on its own or as the UPA, was not in a position to win more than 100 or 110 seats and the BJP had nothing on the ground, it was the 'Build up Jateeya (national) Party'.

"The NDA and the UPA both are not in a good situation. The way political developments are taking place... the day is not far when the TRS would be a decisive force, an important force, in Delhi," he said.

Noting that the BJP lacked support on the ground, he said the party had suffered a massive defeat in the recent Telangana Assembly polls, though a host of BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, had campaigned in the state.

"The situation is no different nationwide. Modiji's build up is good outside... There is nothing on the ground. KCR (K Chandrashekar Rao) has been saying, the Congress and the BJP have done grave injustice to the country," Rama Rao alleged.

TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has been advocating for the formation of a non-Congress, non-BJP federal front to realise the spirit of federalism and to bring about a qualitative change in politics, he said.

Rama Rao said he met YSR Congress chief Y S Jaganmohan Reddy as part of efforts to build the federal front because joint effort by the MPs from both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh could increase their say in getting their due from the Centre.

He alleged that since after the meeting, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has been attacking the TRS, though it is making efforts for a qualitative change in and end Centre's control on the states, he alleged.

Naidu is trying to confuse the people of Andhra Pradesh by showing the BJP as an object of fear to hide his own failures, despite the TDP having been a part of the NDA government, he claimed.

Rama Rao, the son of Chandrasekhar Rao, was speaking at an event where Congress leader Vanteru Pratap Reddy, who contested against the TRS president in Gajwel Assembly segment in the recent polls, joined the TRS.

Pratap Reddy joining the TRS could be a setback for the Congress in Gajwel.

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Dakar, Senegal  A private sector sharing a common vision with a strong developmental State is essential to maintaining African countries path towards inclusive emergence, participants to Third International Conference on Emergence in Africa (ICEA-III) heard today at a a high-level interactive panel discussion between heads of State, Head of institutions, and representatives of the private sector.

Themed Emergence, Private Sector, and Inclusiveness, the gathering was officially launched by H.E. Mr. Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal at the Centre International des Conferences Abdou Diouf, in Diamniadio.

ICEA-III addresses the role the African private sector and governments can play in furthering the growth trajectory of African countries.

The continents recent accelerated growth, buoyed by stronger global demand, is driven in part by increased domestic consumption, public investments in infrastructure, and a boom in telecommunications and air transportation, a trend more pronounced in countries with plans for emergence.

Also in attendance were: H.E. M. Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, President of the Republic of Mali; Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia; H.E. Mr. Amadou Gon Coulibaly, Prime Minister of the Republic Cote dIvoire; Mr. Achim Steiner, Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP); Mr. Adesina Akinwumi, President of the African Development Bank Group; and Ms. Segolene Royal, former Minister of Environment of France. Also present were Tony Elumelu, Chairman of the United Bank for Africa, and Mr. Baidy Agne, President of the Senegals National Council of Employers.

The quest for emergence is based on a long-term vision and commitment that translates this vision into action. To believe in ourselves, define our own priorities, commit our resources and intelligence, and mobilize mutually beneficial partnerships. This is what needs to be our daily task, to forge with our own hands the destiny of a prosperous and emerging Africa. said Mr. Macky Sall.

Impressing upon the audience the urgent need to carefully manage the transition towards emergence, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said: For Africa, it is vitally important that the development process be inclusive.

If you ignore notions of inequality, fairness and inclusiveness, he continued, sooner or later your development process implodes, whether through extremism and terrorism or through polarization and nationalism.

Among the days highlights was a presentation on the Lessons and Challenges of Promoting National Champions in Africa given by Ms. Ahunna Eziakonwa, UNDP Regional Director for Africa.

Since its inception, ICEAs goal has been to support African countries capacities to implement emergence plans by pooling their expertise and sharing experiences and best practices.

In March 2015, ICEA-I highlighted the conditions for Africa's emergence, as well as lessons learned from the economic and social transformations at work in emerging countries. Two years later, ICEA-II focused on challenges in implementing emergence plans and the importance of a developmental State and robust public administration.

More than 500 representatives of governments, international development institutions, academia, the private sector and civil society are expected to attend ICEA-III.

************************

For more information please contact:

In Dakar: Mame Fatou Toure, +221 78 620 4251; Tahir Basse, +221 77 33 243 36

In New York : Lamine Bal, +1 646 242 3253
The US Navy's top officer said he urged China to follow international rules at sea to avoid confrontations and insisted Friday that ships should be able to pass safely though disputed areas of the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.

Chief of US Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson told reporters in Tokyo that U.S. Navy ships will continue to operate freely in international waters, including the possibility of an aircraft carrier navigating through the Taiwan Strait.

Richardson, who held meetings in China earlier this week, said he told Chinese officials that the U.S. is committed to a one-China policy and is opposed to any unilateral action "from either side of the strait" to change the status quo.

Richardson said the US considers the Taiwan Strait as international waters. "We don't see any kind of limitation on whatever type of ship could pass through those waters," he said.

His comment follows new tensions between the U.S. and China over Taiwan that have already been frayed over military and trade issues.

A report issued earlier this week by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said China's growing military capabilities could pose a threat to Taiwan, angering Beijing. Washington is concerned that China is opting to use military force to deter Taiwan's possible independence.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said "we use rules rather than weapons to safeguard and promote our own interests," and that the U.S. should focus on cooperation with China instead of issuing such a report.

In recent years the South China Sea with rich fishing grounds, undersea resources and vital shipping lanes has become a focus of contention. China claims virtually the entire waterway on historical grounds and has strengthened its hold over islands there.

While five other governments have overlapping claims, the U.S. takes no formal position on sovereignty but insists on the right to freedom of navigation and overflight.

Richardson said China should not see the U.S. naval operations in the area as a threat. He urged China to "be consistent" with international rules to avoid risks and confrontations, and said he told Chinese officials that communication channels are important in de-escalating tensions. Richardson met with Vice Adm. Shen Jinlong and leaders of China's Central Military Commission.

Last year, a near-collision occurred when a Chinese destroyer approached the USS Decatur, forcing it to change course.

"As we manage these differences and continue to operate in each other's company in the South China Sea and increasingly around the world ... we've got to behave in ways that don't make this more of a tense situation," Richardson said.

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Days after the daring daylight highway heist of nearly Rs one crore worth jewellery in Tamil Nadu, a woman and her son have been arrested in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh and a major portion of the loot recovered from them, police said Friday.

Crime wing police in Tirupati arrested Shama (46) and her son Mohammed Salim, hailing from Tiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu, Thursday after they were found moving in a suspicious manner with a huge bag at a pilgrim accommodation centre there, police in the temple town said.

Police said they recovered about Rs 60 lakh worth gold and silver jewels from the two.

On January 7, a 10-member gang had driven away a car with Rs 98.05 lakh worth jewellery belonging to Kerala-based Kalyan Jewellers after waylaying the vehicle and dragging out two employees of the firm at K G Chavadi near Coimbatore.

The gold and silver jewels were being transported from Thrissur in Kerala to Coimbatore when the robbery occurred at around 11.30 am.

Shama's another son Firoz along with his friends had allegedly committed the heist and after sharing a quantity of the booty among his friends, he had handed over the rest to her and his brother in Tiruvallur, police in Tirupati said quoting preliminary investigation.

Since then, the two had been trying to sell the jewels and arrived in Tirupati two days ago.

Police said their counterparts in Coimbatore had been informed about the arrest and the two would be taken there after obtaining transit remand from a court here.

Coimbatore police said the recovered jewellery was part of the stolen gold and silver ornaments and they were already interrogating six people in connection with the crime.

In a related development, two other suspects who surrendered in a court in Chennai a week ago were brought to Coimbatore and produced before 7th Judicial Magistrate R Pandy who remanded them to six days police custody Friday.

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With an eye on Delhi, the (TMC) is all geared up for Saturday's "united opposition rally", which party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister said would sound the "death knell" for the BJP in the coming Lok Sabha polls.

Leaders of over 20 opposition parties are expected to attend the rally at the iconic Brigade Parade Ground here on Saturday to vow to put up a united fight against the "misrule" of the saffron party.

The TMC hopes to use the rally as a platform to prop Banerjee as a leader who can "take along other parties" and challenge the ruling (BJP) after the general election.

Banerjee, the brain behind the mega opposition rally, on Thursday said the regional parties would be the deciding factor in the Lok Sabha polls.

"It will be a 'United India Rally' against the misrule of the BJP. It will sound the death knell for the BJP ... The saffron party's seat count in the general election will not cross 125. The number of seats the state parties will win will be much higher than that of the BJP's.

"The federal parties, that is the regional parties, will be the deciding factor after the elections," she claimed.

Chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal, H D Kumaraswamy, N Chandrababu Naidu, former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Akhilesh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's (DMK) M K Stalin, besides dissident BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha are among those billed to attend the mega rally.

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader and his party colleague Abhishek Manu Singhvi will also take part in the rally.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar, Rashtriya Lok Dal's (RLD) Ajit Singh, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, Patidar leader Hardik Patel, Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani and Babulal Marandi of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha will also be present on the stage alongside the TMC supremo.

Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, who quit the BJP on Tuesday, is also set to attend the meet.

The rally will, however, miss the presence of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and BSP supremo Mayawati. They have deputed senior party leaders to attend the programme.

The three politicians had attended the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy last year.

According to state Congress sources, the party unit was not very keen on Kharge and Singhvi attending the rally as it would send a wrong message to its workers who are fighting against the TMC in West Bengal.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist), along with the other Left parties, has decided to give the rally a miss.

Asked to comment on Mayawati skipping the rally, Banerjee said BSP's "senior leader Satish Chandra Mishra will be attending, which is a big thing for us".

About the TMC's ambitions in the national arena, a senior party leader said, "Nobody can deny that is one of the most popular Opposition leaders in the country and can take others along with her to fight the BJP. She has experience both as a (former) central minister and as a chief minister. The rest is for the people to decide."



Several top TMC leaders, during the campaign meetings for the rally, had claimed that the "people are waiting for Mamata Banerjee" and urged the party workers to ensure that the next government at the Centre was formed under her leadership.

The BJP leadership predictably mocked the rally, saying the Opposition should first decide on its prime ministerial candidate and then think of ousting Narendra Modi and the ruling party.
China's southwest Autonomous Region has registered a steep 79 per cent decline in illegal entry and exit of Tibetans in the second half of last year due to a crackdown, state media reported Friday.

Over decades, Tibetans have been crossing the remote Himalayan region from the Nepalese side. Many use to take this route to Dharamshala in to visit the Dalai Lama.

The numbers over the years have been declining steadily specially after started cooperating with to crackdown on the entry and exit of Tibetans which the overseas Tibetan groups blamed on pressure from following the development of close ties between the two countries.

A report in the Global Times said following the drive to crackdown on illegal entry to and exit from in July led to a 79 per cent decrease in the number of cases compared with the first half of the year in 2018.

In response to an increase of illegal exits and entries along the border of during the first half of 2018, the Tibet departure and entry inspection station launched the drive and strengthened cooperation with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) stationed along the border, the report said.

"As the main department to manage exit and entry in Tibet, we are responsible and obliged to severely crackdown on illegal exit and entry and to offer better services for domestic and foreign tourists," said Yuan Bin, head of the Tibet exit and entry inspection station.

The departure and entry inspection station focuses on preventing terrorists or criminals from entering via Tibet and strengthening management of entry and exit information, it said.

A total of one lakh vehicles and five lakh passengers have been inspected.

Nearly 1,000 people were refused entry to Tibet from the border for not completing entry and exit formalities, the report said.

More than 16,000 police officers were asked to visit 21,000 households along the border areas and to register 48,000 people coming from other provinces or regions. Seven residents were awarded a total of 84,000 yuan for their contributions in safeguarding border security, the report added.

insists Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries. The Dalai Lama, who lives in Dharamshala, fled Tibet in 1959 amid an abortive uprising against the Chinese rule in his Himalayan homeland.
Three men were arrested by customs officials for allegedly trying to smuggle into the country gold valuing about Rs 45 lakh at Delhi airport, an official statement said Friday.

The customs officials seized 12 gold bars, weighing 1.4 kg, from a passenger arriving from Dubai Tuesday, it said.

He was assisted by an airport staff, who worked as a florist, in smuggling the gold, the statement said.

On further enquiry, the duo gave details of another person, receiver of the gold, who was waiting outside the airport.

The three men were arrested and the gold, valued at Rs 45.14 lakh, was seized, the statement said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Telugu Desam party leaders and family members Friday paid homage to TDP founder N T Rama Rao on his 23rd death anniversary.

NTR's son N Balakrishna, NTRs grandsons Kalyan Ram, junior NTR, other family members and leaders paid tributes at the legendary actor-turned-politicians memorial, NTR Ghat, on the banks of the Hussain Sagar lake here.

Balakrishna garlanded a statue of NTR at Begumpet in the city.

Balakrishna essayed the role of his father in his Telugu biopic 'NTR' which hit the theatres recently.

The film's second part would be released soon,he said.

N T Rama Rao died of a cardiac arrest in 1996.

A legend in Telugu films, NTR created history by storming to power in nine months after launching his party Telugu Desam in 1992 on the plank of Telugu self-respect.

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Tata group Chairman N Chandrasekaran Friday said the conglomerate plans to invest in lithium ion battery manufacturing in Gujarat.

Speaking here at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, he said group firm Tata Chemicals is also looking to enhance its soda ash capacity to one million tonnes annually.

"Many of our group companies like Tata Chemicals and Tata Motors have very significant presence here. We look forward to continuing our investment in the state," Chandrasekaran said.

Tata Motors' plant at Sanand rolls out Tigor electric car besides manufacturing other models such as hatchback Tiago, compact sedan Tigor and Nano.

"We want to make further investments, not only in manufacturing electric vehicles, but also in lithium ion battery projects here," Chandrasekaran added.

He further said, "We are in discussions with the state government for significantly increasing our capacity of Tata Chemicals to reach one million (10 lakh) tonnes of soda ash."



At present, the company's plant at Mithapur in Gujarat has a soda ash capacity of 8.2 lakh tonnes per annum.

Stating that Gujarat is a very important state for the Tatas, he said the group's revenue from the state last year was about Rs 18,000 crore.

"The Tata group has significant presence in Gujarat. It is the third largest state for the group and we have about 25,000 employees," he added.

Chandrasekaran also said the over USD 100 billion salt-to-software conglomerate will also be "investing in renewable energy apart from growing our presence in the technology sector".

He, however, did not specify the quantum of investments that the group would made in the state on the new proposed projects.

He also said Tata group's hotels business are significantly integrated with Gujarat in tourism opportunity that it presents.

"We see Gujarat as a big partner for the Tata group and it's a place where professionalism is shown at its best," he said.

Chandrasekaran also praised the Narendra Modi-led government in the Centre for the "transformative journey" undertaken over the last five years.

"Tremendous amount of progress has been made. The number of things that have been done in these five years are enormous and a platform that will propel India for significant for several decades to come has been laid, all thanks to the Prime Minister," Chandrasekaran said.

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A North Korean diplomat has arrived in Sweden to take part in an unannounced meeting in Stockholm, officials said Friday.

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Vilhelm Rundquist said Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has landed in Sweden "to take part in talks in a minor format where international experts take part."



He declined to give further details. Sweden's TT agency said Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom would also attend the event.

It is possible that US special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun would join the meeting later, a US official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"I have nothing to say presently. It's up to the parties and the countries whether there will be a result," Wallstrom told the TT agency. "We are proud if we can contribute. If they want us to contribute, we do it."



The location for the talks wasn't immediately disclosed. Swedish officials have declined to confirm any further details about the meeting, including whether it is underway.

Sweden has had diplomatic relations with Pyongyang since 1973 and is one of only a few Western countries with an embassy there. It provides consular services for the United States.

In March, Wallstrom held talks with her North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong Ho, in Stockholm, leading to the first-ever meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in June in Singapore.

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Sweden ended a four-month political vacuum Friday when lawmakers elected Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to a second term, after he elbowed out the far-right to save one of Europe's few left-wing governments.

Lofven's new minority centre-left government - comprising his Social Democrats and the Greens - won the backing of the Centre and Liberal parties, until now members of the four-party centre-right opposition Alliance. Friday's vote wrapped up months of wrangling after September's inconclusive legislative elections.

Lofven ultimately made major concessions to the centre-right parties to win their support, notably pledging to introduce market rates for newly-produced rental housing and easing Sweden's strict labour laws.

The prime minister is expected to formally present his new government and its full programme on Monday.

It will be one of the weakest administrations in Sweden in 70 years, with just 32.7 per cent of voters having cast ballots for the two parties.

Together with the Centre and Liberals, the four parties hold 167 of 349 seats in parliament, eight fewer than the 175 that constitutes a majority in the Riksdag.

Under Sweden's political system, a government can operate as long as a majority of lawmakers do not vote it down.

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Japanese auto maker Motor Corporation Friday said it will commission its third plant at Gujarat by 2020 and will aggressively introduce new hybrid vehicles in India with technical support from Toyota.

Speaking here at the Global Summit here, Motor Corporation (SMC) President Toshihiro also sought an enabling policy support from the government to further invest in localisation of components of hybrid and electric vehicles.

SMC is making investments in Gujarat on a continuous basis. The first vehicle assembly plant of Suzuki Motor Gujarat was inaugurated in September 2017, he said.

"The second plant will start shortly. We plan to commission the third assembly plant in 2020," Suzuki said.

In a statement on Friday, SMC said it has started production of its hatchback Swift from the second plant in Gujarat.

After three plants in operations, annual production capacity of Suzuki Motor Gujarat will be enhanced up to 7,50,000 units, he said.

The company will also start production at its engine and transmission plant in the state shortly, he added.

Suzuki said it will enable "us to bear fruit of integrated vehicle manufacturing in Gujarat"; and the state is becoming "more and more important as a production site for Suzuki group".

SMC is also currently constructing automotive lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant at Hansalpur in the state.

"In addition to lithium-ion battery, we will localise other components required for vehicle electrification," he added.

Stating that the technologies for hybrid and electric vehicles have similarity, Suzuki said it will first localise components of hybrid vehicles and then electric vehicles.

Reiterating that SMC's aim is to realise Real Make in India in the field of vehicle electrification, he said, "Together with an enabling policy support from the government of India, we can jointly think how to scale up our investment and depth of localisation."



Acknowledging that the automobile industry is now entering a phase of great changes, Suzuki said, "Above all, we fully recognise the challenge to reduce CO2 to prevent global warming."



SMC is tackling this issue from various angles, he said, adding "As one of the solutions for CO2 reduction, we decided to introduce electric vehicles in India in 2020".

The company's Indian arm Maruti Suzuki India has been road testing 50 electric vehicles in the country.

Suzuki also said it is critical to utilise existing technologies in addition to electric vehicles in order to reduce CO2 further.

"In the Indian context, we firmly believe that hybrid and CNG vehicles are the most effective solution, with fastest results," he asserted.

Reiterating that hybrid technologies are evolving at a rapid pace, he said SMC "will introduce cutting-edge hybrid vehicles aggressively with technical support from Toyota Motor Corporation".
The Maharashtra government Friday asked for streamlining the process of fixing sugarcane prices as per the Revenue Sharing Formula (RSF) for sugar factories which have completed cane crushing.

The directives were given by Chief Secretary D K Jain during a meeting of the Cane Price Regulatory Board with representatives of farmers and sugar cooperatives here, an official release stated Friday.

The meeting approved cane prices for 2017-18 fixed as per the RSF, it added.

Out of 181 sugar units, prices of 157 were fixed as per RSF, and out of these, 17 factories have given higher RSF money than FRP (Fair and Remunerative Price) to farmers.

The board meeting also gave approval to rates of 140 sugar factories whose RSF rate was less than the FRP, it said.

Jain asked for streamlining the process of fixing the prices as per RSF, the release informed.

Farmers' representatives said some factories show more expenditure for cane crushing and transportation.

In reply, Jain asked the Sugar Commissionerate to check the rates.

Farmer representatives also demanded that the minimum sale price of sugar be increased to Rs 34 per kilogram.

This year 185 sugar factories took up crushing of 426.84 lakh metric tonne sugarcane.

The total FRP amount for crushing of sugarcane is Rs 10,487 crore.

Out of this, Rs 5,166 crore has been given while arrears of Rs 5,320 crore are pending on the part of 174 sugar factories.

Eleven sugar factories have given farmers 100 per cent prices as per FRP.

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Sri Lanka's police seized a haul of high explosives stashed near a wildlife sanctuary following the arrest of four men from a newly formed radical Muslim group, officials said Friday.

Elite police commandos and detectives stumbled on the explosives which included some 100 detonators from a make-shift warehouse near the Wilpattu national park, police said.

"Following information received by the CID (Criminal Investigations Department), they found 100 kilos (220 pounds) of high explosives and 100 detonators," police said in a statement.

Official sources said the discovery was made during investigations into recent hate attacks against Buddha statues elsewhere in the country in an apparent attempt to spark tensions between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims.

"The information we have at the moment is that a radicalised local group of Muslims are behind the explosives seized on Thursday," an official said asking not to be named.

"We are trying to see if they had any links with extremists abroad." There have been no attacks in Sri Lanka linked to foreign Islamist groups despite local media reports that a 37-year-old Sri Lankan had been killed in Syria in 2015 while fighting for Islamic State (IS) group.

The latest discovery of explosives in the north-west of the island on Thursday is one of the biggest finds since the country ended its decades-long war against Tamil separatists in 2009.

There has been sporadic violence against minority Muslims, and several Buddhist monks and their followers have been arrested for instigating inter-communal violence.

In Sri Lanka Muslims are considered an ethnic group. Almost all Buddhists in Sri Lanka are from the majority Sinhalese community.

Sri Lanka declared a 12-day nation-wide state of emergency in May last year following inter-communal riots led by Sinhalese mobs in the central district of Kandy where three people were killed and hundreds of shops and homes were destroyed.

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The 20-year-old son of a former BSF constable, who was sacked after he posted a video online complaining about poor quality food served to the troops, was found dead at his home in Haryana's Rewari district, police said Friday.

Rohit Yadav was found dead with bullet injuries on his temple at his home in Madhu Vihar locality on Thursday, they said.

His father Tej Bahadur Yadav, who was dismissed from the force after he posted the video online complaining about poor quality food being served to the troops on icy heights along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir in 2017, had gone to Kumbh mela in Uttar Pradesh, police said.

His mother was also not at home when the incident took place, they added.

Police said as per the statement of Tej Bahadur Yadav, he had hidden his licensed weapon in the house but his son somehow traced it out.

The bullet probably got fired when his only son was fiddling with the pistol, they said quoting the statement of the father, who returned home Friday morning.

His body was lying in a pool of blood with his father's licensed pistol in his hand, said a police official of Rewari Model Town police station.

Police said inquest proceedings under section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure have been initiated in the case.

Tej Bahadur Yadav was dismissed from the force on charges of indiscipline.

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Goa Governor Mridula Sinha Friday said there are some leaders who are "accidental" and "foisted" into top positions by others.

Sinha did not name any political leader, but her comments came at a time when a film on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, "The Accidental Prime Minister", has hit cinema theatres.

The film is based on a book of the same name written by journalist Sanjaya Baru, who was Singh's media adviser.

"There are many types of leaders, some of them are even accidental, and are foisted into the position by others," she said at an event organised by a B-school here.

"They aremade (as leaders) and asked to do some chores. How much work he can do, whether he has quality or not, or has studied issues, these things do not matter," the governor said.

Sinha further said, "The accidental leaders do wake up to the responsibilities after given the position. It is not that the accidental leader will not work after he is appointed.

"When his responsibilities increase, he tries to inculcate leadership qualities."



A successful political leader is one who is sensitive and understands the pain of others, Sinha maintained.

"In politics, a leader needs to be sensitive. If the person does not have the ability to understand the pain of others, he cannot be a successful leader," she added.

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Singapore will replace its ageing F-16 fighter jets with F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the defence ministry announced on Friday, as the city-state opts for the US warplane over European and Chinese-made stealth fighters.

The announcement ends years of speculation that Singapore would eventually decide on the fifth-generation F-35 as a replacement for the F-16s.

Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen in June last year had said that Singapore was evaluating a range of options, including Lockheed Martin's F-35, Europe's Eurofighter Typhoon and Chinese-made stealth fighters to replace F-16s.

The RSAF is expected to acquire a "small number" of the F-35 JSF for a full evaluation. This follows a five-year technical evaluation by the RSAF and Defence Science and Technology Agency.

"The technical evaluation also concluded that the RSAF should first purchase a small number of F-35 JSFs for a full evaluation of their capabilities and suitability before deciding on a full fleet, the defence ministry said in a statement.

"In the next phase, MINDEF will discuss details with relevant parties in the US before confirming its decision to acquire the F-35 JSFs for Singapore's defence capabilities, it added.

In a Facebook post on Friday, the defence minister said this phase might take nine to 12 months, adding that relevant agencies will speak to their US counterparts to "move the process forward".

Details that will be discussed include price, quantity and which variant of the jet to buy, as well as issues like logistical requirements and the training of pilots.

The F-35A the conventional take-off and landing variant costs USD 89.2 million, according to maker Lockheed Martin. It is believed that Singapore is interested in the B variant, which costs more and can take off from shorter runways and land vertically, according to a Channel Asia report.

If discussions are successful, Singapore will proceed to buy a few F-35s for a full evaluation. The length of this phase is unclear and will also depend on developments during tests by other militaries which operate the F-35.

What is clear, however, is that the defence ministry is working on a timeline that will not jeopardise the replacement of the F-16s, which face obsolescence beyond 2030. It is understood that the defence ministry is still on track to meet this target.

"Our RSAF's F-16s that were in service since 1998 will have to retire soon after 2030, even after their mid-life upgrades, Ng said.

That's not very far away, just over 10 years, to acquire their replacement and, just as important, to build the logistic support and train pilots individually and as a fleet to guard our skies, he said.

The radar-evading F-35 is packed with advanced sensors that allow it to see enemies earlier. One such sensor projects a 360-degree view on the inside of pilots' helmet visors, enabling them to see through and around the jet.

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A former stalwart of Singapore's long-ruling government and ex-presidential candidate said Friday he is seeking to form a new party ahead of elections expected as early as this year.

Analysts said the move by Tan Cheng Bock, who almost beat the ruling party's de facto candidate in the 2011 presidential race, could represent a challenge to the government's dominance of the political system.

The People's Action Party (PAP) has ruled the affluent city-state since 1959 and has a tight grip on power. The forthcoming election, which they are widely expected to win, must be held by 2021 -- but speculation is mounting it will be this year.

Tan's move will heap extra pressure on the government, however, with the poll coming at a sensitive time as the country's founding Lee family prepares to hand over the premiership to a new generation of leaders.

Announcing he had applied Wednesday to register the new group, called the "Progress Singapore Party", Tan said the move was out of a "sense of duty" to address concerns of ordinary Singaporeans. He said 12 people had filed the application, including other former ruling party members.

"Over the years a group of us have been walking the ground, meeting many Singaporeans from all walks of life," said the medical doctor, 78, who was a ruling party lawmaker for over two decades.

Tan said he decided to form his own party despite offers from other groups, but added that "we will extend our hand of co-operation in the future".

His return to may help revive Singapore's fragmented opposition. Several groups have been trying with little success to make headway against the PAP for years, with The Workers' Party the only one to have won any parliament seats.

They have won six, compared to the ruling party's 82.

Last year, local media reported that seven opposition parties discussed the possibility of forming a coalition headed by Tan. Lee Morgenbesser, a Southeast Asia expert from Griffith University in Australia, said the move was "significant, mainly because Tan Cheng Bock has been such an influential PAP figure".

"It could provide a legitimate alternative to the PAP," he said, but cautioned this was unlikely to happen immediately. Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asia expert from John Cabot University, said the important question now was whether Tan "works for fostering greater unity in the opposition as a whole and whether he can continue to attract support from the PAP's political base".

"The opposition is highly unlikely to win government, but the chance of strengthening opposition representation in parliament has gained traction," she added.

Under the PAP, Singapore has become one of the world's wealthiest societies and the party still enjoys solid support. But critics accuse them of tactics such as gerrymandering and seeking to bankrupt opponents through civil lawsuits to maintain their hold on power.

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/ -- Schneider Electric is one of four companies to receive the 2019 Catalyst Award Schneider Electric, the global leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation, has received a significant accolade for its commitment and progress towards gender equality and inclusion across the Group. The company has for the first time received the 2019 Catalyst Awardthat highlights the company's bold and forward-thinking initiatives that help create safe and inclusive workplaces where women can advance.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/654747/Schneider_Electric_India_Logo.jpg )



"Schneider Electric's commitment is to provide equal opportunities to everyone, everywhere, and to ensure that all our employees feel uniquely valued and safe so that they can contribute to the best of their potential," said Olivier Blum, Global Chief Human Resources Officer and Executive Vice President at Schneider Electric. "Our inclusion on Bloomberg's GEI, and the prestigious Catalyst Award, demonstrate our strong performance in Diversity and Inclusion, both at the global and country level ."



Catalyst praises Schneider Electric's extraordinary progress in IndiaThe Catalyst Award celebrates innovative organisational approaches with proven, measurable results that accelerate progress for women through workplace inclusion. Schneider Electric is one of four organisations receiving the award this year alongside Bank of America, Deutsche Post DHL Group and Elli Lilly. The company is recognised for Schneider Electric India's holistic approach to gender inclusion attracting and retaining women in Schneider Electric India.

To assess the Group, Catalyst engaged Schneider Electric India leaders and employees in an extensive evaluation which includes documentation reviews, phone interviews and onsite visits. In Delhi and Bangalore Schneider Electric Offices, Catalyst was impressed by the results inclusion has brought to the organisation in a country where gender equality is a big concern.

Schneider Electric India's holistic approach comprises:



Robust recruiting and retention programmes, including targeted campus hiring and outside sector recruitment, intentional recruiting and retention of people across the various dimensions of diversity, including disability and LGBTI. Efforts to re-engage women following a career break through programmes such as Her Second Innings, which eases women professional's transition back into the workforce. Men's engagement and inclusion in all aspects of the initiative to encourage and support their participation as allies and champions. Flexible work arrangements for all. Many employees have stories about their ability to work remotely for extended periods with the support of their managers and colleagues, to care for sick loved ones. Additionally, more fathers are taking parental leave. "At Schneider Electric, we know that embracing diversity is simply an unfiltered acknowledgement of the truth of this world. It goes without saying that creating an empowering environment for individuals from diverse cultures, gender identities, socio-religious preferences and special abilities gets them to bring their authentic selves to work. It's that common feature which allows them to contribute their finest at work and outside," said Anil Chaudhry, Managing Director & Zone President, Schneider Electric Greater India and Member of the Global Diversity & Inclusion Board of the Group. "We are proud to be walking the talk these last few years on diversity and inclusion - and are truly humbled by Catalyst's recognition. I am proud of my team which has been working at this passionately."



From 2015 to 2018, the impact of the initiative has been increasingly tangible, with women's representation increasing across all levels from 15.9% to 20.8%, despite an overall workforce shrinkage of 5%, and women's voluntary attrition rates shrinking by almost half.

Schneider Electric India's recognition is a testimony to the broader diversity and inclusion transformation led by the company at the global level. By focusing on inclusion for all, Schneider Electric's achievements in India are an example of the company's overall ambition to provide equal opportunities to everyone while creating both physical and psychological safety for all employees.

About Schneider Electric



Schneider Electric is leading the digital transformation of energy management and automation in homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries.

With global presence in over 100 countries, Schneider is the undisputable leader in Power Management - Medium Voltage, Low Voltage and Secure Power, and in Automation Systems. We provide integrated efficiency solutions, combining energy, automation and software.

In our global Ecosystem, we collaborate with the largest Partner, Integrator and Developer Community on our Open Platform to deliver real-time control and operational efficiency.

We believe that great people and partners make Schneider a great company and that our commitment to Innovation, Diversity and Sustainability ensures that 'Life Is On' everywhere, for everyone and at every moment.

http://www.schneider-electric.

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The Supreme Court collegium has considered four advocates for elevation to the Delhi High Court and has deferred decision on two of the recommended names while the other two have been sent back, according to a resolution posted on the apex court website on Friday.

The four --- Krishnendu Datta, Saurabh Kirpal, Priya Kumar and Sanjoy Ghose -- were among nine advocates whose names were recommended for elevation by the collegium of the Delhi High Court on October 13, 2017.

As per the January 16, 2019 resolution of the collegium comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices AK Sikri and SA Bobde, its decision on advocates Krishnendu Datta and Saurabh Kirpal was deferred for now and would be taken up after two-three weeks.

However, it said, "having regard to all relevant factors and material on record, the collegium is of the considered view that the proposal for elevation of Priya Kumar and Sanjoy Ghose, advocates, deserves to be remitted to the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court. The Collegium recommends accordingly."



The Collegium had earlier cleared the elevation of five of the nine advocates whose names were recommended.

However, on September 4, 2018, it had decided to defer consideration of the proposal for elevation of these four advocates.

"For purpose of assessing merit and suitability of the these recommendees for elevation to the High Court, we have carefully scrutinised the material on record as well as the observations made by the Department of Justice in the file," the resolution said.

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Legendary actor Robert Redford is set to receive an honorary Cesar award, France's equivalent of the Oscars.

The veteran actor will receive the honour at the 44th annual Cesar ceremony, which will take place on February 22 in Paris.

"An iconic actor, an exceptional director, a passionate producer, founder and president of Sundance, the most revered festival of independent films in the world, Robert Redford has left his mark through all his endeavours in the film world," Alain Terzian, the president of the Academy of Arts and Techniques of Cinema, said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter.

"Robert Redford is definitely a monument. Many of his films, in front or behind the camera, have now become classics. Rare are the careers which have had such a lasting impact on the History of Cinema," Terzian added.

Redford, who began his acting career on Broadway in the play "Tall Story" in 1959, was previously honoured with the Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Redford said last summer that he planned on retiring after his latest film, "The Old Man and the Gun" directed by David Lowery, but he later said he had perhaps spoken too soon.

Past recipients of the honorary Cesar include Penelope Cruz, George Clooney, Michael Douglas, Meryl Streep and Sean Penn.

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French carmaker Renault unveiled record sales Friday of nearly 3.9 million vehicles last year, even as it prepares to turn the page on the era of chief executive Carlos Ghosn who remains behind bars in Tokyo on fraud charges.

The company said sales in 2018 were up 3.2 percent from the previous year putting it ahead of its French rival PSA, whose brands include Peugeot, Citroen and Opel.

Sales were driven higher by demand for Renault's low-cost models, including two light utility vehicles manufactured in a joint venture with China's Brilliance, which offset the effect of its pullout from Iran because of renewed US sanctions and a slump in the Turkish market.

Renault's Dacia and Lada brands also continued to book brisk sales, rising seven percent and 19 percent respectively.

And electric vehicle sales jumped 37 percent, led by the Zoe, though they still represented just under 50,000 cars sold last year.

Renault said it was aiming for "slight" growth in sales "with an acceleration in the second half of the year" thanks to the launch of new models, including an updated version of its flagship Clio compact.

Last year marked a sixth straight year of higher sales for the group, which is part of a powerful alliance with Japan's Nissan and Mitsubishi that Ghosn headed before his arrest in Tokyo in November on charges of financial misconduct.

Within days of being taken into custody he was fired as chairman of Nissan and Mitsubishi, but Renault kept him on as chief executive while waiting to see how the case would unfold.

But his days as Renault boss appear numbered.

In a statement Thursday, the carmaker said its governing bodies were now "actively working to find the best solution for the future governance of the group".

The French government, which owns 15 percent of the former state-owned automaker and nearly 22 percent of its voting rights, has called for a board meeting to pick Ghosn's successor.

Renault's statement came hours after a Tokyo court quashed the 64-year-old's appeal for bail on Thursday, keeping him jailed on three charges of financial misconduct.

The former auto industry titan who saved Nissan from bankruptcy is accused of under-reporting millions of dollars in revenue as head of the Japanese firm.

But Ghosn is also facing a wave of other allegations over suspect payments, including a claim by Nissan on Friday that he received nearly eight million euros in "improper payments" from a Netherlands-based joint venture. "Nissan views the payments Ghosn received from NMBV to be the result of misconduct and will consider measures to recover from Ghosn the full sum," the firm said.

Renault's lead independent director Philippe Lagayette told French daily Le Figaro in an interview published Friday that "since the chief executive's absence seems likely to go on, we are now obliged to take sustainable measures".

Renault had already named longtime executive Thierry Bollore, one of several names that have been circulating as a possible successor, as deputy CEO after Ghosn's arrest.

If Ghosn is pushed out as expected, French media reports have said Michelin CEO Jean-Dominique Senard, whose term is set to expire in May, could be named chairman of the board.

"Jean-Dominique Senard is certainly a very qualified leader. But we will do things in the proper order and when we are ready," Lagayette said. "We are not in conflict with Carlos Ghosn," he added, though the board has been unable to speak with him directly concerning the charges against him since his arrest.

Renault has not announced when the board meeting to discuss Ghosn's replacement will take place.

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The 21 January is what has been dubbed Blue Monday, the so-called most depressing day of the year. While the Blue Monday formula may be pseudoscience, stress, depression and anxiety are all very real challenges for employees and productivity has been lagging in the UK for years. Our research found only a third of UK employees are enthusiastic about their jobs in the first place, while almost 10 million are constantly anxious or stressed due to high workloads. This has a significant impact on productivity day-to-day and is something employers need to urgently address. A lot can be achieved with simple measures like offering flexible working to help employees manage their commitments and pursue other areas of their lives in combination with a fulfilling work life. Employee Assistance Programmes can also provide specific help if an employee is struggling with almost any issues, be they at home or at work, legal, financial, emotional or something else. Financial health also has a big impact on mental health. Money worries, particularly in this post-Christmas period, can cause acute stress and anxiety. For employees looking to save a little extra, we have recently enhanced our own EmployeeCare service with a host of discounts and cashback opportunities at a range of leading retailers. All of this, and signposting to qualified counsellors, is delivered through a central app which employees can access whenever it is most convenient for them. Small, attentive steps such as offering these benefits can support employees throughout the entire year  so not every Monday has to be blue.


executive head Bhaiyyaji Joshi has expressed confidence that the will be constructed in Ayodhya by the time of next 'Kumbh' in 2025, the Sangh said in a statement on Friday.

In a bid to "contextualise" the comments, the in a statement issued by spokesperson Arun Kumar said Joshi had made these remarks on Thursday at the ongoing Kumbh in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh.

"When Kumbh is again held after six years in 2025, the construction of Ram temple, which is a symbol of India's honour, will be completed and the nation will move towards prosperity," the spokesperson quoted Joshi as saying.

Joshi, who is number two in the hierarchy of the Sangh, made these remarks at the time when its allied organisation VHP is demanding the government to enact a law which paves the way for construction of temple in Ayodhya.

The Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute is scheduled for hearing on January 29 in the

In Varanasi, said that not just the BJP but the majority people of this country wants to be built in Ayodhya at the earliest.

Sinha said the government will build the temple as per the guidelines laid down in the Constitution.
Tata group firm Rallis India, which is into crop protection business, has reported a 45 per cent decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 13.76 crore for the quarter ended December 2018 on higher tax outgo and other expenses.

Its net profit had stood at Rs 24.94 crore in the year-ago period, according to a regulatory filing.

Total income, however, rose by 7 per cent to Rs 423.25 crore in the third quarter of this financial year, from Rs 393.86 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

"Margins remain constrained owing to higher raw material prices. Expect profitability to pick up going forward following growth-specific initiatives undertaken towards driving growth," Rallis said in a statement.

Higher input cost, imports from China resulted in profitability and margin compression, the company said. It is working towards improving product mix - share of value-added/specialty products to offset impact of rising raw material.

The company said the revenue grew on the back of steady performances in domestic and global markets.

"Strategic initiatives in terms of strengthening dealer network and revised incentive structure aided domestic performance. Exports revenue expanded owing to better performance in the US and Europe," the statement said.

The board has approved the merger of Metahelix Life Sciences Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary) with the company under a scheme of amalgamation.

Commenting on the performance, R Mukundan, managing director and chief executive officer, said: "We have delivered a steady revenue performance for the quarter despite multiple headwinds in the domestic market. However, recent margin pressure experienced across the industry have impacted profits."



Rallis is in the process of a strategic transformation with efforts being directed towards leveraging its strengths in both domestic and international markets, he added.

"We are working towards improving the depth and width of our product portfolio by leveraging our in-house R&D capabilities," Mukundan said.

The board has approved a Rs 100-crore investment to expand capacity in key products.

"We are confident that our initiatives, coupled with supportive macros, will help us deliver sustainable value for our shareholders. Additionally, the board approved the merger of Metahelix which will enable us to offer a unified approach to our customers," he said.

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The Rajasthan Assembly was adjourned for half an hour on Friday following an uproar in the House as the opposition BJP sought clarity from the ruling Congress over the farm loan waiver order.

On December 19 last year, two days after being sworn in, the Congress government in Rajasthan waived short-term crop loans from cooperative banks and loans of up to Rs 2 lakh taken by farmers from other banks.

In the run up to the assembly elections, the Congress had promised to waive the farm loans in Rajasthan within 10 days of coming to power.

Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria dubbed the state government's loan waiver order as "handicapped" and claimed it was creating confusion among the farmers.

Kataria asked Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to specify how many farmers had benefitted from the loan waiver and how much money had been deposited in their bank accounts so far.

"What was the purpose of bringing out a 'handicapped' order? It should be clarified how much money was deposited in the farmers' bank accounts as the government had promised to waive the loans in 10 days," the BJP leader said.

Deputy Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore asked the government the date when the funds will be deposited in the bank accounts of the farmers and said rhetoric will not suffice.

Responding to the opposition, Gehlot said the government had taken a decision and its implementation will take time.

The government's intention is that maximum farmers benefit from the loan waiver, he said.

The chief minister said a committee had been formed to decide the eligibility criteria and his government had also written to the Centre to help the state get the farmers out of financial crisis.

Gehlot attacked the BJP for describing the order as "handicapped".

"I object to the opposition terming the government order as 'handicapped'. Order can never be handicapped but it thinking of the opposition. Our ideology and policies are clear," he said.

Following Gehlot's reply, the opposition MLAs raised slogans and trooped into the Well of the House, alleging that the Congress' 10-day promise was deceiving.

Amid the din, Speaker C P Joshi adjourned the House for half an hour.

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Former BJP legislator and erstwhile royal family member Diya Kumari said Friday she will accept any responsibility given to her by the party.

"I will go with the decision of party. If any responsibility is given to me, I will definitely accept her," she told reporters at a public function here.

Kumari was elected on BJP ticket in 2013 from Swai Madhopur. She had cited personal reasons for not contesting in 2018 assembly election.

Replying to a question whether she will contest Lok Sabha polls, she said, "Whatever responsibility will be given, I will serve it."



It was her first public appearance after divorce from husband Narendra. She had married him in 1997 after going against the family. She has a son and a daughter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
extended his support to on Friday for her "show of unity" in Kolkata on January 19 and hoped that it would send a powerful message of a united

Gandhi is likely to skip Mamata's rally and the has deputed its in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, to represent the Grand Old Party at the event.

In a letter to Banerjee, the chief commended the "great people" of Bengal, who had "historically been at the forefront of defending our ideals".

"I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united together," Gandhi wrote in the letter.

In a post, he said, "The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Mr are intent on destroying."



In his letter to Banerjee as well as in the post on the social media platform, Gandhi said there were powerful forces that were fanned by the anger and disappointment of millions of Indians, who had seen through the "false promises and lies peddled by the government".

"These forces are moved by the hope of a new tomorrow; a tomorrow filled with the idea of an in which the voice of every man, woman and child will be heard and respected no matter what their religion, economic status or region is," he said.

A host of Opposition leaders are likely to attend the supremo's rally in Kolkata on Saturday, which is being projected as her "show of opposition strength" ahead of the polls.
Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan Friday termed the Centre's "urgency" argument regarding the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets, instead of an earlier agreed number of 126, as "ludicrous".

He also questioned the Narendra Modi government on why the entire order of 126 fighter aircraft was not given to Dassault (manufacturers of the Rafale jet) itself.

"According to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the first Rafale will come to India only by the end of 2019, or four years and eight monnths after PM Modi's announcement in Paris on April 10, 2015. Egypt got its first batch of Rafales delivered in six months. Why not India," Chavan asked in a tweet.

Posting the time line of the Egypt-France Rafale deal, Chavan said the deal was signed in Cairo for 24 Rafale jets on February 16, 2015.

The first batch of three Rafales was delivered on July 21, 2015, the second batch of three jets came in January 2016, another three in the 3rd batch came on April 4, 2017, fourth batch of two jets was delivered on July 27, 2017 while another three came in the 5th batch on November 28, 2017, he tweeted.

Chavan, a former MoS in the PMO and former Maharashtra chief minister, asked if the Indian Air Force needed 126 aircraft, why was the number reduced to 36.

"Did the then IAF chief object? If according to Arun Jaitley, the cost of one jet was nine per cent less, why wasn't the entire order of 126 jets given to Dassault alone," Chavan asked.

Describing the defence minister's statement about "urgency" as ludicrous, Chavan said even after four years and eight months, India is yet to get the first delivery of Rafale jet.

He said Egypt, which signed the deal in February 2015, has already got 14 of its 24 Rafale jet deal over two years.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A radical cleric thought to be the spiritual leader of the Bali bombers will be released from prison on medical grounds, Indonesia's president said Friday.

Abu Bakar Bashir, 80, is believed to have been a key figure in terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which was blamed for the 2002 bombings on the holiday island which killed more than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists.

It was Indonesia's deadliest militant attack and prompted Jakarta to beef up anti-terror cooperation with the US and Australia, which has previously opposed clemency for Bashir.

Indonesian leader Joko Widodo said on Friday that he had agreed to order the ailing preacher's release from a prison on the outskirts of the capital.

"The first reason is humanitarian," Widodo told reporters.

"He is old... and his health condition was also part of the consideration." In 2011, the firebrand preacher -- once synonymous with militant Islam in Indonesia -- was sentenced to 15 years in jail for helping fund a paramilitary group training in the conservative Islamic province of Aceh.

Bashir, the co-founder of an infamous Islamic boarding school known for producing militants, was jailed after authorities in the world's biggest Muslim majority country broke up the camp.

Several militants convicted over their involvement in the Bali bombings have been executed while two others, including Malaysian Noordin Mohammed Top, were killed in police raids in 2009 and 2010.

Bashir, who has repeatedly denied involvement in terror attacks, was also previously jailed over the Bali bombings but that conviction was quashed on appeal.

Al-Qaida-linked JI was founded by a handful of exiled Indonesian militants in Malaysia in the 1980s, and grew to include cells across Southeast Asia.

As well as the 2002 Bali bombings, the radical group was blamed for a deadly 2003 car bomb at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta and a suicide car bomb the following year outside the Australian embassy.

An anti-terror crackdown weakened some of Indonesia's most dangerous networks, including Jemaah Islamiyah.

The Islamic State (IS) group proved to be a potent rallying cry for Indonesia's radicals, with hundreds travelling to the Middle East to join the jihadists.

Last year, a wave of deadly suicide bombings at churches and a police post rocked Indonesia's second biggest city Surabaya.

Those attacks were carried out by families -- including children -- linked to local extremist network Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), which has pledged allegiance to IS.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump has denied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a military plane for an "excursion" to Brussels and war-torn Afghanistan, a tit-for-tat retaliation that deepened the divide between the two leaders amidst the longest-ever federal government shutdown.

President Trump's unusual move to postpone Pelosi's overseas trip came on Thursday, a day after the 78-year-old top Democrat, urged him to reschedule his annual State of the Union address slated for January 29, citing security concerns triggered by the shutdown that has entered its 27th day.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divide over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House of Representatives have refused to pass a legislation approving USD 5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border, a poll promise by the Republican president.

"Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over," Trump said in a letter to Pelosi, a copy of which was released to the press, an hour before her delegation was due to leave for the week-long trip.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," Trump wrote to Pelosi, who is third in line to the presidency.

Trump also informed the Speaker of the House of Representatives that he also feel that, during this period, it would be better if Pelosi stayed in Washington negotiating with him how to end the crippling government shutdown and back his demand for funds to construct a border wall with Mexico.

The president also said postponing Pelosi's "public relations event" was totally appropriate.

Later on Thursday, the White House announced it would not send a US delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland later this month, over the shutdown.

Trump had previously said he would not attend, and on Tuesday announced a scaled-back delegation, which was to be led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

The longest-ever shutdown in US history has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including Security and State Department.

"In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that," Trump said.

However, Pelosi's spokesman Drew Hammill said the visit's purpose was to express appreciation to US troops and obtain "critical" briefings from them. The trip did not have Egypt as a stop, he said.

The president said: "I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!"



Trump's letter to Pelosi came soon after the House Speaker told reporters at the US Capitol that the president has been silent for more than 24 hours on the issue of rescheduling his annual State of the Union address.

"We haven't heard. It was a very silent more than 24 hours, to your question that you ask me every time I step out of the office, have you heard? No, we haven't heard yet." Pelosi said taking a dig at the president.

Pelosi's spokesman, Hammill, said the Congressional Delegation to Afghanistan included a required stop in Brussels to allow pilots to rest.

In Brussels, the delegation was scheduled to meet with top NATO commanders, US military leaders and key allies - to affirm the United States' ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance. This weekend visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt as mentioned by the president, the spokesman said.

"The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines," he said.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said, "We want to keep her (Pelosi) in Washington. If she leaves, she guarantees that the second round of paychecks to 800,000 federal workers won't go out. The deadline to make that deal is midnight on Tuesday."



"She wasn't scheduled to be back until Wednesday. The president wants her here to negotiate," she said.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.

The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.

The ongoing shutdown on January 12 broke the previous record of 21 days of US government shutdown under the Bill Clinton administration in December 16, 1995 to January 5, 1996.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump has denied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a military plane for an "excursion" to Brussels and war-torn Afghanistan, a tit-for-tat retaliation that deepened the divide between the two leaders amidst the longest-ever federal government shutdown.

President Trump's unusual move to postpone Pelosi's overseas trip came on Thursday, a day after the 78-year-old top Democrat, urged him to reschedule his annual State of the Union address slated for January 29, citing security concerns triggered by the shutdown that has entered its 27th day.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divide over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House of Representatives have refused to pass a legislation approving USD 5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border, a poll promise by the Republican president.

"Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over," Trump, who is also the commander-in-chief of the military, said in a letter to Pelosi, a copy of which was released to the press, an hour before her delegation was due to leave for the week-long trip.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," Trump wrote to Pelosi, who is third in line to the presidency.

Trump also informed the Speaker of the House of Representatives that he also feel that, during this period, it would be better if Pelosi stayed in Washington negotiating with him how to end the crippling government shutdown and back his demand for funds to construct a border wall with Mexico.

The president also said postponing Pelosi's "public relations event" was totally appropriate.

Later on Thursday, the White House announced it would not send a US delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland later this month, over the shutdown.

Trump had previously said he would not attend, and on Tuesday announced a scaled-back delegation, which was to be led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

The longest-ever shutdown in US history has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including Security and State Department.

"In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that," Trump said.

However, Pelosi's spokesman Drew Hammill said the visit's purpose was to express appreciation to US troops and obtain "critical" briefings from them. The trip did not have Egypt as a stop, he said.

The president said: "I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!"



Trump's letter to Pelosi came soon after the House Speaker told reporters at the US Capitol that the president has been silent for more than 24 hours on the issue of rescheduling his annual State of the Union address.

"We haven't heard. It was a very silent more than 24 hours, to your question that you ask me every time I step out of the office, have you heard? No, we haven't heard yet." Pelosi said taking a dig at the president.

Pelosi's spokesman, Hammill, said the Congressional Delegation to Afghanistan included a required stop in Brussels to allow pilots to rest.

In Brussels, the delegation was scheduled to meet with top NATO commanders, US military leaders and key allies - to affirm the United States' ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance. This weekend visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt as mentioned by the president, the spokesman said.

"The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines," he said.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said, "We want to keep her (Pelosi) in Washington. If she leaves, she guarantees that the second round of paychecks to 800,000 federal workers won't go out. The deadline to make that deal is midnight on Tuesday."



"She wasn't scheduled to be back until Wednesday. The president wants her here to negotiate," she said.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.

The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.

The ongoing shutdown on January 12 broke the previous record of 21 days of US government shutdown under the Bill Clinton administration in December 16, 1995 to January 5, 1996.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump has postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan in an apparent response to her suggestion that he reschedule his annual State of Union address.

The president cited the government shutdown, the longest-ever in US history, for postponing Pelosi's foreign trip.

Trump's move came Thursday a day after the House Speaker urged him to reschedule his annual State of the Union address slated for January 29, citing security concerns triggered by the shutdown that has entered its 27th day.

"Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over," Trump said in a letter to Pelosi, a copy of which was released to the press.

The president also said postponing this "public relations event" was totally appropriate.

The shutdown has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including Security and State department.

In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that, Trump said.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divided over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House have refused to approve a legislation approving USD 5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border.

"I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the strong border security movement to end the shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative, Trump said.

He said, I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!



Trump's letter to Pelosi came soon after the House Speaker told reporters at the US Capitol that the president has been mum on for more than 24 hours on the issue of rescheduling his annual State of the Union address.

We haven't heard. It was a very silent more than 24 hours, to your question that you ask me every time I step out of the office, have you heard? No, we haven't heard yet. Pelosi said taking a dig at the president.

In her letter, Pelosi had also told Trump Wednesday that the US Secret Service was designated as the lead federal agency responsible for coordinating, planning, exercising and implementing security for National Special Security Events by Public Law 106-544, December 19, 2000.

"However, both the US Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have not been funded for 26 days now - with critical departments hamstrung by furloughs," she said.

"Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th," Pelosi said.

In a tweet Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, however, said the Department of Homeland Security and the secret services were "fully prepared to "support and secure" the State of the Union.

"The Department of Homeland Security and the US Secret Service are fully prepared to support and secure the State of the Union. We thank the Service for their mission focus and dedication and for all they do each day to secure our homeland," Nielsen had said on Twitter.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling. The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hello readers! I am currently on my maternity leave spending some quality time with my family! Enjoy this guest post from todays featured author, William R. Cupach, Ph.D.

William R. Cupach is Professor Emeritus in the School of Communication at Illinois State University. He has certifications as Italian Wine Professional (from Italian Wine Central) and American Wine Expert (from Napa Valley Wine Academy). His email address is wrcupac@ilstu.edu.

Minerality is a ubiquitous term used by wine drinkers and critics to describe certain wines. The term is relatively new in the lexicon of wine, gaining widespread use in just the last few decades. Mineral notes are often ascribed to white wines with crisp acidity, but the term is used in reference to some red wines, albeit less frequently. A whole family of wine descriptions related to minerality has emerged, including slate, limestone, chalk, flint, wet stone, crushed rocks, gravel, graphite, silex, metallic, iodine, smoky, ocean air, oyster shell, and salty. It is tempting to characterize the flavor profile of a wine, particularly fine wine, in ways that connect to the particular soil in which the corresponding vines grew. This resonates with the concept of terroir, in which wine expresses the unique aspects of a particular vineyard site. Thus, some wines from particular locations are noted for mineral tastes that associate with elements of the soil in which the vines grow. Riesling from the Mosel is noted

for imparting the taste of slate; Champagne is noted for its chalky quality; and Chablis yields impressions of flint. These sensory perceptions of flavor and/or texture of the wine are presumed to derive from the corresponding rocks and minerals in the soil. But do they? Can you really taste what is in the soil?

Can You Taste Rocks and Minerals in Wine?

In discussing the relationship between soil minerals and the flavor profile of wines, it is useful to distinguish two types of minerals: geologic and nutrient (Maltman, 2018). Geologic minerals are inorganic components in soil. They generally have no smell or taste. If you were to lick a rock, what you actually would taste is the organic components from nearby plants that landed on the rock (Lewin, 2017). Moreover, grapevines are not capable of absorbing these crystalline compounds (Maltman, 2008; 2013).

Nutrient minerals, metal ions contained within geologic minerals, are essential for plant growth and development. Grapevines need components such as potassium, nitrogen, phosphorous, iron, zinc, and others. But the trace concentrations of these nutrient minerals in a finished wine are so small as to be undetectable by sensory perception (Maltman, 2013).

This is not to say that minerals and rocks have no effect on a wine. These elements can affect such things as soil drainage, temperature around the vine (rocks reflect sunshine, thereby producing heat), and perhaps the types of microorganisms that can thrive in particular soils. But the ultimate effects of rocks and minerals on wine flavor are complex and indirect. More research is needed to understand how rocks and soils can promote specific organic compounds during fermentation, from which many wine aromas and flavors are created.

Whatever minerality is in wine, it is definitely not the taste of minerals in the soil. It is a metaphorical reference to what the wine is like, not what the wine actually contains. We know there is no tobacco or cherry or chocolate in a wine, yet we find these terms useful to depict

our sensory perception of it. Minerality and its related terms are used similarlyas metaphors for what we think the wine is like. But minerality seems less precise and more ambiguous as a metaphor than chocolate or cherry. When wine tasters and critics refer to minerality, what meanings do they attach to the term?

Research on the Meanings of Minerality

A number of studies using varied and sophisticated procedures have investigated the meanings ascribed to minerality in wine by consumers and experts. One conclusion is that the sensory perception of minerality is multi-modal, involving smell, taste, and mouthfeel (Heymann, et al., 2014; Parr et al. 2014). It is unclear, however, whether these modes combine to create a unified perception of minerality, or if separate, distinct notions of minerality correspond to each of these senses (Ballester et al., 2013).

Another conclusion is that minerality is an imprecise wine descriptor, which has varied meanings for different individuals. This is true for both consumers (Deneulin, Le Fur, & Bavaud, 2016) and wine experts (Deneulin & Bavaud, 2016), although less knowledgeable consumers tend to give simpler and more vague descriptions (e.g., dry white wine) compared to more knowledgeable consumers and wine professionals (Deneulin, Le Fur, & Bavaud, 2016; Rodrigues et al., 2015). Some consumers and wine professionals reference minerality in generic terms like terroir, soil, geology, and earth (Deneulin, Le Fur, & Bavaud, 2016; Rodrigues et al., 2015). Others use place names (e.g., Chablis, Loire Valley) or varietal names (e.g., Sauvignon Blanc) to indicate minerality (Deneulin & Bavaud, 2016; Rodrigues et al., 2015). These terms tie the sensory perception of minerality in wine to the geographical origin of its grapes, but do little to clarify exactly what the wine smells and tastes like.

Some wine experts link the presence of minerality to either a bitter or salty taste (Ballester et al., 2013; Heymann et al., 2014; Rodrigues et al., 2015). Karen MacNeil (2015), author of The Wine Bible, offers an intriguing but untested hypothesis that minerally wines activate salt receptors on the tongue, thereby amplifying other flavors, much like salt does with food. This would be an interesting proposition to research.

Perhaps the most common flavor sensation associated with minerality is acidity, which also includes descriptors such as freshness and zingy (Ballester et al., 2013; Parr et al., 2014). This is consistent with a chemical analysis conducted by Heymann and colleagues (2014) showing that wines judged higher in minerality by wine professionals and trained judges exhibited higher levels of malic acid and titratable acidity. But to associate minerality with acidic wines does not do much to specify what is uniquely mineral. Not all highly acidic wines exhibit minerality, and some wines low in acidity are characterized by minerality. Surely mineral aroma/flavor must be something more than acidity.

More specific aromas linked to minerality are largely stone-related, including flinty/gunflint/smoky, wet stone, pebble, granite, limestone, chalky/calcareous, and lead/graphite. A few other terms can be categorized as seashore related; i.e., iodine, shellfish, oyster shell, and saltiness (Ballester et al., 2013; Deneulin, Le Fur, & Bavaud, 2016; Deneulin & Bavaud, 2016; Parr et al., 2014).

Perhaps owing partly to its ambiguity, not all wine consumers and professionals find the term minerality useful. In one study, 23% of consumers did not have a referent for minerality in wine (Deneulin, Le Fur, & Bavaud, 2016). There are also some wine experts who do not distinguish wines with respect to minerality and eschew using the term as a wine descriptor (e.g., Ballester et al., 2013).

Is Minerality a Useful Wine Descriptor?

The term minerality is pervasive enough in wine tasting notes that it would seem difficult to deny its utility. It certainly serves as a marketing tool. But the term is polysemous and a precise meaning remains elusive. The referents and standards for minerality are less consensual than descriptors involving fruity, floral, vegetal, and animal aromas. Minerality means different things to different people. To describe minerality as bitter or acidic or salty does not suggest anything unique beyond these fundamental tastes. Terms that refer to rocks and specific geologic minerals seem minimally helpful since in nature, these have no smell or taste. Labels like oyster shell and chalk may have as much to do with the texture of a wine as its aroma, but there is no consensus. Flinty or matchstick might be more useful, but it is quite specific and likely derives from sulfur compounds. Although individuals find minerality and its family of related terms useful to describe what they sense in a particular wine, it is not clear that using these terms conjure up the same meaning in the minds of other wine tasters. Yet minerality is entrenched in current wine vocabulary. Master of Wine Benjamin Lewin (2017) summed it up well: Minerality is one of the most difficult qualities to define in wine, although like pornography, you recognize it when you find it.

References

Ballester, J., Mihnea, M., Peyron, D., & Valentin, D. (2013). Exploring minerality of Burgundian Chardonnay wines: A sensory approach with wine experts and trained panellists. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research, 19, 140-152.

Deneulin, P., & Bavaud, F. (2016). Analyses of open-ended questions by renormalized associativities and textual networks: A study of perception of minerality in wine. Food Quality and Preference, 47 (Part A), 34-44.

Deneulin, P., Le Fur, Y., & Bavaud, F. (2016). Study of the polysemic term of minerality in wine: Segmentation of consumers based on their textual responses to an open-ended survey. Food Research International, 90, 288-297.

Heymann, H., Hopfer, H., & Bershaw, D. (2014). An exploration of the perception of minerality in white wines by projective mapping and descriptive analysis. Journal of Sensory Studies, 29, 1-13.

Lewin, B. (2017). Wine myths & reality (2nd ed.). Dover, DE: Vendange Press.

MacNeil, K. (2015). The wine bible (revised 2nd ed.). New York: Workman Publishing.

Maltman, A. (2008). The role of vineyard geology in wine typicity. Journal of Wine Research, 19, 1-17.

Maltman, A. (2013). Minerality in wine: A geological perspective. Journal of Wine Research, 24, 169-181.

Maltman, A. (2018). Vineyards, rocks, & soils: The wine lovers guide to geology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Parr, W. V., Ballester, J., Peyron, D., Grose, C., & Valentin, D. (2015). Perceived minerality in Sauvignon wines: Influence of culture and perception mode. Food Quality and Preference, 41, 121-132.

Rodrigues, H., Ballester, J., Saenz-Nvajas, M. P., & Valentin, D. (2015). Structural approach of social representation: Application to the concept of wine minerality in experts and consumers. Food Quality and Preference, 46, 166-172.
A section of students of the Presidency University here went on an indefinite fast on Friday demanding withdrawal of the suspension of three students.

The three students were suspended on December 19 for locking the gate of the university and preventing the Vice Chancellor and other officials from entering the premises on September 10 when agitation over the hand over of Hindu Hostel was going on.

A spokesman of the agitating students Subho Biswas told PTI, 7 students including the three suspended ones sat for indefinite fast from 9 pm Friday demanding withdrawal of the suspension order and they be allowed to attend classes.

The institute has unions of both SFI and Independent Consolidation (IC).

Biswas said that a written appeal by the three to the university authorities for revoking the suspension order was turned down and they were asked to issue "unconditional apology" which the three students refused to do.

Referring to the September 10 incident of locking the gate, a day before the Convocation, he said "the three have been singled out among the 500 agitating students as main troublemakers on that day but under what logic is not clear."



He alleged the inquiry committee, formed by the university authority to probe the incident, adopted a vindictive policy and did not speak to everyone concerned.

The fast followed after the students approached the dean and registrar for withdrawal of the suspension on Thursday but both officials ruled out any such possibility, a university official said.

Ruling out any step by VC Anuradha Lohia to revoke the suspension of three, the official said Lohia has already reduced the suspension period of the three students from one year to six months considering their career prospects though the enquiry committee had recommended one year suspension for three students and six months suspension for another 18.

These 18 students were allowed by VC to go with a warning that the institute will be stricter against such conduct in the future, the official said adding the university authorities could do nothing more on the issue.

Lohia was not available for comments.

Since November 28, boarders were allocated rooms in the Hindu Hostel, the over 130-year-old accommodation, after completion of renovation in two blocks. Students had gone on fast for immediate shifting to Hindu Hostel in October last year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam Friday demanded that the publication of electoral rolls be postponed till all the bogus voters were removed from the list.

The final voters' list is scheduled to be released on January 31.

Nirupam, who had alleged that bogus voters were being enrolled in the voters' list, met Chief Electoral officer Ashwani Kumar over the issue.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Nirupam said, "According to the draft rolls released in September 2018, it was found that many bogus voters were registered in Mumbai."



"Based on our research, we have found out that every assembly constituency has 20,000 bogus voters on an average, and almost 1.25 lakh to 5 lakh bogus voters are registered in every Lok Sabha constituency.

"We met Ashwani Kumar and urged him that the publication of electoral rolls date be postponed from January 31 since it is impossible to delete the names of all the bogus voters before this date," he said.

A lot of genuine voters have been complaining that they are not receiving their voter cards, the Congress leader said.

"With these many bogus voters, who have been given the power to vote, the genuine voters are deprived of their right to vote. The Election Commission doesn't have the necessary set-up required to identify bogus voters in such huge numbers," he alleged.

Nirupam also demanded that officers must visit every constituency, find these bogus voters and delete their names.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is to meet former North Korean spy chief Kim Yong Chol on Friday for talks aimed at finalizing a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The State Department announced the late-morning meeting, and other administration officials indicated it likely will be followed by Kim Yong Chol's visit to the White House, where he could meet with Trump. Those officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, talks in Stockholm included North Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, said Swedish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Diana Kudhaib, who declined to give further details. Sweden's TT agency said also attending were US special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun and Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, who was influential in securing the first Trump-Kim summit.

Sweden has had diplomatic relations with Pyongyang since 1973 and is one of only a few Western countries with an embassy there. It provides consular services for the United States.

In March, Wallstrom held talks with her North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong Ho, in Stockholm, leading to the meeting between Trump and Kim in June in Singapore.

Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit with Kim early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with the North Korean despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearization agreement reached at their first meeting. Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology.

At a conference of US diplomats at the State Department on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged the lack of progress. He called the Trump-Kim dialogue "promising" but stressed that "we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region."



A planned meeting between Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. US officials said at the time that North Korea had canceled the session.

A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the two sides were "working to make progress" on the denuclearization goal and that Trump "looks forward to meeting Chairman Kim again at their second summit at a place and time yet to be determined."



The talks had stalled over North Korea's refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court on Friday granted bail to alleged hawala dealer Mohammad Aslam Wani, arrested in a money laundering case involving Kashmiri separatist Shabir Shah.

Justice Najmi Waziri granted relief to Wani, who has been in jail since he was arrested in 2017.

The court directed him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 3 lakh and two sureties of the like amount.

Wani was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), with the help of Jammu and Kashmir Police, from Srinagar on August 6, 2017 and is currently in judicial custody. Shabir Shah was arrested by the agency from Srinagar on July 26, 2017.

The ED had opposed Wani's bail plea saying the investigation was still going on. It said there was an apprehension that if released, Wani may flee from justice.

A trial court had earlier denied bail to Wani in the decade-old case.

Wani was earlier apprehended on August 26, 2005, with the ED claiming that Rs 63 lakh had been recovered from him.

Advocate M S Khan, appearing for Wani, had sought bail after the Supreme Court set aside all orders by which bail to an accused was denied due to a stringent condition in money laundering cases and directed that such cases be remanded back to the respective courts to be heard on merit.

Khan had said a 2010 trial court judgement clearing Wani of terror funding charges in 2005 case, based on which the current money laundering case was lodged in 2007, was later confirmed by the Delhi High Court.

The ED had claimed that Wani had not cooperated in the probe and the money trail was yet to be ascertained.

In September 2017, the agency filed a charge sheet against Wani and Shah, whose bail application in the case was also dismissed on August 22, the same year.

The ED's action against the two was in pursuance of the August 2005 case in which the Delhi Police's Special Cell had arrested Wani, who is alleged to have claimed he had passed on Rs 2.25 crore to Shah.

The agency had registered a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against Shah and Wani.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Maharashtra government Friday told the Bombay High Court that it would soon set up a pilot project in any one area of Mumbai to take satellite images to keep an eye on illegal constructions.

Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni told a division bench of Chief Justice N H Patil and Justice N M Jamdar that Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping will be initiated in one area of the metropolis as a pilot project.

GIS is a system designed to capture, store, analyse, manage and present spatial and geographic data.

The court had in September last year, while hearing a petition filed by a society that was declared as illegal later, asked the government if it can use satellite imaging to monitor illegal structures.

The bench was informed by Kumbhakoni that a team of experts in the field has been formed to study the issue and that the government has also consulted an expert from Germany, who was part of the team that set up a similar system in Hyderabad city.

The court, while adjourning the hearing on the petition, sought to know from the civic body commissioner in which area the pilot project could be launched.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A women's bicycle rally in Pakistan's Peshawar city has been called off after threats from religious groups to protest against the event, according to organisers.

The rally, a first such event in the Khyber Pakthunkhawa province's capital city, was scheduled to take place on Saturday.

On Friday, some religious outfits led by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) and Jamaat-i-Islami threatened to derail the event through protests and rallies.

JUI-F's Maulana Rafiullah Qasmi alleged on Friday that the women's bicycle rally would spread obscenity.

He said they had planned a big demonstration, including rallies, against the event on Saturday.

The rally was being organised by the Zama Jawadoon, a women's right organisation. It had announced the rally would start from Peshawar's Hayatabad neighbourhood.

Event organiser, Wafa Wazir said at least 35 women had signed up for the bicycle rally and people from the transgender community had also been invited for the event.

Wazir said they had decided to postpone the event after the protest call by religious groups because they did not want the event to take place amid unrest.

Speaking to reporters, she claimed that they had got the required no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Peshawar district administration before announcing the peace rally.

However, police officials said the organisers had not contacted them for any security or the NOC.

Apparently after threats from religious parties the organisers have said the rally is postponed, a senior official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar Friday demanded a total liquor ban in Yavatmal, a district in Vidarbha infamous for farmer suicides.

Addressing a rally, she said the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra should immediately announce a total ban on liquor in Yavatmal district.

The step should be taken before the Lok Sabha poll schedule is announced, she said at the rally here attended by women.

If liquor is not banned in Yavatmal, women from the district will not vote for the party and ensure it is defeated, Patkar said.

The rally was organised under the aegis of Swamini Daru Bandi Andolan Samiti, an anti-liquor outfit.

Patkar said political parties should include liquor ban in their respective election manifestos.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A day after supporters of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh and former Himachal Congress chief Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu clashed here, the party Friday constituted a two-member committee to probe the incident.

Talking to media persons at the Congress Bhawan here, Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president Kuldeep Singh Rathore said the panel would submit its report within 15 days.

"A two-member impartial, high-power committee comprising advocates Nareshwar Singh Chandel and Rupinder Singh Thakur has been constituted to look into the the clash and submit a report within 15 days," he said.

The HPCC chief also directed officials to supply all relevant records to the panel including the video clipping of Thursday's scuffle at the headquarters of the party's Himachal Pradesh unit shortly after he took charge as the new state-level president.

Terming the incident as unfortunate, Rathore reiterated that indiscipline in the party would not be tolerated at any cost and stern action would be taken against the guilty.

Earlier, in their statements issued to the media, three HPCC secretaries Mahesh Sharma, Manjeet Thakur and Pradeep Verma had demanded action against the supporters of Virbhadra Singh accusing them of provoking the other side and initiating the brawl.

This is not for the first time that Virbhadra Singh's supporters have resorted to such tactics as they had earlier misbehaved with senior party leaders including Anand Sharma, Vidya Stokes and Kaul Singh Thakur, the trio alleged further.

There was no immediate comment from the former chief minister's faction.

Meanwhile, none of the five Congress workers booked for allegedly attacking Rajeev Rana, a Sukhu supporter, have been arrested yet, Shimla deputy superintendent of police Pramod Shukla said.

A case was registered at the Sadar Police Station against Virbhadra supporters-- Mohinder Stan, Vinod Zinta, Deepak Khurana, Ved Prakash, Virender Wanstu and others on Rana's complaint.

"Rana is unable to talk to the police as he is undergoing treatment for his head injury. Though, FIR was lodged on his complaint, the police require some more information from him before making arrests," the DSP told PTI.

Meanwhile, Himachal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief spokesperson Randhir Sharma alleged that the Congress had become synonymous with "indiscipline and hooliganism".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Battling with hunger for few days due to utter poverty, the seven-member family of Mouzudin Bhat in remote Hapatnar hamlet of South Kashmir had a meal on Thursday after a group of displaced Kashmiri Pandits braved heavy snowfall to bring them essential supplies.

Not only did the displaced Pandits from the Mattan transit camp led by Ranjan Jyotshi and Vinod Tickoo brought them rations, medicines and other essentials but also ensured financial assistance to the family by collecting funds through Facebook and other social media platforms.

"After six days all of us ate food. Our 4 children have not eaten food for several days. Thanks to these Kashmiri Pandit boys, who came to our help", Raja Begum, one of the family members told reporters.

Jyotshi, who works for the social welfare department, learnt of their plight during a visit to the far flung area of Hapatnar.

He and Vinod Tickoo, an engineer collected rice, flour, oils, spices, sugar, tea, milk, pulses, medicines and blankets, quilts and clothes with the help of KP employees of Matan transit camp and rushed to Bhat's house in two vehicles Thursday.

"Service to mankind is service to God. I was pained on their very bad situation. My heart wept when they said that they are hungry for days. I along with my KP employees reached out to them with all essential material to ensure they do not starve", Jyotshi said.

All Party Migrant Coordination Committee (APMCC) Chairman Vinod Pandit, who was also there to support, said it is a message to the people of Kashmir that despite mistrust, KPs have a human heart to help their Muslim brethren.

People in South Kashmir have also appreciated this gesture of the minority KP community.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan will host the next round of talks between the US and Afghan Taliban in Islamabad, it was decided on Friday during a meeting between Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, according to a media report.

Quoting diplomatic sources, GEO reported that Pakistan decided to extend an invitation to the Afghan Taliban representatives to come to Islamabad and hold talks.

It is expected that Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar would also be part of the peace talks, it said.

The decision to hold the next round of talks between the US and Afghan Taliban in Islamabad was taken on Friday during a meeting between Qureshi and Khalilzad, the report said without giving a date for the negotiations.

US President Donald Trump has been pressing Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to facilitate Afghan peace talks, with Washington reportedly making it a condition for a future summit between the two leaders in Washington.

During the meeting between Qureshi and Khalilzad, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, the Foreign Minister said that the Taliban were not willing to sit with the Afghan administration nor were they willing for a ceasefire, the report said.

Khalilzad requested that Pakistan should play its role to make the dialogue successful, it said.

Khalilzad, who arrived in Pakistan on Thursday from Kabul, as part of his four-nation tour, told Qureshi that the US leadership values Pakistan's efforts for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.

Khalilzad has held three round of talks with the Afghan Taliban to reach a settlement that would allow the US to withdraw its army and end a 17-year-old war America's longest.

Qureshi assured Khalilzad that Pakistan will continue its efforts to facilitate the Afghan-reconciliation process to bring peace and stability to the region.

"We have a shared responsibility to work towards bringing peace in Afghanistan," the minister said.

A US-delegation comprising the representatives of the State Department and Defence and National Security Council also attended the meeting.

Khalilzad is on his fifth visit to the region for Afghan reconciliation since he assumed office.

On Thursday, the US envoy met with Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and discussed progress on the Afghan peace process.

Khalilzad has already visited India and met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on January 10.

India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and has committed aid worth USD 3 billion to the war-ravaged country.

New Delhi has also been pressing for an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace initiative to bring peace and stability in the war-ravaged country.

The Afghan peace initiative has been moving at a snail's pace due to refusal of the Taliban to sit for talks with the Afghan government officials.

Pakistan last year released senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar from imprisonment in an attempt to woo the militant group to engage in talks.

Baradar was deputy to the late Taliban supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar.

The report of Pakistan may host the next round of Afghan peace talks came hours after a US Congressional report said that Islamabad may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong and unified one.

"Pakistan may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong, unified Afghan state (particularly one led by a Pashtun-dominated government in Kabul; Pakistan has a large Pashtun minority)," the report prepared by the Congressional Research Service said.

"Pakistan sees Afghanistan as potentially providing strategic depth against India, but may also anticipate that improved relations with Afghanistan's leadership could limit India's influence in Afghanistan," said the report titled, "Afghanistan: Background and US Policy in Brief".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


PlayUp Fails to Complete Acquisition of 123gaming

Perth, Jan 18, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Mission NewEnergy Limited ( ASX:MBT ) ( OTCMKTS:MNELF ) announces today that the proposed acquisition between Playup (PLA) and 123gaming, as announced on August 1, 2018, has failed to proceed.Despite Mission's formal request for updates from PLA on the PLA acquisitions announced since April 2018, PLA has declined to update MBT as to the status of any of the transactions announced and as such MBT can provide no assurances as to the status of these said acquisitions by PLA.PLA have not notified MBT as to the change in transaction status with 123gaming, but MBT has been notified by 123gaming of the following public announcement."123gaming Cancels Sale to PlayUp AustraliaLondon, United Kingdom, January 16, 2019. 123gaming Limited advises today that they have canceled the sale to PlayUp Australia and their "World First Token Deal" Acquisition using PlayChips as was reported in several articles over the past few months. 123gaming had been awaiting the agreed settlement in PlayChips from PlayUp but without resolution. 123gaming has come to the conclusion PlayUp is unable to complete the purchase and is not likely to in the future.CEO of 123gaming - Rob Earle said, "Clearly, we are very disappointed by the collapse of this deal, but we very much still believe in the concept and will be moving on to seek out other opportunities that can properly fulfill the promise of a universal gaming token and integrated platform that we can utilize in the US marketplace. With that in mind, we will be reaching out to a number of other players in the space with the hopes of continuing the mission," concluded Earle.MBT continues to review the status of the contract with PLA in light of PLA's payment default as announced on January 10, 2019.Mission shall continue to update the market in accordance with its continuous disclosure obligations.THIS ANNOUNCEMENT HAS NOT BEEN APPROVED BY THE AUSTRALIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE ("ASX") FOR RELEASE ON THE ASX LATFORM AS THE ASX HAS EXPRESSED CONCERN TO MBT IN RELATION TO THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION AND THE SUITABILITY OF THE COMPANY TO BE LISTED ON THE ASX POST-COMPLETION OF THE TRANSACTIONTHE ASX THEREFORE TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONTENTS OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENTTo view the release, please visit:About Mission NewEnergy Limited

Mission NewEnergy Ltd (ASX:MBT) (OTCMKTS:MNELF) is an Australian Securities Exchange ("ASX") listed company.
A 13-year-old student died on the spot, while four others were injured when a wall of their school building collapsed near here Friday afternoon, police said.

The school is located at village Ashti in Bhatkuli tehsil of this district in eastern Maharashtra, they said.

The deceased was identified as Vaibhav Gawande, a Class 8 student of Manibai Chhaganlal Desai Vidyalaya, the police said, adding the injured pupils were rushed to the district general hospital here for treatment.

According to the police, the school building is in a dilapidated condition and one of its walls suddenly caved in at around 1 pm.

Five students were trapped under the debris of which one died on the spot, they said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A local court Friday sentenced nine members of a family including two women in connection with a 2013 murder case related to witchcraft in Dumka district.

Additional District and Session Judge-II, Pawan Kumar sentenced them to life imprisonment under various Sections of the IPC including 302 (murder) and 149 (unlawful assembly).

The court also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 each.

The convicts will have to serve six months of additional imprisonment if they failed to pay the fine.

On the night of December 13, 2013, a group of people barged into the house of Lalmuni Devi in Machdiha village under Jermundi police station area, branded her a witch and beat her to death.

After assaulting her family members who tried to save her, they stuffed the body in a sack and took it away. It was recovered later.

The convicts were identified as four brothers Madan Rai, Sanat Rai, Rohit Rai and Fudan Rai and their sister Lukho Devi, Fudan's wife Hirani Devi, and three others.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sri Lanka is seeking "serious dialogues" with India for repatriation of Lankan refugees living in Tamil Nadu, its envoy Friday said while asserting that his country wants them to be resettled back home with provision of housing and livelihood.

A large number of Lankan refugees continue to live in Tamil Nadu over 30 years after the outbreak of civil war had caused them to flee the country.

Interacting with reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of South Asia (FCC) here, High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to India, Austin Fernando, said he has planned to "meet the refugees" in Tamil Nadu and other people to hold consultations.

However, he did not specify any timeframe.

"What we know is that about 100,000 of them (refugees) are there in south India. And, nearly 20 to 30 per cent do not want to return to Lanka and stay back," said Fernando, who took charge as the envoy last November.

He said this issue will take time to resolve and has to be done in planned manner, but for the refugee problem to be successfully settled "we need to assure them that they will be looked after once they return".

"Sri Lanka needs to give them feeling that they will have food, shelter, education for their children and means for livelihood when they go back. We have to work on that. We have to ensure that they are safe when they are back," he said, adding, "there are a few logistical issues".

"There are these basic issues like whether they will go by ferry or ships, that have to be worked out," Fernando said.

"India has been hosting Lankan refugees for the past 20-25 years... And, we are working on the (repatriation) issue, but we need serious dialogues on the matter," he said, "we seek help from all quarters".

The High Commissioner, without naming any party, alleged that there are at times political reasons behind the delay in the repartition. "In India, there is also some sort of an organised attempt or an attempt by some people to have noise around this issue," he said.

More than 3,000 Sri Lankan refugees, who were staying in India, had left for their home country since 2015, the Tamil Nadu government had said last July.

The refugees had been repatriated with the assistance of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, it said.

Over 3.04 lakh Sri Lankan Tamil refugees had come to Tamil Nadu following the ethnic violence in the island republic in 1984, a policy note of the Public Department, a portfolio held by Chief Minister K Palaniswami, tabled in the state Assembly had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Russian oil giant Rosneft-led Nayara Energy Friday unveiled a USD 850 million expansion plan for its Vadinar refinery in Gujarat, marking its foray into the petrochemical business.

Nayara Energy, erstwhile known as Essar Oil, operates a 20 million tonnes a year oil refinery at Vadinar.

In the first phase, the company plans to set up a 450,000 tonnes per annum polypropylene plant, its CEO B Anand said after the firm signed an MoU committing the investment.

Polypropylene is used in a variety of applications, including packaging for consumer products, plastic parts for various industries including the automotive industry, special devices like living hinges, and textiles.

The planned investment is for a 450,000 tonnes a year Propylene Recovery Unit (PRU), a similar capacity Polypropylene plant and a 200,000 tonnes MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) plant.

"The planned investment is basically diversification into petrochemical business," he said, adding the unit is targeted to be completed by 2022-end.

Nayara Energy signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with the Government of Gujarat at the summit.

Under the terms of the MoUs, Nayara Energy has committed to invest USD 850 million (around Rs 6,000 crore) towards phase-1 of the expansion plan which will see the establishment of new refinery and petrochemical units.

This investment will contribute significantly towards the development of Devbhumi Dwarka district as a petrochemical hub in India.

Anand said besides the petrochemical unit, investments would also go into adding capacity at the refinery to produce Euro-VI grade petrol and diesel.

As part of the pacts signed, Nayara Energy will initiate smart agriculture and water conservation programme in 11,000 hectares in Dwarka.

"With our investments and the retail expansion that is underway, we plan to optimize India's energy basket and offer energy to everyone," Anand said.

Rosneft in August 2017 bought Essar Oil for USD 12.9 billion and later renamed the company as Nayara Energy.

Speaking at the 9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit, Rosneft Global Head of Downstream Didier Casimiro said the company was gearing up to meet India's rising demand for oil while at the same time preparing to meet fuel requirements for the stricter BS-VI emission norm.

"I am glad to announce today that Nayara Energy will enter into a MoU worth USD 850 million with the Gujarat government for our expansion plan which will see us start a new refinery unit," he said.

Through Nayara Energy, Rosneft and its partner are committed to providing for India's energy security, Casimiro said.

"I would like to reassure everybody here and the Indian government that we are poised to supply India's rising demand while meeting the superior fuel to meet stricter emission standards," he added.

India is set to implement the strict emission norm of Bharat Stage VI from April 1, 2020.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
president Friday said the nation is waiting for a new prime minister and a message of change would go out loud and clear from the mega opposition rally of Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress on Saturday here.

Yadav alleged the incumbent government at the Centre was responsible for causing distress to people from all walks of life across the country, including farmers, youth, poor and traders, and everyone was looking for a change.

"The country wants a new prime minister. The country is waiting for a new Prime Minister," Yadav said at the NSC Bose Airport after reaching the city to attend the January 19 public rally at the invitation of West Bengal Chief Minister Banerjee.



Praising Banerjee for inviting "all leaders" for the rally, Yadav said she is giving a strong message by doing so to the entire country.

"The message that will go from Bengal and from Didi (Banerjee) will be the message for change," he said.

Several opposition leaders are scheduled to attend the rally, which is being touted as Trinamool Congress supremo's attempt to galvanise a federal front against the BJP and as a show of strength before the upcoming general elections.

Yadav's (SP) few days back announced an alliance with erstwhile arch-rival Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the general elections to defeat BJP in Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 Lok Sabha members and from where the saffron party had bagged 71 seats in 2014.
Industries Chairman and Managing Director Friday urged Prime Minister to take steps against 'data colonisation', specially by global corporations, stating that Indian data must be owned by Indians.

Invoking Mahatma Gandhi's movement against political colonisation, Ambani said India now needs a new movement against

"Gandhiji led India's movement against political colonisation. Today, we have to collectively launch a new movement against data colonisation," he said here at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

Stressing that, in this new world, data is the new wealth, Ambani said, "India's data must be controlled and owned by Indian people and not by corporates, specially global corporations."

He further said, "For India to succeed in this data driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India. In other words, give Indian wealth back to every Indian."

ALSO READ: India shall lead the world in digital connectivity soon, says Mukesh Ambani

Stating that the "entire world has come to recognise" Modi "as a man of action", Ambani said, "Honorable Prime Minister, am sure you will make this one of the principal goals of your mission.
The Mobile Task Force (MTF) of Tripura police has detected 2,245 illegal immigrants in the state last year, a senior police officer said Friday.

"We have detected 2,245 illegal immigrants in Tripura last year among them 2,058 are male and 187 are female. Most of the illegal migrants are from neighbouring Bangladesh," the officer said.

He said there are seven detention camps of MTF in the state and illegal migrants are put in the camps before deportation.

"Altogether 2,127 Bangladeshis were deported last year," the officer said.

Tripura shares a 856-km long border with Bangladesh.

"Many Bangladeshis enter into Indian territory for treatment, to attend marriage ceremony or other programmes without passports. In case any immigrant carries contraband or arms, we register cases against them and move courts for legal actions. Those who are found not involved in any crime are deported," the officer said.

He said the major achievement of the MTF last year was the arrest 25 Bangladeshi nationals from Agartala Railway station in June.

They are now lodged in Bishalgarh central jail as cases were registered against them for their alleged involvement with ISI of Pakistan, the officer added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
State-run manganese ore producer MOIL Friday announced that it has entered into a pact with GMDC to set up a plant in joint venture in Gujarat with an investment of around Rs 250 crore and to conduct joint exploration of manganese-bearing areas.

MOIL has signed a memorandum of understanding with Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) "to take up project of joint exploration of manganese-bearing areas, exploring its feasibility and to conduct mining operations as well as to set up value additional plant in JV at Vadodara and Chhota Udepur (Gujarat) with a proposed investment of approximately Rs 250 crore," the company said in a BSE filing.

The company said it is proposed to commence activities of exploration on this project in 2019.

The Gujarat government would facilitate MOIL to obtain necessary clearances from the concerned departments of the state, it said.

"MoU is made to facilitate MOIL and GMDC for operating manganese mines and/or establishment of the aforesaid project(s) in Gujarat," it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Questioning Narendra Modi over his claims of fighting corruption in the country, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy alleged that on one hand, the prime minister was talking about fighting corruption and, on the other, his party was trying to poach Congress legislators by using money.

"What you have been watching for one week, (is) how the BJP is trying to destabilise the stable government in Karnataka. I want to put one question to the honourable prime minister: Recently, during his party meeting, he (Modi) said he wanted to remove corruption and clean the country. For this, he requested citizen of the country to support him.

"But what's going on in Karnataka? Which money they (BJP) are offering to Congress MLAs to support them? From where the money is coming?" Kumaraswamy asked.

When asked about four Congress MLAs missing from the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting in Karnataka, Kumaraswamy said, "Nothing will happen, they will also come and join us."



Four dissidents skipped the CLP meeting in Bengaluru on Friday, which was called as a show of strength to counter an alleged bid by the Bharatiya Janata Party to topple the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition in Karnataka.

Kumaraswamy, who is Kolkata to take part in Opposition rally on Saturday, said the rally would be a memorable day in national towards a change in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday encouraged India and Denmark to establish a research platform for finding solutions to global issues such as food security, water management, climate change and sustainable development.

During his bilateral meeting with the visiting Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Lkke Rasmussen at Gandhinagar, Modi said this could be achieved as Denmark had the skills and India the scale, and there was a need for new technologies in the world.

The Danish prime minister is on a two-day visit to India from January 18 to 19, for the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, 2019 in Gandhinagar, where Denmark is participating as a 'partner country'.

Rasmussen is accompanied by a business delegation, including CEOs of major Danish companies, an External Affairs Ministry statement said.

The bilateral meeting between the two leaders was held on the sidelines of the summit. They had earlier met during the first India-Nordic summit in Stockholm in April 2018.

During the meeting, the statement said, the two leaders deliberated upon various areas of bilateral cooperation and also exchanged views on multilateral issues of mutual interest.

"They underscored the huge potential for expanding bilateral trade and investments between the two countries," it said.

Denmark is a global leader in several niche technologies which are of relevance to India.

During the meeting, two MoUs were also exchanged. One on maritime issues between the Ministry of Shipping of India and the Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs of Denmark and another between Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited and the Danish Embassy in New Delhi to establish an Urban Living Lab in Panaji, Goa.

Around 130 Danish companies have invested in India in areas such as shipping, renewable energy, environment, agriculture and food processing and are keen to expand their engagements in other sectors like smart urban development and waste-to-energy.

Several major Danish companies are also present in Gujarat in shipping and renewable energy sectors.

During his visit, Rasmussen will inaugurate the Danish Cultural Institute and the new building of the Danish Embassy in the national capital on January 19. He will also visit Agra, the statement said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


Intellectual Property Update

Melbourne, Jan 18, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - iSignthis Ltd ( ASX:ISX ) ( FRA:TA8 ) ("The Company") is pleased to announce that it has been advised by the Korean Patent Office of a notice of acceptance of its patent application titled "Methods and Systems for Verifying Transactions". The notice will move to grant of letters patent in accordance with the standard Korean practice.Highlights- Notification of successful patent in Korea and China- IP Portfolio continues to expand with new patent claims developed and lodged in 2018- R&D by Company demonstrably active, with more than 14 granted and 24 pending patents- Trademarks filed & granted in various jurisdictions to protect our growing brand recognitionThe Company also received notification of grant of its Chinese patent titled "Methods and Systems for Verifying Transactions" during the course of 2018.The Company has patents under examination in a number of other jurisdictions based upon the "Methods and Systems for Verifying transactions" patent claims.To view the Company's granted patent portfolio and pending patent portfolio, please visit:About iSignthis Ltd

iSignthis Ltd (ASX:ISX) (FRA:TA8) is a hybrid monetary financial institution and also a RegTech leader in remote identity verification, payment authentication with deposit taking, transactional banking and payment processing capability. iSignthis provides an end-to-end on-boarding service for merchants, with a unified payment, electronic money and identity service via our Paydentity(TM) and ISXPay(R) solutions.

By converging payments and identity, iSignthis delivers regulatory compliance to an enhanced customer due diligence standard, offering global reach to any of the world's 4.2Bn 'bank verified' card or account holders, that can be remotely on-boarded to meet the Customer Due Diligence requirements of AML regulated merchants in as little as 3 to 5 minutes. Paydentity(TM) has now onboarded and verified more than 1.5m persons to an AML KYC standard.

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Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga Friday said there should not be any dilution of the 64-year old Citizenship Act.

The controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill, which has triggered large scale protests in the northeastern states including Mizoram was passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8.

"It (amendments) should not be there. Let it be as it is. Let is not be amended as it is proposed. That's what we want," Zoramthanga told reporters here.

All northeastern states are opposing the bill and the matter has been discussed in detail with Meghalaya chief minister and Union Home Ministry officials, he added.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, provides for according Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India instead of the current requirement of 12 years, even if they do not possess any documents.

Zoramthanga was in the national capital to discuss state issues with several union ministers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A conglomerate of major civil societies and student bodies Friday demanded that revision of voters' list among the Bru refugees living in Tripura be conducted only after they return to Mizoram, the state they originally belong to.

Leaders of the NGO Coordination Committee placed the demand at a meeting with the Mizoram Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashish Kundra here.

"Our stance is clear. Revision of voters' list for Mizoram should be conducted only inside the state, and for the Brus, only after their return to Mizoram," NGO Coordination Committee Chairman Vanlalruata said after the meeting.

He said the CEO informed them about instructions from the Election Commission (EC) to conduct revision of electoral rolls in the Bru relief camps in North Tripura district.

Vanlalruata said the Committee would hold a meeting about the the EC's instruction.

"We discussed the modalities of Bru voters for parliamentary elections," the CEO said, adding that the meeting was held in a spirit of mutual understanding.

Kundra told PTI that he thanked the Committee leaders for their support during the election to the state legislature held on November 28 last.

The meeting between the Committee and Kundra was held after an umbrella organisation of the Bru refugees living in six relief camps in Tripura urged Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora to direct the Mizoram election department to revise electoral rolls in the relief camps.

The Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum (MBDPF) also appealed to Arora to to set up polling stations for the Lok Sabha election in their relief camps.

Following an order of the EC, the Mizoram election department in August last year had conducted revision of voters lists of Bru refugees in their camps, despite opposition from the civil societies.

Later, enlistment forms duly filled in by inmates of the relief camps were stolen at the election office of Mizoram's Mamit district on August 23, two days before the month-long repatriation of Bru families from Tripura to Mizoram was to start from August 25.

However, out of 5,000 odd refugee families, only 150 members of 42 families returned to Mizoram during the month- long exercise.

Thousands of Bru refugees from Mizoram fled to Tripura during an ethnic violence in 1997. The clashes broke out after a forest official was killed by Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) militants.

The Centre, in association with the governments of Mizoram and Tripura, was repatriating the displaced Brus in phases.

Though several Bru families have returned to Mizoram over the years, many refused to leave Tripura citing security reasons and inadequate package.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq criticised Northern Army Commander Lt. Gen Ranbir Singh for his remarks terming 2018 as a remarkable year for the force for killing 250 militants.

"The statement of Army (commander) that 2018 was a remarkable year for them in Kashmir as they killed over 250 militants is extremely unfortunate," the Mirwaiz told a Friday congregation at Jamia Masjid here.

He was responding to the remarks of Lt. Gen Ranbir Singh in which he reportedly said that 2018 has been a great year for the security forces as more than 250 terrorists were killed, 54 were caught alive and four surrendered to the forces.

The Mirwaiz claimed many Army officers have in their write-ups and lectures admitted that Jammu and Kashmir is a political problem that has to be resolved politically.

"Instead of admitting this, the armed force of a country that prides itself in the history of its freedom struggle...sells the killings of these armed youths as a great achievement to people of India," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Joseph Conrad's classic "Heart of Darkness" is getting an animated adaptation with actors Michael Sheen, Matthew Rhys and Andrew Scott attach to feature in the film.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the project is set to be presented at the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin.

Gerald Conn, who won 1998 Welsh BAFTA for animated short "The Comet's Tale", is directing via a animation technique he masters in using sand.

Production is taking place across Wales, Ireland and Belgium.

"Heart of Darkness", first published in 1898, was a brooding exploration of human nature and colonialism, telling the story of Marlow, an idealistic seaman captaining a steamboat up the River Congo then under brutal Belgian rule in search of a mysterious figure named Kurtz who had carved out a kingdom in which he has power of life and death over his native subjects.

The story has inspired films like "Apocalypse Now" and even video games including "Far Cry 2".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to EU leaders Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk by telephone on Friday to discuss where to go next on Brexit.

May had previously been in touch with Brussels only by text message since Tuesday, when the British parliament rejected the divorce deal she signed in November.

"Discussed with PM @theresa_may the next steps on the UK side. #Brexit," tweeted Tusk, who represents EU leaders as president of the European Council.

May also spoke separately with the head of the EU executive, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, at her request.

"It was an exchange of information on both sides. The two agreed to stay in touch," a spokeswoman for Juncker said.

British politicians are wrangling over how to get out of the Brexit impasse, which could see Britain crash out of the union without a deal on March 29.

EU leaders have so far ruled out renegotiating the agreement, but have signalled they could postpone the withdrawal if May comes up with a plan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A man was arrested on Friday after he was found in possession of a hand grenade in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district, police said.

The arrest at a motor vehicle checkpoint in Lolab area of Kupwara district came on a day when militants carried out two grenade attacks on security forces in Kashmir, including one in Lal Chowk area of the city



Initial investigations have revealed that the accused, Mohammad Aslam Beigh, was planning to join militant ranks, a police spokesman said, adding, he was motivated to take up arms through social media by "entities based in Pakistan".

Beigh was found in possession of a grenade and some incriminating material, the spokesman said.

On Friday, ultras lobbed a grenade at a Central Reserve Police Force bunker at Ghanta Ghar (Clock Tower) in Lal Chowk. Militants also hurled a grenade at security forces in Shopian district of south Kashmir. No casualties were reported in the incidents.

The attacks came around a week ahead of Republic Day celebrations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress president Rahul Gandhi made a fervent appeal to the Meghalaya government on Friday to make as a first priority the rescue of the people who are trapped in a coal mine for more than a month.

"I am very pained at learning about the of the death of a trapped miner in Meghalaya's coal mines. Many of our labourers are struck there.

"I appeal to the government to make this their first priority. The families of the trapped labour force are waiting for their safe return. I pray to God for their safe return to homes," Gandhi said in a Facebook post in Hindi.

Navy divers had found a body of one of the 15 trapped miners and also spotted several skeletons in the flooded rat-hole coal mine in East Jaintia Hills district on Thursday, weeks after a multi-agency search operation was launched to rescue them, officials said.

Around 15 miners remain trapped in the mine since December 13 after water from a nearby river gushed in. The rescue efforts picked up days later when several agencies were roped in as the rescuers were struggling to pump out water from the mines.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As many as 7,000 persons, mostly graduates, had applied for 13 vacant posts of canteen waiters in Mantralaya, the Maharashtra secretariat, an official said Friday.

The government official said a 100-mark written exam was recently conducted for the posts, for which educational qualification required was having passed Class IV.

"The exam formalities got completed on December 31 and currently the joining process is on. Out of the 13 selected applicants, eight are men and the rest women. Two-three people are yet to submit their documents and officially join," he said.

He further said of the selected persons, 12 are graduates and one has passed Class 12, adding that the maximum applicants for the 13 posts were graduates and those who had cleared Class 12.

He informed that the age group of selected applicants was between 25-27 years.

Slamming the state government over the induction of graduates as waiters in the Mantralaya canteen, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde said ministers and secretaries should be ashamed of taking the services of educated individuals.

"Seven thousand applicants for merely 13 posts is a blatant example of the employment conditions in the country and Maharashtra. It is unfortunate graduates were selected for the posts when the eligibility criteria was Class 4 pass," the NCP leader said.

He sought to know how would ministers and secretaries feel taking food, tea and snacks from double graduates.

Instead of being shameful about this, the government will term it a part of the state's progress, Munde claimed.

Questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi on providing employment to over two crore people in his tenure, Munde said, "Recently in Maharashtra, 10.5 lakh people had applied for 852 vacant police posts. Similarly, one crore unemployed youth applied for 10,000 posts in the railways."



He said in 2018, one crore people lost their jobs, out of which 65 lakh were women, adding that programmes like Make in India, Make in Maharashtra, Skill India were failures.

Munde said decisions like demonetisation and GST had finished small and medium industries which, in turn, had led to an increase in unemployment.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Romelu Lukaku's Manchester United future is in the spotlight as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer plots to maintain his 100 percent winning record against Brighton on Saturday.

Solskjaer is the first manager in the club's history to begin his career with six straight victories and the feel-good factor is back at Old Trafford after a miserable spell under Jose Mourinho.

A former super-sub himself, Solskjaer warned his players when he took over from Mourinho that some would have to take the opportunities given to them from the bench, and Belgium striker Lukaku has been one of the losers from the switch in tactics and positive vibes that have arrived under the Norwegian interim boss.

Mourinho stood loyally by the 25-year-old despite a drop in form and productivity during a season that eventually cost the manager his job.

Solskjaer's own decision about the forward positions was made for him when he took over at Old Trafford before Christmas, with Lukaku on leave from the club for personal reasons.

That meant the Norwegian was able to play with a more dynamic, versatile and speedy forward line for his debut game at Cardiff, and he has not looked back since that 5-1 victory.

Marcus Rashford has been the main beneficiary, starting all five league games under Solskjaer and scoring four goals while operating as the focal point of the United attack.

Behind him, Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard have also made telling contributions, with French international Martial, in particular, appearing to benefit from an end to his fraught relationship with Mourinho.

As part of that tactical reshuffle, Solskjaer has also been able to get more out of Martial's compatriot Paul Pogba by pushing him into a more advanced midfield position. It has left a question mark over Lukaku's role in this new attacking set-up.

- Substitute role -



===================



Lukaku has played just 64 league minutes since Solskjaer's arrival, although the striker has managed to score twice in that time and bag a goal in his only start to date under the Norwegian, the 2-0 FA Cup win over Reading.

Lukaku has been making his mark as an impact substitute but that is not the usual role of a player bought for 75 million pounds (USD 97 million), plus add-ons.

Alexis Sanchez will also present Solskjaer with an issue when he is finally fully fit from hamstring troubles that have limited him to just one start in the past two months. Chilean Sanchez is unavailable for Saturday's visit of Brighton alongside defenders Chris Smalling and Marcos Rojo.

The 30-year-old was sidelined when Solskjaer took over but played his way back to fitness, playing 27 minutes in the 2-0 win at Newcastle at the start of the month.

A recurrence of his hamstring injury, in the win over Reading a few days later, once again sent him to the treatment room, although he could be back for United's visit his former club Arsenal in the next round of the cup.

Despite his recent lack of playing time, Sanchez would appear to be a better fit for Solskjaer's preferred style of play than Lukaku, with his versatility and mobility meaning he can fill a variety of attacking roles.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ending months of speculation, the AAP on Friday ruled out the possibility of any alliance with Congress for Lok Sabha polls, and added it will field candidates on all parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana.

Senior AAP leader and party's Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai said the decision came in the wake of the recent statements of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit, opposing an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party.

"In the interest of the country, we were ready to drink the poison of Congress, but the statements show that the Congress is still seeped in its arrogance. The AAP will contest all Lok Sabha seats in the three states on its own," Rai said at a press conference.

Dikshit refused to comment on the development.

"I do not have to react on what he said. It's his opinion," she said.

Rai said AAP in collaboration with "like-minded" parties in the country, will defeat the BJP in Delhi and get a new government installed at the Centre.

He said the "vision" of an alliance with Congress came into being on suggestions of leaders like Mamata Banerjee, M K Stalin, Chandrababu Naidu and Farooq Abdullah.

"Like-minded leaders like Farooq Abdullah, M K Stalin, Chandrababu Naidu, Mamata Banerjee among others stressed that despite disagreements with Congress, we (AAP) should fight the elections together in the interest of the country," he said.

The AAP, despite objections of its Delhi and Punjab units, was ready to go with Congress to end the "dictatorship of Modi-Shah combine" and to save the Constitution, he said.

"The way Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh issued statement that AAP has no takers in Punjab and Sheila Dikshit said that Congress is a national party and it can not ally with a small party like AAP, made it clear that Congress kept its arrogance above the interest of the country."



Delhi Congress working president Devender Yadav said AAP's decision proved that only it was vying for an alliance for the coming polls.

"They were running after us for an alliance and now rejecting it. It shows that they had interest in it and when we declined, they backed out," Yadav said.

He said that Delhi Congress is of firm view that it will contest Lok Sabha polls alone.

The AAP, which is the main opposition party in Punjab, will launch its campaign for Lok Sabha polls in the state with a rally in Barnala on January 20 which will be attended by party chief Arvind Kejriwal.

The candidates on the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi will be announced soon, Rai added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Jan 18, 2019 | By Cameron

In a collaborative study, researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Sheffield analyzed the lattice structures of 3D printed objects and compared them to the structure of a metallic single crystal. They found that the lattices follow metallurgical principles and replicate the monocrystalline structures of metals almost exactly, with the nodes of a 3D printed lattice equivocating to the atoms of a single crystal and the lattice struts serving as the atomic bonds.

In both structures, the atomic planes, or nodes in the case of the lattice, are all in alignment. Thats great for certain applications where its important to have resistance to deformation at extreme temperatures, such as jet engines. Such materials do have their drawbacks, though: when they are pushed to their breaking point, they fail catastrophically. Thats because a crack will always follow the path of least resistance, and in a monocrystalline material, thats always a straight line because its nodes are the weakest points and the nodes are all aligned.

Polycrystalline materials, on the other hand, have many crystals and their atomic planes are randomly arranged. A crack in this material will be slowed by the path of least resistance winding in various directions between the nodes. So, if the internal lattices of 3D printed objects could be modeled after polycrystalline structures, those objects should theoretically be stronger.

And they are. The research team took models of polycrystalline atomic structures, scaled them up, and created mesostructures for 3D printing; they call these lattices meta-crystals. Their experiments revealed that the 3D printed objects with the polycrystalline lattices were up to seven times stronger than the standard lattice objects. Thats a significant strength difference for just rearranging some geometries, but only 3D printing could enable that discovery because literally no other method of fabrication can produce those structures.

Professor Iain Todd of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield explained, This approach to materials development has potentially far-reaching implications for the additive manufacturing sector. The fusion of physical metallurgy with architected meta-materials will allow engineers to create damage-tolerant architected materials with desired strength and toughness, while also improving the performance of architected materials in response to external loads.

Dr. Minh-Son Pham of Imperial College London elaborated on the potential of combining the process with multi-material 3D printers, This meta-crystal approach could be combined with recent advances in multi-material 3D printing to open up a new frontier of research in developing new advanced materials that are lightweight and mechanically robust, with the potential to advance future low carbon technologies." An example might be a helmet with a soft, rubbery exterior and a rigid, polycrystalline shell underneath, all 3D printed as a single object.

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An 18-year-old man, who was stabbed multiple times by his neighbour in west Delhi's Khyala, succumbed to injures Friday, two days after he and his parents were attacked by their neighbour, police said.

Akash succumbed to injuries at 3.50 am at DDU Hospital, they added.

Akash and his parents -- Sunita and Veeru -- were attacked by their neighbour Mohammad Azad on Wednesday following an argument over a petty issue.

While Sunita succumbed to injuries on Wednesday, her husband died a day later.

The accused was arrested on Thursday.

Around 200 people, including the relatives of the victims who had arrived from Uttar Pradesh, gathered in the locality seeking justice for the victims. They began their protest in the afternoon and stayed put till evening.

The protesters chanted slogans demanding that the accused be hanged to death.

They were also demanding that the Azad's house be given to the victim family, police said.

The district police is in the process of writing to Delhi State Legal Services Authority seeking compensation for the victim's family, Monika Bhardwaj, Deputy Commissioner of Police (west), said.

The incident took place in front of Veeru's elder daughter Khusbhu, 20, and her younger sister, police said.

The victims belonged to Hathras in Western Uttar Pradesh and were living in a rented accommodation at DDA Colony in Khyala C-block for the last two years.

Veeru had four children. Akash and Veeru used to work in a factory, while Sunita was a housewife.

Their eldest daughter Khusbhu is married in Agra, while her younger siblings -- Aman, 14, and Khushi, eight, have been left orphaned.

The sisters said locals did not come to the aid of the victims when they were being attacked fearing for their own safety.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri said Friday the mode of access for Indian devotees headed for Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara in Pakistan, is yet to be decided by the two countries.

"Whether access will be given to them by using passport as a travel document or VISA will be applied, are issues that are to be discussed bilaterally between the two countries. It is yet to be finalised," Puri told reporters.

He said that a decision has been taken that access from the Indian side the main road which goes up to Kartarpur Sahib will be completed in a time-bound manner.

After the Cabinet decision on November 22, 2018, a number of steps have been taken and one of them is to open the Kartarpur corridor, he said.

"We have so far decided that the access from our side the main road which goes up there (Kartarpur Sahib), and the specific corridor, we will complete in a time-bound manner."



The four-km corridor will connect Dera Baba Nanak in India's Gurdaspur district with Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Narowal in Pakistan. It will provide access to Indian Sikh pilgrims to the historic shrine in the neighbouring country.

Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, is believed to have spent more than 18 years of his life there. The Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara is located on the banks of Ravi river, about three-four kilometres from the Indo-Pak border.

Puri lamented that the cartographer who drew the boundary between India and Pakistan after separation, must have been "insensitive" as he carved out the place belonging to Guru Nanak from India.

The ground-breaking ceremony for the corridor was performed by Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan, in November last year.

On Indian side, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had laid the foundation stone of the corridor in Gurdaspur last year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Captain Manish Pandey and Karun Nair cracked brilliant half centuries as Karnataka registered a comprehensive six-wicket win over Rajasthan to storm into the semifinals of Ranji Trophy here on Friday.

Pandey (87) and Nair (61) shared an unbeaten 129-run partnership for the fifth wicket in just 24.5 overs on the fourth and final day to help Karnataka chase down a tricky 184-run victory target.

Karnataka will now meet either Saurashtra or Uttar Pardesh in the semifinals.

Rajasthan had scored 224 in their first innings, riding on fifties by skipper Mahipal Lomrov (50) and Rajesh Bishnoi (79).

In reply, Karnataka put on 263 all out before returning to bundle out Rajasthan for 222 in their second innings, thus setting themselves a 184-run target.

Karnataka were 45 for 3 in 18 overs at stumps after day 3.

Starting the final day needing 139 runs to win with seven wickets in hand, the hosts lost nightwatchman Ronit More early in the morning which forced Pandey to walk into the middle.

Pandey spent some time on the wicket, before taking on the formidable Rajasthan bowling lineup.

He unleashed an array of delightful shots, cobbling up a match-winning knock in 75 balls, which was embellished with 14 boundaries and two sixes.

Pandey chased down the remaining 14 runs in five balls as Karnataka players started to celebrate the fantastic win in the dressing room.

Nair gave an able support to Pandey, who remained unbeaten on 61, a knock decorated with six boundaries off 129 balls.

Though Pandey hogged the limelight on fourth day, Vinay Kumar's unbeaten 83 in first innings was an equally important innings as it forced Rajasthan to concede lead for first time this season.

Vinay also bagged two wickets in Rajasthan's first innings to bag the Man of the Match.

Brief scores:



Karnataka first and second innings: 263 all out in 87.4 overs and 185 for 4 in 47.5 overs (Manish Pandey 87 not out, Karun Nair 61 not out (Aniket Choudhary 2/32)



Rajasthan first and second innings: 224 in 77.1 overs and 222 all out in 67.2 overs (Robin Bist 44, Mahipal Lomror 42; Krishnappa Gowtham 4/54, Shreyas Gopal 3/52, Abimanyu Mithun 2/26).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna were on Friday sworn in as Supreme Court judges amid a raging controversy over the functioning of the Collegium which recommended their elevation by ignoring some senior judges of various high courts.

Both the judges were administered the oath of office by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi during a ceremony held in court number 1 of the apex court.

Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who had earlier said that his elevation to the apex court has come as a surprise, on Friday shared the bench along with Justices S A Bobde and Deepak Gupta in Court no 2, which has the portrait of his uncle Justice H R Khanna who was superseded in the CJI race during Emergency after his minority judgement.

Justice H R Khanna had disagreed with the remaining four judges of the bench and ruled that fundamental rights cannot be suspended even during such periods like the Emergency.

Justice Sanjiv Khanna, son of late Justice D R Khanna of the Delhi High Court, had reminded at a farewell function about the controversy on his elevation in 2004 to the Delhi High Court which had come after some delay as his name "went up and down" before he was finally appointed as an additional judge.

The issue of ignoring judges senior to Justice Sanjiv Khanna was mentioned at the farewell function by the Delhi Bar Council chairman K C Mittal who said there was a feeling among the lawyers that other senior judges and the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court "should have been given their due".

"But destiny nobody can change," Mittal added.

With the appointment of Justices Maheshwari and Khanna, the total number of judges in the Supreme Court has risen to 28 against the sanctioned strength of 31.

Justice Maheshwari was the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court.

The appointment of both the judges has been marred by controversy as Justice Khanna superseded several judges senior to him in various high courts to become the apex court judge.

Justice Maheshwari made a comeback, six weeks after he was not considered for elevation and a judge junior to him, Justice Ajay Rastogi from their parent High Court of Rajasthan, was preferred over him.

Speaking on the controversy, former Chief Justice of India R M Lodha, had said the only remedy is that the Collegium in future considers the names which have been overlooked like it happened with Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, the Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court who was from Rajasthan.

"He was superseded six weeks back and his junior Justice Ajay Rastogi was brought to the Supreme Court and now within six weeks Justice Maheshwari is the most deserving by the Collegium. So those who have been overlooked can always be considered so there is no bar," Justice Lodha said.

Sources, who are in the know of Collegium system's functioning, said it was surprising as to why the decision of the Collegium meeting of December 12, 2018 was not made public and why no reason was cited for ignoring Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Rajendra Menon for elevation.

The sources said Justices Nandrajog and Menon, Chief Justices of Rajasthan High Court and the Delhi High Court respectively, were in the zone of consideration for elevation.

But the January 10, 2019 decision of the Collegium has surprised both the Bar and the bench and that is why Justice S Kaul of the apex court circulated a note to the five-member Collegium consisting of the senior most judges of the Supreme Court suggesting that ignoring senior judges would send a wrong signal, they said.

The government had on Wednesday notified the appointment of justices Maheshwari and Khanna as judges of the apex court.

The five-member Supreme Court Collegium, comprising CJI Gogoi and justices A K Sikri, S A Bobde, N V Ramana and Arun Mishra, had on January 10 recommended the names of justices Maheshwari and Khanna for elevation as apex court judges.

The names of the chief justices of the Rajasthan and Delhi high courts, justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Rajendra Menon respectively, were considered by the collegium on December 12, 2018 for elevation, but the deliberation remained inconclusive and one of the members of the collegium, Justice M B Lokur, retired on December 30, 2018.

His place in the collegium was taken by Justice Arun Mishra.

The new collegium had, on January 10, ignored the prospect of elevation of justices Nandrajog and Menon as apex court judges.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) had, on Wednesday, protested the Supreme Court Collegium's recommendation to elevate Justice Khanna by superseding several other judges and termed the decision as "whimsical and arbitrary".

Before the BCI made a statement protesting the collegium's decision, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Supreme Court had written the note to the CJI and other members of the collegium against ignoring the seniority of justices Nandrajog and Menon.

The sources said Justice Kaul was of the view that a wrong signal would go out if the two chief justices, who were above Justice Khanna in the seniority list, were not elevated to the apex court.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Justice Asif Saeed Khosa Friday took oath as the 26th Chief Justice of in a simple ceremony held at the President's House which was also attended by foreign dignitaries, including from India.

President Arif Alvi administered oath to the new Chief Justice who took office after the retirement of Chief Justice Saqib Nisar.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, judges of higher courts, ministers, diplomats, civil and military officials, lawyers and foreign guests including from India were present at the oath-taking ceremony, the Dawn reported.

Former judge of the Supreme Court of India and President Governing Committee of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur and Sandra E Oxner, a former judge and founding president Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Canada took part in the ceremony, the report said.

They arrived through the Wagah border in Lahore on Thursday to attend the ceremony, it said.

Five senior judges of Turkey, South Africa and Nigeria also attended the oath taking ceremony.

Born in 1954 in Dera Ghazi Khan area of the Punjab province of Pakistan, Justice Khosa studied at the University of the Punjab and Cambridge University.

He started his practice as a lawyer in 1977 and was elevated as high court judge in 1998. He was made judge of the Supreme Court in 2010.

Justice Khosa has decided around 50,000 cases in his long career. He was also part of the benches which disqualified former premiers Yusuf Raza Gilani and Nawaz Sharif.

He was also part of the three-member bench which acquitted Christian woman Asia Bibi in blasphemy case. The judgment triggered countrywide protest and violence by extremists.

Justice Khosa is very well read, having a vast study in different disciplines and often quotes foreign writers in his judgments.

Addressing the retiring ceremony of his predecessor Justice Nisar on Thursday, Justice Khosa said that he would like to decide the more than 1.9 million cases currently piled up in different courts by reforming the judicial system.

He also said that he would try to eliminate the practice of frivolous cases.

Supreme Court lawyer Ali Zafar said Justice Khosa was expected to focus on judicial issues unlike his predecessor who often interfered in issues of governance.

"The practice of suo motu will be rarely used by Justice Khosa as he believes that it should be only used when all other options have been exhausted to address issues," Zafar said.
Two days after the Jadavpur University barred professor Kanak Sarkar from entering the campus for a misogynist social media post, its Vice Chancellor Suranjan Das has said he was mulling legal action in the case to ensure such incidents do not occur again.

Sarkar, a professor at the university's international relations department, had extolled women's virginity, comparing it to the seal of a bottle, in a Facebook post.

Although he had deleted the comment soon after, screenshots of the post went viral on social media, triggering outrage and widespread condemnation.

Das told PTI Thursday that strict action would be taken against the professor as per university statute.

"Sarkar has been barred from entering the campus till the time a university-appointed committee files its report for thorough examination. We are mulling strictest legal action against him.

"Additionally, the National Commission for Women (NCW) and West Bengal women's commission are also probing charges against him," he said.

The vice chancellor also said that he will do his bit to cooperate with NCW representatives if and when they visit the campus next week.

Students of the international relations department had boycotted classes on Monday and Tuesday, demanding Sarkar's immediate ouster.

One of them told PTI on Friday that classes resumed following the issuance of a notification on Sarkar's dismissal by the university.

"We have been regularly attending classes since Wednesday as a notification issued by our departmental head clearly stated that Sarkar has been divested of his teaching duties," she added.

The notification, signed by departmental head Prof Omprakash Mishra, said, "in view of the recommendation of the department of International Relations Prof Kanak Sarkar is divested of his teaching duties with immediate effect..."



Mishra also said that several students have filed written complaints of alleged inappropriate conduct against the professor following the outrage over his Facebook post.

The department received around 35 written complaints against Sarkar, based on which action was taken against him, he said.

Sarkar had written in a Facebook post on Sunday, "Are you willing to buy a broken seal while purchasing a bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits? It is the same case with your wife. A girl is biologically sealed from birth until it is opened. A virgin girl means many things accompanied as values, culture, sexual hygiene. To most boys, virgin wife is like angel (sic)."



Facing outrage and criticism, the professor, who has been teaching in the university for over two decades, tried to justify his comments by saying it was "intended for fun in a social media group of friends and not for public consumption".

"Someone took a screenshot of the post and forwarded it in the social media, which triggered the response. I did not intend to hurt anyone's sentiment or insult any woman," he had told PTI on Tuesday.

Despite multiple efforts, Sarkar could not be contacted for his reaction on Friday.

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Actor James McAvoy has admitted that he was "freaked out" by co-star Bill Skarsgard on the sets of their horror film "It: Chapter Two".

McAvoy, who will play adult Bill Denbrough in the follow-up of the 2017 blockbuster, recently appeared on "Good Morning America".

The actor said he got incredibly scared by Skarsgard's performance as the evil Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

"He's amazing. The guy who plays the clown is terrifying. He's a lovely guy, and yet he really freaked me out. I remember standing there with the rest of the cast, all these adults, and we'd all done weird, freaky stuff.

"And we are all looking at each other going, 'I don't like being here. I don't like being an actor today.' He really did, he really freaked me out. I never liked clowns as a kid," McAvoy said.

The actor explained the reason as to why he finds clowns scary.

"It's something like a guy wearing make-up, they're crying but they're laughing. There's something tragic about them. Maybe they've all run away to join the circus - what you running away from Mr Clown? What have you left behind? Is it like bodies in a trunk?" he said.

Andy Muschietti is back to helm the sequel, which also features Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone and Andy Bean. The film will release in September this year.

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The Indian Space Research Organisation will select over 100 students from across India and give them a practical experience of how satellites are build under the new 'Young Scientist Programme', its chairman K Sivan announced Friday.

The initiative, chalked to attract young minds and arouse interest in this niche arena, is conceptualised on the lines of a similar programme run by American space agency NASA.

Sivan said mostly Class 8 students three each from 29 states and seven Union territories will be given lectures by ISRO scientists and they will also get access to the space agency's laboratories.

The programme will be funded entirely by ISRO, he said.

"We want them to get a practical experience of building a small satellite. If the satellites are good, we want them to fly," Sivan said.

Vivek Singh, director of media and public relations, said the students will be encouraged to develop "scientific payloads" that can be launched by ISRO.

Sivan said six incubation centres will be established in various parts of the country North, South, East, West, Centre and North-East, and the first such centre has been established in Agartala in Tripura. The students will be able to use these centres for R&D purposes.

ISRO, he said, will ask the students to address problems and buy solutions from them.

The PS4, the last stage of PSLV, can be used for various experimental purposes, Sivan said, urging students to send their satellites which can be launched by ISRO.

PSLV is a four-stage launch vehicle with alternating solid and liquid stages.

Singh said since PS4 can be used by launching satellites by students with no extra cost to ISRO.

Sivan said KALAMSAT, a student satellite, will be launched by PLSV-44 on January 24.

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Israeli Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat visited earlier this week and met Prime Minister Narendra to discuss issues related to bilateral relations, including the advancing of security deals, according to an official statement here.

NSA Ben-Shabbat, who was in on the invitation of his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, also held a series of meetings with senior officials of Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and security organisation, a statement from the Prime Minister's media adviser here said.

Prime Minister and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke over phone during the visit of the Israeli NSA to New Delhi.

Ben-Shabbat returned to on January 15, on the Air flight that flies through the Saudi Arabian airspace, the statement said.

During his visit, the Israeli NSA discussed issues related to bilateral relations including the advancing of security deals, it said.

Additional measures were agreed to on advancing security, technology and civilian-economic cooperation between and India, it said.

Ben-Shabbat is said to have briefed his interlocutors on regional issues, including "Iran's efforts to entrench itself militarily in Syria and its actions that undermine regional stability".

He was accompanied by Israeli Ambassador to India Dr Ron Malka and Defence Attache Colonel Efraim Defrain in the meetings.
Iran's foreign minister has mocked the US national security adviser's calls for a strike on Iran, in a play on the viral 10-year challenge meme on social media.

In a tweet Friday, Mohammad Javad Zarif posted the titles of two separate articles by John Bolton from 2009 and 2019, both calling for strikes on Iran. "Same bull. Same bully. Same delusion," Zarif wrote.

Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Bolton asked the Pentagon in September to prepare military options for attacking Iran after attacks on U.S. diplomatic sites in Iraq.

Social media users taking the 10-year challenge are comparing their profile photos from 2009 and 2019.

Tensions between Iran and the US have been heightened after President Donald Trump withdrew America from the nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran.

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Senator Danny Carroll's Legislative Update

By Senator Danny Carroll

FRANKFORT - The first week of the Kentucky General Assembly's 2019 Regular Session is in the books. We had a productive few days in Frankfort and leave in good spirits about what is to come this session.This week, the Senate's activity involved some procedural measures. We welcomed everyone back to Frankfort to swear in members and confirm the Senate Leadership. Senator Robert Stivers (R-Manchester) will remain the Senate President and Senator David Givens (R-Greensburg) will serve as the new Senate President Pro Tempore. We were also thrilled to officially welcome Senator Matt Castlen (R-Owensboro) and Senator Robby Mills (R-Henderson) as our newest members. Other tasks included confirming new committee appointments and adopting the Senate rules for the 2019 session.Additionally, the Senate introduced legislation regarding electronic campaign filing, a constitutional amendment moving the statewide election date, and school safety.Bills must be presented at a public committee meeting and passed with a majority vote before heading back to the Senate to be voted on by the entire Senate body. Once the Senate approves a Senate bill, it heads to the Kentucky House of Representatives where the same process occurs. The Senate has to agree to any changes the House makes to the bill before it is submitted to the Governor for his approval and is finally signed into law.We have listened to the feedback of our constituents and the Senate majority has several priority bills that we would like to see ratified during the 2019 Regular Session. Following the tragic 2018 shooting at Marshall County High School, legislators formed the bipartisan School Safety Working Group, which I am honored serve on, for the purpose of developing a solution to better ensure the safety of our schools in Kentucky. Senate Bill 1, the School Safety and Resiliency Act, sponsored by Senator Max Wise (R-Campbellsville), was drafted as a result of the findings of the working group. I am proud to be a co-sponsor of this bill. The Senate Majority is encouraged by the overwhelming support of this proposed legislation and we look forward to continuing discussion with the House on how to address this critical issue. We still have much work to do in this area!The Senate was able to pass five bills out of chamber in the initial week of session. By the third day, Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Senator Chris McDaniel (R-Taylor Mill) was passed out of the chamber by a 31-4 vote. This bill is a proposed amendment to the Kentucky Constitution to move the elections of statewide constitutional offices to even-numbered years. Several bills were voted on Friday morning. Senate Bill 4, sponsored by Senator Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown) requires candidates to file all campaign finance reports electronically. Senate Bill 50, sponsored by Senator Robby Mills (R-Henderson), relates to the reporting of prescriptions designed to induce an abortion. I signed on as a co-sponsor of this bill. Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Senator Steve West (R-Paris), relates to the quality of teacher tribunal hearings by requiring the chair to be a trained attorney in teacher employment law. Lastly, we passed Senate Bill 3, sponsored by Senator John Schickel (R-Union). This measure, also known as School Board Decision Making (SBDM) reform, redefines the minimum parent teacher representation on school councils and grants superintendents the ability to hire principals.Due to a constitutional requirement, the General Assembly will adjourn for 3 weeks following the conclusion of the first part of session. The Senate will return to session on February 5. In the meantime, we will continue to discuss legislative issues in committee meetings. I am working to finalize several pieces of legislation, which I plan to file, including a bill to provide greater protections to our seniors living in assisted living facilities, a bill that will increase the pool of current and retired law enforcement officers available to work as school resource officers, and a voter ID bill. I am also working on a bill that will help protect police officers, firefighters, judges, social workers, prison guards, and others, who due to the nature of their role in the criminal justice system are at greater risk of retaliation, by controlling the release of their Personal Identifying Information (PII) by public agencies. The bill also includes provisions to protect their families.Bill summaries, amendments, and resolutions, in addition to the next day's committee meeting schedule and agendas, are updated daily on the Kentucky Legislature's home page at www.lrc.ky.gov throughout the session, with final adjournment scheduled for March 29.If you have any questions or comments about these issues or any other public policy issue, please call me toll-free at 1-800-372-7181 or email me at danny.carroll@lrc.ky.gov. You can also review the Legislature's work online at www.lrc.ky.gov.
The Institute of Indian Foundrymen (IIF) is looking at building common reclamation units to reclaim waste sand generated from major foundries, a statement said Friday.

The move is aimed at reducing the dependence on river sand besides curbing illegal mining.

About 1,200 delegates from 15 nations, including Germany, Italy, China, Japan, the UK and US, are participating in the 67th Indian Foundry Congress (IFC) at the India Expo Mart.

"Institute of Indian Foundrymen (IIF) is looking at putting up common sand reclamation or recycle units in major foundries set up at Agra, Ghaziabad, Moradabad, Aligarh, Kanpur and Lucknow in order to reclaim waste sand generated from foundries," IFC said in a statement.

IIF President Shashi Jain said the association will encourage foundry clusters to jointly set up sand reclamation units in order to recycle and reuse the sand to lessen the dependence on river sand to further check illegal mining and save the

"About 2 million tonnes of sand is used in UP foundries annually for production process," he said, adding that the move will also address waste disposal problems and benefit small units.

He said the used sand will be reused in casting production and the recovery is about 70-80 per cent.

The remaining waste generated from the reclamation process will also be used to make paver blocks and hollow bricks, the statement said.

IFC also urged the MSME and ministries to provide funding to industrial clusters to jointly set up sand reclamation plants.

The auto sector is the largest consumer of the foundry industry as major components are supplied by it. About 4 million tonnes, approximately 30 per cent of the production of foundries valued at USD 4 billion, is consumed by the auto industry at present, the statement said.

Auto sector casting demand is expected to grow 35-40 per cent in the coming years.

Jain said exports from Uttar Pradesh foundries is likely to double to USD 500 million in the next five years.

At present one million tonnes of foundry items amounting to USD 2 billion are manufactured annually in main foundries in Uttar Pradesh. Around 50,000 families are earning their livelihood from these foundries, the statement added.

Headquartered in Kolkata, with regional offices in Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai and 27 chapters across India, IFC is a member of the World Foundry Organization (WFO), UK and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

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A 34-year-old Indian-origin man was on Friday charged with the murder of a woman, who was found dead in a rented apartment here, according to a media report.

Singaporean M Krishnan allegedly killed 40-year-old Mallika Begum Rahamansa Abdul Rahman in the apartment in northern housing estate of Woodlands late Wednesday night, revealed a court document.

Police said that the two knew each other and were understood to be in a relationship. Both had frequent quarrels, Today, an online portal, reported.

When the police arrived at the murder scene shortly after receiving a call at 1.34 am on Thursday, Mallika was lying motionless inside a room. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene, the report said.

Though Krishnan fled the scene by then, the police managed to apprehend him hours later as his identity was quickly established, the police said.

Krishnan, who faces death penalty if convicted of murder, was not represented by a lawyer on Friday.

Bail was granted and he was remanded at the Central Police Division.

The next hearing for Krishnan's case has been set on January 25.

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Thirty-five-year-old social activist Shipra Sharma had called her mother to inform that she "safely arrived" in Kabul soon after landing in the strife-torn country on Monday.

Minutes later, Sharma was killed in a terror attack when the building where she was staying collapsed after being hit by an RDX-laden truck on January 14.

Her relatives fondly recalled her last phone call to her mother as they consigned her mortal remains to flames in Jodhpur on Friday.

After much efforts from the government, her body was brought to India in an Indian Airline flight on Friday afternoon.

"It was difficult for all of us to bear with this tragic truth, that it was same Shipra sleeping for eternity, who had left home barely a week ago after celebrating New Year with the family," said her maternal uncle Raj Kumar Sharma.

"We all had concerns over her joining Afghanistan Institute for Civil Society (AICS), an NGO, but she dismissed our concerns saying 'why to fear bombs and explosions. Death can descend anywhere'," Raj Kumar Sharma said.

Her mother was dead against her decision but she always wanted to do something different, which hardly anybody could dare to, he added.

Shipra had joined AICS barely three months ago in October and was working as the Director (Certification) in Kabul, responsible for rehabilitation of terror attack victims in Afghanistan.

The building she was staying in has collapsed, the family was informed by the Indian embassy hours after she had left her home here to get on with her professional responsibilities in Kabul, Nagendra Sharma, a family friend, told PTI.

Having worked with four NGOs in Mumbai and Jodhpur, she kept seeking satisfaction with her job profiles which came in when she decided to return to Jodhpur with her son in early 2018. That's when the offer from Afghanistan came and she readily agreed, her uncle told PTI.

Chief minister Ashok Gehlot has also expressed his condolences to the family praying for strength to the family in the moments of unbearably grief.

The bomb explosion near the heavily-fortified foreign compound in Kabul killed four people, including Shipra Sharma, and wounded over 100.

Reacting to the blast, the Ministry of External Affairs called for the perpetrators of the assault as well as those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously.

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India is nowhere less than China in the arena of space, and after the success of human space mission project 'Gaganyaan', it will be equal to its neighbour in all aspects related to the field, Chairman K Sivan said Friday.

This month, Chang'e 4, the first Chinese mission to land on and explore the Moon's far side facing away from Earth, carried instruments to analyse the region's geology.

India also has an ambitious mission, Chandrayaan-2, to land on Moon's South Pole, a region unexplored by any country so far, Sivan said.

The plan was to initially launch the mission in April last year, but it has now been postponed to the first quarter of this year.

"We are nowhere less than China," Sivan said in response to a question that sought to draw a parallel between the two space-faring Asian countries.

He added that India was at par in regards to launch vehicles and spacecraft.

India has announced that 'Gaganyaan' will take off by 2022, while China launched its first manned space mission in 2003.



"They had the human space capability, which we did not have, but once we have a successful Gaganyaan project by 2022, we will be equal to them in all aspects," Sivan said.

India and China are two major space-faring giants. While India has launched the South Asian satellite as a gift to its neighbours, China too has been actively engaged with Pakistan and Sri Lanka in these areas.

Sivan said after the launch of South Asian satellite in 2017, Nepal has started using it for broadcasting television in remote and far-flung places "where people have said they have seen a television for the first time" with the help of the satellite.

Elucidating the reasons for Chandrayaan-2 launch delay, he said during the National Experts Review in February last year, it was found that it needed to be improved in terms of robustness.



"Because of the constraints due to the size of the satellite, they cut down many systems. Experts felt that it was a very important mission and we have to increase the robustness. So, the satellite was reconfigured to take care of the improvements. With that, the schedule was December (2018) to January (2019).

"Since all systems are new and we have to go through testing process and we found that testing was not complete and we're not able to meet the February 2019 schedule. The next available slot was April 2019," he said.

Responding to another question on NaVIC, India's own GPS, he said the armed forces have started using the indigenously developed system.
India and Malta discussed the possibility of enhancing trade and commercial ties between the two countries during a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat.

The Maltese prime minister is on his maiden visit to India from January 17 to 19 for attending the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2019.

He is accompanied by Malta's Minister of Economy, Investment and Small Businesses Christian Cardona, senior officials of his ministry and a large business delegation.

Modi invited greater academic cooperation from Malta, including the possibility of offering training courses for Maltese professionals at the Forensics University in Gujarat, an External Affairs Ministry statement said.

Realising the importance of renewable energy for sustainable and low carbon-imprint growth, the two leaders hailed the initiative of International Solar Alliance and committed full cooperation to upscale solar technologies and harness the full potential of solar energy, it said.

The Maltese PM and his delegation were received by Gujarat Governor O P Kohli.

During his bilateral meeting with Modi on the sidelines of the summit, Muscat fondly recalled the visit of the vice president of India to Malta in September last year and appreciated growing exchange of visits and strengthening of the bilateral relationship.

He welcomed Indian Pharma and IT industry to make Malta a potential hub for African and European markets.

He also invited India to cooperate with the country on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and financial technologies.

Malta has brought in a formal legislation on blockchain technology and sees the role of Indian IT companies as system monitors, the statement said.

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India on Friday summoned the Deputy High Commissioner of Pakistan and lodged a strong protest on a recent order by Pakistan Supreme Court extending its jurisdiction over Gilgit-Baltistan.

The Pakistani official was conveyed that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, which also includes the so-called 'Gilgit-Baltistan', "has been, is and shall remain an integral part of India", the Ministry of External Affairs said.

In an order, the Pakistan Supreme Court has said that its jurisdiction and power extend to Gilgit-Baltistan.

"The Deputy High Commissioner of Pakistan was summoned today and a strong protest was lodged on recent order by Supreme Court of Pakistan on the so-called 'Gilgit-Baltistan' which is an interference in India's internal affairs," the MEA said.

It also said Pakistan was asked to immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation.

"Pakistan Government or judiciary have no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it. Any action to alter the status of these occupied territories by Pakistan has no legal basis whatsoever," the MEA said in a statement.

It said India rejected such continued attempts by Pakistan to bring material change in these "occupied territories and to camouflage grave human rights violations, exploitation and sufferings of the people living there".

In the order, the Pakistan Supreme Court has also asked the federal government in Pakistan to promulgate a new law within a fortnight to grant more rights, including fundamental human rights, to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

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India on Friday slammed Pakistan's comments that New Delhi has no role to play in Afghanistan, saying Islamabad cannot decide on behalf of an independent and sovereign country.

Spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Raveesh Kumar said it was not for Pakistan to decide as to what role another country has in regional or global affairs.

"Pakistan also cannot decide on behalf of an independent and sovereign country Afghanistan and dictate them as to how to conduct their foreign policy," he said.

On Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said India has no role to play in Afghanistan, adding Islamabad played a key role in arranging direct talks between the Taliban and the US to find a peaceful solution to the Afghan issue.

"Pakistan should first and foremost introspect its own role and responsibility in the precarious situation in Afghanistan; put an end to all kind of support to cross border terrorism from territories under Pakistan's control, and join international efforts to bring inclusive peace to Afghanistan," Kumar said.

Faisal's remarks contradict Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's earlier statement in which he acknowledged that India had stakes in Afghanistan and its cooperation was necessary for the peace process.

India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and has committed aid worth USD 3 billion to the war-ravaged country.

India sent two former diplomats in "non official" capacity to a conference on Afghan peace process in Moscow in November which was attended by a high-level Taliban delegation.

New Delhi has been pressing for an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace initiative to bring peace and stability in the war-ravaged country.

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The CPI Friday said it was a "historical necessity" to build a powerful anti-BJP nation-wide platform to defeat the saffron party at the hustings.

Communist Party of India general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy also said Congress was the main opposition party in the country and without it, there cannot be a strong opposition.

"I am not defending (Congress)...I have several differences with the Congress and its policies.

But, today the most important point is to defeat communalism, to defend the Constitution, to defend secularism and for these reasons for the time being we think there is a necessity to build a powerful anti-BJP nation-wide platform.

It may not be a front some parties may be in the front and some parties may be outside but there is a necessity that is a historical necessity and anybody trying to wreck it is working on behalf of BJP," Reddy said.

He expressed confidence that the BJP would be defeated in the 2019 general elections and a strong opposition platform built across the country.

Reddy flayed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his attacks on the Opposition parties and the proposed opposition 'front.'



Hitting back, he asked Modi "Why did you build a front."



"NDA had 32 parties...18 parties have gone out of the NDA in the last five years. When you (Modi) can have the front why cannot the Opposition have a front.

You are having the front to capture power while the Opposition is having power to bring an alternative, secular democratic government in this country," Reddy told reporters.

On Telangana Chief Minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Chief K Chandrasekhar Rao's plan for forming a federal front at the national-level sans Congress and BJP, Reddy said it was to divide the anti-BJP front votes.

The CPI leader alleged he (Rao) was doing it on behalf of the BJP.

On the chargesheet filed by Delhi police against former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar andothers in a sedition case, Reddy alleged it was concocted.

The chargesheet was filed after over three years, he said.

"It is concocted case. This is all for election propaganda as if JNU is anti-national and the students and communists are anti-nationals. They want to create an enemy and show we have to fight this," Reddy said.

He said CPI would extend support to the three-day strike call given bythree Defence Civilian Employees Federations representing civilian employees working in ordnance factories and other units from January 23-25 against "privatisation" of defence industries.

"Defence is a very sensitive area and privatisation is dangerous which leads to corrpution and it also leads to leaks of important matters of security.

He condemned the government's decision and demanded that it roll back privatisation and continue to strengthen the public sector defence and ordnance factories.

Reddy lashed out at Modi over his recent speech on the Sabarimala issue, saying it was uncalled for.

Criticising the LDF government in Kerala, Modi had said at a public rally at Kollam that the conduct of the LDF on the Sabarimala issue "will go down in history" as one of the most "shameful behaviour" by any party and government.

"It was very irresponsible type of comments on Communists and (it is) openly supporting the people who are defying the Supreme Court judgment (allowing women of all age groups to enter the Ayyappa temple) on Sabarimala issue.

This (comments) are not for the level of the Prime Minister and this is highly irresponsible behaviour on the part of the Prime Minister," he said.

The CPI leader flayed the Centre over the handling of the issue of former CBI chief Alok Verma and added "we demand transparency...all papers of CVC and Justice A K Patnaik's should be published".

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The opposition Congress on Friday slammed Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claiming that he was indulging in communal politics by dividing Hindus and Muslims in the state.

The Barpeta District Youth Congress also lodged an FIR against the minister for his alleged "communal statements".

"Sarma is Assam's Jinnah. Himanta Biswa Sarma is following Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah partitioning India on the basis of Muslims and Hindus," Congress leader and former Assam minister Pradyut Bordoloi said at a press conference here.

Once cabinet colleagues before the finance minister moved to the BJP from Congress, Bordoloi accused Sarma of playing communal politics and creating a division between Hindus and Muslims in Assam.

"BJP wants to implement the Citizenship Amendment Bill only to create a permanent vote bank," he alleged.

The Congress leader also charged BJP of trying to divide the Assamese society and both Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and Himanta are posing a "threat" to the Assamese people "who will soon be minorities in their own land".

The former power minister claimed that there was an "undeclared war" between Himanta and Sonowal as "Himanta is planning to be the chief minister of Assam associating himself more with BJP chief Amit Shah and PM Narendra Modi".

Meanwhile, a complaint has been filed against Himanta by the Barpeta District Youth Congress (BDYC) accusing him of making unconstitutional, communal, false and illegal statements during a talk show in a local TV channel on Wednesday.

The complaint has been lodged by BDYC president Anuwarul Islam Khan and 21 others of Youth Congress at Mandia police outpost in Barpeta district of lower Assam on Friday.

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The Delhi High Court Friday put on hold decisions of JNU's academic and executive councils to make attendance mandatory for the faculty, and said action against unauthorised absence be taken as per rules governing the service of the teaching staff.

The interim order by Justice Suresh Kait comes close on the heels of his January 14 direction staying a circular of the Jawaharlal Nehru University administration, which had it mandatory for the teaching staff to mark their attendance once a day.

The court, granting interim relief to the petitioner, JNU professor Ayesha Kidwai, also issued notice to JNU on her plea challenging the decisions of the Academic Council (AC) and Executive Council (EC) of the university and listed the matter for further hearing on May 3.

It said the varsity can take action against the teaching staff who go on unauthorised leave, according to the rules prevalent before the AC decision of July 13, 2018 making marking of attendance mandatory.

Senior advocate Dhruv Mehta, who appeared for Kidwai, told the court the two councils did not follow proper procedure when taking their decision which also included bringing in a biometric system of marking attendance.

Kidwai's lawyers, which included advocates Abhik Chimni and Yashraj Singh Deora, told the court that asking for biometrics amounted to breach of privacy of an individual.

Central government standing counsel Monika Arora, appearing for JNU, told the court that if marking of attendance was not mandatory then it would be difficult to ensure presence of the teaching faculty as many of them go on vacation for months together.

JNU, also represented by advocates Harsh Ahuja and Kushal Sharma, told the court that students have complained against such long-term absence of teaching staff.

Advocate Sanjoy Ghose, appearing for another petitioner in a similar plea, told the court that a majority of universities world over do not insist on such mandatory marking of attendance and even in India it is not a practice in other varsities.

Apart from seeking quashing of the decisions of the two councils, Kidwai in her plea has also sought setting aside of various circular issued by JNU making marking of attendance mandatory for sanction of leave or disbursal of salary.

On November 13, JNU Registrar Pramod Kumar had issued a circular which read: "All proposals/requests of faculty members, including leave requests, should be forwarded by the deans and chairpersons of the school/centre/special centre concerned for consideration of competent authority, only after confirming that the faculty member concerned has adhered to the attendance rules of the university and has been marking his/her attendance.

"While forwarding request/paper/proposal of faculties, it has to be ensured by the deans of schools/chairperson of centres/special centres that the faculty concerned has been taking attendance of students as well. As desired by the competent authority, no request/paper/proposal of faculty will be entertained/considered if he/she has not adhered to the above decisions of statutory bodies."



In November 2017, JNU issued a circular which linked disbursal of salary with compliance of the faculty attendance requirement.

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Independent legislator Jai Parkash Friday extended his support to Congress nominee Randeep Surjewala for the January 28 Jind assembly by-election in Haryana.

Jai Parkash, a former Congress parliamentarian from Hisar and former union minister, made the announcement after meeting senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel at his residence here.

Sources said Jai Parkash is likely to return to the Congress fold before the assembly election in Haryana, due in October this year.

They said he is likely to meet Congress president Rahul Gandhi on January 22 or 23.

"I have decided to campaign for Congress nominee Surjewala for the Jind bypoll. I will be campaigning from tomorrow for him in Jind," Jai Parkash, who has a sizeable following in his native place Jind, told PTI.

He had quit the Congress before the 2014 assembly elections and contested as an Independent from Kalayat constituency.

Surjewala, a sitting legislator from Kaithal, was made the Congress nominee for the January 28 Jind by-election, where the Congress is striving hard to stage a victory ahead of the assembly election later this year.

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Gujjar leader urged the Rajasthan government on Friday to resolve the issue of reservation for the community in government jobs and educational institutes within 20 days failing which he threatened to stage protest.

"State government should clarify its stand on the reservation issue in 20 days failing which I will stage protest," Bainsla, who has spearheaded Gujjar agitations in the state, told reporters.

He said he will hold a 'panchayat' in Khandar, Nainwa, Ajmer and Dausa on January 27, February 1, 5 and 13, respectively.

Bainsla also sought support from government employees belonging to the most backward classes.

Gujjars in Rajasthan already have 1 per cent reservation in the 'most backward' category but are demanding 5-per cent quota under the legal limit of 50 per cent reservation.
Firing a fresh salvo on the Rafale issue, the Congress on Friday alleged that the NDA government has wronged the country by reducing the number of aircraft bought under the deal as it "denied" the IAF the fighter jets it "desperately" needed and gave a "windfall" to Dassault Aviation by paying more per aircraft.

Addressing a press conference, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the government did not buy the 90 more aircraft needed by the Air Force and paid Rs 186 crore more to French firm Dassault, maker of Rafale, for 13 India-specific enhancements in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).

The former finance minister reiterated his party's demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale jet deal, saying the decision is not amenable to court but to a parliamentary panel.

The Congress has alleged earlier that the prime minister increased the Benchmark Price' of Rafale deal from 5.2 billion Euros to 8.2 billion Euros and that the NDA government paid over Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft against UPA's negotiated price of Rs 527 crore per aircraft, demanding answers as to who is responsible for the loss to the state exchequer.

Chidambaram's press conference came in the backdrop of a media report claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 aircraft instead of the 126 asked for by the Indian Air Force pushed the price of each jet up by 41.42 per cent.

"The government has wronged the country in two ways - firstly, it has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force 90 fighter aircraft that they desperately need.

"Secondly, it has purchased two squadrons that will cost about 25 million more per aircraft. At the 2016 exchange rate, Euro 25 million is equal to Rs 186 crore. India will pay Rs 186 crore more per aircraft," Chidambaram told reporters.

"There is no doubt any longer that Rafale aircraft deal deserves to be examined thoroughly by a joint parliamentary committee. The Congress reiterates its demand for constitution of a JPC," he said.

The Congress leader said he feels that Dassault "is laughing all the way to the bank", as the NDA government gave a "gift" to the French firm over amortization or recovery on the cost of 13 India-specific enhancements sought in the aircraft that cost 1,300 million Euros.

He said the cost of these enhancements have been recovered by Dassault in 36 aircraft and the same should have been recovered by it for 126 aircraft instead.

"That is a windfall for Dassault. That is the gift that the NDA government has given to Dassault and that is why I said that Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank....The windfall to Dassault was a deliberate decision of NDA government and is highly questionable," he said.

"The increased price per aircraft is a gift to Dassault that the NDA government gave between April 2015 to August 2016," he also said.

Chidambaram earlier said that in the light of new facts and revelations, "the question gains greater urgency: why did the government buy only 36 Rafale aircraft instead of 126 aircraft required by the Air Force?.

"The government has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needs," he tweeted earlier.

Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia also took to Twitter to demand answers from Modi on the increased cost of aircraft.

"The PM's unilateral decision to buy 36 Rafales resulted in a price escalation of 41.42% per jet. When will the prime minister answer?" he asked.

Chidambaram said serious issues are being raised in media reports about the process of decision-making in the NDA government and alleged that "the man who got away was Mr Manohar Parrikar who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security. Clever man."



"We will not comment on the process today. However, it is necessary to compliment the three officers of the Indian Negotiating Team who stood up to pressure and forced a vote of 4-3 on every issue," he said, adding that he has never seen such a decision on a defence deal happening in any government so far in the country.

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Canada's top diplomat has praised Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei for trusting the Canadian legal system as his daughter fights extradition to the United States.

Meng Wanzhou, also a Huawei executive, was arrested in Vancouver last month on a US warrant over Iran sanctions-linked fraud charges -- a move Chinese ambassador to Canada Lu Shayne branded "backstabbing" earlier in the day.

"I think those were very gracious comments he made," Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Thursday. "I think it's very natural that he would be concerned about his daughter."



"And I was glad to hear directly from him that he feels his daughter has been treated fairly by the Canadian judicial system and with kindness, and certainly the objective of the Canadian government is that our judicial system should treat everyone impartially, fairly and indeed with kindness."



In a rare meeting with reporters this week, Ren had said: "I trust that the legal systems of Canada and the United States are open, just, and fair, and will reach a just conclusion." He also thanked Meng's cellmates "for treating her kindly" before she was granted bail, days after her arrest.

Ottawa and Beijing remain locked in an escalating row.

In a move widely seen as a counterstroke, Chinese authorities arrested former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor last month, accusing them of endangering national security.

Ottawa insisted they had been "arbitrarily" detained and that interrogations of Kovrig breached the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations -- allegations Beijing flatly rejected.

Former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler went further, accusing China in an email to The Canadian Press of "hostage diplomacy."



On Thursday, ambassador Lu Shayne warned of "repercussions" if Canada joins intelligence-sharing allies in barring Huawei from its 5G networks - and urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to back off recruiting international support in the feud.

Australia, Britain, France, Germany, the European Union and the United States have all backed Canada's demand for its citizens' release. Trudeau has also raised their plight in recent calls to the leaders of Argentina, Finland, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore.

Next week, Freeland will lead a Canadian delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where they will press Canada's case to world leaders and business executives. Lu also warned against this.

Freeland has called Beijing's recent behavior "a threat to all countries."



Meanwhile Canadian ambassador to China John McCallum, back home to brief lawmakers, said Thursday: "I think we have to engage the senior Chinese leaders and persuade them that what they are doing... it's not good for the image of corporate China in the world.

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France is to try 14 people in connection with the January 2015 jihadist attacks in and around Paris, a judicial source told AFP Friday.

The attacks against the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, a police woman in the nearby suburb of Montrouge, and a jewish Hyper Cacher shop killed 17 and marked the start of a wave of jihadist attacks in France.

Eleven of those to be tried for assisting in the attacks are already in custody, and three are wanted by police.

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The Forward Bloc has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to celebrate the birthday of its founder Subhas Chandra Bose as "Deshprem Divas", more than eight years after the demand was rejected by the then Congress-led government.

Bose had quit the Congress and floated the All India Forward Bloc in 1939.

Calling Modi an "ardent admirer of Netaji", the Left party, in a letter to the prime minister, requested that the day be renamed as soon as possible as January 23, 2019 would be the 123rd birth anniversary of Bose.

"His supreme sacrifice and love for his country are rare instances of noble quality that are found in the history of our freedom struggle. Gandhiji himself once paid the highest tributes to Subhas by mentioning him as the 'patriot of patriots'.

"We have made many representations to the government of India and our MPs have raised the demand several times in Parliament to declare January 23 as 'Deshprem Divas'. But the government of India is suspiciously reluctant to accept this people's demand," the letter written by the general secretary of the Forward Bloc, Debabrata Biswas, said.

In fact, last year, former Left leader Ritabrata Banerjee had raised the issue and demanded that "Netaji Jayanti" be declared a national holiday.

The demand was first raised in the Rajya Sabha in 2008 by Forward Bloc MP Barun Mukherjee, who had said the declaration of January 23 as "Deshprem Divas" would instill a sense of patriotism among the youth of the country.

However, in a letter written to Mukherjee in 2010, the then parliamentary affairs minister V Narayanaswamy had rejected the demand, saying many leaders had contributed significantly to the freedom movement and comparing them would be unfair.

The Modi government has recently gone the extra mile to claim the legacy of Bose.

It celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Azad Hind government founded by Bose in Singapore on October 21, 1943 by hoisting the tricolour at the Red Fort last year.

During his recent visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Modi had renamed three islands in the archipelago as Netaji, Shaheed and Swaraj.

"As you are an ardent admirer of Netaji, I earnestly request you to take immediate steps to declare Netaji Jayanti as 'Deshprem Divas' as his 123rd birthday is falling on January 23, 2019," the letter dated January 18 to the prime minister said.

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Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, who quit the BJP after a four-year association earlier this week, Friday said he will form a new political party.

Asserting that he will not join any other party, Apang said, "I will float a new party."



The 69-year-old leader arrived here to attend Saturday's mega opposition rally at the invitation of West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee.

He praised Banerjee as a 'great leader' and expressed support for her initiative to defeat the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Apang has been the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh for 22 years in two stints - from January 1980 to January 1999 and again from August 2003 to April 2007.

Apang resigned from the saffron party in a letter sent to party president Amit Shah on Tuesday. He had left the Congress and joined the BJP ahead of the 2014 general election.

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Five Belgian Shepherd dogs have been inducted into the Mumbai police force to help in investigation and detection of crime, an official said Friday.

The canines will be part of the police's Dog Squad, he said.

"Five new Belgian Shepherd breed dogs have been inducted by the city police. They are going to help police in their investigation and detection efforts," said police spokesperson DCP Manjunath Singe.

He said five lady constables have been deployed for handling these canines.

The constables will be responsible for their training and day-to-day operations, the DCP added.

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National Conference president Farooq AbdullahFriday reiterated that his party was committed towards ensuring regional autonomy in Jammu and Kashmir as it will assuage the aspirations of the people of all the regions.

The former chief minister sought a massive mandate for his party in the ensuing elections, saying a strong and stable government alone can steer Jammu and Kashmir to peace, progress and development.

"On being given absolute majority in the ensuing elections, National Conference will bring legislation in the first assembly session with regard to regional autonomy," Abdullah said while interacting with various deputations besides welcoming new entrants into the party fold.

The people, he said, have realised the crucial need of a strong and stable government to meet various challenges confronted by the state.

Abdullah said a comprehensive blue print had already been drawn by the NC after extensive deliberations with an avowed objective of empowering the regions under the overall superintendence of the state government.

He said due care had been taken towards the distinct needs and urges of the people of various regions and hoped that it would go a long way in satiating their aspirations.

The veteran leader further said regional autonomy will build mutual trust between the regions and result in harmonious growth of the state, with people getting equal opportunities of progress and development.

On the occasion, senior Peoples Democratic Party leader from Poonch Peer Nissar Hussain Shah joined the National Conference.

Welcoming him, Abdullah said the National Conference was a mass movement devoted to the service of the people of the state.

Hussain, who is also the Sarpanch of Sawjian Poonch pledged to work for the betterment of the people and stressed the need for a single party government in the state.

"A government with absolute majority is the answer to all the challenges confronting to the state," he said.

Abdullah also said that political empowerment of women was necessary by reserving seats for them in democratic institutions.

On being given absolute majority, the NC will have 33 per cent reservations in the assembly for women, he said.

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The EU on Friday published its negotiating plans for a free trade deal with the United States, part of an effort to avert a trade war with US President Donald Trump.

Negotiating a trade deal was included in a transatlantic truce secured last year after the US slapped tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from the EU, alarming the world.

The effort is also part of an effort to stop Trump from slapping tariffs on European car imports, a danger that has especially unnerved export powerhouse Germany.

"It is not a traditional (trade deal)... it is a limited but important proposal engaged on industrial goods tariffs only," EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told reporters.

The process however has got off to a rocky start, with the US side last week including agricultural products in their plans, which is an absolute no-go for the Europeans.

"In this mandate, we are not proposing any reduction of tariffs on agriculture. That area was left outside," Malmstrom insisted.

The 17-page mandate submitted by the US also included other demands and charges that are unacceptable for the EU, including that Europe stop manipulating foreign exchange rates.

Given the split, the EU is entering the negotiations with trepidation, especially since the threat of auto duties is still very much alive in Washington.

The commission handles trade negotiations for the EU's 28 member states and the plans must now be approved by the national governments before negotiations actually start with Washington.

Brussels and member states are wary after the failure of the so-called TTIP talks, a far more ambitious transatlantic trade plan which stalled amid fears a deal with Washington would undermine EU food and health standards. Opposition by activists has already resurfaced with Friends of the Earth Europe warning that "there can be no trade-offs on food standards" in the deal.

EU governments were shell-shocked last year when Trump imposed tariffs on metals imports as part of his "America First" protectionist vision. Brussels responded by slapping counter-tariffs on more than USD 3 billion in US exports like bourbon, blue jeans and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

But Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in July called a truce, agreeing that as both sides pursued a trade deal, neither would impose additional tariffs.

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Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda Friday said the entire nation was united to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre.

He praised West Bengal chief minister and TMC president Mamata Banerjee and termed her efforts to make way for a secular government in the country as "historic".

"Mamata is a great leader. She is hard working and such people are required in politics," Gowda said on his arrival here ahead of Saturday's mega opposition rally.

"Her decision to make way for formation of a secular government is historic", he added.

The president of the Janata Dal (Secular) later met Banerjee.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar too lauded Banerjee's efforts to bring all opposition parties on one platform.

"Mamata has taken the initiative to bring all political parties together," Pawar said.

"BJP is spreading canards across the country. There should be an end to it," he added.

The TMC chief also called on Pawar at a city hotel where he was staying.

Describing the TMC supremo as a "great leader", former Arunachal Chief Minister Gegong Apang said that her initiative would turn out to be a great success in defeating the Narendra Modi government in the coming Lok Sabha election.

Deve Gowda, Pawar and Apang would join a host of prominent leaders of opposition parties from across the country at the 'united opposition rally' at Brigade ground here on Saturday.

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The Delhi University Teachers' Association Friday protested outside the vice chancellor's office against the varsity's provision to have 10 per cent of permanent positions as contractual appointments.

The protest was "against the total apathy of the varsity administration towards teachers who are waiting for their promotion for more than a decade," the DUTA said.

It said contractual jobs of any kind was unacceptable as thousands of young teachers are already working in "extremely exploitative and uncertain conditions".

Our protest is to highlight the issues related to denial of promotion to more than 2,500 teachers, the DUTA said.

It demanded that the matter be discussed in the Executive Council of the varsity.

The other demands are the inclusion of Physical as a teaching discipline (as recognised in the UGC Regulations), the fulfilling of the promise made by the VC to make provision for one month's maternity leave to ad-hoc teachers and the decision regarding immediate disbursal of revised pension to the retired teachers, it said.

The DUTA alleged that the varsity had been converted into a fortress with the presence of police and the Rapid Action Force.

"Instead of resolving the issues of teachers which have been pending for years, the administration has resorted to such means revealing their indifference to the plight of all sections of teachers," it said.

Meanwhile, sources said an Executive Council meeting was held in the afternoon where some members moved a resolution against the use of police force against the protesting teachers, alleging that it was done at the behest of the varsity administration.

A discussion ensued on it for three hours and later the issue of having 10 per cent permanent positions as contractual appointments was taken up for discussion, they said.

The Academic Council had on Wednesday passed the proposal to have 10 per cent of permanent positions as contractual appointments despite opposition from certain members, the sources claimed.

In a statement, the varsity appealed to its members to maintain peace and harmony.

"University of Delhi strongly believes in freedom of speech and expression. The university appeals to all members in various departments/colleges/institutes to maintain peace and harmony during the course of exercising their freedom of speech and expression," it said.

Meanwhile, police said the protesting teachers tried to scale barricades and they had to resort to the use of mild force to control the situation.

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The moved the Madras High Court Friday challenging the central government's decision to provide 10 per cent reservation in employment and education to economically backward classes, saying it "offends" the basic structure of the Constitution.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) claimed in its plea that reservation is not a poverty alleviation programme but is more in the nature of social justice to uplift communities that have not had access to education or employment for centuries.

"Therefore, essentially, the exception to the equality clause is only available to those communities which were ostracised for centuries in matters of education and employment. Economic criteria has been, however, used as a filter to exclude the creamy layer, persons belong to the backward classes but who are economically advanced," organising secretary R S Bharathi said in the petition.

"Hence, application of economic criteria solely is not contemplated as an exception to the rule of equality and consequently to provide reservation solely on economic criteria offends the basic structure of the Constitution," he added.



The petitioner said, "It is well settled that the ceiling limit of 50 per cent in reservation is also part of the basic structure and has been asserted by the Supreme Court in several cases.

"However, in Tamil Nadu, the ceiling limit is 69 per cent due to the Tamil Nadu Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of appointments or posts in the Services under the State) Act, 1993 which is placed in the IX Schedule," he further submitted.

Legislations placed in the IX Schedule of the Constitution cannot be legally challenged.

Hence, reservation cannot be beyond 69 per cent in the state. However, the recent amendments enable reservation to go up to 79 per cent and the same is "unconstitutional", he said.

He contended that the power to amend the Constitution is subject to the limitation that the basic feature of the Constitution cannot be destroyed by such amendments.

The petitioner wanted the court to pass an interim injunction against the operation of the Constitution (One Hundred And Third Amendment) Act, 2019 pending disposal of the plea.

The plea is likely to be taken up for hearing on January 21.
The stage is set for a mega rally of opposition parties in Kolkata on Saturday, which the host TMC said would sound the "death knell" for BJP in the general election later this year.

Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, socialist leader Sharad Yadav, JMM chief Hemant Soren and former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang have reached Kolkata for the rally.

Chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal, H D Kumaraswamy, N Chandrababu Naidu, former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's M K Stalin, and dissident BJP lawmaker Shatrughan Sinha are likely to attend the rally being projected as a show of unity against the BJP.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who may skip the rally, extended his support to TMC chief Mamata Banerjee Friday. He hoped it would send a powerful message for a united India.

Congress has deputed its leader in Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, to represent the party.

In a letter to Banerjee, Gandhi commended the "great people" of West Bengal who had "historically been at the forefront of defending our ideals".

"I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together," Gandhi wrote.

TMC, which is hosting the rally, hopes to use the event as a platform to prop Banerjee as a leader who can "take along" other parties and challenge the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha election, expected to be held in April-May.

Banerjee said regional parties would play a role in government formation after the election.

"It will be a United India Rally against the misrule of the BJP. It will sound the death knell for the BJP. The saffron party's seat count in the general election will not cross 125," she claimed.

Banerjee said she has met some of the leaders and will meet others who are arriving.

After arriving at the NSC Bose Airport in Kolkata, Akhilesh Yadav said the nation is "waiting for a new prime minister" and the rally will send a message for change loud and clear.

He alleged the BJP-led Centre was responsible for the distress caused to farmers, youth, the poor and traders.

Deve Gowda said the entire nation is united to defeat the BJP. He termed the efforts to form a "secular" government after the election "historic".

The JD(S) president said those against whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made allegations have come together to form a grand alliance against his party.

Sharad Pawar praised Banerjee's efforts to bring opposition parties on one platform.

Loktantrik Janata Dal's Sharad Yadav said the TMC chief had put the BJP's seat tally rather higher in her estimates.

"They will be much below 125," Sharad Yadav, who is trying to bring RJD, Congress, RLSP and HAM together in Bihar against the JD(U)-BJP-LJP coalition, said.

BSP, which has formed an alliance with SP in Uttar Pradesh, will be represented by Satish Chandra Mishra.

Despite the parties sharing the stage together, their leaders have said that this rally should only be seen as a show of unity and not be confused with their political equations in UP.

"This is an anti-BJP rally. So many opposition parties are taking part in it and we are also part of it. It has nothing to do with Uttar Pradesh politics," SP vice president Kiranmoy Nanda said.

The Congress, which has been left out of the SP-BSP alliance, too said the rally should not be confused with UP

Odisha's ruling Biju Janata Dal has said it will not attend the rally in pursuance of its policy of keeping equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist), along with the other Left parties, has also decided to not participate in the rally.

Ajit Singh and Jayant Choudhary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, which has a base in western Uttar Pradesh and is trying for an understanding with the SP-BSP, will attend the rally.

Ahead of the mega rally, the sprawling Brigade Parade Ground has been wrapped in a thick blanket of security.

Twenty watch towers have been erected and 1,000 microphones and 30 LED screens are being used to ensure people attending the rally are able to see and hear the speeches clearly.

As many as 10,000 police personnel will be deployed and around 400 police pickets have been set up across the city to ensure fool-proof security at the rally.

After the rally, leaders would congregate for a tea party Banerjee is to host.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
/ -- The PolicyHack challenged teams of teachers and school representatives to come up with innovative solutions to problems faced by teachers inside and outside the classroom



Dell, as a part of its three-city PolicyHack series, hosted an interactive hackathon, where teachers focused on their learning journey. In a first-of-its-kind hackathon for teachers, Dell has partnered with the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) and Ignus, to create a platform where teachers, school representatives and a cross-sectional group experts related to can interact with each other.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/617893/Dell_EMC_Logo.jpg )



The maiden PolicyHackTM in India was conducted at two levels: over 80 schools pan-India shared their statements of purpose. Basis the evaluation parameters, top 20 shortlisted schools presented their ideas to the Jury, which comprised of Mr. Sanjay Awasthi (Member Secretary - NCTE), Mr. Rajive Gulati (Head - Start-Up Incubator, HARTRON), Prof. Dr. Anantha Duraiappah (Director, UNESCO MGIEP), Mr. Subir Shukla (Founder - Group Ignus), Mr. Ajay Kaul (Director - Dell EMC) and Ms. Ritu Gupta (Director - Dell).

Dell plans to present three more PolicyHacks in other regions of the country in 2019, in an endeavour to foster and cultivate innovative ideas on how teachers can leverage technology for themselves and for the benefit of their students. PolicyHackTM is a global forum of Public Policy discussions, curated under the umbrella of Realizing 2030 - wherein Dell strives to explore and realize the true potential of technology to drive human progress. The objective of the PolicyHack is to enable an ecosystem-wide understanding of key problems that impact the learning journey of a teacher. The maiden hackathon for teachers was won by the Government Boys Senior Secondary School No 1 Ghonda, Delhi who presented the most promising and innovative ideas and solutions. The teams who were runners up were Indraprastha International School, Gyan Devi Salwan Public School and Dr. Sampuranand SKV-1.

Speaking about the hackathon, Ajay Kaul, Director and GM, Head Government Business, Dell EMC, said, "Teachers have always played a key role in fuelling curiosity in the minds of young students. These students set out to become some of the brightest minds in the world. Inspired by teachers' contribution to our system, Dell PolicyHack India aims at creating a platform dedicated for teachers to address their day-to-day challenges and explore how technology can help enable their success. As a company we are focused on transforming education, and our efforts with Atal Innovation Mission, EduVision and Dell Aarambh are testimony to that. These hacks will add another dimension to our ongoing efforts, and will provide a lot of inputs to the budding edu-tech communities, by sharing with them real issues faced by administrations and teachers. We are truly thrilled to partner with UNESCO-MGIEP and IGNUS in bringing this PolicyHack for Teachers - and we hope it makes a difference."



Dr. Anantha Duraiappah, Director, UNESCO MGIEP, said, "We all must move away from the present assessment-obsessed competitive system to a structure that rewards collaboration, empathy and compassion for the social good. Digital pedagogies can help educators develop content that is fun, engaging, interactive and immersive for the user, and reach out to a large pool of students."



"Even as we have expanded access and more and more children are in school, attaining learning for each child and preparing our younger generations for the 21st century are challenges that have to be urgently addressed. Who better to have with us in this quest than our teachers, whose commitment and experience offers us the insights needed," says Subir Shukla, Founder, Group Ignus. He further added, "Policy and implementation, especially in the era when digital technology is becoming an intrinsic part of education to create new possibilities for students, will gain greatly from teachers' inputs and I'm sure many their ideas will be put into action in the coming years."



Dell is committed to turning the winning proposal into a reality. The PolicyHack team with the winning proposal will work alongside Dell and the relevant stakeholders to further develop their policy solutions post the hackathon.

About Dell Inc.

Dell Inc., a part of Dell Technologies, provides customers of all sizes - including 99 percent of the Fortune 500 - with a broad, innovative portfolio from edge to core to cloud. Dell Inc. comprises Dell client as well as Dell EMC infrastructure offerings that enable organizations to modernize, automate and transform their data center while providing today's workforce and consumers what they need to securely connect, produce, and collaborate from anywhere at any time.

Source: Dell Inc.

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Delhi's air quality slightly improved with increased wind speed Friday but was recorded in "very poor" category as CPCB-led task force recommended municipal commissioners (MC) and district magistrates (DM) to review ground-level action by their teams on a daily basis and ensure intensified measures.

According to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, the overall air quality index (AQI) in the city was 394 which falls in the "very poor" category.

Lt Governor Anil Baijal Friday reviewed the air pollution situation of Delhi and asked agencies to direct field officers to visit hotspots and heavily penalise instances of burning of waste, polluting units and dust-generating activities.

In view of the spike of pollution level in the national capital, the Central Pollution Control Board-led task force recommended that municipal commissioners and district magistrates review ground-level action by their teams on daily basis and ensure intensified measures.

An AQI between 100 and 200 comes under the 'moderate' category, 201 and 300 is considered 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor', while that between 401 and 500 is 'severe'.

The CPCB said as many as 11 areas recorded "severe" air quality and 18 "very poor" air quality. In the National Capital Region, Ghaziabad and Greater Noida recorded "severe" air quality, while Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida recorded "very poor" air quality, it said.

The overall PM2.5 level, fine particulate matters in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, in Delhi was 252, while the PM10 level was 385, it said.

The Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR) said the overall air quality has improved to "very poor" category from "severe" since morning due to an appreciable increase in wind speed to 3.8 kmph despite other adverse meteorological conditions, including dense fog.

"It is likely to improve marginally and slowly but the AQI is expected to remain in very poor range for next three days. An active western disturbance is very likely to cause fairly widespread of moisture intrusion over northern Indian region, including Delhi," the SAFAR said.

"If it results in sufficient amount of rain then rapid improvement (in air quality) to poor is expected. Else pre-shower conditions or little shower only aggravates the situation. Dense to very dense fog will continue at isolated places over Delhi which is not good for air quality as it will resist pollutants to mix vertically," the SAFAR said.

Baijal chaired a meeting with Delhi government officials and EPCA chairperson and other municipal authorities. He asked the Delhi government to ensure greening of areas where waste has been lifted to control dust pollution.

"To control air pollution, night patrolling need to be conducted by teams comprising representatives from MCDs, Revenue department, DPCC. Industrial associations/market traders associations, citizen groups are to be sensitized," he said in a statement.

Baijal chaired a meeting today at Raj Niwas convened by Chairman, EPCA to review air pollution, waste managment and sealing of industries operating in non-conforming areas like Narela, Bawana, Mundka and adjoining areas.

The meeting was attended by Delhi Minister Imran Hussain, and EPCA Chairman Bhure Lal.

Baijal also directed PWD and MCDs to ensure greening of areas from where waste has been lifted to control dust pollution. He also directed DJB to ensure drinking water supply at industrial areas.

Baijal was further apprised that 41,580 MT solid waste/industrial wastes has been collected from Narela and Bawana area. Also, DPCC has issued 230 show cause notices in Narela and Bawana area and imposed Rs 1.825 crore of penalties and received an amount of Rs. 82.50 lakh.

The DSIIDC has inspected 3817 units in Narela and Bawana area and issued notices to 867 defaulters.

It was also informed that 21,960 non-permissible industries operating in residential and non-conforming areas have been closed in Step I by municipal bodies. In Step II, 30,000 similar units operating illegally in residential and non-conforming areas will be closed.

It was further informed that out of 1467 industries, 1297 industries have been converted into PNG and 170 industries have been closed for non-conversion to PNG. Environmental Marshalls have attended 15556 no. of incidents and settled 14310 incidents at site.

The task force sought daily action taken report to CPCB and Supreme Court-appointed Pollution Control Authority.

The IMD informed the task force that the air quality will gradually improve and rain and higher wind speeds are expected Monday. In view of this, the task force opined that there is no need to invoke additional measures.

However, measures already in force must be intensified by implementing agencies particularly in the areas(Bawana, Mundka, Nehru Nagar, R.K. Puram, Rohini, Vivek Vihar, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad,Gurugram) which showed higher levels of pollution.

"Construction and demolition activity, open dumping and burning of municipal solid waste, traffic congestion, which have been extensively reported by field teams, may require special attention," it recommended.

Similar actions may be taken in other adjoining areas of Delhi like Bahadurgarh, Sonipat, Jhajjar.

A study said about 3 per cent of the people surveyed do not understand the meaning of 'Air Quality Index' and do not know when it is termed as 'good', 'poor', or 'severe'.

The study conducted by United Residents Joint Action (URJA), a collective of the city's resident welfare associations (RWAs) and ARK foundation, was conducted among residents in 10 polluted areas in Delhi.

Delhi's air quality was recorded in severe category on Thursday and slightly improved on Friday to very poor category.

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Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday visited the forward areas in Dibang Valley district of Arunachal Pradesh along India-China Border and inaugurated a strategically important bridge in Lower Dibang Valley district.

The minister overflew the forward locations along the Line of Actual Control and visited the Army post at Anini in the district located at the height of 5,300 feet, a defence statement said.

Sitharaman was accompanied by the Eastern Army Commander, Lt Gen MM Naravane, General Officer Commanding of Spear Corps, Lt Gen Rajeev Sirohi and other military and civil officials.

At the forward post, the minister was briefed on the operational situation and defence preparedness of the armed forces in Dibang Valley.

She also interacted with the troops and appreciated their dedication and service in protecting the country's borders in such an inhospitable terrain.

Later, Sitharaman inaugurated the Difu (Chipu) Bridge at Roing in Lower Dibang Valley district.

In addition to enhancing operational capability, the 329 metres bridge will usher in economic prosperity for people of Namsai, Lohit, Anjaw and Lower Dibang Valley districts of the state, the statement said.

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The 15th edition of the D Y Patil T20 Cup will be held at the D Y Patil Stadium and the University Ground here alongside two matches apiece at Ghansoli and Talegaon from January 21 to February 2.

In all, 16 teams will face off to be crowned the champion of the tournament.

The 16 teams have been drawn in four groups, a media release issued here Friday said.

The top two teams from each of the four groups will qualify for the quarter-finals to be held on January 31.

Some of India's best players are expected to be in action in the fortnight-long tournament, the release said.

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A court here has sentenced two men to 20 years of imprisonment for raping a minor girl in 2016.

Awarding the jail term to Dhulia Manual and Bikas Majhi on Thursday, Additional District Judge Ajanta Sarangi also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 each on the convicts for raping the 14-year-old girl at Chakarada village.

In case of non-payment of the fine amount, the convicts would have to serve an additional three months in jail, the judge said.

According to the prosecution, the girl was raped on January 1 and 31, 2016 by the two convicts, following which she had lodged a police complaint.

After the completion of the investigation, the police had arrested the convicts.

The victim had stated in her complaint that while she was returning home in the evening on January 1, 2016, she was forcibly taken to an isolated place, gagged and raped by Dhulia. Later, on January 31, Dhulia and his friend Bikas had raped her at knife-point in a deserted place.

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Four armed robbers allegedly held an elderly cotton trader, his relative and two others hostage at gunpoint inside his bungalow here for three hours, before decamping with cash and valuables worth Rs 5.7 lakh, police said on Friday.

The incident took place on Wednesday morning at the trader's bungalow located on Apte Road in upmarket Deccan area of the city, police added.

According to police, the robbers held cotton trader Hanskumar Khimji (79), his sister-in-law Hemaji Chheda (63), his domestic aide and caretaker of the bungalow were held hostage.

The robbers barged into the bungalow around 9.30 am on Wednesday and threatened them to hand over cash and valuables by brandishing a gun and sharp weapons, they said.

"When Khimji told them that he did not have enough cash, one of the intruders left for Mumbai with Khimji's driver to collect Rs 1 crore from the trader's office," senior police inspector Bhaskar Jadhav of Deccan Gymkhana police station said.

The remaining three robbers then tied the domestic help and caretaker of the bungalow with a rope.

"They also put Khimji and his sister-in-law into a room on the upper floor of the bungalow with one of the accused keeping a watch on them inside the room," he said.

It is an old bungalow and Khimjis occasionally come there as they want to sell off the property, he added.

"Around 1.30 pm, one of the robbers, who was keeping a watch on Khimji and Chheda, went out of the room to talk to his accomplice. Seizing the opportunity, Chheda immediately locked the door from inside and raised an alarm and shouted for help from the window," Jadhav said.

As Chheda started shouting for help, the robbers developed cold feet and fled the house after taking away cash and valuables worth Rs 5.70 lakh, the officer said.

"The three robbers then might have called their fourth accomplice and asked him to run away. The fourth robber, who along with the driver, was about to reach to Kurla, then got down from the car and escaped," Jadhav said.

"A case has been registered and multiple teams have been formed to trace the robbers. We are also checking the CCTV cameras installed on Apte road," he said.

The robbers might have conducted a recce of the house before executing their plan, Jadhav said adding that further investigation into the case is on.

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Controversy erupted in Kerala after the CPI(M)-led LDF government Friday submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court claiming 51 women in menstrual age entered the Sabarimala temple during the ongoing annual pilgrimage season.

The BJP, the Sabarimala Karma Samiti and the Pandalam royal family, associated with the Lord Ayyappa temple, came down heavily on the state government saying there were discrepancies in the age of the women devotees mentioned in the affidavit.

This is the first time the government has stated that 51 women in the previously barred age group have entered the temple.

Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran Friday said here that 7,564 women had registered online for visiting the hill-top shrine.

"As per the virtual 'queue' facility reports, 51 women between the age group of 10-50 have visited the temple. However, we don't know whether all of them have managed to reach the Sannidhanam (temple complex) and offered prayers or not," he told reporters here.

Strongly reacting to the submission in the apex court, the main opposition Congress and the BJP hit out at the LDF government, alleging it was lying in the affidavit.

BJP state President P S Sreedharan Pillai termed the government's submission as "the biggest lie of the century."



The state had witnessed widespread violent protests for several days from January 2 after the LDF government confirmed that two women in menstrual age entered the shrine following the September 28 apex court order allowing women of all ages into the shrine.

Kanaka Duraga and Bindu, aged 44 and 42 respectively, had entered the temple in the wee hours of January 2.This was followed by a Sri Lankan woman Sasikala offering prayers at the temple.

Chief Minister Pinarayi himself had confirmed the entry of the three women into the shrine.

Surendran said the government did not have the number of women who might have visited the temple without availing the online virtual queue system.

After the apex court verdict of September 28 last year, the age of women pilgrims were not being cross-checked at Pamba which is around 3.5 km from the Sannidhanam, he said.

The Minister said 8.2 lakh people passed through the virtual queue facility during this pilgrim season which began in November last year.

Pillai told PTI that the government was 'lying' to the Supreme Court and "fooling the people".

He said there were reports coming out saying most of the women in the government's list were above 50 years of age.

"In case if anyone had visited the temple, they should have come openly. Everything should have been done in a transparent manner. The CPI(M) and the government had failed in the Sabarimala issue and this was an attempt to hide it. They are fooling people," Pillai added.

Son of one Kalavathi Manohar from Goa told the media that the age of his mother was 52 and not 43 as the affidavit stated.

With more people contradicting the details in the affidavit, local TV channels reported that the first two names in the list were fake.

"We don't know on what basis the government had given this submission. No one knew about their entry. Even the media was not aware about the visit," Narayana Varma, a member of the erstwhile Pandalam royal family, associated with the temple, said.

The Congress also trained its guns on the LDF government, saying the state administration had became "a laughing stock after submitting erroneous and misguiding affidavit."



"This submission of wrong affidavit has brought shame to the state. The Chief Minister was responsible for this," KPCC President Mullappally Ramachandran said.

Meanwhile, Bindu Friday hailed the Supreme Court direction to Kerala police to provide round-the-clock security to her and Kanakadurga.

"This is a verdict upholding the self-respect and pride of women," Bindu told reporters.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices L N Rao and Dinesh Maheshwari Friday directed Kerala police to provide round-the-clock security to Bindu and Kanakadurga on their petition seeking police protection.

The bench gave the order after studying the present sitution in Kerala which had witnessed frenzied protests by devotees, Bindu claimed.

"We have faced threats, verbal abuse in social media. In such a situation, the verdict upholds the self-respect and pride of women", she said, adding, she had faith in the judiciary and the judicial system.

Bindu also claimed many people whom she knew had offered prayers at the Ayyappa temple, but were scared to reveal their identity fearing threats.

The top court was hearing the petitions of Bindu and Kanakadurga who had entered the Sabarimala shrine on January 2.

Earlier this month, the two women had stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by the police, more than three months after the apex court's historic judgement lifting the ban on the entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity.

Following the entry of the women into the shrine, the chief priest had decided to close the sanctum sanctorum of the temple to perform the 'purification' ceremony.

On September 28 last year, a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in a 4:1 verdict paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple, saying the ban amounted to gender discrimination.

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Congress will issue notices to four MLAs seeking explanation from them for their absence at the Congress Legislature Party meeting here Friday, CLP leader Siddaramaiah said.

Briefing reporters after the CLP meet, Siddaramaiah said after receiving the replies from the absentee lawmakers, the issue would be discussed with the party high command and state leaders before deciding on the next step.

Four dissidents skipped the CLP meet that was called as a show of strength in a counter to an alleged bid by the BJP to topple the coalition government in Karnataka.

The absentee MLAs were: Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was dropped as minister in the recent cabinet rejig and is said to be extremely unhappy over it, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli.

Siddaramaiah said Jadhav had written saying he would not be able to attend the meet as he was unwell, while Nagendra had spoken to AICC general secretary K C Venugopal conveying his inability to attend because of a court case.

The other two MLAs had not communicated anything, he said.

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Congress Legislature party leader Siddaramaiah Friday said his party was shifting its MLAs to a resort to "escape" from the BJP's "onslaught."



The former Karnataka Chief Minister also accused PrimeMinister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah ofindulging in destabilising the coalition government as they fear getting just three our four seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

"All our MLAs will stay together, we will discuss there about drought situation. All our MLAs, MPs and ministers will stay together at one place....

We will stay as long it is necessary," Siddaramaiah said.

Speaking to reporters here, he said "We will discuss about party issues....to escape from the onslaught by the BJP. We will discuss about drought, parliament election also."



According to top Congress sources, at least 8 party MLAs had committed to BJP to jumping ship.

To avoid this, MLAswere being shifted to a resort on the outskirts of the city, the sources said.

Siddaramaiah, however, said, they will discuss preparation for parliamentary elections during their stay together.

Responding to a question about indulging in resort politics, while Congress was chiding the BJP for the same, he said "...because they (BJP) are troubling our MLAs by offering money..we have to escape from that."



"None of the Congress MLAs will go (to BJP), he said adding that "but, still as a precautionary measure we are going (to resort)."



Accusing BJP of involving in a "conspiracy" to destabilise the government, he said they had faced the snub two or three times in the past, but still had started going on the path that is anti-democratic.

"They (BJP) don't believe in democracy, constitution.

Yeddyurappa says they have gone to Delhi to discuss about parliament polls. What are 104 MLAs doing in the seven starhotel at Gurugram?" he questioned.

Not only state leaders of BJP, central leaders of the party, including Modi, Shah and central ministers were involved in attempts to destabilise the coalition government in Karnataka, he alleged.

Siddaramaiah alleged that BJP wanted to somehow destabilise the government, because in south of India Karnataka is the onlystate where the saffron party has presence.

Last time"they had won 17 seats (in Lok Sabha), they can't win even aseat in other stateslike Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala.

Here somehow they want to win some seats, that's their intention. As there is coalition government they know we (Congress and JD(S)) will go together...," he said.

"According to the information that I have BJP has done an internal survey, according to them if they win 3 or 4 it isa great thing.

All others we Congress and JD(S )will win. Inother parts of the country also it is disappointing picture for the BJP, so shamelessly Prime Minister, (BJP chief) Amit Shah themselves, being a national party are indulging in such things," he said.

Asserting that Congress MLAs were together, Siddaramaiah said, "our team is intact; our party is intact and united."



"BJP's allurements of money amounting Rs 50 crore, 100crore, 25 crore.. How Chowkidar's party is running? Mr Narendra Modi calls himself chowkidar, where is chowkidar getting the money from?" he questioned.

"I will give you evidence. They have spoken to our MLAs like Anil Chikkamadu, Shivalli, Hebbar, Anajali and Ramappa, among others," he pointed out, adding that they have lured them with money and ministerial posts.

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Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of attempting to "take control" of his party MLAs in Karnataka by using CBI, ED and Income Tax to "terrorise" them in the BJP's alleged bid to topple the state government.

"They are trying multiple things such as threatening our MLAs by carrying out CBI, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax raids.

Modi is attempting to take control over our MLAs," Kharge alleged while addressing Congress workers at a ceremony where H K Patil took over as KPCC campaign committee chief.

Kharge, the Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, reminded BJP leaders that Congress workers were "strong and stubborn" and they would not yield to any pressure.

He spoke about an incident to underline 'Operation Lotus', an alleged BJP attempt to topple the coalition government, Kharge said he, Modi, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, and senior BJP leader L K Advani had assembled on January 16 evening to decide on the Gandhi Peace Prize.

When they were sitting, the prime minister asked Kharge about the developments in Karnataka, he said.

"I told him that it is you not me who knows better about what you are doing. Modi said there is an information that BJP MLAs have been lured to defect.

I replied that your people and your government are doing it.Then he said your people (Congress MLAs) are roaming here and there."



On the developemnts in CBI, Kharge alleged that the prime minister had removed Alok Verma as the agency chief illegally without taking the selection committee into confidence.

The prime minister has convened a meeting on January 24 toselect the next CBI director, Kharge said, adding that he knew "beforehand" what the outcome would be.

"A meeting has been convened on January 24 after I gave notice (for the selection of CBI director). I know what the outcome will be because they have got the majority and they will do what they want," Kharge charged.

Kharge had Tuesday written to the prime minister demandingearly holding of the meeting of the high powered committee toappoint a regular CBI Director.

Presently, IPS officer MNageswara Rao has been named the interim director of the CBI.

Kharge accused Modi of ruining one institution after another whether it be universities, chief vigilance commissioner or CBI.

The Congress incharge of Karnataka affairs, K C Venugopal, alleged that the BJP-led government at the Centre was involved in the Rafale scam.

Venugopal said the prime minister thoughtthat nobody could question him.

He appealed to the party workers to gear up for the Lok Sabha polls, saying the country was going for a change.

"I am very much sure that if you work hard, definitely 2019 will be Indian National Congress year...

We will oust Modi from power," the Congress general secretary said.

Venugopal expressed confidence that Congress and its ally JD(S) would win all the 28 seats in the state.

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Days after an MLA left the Congress embarrassed with a public outburst, another Punjab legislator has pitched Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa's name for the chief minister's post, according to a video clip on social media.

"The days are not far when the command of Punjab will be in the hands of Partap Singh Bajwa ji. We, at this pious place, pray before God to accept our demand and prayer that in coming few months, we accept Partap Singh Bajwa ji as the chief minister of Punjab, Sri Hargobindpur MLA Balwinder Singh said Thursday.

He was addressing a function, where Bajwa was also sitting on the dais, at Ghuman town in Gurdaspur district.

Punjab Congress on Wednesday suspended MLA Kulbir Singh Zira from the party on the charge of indiscipline, days after he publicly vent his unhappiness over alleged inaction of authorities to check illicit liquor trade in Ferozepur.

In the video, the Congress legislator could be heard purportedly praising Bajwa, who is former chief of Punjab Congress, for raising public issues in a meeting with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in Chandigarh.

"You have seen through the media that Partap Singh Bajwa ji strongly raised the issues of Punjab-- be it demands of employees, pending payment of sugarcane growers and electricity bill of poor people before the CM, said Balwinder Singh.

When asked about Singh's comments, Bajwa said, "They can be his own sentiments. I will not like to make further comment on it."



Zira, on January 12, had left the Congress red-faced with his public outburst at a district level function to administer oath to the newly elected village heads in Ferozepur.

He had also accused a few police officers including one of the IG rank of being in cahoots with some liquor contractors in the illegal trade.

Meanwhile, Bajwa said if Zira has any grievance then he should raise it with the party high command.

"I suggest him to meet Congress president and explain the whole situation to him, said Bajwa.

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The Congress Friday said it would fight the Jharkhand Assembly elections under the leadership of the JMM, which in turn, consented to fight the Lok Sabha elections under the Congress leadership.

Jharkhand Congress president Ajoy Kumar while giving this information said seat adjustments would be discussed on January 30.

The Lok Sabha elections will be fought under the leadership of the Congress while the assembly elections will be fought under the leadership of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Kumar told PTI over phone.

The announcement comes a day after a meeting between JMMs working president Hemant Soren and Kumar held at the former's residence.

The meeting was also attended by former chief minister and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) president Babulal Marandi, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Jharkhand unit president Annapurna Devi and Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Bhubaneswar Mehta.

Both the general elections and Jharkhand assembly elections are slated to take place this year.

Out of a total of 14 Lok Sabha seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 12 in the last general elections while JMM bagged two. The Congress had drawn a blank.

In the 2014 assembly election in the state, the JMM had won 19 seats in the 81-member Jharkhand house while the Congress bagged 6. The ruling BJP had come out victorious with 43 seats.

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The BJP Friday alleged that the Congress stood with those who raised anti-India slogans, days after police filed a chargesheet in a sedition case against former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar and others.

BJP leader and Union Minister Smriti Irani also dared Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to repeat in public the slogans that Kumar and other accused had allegedly raised in JNU.

Addressing a press conference at the BJP office, Irani said, "On the one hand the BJP-led central government resolves to ensure a strong India, a resurgent India. On the other hand, the Congress continues to support the forces which proclaimed on the streets of the national capital 'Bharat Tere Tukde Hongae' (India will break up)."



She also alleged that a Congress leader "hid behind" a fig leaf of how sedition is looked upon but did not pay heed that there was a criminal conspiracy and an attempt to riot among those who spoke against India and its interest.

Earlier, Congress leader Kapil Sibal had said the sedition law should be scrapped as those in power are "manipulating" it. He also called for a change in the government to save the country.

"...but just because the Congress leader has a venomous approach towards the honorable prime minister, they would rather side with 'break the country forces' then contribute towards making a new India," she said.

Irani alleged that Rahul Gandhi publicly stood with those who raised anti-India slogans.

"The Congress chief has publicly stood with such forces, publicly supported the statement of 'Bharat Tere Tukde Hongae'. As citizens of this country let us ask the Congress president and the party, do they have the guts to stand in public places and repeat that slogan against India and interests of the nation," she said.

Slogans against India were allegedly raised during a procession in JNU in February 2016. Delhi Police earlier this week filed a chargesheet in the case.

On a question on Congress leader BK Hariprasad's remarks against BJP chief Amit Shah, who is suffering from swine flu, Irani said whenever the Congress has made false accusations and ridiculed Shah, he has only emerged stronger and strengthened the party.

On a question on four nuns who supported another nun allegedly raped by a Jalandhar bishop and were directed to leave their convent in Kerala, Irani attacked the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government.

"People who speak about women empowerment but keep quiet when women empowerment is not convenient for them politically should be questioned. The Kerala government should be asked about the steps they have taken up for their security of four nuns," she said.

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Ahead of the 2019 elections, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday intensified the demand for Special Category Status for the state and said Odisha has been a victim of central neglect and natural calamities.

Patnaik, who prior to 2014 general elections had taken up the Special Category Status (SCS) demand to Delhi, this time choose to write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue.

The state's BJD government had also placed its demand before the 15th Finance Commission, which visited Odisha recently.

"It is in this premise of historical Central neglect and frequent natural calamities that my government has been demanding Special Category Status for Odisha which will supplement out efforts in transforming the state," Patnaik wrote to Modi.

Stating that Odisha has been registering a growth rate higher than the nation's, Patnaik said, "Providing SCS will further accelerate industrial development and in turn more jobs for our youths."



"Kindly consider Odisha's request as a unique one and support us in the fast pace, inclusive development of Odisha," Patnaik requested the prime minister in the letter.

On the central neglect towards the state, Patnaik said the nation benefits immensely from its natural resources.

The iron ore deposits and other minerals have contributed significantly to the national building throughout the years, the chief minister pointed out.

Patnaik said Odisha plays a major role in the energy security of the country through its coal deposits.

Railways get among their highest profits from Odisha, he pointed out and alleged that successive central governments have neglected the state.

"Odisha remains at the bottom in the country in most central subjects like telecommunication density, railway network, banking network and coverage, national highways and air connectivity," Patnaik said in a bid to justify his claim of central neglect.

Patnaik said the unique geo-climatic condition of Odisha has make it vulnerable to recurring natural disasters. During 1900 to 2018, the state has experienced one or the other disasters like flood, cyclone, tornado or drought every year, he said.

"In some years, we have faced multiple disasters in the same year. More than 80 per cent of the geographical areas and nearly 90 per cent of population of our state are vulnerable to one or more disaster," the chief minister said.

Odisha has been affected by about 35 per cent of all the cyclonic and severe cyclonic storms that have crossed the eastern coast of India, Patnaik said.

He pointed out that calamities cause huge damage to standing crops, dwelling houses and public infrastructure including roads, bridges, power distribution, drinking water and irrigation systems.

While making a strong case for Odisha, Patnaik claimed that the state has been successful in many fronts despite financial constraints, frequent floods and cyclones.

Odisha, he said, has made steady progress on socio-economic development front. The State's GDP has increased by 50 per cent during the last six years and poverty has declined by 24.61 per cent from 2004-05 to 2011-12, the highest reduction among major states.

The chief minister said the state has launched its own food security and health security schemes and the MAMATA scheme has benefited more than 31 lakh women for child birth, he said, presenting a veritable report card of his government's achievement since coming to power in 2000.

Patnaik said about 20 lakh houses have been completed under various rural housing schemes since the 2014-15 financial year.

The electricity consumer base has also increased from 16 lakh in 2000 to 72 lakh and the state is on the course to surpass 10 lakh hectors under irrigation that the state government had set a target for itself, he said.

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Giving the 'City of joy' a distinct flavour of Welsh theatre, language and literature, the 'Wales in Kolkata' programme will run from third week of January till February 2 across the city.

Several partner institutions from Wales and Kolkata will be collaborating in the programme where leading Welsh artists and arts organisations are preparing to share their works in theatre, dance and literature, British Council (East) Director Debanjan Chakrabarti told a press meet here Friday.

"This is a great opportunity to showcase some of the very best of Wales's artistic and creative abilities in Kolkata. We are delighted that all organisations have made deep connections with Kolkata thanks to their association with the India-Wales season 2017-2018," British Council Wales, Head of Arts, Rebecca Gould said.

The India-Wales season 2017-18, which was supported by the British Council and Wales Arts International, saw 15 Welsh organisations having collaborated with Indian partners, several of which were based in Kolkata, she said.

The 'Wales in Kolkata' programme will have two art troupes from the Welsh contingent - Light, Ladd and



Emberton (LL&E) and Theatr lolo - while the Kolkata partners will include Pickle Factory, Think Arts and publishers Bee Books.

As part of the programme, Theatr Iolo's production Transporter, "a spoken word odyssey, written and performed by Catherine Dyson partnering with Kolkata-based Think Arts" will be presented on January 23 at the Junior Kolkata Literary Meet, Victoria Memorial Hall, he said.

Light, Ladd & Emberton's (LL&E) dance production Caitlin, partnering with Kolkata-based Pickle Factory Dance Foundation, will be staged at the Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan chronicling popular Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' tumultuous relationship with his wife Caitlin.

It will be staged on January 22, 24 and 25.

Prof Daniel Williams of Swansea University and Gary Raymond, novelist and renowned editor of Wales Arts Review, will also be part of the Wales in Kolkata delegation.

"We are celebrating the partnership between Kolkata and Wales," Chakrabarti said while Dyson said "the programmes will talk about things which really join us.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has rang up the All Assam Students Union (AASU) spearheading the agitation over the Citizenship Amendment Bill expressing the Centre's desire to resolve the issue through discussions, a statement by the students' body said here Friday.

Talking to Singh, AASU and North East Students Organisation (NESO) Chief Advisor Samujjal Bhattacharyya insisted that the bill "which will make the indigenous people extinct and only protect the Bangladeshis has to be scrapped as desired by the people of Assam and the northeast region."



NESO is the umbrella organisation of major students unions of the seven northeastern states.

"Only through implementation of the historic Assam Assam Accord 1985, signed at the end of the Assam Movement, the burning issue of citizenship problem has to be solved," the statement quoted Bhattacharyya as telling the minister.

A six-year long movement by the AASU demanding identification and deportation of illegal immigrants culminated with the signing of the Assam Accord by the Rajiv Gandhi government and the AASU on August 15, 1985.

AASU president Dipanka Nath and General Secretary Luringjyoti Gogoi said the organisation will apprise the leadership of its allied 30 ethnic community and the NESO about Rajnath Singh's phone call.

Asserting that the controversial bill has to be scrapped, the two AASU leaders said the organisation is firm about its demand and will continue its agitation for the existence of indigenous people.

Rajnath Singh also discussed the matter with Mizoram and Meghalaya chief ministers in a meeting in New Delhi during the day.

Meanwhile, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) that severed its alliance with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state recently over the bill, took out a torch rally in Guwahati on Friday evening as part of its statewide protest.

The controversial bill passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8 seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India instead of 12 years, which is the norm currently, even if they do not possess any document.

Protests against the Citizenship Bill have rocked the entire northeast region, with several indigenous organisations raising voice against the legislation, citing threat to their identity and culture.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid strong protests over the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill, the Centre is expected to soon call a meeting of the chief ministers of all northeastern states to address concerns, sources said.

A decision in this regard was taken after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh discussed the matter in detail with Mizoram and Meghalaya chief ministers in a meeting here.

The controversial bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8.

However, large scale protests were witnessed in the northeastern states including Assam and Mizoram over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government's attempt to pass the bill in the Upper House of Parliament.

"There was a serious discussion on the bill in the meeting. The centre has assured that it will look into the concerns of northeastern states before moving ahead," a highly placed government source said.

"Most likely, a meeting of chief ministers of all northeastern states will be called soon to resolve their concerns," the source added.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said: "Northeastern states will be forced to take a call if it does not get a positive response on the scrapping of the bill."



In the meeting, Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga said the centre was informed that all northeastern states were opposing the bill and the law should not be diluted.

"It (amendments) should not be there. Let it be as it is. Let it not be amended as it is proposed. That's what we want," he said.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, provides for Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India instead of the current requirement of 12 years, even if they do not possess any document.

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A top Chinese security official has asked the police to crackdown on the "colour revolutions" or popular uprisings, and directed them to defend China's political system headed by the ruling Communist Party.

China's police must stress on the "prevention and resistance of 'colour revolutions' and firmly fight to protect China's political security," Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi said.

"(We) must firmly defend our national security, with regime and system security at its core, and firmly defend the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and our nation's socialist system," he was quoted as saying on Thursday at the annual meeting of the Public Security Ministry.

"Strike back against all kinds of infiltration and subversive activities by hostile foreign forces," he said.

The CPC, which is due to celebrate its 70th year in power this year, jealously guards the one-party system. All organs of the state including the powerful military and police besides courts, function under its authority.

President Xi Jinping, who is now regarded as president for life following an amendment to the Constitution removing the two-term limit for the presidency, also heads the CPC and the military, making him the most powerful leader in China since Mao Zedong.

The "colour revolutions" refers to various uprisings and insurgencies in the world.

Chinese security forces have been conducting massive crackdowns against the East Turkestan Islamic Movement militants in Xinjiang, neighbouring Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), and Afghanistan.

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As China grapples with the continued slowdown of its economy amid the trade war with the US, an influential member of the ruling Communist Party of China has reminded the CPC of the collapse of the former Soviet Union and warned against repeating mistakes that led to its demise.

"One of the fatal errors (made by the Soviets) is that they followed a political system with highly centralised power. Not every socialist country does that," said Hu Deping, son of late reformist CPC general secretary Hu Yaobang whose death ultimately led to the infamous Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

"Another (mistake) was their rigid economic system. By the same token, not all socialist countries must practise a planned economy," Hu, who belongs to the liberal group of the CPC, was quoted as saying at a seminar by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

Significantly in his speech Hu called on the party to "actively explore political reforms" without elaborating, further signifying the rumblings in the party amid the crisis.

Hu, 76, was a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body, until 2013 and is a strong supporter of the private sector and market reform.

The death of his father, a leading liberal figure, in 1989 prompted mass student demonstrations that eventually culminated in the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Hu spoke at a seminar in Beijing hosted by the Hongfan Institute of Legal and Economic Studies, a liberal private think tank made up of former economic and policy advisers and academics.

The collapse of the all-powerful Soviet Communist Party in 1991 figures high in the ideological discourse of the CPC.

President Xi Jinping himself in his speech in 2017 warned the party about the collapse of the Soviet Communist Party as he asked CPC members to draw lessons from it.

Beset with economic slowdown in the last few years and weighed down by rising expectations of the people, the CPC, which is the world's longest ruling Communist Party since 1949, has made the collapse of the Soviet Union a major lesson in all its party schools.

Adding to the woes is the current trade war with the US which is leading to further strains on the export-dependent economy. President Donald Trump is demanding China cut down the USD 375 billion deficit, which if realised will lead to further decline of exports in the world's second largest economy.

It is rare for CPC officials to express their opinion in public but Hu's speech was seen a reflection of growing anxieties in the party, which is poised to celebrate 70th year in power this year.

His speech came as party elites are expected to convene a high-level meeting to discuss the direction of policy ahead of the annual parliamentary sessions in March.

Hu's speech was billed as being on the topic of the private sector and reform, but he used the occasion to discuss the collapse of the Soviet Union and how China could avoid making the same mistakes, the Post report said.

"The history of the 20th century proved that capitalist countries successfully boosted their economic growth by relying on technological advancement and improved efficiency instead of an investment-driven growth model," he said.

"On the contrary, the Soviet Union went down a road that led to a dead end," he said.

China's current trade war with the US has prompted warnings from many observers that it could drag down the world economy and cost both countries dearly.

Hu warned that China must not backtrack on the reform process.

"We must fully understand the direction and specific targets of our reforms, and never walk backwards," Hu said, "We must learn the lessons from the Soviet Union and press on firmly with our (reforms) to the end".

Hu did not give a list of the critical reforms that he had in mind, but in response to a question from the audience said China should "actively explore political reforms" without elaborating further.

Hu also lamented the damage that the collapse of the Soviet Union had done to the Russian people.

"The current gross domestic product of Russia is even less than that of Guangdong province," he said, adding "It makes people feel really sorry that our big brother (USSR) has fallen into such a condition".

Last month a high-profile celebration to mark the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up process saw President Xi Jinping stressing the importance of continuing reform but only under the party's leadership.

"For those that ought to be changed or can be changed, we will change, but for those that shouldn't be changed or cannot be changed, we will firmly not change," Xi had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A fresh row erupted Friday over the Rafale deal with the Congress alleging that the NDA government has wronged the country by reducing the number of aircraft bought under the deal as it "denied" the IAF the jets it "desperately" needed and gave a "windfall" to Dassault Aviation by paying more per aircraft.

The government, however, rejected as "factually inaccurate" the media report which was cited by the Congress to target it and said it would be best to await the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which has been given access to all the files relating to the contract.

The report claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 Rafale jets, instead of 126 as negotiated by the previous UPA government, while bypassing mandated procedures pushed the price of each aircraft up by 41.42 per cent.

Addressing a press conference, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the government did not buy the 90 more aircraft needed by the Air Force and paid Rs 186 crore more to French firm Dassault, maker of Rafale, for 13 India-specific enhancements in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).

The former finance minister while citing the report in 'The Hindu' reiterated his party's demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale jet deal, saying the decision is not amenable to court but to a parliamentary panel.

The Defence Ministry, however, rebutted the allegations saying the report compared "price of 2007 with the price of 2016 without considering the escalation factors inherent in the price bid". The UPA government had started the process of procuring the jets in 2007.

"The article is factually inaccurate. It does not adduce any new argument. All the issues have been answered in detail by the Government at various fora and most recently by the Raksha Mantri in an open debate in Parliament," a ministry spokesperson said.

Citing the newspaper report, Chidambaram had alleged, "The government has wronged the country in two ways - firstly, it has compromised national security by denying to the Air Force 90 fighter aircraft that they desperately need.

"Secondly, it has purchased two squadrons that will cost about 25 million more per aircraft. At the 2016 exchange rate, Euro 25 million is equal to Rs 186 crore. India will pay Rs 186 crore more per aircraft."



"There is no doubt any longer that Rafale aircraft deal deserves to be examined thoroughly by a joint parliamentary committee. The Congress reiterates its demand for constitution of a JPC," he said.

The Congress has alleged earlier that the prime minister increased the Benchmark Price' of Rafale deal from 5.2 billion Euros to 8.2 billion Euros and that the NDA government paid over Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft against UPA's negotiated price of Rs 527 crore per aircraft, demanding answers as to who is responsible for the loss to the state exchequer.

Rejecting the Congress' charges, BJP leader and Union minister Smriti Irani said the opposition party's "malicious campaign has been exposed" as she noted the Supreme Court verdict on the matter and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's over 90-minute reply in Parliament.

Irani said those who are on bail are running a false propaganda in a dig at Rahul Gandhi and Chidambaram.

"The Congress' game of running a malicious campaign on this issue and abandoning national interest for their own has been exposed," she said.

"The Supreme Court has spoken on it, the defence minister has spoken on it...for those who use this for their own political ends, yeh public hai, sab janti hai (the public knows it all)," Irani said.

Chidambaram said he feels that Dassault "is laughing all the way to the bank", as the NDA government gave a "gift" to the French firm over amortization or recovery on the cost of 13 India-specific enhancements sought in the aircraft that cost 1,300 million Euros.

He said the cost of these enhancements have been recovered by Dassault in 36 aircraft and the same should have been recovered by it for 126 aircraft instead.

Chidambaram said he has only analyzed a part of the new information available and awaited more information to come.

"That is a windfall for Dassault. That is the gift that the NDA government has given to Dassault and that is why I said Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank... The windfall to Dassault is highly questionable. The windfall to Dassault is undeserved. The windfall to Dassault was certainly not through as per negotiation, it was a deliberate decision," he alleged.

"The increased price per aircraft is a gift to Dassault that the NDA government gave between April 2015 to August 2016," he also said.

Chidambaram said serious issues are being raised in media reports about the process of decision-making in the NDA government and alleged that "the man who got away was Mr Manohar Parrikar who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security. Clever man."



"We will not comment on the process today. However, it is necessary to compliment the three officers of the Indian Negotiating Team who stood up to pressure and forced a vote of 4-3 on every issue," he said, adding that he has never seen such a decision on a defence deal happening in any government so far in the country.

CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury alleged, "Modi's sudden announcement in Paris, to buy only 36 Rafale jets, not 126 that the Air Force wanted, violated all procedure. But it also compromised India's national security and increased the price by 41%! That is why Modi has been running scared of sharing details."



He said the CPI(M) had long demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the deal but the government had blocked all such efforts.

"It is crystal clear now, and no amount of spin will help," the CPI(M) leader said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Union government is developing a Common Alert Protocol (CAP) system to warn people about impending and lightning strikes, which account for the second highest number of natural disaster deaths in India, a top official has said.

K J Ramesh, the director general of meteorology, Meteorological Department (IMD), said predicting and lightning might be a possibility soon by studying satellite and radar images and collating data from several other sources.

"The CAP model has already been tested successfully. A message can be pushed into all active cell phones in a particular area, alerting people about the possibility of lightning," he said at a three-day international conference, which began here on Thursday evening.

The top official also complimented the for talking "proactive steps" in building proper infrastructure to ensure safety of its people during natural hazards.

"The has been trying to improve matters and working closely with the The state administration has built a large number of cyclone shelters along the coastal areas," he said, adding that the media would need to play a crucial role in creating awareness on natural calamities.

Inaugurating the meet, Odisha's Higher Education and Industries Minister Ananta Das urged researchers to find solutions to nature's fury as lightning led to 1560 deaths in the state in the last four ye,ars.

Stating that he had once witnessed the death of three youths who were struck by lightning, he said nature's behavior has become erratic and Odisha was prone to many extreme weather events including thunderstorm, heavy rainfall, heat wave, cyclone and flood.

The state government has set up the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) in the aftermath of the 1999 super cyclone to cope with such situations and efforts were on to strengthen the mitigation machinery and emergency response to natural calamities, he said.

The conference, attended by over 200 scientists, researchers, academicians, planners and other stakeholders from abroad, including the US and South Africa, has been jointly organised by OSDMA and the Centre for Environment and Climate (CEC), in collaboration with other institutes.

Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary M N Rajeevan, Odisha's Special Relief Commissioner Bishnupada Sethi and Purdue University Profesor Dev Niyogi were among those who spoke on the occasion.

Sethi said the three-day conference has been organised to attract national attention on natural hazards and find methods to manage such events.

Odisha, he said, suffered a loss of Rs 72,000 crore due to damage caused to infrastructure by natural calamities in the last 24 years.

"Lightning alone has caused over 5000 deaths in the state since the super cyclone of 1999. Most of these casualties occurred between April and September. The researchers should be able to find out why some Odisha districts like Deogarh were less susceptible to lightning when compared to Mayurbhanj," he stated.

Rajeevan, on his part, said it was difficult to predict certain natural hazards because of their brief lifespan.

"The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune and Earth System Science Organization (ESSO) have developed an app, 'Damini', to monitor lightning activities. There was need for more extensive study in the area and the Ministry of Earth Sciences is carrying out a research project on thunderstorms," he added.
Calcutta High Court has "very strongly requested" the committee for designation of senior advocates not to recommend any new name till disposal of a petition challenging its provisions.

The committee comprises the Chief Justice of the high court, two senior-most judges, the state Advocate General and an eminent lawyer chosen by them.

"The committee for designation of senior advocates is very strongly requested by this court not to take any further steps in making any further recommendation of names for designation as senior advocates," a bench comprising justices I P Mukerji and Amrita Sinha said Wednesday while passing an interim order on a petition.

Concluding the oral hearing in the petition, the bench directed that written submissions, if any, may be filed by the parties by January 21.

On a petition by an advocate, the division bench directed the registry/secretariat of the court not to take any step for placing three names, recommended by the committee for being designated as senior advocates, with the Acting Chief Justice for obtaining approval in a Full Court.

The Calcutta High Court is currently headed by an Acting Chief Justice.

The division bench said the panel ought not to have made recommendations for designation of senior advocate status to lawyers during pendancy of the petition.

Stating that it had not passed any interim order during the hearing of the petition, the bench said, "We only observed that our Committee for Designation of Senior Advocates comprised very senior judges and they knew what to do in the circumstances, when serious questions regarding recommendation of names for appointment of senior advocates were subjudice."



"But it has been brought to our notice that during the continuance of hearing of this application, at least three out of 30 candidates were recommended by the Committee for being appointed as senior advocates, subject to approval by the Full Court," the bench said.

"This ought not to have been done," it observed.

The division bench noted that the petitioner has been able to make out a most arguable case.

"He has also been able to raise very substantial questions to be tried," it observed.

Petitioner Debasish Roy, a practising advocate, sought an order directing the High Court at Calcutta (Appellate Side) to recall its notification dated July 3, 2018, published in the Kolkata Gazette on July 12, 2018 vide which the guidelines for designating senior advocate were notified.

The petitioner also sought recall of its July 25 notification, vide which, Roy claimed, applications were invited from only those advocates who are regularly practising before the High Court at Calcutta for being designated as senior advocates.

Roy claimed that the guidelines are violative of Article 14 and Article 21 of the Constitution, claiming that these discriminate between the advocates practising at the High Court of Calcutta and the advocates practising at the trial courts.

He claimed that the guidelines arbitrarily prescribe for a relaxation of 10 per cent in points (out of 100) for deserving candidates without providing for what shall amount to be a deserving candidate, thus, rendering the said guidelines as vague.

The petitioner also claimed that the guidelines are completely incongruous with the law laid down by the apex court in Indira Jaising case, and inconsistent with the Supreme Court Guidelines to Regulate Conferment of Designation of Senior Advocates, 2018.

Appearing for the High Court Administration, senior advocate Joydeep Kar argued that the committee came into existence further to the guidelines and that there is no violation of any principle laid down in the Indira Jaising case.

"There has not been any injustice to any candidate practising in the subordinate courts in the matter of consideration of their candidature for being designated as senior advocates," Kar told the division bench.

He submitted that the guidelines in no way prevented or precluded them from being recommended for such designation.

He also argued that the power to relax norms must be vested in the committee, claiming that this provision enabled them to do justice in a proper case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga Friday demanded that the Centre increase the coverage of beneficiaries under National Food Security Act (NFSA) from 64.73 per cent to 80 per cent of the state population.

Zoramthanga, who raised the issue in a meeting with Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, also demanded higher allocation of sugar to all ration card holders, construction of food storage depots in Champhai, Siaha and Mamit districts and establishment of regional office of state-run FCI.

Presently, 7,06,296 beneficiaries comprising 64.73 per cent of the state population are being covered under NFSA based on the 2011 census.

"We talked about food supply situation of Mizoram. We made a request for additional requirement of rice. The minister (Paswan) said he will look into our demands," Zoramthanga told reporters after the meeting.

The Mizoram government has sought additional 51,000 quintal monthly allocation of rice to cover the 80 per cent of the population.

Currently, the state gets about 54,798 quintal of foodgrains on a monthly basis for distribution through ration shops.

In the meeting, Zoramthanga, who is also the Mizo National Front (MNF) chief, informed that the number of beneficiaries covered in Mizoram under NFSA is lower when compared to other north eastern states.

Manipur is covering 87.73 per cent of its population under NFSA, Assam (80.81 per cent), Nagaland (74.65 per cent) and Meghalaya (72.38 per cent) as per the 2011 census.

"It is requested that the percentage coverage of beneficiaries under NFSA may be increased from the present level of 64.73 per cent to at least 80 per cent," the chief minister said in the meeting.

That apart, the Mizoram chief minister demanded that the Centre provide extra 1,500 quintal of sugar on a monthly basis for distribution to all ration card holders in the state.

At present, sugar is allocated for distribution to poorest of the poor families of Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) category only.

Besides, he sought establishment of regional office of Food Corporation of India (FCI) in the state for better functioning and early reimbursement of pending transport subsidy of Rs 55.74 crore.

Under NFSA, foodgrains are sold at highly subsidised rates at Rs 3/kg for rice, Rs 2/kg for wheat and Rs1/kg for coarse grains.

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Prime Minister Theresa May will talk by telephone to EU president Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday at the British leader's request, EU officials said.

May and Juncker have only been in touch by text message since Tuesday, when the British parliament rejected their Brexit divorce deal.

"President Juncker will talk to Prime Minister May today early afternoon at her request," European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said.

"I don't know how decisive or not this will be." British politicians are now wrangling over how to get out of the impasse, which could see Britain crash out of the union without a deal on March 29.

EU leaders have so far ruled out renegotiating the agreement, but have signalled they could postpone the withdrawal if May comes up with a plan.

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Present boom in the economy and the Centre's Smart Cities Mission, among others, will be major drivers of the domestic steel consumption growth, Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said.

The minister said government programmes such as



Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, affordable housing and urban housing missions would also contribute to the growth of steel consumption.

"Present economic boom and government initiatives like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna-Affordable Housing...will be major contributors for the growth of steel consumption in the country," Singh was quoted as saying in a statement.

Icra had earlier said the domestic steel consumption growth is expected to grow 7 per cent during this fiscal and the trend is likely to continue in 2019-20 as well, largely driven by the government's focus on the infrastructure sector.

The steel ministry along with industry chamber Ficci is organising the fourth edition of 'India Steel 2019 - Exhibition and Conference' in Mumbai from January 22-24.

The minister said as India becomes the second largest steel producer in the world, India Steel 2019 will help chart out the future growth path of the steel industry.

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BJP's Rajesh Kalia was Friday elected as the new mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.

Kalia trounced rebel BJP candidate Satish Kainth, who contested as an Independent, by a margin of five votes, officials said.

Of the total 27 votes, Kalia polled 16 while Kainth got 11, they added.

Congress nominee Sheela Devi withdrew her nomination before the start of the election.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has the majority in the House with 20 votes while Congress has four councillors.

There is one vote each of a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate and an Independent, while Chandigarh BJP MP Kirron Kher has the voting right the as ex-officio member of the House.

In order to be elected as Mayor, a nominee needs 14 votes of municipal corporation councilors.

SAD candidate Hardip Singh was elected as the senior deputy Mayor of the Chandigarh MC defeating Congress' Gurbax Rawat. Singh polled 20 votes while Rawat got 7, official said.

The post of deputy Mayor too was bagged by the BJP as its candidate, Kanwarjit Rana defeated Congress nominee Ravinder Kaur.

Rana got 21 votes while his opponent polled six, officials said.

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U.S. officials are reportedly debating lifting tariffs on Chinese imports to give Beijing a reason to make deeper concessions in ongoing trade talks between the two countries, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin proposed lifting all or some of the tariffs, people close to the matter told the newspaper. The goal is to push forward trade talks and get China's support for longer-term reform.

The U.S. and China have been meeting to hammer out trade issues after both sides launched tariffs on each other last year.

The U.S. imposed duties on $250 billion of Chinese goods and threatened to add more. But Trump agreed to leave 10% tariffs on some $200 billion of goods in place this month rather than raise them to 25% as planned. China also slapped its own duties on U.S. imports but later in the year agreed to purchase U.S. agricultural and other products.
Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party leader Om Prakash Rajbhar, a BJP ally and Uttar Pradesh minister, has threatened to go it alone in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections if the party's demand for earmarking a part of the 27-per cent OBC quota for most backward castes is not met.

Speaking to reporters here Friday, Rajbhar said, "As of now we are in the NDA (National Democratic Alliance), but the BJP has to decide whether we will remain with them or not."



"If the BJP does not give shape to our demand by February 24, we will take a decision on the tie-up during a party programme in Varanasi and announce the decision on contesting on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh the next day," he said.

The SBSP, which enjoys considerable support among the Rajbhar community, is part of the BJP-led coalition government in Uttar Pradesh.

The party has been demanding that a part of the Other Backward Castes (OBC) quota in government jobs and higher educational institutions be earmarked for most backward castes and mahadalits so that they can avail its benefits more.

According to the party, benefits under the reservation policy are at present largely cornered by the relatively upper castes.

"The BJP promised there would be a split in the 27-per cent quota for OBC and that it would be implemented six months before the polls.

"Now barely 100 days are left for the polls, we have given an ultimatum (to the BJP) that if the announcement is not made in the next 100 days through a cabinet decision, we will part ways and contest Lok Sabha elections on our own," he said.

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Ahead of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting here, Karnataka BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa on Friday said it was the Grand Old Party's responsibility to keep its flock together and his party had nothing to do with the "confusion" in the ruling coalition in the southern state.

He also said the allegations that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was trying to poach Congress MLAs were "far from the truth".

"It is far from the truth that we are causing confusion in the Congress-JD(S) coalition. We 104 people (BJP MLAs) are together and one. Our only intention is to win 20 Lok Sabha seats (in Karnataka) and we are making preparations for it," Yeddyurappa said.

Speaking to reporters here, the former Karnataka chief minister said, "Unnecessarily...(allegations are being levelled against the BJP), what do we have to do with their CLP meeting? It is their responsibility to keep their flock together, if they (MLAs) have gone away. Our responsibility is to keep our 104 MLAs together."



Asked about shifting the state BJP MLAs from a hotel to a resort in Gurugram, Haryana, Yeddyurappa said, "All these are speculation; there is no truth in it. All of them will come back tomorrow."



The CLP meet is scheduled at 3.30 pm on Friday at the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat, here.

It is expected to be a show of strength for the Congress, in a counter to the BJP's alleged toppling bid which the ruling coalition has said has turned out to be a "flop".

In a notice issued to the Congress MLAs, CLP leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah warned that their absence at Friday's meeting would be viewed "seriously" and action would be initiated under the Anti-Defection Law.

Meanwhile, speaking to reporters, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara said all the Congress MLAs will attend the meeting.

He said, "...all of them will come for the meeting, they have spoken to us, we will discuss at the meeting."



Stating that the agenda of the CLP was yet to be decided, Parameshwara said two-three issues like the preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and the political developments in the state will be discussed.

Hitting out at Yeddyurappa, the Congress leader said, "Let him take care of his party MLAs, whom they have kept in Gurugram. Let him not worry about our MLAs."



"The BJP and its leaders had tried to lure our MLAs. They are still trying it. We have been saying that it will not be successful, but he (Yeddyurappa) has too much desire...but stooping to this level was not necessary," he added.

Attacking Congress leaders for blaming the BJP for the political turmoil in the state, Yeddyurappa had on Thursday said "the true colours" of the Congress would be revealed at its legislature party meeting on Friday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi BJP took a dig at the AAP on Friday, describing the party as "sour grapes" after hopes of an alliance with the Congress had been struck down.

The Aam Aadmi Party's announcement that it will contest all the Lok Sabha seats alone in Punjab, Delhi and Haryana shows that it was "not accepted" in the political world, said Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari.

"The AAP saying it will have no alliance with the Congress and contest alone amounts to it being sour grapes," Tiwari said.

The party was "scared" of defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and was trying to forge an alliance but that was not possible because of newly appointed president of Delhi Congress Sheila Dikshit, he said.

"The Lok Sabha elections will be contested on the issues of leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the development works under his policy 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas'," he asserted.

Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta claimed that there was "panic" among the opposition parties due to the fast implementation of public welfare schemes under the leadership of Modi and they are trying to forge alliances for survival.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The scheduled rallies of BJP in West Bengal has been deferred by two days to January 22 owing to its national president Amit Shah's ill health, party officials said Friday.

"As he (Shah) is not well, we have decided to change dates (of the rallies) so that he can attend them. There has been change in dates. Amit Shah will address the first rally on January 22 in Malda," Dilip Ghosh, president of the West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party said.

Shah, who has been admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, with swine flu, is doing well and will be discharged in a day or two, the party had said Thursday.

On January 23, Shah will address two rallies at Suri in Birbhum district and Jhargram district. On January 24, he will address rallies at Krishnanagar in Nadia district and Jaynagar in South 24 Parganas district, Ghosh said.

The BJP has identified West Bengal as a priority state for the upcoming general elections and Shah has set a target of winning 22 of the state's 42 Lok Sabha seats.

The party is also looking to host a few rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi although the dates have not been confirmed yet, Ghosh said.

In the last few years, the BJP has emerged as the main opposition in the state with a commendable show in rural polls and by-elections.

Shah's rally will come just days after TMC's mega opposition rally.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday had asked the West Bengal government to allow proposed public meetings and rallies of the BJP under its "Ganatantra Bachao Yatra".

In a show of strength ahead of the national polls, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has organised a massive rally in Kolkata on January 19, which is likely to see participation of lakhs. Leaders of all major opposition parties have been invited to the rally to be held at the Brigade Parade ground in the heart of the city.

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A bride-to-be in dry Bihar declined to tie the knot when she learnt that her would-be husband had arrived in an inebriated condition, after which the groom a police constable was arrested.

According to Sub Divisional Police Officer, Kahalgaon, Dilnawaz Ahmed, Uday Rajak a resident of Tilakpur village here who is posted in Nalanda district had reached the house of Yogendra Rajak in Akbarpur village to exchange garlands with his daughter late Thursday night.

The groom and other baraatis were high on alcohol and they picked up a quarrel with Prasoon Kumar Rajak, the maternal uncle of the bride, who was roughed up by the visitors, Ahmed said.

The girl, upon learning about the whole incident, announced that she would not marry a person who drank, the SDPO said adding that her decision received wholehearted support from her family members and other villagers.

The villagers also informed the local police station about the incident following which the groom was arrested and an FIR lodged against him under relevant sections of the Excise Act, Ahmed said.

None of the other baraatis, including the grooms father, was arrested, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Trucks carrying coal from Bhutan and bound for Bangladesh has been stranded at an integrated check post (ICP) in Meghalaya following the Supreme Court's order banning transportation of the extracted fossil fuel in this state, an official said Friday.

Bhutan exports coal to Bangladesh via India as per the South Asian Preferential Trade Arrangement, an inter-governmental group formed by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

"Thirty three trucks laden with coal of Bhutan origin are stranded at Dawki ICP from January 15 as Indian customs stopped their entry to Bangladesh following the Supreme Court order banning transportation of coal," Meghalaya International Exporters' Chamber of Commerce Secretary Dolly Khonglah said.

Khonglah said she tried to convince customs officials at Dawki ICP that the Supreme Court's order does not apply to third country exports with transit through India but they refused to accept the logic.

Bhutanese Consulate at Guwahati in Assam has taken up the matter with the Indian customs and Meghalaya government, officials said.

The 33 trucks were cleared by customs officials for travelling through India at Darranga in Assam's Baksa district. Darranga adjoins Samdrup Jongkhar town in Bhutan.

Customs officials said they have sought clarification from the Meghalaya chief secretary and the Union finance ministry on the Supreme Court order since it was of a "general nature".

Chief Secretary in-charge P S Thangkhiew said he has already taken up the matter with the competent authorities.

The Supreme Court Tuesday banned the transportation of coal in the state until the next hearing on February 19, refusing to entertain a plea by the miners to transport extracted coal since ban on mining in 2014 by the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

The Meghalaya government then ordered implementation of the Supreme Court order.

The ban followed a coal mine tragedy in the state on December 13 when 15 miners got trapped inside an illegal 370-feet flooded coal mine in East Jaintia Hills district.

Family members of the trapped miners, who are feared dead, are trying to identify a body found 160 feet below the flooded mine by Navy divers, a district official said.

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A near total bandh was observed Friday in the Mandsaur city to protest the killing of loca BJP leader Prahlad Bandhawar.

Bandhawar, chairman of the Mandsaur Municipal Council, was shot dead by an unidentified person Thursday.

Most of the shops, commercial establishments, schools and colleges remained shut to protest the killing of Bandhawar and the bandh was peaceful, police said.

A large number of people took part in the late BJP leader's funeral procession which passed through the city.

Bandhawar's last rites were conducted amid tight police security.

Efforts were on to arrest the assailant, district superintendent of police T K Vidhyarthi said, adding the bandh passed off peacefully.

Asked whether the murder was the fallout of a property dispute as reported in a section of the media, the officer said he won't comment at this juncture as they have yet to round up the accused.

Meanwhile, senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan demanded a high-level inquiry into the killing of Bandhawar.

The BJP sought immediate arrest of Manish Bairagi, who, according to the police, has been named an accused in the FIR filed in connection with the attack.

In Bhopal, MP BJP spokesman Rajnish Agrawal said the law and order situation in the state has deteriorated after the new Congress government came to power.

"We are going to submit memorandums to officials at district headquarters to draw the state government's attention to the growing lawlessness in MP," Agrawal told PTI.

Asked about video clips that purportedly show Bairagi was close to a BJP leader in Mandsaur and his association with the party, he said there is no justification for the killing.

"A public representative has been shot dead in broad daylight. This is a big concern. There is no justification to the killing and arguments that the accused was close to a BJP leader," he added.

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Suspended Congress MLA Jogesh Singh Friday resigned from the party and also announced his decision to step down from the membership of the Odisha Assembly.

Singh was suspended by the Congress on Thursday on charge of anti-party activities and tarnishing image of the party in public. The Sundergarh MLA's resignation came barely two days after Jharsuguda MLA Naba Kishore Das also tendered his resignation from the party.

The resignation of two MLAs has come as a major setback for the opposition Congress.

Questioning the ground on which he was suspended, Singh, a two-time MLA sent his resignation letter to Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Gandhi is scheduled to visit Odisha on January 25.

He also sent copy of the resignation letter to Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Niranjan Patnaik, AICC general secretary in-charge of Odisha Jitendra Singh and AICC secretary Mastan Vali.

"I tender my resignation from the Indian Congress Party on the moral ground. I also tender my resignation from the post of the Member of Odisha Legislative Assembly," Singh wrote to Rahul Gandhi.

Not satisfied on the ground on which he has been suspended from the party, Singh said: "I am quite astonished about the decision taken by the disciplinary committee of the Odisha Congress party without any show cause notice and explanation."



Singh said there was no sufficient reason to suspend him from the party. "I could not find the answer that how praising the chief minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik who is ranked as the best chief minister in India become anti-party activity.

"Moreover, I am not the first person to praise the Odisha Chief minister. During the UPA government several central ministers of Congress have praised him many a times."



Regarding his inability to participate the Congress president's meeting in the state capital on January 25, Singh said: "I expressed my difficulties due to my pre-scheduled engagements. How it become anti-party activity, I could not understand."OPCC disciplinary committee convenor Ananta Sethi said he was not aware about Singh's resignation. "However, it will not affect the Congress party in any way," Sethi said.

Earlier, Sethi on Thursday had announced that Singh was suspended for repeatedly giving statements against the party to the media and tarnishing image of Congress.
Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps to end increasing "data colonisation" by global corporations, saying Indians should own and control their own data.

Speaking at the 9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit here, Ambani drew parallels to Mahatma Gandhi's movement against political colonisation to call for a revolution against data colonisation.

"Data is the new oil (in the new world order). And data is the new wealth. India's data must be controlled and owned by Indian people - and not by corporates, especially global corporations," the Reliance Industries chairman said.

The comments come amid a debate over balancing user protections with support for the fast booming digital economy. Foreign giants and hundreds of home-growth startups have flourished amid a dearth of regulation.

"Today, we have to collectively launch a new movement against data colonisation. For India to succeed in this data-driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India - in other words, Indian wealth back to every Indian," he said. "Honourable Prime Minister, I am sure you will make this one of the principal goals of your Digital India mission."



This is the second time within a month that Ambani has backed Indian authorities' efforts to get companies to store data locally.

The government wants companies doing business in India to store all customer data locally. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in April 2018 ordered companies to store the "the entire data relating to payment systems operated by them... in a system only in India" so as to ensure "unfettered supervisory access" for "better monitoring".

The government is considering a draft data security law that requires data centres for all companies be physically located within India. Also under consideration is an e-commerce policy that requires the storage of customer data in the country.

The draft data privacy bill recommends restrictions on the transfer and storage of information by global giants from Facebook to Google.

An e-commerce policy last month tightened rules to disallow foreign-owned online retailers from pushing merchants to sell exclusively through their platforms. It also barred them from selling products via companies in which they own equity.

Ambani, who had himself supercharged internet adoption by helping crash data prices with the launch of his telecom venture Jio in 2016, had last month in Mumbai stated that "data colonisation is as bad as the previous forms of colonisation."



He is also planning to create an online-to-offline platform that would take on the likes of Amazon and Walmart, which are both betting big on India's e-commerce market.

Speaking at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit Friday, he outlined plans for his online shopping platform.

Without giving timelines, he said Jio and Reliance Retail, which has over 9,000 stores across 6,500-plus towns in the country, will launch "a unique new commerce platform to empower and enrich our 12 lakh small retailers and shopkeepers in Gujarat - which are part of over 3 crore community in India."



Ambani had previously spoken of leveraging the Jio network for launching some sort of an e-commerce venture.

Jio has over 280 million subscribers with internet access.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Samajwadi Party's (SP) alliance with the BSP and the RLD was "final" and there would be no issues as regards seat-sharing in the coming Lok Sabha polls, party chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Friday, while ruling out any understanding with the Congress.

"Our alliance with the BSP, the RLD and smaller parties like the Nishad Party is final and seat-sharing will not be a problem. It will be worked out soon. We have emerged as a strong force in the state, which has changed the tone and tenor of the BJP, whose leaders have started using foul language against us," the SP national president told PTI.

" has always acted as a catalyst for change. This time, the people of the state will change the prime minister. Our fight is with the BJP and the people are supporting us," Yadav said in an interview at the SP headquarters here.

He, however, ducked the question as to who would be his choice as the next prime minister.

Maintaining that the SP will only "concentrate" in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav ruled out any understanding with the Congress in the state in the Lok Sabha polls.

"How can we have an understanding with it (Congress)? It is a national party. We have given them two seats (Amethi and Raebareli), which the SP had been leaving for them. Presently, my focus is on In Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand also, the SP will field one or two candidates who are strong and we will explore (the possibility of an) alliance with others," he said.

Reminded about his friendship with Congress president Rahul Gandhi (48), with whom he had given the "UP ke ladke" (boys from UP) slogan in the 2017 state Assembly polls, Yadav, who is three years younger to Gandhi, said, "I will not like to talk about the Congress as of now."



Read our full coverage on Lok Sabha Elections 2019

Asked about his recent meeting with Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) leader Jayant Chowdhury, he said, "Our alliance is final. In Kairana, we had fielded RLD leader Tabassum Hasan on an SP ticket. We will give Mathura and Baghpat to them, which they want. There is no problem in the alliance now."

Asked about (BSP) supremo Mayawati's charge that his uncle and Pragatisheel chief Shivpal Yadav was being financed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Yadav preferred not to speak.

"I will not say anything on this," he said.

Announcing the SP-BSP tie-up at a press conference last week, Mayawati had claimed that the BJP had funded Shivpal's party and said the entire money would go down the drain as there would be no split in the SP-BSP votes.

On the BJP, Yadav said, "It had promised many things, but those were never met. The common people are fed up with it and are looking at an alternative. They have only hope, which is the SP-BSP alliance."



Attacking the saffron party, he said it had changed its in-charge only to save one seat (of Prime Minister Narendra Modi).

"The BJP MPs did not work on the ground. They never visited their areas. Now it is being said that they are going to change 60 per cent of their candidates. But such tricks will not work now," Yadav said.

In a lighter vein, he added, "If only they can manage to control the stray cattle, they can get some votes of the farmers."



On the claim of JP Nadda, the BJP's poll in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, that the saffron party would win 74 Lok Sabha seats in the state, Yadav said, "They can claim of winning even 82 seats, despite the fact that Uttar Pradesh has only 80 seats."



Nadda, the Union health minister, during his visit here this week had asserted that the BJP and its allies would bag at least 74 Lok Sabha seats -- one more than the NDA tally in 2014 -- in Uttar Pradesh.

On reports of a slew of poll sops the Centre was planning to announce in its Budget, Yadav said, "All the major steps of the Centre like demonetisation, GST and claims of good governance have failed. They cannot be trusted. I want to alert my party workers that the BJP cannot be trusted. They can resort to any conspiracy or gimmick for political gains."



On the ongoing Kumbh at Allahabad, the SP chief said, "They (BJP) have renamed the Ardh-Kumbh as Kumbh. At Kumbh, people are not invited. People themselves come to attend it to attain 'Moksha' (salvation). Are they calling people for Moksha?"



Asked about state Director General of Police (DGP) OP Singh's claim that the crime rate was witnessing a downward trend in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav questioned the data.

"The Centre's data claims to have given jobs to the youth. Did they get those jobs? The law-and-order situation of the state is known to all. The lie will not work any longer," he said.

On reports that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) might quiz him in connection with a mining scam, Yadav said, "I will answer them. These are the BJP's tactics ahead of the polls."



On the possibility of his wife and Kannauj MP Dimple Yadav contesting the Lok Sabha polls, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said, "I do not want her to contest this time. However, the decision is hers. We have to bring up three children. The house is now far from the children's school. How to manage their tuitions etc. needs to be seen."



"They (the BJP government) have not approved the map for our house construction. They do not understand the responsibilities of a family as they do not have one," Yadav said.
The U.S. crude output could soon challenge the market share of Saudi Arabia and Russia, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.

"While the other two giants voluntarily cut output, the U.S., already the biggest liquids supplier, will reinforce its leadership as the world's number one crude producer," the statement reads.

"By the middle of the year, U.S. crude output will probably be more than the capacity of either Saudi Arabia or Russia," CNBC cited the statement as saying.

U.S. crude production has soared in recent months, rising by more than 2 million b/d to an unprecedented 11.9 million b/d.

Alongside Russia and nine other nations, top oil exporter Saudi Arabia struck a deal with the rest of OPEC in December to keep 1.2 million b/d off the market from the start of January.
Senior Congress leaders in Karnataka asserted on Friday that there was no threat to the coalition government in the southern state, while hitting out at the BJP for making "futile attempts" to destabilise it, saying the saffron party's conspiracy had been "exposed".

"All are in contact, you cannot say that any one person is not in contact...you (media) had listed out the names of those who may switch from the party. Most of them have come, the others will also come," Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief Dinesh Gundu Rao said.

Speaking to reporters here ahead of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, he said, "Let whatever happen, there is no threat to this government. It will complete five years. The BJP is making futile attempts to destabilise the government."



Pointing out that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had confined all of its MLAs in the state to a hotel at Gurugram in Haryana, Rao said he felt "pity" for them.

"There is no threat to this government... whatever they may try to do, the government cannot be toppled. The BJP's conspiracy has been exposed. Wait and watch what will happen in the days to come," he added.

The CLP meet is scheduled at 3.30 pm on Friday at the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat, here.

It is expected to be a show of strength for the Congress, in a counter to the BJP's alleged toppling bid, which the ruling coalition has said has turned out to be a "flop".

KPCC working president Eshwar Khandre said the party leaders were in touch with all the legislators and they had said they would attend the CLP, "where everything will be cleared".

Khandre said he had spoken to Umesh Jadhav (the Chincholi MLA), who had allegedly planned to switch to the BJP.

"He (Jadhav) has told me that he will remain in the Congress...I have trust in him," he added.

Both Rao and Khandre, however, evaded a direct response to a question about Gokak MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, who has allegedly made up his mind to join the BJP, miffed with the Congress on being dropped from the ministry during a recent cabinet rejig.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy met Congress general secretary in-charge of Karnataka K C Venugopal here and held discussions on the ongoing developments.

"They (BJP leaders) will keep continuing with their 'Operation Kamala' (lotus). I am not bothered about it. It is (state BJP chief) Yeddyurappa's duty," Kumaraswamy told reporters.

Stating that he would not be available for two days and that he had a packed schedule, including a visit to Kolkata and personal programmes, the chief minister said he met Venugopal as he would not be able to meet him for two days.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BJP general secretary P Muralidhar Rao Friday said the absence of four Congress MLAs, including former Karnataka minister Ramesh Jarkiholi, at the crucial Congress Legislature Party meeting here clearly shows the chinks prevalent in the country's grand old party.

"The fact of the matter is the grand old party of India is in total disarray. Congress is facing some internal problems, therefore they have convened CLP meeting to display an apparent show of strength," Rao, who is also incharge of BJP affairs in Karnataka, told PTI.

His remarks come in the wake of four Congress MLAs - Umesh Jadhav, Ramesh Jarkiholi and Mahesh Kumathalli and B Nagendra - skipping the CLP meeting that was called as a show of strength in a counter to an alleged bid by the BJP to topple the coalition government in Karnataka.

"With this kind of political turmoil in existence, the Kumaraswamy government cannot survive. The only thing is we cannot say when it would collapse. Whether it would collapse today, tomorrow or three to four months from now. I don't know," Rao said.

"The way the developments are unfolding are not good for the people of Karnataka," he said.

Asked when the 104 BJP MLAs were expected to return to Karnataka, Rao said, "Gurgaon (Gurugram) is not the permanent base for Karnataka BJP MLAs. Either today or tomorrow they will return. There is no problem on this score."



He alleged that the MLAs were in Gurugram because of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's remarks that "they are also in touch with the BJP MLAs.

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As many as 60 people, including seven women, have been arrested in connection with a gambling racket in south Delhi, police said Friday.

The police raided a premises at Sainik Farm area in Neb Sarai on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday at around 1.30 am, the policed said.

The betting was done on the basis of a card game called 'teen patti' (flash). Around Rs 2.22-lakh cash, plastic chips worth Rs 10 lakh, 12 packets of playing cards and other articles were seized from the spot, said Vijay Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (south).

Sixty people, including five organisers, three dealers and 52 players, have been arrested. A person identified as Amit was allegedly running the betting in the premises, the DCP said.

A case has been registered and an investigation is on. Legal action has been initiated against the farm house, the police added.

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Advent of 5G services in India will bring about a paradigm shift in technology and open up more opportunities for everyone in the digital space, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said Friday.

Field trials of 5G services are expected to start next month.

"This (5G) is going to be another big paradigm shift that is going to happen," Sundararajan said at the IAMAI India Digital Summit here.

She said while 5G will not mean 1,000 times faster data, it will bring in low latency and ultra high speed broadband.

"People are gearing up for the next big paradigm that is about to come. All this will open up even more opportunities for everyone working in the digital space," Sundararajan added.

The government plans to hold 5G spectrum auction in the second half of this year.

Industry players, however, have said the auction should be deferred given the financial stress in the sector and also demanded lowering the price of the airwaves.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has recommended auction of about 8,644 MHz of telecom frequencies, including those for 5G services, at an estimated total base price of Rs 4.9 lakh crore.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four dissidents skipped the Congress Legislature Party meeting here Friday that was called as a show of strength in a counter to an alleged bid by the BJP to topple the coalition government in Karnataka.

The absence of four lawmakers posed no imminent threat to the seven-month old Congress-JDS government headed by H D Kumaraswamy but suggested that all was not well within the Congress which has been hit by dissidence.

In a notice issued to Congress MLAs ahead of the meeting, CLP leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah had warned that absence of MLAs would be viewed "seriously" and action taken against them under the Anti-Defection Law.

As the meeting got underway, Congress sources said the absentee MLAs were: Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was dropped as minister in the recent cabinet rejig and is said to be extremely unhappy over it, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli.

Jadhav has written to Siddaramaiah noting that a letter about the meeting has been affixed outside his room at the Legislators Home and that since he is unwell and not able to travel, he would not attend the meet.

He requested that his absence may be "excused."



Nagendra had said Thursday he may not be able to be present in the CLP meet because of a court case.

Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Siddaramaiah, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and state leaders were present at the meet.

Ahead of the CLP meeting, senior Congress leaders in Karnataka asserted there was no threat to the coalition government while hitting out at the BJP for making "futile attempts" to destabilise it, saying the saffron party's conspiracy had been "exposed".

"All are in contact, you cannot say that any one person is not in contact...you (media) had listed out the names of those who may switch from the party.

Most of them have come, the others will also come," Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief Dinesh Gundu Rao said.

He also said, "Let whatever happen, there is no threat to this government. It will complete five years.The BJP is making futile attempts to destabilise the government."



Pointing out that the Bharatiya Janata Party had confined all its MLAs in the state to a hotel at Gurugram in Haryana, Rao said he felt "pity" for them.

"There is no threat to this government... whatever they may try to do, the government cannot be toppled. The BJP's conspiracy has been exposed. Wait and watch what will happen in the days to come," he added.

KPCC working president Eshwar Khandre said he had spoken to Umesh Jadhav (the Chincholi MLA), who had allegedly planned to switch to the BJP.

"He (Jadhav) has told me that he will remain in the Congress...I have trust in him," he added.

Both Rao and Khandre, however, evaded a direct response to a question about Gokak MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, who has allegedly made up his mind to join the BJP.

Earlier, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy met Venugopal here and held discussions on the ongoing developments.

"They (BJP leaders) will keep continuing with their 'Operation Kamal' (lotus). I am not bothered about it. It is (state BJP chief) Yeddyurappa's duty," Kumaraswamy told reporters.

Stating that he would not be available for two days and that he had a packed schedule, including a visit to Kolkata and personal programmes, Kumaraswamy said he called on Venugopal as he would not be able to meet him during the period.

As the CLP was underway, Yeddyurappa said several legislators appeared to be attending the meet out of compulsion.

"Let them indulge in squabbles.... we have nothing to do with it."



He said the ruling coalition was claiming the support of some BJP MLAs and it was because of this that the party had decided they should stay together in a hotel in Gurugram.

In the 224-member Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JDS 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker. BSP is supporting the government.

Two Independents have announced withdrawal of their support to the government. Yeddyurappa claimed they are backing the BJP.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Exposing chinks in the ruling coalition in Karnataka, four dissidents Friday skipped the Congress Legislature Party meeting here that was called as a show of strength against an alleged bid by the BJP to dislodge the H D Kumaraswamy government.

The absence of four lawmakers posed no imminent threat to the seven-month old Congress-JDS government in the numbers game but suggested that all was not well within the Congress which is still wrestling with dissidence.

The Congress would issue notices to absentee MLAs Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was dropped as minister in the recent cabinet rejig and is said to be extremely unhappy over it, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli, CLP leader Siddaramaiah told reporters after the meet.

He said 76 MLAs were present at the meeting, also attended by Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, besides other state leaders.

Siddaramaiah said Jadhav had written to him saying he would not be able to attend as he was unwell, while Nagendra had spoken to Venugopal conveying his inability to be present because of a court case.

The other two MLAs had not communicated anything,he said.

Siddaramaiah said after receiving the replies, the issue would be discussed with the party high command and state leaders before deciding on the next step.

Ahead of the CLP meet, Siddaramaiah had issue notices to all the party MLAs warning that their absence would be viewed "seriously" and action initiated according to the Anti-Defection law.

Soon after the CLP meet, the Congress MLAs were herded together in two buses from the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat where the CLP was held, and taken to a resort near the city.

A state senior Congress leader said since it was suspected that eight party MLAs had "committed" to BJP and might jump ship, the legislators were being shifted to a resort.

"All the MLAs, MPs, and ministers will stay together. They will stay together as long as required to escape from the onslaught of the BJP," Siddaramaiah said, adding that they would also discuss Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, BJP MLAs continued to stay put at a luxury hotel in Gurugram, a move the party has defended saying it was to prevent the Congress from poaching them.

It is still not known when the MLAs, hunkered down since Monday when the turmoil erupted, would return home.

In the first blow to the coalition government on Tuesday, two Independents had withdrawn their support to it.

BJP state chief B S Yeddyurappa Friday claimed that they were supporting the party whose strength was 106 now.

"Our MLAs are united. Our team is intact. Our party is intact and united," Siddaramaiah said, as he unleashed a barrage of attacks on the BJP, targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah.

"Look at the BJP's temptations, so much of money.. Rs 50 crore, Rs 100 crore and Rs 25 crore (being offered to Congress MLAs to quit)," Siddaramaiah alleged.

"See how the Chowkidar's party is functioning. How Narendra Modi Chowkidar is getting so much of money?" he said, claiming that he would give proof of how much money was offered to several of his party lawmakers.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president Amit Shah and central ministers are involved in destabilising the government in Karnataka.Not only the state leaders of BJP, even the central leaders were also involved," he said.

As the turmoil brought out cracks in the Congress, the party's leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge accused Modi of attempting to "take control" of his party MLAs by using CBI, ED and Income Tax to "terrorise" them in the BJP's alleged bid to topple the state government.

"They are trying multiple things such as threatening our MLAs by carrying out CBI, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax raids," he alleged at a party meeting here.

Ahead of the CLP meeting, senior Congress leaders in Karnataka asserted there was no threat to the coalition government while hitting out at the BJP for making "futile attempts" to destabilise it, saying the saffron party's conspiracy had been "exposed".

KPCC president Dinesh Gundurao said, "Let whatever happen, there is no threat to this government.It will complete five years.The BJP is making futile attempts to destabilise the government."



KPCC working president Eshwar Khandre said he had spoken to Umesh Jadhav (the Chincholi MLA), who had allegedly planned to switch to the BJP.

"He (Jadhav) has told me that he will remain in the Congress...I have trust in him," he added.

Earlier, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy met Venugopal here and held discussions on the ongoing developments.

"They (BJP leaders) will keep continuing with their 'Operation Kamal' (lotus).I am not bothered about it. It is (state BJP chief) Yeddyurappa's duty," Kumaraswamy told reporters.

He said since he would not be available for two days and had a packed schedule, including a visit to Kolkata, he called on Venugopal as he would not be able to meet him during the period.

As the CLP was underway, Yeddyurappa said several legislators appeared to be attending the meet out of compulsion.

"Let them indulge in squabbles....we have nothing to do with it."



He said the ruling coalition was claiming the support of some BJP MLAs and it was because of this that the party had decided they should stay together in a hotel in Gurugram.

In the 224-member Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JDS 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker. BSP is supporting the government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two people, including a pedestrian, died and seven others were injured in an LPG cylinder explosion that triggered an house collapse here Friday, police said.

A 35-year old man, a passerby, died on the spot after debris fell on him while the owner of the house Mohan Lal (45) succumbed to injuries at a hospital, they said.

The incident occurred in the morning at Kapra area when the cooking gas cylinder exploded in the house on the first floor of a two-storied building aparently due to gas leakage.

The blast led to collapse of the first-floor building and also caused minor damage to at least five other houses in the neighbourhood, injuring seven people, police said.

Three of the injured were from the house where the cylinder exploded while the others were from nearby dwelling units and passersby.

Glass windows of a nearby hospital were also shattered under the impact of the blast, purported video of it and the house collapse was was broadcast by local TV channels.

Police said a thorough investigation had been launched into the incident.

Panick-gripped locals said they heard a loud noise at the time of the blast.

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Mayor B Rammohan along with senior officials from the police and other departments visited the spot.

He later announced an ex-gratia of Rs 3 lakh each to the family members of the two deceased.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A man was arrested for allegedly cheating more than 10 mobile sellers of over Rs 2.5 lakh here, police said Friday.

The accused was identified as Azad Malhotra and his real name was revealed as Sunny Sharma, a resident of West Punjabi Bagh, they added.

A person named Harshit Gaur filed a complaint, stating that the accused, Azad Malhotra, had cheated many persons Delhi and National Capital Region by purchasing mobile phones on an e-tailing website.

Instead of making payment in cash he paid via NEFT. To gain confidence of the seller, he used to generate a message regarding initiation of NEFT payment, which gets delivered on the mobile of complainant. After seeing the message, the complainant gave the mobile phone, along with mobile bill. But, the sale amount never got credited to the complainant's account, a senior police officer said.

During investigation, police made a plan and asked the complainant to make a request on e-tailing. After the complainant made a request regarding sale of his mobile, iPhone X, the accused approached him after seeing the message, said Madhur Verma, deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi).

To finalise the deal, the accused called the complainant to a coffee shop at Connaught Place on Thursday, where the police were already present, the DCP said, adding that when Malhotra came there to finalise the deal, he was apprehended.

Later, it came to notice that his original name is Sunny Sharma. Malhotra used to search for sellers on e-tailing sites, who wanted to sell their expensive phones. He fixes a deal with the seller and asked the seller to meet and make a delivery and, instead of making payment in cash, he paid via NEFT online, he said.

His account was in a private bank, where there is a facility that the account holder can schedule his payment and later cancel it if he did not want to transfer the money or payment get automatically cancelled if the account does not have sufficient amount, Verma said.

One smart watch and Rs 24,000 were recovered from his possession, the police added.

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The Friday hit out at the BJP-led government over the construction of the and asked why it was unsuccessful in putting its stand on the issue before the Supreme Court.

This, the Sena said, was despite the fact that the government never failed on other issues like "buying wins" in elections.

The Sena said the apex court has once again stopped the construction of the Shivaji memorial, adding that it was happening again and again which raised questions on whether the government was serious about building of the memorial.

The party, an ally in the BJP-led governments in and at the Centre, added that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue was successfully constructed on the banks of Narmada in Gujarat without any environmental or technical issues cropping up to stop work.

The Sena said while the government made amendments in the Constitution to give 10 per cent quota to economically weaker sections of the general category and solved the triple talaq issue similarly, the issues of constructing a Ram temple in Ayodhya and in Mumbai remain unresolved.

"Is the court coming between the construction of the memorial or is it that somebody, who does not want the construction to take place, is using the judiciary as a shield?" it asked in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

The Sena said the project was worth Rs 3600 crore but the government was not serious about it from the start.

"Some ask what is the use of memorials for and Balasaheb Thackeray. Had Shivaji not been there, Pakistan's boundaries would have come to your doorstep and had Balasaheb not been there, even Hindus would have had to offer namaz," the Sena claimed.

ALSO READ: Demonetisation, GST affecting Mudra loan recovery, says Shiv Sena

It termed as "shameful" the issue of construction languishing in court.

"Why has the government been unsuccessful in putting its stand before the Supreme Court? The government is never unsuccessful in issues like buying wins during elections. Then why on this issue? On other issues, the government takes political decisions swiftly. However, it is being a laggard in this," the Sena editorial said.

The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Centre and government on a plea challenging a Bombay High Court order which had refused to restrain authorities from taking steps regarding the proposed Maharaj Memorial project in Arabian Sea.

Advocate Nishant R Katneshwarkar, who appeared for Maharashtra, had on Wednesday said that while issuing notice on the plea, the bench orally told him to ask the authorities not to proceed with the construction activity.

The petitioner NGO, Conservation Action Trust, had moved the high court challenging a February 23, 2015 order of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) granting environmental and coastal regulation zone clearance to the Rs 3,600 crore project in Mumbai.

It had sought interim relief that stay should be granted on the order and the authorities restrained from taking further steps with regard to the project.
U.S. President Donald Trump has canceled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week due to the partial U.S. government shutdown, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.

Trump had planned to go again this year but pulled out last week as he grapples with Democrats in Congress over funding for a wall on the border with Mexico that has led to a partial shutdown of the government.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were expected to lead the U.S. delegation in Trumps place, two senior administration officials said this week.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," Reuters cited the statement as saying.
Accusing ailing Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar of avoiding meeting legislators from the Opposition, state Congress President Girish Chodankar on Friday said if Parrikar continues this, the Opposition party would raise a ruckus in the forthcoming state Assembly session.

"Parrikar has been skipping office regularly. When it comes to meeting him, it is only the ruling MLAs and BJP leaders that get preference. Despite repeated official requests, Parrikar has not even had the courtesy of meeting our Leader of Opposition, let alone any Congress MLA," Chodankar told reporters here.

"If he dodges meeting the Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar on Monday during the Assembly Business Advisory Committee meeting, then the Congress MLAs will raise the issue of his inaccesibility in the Assembly session," he added.

In the Business Advisory Committee meeting, the agenda for the upcoming three-day Budget Session of the state Legislative Assembly, scheduled to be held later in January, is expected to be finalised.

Both Parrikar, as Chief Minister and Kavlekar as Leader of Opposition, are part of the six-member Committee.

Parrikar is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York since February 2018. While the former Defence Minister, strapped with medical paraphernalia, has been making public appearances now and then, public access to the Chief Minister is limited, much to the chargin of the Opposition members.

According to sources in the Goa Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Parrikar is expected to attend the Assembly session which begins on January 29.

"The Chief Minister will take part in the Assembly proceedings and will table the budget too, irrespective of health concerns," a party functionary said on condition of anonymity.

--IANS

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The wife of Meng Hongwei, the former Interpol chief held in China since September, has sought asylum in France for herself and her twin children.

Grace Meng and the seven-year-olds live in the French city of Lyon, the international police agency's headquarters.

Meng Hongwei, also a Chinese Vice Public Security Minister, went missing on a trip to China in late September. His wife said at the time that the last contact she received from him was a text message saying to wait for his call, followed minutes later by a knife emoji.

In October, the Chinese authorities said Meng Hongwei was being investigated over suspected bribe-taking.

His wife and children are under police protection, having received threats.

"I fear they will kidnap me. I've received strange phone calls. Even my car was damaged. Two Chinese -- a man and woman -- followed me to the hotel," Grace Meng was cited as saying by the BBC on Friday.

Since her husband's disappearance on September 25, no details have emerged about his prison conditions or the charges against him.

The 65-year-old's job as Interpol President was largely ceremonial and did not require him to return to China often.

He previously worked under security czar Zhou Yongkang, one of the most powerful figures to be taken down in President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign that has targeted over a million officials.

Meng Hongwei was elected Interpol President in November 2016, the first Chinese person to take up the post, and was scheduled to serve until 2020.

China's new National Supervision Commission -- an anti-corruption agency -- said Meng was being investigated for "violation of laws". However, China has not presented any evidence to justify the allegation against Meng Hongwei.

Beijing said he had written a resignation letter and Interpol Secretary-General Jurgen Stock acknowledged that he had received it on October 7. "There was no reason for me to (suspect) that anything was forced or wrong," he said.

In November, Interpol elected South Korean Kim Jong-yang as its new President, rejecting a Russian candidate who had been tipped to succeed Meng Hongwei.

--IANS

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Shri Rajput Karni Sena, the outfit which famously led a movement against Sanjay Leela Bhansali's magnum opus "Padmaavat", has claimed the outfit is not involved in the protests against Kangana Ranaut's "Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi".

Denying reports about the outfit opposing the period drama, its national spokesperson and ex-major Dr Himanshu said Shri Rajput Karni Sena's name is being used for vested interests.

"We are not opposing 'Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi' till we don't have anything substantial from the family, region or the community," Himanshu told IANS over the phone.

"These people, I believe, are using the name of Karni Sena for their own vested interests and they are bringing disrepute to Karni Sena and to the historical characters," he added.

"Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi" captures the life story of Rani Laxmibai and her fight against the British. Kangana plays the lead role in the film, produced by Zee Studios in association with Kamal Jain and Nishant Pitti, and releasing on January 25.

According to reports, the Maharashtra wing of the Karni Sena protested against the film on Thursday alleging that the period drama "alludes to Rani Laxmibai's relationship with a British officer". The reports also said Karni Sena is opposed to the film showing the queen dancing to a special number, saying it is against tradition. They asked the makers of the film to show them the movie before its release.

Himanshu says "we disown and completely dissociate ourselves" from all such claims.

"Supposedly, the family has a problem. They can come to us and if they seek support from us and have a valid reason (we will take it in consideration)... I was in Jhansi recently and nobody said anything of this nature," Himanshu said.

He continued: "Our approach is very clear, if the family, community or the region approaches us or the historians have some reservations... Supposedly, they approach us and we are convinced with the logic of that, we will take a stand. But we will cross the bridge when the river comes."

Himanshu says "this is the official stand of Karni Sena".

"First and foremost, we should be clear which Karni Sena (has protested). Anybody who pops up and says 'I am Karni Sena', cannot be Karni Sena."

Asked if he thinks the outfit's name is being used for vested interests, Himanshu said: "Yes. In the case of 'Padmaavat', some people became Karni Sena members. They were prominent faces on TV claiming to be from Karni Sena. But in the last 12 years, we didn't even see them once. They bring a bad name to us."

He says the objection should either come from "the family or the historians as in the case of 'Padmaavat'".

Recalling the whole stir around "Padmaavat", based on 16th century poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi's poem "Padmavat", Himanshu said: "The family had reservations and they were not consulted... We had reached out to the government, the states and the censor board as well. We went to almost every Chief Minister and 11 CMs gave it to us in writing that they had reservations about the movie.

"Either the protests should be proper, or it should have some substance. Protests just for the sake and somebody running the shop in the name of the Karni Sena is objectionable from our side and it should be discouraged from the media side also."

"Padmaavat", starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, was caught in a row in 2017 after protests from Shri Rajput Karni Sena which contended that it distorts historical facts and dents the pride of the Rajput community.

(Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at sugandha.r@ians.in)

--IANS

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The Women and Child Development Ministry has filed an FIR against NGO Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW) for misusing government-allocated funds and failing to refund the unspent balance, it said on Friday.

Earlier, following a writ petition in the Delhi High Court which alleged that ICCW had been violating the rules for utilising government funds, a three-member committee under the WCD Ministry was formed to determine if the funds were "siphoned off or misutilised".

The ministry observed "that there has been a systemic failure as far as checks and balances regarding utilization of the funds provided by the government is concerned".

Following this, the court ordered that it would consider if further investigations was necessary or any other proceedings are required to be initiated against the ICCW.

"Pursuant to the Delhi court's directions, an internal committee was constituted and it was ascertained that ICCW has not refunded the unspent balance of Rs 30,914,051 for the years (2014-16) available with its state councils," the ministry said in a statement.

The Bravery awards were earlier organised by ICCW. However, following the petition, the Centre dissociated itself from ICCW and revamped the scheme of National Awards for children in 2018 to include Bravery as an additional component in the Pradhan Mantri National Children Awards.

--IANS

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday summoned senior IAS officer B. Chandrakala for questioning in connection with an illegal sand mining case in Uttar Pradesh, officials said.

Chandrakala, the former District Magistrate of Hamirpur district, has been summoned for questioning to the ED office in Lucknow, a senior agency official told IANS.

A CBI FIR on which the ED based its case has alleged that Chandrakala as the Hamirpur District Magistrate had granted several lease in violation of the Allahabad High Court orders which had ratified an e-tender policy.

Beside, Chandrakala, the financial probe agency has also summoned three more people, including the Samajwadi Party MLC Ramesh Kumar Mishra for questioning on January 28.

The ED summon comes a day after it registered a case under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case in connection with its ongoing probe into illegal sand mining and role of bureaucrats and politicians in Uttar Pradesh.

On January 5, the CBI had raided Chandrakala's homes in Lucknow and Noida and seized two bank accounts and one locker, besides recovering some documents. Mishra's house in Kanpur was also searched.

It was on January 2, when the CBI had registered the case against 11 people, including Chandrakala, miner Adil Khan, geologist/mining officer Moinuddin, Mishra and his brother, besides Sanajy Dikshit who contested the 2017 Assembly polls on the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket and his father.

The then Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had granted the mines leases to 14 people in 2013 in Hamirpur district against the High Court's order.

On January 7, the CBI released a list of 22 leases cleared by the Samajwadi Party chief, who was also the Mining Minister during that period, and was later succeeded by Gayatri Prasad Prajapati.

--IANS

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US President Donald Trump has unveiled at Pentagon this year's Missile Defense Review which contains the country's intention to expand its missile defence capabilities.

"The US will adjust its position to defend against any missile strikes to include cruise and hypersonic," Trump said on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The world is changing. The US cannot simply make incremental changes... It is not enough to just keep pace with our adversaries," the President said.

Under the review, the Pentagon plans to expand the country's existing missile defence shield, including extra layers with space-based sensors and interceptors, technology to track and defeat hypersonic weapons, unmanned aircraft with lasers to shoot down threats, and missile-hunting F-35 stealth fighters.

"Missile defences are a key element of our strategy given this proliferation of offensive ballistic and cruise missiles and emerging hypersonic weapons technologies that markedly raise threats to regional balances and to our major allies and partners," Acting Secretary of Defence Patrick Shanahan wrote in a preface to the review.

The review is the first update to the US missile defence policy since its 2010 version unveiled during the previous Barack Obama-led administration.

TheDrive.com analysis said unlike the 2010 version focusing almost exclusively on ballistic threats, the new review adds an entirely new emphasis on potential non-ballistic threats posed to the US homeland and to US forces deployed abroad, with particular attention to cruise missiles.

The US has spent more than $300 billion on its anti-missile goal, the media quoted military experts as saying.

--IANS

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In a tit-for-tat move, US President Donald Trump cancelled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's planned trip to three countries, a day after she angered Republicans by suggesting the President should delay his State of the Union Asdress due to the impasse over the ongoing partial government shutdown.

Hours before Pelosi and top Democrats were set to depart on Thursday to Afghanistan, Belgium and Egypt, Trump released a letter cancelling what he termed a "public relations event", reports The Washington Post.

"Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed," he wrote.

"I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the shutdown.

"We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," the President added.

The President's letter to Pelosi followed one she wrote to him on Wednesday suggesting him to postpone his State of the Union address, set for January 29, if the partial government shutdown does not end this week, citing security concerns because of Secret Service and other personnel who are working without pay.

Just as Pelosi pointed to security officials working without pay as a reason to delay his State of the Union address, Trump said he was postponing Pelosi's trip "in light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay".

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill responded to Trump's letter pointing out the President's own shutdown trip to Iraq as well as one by Republican lawmakers, reports CNN.

"The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thank our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines," Hammill tweeted on Thursday night.

He said the stop in Brussels was also to have included meetings with NATO leadership.

Democrats also responded angrily to the move.

"All too often in the last two years, the President has acted like he's in the fifth grade. And to have someone who has that kind of character running the country is an enormous problem at every level," said Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman who had been due to travel with the speaker.

Some Republicans also condemned the move.

"One sophomoric response does not deserve another," Senator Lindsey Graham, a top Republican ally of the President's, wrote in a statement.

Senator John Cornyn, a member of Republican leadership, bemoaned "too much childishness" in the shutdown fight between Trump and Pelosi.

The shutdown entered its 27th day on Thursday as Trump and Pelosi remained at loggerheads on the issue of the President's border wall.

--IANS

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US President Donald Trump has cancelled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, due to the ongoing partial government shutdown.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has cancelled his Delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," CNBC News quoted press secretary Sarah Sanders as saying in a late Thursday statement.

Earlier this week, the White House said it had planned to send Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chris Liddell, assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for policy coordination.

Trump cancelled his own plans to attend the forum last week citing the shutdown.

"Because of the Democrats intransigence on Border Security and the great importance of Safety for our Nation, I am respectfully cancelling my very important trip to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum," he tweeted earlier this month.

"My warmest regards and apologies to the @WEF!"

The annual conference in Switzerland gathers world leaders and business executives.

This year's theme is "Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution".

Also on Thursday, the President postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's planned overseas trip with other members of Congress, shortly before they were scheduled to depart on a military plane.

The postponement came a day after the California Democrat sent Trump a letter, urging him to either reschedule his January 29 State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress or deliver it in writing.

A White House official told NBC News that all congressional delegations overseas that would have used federally funded military aircraft have been grounded by Trump until the shutdown ends.

The shutdown entered its 27th day on Thursday as Trump and Pelosi remained at loggerheads on the issue of the President's border wall.

--IANS

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The White House has said US President Donald Trump has cancelled his delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland, due to the partial government shutdown.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has cancelled his Delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," said the White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders in a statement on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

Trump called off his own planned trip to the Swiss ski resort last week due to the ongoing partial government shutdown and asked a US delegation, which was led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to attend the annual forum instead.

The shutdown started on December 22 due to a budget standoff in which Trump requested $5.7 billion for building a wall along the US-Mexico border, but congressional Democrats rejected his demand.

The White House and Democratic congressional leaders appeared to get no closer to solving the budget impasse after several rounds of negotiations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called on Trump to delay his State of the Union address, saying the president should wait to deliver his message to the nation until the partial government shutdown ends.

Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday postponed Pelosi's upcoming trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, asking her to stay in Washington to negotiate with him.

The President didn't mention Pelosi's request to move the date of his speech scheduled for January 29.

To resume work as "a national security agency," the US State Department said on Thursday that it was recalling the furloughed employees back to work next week with pay.

"The Department expects to be able to resume most personnel operations and fund most salaries," said Bill Todd, the department's deputy under secretary for management, in a statement posted on its website.

According to the statement, most employees of the State Department will resume work on Tuesday next week.

--IANS

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The Tripura government is likely to probe "missing cash, precious ornaments and assets" deposited in the past 70 years by the devotees in the Mata Tripura Sundari Temple, an official said on Friday.

Former Tripura King Maharaja Dhanya Manikya (1463 to 1515) built the Tripura Sundari Temple, 60 km south of Agartala, in 1501.

A delegation of leaders of the opposition Congress led by Saumitra Biswas late on Thursday met Gomati District Magistrate (DM) Tarun Kanti Debnath and demanded a probe.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also voiced suspicions about the "too small available cash, assets and valuables" of the temple.

The scion of Tripura's Manikya dynasty Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debburman has also strongly demanded a proper audit.

"I will forward the matter to the Temple Trust. There is no register and record of cash, ornaments and assets deposited by the people in the past seven decades," DM Debnath told IANS .

"In August last year, the district administration counted the missing cash, precious ornaments and assets of the 518 year old temple. But we had observed that the available cash, precious ornaments and assets are too little compared to the lakhs of devotees and visitors depositing huge valuable ornaments including gold and huge cash amounts every year."

After the BJP-led government assumed office in March 2018, the Mata Tripura Sundari Temple Development Committee has been replaced by the board of trustees -- Mata Tripura Sundari Temple Trust.

Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb is the chairman of the 1-member trust.

BJP spokesman Nabendu Bhattacharjee told the media that the Chief Minister has also expressed doubts.

"Previous ruling CPI-M and Congress leaders had managed the cash, assets and valuables of the temple. Like other famous temples in India, there was no recorded management of it," Bhattacharjee said.

At the end of the 517-year rule by 184 kings, on October 15, 1949, the erstwhile princely state Tripura came under the control of the Indian government after a merger agreement signed between Kanchan Prabha Devi, then regent maharani, and the Indian Governor General.

The merger agreement made it mandatory for the Tripura government to continue the sponsorship of many temples including the Mata Tripura Sundari Temple run by the Hindu princely rulers. This continued for around seven decades.

A full-fledged division - "Public Place of Worship (PPW)" or "Debarchan Vibhag" - under district magistrates in four of Tripura's eight districts now bears this responsibility and the entire expenditure of several temples.

--IANS

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Two Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bomber aircraft have collided mid-air during flights over the Tatar Strait in Russias Khabarovsk Region, a source in the regional law enforcement agencies said.

"According to preliminary data, the emergency occurred over the Tatar Strait. Two Su-34 jets vanished from radar screens close to the inhabited community of Nelma in Sovetsko-Gavansky District. They presumably collided mid-air," TASS cited the source as saying.

The search operation is underway.

Earlier, a source said that both planes were flying from the sea when they collided mid-air. The crew of one aircraft ejected, while the second plane will probably be able to return to the base. However, the fate of both crews is unknown yet.
One of North Korea's top negotiators has arrived in Washington to meet US officials ahead of a possible second summit between Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.

South Korean reports say Kim Yong-chol, travelling via Beijing, is carrying another letter from Kim to Trump.

He is expected to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.

Speculation is mounting that the second summit could be held in Vietnam, the BBC reported.

The North Korean leader is scheduled to travel to the communist-run country for an "official state visit" sometime in February, a media outlet reported citing unnamed sources.

Little progress has been made on North Korean de-nuclearization since a historic meeting in Singapore last June between Kim and Trump.

But there has recently been a flurry of diplomatic activity. Kim visited China earlier this month for talks with President Xi Jinping, as he did before the Singapore summit.

Meanwhile another senior North Korean official, vice-foreign minister Choe Son-hui, is heading to Sweden, where she could meet Washington's special representative for Pyongyang Stephen Biegun, reports say.

General Kim Yong-chol, a former spymaster often referred to as Kim Jong-un's right hand man, has emerged as North Korea's lead negotiator in recent talks with the US.

He is a controversial figure, and has been accused of masterminding attacks on South Korean warships during his time as military intelligence chief in 2010.

He last visited Washington in June, when he delivered a letter to Trump ahead of historic talks between both countries.

In his annual new year's speech a few weeks ago, Kim said he was committed to denuclearization, but warned that he would change course if US sanctions remained.

Both parties signed a pledge in Singapore to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, though it was never clear what this would entail.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Electric car maker Tesla on Friday announced it is laying off seven per cent of its full-time staffers in an attempt to reduce costs and increase profits.

The news comes on the heels of Tesla CEO Elon Musk laying the foundation of a Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai earlier this month -- the first outside the US.

All Tesla employees were informed about the development in an email.

"Starting around May, we will need to deliver at least the mid-range Model 3 variant in all markets, as we need to reach more customers who can afford our vehicles. Moreover, we need to continue making progress towards lower priced variants of Model 3.

"Attempting to build affordable clean energy products at scale necessarily requires extreme effort and relentless creativity, but succeeding in our mission is essential to ensure that the future is good, so we must do everything we can to advance the cause," Musk wrote in a blog post.

Musk said that the company unfortunately has no choice "but to reduce full-time employee headcount by approximately 7 per cent (we grew by 30 per cent last year, which is more than we can support) and retain only the most critical temps and contractors".

The China factory that is expected to produce 500,000 electric vehicles per year and double the production capacity of Tesla, will begin with the production of Model 3.

Musk-led private spaceflight company SpaceX also announced recently that it would lay off 10 per cent of its workforce to fund other projects.

SpaceX, which has a contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), is now planning to start flying astronauts to the ISS for NASA sometime this year.

--IANS

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The stock of pharmaceutical major Sun Pharma ended up as the top loser on the BSE Sensex on Friday following reports of a complaint by a whistleblower to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) against the company, raising issues of corporate governance.

The company scrip tanked over 12 per cent at one point to Rs 390.50 apiece, losing Rs 36.65, or 8.58 per cent, from its previous close of Rs 427.15. The scrip was the top loser on the Sensex also on Thursday.

After the steep fall in its share price, Sun Pharma in a letter to Sebi said there is great asymmetry in information circulating between analysts, investors and the media, leading to intense speculation.

"We wish to bring to your kind notice an alleged second whistleblower complaint filed against our Company, which we learnt from a media report on January 15, 2019," Sun Pharma said.

"There is a great asymmetry in the information circulating between analysts,

investors and media leading to intense speculation. The availability of information contained in the whistleblower documents to a set of selective investors does put other investors including retail investors in a disadvantageous position," it said.

"We are concerned that certain entities/individuals are adopting unfair trade practices prejudicial to the interest of shareholders and other stakeholders.

"It is evident from the fact that shareholders value has been drastically eroded within a short span of time due to unsubstantiated complaint/allegation against the company and mala fide campaign launched by certain media houses," it added.

In its letter, Sun Pharma asked the market regulator to thoroughly examine the issue, as well as the role of some media houses and stakeholders in the matter.

The whistleblower's complaint, on transactions worth over Rs 5,800 crore between 2014-2017, alleges that Indian drugs manufacturer Aditya Medisales Ltd had transactions with Suraksha Realty, controlled by Sun Pharma's co-promoter, Sudhir Valia.

Commenting on the plunge in Sun Pharma stocks, Deepak Jasani of HDFC Securities told IANS that the complaint had raised fresh concerns over corporate governance at the company.

"Investors were at a loss as to what the complaint is all about or what will the impact of that on the company's operations or its stock price. While some traders took this as a bottomfishing opportunity, other stayed away till the dust settles," he said.

"Fundamentally some brokerages have become bullish on the stock over the past few days, but their calls seem to have misfired atleast temporarily."

Sebi confirmed last month that it had received a whistleblower's complaint against Sun Pharma.

According to a media report, the latest complaint has been made by the same whistleblower who had complained to Sebi in September 2018 of possible insider trading during Sun Pharma's takeover of Ranbaxy which had resulted in alleged gain of as much as Rs 8,000 crore.

The whistleblower has alleged numerous irregularities against Sun Pharma promoter Dilip Shanghvi, his brother-in-law Sudhir Valia and Dharmesh Doshi, an associate of the 2001 stock market scam convict Ketan Parekh.

--IANS

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Sri Lanka wants to take back all Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who are now in India, country's High Commissioner to India Austin Fernando said on Friday.

"With around 5,000 of these refugees having already returned, we now want to take the rest of them back to their original places," Fernando said while delivering a speech on "Post 2015: Reconciliation Milestones in Sri Lanka", organised by the Foreign Correspondents' Club here.

According to Fernando, who took charge as the new Sri Lankan High Commissioner in November last year, there are around 100,000 of these refugees who had come to India during the civil war in the Indian Ocean island nation that ended in 2009.

He said that while some 20 to 30 per cent of these people would like to stay on in India, the rest would like to go back, adding that he would soon be going to south India to meet them.

"We will tell them that we will look after them," the High Commissioner said.

"They need a roof over their head, they should be safe, their children should get education," he stated.

"They must also get employment after returning."

Asked whether Colombo has a deadline to take back these people, Fernando said there is no time frame as such but "we would like to take them at the earliest".

"There are many logistical problems as well," he said.

Stating that the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner is in close touch with these people, he said that Colombo and New Delhi need to have a serious dialogue on this issue.

Fernando also assured that immigration will not be a problem for those who are returning.

--IANS

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Actors Sonakshi Sinha, Varun Sharma, Annu Kapoor, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Nadira Babbar will shoot in Punjab for a slice of life entertainer.

The shooting will begin on January 25.

Directed by debutant Shilpi Dasgupta, the film has been written by Gautam Mehra.

Based in Hoshiarpur, Sonkashi plays a happy-go-lucky Punjabi girl who adores her family and will go to any length to see them happy even if it means not living her dreams.

"I am extremely happy to be part of this film which is so close to the world around us, to step into the shoes of a small town girl, and face the hilarious, madcap challenges thrown at her. Full of flavour, fun and emotions; I am so looking forward to begin this journey," Sonakshi said in a statement.

Producers Bhushan Kumar and Mahaveer Jain have joined hands with director-turned-producer Mrighdeep Singh Lamba for the yet-to-be-titled film.

Bhushan Kumar said: "It is a slice of life film with superb ensemble cast. The film will make you laugh, cry and fall in love with every character."

Lamba added: "When emotions come strongly with laughter, it's a story worth one's time. The film explores the extraordinary dreams of an ordinary girl in a madcap world."

The film is slated to release later this year.

--IANS

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The son of Border Security Force (BSF) trooper Tej Bahadur Yadav, who was dismissed from the force in 2017 for indiscipline, was found dead in Haryana, police said on Friday.

Police officials said the body of 22-year-old Rohit was found on Thursday night by his mother in a pool of blood in his room in their house in Madhu Vihar colony of Rewari town, around 335 km from here.

The Haryana Police has launched an investigation into the matter.

Police said it appeared that Rohit committed suicide as a revolver was found in his hand. The body was sent for post-mortem.

"It appears to be a case of suicide. We are investigating the matter," a police official said.

The licensed revolver belonged to his father who is in Prayagraj for the Kumbh Mela.

Yadav had come into the limelight after he highlighted the poor quality of food being served to the troopers in adverse climatic conditions in Jammu and Kashmir.

--IANS

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Around 25 MLAs of the nearly 100 Karnataka BJP legislators put up here at the five star ITC Grand Bharat resort for the last few days have reportedly shifted to a nearby hotel on Friday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs have been housed in the resort near Manesar here on Aravalli foothills to guard against their poaching since January 14.

Informed sources said around 25 MLAs were on Friday shifted to Lemon Tree hotel located in Tarudhan Valley in Bissar Akbarpur village area on Manesar-Tauru road.

Three MLAs have already left the resort in the last two days.

"BJPs Haryana unit had booked a maximum number of rooms at the resort for six days but later the number of guests (MLAs) went up and a few guests were allowed to stay in the resort as per booking scheduled till January 17," a source in the hotel administration told IANS.

Online booking of the resort is already full till January 20.

MLAs were shifted as rooms, where they were staying, were booked by other customers from January 18 to 20, said the source.

The media was being kept away since the MLAs were housed in the hotel and the movement of all persons was being monitored through closed-circuit televisions.

After staying two days outside the hotel, as of now, the OB vans of electronic media have left the venue, only few such vans covering Karnataka or the southern states were still camped near the main gate of the resort.

--IANS

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Days after Congress leader Kapil Sibal questioned the need for a sedition law, Union Minister Smriti Irani dared his party President Rahul Gandhi to repeat the slogan 'Bharat tere tukde honge" in public.

"The Congress President publicly stood with such forces (anti-India) and publicly supported the statement of 'Bharat tere tukde honge'. Would they have guts to stand out in public and repeat that slogan against India and interests of India?" Irani told a press conference.

She said on the one hand the BJP led government at the Centre has resolved to ensure a strong and resurgent India, on the other, the Congress continued to support those who shouted, on the streets of the national capital, 'Bharat tere tukde honge'.

She also refuted Congress leader P. Chidambaram's charges on Rafale fighter jet deal and accused the opposition party of falsehood for political benefits.

"The Supreme Court has issued its statement, the Defence Minister has spoken on it, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has access to all files...for those who use this for their own political ends, yeh public hai sab janti hai (the public knows it all)," she said.

Chidambaram had earlier accused Prime Minister Modi of compromising national security in the Rafale deal by "denying" to the IAF 90 aircraft it desperately needed and "gifted" Dassault Rs 186 crore more per aircraft at the cost of the public exchequer in the deal it signed with France.

Asked about West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's rally in Kolkata, which is likely to be attended by various opposition leaders, Irani said that opposition parties are showing that they alone cannot fight BJP.

"From that platform they are trying to reveal their failures as they don't have guts to give us a fight," she said quoting Prime Minister's remarks that the country wants a "majboot" and not a "majboor" government.

On Kerala government being accused of lying to the Supreme Court where it shared details of 51 women who had entered Sabarimala, Irani said as a citizen, she will appeal to the apext court to look into the facts of the matter.

--IANS

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Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday visited the forward areas along India-China Border in Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh located at a height of 5,300 feet.

Defence spokesman Lt. Col. P. Khongsai said the Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister) overflew the forward locations along the Line of Actual Control and visited the Army post at Anini.

"She was accompanied by the Eastern Army Commander, Lt. Gen. M.M. Naravane, GOC-Spear Corps, Lieutenant General Rajeev Sirohi, and other military and civil officials. At the forward post, Sitharaman was briefed on the operational situation and defence preparedness of the armed forces in Dibang Valley," an official statement said.

She also interacted with the troops there and appreciated their dedication and selfless service in protecting India's borders in such inhospitable terrains, the Defence spokesman said in the statement.

Later, the Minister also inaugurated a 426.60-meter-long Pre-Stressed Concrete Box Girder type bridge over Diffo river on Roing-Koronu-Paya road in the hill state.

"She appreciated completion of this prestigious bridge which would provide an uninterrupted access between Dibang Valley and Lohit Valley regions of Eastern Arunachal Pradesh and an all-weather road for the troops to be deployed at the Indo- China Border," the statement said.

--IANS

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Enhancing representation of women in armed forces, Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman Friday said the government has taken a "historic" decision to induct women in the military police.

"To improve representation of women in our armed forces Smt@nsitharaman takes a historic decision to induct women for the first time in PBOR (Personnel Below Officer Rank) role in Corps of Military Police. The women will be inducted in graded manner to eventually comprise 20% of total Corps of Military Police," official handle of the Defence Minister tweeted.

About the role of women in their new posting, it was clarified that the women would be deployed as investigating officers to probe cases of rape, molestation and thefts.

The women officers would be deployed in military operations of nature where Army needs assistance from police organisations. They would assist civil police/administration for evacuation in forward villages during hostilities as well as crowd control of refugees compromising women and children.

These women officer would also be given role in searching/frisking of women during cordon and search operations/check posts; ceremonial and policing duties like maintaining military discipline; and manning the prisoner of war camps.

Sitharaman, India's first full-time woman Defence Minister, in May last year had said that the government was working "seriously" to have women in combat uniforms.

Women in combat roles in the armed forces has been a long pending demand.

Then President Pranab Mukherjee in February 2016 announced that women will be allowed to take up combat roles to remove gender disparity in one of the world's most male-dominated professions.

The Indian Air Force in July last year inducted three women - Mohana Singh, Avani Chaturvedi and Bhawana Kanth - as the first female fighter pilots.

The Indian Navy has also offered permanent commission to women officers. In 2016, it started with a modest group of seven and vowed to expand the numbers.

--IANS

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Two employees of the KazTransGas company have been detained for negligence and their responsibility for the gas blast in Tbilisi, which killed four people and left eight others injured, the Georgian Interior Ministry said.

According to the statement, V.M., 61, and T.T., 27, employees KazTransGas Tbilisi, were called by residents of the building where the explosion took place on January 16.

"The individuals did not check the gas pipes properly and told the residents that the strong smell was from wall paints and not gas. Several hours after their departure, the explosion took place," Agenda.ge cited the ministry as saying.

The ministry added that an investigation is in progress and that all those at fault for the fatality will be held accountable.
Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, who part of the Supreme Court benches that disqualified former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from politics and overturned the death penalty of a Christian woman jailed for blasphemy, was sworn in as the 26th Chief Justice of Pakistan on Friday.

President Arif Alvi administered the oath to Khosa, 64, in a ceremony held at President House in the capital, Geo News reported. He replaced Justice Saqib Nisar whose tenure ended on Thursday.

Khosa's oath-taking ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Imran Khan, top government and military officials, Supreme Court judges, senior lawyers and other dignitaries. He is scheduled to retire on December 21, the report said.

"I will do right to all manners of people, according to law, without fear or favour," said Khosa, who is known as the "poetic justice" for his habit of citing works of literature in his judgments. He is regarded as Pakistan's top expert on criminal law.

Khosa was a member of the Supreme Court panel that in 2018 overturned the death penalty of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman jailed for blasphemy. The ruling sparked days of violent protests by Muslim hardliners.

He was also among the judges who disqualified Sharif from politics for life after corruption allegations in 2017.

Khosa introduced the agenda for his tenure on Thursday as "to attend to the causes that contribute towards delay in disposition of cases at all levels of the judicial hierarchy".

He has, over the course of his nearly two-decade career, decided about 55,000 cases. A special bench headed by him decided over 10,000 cases of criminal nature since 2014.

Khosa said there were 1.9 million cases pending in the country's courts with just 3,000 judges to deal with them.

"It is, therefore, time to take some big and hard decisions," he said, adding that structural and systemic changes were needed "to minimise litigation, eliminate unnecessary delays, rationalise the workload as well as redesign and restructure the judicial system as a whole".

--IANS

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Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Friday urged Home Minister Rajnath Singh to reconsider the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 passed in the Lok Sabha.

The Bill aims to remove hurdles for eligible migrants of six minority groups from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan from getting Indian citizenship. It is expected to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha during Parliament's Budget session. The opposition has strongly opposed it.

"We have expressed our concerns about the Citizenship Amendment Bill. All the coalition partners of the Meghalaya government as well as Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga have expressed dissatisfaction over the Bill. So, we have asked the government to reconsider the Bill. We hope the government reconsiders it," Sangma said.

"The Home Minister has told us that he will look into the matter and will soon call a meeting of Chief Ministers of northeastern states for detailed consultation," he added.

Asked about his stance in case the government goes ahead with the Bill, Sangma said, "We will take a call when the time comes. We are still in discussion with them. I don't think it is correct time to comment on that."

"The Bill will affect the North-East to a large extent. It is against the aspirations of the people and can have serious repercussions on the region's law and order," he said.

The Chief Minister, who is leading a delegation of the ruling Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government, will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday to discuss the Bill.

He will also urge the Prime Minister to exempt Meghalaya from the purview of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, Coal Mines Nationalization Act, 1973.

--IANS

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The Purdue University on Friday celebrated its 150th Anniversary in Mumbai with Astronaut and its alumnus Jerry Ross in a festival inspired by the accomplishments and contributions of its alumni.

Its theme - Giant Leaps - reminded everyone of the university's alumnus Neil Armstrong and his historic statement on the moon.

The celebration also served as the centerpiece of a yearlong event focusing on the most critical problems and opportunities facing our world and how Purdue and its alumni are addressing them.

Colonel Jerry Ross, who has been to space seven times, spoke on 'My journey as a NASA astronaut: What if we found evidence of previous life on Mars?"

Ross said: "There are many challenges to be overcome before we send humans to Mars. Current technologies would require astronauts to travel for 6-9 months to reach Mars and another 6-9 months to return, after having spent an additional year there awaiting proper planetary alignment."

Dr. Suresh Garimella, Purdue Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships and US National Science Board member under the Trump administration was the master of ceremonies for the half-day-long series of interactive sessions.

Home to approximately 2,000 Indian students and 120 faculty of Indian origin, Purdue is at the epicentre of world-changing research and instruction.

Through its ever-expanding alumni network with more than 32,000 alumni living internationally, including 2,555 in India, and its increasing collaborations with corporate and institutional partners, Purdue University and its impact on the world stage continues to grow.

--IANS

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to address two public rallies in West Bengal this month and another in Kolkata's iconic Brigade Parade Ground on February 8, state BJP leader Dilip Ghosh said on Friday.

Ghosh also announced that a string of five BJP rallies in the state, to be addressed by party president Amit Shah, will begin on January 22 instead of January 20, due Shah's recent illness.

"Modi ji has given time for two rallies in Bengal this month. The first one would be in north Bengal on January 28 and the next one would be somewhere between Thakurnagar or Bongaon in North 24 Parganas district on January 31," he said.

"He is also set to hold a Brigade rally on February 8. We will forward the dates to the state administration for approval," he said.

The state BJP leader said the five public rallies to be addressed by the party President between January 20-22, would be delayed by two days.

The venues of the scheduled rallies would, however, remain unchanged.

"The scheduled dates of Amit Shah ji's public rallies in Bengal have changed due to his illness. He wants to come here after complete recovery. So his first rally will be held in Malda on January 22 instead of January 20," Ghosh said.

"He will hold two rallies in Jhargarm and Birbhum district's Suri on January 23 and two more rallies in South 24 Parganas district's Jaynagar and Nadia district's Krishnanagar the following day (Jan 24)," he added.

Shah, 54, was admitted to AIIMS, New Delhi on Wednesday after contracting swine flu. He is is currently under observation of the institute's Director Randeep Guleria.

--IANS

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Pakistan has ruled out any role for India in the Afghan peace process, the media reported on Friday.

"India has no role in Afghanistan," Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said at the weekly media briefing on Thursday while responding to a query about Islamabad's position on New Delhi's part in the reconciliation process.

Faisal acknowledged that Pakistan has a difficult relationship with India, saying that despite Pakistan's efforts for normalisation, no concrete progress could be achieved in ties with India, Dawn news reported.

"You all know that India is not willing to engage with Pakistan," he reminded.

Faisal's remarks were in sharp contrast to what Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had told the National Assembly last month.

"Since India is present in Afghanistan, its cooperation in this regard (facilitating a negotiated settlement of the Afghan conflict) will also be required," he had told legislators.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump's Special Envoy on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad arrived in Pakistan on Thursday to discuss with the senior civil and military leadership the latest efforts to bring peace to the war-torn country.

Khalilzad, who met Taliban representatives last month in Abu Dhabi, is leading an inter-agency delegation to India, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan from January 8-21 to "facilitate a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan".

--IANS

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Odisha Congress legislator Jogesh Singh resigned from the primary membership of the party on Friday, a day after he was suspended for anti-party activities.

The MLA from Sundergarh Assembly constituency tendered his resignation to All India Congress Committee (AICC) President Rahul Gandhi and Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) President Niranjan Patnaik.

He also said that he has resigned as a member of the Odisha Legislative Assembly.

"I tender my resignation from the Indian National Congress party on moral ground. I also tender my resignation from the post of the Member of Odisha Legislative Assembly," Singh wrote in a letter to Gandhi.

He questioned the party's suspension decision without taking any clarification from him.

Singh was suspended for praising Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and announcing to skip Gandhi's meeting scheduled to be held here on January 25.

He wondered how praising the Chief Minister, who is ranked as the best Chief Minister in India, becomes anti-party activity.

Citing instances of Congress Ministers in the United Progressive Alliance government, the Sundergarh lawmaker said he is not the first person to praise Patnaik.

"I have served the Indian National Congress for a period of more than 17 years with all sincerity at my level best. Without any communication to me or my office, suspending me from the party may be assumed that it does not require my service anymore," he mentioned in his resignation letter.

Earlier, state working president of the Congress and Jharsuguda MLA Naba Kishore Das had resigned from the party to join the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

--IANS

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Family members and leaders of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founded by N.T. Rama Rao remembered him on his 23rd death anniversary on Friday.

Popularly called NTR, the former Chief Minister, was an actor-turned-politician and one of the most popular leaders in the history of undivided Andhra Pradesh.

NTR's son and popular actor N. Balakrishna, daughter N. Bhuvaneswari, grandsons and actors Junior NTR and Kalyan Ram and others paid rich tributes to the late leader at NTR Ghat on the banks of the Hussain Sagar lake here.

Balakrishna, who played NTR in the just released biopic "Mahanaaikudu", was accompanied by the film's director Krish. Speaking on the occasion, the actor said NTR would always remain in the hearts of the Telugu people.

He also garlanded the statue of NTR in Begumpet area and flagged off the NTR Amar Jyothi rally. Balakrishna recalled the steps taken by NTR for the welfare of the backward and weaker sections of society.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP President N. Chandrababu Naidu, who is NTR's son-in-law, also remembered the veteran leader.

During a teleconference with TDP leaders in Amaravati on Friday, Naidu said NTR continued to be an inspiration for the young generation. Terming NTR as the pioneer of welfare schemes, Naidu said poverty alleviation would be the best tribute to the late leader.

The Chief Minister also called upon the TDP cadres to rededicate themselves to the ideals of NTR by serving the people. He later left for Guntur district, where he will unveil a 36 feet tall statue of NTR.

NTR died of cardiac arrest in 1996, a few months after Naidu ousted him from power in view of the alleged growing interference by his second wife Lakshmi Parvathi in the party and the administration.

NTR, a popular Telugu actor, had launched the TDP in 1982 with the slogan of Telugu self-respect and created a record of sorts by coming to power within nine months, ending the single party rule of the Congress.

--IANS

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Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa took oath as the 26th Chief Justice of Pakistan at a ceremony here on Friday.

Chief Justice Khosa is scheduled to retire on December 21, 2019, Dawn news reports.

President Arif Alvi administered the oath to Justice Khosa before an audience of top government and military officials, Supreme Court judges, senior lawyers and dignitaries at the Aiwan-i-Sadr (Presidential Palace).

Justice Khosa has, over the course of his nearly two decade long career, decided about 55,000 cases. A special bench headed by him has decided over 10,000 cases of a criminal nature since 2014.

At outgoing Chief Justice Saqib Nisar's full court reference on Thursday, Justice Khosa introduced the agenda for his tenure: "To attend to the causes that contribute towards delay in disposition of cases at all levels of the judicial hierarchy."

Justice Khosa had observed that there are 1.9 million cases pending before all courts across the country compared to just 3,000 judges and magistrates.

--IANS

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Non-banking finance company (NBFC) India Infoline Finance Ltd (IIFL Finance) will shortly open a bond's public issue on January 22 to raise up to Rs 2,000 crore for funding business growth and expansion, its parent firm IIFL Holdings said on Friday.

The UK-based CDC Group-backed IIFL Finance will issue secured and unsecured redeemable non-convertible debentures aggregating Rs 250 crore with a green-shoe option to retain over-subscription up to Rs 1,750 crore, amounting to a total of Rs 2,000 crore, a statement said

"The IIFL Bonds offer highest annual yield of 10.50 per cent for individual and other categories, and 10.35 per cent for the institutional category, for a tenor of 120 months with frequency of monthly and annual payment. The other tenors offered are for 39 and 60 months," it said.

"Crisil has rated the instrument as AA/Stable, which indicates that the instruments are considered to have a high degree of safety for timely servicing of financial obligations and carry very low credit risk."

Commenting on the development, IIFL Finance CEO Sumit Bali said: "Through our strong physical presence of 1,755 branches across India and a well-diversified portfolio, we are able to meet the credit requirement of various segments of underserved population. The funds raised will help us in expanding our operation in more such areas."

For the previous half-year ended September 30, IIFL Finance's net profit stood at Rs 357.2 crore, posting a growth of 69 per cent year-on-year, the statement added.

According to the company, retail loans, including home loans and small constitute 85 per cent of its loan book.

The Mumbai-headquartered IIFL Holdings was featured in the US magazine Forbes' list of "India's Super 50 Companies in 2017", the company said.

--IANS

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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has confirmed his attendance at the informal meeting of defence ministers of the European Union (EU) member states, to be held here at the end of January, Romanian Defence Minister Gabriel Les said.

The meeting is the first ministerial level event to be hosted by Romania since it took over the Presidency of the EU Council.

The meeting "aims at common reflection and an exchange of views on strengthening the European project, with an emphasis on the security and defence dimension", Agerpres news agency quoted Les as saying on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

The two-day meeting will start on January 30 with a debate session focusing on "Women, Peace and Security", a shared priority for the EU, the UN and NATO, and on ways to mainstream this agenda into peace operations and crisis management.

On the second day, said the minister, in-depth discussions will be held regarding the state of implementation of the EU Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy, with an emphasis on progress made in the implementation of defence initiatives.

According to an earlier release, EU ministers will also discuss ways to ensure consistency between various European defence initiatives in view of the implementation of the EU Council's decisions and the use of the best instruments at the disposal of the Union to capitalise on the potential of innovation and technological research in support of the armed forces of the member states.

The event will be chaired by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, and hosted by the Romanian defence minister. UN Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix will be invited to participate in this discussion, the release added.

--IANS

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The Turkish troops, deployed in Syrias Afrin, opened fire on Friday at the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in response to the latters fire from the city of Tall Rifat, the Turkish Defense Ministry said in a statement, Sputnik reports.

"Units of the Turkish Armed Forces, deployed in Afrin, gave a relevant response to the attack by YPG terrorists from Tall Rifat," the statement said.
Invoking Mahatma Gandhi's movement against colonisation, Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lead a fight against "data colonisation", saying that Indian data must be "owned and controlled" by Indians.

"I pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of our Nation, in the year of his 150th birth anniversary. Gandhiji led India's movement against political colonisation... Today, we have to collectively launch a new movement against data colonisation," he said addressing the "Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2019" here inaugurated by Modi.

Asserting that the data is the "new oil and wealth" in the new world, he said India's data must be controlled and owned by Indian people and not by corporates, especially global corporations. "Honourable Prime Minister, I am sure you will make this one of the principal goals of your Digital India mission."

"For India to succeed in this data-driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India ... in other words, Indian wealth back to every Indian. India's data must be owned and controlled by Indians only, not the global corporates. There is a need to launch a movement to bring back the control of data in our hands," he said.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had in October said that all digital payment firms like Google Pay, WhatsApp and the likes, must store data locally for their businesses in the country.

During the event, Ambani also announced that Reliance, which he said had invested Rs 3 lakh crore and catalysed one million jobs in Gujarat, would double its investment and employment numbers over the next decade.

He said Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail would soon launch a new commerce platform for small retailers -- a mega mission which will first be launched in Gujarat and then across the country.

He also announced his plans to create a "fully digital Gujarat" by connecting every home, office, school, college and market through Jio.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Researchers have found that more than a hundred species currently identified as non-threatened on the Red List of Threatened Species, are actually likely to be at risk of extinction.

The study emphasises on the urgent need for re-assessment of animal species on the Red List.

The findings, led by a team from Radboud University in the Netherlands, showed that 20 per cent of the 600 species, such as the brown-banded rail and Williamson's mouse-deer, which were impossible to assess by the Red List experts are likely under threat of extinction.

In addition, 600 species that were assessed previously as being non-threatened, are actually likely to be threatened, such as the red-breasted pygmy parrot and the Ethiopian striped mouse.

Once every few years, specialised researchers voluntarily assess the conservation status of animal species in the world, which is then recorded in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

Species are classified into five extinction risk categories, ranging from least concern to critically endangered, based on data such as species distribution, population size and recent trends.

"While this process is extremely important for conservation, experts often have a limited amount of data to apply the criteria to the more than 90,000 species that are currently covered by the Red List," said Luca Santini, ecologist at the varsity.

"Often these data are of poor quality because they are outdated or inaccurate because certain species that live in very remote areas have not been properly studied. This might lead to species to be misclassified or not assessed at all," Santini added.

Hence they proposed an efficient, systematic and comprehensive method, described in the journal Conservation Biology, which uses information from land cover maps that show how the distribution of species in the world has changed over time.

The researchers can couple this information with statistical models to estimate a number of additional parameters, such as species' abilities to move through fragmented landscapes, to classify species into a Red List extinction risk category.

--IANS

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The Congress on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of compromising national security in the Rafale deal by "denying" to the IAF 90 aircraft it desperately needed and "gifted" Dassault Rs 186 crore more per aircraft at the cost of the public exchequer in the deal it signed with France.

Citing a media report that India ended up paying 41 per cent more per aircraft for the 36 fighter jets ordered in 2015, Congress leader P. Chidambaram also expressed alarm over how objections by three senior Defence Ministry officials "to all aspects of the deal announced by Modi" were overruled by the other members in the negotiating team.

"Since Modi announced the new deal in April, 2015 and scrapped the UPA era deal, one question that has loomed large is why the Modi government rejected the need and demand of 126 aircraft made by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and decided to buy only 36 Rafale fighters.

"This question has never been answered either by the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, the Finance Minister or the Law Minister, who all at one point or the other have come out in defence of the deal," Chidambaram told the media at the AICC.

Citing the 13 India-specific enhancements (ISEs) asked by the IAF, Chidambaram said the negotiated price was euro 1.3 billion which was to be paid under both the UPA and the Modi deal.

"If 126 aircraft had been purchased, Dassault would have recovered the Euro 1.4 billion in over 10 years and 6 months. But with only 36 aircraft being purchased under the new deal, this will be recovered in just 36 months.

"Dassault gains in two ways. Firstly the increase of price per aircraft, secondly if the government orders for another 90 aircraft, Dassault will again charge for India-specific enhancements," he said.

"Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank. The government has wronged the country in two ways - compromised national security by denying to the IAF 90 aircraft they desperately need and cost the public money 25 million euro more per aircraft that is equal to 186 crore more per aircraft," he said.

While the Modi government and the BJP have been citing the Supreme Court verdict to have established the deal to be clean and defeated the Congress' attempts to malign the Modi government, Chidambaram said the issue was a matter not to be judicially scrutinised as the court does not have the jurisdiction and reiterated the demand for a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).

"Besides the price factor, the media report revealed how every aspect of the deal has been objected by three members of the negotiating team and how their objections were overruled by 4:3 by the team. We have heard this happening only in judiciary not in the government decision-making process. We reiterate the demand for a JPC."

"Only a parliamentary panel has the right to call people, examine documents and ask questions. That is why we are pressing for a JPC. But we know this government will never agree for that," added Chidambaram.

To a suggestion that the coming session will be a "lame duck" sitting and a JPC cannot be formed, he said "if in the first week of January the Parliament is not a lame duck, why should it be so from the First of February."

The former finance minister said if the government thought that it had succeeded in giving a "quiet burial" to the Rafale controversy it was wrong. "The controversy is very much alive and this morning it acquired a new dimension," he said.

He said this also raised serious questions about the process of decision making in the NDA government. "The man who got away was Manohar Parrikar (the then Defence Minister) who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security! Clever man!."

Should the government place an order for another 90 aircraft on Dassault it will certainly charge ISE-loaded price at which it sold 36 aircraft although the ISI cost would have been recovered on the sale of 36 aircraft. "Perhaps for this reason the government deleted 'follow on' clause to buy more aircraft," he said.

The UPA government had negotiated a deal to purchase 126 Rafale fighter jets of which 18 were to be bought in fly-away condition and the remaining 108 to be manufactured in India under licence. However, the NDA government entered into an inter-government agreement with France to buy 36 jets in fly-away condition.

--IANS

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District authorities on Friday visited the families of three of the 15 miners who are trapped, now for over a month, inside an illegal flooded coal mine in Meghalaya and expressed their "inability" to evacuate them.

Deputy Commissioner of East Jaintia Hills district, F.M. Dopth broke the news to Jostina Dkhar, the mother of Dimonme and Melambok, and Rita Dkhar, the mother of Shalabas when he visited them this evening at Lumthari village, about 3km before reaching the tragedy site at Ksan village.

"The Deputy Commissioner met my sisters this evening at their residences at Lumthari village and expressed the authorities' inability to evacuate my nephews who are trapped inside the coal mine," Pressmeky Dkhar, the uncle of the two brothers, told IANS over phone.

"The DC did not say whether they are dead or alive but asked my sisters to consult the clan members and inform him about the decision," Dkhar said.

The three cousins from Lumthari were among the 15 trapped miners - seven from villages under Rajabala constituency in West Garo Hills, and five from neighbouring Assam.

Dkhar reiterated that the families of the trapped miners want the body to be taken out at any cost from the flooded mine for a decent burial.

"We only want the bodies of Dimonme, Melambok and Shalabas to be taken out from the mine so that we can give them a decent burial according to our religious rites," Dkhar said.

The families of the trapped miners whom IANS spoke to on Thursday had said they want the "dead bodies" of the miners to be taken out as per the Supreme Court order.

A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices A.K. Sikri and S. Abdul Nazeer had expressed dissatisfaction with the rescue operation and ordered : "No matter whether they (trapped persons) are all dead, some alive, a few dead or all alive, they should have been taken out by now. We pray to God that they all are alive."

On Wednesday, the Indian Navy divers detected a dead body inside the coal mine through an underwater ROV (remotely operated vehicle).

The Naval team had said the body will be extracted under the supervision of doctors. However, it is not known if the body was retrieved on Friday.

Senior medical officials from the state's health and family welfare and Director General of Police R Chandranathan who visited the tragedy site were tightlipped.

The Meghalaya government has roped in several Central agencies including a team from Hyderabad-based Natonal Geophyscial Research Institute and Chennai-based Plnays Technologies in the rescue operation.

Coal India Limited, Odisha firefighters, Kirloskar Brothers Limited are dewatering the abandoned coal mine shafts and the main shaft where the miners are trapped.

Coal mine accidents have been rampant in the mountainous state even after the National Green Tribubal imposed an interim ban on 'rat hole' mining in April 2014.

--IANS

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Lakhs of Trinamool Congress activists and supporters from across West Bengal thronged the city on Friday, a day ahead of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's high-voltage 'United India Rally' that is likely to be a show of opposition strength ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

The ruling TMC leadership has left no stone unturned to break all previous records.

According to the party leadership, nearly four to five lakh people have arrived in the city by Friday via road, railways and waterways to hear and watch the opposition gain steam at the rally.

Apart from bringing thousands of supporters from their respective constituencies, the party leaders have also made special arrangements for their food, lodging, security and other necessary amenities in different parts of the city.

"Close to 70,000 activists have arrived at Sealdah station from different districts of north Bengal since morning. People have come onboard the Katihar Express, Uttar Banga Express, Padatik Express and Kanchan Kanya Express so far.

"More people will arrive on the Kanchanjunga Express in the evening. Another 7,000 people have arrived at the Kolkata Rail Station (Chitpur)," said state Food Minister Jyotipriyo Mullick, who was supervising the arrival of the party activists at the Sealdah station, told IANS.

"Large number of supporters are expected to arrive in the same trains tomorrow (Saturday) who will directly head for the meeting venue from the stations," he said.

Mullick, who is the paty's in-charge of the North 24 Parganas district, claimed that at least 5,00,000 to 6,00,000 supporters were expected to come from the district to attend the rally.

"We have booked all the public buses, pickup trucks, lorries and shuttle cars available in the region. Rest of the people will arrive by local trains.

"We apologise to the common people in advance in case if there is any inconvenience just for one day," he added.

As part of arrangements made for those going to the rally on Saturday, who would stay overnight in the city, 50 temporary camps have been erected in Salt Lake's Central Park.

Around 2,000 volunteers have been deployed to take care of the supporters while at least 12 CCTV cameras have been installed to ensure their security.

"The people staying here will be provided three course meals on Friday. We have also arranged for blankets. The entire accomodation is under CCTV surveillance and there are medical camps and sufficient fire fighting arrangements.

"We have also made seperate area for the members of minority community to read Namaz (prayer)," state Fire Minister and local MLA Sujit Bose said.

Arrangements for temporary accommodation for 20,000 people have also been made at South Kolkata's Gitanjali Stadium, a Trinamool leader said.

"Nearly 8,000 to 9,000 people have already arrived at the camps. More people are expected.

"We have put up medical camps and tied up with local hospitals in the area in case anyone falls ill. There is also CCTV surveillance and separate changing rooms for women," Trinamool leader Sushanto Ghosh said.

He said 100 buses have been arranged for taking the supporters to the venue on January 19.

--IANS

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Provocations coming from authorities in Serbia's unilaterally-seceded province of Kosovo and Metohija might destabilise the whole Balkans, visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin has said here, urging Pristina to respect the international law.

Putin arrived in Belgrade on Thursday for a one-day visit.

At a joint press conference with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic at the Palace of Serbia, Putin commented on recent decisions of Kosovo authorities to introduce 100 percent tariffs to goods coming from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as to establish armed forces against resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council, Xinhua reported.

Serbia's southern province of Kosovo and Metohija unilaterally seceded in 2008, with the support of the US and many EU member countries. But Serbia has been since refusing to recognize its independence.

The two sides signed the Brussels agreement in 2013 and continued to lead a EU-mediated dialogue in order to fully normalize their relations.

However, the negotiations were stopped last month, after Pristina's decisions to raise tariffs and establish armed forces.

Putin said that Russia stands for a vital, mutually acceptable solution based on the UN 1244 resolution, but that "unfortunately, lately the authorities in Kosovo had undertaken several acts of provocation, and made the relations tense".

The December 14 decision to form the Kosovo army is the "direct breach of the resolution 1244, which directly restricts the establishment of any armed forces in Kosovo, except the international ones", Putin said.

Asked if there is a possibility for Russia to mediate the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina in future, Putin did not provide a clear answer, but said that although the EU so far mediated the Belgrade-Pristina talks, not much of what was agreed got implemented.

According to him, authorities in Pristina should show more respect towards the international law in order to find a righteous solution for the dispute.

Vucic reminded that the negotiations were so far led under the mediation of the EU, but that Russia too had a key role because of its power to veto decisions of the UN Security Council.

"I will consult with President Putin before accepting any solution between Belgrade and Pristina... but so far it seems to me that there is no mutually acceptable solution in sight," Vucic said.

Vucic thanked Putin for the support to Serbia to maintain its integrity and sovereignty, assuring that Serbia will endure and that it will continue to look for a compromise solution, but "will not allow to be humiliated".

--IANS

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In a new twist to the political drama in the wake of "Operation Lotus", the Congress in Karnataka on Friday shifted 76 of its MLAs to a private resort outside the city accusing the BJP of trying to poach them to destabilise the state's JD(S)-Congress coalition government.

The Congress devised the new strategy after a meeting of the legislature party where four MLAs, said to be dissidents, had absented despite threats of disqualification.

"The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is indulging openly in horse-trading and is trying to bring down the (JD-S-Congress) coalition government by hook or crook," Congress state unit president Dinesh Gundu Rao told the media here.

Rao was speaking to reporters after the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meet at the Vidhana Soudha in the city centre.

"We need to have all our MLAs in one place and deliberate with them on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. So we are all going to the resort," Rao said.

The meeting saw the attendance of 76 of the party's 80 MLAs, CLP leader Siddaramaiah told the media.

The four absent legislators were Umesh Jadhav of Chincholi Assembly segment in Kalaburagi district, Ramesh Jarkiholi from Gokak constituency in Belagavi district, B. Nagendra from Ballari segment and Mahesh Kumathalli from Athani constituency in Belagavi district.

"Those who were absent will be issued notices seeking their explanation," Siddaramaiah asserted.

Two of them -- Umesh and Nagendra -- could not be present for the meet due to personal reasons, the party said.

"Umesh had sent a letter that he is unwell and could not travel, while Nagendra could not be present due to some court-related work," Siddaramaiah added.

While exuding confidence over the party lawmakers' support, Siddaramaiah alleged that the BJP's national leaders, including national president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were behind the attempt to "destabilise" the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S)-Congress coalition government.

"BJP has been trying to come to power through undemocratic means and has kept its own legislators locked up in Gurugram, Haryana. Their central leaders Shah and Modi were also involved in the attempt to gain power in Karnataka," the Congress leader claimed.

The party was not afraid of any "Operation Lotus" to topple the government, he added.

"Our legislators were offered crores of rupees by the BJP to join the party in exchange for cabinet posts," Siddaramaiah alleged.

The Congress decision to pack its MLAs to a resort near here comes in the midst of a similar sequestering of its MLAs by the BJP in a five-star hotel in Gurugram near the national capital for the last four days.

The BJP, however, has rejected Congress allegations of attempts to destabilise the Kumaraswamy government.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Karnataka Congress MLA Umesh Jadhav on Friday skipped the legislature party meet citing ill-health.

In a letter to the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah, Jadhav, a legislator from Chincholi Assembly segment in Kalaburagi district, said he was unable to attend the meet as he was not keeping well.

"I am unable to attend the meeting since I am unwell and not able to travel. My absence may be excused," Jadhav said in the letter, shared by the party with the media.

The party legislators' meet was called to take stock of the political happenings in the state, and as a show of strength, party's state unit vice president B.K. Chandrashekar told IANS earlier.

Chaired by Siddaramaiah, the party, which was scheduled for 3.30 p.m. at the state's legislature building Vidhana Soudha, was delayed by over 90 minutes and began around 5 p.m.

The meeting has been convened amid alleged attempts to poach Congress legislators by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

In the 225-member Legislative Assembly, including one nominated Speaker, Congress has 80 legislators, JD-S 37, and the BJP 104, while one Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA continues to support the coalition.

Earlier this week, one Independent H. Nagesh and regional Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party (KPJP) legislator R. Shankar withdrew their support to the coalition government.

--IANS

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Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Friday said the Central government should confer the Bharat Ratna on Tumakuru Siddaganga mutt's 111-year-old pontiff Shivakumara Swami.

"I had recommended Bharat Ratna for Swami in 2006 itself for his good work. If necessary, we will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to grant the award to Swami," Kumaraswamy told the media here.

The Swami, who has been in and out of hospitals lately due to advanced age, is currently being treated at the Siddaganga mutt in Tumakuru, about 70 km northwest of Bengaluru.

Known among his followers as a walking god and an incarnation of 12th century social reformer Basava, the Lingayat seer is also the head of the Sree Siddaganga Education Society which runs about 125 educational institutions in the state -- from engineering colleges to business schools.

Kumaraswamy said he had recommended the Swami's name to the Central government for the highest civilian award 13 years ago when he was the Chief Minister heading the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition.

The BJP's state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa also said that the party would request the Prime Minister to confer the award on the seer.

"His Holiness Shivakumara Swami is a remarkable personality and has positively impacted crores of lives through his outstanding service. The entire nation is praying for his speedy recovery and good health," Modi had tweeted earlier.

Thousands of followers and students have gathered outside the mutt in Tumakuru, praying for the pontiff's health.

--IANS

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Actress Kangana Ranaut is determined to fight against the Shri Rajput Karni Sena, who have threatened protests if the film is not screened for the outfit before theatrical release.

The actress says if they don't stop harassing her, she will "destroy them".

According to reports, the Maharashtra wing of the Karni Sena protested against the film on Thursday alleging that the period drama "alludes to Rani Laxmibai's relationship with a British officer".

The outfit -- which led a long protest against "Padmaavat" in 2017 -- also claimed that the film shows the queen dancing to a special number, saying that it is against tradition. They asked the makers of the film to show them the movie before its release.

"Four historians have certified 'Manikarnika...'. We have got censor certificate as well. Karni Sena has been conveyed this but they are continuing to harass me," Kangana said in a statement.

"If they don't stop then they should know I am also a Rajput and I will destroy each one of them," added the actress, who has directed the film along with Krish.

National Award-winning lyricist and Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chairman Prasoon Joshi has penned the songs for 'Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi" which captures the life story of Rani Laxmibai. Kangana will be bringing her life alive on the big screen.

The film, also featuring Ankita Lokhande, Atul Kulkarni, Vaibhav Tatwawaadi, Danny Denzongpa, Suresh Oberoi and Jisshu Sengupta, will be screened for President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi on Friday.

Produced by Zee Studios in association with Kamal Jain and Nishant Pitti, the movie will release on January 25.

--IANS

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Suspension of production at offshore oil and gas fields due to the strong wind in Azerbaijan will not have a big impact on the average annual indicators, the SOCAR press service said.

The company said that the oil workers will return to the platforms from the afternoon today, as soon as the storm stops and the weather condition normalizes, Trend reported.

SOCAR noted that the work was suspended not at all platforms. A total of almost 2,500 oil workers from offshore platforms were evacuated on January 17.

On Jan. 17-18, the speed of the north-west wind increased to 20-25 meters per second, sometimes to 30-35 meters per second, while the wind speed in the open sea increased to 38-40 meters per second. The height of the waves in the sea is expected at 3-5 meters, and then at 6-8 meters or more.
RTHK: Political veteran plans new party in Singapore

A former stalwart of Singapore's long-ruling government and ex-presidential candidate said Friday he is seeking to form a new party ahead of elections expected as early as this year.

Analysts said the move by Tan Cheng Bock, who almost beat the ruling party's de facto candidate in the 2011 presidential race, could represent a challenge to the government's dominance of the political system.

The People's Action Party (PAP) has ruled the affluent city-state since 1959 and has a tight grip on power. The forthcoming election, which they are widely expected to win, must be held by 2021  but speculation is mounting it will be this year.

The move by former PAP lawmaker Tan will heap extra pressure on the government, however, with the poll coming at a sensitive time as the country's founding Lee family prepares to hand over the premiership to a new generation of leaders.

Announcing he had applied on Wednesday to register the new group, called the "Progress Singapore Party", Tan said the move was out of a "sense of duty" to address concerns of ordinary Singaporeans.

He said 12 people had filed the application, including other former ruling party members.

"Over the years a group of us have been walking the ground, meeting many Singaporeans from all walks of life," said the 78-year-old medical doctor.

"We held group discussions and conversations with many, listening to their concerns, hearing their fears and feeling their pain."

Lee Morgenbesser, a Southeast Asia expert from Griffith University in Australia, said the move was "significant, mainly because Tan Cheng Bock has been such an influential PAP figure".

"It could provide a legitimate alternative to the PAP," he said, but cautioned this was unlikely to happen immediately. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The audit report of the highly sensitive Jammu, Srinagar and Leh airports is under final scrutiny of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) that will send its endorsement "very soon" to the Union Home Ministry, to hand over the security responsibility of these airports to the CISF from the CRPF.

It is, however, yet to be decided whether the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) would provide security cover in both inner and outer circles of these airports. The strength of security personnel to be deployed on these airports is also not decided yet.

Sources in BCAS said the possibility was that the "core area" or inner security would be given to CISF while the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which has been providing over all security cover to these airports since 1990, would secure only outer circle.

"BCAS' scrutiny of the audit report is in final mode. It will soon send its endorsement to the Home Ministry which will take the final call whether CISF will provide inner and outer security both or CRPF will continue its role in outer circle of Jammu, Srinagar and Leh airports," a Ministry official said, requesting anonymity.

"The number of CISF personnel to be deployed on each of the three airports will be decided later as per the Home Ministry's approval."

The Home Ministry last November had decided to hand over security of these airports to CISF from CRPF on the "same terms and conditions" which are in force for deployment of the CISF at other airports. The move was intended to bring uniformity in the Indian aviation sector.

Of 101 operational airports in India, the CISF is deployed in 61 airports. With the addition of the three airports, the number of CISF-guarded airports will go up to 64.

The audit report was prepared by a joint team of CISF, Airport Authority of India (AAI) and BCAS.

The report was then submitted to the BCAS in the end of December, mentioning loopholes and various requirements, including equipment and personnel.

A CISF official, on the condition of anonymity, told IANS: "As the audit report is with the BCAS and the final nod by Home Ministry is still pending, it would not be good to talk about what kind of changes will be done by CISF on the three J&K airports. But, in the audit report, we have mentioned that the existing security infrastructure will not be changed at these airports.

"If we think about any change, it can be done on installing more CCTV cameras. However, we have mentioned in the audit report about the number of troops, equipment and weapons required to provide security at these airports."

The official said "we had mentioned the break-up of personnel and equipment needed both for inner and outer circle deployment".

"As per an estimate, the official said over 1,200 personnel, are needed to provide round the clock security at these airports."

The three airports, as per an estimate, handled over 50 lakh passengers in 2018 which is almost double of their capacity, he added.

The CISF is also likely to continue with the practice of baggage stamping at these sensitive airports.

All these three airports in Jammu and Kashmir are considered highly sensitive due to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in the state.

The government has been discussing deployment of CISF -- a highly skilled aviation security force -- at Jammu and Kashmir airports for several years. The CRPF has, however, opposed the move.

(Rajnish Singh can be contacted at rajnish.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday announced a Young Scientists programme under which three school students will be selected from each state and union territory and will be given lectures on space and hands-on experience in building small satellites.

"Under this one-month programme, selected students, mostly Class 8 pass students, will be given lectures and access to research laboratories," ISRO Chairman K. Sivan told reporters here.

He said a management system has been put in place for the Gaganyaan, India's first human-carrying space flight intended to be launched by 2021.

"For Gaganyaan Programme we have already placed a management structure in ISRO. First unmanned mission by December 2020, second unmanned mission by July 2021 and the real human space flight will be launched by December 2021," Sivan said.

The spacecraft is being built by ISRO and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and is designed to accommodate three people.

--IANS

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India and Uzbekistan signed an agreement on importing uranium from the Central Asian nation following a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on the sidelines of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2019 here on Friday.

The two sides also signed an agreement for a line of credit of $200 million from India for financing housing and social infrastructure projects in Uzbekistan.

"Both leaders witnessed the exchange of the contract between the Department of Atomic Energy of India and the Novoi Minerals and Metallurgical Company of the Republic of Uzbekistan on long-term supply of uranium ore concentrate for India's energy requirements," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

It stated that Modi expressed his satisfaction on the progress and implementation of various decisions taken during the state visit of Mirziyoyev to India in 2018.

Referring to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation between Gujarat and the Andijan region of Uzbekistan signed during the state visit, Modi expressed the hope that as a result of President Mirziyoyev's visit, the relationship between Uzbekistan and India and region-to-region cooperation between Andijan and Gujarat would be further strengthened.

To attract investments in the pharmaceutical sector, an Uzbek-Indian Free Pharmaceutical Zone is being developed in the Andijan region, which is on the southeastern side of Uzbekistan, near its border with Kyrgyzstan.

Pharmaceutical products, mechanical equipment, vehicles, services, optical instruments and equipment are India's major exports to Uzbekistan.

India imports fruit and vegetable products, services, fertilisers, juice products, extracts and lubricants from the Central Asian nation.

Mirziyoyev informed Modi that Uzbekistan attaches high priority to attracting investments from India and mentioned the sectors of IT, education, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, agri-business and tourism as some of the priority areas for Uzbekistan's prospective cooperation with India.

Modi also thanked President Mirziyoyev for his support for the first-ever India-Central Asia Dialogue held at the level of foreign ministers in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on January 12-13 where important discussions took place on supporting peace and development efforts in Afghanistan.

Prior to his talks with Mirziyoyev, Modi held a meeting with Prime Minister Malta Joseph Muscat who has also come to participate in the Vibrant Gujarat Summit.

"Discussed growing economic linkages and agreed to enhance mutual cooperation in sectors such as renewable energy, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, air connectivity and tourism," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.

--IANS

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The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) on Friday launched a start-up to prepare the workforce for the advent of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) age by training students at nominal costs.

The start-up "PadhAI" offers an affordable hands-on course on 'Deep Learning' which is the most successful sub-field of AI.

It is open to all students, faculty and professionals with a basic background in mathematics and Python.

The fee for students and faculty is Rs 1,000 and for working professionals Rs 5,000.

The start-up will also create AI-driven apps by collaborating with Small and Medium Enterprises and the industry and generate value for the Indian economy.

"The Indian IT industry has gone through several waves of technology and survived by upskilling. The current wave of AI is very different. It requires both mathematical insight and hands-on experience," Mitesh Khapra, Assistant Professor at IIT-Madras, said in a statement.

"We need courses that strike the right balance between these two. Only then will India be able to produce visible products and services in the AI age," he added.

Every year, the top performing students from courses on PadhAI will be invited to a summer garage -- an AI residency programme at IIT-M Research Park where they can work on research, tackle problems of societal impact, or find solutions to commercial value.

The four-month course comprises 80 hours of lecture content and requires equivalent time in solving assignments. It will involve monthly contests and a capstone challenge that trains participants to build an app that works like Google Lens for a few Indian languages.

The course will begin from February 1. Registrations for the course are open until January 24.

--IANS

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The Delhi High Court on Friday granted bail to alleged hawala dealer Muhammad Aslam Wani, who is accused of money-laundering.

The court allowed bail plea of Wani asking him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 3 lakh and two sureties of like amount.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in September 2017 filed a chargesheet against Wani and Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Wani was arrested on August 6, 2017. He had reportedly confessed that he had passed on hawala money amounting to Rs 2.25 crore to Shah.

Shah was arrested on July 25, 2017, on charges of money-laundering in previous case when the Delhi Police Special Cell arrested Wani.

Both of them have denied the charges.

--IANS

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Japanese officials have said that a piece of graffiti found at a monorail station in Tokyo could be the work of British anonymous artist Banksy, the media reported on Friday.

The drawing, sprayed on a door near the Hinode monorail station,bears resemblance to a famous Banksy painting "Umbrella rat", which similarly pictures a rat parachuting with an umbrella, the BBC reported.

It is not clear when the work was painted but the officials said they had known about it for a long time.

They only realised it could be a Banksy after being contacted by residents.

In a tweet, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike called the artwork a possible "gift to Tokyo".

Banksy produces pieces of work in public places which are often sold for high amounts.

--IANS

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A day after the government curtailed his tenure in the CBI as Special Director, Rakesh Asthana, who had a bitter fight with ousted agency chief Alok Verma, was on Friday appointed as the new Director General of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS).

An official notification said the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet had approved the appointment of Rakesh Asthana as Director General, BCAS by temporarily upgrading the post of Director General, BCAS to that of DG level, on a personal basis, for a period of two years with effect from the date of assumption of charge of the post or until further orders, whichever is earlier.

As per a separate government order, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Joint Director Arun Kumar Sharma was also posted as Additional Director General in Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) against the existing vacancy of Special Director General from the date of joining the post and up to April 28, 2020 or until further orders, whichever is earlier.

The developments come a day after Asthana tenure as CBI Special Director was curtailed with immediate effect.

The CBI tenure of Joint Director Sharma and Deputy Inspector General Manish Kumar Sinha, who were considered close to ousted CBI Director Verma, was also curtailed along with another agency official Jayant J. Naiknavare.

Sinha, who levelled serious allegations against National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in a petition before the Supreme Court, was moved to Bureau of Police Research and Development while Naiknavare, who hold Superintendent of Police charge, has been sent to his parent Maharashtra cadre.

Sharma and Sinha were probing the FIR against Asthana for alleged wrongdoings.

The government on October 23 had sent Asthana on forced leave divesting him of his powers along with Verma after their clash levelling mutual allegations of corruption against each other.

Verma, who approached the Supreme Court against the order, was ousted as CBI Director on January 10 by a three-member selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and two of its members including leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Chief Justice of India-nominated Justice A.K. Sikri of the apex court.

--IANS

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The latest version of Google's photo sharing and storage service "Google Photos 4.8" that reached Android smartphones recently is expected to get more features like automatically suggested sharing among others, media reported.

Even though the teardown does not exactly reveal how the feature would function, it will probably take into account user interactions with the app and suggest sharing based on that.

"The company refers to this feature as 'Peoplekit' in a code spotted in a teardown and it shows that it uses your interaction with the app in order to suggest sharing," Android Headline reported on Thursday.

Along with suggested sharing, the search engine giant is also adding links to other Google-made apps in the navigation drawer.

"The company's PhotoScan app is already there, but the code suggests that more such links are coming as it is closely related to 'Google Photos', considering it's an image editing app," the report added.

As part of the new features for "Google Photos" suggested by the code teardown, cropping could also become a part of the app in case a particular photo needs to be cropped, or if Google's Artificial Intelligence (AI) thinks so.

The tech giant rolled out plenty of updates to "Google Photos" in 2018 that included a new coat of paint to the app and "Live Albums" that allows users to automatically update photos of a specific person or pet using the company's facial recognition technology powered by Google Assistant.

As part of the previous updates, the service stopped offering free storage for unsupported videos in December.

Speculation that surfaced earlier in January claimed that "Google Photos" is testing a new sharing menu and could also get a "Dark Theme", the report said.

--IANS

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In a joint operation, the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Tripura Police on Friday seized 300 kg of ganja (cannabis) valued at Rs 14.60 lakh in the international market.

"Police and BSF troopers in a joint raid seized around 300 kg ganja amounting to Rs 14.60 lakh from a border village of Anandapur in Sepahijala district on Thursday night," a BSF release said.

"Separate cases have been registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and the seized consignment handed over to police," the release said.

With this seizure, the total amount of seized contraband over the last two weeks has reached 2,855 kg, valued at Rs 1.61 crore, according to the release.

"The operation was led by the para-military force's Assistant Commandant A.K. Singh and Sonamura sub-divisional police officer Sauvik Dev," it added.

Ever since Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb came to power, he has launched a crusade against the drug menace in the northeastern state.

Last week, a police official and his sister-in-law were arrested for their alleged involvement in drug smuggling. So far, 16 policemen have been either arrested or suspended from service for their reported involvement in drug menace.

--IANS

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The establishment of new strong government supported by the population in Armenia increases the chance of a practical peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, director of the Institute of Political Studies Sergei Markov told the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, commenting on the positive results of the talks between the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia Elmar Mamedyarov and Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, who expressed the need to take concrete measures to prepare the people of both countries for peace.

The ministers' talks were positively assessed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who stressed that "the statements from Baku about the readiness to look for solutions, deserve all support." "We hope that our Armenian friends will reciprocate," Lavrov said.

Only a truly strong government in Armenia is able to make compromises on Karabakh, the expert stressed. "Prospects for a practical settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict improved because Pashinyan's power was established. It was always profitable for Armenia to get an economic deblockade in exchange for de-occupation of the territories around Karabakh, under any government - but such a bargain requires abandoning a radical approach of "the 100% Armenian character of Nagorno-Karabakh should be recognized in the first place, then everything else," Sergey Markov pointed out.

"In order to get away from such a radical position, it is necessary for the government to ignore the radicals. And it also requires the power to be consolidated and supported by the population," he added.

According to the political scientist, Pashinyans key incentive to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the course on the economic development of Armenia, stated in his revolutionary and, then, pre-election program. "If Armenia transfers the territories around Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani and Turkish borders will be opened, which immediately gives Yerevan an opportunity to make an economic breakthrough," Sergei Markov said.

The path to a practical settlement of the conflict is unlikely to be simple in domestic political terms for Pashinyan. "On the one hand, when there is a real demand for change in the society, it would be appropriate as part of the global reforms of the Armenian state. But, on the other hand, Pashinyan has yet to seize the economic leverage in Armenian society and fight those previous authorities opposing him, which may take some time," the director of the Institute of Political Studies noted.

"If we talk about the future, the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will cause a very serious rise in the standard of living and ensure high activity of the Armenian citizens. The Armenian people are hardworking people, and if they have an opportunity, they can do a lot. Open Azerbaijani and Turkish borders would give such an opportunity and create new jobs for Armenian citizens," Sergey Markov concluded.
Kolkata, Jan 18 (IANS/Mongabay) Indias national aquatic animal, the endangered Gangetic river dolphin (Platanista gangetica gangetica), is rarely visible in the waterways of the Indian Sundarbans. A study sheds light on the rise in salinity in the water and reduced freshwater flow for the mammals disappearing act in the iconic estuarine habitat.

A survey of a nearly 100-km stretch of the Sundarbans delta in India adjoining Bangladesh, has confirmed the presence of the dolphin populations only in the westernmost segment, in the lower reaches of the river Hooghly, where the salinity is lower than that of natural seawater.

The mammals stayed away from the central Sundarbans, found the survey, where siltation in the waterways has disrupted freshwater flow leading to high salinity levels.

The easternmost part of the Indian Sundarbans having freshwater connectivity with river Padma of Bangladesh is moderately saline but the salinity level increases downstream and the southwest part of Bangladesh Sundarbans is hyper-saline.

Published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, the survey indicates a "possible decline in the range of Platanista gangetica in the Indian Sundarbans" attributing the extirpation to a triple whammy of elevated sedimentation, reduced freshwater discharge and swelling salinity.

India's "Dolphin Man", ecologist Ravindra Sinha agreed with the findings and observed that earlier, in the entire Sundarbans including different water channels and tributaries/distributaries one could spot the Ganges dolphins.

"Gangetic dolphins are obligatory freshwater animals and they never enter the sea. They are found in brackish water zones such those in the Sundarbans estuary. But freshwater flow has declined over the decades and sea water has ingressed, increasing the salinity. They are rarely visible now, whereas once they were plenty," Sinha, Vice Chancellor Nalanda Open University, told Mongabay-India.

Inhabiting one of the most densely populated regions of the world, the Gangetic river dolphin is one of the only four surviving river dolphins globally, as the Yangtze River dolphin is virtually extinct, noted Sinha, one of the authors of the Conservation Action Plan for the Gangetic Dolphin 2010-2020.

The research team included Sangita Mitra (presently with National Biodiversity Authority, Chennai) and Mahua Roy Chowdhury, a marine biologist from the University of Calcutta, West Bengal.

"Significant increase in salinity levels were documented in the river Ganges in India after the commissioning of the Farakka Barrage," the study said, referring to the project in West Bengal that began operations in 1975.

Looking at the pan-India scenario, Sinha explained the biggest threat to Gangetic dolphins is the declining flow in the river Ganga as erection of dams and barrages and water-intensive agriculture in the basin contribute to the base flow petering out and fragmenting their habitats.

Records dating to 1879 reveal the freshwater-loving mammals swam along the entire length of the Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers, and all their tributaries from the delta at the Bay of Bengal till the Himalayan foothills. Even in the month of May, when the Ganga was very low, dolphins were seen as far up the Yamuna in Delhi.

(In arrangement with Mongabay.com, a source for environmental news reporting and analysis. The views expressed in the article are those of Mongabay.com. Feedback: gopi@mongabay.com)

--IANS

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A senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former member of Parliament from Purnea district of Bihar, Uday Singh, resigned from the party on Friday.

"I have resigned from the BJP," Singh told the media here.

"I had joined the BJP in 2004 under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but the party is no more strong as it was and the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also declined," he said.

The BJP in Bihar is doing only to be in power and has compromised with own principles, he said, adding that the party's seat sharing in the state for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is a clear indication of Modi's shrinking popularity.

Although Singh did not immediately reveal his future plans but dropped hints that he could join the Congress in the days to come.

--IANS

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Militants on Friday hurled a grenade at a paramilitary patrol party in the city centre Lal Chowk here in Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

The grenade was aimed at the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) vehicle near the Clock Tower.

The explosion damaged window panes of a few shops in the area as it missed its target, the police said. This is the second militant attack in the city in the last 24 hours.

On Thursday, three policemen were injured in a similar grenade attack by the militants in Rajbagh area here.

--IANS

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The European Commission proposed on Friday the elimination of tariffs for industrial goods with the US in future trade talks. The proposal will need approval from the EU member states.

The EU-US trade in goods amounted to 633 billion euros (about $722 billion) in 2017, of which 598 billion euros were in industrial goods, according to a press release by the European Commission.

In general, both the EU and the US have low tariffs on industrial goods. The average tariff rates on non-agricultural products were 4.2 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively, said the press release cited by Xinhua news agency.

"While applied tariffs levels are relatively low, the sheer size of our trade relationship means that the elimination of all tariffs of industrial goods will have an important impact on businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic," it said.

An internal analysis by the European Commission showed that if zero tariff on industrial goods comes true, EU exports of goods to the US would increase by 10 per cent and US exports to the EU would increase by 13 per cent.

In addition, the European Commission also proposed a conformity assessment that would help remove non-tariff barriers, by making it easier for companies to prove their products meet technical requirements on both sides of the Atlantic.

The EU and the US have their respective practices of conformity assessment to ensure that manufacturers can only place a product on the market when it meets all the applicable requirements, which may include testing, inspection and certification.

Differences in approaches to conformity assessment can result in additional costs and lengthy and complex administrative processes without necessarily improving the safety of products, according to the European Commission.

It added that the reduction in the costs of conformity assessment can bring significant economic benefits, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises

The member states must now give their green light to the proposals before the EU-US negotiations can begin.

The proposals followed a joint EU-US statement in July 2018, in which the two sides agreed "to work together towards zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods".

"The joint statement was adopted under exceptional circumstances, in order to avoid an escalation of trade tensions between the EU and the US," the European Commission said on Friday in an official document.

--IANS

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Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has praised his Philippines counterpart Rodrigo Dutertes brutal war on drugs, which has taken thousands of lives, calling it an "example to the world".

In a speech during a visit to the Philippines this week, Sirisena said he intended to replicate Duterte's ruthless approach to tackling illegal drug use, the Guardian reported on Friday.

"The war against crime and drugs carried out by you is an example to the whole world, and personally to me," said Sirisena.

"Drug menace is rampant in my country and I feel that we should follow your footsteps to control this hazard."

In response, Duterte said that their aligned vision could mean partnering with Sri Lanka in the future to address international drug trafficking.

The speech was not the first time Sirisena has signalled his admiration for Duterte's war on drugs.

Last July, Sri Lanka ended its 43-year moratorium on executions to bring back hanging as a punishment for drug dealers, a move Sirisena said was directly inspired by Duterte's policy in the Philippines.

During a cabinet meeting in July, Sirisena said he "was ready to sign the death warrants" of repeat drug offenders, according to his spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne. Nineteen drug offenders who were serving life sentences now face the death penalty.

Duterte's bloody war on drugs, which has seen police handed unprecedented powers to carry out drug-related raids and arrests, has officially killed more than 5,000 people since 2016, though campaigners allege the real death toll could be up to 20,000.

The victims have mainly been the urban poor.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is carrying out a preliminary investigation into whether the extrajudicial killings constitute crimes against humanity.

--IANS

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US Democratic leaders have reacted with fury and demanded an investigation following a news report that claimed President Donald Trump directed his former attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a potential real-estate development in Moscow in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

The Thursday night report, published by BuzzFeed News, said Trump instructed Cohen to mislead Congress about when negotiations to launch a condo project in Russia's capital ended, as well as the extent of Trump's involvement in the deal. It later fell apart.

Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying under oath about those details.

Democrats said that if the report was accurate, then Trump must quickly be held to account for his role in the perjury, with some raising the spectre of impeachment, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

The President has not yet responded directly to the allegations, but had previously denied ever directing Cohen to break the law.

"The allegation that the President of the US may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date," wrote Representative Adam B. Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Twitter.

"We will do what's necessary to find out if it's true."

Representative Ted Deutch, while appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Friday morning, said: "If this is true, what it means is this is more evidence that the President has violated his oath of office," Deutch said. "If he told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, if he suborned perjury, this is as serious as it gets."

Former President Barack Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted that Congress should start impeachment hearings if the story was accurate. "If true, and proof must be examined, Congress must begin impeachment proceedings," he wrote.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on BuzzFeed's report.

Cohen was in December sentenced to 36 months in jail after he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. He had also admitted campaign finance violations and tax evasion.

In court he said his "weakness was a blind loyalty to Donald Trump", whose "dirty deeds" he felt compelled to cover up.

The BuzzFeed report said that the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is heading the investigation into alleged connections between Trump's 2016 election campaign and the Kremlin, had more evidence than just Cohen's testimony that Trump directed him to lie to Congress.

It said that Cohen's testimony was backed up by "interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents".

In November, Cohen admitted he falsely told Congress that Trump's efforts to build a condo tower in Moscow ended in January 2016, when, in reality, those efforts continued through that June.

--IANS

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The Chinese police must remain alert to any uprisings and defend the political stability of the country, the country's top security official has said.

The extremely paranoid Chinese government represses any form of dissent which, according to it, can turn into a movement. The authorities have an iron fist policy in quelling protests.

China's Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi on Thursday said that the police must "prevent coloured revolutions", a term used for popular uprisings in some countries in early 2000.

Kezhi asked the police to protect China's political security and the leadership of the ruling Communist Party. His remarks were posted on the website of the Ministry of Public Security.

The minister also said the police must guard against infiltration and any subversive activities by foreign forces in the country.

Under the all-powerful Chinese President Xi Jinping, the room for any debate has become narrower.

China's domestic security budgets outweigh its military budget. After mass self-immolations in Tibet and riots in Xinjiang, the government has become warier of any incidents.

Beijing has detained about 1 million Uighur Muslims at internment camps in Xinjiang in the name of "de-radicalization".

(Gaurav Sharma can be contacted at sharmagaurav71@gmail.com)

--IANS

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The Centre is unlikely to meet its disinvestment target of Rs 80,000 crore this year, resulting in overshooting the fiscal deficit target, Care Ratings said on Friday.

A report by the domestic rating agency said that owing to a shortfall in disinvestment realisations as well in indirect tax collections under the GST regime, the fiscal deficit will come in at 3.5 per cent as against the targeted 3.3 per cent, signifying a slippage of around Rs 20,000 crore.

"In this fiscal year, meeting the disinvestment target of Rs 80,000 crore will be challenging given the volatile conditions in the financial markets. We expect that disinvestment proceeds could be around Rs 60,000 crore for FY19," said the report titled 'Disinvestments in CPSEs - Hits and misses.'

"The disinvestment proceeds have fallen short of the targeted disinvestment by the Central government for the past five years, except in FY18. On an average, the government has achieved nearly 65 per cent of the budgeted disinvestment during FY14-FY17. In FY14, the disinvestment proceeds were merely 53 per cent of the budgeted target, lowest in all the years," it said.

In the last fiscal, total disinvestment proceeds came in at Rs 1 lakh crore, exceeding the budgeted target of Rs 72,500 crore, the report added.

It also said that with a little over two months to go for the fiscal year-end, the government had raised Rs 32,142 crore, or 43 per cent of the target by December.

Of this, Rs 25,325 crore has been raised through the Central Public Sector Enterprises Exchange Traded Fund (CPSE-ETF) the mechanism allowing the simultaneous sale of government stake in various CPSEs across diverse sectors through a single offer.

Among the various divestment routes, the offer-for-sale comes second in realisations with Rs 5,218 crore, followed by over Rs 1,500 crore raised through share buybacks.

To make up the shortfall, the government has decided to come up with another tranche of ETF with the Bharat 22 ETF offer and can raise about Rs 14,000 crore by selling 52.63 per cent stake in Rural Electrification Corp, the report said.

It can attempt to raise another Rs 12,000 crore through share buybacks of state-run units in a context limited by the volatility in the markets, it added.

--IANS

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The (CCI) on Friday approved the acquisition of India's fourth largest supermarket chain, (ABRL), by Witzig Advisory Services Private Ltd (WASPL), while simultaneously giving the go-ahead to an subsidiary to pick up a 49% stake in WASPL.

" approves acquisition of 99.99 per cent of the equity share capital of Aditya Birla Retail Limited (ABRL) by Witzig Advisory Services Private Limited," the tweeted.

The fair trade regulator also approved a proposal by com NV Investment Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of US online retail giant Amazon, to acquire a 49 per cent stake in Witzig Advisory Services, a joint venture controlled by private equity firm Samara Capital.

" approves acquisition of 49 per cent equity share capital of Witzig Advisory Services Private Limited by com NV Investment Holdings LLC," it said in another tweet.

The twin approvals by the country's anti-monopoly watchdog come within a month of the Centre tightening the norms for foreign direct investment (FDI) in e-commerce.

On December 26, 2018, the government banned the sale of goods produced by an entity in which an e-commerce venture has a stake, on its online platform. It also barred e-commerce venture from controlling inventory on its platforms.

ABRL is the retail arm of $44-billion Aditya Birla Group. The company is a player in the food and grocery retail sectors under the brand 'More' with two formats -- Supermarket and Hypermarkets -- as per its website.

Currently, it has 532 supermarkets and 20 hypermarkets across India.
The Central Board of Secondary (CBSE) will be issuing an 'instruction module' to all schools to deter students from cheating, a senior Board official said on Friday.

The module was being worked on for quite some time and it has reached its final form on Friday, the official told IANS.

"Cheating is an individual malpractice. This year we are doing something special to bring down the instances of cheating. We will be issuing a module to the schools by next week. It talks about why cheating is unethical and immoral. It will have case studies to that effect," the official said requesting anonymity.

According to media reports, the number of cases of cheating during CBSE exams doubled in 2017 from the previous year, rising from 56 in 2016 to 119 in 2017. The official said the number is around a similar figure in 2018 also.

The official also assured of leak-proof exams this year.

CBSE's reputation of being a formidable examiner was delivered a blow in 2018 when question papers of Mathematics and Economics for Class 10 and 12 respectively were leaked to the students before the exams. The fiasco resulted in re-conducting of the Economics paper for Class 12 students.

"I cannot reveal the security mechanism we have brought in. But we have put in place a system which will help us identify any malpractice if it takes place. The system has been strengthened at all levels," said the official.

The official also debunked reports that the board is conducting exams early this year due to general election, saying its "completely wrong" and that early exams have nothing to do with the elections.

"We are conducting exams a little early this year at the instruction of the Delhi High Court, which had said that the schools results should not coincide in anyway with the Delhi University admission. To that effect, the results this year will be announced early in May," the official said.

--IANS

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The Central Bank of Russia reported purchasing 8.5 million troy ounces of gold in January-November 2018. With its 67.6 million ounces of gold Russia is now the world's fifth largest holder behind the US, Germany, France and Italy, RT reports.

China dropped to sixth place as it reported an increase in gold reserves just once in more than two years  to 59.6 million ounces in December 2018 from 59.2 million ounces in October 2016.

Industry sources told Reuters that Western sanctions against Russia lifted the countrys gold buying to record highs in 2018. One of the reasons Russia's Central Bank was betting on the yellow metal was because it could not be frozen or blacklisted, sources explained.

It seems that there is an aim to diversify from American assets, said a source in one of Russias gold producers, referring to the Central Bank's holdings.

While purchases of the precious metal by Russia jumped last year the country continued getting rid of US Treasury securities.

Earlier this month, Russias Central Bank reported that it cut the share of the US dollar in the countrys foreign reserves to a historic low, transferring nearly $100 billion into the euro, the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan. The step came as a part of a broader state policy on eliminating reliance on the greenback.

According to sources, the Central Bank has been purchasing a significant portion of Russia's domestic gold production, which is also rising.

The world's third largest gold producer, Russia boosted its 2017 gold output by six percent. Data from Russia's Finance Ministry showed the country produced 8.5 million ounces (265 tons of gold) in January-October 2018. The Russian gold mining sector has nearly doubled its volume of extraction over the last two decades.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which recently began a fresh investigation into a decade-old case of an Andhra girl student's rape and murder, on Friday questioned Satyam Babu who was acquitted in 2017.

A team of CBI officials were questioning the youth at his house near here. They were also recording the statement of his family members.

The central agency, which took up the investigation on the direction of the Hyderabad High Court in December, will also question the managers of a private hostel where the 19-year-old victim, a B.Pharmacy student, was raped and murdered on the intervening night of December 26-27, 2007.

The CBI registered two separate First Information Reports (FIRs) - one against unknown persons for the rape and murder and another against three employees of a Vijayawada court for destroying the evidence.

In 2008, police claimed that one Satyam Babu, arrested in a cell phone robbery case, confessed to the murder.

A court in Vijayawada, on September 10, 2010, convicted and sentenced Babu to life imprisonment.

The Hyderabad High Court in 2017 acquitted Babu and ordered action against the police officials involved. Subsequently, the state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conduct a fresh probe.

The High Court, which was supervising the probe by the SIT, found that evidence in the case was destroyed in the Mahila Court Vijayawada in 2014 even though the appeal against the conviction of Babu was pending in the High Court. Taking serious note of this, the High Court reached the conclusion that only a probe by an independent agency could bring out the truth.

The victim's parents, both teachers, had alleged that police had pinned the crime on Babu to misdirect the investigation as a relative of a powerful politician was involved in the crime.

--IANS

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From hosting public reception for Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin to holding mammoth political rallies -- many of them on anti-central government planks, the sprawling Brigade Parade Ground in the heart of the metropolis is steeped in history.

A day before it welcomes stalwarts from a wide spectrum of political parties, the 18th century colonial era venue looks majestic as labourers and volunteers work at a frantic pace to give the final shape to the giant stages and other makeshift facilities.

The mega rally, convened by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for showcasing a united stand against the centre's ruling BJP in the coming general elections, is being billed as the biggest in the venue both in terms of the prospective huge crowd and large gathering of parties and leaders from across the country.

However, a time travel to the past brings out the rich history of the ground, located in the backdrop of the iconic Victoria Memorial and the Indian Museum, and under the control of the Indian Army whose Eastern Command headquarters Fort William lie in the vicinity.

Developed as a parade ground of the forces at the Fort William in the second half of the 18th century by the British after their victory in the battle of Plassey, the wide grassy stretch is part of the Maidan (or open field), considered the lungs of the metropolis.

The ground perhaps hosted one of its first political meetings in 1919, when Chittaranjan Das and other nationalist leaders railed against the Rowlatt Act before the Ochterlony Monument (now called Shaheed Minar).

After the country gained independence, the vast space has been used by government agencies, various political parties and other organisations to hold events involving huge turnouts.

A landmark meeting was the one on November 29, 1955, when Soviet premier Nikolay Aleksandrovich Bulganin and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Khrushchev received a tumultuous adulation from a sea of humanity as they were felicitated by then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the presence of West Bengal Chief Minister Bidhan Chandra Roy and leader of the undivided Communist Party Ajay Ghosh.

On February 6, 1972, a million people cheered wildly as the Prime Minister of newly liberated Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Indian counterpart Indira Gandhi held a joint meeting on this parade ground. Those were the days when passions ran high in West Bengal where people had felt one with the freedom struggle in erstwhile East Pakistan.

In an emotion-choked speech, "Bongobondhu" Mujibur Rehman had raised the slogan "Jai Bharat, Jai Bangla" and expressed his gratitude for the blood, toil and sweat given by the Indian soldiers to make his country free.

Then came the 1970s, the emergency in the country, followed by the defeat of the Congress in 1977 both at the Centre and in West Bengal where the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front took over the reins of power.

Even as the Congress came back to power at the Centre in 1980, the Left Front went from strength to strength in the eastern state and their rule continued uninterrupted till 2011.

Two vital ingredients in the Left Front's political line then were anti-Congressism, and a vigorous campaign against "stepmotherly attitude of the Centre".

As part of its anti-Centre and anti-Congress planks, it played a prominent role in organising opposition conclaves and conference of non-Congress(I) parties and chief ministers.

One such conclave was held in Kolkata in January, 1984, that culminated in a rally at the Brigade Parade ground. The Speakers included stalwarts like Jyoti Basu, N.T. Rama Rao, Ramakrishna Hegde, Farookh Abdullah, Chandra Shekhar and E.M.S. Namboodiripad.

Four and a half years later, the Shaheed Minar was witness to another gathering of opposition leaders after V.P. Singh resigned from Rajiv Gandhi's Congress government on the issue of corruption, alleging kickbacks in the Bofors gun deal, and won a famous bye-election from Allahabad as a Jan Morcha candidate.

The meeting at Shaheed Minar, convened by the state unit of the Jan Morcha to celebrate the Allahabad bypoll win, brought together opposition leaders of all shades -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee, George Fernandes, Madhu Dandavate, V.P. Singh, Jyoti Basu, and other Left leaders.

The abiding image of the rally was of Basu and BJP stalwart Vajpayee along with other leaders holding each others' raised hands in a spirit of camaraderie.

However, the image has been referred to again and again by the CPI-M's opponents through the decades to mock at the communists' anti-BJP stance.

Mamata Banerjee, who rose fast in the state's political arena through the mid 1980s and the 1990s during her days in the Congress, was the chief organiser' of a youth Congress rally on November 25, 1992.

She had then rung a huge symbolic bell called CPI-M-er Mrityu ghanta (CPI-M's death knell), in a bid to give some message to the people "to inspire them to fight against the CPI-M".

Now, 26 years after, Banerjee has created for herself a political space where anti-BJP opposition leaders of practically all hues were likely to gather for her Brigade meeting on Saturday.

How far the meeting succeeds in realising her dream of emerging as the face of the Opposition after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, only time can tell.

(Sirshendu Panth can be reached at s.panth@ians.in)

--IANS

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Minutes after hurling a grenade at a paramilitary patrol party in the city centre Lal Chowk here in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday, militants hurled another grenade at a police camp in Shopian district, police said.

The first grenade was aimed at the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) vehicle near the Clock Tower in the city centre that missed its target damaging some shops in the vicinity as their window panes shattered.

The grenade in Shopian exploded without causing any damage, the police said.

There have been two militant attacks in the city in the last 24 hours.

On Thursday, three policemen were injured in a similar grenade attack by the militants in Rajbagh area here.

--IANS

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The opposition Congress in Assam on Friday said the BJP is eyeing Bengal and northeastern states in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections through the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 as the party is not confident about votes in north and south India.

"The BJP has realized that they will not do well in north and south Indian states in the Lok Sabha polls. So they are eyeing the Lok Sabha seats in Bengal and northeastern states to improve their tally. The party is pursuing the Citizenship Bill to woo the Hindu Bengalis," said Pradyut Bordoloi, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee spokesman and former minister, at a press conference.

Former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi recently termed state finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma as the "new Jinnah of Assam."

"Both the Jinnahs have striking similarities: both were members of the Congress initially. While Md. Ali Jinnah broke away from the Congress and started Muslim League, Sarma quit Congress and joined BJP," said Bordoloi.

"Sarma was a member of the Congress till 2014 but joined the BJP when the allegations of corruptions against him came up about his involvement in Saradha scam and the Louis Berger bribery scam," said Bordoloi.

"Sarma is also propagating lies against a particular community. He had claimed that the Moinbori Satra had to be shifted due to aggression of Muslims. But in reality the Moinbori Satra was shifted due to erosion of Beki river. No Satra land in Assam is under encroachment of Muslims," he said.

Slamming Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal for his silence over the Bill, Bordoloi said that Sonowal is so scared of the protests over the Bill that he has had to take a chopper to travel short distances between Dibrugarh to Tinsukia or from Jorhat to Kaziranga.

He said there is a competition between Chief Minister Sonowal and Himanta Biswa Sarma to prove as to who is closer to the top BJP and RSS barss.

--IANS

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Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar will present a feature film titled "Avijatrik", which will take forward Satyajit Ray's iconic "The Apu Trilogy".

Apu, the legendary enduring and endearing character, will return to the silver screen after 60 years in the Bengali period drama feature "Avijatrik", to be directed by Subhrajit Mitra.

Happy to come on board to present the film, Bhandarkar said in a statement: "As a director and a film buff, I have been a great admirer and fan of Satyajit Ray and the journey of Apu always fascinated me. I have known Gaurang Jalan who is co-presenting the film with me, for over a decade now, and hope this will be a visual treat to all film lovers globally, including the Bengali diaspora."

The storyline is based on the concluding part of the epic novel "Aparajito", written by Bengali litterateur, late Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay.

"Avijatrik" - "The Wanderlust of Apu" (in English) will be shot in several parts of India, and in black and white to retain the rich aesthetic flavour that complements its backdrop of 1940s' India. The plot takes off from where "The Apu Trilogy" had ended in 1959, with "Apur Sansar".

The new film focuses on the wanderlust of the main protagonist and the story of a sublime bond between a father and a son. The story is of Apu and his 6-year-old son Kajol.

"With an able team of cast and crew we hope to portray the beautiful tapestry of pure interpersonal relationships; and recreate the magic of Apu with his son, Kajol to enthral the audiences all over again," Jalan said.

--IANS

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US President Donald Trump has barred Speaker Nancy Pelosi from flying on a Pentagon plane to Afghanistan in a tit-for-tat for her blocking his State of the Union Address as a new act unfolded in the farcical drama of egos playing on the sidelines of the government shutdown paralysing all but vital operations.

Mirroring her reasons for cancelling Trump's ceremonial speech to Congress, the President wrote to Pelosi on Thursday that "due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed".

"We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over," he added.

On Wednesday, Pelosi had written to the President that he could not deliver the address because security cannot be assured due to the shutdown.

Trump has announced he was cutting the number of US troops by half to 7,000 in Afghanistan while its government is battling the Taliban and other terrorist organisations, some backed by Pakistan.

He also grounded his Cabinet members -- Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Rossm -- who were to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Even Republican leaders criticised Trump's response to Pelosi. "One sophomoric response does not deserve another," Senator Lindsey Graham said, while fellow Republican Senator John Cornyn remarked that there was too much "childishness" in the Trump-Pelosi fight.

Trump ordered the flight cancelled just as Pelosi was preparing to fly out to visit American troops in Afghanistan on a mission that had been kept secret for security reasons.

Buses were even waiting outside the Capitol with some members of her entourage already on board to take them to a military base for the flight when cancellation was announced.

Trump sarcastically suggested that she could fly to the war zone on commercial planes.

Pelosi's spokesperson Drew Hamill said that the stop in Brussels that Trump mentioned was to give the pilot a break and while there she had planned to meet NATO leaders. The trip was to "express appreciation and thanks" to the troops in Afghanistan and to get security and intelligence briefings, he added.

He said that Egypt was not on Pelosi's itinerary contrary to Trump's claim.

Trump's wife Melania, meanwhile, reportedly took a military Boeing jet to Palm Beach, Florida, where he has the Mar-a-Laga resort. The White House would not confirm the trip or disclose its purpose.

Trump and his officials were reportedly working on alternatives to the cancelled State of the Union Address scheduled for January 29.

Republican Representative Mark Meadows said that Trump was planning to deliver the address outside the House chamber, heightening the drama.

Amid the political theatrics, the shutdown entered its 28th day on Friday with no signs of a compromise to end the crisis.

Trump is standing firm on his demand for $5.6 billion to be included in the budget for building a wall along the Mexican border, while Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and most Democrats are equally uncompromising that they won't give in.

During his campaign, Trump had made the wall to deter illegal immigrants and smugglers a key electoral promise.

As a result of the standoff, there is no federal budget to fund government operations leading to the shutdown affecting about 800,000 employees.

None of them, including those in essential services like security, aviation and tax collection who continue to work, have been paid since January 11.

Their tales of economic distress are beginning to pour out and Democrats hope a groundswell of sympathy would pressure Trump to compromise.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis)

--IANS

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The adoption by the European Parliament by an overwhelming majority of the Moroccan-EU Agriculture Agreement confirms that "any agreement covering the Moroccan Sahara can only be negotiated and signed by the Kingdom in the exercise of its full sovereignty over this part of its territory", according to the Moroccan government.

The ministry, which commends the adoption by the European Parliament, in plenary session in Strasbourg, of the Exchange of Letters on the Agriculture Agreement concluded between the Kingdom of Morocco and the EU, said in a statement that this agreement explicitly emphasises that agriculture and fisheries products from the southern provinces of the kingdom benefit from the same tariff preferences as those covered by the association agreement.

This vote, by an overwhelming majority, is the culmination of a long process of technical negotiations, political consultations and legal validations between Morocco and the EU, the ministry noted, adding that throughout this process, Morocco has been driven by a triple logic - namely the non-negotiable defense of its territorial integrity and the fundamentals of its position towards the Moroccan Sahara, the preservation of its economic interests in an important sector with a privileged trading partner and a genuine commitment to a multidimensional and deep partnership with the EU, Morocco's MAP news agency said.

Morocco, the ministry said, wishes to express its appreciation for the action of all European institutions and EU member states, as well as their continued commitment in a spirit of responsibility, "to confront the manoeuvres and attacks carried out by Algeria and the Polisario to torpedo this long-standing partnership".

The Kingdom considers that the adoption of this Agreement constitutes a solid basis for a full and complete relaunch of its partnership with the EU, in order to jointly address the challenges facing the region and seize its opportunities, in a spirit of clarity, responsibility and ambition, the statement said.

--IANS

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At least 21 people were killed in a car bomb attack at a police academy in the Colombian capital of Bogota, authorities said.

An SUV laden with explosives was blown up on Thursday in the General Francisco de Paula Santander Officer's School, reports Efe news.

"The preliminary count stands at 21 deaths, including the perpetrator of the attack, and 68 injured, who were transferred to different care facilities with the help of the rescue and emergency services of the district," a police statement said.

Colombia's police and military training schools accept students from other Latin American countries.

The statement confirmed the identity of the attacker as Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, a native of Arauca who died upon detonating 80 kg of the high explosive pentolite that he was transporting in the SUV.

"Joint investigations with the Attorney General and other authorities are moving forward to establish the causes and culprits behind this terrorist act which has hurt Colombians," it said.

In a statement, President Ivan Duque vowed to punish those responsible for the attack.

"We Colombians have never submitted to terrorism and this will not be the exception, they won't bend us. We won't give way a single step to those who miserably attack society."

--IANS

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MOIL has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation, an undertaking of Government of Gujarat, to take up project of joint exploration of manganese bearing areas, exploring its feasibility and to conduct Mining Operations as well as to set up Value Additional Plant in JV at Vadodara & Chhota Udepur (Gujarat) with a proposed investment of approx.

Rs.250.00 crore. It is proposed to commence activities of exploration on this project in 2019.

Government of Gujarat would facilitate MOIL to obtain necessary permissions / registrations / approvals / clearances etc. from the concerned departments of the State, as per the existing policies / rules and regulations of the State Government.

MoU is made to facilitate MOIL and GMDC for operating manganese mines and/or establishment of the aforesaid Project(s) in Gujarat.

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President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Liliane Maury Pasquier said she regretted Russias decision not to send a delegation to the 2019 Winter Session.

"I regret the fact that the Russian parliament sees no reason to appoint a delegation for our planned session in 2019, because, being a member of the Council of Europe, Russia is obliged to take part in the work of its statutory bodies," TASS cited her as saying.

Yesterday, the Russian State Duma unanimously adopted a draft statement which suggests not sending the Russian delegation to the session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in January 2019 and leaving in force the decision to freeze Russias membership fees to the Council of Europes budget.
[India], Jan 18 (ANI): The Sri Lankan government is working out with the ways and time frame for the repatriation of Tamil refugees living in

The new Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India, Austin Fernando, said on Friday that he will soon be travelling down to South where according to him nearly one lakh Tamil refugees are stationed, for consultations with them. The claims these numbers to be roughly two lakh. The envoy said representatives of Indian and Lankan government are expected to be part of the discussions for repatriation.

"What we know is that out of near about one lakh Tamil refugees in India, nearly 20 to 30 per cent want to stay back in and do not want to return to Lanka. For those who want to return, we have to ensure that they have food, shelter and livelihood when they go back. We have to work on that. We have to ensure that they are safe when they are back. Refugee repatriation cannot be successful till we make sure those going back are safe. But that will be done as soon as possible though we cannot give a time frame," Fernando said while responding to a question from ANI at an event held at Foreign Correspondents Club in on Friday.

The envoy said that there are also logistical issues like what all and how much the refugees can take along with them, and how they will be taken back. "There are these basic issues like whether they will go by ferry or ships etc that have to be worked out," Fernando said.

The High Commissioner added that there are at times political reasons behind the delay in the repatriation of Tamil refugees from India. Without naming any political party in India for playing games, Fernando said, "There is some sort of organised attempt to keep them. There is a political motive to keep them (refugees) in India. We should be careful on that part."

It is a known fact that former Chief Minister of and AIADMK chief, J. Jayalalithaa was opposed to the repatriation of Lankan Tamil refugees. Later, DMK too joined the move to oppose the repatriation.

Talking about accountability, judicial inquiry and investigation on human rights violations and forced disappearance of Tamil people in Lanka during clean up operations against LTTE, Fernando said that investigations are still on.

"There is no denial that there were atrocities and investigations are going on to fix responsibility and punish the guilty. This is an ongoing process. Lawyers are working on it and documentation is being done," the High Commissioner said.

Fernando is a seasoned civil servant of Lanka who has also worked as Secretary to Lankan President since July 2017 before coming to India as new High Commissioner. He has in the past served as Secretary at the Rehabilitation, Public Administration, Home Affairs and Provincial Councils in Sri Lanka.

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The Suheldev Bahujan Samaj Party (SBSP) on Friday said it will contest all the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fails to implement divisions under the 27 per cent reservation for backward classes. It also proposed to release the SBSP candidate list on February 25.

"BJP had promised to implement divisions under 27 per cent reservation for backward classes. 80 days are left till the elections, when will you do it? If you don't keep your promise we will contest on all 80 seats, we will release candidates list on February 25," SBSP chief OP Rajbhar told ANI.

OP Rajbhar, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, has always been critical of the BJP government.

Earlier, Rajbhar had said his party would part ways with the NDA if BJP was not interested in continuing with the alliance.

This comes at a time when political rivals Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) joined hands to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led front in the 2019 general elections.

The state minister told ANI, that if the BJP does not respond within 100 days on whether it wants to fight the upcoming Assembly polls with the SBSP, his party would contest all the 80 seats on its own.

"We are with the BJP if the BJP wants to keep us then we will stay with them, if they don't want us, then we have given them 100 days, 12 days have already passed. We will fight all 80 seats after 100 days," he said.

Recently, the SP and BSP announced the seat-sharing agreement ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The SP and the BSP will contest on 38 seats each while the other two seats will be left for other parties. Both the parties have also decided not to field any candidates from the Gandhi family stronghold - Amethi and Rae Bareli.

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The Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Friday approved the central government's scheme of 10 per cent reservation in government jobs to the economically weaker section in general category.

Following suit of the other BJP ruled states like Gujarat and Jharkhand, the Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Friday approved the scheme in state government jobs and educational institutes run by it across the state.

The cabinet informed that the scheme would be implemented from backdate i.e. January 14 this year.

The Lok Sabha recently passed the Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill, 2019 in Parliament to grant 10 per cent reservation in education and government jobs to economically weaker individuals belonging to the general category, across religions.

The Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha, with 165 votes in favour and seven against.

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United States President Donald Trump on Friday is expected to meet North Korea's lead negotiator in nuclear talks, Kim Yong Chol at the White House, where they would discuss the issue of Pyongyang's dismantling of the nuclear weapons programme.

According to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, Trump is scheduled to meet Kim Yong Chol in the Oval Office at around 12:15 pm (local time) to discuss the progress on North Korea's "final and fully verified denuclearisation" and the ties between the two countries, CNN reported.

"They will discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Korea's final, fully verified denuclearisation," Sanders added.

Kim Yong Chol arrived in Washington DC on Thursday, amid speculations that he was in the US to fix a potential second meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The senior North Korean official met with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun to deliberate further on Pyongyang's denuclearisation progress.

Although it was not clear whether the trio discussed denuclearisation and the second Trump-Kim summit, State Department deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino later said that Pompeo and Biegun "had a good discussion" with Kim Yong Chol on efforts to make progress on the commitments made by Trump and Kim at their first meeting in Singapore last June.

"Secretary Pompeo and Special Representative Steve Beigun had a good discussion this morning with DPRK Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol on efforts to make progress on the commitments President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un made at their summit in Singapore," Palladino said.

This is Kim Yong Chol's second visit to the US. In his first visit that took place last June, the top North Korean official visited New York and held talks with Pompeo before travelling to Washington DC, where he met Trump for two hours and handed over a letter from Kim Jong-un to him.

In that visit, Kim Yong Chol managed to break the deadlock between the US and North Korea, leading to the first-ever meeting between Trump and Kim days later.

Kim Jong-un has repeatedly stated that his government is committed to fulfilling its promise of achieving denuclearisation and said the same even during his maiden meeting with Trump in Singapore.

Even though engagements between Washington and Pyongyang reached new heights in 2018 with the unprecedented first meeting between Trump and Kim, the last few months of the year saw a stalemate in relations.

North Korea, on the one hand, has asked for corresponding measures by the US for its efforts towards denuclearisation. The US, on the other hand, has pushed for complete denuclearisation before a relaxation in sanctions.

Also, several media reports had surfaced that North Korea, despite agreeing to work towards achieving "full denuclearisation", was continuing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

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United States President Donald Trump on Thursday hit back at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, cancelling her planned foreign trip, citing the ongoing partial government shutdown.

Trump's response came a day after Pelosi asked him to postpone his State of the Union address to a later date after raising concerns about the security apparatus due to the shutdown.

In a letter addressed to Pelosi, Trump said that the House Speaker's seven-day visit to Brussels, Afghanistan and Egypt, which he dismissed it as a "public relations event", will be rescheduled after the shutdown is "over."

"Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over. In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate," Trump said.

He added that it would be better if Pelosi was in Washington DC negotiating with him on funding his proposed border wall on the US-Mexico border that would end the shutdown.

"I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," Trump further said.

"I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!" the US President added.

On Wednesday, Pelosi told Trump in her letter that since the Secret Service is responsible for ensuring security and the agency has not been funded due to the shutdown, the State of the Union speech, that is set to be held on January 29, should be deferred to a later date.

Furthermore, the Democrat Senator from California suggested that Trump could give the State of the Union address in writing.

The shutdown, that has now entered its 27th day, was triggered on December 22 last year by a lack of consensus between Democratic lawmakers and the US President on the $5.7 billion funding for the wall on the border with Mexico, which was one of Trump's electoral promises.

The ongoing partial government shutdown is the longest in the history of the US. There is still no hope in sight for the end of the current shutdown.

An estimated 800,000 federal workers have been adversely affected by the lapse in funding.

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In a bid to strengthen Andhra Pradesh's network with the global investment community and promote it as an investment destination, state IT Minister Nara Lokesh will participate in the upcoming 49th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will skip the event owing to prior engagements in the state.

The visit of Nara Lokesh is to "strengthen the state's network with the global investment community, explore possibilities of collaboration and promote Andhra Pradesh as an investment destination," a statement read.

The meeting will be held from January 22-25 and is expected to be attended by over 3000 leaders from across the world.

The Andhra Pradesh Lounge in Davos will showcase the prowess, strength, citizens, economy and culture of Andhra Pradesh.

The Andhra Pradesh Lounge will also hosts the Annual Global CEO Roundtable organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Andhra Pradesh government.

Nara Lokesh will be leading the delegation from Andhra Pradesh to the World Economic Forum. The delegation consists of Poonam Malakondaiah, Principal Secretary to government, Health, Medical and Family Welfare Department, T Vijay Kumar, Adviser to government of Andhra Pradesh, Agriculture Department, Ajay Jain, Principal Secretary, EI and I, J Krishna Kishore, Chief Executive Officer APEDB and Ex-Officio Secretary to government, Solomon Arokiaraj, Secretary Industries, Ahmed Babu, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, APIIC and Ramanjaneyulu, Secretary, I&PR and Jitendar Sharma, Adviser to Health Department, the statement read.

"The event is attended by over 60 heads of states, heads of Fortune 500 companies, global innovators, heads of bilateral and multilateral institutions and heads of leading global educational and research institutions," it added.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister has been invited as a guest of honour for over 15 times. He had also participated in the 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, which took place between in January 2018.

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Ahead of Republic Day celebrations, militants carried out bomb attacks at three places in Jammu and Kashmir but no casualities were reported, police said Friday.

After receiving reports, police rushed to inspect the attack sites at Srinagar, Shopian and Pulwama and have initiated an investigation. however, no causalities pertaining to the loss of life or property reported, said police.

The first attack was reported from Ghanta Ghar Chowk in Srinagar, the second from Gargan in Shopian while the third grenade attack was inside the compound of a police station in Pulwama.

Police has registered cases for both the incidents and have asked locals to assist them if they receive any information about the attacks.

The injured were admitted to a nearby hospital and their condition has been reported to be stable.

This is second grenade attack in Srinagar within 24 hours as three police personnel were injured on Thursday after terrorists hurled grenade on security forces at Zero Bridge in Srinagar on Thursday.

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Tata AIG General Insurance Company Limited introduced its new healthcare variant 'MediCare' - a 'no compromise' product for customers to meet any contingencies on Thursday.

Having three feature-packed variants - 'MediCare Protect', 'MediCare' and 'MediCare Premier', the company reinforces its focus on the insurance segment to offer customers with an ideal protection plan that does not compromise on coverages and features, read a statement.

'MediCare' is a flexible and all-inclusive product offering life-long renewal benefit to its customers. With flexibility at its core, 'MediCare' policy has all the salient features of an ideal health insurance such as Global Cover up to the full Sum Insured value, which empowers customers with a choice to avail treatment anywhere in the world, provided the diagnosis was made in India and the insured travels abroad for treatment.

It also provides Restore Benefit Cover which automatically restores the basic sum insured upon exhaustion of the Sum Insured and accrued Cumulative Bonus, during the policy period. Also available is Bariatric Surgery for treatment of obesity and weight control and Cumulative Bonus of 50 per cent of the Sum Insured for every claim free year accumulating up to a maximum of 100 per cent of sum insured.

In addition to that, 'MediCare' also offers a sum insured option of up to Rs 20 lakhs coverage with no sub-limit for any diseases, no co-pays and no room rent capping.

"Each of the product variant comes with numerous features and benefits to help customers get quality health care in more than 4,000 hospitals worldwide. The policy covers 540+ day-care surgeries including organ donation, maternity cover with no limit on deliveries and first year vaccination expense coverage of the new born up to a limit of Rs 10,000. Medicare's vaccination cover further includes expenses for Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine that helps protect women against cervical cancer, the leading cancer in Indian women and the second most common cancer in women worldwide," the statement read.

Apart from pre and post-hospitalisation expenses for illness, accident, surgeries, dental treatment and hearing aid charges, 'MediCare' also offers compassionate travel benefit for an insured's immediate kin up to a limit of Rs 20,000, Ayush benefits, accidental death benefit rider and much more.

"Today medical expenses are at an all-time high and having a reliable health insurance policy ensures that customers don't have to ever compromise on their health, in the event of any medical emergencies. A comprehensive health coverage like 'MediCare' is no more an option but a must-have for all, given the incidences of health scare on the rise," said Parag Ved, Executive Vice President & Head, Consumer Lines, Tata AIG General Insurance.

"Backed by the Tata AIG legacy of trust, reliability and highest claims paying repute, our strong and agile product teams continuously strive to think ahead for the Customers to empower them with the best protection covers in times of need," he added.

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The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting will be held in Baku on March 18, OPEC said.

"The JMMC calls on all participating countries of the Declaration of Cooperation to redouble their efforts in the full and timely implementation of the supply adjustments to ensure that the oil market remains in balance in 2019," Interfax cited the statement as saying.

It was noted that voluntary production adjustments will continue to be monitored by the JMMC on a monthly basis.

Earlier, the meeting was announced by UAE Minister of Energy and Industry Suhail bin Mohammed Faraj Faris Al Mazrouei.
The (RSS) has asserted that the construction of in Ayodhya should begin now so that it can be completed by 2025.

"We strongly want that this temple should be built in Ayodhya. It should be completed by 2025. Now, it is up to the central government to take a decision on it. If it begins today, construction will be completed in five years," RSS general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi told media on Friday.

The Babri Masjid, built by Mughal emperor Babur in 1578 in Ayodhya was pulled down on December 6, 1992, allegedly by a group of Hindu activists, claiming that the mosque was constructed after demolishing a that originally stood there. Since then, several hearings have been held in the to resolve the issue.

The bench of the in its September 30, 2010, verdict ordered that the disputed site be divided into three parts -- one for deity (Ramlala Virajmaan), another for Nirmohi Akhara - a Hindu sect - and a third one, to the original litigant in the case for the Muslims.

The Ram Janmabhoomi- dispute case has been pending before the apex court for last eight years. Parties in the case and various right-wing organisations have been asking for an early or day-to-day hearing for a long time.

There are as many as 14 appeals pending in the top court against the 2010 judgement, delivered in four civil suits.

The recently fixed January 29 as the next date of hearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi- dispute after Justice UU Lalit recused himself from hearing the case.
Eyeing enhancement of tourism trade with India, South Africa's Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom will undertake a four-day visit here from January 23.

Hanekom, during the visit to Mumbai and New Delhi, will engage with key representatives of the Indian travel and tourism ecosystem including trade partners.

He will seek key market insights in an effort to further grow outbound tourism from the region by deepening awareness for South Africa's diverse tourism offering and addressing barriers to growth, a statement issued on behalf of South Africa Tourism department said.

The visit will coincide with the India trip by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who will be the Chief Guest on this year's Republic Day.

Speaking about the visit, Neliswa Nkani, Hub Head for Middle East, India and South East Asia, South African Tourism said, "The visit reaffirms India as a key market and our commitment to deepen our engagement."

During the visit, "we intend to address a range of challenges and have constructive, solutions-driven discussions with the tourism trade on how to meet the growing demand for our destination from India," Nkani added.

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Senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham slammed US President Donald Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "sophomoric" back and forth, which recently saw Trump postponing Pelosi's official travel to Brussels, Afghanistan, and Egypt.

Trump's move on Thursday comes after Pelosi wrote to the President recommending a "delay" in the State of the Union address that is scheduled for January 29 or sending in his address to the Congress "in writing".

"One sophomoric response does not deserve another. Speaker Pelosi's threat to cancel the State of the Union is very irresponsible and blatantly political," Graham tweeted on Thursday (local time).

Labelling Trump's move as "inappropriate", Graham further said, "President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate."

"I am glad the Speaker wants to meet our troops and hear from our commanders and allies. I am very disappointed she's playing with the State of the Union," he further mentioned.

The Senator also highlighted, "I wish our political leadership could find the same desire to work for common goals as those who serve our nation in uniform and other capacities."

The letters come in the wake of the ongoing partial government shutdown, which is the longest in US history and has affected 800,000 federal workers due to a lapse in funding.

Both Trump and Pelosi quoted the shutdown as reasons in their letters while delaying the official trip and the State of the Union address, respectively.

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Russia slammed the United States on Friday for levelling allegations against Kremlin of selling missile and air defence technology to North Korea.

"I would like to state with all my responsibility that the allegations against Russia about the alleged purchase of missile and air defence technology by North Koreans from us are contrived and absolutely unfounded," Russian envoy to China Alexander Matzegora told Sputnik.

"Washington fails to find pretexts for accusations against us that is why they are making up another hoax. By this unfair way, (the US) is also trying to justify its destabilising policies in the area of international security," he added.

A US missile defence review had earlier stated that "North Korea has acquired Russian missile defence technology and is developing its own mobile missile defence capabilities, specifically, a mobile air and missile defence system.While indigenously produced, its interceptors and radar system share similarities with Russian systems."

Comments of both, Russia and US, come in the wake of North Korea's top negotiator Kim Yong Chol landing in Washington DC to hold discussions over the next US-North Korea summit amid a stalemate in talks pertaining to denuclearisation.

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Two Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber jets collided mid-air in Russia's Far East on Friday.

"Two Su-34 aircraft flying from the sea collided mid-air. The crew of one aircraft ejected. The fate of both crews is unknown yet," TASS Russian news agency reported quoting a law enforcement officer.

While one jet has fallen into the sea, the whereabouts of the other jet is unknown at the moment, TASS reported.

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Legendary American actor and director Robert Redford is set to receive a honourary Cesar award, which is France's equivalent of the Oscars.

He will be honoured at the 44th annual Cesar ceremony, which will take place on February 22, in Paris, reported People magazine.

Speaking about it, Alain Terzian, the president of the Academy of Arts and Techniques of Cinema said, "An iconic actor, an exceptional director, a passionate producer, founder and president of Sundance, the most revered festival of independent films in the world, Robert Redford has left his mark through all his endeavors in the film world."

Terzian further praised Redford's career as an actor, filmmaker and philanthropist in a statement.

He added that many of Robert films, with him in front or behind the camera, have now become classics. "Rare are the careers which have had such a lasting impact on the History of Cinema," said Terzian, citing Redford's Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning film 'Ordinary People,' which marked his directorial debut; as well as 'Barefoot in the Park,' 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,' 'The Candidate,' 'The Way We Were,' and 'Out of Africa.'

Redford, who began his acting career on Broadway in the play 'Tall Story' in 1959, was previously honoured with the Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award.

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The Rajasthan cabinet approved two amendments bills - Rajasthan Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2019, and the Rajasthan Municipalities (Amendment) Bill, 2019 - to end the minimum educational qualification condition for contesting the local body elections in the state.

Both the bills will be introduced in the state assembly during the present session, read a statement.

During her tenure, former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje had introduced an education criteria in 2015 which required a candidate to pass Class X for contesting municipal, zila parishad or panchayat samiti elections.

The cabinet has also decided to ask the state public service commission to extend the date of the Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) main examination.

This came in wake of the agitation by the RAS aspirants, demanding the Congress-led government to extend the examination date.

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Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who will be skipping the anti-BJP rally in Kolkata on Saturday, wrote to West Bengal Chief Minister and All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee extending support to the TMC-led event.

In a letter to the TMC Chief, Rahul said: "We commend the great people of Bengal who have historically been at the forefront of defending our ideals. I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together."

"Across India, there are powerful forces afoot. Forces that are fanned by the anger and disappointment of hundreds of millions of Indians who have seen through the false promises and lies peddled by the Modi Government. These forces are moved by the hope of a new tomorrow; a tomorrow filled with the idea of an India in which the voice of every man, woman and child will be heard and respected no matter what their religion, economic status or region," he noted.

Rahul went on to write: "The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Mr Modi are intent on destroying."

Earlier today, a senior TMC leader told ANI that former prime minister HD Devegowda, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Karnataka counterpart HD Kumaraswamy, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav would address the gathering, expected to be attended by lakhs of people.

The TMC leader also confirmed that the Congress would be represented by senior leaders like Mallikarjun Kharge and Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

Among those to be present at the rally include - Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president MK Stalin, Conference supremo Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejaswi Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Satish Misra, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh and leader Jayant Chowdhury, former Union Finance minister and BJP dissident Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie, Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel, Opposition leader in Mizoram Lalduwahawma, former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, and Gujarat independent MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani.

Interestingly, BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha will also attend the rally.

Mamata has been touring the country since the last one year in an effort to shore up a strong and united opposition front to fight the Lok Sabha elections against the BJP.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Friday strengthened bilateral cooperation over defence and trade with his Czech Republic counterpart Andrej Babis, after meeting him on the sidelines of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, 2019.

Official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Raveesh Kumar took to Twitter saying, "PM @narendramodi met with his Czech counterpart Andrej Babis on @VibrantGujarat margins. Talks focused on trade, technology & investment; cooperation in defence, high-tech manufacturing, heavy engineering, automotive industry & civil aviation."

The Vibrant Gujarat 2019 Global Summit was initiated in the presence of Heads of State and Heads of Government from Uzbekistan, Denmark, Malta and the Czech Republic, along with 15 partner countries, representatives from 131 nations and over 40,000 delegates.

Prime Minister Modi also intensified cooperation over renewable energy and waste management after meeting his Danish counterpart Lars Loekke on the sidelines of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

"PM @narendramodi met the Prime Minister of #Denmark @larsloekke on the margins of #VibrantGujaratSummit. Took stock of the bilateral relationship, especially in trade & investment, renewable energy, waste management, agriculture and food processing," Kumar tweeted.

A government release informed that Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the 9th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Summit at Mahatma Mandir Exhibition cum Convention Centre in Gandhinagar today. The Prime Minister invited global business leaders and companies to come and invest in India where the business climate is more investor-friendly now with the required infrastructure and facilities in place.

"India is now ready for business. In the last four years, we have jumped 65 places of global ranking of ease of doing business. I have asked my team to work harder to ensure India is on the top 50 next years," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

"Major financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund) have expressed confidence in India's economic journey. We are focused on removing the barriers which were preventing us from achieving our full potential," he added.

Major events during the three-day meet include a round-table interaction with the heads of global funds, 'Africa Day', Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) convention, Roundtable for Opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education and Research. In addition, an exhibition on futuristic technologies and space exploration, a seminar on port-led development and strategies to establish India as the trans-shipment hub of Asia along with the success stories of Make in India and key interventions by the Government of India have also been organised, the statement added.

This mega trade show will continue till January 22 and will be open for general public on the last two days (January 21 and 22).

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a joint press conference with his German counterpart Heiko Maas that Russia appreciates Germany's support for the Nord Stream 2 project.

"We appreciate it that the German government continues to support construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and sees it as a commercial initiative aimed at diversifying natural gas supply routes and ultimately improving Europe's energy security," RIA Novosti cited the top Russian diplomat as saying.
Former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) supremo HD Deve Gowda on Friday said that "people of the country will answer to remove Modi government" in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

He said that all regional parties are banding together to overthrow the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government and lauded West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for taking the initiative in that direction.

"Mamata Banerjee has taken the lead to bring all the parties together and also she is working very hard to throw this government at the level and bring a secular government. I have watched the struggle Mamata has gone through for this historic decision, the people of this country will respond," Deve Gowda told the media after arriving at Kolkata's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport.

The former Prime Minister further said that the BJP are making "reckless allegations" against Mamata Banerjee to discredit her, adding that those efforts will not help them stop the opposition parties.

He evaded questions on prime ministerial candidate for the 'Mahagathbandhan', saying that people will answer and remove the BJP government.

In reply to questions whether the alliance of regional parties can challenge the BJP without the support of the Congress party, Deve Gowda said: "Ultimately, we have all come together to form the government. We already have a coalition government in Karnataka with the Congress, I am not going to give a straightforward reply to that, we have to form the government in consultation with the Congress".

He also said that the regional parties can form a stable government together.

"People want a stable government, Modi always says a stable government is one of the answers to have major development and other achievements, but even the regional (parties), which have come together, they have also responded properly to all these cheap allegations. They have given a good government (in the past), I can show examples. Vajpayee was also running a coalition government," Deve Gowda said.

The JD(S) president arrived in Kolkata today to attend a rally organised by the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground on Saturday.

Among those to be present at the rally include Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president MK Stalin, Conference supremo Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejaswi Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Satish Misra, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh and leader Jayant Chowdhury, former Union ministers and disgruntled BJP leaders Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel, Opposition leader in Mizoram Lalduwahawma, former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren and Gujarat independent MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani.

Interestingly, BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha will also attend the anti-BJP rally.

However, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Left parties will not be attending the rally. The Congress will be represented by Mallikarjun Kharge.

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The mother of Rohith Vemula, the research scholar of University of Hyderabad (UoH) who committed suicide in 2016, on Thursday vowed to fight the communal forces, which she alleged were responsible for her son's death.

She took the pledge for justice at a march, 'Rohith Shahadath Din 2019' organised by University of Hyderabad (UoH) here inside the varsity campus on the third death anniversary of Rohith Vemula.

Vemula, a Ph.D. scholar at the varsity, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in a hostel room on January 17, 2016. He was reportedly upset over the disciplinary action that was taken against him by the university authorities.

In a press release issued by the JAC students, Radhika Vemula said, "I have decided to fight with a conscious determination against the Hindu communal and anti-constitutional forces responsible for the death of Rohith."

"Though there were wide movements, yet these communal forces didn't change. Instead, the same forces are responsible for the disappearance of Najeeb and nobody knows whether he is alive or dead. After this brutal act I feel like taking forward a serious fight without any fear," she added.

For the first time in three years since his demise, the police allowed Radhika Vemula and Raja Vemula, Rohith's mother and brother, into the campus.

Laxmaiah (State President, KNPS), J B Raju, Transgender activist Meera Sanghamitra, and representatives from various student organisations addressed the gathering.

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday dismissed a news report of price escalation in the Rafale deal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government and said it was based on "fudged arithmetic".

Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, Jaitley asserted that the Supreme Court has examined the prices of the fighter aircraft and that the CAG too is examining the same.

"The new article on Rafale is based on fudged arithmetic - ignore the escalation of the 2007 non-deal offer and compare it with the 2016 price and invent a scam," he tweeted.

"The Supreme Court has examined the prices. The CAG is examining the same. The fudged arithmetic of a compulsive contrarian can hardly be objective. Fudged arithmetics does not add to the credibility of its creator, " he added.

Earlier today, the Defence Ministery also dismissed media reports suggesting that advancements sought by the union government shot the price of a Rafale planes by 41 per cent as "factually inaccurate".

"The article is factually inaccurate. It does not adduce any new arguments. All the issues have been answered in detail by the Government at various fora and most recently by the Raksha Mantri in an open debate in the Parliament," a Defence Ministry spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said the India Specific Enhancements (ISE) were part of the requirements of the Indian Air Force to achieve tactical superiority over our adversaries.

The Central government signed a deal for 36 Rafale combat aircraft in September 2016 for over Rs 60,000 crore.

The government has stated in Parliament that the procurement was done to meet the emergency requirement of the Indian Air Force as the number of combat aircraft squadrons is dwindling.

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Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) works on the motto of the nation first, people next and self last, said Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday, adding that not political interest but public interest matters to his party.

Addressing a public rally at Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh on the occasion of death anniversary of N T Rama Rao, Singh said: "BJP works on the motto of the nation first, people next and self last. One thing that matters the most to our party is public, not political interest. All schemes of our government were formed after considering each and every section of the society."

Praising the efforts of Telugu Desam Party's founder-president N T Rama Rao, the Union Home Minister asserted: "NT Rama Rao was not only a legendary figure in Andhra Pradesh but he was the pride of the nation. He was a hero. Today on his death anniversary, I want to tell him that all his dream would be fulfiled under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP will protect the pride of both Andhra Pradesh and the nation."

"We all know the truth that Andhra Pradesh's pride relies on the nation and nation's pride relies on Andhra Pradesh. If we cannot secure the pride of every state then we cannot protect the pride of our nation," he added.

Rajnath further attacked Congress for not giving due respect to NT Rama Rao. "Congress wanted to end the of NT Rama Rao. Congress had dishonoured NTR, who gave away his life for the making of Congress. After his death, Congress didn't even allow his body to enter congress party office for his last rite."

"What Congress couldn't achieve in the last 50-55 years, BJP managed to achieve in the last four and a half years, ours is the fastest growing economy in the world today. Just in four years, India has reached at sixth position from ninth in the world's top 10 fastest growing economy countries. The day is not very far when India will compete with China, Russia and the US to become part of the top 3 fastest growing economy countries," he asserted.

Stressing on the of coalition, which has become a debating topic ahead of 2019 general elections, Singh said: "BJP is continuing on the lines of 'Gathbandhan Dharma' (Alliance practice) since the time of Atal ji. Though we have received a full majority in the parliament, Gathbandhan Dharma is not a political compulsion for us but it has become a political commitment for our government in order to take the country ahead on the path of development."

"The first person from Congress, who made a successful coalition government, was P V Narasimha Rao, who was born in a small village near Karimnagar. The coalition government was run by Narasimha Rao, not by Nehru-Gandhi family. It was a result of 1991 economic reforms that India has witnessed progress and now that trend is being by followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi," he added.

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The Modi-led government has compromised security by denying to the Air Force the 7 squadrons (126 aircraft) that it desperately needed and gave a "windfall" to Dassault Aviation by paying more per aircraft, said Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday.

Addressing a press conference here, Chidambaram fired a fresh salvo at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said: "Rafale deal is a windfall for Dassault. That is the gift that the NDA government has given to Dassault and that is why I said that Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank....The windfall to Dassault was a deliberate decision of NDA government, which is highly questionable."

"If the government had hoped that it had succeeded in giving a quiet burial to the Rafale aircraft deal controversy, it was wrong. We had said so immediately after the judgment of the Supreme Court. The controversy is very much alive and, this morning, it acquired a new dimension," he added.

The Congress leader further said that ever since April 10, 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in Paris that the earlier UPA-negotiated deal for 126 aircraft was scrapped and he had agreed on a new deal to buy 36 aircraft, one question has loomed large.

"Why did the government reject the Air Force's need and demand for 126 fighter aircraft (7 squadrons) and decide to buy only 36 aircraft (2 squadrons)?" he asked, adding that this question has never been answered by the Prime Minister or the Defence Minister or the Finance Minister or the Law Minister. Be it noted that the Supreme Court expressly declined to go into that question.

This comes after media report came out stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 aircraft instead of the 126 asked for by the Indian Air Force pushed the price of each jet up by 41.42 per cent.

Citing the report of THE HINDU, Chidambaram asserted that the answer to the question is now available through the splendid investigative report published by THE HINDU on Friday. "The report has been published in public interest," he added.

"The Hindu's story raises many other serious issues about the process of decision-making in the NDA government. The man who got away was Manohar Parrikar who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security! Clever man! However, it is necessary to compliment the three officers of the Indian Negotiating Team who stood up to pressure and forced a vote of 4-3 on every issue," Chidambaram stated.

"I have done this analysis in the time I had. I need a little more time. I think the procedure was rushed through. I never heard of decisions taken based on a 4:3 vote," Chidambaram said.

On the other hand, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stressed that THE HINDU report has several inaccurate facts which are devoid of any new arguments.

"All issues have been answered in detail by the Defence Minister in an open debate in parliament," Sitharaman said in a tweet on Friday.

Continuing with his tirade against NDA government, he asserted: "The government did not buy the 90 more aircraft needed by the Air Force and paid Rs 186 crore more to French firm Dassault, maker of Rafale, for 13 India-specific enhancements in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA)."

The price negotiated by the UPA government in 2007 was Euro 79.3 million per bare-bones aircraft. In 2011, that price had escalated to Euro 100.85 million per aircraft. In 2016, the 'discount' of 9 per cent negotiated by the NDA government brought down the price (presumably after factoring in the escalation between 2011 and 2016) to Euro 91.75 million, Chidambaram said while comparing the price of both NDA and UPA government in Rafale deal signing.

Elaborating about the two ways that benefitted Dassault, he said, first, the price per aircraft, because of India Specific Enhancements (ISE), would have increased by Euro 10.3 million if 126 aircraft had been ordered. Under the new agreement for only 36 aircraft, the price per aircraft, because of ISE, will increase by Euro 36.11 million. Second, calculating the net present value of money, Euro 1300 million that Dassault will recover by 2022, which will be much higher than the Euro 1300 million it would have recovered by 2029 or so. This is the gift to Dassault that the NDA government gave between April 2015 and August 2016.

"It seems to me that Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank. The government has wronged the country in two ways: firstly, it has compromised security by denying to the Air Force 90 fighter aircraft that they desperately need; secondly, it has purchased two squadrons that will cost about Euro 25 million more per aircraft. At the 2016 exchange rate, Euro 25 million is equal to Rs 186 crore! India will pay Rs 186 crore more per aircraft," he remarked.

The Congress leader again put forward his party's demand and said that there is no doubt any longer that the Rafale aircraft deal deserves to be examined thoroughly by a Joint Parliamentary Committee.

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Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker and AIADMK senior leader M. Thambidurai on Friday dismissed speculations about an alliance with BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as a "joke".

"It is a joke to say that we will carry BJP on our back and help them gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu. We will work to strengthen our party, let them work to strengthen theirs," Thambidurai told reporters on Thursday.

He substantiated his stance, saying: "What sin has the AIADMK committed to carry BJP on its shoulders? There is no scope for the BJP to establish itself in the state. The AIADMK will strive to ensure for its growth, but will not carry any other party on its shoulders."

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the BJP's doors are "always open for parties", sending out a message amid speculations that his party could have poll alliances in Tamil Nadu.

In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had formed a six-party alliance comprising smaller parties like DMDK, PMK, and MDMK. The alliance, however, won only two of the 39 seats at stake - one each to BJP and PMK. However, the alliance broke off.

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The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will contest Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana alone.

"Our party will contest Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana alone. For Congress, their arrogance is bigger than interest, it is visible from recent statements of Punjab Chief Minister (Captain Amarinder Singh) and Sheila Dikshit ji," AAP leader Gopal Rai told ANI.

Earlier this month, Captain Amarinder Singh had dismissed the need for Congress to ally with the AAP in Punjab for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections but asserted that the final decision would be taken by the Congress high command.

"Till now there is no question of Congress allying with the AAP as the party does not have its presence in Punjab," Singh had said after an informal meeting with Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

He had also said that the AAP in its present form is different from what it was in the last general elections.

"The AAP now has been split as many of its leaders have resigned. However, any decision on a coalition with AAP or any other party would be taken by the Congress high command, keeping in mind the perspective and electoral compulsions, and would be followed by PPCC", he added.

Meanwhile, Sheila Dikshit, who took charge as Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) on Wednesday, said no talks had been held on forging an alliance with the AAP.

" is full of challenges, we will strategise accordingly. The BJP and AAP both are a challenge; we will meet the challenges together. There is nothing on an alliance with AAP yet," she told ANI before assuming charge as DPCC president.

Out of a total of 543 Lok Sabha seats, there are seven seats at stake in Delhi, 10 in Haryana and 13 in Punjab.

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A Canadian citizen, who was abducted in the landlocked West African country of Burkina Faso two days ago, has been found dead.

Burkina Faso's foreign ministry on Thursday confirmed the development and said that a dozen armed people, believed to be terrorists, had kidnapped Kirk Woodman from a mining exploration site, CNN reported.

"Canada is appalled and deeply saddened that Kirk Woodman, who was abducted on January 15, 2019, has been killed in Burkina Faso," Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement on Thursday.

Condemning the killing as a "terrible crime", Freeland added, "Canada condemns those responsible for this terrible crime. We are working with the government of Burkina Faso and other international partners to pursue those responsible and bring them to justice. The government's priority is the safety and security of Canadians."

Extending her condolences to Woodman's family, the Canadian Foreign Minister further said, "This is a devastating and extremely painful time for them and they have Canada's full support. As they mourn this tragedy, we ask that their privacy be respected."

Woodman arrived at the mining exploration site in northern Burkina Faso, near the border with Niger on January 10, before he was abducted by suspected terrorists on the evening of January 15. The site is owned by Progress Minerals, a Canadian-based mining company, as per the report.

Little is known about the circumstances surrounding Woodman's abduction and his subsequent death.

Woodman was the second Canadian national to go missing in Burkina Faso within this month.

Last week, another Canadian citizen Edith Blais and Italian national Luca Tacchetto went missing in the western African country. No information regarding their whereabouts has surfaced so far.

Canada has issued a warning to its citizens to not travel to Burkina Faso, fearing the threat of terrorism and violence. Recently, the Burkina Faso government declared a state of emergency in the northern parts of the country.

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In an attempt to bolster its presence along the Indo-China border in Ladakh, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is moving its north-west command from Chandigarh to Leh in Ladakh region.

"The move had been in the making since 2016 when ITBP was asked to take the North-West frontier to Leh for better management of operations there. Now, we have been asked by the Ministry of Home Affairs to complete the process by the end of March this year," sources in ITBP said.

The frontier headed by an Inspector General tank officer of the ITBP, will be working with the Leh-based 14 Corps of the Army there.

So far, the ITBP was headed by a Deputy Inspector General-rank officer in the Leh region where ITBP troops are guarding the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with the Army units.

Commenting on the reason for the move, sources said it was felt by the MHA that that area could be better managed if the Frontier was moved to Leh from Chandigarh.

The move will also help in improving coordination with the Army with deployment of senior officers there.

ITBP and Army have had differences in the past and the military has been demanding operational control over the border-guarding force.

The ITBP has also been given sanction by the government to build 96 integrated border outpost of which a significant number would be in the Ladakh region.

With the movement of its frontier to Leh, the force will have three sectors in Jammu and. Kashmir.

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The (ITBP) busted a Naxal camp on the border of and after a brief encounter early on Friday.

Official sources said that the 40th battalion of ITBP and Police were proceeding towards Bhave area in Lachhna near Tanda river when they came under fire from Naxals around 8 am. The ITBP and the state police jointly retaliated.

Seeing the security personnel approaching, the Naxals exploded a huge improvised explosive device followed by heavy small arms fire.

Realising that the forces were dominating the encounter, the Naxals gradually fled from the spot towards (Balaghat) jungles.

No casualties have been reported from either side so far. The area was cordoned off and searched thoroughly.

The Naxal camp was made of five temporary tents. Ration items, water storage tanks, buckets, one laptop with printer have been recovered from the site. Extensive search in the area is underway.

It is believed that Jamuna, the local Tanda area Committee member of the CPI Maoist was heading the group of 25-40 Naxals when it was busted by the security forces.

A claymore mine and two pressure cooker IEDs were also recovered from the site. The encounter site is surrounded by the thick jungle terrain and is believed to be a transit route for Naxals crossing over from to and vice versa.

It is also believed that due to surging pressure, the Naxals have now shifted their base camps to the bordering areas where the terrain is difficult and from where they can take advantage of the topography while operating.

This is usually the time when the Naxals start their training sessions for the new recruits for the next three months followed by the outdoor exercises which they conduct in the month of March-April every year to target security forces. This is the first major achievement against Naxals in the area after the change of governments in both the states recently.

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There are no reasons to change Belarus' foreign policy priorities, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said at the meeting with former ministers of foreign affairs of Belarus held in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the Belarusian diplomatic service on 18 January, BelTA reported.

The head of state remarked that the authority and role of the Ministry of Foreign affairs is increasing, and high-ranking officials of the ministry have built friendly relations with foreign colleagues. It is confirmed by frequent invitations to attend various conferences and international events.

It means that Belarus starts to play a bigger and bigger role on the international arena. Therefore, I do not see any reasons to change the foreign policy priorities in any way in this situation, Alexander Lukashenko said.

The circle of foreign partners and allies has expanded, promising markets have been opened. Of course, we would like to do it a bit faster but still. Belarusian diplomacy has reached a brand-new level. You cannot but see it. The most complicated regional and global issues are discussed at the negotiations platform in Minsk, the president remarked.

He welcomed all the participants of the meeting and said that such meetings with former ministers and heads of other government agencies can become a good tradition. Our meeting is held in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the Belarusian diplomatic service. This is the acknowledgement of your merits. Today we will listen to your opinions about the development of Belarus. You are experienced people, the president remarked.

Alexander Lukashenko suggested sharing opinions regarding the ways to build a balanced foreign policy in the format of an open discussion.
Dismissing media reports suggesting that advancements sought by the Narendra Modi-government has shot the price of a Rafale planes by 41 per cent as "factually inaccurate", the Defence Ministry on Friday said the India specific enhancements would help the Indian Air Force achieve superiority over the adversaries.

"The article is factually inaccurate. It does not adduce any new arguments. All the issues have been answered in detail by the Government at various fora and most recently by the Raksha Mantri in an open debate in the Parliament," a Defence Ministry spokesperson said.

He said the India Specific Enhancements (ISE) were part of the requirements of the Indian Air Force to achieve tactical superiority over our adversaries.

The Ministry said the ISE were part of the 2007 bid (negotiated by the UPA) and continued to be part of the 2016 deal.

"The cost of the ISE was on a fixed basis in the 2007 bid which was negotiated down in the 2016 deal. However, to compare the cost for the MMRCA contract which never materialised with the cost of the 36 aircrafts procured in 2016 is fallacious," the spokesperson said.

The author, the Ministry said, while indicating the price of ISE as 1.4 billion Euro in 2007 but has failed to include the in-built escalation factor that would have worked between 2007 and 2015.

The ministry reiterated that the deal for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets in 2016 achieved the objectives of better price, better delivery period and better terms compared to the earlier proposal.

The Ministry said the pricing details of the Rafale deal were shared with the Supreme Court in a sealed cover.

"The Supreme Court has gone through the details of pricing and commercial advantage. The Supreme Court has not found anything adverse in the deal and has refused to order an investigation as sought by the Petitioners," it said.

The CAG has been given access to all the files related to Rafale deal. It is best to await the report of an authoritative agency like the CAG, the spokesperson said.

The Ministry said the media report has also "missed the main advantage in terms of price obtained by the government in 2016 deal which was mentioned by the Defence Minister in Parliament."

"This change from a firm and fixed price to a flexible rate was possible only because the deal was structured under an IGA. This factor is expected to lead to a substantial commercial advantage over the delivery period of 36 Rafale aircraft," the spokesperson said.

On the issue of dissent within the Indian Negotiated Team for the 36 Rafale deal, the Ministry said that in the "highest traditions of the Civil Service, all views are aired and recorded and a collegiate decision taken after considering such opinions. Decisions on the deal were taken after due process of inter-ministerial consultation."

On the issue of not accepting the EADS offer of 20 percent discount, the Ministry said that even the UPA Government had rightly rejected the EADS offer of 20 per cent discount in 2012 after opening of bids as violative of procedure.

"Consideration of this offer by the Government would have again made the Government subject to charge of violating basic procedure," the Ministry stated

The spokesperson said that It was "best to avoid the pitfalls of a corporate battle which has been going on since 2012 which has adversely affected the capabilities of the Indian Air Force. The controversy should be put to rest in the interest of security.

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India on Friday lodged a strong protest against a recent order by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on the so-called "Gilgit-Baltistan" which is deemed as interference in India's internal affairs, by summoning the Deputy High Commissioner of Pakistan here.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday gave written orders regarding the constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan and granted fundamental rights to the people residing in the region.

A press statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs on Friday reiterated that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, which also includes the so-called 'Gilgit-Baltistan' has been, is and shall remain an integral part of India.

"Pakistan Government or judiciary have no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it," the statement read.

"Any action to alter the status of these occupied territories by Pakistan has no legal basis whatsoever," the statement added.

India rejected such continued attempts by Pakistan to bring material change in these occupied territories and to camouflage grave human rights violations, exploitation and sufferings of the people living there. Pakistan was asked to immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation.

The previous year in November, the Pakistan Cabinet had undertaken discussions over the provisional status of Gilgit-Baltistan, a day after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan gave his nod to change the region's status to that of an interim province in principle.

Gilgit-Baltistan, a part of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, has witnessed regular protests by activists over alleged human rights violations in the region. It is a part of what India refers to as Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) as Pakistan broke up its part of the annexed area into two parts - 'Azad' Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Giving provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan will be taken as the annexation of what Pakistan calls 'Azad' Kashmir - The decision will be in direct conflict with Pakistan's earlier stance on the region, which they have termed as "free".

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Rohit, son of Tej Bahadur Yadav, the Border Security Force (BSF) Constable who was dismissed from service after he had released a video in 2017 on quality of food served to soldiers, was found dead at his residence in Shanti Vihar here.

"We received a call that Rohit has committed suicide. At the crime spot, we discovered that the room was locked from inside. The body was lying on the bed. There was a pistol in his hands. His father has gone to attend Kumbh Mela. We have informed him," said a police official.

Tej Bahadur Yadav had posted four videos on the social media in January, 2017, that showed him complaining about the unpalatable food at his camp along the Indo-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir. The videos triggered outrage across the nation, but the BSF dismissed his allegations.

He was later dismissed from service.

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Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said that the previous governments could not successfully implement the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as their negotiations did not come from a "clean heart."

"GST is something which was pending since last 15 years. The first time the concept thrown open was in 2003. But the earlier governments could not negotiate and successfully implement GST because the negotiation didn't come from a position of strength," Goyal said while addressing a gathering here on Thursday.

"It didn't come with credibility and commitment that is required in any negotiation to be successful, and possibly the negotiation didn't come from a clean heart where you have the track record of fulfilling past commitments. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given that leading edge to India that we had required for a very, very long time," he added.

Goyal went on to add that the idea of having a USD 5-trillion economy is possible in two ways.

"One can hugely build up fiscal deficits and show growth in short-run, but to sustain in long-run, one will have to have strong leadership in place and ensure sustainability of both economy and environment. One will also have to ensure that we are recognised in the world as an honest country, as a country where business can be done with equal opportunity for everybody," he said.

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Four Karnataka Congress MLAs did not turn up for the meeting of the Legislature Party here on Friday which was convened to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculation of defections.

The Congress, which shares power with JD(S), has 80 MLAs in the 224-member Assembly, including the Speaker.

Accordingly, 79 MLAs were expected to attend the CLP meeting but only 76 turned up for the meeting held under the supervision of central leaders K C Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge.

Those absent were Nagendra B, Ramesh Jarakiholi, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumtalli, the party sources said.

Ahead of the meeting, the Congress MLAs were warned that those abstaining will be expelled from the party under anti-defection law.

The Congress had said it has called the meeting of its legislators to take stock of the prevailing political situation.

"If somebody doesn't attend this (CLP) meeting, action will be taken against them under the anti-defection law. Also, it will be assumed that the member himself has decided to leave primary membership of the party," senior party leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Wednesday.

The Congress' alliance partner JD(S) has 37 seats and its supporter BSP has one. The BJP is the single largest party with 104 seats but 9 short of the simple majority mark.

The meeting was called amidst allegations that the BJP was poaching on the Congress MLAs.

The BJP has been denying this allegation and in turn claimed that its MLAs were being poached upon by the Congress.

The charges of horse-trading were triggered after three Congress MLAs visited Mumbai earlier on Monday, reportedly along with some BJP MLAs.

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Five people died after getting buried under snow while seven others are still missing on Friday after an avalanche hit three vehicles at Khardung La in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir.

The mishap in the mountainous pass occurred when two trucks and an SUV were being loaded with snow, Army officials said.

The avalanche struck the vehicles burying them under snow. There were 12 people present at that spot.

After hours, rescuers from the Army, State Disaster Response Force and local police recovered five bodies, officials said.

Search and rescue efforts were underway to locate the others with the Army deploying special 'Avalanche Panthers' teams for the rescue.

Meanwhile, expressing grief over the loss of lives, Governor Satya Pal Malik announced and ex gratia Rs 5 lakh to the kin of the deceased.

"Special snow rescue teams of Army equipped with specialised equipment and accompanied by rescue dogs are being deployed to carry out search and rescue operations However, since the Run Out Zone of the avalanche is approx 1100 metres down the steep hillside the operations may take some time," an Army spokesperson said.

Kargil war hero Lt Gen YK Joshi has also assured full support to the civil administration in the rescue operations.

The Army detachment at Khardungla Top was informed about the incident at around 7:45 am by the two civilian drivers, after which, the Army immediately rushed to the spot.

"Army teams deployed near the incident site swiftly moved in and commenced the search-and-rescue operations. Troops deployed at South Pullu and North Pullu also moved to the accident site and commenced the search and rescue operations. Simultaneously, the Army Aviation helicopters were pressed into action to move the highly trained avalanche rescue teams of the Army called "Avalanche Panthers Teams" from Siachen Base Camp and North pull-up," the spokesperson said.

Army Aviation helicopters were also used to move the deep search radars, which can detect human beings through the snow. Medical teams along with doctors and nursing assistants, heating blankets, medical equipment and warm clothing were moved to the avalanche site from the Army Hospital at Hunder.

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The Election Commission of India (EC) on Thursday ordered the Delhi Police to investigate the 'fake news' being circulated about Lok Sabha poll schedule on social media.

On the orders of the EC, the Delhi chief electoral officer (CEO) in a letter to the city police has requested the police "to take immediate necessary action against unknown persons and entities."

In a letter to Special Commissioner of Police, Special Cell and Technology Cell, the Election Commission, has brought to notice that "fake news relating to the schedule of general election 2019 has been found to be in circulation on various social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp etc."

The letter further stated that such fake news is "causing severe confusion to the public thereby creating public nuisance and mischief.

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A bride was allegedly shot at by an unknown assailant during her wedding in Delhi's Shakarpur ,

As soon as the bride and groom came on stage for exchanging garlands on Thursday, a man fired gunshots, due to which the 19-year-old bride suffered a wound in her leg.

The bride, identified as Pooja, was immediately taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. After her condition normalised, wedding rituals were resumed.

During the preliminary probe, the Delhi Police said that the attacker was known by the bride. However, the groom said he was unable to identify the miscreant.

The attacker is absconding and investigation is underway to find out whether the firing was intentional or not.

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In a historic decision, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday gave a nod for induction of women as jawans in the Army's Corps of Military Police.

So far, women were allowed to enter the Army only as officers and that too in select branches.

"The women will be inducted in graded manner to eventually comprise 20 per cent of total Corps of Military Police of the Army," the Defence Ministry tweeted.

The proposal to induct women in military police was first mooted by Chief of Army Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, who had about a year ago said that women will be first inducted in military police.

The decision to induct more women in the services has come in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's directions to give more role to the women power in the defence forces.

Explaining the reason for need of women as jawans, the Army officials said many times, "when people go to the operation, we have to face the people and many a times ladies come in front of us and that is when they can be handled by the females of the force."

Currently women are allowed in a number of select areas including in medical, legal, educational, signals and engineering wings of the Indian Army but combat roles are kept off limit for them due to operational concerns and logistical issues.

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Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday visited the forward bases of the Indian Army and the Air Force along the China border to review the operational preparedness there.

"Nirmala Sitharaman visited forward areas along India-China border in Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh today along with Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen M M Naravane, GOC Spear Corps," Defence Ministry officials said.

During the visit, the Defence Minister was briefed by the top commanders of the Army's 3 Corps and 4 Corps on the force's preparedness on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the officials said.

The Minister also interacted with the troops and distributed sweets among them.

In Arunachal, the Defence Minister also inaugurated the Diffo (Chipu) Bridge at Roing.

In addition to enhancing operational capability, this 329-metre bridge will usher in economic prosperity in the region, the Army's Eastern Command said.

In view of the Chinese infrastructure development along the border, India has invested heavily in developing its own roads and military capabilities along these areas.

In Assam, she also visited the Dinjan airbase which is an important base in the region.

From Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast to Ladakh in the north, India has upgraded the capabilities of all forces including the Army, Air Force and the Paramilitary Forces operating there.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold a meeting with UN Secretary Generals Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen in Moscow on January 21, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin said.

"A meeting with Mr. Pedersen, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for Syria, is to be held in Moscow on January 21," TASS cited him as saying.

"It will be his first arrival to Moscow, so we expect him to tell us about his vision of how to implement the UN solutions and achieve a political settlement," Vershinin added.
The death toll in Thursday's gruesome car bomb explosion at the police academy in Bogota has climbed to 21, police say.

President Ivan Duque declared a three-day national mourning in the wake of the bomb attack at the General Santander National Police Academy just before a graduation ceremony for its cadets was slated.

Police identified the assailant as Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, according to Anadolu Agency. No group has owned responsibility for the blast.

Police said the driver rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into the compound of the police academy at full speed and refused to stop despite being signalled to do so. The suspect is believed to be among the dead.

Bogota has often been the hotbed of conflict between leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and drug cartels.

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In a blazing attack on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo N Chandrababu Naidu, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Working President K T Rama Rao on Friday said that it was TDP which worked with BJP in the last four-and-half years and yet Naidu is criticising TRS and BJP today to hide his administrative failures and win elections in Andhra Pradesh.

He stated that the people of Telangana voted TRS back to power because they believed in the welfare schemes introduced by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. But today, the people of Andhra Pradesh are not ready to vest faith in Chandrababu Naidu because of his incompetent governance.

He made the above remarks during the joining program of Congress leader Vanteru Prathap Reddy into TRS at Telangana Bhavan today.

KTR called BJP as 'Build up Jatiya Party' and stated that a line of central leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Amit Shah, six chief ministers and 11 central ministers campaigned in Telangana but BJP lost deposit in 103 seats.

KTR remarked that neither BJP nor the Congress will get the magic number in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

TRS will be working with non-Congress and non-BJP parties and various political parties like Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) which have made their stand clear to not support either BJP or Congress, he emphasised.

With a lot of confidence, he said, "TRS will win 16 MP seats in Telangana and play a key role at the Centre.

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United States President Donald Trump on Thursday cancelled a trip by the US delegation that was supposed to attend the next week's annual Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, citing the ongoing partial government shutdown.

The White House said that Trump took the decision to scrap the delegation's visit in the interests of the 800,000 federal workers who have been affected by the shutdown.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has cancelled his delegation's trip to the Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," The Hill quoted White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as saying.

On Tuesday, the White House had announced that it would send a scaled-back delegation to the WEF summit in Davos, which is slated to be held from January 22 to 25.

The delegation was set to be led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and comprised Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell.

On January 10, Trump announced that he would be not participating in the WEF meeting amid the feud with the Democrats over the funding of his proposed border wall.

"Because of the Democrats intransigence on Border Security and the great importance of Safety for our Nation, I am respectfully cancelling my very important trip to Davos, Switzerland for the Economic Forum. My warmest regards and apologies to the @WEF!" he tweeted.

The cancellation of the US' delegation trip to the Swiss alpine resort came a few hours after Trump scrapped House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's planned overseas visit to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan citing the shutdown.

In a letter addressed to Pelosi, Trump said that the House Speaker's seven-day visit to Brussels, Afghanistan and Egypt, which he dismissed it as a "public relations event", will be rescheduled after the shutdown is "over."

The shutdown, that has now entered its 27th day, was triggered on December 22 last year by a lack of consensus between Democratic lawmakers and the US President on the $5.7 billion funding for the wall on the border with Mexico, which was one of Trump's electoral promises.

The ongoing partial government shutdown is the longest in the history of the US.

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Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Friday announced that the North African country would go for Presidential elections on April 18, this year, however, without clearing whether the incumbent President will stand for the fifth consecutive term or not.

Last year, Djamel Ould Abbes, had announced that Bouteflika would become the candidate of ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) in the next Presidential elections, before being ousted from the party leadership in November, Al Jazeera reported.

"Bouteflika... is the candidate of the FLN for the presidential election," Abbes was quoted as saying following a meeting with the party members, last year.

"His candidacy has been demanded by all the FLN cadres and activists across the country," Abbes added.

The 81-year-old incumbent president had last addressed the nation more than six years ago and has been sick since he suffered a stroke in 2013.

Meanwhile, the North African country has a maximum ratio of the youth population, whereby most of them are not even aware of any other leader apart from Bouteflika.

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At least eight people died and 41 others injured after a car bomb detonated outside the General Santander National Police Academy in the Colombian capital of Bogota on Thursday.



A high-ranking police official said that the car bomb could be a suspected suicide attack. Police said that the driver rammed the vehicle into the compound of the police academy at full speed and refused to stop despite being ordered to, reported.

The suspect is believed to have died in the explosion.



Condemning the incident, Colombian Ivan Duque termed it as a terrorist attack and promised to bring perpetrators to justice.



He later visited the police academy and directed law enforcement authorities to launch a manhunt in identifying the people behind the attack.



Meanwhile, Nestor Humberto Martinez identified "the material author of the attack, a man named Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, who was driving the car that entered the academy," as per the report. He added that the suspect was reportedly driving with about 80 kilograms of explosives in the vehicle.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. Bogota has often been the hotbed of conflict between leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and drug cartel.

After peace talks with Duque were stalled in September, last year, the left-wing National Liberation Army has often targeted police officers in the capital city. The group failed on agree on Duques demands, which included freeing over a dozen hostages, including six Colombian soldiers.

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The Government has sanctioned setting up of three new air bases for the Navy in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu to enhance its maritime surveillance capabilities, which will be equipped with HAL-manufactured Dornier aircraft.

Two air bases will be in Gujarat while one will be in Tamil Nadu.

"Government of India has sanctioned this week, three new Naval Air Squadrons to be setup in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu," Navy spokesperson Captain DK Sharma said.

The officer said the Centre has also sanctioned manpower towards manning additional aircraft in existing Dornier Surveillance Squadrons in Kerala and Andaman Islands.

The contract for procurement of 12 Dornier aircraft was signed with HAL (Kanpur) on December 29, 2016 with delivery commencing in January 2019.

This is a substantial contract for the indigenous HAL-built Maritime Surveillance version of the Dornier 228 aircraft.

The new Dornier 228 aircraft being delivered under this contract are fitted with improved 'state of the art' sensors and equipment which includes glass cockpit, Advanced Surveillance Radar, Optical sensors and networking features.

"The aircraft would enhance Maritime Domain Awareness of Indian Navy through round the clock sensor based surveillance and provide targeting data in areas of operation to ward off terror and other threats from sea," the spokesperson said.

This addition would further strengthen the Indian Navy's efforts at Coastal Security of India's vast coastline of over 7,000 kilometers.

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The economic offences wing of the city police, probing the Rs 5,600-crore NSEL scam, has arrested Shashidhar Kotian, the former chief financial officer of the now-shuttered commodities spot exchange, a senior official said.

Kotian was arrested in connection with the scam and was produced before a court Friday, which remanded him to police custody till January 28, an official said. The agency sought his remand on the ground that they have come across from fresh facts and need to confront with the same.

The refers to the payment crisis driven by the physical absence of the commodities against the invested money. As many as 13,000 investors have claimed losses after the trading platform faced a payment crisis, forcing the government to order its shuttering.

The crisis broke out on July 31, 2013 and since then ownership of the company was taken away by the government and regulators from original promoter Jignesh Shah.

On December 27, 2018, the Mumbai police filed charge sheets against 63 entities-- 27 individuals and 36 companies.

Companies named as accused in the chargesheet include NSEL, 63 Moons Technologies (the present company Shah owns after the ownership of his flagship Financial Technologies was taken away from him), India Bullion Market Association; commodities brokerages like Anand Rathi Commodities, Geofin Comtrade and India Infoline Commodities among others.

Several other companies who also defaulted on paying back investors have also been named as accused in the chargesheet which lists cheating, criminal conspiracy under IPC and several sections of the Maharashtra Protection of Investors and Depositors Act and includes a statement of 520 witnesses and details of 509 bank accounts.

Earlier in 2014, the police had filed a chargesheet against six individuals and subsequently against NSEL founder Jignesh Shah who was arrested on May 7, 2014 and is now out on bail.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow is ready to continue dialogue with Washington to save the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty).

"Although the expert consultations held by Russia and the U.S. in Geneva on January 15 ended in failure because of the United States ultimatum-like manner, we are still ready to continue a specific and professional dialogue to try to save this most important treaty and make a significant contribution to strategic stability," Lavrov said at a joint press conference with his German counterpart Heiko Maas.

"Clearly, the destruction of the Treaty is fraught with the most negative consequences for global strategic stability. Following the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty, the entire arms control system will be endangered, including the New START and nuclear non-proliferation," TASS cited the top Russain diplomat as saying.

Maas, in turn, said that "the Europeans are concerned about the situation because politicians and diplomats still remember the crisis that emerged after the Pershing missiles had been deployed to Europe in the past century."
The United States is likely to extend waivers from sanctions on Iranian oil imports in May but will reduce the number of countries receiving them to placate top buyers China and India and to decrease the chance of higher oil prices, analysts said. Washington surprised oil markets after granting waivers to eight Iranian oil buyers when the sanctions on oil imports started in November. Benchmark Brent crude futures fell 22 percent that month and the waivers influenced the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) decision to agree in December to supply cuts starting ...
The US has announced a new missile defense policy aimed at addressing the challenges posed by and China, which seeks to displace in the Indo-Pacific region and has adopted an assertive posture in disputes over territorial boundaries with its neighbours.

In its 'Missile Defense Review' report released Thursday, the said and were developing advanced cruise missiles and hypersonic missile capabilities that can travel at exceptional speeds with unpredictable flight paths which challenge the existing defensive systems.

These are challenging realities of the emerging missile threat environment that defense policy, strategy, and capabilities must address, it said.

"While and pose separate challenges and are distinct in many ways, both are enhancing their existing offensive missile systems and developing advanced sea and air-launched cruise missiles as well as hypersonic capabilities," Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said.

The report presents a comprehensive and layered approach to prevent and defeat adversary missile attacks through a combination of deterrence, active and passive missile defences, and attack operations to destroy offensive missiles prior to launch.

This comprehensive approach to missile defense strengthens America's ability to protect the homeland, allies and partners and deters adversary threats and attacks, Shanahan said.

It assures allies and partners, engages in diplomacy from a position of strength, hedges against future risk and preserves America's freedom of action to conduct regional military operations in defense of its interests, Shanahan said.

" seeks to displace the in the Indo-Pacific region and reorder the region to its advantage," the report said.

Offensive missiles play an increasingly prominent role in China's military modernisation, its coercive threats and efforts to counter US military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific, it said.

China has deployed 75-100 ICBMs, including a new road-mobile system and a new multi-warhead version of its silo-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

While Russia illegally occupies territory outside its borders, seeks to coerce and destabilise its neighbours, and flouts treaty obligations, China has adopted an increasingly assertive posture in disputes with its neighbours, many of whom are US allies or partners, the said.

"These include disputes over territorial boundaries, claims to contested island territory, and a campaign to build and militarise islands in the The military forces and doctrines of these and other States feature offensive missile capabilities that are growing rapidly in size, sophistication and prominence," the said.

"China can now potentially threaten the with about 125 nuclear missiles, some capable of employing multiple warheads, and its nuclear forces will increase in the coming years. also is developing advanced technologies, such as MaRVs and HGVs," it said.

Observing that China is developing missile capabilities intended to deny it the capability and freedom of action to protect US allies and partners in Asia, the Pentagon said a key component of Beijing's military modernisation was its conventional ballistic missile arsenal designed to prevent US military access to support regional allies and partners.

"China is improving its ability to strike regional targets, such as US bases and naval assets, at greater ranges with the addition of the growing number of medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. This includes sophisticated anti-ship ballistic missiles that pose a direct threat to US aircraft carriers," it said.

The Pentagon said the wide-ranging developments in China's expansive offensive missile arsenal posed a potential nuclear and non-nuclear threat to US forces deployed abroad, and are of acute concern to US allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region.

China is aggressively pursuing a wide range of mobile air and missile defense capabilities, including the purchase of S-400 systems from Russia, each with four interceptor missiles, and is developing additional theatre ballistic missile defense systems. It also has announced that it is testing a new mid-course missile defense system.

Russia considers the US and the NATO to be the principal threats to its contemporary revisionist geopolitical ambitions and routinely conducts exercises involving simulated nuclear strikes against America, the report said.

The Russian leaders claim that possesses a new class of missile, the hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV), which maneuver and typically travel at velocities greater than Mach 5 in or just above the atmosphere, it said.

continues to pose an extraordinary threat and the must remain vigilant, the report said.

"One of Iran's primary tools of coercion and force projection is its missile arsenal, which is characterised by increasing numbers, as well as increases in accuracy, range, and lethality," it said.
The University of Oxford said on Thursday it has stopped accepting funding from China's Huawei Technologies, the leading global supplier of telecoms network equipment, after scrutiny over the company's relationship with China's government. "Oxford University decided on January 8 this year that it will not pursue new funding opportunities with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd or its related group companies at present," the university said in a statement. ALSO READ: A trade secrets theft probe may give more weight to US case against Huawei "The ...
In July 2018, Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee had proposed to subpoena the interpreter and her notes to find out what was said in the meeting, but the motion was rejected by Republican committee members. Now, reports allege that President Trump took possession of the interpreters notes at the end of at least one private meeting with Putin and instructed the linguist not to ...

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Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

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Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal has been thrown out by Parliament. Shes now in talks with rival politicians to find a way forward before presenting a Plan B on Monday. If her plan isnt convincing, then British lawmakers will try to take over the process.

That could mean keeping much closer ties to the bloc, or even a second referendum. With just 10 weeks to go until the U. K. is due to leave the European Union, what are the most likely scenarios? Brexit in Name Only, and Not Quite Yet Keeping close ties to the EUs single market and customs ...
Israeli and officials have agreed to continue the coordination of their military actions in Syria, the Israeli army said.

The agreement followed a series of meetings between Israeli and officials, held after the mistakenly intercepted a Russian plane during an Israeli airstrike in the war-torn country.

"Today, a series of working meetings between a delegation of senior officers from the Russian Armed Forces and their IDF ( Defense Forces) counterparts were concluded," the IDF said in a statement on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

"The delegations reached understandings and agreed to continue their joint work," the statement read.

The Israeli delegation was led by the Head of the Operations Directorate Yaniv Asor and included working groups of senior officers from both armies.

"The meetings were conducted in a good and professional atmosphere, and included promoting and improving the mechanism to prevent friction between the two militaries in the northern arena and the IDF's activities against Iranian entrenchment and the arming of in Syria," according to the

The announcement came as Israeli Prime Minister was escalating his comments against Iran's presence in Syria, warning of Israeli attacks. "I advise them to get out of there (Syria) fast because we will continue our offensive policy as we promised and as we do without fear or pause," he said on Tuesday.

says it is not part of the eight-year war but its military has carried out hundreds of air attacks in recent years against Iranian and positions in Syria, in addition to weapons convoyed for Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite militia.

ALSO READ: Why American troops should leave a volatile area like Syria immediately

and have been coordinating their moves in Syria over the past years. But this coordination met difficulties after Syria mistakenly shot down a Russian reconnaissance plane following an Israeli airstrike on September 17, 2018.

The plane's 15 aircrew soldiers were killed and Russia's Defence Ministry said Israel should be held accountable.

has started to provide the with S-300 air defence system in the wake of the incident.
Barack Obama's trailblazing presidency, a first for an African-American, began 10 years ago, a historic moment that some believed ushered in a post-racial America.

But given the racial amplified in the era of successor Donald Trump, the hope and change of 2009 has led to mixed results.

Advances in gender and racial equality have been unmistakeable over the past decade, and continue today, with multiple men or women of colour -- notably senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris -- likely to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

But the Obama years also have given way to a more combative, partisan cultural environment and a Trump presidency -- about to enter its third year -- that has left and society bruised and divided.

As the nation marks the birthday this week of slain black civil rights icon Jr, congressional Republicans are struggling over what to do about an unapologetic white nationalist in their midst who was recently re-elected in Iowa.

Congress is the most diverse it has ever been, but that is due almost exclusively to the rainbow coalition of Democrats, including the record numbers of women, blacks and Hispanics elected last November.

The Republican Party has mostly failed to meet the challenge of a more inclusive union.

Trump has done his share of antagonizing minority voters. In 2017 he sparked outrage by claiming there were good people "on both sides" at a violent white nationalism rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

One of his fiercest defenders, anti-immigration congressman Steve King, has received a bipartisan rebuke for his recent remarks defending white supremacy.

House Democrat Joyce Beatty said that while it felt "exhilarating" to witness Obama's inauguration in 2009, she has been discouraged by King's remarks and the tone set by Trump.

The president "has not been held accountable for those divisive things," Beatty, a leader in the Congressional Black Caucus, told AFP in an interview. "I am not surprised" that House Republicans have few women and minorities in their ranks, she added. "



Race-related tensions have risen. A Pew Research Center study showed the share of Americans who believe racism is a "big problem" doubled from 2011 to 2017, to 58 per cent, mostly among Democrats.

While Republicans pride themselves as being the party of Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War-era president who ended slavery, there is only one black Republican in the 435-seat House of Representatives, compared to 55 African-American Democrats.

The Senate too has a single black Republican.

"I fully believe that the Republican Party needs to do more to reach minorities and women and young people," said House Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who until this month was the highest ranking GOP woman in Congress.

Trump regularly professes to be helping African Americans, either by reducing black unemployment or signing a prison reform law that received broad bipartisan backing.

But as he ran for president, he promoted the birther conspiracy that Obama was born in Africa, and during his presidency some state legislatures have moved to suppress votes of minorities, said Lara Schwartz, a government professor at American University.

"Trump represents a strong, strong reaction to Obama's presidency, while at the same time the population has become more diverse," she said. But Schwartz made clear that Trump "did not invent racism in America," and that it would be a mistake to assume no Democratic voters are racist.

"I just wouldn't say we've got this party of racists and this other party that always gets it right."



Still, it is the Democrats who may put forward another black president, if Booker or Harris seek and win the 2020 nomination. And Obama protege Julian Castro, who is Hispanic, has jumped into the contest.

Their minority status should not be a hindrance in 2020, argues professor Jennifer Lawless of the University of Virginia.

"There's nothing to suggest that it would be a liability, in the Democratic primary anyway," she said.

Would non-white heritage be a burden for a post-Trump Republican candidate? Nikki Haley, until recently Trump's United Nations ambassador, has an inspiring back-story as the child of Indian immigrants.

Should she ever run for president, as some observers predict, she will be closely watched for how she presents her ancestry, and for whether conservatives will come out in force to support her.

Obama's historic turn was a huge advance, but it would be naive to believe the nation is post-racial, said Senator Tim Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton's 2016 running mate.

"There is no easy next chapter to life in America where we don't think about racial issues," Kaine told AFP, adding that the country is experiencing a counteraction to Obama's presidency.
The Gujarat government signed around 130 MoUs with investment commitments worth over Rs 56,000 crore in various sectors on the first day of the Global Summit on Friday, said officials.

A majority of the MoUs, also called Investment Intentions (IIs), were signed in the port and transport sector.

China-based Tsingshan group commited to invest Rs 21,000 crore to set up a steel plant and a facility to manufacture car batteries in Dholera SIR, said the officials at a press meet.

Besides this mega agreement, MoUs worth over Rs 35,000 crore were also signed during the opening day of the three-day business conclave which was inaugurated by Prime Minister

A key MoU was signed with Petronet LNG Ltd with an intended investment of Rs 2,100 crore for expansion of their existing LNG Port Terminal at Dahej, said Sunaina Tomar, principal secretary, state port and transport department.

"Another MoU was signed with HPCL Rajasthan Refinery Ltd with an intended investment of Rs 1,400 crore for development of Single Point Mooring System and Crude Oil Terminal at Mandvi," she told reporters.

An MOU was signed with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd with an intended investment of Rs 1,350 crore for LPG import facilities along with a jetty at Dahej Port and LPG cavern and pumping facilities at Ankleshwar, Tomar said.

An MOU was signed with Adani Group with an intended cumulative investment of Rs 3,500 crore across three projects - development of a captive jetty at Kori Creek, cargo handling terminal at Mundra and Ro-Ro ferry facility at Mundra, she said.

"An MoU was signed with Essar Group with an intended cumulative investment of Rs 7,485 crore across two projects - development of port-based Smart City and an LNG terminal at Hazira, the IAS officer said.

Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd (APM Terminals Pipavav) has expressed interest in development of a Ro-Ro terminal at Pipavav, she said.

"A tripartite MOU was signed between Gujarat Maritime Board, J M Baxi & Co and Port of Amsterdam with an intended cumulative investment of Rs 800 crore for development of cruise terminals at Mandvi, Dwarka, Porbandar and Verava," Tomar said.

An MOU was signed with Dahej Harbour and Infrastructure Ltd with an intended investment of Rs 700 crore for expansion of their existing port facility at Dahej, she added.

Two Rajkot-based firms have also signed MoUs to set up artillery factories after getting clearance from the Centre, said Air Marshal R K Dhir, advisor to the Gujarat government for the aerospace and defence sector.
The Japanese government officially confirmed that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Russia on January 21-22, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.

"On January 21-24, Prime Minister Abe will visit Russia and Switzerland. He will hold talks will President [Vladimir] Putin on January 22," TASS cited the Chief Cabinet Secretary as saying.

Earlier, the Kremlin press service said that Putin and Abe will meet in Moscow on January 22 to discuss signing a peace treaty between Russia and Japan. According to Kremlin, Abe will pay a working visit to Russia on an invitation from the Russian president.
The directed the Kerala police on Friday to provide round-the-clock security to two women who had entered the temple.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices L N Rao and Dinesh Maheshwari said it was only going into the aspect of security to the two women and would not like to entertain any other prayer.

The bench also refused to tag the matter along with the pending petitions in the case.

Earlier this month, the two women -- Kanakadurga and Bindu -- had stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by the police, more than three months after the apex court's historic judgment lifting the ban on the entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity.
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

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India's richest person Mukesh Ambani Friday committed to investing Rs 3 trillion in various projects in the next 10 years in Gujarat, that may range from energy and petrochemical to new technology and digital business.

Ambani's operates the world's largest oil refining complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat as well as petrochemical units at multiple locations in the state.

"Gujarat is Reliance's Janmabhoomi (birthplace) as well as its Karmabhoomi (workplace). Gujarat has always been - and will always remain - our first choice," he said at the 9th here.

has also invested billions of dollars in the rollout of venture, Jio.

"We have so far invested nearly Rs 3 trillion in the state of Gujarat. And created and catalyzed over one million livelihood opportunities in Gujarat. In comparison to the past decades, Reliance will double this investment and employment numbers over the next ten years," he said.

Ambani said, while Jio's network is now fully 5G ready, the arm and the retail division will launch a new commerce platform to connect small retailers and shopkeepers with customers.

The twin oil refineries at Jamnagar will produce more value-added products like petrochemicals and less of fuel as the world moves towards

He, however, did not say when Jio, that started operations in 2016, will launch 5G services.

"Today, Gujarat is the showcase for Jio's 4G wireless broadband network... And Jio's network is fully 5G ready; which means Gujarat will continue to remain on the forefront of digital connectivity for years to come," he noted.

Without giving timelines, he said Jio and Reliance Retail, which has over 9,000 stores across the country, will launch "a unique new commerce platform to empower and enrich our 12 lakh small retailers and shopkeepers in Gujarat which are part of over 3 crore community in India."



Ambani had previously spoken of leveraging the for launching some sort of e-commerce venture.

"As the world moves towards electrical vehicles, Reliance will use hydrocarbons less for fuel and more for producing high-value new materials with a wide range of uses in society," he said adding the oil to chemicals strategy will greatly boost exports and create employment.

Also, Reliance Foundation will invest Rs 150 crore to make Pandit Deendayal University in Gujarat even stronger and an institution of international repute, he said.
Canada's government on Friday dismissed China's warning of repercussions if Ottawa banned Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from supplying equipment to 5G networks, saying it would not compromise on security. China's ambassador to Canada issued the threat on Thursday as relations between the two nations continued to deteriorate after a senior Huawei executive was arrested in Vancouver last month on a US extradition warrant. China has also detained two Canadians. Canadian officials are studying the security implications of 5G networks, the latest generation of cellular ...
Bryan, OH (43506)

Today

Plentiful sunshine. High 86F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to cloudy skies and rain overnight. Thunder possible. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to discuss the creation of a buffer zone in Syria at the meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said at a briefing.

"We have been for a long time pointing to the need to create a buffer zone to ensure the security of refugees but our initiative was not supported. We will continue to maintain contacts on the issue with our Russian partners. Presidents Erdogan and Putin will discuss it in Russia on January 23," TASS cited the spokesman as saying.

According to Aksoy, Ankara also "continues technical talks with Washington on the issue, which involve military and civilian officials."

Erdogan announced plans to create a buffer zone in northern Syria following a conversation with his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump on Tuesday. According to Erdogan, Turkey is ready to ensure security on the ground, while the U.S. is supposed to be responsible for the airspace. However, Turkish Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said later that if a buffer zone was established, Ankara would have control of it.
President of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik told Russian President Vladimir Putin he hoped for his countrys involvement in the Turkish Stream pipeline project.

"I would like to express my satisfaction with how the projects, upon which we had previously agreed, proceed now," TASS cited Dodik as saying.

"We expect to remain involved in the Turkish Stream project, just like we did in the South Stream,"he added, noting that Sarajevo has absolutely all project documents.

Putin, in turn, noted that relations between the two states developed in the positive direction.
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High-school graduates enrolled in a local do-good groups technical-education program geared to land them construction jobs cannot begin their classes until President Trump decides to reopen the government and end its longest shutdown in American history.

Many of the young job seekers with traditional diplomas or GEDs hail from low-income communities and public-housing complexes, and counted on the free program to help them secure quality jobs that will allow them provide for their families, according to a leader of the Gowanus-based organization that receives funding from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to run the seminar.

The shutdown significantly impacts them and their plans, said Sarah Desmond, the interim executive director of Rebuilding Together, which rehabilitates dilapidated properties on the brink of disrepair. These students go onto actual real careers, earning money, and bringing it back to their communities and families.

The students were supposed to start classes on Jan. 15, but the closure  now in its 27th day  forced the do-gooders to cancel the six-week program indefinitely until the federal housing agency is fully back up and running.

The agency funds the technical training through a grant that normally allows Rebuilding Together leaders to host six of the programs a year, according to Desmond, who said that in 2018 the group trained 125 students  about 80 percent of which came from Brooklyn, with more than half hailing from Coney Island.

And as long as the Commander-in-Chief refuses to budge on erecting his beloved wall at the United StatesMexico border, funding for the current class, and all subsequent seminars, remains in limbo  leaving the locals eager to enter the construction workforce without a way to get the training they need to do so, Desmond said.

All approvals for any classes have been put on hold for this, she said. As of right now we cant go forward, because our funding is on hold.

But when the government reopens, those students who expected to start their training this week will be prioritized for the next session, according to Desmond.
Latest News NextGen announce new CEO Huge news for brokers and aggregators

The average New South Wales property price is now above $1 million Are young people finally being priced out of the property market?

An Australian alternative SME finance provider has secured a $135m credit facility from Goldman Sachs Private Capital.

The facility given to Capify will help the Sydney-based fintech accelerate the growth of its lending business to Australian SMEs through its business loan and merchant cash advance products.

The group has been active in Australia since 2008 and recently celebrated its ten-year anniversary. It has executed more than 7,500 transactions for SMEs seeking business financing over that time.

David Goldin, founder and CEO of Capify, said the funding from Goldman Sachs was a landmark achievement.

He added, This new multi-year credit facility allows us to deliver on our own growth plans, whilst providing much needed access to capital for Australian SMEs to help them to grow, to boost the economy and to create jobs.

The credit facility validates our company as a leader in the marketplace and underlines the strength of our business model to provide simple, affordable and smart financial options to Australian SMEs.

Pankaj Soni, executive director at Goldman Sachs Private Capital, said, Capify is one of the leading SME finance providers in Australia.

We have been impressed with the management team, business model and innovative finance solutions for SMEs. We look forward to supporting their growth in the years ahead.

John DeBree, managing director, Australia, at Capify, added We are extremely excited about our future relationship with Goldman Sachs.

The credit facility will enable us to continue on our growth trajectory while offering even more attractive and innovative solutions to thousands of small businesses in need of capital.
President Donald Trump has accused his former personal attorney of "lying to reduce his jail time!" after BuzzFeed News published a report saying Trump had asked his former attorney general, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress in 2017.

BuzzFeed said Trump directed Cohen to lie about negotiations over a real estate project in Moscow during the 2016 election.

Trump tweeted that Cohen is "Lying to reduce his jail time!" even though he's already been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to tax crimes, bank fraud and campaign violations.

On Fox News Channel, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that the BuzzFeed story was "absolutely ludicrous," but he repeatedly refused to deny the central allegation: that Trump directed Cohen to lie.
Salford's "Mr Big" grew up in a tough part of town, according to a 2015 report by the BBC. At 12, he first crossed law enforcement when he was arrested for damaging an empty house. The charge landed him in a reform school. According to the BBC, Massey later spoke of "bitterness against the system" for being "dragged away from his mother and father". "He had a strong anti-authority streak," Peter Walsh, the author of Gang War: The Inside Story of the Manchester Gangs told the BBC. "He wasn't the biggest, he wasn't the toughest, but he was quite charismatic and very principled in his own way." In the '80s, when Manchester became internationally renowned as the ground zero for rave parties, Massey and his friends spotted an opening. The crew allegedly took over working the doors at the city's popular clubs. Then, "they started smuggling ecstasy in from Holland and selling that" to ravers, Walsh claimed. The "Mr Big" nickname was coined by a city official at a 1992 public meeting decrying the lack of exposure of the criminals running wild in the streets. "Massey, 'Mr Big', why don't the press print his name?" the official said, the Evening News has reported. The name stuck.

Massey would allegedly later be involved in numerous criminal schemes, ranging from burglary rings to protection rackets, according to the Evening News. But he also cultivated the image of a man fighting for his community. Massey allegedly outlawed heroin sales in Salford while he was in control. In 1999, Massey was convicted of stabbing a man in the groin outside a nightclub. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Upon his early release in 2007, Massey's reputation remained large on the streets. In 2012, he ran for mayor of Salford. Mourners attend the funeral procession of Paul Massey in Manchester in 2015. Credit:AAP "I don't want to be known as Mr Big. I don't want a reputation," he told the Telegraph at the time. "I just want to be me  people have got me wrong." He came in seventh out of 10 candidates in the election.

By the 2010s, Massey was a father of five and a grandfather of eight. He claimed he was a legitimate business owner, running a number of security operations. According to the Evening News, his direct influence over criminal operations in Salford had allegedly waned. But he still commanded respect among the younger generation of Manchester-area crews, and was known to broker peace agreements between squabbling factions before arguments turned violent. But the implosion of the area's most powerful gang, the A Team, would allegedly lead to Massey's murder. In 2014, the A Team snapped into two factions, the Evening News reported. Police allege the divide was the result of a rowdy evening at a nightclub resulting in a woman throwing a drink in a A Team member's face. The paper also cites "gangland sources" who source the split from when a gang member learned the Breitling watch he had bought from another member was fake. Whatever the reason for the acrimony, a year before Massey's death, the gang members were at odds. The original faction of A Team members were led by a close confidant of Massey's, police testified at the recent trial. The break-off element was known as the Anti-A Team or the AA Team. Massey was allegedly stuck between the two.

If "Mr Big" Massey occupied the top floor of Salford's crime world, "The Iceman" Fellows was stuck in the basement  a gangland "nobody", according to the Evening News. An illness growing up had left him with a colostomy bag for life, and he was fussy about both cleanliness and his health. A long distance runner, he participated in grueling events such as the Great Manchester Run, a Garmin Forerunner GPS watch strapped to his wrist to track his distance and health stats. The Iceman to Manchester's Mr Big: Mark Fellows, who has been sentenced to life for the killing of Massey. Credit:AAP According to prosecutors, Fellows aligned himself with the Anti-A Team crew following the dispute. He was allegedly paid 10,000 ($18,000) to take out Massey. He reportedly spied on the underworld figure with a night-vision scope. He struck on July 26, 2015. Massey's death stunned Salford. His coffin was pulled through the streets in a horse-drawn hearse. A pipe band played in the procession. Flower arrangements shaped like cannabis leaves and big cigarettes were laid out. Gangland figures from across the United Kingdom sent tributes.

The death also sparked violent retributions between the A Team and Anti-A Team. Bullets tore into house fronts. Machetes were swung. Smoke grenades were rolled into wedding ceremonies. "I've never known crime at these levels, the number of incidents in a short space of time," City Councilor Paul Wilson told the Guardian in 2015. "These are targeted attacks but my fear is that an innocent person will get caught up in it." Police struggled to identify Massey's killer. According to the Evening News, at one point investigators complied a list of 112 gangland suspects. Fellows was also suspected, but no evidence tied him to the hit. The case ground on for three more years. Then, on May 5, 2018, a second murder struck Massey's inner circle. That morning, John Kinsella, a 53-year-old judo and jiu-jitsu expert who was a allegedly a close gangland associate of Massey's and had served as a pallbearer at his funeral, took a walk with his pregnant girlfriend across a footpath in a village called Rainhill. The couple brought along their six American bulldogs.

As Kinsella struggled to pull along a dog that was straying behind, Fellows huffed up on a mountain bike, prosecutors allege. He shot Kinsella twice in the back with a Webley revolver, then two more times from close range before pedaling away. According to the Evening News, police immediately turned on Fellows as a possible suspect in both killings based on the similar execution of both crimes. During a raid on his apartment, police discovered Fellows's Garmin Forerunner GPS watch. The data from the watch placed Fellows at the scene of Massey's murder. A picture of the suspect wearing the watch at the Great Manchester Run put the item in his possession at the time of the killing. Both Fellows and an associate and A Team member named Steven Boyle, 36, were charged with both Massey's and Kinsella's murder, as well as the attempted murder of Kinsella's girlfriend. Prosecutor's alleged Boyle acted as a spotter for Fellows during the hits, the BBC reported. On Wednesday, following a six-week trial at Liverpool Crown Court, Fellows was found guilty of both murders. Boyle was convicted of Kinsella's murder but acquitted in Massey's death. Both were found not guilty of attempted murder of Kinsella's girlfriend. The men are scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday. They face mandatory life sentences.
Washington: US President Donald Trump unveiled a revamped US missile defence strategy on Thursday that called North Korea an ongoing and "extraordinary threat," seven months after he declared the threat posed by Pyongyang had been eliminated.

A Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile in Pyongyang, North Korea. Credit:AP

The plan, which also detailed concerns about the burgeoning capabilities of Iran, Russia and China, called for developing space-based sensors to detect incoming enemy missiles and exploring space-based weapons to shoot down missiles among other steps to shield the United States.

The open acknowledgment in the Missile Defence Review of US plans to counter Russian and Chinese technological advances likely will alarm those nations. It marked a departure from the approach taken by Republican Trump's Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, to tamp down concerns by major nuclear powers about expanding US missile defences.

"Our goal is simple: To ensure we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States - anywhere, anytime, any place," Trump said at the Pentagon.
Jakarta: The radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir will be freed from jail in a matter of days, after President Joko Widodo cleared the way to the hate preacher's early release.

Bashir was the the spiritual leader of the terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, which committed the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people including 88 Australians.

Abu Bakar Bashir. Credit:Amilia Rosa

Australia urged Indonesia last March against any leniency for Bashir, after a push for him to be granted early release by the President gathered steam but then came to nothing.

Nearly a year later, President Widodo confirmed late on Friday that Bashir's release was imminent.
Justice Party senator Derryn Hinch has defended his decision to reveal what he claims are the horrific details of injuries inflicted on murdered Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe, saying "people need to know what a killer on the loose is capable of".

Senator Hinch has revealed shocking details of injuries suffered by Aiia Maasarwe, who was killed outside the Polaris shopping centre in Bundoora, Melbourne

Senator Hinch drew sharp condemnation after posting a tweet on Thursday night that said a "known sex offender" committed a heinous act of violence against the 21-year-old, whose body was found early on Wednesday morning outside a shopping centre in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora.

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have chosen not to repeat the detail disclosed by Senator Hinch, who said he learnt of the information through police contacts.

Police sources spoken to by The Age said that, while they were investigating possible links to known sex offenders, it could also be someone previously unknown to police.
The family of the woman who died after going for a bush run in the Pilbara on Sunday say they will remember her for her beautiful smile and her desire to stay young and never grow old.

The body of Felicity Shadbolt, 36, was discovered near Mount Nameless in Tom Price by a member of the public on Wednesday evening following an extensive police search.

Felicity with husband Drew. Credit:Shadbolt Family

Known as "Flik" to her family and friends she leaves behind her husband Drew and twin daughters Macie and Harper, aged 7.

On Friday her family released a statement thanking the many people who helped searched for her.
Nikol Pashinyans team is faced by a situation where a transition to a practical settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is less risky than further maintaining the status quo and delaying the negotiations, which ultimately resulted in the loss of power in Armenia by the Karabakh clan of Sargsyan and Kocharyan.

Associate Professor of the Department of International Security of the Faculty of World Politics of Moscow State University, Alexey Fenenko, speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, commented on the positive results of the talks between the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia Elmar Mamedyarov and Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, who expressed the need to take concrete measures to prepare the people of both countries for peace. The ministers' talks were positively assessed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who stressed that "the statements from Baku about the readiness to look for solutions, deserve all support." "We hope that our Armenian friends will reciprocate," Lavrov said.

Aleksey Fenenko noted that the de-occupation of Azerbaijani regions around Karabakh, which have been held by the Armenian armed forces for more than 25 years, is on the agenda in the first place. "The task number one now is the fulfillment of the agreements reached in St. Petersburg in June 2016. This includes a gradual demilitarization of five adjacent to Nagorno Karabakh areas, which starts small: Armenia demilitarizes two districts. Then all other districts are demilitarized, giving start to negotiations on the status of Karabakh," he said.

According to the expert, Pashinyan has a serious incentive to find a compromise with Baku in the framework of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. "The fact is that when Pashinyan came to power, he hoped that the United States and France would help him put pressure on Azerbaijan at any cost. But apparently, after his visits to these countries over the past months, he somewhat lost faith that the West would support him. In fact, there is no reason for the United States and France to quarrel with Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey on the Karabakh issue for the sake of Armenia. They exploit new Armenia against Russia, Iran and, partially, Turkey in their own interests, but they will not pursue Yerevan's interests," the associate professor of the Department of International Security of the Faculty of World Politics of Moscow State University pointed out.

"There is no good way for Pashinyan now. Armenia's hysterical flag-waving emerging over the last ten years of Serzh Sargsyans rule can lead to dissatisfaction with any Pashinyans concession. But, on the other hand, the lack of concessions on the part of Yerevan with high expectations of Moscow means a quarrel with Russia, the risk which the new authorities are not able to take without the support from the West," Alexei Fenenko stressed.

"Pashinyan, having achieved legitimacy, is in an unpleasant trap - he sees that nobody is going to take a risk for his sake, but at the same time he understands that in the absence of any progress in Armenia, even more radical forces can come on stage, which will be able to overthrow his just established authority," the expert concluded.
Police have released terrifying vision of a group of masked men in a vehicle chasing two men in another car through Perth's streets.

The incident occurred about 7pm on December 1 through the streets of Rivervale and Burswood.

Police allege four men with masks covering their faces pulled up in a black Toyota Prado next to a parked white Mazda sedan on Brighton Street in Rivervale and got out of their vehicle.

The four men allegedly began attacking the white car with hammers, causing significant damage to the vehicle's windows and panels.
Im sorry, run that by me again? We dont require engineers to be licensed, qualified or registered? So the hundreds of shonky-looking resi-towers newly metastasising across our city dont just look like slums-in-waiting but may have no structural or fire integrity to speak of because anyone, including my great aunt Cecilys dog Tozer, can sign their engineering certificates. Seriously?

Illustration: Simon Letch Credit:

Tuesdays interim report on the twice-evacuated Opal tower, by engineering professors Hoffman, Cart and Foster, tells us the building is structurally sound, in that it (probably) wont fall down, but has major damage. Two causes are pinpointed: faulty design, using lower-than-required safety factors, and poor construction, deviating from both design and good practice.

The building, as you know, is pretty ornery to look at. A green glass faceted triangle far taller than any neighbours, its look of soulless oppression is relieved only by a number of tall slots or vertical gardens, walled in six-storey pre-cast load-bearing concrete. Its in these walls, and the beams supporting them, that the damage has principally occurred.

But whats fascinating about this appalling concatenation of errors and deceits is the degree to which it is systemic. We dont know how widespread building disasters are because no-one is collecting data, but as the UNSW City Futures Research Institute recently wrote, our system allowing defective apartment buildings creates huge social and economic risks for the new compact city.
A 74-year-old man has faced a Melbourne court accused of burgling homes, raping women and girls, and abducting a victim by force in a historical crime spree.

Raymond Edmunds appeared via video link in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday for a filing hearing, charged with 31 offences.

The offences relate to 11 incidents that allegedly occurred between 1971 to 1984 across Greensborough, Clayton, Wheelers Hill, Edithvale, Dingley and Donvale.

Edmunds is charged with four counts of rape, three of indecent assault, four counts of carnal knowledge and abducting a woman by force.

He is also charged with 10 counts of burglary with intent to assault, during which he was sometimes armed with a knife, or in one case, a four-foot plank of wood.
The Route 86 tram on which slain Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe was travelling on the night she was murdered was fitted with CCTV, Public Transport Victoria has confirmed.

"Certainly, the tram that Aiia was on that night does have CCTV. There was footage that has been provided to Victoria Police," PTV chief executive Jeroen Weimar told radio station 3AW on Friday morning.

Aiia Maasarwe

"We have shared CCTV footage, files and images from a number of trams on that night [with] police to help with the investigation."

Mr Weimar refused to discuss the content of the images and footage taken from the tram Ms Maasarwe travelled on, due to the ongoing police investigation.
A man who worked for a community organisation in various towns of Queensland's South Burnett region has allegedly sexually assaulted multiple teenage boys.

Kingaroy detectives have charged a 71-year-old South Burnett man with 20 offences, including indecent treatment of a child under 16.

However, police are continuing to appeal for anyone with information to help investigations.

Police will allege the offences were committed against several teenage boys between March and November last year.

A Queensland Police Service spokesman said detectives hoped more victims would come forward.
A boy who was given a six-month probation and 30 hours of community service has been granted a sentence review after a magistrate refused to consider restorative justice, calling the process "airy fairy".

The child was sentenced at Rockhampton Children's Court on July 3, 2018, with no convictions recorded.

However, Judge Ian Dearden granted a sentence review, claiming the previous judge was not prepared to consider restorative justice.

Despite the boy already completing his 30 hours of community service, the probation period has been set aside and would be referred to a restorative justice process.

The boy had committed multiple offences, including tresspassing and common assault, but only had two matters on his criminal history, which he was dealt with in the Children's Court on February 15, 2018, at the time of his sentencing with no conviction recorded and a reprimand for stealing and wilful damage.
A former CSIRO executive used government funds to make more than $400,000 worth of personal purchases, including to buy a luxury car and a jetski, police allege.

Mark Stuart Wallis, 44, of Griffith, did not appear in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday for the case's first appearance following a summons.

But his defence lawyer Taden Kelliher told the court Mr Wallis was pleading not guilty to all charges against him.

A former CSIRO executive allegedly used government funds to buy a jetski, pictured above. Credit:AFP

Australian Federal Police will allege the man "abused his position and resources to facilitate the illegal purchase of multiple personal items", including a television, computer, tablet, smart-phone, clothes, a fitness tracker, and a "high-quality" road bike.
I don't remember when I was first told about the Holocaust, or that my mother, Mira, was a survivor. There was always the fact that I never knew any of my grandparents  they, together with two aunts and an uncle had been killed by Nazis. There was my mother's tattoo on her arm: dirty blue, smudged-looking. She neither hated it nor hid it. She just lived with it.

It wasn't until I moved to Los Angeles in my 20s and stumbled upon a support group for the first generation of children born to Holocaust survivors that I realised how unusual my mother was. There, everyone exchanged notes. Did my mother hoard food? No. Did she refuse to talk about her wartime experiences, or talk about them incessantly? No, she recounted details, when asked, in a matter-of-fact way. Was she depressed, anxious, fearful? No. After the war, my mother had moved to France, then Australia. She was social, energetic and unnaturally optimistic. She had a particularly joyful way of viewing the world that was hard to make sense of, given her experiences.

Mira Unreich as a student (in front of the teacher). In 1939, aged 12, she was barred from going to school because she was Jewish but she went on to speak seven languages.

In Melbourne, going to a Jewish school, it wasn't uncommon to be affected by the Holocaust. I remember one teacher asking students if they had lost family members during the Second World War, and many of my classmates' hands shot up. The Holocaust was part of our lives and part of our school curriculum, too. Perhaps other bookish girls in Melbourne huddled up with the collected works of Jane Austen, but I was swept up in works that had Jewish themes. Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar delighted me in my teens, because the protagonist was both Jewish and glamorous. There was also Chaim Potok, the plays of Neil Simon and  the one I read over and over  Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth, which all dealt, to varying degrees, with the issue of Jewish assimilation in a non-Jewish world.

Years later, I fangirled Elie Wiesel, and was delighted when my letter to the author  who had vividly recounted his own shocking Holocaust experiences in the book Night  was answered with a one-pager of his own, adding that I should send his regards to my mother.
The settlement is agog with curiosity; the bush is terra incognita, full, they surmise, of hostile tribes and impenetrable wilderness. How did they survive? It is up to Lieutenant Joshua Grayling, aide to the governor, to discover the truth and what happened to the 14 companions lost on the way. Jock Serong's novel is based on a true story (the wreck of the Sydney Cove on Preservation Island) and he has mined the patchy account left by a survivor, William Clark, whose family's company had financed the speculative voyage and cargo, knowing that in the new colony, rum was currency.

These speculations are ignited further when three ragged men are spotted crawling along a beach just south of the settlement. They say they have walked hundreds of miles through uncharted bush, survivors of a shipwreck far to the south, a ship called the Sydney Cove, out of Calcutta and full of rum.

Sydney in 1797, a cluster of whitewashed houses, barracks and struggling gardens; its European population, numbering a little more than 3000, consists of convicts, soldiers and administrators; they and their families share a fascination and terror of what lies beyond the fragile and porous boundaries of the new colony.

Preservation by Jock Serong.

Clark's account made himself out a hero but left lots of suspicious gaps; no information was given about the fate of the others in the rescue party who originally set out from where the wreck had run aground (and where the remaining crew and captain remained stranded). He also gave no explanation for the terrible spear wounds through both hands.

The best historical re-imaginings come when there is a skeleton on which to hang the tale, but not too much flesh to stifle fresh speculations and Serong has concocted a thrilling, nuanced tale out of the gaps in the narratives of the time.

In Mr Figge, an imaginary passenger and one of the three rescued, he has also created a man of brilliance and evil. His complex character adds a Gothic twist to the tale; he poses as a tea merchant, but we know he has taken a dead man's identity and his violence and appetites seem both sub and super human. But there is another side to him  his ease with the Indigenous groups and his respect for their skills and hospitality.

Serong's characters are compelling and, in his reimagining, Preservation gives voice to those who, in the literature of the time, were largely voiceless. We hear Grayling's wife Charlotte and her curiosity for the world of the Eora tribe that she meets on her doorstep and in forbidden explorations of the bush; we hear the story of the trek, in all its horror and depravity, through the eyes of Srinivas, Clark's young Bengali servant (a Bengali seaman was one of the three rescued, but in the historical accounts he remains nameless).
Its one of the worlds most popular education apps and used in more than half of Australian primary schools.

Students who sign up to Class Dojo are assigned a cartoonish monster and awarded points when they do the right thing.

Teachers deduct points  which are often displayed on interactive white boards at the front of the classroom  when children act out.

But a new paper by University of South Australia researchers says Class Dojo promotes an archaic approach to discipline and likens it to China's social credit system.
The Adam Apple Exhibition Complex hosted a meeting of ambassadors accredited to Russia. Diplomats had a nice reason for gathering: Zurab Tsereteli marked his 85th birthday earlier this year. He is a changeless chairman of the Russian Academy of Art, whose works are well-known all over the world.

The event was initiated by Polad Bulbuloglu, the dean of the Moscow diplomatic corps, the Azerbaijani ambassador to Russia. The initiative was backed up by the Russian Foreign Ministry State Protocol Department. In informal setting, diplomats discussed current foreign political issues. Representatives of 80 countries participated in the meeting.

Its necessary to hold more such events for the diplomatic corps. Moreover, the diplomatic corps itself should intensify its activity. We shouldnt sit at embassies only. We should explore Russia more, Li Hui, the Chinese ambassador to Russia, told Vestnik Kavkaza.

Moscow is one of global cultural and art centers. But diplomats are ready to discover new horizons. I suggested the Azerbaijani ambassador to Moscow a visit to Baku by the diplomatic corps. He believes its a good idea. I would like to see Azerbaijans dynamic development, Li Hui said.

At the same time, Polad Bulbuloglu expressed gratitude to his colleagues and the artist: Zurab Tsereteli unites countries and nations by his art for all his life. He gathered us, ambassadors of various countries, today in Moscow to hear birthday wishes and let us discuss topical issues.

Eleanora Mitrophanova, the head of Rossotrudnichestvo, called Tsereteli the peace and happiness envoy: You know that a happiness index is studied in our country these days. To stay in one room with the man means energy boost, positive attitude to life for people. The man always brings joy and sunshine to others.

The head of the agency awarded the President of the Russian Academy of Art with a medal for his contribution to international cooperation.

Tatyana Anodina, the chairwoman of the Intergovernmental Airline Committee, Mikhail Shvydkoi, the Special Presidential Envoy for International Cultural Cooperation of Russia, and other guests wished Tsereteli happy birthday.

Students of Ippolitov-Ivanov Musical Institute pleased the hero of the day with a musical present.
Temperatures of up to 33 degrees in Sydney on Friday were a cool change for 40 children who travelled for nearly 12 hours from far west NSW to visit the beach.

For many of the Aboriginal students from Brewarrina, Weilmoringle, Bourke and Goodooga, it was their first time seeing the ocean.

Indigenous kids visit the beach for the first time at Long Reef. Credit:Matthew Abbott

"You can't put into words the look in their eyes the first time they see it, they want to go straight in," said Jack Cannons, founder of the Bush to Beach program which brings students from disadvantaged communities in rural and remote NSW to Sydney for a three-day visit to the sea every year.

The students, who range in age from eight to 15, get the chance to go on the trip if they consistently go to school and behave well.
Australian software giant Atlassian has reported of a "ripper of a quarter" on the back of a record revenue performance and the completion of a crucial acquisition.

The company on Friday reported its revenue was up 39 per cent to $US299 million ($415 million) sending its share price upwards more than 10 per cent.

Atlassian founders Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes after listing on the NASDAQ. Credit:Trevor Collens

In a letter to shareholders, co-founders and co-chief executives Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes said the calendar year finished on a high note with Atlassian surpassing $US1 billion in annual revenue for the first time.

"Australians often [like] to refer to 'something excellent' as 'being a ripper'," the pair said. "And we had a ripper of a quarter. "
Want to praise someone or get something off your chest? Darts and Pats is the place to do it.
In spring, the protest moods are expected to increase in Kyrgyzstan. China and Russia are two directions in which the situation in Kyrgyzstan is developing. "This is a projected approach a year before the 2020 parliamentary elections," Kyrgyz political analyst Mars Sariev told Vestnik Kavkaza.

On Thursday, the participants of the rally held in Bishkek demanded to reconsider the relations with China. In particular, to declare a moratorium on the issuance of Kyrgyz passports to Chinese citizens, in addition to ethnic Kyrgyz, as well as to check the appropriateness of loans given by the PRC. In the case of corruption, to punish the guilty and, finally, to deport Chinese citizens illegally staying on the territory of Kyrgyzstan. The protesters also are not delighted with the fact that Kyrgyz girls marry Chinese guys, so they demanded to ban mixed marriages or fine newlyweds. The activists claim that 60,000 Kyrgyz women preferred Chinese men to Kyrgyz warriors.

About 300 people participated in the rally. The protesters didnt want to go away for a long time, and the police had to drive them off. About 20 people were detained, including civil activist Amanbol Babakulov. However, President Sooronbay Jeenebekov promised that those who want to spoil the relations with China will be punished within the legislative framework.

According to Mars Sariev, the ethnic component is being emphasized. Kyrgyzstan borders with China and has strong historical and cultural ties with the neighboring country. More than 200 thousand Kyrgyz live in the PRC, and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has rather large Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture. The issue of the ethnic cleansing" in China swirls among the human rights activists. Allegedly, there are re-education camps in XUAR, where people are tortured and forced to refuse Islam. In fact, these are training and retraining centers for people who have committed minor offenses and found to be sympathetic to extremist ideas. In those centers, they are provided with an opportunity to master any profession. The centers operate as vocational schools that existed in the USSR. Also, students are also assisted in mastering the Chinese language, history, and legislation of the country. In other words, they are being integrated into a normal life.

Sariev blames the West on the anti-Chinese sentiment: It is unprofitable for the West to build the Chinese Belt and Road infrastructure, which will pass through the countries of Central Asia reaching out the Caucasus and further Europe. They succeeded in its suspending. China had to continue with the old Silk Road project since the route through Central Asia has become a problem, " the expert said.

Such conflicts have arisen in Kyrgyzstan before, but they were local in nature. The current rallies (at the end of December 2018, January 7 and 17, 2019) became possible after the information about the misuse of funds for the modernization of the Bishkek thermal power station and the launch of several criminal cases of corruption were made public. For this project, China allocated a loan of $ 386 million, while Chinese specialists were engaged in the modernization. It became known that Bishkek owed Beijing $ 1.7 bln, which amounts to 41.3% of the countrys total foreign debt. At the same time, as MP Iskhak Masaliyev said, the protesters do not take into account the fact that China is the main trading partner and the largest investor in Kyrgyzstan, the biggest industrial and infrastructure projects were carried out with the help of this country. "At the same time, we believe that Chinese are not good, and they must be expelled. Here its not about Chinese, but about the citizens of Kyrgyzstan who are engaged in corruption," Masaliyev said. In his opinion, someone is clearly interested in undermining the stability of the republic.

Deputy Director General of the Center for Strategic Estimates and Projections Igor Pankratenko told Vestnik Kavkaza that the anti-Chinese moods are a purely internal story. According to him, the incitement of nationalism, whether anti-Russian or anti-Chinese, is the last refuge of politicians and bureaucrats losing its influence, excluded from the distribution of financial flows from foreign investors. "The use of public discontent and protest actions to solve self-serving political problems has long become a firm handwriting and reliable tool of some Kyrgyz politicians, including those who are in relations with foreign business implementing their economic projects in the republic," the expert believes. According to him, the anti-Chinese sentiment damages the reputation of Kyrgyzstan in the eyes of foreign investors and partners. Chinese projects are a lifeline for a country the economy of which without them is unlikely to find any decent place in the global division of labor (no matter how insulting this truth may sound to residents of the Republic). Today, the agenda includes the implementation of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway construction project.

Meanwhile, the issue of nationalism is a dangerous and completely unpredictable thing. The greatest naivety is to think that it can be controlled and it will always be obedient to those who use it for their own selfish interests. Someday it will surely and terribly turn against those who play with it.

As for the anti-Russian attacks, in particular, the initiative of opposition politicians to deprive the Russian language of the official status, the former Prosecutor General of Kyrgyzstan, now opposition politician Azimbek Beknazarov, said that representatives of 47 opposition political organizations insist on holding a referendum on amending the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan. In their opinion, there should be only one state language in the country - Kyrgyz. Russian is proposed to be used only as a "language of the international communication".

Recently, in the Issyk-Kul region, an Orthodox cemetery was plundered in the night. These actions were aimed at creating a suitcase mood among the Russian-speaking population, knocking out confidence from people, primarily Russian and Russian-speaking, including Kyrgyz, who do not know the Kyrgyz language well enough, " Mars Sariev says. The anti-Russian sentiments, he said, create the impression among the average man that they are performed by Jeenbekovs government.

What is happening in Kyrgyzstan is a test of the strength of the existing political structure. Today, in power, there is the most Kyrgyz-speaking government and the most Kyrgyz-speaking parliament in the entire history of the country. Despite the international composition of the supreme power, the state language, that is, Kyrgyz is increasingly becoming the working language, Kyrgyz independent expert Kubat Rakhimov told Vestnik Kavkaza.

The expert did not rule out that the initiative taken by the opposition to reduce the status of the Russian language is nothing more than an inspired provocation of the government, in particular, President Jeenbekov. According to him, it is possible that the opposition representatives are deliberately working to worsen Kyrgyzstans relations with other states: some are trying to strike at the Russian-Kyrgyz relations, others - at the Chinese-Kyrgyz ties.

Mars Sariev believes that the goal of the opposition is an intra-elite struggle, because the preparations for the 2020 elections are underway, and hysteria directed against the current government is heating up.
According to the Abkhaz scientists, the republic's economy is currently in the phase of systemic crisis. 'The strategy of the socio-economic development of the Republic of Abkhazia until 2025', the '25 steps to develop the economy of Abkhazia until 2025' program have made little progress so far. Mamikon Babayan, a columnist of Vestnik Kavkaza, raises the question of achieving economic growth in the republic.

The export capacity of Abkhazia is many times greater than its current volume. The coastline is 214 km, which allows to consider it as a basis of potential development. The republic inherited the territory of the sea ports located in Sukhum, Novy Afon and Gagra from the USSR. Abkhazia's favorable geographical position and full use of passengers and cargo transport capacities can provide a significant economic effect for the entire South Caucasus. However, the unresolved problems with Georgia and Abkhazia's political status deters foreign investment, including the development of maritime traffic.

Modernizing sea freight technical equipment is necessary to optimize land routes. Challenges remain in the republic linked to damaged railway infrastructure, risk of accidents, closed road tunnels and bridges. The existing land routes in the future may be overloaded due to the intensively growing freight traffic. According to the Russian Ministry of Transport, the volume of goods traffic exceeded 150 thousand tons by the end of 2017, increasing by 21% compared with 2016. Therefore, it is necessary to seriously consider the reconstruction of sea ports, which have a real prospect of becoming a single transport complex, combining rail, road and air routes, taking into account the fact that most of goods are supplied to the South Caucasus by the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.

The need to renew the export potential is explained by the trade imbalance of Abkhazia. The analysis of foreign economic activity indicates the growing gap between exports and imports in favor of the latter. According to the latest data published by the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation, Russia's trade with Abkhazia amounted to $260,594,058 in 2017, increasing by 4.95% compared with 2016. Exports to Abkhazia in 2017 amounted to $206,958,187, an increase of 3.36%. Imports from Abkhazia were estimated at $53,635,871, increasing by 11.59% compared with 2016. As economic development expands in Abkhazia, the gap would widen, because, first, an increasing part of agricultural products (which is the dominant economic sector) will be sold on the domestic market to serve tourism, and, second, the development of tourism will expand the republic's imports.

At the moment, Abkhazia's main trade and economic partner is Russia. Nevertheless, one of the promising areas of cooperation could be the development of Abkhaz relations with Georgia and Russia's North Caucasus. It requires restoring the main connecting route between Abkhazia and the North Caucasus - the 143-kilometer Sukhumi Military Road. Although the leadership of Abkhazia opposes the restoration of road transport, using the argument of environment, but for the North Caucasus regions it is a direct route to the sea, to ports and resorts, and for Abkhazia it is the shortest way for exports from the industrial sector of the economy, particularly coal sales. Such a project can be extremely beneficial for Georgia, since the Georgian Military road traffic is significantly hampered in winter.

With regard to the above mentioned, Abkhaz exports needs to be diversified, which can be facilitated by the formation of an economic triangle of Abkhazia, Georgia and Russia, at least in the border zone. Tbilisi has not restored diplomatic relations with Moscow, but it does not prevent the development of economic relations with the Russian Federation, which have a positive dynamic. The transit of goods through Abkhazia will favorably affect the volumes of its own market, turning the transport infrastructure into a transit one. The road will allow Georgia to establish a rail link with Ukraine and Belarus. Finally, Russia will overcome the shortage of land communication with Turkey. Despite the fact that Georgia and Abkhazia have have chosen diverse approaches in joining multilateral schemes of economic integration, the parties should study all nuances and possible "extraordinary situations" that may occur due to the difference in customs regimes.

However, the main thing that should be taken into account when solving the problems of opening land routes is the need to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Armenia is primarily interested in expanding land transport linkages between the South Caucasus and Russia, because it has closed borders with two (Azerbaijan and Turkey) of its four neighbors. Yerevan raises the problem of transit routes with enviable regularity, refusing from compromises in the Karabakh settlement at the same time. (Pashinyan was curious about transit corridors in Georgia. But was disappointed). In brief, the expansion of land traffic goes back to Yerevans unshakable stance, which has not yet realized that its impossible to prioritize one's own interests in the Caucasus - natural conditions do not bode well for it.
Shane Lowry has opened up a four-shot lead during the third round of the Abu Dhabi Championship.

The Offaly man has carded successive birdies on the sixth, seventh, and eight holes.
The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan have met and agreed on the need to prepare their populations for peace and to discuss possibilities to cooperate economically. Eurasianet reports in its article Armenia and Azerbaijan agree to prepare populations for peace that the optimistic statements following the meeting were a yet another sign of a marked decrease in diplomatic tensions between the two sides over the last few months.

Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov and his Armenian counterpart, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, met January 16 in Paris, along with representatives from the OSCE Minsk Group, the international body tasked with facilitating negotiations between the two sides. It was the fourth meeting between the two since last years Velvet Revolution ushered in a new regime in Armenia.

Following the meeting, the official statement included several unusual elements that cheered advocates for peace between the two sides. Here is the most positive statement of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in a very long time, wrote Olesya Vartanyan, a Tbilisi-based analyst at the International Crisis Group, on Twitter. The two sides are locked in an unresolved conflict over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, over which they fought a war in the early 1990s.

The two ministers, for example, agreed upon the necessity of taking concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace. If this were in fact done seriously it would be a remarkable development, as public opinion on both sides of the conflict has badly hardened in recent years. This has made the prospect of a peace deal  which would necessarily involve significant concessions on both sides  less and less likely, as an agreement would face a huge public backlash. The respective governments have done nothing to address this, but this new statement holds out the promise for that to change.

The OSCE negotiators also underlined the importance of possible mutually beneficial initiatives designed to fulfill the economic potential of the region. Its not clear what this would mean, but if implemented it would be a big shift for Azerbaijan, which has made economic isolation of Armenia one of its key strategies in the conflict. President Ilham Aliyev recently reiterated this point: We will use and are using all means to isolate Armenia until our lands are liberated, he told a meeting of government officials on January 11.

One potential issue that the two sides could address is access for Armenian cargo to the new Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail network, Vartanyan told Eurasianet. Armenia has built a large new border point near the rail line in order to take advantage of the new railroad but it remains uncertain whether or not Armenian goods will be able to use the route, Vartanyan said.

The ministers also agreed to work toward a summit between Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The two leaders met briefly on the sidelines of a Commonwealth of Independent States event in Dushanbe last year. That short meeting resulted in the establishment of a communications channel that the OSCE earlier credited for a significant decrease in ceasefire violations and reported casualties on the front line between the two sides.

Pashinyans coming to power has inspired optimism in Baku that the long-stalled negotiation process could be reinvigorated. The Azerbaijani government has accordingly shuffled some personnel to be able to take advantage of that prospect and has appeared to have toned down its often-hostile rhetoric against Armenia.

At a January 16 press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted the Azerbaijani moves and said he hoped Armenia would respond in kind: I think that the statements we have heard, including from Baku, about the readiness to seek a resolution deserves full support. We hope that our Armenian friends will reciprocate.
Update: The Tanaiste Simon Coveney has said hospitals have an obligation to make sure decisions on abortions are consistent with the new laws.

It comes after a woman was allegedly denied an abortion at the Coombe Hospital in Dublin, despite having a fatal foetal abnormality.

She now intends to travel to the UK to get a termination.

Two TDs claimed the board of the Coombe overruled the recommendation of two doctors.

The hospital has denied its board has any role in decisions on abortions.

Simon Coveney said he will not comment on individual cases, but that the legislation is clear.

Mr Coveney said: "The law in this area is now clear, that legislation was passed in a way that was consistent with what the Government committed to doing before the referendum last year and it's what people voted for.

"So hospitals in Ireland have an obligation to make decisions in a way that is consistent with that new legislation."

Earlier: Minister calls for 'full facts' to be known after woman is denied abortion at Dublin hospital

A Government minister says all the facts should be known in an abortion case that was raised in the Dail on Thursday.

The woman, who was allegedly refused an abortion by a leading maternity hospital, will travel to England for a termination.

Two TDs claimed in the Dail that the woman was refused a termination in the case of a fatal foetal abnormality at the Coombe Hospital in Dublin.

Ruth Coppinger and Brid Smith said they had been contacted by the woman.

Junior Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor told Newstalk Breakfast we need to have the full facts of this case.

"I think it's a really sensitive story and I don't think we can rush to judge.

"The board have said that they have no role in the ruling of the case - I do think we need to have the full facts.

"But I do also know that we must acknowledge it is a new service, there are new challenges of course around a service such as this.

"But the service is significantly better than what was there on the 31st of December, when women had to leave the country, leave the jurisdiction to travel abroad for a termination of pregnancy - or they had to purchase medication illegally online.

"Nineteen maternity hospital have signed up to provide this service, so obviously there are challenges at the beginning of this service - but as I said I'm not going to rush to any judgement".

Earlier: Woman forced to travel to UK for abortion claims she was denied termination

The woman at the centre of claims a leading maternity hospital blocked her from terminating her pregnancy after a fatal foetal abnormality was detected has said she will be forced to travel to England for an abortion.

Sources close to the woman confirmed her plans half a year after the historic vote to remove the Eighth Amendment from the Constitution, and as the National Womens Council of Ireland demanded complete clarity over what happened.

In a claim under Dail privilege yesterday, Solidarity-People Before Profit TDs Ruth Coppinger and Brid Smith said they were contacted by a Dublin woman in the past 24 hours who told them that Coombe officials stopped her from having an abortion  a claim the hospital denies.

The TDs said during the womans 12-week scan in her 13th week of pregnancy on January 3, she and her partner were told by their obstetrician their foetus had a fatal foetal abnormality.

File photo of the Coombe Hospital.

In a follow-up scan on January 10, a second obstetrician confirmed the diagnosis as the developing organs of the foetus, including the heart, were in the wrong position, and discussed an abortion with the doctors, who said they needed to meet with an internal board to finalise the decision.

The TDs said the woman sought a termination a fortnight ago, but claimed under privilege that after intervention from this board, the request was blocked.

One doctor, her consultant, and another consultant was brought in who said yes, it is a fatal foetal abnormality, but a week later it went to the board, and the board overruled that, said Ms Coppinger.

This is about the law. A main maternity hospital in the capital city is refusing this woman her constitutional right... She has been told you can go to England.

Her words to me were this is not what I voted for. She finds it hard to sleep knowing the condition her much wanted child is in.

The Irish Examiner understands that after the Dail debate the woman had a meeting with hospital officials including her original obstetrician yesterday.

At this meeting, she was told her pregnancy doesnt fall neatly into a fatal foetal abnormality diagnosis, despite the doctors initially saying the baby wouldnt survive.

As such, sources close to the woman confirmed last night she has decided to travel to England for an abortion, the type of decision that was believed to have been consigned to history after last Mays referendum.

A Coombe spokesperson rejected the Dail claims last night, saying its board, which has not met since Christmas, had no case role: In the context of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 and the latest draft Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Pathway for Management of Fatal Fetal Anomalies, the board of guardians and directors of the Coombe has no role whatsoever in certifying a termination of pregnancy.

Insofar as recent media coverage has stated that the board has had a role in determining whether or not the criteria for certification have been met, those reports are untrue.

However, at the time of going to press, the Coombe had yet to respond to queries on whether another internal medical board as opposed to the hospital board was involved in the case.

In a statement, National Womens Council of Ireland director Orla OConnor said it is essential that complete clarity is brought to the case, saying what happened has the potential [to cause] widespread anxiety for women in Ireland.

A HSE spokesperson declined to comment due to patient confidentiality and because the Coombe is a voluntary hospital.

While also declining to comment on the case, Health Minister Simon Harris spokesperson noted the post-referendum laws, saying: The law allows for terminations when two obstetricians certify the foetus will not survive outside the womb.
It is expected that University College Cork will sever its ties with a Nobel Prize winner in the coming weeks following his controversial comments about race.

Dr James Watson, whose name adorns a building at the Brookfield Health Science Complex at UCC, has been stripped of a host of honorary titles after making the remarks.

Watson, 90, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1962 alongside Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for their discovery, in 1953, that DNA is a double helix and "its significance for information transfer".

In a recent documentary film, Watson claims there is a direct correlation between intelligence and race. It reflects comments he made in an interview with the Sunday Times in 2007.

In the PBS documentary 'American Masters: Decoding Watson', he said: "Theres a difference on the average between blacks and whites on IQ tests. I would say the difference is, its genetic.

It prompted New York lab Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which Watson headed for many years, to strip him of all of his honorary titles.

The comments have come in for significant criticism by members of the UCC academic staff and the UCC Students' Union.

In 2016, UCC named a building at the Brookfield Health Science Complex after Watson, despite criticism. They defended the action at the time, saying he is 'a scientist of world renown.'

Prof John McInerney of the Department of Physics at UCC described the recent remarks as 'reprehensible and bigoted.' He said that it has long been known that Watson is an 'arrogant, bigoted' person who has frequently espoused the view that there is a correlation between intelligence and skin colour.

"Every trace of this vile and loathsome individual should be scrubbed from this university and any other institution which he may have contaminated with his actual or virtual presence, even temporarily, over the years. This extirpation should be as quick and public as possible so that he is still alive to witness it.

"I strongly suggest that UCC management take up this mission promptly, enthusiastically and completely."

He added: "I suggest that we hold in abeyance the next stage of deciding for whom the building should be renamed, although some excellent suggestions have already been made."

A spokesperson for UCC confirmed that the matter is to be looked at in greater detail.

In a statement to the Irish Examiner, they said: "The decision to name the building was made within the recognised university processes at that time. Since then the protocol for the naming of buildings has been significantly changed.

"UCC is aware of the recent comments by Dr James D Watson and university management has referred the matter of the building name to the relevant committee.

It is understood that this committee is to meet in the coming weeks.
A Dublin mother whose grieving son missed almost 300 days of school has been spared jail for neglecting his education.

The woman has pleaded guilty at Dublin District Court to breaking the Education (Welfare) Act by not complying with official warnings about school attendance.

Her son was described as having no education as a result of truancy.

The court also heard he had struggled after the death of a close family.

Judge Anthony Halpin heard the teenager had fallen so far behind in school that he would not be able to catch up with continual assessment work which is now part of the new Junior Certificate curriculum.

The minimum school leaving age is 16 years, or the completion of three years of post-primary education.

The penalty on first conviction is a fine of up to 1,000 and a possible one-month sentence per charge. She was prosecuted by the Child and Family Agency (CFA).

An education and welfare officer told the court the third year pupil had missed 292 days since he began sixth class in primary school.

The boy missed 59 out of 181, 33% of days, in sixth class and 78 out of 167 days in his first year of secondary school an absentee rate of 37.5%.

In his second year of secondary school, he was not present on 95 out of 162 days, a rate of 59%.

So far, in third year, he had missed 60 days and has an absentee rate of just over 70%, Judge Halpin heard.

His mother had been invited to attend several meetings at the school but only attended one. Counselling supports and life skills courses were offered as well as learning support, the court heard.

A school completion co-ordinator called to her home on eight occasions but only met here twice. An alternative to mainstream education placement was offered but the teen failed to attend.

The mother did not go to numerous meetings with an education and welfare officer.

The school principal confirmed that the boy did not have special education needs. He said the boys difficulty stemmed from failing to attend school and was not as result of an inherent disability.

With the changes to the junior cycle involving more on-going assessments it would be very difficult for him, the principal said.

Judge Halpin remarked that the teen was miles behind his friends in school, there is no way of catching up.

The principal said the boy would benefit from an alternative to the junior cycle and perhaps do a small number of subjects one year and more the following year. It was the principals belief the boy would benefit from a practical, vocational education rather than a desk-bound book-based education.

The boy will turn 16 later this year and time was running out, the headmaster warned.

Judge Halpin said when it comes to looking for employment the boy will lose out, adding, anyone else with a mediocre Junior Certificate and would be miles ahead of him at interview and selection stages.

He said the boy has no education and missed out on life skills learned at school such as an ability to deal with conflict situations.

The defence asked the court to note the mother was apologetic and did not have a previous conviction for this type of offence. Her other children had finished school with Leaving Certificates.

Solicitor Orla Crowe, for the CFA, said the woman was never prosecuted over her other kids' schooling but welfare agencies had been involved.

Asked what her son did with his time, the judge enquired, Does he read at all?. No, answered the mother. Television?, the judge asked, to which she shook her head and quietly replied, games.

Judge Halpin said a vocational education for her son should now be considered.

The mother explained her son had not understood when he was previously offered a place in an alternative to mainstream education training course.

However, he now would like to try it, she said.

Judge Halpin fined her 100 which must be paid within six months.
Minister of state for higher education Mary Mitchell O'Connor has thrown her hat into the MEP elections ring, saying she is giving "serious thought" to running in May's European elections.

Fine Gael TD Ms Mitchell O'Connor joined former tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald and senator Catherine Noone in hinting at a potential interest in running in recent weeks with just four months to go before the vote.
A 54-year-old man, who was charged with endangerment of life and impersonating a doctor in connection with a crude circumcision carried out on a 10-month old baby boy, has been further remanded in custody.

The infant needed emergency medical attention and was hospitalised for two weeks.

Father-of-six, Philip Ogbewe, 54, from Nigeria but living in Ireland 20 years and residing at Green Lanes, Drogheda, Co. Louth allegedly used a blade on the infant during a circumcision just over three years ago.

The baby boy needed a blood transfusion and required surgery at Mullingar Midland Regional Hospital, Mullingar and later at Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin.

The accused had initially been charged in November with assault causing harm to the baby boy in a midlands town on a date in December 2015.

He was refused bail last week at Cloverhill District Court when the assault charge was dropped and replaced with two other charges.

The first was for reckless endangerment of life by performing a home circumcision on the baby which led to serious haemorrhaging which created a substantial risk of death of serious harm.

That alleged offence is under Section 13 of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act

The second charge was under the Section 41.b of the Medical Practitioners Act for falsely representing himself as a medical practitioner. The offences, on conviction, can result in sentences of up to five or seven years.

The Director of Public Prosecutions has directed he was face trial on indictment, meaning the case would go before a circuit court judge and jury. A book of evidence has to be completed before he can be returned for trial.

He appeared again at Cloverhll District Court today and was further remanded in custody by Judge Victor Blake to appear again on February 1 next.

He could also be sent forward to the circuit court on signed pleas should that arise, Garda Sergeant Paul Carney told Judge Blake earlier.
Gardai have seized a large quantity of drugs and arrested a man in an operation in Tramore, Co. Waterford today.

In a designed operation, gardai from Tramore Garda Station, assisted by the Regional Armed Support Unit, searched a premises at Riverstown Business Park in the town.
The Garda Representative Association blames systemic failings for the lack of prosecutions in some 8,000 cases involving young people, and says it would be wrong to punish individual gardai for the controversy.

However, a former member of the Policing Authority says it would be hypocritical to complain about a lack of due procedure in prosecuting young people if gardai are not disciplined for their wrongdoing.

The GRA yesterday said it has sought an urgent meeting with the Garda Commissioner regarding the effective operation of the Youth Diversion Programme, following the publication of a garda review of the scheme from 2010 to 2017.

It found that some 8,000 crimes involving 3,500 minors were not properly followed up, and that there were 3,400 victims affect.

Of these cases, the report found 55 serious crimes including a rape, another sexual assault, child neglect, and a threat to kill.

Reacting to the reports publication, the GRA said the failures are evidence of the absence of co-ordinated training, allied to inadequate supervisory management systems and technological resources.

It is one of a number of legacy systemic failings and dysfunctions in the Garda service that urgently need to be addressed through investment, the GRA said.

It defended gardai, saying the bulk of the issues arose during the recession when gardai were starved of resources.

However, it did acknowledge that the failure to prosecute juvenile offenders should not have happened and that the victims required and deserved better from An Garda Siochana.

While a review needs to take place, it would be wrong that individual Gardai are smeared or punished in every case for an absence of resources and over-working, administrative problems, managerial oversight and potentially insufficient evidence or decisions made during investigations, the GRA said.

The focus should now be on rectifying these problems permanently across all dimensions: training, technology, operational processes, oversight, and supervisory management support, the GRA said.

However, Vicky Conway, a former member of the Policing Authority, said she believes there should be disciplinary processes for gardai involved in the failings.

Vicky Conway

She also questioned whether there were only 55 serious cases involved in the controversy, given the previous issues that have arisen over the forces classification of crimes.

If gardai did wrong, they should be disciplined in relation to that, or at least the disciplinary process should begin and it should be considered, Ms Conway said.

I think it'd be really hypocritical to on the one hand say it's wrong of the guards not to ensure that these cases are properly disposed of, but we're not going to deal with them and their wrongdoing, she told Sean ORourke on RTE Radio 1.

Speaking on the same programme, retired Garda Detective Chief Superintendent John OBrien has said that while it is appropriate for the Garda Commissioner to acknowledge the failings that occurred, it should be done with a sense of perspective and proportionality.

There were 158,521 referrals over a seven-year period to an Garda Siochana under the Juvenile Diversion Scheme, and all of those 55 are deemed to be serious, and that includes one allegation of rape and assault and probably other serious offenses. That amounts to 0.35% of all of the diversion activity during that period of time, he said.

Mr OBrien was critical of the Policing Authoritys press conference on the issue on Thursday, and said the two hours and 22 minutes duration had been excruciatingly embarrassing.

He described the conference as a public whipping boy situation, and said retrospectively disciplining gardai is a daft idea.

The fact of the matter is that most of the guards who were in senior positions during that seven-year period are no longer now in the post, he said.
Update: Gardai believe last night's fatal shooting in Dublin was related to a local drugs issues.

Zach Parker and a friend finished up at Gym Plus at around half seven and got into BMW Jeep.

They had just pulled out of the gym car park when a lone gunman approached the vehicle on foot and fired at least five shots.

23-year-old Zach who was driving the jeep was hit in the head and chest and died at the scene.

His friend, who is 25, was also shot but survived. He is in a stable condition but is due to undergo surgery this afternoon.

Supt. Gerry Donnelly said they believe the motive was related to a local drugs issue.

He said: "There is nothing to suggest at this stage that it involves any of the major gangland feuds that are going on in the area."

The gunman is described as tall, athletic and was dressed in black and wearing a rucksack, which they believe he used to conceal the handgun used in the attack.

Officers are unsure how the gunman fled the scene.

Supt. Donnelly said: "He left on foot onto Jugback Lane, but at that point we don't have a direction of travel or if he was assisted by a getaway vehicle."

Gardai are appealing for witnesses or motorists with dash cam footage to come forward.

"My appeal is for witnesses who may have been in the Applewood area between 6:30pm and 8:00pm last night, particularly those around the Gym Plus premises, Applewood Close, Jugback Lane and the Balheary Road area of Swords and to any motorists with dash-cam footage to make it available," said Supt. Donnelly.

"The gunman described as tall, of athletic build and wearing a black hoodie top with a black scarf covering his face, black tracksuit bottoms and black trainers with white soles.

"Its understood he was carrying a grey or light coloured rucksack that may have concealed the firearm. Anyone who can assist with the investigation is asked to contact the Incident Room at Swords Garda Station on 01 6664700 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111."

Earlier: Gardai believe fatal shooting outside gym in Dublin was connected to local drugs feud

Gardai have launched a murder investigation after a 23-year-old man was shot dead outside a gym in Dublin last night.

Zach Parker from Swords died after being shot outside Gym Plus fitness club on Applewood Close in Swords at around 7.30pm.

Another man is in a serious condition in Beaumont Hospital after being shot in the chest and arm.

The Garda search team are walking the perimeter of a gym in Swords where a 23 year old man was murdered last night. pic.twitter.com/QVH3hqqBlc  Kacey O'Riordan (@KaceyORiordan) January 18, 2019

The scene remains sealed off this morning and Gardai are appealing for witnesses.

Gardai believe the victim may have been murdered over a drug debt.

Chief reporter with the Herald Conor Feehan says the killing was the result of a local feud.

He said: "Obviously, the drugs supply chain in Dublin would, and possibly could, link back to elements of that particular feud.

"It would seem that Mr Parker was involved in a drugs supply scene in the Swords area, so Gardai believe it is a local feud and possibly related to a drug debt."

Earlier: Man shot dead outside gym in Dublin named locally

A man shot dead outside a gym in Dublin last night has been named locally as Zach Parker.

The scene of a shooting in Swords remains sealed off this morning.



A man in his 20s died after being shot in the head and chest last night. pic.twitter.com/279wQOGgi7  Kacey O'Riordan (@KaceyORiordan) January 18, 2019

The 23-year-old man, who is a professional barber from Jugback Lane in Swords died after being shot in the head and chest outside Gym Plus fitness club on Applewood Close in Swords at around 7.30pm last night.

Another man is in a serious condition in Beaumont Hospital after being shot in the chest and arm.

Conor Feehan of the Herald said: "It would appear that this is a very targetted killing and Gardai are working on one theory that he was targetted because of his involvement in the local drugs scene.

"He would have been known as a cocaine dealer, he had a conviction for that from last year. Gardai believe that he was a relatively low-level member of that particular scene."

Local Fianna Fail councillor Darragh Butler described the incident as shocking and frightening.

People are shocked, he said.

Its a busy area, with shops, pubs, fast food restaurants and the gym, and especially this time of year with more people going to the gym to keep their new years resolutions.

Photo: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

It happened at a time when a lot of people would have been coming home from work, anyone could have got caught up in it.

As the news is slowly coming through, the thing that is hitting people most is just how young the men involved were.

You hear about shootings on the news, but its a very different thing when it comes to your own doorstep.

Earlier: Gardai investigate double shooting in which one man dies in Dublin

Gardai have launched a murder investigation after a man was shot dead outside a gym in north Co. Dublin last night.

Another man is in a serious condition following the gangland-style attack in Swords.

Officers are studying CCTV footage from the scene of last night's double shooting in an effort to track down those responsible for the attack.

Photo: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

The two men were targetted as they left Gym Plus on Applewood Close in Swords at 7.30pm.

A man in his early 20s was hit a number of times and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The second man in his mid-20s was also shot multiple times.

He was taken by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital for emergency treatment.

Sinn Fein councillor Ann Graves echoed the feeling of shock.

Its certainly nothing you would expect, she said.

People in the area are very upset about what has happened.

Gardai are now appealing for anyone with information on this attack to come forward.
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2019 Lok Sabha election dates to be out in March 1st week: Govt sources

The Election Commission is in the process of deciding the number of phases

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) is most likely to release the 2019 Lok Sabha election schedule in the first week of March, reports citing government sources said on Friday.

The term of the present Lok Sabha ends on June 3. The Election Commission is in the process of deciding the number of phases and the months in which polling would be held, they said.

The sources further said that the multi-phase polling across 543 parliamentary constituencies will continue till May and the 2019 Lok Sabha election results are expected to be declared by mid-May.

There is a possibility that the EC may go by the precedent and hold assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh along with the Lok Sabha polls. Since the Jammu and Kashmir assembly has been dissolved, the EC is bound to hold fresh polls there within six months", PTI reported.

The Election Commission of India had in 2014 announced the election schedule on March 5 and the nine-phase electoral exercise was spread across April and May. While the first phase polling was on April 7, the last phase was on May 12. The 2014 election results were announced on May 16.



In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the then UPA alliance government was dethroned from power by the BJP-led NDA. The BJP had won 282 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats whereas the Congress was reduced to 44 seats in the last general elections.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has sought legal action against people behind circulating the fake schedule of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

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Gardai investigating an attempted robbery from a woman in a Cork town have appealed for witnesses.

The incident occurred in Macroom shortly before 10pm last Saturday, January 12.

The woman was walking along Railway View when a man, described as being 56 to 510 in height and wearing dark clothing, approached her from behind and tried to take her handbag.

The suspect left the scene empty-handed and fled in the direction of St Coleman's Park. The woman was not injured.

Gardai in Macroom are appealing for anyone who may have witnessed the incident or who was around the Bowl Road, Dan Corkery Place or St Coleman's Park areas of the town between 9.30pm and 10.15pm last Saturday to contact Macroom Garda Station on 026-20590, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800-666-111 or any Garda Station.
A 33-year old man with cancer who had sued claiming there was an alleged failure at Cork University Hospital to pick up on a pancreatic tumour during a CT scan fourteen months ago has settled his High Court action.

Ben McGuire claimed his scan taken in November 2017 was reported as normal but three months later he had another CT scan in Lithuania which revealed a tumour.

When the case came before the High Court today Mr Justice Kevin Cross was told the case against the HSE had been settled without admission of liability.

Mr Justice Cross congratulated the side on the settlement of what he called a difficult case.

Ben McGuire, The Loft, Strawhall, Fermoy, Co Cork had sued the HSE.

It was claimed that upon his admission to Cork University Hospital on November 2,2017, he had a CT scan of his kidneys, bladder and pancreas. The scan was reported as normal and Mr McGuire was discharged from hospital.

His abdominal pain persisted and in February 2018, Mr McGuire sought another CT scan in a Lithuanian Hospital. This scan reported a pancreatic tumour.

It was claimed there was an alleged failure to diagnose his pancreatic cancer which he contended was visible in the November 2017 CT scan taken at Cork University Hospital.

There was it is claimed an alleged failure to treat his pancreatic tumour at a stage before it became further enlarged and he alleged he was denied the opportunity of receiving treatment in respect of the pancreatic tumour before it became metastatic.

He had claimed that on return from Lithuania,he attended at the Mercy University Hospital where it is alleged the findings of the clinic in Lithuania were confirmed. Mr McGuire then began a course of chemotherapy treatment which is ongoing..

The HSE denied all the claims and contended it was not negligent, in breach of duty or in breach of statutory duty. It further contended that while a non contrast CT scan was taken, it is not a recognised method for diagnosing pancreatic cancer.

The tumour, it said, was subtle, so dense to the pancreas and difficult to differentiate from the pancreas. Neither did it have ancillary signs associated with a pancreatic tumour, it contended.
Retired Garda Detective Chief Superintendent John OBrien has said that while it was appropriate for Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, to acknowledge the failings that occurred with the failure to prosecute thousands of crimes, it should be done with a sense of perspective and proportionality.

Mr OBrien was commenting after it emerged 7,894 criminal offences committed by 3,489 child suspects were not progressed because of Garda inaction over a seven-year period.

Some 57 of the suspects are now dead, with most dying after they turned 18.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris described the debacle as a failure on the part of his force, adding it was embarrassing and professionally humiliating. He apologised to the child offenders, their victims and the public.

(Left to right) Garda Deputy Commissioner Pat Leahy, Commissioner Drew Harris and Deputy Commissioner John Twomey at the special meeting of the Police Authority at Dublin Castle yesterday.

The Gardai involved should be held accountable, Mr O'Brien told RTEs Today with Sean ORourke show, but it wasnt necessary to find a whipping boy.

He warned that sometimes playing the blame game ends up wrecking what it was trying to change.

This is a Garda report speaking out about Garda failings, added Mr OBrien. But he felt that the message could have been conveyed in 20 minutes. Having a two-hour and 22 minutes press conference had been excruciatingly embarrassing.

It could wreck the very thing it is trying to rehabilitate, he said.

Looking at the figures released on Thursday, Mr OBrien said that 55 serious crimes out of 158,521 represented a percentage of 0.035% of activity. He also said that under EU and UN conventions going to court is the last resort when dealing with juveniles.

On the same programme Vicky Conway, a former member of the Policing Authority, said that the problem was that often the juveniles involved went on to commit more serious offences. Proper intervention could have changed the course of their lives, she said.

She said: "What had happened was not fair on the children, they were left in limbo and were entitled to have their cases heard.

It hasnt gone away.

Criminologist Matt Boden asked what had been the outcome for the children involved. We need to know what happened to them? he asked.

"The report was good for policing, it was important for the public to see what was going on," he added.
A Dublin man whose gun jammed when he tried to shoot his ex-girlfriend has been sentenced to eight years in prison for her attempted murder.

Justice Michael White said Gerard Mooney (aged 39), of no fixed abode, had come "within a hair's breadth" of facing the most serious charge in Irish law and that but for good fortune his victim would not have survived.

Mooney, a father of three who previously lived in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, pleaded guilty last year to the attempted murder of Stephanie Clifton (aged 28) on February 12, 2017 at Cartron, Co Roscommon. He also admitted to the possession of a shotgun, making a threat to kill or cause serious harm to Ms Clifton and criminal damage on the same occasion.

He further pleaded guilty to harassing Ms Clifton by persistently following, watching, pestering, besetting or communicating with her between 7 and 12 February 2017. The court heard that he made more than 250 calls to her phone between those dates.

He also pleaded guilty to committing burglary at the home of Stephen O'Donoghue in Cartron by entering as a trespasser and committing assault causing harm to Stephanie Clifton.

Justice White said the evidence showed that Mooney had been in a "turbulent" relationship with Ms Clifton and could not accept it when they broke up. Psychological problems and abuse of drink and drugs were factors in his offending behaviour, the judge added.

He said there were a number of aggravating factors including that he had been ordered by a court not to contact Ms Clifton when he tried to murder her. Justice White noted that relationships are often "the most dangerous place for victims" and said this was a "startling example" of the reality where love becomes distorted to something very different.

In mitigation, the judge noted that Mooney had mental health problems and issues with alcohol and drug abuse. He shows genuine remorse, the judge said, and while in custody has attended courses in anger management, alternatives to violence, peer mediation, conflict awareness and harm reduction. He has also achieved a certificate of basic literacy.

On the attempted murder charge Justice White imposed a 12-year sentence but suspended the last four. He sentenced him to five years for burglary, eight years for possession of a firearm, three years for criminal damage, five years for threatening to kill and two years for harassment. All sentences will run concurrently and were backdated to February 15, 2017, when he first went into custody.

Justice White further ordered that for 15 years from the date of his release Mooney must not contact Ms Clifton in any way directly or indirectly.

Mr Mooney entered a bond and accepted the terms.

During a sentence hearing last December, Garda Fergal Reynolds of Boyle Garda Station said Ms Clifton, a Birmingham-born woman, had met the accused three or four years ago when they were both living in Co Roscommon. He told Philipp Rahn BL, prosecuting, that they began a turbulent relationship, which had broken down by February 7, 2017. On that evening she was at home in Meadow Crest, Boyle with her young daughter, who was asleep.

The accused arrived around 8.30pm and began banging on her windows and demanding entry. She had moved on with someone else and refused to let him in, but she spoke to him through a window. He would have been at her house for a couple of hours trying to talk to her, explained Gda Reynolds.

He said that he had become quite agitated when he realised that he wasnt getting in. His victim told him that she had to go to attend to food that was cooking and left the window. She then heard glass breaking, looked out and saw the accused standing with a crowbar, having smashed her car windows.

It was almost midnight when she called the gardai. The officers attended and later came across the accused leaving the estate. He took off running, but was found hiding inside a hedge, two feet off the ground. He was released from custody the following morning on strict bail conditions, including that he would not have any contact with the victim and stay out of Boyle. He phoned her and threatened to kill her that very morning.

See you, rat face. Youre dead, he said, while also threatening to burn her house down.

He proceeded to make another 273 calls to her on 11th and 12th February. She went to stay with her cousin, Mr ODonoghue, in Cartron that weekend. She woke up at 7.30am on Sunday 12th to find the accused standing over her. He pulled her out of bed and assaulted her. The accused had brought another man with him, and they left together after the assault. Ms Clifton dialled 999 and gardai were dispatched.

We were en-route to the initial call to the assault when we got a further call to say hed returned to the house and a shot had been discharged, recalled Gda Reynolds.

The door had been unlocked on his first arrival, but Mooney found it locked this time. He fired a shot through the glass part of the door, and gained entry that way.

Wearing blue surgical gloves, he walked to the bedroom with a sawn-off shotgun in his hand. He brought Ms Clifton to the kitchen and pointed the gun at her head. He pulled the trigger a number of times but it didnt fire. So he opened it and tried to unload and load it before pulling the trigger another few times. It still didnt work so he tried the same procedure again.

He just seemed to be getting really pissed off when the gun didnt go off, said Mr ODonoghue in a statement.

The gun was inches away from her face. She was shouting: Ger dont do it. Please dont do it.

Before he left, Mooney shouted that he would kill her if she rang the gardai. He also referred to killing her father and Mr ODonoghue. Gardai were there by the time the accused made his next threats to his victim, this time in a phone call. He was tracked down that evening, hiding in a wardrobe in a friends house in Castlerea. He was arrested and interviewed but denied everything.

Gda Reynolds read out Ms Cliftons victim impact statement, in which she said that her mental health had suffered as a result of the incident with the gun.

I have constant flashbacks of the gun being pointed at my head and him reloading, she wrote.

She said she had since been diagnosed with PTSD, was on medication and had felt suicidal. She had also been left with a fractured rib.

I constantly suffer from anxiety and jump at loud bangs, she continued. I feel weakened as a person but have to stay strong for my daughter.

She said she felt like prisoner in her own home and constantly though he would turn up. She also had to leave work as a result.

I think that someone must have been looking over me that day, as the bullets kept jamming, despite him reloading, she said. She said that her daughter had also been affected and that her worst fear was now "that my Mummy would be killed".
A rapist who had part of his prison term suspended will be released this weekend, despite an allegation that he did not participate adequately in a sex offender treatment programme.

On the night of August 9, 2013 the man, who cannot be named to protect the anonymity of the victim, broke into his ex-partner's home and repeatedly raped her during a five-hour ordeal.

Armed with a hatchet, the Cork man forced his way into her home and threatened to kill her by driving them both into the sea. He also cut her off her hair with a scissors because she wasnt performing sexual acts to his liking.

The 58-year-old had initially denied the attack but later pleaded guilty to rape at the womans Cork home in the early hours of August 9, 2013. He has no previous convictions.

In October 2013, Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan imposed a ten-year sentence but suspended the last three years on condition that the man be of good behaviour for the ten years. He also set a condition that the man engage with the Better Lives sex offender treatment programme while in custody.

With remission, the man is due for release tomorrow and today the DPP made an application at the Central Criminal Court for the suspension to be revoked on the basis that he had not participated fully in the programme.

A revocation by the court would have seen him serving out the remaining three years in custody.

Joseph McCarthy, a senior probation officer at Arbour Hill prison, told the court it was the view of the clinical team dealing with the offender that the conditions attached to the suspension were not met.

He said the man was in significant denial about substantial elements of his offending.

He has profound difficulty acknowledging the sexual harmful behaviour in his offending, the witness told Mr Justice Paul McDermott.

He added that the man initially engaged with the programme until it moved to a second level involving group work. He said the man has not progressed sufficiently with offence disclosure work.

Mr Justice McDermott asked if was part of the State's case that the man posed a public safety threat. Dara Hayes BL, for the DPP, said this was not the case.

Counsel told the court that a report from the psychologist who engaged with the man as part of the treatment programme would take more time to produce. The judge said he needed this report and needed to know the reasons for the limited engagement.

He said he didn't think this was a case of wilful refusal to engage and said he suspected there was an inability to engage with the next level of the treatment. He noted that had been a degree of participation by the man and he had cleared the first hurdle in the programme but that a problem arose at the next stage.

Blaise O'Carroll SC, defending, told the court the man had somewhere to go in Cork and would stay with his brother.

Justice McDermott said he would let the sentence stand and rule on the alleged breach at a future hearing. He adjourned it to March to allow time for the psychologist's report.
The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Michael Ring TD, has announced that he has approved funding in excess of 1 million to continue the Community Services Programme (CSP) Support Fund.

The CSP supports community-based organisations to provide local social, economic and environmental services through a social enterprise model, providing a contribution towards the cost of staff in CSP supported organisations. It typically supports organisations to meet local service gaps and provide access to services and facilities that would otherwise generally be unavailable.
An underlying, "low-grade hostility to the Irish voice in the UK had emerged as a result of Brexit and relation between the two countries will never be the same again, an economic conference has been told.

Brigid Laffan, professor and director at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, said in some sections of the UK media and in some circles, either Ireland was a stooge of the EU, or Ireland was running the EU.

Neither is true, Ms Laffan said.

Ireland was simply doing what it should be doing as an independent country in the context of something over which it had no control, she said.

There was a troubled past between the two islands. However, membership of the EU had facilitated closer cooperation between England and Ireland, which culminated in the Queens visit in 2011 - a visit which was the normalisation of the relationship between the two. For the first time in the history of this State, a British monarch could safely visit here, she said.

But Brexit had changed that.

Brexit is extremely damaging to British-Irish relations, Professor Laffan said.

There is low-grade hostility in The Sun and other papers and low-grade constant harassment if you tweet, I can tell you, she said.

Relations were not as bad as during the Troubles, but they would never return to the highs of the Queens visit, she predicted. Unlike Ireland, England would now be a non-EU State.

It will be in some ways the final breaking of that umbilical cord, Ms Laffan said of the impact.

However, sharing the platform at the Killarney Economic Conference, Henry Newman, director of Open Europe and a former advisor to British minister Michael Gove, warned Ms Laffan that low-grade hostility could work both ways.

He said diplomatic and security relations between the two countries is stlll good at official level, but the UK's relationship with the EU has been a problem festering for decades.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin gave the keynote address of the conference's second day and described Brexit as the defining issue of our age. He felt the decay of British politics had been a tragedy and urged Ireland to reposition itself not only in terms of its relations with the UK, but also to take a more active role in Europe.

The European Union was under many threats and French President Macron was right in calling for a larger budget, Mr Martin told the conference.

It was unfortunate Ireland did not speak up more in support, he said.

The EU needs a larger budget if it is to achieve the objectives which we set for it. It cannot create an innovation-driven Union or deliver regional cohesion, or help countries caught in economic crises if its budget is capped at the equivalent of 1 per cent of combined national incomes, Mr Martin said.

Going forward, this country had to face up how much the EU had changed, he said.

In recent years Ireland has too often been a bystander. We have failed to understand fully how much has changed in the Union and how our old strategies are out of date.  We dont just need to join new groupings, we need a new agenda, he said.

New relations would also have to be constructed with our nearest neighbour also, post Brexit, Mr Martin said, calling for a formal structure for meetings to discuss not just trade but health, pensions, education, qualifications and much more.

Something like the Nordic Council of Ministers needs to be discussed, he said.
Hyatt Regency Dubai & Galleria, an iconic five-star hotel situated in the heritage heart of the city, has welcomed David Harb as the new general manager of the hotel.



Harb joins Hyatt Regency Dubai & Galleria from Grand Hyatt Dubai, where he recently held the position of hotel manager.



In his new role, Harb will manage a complex of 421 hotel rooms and 388 residences.



I am delighted to return to Hyatt Regency Dubai & Galleria, an iconic hotel surrounded by history yet in the middle of a developing Deira Waterfront. Together with the team, I look forward to bring energising experiences to our guests, Harb said.



Harb has held several notable positions within Hyatt. As a graduate in Hospitality Management, he started his career with Hyatt Regency New Orleans in Louisiana as assistant manager of food and beverage (F&B) in 2002. He later held several roles across Hyatt Hotels in Georgia, Florida, Illinois and Washington, US, before moving to Hyatt Regency Dubai as director of F&B in 2012. In May 2016, Harb was selected as the executive assistant manager at Grand Hyatt Dubai, where he continued to display his passion for people and maintained his dedicated promotion of the Hyatt Brand and its purpose. Later, he was promoted as the hotel manager for Grand Hyatt Dubai. - TradeArabia News Service


Update: 1,500 new jobs are being created at customer management company Salesforce.

The new roles will be in Dublin and will expand the company's Irish workforce to almost 3,000 over the next five years.

Salesforce also announced it will create a 430,000 square foot campus in Dublin's Silicon Docks that will include riverside paths and an open space for charities to use at weekends.

The Salesforce Tower will comprise of four interconnected buildings on North Wall Quay.

Martin Shanahan, CEO IDA Ireland, said: This is one of the largest single jobs announcements in the 70-year history of IDA Ireland. As discussed during our visit to the companys headquarters in San Francisco last week, Salesforce is very familiar with what Ireland has to offer and this announcement is a strong indicator of the strength of the Irish proposition to investors across the world.

"Since its arrival to Ireland in 2001 Salesforce has significantly developed its operations in South County Dublin to support its international growth. Today's announcement of a 'Salesforce Tower' in Dublin city centre further deepens its commitment to Ireland and the new urban campus will provide the company with the potential to expand its operations even further as it continues to service millions of users across EMEA.

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has welcomed the creation of the new jobs and a 1m donation the company has made to Educate Together in line with the announcement.

Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys, said: This is a hugely significant announcement and a strong vote of confidence in Ireland and what we have to offer. Ireland is now well-established as a vibrant technology hub, and the opening of the Salesforce Tower campus in Dublin city is a very welcome addition to that landscape.

Earlier: Salesforce to announce 1,500 new jobs for Dublin

More than 1,500 new jobs in Dublin are expected to be announced by a US software company today.

Salesforce is planning to set up a new urban campus at North Wall Quay.

The San Francisco-based group already employs more than 1,000 people in Ireland.

Davy's Aidan Donnelly said they are trying to compete with other major tech companies here.

Mr Donnelly said: "They're going to announce plans to build a new Salesforce tower and it will house thousands of new positions which are going to be highly paid.

"The move follows announcements by the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon and others which will see a huge amount of the tech giants dominating the city landscape and the workforce over the coming years."
Ryanair expects its profits for the year to come in 10% lower than expected.

The initial target was between 1.1bn and 1.2bn, but that has now been lowered to between 1bn and 1.1bn.

The company said it is a result of very competitive conditions in the European aviation market which has caused it to lower its average fares by 7%.

Ryanairs Michael OLeary said: While we are disappointed at this slightly lower full-year guidance, the fact that it is the direct result of lower than expected H2 airfares, offset by stronger than expected traffic growth, a better than expected performance on unit cost and ancillary sales is positive for the medium term.

"Both Ryanair and Lauda will report stronger than expected traffic growth, an improving ancillary revenue performance, and strong unit cost discipline this winter, which helps to defray the impact of these lower than expected winter fares. The fact that we are passing on these benefits, in the form of lower airfares, to customers is good for Ryanairs traffic growth, good for our business over the medium and long term, and good for market share as evidenced by Norwegians recent announcement of its plans to close bases in Rome, Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Palma, where they competed head-to-head with Ryanair.

"While we have reasonable visibility over forward Q4 bookings, we cannot rule out further cuts to airfares and/or slightly lower full-year guidance if there are unexpected Brexit or security developments which adversely impact yields between now and the end of March. As we are in a closed period, we will update shareholders in detail on these developments following our Q3 results release on Mon 4th Feb.
The construction industry is predicted to grow by 20% this year.

A report from engineering multi-national AECOM says output should reach 24bn in 2019.

Three-quarters of industry leaders surveyed by the firm said they were positive about the future of the industry here.

However, only 15% said they were equipped to deal with a growing skills shortage.

Housing output is due to increase again this year.

But Director of AECOM in Ireland John O'Regan said it is still lagging behind demand.

Mr O'Regan said: "Strongest growth has been in Dublin and it has been in the commercial, office sector. Now, the residential output did increase significantly last year and we see it increasing in the year ahead.

"I think the challenge is that it is coming from a very low base and with the increase in output in 2019, it's not going to make a significant dent in the shortfall."
WASHINGTON - The drumbeat of impeachment grew a little louder in Washington on Friday following an explosive media report that alleges the president of the United States directed his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the timing of discussions to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

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This article was published 18/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2018 file photo, Michael Cohen, former lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves his apartment building in New York. A report by BuzzFeed News, citing two unnamed law enforcement officials, says that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress and that Cohen regularly briefed Trump on the project. The Associated Press has not independently confirmed the report. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

WASHINGTON - The drumbeat of impeachment grew a little louder in Washington on Friday following an explosive media report that alleges the president of the United States directed his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the timing of discussions to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

The BuzzFeed News story  unconfirmed and based on anonymous law-enforcement sources claiming knowledge of what Cohen has told special counsel Robert Mueller, whose office is disputing the report  landed like a thunderclap among Democrats.

"These allegations may prove unfounded, but if true, they would constitute both the subordination of perjury as well as obstruction of justice," Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

"As a counterintelligence concern of the greatest magnitude, and given that these alleged efforts were intended to interfere with our investigation, our committee is determined to get to the bottom of this and follow the evidence wherever it may lead."

Later Friday, the special counsel's office issued a rare statement denying elements of the story, saying BuzzFeed's "description of specific statements to the special counsel's office and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's congressional testimony, are not accurate."

Editor-in-chief Ben Smith told CNN that BuzzFeed News stands by its story, and he urged Mueller's office to provide more specifics about what precisely they are disputing.

Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy, perhaps nervous about attorney-general nominee William Barr's committee testimony earlier this week that hinted the full contents of Mueller's long-awaited report might not be made public, suggested the story makes matters more urgent than ever.

"If Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP," he tweeted. "Mueller shouldn't end his inquiry, but it's about time for him to show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act."

The reaction from Texas Democrat and House intelligence committee member Joaquin Castro was decidedly more concise: "If the BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached."

Cohen, of course, has a credibility problem. He has already pleaded guilty to the deception in question: telling the Senate and House intelligence committees the Trump Tower Moscow talks had ended in January 2016 when in fact they continued until June. He was also convicted of tax fraud and campaign-finance charges linked to payments made on Trump's behalf to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

"Michael Cohen is a convicted criminal and a liar," Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said Friday in a statement that dismissed the BuzzFeed allegations as "categorically false."

"Today's claims are just more made-up lies borne of Michael Cohen's malice and desperation, in an effort to reduce his sentence."

Cohen, who has agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee next month, has already been sentenced to three years in prison  a fact that didn't seem to deter Giuliani or his most famous client from their leniency theory.

"Lying to reduce his jail time!" Trump fumed on Twitter, later retweeting expressions of support that seized on the statement from the special counsel to denounce the BuzzFeed story as fake news.

Impeachment, of course, is a double-edged sword  one many more moderate and politically savvy Democrats are wary of wielding.

It backfired most famously in 1998, when the Republican majority in Congress, egged on by ambitious then-speaker Newt Gingrich, pushed to impeach Bill Clinton over perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges linked to the allegations of sexual misconduct that plagued his presidency.

Gingrich, who was convinced impeachment proceedings would give the Republicans 30 or 40 more House seats in that year's midterm elections, was instead forced to eventually hand over the gavel after the GOP majority shrank by five seats.

The House of Representatives could pass articles of impeachment but it would take a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove Trump from the presidency. Since Republicans still control the Senate, any articles of impeachment would be unlikely to pass without a measure of GOP support, said Paul Beck, a politics professor at Ohio State University in Columbus.

"How much these possible revelations will move Republicans towards impeachment, and ultimately conviction, is the question," Beck said.

"If the impeachment is solely a Democratic action, conviction will assuredly not follow in the Republican-controlled Senate. So Republicans are the ones to watch  and public opinion polls that might influence their positions."

A number of recent polls suggest Trump's approval ratings are on the decline, but that has more to do with his protracted fight with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the federal government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history with no signs of a resolution any time soon.

"Democrats are willing to let Trump look like an idiot on this and inflict more self-induced harm," said Melissa Haussman, a professor and specialist in U.S. politics at Ottawa's Carleton University.

"On the other hand, the Democrats have to appear to try to deal with this shutdown too, or else everybody will be wearing it in 2020. I think were getting close to a point of no return where it doesn't help anybody."

Follow James McCarten on Twitter @CdnPressStyle
HALIFAX - Federal officials are looking into how a Saudi man may have fled Canada while facing sexual assault charges, as legal experts suspect the Middle Eastern kingdom's embassy played a key role.

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This article was published 18/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland listens to questions during a cabinet meeting in Sherbrooke, Que. on Thursday, January 17, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

HALIFAX - Federal officials are looking into how a Saudi man may have fled Canada while facing sexual assault charges, as legal experts suspect the Middle Eastern kingdom's embassy played a key role.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters in Sherbrooke, Que., on Thursday evening that it's cause for concern when anyone skips bail while facing serious criminal charges, and said, "in that particular case we are looking into it."

Lee Cohen, a veteran Halifax immigration lawyer, has said the likeliest scenario is that the Saudi embassy provided Mohammed Zuraibi Alzoabi with travel documents to leave, as his passport was being held while the 28-year-old awaited trial in Sydney, N.S.

Alzoabi's whereabouts remain a mystery, but a court document says a sheriff unsuccessfully tried to locate Alzoabi on Dec. 8, and quotes his lawyer at the time as saying the young man had "fled the country some time ago."

Crown prosecutors say Alzoabi had $37,500 of his bail posted by the Saudi Arabian embassy last year in relation to the alleged sexual assault, assault and forcible confinement of a woman between Aug. 1, 2015, and March 26, 2017.

Alzoabi is also facing separate charges of dangerous driving and assault with a car in a December 2015 incident involving a Cape Breton man.

Chris Hansen, a spokeswoman for the Crown prosecution office, also says that Alzoabi was facing 36 different fines for various motor vehicle violations.

The bail put up by the embassy was forfeited when Alzoabi failed to appear last week in court.

Alzoabi had been in Nova Scotia attending Cape Breton University as a student in its business program, and graduated last year.

Robert Currie, a professor at the Schulich school of law at Dalhousie University, says the case is similar to an incident just over a decade ago where another Saudi student managed to return to his country as he faced sexual assault charges in Halifax, even though his passport had been seized.

He said if Saudi Arabia is assisting students who are facing trial in Canada to escape justice then it is a "flagrant violation of international law," and Ottawa should demand explanations and formally protest.

The Saudi embassy has refused to provide any comment to media outlets since the story first became public last week.

The Cape Breton Regional Police said Friday they have no further information on Alzoabi's location.

Spokeswoman Desiree Vassallo said, "we are working with federal policing partners on the process of having him added to the Interpol list."

Interpol is a policing organization that includes 192 countries and is focused on finding missing or wanted people.

Currie said it's a basic aspect of international law that nations don't attempt to directly remove their citizens from countries after they allegedly broke criminal laws.

"It's a fairly profound breach of state sovereignity for a foreign country to interfere with the judicial system," Currie said.

He said it's very difficult to obtain false travel documents, and the law teacher said he agrees with Cohen that the likeliest scenario is that the Saudi embassy provided travel documents. Airlines face heavy fines if they allow passengers to board for international flights without passports or embassy-issued travel documents.

In January 2007, a Saudi national charged with sexually assaulting two youths slipped out of Canada and returned to his home country, raising questions about how he left without his passport.

The Canadian Press reported at the time that Taher Ali Al-Saba, 19, was due to appear in Nova Scotia Supreme Court that month but failed to show up after being reported missing in August.

Police contacted the Saudi Embassy in Ottawa and were informed Al-Saba had returned to the Middle Eastern country, possibly in August.

He had been facing two counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual interference involving a person under the age of 14. The complainants, a boy and a girl, were from the same family.

Al-Saba, who was in Halifax to learn English, was arrested and charged on June 23, 2006, around the time the alleged assaults took place.

He was released on $10,000 bail, but was forbidden from leaving Nova Scotia and  like Alzoabi  had to hand over his passport to police.

As with Alzoabi, Saudi embassy officials in Ottawa refused to comment.

The latest incident comes amidst continuing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Canada.

A Saudi teen has been granted asylum in Canada after fleeing from her allegedly abusive family. Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun said last week the Saudi embassy in Thailand had tried to force her return to the kingdom.

In August, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman expelled Canadas ambassador and withdrew his own envoy after the Canadian foreign minister called for the release of womens rights activists who had been arrested in the country.

The Saudis also sold Canadian investments and recalled their students from universities in Canada.

 With files from Joan Bryden in Sherbrooke, Que.
NAIROBI, Kenya - A Canadian national and four other people suspected of helping extremist gunmen stage a deadly attack in the Kenyan capital this week appeared in court on Friday as prosecutors investigated them for suspected terror offences.

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This article was published 18/1/2019 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

From left to right, suspects Osman Ibrahim, Canadian Guleid Abdihakim, Gladys Kaari Justus, Oliver Kanyango Muthee and Joel Nganga Wainaina appear at a hearing at Milimani law courts in Nairobi, Kenya Friday, Jan. 18, 2019. Police who are investigating this week's extremist attack on a Nairobi hotel complex asked the court that the suspects who are accused of involvement in the attack be held for 30 days in order for the police to complete their investigations, which the court granted. (AP Photo)

NAIROBI, Kenya - A Canadian national and four other people suspected of helping extremist gunmen stage a deadly attack in the Kenyan capital this week appeared in court on Friday as prosecutors investigated them for suspected terror offences.

A judge ordered the five suspects held for 30 days while authorities look into the assault on the dusitD2 hotel complex. The al-Shabab group, which is linked to al-Qaida and based in neighbouring Somalia, claimed responsibility. Kenyan authorities say 21 people, including one police officer, were killed by the attackers, one of whom blew himself up beside a restaurant. Another four gunmen died.

Prosecutors suspect the alleged accomplices, including two taxi drivers and an agent for a mobile-phone-based money service, of aiding the attackers who stormed the Nairobi complex on Tuesday afternoon and were killed by Wednesday morning, according to a court document. Prosecutors said they were pursuing more suspects in and outside Kenya.

The suspects who appeared in court were identified as Guleid Abdihakim, Joel Nganga Wainaina, Oliver Kanyango Muthee, Gladys Kaari Justus and Osman Ibrahim. Abdihakim is Canadian, according to prosecutors.

"The investigations into this matter are complex and transnational and would therefore require sufficient time and resources to uncover the entire criminal syndicate," said Noordin Haji, director of public prosecutions. He said he has appointed a team of prosecutors to help ensure that the investigations are "meticulous and fast-tracked."

Canada has condemned the attack in Nairobi earlier this week.

A spokesman for Global Affairs Canada says Canadian officials are aware of reports that a Canadian citizen was arrested in Kenya and that consular officials are in contact with Kenyan authorities to gather additional information.

"Consular services are being provided to the family of the individual," said Global Affairs spokesman Philip Hannan, adding privacy laws prevent the disclosure of any further information.

Police earlier identified a Kenyan military officer as the father of another suspect in the assault. The son, Ali Salim Gichunge, as well as Violet Kemunto Omwoyo, were named as attackers in court documents.

"The attackers were in constant communications with several phone numbers which are located in Somalia," prosecutors said.

Gichunge's father, who is not believed to have been involved in the attack, was summoned for questioning about when he last saw his son and other details, a senior police official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The official said a total of 11 people were detained as part of the investigation.

The attack was denounced on Friday in Eastleigh, a Nairobi neighbourhood that is home to many ethnic Somalis and has been targeted in massive police operations against suspected extremist cells. Shop owners temporarily closed businesses to protest extremism, and crowds gathered.

Al-Shabab also carried out the 2013 attack at Nairobi's nearby Westgate Mall that claimed 67 lives, and an assault on Kenya's Garissa University in 2015 that killed 147 people, mostly students. While U.S. airstrikes and a multinational African Union force in Somalia have reduced the Islamic extremists' ability to operate, al-Shabab is still capable of carrying out spectacular acts of violence in retaliation for the Kenyan military's presence in Somalia.

The attackers who stormed the hotel complex opened fire and set off grenades, sending panicked people running for cover as security forces converged. Security camera footage released later showed a suicide bomber blowing himself up in a grassy area.

A hotel employee, seen in the footage walking past the bomber just before the explosion, described in an interview with Kenya's K24 television how he heard the man talking on a mobile phone.

"Where are you guys?" the agitated bomber said at least a couple of times, according to Abdullahi Ogelo, the employee. Ogelo, who later concluded the bomber had been talking to his accomplices, said the man was also moving his hand over his chest.

Seconds later, the bomber detonated in a flash and billowing smoke.

In the television interview, Ogelo said God saved him and gave him a "second chance."

With files from The Canadian Press
HALIFAX - A Halifax man who won over US$671,000 at an international poker tournament in the Bahamas doesn't plan on keeping a single cent of his unlikely winnings.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/1/2019 (880 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Scott Wellenbach is seen at a poker table in this undated handout photo. A Halifax man who won over US$671,000 at an international poker tournament in the Bahamas doesn't plan on keeping a single cent of his unlikely winnings. Scott Wellenbach, a 67-year-old Buddhist translator, says he's comfortable enough in his own life that he can donate it all to charity. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Carlos Monti, Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd. *MANDATORY CREDIT*

HALIFAX - A Halifax man who won over US$671,000 at an international poker tournament in the Bahamas doesn't plan on keeping a single cent of his unlikely winnings.

Scott Wellenbach, a 67-year-old Buddhist translator, says he's comfortable enough in his own life that he can donate it all to charity.

"First of all I can. I have a good job, it takes care of my living needs," he said. "That gives me a comfortable cushion that allows me to donate my poker winnings. It's actually quite easy, I really don't need the money."

Wellenbach, who considers himself an amateur player despite playing for decades, finished third in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event, which attracted top tier professionals and was televised around the world on Wednesday.

In a telephone interview Friday, he was asked whether he was surprised by how things turned out.

"Well sure, I mean 850 people and I ended up third  I mean wow," he said.

Wellenbach said most of the players at the table had a team of people supporting them through the live television feed. With a half-hour delay in the feed, they were able to report back on the hands and how everybody was playing, he said.

He eventually received help in devising strategy from top player Igor Kurganov, which made an immense difference, he said.

"Before that all I had was my friends back in Nova Scotia, who would email me constantly on what other people were playing against me and how they were perceiving me. I felt like it was a whole team approach and I felt like I was playing for the province of Nova Scotia really."

Wellenbach believes his age also gave him an advantage, because younger players perceive older players as conservative. He said he learned to play more aggressively from his younger poker friends in Halifax.

"I don't play in a stereotypical fashion for my age. I think a lot of the success I had in the tournament was the other guys or women would have a hard time figuring out how I was playing, what I was doing."

Wellenbach said he has no idea how much he's won playing poker over the years, but estimates it is now more than $1-million. He enters the big tournaments through playing for packaged tour events, such as the one in the Bahamas, online.

In 2017, he won $92,000 at an event in Barcelona  money that went to a Buddhist nunnery in Nepal.

He said he has supported various organizations in the past ranging from Oxfam to Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International, but says the majority of his philanthropy has gone toward "Buddhist endeavours."

Wellenbach said his particular focus now is charities that support the education and well-being of young girls and women.

"Women I think tend to be more caring than us men by-and-large, and so if through providing means for women to become better educated  if that allows women to assume positions of significance in this world, I think we all would be better off," he said.

Wellenbach said he hasn't decided where his latest windfall will go, adding that "my inbox is full of proposals."

At this point, he's not sure on exactly when he'll get his money.

"It will be February at the earliest and maybe even later before I really make a decision. And maybe it won't go to just one place this time, because frankly this is a significantly greater amount of money than I've ever been able to win in the past."

A native of Philadelphia, Pa., Wellenbach has been fascinated by poker since the age of eight.

He said his family would spend summers on the New Jersey shore and he got his first exposure to the card game when he was allowed to watch the young lifeguards, who would play in their storage hut on rainy days when the beach was closed.

A good student, the interest followed him through school and through his conversion to Buddhism and his work translating Buddhist teachings from Sanskrit and Tibetan. It's work he's been doing since moving to Halifax in 1986.

Wellenbach said he will likely be entering online contests again for another chance at poker riches.

"I'm addicted to this," he said. "It was an amazing outcome, no question."
TORONTO - Expat Canadians with ties to one of three ridings now in the throes of byelections may be eligible to vote no matter how long they've been abroad given last week's Supreme Court of Canada ruling.

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TORONTO - Expat Canadians with ties to one of three ridings now in the throes of byelections may be eligible to vote no matter how long they've been abroad given last week's Supreme Court of Canada ruling.

While the government got ahead of the high court ruling with new legislation passed last month, most provisions of Bill C-76 were only slated to take effect after six months  in good time for October's general election. However, the Supreme Court decision on Jan. 11 took immediate effect.

Elections Canada wasted little time advertising the change after the high court struck down a 1993 law disenfranchising Canadians abroad for more than five years as unconstitutional.

"A Canadian elector living abroad who has previously resided in Canada is entitled to vote by special ballot in federal elections regardless of how long they have been living abroad," Elections Canada said. "Elections Canada is currently updating its online forms and information to reflect the ruling, which came into effect immediately and is therefore applicable in the current three byelections."

On Feb. 25, voters living in Ontario's YorkSimcoe, Burnaby South in British Columbia and Outremont in Quebec get to choose a new member of Parliament. All interested Canadians abroad over the age of 18 with certain ties to one of the ridings are now also eligible to vote by way of a "special ballot."

To receive a ballot, expats are required to register with Elections Canada in Ottawa by 6 p.m. ET on Feb. 19. Among other things, they must show either that they were living in one of the ridings before leaving Canada or that a spouse or relative does.

Jamie Duong, one of two Canadians who launched their challenge of the old law eight years ago, said on Friday that he was pleased Elections Canada had updated its registration forms less than a week after the Supreme Court decision.

"I'm thrilled that I'll be able to cast my ballot in the upcoming Outremont byelection," Duong, 35, of Ithaca, N.Y., said on Friday. "Now that I've won back my voting rights, I fully intend to exercise them."

While the Supreme Court decision enfranchised an estimated one million or more Canadian expats, only a relative handful have so far asked to vote in the byelections. Latest Elections Canada figures indicate fewer than 100 Canadians abroad have registered to vote, with about two-thirds of those doing so in Outremont.

When Bill C-76 is in full force, non-resident voters will only be able to vote in the riding in which they themselves last lived before leaving Canada.

"Once registered at an address in an electoral district, the elector cannot change the address as long as they remain registered on the international register of electors," said Ghislain Desjardins, a senior adviser with Elections Canada.

In a separate opinion, Supreme Court Justice Malcolm Rowe agreed the five-year limit was unconstitutional even if its impact might have been minimal in terms of actual election results.

"There is almost no evidence of the impact that long-term non-residents would or could have had either locally or nationally if permitted to vote," Rowe said. "The evidence that exists suggests that the impact would likely be negligible, since a very small number of Canadians living abroad who are currently eligible to vote choose to exercise that right."
HALIFAX - A young woman hurriedly left a courtroom Friday after a judge questioned her credibility and acquitted a British sailor accused in an alleged gang rape at a Halifax-area military base.

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Darren Smalley, left, a British sailor charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm, heads from Supreme Court in Halifax on Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2018. The high-profile case of a British sailor accused in a gang rape at a Halifax-area military base has been adjourned until Friday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

HALIFAX - A young woman hurriedly left a courtroom Friday after a judge questioned her credibility and acquitted a British sailor accused in an alleged gang rape at a Halifax-area military base.

Darren Smalley was charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm and participating in a sexual assault involving one or more people in barracks at 12 Wing Shearwater on April 10, 2015.

But Justice Patrick Duncan said he did not believe portions of the complainant's testimony and concluded the charges had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

"It is my impression that the complainant was selective in how she presented her evidence of her conduct throughout the evening," Duncan said in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

"She maximized that evidence which supported her narrative and minimized any events that might be inconsistent with her narrative."

Smalley, who is in his late-30s, showed no emotion after the verdict, while the young woman, who is in her mid-20s, wore a stern stare as she left with a group of supporters.

Outside of the courtroom, Smalley told reporters he was relieved.

"It's been four years of my life," said Smalley, wearing a grey suit and speaking quickly. "It's took a toll on me mentally and physically."

Ian Hutchison, Smalley's lawyer, said his client will now return to the United Kingdom and will be "moving on with his life."

"It's a very difficult day for him, it's a very emotional day. It's a difficult day for all the parties before the court this morning," said Hutchison.

The woman and a friend had met the men, members of a Royal Navy hockey team in Halifax for a tournament, through Tinder.

The complainant testified at Smalley's trial last fall that she fell unconscious while lying in bed next to a sailor, and later awoke face down and naked as at least three men sexually assaulted her.

Duncan said the complainant's testimony was inconsistent with the accounts of other witnesses who were inside the barracks that evening.

He said he did not accept her testimony that she lost consciousness, noting that she had not consumed enough alcohol or other substances to be impaired, nor was there any medical evidence to explain why she lost consciousness.

Duncan said her friend testified that when she came into the room after the alleged assault, the complainant expressed concerned that compromising photos were taken of her. He said that evidence indicated the complainant was fully alert at that time, and contradicted her testimony.

"It's impossible to know where the truth begins and ends in this matter," said Duncan, adding that he found the complainant's friend to be a more credible witness.

"Obviously something of a sexual nature occurred in that room. Maybe it was a criminal offence, maybe it was not. But without credible evidence, it is unsafe to convict."

Duncan said the complainant is intelligent and well-spoken, but characterized her testimony as "controlled."

"The degree to which she prepared herself as a complainant from the outset has undoubtedly influenced the manner in which she presented her evidence," he said.

"If demeanour was the only gauge of truthfulness of her testimony, than she would be viewed as highly credible, however demeanour is a notoriously poor gauge of truthfulness or reliability."

Prosecutor Eric Taylor said the Crown disagrees with Duncan that the complainant's testimony was not credible. He acknowledged the woman's loss of consciousness and the difficulty explaining it was a challenge for the prosecution.

"The credibility was the central factor in this case," said Taylor outside of court. "We felt the inconsistencies were minor and that the complainant's credibility was clear throughout, but the court found differently."

Smalley did not testify at the judge-only trial.

Four men had originally been charged, but charges were dropped against two of them before trial, while another man's case was stayed after he became ill.

Taylor said the Crown will make a decision on whether to reinstitute the charges against one accused, Simon Radford, before the expiry of the stay of proceedings this October, and Smalley's acquittal may impact that decision.

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Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version stated the complainant testified she went to sleep next to a sailor, when in fact she testified she fell unconscious.
A delegation from the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation (Gaca) recently met with aviation officials in India to discuss ways to improve support for airliners in both countries.



The delegation, headed by Abdulhakim Al Tamimi, president of Gaca, met with civil aviation and commerce minister in India, Suresh Prabhu, at the Global Aviation Summit 2019 held in Mumbai, India, from January 15-16.



Gacas aim through its participation in this global forum is to strengthen relations between the authority in the kingdom and the aviation authority in India in addition to highlighting its various projects in the field of civil aviation and air transport.



The Global Aviation Summit 2019 attracted the participation of individuals with expertise and experience in the field of civil aviation at an international level. The summit highlighted the most important experiences and success stories amongst the participants. The ministers also discussed ways to ensure safety and security standards through a rapid and comprehensive environmental system. - TradeArabia News Service


SHERBROOKE, Que. - Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau will meet Friday with the family of Edith Blais, who went missing in Burkina Faso and hasn't been heard from since Dec. 15.

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Luca Tacchetto and Edith Blais are seen in this undated handout photo from the Facebook page "Edith Blais et Luca Tacchetto : disparition au Burkina Faso." Ministers Chrystia Freeland and Marie-Claude Bibeau will meet the family of Edith Blais on Friday, to try to reassure her, the day after the death of a Canadian in Burkina Faso. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Facebook

SHERBROOKE, Que. - Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau will meet Friday with the family of Edith Blais, who went missing in Burkina Faso and hasn't been heard from since Dec. 15.

The 34-year-old Blais and her Italian friend Luca Tacchetto were travelling by car in southwestern Burkina Faso and were supposed to cross the border into Togo to do volunteer work with an aid group. A statement Wednesday by Burkina Faso Security Minister Clement Sawadogo referred to their disappearance as a kidnapping.

Blais' mother and sister live in Sherbrooke, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers have been holding a cabinet retreat.

"We understand that they are going through a very, very difficult situation," Bibeau said. "We want to reassure them that the Canadian government is doing everything that can be done to find Edith and Luca as quickly as possible."

The ministers will meet with the Blais family the day after news broke that another Canadian, Kirk Woodman, had been found dead in Burkina Faso. He had been shot multiple times after he was kidnapped by militants. Woodman, originally from Halifax, worked for a Vancouver-based mining company.

Blais and Tacchetto set off in his car on Nov. 20 from the northern Italian town of Vigonza, outside Padua. They made their way to France, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania and Mali before arriving in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso's southwest.
SHERBROOKE, Que. - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday all indications are that a Canadian woman who has been missing in Burkina Faso for more than a month is still alive.

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Luca Tacchetto and Edith Blais are seen in this undated handout photo from the Facebook page "Edith Blais et Luca Tacchetto : disparition au Burkina Faso." THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Facebook

SHERBROOKE, Que. - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday all indications are that a Canadian woman who has been missing in Burkina Faso for more than a month is still alive.

Fears for the well-being of 34-year-old Edith Blais of Quebec mounted this week with the killing of a Canadian mining executive in the West African country.

"As far as we know, she is," Trudeau said when asked by a reporter whether Blais was still alive. He said Blais' story has people across the country preoccupied. "Our hearts go out to the family of Edith Blais and the entire community," he said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau met earlier in the day with Blais' mother and sister, who live in Sherbrooke, Que., where the Liberal cabinet held a retreat this week.

Trudeau said the ministers reassured the family that the federal government is engaged diplomatically and is seeking to learn more about her fate. "The government of Canada takes extremely seriously our responsibility to keep Canadians safe wherever they are," he said.

Bibeau, visibly shaken after the meeting with Blais' family, said it had been a conversation "between mothers. We talked a lot about Edith. Those are two extraordinary women who are very strong, and I believe they are reassured that our government is doing what has to be done in such circumstances."

Blais' mother and sister declined to speak to media before or after meeting the ministers.

Blais and her Italian friend Luca Tacchetto have not been heard from since Dec. 15. They were travelling by car in southwestern Burkina Faso en route to Togo, where they planned to do volunteer work with an aid group.

A statement Wednesday by Burkina Faso Security Minister Clement Sawadogo referred to the disappearance of Blais and Tacchetto as a kidnapping. The Canadian government has not confirmed the information, and Bibeau said only that it is not ruling out any possibilities.

The meeting came the day after another Canadian, Kirk Woodman, was found dead in northern Burkina Faso, close to the border with Mali and Niger. An executive with a Vancouver-based mining company, Woodman had been kidnapped a day earlier by gunmen as he worked on a gold mining project.

Blais and Tacchetto set off in his car on Nov. 20 from the northern Italian town of Vigonza, outside Padua. They travelled through France, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania and Mali before arriving in Burkina Faso. They were last seen in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso in the country's southwest.
SHERBROOKE, Que. - Justin Trudeau acknowledged Friday that Canadians are anxious about the upheavals occurring around the globe  with Canada recently seeming to have become the world's favourite punching bag.

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Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale arrives for a cabinet meeting in Sherbrooke, Que. on Friday, January 18, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

SHERBROOKE, Que. - Justin Trudeau acknowledged Friday that Canadians are anxious about the upheavals occurring around the globe  with Canada recently seeming to have become the world's favourite punching bag.

The prime minister insisted the best way to allay those fears is to stick to his government's plan for improving the lot of middle-class Canadians.

But those anxieties could make it more difficult for the Trudeau Liberals to keep the focus on domestic concerns as they navigate their way through an election year.

Indeed, international events obscured the upbeat economic message Trudeau had hoped would come out of a three-day cabinet retreat  in the midst of which tensions with China escalated and a Canadian mining executive was killed in Burkina Faso.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau took time out of the final day of the cabinet retreat Friday to meet with the mother and sister of Edith Blais, a Quebec woman who has herself been missing in Burkina Faso for over a month.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale was dispatched to respond to China's ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, who on Thursday threatened repercussions if Chinese telecom giant Huawei is banned from participating in development of Canada's 5G mobile network.

"We are determined to stand our ground on the basis of what is right for Canada," Goodale said Friday.

Canadian security agencies are still reviewing the security and technical issues surrounding Huawei's potential involvement in the next-generation network for smart phones and other wireless communication devices. Goodale couldn't say when Canada's review would be completed but a well-placed source said a decision is still months away.

The United States, Australia and New Zealand have already barred Huawei from participating in 5G, citing national-security concerns. And German officials said Thursday they are considering banning it as well.

The U.S. is pushing Canada to do the same, warning that the Chinese government could use Huawei technology built into other countries' networks to conduct espionage or cyberattacks.

Relations with China have been spiralling downward since Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in early December at the behest of the U.S., which wants her extradited on fraud charges related to American sanctions against Iran. The Chinese ambassador called her arrest a politically motivated "backstabbing" of a friend.

China has since detained two Canadians, including a former diplomat, accusing them of being threats to Chinese security. And earlier this week, China abruptly handed a death sentence to a third Canadian, previously convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

China has warned Canada to back off its efforts to enlist allies around the globe to condemn China's treatment of the three Canadians. Trudeau's office has been pointedly releasing summaries of his phone calls with leader after leader, in which they talk about the importance of the rule of law and share concerns about international norms and judicial independence. Friday, the secretary-general of the United Nations joined the list.

Goodale wouldn't say whether he thought China has been trying to push around Canada any more than it does other countries, but acknowledged that global politics is a challenge these days.

"This is a tough and turbulent world and we need to make sure that we are making all of our decisions in a way that will benefit this country," he said. "It's a tough decision-making process but you can't shrink from the challenges. They're there and you have to face them and make the very best decisions you can."

On Thursday, Freeland mused that Canada is living through "probably the most turbulent moment in terms of the rules-based international order since the Second World War. This turbulence is affecting a lot of countries and we should not imagine that we can be immune."

In addition to escalating tensions with China, Canada is embroiled in a diplomatic feud with Saudi Arabia  touched off by a tweet from Freeland last summer calling for the release of Canadian-connected dissidents  and has recently been subjected to fake news in Russia about Nazi-loving Ukrainians running the Canadian government.

Even U.S. President Donald Trump has piled on periodically, calling Trudeau weak and dishonest in the midst of free trade negotiations last year and continuing to turn a deaf ear to Trudeau's pleas to lift crippling tariffs imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Canada could also be economically sideswiped by other international events, such as the chaos engulfing the British government over efforts to extricate the United Kingdom from the European Union and the U.S. trade war with China.

Asked Friday about all that global turmoil and its impact on his election strategy, Trudeau pointed to his government's economic record as the best antidote: relatively strong economic growth, more than 800,000 new jobs created, lowest jobless rate in 40 years, and so on, all of which Trudeau credited to his government's investments in the middle class and infrastructure.

While other countries withdraw into protectionist shells, Trudeau said his government has also successfully pursued progressive trade deals that "have allayed some of the very real anxieties people are feeling out there."

That said, Trudeau added: "But people are feeling anxious about what's going on in the world, about what the future might bring for their kids and grandkids.

"And that's why our responsibility as a team is to ... focus on the real, tangible, concrete solutions that we're going to be able to bring together."
CAT LAKE, Ont. - The leadership of Cat Lake First Nation in northern Ontario has declared a state of emergency, citing "profoundly poor conditions of housing" as the cause of a public health crisis.

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CAT LAKE, Ont. - The leadership of Cat Lake First Nation in northern Ontario has declared a state of emergency, citing "profoundly poor conditions of housing" as the cause of a public health crisis.

The declaration lists excessive mould, structural issues and a lack of funds for routine maintenance as causing health issues that include invasive bacterial diseases and lung infections.

Chief Matthew Keewaykapow and Cat Lake's have ordered that the provincial and federal governments step in with an investment plan, as well as an intervention or evacuation plan.

The council has also asked Health Canada to provide detailed plans and a timeline for how the issue will be addressed.

"People continually encounter the effects of federal and provincial jurisdictional squabbling leading to inequitable access to not only health care, but meaningful solutions to the epidemic proportions of the emergency," the declaration of emergency reads.

Ontario Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford said that while "the declaration of a social emergency is of great concern" to his government, on-reserve housing is a federal responsibility.

In a written statement, Rickford called on the federal government to "deliver immediate relief" to the Cat Lake community and notes that he is monitoring the situation closely.

Newly minted Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O'Regan said he spoke with both Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler and Keewaykapow about the crisis.

"They expressed to me the significant challenges the community is facing and the need to have a concrete action plan to resolve them," he said in a written statement. "I indicated that our department officials will continue to work closely with them to develop an action plan to address the community's needs."

Martine Stevens, a spokeswoman for Indigenous Services Canada, said that "technical officials" will meet with the First Nation on the week of Jan. 28 "to develop a plan of action to address the community's needs."

Stevens said that in December, the department approved $200,000 for a comprehensive inspection that called for the demolition of 87 of the 110 homes it looked at.

Fiddler called on both the feds and the province to work together to address the crisis in Cat Lake, calling the housing conditions in the community unacceptable.

"It is unacceptable that the people of Cat Lake suffer in living conditions that would be intolerable in mainstream society," he said in a written statement. "We will support Chief and Council to ensure that the necessary housing improvements are made available as quickly as possible, especially for high-risk community members such as infants and youth, the infirmed and the aged."

Fiddler noted that the leaders of NAN's 49 First Nations  including Cat Lake First Nation  declared a collective housing emergency in 2014 due to shoddy housing and related health effects.

The remote community of Cat Lake, home to 565 people at the time of the 2016 census, is located several hundred kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont.

 By Nicole Thompson in Toronto.
OTTAWA - Diplomacy needs more time before the prime minister tries personally to settle the fight between Ottawa and Beijing that has left two Canadians detained in China and another facing the death penalty, Canada's ambassador to China said Friday after appearing at a Commons committee.

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Canada's ambassador to China, John McCallum, waits to brief members of the Foreign Affairs committee regarding China in Ottawa on Friday, Jan. 18, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA - Diplomacy needs more time before the prime minister tries personally to settle the fight between Ottawa and Beijing that has left two Canadians detained in China and another facing the death penalty, Canada's ambassador to China said Friday after appearing at a Commons committee.

"The prime minister calling the (Chinese) president is essentially the last arrow in our quiver," McCallum said after testifying behind closed doors to the standing committee on foreign affairs and international trade. "I think other actions have to be taken first."

The Opposition Conservatives have been insisting that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau call President Xi Jinping to resolve the diplomatic dispute that began with the arrest in Vancouver last month of a senior executive from Chinese tech giant Huawei.

China escalated tensions shortly after Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou's arrest  which was carried out at the request of U.S. authorities who want her extradited to face fraud charges  by detaining Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat on leave, and entrepreneur Michael Spavor on vague allegations of endangering China's national security.

Since then, Canada and China have traded accusations of making "politically motivated" arrests and questioning each other's judicial processes.

The two countries have also issued travel advisories, warning their respective citizens about the potential dangers of "arbitrary" detentions.

China also recently revisited a 15-year prison sentenced issued in 2016 against Robert Schellenberg of British Columbia for drug smuggling, imposing a death sentence instead.

Western analysts have deemed the arrests of Spavor and Kovrig, and the harsher sentencing of Schellenberg, to be attempts by Beijing to pressure Canada to release Meng, whose company has been accused of being an agent of Chinese intelligence.

Before the protracted dispute worsens, the prime minister needs to step in, Conservative MP Erin O'Toole repeated Friday. O'Toole is his party's foreign-affairs critic.

"The prime minister seems to be holding back, waiting for an opportunity where he can have success," O'Toole said as he left the committee room. "But sometimes leadership means fighting for success."

Prior to testifying at the committee meeting, McCallum told reporters he believes it is safe for most Canadians to travel to China, despite the current rocky relations between the two nations.

But he warned anyone who has had a run-in with Chinese authorities to think twice about visiting the country.

"If they have any bad connection with the Chinese law in the past, or a situation of that kind, they should be extremely wary," McCallum said.

"But I think for most people, subject to considering their own situation, it's all right to travel to China."

McCallum testified behind closed doors after Liberal MPs on the committee raised concerns about the sensitive nature of what he would tell them.

Without elaborating, McCallum said he agreed to speak in private because there are some details about the detentions of Spavor and Kovrig that their family members would not want aired publicly.

McCallum, who was a Liberal cabinet minister before taking up his diplomatic post, revealed earlier this week that the two were each being interrogated by Chinese authorities for up to four hours a day.

On Friday, he again credited the Trudeau government's efforts to get allies to rally in support of Canada's position, saying it was important to send a unified message to Beijing that arresting people arbitrarily warns everyone off doing business in China.

Later in the day, as he wrapped up a meeting of his cabinet in Sherbrooke, Que., Trudeau said that the world should be deeply concerned about the apparent "blending" by China of its commercial interests with its political positioning.

"This is something that I think should be of concern not just to Canadians but to people around the world."
A nurse who lived in Virden for many years and died in a car crash late last month is being remembered as a kind person and dedicated worker.

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A nurse who lived in Virden for many years and died in a car crash late last month is being remembered as a kind person and dedicated worker.

"She was very caring and very loving," said Philip Galauran, the brother of Theresa Ilagan. "She would always look after other peoples needs over hers."

Theresa Ilagan previously worked as a nurse in Virden and was CEO of her own company before her death Dec. 27. (Submitted)

On Dec. 27, Ilagan, 36, was killed in a crash between Gladstone and Neepawa when the SUV she was driving collided head-on with an ambulance.

RCMP believe poor road conditions were a factor in the collision.

Ilagan first came to Canada from the Philippines in 2009, and made her new home in Virden.

She moved to Canada for better opportunities, Galauran said. With both a degree in nursing and business administration, she was ready to start her career in a new country. Once settled, she worked as a nurse at the Virden Health Centre, a job she was very committed to.

"Growing up she was very passionate, I remember her always being passionate about business," he said. "Thats just who she was. She was on her way to work when the accident happened, so even up to the last moment she was very dedicated to work."

Ilagan lived in Virden until 2014, when she moved to Winnipeg to pursue her nursing career there.

Despite her distance from the Philippines, Ilagan remained close to her family, and over time helped four of their siblings follow in her footsteps and establish lives in Canada.

"She sponsored all of us basically. She helped all of us to be here in Canada, so in the span of like five years, all of us followed her through her help," he said.

In 2015, Ilagan started up her own company called Elite Intellicare Staffing, a nursing agency that helps clients and families connect with health-care professionals and certified health-care workers.

It turned into a family business under her role as CEO. There were approximately 300 contractors who worked for her, Galauran said, throughout the Prairie Mountain Health Region and across the province. She was always interested in starting up the business, and when the opportunity came, she took it, he said.

"She basically made the company No. 1 throughout the province," he said. "With this company she was able to give jobs to a lot of nurses and health-care aides. It kind of worked both ways because the facilities were short-staffed, so we were able to help them by providing staff members, not like regular staff members but temporary agency staff, so that kind of bridged the shortage temporarily."

For example, if the Virden hospital was short nurses, they would send them over there, Galauran said. Depending on what the health centres needs were, it could be for a day, two days, three days or a week.

Although Ilagan was in charge of the business, she also still worked as a nurse. She would help out when there was a job open and none of their staff was available to work it.

The company is still up and running, Galauran said.

Throughout her life, she was always motivated to stay busy in the community, but also remain connected with friends and family.

"I would say in the last almost 10 years in Canada shes done a lot for herself professionally, personally and for the family too," he said.

Ilagan is survived by her husband and three-year-old son.

 mverge@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @Melverge5
A man who committed an unusual string of robbery and theft-related offences while on methamphetamine has been sentenced to approximately two years in jail.

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A man who committed an "unusual" string of robbery and theft-related offences while on methamphetamine has been sentenced to approximately two years in jail.

"Youre a part of a reoccurring theme in this courtroom. Weve seen far too much of the carnage that methamphetamine is imposing in our community," Judge John Combs told Nathan Hanmore in Brandon provincial court on Thursday.

"Youre a poster child for that."

Hanmore, 30, pleaded guilty to robbery as well as housebreak, enter and assault, stemming from two incidents in August and September of last year.

On Aug. 17, a man came into the Brandon police station reporting that someone had broken into his apartment and started fighting him, Crown attorney Deidre Badcock said.

The resident told police that a man had entered his apartment and when the resident asked him what he was doing, the man took a computer tower and left.

The resident locked the door immediately, but the man came back, this time causing damage to the door and assaulting the resident while asking what he had done with "the hard drive," Badcock said.

The two struggled with each other for a bit, with the resident getting hit and put in a chokehold before the man started to search frantically through the cupboards and fridge looking for "the hard drive."

The resident had the chance to escape and ran to the police station, which was nearby, Badcock said.

Police arrived on scene and found Hanmore outside the building, highly intoxicated and with a computer tower in his possession.

"What speaks to (Hanmores) high level of intoxication is that he believed he was stopping someone from getting into his mind and thoughts because he thought there was a hard drive (in the residence) that was controlling things," Badcock said. "The complainant was incredibly frightened by what occurred here."

Then on Sept. 16, police received a report from a woman who said a man had robbed her of her purse and other belongings while she was at a friends house.

The woman was sitting on her friends couch listening to music when suddenly a man she didnt know came out of the basement, said hello, and grabbed her purse and phone from her before fleeing the residence through the basement window, Badcock said.

Police later located Hanmore with the victims purse and phone in his possession.

"Like many cases we see here, (Hanmore) had his life taken over by an addiction to drugs  meth is his most recent drug of choice," Badcock said. "He is a candidate for rehabilitation  now is the time for him to start changing things."

Defence lawyer Ryan Fawcett said Hanmore allowed methamphetamine to "creep into his life," but has since made strides toward getting clean.

"He estimates he was using meth on a daily basis for about two years before coming into custody," Fawcett said. "Obviously one cannot function in society if theyre using meth on a daily basis  he wasnt able to work, he was high during these incidents. But I can tell you on a brighter note that while hes been in custody  he has started the process of rehabilitation."

When given the opportunity to address the court, Hanmore said he was sorry to the victims in these offences.

"The events here are bizarre and probably reflect the fact you were under a great degree of intoxication when these incidents occurred," Combs said.

Hanmore was sentenced to two years in jail less time already served, leaving him with a little more than 11 months going forward followed by two years of probation.

 edebooy@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @erindebooy
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Etihad Airways has become the world's first airline to fly a commercial flight using locally produced sustainable fuel derived from plants grown in saltwater.



The landmark flight, operated by a Boeing 787 and powered by GEs GEnx-1B engines, flew from Abu Dhabi to Amsterdam, marking a major milestone in the development of a clean, alternative aviation fuel to reduce carbon emissions.



The biofuel was produced in the UAE through the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC), a non-profit entity established by Masdar Institute, part of Khalifa University of Science and Technology.



The special fuel was derived from oil in Salicornia plants, which were grown on the two-hectare Seawater Energy and Agriculture System (Seas) farm in Masdar City.



The Seas is the worlds first desert ecosystem designed to produce fuel and food in saltwater. Fish and shrimp raised at the facility provide nutrients for the plants as well as contribute to the UAEs food production.



Tony Douglas, group chief executive officer Etihad Aviation Group, said: This is a significant milestone for the UAE and its key industries. Etihad is fully committed to this project which demonstrates a successful proof of concept that is local, viable, cost-effective and sustainable."



Decarbonisation is important across the aviation industry and, together with our partners, Etihad is proud to be at the forefront of this pioneering new research, he said.



Dr Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, executive vice-president, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, said: The landmark achievement by the SBRC, part of Masdar Institute at Khalifa University, and partners marks a new beginning for the use of clean fuel for air travel. Khalifa University is proud to be part of the consortium, driving research and innovation, while contributing to creating a sustainable biofuel value chain, supporting the UAEs strategic objectives in the energy and food sectors. The collaboration partners and Masdar Institute researchers have contributed significantly to achieve this success and we believe the use of biofuel for this commercial flight will make a compelling statement that impacts stakeholders in the aviation, energy and transportation sectors.



Using sustainable feedstock to produce the fuel significantly reduces life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions compared to fossil fuel. The biofuel is blended directly with jet fuel and does not require any modifications to aircraft, engines or airport fuelling delivery systems. The unique initiative also bolsters the oil and gas industry by using existing refining infrastructure, with the potential to become an important new option for sustainable aviation fuel in the future.



Approximately 160,000 passenger flights have flown on a blend of sustainable and traditional jet fuel since the first biofuels were certified for commercial use in 2011.



Sustainable aviation fuel represents a significant opportunity to help aviation meet its goals to cap the growth of carbon emissions by 2020 and cut levels to half of what they were in 2005 by 2050. - TradeArabia News Service
Zain Bahrain, a leading telecommunications provider in the kingdom, has announced the expansion of its long-term partnership agreement with the Gulf Hotels Group (GHG) to provide its newest property, the Gulf Executive Residence-Juffair, with high-speed internet access and state-of-the-art telecom connectivity solutions.

The partnership was signed by Yazan Zaytoon, Zain Bahrain enterprise and corporate manager, and Garfield Jones, CEO of the Gulf Hotels Group. The partnership serves as an expansion to Zains long-term partnership with GHG in providing its properties, including Gulf Hotel, Gulf Hotel Asdal in Seef, the K-Hotel in Juffair, and the new Gulf Executive Residence-Juffair, with internet solutions.

Under this partnership, high-speed internet access provided by Zain Bahrain will be easily accessible throughout the Gulf Executive Residence Juffair, available to all residents, visitors, and employees.

Speaking on the new agreement, Zaytoon said: We are delighted to remain the preferred telecom services provider of the Gulf Hotels Group. The signing of the new partnership agreement with the Gulf Executive Residence-Juffair marks the continuation of our long-term relationship with the group."

Jones said: The provision of high-speed and reliable internet is a critical point of differentiation in todays hospitality market. Selecting Zain Bahrain as our connectivity partner for the Gulf Executive Residence-Juffair was a natural choice; our existing relationship has demonstrated Zain Bahrains commitment to the provision of quality, continuous and reliable connectivity services, which we are proud to offer to our residents. - TradeArabia News Service
Huawei, a leading provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, will be introducing its latest cutting-edge safe city solutions including CCTVs which are aimed at enhancing public safety innovation in the region.



As the headline sponsor and Exclusive Artificial Intelligence Partner of Intersec 2019, Huawei will use the event as a platform to demonstrate its AI-driven portfolio and announce new partnerships with leading ICT players at Stand S1-I26, Sheikh Saeed Hall 1, Dubai World Trade Center from January 20 to 22.



Huaweis video cloud solutions include its AI-enabled Ultra HD 4K & Software Defined Cameras with matrix intelligence and video cloud platform for video and image management, analysis and search.



They also include Huaweis CCTV solution, which boasts a resilient and reliable Storage with Multiple Access Network along with High Efficient UPS, making this cutting-edge solution invincible. Huaweis innovative portfolio uses advanced facial recognition, full body and vehicle structuring applications to bring solid values to CCTV customers, making cities safer on an easy to manage Cloud Analysis Platform.



At the event, Huawei experts and their partners will also conduct a series of workshop and a panel discussion on how organizations can leverage the latest video cloud and intelligent video surveillance technologies to keep cities safe. The workshop will explain how each function is simplifying the process of prevention and investigation of crimes.



The construction of Safe Cities requires a comprehensive protection system, which can sense behaviors that threaten public safety in real time, record the entire process of an incident, and generate alarms in a timely manner.



All these help to deter criminals before an incident, assist emergency response during an incident, and provide clues for solving cases after an incident.



At present, traditional video surveillance systems face many problems, such as low image definition,multiple cameras for more than one functionality difficult video backhaul and locating, and easy information leakage.



In addition, accelerated urbanization has set higher requirements for video transmission and storage as well as platform compatibility. Huaweis solutions address these challenges by leveraging cloud-based architecture, flexible service management, matrix intelligence, efficient video-based practice, and agility and openness, enabling industry applications.



Walid Gomaa, the VP Data Centre and Cloud Solutions at Middle East Enterprise Business Group, said: "Our sponsorship of Intersec 2019 falls in line with our mission to support the national visions and agendas of regional governments in building diversified, knowledge-based economies, and safe communities. Almost every day, we see new threats emerge which affect the safety and security of residents."



"Accelerating technological development and global urbanization have caused governments worldwide to incorporate Safe City into their national strategies. We hope that at our display at this prestigious event and the connections with other ICT leaders we forge there will help us build a public safety ecosystem that will help create a better, and more secure, Middle East," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Dnata, one of the worlds largest air services providers, continues to enhance its global catering operations with the opening of a new, state-of-the-art catering facility in the capital of Australia, Canberra.



Representing an investment of AUD$6.5 million ($4.6 million), the newest dnata facility allows the company to meet the increased demand for its quality services and create capacity for further growth in Australia.



Dnatas new Canberra facility has 2000-sq-m of floor space, which is over 30 per cent more than the existing location it replaces. The kitchen is built over two levels to maximise space, and includes six chill rooms, a deep freeze, storeroom, and an area for plating up meals.



Dnata currently prepares more than 60,000 inflight meals in Canberra every month, serving a wide range of customers from commercial airlines to charter airlines carrying VIPs, government officials and military. The new facility will allow dnata to further diversify its customer portfolio by expanding its offering into new markets.



Hiranjan Aloysius, CEO of dnata catering Australia, said: Following the successful completion of our acquisition of Qantas catering business, we are thrilled to celebrate another significant milestone in Australia. This facility enhances our ability to delight our customers and their customers, accelerates our growth and expands our market offering. It also supports our growth in non-airline markets  from retail supply to large scale food supply opportunities.



Dnata entered the Australian inflight catering market with the acquisition of Alpha Flight Group in 2010. Since then, the company has gradually expanded its operations in the country through further acquisitions and organic growth. In November, dnata completed the acquisition of Qantas Airways catering businesses, cementing its place as Australias leading inflight caterer.



Dnata also operates a premium quality airport lounge at Melbourne Airport through its hospitality brand, Marhaba, offering excellent value services for passengers of all airlines and travel classes.



Dnata today offers quality catering services from 15 facilities in Australia, serving 45 airlines at nine airports with a team of over 3,000 customer-oriented employees.



Outside of Australia, over the past 12 months, dnata has invested significantly to grow its global catering network - including the opening of a catering facility in Dublin, Ireland and the acquisition of New York-based caterer 121 Inflight Catering. In 2019, dnata will continue to expand its inflight catering operations by opening a total of seven new catering facilities across the USA and Canada.



As one of the worlds largest air services provider, dnata offers quality ground handling, catering and cargo services at 127 airports in 18 countries. - TradeArabia News Service


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PR Newswire

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 18, 2019

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Marc A. Bronstein is recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Pinnacle Lifetime Member in the field of Law in recognition of his role as an Attorney at Marc A. Bronstein, A Professional Law Corporation.

Established in 1997, Marc A. Bronstein, A Professional Law Corporation provides legal assistance to California residents pertaining to estate planning, real estate, business, and taxation. Dedicated to providing comprehensive legal advice, Mr. Bronstein, and his firm, lend a multifaceted approach in their belief that aggressive legal representation is the best way to serve their clients. Through their legal counsel, Mr. Bronstein and the firm balance legal and financial perspectives in advising clients on taking actions to accomplish their important goals.

As the founder and Senior Attorney at Marc A. Bronstein, A Professional Law Corporation, Marc A. Bronstein brings forty years of experience in the field of law, together with the knowledge and experience of a certified public accountant and practicing tax professional. A well venerated professional throughout his career, Mr. Bronstein has become well versed in the areas of Estate planning, as well as business, real estate and tax matters. Mr. Bronstein was admitted to the State Bar of California over forty (40) years ago and to U.S. Tax Court over thirty-five (35) years ago. However, despite this extensive experience, Mr. Bronstein continues to offer his clients quality services at affordable rates based on his strongly held beliefs that legal assistance should be readily accessible to those who seek it.

Prior to embarking on his academic career, Marc A. Bronstein was an active member of the Boy Scouts of America, obtaining the highest attainable rank of Eagle Scout. Mr. Bronstein then earned his Bachelor of Science degree Magna Cum Laude in Accounting from California State University, Long Beach and his Juris Doctor degree-Cum Laude from Loyola Law School in 1977. Thereafter, Mr. Bronstein attained his Master of Science degree in Taxation from Golden Gate University in Los Angeles, California. Through Mr. Bronstein's education, he remained an active part of the community, including earning a Certificate of Heroism from the Boy Scouts of America and a Commendation for Community Service from the City of Culver City, as a result of his actions while serving as a Troop Leader with the Boy Scouts of America.

Mr. Bronstein is also an affiliate of several distinguished organizations including the Beverly Hills Bar Association and California State Bar Association.

For more information, please visit https://marcbronstein.com/

Contact: Katherine Green , 516-825-5634, [email protected]

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/marc-a-bronstein-is-recognized-by-continental-whos-who-300781063.html

SOURCE Continental Who's Who
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Unions look to take advantage of Democratic leadership and strong economy in 2019
Reporter Claire Withycombe: cwithycombe@eomediagroup.com or 971-304-4148. Withycombe is a reporter for the East Oregonian working for the Oregon Capital Bureau, a collaboration of EO Media Group, Pamplin Media Group, and Salem Reporter.
Import prices from Canada down 6.1 percent in 2018

Prices for imports decreased 0.6 percent from December 2017 to December 2018, following a 3.2-percent increase the previous year. The decline in 2018 was the first calendar-year drop since import prices fell 8.3 percent for the 12 months ending in December 2015.

Chart Image

Chart Data U.S. import price indexes by locality of origin, 12-month percent change Month Canada European Union France Germany United Kingdom Latin America Mexico Pacific Rim China Japan Dec 2008 -8.8% 0.2% 6.2% -1.0% -6.3% -16.2% -5.7% 0.9% 2.8% 1.9% Jan 2009 -11.7 -1.8 6.5 -1.4 -8.2 -19.2 -9.0 -0.2 1.5 2.1 Feb 2009 -14.8 -2.7 4.1 -1.7 -10.6 -19.8 -8.8 -0.8 1.0 1.9 Mar 2009 -18.2 -4.7 3.1 -2.9 -13.2 -23.0 -12.6 -1.7 -0.2 1.8 Apr 2009 -22.8 -6.1 1.2 -4.1 -13.9 -23.7 -12.2 -2.6 -1.1 1.4 May 2009 -24.0 -6.9 0.8 -4.3 -15.5 -23.9 -11.9 -3.0 -1.8 1.4 Jun 2009 -24.6 -7.1 1.1 -4.1 -15.2 -24.3 -13.7 -3.0 -2.3 1.9 Jul 2009 -26.2 -7.3 1.0 -3.7 -16.3 -27.8 -17.3 -4.0 -3.2 1.6 Aug 2009 -23.1 -6.4 0.7 -3.1 -13.0 -22.4 -13.7 -3.7 -3.1 1.7 Sep 2009 -18.1 -4.6 2.1 -1.6 -9.0 -18.3 -10.9 -2.5 -3.1 2.4 Oct 2009 -11.1 -2.7 1.7 0.1 -4.4 -6.8 -2.9 -2.5 -3.1 2.2 Nov 2009 0.4 0.6 4.3 2.7 1.7 7.0 5.7 -1.8 -2.4 1.9 Dec 2009 6.1 2.5 5.2 4.6 5.3 13.7 4.6 -0.5 -1.8 1.9 Jan 2010 11.9 2.7 3.5 4.4 5.6 17.5 7.9 0.2 -1.7 1.8 Feb 2010 15.1 3.3 2.7 3.9 5.9 17.7 8.4 0.6 -1.3 1.5 Mar 2010 15.5 3.8 2.1 4.2 6.4 19.2 10.8 0.9 -0.8 1.9 Apr 2010 16.8 4.0 1.5 4.2 6.2 17.2 9.4 1.5 -0.1 2.2 May 2010 13.1 4.0 1.5 4.1 5.9 10.4 4.6 1.9 0.2 2.3 Jun 2010 8.0 2.7 0.4 2.5 3.6 5.3 2.6 1.5 0.0 1.8 Jul 2010 9.0 2.2 -0.4 1.5 3.2 7.1 3.6 1.7 0.2 1.6 Aug 2010 8.2 2.6 -0.6 1.5 3.3 4.9 2.0 1.3 -0.1 1.8 Sep 2010 6.7 2.4 -1.3 1.5 3.4 4.7 1.6 1.5 0.0 1.9 Oct 2010 6.0 1.7 -1.4 1.3 2.8 4.6 1.8 1.5 0.4 1.8 Nov 2010 5.9 1.7 -1.8 0.5 2.9 4.4 1.7 1.5 0.7 2.1 Dec 2010 7.6 1.3 -2.2 -0.6 2.9 6.4 3.3 1.7 0.8 2.0 Jan 2011 5.0 2.1 -1.9 -1.2 4.4 6.4 3.0 2.0 1.5 2.6 Feb 2011 5.6 2.3 0.1 0.4 5.0 9.8 5.5 2.6 1.9 3.2 Mar 2011 8.4 3.5 -2.8 1.3 5.4 14.2 8.5 3.4 2.6 3.1 Apr 2011 12.1 4.1 -2.3 2.2 6.4 16.2 10.1 3.4 2.8 3.2 May 2011 14.8 5.1 -1.8 3.2 6.4 17.3 10.3 3.1 2.8 3.2 Jun 2011 14.6 6.4 -0.9 4.1 8.0 17.4 9.0 3.5 3.3 2.9 Jul 2011 13.9 7.3 -0.4 4.8 7.7 17.5 9.7 3.5 3.5 2.8 Aug 2011 11.9 6.5 -0.8 4.2 6.8 15.4 8.4 3.5 3.6 2.9 Sep 2011 10.8 6.3 -1.0 3.8 6.0 15.6 8.6 3.3 3.9 2.7 Oct 2011 9.0 6.9 -0.7 2.9 5.2 12.5 6.5 3.2 4.0 2.6 Nov 2011 7.3 6.0 -1.0 2.5 4.4 12.5 6.7 3.3 4.0 2.4 Dec 2011 4.9 5.6 -0.2 2.3 3.1 10.7 5.6 2.6 3.6 2.3 Jan 2012 3.1 3.6 -0.5 1.2 2.4 9.1 5.2 2.4 3.5 1.9 Feb 2012 1.8 2.9 -1.1 0.3 2.8 6.7 2.8 1.9 3.3 1.6 Mar 2012 -1.3 2.6 2.7 0.6 3.0 3.2 -0.1 1.2 2.6 1.3 Apr 2012 -6.4 1.7 2.2 -0.3 1.9 -0.8 -3.2 0.8 1.8 1.0 May 2012 -7.9 0.6 1.6 -1.2 0.7 -1.4 -3.3 0.5 1.5 1.0 Jun 2012 -7.7 -0.7 0.7 -1.3 -2.2 -4.5 -3.9 -0.1 1.2 1.1 Jul 2012 -9.0 -1.5 -0.3 -1.4 -1.8 -4.9 -3.8 -0.1 0.9 1.2 Aug 2012 -6.2 -1.5 -0.4 -1.7 -0.1 -1.9 -1.7 -0.2 0.8 1.0 Sep 2012 -2.8 -1.6 -0.2 -1.5 0.7 -0.8 -1.4 -0.4 0.3 1.2 Oct 2012 -1.0 -1.4 -0.2 -0.8 1.5 -0.1 -0.9 -0.2 -0.3 1.1 Nov 2012 -1.7 -1.2 -0.1 -0.5 1.1 -4.4 -3.5 -0.5 -0.6 1.0 Dec 2012 -3.9 -1.8 -0.7 -0.5 0.1 -4.1 -3.5 -0.5 -0.6 0.7 Jan 2013 -3.2 0.6 -0.2 1.1 -0.2 -3.8 -3.8 -0.8 -0.9 0.5 Feb 2013 -2.5 1.3 0.1 1.8 -1.0 -1.2 -1.0 -0.9 -1.1 -0.2 Mar 2013 -1.1 -0.4 0.6 0.7 -5.6 -3.6 -2.2 -0.9 -1.2 -0.3 Apr 2013 0.9 -0.4 0.2 0.7 -6.2 -4.9 -3.0 -1.0 -0.9 -1.1 May 2013 2.2 -0.5 0.5 0.9 -5.4 -3.9 -1.9 -1.2 -1.3 -1.6 Jun 2013 3.7 0.1 0.8 1.1 -3.4 0.1 -0.1 -1.1 -1.1 -1.9 Jul 2013 5.3 0.8 1.2 1.2 -3.3 0.8 0.3 -1.3 -1.2 -2.3 Aug 2013 4.9 0.6 1.4 1.6 -4.8 -0.5 -0.5 -1.3 -1.2 -2.6 Sep 2013 2.2 1.0 1.6 1.7 -4.5 -1.5 -1.2 -1.2 -1.0 -2.9 Oct 2013 -0.9 0.8 1.6 2.3 -4.7 -2.1 -2.0 -1.2 -0.9 -3.2 Nov 2013 -3.3 1.1 1.7 2.3 -3.7 -1.6 -1.4 -1.0 -0.8 -3.2 Dec 2013 -1.5 1.9 1.7 2.4 -2.6 -1.4 -1.2 -1.1 -0.7 -3.4 Jan 2014 0.3 1.2 1.5 2.8 -2.9 -2.3 -1.7 -1.1 -0.7 -3.6 Feb 2014 4.4 0.6 1.9 1.8 -3.1 -3.8 -3.8 -1.1 -0.4 -3.2 Mar 2014 5.4 1.5 0.2 2.4 0.5 -3.0 -2.6 -1.1 -0.3 -2.8 Apr 2014 2.0 2.1 0.4 3.0 1.9 -1.3 -1.6 -1.1 -0.3 -2.3 May 2014 1.2 2.7 0.8 3.2 2.7 -0.2 -1.5 -0.7 0.6 -2.0 Jun 2014 2.4 2.9 1.2 3.7 2.8 -0.1 -0.7 -0.7 0.4 -1.7 Jul 2014 2.0 2.6 1.2 2.7 3.6 -1.0 -1.4 -0.6 0.3 -1.6 Aug 2014 -1.7 3.2 1.4 2.8 3.5 -2.6 -1.9 -0.7 0.1 -1.4 Sep 2014 -2.3 1.3 1.1 1.9 2.6 -4.1 -2.4 -1.0 0.0 -1.4 Oct 2014 -1.7 0.5 1.0 1.4 1.6 -4.8 -2.5 -0.9 0.1 -1.2 Nov 2014 -2.8 0.7 0.6 0.9 -1.6 -5.5 -2.5 -1.2 -0.1 -1.2 Dec 2014 -8.5 0.5 0.2 0.7 -1.4 -9.6 -4.5 -1.3 -0.1 -1.4 Jan 2015 -15.2 -1.9 0.2 -0.3 -7.3 -14.1 -7.3 -1.6 -0.2 -1.8 Feb 2015 -20.0 -2.2 -0.6 -0.8 -5.7 -14.5 -7.0 -1.7 -0.5 -1.9 Mar 2015 -21.9 -2.5 0.1 -1.4 -5.9 -14.5 -7.9 -1.7 -0.5 -2.2 Apr 2015 -19.2 -3.5 -0.2 -2.3 -7.0 -14.1 -7.7 -1.9 -0.5 -2.5 May 2015 -16.9 -3.2 -1.1 -2.5 -7.2 -13.1 -7.3 -2.1 -1.1 -2.5 Jun 2015 -16.4 -3.0 -1.1 -2.5 -7.3 -13.2 -7.2 -2.3 -1.2 -3.0 Jul 2015 -17.7 -3.2 -1.1 -1.7 -8.0 -14.0 -7.6 -2.3 -1.2 -3.0 Aug 2015 -20.0 -3.9 -1.2 -1.9 -8.3 -15.4 -8.6 -2.3 -1.1 -3.3 Sep 2015 -21.6 -3.5 -1.1 -1.4 -8.1 -15.3 -8.8 -2.3 -1.3 -3.4 Oct 2015 -19.9 -2.9 -1.5 -1.8 -7.5 -14.4 -8.3 -2.5 -1.4 -3.4 Nov 2015 -17.8 -3.7 -1.5 -1.4 -5.3 -13.1 -7.6 -2.5 -1.5 -3.2 Dec 2015 -15.1 -3.7 -1.4 -1.4 -6.1 -11.2 -6.5 -2.5 -1.7 -2.9 Jan 2016 -13.4 -2.4 -0.7 -4.1 1.5 -8.3 -4.4 -2.4 -1.6 -2.4 Feb 2016 -13.8 -2.6 -0.2 -3.2 -0.4 -9.9 -5.4 -2.3 -1.7 -2.0 Mar 2016 -11.8 -2.5 0.1 -3.1 -3.0 -9.2 -5.4 -2.3 -1.8 -1.9 Apr 2016 -9.5 -1.8 0.5 -3.0 -2.5 -8.7 -5.2 -2.1 -1.9 -1.3 May 2016 -9.1 -1.9 1.1 -2.8 -2.3 -8.6 -4.8 -1.8 -1.7 -1.1 Jun 2016 -8.3 -2.1 0.6 -3.2 -2.4 -7.4 -4.2 -1.8 -1.8 -0.6 Jul 2016 -6.3 -2.4 0.7 -3.3 -2.4 -5.5 -3.2 -1.6 -1.7 0.0 Aug 2016 -2.6 -2.2 0.6 -3.4 -1.9 -3.5 -2.5 -1.4 -1.8 0.7 Sep 2016 0.5 -1.1 0.2 -3.3 -2.4 -2.3 -1.7 -1.2 -1.7 0.9 Oct 2016 1.8 -0.9 0.4 -4.0 -2.5 -1.0 -1.2 -1.0 -1.7 1.2 Nov 2016 1.8 -0.5 0.6 -4.0 -2.3 -0.7 -1.9 -1.1 -1.8 1.4 Dec 2016 6.7 -0.3 0.7 -4.1 -1.7 3.3 -1.1 -1.0 -1.7 1.6 Jan 2017 13.0 0.4 -0.7 -0.1 -3.5 5.3 -1.7 -0.8 -1.9 1.3 Feb 2017 15.8 0.8 -1.1 -0.2 -3.0 7.4 -0.2 -0.6 -1.6 1.2 Mar 2017 12.8 1.1 -0.9 -0.1 -0.5 5.9 0.0 -0.4 -1.2 1.4 Apr 2017 9.2 0.8 -1.4 0.7 -1.1 5.8 1.6 -0.3 -1.2 1.3 May 2017 6.6 0.2 -1.6 0.4 -1.3 4.1 1.1 -0.3 -1.1 1.2 Jun 2017 2.8 0.5 -0.1 0.8 -1.0 2.3 0.2 -0.1 -1.0 1.0 Jul 2017 2.8 0.8 0.2 1.1 -0.9 2.1 0.1 0.0 -0.9 0.5 Aug 2017 5.2 1.9 2.0 2.0 -0.8 3.2 1.1 0.0 -0.7 -0.3 Sep 2017 6.2 2.1 2.8 1.9 0.1 4.9 2.6 -0.2 -0.9 -0.3 Oct 2017 5.1 1.6 3.1 2.8 0.5 4.7 2.4 -0.3 -0.8 -0.8 Nov 2017 8.8 1.8 3.2 2.9 1.2 6.7 3.4 0.0 -0.1 -1.1 Dec 2017 7.7 2.3 3.4 3.1 1.4 4.6 3.6 0.1 -0.1 -1.1 Jan 2018 7.2 2.5 5.2 -1.3 2.2 6.2 5.5 0.3 0.2 -0.2 Feb 2018 4.7 3.3 6.1 -1.0 2.5 5.3 4.5 0.4 0.2 -0.1 Mar 2018 5.3 3.2 5.8 -1.1 2.9 5.1 3.9 0.5 0.2 -0.1 Apr 2018 7.0 3.8 6.5 -1.3 3.8 5.0 1.8 0.8 0.3 0.2 May 2018 9.7 4.1 6.9 -1.1 4.3 6.2 1.8 1.0 0.4 0.2 Jun 2018 11.5 3.4 5.1 -1.8 4.3 6.5 1.8 1.0 0.5 0.2 Jul 2018 11.5 3.5 4.6 -2.2 3.8 6.2 1.4 0.8 0.3 0.6 Aug 2018 9.1 2.7 3.0 -2.5 3.2 4.9 1.0 0.7 0.1 1.0 Sep 2018 6.0 2.2 2.4 -2.8 2.6 4.3 0.4 0.7 0.4 0.8 Oct 2018 5.8 2.5 2.3 -2.9 3.1 5.1 1.3 0.7 0.2 1.3 Nov 2018 -3.8 1.8 1.3 -3.0 1.3 2.2 0.5 0.5 -0.2 1.2 Dec 2018 -6.1 1.4 0.8 -2.8 0.8 -0.1 -0.2 0.4 -0.2 1.0

Import prices from China decreased 0.2 percent in 2018 and have not risen on a calendar-year basis since advancing 3.6 percent in 2011.

Prices for imports from Canada fell 6.1 percent in 2018, the largest calendar-year drop since a 15.1-percent decrease in 2015. Import prices from the European Union increased 1.4 percent, while prices for imports from Germany decreased 2.8 percent.

These data are from the International Price program. Import and export price changes may be revised in each of the 3 months after original publication. For more information, see "U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes  December 2018." See more charts on import and export price trends in Charts related to the latest "U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes" news release.

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Meeting Space for Hire in Cape Town CBD

May be used for: Meetings, hearings, workshops, discussions, training, workspace, events, presentations, demonstrations, brainstorming, strategic planning, Cape Town-based space, etc.

Size

-Seats 18 comfortably around three round tables of six each.

-Room configuration is flexible

-May hire in additional chairs if required



Features

Air-conditioning

Flat screen monitor

Data projector available to rent (extra)

Wi-Fi

Flipchart stands and rails

Variable lighting

Comfortable, modern, stylish seating

Standard set-up: roundtables; other options available, i.e. school room or boardroom



Catering

Standard package - R20 per person

Arrival, morning, and afternoon refreshments - includes water, tea, coffee, biscuits

Treat package - R40 to R50 per person

Arrival, morning, and afternoon refreshments - includes: water, tea, coffee, juice, biscuits, pastries, muffins, table sweets

Lunch package - R25 per person

Standard package plus in-room lunch, including ordering takeaways, cutlery, crockery, and cleaning (actual take away food order cost not included)



Note

Conveniently located on MyCiTi bus route - close to bus stops for a number of routes

No parking available on premises

Street parking available in the area and Kloof Lifestyle Centre is two blocks away with undercover pay parking



Availability

-Monday to Friday from 7am till 6pm (not open on weekends or evenings)



Cost

Full-day: R1, 195 - eight hours

Half-day: R840 - four hours
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The Garifuna Heritage Foundation (TGHF) is pleased to support the Declaration by UNESCO of 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages.





The Garifuna Heritage Foundation (TGHF)s aim is to raise awareness about the historical and cultural background of our ancestors. One of our main aims for has been to focus on the revitalization of the Garifuna language which was developed on the island of Yurumein (St. Vincent and the Grenadines but which is no longer spoken here.





As stated on UNESCOs website at https://en.iyil2019.org/, the following is said:





"Languages play a crucial role in the daily lives of people, not only as a tool for communication, education, social integration and development, but as a repository for each persons unique identity, cultural history, traditions and memory. UNESCO declared 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages, in order to raise awareness , not only to benefit the people who speak these languages, but also for others to appreciate the important contributions they make to our worlds rich cultural diversity.





The UN identifies indigenous peoples language rights to include the right: to be educated in their mother tongue; to have indigenous languages recognized in constitutions and laws; to live free from discrimination on the grounds of language; and to establish and have access to media in indigenous languages.





Many indigenous communities throughout the world, including communities in developed countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States of America, have been engaged for years in Language Preservation and Revitalisation efforts and have received the financial and technical support of their Governments to do so. As a result, they have established Indigenous Language Institutes and other programs which document, archive and seek to further develop the various Indigenous Languages which are still spoken or which are in danger of becoming extinct. What is clear, is that it is still possible for an indigenous Language which is no longer spoken, to be revitalized, once the technical and financial resources are made available to do so within the country, and once the political will exists to do so. It is possible to provide training for Teachers to learn how to teach Indigenous language as a second language to persons who have no experience at all. Other possibilities include the development of Language Apps and other technological aids for training and Language revitalization.





In 2019 and beyond, TGHF plans to create and collaborate with Universities, Garinagu groups and other organizations to implement its Language Revitalization and Preservation Project in Yurumein (St. Vincent and the Grenadines). This project will entail practical and online classes and workshops of the Garifuna Language as well as the development of training materials.





The Foundation will work with the general public, but will focus especially on Communities in St. Vincent where the Kalinago and Garifuna Indigenous peoples have lived and settled following the forced exile by the British colonisers of the Garifuna people to Central America in 1797.

It is hoped that our long term goal to have the language be widely studied as part the Primary Schools curriculum will one day be realized . We hope to generate as much interest and support from the private sector, government and non-governmental organizations in this cause to revitalise our language in SVG. (Source: TGHF)
Many marketing departments will have to decide how much of their digital adspend should go on premium inventory and how much should go on programmatic. Keabetswe Kgomongwe from Hoorah examines why we should reframe the choice by comparing the two to established businesses and startups respectively...
Showtime Management and international partner Selladoor Worldwide have postponed the South African tour of the We Will Rock You musical to 2022. South Africa is currently in its third wave of Covid-19 infections and, as such, the government has implemented precautions that only allows for a total audience of 100 people.
Users will now be able to easily consult DocsApp doctors from any platform that has integrated the DocsApp SDK.

In its constant endeavour to provide access to specialist doctors instantly to Indians, DocsApp, the leading online doctor consultation platform, has announced the launch of its software development kit (SDK) for android and web platforms. The SDK integration will enable DocsApp customers to consult a doctor without downloading DocsApp, therefore making the lives of patients easier and more convenient. In addition, users will be able to easily access their DocsApp profiles from any website or android app that has integrated the DocsApp SDK.

The SDK integration will also help other businesses to offer doctor consultation services without requiring their customers to move outside the application. With the integration, their users can also talk to doctors within 8 minutes. Few medicine delivery apps, a popular chat app and a medical information website have already initiated the process of integrating the DocsApp SDK with their platforms.

As we enter the next phase of our growth, the SDK integration will enable us to cater to a larger section of the population with our on-demand and high-quality doctor consultation. Since the beginning, DocsApp has been committed to making quality healthcare accessible by all, breaking geographical as well as socio-economic barriers. And, the latest development further reinforces our purpose, said Satish Kannan, CEO/Co-founder of DocsApp.

We will be making SDK open for any business who wants to provide specialist doctor access to their customers. Any website or mobile application owner can integrate the SDK without any hassle. We are confident that the SDK integration of DocsApp will offer a seamless experience not only to our customers but also other users who are seeking doctor consultation but are not logged into DocsApp yet, he added.

DocsApp is a frontrunner in the online doctor consultation space, adhering strictly to the World Health Organizations (WHO) 3As - Availability, Affordability, and Accessibility. With more than 5000 world-class doctors on board, the platform provides consultation in 19 specialities including gynaecology, sexology, paediatrics, dermatology, psychiatry, weight management among others. Through its mobile application and website, DocsApp has helped patients residing in even the remotest corners of India to access the best quality medical consultation. With a dedicated focus on expanding its scale of operations, DocsApp aims to reach 5 million users across the country by the end of this year.
Built at a cost of Rs. 750 crore, the 17 floor hospital would provide world class services at an affordable price and is linked with Ayushman Bharat.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently unveiled the state of art, super-specialty public hospital - Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Medical Sciences and Research in Ahmedabad. Built by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, the 78 meter high, 1500 bed hospital is equipped with all modern amenities, including an air ambulance.

Built at a cost of Rs. 750 crore, the 17 floor hospital would provide world class services at an affordable price and is linked with Ayushman Bharat. Addressing a gathering on this occasion, Modi emphasized the importance of Ayushman Bharat saying, It is because of Ayushaman Bharat there is an increasing need for new hospitals in even smaller towns. New hospitals are opening faster, the demand for doctors and paramedic staff is increasing, thereby creating many employment opportunities are coming up for the youth in the healthcare sector.

Prime Minister said the country has seen a major expansion in healthcare facilities and medical education over the past four years which will be of great help in meeting the health care needs of the citizens.
Sesderma was the first lab in Spain to use the nanotechnology in the formulation of their dermo-cosmetics

Sesderma India recently organised a press conference in New Delhi. The company which is a subsidiary of Sesderma Laboratories headquartered in Valencia, Spain announce its plan of launching Dr Serrano Clinics in India.

Headed by Dr. Gabriel Serrano Sanmiguel, Founder and MD of Sesderma Laboratories, the press conference highlighted all the technological advancements and innovations that have been adopted by the company so far to deal with the rising dermo-cosmetic needs of people in India.

Speaking on the same, Dr Gabriel Serrano Sanmiguel, Founder and MD of Sesderma Laboratories has mentioned, Through the launch of Dr. Serrano Clinics across the length and breadth of Indian landscape, we aim to deliver the best aesthetic solutions, to the people who want to keep their skin looking youthful and beautiful for a longer time. At Dr. Serrano Clinics, they will be benefitted by our exclusive cosmeticprocedures based on Nanotechnology; customized to suit every skin need.

Sesderma was the first lab in Spain to use the nanotechnology in the formulation of their dermo-cosmetics and was also the first to launch a full line of products containing glycolic acid. As time progressed, the company expanded its reach worldwide and is now aiming to strengthen their foothold in Indian through their products and Aesthetic medicine formulations.
A police crime scene technician inspects the body of a suspected drug user who was killed in an alleged shootout with officers, near Manilas university belt, Sept. 30, 2016.

Unidentified gunmen in the central Philippines shot and killed a prosecutor who had handled drug cases, police said Friday.

Mary Ann Castro, a 49-year-old lawyer assigned to the city of Masbate, was driving her car when she was attacked late Thursday in nearby Cebu city, according to police investigator Edward Sanches. She was wounded in the neck and died while being taken to hospital, he said.

One of the motives we are looking could be drug related since she has been prosecuting drug cases, Sanches said.

Castro was the 35th lawyer slain in the Philippines since President Rodrigo Duterte, who came to power in mid-2016, vowed to clean up corruption and wipe out illegal drugs.

He made true on his promise and deployed police for the drugs war. To date, by an official count, it has left more than 5,000 suspected addicts and pushers dead. Rights groups, however, said the death toll from the crackdown could be as high as 20,000, with many cases going unreported.

In November, attorney Benjamin Ramos, a human rights lawyer, had finished paperwork for a client when gunmen on a motorcycle fatally shot him three times in central Negros Occidental province.

Duterte had earlier told the national police not to be cowed by rights lawyers investigating alleged abuses.

He has often flashed a thick list containing the names of judges, lawyers, local politicians and military and police personnel with alleged links to the drug trade. The president has never made public how he came up with the list, but several mayors whose names appeared on it have been killed.

NGO: Philippines a war zone in disguise

Meanwhile, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Center Data Project (ACLED), an international NGO that gathers data on violence in the region, said in its year in review report for 2018 that the Philippines was among countries considered as a top flashpoint.

The group said it recorded approximately 1,000 more events of close-proximity attacks on civilians in 2018 than in 2017.

Overall, civilians faced significant threats from conventional wars (Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen), but also from government repression (the Philippines) and militia targeting (Nigeria and India), the report said. Remote violence targeting civilians declined largely due to a significant drop in the Middle East, even as it increased in other regions and in specific countries, including Yemen and Mali.

It described the Philippines as a war zone in disguise.

More civilians were killed in the Philippines in 2018 than in Iraq, Somalia, or the Democratic Republic of Congo  highlighting the lethality of President Rodrigo Dutertes War on Drugs  cum-state terror campaign, ACLED said.

Throughout the year, the Philippines saw similar levels of civilian fatalities stemming from direct civilian targeting as Afghanistan, it added.

But Salvador Panelo, President Dutertes spokesman, sought to discredit the group, saying its report was remarkable in ignorance and bias.

We do not need lectures from inexpert foreign groups on how to run a nation, Panelo said on Friday. Describing the war on drugs as a state terror campaign targeting innocent civilians as a government policy is pure hogwash. So is putting the Philippines in its list of the most dangerous places for civilians in 2018.

He said the drug war was governed by strict protocols that subject police to accountability for errant law enforcers. He said it was true that the country was a dangerous country, but only for drug traffickers, terrorists and corrupt and abusive personalities.

Panelo also blamed the critical press such as Manila-based online news outlets Rapplers and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, along with the New York Times and Reuters for allegedly influencing ACLEDs conclusion. He said these groups, along with the New York-based Human Rights Watch were hopelessly and blindly critical of the Duterte administration.

ACLED in its website, said it receives financial support from the US Department of State, and International Organization of Migration and U.K. Department for International Development.

Nonoy Espina contributed to this report from Bacolod, central Philippines.
Left: Osbourne Ratti Rogers succumbed to a bullet to his chest. (Credit: Facebook photo) Right:The Pole yard structure in which Rogers and his friends were when the shooting occurred.

Ten days into 2019, St. Vincent and the Grenadines recorded its first homicide.





Police confirmed on Monday, that they were investigating the shooting death of a Barrouallie man, which occurred sometime between 11pm and 11:59 pm, Thursday 10th January, in the community of Pole Yard located in an area north-east of and adjacent to the airstrip of the de-commissioned E. T. Joshua Airport, Arnos Vale.





Osbourne Rogers, aka Ratti, 21, was shot in the chest while in the company of two friends in a single room wooden structure.





Reports are that the men heard a noise and realized the single door of the structure was open. Mindful of what could possibly unfold, they scrambled to escape, but a shot was fired and Rogers was hit in the chest. The shot proved fatal.





One Pole Yard resident told THE VINCENTIAN that she heard the single shot and thought that someone in the area was playing around with a gun. However, when she went outside, she saw Rogers lying on the ground as if he was already dead.





She said that Rogerss body remained on the ground for hours. It was removed well into the early hours of Friday morning.





Rogers run in with the law





Rogers was known to the police, and was arrested and charged on numerous occasions.

Another resident of Pole Yard, who requested not to be named or photographed, for fear of reprisals, told THE VINCENTIAN that Rogers started coming to the area a number of years ago, to visit with two young men who had taken up residence in the community.

These two men, according to the resident, were the two friends who were in the structure when the shooting occurred.

The person reported that Rogers and his friends were in a very serious feud with a group of persons from an area call Bom Bom, which is located a short distance from Pole Yard.

Information shared revealed that Rogers was charged for a number of serious offenses, one of a sexual nature involving a medical student.





A check with the Police Public Relations Department confirmed that Rogers had been charged with various criminal offenses dating back to March 1, 2017. Among the charges were aggressive burglary and indecent assault.

Up to press time no one had been charged with Rogerss death.
Supporters of the Bangsmoro Organic Law participate in a grand rally in Cotabato attended by President Rodrigo Duterte just days ahead of the Monday plebiscite, Jan. 18, 2019.

President Rodrigo Duterte traveled to the southern Philippines on Friday to push for ratification of a law designed to give former Muslim rebels in the region control over an autonomous homeland ahead of a plebiscite on the issue scheduled for Monday.

Duterte arrived amid tight security in Cotabato, just days after a bomb attack at a shopping mall left two people dead. Authorities said the attack was aimed at causing widespread fear leading up to the popular vote on ratifying the law.

After so many years of negotiation and interruptions, Duterte said. This is why I proudly join my Moro brothers and sister as we convene this peaceful assembly in support for the ratification of Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).

Your approval of this law will not only serve as an expression of your desire to end more than a century of armed struggle in the region, he said. It will also serve as testament to your determination to bring genuine peace and development in Muslim Mindanao through an autonomous government that truly represents and understand the needs of the people.

The BOL would give people in the south control over many local government functions including taxation and education and would allow Muslim Filipinos to incorporate Islamic law into their justice system.

Authorities hope the BOL will end four decades of conflict that has left an estimated 120,000 dead in Mindanao, the countrys mineral-rich, yet poverty stricken, southern third.

As part of a deal struck with the government, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) agreed to disband its fighting force and surrender at least 30,000 firearms.

There are fears that militant groups including Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) that splintered from MILF and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State could disrupt the vote.

On Friday, thousands of MILF members and their supporters gathered at the Shariff Kabunsuan Complex in the city of Cotabato for a grand rally with Duterte.

Last year, some local officials questioned and filed a petition in the high court to issue a temporary restraining order against the plebiscite.

But Duterte said the law had undergone a comprehensive analysis and review to ensure that once implemented it will lead to better governance, inclusive political empowerment and enhance systems of transparency and accountability.

To my dear brothers and sisters, as you exercise your sacred right to vote on this plebiscite, I remind you that the power to change the course of your future is solely in your hands. Exercise this right with utmost care because the future of succeeding generations depends on it, Duterte said.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (flowered shirt), greets Moro Islamic Liberation Front leader Ebrahim Murad (right), at the Cotabato rally, Jan. 18, 2019. (Jeoffrey Maitem)

MILF chief Ebrahim Murad sought to assure local officials about the vote.

Our success lies in how we are going to mobilize our people and other people of the area in supporting us in order to have success. We know that the challenges ahead for us are much greater that what we have surpassed in the past. Its not easy job, Murad said.

Mayor opposes BOL

Meanwhile, Cotabato mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi on Friday called on residents to reject the BOL, saying the recent deadly bomb attack at the South Seas Mall could herald a new wave of violence in the region.

When you say a law, thats an open thing, but if you say credibility, thats another thing, Guiani-Sayadi said. How credible are those proponents in bringing peace, progress and development if they cannot even control their people harassing the residents of Cotabato? How can you say you can bring peace?

She said that even before the bomb attack, tension and fear ran high in Cotabato and alleged some MILF ground commanders were seen threatening people to vote yes or suffer attacks

Id like to tell you that my decision to support a no vote for the inclusion of the city is not only mine. I consulted all the stakeholders and sectors. I dont want to decide alone. I want to feel what the people want  those they cannot say because they are afraid, Guiani-Sayadi said.

More than 20,000 security forces are to be deployed throughout the region on Monday to ensure a safe vote, officials said.

Froilan Gallardo in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines, contributed to this report.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo (second left) greets rival presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto as their running mates, Maruf Amin and Sandiaga Uno, look on, after the first candidate debate ahead of the presidential election in April, Jakarta, 17, 2019.

Indonesian presidential candidates and their running mates traded jabs on issues including terrorism, corruption and human rights in the first televised debate ahead of the April 17 election, but neither side emerged as a strong winner.

Viewers who expected a fierce exchange on policy details were left disappointed because neither President Joko Jokowi Widodo nor his challenger, former general Prabowo Subianto, delivered creative proposals or punchy rebuttals.

The Jokowi-Prabowo face-off is a repeat of the tightly-contested 2014 election. A recent poll conducted before the first of five debates suggested that the race is still Jokowis to lose.

Jokowi said during the debate Thursday night that his government was adopting a combination of strong law enforcement and persuasive approaches in dealing with terrorism.

Our country has been hailed as a model for fighting terrorism. Its important that security personnel are armed with knowledge of human rights. We emphasize prevention through social, cultural, economic and religious approaches, Jokowi said.

Prabowo flouted his credentials in dealing with terrorism, saying that he created an anti-terrorism unit when he served in the armys elite special forces unit, Kopassus.

Based on my experience, I know that terrorism is often sent from other countries and in disguise. It is made out to be the work of Muslims, but the truth is it could be orchestrated by non-Muslims, Prabowo said.

So I reject the radical stigma attached to Muslims, said Prabowo, who draws support from millions of Muslim conservatives who see Jokowi as somewhat hostile to Islamist politics in the worlds largest Muslim-majority country.

Playing it safe

Last year, the government disbanded Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, the local branch of an international group seeking to establish an Islamic caliphate, arguing that its ideology threatened the countrys unity. More than 85 percent of Indonesias 250 million people are Muslim.

Jokowi has picked conservative Islamic cleric Maruf Amin as his running mate to boost his Islamic credentials amid accusations that he is not sufficiently Islamic.

At the debate, Maruf said terrorism is not jihad and is forbidden in Islam.

"Terrorism equals creating destruction. The Quran states that people who create destruction on earth must be punished severely," said Ma'ruf, who remained silent for much of the debate.

"If its a religious factor, we will straighten their deviant understanding of religion. If its a social and economic factor, the approach involves providing employment and assistance to put them back on the right path," he added.

Jokowi led Prabowo by 20 percent in a poll released in December by Indikator Politik Indonesia.

But Indikator said Jokowis re-election was not a foregone conclusion, noting that Prabowos numbers expanded from 30 percent to 34.8 percent between October and December.

Sidney Jones, director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, said neither candidate offered interesting or creative ideas about how to tackle terrorism.

But I thought it was particularly conspiratorial of Prabowo to suggest that the major cause of terrorism was outside actors, Jones told BenarNews.

Jones said both sides played it safe partly because they did not want to create controversy and alienate voters.

I just think nobody wants to come up with original, creative ideas in a campaign where it creates too many risks to offer innovative thinking, she said.

The Jokowi government has performed well in law enforcement in that many of the militant networks have been disrupted, but other aspects still leave much to be desired, Jones said.

Theres a lot of more that needs to be done in terms of prevention strategies, and that includes a better rehabilitation program for deportees and for released prisoners and their families, she said, referring to returnees from conflict zones overseas.

Reign supreme

During much of the two-hour debate, Prabowo and his running mate, wealthy businessman Sandiaga Uno, highlighted economic problems facing the country, including unemployment and income inequality.

Prabowo criticized the president for failing to shore up the countrys economic growth, currently at around 5 percent annually.

The former general said if elected, he would raise the salaries of civil servants and government officials to prevent corruption, a plan rejected by Jokowi, who said that they were sufficiently paid.

Sandiaga said human rights would reign supreme if Prabowo and he were elected.

Prabowo-Sandi will uphold human rights and this is non-negotiable, he said.

Prabowo has been accused of committing human rights violations during his time in the military, including the disappearances of several pro-democracy activists during the dying days of strongman Suhartos rule in the late 1990s.

Prabowo has denied any wrongdoing, saying that his conscience was clear.

Jokowi vowed to respect diversity, saying ethnic, religious and linguistic differences were divine blessings.

Our countrys biggest asset is its unity, he said.

But Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch said the candidates failed to address the issue of religious and gender discrimination.

Indonesia has more than 400 local regulations which discriminate religious and gender minorities, he said, citing the Islamic criminal code in autonomous Aceh province which criminalizes gay and sex outside marriage.

Many Indonesians were unimpressed by the candidates debating skills.

The debate was pretty boring because the two pairs of candidates failed to elaborate on their policy proposals, said Adi Prayitno, a political analyst at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University.

Prabowo was too cautious and squandered the opportunity to be on the offensive, he said.

All in all, it was a draw. Neither side is good or bad, he concluded.

Some Indonesians online quipped that high school students were better debaters than the presidential candidates.

This is a debate of two adults but in terms of debating skills, they are worse than high school students. Theres a lack of critical arguments, facts and data, said a Twitter user, Muhammad Wildan Teddy.
Exiled Tibetans in New Delhi show support for India over the Doklam standoff with China, Aug. 11, 2017.

India, which for years has neglected infrastructure along its borders, will spend U.S. $2.9 billion (206 billion rupees) to build dozens of roads along the frontier with China, as Beijing pushes ahead with highway and naval expansion programs, the Indian government said in a new report.

The federal governments Central Public Works Department (CPWD), in its annual report released this month, announced plans to construct the roads in five states along the Sino-Indian border to ensure quick mobilization of troops in case of a conflict.

The CPWD has been entrusted with construction of 44 strategically important roads along the Indo-China border spanning five states of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir], Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, the report said, adding that the new highways would be constructed by the public works department and Border Roads Organization (BRO).

The nearly 4,000-km (2,485-mile) Line of Actual Control between India and China touches areas from Jammu and Kashmir in the north to Arunachal Pradesh state in the northeast.

China has much superior roads along the borders. To support our forces, we need to develop our infrastructure, Vivekananda International Foundation fellow Ashok Kantha told BenarNews. The construction of roads will help mobilize troops and vehicles if need be.

The report comes at a time when China appears to be giving priority to infrastructure projects along its borders with India, according to local media.

Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has made significant advances in constructing an all-weather road that connected the Doklam plateau with its network of highways, local channel News 18 reported, attributing unnamed intelligence sources.

Road construction along the border with China was ignored for years but came to the forefront after the Doklam military standoff between India and China in 2017. In late August 2017, the two side announced that they had settled the dispute by disengaging their respective troops from the area, according to a report by Radio Free Asia (RFA), a sister entity of BenarNews.

The decision to build communications and roads near the border areas had been taken some years ago. This is essential for supplies and for maintaining the essential presence of troops in the border areas, said Anil Wadhwa, another academic at the Vivekananda International Foundation, an Indian policy think-tank.

Last month, an Indian parliamentary committee on external affairs said road infrastructure along the India-China border was grossly inadequate, as confirmed by its own observations from its visits, local media reported.

The committee recommended that the BRO should work to achieve full connectivity and the government should significantly enhance the level of priority it gives to border roads.

The BRO needs a thorough overhaul to improve roads and infrastructure along the disputed border with China, the parliamentary committee said in its report.

China boosting naval power

Meanwhile, Chinas Peoples Liberation Army Navy, which added 80 new ships to its fleet in the last five years, was here to stay, Indian Navy Chief Adm. Sunil Lanba said.

Lanba told a panel discussion at the Raisina Dialogue conference last week that no navy had grown as rapidly in the last 200 years, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

There is no doubt that they are spending a huge sum of money in developing their military capability, modernizing their forces, and modernizing their command structure, Lanba said.

Kantha, who had served as Indias ambassador to China, echoed Lanbas concerns.

The Chinese navy has upgraded its strategy, there is a lot of emphasis on protecting its overseas interests, upgrading network of infrastructure, hardware, Kantha told BenarNews.

He noted that China had a network of ports, too.

They have 75 port terminals controlled by Chinese entities, Kantha said.

At any given time, six to eight Chinese Navy ships are in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, Lanba had said.

Meanwhile, China is moving to a two-ocean approach  from coastal navy to blue water navy, operating in distant seas, Kantha said.
Members of United Hindu Front participate in a protest in New Delhi to demand the deportation of Rohingya Aug. 5, 2018.

More than 1,000 Rohingya have entered Bangladesh from India since early December, adding to a humanitarian challenge that Dhaka faces in accommodating hundreds of thousands of refugees who are sheltering in the southeast, a senior Bangladeshi official said Thursday.

The number of Rohingya arrivals from India has climbed sharply in recent weeks amid a crackdown on immigration by that countrys Hindu nationalist government, sources told BenarNews.

Some Rohingya have been coming from India since May 2018. The flow has increased recently and a total of about 1,300 have come from India since the first week of December, Mohammad Abul Kalam, Bangladeshs commissioner for Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation, told Benar. They have been housed in a transitional refugee center at Ukhia in the Coxs Bazar district under the supervision of UNHCR.

They entered Bangladesh through different points of the porous border and have carried ID cards provided by the UNHCR in India, he said, referring to the U.N. refugee agency.

Some of the newcomers and advocates for refugees said Rohingya were making the long trek to southeastern Bangladesh from as far off as Indian Kashmir, fearing that India would deport them to Myanmar  as was the case with five Rohingya sent back there by Indian authorities on Jan. 3.

A Rohingya husband and wife who led their five-member family from India to a camp in Teknaf, a sub-district of Coxs Bazar, spoke to BenarNews about their journey.

We had fled Myanmar and took shelter in India 10 years ago. We had been living in Keraintela in Jammu-Kashmir in India, said Nur Alam, the husband.

The Rohingya people in Kashmir became panicked as the Indian government recently arrested some of them and deported them to Myanmar. For this reason, many of the Rohingya are fleeing from India and entering into Bangladesh, he said.

Nurs wife, Sanjda Begam, said her family did not want to return to Myanmar.

Myanmar is not livable for us. We have learned that the Myanmar forces are engaged in a battle with the Arakan Army, so we cannot go there. Many other Rohingya are also trying to take shelter in Bangladesh from India, she said.

Fears of expulsion

In India, the leader of a New Delhi-based NGO, the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, said Rohingya feared the Indian government.

After five Rohingya who held refugee status were sent back recently, many with refugee status in India feel that they could all be sent back to Myanmar against their will, Kyaw Min told BenarNews. The reason for the flight to Bangladesh is fear.

Sanjeev Verma, commissioner of the Jammu division in Indias Jammu and Kashmir state, said some Rohingya may have left their Indian shelters voluntarily.

If some families or members have left Jammu, it is not by force, it is by their own free will. They do not face any pressure from authorities to vacate their shelters, he told BenarNews.

In Guwahati, a city in northeast Indias Assam state, a border security official said no movement of refugees had been noted.

We maintain a 24-hour strict vigil, said Border Security Force official who requested anonymity.



The refugees can travel through the Indian states of Assam, Tripura or West Bengal to reach Bangladesh, which shares borders with them.

Abdul Motlob, a leader at the Leda refugee camp in Teknaf, said the Indian ID cards were issued for Rohingya who left the country.

We have come to know that the Indian government has been pressing the Rohingya to receive the new identity cards and the Rohingya are not interested, he told BenarNews. It has become a new fear factor for them.

For decades, Rohingya have faced persecution in Myanmar, which refuses to recognize them as citizens and falsely labels them as Bengalis.

Concentrated in Myanmars Rakhine state, they began fleeing in unprecedented numbers after the army launched a brutal offensive in August 2017. It followed deadly raids carried out against Myanmar government security posts there by Rohingya insurgents.

During the exodus at least 720,000 Rohingya fled to southeastern Bangladesh to join about 300,000 already living in the camps.

Abdur Rahman in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh, Jhumur Deb in Guwahati, India, and Mohammad Amin Pirzada in Srinagar, India, contributed to this report.
The presentation party included the Taiwanese Mackay Memorial Hospital team and officials of the Ministry of Health.

A medical team from the Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taiwan has donated five Hemoglobin A1C (HA1C) machines, worth over EC$100,000., to the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment.





The team, which is here to commence a pilot project geared at preventing and controlling Diabetes, made the donation last Friday, January 11, 2019.

The machines are used to analyze hemoglobin/glucose levels and will be placed at five different pilot health centres in the country.

Director of International Medical Service Centre, Dr. Yung-Wei Hsu, in his remarks said, "We all face challenges such as climate change, Non-Communicable Diseases NCDs, and Diabetes is one issue.

He added that the HA1C machine is a vital tool for diabetic care and management, and that the donation serves as a token of their love for





this country.

Minister of Health, Wellness and the Environment, Hon. Luke Browne, thanked the team for its kind gesture.

Browne recalled that a Vincentian team was trained at the Mackay Memorial Hospital for the provision of medical support to this project, and noted that HA1C is a "critical piece of equipment for Hemoglobin analysis, since current readings from the machine can analyze glucose levels three months prior to test.

The team in collaboration with the Ministry of Health Wellness and the Environment hosted a workshop showcasing the pieces of equipment and other aspects of Diabetic management at the Methodist Church Hall from Monday to Thursday this week.
Firstly, I want to thank Jon Tonge, Tom Hennessey, Maire Braniff, Jim McAuley and Sophie Whiting for the time and effort they put into pulling together The Ulster Unionist Party: Country Before Party? I also owe thanks to my predecessor, Mike Nesbitt, and the many party members and staff who gave up their time through participation in facilitating surveys and interviews.

Never before has such an in-depth examination of the Ulster Unionist Party been carried out. It is quite surprising, for an organisation that has been around for so long, that there has been so little in terms of up-to-date research.

For a Northern Ireland party, we have a very large membership base. People have made assumptions about our members, but this is the first time that anyone has taken the time to research exactly what they think.

Sometimes, leadership is about representing your members' views, but it is also about leading and reaching out beyond your own comfort zone. That's why it is useful to know what they think. And to that end, the research has proven exceptionally useful.

The risk, if there was one, in letting academics have access to, and being able to scrutinise, the inner workings of the party was that they would draw conclusions which would make for uncomfortable reading. Another way of looking at it was that the 'uncomfortable reading' could actually provide very clear challenges.

And that's the way I'm looking at it. We have made use of some of the findings, and we will be actively using some of the results in the future.

Nobody can dispute that some of the personal views expressed in the book are very frank - brutally so, at times. They are an honest reflection on where we were, but we are now looking to the future.

The book gives an insight into the thinking of members of the party at all levels through some of the most turbulent periods in Northern Ireland's history, stretching from the Troubles, through the 1990s and the period of the Belfast Agreement, right up to the modern day.

The views expressed have never been heard before and also open a window on what drives people to get involved in politics, and the Ulster Unionist Party in particular.

I was struck by a comment from a guest at a party conference dinner, pointing out the striking number of young people in attendance. It is notable that the research confirms we have had quite a spike in new members in recent years, and I will continue to work with others to ensure that continues.

The challenge for me and others is to put the energy and enthusiasm of youth to good use to bring better politics to Northern Ireland.

The research confirms that among the party membership, there is no appetite for a merger with the DUP. It is a topic that is often brought up just in advance of an election, so we can expect to see that happening again very soon.

So, before anybody asks, let me be clear: my view about that is unbending. A merger with the DUP will not happen on my watch, and it is reassuring that is the view of the vast majority of Ulster Unionist members.

A merger with the DUP is not in the interests of unionism, because unionism is a movement. It is not owned by one party, or another. A single political party cannot represent all shades of unionist opinion - and I say this as the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, which, in the past, has been described as the "broad church" of unionism.

I am also aware that there are many DUP voters who have never - and will never - transfer their single transferable vote to the Ulster Unionist Party. That's a reality which cannot be ignored.

Unionism must broaden its appeal, and that's what I intend to do. The Ulster Unionist Party will always be strong in its unionism, but that doesn't mean we can't show respect to others who hold a different view.

The Ulster Unionist Party has been described in the past as "big house" unionists, yet here I am, the son of plumber and a hospital cleaner, raised in a Housing Executive house in Kells, leading it.

Based on the results of the research, we have work to do, but I'm up for it and the party is up for it. I want the Ulster Unionist Party to reflect the diversity of our country, so there's plenty of work to be done in demonstrating that.

I note the authors chose the title of 'Country Before Party?' with a question mark. Let me assure you that there is no question about my commitment, or that of my party, to working in the best interests of Northern Ireland.

For me, it will always be country first - without question. For too many years now, politics has been dominated by those where the party comes first.

If society is to progress and if Northern Ireland is to look forward to a successful, confident second century with the country at peace with itself, then those political parties driven by self-interest will have to be replaced by those who are willing to serve.

The Ulster Unionist Party: Country Before Party? by Thomas Hennessey, Maire Braniff, James W McAuley, Jonathan Tonge and Sophie A Whiting is published by Oxford University Press
President Donald Trump has met a North Korean envoy in the Oval Office to discuss efforts to get the country to give up its nuclear programme.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Mr Trump was meeting Kim Yong Chol to discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Koreas final, fully verified denuclearisation.

The former North Korea former spy chief earlier met Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Washington hotel.

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Mr Trump has spoken several times of prospects for a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un early this year.

He has also exchanged several letters with Mr Kim despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearisation agreement reached at their historic first meeting last June in Singapore.

Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology.

A planned meeting between Mr Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. US officials said at the time that North Korea had cancelled the session.

The talks have stalled over North Koreas refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them.

The North has demanded that the US end harsh economic penalties and provide security guarantees before the North takes any steps beyond its initial suspension of nuclear and missile tests.

Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday that the Trump-Kim Jong Un dialogue was promising but that we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.

Mr Trump has offered assurances that a second summit would allow him and Mr Kim to seal a deal resolving the nuclear stand-off and improving a relationship marked by decades of animosity and mistrust since the Korean War.

Mr Kim expressed frustration in an annual New Years address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community, according to Chinas official Xinhua News Agency.

Mr Kims latest trip to China, his fourth since last year, came as the Norths strongest ally has encouraged negotiations with the US while at the same time arguing in favour of immediate easing of sanctions.

The US and North Korea seemed close to war at points during 2017. The North staged a series of weapons tests that brought it closer to its nuclear goal of one day being able to target anywhere on the US mainland.

The two sides then turned to insulting each other, as Mr Trump called Mr Kim Little Rocket Man and North Korea said Mr Trump was a dotard.

Mr Kim abruptly turned to diplomacy with Seoul and Washington last year, possibly fearing the economic effect of the penalties imposed over the weapons tests.

Still, even after the Singapore summit, the first between US and North Korean leaders, there has been little real progress in nuclear disarmament.

Independent analysts are highly sceptical that North Korea will easily abandon a nuclear arsenal constructed in the face of deep poverty and probably seen by Mr Kim as his only guarantee of his governments survival.
President Donald Trump has cancelled the US delegations trip later this month to an economic forum in Davos, Switzerland.

It was the latest development in Thursdays back-and-forth over whether politicians and Trump administration officials should travel during the partial government shutdown.

Earlier, Mr Trump postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosis trip to Afghanistan. That was in response to Ms Pelosi asking Mr Trump to postpone his State of the Union address to the nation  set for January 29  until the government reopens.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that out of consideration for the 800,000 federal workers not getting paid, the president has cancelled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum.

Mr Trump had earlier pulled out of attending the forum because of the shutdown.

While the shutdown dragged on, the US State Department instructed all US diplomats in Washington and elsewhere to return to work next week with pay, saying it had found money for their salaries at least temporarily despite the ongoing government shutdown.

In a notice to staff posted online and sent to employees, the department said it had found money to pay most of its employees beginning Sunday or Monday for their next pay period.

They will not be paid for time worked since the shutdown began in December until the situation is resolved, said the notice, which was signed by William Todd, the deputy undersecretary of state for management.

Expand Close Donald Trump has vowed the US will have powerful, strong border security (Evan Vucci/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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It was not immediately clear where the money was found, but the department said it would use existing funds as well as other available fiscal authorities to shift existing balances to restart payroll funding.

Salaries cannot be guaranteed beyond the next pay period, which ends on February 14, if the shutdown does not end by then, the department said.

However, it said it would review its balances and available legal authorities to see if other flexibilities may be available.

The department said it was taking the step because it had become clear that the lapse in funding is harming essential diplomatic and national security objectives.

Ms Pelosi, whose role as House speaker makes her second in line to the presidency after vice president Mike Pence, said Mr Trump has yet to respond to her request that he postpone his State of the Union address until the government is reopened so workers can be paid for providing security for the grand Washington tradition.

We havent heard  very silent, she told reporters on Thursday.

Lets get a date when government is open. Lets pay the employees.

Maybe he thinks its OK not to pay people who do work. I dont.

It's been 27 days since @realDonaldTrump forced the start of the #TrumpShutdown -- and the Senate still hasn't held a single vote to re-open government. Tune in as I speak with reporters. #EndTheShutdown https://t.co/uxnjhp0VSn  Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 17, 2019

The presidents planned January 29 address became a potential casualty of the four-week partial government shutdown after the Democratic leader cited concerns about whether the hobbled government can provide adequate security.

Republicans cast Ms Pelosis move as a ploy to deny Mr Trump the stage.

Mr Trump declined to address the stalemate over the speech on Thursday during a visit to the Pentagon, simply promising that the nation will have powerful, strong border security.

Ms Pelosi reiterated she is more than willing to negotiate money for border security once the government is reopened, but she said Democrats remain opposed to Mr Trumps long-promised wall, one of his signature campaign promises.

Im not for a wall, Ms Pelosi said twice, mouthing the statement a third time for effect.
From left to right, suspects Osman Ibrahim, Guleid Abdihakim, Gladys Kaari Justus, Oliver Kanyango Muthee and Joel Nganga Wainaina appear at a hearing at Milimani law courts in Nairobi, Kenya (AP)

A Canadian national and five other people suspected of helping extremist gunmen stage a deadly attack in the Kenyan capital this week have appeared in court as prosecutors investigated them for suspected terror offences.

A judge ordered five of the suspects held for 30 days while authorities look into the assault on the dusitD2 hotel complex that was carried out by al Shabab, a group that is linked to al Qaida and based in neighbouring Somalia.

Kenyan authorities say 21 people, including one police officer, were killed by the attackers, one of whom blew himself up beside a restaurant.

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Another four gunmen died.

Prosecutors suspect the alleged accomplices, including two taxi drivers and an agent for a mobile phone-based money service, of aiding and abetting the attackers who stormed the Nairobi complex on Tuesday afternoon and were killed by Wednesday morning, according to a court document.

Prosecutors said they were pursuing more suspects in and outside Kenya.

Suspects who appeared in court were identified as Joel Nganga Wainaina, Oliver Kanyango Muthee, Gladys Kaari Justus, Guleid Abdihakim and Osman Ibrahim.

Abdihakim is a Canadian national, according to prosecutors.

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Hussein Mohammed, another suspect who was arrested in Mandera county along the border with Somalia, was brought to court separately, prosecutors said.

The investigations into this matter are complex and transnational and would therefore require sufficient time and resources to uncover the entire criminal syndicate, said Noordin Haji, director of public prosecutions.

He said he has appointed a team of prosecutors to help ensure that the investigations are meticulous and fast-tracked.

Police earlier identified a Kenyan military officer as the father of a suspect in the assault.

The son, Ali Salim Gichunge, as well as Violet Kemunto Omwoyo, were named as attackers in court documents.

The attackers were in constant communications with several phone numbers which are located in Somalia, prosecutors said.

Gichunges father, who is not believed to have been involved in the attack, was summoned for questioning about when he last saw his son and other details, a senior police official said.

The official said a total of 11 people were detained as part of the investigation.

The attack was denounced on Friday in Eastleigh, a Nairobi neighbourhood that is home to many ethnic Somalis and has been targeted in massive police operations against suspected extremist cells.

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Shop owners temporarily closed businesses to protest against extremism, and crowds gathered.

Al Shabab also carried out the 2013 attack at Nairobis nearby Westgate Mall that killed 67 people, and an assault on Kenyas Garissa University in 2015 that claimed 147 lives, mostly students.

While US airstrikes and a multinational African Union force in Somalia have reduced the Islamic extremists ability to operate, al Shabab is still capable of carrying out spectacular acts of violence in retaliation for the Kenyan militarys presence in Somalia.

The attackers who stormed the hotel complex opened fire and set off grenades, sending panicked people running for cover as security forces converged.

Security camera footage released later showed a suicide bomber blowing himself up in a grassy area.

Authorities identified him as 25-year-old Mahir Khalid Riziki, who was born in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa and was sought several years ago by police for alleged extremist activities.

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A hotel employee, seen in the video footage walking past Riziki just before the explosion, described in an interview with Kenyas K24 television how he heard the man talking on a mobile phone.

Where are you guys? the agitated bomber said at least a couple of times, according to Abdullahi Ogelo, the employee.

Mr Ogelo, who later concluded Riziki had been talking to his accomplices, said the man was also moving his hand over his chest.

Seconds later, the bomber detonated in a flash and billowing smoke.

In the television interview, Mr Ogelo said God saved him and gave him a second chance.
The planet Saturn, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft (Nasa/AP)

Saturn may have flown solo for billions of years, almost its entire existence, before getting its stunning set of rings, a new study suggests.

An Italian-led team has reported in the journal Science that Saturns primary rings appear to be just 10 million to 100 million years old.

The gas giant Saturn, on the other hand, is 4.5 billion years old, like all the other planets in our solar system.

Weare seeing #Saturnas rings at just the right time. Scientists estimate that this spectacular phenomenon is no more than 100 million years oldaa short time during the life of the solar systemaand the rings wonat last forever. Learn more: https://t.co/KWDIKAbwmm pic.twitter.com/upQ9ZlV1wY  Cassini (@CassiniSaturn) December 17, 2018

The findings are based on data collected by Nasas Cassini spacecraft while repeatedly diving between Saturn and its rings in 2017, shortly before its demise.

By estimating the mass of the rings through gravity measurements, the researchers gauged the age of the three main rings: A, B and C.

It is still a mystery, though, how these icy rings formed.

Scientists suspect a collision between two of Saturns many moons or perhaps a moon and comet.

Cassini, like all giants, has left a legacy that will last for a long timeLuciano Iess, scientist

The rings are made mostly of ice.

The remaining 1% is dust and possibly organic contaminants.

Overall, the material ranges in size from tiny particles, to pebbles, to boulders.

How old are #Saturnas rings?



Data from @CassiniSaturn suggest theyare younger than the planet, forming 10a100 million years ago when dinosaurs lived on Earth: https://t.co/RVXU5Lqysh pic.twitter.com/1VjKmbMkvW  NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) January 17, 2019

Lead researcher Luciano Iess, a planetary scientist at Sapienza University in Rome, said orbital motion sprayed the dust and other contaminants onto the icy rings at a constant rate.

His team calculated the length of time it would take for the contaminants to accumulate, it turned out to be a short 10 million to 100 million years.

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It is possible the rings originally were denser than they are now and have thinned over time, which would put them more in line with Saturns age.

But Mr Iess said there was little consensus for that theory.

Mr Iess said Nasas Voyager spacecraft, as well as Cassini, had already provided clues that the rings had not formed with Saturn.

But now we have much more concrete evidence, which was only possible to obtain during the final phase of the mission, called the Grand Finale, he wrote in an email.

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The only spacecraft to ever orbit Saturn, Cassini burned up as it plunged through the planets atmosphere.

The masses of Saturns fainter D, F, G and E rings are considered negligible, the researchers wrote.

Saturns E ring, meanwhile, has its own unique source: plumes of water vapour streaming into space from the moon Enceladus, believed to harbour an ocean beneath its surface.

The Cassini-Huygens mission launched #OTD in 1997 aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Station! It took seven years for the spacecraft to reach Saturn. Image on the right is a true-color view of Saturn from @CassiniSaturn taken in 2011. pic.twitter.com/luGQ1LRyCk  NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) October 15, 2018

Mr Iess noted the latest findings are another gift we received from this beautiful mission.

Cassini, like all giants, has left a legacy that will last for a long time, he said.

Cassini was launched from Florida in 1997.

It carried the European probe named Huygens, which separated and landed on Saturns moon Titan in 2005.
President Donald Trump is accused of telling his lawyer to lie to Congress (Evan Vucci/AP)

Senior Democrats have pledged to investigate a report that Donald Trump directed his personal lawyer to lie to Congress about negotiations over a real estate project in Moscow during the 2016 election.

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said we will do whats necessary to find out if its true.

He said the allegation that the president directed Michael Cohen to lie in his 2017 testimony to Congress in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler of New York, said directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime.

The @HouseJudiciary Committees job is to get to the bottom of it, and we will do that work, Mr Nadler tweeted.

We know that the President has engaged in a long pattern of obstruction. Directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime. The @HouseJudiciary Committeeas job is to get to the bottom of it, and we will do that work.  Rep. Nadler (@RepJerryNadler) January 18, 2019

The report by BuzzFeed News, citing two unnamed law enforcement officials, said that Mr Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress and that Cohen regularly briefed Mr Trump and his family on the Moscow project  even as Mr Trump said he had no business dealings with Russia.

An adviser to Mr Cohen, Lanny Davis, declined to comment on the substance of the article, saying that he and Mr Cohen would not answer questions out of respect for special counsel Robert Muellers Russia probe. Mr Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the election and contacts with the Trump campaign.

The BuzzFeed story says that Cohen told Mr Mueller that Mr Trump personally instructed him to lie about the timing of the project in order to obscure Mr Trumps involvement.

Mr Trump tweeted that Cohen is Lying to reduce his jail time! while White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that the BuzzFeed story was absolutely ludicrous.

Mr Trumps lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, also scoffed at the report, saying in a statement: If you believe Cohen I can get you a good all cash deal on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress in 2017 to cover up that he was negotiating the real estate deal in Moscow on Mr Trumps behalf during the heat of his presidential campaign. The charge was brought by Mr Mueller and was the result of his cooperation with that probe.

Cohen was recently sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to tax crimes, bank fraud and campaign violations. He is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on February 7.

The report comes as House Democrats have promised a thorough look into Mr Trumps ties to Russia. Though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has discouraged any talk of impeachment in the early days of her new majority, some senior Democrats said that if the BuzzFeed report is true, Mr Trumps actions could rise to that level.

If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached, tweeted Texas Representative Joaquin Castro, a member of the House intelligence panel.

Our response to CNN's -- and all other reports -- questioning the integrity of the reporters behind @BuzzFeedNews' latest bombshell investigation: pic.twitter.com/VR4y1Ze0Eo  BuzzFeed PR (@BuzzFeedPR) January 18, 2019

William Barr, Mr Trumps nominee for attorney general, said at his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that a president or anyone else who directs a witness to lie is illegally obstructing an investigation.

That statement attracted attention given Mr Barrs expansive views of presidential powers and his belief that presidents cannot be scrutinised by prosecutors for acts the constitution allows them to take.
Colombian authorities are trying to work out who was responsible for a car bombing at a police academy in Bogota that left 21 dead.

Overnight, the death toll from the Thursday morning bombing more than doubled to 21, making it the deadliest attack in Colombia in over a decade.

It proved especially unsettling because the target, the General Santander school, is one of the most protected installations in the capital and indications it may have been the result of a suicide bombing  something unprecedented in decades of political violence in the South American nation.

President Ivan Duque, visiting the academy in the aftermath, was careful not to attribute blame to any armed group even while condemning what he called a miserable terrorist act that recalled some of the bloodiest chapters of Colombias recent past.

The terrorists are looking to intimidate us as a society and attack the state, Mr Duque said in a televised address in which he declared three days of mourning. Colombia will demonstrate that it is a strong state, united and wont break in the face of the dementia of these aggressions.

Expand Close Family members of victims of a bombing gather outside the entrance to the General Santander police academy (John Wilson Vizcaino/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Among those killed was a top-of-class female cadet from Ecuador, while two visiting students from Panama were among those injured

With the help of security cameras, authorities identified the suspected bomber as a 56-year-old man with no criminal record named Jose Aldemar Rojas. He died in the attack.

Chief Prosecutor Nestor Martinez said Rojas drove a 1993 Nissan pick-up loaded with 80 kilograms of explosives past a security checkpoint and on to the schools leafy campus, where a start-of-the-year ceremony had just finished.

There were reports that when bomb-sniffing dogs detected the explosives the driver got nervous and floored the vehicle past the barrier and on to the campus, where it exploded moments later in front of a red tile-roofed dormitory for female cadets.

Little is known about Rojas. Records show he bought the car last year and had it inspected six months ago in the eastern city of Arauca, near the border with Venezuela.

The same volatile area is a stronghold of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, the countrys last remaining rebel group following a 2016 accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) that saw some 7,000 rebels disarm.

Investigators are reportedly looking into Rojas possible ties with the rebel group after reports that he was an explosives expert for an ELN cell who went by the alias Mocho Kiko.

The ELN has been stepping up its attacks on police targets and oil infrastructure amid a stand-off with the conservative Duque government over stalled peace talks.

A year ago, the group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a police station in the coastal city of Barranquilla that left five officers dead.

But until now the Cuban-inspired group, which is believed to have around 2,000 guerrilla fighters, has never been capable or much interested in carrying out such a high-profile act of violence.

Thursdays attack was the deadliest since a 2003 car bombing against the elite Bogota social club El Nogal that left 36 dead, an incident that hardened Colombians resolve against the Farc.

Mr Duque has demanded the ELN cease all attacks and kidnappings as a condition for restarting the talks and has condemned Venezuela and Cuba for allegedly providing a safe haven for rebel leaders even as their troops continue to sow violence in Colombia.
Police arrested four people suspected of bank robberies after the bonnet of their car flipped up and covered the windscreen (AP)

Police in Texas were handed a gift from the gods this week as suspects they were chasing suffered a mishap straight out of the movies.

Officers from Dallas arrested a group of people suspected in a series of bank robberies after the bonnet on the car they were using to flee authorities popped up and covered the windscreen, obscuring the road.

Authorities said the suspects were under surveillance by law enforcement officials on Thursday when they attempted to rob a bank north-east of Fort Worth.

One woman was arrested at the bank, while three other suspects fled.

The car was speeding from police on Interstate 30 when the bonnet snapped back.

The car exited and continued for several more miles before the three people inside ran into a field and were apprehended.
Elroy Boucher, President of the PSU, made no bones of saying where he thought the CTAWU and the NQWM did not have jurisdiction.

Head of the Public Service Union (PSU), Elroy Boucher has noted that neither the National Workers Movement (NWM) nor the Commercial Technical and Allied Workers Union (CTAWU) can negotiate salaries for public servants, teachers, and police officers.





Boucher made the point on Tuesday at a press conference in Kingstown.

He called the press conference to address the announced agreement, resulting from a meeting Friday involving the Prime Minister and the trade unions.





The PSU, SVG Teachers Union and the Police Welfare Association did not attend the meeting after their representatives refused, upon request, to hand over their mobile devices  phones, tablets, etc., to security personnel, since they were not allowed to take such into the meeting.





According to Boucher, this was the first time in more than a decade of salary negotiations that they were told that they could not take their phones into the meeting room.





The announced agreement, one with respect to salary increases, arrived at between the government on one hand and the CTAWU and NWM on the other, set increases of 1 per cent for half of 2018, 1.5 per cent for 2019 and 2 per cent for 2020, for public servants, teachers and police officers.





Having declared the CTAWU and the NWM ineligible to negotiate on behalf of bona fide public officers, Boucher proceeded to describe the agreement as null and void and "a joke.





As far as he was concerned, this agreement was an affront to the SVGTU, Police Welfare and the PSU, since it failed to consider the salary increases/adjustments agreed upon as per previous negotiations involving the government.

"So what transpired there and was put out in the media is a farce, is a joke, is a mockery, Boucher said of the agreement.





Boucher, continuing to dismiss the legitimacy of the agreement, declared that never before has his Union been part of a negotiation with respect to salaries, with the CTAWU and the NWM.

He recalled that when there were negotiations to address the reclassification of the public service a decade ago, those negotiations involved the SVGTU, the Police Welfare Association, and the PSU. There was no CTAWU, no NWM because they do not represent bona fide public officers.

And as for the increases as per the agreement announced, Boucher all but threw water on the piece of paper on which it was written.





To paraphrase his assessment, he said No trade unions worth their salt would come away agreeing to a1 percent salary increase after a wage freeze.

If what Boucher said of the Prime Minister, these salary increases could well be legislated.
A man who allegedly traded his car for an anti-tank rocket and explosives in a plot to storm the White House has been arrested

A man who allegedly traded his car for an anti-tank rocket and explosives in a plot to storm the White House has been arrested.

Hasher Jallal Taheb (21), from Cumming, Georgia, was arrested in an FBI sting and is charged with attempting to damage or destroy a building owned by the US using fire or an explosive, US Attorney Byung J 'BJay' Pak said.

The FBI set up the sting after a law enforcement agency said in March that it got a tip from someone who said Taheb had become radicalised, changed his name and planned to travel abroad, according to an FBI agent's affidavit filed in court.

Taheb told the undercover agent he had never shot a gun but could learn easily and also said he had watched some videos of how grenades explode, authorities claimed.

The affidavit says Taheb told a confidential FBI source in October that he planned to travel abroad for "hijra", which the agent wrote refers to travelling to territory controlled by Islamic State.
A Canadian town whose moose statue has been overtaken as the tallest in the world is preparing to fight back.

Mac the Moose has stood proudly in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, since 1984, and, at 9.8 metres high (32.1ft), it long held the crown as the worlds tallest moose statue.

Mayor Tolmie's Wants To Know How We Can Make Mac The Moose Bigger Mayor Tolmie is asking for suggestions on how Mac can reclaim his title of "World's Tallest Moose"! Tourism Moose Jaw Tourism Saskatchewan Norway Tourism Explore Canada Justin and Greg Posted by City of Moose Jaw on Tuesday, January 15, 2019

That changed in 2015 when the Big Elk was unveiled in Stor-Elvdal, Norway, standing a full 30cm (11.8in) taller than Mac.

Now the city of Moose Jaw is preparing itself to fight back.

In a video posted to Facebook on Wednesday, Fraser Tolmie, the citys mayor, said he is ready to take action.

He said: What are going to do folks? What are the people of Moose Jaw willing to do to overcome this situation? Mac the Moose was the tallest moose in the whole world and the people of Norway have taken that from us.

Well Im not going to stand for it.

Tolmie added that it was personal to him because the statue is named after former city councillor Les McKenzie, his wifes great uncle.

Hes practically family to me, Tolmie said of Mac the Moose.

The Mayor now wants suggestions of how Mac might reclaim his title. Among the strategies suggested have been adding a bigger rack to the moose, or even giving him a hat.

Tolmie appears to have been spurred into action by online comedy duo Justin and Greg.

Moose Jaw Fights Back for Mac the Moose MOOSE JAW has been DE-THRONED for having the WORLD'S LARGEST MOOSE and we the people of Saskatchewan CANNOT STAND FOR THIS! UPDATE: Wanna help > https://www.gofundme.com/mac-the-moose Posted by Justin and Greg on Friday, January 11, 2019

The pair produced a video last week in which they called for action, saying: We people of Saskatchewan, we are friendly, we are kind, we will give you the shirt off our back, but when you come after our national treasures, internationally known around the world, we will not abide that.

They called on Tolmie to add 31cm to Mac and stick it to Olso or else rename your city Jaw.
The review was released after Wade and Sweeneys sentencing at the High Court in Glasgow (John Linton/PA)

The wilful neglect of Lauren Wade by her mother Margaret Wade and partner Marie Sweeney has been described as one of the most challenging cases in the last 50 years of Scottish child protection.

The two-year-olds death became the subject of a significant case review by the Glasgow Child Protection Committee, with the findings made public after Wade and Sweeney were jailed.

What happened to Lauren?

Lauren was found unresponsive on the couch of her home in Sighthill, Glasgow, and an ambulance was called. She died half-an-hour later and a post-mortem examination indicated she was emaciated and infested with head lice.

Wade and Sweeney, from Townhead, were each sentenced to six years and four months in prison at the High Court in Glasgow on Friday.

It's the most deviant and devious parenting couple I've ever encountered.Colin Anderson, Glasgow Child Protection Committee

How did Wade and Sweeney get away with it for so long?

Colin Anderson, independent chair of the committee, explained: After around 50 years in the business, this is the most challenging case Ive come across.

This is a unique set of circumstances, thankfully. Its the most deviant and devious parenting couple Ive ever encountered. The way they criminally neglected this child, wilfully, and the way they then masked that from not only professionals but from extended family.

Not only was there disguised compliance  they appeared to show some improvement on the back of a checked-visit  but then they reverted to wilfully neglected Lauren to the extent of causing her death.

Hostile parents are easier to work with than those who disguise their compliance.

Expand Close Margaret Wade and Marie Sweeney have been jailed for neglect which led to their daughters death (Police Scotland/PA) / Facebook

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What other questions does the review not answer?

Among the unanswered questions is why the extended family did not intervene or recognise the state of living conditions at the home.

It also remains unknown why Wade said she was a single parent and did not reveal her 14-year relationship with Sweeney. Nor is it clear how much day-to-day involvement Sweeney had.

Wade administered a head lice treatment to two other children involved in the case, but not at all to herself or to Lauren. It remains unclear why this was the case.

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How did the review address these remaining concerns?

Mr Anderson commended the panel for including an unanswered questions section in the review, saying: To be fair to the panel there were constraints  this is not unusual within Scotland.

In this case we could not interview extended family members, we could not interview key people as we would do in a normal review. We were constrained by the fact they would then be involved as witnesses in criminal proceedings, which is a challenge in itself.

Some of these unanswered questions from three-plus years ago would have been answered were we empowered to do a deeper dive into some of the surrounding circumstances.

The Child Protection Committee totally accepts the conclusions, key issues and learnings identified.

As a collective profession we need to get back to putting the child at the centre, making child protection everyones business. We need to develop professional curiosity and professional nosiness, if you like, and workers need to own responsibility for concerns and not pass it off.
Government plans to put troops back on the streets of the UK in the event of a no-deal Brexit demonstrate the chaos of the Prime Minister's Brexit strategy and are an admission of the harm the UK crashing out of the EU does, Sinn Fein MP Chris Hazzard has said.

The Government has issued formal notice for Army reservists to be called up to help in the event of a no deal.

Ministers said it was to tackle the impact on "welfare, health and security of UK citizens and economic stability of the UK.

The Ministry of Defence said it was supporting no-deal preparations across government to ensure there are effective and proportionate contingency plans in place.

Around 3,500 troops are on standby to help with no-deal planning and 350 of them have been called up and deployed. It is not known where they will be stationed.

No government can seriously claim that any policy that results in the need to deploy soldiers onto the streets is a good one," said South Down MP Hazzard.

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Not only has there been chaos in the British Parliament but now it is clear the Tories are acknowledging the scale of the dysfunction with these plans.

"It highlights the need for the EU and Irish government to stand firm on what has been agreed in order to protect Ireland from this Brexit chaos."

He added: "It shows how chaotic the British government's Brexit policy has become."

Prime Minister Theresa May has refused to rule out a no-deal. The DUP said maintain the option would demonstrate to the EU the UK's seriousness in the withdrawal talks.

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The troops will initially be deployed for one year, starting from February 10 performing tasks such as reinforcing existing operations, working with other agencies and providing specialist skills.

Defence Minister Mark Lancaster, in a statement to Parliament, announced an order to enable reservists to be called into permanent service in support of the Government's no-deal contingency plans.

Defence is committed to assisting the cabinet office coordinated work programme to ensure that there are effective and proportionate contingency plans in place to mitigate the potential immediate impacts leaving the EU, under a no-deal scenario, might have on the welfare, health and security of UK citizens and economic stability of the UK, he said.
An expert psychiatrist will oversee a review of support services for young people at Polmont (Andrew Milligan/PA)

A leading psychiatrist has been appointed to oversee an independent review of the mental health support services available to young people behind bars.

Consultant forensic child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Helen Smith will oversee work examining the care of young people who are detained at Polmont Prison and Young Offenders Institution.

The parents of a 21-year-old woman who took her own life at Polmont welcomed the move as an important first step.

But Linda and Stuart Allan insisted they also want to see longer term plans for the inspection of prisons across Scotland.

Our statement issued on behalf of the family of Katie Allan- on announcement by Justice Minister @HumzaYousaf of independent expert review of mental health support of young people in prison, following suicides of #KatieAllan #WillliamLindsay https://t.co/kMvgMfxmLW  Aamer Anwara#BlackLivesMatter (@AamerAnwar) January 18, 2019

The Scottish Government ordered a review of mental health services for young people in custody following the death of Katie Allan and 16-year-old William Lindsay, who took his own life at Polmont 48 hours after being sent there on remand.

Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf announced this will look into a range of matters, including the background information given to prison service staff ahead of a young person being admitted to custody.

It will also consider the reception procedures when someone arrives at Polmont, and the ongoing support and supervision available there.

Mr Yousaf said: This review will focus specifically on young people in custody and will draw directly on the views and lived experiences of staff, young people and their families at Polmont.

It will require a wide-ranging approach with a specific understanding of the particular difficulties faced by young people, so I am pleased that Dr Smith, with her considerable experience and knowledge, has been appointed to provide expert counsel.

Today is an important step forward in ensuring a legacy of Katie Allan, William Lindsay, and all those whose cries for help went unheard.Aamer Anwar

He stressed that any death by suicide is tragic and the impact on family and friends is unimaginable for most of us.

While there are other Government initiatives working to cut suicide rates and improve mental health, Mr Yousaf said it is imperative that we take a focused approach to addressing concerns that have been raised about support for young people in custody.

The Justice Secretary met Ms Allans parents in November, five months after she died while serving a sentence at Polmont.

Lawyer Aamer Anwar, who is acting for the parents of Ms Allan and Mr Lindsays mother, said: There was nothing inevitable about William and Katie taking their own lives, it was clear to anybody that cared to look that they were vulnerable and at risk of taking their own lives.

Today is an important step forward in ensuring a legacy of Katie Allan, William Lindsay, and all those whose cries for help went unheard.

Expand Close Lawyer Aamer Anwar (centre) with Katie Allans parents. (Andrew Milligan/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Katies parents welcome todays wide-ranging review of mental health provision for young people in prison custody, as a response to our meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice on November 13 last year.

At that meeting over 15 points of action for Scottish prisons were presented to him and several of those have been taken on board.

But the family also want to hear about longer term plans on inspection of prisons across Scotland.

Mr Anwar added the Allans believe radical change is necessary to stop young people like Katie and William Lindsay taking their own lives.

Dr Smith, the clinical lead for West of Scotland Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services who is also an honorary senior clinical lecturer at the University of Glasgow, said she is looking forward to working with both Polmont and the local health board NHS Forth Valley to examine the support given to vulnerable young people at a very difficult time in their lives.
The Duke of Edinburgh driving the future Prince of Wales to Cheam School for his first day there, accompanied by the Queen (PA)

The Prince of Wales raised concerns about the Duke of Edinburghs driving five years ago when his father was still travelling around the capital in his famous black cab.

Charles told the son of a D-Day veteran about his fears when he met the pair in France in June 2014, during commemorations marking the 70th anniversary of the Second World War offensive.

At the time Philip, who is 97, was approaching his 93rd birthday, celebrated on June 10, and would drive around the capital in relative anonymity in a black taxi.

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During commemorations in the Normandy town of Bayeux the prince met Ivor Thomas, a former Corporal in the Royal Engineers from Gloucester who landed on Gold Beach on D-Day.

Philip Thomas, the son of the veteran, told Charles his father, who was at the event in a wheelchair, continued to drive and owned a 1985 Ford Sierra.

The prince replied: So does my father. Im always worried, before gesturing towards Mr Thomas, and asking: But his eyesights all right?

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The duke gave up his London black cab, fuelled by liquefied petroleum gas, a few years ago and it is now featured in the Sandringham museum.

The Queens consort still drives himself around Sandringham and Windsor Castle and is known to prefer the Land Rover Freelander 2.

Philip has been driving Land Rovers for decades and is probably drawn to their durability, off-road capabilities and his familiarity with them.
House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has been winning fans online and around the world this week for his no-nonsense approach to keeping MPs in line.

While politicians debated Theresa Mays Brexit deal and Jeremy Corbyns no-confidence motion, the silver-haired and foghorn-voiced Speaker of the House was ever-present, most commonly found bellowing ORR-DEEERRRR! at his assorted colleagues.

And although some MPs may be short of enthusiasm for the 55-year-old former Conservative, the same cannot be said for many social media users and foreign news organisations.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation published a video to Twitter on Wednesday, titled British Parliaments House Speaker is not to be trifled with, which highlights some of his most thunderous and pithy pronouncements.

How to maintain order during a Brexit vote in the House of Commons like Speaker John Bercow. #TheMoment pic.twitter.com/H2lYjMLG0H  CBC News: The National (@CBCTheNational) January 16, 2019

Sitting in the newsroom today and hearing that voice, I thought someone in the control room decided theyd rather watch a Pirates Of The Caribbean movie than news, wrote one CBC News editor in response.

Similarly, a video of Mr Bercow published by German news programme Tagesschau has been watched more than 300,000 times on Twitter, with one Spanish user admiring his general demeanour for being hard, accurate, authentic and dangerous.

His choice in ties has also brought attention, particularly the geometric rainbow neckwear on show on Tuesday.

Itas hard to get into the mind of a man, who knowing the world is watching, thinks athis is definitely the tiea.#brexit #Bercow pic.twitter.com/Jl2i5wNe0M  Scott Primmer (@PrimmerScott) January 15, 2019

Bercow has the air of a man whos been dragged out of the kitchen by his wife to break up an argument between their rowdy teenagers, but hes been home from work for a few hours and has already knocked back half a bottle of Chardonnay, replied one Twitter user.

Elsewhere, the wide variety of facial expressions the Speaker employs to cajole MPs into submission was compared to the four stages of a night out.

On Reddit, Mr Bercows sharp choice of words was garnering the most applause, with one Redditor describing his role as functionally the same as that of a secondary school teacher.

Others, as is often the case, were just there to crack jokes.

John, whats your favourite 80s band? New ORDERRRRR! wrote one Redditor.

Of course New ORDERRRRRR was formed by members of Joy DIVISIOOOOON, replied another, quoting Mr Bercows cry on Tuesday, when the house was divided, which was so loud it overloaded microphones in the Commons.

Mr Bercow has promised to stand down as Speaker in the summer amid allegations of bullying, 10 years after being appointed to the role.

If you asked me if Id rather be Speaker or a very senior minister, Id say Speaker, he said in a 2011 interview.
A man has died following a five-vehicle crash.

The collision happened on the the A96, Forres to Elgin Road, near Forres Enterprise Park in Moray at around 5pm on Thursday.

Police said a 61-year-old man was airlifted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary where he died.

Three males were taken to Drs Grays Hospital in Elgin for treatment, with their ages not known.

Sergeant Scott Deans, of the Road Policing Department, said: Our thoughts at this difficult time remain with those involved.

Our investigations continue and, in order to help piece together exactly what happened, I would urge anyone who may have witnessed the collision and who hasnt yet come forward to contact police on 101 and quote incident number 2837 of 17/01/2019.
The scene near the Sandringham Estate where the Duke of Edinburgh was involved in a road accident while driving (Sam Russell/PA)

The Duke of Edinburghs car crash at the age of 97 has prompted debate around the safe age of drivers.

 What are the rules around older drivers?

When motorists reach the age of 70 in Britain they are required to renew their licence, and must do so every three years thereafter.

There is no driving test or medical examination, and it is down to drivers to declare whether or not they are fit to drive.

Applicants are urged to check with their doctor before applying and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) may make further investigations based on the declaration made.

 What about eyesight?

The only mandatory examination of vision takes place during the practical test, when learners must read a number plate from 20 metres.

Once someone has obtained their licence, it is up to them to tell the DVLA if they have a problem with their eyesight.

Road safety charity Brake has called for a vision test to be required at least every 10 years when drivers renew their licence photocard.

 Is the duke known to be a keen motorist?

Philip is no stranger to the driving seat, and has previously been seen with very famous passengers in a Range Rover.

Expand Close The duke driving his wife and their guests from the US (Pool/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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He showed former US president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle the personal touch when he drove them and the Queen to Windsor Castle after the presidential helicopter Marine One had landed close to the monarchs Berkshire home during their visit to the UK in April 2016.

The gesture was akin to picking up guests from the airport, although the journey only lasted a few minutes. Mr Obama looked delighted when he discovered Philip would be driving them.

As the Queen and Mrs Obama sat in the rear seats, the duke looked composed at the wheel of the Range Rover as it made its way around the castles quadrangle and stopped outside the sovereigns entrance.

 Why has Philips crash sparked debate?

The AA said car crashes involving older drivers can sometimes lead to calls for tighter rules or even bans.

But AA president Edmund King said GP and family advice is more significant than a persons age when it comes to how long someone should keep driving.

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Mr King said: We wish the Duke of Edinburgh well. Many commentators use high-profile car crashes involving elderly drivers as a reason to call for bans or restrictions on older drivers.

If driving restrictions based on age and safety were introduced we would be more likely to restrict young drivers rather than older drivers.

Young, predominantly male, drivers are much more likely to crash within six months of passing their test than older drivers within six months of hanging up their keys.

Older drivers often self-restrict their driving by not driving at night and only driving on familiar roads.

The decision to hang up your keys is a tough one but should be based on personal advice from your GP and family rather than being based on some arbitrary age.

We all age differently and the car is an essential lifeline for many elderly people.

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 Are there many people over the age of 90 who still have a driving licence?

Figures from the DVLA in November showed 110,790 people aged 90 or over still held driving licences.

There were 314 licence holders aged at least 100. The oldest were four people who were 107.

 What did the police do after the dukes accident?

As is force policy, officers from Norfolk Police carried out roadside breath tests on the drivers of both vehicles, which proved negative.

They are now investigating the circumstances.

We've released a statement following a collision at #Sandringham earlier today. You can read it here >> https://t.co/gpTkpPU3Q1  Norfolk Police (@NorfolkPolice) January 17, 2019

 What advice is there for older people who do give up their driving licence?

Age UK said such a decision can be difficult but that stopping driving does not have to mean the end of independence or mobility.

The charity said on its website: If youve decided to stop driving, or been advised to by the DVLA, there are many ways you can get around and there may be help with transport costs.

You may feel worried about the costs of giving up driving and having to pay for public transport, but if you add up the amount you spend on car tax, insurance, fuel and maintenance you may find that using alternatives work out to be less expensive than running a car.

Most people find adjusting to life without a car is difficult at first. If youre finding life without a car tough and causing you to feel down, talk to a family member, friend or your GP.
Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said that the incident last Friday when some trade union leaders refused to surrender their mobile phones before entering the meeting room, is a side show to the real events.





While speaking on radio on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said that those union leaders would find all sorts of excuses for their action, "but all right-thinking people in this country know those union leaders who failed or refused to deposit their cell phones acted wrong.





Last Friday, union leaders and the delegation representing the Public Service Union, St Vincent and the Grenadines Teachers Union and the Police Welfare Association refused to surrender their mobile devices and did not attend the planned meeting with the Prime Minister.

Gonsalves further noted that the regulation for persons to surrender their cell phone to security personnel at the Prime Ministers Office is not new.

"Those rules were there all the time, he said.

Gonsalves explained that a decision had been taken by the Cabinet Secretary and the police to step up security after it had been deemed too lax.





"At my office, I am the only prime minister in the OECS where you can walk in off the road and come see me. That is why there are always people there, Gonsalves said.

He insisted that the rule has always been in place, and that there was no issue last year when a similar request was made.

But PSU President, Elroy Boucher, in a prior interview, denied this saying that he did not recall having to surrender his cell phone on previous occasions.

According to Boucher, the unions meeting with the prime minister was a different type of meeting than that involving members of the public.





"It is something that has never happened before, Boucher said.

Reference was made to an incident that occurred last year when a part of the conversation between the trade unions and prime minister was secretly recorded and leaked to the media.

He further stated that it was not until after hearing the prime minister on radio last Friday evening, hours after the incident, that he then thought that the request was made in order to avoid a repeat of what occurred last year.

"But if that is the case, inform us early, Boucher said.
From left Julia Sawalha, Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders leave All Hallows Church in Tillington, West Sussex (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Absolutely Fabulous co-stars Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders have joined mourners at the funeral of national treasure Dame June Whitfield.

Family and friends had been asked to wear bright colours for the service at All Hallows Church in Tillington, near Petworth, West Sussex.

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The veteran actress died peacefully last month at the age of 93.

Speaking before the service, Dame Junes daughter, Suzy Aitchison, who starred in Jam & Jerusalem, said: I am delighted so many people could be here, its a lovely day and everyone has been so helpful and lovely.

I think she would have been overwhelmed. We are trying to have a celebration of life, that is why we are so brightly dressed  Mum asked for us to wear bright, lovely attire.

Expand Close Suzy Aitchison, daughter of Dame June Whitfield, arrives for her mothers funeral (Andrew Matthews/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Suzy Aitchison, daughter of Dame June Whitfield, arrives for her mothers funeral (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Reverend Debbie Smith, who led the service, said: We are holding the balance between June as just a wonderful woman who was part of this community and contributed wonderfully, as well as having a public face as well.

She told the congregation: She is remembered as an adorable, much-loved woman, known as a national treasure, a role model to many.

A selection of Dame Junes favourite music was played, including tunes by Gershwin and Porter sung by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole and Judy Garland.

Expand Close The order of service for Dame June Whitfields funeral in Tillington, West Sussex (Andrew Matthews/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp The order of service for Dame June Whitfields funeral in Tillington, West Sussex (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Her wicker casket was covered in bright flowers.

The poem She Is Gone by David Harkins was read by Dame Junes granddaughter, Bianca Quinn, before a eulogy by Roy Hudd with whom Dame June appeared on radio for many years.

He said: She was that rare bird  a goody that looked magical. I had a 35-year course in comedy from the very best.

Expand Close Roy Hudd, who gave a eulogy at the service, and his wife Debbie were among the mourners (Andrew Matthews/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Roy Hudd, who gave a eulogy at the service, and his wife Debbie were among the mourners (Andrew Matthews/PA)

This was followed by a eulogy by Ms Aitchison, referred to by her married name of Suzy Quinn, called Memories of Mum.

She said: Mum was not special, she was very special, not because she was super-talented and fantastic but in spite of it.

She was known as lovely, approachable, kind, supporting, effervescent, funny and beautiful. Everyone loved her and she loved everyone.

She added: I am just happy you passed away peacefully in your sleep, as you wanted, and now you are going to rest with Dad.

You had the perfect end to your wonderful life, no-one could have written your final exit better, no-one could have written you better, you will always be much-loved, missed and unforgettable.

The service concluded with the hymn Jerusalem and Get Happy sung by Judy Garland.

Expand Close The order of service featured a photo from the engagement of the actress and her husband, Tim Aitchison (Andrew Matthews/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp The order of service featured a photo from the engagement of the actress and her husband, Tim Aitchison (Andrew Matthews/PA)

The order of service featured an engagement photograph of Dame June with husband Tim Aitchison, who died in 2001.

Donations in Dame Junes memory were requested for Age UK.

During her career spanning eight decades in showbusiness, Dame June tackled bawdy comedy in the Carry On films, and starred in the long-running sitcom Terry And June, as well as playing the grandmother in Absolutely Fabulous.
An anti-drone system has been deployed at Heathrow (Steve Parsons/PA)

Details of 18 near misses between aircraft and drones have been revealed, as it emerged new technology to combat the gadgets is in place at Heathrow.

Four of the incidents investigated by the UK Airprox Board (UKAB) involved airliners which were approaching the west London hub.

A pilot of an Airbus A380 spotted a large commercial drone pass along the right side of the aircraft within 20 metres at an altitude of 3,400 feet.

The UKAB assessed that the drone was being flown in a way which was endangering other aircraft and concluded that the incident on July 22 last year involved the highest risk of collision.

Expand Close The exclusion zone for drones around airports will be extended to a 5km-radius (John Stillwell/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp The exclusion zone for drones around airports will be extended to a 5km-radius (John Stillwell/PA)

Another category A near miss featured an Embraer 190 aircraft at an altitude of 800 feet as it was coming into land at Glasgow Airport on September 7.

A shiny white drone was flown immediately above the plane at just 15-30 metres away.

The UKAB concluded that a definite risk of collision had existed.

In a bid to stop a repeat of the problem, an anti-drone system placed on top of a commercial vehicle has been deployed at Heathrow.

The AUDS (Anti-UAV Defence System) is able to detect, track and ground drones and has been designed to stop them being used for terrorist, espionage or other malicious activities.

Similar equipment has been pictured on the roof of Gatwicks South Terminal.

A Heathrow spokeswoman said: Heathrow has always worked closely with the Government and Metropolitan Police to monitor and mitigate against threats to the airport, including the irresponsible use of drones.

In the interests of safety, we do not comment on issues relating to security at the airport.

Assessments of 18 near misses with drones between July and October were included in the UKABs latest monthly report.

The law could not be clearer that this is a criminal offence and anyone endangering others in this way faces imprisonmentAviation minister Baroness Sugg

Aviation minister Baroness Sugg said: The actions of these drone users were not only irresponsible, but illegal.

The law could not be clearer that this is a criminal offence and anyone endangering others in this way faces imprisonment.

There were 120 near misses between drones and aircraft reported in the year to December 4 2018, up 29% on the total of 93 in the whole of 2017.

Just six incidents were recorded in 2014.

There is growing concern about drones being flown near airports after recent disruption.

Multiple sightings of the gadgets caused flights to be grounded over 36 hours at Gatwick in the run-up to Christmas, while departures at Heathrow were suspended for an hour last week after a drone was spotted.

In a bid to stop a repeat of the problem, an anti-drone system placed on top of a commercial vehicle has been deployed at Heathrow.

Expand Close Counter drone equipment on a rooftop at Gatwick airport (John Stillwell/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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The AUDS (Anti-UAV Defence System) is able to detect, track and ground drones and has been designed to stop them being used for terrorist, espionage or other malicious activities.

Similar equipment has been pictured on the roof of Gatwicks South Terminal.

A Heathrow spokeswoman said: Heathrow has always worked closely with the Government and Metropolitan Police to monitor and mitigate against threats to the airport, including the irresponsible use of drones.

In the interests of safety, we do not comment on issues relating to security at the airport.

Existing rules for drone users include not flying near airports, staying below 400 feet and flying at least 50 metres away from buildings and people.

Last week, the Government announced a package of measures designed to give police extra powers to combat drones.

The exclusion zone around airports will be extended to approximately a 5km-radius (3.1 miles), with additional extensions from runway ends.

Ministers also announced that from November 30, operators of drones weighing between 250g and 20kg will be required to register and take an online drone pilot competency test.
Prime Minister Theresa May's deal was voted down in the Commons on Tuesday.

The first politicians spotted after meeting the Prime Minister yesterday were the Brexiteers.

Former Secretaries of State Owen Paterson and Theresa Villiers joined David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith and other influential members of the European Research Group (ERG) for an early morning tete-a-tete with Mrs May as part of her Brexit consultation exercise.

The discussion was "very constructive" and "thoroughly worthwhile", said Mr Paterson.

Arlene Foster seemed equally upbeat when she emerged from Downing Street with Nigel Dodds.

The DUP leader spoke of her optimism that an acceptable withdrawal agreement could be reached.

Less happy was Green MP and staunch Remainer Caroline Lucas. The Prime Minister had reportedly ruled out a second referendum at their meeting.

But, as always with Brexit, it wasn't clear-cut or straightforward. Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price, who met Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington and Environment Secretary Michael Gove, was also positive.

"We talked in detail about the practicalities of how we could make it (another referendum) happen," he told the BBC.

"If the Government were to come out on Monday with that position (of another referendum) then the gridlock, the impasse, the logjam would be broken, and we could move forward."

This is not a win-win situation. When Mrs May unveils Plan B, somebody will be shafted.

Former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke is hoping it will be the DUP.

In a characteristically outspoken interview, he employed language that even a 1980s Jeremy Corbyn never used.

Clarke bemoaned that the Prime Minister was trying to keep "this sectarian Protestant party in Ireland onside". Mr Dodds hit back, describing the Tory grandee as "a decent chap ... but he's in a club of one when it comes to the Conservative Party".

It's the balance of power within her own party that will likely make up Mrs May's mind on the way forward on Brexit.

Within the Cabinet, the Remainers and those wanting a customs union are a minority.

The DUP, Boris Johnson and the ERG are all insisting it is entirely feasible for the Prime Minister to go back to Brussels and argue for changes to the Withdrawal Agreement.

Mrs Foster told the Belfast Telegraph earlier this week that the party was willing to look at a different version of the backstop - "something sensible" which would be time-limited and didn't threaten the Union.

Parliamentary arithmetic means that must be a likely choice for the Prime Minister.

But the odds of Brussels buying it is another matter entirely, and one over which the DUP - unlike at Westminster - has no control.
Salesforce Tower Dublin will be located at the citys North Quay (Niall Carson/PA)

Global technology company Salesforce has announced 1,500 jobs are to be created in Dublin.

Salesforce Tower Dublin, which will be located at the citys North Quay, was announced on Friday, significantly expanding the companys regional headquarters in Ireland.

Founded in 1999, Salesforce helps companies like Ulster Bank and Brown Thomas to take advantage of technologies like cloud, mobile, social, and artificial intelligence to get closer to their customers.

Fantastic announcement this morning with @Salesforce committing to 1,500 new jobs and a brand new campus. Ireland: tech capital of Europe a@Paschalda pic.twitter.com/IRt6U5uEOr  Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) January 18, 2019

The announcement was made before Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and nearly 1,000 Salesforce employees at an event in the Convention Centre detailing the new plans.

The Taoiseach welcomed the news and highlighted that Dublins north inner-city is one of the most disenfranchised areas of the capital, urging the company to reach out to the local community.

As you know your new building is located in part of the city where many large international businesses have chosen to locate, however this part of the city is also one of some very stark contrasts, he said.

There is enormous wealth here, cheek by jowl with deep deprivation and many people who live in this part of the city in the north-est inner city have experienced deprivation, lack of opportunity and inter-generational poverty.

As Dublin rises, and this part of the city rises we should all rise together, I want to invite you to be very much part of this community thats going to be your new home.

Salesforce is an important part of our technology sector, helping Ireland become the tech capital of Europe and one of the most globalised and open economies in the world. Ireland is open to investment, to capital, to trade, to talent and to creativity.

As part of the expansion, Salesforce.org, the charity arm of Salesforce, has already announced a 1 million US dollar grant to Educate Together, supporting the opening and running of schools in Ireland.

 Announcing Salesforce Tower Dublin 



Weare thrilled to share plans for a new campus in the city, the creation of 1,500 jobs and a $1 million USD grant to Educate Together!



Read all about it: https://t.co/fIonYzZl6h #SalesforceTowerDublin pic.twitter.com/ifUigqzkYZ  Salesforce (@salesforce) January 18, 2019

Elizabeth Pinkham, executive vice president, real estate, at Salesforce said that the ongoing housing crisis and lack of affordable accommodation in the capital had been looked at before the announcement was made.

Were always looking at issues like that, any issue that impacts our employees, were committed to whats best for our community, she said.

Many of our employees do already live in the city, so we will look at that when we do move into the building.

When you look at the company overall, the fact were building this huge hub for innovation theres a lot of great reasons to come here.

Salesforce already has over 1,400 employees in Dublin at their premises in Leopardstown and more than 34,000 employees worldwide.

Employees are due to start moving into the new 430,000 sq ft campus in mid-2021.

During the announcement it was noted that it was the Taoiseachs 40th birthday, and the hall sang Happy Birthday to the Irish leader on stage before the event finished.
An investigation is under way after gardai seized a possible replica firearm following an incident at a protest against Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

The seizure came after a man was seen shooting pellets at a plastic bottle during the protest outside Leinster House on Tuesday.

It is understood the possible replica firearm was a BB gun.

A possible replica firearm was later seized from a man, aged in his 30s, in the Talbot Street area of Dublin on Tuesday at about 8pm.

Gardai said that no arrests were made and an investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Expand Close People protesting outside Leinster House (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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The law states that airsoft pellet guns  with a muzzle velocity of more than one joule  are legal in Ireland but owners have to be licensed.

The protest, under the slogan Not My Taoiseach, was organised on social media as a planned demonstration against Mr Varadkars policies.

However, it was called off early due to low turnout.

The demonstration, which more than 2,000 respondents said they were attending on Facebook, saw around 30 people gather outside Leinster House.

Despite the small turnout, a large number of gardai blocked off the roads surrounding the main gates to Leinster House, and erected barricades along Kildare Street.
A file will be prepared for the director of public prosecutions (Niall Carson/PA)

Police in Dublin have arrested a man in connection with an alleged sexual assault in December last year.

Gardai in Dundrum investigating the alleged assault, which was reported on December 10 2018, said the man was arrested on Thursday evening.

The man was detained at Dundrum garda station under Section 4, Criminal Justice Act, 1984.

He has since been released without charge.

A file will be prepared for the director of public prosecutions.

The investigation is continuing.
Two people have been taken to hospital following a four vehicle crash on Londonderry's Buncrana Road.

Police and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) attended the scene.

A NIAS spokesperson confirmed that they responded to a call shortly before 12pm.

Two A&E crews, one rapid response vehicle and one paramedic officer were dispatched to the incident.

Following assessment and treatment at the scene by the crew, two patients were taken to Altnagelvin Hospital for further treatment.

The road remains closed between Benview Estate and Whitehouse Roundabout.
'Despite White trying to prevent his mother speaking, Judge Magill demanded to know the facts of the previous matter' (stock photo)

A mother was verbally abused by her Co Fermanagh son in court after she revealed he had committed an earlier offence the judge was unaware of.

Nathan White (19) of Drumclay Park, Enniskillen was detected driving without insurance on July 21 last year in Clogher. The R-driver pleaded guilty yesterday at Dungannon Magistrates' Court.

His lawyer asked District Judge Peter Magill to consider a short driving ban in lieu of penalty points, as the standard six points would revoke White's licence for a mandatory six months.

This was agreed and Judge Magill imposed a 100 fine along with a one month ban.

He allowed 16 weeks to discharge the fine but White's mother said: "He'll need longer than that. He's already paying off another fine from a different court."

Despite White trying to prevent his mother speaking, Judge Magill demanded to know the facts of the previous matter.

It transpired White had been fined at the end of November for speeding.

Judge Magill said: "So he has already had a chance? That changes things. I don't see how I can overlook this."

He increased the ban to two months, at which White clenched his fists to his face and told his mother to "f*** away off".

Noting this, Judge Magill said: "You seem somewhat disgruntled. Make sure you don't come back."
Disgraced care home firm Runwood Homes is reopening Ashbrooke Care Home under a new name.

Meadow View residential care home will open in a matter of weeks in the same building where Ashbrooke Care Home operated until August 2017.

The home was shut down by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) after a visit by the watchdog uncovered "catastrophic" failings.

Inspectors were so horrified by what they saw that they took the unprecedented action of closing the home with immediate effect, describing the conditions as posing a "serious risk to life".

However, 18 months later, Runwood Homes is putting the final touches to Meadow View at the same time that it is under investigation by police for failings at another care home it owns.

It is understood the company is working through the registration process with the RQIA, which will allow it to admit residents, although the regulation body would not confirm whether or not this was the case.

The development prompted a furious reaction, with the daughter of a former resident of Dunmurry Manor planning to take legal action.

Julieann McNally said she would launch High Court proceedings in a bid to block Runwood Homes from opening the new facility.

"I am absolutely furious that this can happen," she said.

"It makes absolutely no sense at all that the RQIA can close an establishment and make such damning comments about the conditions, then, 18 months later, the same company can open a care home in the same building but give it a new name.

"I think that the RQIA has a lot of questions to answer, and I am taking legal action regarding a possible judicial review."

The Alliance Party's health spokeswoman said the situation raised serious questions about the way care homes in Northern Ireland were regulated. Paula Bradshaw added: "It seems inconceivable that the same company could set up a home in the same site as one which was closed by the regulator so soon after that closure.

"I would like to hear a public clarification from the RQIA about how it proposes to address this issue and restore public confidence."

Aidan Hanna, from NI Patient Voice, said the decision by the RQIA to register Meadow View proved the process was "not fit for purpose".

According to the Runwood website, Meadow View is scheduled to open this month, and will provide expert healthcare for older people, including those with dementia.

The company is running a recruitment campaign for staff to work at the facility, which boasts the firm's "continued success stems from the consistent quality of care we provide".

It continues: "As we move forward our reputation for providing innovative care for people living with dementia continues to grow."

Runwood Homes has consistently been in the headlines for its failure to meet basic standards at a number of its care homes across Northern Ireland.

Last year, the Commissioner for Older People in Northern Ireland published a scathing assessment of the care that had been provided at Dunmurry Manor.

His report provided harrowing details of neglect and abuse, and revealed that health trust officials had concerns that the conditions at the home amounted to institutional abuse. It also resulted in a police investigation, which is still ongoing.

Findings uncovered by RQIA inspectors at other Runwood homes in the past 12 months include residents being forced to share underwear and staff having to buy their own cleaning products because they weren't being supplied by the company.

In September, it emerged that a unit at a Runwood Homes' facility in Ballymena had to shut after staff walked out in protest over the conditions there.

A resident of the home, who was 89 years old at the time, was also hospitalised when she was found lying on the ground after she was left sitting in a chair overnight.

Last night, the Western Health Trust could not say whether it would be placing anyone at the Meadow View facility.

A spokeswoman added: "All care homes must be approved and registered by the RQIA. The trust does not have a contract in place with Meadow View care home.

"All placements are based on the assessed need of the client, and a contract with the provider must be in place prior to placement."

An RQIA spokesman said he could not comment on individual applications for registration.

He continued: "However, the RQIA assesses every application for the registration of a service to determine whether they meet the legal requirements for registration.

"In addition, prior to the registration of any new service, the RQIA ensures a permanent manager for the service is registered.

"Once registered, each service is subject to inspection and regulatory oversight by RQIA, in line with relevant legislation and standards."

Runwood Homes did not respond to a request for a comment.
The presentation party at the handing over of a donation from Vincentians in the Canadian diaspora. (Photo Credit: 784 News)

The Milton Cato Memorial Hospital welcomed an early Christmas gift on December 21.





This when members of the SVG Toronto Support Group and the SVG Toronto Association handed over a donation of items, including mattresses, blood pressure monitors, pampers and other medical supplies.





Several Government officials and Hospital staff were on hand to to witness the handover of the items.

Mr Cuthbert Knights, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment, offered welcome remarks and expressed sincere gratitude for the contributions.

Remarks were also given by representatives of the SVG Toronto Support Group and the SVG Toronto Association.





Mr Fitzgerald Huggins, Consul General in the Consulate of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in Toronto, also addressed the ceremony.

Hospital Administrator Sr. Grace Walters did the vote of thanks and reiterated the Ministrys heartfelt gratitude for the donation.
Police at the scene of a shooting in Warrenpoint, Co Down after one man was shot dead. Photo by Press Eye.

Police are currently at the scene of a shooting in Warrenpoint, Co Down after one man was shot dead. Photo by Press Eye.

Police at the scene of a shooting in Warrenpoint, Co Down after one man was shot dead. Photo by Press Eye.

Police at the scene of a shooting in Warrenpoint, Co Down after one man was shot dead. Photo by Press Eye.

Police at the scene of a shooting in Warrenpoint, Co Down after one man was shot dead. Photo by Press Eye.

Police have begun a murder investigation after a man was shot dead and a woman critically injured in a shooting in Warrenpoint.

It happened on the Lower Dromore Road at 7.30pm on Friday.

SDLP MLA Sinead Bradley said it happened in a quiet area close to the golf club and was shocked to hear about it.

"You just wouldn't expect it," She told the Belfast Telegraph.

"This is dreadful news to think one family, one home, will hear they have lost a loved one in this manner.

"Whatever the circumstances for someone to have lost their life is devastating news."

One woman has been taken to Daisy Hill Hospital after the incident. She is receiving treatment and her condition has been described as critical.

Sinn Fein MLA Sinead Ennis, posting on Twitter said: "Making people aware that a serious incident has occurred in the Lower Dromore Road area in Warrenpoint.

"We have been in contact with PSNI who are at the scene. People should avoid the area if possible.

She added: "The community of Warrenpoint are shocked and stunned by this news.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Police at the scene of a shooting in Warrenpoint, Co Down after one man was shot dead. Photo by Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Police at the scene of a shooting in Warrenpoint, Co Down after one man was shot dead. Photo by Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Police at the scene of a shooting in Warrenpoint, Co Down after one man was shot dead. Photo by Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Scene of shooting on Lower Dromore Road Warrenpoint. Pic: Newraypics.com / Facebook

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Our first thoughts are with the family of the victim. The PSNI have the area sealed off and I would appeal to anyone with information to bring it forward to assist the investigation."

Police have opened a murder investigation and are appealing for anyone with information to contact detectives on 101.
The National Union of Journalists has condemned the threat made against one of its members (stock photo)

A journalist working in Northern Ireland has received a death threat from 'criminal elements'.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said the journalist, who is based in Belfast, received a threat to life notice from the PSNI which informed the reporter there was an immediate risk of an attack by criminal elements.

The NUJ said the threat was reported to a meeting of the union's National Executive Council on Friday.

A NUJ spokesperson said: This is a worrying development and has caused grave concern to the family, colleagues, friends and employer of the members concerned."

The spokesperson added: "Journalists have the right to work without threats being made against them or being physically harmed.

"The jobs they do are pivotal to a democratic society and its citizens right to be informed about what is happening in their communities.

"The NUJ has resolutely stood by this principle for decades and defended its members right to do their jobs without the threat of intimidation or attack.

"The NEC stands shoulder to shoulder with the member concerned and demands that those behind this threat lift it immediately and do so in a manner that is unequivocal and unconditional.
The coroner has already ruled out hearing evidence on naming who may have planted the bombs, to the dismay of some of the bereaved families (stock photo)

The coroner who will hear the Birmingham pub bombings inquest has been told there is "no evidence" of involvement in the attacks by a state agent or informant.

The issue of whether there had been anyone with links to the British state within the IRA cell that bombed two pubs in the city in 1974 had been raised previously by families of the victims.

At a pre-inquest hearing yesterday Peter Skelton QC, counsel to the coroner Sir Peter Thornton QC, said: "At present there is no evidence of a state agent or informant in the bombings."

Turning to the evidence of witnesses at the forthcoming hearing, Mr Skelton QC said much of it would have to be read.

He said: "Forty-four years have passed, memories have faded and people have died.

"Many witnesses, those in the pubs, have physical and mental injuries that last to this day."

Sir Peter replied: "Some of them are really quite shocking."

Mr Skelton added: "They remain extremely damaged.

"It follows, much of the evidence will have to be read."

He added the inquest would include "pen portraits" in tribute to each of the deceased.

Mr Skelton said: "These are 21 people, each was someone's husband, wife, child or sibling.

"Behind these public attacks are private tragedies."

The inquest jury will also visit the former sites of both pubs.

The issue of disclosure of evidence was once again raised at preparatory hearings ahead of the inquest next month.

Kevin Morgan, a barrister representing a group of 10 bereaved families, raised the issue of evidence of British security forces' policies for handling an IRA bomb attack.

Two blasts ripped apart the Tavern in the Town and Mulberry Bush pubs in Birmingham city centre on the night of November 21.

The attack was the worst in Britain since the Second World War, until the July 7/7 bombings.

A botched investigation by West Midlands Police led to the convictions of the Birmingham Six, who were found guilty of the murders a year later. But their convictions were overturned after spending 16 years in jail.

A new inquest is set to begin on February 25. The coroner has already ruled out hearing evidence on naming who may have planted the bombs, to the dismay of some of the bereaved families.

In a series of pre-inquest reviews, the issue of disclosure by the security forces, including West Midlands Police, MI5 and MI6, has been repeatedly raised by the families.

Last month the coroner heard that two folders of evidence destined for a government intelligence sub-committee at the time of the attacks had since gone missing.

To date, 2,838 documents have been disclosed to lawyers for the relatives, totalling more than 28,000 pages. Among these, the families have for the first time been given sight of two investigations into the bombings, Operation Aston and Operation Review.
The mother of a five-year-old boy who drowned in a Co Antrim river has said the arrival of a baby daughter has "shone a wee bit of light" on the grieving family.

Less than a year after her son Kayden's tragic death, Leanne Fleck and her husband Darrel have welcomed the arrival of baby Ellianna.

Kayden was out playing with twin brother Jayden when he fell into the River Braid near the Ecos Centre in Ballymena on Saturday, February 10, 2018.

After a major search and rescue operation, Kayden was pulled from the water around 45 minutes later, four miles away near the Tullygarley Bridge.

He was airlifted to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children but sadly passed away.

As the family prepare to mark a year since Kayden's death, Leanne says her daughter, born seven weeks ago, has been a "wee blessing".

She only learned she was expecting another child less than a month after losing Kayden.

"We didn't know she was coming. But about three weeks after we lost Kayden, through all the pain and darkness of that time, we discovered I was pregnant," Leanne told the Daily Mirror.

"It was a huge shock. And more than anything, it was just so bittersweet because we were going through all the emotions of losing Kayden and trying to figure out what way our family was going to go from there. Then suddenly, she came along.

"She shone a wee bit of light on our family. We had people telling us it was too soon for us to cope after losing Kayden - but then we had others offering us support as well, and they said she was our wee blessing. And I think she was.

"I'm never going to forget Kayden. I'm never going to forget that day. And when the anniversary comes around I don't know how we're going to be, but at least now we have our baby to focus on.

"She's healthy, she's here, she's our wee girl and we will love and care for her like we did Kayden, and our other children," said Leanne, who also has a four-year-old daughter Amelia and son Daniel (15). Leanne says the family will ensure Ellianna grows up knowing all about Kayden.

"He's always going to be part of our family. Even though we can't see him and we can't hear him, he's going to live on in us, and in the other wee ones."
The bereaved mothers of two soldiers found dead at a Co Down barracks have failed in a High Court challenge to a coroner's order for them to disclose a psychiatric report.

Lance Corporal James Ross, 30, from Leeds, and Rifleman Darren Mitchell, 20, from London, died within three months of each other at Ballykinler base in 2012 and 2013.

Both veterans of Afghanistan, the men were reportedly found hanged.

Amid concerns raised over welfare provisions, public hearings at their joint inquest are due to get underway early next month.

The two dead soldiers' mothers, Linda Ketcher and Carol Mitchell, have commissioned a report from a consultant psychiatrist for the proceedings.

This was done in response to reports prepared by a different psychiatrist.

Lawyers for Ms Ketcher and Ms Mitchell decided their report should not be disclosed to the Coroner or any other agency on the ground that it is protected by litigation privilege.

In October last year he rejected that contention and ordered it to be handed over.

The coroner said if the next of kin had obtained the report for civil or criminal litigation he would have upheld the claim for privilege.

He pointed out how the purpose of the inquest is to find answers to a series of questions through an inquisitorial process.

Counsel for the two mothers sought a judicial review, claiming the Coroner's reasoning was flawed.

They also contended that he had wrongly assessed the inquest proceedings as being only inquisitorial, and never adversarial.

Dismissing their challenge, however, Mr Justice McCloskey backed the Coroner's decision to order disclosure.

He said: "If their stance is upheld, the report will be suppressed and, in consequence, its contents will not be known to the Coroner or any other participating agency.

"Material evidence will, in consequence, be buried."

The judge added: "The Coroner was, in my view, bound to conclude, as he did, that this report would not be protected from production in civil proceedings in a court in Northern Ireland on the ground of litigation privilege."
The Shadow Secretary of State has said Theresa May will be playing "fast and loose" with the peace process if she doesn't take a no-deal Brexit off the table.

Tony Lloyd told the Belfast Telegraph a hard Brexit "would be devastating for Northern Ireland's economy and would result in a hard border".

He said Labour was asking for the Prime Minister to think again over the issue.

"If the Prime Minister refuses to do so she will be playing fast and loose with the peace process," he said

"Theresa May has to prove that we aren't going back to her deal or no-deal - blackmail and stubbornness have to be taken off the agenda along with no-deal.

"Labour has consistently called for the Government to commit to a permanent UK-wide customs union and new single market relationship."

He was speaking yesterday as his party leader blasted as a "stunt" Mrs May's offer of cross-party talks over the stalemate at Westminster.

Jeremy Corbyn was applauded by Labour supporters for saying that a second referendum was still an option.

In front of a crowd of around 200 activists in Hastings, he said the Prime Minister had made no "serious attempt to engage with the new reality that is needed" to get a withdrawal agreement through Parliament. In a direct message to Mrs May, he said: "Take no-deal off the table now please, Prime Minister."

Mr Corbyn reiterated Labour's preference for a general election and a Brexit deal on its terms, including a permanent customs union, close links to the single market and protections for workers and the environment.

But, to applause from the floor, he added: "If the Government remains intransigent, if support for Labour's alternative is blocked for party advantage and the country is facing the potential disaster of no-deal, our duty will then be to look at other options which we set out in our confidence motion, including that of a public vote." However, taking questions after his speech, he left open the question of which side Labour would campaign on in a public vote.

"If a second referendum should take place, then obviously the party will decide what role we will play in that and what our view would be," he said.

Mr Corbyn is now the only Westminster party leader who has not had discussions with Mrs May, after she held out an olive branch in the Commons on Wednesday.

He claimed the offer of talks with party leaders was "simply a stunt, not the serious attempt to engage with the new reality that is needed".

Mr Corbyn added: "I say to the Prime Minister again: I am quite happy to talk but the starting point for any talks about Brexit must be that the threat of a disastrous no-deal outcome is ruled out, taken off the table, and we can talk about the future of the plans that we will put forward and the future relationship with Europe."

He has urged his MPs not to "engage" with the Government over a Brexit deal after at least three prominent backbenchers took up an offer of talks with ministers.

The Labour leader sent a letter to members of the parliamentary party after Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper and John Mann all visited the Cabinet Office in Whitehall yesterday.

A backbench Labour critic of Mr Corbyn, East London MP Mike Gapes, tweeted: "Apparently Corbyn is prepared to hold talks with Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad and Iran without preconditions. But not with the UK Prime Minister. Why?"
Under-reporting of hate crimes means there could potentially have been up to 10,000 racist incidents here since the Brexit vote compared to the 2,093 incidents recorded by the PSNI (stock photo)

Race hate crime could be five times worse in Northern Ireland than records suggest due to under-reporting, according to the PSNI.

Under-reporting of hate crimes means there could potentially have been up to 10,000 racist incidents here since the Brexit vote compared to the 2,093 incidents recorded by the PSNI.

"We know it's an under-reported crime, PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said.

"The national comparisons have been running around four to five times less reporting than the actual crimes reported to be.

"We haven't got the same comparative figures for Northern Ireland, but I would expect them to be broadly similar."

The number of racist attacks reported remains significantly lower than other UK regions, despite authorities fearing a fresh Brexit spike in hate crimes against migrant communities.

As we inch closer to a no-deal Brexit in the wake of this week's defeat of the Prime Minister's withdrawal deal, there are concerns it could heighten tensions.

However, an analysis of race hate figures indicates that, unlike other regions in the UK, Northern Ireland has not seen a rise in race hate attacks against ethnic minority communities since the vote to exit the European Union.

The Detail has looked at race hate crime statistics in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in that period.

They show that in the three months following the referendum in June 2016, police forces in England and Wales recorded a significant spike of 14,381 racist crimes.

In contrast, the number of PSNI-recorded racist crimes for the same three-month period in the summer of 2016 was 251.

Clearance levels of race hate crimes here also remain significantly lower than those of other non-racially motivated crimes.

ACC Hamilton is the UK's most senior police officer in charge of tackling race hate crime.

He confirmed that police forces across the UK are now preparing for a potential spike in racial attacks ahead of Brexit on March 29.

However, he insists there is no available evidence to suggest that this will happen in Northern Ireland.

"The Brexit vote led to a spike in hate crime in England and Wales," he said.

"The analysis would be that this came from people who supported the UK leaving the EU, so the day we leave the EU you might see similar, almost triumphalist hate behaviour."

He is also fearful that some hardline pro-Brexit elements could resort to violence against ethnic minority communities if the decision to withdraw from the EU is not enacted on March 29.

PSNI statistics show that race hate has overtaken sectarian crime here in recent years.

Since the UK vote to leave the EU in 2016, there have been 2,093 recorded racist incidents locally.

In the same period there were 1,773 recorded incidents of sectarianism.

However, there are concerns that the true number of racially motivated attacks here may be much higher.

Veteran human rights campaigner Bernadette McAliskey works closely with migrant families in counties Tyrone and Armagh.

"Nobody has reliable statistics on racist attacks because there is no coherent standard reporting mechanism," she pointed out.

"Take racist graffiti painted on windows and walls of vacant houses.

"It is clearly racist behaviour. Immigrants are afraid to accept a tenancy. Private landlords are intimidated from offering properties (to ethnic minority families)."

Mrs McAliskey says the incidents are often recorded as anti-social crime rather than racially motivated attacks. While there are specific race hate offences available to police forces in England and Wales, there are no similar specific racial offences available to the PSNI.

ACC Hamilton believes that race hate legislation here needs to be brought into line with the rest of the UK.

"If somebody walks up to a black person in the street in England and assaults them and we believe that to demonstrate hostility because of their colour, that's a specific offence.

"Here, it isn't. Here it's just an assault.

"Then we invite the court to consider the fact that it's been aggravated by (hate)."

Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) deputy director Daniel Holder believes the way in which the PSNI records hate crime fails to identify paramilitary orchestration in racial attacks. However, ACC Hamilton said finding actual evidence of paramilitary orchestration was difficult.

"Have I ever seen this notion of organised hate behaviour? No, I have never seen it," he said.

"Are there people who are involved in hate crime in the communities who I would associate with paramilitary groups? Yes, I would, absolutely."

The latest police statistics recorded until December 2018 show that only 12.6% of reported racially motivated crime is solved by the PSNI compared to 26.9% of reported non-racially motivated crime.

ACC Hamilton admitted that more can be achieved.

"The only consolation I would give people is that I do believe that it's better here in the UK than it is anywhere else in the world," he added.
At least 100 construction jobs paying nearly 300,000 in monthly wages are on hold due to an ongoing challenge over a major new hotel and leisure complex on the north coast, the High Court was told.

Counsel for the developer also claimed the local economy is being deprived of a further 200,000 a month anticipated from completion of the 4-star resort in Portstewart.

Donal Sayers disclosed the predicted figures as he stressed his client's frustration at the delays linked to the proceedings.

TUV leader Jim Allister is judicially reviewing Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council's decision to approve the 20m accommodation facilities.

Plans include a 120-bedroom hotel, spa, holiday cottages, conference facilities and restaurant being built at the heart of the North West 200 race route on the Ballyreagh Road.

Permission for the hotel and leisure complex was first given in June 2017, but withdrawn after Mr Allister initially threatened legal action.

The North Antrim MLA, who has a home overlooking the development site, recommenced proceedings when Council representatives passed the planning application for a second time last year.

Another local resident in the surrounding area has joined him in mounting the challenge.

In a dramatic intervention late last year a member of the planning committee who approved the hotel project alleged he recorded conversations with officials connected to the case.

Independent Councillor Padraig McShane, who also chairs the local authority's audit committee, is now seeking whistleblower status over his claims of having taped material.

Amid ongoing attempts by the Council to secure any relevant tapes, the case was mentioned again in court today.

Mr Sayers, representing the Scottish-based developer C&V Developments, noted how his client has been described as suffering "collateral damage" due to the ongoing situation.

An 18-month construction phase has yet to get underway, Mr Justice McCloksey was told.

It is expected to involve one main contractor employing at least 100 people, with wages peaking at 297,000 a month.

Counsel said those plans have been interrupted by the legal challenge.

The court was told the hotel project, when completed, would provide jobs paying 157,000 a month in wages, 46,500 in food bills, and 15,500 in beverage bills.

"These are indicative of the direct benefits the local economy is being deprived of," Mr Sayers submitted.

Following submissions Mr Justice McCloskey confirmed a further four days will be allocated to completing the case.

He told all lawyers involved: "The dates of March 25-28 are set in very solid stone."
Paratroopers in Derrys Bogside on Bloody Sunday when 14 innocent people were shot dead

ITV apologised for any offence caused after screening a Parachute Regiment documentary in Northern Ireland on the eve of the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday killings.

The Paras: Men Of War was broadcast on ITV-owned UTV on Thursday evening.

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The last episode of the three-part series is to air on January 24, just days before the Bloody Sunday anniversary.

Thirteen people died after members of the Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry on January 30, 1972. A 14th victim died later in hospital.

The landmark Saville Inquiry concluded in 2010 that all those killed or injured were innocent.

Prime Minister David Cameron issued an official apology in the House of Commons, describing the killings as "unjustified and unjustifiable".

Foyle MLA Mark H Durkan said the decision to air the documentary in Northern Ireland was "unbelievably insensitive".

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Scenes from 'Bloody Sunday' in Londonderry, Northern Ireland Paddy Doherty, who was killed on Bloody Sunday. 30th January 1972: An armed soldier and a protestor on Bloody Sunday when British Paratroopers shot dead 13 civilians on a civil rights march. Frederick Hoare A young Fr Edward Daly carries a blood-soaked hankie as he leads a group of men trying desperately to carry John 'Jackie' Duddy to safety. Duddy (17) was the first fatality of Bloody Sunday after being shot from behind by paratroopers A young Fr Edward Daly carries a blood-soaked hankie as he leads a group of men trying desperately to carry John 'Jackie' Duddy to safety. Duddy (17) was the first fatality of Bloody Sunday after being shot from behind by paratroopers Bloody Sunday A scene showing a British paratrooper near Glenfada Park in Derry where Bloody Sunday took place. Hugh Gilmore (third left) seen clutching his stomach as he is shot during Bloody Sunday. PA William McKinney, killed on Bloody Sunday. Lt Col Derek Wilford, the former commander of the members of the Parachute Regiment involved in the Bloody Sunday shootings PA A protest parade in was staged in Londonderry in January to mark the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday Hugh Gilmore who was killed on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday Trust Michael McDaid who was killed on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday Trust Bloody Sunday: Up to 20 soldiers still face being formally questioned by police for alleged murder, attempted murder or criminal injury during the notorious incident Fred Hoare Soldiers taking cover behind their sandbagged armoured cars during Bloody Sunday PA Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery in his room at the Old Bailey as he looks through his report on the "Bloody Sunday" shootings PA Jim Wray who was killed on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday Trust John Young who was killed on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday Trust William McKinney who was killed on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday Trust Kevin McElhinney who was killed on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday Trust Gerard McKinney who was killed on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday Trust Gerald Donaghey who was killed on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday Trust Alana Burke who was eighteen when she was run over by an armoured personnel carrier on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday. January 1972 Patrick Doherty who was killed on Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday Trust Bloody Sunday. Funeral. Mrs Ita McKinney, 9 months pregnant cries behind the hearse carrying her husband James from St Mary's, Creggan. 2/2/1972. Michael Kelly who was killed on Bloody Sunday. A man receiving attention during the shooting incident in Londonderry, which became known as Bloody Sunday Bloody Sunday. 30/1/1972 Bloody Sunday. 30/1/1972 Bloody Sunday. 30/1/1972 JAMES WRAY IN HIS HOME IN THE BOGSIDE DERRY HOLDING THE COAT WITH BULLIET HOLES IN THAT HIS SON ALSO CALLED JAMES WRAY WAS KILLED ON BLOODY SUNDAY The start of a grim day in Derry. Civil Rights marchers make their way through Creggan. They defied a Government ban and headed for Guildhall Square, but were stopped by the Army in William Street. 31/1/1972 Bloody Sunday 1972 Linda Nash carries flowers with the number 14 inscribed during yesterdays annual Bloody Sunday Parade in Derry. Picture Martin McKeown. Inpresspics.com. 29.1.12 Martin McKeown A memorial to those killed on Bloody Sunday in the Bogside area of Derry The memorial to the 14 people who died on Bloody Sunday in Derry rises from among the sea of umbrellas as all the families came together in an ecumenical service. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights mark.The service included contributions from Father Michael Canny and Reverend David Latimer, left. Picture Martin McKeown. Inpresspics.com. 29.1.12 Martin McKeown / Facebook

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Whatsapp Scenes from 'Bloody Sunday' in Londonderry, Northern Ireland

"Disgusted and dumbfounded that UTV are showing 'Paras: Men of War', glorifying the Parachute Regiment, on the cusp of the anniversary of Bloody Sunday when the Paras slaughtered 14 innocent people on the streets of Derry," he tweeted.

He called for the airing of the final episode of the documentary to be postponed until a later date.

An ITV spokesperson said that the documentary made no mention of Bloody Sunday and was not connected to other events in Northern Ireland.

"The three part series, The Paras: Men of War is an ITV commission, which is being shown on the ITV network, including UTV. The series is entirely contemporary, following young men going through the recruitment course now, charting their progress during the training and beyond," the spokesperson said.

"This series does not examine historical events and makes no mention of Bloody Sunday or other events in Northern Ireland.

"If any viewers were offended by the timing of the series, we apologise.
The DUP will be continuing talks with the Government over coming days as the party yesterday said the Prime Minister was "in listening mode" after it met her in Downing Street.

Deputy leader Nigel Dodds said Theresa May was in a very difficult situation in Parliament following the defeat of her Brexit plan, but there was a "way through this".

He said: "The problem for a lot of her own backbenchers, and of course for us, has been the backstop.

"If she can address that issue in a satisfactory way, and if the EU realise this is the issue holding up the withdrawal agreement, we can make progress."

Mrs May is to bring her Brexit Plan B to the House of Commons on Monday, with a full debate and key vote on it due on Tuesday, January 29.

Mr Dodds said the details on how progress could be made were under discussion, but it was not "useful to give too much of a running comment on the details of that".

He said there were "a lot of good engagements going on and we'll continue to work at it".

Mr Dodds added: "The Prime Minister is in listening mode. Obviously, given the events of the last few days, that's absolutely vital.

"We want a deal that works for the UK and all constituent parts of it."

DUP leader Arlene Foster said: "We have had another very useful engagement with the Prime Minister. I don't think it's useful to give a running commentary on these issues. Everybody knows what our issue is in relation to the current withdrawal agreement and it is around the toxicity of the backstop that is currently there. So we need to deal with that issue and we need to deal with it in a very clear way."

She said her party's problem with the backstop was that it "separates Northern Ireland out from the rest of the UK".

She added: "We have a clear ask to the European Union around it."

DUP votes were vital in ensuring the Government was not defeated in Labour's motion of no confidence on Wednesday night. Mrs May survived by 325-306 and, had the DUP voted in favour, Jeremy Corbyn's motion would have succeeded.

Meanwhile, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said a no-deal Brexit would become an exercise in damage limitation for the Republic.

Speaking in the Dail yesterday, he said Dublin would be intensifying its contingency preparations for a no-deal outcome. "Managing a no-deal Brexit would be an exercise in damage limitation," he told TDs.

"It would be impossible in a no-deal scenario to maintain the current seamless arrangements between the EU and UK across a full range of sectors, which is currently facilitated by our common EU membership."

However, he also described Ireland's obligations under the Good Friday Agreement and the EU single market as "competing responsibilities".

He told the Dail: "We are not going to be supporting border infrastructure even in a no-deal scenario", adding the issue was "highly political and highly sensitive".

Mr Coveney said the EU would continue to seek to be as helpful as possible, but the withdrawal agreement was not open for renegotiation.

"The backstop is an essential part of the withdrawal agreement," he said.

"It acts as an insurance policy, to ensure that there is no hard border on this island following Brexit. It is essential."
During the months of October and November, KPMG in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean (BEC) engaged in a special campaign across Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent to raise funds for breast and prostate cancers, respectively.





Dubbed the "Pink Challenge, for every day in October that staff across KPMG BEC wore an article of pink clothing, the firm pledged funds to match the article of clothing worn. Similarly, for every Friday in November during the "Blue Challenge, for every article of blue clothing worn, the firm pledged funds accordingly, allowing the group to donate to the respective Cancer Societies across all four islands.





Partner of the St. Vincent and Grenadines firm, Brian Glasgow noted, "We are proud to support the work of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Medical Association as they continue to make strides against breast and prostate cancers. We will continue to play our part in St. Vincent to support the work of this important organization, and to contribute to other causes on the island which support cancer awareness.





Dr. Rosalind Ambrose, President of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Medical Association, expressed her gratitude for the donation, indicating that the funds will be very useful for the support of their programmes. The Association has been active for more than a decade, and raises funds for the treatment of cancer patients in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, including treatment costs for patients abroad, and often times includes flight coverage. (Source: KPMG)




Raymond McCord Jnr was murdered by the UVF in 1997.

An inquest into a loyalist paramilitary murder carried out more than two decades ago could be years away, the Court of Appeal has heard.

On Friday, Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan stressed the need for prompt investigations as he backed the victim's father in his ongoing legal fight to secure a tribunal.

Raymond McCord was appealing a decision to put his challenge on hold.

His 22-year-old son, Raymond Jnr, was beaten to death before his body was dumped at a quarry outside north Belfast in November 1997.

The killing was carried out by an Ulster Volunteer Force gang based in the Mount Vernon area of the city.

Despite a series of preliminary hearings, an inquest has yet to get underway.

Delays have been linked to investigations into paramilitary crime attributed to the UVF unit who operated in the Mount Vernon estate.

Lawyers for the victim's father have issued High Court proceedings against the PSNI, the Coroner's Service and the Department of Justice.

They are seeking a declaration that his human rights have been breached.

Last year the challenge was put on hold due to other legacy-related cases.

But allowing Mr McCord to appeal against that decision, Sir Declan said there was an obligation under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights for prompt investigations.

An inquest into the death of Raymond McCord Jnr more than 20 years ago has not taken place, and no coroner has been allocated to hear it, he pointed out.

The Lord Chief Justice said: "It is impossible to estimate how many years it might take before the inquest might proceed, as was accepted by the parties at the hearing."

He confirmed there is now no impediment to the hearing of the legal challenge and related claim for damages.

Outside court Mr McCord's solicitor, Ciaran O'Hare of McIvor Farrell, described the ruling as "groundbreaking".

"This is a removal of the road block many victims have faced up to this point from pursuing cases in relation to their Article 2 human rights," he said.

"Now they are able to seek declarations and damages, which puts the State under pressure for an inquest.

"Victims can now start to see justice, whereas before they simply would have been stymied."
North Antrim MP Ian Paisley has been urged to reimburse the price of a first class plane ticket to New York which a charity covered. (Brian Lawless/PA)

Democratic Unionist Ian Paisley has been urged by a fellow MP to reimburse a charity for the price of a first class plane ticket to New York.

The North Antrim representative travelled to New York in February 2018 to participate at a seminar about Northern Irelands peace process on the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

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According to the House of Commons register of interests, he received 6,327.34 to cover a 5,925.11 flight and 402.23 for accommodation from the peace building charity Cooperation Ireland.

People who have participated in @cooperationirl fundraising events have contacted me this morning, absolutely disgusted and sickened that this expense was covered. Ian Paisley should reimburse the charity. https://t.co/2cDS9npird  Michelle Gildernew (@gildernewm) January 18, 2019

Sinn Fein MP Michelle Gildernew has called on Mr Paisley to reimburse the costs to the charity.

She claimed she has been contacted by people who have participated in Cooperation Ireland fundraising events, and said they are absolutely disgusted and sickened that this expense was covered.

Cooperation Ireland said it did not wish to comment on the matter.

Expand Close North Antrim MP Ian Paisley claimed over 6,000 for flights and travel from a charity to attend a conference it had organised in New York. (HouseofCommons/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp North Antrim MP Ian Paisley claimed over 6,000 for flights and travel from a charity to attend a conference it had organised in New York. (HouseofCommons/PA)

The figures came to light in a story in Fridays Irish News.

The newspaper also reported that others who attended the New York event, including Irelands deputy premier Simon Coveney flew economy on the budget airline Norwegian Air.

His expenses were covered by the Irish Government.

The SDLP said another attendee, former Foyle MP Mark Durkan, also flew economy to New York.

This cost was covered by Cooperation Ireland.

Mr Paisley refused to make any comment on the matter when approached by media as he attended an event at Ballymena Town Hall.

Expand Close North Antrim MP Ian Paisley declined to speak to the media as he attended an event at Ballymena Town Hall on Friday. (Rebecca Black/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp North Antrim MP Ian Paisley declined to speak to the media as he attended an event at Ballymena Town Hall on Friday. (Rebecca Black/PA)

He was the guest speaker at a meal on Friday afternoon following a ceremony by Mid and East Antrim Council to confer the Freedom of the Borough on local businessman Sir William Wright.

The DUP also declined to comment.

Mr Paisley hit the headlines in December when a BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight programme raised a query over who had paid for a trip his family took to the Maldives in 2016 and whether he should have declared it to the House of Commons.

He had argued against sanctions being taken against the Maldives over human rights abuses.

The MP denied the countrys government organised or paid for the family vacation, and said he was satisfied it did not have to be recorded on the House of Commons Register Of Interests.

He said he had covered some of the cost, and a friend had covered the rest.

Expand Close DUP MP Ian Paisley apologising to the House of Commons in London for failing to register two family holidays funded by the Sri Lankan government, which he previously estimated was worth 50,000 (House of Commons/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp DUP MP Ian Paisley apologising to the House of Commons in London for failing to register two family holidays funded by the Sri Lankan government, which he previously estimated was worth 50,000 (House of Commons/PA)

Last year Mr Paisley was suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days for serious misconduct for failing to declare two family holidays to Sri Lanka in 2013.

The ensuing row led to the first recall petition in UK parliamentary history being launched in an attempt to unseat Mr Paisley and trigger a by election in his North Antrim constituency.

The petition fell short by 444 votes.

Mr Paisley said its failure was evidence that people accepted his apology.
According to his parliamentary register of interests, Mr Paisley claimed back 5,925.11 from the charity for his flights following the event.

DUP MP Ian Paisley billed a charity almost 6,000 to fly to a conference in New York, it has emerged.

Other political figures who travelled to the event, which was held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, flew in the much cheaper economy class, The Irish News has reported.

The conference was organised by Cooperation Ireland, an all-island peace-building charity that encourages dialogue and collaboration between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

According to his parliamentary register of interests, Mr Paisley claimed back 5,925.11 from the charity for his flights following the event, which was held in February last year.

The DUP MP spoke on a panel at the "20 Years of Peace" conference alongside former SDLP MP Mark Durkan and ex-Sinn Fein MP Pat Doherty. The Republic's Tanaiste Simon Coveney also gave a speech at the event.

According to their respective parties, all three flew in the economy class - which can be as much as 10 times cheaper than the luxurious first class.

Attendees were asked to pay their travel costs up-front, which they could later claim back from Cooperation Ireland.

It is understood that participants travelling to the conference were told to bear in mind that Cooperation Ireland is a charity and the arrangement was done on a "trust" basis.

SDLP MLA John Dallat said it was "truly shameless" for a public representative to accept luxury flights from charity.

""This increasing trend by Ian Paisley Jr to travel in style  but not at his own expense  truly does strip him of the integrity that his office is befitting of," he added.

In July last year, MPs voted to suspend Mr Paisley from the House of Commons for 30 sitting days for failing to declare two familiy holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government in 2013, estimated to be worth around 50,000.

Then in December, it emerged that the DUP MP was given a complimentary family holiday to the Maldives in 2016, which he also did not declare.

BBC Spotlight alleged the visit was requested by the Maldivan government and facilitated by the resort owner, who had political links, while Mr Paisley said he paid for part of the trip, while a friend paid for the rest.

In relation to the New York trip, a Sinn Fein spokesperson said: "Mr Paisley has a much-publicised penchant for travel at the expense of the taxpayer and others."

"This includes the government of Sri Lanka which was guilty of the most horrific human rights abuses. Mr Paisley seems to believe that his role as an MP gives him a ticket to ride with lavish benefits and perks."

The DUP has been contacted for a request for comment.
Tracey Martin, mother of Shea, at his inquest at Armagh Courthouse yesterday

The mother of a Co Armagh teenager who died after being hit by a train feared the worst when she discovered he was missing on the morning of his death, an inquest has heard.

Shea Martin (19) was fatally injured at the Bells Row railway crossing in Lurgan - close to where he lived - on May 21 last year.

He was due to celebrate his 20th birthday three days later.

His mother, Tracey Martin, was visibly upset and tearful as she attended an inquest into Shea's death yesterday in Armagh Courthouse, which concluded the teenager had taken his own life.

Coroner Joe McCrisken heard how the night before the tragic incident, Mr Martin had spent the evening in his bedroom.

Hours later, when Ms Martin was getting up for work early, she discovered he had left the family home without telling her.

"His shoes weren't behind the door where they normally were. And he wasn't in his bedroom," she recalled.

Alerting the police, her fears were raised further when she learned the local railway line had been closed "due to an incident".

"I kind of knew it was him," she told Mr McCrisken.

"I knew before the police came to contact me."

The inquest heard that Mr Martin had been the victim of bullying from the age of 14 and was experiencing mental health problems - including depression as well as difficulty sleeping - for which he had been prescribed various medications.

He had also been availing of services provided by a community mental health team.

Mr Martin's mental health issues had been compounded by tinnitus - an ear condition that results in constant 'buzzing' or ringing sounds which are not caused by an external source.

Such was its acute impact on Mr Martin, he had resorted to taking cannabis to alleviate the tinnitus, which has no known cure.

The inquest also heard very distressing details of the last moments of Mr Martin's life - including testimony from the Translink worker stationed at the railway crossing.

Crossing keeper Paul Curran said that when he saw Mr Martin at the crossing, he thought the teenager was waiting to be picked up - a common occurrence at Bells Row, he explained.

As Mr Martin continued to wait, however, Mr Curran recalled he felt uneasy about the situation, phoning a colleague to raise concerns.

He then watched Mr Martin move, prompting him to drop the phone to help the teenager, shouting to warn of an oncoming train.

Rushing to his aid, the railway worker phoned the emergency services - but despite their best efforts, Mr Martin passed away at the scene.

The driver of the train said that in all of his 39 years working on trains, he had never experienced an incident like it until then.

Sam Todd said sadly "there was no hope of the train" stopping in time to avoid the tragedy, due to the short distance involved, adding he could only "blow the horn and pull the emergency brake" in those situations.

A post-mortem report showed that Mr Martin had sustained multiple injuries which were "unsurvivable".

Ruling that the student intended to end his life that day, the coroner offered his condolences to the deceased's family, including his father Liam, who was also in attendance.

Paying tribute to those who had tried to help the teenager, he stressed more needed to be done to tackle the "unacceptably high" suicide death rate in Northern Ireland.

"Everyone needs to pull together to address this growing problem," he said.

Speaking afterwards, Ms Martin also insisted better services are required, stressing her child had been "let down" by the system.

"Shea's my son and I love him and I miss him," she added.

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, contact the Samaritans on 084 5790 9090 or Lifeline on 080 8808 8000
DUP leader Arlene Foster has reacted angrily to claims her party would be open to a softer Brexit deal if the whole of the UK remained in the Customs Union.

Mrs Foster was responding to claims reported to have come from senior DUP sources in The Times on Friday.

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The newspaper claimed a DUP source said that the party may be willing to sign up to a Norway-style Brexit deal if the backstop is removed.

A Norway-style deal would give the UK access to the single market by joining the European Free Trade Association and the European Economic Area.

However, the DUP leader hit out at the report claiming the story was "inaccurate" and "designed to undermine efforts to get the necessary changes to the withdrawal agreement".

Brexit negotiations have been repeatedly stifled by the backstop, a plan aiming to prevent a hard border in Ireland.

The DUP say the plan would create a trade border in the Irish Sea and leave Northern Ireland tied to Brussels indefinitely.

Two senior party sources said the DUP's opposition to Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal was solely based on the backstop.

Our priority is to try and get the current withdrawal agreement altered but we recognise given the scale of the defeat this week that reviving it will be a challenge, one DUP MP allegedly told The Times.

If that cannot be done, we are going to have to look at other options and that could include a softer Brexit as long as it applied to the whole of the United Kingdom. We are open to discussions to try and find a way forward as long as it respects Northern Ireland as an integral part of the UK.

The Times claimed that another senior DUP source told the newspaper that the party wanted a solution "that encompasses the whole of the UK that would tick the unionist box".

Mrs Foster said the story was "an attempt to cause division" and that "such tactics are not new to us and as in the past will not succeed".

"The Prime Minister is very clear on our position. We have been consistent that for us it is the backstop which needs to be dealt with," the DUP leader said.

"For the future we want an agreement which returns control of our money, our laws and our borders through a U.K. wide free trade arrangement with the EU."
Caroline Flanagan with pictures of her family: From left, Sean and Caitriona Flanagan with Niamh and baby Fionn in Perth, Australia; and Antony and Claire Sturgeon with baby Holly in Vancouver, Canada

A proud Co Fermanagh woman is celebrating the arrival of two new grandchildren - born on opposite sides of the world on the same day.

For Caroline Flanagan (60) and her husband Pat (61) from Derrylin, January 7, 2019 will be a joyful date they will never forget.

On that day the couple's son Sean and daughter Claire both welcomed the arrival of two bouncing and healthy babies: a boy born in Perth, Australia, and a girl who arrived in Vancouver, Canada.

The extraordinary coincidence is that although the two infants were born more than 9,000 miles apart, it was on the same day - if, like gran and grandad, you live in Northern Ireland.

However, because of the different time zones in Australia and Canada, they have different dates of birth.

Perth and Vancouver have a 16-hour time difference, Perth being eight hours ahead of us and Vancouver eight hours behind.

Baby Holly Sturgeon was the first of the new grandchildren to arrive on January 7, weighing in at 7lb 11.5oz.

She was born at 4.30am GMT in Vancouver, the first child of the Flanagans' daughter Claire and her husband Antony Sturgeon, who is from Belfast.

Claire (30), a construction engineer, and Antony (33), a university co-ordinator, married in November 2016 and moved to Canada the following year.

The couple had been expecting Holly to make an appearance in time for the New Year celebrations, as she was due on December 30.

For Caroline, the first week of 2019 has certainly been eventful.

On January 4 she retired from BT in Enniskillen, where she had worked for 24 years.

Then came the surprise two new arrivals three days later.

She told the Belfast Telegraph: "It has been quite the start to 2019 already after leaving work and then welcoming the two new grandchildren just a few days later.

"I have hardly left the phone down in a fortnight because there has been so much going on.

"Whenever Holly was born I phoned my daughter-in-law Caitriona in Australia to tell her the news.

"She and Sean were also expecting a baby, and just a couple of hours later Fionn arrived.

"He didn't give his parents much warning and the ambulance didn't make it in time, so he was born at home.

"Thankfully everything went smoothly and they were both taken to hospital afterwards to be checked over."

Weighing in at 6lbs 6oz, baby Fionn Flanagan is the second child for Sean and Caitriona.

The couple married in July 2015, and are already parents to 20-month-old Niamh.

Sean (34), also a construction engineer, and Derry native Caitriona (33), a nurse, have lived in the capital of Western Australia for 10 years.

"Fionn had been due on January 10 but also arrived on the 7th at 8am Irish time," Caroline said.

"Perhaps he couldn't stay put after his big cousin Holly arrived," Caroline said. Caroline and Pat, who have been married for 37 years, also have a daughter Judi (36), who lives in Belfast.

As she begins her retirement, there won't be much time to rest for the proud gran, as she is preparing to travel to Canada at the end of this month to meet little Holly.

She will also travel Down Under in the spring to visit little Fionn.

Caroline added: "I'm excited to travel to opposite sides of the world and meet the newest members of our family."
A caller was pulled over by police while live on air with U105's Frank Mitchell on Thursday.

The caller, David, was discussing childcare with the popular radio host when the broadcast was interrupted by the sound of police sirens.

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The show lost contact with the caller and Mr Mitchell said it sounded like the caller "had been arrested".

David later phoned back into the show and explained what had happened.

"I had my phone on the speaker and I was trying to get it pulled over and put it on to my speaker stand and the police pulled me over," he said.

"They were very nice and they were very impressed that they were on the Frank Mitchell show."

Mr Mitchell asked if the police enquired about him using his phone hands free.

"He could see that I was stationary, I was trying to get pulled over so that I could speak to you properly. I told him I was speaking about childcare, and he was a young police man who told me 'oh god I know all about it, myself'," David said.

"I think that helped my case."

Mr Mitchell said the incident was a reminder to "never, ever" take part in the programme unless the phone was properly in the hands free holder or the caller was parked up.
Christine Connor at Belfast Crown Court today where she was told she will face trial later this year charged with attempted murder of a police officer.

A north Belfast woman is to stand trial later this year on terrorist-related offences, including a murder bid on a police officer, a court has heard.

Last December, Christine Connor, 33, had her convictions quashed at the Court of Appeal in Belfast.

Senior judges ruled that guilty pleas she had made at Belfast Crown Court in May 2017 were equivocal and could not be safely regarded as representing genuine confessions.

They ordered a non-jury Diplock retrial over an alleged terrorist plot said to involve posing online as a Swedish model to lure men into supporting the bid to kill.

Connor denies the attempted murder of a PSNI officer on May 28, 2013 in Belfast.

She further denies two counts of possessing explosives with intent to endanger life, two of causing explosions with intent to endanger life and preparing acts of terrorism.

At Belfast Crown Court on Friday, a prosecution lawyer said the trial would last for around four weeks.

However, Connor's new defence team said the trial could last longer, possibly up to eight weeks.

A defence barrister said this was because a senior counsel would have to be instructed in the case and he would have to read through the entire file.

He told Belfast Recorder Judge David McFarland that the file contained 4,000 statements, 3,000 documents and several dozen tapes.

The lawyer added that there were 550 potential witness statements and 200 witnesses in the case.

Given the large amount of material senior counsel needed to read through, the defence barrister said a trial date in the autumn would be preferred.

Judge McFarland set the trial date for Monday, June 3 this year and said he review progress in the case next month.

Connor, who was sitting in the public gallery during the hearing, was released on continuing bail.

As part of her bail, Connor is to abide by a curfew, electronic tagging and report to police three times a week.
Dr. Godwin Friday, Leader of the Opposition, pointed to the reappointment of the same persons to the PSC as an affront to a recent court ruling.

On the heels of a court ruling that cited the Public Service Commission (PSC) for failure to adhere to the regulations governing promotion within the Public Service, there was an almost immediate call for the dismissal of the members of that Commission.





Speaking on Monday on his weekly New Times slot on NICE Radio, Leader of the Opposition Dr. Godwin Friday registered strongly objection to the reappointment of the same persons as members of the PSC, to another two-year term.





The PSC, constitutionally an independent body whose membership is nominated by the Prime Minister but officially appointed by the Governor General, was officially reappointed last November.

The current PSC is headed, as it has been since 2001, by attorney Cecil Blazer Williams, a known close associate of the Prime Minister.

According to Friday, the system allows the administration to do "what they like with respect to the appointment of the PSC.





He noted the reappointment of the members means that it is the same PSC which was recently found wanting by the Court, for having breached the rules governing promotion of public servants.

"They are saying .. that the people who have been in charge and allowing it to happen, are the same people who would be heading the Public Service Commission again, and it is in face of a really damning decision that was issued by the court.





The Leader of the Opposition also expressed the hope that no reprisals would be taken against the five public officers who testified in support of the claim filed against the PSC, for wrongly promotion.

Dr. Friday also said that it was his understanding that a number of public officers who might have also been victims of the PSC breach, were reluctant to come forward as witnesses, fearing for their own job security.

". The point is that when you have a judge making such a detailed recitation of the problems that we are encountering in the public service, then you have to take note and dont worry about who brought the litigation and how you are going to get even with people who are standing up for their rights, Dr. Friday elaborated.

And the Opposition Leader seemed to have held out little hope for a resolution to the overall situation regarding the Public Service and the PSC, when he advanced the view that there could be no remedy under the Unity Labour Party administration.
Kevin Mulhern, a former head of communications and external affairs at Queen's University, Belfast, died suddenly this week at his home in Crossgar. He was 52.

Mr Mulhern's third-level education was at Queen's, where he was awarded a BSc (Hons) in political science, and later a masters degree in Irish political studies.

He also had a masters degree in marketing, and a diploma in journalism studies from Ulster University.

Mr Mulhern held the Queen's post for 12 years, from 2004 to 2016. Before that, he was communications officer with Bryson House, then communications manager in the Department of Health. He later moved to the Executive Information Service.

Keith Baker, an author and journalist, worked closely with Mr Mulhern in the Queen's communication department, writing speeches and helping with other projects.

He said: "Kevin was a great operator with a great brain, who was always a step ahead.

"He would have made a terrific newspaper editor.

"He liked journalists, he could spot a good story and he knew which journalists would do it justice.

"He built up a reputation of trust with the local media.

"He was lured from Queen's by Grahams, the local construction company, before moving to the Northern Ireland Social Care Council.

"Kevin was a consummate professional who threw his heart and soul into everything he did.

"He was great fun to be around and he will be a great loss to everyone who knew him, especially to his wife, Ciara, and the family."

Speaking on behalf of his former colleagues and friends, Lisa McElroy, a close associate of Mr Mulhern at Queen's communications department, said: "He was committed to excellence in communications, and he led his team to many awards, including a national CIPR excellence award, the ultimate UK public relations accolade.

"Well-known and respected across the university and beyond, Kevin's passion for seeing people succeed went far beyond his own team.

"He will be remembered as someone who was incredibly loyal, who brought humour to the workplace, and as an incredible mentor.

"His wit, sense of fun and strategic advice will be sorely missed."

Mr Mulhern is survived by his wife, Ciara, his children, Caitlin and Fionn, his parents, Arthur and Bridget, brothers Sean and Paul, sister Jacinta, and by his wider family and friends.
Opponents to the building of a 45m Southern Regional College campus in Craigavon have said they will seek an emergency judicial review after the local council approved the plan.

The development, which will be located next to the 30m Craigavon leisure centre, close to the Craigavon Civic and Conference Centre and Rushmere Shopping Centre, will replace the Lurgan and Portadown campuses, with a single facility covering 12 acres of City Park.

Kelly Laverty, from the Save Craigavon City Park and Lakes group, said the decision - taken after a seven-hour meeting of Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council on Wednesday - had left local residents "furious".

She also claimed that, given its scale, the application should have been transferred to the Department for Infrastructure.

"We have fought this for two years, and while we were disappointed at the council decision, it's no more than we expected," Mrs Laverty said.

"It's not that we don't want a new college. It's that we don't want it at the expense of a park the community loves and enjoys.

"This is a very complex application, and it should have been dealt with at a higher level.

"Despite asking for a postponement, given this complexity, we were told that wasn't going to happen.

"People are furious at what they see as a corporate decision, not a decision on behalf of the community."

Ms Laverty claimed that a judicial review would "finally show up the flaws in the decision-making process, allow us to bring our own experts and give us access to documents we have not been able to see, including the council's masterplan for the area".

Among those speaking against the plan on Wednesday night was Upper Bann MLA Doug Beattie, who said the council had chosen the wrong location.

"Craigavon needs development, and South Regional College will be good for that, good for jobs and regeneration, but this is the wrong place," Mr Beattie added. "This is a park for the people, an open space for recreation (that is) beneficial to wellbeing and mental health.

"A college on this scale will fundamentally change the nature of the area."

Mr Beattie also accused the council of acting disingenuously, having previously zoned the land for tourism, culture and recreation.

He said: "Over 6,000 people have said they don't want to see the college located there, but the elected representatives on the council are ignoring them. All those people have my support in seeking a judicial review."

Backers of the plan maintained other options had been considered, but the lakeside location was the most appropriate because of its central and neutral location, with good public transport links.

Southern Regional College has plans for five acres of replacement habitat to compensate for the construction of the low-rise building.

It said the approval was "fantastic news which would support hundreds of construction jobs and transform education".
A search of Mr Baxters property and two vehicles in July 2017 found 65,500 of cash and a large volume of counterfeit cigarettes. Credit: PSNI

A south Belfast man was jailed for a year after he admitted dealing in contraband cigarettes.

Stephen Baxter (31), of Blythe Street, pleaded guilty to the fraudulent evasion of duty on the cigarettes over a four year period.

He further pleaded guilty to possessing criminal property of over 65,000, a quantity of Euro currency and transferring criminal property.

Belfast Crown Court heard how police and HM Revenue and Customs raided his home in July 2017.

Prosecution lawyer Robin Steer said during the course of the search, police found 64,349 in cash along with 515 in Euros and a large quantity of contraband cigarettes. The unpaid duty on the cigarettes amounted to 188.

Belfast Recorder Judge David McFarland heard that Baxter was not at home during the search was later located driving a Mercedes van along Linfield Road in the city.

When searched he was found to have had 1,108.61p in cash in his wallet, the court heard.

Expand Close The Paramilitary Crime Task Force (PCTF) has welcomed the sentencing of Stephen Baxter (31) at Laganside Crown Court earlier today, Friday 18 January, for offences linked to the sale of contraband cigarettes. Credit: PSNI / Facebook

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Whatsapp The Paramilitary Crime Task Force (PCTF) has welcomed the sentencing of Stephen Baxter (31) at Laganside Crown Court earlier today, Friday 18 January, for offences linked to the sale of contraband cigarettes. Credit: PSNI

His mobile phone was seized and the court was told that police found 1,000 text messages and Facebook messenger posts dating between 2013 and 2017 in which Baxter was telling people he had cigarettes for sale.

The court heard that the day after his arrest, Baxter transferred 16,837 to three unknown people.

The prosecution lawyer told the court that Baxter's "culpability was high'', he was the "sole offender'' and the trade in illegal cigarettes had been going on four four years until detected.

Mr Steer said that the prosecution viewed the sentencing range was between 18 months to four years, adding that Baxter should receive a sentence of "no more than the middle'' of the sentencing range.

Defence barrister Andrew Moriarty said Baxter's trade in illegal cigarettes was a "small time operation'', adding that he was not part of any criminal gang and his criminal conduct did not involve drugs or guns.

Urging the judge not to send Baxter into immediate custody, Mr Moriarty said a report by the Probation Service recommended another course of punishment which would "allow him to put something back into community or leave something hanging over his head'' by way of a suspended sentence.

Expand Close Mr Baxter was sentenced to two years, one year in prison and one year on licence, for possessing and transferring criminal property and for fraudulent evasion of customs duty. Credit: PSNI / Facebook

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Whatsapp Mr Baxter was sentenced to two years, one year in prison and one year on licence, for possessing and transferring criminal property and for fraudulent evasion of customs duty. Credit: PSNI

The Belfast Recorder told Baxter: "You were generating the cash. You were not a messenger, you were not a patsy or a courier delivering the cigarettes to others.

"This type and level of criminal conduct merits an immediate custodial sentence.''

Handing down a 24 month sentence, Judge McFarland told Baxter he would spend 12 months in prison followed by a year on supervised licence.

Confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act relating to 65,000 in cash, a Range Rover car and a Tag Heuer watch have been adjourned.

The judge ordered the destruction of all the seized cigarettes and Baxter's mobile phone will remain with police for further inquiries.

The Paramilitary Crime Task Force, made up of the PSNI, National Crime Agency and HM Revenue and Customs, welcomed Baxter's jail sentence.

Detective Inspector Lynne Knox of the PCTF said: Mr Baxter was brought before the courts and pleaded guilty to selling counterfeit cigarettes.

"Despite initially denying any involvement in this type of activity, a robust police investigation showed that Stephen sold and supplied counterfeit cigarettes over a four year period.

As well as the sentence that Mr Baxter received today, 65,500, a Range Rover and a TAG Heuer watch, which were purchased as a result of his criminality, have been seized.

"This success is as a result of PSNI and HMRC working together as part of the PCTF and highlights the impact that we can have in tackling organised crime and those who profit from it.

"It should act as a warning to those who engage in this type of activity  not only do you risk receiving a custodial sentence, you could also be significantly hit in the pocket with the seizure of your property."
Photograph by Justin Kernoghan Police and forensic experts at the scene on High Street Belfast this morning. Photograph by Justin Kernoghan

Police are investigating the sudden death of a man in Belfast city centre. Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press

A 27-year-old homeless man has been found dead in Belfast city centre.

The man's body was found in the doorway of the Bedlinen Warehouse shop in High Street.

The man was found by staff from homeless charity The Welcome Organisation at around 8.30am on Friday.

It is understood he was from the Dublin area and that he had been offered accommodation on Thursday evening.

The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was called to the scene at 8.28am to reports a man was unconscious and not breathing.

An ambulance and two rapid response vehicles were sent.

Detective Inspector Kerry Brennan said: Police attended a report of a sudden death of a man at the High Street area of Belfast this morning (Friday 18th January).

A post mortem is due to be carried out to establish the cause of death.

"Police enquiries are at an early stage and there are no further details at this time.

Expand Close Photograph by Justin Kernoghan Police and forensic experts at the scene on High Street Belfast this morning. Photograph by Justin Kernoghan Photopress Belfast / Facebook

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Whatsapp Photograph by Justin Kernoghan Police and forensic experts at the scene on High Street Belfast this morning. Photograph by Justin Kernoghan

Sandra Moore, chief executive of the Welcome Organisation, said: "I can confirm that staff members from the Welcome Organisations Street Outreach team found the body of a homeless male in a doorway in Belfast City Centre this morning.

"The person has not been formally named or cause of death ascertained but it was sudden and unexpected.

"Our thoughts are with the man's family and friends some of whom are members of the homeless community and are very distressed and being supported by Welcome Organisation staff.

"It is tragic that people continue to die on our streets despite the wide range of support being offered. The sad reality is that the individuals involved in rough sleeping are amongst the most vulnerable in society: all too often suffering mental ill health, drug or alcohol addiction or all three.

"The reality is that if services like those provided by Welcome were not available, the number of street deaths would potentially be much greater

Expand Close It is understood the male, thought to be a rough sleeper, was found in a shop doorway in the High Street area earlier this morning (Friday). Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press / Facebook

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Whatsapp It is understood the male, thought to be a rough sleeper, was found in a shop doorway in the High Street area earlier this morning (Friday). Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press

Ms Moore told the Press Association the workers who found the man were very upset.

"Working in this field is challenging at the best of times, but when you have to deal with a situation like this, it's so tragic," she said.

"The workers are shaken. The last thing they expected when they tried to rouse this young man was that he passed over.

"They had known this person, which makes it that bit more traumatic and personal."

Ms Moore said about 80 individuals were known to be rough sleepers in Belfast, with about 25 on the streets at any one time. She said the majority were single young men.

"There is still something not right, this is one of the best cities in terms of homeless services, and being a small city, services work well together, but we obviously still haven't got it right," she said.

Staff from neighbouring businesses have told the Belfast Telegraph they saw CPR being performed by paramedics on an individual when they came into work on Friday morning. The cordon around the shops has now been lifted by police.

Belfast councillor Jim Rodgers said: "I am really sad that this has happened. We have got a number of people sleeping rough, especially in the city centre of Belfast. My thoughts and prayers and heart felt sympathy go out to his relatives and friends.

"It is just dreadful. I think we all need to do more to bring an end to homelessness in Northern Ireland."

Sinn Fein MLA Caral Ni Chuilin said: Its a serious concern that a homeless man was found dead in Belfast city centre this morning.

No one should ever have to sleep on the street, particularly in the cold weather.

But sadly over recent years we have seen rising levels of homelessness around the city centre and across the north.

Homeless charities have been doing great work but it is important that the Housing Executive and statutory bodies continue providing support to people sleeping on the street.

My thoughts are with this mans family and friend at this difficult time.
This is the second time the EBM has been targeted in the last 12 months.

A charity has spoken of its "disappointment" after thieves targeted its premises for the second time in a year.

Overnight on Thursday, the Refresh Cafe at the East Belfast Mission (EBM) on the Newtownards Road was broken into and cash raised to help the vulnerable was stolen.

The East Belfast Mission, which is run by the Methodist Church, provides support for the homeless, offers counselling sessions and helps people get into work.

Every weekday the Refresh Cafe also provides hot meals for more than 50 people in need in the east Belfast community.

This is the second time the EBM has been targeted in the last 12 months. In April last year, a safe containing takings and volunteer's tips was stolen in an overnight break-in.

Mission superintendent at the charity, Reverend Brian Anderson, said the thieves were "stealing from the east Belfast community".

"This is the second time this has happened and it has been done in an almost identical way, even though we beefed up our security since the last incident," he said.

"Our reaction here is one of disappointment, because this is a community cafe, so every penny we raise here goes right back to the community - it's not for profit.

"That's the ironic thing, whoever these people are or wherever they are from - they are stealing from the east Belfast community."

Ulster Unionist representative George Doherty condemned those behind a break-in.

"It is an absolute disgrace that anyone should target an organisation like the East Belfast Mission, which exists to help vulnerable people," he said.

"What makes it even worse, is that this is the second time that the EBM has been targeted in such a despicable way, because a safe was stolen in a similar incident last April.

"EBM is an organisation that I know from first-hand experience goes above and beyond to assist those in need. They have done so for a number of constituents that I have referred to them recently.

"The people responsible for this need to be taken off the streets."

PSNI inspector David Gibson said: "It was reported that sometime between 11.00pm on Thursday, January 17 and 6.50am Friday, January 18, entry was gained to the premises and a sum of cash was stolen.

Anyone with any information about this incident is asked to contact officers at Strandtown on 101 quoting reference number 133 18/01/19."

"Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime."
A man has been arrested and drugs seized as part of the Paramilitary Crime Task Force's probe into the UDA.

Police searched a number of properties on Friday discovering Class C drugs including steroids as well as a sum of cash.

A 32-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of possession of drugs with the intent to supply. He has since been released on bail pending further police enquiries.

The PSNI, HM Revenue & Customs and the National Crime Agency established the task force to tackle criminality linked to paramilitary activity as part of the Northern Ireland Executive's action plan on Tackling Paramilitary Activity, Criminality, and Organised Crime.

Todays search operation was in relation to an ongoing investigation into the activities of West Belfast UDA and demonstrates our commitment to removing and disrupting the illegal supply of drugs in Northern Ireland," said Detective Sergeant Hawthorne.

We are actively tackling the issue of drugs and I would appeal to the public to speak to us if they have any concerns or information regarding drugs in their communities. I would ask anyone who is aware of any individual involved in the supply of drugs to contact their local police on 101.

"Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime."
A number of cattle on the premises were found to be in very poor body condition. File pic

An Armagh farmer has admitted to causing unnecessary suffering to a cow.

Maurice Foster (48) of Farnaloy Road, Madden, Armagh was convicted at Armagh Magistrates' Court on Friday.

He pleaded guilty to three charges of causing unnecessary suffering, one charge of failure to comply with an improvement notice, one charge of failure to dispose of animal by-products in such a manner as to ensure that any animals or bird would not have access to it, one charge of failure to produce medicine records and one charge of obstructing an inspector.

Foster was fined 850 plus 15 offender levy.

The case arose as a result of discrepancies found during an inspection of his herd. A number of cattle on the premises were found to be in very poor body condition, a follow-up investigation was carried out by officers from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (DAERA) welfare and enforcement branch.

"The department gives high priority to the welfare of animals and operates a vigorous enforcement policy to ensure full compliance of regulatory requirements. Any breaches are investigated thoroughly and offenders prosecuted as necessary," a DAERA statement said.
Brexit is posing a ridiculous and false challenge, the director of the Abbey Theatre Neil Murray said (Brian Lawless/PA)

Brexit is posing a ridiculous and false challenge, the director of Irelands leading theatre said.

Neil Murray from the Abbey said it was a farce which could not have been envisaged by even the most foresighted script writer.

He warned that actors faced additional tax and currency issues amid the UKs pending EU divorce.

The Dublin venue co-produced recently with colleagues from the Old Vic and Hammersmith in London. It draws talent from around the world.

Expand Close The Old Vic has co-produced recently with the Abbey Theatre (Yui Mok/PA). PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp The Old Vic has co-produced recently with the Abbey Theatre (Yui Mok/PA).

Mr Murray said: The idea that we suddenly have to work in a completely different way to make this happen is a ridiculous challenge and almost a false challenge, we have to fight incredibly hard to protect that.

The Common Travel Area (CTA) agreement between Ireland and the UK is unrelated to the EU and allows free movement of nationals across the Irish border and from Great Britain as well as employment rights.

A conference in Belfast organised by actors union Equity raised the prospect of new and ever-increasing visa fees for artists wanting to work elsewhere as a result of the separation.

Mr Murray moved from a theatre in the UK to the Abbey.

He said: I moved to Ireland two and a half years ago to work in a national and international theatre company with colleagues in Ireland, both south and north, as well as retaining connection with colleagues in the UK.

I am determined that whatever happens the Abbey has a key role, particularly on the island of Ireland to ensure that we advocate collaboration and that we fight as hard as we can to ensure that the Abbey remains a presence, both in Dublin and up here in Belfast.

Expand Close Karan OLoughlin, from the Irish Equity union, said a no-deal Brexit would be devastating for the theatre industry in Northern Ireland and the Republic (Brian Lawless/PA). PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Karan OLoughlin, from the Irish Equity union, said a no-deal Brexit would be devastating for the theatre industry in Northern Ireland and the Republic (Brian Lawless/PA).

Irish Equity said a no-deal Brexit would be devastating for the theatre industry in Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Karan OLoughlin, from the trade union, said: A no-deal Brexit would be absolutely catastrophic for people.

Their members often collaborate on productions across both parts of the island.

She added: No-deal means restrictions on travel and freedom to work, it reduces diversity in work and creates funding difficulties for co-productions, and reduces the capacity for people to work and create.

Under the gaze of Co. Down native, actor Jamie Dornan, with #Brexit and the Arts Seminar Organiser Karen OaLoughlin @SIPTU at @LyricBelfast



This is my first visit to Northern Ireland as Minister and I was honoured to open the @EquityUK @IrishEquity Conference & discuss #Brexit pic.twitter.com/7SS5KmSNQl  aiJosepha Madigan TD a (@josephamadigan) January 18, 2019

The seminar organised by acting unions in the UK and Ireland was held at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast on Friday.

Ms OLoughlin added: I think that is incredibly poor and irresponsible of the British Government to keep this ongoing farcical situation where everybody lives with uncertainty.

Uncertainty is as bad as a bad Brexit.

Chloe Alexander, policy development officer at Equity UK, said a no-deal Brexit could mean an absence of arrangements for workers in the UK to work on mainland Europe other than Ireland.

That would be disastrous for a lot of members who have a good chunk of their incomes from work on the EU.

It would also mean there would be no transition so there would be no time for the industry to adjust to the new circumstances plus we would be out of all the funding bodies that play such an important part.
A father of five has thanked a local cancer charity for being "the light at the end of the tunnel" after the death of his wife.

Donald Harte was attending the 50th birthday celebration of Cancer Focus NI, held in Belfast City Hall.

"My wife Anna was diagnosed with cancer in 2005," he said.

"Four days later she found out she was pregnant - that was a bit of an experience."

Anna's cancer returned after initial treatment and she eventually passed away on February 25, 2010.

"My children were aged from three to 15 when their mother died," said Mr Harte.

"The hardest thing in the world is to sit a three and four-year-old down and tell them their mother's going to die very shortly."

The trade union official from Craigavon was put in touch with Rachel Smyth, family service manager for Cancer Focus NI, who arranged for a bereavement support group.

"You want to protect your children and shield them from the pain, but Rachel told me I had to involve them," he said.

"Children can often be more resilient than adults. We went to the support group for four years and it was fantastic.

"People think a bereavement group is only sad, but we got to laugh as well. It was very uplifting."

He continued: "Losing someone is horrible at the time, it doesn't get easier.

"But you learn to cope with it because people are there to help you and your children.

"I'll be grateful to Cancer Focus for the rest of my life; my children are in a better place now because of it."

Cancer Focus NI's chief executive Roisin Foster said she was delighted at the landmark anniversary.

"There's probably two things I'll remember the most. One man told me if it wasn't for our counsellor he wouldn't be alive today.

"Not because of cancer, but because he was in such a dark place.

"So the counsellor walked the road a little bit with him and helped him see out the other end."

She added: "Another was a terminal cancer patient, Brian, who helped with our equal-access campaign.

"Patients here couldn't access the same services available in other parts of the UK and for years I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall.

"Brian told me: 'I won't get the treatment I need but I'm doing this for the people coming behind me'.

"You can get frustrated and have tricky times yourself, so when we see spirit like that it keeps you going."

Yesterday's event marked the start of a new campaign - Cheers to 50 Years - to raise 100,000 for breast cancer research at Queen's University. The project will look at treating women who develop breast cancer for a second time.

Dr Kenan Savage is a senior lecturer in molecular oncology. "The hope is we can develop a test for women at risk of a second breast cancer and personalise their treatment," he said.

Noreen Smith was at one of the charity's first ever funding meetings, held in Rathfriland in 1972.

"It was starting absolutely from scratch; a lot of local people turned up and many are still involved," she said.

"I feel very proud to be part of the group. We've also had a lot of fun doing the fundraising - it's not all hard work."

The Cancer Focus NI information and support Nurseline is on 0800 783 333. Information is also available at www.cancerfocusni.org
Some of the pottery that formed part of the Clare Valley discovery. Left: A special ceremony was held in Clare Valley to recognise the find.

While I was travelling to my home in Clare Valley, a young lady asked me to show her the location where the pottery was discovered several years ago.





This request re-opened my concern with regard to preservation of the area, especially as I noticed construction work was continuing on the site.





A few days later, Fr. Mark de Silva presented me with a copy of a book entitled "The Caribs of St. Vincent , printed from a manuscript written by Fr. Adrien Le Breton, (1662- 1736), during his sojourn in St. Vincent.

As I read the book, I was galvanized into action. Why? The writings of Fr. Breton are quoted by numerous researchers as they seek information on pre-Columbian history. This and other books written by our local historians and other scholars, should be widely available in book stores, libraries, and most importantly on the School Curriculum. The history will live because now in our time, more revelations are taking place.





The Clare Valley Discovery





It was with great excitement that on Independence Day, 2012, certain residents of the coastal village of Clare Valley discovered several ceramic pots which they presumed were used to decorate the sides of a well.

However, these bottomless pots could have been used as the "pipe-line to draw the water from the well.

The pots dated from the Saladoid pre-Columbian indigenous culture of Venezuela and the Caribbean that flourished from 500 BCE to 545 CE. This find was at the time described as "the greatest single archaeological find in this country..and it appears from the size of the well and sophistication of it, that Clare Valley could be one of the biggest settlements of the Saladoid people in the whole of St. Vincent and possibly the greater Caribbean area. It should be noted that workers reported that there were other vessels in the ground.

The then Chairperson of the National Trust, promised that the search would go on. She alluded to renewed focus on Clare Valley because of the discovery. The items have been placed in the care of the National Trust, with the possibility that "When Clare Valley has its own museum, they (artefacts) could be brought back. The residents of Clare Valley were praised for "so carefully removing the pots, and their level of awareness in realizing that these were important. She asserted that the people made the "most valuable find we ever had.

She described the discovery as unprecedented, since no such finding has ever occurred in St Vincent and it is of grave significance. It confirms that St Vincent is one of the richest archaeological sites in the Caribbean to have a finding of this nature.





No Idle Boast  Clare Valley in limbo





The Chairmas word were not idle boastful, since there was a significant find two years previously.





During excavations of the site for the construction of the Argyle International Airport in 2010, artefacts were discovered, which were determined to have come from a Carib village, the first to be found in the Lesser Antilles. Dr Hofman said that through collaboration, they were able to excavate the village completely, and as a result found 11 oval houses and two round houses. She said this reconstruction project sees them aiming to reconstruct five small round houses and one large oval house (about 12 metres in size).

To date, the Cayo Village is established as both an educational and a tourist site.





What of Clare Valley? At the time of the Saladoid find, it was reported that "A contingent of Grade 5 and 6 students from the Sugar Mill Academy also descended on the normally quiet fishing community that Monday.





A community-led initiative must begin for the establishment of the Museum/Educational Centre, so that the children from all the nations schools and other sectors of the population may learn and share in the benefits to be derived from this "most valuable find we ever had.

Will foreign archaeologists and researchers be the only beneficiaries of our history? The time is right for action to be taken at community and government level to document the villages history and encourage educational and economic benefit through its status as the home of a pre-Columbian settlement for more than 1,600 years.





Nelcia Robinson

Coordinator

Caribbean Organisation of Indigenous Peoples (COIP)
Irish airline Aer Lingus, which flies from Belfast City Airport, has unveiled its first rebrand in more than 20 years, reflecting a "new, changing" Ireland.

A promotional video documenting the process of making the changes to the brand referenced the marriage equality and abortion referendums, which were seen as seismic changes in the country.

"Just as Ireland continues to evolve, inspire and define its place in the modern world, so should our airline. As Ireland strives, so strives Aer Lingus," the video said.

Bosses at the airline spoke about the importance of passengers' emotional connection to the brand and of cementing the company's place on the world stage as a leading value carrier.

Mike Rutter, the airline's chief operating officer, said: "Any new imagining of the brand must remain true to those who feel the brand is part of their life and landscape.

"We're also deeply aware the brand must reflect Ireland (as) a society that is open, progressive, liberal, outward-looking and dynamic - an Ireland that is proudly European and has become the destination of choice for inward investment, where English language, a high-quality, educated workforce and a commitment to Europe are the key decisioning points."

Mr Rutter also said Aer Lingus staff were being put through training and "cultural change programmes".

The changes, undertaken following results from 26 focus groups across different sections of passengers, include a new version of the shamrock logo and a new colour scheme for aircraft.

While the original colour scheme was popular in Ireland, internationally, focus group participants said it looked like the airline could "get you to Ireland but not to New York".

As part of the campaign, a newly painted A330-300 series aircraft was on show at Dublin Airport yesterday.

The airline said the aim of the update was to give a "refreshed vision of modern Ireland" and to give the brand a more dynamic image as it continues expanding into the north Atlantic market.

The 400-plus changes are in the early stages, but the carrier hopes to have the new look completed by 2021.
Crowds standing by for the opening of Belfasts new Primark last month

Retail giant Primark says its new Belfast store has had a strong first month of trading since opening.

The Castle Street outlet was launched in an extension to its original shop following the devastating fire at the Bank Buildings premises at the end of August.

But Primark said it had no update on the timing of the opening of a second store the company is planning for Belfast city centre.

It will be at Commonwealth House in Donegall Place after former tenant, fashion chain New Look, closed on Tuesday. Primark said: "We are pleased with trading at the Belfast store since its reopening in December." Yesterday parent company Associated British Foods, which also owns Neills Flour in Belfast, said profits at the budget fashion chain are "well ahead" despite a fall in like-for-like sales over its festive quarter. The retailer saw a "modest decline" in like-for-like sales in the 16 weeks to January 5, although total sales lifted 4% as it opened more stores. It cheered a better-than-expected Christmas performance for the budget high street chain in the UK, with total sales up 1%. On a like-for-like basis, it said UK sales rose in September and October, but lower numbers of shoppers in its stores hit trade in November. The group added that despite the overall modest decline in global like-for-like sales, profits were "well ahead" at Primark thanks to a higher operating profit margin. Shares in the FTSE 100-listed group jumped 6% higher. Primark had previously warned that trading was "challenging" in the run-up to Christmas, reporting that like-for-like sales fell 2.1% in the year to September as bad weather weighed on trading in Europe. Overall, AB Foods, which also owns a sugar business and grocery business including Twinings and Ovaltine, saw revenues rise 2% on a constant currency basis in the 16 weeks. It saw sugar revenues fall 12% at constant exchange rates, and 14% on a reported basis, after it was impacted in the UK and Spain by lower EU sugar prices for contracts negotiated at the end of its last financial year. Grocery sales lifted 3% at a constant currency and 2% on a reported basis, while its agriculture and ingredients arm saw sales increase 5% and 6% respectively. Tom Stevenson, director from Fidelity Personal Investing's share dealing service, said it was a "sweet and sour" update.

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Growth in the Northern Ireland economy over the past year has been powered by "resilient" firms in the private sector, it has been claimed.

But the rate of growth in the economy has slowed down over the past few years compared to the UK as a whole, according to the composite economic index for the third quarter of last year.

Over the last two years, the index recorded annualised economic growth of 0.5%, compared to 1.6% for the previous period.

Private sector output grew by 0.6% over the quarter and by 2.5% compared to a year earlier.

As an economic measure, the NICEI can be compared to GDP - which in the UK as a whole, has expanded by 1.5% over the last few years.

But there has been shorter-term growth. Activity grew 0.4% from the second to the third quarter of 2018, while it was up 2.1% over the year to quarter three.

Quarterly growth was driven by the production and construction sectors though there was also a slight fall in growth in services.

However, all sectors contributed to the year-on-year growth of 2.1%, with the production sector leading the way with growth of 1.0 percentage points.

Ulster Bank chief economist Richard Ramsey said Northern Ireland economic output is now on a par with mid-2005.

But he said the figures raised concerns over productivity, as there were an extra 69,000 jobs in the economy, producing the same output.

Employee jobs had grown by 2,240 over the quarter and by 17,400 over the year - growth of 2%.

Jordan Buchanan, economist at the Ulster University economic policy centre, welcomed the positive growth.

"It is particularly encouraging that growth has come from the private sector, highlighting the resilience of our businesses which are operating in an increasingly difficult economic environment," he said.

"However, taking a longer term view, the local economy remains on a low growth trajectory lagging behind UK counterparts and even more so our neighbours in the Republic of Ireland.

"Indeed, total economic output is almost 5% lower in Northern Ireland compared to peak levels in 2007.

"Looking forward, the latest forecasts from the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre suggest the Northern Ireland economy is likely to continue to grow at less than 1% per annum over the next few years."

The index, which is presented by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), said: "When looking at this annualised trend over the last three years there is evidence that the rate of growth has slowed."
Companies are a long way from being Brexit-ready, and uncertainty over the outcome is set to impose more costs on firms, business leaders from both sides of the border have warned at a conference in Dublin.

The rejection of Theresa May's withdrawal agreement has raised the likelihood of a disruptive no-deal Brexit, which could have serious consequences for business, delegates at the manufacturing industry meeting were told.

The imposition of World Trade Organization tariffs would also make Northern Irish goods more expensive in the Republic, and goods from the Republic more expensive in Northern Ireland.

Tariffs on agrifoods average 22% under WTO rules, according to Michael Bell, the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association.

"WTO rules are designed to stop the movement of agrifood products," he said.

Although Brexit is the biggest shock on the horizon for businesses, it is not the only one.

A combination of uncertainty and the falling pound has seen migrant workers in the Northern Irish agriculture industry return home, and the planned Sainsbury's-Asda merger will put further pressure on farmers.

Irish Exporters Association CEO Simon McKeever said firms were in a precarious position.

"We now find ourselves with a 70-day window where I don't think we are prepared as a country. We are, to put it bluntly, screwed."

The additional burdens imposed by a hard Brexit would include extra forms that businesses would have to fill in to comply with customs rules, as well as the redrawing of shipping routes.

Food and agriculture exports from both sides of the border would be hit as many products cross and re-cross the border.

Multiple speakers at the event said both British and Irish businesses needed more time to prepare, with a no-deal Brexit likely.

"The real risk for business is the cliff-edge," said Fergal O'Brien, director of policy at business group IBEC.

Mr Bell also raised the question of what would happen when a container is at docks and customs are presented with the choice of delaying a shipment worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, or letting it through if there is a grey area in the rules.

"Who will be empowered?" Mr Bell asked.
Physicians and staff at Naples (Fla.) Community Hospital unanimously voted "no confidence" in CEO Allen Weiss, according to NBC 2.

Five details:

1. The emergency meeting to vote against Mr. Weiss followed his decision to implement a new, controversial admission policy. The new policy does not allow physicians outside of NCH to write prescription orders.

2. A few of the physicians said the new policy is being used as a scare tactic to bully surgeons and staff.

3. Neurosurgeon Michael Lusk was among those who expressed dissatisfaction with the CEO and new admission's policy. "One group at a time has slowly been picked out, moved on or replaced," he told NBC 2.

4. Other physicians think the new admissions policy is a way for Naples Community Hospital to transition into a research center.

5. In 2018, Naples Community Hospital issued a different pilot program that only allowed hospital-based physicians to treat patients. Naples Community Hospital's new policy bars admission to independent physicians.
Evalina Burger, MD, is a board-certified orthopedic spine surgeon at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora.

Dr. Burger serves as the orthopedic department chair at Aurora-based University of Colorado School of Medicine. She specializes in complex spinal surgery, adult deformity, spinal tumors and scoliosis and performs disc replacement procedures.

She received her medical degree from the University of the Orange Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and completed her orthopedic residency at the University of Pretoria School of Medicine in South Africa.

Prior to joining the University of Colorado in 2006, Dr. Burger served as an associate professor at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, where she helped establish the first fully-functional orthopedic clinic after Hurricane Katrina.

She is a member of the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Society of Lateral Access Surgery and Scoliosis Research Society, among other professional organizations.

Her research has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed scientific journals. In her spare time, Dr. Burger enjoys music and hunting.

To nominate a spine surgeon to be featured, please email Shayna Korol at skorol@beckershealthcare.com.
A nurse stabbed 11 times by a former patient at a Southbridge, Mass., hospital has traveled across the U.S. to speak before hospital CEOs and CNOs, demanding action on improving hospital safety, ABC-affiliate TV station WCVB reports.

"I'm trying to do everything I can to make people safer out there because more and more healthcare workers are getting hurt. The threat is real. The threat is becoming more frequent, and the threat is becoming more violent," Elise Wilson, RN, told the station.

After 35 years on the job as a nurse, Ms. Wilson, was attacked by the former patient in 2017, allegedly because he was unhappy with the care received at Harrington Hospital three weeks before.

Ms. Wilson still doesn't have use of her hand and has not been able to return to the emergency room.

Since the attack, her former employer has installed metal detectors and given staff personal, silent pocket alarms, Ms. Wilson said.

"These kinds of things are very easy to institute," Ms. Wilson said. "If a small community hospital like Harrington can do this in three to four weeks time, bigger facilities can do it and they need to do it."

On Jan. 18, Ms. Wilson will get backup in her fight from the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which will introduce two bills at the state House regarding workplace safety.

The Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association also said it is "filing legislation that will create statewide standards for evaluating and addressing security risks in hospitals, and ensure all hospitals activate workplace violence prevention programs based on those standards."
Most physicians are against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's healthcare plan that he says would guarantee primary and specialty care to 600,000 uninsured city residents, according to a poll conducted by SERMO, a social network for physicians.

The poll of 240 U.S. physicians showed that 76 percent of respondents are against the program, while 24 percent support it.

Three other findings:

1. Seventy-five percent of respondents said they don't agree that the program will effectively reduce emergency room visits. That compares to 25 percent who agree.

2. Nearly all respondents (89 percent) said they agree that the program will burden taxpayers, while 11 percent do not agree.

3. Half of respondents said they believe universal healthcare decisions should be made by the state, and half said they believe those decisions should be made by the federal government.
Shelly Ann Samuel, (right) Country Manager of CIBC First Caribbean SVG hands over donation to ASK Promotions representative for the upcoming Melisizwe Brothers Concert in SVG.

CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank (CIBC/FCIB) has put its support behind The Melisizwe Brothers in Concert scheduled for the Russell Auditorium in Stoney Ground on Saturday 2nd February, 2019.





Part of the proceeds of this concert will go to SCORCH Cancer Support Foundation.





This will be the Melisizwe Brothers (Marc, 14, Seth, 11, and Zacary, 10) first big outing in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, since a wave of international recognition that began in 2017 when their take on the Jackson Fives "Ill Be Therewith their YouTube success with their take on, burst on the YouTube scene with millions of hits.

CIBC/FCIB Country (SVG) Manager Shelly Ann Samuel said the bank was "thrilled to support Ask Productions in bringing the arts and sounds of these young talented boys to take our community on an inspirational musical journey, and at the same time to raise money to continue to fight cancer  a cause that is very dear to us here at the bank.





Walk for the Cure





Meanwhile, CIBC FirstCaribbeans 2018 Annual Walk for the Cure, the regions largest cancer fundraiser, has again topped the US half million mark across the English and Dutch Caribbean.





Last year, sponsors and participants in the 17 territories where the bank has a presence, raised a total of USD $512,367.39 in support of various cancer care and awareness charities.





Additionally, CIBC/FCIB officials said, some 32,200 persons participated in the 2018 Walk, a significant increase over the 19,800 in the 2017 Walk, which, albeit, was affected by the hurricanes that brought havoc to the region.

"I am delighted to report that our collective efforts have paid off handsomely again as this latest figure surpasses 2017s total of just under USD$450 000, said Walk Co-Chair and CIBC FirstCaribbean Mr. Mark St Hill.





St. Hill said he was "humbled by the thousands of men, women and children who answer our call every year to don their shirts and take to the streets by the thousands to join in our crusade against cancer.

Last years figure brings the total amount of funds raised in the past seven years to over $2.2 million, and Mr St. Hill noted that this was also a "remarkable achievement for such a relatively young event.

For its own part, CIBC/FCIB St. Vincent raised over #30,000 XCD. This amount will be donated to the SVG Medical Association to assist with its cancer prevention and treatment programmes.
A judge granted motions filed by Tampa, Fla.-based Florida Hospital Carrollwood  recently renamed AdventHealth Carrollwood  to dismiss claims that the hospital functions as a debt collector, according to the Florida Record.

Three things to know:



1. The plaintiff, Ben Smith, claimed Florida Hospital Carrollwood placed a lien after he failed to pay a bill. Mr. Smith accused the hospital of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Florida Consumer Collections Practices Act, as well as improperly disclosing the lien to third parties.

2. According to a Jan. 7 ruling obtained by the Florida Record, U.S. Magistrate Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone granted the hospital's motion to dismiss several claims in the lawsuit. Judge Arnold Sansone said the plaintiff "failed to plead facts showing he is plausibly entitled to relief."

3. Mr. Smith has until Jan. 31 to file an amended complaint concerning the accusations about the hospital disclosing the lien to third parties.
Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, Calif., has agreed to pay $2.95 million to settle allegations it compensated workers less than the amount owed and prevented them from taking lunch breaks, according to a Ventura County Star report.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Kevin DeNoce approved the settlement Jan. 16. Under the arrangement, about 3,000 current and former workers will each receive an average payment of $618, according to the Star. Los Robles will reportedly pay $973,500 to cover workers' legal fees, as well as $10,000 in state penalties for alleged labor violations.

In a statement obtained earlier this month, hospital officials told the Star Los Robles "denied all allegations" and "settled the matter on a no-fault basis  to keep its focus on providing the best quality patient care rather than litigation."

Marcus Bradley of Bradley/Grombacher law firm, who represented the workers, told the publication, "We're pleased with the resolution."

The settlement is the result of a lawsuit filed in 2014 by former Los Robles nurse Jeanette Munden.
Healthcare workers at Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket, R.I., and the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island in North Smithfield have reached a three-year contract agreement with management, according to The Valley Breeze.

The agreement covers professional and technical staff as well as certified nursing assistants represented by the United Nurses and Allied Professionals.

Nina Rotatori, UNAP Local 5067 president, said the agreement "recognizes the commitment and sacrifice of our frontline caregivers through increased economic security and the continuation of hard-fought rights and benefits," according to The Valley Breeze.

Mike Souza, CEO of Landmark Medical Center and the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island, also praised the agreement, calling it "mutually beneficial."

More articles on human capital and risk:

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Inflatable rocket used to criticize Washington hospital exec salaries
Concern over a new admissions policy led staff physicians at Naples, Fla.-based NCH Healthcare System to issue a vote of no confidence against the system's CEO, NBC 2 News reports.

The system's physician staff held an emergency meeting Jan. 17 and voted "no confidence" in CEO Allen Weiss, MD. The meeting came amid NCH's latest admissions policy, which states that physicians outside of NCH could not write prescription orders.

Some physicians claim hospital administration is increasingly turning to bullying and scare tactics to enact policy changes, the report states. Community residents and physicians have staunchly voiced their opposition to a prior admissions policy announced in summer 2018 that eliminates admission privileges for independent physicians on three floors at NCH's flagship hospital in Naples.

Dr. Weiss previously said the community's concern over the admissions policy stemmed from a "misunderstanding."

Questions regarding the admissions policy may have also led to the cancellation of one of the health system's largest fundraisers scheduled to take place in March.

In a statement obtained by NBC 2 News, NCH said: "We understand there are a variety of perspectives relative to the hospitalist [model]. We are piloting on three units, but hope that the physicians we work with every day to care for patients will recognize that our ultimate goal is to do what is in the best interest of our patients and community."

"The NCH board has not received any official notification of any vote that occurred last night at the physician meeting that has been reported in the media. Nothing has changed. As the board said in its message to the community on January 11: 'The management team and staff at NCH have the full support of the board. The board is proud of the accomplishments of our employees and their passionate commitment to quality,'" NCH Board of Trustees Chair Mariann MacDonald said in a Jan. 18 statement obtained by Becker's Hospital Review.



To access the full report, click here.

Editor's note: This article was updated at 3:05 p.m. Jan. 18 to include additional comment from NCH Healthcare System.
A former executive for White Plains (N.Y.) Hospital died suddenly at his retirement party Jan. 11 meant to celebrate his 40-year career at the hospital, according to lohud.

Ossie Dahl, the former vice president of facilities at the hospital, fainted just after giving his retirement speech during a party in his honor at the Women's Club of White Plains. Police arrived just after receiving a 911 call around 6:40 p.m.

Lohud reports several physicians in attendance were performing CPR on Mr. Dahl, 64, when police arrived, and continued to do so in the ambulance. He was pronounced dead at White Plains Hospital shortly after.

Staff at White Plains Hospital told lohud they are "heartbroken" over Mr. Dahl's death.

"Ossie's impact on our hospital over the 40 years he worked here was powerful. He was a selfless leader who appreciated and respected everyone, always having the ability to bring a smile to our faces with his unique outlook, warmth and ability to connect with all. We will always feel his presence in our hallways."

To access the full report, click here.
Springfield (Vt.) Medical Care Systems, which includes nine federally qualified community health centers and Springfield Hospital, selected three interim leaders after the organization's CEO and CFO abruptly resigned in December.

Joshua R. Dufresne will serve as acting CEO of the organization. He was previously COO and health resources and services administration project director for SMCS. He has worked at SCMS for 14 years. He holds an MBA from Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, N.H., and is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

SCMS appointed Wayne A. Scholz interim CFO. He is an employee of Brentwood, Tenn.-based Quorum Health Resources, which recently signed a management agreement with SCMS. Mr. Scholz formerly served as interim revenue cycle director at Holy Cross Hospital in Taos, N.M. He has worked at Quorum for nearly 30 years. He holds an MBA from University of Texas in San Antonio, and he serves on the board of the Lone Star Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association in Dallas.

Michael J. Halstead is Springfield Hospital's new CEO. He is an employee of Brentwood, Tenn.-based Quorum Health Resources and most recently served as vice president of the company's East Division. He is a fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association and a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, and he earned his MBA at University of Southern Maine School of Business in Portland.

SCMS is working to overcome financial challenges. The organization enlisted Quorum to conduct evaluations of its operations, finances and strategic direction, and help identify new leadership.

Additionally, Gov. Phil Scott appointed Tom Huebner to an advisory position at SCMS, to help the organization improve its finances, according to a Dec. 20, 2018, article in the Rutland Herald. Mr. Huebner is the former president and CEO of Rutland (Vt.) Regional Medical Center.
As CFO of one of the nation's largest hospital management companies, Steve Filton understands the challenges hospitals face.

Mr. Filton has served as executive vice president and CFO of King of Prussia, Pa.-based Universal Health Services since 2003.

He joined the company in 1985 as director of corporate accounting and in 1991, he was promoted to vice president and controller.

Mr. Filton spoke with Becker's about some of the challenges facing CFOs and his top cost-containment strategies.

Editor's Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Question: What is the greatest challenge hospital and health system CFOs faced in 2018? Do you expect this to be their biggest challenge in 2019 as well?

Steve Filton: I think effectively we're in an environment where our payers have all concluded that costs and medical spending have to be reduced, and a lot of that burden ultimately falls on providers, like hospitals and doctors. As a [result], I think hospitals are tasked with the difficult goal of continuing to provide the highest quality care in more efficient ways. I think that was the biggest challenge last year and will be the biggest challenge this year. I think, frankly, for the foreseeable future, that's the challenge of being a provider in today's healthcare environment.

Q: How do you feel the CFO role has evolved in recent years?

SF: I think CFOs have a particularly challenging role in that our organizations explore the ways to deliver high quality care that's best for our patients and try to create an environment that is satisfying for our employees. We as CFOs then say, 'How do we accomplish these things and remain efficient and remain profitable?' [That way organizations] can continue to do all the things we have to do as far as investing and reinvesting in the business and continuing to be competitive with our labor force and do all the things that allow us to continue to run high quality facilities, which in many cases involve significant expenditures.

Q: What are your top cost-containment strategies?

SF: I think a lot of our cost-containment strategies are focused on what I describe as driving the variability out of our business. I think so many other industries and businesses are accustomed to delivering their products and services in very standardized ways that are determined to be most efficient. I think healthcare has sort of long resisted that, and as a [result], we have lots of variability in the way that we deliver services in our various geographies. Various clinicians will deliver services differently. And I think we could benefit by following the lead of some of our peer industries and becoming much more focused on  delivering all our care and service in that standard way in accordance with best practice protocols. Driving out excess utilization and driving out rework and re-dos and errors  those things I think are a significant focus of getting the hospital industry to be more efficient and cost-efficient.

Question: During your tenure at UHS, what has been one of your proudest moments as CFO?

SF: What I take great pride in is the growth of the company. When I joined the company in the mid-1980s, it had maybe 35 [or] 40 hospitals around the country and maybe $500 million of consolidated revenues. This coming year we'll have well over 300 domestic facilities and another 100 or so in the United Kingdom and over $11 billion of revenue. And what I'm proud of is not just the growth of the company, but  the way the company has grown and yet really adhered to its core principles. When I joined the company 30 some odd years ago, it was very committed to high quality patient care and to the satisfaction to our employees. And honestly, if anything, I think the company has recommitted itself to those core principles over the years, and to be a much bigger company [and] not have abandoned our core principles, at least for me, is a source of great pride.

Q: If you could pass along one nugget of advice to another hospital CFO, what would it be?

SF: I tell the folks who work with me and for me all the time that it's so important to behave every day with the highest level of integrity. I think at the end of the day you can't replace that. People, I think, will give you a lot of leeway if they trust you, if they believe that you're behaving transparently and with great honesty. And so I encourage everyone who works for me to do that, and I certainly endeavor to try to do that as best I can. And it's tough. There are all kinds of pressures on folks in a financial role in this sort of environment. But I think if you behave with integrity, everything else will follow from that.
Louisville, Ky.-based Jewish Hospital, run by KentuckyOne Health in Louisville, saw its finances decline after its integration with the University of Louisville in 2013, according to Insider Louisville.

Five things to know:



1. The average annual profit of Jewish Hospital and its partner, Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital, totaled $16 million from 2002 and 2011, including a $41 million gain in 2011, according to IRS records cited by Insider Louisville.



2. However, in the five years since the hospital entered a joint operating agreement with the University of Louisville and the ACA took effect, Jewish and St. Mary lost $135 million.



3. At the same time, the university's Louisville-based University Medical Center improved a net loss of nearly $1 million for 2011 and 2012 to a yearly average profit of $40 million, according to the report.



4. Peter Hasselbacher, MD, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Louisville, told Insider Louisville, "The agreement didn't work out to anybody's satisfaction." The University of Louisville and KentuckyOne ended their joint operating agreement in summer 2017. Dr. Hasselbacher added that while IRS records indicate Jewish Hospital was profitable before the joint operating agreement, the hospital was nearing bankruptcy and carrying hundreds of millions in long-term debt.



5. KentuckyOne has been attempting to spin off Jewish Hospital and its Louisville assets since May 2017. In January of this year, the University of Louisville reportedly bid to acquire several hospitals and other assets from KentuckyOne Health. KentuckyOne and its parent company, Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives, have previously said they have remained in exclusive sale negotiations with private equity firm BlueMountain Capital Management since December 2017. However, CHI executives have continued delaying the timeline for a potential agreement.

For the full Insider Louisville analysis, click here.



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CHS expects $900M gain from hospital divestitures in 2019

Pennsylvania hospital employees work without pay
Karl A. Racine, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., is looking into the fundraising efforts of soon-to-be-closed Providence Hospital and management fees the hospital paid to St. Louis-based Ascension Health, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

A former hospital board member reported what were believed to be Ascension's financial improprieties to Mr. Racine's office. The former board member alleges that when the Providence Hospital Foundation hosted its annual black-tie fundraising gala in April 2018, with sponsorship of tables starting at $10,000, Ascension already had planned to shut down the hospital. All funds raised from the gala will now go to Ascension once Providence closes its emergency room at the end of April. The board member expressed concern that donors thought they were giving gifts to a local charity, not a national healthcare network.

The former board member also expressed concern about the $20 million annual management fee Providence paid to Ascension. In addition to believing the fee was excessive, the board member expressed concern that on Ascension's 2017 taxes, the system claimed Providence did not pay any management fees when it actually had.
The following hospital and health system credit rating and outlook changes or affirmations occurred in the last two weeks, beginning with the most recent:

1. Fitch upgrades Cottage Health rating to 'AA-'

Fitch Ratings assigned an issuer default rating of "AA-" to Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Cottage Health and upgraded its revenue bond rating from "A+" to "AA-."

2. Moody's assigns 'A1' rating to Bexar County Hospital District

Moody's Investors Service assigned an "A1" rating to Bexar County (Texas) Hospital District.

3. Moody's confirms 'Ba1' ratings for Monroe County Health Authority

Moody's Investors Service confirmed its "Ba1" issuer and general obligation limited tax ratings for Monroe County (Ala.) Health Care Authority.

4. Moody's affirms 'A3' rating for The Christ Hospital

Moody's Investors Service has affirmed its "A3" rating for Cincinnati-based The Christ Hospital, affecting $311 million of outstanding debt.

5. Moody's assigns 'Aa3' rating to Partners Healthcare System

Moody's Investors Service assigned an "A3" rating to Boston-based Partners Healthcare's proposed revenue bonds.

6. Moody's affirms 'Aa2' rating for Northwestern Memorial HealthCare

Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "Aa2," "Aa2/VMIG 1," and "P-1" ratings for Chicago-based Northwestern Memorial HealthCare, affecting $1.1 billion of debt.

7. Moody's affirms Yale New Haven Health's 'Aa3' rating

Moody's Investors Service affirmed the long-term underlying "Aa3" ratings of Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health, affecting $715 million of rated debt.

8. Moody's assigns 'A2' rating to Kettering Health Network

Moody's Investors Service assigned an "A2" rating to Dayton, Ohio-based Kettering Health Network.

9. S&P assigns 'A+' rating to Indiana's Marion General Hospital

S&P Global Ratings assigned an "A+" long-term rating to Marion (Ind.) General Hospital.

10. Moody's affirms 'Ba3' rating for Antelope Valley Healthcare District

Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "Ba3" rating for Lancaster, Calif.-based Antelope Valley Health District, which includes Antelope Valley Hospital, affecting $122 million of revenue bonds.

11. Moody's affirms 'Ba2' rating for Community Memorial Health System

Moody's Investors Service affirmed Ventura, Calif.-based Community Memorial Health System's "Ba2" rating, affecting $339 million of rated debt.

12. Moody's affirms 'A2' rating for University of Maryland Medical System

Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "A2" rating for the Baltimore-based University of Maryland Medical System, affecting $1.1 billion of outstanding debt.

13. Moody's affirms 'B1' rating for Sauk Prairie Healthcare

Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "B1" rating for Sauk Prairie Healthcare in Prairie du Sac, Wis., affecting $38 million of fixed rate bonds.

14. Moody's affirms 'A3' rating for Excela Health

Moody's Investors Service affirmed Greensburg, Pa.-based Excela Health's "A3" rating, affecting $72 million of outstanding debt.

15. Moody's affirms Northwest Community Hospital's 'A2' rating

Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "A2" rating for Arlington Heights, Ill.-based Northwest Community Hospital, affecting $194 million of rated debt.

16. Fitch assigns 'AA-' long-term rating to Trinity Health

Fitch Ratings assigned an "AA-" long-term rating to Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health, affecting $175 million of bonds.

17. Fitch withdraws rating for Greenwich Hospital

Fitch Ratings has withdrawn its issuer default rating for Greenwich (Conn.) Hospital.

18. Fitch assigns 'A' rating to East Tennessee Children's Hospital

Fitch Ratings has assigned an "A" rating and an "A" issuer default rating to Knoxville-based East Tennessee Children's Hospital.

19. Moody's affirms 'A1' rating for Lexington County Health Services District

Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "A1" rating for Lexington County (S.C.) Health Services District, affecting $369 million of outstanding revenue bonds.

20. Moody's assigns 'A1' rating to Munson Healthcare

Moody's Investors Service assigned an "A1" long-term rating to the proposed revenue refunding bonds for Traverse City, Mich.-based Munson Healthcare while also maintaining an "A1" rating on the system's existing debt.
The 2018 Salvation Army Kettle Appeal concludes at the end of January. You still have time to give.

The bells ringing out in solicitation of donations to the Annual Salvation Army Christmas Kettle Appeal are set to be silenced at the end of January.





As of last week, the appeal was some way off the targeted amount of $110,00.00, but the Armys Commanding Officer Major Pierre Antoine was confident that the Appeal would realize its target, especially given that they are yet to collect on some large pledges..





Part of the funds from the Kettle Appeal go towards providing Christmas food parcels to senior citizens and institutions that serve the elderly, the incapacitated and less fortunate persons generally.

But this is not the only outreach programme of the Army.

The Army, from its headquarters located at the corner of Melville and Middle Streets, operated the Army Kitchen which serves meals to students at a standard considerably reduced price, and has been doing so for close to six decades.





The Kitchen was initiated by Brigadier Leopold, a female officer of regional renown, and served hot, large meals for as low as five cents a plate.

However, as the Major and his wife Major Persha would let it be known, no child is turned away for want of the small fee.





In addition, the headquarters houses a Pre-School and Day Care Centre. Both services are usually over-subscribed come registration time.

Also located at the headquarters is a Thrift Shop which offers clothing and other personal apparel for sale at ridiculously knocked down prices.





It is also from the Kingstown headquarters that food parcels are distributed to needy persons on a daily basis.

More recently, the Salvation Army opened a Home for Unfortunate Children. With the kind assistance of the government, direct private contributions and funds raised locally and internationally, the Home was constructed and opened at Buccament in 2012, and provides for up to eight children at any one time.





It is in support of this all-encompassing programme of service to Vincentians, to humanity, that Major Antoine is appealing to citizens to continue to donate up until the Appeal closes.

He is extremely grateful for the outpouring of support that the Kettle Appeal continues to receive from people of all walks of life.





THE VINCENTIAN urges continued support for the Army and moreso for the Kettle Appeals race to reach its target.
Staff at North Conway, N.H.-based Memorial Hospital couldn't keep up with prescription refill requests during its December transition to an Epic EHR, The Conway Daily Sun reports.

Administrators have acknowledged patient complaints about difficulties getting prescriptions refilled and said the organization has worked to resolve the issue, including establishing an "urgent refill" hotline and walk-up window at the hospital.

The problems were caused by operational issues at the hospital that surfaced during its transition to a new Epic EHR, which went live Dec. 1. As part of the transition, hospital staff had to manually transfer data from the hospital's previous health records system to its new one, the hospital confirmed to Becker's Hospital Review.

During the hospital's first month with Epic, refill requests for many prescriptions came into the new system for the first time, and each patient's information had to be checked against the old system and updated  a process that could take 10 to 15 minutes per prescription  The Conway Daily Sun reported. Coupled with the difficulties staff faced in learning a new system, refill turnarounds took several days.

A hospital spokesperson told Becker's: "The team at Memorial has made excellent progress in resolving this backlog and that the situation is well on its way toward a resolution."

"It's not inherently part of the new system, but part of double-checking the old system, making sure that data comes into the new system," Memorial Hospital's Emergency Department Medical Director and Chief Medical Information Officer Matt Dunn, DO, told the publication.

Aside from the challenges staff faced with prescription refills, Memorial Hospital officials said its transition to Epic has gone relatively well.

"There are always workflow issues when switching to a new system because you're used to doing things a certain way, and it can be challenging to learn that on a new system. You try to anticipate all these areas ahead, and sometimes after go-live, you see these issues creep up, and and you start addressing them," Dr. Dunn said. "That's sort of what happened in this scenario."

This story was updated on Nov. 18 at 3:21 p.m. to add information from Memorial Hospital and clarify that the Epic system itself did not cause the prescription refill backlog.
Precision Therapeutics' Skyline Medical division sold six Streamway systems to Guilford, Conn.-based Yale University Ambulatory Outpatient Surgical Center.

Five key insights:

1. Skyline Medical's Streamway System is FDA-approved and CE-marked for automated, direct-to-drain medical fluid disposal.

2. The systems will be installed in each of Yale University Ambulatory Outpatient Surgical Center's six surgical suites.

3. With continuous suction and fluid disposal, the Streamway System is designed to improve surgeon efficiency, shorten procedure times, reduce exposure to potentially infectious fluids and facilitate rapid room turnover.

4. The six-unit sale was one of Skyline Medical's largest single-center sales and expands its footprint in the New England Market.

5. In 2019, Skyline Medical plans to drive growth by tapping into the interventional radiology, endoscopy, urology and cystoscopy markets.
A circuit court judge dismissed a lawsuit which challenged a recently implemented Community Improvement District to benefit Houston, Mo.-based Texas County Memorial Hospital's surgery center, the Houston Herald reports.

What you should know:

1. The CID created a temporary quarter-cent tax to benefit TCMH. TCMH is building a surgery center to modernize its 40-year-old surgical wing. The CID went into effect in November 2018.

2. Upton, Mo.-based resident George Sholtz sued saying TCMH allegedly used a false assessment for its property.

3. Judge William Hickle dismissed the suit and ruled other motions were moot.
Eyecare Services Partners brought Susan Ludwick onboard, appointing her as senior vice president of optical services.

What you should know:

1. Ms. Ludwick has 25-plus years of optical industry leadership experience.

2. She comes to ESP from Refac Optical Group, where she was senior vice president of brand management and executive vice president of retail partnerships.

3. Ms. Ludwick said, "I am thrilled to be part of ESP, the entire team has been very welcoming. This is an exciting company with tremendous potential as a national leader in integrated eye care services."
Ryan Pelham / Ryan Pelham/The Enterprise

A federal magistrate judge has recommended that Jonathan Matthew Torres, the man accused of setting off an explosive device at a Beaumont church in May, be declared competent to stand trial.

Defense attorney Ryan Gertz said he will not contest the finding. Although Gertz requested psychiatric testing of his client last summer, he said Thursday that it became clear after Torres got out of the bad environment he was in that he understands the charges against him and can cooperate in his own defense.
The Beaumont Independent School District on Thursday unanimously took the next step toward partnering with charter operators at three schools in Improvement Required status.

The board gave the superintendent approval to finalize negotiations with Responsive Ed to operate Fehl-Price Elementary School and Phalen Leadership Academies to operate Jones-Clark Elementary and Smith Middle schools. Because the contracts arent yet final, any involved party could still walk away. But the board seems united in its commitment to the process.

Because the schools are in IR status, they could face closure next year, meaning any reopening of the school would have to be with all new students and programs, said former Spring Branch ISD Superintendent and consultant Duncan Klussmann. Spring Branch ISD launched in-district charter partnerships.

The board said its important to keep these neighborhood schools open, so it wanted to take action instead of waiting to see if the schools were no longer facing closure.

Responsive Ed has become the go-to for improving campuses, said Associate Superintendent of Secondary Schools Shannon Allen. Phalen Leadership Academies is one of the largest operators of turnaround schools and has a history of improving urban, underperforming schools, she said.

District leadership said they spent time interviewing the nonprofit charter providers, visiting campuses and vetting them to decide the operators were the right ones for the school district.

By partnering with proven programs we can accelerate the improvements, Superintendent John Frossard said.

Along with more specific provisions in each contract, state law allows charter school partners to decide who to hire, what to teach, when to be in and out of class and other parameters, while Beaumont ISD has to make sure theyre still meeting the Texas Education Agencys requirements.

Klussmann gave the board and meeting attendees a preview of contract provisions and other benefits state law gives to campuses that partner with charter schools in an attempt to improve campuses.

He said each contract is based on the number of students at the three campuses. Operators are expected to get the schools to a C standard within the first three years. If that standard is not met yet, the district can terminate the contract.

The proposed contract length is for five years with an option to renew for two-year periods. The proposed contract also states its understood that once schools reach a C rating, theyll be expected to continue reaching for an A or B, Klussmann said.

Additionally, one of the campuses will hire its own staff, although Klussmann didnt say which campus.

Frossard said all teachers in good standing will have a place in BISD if not at the same school.

As a benefit for partnering IR schools with charter schools, the district would be given additional state funding, which Klussmann estimated at about $3 million total for the three schools. State law also allows for a two-year reprieve from the accountability system to avoid closure while charter school programs get in place.

Despite the boards unanimous support, the district acknowledges some parents may want to move their children. Allen noted parents will have the opportunity to transfer students as long as theres space at other campuses.

After the district finalizes plans with the charter providers, the Texas Education Agency will have to approve any plans.

kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/KaitlinBain
Beaumont Mayor Becky Ames filed for re-election Thursday. Shell have company on the ballot during the May election.

Geary Senigaur Jr., a business owner and activist, also filed paperwork to run for the mayoral office. Joshua Yates filed for the seat Wednesday, the opening day.

Senigaur said he wants to run because he says its time for change in Beaumont. He said hes ready to lift a cloud thats been over Beaumont for years.

I think Im the man for the job because of the things Ive done in the community thus far, the 45-year-old said. Im a resident here. I know what people of Beaumont really want. Its black, white, polka dot, brown. Im also familiar with the poor, middle class and upper class.

If elected, he said hed like to focus on the time council members are spending in office, decreasing the citys crime rate, and improving infrastructure and education.

Ames, 60, who was first sworn in as mayor in 2007, said she has more she wants to accomplish.

The hospital administrator wants to continue working on streets and drainage improvements, making changes to improve the citys economic outlook, and planning the citys 180th birthday events, among other projects.

Theres just a lot of positive things happening that I would like to see finished, she said.

Ames joined the council as a member in 1994.

RELATED: Filing opens for municipal offices across Southeast Texas

Yates didnt respond to a request for comment.

Ward 3 City Councilman Audwin Samuel also filed for re-election Thursday.

kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com
A Pearland woman is accused of pretending to be a fake autistic twin sister to hire and con a caregiver, a bizarre hoax that was strictly for sexual gratification, Pearland police said Thursday.

Rachel Childs, 29, has been charged with burglary of a habitation with intent to commit assault and indecent exposure, according to a press release.

Childs allegedly solicited a caregiver online to take care of her twin, who did not really exist and whom Childs described as being autistic, police department spokesman Officer Jason Wells said.

The caregiver was told to pick up the twin at Childs' house and take her to the caregiver's house. Childs would not be home at the time, and the caregiver was told to bring the twin back the next morning.

While at the caregiver's home, the "twin" engaged in sexual conduct toward the caregiver, who became suspicious. Since the behavior did not reflect that of a person with autism, the caregiver investigated and learned that Childs does not have siblings, police said.

The caregiver called police and the alleged hoax was revealed. Childs turned herself in at the Pearland Police Department on Jan. 3 and is currently out on bond.

Anyone who feels they have been a victim of a similar crime is encouraged to call Pearland Police Det. C. Arnold at 281-997-4151.

NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here.
A 3-year old was seriously injured in a Friday afternoon crash in Hardin County.

Preliminary reports from the Texas Department of Public Safety say the 1:15 p.m. single-vehicle crash occurred 7 miles north of Silsbee on FM 92.

Troopers report that a 2005 Jeep Liberty was traveling northbound on FM 92 when it attempted to legally pass a slower-moving vehicle. The Jeep's left rear tire blew out, causing the vehicle to leave the roadway and strike a tree.

The driver of the vehicle, 17-year-old Nicholas Gallo of Spurger, sustained visible injuries but refused medical treatment at the crash scene. A front passenger was not injured, Gallo's 3-year-old son in the back seat helicoptered to a Houston hospital with serious injuries. Authorities said the child was not properly secured in his car seat.

This crash remains under investigation.
Update: Standoff ends with apparent suicide of man suspected in wife's death.

Update: Authorities have located Arthur Edigin, who has barricaded himself in a room at a hotel in west Harris County.

-------------------------

Police are looking for a gunman responsible for killing his estranged wife and critically wounding her daughter outside Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church in Cypress, police said late Thursday.

Arthur Edigin, 62, opened fire on a car with the woman and her adult daughter in a parking lot in front of the church campus at 11500 block of Huffmeister Road at 7 p.m., according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

The woman, 66, died while her daughter is in critical condition at a hospital, where police have posted several units out of precaution.

HOUSTON HOMICIDES: Houston sees a slight uptick in 2018. HoustonChronicle.com delves into the numbers.

The suspect is believed to have fired five to six gunshots. He was last seen driving a white 2008 Suburban with a damaged front-right panel, police said.

The church said the mother and daughter were coming to the church for ESL classes, which are offered Thursday nights, and had just arrived.

"We are saddened that such violence has visited our campus," a statement from the church read. "Though it appears to be an isolated incident of a domestic dispute, the tragic assault on the two women and the dignity of human life is heartbreaking."

The church's 9 a.m. Mass is slated to continue as normal.

Authorities and police tape surrounded the church soon after the shooting, which prompted the Christ the Redeemer Catholic School on the campus to be placed on lock down.

"Those inside are safe. Police are on site. We'll update with details as we have them," the school tweeted.

Several people gathered in an entryway to the church as police worked in the parking lot. Christ the Redeemer's pastor, Sean Horrigan, was among the onlookers. He could not be reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston said the church is cooperating with local authorities as they investigate the shooting.

The church, built in 1984, was hosting a choir rehearsal, bible study and another group meeting at the time of the shooting, according to its website.

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Micheal Click,28, a former War volunteer fireman is escorted from the McDowell County Magistrates Office by Assistant West Virginia State Fire Marshals Thursday. Click and three other members of the War Fire Department, Cody Patterson, 26, James Stutson, 40, and Brandon Short, 22, were arraigned on charges of first-degree arson and conspiracy, in connection with setting fires in the War area of McDowell County.
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis at the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards with FIJI Water on Sunday in Beverly Hills. The Fiji Water ambassador, Los Angeles-based model Kelleth Cuthbert, is clearly visible (albeit off to one side) in red-carpet photos of Hollywood A-listers.
 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The governor has been talking about the critical need to conserve water in the Valley. Dennis Welch has reaction from state lawmakers and what they really think about the governor's water contingency plan.
Jason Barry is best known for his Dirty Dining Report which airs Fridays at 6:30 p.m. on CBS 5. He is also the storyteller behind CBS 5's Pay It Forward which airs every Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
By Narmina Mammadova

Azerbaijan is among the developing countries in the field of tourism, occupying the 39th place among 148 countries in terms of global competitiveness in tourism.

Thanks to the wonderful climate of Azerbaijan, rich culture, cuisine, nature, attractions, and diversity, more and more tourists visit the country every year. Also, hospitality of Azerbaijani people, the capital with its super modern and ancient buildings draw the attention of all guests visiting this South Caucasus country.

As a result of measures taken by the state, the country has created a modern hotel and tourist infrastructure, trained personnel for the industry, formed an extensive network of travel agencies, created information and advertising structures, developed many tourist routes across the country, running through the most scenic and fertile areas. These are the main reasons why the number of tourists visiting not only the capital, Baku, but also the regions of the country, is increasing day by day.

In January-November 2018, the number of foreigners traveling from 193 countries to Azerbaijan amounted to 2.5 million people, thus showing a 6 percent increase compared to the same period of 2017.

In December 2018, the number of foreign citizens who visited Azerbaijan increased by about one percent compared to the same period in 2017, reaching 2.8 million people, Azerbaijan's State Tourism Agency reports.

In general, the number of citizens who visited Azerbaijan during 2018 increased by 6 percent, or 153,000 people.

The flow of tourists from Russia, Georgia and the countries of the Middle East amounted to one third of the total number of visitors to Azerbaijan in 2018. The share of Georgia, the countries of the Middle East and Asia, from which the largest number of tourists arrive in Azerbaijan, increased by one, two and two percent, respectively. Russia and Turkey lost approximately one percent of their market share, and Iran lost five percent.

The countries of the Middle East and Asia are leading in terms of growth in the number of tourists: by 35 percent and 55 percent, respectively. Saudi Arabia stands out among the countries of the Middle East (tourist traffic increased by 120 percent or 41,000 people), Israel (161 percent or 40,000 people) and Kuwait (81 percent or 30,000 people), among Asian countries - Pakistan (135 percent or 73,000 people) and India (175 percent or 39,000 people).

The mesmerizing mix of East and West, the possibility to have a rest on the Caspian Sea shore and enjoy fresh air and delicious meals have always been attracting tourists to Azerbaijan. Many of them get so much fascinated with the country and its capital Baku that they come back to visit Azerbaijan again after a while.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Abdul Kerimkhanov

The trade turnover between Russia and Uzbekistan in 2018 increased by 21 percent to $5.7 billion, said the Ambassador of Uzbekistan to the Russia, Bortizhon Asadov.

"Russia remains the largest trading partner of Uzbekistan. Mutual trade grew by 21 percent and reached $ 5.7 billion at the end of 2018," the ambassador said.

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev said in October 2018, that the trade turnover between Russia and Uzbekistan in the coming years could reach $ 10 billion.

Diplomatic relations between Russia and Uzbekistan were established on March 20, 1992.

The Treaty on the Basics of Interstate Relations, Friendship and Cooperation of May 30, 1992, the Treaty on Strategic Partnership of June 16, 2004, and the Treaty of Allied Relations of November 14, 2005, are of fundamental importance.

The main document regulating trade and economic relations between Russia and Uzbekistan is the interstate Agreement on Trade Relations dated November 13, 1992.

The two countries cooperate within the UN, the CIS, the SCO, the OSCE, ESCAP and other international and regional structures.

The structure of Russia's exports to Uzbekistan includes metals and products, wood and pulp and paper products, machinery, equipment and vehicles, food products and agricultural raw materials, mineral products, chemical products.

The structure of imports of Russia from Uzbekistan includes textiles and footwear, chemical products, machinery, food products and agricultural raw materials, metals and products from them.

Uzbekistan is one of Russia's leading economic partners in the post-Soviet space.

These are the Economic Cooperation Program for 2019-2024, the Cultural and Humanitarian Cooperation Program for 2019-2021, the Road Map for the creation of the International Radio Astronomy Observatory Suffa, the Agreement on the establishment and operation of branches of leading universities in Russia in Uzbekistan, the Agreement about cooperation in the textile industry.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

A closer look at the alignment of forces in Syria reveals quite an interesting picture.

First, despite that the PYD/YPG are the bearers of the Marxist ideology, this terrorist group is actively supported by the US.

Secondly, the Syrian government periodically negotiates with the PYD/YPG and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which dont hide their intention to obtain at least autonomy in the north of the country.

Third, despite that the creation of a new state in the north of Syria isnt in the interests of Iran, Russia and also Damascus, for some reason namely Turkey, a member of NATO alliance and a US ally, is fighting the PYD/YPG.

This is while more than a month has passed since the time when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Ankara will launch a new antiterrorist operation in the north of Syria against the Syrian wing of the PKK terrorist group - PYD/YPG.

US President Donald Trump has recently stated on his Twitter page: "Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone...."

Commenting on Trumps recent statements, President Erdogan also noted that the latest statement by US President Donald Trump had greatly upset Turkey. Erdogan also noted that he had discussed this topic with Trump, and Washington proposed to Ankara to create a safety zone in the north of Syria. At a time, Ankara turned to the US with a similar proposal.

Erdogan said that Turkey will create a safety zone in the north of Syria.

The creation of the safety zone is primarily an initiative of Turkey, and it was previously rejected. Turkey proposed to create a safety zone in the north of Syria for the first time in 2013.

The safety zone in the north of Syria includes a territory 32 kilometers deep and 460 kilometers long along the Syrian border with Turkey. In the case of the creation of this zone, it will be divided into two parts, the first part will start from the Iraqi-Syrian border and will be extended to the Syrian city of Qamishli, because the Syrian government forces control this city.

The second part of the safety zone will start from Qamishli and will be extended to Jarabulus city, which was liberated from the terrorists of the Islamic State (IS) as part of the Operation Euphrates Shield conducted by the Turkish Armed Forces in 2016.

Manbij city, where Turkey had previously intended to conduct new anti-terrorist operations, isnt a part of the safety zone.

It isnt yet known when the safety zone will be created in the north of Syria, but many questions arise regarding this plan. First, what will be the position of the Syrian government and Russia regarding this plan? It is expected that this issue will be put on the agenda during Erdogans visit to Moscow, scheduled for January 23 this year.

Another important question is whether the PYD/YPG and SDF troops will leave the safety zone, since Ankara is in favor of the terrorists leaving the territories where such a zone will be created.

The third and very important issue will be the status of Manbij, as is well known, the US warned Turkey not to launch an anti-terrorist operation.

If everything goes well, although the probability of this is very small, the creation of a safety zone in the north of Syria may be considered a partial guarantee of Turkeys security.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Abdul Kerimkhanov

For the Abadan Refinery development project, foreign direct investment (FDI) has already been raised to the amount of 2 billion euros, declared Iranian Deputy Minister of Petroleum on the distribution and processing of petroleum products Alireza Sadeghabadi.

He pointed to attracting foreign investment in the country's oil refining projects and added that negotiations with other foreign companies on the reconstruction and modernization of other refineries have not yet been completed.

Sadeghabadi considers the country has achieved self-sufficiency in the implementation of plans for the gasoline processing and production.

He estimated the current refining capacity of oil and gas condensate in the country at about 2.1 million barrels per day.

He stressed that attracting FDI from China worth 2 billion euros for the Abadan Refinery modernization is considered one of the largest foreign investments made in the era after the introduction of sanctions.

Reconstruction of the Abadan Refinery began in February 2017 in connection with the Iranian nuclear deal implementation, called the Joint Integrated Action Plan (JCPOA), using foreign financing. He added that some units of this plant will be put into operation in the coming months.

China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) and the Iranian Oil Design and Construction Company (ODCC) will carry out the project development, the deputy minister said.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group, established by the state in July 1998 on the basis of former China Petrochemical Corporation.

Sinopec Group has a registered capital of 274.9 billion yuan ($40 billion) with the board chairman of Sinopec Group serving as its legal representative.

Sinopec Group exercises the investor's rights to the related state assets owned by its full subsidiaries, controlled companies and share-holding companies, including receiving returns on assets, making major decisions and appointing managers.

The Group operates, manages and supervises state assets according to related laws, and houlders the corresponding responsibility of maintaining and increasing the value of state assets.

Sinopec Group is the largest oil and petrochemical products suppliers and the second largest oil and gas producer in China, the largest refining company and the second largest chemical company in the world.

Sinopec Group ranked the 3rd on Fortune's Global 500 List in 2017.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Paris, TX (75460)

Today

Sunny skies this morning. Scattered showers and thunderstorms developing during the afternoon. Hot. High 94F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 71F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
By Trend

The overall conformity level of OPEC since the beginning of the Declaration of Cooperation in January 2017 is well above 100 percent, coming in at 116 percent, Trend reports citing a message from the cartel.

The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) has expressed its utmost satisfaction with the steady and robust achievements of the two-year old Declaration of Cooperation between OPEC and participating non-OPEC oil producing countries.

The JMMC noted that countries participating in the Declaration of Cooperation achieved an overall conformity level in November 2018 of slightly below 100 percent, hitting 98 percent for the month.



"It is evident that significant progress has been made towards the goal set at the 4th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting of 23 June 2018, whereby countries agreed to strive to adhere to the overall conformity level, voluntarily adjusted to 100 percent, as of 1 July 2018 for the remaining duration of 2018," said JMMC.



The Committee confirmed the new voluntary production adjustments effective as of 1st of January 2019 for an initial period of six months, based on the unanimous decisions taken at the 175th Meeting of the OPEC Conference and the 5th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting on 7 December 2018.

Table: Adjustment based on the 175th Meeting of the OPEC Conference and the 5th OPEC and nonOPEC Ministerial Meeting, effective as of January 2019, tb/d

Reference Voluntary Voluntary Production* Adjustment Production Level Algeria 1,057 32 1,025 Angola 1,528 47 1,481 Congo 325 10 315 Ecuador 524 16 508 Eq.l Guinea 127 4 123 Gabon 187 6 181 Iraq 4,653 141 4,512 Kuwait 2,809 85 2,724 Nigeria 1,738 53 1,685 Saudi Arabia 10,633 322 10,311 UAE 3,168 96 3,072 Azerbaijan 796 20 776 Bahrain 227 5 222 Brunei 131 3 128 Kazakhstan 1,900 40 1,860 Malaysia 627 15 612 Mexico 2,017 40 1,977 Oman 995 25 970 Russia 11,421 230 11,191 Sudan 74 2 72 South Sudan 132 3 129 Total OPEC 26,749 812 25,937 NonOPEC 10 18,320 383 17,937 Total OPEC +NonOPEC 10 45,069 1,195 43,874

* Reference production is October 2018 except for Kuwait, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan

Notes:

Libya, Iran, I.R., and Venezuela exempted.

Kuwait based on September 2018 production level.

Azerbaijan based on September 2018 production level.

Kazakhstan based on November 2018 production level.

These voluntary production adjustments will continue to be monitored by the JMMC on a monthly basis, ably supported by the Joint Technical Committee and the OPEC Secretariat, in an open and transparent manner.



The JMMC calls on all participating countries of the Declaration of Cooperation to redouble their efforts in the full and timely implementation of the supply adjustments to ensure that the oil market remains in balance in 2019.



The thirteenth Meeting of the JMMC will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan on 18 March 2019.

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By Narmina Mammadova

The oil production in Azerbaijan in 2019 will remain at the same level as last year and will average 800,000 barrels per day, the OPEC January report says.

The cartels report says that according to the Ministry of Energy, in 2018, Azerbaijan produced an average of 792,000 barrels of oil and condensate per day, which is 2 percent more than in 2017.

According to preliminary data, oil production in Azerbaijan in December 2018 declined by 27,000 barrels, reaching 710,000 barrels per day, due to the temporary suspension of production at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil and gas block.

According to OPEC, in November, the liquid hydrocarbons production in Azerbaijan increased by 30,000 barrels per day compared to the previous month, averaging 830,000 barrels per day. According to the report, this is the result of an increase in oil production in the country by 25,000 barrels per day, and condensate - by 2,000 barrels.

The liquid hydrocarbons production in Azerbaijan in 2018, according to OPEC, remained unchanged - at the level of 800,000 barrels per day, and the annual figure is expected at the same level in 2019.

According to forecasts, in the first half of 2019, the production of liquid hydrocarbons in Azerbaijan will decrease by 20,000 barrels per day, averaging 790,000 barrels per day. While in the second half of the year, production is expected at an average level of 810,000 barrels per day, the cartel report says.

Earlier, Azerbaijan presented data on its daily oil production in December 2018 to the OPEC Joint Technical Committee within the framework of the Vienna Agreement,

According to the country's Ministry of Energy, last month, daily oil production in Azerbaijan amounted to 790,000 barrels, of which 721,000 fell to oil, and 69,000 to condensate.

Every day 617,000 barrels of oil, 69,000 barrels of condensate and 13,400 barrels of oil products were exported.

In January 2018, Azerbaijan produced an average of 814,600 barrels per day, in February  806,000 barrels, in March  794,000 barrels, in April  785,700 barrels, in May  801,000 barrels , in June - 792,000 barrels, in July 773,000 barrels, in August  774,000 barrels, in September  796,000 barrels, in October  783,000 barrels, in November  801,000 barrels.

OPEC and non-OPEC producers reached an agreement in December 2016 to curtail oil output jointly and ease a global glut after more than two years of low prices. OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from January 1, 2019.

Non-OPEC oil producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce output by 558,000 barrels per day starting from January 1, 2017.

OPEC and its partners decided to extend its production cuts till the end of 2018 in Vienna on November 30, as the oil cartel and its allies step up their attempt to end a three-year supply glut that has savaged crude prices and the global energy industry.

In 2016, the oil price fell to $ 40 per barrel.

At the fourth ministerial meeting of OPEC and OPEC+ countries, an agreement was reached to return to 100 percent implementation, that is, an increase in production by 1 million barrels per day. Azerbaijan also supported the new agreement of the OPEC and OPEC+ countries.

The 5th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting was held in Vienna, Austria, on December 7, 2018.

The meeting participants decided to adjust the overall production by 1.2 million barrels per day, effective as of January 2019 for an initial period of six months. The contributions from OPEC and the voluntary contributions from non-OPEC participating countries of the Declaration of Cooperation will correspond to 0.8 million barrels per day (2.5 percent) and 400,000 barrels per day (2 percent), respectively.

The next meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC format will be held in Vienna in April 2019 to revise the agreement.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a permanent, intergovernmental Organization, created at the Baghdad Conference on September 1014, 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. It was created by oil-producing states to control production quotas. Currently, the Organization has a total of 14 Member Countries. OPEC includes Algeria, Angola, Venezuela, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Congo, Kuwait, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Equatorial Guinea and Ecuador. Members of the organization control about two thirds of world oil reserves, they account for up to 45 percent of all world production and half of exports.

OPEC + is 14 countries that are members of the organization of oil exporters, plus another 10 oil-producing states, including Azerbaijan. The total number is 25 participants, which account for the bulk of global oil production.

Saudi Arabia is currently the world's largest oil exporter.

Russia is the second largest crude oil producer in the world after the United States. Its oil production level of 11.4 million barrels per day will be reduced by about 2 percent, to 228,000 barrels.
By Trend

Suspension of production at offshore oil and gas fields due to the strong wind in Azerbaijan wont have a big impact on the average annual indicators, Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR told Trend.

The company said that in the next two days, as soon as the storm stops and the weather condition normalizes the oil workers will return to the platforms.

The work was suspended not at all platforms, SOCAR noted.

SOCAR evacuated a total of almost 2,500 oil workers from offshore platforms.

The company maximized security measures due to the sharp deterioration of the weather.

Azerbaijans Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources warned of particularly dangerous hydrometeorological conditions Jan. 17 and Jan. 18 in the country.

The National Hydrometeorology Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources said that on the night of Jan. 16-17, the weather in Azerbaijan changed dramatically.

Thus, on Jan. 17-18, the speed of the north-west wind increased to 20-25 meters per second, sometimes to 30-35 meters per second, while the wind speed in the open sea increased to 38-40 meters per second. The height of the waves in the sea is expected at 3-5 meters, and then at 6-8 meters or more.

The average daily oil production in Azerbaijan amounted to 790,000 barrels in December 2018, while the average daily production for the whole year amounted to 792,600 barrels.

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By Trend

Among the main drivers of oil prices in 2019 several of them will be bullish and some of them bearish, Francis Perrin, Senior Fellow at the OCP Policy Center (Rabat) and Senior Research Fellow at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS, Paris) told Trend.

The first ones include a growing world oil demand (+1.4 million barrels per day to 100.6 million b/d in 2019, according to the International Energy Agency), output reductions by OPEC and several non-OPEC countries (-1.2 million b/d, of which 800,000 b/d by OPEC countries and 400,000 b/d by non-OPEC countries), US sanctions against Iran and the political, economic and social crisis in Venezuela, said the expert.

He pointed out that the US sanctions already led to a strong fall in Iranian oil production and exports in 2018.

"Between spring 2018 and November Iran's crude exports fell from about 2.5 million b/d to less than 1.3 million b/d and the Trump Administration wants to reduce them to zero. Even if this goal is too ambitious the US will go on applying strong pressures on buyers of Iranian oil in order for them to stop importing crude from Tehran," said Perrin.

The expert believes that bearish trends include a rising US crude oil production, which reached 11.5 million b/d in November. "This output was 9.4 million b/d in 2017 and about 10.9 million b/d in 2018 and it could reach 12.1 million b/d in 2019. The US, which is already the largest liquids producer, will become at the beginning of 2019 the largest crude oil producer before Russia and Saudi Arabia thanks to its unconventional crudes."

Other bearish factors, according to Perrin are the uncertainties about world economic growth, which will obviously impact oil demand, and international trade tensions, especially between the US and China. "Traders on the oil market are closely watching all the signals emanating from the negotiations between these two great powers. Trade tensions have a direct negative impact on world economic growth and an indirect negative impact on world oil demand."

The most important bearish factor is the rise of US unconventional oil production, the expert believes.

"The most important bullish factors are output reductions by OPEC/non-OPEC countries, sanctions against Iran and the fall in Venezuela's oil production."

He recalled that world oil prices fell between 2013 and 2016 (four consecutive years) and rose in 2017 and 2018 (annual averages).

"Brent average price was about $44 per barrel in 2016, $54/b in 2017 and $71/b in 2018 despite a strong fall over October-December 2018. Brent closed at $60.64/b (March contracts) on 15 January 2019, not a bad start after a dramatic fall between the beginning of October and December 2018."

2019 could be a fairly good year for producers despite some bearish trends if they strictly implement the output reductions decided in December 2018, according to Perrin.

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By Leman Mammadova

SOCAR Georgia Gas company (the Georgian subsidiary of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR), as part of the gas distribution projects implementation in Georgia, acquired the Telavgas LLC engaged in gas distribution in Georgias Telavi district in late 2018, SOCAR told Trend.

The new acquisition is continuation of the measures being implemented by SOCAR Georgia Gas over the past years as part of a large-scale project for managing a gas distribution network in Georgia, SOCAR said.

"From the point of view of corporate strategy, these assets are components of a single gas distribution project in the country," SOCAR noted. "Addition of assets in the Telavi district expanded the scale of gas distribution operations throughout the entire Kakheti region and most of Georgia, with the exception of Tbilisi."

Presently, SOCAR is the major supplier of natural gas, oil and oil products to Georgia. SOCARs subsidiaries are engaged in expansion and modernization of the countrys gas distribution systems, development of filling stations under SOCARs brand and have an oil terminal in Georgias Kulevi Black Sea Port, which supplies Azerbaijani oil and oil products to the world markets.

SOCAR exports gas being extracted at Azerbaijani fields through its own funds to Georgia without participation of foreign companies. Moreover, Georgia receives Azerbaijani gas extracted at the Shah Deniz offshore field with participation of SOCAR and foreign companies.

SOCAR started its business activity in Georgia in 2006. In the same year, company purchased Kulevi oil terminal which has been put into operation since 2008, aimed at transportation of oil and oil products from Azerbaijan and Central Asia to western markets. Before the operation, the investment costs amounted to $ 233 million. However, $ 96 million ($ 10 million in 2017) was invested in the terminal between 2008 and 2017. During the reporting period, the volume of transported goods via the terminal was 23 million m / t .

SOCAR is implementing its operations in Georgia through SOCAR Georgia Petroleum, SOCAR Gas Export-Import, SOCAR Georgia Gas, SOCAR Georgia Gas Distribution, Black Sea Terminal and others. At present, there are about 4,000 employees in the subordinated companies operating in SOCAR.

SOCAR Georgia Gas was established in 2007 to provide the import and sale of natural gas to the Georgian market, as well as the construction and rehabilitation of gas pipelines. Currently, 19 functional services are active within SOCAR Georgia Gas. In addition, the Company has founded 6 distribution enterprises in a number of regions of Georgia.

During the entire period of SOCAR Georgia Gas, total investments amounted to $ 77 million (construction of gas pipelines, rehabilitation and design works). Additionally, investments worth $ 30 million are envisaged based on a 3-year program.

SOCAR Georgia Gas supplied 250,000 customers with gas and invested around $ 290 million in gas in 2008-2017. In addition, the company imported 1.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas to the Georgian market during this period.

SOCAR's investment in Georgia amounted to $ 52.1 million in 2017. All companies included in SOCAR Energy Georgia have paid $ 116 million tax in Georgia in 2017.

Overall, SOCAR and its subsidiaries invested more than $ 1 billion in Georgia's economy, and paid $ 1.252 billion in tax (all types of tax deductions) to the Georgian state budget in 2007-2017.

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By Leman Mammadova

Hydrocarbons, which are the traditional source of energy used by the world for many years, are gradually being run out and, thus, make the use of alternative and renewable energy sources urgent.

Renewables are the sources of clean and inexhaustible energy.This includes energy from water, wind, sun, biological waste resources, or even sea waves, with the help of certain facilities.

The favorable geographic location and climatic conditions allow the widespread use of environmentally friendly alternative energy sources in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani Ministry of Energy organized an event on "Legislative framework and grid improvement for renewable energy sources in Azerbaijan" which was attended by the representatives of the several state agencies and international experts.

AZERTAC reports that Azerbaijans Deputy Energy Minister Samir Valiyev spoke about the measures taken to increase the use of renewable energy sources in the country and stressed the importance of improving the legal framework in this area.

The Norwegian DNV GL will help create a support system and a legal framework in Azerbaijan's alternative energy sector. Recently, the company won the tender of the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan and was selected as a consulting company to develop a bill and other legislation.

Chief Consultant of DNV-GL Ilka Lewington made a presentation on the current situation on the expansion and use of renewable energy sources in Azerbaijan. She spoke about the provisions of the draft law, provided information on major support mechanisms, and noted that renewable energy assessments were made.

Wind and solar power potential in Azerbaijan is sufficient and selection of the potential territories and their connection to the grids are the key issues. The areas that have favorable relief for wind and solar stations have already been identified, that is, Nakhchivan (solar energy), the Western region of Khizi and the Absheron Peninsula (wind energy).

Access to selected grids is crucial and proximity of electrical grids, their operational condition and capabilities should be precisely studied for the construction of new stations on renewable energy sources. According to the preliminary results, existing transmission and distribution grids allow the implementation of renewable energy production, integration into the common energy system. However, it is also important to take some measures to strengthen the grid.

At the event, the participants exchanged views on the introduction of guaranteed tariffs for renewable energy sources, rules of conducting auctions, energy purchase and sales contracts, and main technical requirements for their presentation in the Grid Code.

Azerbaijani legal framework must meet interests and expectations of investors. In terms of this, it is important to hold talks with potential investors and familiarize them with the existing potential of Azerbaijan in this area. The interests of investors may be considered in the drafts being prepared and thus, in the coming years, Azerbaijan will implement significant projects in the field of renewable energy sources based on private investments.

Memorandums of cooperation have already been signed with the UAE-based company Masdar, with Turkish company Tekfen and UK's Atkins.

The new draft law on alternative energy sources in Azerbaijan will be ready by May 2019.

Most of Azerbaijan's potential in this sector comes from the solar energy and this potential is estimated at 5,000 megawatts.

Wind power accounts for 4,500 megawatts, biomass for 1,500 megawatts, geothermal energy for 800 megawatts, and small hydropower plants for the remaining 350 megawatts.

The potential of renewable energy sources in Azerbaijan exceeds 25,300 megawatts, which will allow generating 62.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually.

In January-October 2018, hydropower production amounted to 1,528.4 kilowatt hours, solar energy to 35.1 kilowatt hours and wind power to 42.5 kilowatt hours, according to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan.

Aiming to lessen its dependency on oil, Azerbaijan impelments a number of measures for further development of alternative energy sector.

As of December 2018, BP and Azerbaijani Energy Ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly explore potential opportunities for the development of renewable energy in the country.

The State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources plans to implement 23 projects worth 13 million manats as part of the strategic roadmap for the development of public services in 2018-2020.

The projects cover the construction of 420 megawatt wind, water and biofuel power plants. The capacity of wind power stations will be 350 megawatts, solar power stations will be 50 megawatts, and biofuel power plants will be equal to 20 megawatts.

It is also planned to generate energy from agricultural waste in Azerbaijan.

Moreover, "green" power station is expected to be created at the Baku International Sea Trade Port.

Currently, the State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources negotiates with a number of foreign investors to finance projects for wind power plants in the Caspian Sea to develop renewable energy supply.

To this end, negotiations are underway with foreign companies and investors, including companies from China, the UAE, the U.S. and the EU.

It should be noted that earlier Azerbaijani Energy Ministry and Norway's Equinor expressed their intention to cooperate in alternative and renewable energy sources.

The Azerbaijani government is planning to increase the share of alternative energy by 30 percent by 2030 in total power generation.

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By Trend

Azerbaijan has greatly supported Turkey in holding negotiations in a multilateral format, Turkish ambassador to Azerbaijan Erkan Ozoral said in an interview with Trend.

The ambassador stressed that the meetings being held in the Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia, Turkey-Azerbaijan-Iran, Turkey-Azerbaijan-Pakistan trilateral formats and in the Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia-Iran quadrilateral format, serve the well-being, development and security of not only these countries but also the entire region.

"Turkey initiated meetings in a multilateral format and Azerbaijan greatly supported this proposal," the ambassador said.

This format can be developed and expanded in the future, Ozoral added. "The possibility of holding meetings in a multilateral format with other countries with which we have common priorities and approach is being considered."

These meetings must yield results, must be effective and contribute to the development of cooperation, he said. "We are ready to work together with all regional countries on this issue."

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A new print edition of the AZERNEWS online newspaper was released on January 18.

The new edition includes articles: Locally-produced solar panels to be supplied to Germany, Lithuania hails closer economic relations with Azerbaijan, Countrys exports hit $18.9 bln, Ancient monuments discovered in Absheron etc.

AZERNEWS is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The online newspaper is available at www.azernews.az.
By Leman Mammadova

Mugham, one of the unique treasures of the oral and spiritual heritage of humanity, has begun to enter the world culture since the beginning of the last century.

Azerbaijan has prepared a bill on the preservation and development of mugham, Chairman of the Parliamentary Culture Committee Rafael Huseynov said at the committees meeting, Trend reports on Thursday.

He noted that all the discussions have been held on the bill.

It is time to review it in plenary session. In recent years, Azerbaijan has paid great attention to the art of mugham, said chairman of the committee.

Huseynov also noted that a separate bill on the art of ashug is also needed, adding that work is underway to prepare a bill on the preservation and development of the art of ashug.

Mugham is one of the main genres of Azerbaijani traditional music.

The history of Mugham is very ancient. The creation of mugham, the magnificent art of eastern music, is about the millennium, the pre-Islamic period. The meaning of the word "mugham" is also interpreted as "the music sent by God." The Mugam is said to have the spirit of God purifying people.

Formation of Mugham as a genre dates back to XII-XIII centuries - the period of "Muslim Renaissance".

The rise of poetry in this period (Nizami, Khagani, Nasimi, Fuzuli and other poets) promoted the development of mugham.

Mugham was a common music genre of the Middle East until about XIV century, but was subsequently broken by the sociopolitical changes that followed.

The mugham contains seven main modes - Rast, Shur, Segah (are especially common), Shushtar, Bayaty-Shiraz, Chahargah, Humayun and three collateral kinds - shahnaz, sarendj, chargah in some other form. Every mode represents a strongly organized scale, possessing a firm tonic prop (maye), and each step of the mode has its melodic function.

Mugham modes are associated not only with scales but with an orally transmitted collection of melodies that mugham masters use in the course of improvisation.

The short selection of Azerbaijani mugham played in balaban, national wind instrument was included on the Voyager Golden Record, attached to the Voyager spacecraft as representing world music, included among many cultural achievements of humanity.

Mugham for the Azerbaijani people is a unique meditation that resembles music, philosophy and the soul of human.

Several mugham performances schools have been formed in Azerbaijan. This genre is spread throughout the country, but the main centers of mugham art are considered Baku, Shamakhi, Ganja, Nakhchivan and Shusha. Among them are Garabagh mugham school formed in Shusha - Eastern conservatory. Khan Shushinski, Zulfu Adigozalov, Seyid Shushinski, Abulfat Aliyev, Mutallim Mutallimov, Islam Rzayev and Arif Babayev are bright images of the Shusha mugam school. The main pearl of Karabakh mugam performers is "Garabagh Shikestesi".

The artistic value of Azerbaijani Mugham and its high importance both for the national culture and the world community have been universally recognized at the international level: in 2003 UNESCO recognized the Azerbaijani Mugham as a masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The art of Azerbaijani ashugs was included in the representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO in 2009.

Nowadays, Azerbaijan encourages the art of Mugham through holding international festivals and competitions. The International Center of Mugham was built in the form of tar in Baku in 2008.
By Trend

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has always considered the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a number one problem and pays attention to this issue, Azerbaijani MP Elman Mammadov told Trend on Jan. 17.

Mammadov was commenting on the President's speech at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers dedicated to the results of social and economic development in 2018 and the upcoming tasks.

The MP stressed that Armenia is in a serious crisis as a result of the policy being pursued by Azerbaijan to isolate it.

"Serious demographic problems also arose in Armenia, which suffered a collapse from both economic and political points of view, residents leave that country," the MP added.

Mammadov said that Azerbaijan prefers peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"International organizations, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries recommend and even insist on resolving this issue peacefully, he said. However, we see that this issue has not been resolved peacefully for almost 30 years. Today, Azerbaijan is strong, we have a strong army and we will liberate our lands from occupation. In his speech, the Azerbaijani president once again drew attention to these issues."

Mammadov stressed that the president also pays attention to the issues related to internally displaced people.

"The president always focuses on the improvement of living conditions of internally displaced people, he said. Today, Azerbaijan continues to pay attention and care about the internally displaced people."

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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By Laman Ismayilova

The 95th anniversary of a prominent composer, Peoples Artist of Azerbaijan Suleyman Alasgarov will be marked in Baku.

The event will take place at the Heydar Aliyev Palace on February 19, Trend Life reported.

The evening is co-organized by Mdniyyt TV.

Theatrical performances from the works of Suleyman Alaskarov will be presented to the audience.

The ticket price is 10-50 AZN ( $ 6-29). Tickets can be purchased at all city ticket offices, ASAN Service Centers, Ganjlik Mall and 28 Mall, as well as online at www.iticket.az.

The event starts at 19:00.

For more information, please contact:

(012) 441-21-31, (050) 332-36-30

Media partners of the event are Azernews.az, Trend.az, Day.az, Milli.az.

Suleyman Alasgarov was born on February 22, 1924 in Karabakh, the city of Shusha.

In 1948, he graduated the Azerbaijan State Conservatory with honors and became the director of the Baku Music School. From 1949 to 1951, he was an artistic director of the Azerbaijan Film Committee Orchestra.

In 1951-1952, Suleyman Alasgarov headed the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Hall.

Between 1954-1956, he worked as the head of the Department of Art at the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture.

From 1956 to 1958, he conducted the Azerbaijan State Orchestra of Folk Instruments.

Since 1958, he was a teacher, and from 1968 - assistant professor of the Conservatory.

In 1958-1960, Suleyman Alasgarov was an artistic director of the Republican Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting.

Then for 11 years, he worked as the director and principal conductor of the Theater of Musical Comedy named after Shikhali Gurbanov.

Since 1970, he headed the educational and methodological council on musical and aesthetic education of the Ministry of Education of the Azerbaijan SSR. From 1991 to 2000, he was a rector of the Shusha branch of the Conservatory, created on his own initiative.

The composer wrote two operas, twelve operettas, two symphonies, Bayati-Shiraz mugham, overtures for a symphony orchestra, two symphonic poems, six cantatas, works of various genres for choir and orchestra of folk instruments and about 200 songs and romances.

He is also the author of a number of textbooks for secondary schools.

Unfortunately, Alasgarov died on January 21, 2000.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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By Laman Ismayilova

Azermarka LLC has issued an exclusive series of post stamps dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the eminent poet Mikayil Mushfig.

The stamps were released with circulation of 100,000, Sputnik Azerbaijan reported.

The project belongs to the artist Vugar Eyyubov.

The stamps were printed at the printing house of Bobruisk Integrated Printing House.

The role of Mushfig Mikayil in Azerbaijani poetry is indisputable.

In his poems, Mushfig celebrated love and beauty, constantly covering social and cultural issues.

He started his professional career as a school teacher. While being involved in teaching, he began writing poems. His first poem Bir Gun ("The Day") was published in the Ganj fahla newspaper in Baku in 1926. At about this time, he adopted the pen name Mushfig ("tender-hearted" from Perso-Arabic).

Poems occupy a large place in the work of Mushfig. The most famous of his poems are "Gaya", "My Friend", "Among the Drilling", "Shepherd", "Uncle Jabi", etc.

In his poems, Mushfig glorified the work of industrial workers and peasants and lauded the construction of industrial enterprises in Baku and other cities.

His poetry reveals the inner world of people and socio-cultural issues.

When Stalin and Mir Jafar Baghirov decreed that traditional Azerbaijani musical instruments, including the tar, were to be banned, he wrote a poem in response titled "Sing Tar, Sing". The popularity of his poem convinced the authorities to rescind the tar ban.

However, Mikayil Mushfig was arrested and executed by Soviet authorities at the age of 30 during the Stalinist purges in the USSR. He was arrested in 1937, and executed in 1939 in the Bayil prison near Baku.

Despite his short life, he left a significant mark in Azerbaijani literature.

Mushfig's works are available in the Russian National Library, the Russian State Library, the Library of the US Congress, the National Library of Belarus, the National Library of Turkey, the National Library of Estonia.

In May 2018, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on holding the 110th anniversary of Michael Mushfig. In 2008, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the poets birth, a postage stamp was also issued.

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Starting from February 20, Azerbaijani mobile operator Azercell will suspend the service of connecting to the student tariff plan Tlb birliyi (Student Association) for both the invoice and non-invoice line subscribers, Trend reports via the company's statement.

The subscribers numbers connected to this tariff plan will be able to continue using it.

This tariff plan is designed for students of higher and secondary educational institutions of the country.

The cost of a minute call within this tariff plan is 0.01 manat, calls to other operators' networks is 0.05 manat and sending an SMS is 0.02 manat.

($1-1.7 manat on January 18)

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Zimbabweans protesting economic distress and high costs of living this week attempted to enforce a three-day national shutdown by blocking roads and pressuring businesses to close.

The government responded by blocking access to the internet. This comes just weeks after authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo blocked the internet to stop "fictitious" election results from spreading (perhaps they prefer to spread them themselves).

The latest: "Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Ltd., the countrys biggest mobile-phone operator, said Wednesday night its still blocking access to some social-media sites on government instructions," per Bloomberg.

The bigger picture: Axios Media Reporter Sara Fischer notes that internet censorship is a major concern ahead of general elections this year in Nigeria, Algeria, Senegal, Tunisia and Botswana.

Election-related social media shutdowns have been reported in Ethiopia, Chad, Uganda and elsewhere. In Ghana, which has a comparatively strong democracy, social media was blocked on election day in 2016.

What to watch: China's global influence could have a profound effect on internet freedom. Per Quartz, China "isnt just tightening online controls at home but is becoming more brazen in exporting some of those techniques abroad" through "official training, providing technological infrastructure to authoritarian regimes, and insisting that international companies accept its content regulations even outside of China."
There appears to be some movement in the trade negotiations between the U.S. and China.

What's happening: The Chinese side confirmed earlier this week that Vice Premier Liu He will come to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 3031. Commerce Vice Minister Wang Shouwen and Finance Vice Minister Liao Min will travel to D.C. next week, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

That same WSJ story also excited markets by reporting...

U.S. officials are debating ratcheting back tariffs on Chinese imports as a way to calm markets and give Beijing an incentive to make deeper concessions in a trade battle that has rattled global economies.

The idea of lifting some or all tariffs was proposed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a series of strategy meetings, according to people close to internal deliberations. They say the aim is to advance trade talks and win Chinas support for longer-term reforms.

My thought bubble: Officials denied the report, but it jibes with what I have been hearing about continuing dissension within the U.S. side and an overall softening in the quest to get a deal. But preemptively backing down would be a signal of eagerness to Beijing.

The revelation that Jared Kushner is involved in the China negotiations is a very interesting part of that WSJ story:

Presidential adviser Jared Kushner has indicated some sympathy for lifting at least some tariffs, say those tracking the talks, but not on the scale of Mr. Mnuchin.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are offering to ramp up purchases of U.S. goods to reduce the trade deficit to zero by 2024, Bloomberg reported Friday morning.

Quick take: Trump, as we know, is all about the trade deficit, and it is much easier for the Chinese to buy their way into a cease fire while avoiding any of the difficult structural reforms the U.S. has demanded.

The bottom line: As I wrote last week, I expect that the Chinese offer will fall far short of what U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer wants, but using a mixture of big purchase commitments, unofficial lobbying, flattery, and headline concessions will ultimately prove enough for Trump.

The big question: Will the Chinese put the possible extradition from Canada of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on the table as a last-minute ask to close the deal?

Go deeper: The U.S. and China Are Hatching a Plan to Reopen Chicken Trade (WSJ)
Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan Farmer, Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician Shannon Kent and Scott Wirtz, an operations support specialist at the Defense Intelligence Agency, were identified by the Pentagon as those killed in a bomb blast in Syria on Wednesday, ABC reports.

The big picture: The blast marked the deadliest day in Syria for U.S. forces. The fourth American who was killed, who was a contractor, has not been identified. Three other Americans were injured.
Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), whose district shares 820 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, told Rolling Stone that the border crisis Trump speaks of is a "myth," and that his wall is the "most expensive and least effective way to do border security."

Details: Hurd said using eminent domain to take land for the border wall would impact 1,000 Texas property owners and that building a wall is third-century solution to a 21st-century problem. Hurd believes that the $67 billion of drugs coming into the country does amount to a "crisis," but said that the U.S. should do more to combat the root causes of illegal immigration by working closely with Mexico and countries in Central America plagued by "violence and lack of economic opportunities."
College students from rural areas are moving to big cities for higher wages to help pay off their student loans, according to new research from the Federal Reserve.

Why it matters: A "rural brain drain" has been pulling college-educated people out of rural America and into urban areas, deepening an educational and political divide that is increasingly coming to define the country.

The average age of the U.S. rural population is going up, and the share of prime-working-age people is going down. Fewer people have college degrees, and more are unemployed.

In the past, experts have explained this dynamic as a lifestyle choice. But in its new analysis, the Fed points to student loans as an additional factor in the gravitational pull away from rural areas.

Researchers studied student borrowers, following their path across America for several years after they started paying back their loans. They found that:

About half of rural residents who took out student loans still lived in a rural area six years later, compared to two-thirds who had not taken out loans. People with the most debt  those in the highest quartile of loan balances  were most likely to leave. Those who did move to cities did better financially. They were employed at higher rates and earned considerably higher wages, even when accounting for more expensive living.

This pattern was on hold during the 2000s, but has taken off post-recession, the analysis said. David Chang, CEO of Gradifi  which consults for companies on their student loan repayment programs  said he's seen the pattern.
Surprise: The U.S. and North Korea are talking about another summit, this one potentially in late February.

Why it matters: In the 220 days since Trump and Kim met in Singapore, there have been speeches, snubs, and occasional threats, but no substantial progress toward denuclearization.

The location of the summit has not been announced, but President Trump met for about 90 minutes in the Oval Office today with Kim Yong-chol, North Korea's lead negotiator in denuclearization talks.

Bill Bishop notes in Axios China: "I would not be be surprised if a meeting between Trump and China President Xi Jinping is added around this. The Chinese want another Xi-Trump face to face to close a trade deal before March 1."

The big picture:

Kim has stepped further out of his shell, improving relations with South Korea and China and establishing himself as a global player.

Maximum pressure against his regime has faded, but sanctions remain in place.

The North Korean leader has rejected the U.S. premise that denuclearization must come first, followed by sanctions relief. He has spurned what most experts consider step 1: documentation of his nuclear assets.

What's next: The Washington Post notes that Trump might come to the table with an offer, potentially including a declaration of the end of the Korean War, to secure a breakthrough.

The bottom line: Were back where we started, with Trump and Kim taking center stage. Their rhetoric toward each other has been warm.
North Korea's lead negotiator in denuclearization talks with the U.S. arrived in Washington Thursday evening, amid reports that the two sides are seeking to lay the groundwork for a possible second summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, CNN reports.

Details: Kim Yong Chol is expected to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Special Representative to North Korea Steve Biegun on Friday, according to CNN. His arrival at Washington Dulles Airport comes just hours after Trump unveiled a plan for a new missile defense strategy, which explicitly refers to North Korea as an "extraordinary threat" to the U.S.
1 big thing: Microsoft pledges $500M for affordable housing

CEO Satya Nadella doesn't think Microsoft alone can solve the housing crunch in the Pacific Northwest, but that isn't stopping the company from investing $500 million in affordable housing there.

Why it matters: Tech companies have been widely blamed for making their hometowns unaffordable for anyone not in their industry  and even for some of their own workers.

The ambitious investment suggests that at least some tech companies are warming up to the idea of using their healthy balance sheets to invest in the communities that have helped their businesses thrive.

In making the announcement, Microsoft noted that jobs in the Puget Sound area have grown 21% since 2011. In that time, median home prices have nearly doubled, while median income has risen by only a third.

The big picture: Some tech companies have embraced a role in dealing with housing costs and homelessness, while other companies have fought efforts to boost taxes.

In San Francisco, Salesforce fought for Prop C, which significantly raised taxes on the city's big companies to pay for a comprehensive anti-homelessness effort. But other tech CEOs  including Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Stripe's Patrick Collison and Zynga's Mark Pincus  opposed the measure, which eventually passed.

And in Seattle, Amazon had led the fight against a per-employee tax that was earmarked for dealing with those issues. The company points out it has also donated roughly $40 million to nonprofits working on homelessness, including a shelter in its office building, and another $40 million towards affordable housing projects in Seattle.

What they're saying:

Nadella noted that Microsoft employs more than just software engineers, relying on cafeteria workers and shuttle drivers as well as those who write code.

"We dont have enough affordable housing units that then can be bought by people in these jobs. Were going to invest quite a bit. Microsoft cant solve this by ourselves. But we should do our fair share to create more supply. Its a supply problem. Theres a market failure that we need to go work on. Thats what were going to do."

 Satya Nadella, speaking to reporters earlier this week

Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, added that while the tech industry has created jobs in places like Seattle and Northern California, it has also made home ownership a challenge for teachers, first responders and even some of those who work at the tech companies.

"What its required them to do is live farther away and spend more of their day commuting. It has undermined the health of the communities in which our companies are prospering."

 Brad Smith, also from earlier this week

Be smart: Investing in affordable housing is a socially responsible move. But the tech companies benefit, too. Skyrocketing housing prices make it harder to recruit new talent, especially entry level workers with lower salaries. Plus, tech workers at all income levels want quality schools and transportation, services which suffer when teachers and bus drivers cant afford to live there.
A newly unveiled company led by battery and tech industry vets says it's cracked the code that could enable much faster charging of the kind of lithium-ion batteries already used in electric vehicles  providing roughly 120 miles of range in just 5 minutes.

Why it matters: If their tech works as envisioned, the firm GBatteries could help EVs go mainstream by toppling a major barrier to ultra-fast charging: electrode damage that degrades the life expectancy of batteries.

Who they are: Executives include chairman Bart Riley, who co-founded the pioneering battery company A123 Systems; CEO Kostyantyn Khomutov, who has a background in aerospace engineering; and chief engineer Alex Tkachenko, who previously worked with telecom players Nortel and Ericcson.

Disclosed backers of the Canada-based firm include Airbus Ventures, Initialized Capital, Plug and Play, SV Angel, Y Combinator.

GBatteries did not reveal the amount of funding.

What's new: The company says they've developed an adapter that could make using charging stations as quick as filling a gas tank. And here's a crucial thing: it doesn't rely on battery chemistry breakthroughs that haven't reached commercial viability.

"The AI-powered charging algorithm ... is the first and only demonstrated technology capable of higher than conventional net charge rates with lower heating and degradation of lithium ion batteries," GBatteries said in a release.

The company argues the technology, which has been in "stealth mode" development for 6 years, is a weapon against the "range anxiety" that's one of the barriers to wider consumer acceptance of EVs.

By the numbers: GBatteries say their adapter that connects fast-charging stations and battery packs could get a standard 60 kilowatt-hour pack with a 238-mile range charged halfway within 5 minutes.

That's the battery size and range of the Chevy Bolt. And it's close to some other EVs.

Nissan last week said its newly configured Leaf arriving in showrooms this year has a 62 kWh pack with 226 miles of range.

A slide deck they circulated with the rollout also says they envision getting an 80% charge, which is essentially a fully charged EV, in 10 minutes.

But, but, but: GBatteries is likely several years away from commercial deployment of their system, which does not use the traditional constant current, constant voltage (CCCV) charging methods, but instead relies on high-frequency "pulses."

What they're saying: "There is no doubt that one could definitely do better than the standard CCCV charging protocol through some of these more exotic charging protocols, but the question is how much better could you do," says Venkat Viswanathan, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

He says the speed they are claiming seems possible.

The main question is whether you can do that without degrading the battery pack," Viswanatha adds. "If GBatteries has accomplished that, it is certainly a very interesting accomplishment.

The intrigue: GBatteries says it's got "several active pilot projects with automotive manufacturers worldwide," but did not name them.

We are in discussions with major players who are in the market now at scale, and also smaller companies, Riley tells Axios.

What's next: Riley is not providing a specific timeline for when they hope to commercialize the product, but he notes that the typical automotive product development cycle is around 4 years.
The U.S. is maintaining its leading edge in many industries of the future. But when it comes to tech-infused retail, the rest of the world is outpacing the U.S., digitalizing stores in huge swaths while America stands still.

Why it matters: Wealthy retail chains everywhere are surging ahead in digitalization, luring shoppers with custom applications. But how they are doing it has divided the world of retail between the haves of new tech and the have-nots.

Outside the U.S., top companies are selling their tech know-how in the form of digitalization-in-a-box. They're selling off-the-shelf software and equipment that make it easy to upgrade mom and pop stores with tech tools like digital payment systems and inventory tracking.

top companies are selling their tech know-how in the form of digitalization-in-a-box. They're selling off-the-shelf software and equipment that make it easy to upgrade mom and pop stores with tech tools like digital payment systems and inventory tracking. In the U.S., mom and pops are  at least so far  still stuck in the past. All the digitalization is proprietary, concentrated in the hands of wealthy companies like Amazon and Walmart. And even their progress is more of a stumble than a leap  comparatively narrow in the form of a few stores.

"It's about giving a brick and mortar store the kind of data that an e-commerce company might have," says Mark Cook, VP of product at Trax, an Israeli company that makes retail tech.

Driving the news: The challenge of saving Main Street  of driving customer traffic into brick and mortar stores  may be one of modernization: sprucing up stores inside and out, freshening up and more selectively choosing inventory, and using tech to know and keep up with customers.

Why tech is so important for Main Street: Brick and mortar is not going anywhere  it still commands 90 cents of every dollar spent in retail. But stores are being turned into hybrids that include a heavy e-commerce element.

Brick and mortar is not going anywhere  it still commands 90 cents of every dollar spent in retail. But stores are being turned into hybrids that include a heavy e-commerce element. But the most prominent U.S. example of its deployment isn't Main Street, but Amazon. After grabbing a whopping 50% of online shopping, it has added nearly 500 physical locations, including its cashierless Go stores, its bookstores and Whole Foods.

Abroad, the trend is to save Main Street.

China's Alibaba and Israel's Trax are following the digitalization-in-a-box model.

As of September, Alibaba had installed heat sensors, digital payment systems, and inventory tracking in some 1 million mom and pop stores across China. In our dispatch last July from Shanghai, a convenience store owner told us that his profits jumped 30% after Alibaba installed its tech.

Trax's image recognition tech tracks what is and isn't flying off the shelves and feeds storekeepers data on how to most profitably restock aisles. The company said it has already modernized four supermarket chains in Israel, Singapore and the U.K., along with a number of mom and pops.

There are the first inklings of the revolution reaching U.S. shores.

Last year, Kroger spun-out Sunrise Technologies, its in-house innovation lab, which debuted wireless shelves and sensors at two Kroger stores this month. Now, Sunrise  partnering with Microsoft  has plans to sell its tech to other stores, including mom and pops.

Kroger, although it is the second-largest grocery chain in the country, is a tiny slice of retail and does not amount to a digital revolution in the U.S.

Yet Sunrise's tech can be installed in any store, regardless of size, and controlled by someone with zero tech chops, says product manager Kevin Fessenden, who was showing the designs at the National Retail Federation conference in New York this week. And the company has intentions of shaking up the industry.

"We are actually very committed to becoming a disruptor, and also helping others be positioned to succeed and win by leveraging some of the technology that weve built for ourselves."

 Annette Franke, COO of Sunrise Technologies, speaking in Las Vegas last year

Two upstarts, Standard Cognition and Zippin, are focusing on another piece of the puzzle: developing cashierless-in-a-box for small physical stores.

While some bigger chains put 100 to 200 cameras in ceilings and along aisles to make cashierless work, Standard Cognition has a more digestible approach for mom and pops and does it with just 27, says co-founder Michael Suswal.

At last year's National Retail Federation conference, Cook, the Trax executive, says he spent the majority of his time explaining to American retailers why digitalizing physical stores is vital. But this week in New York, discounters, supermarket chains, and even a three-store kosher grocery chain from New York approached Trax wanting to join the revolution, Cook tells me.

"Twelve months made a big difference."
While the U.S. awaits the consequences of a breakdown in the polar vortex, Australia has been sizzling through an unrelenting series of heatwaves that have shattered all-time records.

Why it matters: Heat waves are one of the clearest manifestations of global warming, and extended episodes can be particularly deadly and costly. In Australia, they also heighten the risk of wildfires.

Details: The heat waves began in December and have continued throughout January. On Dec. 27, the average daily national maximum temperature in Australia was the hottest on record for December, and the second-highest for any month, the Bureau of Meteorology found.

The BOM found the heat noteworthy for its long duration and broad extent, saying in a special report on Jan. 17 that every state and territory in the country has been affected at some point.

By the numbers:

35.9C, or 96.6F: The overnight low temperature on Jan. 17 in Noona, New South Wales, which was the country's hottest nighttime low on record.

The overnight low temperature on Jan. 17 in Noona, New South Wales, which was the country's hottest nighttime low on record. 40C, or 104F: The temperature reached or exceeded in Canberra for 4 consecutive days, something that had not occurred since records began there in 1939.

The temperature reached or exceeded in Canberra for 4 consecutive days, something that had not occurred since records began there in 1939. 49.3C, or 120.74F: High temperature in Marble Bar, Australia, which was the highest temperature for anywhere in Australia in 2018.

High temperature in Marble Bar, Australia, which was the highest temperature for anywhere in Australia in 2018. 44.1C, or 111.3F: Average monthly temperature in Marble Bar during December, a new national record for the month.

Average monthly temperature in Marble Bar during December, a new national record for the month. 40.19 C, or 104.3F: Average daily maximum temperature for Australia on Dec. 27, which was the hottest December day on record for Australia.

The big picture: While the proximate causes for Australia's heat waves in late 2018 and early 2019 include a weak El Nino event in the tropical Pacific Ocean, the BOM and the country's main climate agency, CSIRO, have concluded that Australia's climate is changing as a result of human-caused global warming.

For example, in a climate report summarizing 2018's conditions, these agencies found:

Australia's climate has warmed just over 1C, or 1.8F since 1910, "leading to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events."

Oceans around Australia have warmed by nearly the same amount since 1910, "contributing to longer and more frequent marine heat waves."

In addition, the length and severity of the fire season has increased "across large parts of Australia," the report found.

Go deeper: Special Report: A 30-year alarm on the reality of climate change
Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released on Dec. 27 a sprawling roadmap for autonomous vehicle development that named an Internet of Vehicles Development Commission to lead work on AV policy.

Why it matters: AV leadership by this commission may indicate a more protectionist approach in China, given incentives to carry out President Xis goal of limiting reliance on foreign core technologies.

Background: The commission's head, Miao Wei, is the Minister of MIIT and the architect of the Made in China 2025 plan, which set detailed targets for replacing foreign technology with domestic substitutes. The plan has drawn international criticism for acting as a barrier to trade and violating WTO rules, and eliminating its targets has been a goal of the U.S. in bilateral trade negotiations.

Details: MIIT regulates a range of tech-related industries as well as the auto sector, often with a nurturing, protectionist hand. Its leadership of the commission subordinates other agencies that regulate the AV sector, like the Ministries of Transportation and Public Security.

The commission sits under the Leading Small Group for Building a Powerful Manufacturing Country, one of the coordinating bodies that referee policy disputes by holding agency leaders accountable to a member of Chinas Politburo (in this case, Vice Premier Ma Kai).

What to watch: Minister Miao, who is also the former CEO of state-owned Dongfeng Motors, recently highlighted several priorities for the commission:

Develop an AV demonstration zone in the Xiongan New Area, a Beijing exurb that Chinas central government plans to rebuild as an AV-enabled metropolis.

Expand infrastructure for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology. (In October, China set a national DSRC standard, and it plans to cover 90% of the country with C-V2X sensors by 2020.)

Increase financial and policy support for Chinese companies producing core technologies like telematics and sensors. This could include direct funding of Chinese AV technology and new barriers to entry for foreign firms.

The bottom line: Both American and Chinese officials increasingly see technology as a zero-sum game. But U.S. efforts to limit sales of AV tech to China through export controls and Chinese limitations on the foreign use of China's mapping data won't help vehicle development in either country. If AV development suffers, companies and consumers all lose.

Patrick Lozada is a director in the China practice of Albright Stonebridge, a strategic advisory and commercial diplomacy firm.
About 30 years ago I had a business trip to London and took the BOAC Concorde from Washington Dulles International Airport to London Heathrow Airport.

Captain McMahon had a very pleasant voice and I sent him a note requesting the jump seat if it was available for the approach and landing. I promised not to touch anything or to criticize.

His note back to me was classic British: Were still learning about this thing and it works best when we dont touch anything either. Youre welcome to join us as we begin our descent and, as to criticism, I doubt you could say anything we havent already heard.

It was, of course, a perfect landing.

Buddy Thompson

Louisville, KY
Over the past 12 months, the Renault Group, which includes several brands - Renault, Dacia, Lada, Samsung and Chinese brands Jinbei and Huasong  reported total sales volumes of 3,884,295 vehicles, which represent an increase of 3.2 percent compared to 2017.Unfortunately for the French group, that increase was achieved only as a result of Chinese brands Jinbei and Huasong becoming part of the company in January last year. If we take them out of the equation, as there's nothing to compare their contribution to in 2017, the group posted a 1.2 percent decrease.The negative result is largely the fault of the main brand Renault , which scored a 5.2 percent drop in sales to 2,532,567 vehicles. Samsung , its South Korean brand, also dropped 14.9 percent to 84,954 vehicles.The top performers of the group were last year East European and Russian brands, Dacia and Lada . The former posted a 7 percent hike to 700,798 vehicles while the latter jumped 18.7 percent to 398,282 units."The Group's sales growth in Russia, Brazil, and Africa offset almost all of the economic and geopolitical headwinds outside Europe, said in a statement Olivier Murguet, Renaults vice president of sales.As for its outlook for the current year, Renault bets on numbers being largely similar to those announced on Friday. Even so, the group is aiming for a slight increase in sales in 2019, with an acceleration in the second half of the year.The increase will likely come at that time because thats when several international models will be launched, including the carmakers top performer Clio The full sales results as announced by Renault can be found in the Press Release section below.
SUV

Of course, the Italian automotive producer's Ad Personam program was designed for this purpose, allowing buyers to customize their Lambos and we have to remind you that the pallette of options is uber-rich. In fact, we've already showcased a few Urus specs that stand out and here's an example for you.Then again, one can always demand more than a spec can offer. And this is where we're expecting future Urus derivatives to step in.While Sant'Agata Bolognese currently offers a single version of the super-, which is powered by a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 delivering 650 ponies, we're expecting more incarnations of the high-rider to show up in the future.For one thing, the Raging Bull is a master of versions and editions and it's enough to check out the Huracan or the Aventador families to understand that.And a potential clue towards a future Lamborghini Urus derivative comes from the Urus ST-X . We're talking about a racecar concept the carmaker showcased. The circuit toy is set to tackle sharp tarmac corners, as well as offroading bits.Perhaps the automaker will release a production version of the racecar concept. After all, there are plenty of examples that follow this path. For instance, the Gallardo Super Trofeo Stradale we reviewed back in the day was the road-going incarnation of the Gallardo Super Trofeo racecar.Until we find out what Lamborghini is preparing for the Urus, we've brought along a rendering that portrays a special edition borrowing a few aero tricks from the Aventador SVJ, as you can notice in the Instagram post below.
At the time, Renault said that until the investigation into Ghosn concluded he would be temporarily replaced by Thierry Bollore, the companys chief operating officerTo this day, Renault has not changed its mind , but it is currently under increasing pressure to drop its support for Ghosn in light of a series of new accusations brought against him.A group of French government officials arrived in Japan this week, trying together with Nissan to figure out ways to remove the Brazilian-born executive from Renault's payroll.Over the next few days the French state, as holder of a 15 percent stake in the carmaker, intends to call for a board meeting to announce the change in leadership."The state as a shareholder wants a board meeting to be called in the coming days and the designation of a new stable and sustainable governance, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire was quoted as saying in an interview with French television LCI by Sky News "I always indicated, while reiterating the presumption of Carlos Ghosn's innocence, that if he were durably prevented [from his role], we would move to the next stage. We're there now."With the French now decided to make a move, Nissan made a new accusation against Ghosn on Friday.The Japanese say the executive, his alleged partner in crime Greg Kelly and others used a Netherlands-based joint venture with Mitsubishi to dodge compensation payment rules and illegally received a 7.8 million EUR ($8.9 million) payment.Ghosn has been in jail since November and could stay there for a period of up to ten years if he is found guilty of financial misconduct.
EV

Speaking to the Detroit Free Press and other media outlets, the official made it clear that were going to be electrifying the F-Series  battery electric and hybrid. This announcement followed one for the European market, which will see Ford electrify everything from the 2019 Focus onwards.The list of options will start with mild hybridization, and at the other end of the spectrum, BEVs such as the Mach E electric crossover are in the offing. Over in the United States, the Ford Motor Company already kicked into overdrive as far as electrification is concerned with the Explorer Hybrid and the plug-in hybrid Lincoln Aviator.Turning our attention back to the F-150, its not known if the current platform can be developed around such a powertrain option. Hybrid is one thing, but electric translates to a much larger battery, additional weight, and different packaging altogether from the F-150 we know and love.Ninety-percent of our capital now is allocated toward trucks and utilities, Farley told the Detroit Free Press, which goes to show how much Ford believes in these segments. After all, conventional cars such as sedans and hatchbacks are no longer in favor with the American public.The truck and van division would be a Fortune 40 company thanks to more than $70 billion in annual revenue. As much as we indulge in a good ol sedan with a stick shift and torquey engine, the beancounters and higher-ups favor trucks and utility vehicles thanks to the higher profit margin.We plan to continue to serve these loyal customers with our upcoming 150 , Farley pointed out. We recently market-tested this new truck against the new competition  Ram and Silverado and GM products  and we won hands down."
GPF

That all works when you're at their official Cupra dealerships, surrounded by industrial accents, cappuccino machines, and skateboards. But out in the real world, it looks like they don't have the design mojo.The UK launch has just taken place, and we've eagerly watched this first review, knowing that Britain is a big Cupra market. Of course, disappointment is written all over SEAT cars, since they're built to a price, but we were a little surprised because Carbuyer reviews are rarely this negative.In short, the model is described as lacking character, partly because it doesn't sound special enough, but also because its trim doesn't set it apart. You see, Abarths have colorful exhausts and bright dashboard inserts. They're slightly uncomfortable to live with, but the Cupra Ateca is none of that.To be honest, we side with SEAT on the exhaust front. This is a family car, and you should expect less from it than a Leon Cupra hot hatch. If you want a fruity setup, Remus or some other company will offer you something cool soon,included. But on the design front, Cupra cars have never been that great, even though this is probably their crowning moment.The interior is a letdown. It's still a mess of black plastic from the VW parts bin. We particularly dislike how the 10-inch digital dash and infotainment are of inferior quality to Audi or even Skoda counterparts. And while the review talks about bucket seats, we wouldn't recommend ordering them in an everyday vehicle, since the bolsters wear out quickly.If Cupra makes its versions of the Ibiza or Arona as the rumors stated, they'll probably be described the same way. But we have hope for the next generation of Leon, which should have a premium edge baked in from the start.
In the latest such development, one that stops just short of sounding like an accusation of actual money stealing, Nissan said it found evidence of Ghosn dodging the rules to get a 7.8 million EUR ($8.9 million) payment from one of its subsidiaries.The accusation refers to the Nissan-Mitsubishi B.V. (NMBV) unconsolidated joint venture, an entity set up in 2017 in the Netherlands in the wake alliance between the two companies a year earlier.Nissan says that the executive, his alleged partner in crime Greg Kelly and others conspired as soon as they've heard of its creation to use the Netherlands-based joint venture as a front to pay undisclosed sums of money as compensation to Ghosn by bypassing the required approval from the board of directors.After the formation of the joint venture, Nissan says, Ghosn entered a personal employment contract with NMBV and received the said payment just as he conspired to do, without the boards approval. Nissan says it views the payments Ghosn received from NMBV to be the result of misconduct and pledges to go after the former executive and get the company's money back.Carlos Ghosns downfall began out of the blue in November last year, when he was arrested on charges of underreporting his compensation to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The charges branched out since to include accusations of personal use of company assets aggravated breach of trust , and misuse of company funds.Since his arrest, the executive has been held behind bars. If he is to be found guilty of financial misconduct, he could spend his next 10 years in a Japanese prison.
KPMG Law in Australia will work in association with Hong Kongs SF Lawyers to provide legal services for both domestic and multinational clients operating in the Chinese market.

Fuller says the move is reflective of the increasingly important trade and business links between Australia and Hong Kong.

We are not trying to be a traditional law firm. Our approach is different, with a focus on offering our clients integrated global legal advice and solutions, where we are able to work seamlessly with existing KPMG clients who are looking for local and multijurisdictional counsel. As someone who has lived and worked in Hong Kong for 6 years, I am proud to see SF Lawyers as the newest entry to the network in Asia, he said.

Honson To, chairman of KPMG Asia Pacific and China, says the new operation will focus on key areas such as M&A and deals, and infrastructure projects.

It will also offer technology enabled legal services, while leveraging significant investments in robotics, artificial intelligence and other technologies developed globally and in China through the KPMG Digital Ignition Centre, he added.
Metallica Launches Its Own Enter Night Beer

Trending News: Metallica Now Has Its Very Own Pilsner, Enter Night

Rocking out to Metallica in your man cave never sounded  and tasted  so good. The legendary rock band is taking the beer industry by storm with its very own pilsner, Enter Night.

The 5.7 percent hoppy beer was named after the bands platinum-selling 1991 single Enter Sandman, and was brewed in partnership with California-based Stone Brewing. The brewerys co-founder Greg Koch told USA Today that the band took an active part in taste-testing the beer before picking their favorite.

"They were really interested in understanding the process and making a thoughtful decision about the beer style and how we should do everything surrounding it," he said.

Lars Ulrich, the bands drummer, said the group didnt want to make another strong IPA  they wanted it to be easy-drinking.

"We wanted to create something that would be good to drink, (when) maybe you are tailgating outside a venue waiting to get into a concert," Ulrich told USA Today. "We wanted to have a very drinkable beer and one that would not, you know, knock your socks off."

Related: What Your Favorite Beer Secretly Says About You, Revealed

Enter Night

Technically, the beer was released at concerts during the bands shows on their 2018 tour, but it wasnt formally announced until now. The reason for that was because the musicians wanted to wait and see before launching the beer on a national scale.

"We had an under the radar/guerilla-style approach to this," Ulrich explained at the beers release party, according to Revolver. "People have been drinking it, people have been talking about it ... The feedback is great.

Ulrich added that the beer will be available at every grocery store and corner liquor store and rock n roll show in all 50 states."

To see if Enter Night is available in your area, visit Arrogant Consortia's website.

Celebrity Booze Game High

This isnt Metallicas first foray into the alcohol market. In 2018, the band launched a Blackened whiskey that is sound aged, meaning its blasted with subwoofers during the aging process, according to Esquire.

Its also far from the first time a celebrity got into the alcohol game. The long list of celebrity boozemakers includes Jay-Z, who has an ownership stake in a champagne company, George Clooney, whos all-in on mezcal, and Conor McGregor, who recently launched his own Irish whiskey.

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Buddhist Poker Player Wins $671,000 and Is Donating His Profits to Charity

Trending News: Amateur Wins $671K After Making a Deal With the Poker Gods

Canadian Scott Wellenbach recently raked in $671,240 at a poker tournament in the Bahamas, and hes giving it to charity.

The 67-year-old from Halifax, Novia Scotia, who works as a translator of Buddhist documents, says hes donating the cash he won after finishing third at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event due to a pact he made with the poker gods.

"The deal that I have with them  has been an excellent one and I will do nothing to change it, he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I might start losing."

Related: Want to Start a Poker Tournament at Home? Here's What You'll Need

A Buddhists Practice

Wellenbach, who meditates an hour every day, told BBC News poker is a microcosm of life.

"Poker gives you a tremendous opportunity to work with the heavens and hells of your mind," he said. "You're winning and losing every minute and a half, and so some sense of how your hopes and fears go up and down with the passing circumstance of the world is brought to fore at the poker table."

Wellenbach, who donates to Buddhist charities as well as Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, also said the card game has helped him be a better human being.

"I really feel the poker environment is greatly enhanced by friendliness and conversation and decency amongst the players, he told CBC.

The Peoples Hero

This isnt the first time Wellenbach has given away his winnings. Hes become renowned in the poker world for giving his winnings to charity, giving him the moniker the peoples hero, according to Newsweek.

The amateur player did clarify to the PokerStars blog that hes not giving away all of his money. For many, many years now, Ive been giving all my net profit  not my winnings because some nights youre playing poker and you win, and the next night you lose, right?  so my net profit to charity, he explained in a video.

How can you not love this guy? Scott Wellenbach explains why he will be giving all of his winnings away. Watch that and then check our live #PCA updates as Wellenbach continues to compete for $1.5 million. Updates: https://t.co/kuymOUG1Mf pic.twitter.com/S3WA9YFPkT  PokerStarsBlog (@PokerStarsBlog) January 16, 2019

The last time he took home a big cash haul was in 2017. After that win of a little more than $72,000, he donated to a Buddhist nunnery in Nepal.

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Brunei

Importers first need to register with the Registry of Companies and Business Names (through the Ministry of Finance) in order to obtain a company registration number. Then, they should register with Bruneis Royal Customs and Excise Department (RCED). Afterwards, importers will be able to make an account on the Brunei Darussalam National Single Window  an online portal which streamlines all subsequent submission of documents as well as customs clearance and payments.

Businesses importing into Brunei must provide the following documents Bill of Lading; Shipping Delivery Order; Commercial Invoice; Packing List; Import Permit; Customs Import Declaration; and Certificate of Origin.

Cambodia

Importers first need to register with Cambodias Department of Business Registration, under the Ministry of Commerce.

Importers would also require a TIN to register with ASYCUDA. To acquire a TIN, importers must register with the General Department of Taxation, under the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Finally, importers must register with the General Department of Customs and Excise. Subsequently, importers need to register their VAT accounts with the General Department of Taxation. Importers operating out of SEZs must apply with the Free Zone Management Department of the General Department of Customs and Excise in Phnom Penh.

Businesses importing into Cambodia must provide Customs Import Declaration; Commercial Invoice; Packing List; Road Transport Document (if arriving by land); Bill of Lading (if arriving by sea); Import Permit; Insurance Certificate; Tax Certificate; Certificate of Origin; and Company Registration.

Indonesia

To be legally importing in Indonesia, importers  who may be a person or company  are required to register with Indonesias trade department and obtain a customs identification number (Nomor Identitas Kepabeanan, NIK). Besides NIK, importers must obtain an Importer Identification Number (Angka Pengenal Import, API), which serves as a record in the database of importers and their import activities. All import activities are prohibited without the API.

Essentially, there are three types of import licenses available in Indonesia. : API-U (General Import License); API-P (Producer Import License); and a Limited Import License, also known as API Terbatas (API-T). These licenses are limited to a particular industry and do not permit the importation of goods not related to that sector of business.

Businesses importing into Indonesia must provide Commercial invoice, signed by the manufacturer or supplier as true and correct; Bill of lading, in three endorsed originals and four non-negotiable copies; Certificate of insurance; Packing list; Import permit; and Customs import declaration.

Laos

All importers must first register with the Ministry of Industry and Commerces Department of Enterprise Registration and Management. Not all imported products require a license. To determine the criteria for license requirements, Laos uses three categories based on the product for import. These are:

Products which do not require a license;

Products requiring a license under the automatic route; and

Products requiring a license under the non-automatic route.

Importers can secure these licenses from the Department of Imports and Exports (DIMEX). Products under the automatic route are licensed for the purpose of collecting statistical information whereas products under the non-automatic route require permission from DIMEX to be exported.

Businesses importing into Laos must provide Commercial Invoice; Carriers report; Packing list; Copy of business license; Copy of tax registration; Import customs declaration; and Copy of exporter license or registration.

Malaysia

Not all goods imported into Malaysia require a license. To import goods which require a license, traders first must register with the Companies Commission of Malaysia. Once registered, a company must then apply for an import license from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

When importing goods into Malaysia, traders must provide Customs Export or Import Declaration; Commercial Invoice; Bill of Lading; Packing List; and Certificate of Origin

Myanmar

To export goods from Myanmar, a company must register itself with the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA). Fortunately for overseas companies, the DICA recently created a digital single clearance window for registration called the One Stop Service (OSS). Companies can register themselves with the DICA for up to five years. Once registered with the DICA, a company must then register itself with Myanmars Department of Trade (under the Ministry of Commerce). Registrations with the Department of Trade are limited to three year periods and cost Kyat 50,000 (US$36.50) per year. All exporters are also required to join the Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

To import goods into Myanmar, a company must provide an import declaration form called CUSDEC1 Import Declaration Form as well as the CUSDEC4 Customs Valuation Form. In addition, importers require Import Licence; Invoice; Bill of lading, air consignment note, or truck note; Cargo release order; Terminal handling report; Packing list; Technical standard and health certificate (when required); and Recommendation from concerned ministry (when required).

Philippines

To register as an importer, businesses first need an Import Clearance Certificate from the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Importers then register with the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and set up an account with the Client Profile Registration System (CPRS). The Import Clearance Certificate is valid for three years while the Customs Client Profile Accreditation must be updated annually. The CPRS accreditation costs P1000 (US$20) and typically takes 15 working days to process.

Businesses importing into the Philippines must provide Packing list; Invoice; Bill of lading; Import Permit; Customs Import Declaration; and Certificate of Origin.

Singapore

To begin the import process, the importer must obtain a Unique Entity Number (UEN) by registering with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), or another relevant UEN issuance agency, which will allow the exporter to activate its Customs Account. In order to pay duties, GST, and other fees, importers must have an Inter-Bank GIRO (IBG) account with Singapore Customs.

To acquire a customs import permit, importers may register themselves as a declaring agent or appoint a declaring agent to act on their behalf. Permit applications are submitted online through the TradeNet system. When applying for the customs permit for containerized cargo, the relevant container number and shipper seal number must be declared. Various documents must be submitted to checkpoint officers when cargo is being cleared at an entry point. For both conventional cargo and containerized cargo, a printed copy of the approved customs permit and supporting documents such as the invoice, the packing list, and the Bill of Lading or Air Waybill are required for submission.

Thailand

The procedures for importing goods into Thailand have been centralized into the online e-Customs system. In order to register for the system, the importer must already possess a digital certificate. Once a digital certificate is in place, the importer may proceed to register for the e-Customs system.

Two separate checks need to be made before goods are imported: firstly, to identify if goods require an import permit, and secondly, to ascertain if goods are considered red line'(as opposed to green line). In terms of red line goods, extra documentation is required before the shipment can be imported into Thailand. These include Bill of Lading or Air Waybill; Invoice; Packing List; Import License (if required); Certificates of origin; and other relevant documents (e.g. list of ingredients, technical standards certificates, etc.)

Vietnam

In order to be able to conduct import business in Vietnam, a foreign investor must register with the Department of Planning and Investment (DPI). Additionally, foreign investors who wish to engage in import activities in Vietnam are required to obtain an Investment Certificate.

Companies that wish to expand their current business operations in order to engage in import activities must follow the procedures for adjusting their Investment Certificates. Certain goods require the trading company to obtain import permits from the government.

Companies that import goods must submit a dossier of documents to the customs authorities. The dossier must include at least the companys business registration certificate and import business code registration certificate. Additional documents that may be requested by authorities depending on the imports in question include Bill of lading; Cargo release order; Commercial invoice; Customs import declaration form; Inspection report; Packing list; Technical standard/health certificate; and Terminal handling receipts.




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This Wednesday, Spains National Police temporarily detained without a court order a total of 16 people accused of having occupied the AVE [high-speed train] tracks in Girona. Among those arrested were the mayor of Verges, Ignasi Sabater, and the mayor of Celra, Dani Cornella, both members of the CUP. The incident was the result of a generic complaint to the police in this case brought by Adif [the state-owned railway infrastructure manager] against the individuals who participated in the protest at Gironas train station on October 1, one year after the referendum. This could have been resolved by issuing those concerned with a summons to give evidence voluntarily. Instead, the Spanish Police launched a high-profile operation that included arrests in the middle of the street by police wearing balaclavas who in some cases initially failed to identify themselves as law enforcement officers, in a clear attempt to intimidate the individuals concerned. Moreover, one of the detainees, Carles Palacio, is a photojournalist who was working at the train station during the incident on October 1 and visibly wearing a reporters identification. Everyone was released without charge in the early evening.
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Posted on: January 18, 2019 1:43 PM

The next meeting of the triennial Anglican Consultative Council begins in 100 days time, and its Chair, Archbishop Paul Kwong, has said that he hopes it will help the Anglican Communion to bring the fragrance of Christ to the world. The 17th meeting of the Council  ACC-17  will take place in Hong Kong from Sunday 28 April to Sunday 5 May. The council is one of four Instruments of Communion which helps to facilitate the co-operative work of the churches of the Anglican Communion, exchange information between the provinces and churches, and help to co-ordinate common action.

At its last meeting, in Lusaka in 2016, the ACC called on its provinces  the 40 independent national and international Churches within the Anglican Communion  to establish a decade-long Season of Intentional Discipleship. It will continue this theme at this years meeting. Amongst the items on the agenda, the meeting will receive the work of the Safe Church Commission, which was tasked with developing a set of international guidelines and resources to ensure Churches were safe places for all people, with a focus on children, young people and vulnerable adults.

The Council sets the direction for the work of the Anglican Communion Office and its staff; and while it is a business meeting, members will gather in a spirit of prayer and worship. The meeting will begin and end with special services in St Johns Cathedral. Each day will include time set aside for prayer and Bible study.

ACC members will also hear from the Anglican Communions official Networks, and discuss the work of the staff in the international secretariat based at the Anglican Communion Office in London and at the United Nations in New York and Geneva.

In less than four months time, ACC-17 will be taking place in Hong Kong, Archbishop Paul Kwong, the Chair of the ACC and the host of the ACC-17 meeting. This is the second time that Hong Kong has hosted an ACC. In 2002, ACC-12 took place here.

As Chair of ACC and Primate of the Host Province I cannot be more excited and honoured to welcome all ACC delegates representing 40 Provinces and coming from 160 countries assembling in Hong Kong.

He continued: Hong Kong literally means Fragrance Harbour and was named this because of the spices trade in the old days. The aim of this ACC is Equipping Gods people; going deeper in Intentional Discipleship.

I believe a disciple gives off the Fragrance of Christ in daily life. My wish is that ACC-17 can help our Anglican Communion, becoming the giver of the Fragrance of Christ to the world. I look forward to welcoming all of you to come.
Fingerprint sensor manufacturers are starting to look more closely at opportunities outside of the smartphone industry because of low returns from the segment thats being caused by rising demand, as suggested by a newly emerged report from the Far East. The biometric scanners have become nearly ubiquitous, resulting in the average selling point quickly approaching the $2, according to industry insiders. Consequently, the technology is no longer profitable in the handset segment.

Leading companies such as Egis Technology and Goodix Technology are also suffering due to an influx of competition from smaller vendors. Sources expect Silead, Novatek Microelectronics, and FocalTech Systems to put up an even bigger fight moving through 2019. Thats setting aside increasing competition on the in-display fingerprint sensor side of things from an increasing number of companies, including Qualcomm.

With more intense competition, prices will likely continue to fall throughout the next 12 months. The downturn for the industry will almost certainly be beneficial to consumers since the technology will become less expensive and even more widespread.

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Uhh anyone in need of biometric scanners on the cheap?

Profit margins for other common uses of the sensors such as in laptops have remained comparatively high. Thats likely thanks in part to how widespread smartphone use has become as contrasted to the saturation of other computing hardware. The average selling point in the notebook category is holding steady at around $5 with a margin of around 50-percent.

Lowered profit expectations for component suppliers means that computers arent the only place OEMs are looking to implement the now-common biometric security measures either, according to the unnamed sources. Only two examples are provided but one of those implies that the security measure might soon see its way into a wider array of bank cards. The feature is already found in some high-level credit cards on offer from lenders and has been predicted in previous reports by DIGITIMES and others to be a go-to fallback as prices on fingerprint scanners continue to fall.

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Financial institutions such as banks havent fully embraced the technology yet and the pricing will still be higher for use in a plastic card than in a smartphone. That could temporarily raise the price of cards from banks that choose to use them but would ultimately be better for consumers since it would provide an added layer of protection there. The market for smart door locks and similar products have also seen an increasing number of offerings that include fingerprint scanners for security, providing another outlet for Chinese suppliers to improve profitability.

Less common uses

While still related to smartphones in some ways, another profitable area where the sensors might end up is in wearables. Android offers ways for a smartphone and wearable to be locked and unlocked based on proximity between the controlling smartphone and a watch or fitness band but other security methods for the devices are still relatively untapped.

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Samsung has filed patents that could see its fingerprint readers incorporated in its own Galaxy-branded watches but aside from that, they arent widely used. The sensors could offer a better way to secure sensitive data often stored on smartwatches when separated from the users smartphone.

Similarly, the technology could begin to become more widespread in Chrome OS devices. As shown with Googles Pixel Slate Chrome OS tablet, there is a market for biometric security in those devices but neither tablets or smartwatches have explicitly been mentioned by industry insiders.
Samsungs foldable smartphone is expected to arrive in the near future, and the phone just got certified by CMIIT, Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. This more or less confirms that the phone is right around the corner, and if rumors are to be believed, it could become official during Samsungs Unpacked event on February 20 or MWC 2019.

Samsung had already confirmed that its Galaxy S10 series of smartphones will be announced on February 20 during its press conference, while the company also hinted that its foldable phone may make an appearance at that conference as well. The company did not straight up confirm that well see its foldable device on February 20, but its fold reference on Paris billboards kind of hint that may be the case.

In any case, the Samsung SM-F9000 got certified by CMIIT, and that model number almost certainly belongs to the Galaxy Fold, or whatever the company ends up calling the device, even though the Galaxy Fold name is quite possible, as it was trademarked by the company a while back. The companys foldable smartphone was often referred to as the Galaxy F, so it fits.

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What Do We Know Thus Far?

Samsung had shown off its foldable smartphone during its developers conference at the end of last year, and even though we could see it in action, its design was obstructed by a heavy-duty case, so we did not really see exactly what it will look like. The company briefly showed the phone, and we, of course, do not have all the necessary details just yet. What was revealed during that conference is the fact that the phone will sport a secondary (smaller) display on the back, which will activate once its main display is folded. It was also clearly visible that the final software is not included on the phone, so Samsung is probably working out the kinks as we speak.

The companys foldable smartphone is expected to sport a 7.3-inch Infinity Flex display, when unfolded, while its secondary display on the back will be 4.6 inches in diagonal. The phone is expected to come with at least 512GB of storage, a large battery, and it will be fueled by the Snapdragon 855 processor, while the Exynos 9820 variant is also a possibility. The Galaxy Fold will be quite an expensive smartphone, in case you were wondering, as it is rumored to cost somewhere between $1,500 and $2,000, not a single report thus far was confident of a single price tag.

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Galaxy Folds Competition

Samsung is not the only smartphone manufacturer which plans to introduce a foldable smartphone this year, not by a long shot. In fact, some rumors are claiming that Huawei plans to do that during this years Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, which could be a reason why Samsung opted to host a press conference prior to MWC, in order to trump Huawei. LG is also working on its foldable smartphone, while HTC confirmed that it will release such a phone as well, but in the second half of the year. OPPOs foldable smartphone is expected to become a reality in H1 2019 as well, and several other OEMs are also working on such devices. It remains to be seen how appealing will such phones be to consumers, but we presume that the first batch will not be the greatest, plus theres the matter of added bulk and thickness for such devices, so it will be interesting to see how will OEMs tackle those issues.
Motorola is pondering the best way to enable users to interact with both sides of a folding smartphone or tablet hybrid in a new patent thats shown up at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The recently published patent describes a method for allowing a handset or tablet to flex and bend not only along a designated area but how to allow interactions on both sides of the device when folded.

Some of the gestures and touch controls described by Motorola and shown in patent images is similar to how users already interact via Android. For example, users could double tap the rear-facing portion of the display when the handset is folded to tap an item on the opposite side of the device. Gestures on the back can also be used to slide out or expand the notification shade for more typical one-handed operation.

Not a typical one-sided approach

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Motorolas approach is already far-removed from how other OEMs have considered implementing folding smartphones but it doesnt seem to stop with allowing the second part of the display to be used for inputs either. Other manufacturers are mostly looking at how to reallocate on-screen content.

Samsungs patents and upcoming folding screen highlight that best since the company worked directly with Google to create the parameters for Android with those gadgets. For the most part, that pertains to how the system will reorganize and resize the UI as a device is folded and unfolded.

Samsung has also explored using the natural separation created by an inward fold to change interaction. Users would be able to reorder content on the left and right portions of the display in tablet mode and even open two apps with one on each side. The display elements would reorder themselves and be adjusted based on the way a user wants items split.

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Other companies patents have followed a similar pattern for the most part and other patent filings from across the board have chiefly pertained to the method for folding the handset itself.

Motorola goes further by allowing both sides to be used when bent so that the display occupies both the front and back of a device. That would have the added benefit of allowing users to interact with both with a higher degree of separation. The associated images showcase one side of the display showing an alarm clock, for example, while a user can interact with other apps on the back half. When opened up completely either one or two apps can be displayed.

The concept is expanded further by using the built-in camera and sensors to recognize when a user flips the folded handset over. That means that two apps can be running at the same time while processing power and interactivity are enabled or not based on which side of the device the user is looking at.

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Dont expect this to appear any time soon

The concepts expressed in Motorolas latest patent are unique and arguably among the most intriguing but its a safe bet folding Moto phones wont appear in the real world any time soon, at least for the average user. The most recent news from the company on that front indicates it may be close to reviving its ultra-thin Razr lineup to unveil its own folding smartphone technology.

There arent too many details available on that device and certainly not enough to determine if something like the recent patent will be used in its design. But the company has been said to be preparing that handset at a price point of around $1500, placing it well above what most consumers will pay for a smartphone.

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Other companies are busy outlining plans to launch at least one folding smartphone this year. Samsung is the most prominent example with its tentatively titled Samsung Galaxy F handset, expected at or just before MWC 2019.
Google Maps is beginning to roll out speed limits to more users across the US.

It doesnt appear to be available for everyone, nor available for those in the beta. It appears to only be available in select cities  and those cities are not listed anywhere.

In Google Maps now, you will see a speed limit sign in the lower-left corner now, depicting the speed limit on the street or highway that you are currently driving. This will make it easier for drivers to know how fast they should be going, especially if they are in an area that they have never driven in before.

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Apparently, the speed limit signs only appear when you are using Google Maps for navigation. So unfortunately, if you are using Google Maps to get a general gist of where you need to go, it wont show you the speed limit on those streets. Though it does make the most sense in the navigation portion of the app, since most people do use Google Maps when they are going somewhere they havent gone before.

This is another feature that Google has added, that Waze has had for years  even before Google bought Waze back in 2013. Its a very popular feature on Waze because it does allow users to see how fast they should be going. It also shows how fast you are going, and will alert you when you are over the speed limit. Google Maps does not quite have that functionality yet, but that might be coming in the near future. For now, Google needs to roll out speed limit signs to everyone first.

Google Maps has steadily been adding new features to its Android app in the past few weeks. It has had a pretty busy 2019, and were not even three weeks into the new year. Google Maps recently got Google Assistant support, allowing you to ask the Assistant to play music, get you directions to the nearest gas station and more. Now speed limit signs are appearing in Google Maps. Its something that users have wanted for quite a while. It was one of the more impressive features of Waze, which Google also owns. But for some reason it took its sweet time coming to Google Maps.

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With speed limit signs now in Google Maps, one has to wonder how much longer Waze will exist as a separate mapping service. Seeing as Google Maps has added most of the features that Waze has available. The only real missing feature now is the crowdsourcing features for accidents, police traps, and such. Which are arguably the most popular features of Waze, and would work great in Google Maps  seeing as hundreds of millions use Google Maps every day.

As mentioned, this does appear to be a location-based rollout. People in Los Angeles, New York City and Minneapolis have all gotten the update. However, we have not gotten the addition of speed limit signs, and we are also in the beta. Not to mention that Google has not pushed out a Maps update for a week or so now. So its likely a server-based, location update.
CTL has announced a brand new Chrome OS tablet called the CTL Chromebook Tab Tx1, set to hit the market with a relatively low level of competition in February. The Oregon-based company has provided plenty of information about the $299 Chrome OS tablet in the meantime.

The Tab Tx1 is set to ship with a relatively modest hexacore OP1-rated SoC specially designed for Chrome OS. Thats comprised of two performance-ready Cortex-A72 cores and four further Cortex-A53 cores for efficiency in multicore processes. 4GB of memory and 32GB of storage back that Rockchip chipset up with a 34Whr, 10-hour rated battery ensuring students and workers can use the device all day long. A Mali T864 4K video chip provides processing on the graphics side.

Connections are accomplished via Wi-Fi 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n with 2 x 2 MIMO.

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The exterior of the 9.7-inch 1.2lb tablet is coated in a nonslip drop-resistant shell, following CTLs dedicated approach to the devices target audience in K-12 education programs. That casing also houses a USB-C port, headphone jack, and a micro SD card reader. A garaged Wacom EMR stylus and Gorilla Glass 3-protected display complete that package.

The multi-touch screen shipping on the CTL Chromebook Tab Tx1 is a QXGA IPS display with a resolution of 2048 x 1536. Thats offset with 2-megapixel forward-facing and 5-megapixel primary rear cameras.

Competing for the segment

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The CTL Chromebook Tab Tx1 is only the fourth-ever Chrome OS tablet but at first glance, it doesnt offer much by way of competing with existing devices. Thats especially true with consideration for Googles Pixel Slate. Regardless, its still likely to be a serious help in cementing CTLs position in the education and enterprise segments of the market.

The devices that the new Chromebook Tab Tx1 is going up against are primarily Acers early 2018 offering, the Chromebook Tab 10, and the much more recently revealed ASUS Chromebook Tablet CT100.

The ASUS-branded slate is actually nearly identical in terms of specifications. Although there isnt any pricing or availability information available right now, it will likely be very similar in price to the new CTL gadget if not somewhat more expensive due to branding and other features.

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Those similarities dont necessarily mean CTL isnt up to the challenge either.

Not only does CTL offer schools a 1-year part and labor warranty. It also designed the Chromebook Tab Tx1 with IT departments in mind. The built-in battery, for example, is designed for easy servicing without the common issues with customer service often tied to modern devices in the tablet or smartphone categories.

A complete portfolio for an established market

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CTL has a long history in the Chrome OS market for education. That means that on top of its offers for convenient shipping, trial programs, and discounts on both hardware and software, CTL already has a long-established Chrome OS gadget lineup. In fact, the new CTL Chromebook Tab Tx1 essentially completes the companys portfolio of hardware offerings. CTL now offers an array of devices across every form factor and intended for use by everybody in a school from teachers and administrators to students.

The device should, in turn, help Chrome OS itself hold onto its portion of the education market, in addition to amping up the competition that forces larger companies like ASUS to take notice.
Amazon has faced criticism over its facial recognition software in recent months, and now theres criticism coming from shareholders who are demanding Amazon not sell the software to government agencies.

Shareholders join a growing number of groups that are demanding Amazon to stop selling Rekognition to government agencies. Including civil liberties groups and Congress.

The software, named Rekognition, is software that Amazons AWS division has developed, and is selling it to some government agencies. It allows them to identify people by the face. The only thing is, it isnt accurate. In fact, it identified 28 members of Congress last year, as known criminals, based on a database of around 25,000 mugshots. Now while Congress members are not the most beloved people, it does show just how inaccurate the software is.

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Rekognition is not the only facial recognition software that has been shown to be pretty inaccurate. Facial recognition software in China mistakenly took a person from an ad on a bus and mistook it for a jaywalker walking across the street. Needless to say, Amazon is not the only one at fault here.

Aside from the fact that it is grossly inaccurate, many dont want facial recognition to be used by the government because it is an invasion of privacy. Though, living in the 21st century means that cameras are always watching you. So its not much worse than what cameras are already doing all around us.

These other groups havent had much luck in getting Amazon to stop selling  or at least marketing  this software to government agencies. Its currently being used by a law enforcement agency in Florida. However, when shareholders speak, the company generally listens. Seeing as shareholders are technically part owners of the company. The letter was sent to Amazon on December 19, and the shareholder resolution is expected to be voted on at Amazons annual shareholder meeting in the Spring.

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Shareholders are not asking Amazon to stop selling Rekognition to government agencies indefinitely. Just until Amazon can perfect it a bit more, so that it isnt so inaccurate. Thats not a bad thing, and it actually will help Amazons image, when it comes to this software. Right now, Rekognition is so inaccurate, that it is wrong more than it is right. And that it something that no company  let alone one the size of Amazon  should be selling to anyone.

The shareholders that wrote this letter to Amazon are not small investors either. Combined, the shareholders have over $1.32 billion in assets under management. Though CNBC did not mention whether that is how much they own of Amazon or if that is with all of their stocks, bonds and assets.

Amazon has not responded to this letter, publicly. It probably wont until the shareholder meeting, which usually takes place in May. This is something that Amazon would much prefer to keep under wraps and not out in the public. Seeing as it didnt even want people to know it was building a facial recognition software in the first place.
Located in the province of Catania, in the Italian island of Sicily, is the town of Grammichele. It is one of the few towns in the world to have the unique hexagonal layout.

The town was founded after the great Sicily earthquake of 1693 wiped out an earlier settlement called Occhiala, located to the north of modern Grammichele. The survivors built a new town and named it Grammichele, after St. Michele, in the hope that the saint will protect the new town from further disasters.

Grammichele was built by Carlo Maria Carafa Branciforte, the Prince of Roccella and Butera. Designed by Michele da Ferla, it was the first city in Europe with a hexagonal plan. Its layout was probably inspired by Palmanova, a fortified town built one hundred years earlier. The main difference is that Palmanova is based on a nine facets polygon, while Grammichele has a hexagonal plan that could be potentially extended indefinitely. The hexagonal plan designed for Grammichele is divided into six sectors by six roads all converging towards the main square, that is hexagonal too, on which public offices overlooked.

Many collecting areas were created in the town for residents to gather in case a calamity struck. These squares were equidistant and all connected by a geometrically concentric road network around the main hexagonal square, now called Prince Carafa Square. Beyond the hexagon, four rectangular districts were designed. One of them was supposed to contain the Prince Palace but it was never built.

Hexagonal planning is rare today, a mere oddity among a vast array of ideologies, theories and methods, writes authors Eran Ben-Joseph and David Gordon on a paper on hexagonal planning. It briefly caught the attention of various planners, engineers and architects in the early 20th century, but none were able to build large scale plans of this layout.

The New York architect and art historian Charles Lamb advocated the hexagonal city plan as a practical and artistic solution to the ills of the modern city. He claimed that such a system would not only allow for the creation of beautiful European-style boulevards but also allow for planned growth and healthy living. The Australian engineer, Rudolf Mueller, pointed out that the hexagonal layout would lead to potential savings in the length of the water lines as well as those for the sewer system. Fewer hydrants and water mains could serve a larger number of buildings, and shorter service lines could be laid between the mains and the buildings. Others such as Arthur Comey envisioned entire regions covered with small hexagonal towns, connected to each other and to large ones, and larger towns connected to major metropolitan areas, creating a carpet of hexagonal cells.

The turmoil of World War 2, however, put an end to hexagonal planning. In practice, hexagonal blocks would have been too unusual to be a workable solution. How would streets be named or dwellings numbered in a hexagon plan? How would strangers navigate the streets of Hexagonopolis? asked Eran Ben-Joseph. Besides, residential developers and home buyers did not like triangular lots and awkward corners.

Hexagonal planning is a concept that may work in theory but not in practice, he concludes.

The main square of the Sicilian town of Grammichele with town hall, mother church and sundial. Photo credit: imagesef / Shutterstock.com

One of the many street views of Grammichele. Photo credit: NORRIE3699/Shutterstock.com
Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder in the slaying, which was recorded on a police dash cam.

Three Chicago police officers were found not guilty by a Cook County judge of trying to cover up the actions of Officer Jason Van Dyke in the murder of 16-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014.

The officers were accused of falsifying official records and conspiracy. The judge, Cook County associate judge Domenica Stephenson, ruled after a five-day bench trial last month that the prosecutor had failed to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

CNN:

Todd Pugh, the attorney for Walsh, told reporters the judge displayed "courage and integrity" in her ruling. "There never was a case here," Pugh said, "despite all of the interest that all you have, there never ever was a case." Walsh told reporters the ordeal had been "heart-wrenching." "Heartbreaking for my family," he said. "A year-and-a-half." Stephenson spent an hour going point-by-point to explain how the prosecution had fallen short of proving its claims. Part of the prosecution's case relied on allegations that officers gave the same details in their incident reports, details that were contradicted by dashcam footage. But Stephenson said the footage did not show the perspectives of all the officers on the scene, so it could not be definitively said that the comments they made in their reports were not consistent with what they saw, even if it differed from the video. All the evidence needed to be taken into account, Stephenson said, and to say that discrepancies between the officers' accounts and the video pointed to a conspiracy was "nothing more than speculation."

Second City Blog, a prolific, anonymous blog run by members of the Chicago Police Department, has an explanation for why the judge ruled as she did:

Detectives document what they are told by witnesses. Witnesses  especially in a dynamic, fast moving, widespread scene  have different perspectives (they weren't all standing behind the same camera), and documenting those different perspectives is neither a conspiracy nor a code of anything.

Obviously, the family of Laquan McDonald was not pleased with the verdict:

After the verdict, Marvin Hunter, McDonald's great uncle, said he was surprised by the verdict, and that it spoke to his belief that the Cook County criminal justice system was "corrupt." "This is not justice," Hunter said, adding that he hoped there would not be a similarly disappointing outcome in Van Dyke's sentencing, which is slated for Friday.

The politics that infected this entire tragic affair was due exclusively to city officials reacting to community outrage over the death of McDonald. Politicians knew that the video looked very bad and made a political decision not to release it. It only made the situation worse. Community leaders accused everyone from the mayor on down of a cover-up, and the ill feelings that spread across the city toward the Chicago police turned the incident into a major crisis.

The autopsy report on McDonald shows that the teen  armed only with a pocketknife  was shot 16 times. A CPD board originally ruled the shooting justified. I think most reasonable people  even without all the facts  might conclude that Van Dyke's actions were criminal or at least excessive. He will be sentenced later today.
On Tuesday, the president invited rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats to the White House to negotiate. Not one Democrat showed up, yet it got little coverage. What would the coverage be if Democrats wanted negotiations and no one around Trump showed up?

We see lots of false headlines about federal workers being forced to work without pay. Every one of them is going to get paid for his work as soon as Democrats stop their hissy fit and vote for a border barrier (as they have done more than once before). So it is deferred pay, not working without pay.

Recently, thirty Democrats went to Puerto Rico to party with lobbyists while the shutdown is going on. What would the coverage be if Trump and Republicans were on a lobbyist junket instead of negotiating?

Over Christmas vacation, President Trump was willing to negotiate in D.C., while Pelosi was vacationing in Hawaii. What would the reporting have been if Pelosi were in D.C. and Trump were in Hawaii?

But there is a group of federal employees who never get paid or don't have to be paid, and they are congressional interns. Members of Congress all have a huge budget, yet many of them choose to pay their interns nothing.

Here is a partial list of Democrat senators who refuse to vote to put the federal employees back to work and who also don't pay their interns: Feinstein, Coons, Blumenthal, Booker, Gillibrand, Schumer, Menendez.

Congress makes a lot of rules for private employers that can stifle economic growth, yet in many cases the congressmen exempt themselves.

The Democrats are loudly campaigning to raise the national minimum wage to $15, which will greatly harm small, midsize, and large communities that are lower-cost and that struggle to get jobs. This law would greatly reduce initial opportunities for the young and the poor, taking away their opportunity to move up the economic ladder. While they demand that the private sector pay $15 per hour plus the corresponding payroll and unemployment taxes, plus benefits, the minimum wage for congressional interns remains zero.

Democrats like to set rules for overtime, paid sick leave, paid vacation leave, parental leave, etc., but they exempt themselves from all those for congressional interns.

Democrats demanded that private employers give specific costly health benefits to employees if they worked over thirty hours per week, but there were no rules for congressional interns.

Democrats refuse to vote for less than six billion dollars (less than two tenths of a percent of the federal budget), but it is clear that the amount spent would be dwarfed by the savings relating to the welfare programs that illegal aliens' access: 63% of non-citizen households access welfare programs, compared to 35% of native households.

We are told federal workers should be paid higher than most Americans because they are more qualified. If they are so good, why do they continue to allow so much fraud?

If they would just stop a sliver of the fraud, the wall could be paid for in a few weeks.

Earned Income Tax Credit: Small Benefits, Large Costs A major weakness of the EITC is the program's high rate of overpayments, which are caused by math errors, misunderstanding of the rules, and fraud. The EITC error rate has been more than 20 percent since at least the 1980s. The Internal Revenue Service reports that the EITC error and fraud rate in 2014 was 27 percent, which amounted to $18 billion in overpayments.

The Facts about Medicaid Fraud In September, the Department of Health and Human Services sent out a warning that improper payments under Medicaid have become so common that they will account this year for almost 12 percent of total Medicaid spending  just shy of $140 billion. (Total improper payments across federal programs will come to about $139 billion this year, according to estimates that have proved too generous in the past, and almost all of that is Medicaid-driven.) That rate has doubled in only a few years, driven mostly by the so-called Affordable Care Act's liberalization of Medicaid-eligibility rules. 12 percent in improper payments isn't an error rate  it's a malfeasance rate.

Report: Federal Low Income Housing Program Lacks Basic Anti-Fraud Safeguards The federal government's flagship affordable housing program lacks basic anti-fraud safeguards, according to a new government watchdog report. Last week the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released an investigation into the $9 billion a year Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, finding that it lacks the necessary monitoring to prevent contractors, developers, and other program beneficiaries from fraudulently overbilling the system.

Fraud and billing mistakes cost Medicare  and taxpayers  tens of billions last year Federal health officials made more than $16 billion in improper payments to private Medicare Advantage health plans last year and need to crack down on billing errors by the insurers, a top congressional auditor testified Wednesday. James Cosgrove, who directs health care reviews for the Government Accountability Office, told the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee that the Medicare Advantage improper payment rate was 10 percent in 2016, which comes to $16.2 billion. Adding in the overpayments for standard Medicare programs, the tally for last year approaches $60 billion  which is almost twice as much as the National Institutes of Health spends on medical research each year.

If anyone wants to see where the media and other Democrats policies striving for big government and moving toward socialism come from, just look at how Pelosi believes that food stamps and unemployment benefits are much better for the economy than fewer regulations and lower taxes. The thoughts show an absolute infantile knowledge of how the U.S. became the most powerful and generous economy in the world in such a short time.

The U.S continues to allow over one million (legal) immigrants into the country each year. It is time for journalists to stop calling the leaders who try to stop these xenophobes and racists. It is also time to give the power and purse back to the people, as Trump wants, versus making the government and bureaucrats richer and more powerful, as Democrats want.

Image credit.
What the Green New Deal will do to our family

My wife and I are proud of our daughter, who is a full-time stay-at-home mom taking care of our nearly two-year-old granddaughter. She is able to devote herself 100% to the little darling because her husband Todd has a high-paying job as lead engineer on a crew working in the oil fields of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. It is hard work, with him away from the family for extended periods, but it has allowed them to focus on their daughter and purchase a home. Todd will be losing his job in the not too distant future if the proposed Green New Deal (GND) is enacted into law. This proposal has been embraced as a serious alternative to the energy status quo by many left-leaning Democrats on Capitol Hill. It requires a transition away from non-renewable energy sources (no nuclear) to technologies such as wind turbines, solar cells, tidal power, and geothermal energy. This transition is mandated to occur by 2030.

Full enactment of this policy will destroy most of the fossil fuel industry and eliminate my son-in-law's job along with the jobs of at least 4 million other people directly or indirectly employed in the business of providing coal, oil, and natural gas to America. In fact, the text of the GND states that there will be 3.9 million jobs displaced in the conventional energy sector by this bill. Not to worry: According to the proposal, 3.9 million new jobs will be created in a booming business of renewable energy construction while converting the nation to "clean" power sources. And that is only from employment in electric generation sector. According to the proposal, going 100% to "clean" energy will require "replacing non-essential means of transportation" with modern mass transit. The GND anticipates that a transition to a "comprehensive national mass transit program" will mean many new jobs available in that sector. With a commercial driving license already in hand, a new job as a bus driver would be a logical choice for Todd. Complicating employment opportunities for the newly unemployed energy workers like Todd will be an influx of ex-military personnel looking for work, owing to the mandated 50% reduction in military spending and closure of most bases around the world. With no need to fight wars for oil, the thinking goes, there is no need for robust military forces, so a goodly percentage of the current 1.3 million active-duty military and many more in support roles will be beating the pavement, looking for a job. If the anticipated increase in employment in the new clean energy economy doesn't pan out, Todd can be comforted by knowing he will not be jobless for long, because the Green New Deal will "end unemployment in America once and for all by guaranteeing a job at a living wage for every American willing and able to work." Plus, if he wants to go back to college to study sustainable development, economic justice, or one of the other majors that are likely to be in demand, the plan will provide that to him through "a tuition-free, quality, federally funded" college education. On top of that, he would get the benefit of having the remainder of his current college loans forgiven. Any of the new job possibilities makes it likely that Todd would see a significant decrease in income and require our daughter to return to work if the two want to keep their home. Fortunately for them, the proposal includes a ban on all home foreclosures and enables a restructuring of their home loan that would be financed by a new federal bank. If they do have to sell their home to make ends meet, they can rely on Green New Deal guarantees of affordable housing at a cost of no more than 25% of their income. Of course, the proposed new carbon taxes and increase in energy costs due to reliance on more expensive "clean" energy will make nearly all goods costlier and add to their new financial burdens. Some relief would come to them, because their newly reduced income would not be subject to a new higher tax rate of 70% that Todd would have paid if he still had his old job. Life will surely be more difficult for Todd and our daughter with approval of the Green New Deal, but, after all, one needs to make sacrifices in order to make no difference whatsoever in the climate. Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist who has been investigating the Earth's processes for more than 35 years, including paleoclimate controls on deposition. He is author of Inconvenient Facts: The science that Al Gore doesn't want you to know, sits on the advisory board of the Heartland Institute, and is a contributing writer for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.
The trade war with the United States certainly hasn't helped matters, but the crisis in the Chinese economy predates the tit-for-tat tariffs the two sides have imposed on each other.

The Chinese economic crisis has been a below-the-radar story for more than a year as the once mighty Chinese economy is in free fall.

Bloomberg:

Once again, the world's investors are turning their worried gaze toward China. And for good reason. Economic growth in the third quarter sank to 6.5 percent, the slowest pace since the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009. Car purchases fell last year for the first time in more than two decades. Apple Inc.'s warning in early January that iPhone sales in China were sagging alerted the world to how a slowing Middle Kingdom would drag down global growth and corporate profits. But the locals figured that out a while ago. Even after a recent uptick, the stock market in Shanghai has still plunged by more than a quarter from its 2018 high. The outlook isn't any rosier. Tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. imposed by President Donald Trump are starting to pinch the country's factories. A steep and unexpected plunge in imports in December signaled just how sharply the economy is decelerating. That's led Beijing to turn the volume down on its bravado and negotiate with Washington to defuse the conflict.

As Bloomberg notes, an end to the trade war would cheer investors and give a boost to the Chinese economy  temporarily. China's real economic problems are structural and systemic:

Meanwhile, the economy is weighed down. Too much of China's debt has been amassed in unproductive ways  unnecessary factories, insolvent "zombie" companies  and that gross misallocation of resources is eating away at key drivers of growth. The New York-based Conference Board, a research association, figures total productivity growth in China has been negative since 2012. All this leads to a downward spiral. With the nation already buried in debt, each attempt to stimulate the economy with fresh credit has a smaller and smaller payoff. As research firm Fathom Consulting explained in an October study, China's old economic model "is exhibiting diminishing marginal returns." There are signs of that happening. Despite months of prodding lenders, credit growth has not picked up steam as policymakers have wished. Heightened anxiety over the economy combined with the already staggering level of debt is making it more difficult for the government to rely on additional credit to keep China growing.

You can't take a couple of trillion dollars out of the global economy without negative effects. The only question is how severe China's problems will get and how expensive the fix might be:

The underlying issue is that the liberalizing reforms that could set the economy on a healthier track have all but evaporated, and there's no revival on the horizon. President Xi Jinping's top priority is imposing Communist Party control on everything, so he's kept the state-led, investment-heavy economic agenda that's at the heart of this characteristically Chinese financial crisis. His latest industrial policies may aspire to fancier products  robots, microchips, electric cars  but they could create the same old mess: too many factories, too much debt, too much waste. Even if Xi's approach gives birth to new sectors and growth, that won't necessarily undo the harm already done. The bad loans won't magically transform into gold. The only real difference between a regular financial crisis and a financial crisis with Chinese attributes is the duration. Most normal financial upheavals last months; China's may drag on for years.

As most of the West is finding out, there's no such thing as a "mixed" economy. Either you have free markets or you don't. China will continue to grow  GDP rose 6.5% last year  but for a country that experienced double-digit growth for a decade, it's almost like a recession.

That will come later. Meanwhile, the Chinese keep "stimulating" the economy with easy credit, and the bad loans are piling up. No one knows where the breaking point might be, but it's coming.
In San Diego, "man bites dog" seems to still be operative on the media front. The wall and migrant caravan "narrative" being promoted in Washington by the mainstream press is being repeatedly blown apart by good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting in the local (and kind of lefty) San Diego presses, and it's starting to get noticeable.

The latest such instance, which I will write about soon, showed public and listener-supported broadcaster KPBS reporting that U.S. far leftists from other parts of the country are rolling into Tijuana, Sandalista-style, and egging on caravan migrants to illegally storm the U.S. border, which the migrants themselves wouldn't otherwise do, while local Tijuana NGOs are expressing disgust. The mainstream press narrative has been to repeat the false claims of such activists that the migrants are just running for their lives from gangs as they border-storm and sneak in, and that the U.S. is "heartless" not to accommodate them. Nope, not with that report. Kudos to KPBS for getting the truth out.

It follows a report a week ago by local indy radio station KUSI, which reported the truth about the efficacy of walls. CNN commissioned KUSI to discuss how walls work here in these parts, and it sent one of its best, Dan Plante, with longtime experience in the area, to give his report, and he did, reporting that the sentiment among local Border Patrol officers is that walls do work in keeping illegal migrants out. CNN rejected that report because it doesn't support the "narrative" CNN feeds to the U.S. public about walls being useless (same as the Democratic talking points), but KUSI didn't back down, and word got out. KUSI stuck up for itself  but what it was really doing was sticking up for truth-based journalism.

And then we have the San Diego Union-Tribune, which several times has broken the "narrative" with bits and pieces of significant truths in stories eventually getting way out front of the mainstream media's "narrative." One instance: veteran reporter Sandra Dibble's first reports that the caravan campout in Tijuana was not pleasing Tijuana's residents and they were organizing groups about it on social media. Nobody in the mainstream media was going to report that, but she did. That broke up the mainstream press "narrative" that any opposition to migrants was purely the product of racism and xenophobia from whites up north. It also put migrant behavior  bad behavior, ranging from ingratitude and entitlement to actual crimes  in the spotlight. Another SDU-T reporter, Kate Morrissey, did some good coverage about how the migrant caravan was being dumped by its leftist leaders, leaving the caravan migrants to tough it out alone. That killed the mainstream press "narrative" about caravan leaders being some sort of selfless do-gooders, because actually, they were creeps. Some credit is due to the U-T for that one, too.

Now, the San Diego press, like pretty much all press, has a lefty tinge to it. But we are seeing repeated examples of local reporters getting the truth out about the border over here, and I almost don't know what to make of it. None of these press organs is related to any of the others. There's no central figure directing them to report accurately against the "narrative." There's no social hive; there's no peer pressure, as one sees in the cocktail circuits of Washington. Perhaps the fact that they are local and know they won't be able to pull one over on the public as the mainstream press does, given the large numbers of people who know the deal, is what keeps them honest. San Diego itself (where I am) is an isolated place  cut off from the rest of the country by a desert, an ocean, a giant and empty military base up north, and a border, and it only recently went blue, so there's still a lot of red in it, as well as no obligation to move in lockstep with the rhythms of Washington. I don't quite know what to make of this pattern of truth-telling from so many unrelated sources and, better still, none of them backing down on it, other than to say it seems to be coming from a city that is different and maybe tries to stand out and make itself heard.

This pattern of reporting of the caravan truth stands in sharp contradiction to the national media "narrative." What we are seeing is something so new and strange that I don't know how to explain it  the spectacle of a press...doing its job.

One can only hope there will be more of it  because in this government shutdown war over the issue of a border wall, truth is the first casualty. It doesn't seem to be happening here.
The spotlight actually belongs elsewhere. According to a new report from local public broadcaster KPBS , migrants say they're being egged on by sandal- and serape-clad rabid leftists from the States, veterans of the mobbery seen in places such as Seattle, with names like "By Any Means Necessary" (BAMN), who are now using the migrants on a political mission to break down U.S. borders.

To hear the left tell it, the coming caravans of migrants are nothing but a spontaneous move by Central Americans fleeing gangs and crime, as if crime had never existed in their countries before, welfare in the U.S. isn't a part of the equation, and the entire situation justifies illegal entry. All the focus is on migrants, with individual sob stories in the press dominating coverage.

Does anyone know this? Do people know that the caravan camp over in Tijuana full of migrants awaiting entry to the States is being descended upon daily by rabid Sandalista leftists, encouraging the migrants to break the border and enter illegally? They're not only egging them on in what other NGOs call "exploitation," but giving them junk information about asylum to encourage the illegal entry and saying it will all be a piece of cake. The migrants don't even want these pests, but these leftists are all over them like lice. Look at these details:

Perez said the conflicting messages about the U.S. asylum process have been confusing. She was first told to put her name on a weeks-long wait list so she could apply to enter through the San Ysidro Port of Entry. That's what she did. Now, some Americans are telling her to skip the line. "Sometimes I get hopeless, thinking I'll say yes to the people telling me to jump  but no. What am I, crazy?" she said. "I'm not crazy. I'm going to wait." Migrant advocates with Al Otro Lado, a migrant advocacy group that provides pro bono legal services in Tijuana, said BAMN is putting migrants' lives in danger. "Waiting in Tijuana is not the same as trying to cross a smuggling route that is controlled by organized crime," said attorney Erika Pinheiro, who added that some of her clients have been kidnapped and killed after crossing the border illegally and getting caught in smuggling routes.

The Tijuana-based non-government organizations can see this happening and tell KPBS they are horrified.

"That is not solidarity. That's exploitation. They're exploiting migrants to make a political point about who should and shouldn't be allowed into the United States," she said. "They're feeding into the narrative that anybody who tries to help migrants is also criminal, and it's really doing a lot to harm our movement." As a precaution, she said, Al Otro Lado has changed its volunteer policy to prohibit anyone who works with the organization from encouraging migrants to cross the border illegally.

Based on this report, it's possible to conclude that the entire effort is being dictated by rabid leftists here, starting with their silky promises of an easy U.S. entry to entice Central Americans to join and ending with their non-stop pestering of migrants to storm border walls whether they like it or not.

One actually has pity for the migrants in this story, who are trying to come here in a legal way and aren't all in for the war footing of these leftist veterans of leftist mob actions. The migrants speak of their sufferings at the hands of these exploiters, while the leftists, in that full Sandinista tradition, exhibit a positively commissar-like indifference to the risks they are throwing the migrants into. Get a load:

KPBS asked Driver about the two recent incidents in which U.S. authorities launched tear gas into Mexico because people, including women and children, were approaching the border en masse, some in response to BAMN flyers. "The (tear gas) doesn't concern me and it didn't concern the people who were part of the march," Driver said. "They've been tear-gassed before. They come from countries where political violence is a way of life." Some migrants disagree. Karen Perez, 32, is a Nicaraguan who traveled with the caravan and her four children. She doesn't like the idea of getting tear-gassed. "If you tell me to cross illegally, then you're putting my life in danger, and my kids' lives as well," she said.

The report tries to be even-handed and has authentic-sounding interviews from lefties (and Tijuana opponents). The rabid leftists are the kind of professional protesters, some with criminal records, who go from protest to protest  Dakota pipeline, Seattle  and make a life of it. Jail is nothing to them because they are always getting hauled off to jail.

In Latin America, these kinds of people with their do-gooder ethos can be found all sorts of places, starting with Nicaragua, origin of the "Sandalista" name. Peru has 'em, too: it had those Greenpeace activists who ruined the ancient Nazca sand lines in a bid to wave lefty protest banners, as well as more violent types such as terrorist-supporting Lori Berenson, a veteran of the El Salvador wars who took her show to Peru and got busted for terrorism-enabling. Venezuela, of course, has tons of Sandalistas, starting with the Maryknolls and getting much worse. Having been to these countries, I know that such people are utterly despised. Now they're at it again, at the border, all over the caravan, and trying to egg on the migrants.

These are the people acting as the foot-soldier enforcers for the caravan and who ensure that it remains a political project, not a means to emigration for the individuals themselves.

The fact that they are openly encouraging border-busting is likely a crime, given that it amounts to aiding and abetting illegal immigration, same as the cartels do. One can only hope that with these clowns giving their names to the press, the lawmen will start looking at them. What's happening at the border is actually a crime, and the real criminals here aren't actually the migrants; they're these lefties claiming to be do-gooders. Now they have put themselves right out front in this caravan dilemma and wall dilemma. It's about time they get rounded up.

Image credit: Elvert Barnes via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
At the time, I really didn't think the event was unusual. I had engaged in transactions like that many times before. The web makes it easy to find things. But this really was extraordinary. There are few places in the world where such a transaction is possible. In the Western Hemisphere, this can happen only in the U.S. and Canada.

I picked up the telephone and dialed a small shop in a little town on the other side of the continent. After a friendly conversation, I gave the fellow my credit card number. A few days later, a package arrived with the item I had ordered. Isn't that extraordinary?

Actually, I did not realize the significance of that transaction until Jordan Peterson, in one of his lectures, pointed it out. My experience was possible only in a culture of trust. Trust is maybe the most distinguishing feature of liberal Western culture. (I use liberal in the libertarian sense of the paramount importance of individual sovereignty and freedom. I don't mean to imply that political liberals are necessarily liberal in this classical sense.)

Peterson's view of trust enlightened my thinking. It told me what is really wrong with socialism. I now know why all forms of socialism inevitably become the home of terror. Koestler's Darkness at Noon had informed me of communist insanity, as did 1984. Until Peterson, I hadn't realized that trust is impossible under any form of socialism.

As time passed, I became friends with a number of refugees from the Soviet Union and from its satellite empire. They confirmed every negative thing I had heard about communism. Distilling what they told me, there was no trust in the communist world. But there were, and are, great fear and deceit. It was milder there after Stalin and Mao died, to be sure, but communism had so corrupted the culture that one expected lies, not truth.

Not long after the fall of the Soviet Empire, I spent some time with a management consulting firm. This company had a contract from the Russian government to teach the Russians how to modernize their economy. Clever people, these consultants. They had figured out how to discover the real power structure of an organization. The hierarchical organization chart seldom tells you what the real organization is like  who are the movers and shakers within.

Good as the consulting company was, it completely failed in its contract to properly set up Russia after the fall of communism. The company taught the Russians how to efficiently organize. It failed to teach the Russians the culture of trust. The consultants simply did not realize the significance of trust. Russia is now Gangster Russia.

Something very different happened when China opened up. When the Chinese asked for help, we did not send them management experts. We sent them lawyers. It made all the difference. China still has a gangster government, but China works, whereas Russia doesn't. What happened?

Something akin to trust happened. The failure to modernize the society in Russia was noted in America, and a different strategy was developed for China. It was recognized that, for Americans to safely do business in China, Americans needed protection of their potential assets there  for their intellectual, physical, and commercial properties. So we sent China lawyers  in particular, contract lawyers. We also taught the Chinese the value of civil courts to effectively enforce contracts. Painfully enforced contracts give a practical education in the need for trust.

China was successful in adopting contract law and at least some of the culture of trust. The Chinese benefited from the prosperity that ensued. If China backs away from trust, which it now appears to be doing, it will fail, and fail big time.

America can fail the same way. Something quite serious is attacking America's traditional culture of trust. It is the old paranoid Marxist disease. Nowhere in Marx's societal prescription is trust. His substitutes are force and hate. The Communist Manifesto is structured on a foundation of hate and must be imposed through compulsion, through force. Right now, compulsion, or bullying, is mostly social pressure. We call this form of bullying political correctness  disguised hate. The left is virulent with hate. Varieties of this disease of lies and fear and hate have permeated important parts of America. Some of it is even being written into law.

P.C. infests Hollywood. Do you really want to know what Hollywood is like? I found out by briefly working there. Even in Hollywood, there are good people along with the many self-serving scoundrels. However, until you find the good people, trust no one! That is why you must have an agent and a union to protect you.

P.C. infests the university. Do you wonder why universities are turning out so many ignorant, and indoctrinated, graduates? Spend some time in graduate school, and you will quickly find out. In my long ago experience there, the majority of faculty were reasonably honest. But a substantial minority at the time were anything but. It has since gotten much, much worse.

P.C. infests Congress. Do you wonder why Congress has become disabled? Trust is gone. Many congressional politicians  particularly on the left  are no longer as good as their word. This has become a salient characteristic of the Democratic Party. Many Republican politicians still believe in the old, trusting congressional political culture. The Republicans are thereby rendered nearly impotent. Republican voters see this and are disgruntled. Republican leaders need to see the congressional reality and stiffen up.

Boiled down to its essence, this is what "democratic socialism" is really all about: out with liberty, and in with compulsion  for the good of society, of course. Democratic socialism is just a fancy name for transition to tyranny and darkness. For the time being, it is just a fad among the willfully ignorant. Probably the fad will pass. But we will suffer from this Progressive enthusiasm for some time to come.

The counter, of course, is knowledge. We know the frightening reality of socialism. Pass this understanding on. But pass it on gently. Adherents to political correctness are fragile souls.
"The 90-year-old's comments were labeled 'reprehensible' by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) on New York's Long Island, where Watson had been the director from 1968 to 1993.

CNN reports : "James Watson, who discovered the double-helix structure of DNA alongside Francis Crick in the 1950s based on the work of British chemist Rosalind Franklin, said in a PBS film that genes cause a difference in intelligence between white and black people in IQ tests.

The laboratory said it 'unequivocally rejects the unsubstantiated and reckless personal opinions Dr. James D. Watson expressed,' noting the statements were 'reprehensible [and] unsupported by science[.]'"

Watson was shortly relieved of his administrative duties, but not his title.

Among other "reckless" statements attributed to the Nobel winner, Watson implied what has been statistically proved over and over: that stupidity is linked to genes. In CNN's report, the word "unsubstantiated" stands out most glaringly, especially in light of the existence of a warehouseful of substantiation to support Watson  for example, documented statistical IQ differences among the races among humanity.

We cannot divine intent from an off-the-cuff comment made by a genius whose body of work has been of incalculable benefit to mankind  especially when science backs his comments. Rather, we determine using verified data from corroborated sources the range of intelligence  and therefore intellectual output and performance  among various races. The reader can then decide for himself if the cited genius was correct in his assessment. None of these comments is meant to defend the reprehensible, the inexcusable, or the injustice that groupthink, ostracism, socialism, racism, and anti-Semitism have wrought on mankind.

The various reports and commentary filtering though the groupthink media illustrate the disingenuous thinking behind them: that while they assert that stupidity "should not be" linked to genes, the actual evidence suggests that intelligence indeed is. Science, math, and statistics draw conclusions based on not what ought to be, or what will not offend, but what is.

A Race-Based I.Q. Conspiracy?

Not surprisingly, the selfsame cast of characters who have conspired to nullify the votes of 63 million Americans and overthrow the government of the United States also want to bury for good Watson the man and his story. They take affront and even resort to violence to exclude those whose opinion does not submit to their view and will ostracize and shout down the only diversity worth having: the diversity of opinion.

For the same political left that can exclude white people from colleges and freely lecture people about "white privilege," it appears that white people have become an irritant merely for performing better than others. Their mere existence oppresses everyone else. The Jew, of course, being mostly white and performing even better than the general white gene pool, is just a greater irritant.

The criminality behind the crucifixion of James Watson, who at his age can no longer defend himself, is revealed by the evidence of the chart seen here.

Cause and Effect

While normalized bell curves have been corroborated by many studies, among white supremacists, the Jews are blamed for what reactionaries and radicals call "negative impact." They object to the universal Jewish commitment to and defense of human dignity, the civil and human rights of blacks, and other arguably oppressed groups. For the Jews' critics, the problem has always been the existence of Jews who outperform others. This animus extends to eminently successful Israel, too, a multiracial, multicultural state filled with Jews whose performance is legendary. I.Q. inequality as well as income inequality in many parts of the world is blamed on the Jews, who have little to do with either. The problem has always been Jewish I.Q. and Jewish excellence, and that Jews participate in the free economies around the world, compete, and win. Add into this mix the chronic left-wing belief about winners and underdogs. True Believers are marinated in the noxious idea that one man's success is somehow responsible for another's failure, absence of reality-based thinking, and bad decisions throughout his life.

The highest race-based I.Q. is actually found in the Ashkenazi Jews  a whopping 117 average as measured in Israel and across the globe. They are followed by East Asians of China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan  107  followed by various countries of Caucasians, which range from 98 to 106 depending on the white population.

Jews make up one quarter percent (0.0025) of the global population while their intellectual output represents 25% of the global total.

Rather than focusing on Watson, what we might have genuine concern about is the global decline of average I.Q. brought about by population increases in third-world nations, the multicultural and diversity influx in developed nations, and the movement of these groups into Europe and the Americas. These factors lower the intellectual output per capita as well as the overall intelligence and wealth of those nations. (Note: Israel's numbers are depressed by 25-30% Arabs and Africans living in Israel. Hungary, a tiny nation with many universities and resistant to migrant influx, scores well, indeed!)

James Watson's assumptions are based on science, measurement, statistics, and hundreds of genetic and socioeconomic studies corroborating each other. All conclusions are linked to genetics, a science in which Watson is the pre-eminent scholar. Insofar as what has been proven about James Watson, racial hatred isn't evident.

Regardless of how people "feel" about race, human accomplishment, and integrity, third-world people didn't invent and develop the automobile, the steam locomotive, the combustion engine, jet aircraft, hypersonics, Google, the P.C., the iPhone, the internet, vacuum tubes and microchips, modern medicine, the x-ray machine, the MRI, the CTS, nuclear imaging, antibiotics and anti-cancer products, kidney transplants, eyeglasses and cataract surgery, the violin, the piano, every other instrument of the grand orchestra, digital communications, Nike and Adidas, high-end cuisine, or Hollywood and film, nor did they put men's footprint on the Moon's surface and a Tesla on a whimsical intergalactic journey. Europeans and Americans did.

In this light, it may be uncomfortable to admit it, but men and women of European, Christian, and Jewish ancestry have created western civilization as we know it. Intelligence and race had everything to do with it. And none of them in their pursuit of excellence resorted to whining about oppression, tribalism, identity politics based on their skin color, or calling others racist while doing it.

Science, art, culture, and medicine are painstakingly built up from research that proves or disproves the facts of nature  by testing and retesting.

All the above accomplishments are the result of science and technology, the sum of it innovated 97% by Europeans and Americans, many of Jewish descent.

James Watson happens to be a star among this distinguished group, and partially responsible are his genes.

Feelings of supremacy or superiority are a fatal infection in need of chlorination. They have to do with pathological low self-esteem, chronic insecurity, and the hatred of oneself. This goes for black, Asian, white, Hispanic, and Muslim supremacy.

James Watson has shown none of these characteristics and is a superior human being independent of what anyone thinks. He's superior because of his distinguished research, advanced thinking, commitment to excellence, and brilliant accomplishments.

Science must never be politicized, no matter how warm it gets next summer. The expulsion, censure, persecution, oppression, and harassment of James Watson for political-cultural reasons is a crime of unconscionable tyranny that must be pushed back. The attacks on Watson are the same kind of oppression that has targeted races and peoples for genocide.

Whatever you may think of James Watson as a human being, or of the importance of intelligence, science, and measurement for human existence and survival, the evidence is clear. There are substantial variations in human intelligence and accomplishment among races and peoples, and between groups of people. There are substantial differences in the intellectual output and potential for success among people, individuals, and groups. Accordingly, there will be substantial differences in the results.

High I.Q. and great accomplishment should be honored, nurtured, and celebrated, not ostracized, resented, and envied.

All of these words reaffirm the observations about intelligence and race correctly made by James Watson.
Last October 12, I related the persecution of University of Oklahoma law professor Brian McCall. I have never met or spoken with professor McCall, but he is, by all accounts, as close to a saint as any of us is likely to meet in our lifetime. This respected teacher and scholar was pressured into resigning from his position as associate dean for academic affairs.

Why? Not because he did anything wrong. He was deemed unworthy of holding an administrative position because he holds conservative views. I'm not the only person to reach that conclusion. The editorial board at the Oklahoman concluded "there's zero evidence McCall imposed his beliefs on others[.] ... McCall was targeted for being conservative and religiously devout."

Thereby hangs the tale of one professor  another O.U. professor and administrator, Dean Suzette Grillot. Last Dec. 18, Dean Grillot tweeted:

For me, distancing myself from those who are dishonest - who don't believe in social justice - who aren't empathetic. These are non-negotiable!! https://t.co/5XmW0LwDUS  Suzette Grillot (@suzettegrillot) December 19, 2018

Breathtaking. So much said and implied in so few words. I applaud Dean Grillot's brevity.

Before I go any farther with this, I should make a disclaimer. I have never met Dean Grillot and have no intention of questioning her integrity or impugning her professional competence. I'm sure she's a fine person and decent human being. This is about not her character, but what she wrote. When someone makes a public statement on Twitter, it's fair game to discuss and criticize that communication. What I write below is an interpretation of what Dean Grillot's tweet means and implies. It's my opinion.

Note how Dean Grillot linked the moral qualities of honesty and empathy with belief in social justice. The implication is that if you do not believe in social justice, it's not because you have a different viewpoint or different political orientation. It's because you are dishonest and cannot show empathy. Simply put, you're a bad person. Or, as Hillary Clinton put it so elegantly, you're "deplorable," and "irredeemable."

Think about the literal implications of those words. If a person is truly irredeemable, there is no point in talking to him. Bad people have to be marginalized and silenced. There is no point in engaging them with the hope of changing their minds. Deplorables must be gotten rid of. They must be driven off campus and out of our entire society. It's not hyperbole to state that this is the type of thinking that leads to genocide. Indeed, leftists regard intolerance of conservatives as a measure of their virtue. Thus, we have Dean Grillot's use of two exclamation marks. She's boasting of her virtue.

What, exactly, is "social justice," anyway? When Plato wrote the Republic in the fourth century B.C., he demonstrated that it's impossible to derive any objective definition of justice. Everyone defines justice as what he perceive to be his own self-interest. This is exactly why the political left loves this term: it's intellectually vacuous. Reduced to its simplest terms, leftism is nothing more than the desire to obtain something for nothing. Call it what you will  socialism, communism, or social justice  it always amounts to taking away other people's property and freedom. Leftists can't admit that what they really want is to hit people over the head with a club and steal their stuff, so they conceal their intentions with ambiguous euphemisms like "social justice."

Here, in Dean Grillot's little tweet that says so much, we have a sterling example of political correctness. According to President Trump, political correctness "is killing our country." But what is "political correctness"? It has always been the case that everyone who holds political convictions believes them to be correct. That's not political correctness. Political correctness is when a person's individual political views come to override every other social norm, including civility, ethics, and the rule of law. For the politically correct, leftist ideologies are a religion that guides their lives and informs their actions. Thus, the ethical duty of a scholar to engage with people who have different beliefs is outweighed by the religious conviction that these people must be marginalized.

You might think an academic dean at a public university, of all people, would have a duty to engage and treat with people from a variety of different backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs. Ironically, last April, Dean Grillot spearheaded a faculty letter to the University president, James Gallogly, lecturing him as to how "diversity" and "inclusion" are "critical to the OU community." But professed campus values of "inclusion" and "diversity" have always been a fraud. The only people who are worthy of inclusion are those who either have a shared belief in leftist ideology or are members of ethnic groups counted in identity politics. Inclusion means exclusion, and diversity means uniformity.

If Dean Grillot's tweet expressed not her professional policy as an administrator at a public university, but her personal convictions, then I support her right to express her views. I support her right to hold and express any viewpoint protected by the First Amendment, no matter how extreme or offensive.

But here's the thing. The University of Oklahoma conducted a secret investigation of Professor McCall and found no evidence that he ever let his personal viewpoints influence his professional duties. Yet Professor McCall's religious and political convictions were deemed incompatible with his holding an administrative position at the University of Oklahoma. This raises the question: if Professor McCall's personal convictions were pertinent to his administrative duties, does the same standard apply to Dean Grillot? The University of Oklahoma "does not discriminate on the basis of ... political beliefs." If a person not only admits, but boasts of discriminating on that very basis, can that person continue to serve as an administrator? Where is the justice in this tale of two professors?

Dr. Deming is professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma.
NEW YORK (AP)  The Associated Press said Tuesday it will no longer run the names of people charged with minor crimes, out of concern that such stories can have a long, damaging afterlife on the internet that can make it hard for individuals to move on with their lives.
DC synagogue wheeled to new site for the third time
There are only a few dozen Maui dolphins left and experts hope the development of new technologies can help save them.
Putin received a heros welcome in Belgrade on Thursday, but Vucic was still the biggest winner of the day.

Russias President Vladimir Putin may be losing his mojo at home, but there is surely one country where his star continues to shine as brightly as ever: Serbia.

Putin, you Serb, Serbia is with you, chanted fans in March 2011 as the then Russian prime minister entered Little Marakana stadium to watch Red Star Belgrade play Zenith, an outfit from his hometown of St Petersburg.

Three and a half years later, in October 2014, Putin attended as a guest of honour a military parade marking the 70th anniversary of Belgrades liberation from Nazi occupation with the help of Soviet troops.

Now he is back in Serbia once again, and he is as popular as he was over four years ago.

On January 17, a crowd of 100,000 from across Serbia cheered for the arrival of a dear friend and ally in downtown Belgrade. Brother Putin, save the Serbian people and the land of the Serbs, read one placard. The crowds grew ecstatic as the two heads of state entered the neo-Byzantine Saint Sava cathedral, restored with a Russian grant. With 7,000 police on patrol and the Belgrade traffic blocked, it was a day to remember.

The welcome Putin received in Belgrade signals that Russia still wields influence in the Balkans even though it experienced a series of setbacks in the region in the past two years.

Montenegro, an old-time friend of Moscow, joined NATO in June 2017. Russias objections and disruptive tactics, including an alleged foiled plot backed by the Russian military intelligence to overthrow the Montenegrin government, could not stop the alliances expansion into the Balkans.

And today, the newly renamed Republic of North Macedonia has a realistic chance of joining NATO too. The pro-Western coalition in Skopje succeeded in changing the countrys constitution to ratify the compromise deal signed with Greece, which allowed the long-standing Macedonian name issue to be resolved. Having survived a no-confidence vote, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has the parliamentary support to ratify the Prespa Agreement and win approval for North Macedonias accession to NATO.

To be sure, Russias security is not under threat. Montenegro and North Macedonia lie far away from Russias borders. But in this era of zero-sum politics, any gain for the West is a loss for Moscow, albeit symbolic.

Thats why it matters that Serbia continues to nurture its ties to Russia. It is possibly the closest thing the Kremlin has to an ally in Europe beyond the post-Soviet space. Formally committed to a policy of neutrality, Belgrade benefits from a defence cooperation agreement with Moscow and receives military hardware from Russia. It refuses to join the Western sanctions, despite the ongoing membership talks with the European Union.

Serbias President Aleksandar Vucic and Putin are discussing the routing of TurkStream 2, a gas pipeline linking Russia and the EU, through Serbia. Gazprom is ready to invest $1.4bn in the venture, Putin declared at a press conference. A trade agreement between Belgrade and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is reportedly in the works, too. Most importantly, Putin is throwing his weight behind Serbia in the dispute over Kosovo. In Belgrade, he fired criticism at Kosovar Albanians for establishing an army, a violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 passed following the 1999 war. The West is destabilising the Balkans, Putin insists.

Moreover, Serbia is Russias gateway to former Yugoslavia. In Belgrade, Putin met Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the tripartite Bosnian presidency who is backed by Moscow in his effort to carve out a quasi-independent status for Republika Srpska, one of the two entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina. He had lunch with the leaders of Montenegros opposition Democratic Front, die-hard critics of NATO membership who are now prosecuted for links to the coup plot. Prior to the visit, Putin lashed out at the West for imposing a new name on Macedonia, echoing nationalist arguments in the country against compromise with Greece. By contrast, as Putin asserted, Russia would honour any solution to the Kosovo issue negotiated by Belgrade and Prishtina without outside interference.

But what is Putins endgame in the Balkans?

For all its emotional appeal in Serbia, Republika Srpska, Montenegro and further afield, Russia is neither willing nor able to establish its hegemony in this region. The EU is by far the most important economic player, accounting for two-thirds of the trade and the bulk of FDI flowing into the region. Outside energy, Moscows footprint is limited. Even the success of the TurkStream project hinges on the approval of the European Commission, which has the authority to rule on whether the venture conforms to the EUs competition rules. Locals are fully aware of that reality. Russia might be in our hearts, but our car navigation systems have Munich as a destination, Serbs quip. Turning to security, not only is NATO enlarging to ex-Yugoslavia but it also has troops on the ground, unlike Russia. The Kremlins best hope is to act as a spoiler and leverage its Balkan assets to obtain an advantage in the broader contest with the West.

The clear winner in all this appears to be President Vucic. Being awarded by Putin the Alexander Nevsky order, reserved for the likes of Belaruss Lukashenko and Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, boosts his domestic popularity.

The Serbian president has recently seen weeks of street demonstrations uniting citizens across the political spectrum, from liberals to the nationalist far right. What they are protesting is Serbias turning into a fiefdom where the president controls all branches of the state, the public sector and, of course, the media. Now, piggybacking on Putin, Vucic has rallied a crowd of his own. Thousands of his supporters were bussed from far-off corners across the country.

Russia also seems to be backing his plans to cut a deal with the Kosovar president Hashim Thaci, potentially based on a swap of territories. For Serbia, recognising Kosovo as a sovereign state would be painful. But it would also clear the most formidable hurdle to EU membership.

Anointed by Putin, Vucic comes across as a statesman and patriot, not a national traitor in the making. He made headlines when he presented the Russian leader with a shepherd dog. But the real gift was from Putin to Vucic.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Speaking Friday in Mobile, U.S. Sen Richard Shelby shared a few thoughts on development of the port, the proposed I-10 bridge, current federal government shutdown and the possibility that U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne might seek to join him in the Senate.

Shelby gave prominence to developments at the port, which perhaps was no surprise given the venue: A Chamber of Commerce "Forum Alabama" breakfast sponsored by the Alabama State Port Authority.

Shelby expressed unstinting support for a plan, currently being developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to widen and deepen the ship channel that permits big vessels to travel up Mobile Bay.

"Why is Mobile here?" he asked. "The port of Mobile is Mobile."

Shelby said the channel project "will be a lifetime change" for the area and might be the most important local development in a hundred years.

Shelby also expressed support for the I-10 bridge but didn't exude the same bullish confidence that it was going to happen. The challenge was securing the funding for such a big-ticket item, he said. "I'm pushing for it," he said, but "the bridge is going to have to come out of a massive infrastructure bill. We haven't gotten it."

On the shutdown, Shelby expressed pride that through a series of "minibus" bills, Congress had handled 75 percent of its appropriations before the impasse was struck.

Shelby said the problem as he sees it is that President Trump and congressional Democrats have been taking shots at each other rather than making any significant attempt at striking a compromise. Meanwhile, he said, unpaid federal employees are experiencing increasing hardship.

"These are innocent people," he said. "They deserve better than that. We deserve better than that."

I do believe the president is right on protecting the border, he said. How do you get there, I dont know.

Shelby said he thought there was some room to negotiate of whether protecting the border meant "a wall, a fence, a barrier, or just border security." "I tell people it's going to end in some kind of negotiations," he said.

Looking ahead to 2020, Shelby put a friendly spotlight on Byrne, who was in the audience. "Rumor has it," he said, that Byrne would be a contender for the seat long held by Republican Jeff Sessions and captured by Democrat Doug Jones in a 2017 special election.

"I like Doug Jones fine," said Shelby. But he said that as a Republican, he wanted to see another member of his own party in the seat.

Shelbys remarks fell short of a formal endorsement, and Byrne didnt take the opportunity to address the crowd about his rumored run. But Shelbys friendly mention drew an equally friendly round of applause from the audience of area business leaders.
A steady stream of mourners filed into a flower-filled chapel Friday to pay their respects to a Birmingham police officer shot and killed in the line of duty five days ago.

Sgt. Wytasha Wyt Carter, a 44-year-old husband, father of two and youth pastor, was being remembered as an amazing man of God, and for his loyalty, devotion and impressive work ethic as a public servant.

The visitation at Ridouts Trussville Chapel began at noon and within just several hours, hundreds had already been to the chapel. There were officers from many Alabama law enforcement agencies and as far away as New York City. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith and Alabama Attorney General Steven Marshall were also in attendance.

Marshall met privately with Carters family Friday and earlier this week led the crowd in a moment of silence for Carter at the inaugural ceremony for state officials.

I think it was important for us on Monday to be able to take that moment of silence at the inauguration to be able to honor what is obviously a man who has served with distinction and bravery, Marshall said outside the visitation. Any time we lose an officer in the line of duty, its a great loss for the family specifically but also the community and the state as a whole.

I felt it was important for me to be here today to honor the sergeants memory and to also reaffirm to the family how important he was to the community, Marshall said. I lost a police chief when I was DA and it was the worst day of my professional life. These days are very personal for me.

Carter was killed early Jan. 13, when he and others were working a special detail targeting car break-ins in downtown Birmingham.

The shooting happened about 2 a.m. Sunday. An undercover officer spotted at least two suspects who appeared to be trying door handles to see if they were locked in the 900 block of Fifth Avenue North outside the 4 Seasons Bar and Grill. The officer called for backup, and the sergeant arrived.

The officer and the sergeant approached two suspects. "The officers approached one suspect and patted him down where they found what they believed to be a weapon,'' said Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith. They asked him about it, he armed himself and fired upon our officers.

"What I can tell you is it appears our officers were unable to respond,'' the chief said. They were taken completely by surprise. We cant go into great detail because we are still in the infancy stage of the investigation.

Another officer returned fire and struck the suspect who was seriously injured.

Carter, the second officer  who has been on the force just under two years  and a suspect were rushed to UAB Hospitals Trauma Center by Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service. Both of them were shot in very critical areas,'' the chief said of the officers.

Carter, shot in the head, was pronounced dead at the hospital. Authorities have not released the name of the surviving, but critically-wounded, officer but said he continues to recover.

The hospitalized suspect is 31 years old. Authorities have not released his name or condition. The second suspect, an 18-year-old who was handcuffed, at the scene, was released from the Jefferson County Jail Monday night without being charged with any crime.

Investigators continue their search for one more possible suspect. The probe is ongoing by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys State Bureau of Investigation and any charges brought against a suspect or suspects are expected to be filed by SBI, not Birmingham police.

Carter was raised in Birmingham and graduated from Phillips High School in 1993. In 1996, he joined the U.S. Air Force and, after basic training, was stationed in Nebraska. He met his wife of 21 years, Tiphanie Carter, while in the military.

Carter joined the Birmingham Police Department on July 18, 2011. Prior to joining the force, he had previously worked as a corrections officer at the Douglas county Sheriffs Department in Omaha, as a corrections officer at the Shelby County Sheriffs Office, and as a police officer in Leeds and in Fairfield.

While at BPD, Carter worked various assignments including patrol at the citys West Precinct, HICOPP and Youth Services as a school resource officer. He was promoted to the rank of sergeant 11 months ago.

He was always willing to go the extra mile. He was the ultimate profession and public servant, said former Fairfield Police Chief Leon Davis. Even more importantly, Davis said, he was a great man and humanitarian.

Friends cried, hugged and prayed for each others safety Friday. One citizen stood vigil outside the chapel Friday silently holding an American flag. Another citizen, Justin Rubin, circled the parking lot in his pickup truck that displayed two police-themed flags  one with a thin, blue, line  to honor Carter. I actually knew him when he worked at Leeds, said Rubin, owner of Just-In-Time Towing and Recovery in Moody. Its just tragic. Its a sad deal all the way around.

Carter is the 52nd Birmingham police officer killed in the line of duty. The last line-of-duty deaths happened in 2004. His funeral is set 11 a.m. Saturday at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complexs Legacy Arena.

More than 100 vehicles from at least 50 law enforcement agencies will take part in the procession which will begin in Trussville and end in Birmingham. The route is: Interstate 459 northbound to Interstate 59 southbound to 31st Street North, to Eighth Avenue North to 19th Street North and end at the arena on 10th Avenue North where Carters patrol vehicle will be parked.

Line up for the procession will begin at 9:15 a.m. at the Pinnacle Square Shopping Center and department at 9:45 a.m. Police expect the procession to take 45 minutes. Honor Guards from about three dozen law enforcement agencies will also take part in Saturdays service.

The week has been tough but between today and tomorrow will be some of the toughest that our officers have lived through in their law enforcement career, said Birmingham police Sgt. Heath Boackle, president of the states largest Fraternal Order of Police.

Boackle said hes been in touch with just about every officer that was with Carter when the shooting happened, and in the moments after. Theyre having a very difficult time, and this will open it all back up again as they continue this grieving process, he said. Theyve got to get through it and theyve been doing an excellent job, but its just a very tough time for the officers and the police department right now.
As contractors prepare to close Interstate 59/20 in downtown Birmingham for an estimated 14 months, the Alabama Department of Transportation has rolled out a new text message alert system to provide updates to the public on the construction.

ALDOT will be using the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agencys Nixle alert system to provide motorists with traffic advisories, detour route information, and other project information.

Those interested in receiving text message updates can text 5920BRIDGE to the number 888777. Users will be asked to enter their zip code to provide updates most relevant to them. There is no charge for this service, though text message and data rates may apply.

Full coverage: I-59/20 rebuilding project

The closure is part of a $475 million project to rebuild the aging interstate bridges running through downtown Birmingham, also making them wider and higher along the stretch that runs between the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex and the rest of the Central Business District downtown.

The ramps connecting I-59/20 Southbound with the Red Mountain Expressway are scheduled to close tonight, with the full closure of I-59/20 planned to begin 9 p.m. Monday. The ramp from the Red Mountain Expressway to I-59/20 South will be demolished and its replacement will not open until the interstate reopens.

The ramp from I-59/20 South to the southbound Red Mountain Expressway is expected to reopen before the main closure begins, and will be one of the final exits for south- or west-bound traffic before the closure.

Detour routes have been announced and will be posted along the roadway, directing traffic north to Finley Boulevard, or south to 3rd or 4th Avenue South to cross the city from east to west. All drivers going through Birmingham are urged to use I-459 as a bypass during the construction.
Alabamas third largest school system could be looking at cuts soon to offset what officials believe will be a $7 million hit this year to support the formation of the Gulf Shores city school district.

Baldwin County Schools officials, during a news conference Thursday in Robertsdale, characterized the separation agreement issued Wednesday by State Schools Superintendent Eric Mackey as concerning."

I cannot express enough the negative impact this will have on Baldwin County families and taxpayers, Superintendent Eddie Tyler said.

His comments focused on a 19-page decision Mackey sent to both Tyler and Gulf Shores Schools Superintendent Matt Akin that detailed issues relating to the split of Gulf Shores from Baldwin County.

Kevin Corcoran, president of the Gulf Shores city school board, said Baldwin County school officials were misinterpreting the agreement. He accused county officials of not considering payroll expenses, which the county will no longer be obligated to pay once the city school district officially starts June 1

We believe that when they have a reduction of revenue, they will have a reduction in expenses, he said. I dont think we are that far apart.

The differing reactions to Mackeys decision was illustrated at two board meetings almost at the same time on Thursday night.

In Gulf Shores, Corcoran and Akin both signed Mackeys decision and posed for pictures with the rest of the Gulf Shores city school board. The pictures were quickly posted on the Gulf Shores city website.

In Bay Minette, it was a different mood during the Baldwin County School Board meeting, where members opted not to sign the decision and authorized Tyler and his team to pursue legal action if needed.

We hope it doesnt come to that, said Corcoran.

Mackeys agreement specified that both school boards were to have signed the agreement by Friday. Also, all undetermined decisions by parents on where they were sending their children to school next year, were to be made by Feb. 1.

Don Beebe, a Mobile attorney representing Baldwin County schools in the split negotiations, said he anticipates a lawsuit filed challenging Mackey on whether he has the authority to divide Baldwin Countys foundation program allocations and distribute portions to Gulf Shores.

But Beebe said the legal dispute should not prevent the June 1 breakaway from occurring.

The court action is for the courts to determine what is the law, pure and simple, said Beebe. We will seek relief from the courts.

For Baldwin County officials, the biggest concern with Mackeys decision revolved round a payroll obligation they say is a requirement that they their own portion of the 12-month foundation program money to Gulf Shores at a time when the Gulf Shores city school district does not have any students.

The state superintendent has made a decision that has never been done in the history of Alabama to prorate to Gulf Shores, said John Wilson, CFO with the Baldwin County School System.

Mackey was not readily available for comment on Thursday. His spokesman indicated that the state superintendent plans to release a statement Friday, or provide comments to the media.

The biggest complaint by Baldwin County School officials focused on a section in the decision that gives the Department of Education authority to divide the Foundation program allocation from Baldwin County, and assign and distributed to the (Gulf Shores school board) its pro rata share of Foundation program funds based on fiscal year 2020 calculations. The decision is in effect from June to September 2019. The school systems fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.

Wilson said the $7 million  which is not spelled out in Mackeys decision  comes from $4 million that is based on state funds for the current school year. In addition, Wilson said $3 million will be the impact on sales tax obligations.

There are other nuances we are still analyzing that will exceed the $7 million mark, Wilson said.

He added, Weve done a lot of hard work in the county to get where we are. A hit of this nature, in the middle of the funding year, when teachers have been hired and when the construction contracts are rewarded, its very concerning.

Corcoran said his interpretation of the agreement is that Baldwin County will lose $4 million in expenses, and promised that there was no consideration to give teachers double pay.

The decision from Mackey states that the county will continue to pay for the salaries and benefits of the Gulf Shores employees through the end of the 2018-2019 school year. County officials interpret that decision to mean that county taxpayers will be paying for the Gulf Shores salaries for June, July and August -- or three months after the June 1 starting date.

We dont agree with their interpretation over how they read the separation agreement, said Corcoran. They dont act like they are losing expenses (with he loss of the Gulf Shores schools).

Baldwin County school officials had other concerns about other issues within the decision, including the timing of payments on nearly $10.1 million in debt obligations that Gulf Shores will assume from Baldwin County schools related to past school construction projects. According to county school officials, the two bond payments are due in June and December, and Gulf Shores wouldnt be obligated to make a payment on them until December.

Baldwin County politicians who were reached Thursday said they were still reviewing the decision.

Said state Senator Chris Elliot, R-Daphne: I am thoroughly reviewing the letter  I spoke to (Mackey) last night and I intend to speak to him more in the coming days. Its important to me that this split between the Baldwin County School System and the Gulf Shores school system is amicable and as fair as possible and is in the best interest of the children of both the municipality and the county school system.

Mackeys rulling comes just days after Baldwin County school officials broke ground on two construction projects  a $19.8 million new elementary school in the Belforest area of Daphne, and a $5.7 million project to expand Fairhope Intermediate School.

Those two projects could be limbo, school officials said. The county has other projects underway which are being paid for through a $60 million pay-as-you-go program the school system authorized in 2017.

Gulf Shores city officials, for the first time publicly, expressed displeasure over not having their school construction needs elevated to a higher priority within that program. In October 2017, the Gulf Shores City Council voted to support forming its own school system.

Negotiations for the split began in January 2018, but the early sessions were filled with distrust between Gulf Shores and Baldwin County. Both sides went to the state one month later requesting a mediation in the talks.

Ed Richardson, the former interim state school superintendent, was first charged with the matter in February, before Mackey took over when he became state superintendent in April.

Gulf Shores initially wanted to begin its new city school system starting at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year, but Richardson decided that the split should wait for another year.

We are very sorry Gulf Shores decided to leave us, Baldwin County School Board President Cecil Christenberry said. But we have the rest of the county and we have a responsibility to live up to.
This is an opinion column.

A disaster in the makings just a mess. Until it has a name.

It was just a bumbling burglary before Watergate became a thing. Robert Bentley was just a forgettable governor before he was The Luv Guv. Without the name Jack the Ripper, wed just have unsolved murders.

And face it. That nightmarish road project in Boston would just be construction if people hadnt dubbed it The Big Dig.

The right words make all the difference.

Birmingham, starting next week, will need some names. The busiest interstate section in Alabama  59/20 through downtown Birmingham  will close until at least 2020, dumping travelers off the interstate onto downtown streets. Its gonna be such a nightmare the mayor of Birmingham suggested businesses allow their employees flexible work hours.

Yikes. But it hasnt really sunk in. Partly because Alabamians have not yet been so stuck in traffic that they see Alabama Department of Transportation Director John Cooper as Beelzebub and the Birmingham city limits as the seventh level of Hell.

And partly  partly  because this stretch of kvetch doesnt have a name.

Im partial to a few ideas. The Birmingham Jam  or the Ham Jam  would make a good headline. I still think I-666 has a helluva ring to it.

I thought about GridMoloch, but figured that might be too obscure. The devils in the details, you know.

With all those cars coursing off the ramps and into the city, I considered the Big Dump, the Uptown Drown, or the Lost Highway, but Im not sold on any of that . I thought of Carterial Thrombosis, but that describes anticipated congestion more than the project itself.

Coopers Folly would do the trick, but mostly it makes me wonder why we never, during the Jefferson County sewer scandal which led to the then-largest municipal bankruptcy in history, named that crisis Sewers Folly. It was right there. A missed opportunity.

Some have actually suggested calling the highway rebuild that. Not Sewers Folly, but Missed Opportunity.

The folks at Al.coms Reckon solicited names from staff and readers this week, and picked up some worthy ideas.

My kid Ramsey Archibald suggested A Nightmare on Every Street, which is good. But its better as a joke than a name.

Some suggested acronyms. Reader Steve Jones came up with I-20/59 SEWN. (South east, west, north) Shut.

Tom Wyatt brought the heat with "The Arkadelphia Road Municipal Project for Interminable Traffic, or ARMPIT for short.

That, he said, had the added benefit of allowing traffic reporters to broadcast directly from the citys ARMPIT during the hairiest of traffic problems.

Wyatt, a prolific namer, also suggested The Atlanta Rush Hour Simulator and The Road Rage Incubator.

Truth is its hard to beat the name for the interstate connection now, the iconic Malfunction Junction. A few people played off that.

Kenn Alan suggests Bowel-function Injunction, which sounds like crap to me. But I guess thats the point. Bino Handley put it on its creators with The ALDOT Malfunction, and Bill Harris gave us evolution to Dysfunction Junction.

It feels like were close, but not quite there yet. So help. Help.

Some have invoked Californias Carmageddon, but thats been taken. Weve heard the Asphalt Bungle, the Big Hurt and Greg Garrisons Corridor Chaos.

A couple have simply the Big Mess, the Hot Mess or simply The Mess. Thats a bunch of mess.

Weve heard Camp on the Ramp and a Bridge too Far. Maybe Brenda Worden had it right when she gave the one-word answer: Hell.

I dont know, though. Ive heard that one has been taken.

Complete coverage: I59/20

John Archibald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a columnist for Reckon by AL.com. His column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com.
Several recent catches by fishermen suggest something unusual is happening along the Alabama coast, namely the tropicalization or our waters.

As soon as I saw it roll on top of the water, I told Lyons, that aint a trout, said Thomas Nelson, describing the day he and Lyons Bousson reeled in what is believed to be the first snook ever caught in Alabamas Weeks Bay. Similarly, folks fishing with surf fishing guide Matthew Isbell, better known as the Bama Beach Bum, caught a pair of tiny bonefish this fall, believed to be the first ever caught in Alabama.

Both snook and bonefish are tropical fish, common in the Caribbean and Florida Keys. A sighting in Alabama waters is a rare thing indeed. So rare there is no state record for either species because no one has ever turned either one in to be weighed by state officials.

While the phrase sounds like vacation ad sizzle, tropicalization refers to plants and animals typical of warmer climates expanding their home ranges northward as global temperatures rise. The phenomenon likely explains the snook and bonefish showing up on the Alabama coast, as well as several snook caught this fall in South Carolina on the Atlantic Coast. It also explains the presence of several other tropical species, including mangrove snapper, lane snapper and emerald parrotfish, which are now year-round residents of the northern Gulf.

While it is fun to catch new species, scientists caution that a warming Gulf of Mexico could ultimately mean fewer and smaller speckled trout and redfish in Mobile Bay. Already, newly arrived tropical species are poised to dramatically alter the coastal environment, they say.

Some ecosystem changes are already becoming apparent, said Ken Heck, a senior scientist emeritus at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. Heck has published a number of scientific papers on the phenomenon.

Ive been doing this long enough and Ive seen a real change. Ive seen this happen in my lifetime. Fishermen whove been around are starting to see somethings theyve never seen before, Heck said. For me, as a scientist, its really cool. Its nothing bad, its natural. Its one of those things that is happening. Except for the warming. Thats not natural, but it is happening One of the things I think is going to be most interesting is the changing habitat. We are going to see a lot less seagrass habitat. That is going to hurt redfish and speckled trout and we will see fewer making it to adult size.

One of the emerging themes in his research is that the influx of new tropical fish species, along with resurgent populations of green turtles, may begin to dramatically alter the traditional seagrass meadow habitat typical of northern Gulf Coast estuaries, making the grass less useful as a nursery area for popular gamefish such as redfish and speckled trout. Likewise, the northward march of black mangrove trees from south Florida may displace our super productive salt marshes with another habitat type less nurturing to juvenile fish, crabs and shrimp.

A new study published this week in the journal Science shows that the oceans are becoming warmer year after year, suggesting tropicalization will continue apace. In fact, on a global scale, 2016, 2017 and 2018 each ranked as the warmest year ever recorded for ocean temperatures, according to the studys authors. The scientists predict that the oceans will continue to warm year over year as they absorb more and more of the heat generated from the greenhouse gases we pump into the atmosphere from cars, factories and homes.

With that warming, suggest Heck and most other scientists, will come a steady shift in where many creatures are able to survive.

Students in Hecks lab have been conducting extensive sampling of grass beds from Louisiana to Floridas Port St. Joe for decades. The data set theyve built is one of the longest of its kind along the U.S. coast, and it has become increasingly powerful for showing trends among the fish populations in the nearshore environment.

Ultimately, one of Hecks papers on the tropicalization of the Gulf Coast concluded that if current trends continue, submerged grass beds will have a greatly reduced nursery role that will result in much smaller adult populations of those finfish and shellfish species that rely on seagrasses as nurseries.

That would be a dire development. It is hard to overstate the importance of those grass beds to the coastal ecosystem. Almost everything that you can catch in Alabama state waters spends part of its life cycle in those grass beds, from gamefish like trout and cobia, to shrimp and blue crabs. The grasses provide both shelter from large predators and a place for young gamefish to do some hunting of their own, snacking on a smorgasbord of creatures that prowl the grasses, including seahorses, worms, shrimp, eels and dozens of species of small fish, such as mojarra.

The Gulf Coast, and Mobile Bay specifically, have already lost more than 50 percent of the grass beds that were present 100 years ago, due mostly to development and degraded water quality. Losing more grass beds to any cause could have dire consequences for the coastal food web.

One of the most unexpected changes seen in Hecks sampling is tied to the resurgence of the green turtle, once one of the Gulfs most common sea turtles. Green turtles eat seagrasses. They had been hunted to near extinction, mostly because people liked to eat them. When I recounted Hecks research to my father, whose parents owned Raines Cottages, a motel on the beach in Panama City from the 1950s to the 1980s, he recalled that green turtle was one of the signature items on the menu at a hotel on Cedar Key in his youth. They served it lightly fried, like veal, he said. He described it as good, but a little tough.

Today, thanks to a prohibition on serving sea turtles in restaurants, and the advent of turtle excluder devices on shrimp trawls, the greenies are making a comeback.

We are seeing a lot more turtles, and Alabama Marine Resources have caught a number of green turtles in their surveys. They eat grass. Where they are abundant, we are seeing the grass beds look like a mowed lawn, Heck said. In terms of a nursery habitat, its use is really reduced. But we are thinking that historically, when you had a lot of turtles, manatees and parrot fish, thats probably what things looked like. It probably wasnt as productive as what we are experiencing today with the grass habitat. We have a study funded by the National Science Foundation in St. Joe Bay that is looking at what is happening as these turtles are transitioning these lush meadows into a mowed lawn kind of thing.

Heck said the snook and bonefish caught in Alabama this fall, which were all juveniles, likely arrived here as larval fish, or could have been pushed to the northern Gulf by storm events this summer. Describing them as stragglers, he said this area would be at the lower extreme of their temperature tolerance. Their native waters around south Florida seldom dip much below about 67 degrees, no matter how cold the winter. In Alabama, it is not uncommon for the Gulf to drop into the upper 50s, and Mobile Bay can get even colder.

The question, then, is whether these tropical species will be able to survive through the coldest winter nights.

Some tropical species have already established themselves around Alabama, Heck said, notably mangrove snapper and lane snapper. Both species have become well represented in Hecks data set in recent years, though they seldom appeared 20 years ago.

Some of those tropical snappers are becoming much more common. Lane snapper, gray snapper (commonly known as mangrove snapper), those are now common around her, Heck said. Their numbers have gone up dramatically in our surveys. We find them a lot in grass beds. The juveniles are there, and so are the adults. My nephew catches a lot of those in the Theodore Industrial Canal.

Nelson, who caught the snook, said hed noticed the same thing. Nelson was born in 1951 and has fished the Alabama coast his entire life. He said he never saw mangrove snapper in the old days.

Didnt really used to see those. Now there are lots of them caught out of Big Lagoon and other places. Theyre here for sure, Nelson said.

Heck said that for the inshore tropical species, a winter cold snap, with temperatures in the 20s for a few days, can be enough to kill. That has served to slow their colonization of the Alabama coast.

That explains the survival of the tropical snapper year after year. Unlike the snook and bonefish, which are only caught in shallow waters close to shore, both lane snapper and mangrove snapper are equally at home far offshore in deeper water. Thats important because water temperatures offshore, especially at depth, are warmer year-round than the shallow water close to shore. Numerous species, such as flounder and mullet, regularly migrate offshore for the cold winter months. For most species that head to deep water, they begin their migration when water temperatures hit 68 degrees. Then in the spring, theyll reverse the migration and head into shore when coastal waters warm back up to 68 degrees.

Things are changing, Heck said. If you want to see massive amounts of mangroves, head to the Chandeleur Islands. Thats a big change. Some of them are 10 and 12 feet high, and have survived a number of winters. The Chandeleurs are only about 15 miles south of the Alabama coast. As the warming continues, theyll move north.

On the Chandeleurs and in other spots where black mangroves have moved in as their range expands with warmer winters, salt marsh habitat has been reduced.

We are seeing mangroves making it into salt marshes. They are outcompeting the Spartina (marsh grass). Instead of a Spartina habitat, we have a black mangrove habitat. Thats not good news for a lot of the things that live in salt marshes, Heck said. When you have that shift from salt marsh to mangroves, mangroves occur higher up in the intertidal zone (the area exposed during low tide). For small shrimp and fish, they have a shorter amount of time to hide in that habitat. They have to come out of the hiding place when the tide recedes in areas with mangroves.

Meanwhile, more of the things Heck and his coauthors predicted in a 2015 scientific paper are coming to pass.

Temperatures are rising in most temperate and polar environments, and a well-documented effect of this change is a poleward range shift by a wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic species, reads the abstract for the paper. In the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM), an increasing number of tropical species have recently become established among the extant warm-temperate fauna. These include a diversity of tropical fishes, manatees, green turtles, warm-water corals, and black mangroves. The impact of these species may be profound, primarily because temperate species are restricted from shifting northward by the North American land mass. Thus, as tropical species expand northward in the GOM, they must interact with the extant species and potentially compete for essential resources or become prey for each other.

On top of the general warming and associated migrations of plants and animals, Heck said wind and waves from Hurricane Michael this year also transported a lot of tropical creatures to the northern Gulf.

That storm brought a lot of water and a lot of tropical organisms up here. Whether they make it through the winter we will see. If we have some really cold winter nights, that might knock them out, Heck said. But if they hang on, I wouldnt be surprised to see people catch things next spring that they are really surprised to see.
With the partial shutdown of the federal government approaching one month, U.S. Sen. Doug Jones wants to hear from you.

Alabamas junior senator will be hosting a town hall Saturday in Huntsville, the city in the state thats felt the hardest punch from the shutdown.

Jones announced Thursday that the town hall will be held at the Charger Union theater at 4705 Holmes Avenue on the campus of the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Doors open at 2 p.m. and the town hall begins at 2:30.

Hey folks, Ill be holding a town hall meeting this Saturday afternoon in Huntsville, where so many federal workers in Alabama are located. I hope you can come out and join the conversation, Jones posted Thursday on Facebook.

In Alabama, there are 5,500 employees at federal agencies without funding and subject to the shutdown. About half work for NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, with 95 percent of employees at that agency having been furloughed.

U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby will be speaking in Huntsville at a breakfast as part of the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerces Washington Update. Click here to register.

AL.com reporter Lee Roop contributed to this report.
More than 100 officers and civilians gathered at Birmingham City Hall Thursday night to remember the life of Sgt. Wytasha Carter, who was killed in a shooting outside a Birmingham Club early Sunday morning.

Mourners held lit candles as April Hutchins led a prayer for the Carter family and the police department.

Hutchins is a member of Jefferson Women Behind the Badge, a group of Birmingham-area law enforcement officers spouses. The group organized Thursdays vigil.

Hutchins said Carters death served as a reminder to her that police, including her husband, risk their lives daily.

Every day, its a worry, she said. When I kiss him goodbye every day, it could be the last time I see him.

Erick Burpo, a former Birmingham police sergeant, shared about his experience working with Carter. Burpo said the two met working at Fairfield Police Department. He said he worked with Carter for around 15 years.

During his remarks, he encouraged Birmingham officers to stay strong through this time of mourning.

After being sad and angry about what happened, let's pick up where Sgt. Carter left off and put some work in," Burpo said.

Funeral services for Carter are set for 11 a.m. Saturday at Legacy Arena at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. The procession will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday. Lineup starts in the parking lot of the Pinnacle Square Shopping Center. Carters patrol vehicle will lead the procession.

Visitation will be held from noon to 6 p.m. Friday at Ridouts Trussville Chapel, 1500 Gadsden Highway.

Donations for Carters family and donations for the wounded officer can be made at any BancorpSouth location under the Fraternal Order of Police Fallen Officers Memorial Fund.

The shooting happened about 2 a.m. Sunday when officers were working a special detail dealing with a rash of car break-ins in that area. An undercover officer spotted at least two suspects who appeared to be trying door handles to see if they were locked in the 900 block of Fifth Avenue North outside the 4 Seasons Bar and Grill. The officer called for backup, and the sergeant arrived.

The officer and the sergeant approached two suspects. The officers patted down one of the suspects and found what they believed was a weapon, said Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith. After asking the suspect about the object, he fired shots at the officers.

"What I can tell you is it appears our officers were unable to respond,'' the chief said. They were taken completely by surprise. We cant go into great detail because we are still in the infancy stage of the investigation.

Carter, the second officer  who has been on the force just under two years  and a suspect were rushed to UAB Hospitals Trauma Center by Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Authorities have not released the name of the surviving, but critically-wounded, officer.

The hospitalized suspect is 31 years old. Authorities have not released his condition. The second suspect, an 18-year-old who was handcuffed, at the scene, was released from the Jefferson County Jail Monday night without being charged with any crime.

Investigators continue their search for one more possible suspect. The probe is ongoing by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys State Bureau of Investigation and any charges brought against a suspect or suspects are expected to be filed by SBI, not Birmingham police.
PayPal is providing up to $25 million in interest-free cash advances to federal workers who arent being paid during the government shutdown.

As we wait for our political leaders to find a path forward, there are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who are hurting and dont know when their next paycheck is coming. There are bills to be paid, groceries and gas to be bought, families to support. These needs grow more urgent with each passing day, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman wrote in a Friday op-ed in USA Today.

Schulman said PayPal is offering interest-free cash advances of up to $500 for any existing or new PayPal Credit customers who are federal workers.

We hope that this program can provide some relief and certainty in uncertain times, he wrote.

About 500,000 federal workers are currently on the job but without pay during the government shutdown that began Dec. 22. Another 300,000 are furloughed without pay.

The departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, State, Interior, Agriculture, Treasury, Commerce, Homeland Security and Justice, as well as several independent agencies, have sharply curtailed operations during the shutdown, which was brought about due to the impasse between President Trump and Congress over $5 billion in funding for a wall at the U.S./Mexico border.

The shutdown is the longest in U.S. history.
He never mention President Trump by name and the couple of jokes he made about losing his job as U.S. Attorney General were light-hearted.

But former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions nevertheless appeared to lob a couple of humorous remarks toward Trump during brief comments captured on video Monday at the inaugural reception for Alabama AG Steve Marshall.

Im really proud of Steve and the work that hes doing, Sessions said in the video. The office and team that hes building, the future that this office has, its a great office. Do the right thing every day, usually things will work out.

Sessions then raised his voice to a higher pitch and spoke a little softer into the microphone as if whispering a secret he wanted everyone to hear.

But not always, he said, looking around the room with a grin on his face.

The room immediately filled with laughter.

I told somebody, usually in the United States, when they fire you, they dont shoot you, Sessions continued. So you have a place to come back to and its good to have.

Sessions' jokes begin at about the 1:50 mark in the video.

Marshall tweeted the video late Thursday afternoon, describing Sessions  a former Alabama AG  as a hero of mine.

It was a real honor to have former Attorney General Jeff Sessions at my inaugural reception on Monday. He is a hero of mine, and the epitome of a happy warrior. Watch his full remarks here: https://t.co/t8eDKZrIzg. pic.twitter.com/fVM2UCNJy6  AG Steve Marshall (@AGSteveMarshall) January 17, 2019

Steve is going to do a great job in this most important office, Sessions said. He has tremendous responsibilities.

Marshall then replaced Sessions at the podium.

Yall, I know this boy has arrived when the greatest attorney general of my lifetime goes before me to speak, he said. Im very, very grateful. That fact that General Sessions took the time to be here today means the world to me personally. Not only was his leadership something that this country needed, it is his ethics and character that I admire.

Sessions, of course, was a constant target of criticism from Trump before submitting a resignation letter at the presidents request on Nov. 7, 2018  the day after the congressional midterm elections.

Sessions drew Trumps wrath after recusing himself from the investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election. Sessions stepped away from the case, he said, because he was a part of Trumps campaign.

Trump has said that he would not have nominated Sessions to be attorney general if he knew he would recuse himself from the case.

The venom perhaps reached its peak in a September 2018 interview when Trump said of Sessions, I dont have an attorney general.

Sessions said in a Fox News interview last year that he had no regrets about recusing himself, saying that he did the right thing.

Sessions has kept a low profile since leaving office and his appearance in Gov. Kay Iveys inaugural parade Monday in Montgomery was one of his first public appearances since returning to Alabama.
The Gov. Kay Ivey administration is considering two main approaches to a plan to build three new mens prisons  issue bonds to pay for construction or enter a lease agreement with private companies that build the prisons.

Ivey said during her inaugural address Monday that her administration would end decades of prison system neglect by replacing costly, at-risk facilities.

Bob Horton, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections, said today an analysis being done by Hoar Program Management, LLC, will help determine if the ADOC will pursue a bond issue or the build-lease option.

The Legislature rejected the bond issue approach under former Gov. Robert Bentley.

If the ADOC chooses the build-lease option, one or more private firms would build the prisons to state specifications and lease the prisons to the state, which would maintain operational control and management, Horton said. The process would involve competitive bids, Horton said.

Iveys press secretary, Daniel Sparkman, said the governor would announce her prison plan in the next couple of weeks. Sparkman said all options remain on the table.

The Ivey administrations approach has raised questions in the Legislature. In December, the Legislatures Contract Review Committee delayed the ADOC contract with Hoar Program Management, which is a $10 million addition to an earlier $1.5 million contract. The Contract Review Committee can delay contracts for up to 45 days but cannot block them, and the delay period on the Hoar Program Management contract ends later this month.

Rep. Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, one of the lawmakers who held up the contract, said questions remain.

England said hes concerned that if the Ivey administration chooses the build-lease option it could obligate the state for an expensive long-term lease more expensive than the Bentley prison plan that lawmakers rejected.

Bentley sought legislative approval of a plan to borrow $800 million to build four large prisons and close most existing ones. It received extensive debate and modifications in the Legislature in 2016 and 2017 but did not pass.

Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn told the Contract Review Committee in December that the new plan to build three prisons would cost more, close to $1 billion, partly because two years have already passed since lawmakers rejected the Bentley plan.

Were spending money to create a plan or help create a plan that weve already rejected, England said. Unfortunately, it was rejected when it gave us more prisons for less money. So now, the reiteration of this actually is less prisons for more money. Its amazing.

England questioned the fact that Tutwiler Prison, which is almost 80 years old, would not be replaced under the new plan.

Its the only womens prison we have, England said. Its one of the worst facilities. And I think that any plan that requires us to spend a billion dollars should at the very least deal with that.

Asked why Tutwiler wasnt part of the current plan, Horton said in an email: The current prison plan addresses the infrastructure revitalization needs of the men facilities that have a population of more than 18,000 inmates, less than 50 percent staffing, and higher operational cost. The ADOC recognizes the need for a modern womens prison that could be considered under a separate plan.

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, who has led prison and criminal justice reform efforts in the Legislature, said he would not oppose Ivey pursuing the build-lease option without legislative approval. He doubts the Legislature could agree on a plan to fund prison construction.

The issue in the Legislature is, every time we take it on we get to allowing politics to take precedence over where the facilities should go, Ward said. You have people say, I want one in my area, or, Dont close my prison, close this one over here.

And we have tried this and tried this and we have failed each time.

The plan under Bentley called for closing most existing prisons and using the savings from those closings to pay for the cost of the bond issue. Dunn told the Contract Review Committee in December that subsequent analysis has confirmed that savings from closing old facilities would pay for the cost of new ones, and thats part of the new plan.

Dunn, however, also told the committee that fixing the prison system would require more money. The prisons are filled beyond capacity and, as Horton noted in his statement, have less than half the needed security staff.

Ward said addressing the shortage of correctional officers is the second key component to fixing the prison system and said it would require more funding from the Legislature, probably about $40 million more a year.

The shortage of staff is a key issue in an ongoing federal lawsuit over mental health care for prisoners. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled in 2017 that mental health care was horrendously inadequate and failed to meet constitutional standards.

Since then, the state has been taking steps to respond to remedial orders issued by Thompson, including orders to hire more correctional staff and mental health staff.

What we committed to Judge Thompson was were going to do roughly 1,800 to 2,000 more officers, Ward said. Theres no way around hiring more officers.

England said the state needs new prison facilities but does not think the Ivey administration should proceed on such an expensive plan independently of the Legislature.

I think that is a perfect discussion that the public at large needs to be privy to and have a part of because I do think that new facilities need to be built," England said. And Im not talking about for the purposes of just incarcerating people. But more so because we need to reduce the size of the population but also make sure that their accommodations are at the very least constitutional."
Members of the United States Coast Guard who did not receive a paycheck Tuesday because of the government shutdown could be paid February 1st if a bill in Congress can make it to President Donald Trumps desk for approval.

Alabama U.S. House Representative Bradley Byrne told constituents at a Town Hall meeting in Mobile Friday morning a number of bills that aim to pay the Coast Guard have been submitted for consideration in the House and the Senate, including his own Always Ready Act.

My bill was introduced last week, but Senator Thune has a similar bill and I think the plan now is to go ahead and move very quickly to get Senator Thunes bill through Senate next week, then itll come to House, Byrne told AL.com. The White House, Im told, said that they will sign it which means I think itll move through the House very quickly.

Senator John Thune of South Dakota submitted his bill, known as the Pay Our Coast Guard Act, for consideration Jan. 3. Alabama Senator Doug Jones is an original co-sponsor of the bill.

In an email from Rep. Byrnes office, it was confirmed that Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Karl Schultz said he expected the President to sign the bill should it make it through the House. Its expected to pass through the Senate by unanimous consent, noted the email.

The Coast Guard, which consists of 90,000 personnel has not been paid since Dec. 31 after a dispute over funding for a wall on the southern border shut down the government. Civilian employees in the Coast Guard have not been paid since Dec. 17.

The Coast Guard is the only branch of the military still expected to work without being paid. The other four branches of the Armed Services are paid through the Department of Defense, which is already funded for the this year. The Coast Guard is paid by Department of Homeland Security, which is part of the broader budget dispute.

Failure to pay the 800,000 federal employees over the last 28 days of the shutdown has resulted in large community efforts around the country. In lower Alabama, food pantries are giving Coast Guard and federally-hired civilians groceries and other items to help them survive until the next paycheck comes in.

"If theres not another pay check come February 1st we have been told to anticipate an additional 400 Coast Guard families in desperate need, said Deann Servos, executive director and founder of the Prodisee Pantry in Baldwin County. And we currently see about 1200 families a month. That will make our numbers close to 1600 and take a chunk out of our three-month stockpiles.
Everything looked normal on Friday at the IHOP on Huntsvilles Memorial Parkway.

Servers rushed to booths of chatting customers, while bacon sizzled on the grill and cooks flipped dozens of pancakes.

But outside, at the back of the building, candles burned in a small memorial that served as a reminder of the deadly shooting that temporarily shuttered the restaurant less than 48 hours earlier.

Just stopped for lunch @IHOPs Memorial Parkway restaurant, where employee Roy Brown and another man were killed Wednesday night. Theres a memorial out back, and the community has been showing up to support the other employees. pic.twitter.com/q5jo7AoUap  Ashley Remkus (@aremkus1) January 18, 2019

Roy Brown, an employee of the restaurant, died late Wednesday when an apparently angry customer pulled out a gun and started firing. The shooting injured Browns son Jay, who was also working that night. Jay Brown then pulled out his own gun and fatally shot the customer, whom authorities identified as 25-year-old Roderick Turner.

The restaurant reopened Friday morning, and the dining room was bustling. Customers offered support and condolences to the workers.

Among the customers showing support for the family is Huntsville police officer James Andrews. He organized a GoFundMe.com account to raise money for the Brown family. The account raised nearly $3,000 of its $10,000 goal as of Friday afternoon.

Andrews, a third-shift officer, said he and his buddies eat at the IHOP about four or five nights per week. He said Roy Brown always made sure they got top-notch service.

He always took good care of us, Andrews said. He was real nice and went above and beyond.

Andrews said he doesnt know the Brown familys financial situation, but he wanted to do something to help.

The Brown family said they are grateful to the community for its support.

We are very thankful to everyone that has reached out to us and put us in their prayers, said Roy Browns wife, Rachel. She said her husband was a dedicated restaurant employee. All three of his sons worked with him at IHOP.

Roy was a good-hearted man, she said in a message to AL.com.

In a phone interview with AL.com, Roy Browns sister described him as a good, Christian man who loved his family and friends. Linda Simmons said her nephew is a hero for shooting back at Turner before anyone else could be hurt or killed.

Rachel Brown said she considers both her son and husband heroes. She said Roy Brown was trying to keep the situation under control Wednesday night, when, according to police, Turner got angry about the service he received at the restaurant and started shooting.

Police have said they dont plan to file criminal charges against Jay Brown, though the case will be presented to a grand jury for review. The grand jury will decide whether charges are warranted.
The driver charged in the church bus crash death of a young Huntsville missionary has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor vehicular homicide charge.

Jerry Sims was driving a bus carrying Mt. Zion church members to the airport in Atlanta when the deadly crash happened June 8, 2017. Sarah Harmening, a 17-year-old missionary, was killed. Harmening and the other church members were scheduled to fly to Africa for a youth group mission trip.

Sarah Harmening was killed in an Atlanta bus crash on June 8, 2017. The Huntsville teen was traveling to Africa with her church youth group.

Sims pleaded guilty today in Georgia to a misdemeanor charge of vehicular homicide and improper lane change. He was sentenced to 24 months probation and 120 hours of community service, court records show. The sentence was issued in Fulton County Court. Sims' attorney couldnt immediately be reached for comment.

The bus was traveling on Camp Creek Parkway when Sims changed lanes and hit another car, Fulton County police records show. Sims tried to swerve back into the other lane an lost control of the bus, a crash report said. The bus went into the median and flipped before colliding with another car, according to the report.

Sims was one of about 39 people injured in the crash. He was charged while he remained hospitalized.

As part of his plea deal, Sims is prohibited from driving commercial or high-occupancy vehicles, court records show. Hes required to go to defensive driving school and pay $1,320 in fees, records state. The order also prohibits any contact with the victims family, unless the Harmenings initiate it.
The apparent thaw in Damascus relations with the Arab world is more bad news for Turkey, which is already having a difficult time coping with the rapid change in the balance of power in Syria. If President Bashar al-Assad is welcomed back to the Arab fold, as many expect, it will be the final nail in the coffin of Ankaras Syria policy, which has been plagued with misjudgments, false assumptions and overambitious expectations from the start.

As countries like Sudan, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Tunisia line up to favor the normalization of ties with Syria  and many expect Saudi Arabia to join them eventually  Ankara could end up facing an anti-Turkish Arab bloc it never expected. Such a bloc could also complicate Turkeys plans to enter northern Syria to clear the town of Manbij and territories east of the Euphrates River from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), especially now that Damascus has declared its opposition to this incursion.

Turkey has problematic relations with almost if not all of the Arab countries listed above, most notably with the regions key players Egypt and Saudi Arabia. These countries have given no indication that they are less concerned about Turkish meddling in their affairs than they are about Iranian interference. Almost all of them abhor Turkeys support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which they believe poses an existential threat to their existing regimes, and have fought hard to roll back this group since the Arab Spring.

Some news portals that focus on the region are even citing unnamed Gulf officials as claiming that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Israel have been involved in secret talks about curbing Turkey. According to such accounts, these countries ultimately consider Turkey to be more of a threat because it is stronger than Iran.

It looks like former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglus dream of making Turkey the regions principal player  without whose consent a leaf could not move in the Middle East  is long over. Even before the Arab Spring Davutoglu believed that Turkey, under its democratically elected Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and popular leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan would become the Middle Easts main pace-setter because of its predominantly Muslim population, democratic system, thriving economy and strong military.

The return of a powerful country like Turkey to the Islamic world, following decades of estrangement from the regions devout masses because of its secular system, was believed to be sufficient to elevate Turkey to this historic position. Turks and Arabs united under Islam would walk hand in hand toward a bright future under Turkeys wise patronage.

This belief only got stronger after the Arab Spring, which Ankara believed would springboard the Muslim Brotherhood to power across the region in democratic elections in the same way that a majority of Turkish voters brought the AKP to power in 2002. When it came to Syria, as far as Davutoglu was concerned, Assads demise was only a matter of time  months if not weeks away, he once remarked  after which developments from Egypt to Tunisia would unfold according to Turkeys wishes.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. In the meantime, Davutoglu is out and Assad remains in place, stronger than ever, for reasons that Davutoglu, despite his claim of understanding regional dynamics better than most, failed to factor in.

The situation in the region today highlights just how much off the mark Ankara was regarding the social and political realities that govern the Middle East and how misguided Davutoglus assumptions were regarding Turkeys Ottoman past in the region. Blinded by its Islamist ambitions, Ankara failed to understand the significance of its historic baggage in the Arab world.

Davutoglu, who went on to become prime minister until being dismissed by Erdogan in May 2016, has since been discredited and  even in the eyes of many AKP supporters  is seen as responsible for the difficulties Ankara faces today in Syria. His scapegoating also deflects attention from Erdogan, without whose permission Davutoglu could not have enacted his policies.

Murat Ozcelik, Turkeys former special representative to Iraq (2007-2009) and subsequently ambassador in Baghdad (2009-2011), also believes that Assads re-admittance to the Arab states will be the clearest evidence of the collapse of the AKPs foreign policy.

It will also confirm the alienation that came as a result of a policy tinged with Ottomanism and that did not factor in Arab nationalism in any way, Ozcelik told Al-Monitor.

Ozcelik, an ardent critic of the AKPs Islamist-based foreign policy outlook, which he argues has done great damage to Turkeys interests, went on to highlight some of the other grave mistakes he says Ankara made.

If you turn your back on the seats of Arab nationalism like Saudi Arabia and Egypt in favor of a small country like Qatar, they are not likely to forget that, Ozcelik said. If you walk arm in arm with those who are trying to undermine the current regimes in countries like Saudi Arabia, they in turn will not want to work with you. He added wryly, It is no mean achievement for a government to be able to produce such an anti-Turkish bloc in such a short space of time.

Soli Ozel, a lecturer in international relations at Istanbuls Kadir Has University and a well-known foreign policy commentator, also believes that an anti-Turkish bloc is in the making in the Middle East. Turkey will encounter an Arab bloc in the region challenging its claims and aspirations, Ozel told Al-Monitor. Public opinion in the Arab world may favor Turkey, but this is not the case with existing regimes, he said.

As matters stand today, Erdogan and his government continue to champion the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates as well as what they consider to be the natural rights of the regions Islamic masses.

This stance, however, appears set to ensure more alienation for Turkey among Arab regimes that consider the Muslim Brotherhood their archenemy and have declared it a terrorist organization. Saudi Arabia and Egypt currently head the list of regional powers that oppose Turkey in this regard.

There is also the question of how these developments will affect Ankaras current plans for northern Syria, where it is working to set up a buffer zone against the YPG that will be controlled by the Turkish military.

Ozel said it is Russia more than Arab regimes that will determine the fate of this buffer zone. Things will, nevertheless, get more complicated for Ankara diplomatically as Arabs also make noise against it, he added.

Ozcelik had a different take, warning that if angered further, Arabs could turn the Kurdish card against Turkey. He said, The buffer zone Turkey wants in northern Syria might be something Arab regimes support because it will draw a formal line showing how far Turkey can go into Arab lands. Ozcelik added, Having the Kurds on the other side of this zone might also be good for them, because they can manage the Kurds, who will stand between Arab lands and Turkey.

Turkeys ultimate dilemma will, of course, be coping with Assad, who continues to consolidate his hold over power in ways Ankara never expected and who obviously has no love for Turkey.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in December that Turkey could accept Assad provided he is elected in democratic and internationally monitored elections. It appeared to be a breach in Erdogans uncompromising stand against Assad, based on his often repeated argument, There is not future for a killer of his people in Syria.

Assad knows, however, that he will never be elected in free elections, so he will ensure that he remains as Syrias strongman for as long as he can. He will have the backing of Arab regimes as well as Russia and  to the extent that that his ties with Sunni Arab regimes allow  Iran.

How Turkey will overcome such a hurdle is unclear. What is certain, though, is that none of the developments unfolding in Syria portend well for Turkeys regional ambitions.
Since President Donald Trumps decision Dec. 19 to pull US troops out of Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has intensified his rhetoric against some states that he accuses of supporting terrorist groups. Although Erdogan refrains from naming these states, most pro-government media have interpreted his words to mean the United States.

While US-bashing may be paying off as Turkey's municipal election campaign intensifies, Ankaras worries extend beyond US support for the Peoples Protection Units (YPG)  which Turkey considers a terrorist group  and other Kurdish militias in Syria. Indeed, Ankara is deeply concerned about its fast-approaching isolation after years of clumsy efforts to be a game-changer in the region. Ankaras rhetoric had presented Turkey as a main player in the region, and positioned it against Israel and Western powers.

Since Dec. 16, the Arab League has shown signs of re-embracing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Not only states in the Levant, but also Gulf states, are re-establishing relations with Damascus. In the first years of the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, Saudi Arabia and Turkey were on the same side in supporting the toppling of the Baathist government. For example, between 2014 and 2017, Saudi Arabia was the country Erdogan visited most often.

Currently, the mainstream Turkish press (which is heavily censored) is publishing reports criticizing the role of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in Syria. Most commentators refrain from directly criticizing Saudi Arabia's funding of Syrian reconstruction projects, or the Saudi-led boycott of Turkish goods. The Turkish-Saudi feud, which peaked with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, springs from multiple issues and is likely to worsen in the near future. But Turkish enmity in the region isn't limited to Gulf countries (though it has supported GCC-shunned Qatar), but also includes Egypt, Jordan and others. A senior Western diplomat in Ankara said, Turkey couldn't even sustain a limited free-trade agreement with Jordan. Its military agreements with Somalia and Qatar are on shaky ground at best. It's not possible to establish good relations with many Arab states if you are quarreling with Saudi Arabia.

The disappointment in Ankara is deeper than meets the eye. Establishing friendly relations with all Muslim countries, particularly those in the Middle East, and bonding with Sunni Arabs have been among Erdogans major foreign policy goals. It's been a tradition for Erdogan to greet several Arab cities during his election victory speeches. Through different agencies, such as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency and the Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet), governments under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have spent billions of dollars in different parts of the Arab world. But Erdogans policies of embracing Arab Muslims have utterly failed. In the words of a senior Turkish diplomat in Ankara, We lost the Middle East.

Erdogans New York Times op-ed Jan. 7 also signals that the Turkish government is having a difficult time adjusting to the fast-changing realities of the region.

Why did Turkeys relations with the Arab world go sour?

First, the governments efforts to establish friendly relations with Arab states have not found much support in Turkey. The uncontrolled influx of refugees, particularly from Syria, hasn't helped. In addition, the AKP governments alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party, also known as the Gray Wolves, has brought about a simultaneous rise in nationalistic fervor. Inadequate planning has made Syrian refugees' integration into Turkish society all the more difficult. Anti-Syrian racism is expected to grow along with deepening economic problems in Turkey.

Second, Ankara is concerned that the 4 million Syrian refugees in Turkey are possibly being influenced by radical Salafi ideologies. A theology professor from a university in Ankara who asked to remain anonymous told Al-Monitor, Diyanet has been trying to keep the Syrians in Syria in its orbit, but Syrians inside Turkey rarely attend Diyanet mosques. Some are attending established religious orders' ceremonies, but most are setting up their own religious establishments. Initially, the government thought, 'These are Sunni brothers,' but now there is desperation about how to control their activities. It's an open secret that Turkish intelligence doesn't have sufficient Arabic speakers to monitor their activities. If they fall under the influence of the Saudi version of Islam [strict Sunni Wahhabism], how can the government restrain them?

Ankara has to carefully handle its relations with the Arab world now that it hosts a sizable Arab diaspora that may not be willing or able to assimilate smoothly.

Next is the Turkish governments alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2011, Ankara celebrated Arab Spring uprisings and worked to see the Brotherhood gain more strength in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Syria. Since then, Turkey has been deeply disappointed. Erdogans reluctance to acknowledge the Assad regimes apparent victory after almost eight years is particularly telling. Erdogan hasn't, at least publicly, accepted the need to normalize relations with Damascus. Other regimes that have been adamantly anti-Assad have adjusted to the new reality, but not Erdogan. Now, the much-anticipated return of Syria to the Arab League will only make Turkish isolation more noticeable.

A retired general told Al-Monitor, The Erdogan and Assad families were friends vacationing together in 2008. ... Syria minimized its support for the PKK [the Kurdistan Workers Party, which Turkey considers a terrorist group]. We had waived visas [with Syria], increased trade and were conducting joint military exercises.

Indeed, in 2009-2010, Turkey and Syria even had joint ministerial meetings on a range of issues.

Then Erdogan single-handedly took a turn, siding with GCC states and positioning Turkey as the archenemy of the Assad regime," added the general. "Other countries have jumped off this boat and one way or another are trying to normalize their relations with Damascus. We are neighbors and still acting as if the Assad regime will end soon. Even [Erdogan's NYT op-ed] is written as if the Assad regime doesn't exist. This is a dangerous game for Turkey."

Turkey's failure to establish better relations with Arab countries is a strong blow to its soft-power dreams. Erdogans Rabia hand gesture, which he shows in support of the Arab Spring, was even shunned in Tunisia during his last visit, in December 2017. Yet Erdogan campaigns in Turkey with the sign, indicating he still can't accept the political changes. And as Erdogan continues to express his wishes to deepen relations with Qatar, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appears in the news struggling to mend bridges between the GCC and Qatar.

So far, there are no efforts to help Turkey improve relations with the Arab world. To make matters worse, news of increased communications between Israel and Gulf states is contributing to Turkeys deepening fears of isolation. For instance, an unverified article published Jan. 8 alleged that officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates met secretly last month with Israeli Mossad Director Yossi Cohen. The Middle East Eye story, citing undisclosed sources, said the officials discussed how to "welcome [Assad] back into the Arab League to marginalize the regional influence of Turkey and Iran."

For decades, Turkish Islamists have blamed the secular establishment for being too timid to establish better relations with the Arab world. For example, Turkey's presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, acknowledged in 2017 that for years the republic has fostered enmity toward Arabs. Kalin said that, in turn, the Arab world harbors anti-Turkish sentiment. However, neither Kalin nor others in Erdogans 16 years in national government have come up with effective solutions to these bitter perceptions.

So have AKPs efforts made Turkeys place in the Arab world any better today? Looking at Ankaras nervousness about the YPG and other Kurdish militias in Syria, it's difficult to appreciate the AKPs efforts as effective or even promising. Even the talk of gradual US withdrawal from Syria was sufficient to reveal the long-brewing anti-Turkey anger in the region. Can Erdogan survive his shrinking neo-Ottoman dreams? This is the question now being put on the table by Ankara suits.

Correction: Jan. 18, 2019. An earlier version of this article referenced Turkey's military arrangements with Sudan and Qatar, when in fact the intended arrangments were wtih Somalia and Qatar.
At the first presidential summit of defense industries convened in Ankara on Dec. 12-13, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he believes an increased injection of the private sector into the defense industry through privatization is a key to success.

One week after this statement, a new decree was signed by Erdogan that includes Turkey's Tank and Pallet Factory in the country's northwestern province of Sakarya in the scope of a 25-year privatization program. The program aims at an efficacious use of resources in the national defense industry and at raising the operational efficiency of the factory.

The aspect of the decree that was debated most was that the privatization law says the factory is a military facility and not a state economic enterprise. Thus, this privatization has become the first where a company leases a military facility in Turkey.

The Tank and Pallet Factory, established in 1975 and operated as a military unit attached to the Land Forces Command, manufactured purely indigenous equipment such as howitzers, ammunition carriers, day-and-night binoculars and tracks for tanks and other military carriers. The factory was also modernizing Leopard 1, 2 and other tanks.

So why was the factory leased to a private company?

Turkish news media had alleged some months ago that land and existing structures were made available free of charge to Ethem Sancak, a businessman very close to Erdogan; Sancak is a member of the Justice and Development Party Executive Council and heads the vehicle-making company BMC, which is partly owned by Qatar.

It was said that the provision of workshops and use of land to BMC even before the privatization was announced showed that it was a done deal.

The bids for mass production of the Altay, advertised as Turkeys main battle tank, and its power pack were won by BMC. The company said it would manufacture the tank in a factory it would build in Karasu, a town in Sakarya.

In August a series of super state incentives were granted to BMC  immunity from customs duties and value added taxes and an almost total exemption from corporate tax. But in October, the construction of the Karasu factory ceased. Now we are told that under this privatization deal, the Altay tank will be produced in the military factory that will be privatized instead of in a factory built from scratch.

BMC is one of the fastest-growing private defense firms. In 2014, when the factory was offered for sale, only Sancak participated in the auction held by the government's Savings Deposit Insurance Fund. BMC had been placed under the care of the fund after the company's former owner went into bankruptcy. When Sancak became the owner of BMC by paying around $300 million, the word on the street was that just the land the company owned was worth twice that amount.

Later Qatar bought into the company; it is not known how much Qatar paid for its shares. In 2016, the German Rheinmetall and Malaysia RBSS companies also became shareholders.

Although there were reports that Rheinmetall would actively participate in the production of the Altay tank by supplying its power pack, the German parliament has yet to approve this.

The national main battle tank Altay is to replace the German Leopard series and the US M-60 that are currently in Turkeys inventory. Altay, which has attracted attention with its survival capability, mobility and high firepower, has performed well in tough all-weather and all-terrain tests. Plans call for 250 Altay tanks to be produced for the Turkish army, with a first batch of 40. Other tanks would be built for export.

According to defense industry experts in Ankara, the economic size of the project, spread over more than 20 years, is expected to reach $25 billion to $30 billion.

Exactly how much BMC will be paid, and how much it will pay to lease the tank factory, is not known.

There has been growing negative reaction to the privatization of the military factory from opposition political parties and Turk Harb-Is, the labor union factory workers belong to.

While many of the 1,000 or so factory workers fear that the privatization could lead to job losses or to a change in their working conditions, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said the rights of the workers wont be affected. The minister, accompanied by Chief of General Staff Yasar Guler and Land Forces Commander Umit Dundar, visited the military factory Jan. 4 to try to tamp down the reactions to the privatization decision.

Akar said that the privatization will take place and that the decision did not mean the sale of the factory.

It means we are only transferring production rights. There is no sale. There is definitely no firing of personnel. Our goal is to increase the productivity of the plant, to upgrade its technology and enable it produce strategic goods. Our goal is to make use of domestic and foreign technological potential rapidly, Akar said.

He said the items produced at the factory will be sold to friendly and allied countries and will benefit from the dynamism and connections of the Turkish private sector. He said the first step will an investment of $40 million to $50 million for the modernization of the factory.

But despite all efforts, reactions against the privatization of the factory have not subsided. On Jan. 19, workers afraid of being fired plan to hold a mass protest in Sakarya. The Turk Harb-Is union has decided to resist the privatization decision.

But given the current conditions in Turkey, it seems likely that such protests would be quickly dispersed by security forces and that such actions would not be reported widely by the media, which mostly supports the government.

In a policy note, the Istanbul-based law firm HERDEM emphasized that that it is not proper to apply the Law on Privatization to this case because the proposed transition has to do with the facility management model, not privatization.

Turkey also plans to experiment with having a private company provide insurance of army assets following the privatization. The decree requires the finalization of privatization of the factory by the end of this year; it seems there are many issues that still have to be dealt with.

It now appears that political, social and legal arguments over the privatization of the Sakarya military tank factory will continue. The AKP government, which has been keen on privatization since 2002, now realizes that the country has resources that could provide serious revenue by attaching factories to the presidential palace. The military command has approved transfer of military defense industry facilities, and it is very likely that this unusual privatization will be followed by similar ventures.
For the first time in modern Turkeys 96-year history, a Christian minority is poised to begin construction of a new church with permission from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. As a result of the efforts of the Syriac community, a plot in Istanbuls Yesilkoy district has been allocated to the Virgin Mary Ancient Syriac Church Foundation in the city for the project. The excitement ahead of the groundbreaking in March, however, is mixed with gloom among Syriacs over ongoing grievances in their ancestral lands in Mardin in Turkeys southeast.

The church project reflects the century-old migration that scattered Syriacs across the world. Their exodus from Mardin began in 1915 after massacres under Ottoman rule and still continues today. Istanbul  the ancient home of Greeks, Armenians and Jews  is today also the home of a Syriac community that numbers about 18,000 people, according to Sait Susin, the head of the Virgin Mary Ancient Syriac Church Foundation.

In an interview with Al-Monitor, Susin explained how the need for a new church arose. We have countless churches in the southeast but only one in Istanbul, which is not enough, he said. We have been conducting services in the churches of fellow communities, but the rituals differ and problems arise over service times.

The effort to obtain a plot in Yesilkoy, where Istanbuls Syriacs are concentrated, began seven years ago, Susin said, adding that the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which is held by the AKP, has been helpful in expediting the process.

Yet the protracted process was not only due to red tape. The allocated plot had belonged to another Christian community. It lies inside the disused Latin Catholic Cemetery, where the last burial took place in 1950 before the place was seized by the state, like many other minority properties. After the treasury gave the plot to the Syriacs, discord arose between the Syriac and Catholic communities that was resolved in 2017 when Pope Francis stepped in and sanctioned the construction of a Syriac church.

Susin pledged the burial ground would remain intact. The graves will be preserved. There is also a small chapel on the site and we will renovate and preserve this chapel as well, he told Al-Monitor.

Turkeys only Syriac parliament member, Tuma Celik of the People's Democratic Party, questioned why the ground of a Christian cemetery had been allocated for the new church when dozens of other plots were available in the city. The church will be built on land previously usurped by the state. One could interpret this as a move by the government to offload a problem of its own on somebody else, Celik told Al-Monitor. Were the government sincere on this issue, it would have allocated one of the many treasury lands in the city. I would have respected that. But thats not the case. The government is seeking to get rid of a problem while making a gesture to the Syriacs.

According to Celik, that the construction of a new church is making news is in itself a sign of ongoing discrimination against non-Muslims in Turkey. We are a people who had been living in these lands long before the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey were established. We are citizens with equal rights. There are thousands of mosques in Turkey and no permission is required to build a mosque, the lawmaker said. Yet building a Syriac church takes years and the construction of a place of worship for one of the countrys religious groups is making the news as if it is something extraordinary. This alone shows how oppressed the Syriacs are.

And what about the fact that the first new church in republican history is being built under the AKP, whose policies espouse political Islam? I hope this is not an election investment, Celik said skeptically, referring to the March 31 municipal polls. I hope the step that is being taken today does not prove empty as other rhetoric has in the past.

Susin, however, disagreed. He praised President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for personally supporting the church project, stressing that the grievances of non-Muslim minorities had been alleviated under the AKPs 16-year rule.

When we asked for the allocation of a plot, the president offered serious support. Things progressed at his behest. Without his strong support, we might have failed to obtain the necessary permissions, Susin said.

In further praise of the government, he said, In the 1980s, for instance, monasteries in Mardin came to the brink of closure for teaching Syriac to Syriac children. Today, Syriacs have their official schools. Under the foundations law, passed in 2008, all our confiscated properties have been returned. In the latest economic package, the president handed over 55 churches, monasteries and cemeteries to non-Muslim foundations. Those are things that we could not have even imagined in the past. Previously, we were unable to get properties; now we can receive and make donations as we like.  I can say this has been the brightest period for minorities in republican history.

The 71-year-old Susin has been a witness to much of Turkeys republican history and, no doubt, his praise of the past 16 years is noteworthy. But not everyone feels the same, especially in the Syriacs ancestral lands in the province of Mardin.

Only about 3,000 Syriacs live in Mardin today, the result of an exodus fueled by the long-standing conflict between the Turkish security forces and Kurdish insurgents in the region.

Syriac activist Yuhanna Aktas is one of the few who still insist on living in their ancestral lands. The Mardin Syriac Unity Association, which he chaired, was shut down in the crackdown after the 2016 coup attempt that targeted not only the putschists but also oppositional quarters and civil society.

Aktas argued that little has changed for religious minorities in the AKP era and that discriminatory practices against Syriacs have resurged since 2009.

Our oldest church is the Mor Gabriel monastery, which was built in 397. The confiscated monastery was comprised of 30 pieces [of land], and only 12 of them have been returned. The lawsuits for the remaining lands are continuing. The usage rights of hundreds of churches, monasteries and cemeteries have been handed over to [the Religious Affairs Directorate], he said.

For Aktas, Confiscating churches and then returning them and building a new church after the confiscation of so many churches in the country is not ethical and moral.

Celik, meanwhile, noted that the new church in Istanbul should be described as the first church to be officially built since the proclamation of the republic in 1923. He explained that decades ago, a church in Mardin was built but never officially registered after the area where the Mor Sherbel church stood was declared a military zone in 1950 and the church itself was demolished.
Many lobbyists ditched Saudi Arabia after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but several clients are still sticking with their lucrative patron. And at least one of those lobbyists met with a key Senate staffer at a lawmaker's birthday party the same day his firm donated to the lawmakers campaign.

Lobbying disclosure and Federal Election Commission forms reviewed by Al-Monitor reveal that former Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., donated $1,000 in unused campaign funds to the campaign for Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla.  the same day a McKeon associate met an Inhofe staffer on behalf of the Saudis. The Saudis paid McKeon $450,000 three days after Khashoggis death, according to lobbying disclosures for the six months through Nov. 30.

The California Republican, who now heads the McKeon Group lobbying firm just outside Washington, told Al-Monitor that the donation was unrelated, although the payment occurred on the same day.

Ive had some money left over in my campaign fund, McKeon said. I served with Jim Inhofe when I came to Congress in 1993, weve been friends ever since and I have supported him on his campaign.

McKeon served as the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee from 2011-2015 and has lobbied for Riyadh since 2016. He also made two other recent donations to Inhofe  $1,000 in October, shortly after Khashoggis murder, and another $1,000 in July.

The former chairman told Al-Monitor that David Keysor, the Chief Operating Officer for the McKeon Group, and McKeon's son attended Inhofe's birthday party on Nov. 14. During the event, Keysor, who is not a registered lobbyist for Riyadh, discussed Saudi Arabia and arranged a subsequent phone call. The two then discussed a Yemen war powers resolution by phone on Nov. 29.

The party came as Congress was gearing up to retaliate against Riyadh for murdering Khashoggi with the resolution, which would direct the Donald Trump administration to pull US military support for the Saudi-led coalition against Yemens Houthi rebels. Inhofe voted against the resolution. It ultimately passed 56-41, only for House Republican leadership to forestall a floor vote in the lower chamber.

McKeon has also lobbied his former colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee on behalf of the Saudis. In July he asked Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., to champion legislation sanctioning supporters of the Houthi rebel group. That same month, he arranged a meeting between Wilson and the then-Saudi ambassador to the United States, Khalid bin Salman.

Congress never advanced the bill, and McKeon never donated to Wilsons campaign. But he has donated to several other former colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee.

Number one, I didnt know that he made a contribution, and number two, I didnt know he was lobbying for the Saudis, Inhofe told Al-Monitor about McKeons donation.

Federal law prohibits former lawmakers from using campaign funds for personal use. But whether  and to what extent  for-profit lobbying qualifies is a gray area.

Surprisingly, these same-day contributions are perfectly legal and do not violate any current campaign finance laws, Lydia Dennett, a foreign lobbying investigator with the Project on Government Oversight, told Al-Monitor. When lobbyists make contributions on the same day that they meet with lawmakers on behalf of their foreign clients, it certainly gives the appearance of a quid pro quo relationship.

But there is a movement afoot to bar ex-lawmakers and former candidates from using leftover campaign funds to lobby. The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center is petitioning the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to amend regulations to bar politicians from using personal campaign funds for lobbying and other expenses.

After receiving our petition, the FEC announced in April that it will begin reviewing campaign disclosure reports to determine whether former candidates and officeholders are illegally using leftover campaign money for personal purposes, Corey Goldstone, a spokesman for the Campaign Legal Center, told Al-Monitor.

A 2014 Project on Government Oversight report points to numerous instances of lobbyists making contributions to lawmakers on behalf of their foreign clients, including in the Middle East.

And while lobbyists can make campaign contributions in the hopes of securing face time with lawmakers and their offices, Dennett says that politicians such as Inhofe are often legitimately unaware of the contributions.

Number one, I didnt know that he made a contribution, and number two, I didnt know he was lobbying for the Saudis, Inhofe told Al-Monitor about McKeons donation. If he knew it and he was trying to use that to influence me, and I didnt know, Im not sure he was trying to do that. Because I wasnt even aware of it.

Dennett says that while lobbyists can intentionally time their donations to coincide with meetings, they may not always consciously be using the donation to advocate for their client.

These are just individuals who are politically active, and they just sort of happen to be donating to the same people that theyre trying to influence, said Dennett. Its just part of being in DC.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  The Children's Complaints Guide, which is designed to protect children from abuse, entered into force on Jan. 1 in Palestine, after the Public Prosecution Office, in partnership with the Juvenile Prosecution Office, announced its launch Dec. 23, in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The guide aims at monitoring, documenting, investigating and following up on all violations against children. It also seeks to provide them with safe environments, even in places of detention, foster care or any other place where children may be subjected to abuse.

Children under the age of 18 make up 45.3% of the total Palestinian population  43.4% in the West Bank and 48% in the Gaza Strip  the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said in a statement April 5, 2018, on the occasion of Palestinian Children's Day.

In general, children are not aware of their rights, but this new guide, which consists of a booklet containing a list of children's rights and forms of abuse, will educate them and encourage them to file a complaint.

Palestine submitted its initial report to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in September 2018, in light of Palestine's obligations toward the international agreements it signed, after it had acceded to the convention in April 2014.

Childrens rights in Palestine are often violated, by Palestinians and Israelis alike. In 2017, Palestinian human rights organizations filed 204 complaints with the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR)  153 in Gaza and 51 in the West Bank. These are mostly violations to the right to bodily integrity.

The ICHR, which was established by presidential decree in 1993, is tasked with following up on and ensuring that all requirements for the protection of human rights are part of laws, regulations and legislation, and taken into account by Palestinian government departments, agencies and institutions. The ICHR mainly looks into complaints filed by citizens, particularly in terms of human rights violations made by the state.

In this context, Chief of the Juvenile Protection Office Thaer Khalil told Al-Monitor that the Juvenile Prosecution Office has realized that it needs to take action since Palestine has joined the international conventions on human rights, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Khalil noted that the guide will contribute to providing a safe environment for children in Palestine by allowing anyone to file a complaint against violators of childrens rights, and ensure children and their rights are protected.

He said, Anyone who is thinking about abusing a child will think twice before doing so, knowing that the children's complaints service is active and allows children to file a complaint themselves. We started working on the guide ever since the enactment of the Juvenile Protection Law in 2016.

Khalil noted that the guide takes into consideration the international conventions signed by Palestine as well as Palestinian laws and legislation. Most importantly, it respects the Juvenile Protection Law.

He explained that the Juvenile Prosecution Office did not convoke civil society organizations in creating the guide, since it follows specific laws and there was no need to hold consultative sessions. Instead, the office involved children in preparing the guide in order to reach communication channels suitable for their ages and to meet their demands. The sessions to discuss the guide were held in partnership with the Children's Council of Palestine, which was formed by the Defense for Children International Palestine (DCI Palestine).

The guide defines the procedures to report abuse, secure protection and ensure obligations as well as the needs of the child. It explains the process to submit complaints and its requirements, and the basic principles and stages of dealing with complaints by the experts. The guide also includes ways to provide legal assistance to those submitting the complaints and lists a free phone number to file complaints.

Khalil pointed out that it is the first time Palestinian children are involved in the creation of a guide to secure their safety and rights, noting that the guide includes a letter signed by the children who took part in the drafting.

The guide's aim is to monitor and document all violations against children by those involved in dealing with children, Khalil said.

He added that violations and abuse can be physical, psychological, verbal and sexual, and any treatment that violates a child's human dignity could be considered abuse. According to Khalil, the guide also explains legal texts allowing the Juvenile Prosecution Office to pursue and hold accountable those found to be involved in violating children's rights.

Khalil explained that the guide will raise awareness among children about the importance of filing complaints against those who violate their rights. An advertisement campaign to promote the guide will be launched, and the guide will be distributed to all schools in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and will be available online.

He further noted that the guide was written in a language children can understand, in addition to it containing drawings explaining how to file a complaint.

He added, Children can file complaints by email or through the guide's social media pages. They can also call or file the complaint with the Juvenile Prosecution Office in person.

Khalil stressed that the guide values privacy and confidentiality, noting, Once it is established that abuse has taken place, the Juvenile Prosecution staff need to ensure that it will never happen again by holding the abusers accountable and finding a solution to each situation.

He said that the Juvenile Prosecution Office will take 10 days to a month to respond to complaints.

The Juvenile Prosecution Office was established in 2016, to protect children at risk and to inspect care homes as well as raise awareness and provide legal services. In 2018, it looked into 2,100 cases reported by parents or relatives of children or employees, according to Khalil.

Ayed Abu Eqtaish, director of the accountability program at DCI Palestine, told Al-Monitor, Despite the enactment of the Juvenile Protection Law, it continues to be violated with recurrent abuses against children. He said many children are arrested by the Palestinian police and intelligence services, instead of the juvenile police that is the only authorized party to do so.

He added that enacting the Juvenile Protection Law goes in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but there are economic, cultural, social, security and political aspects that Palestine needs to fix in order to be more consistent with the convention, such as amending the Inheritance Law, the Family Law and the Palestinian Disability Law. He said that the DCI supports children's rights in Palestine.

Abu Eqtaish praised the guide that allows children to file complaints easily, noting that this will limit the violations committed against them.

Director of Palestine Save the Children Foundation Iman Barghouthi recommended that the Palestinian laws on the Penal Code, family and inheritance should be amended in order for them to be in line with the provisions of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, noting that only the Juvenile Protection Law has been amended so far.
Israeli police closed part of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for seven hours Jan. 14 after a confrontation between guards and an Israeli policeman who tried to enter the Dome of the Rock shrine wearing a Jewish head covering, or kippah.

The violation of the accepted norms of Israeli and Palestinian relations created extreme tension at one of Islam's holiest mosques. Security at the site is regulated by armed Israeli police and unarmed civilian guards; the latter are employed by the Jordanian Waqf (Endowment) Ministry. Jordan is the official custodian of the site.

That day, guards stopped the Israeli security officer from inspecting the dome because of his kippah. Israeli security makes inspection rounds at the site regularly, but never while wearing religious garb. Tensions quickly escalated, leading Israeli security to close the Dome of the Rock. The closure went on for seven hours, forcing Muslim worshipers to conduct their prayers outside. Hundreds of Muslims gathered, and the situation became very tense.

Khalil Assali, publisher of Akhbar el-Balad, a Jerusalem-centric news site, told Al-Monitor Israeli security officials know they must differentiate between their job as police and their religious attitudes. If he hadn't been wearing the religious head cover or [if he instead] had security headgear on, there wouldn't have been any problem. But the religious head cover became part of the problem between Muslim worshipers and religious Jews who covet the mosque and consider it part of their Temple Mount. The disputed site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, is considered holy by Muslims, Jews and Christians.

Wasfi Kailani, director of the Hashemite Fund for the Restoration of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, an institution of Jordan's Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs, told Al-Monitor the position of the Jordanian Waqf Ministry and the Palestinian Jerusalemite Islamic institutions since 1967 has been clear.

Israeli policemen must remain outside Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif, and their security duties, legally defined as an occupying power, should be outside the gates of the holy site, Kailani said.

He added that Israel's police interference and security breaches are unacceptable, regardless of whether a skullcap is involved. The policemens incursion into the Dome of the Rock constitutes a new violation aimed to establish and normalize unprecedented Jewish presence inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, to change its 1,440-year-old status quo.

Jordan closely monitors the troubles in Jerusalem. We are always keen on lowering tensions while preserving the rights of Muslim worshipers and Islamic holy sites," he said.

Kailani, who works out of the Royal Hashemite Court in Jordan's capital of Amman, said the tensions were finally resolved after Sheikh Azzam Khatib, head of the Jordanian Waqf in Jerusalem, intervened and the Israeli police agreed to pull back and allow the Dome of the Rock to reopen.

Unfortunately, once those tensions ended, Israeli police arrested the five Jordanian guards who had prevented the Israeli policeman from entering. The Jerusalem Islamic Wafq issued a statement calling on the Israeli government to release [the] employees immediately and to end unprecedented activities that violate the sanctity of the mosque. Israel released the guards that same evening after asking them to sign a commitment not to enter the mosque for at least seven days.

Former Palestinian Minister of Jerusalem Khalid Abu Arafeh told Al-Monitor that the guards, who feared the policeman intended to pray inside the Islamic holy site, had acted properly. The Israeli police could have easily resolved the problem within minutes, but they brought in a large number of soldiers and security to attempt to reinstate their claims that they have sovereignty over Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Ofer Zalzberg, senior researcher at the International Crisis Group, told Al-Monitor that coordination between Islamic Waqf officials and Israeli police is at an unprecedented low.

In the last few months, Israel has stepped up its arrests of Muslim guards employed by the Jordanian Waqf. This is highly [unacceptable], and it signals that things are getting out of control and the coordination that could solve such problems is absent."

Zalzberg confirmed there are a number of religious Zionists among the Israeli police force, and the current Israeli government is in tune with these activists and their ambitions regarding Al-Aqsa Mosque. This affects the conduct of the police and makes their position much more politicized, he added.

While the tensions reportedly ended without violence, the underlying lesson is that the entire 144-dunam (36-acre) Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which includes the Dome of the Rock, is a ticking time bomb. Levelheaded leaders are needed to deal with the situation. As the Israeli elections draw nigh, it's very likely that many politicians will be looking for ways to improve their electoral chances. Israeli leaders will be competing to win over religious Zionist voters. Very little effort will be made to ensure that this sensitive and religious site isn't used as a pawn in a political game or as part of Israeli election campaigning.
The escalation Nov. 13 between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip revealed Hamas use of a Kornet missile that hit an Israeli military bus inside Israel, north of Gaza. Hamas announced killing and wounding an unspecified number of passengers, while Israel said one soldier was seriously wounded.

Hamas gets Kornet missiles from smuggling operations through the tunnels from the Sinai Peninsula. Israel believes they are dangerous because they are anti-tank and anti-reinforcement, and they carry a highly flammable tip and have a destructive penetration ability.

Amir Bohbot, an expert on Israeli military affairs at Walla website, cited Jan. 6 Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot and other officers saying on condition of anonymity, Israel is pursuing Hamas in Sinai and is spearheading a big battle against its growing military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in this border region, by foiling dozens of arms shipments heading from Sinai to Gaza. Israel managed to destroy 15,000 advanced missiles on their way to Hamas warehouses in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman in Gaza Hazem Qassem told Al-Monitor, Hamas is a national liberation movement limiting its activity to fighting Israel in the Palestinian territories. It has the right to possess the necessary tools to defend its people against Israeli aggression.

Qassem added, "Hamas deploys constant efforts to possess fighting tools used to resist Israel only. Our relationship with Egypt is positively evolving, and we have joint coordination to ensure security between Gaza and Sinai. Hamas considers Egyptian security part of Gazas security.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced Jan. 6 during an interview on CBS News that the Egyptian army is working with Israel in Sinai, and relations between the two countries are the strongest since they were built 40 years ago, when they signed the peace treaty in 1978.

Sisis statement, and the Israeli report before that, seem to contradict the evolving relations between Hamas and Egypt in the past months. Their relations reached their peak with the exchange of visits. On Jan. 10, Hamas welcomed a delegation from the Egyptian intelligence to cement reconciliation and the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. In November, Hamas leaders visited Egypt to develop bilateral relations, end the blockade and achieve national reconciliation.

An Egyptian journalist told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, The Israeli air force has been raiding Sinai since 2013 to pursue arms shipments headed to Gaza. The raids led to human and material losses, and Sinai residents have grown used to seeing Israeli warplanes infiltrating into Sinai to capture targets or launch specific raids. The military coordination between the Israeli and Egyptian armies allowed the Israeli warplanes to move freely in Sinai.

Israel considers Sinai its weak southern underbelly because Egyptian security and military control over it is not strong, and the security situation on Israeli borders is volatile. Israel is concerned about the ties between Sinai militants and Hamas in Gaza and the smuggling of weapons, including machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons, heavy weapons, mortars, RPGs, bombs and sniping guns, to the movement.

French website Intelligence Online reported May 2 that Israel built communication channels with Libyan Gen. Khalifa Hifter to exchange security information in order to halt the flow of weapons from Libya to Sudan, reaching Sinai and then the Gaza Strip. In February 2016, Hamas militants in Gaza carried anti-aircraft Libyan arms, type GSh-23L. These are Soviet weapons specific for military aircraft, like machine guns, and they are fixed on a ground base for firing.

Wasef Erekat, Palestinian military expert in the West Bank and former artillery unit commander of the PLO, told Al-Monitor, Israel is giving Egypt security information about the weapons shipments heading from Sinai to Gaza. Meanwhile Israel is raiding these shipments. Israel shelled similar vehicles coming from Sudan to Gaza in the past. Hamas is seeking to get weapons from Iran and Hezbollah or from Israeli weapons traders despite being pursued in Sinai.

In November 2016, the Israeli army foiled an attempt to smuggle weapons from Sinai into Gaza by sea on board of a boat carrying weapons, explosives and fighting equipment to Hamas. Transferring weapons by sea was the new alternative for Hamas when the tunnels were closed in 2013.

Yoav Zeitoun, military correspondent for Yedioth Ahronoth, cited on Nov. 22, 2016, an officer in the Israeli navy as saying, Relations between the Israeli naval force and its Egyptian counterpart are strong and friendly, and the two countries maintain a high level of security coordination through commander meetings on the coast.

Al-Monitor tried to contact Egyptian security sources, but to no avail as they refuse to talk about security matters to the media.

Israeli security expert and investigative reporter Yossi Melman revealed in Maariv newspaper Dec. 1 that, alongside the Israeli aircraft raids in Sinai to stop weapons shipments from reaching Hamas in Gaza, the Israeli security agency Shin Bet and military intelligence apparatus Aman pooled more sources to gather information in Sinai. Israels Unit 8200, an electronic espionage corps of the intelligence apparatus, also conducted wiretapping and took photos in Sinai.

Alaa Remawi, head of Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor, Hamas has a strong network of relations with some armed groups in Sinai that provide it weapons arriving from Sudan and Libya. But Egyptian-Israeli joint efforts since 2013 against Hamas have resulted in Egypt striking border tunnels between Gaza and Sinai, while Israel handled the air raids on arms shipments.
It all started with an old mobile phone. This much-too-smart phone set off one of the juiciest scandals to hit Israel in modern times, threatening to tarnish the image of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, whose meteoric political rise has generated speculation of a future run for the premiership. The phone belongs to attorney Effi Naveh, the all-powerful chair of the Israel Bar Association (IBA). Until his resignation this week, Naveh was a strategic ally of the justice ministers. He was the one who helped her lead the dramatic double reform of changing the judicial appointments process and appointing to the bench many conservative judges (out of the hundreds appointed during her term as minister).

All this has now collapsed into a deep black hole, with Naveh suspected of pushing through a judges appointment in return for sexual favors, turning the IBA into a byzantine harem and contaminating Israels sacrosanct judicial appointments system.

As his ally and good friend, Shaked has turned into an obvious target. She is being accused of allowing these improprieties on her watch, ignoring Navehs conduct, backing him and failing to see the writing on the wall even when Naveh was caught trying to smuggle his girlfriend in and out of the country by evading passport control at Ben-Gurion Airport.

A Judicial Appointments Committee chaired by the justice minister selects Israeli judges.The panels nine members include two lawmakers, two government ministers (one of them the justice minister), three Supreme Court justices and two IBA representatives. A majority of seven is required for candidate approval. In the past (until Shaked was appointed minister), a regular coalition of the three judges and two IBA lawyers voted en bloc, providing the countrys top court with the final say on the countrys judges.

Shaked took office in May 2015, and Naveh was voted IBA chair a month later. She spotted him, he spotted her and their alliance was forged. Together, Shaked and Naveh destroyed the old order and dismantled the previous coalition of five within the committee. They put in place a new order to appoint hundreds of judges, many of them conservatives, in a bid to alter the face of Israels judicial branch of government and of the Supreme Court. (A 2017 expose by the investigative television program Uvda of Channel 2 described how the system worked).

Shaked logged a series of dizzying achievements, becoming the first holder of her office to carry out such a historic change. She could not have done it without Naveh. They became friends, hung out together and engaged in endless backslapping in front of the cameras and behind them.

Then came trouble in paradise. As aforementioned, it began with Navehs entanglement in trying to spirit his girlfriend out of the country under the radar of the Border Police. He was caught and indicted in late December, but Shaked continued to back him. Naveh grudgingly agreed to take a leave of absence until the end of the proceedings against him. Then, however, his old cell phone made its way into the hands of Hadas Shtaif, the veteran police reporter of Israel Army Radio.

Naveh is mired in an ugly divorce. He left his phone somewhere, and from there the road to media exposure was short. Army Radio handed the phone over to police. Breaking into a cell phone is illegal, but in light of the sensitive information it contained, the state attorney approved the break-in, and a Pandoras box burst open with an ear-splitting bang.

Police have been questioning Naveh in recent days on suspicion that he promoted the appointment of a judge to the bench after he had sex with her and tried to promote an incumbent judge with whose wife he also had sex. Police are also looking into many other suspicions against him regarding promotions and appointments. A source who has been privy to the contents of Navehs phone told Al-Monitor that they suggest many additional improprieties, not all of them criminal but all deeply flawed from an ethical, public and moral point of view.

Following his interrogation at police headquarters, Naveh resigned from his powerful IBA post on Jan. 17. His line of defense focuses on the claim that the evidence against him was obtained illegally. It is unclear whether this line will hold.

That being said, from the public point of view, Naveh is no longer the one in the line of fire. The crosshairs are targeted from now on Ayelet Shaked. The young politician, popular and charismatic, is coming under fire for the first time in her political career.

Speaking Jan. 17, Shaked said she had become the target of unprincipled, dishonest and incitement-laden attacks, adding that the most disappointing of all the attacks is the attack by left-wing female Knesset members.

Shaked claims she is being done an injustice, that people are trying to involve her in someone elses scandal, that she has absolutely no role in what Naveh did or didnt do, and that people are trying to leverage the affair in order to damage her politically.

The justice minister is right about one thing. Indeed, the political left views her as a serious threat, but it is not the only one. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus inner circle has reviled and excluded Shaked since she served as his office manager when he was head of the opposition in the Knesset from 2006 to 2008. At the prime ministers Jerusalem residence, Shaked and her political partner, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, are regarded as the great Satan. This precludes what might have been a natural move  joining the Likud  as long as Netanyahu is at the helm. This is also why she and Bennett formed a new secular-religious party last month, calling it the New Right. Now they are no longer weighed down by the edicts of the radical rabbis who serve as spiritual guides of their previous party, national-religious HaBayit HaYehudi, and they can appeal to right-wing non-religious, non-radical voters who have simply had enough of Netanyahu.

Then this storm erupted. The scandal is unlikely to shake the support Shaked enjoys within her political base, and it may even strengthen her standing. She is trying to appeal to a new electorate more inclined to the center of the political map, a strategy that this affair could undermine. She is currently not under any suspicion, and the police have not called her in for questioning under warning. Still, she will probably be summoned to provide testimony about Naveh. The most dramatic question is what the police will do when they come across text messages between the justice minister and Naveh. Will officers be authorized to examine the correspondence? If so, where might it lead? So far, Shakeds reputation for honesty has not been blemished. Keeping up that pristine image will be much harder from now on.
"On victory day, everyone claps for a winner who acts with nonpartisanship. But they all keep a distance from him as the hard times come by," said Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Jan. 10. These sarcastic remarks were apparently meant for some inside the Reformist camp who have recently criticized his performance.

After more than five years of unwavering support, even the Reformist camp's traditional leader, Mohammad Khatami, has spoken out against the president's "passivity." Rouhani started to fuel fury among his Reformist backers after he offered them few spots in his Cabinet following his re-election in 2017. Now, with differences that have rapidly grown in the 18 months since, few Reformists would go the extra mile to back Rouhani. Saeed Hajjarian, a top ideologue of the camp, has acknowledged the rift, blaming it on the president's failure to live up to his election slogans and resist pressure from hard-liners.

Hajjarian's stance was met with an unprecedented counterattack from Rouhani's chief of staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, who argued that, with those comments, Reformists are seeking to secure votes ahead of the 2021 presidential election. Vaezi noted that such an effort will be in vain, however. Separately, he described some Reformists as temporary election-time fans. In one case, he even referred to them as "extremist Reformists." The name-calling triggered the ire of the camp leaders.

But the crack was exposed most notably in the joint meeting with Reformists called by Rouhani last October. The invitation was declined by such senior Reformist figures as Gholam-Hossein Karbaschi (former mayor of Tehran, 1990-1998), Mostafa Moeen (former minister of higher education, 1997-2003) and Abdollah Nouri (former interior minister, 1997-1998). Reports leaked from the meeting indicated tensions between the two sides, despite having reached an agreement to set up a joint working group, which was never implemented. Earlier, in July 2018, a similar draft deal to form a joint committee had been reached, but the committee has never been formed.

With all those fast-track developments and deepening rifts, an alliance between the Rouhani government and Reformists seems to be nearly dead. Reformists justify their support for Rouhani during the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections on the grounds that they sough to thwart a power grab by hard-liners. But now, the alliance is no longer functioning and the gap is too wide to be bridged with such explanations.

With the situation showing no sign of improvement, the once conventional political arrangements could undergo fundamental changes in the 2020 parliamentary elections and the 2021 presidential vote.

Iran held three different elections from 2013 to 2017, characterized by tight competition between the two rival political factions: hard-line conservatives and an alliance between moderate and pro-Reform elements. But not anymore. In the upcoming elections, the battle is to be waged between three sides.

The crack between moderates and Reformists has emerged within the very heart of the Rouhani administration, with the controversial and furious resignations by two pro-Reform Cabinet members, namely Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi and Health Minister Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi. Demonstrating almost no open objection, Rouhani accepted the resignations, which were triggered by internal rifts.

Elsewhere, First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, a senior Reformist within the Cabinet, has openly lamented that he does not even have the authority dismiss a clerk from his office. Rumor already had it that Jahangiri had his hands tied in exercising administrative powers. His own remark couldnt make it more valid.

That potential triangle in the political landscape, created as a result of the collapse of the Reformist-moderate alliance, will bring about two fundamental challenges. Despite enjoying social support, the Reformist camp will have to once again cope with the issue of the Guardian Councils vetting process of candidates, for which they have no solution. The moderates might not find this a big concern, but they do have lower social approval compared to the Reformists. In 2013 and 2017, the two camps got closer for an informal coalition, as each side needed to cover the other's weakness with its strength.

Whether Iran will have to await a return of hard-liners in the executive branch is already becoming a major concern for some Reformists. Mostafa Hashemitaba, who ran for president in 2017 and worked as a deputy to President Mohammad Khatami, a Reformist, has sounded the alarm on what he described as the comeback of a new Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the conservative president who enjoyed relentless backing from Iran's hard-liners during most of his terms. The same view has been shared by other pro-Reform figures, including pundit and political scientist Sadegh Zibakalam, who predicted a landslide "20-million-vote victory" for conservatives. Also, well-known pro-Reform columnist Mohammad Ghouchani has highlighted the camp's worries on who is to lead the government in 2021.

The split between moderates and Reformists is expected to provide hard-line conservatives with two key advantages. First, the vetting process conducted by a powerful like-minded Guardian Council will be in their favor. Second, they enjoy a stable base of public support. Although hard-liners are not backed by a majority of Iranians, the support could be decisive amid growing disillusionment among those who pinned their hopes on Reformists and moderates. In the future, those voters could shy away from ballot boxes. In other words, a boycott by those who voted for the Reformist camp could now become the winning card in the hands of the hard-liners. This, coupled with the solid base of support in the conservative layers of Iranian society, is paving the way for the comeback of the hard-liners.
This weeks suicide attack in Manbij has provided fresh ammunition for Turkey to move ahead with its plans to attack the Syrian Kurdish groups across the border. But Ankara is worried that its not the only actor trying to play the chaotic situation to its advantage and is eager to avoid a confrontation with Damascus.

Why it matters: Turkey warned the Syrian government today not to use the planned US withdrawal as a pretext to try to fill the vacuum. This weeks bombing, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said, proves the need to fully implement the Manbij road map agreed to by Turkey and the United States to withdraw Kurdish forces from the mainly Arab town. Ankara argues that US-backed Kurdish groups arent capable of maintaining security and stability in the regions under their control.

The regimes provocative attempts  to enable regime forces to enter Manbij must not be allowed, Aksoy said. Nobody should take advantage of the situation, he added.

Goodbye, USA: The US troop withdrawal increases the chances of a deal between the Kurds and President Bashar al-Assads government that would secure Kurdish groups presence in Manbij and other areas along Turkeys southern border, fueling Ankaras national security concerns. Syrian Kurdish representatives have already expressed their willingness to reconcile with the Assad government in the face of a looming Turkish military incursion.

Whats next: The critical question is whether the Syrian government and, perhaps more importantly, Russia would lean toward such a reconciliation. Moscow in particular is wary of endangering its close ties with Turkey.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Jan. 23 in Moscow. The future of Manbij is expected to top their discussions on Syria.

Know more: Check out our previous reporting here and here to learn how the Manbij attack might change the equation in northern Syria.
Todays comments by Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz reassuring the Donald Trump administration about its commercial and technology dealings with China underscore deepening concerns in Washington that could threaten US intelligence sharing with Israel.

Why it matters: US worries grew following Chinese Vice President Wang Chi-Shans visit to Israel in October. Trumps national security adviser John Bolton and US Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette echoed the concerns in their recent visit in Jerusalem, highlighting the growing connections between Israeli cybersecurity companies and China. US officials have warned Israel that US intelligence sharing could be curtailed if US leak concerns arent addressed.

Soothing words: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has sent the United States calming massages more than once, and today Steinitz said in a radio interview that Israel was "sensitive to US concerns and taking them into account. Steinitz added that although Israel has good relations with China, Russia and other countries, "the United States is our number one ally. Thats how it has been and how it will be. He added that Israel is one of the leading countries in the world on protecting information and cyber tech.

Old concerns: The US government has aggressively sought to prevent information and technology leaks to its rivals. In 2000, Israel canceled a huge deal to sell Phalcon airborne early warning system aircraft to China under intense pressure from the Bill Clinton administration. This week Israel canceled an F-16 sale to Croatia for the same reason.

New fears: Today, some of Americas biggest concerns have to do with Chinese technology giants Huawei Technologies and ZTE, which have shown lots of interest in Israeli cybertech companies. Both firms are being investigated by the United States due to espionage concerns.

Whats next: The issue of China will probably come up during a meeting between Netanyahu and Trump in the coming weeks, ahead of Israels April elections.

Know more: Check out Ben Caspits interviews with Israeli security experts warning that Chinese involvement in Israel could damage the countrys security.

- Danny Zaken
CAIRO  The Egyptian Textile Museum, an Ottoman-style building located at the heart of Islamic Cairo, pays homage to the countrys Christian heritage by displaying rare and ancient Coptic textiles that date from the fourth to seventh centuries CE.

The exhibition, titled God is Love, opened Jan. 2 in anticipation of the Coptic Christmas, which is celebrated on Jan. 7. The exhibition will run until March.

The museums general director, Ashraf Abol Yazeed, told Al-Monitor that the exhibition is part of the museum's efforts to tie its exhibitions to special events and festivals shared among the different religions in Egypt. We have displayed some textiles from the Sacred Chamber of the Prophet to celebrate his birthday [in November]. [For Christmas], we organized an exhibition of Coptic textiles. Some of the works displayed show that Ancient Egyptian art influenced early Coptic art, he said.

The textiles were found in el-Bagawat, an ancient Christian cemetery at the Kharga Oasis in southern-central Egypt. This cemetery, one of the oldest in the world, was excavated between 1907 and 1932 and many important artifacts of the early Coptic era were discovered, such as pottery and personal items such as combs, writing utensils and textiles. Some of the textiles were sent to the warehouses of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiques, and then given to the Museum of Textiles after its foundation in 2010. Other pieces from those excavations can be seen in Western museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Deputy Director Farag Mghawri told Al-Monitor that five of these early Coptic textiles in Cairo are being displayed for the first time.

One of the five new pieces is a childs headpiece made of cotton and red and blue wool. It bears an ankh, a symbol of life in ancient Egyptian culture. In early Coptic art, however, the ankh was used to signify the Christian cross. The early Copts feared persecution for converting to Christianity, so carefully refrained from using traditional crosses. Only in later eras did Coptic artists start drawing or weaving crosses into their works.

The displayed items also include funeral robes. Mghawri explained, A very loose robe embroidered with blue wool used to be placed on the mummy when it was buried. Other apparel, decorated with crosses and beautiful Coptic designs, was used during holidays and funerals. The displayed pieces also include a childs robe decorated with threads of wool in magenta and loose warp threads. We also display a linen cover used in a home.

Mokhtar al-Kasbani, a lecturer on Islamic and Coptic Antiquities at the University of Cairo, told Al-Monitor, Coptic cemeteries, especially those discovered in the Western Desert, have provided us with many early Coptic textiles, he said. The style of the Coptic textiles further evolved with the emergence of Islam in Egypt.

He noted that the textile production, weaving and dyeing was strong among the Ancient Egyptians, and modern Egypt is also known for its top-quality linens and textiles. He added that the Copts in Egypt are still active in the textile sector. Textile production in Egypt has developed thanks to the skilled hands of Copts, he said. They participated in creating the cover of the Holy Kaaba and that of the Prophets grave.

Tour guide Saleh Adel told Al-Monitor that the Egyptian Textile Museum is housed in a building built in 1822 by Mohammad Ali Pasha in honor of his son Ismail. Later, it became the Nahaseen Primary School, whose alumni included writer Naguib Mahfouz and President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The building was renovated from 2005 to February 2010, when it was reopened as Egyptian Textile Museum. Currently, the museum holds textiles from the Pharaonic to the Islamic eras. It boasts an impressive collection of belts, mummy linens and even diapers from the Pharaonic era with statues that display different dress according to their place in society. The Roman and Coptic collections are relatively small, while the Islamic section is larger and has a special room for the Kaaba cover that dates to the time of King Farouk.

The museum's 11 halls take visitors on a journey through time," Adel said. "A history of Egyptian textiles that begins with the Pharaoh era, passes through the Coptic and Islamic eras and ends with the modern day.

Visitor Umeima Tammam told Al-Monitor, When I heard about the exhibition, I was curious to see the ancient Coptic textiles. Although I visit Al-Moez Street occasionally, I never thought about entering the Egyptian Textile Museum.

Though the museum is located on a busy street frequented by tourists, it is not well known. Yazeed, the museums director, hopes that will change, Through activities and regular events, Egyptian museums seek to instill love for museums in the hearts of Egyptians. We have significantly succeeded with university students and children in the past few years.
Somali-American Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is one of two freshmen Democrats openly embracing the pro-Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. On Wednesday she joined the House Foreign Affairs Committee, giving her an unprecedented opportunity to elevate BDS as an issue on the traditionally pro-Israel panel  should she choose to do so.

Regardless of her intentions, Republicans are already using her appointment on the committee to highlight growing divisions on Israel within the Democratic caucus. While Democratic leadership has traditionally sided with Israel, Republicans are eager to highlight Omar as representative of a Democratic base that is increasingly critical of Israels treatment of the Palestinians.

Indeed, a December University of Maryland poll found that 56% of Democrats favor sanctions or more serious action against Israel should it continue expanding its settlements in the West Bank. Only 26% of Republicans agreed.

Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., the co-chairman of the House Republican Israel Caucus, pointed to Omars support for BDS and a tweet from six years ago that has been panned as anti-Semitic. Zeldin was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the last Congress; Republicans have yet to unveil this year's roster.

Instead of the Dems supporting Israel & combatting BDS & anti-Semitism on college campuses & elsewhere, theyre now empowering it, Zeldin tweeted today.

Zeldin was referring to Omars 2012 tweet stating that Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.

The New York Republican also took aim this week at Congress only other pro-BDS lawmaker, freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. Tlaib has condemned the Senates Combating BDS Act, asserting that the bills supporters forgot what country they represent.

After the House voted 424-1 this week to condemn white supremacy following comments from Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, Zeldin called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to pass a similar resolution condemning anti-Semitism.

Can we now vote to condemn the anti-Semitism & hate that Rep. Rashida Tlaib & other Dems so strongly embrace, which is also wrong? Zeldin tweeted on Wednesday.

Eager to pick at the Democrats intra-party divisions, Senate Republicans have made the Combating BDS Act, introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., their first order of legislative business in the new Congress. The legislation would give cover to state-level laws cracking down on boycotts of Israel or its West Bank settlements.

Democratic leadership is not in any hurry to address the issue head on. Rubios bill had 15 Democratic co-sponsors in the previous Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. But Senate Democrats have refused to advance the bill until Congress ends the longest government shutdown in US history. Amid the gridlock, Republicans have failed to advance the bill three times in one week.

Still, Republicans need to secure only a handful of Democratic votes to advance the bill once the shutdown is resolved, enabling them to throw a potential political hand grenade at House Democrats.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Middle East panel chairman Ted Deutch, D-Fla., are all proponents of anti-BDS legislation, setting up a potential flashpoint with Omar and the lefts progressive base.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously voted to advance another bill, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, last year. That bill seeks to levy financial and possible criminal penalties on companies and employees that comply with United Nations efforts to gather information on companies affiliated with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

But with Omar on the committee, the politics of advancing any anti-boycott bill become much more complicated.

Asked earlier this week if he would put the Combating BDS Act on the House floor, Hoyer told Al-Monitor that I havent counted the votes yet. I think the overwhelming majority here doesnt want to see Israel hurt. They also want to protect free speech, and I think there are a number of amendments that have been added to the bills that have been introduced to affect that end.

Omar and her office declined to comment about her new committee position. But she expressed a dim view of the Senates anti-BDS bill earlier this month.

Asked what she would do if Democratic leaders put the Combating BDS Act on the floor, Omar told Al-Monitor: I cant imagine us being that senseless and not understanding what is really at stake. I hope that here in the House and in the Senate that we prioritize making sure that we are doing the peoples agenda, and I doubt that is on the peoples agenda.

But thats not deterring pro-Israel groups from renewing their push to get Congress to act on the anti-boycott bills this year, characterizing Omar as one of a few outliers on both sides.

In time we would hope that Rep. Omar would recognize the BDS movement for what it is, an effort to isolate and delegitimize the nation of Israel, but if she fails to do so, we do not expect her position to have any tangible impact on our legislative agenda, Sandra Parker, the chairwoman of the Christians United for Israel Action Fund, told Al-Monitor in a statement.

Omar has also called for curtailing arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which has deepened its intelligence relationship with Israel in recent years as the two countries seek to counter Iran. State-run Saudi media have run a smear campaign against Omar and Tlaib  the first two Muslim congresswomen  in recent months, echoing far-right conspiracy theories in the United States. Engel announced today that the Foreign Affairs Committees first hearing will focus on the Arabian peninsula.

We need to rein in arms sales to human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia, Omar said in a statement after joining the committee.

Meanwhile, Omar continues to take heat from the media over her 2012 tweet, offering ambiguous answers as to whether it was appropriate. She wrote the tweet in the middle of an Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip. Israeli human rights group BTselem notes that 167 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, at least 87 of whom were civilians.

I remember when that was happening, watching TV and really feeling as if no other life was being impacted in this war, Omar said in an interview with CNN International on Wednesday. And those unfortunate words were really the only way I could think of about expressing that moment.

She went on to stress the difference between criticizing Israeli military actions and attacking particular people of faith.

But in a subsequent interview today for CNNs domestic audience, she appeared to double down, stating, I dont know how my comments would be offensive to Jewish Americans. My comments precisely are addressing what was happening during the Gaza war, and I am clearly speaking about the way that the Israeli regime was conducting itself in that war.

Still, J Street, a liberal lobbying group that opposes anti-boycott laws while also opposing the BDS movement, leapt to her defense, citing her background as a Somali refugee as a positive development.

While its fair to disagree with and criticize her views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the BDS movement or any other issue, smearing Rep. Omar as an anti-Semite  or suggesting that she is somehow not fit to serve on an important committee like Foreign Affairs  is bigoted and deeply wrong, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement.
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Paul Seibert spent much of 2018 hovering thousands of feet over New York City, taking photographs for the social media accounts of the helicopter tour company FlyNYON. The images that consistently performed best on social media were shot from high over Harlem, looking south over Central Park, the skyscrapers of Midtown and Downtown Manhattan, with the East and Hudson Rivers converging at the top of the frame. Seibert went on to create a split-screen image contrasting Manhattan in winter and summer, notes Wired.
GREAT FALLS, Mont.  In conjunction with the 40th Annual Montana PRCA Pro Rodeo Circuit Finals, the North 40 Ranch Rodeo will be held Saturday, Jan. 12 at 10:30 a.m. in the Montana Expo Park Four Seasons Arena. The third annual Ranch Rodeo features teams of true ranch cowboys from across Montana participating in events inspired by daily ranch work chores: ranch bronc riding, team sorting, team branding and team doctoring.

This is the real deal, from breaking a colt to doctoring a calf on the prairie to sorting cattle out of a pen, said organizer Jack Stensland.

Ten teams of four participate in the event. Prize money will be awarded to the top three teams. Prizes for Top Hand and Top Horse will be awarded.

Theres nothing wrong with cowboys at the pro rodeo, but these guys do it for a living, he said. Its a little ranchier; theyre not going to tie a calf in 8 seconds, but watching them get the job done is a lot of times more fun.

Tickets are $10 at the door.

The event was started to give families an affordable alternative during Finals week.

At $10 per person, its reasonable for a family to come, Stensland said. It only lasts a couple of hours and to watch the ranch horses and ranch hands at work is pretty fun.

Its that kind of authenticity that draws the crowds, he said.

It gets a little more Western, a little more cowboy, he said. These are professional cowboys: its what they do for a living.

For more information, contact Jack Stensland by email at 4sll@nemont.net or call (406) 392-5595.

The Prairie Star Weekly Update Get the latest agriculture news delivered to your inbox from The Prairie Star. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
WASHINGTON  Senators John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer and Congressman Kelly Armstrong this week urged U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secre
While much of the southwestern and south central regions of the state, along with a small area in the northeastern region, received needed rai
I stared straight up at the ceiling tiles of the examination room and tried desperately to take my mind off what was happening in my lower regions.
Leonardo (UK) has been awarded a contract by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide the Apache AH Mk.1 Attack Helicopter fleet with comprehensive support and maintenance services.

The Apache Integrated Operational Support (IOS) contract is valued at approximately 293 million (approximately 325 million) and will continue to support the Apache AH Mk.1 Attack Helicopter fleet from 1st April 2019 until the aircraft goes out of service in 2024.





Above: Defence Minister Stuart Andrew at Leonardo Helicopters in Yeovil.

Copyright Leonardo



During a visit to Leonardo Helicopters facility in Yeovil yesterday Defence Minister Stuart Andrew (above) said: The Apache has provided years of crucial battlefield support to UK and coalition troops in operations in Libya and Afghanistan. This multi-million-pound contract will ensure our Armed Forces continue to benefit from this vital capability as we integrate the latest Apache model into service in 2022.



Geoff Munday, Leonardo Helicopters Managing Director in the UK said: We are pleased that we have been awarded the contract to support the Apache AH Mk.1 fleet up to the planned out of service date and that the Minister has taken the time to visit us here in Yeovil to see first-hand the unique and exceptional capabilities we have here in the UK.



Under the contract Apache IOS prime contractor Leonardo, through the involvement of its Helicopter and Electronics divisions, will continue to be supported by its industrial partners Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Longbow International to deliver complete spares provisioning, engineering, depth maintenance, repair & overhaul and technical support services for the UK MoDs fleet of Apache AH Mk.1 helicopters.

Above: Defence Minister Stuart Andrew meeting Leonardo apprentices.

Copyright Leonardo



At Wattisham Airfield, the British Armys main Apache AH Mk.1 operating base, Leonardo will continue to manage the Depth Support Unit and the associated workshops, ensuring the throughput of the facility matches the operational requirements of the Army Air Corps. At Army Aviation Centre Middle Wallop, Leonardo will continue to be responsible for the provision of Apache aircraft on the flight line at the School of Army Aviation, delivering the required number of flight hours to match the Armys training requirements.



The Apache IOS programme office, manned by industry and Ministry of Defence staff, located at Leonardos Yeovil facility, will continue to manage the IOS contract. The Apache IOS contract will deliver the required levels of aircraft availability whilst reducing through life costs. Leonardo also provides support and training services for the UK MoDs AW159 Wildcat helicopter fleet under the Wildcat Integrated Support and Training (WIST) contract and for the AW101 Merlins under the Integrated Merlin Operational Support (IMOS) contract.

This contract reaffirms the MODs committed investment in Leonardos Yeovil site. Last May, the MOD announced the delivery of the first Commando Merlin Mk4 helicopters designed for Royal Marine aircraft carrier operations. This saw the fruition of a 388 million contract supporting 175 skilled jobs in Yeovil and a further 500 across the UK supply chain. The MOD also provides Leonardo with the 271 million Wildcat support and training contract securing 500 jobs in Yeovil.



The South West benefits from MOD expenditure of 920 per person each year and a huge investment in local industry and commerce of 5.1 billion. Defence spending in the region supports one in every 60 jobs  the highest proportion of jobs supported by MOD expenditure in the UK, totalling 33,500 jobs.



Director Helicopters at Defence Equipment and Support, the MODs procurement agency, Graham Russell said: "This latest multi-million-pound investment in the existing Apache fleet not only demonstrates our positive collaboration with industry in achieving value for money, but also ensures that these battle-proven helicopters remain in-service and readily available for the British Army until their out of service date."
This January, Star Movies Select HD, the homes of curated content is all set to bring to you the dark comedy crime drama film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. The movie that bagged seven Oscar nominations, two Oscars at the 90th Academy Awards, and three Golden Globe awards last year, is all set to capture the hearts of the Indian audiences this month.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri tells the riveting story of a mother who rents three billboards to draw attention to her daughters unsolved rape and murder case. Frances Dormand, who plays the role of Mildred delivers an unforgettable performance as a seething mother who seeks justice and revenge for her daughter; a role for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actresss. Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell also shine in their roles as Officer Willoughby and Officer Dixon, both securing Oscar nominations and the latter securing an Oscar award.

Balancing humour and tragedy in a profound way, the movie makes you feel all at once- humour, shock, anger and sadness. Guardian called it a darkly hilarious portrait of a disenfranchised USA while New York Times said that Dormand tears the movie open, showing what a broken heart looks like.

Dont miss the Indian television premiere of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri on Star Movies Select HD on 19 January at 9 pm on Star Movies Select HD.
SHASTA COUNTY, Calif. - Authorities say that Susan Tancreto pleaded not guilty to eight felony charges on Thursday.

She is suspected of illegally injecting patients with Botox without a license in Redding.

Tancreto faces charges including the unlicensed practice of medicine and selling a controlled substance. Some of the victims experienced significant facial deformities,

In the wrong hands, one expert says these products can cause a number of health problems.

"Somebody who's not properly trained can put it into a blood vessel first of all," said Julie Kaplan, a certified aesthetic nurse specialist. "And if the product goes into a blood vessel it could lead to the back of the eye and cause blindness. If it goes into a blood vessel it can also block oxygen to the skin and cause the skin to die."

The Shasta County District Attorney's Office wants to hear from any patients that received treatments from Tancreto. The office can be reached at (530) 245-6300.


DAKOTA'S STORY:



Red Bluff, Calif.-- A Redding native said he was willing to pay high price for man's best friend, only to discover the puppy he bought has a health condition that couldn't be reversed.

In an Action News Now exclusive, we investigate the popular North State dog breeder accused of selling sick puppies.

One of their customer has a warning for others in the market for a dog.

"It upsets me every day, I wake up and see this dog limp and it bothers me," said Joe Wolff.

Wolff describes himself simply.

"Lab lover, dog lover period," said Wolff.

When his black lab died of old age last year, Wolff said he begged his wife, Tricia, to consider getting a new Labrador puppy. He got excited scouring popular pages on Facebook and landed on Top Dog Retrievers' page. He was pleasantly surprised to see they were located nearby in Red Bluff.

Top Dog Retriever is owned by Caleb and Toby Anderson. Their Facebook page describes the business as a "training, boarding and breeding facility" in Red Bluff, California. It frequently posts photos of new litters of labs and has over 2,600 "likes."

Wolff decided to look no further, he made a call and set up a time to visit their facility to pick out his puppy.

"It was instant love, no shyness, it was like he was meant for us," said Wolff.

The Wolff's found a goofy, friendly yellow lab. They named him Dakota and, at four months old, brought him home to Redding.

"We paid $2,650 for him," said Wolff.

The Wolff's said they signed a contract for a pure bred lab, with guaranteed health.

"The first night we had him he got sick," said Wolff.

Wolff said they were alarmed but thought maybe the puppy was just getting adjusted to their home. But, when Dakota's condition worsened, they took him to their veterinarian.

"The vet tested him he had kennel cough, worms and mites under his chin," said Wolff. "They said the mites were passed from the mom."

Wolff said he immediately called the Anderson's to alert them to the problem.

Dakota eventually recovered from those illnesses, but several months later, developed a limp. They took him back to the vet. After x-rays, they were told Dakota had elbow dysplasia and needed surgery.

They called the Anderson's again.

"He said he would replace the dog, or give us a refund, whichever we decided to do," said Wolff. "I've already developed a relationship with this dog, he's like our kid, I don't want to give him back."

Wolff said he was also concerned about what the breeder would do with a returned, sick dog. He said he wanted the price of the dog back and was willing to pay for Dakota's surgery himself.

But, that's where they claim communication with Top Dog Retrievers stalled.

"We never did hear from him again," said Wolff.

The now 11-month-old yellow lab still walks with a limp. The Wolff's says they've been left with an ailing dog and piles to medical bills.

Wolff starting digging deeper than the popular Facebook page. To his shock, he found the business had quite a lot of bad reviews on Yelp and an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau.

Many reviews were written by people claiming to be customers who purchased puppies, just like the Wolff's, only to discover some had serious health issues and received no refund from Top Dog Retrievers.

Wolff said looking back now, he realizes he missed red flags.

The Wolff's recently filed, and won, a $7,500 suit against the Anderson's in Tehama County's civil small claims court. That covers the price of the dog and medical bills. Wolff doesn't expect he'll get the money back.

"It's gone at this point, it's gone, I get it. I would like it back, don't get me wrong. I'm an average working person, I could really use that money back. But, am I ever going to see it? Do I care really? No. Do I care that somebody knows about this? Yeah. That's my concern. Don't let this happen to you, that's my biggest thing."

Wolff said he would simply like to see the Anderson's stop breeding sick dogs, and if and when it happens, take financial responsibility for it.

DIGGING DEEPER INTO THE BAD REVIEWS:



Action News Now independently reached out to several of the users who left poor Yelp reviews for Top Dog Retrievers. Many were from out of the area. Then, we got a call back from David Blockhus in Los Altos, CA.

"I am the first in a long line of people who are suing them," said Blockhus.

Blockhus bought his yellow lab, Mia, at six months old, from Top Dog Retrievers.

Blockhus said immediately upon getting Mia home, she needed $1,200 worth of dental work for "rotting teeth." Blockhus said Mia also suffered from giardia, a parasite that attacks the dog's intestines, causing severe digestion issues.

Blockhus said he too attempted to receive a refund from the Anderson's and when he didn't get a response, he pursued his legal options in Tehama County.

"Being so far away, I think they figured this guy isn't going to do it," said Blockhus.

In March, Blockhus won his civil suit against the Anderson's for $5,600,. That covered his base payment of $2,650 for the dog, plus additional vet bills.

"I don't anticipate getting paid," said Blockhus.

Blockhus believes there is a pattern of fraudulent business happening at Top Dog Retrievers.

"Their business strategy is get the dog in someone's hand, delay and don't respond, hide and then hope the customer will just go away," said Blockhus.

Blockhus said he is not going away and will use every resource he can to enforce the judgment of the law.

LEGAL REPERCUSSIONS:

Tehama County District Attorney Gregg Cohen said, at this time, the Anderson's are only facing legal consequences in civil court.

Cohen says receiving payment from settled civil suits can be difficult and the tedious process does discourage some from going through with a suit at all.

Action News Now requested all suits filed against the Anderson's and Top Dog Retrievers from the Tehama County Superior Court. The search came back with the two suits involving Wolff and Blockhus, as well as one additional property dispute with a former landlord.

The Tehama County Animal Control says no complaints have been filed against the Anderson's for their current kennel property on Dibble Road, in Red Bluff.

Several attempts were made to contact the Anderson's before the story aired. Action News Now team left voicemails, messages and even went to the property in Red Bluff. Shortly after our crews filmed the property, from the public street, we received a call back from Caleb Anderson.

TOP DOG RETRIEVERS RESPONDS:





"Yeah, you have two very unhappy people, no doubt," said Caleb Anderson, in reference to the Wolff and Blockhus civil suits.

Anderson said he is aware of both suits, and he's also aware of the bad reviews on Yelp. He said he's been occupied with a private family matter.

"Yeah, I saw there were some papers from the courts and I haven't had a chance to go through all of that," said Anderson. "We are not ignoring people with issues."

Anderson said he initially offered to pay the base rate the costumers paid for the dogs, but stopped negotiations when they pressed for compensation of additional vet bills on top of that.

Anderson said he believes these are isolated cases. Anderson said his dogs are OFA certified (Orthopedic Foundation for Animals) by a vet, before being used for breeding. He says their hips and elbows are graded, but that it's "not a 100 percent guarantee."

"When things go perfect, we have happy customers...when they don't, they're very vocal about it," said Anderson. "We've been breeding almost 20 years now and dogs, much like people...the genetics aren't always perfect."

When asked if he planned to pay the two recent civil suits in which the judge sided against him?

"Um, were going to look at them," said Anderson.
BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - California lawmakers from across the state gathered in Paradise on Thursday to assess the damage from the Camp Fire.

Legislators toured the burned areas to better understand what legislative efforts are needed for recovery. They held a meeting at the Paradise Town Hall afterward to bring attention to various needs including housing, education, transportation and water quality.

Lawmakers say that this was an important first step in moving forward.

"The biggest thing is to give people a real upfront picture of how this Camp Fire has devastated our communities, all of the different aspects of it," said Assemblyman James Gallagher. "Also to give them some solutions of how we can help people up here."

Lawmakers are also working toward financial solutions to help restore the burned areas.

"I understand there's upwards of nine billion dollars of insurance claims, its a large amount but hopefully its a doable amount," said Tom Lando, Interim City Adminstrator for Oroville.
Instagram Celebrity

A source, however, insists that the 51-year-old Bravo star doesn't 'share the same views as her son.'

Jan 18, 2019

AceShowbiz - Tamra Judge's son Ryan Vieth receives backlash following his explosive online rant which contains a torrid of transphobic hate. The son of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" star shared on his now-deleted Instagram account a screenshot of an article about a British transgender family.

The article reported that the couple's five-year-old son transitioned from male to female, prompting him to write, "LETS BE F***ING REAL, THE WORLD IS F***ED. COMPLETELY F***ED." Tamra then appeared to echo her son's opinion.

In addition to liking the post, the 51-year-old TV personality left a comment that read, "Wow that's sad. 5 year old can not make a decision like that." However, Tamra deleted her comment before the post was removed by her son.

A source insisted to Us Weekly on Thursday, January 17, that the Bravo star "did not mean to offend" anyone with her comment. "She was commenting on the story itself and felt a 5-year-old might be too young to make those decisions," says the insider.

Another souce revealed to Radar Online, "Tamra does not share the same views as her son." The source added, "She had commented on the story but has since taken it down."

It is not the first time Ryan made headlines. He was arrested for domestic violence back in 2015 after he was involved in a drunken fight with his baby mama.

Having been seen on "Real Housewives of Orange County" since 2007, Ryan is her son from her first marriage. Additionally, Tamra is a mom of her three other children, daughters Sidney and Sophia as well as son Spencer, whom she shares with her second ex-husband Simon Barney. The reality star is currently married to Eddie Judge, whom she tied the knot with in 2013.
NBC/Paul Drinkwater Celebrity

The 'Hot in Cleveland' alum celebrates her birthday playing poker with her friends as she wishes that Robert Redford calls her on her big day.

Jan 18, 2019

AceShowbiz - Betty White turned 97 on Thursday, January 17, with many fans and colleagues sending her birthday wishes. Among those well wishers was Ryan Reynolds, who paid tribute to the veteran TV star in the best way he could, making a joke.

Sharing on Twitter a picture from their appearance on a talk show several years ago, the "Deadpool" actor jokingly suggested that he had been once in a relationship with the actress, who is more than 50 years old his senior. He wrote in the caption, "I don't usually talk about ex-girlfriends. But Betty's special. Happy Birthday to the one and only, @BettyMWhite."

I dont usually talk about ex-girlfriends. But Bettys special. Happy Birthday to the one and only, @BettyMWhite  pic.twitter.com/ycpxHTorG4  Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) January 17, 2019

Reynolds also posted a hilarious tribute to White on Instagram. In the image, the Canadian hunk dressed as Deadpool holds a cocktail glass and hot dog, likely referencing to White's previous statement that her secret to a healthy life is consuming foods that she loves, including hot dogs and vodka, "probably in that order."

"Happy Birthday to the one and only @bettymwhite! Cheers to another year of 'Tinis and Weenies!" he captioned the photo, which also features a picture of White eating a hot dog.

A representative for White tells PEOPLE that the veteran entertainer planned to spend the big day with a poker night with her close friends. "Betty is feeling great. She has the absolute best sense of humor," the rep says of the star. The rep also shares to E! News, "As for her birthday wish, Betty is waiting for Robert Redford to call!"

White, who has stepped back from the show business in the last few years though not completely resigning yet, made an appearance at the 2018 Primetime Emmy Awards. Talking about her senior status, she poked fun at herself, "Somebody said something the other day about first lady of television, and I took it as a big compliment. And then I heard her talking to her daughter a little later, and she said, 'First lady, she's that old. She was the first one way back.' "

She added, "It's incredible that I'm still in this business and you are still putting up with me ... It's incredible that you can stay in a career this long and still have people put up with you. I wish they did that at home."
Instagram Celebrity

The former star of 'The Real Housewives of Orange County', who is currently 'unemployed,' spent a night in jail after being found in possession of Xanax and drug paraphernalia earlier this month.

Jan 18, 2019

AceShowbiz - Alexa Curtin kicked off 2019 with trouble. "The Real Housewives of Orange County" alum was arrested by the Irvine Police Department on January 5 for drug possession again, nearly a year after she was charged for a similar offense.

According to The Blast, Alexa was busted on January 5 for possession of Xanax and drug paraphernalia. She was booked into Orange County Jail where she spent one night, before she was released the next day at 11:33 A.M. after posting bond.

Days later, the former reality TV star, whose IMDB bio also lists her as an actress, was formally charged with two misdemeanor drug charges, possession of a controlled substance and possession of controlled substance drug paraphernalia.

The 26-year-old, who is the daughter of former "RHOC" main cast member Lynne Curtin and her ex-husband Frank Curtin, listed her occupation as "unemployed" when being booked. She is scheduled to appear in court in March for these charges.

This is the latest of Alexa's run-in with the law after she was arrested for multiple criminal cases in the past years. She was previously charged with two misdemeanors after being allegedly found with drugs in her car in June 2016. Last February, she was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia after police found items allegedly used to smoke heroin. She was also charged with driving under the influence in April from an incident back on June 6, 2017.

Later in August of the same year, she spent four days behind bars for the three separate criminal cases filed against her, which were possession of a controlled substance paraphernalia, vandalism, petty theft and driving under the influence of a drug. In October of 2018, a judge issued an arrest warrant for Alexa after she failed to show up for a court hearing related to her three separate criminal cases.
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The former star of 'The Vampire Diaries' confesses during the After Show of 'Watch What Happens Live' that the after-party was thrown in the spur of the moment.

Jan 18, 2019

AceShowbiz - Vin Diesel hosted a crazy after-party for Nina Dobrev's 30th birthday.

"The Vampire Diaries" star, who celebrated the milestone birthday earlier this month, dished on the details of the bash during an appearance on "Watch What Happens Live" with Andy Cohen.

When a caller asked Nina what was the craziest thing that happened at her festival-themed birthday party, dubbed #NinaChella, she revealed a few surprises.

"Zedd performed. That was pretty fun and crazy and awesome... he's a great dude and I'm so lucky he did that for me," she said of the Russian-German producer and DJ.

However, the festivities didn't stop once #NinaChella had finished.

"Vin Diesel hosted the after-party at his house, spur of the moment... the party ended around 1:30 A.M. and then we transferred over... I didn't get home until 5:30," she confessed.

Guests at the star-studded bash on Saturday, January 12, included her "Vampire Diaries" co-stars Kayla Ewell and Candice King, along with Julianne Hough, Vanessa Hudgens, Seth MacFarlane, Jessica Szohr, Chace Crawford and Zoey Deutch.

Nina had a Shake Shack stand at the party in Culver City, along with a full Casamigos bar.

The actress posted a series of snaps from the raucous event on Instagram, and admitted she was still nursing her hangover.

"Thirty doesn't feel much different. At least I didn't act like it this weekend," Nina captioned the pictures, including one of her doing the limbo on the dancefloor. "But I'm definitely 30 because this hangover feels WAY different than when I was in my 20's. Because I'm still currently recovering. And yes. My back is still pretty sore, days later... I guess #ThisIsThirty."
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GRAND MARAIS, Minn.  A company tied to a man who led a secretive polygamous sects compound in South Dakota has purchased about 40 acres of land in northern Minnesota.

Seth Jeffs is listed as registered agent for the company that acquired land west of the Lake Superior town of Grand Marais. Officials in Cook County, Minnesota, said Friday that the property was transferred in August to the company, Emerald Industries LLC.

Jeffs is the brother of Warren Jeffs, imprisoned leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Authorities have said Seth Jeffs led the sects South Dakota Black Hills compound, which has raised concerns among nearby landowners and a Republican state lawmaker who unsuccessfully pushed legislators to look into the outpost.

Seth Jeffs, who took a plea deal in a multimillion-dollar food-stamp fraud case in 2016, applied in August to build a 5,760-square-foot building on the Minnesota land; the permit was approved in December, but officials say the pole building hasnt yet been constructed. The county values the property at $57,300.

Jeffs didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment from The Associated Press. His brother, Lyle Jeffs, was sentenced in 2017 to prison for his role in carrying out the food stamp fraud scheme and for escaping home confinement while awaiting trial. He was caught in South Dakota after pawn shop workers spotted him and called police.

The group, also known as the FLDS, has long been based out of a remote community on the Utah-Arizona border, but the sect is losing control of the governments and police that run the sister cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona. The group let a sprawling building where its members worshipped be taken over in eviction , in a sign that the sect is crumbling and losing control of the community it ruled for a century.

Warren Jeffs, considered by the group to be a prophet who speaks for God, is serving a life sentence for assaulting two of his child brides.

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The FLDS is a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism whose members believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the faith abandoned the practice in 1890 and prohibits it today.

The FLDS opened the 140-acre compound near the town of Pringle, South Dakota, more than a decade ago. Known to the faithful as R23, the compound sits along a gravel road, secluded by tall pine trees, a privacy fence and a guard tower.

Questions over the compounds population were an issue during 2015 proceedings before South Dakota regulators. The Water Management Board eventually approved the groups application, which faced opposition from nearby landowners, even though the sect declined to provide many details about the number of people living there.

A Republican legislator in 2017 proposed finding out more about the compound, including what its population was, whether it had a home schooling program, and whether polygamy or sex trafficking was taking place there. Lawmakers decided against studying it, with one top legislator saying it was up to law enforcement to investigate.

South Dakota law requires births and deaths to be reported, but the Department of Health said then that no such records had been filed from the compounds address in the previous 10 years. One former resident said births occurred at the site, among them two of her own children.
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DES MOINES, Iowa  Unlike some of her potential rivals, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will be starting from scratch in early-voting Iowa when she makes her first visit as a 2020 Democratic presidential prospect on Friday.

Gillibrand, who announced her intentions to run on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, is wasting little time getting to the state where the 2020 caucuses launch the Democratic presidential selection process. Still, activists who have already been lavished with attention from other potential candidates say Gillibrand is a virtual unknown to them, especially compared with some of her Senate colleagues.

I know hardly anything about her, said Sioux City resident Tim Bottaro, among the western Iowa Democrats expected to meet her at a private home gathering with other activists Friday afternoon.

She plans a variety of appearances across the state this weekend, including coffee-shop talks in Sioux City and Ames, a brew pub meeting and speaking slot at the Womens March in the capital, Des Moines, as well as smaller-group introductions in small-town Boone and private meetings with influential Democrats along the way.

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Gillibrands Iowa trip is the beginning of her journey to introduce herself to more Americans outside New York, which she has represented in Washington since 2006, first as a congresswoman and then as a senator, when she replaced Hillary Clinton in 2009. She has distinguished herself in the nations capital with her outspoken opposition to President Donald Trump and her forceful advocacy for victims of sexual assault and harassment.

Unlike several of the more than a dozen Democrats who have signaled an interest in running, Gillibrand did not visit Iowa in 2018, when Iowa Democrats picked up seats in the U.S. House and the state Legislature in the November midterm elections.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, for instance, wowed hundreds of party activists at the Iowa Democratic Partys annual fall fundraising banquet in October. Likewise, California Sen. Kamala Harris lit up a crowd in Iowa City and met with influential female candidates and activists in suburban Des Moines.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren beat a path to the state quickly this month after announcing the formation of an exploratory committee Dec. 31. Gillibrands announcement and quickly planned Iowa trip followed what influential Iowa Democrats agreed was a productive trip for Warren, who drew hundreds to events in western and central Iowa.

And Gillibrand may also have to contend with Iowas traditionally tricky winter weather this weekend. A snowstorm was scheduled to hit western Iowa, where her tour begins, just as she is set to arrive in the state.

By bypassing Iowa last year, Gillibrand, who was seeking re-election in New York, allowed some Iowans to form early impressions of would-be rivals. Booker, for instance, struck Story County Democrat Cindy Paschen as sensitive to the #MeToo movements fury over sexual misconduct  an issue Gillibrand, in particular, has championed.

Cory Booker and I had a very interesting #MeToo conversation, Paschen said. Thats one thing that really struck me about him, that he was taking that message very seriously.

Paschen said some Democrats in her political circle in the liberal-leaning college city of Ames are angry that Gillibrand was the Senates first public advocate for Minnesota Democrat Al Franken to resign. Franken resigned his seat in December 2017 after allegations by women that he had groped them.

Gillibrands role in Frankens departure has resurfaced as she takes her nascent steps as a presidential prospect, though Paschen says it was the right thing to do. What he did was not as bad as what a lot of men have done, Paschen said. But I totally support her for calling him out.
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TEMPE, Ariz.  A suburban Phoenix police officer investigating a car break-in shot and killed the 14-year-old suspect as the boy ran away, according to video released Friday.

Before making footage from the officers body-worn camera public, Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir asked people to withhold judgment until an investigation is complete.

I must begin with expressing my condolences to the young mans family. The loss of his life is tragic, Moir said at a news conference. I am very sorry for their loss.

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Police say the boy, identified by his family as Antonio Arce, was carrying a replica handgun when he was shot Tuesday by an officer identified only as Officer Jaen. In interviews and a vigil this week, family members have called for justice.

Body camera video shows Jaen arriving in a car and parking in an alley at a reported burglary. He sees the suspect in a gray pickup truck facing his squad car and crouches behind a big, black plastic trash barrel.

Hey, Jaen says and raises his handgun as the suspect gets out of the passenger side of the truck and starts running down the alley lined with wooden fence, chain link and concrete block.

Let me see your hands, Jaen yells and fires two shots as the suspect runs away. Shot fired, shot fired, the officer yells as he chases the teen through the alley.

Hes got a handgun, hes got a handgun, Jaen shouts later.

The video does not show the suspect again after he disappears from view.

It is impossible to tell if the suspect is carrying a handgun in the fast-moving video, but he does seem to be holding something in his hand in a zoomed-in still photo that the department took from the video and showed at the news conference.

Moir said one of the two shots hit the teen in the rear shoulder blade area and the other hit a wall. She said two independent witnesses reported seeing the suspect running through the alley with a firearm in his hand, and a replica gun was found on him. Police said the replica gun was taken from the vehicle with other items.

Arce later died at a hospital.

The police chief said Jaen has been an officer for 17 years  14 of them with Tempe. He was placed on administrative leave. Jaen had completed one combat tour in Iraq for the Army National Guard.

Arces Facebook page shows photographs of a baby-faced boy with a peach-fuzz mustache and a few images with relatives and friends. Friends of the family were putting together a GoFundMe page to pay for the teens funeral costs.

A vigil was held Thursday outside the Tempe police headquarters. The department said it will conduct its investigation in conjunction with prosecutors, which is customary in officer-involved shootings.

Since the beginning of the year, there has been at least one other police shooting that killed a teen in Arizonas largest county.

Earlier this month, a Phoenix police officer shot and killed a 19-year-old Jacob Michael Harris after surveillance officers reportedly saw him and three others carry out an armed robbery. Police say they were watching the group because they were suspects in several other robberies.

Also this month, an officer in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria shot and wounded a 17-year-old boy after getting a call about a robbery at an auto supply store. Officers said the boy had a gun. He was shot in the shoulder.
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TORONTO  Canadas public safety minister said Friday that the country wont be deterred by Chinese pressure after China threatened reprisals if Huawei was banned from supplying equipment for 5G networks, highlighting the growing rift between Americas neighbor and the emerging superpower.

There are accusations that the telecom giant is controlled by Chinas ruling Communist Party or is required to facilitate Chinese spying. The U.S., Australia, Japan and other governments have imposed curbs on use of its technology.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Canada has been abundantly clear it will not compromise national security.

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Its a difficult challenge but well not be deterred by what we believe to be right and what we believe to be in the interests of Canada, Goodale said.

Lu Shaye, Chinas ambassador to Canada, warned Thursday of repercussions if Canada bars the firm from its new 5G network.

One of the things that is of concern in this situation is the blending of Chinese commercial interests with Chinese political positioning and consequences. Thats something that I think should be of concern to Canadians and people around the world, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

Canada and its security agencies are studying whether to use equipment from Huawei as phone carriers prepare to roll out fifth-generation technology.

5G is designed to support a vast expansion of networks to facilitate medical devices, self-driving cars and other technology. That increases the risk of potential security failures and has prompted governments to treat telecom communications networks as strategic assets.

But the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States has created a growing diplomatic rift between China and Canada. Meng is the chief financial officer of Huawei and the daughter of its founder.

The U.S. wants her extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about Huaweis business dealings in Iran.

China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor 10 days after Mengs arrest on allegations that they were engaging in activities that endanger the national security of China in an apparent attempt to pressure Canada to release her. China also sentenced another Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, to death Monday in a sudden retrial of his drug-smuggling case.

John McCallum, Canadas ambassador to China, said the path that China is on is not in their interest.

Its not in the interests of corporate China if when they run into trouble internationally the Chinese government arrests people to use as bargaining chips, McCallum said. That is the perception of much of the world and that is not good for the reputation of Chinese business people.

On Thursday, Lu warned Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland not to use next weeks World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, to press for support against China. He also said Canadas arrest of Meng was an act of backstabbing by Canada and called it politically motivated.

Freeland has said the detention of two Canadians will be at the top of her agenda in Davos and didnt back down from her position after hearing about the ambassadors remark.

Canada maintains Mengs arrest is a matter of rule of law and says it is acting according to its international treaty obligations.

Trudeau said Canada would continue to speak out against China and his office said he spoke German Chancellor Angela Merkel and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about it on Friday.

Trudeaus office said Trudeau and Merkel talked about China and agreed on the necessity to safeguard the rules-based international order, including to ensure the confidence of the international business community.

A lot of countries share the concern, Trudeau said earlier.

Huaweis image suffered a new blow last week when Polish authorities announced that a Chinese employee was arrested on spying charges. Huawei said it fired the employee and the allegations were unrelated to the company.

Meng is now out on bail in Canada and is awaiting extradition proceedings. A hearing is scheduled for next month.

McCallum said his top priority is to get the detained Canadians home and save the life of the third Canadian. He briefed lawmakers on Parliament Hill on Friday and said hes been talking to Canadian businesses that work in China. He still thinks China will play an important role in Canadas future, noting that the countrys tourism industry, farmers and universities are all highly dependent on China.

I think it is best we move forward as much as we can under the circumstances, he said.

Canada had previously talked about doing a possible free trade teal with China, but McCallum said thats certainly not an issue Canada is considering now.
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FLORENCE, Ariz.  A 40-year-old Pinal County man has been sentenced to 280 years in prison in a child pornography case.

County prosecutors say a jury found Michael Huntoon guilty of 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and dangerous crimes against children.

The court imposed a presumptive sentence of 28 years for each of the 10 counts against Huntoon.

Prosecutors say Phoenix and Chandler police uncovered Huntoons actions in 2015 while they were investigating on a peer-to-peer file sharing network known for the distribution of child porn.

Detectives discovered the source of the information came from Huntoons computer.

Police searched Huntoons home in Apache Junction and reported finding thousands of images of young children on his computers and cellphone.

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Billy Tucci cant wait to get back to Albuquerque.

Its been about four years since he was last in town.

I could live out there, he says in an interview. Im in Long Island, and it would be a great move. I would have to get my wife on board.

Tucci will be one of the dozens of guests for this years Albuquerque Comic Con. The three-day event, in its ninth year, begins today and runs through Sunday.

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For 25 years, Tucci has made a name for himself in the comic book world. He is the creator of the comic book Shi, which is celebrating its 25th year.

Tucci began drawing comics after he graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

I was trying to get work from all the majors, and I kept getting the same responses that my style didnt fit their style, he says. After a lot of rejections, I decided to create my own book.

Three million books later, hes got a hit.

Shi tells the story of Ana Ishikawa, a young woman of Japanese and American descent.

The comic series often touches on spiritual issues, especially as they pertain to Shis mixed background: a combination of Yamabushi warrior monk traditions and Christianity.

Three million copies later, Tucci has a hit on his hands.

Its been pretty amazing to be able to do my own story, he says. Its a modern-day samurai story.

Tucci took a hiatus from the comic for a few years.

In that time, he worked for both Marvel and DC Comics.

I spent the first 10 years straight working on Shi, he says. I got burned out and decided to do a new issue every other year. Though I took a break from it, Shi always remained on my mind.

Tucci is planning a Kickstarter campaign to fund the next issue, which finds Shi as a grown-up.

Shes a single mother raising a teenage daughter, he says. Her warrior days are behind her. But it all comes back, and shes unprepared. Its basically a comic book that grows up.

Tucci says that Albuquerque Comic Con founder and promoter Jim Burleson is printing a 25th anniversary edition of the first edition of Shi for the convention.

It was a trip down memory lane, he says. Back then, I had to paint everything, so I had to find all of the art and colors again.
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Theres a stunning precision to each performer in the Golden Dragon Acrobats.

The gravity-defying pieces have been around for centuries.

New Mexicans will get an opportunity to see performances by the legendary troupe in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

The show will change at least 30 or 40 percent for each tour, says Randy Williamson, production manager. Each show is a little bit different, as well, because we adjust to the varying sizes of the stages.

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Williamson says the reputation of the company is solidly rooted in a commitment to the highest of production values and an attention to artistic details that is unparalleled in the art form.

World-renowned impresario Danny Chang and choreographer Angela Chang combine award-winning acrobatics, traditional dance, spectacular costumes, ancient and contemporary music and theatrical techniques to present a show of breathtaking skill and spellbinding beauty.

The group made its Broadway debut in November 2005, and the show ran for six weeks.

Members of the troupe are athletes, actors and artists who have studied and trained for their craft since early childhood.

Based in Cangzhou, Hebei province, in the Peoples Republic of China, the Golden Dragons represent the best of an art form that began more than 25 centuries ago.

The Golden Dragon Acrobats are led by director Danny Chang, one of the worlds leading promoters of Chinese acrobatics.

He began his training at his familys acrobatic school in Taipei and joined its touring wing, the Golden Dragon Acrobats, at age 10.

He has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Medal for International Faith and Goodwill from Chinas Coordination Council for North American Affairs.

The company is celebrating its 35th year of touring.

Williamson says there will be 25 performers and 17 acts in the show.

What Danny and Angela have created is a show that continues to grow, he says. The performers are usually with the company for two years at a time. With that, the show continues to feel fresh and attract new audiences. Its wonderful seeing the audiences faces when they see what each performer is able to accomplish.
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Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is aiming to extend the school year, and school districts are on board as long as theres funding for it.

In her budget recommendation for the fiscal year starting in July, Lujan Grisham suggested putting in an additional $18.7 million to add three school days to the academic year.

That would make the school year 183 days.

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The Legislative Finance Committee also pushed for an extended school year  10 days longer  with the aim to ramp up professional development time for educators.

Some of the states largest districts see the benefits of added time for both instruction and for teacher training.

Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Veronica Garcia said additional professional development days built into the school year would result in more instructional time, too.

The more days we are given for professional development will actually help increase instructional time, because you arent using typical instruction time for that professional development, she told the Journal.

And she said professional development will be even more crucial in the coming months since the state is expected to implement new curriculum or other remedies because of a landmark education court ruling.

The superintendent says its too early to say how those additional days will be structured in SFPS, but she hopes any state requirements are flexible enough for school districts to cater the days to their students needs. For instance, some districts may want that time for an extension of common core, while others may want to use that time for supplemental learning in other areas.

Overall, she called the initiative positive.

For all students to receive three instructional days would be very positive, she said.

Ultimately, though, she stressed that this would have to come with additional funding.

We could not do this with current funding, she said. But we believe the governors proposal would come with new dollars.

Las Cruces Public Schools officials echoed Garcia, rallying behind the idea of a longer school year while hoping the Legislature includes financial support.

Las Cruces Public Schools spokesman Damien Willis said that Superintendent Greg Ewing believes that adding instructional time would benefit students.

He completely supports the ideas set forth by the new administration and applauds the governor for her progressive vision and zeal for making substantive improvements in public education, Willis said.

But he said its too early to estimate the cost to the district.

While it is still too early to know what direct and indirect costs might come from extending the school year, we are hopeful that legislators would take that into account, Willis said.

Rio Rancho Public Schools spokeswoman Beth Pendergrass said RRPS is particularly keen to have more professional development days.

Albuquerque Public Schools spokeswoman Monica Armenta declined to comment, saying the district doesnt typically speak on bills and recommendations still in motion.

The Center for Education Policy, Applied Research and Evaluation at the University of Southern Maine studied the effects of extended school years in 2009.

This research said that a longer school year doesnt guarantee a better education, highlighting a quality-over-quantity issue.

Improving the quality of instructional time is at least as important as increasing the quantity of time in school, the study said.

The research also suggests that lengthening the school day would result in more learning time than an extended year.

In the same vein, James Jimenez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, said that adding more days makes sense, especially for children who dont get learning opportunities at home.

But itll take more than that to get better results, he added.

He also emphasized the funding component.

Its also going to take more revenue  and it needs to be a more reliable revenue stream than oil and natural gas. If we dont stabilize our revenue situation, well just have to cut some of these initiatives when oil and gas prices go down. You cant expect real education reform on a boom-or-bust funding cycle, he wrote in an email to the Journal.
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Copyright  2019 Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico is No. 1 in the share of oil and gas revenue it captures from local production, compared with eight other Western states, according to a new study released Thursday by the New Mexico Tax and Research Institute and Moss Adams.

The study, to be presented today to the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, shows that state and local governments reaped 20.7 percent of all revenue generated from oil and gas in 2017 through taxes and royalties. Thats significantly higher than the percentage for all other states in the study, including Texas, the runner-up,with a 14.9 percent share of revenue.

New Mexico received more than $3 billion from oil and gas last year, contributing to a record surplus of more than $1 billion to state coffers as the Legislature begins debate over next years budget.

In large part, New Mexicos high revenue generation reflects heavy production on state and federal lands, which accounts for much more activity than in states including Texas, where most operations are on private lands, said Richard Anklam, the Tax Research Institutes president and executive director. As a result, New Mexico reaps 9.2 percent of the value of oil and gas production through royalties, compared with just 5.4 percent in Wyoming and 3.7 percent in Utah, the two next-highest royalty-earning states.

New Mexico also captures 11.5 percent of production value through taxes, the third-highest oil and gas taxation rate of states in the study. Texas and Montana were higher, at 12.8 percent, Anklam told the Journals editorial board on Thursday.

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The study provides more information about industry contributions as legislators consider new laws governing its activities, such as a State Land Office proposal to raise royalty rates for production on state lands from 20 percent to 25 percent, Anklam said. Educating the public about New Mexicos heavy dependence on oil and gas also highlights the need for prudence in government spending, such as maintaining adequate monetary reserves for future industry downturns.

Its a blessing, but a little scary, too, given the industrys chronic volatility, Anklam said.
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Copyright  2019 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Public agencies in New Mexico would have the ability to block the release of public records in certain circumstances  and they could impose higher fees  under legislation proposed in the state Senate.

The proposal, Senate Bill 232, sponsored by Sen. Pat Woods, R-Broadview, was introduced Thursday and referred to two committees for further consideration.

Woods said his proposal is aimed at companies that request and resell records and at frivolous, time-consuming requests, not at the general public, journalists or those doing legal research.

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But transparency advocates are calling the proposal, which would amend the states Inspection of Public Records Act, a disaster for the public and for the citizens of our state.

Melanie Majors, executive director of the nonprofit New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said the bill would allow the government to curtail and restrict access to public records and impose excessive fees.

Under the current law, agencies generally may not charge for the staff time it takes to redact or search for records. Agencies can charge reasonable fees for copying or the actual cost of, say, downloading information onto a storage device or putting records in the mail.

But under the proposed changes, public agencies could:

 Charge a service fee for access to public records if the request requires extensive use of staff or information technology resources.

 Charge the commercial market value of records if they are requested by someone for a commercial purpose, such as reselling the information or using it to solicit businesses. Agencies could also charge for staff time to handle the request if its for a commercial purpose.

 Seek an injunction blocking an inmate from getting requested records when it would create an undue burden on a public body, among other circumstances.

The bill includes several provisions aimed at requesting information for a commercial purpose.

State law now prohibits requiring people to say why they want to look at public records.

But Woods bill would require people to disclose whether theyre seeking the records for a commercial purpose and, if so, how they intend to use the information.

When handling requests for a commercial purpose, the public agency would have extra flexibility to deny access to the records.

It could petition the governor to bar disclosure of the records if the agency believes the request is a misuse of public records or is an abuse of the right to receive public records.

Under the proposal, journalism and legal research would be excluded from the definition of commercial purpose.

The bill would also create a section in law allowing recovery of legal fees and costs if someone files a lawsuit to get access to records but loses the case.

Woods said the legislation is based on laws in about five other states. Responding to requests for public records, he said, consumes valuable staff time.

Im trying to make a point here, he said in an interview. Is it right to tie up our state government on requests that are either frivolous, or they dont get to recover the cost it takes to pull that information out?

Majors said the proposal threatens basic tenets of the publics right to know.

It would gut the Inspection of Public Records Act and would set New Mexico on a very slippery slope, she said in a statement. This is a terrible anti-transparency bill.

Many states are moving in the opposite direction, she said, increasing citizens access to public information and records.

Senate Bill 232 is a blatant attempt to block the publics access to their own information, she said.

To win passage, the proposal would have to clear two Senate committees  Public Affairs and Judiciary  and the full Senate, before heading to the House. If approved by both chambers, it would go to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
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The painful ongoing government shutdown notwithstanding, Americas political class is enthralled with the ongoing dispute over what we should do at our southern border, how far we should move along the ultra-progressive scale as advocated by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez, and the Mueller investigation that someday might tell us whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Predictably, the news media follows along on the story lines and devotes enormous amounts of coverage of those issues that loops again and again in the 24-hour news cycle. You could almost write the scripts for most of the talking heads and their Fox/CNN contributors.

There has been little focus, however, on what some are calling the most serious threat from Russia in recent years: Vladamir Putins announcement that Russia will deploy its first regiment of hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles next year. The new weapon travels at hypersonic speeds, up to five times the speed of sound, and is highly maneuverable.

The U.S. has no known defense. In fact, Gen. John Hyten, the four-star head of U.S. Strategic Command, has warned that the current generation of U.S. missile-detecting satellites and radars wont be capable of spotting hypersonic Russian weapons like Putins Avangard system.

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So, not only is there virtually no chance of shooting it down with a missile defense, but we might not even see it coming.

The Russian strongman is tossing around terms like invulnerable.

The respected geopolitical website Stratfor says hypersonic weapons will not only trigger a new arms race for offensive superiority, but also encourage first strikes because they leave an opponent little time to consider options. Shorter reaction times and lack of adequate defenses will make pre-emptive strikes more attractive, Stratfor posted.

Of course, the U.S. military isnt sitting idly by. Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $928 million contract to develop a hypersonic missile. One top defense official told reporters in December that the U.S. could have a workable defensive capability against hypersonic weapons  but not until the middle of the next decade.

New Mexicos installations, including the Air Force Research Lab and Space Command operations, presumably would be key in our response. Sandia itself is pioneering a hypersonic vehicle, lab director Steve Younger told the Journal this week.

The Trump administration, which critics say is in the pocket of the Kremlin, has already pulled out of an Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because it said Russia was cheating. And that treaty wouldnt cover the hypersonic arsenal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lumped various transgressions together as part of the larger pattern of Russian lawlessness on the world stage.

As the political class postures over The Wall and The Shutdown while gearing up for 2020 elections  while many Americans shake their heads in disgust and try to tune them out  it would serve the country well to have our would-be leaders start to spend some time dealing with something that actually threatens our existence or leaves us vulnerable to nuclear blackmail.

And that starts with President Trump in his State of the Union on Tuesday.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
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WASHINGTON  Warning lights should have been flashing early on during William Barrs confirmation hearings on Tuesday. But our nations political class is so eager to think that an establishment figure would never capitulate to President Trump that the moment went by with barely a nod.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, asked the would-be attorney general about his June 8, 2018, memo that offered an expansive view of presidential authority. Barr eviscerated what he took to be special counsel Robert Muellers interpretation of the obstruction of justice statute.

His focus on Section 1512 of the criminal code surely overjoyed Trump since Barr asserted that there is no legal prohibition  against the president acting on a matter in which he has a personal stake. The attorney general and Department of Justice lawyers, Barr said, citing a 1922 case, are merely the presidents hand. Barr added that the discretion they exercise is the presidents discretion.

Barr went on to argue that the Constitutions grant of law enforcement power to the president is plenary. Barr used the word plenary six times. Merriam-Webster defines it as absolute, unqualified.

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And there was this shot at former FBI Director James Comey for suspecting corruption when Trump asked him to see his way clear to stopping the investigation of the presidents national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has since pled guilty to lying to the FBI.

The formulation that Comey see his way clear explicitly leaves the decision with Comey, Barr wrote. Most normal subordinates would not have found these comments obstructive.

Most normal subordinates? Does Barr consider Comey abnormal?

Barrs entire performance on Tuesday  one heck of a smokescreen  seemed designed to get senators to forget about his memo. Barr spoke effusively about his admiration for Mueller and insisted that he would never interfere with him.

Everyone outside Trumps orbit wants this to be true since, in our partisan world, Republican senators are expected to fall in line behind Barr. But Feinsteins question unmasked how disingenuous the nominees protestations may have been.

Her simple query: How do you know what Muellers interpretation of [Section] 1512 is?

Barrs answer: I was speculating. I said at the beginning I was writing in the dark, and we are all in the dark. Every lawyer, every talking head, everyone who thinks about or talks about it doesnt have the facts.

He was speculating? In the first instance, why should we be comfortable at this fragile moment for our institutions with an attorney general nominee who would compose a detailed and acerbic 19-page assertion of boundless presidential power on the basis of mere speculation? And an attorney general is rather more than a talking head.

The memo itself belies his benign reading of his own words. Yes, the second paragraph used the word appears about what Mueller was up to, but there was little circumspection in the rest of Barrs legal torrent.

Muellers obstruction theory is novel and extravagant, Barr wrote without hesitation. He also referred to Muellers core premise, Muellers proposed regime and Muellers sweeping obstruction theory. For someone operating in the dark, he didnt show a smidgen of humility or restraint.

On Tuesday, Barr could have given substance to his commitment to allowing the special counsel to complete his work. But he was persistently evasive and flatly declined to promise steps showing that the Barr of presidential supremacy would not be the same as Barr the attorney general.

He declined to pledge he would recuse himself from the probe if the Justice Department ethics office said he should because of his tendentious memo. On what grounds might he go against the offices advice? If I disagreed with it, he said. A lot of help that was.

He offered no guarantee that the public would see whatever report Mueller issued. If anything, he seemed to tilt toward secrecy when he said the special counsels conclusions will be handled as a confidential document.

He even defended Trumps use of the phrase witch hunt to refer to the Russia collusion investigation. If someone felt they were falsely accused, they would view an investigation as something like a witch hunt, he said. Barr, you see, supports Mueller and the FBI, but has no problem with their being compared to witch hunters.

I understand the will to believe. But any senator who votes to confirm him in the hope that hell fight back against Trumps abuses is choosing to ignore the many red flags Barr waved before us amidst all the smoke.

Twitter: @EJDionne. (c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  Albuquerque Public Schools is moving forward with promised remedies after a racially charged incident at Cibola High School stirred outcries and protests late last year.

An English teacher at Cibola High School, identified by students as Mary Eastin, was accused of calling Navajo student McKenzie Johnson a bloody Indian and snipping the end of another Native American girls braid during a class on Oct. 31.

Following what has been called an act of racism and cultural assault, Superintendent Raquel Reedy told the Board of Education on Wednesday night that the district is moving forward with cultural sensitivity training and adding more Native-centric curricula  two major demands from the community.

Last year, district officials said Eastins behavior was part of a Halloween stunt since she was in costume and acting like a book character. The English teacher later resigned.

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Still, Johnson and her family, the president of the Navajo Nation and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union called for changes in APS to prevent incidents in the future.

Reedy said APS has talked with Harvard University, the New Mexico Public Education Department and Native American faculty at the University of New Mexico, among other entities, to draft a solution.

Now, APS will implement new curriculum from the PED, train staff on cultural competency and purchase culturally relevant textbooks.

Im very proud of the work we are doing, Reedy said. We are committed to this and will continue to work on this.

Madelyn Serna Marmol, assistant superintendent of equity, instruction and support, has been working on the APS changes. She said APS will start teaching more Native American history via a curriculum developed by the PED, which has been vetted by all tribes in the state. Social studies teachers will be trained on it at the end of May.

The lessons are supplemental to current teachings in place, explained Serna Marmol.

Whats so good about this curriculum is its not in place of a social studies subject, but adapts and will be supplemental, she said.

For instance, when history classes learn about a specific time period, this curriculum will also add Native history and narratives from that chapter in history.

And the district is working on a cultural sensitivity training from PED, too.

We are developing cultural competency for APS faculty about the harms of racism, Reedy said.

Serna Marmol explained PED will train APS leadership first, then the district will work on a plan to train principals and teachers.

Since the training and lesson plans are coming from the state, its not expected to cost APS any money, Serna Marmol said.

There is also work being done specifically at Cibola.

Serna Marmol told the Journal that staff has been conducting interviews to assess the climate at Cibola and an assembly is scheduled on Feb. 5 to address student safety.

These initiatives come after reports that Cibola had become a contentious place since Halloween, with some students supporting the girls at the center of the incident and others standing in solidarity with the teacher.

In addition, a Native American community forum will be held next Thursday at Paradise Hills Community Center near Cibola. Starting at 5 p.m., the forum will include an update on APS efforts and community members will be able to talk about other needs they see in the district.

This is one of several forums planned around the city, Serna Marmol said.

Other changes at APS include a task force created to get more culturally relevant textbooks and pueblo feast days added to the district calendar.

Wednesday nights meeting was a far cry from a heated Board of Education meeting last month.

Many public forum speakers  Johnsons family, APS students and others from the indigenous community  chided Eastins actions and pushed APS to do more than issue an apology.

Verbal brawls ensued as speakers pushed back on two mothers speaking in support of Eastin, profanities flying in the boardroom.

And many in the audience said the district was taking too long to make changes.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  Albuquerque police have identified the man fatally shot outside a cafe near the bosque on Wednesday morning.

APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said 43-year-old Isaac Candelaria was shot around 8 a.m. outside the Central Grill and Coffee House on Central, near Rio Grande Boulevard.

Candelaria later died at the hospital and police led a manhunt through the bosque for his shooter, eventually calling off the search Thursday evening.

Detectives have collected many items of evidence that will be processed, Gallegos said. The investigation is active and ongoing.

Police have not said what led to the shooting or given any other details.

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RIO RANCHO, N.M.  Officers are investigating the death of a man whose body was found in his Rio Rancho home Thursday evening after a fire broke out, according to police.

Rio Rancho police Captain Andrew Rodriguez said the mans body was found after police and fire crews cleared the house, on Second and Inca SE.

He said nobody else was injured and medical investigators are determining how the man died.

We dont suspect foul play at this time, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez and Rio Rancho Fire Chief Paul Bearce initially reported the fire was caused by a natural gas explosion, however it was later determined that was not the case.

Authorities have not identified the man or the said how the fire started, except to say it was not caused by a natural gas leak.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  A partner at an Albuquerque law firm is under investigation after pornographic images of children were found on his personal computer, according to a search warrant filed in state district court. The partner appears in TV commercials and on billboards that advertise the firm.

Matthew ONeill, a partner at the Whitener Law Firm, has been placed on administrative leave by the company after authorities executed a search warrant at the law firm last week, said Dan Buttram, another partner at the firm.

Agents with the New Mexico Attorney Generals Office on Jan. 9 seized a desktop computer, multiple thumb drives, a camera and other items from the firm. The search warrant gave agents authority to seize and analyze computers, electronics, photographs, documents and other materials depicting child pornography in ONeills office and workstation.

According to a search warrant filed Jan. 10 in 2nd Judicial District Court, an information technology company hired by the law firm contacted law enforcement after one of its employee saw evidence that ONeill was looking at illegal porn.

According to the warrant, the employee had worked on ONeills personal computer, which allowed her to view his computer in real time. On Dec. 28, that IT employee got a security alert and logged on to ONeills computer, where she saw that it appeared he was looking at child porn.

An agent with the Attorney Generals Office said in the warrant that he saw several photographs of the images that appeared on ONeills computer. The warrant states that at least one of those images was of two pre-pubescent girls engaged in a sex act.

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No charges have been filed against ONeill. His attorney could not be reached for comment Friday or Tuesday.

His law firm said ONeill isnt allowed at the law office and they have told him not to contact any of the firms personnel or clients, Buttram said.

We can confirm that special agents with the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General executed a search warrant at Whitener Law Firm (last) Wednesday, said David Carl, a spokesman for the attorney general. The Attorney General is committed to protecting New Mexican children; however, at this time it would be inappropriate to comment beyond the publicly filed documents in this ongoing investigation.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  The Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office arrested five men and seized 17 pounds of marijuana during a traffic stop on Interstate 40 near Sedillo Hill Wednesday afternoon.

Deputy Felicia Maggard, a BCSO spokeswoman said around 3:30 p.m. a deputy pulled over a car on I-40. According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, the car was going six miles per hour over the speed limit and traveling east.

The deputy recognized an odor of marijuana, she wrote in a news release. With assistance from the BCSO K9 Unit, 17 pounds of marijuana were located and seized.

The driver, 25-year-old Gregory Williams, was arrested and charged with distribution of a controlled substance. His passengers Justin Morgan, 21, Jacoby Cooper, 20, Daron Crawford, 27, and Jani Williams, 19, were also arrested and charged with distribution of a controlled substance.

The men are from Louisiana, according to court records.

They said the were coming from either California or Las Vegas and heading to Oklahoma for a game, according to the complaint.

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Kelda J.L. Pharris

kpharris@aberdeennews.com

Make this years Super Bowl extra souper while helping a good cause.

Zion Lutheran Church is once again selling quarts of homemade soup  yep, the broth is from scratch, too  to raise money to get the churchs garage back in shape.

About a half-dozen women  Millie Suchomel, Carmel Hyde, Elsie Geffre, April Nehlich, Lois Sollie, Kathy Job and Deloris Sanderson  were in the churchs kitchen Wednesday, working their way to 80 bags of knoephla dumplings. The German dumplings are the star of the knoephla and vegetable soup. Also available are turkey noodle and potato soups.

The knoephla recipe comes from Suchomel, who suspects it was handed down many generations before her mother taught her about it. Shes been making it since she was about 14 when shed help feed more than a dozen men threshing on her familys farm between Eureka and Hosmer.

Its laying right there, thats how secretive it is, Suchomel laughs, pointing at the handwritten recipe.

The amount of each ingredient doesnt need to be precise, she said. But one crucial ingredient is missing  water.

Just enough until you get a soft dough, Suchomel said, as she poured some water in bit by bit, working it with her hands until it felt right and the dough came together.

Then it was rolled into snake-like pieces and clipped with kitchen sheers onto a cookie sheet with a little flour. The dumplings are frozen before being put into gallon bags. At home, the pillow-shaped dumplings can be clipped right into the broth.

Last year, the crew sold 281 quarts of soup. This year it hopes to sell even more. So instead of 12 large roasting pans of knoephla soup, the women are shooting for 17 pans. Theyll have another five pans each of turkey noodle and potato.

The soups are $7 per quart and will be made around Jan. 29 and available for pick up Jan. 30-31. The women always shoot to have the soup ready for Super Bowl Sunday, which is Feb. 3 this year. To reserve a quart, call the church at 605-225-6755.

We call them, they get it fresh. As soon as we have some done we start calling people, Suchomel said.

To ready the other soups, carrots, celery and potatoes are cut up in advance. Turkey is used to make the stock.

Suchomel didnt have an exact cost for what the churchs garage repairs will cost but estimated $10,000 to $11,000. She said the crew is always making soup for some fundraiser. Last year funds went to a church shed.

The only other crazy thing we did was when we made our German supper. Aye-yi-yi! Suchomel said. We made a lot of money, but we were so dumb. We had nine different things on the menu. That went to the kids to go to camp.

Next year, heaven only knows what the women will be supporting through their church work.

Thats all we do, Suchomel said with a satisfied sigh. Were crazy, were always cooking something.
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Democracy Now!

If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive, he would have turned 90 years old Tuesday. Instead, he was felled by an assassins bullet that terrible day, April 4, 1968. After a long-fought struggle, his birthday was finally celebrated as a national holiday in 1986. Many states, from New Hampshire to South Carolina to Arizona and beyond, delayed implementing the holiday, exposing the intractability of institutional racism.

Another King was in the news on MLK Jr.s birthday this week: Steve King, a racist Republican congressman from Iowa. This King added to his extensive record of racist comments by telling The New York Times last week, White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization  how did that language become offensive? Commenting on the diversity of the new 116th Congress, he added, You could look over there and think the Democratic Party is no country for white men. His remarks have sparked a backlash from his own party, which stripped him of his committee assignments. Some Republican members of Congress, along with many Democratic members, are calling on him to resign, as are the editorial boards of prominent Iowa newspapers.

The House of Representatives, under Democratic control, passed a resolution  on Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday  rejecting White nationalism and White supremacy as hateful expressions of intolerance. It mentioned Steve Kings comments to The New York Times, but did not expressly condemn him or his words. The resolution passed by a vote of 424-1. Steve King himself voted for the resolution.

That sole no vote was from Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush, one of the most senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Rush was active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the civil-rights struggles in the 1960s, and co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers in 1968. This resolution just restates the obvious. It does not address Steve Kings violent, vitriolic and rabid racism, Rush said. This Democratic resolution is an insult to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. as we recognize his birthday, Rush continued. We must proceed with a vote to censure him ... to punish him for his bigotry and racism.

As Steve Kings political career is collapsing under the weight of his racism, President Donald Trumps silence about the Iowa congressman is deafening. When asked about Congressman King on the White House lawn this weekend, Trump, who is a notoriously voracious consumer of cable news, claimed: I havent been following it. I really havent been following it. Trumps answer was reminiscent of his presidential campaign, when he disavowed knowledge of one of his endorsers, David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Just so you understand, I dont know anything about David Duke, OK? Trump told CNNs Jake Tapper. I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists.

Trump has long supported Steve King. At a rally for King in West Des Moines in 2014, Trump described King as a special guy, a smart person with really the right views on almost everything. In 2013, speaking about the immigrant youth known as Dreamers, King said, For everyone whos a valedictorian, theres another hundred out there who weigh a 130 pounds  and theyve got calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. When endorsing the candidacy of Geert Wilders, a white nationalist politician in the Netherlands, King tweeted, We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies.

The racist words and deeds of Steve King, like those of one of his most powerful supporters, Donald Trump, stand in stark juxtaposition to the vision for which Martin Luther King Jr. struggled and died. On Nov. 11, 1959, Reverend King gave a speech at Iowa State University. Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable, he said. Even a superficial look at history reveals that no social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. Every step toward that goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

On this 90th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday, lets recommit to the eradication of racism and bigotry, whether in Iowa or in the White House.
Editors note: Public notices are published daily in the American News Classifieds section and at <a href="http://AberdeenNews.com/classifieds" target="_blank">AberdeenNews.com/classifieds</a> online. This is a digest of some recent notices, which are paid for public bodies. These notices are your right to know.

Elisa Sand

Nominating petition circulation begins Jan. 25 for some municipal and school board positions.

According to recent public notices, several area boards have vacancies. Those petitions are due by Feb. 22. If needed, an election will be April 9. Heres a look at some of the vacancies:

The town of Warner has one trustee spot up, according to the minutes of the town board meeting published in Wednesdays American News. The three-year position is currently held by Mike Bertsch.

The Veblen City Council and Eden Town Board have vacancies, according to a public notices in The Britton Journal on Wednesday.

Veblen has three open positions, all of which are two-year positions. Eden has one trustee vacancy, which is a three-year term.

The Groton City Council has five open positions, according to a public notice in Wednesdays Dakota Press. It has a three-year post for mayor, currently held by Scott Hanlon; three two-year terms on the council; and one one-year term for Ward 2. The council seats are now held by Jay Peterson, Shirley Wells, Karyn Babcock and David McGannon.

Positions are also open on the Herreid City Council, Herreid School Board, Mobridge-Pollock School Board and Pollock Town Board, according to public notices in Thursdays Prairie Pioneer.

The Herreid City Council has four open seats, and the mayors term is also up. All positions are two-year seats except for one council position, which is a one-year term. The current mayor is Gary Weismantel. Councilors are Abbie McNeil, Adrienne Dupper, Kim Rossow and Bob Rossow.

The Herreid School Board has one open seat, which is a three-year position held by Carina Flemmer.

The Mobridge-Pollock School Board has two open seats held by Eric Stroeder and Gilbert M. Mickelson. Both are three-year terms.

The Pollock Town Board has three openings. Two are three-year terms, and one is a one-year term. They are held by Dugan Dennis, Carl Gjefle and James Loesch.

The Faulkton School Board has two vacancies, according to a public notice in Wednesdays Faulk County Record. Public notices also note vacancies on the Chelsea and Orient town boards.

The school board positions are three-year seats and are now held by Scott McCloud and Jerry Weyand.

The Chelsea and Orient town boards have one trustee vacancy each. Both positions are three-year terms.

Petitions, which must be notarized before circulation begins, can be obtained at the city finance offices or school business offices, or downloaded from the South Dakota Secretary of States website at bit.ly/2sthrO7.

City and school elections can also be June 4 or June 18, according to the South Dakota Secretary of States Office. Petition circulation begins March 1 for elections on June 4 and April 9 for elections on June 18.
Staff reports

Aberdeen News

A Lennox woman is seeking stories from Aberdeen area women about their experiences on the farm.

Jeanette Ulmer will be compiling the stories for a book that called "The Real Farm Wives of South Dakota" with a tentative release date of 2020.

For more information or to submit a story, go to realfarmwife.com or submit stories by email to mystory@realfarmwife.com. In-person and phone interviews can bee arranged by calling 605-988-4576.
A bill in the Montana Legislature is proposing to do away with an antiquated blood test requirement for brides.

Montana is the last state in the nation that requires women to get a blood test before they get a marriage license. This mandate has been in place since the early 1900s.

The blood test can detect if a woman has the rubella virus, which can cause women to have a hard time getting pregnant.

The current law allows women to opt out of the blood test only if both the bride and groom agree. If not, she must provide signed documentation from a physician saying she has been tested or is exempt for medical reasons. Proponents of this bill say the law is antiquated and, in this day and age, screenings like this should not be required. HB 136 was introduced by Dem. Rep. Kim Dudik of Missoula. Click here for the bill text.
The National Safety Council released a statistic on how people are more likely to die from the opioid epidemic in our country than in car accidents.

Democrat Rep. Kimberly Dudik from Missoula heard that stat loud and clear, and is proposing an act designating October 20th as Montana Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, in order to encourage citizens to safely dispose of unused and unneeded prescription drugs.
On January 3rd, a Billings man and daughter were arrested for running a large-scale drug trafficking operation from their home on the West End.

Gregory Green and his daughter, Brittany Green, are being accused of using the dark web to mail drugs and paraphernalia across the country in exchange for cryptocurrency according to court documents.

On December 18th, Customs and Border Patrol officers in Michigan searched a package mailed to the Green's residence labeled "organic fitness vitamin."

Upon searching the package, officers found over a thousand Xanax pills. They would attain a warrant to search the residence in Billings where they would find a house littered with methamphetamine, Xanax and drug paraphernalia.

They would also find what they believed to be a methamphetamine lab in the basement.

In an interview with federal agents, Brittany Green said she was a meth addict and used the lab to "wash" the drugs.

85-year-old Jeanine Roberts also lives in the residence. She described herself and the Green's to agents as "antisocial people that seldom leave the residence, having no family or friends."

She said she had no information on drug activity or the comings and goings of packages from the residence. At this time, Ms. Roberts is not being charged with any crimes.

KULR-8 spoke to Ms. Roberts. Roberts said she has to be out of the house on Westwood Drive by the end of the month. She said she felt bad about what happened and declined to comment further.

Brittany Green was unexpectedly indicted at approximately 11:30 on Thursday morning according to her attorney Nick Miller.

Green is facing one charge of conspiracy to possess with intention to distribute methamphetamine. She's also charged with possession of possession and intention to distribute meth.

Green appeared to be reserved and nervous while in court. She is facing a minimum of ten years and a maximum of life in prison for each charge. She's also facing a fine of up to ten million dollars for each charge.

Gregory and Brittany Green are being held in Yellowstone County Detention Facility without bond.
The 2019 MAGIE is underway at the Montana Expo Park and the organizers of this event say this year is the biggest yet.

The MAGIE is something farmers, ranchers, and vendors alike all look forward to. Its the largest agriculture event in the state, and possibly the northwest.

Numerous vendors say it's quite a boost to their bottom line, and taking place during winter means its perfect timing to plan for the next growing season.

It's proven to be just a great event. Professionally, culturally, socially, its on the calendar in central Montana that the MAGIE happens, said Dan Manella.

The MAGIE organizers say it grows every single year, and this year is no exception. More vendors showed up than ever before from not only right here in Montana, but across the country as well.

It's a great place for vendors, equipment dealers, manufacturers, to meet the farmers and ranchers that do all the work here in central Montana.

The vendors we spoke to said the MAGIE is getting better and better every year and they hope that continues in the future.
A Montana legislator is proposing to outlaw romantic relationships between high school teachers and students, even if the student is above the legal age of consent.

In Montana the age of consent is 16. House Bill 173 says high school and elementary students can never give consent in a relationship that happens in a school setting.

The bill is being proposed by Democrat Shane A. Morigeau of Missoula.

The bill includes school employees, volunteers and independent contractors who work directly with students.

If it passes, adults found guilty could face a $500 fine and up to six months in jail for having a relationship with a student.

HB 173's first hearing is Friday, Jan. 18 in the House Judiciary Committee. At that the same time the committee will also consider removing the statute of limitations on sex crimes against kids. This is part of our daily series exploring the 66th session of the Montana Legislature in 60 seconds.
BUTTE - Three students from Ramsay Middle School were suspended on Wednesday after reportedly bringing alcohol to school on Tuesday.

Butte police responded to the school around 2 p.m. on Wednesday to assist staff and the School Resource Officer in interviewing children.

One child admitted to bringing alcohol mixed with pop in a water bottle to school. Two other children admitted to trying the alcohol at school.

Ramsay School Principal Chris Kellogg said they've never had an issue with this in the past.

No alcohol was found the school on Wednesday and drug-sniffing dogs were brought to the school Thursday to check campus for any other substances.
(1/17/2019) - A Montrose 6-year-old is preparing for the worst, but fighting for the best with a new genetic therapy he hopes will save his vision.

Zion Grant has been losing his vision since he was born. He is a spunky kid who loves the color green and dinosaurs, too.

Zion was born with a genetic condition called Lebers Congenital Amurosis -- or LCA for short. He has glasses for astigmatism, but behind those lenses he is slowly losing his vision altogether.

"Basically when he was 3 months old, we noticed he was not tracking," said his mother, Daisy Dodds. "He was my fourth boy. I mean, what the heck? I can't get him to look at me."

For some time, she said there wasn't any way to help him, so Zion's vision specialist at school started teaching him Braille and how to use a white cane.

Dodds said they found hope when they moved back to Michigan. The Kellogg Eye Center in Ann Arbor offered clinical trials and eventually the gene therapy Luxterna was approved by the FDA.

"They took good DNA and put it in his eye to take over for the bad DNA," Dodds said. "So it was a synthetic that they made and put in there and that's supposed to take over, but eventually the bad will take back over again."

Zion was the first patient to receive the treatment at University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital earlier this month. His left eye is complete, he goes back in a few weeks to take care of the right one.

"What it's supposed to do is make it to where it doesn't take as much light for him to be able to see. So this is really gonna be working with his nightvision," Dodds said.

There's no guarantee it'll work. It could at least slow down the progression to complete blindness, which Dodds said they've been preparing for for some time.

"It was a big jump, but it was the only one we had and we figured we might as well give it a try, whether it works," she said. "If it don't work, it wasn't meant to be. God's got plans for him, that's what I figured."
Dawn Starin in Scientific American:

For years I spent my days, from before dawn until after dusk, following a troop of endangered red colobus monkeys around a small West African forest. For the most part the simian soap opera taking place above my head was based around everyday practical domestic themes like gorging; sleeping; snacking; resting; leaping; and forming and maintaining alliances. But, as with many soap operas, from time to time life here became totally unfocused and utterly confusing. The plotsand there were manyoften drifted: sometimes boring, sometimes sitcom, sometimes rom-com, sometimes melodrama, sometimes kill-em-dead bloody action and sometimes high scary political drama. The characters, with enough variety to delight any casting director, ranged from gentle to not-so-nice, helpful to nasty, benevolent to downright wicked.

With each passing day spent with these red- and black-haired, potbellied, thumbless, sometimes clumsy acrobats, it became more and more obvious to me that many things happening in this simian population were likely to have strong evolutionary continuity with what happens both with and to us humans. Their behaviors made it increasingly apparent that gaining a better understanding of them helps to understand ourselves.

More here.
Soraya Field Fiorio in Laphams Quarterly:

One early spring day during the year 415 in the city of Alexandriathe intellectual heart of the waning Roman Empirethe pagan philosopher Hypatia was murdered by a mob of Christian men. These men, the parabalani, were a volunteer militia of monks serving as henchmen to the archbishop. Their conscripted purpose was to aid the dead and dying but they could be more readily found terrorizing opposing Christian groups and leveling pagan temples. At the urging of Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, they had already destroyed the remains of the Library of Alexandria. The parabalani razed pagan temples, attacked the Jewish quarters, and defiled masterpieces of ancient art they considered demonic by mutilating statues and melting them down for gold. They now set their gaze on the citys beloved teacher of mathematics and philosophy, whose social ranking was on par with Alexandrias most important men. Understanding nothing of her philosophy, they called her a witch. They pulled the elderly teacher from her chariot as she rode through the city and dragged her to a temple. She was stripped naked, her skin flayed with jagged pieces of oyster shells, her limbs pulled from her body and paraded through the streets. Her remains were burned in a mockery of pagan sacrifice.

Hypatias death marked the end of paganism and the triumph of Christianity, the final act of a one-hundred-year-old feud waged by the new religion against the ancient world.

More here.
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Jones said the impact on the housing efforts might not be as severe as it appears because the board still has funding from the current year allocated for home rehab that may carry over into fiscal year 2020.

The proposed spending plan also includes $100,000 for down payment assistance for income-eligible home buyers. It maintains the current $75,000 for emergency home repairs and $85,000 to fund the neighborhood services program.

Many service-oriented programs were left out of the proposed grant stream, including the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Cedar Valley, Iowa Legal Aid and a home weatherization program run by Operation Threshold.

We didnt have that much money to give away, said board member Don Share. There was more (applicants) than we had money for.

Barb Grant, executive director of Operation Threshold, said the weatherization program served 66 housing units last year.

I would ask that you think about reconsidering that decision, Grant told the board members. But we do appreciate the partnership weve had all these years and the support that you have provided to help us help residents in this community.
CEDAR FALLS  Sen. Joni Ernst will start her annual 99-county tour in the Cedar Valley.

The Republican United States senator is coming to the University of Northern Iowa on Wednesday as part of her 99-county tour for 2019.

The town hall will be held at 8 a.m. in the Lang Hall Auditorium and is open to the public.

Ernst, 48, was elected to the Senate in 2014 after defeating former Rep. Bruce Braley. She is up for re-election in 2020.

She was the first woman elected to the Senate or any federal office in Iowa.

She is originally from Red Oak and is a retired lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard.

After the meeting, Ernst will make stops in Hardin and Boone counties.

Because of the partial government shutdown, Ernst will return to the Senate if a vote is scheduled, according to her office.

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Gregg, raised in Hawarden, served as acting lieutenant governor for the past year-plus under Reynolds. But due to a lack of clarity in state law Gregg was not in the official line of succession. With his swearing-in Friday, Gregg officially becomes the lieutenant governor and next in line to the governors office.

My ask of all Iowans as we go into the next four years is that we devote less time to online political arguments and more time to each other. That we dont let a screen steal from our family and friends, from our communities and schools, Reynolds said. Because heres the thing: If we look up and to each other, well see that there are great things happening in this state. And if we put our energy into action instead of outrage, well find that there are even greater days to come.
CEDAR FALLS  The University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art will present an exhibition titled An Art Collection Travelogue from now until March 2. The gallery is closed Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

At 6 p.m. Thursday in the Kamerick Art Building, Room 111, artist Paul Valadez will present a lecture titled The Potlatch Project, the Artwork of Paul Valadez. An opening reception will follow.

An Art Collection Travelogue is a UNI Permanent Art Collection exhibition curated by Gallery Director Darrell Taylor that features the installation Paper Border by Paul Valadez, 11 large-scale drawings from Mary Frisbee Johnsons Navigating series, newly acquired ceramics by Dean and Gunnar Schwarz and a remarkably pristine tapa bark cloth from the Polynesian island of Tonga. Most of these artworks are being displayed for the first time.

Also, the gallery will present an exhibition in the Mary Haskell-Hansen Room of the gallery, a UNI Permanent Art Collection exhibition titled In and After the Anthropocene. It will be open to the public on the following dates: now through March 2, March 25-April 20 and April 29-May 11.
WATERLOO  Attorneys for a Waterloo teen convicted of murder in a 2016 shooting said racial comments are reason to grant their client a new trial.

One juror testified Thursday that a male juror made racially charged comments twice in the jury room during trial of Doncorrion Spates and two other defendants.

A female juror also made comments, according to the juror.

Spates, 18, who is black, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the July 2016 drive-by shooting death of Otavioius Brown. Two others, Armand Rollins and Shavondes Martin, were acquitted.

According to the juror called by Spates defense team, the particular male juror had told another juror arent all African-American young men gangbangers? She said the comment was made in the jury room during a break in the evidence portion of trial.

She said she and two other jurors called him out on the comment.

It was offensive to me, the juror told the court during a Thursday hearing.
Mini-retreat set for Sunday

WATERLOO  Dr. Bill Mulcahey will lead participants in an examination of a central theme in St. Lukes Gospel,  and all flesh shall see the salvation of God, at a winter mini-retreat sponsred by the Catholic Parishes in Waterloo.

The retreat will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday at COR, 220 E. Fourth St.

Lukes Gospel is the source of most of the Sunday Scripture readings in the lectionary cycle for 2019.

Cost is $10 per person, or $15 per couple. Walk-ins are welcome. Information is available at waterloocatholics.org/winter-mini-retreats.

Faith group meets Monday

WATERLOO  Why Be Part of the Church is the topic for the Focus on Faith discussion Monday.

Its set for 7 to 8 p.m. at COR, 220 E. Fourth St.

Focus on Faith discussions, sponsored by the Catholic Parishes in Waterloo, are held in conjunction with the rite of Christian initiation of adults and provide an opportunity to explore different aspects of the Catholic faith.

They are open to all adults and young adults who want to review or learn more.
The rings of Saturn may be iconic, but there was a time when the majestic gas giant existed without its distinctive halo.

In fact, the rings may have formed much later than the planet itself, according to a new analysis of gravity science data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

The findings indicate that Saturn's rings formed between 10 million and 100 million years ago. From our planet's perspective, that means Saturn's rings may have formed during the age of dinosaurs.

The conclusions of the research -- gleaned from measurements collected during the final, ultra-close orbits Cassini performed in 2017 as the spacecraft neared the end of its mission -- are the best answer yet to a longstanding question in solar system science. The findings were published online Jan. 17 in Science.

Saturn formed 4.5 billion years ago, in the early years of our solar system. There have been clues that its ring system is a young upstart that attached to Saturn years afterward. But how long afterward?

To figure out the age of the rings, scientists needed to measure something else: the mass of the rings, or how much material they hold. Researchers had the remote-sensing measurements from Cassini and both of NASA's Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s. Then came Cassini's unprecedented, up-close data from its final orbits. As the spacecraft was running out of fuel, it performed 22 dives between the planet and the rings.

The dives allowed the spacecraft to act as a probe, falling into Saturn's gravity field, where it could feel the tug of the planet and the rings. Radio signals sent to Cassini from the antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network and the European Space Agency relayed the spacecraft's velocity and acceleration.

Once scientists knew how much gravity was pulling on Cassini, causing it to accelerate -- down to a fraction of a millimeter per second -- they could determine how massive the planet is and how massive the rings are.

"Only by getting so close to Saturn in Cassini's final orbits were we able to gather the measurements to make the new discoveries," said Cassini radio science team member and lead author Luciano Iess, of Sapienza University of Rome. "And with this work, Cassini fulfills a fundamental goal of its mission: not only to determine the mass of the rings, but to use the information to refine models and determine the age of the rings."

Iess' paper builds on a connection scientists previously made between the mass of the rings and their age. Lower mass points to a younger age, because the rings, which are bright and mostly made of ice, would have been contaminated and darkened by interplanetary debris over a longer period. With a better calculation of ring mass, scientists were better able to estimate the rings' age.

Saturn scientists will continue work to figure out how the rings formed. The new evidence of young rings lends credence to theories that they formed from a comet that wandered too close and was torn apart by Saturn's gravity -- or by an event that broke up an earlier generation of icy moons.

Rotating Layers Go Deep

From Cassini's super-close vantage point, immersed in Saturn's gravity field, the spacecraft relayed measurements that led scientists to another surprising discovery.

It's long been known that Saturn's equatorial atmosphere rotates around the planet faster than its inner layers and core. Imagine a set of nested cylinders, rotating at different speeds. Eventually, toward the center of the planet, the layers move in synchrony and rotate together.

Jupiter's atmosphere behaves like this, too. But the new findings show that Saturn's layers start rotating in synchrony much deeper into the planet -- at least 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) in. That's three times deeper than the same phenomenon at Jupiter. It's a depth that equals 15 percent of Saturn's entire radius.

"The discovery of deeply rotating layers is a surprising revelation about the internal structure of the planet," said Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker of JPL. "The questions are what causes the more rapidly rotating part of the atmosphere to go so deep, and what does that tell us about Saturn's interior?"

At the same time, the measurement of Saturn's gravity solved yet another unknown: the mass of the core. Models of the interior developed by Burkhard Militzer, a UC Berkeley professor and a co-author of the paper, indicate that it is 15 to 18 Earth masses.

Cassini's mission ended in September 2017, when it was low on fuel and deliberately plunged into Saturn's atmosphere to protect the planet's moons. More science from the last orbits, known as the Grand Finale, will be published in the coming months.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The radio science instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the U.S. and Italy.

For more information about Cassini, go to: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/cassini

Reference: "Measurement and Implications of Saturn's Gravity Field and Ring Mass," L. Iess, B. Militzer et al., 2019 Jan. 17, Science.

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
One of the lead headlines in the oil sector in the past couple of weeks has been focused on Iran's resistance to the OPEC/NON OPEC proposed oil production freeze.



The Russian backed Shiite Theocracy wants to increase its oil production from 3.3 million barrels a day to 4 million. Most of the reports and stories about this center on when and what solution Russia can offer the powerbrokers of Iran to accept a freeze.







It is safe to assume Russia will get Iran to cooperate. A betting man would believe the Russians will sell them some weapons system(s), aircraft, or military hardware they are lusting for - on credit. I also expect Iran to get most of the increased production it is insisting on.



Instead of worrying about whether a production freeze agreement is agreed to by the Iranians, Id rather focus on the three deep insights that have become very clear with Iran's resistance to a production freeze and the ending of sanctions tied to the U.S. lead nuclear treaty...

The U.S. led embargo worked! Embargos can be an effective tool if the world community is united and willing to police them. Clearly, the US $50 billion that was released when the nuclear deal was put into effect, did very little to help Iran's financial picture. Their economy is still in shambles.

Embargos can be an effective tool if the world community is united and willing to police them. Clearly, the US $50 billion that was released when the nuclear deal was put into effect, did very little to help Iran's financial picture. Their economy is still in shambles. Iran will remain financially weak and vulnerable as long as oil stays under $60 a barrel. The total value of Iran's yearly oil production is less than $60 billion a year, assuming today's price of $37 a barrel. $60 billion a year is a very small amount of money to fund a country the size of Iran. Keep in mind Iran winds up with a lot less than that after the cost of production. Iran is STILL spending almost all its free cash flow on its military operations in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and developing its ballistic missile program.

The total value of Iran's yearly oil production is less than $60 billion a year, assuming today's price of $37 a barrel. $60 billion a year is a very small amount of money to fund a country the size of Iran. Keep in mind Iran winds up with a lot less than that after the cost of production. Iran is STILL spending almost all its free cash flow on its military operations in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and developing its ballistic missile program. If the price of oil falls to under $30 again, it could trigger an Iranian and Russian economic crisis. A $10 decline in the market price of Crude oil would reduce Iran's net revenues on 4 million barrels a day oil production to about $38 billion.A 25% cut in price from $40 Crude oil to $30 would strangle Iran economically in 3 years or less.

A $10 decline in the market price of Crude oil would reduce Iran's net revenues on 4 million barrels a day oil production to about $38 billion.A 25% cut in price from $40 Crude oil to $30 would strangle Iran economically in 3 years or less. For Russia's Putin, another few years of oil at $30 or less would mean he'll have to murder a whole lot more people to remain in power. Russia's budgets are based on $50 oil.

Russia's budgets are based on $50 oil. If United States policy makers ever decide to increase domestic oil and natural gas production so that this country becomes completely self reliant for energy - for the long term, the price of oil would remain under $35 barrel for decades. In less than 3 years, the United States will have to increase its oil imports to keep up with domestic demand. That has to be avoided.

We have the technological potential, with current accelerating technologies in the United States, to develop breakthroughs in energy production and energy storage that could render oil a historic energy relic. At worst, we have the means to further reduce the cost of shale oil development and production substantially.The best way to contain and limit both Russian and Iranian military and economic power in the next 20 years is by incentivizing U.S. oil production.I'm no fan of "Corporate Welfare"; but in this case it could be the best strategy in dealing with the Iranian and Russian threat. By increasing U.S. oil production to 12, 13, even 15 million barrels a day the United States could assure its ability to be energy self efficient.Increasing oil production and keeping oil at under $30 a barrel would also be a whole lot more effective weapon than spending trillions of dollars on replacing thousands of nuclear weapons which are becoming more and more obsolete. We need a lot fewer of those weapons these days to kill every human on earth. Why spend money on them? Our best weapons against Russia and Iran are producing domestic oil and natural gas, undermining the price of black gold, and keeping the treasures of these two enemies bare.President Obama's decision to limit oil exploration off the Atlantic coast and from spoiling other domestic areas rich in oil reserves is a commendable ecological decision, but it's a huge mistake when weighed against the threats facing the United States. Keeping the "oil market glut" in place is literally our best weapon, even if it means giving U.S. oil companies some more corporate welfare.
Recently I have written in Wall Street Rebel... it's not a matter if Saudi Arabia and Russia will come to a serious binding agreement to reduce their countries' oil exports ... it's a matter of when and they will be forced to do it, out of economic necessity.



Both oil exporters are in fact becoming more and more motivated as each day passes by growing domestic economic and political pressures. In the last two weeks, the two lowest cost producers of oil in the world have taken three key steps towards negotiating a serious cut in their oil exports in order to help raise the net price they're getting for crude on the world market.



The first step taken towards an eventual coordinated reduction in oil exports began this past December. Several reliable news reports surfaced indicating the House of Saud was finally seriously considering making a large military and aviation equipment purchase from Russia. According to "Kommersant-Money" a Russian news magazine, Saudi Arabia is on the verge of spending as much as US$10 billion initially on military hardware including several types of air defense.



The second step towards an oil export agreement also occurred last week with the negotiation of what the media is calling a "cease fire" in Syria. While the media has exaggerated the agreement, it is true that Secretary Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and a group of 17 other countries have taken a big step towards a cease fire. Instead, what they agreed to was an "initial cessation of hostilities" that will go into effect next week.



Even the watered down reality of the agreement is still a promising first step that is designed to allow the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid to seven priority areas within Syria.



If the agreement holds and Russia shifts its current airstrikes in Syria towards hitting the Islamic State which controls territory in Syria's east, Jabhat al-Nusra, and Al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate targets, instead of focusing on the U.S. and Western backed anti Assad regime rebels, we could see Saudi King Salman actually get on his Royal Jet and go to Russia to discuss and finalize the first of many multi-billion dollar military arms purchases.



Of course, the Russians will insist that Saudi Arabia refrain from sending military troops into Syria, as it has threatened, for the thaw in relations between these two countries to become a reality. But if the Saudis stay out of Syria, and the Russians live up to the shift in its targeting, the chances of the two power brokers in the Middle-East securing a cease fire are very strong. Albeit with the usual starts and stops that are so often the case with these types of deals.



The third step towards an oil export agreement was the unexpected agreement between Russia and Saudi Arabia this past Tuesday to a conditional oil export freeze. Both agreed as a first step not to exceed their January 2016 oil exports levels.



While this agreed freeze is contingent on other non OPEC producers joining in the agreement, the sole oil exporter likely not to agree will be Iran without some concessions. Both Russia and Saudi Arabia appear willing to make the needed concessions to get the Persian theocracy's agreement to both the freeze and eventually to secure an export ceiling.



When considering Iran's current export capability after years of international sanctions, you have to keep in mind the current depressed market price of oil and the poor condition of its oil production infrastructure, it's unlikely that Iran will be able to export the one million barrels a day it has set as its target. Iran desperately needs investment in its oil industry to revitalize its crude oil production capability. The kind of investment needed to revitalize Iran's oil industry just isnt going to come if oil continues to trade between US$25 - $35 a barrel.



The sudden attempt made by Russia and Saudi Arabias first freeze oil export was announced by Saudi, Russian, Qatari, and Venezuelan oil ministers who attended a hastily organized and previously unannounced meeting in Doha, Qatar.



With Russia and Saudi Arabia having so much at stake, this could be the first joint OPEC/non-OPEC oil deal that gets made in 15 years. No matter how you look at this, it's the first sign that the largest and smallest state oil producers are willing ratchet down their exports on a shared basis by as much as 1.5 million barrels a day.



Reducing the amount of oil being sold into the world market by that much a day would quickly eliminate the oversupply and potentially drive oil back over US$40 in just a few weeks. If an agreement by OPEC and Non OPEC oil producers can be negotiated and actually holds - it's entirely likely oil would rise back over US$50 a barrel by the end of the year.



Keep in mind, by the end of this year, oil production in the United States will drop by an estimated 600,000 barrels a day. The flooding of the oil market with supply the past 18+ months has literally crippled shale and standard oil production in North America. The active rig count in the United States has fallen by more than 1,000 in the last 12 months. A rise back to US$40 a barrel even US$50 isn't likely to spark a resurgence in either oil production or investment in oil production.



Bankers and investors have been scalded by the price decline in oil and will be very wary of recommitting to oil investment opportunities until oil stays above US$60 a barrel for an extended period of time.



Ironically, Saudi Arabia's oil glut strategy designed to derail Russia's ability to support Iran and the Assad regime has turned into a strategy of mutual assured economic destruction. While the Russian economy has been hammered by low oil prices and compounded by international sanctions over Crimea and Ukraine, the Saudi economy has also been so impacted that it's been forced to make cuts in its cradle to economic privileges it provides its citizens. Cutting these economic benefits risks whipping up political, social, and religious dissidence.



So the Saudis and Russians have a lot at stake in agreeing to oil export reductions while the economic and political pain of US$25-$35 crude has also been wreaking havoc on Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Canada, Libya, Niger etc., creating an environment that should make a comprehensive agreement to reducing oil exports genuinely possible.



Venezuelan Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino is under great pressure by the Maduro government to get a comprehensive deal among state exporters quickly after Tuesdays announcement and agreed to join several OPEC oil ministers in a meeting that started on Wednesday in Tehran with Iran and Iraq oil ministers.



While Iran is Saudi Arabia's arch nemesis, sources close to OPEC discussions have told news services like Reuters that Iran will likely be offered special terms as part of the output freeze deal to bring them into the Russian/Saudi sponsored agreement.



"Iran is returning to the market and needs to be given a special chance, but it also needs to make some calculations," said one source. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi confirmed that the freeze is just the beginning of a negotiation saying ..."The reason we agreed to a potential freeze of production is simple: it is the beginning of a process which we will assess in the next few months and decide if we need other steps to stabilize and improve the market."

"We don't want significant gyrations in prices, we don't want reduction in supply, we want to meet demand, we want a stable oil price. We have to take a step at a time."



Keep in mind Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said freezing oil exports was not a problem for his country as he expected its production to be flat this year versus 2015 anyway. A drop in exports of 600,000 barrels a day that yielded an additional US$10 even US$15 per barrel for oil exporters - is likely the formula needed for cooperation and to prevent cheating.



The economic reality is with oil at such low levels, a reduction in oil sales by all state owned exporters of oil is likely to actually defy history and hold. Producers have a history of cheating on export limits. At US$25-$35 crude, cheating becomes sheer economic cannibalism. Selling oil for less than it costs to produce is a potentially disastrous policy. A glimmer of economic sanity and hope for those investors and speculators for looking oil to climb higher! Read more at http:www.wallstreetrebel.com
Actress Nimrat Kaur is all set to reprise her role from Season 4 in Homeland for the upcoming eighth and the final season.

Nimrat who is known for her roles in films like The Lunchbox and Airlift, played the role Tasneem Qureshi, a member of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence in Showtimes terrorism drama Homeland. Homeland is an American spy thriller TV series starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis.

The final season will be shot in Morocco. Kaur has also co-starred opposite Jason Patric on the Fox series Wayward Pines.
During an interview on a popular TV channel, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced her intentions of contesting for president of the United States. This confirms a rumor that was floating around for weeks. She is a Democrat and will be the second to have opened up on the subject after Julian Castro formally kicked off his campaign in his San Antonio hometown.

Daily Mail UK reports Kirsten Gillibrand already has her campaign website and is in possession of adequate funds to jump-start a presidential bid. She is a longtime advocate for women and has been a leader in the #metoo movement against the unwanted assault on women.

She has her own ideas of how men in high places should behave. She will proceed to Iowa shortly, which is an early caucus state in the 2020 nomination process.

Career graph of Kirsten Gillibrand

Gillibrand is in her early 50s and will be another member in the crowded Democratic primary field. There are already several women in the fray apart from high profile Democrats like Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Michael Bloomberg. They want to deny a second term to President Donald Trump. Among the women, there are Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren who have announced their intentions. Sen. Kamala Harris is yet to make up her mind.

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand enters the 2020 presidential race https://t.co/95tqaqw6yW pic.twitter.com/h3nrXyP8aH  CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 16, 2019

Kirsten Gillibrand came to the Senate in 2009 in place of Hillary Clinton, who became the Secretary of State.

The presidential hopeful has already done preliminary groundwork by identifying a possible location to set up her campaign headquarters, adding staff and planning trips to key states. Her campaign headquarters could be in Troy, New York.

She has outlined her vision. She is a young mother and wants to fight for her own kids as well as for kids of other people.

To do that effectively, she will insist on making healthcare a right, not a privilege. Similarly for education. She wants to take on issues like institutional racism, corruption, and greed in Washington.

.@SenGillibrand is a proven champion for women, families, and health care access. She's been a powerful voice in the Senate and we are thrilled to see her continue her fight by exploring a run for president of the United States! https://t.co/aEDYoTEF4J  EMILY's List (@emilyslist) January 16, 2019

Kirsten Gillibrand has a tough fight on her hands

The US has not had a woman President before and in 2020, there are multiple contenders in the camp of the Democrats bidding for the White House.

According to the BBC, Kirsten Gillibrand announced her plans for a 2020 presidential run during a late-night show on a TV channel. She indicated that she had taken the initial steps of launching an exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission. This will allow her to begin fund collection activities before officially launching her bid.

2020 VISION: @SenGillibrand announces she is running for president, followed by a press conference this morning criticizing the president. #MTPDaily pic.twitter.com/b6pU93YjMf  Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 16, 2019

Kirsten Gillibrand is a sharp critic of President Trump and lives in Troy, New York, with her husband and two sons. She could be setting up her headquarters there.
Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
INTO, the online LGBT magazine owned and operated by gay dating app Grindr, laid its editorial staff off this week, effectively ending the digital publications 17-month run.

The company will be refocusing its efforts on video and as such, the editorial and social teams were let go this morning, a joint statement from several INTO employees said. We feel that INTOs closure is a tremendous loss for LGBTQ media, journalism, and the world.

An anonymous source told Out Magazine that Grindr President Scott Chen laid off both INTOs editorial and social staff Tuesday morning without warning.

INTO, which launched in August 2017, published news articles, op-eds and advice columns geared toward LGBT readers. The sites journalism won awards from the National Lesbian Gay Journalism Association and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund.

[The National Lesbian Gay Journalism Association] is saddened to hear of the layoff at @Into. For those affected, please reach out to NLGJA if there is anything we can do to help you. Thank you for telling LGBTQ stories, NLGJA wrote on twitter.

This follows the departure of Grindrs chief content officer, Zach Stafford, who also served as the publications editor-in-chief, as well as the apps head of communications, Landon Rafe Zumwalt.

After a thoughtful and collaborative process, we decided to modify INTOs content mix to rely more heavily on video. This decision was driven by the high user engagement and development we see through channels such as video and YouTube, the layoff announcement email read.

We aimed to give a voice to those who need one now more than ever, a platform for them to see themselves represented wholly, the staff responded in a statement.

Grindrs dismissal of INTOs editorial staff comes just six weeks after the site broke the story about Grindr President Scott Chens controversial comments about same-sex marriage.



"Some people think the marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman, and I think so too. But that's your own business," Chen wrote on Nov. 26 in a Facebook post. "Some people think the purpose of the marriage is to have a child carries your own DNA. But again, this is your own business."

Chen, who has been an executive at Grindr since Chinese gaming company Kunlun took over the app in 2017, shot back at INTOs story in the comments section, saying the Grindr-owned news source took his marriage comments out of context.

Chens comments, however, led to at least one executive leaving the company in protest.



As an out and proud gay man madly in love with a man I dont deserve, I refused to compromise my own values or professional integrity to defend a statement that goes against everything I am and everything I believe, Grindrs then head of communications, Landon Rafe Zumwalt said after stepping down.

All three of the publications full-time editorial employees are affected by the layoffs, including Managing Editor Trish Bendix and Politics Reporter Nico Lang, as well as all contract writers.

Working in LGBTQ media (or maybe even just media) can make you feel like a stunt queen living for the drama with announcements such as this. I am, as my now former colleague Nico Maupin has coined, "pivoting to unemployment" with this news, Bendix said on Facebook.

I am sad for LGBTQ content creators who are now without a platform and a place to pay them fairly and quickly for highly-specific and personal stories, and for faithful readers who seemed to appreciate our worldwide approach to underreported queer and trans issues, Bendix went on to state.

When asked about the layoffs of INTOs editorial staff, Zumwalt said he was not surprised and called it extremely sad for the queer community. When asked whether he thought the closure could be related to INTOs Chen article, Zumwalt said no comment, according to NBC.
Phil Hellmuth Heads to Rio de Janeiro for partypoker LIVE MILLIONS South America

January 18 2019 Valerie Cross

At the start of the year, partypoker announced some changes to their LIVE events, particularly a shift to all main events on the schedule becoming $10k buy-in freeze-outs. What other changes the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS events will reveal are yet to be seen, but one particular confirmed guest appearance stands out for the kickoff stop in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Phil Hellmuth is known as a globetrotter, willing to jet out to a variety of events across the U.S. and the world if the value and experiences are attractive. He even has his own hashtag to help describe his lavish lifestyle: #PHNiceLife.

Soon, the Poker Brat will be able to cross off yet another exotic trip off his Poker Bucket List. partypoker MILLIONS South America will run from March 15-24, 2019 hosted at the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio, and Hellmuth is confirmed to be in attendance.

Look who's coming to #flyingdowntorio He can sing as well, what can't @phil_hellmuth do? Join him and us at https://t.co/NhktJwss2a  partypokerLIVE (@partypokerlive)

Hellmuth Talks Rio Trip

We asked Hellmuth about his upcoming trip to Rio, which he has been hyping up on his social media channels. Hellmuth is no regular at partypoker LIVE events, but not for lack of interest.

I would have loved to play in the Millions Bahamas, they even had a jet leaving from Vegas, but I had appearances booked (I charge $50,000 a night). Same with the one in Canada. I have been LONGING to play in more of the bigger poker tourneys. And it hurt to skip the WSOPE in 2018 (the first time I missed a WSOPE or WSOPA). partypoker LIVE is a great tour, and Im glad that I can play in Rio.

For MILLIONS South America, the stars aligned and Hellmuth saw an opportunity he couldnt turn down.

After missing too many big tournaments in 2018, and texting with Rob Yong, I discovered I had a gap in my schedule during the Millions South America. The fact that it was in Brazil was persuasive, and the fact that my wife and I could attend 'Carnival' sold the deal! Bucket list item, Carnival - check! Also, we both love Warren Lush, and he recruited me to come.

"The fact that it was in Brazil was persuasive, and the fact that my wife and I could attend 'Carnival' sold the deal!"

Hellmuth plans to play a handful of high-value events on the schedule including the $1,100 Turbo Rio Open $1 million guarantee and the $10,300 Main Event $5 million guarantee. If he busts the main, he'll also fire the $10,000 High Roller $1 million guarantee. South America will be a new territory for The Poker Brat, though hes mixed it up with a couple of Brazils best before.

There are definitely some world-class poker players from Brazil. Felipe Ramos and Andre Akkari are both top top players. I havent played much against the other top Brazilian poker players yet... At a WSOP tourney a few years back, I whined too much when Akkari was at my table. He rightfully called me out for my bad behavior! He was 100% right! I apologized and he forgave me. Sometimes Im a Poker Brat!

We asked the 15-time WSOP bracelet winner what adding a partypoker LIVE title to his poker resume would mean for him.

Anytime I can add huge titles to my resume, the world takes notice. I seem to have a ton of 'Haters' and 'Doubters' that constantly attack my game, not my unparalleled accomplishments: they attack the way I play today. Fine, so be it. I use that as fuel. I dont walk around thinking Im great all of the time. The haters wont let me! But, if I can win this, then theyll have to shut up for a year (hopefully!). Winning my 15th WSOP Bracelet has shut them up for the last six months.

As far as off-the-felt plans, Hellmuth has one main focus.

Other than seeing the Carnival, we have nothing else planned yet. But Im sure wifey will look at touristy stuff in and around Rio, and we will definitely see a bunch of cool stuff.

"If I can win this, then [the haters] will have to shut up for a year (hopefully!)."

When asked what he is most looking forward to about the Rio trip, Hellmuth responded:

Two things: Carnival and the main event!

Knowing he keeps a pretty packed schedule, we wondered if fans can expect Hellmuth to make more pp LIVE appearances after the Rio stop.

We will see. I think the one in Canada fits my schedule, and it close enough, and The Canadians LOVE poker, and always treat me well. I LOVE Canada!!

Her name is Rio, and she dances on the sand  phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth)
BARCELONA, Spain (AP)  Spanish authorities pulled 493 migrants from eight rickety boats in the Mediterranean Sea on Monday yet blocked a humanitarian rescue ship from leaving the port of Barcelona, saying it violated maritime regulations on previous trips.

An order from Spanish authorities to the aid group Proactiva Open Arms, seen by The Associated Press, said their boat had violated maritime regulations "to leave those rescued at sea at the nearest port." This happened on the boat's most recent mission in December, when some 300 migrants saved near Libya were taken to Spain.

Spain's merchant marine issued a statement saying Proactiva's ship "had to cross the Mediterranean for several days to bring its migrants to land, putting in jeopardy the security of the boat, its crew and the people rescued."

The aid group has appealed the decision, arguing that the ship only came to Spain after both Malta and Italy had turned it away.

"The boat has all its inspections, licenses and papers in order and was ready to sail" on another mission to waters near Libya when Spanish authorities blocked it, Proactiva Open Arms President Oscar Camps told the AP.

"It is just as detrimental for Italy to close its ports to us as for Spain to stop our boat from sailing for an unfounded administrative cause," Camps said. "Stopping our boat for a long time means more deaths in the Mediterranean."

Proactiva Open Arms says the ship has rescued 5,619 people in the Mediterranean Sea since July 2017.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez made the plight of migrants one of his banner causes when he took office in June. His government has allowed several aid boats that rescued migrants at sea to dock after they were rejected by Italy and other countries taking a hard line against immigration.

Spain now has become the busiest point for migrants entering Europe illegally. The European Union border agency says about 57,000 unauthorized crossings to Spain took place in 2018  double the figure for 2017  while migrant arrivals for Europe overall reached a five-year low.

Crossing the Mediterranean in unseaworthy smugglers' boats is still a dangerous journey  around 2,300 people died last year trying to reach Europe that way, according to the International Organization for Migration.
A dispute over snow crabs that could see Norway forced to share potential oil reserves on its continental shelf has Oslo so worried that it's drawn on the country's top legal brains to sort ... Eleven Supreme Court judges  that's six more than usual  have been summoned to rule on a criminal case between a Latvian crabber and the Norwegian authorities who seized his vessel in Arctic waters off the country's north. At stake is the risk of a legal precedent that threatens Norway's exclusive right to untapped oil and gas deposits that may lie beneath the seabed. The area in question is the Svalbard archipelago, which lies between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Long known for Arctic foxes, polar bears and reindeer, these days the islands have found fame as the adopted home of the snow crab, a more recent arrival  and a controversial one. Its unclear exactly why the species suddenly marched itself westwards from Russia and set up sticks in the sought-after sands of Svalbard, but the crabs are certainly making their presence felt. Snow crab meat (the skinny legs offer the tastiest bits, in case youre wondering) is a delicacy in parts of the world, with live crabs fetching an average 24 euro per kilo  although you wont find snow crab on the menu in Norway just yet. The EU has been eagerly looking to shore up access to Svalbard, but its vessels were banned when Oslo moved to regulate the catch in 2014. The country then gave a small number of its own vessels the exclusive right to exploit the crabs and give the industry a kick-start. It appears that, for a while at least, the rivalry bubbled along in the background, causing a minimum of fuss, until the EU Council of Fisheries Ministers went ahead and issued their own licences to fish for snow crab in the waters off Svalbard. Norway was swift to respond and  to the surprise of many  seized an EU ship: a Lithuanian-flagged vessel belonging to Latvian fisherman Peteris Pildegovics. That was in 2017. Fast-forward to today, and that very fisherman is taking on Norway in its own Supreme Court  despite having lost an earlier ruling in a lower court that upheld Oslos right to convict him of illegal fishing. But Pildegovics isnt having any of it. He says Norway was fully aware of his activities, and he wants to see his legal right to fish for Svalbard snow crab reinstated. Snow crabs a proxy for oil Europeche is a lobby group representing some 45,000 EU fishing vessels. Managing director Daniel Voces told RFI the case is a clear proxy for oil, and its become highly politicised as a result. He says this isnt simply about who has the right to fish but, more crucially, who has the right to extract valuable resources from the bottom of the sea. We know the Norwegian government is applying a lot of pressure in order to secure a successful outcome that fits with their own interests. For example, they appointed a prosecutor from the Norwegian prime ministers cabinet, so we see the government in Norway trying to influence the outcome of this process, Voces says. At the centre of the dispute is a hundred-year-old treaty, signed in Paris, which Norway claims gives it full sovereignty over the continental shelf around the Svalbard archipelago. However, the treaty also stipulates that all signatory nations  which include France, Britain, Italy, Denmark, the US and India  are entitled to enjoy equally the rights to the resources in Svalbard and its territorial waters. Norway has chosen to read the treaty very literally, says Rachel Tiller, a research scientist at the Norwegian think tank SINTEF Ocean. This means the territorial waters only extend to within 12 nautical miles from the Svalbard shore. So, in the no-fishing zone beyond this, where the EU wants access to snow crabs, the rule of equal treatment does not apply. Norway acknowledges that it has to treat all of the signatories to the treaty equally. Its saying thats not a problem  within the 12 nautical miles, according to Tiller. The issue with the snow crab is that theyre on the bottom of the ocean, on the continental shelf. A question of science and of law And therein lies the crux of the matter. The Supreme Court judges will need to decide if the snow crab is indeed a sedentary species living on the seabed  and therefore a resource belonging to the continental shelf  or if its a fish under the law of the sea convention. This determination stands to have a knock-on effect, with potential oil and gas reserves subject to the same regulations. So how equipped are the judges to rule on this point? I would assume the judges are going to base this decision on both science and on earlier verdicts on the issue, Tiller told RFI. A previous case in Canada established the snow crab as a sedentary species and, after this, Norway changed its narrative. Sedentary species are considered on par with oil and gas, so obviously Norway would want this to be a sedentary species. Despite all the bickering, one point the EU and Norway do agree on is the snow crab industrys enormous economic potential. When Russia closed its continental shelf to foreign crab fishing, the question of who owns what took on greater urgency. Pildegovics, whose ship is still in the possession of Norwegian coastal authorities, puts his loss of income at some 20 million euros a year. Oystein Jensen is a senior research fellow in law at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, an independent foundation in Oslo that specialises in environmental, energy and resource management issues. He told RFI that, while theres no doubt that only Norway  and not the EU  has the right to issue snow crab licences for Svalbard, the question of whether or not the crab is sedentary is debatable. When the EU is issuing its own licences, its clearly a violation of the most basic parts of the law of the sea  and it violates the concept that the coastal state shall issue licenses and not anyone else, Jensen says. Norway has agreed to make laws in accordance with international law, but then its regulated the snow crab as a continental shelf resource. The question is whether that was correct or whether the snow crab is really a fish instead. If Norwegian authorities have gotten this wrong, then there will be no conviction. The Supreme Court will be hearing three days of arguments, and decisions are usually handed down fairly quickly. But with 11 judges assigned to this case instead of the usual five, Jensen says we might not have a ruling until the end of next week. The result will either be a win for Oslo, or a win for Brussels  but theres also the chance it wont end here, especially given the failure of efforts to negotiate outside of the courts, says Voces, of Europeche. Everyone is waiting for the final outcome of this case. In the event it is favourable to Norway, I know the Latvian and other governments  as well as the industry  are considering mounting legal action against Norway before the International Court of Justice. Wed prefer to have a mutually beneficial agreement, but if the ruling goes against us, well have to find another legal way to ensure our rights are respected.

A dispute over snow crabs that could see Norway forced to share potential oil reserves on its continental shelf has Oslo so worried that it's drawn on the country's top legal brains to sort ...

Eleven Supreme Court judges  that's six more than usual  have been summoned to rule on a criminal case between a Latvian crabber and the Norwegian authorities who seized his vessel in Arctic waters off the country's north. At stake is the risk of a legal precedent that threatens Norway's exclusive right to untapped oil and gas deposits that may lie beneath the seabed.

The area in question is the Svalbard archipelago, which lies between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Long known for Arctic foxes, polar bears and reindeer, these days the islands have found fame as the adopted home of the snow crab, a more recent arrival  and a controversial one. Its unclear exactly why the species suddenly marched itself westwards from Russia and set up sticks in the sought-after sands of Svalbard, but the crabs are certainly making their presence felt.

Snow crab meat (the skinny legs offer the tastiest bits, in case youre wondering) is a delicacy in parts of the world, with live crabs fetching an average 24 euro per kilo  although you wont find snow crab on the menu in Norway just yet.

The EU has been eagerly looking to shore up access to Svalbard, but its vessels were banned when Oslo moved to regulate the catch in 2014. The country then gave a small number of its own vessels the exclusive right to exploit the crabs and give the industry a kick-start. It appears that, for a while at least, the rivalry bubbled along in the background, causing a minimum of fuss, until the EU Council of Fisheries Ministers went ahead and issued their own licences to fish for snow crab in the waters off Svalbard.

Norway was swift to respond and  to the surprise of many  seized an EU ship: a Lithuanian-flagged vessel belonging to Latvian fisherman Peteris Pildegovics. That was in 2017. Fast-forward to today, and that very fisherman is taking on Norway in its own Supreme Court  despite having lost an earlier ruling in a lower court that upheld Oslos right to convict him of illegal fishing. But Pildegovics isnt having any of it. He says Norway was fully aware of his activities, and he wants to see his legal right to fish for Svalbard snow crab reinstated.

Story continues

Snow crabs a proxy for oil

Europeche is a lobby group representing some 45,000 EU fishing vessels. Managing director Daniel Voces told RFI the case is a clear proxy for oil, and its become highly politicised as a result. He says this isnt simply about who has the right to fish but, more crucially, who has the right to extract valuable resources from the bottom of the sea.

We know the Norwegian government is applying a lot of pressure in order to secure a successful outcome that fits with their own interests. For example, they appointed a prosecutor from the Norwegian prime ministers cabinet, so we see the government in Norway trying to influence the outcome of this process, Voces says.

At the centre of the dispute is a hundred-year-old treaty, signed in Paris, which Norway claims gives it full sovereignty over the continental shelf around the Svalbard archipelago. However, the treaty also stipulates that all signatory nations  which include France, Britain, Italy, Denmark, the US and India  are entitled to enjoy equally the rights to the resources in Svalbard and its territorial waters.

Norway has chosen to read the treaty very literally, says Rachel Tiller, a research scientist at the Norwegian think tank SINTEF Ocean. This means the territorial waters only extend to within 12 nautical miles from the Svalbard shore. So, in the no-fishing zone beyond this, where the EU wants access to snow crabs, the rule of equal treatment does not apply.

Norway acknowledges that it has to treat all of the signatories to the treaty equally. Its saying thats not a problem  within the 12 nautical miles, according to Tiller. The issue with the snow crab is that theyre on the bottom of the ocean, on the continental shelf.

A question of science and of law

And therein lies the crux of the matter. The Supreme Court judges will need to decide if the snow crab is indeed a sedentary species living on the seabed  and therefore a resource belonging to the continental shelf  or if its a fish under the law of the sea convention. This determination stands to have a knock-on effect, with potential oil and gas reserves subject to the same regulations. So how equipped are the judges to rule on this point?

I would assume the judges are going to base this decision on both science and on earlier verdicts on the issue, Tiller told RFI. A previous case in Canada established the snow crab as a sedentary species and, after this, Norway changed its narrative. Sedentary species are considered on par with oil and gas, so obviously Norway would want this to be a sedentary species.

Despite all the bickering, one point the EU and Norway do agree on is the snow crab industrys enormous economic potential. When Russia closed its continental shelf to foreign crab fishing, the question of who owns what took on greater urgency. Pildegovics, whose ship is still in the possession of Norwegian coastal authorities, puts his loss of income at some 20 million euros a year.

Oystein Jensen is a senior research fellow in law at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, an independent foundation in Oslo that specialises in environmental, energy and resource management issues. He told RFI that, while theres no doubt that only Norway  and not the EU  has the right to issue snow crab licences for Svalbard, the question of whether or not the crab is sedentary is debatable.

When the EU is issuing its own licences, its clearly a violation of the most basic parts of the law of the sea  and it violates the concept that the coastal state shall issue licenses and not anyone else, Jensen says. Norway has agreed to make laws in accordance with international law, but then its regulated the snow crab as a continental shelf resource. The question is whether that was correct or whether the snow crab is really a fish instead. If Norwegian authorities have gotten this wrong, then there will be no conviction.

The Supreme Court will be hearing three days of arguments, and decisions are usually handed down fairly quickly. But with 11 judges assigned to this case instead of the usual five, Jensen says we might not have a ruling until the end of next week.

The result will either be a win for Oslo, or a win for Brussels  but theres also the chance it wont end here, especially given the failure of efforts to negotiate outside of the courts, says Voces, of Europeche.

Everyone is waiting for the final outcome of this case. In the event it is favourable to Norway, I know the Latvian and other governments  as well as the industry  are considering mounting legal action against Norway before the International Court of Justice. Wed prefer to have a mutually beneficial agreement, but if the ruling goes against us, well have to find another legal way to ensure our rights are respected.
The scene in Belfast city centre (PA)

Police are investigating the sudden death of a homeless man in Belfast city centre.

It is understood the man was found in a shop doorway on Friday morning.

Police officers as they rushed to the scene, along with paramedics, after the man was discovered.

One witness told Belfast Live paramedics were seen working with the man.

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The death was later confirmed by Belfast-based homeless group, the Welcome Organisation.

He has yet to be formally identified.

One report said the man was in his mid-30s.

I can confirm that staff members from the Welcome Organisations Street Outreach team found the body of a homeless male in a doorway in Belfast city centre this morning, said Welcomes boss, Sandra Moore.

The person has not been formally named or cause of death ascertained but it was sudden and unexpected.

Our thoughts are with the mans family and friends some of whom are members of the homeless community and are very distressed and being supported by Welcome Organisation staff.

It is tragic that people continue to die on our streets despite the wide range of support being offered.

The man who died was said to be in his mid-30s (PA)

The sad reality is that the individuals involved in rough sleeping are amongst the most vulnerable in society: all too often suffering mental ill health, drug or alcohol addiction or all three.

Some online said the death was shameful and pointed to the fact that politicians in Northern Ireland had lost sight of priorities since the collapse of the Stormont assembly two years ago.

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Some of Germany's highest-ranking leaders have signed an open letter to The Times newspaper asking Britain to think again and consider staying a member of the European Union.

Although the letter is not signed by Angela Merkel it is signed by her successor as head of the Christian Democratic Union, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauerher, who is likely to be the next Chancellor of Germany.

The touching and even emotional note comes as the odds of a People's Vote increases. Theresa May is expected to announce her 'Plan B' to the Commons on 21st January after her deal was voted down by MPs; in what was the worst defeat of any government in parliamentary history.

A portion of the letter reads:

"Sir, Without your great nation, this continent would not be what it is today: a community defined by freedom and prosperity. After the horrors of the second world war, Britain did not give up on us. It has welcomed Germany back as a sovereign nation and a European power. This we, as Germans, have not forgotten and we are grateful.

Because we realise that the freedom we enjoy as Europeans today has in many ways been built and defended by the British people, we want Britons to know that we respect their choice. And should Britain wish to leave the European Union for good, it will always have friends in Germany and Europe. But Britons should equally know that we believe that no choice is irreversible. Our door will always remain open: Europe is home.

Britain has become part of who we are as Europeans. And therefore we would miss Britain. We would miss the legendary British black humour and going to the pub after work hours to drink an ale. We would miss tea with milk and driving on the left-hand side of the road. And we would miss seeing the panto at Christmas. But more than anything else, we would miss the British people - our friends across the Channel. We would miss Britain as part of the European Union, especially in these troubled times. Therefore Britons should know: from the bottom of our hearts, we want them to stay."

A vote on the prime minister's alternative plan is set fr the 29th January following a day of debate. As it stands no faction with in the Commons has a majority for any of the current Brexit proposals on offer.
BERLIN (Reuters) - It is up to the British government to make the next move on Brexit and set out what it envisages, a German government spokesman said on Friday, adding that remaining members of the European Union would act as one.

"It is up to the British to take the next step," spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular government news conference. "We must first know the content of what Britain envisages and how it envisages the way forward."

"The EU27 will act cohesively," he added. "There was a telephone conversation yesterday between the prime minister and the chancellor," he said, without giving any details.

(Reporting by Paul Carrel; Editing by Michelle Martin)
SFGN will be holding its 9th Anniversary Party, along with community awards celebration, this Wednesday, Jan. 23, hosted by The Grille On The Drive.

In this era of fake news, its important to celebrate real news and so I want to personally invite the community to join us in celebrating our 9th anniversary, said Publisher Norm Kent.

Guests will come inside to the cabaret to meet the publisher, staff members, and the writers for SFGN, The Mirror Magazine, The Wilton Manors Gazette and The Guide.

Enjoy a price-fixed menu for a relaxing dinner with a cash bar, as well as free hors d'oeuvres.

The event will be from 5 to 8 P.M. at The Grille On The Drive, 2000 Wilton Dr, Wilton Manors, FL 33305.
By Helen Murphy

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's ELN rebel group was responsible for the car bomb attack against a police academy that killed at least 21 and injured dozens, the government said on Friday, making it unlikely peace talks with the insurgent group can soon restart.

In Thursday's attack, a car broke through checkpoints onto the grounds of the General Santander School in the capital Bogota before it detonated, shattering windows of apartments nearby. Defence Minister Guillermo Botero said the car was driven by ELN explosives expert Jose Aldemar Rojas.

"A terrorist act by the ELN took those lives," he told reporters in Bogota. At least 20 police cadets died in the blast, as did Rojas.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) has not claimed responsibility or issued a public statement.

Made up of some 2,000 fighters and considered a terrorist organisation by the United States and European Union, the ELN began peace talks with the government of former President Juan Manuel Santos in early 2017, but they have been put on hold by President Ivan Duque until the ELN frees its 17 hostages and stops attacks.

The car bombing - the worst in Colombia in almost 16 years - has heightened fears that a new wave of attacks could be launched in the Andean nation as a reaction to the right-wing president's stance.

Duque, who took office in August, has pledged to toughen offensives against the group and drug-trafficking crime gangs that kill and kidnap civilians.

The government in November asked Cuba - where talks were taking place - to capture ELN rebel commander Nicolas Rodriguez and provide information about the presence of other ELN commanders in Cuban territory.

It also asked Havana to act on an Interpol Red Notice on Rodriguez. The Cuban government has not responded publicly to the request.

Duque called the explosion a "crazy terrorist act" against unarmed cadets. It is the worst car bomb attack since the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) detonated a vehicle in Bogota's upmarket El Nogal social club in 2003, killing 36 and injuring more than 200.

Story continues

"We will not rest until we capture and bring to justice the terrorists involved," Duque said late Thursday. "I tell the criminals that social repudiation awaits them, the rejection of all Colombians and the international community."

He is expected to provide details on the future of peace talks later on Friday.

PLANNED ATTACK

The vehicle, a grey Nissan Patrol SUV, was carrying an estimated 80 kilograms (176 lb) of the high explosive pentolite, which has been used in the past by Colombian guerrillas, Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez said on Friday.

Botero said the car was registered in Rojas' name and that he was identified by his finger prints. He said investigators believe Rojas did not intend to carry out a suicide attack, and that the bomb may have been activated by a cellular phone by someone else.

Rojas, known by his war alias El Mocho or Kiko, had lost a hand in bomb-making activity and travelled frequently across the border to Venezuela, Botero said.

The attack was planned over about 10 months, he said.

Car bombs were frequently used in Colombia during decades of civil war between the government and various leftist rebel groups, as well as in violence involving the Medellin cartel led by the late drug lord Pablo Escobar.

The worst of the war, which killed some 260,000 and left millions displaced, ended when the government reached a peace agreement with the FARC in 2016.

The last major attack was in January 2018 when the ELN, the biggest rebel group that remains active, detonated a bomb in the northern port city of Barranquilla, killing five police officers and injuring dozens.

The ELN, founded by radical Catholic priests, has fought more than a dozen governments since it formed in 1964.

Following intercepted telephone calls, ELN rebel Ricardo Andres Carvajal was captured overnight, Martinez also said.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta and Helen Murphy; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Rosalba O'Brien)
Colombian authorities are trying to work out who was responsible for a car bombing at a police academy in Bogota that left 21 dead.

Overnight, the death toll from the Thursday morning bombing more than doubled to 21, making it the deadliest attack in Colombia in over a decade.

It proved especially unsettling because the target, the General Santander school, is one of the most protected installations in the capital and indications it may have been the result of a suicide bombing  something unprecedented in decades of political violence in the South American nation.

President Ivan Duque, visiting the academy in the aftermath, was careful not to attribute blame to any armed group even while condemning what he called a miserable terrorist act that recalled some of the bloodiest chapters of Colombias recent past.

The terrorists are looking to intimidate us as a society and attack the state, Mr Duque said in a televised address in which he declared three days of mourning. Colombia will demonstrate that it is a strong state, united and wont break in the face of the dementia of these aggressions.

Family members of victims of a bombing gather outside the entrance to the General Santander police academy (John Wilson Vizcaino/AP)

Among those killed was a top-of-class female cadet from Ecuador, while two visiting students from Panama were among those injured

With the help of security cameras, authorities identified the suspected bomber as a 56-year-old man with no criminal record named Jose Aldemar Rojas. He died in the attack.

Chief Prosecutor Nestor Martinez said Rojas drove a 1993 Nissan pick-up loaded with 80 kilograms of explosives past a security checkpoint and on to the schools leafy campus, where a start-of-the-year ceremony had just finished.

There were reports that when bomb-sniffing dogs detected the explosives the driver got nervous and floored the vehicle past the barrier and on to the campus, where it exploded moments later in front of a red tile-roofed dormitory for female cadets.

Little is known about Rojas. Records show he bought the car last year and had it inspected six months ago in the eastern city of Arauca, near the border with Venezuela.

Story continues

The same volatile area is a stronghold of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, the countrys last remaining rebel group following a 2016 accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) that saw some 7,000 rebels disarm.

Investigators are reportedly looking into Rojas possible ties with the rebel group after reports that he was an explosives expert for an ELN cell who went by the alias Mocho Kiko.

The ELN has been stepping up its attacks on police targets and oil infrastructure amid a stand-off with the conservative Duque government over stalled peace talks.

A year ago, the group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a police station in the coastal city of Barranquilla that left five officers dead.

But until now the Cuban-inspired group, which is believed to have around 2,000 guerrilla fighters, has never been capable or much interested in carrying out such a high-profile act of violence.

Thursdays attack was the deadliest since a 2003 car bombing against the elite Bogota social club El Nogal that left 36 dead, an incident that hardened Colombians resolve against the Farc.

Mr Duque has demanded the ELN cease all attacks and kidnappings as a condition for restarting the talks and has condemned Venezuela and Cuba for allegedly providing a safe haven for rebel leaders even as their troops continue to sow violence in Colombia.
By Sofia Menchu

TAPACHULA, Mexico (Reuters) - Hundreds of mostly Honduran migrants entered southern Mexico on Friday, joining around 1,000 other people from Central America who crossed a day earlier and putting to the test Mexico's vows to guarantee the safe and orderly flow of people.

The cohort crossed the Guatemalan border into Chiapas state before dawn without needing the wrist bands that Mexican officials on Thursday gave migrants to wear until they could register with authorities, several migrants and an official told Reuters.

"The road today was open," said Marco Antonio Cortez, 37, a baker from Honduras travelling with his wife and children, ages 2 and 9. "They didn't give us bracelets or anything, they just let us pass through Mexico migration."

A migration official at the entry point, who asked not to be named because she was not authorized to speak to media, said that at least 1,000 people crossed from Guatemala into Mexico before dawn, without putting on wrist bands.

Asked why migrants did not receive wrist bands, David Leon, the director of civil protection, said authorities faced a caravan of hundreds of people early in the morning and let them pass rather than risk a confrontation.

The migrant group proceeded on foot alongside cars on a highway, accompanied by federal police officers, arriving at a shelter in the city of Tapachula around midday.

Sitting by the side of the road rubbing cream onto his children's feet, 40-year-old Honduran migrant Santos Pineda said he and his family entered Mexico easily, and without having to provide documents or wear any wrist bands. The family's plan was to press on to the United States, he said.

A migration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said those who entered without wrist bands ran the risk of being detained for crossing illegally.

Around 300 mostly Honduran migrants with wrist bands were still waiting to cross into Mexico on Friday afternoon.

Story continues

Mexico's migration institute said the migrants can stay in temporary shelters in Mexico until they receive humanitarian visas allowing them to remain in the country, or they can wait in Guatemala for their document to be ready.

Groups of migrants left El Salvador and Honduras earlier in the week, the latest in a string of caravans of people largely fleeing poverty and violence.

The caravans have inflamed the debate over U.S. immigration policy, with President Donald Trump using the migrants to try to secure backing for his plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is pursuing a "humanitarian" approach to the problem, vowing to stem the flow of people by finding jobs for the migrants. In exchange, he wants Trump to help spur economic development in the region.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Leslie Adler and Rosalba O'Brien)
The UK parliaments rejection of the governments Brexit deal has put the idea of a Norway-plus model back on the table as a possible outcome of the UKs long march towards Brexit. Norway is not a member of the EU, but it is associated with the bloc through more than 130 agreements, including the comprehensive European Economic Area (EEA) agreement. Through these agreements, Norway has incorporated roughly three quarters of EU legislation, but is not involved in making these laws.

The EEA agreement is based on a structure that mirrors the governance and legal institutions, with bridging arrangements between the countries in both the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the EU. The institutional arrangement reflects the fact that Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway were not willing to rescind sovereignty to a set of international institutions. Switzerland is the only EFTA member that is not in the EEA and it has its own separate arrangement with the EU. This includes free movement of persons and goods, but only to a limited extent the free movement of services. But all these countries have access to the EUs single market.

To adopt the Norway model, the UK and EU would have to include the EFTA states in their negotiations. The UK would also have to seek membership of EFTA, or reach a separate agreement with the EU and the EFTA states.

The EEA agreement is not designed for the participation of countries that arent a member of either the EU or EFTA. Such a party to the agreement would not be subject to the jurisdiction of any of the courts or surveillance mechanisms that are central to the main characteristics of the EEA agreement. The UK would therefore either have to negotiate an arrangement with the EFTA states to be subject to the jurisdiction of the EFTA Surveillance Authority and the EFTA Court, or an arrangement with the EU to be subject to the jurisdiction of the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Story continues

For reasons of reciprocity, the other parties to the EEA agreement would have to give their approval to such an arrangement within the EEA. It would also require the agreement of Switzerland, since Switzerland is party to the EFTA treaty.

Not tailored to UK interests

Its not clear that such negotiations with the EFTA states, and with Norway in particular, would be straightforward. Although the Norwegian prime minister, Erna Solberg, and influential Icelandic politicians have indicated they would welcome the UK into EFTA, there have also been some more reserved voices.

Norway has many interests in common with the EUs Nordic and continental member states. It is a strong defender of a social market economy and defends a significant role for the public sector in shaping society. It is well-known for its progressive policies on gender equality and sustainable development. The UK and Norway, on the other hand, have different interests in many areas such as in fish, agriculture, and labour market standards, among others.

But Norway also has strong historical and contemporary bonds with the UK, from trade to defence. The two states share a restricted vision of the EUs political development in the sense that neither want the EU to become a fully-fledged federal state. The UK is also one of Norways largest single state markets for goods and services.

If the UK joins the EEA, the UKs significantly greater size and global influence will likely unsettle the balance within the EFTA-part of the EEA. The UKs and Norways differences in interests and priorities will become apparent, as the EEA is not tailored to the UKs interests. Crucially, non-EU EEA countries have to agree unanimously to adopt a EU law into the EEA. This has worked well up until now, but will probably be much harder should the UK be part of this arrangement.

The UK is unlikely to end up balancing state sovereignty, national democracy and market access in a way similar to Norway. Norways handling of its many types of EU association relies on a range of factors, not least the ability to de-politicise the situation and to disassociate the deeply politicised issue of EU membership from the rapid and dynamic process of adopting new EU legislation. The UKs political system is prone to confrontation, and stands in marked contrast to Norways where consensus is usually sought.

Norway unsettled

The UK is likely to politicise the EEA agreement and in doing so may render more starkly apparent the fact that EEA countries are not EU members, but must accept EU law. Today, Norway enjoys a status as an awkward special member of the EU because it is so tightly included within the single market. The process of Brexit will symbolically and substantively underline that Norway is not actually a member  and this will clearly rub off on the EEA if the UK is included within it.

Read more: After Brexit, Norwegians face dilemma over future of 'Norway model' with the EU

Even though there has been a lot of consensus over the Norway model within Norway, the country is deeply divided over the question of whether Norway should actually join the EU. The strongest opponents to membership also oppose the tight affiliation to the EU through the EEA agreement, and their view has been gaining support recently.

From this point of view, accession of the UK to the EEA agreement could be welcome, as it could contribute to a politicisation of the way EU law is adopted into the EEA agreement. On the other hand, the Norwegian employers association has noted that the UK may weaken the EEA if it joins as a member.

The approach in Norway to the possibility of the UK joining the EEA cant be separated from the larger EU membership debate in Norway. Many fear, or hope, that Brexit will lead to the sidelining of the EEA if the UK adopts the Norway model.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Hans Petter Graver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Beautiful scenes from northern Thailand today (January 18) where local women wore traditional clothes for the start of the region's umbrella festival. The Bo Sang umbrella festival in Chiang Mai province celebrates hundreds of hand-painted paper sun umbrellas being produced in the village. Locals began making them centuries ago when a Buddhist monk from the area travelled to neighbouring Burma, returning to his home with the newly learned umbrella making technique. Villagers in Bo Sang adapted the skill - becoming known as the umbrella people - and spawning an industry that manufacturers hundreds of thousands of handmade sun umbrellas that are shipped around the world. Each year, villagers celebrate their tradition by lining the streets with bright, intricately decorated umbrellas. While the town's young women wear traditional silk gowns as the ride bicycles and carry umbrellas to shade them from the sun. The festival lasts for three days, starting today and finishing on Sunday evening.
Guru Ram Rahim is a 51-year self-styled holy man who had built up a vast following in North india. He was earlier arrested for raping two of his disciples and the court after a lengthy trial had sentenced him to 20 years rigorous imprisonment. At that time violent protests had broken out all over the Indian state of Haryana when the magistrate awarded the sentence. The police were caught unprepared, and there was a wanton loss of property, and many were killed. This time the police had made adequate security arrangements and nothing untoward happened.

The Indian Express has reported that the Dera Chief and three of his accomplices have been awarded life imprisonment.

Special court sentences

The special court in Panchkula held Ram Rahim guilty of the murder of Ram Chander Chhatrapati who in an article had exposed the sexual abuse going on in the ashram of the guru. This had infuriated the guru who had ordered his killing. The court awarded life in prison to Ram Rahim and three of his accomplices Kuldip Singh, Nirmal Singh, and Krishen Lall. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 (545) to each of the accused. The Guru who is lodged in Sirsa Jail appeared before the court by a video conferencing. The punishment has come after 17 years, but the truth is that Indian courts like in the case of Sajjan Kumar who was convicted after 35 years take time but dispense justice.

Life in prison

The judge also in his order awarded that the earlier sentence of 20 years prison and the present life imprisonment will run consecutively and not concurrently. This effectively means that Ram Rahim will spend his entire natural life in prison. Ram Rahim is one of the holy God-men who has been sentenced to various terms of imprisonment for seducing and raping his women disciples.

Many like Bapu AsaRam had a penchant for younger girls. AsaRam is serving life in prison in Ahmedabad jail. Another Baba is jailed for 25 years for raping a woman on the pretext of curing her.

Ram Rahim for years had painted himself as a pious spiritual leader. In reality, he was addicted to having relations with younger girl disciples.

This facade of piousness was exposed by journalist Prajapati, and an infuriated Baba had asked that he be silenced. The journalist was shot outside his house by the aides of the Baba in 2002.

The son of Chhatrapati took over his father's mantle and waged a relentless campaign to expose the Baba. In a statement, he has said: "My father sacrificed his life for truth, and I could not let his sacrifice go waste." NDTV has reported that this verdict is a triumph of truth.

Baba in jail

The Baba is now in jail, and millions of his followers are bewildered. The fact is the poor Indian masses are a gullible lot who have an inherent belief that a godman will show the path to salvation. This blind belief is exploited by men like Ram Rahim who live an opulent life with whiskey and women.

Many of the women who sleep with such godmen see nothing wrong with it as their faith in the baba transcends all reason. Ram Rahim will now have many years to contemplate what went wrong for him.
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The British Academy Film Awards will air same day on UKTV next month.

Considered one of the biggest nights in the film industry calendar, the EE British Academy Film Awards will be held at Londons iconic Royal Albert Hall, with British actress Joanna Lumley hosting for the second year running.

The awards are renowned for playing host to an impressive line-up of stars and regarded as an important indicator of the frontrunners for the Academy Awards .

This years nominations reflect a stellar year in film, with The Favourite leading with 12 nominations; Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born, First Man and Roma receiving seven nominations; Vice has six; Spike Lees BlacKkKlansman has five; with Cold War and Green Book receiving four each.

Australian actress Margot Robbie is nominated in the Supporting Actress category for her role of Queen Elizabeth I in the critically divisive Mary Queen of Scots. The film is also nominated for Costume Design, and Make Up and Hair. Australian screenwriter Tony McNamara is nominated for writing the screenplay for The Favourite along with Deborah Davis, while Australian production designer Fiona Crombie is also nominated for her work on the film.

Watch Will Poulter (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch ) and Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake) announce the nominations for 2019s EE British Academy Film Awards here.

Monday, 11th February at 8.30pm on UKTV.

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If theres one thing that director Jon S. Bairds Stan & Ollie (Sony Pictures Classics/eOne/BBC Films) reminds us, its that comedy duos arent what they used to be. The days of Abbott & Costello, Hope & Crosby, Martin & Lewis and Pryor & Wilder are long gone. The closest thing we have these days is Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. But even their shtick, as seen in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Bobby Ricky and Step Brothers, wore painfully thin in the abysmal 2018 flop Holmes & Watson.

Fortunately, for Reilly he readily redeems himself in Stan & Ollie, even earning a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. Beginning in the summer of 1937, when Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (Reilly) were the biggest comedy stars in Hollywood, we find the duo in their shared dressing room discussing finances. There are ex-wives and gambling debts (Hardy plays the horses) to worry about. Contemporaries such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd make more because they own their own pictures. Both men agree that its time to renegotiate their contract with studio head Hal Roach (Danny Huston). Needless to say that discussion doesnt go well. Regardless, the movie they are making is another hit for the duo, as well as Roach.

Sixteen years later, after a personal rough patch, the pair arrives in Newcastle, England to begin their 1953 live performance tour. Delfont (Rufus Jones), the producer, appears distracted and indifferent. Regardless, Stan and Ollie are consummate professionals, and live up to their end of the bargain. Additionally, they are driven by the fact that they will be performing in London where the plan is to meet with a movie producer named Miffin, who has expressed interest in making their new movie about Robin Hood.

A pair of flashbacks also help to provide some background. A meeting Stan has with Fox Studio heads in Los Angeles, as well as a scene from around the same time involving Zenobia, a movie Oliver made for Roach with Harry Langdon (not Stan), set the stage for the temporary, multi-year dissolution of their creative partnership. However, back in Newcastle, its obvious how much they missed each other and how well they still work together.

Performing in the small Queens Hall theater space, to a house that is more than half-empty, Laurel and Hardy nevertheless win over the audience. The years, however, have taken their toll and the overweight Hardys knees bother him. Troopers that they are, they continue to perform for less than half-full audiences. Delfont suggests shortening the tour, but that means cutting out the London show and the chance for Miffin to see them in action. Instead, they agree to do a series of publicity events which results in the tour bringing in larger, sold out houses.

When Hardys wife Lucille (Shirley Henderson) and Laurels wife Ida (Nina Arianda) arrive in London, things really get interesting. While neither of the women can stand the other, their concern and affection for their respective husbands is immediately obvious. This part of the movie contains some of the most touching sequences, especially as things begin to unravel. Miffin, as it turns out, is unable to raise the necessary finances for the movie, and only Stan knows the truth. The strain of performing is weighing on Ollie whose health is in rapid decline. At a post-show reception, old wounds are unexpectedly revealed, leading the men say things to each other that they will regret.

Stan & Ollie is ultimately about how attached two (straight) men can be without being intimate or a couple. Their hard-won reconciliation has a universality that many same-sex couples are sure to recognize.

The four lead performers  Reilly, Coogan, Henderson and Arianda  are all marvelous and do admirable work making these somewhat forgotten characters relevant again.
A Vietnam-made miniaturized satellite designed to track ocean quality was launched into orbit Friday morning from Japan.

A Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper journalist was present to report the event.

It was all blue skies and sun in southern Japan as scientists and aerospace experts gathered four hours before the launch at the Uchinoura Space Center, Japans largest space launch complex, located on Kyushu  one of the countrys largest islands.

Only around 100 visitors were allowed to watch the moment.

Prior to the rocket launch, the space center released three high-altitude balloons to measure weather parameters in the troposphere, the Earths lowest atmosphere layer at about 13 kilometers above sea level.

Technicians from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launch weather balloons before Epsilon-4 departs the Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan, January 18, 2019. Photo: Thanh Ha / Tuoi Tre

Epsilon-4 is seen at the Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan, January 18, 2019. Photo: Thanh Ha / Tuoi Tre

At 9:51 am local time, the Japanese Epsilon-4 rocket, carrying Vietnams 50-kilogram MicroDragon, lifted off the platform.

MicroDragon was planned to be ejected 511 kilometers above ground at the lightning velocity of 7.6 kilometers per second at 10:56 am, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The agency said the departure was successful.

The satellite is expected to send the first signal to a Tokyo-based ground station less than 24 hours after launch.

Epsilon-4 leaves the Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan, January 18, 2019. Photo: Thanh Ha / Tuoi Tre

Epsilon-4 leaves the Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan, January 18, 2019. Photo: Thanh Ha / Tuoi Tre

In addition to MicroDragon, the rocket carried six other satellites produced by Japanese organizations.

They consisted of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agencys 200-kilogram RAPIS-1; Tohoku Universitys 60-kilogram RISESAT; Tokyo-based space firm ALEs 68-kilogram ALE-1; Tokyo Institute of Technologys four-kilogram OrigamiSat-1; Kyushu Institute of Technologys three-kilogram Aoba VELOX-IV; and Nihon Universitys one-kilogram NEXUS.

MicroDragon is a satellite that can be considered made by Vietnam as its creators are 36 young Vietnamese people who have studied at Japans top five higher education institutions, which are the University of Tokyo, Keio University, Hokkaido University, Tohoku University and Kyushu Institute of Technology.

Vietnamese engineers install MicroDragon. Photo: Vietnam National Space Center

Engineers weigh MicroDragon. Photo: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

It is intended to monitor the coastal seawater to facilitate Vietnams fish farming industry and its production process.

It also allowed Vietnamese engineers to gain experience in designing satellites of its type, according to Pham Anh Tuan, director of Vietnam National Space Center (VNSC).

The microsatellites imagery will become part of an international database and this is expected to improve response to natural disasters and climate change, Tuan underlined.

The photographs it provides will also be utilized together with the available observation imagery in the world to find new applications or improve known applications of microsatellites weighing between 10 and 100 kilograms.

VNSC experts are being trained in Japan for the processing of MicroDragons signal and its imagery.

Engineers pose for a picture with MicroDragon before it is transported to Japans Uchinoura Space Center, December 19, 2018. Photo: University of Tokyo

Engineers from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) fix a satellite to a rocket frame. Photo: JAXA

The space center had a one-kilogram PicoDragon put into orbit in 2013 and is planning to create a larger satellite by 2021.

Vietnam currently has six satellites in space: Vinasat-1, Vinsat-2, F-1, VNREDSat-1, PicoDragon, and most recently MicroDragon.

Epsilon-4, which transports MicroDragon, belongs to a group of Japanese solid-propellant launch vehicles called Epsilon.

Epsilons maiden launch was the Epsilon-1 in 2013.

Artificial satellites are seen attached to Epsilon in this photo taken from JAXA.

An Epsilon launch rocket is seen in this photo taken from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Vietnam National Space Centers satellite plan over the years. Photo: Vietnam National Space Center

The Uchinoura Space Center is seen in this aerial picture taken from its website.

The Uchinoura Space Center is seen in this picture taken from its website.

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Police in Vietnams Central Highlands have slapped a fine of VND290 million (US$12,470) on a woman for illicitly trading rare and endangered turtles.

Pham Thi Tam, 39, who resides in An Nhon Town in the south-central province of Binh Dinh, was fined for illegally buying and selling rare and endangered wildlife, officers confirmed on Thursday.

The fine includes VND250 million ($10,750) for the trade of five big-headed turtles (Platysternon megacephalum), each weighing about 3.5 kilograms, and VND40 million ($1,720) for trading 81 turtles of other species, each weighing approximately 64 kilograms.

Big-headed turtles are listed as an endangered species by the IUCN Red List as a result of population declines.

On November 4, 2018, police in the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum caught a man red-handed transporting the animals in an automobile.

An investigation later revealed that Tam was the owner of these turtles.

The woman said she had sourced them from different people, whose identities are unknown, in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap.

Law enforcement rescued all the turtles and transferred them to the conservation center of Chu Mom Ray National Park in Kon Tum for further care before they are released to their natural habitat.

A group of nine people, aged from 25 to 49, was apprehended by police in the north-central province of Ha Tinh on Wednesday afternoon for storing and trading 215 pangolins collectively weighing 600 kilograms. Officers also confiscated an elephant tusk weighing about one kilogram. Pangolins in Vietnam are considered highly vulnerable to extinction, according to Save Vietnams Wildlife, a nonprofit acting for wildlifes sake, though trafficking the species remains lucrative due to perceived medicinal properties. Officers in the north-central province of Ha Tinh examine the pangolins on January 16, 2019. Photo: Thang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

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A fraudulent driving center in Vietnams Central Highlands that claimed to be overseen by the Ministry of Public Security has tricked more than 400 people into paying money so they would receive a driver's license regardless of their test results.

The center, located at 263A Phan Chu Trinh Street in Buon Ma Thuot City, Dak Lak Province, started its fraud in September 2018.

On Thursday, many of the victims gathered in front of the centers headquarters, only to know that the facility had already shut down.

The victims said they read Facebook advertisements about the center, which claimed to be under the management of the University of Fire Fighting and Prevention, which is in turn managed by the Ministry of Public Security.

According to the ads, the center offered driving courses at discounted fees ranging from VND6 million (US$258) to VND10 million ($430), depending on the category of each driver's license learners are applying for.

The center also said learners would surely obtain the licenses if they attended its lessons.

A probe by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper revealed that more than 400 people have enrolled in the courses and paid the money.

However, they never had the chance to complete the lessons as the center repeatedly rescheduled the courses.

The center shut down on January 17, 2019. Photo: Tr. Tan / Tuoi Tre

Ho Viet N., 28, who paid over VND6 million for a course, said he could only finish a two-hour theory class and was unable to practice driving as the center repeatedly said there were no vehicles available.

When a car was finally available, N. said he had to share it with eight other learners.

Meanwhile, 32-year-old Nguyen Van L. was fortunate enough to complete an entire course.

L. was waiting for his driving test, which was originally scheduled for early January in Buon Ma Thuot, when the center told him that the exam was postponed and rearranged to a new location in Gia Lai Province, which is about 180 kilometers away.

The test was again moved to Hanoi, then the northern province of Ninh Binh.

I had to travel to these localities for nothing, L. said.

The centers managers promised to pay all of the travel expenses, which they never did.

It is now impossible to contact any representative of the center via the phone numbers provided in the Facebook ads and the signboard at their building in Dak Lak.

An advertisement of the center on Facebook

Trinh Huu Kiem, director of the Dak Lak Department of Transport, affirmed that the center does not have a legitimate permit for operation.

There are only eight licensed driving centers across the province, Kiem added.

Phan Trong Tung, deputy director of the provincial labor department, said the department was first aware of the situation in October 2018.

In late November, the University of Fire Fighting and Prevention confirmed to the labor department that the driving center did not belong to the school, Tung continued.

The Dak Lak labor department then asked its equivalent office in Buon Ma Thuot to deal with the case.

However, no assertive measure was taken as officials tend to be busy at the end of the [lunar] year, Tung elaborated.

The Buon Ma Thuot labor office had to wait for action from law enforcement to find out if there was any sign of criminal violations, he added.

A representative from the Dak Lak police department confirmed on Thursday they were probing the case but refused to provide further information, until their investigation has concluded.

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Nostalgic scenes of fishermen working in the waters off Hon Yen Islet are reeling in fans for Tran Bao Hoa, the photographer whose Fishing Dance photo series earned him the second place in a contest held by the Vietnam Heritage Association.

Hon Yen (Canary) Islet was named after the thousands of canaries that call the tiny piece of land off the coast of Phu Yen Province their home.

Off the islands coast, fishermen spend their days hunting for the squid, crabs, and dozens of other sea creatures that inhabit nearby waters, particularly the renowned Hon Yen anchovy  a local specialty that, despite measuring no longer than the size of a toothpick, is coveted by gastronomists throughout Vietnam for its unique taste and tenderness.

Every June, at the start of the anchovy mating season, veteran fishermen from across the province flock to Hon Yen catch hundreds of thousands of kilograms of these tiny fish for eateries throughout the country.

When Tran Bao Hoa, a photographer from Dak Lak Province in Vietnams Central Highlands, heard about the yearly migration of fishermen to Hon Yen waters, he was immediately drawn in by the opportunity to capture the raw beauty of the annual ritual.

His finished product, Fishing Dance, is a compilation of photos taken during the month and a half he spent with the fishermen.

A birds eye view of the Hon Yen fishing area. Photo: Tran Bao Hoa

Bustling fishing activities. Photo: Tran Bao Hoa

Each day, Hoa would spend his morning making the 70km commute from Phu Yens capital Tuy Hoa to Hon Yen.

He would then watch the fishermen as they examined the tides to estimate the location of the anchovies.

By 2:00 pm, they would be ready to cast their nets.

But it was not until night fell that the real work began.

Because anchovies swim at 30-40m below the surface, ultralights are used to attract the fish while the fishermen use long sticks to herd them toward their nets.

It was only at around 9:00 pm that fishermen would call it a day and head back to shore to prepare the anchovies for the next days morning market.

Afterward, Hoa would head back to Tuy Hoa, arriving at about midnight and ready to rest up for another day.

A fishing crew can gather 10-20 batches of anchovies during each outing. Each batch weighs 20kg and is worth about VND1 million [US$43], one fisherman told Hoa.

Smiles of triumph spread across fishermens faces. Photo: Tran Bao Hoa

Smiles of triumph spread across fishermens faces. Photo: Tran Bao Hoa

Hoa says capturing Fishing Dance was the experience of a lifetime.

Though not every outing is smooth sailing, especially during monsoons when he would make the 70km commute only to come back empty-handed.

The trip will forever be imprinted on me. Each one of my photos is a fond memory, Hoa said.

With such a vibrant perspective on traditional fishing, Hoas Fishing Dance was awarded Second Place at the 2018 Vietnam Heritage photography contest held by Vietnam Heritage Association.

From the breathtaking scenery and the albatrosses circling the skies looking for tasty anchovies below, to the triumphant smiles on each fishermans face as they gather their fish and let me share in their catch, everything was simply astounding, he added.

Owing to the fishermen and colleagues for such resounding success, Hoa also made a copy of Fishing Dance for each of his hosts.

Once pulled up, anchovy batches are immediately preserved in salt-strung containers. Photo: Tran Bao Hoa

A fishing crew turns on ultralights to attract a school of anchovies. Photo: Tran Bao Hoa

Fishermen ready to lure in their bounty. Photo: Tran Bao Hoa

Nets are retrieved at dawn. Photo: Tran Bao Hoa

Green nets are sprung across a turquoise sea. Photo: Tran Bao Hoa

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The Vietnamese government will focus on the development of the digital economy as this will be the locomotive for the countrys fast and sustainable growth, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said at the 2019 Vietnam Economic Forum in Hanoi on Thursday.

The annual VEF, which was first held in 2017, offers a platform for intellectual convergence, exchange, sharing, learning and connection of domestic organizations and external enterprises on economic issues.

Finding ways to fortify the foundation of fast and sustainable growth for Vietnams economy was high on the agenda of the plenary and high-level policy dialogue held as part of the forum this year.

In his closing remarks, PM Phuc underlined that fast and sustainable is the motto for the strategy and action of the government in the years to come.

The head of government emphasized that fast and sustainable do not contradict each other as they may sound.

They are in fact the necessary and sufficient conditions for high growth over the long term, especially in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Phuc elaborated.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0, together with the digital economy, will be a big trend that opens up several opportunities for Vietnam to catch up with developed countries.

One of the issues that the government will focus on this year and the following years is giving more priority to science and technology, and infrastructure - especially smart and digital infrastructure - in order to grab the opportunities brought about by the Industry 4.0, the PM said.

However, Vietnams digital economy is behind other countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), even though the countrys telecommunication infrastructure has a wide coverage and Vietnamese people, especially the young population, adapt quickly to technology, according to Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung.

To keep pace with other ASEAN countries in terms of digitization of the economy, Hung emphasized the role of re-training at high school level and above so Vietnamese workers can participate in the Industry 4.0 economy.

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Vietnams coffee prices fell on Thursday ahead of a week-long Lunar New Year holiday early next month, while Indonesian premium widened on empty stock.

Traders forecast Vietnams January coffee exports will fall to 150,000 tonnes from 153,906 tonnes in December.

Markets, businesses and government offices in Vietnam, the worlds largest robusta producer, will close during the first week of February for the holiday, locally called Tet.

Many coffee farming and processing firms in the Central Highlands have started allowing their workers to go home for Tet and I think trading activities wont pick up until after the holiday, said a trader based in Dak Lak province.

Farmers in the Central Highlands, the countrys key coffee growing area, sold coffee at 32,900-33,600 dong ($1.42-$1.45) per kg on Thursday, down from 3,500-34,000 dong a week earlier.

Farmers will hold their beans if prices stay low, but I think they wont be able to hold for long, given that Brazil is expected to start their robusta harvest sometime in April, the trader said.

Traders in Vietnam offered 5 percent black and broken grade 2 robusta at a $20-$30 per tonne discount to the March contract, compared with $40 discount last week.

Government customs data released last week showed Vietnam exported 1.88 million tonnes of coffee in the calendar year 2018, up 19.9 percent.

In Indonesia, premium for the grade 4 defect 80 robusta widened to $50-$60 to the March contract on Thursday, after staying at $20-$30 for four straight weeks.

However, trade remained muted as inventory in Indonesias province of Lampung has run empty, a trader in the province said.

Trade is expected to pick up pace in coming months as some areas in southern Sumatra will pick beans in a mini harvest around April, the trader said.

($1 = 23,196 dong)
OPINION: "No, I am not and we are not 'over sensitive.' Anti-Semitism is real, hurtful and malicious. Sometimes it is subtle, sometimes flagrant. It affects more of us than anyone would want to admit," writes Rabbi Emeritus Robert Eisen.
Together, the legion of eyes will detect gamma rays over a larger area and a wider field of view than current technology allows.

Benbow said the Cherenkov array will be 10 times more sensitive and will find sources 100 times faster than VERITAS, an array of four telescopes that makes up the most sensitive gamma ray detector on Earth.

Ultimately, the Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope is designed to improve the ability to detect very high-energy gamma ray sources, Vladimir Vassiliev, principal investigator for the telescope, said in a prepared statement.

The Crab Nebula is the remnants from a supernova explosion and is an example of a source of high-energy gamma rays, Benbow said, but he also hopes to find new sources of gamma rays.

The new telescope design will allow gamma ray astronomers to use more modern camera sensors. Current gamma ray telescope arrays are using much of the same technology used in the 1960s by his grandfather, Benbow said.

Cherenkov array members first proposed the revolutionary design for the prototype telescope in 2006. Construction was funded in 2012. The steel structure was assembled at the Whipple Observatory in 2016, and mirrors and cameras were installed in 2018.

The prototypes funding comes from the U.S. National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation program and by the contributions of 30 institutions and five industrial partners in the U.S., Italy, Germany, Japan and Mexico.

Contact Mikayla Mace at mmace@tucson.com or 573-4158.
The Cabeza Prieta refuge is a desolate area of 860,000 acres that stretches north from the U.S.-Mexico border. Records from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner show 43 sets of human remains were recovered on the refuge since the start of 2017.

In their defense, the volunteers argued they were exercising sincerely held religious beliefs to help those in need.

While living in Seattle, Orozco McCormick, 21, learned about No More Deaths and described its efforts as a cause that I found was very just and very necessary. She testified Thursday she saw the need to help by giving the dead the respect they deserve.

Huse, 23, of Bellingham, Washington, testified that during one month in the Ajo area, they found more than a dozen sets of human remains. It was traumatizing to see the tragedy out there, she said.

The volunteers said the reason they did not obtain a permit, as volunteers with the group had done in the past, was because a change in permit rules weeks earlier prohibited leaving food and water. Rather than sign a permit they had no intention of adhering to, they decided not to get one.
[January 17, 2019] TelNet Worldwide Expands Executive Team TROY, Mich., Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading telecommunications firm TelNet Worldwide (TelNet) promotes three results-driven directors to executive positions. "These leaders epitomize forward thinking, a cornerstone of TelNet's high-performance corporate culture. We aim to deliver brilliant customer solutions through quality, teamwork, integrity and inspired experiences," said Mark Iannuzzi, TelNet President and Founder. "Our entire team of dedicated professionals, led by COO/CFO Rick Riordan and these respected experts, serve as a catalyst for growth, strengthening our mission to power the cloud communications market through fresh perspectives and tangible value for our customers." For 20 years, thousands of businesses have relied on TelNet for critical communication services. With a best-in-class voice and data network, cloud-powering data centers and award-winning contact center solutions and services, TelNet helps its customers prosper in the digital era. The expansion of TelNet's executive team is a purposeful recognition of the contributions from these dedicated individuals. It's another declaration that this customer-centric organization continues to invest in all facets as the preferred communications technology partner of results-driven businesses. About TelNet Worldwide

TelNet Worldwide provides best-in-class business communications services, such as data and contact center solutions, unified communications and networking services. TelNet has an affinity for helping businesses evolve and grow by providing greater value in leading edge solutions, with smart adoption and superior levels of service. Get a behind-the-scenes look at our world-class data center here . For more abou TelNet, click here .

About Mark Iannuzzi, TelNet Worldwide President and Founder

Mark Iannuzzi sees an exciting and bright future for how TelNet will continue to enhance the productivity and competitive position of its customers. An engineer and entrepreneur, Mark is inspired to enhance quality of life by making technology simple, trusted and empowering. He is responsible for guiding the technical vision of TelNet and directing a talented, passionate team with a unique commitment to customer service and value creation. To that mission, Mark established TelNet Worldwide in 1998 as a platform for innovative people and solutions. About Rick Riordan, TelNet Worldwide Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer

Trust, confidence and strong results are Rick Riordan's calling card. The expansion of TelNet's executive team strengthens Rick's corporate growth objectives and capabilities. Rick builds and executes upon TelNet's corporate strategy with a focus on aligning people, processes, metrics and systems. An esteemed player in the telecommunications industry, he brings experience in financial and operational management, funding, investor relations, systems, analysis and M&A. About John Lapham, TelNet Worldwide Vice President of Sales and Marketing

John Lapham's love for TelNet's customers, partners and platforms is on display with his every interaction. John delivers strategic vision and fortitude in enhancing TelNet's brand, sales and marketing distribution channels and customer experience. John is a technology entrepreneur, digital marketer and sales leader with a passion for helping others. He's spent his 25-year career in communications, technology, software and security at some of the most well-respected companies in the field. About Carol Merritt, TelNet Worldwide Vice President of Human Resources

Ensuring TelNet's amazing people are able to be all they can is the centerpiece of Carol's every thought. Adept at building a strong foundation of human capital, Carol Merritt plays a significant role in furthering TelNet's organizational success. With a human resources career spanning 20+ years, Carol brings an impressive background and extensive experience in operational development, training, strategic vision, leadership and diverse team building skills to meet the challenges of the modern workforce. About Mark Wajer, TelNet Worldwide Vice President of Research and Development

Mark Wajer's passion for innovation and smart solutions enriches the advancement of TelNet's engineering, product and software development capabilities. From his 24 years of experience in developing technical teams and systems, to his ability to see and orchestrate technological achievements, Mark brings lasting value to TelNet's customers. His unique 360-degree knowledge affords a perspective of the telecommunications industry that helps drive TelNets' stability and growth. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/telnet-worldwide-expands-executive-team-300780523.html SOURCE TelNet Worldwide

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The city of Tucson and Pima County have joined with other municipalities taking drug manufacturers and distributors to court, suing them for their role in the national opioid crisis.

The two entities announced that they filed a lawsuit against more than 20 companies that either manufacture or distribute prescription opioid medications across the nation and within the city of Tucson and Pima County.

The lawsuit alleges the companies spent years misleading doctors and consumers about the addictive nature of the narcotic painkillers to boost sales and failed to monitor the distribution of these drugs adequately.

The lawsuits seek to recover costs spent locally to fight opioid addiction and abuse, including health-care costs.

Tucson and Pima County have hired several law firms as part of the lawsuit, including former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore and Tucson-based law firm Rusing, Lopez and Lizardi.

Contact reporter Joe Ferguson at jferguson@tucson.com or 573-4197. On Twitter: @JoeFerguson

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A motorcyclist has died from his injuries after crashing into a car in a central Tucson intersection on Thursday, police say.

James Nordrum, 66, of Minnesota was riding a motorcycle northbound on Campbell Avenue when he crashed into the passenger side of a 2002 Buick, according to a Tucson Police Department press release.

Police say the driver of the Buick was making a left turn onto Fort Lowell when the crash happened.

Witnesses told police that Nordrum had a red light when he entered the intersection, according to police. He was transported to the hospital but was pronounced dead shortly after.

Police say he was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.

The driver and passenger in the Buick were also transported to the hospital with minor injuries. Contrary to initial reports, the driver of the Buick cooperated with the investigation.

The intersection of North Campbell Avenue and East Fort Lowell Road was closed for several hours while police investigated.

Police say the investigation is ongoing, but no citations or arrests have been issued at this time.

Contact reporter Danyelle Khmara at dkhmara@tucson.com or 573-4223. On Twitter: @DanyelleKhmara

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So far, Tucson has stayed in that sweet spot where officers arent aggressively pursuing immigration questions and are trying to keep open communications with immigrant communities, but are also staying out of the crosshairs of the state Legislature.

As a practical matter, we have done, I think, a pretty good job of keeping the trust of these vulnerable populations, said TPD chief of staff and former legal counsel Mike Silva. Well remain committed to that no matter what happens with this ballot initiative.

But if the initiative passes, we are pretty much guaranteed a fight with the state, as Mike Rankin, Tucsons city attorney, said in an opinion issued Wednesday.

For example, the initiative defines traffic stops as a situation in which it is not practicable to question a detainee if the vehicle is stopped by the side of the road. Rankin says that likely violates state law.

Inevitably, such a restriction would be challenged under the state law that allows individual legislators to pursue ordinances that they think conflict with state law. Violations of state law put a citys state-shared revenue in jeopardy.

We can expect that such a challenge would happen not just on this particular aspect of the initiative, but others as well.
Also unique to Pima County is the intensive engagement of Victims Services and Emerge to help ensure victims have the information and resources needed to get help, whenever they decide theyre ready to leave an abusive situation.

With the victims consent, the lethality assessment is sent to Emerge, so caseworkers can follow up and give victims information about available services.

This is really critical in the protocol, because a lot of victims in the moment will decline services, said Anna Harper-Guerrero, executive vice president of Emerge. A good number of people will call us back later. Without the protocol, these are people who might not have known services were available.

Another effort highlighted was LaWalls programming designed to keep drug users out of prison, with Director of Specialty Court Initiatives Kate Lawson presenting information on the offices Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison program, which has been in place since 2011 and allows people who would otherwise be sentenced to prison to enter an intensive program consisting of supervision, treatment and support.

A 2017 cost-benefit study by the University of Arizona found that the program has saved Arizona taxpayers $6 million over four years and participation costs less than half of sending a person to prison.
Senate President Karen Fann said she agrees with the sentiment. But the Prescott Republican said she does not want to bog down an already complex issue at the last minute by throwing in additional issues.

Were up against the wall, said Fann.

She pointed out the whole point of the multi-state drought contingency plan is to keep the level of Lake Mead from going any lower than already projected. If it does drop lower, that would trigger requirements to make even deeper cuts in water use than the current plan envisions.

That risk is real, according to projections from the Bureau of Reclamation.

The last time Arizona and other states made projections was in 2007. Using data for the past 100 years they figured the chance of Lake Mead hitting critical shortage by 2026 was less than 10 percent.

But heres the thing: Once you look at more recent data only  specifically the last 30 years when the Southwest has been in an historic drought  continuing to withdraw water at this rate increases the chance of the lake falling to critical levels to more than 40 percent.

And Brenda Burman, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, has made it clear that if the states do not come up with a plan to stop that, she will.
This is not an anti-union bill, said Sen. Bill Landen, R-Casper, the committee chairman.

This sentiment was mirrored by Rep. Tyler Lindholm, R-Sundance, a sponsor of the bill and a former electrician who has worked in both union and non-union shops.

I dont view a ban as changing the direction of the state of Wyoming, Lindholm said. I think what a ban does  mind you, its just banning you from saying you can only use this one type of contract  it opens it up to all contractors. There were a lot of people freaking out (in the meeting), but theyre paid to do that; thats their job, to defend their customer. To the folks in there defending their union employees, theyre doing exactly their job: Dont put a ban on this, because we like it when people limit you to organized labor only.

The committee passed the bill 3-2, with Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, and Sen. Wendy Davis Schuler, R-Evanston, voting against it. Aye votes included Landen, Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, and Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Casper.

Though the bill, proponents said, could result in cost savings for public entities, those against the bill said that the legislation could eventually undermine the quality of labor and lowered standards, leading to cost overruns and other issues.
The senator said he was also worried about how the bill would affect the agricultural community, as some common agricultural practices are considered cruel by some people.

Gierau could not be reached for comment. But Lisa Kauffman, the Humane Societys Idaho director whos also temporarily serving Wyoming, said Wednesday that she was disappointed by the bills defeat.

Although she does believe that harsher fines would have sent a message that animal abuse is a serious offense, Kauffman would eventually like to see a bill that requires animal abusers to undergo counseling.

People who torture animals often have underlying mental illnesses or anger management problems and could likely go on to harm a human at some point, she said, adding that many mass shooters and serial killers started out by hurting animals.

If they get that counseling, a trained professional will be able to pick up on that and hopefully get them treatment that could deter a murder or a domestic violence case down the road, she said.

Kauffman said she plans to meet with state legislators this year to discuss why animal cruelty should be viewed as a red flag.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund, a national legal advocacy organization for animals, and the Humane Society of the United States both cited Wyoming as one of the five worst states in the nation for animal protections in 2017.

Follow city reporter Katie King on twitter @KatieKingCST

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A federal trial in February will consist of an allegation of sex discrimination against the Wyoming Highway Patrol, after a judge last month pared down three types of complaints against the agency.

The agencys first female K-9 handler, Delsa B. Sanderson, brought the case early last year, alleging she was harassed by male troopers while stationed in Laramie. An internal rumor accused Sanderson of having a sexual relationship with a supervisor in exchange for a new car, and she was also the recipient of a sexually explicit nickname, according to the suit.

Although Sanderson alleged she worked in a hostile environment and was retaliated against for complaining to her superiors, Judge Scott Skavdahl in December dismissed those allegations, ruling that she had not exhausted other remedies for the retaliation claim and could not show she was subject to the type of harassment that would constitute a hostile environment.

In the same ruling, Skavdahl declined a highway patrol request to dismiss a sex discrimination claim against the agency. The judge wrote that the highway patrols explanations for demoting Sanderson were inconsistent.

A highway patrol spokesman said Friday he could not comment for this story and referred comment to the attorney generals office, which is handling the case.
The roustabouts left the building and the well site on its northeast side. They could see flames on the west side of the premises, where Damori had gone, the fatal alert states. A fire truck responding to the 911 call of a local landowner picked up the two roustabouts at a cattle guard and took them to Highway 59, where authorities then transported them to a nearby truck stop.

The fire following the explosion was intense and the proximity of propane gas tanks that could explode kept fire fighters back for some time. Once the Campbell County Fire Department had made a safe path to the site, the county coroner approached the scene. The coroner later said that Damori had likely died immediately after the explosion.

The fire was not fully contained until early in the morning the following day. The blaze had destroyed 10 large oil tanks, two vehicles, two semitrucks, three buildings and two large propane tanks on site.

***

The fatal alert notes that limited training for Damori might have been a significant factor in the event. The alert also notes that only one of the roustabouts had a gas monitor on their person and that there were multiple ignition sources at the facility, which uses and produces flammable and explosive gases. The facility did not return a call from the Star-Tribune by press time Thursday.
It reported that Vietnam is hosting the 38th ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) from January 14-18 in Ha Long city of northern Quang Ninh province to showcase its impressive achievements in the industry.



Themed ASEAN  The Power of One, the five-day event has attracted more than 2,000 participants, including tourism ministers from ASEAN and East Asia, top leaders of national tourism agencies, international tourism organisations, high-end hotels and resorts, airlines, and close to 150 journalists and travel writers from Southeast Asia and outside the region.



A number of events were held as part of the forum, including the Meeting of ASEAN Tourism Ministers on January 17-18 and the Meeting of ASEAN Tourism Ministers with China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and India.



A meeting of leaders of ASEAN national tourism organisations was held on January 14-16. There are also meetings between ASEAN tourism stakeholders and their counterparts from India and Russia.



Another important event is the ASEAN Tourism Forum on Travel Exchange (Travex) held from January 16-18. According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, the event features about 450 booths and is expected to draw 1,500 people, including buyers, sellers and journalists from ASEAN and other regions.



The ATF affords Vietnam a chance to improve its role and stature in regional tourism cooperation and introduce the countrys natural beauty and people to international friends, according to the article.



With its growing economy, including an impressive economic boom in the tourism sector, Vietnam is in the right position to host the prestigious regional travel forum.



The article said Vietnam is a stable and peaceful country, which has been experiencing high economic growth during the last 10 years. In 2018, the Vietnamese economy was estimated to grow by 7.08 percent in spite of global financial turmoil.



In tourism, Vietnam has achieved many milestones during the last few years. With its pristine beaches, natural sites and stunning landscapes, Vietnams tourism has been growing more than 25 percent annually during the last three years, thanks to infrastructure improvement, more direct flights to many foreign cities, and major reforms.



In 2017, Vietnam was ranked sixth by the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in terms of global tourism growth.
Sabari has not learnt sketching or drawing. In his 39 years, he does not have even one painting or sketch to his credit. Yet, Sabari has in his possession some remarkable photographs with which he can stake a claim to be a painter. Shot in the background of the forests and wild animals as the subjects, some of the images imprinted in Sabari's frames are practically unrecognizable from painting.



The essence of Sabari's frames, artistic and toned with shadows, is not clarity but the stories they have to tell. The concentration of colours and shades in the single point of the photos are not the result of fortuitousness but of unwavering patience.

A man going wild, photographing the animals there needs no introduction. It was when these images deviated from the cliched path of photography that Sabari's photographs commanded captions. Without a doubt, Sabari is first of his kind from Kerala to capture the shadows of the wild into the invisible frame of canvas of the jungle.

The thing that caught Sabari's imagination while walking around the nearly full Kabani dam was the muddy mounds. He stayed in Kabani for three days to capture the image of a tusker walking over these mounds. Even after the wait of three days and two nights, there was no tusker in sight. Though Sabari visited Kabani five times thereafter hoping to capture the image he had in mind, his dream remained unfulfilled.

After covering Chinnar, Neyyar, Parambilkkulam and Nagarhole, Sabari went back to Kabani. While sitting with his eyes riveted to the grass around the catchment area of the dam, he finally sighted the tusker. Sabari clicked away at his camera as the tusker, with his head held high and his ears fanning, walked uphill. It is such patient waiting that fetched Sabari the recognition and awards including the best wildlife photography award from Lalita Kala Academy.

Abstract photography

Even after completing a degree in history and taking up the job of livestock inspector with the state's veterinary department, Sabari, the son of Manjeri Elankur natives Theyyunni and Janaki, did not forgo his passion for photography. His love for the wild had become a habit after his journeys with the friends during his school days. As part of the literacy mission, when he visited Nedumkayam and the Akampadam settlement for the first time, what he encountered were the nameless tribal people. Sabari did not have a camera then to capture these woodsmen. In 2008, Sabari took a membership of the Youth Hostel Association and, borrowing a camera from the Thrissur native Hari, he continued his journeys.

The first journey was to Kudajadri. That journey became quite prolonged and covered Bandipur, Muthumala, Chinnar, Munnar and Nagarhole. Sabari says partaking in the wildlife census conducted by the forest department provided him the opportunities to go right into the inner core of the jungles.

"In 2012, during my visit to Nelliyampathi, I sighted a large bird. I took a lot of photographs of the bird. A team from Tamil Nadu stationed there then said it was a falcon. When I showed the photoes to Professor Subair of the Calicut University, he suggested that I send the photographs to the media. Carrying a caption 'first sighting of falcon in ten years,' that photograph was later splashed all over the media."

A new photographer was born that day and was named Sabari Janaki, him adopting the name of his mother as the surname. Taking the company of a second-hand Canon 1100 camera, he continued the journeys in the wild with tigers, bears, deer, wild buffaloes and birds.

"I and Shebir, my friend, were watching the wild buffaloes graze towards the sunset one day at Nagarhole. I was experimenting with my camera using the tips given by Pratap Joseph, an acquaintance from the wild journeys. At that time, kites hovered around the heads of the buffaloes. Stretching myself on the ground and squatting, I captured those images. The result was beautiful and the photoes looked like paintings. From then on, I started focusing on abstract photography The abstract photos emerge visualizing every frame as a painting," Sabari says about his switch from regular photography.

It was during the trip to Muthumala forests for bird census, that the eyes of a tiger got captured in Sabaris camera. "There was some commotion around while resting at the camp after trekking from morning to noon. Birds flew up noisily. Monkeys ran helter-skelter. Taking the watchman with me, I came out of the camp and spotted two tigers. Despite myself, I let out a cry. The tigers hid themselves in the undergrowth. I got for myself real abstract photoes, clicking about 10 meters from the tigers and in the thick shadow of fear."

The fruits of patience

With the passion for abstract photography growing, Sabari wanted to get into the mindset of a painter. He visualized the background even before he brought the lens on zoom. It was for a dragonfly that he waited till the sunset at a waterside near Chaliyar mukku, Nilambur. As the blood-red sun set in the west, the image of the dragonfly sitting at the tip of a plant came to the view of the lens.

It was a similar feat capturing the image of a flying squirrel at Chinnar. After covering Munnar and Kanthallur, Sabari reached Thoovanam. Thoovanam is the abode of the flying squirrels. Sabari wanted to get the flying squirrel with the blue sky in the background. Fed up of waiting, Sabari and his friend went to a stream nearby for resting. At that time a flying squirrel came rushing and flew from one branch to another. The visual Sabari was looking for was finally captured. That photograph got the Sanctuary Asia award instituted for the best wildlife photography in Asia.

The stills of tigers from Jim Corbett national park and the images of the sandbanks of Ram Ganga are frames rich in artistry. Even in the image of a herd of elephants walking by, it is the beauty of the background that stands out over the beauty of the elephants. "There is a subject beyond the view in each visual when you look at them casually. When you recognize that subject, you get better images than you had expected," says Sabari from his experiences in the wild. Though the tusker which followed him and the tiger which stared at him at Wayanad instilled a sense of fear, Sabari says from his experiences that if accompanied by people who have the knowledge of the jungle, nothing untoward will happen. Trapped in immortality, the title of the wildlife photo exhibition Sabari conducted got its name from these experiences.

"Does not your wife object to the dangers of your job?" I asked Sabari. "Photography is not a job for me, it is my passion and Sabina understands that," Sabari says closing in on his lifes viewfinder.
A Brazilian supreme court judge has halted an investigation into suspicious transactions handled by an aide to a politician son of President Jair Bolsonaro, officials said Thursday.

The injunction, issued Wednesday, was confirmed by Rio de Janeiro state authorities overseeing the probe into the "atypical financial movements" in accounts in the name of Fabricio Queiroz, a police officer who serves as driver and bodyguard for Bolsonaro's eldest son Flavio Bolsonaro.

The reason for the injunction, issued under conditions of secrecy by Justice Luiz Fux, was not made public.

Jair Bolsonaro took office on January 1 after easily winning October 2018 elections by promising a stern crackdown on corruption.

A government financial monitoring agency detected suspect transactions totaling 1.2 million reais ($300,000), the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper reported in early December.

The movements occurred between January 2016 and January 2017 and flagged attention because they were not compatible with Quieroz's police salary.

One of the transactions was a deposit of 24,000 reais made to an account in the name of Jair Bolsonaro's wife.

Flavio Bolsonaro was a lawmaker in Rio de Janeiro's state legislature at the time. In October he won a seat in the federal senate, which starts sitting in February.

Brazilian media said the judge issued his order following a request from Flavio Bolsonaro.

Quieroz has been summoned several times to testify as to the source of the transactions but has failed to do so, asserting health problems.

The Rio de Janeiro state prosecutors' office said on Monday that it could move forward with a case against him regardless, if sufficient evidence existed.

In a television interview late December, Quieroz denied acting as a front for the Bolsonaros and said the money came from side businesses he ran, "buying cars, selling cars."

The president has tried to downplay the affair, saying that if any "mistake" was made it would be "paid." He said the payment from Quieroz's account to his wife's was partial repayment of an undeclared loan he had made to his son's driver.

Jair Bolsonaro, an avid Twitter user, made no immediate comment on the injunction or the circumstances surrounding it.
Mid-December, officials announced that it was no longer possible to get vaccinated against the flu. The reason? Influenza vaccines were out of stock.

The vaccine shortage triggered parliamentary questions from four MPs: Di Bartolomeo, Hahn, Halsdorf and Engelen all demanded answers from Luxembourg's minister of health Etienne Schneider.

Schneider shed light on the origins of the problem in a written response spanning three and a half pages. The directorate of the ministry of health had been aware of the looming stock shortage since early December, Schneider explained. He added that the pharmaceutical industry was an open market, which regulates itself according to supply and demand.

In theory, national pharmacies pre-order the required vaccine volumes from three pharmaceutical wholesalers, which, in turn, purchase the product from the pharmaceutical industry. In recent years, Luxembourg required approximately 54,000 doses of the vaccine. Pharmacies usually use this number as an indication of how many doses they need to pre-order for the next season.

Last winter, one of the three suppliers announced that they would reduce their production and therefore no longer deliver the vaccine to the Grand Duchy. In other words, only two (out of three) pharmaceutical wholesalers, namely the Belgian wing of GlaxoSmithKline and Mylan from the Netherlands, still agreed to provide Luxembourg with the vaccine.

An additional problem arose when Dutch wholesaler Mylan encountered production troubles and could consequently not keep up with Luxembourg's order. National health fund CNS was notified in early October. The letter also contained a section on Luxembourg's comparatively low vaccine prices, begging the question whether the pharmaceutical company simply hoped to make more attractive margins elsewhere. The wholesalers prioritised countries that pay more for the vaccine.

Belgium's GSK proposed to cover and provide Luxembourg with the required volume. However, medical habits seem to have changed and increasing numbers of patients wanted to get vaccinated at the same time. Schneider was unable to explain the sudden craze.

OECD statistics even show a decline in vaccinations for people over the age of 65 between 2013 and 2016.

Officials do not yet know which wholesalers will provide Luxembourg with the vaccine next season. However, Dutch company Mylan already announced that its return to Luxembourg's market for the 2019/2020 season.

A couple of statistics:



Week 2 (07.01.2019  13.01.2019),

Influenza activity increases and again passes the epidemiological threshold.

The consultation rate for ILI (influenza-like illness) lies at 3.6%.

The rate for ARI (acute respiratory infections) lies at 18.3%.

12 cases of influenza were detected in the sentinel network, mainly AH1N1 and AH3N2.

1 case of RSV was detected in the sentinel network.
The Minister of Equality between Women and Men, Taina Bofferding, met with the parliamentary commission on equal opportunities and acknowledged the work that must be done in this field.

Bofferding's work as minister has two goals. The first goal is to fight inequalities and the second is to promote equality. One of the most important aspects of that second goal is fixing the gender wage gap.

She explained that the law had been voted in and now the crucial step is to ensure that it is implemented in practice in companies.

Globally, Bofferding explained, the working world must become more connected to the issue of equal opportunities. She also believes that education should include discussions concerning gender equality.

Green MP Francois Benoy was pleased with the minister's ambition, a sentiment echoed by the opposition in the form of the Pirate Party's Marc Goergen.

Goergen praised Bofferding's ambitious approach to a widespread issue and in particular appreciated that Bofferding described herself as a coordinator between all the ministers, as the topic of gender equality and any disparities is one that concerns every ministry in the government.

Bofferding has a further goal of fighting sexism with the press and advertising agencies.
Over the next few days, two areas in Luxembourg City will experience worse traffic because of the continued tram roadworks.

The first spot to be affected by the tram works is the closest area to the current end of the tram line: the crossing between Boulevard Joseph II and Avenue Emile Reuter. Luxtram will be placing underground pipes as part of the preparation for the tram's continued course.

As a result, there will only be one lane open to both buses and cars, which will likely cause considerable delays during the morning rush hour. The Luxembourg City municipal authorities expect delays towards Kirchberg going all the way back to Hollerich.

The municipal authorities announced the impending roadworks on Thursday morning so that people can adapt their journeys to avoid the traffic. Mayor Lydie Polfer explained that all the roadworks were organised to impact traffic as little as possible, but any roadworks in the city will inevitable have an effect on traffic.

 RTL Tele Letzebuerg / Didider Weber  RTL Tele Letzebuerg / Didider Weber  RTL Tele Letzebuerg / Didider Weber

The second set of roadworks will take place on the Avenue de la Liberte. Until next Wednesday, motorists will be unable to turn onto Rue Goethe from the Avenue de la Liberte. As for access to Rue Dicks from the Avenue de la Liberte, that will be unavailable until Friday 25 January.

In addition to this information, we announced earlier this week that roadworks preparing the Buchler bridge for the tram expansion kicked off on Wednesday.
In our ongoing series on Luxembourg's Royals, RTL Today delves into the history of the Grand Ducal family.

Princess Alexandra Josephine Teresa Charlotte Marie Wilhelmine, Princess of Luxembourg, Nassau and Bourbon-Parma, was born at the Grand Duchess Charlotte maternity hospital in Luxembourg City on 16 February 1991. She is the only daughter of Grand Duke Henri and his wife Grand Duchess Maria Teresa.

A newborn Princess Alexandra held by her mother Grand Duchess Maria Teresa in 1991. /  Grand Ducal Court

Princess Alexandra has four brothers: Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume (1981), Prince Felix (1984), Prince Louis (1986), and Prince Sebastien (1992).

For most of her life, Princess Alexandra was excluded from the line of succession under Luxembourg's former primogeniture law that excluded female descendants from ascending the throne as long as there were other direct male descendants.

Princess Alexandra meeting her three older brothers: Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, Prince Felix and Prince Louis. /  Grand Ducal Court

When these antiquated laws were changed and absolute primogeniture was adopted in 2011, Princess Alexandra formally took her place in the line of succession. She is currently fifth in line to the Luxembourgish throne. Her older brother Prince Louis gave up his claim to the throne when he married Tessy Antony in 2006. Prince Louis and the former Princess Tessy have since divorced.

Education

Princess Alexandra attended primary school in Angelsberg, close to Fischbach Castle where the family resided at the time. For her secondary education she attended the Lycee Vauban in Luxembourg City. She graduated and obtained her Baccalaureate in Arts and Literature with honours in 2009. Unlike her three older brothers, Princess Alexandra didn't attend the College Beau Soleil boarding school in Switzerland.

Trinity College in Dublin has many well known and royal alumni. Amongst them, Princess Alexandra. /  Eric Jones

Princess Alexandra's university career began in the US, where she studied psychology and social sciences at the Franciscan College of Steubenville in Ohio. She then moved to Paris, where she obtained her bachelors degree in philosophy, with a specific focus on ethics and anthropology. She graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in 2017 when she was awarded a master's degree in interfaith studies from the Irish School of Ecumenics, with a specialization in conflict resolution.

The Princess has a keen interest in politics and religious studies and used and developed her knowledge in the field of international relations during an internship at the Security Council of the United Nations in New York when Luxembourg was a non-permanent member. She also gained some experience in journalism during an extended stay in the Middle East.

Princess Alexandra did an internship at the UN Security Council in New York. /  Neptuul

Like the rest of her family, Princess Alexandra is fluent in several languages: Luxembourgish, French, English and Spanish. She also has good German and Italian skills.

Official engagements and patronages

Princess Alexandra regularly attends ceremonies or official activities on behalf of the Grand Ducal family. In 2017, she accompanied her father Grand Duke Henri on a planned state visit to Japan in her mother's place.

 SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen  SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen  SIP / Charles Caratini  SIP / Charles Caratini  SIP / Charles Caratini

The Princess is also a royal patron of several charitable organisations such as the Luxembourg animal protection league (Letzebuerger Deiereschutzliga) and the Luxembourg association for the blind (Letzebuerger Blannevereenegung). She also worked as a volunteer to help refugees.

Princess Alexandra is the godmother of Prince Louis and former Princess Tessy's son Gabriel de Nassau (born in 2006), as well as to Prince Felix and Princess Claire's young daughter Princess Amalia of Nassau (born in 2014).

Princess Alexandra at the christening of her god-daughter Princess Amalia of Nassau in 2014. /  Grand-Ducal Court, Guy Wolff

The Princess is generally known to keep a low public profile, but made headlines this week after she lost her Visa Infinite credit card, which prompted the finder to tweet out a photo of it.

Sarah Cames is a twentysomething freelance journalist with a keen interest in anything to do with politics, history and pop culture.
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PLANO, Texas -- In honor of the life and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Toyota Financial Services and Toyota Motor North America are continuing their support of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and their communities by providing a total contribution of $60,000 to five HBCUs as well as the Tom Joyner Foundation.

This is the company's fifth consecutive year partnering with the Tom Joyner Foundation, and supporting HBCUs through this donation.

Claflin University is among the five HBCUs receiving a $10,000 contribution each. Others are Spelman College in Atlanta, Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., Talladega College in Talladega, Ala., and Virginia State University in Petersburg, Va.

An additional $10,000 will go to support the work of the Tom Joyner Foundation, which provides academic support, scholarships and programming to over 80 HBCUs in the Southern and Eastern United States.

Toyota's contribution will be used to help boost college retention and graduation rates for African-American students, and is in keeping with the company's commitment to diversity and inclusion, as well as mobility for all. Over the past five years, this initiative has enabled Toyota to assist students who may have otherwise been unable to complete their education due to the lack of financial aid.
According to the incident report, police found the following items in the vehicle: a small digital scale; a white baby formula can containing 34.74 grams of marijuana and 14.09 grams of crack cocaine; several small plastic bags and 4.21 grams of crystal methamphetamine.

During a search of Cason, officers discovered $1,140.29 in cash in his right front pocket and a marijuana blunt.

If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison and a fine of $50,000.

Police arrested Walters around 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 9.

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An officer wrote in the incident report that while he was parked in a semi-marked patrol vehicle on Camden Road, he saw a vehicle decelerate quickly and then turn onto Way Street without using a turn signal.

The officer eventually caught up with the vehicle, which he observed traveling on Bennett Circle without its lights.

Police stopped the vehicle in the 1200 block of Carolina Avenue. They detained the 16-year-old passenger and the driver, later identified as Walters.

Walters told officers that the reason he wasnt using his headlights was because of a faulty switch, the report states.
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Theres a host of things we do, but the first thing we do is collaborate wherever possible with other state agencies, Weathers said.

Rural counties get a lot of attention from (the Department of) Commerce, Department of Agriculture, from every one where we can find those opportunities, he added.

Were dealing with a company thats a prospect that could be one of the largest investments in quite a number of years, Weathers said, adding that the investment could mean a lot of jobs in some places where our employment is still challenged.

The focus on expansion led to the creation of ACRE, or the Agribusiness Center for Research and Entrepreneurship, which is an initiative to help farmers grow their operations vertically, the commissioner said.

We want to encourage those in South Carolina that have entrepreneurial ideas about something in agriculture. If they have an idea, or product, or something that we can help move forward through our entrepreneur center, thats what its there for, Weathers said.

The initiative also conducts research that identifies any barriers that could prevent industries from wanting to locate in South Carolina and solutions to knock down those barriers, he said.
McCarty will become the first adjutant general appointed by a governor since the constitutional amendment giving him that authority was approved by South Carolina voters in 2014.

McCarty currently serves as the deputy adjutant general of the South Carolina Military Department under Maj. Gen. Robert E. Livingston Jr., who will retire from military service after a distinguished career that has spanned 41 years, including eight years as the states adjutant general.

General Livingston has served for eight years with distinction as our elected adjutant general, performing admirably in the hurricanes, storms, and floods that weve experienced, McMaster said. He is a personification of the strong military tradition that we have in our state stretching back all the way to the American Revolution.

Im proud of our organization, Im proud of the governors selection for the new adjutant, and look forward to great things, said Major General Livingston. I want to say thank you to our families, to the men and women of the South Carolina National Guard, and to all of Team South Carolina led by our great governor, Gov. McMaster.
SANTEE  Southeast farmers can learn tips to maximize profitability of cotton and peanut crops at meetings planned by the Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service this month.

The annual South Carolina Cotton Growers Meeting will be 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Jan. 22 at the Santee Conference Center, 1737 Bass Drive, Santee. Registration begins at 8:15 a.m. A dicamba training will be held after the meeting adjourns.

The annual South Carolina Peanut Growers Meeting will follow on Jan. 24 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the same location. Preregistration is not required for either event, and lunch will be provided at both

Clemson University scientists will share the latest research results on insect and weed management, precision agriculture, as well as variety and management updates. Extension economist Nathan Smith will provide market outlooks during both meetings. South Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers will report on the state of South Carolina agriculture also during both meetings.

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The hands on the four clock faces are frozen in time. Local clock expert Paul Gangloff switched the clockworks over from mechanical to electrical almost 60 years ago, but now even the modernized system has mostly stopped working. The one-ton bell is housed in a cradle of rotted wooden beams and fixed in place by a rusted head bolt. The entire tower, thought to be listing to one side several years ago, is shored up by an obstacle course of metal braces. Repairs have been considered through the years, then forgotten.

"There are bell towers that are inspected every year," Smith said. "We weren't doing that."

Local businessman Jerry Smith, who also serves as the chairman of the Woodford County Zoning Board, approached county officials last summer.

"What can we do to get the clocks working again?" he asked.

Experts from Verdin Clock Co. in Cincinnati were called in to inspect the clock and bell and to create a laundry list of necessary repairs -- from "this can wait" to "you're probably going to want to do something about this now."
CARBONDALE  The moon will turn an eerie shade of red this weekend before disappearing completely during a total lunar eclipse. The event marks the first official public astronomy 2019 observations hosted by the Department of Physics at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

The total lunar eclipse viewing event is set to begin at 9:30 p.m. Sunday and will last until 1 a.m. Monday.

The event will take place on the north side of the Neckers Building, between Neckers and the Student Center, as well as on the Neckers astronomy observation deck. Organizers will set up telescopes for public use and visitors are welcome to bring their own telescopes, photography equipment and chairs to the ground level observation area between Neckers and the Student Center.

A lunar eclipse is a spectacular sight in which the moon gradually darkens as it passes into the Earth's shadow, going from full to crescent and eventually turning a dark shade of orange or maroon, said Bob Baer, specialist in the physics degree program, and coordinator of the observation events.
CARBONDALE  Southern Illinois University Carbondales Student Center will host the Carbondale NAACP 2019 Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast on Monday in the Student Center ballrooms.

The theme for the 37th annual event is Same Kind of Different as Me. It begins with breakfast at 8 a.m. followed by the program at 9 a.m. Carolyn Cerda, WSIL TV News 3 anchor, will be the mistress of ceremonies for the morning.

Apostle Larry T. Barnett, senior pastor of the St. John Praise and Worship Center and double alumnus of SIU, will be the special guest speaker. The program also features a variety of other speakers, special music and more, including recognition of the winners of the annual King Essay Contest.

Local Boy Scouts will lead the Pledge of Allegiance and a variety of area dignitaries, officials and local citizens are involved.

Admission to the breakfast is $5 along with a canned food donation; the food will go to the Saluki Food Pantry at the Student Center, benefiting students in times of need.

MLK Breakfast tickets are available at the door.
CAVE-IN-ROCK  A small group gathered to celebrate big news Friday in Hardin County.

State Sen. Dale Fowler, R-Harrisburg, joined other local officials to present a bill allowing the Hardin County Work Camp be sold to the county for $1  the camp was shuttered in 2015 after funding shortfalls.

In crucial step to repurposing shuttered Hardin County Work Camp, Rauner signs bill allowing its sale The Illinois Department of Corrections now has the authority to sell the shuttered Hardin County Work Camp to the county for $1.

The project has been on the lips and minds of those in eastern Southern Illinois for the last several months  the acquisition will grow the countys jail from just six beds to nearly 100 and allow the facility to be rented by neighboring counties, namely Pope and Gallatin, which, according to Hardin County Sheriff Jerry Fricker, have no jails at all.

This could prove to be a revenue engine for the Hardin County officials, as they could ask for $35 per bed from counties looking to make use of the facility. Fricker has also said the county is looking to house federal inmates as well.

During a brief address to the group, Fowler commended Senate President John Cullerton for moving the bill along, offering a rare opportunity to present new legislation during a veto session. He said Cullerton asked him What is the urgency?

The urgency is, lets get started, Fowler said Friday.
MURPHYSBORO  James Deese, the man who pleaded guilty to assisting in the murder and dismemberment of a De Soto man last year, will not be sentenced until this spring.

In July, Deese, 52, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Frank Stonemark, 76, and the concealment of his body. The motion to continue his sentencing was filed Wednesday, the day before his hearing, and said Deese had entered into a plea bargain with the Jackson County States attorney Office which in part there is an agreement (that Deese) will testify in the Carmen Stonemark Trial.

+2 Accomplice of De Soto woman charged in husband's death said they dismembered his body with a chainsaw MURPHYSBORO  A De Soto man charged with first-degree murder of a 76-year-old man shared vivid details about the murder and how the victim's w

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The motion says the state had no objections. There has not been another sentencing hearing scheduled, but the motion asked for the new hearing to be set for late March or early April.

Court records allege that Carmen Stonemark colluded with Deese to murder her husband, Frank Stonemark. As previously reported in The Southern, Deese told investigators he strangled Frank Stonemark and, with the help of Carmen Stonemark, transported the body to a rural area where the two later returned to dismember Frank Stonemarks body with a chainsaw, maul, pruning saw and a pocket knife. Deese said he cut off Frank Stomemarks arms, legs, head and sawed his torso in two pieces.

De Soto woman charged with first-degree murder, solicitation of murder in death of her husband MURPHYSBORO  A De Soto woman has been indicted by grand jury on charges of murdering of her husband this past October, according to Jackson C
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5 hours ago

| June 17th | 2021 8:38 AM

Does Nike (NYSE: NKE) Have What It Takes To Get Back Running Again

For a company whose shares powered to new highs on what felt like a daily basis for much of last year, Nike (NYSE: NKE) has surprised many with its sluggish performance in the first half of 2021. Their shares are trading down more than 10% from the most recent all time high that they tagged at the end of December. In the grand scheme of things, this
Seguin, Texas (78155)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. Hot. High 93F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some passing clouds. Low 72F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
When they find out Donald Trump plotted for all those people to go to the U.S.-Mexico border, he should land in prison.

Trump held our attention while his minions (and/or family) convinced all these people to go to the border. All done to show proof that "he" needs a wall. And, it all had to come together during the mid-term elections.

Now part of the government is shut down. But, notice Air Force One and the Secret Service are not shut down.

Why did he to go the Texas border? What are his minions doing now while he steers all of our attention toward himself?

What other president needed to hire his whole family?

Americans are being used and abused by the POTUS.

Mary Page

Longview
A Vancouver man is in hot water with a cruise line after leaping from the 11th floor of a ship into the sea.

In a video posted to his Instagram account, Nick Naydev, 27, is seen climbing onto a railing Friday on a Royal Caribbean Cruises ship docked in the Bahamas. With other men laughing behind him, Naydev then hops off the railing and begins flailing his arms and legs before the camera loses sight of him.

He sustained minor injuries but could have swum to shore, Naydev said. The crew of a small boat passing by picked him up, however.

Ship security later found Naydev and his friends, telling them they needed to pack their bags and leave immediately, he said. They also were permanently banned from the cruise line.

This was stupid and reckless behavior, and he and his companions have been banned from ever sailing with us again. We are exploring legal action, said Owen Torres, a spokesman for the cruise line.

The video had attracted nearly 65,000 views by Wednesday night. Naydev said in a written statement that he did not think this through before jumping.
An incomplete list of things that have washed up on North Coast beaches: a giant octopus, dead whales, pyrosomes, Japanese fishing boats, hundreds of Humboldt squid, so much bull kelp, so much plastic.

And now, earlier this week, moon jellyfish as far as the eye could see around Haystack Rock.

Large numbers of stranded jellyfish are not an unusual sight on local beaches, especially after storms or during times of strong waves and seasonal upwelling, the Haystack Rock Awareness Program noted on Facebook.

Moon jellyfish are just one type of jellyfish that shows up frequently. Pacific sea nettles, which do sting, are a common find. These jellies are yellow-brown with a sort of frilled edge when nestled in the sand. Tiny comb jellies will dot the beach, looking like oversized water droplets frozen in place.

Most years, rafts of Vellela vellela  or by-the-wind sailors that float on the waters surface and are propelled across the ocean thanks to a triangular sail  blow onto the beach and carpet the sand. They bleach white in the sun, send up a briny stink and are munched upon by foolhardy dogs.
Deception  A Longview man reported he mailed about $30,000 to a man who called him claiming to be his grandson. The caller said he was in trouble and needed help. The Longview man said he is unsure if the caller was really his grandson, but he mailed him three installments of cash to three different addresses.
One of the requirements of his plea deal is an interview with Fish and Wildlife officials.

If Judge Krog accepts the recommendation, Haynes would also lose his right to own firearms or own hunting dogs and be required to not contact Erik Martin or father-and-son duo Eddy and Joseph Dills, three of the other alleged major members of the ring. He would likely lose his hunting privileges as well.

Martin, the last of the group of four awaiting adjudication of his case in Skamania County, had been expected to reverse his plea and admit guilt Thursday. However, Martin is currently serving a sentence in Oregon, and a scheduling or transportation conflict may have led to him not appearing in court Thursday, Wickersham said.

Haynes, Martin and the Dills also all face fish and game violations in Oregon stemming from the same investigation.

Haynes, Martin and the Dills were four of the original seven suspects charged in the investigation. Many of the dogs used in hunting belonged to Joseph or Eddy Dills, and many of the killings of wild game were recorded or found on Haynes and Martins electronic devices.
Efforts to seize back control of the last parcel of land held by the Islamic State have intensified reports Alsouria Net.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the International Coalition, are continuing to tighten the noose on the Islamic State (ISIS), with the aim of taking control of the last 15 square kilometres in eastern Syria, which remain under the groups control.

The groups last pocket has seen the displacement of hundreds of civilians, fleeing the ongoing battles there. On Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that over the past 24 hours, around 2,200 people had fled, including 180 ISIS members, to camps run by the SDF.

This displacement comes after the SDF took control of a number of areas over the last few weeks, while the International Coalition has intensified air bombardment against ISIS positions.

Last Friday, the United Nations said that about 25,000 people had fled the fighting over the last six months, as ISIS members try to defend their final strongholds.

Rockets and Coalition Raids

Local news networks reported that International Coalition forces deployed in the al-Omar oilfield struck what remained of ISIS controlled areas in the eastern Deir ez-Zor countryside with surface-to-surface missiles.

Since last Wednesday, the Coalition has escalated its raids on the town of al-Baghuz al-Fawqani, which is one of the main areas still controlled by ISIS in the Albu Kamal countryside in Deir ez-Zor province.

15 Square Km Under ISIS Control

On Tuesday, the SDF, with backing from the Coalition, was able to make an important advance, taking full control of the town of al-Sousa and its environs, which was one of the last major population centers under the groups control.

With the loss of control over al-Sousa, the group is surrounded in the town of al-Baghuz al-Fawqani and in the villages and population centers connected to it, with a total areas of about 15 square km on the eastern banks of the Euphrates.

To obstruct the SDF, the Islamic State is relying on the large number of mines they have planted, in addition to car bombs and suicide bombers.

ISIS Defeated

In the last statement by an American official on the fighting against the Islamic State, Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday that the group has been defeated in Syria, hours after American soldiers were killed in an attack in the countrys north, for which the group claimed responsibility.

Pence did not refer to the dead during the speech he gave before 184 heads of American diplomatic missions across the world who gather annually in Washington to discuss American foreign policy strategy.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Assad forces took control of Daraa last year, but a resistance movement continue to launch attacks against government figures and positions reports Hurriya Press.

The Popular Resistance in Daraa province announced it had attacked the director of the town of Nawa, west of Daraa, wounding and killing a number of his accompanying fighters.

Abou Mohamed al-Hourani, the spokesman for the Ahrar Houran group told Hurriya Press that, members of the Popular Resistance shot at Nidal Qouja Ali, a colonel in Assads forces and the director of the area in the town of Nawa, wounding him, requiring him to be transferred to hospital.

Hourani added that, the operation which occurred at the Imam al-Nawawi Mosque in the town of Nawa, resulted in the deaths of three fighters accompanying him.

A number of days ago, the Popular Resistance announced that they had struck ,with heavy machine guns, a regime military barracks in the town of Tafas, west of Daraa, killing and wounding of a number of fighters. It also claimed a recent attack on the Air Force Intelligence base in al-Karak al-Sharqi, which wounded two members of Assads forces.

In a related event, unidentified people raised the revolution flag at the grand mosque in the town of al-Karak al-Sharqi, which regime shabiha took down. An officer from Assads forces promised to pay a large amount of money to anyone who provided information that led to the identification of those who raised the flag.

The sophisticated kidnapping operations by the Popular Resistance in Daraa have been a frightening preoccupation of Assads forces. Its targets also included a number of reconciliation figures who betrayed the trust of citizens by handing Houran over to the Assad regime.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The economic summit in Beirut will bring together many of the heads of Arab states, but not Syria reports Damas Post.

On Thursday, Syrias ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdel Karim Ali, said that Syria had declined to participate in the economic summit being held in Beirut from Friday to Sunday after it was extended an invitation by the Lebanese president.

Ali said in an interview with Al-Mayadin, Its natural that we should decline to participate in the economic summit with our respects to the inviting party, because the Arab League has not reviewed the wrong it committed against Damascus.

Ali said there were many views in Lebanon which, saw the need to invite Syria to the economic summit. He said that, The Lebanese and Syrian people are brothers and the economic and living conditions require economic integration between the two countries.

The Syrian ambassador to Lebanon told Al-Mayadin, Syrias sovereignty is an important issue and we appreciate it when our brothers review their positions.

He added, Syria is comfortable with what we have achieved on the ground and with the failure of the gambles taken by Arab and Western countries that went to war with us. We are confident that those who took these mistaken gambles against us will look for ways outprimarily for the sake of their interests.

Ali closed the interview by saying, Syria is victorious, militarily, politically and diplomatically, and this is a victory for all honorable people of the world.

The high council organizing the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit in Beirut announced that preparations for the summit were complete, while the Libyan Government of National Accord announced it was boycotting the summit, because of what it described as negative reactions in Lebanon toward Libyas participation.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
While this bout of fighting killed four, internal conflicts between Kurdish groups in Syria are rare writes Zaman al-Wasl.

Four Kurdish militants were killed when infighting erupted between the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of Kurdish Democratic Union, and Asayish, its security wing in the town of al-Shaddadi in northeastern Hassakeh province, local activists said Thursday.

Such incidents are not common among the US-backed units.

Asayish is the police force of the autonomous Kurdish cantons, while the YPG is leading an alliance of Kurds and Arabs to uproot the last remaining pockets of Islamic State fighters inside Deir ez-Zor province.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The new UN Special Envoy to Syria held his first official meeting with Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Muallem writes SANA.

UN Special Envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, underlined the importance of a political solution to the crisis in Syria, based on the Security Councils resolution No. 2254, which affirms the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and calls for a political solution led by Syria and facilitated by the UN.

In a tweet on Thursday, quoted by Sputnik Agency, Pedersen described his meeting with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Muallem as constructive and it affirms the importance of the political solution to the crisis.

In his tweet, Pedersen said that he agreed to visit Damascus regularly to discuss the points of convergence and disagreement between the two sides.

He noted that there is still more to discuss about all aspects of the political process in Geneva.

Earlier on Tuesday, Muallem received Pedersen and the accompanying delegation. During the meeting, the two sides discussed the efforts exerted for making progress on the political track of the crisis in Syria and followed up on ideas related to the political process.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
A gas shortage in Aleppo has led to a wave of anger among residents and caused the death of two children writes Al-Modon.

The suffering of residents in the city of Aleppo has extended to securing household gas canisters. The recent bitterly cold weather has pushed thousands to line up at gas distribution centers, according to Al-Modons correspondent Khalid al-Khatib.

The cold weather has increased demand for fuels in general, and gas in particular, because it is more readily available compared with other rarer alternatives such as fuel oil and electricity. Regime militias monopolize and control the trade and distribution of fuel oil and gas almost entirely, while the absence of electricity in some areas has continued for days.

Some families in Aleppo have been without gas for 50 days, despite registering their family book with the local government administrator, which is required to secure gas. Widows and divorcees who do not have family books and families who have lost their documents are unable able to register to receive gas.

The gas crisis has increased anger among residents, with some lines for gas extended for more than one district in old Aleppo. Men, women and children have had to line up in the rain.

The governorate says that it confiscated 125 canisters on Wednesday and arrested 11 people for infringements. The same campaign, carried out by the Internal Trade and Consumer Protection Directorate, issued 14 infringement tickets, and confiscated 53 canisters. Residents denied the governorates statements, saying that the measures taken only targeted small monopolists close to the districts local government administrator, while no one dared stop the major monopolists who are backed by the militias.

The Baath Party branch in Aleppo has also intervened to reduce popular anger, with members of the branch leadership and officials from the province distributing 400 gas canisters in the Aqioul district, 100 in the al-Safa district, 650 in the al-Aziziyeh district, and 550 in the al-Jabariyeh district. Residents ridiculed the amounts that the Baath Party and governorate officials distributed, and accused them of visiting distribution centers to take pictures and steal gas canisters allocated for distribution.

The cold weather and the absence of heating have increased the incidents of respiratory system inflammations among children in Aleppo, especially newborns. On Wednesday, a child died in the Bustan al-Qasr district after her condition worsened. Two days earlier, another child died in the Bab al-Nirab district for the same reasons.

The governorate said that work on smart cards to secure fuel for cars would begin on Thursday and those who did not obtain a card would only be able to get 20 litres of fuel, which stirred anger among transport workers.

Fuel oil, gas and benzene are sold on the black market at fantastical rates, with the price of a litre of gas reaching up to 1,000 Syrian pounds. Gas stations monopolize fuel and only small amounts are distributed to customers, while the largest portions of fuel is distributed to owners of factories and electricity generators.

Because of the wave of cold weather and the rarity of fuels, the eastern districts of Aleppo have witnessed the displacement of families to opposition areas in the Aleppo countryside since the start of January. This is in addition to the major increase in the prices of most foodstuffs and transport. Prices for some foods in Aleppo city, which is under regime control, are twice what they are in opposition areas.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Privacy Agreement

When you apply for, or renew, your membership with Standardbred Canada, you agree that:

1. We may collect, use and disclose personal information about you for purposes related to Standardbred Canadas objects and mandate, and in particular:

a) To create a record of our membership and licensees.

b) To interchange information with the United States Trotting Association, provincial and state racing commissions (or their equivalent), horsemens associations, racetracks or racing officials.

c) To create, update and maintain breeding and ownership records for Standardbred Horses and, for that purpose, to interchange information with other standardbred breed associations throughout the world.

d) To operate the Membership Registry for Standardbred horses in Canada.

e) To create, update and maintain records and statistics regarding the racing of standardbred horses and, for that purpose, to interchange information with other horse racing organizations throughout the world.

f) To provide access to records and statistics regarding the breeding and racing of standardbred horses to persons or businesses with an interest in that information, with or without charging a fee.

g) To publish records of fines and suspensions as a matter of public interest.

h) To otherwise ensure your compliance with the by-laws and regulations of Standardbred Canada, including the rules of standardbred racing.

i) To meet our legal and regulatory requirements.

j) To investigate and assist in the resolution of insurance claims.

2. Subject to obtaining your approval, we may use and disclose your personal information to persons who have an interest in providing products or services to you. If you give your consent, you may, on reasonable notice, revoke that consent thereafter.

3. We may keep information about you in our records for as long as it is needed for the purposes mentioned above, even if you cease to be a member.

4. If any personal information changes or becomes inaccurate or out of date, you will tell us so that we can amend our records. You may in writing, request details of your personal information in our records.

5. We have designated a Privacy Officer to deal with questions, complaints or concerns regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information.

Privacy Statement

In the course of discharging its mandate with respect to the breeding, ownership and racing of standardbred horses, Standardbred Canada collects, uses and discloses information personal to its members. This information is essential to the ongoing process of maintaining records that are vital to the industry. Because of the nature of the industry, the involvement of different regulatory bodies and the aspect of wagering, it is necessary that information regarding the breeding, ownership and racing of standardbred horses be accessible to the public and exchanged with other industry organizations that have a legitimate interest to its disclosure. Therefore, persons who participate in the industry are deemed to have consented to the collection and use of this information.

Standardbred Canada exchanges information with the United States Trotting Association and other breed organizations throughout the world. It also provides information in its database, including race results, industry statistics and records, to regulatory bodies (including provincial and state racing commissions or their equivalent) industry organizations, racetracks and racing officials.

Standardbred Canada also publishes notices of fines and suspensions as a matter of public interest.

Standardbred Canada is a non-profit organization and, in order to defray its costs of operation including the compiling and dissemination of these industry statistics and records, Standardbred Canada charges fees to various persons who access its database. In particular, fees are paid by certain businesses and individual users to access race entries, results and statistics relevant to wagering on Standardbred racing, as well as breeding and pedigree records which are relevant to the breeding of horses and the development of the standardbred breed.

It is, however, the policy of Standardbred Canada to preserve the confidentiality of personal information, except when disclosure of that information is reasonably necessary in the fulfillment of its mandate.

Standardbred Canada often receives inquiries from members, and other interested parties, including commercial interests who wish to provide goods and services, for contact information about its members, including telephone numbers or addresses. When responding to such inquiries is not directly related to Standardbred Canadas mandate, members are entitled to control the release of information and specific consent is required.
The O'Brien Awards celebrate the absolute best in harness racing over a given year. They are the highest honour the sport bestows upon its heroes in this country. The following explains exactly how the voters arrive at the nominees and eventual winners of the coveted O'Brien trophy.

Who votes for the O'Brien Awards? Every media person across Canada who covers harness racing on a regular basis receives a ballot, this includes writers for the various trade publications as well as those in print, radio and television. All Canadian race secretaries and track publicists also participate in the voting.

The voters' list is vigorously scrutinized each year with names added and deleted when necessary.

A comprehensive and detailed ballot package is assembled for each voter and mailed to them with sufficient time for the voter to return their completed ballot to the SC offices by fax, e-mail, or by mail. If the fax machine is used, it is a secure one, meaning that only the official scrutineers who actually count the ballots, and therefore know the ultimate outcome, have access to this machine. This also ensures that none go astray.

The ballot package is subdivided by category. We provide listings of the top 20 Canadian registered horses (and add some that aren't Canadian registered but still merit the voters' consideration) in each of the 12 horse categories. We then provide racelines for the voting year for the top six horses (and sometimes more if warranted) in each division.

For horses to be eligible for consideration for an O'Brien Award, it must have made a minimum of three (3) starts in Canada between January 1st and November 30th in addition to any Breeders Crown starts, when the Breeders Crown is hosted in Canada. The type of race (stakes, overnight) is irrelevant and schooling and qualifying races do not represent a start.

In the trainer category, we provide statistics on the top 50 Canadian trainers by money and wins.

In the driver of the year category, we provide listings of the top Canadian and North American drivers both by money and wins.

Each voter is strongly advised that the information provided to them is to be used as a reference guide only. The voters' mandate is to vote for the horse or person in each division they felt made the greatest contribution to Canadian harness racing over the past season. It's important to keep in mind that when all is said and done, it is still a subjective process, as each voter makes his or her selections based on their individual opinion.

Once the votes have been tabulated, the names of the nominees are released and the winners are announced at the annual O'Brien awards. Prior to the night of the awards, the winners' identity are kept in strictest confidence.
EXPORTING & IMPORTING HORSES TO & FROM OFFSHORE COUNTRIES



EXPORT OF HORSES

After Agriculture Canadas required quarantine period and federal veterinarians documentation are completed, Standardbred Canada (SC) requires specific regulations be followed in order to have an Export Certificate issued to the Standardbred Regulatory Body of the importing country for all horses being exported through Canadian borders. These regulations are as follows:

Upon receiving a signed declaration from the exporter including the description of the horse and

copies of its Health Certificate and Coggins Test, the Association will grant an Export Certificate for a

horse being exported to a country other than the United States providing: :

(i) the horse is registered with the Association in the current ownership of the foreign buyer;

(ii) the certificate of registration, if issued, in current ownership of the foreign buyer of the

horse, is presented to the Association; and

(iii) an export fee of $350.00 + HST ($395.50) for issuance of an Export Certificate, is paid to Standardbred Canada Upon completion of these regulations, Standardbred Canada will issue an Export Certificate, to the respective regulatory body of the final importing country, via electronic transmission. Said certificate will include the breeding details, registered ownership, earnings, race record, racelines & DNA Typing identification and the respective markers. No Export Certificate will be granted for a horse that is not tattooed or freeze branded or microchipped in a manner prescribed by Standardbred Canada. No Export Certificate will be granted to an embryo/ovum transfer donor mare until such time as the

recipient mare has foaled.

NOTE: Any mare or horse imported to a UET country for breeding, after January 1, 2012, shall be tested, based on the hair testing method, for anabolic steroids and/or growth hormones. Any mare or horse tested positive for anabolic steroids or growth hormones may be excluded from breeding.

IMPORT OF FOREIGN HORSES

If you are intending to import a horse to Canada from any country whose registry has been approved by Standardbred Canada, you must follow the following regulations:

Only horses registered in the following foreign registries can be approved for registration with Standardbred Canada:

Sociedad Rural Argentina (Argentina)

Australian Harness Racing Council (Australia)

Federation Belge du Trot (Belgium)

Dansk Travsports Centralforbund (Denmark)

Suomen Hippos R.Y. (Finland)

Societe dEncouragement lElevage du Cheval Francais (France)

Hauptverband fur Traberzucht und Rennen E.V. (Germany)

The Standardbred and Trotting Horse Association of Great Britain & Ireland (STAGBI)

Stichting Nederlands draf-en Rensport (Holland)

Associazione Nazionale Allevatori Del Cavallo Trottatore (Italy)

New Zealand Harness Racing Conference (New Zealand)

Det Norske Travelskap (Norway)

Svenska Travsportens Centralforbund (Sweden)

Standardbred Canada must receive an Export Certificate, from the national regulatory body of the country of export. The Export Certificate must contain details of the breeding, ownership, earnings, racelines, summaries and the DNA and/or Blood Typing markers confirming parentage verification. A horse registered as Standard in an approved foreign registry, is eligible for Standard registration with Standardbred Canada. A horse imported from a country other than the United States is not eligible for registration unless it was identified by application of a permanent mark in the form of a lip tattoo or freeze brand before leaving its country of origin. An import registration fee of $340.00 is paid to Standardbred Canada. After an imported horse is registered with Standardbred Canada, it must be freeze branded, on the right side of its neck, by a Standardbred Canada Identification Technician with its assigned North American Freeze Brand number prior to breeding or racing. A Freeze Brand fee of $74.00 is paid to Standardbred Canada.

Following the above procedures for exporting and/or importing horses will streamline the required documentation procedure to the satisfaction of all concerned.

CONTACTS

For further information on exporting horses, please contact:

Linda Henry

Telephone: 905-858-3060, Ext. 233

Fax: 905-858-8047

E-Mail: [email protected]

For further information on importing horses, please contact:

Linda Bedard

Telephone: 905-858-3060, Ext. 238

Fax: 905-858-3111

E-Mail: [email protected]
If you have a question that wasn't answered here, please send us an e-mail

Question



How do I calculate the transfer fee?

Answer

Transfer fees are based on the date of the transfer and the date the transaction is sent to our office for processing. Please refer to SC's fees.

Question



If the registered owner of a horse has died can the horse be transferred?

Answer

In order to transfer a horse from an Estate, Standardbred Canada must be provided with either of the following:

a copy of the will of the deceased, or a letter from the lawyer acting on behalf of the Estate stating who has been legally empowered to sign for the Estate

each executor or executrix of the Estate is required to sign the transfer of ownership

Question



Do I have to wait until my foal has been freeze branded and DNA'd before I can file to have the foal registered?

Answer

Absolutely not! We urge mare owners to complete and return the applications for registration of their foals soon after each foal is born.

Question



I need my horse freeze branded, how do I contact the ID technician?

Answer

Maritimes Provinces: Stephen MacLeod (902)897-5156, Quebec and Ontario East of Napanee: Daniel St-Jacques (514)290-4114, Ontario (West of Napanee): Bruce Redmond (416)580-3683, Western Provinces: James Mohorich (604)649-1119.

Question



Do I have to have current membership with Standardbred Canada and pay my eligibility fee on my horse for just a qualifier?

Answer

Yes, in accordance with the rules, these must be paid for a qualifier.

Question



Who receives TROT Magazine?

Answer

TROT Magazine is the largest equine magazine in Canada, every licensee in Canadian harness racing automatically receives the magazine. It is the official organ of communication for Standardbred Canada to its membership. In short, everyone in Canadian harness racing is a subscriber. Also, TROT has many subscribers throughout the United States and Europe.

Question



Is the Standardbred Canada Resource Centre open to the public?

Answer

Yes, you are welcome to come in and look through our files, books, magazines, photos and videos. (Occasionally the Resource Centre is used for industry meetings and you may wish to call before you arrive.) Some of the Resource Centre's material may be borrowed by SC members, a security deposit may be required.

Question



What kind of information is available at the SC Resource Centre?

Answer

The Resource Centre contains a wide range of historic and current information on harness racing and Standardbred horses. Our large collection includes past & current issues of industry magazines, foreign stud books, USTA Sires and Dams books, sales catalogues, industry reports and studies. We also collect and maintain information on trainers, drivers, breeders, horses, breeding farms and racetracks. Our computer system is capable of providing past performance lines, progeny reports, driver/trainer statistics and pedigrees. We also have books and files on such topics as lameness, veterinary medicine, breeding, shoeing, gambling, handicapping, taxation and racing events to name a few.

Question



How do I get a free trial of TrackIT?

Answer

Please follow this link or call the office at (905) 858-3060 ext. 233 and speak to Linda Henry.

Question



How do I get to see live races on my computer?

Answer

The racetracks are providing the feed for live racing over the Internet. Please contact the appropriate track that you are interested in.

Question



I have lost the registration papers for my horse, now what do I do?

Answer

If a registration certificate has been lost or destroyed a duplicate registration may be obtained by completing an affidavit. The affidavit must be signed by a current member of Standardbred Canada and must be notarized by a Commissioner of Oaths, Notary Public or Justice of the Peace. The fee for a duplicate registration certificate is $47.00 including HST.
Coffee Design is proudly sponsored by Savor Brands , your boost in coffeedence through maximizing designs in packaging, sustainability and tech.

This is not chocolate.

A new sweet is now available from the folks at 1000 Faces and Condor Chocolates out of Athens, Georgia and it has five times the caffeine as a cup of coffee. It's a new kind of candy barusing roasted coffee in place of cacaocreating a lightly sweetened chocolate-like confection. The bar dropped in early November, a limited-run of 1,000 bars and had its second run over the holidays. The coffee bar's packaging uses the colorful work of Athens artist Shannon DeLawn Lane. We spoke with Julianne Bierwirth of 1000 Faces to find out more about the design and the product itself.

Tell us a bit about 1000 Faces and Condor Chocolates!

1000 Faces is a small coffee roaster in Athens, GA opened with the mission of building a stronger community surrounding coffee. We were founded about 12 years ago on the principle of cultivating personal relationships with our farmers and honoring their work. As an example, the Don Francisco Coffee Bar was named for the farmer in Nicaragua who provided the beans we used. We find value in sustainabilityboth of the human infrastructure that supports the coffee industry and the consumables that surround it. In our Athens coffee shop we use compostable hot cups, lids, sleeves, and retail bags and encourage our patrons to compost their grounds and buy well-made reusables whenever possible.

Condor Chocolates is a bean-to-bar chocolatier in Athens founded about four ago by the Dale brothers, Nick and Peter. Their Ecuadorian-American heritage has strongly influenced their culinary style in other Dale-owned Athens restaurants, however, Condor is probably the strongest connection to their roots. They source their cacao exclusively from Ecuador and travel there frequently to visit family and work with farmers.

Our shared concern for forging relationships and crafting thoughtfully made foods has made our partnership and vision for this project rather easy to pull off.

When did y'all get together to collaborate on this project?

I contacted Nick in February of 2018 with the idea that we could make a confection out of coffee, cocoa butter, and sugar. He seemed on board with it and I dropped off a bag of our Koko Buni blend for a test. Koko Buni is a blend we develop every year for Creature Comforts Brewery as part of their chocolate, coffee, and coconut milk porter. Condor contributes cocoa nibs for the project, so we thought that would be a great place to start.

You talk about highlighting the flavors of the grounds instead of the aqueous extractcan you tell us more about that?

When we tried Koko Buni we found that it worked functionally as a product but had a long way to go for great flavor. It tasted over-extractednot at all like the coffee tastes when we brew it. Our coffee, like most, is roasted so the dissolved solids that travel into our water during extraction are well balanced and pleasing. What is left in the grounds after making a cup of coffee isn't desirable, otherwise we would keep extracting it. It makes sense then that in eating the beans we were getting all of the tasty components of a great cup of coffee, but we were overwhelming them with all of the undesirable components of the residual grounds. By logic, we needed to roast the beans so that it would taste dramatically under-extracted in a cup, but the flavor of the whole bean would be well balanced.

wait, how much caffeine is in it?

Before launching we got the caffeine tested. The bar has 464 mg of caffeineequivalent to about five cups of black coffee.

Who designed the package?

Condor Chocolates designed the package with the help of commercial printers at the Georgian Press.

Tell us more about Shannon DeLawn Lane!

Shannon DeLawn Lane is a local Athens painter who describes her work as an escapist style of color therapy. She wanted to create a pattern without beginning or end so that the viewer could get lost in the image. She bases her colors on real-life images but breaks it down until it is unrecognizable except for the palette.



What information do you share on the package?

We found it important to clarify that this is not chocolate. We were all afraid from the start that the similar shape and look to the packaging would cause somebody to buy the bar thinking it was chocolate and eat the whole thing. The marketing and back of the package both try to make very clear that the product is actually made of coffee and highly caffeinated. The rest of the package is really dedicated to giving consumers some details about our partnership, the farmer that produced the coffee, the artist that designed the package, as well as more standard elements like flavor notes, ingredients, expiration date, and net weight.

Is the package recyclable/compostable?

The exterior paper cover is recyclable, but the interior food grade plastic wrapper regrettably is not.



Where is it currently available?

The bar can be purchased online at condorchocolates.com/shop, at our respective brick-and-mortar stores in Athens, and at some of our business accounts around the country.

Company: 1000 Faces & Condor Chocolates

Location: Athens, GA

Country: USA

Release Date: November, 2018

Art Design: Shannon DeLawn Lane

Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge.
All his own work

To preserve their credibility, real academics must call out plagiarism.

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When the Academic Senate of Matej Bel University reported the findings of its ad hoc commission into whether Andrej Danko did or did not plagiarise his thesis, it admitted that most of the text that earned him his fancy JUDr title  in fact, pretty much everything in that document, except for pro forma parts like the table of contents  had been copied from other authors without proper attribution. Yet their evaluation refrained from using the word plagiarist. They cited the feeble argument that there is no legal definition for that word.

One hardly needed to be a political analyst to predict that that was all Danko would need. Im no plagiarist  you see the university confirmed it!  thank you very much, is the essence of what he told journalists during his brief, Fico-style press conference on January 11.

The more cynical observers of the Slovak political scene maintain that Danko has no reason to step down over a thesis.

18. Jan 2019 at 8:50 | Michaela Terenzani
Abraham Loeb, chair of Harvards department of astronomy, recently gave a freewheeling interview to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in which he defended his hypothesis that a piece of alien technology recently passed through our solar system. If it turns out to be correct, its one of the greatest discoveries in human history, he said in the interview, which was published on Monday. Loeb made largely the same argument in an interview with the New Yorker on Wednesday, in which he said, My motivation, in part, is to motivate the scientific community to collect more data on the next object rather than argue a priori that they know the answer.

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What is Loeb talking about? Did we discover alien life and fail to notice? Not exactlyin October 2017, astronomers at the University of Hawaii detected an object moving rapidly across the night sky using a telescope mounted on top of a volcano. Upon further investigation, the astronomers discovered that they were the first people ever to observe an object known to have originated outside our solar system. The universitys researchers dubbed the object Oumuamua, which translates to scout in Hawaiian, and published their findings in a paper in Nature.

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A year later, Loeb and postdoctoral student Shmuel Bialy published a follow-up paper in the Astrophysical Journal Letters analyzing the movements of the object. In their conclusion, the authors suggest that Oumuamua may be debris from an advanced technological equipment or a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.

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Given its implications of intelligent extraterrestrial life, the article generated an immense amount of conversation and coverage in the press (including Slate). However, the overwhelming response from other academics and science outlets is that Loebs hypothesis, while possible, is extremely unlikely to be true. The ensuing debate, which reignited when Loeb let loose to Haaretz earlier this week, serves as a reminder of the challenges inherent in assessing whether something behaving oddly in the sky is a sign that were not alone in the universe, or, to put it more simply, the challenges inherent to debating aliens.

Its very satisfying to know the answer, but sometimes thats not possible. Sometimes the best you can do is to start checking off the boxes of what it isnt.  Don Lincoln

Critics wield Occams razor to argue that it is very, very improbable that Loebs hypothesis is accurate. Michele Bannister, an astrophysicist at Queens UniversityBelfast in Northern Ireland, was recently quoted in Popular Science arguing that there are plausible explanations for Oumuamuas movements that dont involve aliens. Do the data need extreme hypotheses when you have reasonable hypotheses that perfectly fit the data? she asked. Bannister pointed to a study published in Nature last year that found data supporting the hypothesis that heat from the sun is causing Oumuamua to emit a stream of gas powerful enough to cause acceleration.

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Even in the face of these dissents, Loeb has maintained his faith in the alien explanation. He told the Verge in November, I cannot think of another explanation for the peculiar acceleration of Oumuamua. In the Haaretz interview, he argued that no one has observed a trail of dust behind Oumuamua, which we would expect if gas were propelling the object.

Weve never been able to produce any hard evidence that extraterrestrials exist, which places some hard limits on determining whether an object like Oumuamua is artificial. How do you even start to conceptualize the likelihood of something that has never been observed?

When you have no information at all, its not a formal thing anymore, says Don Lincoln, a senior scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Its very satisfying to know the answer, but sometimes thats not possible. Sometimes the best you can do is to start checking off the boxes of what it isnt. Researchers at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute trained a radio telescope at Oumuamua in 2018, but they were unable to detect any signals being emitted from the object that would indicate an artificial origin. Other astronomers have observed that the object lacks the smooth motion and thinness needed for a light sail and that an alien civilization would not be able to retrieve any data from Oumuamua for millions of years if it were in fact a probe.

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The infinitesimally small chance that any of the bizarre things weve observed in space are proof of intelligent alien life makes having these debates difficult to portray in proper context. Combine this dynamic with the general hunger among space enthusiasts for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence and its easy for a nuanced scientific debate like the one around Oumuamua to get warped in the public imagination. In 2015, astronomers considered the possibility that the star KIC 8462852 may be an alien megastructure because it was exhibiting bizarre fluctuations in light. Most astronomers treated it as a remote possibility that was worth discussing and perhaps looking into further, though some press outlets treated it as an actual discovery of an alien megastructure.

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There appears to be less of this sort of misconstruing in the press with Oumuamua. Indeed, apart from Loeb, most scientists quoted in media outlets seem to be treating this more as a thought experiment than an actual development in the search for aliens. The general consensus is that its worth thinking about the type and scale of evidence it would require to confirm that Oumuamua is artificial, but that such evidence has not yet been presented.

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This is how that kind of science is done: You take a crazy hypothesis and say, OK, maybe its true. If its true, then itll be X, Y, and Z,  Lincoln said. [Loebs hypothesis] has been evaluated in strong qualitative and slightly quantitative ways, and the hypothesis has been found wanting.

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Its also difficult to balance the fathomless significance of confirming extraterrestrial life with the minuscule probability that any one hint is legitimate. An apt corollary is the discussion around asteroids potentially causing destruction on earth. There has never been a documented case of an asteroid killing a person, but the thought of an apocalyptic scenario still seems to loom large whenever theres a remote chance that a sizable one may cross paths with our planet. As Mark Boslough, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, told the Washington Post when discussing the fact that the Earth will pass through a dense patch in the Taurid meteor stream this year, Its one of those very low-probability but potentially high-consequence-type risks, which is hard to quantify and hard to talk about. The probability of a lot of people dying from an asteroid impact is super, super low, but its not zero.

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Talking about the Oumuamua, then, is like talking about a large asteroid thats coming slightly closer to Earth than others. The fact that Oumuamua is an object visiting from outside our solar system, and that someone with Loebs stature has thrown his formidable knowledge and academic bona fides behind an alien-origin hypothesis, makes it seem like this time we might just have stumbled across some solid proof. But its hard to adequately convey just how ridiculously unlikely this scenario is, even if this alien claim has slightly more heft to it than others.

Lincoln, however, believes that speculative conversations about possible extraterrestrial artifacts are productive. While its easy to overplay the  Oumuamua is an alien probe narrative, these musings stoke the curiosity that motivates our exploration of the cosmos. Im perfect happy with this sort of thing, he says. It feeds the fascination of humanity and space and the stars.
This article originally appeared in the New America Weekly.

On the first day of the new year, the Democratic Republic of Congo cut internet connections and SMS services nationwidefor the second day in a row. The reason? To avoid the chaos that might result from its presidential election results. Not even a week later, on Jan. 7, Gabons government did the same after an attempted coup. On Tuesday, Zimbabwe cut off social media and internet access. The government restored much of the internet Wednesday but kept a WhatsApp ban in place. And its unlikely that these will be the last internet blackouts we hear about over the coming months. (All three of these incidents, ironically, took place after I outlined this piece.)

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In fact, well likely see a rise in internet blackouts in 2019, for two reasons: countries deliberately turning off the internet within their borders, and hackers disrupting segments of the internet with distributed denial-of-service attacks. Above all, both will force policymakers everywhere to reckon with the fact that the internet itself is increasingly becoming centralizedand therefore increasingly vulnerable to manipulation, making everyone less safe.

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The first methodstates deliberately severing internet connections within their countryhas an important history. In 2004, the Maldivian government caused an internet blackout when citizens protested the president; Nepal similarly caused a blackout shortly thereafter. In 2007, the government of Myanmar apparently damaged an underwater internet cable in order to staunch [sic] the flow of pictures and messages from protesters reaching the outside world. In 2011, Egypt cut most internet and cell services within its borders as the government attempted to quell protests against then-President Hosni Mubarak. Libya then did the same after its own unrest. In 2014, Syria had a major internet outage amid its civil war. In 2018, Mauritania was taken offline entirely for two days when undersea submarine internet cables were cut, which was around the same time Sierra Leones government may have imposed an internet blackout in the same region.

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When we think about terms like cyberspace and internet, it can be tempting to associate them with vague notions of a digital world we cant touch. And while this is perhaps useful in some contexts, this line of thinking forgets the very real wires, servers, and other hardware that form the architecture of the internet. If these physical elements cease to function, from a cut wire to a storm-damaged server farm, the internet is affected, too. More than that, if a single entity controlsor can at least accessthat hardware for a region or an entire country, government-caused internet blackouts are a tempting method of censorship and social control.

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Which is to say: As countries around the world tighten control of the internet within their borders, we can expect to see some governments with relatively centralized internetsparticularly authoritarians or those with authoritarian leaningsliterally disconnect their domestic internet networks from the rest of the globe during unrest or other incidents.

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As for the second method, we can expect a rise in distributed denial of service attacks against internet infrastructure as millions of wildly insecure Internet of Things devicesfrom smart thermostats to water-pressure sensorsare linked online. As many studies have documented, IoT devices typically have terrible security features, such as basic passwords and minimal encryption. Put another way, theyre not hard to hack. So, by compromising these devices en masse and turning them into a botnet army, hackers can completely overwhelm segments of the internet, channeling traffic to a single service until its overwhelmed and can no longer function.

If that sounds far-fetched, recall what happened in 2016, when the Mirai botnet took over hundreds of thousands of IoT devices, spread across multiple continents, and used them to flood traffic to the servers of the American internet company Dyn. At the time, it was the largest known DDoS attack on Earth; Twitter, Spotify, SoundCloud, Reddit, and a number of other sites were temporarily unavailable as a result. In other words, Mirai effectively took down part of the American internet.

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Democratic governments in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere typically dont exert control over major internet gateways or servers. Itd therefore be quite unlikely for them to cause a partial internet blackout themselves. Add to this the fact that the internet in the United States isnt as centralized as it is in other countries, and it becomes clear why its harder to control all its major gateways to the global network at once, like Egypt did in 2011.

But even if a government cant easily disconnect its whole country from the worldwide internet, Mirai demonstrated just how effectively third-party malicious actors can take down segments of a countrys internet.

In principle, policymakers have long argued that neither of the aforementioned scenarios were possible due largely to the internets decentralization. More and more, though, the internet has become centralized in countries where the government has controlled the buildout of infrastructure and where theres little market competition for internet services. Even in countries with better market competition for internet services and with less government control of infrastructure, there are still pockets that remain centralized and vulnerableas demonstrated by the Mirai botnet attack against Dyn.

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Internet blackouts are likely going to increase in frequency over the coming monthsand their harms will take many forms.

All this matters for a few reasons. For one, democratic policymakers, in particular, will have to think more about cyber norms in the context of internet manipulation (i.e., disconnecting your country from the global network), not just offensive cyberoperations (i.e., hacking into another nations computer systems). Several events in 2018 already made this fact clear, like when American internet traffic was once again routed through China and Russia and underscored the vulnerability of core internet functions to manipulation. A sovereign and controlled model of the internet is spreading, and democracies must effectively fight it through, among other things, norms on and around the internet.

Two, the rising threat of botnets will create more pressure within the United States to generate technical standards for smart devices. Currently, there exist virtually no consensus rules for minimum security on these devices, which means that many industry organizations and government agencies are using IoT systems that have terrible security; this not only poses vulnerability to connected infrastructure systems and opens wearable-wearing government personnel to real-time GPS tracking, but it also means that the IoT market is flooded with devices that can be easily hijacked in service of DDoS attacks. Building these standards will give companies and government agencies guidance in building and acquiring smart devices, which in turn will bolster their security.

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Finally, countries will have to take greater international action against botnets as a cybersecurity threat. As Jason Healey and Robert K. Knake wrote in a recent Council on Foreign Relations report, DDoS attacks via scores of hijacked smart devices can cause serious harm by allowing foreign governments to stifle free speech abroad and enabling them to shut down countries domestic networks or even the internet globally. Further, explains a report from the Council to Secure the Digital Economy, these incidents undermine fundamental confidence and trust in the digital economywhich depends on reliable availability and performance of internet services.

So, whether national or regional, caused by governments or hackers, internet blackouts are likely going to increase in frequency over the coming months, and their harms will take many forms. But recent hacks, a history of internet disconnections around the world, and an even longer history of distributed denial of service attacks, collectively, give us a sign of whats to come. Policymakers would be wise to pay attention.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
As if we didnt have enough problems, President Trump is now launching a new round of the nuclear arms race. That was the upshot of his speech at the Pentagon on Thursday, outlining a stepped-up missile defense program, described in an 80-page document called the Missile Defense Review. Missile defense may not sound so provocative, but a close look at the report reveals that it has an offensive foundation that will likely prompt an offensive response from Russia, China, and possibly other countries.

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There has always been an offensive flip side to defensive weapons. In the 1950s and early 60s, the United States vigorously pursued anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) systems, but then, in 1964, an Air Force officer named Glenn Kent made a startling discovery. Analyzing the costs and benefits of various ways to limit the damage of a nuclear war, he discovered that, no matter how many defensive missiles one side of a conflict might deploy, the other side could produce more offensive missiles much more quickly and cheaply. In other words, even the most perfect defensive systema network of interceptors that could shoot down every nuclear warhead that an enemy threw our waywould ultimately be outgunned. Rather than protect the population, a missile defense program would only spur an offense-defense arms race, which the defense would lose.

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As a result of Kents study, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara scaled back missile defense research and pushed his Soviet counterparts to do the same. The Soviets were suspicious at first but soon grasped the logic. Arms-control talks began, dealing with offensive and defensive weapons. In 1972, Presidents Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed both the Interim Agreement on Offensive Arms (capping the number of long-range nuclear missiles) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (setting strict limits on missile defenses), on the premise that the two reinforced each other. A decade later, President Ronald Reagan got it in his head that a missile shieldwhich he called the Strategic Defense Initiative and which critics dubbed Star Warswould render nuclear weapons obsolete. His ambitious programs remained a dream, but the idea became a cause in Republican circles. When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, he vowed to turn it into a reality, and soon after he won the election, he formally abrogated the ABM Treaty to make it so.

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But the notion remained both a pipe dream and a provocation. It was never going to work, in that the offense would always overwhelm the defense. Yet the Russians took it as a serious threat and, to the extent they could, responded by boosting their offense.

For better or worse, none of the futuristic high-tech systems described in todays reportthe space-based lasers and so forthare likely to see the light of day.

Cut to the present day. The New START Treatywhich President Obama and Russias then-president, Dmitry Medvedev, signed in 2010, and which both sides have since been observingis set to expire in 2021. If Trump seems to be expanding missile defenses, Vladimir Putin may well see a needor exploit that fact as an excuseto break the treatys limits and build more offensive weapons.

The Russians, and Putin in particular, have always viewed missile defense as a covert adjunct to a first-strike strategy, and in the early days of such programs, many U.S. officials viewed it the same way. A common scenario in the world of U.S. nuclear strategists went like this: The Soviets invade Western Europe or another area of vital interest; the U.S. responds with a nuclear strike against Soviet missiles and other military targets; if the Soviets retaliated with their surviving missiles, the U.S. would shoot them down with ABMs.

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This may seem a far-fetched scenario, but certain passages in Thursdays Missile Defense Review might persuade a mildly paranoid Russian analyst that the Americans still have it in mind. For instance: If deterrence fails and conflict with a rogue state or within a region ensues, U.S. attack operations supporting missile defense will degrade, disrupt, or destroy an adversarys missiles before they are launched. (Italics added.)

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There are also passages in the report suggesting that the Russians and Chinese shouldnt worry about any of this. For instance, it refers to a comprehensive approach to missile defense against rogue state and regional missile threatslater defined as North Korea, Iran, and other possibly emerging states or militias. The report also states, at least twice in some form, The United States relies on nuclear deterrence to address the large and more sophisticated Russian and Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities. (The authors dont spell out why deterrencepreventing war by threatening to retaliate to an enemy missile attack rather than trying to shoot down the missileswould suffice to ward off an attack by Russia or China but not by North Korea or Iran.)

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However, the report devotes thousands of words to improvements that Russia and China have been making to their ballistic missiles. Why emphasizewhy even mentionthem if Russia or China arent targets of the program?

The Defense Department has been spending about $10 billion a year on missile defense since President George W. Bush abrogated the ABM Treaty in 2002. But Thursdays report says that the systems that have been fielded since thenthe Ground-Based Interceptors in Alaska, shorter-range missiles on Aegis ships, the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD), and Patriot Advanced Capability missilescant deal with the increasingly complex missile threat environment of today and tomorrow. So the report proposes a vast array of new ways to shoot down enemy missilesthe most ambitious, and costly, plan weve seen since President Reagans Strategic Defense Initiative back in 1983.

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Fragments of Reagans dream are here, notably the idea of putting lasers up in outer space to shoot down enemy missiles as they blast off from their launch pads. The report also floats the idea of putting anti-missile interceptors on F-35 jet fighters. The basic theme is the exploration of innovative conceptsas many as defense contractors can throw up in the sky. Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan (a former Boeing executive) put it this way in his prelude to Trumps speech in the Pentagon: We are not interested in keeping pace with the emerging threats; we want to outpace them.

But before Shanahans warriors jump in their Starfighters and fire up their plasma blasters, they should snap out of their daydreams and take a look at the grim numbers. The current missile defense programs, which have been in development or production for 20 years, arent doing so well. Take a look at the official test data for the Ground-Based Interceptor, which is designed to defend against missile attacks on the United States, the mission that Trump calls his top priority. These interceptors have been tested just 18 times since 1999, and theyve shot down their targets just 10 of those times. Thats a success rate of 55 percentnot bad as a technological feat, but nothing on which to pin a nations survival. The programs record hasnt been getting better: Just two of the five most recent tests have been successes.

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Shorter-range interceptors have done better. The Aegis system, based on Navy ships, has shot down targets simulating ballistic missiles 40 out of 49 times. The THAAD system, which is deployed in South Korea to protect against North Korean missiles, works just about every time its taken out for a spin. But two things are worth noting about these (and all other) tests: First, the operators know ahead of time where the target is coming from and when it was launched; second, these systems have almost never been tested against more than one incoming missile at a time. Even a rogue nation would have a pretty good chance of penetrating the defense simply by shooting two missiles instead of one.

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For better or worse, none of the futuristic high-tech systems described in todays reportthe space-based lasers and so forthare likely to see the light of day. At best, it will take years, maybe decades, to develop such devices. The Missile Defense Review notes that the Pentagon is developing a Low-Power Laser Demonstrator to evaluate the technologies necessary for mounting a laser on an unmanned airborne platform to track and destroy missiles. Take a close look at those italics (which Ive added): They tell you that the Pentagon is nowhere near actually building such a weapon (which would have to involve a high-power laser, by the way).

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This report has been in the works for nearly two years. It was supposed to have been finished a year ago. The cause of the delay is unclear, but some who have observed the process cite several factors: bureaucratic wrangling, notably between the military (which sees missile defense as a way to protect U.S. and allied troops on a conventional battlefield) and national security adviser John Bolton (who sees it as an adjunct to a regime-changing strike against Iran); hesitation to call out North Korea as a threat, given Trumps budding romance with Kim Jong-un; and interservice disputes over how much of the Pentagon budget to spend on this dream. (the current budget allots $15.3 billion, and judging from the report, next years will spill more.)

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Trump is making a big deal of this. Its unusual for a president to make a speech at the Pentagon touting one program, with the vice president, secretary of defense, the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, and an auditorium full of other military officials in attendance. But it was painfully clear that he has no idea what it entails. In what seemed to be ad-libbed remarks, he boasted that the program would shield every city in the United Statesa claim that the Pentagon report doesnt make and that anyone even slightly knowledgeable would scoff at. He also spent an unseemly amount of time berating Democrats in Congress for not funding his wall on the southern border (the party has been hijacked by the open-borders fringe, he said at one point), allies in Europe for spending too little on their own defense, and previous presidents for acting like fools. And he engaged in a bit of typical incoherent rambling (for instance, We have some very bad players out there, and were a good player, but we can be far worse than anybody, if need be).

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Shanahan did his best to go along with all this, noting in his preliminary remarks that the president asked his department to do more on missile defense and it will abide. This is the Department of Get Stuff Done, he barked, prompting neither applause nor laughter. He also quoted President John F. Kennedys remark in 1962: The greatest danger of all would be to do nothing. He did not point out that Kennedy said this in his televised address alerting the nation to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The current situation bears no likeness whatever to that event. Many nations have had ballistic missiles for many years; defenses against those missiles have been analyzed for still longer. Nothing about any recent developments changes the math or should stir a crisis.

The good news is that Shanahan is but an acting secretary of defense, and Trump, even if he serves out his entire term and possibly is elected to another, will not be president by the time any of the new missile defense programs will be near production. Anyone out there whos panicked by this speech and this report should consider that before jumping to any guns.
The Impeach-O-Meter is a wildly subjective and speculative estimate of the likelihood that Donald Trump leaves office before his term ends, whether by being impeached (and convicted) or by resigning under threat of same.

We havent run an Impeach-O-Meter on Slate in quite some time, mainly because it seemed like Trump had settled at a level of strength that precluded his removal from office. He wasnt popular overall, but despite increasingly incriminatory developments in the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation, the president had stopped ever falling below 40 percent in approval ratings. He has also always maintained very high numbers with Republican voters, and since somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 Republican senators would have to vote to convict him in an impeachment trial to oust him from office, it thus seemed pointless to speculate about the possibility.

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Well, it seems less pointless now that BuzzFeed News is reporting that Muellers investigators have hard evidence that Trump directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a Moscow real-estate project. The outlet says two federal law enforcement officials are its sources for the scoop:

The special counsels office learned about Trumps directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.

Cohen told House and Senate committees that the Trump Organization had stopped pursuing a potential Trump Tower development in Moscow in January 2016, before presidential primaries began; he later admitted in a guilty plea that the project was pursued until that June. (June 2016 is also when the first public reports emerged about Russias hack of the Democratic National Committee.)

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Coincidentally, the person who Trump has nominated to take over from Jeff Sessions as attorney general, William Barr, just confirmed to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he believes the president could commit obstruction of justice by suborning perjury. Barr was asked about the subject in the context of a 2018 memo hed given to the Justice Department which otherwise argued the president should be given wide latitude to make decisions without being accused of obstruction. Suborning perjury, though, Barr wrote, is an obviously criminal act that cannot be excused as an act of executive branch prerogative:

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Obviously, the President and any other official can commit obstruction in this classic sense of sabotaging a proceedings truth-finding function. Thus, for example, if a President knowingly destroys or alters evidence, suborns perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony, or commits any act deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence, then he, like anyone else, commits the crime of obstruction.

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This is all happening, meanwhile, as Trumps aggregate approval rating has dipped under 40 percent during a government shutdown that a significant majority of the public blames him for. Youve got to believe that some Republican senators are at least thinking about what might happen if they gave the keys to Mike Pence so he could try to build some momentum for the party going into 2020.

On the other hand, Trump has been known to wriggle out of a jam or two before, and while BuzzFeed News is a credible outlet, it seems at least possible that its two sources may have gotten something wrong about Muellers findings. If true, though, this is the first suggestion weve gotten that the special counsel has evidence that Trump himself participated in a Russia-related crime. The presidents advisers being sleazeballs is one thing; the president himself getting nailed for something his attorney general just described as a 100-percent no-doubt-about-it crime is another. Will this be The Thing, the Big One that finally, finally, finally starts to crack Trumps deep-red Republican fortress? Folks, Ill tell you what: I dont know, and no one else does either! But it seems like its time to start talking about it again.

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To listen to the discussion, use the player below:

Get More Political Gabfest Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to Political Gabfest Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page.

Listen to Slates Political Gabfest via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

On this weeks Slate Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the continued government shutdown, the counterintelligence investigation of Trump, and the racism of Steve King.

Here are some of the links and references from this weeks show:

 Erica Werner for the Washington Post: Trump Administration Calling Nearly 50,000 Back to Work, Unpaid, as Shutdown Drags On

 Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni for the New York Times: In a West Wing in Transition, Trump Tries to Stand Firm on the Shutdown

 Steve Vladeck on Twitter with the progression of the executive branchs defense

 Pew Research Center: Most Border Wall Opponents, Supporters Say Shutdown Concessions Are Unacceptable

 Whistlestop podcast: A 90s-Style Government Shutdown (Part 1)

 Greg Miller for the Washington Post: Trump Has Concealed Details of His Face-to-Face Encounters With Putin From Senior Officials in Administration

 Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt, and Nicholas Fandos for the New York Times: F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia

 Caroline Kelly for CNN: Rudy Giuliani Says Trump Didnt Collude With Russia but Cant Say if Campaign Aides Did

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Here are this weeks cocktail chatters:

 Emily chattered about some less-discussed problems with William Barrs confirmation testimony, including his hard-line views on immigration, lack of support for criminal justice reform, and willful blindness to the racial inequities in the justice system.

 John chattered about his interview with Dave Matthews, discussing Matthews youth in South Africa under apartheid and his efforts to improve public housing in Charlottesville, Virginia.

 David chattered about watching Raiders of the Lost Ark after many years and discovering it is appallingly racist and sexist.

 Listener Kathy Kearns @kkearns11542 recommended the Leesburg Stockade Girls episode of the StoryCorps podcast, which tells the story of a group of girls arrested at a 1963 civil rights protest and held in an abandoned stockade for nearly two months.

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For this weeks Slate Plus bonus segment, Emily and John talk with professor Nate Persily about the recent court decision blocking the Trump administrations plan to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census.

Topic ideas for next week? You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest. Tweet us your cocktail chatter using #cocktailchatter or post it to our Facebook page. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Become a fan of the Political Gabfest on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @SlateGabfest. The email address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (Email may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank. Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.
ARLINGTON, Va.  Two years of higher defense budgets and the 2019 funding approved early for the first time in a decade enable Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to make significant progress in building the future surface fleet, four of its top officers said Jan. 17.

The increased pace of surface ship construction also was helped by the new emphasis and authorities for accelerated acquisition from Congress and the Navy leadership, and by NAVSEAs drive for greater commonality and modularity in programs across the wide range of surface warfare platforms, the panel led by Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, NAVSEA commander, told a Surface Navy Association symposium audience.

Rear Adm. William Galinis, program executive officer (PEO) for ships, cited a long list of accomplishments, including the five-year contract for 10 DDG 51 Flight III destroyers, the contract for the first six of 12 John Lewis-class fleet oilers, delivery of the second DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer, advances on two major amphibious ship programs and continued work on defining the next large surface combatant.

The big thing for us was getting funding in September, ahead of the Oct. 1 start of the 2019 fiscal year. We were able to get a number of ships under contract, Galinis said.

Rear Adm. John Neagley, PEO for unmanned and small combatants, touted delivery of five littoral combat ships (LCSs) last year and four planned to deliver this year, nearing design completion for the new frigate and developmental work on a family of unmanned systems.

Getting the budget on time allows program officials to take advantage of economy of scale, Neagley said. He also noted being challenged by James Geurts, assistant Navy secretary for research, sevelopment and acquisition, to go faster.

And Rear Adm. Douglas Small, PEO for integrated weapons systems, noted the big push for us to get modular, scalable systems for a lot of ships, ranging from the LCS, proposed frigate and unmanned craft to aircraft carriers.

The common combat systems for a range of vessels will not only save money but reduce crew training as Sailors move between ship types, and could speed up integration of systems in new ships, Small said.

Were also pushing very hard on how we integrate new systems faster, he said.

Moore asked his PEOs what they were doing to speed up ship programs and reduce costs, and they noted the advantages of block buys, applying lessons from early ships to cut time and cost of follow-on contracts, and earlier and expanded contact with industry.

The panel also talked about efforts to reduce life-cycle costs by considering sustainment factors in ship design and construction and allowing modernization of electronic systems by new software rather than hardware.

Moore said the effort to reduce costs and construction time went beyond surface warships. We talk about one NAVSEA, he said, noting the constant coordination with PEOs for submarines and aircraft carriers and more coordination between the public and private shipyards.

Getting more ships for a limited budget also can be aided by the push for more unmanned systems, which range from small to large diameter and include both surface and undersea vessels.
The Wall Street law firm Skadden Arps, one of the largest firms in the world with 1,700 attorneys, admitted to misleading the Justice Department in 2012 about the nature of the work it did for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the Kremlin-aligned Ukrainian government, as part of a settlement with the DOJ announced Thursday.

The global firm, with reported annual revenue above $2.5 billion, will pay $4.6 million to the government and will retroactively register as a foreign agent under the under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.

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The investigation into the firms work, though handled by the Justice Departments National Security division, grew out of the Mueller investigation and the special counsels examination of Paul Manaforts political consulting in Ukraine. The work that was under investigation was a 2012 report that Skadden prepared for Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych to use against his political rival, Yulia Tymoshenko. Yanukovych used Skaddens assessment of a corruption proceeding against Tymoshenko to bolster the states case in the trial that was seen by many as a political hit job.

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Skadden initially denied to the Justice Department that it proactively sought out reporters to publicize the paper, according to the settlement, but later acknowledged one of its partners did so and was involved in the rollout, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Justice Department said one of the law firms former partners, identifiable as former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, provided misleading information to the FARA registration unit in 2012 and 2013 when it requested information on the extent of the firms work in Ukraine. Last year, another Skadden attorney, Alex van der Zwaan, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was sentenced to 30 days in prison. Van der Zwann, a junior lawyer who was based at the firms London office, also happens to be the son-in-law of a Russian oligarch who is one of the countrys richest men.

The settlement between the firm and the Justice Department, which was made public on Thursday, is the latest indication that Mr. Muellers inquiry and related investigations are fundamentally challenging the lucrative but shadowy foreign-lobbying industry that has thrived in Washington, according to the New York Times. The Justice Department, which is charged with enforcing the 80-year-old act, had largely turned a blind eye until Mr. Mueller began charging Mr. Trumps associates, including Mr. Manafort, who had built a lucrative business advising Russia-aligned politicians and wealthy business executives in Ukraine.
Last week, as the president continued to insist on the building of his proposed border wall with Mexico, writer Jon Meacham issued a Trump historical-analogy tweet that went viral.

America should build a wall of steel, a wall as high as Heaven" against the flow of immigrants.--Georgia Gov. Clifford Walker, at a 1924 convention of the Ku Klux Klan, then a powerful force at a time of strain for the white working class. #PastIsPrologue  Jon Meacham (@jmeacham) January 9, 2019

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Meacham used the full quote from Clifford Walkers speechI would build a wall of steel, a wall as high as Heaven, against the admission of a single one of those Southern Europeans who never thought the thoughts or spoke the language of a democracy in their livesas an epigraph for the fourth chapter of his book The Soul of America but cut it short for the purposes of Twitter, where nuance is not your friend. And the chop worked, to the tune of 41,000 likes and 20,000 retweets as of this writing.

The appeal of these contemporary echoes notwithstanding, it doesnt seem that the Klan wall was ever much more than a rhetorical flourish particular to Clifford Walker. I spent years going through Klan newspapers, and I dont remember a wall coming up in their own documents, historian Kelly J. Baker, author of Gospel According to the Klan: The KKKs Appeal to Protestant America, 19151930, wrote to me in an email. Tapping her general knowledge of the Klan in the 1920s (rather than a reading of the speech itself), historian Linda Gordon, author of The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition, wrote another response to my query: My immediate reaction is that [Walker] meant a metaphoric wall, a wall created by legislation and policy. Also, it is unlikely that he would have been thinking of a wall on the U.S. southern border; at this time, the Klan was thinking of immigration through Ellis Island and Angel Island. In other words, Walker and other restrictionists of the 1920s were fretting over the entry of Catholics and Jews from southern Europe, via New York, and of Asian immigrants through San Francisco. Neither of these places are plausible locations for a real wall.

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So with regard to Trumps very real obsession, Walkers rhetorical wall might suggest only that anxious white racists with authoritarian mindsets think in similar shapes. But Walkers speechavailable via the Internet Archiveis still fascinatingly instructive for people looking to understand Trumpism. Contrary to Meachams claim that the Ku Klux Klan was a group for the white working class, scholars have largely agreed that the Klan of the 1920s was a lower-middle-class institution, made up of a mix of people who were already middle-class, and skilled workers who were looking for some middle-class respectability. The speech shows how the second Klan (so called to distinguish it from the original Reconstruction-era incarnation) understood that respectability to be woven through with xenophobia and hate.

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The first half of Walkers speech decried the lack of widely accessible public schooling for the boys and girls of the United States. What of the tens of thousands of Edisons and Bells and Fords, who are crying out for a chance to develop their minds and their hearts and their handsto go out and see that the natural resources of America are developed! Walker cried. Walker was particularly fighting for the rural kids: Let us not penalize a boy or girl simply because he or she happened to be born in the country. The governor then argued that the government should build highways and modern health departments to eliminate preventable disease. Like Trumps vague campaign promises to bring back jobs, provide health care, and improve infrastructure, these populist priorities dont seem explicitly hateful.

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Only three-quarters of the way into the speech did Walker segue into a call to look to the stream of poison that is being injected into our national life through the admission of that lower type of foreignersan articulation of the major themes of the Klans anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism. Then, at the crescendo of his diatribe against Catholicism, came this call for the wall of steel.

The similarities to Trumpism dont stop at the combination of populist promise with racism and xenophobia. Like Trumpism, the second Klan should be understood as integral to the body politic of its time. As historian Nancy MacLean wrote in her book, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, to read the history of the second Klan is to see how utterly everyday these people were. One has to give up the notion of the essential otherness of the kind of men attracted to it, MacLean wrote. The Klan of the 1920s were not the deranged outcasts of popular imaginationthey were dentists, barbers, grocery-store proprietors, teachers, farmers, and politicians.

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The redefinition of the old KKK as a public institution was a purposeful one.

Numerically speaking, this new Klan wasnt marginal. While its not clear exactly how many people the Klan enrolled, it was a lot: The organization itself bragged that it had 5 million in 1926, while historian Kenneth Jackson estimated a lower zenith of 1.5 million active members. In southern Indiana, where ambitious (and horrifyingly violent) Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson was in charge of the organization, 23 percent of native-born white men were in the Klan. As Linda Gordon points out, the organization owned or controlled 150 magazines or newspapers, two colleges, and, briefly, a movie production company dedicated to countering Hollywoods immoral influence. (That last venture didnt last, because even in the 1920s, it was difficult and expensive to make movies.)

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The second Klan was proud of its association with the first, Reconstruction-era Klanthe night riders who terrorized freedpeople in the Southand adopted its symbols and some of its language. But the 1920s Klan tried hard to be a public organizationto live out its principles of white supremacy in plain view. Hiram Evans, the second Grand Wizard of this resurgence, called himself the most average man in America (in order to normalize the Klan, Gordon wrote). The Klan held huge picnics, fairs, and fireworks displays. They ran and elected many candidates in national, state, and local political races. People made merch: Klan-themed jewelry, sheet music, pocket knives. The commercial bent of present-day right-wingers, who hawk doomsday food packages and T-shirts on their podcasts and blogs, has ample precedent.

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This redefinition of the old KKK as a public institution was a purposeful one. William J. Simmons, the first Grand Wizard of the second Klan, hired publicists who remade the Klan into a fraternal organizationa mode of social congress then extremely popular among middle-class peopleto sell the idea nationwide. Baker begins her book with an epigraph from a 1924 Klan newspaper that shows how hard the organization tried to make the point that they were respectable: Forget the idea of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan being an organization that flogs and tars and feathers people  We bring the transgressor to justice through the duly constituted officers of the law. The second Klan, Baker argues, used the symbols and rhetoric of Protestant religionthe fiery cross was just the beginningto define themselves as not just an order to defend America but also a campaign to protect and celebrate Protestantism.

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(This isnt to say that the second Klan did not instigate, and sometimes participate in, racist and white supremacist violence. This new Klan also, especially in the Wests agricultural regions, committed acts of vigilante violence against Mexican Americans and Asian Americans. Gordon wrote that while the Northern Klan did not go in for lynchings or beatings, its propaganda constituted cultural, religious, racial, and political violence, and thereby legitimated physical violence in the eyes of angrier members. As Gordon points out, the Klan of this period recruited among law enforcement officers and often acted as deputies in carrying out violent actions against businesses the Klan considered amoral, like speakeasies and brothels.)

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It was precisely white distaste for immigrationmixed up with anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicismthat allowed the second Klan to become nationally influential. The organization had strongholds in places like Oregon, Indiana, and Colorado that didnt have large populations of black people like the Reconstruction-era South had. This national reach became possible because the Klans hired publicists recognized the broad appeal of xenophobia, racism, and religious hatred outside of the South, and they pushed founder William J. Simmons to emphasize those aspects of Klan ideas while recruiting. Diatribes against immigration permeated Klan literature, marking the issues pride of place in the organization. The Klansmans Creed, published in 1924, reserved the matter for its final lines, giving it emphasis: I believe in the limitation of foreign immigration. I am a native-born American citizen and I believe my rights in this country are superior to those of foreigners.

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Hiram Evans published a pamphlet called The Menace of Modern Immigration in 1924. Rehearsing platitudes familiar to Trump watchers today, Evans wrote, There is no hatred in my heart for any individual, nationality or race upon the face of the earth today. I love all humanity; for that reason my supreme love is for America. Evans then went on to compare the original Huguenot and Cavalier and Puritan American settlers, who came to the continent without mercenary motive (Native Americans might beg to differ) to the Latin, the Greek, the Balkan and the Slav, who did not respect law and order or share the native-born Americans inherent reverence for established institutions. Evans repeated his insistencethere is not a semblance of racial hate in my hearta second time, before going on to say that the negro could never assimilate to American life, due to his inherent inferiority.

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The organizations plan to use this kind of racist anti-immigration sentiment to extend their national reach worked because the Klans ideas about immigration and race were mainstream in white culture at the timeeven among those who didnt join the Klan. Rep. Albert Johnson of Washington state was not (at least not publicly) a Klan member, but his beliefs on immigration certainly aligned with the Klans. (Johnson proudly claimed membership in a mob that drove hundreds of South Asian residents out of Bellingham, Washington in 1907.) The Klan advocated for Johnsons re-election, seeing him as a champion of their ideas, and the passage of his Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which imposed stringent quotas on immigration from undesirable countries, met with much Klan rejoicing. The biggest Klan victory was immigration restriction, Gordon wrote, and Imperial Wizard Evans repeatedly claimed credit for its passage.

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An item in the Klan newspaper the Wisconsin Kourier, from November 1924, illustrates how closely official beliefs about immigration and the Klans stance on the matter were often aligned. Reporting on a 1924 speech by James John Davis, then the secretary of labor for Calvin Coolidge, the Kourier printed all the best bitsthe ones their readers might like. Those included Davis claim that 100,000 Asiatics were lurking near American borders seeking an opportunity to enter surreptitiously (the supposed imminence of mass immigration of undesirables was a common restrictionist boogeyman in the early 1920s); Davis counterargument to the idea that immigrants came here to work, which was a dubiously sourced and meaningless anecdote that out of 600 immigrants examined at Ellis Island, only 20 had calluses on their hands; and his belief that foreign language newspapers should be denied the right to publish, because some foreign language newspapers published in this country never issue an edition without telling their readers that the United States is the worst place in the world in which to live.

This kind of socially sanctioned fear and hate was addictive, and it doesnt seem like the passage of the Johnson-Reed Act did much to calm the Klans nerves on the matter of immigration. In February 1925, the Wisconsin Kourier ran an article warning European riff-raff were paying law breakers large sums to smuggle them over the border in Texas. These aliens are for the most part inadmissible to this country and highly undesirable as residents  Among them are anarchists, criminals and radicals who had been shut out by the Immigration Act of the year before. The Mexican coyote, the paper explained, was an extremely dangerous individual who was willing to open fire on the least provocation; many splendid federal officers have met death at their hands. In this way, the call for restriction shifted to demands for tougher enforcement; historian Mae Ngai points out that of the first Border Patrol agents, hired in the wake of the passage of the 1924 Immigration Act, several were previous members of the Klan.

As all of this should make clear, theres no need to make a tenuous tie between Donald Trump and his wall and Clifford Walkers (probable) figure of speech. The Klan, like Trumpism, was a powerful middle-class movement, allied to the Protestant Church and built on xenophobia. Whats more interesting than the particulars of any proposed wall is the way that we persist in believing that these deeply mainstream ideas come from the fringe.
A statement from Nancy Pelosis office revealed Friday that the speaker of the House had planned to defy Trumps retaliatory efforts to cancel her trip abroad by flying commercially to Afghanistan. But now, according to that statement, Pelosi has canceled her second attempt at taking a congressional delegation to visit the troops and blames the Trump administration for leaking her travel plans.

In the middle of the night, the State Departments Diplomatic Security Service provided an updated threat assessment detailing that the President announcing this sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security, and other officials supporting the trip, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said in a Friday statement. This morning, we learned that the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well. In light of the grave threats caused by the Presidents action, the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to further endanger our troops and security personnel, or the other travelers on the flights.

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Trump had canceled Pelosis undisclosed plan to lead a congressional delegation on Thursday by revoking her access to the planned military transport. He promised to allow her to reschedule what he called a seven-day excursion and public relations event once the partial government shutdown ends. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, he added, that would certainly be your prerogative.

The move was widely interpreted as retaliation for Pelosis letter the previous day asking Trump to reschedule the Jan. 29 State of the Union address until after the shutdown ends, citing the number of security workers who would have to work the event without pay.

The purpose of Pelosis planned trip, according to Hammill, was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines. While in Brussels for pilot rest, the congressional delegation was to meet with NATO commanders and allies to affirm the United States ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance.

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In the statement Friday, Hammill said Pelosis office had learned the Trump administration had leaked the congressional delegations commercial travel plans. While no news outlets appeared to have reported on the plans before Pelosis statement, Hammill told Slate that multiple sources from the administration were attempting to leak the news. A White House spokesperson responded to Pelosis statement by pushing back on the claim: The idea we would leak anything that would put the safety and security of any American at risk is an offensive flat out lie.

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In a statement Friday, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget announced a full ban on the use of government-owned or government-chartered aircraft during the shutdown for a congressional delegation without express permission from the White House chief of staff. Late on Thursday, the White House also canceled a scheduled trip led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Some critics pointed out that President Trump flew to Afghanistan during the shutdown and that Melania Trump still flew to Florida on a government jet Thursday for a weekend vacation, just hours after her husband postponed Pelosis trip to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
If Donald Trump instructed his attorney Michael Cohen to lie under oath to Congress about planning a Trump real estate development in Moscow in the midst of the presidential campaign, he is almost certainly a felon. As attorney general nominee William Barr testified earlier this week in response to a question from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, suborning perjury in the midst of an investigation is the sine qua non of the crime of obstruction of justice. The remaining question is whether Republicans will join Democrats in calling for the presidents removal from office.

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If Graham is remotely principled, he will lead his party in calling for the presidents removal, just as he advocated for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton under far less egregious circumstances 20 years ago.

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He should be joined by former special prosecutor Ken Starr, who in 1998 presented a report to Congress purporting to recite substantial and credible information  that may constitute grounds for an impeachment. In a section of that report principally authored by thenStarr deputy Brett Kavanaugh, Starr argued that Clintons purported efforts to encourage witnesses to lieincluding by soliciting Monica Lewinsky to file a false sworn affidavit denying her sexual relationship with the presidentmerited impeachment, as did Clintons efforts to cause others to lie before a grand jury. In a memo he wrote to Starr, Kavanaugh was even more emphatic, asserting that Clintons conduct amounted to a disgrace to the legal system.

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Then-Rep. Lindsey Graham, who served as one of the House managers who prosecuted the case for removing Clinton from office before the Senate, also assailed the president for cho[osing] to manipulate the evidence, the witnesses against him and get his friends to lie in a civil litigation. But Graham stated that what tipped the scales for him was that Clinton doubled down and continued to lie under oath after his conduct became the subject of a criminal investigation. This, Graham asserted, manifestly constituted a high crime that virtually compelled the presidents removal.

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That is just what President Trump stands accused of today. While Trump has refused to testify (reportedly because his advisers are convinced he will lie), he now stands accused of directing his attorney to lie under oath to Congress regarding a matter standing at the very heart of an investigation. Furthermore, the investigation concerns a foreign adversarys attempt to influence the outcome of a presidential election, with implications for national security that are potentially graver than Watergate, let alone Starrs inquiry into Clintons lies about his sexual activities.

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As Barr stated to Graham, under the federal witness tampering statute, a person who encourages another to lie under oath bears criminal liability along with the perjurious witness.

Democratic leaders of the House have, quite properly, made it plain that they will not seek to impeach Trump unless they are joined by members of the other party. Twenty years ago, Graham argued that it was important to remove Clinton for lying in the midst of an investigation in order to place the burden on the next president not to engage in similar conduct. It now appears likely that Graham will have to decide whether to place that burden on Donald Trump. His answer may determine the presidents fate.
On Jan. 8, the Wall Street Journal published a detailed investigative report on how Twitter referees political speech. The report included an account of how a racist conspiracy theorist, Laura Loomer, was banned from the platform. (She was the one who handcuffed herself to Twitters New York office.) The piece suggested that the civil rights advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations secretly conspired against her with Twitter executives, pushing the site to ban her. Conservative Jewish activist Laura Loomer says she didnt know until recently that outside groups and individuals had privately lobbied Twitter executives to remove her from the site in late November, the Journal report said.

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This detail made the rounds, eventually finding its way into headlines on right-wing sites like Breitbart, WND, and Conservative Review. And how did Loomer come to know about CAIRs involvement? Because of an elaborate prank, it seems. In a very entertaining expose by Jared Holt of Right Wing Watch, two Twitter users took credit for the ruse, saying they contacted Loomer and convinced her that secret meetings between CAIR and Twitter led to her ban. The piece includes a cringe-worthy phone conversation with Loomer learning of the made-up conspiracy. The pranksters also shared a fabricated calendar used to trick Loomer into believing that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey met with CAIR just days before she was banned. In a series of text messages between them, Loomer took credit for informing the Wall Street Journal about the Twitter/CAIR conspiracy. (The Journal stood by its reporting.)

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As a Muslim who is online too much, I certainly took pleasure in watching Loomer be ridiculed for the compulsive, uncritical fraud she is. There is something poetic about exposing a Project Veritas alum with a secret recording. But as I listened more, it didnt feel so funny. At the pranksters first mention of CAIR, Loomer immediately feels vindicated: Everything I said was true! Its fucking Muslim Brotherhood Sharia money! Its disgusting. She calls CAIR a terrorist organization, an oft-repeated and just-as-often debunked claim. Hearing this, I had a sinking feeling: It makes no difference to Loomer if this was a prank. She will continue to peddle her lies about CAIR and Muslim Brotherhood Sharia money to her audience, and it will continue to believe them. (Her response to the Right Wing Watch piece pretty much confirms this.) No one capable of critical thought believed Loomer was credible before this; the prank changed zero minds. And so it sort of seems like the real loser in this scenario is not Loomer, but people like me.

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Instigators like Loomer exploit the atmosphere of fear surrounding American Muslims to bring attention to themselves and claw for fleeting moments of relevance. This prank ultimately helped Loomer do that, by giving her more fodder for her deranged worldviewand putting more conspiracies into circulation about a civil rights organizationwithout an obvious upside. The pranksters explicit goal was to test Loomers gullibility and see if their bogus claim about CAIR would end up on the fringe sites like Infowars, but would exposing that have changed the minds of anyone who consumes Inforwars content anyway? Almost certainly not. Instead, the stunt seems to come from the understandable but misguided impulse to troll a troll, with no regard for its potential to stoke the already-dangerous atmosphere for Muslims in America.

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Whispers of CAIRs supposed backroom dealings to ban Loomer (and, really, any self-proclaimed far-right truth teller) from Twitter will not go away because the ruse has been unveiled. Theyre no different than the still-repeated myths that activist Linda Sarsour withheld crowd-funded money from Jewish beneficiaries, or that Muslims celebrated in Jersey City as the Twin Towers came down on 9/11. These fantasies are powerful because they appeal to bias, and breathing new life into them helps no one.

I will always be here for a good public shaming of conspiratorial bigots, but I hope white-knight pranksters can leave Muslims out of it next time. This came at our expense. I spent an entire video series at Slate trying to learn about and debunk conspiracy theories just like this one, and Ive had people personally tell me that CAIR is a front for terrorism more often that I can tell you. Getting that message in front of more people, no matter the intentions, is not the way to change their minds.
McDonalds sells Big Macs. I know this. You know this. If I asked you to prove it, youd take me to the McDonalds which is no more than a mile from where you are reading this and buy a Big Mac. And yet, last Friday, the European Union Intellectual Property Office canceled McDonalds trademark for the Big Mac across Europe in every category, from sandwiches to services rendered or associated with operating and franchising restaurants because McDonalds failed to prove that it sold sandwiches called Big Macs in Europe. It sounds so preposterous that the Washington Examiner literally did not believe it and had to retract an article in which it argued that people repeating the truth were overstating the case.

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McDonalds is  well  McDonalds. MCDONALDS! They sell Big Macs. Theyre pretty well-known for this. Im not going to belabor it. Less well-known is the Irish restaurant chain Supermacs that, using myself as a survey of one, had 0 percent name recognition in the United States as of Tuesday. Faced with Supermacs intention to expand outside of Ireland (where they apparently have co-existed without much rancor for 40 years) McDonalds objected, arguing that the existence of continental Supermacs was likely to cause customer confusion and step on McDonalds trademark. It wasnt even the first time they had this fightMcDonalds filed a similar objection in 2015, which it won. Supermacs didnt give up, though, and when Supermacs expansion plans in 2017 led to a new objection from McDonalds, Supermacs filed a petition with the EUIPO to cancel McDonalds trademark for Big Mac in its entirety for an alleged failure to use said trademark.

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Somehow, Supermacs won. McDonalds presumably very expensive counsel could not convince the EUIPO that they sell Big Macs in Europe. According to the EUIPO decision, McDonalds submitted three affidavits which detailed McDonalds historical Big Mac sales figures; menus listing the Big Mac; brochures and even sandwich packagingone each from England, Germany, and France; screenshots of local McDonalds websites in 18 countries across the EU identifying  Big Mac sandwiches, some of which state that they are sandwiches made of beef meat.; and a printout of the McDonalds Wikipedia entry with its rich history of the chains presence in Europeand the Big Macs it sold there.

The EUIPOs response to McDonalds evidence is, frankly, hilarious. To the detailed affidavits and websites that set out the Big Macs availability, trademark examiners brushed them off, essentially stating Of course you would say that! Youre trying to enforce a trademark!

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Does that seem like an exaggeration? The ruling expressly says affidavits from the parties are generally given less weight than independent evidence and all of the remaining evidencethe websites, brochures, and sandwich packaging samplesoriginates from [McDonalds] itself. And so the sales figures submitted in sworn testimony, the McDonalds sandwich boxes that you know examiners had seen before on their own trays, and the screenshot of a French menu with Le Big Mac sandwich au boeuf were all so lacking in persuasiveness and credibility that the only thing McDonalds had left was  Wikipedia. And if the EUIPO doesnt trust sworn testimony from a trademark-holder, you can imagine what they said about Wikipedia.

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When you see an outcome that is so viscerally satisfying (as I type, its eight hours since I first read about this and Im still laughing at Goliath laid low), but also so clearly wrong, what do you do?

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The first thing, obviously, is to tweet.

The second thing is to get a little humble. Ive never practiced before the EUIPO, so the evidentiary rules and standards in that forum are not my wheelhouse. I would have expected that looking sternly at the examiners and saying, very slowly, McDonalds obviously sells Big Macs would be compelling. One would think the examiners should nod their heads at that, remember lovin it and the billions and billions served, and that would be that. However, as IP expert David Fyfield, who actually practices before the EUIPO, told the World Intellectual Property Review, the EUIPO is very particular about the evidence of use it requires for trademark registrations.

The EUIPO s response to McDonalds evidence is, frankly, hilarious.

So what did they want? The ruling says that while the brochures and websites were nice, they often didnt say where or how you could buy a Big Mac. McDonalds didnt submit evidence of web traffic, or proof that the brochures led to any potential or actual purchases, or that the Big Macs that went in the packaging were actually offered for sale or sold. The earlier, successful challenge to Supermacs included brand-awareness surveys. Maybe they could have included a short video of someone going to a McDonalds and literally ordering a Big Mac. Without that information, though, the printed materials did not give sufficient information to support the sales and turnover figures claimed in the affidavits.

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The EUIPO actually responds to my you cant be serious argument, writing a declaration by the applicant concluding that evidence of use [of the trademark] submitted is sufficient  does not have any effect on the Offices findings. In other words, it doesnt even matter if everyone knows that McDonalds sells burgers called Big Macs: There are ways to prove it, and McDonalds didnt bother. Dont tell us, show us. There are rules, Ronald, and you will follow them.

Tarik, my pseudonymous friend and former podcast partner, had a legal-realist rule about litigation: The judge decides who the asshole is and works backward from there. So who was the asshole here? It was either Supermacs: a local Irish fast-food chain (with a fair amount of purely coincidental menu overlap with McDs) founded by an Irishman whose name, naturally, starts with Mc. Or its McDonalds: a multibillion-dollar American bully that presented a defense the examiners decided could be reduced to Duh. Were McDonalds and had also been applying for trademarks on Supermacs menu items. We can conclude what the EUIPO thought.

This obviously isnt over. McDonalds has already said it is going to appeal the decision. I dont know the EUIPO rules of procedure, so I dont know if McDonalds can plug its evidentiary holes on appeal. (In the United States, introducing new facts into the record on appeal is generally frowned upon.) If they can, I feel fairly confident that somewhere across the continent, theres evidence that someone bought a Big Mac at McDonalds.

Until then this is, legally speaking, incredibly funny.
Life in the Trump era is a bit like living just downwind of the city dump. There are always unsavory odors, but every few days some particularly putrescent chunk of refuse blows into your yard. After a while, it becomes easy to wave off even the most pestilent and dangerous effluvia as just more of the same old routine debris.

The Democratic precincts of the Capitol are aflame over the report by BuzzFeed News that President Donald Trump personally directed his former attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the duration and extent of Trumps efforts to secure a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow. The question for a weary nation is whether the outrage is warranted. Is this the tipping point? Or just more debris?

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It could be very important, but much remains unknown, and everyone should maintain their equilibrium.

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If Trump did direct Cohen to lie to Congress, that is a federal felony, indeed a handful of them. Cohen has already pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in 2017 in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 1001 when he told the Senate Intelligence Committee that negotiations for a Moscow Trump Tower ended in January 2016, when in fact they continued into the summer of that year. If he was under oath, he also committed perjury, 18 U.S Code Section 1621.

If Trump counseled, commanded, or induced Cohen to lie to Congress, then Trump himself is guilty of the same crimes as Cohen under the federal aiding and abetting statute, 18 U.S. Code Section 2. Moreover, inducing another person to lie under oath to Congress constitutes the separate crimes of subornation of perjury, 18 U.S Code Section 1622, and two flavors of obstruction of justice, 18 U.S. Code Sections 1505 and 1512.

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The Cohen subornation of perjury allegation is different from both the mistress payoffs and Clintons lies about sex.

Now, one can only be convicted for lying or suborning lies if the lie at issue is material in the sense of being relevant to the subject of the underlying inquiry and having some tendency to influence the decision of the agency or tribunal. Trump could try to argue that the point about which he allegedly induced Cohen to lie was not material because it concerned only the duration of admitted negotiations over a Moscow Trump Tower. But that hardly flies inasmuch as Trumps connections to Russia during the 2016 campaign are at the core of both the Mueller investigation and the Senate Intelligence Committees inquiries.

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If Trump was actively pursuing a Moscow real estate deal (reported by BuzzFeed to offer profits of up to $300 million) deep into the 2016 campaign, the hope of such a large payday would have given Trump an incentive to be responsive to Russian interests. Indeed, there is strong circumstantial evidence of just such responsiveness. For example, just before the July 2016 Republican Party presidential nominating convention, the partys platform was suddenly altered to oppose giving aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists.

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Similarly, the fact that candidate Trump continued to pursue highly profitable Russian real estate ventures while denying any financial connection to Russia would have been known to the Kremlin and would have given the Russian government leverage over Trump and an interest in Trumps electoral success. Regardless of whether Russia used that leverage or whether Trump responded to it if used, the existence of potential leverage was material to Congress (and to Mueller). Inducing Cohen to lie about it would therefore be a federal felony.

That said, due to Department of Justice policy, special counsel Robert Mueller is highly unlikely to indict a sitting president. Thus, the real question is whether Trumps alleged subornation of Cohens perjury is a plausible basis for impeachment.

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The intimate connection between Cohens lies and the Russia investigations distinguishes the BuzzFeed story from the earlier disclosure that Trump directed Cohen to pay off two reported paramours to keep them quiet during the election. The hush money payments were disgraceful and may have been criminal violations of campaign finance law (although the latter point is debatable). However, they can (barely) plausibly be explained, not as an attempt to influence the election, but to save Trump from personal embarrassment with his wife and son. One doubts that we want to start impeaching presidents for, as candidates, suppressing unpleasant facts about their personal lives. In any case, the essence of the mistress payoffs is far too close to Bill Clintons lies about consensual sex with Monica Lewinsky for any Democrat with a trace of intellectual honesty to seek impeachment entirely on that ground.

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The Cohen subornation of perjury allegation is different from both the mistress payoffs and Clintons lies about sex.

First, if proven, unlike the mistress payoffs, the criminality of suborning perjury before Congress is indisputable.

Second, as the Clinton case proved, perjury is not necessarily impeachable. The essence of impeachable conduct is that it implicates a presidents fitness for office. Unlike both the mistress payoffs and Clintons dalliance, Cohens lies and Trumps alleged efforts to secure them concern questions central to this presidents fitness for office: Has he been compromised by a foreign power? Even if that cant be proven, is he willing to commit felonies to obstruct an investigation into that possibility? If the answer to those questions, or either of them, is yes, then impeachment is a live, constitutionally viable option.

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The framers were unequivocal in their insistence that impeachment is available to remove a president in thrall to a foreign power. And the case of Richard Nixon provides ample precedent for articles of impeachment based on presidential subornation of perjury to obstruct an investigation of the circumstances of his own election.

All that having been said, people shouldnt overreact to the BuzzFeed report. It is, so far, only an allegation. The article asserts that:

The special counsels office learned about Trumps directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.

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A great many folks seemed to have jumped to the conclusion that these witnesses and documents directly corroborate Cohens claims that Trump instructed him to lie. That seems improbable. Trump famously doesnt use email. He obviously tweets, but it seems unlikely that he would be fool enough to text Cohen telling him to lie. Its possible that Trump discussed having Cohen lie with others and had them pass that instruction alongafter all, Nixon was on tape doing just that. But the intermediary of such a communication would have to be improbably loyal or an incredible idiot.

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What seems more likely than slam-dunk proof is that documents exist from which one can reasonably infer illegal Trump instructions to Cohen, but that the only direct evidence Trump gave such instructions is Cohens own testimony. And on one point at least, Rudy Giuliani is rightCohen is a liar with an incentive to save his own skin. In my prosecutor days, I convicted a fair number of folks based in part on the testimony of cooperating crooks, but the rule of every such case is that the corroboration must be rock solid.

In short, the BuzzFeed scoop could be a big deal, but the devil remains in the undisclosed details.
Although the Constitution does not require it, the vast majority of elected officials in the United States place their hands on a Bible as they take the oath of office. This years congressional class made headlines with its unusually diverse selection of swearing-in materials, including a law book, a Buddhist text called the Sutra of Golden Light, and the Quran.* But while lawmakers are free to choose any text that is meaningful to them, few have had the courage to break tradition by choosing not just a different book than is generally expected, but many, many more books.

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By this measure, Ohios new governor, Mike DeWine, is a truly groundbreaking legislator. DeWine was sworn into office at 12:01 a.m. on Monday with not just one Bible, but nine. The brief ceremony took place at his home outside Dayton, and it was a family affair. His son, an Ohio Supreme Court justice, administered the oath. His granddaughter sang a hymn. And his wife, Fran, held the towering stack of Bibles for him while he took the oath. Lift with your legs, Fran.

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DeWine didnt pull this stunt merely to show off. (Anyway, Jesus was a big fan of conspicuous displays of piety.) The DeWines have said they will distribute seven of the Bibles to their children, which is nice. Each of the Bibles had a special family meaning, including one that belonged to Mike DeWines great-grandmother and a New Testament the family acquired years ago in Jerusalem. And to be fair, the mere fact that the DeWines own nine Bibles is not strange. The average American household has three Bibles, and its not at all uncommon for devout believers to own many more. What is unusual is putting them all in a teetering stack, forcing your wife to lift that stack as you are sworn into office, and then issuing a press release about it. In that context, this is a tremendous number of Bibles!

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Credit where its due: Swearing on a literal stack of Bibles is a next-level move for a politician. DeWine makes Donald Trump, who swore on two Bibles at his 2017 inauguration, look like an utter chump who is too poor to own nine Bibles and too weak to lift them. As one Twitter user put it, its the stuffing an entire eggplant down your leather pants of conservative political showmanship. And it seems to have paid off in publicity. The holy tower has been covered by the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Christian Post, and Fox News, among others.

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Who am I to question Mike DeWine, the governor of a large Midwestern state who also owns at least nine Bibles? Still, allow me to register some concerns. No one loves a slippery-slope argument as much a conservative, so I hope this warning is taken seriously: DeWines power move portends an arms race in civil-religious posturing that Im not sure were prepared for as a culture. Must true Americans soon fly nine American flags outside of their homes? At sporting events, will we stand for nine national anthems in a row?

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On the other hand, taking something good and making it so huge as to become grotesque and unwieldy is kind of Americas signature move. This is the land of not just the Big Gulp, but the 1.5-liter X-Treme Gulp. We brought you the six-blade razor, monster trucks, the Mall of America, and Lenny Kravitzs scarf. We have megachurches galore, a theme park with a life-size Noahs Ark, at least two 190-foot crosses, and the self-declared worlds largest Bible. In fact, the only thing more surprising than a nine-Bible swearing-in is that it took this long for someone to do it.
The week in which Britain descended into political chaos, with Parliament soundly rejecting Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal one day and declaring confidence in her leadership the next, feels like a good time to ask how the hell did we get into this mess? Enter Benedict Cumberbatch, baring several inches of forehead, to explain how and why Britain went mad in Brexit, a U.K.-U.S. co-production that airs on HBO this weekend.

Cumberbatch plays Dominic Cummings, the socially awkward political strategist who led the victorious Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum. A bridge-burner incapable of disguising the contempt he feels for career politicians, Cummings, who had thoroughly alienated the political establishment by the time he was tapped for the job, is brought on as an attack dog, willing to wage a no-holds-barred fight with no thought to potential post-referendum career consequences. In writer James Grahams telling, at least, it was the smartestand potentially most destructiveappointment in modern British politics.

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Graham and director Toby Haynes made a brilliant choice to focus on Cummings, whos an obscure figure even in Britain. Politically engaged viewers already familiar with the Brexit narrativethe people who would watch a movie like thisneed to see something they dont already know; otherwise its just a star-studded rehashing of overexposed news. In Grahams version of history, more recognizable figures like Nigel Farage (Paul Ryannot that one) and Boris Johnson (Richard Goulding) are reduced to pawns in Cummings political chess game.

Unlike dramatizations of global events that center on the formation of alliancesDavid Hares Stuff Happens, about George W. Bushs courtship of Tony Blair in the run-up to the Iraq war, or Peter Morgans The Deal, about the alleged agreement made between Blair and Gordon Brown for the leadership of the Labour PartyBrexit is about a political rupture. Or several. Given the mutual love affair between Farage and the mediathe former stockbroker was as much of a newspaper fixture as the racing results in the decade leading up to the referendumCummings knows that Farage and his UKIP colleagues will blow the immigration dog whistle that offends cosmopolitan elites but appeals to poor and xenophobic voters, and that those people will hear it. Cummings first task is to win the designation as the official leave campaign, sure in the knowledge that even without that imprimatur Farage will continue to spend millions of pounds of boorish Europhobe Arron Banks money to secure the easy Brexit votes. That would leave Cummings and co. free to spread a more palatable message and to direct their funds to a new kind of campaigning that focuses on algorithms and social media.

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The leave sides use of data and microtargetingCummings Vote Leave worked with AggregateIQ, while Banks and Farages Leave.EU used Cambridge Analyticais presented as ethically shady but tactically brilliant. The remain campaign, with its focus groups and traditional election tactics, was at a huge disadvantage; it didnt know that the 3 million potential voters Vote Leave targeted most precisely even existed.

The film doesnt ignore these data shenanigans, but Cumberbatchs Cummings is such a magisterial strategist it doesnt seem unthinkable that leave could have won without them. Although the word is never used, Cummings seems to be somewhere on the autism spectrum: Hes sensitive to noise, uncomfortable in large gatherings, and he often retreats to a supply closet where he does his best thinking (and delivers occasional Francis Urquhart/Frank Underwoodstyle direct-to-camera addresses). The leave campaigns smartest movesa battle bus festooned with the message, We send the EU 350 million a weeklets fund our NHS instead or adding the word back to the campaigns slogan Lets take back controlare framed as products of Cummings brilliant mind. The Vote Leave team was staffed by experienced hacks and had Cabinet ministers and MPs in its ranks, but in Brexit at least, Cummings is the lone provider of winning insights.

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He enrages the euroskeptic MPs who support Vote Leave, and thats fine with him. To them hes a showoff endangering a project theyve worked on for decades, but to him theyre a bunch of prima donnas who have nothing to show for all those years of labor. He manipulates Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, the best-known politicians associated with Vote Leave, placing them on his bus and imposing tight message control, also known as putting words in their mouths. Gove and Johnson arent universally lovedGove is considered diffident and flip-floppy, while Johnson often lapses into a buffoonish caricature of himselfbut both are canny former journalists respected for their intelligence. To British viewers at least, the message will be clear: Dominic Cummings is brash and unclubbable but absolutely diabolically brilliant.

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Will all these British political maneuverings be comprehensible to American viewers? Absolutely. The costuming helps. Boorish loadsamoney businessman Banks is the kind of guy who wears a polo shirt and shorts while everyone around him is dressed for a fancy affair. Farages suspenders and fat-knotted tie brand him as a man on the make, while Cummings habit of showing up for TV interviews with his sweater inside out shows him to be anything but.

Despite impending fatherhood, Cummings never seems to develop a taste for stability.

Change is exciting, he insists to the end. As his team celebrates when the referendum results are announced, he packs up his belongings and heads for home alone, having unleashed who knows what on the world. That hes carrying a box is one of the few heavy-handed symbols in 90 minutes of shocking but surprisingly entertaining political theater.
Student debt has obviously forced some number of young adults to either delay or give up on homeownership. But how many, exactly? A group of economists from the Federal Reserve Board have taken a stab at answering that question, and come up with a number that is noteworthy even if some might find it surprisingly low.

Between 2005 and 2014, the share of young adults who owned a house fell by almost 9 percentage points, more than double the drop seen among Americans overall. The Fed teams upcoming paper, summarized in a new research note, concludes that just 2 percentage points of that decline were due to rising student debt levelsmeaning that college loans locked somewhere over 400,000 individuals out of home ownership that year.

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Thats not a small number. But its a bit below what you might expect, given the generationally important role student debt has played in Millennials financial lives.

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The way the authors arrive at their conclusion is a bit complicated. Using credit and education data on Americans who were between the ages of 24 and 32 in 2005, they create a model estimating the impact of student debt on the probability that an individual would own a home.

They then estimate what the home ownership of young adults in 2005 would have been if they had the same student debt load as Millennials in 2014. The paper concludes that it would have been almost 2 percentage points lower.

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The authors note that there may be some limitations to their study. Their data, for instance, is based on young Americans in 2005 who were applying for mortgages in a much looser credit environment than exists today. Pretty much all you needed to get a home loan during the housing bubble was half a pulse and one good hand to sign the bank docs. Today, lenders are more careful, and its possible that just having student debt, or having a delinquency or default on your credit record, may be a much bigger hurdle to homeownership then it was 14 years ago. If so, the authors are likely underestimating how much growth of college debt has hampered the ability of people in their twenties and early thirties to buy houses.

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Its also worth being clear that Americans who have bachelors degrees are, overall, more likely to own a house than Americans who dont , whether or not they also have student debt. The issue is that college graduates without education loans are more likely to be homeowners than college graduates who are stuck paying off a stafford balance, as shown in this 2017 graph from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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So whats the take-away? If you read the Feds results very literally, they suggest that while student debt has been a drag on Millennials ability to start buying houses, its not even close to the main issue deterring them from getting a foothold in the real estate market. Read a bit more loosely, though, you could say that, even if you use some very conservative assumptions about how student debt affects the ability of todays young adults to get a mortgage, it still seems to be dragging down their homeownership rate. Either way you look at the results, they once again confirm that the price of education is costing a large group of young people the ability to start building wealth.
Every child deserves a fair and equal opportunity to excel in school. For parents, that means having the ability to choose a school best suited to their childs needs. Unfortunately, not all families have that choice.

For many families, the ability to choose the educational option that best fits their student is dependent on Iowas School Tuition Organization Tax Credit Program (STO). The STO Program awards grants to families who cannot afford non-public education without financial help. To date, the STO Program helps nearly 11,000 students each year attend schools they normally wouldnt be able to access. However, there is a cap on the STO tax credit. So, families are turned down each year, leaving children unable to receive the education they deserve.

Expanding the STO Programs cap will give thousands of families access to financial support and the ability to choose the best educational option for their child. I urge everyone to reach out to your legislator and ask for their support in expanding the STO Program in Iowa.

Parents and school supporters in Northwest Iowa and throughout the state should want the best for all students, regardless of whether parents choose public or non-public schools. All students and parents should be treated alike where the law now permits, and new laws should work toward that end. The fair financial treatment of non-public students is long overdue. Expanding the STO Program would be a step in the right direction. In 2019, legislators can make this happen. - Marion Van Soelen, Hull, Iowa

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Farmers who have loan deadlines during the lapse do not need to make payments until the shutdown ends, according to the USDA.

Kennedy, a corn and bean farmer from Yarmouth, receives a check every time he sells grain that has to be signed by a USDA employee before he is able to take it to the bank. He got the check Jan. 2, but just Thursday got it signed by Garry Movall, farm loan manager at the Henry County Farm Service Agency.

My banker knows whats going on, Kennedy said.

Kennedy is a part of the Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Loans program, which helped him buy the 40 acres he farms today and helps strengthen his operations.

Kennedy said he is more for Trumps reason for the government shutdown  to secure $5.7 billion for a border wall  than against it.

Keith Koresko agrees.

We need a wall. All those immigrants coming here, they want our jobs, Koresko said. I hope the shutdown will be worth it.

Koresko stopped by the office to make a payment on his loan, which he found he wasnt able to do with only the limited services available.
It took 14 months for the noose to show up.

Fourteen months where Marcus Boyd says he endured racist comments, slights, even threats in a hostile workplace run by General Motors.

A workplace where people declared bathrooms were for "whites only," where black supervisors were denounced as "boy" and ignored by their subordinates, where black employees were called "monkey," or told to "go back to Africa."

A workplace where black employees were warned a white colleague's "daddy" was in the Ku Klux Klan. Where white workers wore shirts with Nazi symbols underneath their coveralls.

In Ohio.

In 2018.

All those allegations are detailed in a lawsuit filed against GM in which eight workers say managers at the Toledo Powertrain plant did little or nothing to stop racism.

For Boyd, it began on his first day. He said he could feel the glare from white team members as if they were saying, "Who's he to be in charge of them?"

All the other supervisors, who were white, received training before their jobs, Boyd said. Boyd, an experienced supervisor albeit in a different industry, was given a clipboard and told to start.

But if he wondered if he was making too much of that, the situation crystallized when some of his juniors ignored him, refused to follow his directions and called him the N-word, though he could never see exactly who said it.

When he reported the insubordination to upper management, he said he was told to deal with it himself, to counsel his workers who'd used the slur.

The message he said he took from his leaders at the plant: Be happy you're here. Deal with it.

But it got harder each day to ignore, he told CNN in an interview.

A white employee Boyd oversaw told him: "Back in the day, you would have been buried with a shovel."

In his role as supervisor, Boyd reported that, too. The worker was taken to a disciplinary hearing with a union official and business leader where he freely admitted what he had said, Boyd recalled. But then Boyd himself was pulled aside and advised to let the matter go if he wanted to get along at the plant, he said. No disciplinary action was taken, Boyd said.

Boyd and other workers of color learned there was a coded language to talk about them, according to the lawsuit. White employees kept calling them "Dan." They thought some people didn't respect them enough to learn their names. But other colleagues told them it was a slur, an acronym for "dumb ass nigger."

The N-word was a regular part of life at Toledo Powertrain, where components are made for various Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles, Boyd said. A white woman seen walking with him later found "Nigger lover" written on her pizza box.

When Boyd and others reported the abuse, their leadership told them to handle it themselves, he said.

Even more violent situations were brushed away. Boyd said he feared for his life when a member of his team, irate about a vacation request, yelled and raised a heavy, metal clutch assembly as if he was going hit him.

Boyd said he reported it. This time the offender was punished by losing one day's salary. "One day!" Boyd repeated, frustrated. For what felt like a direct threat to his life. One swing with that clutch could have been deadly, Boyd said. He said he believes there's a simple reason why.

"You have management people in high places, and union officials in high places, that work together to protect people ... that are white," Boyd said.

'Like being at war'

It got to the point where Boyd began asking God to protect him.

"I used to have to pray. Literally, 'Lord protect me,'" Boyd said.

"It was like being at war," he added.

He said he and another black supervisor, Derrick Brooks, who was a former Marine, treated their workplace almost like it was a battlefield. When they saw each other or checked in by phone, as they did every day, they would let the other know, "I got your six," the term soldiers use to say they have your back.

It was the kind of reassurance they felt they were not getting from GM management.

And then Brooks found a noose hanging in the area where he worked. As the only black employee in that space on his shift, he believed it was aimed to intimidate him.

It was a breaking point, the beginning of the end of his career -- and that of Boyd -- at GM. Not just because the noose had been hung. But because of how GM allegedly reacted.

GM: Every shift was trained

That first noose, and then a second, then third, fourth and fifth were all reported to GM, according to the lawsuit Boyd and eight other black employees have filed against the company for allowing an "underlying atmosphere of violent racial hate and bullying."

GM rejects that characterization.

The company declined to be interviewed but provided a statement that it held mandatory meetings and closed the plant for a day to have training for every shift.

"Every day, everyone at General Motors is expected to uphold a set of values that are integral to the fabric of our culture," GM said in the statement. "Discrimination and harassment are not acceptable and [are] in stark contrast to how we expect people to show up at work."

It continued: "We treat any reported incident with sensitivity and urgency, and are committed to providing an environment that is safe, open and inclusive. General Motors is taking this matter seriously and addressing it through the appropriate court process."

Boyd, Brooks and other black workers said initial meetings after the noose focused on violence, but not racial discrimination or intimidation.

GM, which declined to answer questions on the record after supplying the statement, placed an article about harassment in the employee magazine. The company replaced all ropes in the plant with yellow chains in an effort to stem the noose incidents.

But Boyd, Brooks and other black workers say that just removed an object, not the hatred.

The union at the plant also disagreed that any practices were discriminatory.

Dennis Earl, who was elected UAW local president in 2017, said: "Union people protect employees no matter what race, ethnicity."

Of Boyd's allegations, he said: "Punishments were equal across the board. If he feels management was being more lenient -- I don't see that. I've never seen that. It's pretty colorblind, if you ask me."

Earl, who is white, has worked for the plant for 34 years. He told CNN there could be "bad actors" like there can be anywhere, but there was no widespread intentional racism.

"Do I believe people are a little too sensitive these days? Absolutely," he said. "What passed 20 years ago doesn't pass today."

"You can't say the things you used to say off the cuff. It doesn't excuse it, but it's not racially motivated statements," he added.

"It's just bad judgment."

Great salary, but too high a cost

Brooks and Boyd both wanted to keep their supervisor jobs. They had worked hard to get these jobs, very good jobs with a six-figure salary, far higher than most in Toledo.

Brooks used his salary for his eight children and Boyd takes care of his mother, a double amputee.

Both felt they had an extra requirement to draw their paycheck, beyond the work they did -- be grateful, do not complain. "There's unwritten rules with regards to manufacturing plants and when it comes to management," Brooks said. "When it comes to us being black supervisors, you need to be more appreciative of the job title that you have and go along and do the job that we're asking you."

But the noose felt like a direct threat.

"How rough and tough can you be when you got 11 to 12 people who want to put a noose around your neck and hang you 'til you're dead?" Brooks asked.

As with Boyd's experiences, Brooks was told to investigate the incident himself, he said. One person told him in a blatant lie: "That's not a noose used for hanging, it's a noose maintenance operators use to tie off a line."

Brooks shook his head as he recalled the scene. "Being in the military I know plenty about knots," he said, "and I know there is no reason whatsoever to tie a knot like that other than to use it for hanging a person."

For Boyd, the noose was a threat filled with deeply racist roots, capping the fear he felt each of the previous shifts over 14 months in a workplace where he says racism was often ignored and allowed to thrive. "A noose just represented everything that happened to me every day before that."

And then two colleagues said they had heard alarming rumors and advised Boyd to get a gun, he said.

"There were eight white males that was supposedly plotting to sabotage and to follow me out," Boyd said.

It got to the point he was terrified. He feared that he'd be on the news after being found dead after an incident at the plant.

His mother urged him to quit the job, however much it paid. He left. So did Brooks.

Not just two men

It wasn't just Boyd and Brooks complaining. Another employee made a police report about the nooses and conversations about guns being brought to work. Others filed complaints with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.

The commission, which enforces state laws against discrimination, announced the findings of a nine-month investigation last March: GM did allow a racially hostile environment.

Darlene Sweeney-Newbern, the commission's director of regional operations, said racist behavior was so prevalent at Toledo Powertrain that she'd rank it among the worst cases her team has seen. Incidents continued while the commission was investigating, according to Sweeney-Newbern.

And she rejected GM's defense that it had taken appropriate action.

"GM did not deny that these things were taking place. They simply said, 'Hey as soon as we heard of these things we moved in and we took action.' That is not what we found in the investigation," she said.

One example came from a former union president's testimony, Sweeney-Newbern said, that at a meeting to address the placing of nooses a white supervisor bemoaned that "too big of a deal" was being made.

That supervisor went on to say, "There was never a black person who was lynched that didn't deserve it."

"That shows part of the culture problem at the plant," Sweeney-Newbern said.

"This is the individual that's going to go back and explain how wrong it is to the staff?" she exclaimed.

With no hope of change at the plant, Brooks took another job that paid a lot less. He is working on his Ph.D. Boyd is back in school with plans to go into a different industry.

Both say they can't believe that in this day and age they experienced the racism they did at work for one of the United States' oldest and most storied companies, still a key part of the economy at No. 10 on the Fortune 500 list.

And they hear it's continuing at the plant, which is why, they said, as part of their lawsuit they want the court to dictate procedures and policies to address incidents of harassment, as well as compensation for their suffering.

"There hasn't been anything put in place with regards to trying to deal with the issue," Brooks said. "They are not doing anything with regards to really getting into the crux of what the issue is."

GM has not identified who was responsible for hanging the nooses so no one has been fired for those incidents. However, a GM representative said there have been some people dismissed in Toledo during the entire process of extensive anti-discrimination, anti-harassment work, which is continuing across its plants with cooperation from the union.

Lawyers for the men suing GM say there continue to be hateful and racist remarks at the plant to this day, which they plan to include in the lawsuit.

On Wednesday, lawyers showed photos including one showing a message scrawled on a cart on the plant floor that says: "You only need to hang mean bastards, but mean bastards you need to hang."

GM said it is aware of the incidents and has retained a handwriting expert to analyze the graffiti, noting that the police are involved.

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Kathmandu, Nepal: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has assured that the government will bring out the facts by investigating over the issue of illegal money deposited in the Swiss banks.





Answering the questions raised by lawmakers on Friday, Prime Minister Oli said adding that Nepali nationals cannot stash away money in foreign banks.





As stashing away money in foreign banks is against the law of the country, the government will investigate to bring out the facts, Prime Minister Oli said in the parliament without elaborating about the timeframe.





The Center for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) had revealed that as many as 55 Nepali people have stashed away Rs 52,072,773,000 (52 billon, 72 million, 773 thousand) in Swiss banks.




WAKEFIELD, Neb. -- With nearly a quarter of students out sick with influenza, the Wakefield Community School district decided to cancel elementary school classes Thursday and Friday.

Wakefield Superintendent Mark Bejot said the high school remains open, though students there haven't been spared the flu bug either.

"We're seeing an increase of kids sick here too," Bejot said of the high school.

With around 83 students out sick -- around 24 percent of the student body -- along with five teachers, Bejot said it was best to cancel classes and have school staff disinfect the classrooms.

"We just felt like we needed to help create a break in the virus," he said.

The strain of flu seen in the school, Influenza A, lasts around 4 to 5 days, Bejot said, and he's hoping that by the end of the weekend most of the students and staff are feeling a little better.

"Everybody comes back Monday," he said.

Officials from the Nebraska Dept. of Health and Human Services told Bejot that Influenza A has been spreading around the state, and Wakefield isn't the only school in the state impacted by the bug.

According to a Nebraska DHHS flu report issued for the week ending Jan. 5, around 291 patients statewide had been hospitalized for the flu that week. The vast majority of reported flu cases the department has seen this season have been Influenza A.

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SIOUX CITY -- With less snow now forecast to arrive in the metro Friday, the city of Sioux City has canceled the previously set snow emergency.

On Thursday afternoon, Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott declared a snow emergency ahead of a storm that at the time was forecast to dump perhaps 4 to 7 inches of snow on the city Friday.

The snow emergency was to begin at 6 p.m. Friday, but a new early afternoon press release said it will not go into effect, given the lessened anticipated snow, as conditions shifted.

By 1 p.m., snow had not fallen in Sioux City. The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls forecast for the city now shows one inch of snow by 6 p.m., then perhaps another half-inch by midnight.

Areas to the north of the city, including Sioux, Lyon, Osceola and Dickinson counties, are included in a Winter Storm Warning. Those areas could receive up to four inches of snow by midnight, the NWS forecast says. Additionally, winds moving from 20 to 30 mph could make conditions poor for driving.
SIOUX CITY -- An updated forecast from the Sioux Falls National Weather Service says the snow should start flying in Sioux City sometime around 9 or 10 a.m., continuing throughout the day until sometime around midnight.

Total snow accumulation could be 1 to 3 inches, said Tim Masters, a technician with the Sioux Falls National Weather Service. Sioux City and all the counties around it remain in a Winter Weather Advisory through midnight.

Due to the chilly temperatures -- around 20 degrees Friday morning -- the snow is expected to be fairly dry and light. The wind will pick up later and could blow some snow around.

"It isn't a terribly windy storm, but we are looking for some afternoon and evening gusts of 20 to 25 miles per hour," Masters said.

After the snow is done blowing, Masters said temperatures could get very low over the weekend. Saturday morning, wind chill values could reach minus 14 degrees, and the Sunday morning wind chill could hit minus 10.

More weather information

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OMAHA, Neb. -- A Macy, Nebraska, man has been sentenced to 90 months in prison for assault and domestic violence.

According to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office, Roman Harlan, 34, received the prison sentence after a jury found him guilty Sept. 18 on assault, strangulation and domestic violence-related charges.

Evidence presented at trial established that Harlan punched his victim, T.M., in the face, held her down by pressing his knees into her shoulder and strangled her until she was unconscious at his Macy home on March 17. When the victim regained consciousness, Harlan was holding two knives to her throat. He threatened her life and that of her two-year-old child.

Harlan, a habitual domestic abuse offender, was previously sentenced to 51-months in prison for punching and kicking his partner, who was in a wheelchair.

There is no parole in the federal system. After Harlan's release from prison, he will begin a three-year term of supervised release.

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy denounced King's comments and said they "call into question whether he will treat all Americans equally, without regard for race and ethnicity."

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In a rare action, the House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a resolution of disapproval designed to rebuke King. The resolution called for the chamber to reject white nationalism and white supremacy as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States.

King has insisted the Times quote has been "completely mischaracterized." The outspoken conservative congressman said he was only wondering aloud: "How did that offensive language get injected into our political dialogue? Who does that, how does it get done, how do they get by with laying labels like this on people?"

Feenstra said the $100,000 haul shows "early financial strength" for his campaign.

"Since launching our campaign, the financial support and encouragement from conservatives across our district and the country has been overwhelming," he said.
SIOUX CITY -- A Holstein, Iowa, man has pleaded not guilty to charges of stealing a pickup truck from an auto dealership and firing a gun at one of its employees.

Ryan Ruble, 36, entered his written plea Thursday in Woodbury County District Court to single counts of first-degree robbery, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, going armed with intent and false imprisonment. His trial was scheduled for Feb. 19.

Police were summoned to Iowa Auto Sales, 804 S. Lewis Blvd., on Dec. 14, when an employee there told officers that Ruble had held him at gunpoint and demanded the keys and title for a pickup on the lot.

According to court documents, after the worker complied with Ruble's commands, he was forced at gunpoint to help move personal items from Ruble's vehicle into the pickup. The employee ran away and called 911 at a nearby business. When the employee came out, Ruble is charged with firing two shots at him with a handgun. The employee was not struck by the shots.

Ruble fled in the stolen pickup, court documents said, and police found him minutes later stuck in a snowbank behind Casey's General Store, 1132 N. Lewis Blvd. Police arrested Ruble and found a loaded handgun inside the pickup, court documents said.

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ONAWA, Iowa -- The lawyer for a Castana, Iowa, man charged with killing his grandmother has filed notice that she intends to use an insanity defense in the case.

Public defender Jennifer Solberg notified the court Thursday that Eliot Stowe will rely on an insanity defense on a charge of first-degree murder.

Stowe, 21, has pleaded not guilty in Monona County District Court to killing Cheryl Stowe at her home sometime from June 23-26.

In her one-page notice, Solberg said a report would be forwarded to the prosecution as soon as it is available. She listed the name of Richard Frederick, a well-known clinical psychologist from Springfield, Missouri, who has previously testified at other area murder trials.

Stowe is currently scheduled to stand trial Feb. 12, but Solberg on Monday filed a waiver of his right to a trial within 90 days of his charges being filed. The charging document had been filed on Dec. 2.

Cheryl Stowe's body was found wrapped in a rug in a well-hidden area near her rural Castana home on June 27, a day after co-workers had contacted authorities to check on her because she had not shown up for work.
LE MARS, Iowa -- The evidence was circumstantial and no motive was given during Thomas Bibler's trial, but a judge on Friday ruled that the Le Mars man fatally stabbed his sister.

"The court is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Thomas Bibler is the person who stabbed and caused the death of his sister, Shannon Bogh," District Judge Jeffrey Neary wrote in his verdict.

But rather than finding Bibler guilty of first-degree murder as charged, Neary ruled him guilty of second-degree murder. Neary said the defense had proven its claim that Bibler was involuntarily intoxicated, under the influence of a sleeping aid at the time of Bogh's death.

Though Neary said he believed that Bibler stabbed Bogh, his intoxication prevented him from forming the specific intent to commit the crime, one of the elements required by state law to prove first-degree murder. Neary found Bibler not guilty of willful injury and going armed with intent for the same reason. Specific intent is not an element needed to prove second-degree murder.
And for years the old grocery store site sat vacant and scarred by fire, an open wound plaguing this plucky small town.

"The previous owners had cleaned the damage, but much work had to be done," Sandy Castle said.

Speaking of plucky, that's a word that might describe these hardworking Castles. Either plucky, or downright adventurous. Matt and Sandy, both graduates of River Valley High School here, have never resided in a home more than five years. They've lived in Sioux City, Correctionville, and nearby Cushing, often buying a home, working to renovate it and then selling as they head to another residence. Along the way, they've welcomed four children into the world, kids Sandy educates at home while Matt toils as a draftsman and manager at Sabre Industries in Sioux City.

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The family spent one year residing in a camper as they moved back and forth between Woodbury County and suburban St. Louis, Missouri, where they worked to help a pair of churches that examined a merger. "We'd spend a month in St. Louis working and then a month up here, keeping up with our responsibility at Family Worship Center in Sioux City," Sandy said.
Guwahati: Patriotic Peoples Front Assam (PPFA) reiterates its appeal to the people of Assam and northeast India to hoist the National flag as in every localities a mark of tributes to the martyrs of our Freedom Struggle and also respect to the Indian constitution on the forthcoming Republic Day.

The forum pointed out that a number of martyrs from Assam including Kanaklata Barua, Mukunda Kakoti, Kushal Konwar, Tilak Deka, Bhogeswari Phukanani, Nidhanu Rajbangshi, Kamala Miri, Lerela Boro, Madan-Rauta, Hemoram Patar, Gunabhi Bordoloi, Dayal Panika with many others laid down their lives for the honour of the Tri-colour.

Prior to Indias independence, the freedom fighters symbolically set 26 January as our independence day and continued their struggles as well as sacrificed. Every Indian should pay homage to the martyrs of our freedom struggle on both Republic & Independence Day by hoisting the Tri-colour as it symbolises the suffering and sacrifices of our freedom fighters, it added.

PPFA maintained that without showing respects to those freedom fighters, one should not cry demanding various constitutional rights. Moreover, the forum clarified that the Tri-colour does not belong to the government machinery alone, but its a priceless property for over one billion Indians which reminds us our immediate glorious past.
Free Soup and Dessert Supper

First Christian Church, 2101 Jackson St., in Sioux City, welcomes neighbors and friends to its Annual Meet and Greet Homemade Soup and Dessert Supper from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday. Many wonderful soups, chilis, stews, pies, cakes and cookies. Free will offering accepted but not required.
Shop window of Dior on New Bond Street in Mayfair, London. (Photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

By Rachel Chang

(Bloomberg)  China has come down hard on its world-renowned counterfeit industry. Bazaars lined with fake watches, shoes and bags have been demolished in recent years. A new law effective Jan. 1 promises to slap online retailers with up to 2 million yuan ($296,000) in fines for bogus goods sold on their platforms.

But Chinese counterfeiters  still the most prolific in the world  have already reshaped their businesses by retreating to even more private spaces online. Many of the countrys best fakers are now hawking their wares via social messaging networks like Tencent Holdings Ltd.s WeChat. First they market their offerings at home and globally on platforms like Instagram or ByteDance Ltd.s Tik Tok. Buyers then order and pay through private messaging apps. Such transactions are arguably friend-to-friend and not e-commerce as defined by the new law.

These days a knock-off black Dior saddle bag can go for about $255 on a Chinese social media network. Thats one tenth the $3,250 price-tag on the real thing, but still pricier than the average high-street bag. It looks and feels real  a smooth, buttery leather with the heft of a true luxury bag. And it arrives in just a day or two, with what are purportedly Diors engraved box, red ribbon and certificate of authenticity.

The skill of the counterfeiters and their growing ability to leverage global social networks has left Beijing playing whack-a-mole as it attempts to stamp out fake luxury goods. Even as Chinas rich become ever more important to marquee fashion houses, the bulk of its consumers remain on the outside: Bombarded by marketing for items they can never afford, and hungry for more affordable knockoffs.

The income disparity across Chinas diverse population  coastal versus inland, urban elites versus migrant workers  means that lower-priced goods, including those accused of being fake, will unlikely lose their market in China any time soon, said Fan Yang, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, whos written a book on Chinese counterfeits.

Story continues

Chinas Ministry of Commerce, Dior, ByteDance and Tencent didnt respond to requests for comment. Instagram said it has systems in place to catch counterfeit content before a purchase is made, and that it has tools where buyers can report purchases they are unhappy with.

Trade War

The difficulties in stamping out counterfeiting in luxury goods shows the challenges Beijing faces in ongoing trade war negotiations as it attempts to assure the U.S. that it can address intellectual property theft  a key grievance of foreign companies.

The global trade in counterfeits will balloon to $991 billion by 2022 from $461 billion in 2013, according to research firm Frontier Economics, which includes luxury goods, consumer products and several other categories like pharmaceuticals. China and Hong Kong are by far the biggest source of exported counterfeits, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

On Instagram, counterfeiters often put up a picture of the bag they are hawking without specifying if it is fake or real. They include contact details for Chinese or international messaging services where buyers can follow up to actually make the purchase. The hashtag used is often that of a real brand  say a #Hermes or a #Birkin.

An Instagram spokesperson said the company uses sophisticated spam detection and blocking systems to fight counterfeiting, and has devoted more resources to the issue over the past year.

Luxury Demand

Chinese consumers account for a third of the $1 trillion in global luxury demand. In recent years, global brands have gone from being enraged at Chinese Internet platforms to being willing to working with them, especially as they rely on the portals to reach Chinas shoppers.

In 2015, Kering SA, which owns Gucci and Saint Laurent, sued Alibaba for counterfeits it said were being sold on Alibabas platform. Kering dropped the suit two years later for a joint taskforce to fight fakes with the Internet giant. Alibaba, meanwhile, says its made a serious effort to rid Taobao, its flagship e-commerce platform of fakes.

Complaints Portal

In 2017, Alibaba launched an Intellectual Property Protection platform where brands can file complaints and receive a response within 24 hours. Its also put resources into identifying and proactively taking down listings, a company spokesperson said.

Its now rare to find sellers openly hawking counterfeits on its platforms. But some may occasionally appear by listing unbranded bags and encouraging buyers to contact them privately to complete the transaction. Its Xianyu platform  a digital flea market where consumers can sell used goods  turns up scores of such listings.

Eugene Low, a Hong Kong-based partner at law firm Hogan Lovells, expects Chinas new legislation will further motivate e-commerce firms to step up their efforts. They wont want to be the first target of enforcement, he said.

Even so, the grey areas in the new legislation could leave counterfeiters continuing to exploit the loopholes. How the law would be enforced would be unclear at this time, said Pedro Yip, a partner at consultancy Oliver Wyman.

 2019 Bloomberg L.P
A Singaporean woman was found guilty Friday of abusing her Myanmar maid, including forcing her to pour hot water onto herself and to drink water laced with floor cleaner. The abuse of the maid, Phyu Phyu Mar, happened from August to October 2016 at the house of the Singaporean married couple who employed her, according to court documents. The abuses detailed in six charges against the wife -- Linda Seah -- include two instances when the maid was forced to pour hot water onto her left shoulder "to voluntarily cause hurt to herself". According to the Straits Times, Seah, 39, was unhappy with the maid as she felt she was slow in completing her chores. The maid suffered scald marks and blisters on her skin but instead of sending her to a doctor, Seah gave her a needle to poke the blisters herself, the newspaper said. Another charge said Seah told the maid to hurt herself "by knocking her head on the floor". Seah also forced the maid to drink "water adulterated with floor cleaner", according to another charge. In late September 2016, Seah abused the maid by grabbing her by the hair and "shaking her until quite a lot of her hair fell out", according to another charge. A month later, Seah repeatedly hit the maid on the forehead with a mobile phone. The woman's husband Lim Toon Leng, 44, faced one charge of punching the maid on the forehead. Court officials confirmed that the "accused persons were convicted of the charges" on Friday. Sentencing was set for February 11. Singapore is home to almost 250,000 maids -- mostly from Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar -- who head to the tiny but wealthy city-state to earn far higher salaries.
A rescue operation in the Russian Far East found the body of one pilot and rescued another after two fighter jets collided over the Sea of Japan during a training flight on Friday, Russian media reported. Russian news agencies quoted the ministry as saying that the body of one pilot was found "without any sign of life." The Russian Su-34 bombers touched in mid-air and fell into the sea near the Strait of Tartary, which separates Russia's Sakhalin island from the mainland, according to the country's Investigative Committee. The committee also said it had opened a criminal investigation into the case. The accident took place during a scheduled training exercise 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the shore in Russia's Far East, Russian news agencies reported citing the defence ministry. According to Russian media, the pilots were able to eject from their jets. Russia's television channel Zvezda, run by the defence ministry, earlier reported that one of the pilots was evacuated by air to the city of Khabarovsk. It cited a ministry source as saying that the pilot's health was "satisfactory". The number of missing pilots has not been confirmed. Russian media initially reported that two pilots had been rescued, but later cited authorities as saying that only one pilot had been found. According to Zvezda, an ongoing rescue operation continued in severe weather conditions on Friday involving six ships, three helicopters and three planes. Neither of the jets carried munitions.
TECUN UMAN, Jan 18: Almost 1,000 Central American migrants entered southern Mexico on Thursday in a test of the new governments pledge to manage an ongoing exodus fueled by violence and poverty that has strained relations with the Trump administration.

Mexicos National Migration Institute said 969 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua crossed into Ciudad Hidalgo just days after new U.S.-bound caravans of people set off from Central America.

Caravans from Central America have inflamed the debate over U.S. immigration policy, with U.S. President Donald Trump using the migrants to try to secure backing for his plan to build a border wall on the frontier with Mexico.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is pursuing a humanitarian approach to the problem, vowing to stem the flow of people by finding jobs for the migrants. In exchange, he wants Trump to help spur economic development in the region.

The U.S. government has been partially shut down for more than three weeks as Democrats resist Trumps demand that Congress provide $5.7 billion to fund his planned wall.

Mexican officials put wrist bands on the migrants as they entered the country to monitor the flow of people. The bands must be kept until the migrants register with authorities.

Once registered, migrants who met the requirements to stay would be issued humanitarian visas, allowing them to work in Mexico or continue to the U.S. border, said Ana Laura Martinez de Lara, director general of migratory control and verification.

Those who entered Mexico at the official border crossing had done so in a very orderly and respectful manner, in contrast to clashes that took place at the frontier in October when a larger caravan began crossing from Guatemala, she said.

Some of the migrants expected to stay in Mexico to find work but it was too early to say how many, she said.

Martinez de Lara said approximately 700 people were still waiting to cross into Mexico from Tecun Uman on the Guatemalan side of the border. She could not say if any people had tried to cross into Mexico illegally.

Mexicos government said Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard planned to meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo soon for talks on their efforts to address the migration challenge. No date was yet set for the talks, a ministry spokeswoman said.
Zimbabwe imposed a "total shutdown" of the internet on Friday, a major provider told customers, after protests early this week triggered a ruthless security crackdown. The internet had been partially restored after a first shutdown started on Tuesday. "We were served with another directive for total shutdown of the internet until further notice," Econet, the country's biggest provider, said in a text message on Friday. "Our lawyers advised we are required to comply with the directive pending the court decision on its legality. The earlier directive(s) are already the subject of pending high court application. "We sincerely apologise for all inconveniences caused by the acts of government." The EU on Thursday joined the US and Britain in criticising the authorities' response to the protests. "The escalation of violence in Zimbabwe over recent days has been aggravated by the disproportionate use of force by security personnel," European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said in a statement. "The shutdown of access to the internet should also be reversed." The US embassy in Harare it was "alarmed by credible reports that security forces are targeting and beating political activists and labor leaders". Nationwide demonstrations erupted on Monday after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced that fuel prices were being doubled in a country suffering regular shortages of fuel, food and medicine. Mnangagwa, who succeeded ousted authoritarian president Robert Mugabe in 2017, had promised a fresh start for Zimbabwe after decades of repression and economic decline. Trade unions called the national strike on Monday and the demonstrations took place in several cities with widespread rioting and looting. Security forces have made about 600 arrests. Police and soldiers have been accused of indiscriminately dragging people from their homes and beating them.
President Donald Trump will meet for the second time with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un around the end of February, the White House said Friday, after a top general from Pyongyang paid a rare visit to Washington. Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to the North Korean strongman, met the embattled president at the White House for an unusually long 90 minutes as the countries seek a denuclearization accord that could ease decades of hostility. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that Trump -- who has opined that he and Kim Jong Un fell "in love" after last year's landmark first summit -- would again meet the North Korean leader "near the end of February" at a location to be announced later. The flurry of diplomacy comes little more than a year after Trump was threatening to wipe North Korea off the map, with Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests rattling nerves in East Asia. Sanders praised North Korea's efforts to reconcile but ruled out, for now, a key demand of Pyongyang -- a lifting of sanctions. "The United States is going to continue to keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea until we see fully and verified denuclearization," Sanders told reporters. "We've had very good steps in good faith from the North Koreans in releasing the hostages and other moves and so we'll continue those conversations," she said. She was referring to Pyongyang's quick deportation last year of an American. In 2017, a US student returned home comatose from North Korea and died within days after what a US judge said was torture. - Results or photo-op? - Kim Jong Un and Trump first met in June in Singapore, where they signed a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work toward the "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula." But progress stalled soon afterward as Pyongyang and Washington -- which stations 28,500 troops in South Korea -- disagree over what that means. Critics say that the Singapore summit was little more than a photo-op. The second round with the young and elusive North Korean leader will again offer a change of headlines for Trump amid a barrage of scandalous allegations and a political deadlock that has shut down the US government. "Let's hope the second summit produces real results, but don't hold your breath as we wait for episode two of the Trump-Kim show," said Michael Fuchs, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress who worked closely with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Abe Denmark, director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said the Singapore summit had thrown into question the security of US allies with little in return. "With another summit in the making, I hope for tangible progress and fear for a repeat: little movement from Kim, major concessions from Trump," he said. But Trump has pointed to the halt in missile launches by North Korea and recently said there would have been "a nice big fat war in Asia" if it were not for his efforts. Kim Yong Chol is the first North Korean dignitary in nearly two decades to spend a night in Washington, staying at a fashionable hotel a short drive from the White House. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed Kim at the hotel, posing briefly for pictures near a shelf with a framed portrait of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., and later invited the delegation to lunch. The State Department said that Stephen Biegun, the US special representative on North Korea, would carry on discussions at a conference in Sweden starting on Saturday that will involve Pyongyang officials. - Vietnam ready to host - While no decision has been made on location, a Vietnamese government source told AFP that "logistical preparations" were under way to host the summit, most likely in the capital Hanoi or coastal city of Danang. Vietnam's cooperation with the United States has been growing for years as Hanoi -- much unlike Pyongyang -- sets aside memories of war. US-North Korea tensions began to abate a year ago with the encouragement of South Korea's dovish president, Moon Jae-in. Moon's office Saturday said the new summit could be a "turning point" in bringing peace to the Korean peninsula. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that the second summit should set a clear roadmap on how to scrap North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missiles. The Singapore summit marked the first-ever meeting between sitting leaders of the United States and North Korea, which never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War. The United States expects Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arsenal, doggedly built by the Kim dynasty despite sanctions and famines. Kim, whose family has ruled North Korea with an iron fist for three generations, is seeking guarantees of the regime's survival as well as relief from biting UN sanctions. North Korea sees the denuclearization goal more broadly, seeking an end to what it sees as US threats on the peninsula.
Singapore has chosen the F-35 warplane to replace its ageing fighter jets, opting for the US aircraft over European and Chinese models, the defence ministry said Friday. The affluent city-state, which has one of Asia's best equipped militaries, had earlier said it was evaluating Lockheed Martin's F-35 along with Europe's Eurofighter Typhoon and Chinese-made stealth warplanes. "The F-16s will have to retire soon after 2030 and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been identified as the most suitable replacement to maintain the RSAF's (Republic of Singapore Air Force) capabilities," the ministry of defence said in a statement. The ministry said the air force should first buy "a small number" of F-35s "for a full evaluation of their capabilities and suitability before deciding on a full fleet". Australia, Japan and South Korea are among countries in Asia-Pacific that have already acquired F-35s. It took Singapore more than five years to make a decision on which planes to buy as they had to look carefully at specifications and what was needed, said Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen in a Facebook post. "Our agencies will now have to speak to their US counterparts to move the process forward," Ng said, adding it could be up to a year before any planes are purchased. The F-16s are due to be taken out of service in around 10 years' time, meaning it was time to acquire their replacement and begin training pilots, he said. The F-35 is a supersonic plane whose advanced stealth characteristic allow pilots to avoid detection by radars, according to Lockheed Martin. Its advanced electronic warfare capabilities enable F-35 pilots to locate and track enemy forces, jam radars and disrupt attacks. The Singapore military also has F-15 fighter jets, Apache helicopters and submarines in its arsenal.
A former stalwart of Singapore's long-ruling government and ex-presidential candidate said Friday he is seeking to form a new party ahead of elections expected as early as this year. Analysts said the move by Tan Cheng Bock, who almost beat the ruling party's de facto candidate in the 2011 presidential race, could represent a challenge to the government's dominance of the political system. The People's Action Party (PAP) has ruled the affluent city-state since 1959 and has a tight grip on power. The forthcoming election, which they are widely expected to win, must be held by 2021 -- but speculation is mounting it will be this year. The move by former PAP lawmaker Tan will heap extra pressure on the government, however, with the poll coming at a sensitive time as the country's founding Lee family prepares to hand over the premiership to a new generation of leaders. Announcing he had applied Wednesday to register the new group, called the "Progress Singapore Party", Tan said the move was out of a "sense of duty" to address concerns of ordinary Singaporeans. He said 12 people had filed the application, including other former ruling party members. "Over the years a group of us have been walking the ground, meeting many Singaporeans from all walks of life," said the medical doctor, 78, in a statement. "We held group discussions and conversations with many, listening to their concerns, hearing their fears and feeling their pain." Lee Morgenbesser, a Southeast Asia expert from Griffith University in Australia, said the move was "significant, mainly because Tan Cheng Bock has been such an influential PAP figure". "It could provide a legitimate alternative to the PAP," he said, but cautioned this was unlikely to happen immediately. If approved, the party will join a handful of other opposition groups who have made little headway against the PAP. The Workers' Party is the only to hold any seats in parliament -- they have won six, compared to the ruling party's 82. Under the PAP, Singapore has become one of the world's wealthiest societies and the party still enjoys solid support. But critics accuse them of tactics such as gerrymandering and seeking to bankrupt opponents through civil lawsuits to maintain their hold on power.
Russia on Friday said it had agreed for France and Germany to monitor shipping traffic in the Kerch Strait following a naval confrontation between Moscow and Kiev last year. Russian ships fired on and seized three Ukrainian navy vessels in the narrow strait -- shared between Russia and Ukraine -- as the boats tried to pass from the Black Sea to the Azov Sea on November 25. President Vladimir Putin had "immediately agreed" to Berlin's request to send observers to the area, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference with his German counterpart Heiko Maas. Lavrov said German Chancellor Angela Merkel had asked Putin for permission to send German specialists to the strait "over a month ago" and later requested for French observers to join the mission. "This can be done today, tomorrow, at any moment," Lavrov said. Lavrov said he received concrete proposals for the mission from Maas on Friday and confirmed Moscow also agreed for the French observers to take part. Maas said that the two countries had not yet agreed on a start date to the mission but that he expected it to be a "topic in the coming weeks". The German diplomat added that the passage of ships in the Kerch Strait is "currently open" and that "this has been confirmed by all sides". He also called on Russia to release 24 Ukrainian sailors that were captured together with their vessels. Later on Friday Maas travelled to Kiev and discussed the monitoring mission with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin. "We, of course, welcome this initiative," Klimkin said in a press conference following the talks. But he also said Moscow "should not be given the possibility to manipulate the monitoring" and use it to "legitimise the occupation of Crimea". The November confrontation was the first open military incident between Kiev and Moscow since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula and a conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine. Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron raised their concerns with Putin over the tensions in the Kerch Strait at the G20 summit in Argentina last month. Germany and France are both members of the "Normandy Four" group with Moscow and Kiev, set up to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine. vl-apo-oc-dg/dcr
Myanmar's army said Friday it killed 13 ethnic Rakhine fighters in counterstrikes after the well-armed group carried out deadly attacks on police posts earlier this month. Rakhine state has seen new levels of violence in recent weeks between the Arakan Army (AA) -- insurgents fighting for greater autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists -- and security forces. Many of the battles are taking place in the same region from which more than 720,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh after August 2017 when the army launched a crackdown the UN deemed ethnic cleansing. The AA are a more formidable force than the fighters claiming to represent the Rohingya and have inflicted historically higher death tolls on the military. On January 4, also Myanmar's independence day, the AA launched pre-dawn raids that killed 13 police officers and wounded nine before the army stepped in, setting off violence that has displaced thousands. But the army hit back, killing the same number of AA rebels in total in operations from January 5-16. "We got 13 dead bodies of enemies and seized three weapons," Major General Tun Tun Nyi said in a rare press conference in the capital Naypyidaw. "Some officers and soldiers from our side were killed," he added, without releasing the figures. Myanmar's military almost never provides statistics on casualties suffered in fighting against the country's myriad ethnic armed groups. The army called a temporary ceasefire against different insurgents in northern Myanmar last month but Rakhine state was excluded from the move because of the AA and the Rohingya militant group, which is called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). The troubled state is a complex patchwork of Rakhine, Rohingya, and other ethnic minorities that intercommunal violence has largely driven apart. - 'Suffered enough' - The United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said that all the minority groups in Rakhine have "suffered enough" and urged the AA and the army to do more to protect civilians as the violence persists. She raised specific alarm over a decision by the Rakhine state government earlier this month to restrict humanitarian access to areas affected by the conflict. "I remind the government and the (army) that blocking humanitarian access is a serious violation of international humanitarian law," Lee said. Most of the Rohingya in the northern part of the state have been pushed into Bangladesh, where they refuse to return to Myanmar without guarantees of safety and citizenship. The UN has called for Myanmar's top generals to be investigated for genocide as a result of the operations in Rakhine but they reject the accusation. The fighting with AA rebels complicates an already fraught repatriation process for the Rohingya. Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun blamed the AA insurgents for the police post attacks earlier this month and accused them of "stabbing from the back".
FILE PHOTO: Los Angels public school teachers continue to deal with the rainy weather as their strike enters its third day in Gardena, California, U.S., January 16, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Negotiators for striking Los Angeles teachers and America's second-largest school district returned to the bargaining table on Thursday for the first time since talks collapsed last week, as a walkout by some 30,000 educators entered its fourth day.

In the first teachers' strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District in 30 years, members of the United Teachers Los Angeles union are seeking higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff, while denouncing their current working conditions as an "injustice."

"They are resolute on reaching an agreement," the union's president, Alex Caputo-Pearl, said at a news conference, referring to the union's bargaining team ahead of Thursday's talks.

School District Superintendent Austin Beutner has said the demands, if fully met, would place too great a strain on the district's budget.

The union is seeking a 6.5 percent pay raise. School district teacher pay currently averages $75,000, according to state figures. The district has offered a 6 percent hike with back pay.

A statement from the office of Mayor Eric Garcetti, who attended a teachers' rally earlier this week and has voiced strong support for their cause, said early Thursday afternoon that the bargaining teams "have returned to the table and negotiations have begun."

Garcetti, serving as a mediator in the renewed talks, met earlier in the day with Caputo-Pearl and Beutner at City Hall, his office said. It was not clear whether the mayor spoke with the two together or individually.

Union leaders said Garcetti had met with both parties on Wednesday, and that California's top education official, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, was also in contact with each side and had offered his support in efforts to reach a settlement.

Thurmond could play a key role in helping the district secure extra funds it may need to close a deal with the teachers.

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Negotiators for the district and the union last met face-to-face last Friday, when union leaders rejected the district's latest contract offer. The union disputes Beutner's assertions that the district lacks sufficient resources to accept teachers' demands.

Caputo-Pearl said on Wednesday that the union was "engaged" with Thurmond and California Governor Gavin Newsom to "try to push on the state as well for additional funding."

"The money's there. There's no doubt about it. California is the richest state in the country," he told reporters on Wednesday. "The money is there for kids."

The teachers, who have been without a contract for nearly a year, walked off the job on Monday. District officials have kept all 1,200 schools open on a limited basis with a skeleton staff of administrators and substitute teachers, but attendance has been running at roughly a third of normal.

Thousands of striking teachers fanned out across the sprawling school district for a series of rallies and picketing on Thursday, braving a fourth day of showers that did little to dampen their spirits.

"It's important that we show the example of what we can do and the power that we have as the people," high school music teacher Justin Polk said at the news conference alongside Caputo-Pearl. "Our strength comes in numbers."

Los Angeles' walkout follows a wave of teacher strikes last year across the United States over pay and school funding, including work stoppages in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Arizona.

In Denver, teachers could vote to strike by Saturday if no deal on a new contract is reached by then.

Beutner, a former publisher and investment banker, said the district had proposed staff increases that would cost $130 million a year - more than county officials have said is available - while the union's demands would cost $800 million.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis; additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Gina Cherelus in New York and Rich McKay in Atlanta; editing by Bernadette Baum and Jonathan Oatis)
Lebanon's foreign minister on Friday called for the Arab League to readmit Syria ahead of a regional economic summit in Beirut, more than seven years after it suspended Damascus' membership. "Syria is the most notable absentee at our conference, and we feel the weight of its absence," Gibran Bassil said. "Syria should be among us... without us having to wait for a permission for it to return," he added at a meeting with other ministers from Arab League nations. The Arab League suspended Syria in November 2011, as the death toll rose in the regime's brutal repression of anti-government protests. But in recent years, President Bashar al-Assad's forces have gained the military upper hand against rebels and jihadists, and efforts to bring his government back into the Arab fold appear underway. In December, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir made the first visit by any Arab leader to the Syrian capital since 2011, and the United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus after closing it in 2012. On Thursday, the head of the Arab League, Ahmed Abul Gheit, said member states have not reached a consensus on Syria's return to the 22-member bloc. "When there is an Arab consensus, and when we are sure there is no objection from one side or the other, it will be as simple as putting it on the agenda of a meeting" of Arab foreign ministers, he said. Syria's war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since it started with anti-government protests. Only the presidents of Somalia and Mauritania are expected to attend the Arab Economic Summit on Sunday. Lebanese newspapers ran despairing headlines on Friday. "The Beirut shock... a summit without heads of state," the country's oldest Arabic-language newspaper An-Nahar said. The conference is set to discuss the digital economy, as well as a long-suggested project for an Arab free trade zone. Lebanon also hopes to put forward an initiative calling on countries in the region to help spread the burden of 1.5 million refugees living on its soil.
Kathmandu, Nepal: A delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan is scheduled to visit Nepal from 22nd to 25th January, 2019 as an official visit. The delegation is headed by Mr. Takami Nakada, Deputy Director-General for International Affairs, Ministers Secretariat, MAFF. It is about 20 officials in total, officers from MAFF, Japanese experts and business persons.

The MAFF delegation is scheduled to meet concerned Ministers and business persons of Nepal, who will organize field visits of agriculture sites and facilities. They will also hold the Nepal-Japan Business Sharing and Networking Meeting 2019 on 24th January at Hotel Himalaya, Lalitpur.

The objectives of the visit are to explore the possibility of research cooperation to improve agricultural productivity of Nepal; to create higher value, quality and recognition for the regional food resources, and to improve the investment and business environment; and to contribute for the development of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and the food industry of Nepal, and to promote business expansion of Japanese agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and food industry to these sections in Nepal, states the press release issued by the Japanese embassy in Kathmandu.
The majority of miners who have been on strike in Romania since 11 January have agreed to go to back to work after winning wage rises, the country's energy ministry said on Thursday. The strike has sparked fears of power shortages after one of Romania's main electricity plants began shutting down on Thursday due to insufficient coal supplies. But workers in seven of the ten mines where wildcat strikes had been taking place "have agreed to return to work," the ministry said after negotiations. However, unions sounded a more cautious note about the agreement, which will see workers' net salaries -- on average 500 euros -- rise by 137 euros (585 lei) a month. The agreement also includes an annual holiday bonus of 300 euros. "Some of the miners are disappointed because they had asked for a raise of 220 euros a month," union official Nicu Bunoaica told AFP, emphasising that the deal still had to be scrutinised by workers at each of the ten mines. Around 7,000 miners in total have been on strike in the CEO Oltenia combine in the south of the country. As a result, the first of three units at one of Romania's main electricity plants was shut down overnight, operator Transelectrica said in a statement. To make up for possible shortages, Bucharest has increased electricity imports in recent days but at prices well above those of local power producers. Prime Minister Viorica Dancila had called the situation "very serious" while Energy Minister Anton Anton said the current strike had added to existing doubts about CEO Oltenia's profitability. "If work doesn't restart today (Thursday), it would be hard for me to say what the combine's future would be," Anton said. CEO Oltenia generates around 30 percent of Romania's electricity needs but ran up losses of around one billion lei (213 million euros) in 2018 as coal mining becomes less profitable. Romania, which joined the European Union in 2007, has promised Brussels it will gradually close its coal mines and turn to non-polluting sources of energy. But in recent years, Bucharest has asked to postpone the closures in order to limit lay-offs of miners.
MANILA, Philippines  The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Thursday (January 17) cautioned Filipinos in Tripoli in view of renewed armed encounter in the district of Qasir Ben Ghashir and the continuous buildup of military in the area.

In a report, the Philippine Embassy said there were at least six people already killed and 20 others wounded since the clashes began on Wednesday (January 16).

Charge dAffaires Mardomel Melicor urged Filipinos in Qasir Ben Ghashir as well as Wadi Al Rabea, Tariq Matar, Esbea and adjoining districts in Tripoli to move to safety and monitor the situations in their areas.

They are advised to stay indoors and avoid unnecessary travels and prepare for immediate evacuation should the fighting reaches their locations.

The Embassy calls on Filipinos to report to the hotline numbers +218 91 824 4208 for assistance.

There are some 1,800 Filipinos currently residing and working in Tripoli, according to the Embassy.  Marje Pelayo

The post DFA cautions Filipinos in Libya amid armed clashes appeared first on UNTV News.
By Helen Murphy

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's ELN rebel group was responsible for the car bomb attack against a police academy that killed at least 21 and injured dozens, the government said on Friday, making it unlikely peace talks with the insurgent group can soon restart.

In Thursday's attack, a car broke through checkpoints onto the grounds of the General Santander School in the capital Bogota before it detonated, shattering windows of apartments nearby. Defense Minister Guillermo Botero said the car was driven by ELN explosives expert Jose Aldemar Rojas.

"A terrorist act by the ELN took those lives," he told reporters in Bogota. At least 20 police cadets died in the blast, as did Rojas.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) has not claimed responsibility or issued a public statement.

Made up of some 2,000 fighters and considered a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, the ELN began peace talks with the government of former President Juan Manuel Santos in early 2017, but they have been put on hold by President Ivan Duque until the ELN frees its 17 hostages and stops attacks.

The car bombing - the worst in Colombia in almost 16 years - has heightened fears that a new wave of attacks could be launched in the Andean nation as a reaction to the right-wing president's stance.

Duque, who took office in August, has pledged to toughen offensives against the group and drug-trafficking crime gangs that kill and kidnap civilians.

The government in November asked Cuba - where talks were taking place - to capture ELN rebel commander Nicolas Rodriguez and provide information about the presence of other ELN commanders in Cuban territory.

It also asked Havana to act on an Interpol Red Notice on Rodriguez. The Cuban government has not responded publicly to the request.

Duque called the explosion a "crazy terrorist act" against unarmed cadets. It is the worst car bomb attack since the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) detonated a vehicle in Bogota's upmarket El Nogal social club in 2003, killing 36 and injuring more than 200.

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"We will not rest until we capture and bring to justice the terrorists involved," Duque said late Thursday. "I tell the criminals that social repudiation awaits them, the rejection of all Colombians and the international community."

He is expected to provide details on the future of peace talks later on Friday.

PLANNED ATTACK

The vehicle, a gray Nissan Patrol SUV, was carrying an estimated 80 kilograms (176 lb) of the high explosive pentolite, which has been used in the past by Colombian guerrillas, Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez said on Friday.

Botero said the car was registered in Rojas' name and that he was identified by his finger prints. He said investigators believe Rojas did not intend to carry out a suicide attack, and that the bomb may have been activated by a cellular phone by someone else.

Rojas, known by his war alias El Mocho or Kiko, had lost a hand in bomb-making activity and travelled frequently across the border to Venezuela, Botero said.

The attack was planned over about 10 months, he said.

Car bombs were frequently used in Colombia during decades of civil war between the government and various leftist rebel groups, as well as in violence involving the Medellin cartel led by the late drug lord Pablo Escobar.

The worst of the war, which killed some 260,000 and left millions displaced, ended when the government reached a peace agreement with the FARC in 2016.

The last major attack was in January 2018 when the ELN, the biggest rebel group that remains active, detonated a bomb in the northern port city of Barranquilla, killing five police officers and injuring dozens.

The ELN, founded by radical Catholic priests, has fought more than a dozen governments since it formed in 1964.

Following intercepted telephone calls, ELN rebel Ricardo Andres Carvajal was captured overnight, Martinez also said.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta and Helen Murphy; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Rosalba O'Brien)
The Colombian government on Friday blamed leftist ELN rebels for the car bomb that killed 21 people at a Bogota police cadet training academy. Defense Minister Guillermo Botero, speaking from the presidential palace, described the Thursday bombing as "a terrorist attack committed by the ELN." Peace talks with the National Liberation Army, Colombia's last major rebel group, broke down in August 2018. Botero said he had "full evidence" that the bomber -- earlier identified as Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, 56 -- has been a member of the ELN for more than 25 years. According to Botero, Rojas was known by his nickname "One-hand Kiko" for losing his left hand in a blast and was an intelligence chief in an ELN unit operating in the department of Arauca, on the border with Venezuela. "This was an operation that has been planned for the past 10 months," Botero said, stating that the guerrillas were the "intellectual authors" of the attack. Initially after the attack, authorities said they identified the bomber but that he had no known links to armed guerrilla groups.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Pacific charm offensive went off course on Friday when he was forced to defend Fiji's accusations of inaction over climate change. As Morrison pushed Canberra's message of a new Pacific focus with increased security and enhanced trade opportunities, he was called out by Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, who turned the spotlight onto climate change. Bainimarama said if Australia shifted away from its coal and mining industries it would help the survival of Pacific island countries threatened by rising sea levels. "From where we are sitting, we cannot imagine how the interests of any single industry can be placed above the welfare of Pacific peoples and vulnerable people in the world over," Bainimarama said in a speech late Thursday. "Rising seas threaten whole communities, forcing them to endure the trauma of relocating from land they've endured for generations. "Fijian farmers are watching their crops perish in soil that has been spoiled by the heightened salinity that is associated with sea level rise." Morrison, wrapping up a three-day visit to Fiji and Vanuatu, told reporters on Friday that Australia had commitments on emissions reductions in a "comprehensive response" to climate change, but he gave no specifics on clean energy plans. "Well, we are already pursuing those policies in a way that I believe is consistent with what (Bainimarama) is expecting of Australia," the prime minister said. "They were discussions we had yesterday, and we have been having very positive discussions about our future investments in this area." Morrison stressed the importance of the Pacific to Australia at a time China is increasing its presence in the region. He avoided any mention of China, but in a keynote speech in Suva he spoke of strengthening "defence and security co-operation" in the region. He also reaffirmed Canberra's commitment to extending trade opportunities in the Pacific, where Australia is often viewed as an unwelcome big brother. Australia has in the past been accused of paying little regard to the region, while China maintains it is promoting "peace, security and prosperity" and fostering "wide-ranging friendly and co-operative ties". On the first visit by an Australian leader to Vanuatu and Fiji, Morrison said he was turning his nation's attention to the Pacific where it "should always have been". He reiterated plans to establish five new diplomatic missions in the region and said Australia was also establishing an Office of the Pacific within the department of foreign affairs and trade "to give a loud and authoritative voice... following my commitments to step up our Pacific engagement." Fiji's relationship with China blossomed after Bainimarama seized power in a 2006 coup. While Beijing did not comment on Fiji's political upheaval, Australia was highly critical. However, relations between Canberra and Suva appeared to have normalised last August when Australia beat China for the right to redevelop Fiji's Blackrock Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Camp, which trains police and troops for missions. Fiji military chief of staff for co-ordination, Captain Eronia Duaibe, said Australia's bid was successful because they took a "holistic" approach to construction, rather than the "bits and pieces" tabled by China. Morrison said that once the facility is completed it "will provide an unprecedented level of assistance and safety to Fiji and the Pacific region".
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale on Friday said Canada won't be browbeaten by Beijing as it mulls whether or not to ban Huawei equipment from new telecommunication networks. His comments come after China's ambassador to Ottawa, Lu Shaye, on Thursday warned of "repercussions" if Canada joins intelligence-sharing allies in barring the Chinese telecom firm from its 5G cellular networks over security concerns. Ottawa and Beijing are locked in a diplomatic row that began in early December with the arrest in Canada of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou on US fraud charges related to alleged Iran sanctions violations. "We've made abundantly clear that we will not compromise national security. We will take the appropriate analysis and take the decision ultimately that we believe to be in Canada's interest," Goodale said, adding that Ottawa "will not be deterred" by China's threats over 5G. Fifth generation or 5G mobile networks promise a quantum leap in wireless communication speed, and will be key to developing the internet of things, including self-driving cars. Several countries have followed Washington's call for a Huawei ban, but the picture in Europe is more nuanced because Huawei's 5G capabilities are well ahead of Sweden's Ericsson, Finland's Nokia and South Korea's Samsung, analysts say. Goodale said Canada's evaluation of 5G continues. "We are examining the security issues as well as the technical issues with a great deal of care," he said. Goodale dismissed China's threat of retaliation, saying the same was made against Australia, for example, before it joined New Zealand and the United States in banning Huawei gear over its alleged links to Chinese intelligence services. Last month, Britain's largest mobile provider BT said it would remove existing Huawei equipment, leaving Canada the only country in the "Five Eyes" intelligence network not to take steps against the Chinese firm. Huawei's reclusive founder Ren Zhengfei stepped out of the shadows this week to give a rare media interview, forcefully denying accusations that his firm engaged in espionage on behalf of the Chinese government. The company also fired a Chinese employee arrested in Poland on espionage allegations. In October, Canada's spy agency urged top Canadian universities to be cautious about their extensive research relationships with Huawei. Oxford University in Britain this week said it has decided to forgo further funding from the firm. In a move observers see as retaliation for the Meng case, Chinese authorities detained two other Canadian citizens -- a former diplomat and a business consultant -- on suspicion of endangering national security. A third Canadian was sentenced to death on Monday for drug trafficking, increasing an earlier 15-year prison term.
Malaysian startups Glueck, AVANA, and Finology offer unique products that have reshaped the B2B ballgame

When it comes to tech innovations, the most popular and widely used productshardware, software, or digital platformsare those that are enjoyed largely by the general consumers.

Weve seen everything from ride hailing apps, to social media networks, to smarter personal devices, but what we are often clueless about are products that exist to improve other businesses.

What transpires in the business-to-business ecosystem, however, is unique and quite revolutionary.

From cloud and aggregator-type marketing platforms, which collate and synthesize sophisticated finance data, to facial analysis systems that extract and curate consumer insights, to social commerce enablers that help sellers unify online transactions in one easy-to-use platformtech startups catering to the business-to-business (B2B) ecosystem have upped the ante in the recent years.

We spoke to three top B2B-focussed tech startups in Malaysia to see the types of innovation they are spearheading, and how they are faring in the Malaysian digital ecosystem.

How Finology solves roadblocks in the finance sector

What started as a simple idea among the founding team in 2010 derived from the observation that information on banking products were lacking online, the team behind Finology decided to launch Loanstreet.com.my in 2012 as their first product.

At the time, Finology realised that banks needed support to help make the transition to a digital world and to market their services online. Loanstreet.com.my is a solution for Malaysians to compare and apply for housing loans.

This pioneer product is essentially a popular aggregator-type marketing platform for banks and insurers to market products online, and for consumers to discover, compare, apply for, or purchase them.

By 2015, Finology had expanded the parameters of their services with an end-to-end digital onboarding and instant loan approvals system called Loanplus: a cloud platform for property developers and real estate agents to pre-qualify their customers loan at the point of booking.

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Having partnered with 18 banks, Loanplus provides single point loan eligibility checking among the partner banks in less than 10 minutes, and can even handle tracking of loan application status.

It doesnt stop there. Under their consulting services, Finology also offers Fintech and Insurtech solutions through XpressCover



, a system that allows insurers to rapidly build, deploy, and widely distribute new insurance products with minimal programming interventions; and XpressLend



, an omni-channel loan originating system with instant approval capabilities for banks and alternate lenders.

The team at Finology takes time to study the issues and challenges of both consumers and clients and have a strong R&D where they can prototype, test and pilot solutions, said Pranjal Kamra, founder and CEO of Finology.

Kamra explained, more recently, with increased industry knowledge, the company has been able to spot opportunities and gaps in the market where they can provide transformative solutions and showcase them to prospective partners.

Currently, Finology has clients in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Middle East.

Sci-fi flicks turned into a groundbreaking startup idea

Steven Spielbergs 2002 sci-fi thriller Minority Report featured tech in the year 2054 that included a graphic processing unit (GPU) capable of processing and analysing images.

According to folks at Glueck, the Spielberg movie became one of their biggest inspirations for the facial analysis system they developed.

Named after Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, developers of the Social Prediction Tables, Glueck Tech has stayed true to its inspirations with its sophisticated computer vision, artificial intelligence, and deep machine learning algorithms, which help measure peoples interests and responses to stimuli in real-time environments.

They realised early on that the global Out of Home (OOH) advertisement industry lacked a comprehensive audience measurement tool, and 60% of customers have not completed an intended purchase caused by poor customer service experience. This translates to an estimated $83 billion in lost sales for retailers.

Their solution is simple: using face demographics and facial recognition with emotion analysis to perform analytics and extract insights for Indoor Out of Home advertisements for media clients, and customer experience analytics for retail chains, malls, service centres, and banks.

In the current market, the major players sell rate cards promoting that their sites generate high amounts of viewership to derive higher revenue, said Alberrt Alexander, co-founder and CEO of Glueck Tech.

Our technology provides an accurate audit of people count, dwell time, demographics, and sentiments. By leveraging on our technology, they can derive increased and sustained competitive advantage in OOH advertising, prevent revenues from stagnating, and increase and optimise inventory space, among many others, he said.

Helping sellers navigate through multiple platforms

A major hurdle faced by many online sellers using social media and chat platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is that its hard to keep track of all transactions transpiring across multiple channels at the same time.

This is especially true for Southeast Asia not only because of SME trends, but also because of buyer behaviour where purchases are often triggered in platforms frequented by potential customers.

To facilitate and make these transactions more seamless for both the buyer and the seller, AVANA has developed a platform for social commerce providing social sellers with an easy-to-use system to help them better manage their orders and inventory.

Also read: eCommerce: Revitalising conventional forms of trade in Malaysia

Essentially, their platform is a social commerce enabler which collates activity and transaction data for social sellers present in multiple social platforms so that they can manage their business in one unified interface.

AVANA is the brainchild of its two co-founders, Luqman Adris who was an aerospace engineer and self-taught programmer, and Soh Yien Yee who started an online community for online blogshops when she was still in university.

The two met while working together in a digital marketing agency, where they built enterprise software and managed social media campaigns for Malaysias major shopping malls.

At that time they realised that businesses of all sizes rely on social platforms but do not have enough insights to track ROIs. They also noted the rising number of small sellers using at least one social media channel for sales but who do not have the capital to invest in automation tools used by larger businesses.

We traded stories and decided to do something about this by developing a cost-efficient platform using our combined experience of software development for e-commerce and social platforms, said Soh, co-founder and CMO of AVANA.

How are these B2B game-changers able to fair in the Malaysian context?

Malaysias vibrant, dynamic economy owes much to its young, growing population. As such, its high rate of technology adoption among citizens vastly help businesses innovate.

For Gleuck, starting up in Malaysia is strategic because of the plethora of incentives designed to help grow the digital economy.

We were a recipient of a government grant in our early stages while MDEC on the other hand helped us gain exposure regionally in Southeast Asia , said Alexander.

Gleuckwhose business has accommodated customers from as far as Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, India, and Japancredits Malaysias good support through business matching and market expansion programmes such as exhibitions, business trips and accelerator programmes. This has helped connect Gleuck to various regional ecosystems.

On the other hand, Finology thinks that the startup ecosystem exists for those who have a steely determination to succeed. Malaysian tech entrepreneurs can get the support and resources that they need from both private and public institutions, but this needs absolute commitment and a rock-solid business model to acquire support and achieve ultimate success.

Also read: How Malaysia helps bolster the less glamourous side of tech

AVANAs experience with starting out in Malaysia only differs from Gleucks and Finologys in that it is largely defined by the advent of technology from the consumers perspective. Since the idea behind their product was derived from social commerce, which is a manifestation of consumer behaviour, they credit much of their success to Malaysias adoption of the B2B market.

AVANAs business operation has expanded to Indonesia and has provided solutions for customers in as far a Hong Kong and Taiwan. They believe Malaysias neutral market elements make it easier to scale regionally.

The Malaysian startup ecosystem is definitely more robust compared to maybe 5 years ago, with more access to assistance, mentors, VCs and also peers from Malaysia and also within the region. It is the perfect place for you to start and experiment with a startup, since it has most of the market elements that you would usually encounter when you start elsewhere in Southeast Asia, said Soh.

Where to go from here?

Gleuck believes that there is still a lack of sufficient financial support for the Malaysian startup ecosystem. Without local support in financing and market expansion help, startups may find it difficult to sustain their businesses.

On the other hand, Finology believes that Malaysian entrepreneurs are more adaptive, with Malaysia having the potential to produce more world beaters  if we can improve our ability to develop and attract talent.

Despite this, all three startups are fairly optimistic. AVANA believes that Malaysia is now reaping the rewards of its efforts to help grow the startup ecosystem, seeing that we have gained a lot of great, innovative startups largely because of those efforts. More importantly, better government support can only mean more quality startups.

The post In the business of improving other businesses: Malaysias game-changers in the B2B spectrum appeared first on e27.
FILE PHOTO: Flavio Bolsonaro, son of Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro is seen behind him at the transition government building in Brasilia, Brazil November 27, 2018. REUTERS/Adriano Machado/File Photo

By Ricardo Brito and Maria Carolina Marcello

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's supreme court on Thursday ordered Rio de Janeiro state prosecutors to temporarily suspend a probe into suspicious payments made by the former driver of President Jair Bolsonaro's son, whose lawyers requested the injunction.

According to a copy of the ruling by Supreme Court Justice Luiz Fux seen by Reuters, Flavio Bolsonaro's lawyers argued that, as a senator-elect, he now enjoys certain legal protections, including that any case involving him should only be decided by the top court.

The case has clouded the first few weeks in office of Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who surged to victory on a promise to end years of political graft, vowing zero tolerance on those close to him found to be corrupt.

It also gives ammunition to critics who note that Bolsonaro and his politician sons have all regularly railed against the immunity from prosecution that politicians enjoy and now invoked by Flavio.

The scandal arose after Brazil's Council for Financial Activities Control (COAF) identified 1.2 million reais ($305,000) that in 2016-17 flowed through the bank account of Fabricio Queiroz, a longtime driver to former state lawmaker Flavio. Some payments were made to the president's wife, Michelle Bolsonaro.

Flavio Bolsonaro, his father and Queiroz have all said they are innocent of any crime.

Critics were quick to slam the ruling.

"There is no way to agree with this decision, which contradicts the Supreme Court's own precedent," federal prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, who leads Brazil's "Car Wash" graft probe, wrote on Twitter.

Dallagnol added that he expected Fux's decision would soon be overturned by another Supreme Court justice.

NO-SHOWS

Flavio Bolsonaro and Queiroz have repeatedly failed to show up to explain the payments to state prosecutors, with Queiroz citing health problems.

Most recently, Flavio Bolsonaro said last week that he would not meet with prosecutors as planned because he had only been given a few days notice of the appointment. He promised to arrange a new time.

Story continues

"As I am not being investigated, I have not yet had access to the records," he wrote on Facebook at the time. "I hereby undertake to schedule a day and time to present the duly substantiated explanations ... so that there is no doubt about my conduct."

Jair Bolsonaro, who took power on Jan. 1, has said the payment to his wife was Queiroz repaying a personal loan.

Flavio Bolsonaro has said that Queiroz gave him a "plausible" explanation, and that the accusations were intended to destabilize the Bolsonaro family.

In a TV interview late last month, Queiroz said the money in his account was from a side-business of buying and selling cars.

"I'm a businessman," he said. "I make money."

According to COAF, some of the payments to Queiroz' bank account were made by other employees on Flavio Bolsonaro's payroll when he served as a state lawmaker, including by Queiroz's own daughter. Many of the deposits were made on or around the same day the employees were paid, COAF found.

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito and Maria Carolina Marcello; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Brad Brooks and Sonya Hepinstall)
Hundreds of Australians dressed in black gathered in Melbourne on the steps of Victorian state parliament late Friday for a silent vigil in memory of murdered Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe. The 21-year-old was killed on the way home from a comedy show in Melbourne just after midnight Tuesday. Her body was found in bushes near a tram stop by passers-by several hours later on Wednesday morning. "It's a sad reason that we are here today," one man attending the vigil told Channel Seven TV news. "To sit and stand in anger for what has happened." A woman holding back tears at the event said: "It's just so sad, she seemed like such a lovely girl." Attendees will later fill the 86 tram, which Maasarwe was believed to have ridden on her way home, with red roses that were reportedly her favourite flowers. Maasarwe's father Saeed, visited the crime scene Friday, where dozens of flowers and messages from the public have been left nearby in support. "I feel very very sad from one side, but from another side, when I get this support and this help -- from the people, from the community, from the police -- it makes the suffering to feel a little more better," he told reporters. "This is the last place my daughter was here, he added, breaking down in tears. "I want to be with her for more time, but someone decided I cannot be. Maasarwe was killed in a late-night attack while she was speaking on the phone with her sister. Police, who have described the attack as "horrific", arrested a 20-year-old man in the outer suburbs of Melbourne on Friday in connection to the murder. "Homicide Squad detectives have arrested a man as part of the ongoing investigation into the death of Aiia Maasarwe," Victoria Police said in a statement. Campaigners have called for an end to the "epidemic of violence against women" in the city. Some of the vigil organisers were the ones who had arranged a similar tribute for Eurydice Dixon, a 22-year-old local comedian who was killed in a Melbourne park last year as she was going home. "We're as angry as we were last time," organiser Jessamy Gleeson told Melbourne's Herald Sun on Friday, adding more needed to be done to keep women safe. "We shouldn't have these one-off vigils. There needs to be continued engagement and conversation about violence against women." Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison took to Twitter on Friday, calling the crime "an incredibly shocking, despicable and tragic attack". "My heart goes out to Aiia's family and friends and everyone whose life she touched."
Ex-employees of Russian bank receive 3 years in prison for $8.5 mln embezzlement

 RIA Novosti, Igor Zarembo

17:41 18/01/2019

MOSCOW, January 18 (RAPSI)  A court in Tyumen, a city in Western Siberia, has sentenced ex-several employees of the Siberian Bank for Reconstruction and Development to 3 years in prison each for embezzling more than 560 million rubles ($8.5 million) from the financial organization, the press service of Russias Prosecutor Generals Office reports Friday.

Moreover, the court has granted a lawsuit by the Deposit Insurance Agency, a representative of the bank, seeking to collect the stolen money from the defendants.

Investigators claimed that in January 2018, a co-owner and a board chairman of one of the banks along with an acquaintance organized a criminal group to embezzle funds. The gang included residents of St. Petersburg, Orenburg and a woman from Irkutsk, who was appointed as a deputy chair of the banks boards.

According to case papers, the chairman of the banks board and his deputy organized money crediting of a cash department and then the criminals stole over 560 million rubles from the bank safe.

Ex-head of the bank and his female accomplice were put on the international wanted list.




A 75-year-old passenger boarded a Ryanair flight to the wrong airport 1,864 miles away from his destination. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

A 75-year-old passenger found himself more than 1,000 miles away from his intended destination after he boarded the wrong flight.

Pawl Lawrenuik was attempting to return to his home in Gdansk, Poland after he visited family in the United Kingdom for the holidays. Lawrenuik boarded a Ryanair flight at Leeds Bradford Airport in England on Jan. 6, but instead of traveling miles home to Poland, Lawrenuik ended up on a plane headed to Malta.

His daughter, Lucyna Lawreniuk, told Bradford Telegraph & Argus, I double checked the ticket, printed it and it said Gdansk. There was a call to me, at work and I saw it was from Malta. I thought, Oh s**t, theres something wrong.'

She had dropped her father off at the airport with plenty of time, and he was allowed to board the incorrect flight.

The man didnt realize he was in the wrong destination until he attempted to get a taxi home. A driver at the Malta International Airport told him, I am sorry sir, but I dont speak Polish.

I cried, I was scared  he was in a different country a different place, his daughter said.

Thankfully, a tourist who spoke Polish was at the Malta airport and stepped up to help the man. Kamilla Nikolas, 35, overheard Lawrenuik trying to figure out why he couldnt get a taxi home when she heard staff say they didnt speak Polish, according to the Bradford Telegraph & Argus.

I went to find out what had happened and said I speak Polish. He looked very nervous, confused, and I asked what happened. It was hard to communicate with him because he was so confused, Nikolas said.

Lawreniuk was shocked to realize he was in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, but thankfully Nikolas was there to assist. She helped him book a flight from Malta to Gdansk later in the day. Lawreniuk was fortunate to be able to get home so quickly, as there are only two flights a week on that route.

The 75-year-old landed in his home country 14 hours after he left England.

Swissport, a handling agency for Ryanair at LBA, released in a statement: We are aware that a passenger was able to board an incorrect flight at Leeds Bradford Airport on Sunday 6 January.

Story continues

The passenger had undergone all airport security screening before boarding the flight and had a valid passport which had been checked.

We are investigating how this occurred and we are re-briefing all staff on procedure. We would like to apologize to Mr. Lawreniuk for the inconvenience caused.

Lucyna Lawreniuk told the Bradford Telegraph & Argus that her father doesnt want to visit her next year after the ordeal.

He doesnt want to fly anymore. Today I spoke with him about everything and hes had bad dreams  Im worried about him, but hopefully everything will be ok, she said. If someone didnt come forward, Im not sure what would have happened.

Nikolas said she was just glad she was was in the right place at the right time.

It must have been horrible  I just hope it will be an eye-opener, she told the Bradford Telegraph & Argus. Imagine if hed had a heart attack? It could have been a lot worse.



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April 5, 2018

A call for papers on "Lockett v. Ohio at 40"

I received via email and got authority to post this notice of an interesting call for papers on a particular (underappreciated?) Supreme Court capital case:

The Center for Constitutional Law at the University of Akron School of Law invites scholars, practitioners, and advocates to submit papers commemorating the United States Supreme Court decision in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978). Argued by the brilliant Prof. Anthony Amsterdam, the decision laid the framework for narrowing application of the death penalty. Lockett not only overturned Ohios 1974 era death penalty law, it heralded the significance and breadth of mitigating factors that must be considered by jurors and judges making the life or death decision in the penalty phase of capital cases, and tapped in to issues of disproportionate sentencing (those decided and yet to be). Papers reflecting on the decision and its progeny are invited for a written symposium in the Akron Law Reviews online journal ConLawNOW, to be submitted by August 20, 2018. All submissions are welcome. Papers may be in the form of essays of 10-15 pages, or more traditional law review format. To participate, please send a brief abstract of the proposed paper to Prof. Emerita Marge Koosed at mkoosed @ uakron.edu and Prof. Tracy Thomas, Seiberling Chair of Constitutional Law, at thomast @ uakron.edu. The University of Akron School of Law will host a program commemorating the Lockett decision, with Sandra Lockett Young in attendance, in October 2018. It is hoped that writers will be available to participate in this program by video conferencing.

April 5, 2018 at 09:17 PM | Permalink

Comments

Fractured judgement.

Posted by: Joe | Apr 6, 2018 10:21:47 AM

I have been a criminal defense investigator for the past 16 years and I am currently in law school at Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston, Texas. We just now reviewed her case and we are at odds how she was facing death, when Al Parker, co-defendant, was given a chance at life in exchange for what could be false testimony and leading Locket to death. Although I am not justifying all her alleged actions, I do not believe she deserved a death sentence. I am glad she is living and hope that she has shown the world that rehabilitation or re-integration into society is possible We would love her to visit our school.

Posted by: Mark Z. Escamilla | Jul 3, 2018 4:36:09 PM

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It was the majority of Republican senators who flipped on the sanctions, which the GOP strongly supported over Trumps objections in 2017. Daines votes in line with Trumps position 86.9 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight, a statistical blog. The congressional vote tracking website GovTrack.us, lists only 11 senators more conservative than Daines.

Daines had taken some heat on social media in July after traveling to Russia with seven other Republicans to meet with Russian officials ahead of a visit between President Trump and Putin. A member of the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee, Daines said at the time he wanted to assess Russian threats to U.S. national security.

Democrats called the trip an outrage and suggested that Daines was spending Independence Day on Russian soil. When the senator posted photos of himself celebrating the Fourth of July with fireworks in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Democrats accused him of posting fake photos.

Daines had flown back to the United States early and was in D.C. on Independence Day so he could fly with President Trump on Air Force One to Great Falls for a campaign rally July 5.
The net gunners are scheduled to return soon to the northern reaches of the Sapphire Mountains.

Researchers hope theyll be able to capture another 16 elk that will be fitted with GPS collars as part of a second phase of a research project thats already provided some valuable insight into lives of Bitterroot wapiti.

The first round began in 2014 with a similar helicopter-based elk capture operation that put GPS collars on elk from northern end of the Sapphire Mountains in the Miller Creek area south to the Burnt Fork Ranch east of Stevensville. The elk are captured with nets fired from the helicopters.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Bitterroot-based biologist Rebecca Mowry said the initial study focused on the migratory patterns of the elk herds and how the nutrition of different types of forage impacted those patterns, including enticing some animals to set up camp on irrigated farmland.

University of Montana graduate student Kristin Barkers thesis on the first study detailed a number of interesting findings, including that recently burned forests provided quality forage that was equivalent to irrigated agriculture.
I think the tradition started with left-over mashed potatoes from dinner, Pogachar said. Scandinavians dont waste anything so the next day they put the flour in and they roll them like tortillas. People with lefsa grills are purists  we dont make anything but lefsa on our grills  not grilled cheese, not pancakes, nothing.

Fridays process was that volunteers rolled thousands of perfectly even balls of dough, that were rolled flat with rolling pins that had lines, grids or stockings. These thin, textured disks were grilled to perfection on both sides then frozen for the dinner.

They are eaten with butter, cinnamon and sugar, jam, plain, or as fish tacos with the lutefisk.

Faith Lutheran Church has been without a pastor since May 1. The new pastor, Paul Anderson from south of Spokane, is coming and hopes to be in Hamilton for the dinner.

Pogachar said that with the lack of leadership, now is when the congregation needs to do this activity the most.

This is the fellowship right here, not the dinner, but being elbow to elbow with somebody is the fellowship, she said. It is a lot of fun and for new members of the church as it is a great way to get to know people.
The United States has been in a near-constant state of emergency for 40 years. Now, President Donald Trump is considering adding the southern border as another one.

The president has stated that he is considering invoking executive authority to resolve the government shutdown and secure funding for his border wall. "I may declare a national emergency dependent on what might happen to resolve the partial government shutdown," the president has said.

Politicians and experts from both sides have warned the president that they cannot support such a declaration. Constitutional experts have stated that while it's possible for the president to use some of his emergency powers to build a border wall, they agree it would be a violation of constitutional norms that most likely will be settled in court.

This is not the first time a president has contemplated such authority. A vast set of laws gives the president greatly enhanced powers during declared emergencies. These include 136 statutory powers that run the gamut from the military to criminal law; 96 of these require only the president's signature.

Over the years, presidents have amassed many powers that come into effect during crisis.
New York Review of Books (February 7, 2019) is essential, indeed urgent reading. It is bone-chilling ... and a reminder why international criminal law needs to outlaw cultural genocide. See, for example, Lawrence Davidson, Cultural Genocide (Rutgers University Press, 2012), and the brief but compelling argument by Larry May that acts of cultural genocide should be included as punishable acts in international law in his invaluable study, Genocide: A Normative Account (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Here is the opening paragraph of the piece: James Millwards article, Reeducating Xinjiangs Muslims in the(February 7, 2019) is essential, indeed urgent reading. It is bone-chilling ... and a reminder why international criminal law needs to outlaw cultural genocide. See, for example, Lawrence Davidson,(Rutgers University Press, 2012), and the brief but compelling argument by Larry May that acts of cultural genocide should be included as punishable acts in international law in his invaluable study,(Cambridge University Press, 2010). Here is the opening paragraph of the piece:

In a courtroom in Zharkent, Kazakhstan, in July 2018, a former kindergarten principal named Sayragul Sauytbay calmly described what Chinese officials continue to deny: a vast new gulag of de-extremification training centers has been created for Turkic Muslim inhabitants of Xinjiang, the Alaska-sized region in western China. Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh, had fled Xinjiang and was seeking asylum in Kazakhstan, where her husband and son are citizens. She told the court how she had been transferred the previous November from her school to a new job teaching Kazakh detainees in a supposed training center. They call it a political camp but in reality its a prison in the mountains, she said. There were 2,500 inmates in the facility where she had worked for four months, and she knew of others. There may now be as many as 1,200 such camps in Xinjiang, imprisoning up to a million people, including Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and especially Uighurs, who make up around 46 percent of Xinjiangs population.
S.D. legislators have spent precious time debating and passing legislation in support of building a wall on the Mexican border and commending our U.S. senators for voting for Brent Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. Seriously? This is what we pay you for?

Despite the inane law banning hemp oil, I order it and have it in my possession. I rub it on my mother's arthritic hands for which she is extremely grateful.

I want to thank the city for blacktopping the road and parking at the west side dog park. Its a relief not having to dodge potholes every time I go there.

To the U.S. senators who voted to ease the Russian sanctions, Mr. Putin appreciates your support.

The way the shutdown works is federal employees receive the pay they missed during the shutdown after it is over. It is not fair that Congress and other employees get paid on time but the others have to wait for the duration.

A civics class would teach young people their rights  the right to a free press, the right to speak out (speech), the right to petition the government to redress grievances (protest), the right choose their own religion. You aren't very patriotic if you only want Americans who believe the same as you to exercise these rights.

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If youre in need of an organ, South Dakota has you covered.

This past year, South Dakota received a Gold Award for achievement during the annual American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators conference for its success in signing residents up for organ donation during regular license transactions. In 2017, South Dakotans registered as a donor or maintained their donor status in 59 percent of transactions. In 2018, it was 61 percent.

Rebecca Ousley, spokeswoman for Lifesource  a nonprofit dedicated to saving lives through organ, eye and tissue donation in the Upper Midwest  credited much of the success to a change in state law in 2013 that simplified the process for licensing and signing up to be a donor.

We think it really increased the number of people that were able to document their decision, Ousley said.

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Previously, registration to become an organ donor required applicants to read multiple pages of information and sign their names in numerous locations within the document. The complexity unnecessarily discouraged people, Ousley believes.

All of those pieces, we think, it was just slowing people down, she said. Simplifying the process just opened the door for people and really led to an upswing.
A dry, mild weekend will follow Friday's snowy weather in western South Dakota, according to the National Weather Service's Rapid City office, but Monday could see a return of snow and rain.

The Rapid City area had received  to 1 inches of snow by 8 a.m. Friday, said Mitchell Erickson, a hydrometeorological technician. Heavier snow was recorded on the citys southern side.

The Northern Hills "really didn't get that much snow," with 3/10 inches recorded in Spearfish and 1/10 inches reported in Lead, Erickson said. He said the Southern Hills did not report snowfall.

The storm dropped 3 inches in Kadoka, the most recorded in West River South Dakota.

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Light snow was expected to continue through Friday night in the Rapid City area, Erickson said. Temperatures will be in the low teens with mostly cloudy skies.

The weekend will warm up with temperatures in the mid- to upper-30s on Saturday, and a high of 45 on Sunday, he said. No rain or snow is expected.

Monday will see a mix of light snow and rain with temperatures reaching the high 30s, Erickson said. There is a 50 percent chance of snow on Monday night.
A former doctor facing charges for sexually abusing Native American minors in Pine Ridge was sentenced Thursday in Montana to 18 years in prison for similar crimes against two boys on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

Stanley Patrick Weber, a 70-year-old former doctor with the Indian Health Service, was sentenced in the Grand Falls federal court by Judge Brian Morrison, court records show. Weber must also pay a $200,000 fine and submit to five years of supervised release once he is out of prison.

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He was sentenced after a jury found him guilty in September 2018 of attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, abusive sexual contact of a minor and two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child against two boys under his care while he was working for IHS in Browning between 1992-1995, records show. Jurors found him not guilty of attempted sexual abuse of a minor.

Weber's defense lawyer had asked for a 10-year sentence but the prosecutor said a harsher punishment is needed since Weber is a "serial predator," the Great Falls Tribune reported.
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The structure of Elevate Rapid City will have three main pillars, an economic development division, an innovation division and a small business development division. Lust said the work that the chamber does will fit in under the small business development pillar.

Lust said the two groups will work through accounting and legalities of the merger over the next two months before moving forward.

Chamber President Linda Rabe said a merger will have Elevate Rapid City overseeing the Economic Development Partnerships efforts to bring new businesses to the area and the Economic Development Foundations Ascent Innovation Center fostering startup businesses. The chamber will continue to support small businesses.

Thats what we would do, is just really focus on small business and make sure small business has a voice, Rabe said.

Once the details of a merger are worked out over the next two months, Rabe expects Elevate Rapid City, the RCEDP and RCEDF to work in the same space, possibly in the Chamber offices in the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.

I think the plan is everyone is under one roof, Rabe said.
"Brooklyn had other fractures, but (the doctors) said, 'Those are not our concern right now," Rhonda said. "She will have to get those fused later on down the road. Right now, the major issue is with the brain.'"

The struggle with Brooklyn Bender's fluctuating ICPs continued until Jan 2. when high brain pressures again required surgical intervention.

"The latest CT scan showed that a blood clot in her brain was larger," Rhonda said. "So they said, 'We need to go in there and get that out.'"

It was then that the surgeon discovered some of the brain tissue had died.

"Unfortunately, when they were in there, they took the blood clot, and the necrosis came out. That's dead brain material," Rhonda Bender said. "He said, 'It's the frontal cortex. It controls you memory, your thoughts, your moods and we just don't know at this point how much brain damage there is, but there is an increasing amount over the first CT scan. We don't know at this point if Brooklyn will ever be Brooklyn; it's too soon to tell.'"

Meanwhile, Brooklyn Bender's best friend, Keeley Vogt, was having a medical emergency involving her mother, Marcia Hanson, who was already struggling with serious liver problems.
Cameroon and Nigeria have begun seeking ways to collaborate in fighting corruption in both countries, according to officials of Cameroon's anti-graft body.



Officials of National Anti-Corruption Commission (CONAC) and Nigeria's anti-graft agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), met in the capital Yaounde on Wednesday to lay down the guidelines for the collaboration.



"Our coming here is to canvass for greater understanding in terms of relationship, exchange of ideas and information," Mohammed Abba Umar, EFCC's Director of Operations, told reporters.



"It (corruption) is not a problem of one country but all countries in Africa and we appreciate the cooperation between Cameroon and Nigeria," CONAC Chair, Dieudonne Massi Gams said.



Transfer of illicit funds within Cameroon-Nigeria borders is on the rise and there is an urgent need to track down the funds and arrest offenders, the officials said.



"The joint operations can help us to recover lot of looted funds" Umar said.



The collaboration is the first of its kind between the two countries.

Source: GNA









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Authorities are looking for an Iowa teenager who has been missing since Monday.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is assisting the Melcher-Dallas Police Department, the Marion County Sheriffs Office, and the Marion County Attorneys Office with the investigation.

On Monday, 14-year old Liberty Boley was reported missing to the Melcher-Dallas Police Department. Liberty, a freshman at Melcher-Dallas High School, has not been seen since.

She is described as being 5-feet, 7-inches with light brown hair, blue eyes, and wears glasses.

Liberty was last seen at Melcher-Dallas High School at about 2:30 p.m., wearing a black and white t-shirt, purple sweatshirt, black leggings, and brown Ugg boots. Liberty has medical conditions that require regimented medication and she may be without those medications.

Liberty is considered endangered and the publics assistance is requested in finding her.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Liberty Boley is asked to contact the Marion County Sheriffs Office at 641-828-2220.

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The TBK Sports Complex in Bettendorf is likely to get a few more restaurants or retail shops after the city council passed an initial rezoning request to allow more to come in.
The Scott County Sheriffs Office said this week the cause of a blaze that killed 59-year-old Cynthia Webb in her Blue Grass home in October has been ruled undetermined but accidental.

Deputy Ryan Strom, the lead investigator in the case, said there is just no way to determine the cause due to the extensive amount of damage caused by the fire, which completely destroyed the home.

Foul play has been ruled out and the case is now closed, Sheriff Tim Lane said Thursday.

Firefighters were dispatched to the fire at 13308 95th Ave., a one-story, single family home, at 6:08 p.m. Oct. 11.

Webbs body was found near a window in the master bedroom after the fire was out and firefighters were checking for hot spots, according to investigative reports.

Strom said investigators believe that the fire started in the bedroom because it was the most damaged area.

An autopsy performed two days later at University Hospitals at Iowa City determined that Webb died of fire-related injuries and smoke inhalation.

A toxicology report showed that she had nicotine in her system, as well as therapeutic levels of prescription medication.
 WHEN: From 3 p.m. to noon Saturday.

 ADDITIONAL DETAILS: Travel could be very difficult. Patchy blowing snow could significantly reduce visibility. The hazardous conditions could impact the evening commute.

 PRECAUTIONARY ACTIONS: A Winter Storm Warning for snow means severe winter weather conditions will make travel very hazardous or impossible. If you must travel, keep an extra flashlight, food and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency.

2. Today's forecast: Calm before the storm

It will be cloudy with a high near 25 degrees. There's a 30 percent chance of snow after 4 p.m.

Tonight it is snow and plenty of it after 7 p.m. The snow could be heavy at times with patchy blowing snow after 11 p.m. The chance of precipitation is 100 percent with new snow accumulation of around 5 inches. It will be blustery with a low around 19 degrees and northeast winds between 15 to 20 mph will gust as high as 30 mph.
Darrow said Thursday that he agrees demolition should be put on hold.

"Until they get the necessary permit, they shouldn't demolish the courthouse," Darrow said. "As I understand it, the city isn't going to issue a permit anyway. I would assume they can't proceed because they don't have a permit from the city of Rock Island. They won't get that permit until they get the permit from the state.

"It sounds like they are at a standstill," Darrow said. "I support (Landmarks Illinois) in what they are doing. Until the (commission) gets the permits, I don't think they should demolish the courthouse."

Public Building Commission Chairman Brent Ganahl could not be reached for comment.

Gilbane Building Co., project manager for the annex, submitted a permit request in December to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, notifying them of the stormwater runoff plan and stormwater pollution prevention plan for demolition of the courthouse.

Edward Cross, director of communications for Illinois Department of Natural Resources, said no decision has been made yet on granting a permit.

"We will continue to review this matter and work with the other state agencies involved with the hopes of having a decision in the near future," Cross said.
WOODHULL  The crash that hampered motorists Thursday morning on Interstate 74 involved three vehicles, injuring one of the drivers.

The collision happened about 9:30 a.m. in the westbound lanes about 5 miles south of Woodhull, the Illinois State Police said. It happened when a passenger car was attempting to change lanes and an SUV in front of it slowed because of mechanical problems, leading to the car rear-ending the SUV.

Drivers of the car and SUV both lost control of their vehicles and crossed into the median, the state police said. The car then caught fire.

The injured person was identified as Michael D. Hanson, 44, of Zearing, Iowa, the state police said. He was transported to Galesburg for treatment, but his injuries were not considered life threatening as of Thursday afternoon.

Hanson was driving the car, the state police said. The SUV was driven by Steven M. McGahey, of Gilson, Ill. His age was not provided.

A pickup truck, which the car was trying to pass when the crash occurred, attempted to avoid the collision and came to rest in the right ditch. The trucks driver was identified as Aaron Moore, 42, of Pekin.
Cadys only mention of the process during his speech Wednesday was in thanking those who serve on the judicial nominating commissions and Gov. Reynolds for their commitment to selecting the best people to serve as judges.

Iowa has a strong national reputation for fairness and impartiality, he said.

That didnt sound to Rep. Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, chairman of the Justice Systems Appropriations Subcommittee, like the chief justice was taking sides.

I would have been disappointed if he had brought it up, Worthan said. Knowing Chief Justice Cady, hes very cognizant of the separation of powers. Thats not within the courts purview. Thats within the Legislatures and the executive branchs purview as to what that process will be. He would be entering into a realm that they dont have a say.

Sen. Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids, the ranking Democrat on the Justice System subcommittee, heard the same speech and thought Cady handled it quite well.

He didnt address the judicial nominating process, but he did by pointing out we have a high-quality court system based on merit-based selection, said Hogg, a lawyer and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Businessman Nana Appiah Mensah is believed to have jumped his bail condition and relocated first to Nigeria through the Togo Border and then to South Africa where his family has already been since the news of the Menzgold scam broke.



Nana Appiah Mensah was first invited in October 2018 for questioning at the EOCO. Later on Wednesday, November 21, he was picked up by the Bureau of National Investigations where he was granted bail under certain conditions. Our source refused to disclose the full conditions. It is now believed that he has jumped bail and has not reported three times in a row while his phone and other forms of contacts are unreachable.



MyNewsGh.com is reliably informed government intends to use all available state resources at its disposal to ensure NAM 1 is brought to justice for duping unsuspecting Ghanaians. Another source at the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) with knowledge on the matter hinted this portal that NAM1 broke his bail about 8 days ago and a one-week ultimatum was given him.



After this, it is expected that the government will use whatever resources at its disposal to smoke him out from wherever he will be hiding in the world. Our source refused to state whether NAM 1s passport was actually seized or not.



While this news came to our attention about a week ago, our source warned against publication as it had a potential of causing Menzgold customers to react in a disturbing way following their notification of police of their protests in Kumasi, and in Tarkwa this week.



But influential Nephew of President Akufo-Addo active in government but without a portfolio, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has now confirmed for the public the news of the NAMs running away.



I understand the owner of Menzgold, Nana Appiah Mensah, has breached his bail condition and absconded. We cant allow those who allegedly dupe people with such impunity to get away with it that easily. He said.



Lets smoke them out, wherever they are, and throw the book at them! While I will not want a pesewa of my tax money to be involved with this Ponzi matter, I believe majority of Ghanaians will agree with me that the law must come down heavily on those who use such schemes to destroy the lives of many people. He added.



It is suspected that NAM 1 first moved to Nigeria via Togo with the help of some immigration officials and from Nigeria, he found his way back to South Africa where his wife and children are.



NAM1s mother, sister, wife and son



Currently, his mother and sister are in Ghana doing some asset recovery with some particular clients of Menzgold. They were last sighted at Nima Police Station where they had caused the arrest of one customer over breach of contract.



He has however moved his nuclear family out of Ghana for fear of their safety as MyNewsGh.com authoritatively reported.



Mr Appiah Mensah moved his son and wife, Roselyn out of Ghana to South Africa where he owns a stream of real estate.



His wifes fashion and jewellery shop, Rozys Collections in Accra has been closed and items emptied. Neighbours say the shop was emptied by a team who came around at night with 3 Tundras and one KIA pickup about two weeks ago to pack the shop wares.



His mother, Mrs Eva Brew and sister, Abigail Mensah who played prominent roles in the business are however in the country chasing their own debtors, MyNewsGh.com learnt. Nana Appiah Mensah is believed to have named Brew Marketing Ltd, where Menzgold customers bought their fake gold, after his mother, Mrs Eve Brew.

Source: mynewsgh









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Farmers were upset but understanding Thursday and Friday about FSA offices being affected by the federal government shutdown, office workers said.

The shutdown is in its fourth week.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced some Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices would reopen temporarily to provide limited services. Staff, who are working without pay, can help with farm loans and to provide 1099 tax documents to borrowers before the Internal Revenue Service deadline.

They were angry that were not open, but they understood, said Craig Thines, farm loan manager at the Jackson County FSA office in Maquoketa. He said the office had 20 to 25 customers over the two days.

Mostly, he said, he helped farmers finish up fiscal year 2018 or seal corn for 2018. Farmers obtain loans against their grain, then pay back operating costs for 2018. When the gran is sold, they pay back the FSA.

We cant help with fiscal year 2019, and cant seal grain for 2019, Thines said. Additionally, staff cannot help with other services such as conservation programs.
Handsome, friendly Rudolph, only a few months old, is enjoying a second chance at life.

Rudolph, a pit-bull mix who is six to eight months old, is waiting to be adopted from Kings Harvest Pet Rescue, Davenport, where he arrived after he survived a euthanasia attempt.

Rochelle Dougall, assistant director, said Rudolphs story is similar to that of other dogs transported to Kings Harvest from shelters in the south.

Kings Harvest received word about dogs at an Oklahoma shelter scheduled to be euthanized because the shelter was full. We got a call that one of them actually was already put down, and he survived, Dougall said.

The vet that injected him refused to do it again, considering that he had lived through it. He did live through it, thankfully, and with no medical conditions, Dougall said.

Rudolph has been in the shelter since Wednesday after the euthanasia attempt one or two weeks ago.

We work with different rescue groups in shelters in the south and they basically go around and pull dogs that are going to be put down within a week, Dougall said. They board them, vet them, and then they are able to transport them here to us.
A former Central DeWitt High School teacher has admitted she sent nude photos to a male student in 2016.

Ramsey Jayne Hinkle, 32, filed a written plea of guilty to sexual exploitation by a school employee, an aggravated misdemeanor, through attorney Timothy Tuppe in Clinton County Court.

The charge carries a possible sentence of up to two years in prison. She also is eligible for probation, a deferred judgement or suspended sentence under Iowa Code.

Per the plea agreement, prosecutors will dismiss a felony charge of sexual exploitation by a school employee when she is sentenced Feb. 7.

The plea is open, meaning that prosecutors can make any recommendation at sentencing.

The age of consent in Iowa is 16. However, it is illegal for a school employee to engage in sexual activity with a student, regardless of age.

In September 2016, school officials showed a DeWitt police officer school emails between Hinkle and the student they thought were suspicious. The emails were sent in November and December of 2015 when the student was 17, according to court documents.
"There is literally no place for individuals to go when they need help with vet bills," said Erin Granet, one of rescued's founders. "When we first planned this place, I went looking on the internet for any places that might already be doing it.

"I found one: 'No Fleas Market' in New Orleans. I contacted them, and they told me to be ready to be overwhelmed."

It was sound advice.

"We get requests for help pretty much every day," Granet said. "A majority of our calls at this point come from the vets' offices. They know what's legit. They know what the customer can handle, financially.

"At first, we donated a lot to shelters. But we discovered most of them have funding sources."

The shop works especially closely with Quad-City Animal Welfare Center in Milan, paying for a variety of services at a discounted rate. Some veterinarians offer discounted fees when rescued steps in, too, Granet said, but they don't all lower their prices for in-need customers.

"I gave up a career to do this, and I've learned to follow my gut," she said. "I trust my gut on everything. I think that's working. We paid about $30,000 in vet bills in 2017, and we more than doubled that in 2018."
Last May, Woodall also became Women Lead Change's new statewide events director.

Women Lead Change CEO Tiffany O'Donnell said Woodall was hired to oversee events across the state this upcoming season, beginning with the organization's leadership conference in Sioux City on Feb. 13.

She also would have overseen two upcoming events in the Quad-Cities. The second annual Quad-Cities leadership conference will be held March 7 at the Waterfront Convention Center in Bettendorf. The Athena and Male Champion of Change Awards Luncheon will be held April 4, also at the Waterfront Convention Center.

"Our attendees won't notice a difference. It just means our organization has had to shift some responsibilities in the short-term, as we look for an amazing Quad-Cities regional manager," O'Donnell said. "Our office remains the same on River Drive (in Davenport), and teams from across the state will work out of that office until we find somebody."

Along with Woodall, one intern has been working out of the Davenport office, she said.

Because Woodall has been filling two roles, O'Donnell said Women Lead Change had already been searching for a new staff member. Now the organization seeks to hire a regional manager for the Quad-Cities and a director of events.
The government shutdown is causing plenty of problems. The one that is worrying us at this hour is the chill its putting on the airline industry at a time when revenue was already cooling.

So far during this budget crisis, weve seen news stories about the devastating impact on the personal finances of federal employees and those who need government assistance.

Weve also seen the problems it is creating in national parks and in government services like food stamps.

As the shutdown lingers, it will touch all of us in some way, as corporations must wait on government agencies to do their work, and consumers forgo some basic government protections.

Ahead of the shutdown, airlines were heading into the sweet spot of the industrys normal economic cycle, that point where carriers add too many flights and passengers delight in a bonanza of travel discounts.

Dallas to Tulsa for $76, what a country!

And more capacity was in the works, with Southwest Airlines on the cusp of an industry-shaking plan to fly to Hawaii.
MOLINE  The fifth annual Radish Winter Wellness Festival will take place today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. inside SouthPark Mall, 4500 16th St., Moline, in the corridor in front of the former Younkers store.

The free event will feature dozens of exhibitors and vendors of local and natural foods; health, nutrition and fitness products; and wellness-related services.

Free demonstrations also will be available throughout the day, including a workshop at 11 a.m. with Natural Grocers on how to "Hack Your Coffee."

Radish is a monthly magazine dedicated to healthy living distributed by Lee Enterprises Inc. For more information, visit radishmagazine.com, or facebook.com/RadishMagazine.

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BLUE GRASS -- The Scott County Sheriffs Office said this week that the cause of a blaze that killed 59-year-old Cynthia Webb in her Blue Grass home in October has been ruled undetermined, but accidental.

Deputy Ryan Strom, the lead investigator in the case, said that there is just no way to determine the cause of the fire due to the extensive amount of damage caused by the fire, which completely destroyed the home.

Foul play has been ruled out and the case is now closed, Sheriff Tim Lane said Thursday.

Firefighters were dispatched to the fire at 13308 95th Ave., a one-story, single family home, at 6:08 p.m. Oct. 11.

Webbs body was found near a window in the master bedroom after the fire was out and firefighters were checking for hot spots, according to investigative reports.

Strom said investigators believe the fire started in the bedroom because it was the most damaged area.

An autopsy performed two days later at University Hospitals, Iowa City, determined that Webb died of fire-related injuries and smoke inhalation.
MOLINE  A man accused of threatening a woman with a gun in November in Moline has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to probation.

Freddie M. Bass, 19, Cordova, was arrested on Nov. 30 after it was reported a woman in a vehicle was threatened that morning by a man with a pistol in the 1900 block of 12th Street, Moline, according to authorities. Bass was subsequently charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.

Bass pleaded guilty to the charge on Jan. 11 and was sentenced at the same hearing to 24 months of probation and 180 days in the Rock Island County Jail, according to county court records. The jail sentence was stayed.

His plea was part of a deal with prosecutors, according to court records.

The incident happened near several schools and they were locked down briefly as a precaution while the report was investigated and Bass was arrested, according to the Moline police. Authorities do not believe there was any actual threat to the schools.

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HOOPPOLE  Each year, on Jan. 9, Karen Wolf can be found at an area police stations handing out treats and expressing thanks to officers.

Jan. 9 is Law Enforcement Appreciation Day. Wolf represents the Illinois Chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors.

She unwillingly became eligible to become a COPS member when, on Aug. 28, 2015, her son, Chad, was killed while working as a Michigan State Trooper. His father, Lyle Wolf, is a retired Illinois State Police trooper.

An Annawan High School graduate, Chad Wolf was killed when he and the motorcycle he was riding were struck by a trailer driven by a Michigan man on Interstate 75 northwest of Pontiac. The man was later acquitted.

Chad was on duty, and the man who hit him had just gotten his drivers license back, Karen Wolf said. Chad was dragged for four miles before he was stopped.

After Chad was killed, we were approached by Jennifer Morales, who organized the Illinois Chapter of COPS, to offer help, Karen Wolf said. She told us about what COPS stands for and how they could help with free counseling.

Morales husband, the late Marlon Morales, was a Washington, D.C., police officer fatally shot while on duty in 2001. Jennifer Morales now lives in Tampico.
President Akufo-Addo yesterday commissioned three new factories established by Unilever Ghana Limited.



The event, which took place in Tema, witnessed the commissioning of a Personal Care Dryer Plant, Biomass Boiler Plant and Oral Factory.



The Personal Care Dryer would be used in the drying of the soap mixture along the production chain while the new Biomass Plant, with an installed capacity to generate eight tons of steam per hour, is designed to use palm kernel shells as fuel for factory operations. The new oral factory will on-shore a reactive capacity of 40% oral volumes, especially for Pepsodent and Close-Up.



This is expected to wean Ghana off external supply sources.



Speaking at the event, President Akufo-Addo said: Our goal is to unleash innovative entrepreneurial instincts of the Ghanaian private sector to drive rapid growth and job creation.



He revealed that his administration was on course to realizing its goal of creating jobs.



The President expressed the belief that the three new factories of Unilever would not only increase the manufacturing capacity of the company but lead to the creation of more jobs in Ghana.



He lauded the companys decision to bring its operational capabilities to the country and continue to source raw materials locally.



He reiterated his commitment to improve the lives of shareholders, management and staff of Unilever and the people of Ghana in general.



My government will work to continue to create a stable macro economic framework and positive outlook for business; the days when economic indicators went haywire and through the roof are over.



Government has enacted a fiscal policy, which cuts fiscal deficit to a maximum of 5% and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 65%.



The President recently established the Presidential Fiscal Advisory Council and the Presidential Financial Stability Advisory Council to advise and assist him achieve such targets.



We are determined to provide stability to our economy to serve as a foundation with a sustainable and rapid growth with the aim of unlocking the full potential and the Ghanaian sense of enterprise to create jobs and prosperity for all Ghanaians and position the country as a preferred investment destination, he stated.



Managing Director of Unilever Ghana, Gladys Amoah, stressed that the company would not only manufacture products but embark on extensive programmes to improve the health, hygiene and wellbeing of their consumers.



This, she said, was part of reasons for launching the Hi-5 Hand Washing campaign, which teaches people to wash their hands at five critical times before breakfast, lunch, supper, after visiting the place of convenience and daily baths.

Source: Daily Guide









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About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile
(PRAGUE - January 18, 2019) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) this week is marking almost a decade of reporting serving as a powerful alternative to extremist propaganda in Pakistans remote and restive tribal regions along the Afghan border.

"A decade ago, the youths in Pakistans tribal areas were resorting to violence to demand their basic rights. Today, they are using democratic means to seek justice, said Amin Mudaqiq, director of Radio Mashaal, RFE/RLs Pashto-language service. Radio Mashaal is a voice of the people in their language in this region, and I believe we have played a role, he said.

RFE/RL launched Radio Mashaal in 2010 to engage audiences, primarily youth, which are targeted by the mullah radio of the Taliban and the recruitment efforts of militant groups that have had a monopoly on information in Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas, merged with Pakistans northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in May 2018.

Radio Mashaals impact is driven by its unique content and an aggressive digital strategy, which it adopted in response to the spread of mobile phones in the region and extremist content on social media. In 2018 it registered over 42 million engaged users on Facebook, almost 100 million video views on YouTube  10 times the number of views logged in 2017 - and 2 million followers on combined social media platforms.

Speaking recently on Radio Mashaal about its role, prominent womens rights activist Gulalai Ismail, a recipient of the 2017 Anna Politkovskaya Award and a leading global figure named by Foreign Policy in 2013, lauded it for creating awareness about women rights and providing a platform for the discussion of ordinary peoples problems in a region where media is otherwise not free to cover such issues.

Safdar Dawar, a senior journalist from the tribal areas and former president of the Tribal Journalists Union, recently told Mashaal, We have no TV channels, newspapers or other media outlets in the tribal region. With the emergence of Radio Mashaal  [p]eople got awareness and now demand not only the provision of basic needs but also the protection of their fundamental rights.

Such reporting is not without risks. Pakistans tribal areas are notoriously dangerous, and Mashaals reporting on local issues and human rights makes it a frequent target of militant groups, state security agencies, and criminal gangs. Taliban groups call us threatening to attack if we refuse their demands, and intelligence agency officials pressure our journalists, said Mudaqiq.

We resist these pressures, but we are always walking a tightrope to ensure we are balanced and to try and ensure the safety of our reporters.

Such pressures culminated on January 19 last year, when Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Agency ordered the closure of Radio Mashaals Islamabad bureau, claiming its programming is against the interest of Pakistan. RFE/RL has deplored the closure and called on authorities to ensure that its journalists be permitted to resume their work without fear.

Mashaals website has remained partially blocked in Pakistan since July 2018 in what may be an additional effort to suppress its reporting.

In their most recent surveys of press freedom, Freedom House designated Pakistan not free with a score of 141 out of 198 countries assessed. Reporters Without Borders ranked Pakistan 139 of 180 countries in its Press Freedom Index.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported a decline in fatal attacks against the media in Pakistan in 2018, but documented acts of intimidation and increased fear and censorship among journalists, adding that measures to stomp out terrorism in the country have gone hand-in-hand with increased pressure on the media to prevent critical reporting.

About RFE/RL

RFE/RL relies on its networks of local reporters to provide accurate news and information to over 34 million people in 26 languages and 22 countries where media freedom is restricted, or where a professional press has not fully developed. Its videos were viewed over 2.6 billion times on Facebook and YouTube in FY2018. RFE/RL is an editorially independent media company funded by a grant from the U.S. Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

----

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Joanna Levison in Prague (levisonj@rferl.org, +420.221.122.080)

Martins Zvaners in Washington (zvanersm@rferl.org, +1.202.457.6948)
Editor:

In these final hours, Christians and all people of good will must contact their state senators and representatives informing them to lobby against and veto the Reproductive Healthcare Act in Relation to Abortion Expansion (A.1748 Glick/S.2796 Krueger). If this act is passed, New York state will have the most liberal abortion laws in the country, expanding aspects of Roe v. Wade.

1. It will allow expansion of late term abortion, including partial birth abortion.

2. In addition to doctors, the bill would allow health care practitioners (some licensed, some simply certified or authorized) to perform both chemical and surgical abortions, both early and late term.

3. It could compel doctors, nurses, etc. to participate in abortions even though they may be morally opposed, ignoring freedom of conscience.

4. It jeopardizes live-born babies who have survived the procedure.

5. It will increase the states abortion rate, which is already the highest in the nation.

This legislation must be vigorously and strongly opposed.

Joseph Manerowski, Fort Edward

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Drain the swamp! was one of those memorable Donald Trump campaign promises that remains unfulfilled, much like Mexico will pay for the wall! and Repeal and replace Obamacare! with something terrific.

Unlike the latter two promises, theres little debate about the need to establish strong ethical standards for government. That makes Trumps failure to keep his swamp-draining pledge  highlighted by the Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday for a former coal industry lobbyist nominated to run the Environmental Protection Agency  all the more disturbing.

Nominee Andrew Wheeler became acting EPA administrator after his predecessor and former boss, Scott Pruitt, resigned in July amid a cloud of self-serving ethics scandals. Wheeler, 54, doesnt carry Pruitts ethical baggage, but he has devoted himself to a disciplined rollback of environmental safeguards.

Wheeler is one of 188 former lobbyists working in the administration, according to ProPublica, and a fox-guarding-the-hen-house example of someone regulating an industry that once paid him handsomely.
Pune-based dairy company Parag Milk Foods has launched its premium milk brand 'Pride of Cows' in South Delhi and National Capital Region. Gradually, they will expand to the entire state in the next couple of months.

To provide farm fresh experience, the company will airlift the milk from their dairy farm, in Manchar, near Pune and bring it to consumers in Delhi.

Devendra Shah, Chairman, Parag Milk Foods said the company will majorly focus on logistics and distribution and it will take between six to seven hours for milk to get delivered. The rationale of the move, he said, is to strengthen company's presence in North. "Delhi NCR is the largest milk market of the country valued at around Rs 11,000 crore."

Currently, they serve 25,000 households in Mumbai, Pune and Surat.

The USP of Pride of Cows is its direct farm-to-home milk concept, especially for consumers who want a healthy lifestyle, consuming natural and unadulterated products.

The milk will be sourced from the company's dairy farm Bhagyalaxmi Dairy, which has 3,000 Holstein Freisan cows. The company claims to be using technology for cow comfort and to ensure milk is packaged with zero human intervention.

"The Company's revenues from Pride of Cows has grown at a CAGR of 28 per cent over FY13-18 and it will continue to grow at this pace," said Shah at the launch.

The Rs 120 per litre milk brand is currently available only by a 'by-invitation' based model and consumers can subscribe to the premium milk on the Pride of Cows website and mobile app.

The company recently acquired Danone facility in Sonipat and commenced the operations with pouch milk supply under their Gowardhan brand.

Also Read: M&M to launch sub-compact XUV300 on February 14; check details

Also Read: Swiggy beats Zomato, FoodPanda! Top online food-tech company in consumer satisfaction
A big snowstorm is only part of the weather-related concerns for the Warren County Office of Emergency Services these days.

County Emergency Services Director Brian LaFlure said representatives of his office have been keeping an eye on the Hudson River, where ice jams caused major problems last January.

He said his office used aerial surveillance from drones to fly over the river between Stony Creek Ranch Resort and The Glen bridge to check the ice pack. What was found was ice accumulations that werent as significant as last year, but which could still be problematic.

Weve got quite a bit of accumulation, he said.

Ice jams last January caused major problems around the Route 418 bridge between Warrensburg and Thurman, closing the bridge for nearly two weeks. Numerous properties near the river were flooded, and roads damaged, when ice that was moving south got stuck upstream of the bridge. Part of Route 418 was washed out.

Stony Creek Ranch Resort and The Glen Bridge have also been areas where there are choke points on the river that have led to ice jam-related flooding. Flying over the river now allows LaFlures office to document ice levels and locations before snow falls.
State Police issued a warning Friday asking upstate residents to avoid traveling during the snowstorm that is expected to hit the region Saturday afternoon into Sunday night.

Up to 2 feet of snow is expected by Sunday night in parts of the region, with extreme cold and high winds to follow.

Those who have to travel should leave extra time for their trips, as travel will be slow and some roads impassible during the bulk of the storm late Saturday and early Sunday, State Police recommended.

Drivers should remember bridge and exit and entrance ramps can be icy when other road surfaces are not, police said. They also advised drivers to clean all snow and ice from the entire vehicle and ensure the windshield is clear of frost.

If you do become stranded, stay with your vehicle and in an emergency dial 911.

Use headlights at all times to increase your visibility to others. Remember, if your windshield wipers are in use due to weather, then your headlights must be on, police said.
They call them starving artists for a reason. Theres not a lot of money in it, he said.

The IDA can waive requirements about the number of jobs that have to be created for these projects.

OBrien also pointed out that restaurants tend to have a high turnover rate.

The IDAs executive committee said it would not give Nikas a 100 percent payment in lieu of taxes agreement for 10 years.

Board member Travis Whitehead worried about having such an abrupt end to the PILOT.

Wed be setting him up to fail is what wed be doing, he said.

The IDA board said it would be amenable to an agreement that starts with a 50 percent property tax exemption for five years, then declines to 25 percent for the next five.

The board wanted to see more information from Nikas, including a longer-term revenue projection.

OBrien said he did not want to put a damper on the project.

I want to see that building taken care of. I want to see that building improved, because Hudson Falls needs it. We want to make sure were doing right by the taxpayers, he said.
BALLSTON SPA  A two-time felon who was caught burglarizing a home last June pleaded guilty Thursday in Saratoga County Court to a felony charge.

Brian K. Deso Jr., 34, of Ridge Street, Glens Falls, pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary for a June 18 break-in at a home on Jamaica Road in Moreau.

Police said a resident of the home returned that morning to find a man rushing out a door, and officers found Deso walking a mile or so away and determined he was the thief. Money that had been stolen was recovered.

Deso, who was on parole for a burglary conviction in Washington County at the time of the arrest, faces a mandatory prison term when sentenced March 22 by Saratoga County Judge James Murphy. He may also have to serve additional prison time for the 2010 burglary conviction for which he was on parole.

His then-girlfriend, Karen M. Conley, 55, was charged with felony hindering prosecution for allegedly assisting Deso by sending him text messages while he tried to evade police, and she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor attempted hindering prosecution and was sentenced to a fine and state surcharges.

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Five years ago Friday, Jonathan Schaff walked east on Main Street away from a bar in the village of Granville, never to be seen again by friends and family.

The investigation that followed by numerous police agencies, prosecutors and volunteers has consumed thousands of hours. But on the fifth anniversary of his disappearance, police officers said the leads that could help them solve the case have slowed to a trickle.

Granville Police, New York State Police and Vermont State Police have worked jointly, at first believing that Schaff fell in the rain-swollen Mettawee River the day he disappeared.

But when no remains could be found, the case transitioned to a criminal investigation, headed by Vermont State Police because Schaff was last seen walking into Vermont. His cellphone was found in a parked truck at Loomis Trucking in Pawlet, Vermont, just east of the state line, during search efforts in the days after his disappearance.

Schaff, 23, was living in Fair Haven, Vermont, at the time of his disappearance, but he had lived in Granville and had extensive family ties there. He spent the hours before his disappearance drinking at The Riverside Pub in Granville, getting in a fight with another patron before he left. That patron has not been accused of involvement in his disappearance.
To keep growing, the company, which makes paper towels, tissues and napkins, must find a new generation of skilled laborers. Duell said some of the employees have been with the company a long time, with the average length of service among its workforce of about 16 years.

We have some people approaching 50 years at this site, he said.

But finding new employees is difficult, as few students pursue careers in manufacturing.

One of our biggest challenges is attracting skilled talent, Duell said Friday during a visit to the plant by new state Sen. Daphne Jordan, R-Halfmoon.

It was her first time visiting a company since she took office as the senator for the 43rd District, which covers all of Columbia County and portions of Saratoga, Rensselaer and Washington counties.

Duell said there are careers in manufacturing that do not require a four-year college degree. Essity tries to work with local high school guidance offices and community colleges to let them know about these opportunities. They also host tours of school and youth groups.

The company has about 317 employees at the South Glens Falls site and another 58 at a Greenwich plant and a distribution facility in Saratoga Springs, according to Duell.
SOUTH GLENS FALLS  Michael K. French, 63, passed away on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, after battling with a long illness.

At Mike's request, there will be no calling hours.

A graveside service will be conducted in the spring.

Memorial donations in Mike's name can be made to the SPCA of Upstate New York, 588 Queensbury Ave., Queensbury, NY 12804.

Arrangements are in the care of M.B. Kilmer Funeral Home, 136 Main St., South Glens Falls. To view Mike's full obituary, Book of Memories and post online condolences, please visit kilmerfuneralhome.com.
All of these issues affect participation rates at the polls, and they make the results of elections less reflective of the public will. Erecting barriers to voting only serves those in power and results in polices that are out of step with what citizens want from their government.
A modern grid inherently requires investments in technologies that are considered new and innovative  without a legacy of such investments we might still be burning kerosene to light our homes as investing in electric transmission infrastructure was expensive and uncertain when first constructed in the late 1800s. Present day innovations include the recent approval of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project (CVOW). Unfortunately, there have been some misguided claims made about the need and value of this project for Virginians. I think it is important to make clear what CVOW could mean for Virginia's economic and energy future and why it is a prudent investment of ratepayer dollars.
Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney D.J. Hansen, however, argued there was no evidence the hit-and-run was an act of violence or that Chen was aggressive with police. He also said the woman's statement was inconsistent with that of Penn  who said he never spoke with Chen  and the account she gave a Chesapeake police detective in recent months. At that time, she initially had no recollection of the crash  and even when some details came back to her, she didn't mention an argument, Hansen said.
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An Auburn University senior and a recent graduate have been named finalists for the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship to possibly pursue post-graduate studies at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.

Senior Mina Narayanan and 2017 graduate Josiah Brown will interview in Washington, D.C., Jan. 25-26 for 40 available scholarships. Narayanan and Brown are two of 90 students nationwideout of an applicant pool of nearly 1,000invited to interview.

Narayanan, from the city of Auburn, Alabama, is a senior in software engineering with a minor in political science. She is conducting research under the direction of Gerry Dozier, director of the Artificial Intelligence and Identity Research, or AI2R, Laboratory at Auburn, part of a seven-university team known as the Cyber Identity and Behavioral Analytics Research, or CIBAR. Her research seeks to develop automated systems that can identify malicious authors hiding behind multiple social media accounts.

Her achievements include being named a Goldwater Scholarship honorable mention; selected as the Outstanding Software Engineering Student; an intern at the Huntsville-based Dynetics Inc.; and a National Science Foundation undergraduate researcher in the School of Informatics at Indiana University. She serves as a Cupola Engineering Ambassador for Auburns Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, a student volunteer with Engineers without Borders and an IRS-certified SaveFirst Alabama tax assistance volunteer. She plans to pursue a masters degree in international relations and politics.

Brown, from Ashland City, Tennessee, graduated in 2017 and is an AmeriCorps architectural fellow in Lakeside, Montana, where he is part of a team assisting in the design and overseeing construction of a community center. His achievements include being Auburns first recipient of the Aydelott Travel Award and Prize, for which he traveled to Chile, Sri Lanka, Germany and Spain and participated in low-income housing design and construction. He also traveled to Turkey where he studied interior architecture at Istanbul Technical University, and to New Zealand as an exchange student at Unitec Institute of Technology where he studied utopian societies and affordable housing.

He served as a Freedom by Design team leader in Birmingham and he participated in two semesters as an intern in Auburns Rural Studio, followed by an internship with Urban Studio. He was a photographer for the Glomerata, Auburns yearbook, a photojournalist and facilities council member with the Student Government Association, an ambassador for the College of Architecture, Design and Construction and a mentor with ACE, the Architecture, Construction, Engineering Mentor Program of America.

It was a pleasure working with Mina and Josiah throughout the lengthy application process, said Paul Harris, professor and chair of Auburns Department of Political Science. They share a vision for life, what they intend to accomplish and how they want to make a positive difference in the lives of others. Our Auburn Family can take a great deal of pride in the young scholar-leaders they have become.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship was established in 2000 by a donation of $210 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the University of Cambridge. Scholarships are awarded to outstanding applicants from countries outside the UK to pursue a full-time postgraduate degree in any subject available at the University of Cambridge. The selection criteria include outstanding intellectual ability, leadership potential and a commitment to improving the lives of others.

Auburn has had three Gates-Cambridge Scholars since the programs inception: Cyndee Carver-DeKlotz in 2002, David Harris in 2011 and Paul Bergen in 2013.

For more information about national prestigious scholarships at Auburn, contact the Honors College at honors@auburn.edu.
Salvatore Robilotta said when he read Lawrence's Next-Door message, he wanted to help. So, the owner and chef of "Pasta e Pani by Salvatore" contacted her privately to see if they needed anything else. Robilotta is a native of Naples, Italy, and took over the established Italian eatery in Great Neck Village Shopping Center last summer. Lawrence told him they didn't have much clothing for the baby since he was so tiny.
Norment said he'd also like to see if existing law on protective orders could allow judges to order police to take weapons from someone the judge finds to be a risk. The current law doesn't specifically mention guns, but does allow "any other relief necessary" to prevent "violence, force, or threat" or crimes that could hurt people or property.
"We recognize a need in our community and we're stepping up to meet it," Sheriff Ken Stolle said in the release. "This is an opportunity for us to break bread together and, more importantly, help those in need who want to work, but can't, or are working without pay and are worried about feeding their families.
"The President's comment that lawmakers visiting Afghanistan is a 'public relations event' is an insult to the brave men and women serving in harm's way," Luria said. "As a 20-year Navy veteran, new member of the House Armed Services Committee, and new member of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, it is my duty to support our troops and learn everything I can about their mission."
Some Hampton Roads organizations and businesses are stepping up to help furloughed workers by starting fundraisers, collecting donations and offering to pay utility bills for families struggling to make ends meet.
"The call to arms today, I would say as we go into 2019 is please let us all be the type of women that we want to go to war with and not war against," said Nneka Chiazor, regional vice president of government and public affairs for Cox Communications, in welcoming remarks. "Let's be the type of women we want to uplift and not bring down."
"We are confident that we have the right assets, people and strategy to continue to transform our business while investing in world-class journalism," Knight said in a news release. "We also believe there are attractive consolidation opportunities within the media industry that will enable us to accelerate our strategy."
In this March 31, 2016 file photo, Tesla Motors unveils the new lower-priced Model 3 sedan at the Tesla Motors design studio in Hawthorne, Calif. Tesla, recognizing as imperative its ability to produce a cheaper electric car, told employees Friday, Jan. 18, 2019 that it must cut 7 percent of its workforce. Tesla's cheapest model right now is the $44,000 Model 3, and it needs to broaden its customer base to survive. (AP Photo/Justin Pritchard)

Tesla will cut 7 percent of its workforce as it tries to lower prices and break out of the niche-car market to produce an electric vehicle that more people can afford.

Tesla's cheapest model right now is the $44,000 Model 3, and it needs to broaden its customer base to survive.

"Looking ahead at our mission of accelerating the advent of sustainable transport and energy, which is important for all life on Earth, we face an extremely difficult challenge: making our cars, batteries and solar products cost-competitive with fossil fuels," CEO Elon Musk said in a letter to staff. "While we have made great progress, our products are still too expensive for most people."

Tesla had boosted its payroll significantly to meet production goals, but then cut its staff by 9 percent in June. The company delivered more than 245,000 electric cars and SUVs last year, nearly as many as all previous years combined. But it still fell far short of a goal set nearly three years ago of manufacturing 500,000 vehicles for the year.

Musk said in October that Tesla Inc., based in Palo Alto, California, had 45,000 employees. The 7 percent cut would mean that about 3,150 people will lose their jobs.

Tesla posted a $311 million quarterly profit in October, only its third profitable quarter in eight years as a public company.

Musk acknowledged that the profit was driven by its ability to sell higher priced vehicles in North America. Tesla dominates that market, but it wants to make electric vehicles for the masses.

And while preliminary numbers indicate another profitable quarter ahead, Musk said it appears to be a smaller.

Shares tumbled 11 percent Friday.

It has been Tesla's long-held goal to get a less-expensive, mid-range Tesla Model 3 on the road.

"Starting around May, we will need to deliver at least the mid-range Model 3 variant in all markets, as we need to reach more customers who can afford our vehicles," Musk said in the letter.

The key for Tesla is producing an entry-level car in the mid-$30,000 range, which would put it in direct competition with major automakers.

Even as Tesla struggles to produce a more mainstream vehicle, many industry analysts still see the company as the one to beat, even with the world's biggest automakers now fully engaged in the pursuit of an electric car.

In this Jan. 9, 2019, file photo, Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Electric car and solar panel maker Tesla said Friday, Jan. 18, 2019 it plans to cut its staff by about 7 percent. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool, File)

"While EV competition is accelerating, we believe Tesla continues to lead the industry as it moves Model 3 price point towards $35k while most competitors remain engaged in an EV negative margin sum game at higher price points," wrote Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois.

Yet producing a more affordable car has only grown more difficult.

The U.S. had put into place a $7,500 tax incentive for people to buy electric cars, but President Donald Trump and other Republicans consider the credit a waste of taxpayer money and want it eliminated. That incentive was reduced to $3,750 this month and it will be cut to nothing by the end of the year.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who introduced legislation in October to abolish the tax credit, said it would save about $20 billion over the next 10 years.

He has argued the market for electric vehicles is already established and "no longer needs the crutch of government assistance."

Gas prices, however, have been inching closer to $2 per gallon as oil prices fall, which makes the hurdle for electric car makers that much higher.

To counter the fading tax incentive, Tesla this month cut the price on each of its three models by $2,000.

Its shares tumbled.

"Tesla has only been producing cars for about a decade and we're up against massive, entrenched competitors," Musk said Friday.

The average price for a vehicle in the U.S. is around $37,000, and Musk set the goal of getting into that range early in his tenure, said Maryann Keller, a veteran auto analyst and principal at Maryann Keller and Associates.

"That's what the expectation is for people that were buying the Model 3, that it would be somewhere between $35-45,000," Keller said. "The only way he can get that price to that affordable level is by addressing the cost issues."

And Tesla has been doing so in a number of ways.

This week, Musk said Tesla is shutting down its customer referral program, which offered at least six months of free charging for a new car.

"As Tesla attempts to transition from a niche brand to a volume, mainstream automaker, it is facing the same hurdles every other established car company must clear, said Karl Brauer, executive publisher, Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. "First and foremost among those, a right-sized, efficient workforce that can produce vehicles at a consistent, sustainable profit."

 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Photo: Courtesy of William Arkin

Its not often that a TV news commentators resignation creates a stir. William Arkin, a military analyst at NBC News for 30 years, is a notable exception. In an impassioned open letter announcing his exit earlier this month, Arkin  a nuclear weapons expert, onetime soldier, and co-author of a groundbreaking Washington Post series about Americas national security bureaucracy  railed against reflexive jingoism on TV news, despaired of the Trump circus that dominates coverage, and disparaged top U.S. military brass  whom he calls frauds. Intelligencer spoke with Arkin about how Americas wars should be covered on television, and why he thinks President Trump doesnt get enough credit for his unorthodox foreign policy.

In your letter, you wrote that you had appreciated your time at the network, but that you think it has consistently glorified the idea of perpetual wars, privileged military expertise over civilians, and has not adequately reported the failures of American generals and national security leaders. In your view, what would a healthier approach to covering Americas foreign entanglements look like?

First of all, whatever it is that I diagnosed, whatever I observed at NBC, applies universally in the mainstream. We have to admit that. Its not like somehow MSNBC, because its quote the liberal network, has a set of liberal generals that it can employ, and Fox, being a conservative network, has a set of conservatives that it can employ. And yet they both do that. But we never are let in on the joke, which is: Do generals have partisan political views? Because if we start to believe that, the idea that expertise is driving what they say begins to fall apart.

Most insiders in the military would say that the proper role of the soldier is to be completely nonpartisan. That horse left the barn a long time ago, but were still left with the notion that somebody who formerly wore the uniform, or was an ambassador or an assistant secretary, is above partisanship, and that somehow we should be listening to them purely for their insight and expertise.

So thats problem number one. Problem number two is: Who are these people? They are the architects of the past 20 years of warfare, which has yielded, in my mind, no positive results. And yet were looking to them to offer their recommendations on what we should do in Syria or Afghanistan or Russia. And to tell you the Gods honest truth, I think I could go to any bar in New York City and line three people sitting up at the bar and probably, with the proper questioning, get just as intelligent answers.

This is all to say that that idiot Donald Trumps intuition is right: that Washington is the problem, that the swamp is for real, that there is a deep state.

The foreign policy blob, as Ben Rhodes would call it?

Yeah. But that perspective is a little too raw for the rarefied world of mainstream television, and so we tend to shy away from that. Now, thats not to say that the Glenn Greenwalds and Julian Assanges of the world have any more of the answer than the generals, but I believe they have a right to be heard.

The middle ground would be including true civilian experts and true analysis of reality. We can have the opportunity for General X to speak and for Glenn Greenwald to speak, but theres a voice in the middle thats factual and historic and uncompromising in its truth.

Im a little confused as to why the dynamic you describe is still the dominant one on a network like MSNBC. In the aftermath of 9/11, there was obviously a huge public appetite to prosecute the war or terrorism, get more involved in the Middle East without asking many questions, and so on. I dont feel like that appetite is there anymore. I dont think most Americans are enthusiastic about keeping troops in Afghanistan, for instance. But interventionism is still often the default position on TV. Why do you think it has such staying power?

What I said in my letter was that this is actually the product of what we do. If you do not make an intentional effort to have a diversity of voices, if you dont make the intentional effort to fill that panel with a range of views, then lets be honest about what the unintended consequences are.

The point Im making is I think that the voices become more and more limited, and more and more snappy. And if I say to somebody, Why dont we have more academics on the air, the answer is that theyre long-winded and they cant give good sound bites. And its like fuck you, you know? Then train them to be better on television. Dont just cut them out of the debate. What Im identifying is inadvertent result of television becoming so overproduced and expert and quick.

Im just not sure that at a time of prosperity for the mainstream media that anyone is sitting back and saying, What are we communicating and are we communicating it enough? Are we providing enough nourishment and are we doing our duty, our sacred duty to inform the public? I think the answer right now is a resounding no, and I think thats why my letter has gotten such a gratifying response and seems to have touched so many nerves.

We have this double problem that (a) the Trump circus is all that we talk about, and then (b) the voices that speak about the Trump circus are the same voices over and over again.

Its a problem across media, because its hard to separate the signal from the noise with Trump. And hes the president, so we do have to cover him 

But Id also like to see an equal number of stories about how powerless he is and how incompetent he is. Some of those stories should provide a little bit of comfort the American people and others around the world, that Trump is not going to blow up the planet, and that in fact hes a powerless phony. Yet if every day everyones hair is on fire, then that message doesnt get across.

Print media seems to be better at that aspect of things.

Well, I dont know. Ive worked at both the Washington Post and the New York Times, and friends there tell me that the phenomena, though not as extreme as it is on cable television, is the same. That is, if youre not in the Trump inner circle, reporting on the White House, then youre not in the inner circle of the newspaper anymore.

When I first started at the Post, the national security reporters reporting on actual military affairs were the elite. Now you couldnt probably even name me a Pentagon correspondent, Thats how invisible theyve become. We dont report on war. We report on Washington.

So I think that there has been a change. But really the thing that I think is most dangerous is what I refer to as inadvertent products. If the inadvertent product is that war is just perpetual and theres no solution for it; if the inadvertent product is that everything is a horse race, everything is a partisan issue, then the end result is a poor informing of the public and a kind of immobilization of power on the part of people in terms of their ability to influence things.

Has this all gotten worse in the last 30 years?

Oh, definitely. Yeah.

I mean, look, as I said in my own letter, Im an annoying guy. This is not the first time Ive left NBC. But I think that what has gotten worse is the rapidity with which response has to now take place.

If we recognize that 2000 was the beginning of the cable news hegemony, were now in the social-media hegemony, and its even more powerful than cable news. Cable news is barely keeping up with social media, and maybe something else will come to replace that as well. So there has been a change in the world, but I dont think its Trump. I think its social media.

You also wrote that NBC  and I think this applies to other networks  is wrong to automatically position itself against possibly sensible Trump initiatives, like the Syrian troop withdrawal or meeting with Kim Jong-un. But how much of the pushback is a result of anti-Trump animus and how much of it just makes sense, given the presidents consistently haphazard execution of these ideas? With North Korea, he hasnt really gotten any concessions out of Kim Jong-un, which is exactly what experts predicted. And the Syria withdrawal has been chaotic so far  hastily announced, and there are conflicting messages from all his advisers. Isnt it a fools errand to give him the benefit of the doubt on anything at this point?

Yes and no. Lets look at Korea specifically. I think youre absolutely wrong in saying that we got nothing out of Korea. There were nuclear tests held under the Obama administration. North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon under the Trump administration. The last long-range missile test was conducted in November 2017, so youre wrong. Somehow, either Trump scared the bejeesus out of the North Koreans through all of his pompous overstatement, or the North Koreans made the correct assessment that maybe this president could do anything and they backed away.

Okay, maybe not nothing. But there hasnt be a cessation of the nuclear buildup or the kind of thing that he was promising would happen under his 

You know what? If its either eight more years of what was achieved during the Obama administration, which was nothing  or an attempt at figuring out how we might slow the pace and even end the development of the nuclear arsenal on the part of North Korea, which by the way is in the interests of both South Korea and China, so let them take the lead  I think that what were incompetently and inattentively pursuing under Trump is better than the status quo. And I might even go one step further and say that President Hillary Clinton might have put us in a worse place.

On North Korea, you mean. Not generally.

On North Korea. But I would certainly think on Russia, too. I certainly think in Syria it could be the case. I also know that when Trump says get the U.S. forces out of Syria, it resonates with the American public, that theres a strain of both fatigue and strong isolationism in American society thats completely out of touch with what Washington believes.

Thats pretty clear at this point, I think.

Yeah. And so again, Im not necessarily arguing that Trump demands more favorable coverage or any of that. I mean, I called him an imbecile in my letter. He does not have the ability to implement anything. But I do at the same time think that when Mr. Magoo walks across the girder from one skyscraper to another we should at least recognize that he did it.

The quickness with which the elite is willing to dismiss him  and this covers a very broad political spectrum, from Rachel Maddow all the way to the weirdo Tony Shaffer at Fox News  I mean, they all agree. And when they all agree, that makes me really nervous.

You argued that the national security Establishment, which weve talked about quite a bit, has become even more impervious to criticism under Trump, But it does seem to me that there is a bit of a political shift happening. The Democratic Party isnt exactly revolutionary on this issue, but it does seem increasingly unafraid to criticize a lot of the facets of militaristic foreign and domestic policy, whether thats continued American support for Saudi Arabia, ICE tactics, or defense spending. Theres less need to be seen as tough by conservative voters than there was ten years ago. Do you see any hope in that trend?

Well, I think youre right. I would say lets give a little bit of credit to Donald Trump, at least when he was on the campaign trail.

Once again, were not giving him his due!

I mean, look, he called the military a bunch of incompetents, and then all of a sudden he became president and it was like my generals say 

Hes all over the place.

Yeah. So if hes an idiot, well accept that. But on the other hand, you know, as a Republican Party presidential candidate, he criticized the military and no one seemed to really question his patriotism. So that door was indeed opened.

But heres the problem with your characterization. When we criticize ICE, theres no name attached to it. When we criticize the Pentagon, theres no name attached to it. When we talk about the problems of Saudi Arabia, theres no real name attached to it. So what happens at the same time is that maybe weve made a little bit of sport out of our ability to take potshots at the national security Establishment, but we dont attach any names to it.

Ill give you a little anecdote. The week before Christmas, James Mattis resigned as secretary of Defense, and that morning I walked into the newsroom and very loudly said, Ill give $100 to anyone who can tell me one thing that James Mattis has done as secretary of Defense. And there was a sea of silence.

I think hes most famous for the things he prevented Trump from doing.

Okay. Thats the theory. Now lets unpack that, okay? So he should merely be known because he put his finger on the button so that Trump couldnt get there. And yet, who is he? What does he believe?

If I look at it, I say to myself, were in as bad a position as we are in all those countries as when Trump took office, and theres no real reason to believe that Mattis, with his experience fighting the first Iraq War and the second Iraq War, and Afghanistan, and being the commander-in-chief of the Central Command  that he did anything that ended a battle, started a battle, ended a war. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

These guys are frauds. They are very good at doing what they do, but they are not the civilian leaders we need, who have broader visions of whats required. Now let me make clear: I believe in a strong military. I believe that the military should be the military. And I believe that the military should be the military because I also believe in strong civilians.

I want the military populated with people like Curtis LeMay, who really want to destroy things. I dont want it populated with a bunch of guys who are so conversant in the ways of Washington that they can passive-aggressively defeat any attempts to change anything. Thats what happened in the Obama administration, by the way.

I want a strong military, and I want strong civilian leaders. If Im the president, I want to ask the general, What are the options?, and I hope to hell he says, Bomb the crap out of them. And I want to be able to go to a civilian who says, Yes, we can bomb the crap out of them, but heres the implications of it. And now the president has gotten both views.

But I think what happens instead is that the civilian and the military guys who sit at the table these days are just negotiating what the color of the bombs are. Theyre not really having the debate. I want to have the debate. So in order to have the debate, we need to have strong civilians in civilian roles. That means real civilians populating the office of the secretary of Defense, real civilians being the national security adviser, the Director of National Intelligence, et cetera.

Now, did Trump start this problem? Hell no. Who was Obamas director of National Intelligence? Admiral Blair. And who was Obamas national security adviser? Jim Jones, retired Marine Corps General. This did not start with Trump. But I think there has been a failure since 9/11, since the global war on terrorism, since perpetual war has become perpetual, that the civilian world of academic experts, of experts, et cetera, have either become so marginalized, that we dont have a true civilian perspective.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Matias Klein is a medical school dropout who is still out to save lives. Orlando "Jahlil Beats" Tucker is a hip-hop producer and songwriter trying to help breathe new life into his beleaguered Delaware County hometown of Chester.

Both are hoping a marriage gets them there.

That union is of two techie game-changersartificial intelligence (machines making decisions) and the Internet of Things (machines talking to each other) - at the core of Kognition, a Manayunk start-up Klein cofounded two years ago to protect lives and businesses not with stethoscopes, MRIs and blood tests, but with AI, facial-recognition software, and smart devices that are capable of many things, including locking doors (without human activation) if a shooter is detected in a school.

"I was always a computer geek," the 42-year-old son and brother of doctors said of his veering away from a career in medicine to one as a tech entrepreneur.

Launched commercially in August 2017, Kognition, its creators and other IT experts say, is unique from other security-oriented tech companies because its smart-property system is hardware-agnostic, meaning it can communicate with different types of systems without requiring special hardware adaptations.

Tucker, who, with partners Ra-Tah Johnson and David "Doobie" Elliott, are a development company doing business as Tandem Real Estate Holdings LLC, said Kognition will be integral to their plans for making a pocketat least for startersof Chester's largely desolate downtown known as Overtown a safe zone.

"If you want to have thriving businesses and if you want the employees from the actual community to be safe, you have to have security, it's a no-brainer," Tucker said. "This is a poverty-stricken city and we understand that and we're just trying to change that one step at a time."

Their current projectson Avenue of the States, just down from City Hallinclude a sneaker store, a clothing boutique, a diner and apartments. A block over, they intend to demolish a triangle of boarded-up commercial properties and erect a state-of-the-art community "command center" equipped with multiple cameras powered by at least $1 million in Kognition technology that will offer real-time threat alerts when, for instance, weapons or fighting are detected, or suspicious activity such as a break-in is about to happen. Completion is expected by summer.

Since signing with Jay Z's Roc Nation in 2011Meek Mill is among the artists he producesTucker, born in Chester's Lamokin Village housing project in February 1988 and now a Chester County resident, has been trying to help fill the city's abandoned commercial properties and create jobs.

"It's changing livespeople that might not have any hope," he said in an interview in a back room of Sunny's Cambridge Diner he and his partners now own.

With its real-time focus, Kognition's AI-IoT system turns "information into knowledge and then ... into action," said Ashok Lulla, a retiree from Merck who now owns Marple Pharmacy and Mel's Drug World, both in Broomall, Delaware County. He is among the investors in Kognition and expects to soon connect his store cameras to its system to turn them into "a tool to track and monitor work flows, (and) engagement of patients so I have real data that is actionable and protect patients."

He criticized most security IT systems as retrospective, collecting data that is later analyzed.

"We're just used to a very static model where we focus on forensics after the events. That's not security," Lulla said. "It doesn't help you avoid mistakes today."

"Facial recognition with AI provides confirmation and confidence to our staff to discuss and personalize medical instructions," Lulla said, adding that such a system can "capture this communication for continuity to improve medication literacy."

In schools, said Klein, Kognition's president and CEO, the company's software can identify what appears to be a weapon being carried by someone walking the hallway and autonomously activate an alert and lock doorsin other words, "see, think, act on its own."

Last fall, Kognition entered into a partnership with Kidio, a Florida-based provider of technology systems for student safety. The first installations are expected in the first quarter of 2019.

In New York City, Kognition is "working with" Silverstein Properties, owner and operator of 2 World Trade Center, among other sites, Klein said, unable to provide additional details because the deal is "confidential and proprietary."

"The business is really at the beginning of a major inflection point of growth," Klein said during an interview at Kognition's offices on Umbria Street.

Having raised $1.5 million in a seed round that closes this month, attracting funding from a dozen angel investors, Klein said the company of 10 employees and $250,000 in 2018 revenue plans to seek an additional $10 million this year from institutional investors.

He might have opted against a life in medicine, but that field informed his entrepreneurial early years.

Klein's first start-up, Ethidium Health Systems LLC of Huntingdon Valley, developed medical records management software and services and was purchased in 2008 by Blue Bell-based Portico Systems, a software solutions company, for an undisclosed amount. Portico, for whom Klein worked as senior vice president of technology, was acquired three years later for $90 million by McKesson, a medical distribution and health care information technology company headquartered in San Francisco. Klein was vice president of product management there for five years until cofounding Kognition with serial entrepreneur Eric Smith, 55, of West Chester, in 2017.

Smith most recently was sector vice president of global analytics for PTC in Wayne, which in 2015 acquired an AI and machine-learning start-up there, ColdLight Solutions.

Klein's work in health-care systems led him to conclude that "the next big business" was the convergence of artificial intelligence and the Internet of things, he said. How that translated to the creation of Kognition and its security focus had to do with his other jobas a parent.

"I'm seeing all the stuff happening on the news, all the violence in our culture," said Klein, the father of two girls, ages 8 and 9. "I just started getting more into this idea the world can be much safer than it is. We just need to be smarter at what we do."

To help financially pressed schools, Kognition has established the Safer, Smarter World Foundation to provide advanced security for schools K-12 free of charge. Klein said 10 percent of Kognition's profits will go to the charity.

Explore further Parents, kids actually agree about confidential medical care

2019 The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Conservation doesnt have to be at odds with agriculture. Credit: Flagstaffotos/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC

Canada's future prosperity will depend on effective environmental conservation and sustainable and profitable agriculture. Unfortunately, recent comments from former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall pit the two concerns against each other unnecessarily.

Agriculture and the environment are not mutually exclusive, and polarization of the issues only undermines progress toward successful and sustainable solutions.

A major fault line among agricultural and environmental concerns has long been the question of whether food production and wild spaces can coexist. Do wild lands need to be set aside to compensate for the impacts of agriculture? Or can agriculture be practised in a way that is compatible with biodiversity?

This "land sparing" versus "land sharing" debate has hindered progress, and a large body of research suggests that the dichotomy is false.

Sustainable agriculture

Agriculture and biodiversity are more closely interdependent than we realize. Ecological approaches to agriculture, which seek to build soil, manage beneficial plants and insects and mimic natural cycles can also promote conservation outcomes, help address global climate change and improve farmer livelihoods, as well as a variety of other socially desired outcomes.

Given the food needs of Canada and the world's large and growing population, food production strategies that don't work with biodiversity are, at best, a missed opportunity. At worst, they are an unmet responsibility to Canadians and the world.

Flower meadows planted near crops can benefit crops and wild biodiversity. Credit: Shutterstock

For example, both farmers and conservation biologists need pollinators, but honeybees and other wild pollinators are in decline. If we are to avoid long-term impacts on food production and ecosystems across North America, we must take immediate action to reverse the downturn.

Zero-sum game

In his comments, Wall refers to the environmental opposition to oilsands development, and warns of environmentalists similarly seeking to paint agriculture as "dirty." This rhetoric serves only to further escalate an already tense conflict, reinforcing an us-versus-them mentality.

Individuals on different sides of a conflict often share many values. Despite being locked into a years-long conflict over salmon, commercial, sport and subsistence fishers in Alaska often agreed on what mattered, including identity, family, tradition and benefit to the local community. Only when conflict escalates do groups begin to lose touch with one another, responding more to rumours and caricatures than to people's intentions and values.

Fuelling conflict with rhetoric is particularly troublesome in Saskatchewan, where there are ongoing conflicts over agricultural drainage. Drainage describes the removal of water to increase the land available for agricultural production. Drainage is important to agriculture in the prairies, but it can also have negative impacts on wetlands and increase downstream flood risk.

Our research looks at how people are trying to make better decisions about prairie drainage. We have already seen how conflict is undermining trust in new processes for permitting. Drainage, like other environmental issues facing society, is a complex issue; regardless of one's perceptions regarding the province's current approach, only through earnest collaboration can we find mutually agreeable and sustainable strategies.

Peoples perceptions of a conflict influence how they respond to new information or other peoples actions and can further escalate the conflict. Credit: Philip Loring

Managing conflict

Conflict escalation makes the gap between people's perspectives seem larger and more irreconcilable than it is. In our work we regularly encounter farmers who hold strong environmental values. There are many success stories where farmers and environmentalists have worked together to find mutually agreeable solutions.

In the Malpai Borderlands of New Mexico, for example, ranchers and environmentalists have worked together for three decades to manage nearly one million acres of range lands that are crucial to local wildlife and local ranching livelihoods. Similarly, farmers, managers and residents of Perham, Minn., stopped pointing fingers and started working together to solve water quality issues related to agricultural runoff.

What's key in these and other cases is that people take the time to understand each other's baselines, world views and deepest concerns.

Stoking conflict, however, only serves to keep people from seeing the issue as a shared problem. One only needs to look at the political polarization in the United States to see how troublesome conflict escalation can be.

Sustainable, mutually beneficial futures

Canada's agricultural sector is undergoing dramatic transformations. Climate change and other challenges are motivating many producers to rethink how they produce food. Similarly, the world of environmental conservation is changing, with First Nations, for example, leading the development of new approaches to stewardship of working landscapes.

Issues like climate change require rapid transformations in both conservation and food production practices. Rather than perpetuating polarization, bold leadership should work toward consensus among groups. This must start with recognizing that food production and conservation are not opposing ends of the spectrum.

There are many ways to move beyond these disputes, but people must be willing to take a leap of faith. Finger-pointing and stoking conflict, while perhaps politically expedient for some, takes any real progress off the table.

Explore further Global study shows environmentally friendly farming can increase productivity

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
One day, hospital patients might be able to ingest tiny robots that deliver drugs directly to diseased tissue, thanks to research being carried out at EPFL and ETH Zurich.

A group of scientists led by Selman Sakar at EPFL and Bradley Nelson at ETH Zurich drew inspiration from bacteria to design smart, highly flexible biocompatible micro-robots. Because these devices are able to swim through fluids and modify their shape when needed, they can pass through narrow blood vessels and intricate systems without compromising on speed or maneuverability. They are made of hydrogel nanocomposites that contain magnetic nanoparticles, allowing them to be controlled via an electromagnetic field.

In an article appearing in Science Advances, the scientists describe a method for programming the robot's shape so that it can easily travel through fluids that are dense, viscous or moving at rapid speeds.

Embodied intelligence

Fabricating miniaturized robots presents a host of challenges, which the scientists addressed using an origami-based folding method. Their novel locomotion strategy employs embodied intelligence, which is an alternative to the classical computation paradigm that is performed by embedded electronic systems. "Our robots have a special composition and structure that allows them to adapt to the characteristics of the fluid they are moving through. For instance, if they encounter a change in viscosity or osmotic concentration, they modify their shape to maintain their speed and maneuverability without losing control of the direction of motion," says Sakar.

Scientists at EPFL and ETH Zurich have developed tiny elastic robots that can change shape depending on their surroundings. Credit: EPFL

These deformations can be programmed in advance so as to maximize performance without the use of cumbersome sensors or actuators. The robots can be either controlled using an electromagnetic field or left to navigate on their own through cavities by utilizing fluid flow. Either way, they will automatically morph into the most efficient shape.

"Nature has evolved a multitude of microorganisms that change shape as their environmental conditions change. This basic principle inspired our micro-robot design. The key challenge for us was to develop the physics that describe the types of changes we were interested in, and then to integrate this with new fabrication technologies," says Nelson. In addition to offering enhanced effectiveness, these miniaturized soft robots can also be manufactured easily at a reasonable cost. For now, the research team is working on improving the performance for swimming through complex fluids like those found in the human body.

Explore further New remote-controlled microrobots for medical operations

More information: "Adaptive locomotion of artificial microswimmers" Science Advances (2019). Journal information: Science Advances "Adaptive locomotion of artificial microswimmers"(2019). advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau1532
Ryanair has issued a fresh profit-warning, blaming lower air fares

Ryanair on Friday cut its annual profit forecast for a second time, blaming lower air fares caused by overcapacity in the European short-haul sector.

The Irish no-frills airline famed for promoting knock-down ticket prices also warned that its forecast could yet be cut further owing to Brexit strains.

Ryanair said profit after tax would come in at 1.0-1.1 billion euros ($1.14-$1.25 billion) in the 12 months to March.

It had cut its net forecast in October to 1.1-1.2 billion euros after suffering pan-European strike action by disgruntled cabin crew and pilots.

In an indication that passengers were taking advantage of Ryanair's lower fares, the airline added that it expected to have sold 142 million tickets during its latest financial year, up from a previous estimate of 141 million, and a gain of nine percent year-on-year.

"There is short-haul overcapacity in Europe this winter," group chief executive Michael O'Leary said in the earnings statement.

"While we are disappointed at this slightly lower full year guidance, the fact that it is the direct result of lower than expected second-half air fares, offset by stronger than expected traffic growth, a better than expected performance on unit costs and ancillary sales is positive for the medium term," he added.

Ryanair said winter fares were expected to have dropped by seven percent, having previously said they would fall two percent.

Against this background, it warned that its annual results forecast could be cut further.

"While we have reasonable visibility over forward fourth-quarter bookings, we cannot rule out further cuts to air fares and/or slightly lower full-year guidance if there are unexpected Brexit or security developments," O'Leary added.

Britain accounts for about one-quarter of revenues at Ryanair, causing the airline to warn frequently about potential fallout from the UK's rocky path to exiting the European Union.

While the airline sector as a whole took a knock last year from high oil prices, a sharp reduction in fuel costs in recent months has removed such pressures.

But the European short-haul sector remains weighed down by fierce competition despite some consolidation, including Ryanair's purchase of Austrian carrier Laudamotion in 2018.

In addition, Ryanair's earnings have been hit by pan-European strikes last year that forced it to cancel flights, affecting thousands of passengers, and offer improved pay deals to staff via landmark deals with unions.

Following Friday's profit-warning, Ryanair's share price was down 1.6 percent to 9.9 euros in morning deals on the Dublin exchange. Its stock has tumbled by 40 percent in one year.

British rival EasyJet shed 2.9 percent to 11.35 in London, hit also by banks downgrading their outlook on the airline in recent days.

Explore further Ryanair profits up 10% despite cancellations crisis

 2019 AFP
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Thanks to the work carried out by University of Twente Ph.D. candidate Brigitte Bruijns, crime scenes can now be inspected on the spot for the presence of human DNA. In her Ph.D. thesis, she describes a lab-on-a-chip that rapidly indicates whether a trace discovered at a crime scene contains human DNA and, thus, whether it should be examined in the laboratory.

Every year, the Netherlands Forensic Institute (Nederlands Forensisch Instituut, NFI) carries out more than 100,000 DNA analyses. Half of them do not result in usable DNA profiles and are only fit for the bin. This will soon be history thanks to the lab-on-a-chip investigated by Bruijns. This technological breakthrough clearly indicates whether a trace discovered by a police officer or forensic expert is worth further examination. The answer 'NO' means that he or she should move on immediately and look elsewhere for traces that are usable. The answer 'YES' means that human DNA is present and that the trace is to be taken to the forensic laboratory for DNA profiling.

This indicative screening is carried out using a lab-on-a-chip, a miniscule device on which various laboratory techniques are integrated. The device only needs a minimal sample to be able to analyse a trace. Its closed system enables immediate analysis at the crime scene and the risk of (cross-)contamination is greatly reduced.

In her Ph.D. thesis, Bruijns describes the five steps that are integrated on the lab-on-a-chip:

Sampling. Forensic experts currently use swabs, which are similar to cotton buds, to take samples and this is where. A lot of cells remain behind on the swab and can no longer be removed from it. The workup of the DNA sample. Or, in other words, the lysis of cells. This is the breaking down of cells to get at the DNA, possibly followed by extraction and purification. In practice, there are often tiny quantities of DNA at a crime scene. Amplification of the DNA is therefore necessary. Detection, which is often realized using a fluorescent dye. Here, the lab-on-a-chip provides the answer to the question of whether there is or isn't any human DNA present. Storage of the DNA for further analysis in the laboratory.

"This lab-on-a-chip is like a sort of pregnancy test," Bruijns says. "Forensic experts see a 'YES' or 'NO' within 30 minutes. The fact that half of all samples do not result in human DNA profile, and are therefore worthless, is very frustrating for professionals in the forensic world. Investigating all the reasons for this would be a study in itself. Sampling requires more study. Many samples contain little DNA and the probability of achieving a good profile is closely related to the quantity of DNA you have. The sample may be damaged, for example, if it is very hot and humid or if the sample is exposed to a lot of UV light."

According to Bruijns, her device is the first of its kind in the world of forensic research. "There are already tests that can be carried out on site to show whether a sample contains human blood, saliva, semen or urine, but this study describes the preceding step in the process."

In theory, Bruijns' study could bring about enormous changes in the professional practice of forensic research. Police officers and forensic researchers will have to learn how to use the lab-on-a-chip and the likelihood of obtaining usable DNA profiles will be higher.

Brigitte Bruijns conducted her study in collaboration with the NFI. Bruijns graduated from the Bachelor's programme in Advanced Technology and the teacher training programme in chemistry at the University of Twente and went on to complete the Master's programme in Forensic Science at the University of Amsterdam. Bruijns also lectured for the Forensic Research educational programme at Saxion University of Applied Sciences.
In this Jan. 15, 2019 photo provided by Juan Oliphant, Ocean Ramsey, a shark researcher and advocate, swims with a large great white shark off the shore of Oahu. Ramsey told The Associated Press on Thursday, Jan. 17 that images of her swimming next to a huge great white shark prove that these top predators should be protected, not feared. (Juan Oliphant via AP)

Two shark researchers who came face to face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recorded are using their encounter as an opportunity to push for legislation that would protect sharks in Hawaii.

Ocean Ramsey, a shark researcher and conservationist, told The Associated Press that she encountered the 20-foot (6-meter) shark Tuesday near a dead sperm whale off Oahu.

The event was documented and shared on social media by her fiance and business partner Juan Oliphant.

The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources said it was aware of photos of the great white and that tiger sharks also have been feeding on the whale.

Oliphant, who photographed the now-viral images, said it's unclear if the shark is the famed Deep Blue, believed to be the largest great white ever recorded.

"She looks the part right now," Oliphant said about the shark spotted Tuesday. "Maybe even more exciting that there is another massive, you know, super-size great white shark out there. Because their populations are so dwindling."

Ramsey, who operates Oahu-based One Ocean Diving and Research with Oliphant, said she has been pushing for several years for a bill that would ban the killing of sharks and rays in Hawaii, and hopes this year the measure will become law.

In this Jan. 15, 2019 photo provided by Juan Oliphant, Ocean Ramsey, a shark researcher and advocate, swims with a large great white shark off the shore of Oahu. The two shark researchers came face-to-face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recorded. They are using their encounter as an opportunity push for legislation that would protect sharks in Hawaii. (Juan Oliphant via AP)

She said the images of her swimming next to a huge great white shark prove the predators should be protected, not feared.

Still, the veteran shark diver doesn't think the general public should recklessly get into the water with the giants, especially around a food source like a rotting whale carcass.

Ramsey said extensive training and time spent studying shark behavior has kept her team and customers safe. She teaches people about how to act and, more importantly, not act when they encounter a shark in the water.

Ramsey and her team observe behavior, identify and tag sharks and share that data with researchers as well as state and federal officials. She said she previously swam with the huge shark on research trips to Guadalupe Island, Mexico.

She also leads cage-free shark diving tours.

In this Jan. 15, 2019 photo provided by Juan Oliphant, Ocean Ramsey, a shark researcher and advocate, swims with a large great white shark off the shore of Oahu. Ramsey and Oliphant, two shark researchers, came face-to-face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recorded. They are using their encounter as an opportunity push for legislation that would protect sharks in Hawaii. (Juan Oliphant via AP)

Unlike many marine mammals, sharks are not a federally protected species, though there are laws against the sale of their fins.

"There's not a lot of sympathy for sharks because of the way they're portrayed in media and they don't have the cute cuddly appearance," Ramsey said. "You can't hate them for being predators. We need them for healthy marine ecosystems."

Ramsey and Oliphant want to make sure that people realize that shark bites are uncommon.

"The idea that they see people as a food source, that is rubbish and that needs to go away because really that's ultimately leading to the demise of these animals," Oliphant said.

State Sen. Mike Gabbard sponsored the shark protection legislation last session and plans to reintroduce it this year. The bill died in the House when it wasn't heard by the House Judiciary Committee.

Juan Oliphant, right, and Ocean Ramsey, co-founders of One Ocean Diving and Research, look at footage their encounter with a great white shark, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019 in Haleiwa, Hawaii. Ramsey told The Associated Press on Thursday that images of her swimming next to a huge great white shark prove that these top predators should be protected, not feared. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)

The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources said the decomposing whale carcass had drifted to about eight miles (13 kilometers) south of Pearl Harbor after being towed 15 miles (24 kilometers) offshore days earlier.

Officials say there have been reports that people are climbing onto the carcass to take its teeth as souvenirs, which may be a violation of state and federal laws.

The agency's Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement Chief Jason Redull said people should stay out of the water around the dead whale.

Ocean Ramsey, co-founder of One Ocean Diving and Research, reviews footage of her encounter with a great white shark, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019 in Haleiwa, Hawaii. Ramsey and her fiance, Juan Oliphant, two shark researchers, came face-to-face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recorded. Ramseytold The Associated Press that images of her swimming next to a huge great white shark prove that these top predators should be protected, not feared. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)

"Understandably, some people want to get into the water either out of fascination or to get photographs, but it is truly dangerous to be around this carcass with so much shark activity," he said.

Ramsey said it's impressive that the great white has survived a "gauntlet of human death traps."

"I don't know how old she is," Ramsey said. "But for her to survive through so many longline fisheries and,. you know, gill nets and team nets and fishermen who might just kill her because they think that she is a monster ... it's very special."

Juan Oliphant, left, and Ocean Ramsey, co-founders of One Ocean Diving and Research, look at footage their encounter with a great white shark, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019 in Haleiwa, Hawaii. The two shark researchers who came face-to-face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recorded, are using their encounter as an opportunity push for legislation that would protect sharks in Hawaii. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)

Explore further Dead great white shark found on Cape Cod beach

 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Ghosn stands accused of several counts of financial misconduct

Former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn received nearly eight million euros in "improper payments" from a Netherlands-based joint venture, the Japanese car giant alleged Friday, threatening to sue to recover the funds.

Nissan said Ghosn entered into a personal employment contract with Nissan-Mitsubishi B.V. (NMBV), a company formed "with the mission of exploring and promoting synergies within the Nissan-Mitsubishi Motors partnership."

"Under that contract, he received a total of 7,822,206.12 euros (including tax) in compensation and other payments of NMBV funds," Nissan said, citing an ongoing investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Ghosn.

The firm said the contract was signed without consultation with current Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa or Mitsubishi Motors CEO Osamu Masuko.

"Nissan views the payments Ghosn received from NMBV to be the result of misconduct and will consider measures to recover from Ghosn the full sum," the firm said in a statement.

Since his out-of-the-blue arrest on November 19, Ghosn has been kept in a Tokyo detention centre and has made only one public appearance in court when he passionately rejected the accusations against him.

Ghosn faces three formal charges.

First, he is accused of under-declaring his income by five billion yen ($46 million) between 2010 and 2015 in official documents to shareholders, apparently to fend off criticism he was overpaid.

Second, he stands accused of continuing this practice for three more years, understating his pay by a further four billion yen.

A third, more complex, charge relates to allegations he sought to transfer personal investment losses to the firm and paid a Saudi intermediary from company funds to stump up collateral for him.

'Global Donation Advisory Council'

The 64-year-old auto tycoon rejects all the charges, arguing in court that he has been "wrongly accused and unfairly detained based on meritless and unsubstantiated accusations."

He has appealed several times to be released on bail and filed another appeal earlier Friday.

So far, the appeals have all been rejected, with the court reasoning that he is a flight risk and could tamper with evidence.

His lawyers have vowed to lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court against his continued detention, but even his lead attorney has told reporters it is unlikely he will taste freedom before a trialand that could take six months at least.

Meanwhile, the allegations continue to stack up against Ghosnonce revered as a corporate genius who saved Nissan from the verge of bankruptcy.

He is said to have had luxury houses in Beirut and Rio de Janeiro paid for by the companyplus costly renovations for the first property.

It is also alleged one of his sisters received $755,000 for work carried out between 2003 and 2016 as part of a "Global Donation Advisory Council"a body which has never existed according to sources close to Nissan.

Nissan is thought to be looking into other payments such as donations to universities in Lebanon or a subscription to a yacht club in Brazil for $63,000.

Ghosn has been unable to defend himself against these new allegations and they do not form part of the formal charges against him.

But the Japanese firm is ramping up its probe into its former leader and more revelations are likely as it continues.

Nissan has also been slapped with formal charges over the affair as they submitted the documents to shareholders that allegedly under-declared the executive's income.

Explore further Japan court rejects Ghosn release bid

 2019 AFP
Credit: Martyn Jandula / shutterstock

When Luxembourg announced recently that all public transport in the country will be free from next year, this radical move was received with astonishment. After all, most nations would surely shy away from putting such strain on public finances and from antagonising those taxpayers who don't use public transport.

But supporting public transport is almost always good for the environment. So, if the finances add up, does this mean that the case for free public transport is a no-brainer?

Economists like me view subsidies (or taxes) on specific goods as ways to better align people's decisions with what is best for society as a whole. The key question is whether free public transport is a good way of achieving this.

When thinking about whether to buy any item such as a book or an apple, we usually compare how much we enjoy using this item with what we must pay for it. In most cases, if the item is supplied within a competitive market, the price that we pay for something largely reflects society's cost of producing it, such as the use of natural resources or labour.

This is not the case for driving a car, however. In addition to our own private costs for petrol and wear and tear, every car ride imposes costs on other people by polluting the air and congesting the roads. Few of us would want to fully account for these social costs when deciding whether to use the car to do the school run or the groceries. Therefore, people will often find that the benefit of another car ride exceeds the private cost, even when social costs  that pollution and congestion  exceed any social benefit. In other words, people will use their cars too much from society's point of view.

Trains and buses emit far less CO2 per passenger-kilometre (though a full car is cleaner than a half-full bus). Credit: EEA

The same reasoning applies for a person's choice between private and public transport. If I think about whether to take the car to get to work, I will compare the benefits and costs to me with the next best alternative, which may be to take the bus or train.

But my use of public transport affects other people much less than if I travelled by car: per user, public transport causes much less additional road congestion and air pollution than a car. Yes, if too many people take the bus it may get overcrowded, but once a specific service is consistently over capacity, the bus operator can add more services. But as most people base their decisions on their own cost on benefits rather than those they impose on other people, the decision between public and private transport will typically be biased against public transport.

Why we have subsidies

The economic idea of subsidising public transport is to level the playing field between these options. If the subsidy is equal to the difference in other people's cost of me driving the car versus taking the bus, my decision on the mode of transport will be aligned with society's best interest. So, are the environmentalists right after all?

Luxembourg has the most cars per capita in the EU, and among the most in the world. Credit: CIW1 / Shutterstock

Let's have a look at Luxembourg. Public transport in the small, wealthy country is already dirt cheap  a two-hour ticket with unlimited journeys is just 2  but road congestion is still among the worst worldwide. It seems Luxembourgish commuters are still choosing to spend hours on a congested road, even though they could easily afford the train.

Partly this is because, in general, individual traffic is more convenient than public transport, as car drivers can travel independently of timetables, train lines or bus routes. Therefore, a denser network or more frequent timetable may be a more effective way of getting people out of their cars than an even higher subsidy. Furthermore, when cheap public transport induces commuters to leave their cars at home, roads get less congested. However, this may make driving into the city more attractive for people who otherwise would have stayed at home, or more people may choose to live on the outskirts rather than in the city centre if commuting gets more convenient or cheaper.

This demonstrates a fundamental dilemma of transport policy: as soon as traffic problems are relieved, even more people will want to travel. Therefore, those who are sceptical of entirely free public transport do have a point. An alternative way of levelling the playing field between car driving and public transport without inducing even more people to travel is to increase the petrol tax. Indeed, petrol prices in Luxembourg are markedly lower than in neighbouring Germany, Belgium and France, which may well contribute to Luxembourgers' reliance on cars.

In times of ever more alarming news about global warming, every car that won't be driven as a result of free public transport is an achievement. However, an optimal policy needs to carefully balance subsidies for public transport use with petrol taxes and investments in the public transport network.

Explore further Indonesia's fuel subsidy cuts prevented even worse traffic jams

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A coal mine near the mountains in Alberta. Credit: Shutterstock

"Coal is dead."

These are not the words of a Greenpeace activist or left-wing politician, but of Jim Barry, the global head of the infrastructure investment group at Blackrock the world's largest asset manager. Barry made this statement in 2017, but the writing has been on the wall for longer than that.

Banks know it, which is why they are increasingly unwilling to underwrite new coal mines and power plants. Unions and coal workers know it, which is why they are demanding a just transition and new employment opportunities in the clean economy. Even large diversified mining companies are getting out of the business of coal.

The only ones who seem to have remained in denial are President Donald Trump and non-diversified mining companies like Westmoreland Coal. The Denver-based firm made a bad bet in 2013 when it purchased five coal mines in Alberta. Now it wants Canadian taxpayers to pay for its mistake.

Alberta's coal phaseout

Three years ago, Alberta's New Democratic Party (NDP) committed to what some have described as "the most ambitious climate plan in North America to date." In addition to the development of an economy-wide carbon price, the province is phasing out coal-fired power by 2030. Without the infrastructure to export coal, the climate plan has also resulted in a de facto phaseout of local thermal coal mining.

To ensure support for the plan, major utility companies in the province were provided with "transition payments" to facilitate the switch to gas and renewable energy. Westmoreland did not receive a government handout, because coal mining companies have no role to play in the energy transition. The company, which filed for bankruptcy protection for its investments in the United States in October, doesn't think this is fair.

NAFTA's investment chapter

Because Westmoreland is an American company, it can rely on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for protection from "unfair" treatment. NAFTA allows a foreign investor to use a process known as "Investor-State Dispute Settlement" (ISDS) when government action harms its business in some way.

ISDS allows foreign investors to bypass local courts and bring claims for monetary compensation to an international tribunal. The system is not unique to NAFTA; it is found in other trade agreements like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and thousands of bilateral investment treaties (known as Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements in Canada).

ISDS is hugely controversial. Concerns have been raised by a wide range of actors about both the process of ISDS, and the way the system can infringe on the sovereign right of states to regulate to protect public health, human rights and the environment.

More than 900 ISDS cases have been launched by investors since the early 1990s, including 27 against Canada that have so far cost Canadian taxpayers at least $315 million. There is one ongoing dispute that concerns a ban on gas fracking in Quebec, but the Westmoreland claim is the first brought in relation to a policy explicitly designed to combat climate change.

Westmoreland argues that part of the reason it invested in Canada in 2013 was to diversify its holdings in response to regulatory risk. At the time, the Obama Administration was taking action under the Clean Power Plan to reduce the reliance of American utilities on coal. The company's failure to anticipate similar regulatory action by its northern neighbour is remarkable.

A key battleground

If governments respond appropriately to the urgent warning issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October, efforts to phase out fossil fuels will have to ramp up considerably and quickly. We should expect the industry to fight these efforts through a variety of means. ISDS may become a key battleground.

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA or CUSMA, depending on who is talking about it), which may replace NAFTA (it has been signed, but has not been ratified), does not retain the process of ISDS between Canada and the U.S.

While this is good news in the long run, some have suggested that there will be a "rush of filings" before access to ISDS for already established investors expires (three years after USMCA comes into force). Canada will also be exposed to claims from investors under other agreements such as the CPTPP and Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

Other countries, particularly poorer nations, face an even higher risk of ISDS claims and have far less resources available to fight them. It is notable that big oil companies have retained some access to ISDS against Mexico in USMCA, after lobbying hard for it.

A climate of fear?

If Westmoreland's case proceeds to arbitration, it will not have direct implications for Alberta's climate policy. An investment tribunal cannot require the provincial government to reverse the coal phaseout; it can only award the company damages. Westmoreland is asking for US$470 million. It is the federal government, rather than Alberta, that would have to pay compensation to Westmoreland if the company's claim was successful. However, Ontario did agree to pay the award in a recent NAFTA case.

What is more concerning than any potential payout is that Westmoreland's suit could hinder efforts to implement similar plans to combat climate change in other jurisdictions.

"Regulatory chill" is a phenomenon that has been observed in several jurisdictions around the world. A notable example is the decision of the New Zealand government to delay the introduction of legislation to require plain packaging of tobacco products until Australia won its ISDS case against the tobacco company Philip Morris International. This delay of regulatory action out of fear of expensive litigation may have cost lives.

As recent forest fires and floods have demonstrated, delays in action to combat climate change can also be deadly.

Explore further The fossil fuel era is coming to an end, but the lawsuits are just beginning
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The Florida Keys' ospreys, the fierce fish hawks whose massive nests dot utility poles, channel markers and nesting platforms up and down the ribbon of islands, will no longer be listed as an imperiled species by the state.

State wildlife officials announced Monday that a rare resident population of the migratory birds in Monroe County had been removed from the list in December after a yearlong review found the number of birds rising statewide. While some have argued the Keys' clan should be classified as their own subspecies, state wildlife officials said there's no evidence that the ospreys are genetically distinct. It's still illegal to kill the birds, but the designation means fewer rules for developers.

Conservationists welcomed the reported increase. Three decades ago after a seagrass die-off created a 100-square-mile dead zone across Florida Bay oozing pea-green algae, the population plummeted. But they worry about stripping protections while the bay's health remains fragile following a similar seagrass die-off just three years ago.

"The scary thing is we just had a big seagrass die-off followed by algae blooms. This is the same process that led to the declines of the osprey in the '80s and '90s," said Jerry Lorenz, state research director for Audubon Florida. "So I'm going to remain optimistic, but I'm also going to say let's wait and see."

In 2015, the seagrass die-off blanketed 62 square miles in the bay, triggered by a seasonal drought and compounded by decades of flood control that has choked off the supply of fresh water from the north. Lorenz pointed out that seagrass is recovering faster than it did after the 1980s and early '90s crash, when it took 20 years. Algae blooms have been smaller and more sporadic. Water management has also improved as efforts to restore water flows through Everglades restoration work progresses. But the bay remains vulnerable.

"It's pretty clear we're still in crisis mode," said attorney Jaclyn Lopez, the Florida director for the Center for Biological Diversity. "By removing protections, we're potentially losing resources."

The last time the bay crashed, the birds vanished quickly. Lorenz, who has been monitoring roseate spoonbills and other wading birds in the bay for 30 years, remembers passing a string of nests along a mile-long stretch on his way to visit tiny mangrove islands in the bay where wading birds nest.

"First there were 14 nests, then 12 then nine," he said. "Then there were three, then two and then none."

When they looked into the decline, scientists found birds that fed on the ocean side of the islands fared better than those hunting on the bay side. The ospreys hunt by circling over water, then swooping down to snatch fish with talons that include a reversible fourth claw and toes lined with short spines to better grip fish.

Scientists think that as fish disappeared, the birds became vulnerable. Lorenz said numbers around the Keys have still not rebounded to what they were before they crashed. Florida also provides a major winter home for nesting ospreys, with about 20 percent of the U.S. population outside Alaska nesting in the state.

"Development is only continuing to ramp up in Florida," Lopez added, "so we'll only see continued loss of habitats, more roads and more mortality just by being hit by cars."

Explore further New report outlines restoration activities to speed seagrass recovery in the Florida Keys

2019 Miami Herald

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Adam Neumann is WeWorks CEO and sometimes landlord. Photo: Michael Kovac/Getty Images

In recent days, we have learned about an odd financial arrangement at WeWork. As you may know, the office-sharing company doesnt own much of its real estate; it leases office space and then subleases the use of that office space to its co-working tenants. Thats not the news. The news is that, in some cases, an owner of the space WeWork has leased is WeWorks founder and CEO, Adam Neumann.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Mr. Neumann has made millions of dollars by leasing multiple properties in which he has an ownership stake back to WeWork, one of the countrys most valuable startups. Multiple investors of the privately held company said the arrangement concerned them as a potential conflict of interest in which the CEO could benefit on rents or other terms with the company.

Now, WeWork clarified to the Wall Street Journal that the conflict of interest is mitigated, because any lease where Neumann owns a piece of a WeWork landlord has to be approved by WeWorks board. In at least one case, the board rejected a proposed deal where Neumann wanted to take a personal ownership stake in a building WeWork was renting. But that process has looked a little different in recent years, because:

Mr. Neumann effectively gained control over the company. As part of an investment round for WeWork in 2014, he was granted Class B shares that gave him 10 votes per share, and now he has more than 65% of the overall share vote, according to WeWork corporate filings.

WeWork is far from alone in having a multi-class share structure: One in five companies that went public in the United States in 2017 had share structures where some investors are more equal than others. Under such an arrangement, all common shares in a corporation typically have the same claim on the companys profits (the super-voting shareholders cant vote themselves higher dividends than the other shareholders) but because some shares get extra votes, managerial control is concentrated in a minority of the companys equity owners, typically founders or executives or their heirs.

In this instance, Neumann owns less than 50 percent of the company he runs, but because he owns super-voting shares, he controls the company as though he were its majority owner. Among other things, this gives him the power to force approval of deals where he sits on both sides of the table, even if other investors might have qualms about those deals.

An obvious question is: Why did the other investors in WeWork agree to an arrangement where their votes dont count? Why do investors in any company agree to it? A group of business school professors took a crack at the question last month in the Harvard Business Review, and they have a few answers.

Multi-class share structures have historically been especially popular for media companies, and the HBR authors attribute this to a desire to protect journalistic prerogatives. A founder with a particular journalistic focus might use his voting control to ensure the company refuses deals that would put profits ahead of journalistic integrity, or even to continue operating money-losing aspects of a news organization in the interest of public service. In this case, the dual-class structure reduces profits available to shareholders, but thats a feature of the design, not a bug: When taking the company public, management chose the dual-class structure explicitly to enable a strategy that will lead to lower profits and a lower share price in order to serve a social mission.

This does not describe why a start-up company like WeWork, whose mission presumably does focus on maximizing profits, would benefit from a dual-class share structure.

The HBR authors also note that dual-class structures may free up managers of high-growth companies to focus on long-term value creation instead of reacting to investors desire to see profits generated quickly. This is an example of the long-running debate over short-termism and whether companies are systematically failing to invest for the long run. They cite some evidence that dual-class share structures are associated with better performance in the early stages of a companys life.

Under this theory, the low-power shares exist to protect outside investors from each other, or even from themselves. When you agree to accept a share with few voting rights, youre also buying into a company where other outside investors have given up their rights. And if you trust management more than you trust your fellow investors, that might be appealing.

On the other hand, WeWork isnt a public company. WeWorks outside owners are sophisticated venture capital funds whose specialty is supposed to be investing for long-term value. If these funds managers cant be trusted to be patient and wait for long term value, what are they doing running venture capital funds?

Critics of multi-class structures describe them as being simply what they appear to be: A structure that allows management and other insiders to prioritize their interests over those of other shareholders. For this reason, S&P has started prohibiting new dual-class shares from being listed on S&P indices.

There are also compromise positions. A coalition of corporate and financial management executives including Warren Buffett and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon issued a statement of governance principles in 2018 that says dual class voting is not a best practice. They allow that sometimes the structures are used in order to insulate management from short-term profit pressure, but they say in such cases the two-tier structure should be designed to automatically sunset after a specific time or event. That is, if enhanced management control is appropriate during a companys growth stage, it should end automatically when that stage is over.

But the rise in popularity of dual-class shares may simply reflect a reality in capital markets over the last decade: Theres a lot of capital around that people want to invest, and few opportunities to invest it for high returns. When a founder has a company that investors are excited about, he or she gets to set terms about how investors will get into the deal. Its a sellers market.

So the mystery of why WeWorks investors agreed to hand so much power to the CEO is essentially the same as the mystery of how WeWork could possibly be worth $45 billion. (Chris Lane, an analyst at Bernstein who covers major WeWork investor Softbank, recently took a crack at valuing WeWork under optimistic parameters and couldnt establish a value higher than $16 billion.)

Investors are desperate to get in on the next big thing, and theyre willing to overpay. Why wouldnt they also be willing to hand too much power to the CEO?
Tree seedlings grow on the University of WisconsinMadison campus in the Biotron  an environmentally-controlled facility calibrated to mimic a changing climate. Credit: Ann K. Olsson

The fires in Yellowstone National Park began to burn in June 1988. A natural feature of the landscape, park managers expected the fires to fizzle out by July, when rains historically drenched the forests and valleys of the world's first national park.

But the rains never came. Unusually hot, dry and windy that year, more fires erupted and blazed in and around the park until September. By then, 36 percent of Yellowstone was affected. Firefighting efforts topped $120 million.

Yellowstone experiences large fires every 100 to 300 years and its flora and fauna are adapted. Lodgepole pines like those at higher elevations in the park have pine cones that open in fire, releasing seeds to replenish a post-burn forest. But it takes time for trees to mature and the forests to recovertime that a changing climate has been depriving the forest of the last three decades.

A new study published in Ecological Monographs, led by Winslow Hansen and his former graduate advisor, University of WisconsinMadison Professor of Integrative Biology Monica Turner, shows that some of Yellowstone's forests may now be at a tipping point. They could be replaced by grassland by the middle of this century.

"It's terrifying in some ways," Turner says. "We are not talking many years away. Today's college students will be mid-career. It feels like the future is coming at us fast."

Though Turner's work in Yellowstone across the last 30 years has helped us better understand the resilience of the forests, and aided land managers planning for the future, Hansen became interested in whether the forests could keep pace with climate projections.

Large fires are no longer a rarity in the West, and already, Yellowstone is nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer on average than it was just 60 years ago. The park's forests may be at the brink of abrupt change, where their resilience may suddenly be overwhelmed.

Researcher Winslow Hansen checks on one of his study plots at Yellowstone National Park. Hansen was studying whether trees will be able to regenerate after forest fires in the park given projections for a warmer and drier climate. Credit: Monica Turner

"Fires are being driven by hot, dry conditions and these are trends that are expected to continue," says Hansen, now an Earth Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University. "We need answers now to better anticipate future change."

To achieve this, he and Turner carefully picked sites in Yellowstone to determine how well tree seedlings can establish in warmer, drier conditions like those predicted for mid-century, based on the International Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. Right now, lower elevations of the park provide a natural simulation of these projections.

"We found places on the landscape where today's climate is representative of what we expect to see in subalpine forests 50 years from now," explains Hansen. They also included sites in recently burned forests at higher elevations as controls.

Hansen collected soils from two recently burned areas, analyzed the soils for qualities like texture and pH, and then placed them in the ground at the low- and high-elevation study sites. He also installed sensors to collect hourly data on soil surface temperature and moisture and planted hand-collected, local Douglas fir and lodgepole pine seeds in each patch of soil at the study plots. Over a three-year span, he measured the number and height of the tree seedlings that grew and survived.

Douglas fir trees are better adapted than lodgepole pine to grow in dry, warm soils and are more often found at lower elevations. However, the study found that seedlings of both tree species only established and survived in high-elevation plots, where temperatures at the soil surface were between 52.5 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit. At low-elevation study plots, soil temperatures regularly exceeded this range and the soils dried. Up to 92 percent of the seeds never established and those that did died within three years.

"It wasn't just a small reduction," says Turner, "it was a failure to establish at the lower elevations."

In a separate experiment, Hansen hauled soils from the same post-fire areas of the park back to Madison, Wisconsin, and potted them inside a facility on campus called the Biotron that can recreate virtually any environment on the planet. He wanted to identify more precisely which combinations of temperature and soil moisture affect tree seedling establishment after fire.

For a study looking at the ability of trees in Yellowstone National Park to recover from fire under climate conditions that are warmer and drier than they have been historically, researcher Winslow Hansen planted tree seeds in soils from areas of the park like this one, which recently burned. Credit: Ann K. Olsson

In each room, he simulated the growing seasons of the early 20th century, the mid-21st century, and the late 21st century through 2080, which ranged from relatively moist to drought-like and warm. After weeks of planning, he and his wife, Ann Olsson, spent 19 straight hours setting up the rooms.

"It took an enormous amount of effort to calibrate," says Turner.

Every four days, with undergraduate assistant Ryan Fitzsimmons, Hansen hand watered the seeds in all 1,000 pots. Every two to three weeks, they measured seedling emergence, height and mortality.

Though they had not planned for it, the soil temperatures in the Biotron were up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than those in the field, primarily because the soil samples in the field were insulated by surrounding soils. Incidentally, this allowed them to examine how both tree species responded to conditions similar to the high elevation regions of Yellowstone today.

"At the time, it felt disastrous," says Hansen, but the Biotron experiment showed that seedlings emerged only when soils met a minimum warm temperature and that future warming could actually enhance post-fire regeneration at higher elevations.

The study captured the entire range of growing season temperatures at which seedling establishment reliably occurs and found that projected mid-century temperatures fall well outside that range.

"This is pretty concerning if we expect to have reliable tree regeneration in the future across much of Yellowstone," says Hansen.

Credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison

As an ecologist, he understands landscapes and ecosystems are dynamic; he's wary of making a value judgement. Yet, Hansen grew up near Yellowstone and got his start in ecology observing forest songbirds around the park. He is concerned for the future of the area.

"Forests are critical from both social and ecological perspectives," he says. "The Greater Yellowstone region may be a very different place to live and visit over the next few decades."

Some species will adapt and others will not, says Turner, who at 19 worked as a ranger in the park. As plant communities change, so too will the animals.

Her research group continues to work toward a better understanding of the thresholds that underlie profound change. They are now also using sophisticated models to try to get ahead of it, including the findings from Hansen's study.

"Experiments help you nail a part of the mechanism but you also need field observations and computer simulations to explore a range of conditions you can't do in the field," says Turner. "With a threshold, the best way to know you're there is to cross over it."

But we may not like what's on the other side, she says. These changes are likely to be more significant than people realize. We must get better at predicting them. "We can't wait for decades."

Explore further Is fire the new normal in the American West?

More information: Winslow D. Hansen et al. Origins of abrupt change? Postfire subalpine conifer regeneration declines nonlinearly with warming and drying, Ecological Monographs (2019). Winslow D. Hansen et al. Origins of abrupt change? Postfire subalpine conifer regeneration declines nonlinearly with warming and drying,(2019). DOI: 10.1002/ecm.1340
From left, postdoctoral researchers James Mickley, Timothy E. Moore, and graduate student Valerie Milici with EMUs at a lab in the Biology/Physics Building. Credit: Sean Flynn/UConn Photo

Scientific research can be a costly undertaking, oftentimes so much so that projects become cost-prohibitive. So what happens when the research is too expensive, but the data is too important to leave uncollected?

You get creative. And that is exactly what UConn ecology and evolutionary biology researchers James Mickley '18 Ph.D. and Timothy Moore '18 Ph.D. have done. Their article about the tools they developed for getting their research done has been published recently in Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Mickley and Moore were interested in studying ecosystem responses to climate change. When studying ecosystems and the myriad components interacting within them, high-tech items such as camera traps and remote sensors become essential tools of the trade. Researchers simply cannot be everywhere all the time, taking numerous and ongoing measurements.

Moore says technology is more important now than ever to help us learn about the ways ecosystems are responding to climate change. He says current knowledge about these responses relies on broad-scale  think regional  studies, but these studies are limited by the amount of fine-scale data available. There are vast amounts of information in the fine details.

An example might be a plant growing in tiny habitats such as under the shade of a tree, or in the cracks of a rock, that may not be able to survive in the broader habitat around it.

This is where Moore and Mickley encountered the problem: to gather the fine-scale data, they would need hundreds  if not thousands  of sensors, costing hundreds of dollars apiece.

Without large sums of money to purchase the sensors, but recognizing the need for these data, Moore and Mickley saw opportunity rather than frustration.

They set about building their own sensors, and acquiring some new skills in their spare time, all while finishing up their Ph.D.s. After trial, error, soldering, and tinkering, Moore, Mickley, and a team of undergraduates including Amber DeRobertis '18 (CLAS), Emilia Pfisterer '16 (CLAS), and Emma Saavedra '19 (CLAS), produced a small army of fully functional sensors, each costing under $20. They have since deployed and are using the sensors  which they've named Environmental Microcontroller Units, or EMUs  to collect data for their research.

Plug and Play

Through the development process, Moore and Mickley realized how customizable the EMUs were. For almost any parameter, there is a sensor component to measure it that can be easily integrated into the design.

Mickley is using sensors for temperature, humidity, light, and soil moisture, to look at how the environment and forest fragmentation in Connecticut affect food webs: trees in the forest, the caterpillars that eat them, and the birds that eat the caterpillars.

Moore conducts research on the impact of climate on plants in South Africa. He plans to deploy EMUs to investigate the role of microenvironmental variation in shaping where plants do and don't live. Outside of his fieldwork, he even has a unit measuring data from his house, and points to a graph on his computer screen with data from the previous day, where, by looking at temperature data, he can tell exactly what time he got home.

Stacks of Environmental Microcontroller Units (EMUs) that were developed by UConn researchers to facilitate the collection of fine-scale data. Credit: Sean Flynn/UConn Photo

Moore says the work happening in Connecticut is serving as a large-scale proving ground for the sensors. "We need this data, because we need to understand the climatic conditions that are provoking responses in the state's ecosystems."

In addition to the inventors' own research, several colleagues are already using EMUs in their research.

The EEB greenhouse has used them to see how light levels differ in various greenhouses. A colleague in Montana is using them to monitor the pressure within pressure chambers over the internet. And a graduate student at UConn has used them to monitor humidity over the internet as she dehydrated algae.

"The possibilities are endless," Mickley says.

In the spirit of facilitating research more broadly, the team has made information about how to construct them available through open source, so that anyone who is interested can make one and collect and share data.

The researchers have made it as easy as possible to duplicate their methods, by providing a parts list, complete with notes for components, and detailed videos produced by DeRobertis showing how to construct an EMU.

Citizen scientists can immerse themselves by building the units, coding, deploying, monitoring, and even sharing their data. With readily accessible, inexpensive sensors available, it is now possible to collect the fine-scale data the researchers originally sought.

The versatility and low cost are key. "There are so many different ways these can be customized," says Moore. "EMUs can help answer a lot of questions."

Mickley says the cost-effectiveness of the EMUs has allowed them to take measurements in forest plots all across Connecticut.

A major part of the caterpillar community in the last several years has been gypsy moths, and they have done tremendous damage to trees across Connecticut. Fortunately, there is a fungus that attacks and kills gypsy moths, but recently it has not been so successful. The researchers think the fungus functions better at controlling gypsy moths under wet conditions.

To test this, they made EMUs with sensors that measure soil moisture and humidity. They also installed light sensors to measure the degree to which the trees were defoliated over time over the summer. The sensors work so well, the next hurdle will be to interpret the huge amount of data the EMUs have gathered.

Other future plans include expanding the areas sampled; and the team is also considering outreach opportunities, such as developing teaching modules to facilitate EMU construction and data collecting in schools.

Explore further Rainforest rehab in every sense

More information: James G. Mickley et al. Measuring microenvironments for global change: DIY environmental microcontroller units (EMUs), Methods in Ecology and Evolution (2018). Journal information: Methods in Ecology and Evolution James G. Mickley et al. Measuring microenvironments for global change: DIY environmental microcontroller units (EMUs),(2018). DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.13128
The protest was inspired by Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old Swedish girl who since last August has been ditching school each Friday to protest

Thousands of school children and university students across Switzerland skipped class on Friday to march in the streets and demand climate action, telling politicians "There is no planet B".

Despite vows from a number of school districts to show zero tolerance for those who missed class, pupils as young as 12 turned out across at least 15 Swiss cities and towns for the "climate strike."

The protest was inspired by Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old Swedish girl who since last August has been ditching school each Friday to protest in front of Sweden's parliament demanding concrete action from politicians to halt climate change.

After she garnered international headlines with a fiery speech before world leaders at last month's COP24 climate talks in Poland, thousands of students have followed in her footsteps, staging "climate strikes" in several countries, including Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Japan and the United States.

The strike in Switzerland kicked off Friday morning in Lausanne, where more than 8,000 young people marched through the streets, local police said.

Another estimated 4,000 marched across Geneva later on, ending up in front of the United Nations' European headquarters.

"I am demonstrating so that we can give ourselves and our children a future. We are the ones who are the most affected, we are the ones who will be alive in 30, 40, 50 years," 19-year-old Alexandre Huggel told AFP.

The first march startred in Lausanne

"If we don't act now, if we don't start taking measures (against climate change) we will run into a brick wall."

'Planet hotter than my boyfriend'

The youths used humour and word-play to get their message across, with protesters in Geneva brandishing homemade cardboard signs with statements like: "If the climate was a bank, it would have been rescued already" and "The planet is hotter than my boyfriend".

"System change, not climate change," read a placard in Zurich, while protesters in Lausanne warned that "The oceans are rising up, and so are we".

One poster spotted in Neuchatel meanwhile urged "Make love, not CO2".

The huge turnout came despite the fact that a number of Swiss cantons, like Wallis and St Gallen, warned they would penalise students who missed class to protest.

Geneva meanwhile authorised students to take several hours off to join the protests, although for minors it required parents to sign permission slips.

"Frankly, I would rather demand climate action than go to school. Otherwise, years from now, we may no longer be here," 12-year-old Selma Joly said.

Explore further Big Brussels climate march marks COP24 start

 2019 AFP
First author Aurore Dupin and Prof. Friedrich Simmel at the fluorescence microscope. They use micromanipulators to assemble their artificial cell systems. Credit: Uli Benz / TUM

Friedrich Simmel and Aurore Dupin, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), have for the first time created artificial cell assemblies that can communicate with each other. The cells, separated by fatty membranes, exchange small chemical signaling molecules to trigger more complex reactions, such as the production of RNA and other proteins.

Scientists around the world are working on creating artificial, cell-like systems that mimic the behavior of living organisms. Friedrich Simmel and Aurore Dupin have created such artificial cell assemblies in a fixed spatial arrangement. The highlight is that the cells are able to communicate with each other.

"Our system is a first step toward tissue-like, synthetic biological materials that exhibit complex spatial and temporal behavior in which individual cells specialize and differentiate themselves, not unlike biological organisms," explains Friedrich Simmel, Professor of Physics of Synthetic Biosystems (E14) at TU Munich.

Gene expression in a fixed structure

Gels or emulsion droplets encapsulated in thin fat or polymer membranes serve as the basic building blocks for the artificial cells. Inside these 10- to 100-micron units, chemical and biochemical reactions can proceed uninhibited.

The research team used droplets enclosed by lipid membranes and assembled them into artificial multicellular structures called micro-tissues. The biochemical reaction solutions used in the droplets can produce RNA and proteins, giving the cells a of a kind of gene expression ability.

Signal molecules (blue) spread in the artificial cell structure allowing communication through the membranes. Credit: Aurore Dupin / TUM

Signal exchange and spatial differentiation of cells

But that's not all: Small signal molecules can be exchanged between cells via their membranes or protein channels built into the membranes. This allows them to couple with each other temporally and spatially. The systems thus become dynamic, as in real life.

Chemical pulses thus propagate through the cell structures and pass on information. The signals can also act as triggers, allowing initially identical cells to develop differently. "Our system is the first example of a multicellular system in which artificial cells with gene expression have a fixed arrangement and are coupled via chemical signals. In this way, we achieved a form of spatial differentiation," says Simmel.

Models, mini factories and microsensors

Developing these kinds of synthetic systems is important since they allow scientists to investigate fundamental questions about the origins of life in a model. Complex organisms became possible only after cells began specializing and distributing work between cooperating cells. How this came about is among the most fascinating questions in basic research.

The red droplet contains a solution of signal molecules that diffuse into the chain of artificial cell compartments to the right. The droplets contain a biochemical system that temporarily responds to this signal. As a result, the droplets light up in a fluorescent green and then darken again -- a 'signal' runs from left to right. Credit: Aurore Dupin / TUM

Using a modular construction kit of tailor-made cell systems, the researchers hope to simulate various properties of biological systems in the future. The idea is that cells react to their environment and learn to act independently.

The first applications are already on the horizon: In the long term, artificial cell assemblies can be deployed as mini-factories to produce specific biomolecules, or as tiny micro-robot sensors that process information and adapt to their environments.

Cells from a 3-D printer

Friedrich Simmel and Aurore Dupin still assemble their cell systems manually using micromanipulators. In the future, however, they plan to cooperate with the Munich University of Applied Sciences, for example, to systematically build larger and more lifelike systems using 3-D printing technology.

Explore further Chemical reactions in artificial cell-scale systems show surprising diversity

More information: Aurore Dupin et al, Signalling and differentiation in emulsion-based multi-compartmentalized in vitro gene circuits, Nature Chemistry (2018). Journal information: Nature Chemistry Aurore Dupin et al, Signalling and differentiation in emulsion-based multi-compartmentalized in vitro gene circuits,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41557-018-0174-9
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday criticized as "too slow" Myanmar's efforts to allow the return of Rohingya Muslim refugees, describing the lack of progress as a source of "enormous frustration." More than 720,000 Rohingya are living in camps in Bangladesh after they were driven out of Myanmar's northern Rakhine state during a military campaign in 2017 that the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar has agreed to take back some of the refugees in a deal reached with Bangladesh, but the United Nations insists that the safety of the Rohingya be a condition for their return. "I feel an enormous frustration with the lack of progress in relation to Myanmar and with the suffering of the people," Guterres told a news conference. "We insist on the need to create conditions for them to be willing to go back," he said. "Things have been too slow." Myanmar's government this month postponed a planned visit by UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi who was due to travel to Rakhine. UN envoy Christine Schraner Burgener is expected to hold talks in Myanmar later this month and report to the Security Council on the steps taken to address the refugee crisis, UN diplomats said. After a closed-door council meeting on Myanmar on Wednesday, German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen said there was "extremely limited progress" on the ground and that the council was "very concerned" by the situation. Britain in December circulated a draft Security Council resolution on Myanmar that would have set a deadline for authorities to roll out a strategy for addressing the Rohingya crisis. China, backed by Russia, however raised strong objections and refused to take part in negotiations, suggesting it was ready to use its veto at the council to block the measure. China, which has close ties with Myanmar's military, has argued that the crisis in Rakhine is linked to poverty and has opposed any step to put pressure on the authorities. Rohingya in Buddhist-majority Myanmar have suffered decades of persecution and are denied citizenship rights. Myanmar has denied that it has singled out the Rohingya and described its army operations as a campaign to root out terrorists.
Are European competition rules obsolete in the face of the Chinese threat? This is the debate in Brussels as the powerful European commission seems set to veto a blockbuster merger of the train-making businesses of Siemens and Alstom. The tie-up, announced in 2017, was billed as the birth of an all-too-rare European industrial champion -- a "Railbus" to match Airbus, Europe's aviation giant that competes toe-to-toe with US-rival Boeing. "Do we want... the single market to become a supermarket for all the major powers, China and the United States," thundered Bruno Le Maire on Monday. "Or do we want Europe to be powerful and sovereign?" demanded the French finance minister, who has led an impassioned campaign to defend the tie-up. A view echoed in Berlin, which has also lobbied -- if less ardently -- for the deal. "We need more European champions to stand up to Chinese and American competition," Peter Altmaier, Le Maire's counterpart, told the German daily Handelsblatt on Friday. But the road to building a juggernaut is blocked by a formidable obstacle: EU competition law and Margrethe Vestager, the steely European commissioner whose job is to enforce it. Since 2014, Vestager has grabbed headlines, facing down the world's most powerful companies, including iPhone maker Apple, which she ordered to pay 14 billion euros ($15.9 billion) in back taxes to Ireland. A former Danish minister, Vestager has been celebrated as a hero for thwarting Silicon Valley, but the unexpected turn of the screws on big plans for Europe has come as a shock in Paris and Berlin. In a 25-page manifesto published last week, the powerful German Industry Federation (BDI) demanded a rethink of European competition law in order to get tough on the Chinese superpower where multinationals are deeply enmeshed with Communist party power. "While in China, large groups are created through state intervention, EU competition authorities only look at the European internal market as a relevant market for European mergers," it wrote. Underlined, in tacit reference to the near-doomed merger, was "the example of the Chinese railway giant CRRC, born from the merger of two state-owned companies". Vestager does not dispute the need to create European champions, just not in defiance of established rules. In a highly exceptional move, the issue was discussed earlier this week by the EU's 28 commissioners, whose role in antitrust cases is to rubber-stamp what has been decided by Vestager and her teams. Vestager did not deny to her counterparts the need to "face the clear risks of Chinese competition," according to her preparatory note for the meeting, a copy of which was obtained by AFP. But she also defended existing competition law that "encourages good European champions". "To be competitive abroad requires competition at home," she said. According to French Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, the discussion was "frank and open", a diplomatic euphemism for a row. "We are not naive," the former French finance minister said after the meeting. "The Commission's thinking as a whole is not obsolete, we want to take into account the evolution of tomorrow's economy," he said. Last year the Europeans agreed on a framework for tracking foreign investment in the EU, to address the concerns of the largest member states about acquisitions, mainly Chinese, in strategic sectors. Nevertheless, there are two opposing visions of competition law in Europe. - Defending 'Made in Europe' - The first, of liberal-free market inspiration, wants strict enforcement of the rules regardless of political or strategic considerations. Breaking the rules "would weaken our credibility without solving the underlying challenges", said an editorial in the Financial Times, praising the Danish Commissioner's intransigence. Another camp would like more flexibility in the rules to preserve and promote the "made in Europe", as argued in an editorial in last Monday's Le Monde newspaper titled: "Save the European factory". According to a merger lawyer in Brussels, who asked to remain anonymous, "European rules are not as restrictive as that, but some lawyers in the commission are very young and tend to be extremely zealous in handling cases to cover themselves". The Commission, on the other hand, warns against too much flexibility. "Our aim is to protect fair competition in the EU. Not doing so could also turn against Europeans," a senior official recently noted, pointing out that Brussels was also responsible for controlling the effects of US mergers on European soil. The prohibition of a merger by Brussels is extremely rare: in ten years, it has blocked seven mergers and authorised more than 3,000.
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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



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Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!


From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As...
OPEC has decided to hold an extraordinary full ministerial meeting on April 17 in Vienna to discuss the state of the oil market and the production cut deal, while the cartels non-OPEC partners will join for a full OPEC+ meeting on the following day, April 18, an OPEC official told S&P Global Platts on Thursday.

OPEC could still hold its regular full ministerial meeting in June, as it usually does, the official with the organization told Platts.

A month before the full ministerial meeting in the middle of April, representatives of both OPEC and non-OPEC producers part of the deal will discuss the oil market developments at the monitoring committee meeting.

The date is yet to be finalized, but according to Plattss source at OPEC, the monitoring committee will likely meet on March 17-18 in Baku, Azerbaijan, which is part of the non-OPEC group of allies participating in the production cut deal. The energy ministers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela, and Algeria from OPEC and Russia and Oman from non-OPEC are part of the monitoring committee, while Azerbaijan will also take part as the host.

Announcing the new OPEC+ production deal, the cartel said in early December that the next OPEC/non-OPEC ministerial meeting would be held in April in Vienna, but no details about the date were revealed.



Related: Trump Takes Aim At Maduro, Threatens Oil Embargo

It would make sense for OPEC and allies to hold a full meeting in mid-April, considering that they could decide whether or not to extend the production cuts which currently expire in June. The other reason for a mid-April meeting would be that the U.S. waivers for eight Iranian oil customers expire in early May, and the U.S. Administration has not yet given a clear signal whether it would be extending some waivers or push for zero Iranian oil exports.

Meanwhile, in its latest Monthly Oil Market Report published today, OPECs secondary sourcesthe ones the cartel uses to calculate compliance levelsshowed that OPECs production declined by 751,000 bpd in December from November. The cartels total crude oil production dropped to 31.578 million bpd last month, from 32.328 million bpd in November.



By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Chinas CNOOC will seek to boost its crude oil reserve base and increase the number of new exploration projects it is involved in twofold over the next seven years, Reuters reports, citing a statement by the company on Chinese network Wechat.

CNOOC focuses on offshore oil and gas, and is the largest operator in this area in China and has recently been very active in its international expansion to offset production declines at mature Chinese fields. The announcement of the reserve and production boost plan comes in response to an urging from President Xi Jinping to enhance Chinas national security.

We faced adverse geological conditions as offshore oil and gas fields age. More exploration projects are being moved to deep water area, but these are both risky and costly, CNOOCs head of geology, Xie Yuhong, said.

According to the chairman of the company, the reserve boost plan will require record-high investments in the next seven years. CNOOC is announcing its budget and production target for 2019 later this month.

Earlier this month, CNOOC announced, along with its partner Total, the start of production at the Egina deepwater field off the Nigerian coast, which is seen to reach its peak production as early as this year, at 200,000 bpd. The field went into production ahead of schedule, which suggests CNOOC is successfully pursuing its reserve boost plans already.

At end-2017, the company had a net reserve base of 2.613 billion barrels of oil equivalent. According to Reuters, this was the highest reserve base level for CNOOC since 2008. Last year, CNOOC said it will boost its capital spending to US$10.3-US$11.8 billion (70-80 billion yuan), of which 51 percent would be spent domestically and the rest on international projects.

Also in 2018, CNOOC said it planned to expand oil production from a planned 470-480 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2018 to 485 million barrels of oil equivalent this year, and 500 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2020.



By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Meetings in the West Virginia legislature arent completely male-attended, but they are close. Photo: Perry Bennett/West Virginia LRIC

Last month Nevada got some attention for becoming the first state with a legislature in which women comprised the majority. A full report from the National Conference of Legislatures tells the rest of the story: state-by-state percentages of women in the legislatures of all 50 states.

Joining Nevada in the honorable ranks of states with at least 40 percent female legislatures are Colorado (47 percent), Oregon (41.1 percent), and Washington (40.1 percent). At the other end of the spectrum are the bottom five, where legislatures are still mainly boys clubs: West Virginia (14.2 percent), Tennessee (14.4 percent), Louisiana (14.6 percent), Mississippi (14.9 percent), and Wyoming (15.7 percent), with Alabama just off pace at 15.7 percent. Perhaps not coincidentally, the legislatures at the very top are Democrat-controlled (though fifth-ranking Arizona is Republican-controlled) and the bottom-feeders are all Republican-controlled.

In the middle, though, states dont necessarily fit the partisan or geographical stereotypes. Liberal and heavily Democratic Massachusetts (28.5 percent) and California (29.2 percent) rank below conservative Republican Georgia (30.5 percent). That surprises me, as a veteran of Georgia politics and government who remembers old-timers around the State Capitol telling tales of a 24-hour poker game for lawmakers maintained by a nude prostitute throughout legislative sessions back in the day. I am reasonably sure said legislators were men, and the prostitute was a woman. Sometimes things do change for the better.
Refiners in the United States are stocking up on heavy crude, pushing prices higher, as the Trump administration prepares to slam more punitive measures on Caracas after the inauguration of Nicolas Maduro as president of Venezuela for a second term after elections considered illegitimate by Washington.

Reuters reports that officials from the presidential administration met with oil industry executives to discuss the measures on the table, including the suspension ofrefined product exports to Venezuela or Venezuelan crude oil imports into the United States.

Gulf Coast refiners have a limited choice of supplier when it comes to heavy crude. Besides local grades such as Mars, they import the heavy crude they need to produce more than just gasoline from Canada, Venezuela, and Mexico.

It is this scarcity of alternatives that has probably stopped Trump from banning Venezuelan oil imports so far, although the blanket import ban card has been waved around a couple of times already.

However, it is possible that things may have changed now: the U.S. President earlier this week said he recognizes the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, an opposition politician, as the legitimate president of the country.

The oil industry is strongly against such a radical measure for obvious reasons: a barrel of Mars is already trading at a premium to the benchmark WTI and this week the premium jumped by US$2.30 a barrel in just two days. Whats more, refiners simply need the half of million barrels daily they took in from Venezuela last year amid the Canadian crude oil production cut aimed at boosting prices and a continued decline in Mexican oil output.

There is also concern among experts on Latin America advising the president that blanket oil sanctions could have an effect opposite to the desired one, with the United States displaying too direct an involvement in Venezuelan domestic politics.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL January 18, 2019  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: McCormick & Company, Inc. MKC, Cintas Corp. CTAS, Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. ADM and Ameren Corp. AEE.

Here are highlights from Thursdays Analyst Blog:

4 Stocks in Remembrance of Vanguard's Jack Bogle

John C. Bogle, father of the index fund, passed away at the age of 89 on Jan 16. He was known for his low-cost, buy-and-hold investing strategy and founded the Vanguard Group, the mutual fund house mostly known for their low-cost funds that track a market index rather than trying to outdo it. He said that the main appeal of these funds is that these capture nearly all of a bourses return ably and inexpensively.

Bogle always said Why cant managers beat the market? Wheres the value added? In terms of industrywide statistics, its just not there. One reason is because of cost. The cost is a handicap on the horse. If the jockey carries a lot of extra pounds, its very tough for the horse to win the race.

Vanguard was formed in 1974 and began functioning the next year. Investors have put in nearly $5.3 trillion into Vanguard funds, according to the company. Most of the Vanguard funds are managed outside. Unlike other fund families, Vanguard doesnt hire employees to manage funds. Instead, the worlds biggest fund family hires managers from outside. This makes it easier to replace the funds in case the manager fails to deliver. This in turn helps to control overall cost of actively-managed Vanguard funds.

When Bogle launched his first fund that tracked the S&P 500 index in 1976, it was called the Vanguard experiment, which initially accumulated $11 million. It is now famously known as the Vanguard 500 Index Investor fund and has almost $441 billion in assets, noted Vanguard.

Story continues

Bogles Beliefs

Bogle had very modestly said I dont think Im anything like a folk hero, but there arent a lot of people like me in this business. Most keep a lower profile, are much more guarded in the way they speak, and much less strident in their advocacy of shareholders values and rights. If this industry had one fox and 1,000 hedgehogs, maybe I wouldnt stand out. But if it has 1,000 foxes and one hedgehog, youre going to be more distinctive. You carry a different set of values and investment ideas. If its unusual  even unique  you will stand out.

So, what was his simple approach toward investing? No doubt, he asked everyone to consider index funds. Having a diversified portfolio comprising stocks as well as mutual funds was also recommended. Last but not the least he said that dont be bothered about the broader market. Think long term, stay invested and ignore the noise. But, most importantly he had confirmed that growth comes from dividends.

Dividends Are a Stock Investor's Best Friend

According to Bogle, dividend yield along with earnings growth primarily drives stock prices. In the 20th century, out of the stock markets 9.6% return, 4.5% came from dividend growth and 5% came from earnings growth. Meanwhile, a meager 0.1% came from adjustments in market price-to-earnings ratio, noted Bogle.

Bogle added that the compounding power of dividends is amazing and is key to huge wealth creation by index funds. Dividend payers, thus, make for wonderful investments. The best dividend stocks, undoubtedly, yield healthy returns, have strong prospects and are less susceptible to market gyrations. Their large customer base, sustainable business model, long track of profitability and strong liquidity allow them to offer sizable yields on a regular basis, regardless of market conditions.

4 Stocks to Go Over Bogles Timeless Investing Lesson

While finding solid dividend paying companies isnt easy, they certainly do exist. To help you find these businesses, we have selected four dividend payers who have a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy).

McCormick & Company, Inc.manufactures, markets, and distributes spices, seasoning mixes, condiments, and other flavorful products. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1. The company has raised its dividend payments for 31 consecutive years. It has a dividend yield of 1.6%, while its five-year average dividend yield is 1.9%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has increased 0.2% in the past 90 days.

Cintas Corp.provides corporate identity uniforms and related business services. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2. It has raised its dividend for 34 years in a row. It has a dividend yield of 1.2%, while its five-year average dividend yield is 1.1%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has increased 1.5% in the past 60 days. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Archer-Daniels-Midland Co.procures, transports, stores, processes, and merchandises agricultural commodities, products, and ingredients. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1. The company has raised its dividend payments for more than 25 successive years. It has a dividend yield of 3.1%, while its five-year average dividend yield is 2.7%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has moved up 0.8% in the past 60 days.

Ameren Corp. operates as a public utility holding company in the United States. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank 1. The company has consistently paid dividends for a considerable period of time. It has a dividend yield of 2.9%, while its five-year average dividend yield is 3.5%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has moved 0.9% north in the past 60 days.

Today's Stocks from Zacks' Hottest Strategies

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Embattled Womens March co-chairwoman Tamika Mallory refused to acknowledge the state of Israels right to exist during a recent interview on PBSs The Firing Line and seemed to suggest that, unlike Palestinians, Israelis were not native to the region.

Mallory, who has been forced in recent days to confront questions about her association with notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, acknowledged during the interview that all people have the right to exist but would not address the legitimacy of the Israeli state.

Im not Jewish, so for me to speak to that is not fair . . . because Im speaking of the people who we know are being brutally oppressed at this moment, Mallory told PBSs Margaret Hoover. Everyone has a right to exist. . . . I just dont feel that everyone has a right to exist at the disposal of another group.

I believe that all people have the right to exist. And that Palestinians are also suffering with a great crisis. And that there are other Jewish scholars who will sit here and say the same, she added. Im done talking about this, you can move on.

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The Womens March lost the support of the Democratic National Committee and a host of other prominent liberal groups this week after Mallory defend her past praise for Farrakhan during a Monday appearance on The View.

I didnt call him the greatest of all time because of his rhetoric. I called him the greatest of all time because of what hes done in black communities, Mallory said Monday when asked about a February social-media post in which she labeled Farrakhan the GOAT.

More than half of the roughly 500 partner organizations that supported the nationwide Womens March demonstration last year have abandoned the organization ahead of this years protests, which will take place Saturday in Washington, D.C. and other cities across the country.

More from National Review
Michael Cohen in Trump Tower shortly after the election. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

When Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in November, the Mueller team provided a memo saying he had given them credible and useful information. According to a report from BuzzFeed News, President Trump told his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his intentions to build Trump Tower Moscow, and that Trump had signed off on a plan to visit Russia during the 2016 campaign to meet with Vladimir Putin and expedite the construction process. Sources allege that Trump told Cohen to Make it happen.

A full day after the Buzzfeed report came out, the special counsels office released a rare statement disputing the story. BuzzFeeds description of specific statements to the Special Counsels Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohens Congressional testimony are not accurate, said Mueller investigation spokesperson Peter Carr on Friday night. Buzzfeed then stood by their story, and called on Mueller to identify what its reporters got wrong.

The Buzzfeed report, if it is accurate, provides another high-profile contradiction between the public statements of the Trump camp and the evidence that Mueller is amassing. Throughout the campaign, Trump denied having business interests in Russia, all while he was reportedly working to put a tower in Moscow, a plan that could have brought his company $300 million, and put Vladimir Putin in the buildings $50 million penthouse. Law-enforcement sources told BuzzFeed that, during the campaign, Trump had at least ten face-to-face meetings with Cohen about the deal.

The report also suggests trouble for the Trump children, as the special counsel allegedly learned about Trumps order to lie to Congress through internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. In 2017, Trump Jr. testified to the Senate Judiciary committee that he was peripherally aware of the Trump Tower Moscow plan, and a spokesperson for Ivanka Trump told BuzzFeed that she was only minimally involved in the project. However, the report states that Trumps two children received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project.

Immediately after the report was published Thursday night, House Democrats began to weigh in. If the President directed Cohen to lie to Congress, that is obstruction of justice. Period. Full stop, tweeted Congressman David Cicilline. This stunning Trump Tower Moscow story establishes a clear case of Obstruction of Justice, a felony. Ive lost count now how many times [the president] has engaged in Obstruction of Justice, added Ted Lieu. Oh, FYI, the first Article of Impeachment for Richard Nixon was Obstruction of Justice.

This post has been updated to include the special counsel offices statement.
It started as a statement of defiance after the election of Donald Trump, morphed into a mobilizing force at the polls, and now, as it approaches its third iteration, the Womens March is focusing on fighting for its policy priorities.

Themes such as opposition to Trump, ending violence against women and the pursuit of equality are sure to take center stage during scheduled demonstrations in Washington and about 350 sites across the country Saturday, just short of the two-year anniversary of the historic first march.

As it grows into its political power, the movement is running into headwinds in the form of a splintered leadership and accusations of anti-Semitism against some of the original organizers.

The controversy, which prompted the Democratic National Committee and other groups to distance themselves from the Washington event, threatens to erode the movements gains, or at least slow its progress.

A cause that two years ago drew 3.3 million to 5.2 million nationwide, making it probably the largest demonstration in U.S. history, now may be lucky to attract half that many.

Besides lacking the immediate outrage over Trumps election or midterms to serve as motivators, the marches face obstacles in the increased travel inconveniences created by the federal shutdown, in addition to harsh weather. Major winter storm Harper is forecast to pound large stretches from the Midwest to the Northeast with rain, snow and wind over the weekend.

This is the heaviest lift theyre going to have, said University of Maryland sociology professor Dana R. Fisher, author of the upcoming book American Resistance.

In general, getting people to march in the winter is tough. Its a hard ask, and right now theres not an obvious goal, except for perhaps 2020 (the general election). I know Womens March Inc. says theyre trying to use this as a pivot to start talking about doing more policy-based work, but I think thats not a good mobilizer.

Story continues

Diminished interest is to be expected in a non-election year. After the enthusiasm generated by the first march, the movement spurred a spike in female activism before the 2018 midterms, in the form of candidates and involvement in campaigns.

Women, especially those in the suburbs, helped drive the Democrats 40-seat gain in the House of Representatives, flipping control of that chamber. A record 102 women  89 of them Democrats  were voted into the House in November.

More: Women's March leaders in New York face scrutiny as local chapters defect

More: Democratic National Committee out as Women's March sponsor amid anti-Semitism controversy

You can draw a direct line from the 5 million who marched that day and our effort after that to impact elections to the makeup of the current Congress as the most diverse Congress thats ever been elected, said Vanessa Wruble, one of the leading organizers of the first march. Already you see the movement shifting from reactive to proactive.

But as Wruble knows all too well, the cause has been shaken by distrust and divisiveness, which she said began the very first day she and six other women met to lay down plans for the march.

One Time use LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 25: Scottie Thompson, Roger Wolfson, Vanessa Wruble and Penelope Chester attend A Conversation with the Center for Reproductive Rights at Private Residence on February 25, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images) ORG XMIT: 775130231 [Via MerlinFTP Drop]

A detailed story by the Jewish online magazine Tablet said Womens March board members Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez  whom Wruble recruited to add diversity to the original organizing group of four  confronted her about the role Jews had in oppressing minorities of color.

Wruble, who is Jewish, was asked to leave the group shortly after the first march, and she told The New York Times her religion was a factor. She later co-founded March On, an organization that provides support and guidance to women-led groups throughout the country, and estimates 50 percent of Saturdays sister marches will have gotten help from the group.

Fisher said the controversy is clearly taking a toll.

Womens March Inc. does not own the womens movement, and it certainly does not own this march, which has been so much a combination of all of these locally distributed efforts across the country, she said. Its a shame all of the bad press is having this effect.

WMI declined to make any of its board members available for an interview, instead forwarding one of the multiple denials of anti-Semitism the group has issued since the dispute erupted.

Tamika Mallory, right, co-chair of the Women's March

Its case was undermined when Mallory, a Womens March co-president, appeared on ABCs The View on Monday and declined to denounce the frequent anti-Semitic statements by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whom she has publicly lauded.

WMI provided a statement about the concurrent marches programmed for Saturday, most of which are not affiliated with the group.

More: 'The real march is on Election Day': Women march around the world for a second day

More: 'Grab Him by the Mid-terms': Women's marches push power of the vote

Women's March is an organic movement, made of the fierce energy and power of millions of women and those who support them, the statement said. We're thrilled to see hundreds of marches sprout up in small towns, suburbs, and cities across America and around the globe. In 2017, we marched. In 2018, we took our power to the polls. In 2019, we're coming with an agenda created by women and for the people.

In addition to addressing violence against women, that agenda includes items such as reproductive rights, racial justice and immigrant rights. The objectives are worthwhile enough for sponsors like the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood to remain on board.

A coalition of more than 100 supporters of the Jewish Women of Color signed a letter standing firm with the Womens March.

On the other hand, the Jewish Democratic Council of America issued a statement joining the DNC and other groups pulling away from the Womens March organization, though not the cause itself.

The diverging stances may diffuse the movements message.

I think theres obviously some confusion because people dont know how the sausages are made, and whats being revealed now is actually how the sausages were made, said Wruble, who favors a decentralized operation. The media had focused on a small group of people who were some of the organizers of one march."

Julie Goldscheid, a law professor at City University of New York who has written about gender and equality law, said the focus should be on the overall accomplishments of the womens marches, which along with the MeToo# movement have brought attention to issues of inequality women regularly confront.

She said the activism behind those causes has carried over into workplace changes in many sectors, from the corporate level to farm workers.

Whatever the disagreements may be among the leaders or different perspectives or struggles to understand one another, Goldscheid said, its really important for us to remember how much really productive work is being done to fight violence, to fight discrimination on the basis of gender, on the basis of race, on the basis of religion, and all other forms of discrimination that are still so rampant.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Women's March 2019: Activists press on for Saturday protest despite stiff headwinds
An Indonesian woman was mauled to death by a pet crocodile after she fell into the giant reptiles pen, Agence France-Presse reports.

Deasy Tuwo, who ran a laboratory at a pearl farm, was reportedly feeding the 1,500-pound crocodile named Merry when she fell into its enclosure on the island of Sulawesi. Her body was found by her colleagues the next morning, officials said on Wednesday.

The indication is that she fell into the crocodiles enclosure, Hendriks Rundengan, an official from a local conservation agency, told AFP.

Merry reportedly ate one of the 44-year-old womans hands and much of her abdomen.

These parts may still be inside the crocodile now, Rundengan added.

Merry, who had been kept illegally on the pearl farm, was sedated and taken out of the enclosure on Jan. 14 in a three-hour ordeal that required assistance from police, the army and conservationists.

Rundengan said Merry will be transferred to a conservation area.

Its unclear how Merry came to be a pet crocodile. Rundengan told BBC that officials had previously tried and failed to enter the farm to retrieve the reptile.

Weve come here a few times but the fences are always locked, he said.

Police are still investigating the incident and trying to get ahold of the alleged owner of the crocodile.
Today well evaluate Nanjing Sample Technology Company Limited (HKG:1708) to determine whether it could have potential as an investment idea. In particular, well consider its Return On Capital Employed (ROCE), as that can give us insight into how profitably the company is able to employ capital in its business.

First up, well look at what ROCE is and how we calculate it. Next, well compare it to others in its industry. Finally, well look at how its current liabilities affect its ROCE.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it?

ROCE is a measure of a companys yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. Generally speaking a higher ROCE is better. Ultimately, it is a useful but imperfect metric. Author Edwin Whiting says to be careful when comparing the ROCE of different businesses, since No two businesses are exactly alike.

How Do You Calculate Return On Capital Employed?

The formula for calculating the return on capital employed is:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets  Current Liabilities)

Or for Nanjing Sample Technology:

0.12 = CN244m  (CN4.5b  CN2.1b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2018.)

Therefore, Nanjing Sample Technology has an ROCE of 12%.

Check out our latest analysis for Nanjing Sample Technology

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Does Nanjing Sample Technology Have A Good ROCE?

One way to assess ROCE is to compare similar companies. We can see Nanjing Sample Technologys ROCE is around the 11% average reported by the Electronic industry. Regardless of where Nanjing Sample Technology sits next to its industry, its ROCE in absolute terms appears satisfactory, and this company could be worth a closer look.

SEHK:1708 Last Perf January 18th 19

Remember that this metric is backwards looking  it shows what has happened in the past, and does not accurately predict the future. Companies in cyclical industries can be difficult to understand using ROCE, as returns typically look high during boom times, and low during busts. ROCE is only a point-in-time measure. If Nanjing Sample Technology is cyclical, it could make sense to check out this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Story continues

How Nanjing Sample Technologys Current Liabilities Impact Its ROCE

Liabilities, such as supplier bills and bank overdrafts, are referred to as current liabilities if they need to be paid within 12 months. Due to the way ROCE is calculated, a high level of current liabilities makes a company look as though it has less capital employed, and thus can (sometimes unfairly) boost the ROCE. To counter this, investors can check if a company has high current liabilities relative to total assets.

Nanjing Sample Technology has total assets of CN4.5b and current liabilities of CN2.1b. As a result, its current liabilities are equal to approximately 47% of its total assets. With this level of current liabilities, Nanjing Sample Technologys ROCE is boosted somewhat.

What We Can Learn From Nanjing Sample Technologys ROCE

Nanjing Sample Technologys ROCE does look good, but the level of current liabilities also contribute to that. Of course you might be able to find a better stock than Nanjing Sample Technology. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have grown earnings strongly.

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Soybeans prices jumped double digits on Jan 17 after the production outlook for Brazil was tapered. Celeres, a Brazilian consultancy, lowered its soybean output forecast amid inclement weather conditions to 117.2 million metric tons. The USDA also pegged output for the country at 122 million tons last month.

A Commodity Weather Group report shows that temperatures that have been hovering in the low- to mid-90s range in central and northeastern Brazil might worsen through Friday, making things worse for the crop.

If that was not enough, cues of settlement of the U.S.-China trade dispute should support soybean prices. Agricultural products like yellow and black soybean faced a 25% retaliatory tariff from China. Notably, China purchases about half of the U.S. soybean and is the second-largest buyer of American cotton (read: US Farm Belt at Risk on China Tariffs: ETFs in Focus).

Per the Wall Street Journal, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been mulling over a proposal to lift some or all U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods in order to push trade talks between the United States and China a step ahead.

Though the more hawkish members of President Donald Trump's trade team, including U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the lead negotiator with Beijing, is not supportive of such a move, President himself is reportedly asking for a benign approach to U.S.-Sino trade relations at the current level.

Will the Gains Last?

Weak import data from the key consumer China is a threat to the price rally.Soybean shipments offloaded in China this year fell about 37% from the first two weeks of 2018, according to tanker-tracking firm ClipperData.

China has reportedly turned to Brazil and other exporters for its supplies due to trade tensions with United States. The trade fear has weighed on prices, with soybean shedding more than a quarter of its value  between the 2017 high in March and the low in September. While prices recovered a bit from easing trade tensions, any false alarms would correct the price.

Story continues

Against this backdrop, investors may be interested in keeping a close tab on the pure-play soybean ETF Teucrium Soybean ETF SOYB. Below we highlight the fund in detail.

SOYB in Focus

The underlying index looks to reflect the daily changes of a weighted average of the closing prices for three futures contracts for soybeans that are traded on the CBOT. The three contracts will be: (1) 2nd-to-expire contract, weighted 35%, (2) the 3rd-to-expire contract, weighted 30%, and (3) the contract expiring in the November following the expiration month of the 3rd-to-expire contract, weighted 35%.

SOYB was designed to reduce the effects of rolling contracts (and contango and backwardation) by not investing in front-month (spot) futures contracts and thus limiting the number of contracts rolls each year. The expense ratio is 1.74%. The fund was up about 1.5% on Jan 17 and has gained about 1.9% in the year-to-date frame (as of Jan 17, 2019).

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Today we are going to look at Voltas Limited (NSE:VOLTAS) to see whether it might be an attractive investment prospect. Specifically, were going to calculate its Return On Capital Employed (ROCE), in the hopes of getting some insight into the business.

First, well go over how we calculate ROCE. Next, well compare it to others in its industry. And finally, well look at how its current liabilities are impacting its ROCE.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. Generally speaking a higher ROCE is better. Overall, it is a valuable metric that has its flaws. Author Edwin Whiting says to be careful when comparing the ROCE of different businesses, since No two businesses are exactly alike.

How Do You Calculate Return On Capital Employed?

Analysts use this formula to calculate return on capital employed:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets  Current Liabilities)

Or for Voltas:

0.18 = 6.9b  (74b  33b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2018.)

So, Voltas has an ROCE of 18%.

See our latest analysis for Voltas

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Does Voltas Have A Good ROCE?

ROCE can be useful when making comparisons, such as between similar companies. In our analysis, Voltass ROCE is meaningfully higher than the 12% average in the Construction industry. I think thats good to see, since it implies the company is better than other companies at making the most of its capital. Independently of how Voltas compares to its industry, its ROCE in absolute terms appears decent, and the company may be worthy of closer investigation.

NSEI:VOLTAS Last Perf January 18th 19

It is important to remember that ROCE shows past performance, and is not necessarily predictive. Companies in cyclical industries can be difficult to understand using ROCE, as returns typically look high during boom times, and low during busts. ROCE is only a point-in-time measure. What happens in the future is pretty important for investors, so we have prepared a free report on analyst forecasts for Voltas.

Story continues

What Are Current Liabilities, And How Do They Affect Voltass ROCE?

Current liabilities include invoices, such as supplier payments, short-term debt, or a tax bill, that need to be paid within 12 months. The ROCE equation subtracts current liabilities from capital employed, so a company with a lot of current liabilities appears to have less capital employed, and a higher ROCE than otherwise. To check the impact of this, we calculate if a company has high current liabilities relative to its total assets.

Voltas has total liabilities of 33b and total assets of 74b. Therefore its current liabilities are equivalent to approximately 45% of its total assets. With this level of current liabilities, Voltass ROCE is boosted somewhat.

The Bottom Line On Voltass ROCE

Voltass ROCE does look good, but the level of current liabilities also contribute to that. But note: Voltas may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a P/E ratio below 20).

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Hanoi (AFP) - Vietnam's premier has said his country is willing to host a much-anticipated second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

One of North Korea's top generals Kim Yong Chol is expected to meet with Trump at the White House on Friday to hash out details of a second meeting with Kim, including a potential venue.

The second round of talks follow a historic summit in Singapore last year and are aimed at denuclearisation and ending decades of enmity between the two nations.

Vietnam has cropped up in the swirl of rumours and conjecture over a possible site for the meeting, with the capital Hanoi or the coastal city of Danang seemingly the most likely bases for the summit.

On Thursday Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said he would be open to hosting it.

"We don't know the final decision. However, if it happens here we will do our best to facilitate the meeting," he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

"Vietnam has cooperated well with the US in developing economic and trade relations, as well as in other areas."

A Vietnamese government source who wished to remain anonymous told AFP "logistical preparations" were under way for a Trump-Kim summit although "no official decision" had been made.

"There is lots of work to be done, not only for Danang but some other locations for the event. The Vietnamese side is ready to host... but it is not up to us to decide."

Like several other Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam maintains diplomatic ties with both communist-run Pyongyang and Washington and is keen to host major global events as it tries to project a more confident global profile.

Communist Vietnam hosted a major Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in the central city of Danang in 2017 attended by global leaders, including Trump.

Hanoi also welcomed North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho in November for a visit reportedly aimed at sharing lessons from its economic success story.

Story continues

Hosting a meeting of this calibre that will draw attention -- and scrutiny -- from around the world will be "very significant", said Nguyen Vinh Quang, an analyst at Vietnam's Center for Strategic Studies and International Development.

"It will show Vietnam's contribution to global peace. Secondly, Vietnam can affirm its role as a reliable partner for countries around the world," he told AFP.

Trump has said he is eager to meet with Kim again after their historic summit in June, the first ever meeting between two sitting leaders from two countries that never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

The leaders agreed on a vaguely-worded statement in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula".

But progress has since stalled with the two sides sparring over what that means.

Kim is hoping for an easing of international sanctions but the United States insists on maintaining maximum pressure until Pyongyang moves forward on giving up its nuclear weapons.
The gang of nine men launched a ferocious homophobic acid attack on innocent members of the public (Picture: SWNS)

Seven members of a gang who launched an acid attack on innocent members of the public have been put behind bars for a combined 60 years.

The gang of nine launched a ferocious attack near a night club, leaving one victim with a fractured eye socket and burns to his eyes.

The gang, who claimed they run Hackney, were all sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court on Thursday  with seven given jail terms.

Members of the gang were all sentenced on Thursday, with seven handed jail terms (Picture: SWNS)

The men were sitting in their cars on a crescent in the north east London borough at 5.15am one morning in May last year. when group member Onur Ardic, 27, started arguing with a passer by.

The victim, who has never been traced, was quickly surrounded by the group and punched by Mustafa Kiziltan, 30.

MORE: Murder probe launched after boxer, 21, gunned down at Doncaster pub

MORE: Child killer lured to flat and stabbed 150 times by three men who discovered his crimes

A group of people who had left a nearby club tried to intervene and stop the attack while one of their friends filmed it but the gang then turned on him, kicking him to the ground and trying to steal his phone.

A brawl erupted and gang member Huseyin Onel, 24, returned to one of the cars, coming back with a white bottle he used to spray acid in the victims faces, targeting them calmly as they tried to flee.

Huseyin Onel, 24, targeted the victims friends, calmly spraying them in the face (Picture: SWNS)

DC David Leitner, from the Metropolitan Police, led the investigation that saw all nine gang members identified, arrested and charged over a four-month period.

He said: Seven violent and dangerous men have been removed from Londons streets today and will now spend a lengthy time locked up in prison.

The level of violence used in this attack, coupled with the speed that this incident escalated, are truly shocking.

A group of people who were enjoying themselves at the end of a night out were subjected to a sustained and relentless wave of violence including the use of a corrosive substance  because they acted as good Samaritans to help a male being subjected to a vicious assault.

Story continues

The original victim who was attacked by the group has never been traced but I hope he, and all those who were set upon by this violent group of individuals, will take some comfort from the fact that this group has been convicted.

The brawl erupted after one of the gang got involved in an argument with a passer-by (Picture: SWNS)

The man who had been filming the assault was left with a fractured eye socket and corrosive burns to his eyes after his bag was ripped from him  with his phone inside.

Doctors described his recovery as miraculous after it was initially thought his injuries would be life changing.

The gang members then got into the three cars and fled the scene, shouting homophobic comments at the group and that they run Hackney.

Onel, from Hackney, was jailed for 17 years for applying a noxious substance causing grievous bodily harm  with three years on extended licence. He was sentenced to nine years each for six counts of casting a noxious substance and three years for violent disorder to run concurrently.

Ardic, from Hackney, was sentenced to 14 years in prison while Tekagac, also from Hackney, was jailed for 14-and-a-half years  both for applying a noxious substance causing GBH plus three years on extended licence. They were also each sentenced to three years for violent disorder to run concurrently.

Guven Ulas, 20, from Barnsbury in north London, was handed a 30-month prison sentence for violent disorder.

Mustafa Kiziltan, 30, from Hackney, was sentenced to a total of three years in prison  27 months for violent disorder and nine months for dangerous driving. He was also sentenced to three months for failing to stop, which will run concurrently.

Serkan Kiziltan, 22, from Hackney, was sentenced to 18 months for violent disorder.

Umit Kaygisiz, 21, from Hoxton in north east London, was sentenced to a total of 28 months in prison for violent disorder and attempting to convey a mobile phone into prison.

Yasam Erdogan, 24, from Canonbury in north London, and Turgut Adakan, 23, from East Ham in east London, were each sentenced to 18 months for violent disorder, suspended for two years.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture will reopen about 980 Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices for three days starting on Thursday to help process farm loans and tax documents during the partial federal government shutdown. About 2,500 FSA employees who have been furloughed by the partial shutdown that began on Dec. 22 have been called back to work without pay, the department said in a statement on Wednesday. It said the offices would be open Thursday, Friday and Tuesday before closing again. "Until Congress sends President Trump an appropriations bill in the form that he will sign, we are doing our best to minimize the impact of the partial federal funding lapse on Americas agricultural producers," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in a statement. "We are bringing back part of our FSA team to help producers with existing farm loans." Perdue said 983 of the agency's 2,124 offices would be open. At least one office will be open in each state, as well as in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. "That is going to provide a little bit of relief," said Todd Van Hoose, president and chief executive of the Farm Credit Council, which represents farm credit institutions across the nation lending to half a million customers. "This is the heavy renewal season for agricultural lending. We think it is very important that we get those FSA offices open permanently so we can get new business done," he said in a briefing in Washington. About one-quarter of the federal government shut down on Dec. 22 over President Donald Trump's demand for $5.7 billion to fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, which congressional Democrats oppose. The shutdown, now in its 26th day, has rippled across the already struggling U.S. farm economy. The USDA canceled the release of a slew of key reports last week. In addition to the lack of clarity about supply and demand for their goods, farmers have been unable to receive aid payments from the Trump administration's $12 billion plan to ease the pain caused by the trade war. 'TIME CRUNCH' The shutdown also threatens to hobble the compilation of key data and reports ahead of the USDA's hotly anticipated annual outlook conference in February. At its Agricultural Outlook Forum, planned for Feb. 21 and 22 in Arlington, Virginia, the USDA releases preliminary forecasts for the U.S. crop, livestock and dairy sectors, including updated acreage projections for the new year and farm-gate price forecasts. The forum is still on track to be held next month, USDA chief economist Robert Johansson told Reuters by phone, but time is running short. "If the shutdown continues into February, we will start having to make some contingencies. ... Right now, we have time. We have not changed anything yet," Johansson said. The USDA typically releases its first farm income forecast of the year before the Outlook Forum, and this year's event will also feature the release of the latest Census of Agriculture, a detailed count of U.S. farms and ranches taken every five years. "It will be a time crunch, the longer we wait here," Johansson said. (Reporting by Susan Heavey, Tim Ahmann and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Julie Ingwersen and Mark Weinraub in Chicago; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney)
The US Navy could still send an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait in spite of Chinese military technology advances which pose a greater threat to American warships than ever before, the US chief of naval operations has said.

Such an operation would inevitably increase the risk of military conflict between the world's largest superpowers, which are currently locked in an escalating trade war and ongoing disputes over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Washington sent ships through the strategic waterway, which separates Taiwan from the Chinese mainland, three times last year, but has not dispatched a carrier in more than 10 years.

During that time, China has modernised its forces with missiles specifically designed to strike enemy ships.

We dont really see any kind of limitation on whatever type of ship could pass through those waters, Admiral John Richardson told reporters in Tokyo, Japan, when asked if more advanced Chinese weapons posed too large a risk.

We see the Taiwan Strait as another [stretch of] international waters, so thats why we do the transits.

Aircraft carriers, which are typically equipped with around 80 aircraft and crews of around 5,000 personnel, are key to the US militarys ability to project power globally.

Admiral Richardson, who visited China before travelling to Japan, said he told his Chinese counterparts the US was opposed to any unilateral action by Beijing or Taipei.

He also urged China to stick to internatioanl rules during unplanned naval encounters.

The request came after a Chinese destroyer approached the USS Decatur in October and forced it to change course as it challenged Chinese territorial claims in the contested South China Sea during a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP).

We have made this very clear that this was an excursion, a departure from the normal adherence to those rules and we would hope that behaviour in the future would be much more consistent, Admiral Richardson said.

Story continues

We should not see each other as a threatening presence in these waters.

The US Navy continues to send warships through waters in the South China Sea that Beijing considers its territory.

Last week, a US guided-missile destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese-occupied island in the South China Sea, prompting Beijing to complain it had gravely infringed upon Chinas sovereignty.

China claims almost all of the strategic waterway, through which around $3trn (2.3trn) of shipborne trade passes each year. Competing claims have been made by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Taiwan.

It has threatened to further fortify its military installations on artificial islands and reefs amid escalating tensions with the US.

Additional reporting by Reuters
Trumps Medicaid and Medicare director, Seema Verma. Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images

One of the most ancient Republican policy hobbyhorses has been eliminating Medicaids status as a federal-state entitlement program guaranteeing health-care services for low-income Americans and certain other categories of needy people. You think killing Obamacare is an obsessive Great White Whale for conservatives? Attacks on Medicaids basic structure date back at least to the beginning of the Reagan presidency (fittingly, since the Gipper was one of the most visible opponents of the original Medicare and Medicaid proposals back in the early 1960s). In fact, an effort to arbitrarily cap federal Medicaid payments was one of the few early legislative setbacks for his administration.

GOP efforts to turn Medicaid into a block grant (i.e., a proposal in which the federal government would appropriate a fixed sum of money that states could use to deal with the Medicaid population, with the federal contribution expected to wither away over time), terminating any individual entitlement to benefits, have come back over and over again like a recurring nightmare. There was a Medicaid block grant in the 199596 Gingrich budgets that Bill Clinton repeatedly vetoed. George W. Bush proposed the same thing in 2003. It was a regular feature of all those Ryan Budgets during the Obama administration. And most recently, Republicans tried to smuggle it into law as part of their unsuccessful bills to repeal and replace Obamacare, under the guise of rolling back Obamacares expansion of Medicaid.

Even as such frontal assaults on Medicaid continued, the Trump administration, under Medicare and Medicaid director Seema Verma, has been working hard at using waiver powers originally designed to help states cover more people under Medicaid to let them move in the opposite direction via work requirements and other provisions aimed at discouraging eligibility. Last year there was even talk of letting conservative states impose an arbitrary lifetime limit on how long childless adults could receive Medicaid benefits, which would have been a pretty clear abrogation of congressional authority to oversee the program and of Medicaids entitlement status.

Now, with the 2018 midterm elections ending any fantasies of Republican-style health-care reform legislation making any progress before 2021 at the earliest, Verma is reportedly contemplating a giant and audacious leap into the past: turning Medicaid into block grants via state waivers, or to put it another way, abolishing Medicaid as we have known it by executive fiat. Politico first reported the scheme:

The Trump administration is quietly devising a plan bypassing Congress to give block grants to states for Medicaid, achieving a longstanding conservative dream of reining in spending on the health care safety net for the poor. 

The administrations plan remains a work in progress, and sources said the scope is still unclear. Its not yet known whether CMS would encourage states to seek strict block grants or softer spending caps, or if new limits could apply to all Medicaid populations  including nursing home patients  or just a smaller subset like working-age adults.

Any way you slice it, though, any block-grant-by-waiver initiative would change Medicaids basic structure and purpose, with the clear intention of abrogating congressional powers. The reaction from Democratic Members of Congress has been predictable:

Hell no, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) wrote on Twitter on Friday evening, vowing to oppose the administrations block grant plan through legislation, in the courts, holding up Administration nominees, literally every means that a U.S. Senator has.

If Verma goes ahead with this scheme, a legal challenge will most definitely arise. But its an indication of how determined conservatives are not just to fight the long-term trend of making Medicaid a de facto universal health coverage program for the poor, but of rolling it back as far as possible. The potential damage from all of Vermas various cut-by-waiver schemes was limited significantly by Democratic midterm gains at the state level, and more indirectly by successful Medicaid-expansion ballot initiatives in conservative states that showed the programs widespread popularity.

But make no mistake: most ideologically-prone Republicans hate Medicaid with the heat of a thousand suns, and they wont give up trying to hamstring it, restrict it, cut it, or kill it so long as a devious way to go about it has yet to be deployed.
Looking for a stock that has been consistently beating earnings estimates and might be well positioned to keep the streak alive in its next quarterly report? Union Pacific (UNP), which belongs to the Zacks Transportation - Rail industry, could be a great candidate to consider.

This railroad has an established record of topping earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The company boasts an average surprise for the past two quarters of 2.47%.

For the last reported quarter, Union Pacific came out with earnings of $2.15 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.09 per share, representing a surprise of 2.87%. For the previous quarter, the company was expected to post earnings of $1.94 per share and it actually produced earnings of $1.98 per share, delivering a surprise of 2.06%.

Price and EPS Surprise

Thanks in part to this history, there has been a favorable change in earnings estimates for Union Pacific lately. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the stock is positive, which is a great indicator of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with its solid Zacks Rank.

Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven.

The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.

Union Pacific currently has an Earnings ESP of +0.77%, which suggests that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This positive Earnings ESP when combined with the stock's Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) indicates that another beat is possibly around the corner. We expect the company's next earnings report to be released on January 24, 2019.

Story continues

Investors should note, however, that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss, but a negative value does reduce the predictive power of this metric.

Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate.

Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.



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By David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February but will maintain economic sanctions on Pyongyang, the White House said on Friday after Trump met Pyongyang's top nuclear negotiator. The announcement came amid a diplomatic flurry in Washington surrounding the visit of Kim Yong Chol, a hardline former spy chief, and marked a sign of movement in a denuclearization effort that has stalled since a landmark meeting between Trump and the North Korean leader in Singapore last year. "President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and a half to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February," White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said. Sanders insisted that while Trump's talks with the North Korean were productive, the United States "is going to continue to keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea." Trump declared after the Singapore summit in June that the nuclear threat posed by North Korea was over. But hours before Kim Yong Chol's arrival on Thursday, Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy that singled out the country as an ongoing and "extraordinary threat." The first summit produced a vague commitment by Kim to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, but he has yet to take what Washington sees as concrete steps in that direction. Nevertheless, both Trump and Kim had expressed an interest in arranging a second meeting, which some U.S.-based analysts say would be premature due to the lack of obvious progress so far. Some critics say the first summit only boosted Kim's international stature without much to show for it. Harry Kazianis, an analyst at the conservative Washington-based Center for the National Interest, called the agreement to hold another summit a positive development. But he said: "Both nations must now show at least some tangible benefits from their diplomatic efforts during a second summit, or risk their efforts being panned as nothing more than reality TV." Communist-ruled Vietnam, which has good relations with both the United States and North Korea, has been widely touted as the most likely site of the next summit. There has also been speculation about other possible venues, including Bangkok, Hawaii, or a return to Singapore. TRUMP SEEKING 'WIN'? Friday's Oval Office meeting followed 45 minutes of talks between Kim Yong Chol, regarded as a member of Kim Jong Un's inner circle, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was joined by U.S. special representative on North Korea, Stephen Biegun. Pompeo had planned to meet the North Korean envoy last November, but the meeting was postponed at the last moment. U.S.-based analysts said that North Korea, which has developed missiles and nuclear weapons in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, would likely be seeking a clearer message from the Trump administration on any concessions it may be willing to make. The United States wants swift and irreversible denuclearization, while North Korea has made clear it wants phased, synchronized and reciprocal actions that would include easing punishing sanctions. "The North Koreans need a real indication of what the U.S. is willing to put on the table," said Jenny Town, a North Korea expert at 38 North, a Washington-based think tank. South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said on Wednesday that if North Korea took concrete steps toward abandoning its weapons programs, Washington could offer a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War, humanitarian aid or a permanent channel for bilateral dialogue. Victor Cha, a former White House adviser on Asia under President George W. Bush, suggested that Trump may be so desperate for a policy "win" that he could be vulnerable to a bad deal with North Korea. "I worry that the timing works to North Korea's benefit," Cha said, citing pressures on Trump such as the partial U.S. government shutdown and the ongoing investigation into alleged Russian ties to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Earlier this month, Trump defended the stuttering progress on North Korea by saying that Pyongyang had stopped missile and bomb testing and if it had not been for his administration "you'd be having a nice big fat war in Asia." In another sign of diplomatic movement, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui arrived in Stockholm, where she may be joined later at the weekend by Biegun. Washington has been keen to set up talks between the two but North Korea has resisted such contacts. On his last visit to Washington, Kim Yong Chol delivered a letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump that helped overcome obstacles ahead of the summit in Singapore. CNN quoted a source familiar with the U.S.-North Korea talks as saying that the envoy would be carrying a new letter for Trump on Friday. (Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Steve Holland and David Alexander and Lesley Wroughton in Washington, and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; editing by Alistair Bell and Sonya Hepinstall)
By Tim Kelly TOKYO (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy has not ruled out sending an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait, despite military technology advances by China that pose a greater threat to U.S. warships than ever before, the chief of U.S. naval operations said on Friday. Washington sent ships through the strategic waterway three times last year as it makes more frequent transits of the strait that separates Taiwan from the Chinese mainland, but it has not dispatched a carrier in more than 10 years. During that time, China has modernized its forces with missiles designed to strike enemy ships. "We don't really see any kind of limitation on whatever type of ship could pass through those waters," Admiral John Richardson told reporters in the Japanese capital, when asked if more advanced Chinese weapons posed too big a risk. "We see the Taiwan Strait as another (stretch of) international waters, so that's why we do the transits." Aircraft carriers, typically equipped with about 80 aircraft and crews of about 5,000, are key to the U.S. military's ability to project power globally. On Tuesday, a U.S. official told Reuters the United States was closely watching Chinese intentions toward Taiwan as advances in military technology give Beijing's forces greater capability to occupy an island it considers a breakaway province. In a report, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency called Taiwan the "primary driver" for China's military modernization. Richardson, who visited China before traveling to Japan, said he told his Chinese counterparts the United States was opposed to any unilateral action by Beijing or Taipei. He also urged China to stick to international rules during unplanned naval encounters at sea. That request came after a Chinese destroyer approached the USS Decatur in October and forced it to change course as it challenged Chinese territorial claims in the contested South China Sea with a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP). "We have made this very clear that this was an excursion, a departure from the normal adherence to those rules and we would hope that behavior in the future would be much more consistent," Richardson said. "We should not see each other as a threatening presence in these waters." The U.S. Navy continues to pass through waters in the South China Sea that Beijing considers its territory. On Jan 7, a U.S. guided-missile destroyer sailed within 12 miles of a Chinese-occupied island, prompting Beijing's rebuke that it had "gravely infringed upon China's sovereignty". China, which claims almost all of the strategic waterway, says its intentions are peaceful. Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have competing claims. (Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Australia could become a test ground for another of Elon Musk's massive infrastructure projects after the maverick billionaire tweeted a "bargain" price to build a tunnel through a mountain to solve Sydney's traffic woes.

Musk in 2017 made a Twitter pitch -- and followed through with the offer -- to build what was the world's biggest battery in an Australian state to solve its severe energy crisis.

The entrepreneur behind electric carmaker Tesla has most recently turned his sights on tackling city traffic via low-cost tunnels created by his Boring Company, and in December unveiled a sample project near Los Angeles.

So when an Australian politician tweeted at Musk on Wednesday about the costs of drilling through a mountain range north of Sydney, he responded quickly.

"I'm a lawmaker in Sydney, which is choking with traffic. How much to build a 50km tunnel through the Blue Mountains and open up the west of our State?," asked New South Wales state MP Jeremy Buckingham.

"About $15M/km for a two way high speed transit, so probably around $750M plus maybe $50M/station," Musk replied late Wednesday, with his response liked more than 22,000 times on Twitter.

He has more than 24 million followers on the social media platform.

Another billionaire, Mike Cannon-Brookes, who founded Australian software startup Atlassian, weighed in on the exchange, saying the estimated price tag "sounds like a bargain for Sydney".

The population of the Sydney region has grown by around 25 percent since 2011 to reach 5.4 million, out of a national population of 25 million, and road congestion is a major concern.

There was no indication the exchange of tunnel tweets would lead to any quick action, but it could bring some needed positive publicity for Musk.

Musk has risen to prominence with a series of ambitious ventures, particularly Tesla, but has also drawn plenty of criticism for some volatile behaviour.

He waged a public battle with a rescuer who helped save a group of boys trapped in a cave in Thailand last year, calling him a "pedo guy" after the Brit slammed his idea of building a mini-submarine to save the children as a public relations stunt.

Meanwhile, riders who have tested out Boring's prototype tunnel -- where cars are lowered by lifts then slotted into tracks and propelled along at high speeds -- have complained of a bumpy journey.
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Donald Trump is facing calls to resign or be impeached, if reports he instructed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about talks to build a Trump Tower in Moscow can be verified.

The president is under pressure after two law enforcement officials involved in special counsel Robert Muellers probe into Russian collusion in the 2016 US election claimed to have obtained evidence of possible obstruction.

Several Democrats have urged Congress to seek clarification of what information the special counsel may hold on the matter, with one calling for Mr Trump to be removed if the claims, first published by Buzzfeed News, are proven.

California representative Adam Schiff said Congress would do whats necessary to find out if the contents of the report were true.

The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date, he added.

If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached, Texas congressman Joaquin Castro wrote on Twitter.

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Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, urged the Mueller probe to confirm whether it had evidence the president instructed his lawyer to lie to Congress.

If Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP, he said.

Mueller shouldn't end his inquiry, but it's about time for him to show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act.

Special counsel sources have reportedly learned Mr Trump planned to visit Moscow during the 2016 election campaign, where he would meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin and kick-start negotiations over the tower project, telling Cohen to make it happen.

The president has routinely denied he had business ties to Russia after the point at which he secured the Republican candidcacy.

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However, Cohen, who cooperated with the Mueller investigation after pleading guilty to committing campaign finance violations during the 2016 election, has reportedly told the special counsel Mr Trump instructed him to lie over his contact with Moscow during testimony to Congress.

Sources said the investigation had been able to corroborate Cohens assertions using interviews with additional witnesses from inside the Trump Organisation, as well as information in internal emails, text messages and other documents.

Cohen had previously told a Senate committee the project to build a Trump Tower in Moscow had been scrapped in January 2016.

But, he later admitted during court proceedings this statement was untrue and he had been involved in negotiations over the project until at least July that year- two months after Mr Trump had been declared the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

It appeared until now the special counsel had not found any evidence Mr Trump was personally involved in his attorneys decision to lie to Congress.

However, if true, these new reports suggest Cohen has provided testimony to investigators that has the potential to implicate the president himself in the scandal.

California congressman, Ted Lieu, called on the House Judiciary Committee to stage an investigation to establish whether Mr Trump had been involved in any illegality.

This stunning Trump Tower Moscow story establishes a clear case of Obstruction of Justice, a felony. I've lost count now how many times @realDonaldTrump has engaged in Obstruction of Justice, he added on Twitter.
President Donald Trump on Thursday channelled President Ronald Reagan's dream from the "Star Wars" era of the Cold War, pledging in a speech at the Pentagon to "detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime, anyplace."

The vast vision Mr Trump articulated  which included shielding every city in the country and protecting against all types of missile threats, regardless of type or origin  went far beyond the more modest plans the Pentagon set out in a new missile defence strategy released at the same time.

In his remarks, Mr Trump promised an expansive and likely impossible system that harked back to Reagan's initial goal of rendering missiles essentially obsolete with technologies that would intercept and destroy them.

"The system will be monitored and we will terminate any missile launches from hostile powers or even from powers that make a mistake," Mr Trump said. "It won't happen, regardless of the missile type or geographic origins of the attack."

But the Pentagon stopped far short of those towering goals in the Missile Defence Review it released on Thursday. The first comprehensive update to US missile defence policy in nine years, the review pushed to expand the scope and sophistication of American missile defences but did not set out plans that would achieve the Cold War-era vision.

The Pentagon added hypersonic weapons and cruise missiles to the list of systems the military wants to be able to shoot down and proposed a range of new options to counter North Korean missiles. It approved a constellation of sensors in space aimed at "birth-to-death tracking" of missile launches and called for studies of lasers and space weapons to intercept missiles.

The review expanded the mission of US missile defence beyond countering "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iran to protecting US forces and allies in Europe and Asia against regional threats posed by Russia and China.

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It did not, however, recommend what Mr Trump described. That is because the Pentagon has long recognised that a full-scale nuclear missile attack on the United States from a peer adversary such as Russia would overwhelm the limited missile defences the military has built.

To deter such a full-scale attack, Washington relies on the promise of mutually assured destruction guaranteed by its nuclear arsenal, not on missile defences. The missile interceptors the US military operates in Alaska and California are designed to down a limited number of missiles launched by rogue states.

"There was some gesture towards a global comprehensive missile defence system in the president's remarks  that we would counter any missile, any time, from anywhere," said Laura Grego, a senior scientist at the disarmament group Union of Concerned Scientists. "That's just technically unachievable and economically ruinous if you tried."

Though the missile defence review did not entirely jibe with the president's remarks, it marked what Undersecretary of Defence for Policy John Rood, a former defence industry executive, described in a briefing as "the start of a new era, the next era, in missile defence."

Whether any of the plans will come to pass depends on whether the Pentagon can secure increases in missile defence spending from Congress and whether the Defence Department prioritises missile defence over other investments. Mr Rood declined to say whether the upcoming budget request for missile defence would increase significantly.

The Pentagon presented the plan as a necessary step because of the proliferation of missile threats around the globe, including North Korea's tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can hit the United States and Russian and Chinese advances in hypersonic glide vehicles that can travel many times the speed of sound. The United States currently does not have any systems designed to track and stop those vehicles.

Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who helped manage Boeing's missile defence program before arriving at the Pentagon, said competitors, including Russia and China, are not only advancing their missile capabilities but integrating them into political intimidation efforts and war plans.

"Writ large, the rest of the world is not developing new fighter and bomber aircraft," he said. "They are developing missiles."

Supporters of more robust missile defence welcomed the high-profile endorsement from the president and the Pentagon plans. Critics, who have long said missile defence systems waste money and work poorly, expressed relief that the review did not mandate some controversial initiatives, such as space weapons to shoot down missiles, and instead called for studies.

The review proposes investments in new technologies that could help the United States bolster defences against North Korean missiles. It suggested modifying the F-35 fighter jet to shoot down ballistic missiles and possibly mounting lasers on drones that could track and destroy missiles shortly after their launch.

The review also said the Pentagon is planning to test an adaptation of Aegis missile interceptors on ships so they can down intercontinental ballistic missiles in addition to the short and intermediate-range ballistic missiles they target now. The first test is slated for 2020.

That move has raised concerns.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the adaptation risks "crossing a long-standing line between US missile defence being something that is only intended to help counter 'rogue' missile threats over to a program that Russia and China will see as being intended to counter significant portions of their strategic nuclear arsenals."

The risk, Mr Kimball said, is in how Moscow and Beijing respond.

Alexandra Bell, senior policy director at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said the report looked to "lay the groundwork for vastly expanded missile defences targeted beyond 'rogue' states" - an approach, she said, that risked "voluntarily walking into a new arms race."

The Washington Post
Donald Trump reportedly ordered his personal lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to congress about his plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow.

According to the explosive claims, law enforcement officials said the US president instructed Cohen to claim negotiations over the Russian project ended months earlier than they actually did.

The officials said Cohen confirmed to special counsel Robert Muellers team  which is investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia  that Mr Trump instructed the attorney to lie to the Senate and House intelligence committees.

It prompted immediate calls for the president to resign or face impeachment if the allegations, first reported by BuzzFeed News, were confirmed by Mr Muellers office.

Follow all the latest Trump-Cohen updates on The Independents live blog

If Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to congress, then we need to know this ASAP, Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator, said on Twitter.

Mueller shouldnt end his inquiry, but its about time for him to show congress his cards before its too late for us to act.

Joaquin Castro, a Democratic congressman for Texas, said Mr Trump must resign or be impeached if the report was confirmed.

Mr Mueller reportedly learned about Mr Trumps instruction to Cohen through interviews with multiple Trump Organisation witnesses, as well as internal emails, text messages and other documents.

Mr Cohen later acknowledged the order during interviews with the special counsel, the report said.

If confirmed, the revelation would be the first known incident on Mr Trump explicitly and illegally directing someone to lie about their interactions with Russia.

It comes after Cohen pleaded guilty last year to lying in testimony and a written statement to congress in 2017 regarding the proposed Moscow tower deal.

The 52-year-old initially told lawmakers negotiations over the project ended in January 2016. They in fact continued up until at least June of that year.

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He was sentenced to three years in prison for lying to congress and another charge of making illegal hush-money payments to two women who allege they had affairs with Mr Trump.

The special counsels office said Cohens lying was an attempt to minimise links between the Moscow Project and Individial 1, a reference to Mr Trump.

In a November court filing, Mr Muellers office said Cohen had offered them useful information over the course of a series on interviews, and had provided details about his contacts with persons connected to the White House in regards to how he prepared statements to congress.

Mr Trump also allegedly supported a plan, organised by his former lawyer, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign in order to personally meet Vladimir Putin and help push through the tower negotiations.

Make it happen, Mr Trump reportedly told Cohen, according to the report.

The trip never went ahead, and Mr Trump denied having any business interests in Russia, claiming repeatedly he had nothing to do with the country.

It emerged last month, however, that Mr Trump in 2015 signed a letter of intent to begin negotiations over a Moscow tower that would have landed the Trump Organisation millions in fees and a cut of future sales.

Court documents filed by Mr Muellers office show Cohen had discussed with a Russian businessman plans for the tower as late as approximately June 2016, and had done so directly with the president multiple times.

It comes as an adviser to Cohen said the lawyer was reconsidering plans to testify before the House committee on oversight and government reform in February due to intimidation by the president.

Lanny Davis, an attorney who has been advising Cohen on his media strategy, said in an interview with MSNBC that remarks made by the Republican president about Cohen amounted to witness tampering and deserved to be criminally investigated.

There is genuine fear and it has caused Michael Cohen to consider whether he should go forward or not, and he has not made a final decision, Mr Davis said.

In a Fox News interview on Saturday, Mr Trump suggested he had damaging information on Cohens father-in-law. Thats the one that people want to look at, Mr Trump said in the interview.

The White House has been contacted for comment.
By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy on Thursday that called North Korea an ongoing and "extraordinary threat," seven months after he declared the threat posed by Pyongyang had been eliminated. The plan, which also detailed concerns about the burgeoning capabilities of Iran, Russia and China, called for developing space-based sensors to detect incoming enemy missiles and exploring space-based weapons to shoot down missiles among other steps to shield the United States. The open acknowledgment in the Missile Defense Review of U.S. plans to counter Russian and Chinese technological advances likely will alarm those nations. It marked a departure from the approach taken by Republican Trump's Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, to tamp down concerns by major nuclear powers about expanding U.S. missile defenses. "Our goal is simple: To ensure we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States - anywhere, anytime, anyplace," Trump said at the Pentagon. Trump did not mention the North Korean missile threat in his remarks. But acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan called North Korea's missiles a "significant concern." "While a possible new avenue to peace now exists with North Korea, it continues to pose an extraordinary threat and the United States must remain vigilant," the report said. For Trump, who is trying to revive efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear arsenal, the report's release came at an awkward moment. Senior North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol was headed for Washington on Thursday for expected talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday and a possible encounter with Trump, a person familiar with the matter said. The talks could lead to an announcement of plans for a second Trump summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after their meeting last year in Singapore, the source told Reuters. Trump wrote on Twitter after the June 2018 summit that there is "no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea." SPACE-BASED SENSORS The Missile Defense Review recommended studying experimental technologies including space-based weaponry that might be able to shoot down enemy missiles, a throwback to former President Ronald Reagan's 1980s "Star Wars" initiative. It called for investments in space-based sensors that can better detect and track incoming missiles, and perhaps counter super-fast hypersonic technology, an area in which China has made major advances and Russia is actively working. "The U.S. will now adjust its posture to also defend against any missile strikes including cruise and hypersonic missiles," Trump said. The U.S. missile defense system is just a "face-saving project" that does not scare China and Russia, the Global Times, a nationalist state-backed Chinese tabloid, wrote on Friday. "Russia and China's progress in developing super-fast hypersonic missiles has in particular made the U.S. missile defense system less capable than desired," the newspaper said in an editorial. The U.S. document also pointed to projects by U.S. defense industry giants including Raytheon Co, Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co. "We are committed to establishing a missile-defense program that can shield every city in the United States. And we will never negotiate away our right to do this," Trump said. A senior Russian legislator, Viktor Bondarev, said after Trump's announcement that the new U.S. strategy would ramp up global tensions, according to Interfax news agency. The United States previously announced plans to increase the number of ground-based interceptors over the next several years, hiking the number positioned at Fort Greely, Alaska to 64 from 44. Greely, the report said, "has the potential for up to an additional 40 interceptors." The United States is looking at an additional site to host missile interceptors as well. Trump specifically mentioned Iran's capabilities. The report said Iran possesses the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East. "Its desire to have a strategic counter to the United States could drive it to field an ICBM," the report said, referring to an intercontinental ballistic missile. U.S. officials have said American missile defenses are primarily designed to counter attacks from countries with more-limited arsenals like North Korea, which U.S. intelligence officials believe is still advancing its nuclear program despite a halt to missile launches last year. Pentagon officials contend that American missiles defenses are too few to effectively counter a major first-strike on the U.S. homeland by an advanced nuclear power like Russia or China. Washington hopes those countries will instead be deterred from attacks by America's nuclear arsenal. (Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Mike Stone and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Christian Shepherd in Beijing and Polina Ivanova in Moscow; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Will Dunham)
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump forced the cancellation Thursday of a trip to Afghanistan by his Democratic opponent Nancy Pelosi, and scrapped administration officials' travel to the Davos forum as a government shutdown plunged Washington deeper into deadlock.

The mess in the US capital already verged on the surreal as Congress feuds with the White House over how to end an impasse now in its fourth week, with thousands of federal workers left unpaid.

But now it is also getting increasingly personal between the two main antagonists.

In a letter laced with sarcasm, Trump told House Speaker Pelosi: "I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over."

"I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is appropriate," he wrote.

And in a move that appeared aimed at heading off Democratic criticism about non-essential administration travel during the shutdown, the White House announced the cancellation of a trip to the World Economic Forum by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and others "out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay."

Pelosi and her delegation had planned a non-publicized trip to Afghanistan -- an active war zone -- and were due to travel aboard a US Air Force plane. Her office said Egypt was not on the itinerary.

According to a congressional aide, several lawmakers were already loaded onto buses preparing to leave the US Capitol Thursday when Trump pulled the plug.

Rubbing it in, Trump said that Pelosi could still book her own non-government flights.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," he wrote.

The cancellation followed Pelosi's suggestion that Trump postpone his January 29 State of the Union address to Congress, or do it from the White House instead.

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Although she cited the shutdown's effect on security, she appeared to want to deny the president one of his chief annual moments in the limelight.

The White House denied that the travel blockage was payback, but few bought the argument.

- 'Sophomoric' -

House Democrats who had been slated for the trip were left fuming, including freshman congresswoman Elaine Luria, a 20-year Navy veteran who said the purpose was to express appreciation to Americans in uniform and gain critical intelligence on the ground.

"Oversight is the responsibility of Congress, and it is inappropriate for the President to interfere with our constitutional duties," Luria said in a statement.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who for weeks has served as a referee of sorts between Trump and Pelosi, accused the latter of "playing politics with the State of the Union."

But he also hit out at Trump, saying "denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate."

"One sophomoric response does not deserve another," Graham said.

The government shutdown is due to Trump's refusal to sign off on funding for a host of departments, in retaliation for the Democratic-led House's refusal to approve his US-Mexico border wall project.

The shutdown is leaving an increasingly deep impact across the country, where for almost a month FBI agents, museum workers, US Coast Guard personnel and other officials have been either ordered to stay home or forced to work without pay.

Regular employees will get back pay eventually, while contractors will not.

The Democrats and the White House blame each other for the impasse, with neither side showing signs of backing down.

Trump critics quickly pointed out that he himself visited troops in Iraq during the shutdown.

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said he believed cancelling a speaker of the House's fact-finding mission to a war zone was a first for a US president.

"We believe this is completely inappropriate by the president. We're not going to allow the President of the United States to tell the Congress it can't fulfill its oversight responsibilities, it can't ensure that our troops have what they need whether our government is open or closed," he told reporters.

"That work must go on and I think it's vitally important now, in particular that the president has announced withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, that we understand the situation on the ground."
The New York Times story this weekend, that senior FBI personnel took it upon themselves two years ago to open a counterintelligence investigation into whether the president of the U.S. was a Russian agent, reveals again both the putschist institutional megalomania of the Comey FBI and the national political medias addiction to defamation of the president  that is, the willful intent to defame him. The Steele dossier, commissioned by Fusion GPS on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, a pastiche of lies, invented smut, and wild surmises, was used by the FBI as the basis for its rogue unconstitutionality, even though at least some senior Justice Department officials knew the dossier was just mud-slinging propaganda from the defeated party. The rejected candidate, Hillary Clinton, cited the dossier as evidence of her opponents treason (which now is deemed to occur in the U.S. only in war or equivalent conditions of international hostility), which cost her the election, and a few weeks after her book about the election emerged and the Steele dossier was exposed, Mrs. Clinton blandly changed her description of it from the credible effort of a retired British intelligence officer to campaign information but pretended its probative value was intact.

The moral of the story is that the intelligence and investigative agencies were compromised in their partisanship and illegally attempted to influence and then undo the 2016 election. There is no evidence that the Russian government did much beyond ineffectual social-media advertising debunking the U.S. generally, to no quantifiable effect on the outcome. What the CIA, DNI, and FBI and some in the Justice Department did, by contrast, was illegal and dangerous, and the incoming attorney general and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman (William Barr and Lindsey Graham, respectively) are refreshing in their expression of determination to get to the bottom of it. The gelatinous sanctimony of incoming Democratic House committee chairmen that they will continue to explore impeachable offenses by the president is so fatuous and repetitive it is becoming hard even for the unctuous babbling heads at CNN and MSNBC to work up much appetite for another round of the Russian collusion fable.

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Thomas Jefferson has received insufficient credit for founding West Point, which was designed to give, and has given, the Army a nonpolitical officer corps. Three presidents graduated from the U.S. military academies: U. S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower from West Point, and Jimmy Carter from the Naval Academy at Annapolis. None of them dabbled improperly in politics while in the armed forces. Intelligence and police services have never claimed to have the same quality of professional dedication, and the nature of their work requires the agents and staff to dirty their hands at times, but there is no excuse for the antics of the directors of national and central intelligence and the FBI in the months before and after the 2016 election. The only one of them to be sent to a grand jury, so far as is publicly known, is Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI, but at least a dozen other senior officials and Mrs. Clinton and some of her principal campaign personnel all appear to have lied under oath, misled federal officials, or engaged in other illegal conduct. As I have written since the midterm elections, more important than congressmen Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler pretending from the committee chairs they have just ascended to find new evidence on the Russian canard will be a functioning attorney general and a judiciary committee that is not hobbled by a coalition of Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans.

The results to be hoped for are that the intelligence services and FBI take on board an absolute and permanent requirement to avoid this sort of partisan manipulation again, and that the whole federal political system finally learns the dangers of criminalizing policy differences. Ideally, there would be an authoritative retroactive conclusion that no articles of impeachment should ever have been voted against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, or Bill Clinton, and certainly nothing has come to light to justify consideration of such measures now, after more than two years of intensive and very partisan investigation in a febrile hunt to do just that.

It would be a more satisfactory time in American political discourse if the intellectual right were in less disarray and were not largely still floundering about in search of a delusional third way between Democratic socialist stupidity, passivism in the world, and ecological horror fantasies on one side, and the lack of gentility and other stylistic infelicities of the Trump administration. It is a little like those in the 20th century who sought an alternative to capitalism and socialism, from G. K. Chesterton to Jacques Rueff. I will not mention any of my conservative intellectual friends who are simply not rational about Trump and have elected to be a clangorous and irrelevant gang of misanthropes, now reduced to lofty disparagements of Trumps character. I believe some of them have mistaken spitefulness and snobbery for moral indignation, and their own miscalculations for Olympian serenity, but I rarely claim the right to impute motives to others, and mind-reading is usually odious as well as fraudulent. When Trump has gone, it will be easier to see and accept the good he will have wrought.

And Trump supporters are not immune from criticism. I must express my disappointment with radio and television commentator Mark Levin. I have never met Mark Levin but have generally liked him as a television personality who started as an anti-Democratic Never Trumper and has generally got on board as an administration supporter, putting questions of policy ahead of reservations about Trumps foibles. He is, however, unrigorous in his denigration of the Democrat party, a cultural slur he should know to avoid, and purports to find a softness on Communism throughout its modern history. Levins frequent return to the shameful and underpublicized dalliance of Teddy Kennedy with the Reagan-era Soviet leadership is a public service. But it has no relationship to the conduct of President Kennedy at any stage, and Robert Kennedy was a happy member of Joseph R. McCarthys staff: and Joseph P. Kennedy, who made the money for all of them and bought the early elections, was so afraid of Communism, he was notoriously on the borderline of being a Nazi sympathizer.

But Levins most objectionable gambit is the false and hackneyed claim that Franklin D. Roosevelt was gulled by Stalin. In the summer of 1940, Germany, Italy, Japan, and France were all in the hands of dictators hostile to the British and Americans. Five years later, those countries were all in the hands of the Western Allies and on the way to being prosperous, democratic allies. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the chief architect of this transformation, while Stalin, Hitlers 1939 ally, absorbed 95 per cent of the casualties and 99 per cent of the physical damage among the Big Three in subduing the Nazis. Contrary to the Levin theory, former Communist spy Alger Hiss did not advise Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference; they never spoke there, and his only comment at Yalta was to oppose giving the USSR extra votes for Ukraine and Belarus at the United Nations. All of the official records of the conference and all of the memoirs of the participants are now available, and there was no inappropriate comment by Roosevelt to or about Stalin. The one Levin regularly produces about FDR trusting Stalin is an unsubstantiated sour-grapes invention of William Bullitt after Roosevelt had terminated his career because of Bullitts hounding of under secretary of State Sumner Welles over a homosexual incident.

At Yalta, Stalin pledged absolute freedom for the countries of Eastern Europe, and Roosevelt withheld all of the $6.5 billion aid plan he had promised Stalin because of Soviet violations of its Yalta commitments. The Joint Chiefs and Pacific Theater commanders (MacArthur and Nimitz) wanted Russia to take its share of the anticipated million casualties in subduing the Japanese home islands, and Roosevelt did not want to upset relations with Stalin until he knew if the atomic bomb would work. It was tested three months after Roosevelt died. The Yalta myth is another evil canard, like the Russian-collusion fraud, with less excuse, because it is now (as Al Gore might say), settled history. I refer Levin to any one of many serious analyses of the matter, including the relevant section of my life of Roosevelt. The entire strategic team that put in place the institutions and containment policy that won the Cold War were Roosevelts chosen personnel: Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur, Acheson, McCloy, Kennan, and Bohlen.

American political discourse is never going to be the intelligent and civilized exchange it occasionally has been if, in contemporary matters as in the treatment of recent history, ostensibly serious people throw haymakers of blistering falsity: lies. Donald Trump is far from the suave trilingual aristocrat that Franklin D. Roosevelt was, but they are both and equally entitled not to be falsely accused of using their position to betray America to its rivals and enemies. It is difficult, in the one case as in the other, to take seriously, or even with tolerance, anyone who routinely makes such specious accusations.

More from National Review
Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Considering that the president watches a reported eight hours of television on a good day, it shouldnt be surprising that he learns a great deal from his screen time. Theres the noted Fox & Friends feedback loop, in which the morning show discusses a statistic on crime or immigration, and, uncannily, Trump posts about the same detail, usually within the hour. Among White House officials, theres also the tested strategy of appearing on television to get the presidents ear, a method reportedly preferred to an Oval Office chat. But, two years into the job, Trump is still learning about his own decisions and policy through TV.

On Thursday, CNN reported that Trump was startled Tuesday as he watched television coverage of his attorney general nominee William Barr, as he described his close, first-name basis with special prosecutor Robert Mueller. I told him how well I knew Bob Mueller and that the Barrs and Muellers were good friends and would be good friends when this was all over, Barr said on his first day of testimony. Bob is a straight-shooter and should be dealt with as such. According to three sources who spoke with CNN, that friendship surprised the president, who complained to his aides that he didnt realize how close they were, despite Barrs testimony that he told Trump about his Mueller connection.

The president has a notable history of learning about what he did on TV after the fact. In a damning report on his reading comprehension, Trump realized how critical Defense Secretary James Mattiss resignation letter was only after it was discussed on TV. (Mattis, for what its worth, has supposedly said Trump has the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader.) And in 2017, Trump allegedly learned through watching TV that his plan to cut taxes on the middle class would have exactly the opposite effect.

Regardless of his friendship with Mueller or his allegiance to the president, Barr states that he would allow the special counsel to remain independent, and would not be bullied into bias toward either camp. Of course, hes also written an unsolicited 20-page memo arguing against an obstruction of justice charge for the president, so we probably know where he stands.
Donald Trump may force the US to leave Nato, triggering open season for Russia in eastern and central Europe, a former American ambassador has said.

Following US media reports Mr Trump has repeatedly discussed the prospect with White House officials, Dan Shapiro, former US ambassador to Israel, warned on Twitter the president might actually do it.

We all know that withdrawing the US from Nato is the mother of all bats*** crazy ideas, Mr Shapiro said, before adding: Don't kid yourself, he wants to.

Mr Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on America's continued membership of Nato, blaming European allies, notably Germany, for lagging behind military spending goals the president has set.

In the days around a tumultuous Nato summit meeting last summer, the New York Times reported, Mr Trump told his top national security officials he did not see the point of the western military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the US.

But politicians in both parties in Congress almost unanimously believe in continued US membership of Nato, of which it is by far the biggest contributor militarily.

Mr Shapiro, whose time as ambassador ended with Mr Trumps inauguration, said the fallout of such a move was hard to gauge because no one has ever taken such an idea seriously, or done any planning on it.

He said the immediate consequence would be empowering Vladimir Putin to do what he wants in continental Europe. Citing the Kremlins aggression towards Ukraine and Georgia, two non-Nato states, Mr Shapiro suggested Russia could then treat European member states similarly.

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Would European nations act on their own to defend threatened Nato members? Highly doubtful, Mr Shapiro continued, citing poorer European defence capabilities against what would be a far more powerful adversary in Russia.

Mr Shapiro credited Nato with playing a major role in an unprecedented era of relative peace between European states since the end of the Second World War.

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Remove the United States from Nato, and the dominoes could start to tumble. A divided, internally conflicted Europe with the United States on the sidelines could lead to catastrophic humanitarian, security, and economic consequences, he added.

There are few things Mr Putin desires more than the weakening of Nato, observers say, which he sees as a threat to Russian security and interests in Europe.

Alleged attacks on the US electoral system, its 2014 invasion of Crimea, and its efforts at preventing neighbouring countries from joining the alliance have all partly been conducted with the aim of weakening Nato, US officials say.

It would be the wildest success that Vladimir Putin could dream of, Michele Flournoy, an under secretary of defence under Barack Obama, said, adding it would destroy the most powerful and advantageous alliance in history.

The White House has been contacted for comment.
Harare (AFP) - Zimbabwe imposed a "total shutdown" of the internet on Friday, a major provider told customers, after protests early this week triggered a ruthless security crackdown.

The internet had been partially restored after a first shutdown started on Tuesday.

"We were served with another directive for total shutdown of the internet until further notice," Econet, the country's biggest provider, said in a text message on Friday.

"Our lawyers advised we are required to comply with the directive pending the court decision on its legality. The earlier directive(s) are already the subject of pending high court application.

"We sincerely apologise for all inconveniences caused by the acts of government."

The EU on Thursday joined the US and Britain in criticising the authorities' response to the protests.

"The escalation of violence in Zimbabwe over recent days has been aggravated by the disproportionate use of force by security personnel," European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said in a statement.

"The shutdown of access to the internet should also be reversed."

The US embassy in Harare it was "alarmed by credible reports that security forces are targeting and beating political activists and labor leaders".

Nationwide demonstrations erupted on Monday after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced that fuel prices were being doubled in a country suffering regular shortages of fuel, food and medicine.

Mnangagwa, who succeeded ousted authoritarian president Robert Mugabe in 2017, had promised a fresh start for Zimbabwe after decades of repression and economic decline.

Trade unions called the national strike on Monday and the demonstrations took place in several cities with widespread rioting and looting.

Security forces have made about 600 arrests.

Police and soldiers have been accused of indiscriminately dragging people from their homes and beating them.
(This January 16 story corrects sixth paragraph to say Republicans hold 53 rather than 52 seats in the 100-seat Senate.) By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer said on Wednesday he will oppose President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee, William Barr, saying he is not convinced that Barr will protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe or provide Congress with a full report on Mueller's findings. "We do not have the kind of strong and clear commitments to the report being issued and there being no interference in the investigation that are needed, particularly now, with President Trump treating the Justice Department as he has," Schumer told reporters following a private meeting with Barr. Schumer's comments come one day after Barr appeared for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Barr vowed he would let Mueller complete his investigation into whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia and provide the public with as many details as possible on Mueller's conclusions. Trump has denied colluding and has called the investigation a witch hunt. Schumer's opposition to Barr's nomination is not likely to prevent the Senate from confirming him as attorney general. Barr enjoys broad support from Republicans, who hold 53 Senate seats. Only a simple majority in the 100-seat chamber is needed to approve a nomination. However, Schumer's concerns could signify that Barr will be confirmed with little or no Democratic support - a similar outcome to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who won confirmation with the support of only one Democrat. Democrats raised concerns about Barr's nomination after learning that Barr had sent a 19-page legal memo to top Justice Department officials and Trump's lawyers calling Mueller's probe into whether Trump obstructed justice "fatally misconceived." Barr said on Tuesday that the memo was narrowly focused on one aspect of the law and did not question the rest of Mueller's investigation. Schumer came out against Barr's nomination after learning of the memo, but said he met with Barr on Wednesday in hopes he could be convinced to change his vote after Barr's "nice words at the hearing." The Justice Department's special counsel regulations require Mueller to provide a confidential report to the attorney general with his findings, and give the attorney general discretion to release details publicly. Barr has pledged to make as much information public as he can by law. But Schumer said that is not enough. "I asked him, Would he issue the full Mueller report with only redactions if intelligence agencies said it would compromise sources? ... He would not give that assurance," Schumer said. Schumer also said Barr declined to promise that he would not block Mueller from interviewing certain witnesses or pursuing other areas of investigation. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Prism Johnson Limited (NSE:PRSMJOHNSN), which is in the basic materials business, and is based in India, saw significant share price movement during recent months on the NSEI, rising to highs of 96.1 and falling to the lows of 78.45. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Prism Johnsons current trading price of 84.45 reflective of the actual value of the small-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at Prism Johnsons outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change.

Check out our latest analysis for Prism Johnson

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Is Prism Johnson still cheap?

Prism Johnson appears to be overvalued by 32.13% at the moment, based on my discounted cash flow valuation. The stock is currently priced at 84.45 on the market compared to my intrinsic value of 63.91. Not the best news for investors looking to buy! If you like the stock, you may want to keep an eye out for a potential price decline in the future. Given that Prism Johnsons share is fairly volatile (i.e. its price movements are magnified relative to the rest of the market) this could mean the price can sink lower, giving us another chance to buy in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for share price volatility.

What kind of growth will Prism Johnson generate?

NSEI:PRSMJOHNSN Future Profit January 18th 19

Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Although value investors would argue that its the intrinsic value relative to the price that matter the most, a more compelling investment thesis would be high growth potential at a cheap price. Prism Johnsons earnings over the next few years are expected to double, indicating a very optimistic future ahead. This should lead to stronger cash flows, feeding into a higher share value.

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What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder? It seems like the market has well and truly priced in PRSMJOHNSNs positive outlook, with shares trading above its fair value. At this current price, shareholders may be asking a different question  should I sell? If you believe PRSMJOHNSN should trade below its current price, selling high and buying it back up again when its price falls towards its real value can be profitable. But before you make this decision, take a look at whether its fundamentals have changed.

Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on PRSMJOHNSN for a while, now may not be the best time to enter into the stock. The price has surpassed its true value, which means theres no upside from mispricing. However, the optimistic prospect is encouraging for PRSMJOHNSN, which means its worth diving deeper into other factors in order to take advantage of the next price drop.

Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters  the fundamentals  before you make a decision on Prism Johnson. You can find everything you need to know about Prism Johnson in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Prism Johnson, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Aram Kurd (l), Arkan Ali and Hawkar Hassan have all been jailed for life (Leicestershire Police)

Three men have been jailed for murdering five people in a bomb-like shop blast in Leicester last year.

Aram Kurd, 34 and Arkan Ali, 38 were jailed for life with a minimum term of 38 years at Leicester Crown Court on Friday.

A third person, Hawkar Hassan, 33, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years for his part in the attack.

The trio had plotted to gain a 300,000 insurance pay-out.

Sentencing the men, Mr justice Holgate said: None of the defendants has shown the slightest bit of remorse for their wicked crimes. They were exceptionally callous and deceitful.

Brothers Sean Rajoobeer, 17 (left) and Shane Rajoobeer, 18, and their mother Mary were three of the five victims of the Hinckley Road explosion. (PA)

The devastating scene of the huge explosion in Leicester. (SWNS)

The scene of the huge explosion in Leicester in February 2018. (PA)

I agree with the prosecution that it is plain beyond doubt that Kurd and Ali were both centrally involved in the planning of these crimes.

It is plain from the way they both behaved in court and outside that they are highly manipulative and cunning individuals.

The court was told the trio had poured as many as 30 litres of petrol into the Polish supermarkets basement before igniting it.



The explosion destroyed not only the store, owned by Kurd, but also the flat above.

The defendants even left shop worker Viktorija Ijevleva, 22, to die in the explosion because she knew too much about the insurance policy they had taken out less than three weeks earlier.

The other victims were Mary Ragoobeer, 46, her teenage sons Shane and Sean, and 18-year-old Leah Beth Reek, who was Shanes girlfriend.

The deadly blast occurred on February 25 last year.

Viktorija Ijevleva (left) and Leah Reek were also fatally injured in the blast. (SWNS)

The aftermath of the explosion (PA)

Ali is from Oldham and Hassan from Coventry.

Their crimes have caused unspeakable grief to the families of those killed and injured, and brought utter chaos and devastation to the many residents and businesses of Leicesters Hinckley Road, said Detective Chief Inspector Michelle Keen, of Leicestershire Police.

Following the blast, Kurd even gave interviews to the media, claiming the explosion was like being inside hell.

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK
Washington (AFP) - Thousands more children were forcibly separated from their parents after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border from 2017-2018 than originally admitted by President Donald Trump's administration, an official report said Thursday.

The inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which was given responsibility for the children, said the total number separated under the administration's "zero-tolerance policy" toward illegal immigrants remains unknown.

But the department said that so far it has identified 2,737 separated children placed in its care before the controversial policy was officially declared over in May 2018, a number not previously divulged.

After the zero-tolerance announcement was made, and before the policy was halted under political and legal pressure, another nearly 3,000 minors were separated from their parents or adult guardians who illegally crossed into the United States.

The policy was declared amid White House frustration over a resurgence of illegal immigration in the first half of 2018 following a decline the previous year.

Border officials were told to strip children from their parents to be sent to camps run by the HHS' Office of Refugee Resettlement, eventually to be placed in US relatives' homes.

Meanwhile, their parents were to be arrested and charged with illegal entry into the country.

Many parents spent months searching for their children.

The policy outraged immigrant and children's advocates and was branded a crime by international rights activists.

Ordered in June 2018 to better account for the children in its care, HHS identified 2,737 it was caring for at that time.

"However, thousands of children may have been separated during an influx that began in 2017, before the accounting required by the Court, and HHS has faced challenges in identifying separated children," the department said.

The report added that the Office of Refugee Resettlement had dozens and possibly hundreds of children whom it did not know had been separated from their parents.

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The report contradicted statements by administration officials -- including Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen -- that there was a clear system in place for dealing with the children and that there was not a "policy" of separations.

"The OIG report released today shows that the Trump Administration, with its unique blend of incompetence, cruelty, and disregard for basic decency, misled the American public on one of its most heinous policies to date," said Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, who heads the House Committee on Homeland Security.

"Thousands more children were separated from their families than we were previously told -- and we still don't even know exactly how many kids have been ripped from their families because the Administration has failed to keep track."

Late Thursday, Democratic New Jersey Senator Cory Booker branded as a "lie" a tweet by Nielsen in June stating there was no separation policy -- and called on her to resign.

"Not only was this a lie -- today's shattering government watchdog report on family separation shows the more we dig, the worse it is," he wrote on Twitter.

"We've seen nothing but a horrifying display of cruelty and incompetence from DHS Secretary Nielsen -- she needs to resign."
By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Negotiators for striking Los Angeles teachers and America's second-largest school district returned to the bargaining table on Thursday for the first time since talks collapsed last week, as a walkout by some 30,000 educators ran for a fourth day.

The teachers, who have gone without a contract for nearly a year, walked off the job on Monday in their first strike against the Los Angeles Unified School District in 30 years, demanding higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff.

They also have called for curbs on LAUDS's steady expansion of independently managed charter schools, arguing that these schools divert resources from traditional classroom instruction.

School District Superintendent Austin Beutner has said the demands, if fully met, would place too great a strain on the district's budget. The union's president, Alex Caputo-Pearl, has insisted sufficient funding is available given the right priorities.

At a news conference several hours after talks resumed, Caputo Pearl said bargaining teams were still at the table and that negotiations were likely to continue through Friday and into the weekend.

"An agreement is not going to take shape overnight," he told reporters. "It's not going to be a quick and easy process, but today there's been good and hard work on that."

Pressed on how long a settlement might take, he added, "I can tell you this is not going to be months."

A district spokeswoman, Shannon Haber, declined comment.

The strike has disrupted classes for nearly 500,000 students, though parents have turned out in large numbers to join teachers on picket lines and at their rallies. A recent Loyola Marymount University survey showed broad public support for the union's cause across all demographics, especially among parents with school age children.

District officials have kept all 1,200 schools open on a limited basis with a skeleton staff, but attendance has been running at roughly a third of normal or less each day.

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CLASS SIZE CITED AS KEY OBSTACLE

Contract talks that had stretched on for 21 months broke down last Friday night after the union rejected the district's latest offer.

A breakthrough came Wednesday night when Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has voiced support for the teachers' cause, announced both sides had agreed to reopen negotiations on Thursday, subject to mediation by his office.

The day began at City Hall with a brief, private meeting between Garcetti, Beutner and Caputo-Pearl, who pledged to keep negotiations confidential and to bargain in good faith, the union president recounted. Negotiations formally resumed a short time later, Caputo-Pearl said.

He cited disagreement over teachers' demands to hire more instructors to reduce class size as "arguably the most fundamental" stumbling block to a settlement. The two sides are closer on salary.

The union is seeking a 6.5 percent pay raise. School district teacher pay currently averages $75,000, according to state figures. The district has offered a 6 percent hike with back pay.

Caputo-Pearl said each side has been in touch California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and the state's top education official, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, both of whom could prove pivotal in securing extra funds to help close a deal.

"I think the governor is going to play a key role," the union president said.

Thousands of striking teachers and supporters fanned out across the sprawling district for a series of rallies and picketing again on Thursday.

The walkout in Los Angeles follows a wave of teacher strikes last year across the United States over pay and school funding, including work stoppages in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis; additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Gina Cherelus in New York and Rich McKay in Atlanta; editing by Bernadette Baum and Jonathan Oatis)
By John Geddie and Aradhana Aravindan SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore's defense minister said on Friday that Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jets were the most suitable replacement for the country's F-16 fleet, and it planned to initially buy a few for evaluation. With Southeast Asia's largest defense budget, the wealthy city-state is a key prize for global arms companies as it looks to invest in new technology and upgrade its equipment. Singapore's fleet of around 60 F-16 jets, which first entered service in 1998, will be retired soon after 2030. "They (defense agencies) have decided that the F-35 would be the most suitable replacement fighter," Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said in a Facebook post. "We want to procure a few planes first, to fully evaluate the capabilities of the F-35 before deciding on the acquisition of a full fleet." Ng said defense agencies would speak to their U.S. counterparts to move the process forward, but that it would take 9-12 months to finalize terms on the initial deal. The F-35, one of the world's most advanced fighter jets, accounts for about a quarter of Lockheed's total revenue. "We look forward to supporting them on their continued evaluation of the F-35," a Lockheed spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. The most common variation of the jet, the F-35A, costs around $90 million each, based on contract negotiations with the Pentagon in the United States. While the price has declined with increased production, U.S. President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials have criticized it as too high, and have cited numerous production delays and cost overruns. Other international customers have expressed interest in the F-35. Both Switzerland and Finland have competitions underway to select a new fighter jet. Last year, all Lockheed Martin's U.S. and international F-35 fighter jets were grounded for engine inspections following a crash of an F-35B on Sept. 28 near Beaufort, South Carolina. (Reporting by John Geddie and Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Richard Chang)
Months after giving birth to her daughter, Serena Williams revealed that she had to have an emergency C-section and soon after experienced a pulmonary embolism, a potentially life-threatening condition that occurs when a blood clot makes its way to the lungs. And although its been a year and a half since Williamss daughter was born, she is still worried about blood clots.

Williams wore fishnet compression stockings for her first-round match at the Australian Open that, it seems, are for her health and for style. Williams told reporters at a press conference at the tournament that, per Reuters, shes definitely still concerned about blood clots and the possibility of developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a blood clot that forms in one or more of the deep veins in your body, usually in your legs.

I have had some issues, and theyre not done. So its just something I just have to do for pretty much probably the rest of my career, well see. But Im always at the doctor, Williams said. With DVT, its very scary, she continued. A lot of people have them. Especially for me, its incredibly frightening. I lay on the side of precaution as opposed to not.

Having a history of blood clots does raise your risk for DVT in the future.

Deep vein thrombosis can be caused by anything that keeps your blood from circulating or clotting as it would normally, like an injury to a vein, surgery, certain medications, and limited movement, the Mayo Clinic says. Having an inherited blood-clotting disorder, being pregnant, taking hormonal birth control pills, being overweight or obese, smoking, and being older than 60 also raise your risk.

Having had DVT in the past does make it more likely that you'll have another one, but its hard to estimate exactly how often that happens. One recent study conducted by researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center found that, among 156 people with a history of DVT, more than 10 percent had another DVT within the three-year study period.

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If you've had DVT before, your risk of having another blood clot typically depends on what caused it the first time and your current risk factors, Ashley Vavra, M.D., an assistant professor of vascular surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, tells SELF. The extent of the clot at the initial diagnosis and how much scar tissue it leaves behind also contribute to whether you'll develop DVT again, study coauthor Mounir Haurani, M.D., a vascular surgeon at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, tells SELF.

There are a few things you can do to lower your risk of experiencing another blood clot.

Your doctor will likely put you on a blood thinner in the immediate aftermath of your DVT and will continue to keep you on it for some period of time, Jennifer Haythe, M.D., codirector of the Women's Center for Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, tells SELF.

Exactly how long you'll stay on it depends on your individual case, but it will likely be at least three months, Jack Jacoub, M.D., a hematologist and oncologist and medical director of MemorialCare Cancer Institute at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California, tells SELF. But, if you still have other strong risk factors for DVT or your medical team is having a hard time figuring out what caused your first DVT, your doctor may want to put you on a blood thinner for longer than that or even for life, Dr. Haurani says.

Certain lifestyle changes, like walking around on long flights and train rides, stopping for frequent breaks on long drives, and avoiding sitting for long periods of time, can also help, Dr. Haythe says. Wearing compression stockings if you know you wont be able to walk for long periods (like on a long flight) can also be beneficial, Dr. Vavra says.

Its also important to know the signs of DVT and a pulmonary embolismespecially the ones that you experienced last timeand act quickly if you start to experience them, Dr. Jacoub says. For DVT, that might include pain in your leg that could feel like cramping or soreness, red or discolored skin on your leg, and a feeling of warmth in your leg. And for a pulmonary embolism, you might notice a sudden shortness of breath, chest pain, lightheadedness, a rapid pulse, and coughing up blood.

If youve had DVT in the past, its important to talk to your doctor about what this means for your health now and in the futureand keep up that conversation. All patients with a prior DVT should establish care with a primary care physician for regular checkups, Dr. Vavra says.

Related:
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a second summit in late February, the White House said Friday, though it did not identify a specific date or location.

The announcement came Friday after Trump met with a North Korean envoy, Kim Yong Chol, at the White House for a discussion that included talk about Kim's unfulfilled pledge to dismantle his nation's nuclear weapons programs.

President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February," said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders. "The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date."

Kim Yong Chol arrived at the White House after a closed-door meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun. The three men met for under an hour Friday morning at the Dupont Circle Hotel in downtown Washington.

They did not respond to questions from journalists. The North Korean negotiator was reportedly carrying a letter from Kim to Trump. Pompeo left the hotel just before noon and went directly to the White House, where he was expected to join the Trump-Kim meeting.

Robert Palladino, a State Department spokesman, suggested the Pompeo meeting resulted in progress but no breakthrough. He said Pompeo, Biegun and Kim Yong Chol had a "good discussion" with Kim Yong Chol "on efforts to make progress on the commitments President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un made at their summit in Singapore.

Pompeo left the White House midafternoon without commenting. Palladino later said Pompeo had invited the North Korean official to lunch after their White House meeting.

Trump and Kim Jong Un have publicly talked about the possibility of a follow-up summit to the one they staged in June in Singapore.

In addition, Sweden's news agency reported that a high-level meeting between U.S. and North Korean diplomats was being held in Stockholm.

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The Trump administration seeks a second meeting even though it has criticized North Korea for not following up on the pledge to denuclearize and dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomes North Korean Vice-Chairman Kim Yong Chol prior to a meeting in Washington, DC, January 18, 2019.

"While the president has started a promising dialogue with Chairman Kim," Vice President Mike Pence said this week, "we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.

The Trump administration's newly released Missile Defense Review said North Korea remains an "extraordinary threat" because of its nuclear weapons and threats to use them against the United States and its allies.

The North Koreans have not even provided the U.S. with an inventory of its nuclear weapons and facilities, which many analysts see as the key first step toward denuclearization.

In the meantime, the United States has refused North Koreas repeated push to lift devastating economic sanctions on the regime, saying Kim must act first to begin relinquishing his nuclear arsenal.

While Trump hailed the Singapore agreement as a way to avoid potential war with North Korea, foreign policy analysts said the deal was so vague as to be meaningless.

Despite the lack of progress, Trump and Kim have both publicly touted the prospect of a second summit.

In recent weeks, their teams have explored possible meeting sites, including Hanoi, Vietnam, and Bangkok.

Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told Bloomberg TV this week that his country is willing to host the second Trump-Kim summit.

"We don't know the final decision. However, if it happens here, we will do our best to facilitate the meeting," he said.

Related coverage:

New Senate GOP chairman on four foreign policy hot spots - and standing up to Trump

'I cant stop him.' UN ambassador Nikki Haley used Trump's harsh North Korea rhetoric as leverage

North Korea running at least 13 secret operating bases for ballistic missile program, new study shows

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump to meet again with Kim Jong Un in late February
Unfair and balanced. Photo: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

The United States is inflicting long-term damage on its own government and economy, condemning thousands of Americans to needless financial despair, jeopardizing public health, undermining airport security, and preventing cancer patients from accessing much-needed medical care  because Republicans want to spend 0.11 percent of the federal budget on a border barrier that Democrats find symbolically problematic.

Given this state of affairs, it would be reasonable for a low-information voter to condemn both parties, in equal measure, for putting ideological purity above the national good. But it would be a dereliction of duty for a television journalist to do the same.

Alas, on Thursday night, CNNs Chris Cuomo did precisely that.

None of this is ok. Enough with the stunts and the letters and the bs. Do what you were ALL elected to do. POTUS and Pelosi must make a deal and vote on it. Stop making good people pay for your bad job performance. https://t.co/y3TNTOXGvb  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) January 18, 2019

One can reasonably object to the Democratic Partys position in the shutdown fight. As indicated above, the immediate consequences of caving to Donald Trumps demands  and appropriating $5 billion for border barriers (that are fairly similar to those that Democrats have supported in the past)  are far more innocuous than the immediate consequences of allowing the president to paralyze the federal government indefinitely.

But one thing you cant do, if you consider yourself an objective and responsible political analyst, is suggest that both parties are equally responsible for the existence of the current standoff. The root cause of the shutdown was not a bipartisan failure of job performance, but rather, the presidents decision to deliberately inflict suffering on the American people, as a means of coercing a coequal branch of government into doing his bidding.

That might sound like a partisan jab. But it is plain description of political reality.

The Democratic Partys position in the shutdown fight can be summarized as follows:

During times of divided government, when two coequal branches cannot reach agreement on an issue, it is not legitimate for one branch to use its technical authority to shutter large swathes of the government as a means of forcing action on its priorities. Thus, the government should be immediately reopened while debate over the presidents border wall continues.

Now, Democrats did, themselves, violate this rule almost exactly one year ago. But that does not render the rule itself illegitimate, or change the basic facts of the present situation  i.e., that one party wants to reopen the government, and conduct intra-branch diplomacy by conventional means while the other does not. There are also significant distinctions between the last shutdown and the current one. First, and most obviously, Democrats ultimately decided in 2018 that they could not justify maintaining a shutdown for longer than three days. Second, the Democrats flirtation with hostage-taking was, itself, a response to an act of presidential hostage-taking: The Trump administration canceled an Executive branch program that protected Dreamers from deportation on grounds that multiple courts subsequently deemed to be fraudulent; the president then explicitly endorsed congressional action to provide Dreamers with some form of legal status  but refused to approve legislation that did precisely that because it did not also include restrictions on legal immigration that many in his own party opposed. Which is to say: The president exposed 700,000 people to the threat of deportation, in hopes of coercing Congress into passing immigration legislation that it would otherwise reject.

The presidents position on the shutdown, by contrast, is that it is legitimate for him to take extraordinary measures to force Democratic compliance with his wishes, because there is a national security crisis happening at our southern border, and the White House cannot resolve that crisis without $5 billion in new funding for a wall.

Neutral political reporters do not necessarily have an obligation to take a normative stance on the propriety of procedural radicalism. But when one party in a dispute decides to deploy a hardball tactic, such reporters do have an obligation to accurately describe who has introduced procedural radicalism into the fight, what their rationale is for doing so, and whether that rationale is consistent with verifiable facts.

Cuomos tweet failed to communicate any of those things  despite the (exceedingly salient) reality that the presidents rationale is transparently disingenuous. The evidence that Trump is acting in bad faith is so voluminous and varied, its hard to know where to begin. No credible immigration experts  including conservative ones who consider the influx of Central American migrants to be a crisis  believe that a border wall is an effective means of deterring migrants from exercising their legal right to seek asylum in the United States. And the Trump administration hasnt offered any detailed explanation for how that could possibly be the case. Whats more, if the presidents claims were all true, then his refusal to shutter the government to force action on wall funding during his first two years in office would be inexcusable; however one chooses to describe conditions at the U.S. southern border, they have not radically changed over the last two months. If there is a crisis now, then there was a crisis last year.

But the most blatant evidence of Trumps bad faith might be this: The government shutdown is demonstrably weakening border security, and undermining public safety. As Politico reports:

The shutdown  which Trump says is a very small price to pay for increased border security and national security  has stopped all Border Patrol training, except for the classes to get new workers in the field. That means Border Patrol agents who were headed to the agencys sprawling training campus in West Virginia this month are missing out on mandatory classes on using firearms and rescuing injured agents.

Freezing the training process  it reverberates for well over a year, said Gil Kerlikowske, who headed Customs and Border Protection during the Obama administration and served as the nations Drug Czar during the 16-day shutdown in 2013.

Thousands of emergency responders, including local volunteers and FEMA reservists, are also missing courses in firefighting and emergency response at centers in Georgia, Maryland and Alabama right now.

Suffice it to say, one cant credibly claim that a shutdown is justified because America is suffering from a crisis of border security if a shutdown undermines the security of Americas borders.The objective truth about the shutdown is that the president is deploying an immensely destructive hardball tactic for reasons that are nonsensical at best, and maliciously dishonest at worst.

Chris Cuomo is welcome to argue that Democrats should reward Trumps use of a tactic that inflicts widespread harm on the populace  and which the president himself cannot coherently justify  because the costs of allowing the shutdown to continue outweigh the moral hazard of incentivizing future abuses of power.

But refusing to assign primary responsibility for the shutdown to Donald Trump does not make the CNN anchor objective; it makes him complicit in the presidents misrule.
Saying that Sears Holdings chairman Eddie Lampert engaged in a years-long "scheme'' to strip the company of its assets, Sears creditors are challenging his bid to buy what's left of it.

Attorneys representing the retailer's unsecured creditors filed a motion Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York seeking to pursue claims against Sears saying, "the creditors' committee has uncovered facts demonstrating that Sears's downfall . . . also was precipitated by years of misconduct by Lampert, ESL and others.''

Lampert's hedge fund, ESL Investments, won an auction for most of Sears remaining assets this week with a $5.2-billion offer. The sale, which still needs final approval by a bankruptcy judge at a hearing slated for Feb. 1, staved off potential liquidation of the company and according to Sears will preserve 45,000 jobs.

But creditors say that the deal is part of a pattern by Lampert, who they say is getting a greatly diminished company at a discounted price, further enriching himself while leaving vendors, workers and others in the lurch.

"Over the course of Lamperts and ESLs reign, Sears closed over 3,500 stores, cut approximately 250,000 jobs, and lost untold billions in value,'' the filing says. "In effect, Lampert and ESL managed Sears as if it were a private portfolio company that existed solely to provide the greatest returns on their investment, recklessly disregarding the damage to Sears, its employees, and its creditors."

Lampert has been a controversial figure. He has given billions of dollars to keep Sears afloat and has said that he was "fighting like hell'' to help the once iconic company survive amid a retail landscape disrupted by the rise of online shopping and fast fashion.

But Lampert has also presided over a series of complex financial transactions in which he has been both lender and borrower, or buyer and seller.

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Two of those deals were among the claims mentioned in the court filing. In 2015, 235 of the most valuable Sears store properties were transferred to a new real estate investment trust, Seritage Growth Properties, for $2.7 billion. Lampert was Seritage's biggest shareholder and chairman. In 2017, Sears paid Seritage $109 million in rent, $43 million in expenses such as property taxes, insurance and utilities, and $35 million in lease termination fees, according to a public filing.

In 2014, Sears Holdings spun off retailer Lands End. As of last January, Lampert's ESL Investments owned roughly 67%, according to a filing, a stake worth nearly $430 million as of May 17, 2018.

The creditors said they would like to recover the value of the properties switched over to Seritage and to be relieved of obligations in relation to the Lands' End spin-off.

In a statement, ESL said its loans and other transactions involving Sears were focused on keeping the company alive while helping it to evolve.

"ESL Investments, Inc. has been a constant source of financing for Sears Holdings over the past several years, including through the extension of $2.4 billion in various secured financings to the company,'' the hedge fund said. "All transactions were done in good faith, on fair terms, beneficial to all Sears stakeholders and approved by the Sears Board of Directors . . . We reject any assertion to the contrary and will vigorously contest any effort to assert claims against ESL, its principals or affiliates concerning these transactions.

Money: It's official: Sears chairman wins bid to buy company that owns Sears and Kmart

Money: Sears store in White Plains, N.Y., watches its destiny decided in courthouse 2 blocks away

Money: Sears boss Eddie Lampert accused of possibly profiting from retailer's decline

Some industry watchers believe Lampert's last-minute bid to buy Sears reflects a commitment to the company.

"I think Eddie Lampert genuinely believes in Sears and wants to see it succeed,'' says Neil Saunders, managing director of retail consultancy GlobalData. "There is an element of face-saving in here, too. It reflects badly on Eddie if Sears goes under. He also has an interest in making it work as he has pumped quite a lot of money into the company.''

Others say the terms of the deal ESL crafted could provide Lampert with a big pay off, including protection from the types of claims Sears' unsecured creditors are currently trying to pursue.

"Some things need to fall in place like the final bid being accepted, and (Lampert) being exempted from lawsuits,'' said Michael Dart, partner in the consumer goods and retail practice at management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. "But I'm in the camp that when the financial forensics are placed over this, we'll realize Eddie's made quite a bit of money in managing down (toward) the ultimate liquidation that will probably take place.''

The few hundred stores and other assets that Lampert's ESL would own could ultimately be worth more than what it paid, says David Wander, a partner with the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron.

"He may be getting assets that could be liquidated in the future that are worth as much as his bid,'' says Wander who represents two of Sears' vendors. Lampert is "not just giving money for the sake of being a nice guy. It's a shrewd business deal."

But if ESL's offer gets the final green light, the sale may be granting the once-iconic retailer only a brief reprieve, delaying the inevitable, the company's unsecured creditors say.

"Throughout these proceedings, Lampert and ESL have painted themselves as saviors, stating that their bid will save the few jobs they have not already eliminated  but for how long?'' the court filing said. "They have failed to set forth a business plan that offers any viable go-forward path. Sears simply cannot survive as a going concern."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sears bid challenged by creditors who say chairman stripped company to enrich himself
Schlumberger Limiteds SLB fourth-quarter 2018 earnings of 36 cents per share (excluding charges and credits) were in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The bottom line, however, declined from 48 cents a year ago.

The oilfield service giant logged total revenues of $8,180 million, flat year over year. The top line, however, beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $8,062 million.

The improvement in drilling business on higher mobilized rigs for integrated projects, rise in sales of SIS software in international markets and increased activities associated with Testing Services in Oman, United Arab Emirates and Qatar aided the companys fourth-quarter results. The positives were partially offset by the fall in OneStim revenues from the North American land market.

Segmental Performance

Reservoir Characterization and Drilling units registered a year-over-year increase in revenues while the Production segment reported a decline.

Increased sales of SIS software in India, Russia, Vietnam and China aided the Reservoir Characterization segment. Improved activities related to Testing Services in Oman, United Arab Emirates and Qatar also led to the improvement. However, lower Wireline activity in Russia partially offset the units results.

Mobilization of higher drilling rigs for several integrated drilling developments in Argentina, China, India and Norway backed the Drilling segment. Lower activities in Northern Hemisphere have offset the results partially.

Decline in OneStim revenues from the land market of North American hurt the Production segment. The waning in revenues related to well services in the Argentina also led to the deterioration.

Revenues at the Reservoir Characterization unit totaled $1,651 million, marginally higher than $1,640 million a year ago. Pre-tax operating income increased nominally to $364 million from $359 million in fourth-quarter 2017.

Revenues at the Drilling unit summed $2,461 million, up 13% year over year. Pre-tax operating income was $318 million, flat year over year.

Story continues

Revenues at the Production segment declined 5% from the year-earlier quarter to $2,936 million. Moreover, pre-tax operating income fell 37% year over year to $198 million.

Revenues at the Cameron segment amounted to $1,265 million, down 11% year over year. Pre-tax operating income dropped 37% from the prior-year quarters $127 million.

Financials

As of Dec 31, 2018, the company had approximately $2,777 million in cash and short-term investments plus $14,644 million in long-term debt. This represents a debt-to-capitalization ratio of 30.5%. Through the October-to-December quarter, 2.1 million stocks were repurchased by the oilfield services player.

Outlook

Schlumberger believes oil prices will recover gradually through 2019. However, the volatility in the commodity price has convinced explorers and producers to spend conservatively, added the company. In other words, a customers emphasis on free cash flow rather than capital spending owing to oil price volatility has made the outlook for onshore North American drilling and production businesses uncertain, said Schlumberger.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Schlumberger currently has a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). A few better-ranked players in the energy space are Shell Midstream Partners, L.P. SHLX, NuStar Energy LP NS and Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc. BCEI. While Bonanza carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), Shell Midstream Partners and NuStar Energy sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Bonanza surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the last four quarters, the average positive earnings surprise being 12.9%.

Shell Midstream will likely post earnings growth of 27.5% in 2019.

NuStar Energy will likely see earnings growth of 156.9% in 2019.

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During the United Nations climate negotiations in Katowice, Poland, in December, the cavernous modern convention center at the heart of this grim industrial city was like a spaceship in coal country. Outside, the air was so sulfurous and polluted it gave at least one negotiator a nosebleed as they walked from their hotel to the conference center.

Katowice is the coal capital of the European Union, where hills are hollowed out with mines and the livelihoods of some 90,000 workers are dependent on what the Polish prime minister has called black gold. Inside the center, thousands of climate negotiators in dark suits  many of whom had likely never seen a chunk of coal in their lives  scurried down echoing hallways and engaged in long meetings about arcane differences in the language of a document designed to stop the world from burning fossil fuels and save civilization from itself. For 23 years now, climate negotiators have been holding meetings like this, producing millions of hours of talk and millions of pages of documents. And for 23 years, the world has edged closer to climate catastrophe. In Katowice, that failure was apparent with every breath you took.

The task for diplomats in Katowice seemed, at first glance, simple: Flesh out the rules for the Paris Agreement, the landmark 2015 accord in which virtually every nation in the world agreed to voluntarily take action to limit warming to 2 C (3.6 F). What metric will be used to count greenhouse-gas emissions in each country? Which sectors (power plants, vehicles, industrial, etc.) will be counted? Who will verify that the reporting is accurate? These questions might sound trivial, but getting them right is the difference between saving the world and an accounting scam. It is all the more tricky because greenhouse-gas emissions can be seen as a proxy for economic growth, and the notion that a nation like China would allow Americans  or anyone else  to poke around and verify these numbers, sort of the way that nuclear-arms inspectors poke around a missile base, is not easy to accept. Especially given that the U.S. and China are in the midst of a trade war.

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But the biggest threat to the climate agreement in Katowice wasnt paranoid leaders worried about other nations spying on economic data. It was the impulsive stupidity of President Donald Trump, who, as he has made clear in dozens of remarks and tweets, is a shameless and unrepentant climate denier. After Trump spent his presidential campaign touting the wonders of coal, it surprised no one that a few months after being sworn into office he announced he was pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. By the terms of the agreement itself, the U.S. cant officially leave until 2020. But Trump, who has zero respect for such norms, could have ordered the State Department not to send a team of negotiators to Katowice. Without the largest economy in the world present, the conference would have been rendered meaningless. Trump also could have sent a team of negotiators with instructions to blow up the talks, as he had blown up the G7 agreement last year. If the Katowice meeting had collapsed, it would have been the end of any global effort to limit carbon pollution for the foreseeable future.

But none of that happened. At some level, a decision was made to send an experienced team from the State Department, says Todd Stern, who led U.S. climate negotiations under President Barack Obama and is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. The U.S. not only participated in the negotiations, but the diplomats from the State Department, headed by veteran climate negotiator Trigg Talley, Sterns former deputy, held the negotiations together and actually strengthened the Paris Agreements rulebook. The unspoken goal of the U.S. team, says one negotiator, was to negotiate an agreement that the U.S. could live with, and could use to get back in when the next president is elected.

Nobody Ive talked to in the world of climate activism believes this was Trumps plan. I dont think Trump even knew Katowice was happening, former Secretary of State John Kerry tells Rolling Stone. Instead, the U.S.s role in Katowice was seen by some negotiators as a quiet insurgency by career diplomats to keep Americas place at the table in global climate negotiations. (In fact, I was asked by several participants not to write about it, lest someone in the White House get wind of it and seek revenge.) While Trump was busy tweeting about Robert Muellers witch hunt, a bare-bones crew of about 20 diplomats (half the number at the Paris talks) went about their business of saving the world. Or at least saving the Paris climate agreement, which, given the desperation of our times, is no small thing.

THE PARIS AGREEMENT was imperfect, not ambitious enough, and failed to address the many inequities of climate-change impacts. But it was a platform from which a better, stronger agreement could be built. It was also a triumph of American diplomacy. Obama understood that there would be no deal in Paris if China wasnt on board. China had long argued that it was still a poor, developing country that should be exempt from the rules that govern richer, more developed nations like in Europe, the U.S. and the U.K. After all, Chinese leaders argued, the U.S. and the EU had largely caused the problem of climate change by dumping billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere over the past 100 years or so  why shouldnt they be the ones responsible for cleaning it up? This divide between rich and poor nations, and what the rich nations of the world owe the poor, has always been the flashpoint in climate negotiations.

During his second term in office, Obama dispatched Kerry to China to begin talks about how to resolve this rich-nation/poor-nation divide. China had recently surpassed the U.S. to become the largest greenhouse-gas polluter in the world  they could hardly claim that they were not part of the problem. Kerry convinced Chinese leaders of the benefits of tackling climate change, including the boom in clean-energy technology like solar panels, which China saw as a major manufacturing opportunity. Obama followed up with phone calls and talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The result: In Paris, the U.S. and China were more or less on the same page, both using their political muscle to make sure the negotiations didnt falter. And though the Paris deal wasnt perfect, it resolved a lot of the old disputes between nations and set the world on a new path.

In Katowice, the optimism and momentum of Paris were gone. The U.S. and China were embroiled in a trade war. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a powerful voice for climate action in Paris, was undermined by her own political and economic troubles. Brazil had recently elected a president who thinks climate change should be solved through family planning. And instead of Obama leading the charge and trying to pull the world together, you had Trump, who wanted to blow everything up. Without American leadership, everyone is just laying back, says Kerry. Nobody was out there calling attention to the fact that we are on a suicidal trajectory.

In 2015, when the Paris Agreement was negotiated, many economists believed that global greenhouse-gas emissions had peaked and would decline as clean-energy prices declined and wind and solar power displaced fossil fuels. But that was not the case. In 2018, greenhouse-gas emissions climbed by 2.7 percent, a startling increase that underscored just how unserious the world is about dealing with climate change.

Even worse, recent analysis has made it clear that the level of pollution cuts by 2030 that nations committed to in Paris is nowhere near enough to stave off catastrophe. According to Carbon Tracker, a nonprofit that models climate scenarios, even if the commitments made in Paris were achieved, it would still push the climate far beyond the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 C. Unless nations of the world take dramatic action to increase their ambition to cut emissions, climate chaos is all but guaranteed.

Just how dire things were became clear a few months before Katowice, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the gold standard for climate science, issued a report that suggested even 1.5 C of warming would lead to a radically altered planet, with more wildfires, quickly rising seas and more deadly heat. To avoid that fate, the IPCC report suggested that greenhouse-gas pollution needed to be cut in half in the next 12 years, then fall to zero by 2050 (to limit warming to 2 C, emissions would have to fall to zero by 2075). [The IPCC report is] like a deafening, piercing smoke alarm going off in the kitchen, Erik Solheim, former executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, told The Washington Post. We have to put out the fire.

When the report was released at a meeting in South Korea in October, old tensions between the U.S. and China erupted. According to one attendee at the meeting, a midlevel Chinese negotiator cornered U.S. climate negotiator Talley in a hallway and had a heated conversation with him. The Chinese negotiator was basically letting the U.S. know that they were not going to be pushed around by the U.S. anymore, and that in Katowice, there were red lines that the Chinese were not going to cross, the source says. (Talley declined to comment for this article.) After that, I worried that Katowice would erupt into a fistfight between the U.S. and China.

CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS always start with high-minded calls to action, then quickly devolve into diplomatic mud wrestling. On the opening day of the conference in Katowice, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who has long been a powerful advocate for climate action, did his best to inspire attendees. It is hard to overstate the urgency of our situation, Guterres said in a speech to negotiators. Even as we witness devastating climate impacts causing havoc across the world, we are still not doing enough, nor moving fast enough, to prevent irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption. But it was British documentary filmmaker Sir David Attenborough who best summed up what is at stake: If we dont take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.

The U.S. delegation was split into two teams. The first was the political operatives, headed by Wells Griffith, a failed Alabama candidate for U.S. Congress who somehow wheedled his way into a job at the Department of Energy. Among other things, Griffith hosted a side event in Katowice, touting the importance of energy security for the U.S. and the virtues of cleaner fossil fuels. Griffiths event was interrupted by protesters who stood up and chanted, Keep it in the ground! It was a made-for-TV event, one that was apparently crafted to play to Trumps base on Fox News. George David Banks, a Republican who worked as Trumps adviser on climate until he resigned after admitting hed smoked pot, put on a similar sideshow at a U.N. climate session in 2017. Its all Kabuki, Banks tells me. The protesters are part of the show. The more environmental activists we get marching and shouting at these events, the happier we are. Its all about playing to the political base back home.

How did it play at the conference itself? This event will have no impact on this meeting, Andrew Light, a former U.S. State Department negotiator and now a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, told a reporter shortly after the event concluded. This event has an audience of one person  and that is President Trump.

A similar moment occurred during the first week of the conference, when the U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait all refused to welcome the bombshell IPCC report on the impacts of 1.5 C of warming. Those countries instead asked to note, rather than welcome, the reports findings because they refused to endorse the science behind it. Many media outlets played it as a big story  and it was shocking to see the U.S. aligning itself with corrupt fossil-fuel regimes. It was pretty clear that this was a directive that came straight from the White House, says Light. Many wrote the move off as political theater. In the end, whether a report is noted or welcomed makes no difference, says Kaveh Guilenpour, lead negotiator for the Marshall Islands and the director of climate change at the nonprofit Independent Diplomat. Its the science itself that matters. (In the final text, the Katowice agreement welcomes the timely completion of the IPCC report.) Or as Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatus minister of foreign affairs, put it, Whether you welcome or note or shamelessly ignore the science altogether, the fact remains that this is catastrophic for humanity.

Beyond the political operatives, the U.S. also sent a team of seasoned climate negotiators from the State Department, headed by Talley, an affable, soft-spoken guy, invariably polite, who is in every way the opposite of Trumpian bluster. For Talley and his team, the serious part of the work was on the details of the rulebook. When the conference began, there were still hundreds of pages of bracketed and blank text, says Guilenpour. To hammer out the details, Talley and the U.S. delegation worked in backrooms with negotiators from China and other nations. In these kinds of negotiations, the key is understanding when someone is bluffing and when they are not, says Elliot Diringer, executive vice president at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. That takes knowledge and experience. Unlike in Paris, the U.S. team was playing a weak hand. With Trump doing everything he could to boost fossil fuels and undermine climate science, the U.S. had little political leverage or moral authority to help sway negotiations.

Of all the issues on the table, transparency was the toughest to resolve. How open were nations willing to be about their emissions? And when they claimed emissions reductions, how did other nations know they werent bullshitting them? Getting these details right was hugely important for building confidence in the agreement and reassuring skeptics that reductions were real, not just a numbers game.

For developing countries, the question of measuring and monitoring emissions is particularly tricky, not because they are trying to scam the system but because they just dont have the technology and expertise to do it. For many developing countries, it is not a matter of hiding the ball, but rather finding the ball, says Dan Dudek, vice president for Asia at the Environmental Defense Fund. Rule of law, emissions reporting, legal accountability, enforcement are all a work in progress for most developing countries. As you might imagine, these topics and capacities are not always highest on the priority list.

One issue that was a particular sticking point was figuring out when the counting of emissions would officially begin under the Paris Agreement. Would the start date be the same for all countries, or would some developing nations have flexibility? In Katowice, China had been holding out for a start date of 2026, while the U.S. pushed for 2022. In the end, after weeks of negotiating, the deal ended up at 2024, with some flexibility for developing nations. This might seem like a small detail, but it is the kind of thing, if its not handled right, that can stall negotiations and lead to much bigger problems, says Brookings Stern.

Among other things, Talley and his team managed to keep the peace with China. Andrew Rakestraw, a climate negotiator with the U.S. State Department, had been quietly co-chairing meetings with Chinese officials for nearly two years prior to Katowice to help iron out differences and shore up trust, according to a source familiar with the talks. In Katowice, the U.S. team gave enough ground on flexibility in the rules for developing nations to ensure that the old tiff with the developed world never opened, and yet remained rigorous enough to give the agreement real teeth. What the U.S. team accomplished was a diplomatic tour de force, says Guilenpour. Stern, who knows this terrain better than anyone, agrees: In the end, we got pretty strong rules of the road. Im not sure that the results would have been better under, say, a Hillary Clinton administration.

A number of the toughest issues, such as how poor nations will be compensated for loss and damages, were, as usual, put off until the next conference in 2020. And despite the ever-accelerating risks the world faces from climate change, there was no sign that nations were ready to dramatically increase their ambitions to cut greenhouse gases. As 15-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg put it in a talk that was widely circulated on social media, Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. Or as Kerry tells me, The U.S. team in Katowice did a great job. But there is no reason to be sanguine. We are still on cruise control, and participating in a mutual suicide pact for the planet.

Nevertheless, what went down in Katowice was a small but not imperceptible sign that maybe all hope is not lost. The Paris Agreement could have died in Katowice, says Li Shuo, head of Greenpeace-China. Instead, it lives. The question now is, Who will step up and show some ambition and political leadership?  Or as Guilenpour puts it, The age of climate negotiations is now over. It is time for the age of ambition to begin. At least until 2020, when the U.S. presidential election might inject some urgency into taking action on climate, that ambition is more likely to come from China than America. The Chinese understand whats at stake, says Kerry. Given Trumps claim that climate change is a Chinese hoax, it would be a great irony if climate change were, in fact, the issue that allows China to assert itself as a global leader. However it plays out, in Katowice, at a moment when liberal democracies are tottering and nationalism is on the rise, there was a feeling of triumph even among hard-nosed critics of climate agreements and a sense that, for the moment, the forces of darkness had been vanquished. In Katowice, says Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, I think everyone decided that we were not going to let one corrupt, morally bankrupt person destroy the world. Even if that person is the president of the United States.
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Salesforce.Com will more than double its workforce in Ireland by adding 1,500 jobs, marking one of the largest single job announcements in the 70-year history of the state's foreign investment agency. The San Francisco-based cloud software maker currently employs 1,400 people in Dublin, the European hub for a number of major technology firms, and will add the new jobs over the next five years as it moves into a new 430,000 feet campus on the city's north docks. "Europe is Salesforce's fastest growing region, and Ireland has been a significant part of our success," Miguel Milano, Saleforce's international president, said on Friday. "We are excited to be announcing our continued commitment with this investment in Dublin." The risk of Brexit and escalating global trade wars to Ireland's open economy has done little to dampen foreign multinationals' appetite to set up or grow operations there and avail of its 12.5 percent corporate tax rate. Foreign investors backed by the state foreign investment agency created a total of 14,000 jobs in Ireland in 2018, up from just over 10,000 the previous year, IDA Ireland said earlier this month. Foreign firms employed around 230,000 people in Ireland in 2018, approximately 10 percent of the country's workforce. (Reporting by Padraic Halpin, Editing by Paul Sandle)
Rob Kazinsky (Credit: Getty)

Albert Square is set to welcome back another old face.

Rob Kazinsky is to rejoin the soap as Sean Slater, Stacey Slaters wayward brother, a full decade after having left the East End.

Sean was last seen escaping from a frozen lake, after a foiled attempt to abduct Amy, Roxy Mitchells daughter after discovering he was not the father.

During his three-year stint on the show, between 2006 and 2009, he also helped Tanya Branning try to bury cheating Max Branning alive.

Kazinsky will be back for a short stint this coming spring.

(Credit: BBC)

On his return, he told the Radio Times: Its ten years since Sean fled from Walford and I left the studio at Elstree behind to move to the USA to chase a dream that seemed so far-fetched.

Throughout my career I have always felt my best work was on EastEnders, and that there was something in Sean I understood completely that was so traumatic which we never really got to show the viewers. I have unfinished business in Albert Square and am thrilled to be returning to what I still consider to be my home, however briefly.

EastEnders is still the most important serial on British television, never afraid to combat hard storylines and tell hard truths. I have always been proud of what EastEnders has done for social awareness and that is why Im back  to tell a story that means something to me with the family that I know can tell it right.

I cant wait to see my Slaters again and see whats in store for Sean as he brings an evolved animal to Albert Square.

On quitting the soap, he appeared in US vampire drama True Blood, as well as the movies Pacific Rim with Idris Elba, and World of Warcraft.

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WASHINGTON  Less than a week into her campaign for president, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard issued a lengthy apology for her past comments and actions against the LGBTQ community.

Since Gabbard, a 37-year-old Iraq veteran, announced on CNN last Friday she was joining what's expected to be a crowded Democratic field for president in 2020, her past comments and actions have been under a microscope, including her work for an anti-gay organization and remarks calling LGBTQ activists "homosexual extremists."

"In my past, I said and believed things that were wrong, and worse, they were very hurtful to the people in the LGBTQ community and to their loved ones," Gabbard said.

She added that her views had changed significantly since that time and credited that to her time overseas in Iraq. She explained that she grew up in a conservative household and was raised to believe that marriage was between a man and woman. But, over the years, Gabbard said she "formed her own opinions."

"I know that LGBTQ people still struggle. They're still facing discrimination, still facing abuse and still fear that hard-won rights are going to be taken away by people who hold views like I used to," she said. "That cannot happen."

Gabbard previously apologized for her remarks on LGBTQ equality when she ran for Congress in 2012 but given her presidential aspirations, new revelations from her past surfaced, leading to a four-minute video apology Gabbard posted on her Twitter page.

More: Democrat Tulsi Gabbard announces 2020 run for president to take on Trump

In a story about her past, mostly in the early 2000s, CNN reported that Gabbard advocated that "as Democrats, we should be representing the views of the people, not a small number of homosexual extremists," she said in 2004 while serving as a Hawaii state legislator.

Gabbard also did work for an anti-gay organization that considered homosexuality "unhealthy, abnormal behavior that should not be promoted or accepted in society," according to CNN.

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The news report noted the organization, the Alliance for Traditional Marriage, promoted conversation therapy, which aims to alter a person's sexual identity through therapy by treating it as a mental illness. The practice is banned in 15 states, including Hawaii.

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CNN reported that Gabbard was quoted in a news release from 2000 about LGBTQ activists who protested against her mother, Carol Gabbard, running for the state's Board of Education.

"This war of deception and hatred against my mom is being waged by homosexual activists because they know, that if elected, she will not allow them to force their values down the throats of the children in our schools," Tulsi Gabbard was quoted as saying.

CNN's report also delved into her father's work as one of the state's leading advocates against same-sex marriage

Since the early 2000s, Gabbard's views on the LGBTQ community have changed. She's backed pro-gay legislation and was given a 100 by the Human Rights Campaign. Gabbard also serves on the Congressional LGBT Caucus.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard starts off 2020 campaign apologizing for past LGBTQ remarks
London (AFP) - Britons who have changed their minds since voting to leave the European Union in 2016 are among those uniting to call for another chance to reverse the decision.

These "Remainer now" voters, former Brexit supporters, are adding their voices to the chorus of calls for a second referendum amid political paralysis in Britain over the issue.

Gary Maylin, 38, from Norwich in eastern England, said he originally backed leaving the bloc after more than four decades of membership because he "wanted sovereignty for the UK".

He recalled facing a barrage of pro-Brexit sentiment at the time which influenced his choice.

"My MP was (pro-)Leave, all the arguments I heard were for Leave," he told AFP.

"So I decided the EU was to blame for a lot of the things that were going wrong -- the inability of our government to control our destiny."

- Political turmoil -

The world's fifth-largest economy is in political turmoil and grasping for solutions that could smooth its planned departure from the bloc just 10 weeks from now.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is scrambling to put together a new Brexit strategy after MPs rejected her EU divorce deal, but admitted Thursday that she can not rule out a potentially damaging "no-deal" split.

Maylin was among 51.9 percent of voters to support leaving the bloc in the nationwide referendum two and-a-half years ago, trumping the 48.1 percent who went for Remain.

But he says he would now "absolutely" vote the other way.

"I've come to appreciate that we are not going to... succeed as a nation on our own," Maylin explained, adding "walking away isn't working for us".

"We really benefit from being strong as a united Europe rather than independent as a country," he said, pointing to everything from US President Donald Trump to the continued rise of China.

- Calls for a second referendum -

Earlier this week, Maylin joined a dozen or so other Brexit converts who headed to Westminster, the epicentre of political power, to tell British MPs why they now want another referendum.

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The meeting was organised by "RemainerNow", an initiative launched by a Europhile, Andrew Davidson, in his spare time with a presence online.

Davidson was left "disturbed" by the 2016 result and spurred into action by meeting regretful Brexit voters.

"There was so many people both in my personal life but also I've seen on social media or TV that had regrets over their Leave vote," he said.

His movement is hopeful of seeing a second vote -- repeatedly rejected by the government -- as opinion polls show a majority would now support Remain.

A recent compilation of surveys by the non-partisan organisation "What UK Thinks: EU" found 54 percent now favour staying in.

Brexiteers have argued that such polls -- which showed Leave would narrowly lose in 2016 -- consistently ignores harder-to-reach Brexit supporters and are inaccurate.

But people's fears over the economic impact of leaving the bloc are real, according to pollsters.

"If you voted Leave but you now think that the economy will suffer as a result, your chances of voting leaving again come down to about 50 percent or so," John Curtice, one of Britain's leading survey experts, told AFP.

- 'Promises were broken' -

Christopher Oram, from the southwestern English county of Dorset, is another former Brexit supporter who believes he was lulled into the wrong decision.

"We had the MPs who were saying that we could have our cake and eat it," Oram said, noting campaign promises of money saved, easy trade deals and a prosperous future.

"Then I heard that we were going to leave the single market and custom unions so, again, I'm in shock," added the 28-year-old.

"All the promises were broken."

Those who have lost faith in Brexit revealed it had not been easy sharing news of their switch with friends and family who have stayed loyal to the cause.

Maylin said he has been harassed on social media, while Oram quarrelled with his best friend over the issue.

"He still thinks that we should be leaving, so that causes a lot of tensions between myself and him," he said.

"Our partners have now said that we're not allowed to talk about Brexit over the dinner table any more."

Other friends have shunned Oram in response.

"I find upsetting that people don't accept... I have the right to change my mind," he added.
Progress Software (PRGS) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.76 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.74 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.67 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 2.70%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this business software maker would post earnings of $0.58 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.60, delivering a surprise of 3.45%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times.

Progress Software, which belongs to the Zacks Computer - Software industry, posted revenues of $111.50 million for the quarter ended November 2018, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.48%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $116.08 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates three times over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

Progress Software shares have added about 2.1% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 4.4%.

What's Next for Progress Software?

While Progress Software has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

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Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Progress Software was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.54 on $94.70 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $2.54 on $389.10 million in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Computer - Software is currently in the top 24% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.



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President Donald Trump ripped yet another page from Cold War strategy books Thursday by directing the Pentagon to look into developing a constellation of space-based sensors and interceptors that could stop missiles before they reach the United States.

We will destroy every type of missile attack against any American target, whether before or after launch, he told a crowd assembled inside the Pentagon auditorium. When it comes to defending America, we will not take any chances. We will only take action.

The need for new technologies, the President said, was necessary to deal with the growing size and sophistication of missile arsenals belonging to hostile states, such as Iran, North Korea, Russia and China. In addition, he outlined plans to install 20 additional ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska, a decision that was previously announced.

Coming at the same time that Trump has criticized and pulled back from treaties aimed at reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles, the push for a space-based missile defense will likely lead other countries to develop newer and stealthier weapons, experts warn, possibly leading to an arms race between the U.S., China and Russia.

The moves are part of several ambitious policy objectives laid out in the Trump Administrations Missile Defense Review, a 108-page strategy document released Thursday. Our goal is simple: to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, any time, any place, Trump said.

The Presidents pledge, which could be perceived as a threat in foreign capitals, will almost certainly lead adversaries to focus on ways to prevent such American invincibility from ever becoming a reality. As a result, nuclear arms analysts say, other nations develop new weapons to circumvent U.S. defenses. Its a cat-and-mouse game.

When the U.S. builds bigger and better missile defense forces, it stimulates Russia to respond with bigger and better offensive forces, said former Defense Secretary William Perry. This could be a reasonable tradeoff, except the offense has an advantage: It is easier and cheaper to build the responding offensive forces. So rather than getting an increase in security, we get instead a costly arms race, and one that decreases, not increases, our security.

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It also requires billions of dollars to improve systems because they are so technologically complex. Since 1983, the United States has spent more than $290 billion on a variety of missile defense schemes, said Stephen I. Schwartz, a senior fellow with the non-profit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who tracks nuclear spending.

It is far easier and less expensive for adversaries to build and deploy additional offensive missiles and countermeasures than it is for us to devise and deploy sensors and interceptors to reliably track all those weapons and knock them out of the sky, Schwartz said.

The main program today, known as Ground-based Midcourse Defense, relies on long-range interceptors, which are currently based in Alaska and California, to hit a ballistic missile as it travels at more than 14,000 mph in space. U.S. military officials often liken it to hitting a bullet with another bullet. It currently has a 50% success rate in tests.

Because there are just 44 interceptors, the U.S. maintains that the system is not geared toward nations with large arsenals of ballistic missiles, such as China or Russia. Rather, the program aims to knock out one or two missiles launched by a rogue nation, such as Iran or North Korea. But in his remarks on the review, Trump stated: Regardless of the missile type or the geographic origins of the attack, we will ensure that enemy missiles find no sanctuary on Earth or in the skies above.

The White House increased missile defense spending by 25% to about $10 billion this fiscal year. And it is clear from the new strategy, which is the first review undertaken by the U.S. government in a decade, that the Trump Administration has determined that missile defense is a critical national security priority.

The Administration wants to fund research on developing a space-based layer of sensors to give early warning by monitoring, detecting, and tracking missiles when they are launched from locations almost anywhere on the globe. It also wants to fund research on space-based interceptors. Space-basing may increase the overall likelihood of successfully intercepting offensive missiles, reduce the number of U.S. defensive interceptors required to do so, and potentially destroy offensive missiles over the attackers territory rather than the targeted state, according to the Missile Defense Review.

The vision harkens back to President Ronald Reagans Strategic Defense Initiative, known more commonly as Star Wars. The proposed missile defense system, which was first announced in 1983, was being developed to protect the U.S. homeland from ballistic missile attack by basing laser-shooting satellites in space. It was deemed to be highly destabilizing at the time, because it threatened to make intercontinental ballistic missiles obsolete. In the end, it didnt matter because the system was too technologically complicated and couldnt be built.

However, this isnt the first time Trump has revisited a Cold War totem.

He has criticized the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which reduces and limits nuclear arms in the U.S. and Russia, as a bad deal. He has announced his intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a 31-year-old nuclear weapons agreement with Russia, delivering a severe blow to the arms control regime that helped preserve peace on the European continent.

Andrea Thompson, U.S. Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, said Wednesday that the chances for both treaties looked bleak after meeting with Russian officials in Geneva. Moscow refused to allow inspection of a missile system that Washington says violates INF. We see no indication that Russia would choose compliance, she said.

During the Cold War, a series of treaties between the U.S. and Soviet Union were designed to avoid miscalculation and keep communication channels open  even though Washington and Moscow were sworn adversaries. A number of those agreements have frayed in recent years but the last time that the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from a landmark nuclear arms control treaty was in 2002 when Washington left the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and continued its expansion of ballistic missile defenses.

The effects of that decision was easily seen in March when Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled his nations next generation of nuclear weapons, each engineered to slip behind Americas vast network of early warning and defense systems. In making the nationally televised speech to Russias Federal Assembly, Putin specifically stated the new arsenal serves as response to the U.S. governments decision to abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Both sides are citing the others missile defense deployments and plans as rationales to outfit their strategic nuclear arsenals with more capable weapons, said Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, a think tank. Neither side is taking into account the concerns the other has about their offensive and defensive developments sufficiently seriously to avoid increased risks of instability.

The calculation is further complicated by a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, which said China is developing a range of cutting-edge weapons to counter U.S. and other countries ballistic missile defense systems, a new generation of mobile missiles with warheads consisting of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles.

If the U.S. builds up its anti-missile systems even further, as the Administration plans, it may set off an unintended domino effect. An expansion of U.S. defenses could prompt Beijing to make additional qualitative and quantitative improvements to its arsenal, Reif said. Such an expansion would make it even more difficult to achieve further reductions to the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.
Tax them all and let the IRS sort it out. Photo: Dirck Halstead/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images

Two weeks ago, 60 Minutes put Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on national television, and the congresswoman put soaking the rich back into our national political conversation.

And conservatives have been trying to put the cat back in the bag ever since.

The rights first instinct was to shut the Overton window on the congresswomans fingers. The libertarian economist Tyler Cowen dubbed her push for a 70 percent top marginal tax rate the Trump reelection campaign. But the idea that Trump would relish the chance to campaign against tax hikes on the rich never made much sense  not least because, through much of 2016, he campaigned in support of them. And polling on AOCs idea quickly affirmed the broad popularity of imposing confiscatory tax rates on multimillionaires.

Political concern trolling soon gave way to the substantive variety. Conservatives observed that, while Ocasio-Cortezs proposal targeted high salaries, the superrichs income derives primarily from capital gains. And anyhow, if you raise rich peoples taxes, all youll really do is divert more capital into offshore tax havens.

These arguments might have been compelling had Ocasio-Cortezs proposal been a written bill, rather than an extemporaneous illustration of her general philosophy on tax policy. In reality, the congresswoman and her ideological allies are quite enthusiastic about raising taxes on capital gains, and cracking down on tax havens. The real debate here isnt about how to most effectively soak the rich. Its about whether the rich should be effectively soaked.

In recent days, the rights finest minds have coughed up some arguments for why they shouldnt be. The strongest of these rest on tendentious economic premises; the weakest, on fallacious ones. Meanwhile, none of the rights contentions account for the possibility that extreme inequality is politically undesirable  and would remain so, even if it was economically beneficent.

To appreciate how poor the conservative case is against soaking the rich, lets examine five of their arguments in turn.

One: If we heavily tax millionaires, no one will want to go to college.

Heres how Michael Strain, director of economic policy at the American Enterprise Institute, phrased this point in Bloomberg:

[I]f the government will take 70 cents of every dollar you earn above a certain income threshold, why go to college? The threshold obviously matters, of course, but the basic point about the decision to acquire advanced skills remains.

A 70 percent top rate could negatively affect the careers people choose. A young person interested in health care might decide to become a nurse rather than a surgeon, because much of the income gained from being a surgeon will be taken by the governmentThere is not much empirical evidence on how important these longer-term considerations are, because sorting through the drivers of educational and occupational choice is very difficult. But just because economists cant assign a magnitude to these effects does not mean that real-world tax policy should assume they arent important.

The trouble with this argument, as Strain euphemistically concedes, is that it has no evidentiary basis.

As Matt Bruenig of the Peoples Policy Project notes, Sweden effectively has a 70 percent tax rate on labor income  and that rate kicks in at (roughly) $98,000. If Strain is correct that imposing a 70 percent tax on eight-figure incomes (or even high six-figure ones) would depress educational attainment  and leave America bereft of surgeons  then surely these effects would be visible in a nation that has long taxed high five-figure incomes at a similar rate.

But they arent. As of 2013, 43 percent of Swedes between the ages of 25 and 54 were college graduates; among Americans of that cohort, the rate of college attainment was exactly the same, according to data compiled by the OECD (and visualized below by the Russell Sage Foundation). Meanwhile, high-tax Norway boasted a higher rate of tertiary education than the United States did. One wonders: If Strains objective is to maximize college attainment, wouldnt supporting tuition-free college be a better expedient than opposing tax hikes on the one percent?

It is true that Sweden has fewer doctors than it would like. But that is also true of the United States. And anyhow, the former nations high tax rates havent prevented its health-care system from routinely outperforming Americas on virtually every metric.

Two: Soaking the rich will reduce innovation, which will itself hurt the poor.

This argument comes courtesy of the (aforementioned) George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen:

[T]he focus should be on designing a 21st-century tax system that can jump-start innovation in the U.S. once again. Surely that is not going to require confiscatory rates for some of the most creative Americans.

Lets table Cowens normative argument (that when evaluating the tax code, our objective should be to maximize innovation, not progressivity). Well get to that later. First, lets ask: Do we actually know that soaking the rich reduces innovation?

The short answer is no. In fact, there are sound reasons to suspect that high top tax rates do not depress productivity, and may even increase it.

One implicit assumption of Cowens argument is that there is a (reasonably) tight correlation between a workers market income and the social utility of her labor. This premise appears dubious when applied generally  and outright absurd when applied to Americas highest earners.

The financial sector offers the highest wages of any industry in the United States. It is also much too large for our economys own good, according to research from the OECD and IMF. Thus, if we assume that Americas most innovative minds are motivated primarily by avarice (as Cowen does), then keeping top marginal tax rates low is actually directing precious human capital into a sector we need to shrink.

Which does America need more of: Exceptionally creative high-school teachers and environmental engineers, or exceptionally creative high-frequency traders and white-shoe lawyers? Would we rather have innovations that help children learn better  or ones that infinitesimally increase the speed at which hedge funds can make financial transactions? If wed prefer the former, then wouldnt reducing the wage differential between teachers and hedge-fund quants  by heavily taxing the latters high incomes  increase desirable forms of innovation, by more rationally allocating human capital?

Research from the economists Benjamin Lockwood, Charles Nathanson, and Glen Weyl suggests that high top marginal tax rates can produce small gains in welfare by promoting a more optimal allocation of talented individuals between professions (though profession-specific taxes and subsidies were far more effective in achieving such ends). Cowen might quibble with these findings, but he has no dispositive, empirical evidence confirming that high marginal tax rates reliably depress innovation.

By contrast, those pesky Nordic social democracies have produced significant empirical evidence disputing Cowens. For example, high-tax Sweden has fostered so much high-tech innovation, the Financial Times dubbed Stockholm the unicorn factory in 2015:

In the past decade, this city of 800,000 inhabitants has churned out more billion-dollar tech companies than any in Europe, beating metropolises such as London and Berlin. According to a study by Atomico, on a per-capita basis, Stockholm is the second most prolific tech hub globally, with 6.3 billion-dollar companies per million people compared to Silicon Valley with 6.9.

Meanwhile, as Bruenig has documented, the Nordic countries have seen much higher growth in GDP per hour worked (a.k.a. productivity) since 1970 than the U.S. has.

It is true that America produces far more patents per capita than Scandinavia does. But that probably says more about the flaws in our patent laws than it does about those in Swedens economy. After all, there has been no correlation between patent production and productivity growth in the United States, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office.

Three: If you heavily tax high incomes, you will actually solidify the existing aristocracys economic supremacy.

For a more interesting bad argument against soaking the rich, lets turn to the Niskanen Centers Samuel Hammond:

Swedens strict egalitarian commitment to income equality comes at a cost: levels of wealth inequality that remain notably higher than in the United States. The reason goes back to high marginal tax rates. As a hereditary monarchy, Sweden still has a formal nobility with protected titles and dynastic wealth. While high marginal taxes soaked the top 0.1 percent, they have essentially crystallized the nobilitys privileged position by making it hard for outsiders to displace them by accumulating wealth from scratch.

Theres a valid point here: Introducing steep taxes on income  while leaving wealth alone  does strengthen the existing aristocracys grip on the top rung of the economic ladder.

Nevertheless, this fails as an argument against the progressive vision for taxation for two reasons. First, Ocasio-Cortez and her allies are quite comfortable with increasing taxes on inheritances and other forms of concentrated wealth. Second, while Swedens high marginal taxes have preserved wealth inequality among private citizens, they have succeeded in closing the gap between the collective wealth of the Swedish people, and that of the Swedish superrich.

Generally speaking, progressives do not dislike concentrated wealth because it makes it harder for creative destruction to replace the old rentier class with a fresher-faced version. Rather, they oppose such wealth because it gives unaccountable private individuals too much power over society as a whole (more on that point in a minute). And, as the Peoples Policy Project illustrates below, Swedens tax policies have been very effective at shifting the balance of economic power away from the formal nobility, and toward the demos. By the end of the Social Democratic Partys era of dominance, more than 40 percent of national wealth was owned by a democratic government  which used said wealth to provide the Swedish working class with a historically unprecedented degree of social insurance and economic security.

Four: Many superrich people earned their wealth. The Dream Hoarders of the upper-middle class are the real parasites.

Here is Hammonds other main argument against confiscatory taxes on high earners:

The focus on the super-rich is a red-herring. To the extent that the American economy is genuinely and unfairly captured, be it through special tax advantages, zoning restrictions, or elite education tracks, the blame lies with what Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution calls Dream Hoarders. Some Dream Hoarders are in the top 0.1%, to be sure, but their ranks extend throughout the upper middle class.

[H]ow wealth is created and transferred matters much more than whether some individuals happen to have more than others. Liberal theories of distributive justice thus focus on what philosophers call the cooperative-surplus of a society, redistributing the private benefits of wealth creation in order to keep the social system positive-sum and thus secure cooperation across its members. Wealth acquired through real estate appreciation, for example, is treated much differently than wealth acquired through productive entrepreneurship, both because such wealth represents a form of zero-sum rent seeking, and because it can easily lead to the creation of status divisions in society that are difficult to disrupt.

If Hammonds contention were that a truly egalitarian economic agenda must include the abolition of exclusionary zoning, the equalization of public-school funding (so that the value of your property doesnt determine the quality of your childs education), and the repeal of upper-middle-class tax breaks, then it would be unobjectionable.

But his argument isnt that confiscatory taxes on the superrich are insufficient; its that theyre undesirable. And the reason theyre undesirable is that the superrich havent unfairly captured our economy, only the (disproportionately upper-middle class) Dream Hoarders have.

It is difficult to comprehend how anyone concerned by rent-seeking  let alone the creation of status divisions in society  would see the top 0.1 percent as a red herring. After all, that red herring increased its share of economic growth by orders of magnitude more than the upper-middle class did over the past four decades  a period that saw relatively tepid growth in our nations overall productivity. These figures alone should be enough to establish that the superrich are raking in more value than they could possibly be producing. Meanwhile, the top 0.1 percent now lay claim to 90 percent of all of Americas wealth. Can anyone honestly argue that wealth monopolization of that magnitude is not likely to create durable status divisions in society?

No, @nytdavidbrooks tremendous gains are not going to the top 20%. They are going to top 1%. Key to understand GOP.https://t.co/vm7j66QrxW pic.twitter.com/DKc38X8f6S  Gabriel Zucman (@gabriel_zucman) June 27, 2017

Perhaps Hammonds contention is that the superrich typically invest their wealth in productive enterprises, while the upper-middle class primarily speculate on real estate. That might be true in relative terms. But its patently false in absolute ones. The superrich invest an enormous amount of wealth in bidding up the price of luxury properties. As of November, Tiger 21  an investment club for speculators with at least $10 million to invest  had nearly 30 percent of its holdings in real estate.

Hammonds one explicit argument for why the merely affluent are the real rentiers is that they have more votes than the superrich, and thus, can extract more favors from the state. But this naively presumes that policy is shaped primarily at the ballot box. In reality, a great deal of public policy is made without the electorates notice. Ordinary voters  even upper-middle-class ones  do not have time to monitor the fine print in every congressional funding bill or trade agreement or piece of regulatory guidance. But the 0.1 percents lobbyists do. A moments glance at Americas existing tax code (which taxes a doctors labor income much more heavily than billionaire investors capital gains)  and polling on the American publics views on tax policy (which shows overwhelming support for raising taxes on the Uber-wealthy)  should be enough to establish that the superrich enjoy at least as much undue influence over the state as the merely affluent do. And that conclusion is further affirmed by the sheer difficulty of effectively taxing the 0.1 percent at all: The upper-middle class isnt responsible for Americas failure to make combating tax evasion one of its top goals in international diplomacy; the superrich titans of American industry are.

Five: Extreme inequality is fine, so long as its compatible with economic growth and poverty reduction.

Hammond makes this point explicitly. But the idea that extreme economic inequality isnt a problem in itself is implicit in every conservative argument against aggressively taxing the one percent. Conservative economists take it as a given that there is no inherent value in reducing inequality, and thus, that if a redistributive policy would reduce the absolute material well-being of the median American even marginally, then said policy is unjustifiable.

But for (small d) democrats, this truth is far from self-evident. As indicated above, shaping public policy requires investments of time, money, and attention. Wealthy individuals and corporations can easily shoulder such expenses; ordinary voters cant. This simple reality  that economic power is easily converted into the political variety  is an inherent constraint on popular sovereignty under capitalism. But it is a constraint that can be more or less restrictive, depending on how unequally wealth is distributed, and how politically organized ordinary, working people are. Political science research (and American history) indicates that, in periods of exceptionally high economic inequality, American policy-making grows exceptionally detached from majoritarian preferences, and hostile to labor unions (i.e. the most effective vehicles for mass, class-based political organization).

Conservative intellectuals often cite individual liberty  defined as the freedom of contract and from arbitrary coercion  as the guiding principle of their politics. But Americans will never enjoy such liberty if they cannot meaningfully influence their contractual obligations to the state; which is to say, the laws that they are coerced into obeying. As the great American political scientist Robert Dahl once wrote, one of the most fundamental of all human freedoms is the freedom to help determine, in cooperation with others, the laws and rules that one must obey. Americas present level of economic inequality is incompatible with that freedom.

All of which is to say: There is no reason to assume that taxing the wealthy at Nordic rates would make America less economically productive  and good reason to think that, even if it did, doing so would enhance our collective liberty.
WASHINGTON  Former President George W. Bush delivered pizza to his Secret Service detail, who are working without pay due to the partial government shutdown, and called on Washington to put an end to the impasse over funding for a southern border wall.

In a photo posted to his Instagram account, Bush is seen carrying three pies to a group of seven Secret Service personnel. Just behind the 43rd president, several other pizzas were also being carried to the group

Bush said both he and his wife, Laura, were grateful for the men and women who were working to keep them safe but it was time to end the impasse between President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress.

He thanked both the Secret Service and the "thousands of federal employees who are working hard for our country without a paycheck" and all the citizens who were helping to support these workers.

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"It's time for leaders on both sides to put politics aside, come together and end this shutdown," Bush said.

But, over the near-month since the shutdown began due to disagreement over funding for a wall along the southern border, the dispute between Trump and Democratic leaders seems to have gotten more bitter. In its 28th day, the historic and record-breaking shutdown shows no signs of ending.

More than 800,000 federal employees have not been paid due to the shutdown, including nearly 6,000 Secret Service employees, according to the Department of Homeland Security's shutdown procedures.

More: Shutdown: Trump imposes new restrictions on congressional travel one day after grounding Pelosi's plane

More: 'Well send the wall to them': Trump campaign lets people send 'bricks' to Pelosi, Schumer

On Friday, Trump taunted Pelosi over his cancellation of a military plane she was scheduled to take to lead a congressional delegation to a war zone in Afghanistan.

The cancellation on Thursday came after Pelosi sent the president a letter suggesting his State of the Union address  scheduled for Jan. 29  be delayed or that he submit it in writing if parts of the government remain closed at the end of the month.

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"Why would Nancy Pelosi leave the Country with other Democrats on a seven day excursion when 800,000 great people are not getting paid," Trump tweeted on Friday.

Trump's campaign also announced on Friday that it was raising money to send bricks to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over funding for a border wall.

"Since Chuck and Nancy keep stonewalling the President, well send the wall to them, brick by brick, until they agree to secure the border!" Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said in a tweet promoting the campaign.

More: Trump to Pelosi: Kiss your plane goodbye

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: President George W. Bush delivers pizza to Secret Service detail amid government shutdown
Nothing in the business world can be taken for granted.

Sears Holdings, once the greatest retailer in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy protection in 2018 and is just a stone's throw away from possible liquidation. Washington Mutual, a savings and loan powerhouse, succumbed to the pressures of the financial crisis and sought bankruptcy protection in 2008. And WorldCom, once one of the largest telecommunications providers in the U.S., sought bankruptcy protection in 2002.

The list of brand-name companies who aren't or weren't assured of tomorrow is a mile long -- and it may soon have another addition: California gas and electric utility PG&E (NYSE: PCG).

A petition to file for bankruptcy next to a judge's gavel.

Image source: Getty Images.

PG&Eek! Facing massive claims, a bankruptcy filing is imminent

PG&E, which had a market cap of around $35 billion as recently as August 2017 but has lost around 90% of its value, announced in a filing on Monday, Jan. 14, that it plans to file for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 29. What could bring such a presumably steady and cash flow-positive business model that relies on electricity and natural gas sales to its knees? The answer lies in culpability.

The recent Camp Fire in California, which resulted in the tragic deaths of 86 people and destroyed approximately 14,000 homes and more than 500 businesses, has led to $7 billion in claims filed against the company...so far.

According to various reports, it's believed that a power line came into contact with nearby trees, sparking the deadly California blaze. California's largest utility submitted a letter to regulators noting that it did, indeed, find a downed line in the area where the fire was believed to have begun with tree branches on it. Since maintaining the safe operating condition of transmission lines falls on PG&E, it's expected to be liable for these claims.

But that's not all. PG&E was also cited for wildfires in 2017 that caused $10 billion in damages and 44 deaths. Per the New York Times, state regulators found the company responsible for 17 of 21 fires in Northern California in 2017.

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Combined, and when taking into account exacerbating factors, PG&E's liability for 2017's and 2018's California wildfires could reach $30 billion. In its Monday filing with regulators, it listed only $1.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents, and it has an insurance policy that would cover only a fraction of the proposed $30 billion in liabilities. Seeking bankruptcy protection will, presumably, give PG&E more flexibility as it contends with its existing debt obligations, as well as restitution to individual and business victims of these wildfires.

A hundred-dollar bill burning from the center outward.

Image source: Getty Images.

More people will be affected by PG&E's bankruptcy than you probably realize

Unforeseen events can and will happen. But this impending bankruptcy could wind up affecting far more people than anyone could have imagined.

To begin with, investors can probably expect to be wiped out, as is common when a public company files for bankruptcy protection. The thing is, utilities are often viewed as safe, defensive plays, meaning a lot of institutional firms and hedge funds had a stake in PG&E stock as of Sept. 30, 2018, according to the latest 13-F filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As of Sept. 30, 432.2 million shares of PG&E stock were held by institutional firms with $100 million or more in assets under management, with another 92.7 million shares held by hedge funds. In total, 31 institutional firms had PG&E as a top-10 holding as of Sept. 30.

According to aggregated 13-F filings via WhaleWisdom, some institutions stand to lose more than others. BlackRock, Vanguard Group, and State Street were holding $2.23 billion, $1.75 billion, and $1.13 billion worth of PG&E stock, respectively, at the end of the third quarter. Although not all Vanguard funds would be expected to own PG&E stock, Vanguard does have approximately 20 million clients. That's a lot of potential clients that could lose money as a result of PG&E's bankruptcy.

Additionally, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, better known as CalPERS, has 1.93 million members. Of its more than $350 billion in assets under management, CalPERS owned $74.1 million worth of PG&E stock as of Oct. 31, 2018. That'll likely be a total loss for the massive retirement account.

But investing losses are just the beginning.

A visibly worried man resting his head on his hand, with bills on the desk in front of him.

Image source: Getty Images.

Back in 2001, PG&E (the utility, not the holding company that you can buy stock in) declared bankruptcy after a drought in California led to little hydroelectric power generation. This forced the utility to purchase electricity at very high market rates (often from out-of-state providers) to meet demand, ultimately pushing the utility portion of the business into bankruptcy protection. The company needed to pay back more than $10 billion to creditors, and PG&E's customers were required to pay above-market rates for their electricity for years following the bankruptcy filing. With PG&E servicing roughly 16 million customers today, this same scenario appears likely to play out again.

And then there's the uncertainty about what exactly happens to the $30 billion in estimated liabilities tied to the 2017 and 2018 wildfires. One possible solution is that higher market rates will be passed along to PG&E's consumers, ultimately covering the utility's liabilities. Another involves the sale of parts of PG&E to rival companies, including its corporate headquarters and the company's natural gas operations. Then again, it may just wind up being the state and Californians as a whole that foot the bill. There really is no precedent for a utility bankruptcy with liabilities of this magnitude.

As the icing on the cake, California's solar and wind providers could be clobbered. PG&E's bankruptcy filing will allow the utility to renegotiate contracts with electricity suppliers, which might ultimately force solar and wind providers to accept lower rates. The solar and wind industry is reliant on these higher rates to generate positive cash flow.

So, just to summarize here:

Potentially tens of millions of investors will lose money on what had seemed like a safe investment.

Approximately 16 million PG&E customers could be on the hook for above-market rates for a long time to come.

It's unclear exactly what entity will cover the estimated $30 billion in liabilities.

California's renewable-energy industry might take it on the chin.

What a mess.

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Sean Williams has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The Department of Defense on Friday identified three Americans killed after a suicide bomber triggered a fiery explosion Wednesday at a market in northern Syria, less than a month after President Donald Trump declared victory over Islamic State militants in the region.

Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician Shannon M. Kent, 35, of upstate New York; and a civilian Scott A. Wirtz of St. Louis, Missouri; were killed in the bombing in Manbij, according to the DOD.

Farmer was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Campbell, Ky. He is survived by his spouse, four children and his parents, a U.S. Army Special Operations Command spokesman said. He joined the Army in 2005 and had served on six overseas combat tours.

Kent, a chief cryptologic technician, enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 11, 2003 and graduated in February 2004 from boot camp at Recruit Training Command in Illinois, according to the Navy.

Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro said in a statement in New York tate the community will remember Kent's service to the nation.

"May her light shine on through her friends and loved ones," Molinaro said. "And may her family find peace during this difficult time."

All three died "as a result of wounds sustained from a suicide improvised explosive device," the U.S. military said in a statement.

No details were offered for the fourth victim of the blast. The bombing incident is still under investigation.

The attack complicates a messy plan for U.S. withdrawal, a decision Trump's senior advisers disagreed with before offering an evolving timetable for the removal of the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops. The bombing also underscores Pentagon assertions that the Islamic State is still a threat capable of deadly attacks.

"U.S. service members were killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol in Syria today," the military's Operation Inherent Resolve said in a statement.

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A total of 16 people were killed in the midday explosion, including fighters with Syrian Democratic Forces. Those troops have fought alongside Americans in skirmishes with the Islamic State.

Contributing: John Bacon,Tom Vanden Brook, Kim Hjelmgaard ; Ryan Santistevan, Poughkeepsie Journal; and Ryan Santistevan, Poughkeepsie Journal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 3 Americans killed in Syria suicide bombing claimed by ISIS have been identified
Washington (AFP) - On page 11 of an application to work at a private Christian school in Virginia, teachers are bluntly asked to pledge to "maintain a lifestyle based on biblical standards of moral conduct."

It goes on to say banned conduct includes, but is not limited, to: "heterosexual activity outside of marriage (e.g. premarital sex, cohabitation, extramarital sex), homosexual or lesbian sexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity" or "any other violation of the unique roles of male and female."

Students at the Immanuel Christian School -- who range in age from five to 14 -- are also banned from engaging in "homosexual or bi-sexual activity," according to an agreement parents must sign before enrollment.

Vice President Mike Pence's wife Karen is once again teaching art at the school in Washington's suburbs -- sparking anger from gay rights advocates who say it sends the wrong message from the inner circles of US power.

"We'll let the critics roll off our backs," Pence said in an interview with Catholic television network EWTN. But he added: "The criticism of Christian education in America should stop."

Of course, the Pence family's brand of religious conservatism is exactly why Donald Trump chose him as a running mate in July 2016.

- Pro-prayer, anti-abortion -

At that time, Pence was the governor of Indiana and a former congressman with a low national profile.

He had a few crowning achievements to boast of -- a state anti-abortion law and a "religious freedom law" that said individuals and companies wishing not to serve gay and lesbian customers could cite a "substantial burden" on their religious beliefs as a reason.

An amendment was eventually passed to provide protections for LGBT citizens.

The anti-abortion law added limits to access, banning those motivated by the fetus's race, gender or disability. But it was eventually blocked in the courts.

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Nevertheless, the two initiatives had burnished Pence's reputation as a champion of the religious right.

Since taking office as vice president, the 59-year-old Pence -- who seems to make it his business not to make waves -- regularly appears alongside the 45th president of the United States.

In meetings, he often takes a back seat, his lips sealed and his head nodding in approval. When he speaks in public, he never misses a chance to voice his admiration for the man who brought him back to Washington.

On the face of it, they could not be more different -- Trump is brash, twice divorced, vocal about his sexual conquests and doesn't seem to have a tight grasp on biblical passages.

Pence meanwhile said last year: "I do try and start every day reading the Bible. My wife and I try to have a prayer together before I leave the house every morning."

On Thursday, the vice president was set to host a roundtable for pro-abortion rights activists on the eve of the March for Life, a major annual anti-abortion rally in Washington.

Pence was the first vice president to speak at the march in 2017.

"We will not rest, until we restore a culture of life in America for ourselves and our posterity," Pence told the crowd.

- The fight continues -

Mike and Karen Pence met at church -- an evangelical Protestant congregation. One in four Americans associates with the movement.

Today, they are often seen holding hands when they are together in public. Pence often begins his tweets by saying, "Karen and I are praying for..."

They are reportedly inseparable -- a fact that sometimes sparks mockery.

In 2002, Mike Pence, then a lawmaker, infamously told The Hill that he never ate alone with a woman other than Karen, and that he would not accept an invitation to an event where alcohol was being served if she were not there.

"If there's alcohol being served and people are being loose, I want to have the best-looking brunette in the room standing next to me," Pence told the Washington paper.

While he has often joked about his traditional views of coupledom, he has never denied them.

Karen Pence, 62, shares her husband's conservative beliefs.

In 1991, she wrote to The Indianapolis Star newspaper to complain about an article that, she claimed, encouraged children to think they were gay or lesbian, according to a copy of the letter released by The Washington Post.

Since that time, gay marriage has become the law of the land -- legal across the country.

But there is no explicit federal ban on discriminating against someone for their sexual orientation, which allows employers like the Immanual Christian School to maintain its rules against "sexual immorality."

For the Pences, as for other evangelicals, the battle continues.
By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A North Korean envoy arrived in Washington on Thursday for expected talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a possible encounter with President Donald Trump aimed a laying the groundwork for a second U.S.-North Korea summit. The envoy arrived on the same day Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy that singled out North Korea as an ongoing and "extraordinary threat," seven months after he declared after his first summit with leader Kim Jong Un that the North Korean threat had been eliminated. Kim Yong Chol, Pyongyang's lead negotiator in denuclearization talks with the United States, was due to meet Pompeo and could also go to the White House on Friday, a person familiar with the plan said, a sign of potential movement in a diplomatic effort that has appeared stalled for months. The North Korean visit could yield an announcement of plans for another summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. There has been no indication, however, of any narrowing of differences over U.S. demands that North Korea abandon a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States or Pyongyang's demand for a lifting of punishing sanctions. Kim Yong Chol, a hardline former spy chief, arrived in Washington on a commercial flight from Beijing, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Yonhap and other South Korean media said he was greeted at Dulles airport by Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea. Pompeo had planned to meet his North Korean counterpart to discuss a second summit last November, but the meeting was postponed at the last moment. Diplomatic contact was resumed after Kim Jong Un delivered a New Year speech in which he said he was willing to meet Trump "at any time," South Korea's ambassador to the United States, Cho Yoon-je, told reporters last week. Kim Yong Chol was last in Washington in June, when he delivered a letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump that opened the way for the June 12 summit in Singapore. That meeting yielded a pledge from the latter to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and Trump declared the next day that there was "no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea." There has been little obvious progress since, however, which was underlined by the Missile Defense Review unveiled on Thursday. Introducing the report, acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan noted that North Korean missiles remained a "significant concern." Trump himself only mentioned North Korea in passing at the same event, saying negotiations he had conducted should have been done years ago. "CONCRETE STEPS" U.S. Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged on Wednesday that efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal had not made headway. "While the president is promising dialogue with Chairman Kim, we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region," Pence said in an address to U.S. ambassadors and other senior American diplomats at the State Department. Trump said on Jan. 2 that he had received a "great" letter from Kim Jong Un and would probably meet him again in the not-too-distant future, but there was no rush. Pyongyang had stopped missile and bomb testing and if it had not been for his administration "you'd be having a nice big fat war in Asia," he said. CNN quoted a source familiar with the U.S.-North Korea talks as saying that Kim Yong Chol would be carrying a new letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump. Kim Yong Chol will be the first top North Korean official to stay overnight in Washington since the late Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok did so ahead of talks with then-President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000. Communist-ruled Vietnam, which has good relations with both the United States and North Korea, has been widely touted as the most likely venue for a second meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un. The Washington Post quoted people familiar with recent diplomatic activity as saying that if announced soon, the summit would probably take place in March or April, with the coastal city of Danang the most likely venue. (Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, David Brunnstrom and Phil Stewart in Washington and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Editing by Nick Macfie and Sonya Hepinstall)
Nokia Corporation NOK recently announced that it has been chosen by the Spanish multinational telco, Telefonica, S.A. TEF, as Service Operation Center provider to transform its subsidiary Telefonica UKs customer-oriented business approach.



Per the agreement, the Finnish wireless equipment maker will help Telefonica UK to steadily move from a traditional network-centric operator to a customer-centric one with extensive focus on subscriber experience across the United Kingdom.



Reportedly, Nokias evolved Service Operation Center (eSOC) platform will be put into action for Telefonica UK's 32 million customers. This will enable the operator to dedicatedly monitor as well as augment individual customer experiences and service assurance in real time. The strategic move will also help Telefonica in transforming from a network to service provider, and distinguish itself within a highly-competitive and mature telecom market like the United Kingdom.



Notably, the Nokia eSOC platform offers the flexibility to interface with existing Telefonica UK systems and data sources, while creating an environment that allows the latter to monitor its customer experience and take required actions into cognizance. The solution includes a range of automation techniques leveraging its prowess in artificial intelligence and machine learning, allowing customers to best meet their organizational goals.



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Nokia also stated that it has expanded the patent license agreement with Samsung, which was to expire at the end of 2018. Samsung will make payments to Nokia for a multi-year period beginning Jan 1, 2019. The move exhibits the strength of Nokias patent portfolio, and its leadership in R&D and licensing for cellular standards, including 5G.



Nokia announced plans to accelerate strategy execution, sharpen customer focus and reduce long-term costs. This should help the company position itself for long-term 5G leadership and reaffirm commitment to full-year 2020 non-IFRS operating margin between 12% and 16% and earnings per share in the range of 0.37-0.42.



Price Performance



Courtesy of such expanding technological collaborations with industry front-runners, Nokias shares have rallied 22.9% in the past year on an average against the industrys decline of 8.4%.





Story continues





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By Ismael Lopez MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaragua's oldest and most-widely read newspaper published its Friday edition with a blank front page in protest against what it says is the government's withholding of ink, paper and other materials needed for its printing press since September. In a Friday editorial, the La Prensa newspaper asked: "Have you imagined living without information?," and complained that the government of leftist President Daniel Ortega had impounded its supply of printing materials for 20 weeks. "We don't know how much longer we can keep printing the newspaper. Maybe two more months, maybe until tomorrow," Jaime Chamorro, director of La Prensa, told Reuters by phone. Human rights organizations and independent media say the Ortega government is attacking freedom of expression. The government recently shut down a broadcaster and held two reporters on terrorism and hate-incitement charges, while a judge ordered the arrest of three more. The newspaper said customs agents at the behest of the government have been withholding imports of paper and ink in retaliation for critical coverage of simmering political tensions in the Central American country. Since April 2018, Nicaragua has been experiencing one of its worst crises since a civil war in the 1980s. Protests raged for months before a government clampdown reined them in, but more than 300 people were killed during that time and over 500 incarcerated, according to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, one of the groups the government has blacklisted. Rights groups say four radio stations and one TV station have closed, while dozens of journalists have been beaten and threatened. Nicaragua's customs authority was not available for comment on the accusations made by La Prensa. The government did not respond to a request for comment. The Ortega administration maintains there is freedom of expression in the country and has accused the opposition of seeking to mount a coup to oust him. (Writing by Anthony Esposito, editing by G Crosse)
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has asked President Donald Trump to postpone his State of the Union address, initially scheduled for 29 January, for as long as the partial government shutdown continues.

In a letter she sent to the president on Wednesday, Ms Pelosi suggested that Mr Trump reschedules his address, deliver it from the Oval Office, or perhaps send it over in written form to Capitol Hill, citing that the government shutdown compromises security arrangements for the event.

The government shutdown is reaching its 27th day, the longest federal closer in American history, impacting more than 800,000 federal employees, including some currently out of work, and others forced to work without pay.

In the letter, dated on January 16, Ms Pelosi said that the partial government shutdown brings up security concerns for the State of the Union address. Traditionally, the event gathers senior officials from all three branches of government to Capitol HIll for the presidential address.

Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th, Ms Pelosi wrote.

The House Speaker argued that the State of the Union is not a sacred date to reporters, adding that its not constitutionally required.

What does the Constitution say about the president delivering the State of the Union address?

The Constitution is pretty straightforwardIt states that the president can, from time to time give to the Congress information on the State of the Union. The founding document does not mention or require that the president to make a formal speech or a presidential address every year.

Has any president in the past delivered the State of the Union address in the former of a letter?

Yes. In fact, a lot of presidents throughout the 19th century issued their State of the Union address in the form of a letter. Indeed President Woodrow Wilson, in 1913, resurrected the practice of delivering a formal speech to Congress, one that was started by George Washington and followed by John Adams.

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What is required for the president to deliver a formal address to Congress?

In order for the president to deliver a speech to Congress, they must receive an invitation, and a joint resolution must be passed by both the House and Senate. This process is typically considered a formality, but with nearly a month-long shutdown ongoing, it is being taken more seriously. Several weeks after Ms Pelosi invited Mr Trump to deliver his State of the Union address, Congress has yet to pass a resolution confirming the invitation.

Has a president ever delivered a State of the Union address during a government shutdown?

No. If Mr Trump, somehow, delivers his State of the Union address to Congress with all senior officials attending, he will be the first to do so. There were, however, other cases when the president delivered their formal presidential address during times of strain. For example, in 1998, former President Bill Clinton delivered his State of the Union address to the Republican-controlled Congress about one week after his affair with Monica Lewinsky was exposed. His following State of the Union address in 1999 occurred during the impeachment proceedings generated from the affair.
Belgrade (AFP) - Major opposition protests in Serbia have been relatively rare over the past decade, but the icy January air has ushered in a swelling mood of revolt.

Since last month, thousands of demonstrators have rallied each Saturday through Belgrade's frozen streets against President Aleksandar Vucic, accusing him of stifling media freedoms and cracking down on the opposition.

This Saturday, for the sixth time in a row, the marchers will again hoist their flags and banners in a united display of discontent against Vucic's increasingly controversial rule.

"Dictator!" cried the crowd at a recent demonstration in the capital.

More than a dozen people carried a giant banner reading: "Stop bloody shirts" -- a reference to opposition politician Borko Stefanovic's bloodstained shirt after he was beaten up last November.

It was that incident that triggered the first protests.

The assault was reminiscent of the violent attacks on political opponents in the 1990s under the rule of late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

The authorities denied involvement in the attack on Stefanovic, but the Alliance for Serbia, an umbrella group of opposition parties from across the political spectrum, blamed Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

Then youth activists, who insist they are not affiliated with any political party, decided to step in.

"We realised that the time had come to do something on the street," one of the protest organisers, Jelena Anasonovic, told AFP.

"The violence, both physical and verbal" in everyday Serbian life, had become "the norm", Anasonovic said.

Vucic, a former ultra-nationalist who now says he favours Serbia joining the EU, has rejected claims he has become autocratic.

And despite the protests, opinion polls suggest Vucic's SNS party dominates the political arena. Serbia's divided opposition that has little in common other than an aversion to the president.

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The opposition does not offer "a viable alternative to the autocracy of Vucic" even though "he is unbearable", said protester Milos Banjanin, a 27-year old economist.

The next national vote is expected in 2020 but Vucic, who served as premier from 2014 and became president in 2017, has hinted he could call early elections.

Observers and polls suggest he would likely win.

- 'One in five million' -

The first anti-Vucic protest on December 8 drew several thousand people, but the numbers quickly grew due to two unrelated events -- the reaction of the president and a report by a pro-government TV journalist.

Speaking after the first demonstration, Vucic told the nation "even if there were five million people in the street" he would not agree to the protesters' demands.

That acted as a catalyst for the demonstrators, who adopted the slogan "one in five million".

Then TV reporter Barbara Zivotic, from the pro-government private channel said that "very few people" were demonstrating. Those who were, she said, "calling for lynching, rape, violence and a coup d'etat".

Video of the report went viral and was widely mocked online.

"Thank you Barbara" protesters wrote on Twitter, as thousands of people were inspired to brave the heavy snow and freezing temperatures to join the protests.

The latest protests brought out 40,000 people on to the streets say organisers, although police have not confirmed the figure.

- 'Break media blockade' -

The scale of the demonstrations "caught many people by surprise, including some (opposition) politicians," said Dragan Djilas, an opposition leader.

Although opposition parties hope to capitalise on the protests, which now include celebrities and prominent activists, some protesters are wary of politicians trying to cash in on their success.

"Only when the opposition does something to prove itself in fighting" the authorities "will it get the right to speak," said actor Branislav Trifunovic, one of the most prominent protesters.

"For the moment they can walk with us and shut up," he said.

Protesters have called for the head of the public broadcaster RTS to step down. They want "at least five minutes of air time each day" to "break the media blockade", Trifunovic added.

The European Commission last year raised concerns about media freedoms in Serbia, denouncing threats, intimidation and violence against journalists.

But Vucic has rejected such criticism.

According to Serbian media, the president could use the next week's visit of Russia's President Vladimir Putin to show off the strength of his national support.

"These are protests of all opposition voters who are unhappy with the authorities. At some point it will have to be politically articulated," said independent political analyst Boban Stojanovic.
California Senator Kamala Harris record as a prosecutor has come under intense criticism from progressives. Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

On the invisible primary campaign trail in which actual and potential 2020 presidential candidates strut their preliminary stuff, its been an active January for California Senator Kamala Harris. She conducted a brisk bicoastal book tour with national media appearances to accompany the release of her memoir, The Truths We Hold (with a childrens picture book sidecar). She hasnt announced or set up a formal exploratory committee yet (though rumor has it she might do so in conjunction with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday), but shes already decided to locate her campaign headquarters in Baltimore, and is acting like a candidate in every possible way.

But perhaps the most convincing token of her proto-candidacy is that shes getting blasted by progressive voices for her record as a prosecutor in San Francisco and Sacramento, reflecting the problems this putative unity candidate could have with the Democratic Partys increasingly powerful left flank. In a New York Times op-ed, Lara Bazelon, a law professor and criminal justice reform activist from Harris home state, didnt mince words:

Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the states attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.

Much of Bazelons indictment of Harris covers ground familiar to those who follow California politics and are familiar with long-standing grievances progressives have held against the junior senator during her steady rise to state and then national prominence. But there were some jarring details, too:

Ms. Harris also championed state legislation under which parents whose children were found to be habitually truant in elementary school could be prosecuted, despite concerns that it would disproportionately affect low-income people of color.

This is a direct attack on Harris credibility as a symbol of progressive diversity (she has a Jamaican father and an Indian mother) just before a campaign in which her ability to build a base among minority voters is crucial to her prospects. As Jamilah King notes, there could be a lot more flak where that came from:

As a woman of color, she embodies two key Democratic constituencies, and she is beloved by the wing of the party that broke for Hillary Clinton. But among those on the far left, including many die-hard Bernie Sanders supporters, shes an object of disdain, a Hillary-bot with weak progressive credentials. While that segment of the left might oppose anyone who isnt one particular septuagenarian, the Week summed up this critique when it slammed Harris for her rather Hillary Clinton-esque tendency to say the right thing but not follow through.

So at a minimum Harris will have to walk a tightrope wherein she addresses concerns about her record without looking like shes repudiating her own career or aligning herself with people who favor more radical steps to dismantle rather than simply reform the criminal justice system. That wont be easy.

Harris is not, of course, alone in possessing baggage that will attract criticism from within her own party and intense media scrutiny. Joe Biden famously has enough baggage to derail a trains luggage car. Critics of Bernie Sanders always suspected that conservatives built a massive oppo research file on the Vermont socialist that they would have pushed with hundreds of millions of dollars of negative stories and ads had he won the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, matching or exceeding the damage they did to Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth Warren has struggled to overcome the stupid but pervasive Pocohontas taunt, along with persistent (if probably sexist) doubts about her likability. Cory Bookers past links with Wall Street and support for private school vouchers will be a problem for him. Both Beto ORourke and Kirsten Gillibrand are vulnerable to the kind of flip-flopper charges that tend to undermine voter trust. And Amy Klobuchars history of high staff turnover has spurred rumors about her personality and temperament.

Nobodys perfect, of course, and presidential candidates  notably the 2016 winner  have overcome heavy baggage before. But the sheer size and volatility of the 2020 Democratic field could amplify internecine sniping considerably, to the particular detriment of candidates hoping to consolidate party-wide support before or after voters begin voting. Maybe heavy attacks like those hitting Harris now will subside over time, but they could leave portions of the party electorate with enduring if not eradicable negative feelings.

But far and away the most important reason Democrats need to think about this issue is that they face an opponent who is more than willing to use intraparty criticisms of this or that candidate  even those emanating from the ideological left  in an uninhibited way, as he showed against Clinton in attacking her for positions most Republicans took (supporting the Iraq War, for example) or for rhetoric he shared or exceeded (the lock-em-up message surrounding the 1994 crime bill). Given President Trumps reasonably clear 2020 strategy of building a rock-solid base in the minority of voters who like him and then destroying his opponent with relentless attacks that drain otherwise sympathetic electoral support, every chink in a Democratic candidates armor is going to be exploited.

So its best for Democrats to deal with the baggage now rather than later, and to deal with it in a manner that reflects constant recognition that none of it matters remotely as much as the sins of commission and omission Donald Trump commits five times an hour, as a matter of principle and nefarious inclination. Hes not just the wolf at the door. Hes the wolf in the White House.
Michael Cohen, a once loyal confidante of the president turned man who has done a plea deal over hush money payments made to two women on the eve of the election, is back in the news.

Two months before he is due to show up to prison to serve a three-year sentence as part of the deal in which he admitted arranging payments to Stormy Daniels and former model Karen McDougal  a breach of campaign finance laws  the presidents former personal lawyer is at the centre of new allegations; that he rigged an online poll in Donald Trumps favour before the election, and that he lied to Congress about the extent of Trumps dealings with Russia to set develop a Moscow Trump Tower.

BuzzFeed News set off a series of reverberations, when it reported that according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation, Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the negotiations. He said he also supported a plan hatched by Cohen to visit Moscow to meet Vladmir Putin. Make it happen, the sources said Trump told Cohen.

The revelations have resulted in a call for action from Democrats and others. California congressman Adam Schiff said congress would do whats necessary to find out if the contents of the report were true.

The allegation that the president of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date, he told reporters.
On Fridays The View, 2020 presidential candidate Julian Castro was questioned by host Meghan McCain about his lack of experience, something she said was a main criticism of Donald Trump when he ran for president.

You have no foreign policy experience whatsoever. You also said vehemently you were not going to run for president. I didnt understand when you announced why you didnt want to run for Senate or possibly for governor, McCain began. Youre an up and coming rising Democratic star  the cynical side of me thinks maybe youre doing this because it will get you a lot of national attention. Why not start with the Senate and move forward to presidency?

Castros response was simple and something he repeated a few times throughout the interview: that he has a vision for the future of the country. And he laid out the vision earlier in the segment.

What we need to aim for is to be the smartest, the healthiest, the fairest and the most prosperous nation on earth, Castro said. And Im going to do the hard work of making my pitch.

Castro, a former Mayor of San Antonio and a former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, announced his candidacy last Saturday in San Antonio. His first campaign stop was Puerto Rico, where he says President Trump has failed the people.

Castro, who is campaigning on a platform of tuition-free public college and medicare for all, adds that perceived failure by Trump in Puerto Rico to a list of reasons why he thinks he can and should beat Trump in 2020.

I dont think that weve ever had a president that was so bad about being able to put the country first. He puts his ego first, whether its building the wall or not giving Puerto Rico any money, Castro said. We need a change in leadership, and thats why Im running for president.

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on ABC.

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Theresa May has told Jeremy Corbyn it is impossible for the Government to rule out a no-deal Brexit (Pictures: PA)

Theresa May has told Jeremy Corbyn it is impossible for the Government to rule out a no-deal Brexit as it emerged she faces the threat of mass ministerial resignations over the issue.

The Prime Minister has been holding cross-party talks over Brexit following her crushing defeat in the Commons, but the Labour leader has refused to meet her unless she takes the option of a no-deal Brexit off the table.

In a letter to the Labour leader, she said it was not within the Governments power to guarantee no-deal, as this could be done only by securing Parliaments approval for a withdrawal agreement or by overturning the result of the 2016 referendum, something she was not prepared to do.

Mrs May is reportedly facing a wave of resignations from ministers if MPs are barred from trying to stop the UK leaving without a deal in place.

According to the Telegraph, up to 20 ministers have indicated that they are prepared to quit the Government so they can support backbench moves to stop no deal.

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A number of Labour MPs have defied a request from Mr Corbyn not to engage in discussions designed to find a plan which might command a majority in the House of Commons.

Speaking in the marginal Conservative seat of Hastings, Mr Corbyn dismissed the cross-party talks as a stunt and said the PM seemed unable to grasp the fact that her Withdrawal Agreement was now dead.

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She seems to be prepared to send the country hurtling towards a cliff edge, he said.

To get a deal that can command a majority in Parliament, Theresa May has to ditch the red lines and get serious about proposals for the future.

Mrs May has indicated that she is sticking to the principles behind her Withdrawal Agreement, which include taking control of money, borders and laws and having an independent trade policy.

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She said her door is open for talks with the Labour leader, but told him: That is an impossible condition because it is not within the Governments power to rule out no deal.

The PMs motion, and any amendments tabled by MPs, will be the subject of the latest in a series of crunch Brexit votes in the Commons on January 29.

Labours former prime minister Tony Blair said Mr Corbyn was wrong to refuse to meet Mrs May, while Conservative chairman Brandon Lewis accused Labour of trying to frustrate and avoid Brexit.

Sir Vince Cable, who spoke with Mrs May on Wednesday evening, accused Mr Corbyn of playing party political games and said the Liberal Democrats would no longer join Labour in no confidence votes in the Government.

I believe other parties are taking the same view, the Lib Dem leader said. Its time Mr Corbyn got off the fence and made his position plain.
Theresa May requested Fridays call with EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker (Getty)

Theresa May is set for talks with the EUs two most senior figures after holding cross-party talks at Westminster in a bid to resolve the Brexit impasse.

The British prime minister has arranged phone calls for Friday afternoon with European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and European council president Donald Tusk.

Tusk hinted earlier this week that the only positive solution to the impasse is to cancel Brexit.

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Their latest talks come at the end of a week in which May saw the Brexit deal she brokered with Brussels rejected by MPs before her government survived a vote of confidence.

She responded by inviting leaders of opposition parties to 10 Downing Street to discuss a way forward, although Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has refused to meet until a no-deal Brexit is taken off the table.

READ MORE: May tries to break Brexit stalemate with Juncker  by text message

Unusually, a European commission spokesperson stressed that May had requested the call. It comes just a day after it was revealed May and Juncker hadnt spoken since the meaningful vote but had been in contact by text message.

Asked what development now required the pair to speak by phone, the spokesperson said: There is nothing new for me to report on. I think its good at this juncture that the president and prime minister are scheduled to speak.

May also spoke to Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and German chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday. May is making the calls to report to EU leaders the outcome of the cross-party talks she has held and could result in the prime minister heading to Brussels next week.

At a press conference on Friday, Rutte told Dutch journalist that he was clear with May that the existing deal cannot be tweaked.

Meanwhile, speculation that the UK is set to request an extension to Article 50 intensified as legal advice about British participation in Mays European elections was revealed.

Prime minister Theresa May invited opposition leaders to Downing Street for talks after the Brexit deal was defeated (Reuters)

It has been assumed that any extension could last only until next July, which is when the next European parliament term is set to begin.

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Lawyers have now told the European parliament that an extension could be granted beyond that date without the UK needing to elect MEPs.

Labour MP Chuka Umunna welcomed the development as confirmation that European parliament elections are no barrier to holding a peoples vote. However, a European commission spokesperson shot down that idea.

We suggest caution with any suggestion that the right of EU citizens to vote in the European Parliament elections, according to the rules that are applicable, could be called into question, they told journalists in Brussels.

READ MORE: Barnier: EU ready to renegotiate Brexit deal if UK shifts red lines

A legally composed European parliament requires directly elected MEPs from all member states at the very latest of the on the first day of the beginning of the term of the parliament, which this time is the 2nd of July.

This is the legal situation and we would prefer, as guardians of the treaty, to stay with the legal order.

Nigel Farage has also confirmed he would stand in any fresh European elections, but for a new party rather than UKIP, the party he once led but recently quit in protest over its links with far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

Im looking at various political options, he said. If this happens, Ill make sure that there is a political party there that I can be part of.

READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: UK MEPs will keep expenses for three months after Brexit at 400,000 cost




Mastercard lets you try free trials without the hassle (Getty)

Its hard not to be seduced by free trials. But if you forget to cancel, giving in to curiosity can cost you down the road. Mastercard says its found a way to protect Canadian consumers from being caught off guard by recurring charges.

If a consumer signs up for a free trial of a physical product like skin care or vitamins, billing cant continue once the trial period is over. Services like free internet arent included.

Mastercard (MA) told Yahoo Finance Canada the reason for putting these rules in place for physical goods is because historically they have seen most issues occur in this space. Whereas, online subscriptions traditionally are quite explicit and ask people to opt in.

Merchants will be forced to get cardholder approval at the end of the trial before they start billing. They will have to send an email or text with the transaction amount, payment date, and merchant name along with explicit instructions on how to cancel a trial.

Free trial offers can be a legitimate and useful way to increase sales and improve consumer satisfaction, Mastercard says in its announcement.

The new policy is meant to increase transparency and ensure an outstanding experience for cardholders.

Even if the consumer decides to pay and continue the trial  the merchant will have to send a receipt for each transaction. Cardholders will also receive clear instructions on how to cancel the service. Charges that appear on statements must include the merchants website, phone number, and location the purchase was made.

I think this is a great example of an incremental service improvement being offered by a well-established brand, Marvin Ryder, marketing professor at the DeGroote School of Business, told Yahoo Finance Canada.

Ryder says the move reduces the risk of customers getting caught in a negative billing trap. In other words, you have to tell the company to stop sending you the product by a certain date. If you dont youre on the hook for it.

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I have heard dozens of horror stories of people who feel they were trapped by negative billing. While ultimately they can stop the subscription and the payments, usually they end up buying more or paying more than they intended, says Ryder.

Consumers who arent Mastercard holders can still complain and try to get subscriptions stopped. In some cases, they can even get their money back. Ryder says its best to avoid that type of situation altogether.

I try to avoid negative billing situations at all costs even if it means passing up once in a lifetime deals, says Ryder.

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Royal Caribbean has banned a group of thrill seekers after one of the men jumped off the cruise ships high deck.

The video, which has been gaining immense traction on social media, shows Nick Naydev of Vancouver, Washington, thoughtlessly plunging into the waters more than 100 feet below. Though the boat was docked, the stunt, equal to jumping from an 11-story building, was incredibly dangerous.

"I was still drunk from the previous night. When I woke up I just decided to jump," Naydev explained on his Instagram. "Never felt more alive."

See Also: Watch: Unsuspecting fisherman gets inked in the face

The cruise line was less than pleased, though, and commenters online echoed the sentiment.

"This guy thinks this stunt is going to bring him some sort of legendary status on the internetWRONG! It does prove what a complete moron you are," one Instagram commenter exclaimed.

Luckily for Naydev, he was rescued by a small boat and, though he claims he couldnt walk for three days afterward, came away from the stunt with only minor injuries. But he may be facing more than just a cruise ban. Owen Torres, a spokesman for Royal Caribbean, called the incident extremely dangerous and told the Sun Sentinel that they are "exploring legal action."

Watch his reckless behavior above.
The boyfriend of Morgan Freeman's late granddaughter has been sentenced to 20 years in state prison for her death.

Lamar Davenport, 33, was sentenced Thursday for fatally stabbing EDena Hines 25 times outside her New York apartment in August 2015, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. announced in a press release. Prosecutors say Davenport was "under the influence of alcohol (and) drugs" during the crime.

Hines, who is the granddaughter of Freeman's first wife, was 33 at the time of her death.

Related Video: ShowBiz Minute - Prince Philip, Freeman, Weinstein

Morgan Freeman and step granddaughter E'Dena Hines arrive at the 62nd Annual Golden Globe Awards January 16, 2005 in Beverly Hills, California.

"Ambitious and driven, EDena Hines was deeply loved by family and friends before her life was brought to a horrific and tragic end by her boyfriend, Lamar Davenport," Vance said. He described her slaying as an "extraordinarily violent crime."

On Aug.16, 2015, authorities responded to a 911 call at about 3 a.m. They found Hines lying in the street in front of her apartment on West 162nd Street.

Hines had dozens of stab wounds to the chest and was later pronounced dead at Harlem Hospital.

"The world will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer," Freeman said in a statement to USA TODAY after her death. "Her friends and family were fortunate enough to have known what she meant as a person. Her star will continue to shine bright in our hearts, thoughts and prayers. May she rest in peace."

USA TODAY reached out to Freeman for comment following the sentencing.

Davenport was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in May 2018. In addition to his sentence, he faces five years of post-release supervision.

Contributing: The Associated Press, Cindy Clark

Related: Morgan Freeman mourns granddaughter

Related: Ex-girlfriend of '40-Year-Old Virgin' actor Shelley Malil feels unsafe after he's paroled

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Man convicted in the brutal death of Morgan Freeman's granddaughter sentenced
Algeria and its proxy the Polisario have yet again tasted the bitter taste of diplomatic defeat as Morocco and the EU renew the agricultural agreement that covers products from the Sahara region.

Right after the adoption of the agreement, the EUs Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini paid a visit to Morocco where she was received Thursday by King Mohammed VI.reaffirmed the centrality of the partnership with Morocco.

The audience granted to Mogherini was an opportunity to highlight the centrality of Morocco in the foreign policy of the European Union, as well as the excellent relations between the two partners, which are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, Moroccos Royal cabinet said in a statement.

During the audience, Federica Mogherini underlined the Unions deep attachment to its partnership with Morocco, as well as the pioneering role of the Kingdom in the Mediterranean, in North Africa, in Africa, as well as in the Middle East to address the challenges of security, stability and development, the statement said, adding that the recent adoption by the European Parliament of the Morocco-EU Farm Agreement underlines that the strengthening of the partnership depends on respecting the Kingdoms higher interests and preserving its territorial integrity.

At a meeting a day earlier with foreign minister Nasser Bourita, Mogherini welcomed the renewal of the agricultural agreement while expressing satisfaction at the over 50-year strategic partnership with Morocco.

Had the Polisario and its advocates thought that the EU is an irrational actor in international relations who would put its longstanding partnership with Morocco to please the Algerian regime? Had they thought that Morocco would relinquish its sovereignty over its southern provinces in talks with the EU? The answer to these questions reverberate loudly in the pro-separatist camp as they come to terms with the credibility of the Moroccan principled foreign policy.

Federica Mogherini was clear in highlighting the EUs non-recognition of the Polisario despite maneuvers by some African dictatorship in pushing for the participation of the Polisario in the up-coming EU-Africa summit.

To their utter despair, the Polisarios legal cases against Moroccos agreements with the EU will soon be a thing of the past as the European Union Court of Justice rejected a Polisarios challenge of the fisheries agreement.

The court considered that the Polisario front is not directly or individually concerned by the fisheries agreement and cannot, in any case, be considered. It therefore declared the action for annulment as inadmissible in its entirety and ordered the Polisario to pay in addition to its own costs, the judicial proceeding costs incurred by the Council of the European Union.

The European External Action Service (EEAS) has also reduced the Polisario to its actual status of a proxy militia nurtured by Algeria when it considered the group as not entitled to claim exclusive representativeness of the population of the Sahara.

The adoption of the agricultural agreement should ring the alarm bell in Algeria to stop squandering its money on pro-separatist organizations and lobbyists to push the EU for stands that verge on irrationality.
Hong Kong: CS to visit Guangzhou

Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung will attend the Greater Bay Area Youth Home plaque unveiling ceremony in Guangzhou tomorrow.

The Youth Home provides a service to Hong Kong youngsters who start businesses and live in the bay area.

Mr Cheung will also take part in a youth exchange activity, also organised by the New Home Association.

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Lush Cosmetics is launching a new line of entirely packaging-free skincare.

The natural beauty giant has announced the imminent arrival of its Naked' skincare line in Europe, alongside the opening of the UK's first-ever plastic packaging-free cosmetics store in Manchester.

The skincare line, which rolled out last month in the UK and Ireland, is launching in Europe and online on January 18, along with a brand new global campaign. The collection spans everything from facial oils to eye masks -- all of which are completely vegan and plastic-free.

Highlights include a solid Amazon Primer' facial oil, which contains softening cupuacu butter to moisturize and arrowroot powder to keep the skin matte and smooth, acting as a pre-makeup primer. There is also a solid bar version of a traditional cold cream, in the form of Like A Virgin,' which includes organic extra virgin olive oil, organic jojoba oil and sunflower and candelilla waxes for a hydrating cleanse, and a Mortal Kombu' eye mask designed to be soaked in warm water before releasing the benefits of kombu seaweed, antioxidant green tea and soothing witch hazel.

In addition to taking the Naked collection global, Lush is also opening the doors to its newest Naked shop in Manchester, UK, on January 18. The store will only stock packaging-free products, even eschewing labels and allowing shoppers to scan their purchases via an app. The specialist store is the brand's third, following openings last year in Berlin and Milan.

"In Lush we work in an industry where the packaging costs the customer more than the product," said Mark Constantine OBE, Lush Co-founder and Managing Director. "Now, the customer needs to worry about how to recycle something they didn't want to buy in the first place. This seems like a raw deal to us. If we can cut out all the plastic packaging, we can give our customers better value for money."
Lockheed Martin Corp.s LMT Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS) business unit recently won a $77.8 million modification contract for the production of the Navys Surface Ship Undersea Warfare System (UWS). The deal was awarded by the Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, DC.



Per the terms of the agreement, Lockheed Martin will develop and integrate advanced capabilities and technical insertion baselines of the USW systems. Majority of the work related to the deal will be executed in Lemont Furnace, PA and Clearwater, FL. The project is expected to get completed by May 2021.



A Brief Note on Surface Ship UWS



Lockheed Martins Surface Ship UWS combat system is a naval anti-submarine warfare designed to search, detect, classify and track underwater contacts. These warfare systems are also equipped to attack enemy submarines, mines and torpedoes.



What Favors Lockheed Martin?



In recent times, heightened geo-political tensions looming across the globe and rapid modernization of Chinas submarine fleet have compelled the United States to modernize its naval defense. Being one of the major manufacturers for maritime combat and undersea warfare systems, Lockheed Martin hugely benefits from such modernization initiatives, in terms of significant contract wins.



In line with this, Research and Markets firm expects the global undersea warfare systems market to witness a significant growth over the 2017-2021 period owing to a rising number of underwater threats and attacks. By 2021, this market is projected witness a CAGR of 6.6% to a value worth $8.26 billion from the 2016 level. Being the Pentagons largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin is expected to capture a sizeable share of this expanding market, thereby bolstering its dominant position in the defense space



Price Performance



In a years time, shares of Lockheed Martin have lost 14.2% compared with the industrys 6.0% decline. The underperformance may have been caused by the intense competition the company faces in the aerospace-defense space for its broad portfolio of products and services both domestically and internationally.

Story continues





Zacks Rank & Key Picks



Lockheed Martin currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A few better-ranked companies in the same sector are AeroVironment, Inc. AVAV, The Boeing Company BA and Heico Corporation HEI. While AeroVironment and Boeing sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Heico has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



AeroVironment delivered average positive earnings surprise of 257.01% in the last four quarters. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2019 earnings has moved 33.3% north to $1.48 over the past 90 days.



Boeing delivered average positive earnings surprise of 28.01% in the trailing four quarters. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings has climbed 4.53% to $18.22 over the past 90 days.



Heicos long-term growth rate for the next five years currently stands at 12.10%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings has increased 4% to $2.08 over the past 90 days.



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Zacks Investment Research
By Marcelo Rochabrun

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Avianca Brasil's battle with its aircraft leasing firms intensified on Friday after Brazil's aviation regulator said it would no longer ground 10 of the struggling carrier's planes and another lessor renewed its effort to repossess 10 others.

Aircastle Ltd <AYR.N> and General Electric Co's <GE.N> GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) unit, among other lessors, have been trying to repossess planes from Brazil's fourth largest airline since it fell behind on lease payments, but their efforts were hampered when Avianca Brasil filed for bankruptcy protection in December.

ANAC, the country's aviation regulator, announced on Friday that it would not intervene in the dispute, a move that came a day after it had said it would ground 10 of Avianca Brasil's 46 planes at the request of GECAS.

"Avianca will be able to operate its previously scheduled flights normally," ANAC said in a statement, citing what it described as an agreement between Avianca and its aircraft leasing firms.

Separately, a representative for U.S.-listed Aircastle said on Friday the firm would file an appeal of a legal order that stayed repossession of Avianca Brasil's planes for 15 days until Feb. 1. Aircastle has leased 10 planes to Avianca Brasil and the airline is its largest customer.

The escalating legal battle has added to the uncertainty surrounding Avianca Brasil's ability to maintain its current flight schedule, even as the carrier so far has successfully fended off multiple repossession attempts.

Avianca Brasil said in a statement that it "continues operating normally," but did not directly address a question on how an appeal from Aircastle could affect its operations.

The 15-day stay on repossessions currently in place was requested by a bankruptcy judge in Sao Paulo after the airline and its lessors failed to reach an agreement at a hearing on Monday, according to the legal order, which the lessors signed.

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It specifically states that the leasing firms did not agree with the judges decision, Aircastle said in a statement.

"His decision is completely contrary to the Cape Town Convention," Aircastle said, referring to a little-known international treaty that allows for swift repossession of aircraft. Brazil and the United States are among the countries that have signed the treaty.

(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Christian Plumb and Paul Simao)
NEW ORLEANS (AP)  The Latest on detention of American-born news anchor for Iran's state television (all times local):

3:25 p.m.

The son of an American-born anchor for Iran's state television broadcaster says his mother would have been willing to cooperate with the FBI and did not need to be jailed as a material witness.

Hossein Hashemi tells The Associated Press on Wednesday that his mother had not been contacted by the FBI before she was stopped in St. Louis and taken into custody earlier this week.

Hashemi, his brother and sister have been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.

He says no one in his family can fathom why Marzieh Hashemi would be considered a material witness for federal investigators. The 59-year-old hasn't been charged with a crime.

Marzieh Hashemi was born Melanie Franklin of New Orleans but has lived in Iran for decades, working 25 years for Iran's state broadcaster.

____

11:20 a.m.

The elder son of an American-born news anchor for Iran's state television broadcaster says his mother is being held in the United States, but has not been charged with anything.

Marzieh Hashemi's son, Hossein Hashemi, tells The Associated Press that he's been told his mother is being held as a material witness, but she's in prison and has been assigned an inmate number.

Interviewed by phone Wednesday from Washington, he also says that he and his brother and sister have been subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury, but he doesn't know what about.

Marzieh Hashemi was born Melanie Franklin of New Orleans but has lived in Iran for decades, working 25 years for Iran's state broadcaster.

Hossein Hashemi says she was detained Sunday, as she was leaving St. Louis for Denver. He says she had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary in St. Louis after visiting family in New Orleans.

Press TV has held a news conference and launched a hashtag campaign for Hashemi.

___

3:22 a.m.

The English-language arm of Iran's state television broadcaster is reporting that its prominent American-born news anchor was arrested after flying into the United States.

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Press TV broke into its broadcast on Wednesday to report that Marzieh Hashemi, born Melanie Franklin of New Orleans, was arrested after arriving at St. Louis Lambert International Airport on Sunday.

The broadcaster, citing her family, said Hashemi was taken into FBI custody and brought to the Washington area.

A call to the FBI rang unanswered early on Wednesday morning. The bureau did not immediately respond to a written request for comment. Several local jails around Washington that house federal inmates also said they did not have her in custody.

Hashemi's reported arrest comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S.

___

The 11:20 a.m. item has been corrected by deleting "Press TV" from the fourth paragraph. Marzieh Hashemi has worked for Iran's state broadcaster for 25 years; Press TV is part of that entity.

___

This story corrects the spelling of Hashemi's son's first name in the 11:25 and 3:25 p.m. items from Hussein to Hossein.
Jan 17 (Reuters) - Sears Holdings Corp Chairman Eddie Lampert won a bankruptcy auction to buy the once iconic U.S. retailer after presenting an improved offer of $5.2 billion, Sears said on Thursday, allowing it to keep its more than 400 stores running.

Sears picked Lampert's hedge fund ESL Investments Inc as the winner at a bankruptcy court-supervised auction after his latest bid topped an earlier $5 billion proposal following weeks of talks.

The deal would preserve up to 45,000 jobs and ESL would acquire substantially all of the company, including its "Go Forward Stores" on a going-concern basis, Sears said.

"We are pleased to have reached a deal that would provide a path for Sears to emerge from the chapter 11 process," the restructuring committee of Sears' board of directors said in a statement.

There remains a chance the deal could fall apart, as it still must be documented and approved by a U.S. bankruptcy judge.

A hearing to approve the sale is currently scheduled for Feb. 1 and, if successful, the transaction is expected to close on or about Feb. 8, Sears said.

Lampert's only challenger in the auction was Sears itself, and how much it would reap in a sale of its businesses and assets in pieces, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

Sears had believed Lampert's earlier bids fell short of covering the bills the retailer has racked up since filing for bankruptcy protection in October.

More than 20 U.S. retailers, including Sears and Toys 'R' US, have filed for bankruptcy since the start of 2017, succumbing to the onslaught of fierce e-commerce competition from companies like Amazon.com Inc.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP provided legal counsel to Sears during the auction. (Reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)
If you want to know who really controls Dynamic Colours Limited (SGX:D6U), then youll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I generally like to see some degree of insider ownership, even if only a little. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, Dont tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.

With a market capitalization of S$36m, Dynamic Colours is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. In the chart below below, we can see that institutions dont own shares in the company. Lets take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about D6U.

See our latest analysis for Dynamic Colours

Want to help shape the future of investing tools and platforms? Take the survey and be part of one of the most advanced studies of stock market investors to date.

SGX:D6U Ownership Summary January 18th 19

What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Dynamic Colours?

We dont tend to see institutional investors holding stock of companies that are very risky, thinly traded, or very small. Though we do sometimes see large companies without institutions on the register, its not particularly common.

There are many reasons why a company might not have any institutions on the share registry. It may be hard for institutions to buy large amounts of shares, if liquidity (the amount of shares traded each day) is low. If the company has not needed to raise capital, institutions might lack the opportunity to build a position. On the other hand, its always possible that professional investors are avoiding a company because they dont think its the best place for their money. Institutional investors may not find the historic growth of the business impressive, or there might be other factors at play. You can see the past revenue performance of Dynamic Colours, for yourself, below.

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SGX:D6U Income Statement Export January 18th 19

Hedge funds dont have many shares in Dynamic Colours. As far I can tell there isnt analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Dynamic Colours

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. The company management answer to the board; and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board, themselves.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own the majority of Dynamic Colours Limited. This means they can collectively make decisions for the company. So they have a S$19m stake in this S$36m business. Most would argue this is a positive, showing strong alignment with shareholders. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 17% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over D6U. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Public Company Ownership

Public companies currently own 30% of D6U stock. Its hard to say for sure, but this suggests they have entwined business interests. This might be a strategic stake, so its worth watching this space for changes in ownership.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free free list of interesting companies.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. (Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Getty)

Four years ago, I interviewed Vice President Joe Biden in his West Wing office about his recollections of the 1980 presidential election.

I went back through that interview recently, and discovered comments by Biden about Sen. Elizabeth Warren that have fresh resonance, as Biden considers a run for president, and with Warren having already announced her own intentions.

Back in 2015, Biden was thinking about running in 2016, though he had not yet said so publicly. Warren was often mentioned as a potential candidate, despite her adamant statements that she did not plan to run.

At the time, I wanted to talk to Biden about the fight among Democrats in 1980 over Sen. Ted Kennedy and President Jimmy Carter, which was the subject of a book I had been working on. (The book, Camelots End: Kennedy vs. Carter and the Fight That Broke the Democratic Party, will be published Jan. 22.) I was interested in how the issues that split the party then might still be relevant today. As we discussed this theme, Biden repeatedly brought up Warrens name, unprompted. It happened four times in a 40-minute conversation.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren with then Vice President Joe Biden, Jan. 3, 2013. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)

There is kind of a parallel there, Biden told me when I asked  after Biden had brought up the Massachusetts senator who now holds Kennedys old seat  if she was trying to pull the Democrats back to the kind of platform Kennedy was running on in 1980.

Every time Biden compared his views with Warrens, he held himself out as pursuing common sense and having a positive vision of helping the poor and working class.

Its not about punishing the rich, which is the fundamental premise of Elizabeth  whos smart as hell and a good person, Biden said. Its about, What do we do about the fact that the middle class has lost an incredible amount of wealth and has not seen a pay raise?

Biden and Warren in fact had quite a history by that point. Warren had been an antagonist of Bidens in 2002, when she criticized him in a New York Times op-ed for his support of a bill that made it harder for consumers to declare bankruptcy.

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The headline of Warrens piece read: A Quiet Attack on Women. Warren, then a law professor at Harvard, detailed how the legislation would have a disproportionate impact on women, and implied that Biden was supporting the bill because of the finance industrys outsized influence in Delaware, his home state.

Banking and credit lobbyists have been trying to change the bankruptcy laws for years, Warren wrote. The current bill was stuck in conference between the Senate and House until Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware  where many banks and credit-card issuers are incorporated  agreed to vote with Republicans on almost all the issues that were holding up the bill.

This critique was clearly still on Bidens mind in 2015, when he talked to me about reforms to the credit card industry enacted by President Obamas administration.

The credit card change we made, that alone has saved consumers over $20 billion a year, he said. If you look at Elizabeth Warrens argument on this: You should have just shut the suckers down. This was a reference to Warrens comment in a 2009 interview with PBS, where she said that We permit credit products to pass every day in commerce in America that if they were toasters, we would shut those folks down.

Warren and Biden at the dedication ceremony for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, March 30, 2015. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Warren went on to outline her view that the credit card industry should be regulated by the same basic safety standards for credit products that we have for physical products.

According to Biden, in contrast to Warrens approach to the credit industry, others were saying, You cant go after these guys.

We came up with a pragmatic, but fundamental, change in the way credit card companies could operate, Biden said.

A spokesman for Warren, asked to comment for this article, declined to do so. A Biden spokesman also declined to comment.

Later in 2015, Biden invited Warren to lunch at the vice presidential residence. He was by that time convinced that if he ran for president in 2016, he would want her to be his running mate, according to reports.

But Biden was also aware of how some of his past votes on financial regulation would be targets in a 2016 campaign, as they will be if he runs in 2020. The biggest mistake I made in my whole career, he said, was voting to get rid of Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law that prohibited commercial banks from engaging in investment banking.

The law was partially repealed in 1999. Biden defended President Bill Clinton, who signed the 1999 legislation, as doing a good job in the economy at the time, shifting us toward capital formation.

But, he said, capital formation became a holy grail, and Democrats became too afraid of regulating Wall Street. We got to change that. We got to put this back in a lane where there is genuine oversight, where the cowboys cant take the risk we have to pay for, Biden said.

Biden, who did not run in 2016, recognized the potency of Warrens populist anti-Wall Street appeal. If he runs this time, this debate will likely resurface. And in the heat of a high-stakes campaign, their past jabs at each other will likely seem like an exchange of pleasantries.

Warren holds a picture of Joe Biden with Donald Trumps hair at a labor rally in Boston, March 2018. (Photo: Jessica Rinaldi/Boston Globe via Getty)

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Read more from Yahoo News:

See our 2018 year-end features >>>




James McAvoy is in unbelievable shape for his new film Glass, a sequel to 2017 sleeper hit Split, both directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

The 39-year-old Scot says getting into the best shape of his life was essential for the extremely physical role of Dissociative Identity Disorder sufferer Kevin Wendell Crumb, or more precisely his most sinister personality: The Beast, as he spends most of the film stripped to the waist.

I didnt wanna just be in good shape just for the sake of being in good shape, McAvoy tells Yahoo Movies UK.

But there wasnt any costume. There was no muscle suit, theres no costume that has a six-pack built in it, you know what I mean? You can get all that.

Some superheroes in the past have been able to cheat being in great shape by hiding their bodies under rippling supersuits (Verhoeven era-Batman for example), and more recently Zachary Levis Shazam has been called into question for reportedly wearing a muscle-suit underneath his costume.

McAvoys Beast had no such luxury.

I had to have my shirt off all the time, adds the X-Men: Dark Phoenix star, plus I had to be this animal guy, who doesnt just stand there like Im going to come beat you up, hes like seething and drooling, and pumped the whole time. So I was very aware that I couldnt get away with that unless I backed it up with a little bit of that superhero, supervillain aesthetic.

James McAvoy as the Beast in in Glass (Disney)

The usually-slight actor got stacked for 2017s Split, but hes even bigger in Glass, which sees his character on the run from the law, and Unbreakables David Dunn (Bruce Willis) in hot pursuit.

In 2017 McAvoy set the record straight about his fitness regime after headlines circulated that suggested he was eating 6,000 calories a day to pack on the pounds.

James McAvoy pictured in October 2015 (left) and in November 2017, while he was filming Glass (Getty)

On Instagram, McAvoy rebuked: The interview was done at the beginning of the year and me saying I ate 6000 calories a day is inaccurate, was meant as a joke and is being widely used out of context.

He credits his personal trainer Magnus Lygdback for the gains, saying they never counted a single calorie during his transformation.

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Hes very, very clever, McAvoy explains to us, Hes very, very good at getting people bigger and musclier, quickly, in the most comfortable way possible. He managed to save me a bit of pain, because Im pretty sure I would have hurt myself otherwise.

Glass is in cinemas now.

Watch a new clip below, featuring James McAvoy and Samuel L. Jackson as Mr. Glass.





Read more

Shyamalan turned down superhero movies

McAvoy casts doubt on X-Men Avengers crossover

Jackson drops Avengers 4 spoiler
By Tim McLaughlin

BOSTON (Reuters) - Two of Americas best-known green investors are reassessing their stakes in global insurance broker Arthur J. Gallagher & Co after a Reuters investigation into the companys lucrative side-business in clean coal.

A.J. Gallagher <AJG.N> has invested in 34 facilities producing so-called refined coal, which is chemically treated to make it burn cleaner and heavily subsidized by the U.S. government. The firm also holds a 46.5 percent stake in Chem-Mod LLC, which provides the chemicals used to produce the fuel.

A.J. Gallagher has accumulated about $850 million worth of U.S. government tax credits from the business. But many utilities burning the coal have pumped out more smog, not less, over the past decade, and the chemicals have contributed to elevated carcinogens in downstream drinking water supplied to more than 1 million people, according to the Reuters Special Report.

Now, the Green Century Funds and Calvert Funds - which include A.J. Gallagher in their portfolios based on its record as an insurance firm, not a coal supplier - said they will review the companys green credentials. Green Century and Calvert are two of nation's leading money managers focused on corporate environmental, social and governance matters.

The idea behind the strategy is to help investors sidestep companies whose activities they find objectionable, such as polluting the environment.

In light of this new information, we certainly will  press the company to stop profiting from schemes devised by the fossil fuel industry to the detriment of U.S. citizens and taxpayers, Green Century said in a statement, calling clean coal a myth.

A.J. Gallagher is one of about 360 companies in the $250 million Green Century Equity Fund <GECQX.O>, which advertises itself as 100% percent fossil fuel free.

The fund, which held 4,394 A.J. Gallagher shares at the end of October, is passively managed and invests in the companies that are in an index run by MSCI Inc <MSCI.N>.

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MSCI declined to comment for this story.

Calvert Research and Management, a unit of Eaton Vance Corp, said it has contacted A.J. Gallagher as part of a reassessment of the companys ESG performance. A.J. Gallagher is a holding in the $1.3 billion Calvert U.S. Large Cap Core Responsible Index Fund <CISIX.O>.

In response to this new information, we have contacted the company and will consider this information in our assessment of ESG performance, Calvert said in a statement, referring to the Reuters reporting.

The Calvert fund has built its own index, drawing from the 1,000 largest publicly-traded U.S. companies based on market capitalization. From there, using its own principles for responsible investment, that list had been narrowed to about 720 companies, including A.J. Gallagher.

A.J. Gallagher did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Assets in portfolios that use various ESG-related criteria have grown to about $23 trillion globally, an increase of more than 600 percent over the past decade, fund research firm Morningstar Inc said in a 2018 report.

Shares of A.J. Gallagher are held in at least ten other mutual funds that screen companies on environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, including ones run by BlackRock Inc, Fidelity Investments and Vanguard Group.

The companys broad inclusion highlights the lack of clear criteria for how companies environmental credentials are vetted in this fast-growing green investment sector, said Vanguard spokesman John Woerth.

There is no universally-accepted definition of ESG, he said in a statement to Reuters.

The $4.4 billion Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund <VFTSX.O> holds an investment in A.J. Gallagher. But Vanguard does not pick the companies in the index fund it offers to investors, Woerth said. That job is done by index providers such as MSCI, or in Vanguard's case, FTSE Russell.

Index funds are beholden to the benchmarks they track," he said. "While we engage with index providers to understand their methodologies, it is our view that index providers are independent and should have complete autonomy when constructing an index and assembling its constituents.

Jill Davies, a town board member for Woodstock, Vermont - which has endowment money invested in the Vanguard fund - said she was disappointed by the companys inclusion.

A.J. Gallaghers activities in coal dont seem to align with the social responsibility concept behind this Vanguard fund, she said.

FTSE Russell said it was working to improve its ESG screening methods.

This is especially relevant in a rapidly expanding area like ESG, FTSE spokesman Tim Benedict said in a statement.

(This story has been refiled to remove an errant apostrophe in the first paragraph and a redundant figure in the 16th paragraph)

(Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot)
An IRS 1040 form, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, is shown on Thursday, April 5, 2018, in New York.

The Internal Revenue Service will waive penalties against taxpayers who withheld too little of their pay last year because they were uncertain how President Donald Trump's tax cuts would affect them, officials said Wednesday.

The Trump administration said it expected 90 percent of taxpayers to owe less income tax under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Most taxpayers have already seen the benefits, as employers withhold less money from their paychecks.

But some might have withheld too little. Some taxpayers  particularly those who already pay higher state and local taxes  could end up owing more when they file their returns in April.

That's because the law limited the ability to write off state land local taxes. The new cutoff for a married couple filing jointly, for example, is $10,000.

The tax law also suspended personal exemptions  tax reductions for each additional member of the household  in favor of a larger standard deduction for everybody.

We realize there were many changes that affected people last year," IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said. "This penalty waiver will help taxpayers who inadvertently didnt have enough tax withheld.

We urge people to check their withholding again this year to make sure they are having the right amount of tax withheld for 2019.

More: IRS, Agricultural Department to bring back thousands of furloughed workers

Just last month, the IRS was warning of a "tax-time surprise" for taxpayers who didn't pay enough taxes in 2018.

"Though most 2018 tax filers are still expected to get refunds, the number who owe tax, and in some cases a penalty, is likely to be larger than in recent years, and many of them are likely to be people who have always gotten refunds," the agency said last month.

The waiver announced Wednesday will be available to taxpayers who withheld or made estimated payments totaling at least 85 percent of their taxes due. The IRS previously waived penalties if taxpayers withheld at least 90 percent.

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The IRS has recalled 36,000 more furloughed employees  more than half its workforce  to help process tax returns and refunds for tax season.

The tax workers were sent home in December when President Donald Trump threatened to veto any spending bill that didn't include $5.7 billion for a border wall. The partial government shutdown is now the longest in U.S. history.

The Trump administration has promised that refunds will go out as usual. But other customer services, such as tax assistance by phone or in walk-in centers around the country, will be limited.

Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee called the announcement Wednesday "a step in the right direction," but said "more data from the IRS is needed to determine whether their action provides relief for a majority of taxpayers.

The longer Trump drags out his government shutdown, the greater the uncertainty for families," the Oregon lawmaker said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: IRS to waive penalties for under-withholding after Trump tax changes
Weather Alert

...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 8 PM CDT THIS EVENING... * WHAT...Heat index peaking mostly between 102 and 108 this afternoon. * WHERE...Thurston, Boone, Madison and Stanton Counties. * WHEN...From 1 PM to 8 PM CDT Thursday. * IMPACTS...Hot temperatures and high humidity may cause heat illnesses to occur. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors. Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances. Take extra precautions if you work or spend time outside. When possible reschedule strenuous activities to early morning or evening. Know the signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Wear lightweight and loose fitting clothing when possible. To reduce risk during outdoor work, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends scheduling frequent rest breaks in shaded or air conditioned environments. Anyone overcome by heat should be moved to a cool and shaded location. Heat stroke is an emergency! Call 9 1 1. &&
An American-born journalist working for Irans state TV broadcaster has reportedly been arrested after flying into the US.

Press TV interrupted its broadcast on Wednesday to report Marzieh Hashemi was arrested after she arrived at St Louis Lambert International Airport on Sunday.

The English-language Iranian broadcaster, citing family members, said its TV presenter and documentary film maker was taken into FBI custody and brought to Washington, DC.

In a report on its website, Press TV said Ms Hashemi, a mother and a grandmother, had travelled to the United States to visit her family members, including her brother, who is suffering from cancer.

Her relatives were unable to contact her, and she was allowed to contact her daughter only two days after her arrest, it added.

According to the broadcaster the 59-year-old Muslim-convert, who was born in New Orleans and named Melanie Franklin, told her daughter she was handcuffed and shackled and was being treated like a criminal.

She was quoted as saying her hijab had been forcibly removed and claiming she was only offered pork to eat, which Islam prohibits Muslims from consuming.

The only food she has had over the past two days has been a packet of crackers, Ms Hashemi was quoted as saying by Press TV.

The broadcasters account of her treatment could not be independently verified.

The Independent has contacted the FBI for comment.

Iran has called for Ms Hashemis immediate release and accused Washington of mistreating her in jail as a black Muslim woman.

We condemn the illegal arrest of Marzieh Hashemi, the reporter and presenter of Press TV, and the inhuman treatment of her in jail in Washington, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

The sudden arrest of an American Muslim woman, and inhuman and disrespectful behavior of US federal officers with her is a clear example of how an apartheid regime treats its non-white citizens, Mr Qasemi added.

Story continues

Ms Hashemi has lived in Iran for more than a decade, according to various Iranian media. She has reported on the subject of discrimination against women, Muslims, and African-Americans in the US.

Her reported arrest comes amid mounting tensions between Iran and the US.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  Echoing the campaign tactics of Donald Trump, former Indonesian Gen. Prabowo Subianto says his country, the world's third-largest democracy, is in dire shape and he is the leader who will restore it to greatness.

Subianto, running for president a second time in the April 17 elections, faces a major campaign test Thursday when he and his running mate, millionaire businessman Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, debate President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and his vice presidential pick, conservative cleric Ma'ruf Amin, in the first of five debates.

The retired general's message might appear to be lifted from Trump's playbook of angry populism but Subianto has been at it far longer. He lost narrowly to Widodo in the 2014 election, a result he angrily refused to accept, and was a losing vice presidential candidate in 2004.

A rousing strongman-style speaker, Subianto rails against poverty in Indonesia and says it's lagging its neighbors economically, militarily and technologically. With more than 260 million people and rich in natural resources, it should be a world power but instead, he says, is at risk of collapse.

"It's easy to say 'Indonesia will last a thousand years.' But my fellow countrymen, if a state is unable to pay for hospitals, cannot guarantee food for its people, has a weak military system, can it last a thousand years?" Subianto said in his first major campaign speech this week.

Senior figures in his campaign have even invoked ancient kingdoms based in Java and Sumatra, which held sway over parts of Southeast Asia, as an era of glory that modern Indonesia can reclaim.

But so far opinion polls indicate Subianto isn't expanding his support beyond an already converted minority  conservative Muslims who consider Widodo insufficiently Islamic and voters aged 50-plus who are nostalgic for the certainty of dictator Suharto's rule that ended two decades ago.

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Subianto, who was married to Suharto's daughter, was a feared general during the dictatorship and his involvement in its human rights abuses remains anathema to politically progressive Indonesians who, if dissatisfied with Widodo, are firmly behind him as the lesser of two evils.

Polls show Widodo currently commanding between 52-54 percent support and Subianto 30-35 percent. But about 10 percent of voters are undecided and another 15 percent are considered swing voters, meaning the race has the potential to tighten.

Subianto's brother, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, has said the polls, like those that misjudged the U.S. presidential election and U.K. referendum on European Union membership, are wrong. Subianto has barely appeared on the campaign trial since campaigning officially began in September, leaving most appearances to his youthful running mate.

Alexander Arifanto, an Indonesian politics expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said populist soundbites and slogans can narrow the race considerably but overcoming Widodo's "fortress" of support in the provinces of Central Java and East Java is still a stretch for Subianto.

"The Prabowo team can only attack, coming up with real policy is something that they are not doing," he said. "They don't have any concrete plan to come up with an alternative economic agenda to compete with Jokowi."

Widodo, the first Indonesian president from outside the country's Jakarta elite, has made upgrading Indonesia's creaking infrastructure the signature policy of his five year-term. A significant part of the effort has focused on Java, which with more than 140 million people is the world's most crowded major island.

About 3,430 kilometers (2,130 miles) of roads and 941 kilometers (585 miles) of highways and toll roads have been built nationwide, according to the Ministry of Public Works, along with numerous new airports and seaports. A subway in the congested capital is expected to open in March.

Widodo's lower middle-class roots in the central Javanese city of Solo and humble manner have made him widely liked. He, or the team around him, are also adept at connecting with Indonesia's post-Suharto generation through savvy use of social media.

A conservative Islamic movement toppled the minority Christian governor of Jakarta, a Widodo ally, in 2016 and he was subsequently sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy. Widodo, however, is not the same lightning rod for controversy.

"Jokowi was targeted as anti-Islam or less responsive to the problems of Muslims," said Gun Gun Heryanto, a political analyst at Islamic State University in Jakarta. "But in fact Jokowi has provided a quick response to many sensitive problems of Muslims domestically and globally, and he chose a respected Muslim cleric as his running mate."

The debate topics Thursday include human rights, which won't flatter Subianto if Widodo or Amin seize upon it to attack him.

He was a field commander in East Timor during Indonesia's brutal occupation of the country and was dismissed from the military in 1998 for ordering special forces troops under his command to kidnap more than two dozen student activists. He was never court-martialed.

The students were tortured and two decades later, 13 of them remain missing.

___

Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini contributed to this report.
Investors in Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. TOO need to pay close attention to the stock based on moves in the options market lately. That is because the May 17, 2019 $2.00 Put had some of the highest implied volatility of all equity options today.

What is Implied Volatility?

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Michael Cohen departs after sentencing at the Moynahan Federal Courthouse in New York City on Dec. 12, 2018.

WASHINGTON  In a pointed exchange during William Barrs confirmation hearing earlier this week, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., engaged the nominee for attorney general in an ominous hypothetical:

If the president encouraged or instructed a witness to lie, would that act amount to obstruction of justice?

Yes, Barr said with little hesitation.

Two days after Barrs appearance, the nominees spare response potentially takes on new meaning in wake of a disclosure that President Donald Trump allegedly instructed former personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Organizations pursuit of a deal to build a luxury residential high-rise in the center of Moscow.

The Justice Department has long taken the position that a president cannot be prosecuted while in office, but Trumps alleged direction to Cohen, as outlined in a report by BuzzFeed, has prompted Democrats to press for new congressional inquiries and has revived consideration of impeachment proceedings.

"As a counterintelligence concern of the greatest magnitude, and given that these alleged efforts were intended to interfere without our investigation, our committee is determined to get to the bottom of this and follow the evidence where it may lead," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the new chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday.

Said former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder: If true, and proof must be examined, Congress must begin impeachment proceedings."

USA TODAY has not confirmed BuzzFeeds report.

Cohen, 52, who is expected to begin a three-year prison sentence in March after pleading guilty to federal financial crimes, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress, did not comment. Citing the ongoing investigation headed by Russia special counsel Robert Mueller, Cohen attorney Lanny Davis said that his client "declined to respond to the questions asked by the (BuzzFeed) reporters and so do I."

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Later Friday, in an interview on MSNBC, Davis raised concerns about the security of Cohen's family in wake of his client's agreement to testify Feb. 7 before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Davis said Cohen fears possible retribution from Trump allies, including those "abroad" in an indirect reference to Russia.

Because of those concerns, Davis said that Cohen's appearance is no longer certain. If he does appear, Cohen will not address questions about the BuzzFeed report, Davis said.

Trump, lashing out at the report via Twitter, took immediate aim at Cohen's credibility, and his family.

"Lying to reduce his jail time!" the president said Friday. "Watch father-in-law!"

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, meanwhile, called the BuzzFeed disclosures "categorically false."

The bitter recriminations offered by the president and his lawyer, however, only underscored the gravity of the new allegations and how they may relate to Mueller's inquiry into possible efforts by Trump to obstruct the investigation  and the parallel probe into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

At the heart of new allegations is Cohen's involvement in the Trump Organization's pursuit of a Trump Tower project in Moscow and the subsequent efforts to conceal those actions during Trump's presidential bid.

Cohen lied when he told the Senate and House Intelligence Committees that all discussions about a Moscow development had ceased in January 2016, knowing that such efforts had continued through at least June  in the heat of the campaign and as Trump repeatedly denied any links to Russia.

More: Michael Cohen, Donald Trump and Russia: Prosecutors document series of lies by president's former fixer

More: 'A blind loyalty to Donald Trump': Read Michael Cohen's statement before learning his prison sentence

Prosecutors have asserted in court documents filed late last year that the tower project "likely required the assistance of the Russian government. And if completed, the company stood to gain hundreds of millions dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees and other revenues."

The court documents did not address whether Cohen's false statements about the Moscow tower discussions were prompted by any other consideration than an attempt to personally shield the campaign from public association with Russia.

The BuzzFeed report, however, not only asserts that Trump instructed Cohen to lie about the Moscow negotiations, but that documents seized by Mueller's investigators support the claim.

"If these allegations can be proven, (Trump) is toast, but only if the information can be corroborated," said Bruce Udolf, a former federal prosecutor who served as an associate independent counsel during the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration.

"Cohen's credibility is going to be attacked mercilessly, but that's already been happening," Udolf said.

Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, said there was "no question" that directing a witness to lie to Congress is a crime. The stakes for Trump, Mariotti said, rise even higher because the allegation, if true, represents an act that few might dismiss.

"I think that everyone would probably agree that a president can never obstruct justice," Mariotti said.

Emerging in the midst of Barr's anticipated confirmation, the allegations promise to ratchet up the pressure on the Justice Department as it transitions to new leadership from ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who Trump repeatedly accused of failing to shield him from the Russia inquiry.

"He (Barr) is walking into a pressure-cooker to begin with," Udolf said. "He only has to look back at what happened to the last guy to hold the office."

Giuliani, meanwhile, continued to hammer away at Cohen's credibility.

"Michael Cohen is a convicted criminal and a liar," Giuliani said in a statement. "To quote the prosecutors, he has traded on 'a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time.' Todays claims are just more made-up lies born of Michael Cohens malice and desperation, in an effort to reduce his sentence."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Impeachment talk revived after report says Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress
International Business Machines Corporation IBM recently expanded partnership with Vodafone Group Plc VOD. Notably, the company entered into an eight-year agreement worth $550 million (around 480 million) with Vodafones B2B segment, Vodafone Business.



Per the deal, IBMs advanced hybrid cloud platform, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities will aid Vodafone Business with digital transformation initiatives.



IBM on the back of its innovative technologies and cloud hosting skills, will also aid Vodafone Business with managed services to realize edge, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and 5G goals.



IBM and Vodafone Business intend to aid companies in eliminating the complexity in IT processes by providing a study data network facilitating seamless flow across connected institutes.



The new venture reportedly based out of London, which will function as a start-up, is anticipated to be operational as early as first half of 2019.



Whats Favoring IBM?



Notably, growing demand for data center virtualization, cloud computing and mobile traffic packet calls for robust IT infrastructure management services. This is where IBM solutions come in handy and are witnessing increasing adoption from network players.



IBM's strength in automation, cognitive and optimization capabilities enable enterprises to run business processes efficiently in a cloud infrastructure. The capabilities along with synergies from RedHat acquisition (pending) is anticipated to aid the company in winning more cloud deals.



In fact, the Vodafone deal is a big win for IBM as it bodes well for growing clout in Europe. The collaboration of expertise in connectivity and multi cloud domain, aimed at offering innovative digital services and solutions, is a positive.



Moreover, according to IBM's estimates, roughly 85% of the companies (which were surveyed) are utilizing multiple cloud computing platforms rather than depending on a single one. In fact, per the report, around 70% of enterprises are utilizing roughly over 15 cloud environments in a bid to avail advanced digital services.



These estimates enhance the opportunities in store for IBM. The companys focus on transforming IT environment and enabling companies to embrace a democratized approach toward hybrid cloud model is a key catalyst.



Notably, Europe reportedly lags in 5G deployment and commercialization, compared with the United States and China. The fact that IBM services will aid Vodafone to modernize its 5G infrastructure andacceleratedeployment strengthens the prospects of both the players.



Moreover, digital transformation initiatives and hyperscale datacenter development are the primary catalysts behind cloud-based IT infrastructure expansion.



The incremental adoption of IBM solutions from the likes of Meiji Yasuda Life, Juniper JNPR, Cegid, Novis, KMD, to mention a few, is expected to aid its financial performance.

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International Business Machines Corporation Revenue (TTM)

International Business Machines Corporation Revenue (TTM) | International Business Machines Corporation Quote

In fact, the expanding customer base strengthens the companys growth prospects in the digital transformation market, which per a MarketsandMarkets report, is envisioned to witness a CAGR of 19.1% to $493.39 billion by 2022 from $205.99 billion in 2017.



To Conclude



With dynamic improvement in machine learning (ML) and edge computing gaining steam, increasing spend on infrastructure products enhances the prospects of IBM in the deal.



However, rising competition from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft's MSFT Azure in the cloud domain is a headwind.



Zacks Rank



IBM carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



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A giant beach resort in North Korea is nearing completion, a US monitor said Thursday, with satellite pictures showing rapid progress on the sprawling development, now equipped with a water slide and cinema.

The seaside strip known as the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Area is squeezed between a new airport and the country's east coast, in an area that has previously been used for artillery drills and ballistic missile launches.

It is intended as a centrepiece of the isolated country's nascent tourism industry as Pyongyang seeks to develop its economy despite international sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons programmes.

North Korea receives an estimated 100,000 foreign tourists a year, the vast majority of them Chinese, according to industry sources, but Pyongyang issues no official figures itself.

The site's construction has been closely overseen by leader Kim Jong Un and plans have been announced for a grand opening in October, when the country marks the 74th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.

The respected 38 North website released satellite images taken as recently as December showing that most buildings previously under construction were "nearing external completion and several new or redesigned buildings were in advanced stages".

Kim, who reportedly spent his childhood summers in the area, visited the site at least three times last year according to state media, sometimes berating officials in charge of the works and issuing detailed orders.

Kim "found that the whole street was not perfect in the artistic aspect", the official KCNA news agency reported after his October inspection.

"He instructed officials to envisage the construction of more hotels and inns with over 30 floors," it added, along with more games arcades, movie theatres and an "all-event stadium", plus a "large water park and funfair".

Satellite photos from December 28 indicated the resort was growing into a "vast beach complex", 38 North said.

Story continues

- 'Great beaches' -

US President Donald Trump, a former real estate developer turned billionaire, applauded North Korea's tourism potential last year following his landmark summit with Kim in Singapore.

After a four-minute screening of a bizarre Hollywood-style trailer -- apparently part of an overall pitch that the US could help the North advance technologically and economically -- Trump pointed to potential property projects in the cash-strapped nation.

"As an example, they have great beaches," he told reporters.

"You see that whenever they are exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, 'Boy, look at that view. Wouldn't that make a great condo?'"

Kim mentioned the Wonsan-Kalma project in his key New Year speech and 38 North said the push on the development showed "a desire to demonstrate that North Korea, despite the economic sanctions in place, has an economy that is moving forward and showing signs of prosperity.

"It may also reflect an expectation that as the country improves its external political relations, tourism will follow," it added.

At present the US bans its own citizens from tourism in the North.

Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans used to visit Mount Kumgang near the inter-Korean border every year, travelling to a Seoul-funded tourist resort that was the first major cooperation project between the neighbours.

The trips came to an abrupt end in 2008 when a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean tourist who strayed off the approved path and Seoul suspended travel.
Representative Joaquin Castro (D., Texas), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that Trump should resign or be impeached if he did in fact direct his personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, as was alleged in a Thursday night Buzzfeed News report.

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Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress about exactly when discussions pertaining to the construction of a Trump Tower in Moscow concluded. After initially testifying that discussions ended in January 2016, Cohen later admitted that he continued planning the development with senior Russian officials into June 2016.

The report, which cites two law enforcement officials familiar with the matter, claims that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress about the timeline in order to conceal his own involvement. Trump was aware at the time that Cohen was in contact with Russian officials, and he even endorsed Cohens suggestion that he travel to Russia to meet personally with Vladimir Putin in July 2016, telling Cohen make it happen.

Trumps children were also reportedly directly involved in the plans and received regular updates on the status of negotiations from Cohen.

Rudy Giuliani, Trumps lawyer, dismissed the report on Friday, calling Cohens credibility into question.

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More from National Review
Sues heartbreaking letter has been widely shared (SWNS)

A much-loved primary school head who died after writing a farewell letter to pupils from her death bed has been laid to rest  in a coffin covered in their drawings.

Sue East was just 58 when she died on December 19, soon after being diagnosesd with cancer.

Shortly before her death, she penned a heart-wrenching final letter to her pupils, telling them she was going to die soon and thanking them for their joy and friendship.

Sue Easts coffin was decorated with her former pupils pictures (SWNS)

Sue East died on December 19, aged 58 (SWNS)

In the letter  which promptly went viral  Mrs East quoted a passage from C.S Lewis 1952 novel, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, comparing death to sailing over the horizon in a small, round boat.

At the end of her letter, she wrote: Never forget there is fairy dust to be found in every situation, no matter how difficult.

On Wednesday, almost 700 pupils, parents, ex-pupils and staff members crammed into Bath Abbey to say farewell to the former headteacher of St Andrews Church School in Bath.

Past and present pupils of the school sang at the funeral, and covered Mrs Easts coffin with drawings of fairies, butterflies, love hearts, rainbows and fairy dust.

The moving ceremony took place at Bath Abbey on Wednesday (SWNS)

Tributes paid by pupils said that they loved their headteacher, and described her as everything from fun and lovely to glittery and the best teacher.

Her colleagues described her as an extraordinary friend and colleague, and bonkers, as all brilliant people are.

MORE: Boris Johnson makes fresh pitch for Tory leadership and says Brexit can unite the country

MORE: Adventurous family quit the rat race and sell everything to travel around in a converted school bus

Mrs Easts three children, John, Susannah and Josiah East, all read touching tributes to their mother, alongside the readings from staff members, close friends and Rev. Simon Holland.

Her older son, John, told how his mother loved to refer to children as creatures.

He said: Mum lived freely and selflessly. I am humbled to have received a love so unconditional. Mum didnt just love us, she loved all the creatures she worked with.

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Many of the mourners wore pink (SWNS)

Her daughter Susannah said how her mothers spirit lives on, and that she was with them all at the funeral.

When she was too tired to talk at Dorothy House Hospice, she would show me the signs of love and peace, said Susannah.

She said that death is not to be feared, for it is only coming home. She said how even in the most difficult situations, you find fairy dust.

She added: I loved you to the moon and back. I miss you. I look forward to seeing you on whichever shore you find yourself on.

Nearly 700 people attended the service (SWNS)

Mrs Easts younger son Josiah joked how his mother would have probably admonished him for writing a speech for her funeral and not focusing on his dissertation.

He said: She led by example. She raised three children whilst working full time.

She taught me that learning is more important than exams and numbers on spreadsheets. To question what you believe and adapt. She taught me how to live life and accept death.

Josiah then finished his tribute by referring to one of Mrs Easts favourite films  Star Trek Generations.

He added: James T. Kirk turns to Jean-Luc Picard and asks: Did we make a difference? And Picard says: Yes, yes we did.

Many of Mrs Easts former pupils had drawn inspiration from her final letter in their drawings. She quoted C.S Lewis 1952 novel, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader comparing death to sailing over the horizon in a small, round boat (SWNS)

And Mrs Easts joint deputy headteacher colleagues, Tam Stephen and Jayne Rochford-Smith, also referenced Star Trek in paying tribute to their inspirational friend.

Tam said: She has created not just a wonderful school, she has nurtured and led a whole community.

We often refer to ourselves as a family, with Sue as Captain Kirk at the helm of the Starship Enterprise.

Sue was an extraordinary friend and colleague to us all at St Andrews. There was wholehearted agreement that she was bonkers, as all brilliant people are.

Hundreds turned out to pay respects to inspirational St Andrews Primary School headteacher (SWNS)

One child wrote we will miss you so much on her drawing (SWNS)

And Jayne described Mrs East as immense, and said that her positive influence stretched beyond the walls of St Andrews School.

She said: It is fair to say that she was a pioneering and creative force in primary education. She was immense.

She shared her expertise at a national level. She co-founded Schools Without Walls.

She called the WhatsApp group we were all in the chief fairies WhatsApp group. We feel she is still present here today. She empowered us all.

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You have your mothers eyes, your fathers temperament, your grandfathers way with language, and your grandmothers personality  or maybe not. Its possible those claims, echoing through the course of your childhood, became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Its all part of the nature vs nurture debate, a story that is often oversimplified in child development by making broad generational comparisons. And those comparisons can be misleading, if not downright damaging, precisely because they conflate fate and genetics.

According to David Rettew, a child psychiatrist at the University of Vermont, telling children their personalities are predetermined by their DNA can be harmfultrue or not. Though scientists now suspect that personality traits are closely tied to genetics, Rettew suggests parents emphasize that negative qualities can be changed, and that nurture and nature work in close concert. As long as you dont suggest some kind of inevitability, it can be useful for kids to have some idea of what their personalities tend to be, and that [any given trait] is around 50 percent nature and 50 percent nurture, Rettew explains. But I believe it is a parents job to increase the possibilities for a child. Telling a kid theyre going to end up just like a parent can be confining.

Besides, its not as though the split between nature and nurture is easy to break down or break apart. There is no one gene for any personality quirk, Rettew explains. Its more likely that its dozens, if not hundreds, of genes with each one having a small effect that can add up to whether or not you have more or less of a given trait. More complicated still, a childs personality develops based on the interplay between genetics and the environment.

Complexity notwithstanding, researchers have conducted hundreds of studies on behavioral genetics in an attempt to assign genetic and environmental determinants to what makes us tick. The culmination of that work came in 2000 when Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia published The Three Laws of Behavioral Genetics. The nature-nurture debate is over, Turkheimer announced, in his paper on the subject. The bottom line is that everything is heritable, an outcome that has taken all sides of the nature-nurture debate by surprise.

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A Practical Primer on Behavioral Genetics

The first law of behavioral genetics is that all human behavioral traits are heritable; the second law is that the effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of genes. The third law merely qualifies that much of the complexity of human behavior is not accounted for by genes or families. Five years later, a team of behavioral geneticists proposed a fourth law, which accounted for advances in molecular biology: A typical human behavioral trait is associated with very many genetic variants, each of which accounts for a very small percentage of the behavioral variability. In other words, it takes many genes to create one personality trait.

So are children genetically predisposed to certain traits? The answer is clearly yes, explains Philipp Koellinger, who studies how genes influence economics at the University of Amsterdam. Children resemble their parents both for genetic and for environmental reasons, but genetics contribute to almost all traits to some extent, even for things like subjective well-being or political affiliation. And those influences only become stronger with time.

Youd think the longer the environment has a chance to exert its effects, the more it would overcome the genetics, Rettew says. But it doesnt seem to work that way. Intelligence, even personality traitswe have found that genetic influences get stronger as you get older.

And at the same time, one cannot discount the impacts of parenting style and environment upon the developing personality. While kids do resemble their parents, they are not carbon copies of their parents, says Theodore Wachs, a psychologist at Purdue University who studies child development. If only because the environmental context, broadly conceived, that kids grow up in may be quite different from the environmental context their parents grew up in.

This is not a contradiction to the laws of behavioral genetics, because genes do not operate in a vacuum. A child may be genetically predisposed to anger (nature). But when this child is disciplined, the environment (nurture) may mitigate it in the long term  or conversely, an angry child may anger his or her parents, fueling the fire. It is futile to try to separate developmental influences on children into nature and nurture, says George Holden, chair of the department of psychology at Southern Methodist University. Both influences are constantly interacting with each other. Put differently, dads may give their kids their angry streaks. But their parenting plays a large role in determining whether it fizzles out in childhood or boils over into adulthood.

Parenting With the Power of Behavioral Genetics

The question is what to do with this information. Our children are, for better or worse, just like us. And although nurture can change that, a lot of those environmental effects are on us, too. Through nature and nurture, we mold our childrens personalities. Should we let them know?

Favorable comparisons are generally safe. If parents are sensitive and empathetic toward their child, being compared to that parent would be viewed as positive by the child and enhance their sense of self-esteem, Wachs says. If parents display traits like persistence in the face of adversity, children who feel, or are told, they are like that parent may develop the same trait.

True, even the most well-intentioned words can backfire. Telling a child that he or she is just like a parent denies some of their individuality, Wachs says. A child may feel a sense of predestination or inevitability to turn out one way or another. But, in moderation and within the context of a healthy relationship, telling your kids that they share your positive qualities is probably fine. In my day-to-day world as both a parent and child psychiatrist, I dont encounter a lot of kids expressing concern that theyre destined to be like their parents, Rettew adds.

Less favorable comparisons are, naturally, much riskier territory. If parents are hostile and rejecting of the child, children may not want to be seen as like that parent, and a remark that youre just like mom or dad may come across as negative and perhaps reduce the childs sense of self-esteem, Wachs says. Similarly, if a parent is brilliant and a high achiever, when compared their child may feel they cannot measure up to the parent and may not try.

A dysfunctional situation at home can also be aggravated by bringing genetic predisposition into the mix. Some parents may attribute normal child behavior to a quality that they do not like in their spouses, for instance, and this can lead to abuse. Perhaps a baby screaming for milk is self-centered, just like her mother. Or a toddler is throwing tantrums, just like his father. Because the parent is processing the behavior in that negative way, the parent is unlikely to provide for the needs of the child, Holden says. That could result in the child continuing to behave in that way. In extreme cases, it can result in child neglect or physical abuse.

One healthier way to integrate the science of nature and nurture into parenting is to highlight effort over disposition. When a child does well in school, for instance, noting that they are genetically predisposed to intelligence and were raised by smart parents is not nearly as productive as highlighting their hard work. The better message is to recognize the work they did to earn that good grade, Holden says. This message has been shown to predict better long-term outcomes in children than the outcome-oriented message, i.e., You are smart.

Another strategy is to teach a child that he or she is more than a collection of personality traits. Parents who reprimand kids for their actions without implying that those actions are fundamentally a product of supposedly immutable traits clearly communicate to children that they are in charge of their own behavior. And its true. Impulses can be ignored; genetic predispositions, even when bolstered by environment and life experience, can be controlled.

If you have a three-year-old who has a tendency to hide behind his moms legs when strangers show up, instead of saying you are shy say youre acting shy right now, he says. Theres value in not suggesting that this is who they arethis can be self-limiting.

You dont want your words to become your childs narrative.

Related Articles:

The post What Happens When You Tell Kids Theyre Just Like Dad appeared first on Fatherly.
Gulfport Energy Corporation GPOR recently released capital expenditure budget and production forecast for 2019. The Oklahoma-based upstream player expects 2019 capex in the band of $565-$600 million, lower than the 2018 level of $814 million. Notably, majority of the spending in 2019 will be directed toward drilling and completion activities, and around $40-$50 million will be allocated for land activities. Moreover, the company expects 2019 free cash flow to exceed $100 million.



Backed by its rich drilling inventory position in the Utica Shale and SCOOP Basin, Gulfport has recorded remarkable production growth over the last five years. The companys yearly volumes increased at an impressive 100% CAGR since 2013. A combination of robust execution and strong performance is expected to help Gulfport maintain the strong production momentum. In fact, robust output from the Utica Shale helped the company to deliver stronger-than-expected results in each of the trailing four quarters, with average positive earnings surprise of 30.91%.



Owing to solid operations in Utica and SCOOP basins, the company projects 2019 production within 1,360-1,400 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d). This is almost consistent with the fourth-quarter 2018 output level of 1,392.8 million. Notably, full-year 2018 output averaged 1,360.3 MMcfe/d.



Gulfport, which is committed in returning value to its shareholders, announced the completion of $200-million stock buyback program in 2018. Bringing in pleasant news for investors, its board of directors authorized the repurchase of an additional $400 million of shares of the companys common stock over the next two years. The company expects to fund the program by the generation of free cash flows and monetization of the non-core assets of the firm.



Zacks Rank and Key Picks



Gulfport currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Gulfport Energy Corporation Price

Gulfport Energy Corporation Price | Gulfport Energy Corporation Quote

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Meanwhile, investors interested in the same industry can opt for Approach Resources Inc. AREX, Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc. BCEI and CNX Resources Corporation CNX, each holding a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Approach Resources expects 2019 earnings to record year-over-year growth of 41.67%.



Bonanza Creeks 2019 earnings are likely to increase 57.31% on a year-over-year basis.



CNX Resources earnings are projected to grow 2.57% year over year in 2019.



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By Silvia Aloisi

MILAN (Reuters) - An array of crises will keep several world leaders away from the annual World Economic Forum in Davos next week, which takes place against a backdrop of deepening gloom over the global economic and political outlook.

Anxieties over trade disputes, fractious international relations, Brexit and a growth slowdown that some fear could tip the world economy into recession are set to dominate the Jan. 22-25 Alpine meeting.

The WEF's own Global Risks Report set the tone this week with a stark warning of looming economic headwinds, in part because of geopolitical tensions among major powers.

Some 3,000 business, government and civil society figures are due to gather in the snow-blanketed ski resort, but among them are only three leaders of the Group of Seven most industrialized countries: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte.

Donald Trump, who stole the Davos limelight last year with a rare appearance by a sitting U.S. president, pulled out of this year's event as he grapples with a partial U.S. government shutdown.

On Thursday, the White House said Trump had also canceled his delegation's trip to Davos because of the shutdown, now in its 27th day. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been expected to lead the U.S. team, according to two senior administration officials.

French President Emmanuel Macron is also skipping the meeting as he seeks to respond to the "yellow vest" protests, while British Prime Minister Theresa May battles to find a consensus on Brexit.

Outside the G7, the leaders of Russia and India are shunning Davos, while China - whose president, Xi Jinping, was the first Chinese leader to attend the elite gathering in 2017 to offer a vigorous defense of free trade - is sending his deputy instead.

That will leave the likes of British Finance Minister Philip Hammond, Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan and a host of central bankers with the task of trying to reassure business chiefs.

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"Davos will be dominated by a high level of anxiety about stock markets, a slowdown in growth and international politics," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit.

"The leadership presence is lower than last year but those who are going ... will be seeking to impart a sense of confidence and calm business and investors' nerves."

REVAMP

Before the U.S. cancellation, a Trump administration official had said the U.S. delegation would also discuss the importance of reforming institutions such as the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Trump has harshly criticised globalization and questioned U.S. participation in multilateral institutions such as the WTO, calling for a revamp of international trade rules.

Davos watchers said the absence of so many top leaders this year did not mean the glitzy forum had lost its status as a global stage for top politicians to present their agendas.

"Abe is going to Davos not just as Japanese prime minister but also as chair of the G20. It will be a perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork of upcoming G20 meetings," said a Japanese government source familiar with international affairs.

"Of course there may be inconveniences such as missing opportunities to hold bilateral meetings, but that won't undermine the importance of Davos," he said.

A Chinese official who has attended Davos regularly but will not go this year said China had never expected to make progress at the meeting on the trade dispute with the United States. "It's just an occasion for making a policy statement," he said.

The low turnout among major Western leaders may also give more prominence to political personalities who may otherwise be upstaged. Davos will be the first major international outing for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, elected on a wave of anti-establishment and conservative nationalism also seen elsewhere.

He said on Twitter he would present "a different Brazil, free of ideological ties and widespread corruption".

For business chiefs, the value of Davos lies not so much in the public sessions but in the networking and dealmaking opportunities on the sidelines of the main conference.

"It's the best place to pitch for ideas, build connections and get your brand known," said Chen Linchevski, chief executive of Precognize, an Israel-based start-up developing software that prevents technical or quality failures at manufacturing plants.

"It's the kind of place where in a few days you meet people you wouldn't easily meet otherwise," said Linchevski, who is paying 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,495) to attend the event.

(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington, Yawen Chan in Beijing, Kaori Kaneko, Tetsushi Kajimoto and Linda Sieg in Tokyo, Tom Miles in Geneva, Dmitry Zhdanikov in London and Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Editing by William Maclean and Peter Cooney)
MOSCOW (Reuters) - German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Friday that Russia could save the missile accord known as the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) if it rid itself of treaty-violating cruise missiles. Speaking during a visit to Moscow, Maas said the disarmament treaty needed to stay since it was crucial to Germany's security interests. He welcomed Russia's willingness to keep talking about the INF treaty, from which Washington wants to withdraw. (Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Michelle Martin)
Paris (AFP) - French anti-terror judges have recommended that 14 people be tried in connection with the January 2015 jihadist attacks in and around Paris, a judicial source told AFP Friday.

The attacks against the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, a police woman in the nearby suburb of Montrouge, and a Jewish supermarket killed 17 people and marked the start of a wave of jihadist attacks in France.

Eleven people are in custody suspected of assisting in the attacks, while another three are wanted by police.

Under French law, they can appeal the decision to send them to trial.

The trial, whose date will be determined at a later date, will come more than four years after brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015.

The next day a policewoman was gunned down just outside Paris, while another gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, took hostages at a Jewish Hyper Cacher shop, four of whom were killed.

All three attackers were killed in two separate shootouts with police.

Those to be tried are accused of "complicity" in assisting the attackers, including providing them with weapons.

Judicial sources said investigations in connection with the attacks were continuing, notably in Yemen, which one of the Kouachi brothers visited in 2011.

Responsibility for the attack against Charlie Hebdo was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the main Al-Qaeda organisation.
Google will buy $40 million worth of Fossil Group's smartwatch tech.

Fossil builds smartwatches that run Google's Wear OS platform, which competes with the Apple Watch.

Fossil FOSL is selling $40 million of smartwatch technology to Google GOOGL , the company announced Thursday.

Shares of Fossil jumped about 8 percent on the news.

Fossil is one of the primary brands that continues to build smartwatches that run Google's Wear OS software, which competes with the Apple Watch but has struggled to gain mass adoption among consumers. But Fossil said that smartwatches are its fastest-growing category.

"The addition of Fossil Group's technology and team to Google demonstrates our commitment to the wearables industry by enabling a diverse portfolio of smartwatches and supporting the ever-evolving needs of the vitality-seeking, on-the-go consumer," said Stacey Burr, vice president of product management, Wear OS by Google.

Fossil said the transaction is expected to close in January.

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(Reuters) - Fossil Group Inc said on Thursday it would sell its intellectual property related to a smartwatch technology currently under development to Alphabet Inc's Google for $40 million, sending the watchmaker's shares up as much as 11 percent.

The sale will see a portion of its research and development team currently working on the technology moving to Google.

The deal is expected to close in January, Fossil said.

"The addition of Fossil Group's technology and team to Google demonstrates our commitment to the wearables industry," Stacey Burr, vice president of product management at Google's Wear OS, a smartwatch platform, said.

Fossil, which recently launched a new offering called 'Sport' that comes with Wear OS, said smartwatches have become its fastest growing category.

"Together with Google, our innovation partner, we'll continue to unlock growth in wearables," Greg McKelvey, Fossil's chief strategy and digital officer, said.

Fossil's shares were last up 8.3 percent at $18.87.

(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by James Emmanuel)
Ford Motor Company F is set to report fourth-quarter and 2018 results on Jan 23, after the market closes. In the last reported quarter, Fords earnings were in line with estimates. Over the past four quarters, the automakers earnings have surpassed estimates once, missed twice and have been in line once, the average negative surprise being 3.8%.



Over the past three months, shares of Fords have lost 2.5% against the industrys increase of 15.4%.



Lets see how things have shaped up for the upcoming announcement.

Ford Motor Company Price and EPS Surprise

Ford Motor Company Price and EPS Surprise | Ford Motor Company Quote

Factors Influencing This Quarter



Ford is witnessing robust demand for its trucks and SUVs, owing to customers shifting focus toward spacious and comfortable vehicles. In fact, its F-Series, Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator are among the few winning models in its portfolio. In the United States, the companys sales across truck and SUV segments created records in 2018.

Further, a strong mix expanded the average transaction pricing for Fords vehicles. On a year-over-year basis, the transaction price for the company surged $1,600 in December 2018 compared with an increase of $470 recorded by the overall industry.



Despite generating record sales in major driving segments, this automakers bottom line is waning. High costs, owing to metals tariffs, along with softening economic conditions in China and struggling business in Europe, are major headwinds for Ford.

In October, the companys management announced that tariff-related costs slashed profits by about $1 billion. In the recently reported preliminary results, Ford mentioned that it expects adjusted earnings per share of 30 cents in fourth-quarter 2018, while adjusted earnings per share of 2018 is projected to be $1.30.



For the soon-to-release quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the companys net sales from markets in North America, the Asia-Pacific and Europe is $23.6 billion, $3.3 billion and $8.3 billion, respectively.



Earnings Whispers



Our proven model does not conclusively predict earnings beat for Ford this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. This is not the case here, as you will see below.



Earnings ESP: Fords Earnings ESP is 0.00% as both the Most Accurate Estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate are pegged at 33 cents.



You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.



Zacks Rank: Ford currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



We caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 or 5 (Sell-rated) going into earnings announcement, especially when the company is witnessing negative estimate revisions.



Stocks to Consider



Here are some stocks worth considering from the same space, with the right combination of elements to outpace earnings estimates this time around:



Lear Corp. LEA has an Earnings ESP of +0.43% and a Zacks Rank #2. The company will report fourth-quarter 2018 financial figures on Jan 25.



You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



Wabco Holdings Inc. WBC has an Earnings ESP of +1.30% and a Zacks Rank #3. The companys fourth-quarter 2018 financial results are expected to release on Feb 15.



LKQ Corp. LKQ has an Earnings ESP of +0.11% and a Zacks Rank of 3. The company is expected to release its fourth-quarter 2018 financial results on Feb 28.



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Fiserv, Inc. FISV is acquiring First Data Corporation FDC in a $22-billion all-stock deal.

The deal is at a premium of 29% over First Data's closing price on Tuesday. It is expected to close during the second half of 2019. Fiserv shareholders will own 57.5% of the combined company and First Data shareholders will own the rest.

First Data's shares closed 21.1% higher at $21.24 on Wednesday, while Fiserv's fell 3.3 percent.

List of Benefits to Fiserv

This is one of the biggest financial mergers in a decade and will help Fiserv emerge as one of the worlds largest payments and financial technology providers.

Fiserv will link its merchant and cash management capabilities with that of First data to expand offerings and provide First Datas Clover cloud-based platforms for small and medium-sized businesses. The company will be able to develop a differentiated, end-to-end payments platform and offer additional payment methods.

Fiserv, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Fiserv, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Fiserv, Inc. Quote

Fiserv and First Data are targeting the development of complementary technology capabilities and solutions to enhance client value as well as increase market differentiation. The combined company plans a $500-million incremental investment to enhance solutions over five years.

Also, the acquisition seems to be part of Fiservs increased push to fend off growing competition from the likes of Fidelity National Information Services FIS Square SQ and Adyen NV.

The transaction is anticipated to be accretive to Fiserv's adjusted EPS by more than 20% in the first full year following the close and generate free cash flow of more than $4 billion in the third year following the close.

It is expected to generate at least $500 million of revenue synergies and $900 million of run-rate cost synergy savings over five years.

Relief for First Data CEO

The deal should provide respite to First Data CEO Frank Bisignano, who has been struggling to turn the company round. First Data was grappling with a debt from a $29-billion leveraged buyout led by private equity firm KKR & Co Inc in 2007.

Story continues

Fiserv had secured debt to refinance First Data's existing $17-billion debt and expects to return to its historical leverage levels within two years after the deal closes.

Bisignano will become President and COO and join the board of directors of the combined company.

Fiserv carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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The First Trust STOXX European Select Dividend Index Fund (FDD) was launched on 08/27/2007, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund designed to offer broad exposure to the European Equity ETFs category of the market.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

Products that are based on market cap weighted indexes, which are strategies designed to reflect a specific market segment or the market as a whole, have traditionally dominated the ETF industry.

Investors who believe in market efficiency should consider market cap indexes, as they replicate market returns in a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way.

However, some investors believe in the possibility of beating the market through exceptional stock selection, and choose a different type of fund that tracks non-cap weighted strategies: smart beta.

This kind of index follows this same mindset, as it attempts to pick stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance; non-cap weighted strategies base selection on certain fundamental characteristics, or a mix of such characteristics.

This area offers many different investment choices, such as simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies; however, not all of these strategies can deliver superior results.

Fund Sponsor & Index

The fund is managed by First Trust Advisors, and has been able to amass over $358.32 M, which makes it one of the larger ETFs in the European Equity ETFs. FDD, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the STOXX Europe Select Dividend 30 Index.

The STOXX Europe Select Dividend 30 Index consists of 30 high dividend-yielding securities selected from the STOXX Europe 600 Index.

Cost & Other Expenses

Cost is an important factor in selecting the right ETF, and cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins if all other fundamentals are the same.

Operating expenses on an annual basis are 0.60% for FDD, making it one of the more expensive products in the space.

Story continues

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 4.85%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

It is important to delve into an ETF's holdings before investing despite the many upsides to these kinds of funds like diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

When you look at individual holdings, Glaxosmithkline Plc (GSK.LN) accounts for about 5.75% of the fund's total assets, followed by Sse Plc (SSE.LN) and United Utilities Group Plc (UU/.LN).

Its top 10 holdings account for approximately 45.76% of FDD's total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

The ETF has added roughly 4.02% and is down about -9.69% so far this year and in the past one year (as of 01/18/2019), respectively. FDD has traded between $11.69 and $14.77 during this last 52-week period.

FDD has a beta of 0.72 and standard deviation of 14.49% for the trailing three-year period, which makes the fund a medium risk choice in the space. With about 31 holdings, it has more concentrated exposure than peers.

Alternatives

First Trust STOXX European Select Dividend Index Fund is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the European Equity ETFs segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider.

IShares MSCI Eurozone ETF (EZU) tracks MSCI EMU Index and the Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (VGK) tracks FTSE Developed Europe All Cap Index. IShares MSCI Eurozone ETF has $6.40 B in assets, Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF has $13.34 B. EZU has an expense ratio of 0.49% and VGK charges 0.10%.

Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the European Equity ETFs.

Bottom Line

To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.



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Zacks Investment Research
Yesterdays PR crisis overdrive from Goldman Sachs, complete with a groveling apology from CEO (DJ!) David Solomon and ad hominem accusations lauded at their disgraced former Asia bigwig, Tim Leissner, may be well and dandy, but according to Malaysian Finance Minister, Lim Guan Eng, a sorry will not do. Not when a missing US$7.5billion (RM30.8billion) from 1MDB accounts are at stake.

If Goldman wants Malaysia to drop their charges, the global bankers must put their money where their mouth is: RM7.5bilwe can discuss lah, said the loose-lipped minister.

Just what this means to the banking powerhouse is evident in the both the magnitude and intensity of culpability on the shoulders of Mr Leissner: Goldman is very worried they will be footing the bill for his criminal indiscretions.

On Wednesday, Solomon faced industry analysts, addressing the 1MDB-shaped elephant in the room:

For Leissners role in that fraud, we apologize to the Malaysian people, the CEO said. As you would expect, we have looked back and continue to look back to see if there is anything that we as a firm could have done better.

A half-hearted apology wrought over by legal experts, phrased so as to limit as much blame as possible, but to paraphrase a detailed New York Times report on the matter  make no mistake  Goldman are shaking in their hand-stitched calf leather, wingtip shoes. So much so that they have set aside a whopping US$516 million in potential legal fees and regulator penalties; which sounds like a lot until you remember they profited US$600 million from the sale of 1MDB bonds, and that at the very least  the bank is being investigated for being on the hook for a missing cool US$2.7 billion.

Smearing their former partner, a man who for years exercised his want and will throughout Asia, seems to be the banks Hail Mary pass as their fate of fault looms in the near future. A PowerPoint slide show shared among senior partners lauds serious  and as of yet, unproven  accusations: Leissner was a serial womanizer, one who was married to more than one person at a given time, and also (randomly), a guy who converted to Islam not once, but twice, just so he could woo wealthy Muslim ladies that he encountered along the way.

Story continues

Leissner has plead guilty to charges in a United States court, and is set to be sentenced in June  one cant help but wonder if the bank is working overtime to drag an already tarnished Leissner so that any cooperation with authorities on uncovering the more unseemly side of Goldmans global deal-making would be compromised by his general integrity.

Not a bad game plan, guys  but youre forgetting one thing  Lim Guan Eng doesnt really care WHO took the money, hes most concerned with getting it back. Sorry, but it was his fault, wont cut it.

That apology  is, of course, insufficient. Necessary but not sufficient, Lim said, adding that only when reparations and compensations were paid would the situation be sufficiently remedied.

This article, Finance Minister informs Goldman Sachs sorry wont make up for lost billions, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters!
David Axe

Security,

The Trump administration wants the U.S. military to develop new lasers, drones and missiles in order to destroy enemy missiles in the first few minutes after the missiles launch toward their target. That might not be so easy.

F-35s, Lasers, Drones and More: The U.S. Militarys Missile-Defense Plan Wont Work

The Trump administration wants the U.S. military to develop new lasers, drones and missiles in order to destroy enemy missiles in the first few minutes after the missiles launch toward their target.

In theory, a missile is most vulnerable when it's slowest. But this "boost-phase" approach to missile defense is risky for defending forces, experts explained. For this reason, an earlier U.S. effort to develop a boost-phase missile defense ended in failure.

Pres. Donald Trump announced his administration's Missile Defense Review on Jan. 17, 2019 in a rambling, political speech at the Pentagon. Trump vowed to build what he characterized as an impenetrable missile shield.

"Our goal is simple," Trump said. "To ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, any time and any place."

That includes hitting rockets during the boost phase. "Intercepting offensive missiles in their boost-phase would increase the likelihood of successfully countering missile threats, complicate an aggressors attack calculus by reducing its confidence in its missile attack planning," the 2019 review states.

To that end, Trump's review -- the first such review since 2010 -- revives boost-phase defense schemes that were popular during the administration of Pres. Bill Clinton and Pres. George W. Bush but fell out of favor during the more pragmatic administration of Pres. Barack Obama.

Clinton and Bush spent billions of dollars developing the YAL-1, a 747 carrying a volatile chemical laser. The idea was for the YAL-1 to patrol near an enemy's rocket launch pads and zap the rockets shortly after launch.

Story continues

But the YAL-1 itself was a big, vulnerable target. Robert Gates, secretary of defense under Obama, canceled the YAL-1 in 2009. "There's nobody in uniform that I know who believes that this is a workable concept," Gates said.

There has been talk in recent years of equipping a drone with laser to perform the same mission. Trump's missile-defense review makes official that concept.

"Developing scalable, efficient and compact high energy laser technology holds the potential to provide a future cost-effective capability to destroy boosting missiles in the early part of the trajectory," according to the review.

"Doing so would leverage earlier technological advances, including for example advances in beam propagation and beam control. [The Defense Department] is developing a Low-Power Laser Demonstrator to evaluate the technologies necessary for mounting a laser on an unmanned airborne platform to track and destroy missiles in their boost-phase."

The review also recommends modifying F-35 stealth fighters for the boost-phase mission, under the assumption that a radar-evading aircraft could fly inside of enemy air defenses in order to patrol in close proximity to rocket launch sites.

The F-35 "can track and destroy adversary cruise missiles today, and, in the future, can be equipped with a new or modified interceptor capable of shooting down adversary ballistic missiles in their boost phase."

"There exists much hype around the concept of boost-phase interceptshooting down an adversary missile immediately after launchbecause of the missiles relatively slower velocity and lack of deployable countermeasures at that early stage of the flight.

But even a laser-packing drone or missile-killing F-35 wouldn't be able to patrol around the clock. "An attempt at boost-phase intercept would essentially require advance notice of a missile launch in order to position U.S. interceptors within striking distance," missile experts Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda wrote for the Federation of American Scientists.

Trump's review anticipates this problem and recommends the Pentagon develop new space-based sensors to provide advance notice of potential rocket launches. "Space-basing for sensors provides significant advantages," according to the review. "Such sensors take advantage of the large area viewable from space for improved tracking and potentially targeting of advanced threats."

But these sensors would be "easily overwhelmed, easily attacked and enormously expensive," warned Laura Grego, a missile expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The United States could place the entire boost-phase defense system in space, obviating the need for around-the-clock air patrol. The Defense Department "will identify the most promising technologies and estimated schedule, cost and personnel requirements for a possible space-based defensive layer that achieves an early operational capability for boost-phase defense," the review states.

But even orbital defenses must be close to their targets. Space-based boost-phase intercept "would require U.S. interceptors to be placed in very close proximity to the targetalmost certainly revealing itself to an adversarys radar network," Kristensen and Korda noted.

"The interceptor itself would also have to be fast enough to chase down an accelerating missile, which is technologically improbable, even years down the line."

"Boost-phase missile defensewhether kinetic or directed energy, and whether based on land, sea, air, or in spaceis not practical or feasible," a 2012 National Academy of Sciences study concluded.

"Overall, the Trump administrations Missile Defense Review offers up a gamut of expensive, ineffective and destabilizing solutions to problems that missile defense simply cannot solve," Kristensen and Korda wrote.

David Axe serves as the new Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad.

Read full article
Washington (AFP) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office took the rare step Friday of disputing a news report on his Russia investigation, saying a BuzzFeed article alleging that US President Donald Trump directed his former lawyer to lie to Congress is "not accurate."

Trump's lieutenants had already strongly pushed back against the report, which said that the president ordered Michael Cohen to lie about a Russian skyscraper project they pursued during the 2016 election.

"BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate," spokesman Peter Carr said in a statement.

Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 vote and possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Moscow is the subject of frequent articles and even more frequent speculation.

But it is extremely rare -- if not unprecedented -- for Mueller's office to issue such a statement.

BuzzFeed's editor-in chief however said the news organization stood by its work.

"We stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, and we urge the Special Counsel to make clear what he's disputing," Ben Smith tweeted.

The statement was nevertheless a cause for celebration for the president, who retweeted numerous supporters slamming BuzzFeed and later wrote it was "A very sad day for journalism, but a great day for our Country!"

"Fake News is truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" he added, a now familiar refrain when talking about critical media.

Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani had earlier called the allegation in the BuzzFeed report "categorically false" in a comment sent to several White House reporters, while Deputy White House Spokesman Hogan Gidley labeled the report "ridiculous." He said Cohen is someone "who now quite frankly has been proven to be a liar."

Story continues

Democrats in Congress had pledged to investigate the report to see if the president had committed an impeachable felony.

"These allegations may prove unfounded, but, if true, they would constitute both the subornation of perjury as well as obstruction of justice," said Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

BuzzFeed reported late Thursday that Cohen, who worked for Trump for more than a decade, has told investigators that the president personally instructed him to lie about the Moscow Trump Tower plan in testimony in 2017 to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

The BuzzFeed article was based on interviews with two anonymous "federal law enforcement officials" who are familiar with Cohen's testimony to the investigation led by Mueller.

"Any suggestion -- from any source -- that the president counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false. Michael Cohen is a convicted criminal and a liar," Giuliani said in a statement quoted by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.

"Lying to reduce his jail time!" Trump said on Twitter of Cohen, who was convicted last year of fraud and perjury.

- A plea deal -

No other media have confirmed BuzzFeed's reporting.

It came two months after Cohen pleaded guilty in a New York court to making "false, fictitious and fraudulent" written testimony to the House and Senate intelligence committees in August 2017 in connection with the Moscow project.

A statement of the facts in his November 29 plea deal with Mueller's prosecutors suggested that his testimony had been prepared in consultation with unnamed people in the White House.

Cohen had told the two committees that the Moscow project talks ended in January 2016, when in fact, as he later admitted, they went on at least six months longer, to June 2016 when Trump had already secured the Republican nomination for president.

Cohen had also testified that others in the campaign, including Trump, were not informed about the project.

But in the November plea deal, Cohen also admitted the project had been discussed with Trump -- designated "Individual 1" in court documents -- several times in early 2016.

"Cohen made the false statements to minimize links between the Moscow project and Individual 1... in hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia investigations," prosecutors wrote.

- Trump's right-hand man -

Cohen was the president's right-hand man for years at the Trump Organization, the umbrella company, often relied upon to quietly fix difficult problems and negotiate deals for the real estate mogul.

But he turned on his former boss after he was charged with giving hush money to women alleging affairs with Trump ahead of the 2016 election -- payments that violated campaign finance laws.

Cohen, who has been sentenced to three years in jail, said Trump ordered him to make the payments, and now says he regrets his work for the president.

While Democrats could not confirm the BuzzFeed report, they said they were poised to further probe the allegations.

"Our committee is already working to secure additional witness testimony and documents related to the Trump Tower Moscow deal and other investigative matters," said Intelligence Committee chairman Schiff.
By Michael Martina and Chris Prentice

BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is pushing for regular reviews of China's progress on pledged trade reforms as a condition for a trade deal - and could again resort to tariffs if it deems Beijing has violated the agreement, according to sources briefed on negotiations to end the trade war between the two nations.

A continuing threat of tariffs hanging over commerce between the world's two largest economies would mean a deal would not end the risk of investing in businesses or assets that have been impacted by the trade war.

"The threat of tariffs is not going away, even if there is a deal," said one of three sources briefed on the talks who spoke with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Chinese negotiators were not keen on the idea of regular compliance checks, the source said, but the U.S. proposal "didn't derail negotiations."

A Chinese source said the United States wants periodic assessments but it's not yet clear how often.

It looks like humiliation," the source said. "But perhaps the two sides could find a way to save face for the Chinese government."

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed import tariffs on Chinese goods to put pressure on Beijing to meet a long list of demands that would rewrite the terms of trade between the two countries.

The demands include changes to China's policies on intellectual property protection, technology transfers, industrial subsidies and other trade barriers.

An enforcement and verification process is unusual for trade deals and is akin to the process around punitive economic sanctions such as those imposed on North Korea and Iran.

Disputes over trade are more typically dealt with through courts, the World Trade Organization (WTO) or through arbitration panels and other dispute settlement mechanisms built into trade agreements.

Trump's team has criticized the WTO for failing to hold China accountable for not executing on promised market reforms. The U.S. has also criticized the WTO's dispute settlement process and is seeking reforms at the organization.

Story continues

Regular reviews would be one potential solution to address a demand from U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer for ongoing verification of any trade pact between the two countries, three sources familiar with the talks told Reuters. The threat of tariffs would be used to keep reform on track, the sources said.

Lighthizer is leading negotiations with China. A USTR spokesman declined to comment on the possibility of regular assessments.

The idea of quarterly reviews of quarterly reviews was part of a U.S. negotiating document leaked after talks in May 2018, before the United States had slapped its first round of duties on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods.

The renewed focus on regular reviews in current negotiations - this time carrying the threat of tariffs - underscores the growing distrust between the two countries.

The extra scrutiny is needed and should be based on clear benchmarks - with consequence for failing to meet them, said Erin Ennis, Senior Vice President of the U.S.-China Business Council, a trade group representing American companies doing business in China.

It needs to be tied to removing or reducing the tariffs," Ennis said. "If China can show compliance through a process like this, it would also be a trust-building measure for both sides.

BROKEN PROMISES

Trump's administration has accused China of repeatedly failing to follow through on previous pledges to implement reforms sought by the United States.

Washington often cites as an example the difficulties still faced by foreign payment card operators in entering China's market despite a 2012 WTO ruling that Beijing was discriminating against them.

A separate industry source said it is likely that different agreement on separate issues - forced technology transfer, intellectual property, changes to China's legal system - would require separate verification processes, all of which will need to be hammered out by negotiators.

"The challenge of verification and enforcement stems from the fact that China has made promises it hasn't kept," the source said.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a 90-day truce in the trade war in December to give their teams time to negotiate a deal. Nearly 50 days later, there is little sign that China will make the concessions the U.S. is seeking.

Lighthizer saw no progress on structural issues at three days of mid-level talks in Beijing last week, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said on Tuesday.

China's Vice Premier and lead negotiator Liu He is due to visit Washington for the next round of talks with Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the end of the month.

(Reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing and Chris Prentice in Washington; Additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Simon Webb and Brian Thevenot)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, said on Thursday he paid a firm to manipulate online polling data "at the direction of and for the sole benefit of" Trump.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Cohen had paid the data firm RedFinch Solutions to manipulate two public opinion polls in favor of Trump before the 2016 presidential campaign.

"As for the @WSJ article on poll rigging," Cohen wrote on Twitter on Thursday, "what I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of @realDonaldTrump @POTUS. I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn't deserve it."

The attempts to influence the polls ultimately proved largely unsuccessful but shed a light on the tactics of the Trump campaign and Cohen's role within it. On the campaign trail, Trump frequently referred to his polling numbers to help fuel his candidacy.

Cohen was sentenced last month to three years in prison for his role in making illegal hush-money payments to women to help Trump's campaign and for lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Russia.

Cohen has said Trump had directed him to commit the campaign-finance violations, which Trump has denied.

The Journal said Cohen commissioned John Gauger, who runs RedFinch Solutions, to write a computer script to repeatedly vote for Trump in a February 2015 Drudge Report poll on potential Republican candidates. The move came as Trump was preparing to enter the 2016 presidential election race, the newspaper reported.

Trump ranked fifth in the Drudge Report poll, with about 24,000 votes, or 5 percent of the total, according to the Journal.

Cohen also commissioned Gauger to do the same for a 2014 CNBC online poll identifying the country's top business leaders, although Trump was unable to break into the top 100 candidates, the Journal reported.

"The president has no knowledge of the polls being rigged," Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in an interview with Reuters.

Story continues

Trump tweeted about a CNBC poll on business leaders in 2014, calling it "a joke" and suggested he was removed from the list because of "politics."

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the details of the newspaper report. Cohen did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and neither did representatives for RedFinch Solutions and the Trump Organization. Charles James, a lawyer for Gauger, declined to comment.

Gauger said Cohen paid him in cash out of a blue Walmart bag, although not for the total amount he was owed. Cohen also promised Gauger work on the Trump campaign that never materialized, according to the Journal.

Cohen worked for Trump for many years as his self-proclaimed fixer, and once said he would take a bullet for Trump.

But the relationship has since publicly soured. Trump has called Cohen a "rat," while Cohen has cooperated with U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of links between the Trump campaign and Russia during the campaign. Both Trump and Moscow have denied any wrongdoing.

Cohen has also agreed to testify publicly in front of the House of Representatives' Oversight Committee in a hearing scheduled to take place next month.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Tim Ahmann; Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld and Nathan Layne; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Jonathan Oatis)
Nicole ODonnell has experienced two opioid overdoses. She has never forgotten the way she was treated at the hospital emergency room.

They were awful," the Philadelphia area woman says. "They were mean, just very cold.

Once she was stable, she says, I was just told to leave. I didnt even have a ride.

More than a decade later, ODonnell, 39, is making sure others have a different experience  and that at least one hospital systems emergency department is a possible gateway to recovery.

ODonnell is a certified recovery specialist serving three Philadelphia hospitals run by the University of Pennsylvania.

Her job: To counsel people dealing with the same struggles she has faced with opioid addiction and recovery.

While she talks to patients in many settings, she says, some of her most important work happens in the emergency department.

As part of a program that began with a state grant in 2018 and will expand with federal funds this year, ODonnell is on call to respond any time emergency staffers treat a patient for an opioid overdose.

Shes also called when patients show up with illnesses or injuries related to opioid misuse.

Her mission: to let people in crisis know that treatment and other help is available  and that someone cares.

I just introduce myself and explain that I understand why they are there and that Ive been there myself, O'Donnell says. I just want to get the conversation started about how I can help them not die.

ODonnell, who is training to be a psychologist, is backed by a medical staff ready to offer an immediate dose of buprenorphine. Thats a medication that can prevent withdrawal symptoms and cravings and, when used for a longer time, can help people recover from an opioid use disorder.

More: Hope in the opioid crisis? Overdose deaths appear to be leveling off as states intensify efforts to save lives

In years past, emergency physicians rarely offered the drug, or other nudges toward treatment. But we have really pivoted 180 degrees, says Jeanmarie Perrone, a professor of emergency medicine based at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Story continues

Perrone led a committee that recently updated opioid guidelines for emergency departments statewide.

The new philosophy, she says, is that treatment is our business.

Starting this year, hospitals that establish practices that guide addicted patients toward treatment will get cash incentives from the state.

The guidelines encourage emergency staffs to offer initial doses of buprenorphine. Providers also are urged to arrange warm hand-offs for patients ready to enter treatment.

In practice, that can mean having someone like ODonnell available to talk with patients and, if desired, accompany them to treatment center doors.

A second counselor joined O'Donnell on the job this month, with the goal of providing round-the-clock coverage.

Still, Perrone says, not everyone who is post overdose is ready for treatment. Those who decline it are given supplies of the overdose antidote naloxone and encouraged to keep in touch.

We say, You arent thinking about treatment today, but we want you to know that when you are ready, we are here,'" Perrone says. "'When you are ready, please, please come back and bring your friends.'

Success is when the people stay engaged no matter what," O'Donnell says. "A lot of them do in stay in contact with me.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Emergency rooms open new paths for opioid overdose survivors
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On todays episode of the Zacks Friday Finish Line, Associate Stock Strategist Ryan McQueeney and Editor Maddy Johnson discuss earnings results from Netflix and the big U.S. banks. The hosts also remember the legacy of Jack Bogle and chat about several new cannabis industry deals.

Make sure to subscribe and leave the show a rating on Apple Podcasts!

Before taking on this weeks earnings results and industry news, Maddy and Ryan pay tribute to the legacy of Jack Bogle. The legendary investor, who is credited with inventing index funds, passed away this week at the age of 89. Bogle will be remembered as a champion of the individual investor thanks to his accomplishments in creating low-cost funds focused on tracking broad markets.

Next, the hosts recap a busy week for the domestic banking industry. Solid results from most of the bank bellwethers helped lift stocks highereven if some results were not quite what investors had hoped.

For instance, JPMorgan JPM missed EPS estimates for the first time in 15 quarters. Wells Fargos WFC Fed-mandated cap on growth was extended beyond managements expectations. Morgan Stanleys MS wealth management division was strangely sluggish in the period.

Nevertheless, these companiesand peers such as Bank of America BAC, Citigroup C, and Goldman Sachs GScooled fears that Q4 volatility would be devastating to banks and proved that the business is still relatively healthy heading into a New Year.

Netflix also joined the fray of companies reporting earnings this week, posting mixed results on Thursday afternoon. The video streaming company added more global paid members than analysts expected, but it missed revenue estimates and guided for negative free cash flow to continue throughout 2019.

Maddy and Ryan spend time recapping all of these earnings results on todays show. Make sure to check out the episode for all the key figures as well as the Finish Line teams take on the news.

Story continues

Later, Maddy and Ryan discuss the cannabis industry, which has quickly entered deal-making mode on the back of hemp legalization in the United States.

Canopy Growth CGC announced Monday that it received a license to produce hemp in New York and would be setting up a facility there, Tilray TLRY said that it will team with Authentic Brands to create CBD-based products, and New Age Beverages NBEV partnered with Docklight to distribute Marley-brand CBD drinksall in this week alone.

Why are these deals coming so fast? Which partnership seems to make the most sense? Will larger companies look to outright purchase any of these cannabis upstarts soon? Ryan and Maddy share their answers to these questions, and more, only on todays Friday Finish Line!

If you feel that we missed something, or if you want us to cover a different story, shoot us an email at podcast@zacks.com. Make sure to check out all of our other audio content at zacks.com/podcasts, and remember to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts.

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Shares of Tesla (TSLA) fell 10 percent on Friday after the company announced layoffs, but the electric-car maker is still in the lead position on a technology that is taking over the world, said an early Tesla board member.

Tesla's Friday announcement that it will cut 7 percent of its workforce is a sign CEO Elon Musk is taking steps to "right-size" the company and prepare it for the future, said former Tesla board member Steve Westly.

" He is moving faster than anybody else, going global faster than anybody else, and today, Tesla is essentially the iPhone of the electric-car market," said Westly, a California politician and venture capitalist who was an early investor in the company.

While other premium automakers have now jumped into the electric-car market, they were caught "with their shorts down when the tide went out," and Tesla now has a large lead in that market, Westly said. The company also posted a surprise profit in the third quarter, and Musk has said he expects Tesla to be cash-flow positive and profitable going forward.

"They've won the North American premium market race," he said. "The challenge now is to win the mass market, to go international. I think he is preparing the company to do that. I wouldn't bet against him."

However, not everyone agrees with Westly's assessment.

Tesla's fourth-quarter update indicated that more than 75 percent of new Model 3 orders came from new customers rather than the existing reservations list. Almost all of those new orders were for mid- and high-price variants of the sedan, said Rajvindra Gill, an analyst for Needham.

Gill estimates that about 90 percent of the 420,000 reservations on that list built up the last couple of years are customers who wanted the still-unreleased standard battery version of the vehicle, which is $35,000.

The issue is that as the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles continues to wind down, Tesla could start to see customers cancel reservations in the first and second quarter if the company cannot make the planned $35,000 base model quickly enough.

The other issue is that Tesla's profitable quarter depended in part on selling the more expensive versions of the Model 3, which should make up a smaller piece of the total if Tesla begins producing the cheaper version.

"So I think there's a lot of risk to the name given the level of valuation we see in this name, given the level of debt the company has, and given the level of competition that will be entering the market this year and next year," Gill said.
Eamonn Holmes with wife Ruth Langsford. (PA Images)

This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes has said he has been left feeling vulnerable and suspicious of everyone after being swindled out of 60,000.

The Irish presenter says he was scammed out of the hefty sum back in 2014 by a conman. He revealed to The Sun that an online scammer had hacked into his bank account and gone on a lavish spending spree.

The effect it has on you is that it makes you suspicious of everyone and everything and you feel very, very vulnerable.

We were in Dubai at a Bedouin experience. And the guy said to me, I cant get a signal on the machine, I have to go to the top of that sand dune to get a signal. And I thought, Thats where it happened. But it didnt happen there, Holmes told the paper.

He said that the fraudster had purchased a 25,000 fireplace as well as posed as Holmes on several international holidays.

Holmes pictured at the TRIC awards in 2018 (PA Images).

The scammer, revealed to be Jay Cartmill, also targeted Stephen Nolan, and was arrested but did not serve any jail time for his offences. He was instead given a two-year suspended sentence.

It was the most ridiculous situation but the scandalous thing is that when it went to court the judge said it was a victimless crime because they will say the bank will reimburse me and I could afford it, Holmes explained.

In a bid to prevent other people from being similarly targeted, Holmes alongside his presenter wife Ruth Langsford explore various scams on their channel 5 show Do the Right Thing with Eamonn and Ruth.

The couple have also returned to regularly presenting This Morning each Sunday. The new addition will provide a round-up of the best segments from the week prior.





Read more

Gemma Collins reveals DOI health woes

Victoria Beckham films YouTube series

Ant McPartlin returns to BGT filming
This doughnut shop just got a lot sweeter.

A Dunkin Donuts workers joyous dance with a customer who has autism will give you the feels by the dozen.

Donald Simon, who is nonverbal, was visiting a Dunkin in Staten Island, New York, with his aid when he was approached by employee Bryan Lara, People reports. Told that Simon could not speak, Lara engaged him by dancing to Lady Gagas Paparazzi.

The viral video shows a smiling Simon rocking out with Lara and exchanging high-fives.

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Most people would not pay attention to Donald as soon as they realize he is unable to communicate, but Bryan figured out a way to communicate without words and it is very touching to me that he made my son so happy, Simons mother, Donna Maxon, said to People.

Lara told Yahoo Lifestyle: I am always dancing, and when I saw Donald smile, it was a great feeling. I love my customers.

On Thursday Maxon posted a photo of the two with the caption, Thumbs up for human kindness.

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The index enjoyed another strong week of gains, increasing over three straight sessions. Chinas government provided assurances that it would take necessary steps to boost its economy, allaying fears of a global slowdown.

Strong earnings from The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS boosted the index on Wednesday. Further, reports revealed that the Trump administration is considering reducing tariff on China, leading to fresh optimism among investors.

Last Weeks Performance

The index declined 0.02% on last Friday to end the session in negative territory. Shares of Caterpillar Inc. CAT dipped 0.7% after Goldman Sachs reduced earnings forecast for the company for the period between 2018 and 2020. This decline led the broader industrial sector lower. Another Dow component, 3M Company MMM declined 0.7% and weighed on the index.

The index increased 2.4% last week. Such gains were made possible by progress in trade talks between the United States and China. The bull run for U.S. stocks continued for the fifth straight day on Thursday buoyed by Fed Chairman Jerome Powells statement that the central bank will be patient when considering rate hikes. Meanwhile, the partial government shutdown remained a concern.

The Dow This Week

The index declined 0.4% on Monday as corporate earnings kicked off. Losses were broad based and the result of weak Chinese trade data. Further, Chinas trade surplus with the United States hit record levels.

Such events led to investors rotating out of stocks. Tech and utilities shares declined steeply and weighed on the broader markets. Shares of Apple Inc. AAPL and Merck & Co., Inc. MRK slid 1.5% and 2%, respectively, and weighed on the Dow.

The index increased 0.7% on Tuesday after news of Netflix, Inc.s NFLX price hike fueled gains for the broader markets. Meanwhile, Chinas ministry of finance pledged to bring the countrys economy back on track through judicious policymaking.

Story continues

Such comments outweighed fears related to a possible slowdown in Chinas economy and boosted market sentiment. Gains for the 30-stock index were buoyed by an increase in shares of Microsoft Corporation MSFT and UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH, which gained 2.9% and 3.6%, respectively.

The index increased 0.7%, or 141.6 points, on Wednesday after Goldman Sachs posted its best day since 2009, with its shares rising 9.5%. The investment bank reported blowout earnings in Q4 2018, extending its streak of quarterly earnings beat to seven straight quarters.

The index gained 0.7% on Thursday, rising for the third straight day following an encouraging report from The Wall Street Journal. Per the report, the Trump administration is considering reducing tariffs on China in order to reassure investors and improve relations with Beijing.

The biggest gainers for the 30-stock index were The Boeing Company BA, Caterpillar and Apple, shares of which gained 2%, 2.2% and 0.6%, respectively. At its session high, the Dow rose more than 250 points.

Components Moving the Index

JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM posted fourth-quarter 2018 earnings of $1.98 per share, which lagged the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.20. This was primarily attributable to dismal fixed income trading and underwriting business performance. However, the figure surged 85% from the prior-year quarter. JPMorgan has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Net revenues as reported were $26.1 billion, up 7% from the year-ago quarter. Rising rates and loan growth were the main reasons for the improvement. The positives were partially offset by a decrease in net interest revenues and mortgage banking fees. However, the top line missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $26.7 billion. (Read: JPMorgan Q4 Earnings Lag on Trading, Underwriting Woes)

Goldman Sachs fourth-quarter 2018 results recorded a positive earnings surprise of 23.8%, reflecting the highest net revenues since 2010. The company reported earnings per share of $6.04, comfortably beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.88.

The bottom line also compares favorably with adjusted earnings of $5.68 per share recorded in the year-earlier quarter. For full-year 2018, net income per share of $25.27 came in higher than the year-ago earnings of $9.01. Earnings also surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $24.73.

For full-year 2018, the companys reported revenues of $36.6 billion were up 12% year over year. Moreover, revenues managed to beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $36 billion as well.

Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) Goldmans net revenues were down 1% year over year to $8.1 billion in the quarter under review. However, the revenue figure handily outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $7.9 billion. (Read: Goldman Q4 Earnings Beat Estimates, Expenses Flare Up)

UnitedHealth fourth-quarter 2018 earnings of $3.28 per share surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.5%. The same was up 27% year over year. Higher revenues, strength in both segments  UnitedHealthcare and Optum  plus membership growth led to this outperformance.

UnitedHealth posted revenues of $58.4 billion, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.9%. The same was up 12.2% year over year, led by strong revenue growth rates across both UnitedHealthcare and Optum segments.

UnitedHealth reaffirmed its 2019 adjusted earnings per share guidance of $14.4014.70 (or $13.7014.00 on a GAAP basis including intangible amortization), which was provided last month.

The company also expects revenues of $243245 billion and cash flow from operations of $17.37.8 billion for 2019. The stock has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

American Express Company AXP came out with quarterly earnings of $1.74 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.80. This compares to earnings of $1.58 per share a year ago. American Express has a Zacks Rank #3.

The company posted revenues of $10.47 billion for the quarter ended December 2018, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.04%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $8.84 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters. (Read: American Express Q4 Earnings and Revenues Miss Estimates)

Microsoft recently entered into an agreement with Walgreens Boots Alliance WBA, in a bid to offer innovative and cost-effective health care delivery solutions. The seven-year deal is likely to threaten the growing presence of Amazon AMZN, Alphabet GOOGL, among others in the health care space.

Microsoft-WBA partnership is aimed at providing personalized end-to-end health care management solutions from preventative self-care initiatives to chronic disease treatment.

Per the deal, Zacks Rank #3 Microsofts cloud platform Azure integrated with robust AI capabilities will be leveraged by WBA. The company will also utilize Microsoft 365. (Read: Microsoft, WBA Deal to Break AMZN, GOOGL Healthcare Dreams)

Pfizer, Inc. PFE announced that the FDA has granted priority review to a new drug application (NDA) looking for approval of tafamidis. The pipeline candidate has been developed to treat transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), a rare and fatal illness associated with progressive heart failure.

Zacks Rank #3 Pfizer filed two NDAs for tafamidis, one for the meglumine form (20 mg capsule) and the other for a free acid form (61 mg capsule). The priority review designation is for the meglumine form with the FDAs decision on this NDA expected in July this year. The FDA decision for the free acid form is expected in November with the filing being given a standard review period. (Read: Pfizer Gets FDA's Priority Review for Rare Disease Candidate)

Performance of the Top 10 Dow Companies

The table given below shows the price movement of the 10 largest components of the Dow, which is a price weighted index, over the last five days and during the last six months. Over the past five trading days, the Dow has gained 2.1%.

Next Weeks Outlook

Markets are enjoying an excellent run at the start of the year with multiple factors boosting stocks. Chinas government has pledged to boost its economy, boosting its investor sentiment.

Further, reports have emerged that the Trump administration is considering cutting China tariffs. If the current earnings season is a good one overall, stocks could be in for a great run this year.

Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside?

Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana.

Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.

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WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump moved Friday to further limit travel by Congress members during the partial government shutdown by barring them from using government planes without prior written approval.

The new policy, announced in a memo to department heads, was put in place one day after Trump canceled a military plane for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was planning to lead a congressional delegation to Afghanistan this weekend.

"Under no circumstances during a government shutdown will any government owned, rented, leased or chartered aircraft support any Congressional delegation, without the express written approval of the White House Chief of Staff," wrote Russell Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.

"Nor will any funds appropriated to the Executive Branch be used for any Congressional delegation travel expenses, without his express written approval, Voughts memo said.

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As the government shutdown entered Day 28 on Friday, Trump taunted Pelosi over postponing her trip to Afghanistan, while Pelosi's office said it canceled a backup plan because administration leaks put travelers at risk.

"Why would Nancy Pelosi leave the Country with other Democrats on a seven day excursion when 800,000 great people are not getting paid," Trump tweeted a day after canceling the military plane that was to have taken the speaker and other Democratic lawmakers to the war zone in Afghanistan.

Adding in a complaint about about immigration, Trump referred to Pelosi's home state of California by saying: "Could somebody please explain to Nancy & her 'big donors' in wine country that people working on farms (grapes) will have easy access in!"

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Pelosi's office, meanwhile, said it also had to cancel a commercial trip to Afghanistan because the Trump administration leaked details of it, undermining security for the lawmakers who planned to go.

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In light of the grave threats caused by the Presidents action, the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to further endanger our troops and security personnel, or the other travelers on the flights," said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.

Hammill also said: "The Congress has a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight in the war zone where our men and women in uniform are risking their lives every day."

President Donald Trump

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders disputed Pelosi's claim that the administration leaked news of the commercial flight, saying it is unbecoming of the speaker to make that type of accusation."

It is "outrageous that she would accuse the president of the United States of putting any life in jeopardy," Sanders said.

In any event, no meetings are scheduled between Trump and Pelosi to try to resolve the budget impasse at the heart of the shutdown.

While some Republicans have said they would consider a Democratic plan to reopen the government now while wall negotiations continue, Trump claimed the party is united behind his hard-line approach.

"Never seen the Republican Party so unified," Trump tweeted. "No 'Cave' on the issue of Border and National Security."

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Pelosi's office said her trip  which included a stop in Brussels for pilot rest and meetings with NATO leaders  was designed to get information on the U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan that Congress funds. Other lawmakers had been scheduled to join the speaker on the trip.

The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines, Hammill said.

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He also noted that Trump traveled last month to Iraq during the partial government shutdown, as did a Republican congressional delegation.

And just hours after Trump grounded Pelosi's plane, first lady Melania Trump boarded a military plane and flew to Florida for a vacation at Mar-a-Lago, the Trump family's estate.

The government shutdown  the longest in U.S. history  was triggered by Trumps demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Pelosi and other Democrats are refusing to give him the money, arguing that a wall would be costly and ineffective.

The move to void Pelosi's Afghanistan trip came a day after the new House speaker sent the president a letter suggesting his State of the Union address  scheduled for Jan. 29  be delayed or that he submit it in writing if parts of the government remain closed at the end of the month.

Trump has yet to respond about his State of the Union plans.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, criticized Trump for canceling Pelosi's plane, writing on Twitter that "one sophomoric response does not deserve another."

The White House also responded by saying Trump has canceled plans to send a presidential delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week out of concern for the 800,000 government employees who are furloughed or working without pay during the shutdown.

Trump already had decided against making the trip but had planned to send a team from his administration.

Meanwhile, Trump's re-election campaign is turning his spat with Pelosi into a fundraising pitch. In a letter to supporters on Friday, the campaign asks for donations of between $20.20 and $140 to send faux red bricks to Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York telling them to build the border wall.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Shutdown: Trump imposes new restrictions on congressional travel one day after grounding Pelosi's plane
Donald Trump latest approval rating and impeachment odds

The US Government shutdown - now the longest in history - is causing Donald Trump's presidential approval ratings to slide to their lowest level since April last year, according to the Telegraph's poll tracker.

The tracker, which takes an average of the last eight polls, put Mr Trump's approval rating at 41 per cent, while 56 per cent disapprove of the way the President is doing his job.

Despite the recent slide, the President's approval ratings have remained relatively stable during the past year.

The period since Donald Trump's election has been packed with controversy and intrigue but, underneath it all, few people seem to have really changed their minds about America's 45th President.

Video: Federal Workers Speak Out About Financial Toll of Shutdown

For more news videos visit Yahoo View.

His approval rating quickly slumped in the chaotic days after assuming office, with Trump achieving a majority disapproval rating in a record of just eight days. A year in, he is far less popular than previous presidents at this stage of a presidency - but overall approval has generally remained above 40 per cent.

At the 100-day milestone, Gallup daily polling showed that just 40 per cent of Americans approved of the way Trump is handling his new job  compared to 55 per cent that disapprove.

Historically, it has usually taken American presidents hundreds of days before they reach a majority disapproval rating.

This has been the case for the last five presidents  with Bill Clinton lasting a record 573 days before more than 50 per cent of Americans disapproved of his presidency.

But Donald Trump smashed this record after surging into the White House on a wave of anti-establishment anger.

It took just eight days for him to gain a majority disapproval rating, according to Gallup, with 51 per cent of Americans saying they disapproved of the President on January 28, 2016.

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Trump has faced persistent allegations over Russian connections, fired the head of the FBI, launched tirades against the media, failed to push through healthcare reform and has faced talk of impeachment.

However, while there has been an overall drop in public opinion, the President's approval ratings have remained relatively stable since July, even an uptick following his handling of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and Hurricane Irma.

Watch: How Donald Trump could be removed from office

What are the latest impeachment odds for Trump?

As it stands impeachment is still unlikely because it would require a majority in the House of Representatives to go to trial and a two-thirds majority in the Senate to make it happen.

Although the House is now under Democrat control, the Senate remains in Republican hands, meaning that Trump's party would have to abandon him for him to be kicked out of office.

However, the bookmakers aren't ruling out impeachment with the latest odds from Ladbrokes showing that there is a chance Trump will fail to make it to the end of his first term in office.

Their latest odds are as follows:

Impeachment by House of Reps this year: 7/4

To serve full first term: 2/5

The Telegraph's poll tracker takes an average of the last eight polls in order to take a full picture of the broad movements in the polling environment and not put too much weight on individual polls. Polls used are nationally representative with adequate sample sizes.
Apples AAPL struggle with falling iPhone demand and poor price performance has compelled it to diversify the services businesses at a fast pace, in a bid to ride out the alarming drop in Chinas iPhone sales.

Apple has been forming an array of partnerships with its competitors in its service businesses segment such as video streaming and making its services available on other platforms to generate revenue growth apart from its commission-driven services business operations.

This new approach to diversify the companys operations in order to eliminate risks indicates Apples changing mindset about expanding its reach beyond the iPhone.

Sluggish iPhone Sales Threaten Apple Revenues

Chinas weak economy has been instrumental in pulling back iPhone sales throughout last year, largely owing to the ongoing trade war with the United States. Declining popularity of iPhone among Chinese consumers, who feels that iPhone, seeks a higher price than its worth and now have homegrown brands such as Xiaomi and Huawei to choose from also played a part.

China is a competitive market for smartphones by virtue of its population and accounts for nearly a third of the iPhones total sales worldwide. Thus, the importance of an affirmative stand in the Chinese market cannot be understated for the iPhone maker.

Although iPhone was exempted from U.S.-China trade tariffs, poor pricing strategy and lack of innovation on its part has made Apple lag Samsung and Huawei in the global smartphone market.

Fourth-quarter iPhone shipments to China witnessed a 20% decline from the year-ago period as sales are expected to decline 4.8-5.5% in 2019 against decrease of 2.9-3.3% in 2018, reflecting iPhones poor demand in the Asian nation. This makes it prudent for Apple to dip its toes in other revenue-generating spaces rather than depend on iPhone sales alone.

Quality Services to Dominate New Partnerships

According to a Forbes report, services businesses have been Apples major growth driver, expanding about 20% over the past few years. Commissions from third parties, licensing, for app sales etc., generate about two-thirds of the services revenues.

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Apples first key partnership was with Amazon AMZN in November, when Apple Music was made available on Echo devices. This allowed users to control streaming using Alexa, a competitor to Apples Siri. A few months before this partnership, Apple had tried to take on Echo with its HomePod speaker, but failed to establish itself in a way it could compete with Alexa.

Earlier this month, Apple announced a partnership with one of its fiercest competitors Samsung SSNLF, which makes available iTunes movie and TV content on Samsung smart TVs. In addition, iPad and iPhone users can send content from their screens to Samsung smart TVs using AirPlay 2. Although the two companies have been rivals in the smartphone space for years, Apple receives many of its key components such as hardware for its gadgets.

Apple formed a partnership with Verizon VZ this week to offer free Apple Music with selected premium data plans of the latter. Apples willingness to make its content available on other platforms is indicative of its understanding of the vast consumer base that doesnt own an Apple device and thus isnt able to access Apple content.

Apple is also going to unveil a TV service toward the end of this year that offers both free and paid content.

Apples bid for diversification could ultimately provide a significant boost to the companys growth and revenues if it can generate quality content that can compete with industry rivals such as Netflix NFLX, Amazon and Hulu in the video streaming space.

Amazon carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Apple and Verizon carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside?

Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana.

Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.

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While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. By way of learning-by-doing, well look at ROE to gain a better understanding of TAJGVK Hotels & Resorts Limited (NSE:TAJGVK).

TAJGVK Hotels & Resorts has a ROE of 6.6%, based on the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this, is that for each 1 of shareholders equity it has, the company made 0.066 in profit.

Check out our latest analysis for TAJGVK Hotels & Resorts

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How Do I Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit  Shareholders Equity

Or for TAJGVK Hotels & Resorts:

6.6% = 242.094  3.7b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2018.)

Most know that net profit is the total earnings after all expenses, but the concept of shareholders equity is a little more complicated. It is all the money paid into the company from shareholders, plus any earnings retained. You can calculate shareholders equity by subtracting the companys total liabilities from its total assets.

What Does ROE Mean?

Return on Equity measures a companys profitability against the profit it has kept for the business (plus any capital injections). The return is the profit over the last twelve months. A higher profit will lead to a higher ROE. So, as a general rule, a high ROE is a good thing. That means ROE can be used to compare two businesses.

Does TAJGVK Hotels & Resorts Have A Good Return On Equity?

Arguably the easiest way to assess companys ROE is to compare it with the average in its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. The image below shows that TAJGVK Hotels & Resorts has an ROE that is roughly in line with the Hospitality industry average (7.0%).

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NSEI:TAJGVK Last Perf January 18th 19

That isnt amazing, but it is respectable. ROE tells us about the quality of the business, but it does not give us much of an idea if the share price is cheap. If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

How Does Debt Impact ROE?

Most companies need money  from somewhere  to grow their profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but wont affect the total equity. In this manner the use of debt will boost ROE, even though the core economics of the business stay the same.

Combining TAJGVK Hotels & Resortss Debt And Its 6.6% Return On Equity

Although TAJGVK Hotels & Resorts does use debt, its debt to equity ratio of 0.52 is still low. Its ROE is rather low, and it does use some debt, albeit not much. Thats not great to see. Careful use of debt to boost returns is often very good for shareholders. However, it could reduce the companys ability to take advantage of future opportunities.

The Bottom Line On ROE

Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. In my book the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. If two companies have the same ROE, then I would generally prefer the one with less debt.

But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. Profit growth rates, versus the expectations reflected in the price of the stock, are a particularly important to consider. So I think it may be worth checking this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

But note: TAJGVK Hotels & Resorts may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
A shark said to be 'Deep Blue', one of the largest recorded individuals, swims offshore Hawaii - REUTERS

It was the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance for a team of divers to photograph themselves alongside Deep Blue, the notorious great white shark.

But, in the words of one commentator, the resulting headline could easily have read: "stupid human dies chasing a 20ft shark".

The female, one of the largest sharks ever recorded, was photographed feasting on a dead sperm whale nine miles off the coast of Oahu, a Hawaiian island.

It is only the third ever sighting of Deep Blue, who was last spotted in Mexico in 2013, and is estimated to be around 20 ft long and weigh 2.5 tonnes.

The divers stumbled upon her while looking for tiger sharks in the area earlier this week and were quick to photograph themselves swimming alongside the great white.

The shark was last seen in 2013 off the coast of Mexico Credit: @JuanSharks/@OceanRamsey/Juan Oliphant/oneoceandiving.com via REUTERS

Deep Blue is estimated to be up to 50 years old and is something of a celebrity in the world of shark enthusiasts - she even has her own Twitter account and featured in an episode of Shark Week.

However, researchers warn that establishing the shark's exact size is difficult, and highlight the fact that three very large females have been spotted in the area over consecutive days.

Michael Domeier and Nicole Nasby-Lucas from the Marine Conservation Science Institute led the research project that first documented Deep Blue in 1999.

The pair told the Telegraph that unique pigment patterns confirmed that the shark photographed this week was Deep Blue.

Deep Blue is believed to be up to 50 years old

They added that Deep Blue, who may live until around the age of 70, is very likely pregnant at the moment and could give birth off the coast of Baja, Mexico or California in the spring.

Great whites are a rare sight in Hawaii but Ms Nasby-Lucas said the institute has tracked another large female, Murphy Jean, heading to the islands recently.

"This is a unique opportunity to see them feeding on a dead whale," she said, adding this appeared to be the "closest anyone has got to Deep Blue without a cage".

Story continues

However the research biologist warned of the dangers that touching sharks poses to divers. "The bigger females like that are obviously there to feed and some of the smaller sharks are a little more dangerous because they don't know who you are.

"But it's still dangerous and there are photos of them touching the shark, I don't approve of that. Obviously this isn't your amateur dive, but it's nothing I would recommend."

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One of the divers, Kimberly Jeffries, said she was working with scientists to get an accurate size measurement of Deep Blue based on her pictures.

"Yes absolutely there are risks involved in diving with any wild animals," she told The Telegraph. "In this particular situation I was with scientists and we went out anticipating large marine predators so we were properly prepared but it is not an activity that I would recommend for everyone.

"Im a professional diver and wildlife photographer with a lot of experience in the water with large apex predators, human and not. Sharks did not intentionally seek out humans for consumption but they are large powerful prayers and they should be afforded that respect."

Another one of the divers, Ocean Ramsey, told the Honolulu Star Advertiser: "She was just this big beautiful gentle giant wanting to use our boat as a scratching post. We went out at sunrise, and she stayed with us pretty much throughout the day."

Ms Ramsey cautioned against swimming anywhere where sharks were feeding but told the newspaper sharks would only attack humans if they were curious or if they mistook people for their normal prey.

The diver hit out at critics on Instagram, writing in a post: "I know some people criticise touch but what some dont realize is that sometimes sharks seek touch."

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She added: "Its not petting sharks or pushing them off to maintain a respectable space that is hurting sharks... its the wasteful and cruel practice of grabbing and catching sharks to cut off their fins".

Speaking to Mother Board, George Burgess, a former professor at the University of Florida, warned: Most of the time, that shark wont turn around and bite you.

But when it does, youll end up as a statistic on the International Shark Attack File, and the news headline wont be Stupid human dies chasing a 20 foot shark, it will be Shark kills human, and that activity is very bad for conservation efforts.
London (AFP) - Organisers of next week's annual Davos conclave put on a brave face Friday after US President Donald Trump withdrew his entire delegation, insisting the forum still had plenty of political and corporate firepower in its debating armoury.

Trump himself had already pulled out of attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) for a second year, having shut down the US government over his demands for Congress to fund a wall on the Mexican border.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US trade chiefs had been slated to attend the WEF instead, alongside other heavy hitters such as Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, as Beijing and Washington try to negotiate a truce to their trade war.

But the White House announced the cancellation of the delegation's trip to the Swiss Alps "out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay".

In Trump's absence, Brazil's new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, will grab the Davos limelight when he outlines his economic agenda in a keynote address during his first trip abroad since taking office earlier this month.

- 'Globalisation 4.0' -

The week of networking and socialising kicks off Monday and will feature an eclectic lineup of discussions devoted to issues such as mindful parenting in the digital age, chronic loneliness, and harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) without destroying jobs.

It is expected to draw some 3,000 political and business figures, including 65 government leaders from Germany, Israel, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. It begins with a report card on the world economy from the International Monetary Fund.

In a statement, the WEF said it understood the White House reasoning and stressed that other governments together representing one-quarter of global GDP would still be represented.

"With more than 800 participants from the US, including the leaders of top global companies across all sectors based in the US, we feel that the meeting is well placed to be a platform for relevant discussions on Globalisation 4.0," it said.

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That refers to WEF founder Klaus Schwab's belief that despite the upsurge of angry populism in many countries, a new era of globalisation driven by AI and other technological advances is upon us.

But Schwab, the forum's 80-year-old executive chairman, also said the elite gathering needs to reflect on the "losers" of globalisation and find ways to look after "those who have been left behind".

The "left behinds" figured heavily in the anti-establishment wave that in 2016 powered Britain's referendum decision to quit the European Union.

Brexit is meant to take effect on March 29. There will be a chill in Davos about the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal in place, after Prime Minister Theresa May's preferred divorce terms were roundly defeated in parliament.

May will be another Davos no-show as she tries to unpick the deadlock in London, but International Trade Secretary Liam Fox will make the trip to try to sell a post-Brexit future for Britain.

Another absentee is President Emmanuel Macron, who has been grappling with French-style populism in the form of the "yellow vest" movement.

"With Brexit, trade wars and populism -- politics is totally driving the (Davos) discussion this year when usually it's economics that drives the politics. Amazing times," a senior European diplomat told AFP.

- War on corruption -

In advance of the meetings, a WEF survey this week found the Davos community worried most about climate change among sources of political and economic anxiety.

The survey highlighted fears of extreme weather patterns and the risk of disruption in an array of sectors including transport and logistics. On cue, heavy snowfall and deadly avalanches have hit the Alps this week, cutting off the train line to Davos at one point.

But like Trump, Bolsonaro is a climate change sceptic. His pro-business agenda and appointment of a like-minded rightwinger as environment minister have done nothing to ease concerns about deforestation in the Amazon.

The new leader of Latin America's largest economy will speak in Davos on Tuesday. He has vowed to showcase "a different Brazil, free of ideological ties and widespread corruption".

Bolsonaro has also echoed Trump in bashing China, even as the world's second-biggest economy boosts Brazilian farm imports -- sourced in part from cleared Amazon lands -- as an alternative to US commodities in the midst of Trump's trade war.

"Bolsonaro's history doesn't suggest he's going to be a fervent adopter of the World Economic Forum's mantra of cross-border, stakeholder cooperation," Douglas Rediker, chairman of International Capital Strategies in Washington, said in a phone interview.

However, Bolsonaro will be accompanied by his US-educated economy minister, Paulo Guedes, who speaks the kind of investment-friendly language that is music to Davos ears.
MLK event speaker Ron Stallworth urges students to infiltrate hate

While he was the first African American detective working in the Colorado Springs Police Department in the late 1970s, Ron Stallworth conducted an undercover investigation where he infiltrated the local Ku Klux Klan chapter and eventually held phone conversations with KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.

Years after he retired, Stallworth wrote about his experiences. Now his memoir, Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime, is a Spike Lee film garnering critical acclaim this awards season. Stallworth, 65, told his story to a crowd of about 450 people on Wednesday in the Rion Ballroom of the Reitz Union.

The event, cosponsored by the Reitz Programming Board and the Black Graduate Student Organization, was one of several taking place this week in celebration of the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

During a moderated Q&A facilitated by English professor Mark Reid of the UF Center for African Studies, Stallworth discussed police brutality, white supremacy and his experiences with racism as the first African American police officer of the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Reid mentioned the similarities between David Duke and Richard Spencer, who both present themselves as well-mannered and intelligent. Stallworth said that in the 1970s, Duke was changing the face of the KKK to make the group more palatable.

A white supremacist is a white supremacist is a white supremacist, Stallworth said, I dont care what organization they represent, how they dress or what their profession might be.

Stallworth urged the audience to infiltrate hate and fight racism whenever they see it happening, even if it makes them unpopular. When you see wrongdoing going on, dont be afraid to stand up to it.

Stallworth said that the millennial generation is going to make a big difference in this world. You young people are going to change the world that my generation and the one before me messed up, he said, but you can only do that if you have a belief in something youre passionate about and that youre willing to take a stand for.

We chose Ron Stallworth because of his ground-breaking accomplishments during the Civil Rights movement, said Reitz Programming Board Talent Committee directors Alana Gomez and Brooke Faer. We thought he had a great story to tell in accordance with the Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations being hosted this week.

Junior graphic design major Briyana Butler skipped class to hear Stallworth speak.

After seeing the movie, I didnt even realize Ron Stallworth was a real person, but once I saw he was coming I was like Id love to hear him recount those experiences, Butler said, hes really badass.
Sir David Jason (Credit: UKTV)

Sir David Jason has called for the tower block immortalised in Only Fools and Horses to be made a listed building to save it from regeneration plans.

Though it was depicted as being in Peckham, Harlech Tower is actually in Acton, West London.

Plans emerged earlier this month to demolish the tower, as part of a 650 million regeneration of the area, which would see 3,500 homes built.

Speaking to The Sun, he said: Of course I think it should be a listed building. What a shame. But they are not going to listen to me are they?

(Credit: BBC)

It was a proper block of flats and it was of its time, which was fine and is probably why we used it. So that is why we used it. It was great.

Called Nelson Mandela House in the sitcom, on the fictional Nyrere Estate, Harlech Tower was used for exterior shots in the series from 1981.

From 1988 onwards, Whitemead House in Bristol was used.

One flat on the same estate sold for over 1 million in 2016, but in the 1990s, the area became so run down that it was used as a location for the movie Welcome To Sarajevo, set in war-torn Bosnia.

Read more

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Why Catherine Tate doesnt watch Doctor Who
If you own shares in A/S Latvijas Juras medicinas centrs (MUN:UOM) then its worth thinking about how it contributes to the volatility of your portfolio, overall. In finance, Beta is a measure of volatility. Volatility is considered to be a measure of risk in modern finance theory. Investors may think of volatility as falling into two main categories. The first type is company specific volatility. Investors use diversification across uncorrelated stocks to reduce this kind of price volatility across the portfolio. The second type is the broader market volatility, which you cannot diversify away, since it arises from macroeconomic factors which directly affects all the stocks on the market.

Some stocks see their prices move in concert with the market. Others tend towards stronger, gentler or unrelated price movements. Beta can be a useful tool to understand how much a stock is influenced by market risk (volatility). However, Warren Buffett said volatility is far from synonymous with risk in his 2014 letter to investors. So, while useful, beta is not the only metric to consider. To use beta as an investor, you must first understand that the overall market has a beta of one. A stock with a beta below one is either less volatile than the market, or more volatile but not corellated with the overall market. In comparison a stock with a beta of over one tends to be move in a similar direction to the market in the long term, but with greater changes in price.

View our latest analysis for A/S Latvijas Juras medicinas centrs

Want to help shape the future of investing tools and platforms? Take the survey and be part of one of the most advanced studies of stock market investors to date.

What UOMs beta value tells investors

Zooming in on A/S Latvijas Juras medicinas centrs, we see it has a five year beta of 0.88. This is below 1, so historically its share price has been rather independent from the market. This suggests that including it in your portfolio will reduce volatility arising from broader market movements, assuming your portfolios weighted average beta is higher than 0.88. Beta is worth considering, but its also important to consider whether A/S Latvijas Juras medicinas centrs is growing earnings and revenue. You can take a look for yourself, below.

Story continues

MUN:UOM Income Statement Export January 18th 19

Does UOMs size influence the expected beta?

A/S Latvijas Juras medicinas centrs is a noticeably small company, with a market capitalisation of 4.0m. Most companies this size are not always actively traded. Companies with market capitalisations around this size often show poor correlation with the broader market because market volatility is overshadowed by company specific events, or other factors. Its worth checking to see how often shares are traded, because very small companies with very low beta values are often only thinly traded.

What this means for you:

The A/S Latvijas Juras medicinas centrs doesnt usually show much sensitivity to the broader market. This could be for a variety of reasons. Typically, smaller companies have a low beta if their share price tends to move a lot due to company specific developments. Alternatively, an strong dividend payer might move less than the market because investors are valuing it for its income stream. In order to fully understand whether UOM is a good investment for you, we also need to consider important company-specific fundamentals such as A/S Latvijas Juras medicinas centrss financial health and performance track record. I urge you to continue your research by taking a look at the following:

Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for UOMs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for UOMs outlook. Past Track Record: Has UOM been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of UOMs historicals for more clarity. Other Interesting Stocks: Its worth checking to see how UOM measures up against other companies on valuation. You could start with this free list of prospective options.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
paypal government shutdown

Dan Schulman, the president and CEO of PayPal, said that the fintech giant would provide federal employees affected by the partial US government shutdown with an interest-free $500 line of credit.

PayPal to Dole Out $25 Million in Interest-Free Cash Advances

Schulman says the private sector is in a position to help the 800,000 federal workers who missed a paycheck on Friday.

PayPal is offering an interest-free cash advance up to $500, the equivalent of one weeks take home, for any existing or new PayPal Credit customers who are federal employees and are struggling to make ends meet.

PayPal has pegged up to $25 million in interest-free cash advances. This, to help federal government employees pay for food, gas and other everyday necessities.

The action is commendable and seems more than the US government is doing to ensure furloughed workers can afford necessities.

Its also a savvy move by PayPal which will gain from the marketing and brand building behind the initiative. Its likely to gain a few new customers. They might eventually use PayPal Credit and pay interest like PayPals other users.

But if it helps government workers in the short-term and keeps the struggling homeowners and renters away from less credible lines of credit  why not?

This is Schulmans first tweet in three years:

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Schulman Denies Presidential Aspirations

Schulman says the initiative is not fuelled by politics. But, there have been questions as to whether the CEO would run for US president in 2020. He certainly has his own political views, and PayPal does take a stand on political issues. Its users, for instance, arent allowed to buy or sell firearms through the service. And, PayPal halted expansion into North Carolina after the region restricted rights to the LBGT community.

Speaking in November 2018, he said:

I have thought deeply about the state of our world and I think its incumbent upon business leaders to take stands for the values their companies stand for.

Story continues

Of the government shutdown today, he writes:

As we wait for our political leaders to find a path forward, there are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who are hurting and dont know when their next paycheck is coming.

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Schulman quoted the Federal Reserves estimate that 40% of American workers cannot cover a $400 emergency expense. He also noted taht 78% live paycheck to paycheck.

Even in times of great technological advancement and relative economic stability, an alarming number of Americans are being left behind.

PayPal Just Hired its First Chief Marketing Officer for Five Years

There are signs to indicate that PayPal is gearing up toward new marketing endeavors. It has very recently hired Allison Johnson as executive vice president and chief marketing officer. She reports directly to Schulman.

The payments company hasnt had someone in the same role since 2013. Johnson was previously Apples vice president of worldwide marketing communications, and there have been hints this week of a new global marketing campaign for PayPal.

PayPal Shares on the Move?

TradingAnalysis.com founder Todd Gordon this week predicted a breakout for PayPal shares, currently up over 8% and near their all-time high:

The stocks been acting extremely well on a volatile tape here in the last several months, and it looks like were set to move above resistance.

Gordon expects PayPal shares to break through the $100 per share threshold.

Although a skeptic might suspect a marketing ploy by PayPal, it has offered assistance to furloughed workers in previous shutdowns. Dan Schulmans corporate moral and social conscience is also clear from his prior actions. The offer might help, and its certainly no worse than 800,000 federal workers being held hostage due to a spat between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats.

Sources close to Trump suggest that strong US stock market performance during the shutdown may even be holding him back from ending it.

Featured Image from Shutterstock



The post Clever Play? PayPal CEO Offers Help to Workers Hurt by US Government Shutdown appeared first on CCN.


By Philip Wen and David Ljunggren BEIJING/SHERBROOKE, Quebec (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday it was "not worried in the slightest" by mounting international concern over the death sentence handed to a Canadian for drug smuggling. Monday's sentence for Robert Schellenberg for smuggling 222 kg (489 lbs) of methamphetamines prompted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse China of "arbitrarily" applying the death penalty. The United Nations said it opposed capital punishment apart from exceptional circumstances, and Australia's acting foreign minister Simon Birmingham said he was "deeply concerned" by the case. Trudeau has called several world leaders in recent days to share concerns about the case of Schellenberg and two Canadians that Beijing detained last month after a senior Chinese executive was arrested in Vancouver on a U.S. arrest warrant. Speaking at a daily news briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Canada's "so-called allies could be counted on ten fingers" and did not represent the views of the wider international community. "I can very clearly state that we are not worried in the slightest," Hua said of the mounting outcry, adding that a majority of Chinese supported severe punishment for drug crimes. Schellenberg's sentence has further strained relations between China and Canada, already aggravated by the December arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], on a U.S. extradition request. Asked about Hua's remarks, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland noted that the 28-nation European Union had offered its backing to Ottawa. "We're very pleased to have this support from the EU which ..., like Canada, believes in the rule of law," she told reporters ahead of a three-day meeting of Trudeau's cabinet in Sherbrooke, Quebec. "Canada is clear about our principles and our position and we're also clear that it is a broad and deep relationship (with China)," she added. Freeland and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke on Tuesday and "expressed their concerns about the arbitrary detentions and politically motivated sentencing of Canadian nationals", the State Department said in a statement on Wednesday. Days after Meng's arrest in Vancouver, China detained two Canadians on suspicion of endangering state security. One of the men, Michael Kovrig, is a diplomat on leave without pay from Canada's embassy in Beijing. Trudeau complained last week that China was not respecting Kovrig's diplomatic immunity, but gave no details. A source directly familiar with the case said Canada was unhappy because Chinese officials were questioning Kovrig about what he had done when stationed at the embassy. The news was first reported by the Globe and Mail newspaper. China has not linked any of the three Canadians' cases to Meng's arrest, but has warned of severe consequences if she was not immediately released. The Global Times, a state-run tabloid with a nationalistic bent, said China "cannot be weak at this time". "Canada does not have any special cards that can allow Chinese law to bow its head to it," the newspaper said in an editorial on Wednesday, adding that Canada's protests would have no effect. Freeland said on Tuesday that Ottawa had formally applied for clemency for Schellenberg. When asked if China typically listened to this type of request, Hua said the judiciary was not subject to "interference from administrative organs". "You ask whether China is willing to listen to the Canadian side's request, but I don't know if Canada's leaders or politicians have seriously listened to China's solemn position," Hua said. Schellenberg had appealed against an original 15-year prison sentence issued in November, but the court in Liaoning province sided with prosecutors who argued at a retrial that the punishment was too light. (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington; editing by Darren Schuettler and James Dalgleish)
Murdered toddler Chi Ming Shek and a court artist sketch of the men accused of killing David Gaut: (l-r) David Osborne, Ieuan Harley, and Darran Evesham, during their trial at Newport Crown Court. (Elizabeth Cook/PA)

The alleged killers of a convicted child murderer  who was stabbed more than 150 times  only discovered his true identity just hours before they lured him to his death, a court has heard.

David Osborne, 51, Ieuan Harley, 23, and Darran Evesham, 47, learned David Gaut, 54, had served more than 32 years in prison for murdering toddler Chi Ming Shek in 1985.

Prosecutors allege Mr Gaut was killed in a brutal and gratuitously violent attack after being lured to his next door neighbour Osbornes flat by the three defendants.

After his death, his fingernails were also cut off and the three men then dragged his body back to his flat where it was found two days later by police, Newport Crown Court heard.

The three men deny the charges.

Police search for clues after the murder last August (Wales News Service)

Osbornes neighbour Kyle Alford told the court that hours before Mr Gauts death in August last year, he and his partner Samantha Jenkins discovered he was a convicted child killer.

They had read on the Black Kalendar website, which lists British murders, that Mr Gaut had been responsible for the death of the 15-month-old in 1985.

The pair then told other residents at the block of flats in Long Row, New Tredegar, Caerphilly, South Wales, what they had discovered.

Two of the accused: David Osborne and Ieuan Harley (Wales News Service)

Mr Alford and Ms Jenkins went to see Osborne, an alcoholic known as Ozzy, and told him and Harley what they had found out.

Ozzy was drunk and Ieuan looked a bit worse for wear. He told me he had been up on amphetamine for two or three days. He looked just like he normally would, a bit more on edge, he said.

He (Harley) was fuming, we all were really. He was very, very angry. He seemed in control.

Mr Alford added: Ozzy was saying that Ieuan wanted to cut him up and put him down the plughole.

Ieuan said, Lets get him in here to set him up. Ozzy just sent the text. Ozzy said he didnt want any part of it and was going to hide in the kitchen.

Baby Chi Ming Shek (Wales News Service)

On August 4, Harley came to Mr Alfords flat and they chatted about Mr Gaut.

He told the court: He said, Dont worry about him, you wont see him again.

Story continues

I thought he just meant he had beaten him up and had been moved away from this area, like he had been from two previous areas.

Mr Gauts body was discovered by police in his flat at Long Row in New Tredegar, Caerphilly, south Wales, days after the attack.

Mr Alford recalled one conversation he had with Mr Gaut before he died.

Just the once when me and my partner were ordering a Chinese takeaway and he said he didnt like Chinese but would have a Chi Ming Shek, he told jurors.

That was the name of the baby that had been murdered.

The three men accused deny the murder (Wales News Service)

Under cross-examination, Mr Alford accepted he was a drug user who was using cannabis, methadone, heroin, benzodiazepine and valium at the time of Mr Gauts death.

Ben Douglas-Jones QC, prosecuting, has told the court : The deceased committed a vile offence himself. He did, however, serve over 32 years in prison.

It is no part of your function or ours now to judge him. He was judged. He was sentenced.

A murder carried out to punish someone is as much a murder as a murder carried out for no reason.

Forensic examinations recovered evidence linking the defendants to the murder scene, the court heard.

The trial continues.

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK
Charity renews call for elderly driver eye tests after Prince Philip crash

A driver who pulled the Duke of Edinburgh from his Land Rover after it collided with a Kia near the Sandringham estate said the prince had an astonishing escape.

Roy Warne, 75, described how the dukes car tumbled across the A149, before he helped pull the Prince, 97, from his seat.

While the duke was uninjured, he was left shocked and shaken by the accident.

Three men have been jailed for murdering five people in a bomb-like shop blast in Leicester last year.

Aram Kurd, 34 and Arkan Ali, 38 were jailed for life with a minimum term of 38 years at Leicester Crown Court on Friday.

A third person, Hawkar Hassan, 33, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years for his part in the attack.

The trio had plotted to gain a 300,000 insurance pay-out.

Boris Johnson has called on Theresa May to stop dithering and tell the EU that Britain will not accept the controversial backstop arrangement designed to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

The former foreign secretary dismissed calls for the Prime Minister to rule out a no-deal Brexit, insisting it was overwhelmingly likely Brussels will offer an improved agreement following the crushing defeat of Mrs Mays plan in Parliament.

Speaking as Mrs May continued intensive discussions to draw up a Plan B to be unveiled on Monday, Mr Johnson insisted that the UK must go ahead with EU withdrawal on March 29, saying it would be shameful to seek to delay Brexit by asking for an extension of the Article 50 negotiation process.

Grey has overtaken black as the UKs most popular new car colour.

Motorists chose grey for more than 495,000 new cars in 2018, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

This market share of 21% saw the colour claim top spot for the first time since records began in 1996.
(The Canadian Press)

Since the early 1990s, Intel Corp. (INTC) has used the slogan Intel Inside to tell people to buy electronics powered by their semiconductors. The ads built strong brand recognition for a company whose product is hidden from view inside computers.

The chip-makers marketing success clearly resonated with Adam Miron, the co-founder and chief brand officer at HEXO Corp. (HEXO.TO) He envisions the Gatineau, Que.-based cannabis producer infusing its products into household-name consumer goods from shampoos to snacks.

Intel Inside is brilliant, he told attendees at the 2019 Cannabis Marketing Summit in Toronto on Thursday. Its one of the only components in a very complex ecosystem, a computer, which has a brand of its own. What we want to do is mirror that with powered by HEXO.

Its almost like hiding in plain sight. Consumers see brands they know and trust, but with a powered by HEXO inscription to denote cannabis as an active ingredient.

To make it happen, Miron is on the hunt for Fortune 500 partners, brands that everyone knows, in the cosmetics, health and wellness, and food industries. Its about avoiding a marketing clash with well-entrenched consumer packaged goods giants like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Procter & Gamble Co. (PG), he explained.

A question we get all the time is, How do you build a brand? Miron said. The answer is simple. Work with someone who already has.

HEXO made headlines in early August when it announced a joint venture with Molson Coors Canada, the Canadian unit of Molson Coors Brewing Company (TAP). The collaboration, dubbed Truss, will focus on the development of non-alcoholic, cannabis-infused beverages for the Canadian market.

Under the Molson Coors banner, an established brand that everyone knows, youll see powered by HEXO, Miron said. Like an ingredients company that plays into brand recognition.

HEXO raised its profile on Thursday, becoming the sixth Canadian licensed producer to secure approval to list on a U.S. exchange. Beacon Securities analyst Russell Stanley predicts HEXO will benefit from that scarcity.

Story continues

HEXO said it expects to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Jan. 23.

Adam Miron speaks at the Cannabis Marketing Summit 2019 in Toronto (Handout)

Todays NYSE announcement (and next weeks actual listing) could help put HEXO

on additional radar screens, for both strategic and financial investors, Stanley wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.

Canadas fifth-largest cannabis company by market capitalization has tended to fly below investors radar compared to larger rivals like Canopy Growth Corp. (WEED.TO), Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB.TO) and Tilray Inc. (TLRY).

However, HEXOs products are undeniably popular with consumers. The companys peppermint cannabis oil sublingual spray won the cannabis product of the year and innovation of the year categories at the 2018 Canadian Cannabis Awards.

HEXOs splashy #NeverJaded ad campaign recently took a top spot at the AdCann Advertising Awards. Miron said the 50-day initiative spanned 20 events, 18 concerts, and 12 e-gaming tournaments. It also featured a gourmet meal with celebrity chef Matty Matheson, and a Wu Tang Clan reunion concert at a Toronto nightclub.

Miron said the exposure push cost millions and millions of dollars. Money well spent, perhaps, if cannabis demand is as robust he anticipates.

Miron said he expects supply pressure to persist in the Canadian market, a problem likely to be exacerbated by legalized edible sales and growing demand for oils.

HEXO announced the completion of the first phase of its one-million square-foot greenhouse expansion in late December.

That one-million square-foot building is now operational. That puts us at 108,000 kilograms (per year), and we still need more. A lot more, he said. The demand continues to grow, potentially at a rate faster than licensed producers like us are putting out space.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.
Canadian Solar Inc. CSIQ recently announced that along with Signal Energy it will offer Engineering, Procurement and Constructions (EPC) services for the Darlington Point Solar Farm (DPSF) in New South Wales, Australia. Canadian Solar will also supply solar modules to this Australian solar plant.

Details of the Project

The DPSF project has been awarded to Canadian Solar by Edify Energy and Octopus Investments  two venture capitalist that finance renewable energy development programs. The DPSF has the potential to accommodate up to 275 megawatt (MW) of solar photovoltaic electricity generation.

Construction of the farm will begin in March 2019, wherein more than 820,000 of Canadian Solars high efficiency HiKu modules will be installed. The plant is projected to be complete by early 2020. On completion, the solar plant will be able to light up more than 115,000 homes in New South Wales and displace nearly 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Solar Prospects in Australia

Realizing the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the government of Australia has been undertaking various initiatives to expand the renewable generation portfolio. The countrys Clean Energy Regulator allocated more than $2.29 billion fund toward renewable energy, post the seventh Emissions Reduction Fund auction.

Thanks to plummeting costs of installation along with improved technology, the solar market is booming significantly in Australia. According to a report by Energy Matters, the number of Australian solar power installations reached the landmark figure of 2 million, a milestone for the countrys young solar industry. Meanwhile, per a new report released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Australia stands to benefit from the shift to global renewable energy.

In this backdrop, we believe that the latest agreement comes as a great opportunity for Canadian Solar to reap benefits from the expanding Australian solar market. In line with this, we can expect the company to win more such agreements by virtue of its high efficiency and industry-leading 1500V and 400W multi-crystalline solar modules.

Story continues

Price Movement

In the past twelve months, shares of Canadian Solar have rallied 15.1% against the industrys 12.3% decline.

Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to Consider

Canadian Solar carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). A few other top-ranked stocks from the same space are Azure Power Global Ltd. AZRE, Renesola Ltd. SOL and SunPower Corporation SPWR, all of which carry a Zacks Rank of 2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Azure Power Global delivered average positive earnings surprise of 76.07% in the preceding four quarters. Its earnings growth estimate for 2019 currently stands at 83.08%.

Renesola delivered average positive earnings surprise of 377.78% in the trailing four quarters. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings has climbed 30% to 13 cents over the past 90 days.

SunPower delivered average positive earnings surprise of 53.13% in the last four quarters. For 2019, its long-term earnings growth estimate is projected at 75.09%.

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TORONTO (AP)  Canada's public safety minister said Friday that the country won't be deterred by Chinese pressure after China threatened reprisals if Huawei was banned from supplying equipment for 5G networks, highlighting the growing rift between America's neighbor and the emerging superpower.

There are accusations that the telecom giant is controlled by China's ruling Communist Party or is required to facilitate Chinese spying. The U.S., Australia, Japan and other governments have imposed curbs on use of its technology.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Canada has been abundantly clear it will not compromise national security.

"It's a difficult challenge but we'll not be deterred by what we believe to be right and what we believe to be in the interests of Canada," Goodale said.

Lu Shaye, China's ambassador to Canada, warned Thursday of repercussions if Canada bars the firm from its new 5G network.

"One of the things that is of concern in this situation is the blending of Chinese commercial interests with Chinese political positioning and consequences. That's something that I think should be of concern to Canadians and people around the world," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

Canada and its security agencies are studying whether to use equipment from Huawei as phone carriers prepare to roll out fifth-generation technology.

5G is designed to support a vast expansion of networks to facilitate medical devices, self-driving cars and other technology. That increases the risk of potential security failures and has prompted governments to treat telecom communications networks as strategic assets.

But the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States has created a growing diplomatic rift between China and Canada. Meng is the chief financial officer of Huawei and the daughter of its founder.

The U.S. wants her extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about Huawei's business dealings in Iran.

Story continues

China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor 10 days after Meng's arrest on allegations that they were "engaging in activities that endanger the national security" of China in an apparent attempt to pressure Canada to release her. China also sentenced another Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, to death Monday in a sudden retrial of his drug-smuggling case.

John McCallum, Canada's ambassador to China, said the path that China is on is not in their interest.

"It's not in the interests of corporate China if when they run into trouble internationally the Chinese government arrests people to use as bargaining chips," McCallum said. "That is the perception of much of the world and that is not good for the reputation of Chinese business people."

On Thursday, Lu warned Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland not to use next week's World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, to press for support against China. He also said Canada's arrest of Meng was an act of "backstabbing" by Canada and called it "politically motivated."

Freeland has said the detention of two Canadians will be at the top of her agenda in Davos and didn't back down from her position after hearing about the ambassador's remark.

Canada maintains Meng's arrest is a matter of rule of law and says it is acting according to its international treaty obligations.

Trudeau said Canada would continue to speak out against China and his office said he spoke German Chancellor Angela Merkel and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about it on Friday.

Trudeau's office said Trudeau and Merkel talked about China and "agreed on the necessity to safeguard the rules-based international order, including to ensure the confidence of the international business community."

"A lot of countries share the concern," Trudeau said earlier.

Huawei's image suffered a new blow last week when Polish authorities announced that a Chinese employee was arrested on spying charges. Huawei said it fired the employee and the allegations were unrelated to the company.

Meng is now out on bail in Canada and is awaiting extradition proceedings. A hearing is scheduled for next month.

McCallum said his top priority is to get the detained Canadians home and save the life of the third Canadian. He briefed lawmakers on Parliament Hill on Friday and said he's been talking to Canadian businesses that work in China. He still thinks China will play an important role in Canada's future, noting that the country's tourism industry, farmers and universities are all highly dependent on China.

"I think it is best we move forward as much as we can under the circumstances," he said.

Canada had previously talked about doing a possible free trade teal with China, but McCallum said that's certainly not an issue Canada is considering now.
We can verify that the domain is for sale over the phone, help you with the purchase process, and answer any questions.
By David Ljunggren

SHERBROOKE, Quebec (Reuters) - Canada's government on Friday dismissed China's warning of repercussions if Ottawa banned Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] from supplying equipment to 5G networks, saying it would not compromise on security.

China's ambassador to Canada issued the threat on Thursday as relations between the two nations continued to deteriorate after a senior Huawei executive was arrested in Vancouver last month on a U.S. extradition warrant. China has also detained two Canadians.

Canadian officials are studying the security implications of 5G networks, the latest generation of cellular mobile communications, but their report is not expected in the immediate future, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

Some Canadian allies have already imposed restrictions on using Huawei equipment, citing the risk of espionage.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, asked at a cabinet retreat about the Chinese ambassador's remarks, said Ottawa had already made clear it would not cut corners on national security.

"We understand that those sorts of comments will be made in the process, but we will make our judgment based on what is right for Canada and not be deterred from making the right decision," he told reporters.

"We are determined to stand our ground based on what is right for Canada ... this is a tough and turbulent world."

Goodale noted that China had made similar comments after Australia banned Huawei from supplying 5G equipment last year.

Western intelligence agencies have for years raised concerns about Huawei's ties to China's government and the possibility its equipment could be used for espionage.

China detained the two Canadians last month after Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition request.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later told reporters he was concerned about "the apparent blending of Chinese commercial interests with Chinese political positioning".

Story continues

Trudeau has called several world leaders in recent weeks to raise concerns about the case of the two Canadians. The Chinese ambassador on Thursday advised Canada to stop seeking support from allies.

"We are going to continue to stand up for the rule of law ... this is something we continue to impress upon the Chinese authorities, firmly and respectfully," Trudeau said at the end of a cabinet retreat in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Paul Simao and Susan Thomas)
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP)  A Canadian national has been found dead a day after reports of his kidnapping by suspected jihadists in Burkina Faso's volatile north near the Niger border, the West African nation's security ministry said Thursday.

The ministry said Kirk Woodman's body was found 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the site where he worked for Progress Mineral Mining Company.

Woodman's son, Matt Woodman, emailed The Associated Press confirming his father's death.

"Kirk was a loving and hardworking husband, father, son and brother," he said in the email. "Not a day will go by that he won't be missed. Our family would like to thank everyone for the love and support we've received, but we ask for privacy while we grieve during this difficult time."

Woodman was kidnapped Tuesday night during a raid on a mining site in Tiabongou, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mansila in Yagha province.

The prefect of the rural commune of Sebba in that province, Felix Ouedraogo, said the body of a white man riddled with bullets was transferred to a hospital in Dori by defense and security services.

Burkina Faso recently declared a state of emergency in the region as attacks by Islamic extremists increase.

The country's foreign minister, Alpha Barry, said it was with great emotion and sorrow that the government learned of Woodman's death.

"The government of Burkina condemns with the utmost energy this cowardly assassination and reassures that an investigation is opened and all the measures will be taken to find and punish the guilty," he said in a statement posted on Facebook.

Woodman was vice-president of exploration for Progress Minerals, according to his LinkedIn page.

"This is a terrible crime and Canada is absolutely committed to working with the authorities in Burkina Faso to bring those responsible to justice," said Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. "Our first thought is with his family and friends who received really dreadful news."

Story continues

West Africa's vast Sahel region has seen a number of abductions of foreigners in recent years by extremists linked to al-Qaida or the Islamic State organization.

Woodman is the second Canadian to go missing in Burkina Faso in recent weeks, according to Burkina Faso Security Minister Clement Sawadogo.

Quebec resident Edith Blais, 34, and her Italian friend Luca Tacchetto were travelling by car in the southwest when all communication with their families abruptly ended Dec. 15.

Sawadogo referred to their disappearance as a kidnapping.

Burkina Faso's security situation worsened last year with an attack on the army headquarters and the French Embassy in March. The extremist threat has shifted from the northern Sahel region, home to radicalized local preacher Ibrahim Malam Dicko, into the forested east near the border with Niger.

Burkina Faso is part of a five-nation regional counterterror force, the G5 Sahel, launched in 2017.

___

Gillies reported from Toronto.

___

Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa
Leave protesters should be careful what they wish for, according to Denis MacShane (PA)

British bottoms could be in serious bother post-Brexit, with a former Labour MP warning that the country could quickly run out of toilet paper.

Denis MacShane, who was Tony Blairs Europe minister for three years, told a French TV panel that a loo roll shortage could be just one of the consequences of our exit from the EU.

Speaking on TV news show C dans lair (C in the Air) on Wednesday, the Remainer warned that a sudden reinstatement of the customs barriers could see truckloads of toilet roll unable to access the UK.

The English are the biggest consumers of toilet paper in Europe, he said. There is only one day of stock at home.

Denis MacShane pictured in the House of Commons in 2012 (PA)

French newspaper Le Monde notes that, according to Statista, the average Briton worked their way through 127 loo rolls each during 2017, compared to the 134 typically used by Germans and the 71 used by the French.

Le Monde was reassured by Andrew Large, CEO of the British Confederation of Paper Industries, however.

He was happy to calm the concerns over toilet paper, saying that we have reserves of pulp to make paper, as well as reserves of finished toilet rolls to cover two to three weeks of use.

MORE: Rubbish piles up on Birmingham streets as binmen work to rule in ongoing dispute with council

MORE: After Prince Philips car crash, what are the rules for Britains older drivers?

This isnt the first time that MacShane has raised concerns regarding a possible post-Brexit toilet roll shortage.

Speaking to Prospect in October he said: If Britain leaves the EU Customs Union and single market in five months time and the trucks transporting toilet paper are held up at Calais or Dover, British bottoms will have to be wiped with torn-up newspapers as in bygone days.

Proving he isnt taking any chances, MacShane told C dans lair: Im starting to cut newspapers, especially [those of] Rupert Murdoch, and Im doing my little personal stock.

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Hull & Company, LLC, a subsidiary of Brown & Brown, Inc. BRO, has entered into an agreement wherein it purchased all the assets of Izzo Insurance Services. The buyout will enable Brown & Brown to boost its workers compensation insurance profile and cater to its clients demands efficiently and effectively.



Izzo Insurance was founded by the sole shareholder Karen Izzo in 1980 and it operates as a wholesale brokerage. The company focuses on offering workers compensation insurance coverage options to its retail broker partners. Izzo Insurance remains committed toward ensuring that each of its clients receives top-notch services and products at the most economic value. Moreover, the acquired company makes sure that there is substantial improvement in revenues and profits for its customers, thereby leading to long-term growth for both its clients and employees.



Izzo Insurance boasts annual revenues of about $2 million and post completion of the buyout, the firm will continue to do business from its present location under the leadership of Karen Izzo. When it comes to its operations, Izzo Insurance will function as a new stand-alone location in the acquirers Wholesale Brokerage division with Tony Strianese at the helm.



Izzo Insurance has made a name for itself in the workers compensation insurance solutions space on the back of its experience and customer-centric approach. This in turn, has helped it create a long-standing relationship with its retail agent partners and carrier.



The buyout will add an impetus to Izzo Insurances already strong workers compensation profile with Brown & Brown expected to benefit from its expertise, work culture, commitment toward markets and goodwill. The high-quality service offered by the acquired company along with its exclusive security guard specialty program will add value to Brown & Browns service portfolio.



The latest consolidation will not only solidify the buyers brokerage operations but also lend a vital support to ramping up its inorganic growth profile and boosting its margin expansion. Moreover, the company is anticipated to gain traction from this takeover in terms of reinforcing its product and service offerings.



The above-mentioned inorganic ploys braced the company to fuel growth and broaden its scope of operations. Also, these strategic endeavors braced Brown & Brown to increase its commissions and fees, which in turn, contributed to revenue growth. In fact, the company projects its 2018 revenues to range between $17.5 million and $21 million while for 2019, the metric is expected to be in the $210-$220 million band.



Shares of this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) insurance broker have gained 7.3% in a years time, outperforming its industrys increase of 5.8%. We expect the companys sustained operational performance, higher commissions and fees plus a solid capital position to push the stock higher in the near term.

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Insurers on Integration Spree



Taking the insurance industrys all-time high available capital into account, there has been a significant number of acquisitions in the space of late. In December 2018, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. AJG announced the acquisition of Pointer Insurance Agency that is likely to improve its employee benefits consulting and brokerage operations. Also, property and casualty (P&C) insurer Arch Capital Group Ltd. ACGL recently completed its previously announced buyout of McNeil & Co. that will help serve its clients needs more effectively and offer better growth opportunities to its team. In November, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.'s MMC arm Mercer purchased Summit Strategies Group.

You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.

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Brasilia (AFP) - Brazil's agriculture minister on Friday defended a policy of wanting to develop agribusiness on indigenous lands, and dismissing "hysteria" about the issue of protecting the Amazon rainforest.

Tereza Cristina da Costa told invited foreign journalists in Brasilia that she was "favorable" to opening up indigenous land to business interests, "but the law needs to be changed" to allow that to happen.

She said that past policies of preserving such territory had impoverished communities by preventing development.

One state, Roraima, had "a very serious problem because nearly all of it is marked for preservation, so what can the state live off?"

She added that "we also need to preserve economic activity," and that environmental conservation should no longer be handled "in an ideological way."

Costa said criticism that the new government of President Jair Bolsonaro was looking to do away with indigenous lands and territory set aside for the descendants of slaves were "quasi-hysterical" and ignored laws that prevented such moves.

Bolsonaro had created waves on the first day of taking office, January 1, by putting responsibility for the demarcation of indigenous lands under the agriculture ministry, taking it away from a specialized indigenous rights agency.

For many defending indigenous rights, that decision was seen as effectively handing over management of ancestral lands to rapacious agribusiness.

They also viewed negatively the fact that the new agriculture minister was the head of a congressional lobby group representing the interests of big landowners.

Brazilian media have reported on new, illegal confiscations of tribal lands by private individuals since Bolsonaro took power.

Current laws in Brazil require landowners in protected areas to limit commercial exploitation to 20 percent of their property.

Costa noted that, in some cases, the land was not suitable for farming or ranching.

"The Amazon is not good for soya," she said. "What's more, a farmer who goes there and buys land is hobbled because he must preserver 80 percent."

She said: "We want to protect the Amazon. But if the world also wants it to be protected, it needs to bring us viable projects."
Boris Johnson speaking today (PA)

Boris Johnson has again make a bid to become Conservative Party leader with a speech designed to appeal to the partys blue-collar workers.

The former foreign secretary called on the government to use Brexit to unite the country by focusing on the issues that drove Brexit by promising tax cuts and lower immigration.

Johnson also said there should be a national programme of cohesion.

He also tried to broaden his appeal and reclaim some liberal credentials by saying he is a passionate believer in the benefits of migration but also highlighted concerns over wages being driven down

He will also call for more money for devolved regions.

The leadership is likely to divide many Tories.

Many still see Johnson as capable of leading the party but others, including his former deputy at the Foreign Office Sir Alan Duncan has criticised him on Twitter for recklessly dividing the Tories over the issue of Brexit.

Please think less about yourself and instead focus only on solving the historic crisis we now face which you have done so much to create, Duncan added.

MORE: After Prince Philips car crash, what are the rules for Britains older drivers?

MORE: Bum deal? UK could run out of toilet paper post-Brexit, former Labour MP tells French TV show

On the issue of Brexit, Johnson said: I believe that there is a very good chance, indeed overwhelmingly likely, that we will leave with a deal  we just wont leave with this deal.

Asked if Britain would struggle if a no-deal Brexit becomes a reality, Johnson replied: I dont want to pretend there will be no challenges and no changes to cope with.

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Of course there will be. But I say to all those who believe in the democratic freedoms of this country

We are more than up to it. We have got so far, we are almost there, let us not give up now.

The former Etonian and Oxford University graduate said delaying Brexit could fuel suspicion of an elite conspiracy and further erode trust in politics.

Story continues

Johnson said Brexit had to be used to unite the country (PA)

Johnson said any delay on Britain leaving would be shameful and said rescinding Article 50 would be pathetic.

He also called on Theresa May to go back to Brussels and get a different deal.

He was speaking at a JCB factory in Staffordshire.

JCB boss Anthony Bamford is a major Conservative party donor.

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Axios

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Thursday that he opposes the compromise on Democrats' sweeping voting rights bill proposed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).Why it matters: Voting legislation requires 60 votes to pass in the Senate. Without Republican support, it is unlikely to pass. Manchin is the sole Democratic senator who has not signed on to the For the People Act, insisting that it's too partisan.Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for fre
A birth manicure is the latest bizarre beauty craze to go viral [Photo: Instagram]

Long gone are the days that a French polish or lick of Shellac would prove social media-worthy, as the beauty market has welcomed a bizarre new take on the traditional manicure.

A Russian salon known as Nail Sunny has made a surprising manicure available to clients which features a doll giving birth. Yep, seriously.

In a clip shared via Instagram, a gel hospital bed (and stirrups) can be seen with a gown-clad woman made from acrylic laying upon it.

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The video shows the mother give birth, as the nail technician uses tweezers to pluck a small baby from beneath the gown.

The faux umbilical cord is then cut with a pair of tweezers and the newborn baby is placed on its mother. For those hoping to recreate the strange (albeit weirdly impressive) manicure at home, a step-by-step video later shows how to imitate the gel masterpiece.

But the weird and wonderful creations dont stop there, as the salon has also shared various other impressive creations via Instagram.

Amid the news of a humble egg becoming the most liked photograph on the social media platform last week, the salon decided to create a manicure inspired by the trend.

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But the faux nail eggs arent merely for aesthetic purposes, as a video shows that the eggs ooze yolk when broken.

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Other bizarre manicures thought up by the salon include the likes of dancing ballerina nails, melting cheese toastie-inspired talons and even edible creations made using sweetcorn  a whole new temptation for those guilty of biting their nails.

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Understandably, the Instagram account has been met with mixed responses. Some have dubbed the tutorials beautiful while others were less than impressed with the birth manicure in particular.

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One social media user commented, This is taking things too far

l dont care for this kind of art, another wrote.

The question is, will you booking yourself in for a birth manicure this season?

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Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for non-stop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyleUK.

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By Ron Bousso

LONDON (Reuters) - Buoyed by the success of seismic imaging that found an extra billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, BP is looking to take its latest technology to Angola and Brazil.

The software used in the Gulf, based on an algorithm created by Xukai Shen, a geophysicist straight out of Stanford University, led to BP discovering the crude in an area where it had long thought there was none to be found.

Industry experts said the scale of the discovery 8 km below BP's Thunder Horse field, announced last week, marked a major leap forward for deepwater exploration - a costly business known for its low success rate and high risk. It is an example of how technology is helping deepwater make a comeback after a decade when the industry has focused on advances in onshore shale.

The new deposit was found with software known as Full Waveform Inversion (FWI), which is run on a super-computer and analyses reverberations of seismic soundwaves to produce high-resolution 3D images of ancient layers of rock thousands of meters under the sea bed, helping geologists locate oil and gas.

It is more accurate than previous surveying methods, BP said, and processes data in a matter of days, compared with months or years previously.

While the discovery marked the biggest industry success for digital seismic imaging, the British oil major's rivals are hot on its heel with similar techniques.

(Oil majors' R&D: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ATrIHU)

BP scientist John Etgen, the company's top adviser on seismic imaging, said it aimed to retain its edge with a new machine it has developed, Wolfspar, to be used alongside FWI.

The submarine-like Wolfspar is dragged by a ship through the ocean and emits very low frequency soundwaves, which are particularly effective for penetrating thick salt layers that lie above rocks containing fossil fuels, he added.

Etgen told Reuters that BP planned to roll out Wolfspar alongside FWI in the second half of this year at the Atlantis field in the Gulf of Mexico, where a large salt layer still hides parts of the site. The company plans to expand the use of the technology to other big oil and gas basins, including Brazil next year and Angola at a later stage, he said.

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"Seeing through very complex, very distorted salt bodies was the hardest problem we had, the most challenging," the Houston-based scientist said in an interview.

In both Brazil and Angola, oil deposits are locked under thick salt layers. Brazil's deepwater oil fields comprise one of the world's fastest-growing basins in terms of production. BP last year signed a partnership with Brazil's national oil company Petrobras to develop resources there.

INDUSTRY TECH RACE

Billion-barrel oil finds are rare, particularly in mature basins like the Gulf of Mexico. But the scale of output from deepwater wells means they can compete with the most low-cost basins in the world, in particular U.S. shale.

BP is far from alone in focusing on technology; all big oil companies have put a growing emphasis on digitalization to reduce costs following the oil price collapse of 2014.

In fact, BP's spend on R&D was the third lowest among the world's top publicly traded oil companies in 2017 at $391 million, compared with Exxon Mobil's $1.1 billion and Royal Dutch Shell's and Total's budgets of over $900 million.

Other majors have also made advances. Italy's Eni has launched the world's most powerful industrial computer to process seismic data, for example, while France's Total is using drones to carry out seismic mapping in dense forests such as in Papua New Guinea.

However Barclays analysts said in a report last year that BP and Norway's Equinor had the most advanced deployment of technology among oil majors.

'MAGIC' ALGORITHM

The seismic breakthrough for BP came when Xukai Shen tested a new idea he had for the FWI algorithm in 2016.

"What happened was magic - the pieces came together," recalled Etgen. "We finally had the right algorithm with the right data set to create the model of the salt formation and use the model to remove distortion."

BP says its new seismic technology could save it hundreds of millions of dollars in exploration hours by pinpointing the location of the most promising deposits.

"It allows us to drill the right wells, drill wells at lower costs, drill wells in the best part of the reservoir, drill fewer wells," Etgen said.

The costs of the technology are a fraction of BP's oil and gas production budget of around $12 billion per year.

An FWI survey costs up to $20 million to carry out, while processing the data costs up to $10 million, Etgen told Reuters. The annual spend on the super-computer that runs the software is about $20 million.

"The companies that are investing in technology are coming through and winning the race," Henry Morris, technical director at independent North Sea-focused explorer Azinor Catalyst.

"That's where BP are doing a good job. It's working."

Seeing through salt layers with confidence "adds real value" and saves companies the premiums they must pay to acquire resources through acquisitions, according to Bernstein analysts.

"With high-performance computing, the seismic processing and interpretations are being done in two weeks rather than 1,000 years, as it would have been if they still used 20th century computers," they said.

"Investors should therefore expect more from BP with this edge."

(Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Pravin Char)
BancFirst (BANF) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.98 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.93 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.66 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 5.38%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this Oklahoma financial services holding company would post earnings of $0.91 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.98, delivering a surprise of 7.69%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times.

BancFirst, which belongs to the Zacks Banks - Southwest industry, posted revenues of $100.74 million for the quarter ended December 2018, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.25%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $91.53 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

BancFirst shares have added about 5.5% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 4.4%.

What's Next for BancFirst?

While BancFirst has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

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Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for BancFirst was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.92 on $98.23 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $3.79 on $403.43 million in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Banks - Southwest is currently in the bottom 32% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.



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A woman who was living with Dusit D2 attacker Ali Salim Gichunge alias Farouk is among 9 suspects arrested in connection with the 14 Riverside terror attack.

The woman identified as Violet Kemunto Omwoyo had been living with Gichunge for about a year, and was referring to herself as an Alshabaab bride.

She was reportedly arrested at their house in Mucatha, Ruaka, Kiambu County on Wednesday by Anti-Terror Police Unit officers as the rescue operation went on at the Dusit Complex.

Violet Kemunto was known to the neighbours who noted that they moved into the apartment together in March 2018.

According to neighbours, Kemunto was a reserved woman who was always in a hijab and accompanied Gichunge to shops.

The self-styled Alshabaab bride, who police are treating as a key suspect, had put up all their items on sale just a few days before the attack.

The Facebook account she used to post the items went by the screen name Junior Red.

Kemunto is a former student of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST), where she graduated with a degree in journalism in 2014.

According to her former classmates, Kemunto was a calm student who was always committed to her religion.

Kemuntos husband Gichunge is suspected to have been leading the operation from the outside and providing the terrorists with information during the course of the attack.

He was also arrested and, upon interrogation, has led the police to arrest nine more suspects while others remain at large in connection with the incident.

Gichunges mother, Sakina Mariam, is also under police custody.

Investigators pounced on Sakina, popularly known as Mama Ali at Waso village, in Isiolo County and drove her to Nairobi for questioning.
Back-to-back blasts of bitter Arctic air from Canada are expected to power high winds and heavy snow from the Corn Belt to New England this weekend followed by an ice storm that could paralyze travelers in the Ohio Valley and Northeast.

Heavy snow, with blizzard-like conditions, could leave from 30 to 40 inches of snow in parts of interior New England.

The National Weather service says the first strong surge of Canadian air over the Plains will re-energize a storm system coming out of the Rockies.

The heaviest snow on Friday is forecast for South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa, setting up the bitter march to New England.

"The storm is expected to become quite intense on Sunday as its center passes near or just south of New York City," the National Weather Service says. "Conditions over interior New England could approach blizzard criteria as the storm brings very strong northerly winds together with heavy snow. "

Airlines: Flight cancellations begin as new storm strengthens

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The second punch of cold air on Sunday is expected to drive down temperatures from the Central Plains to the Northeast, falling in many areas 15 to 25 degrees below normal.

Forecasters warn that rapidly falling temperatures will turn slush and standing water on roads and highways into treacherous passageways. paralyzing travel in many areas.

Amtrak planned to modify its service the Northeast and Midwest because of winter storms moving through the region, including canceling the Saturday's Capitol Limited, from Chicago to Washington, and the Lake Shoe Limited, from Chicago to New York.

On Sunday, five Acela trains and six Northeast Regional trains will not operate between New York and Boston. Six Keystone trains are canceled between New York and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Two Pennsylvanian trains are canceled between New York and Pittsburgh. Two Vermonter trains on Sunday will not run between St. Albans, Vermont, and New Haven, Connecticut.

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With cold air reaching as far south as Alabama, temperatures in the hardest hit areas are expected to plunge from the 40s to near freezing on Sunday and then into the single digits and teens on Sunday night.

Forecasters warn of significant ice accumulations in the Ohio Valley and New England.

In that first blast, AccuWeather says up to 40 inches of snow is likely in parts of northern New England, with close to 30 inches of snow likely in parts of central and northern New York to perhaps the northern tier of Pennsylvania.

Key interstate highways near the Canadian border from west of Syracuse, New York, to East of Bangor, Maine, are especially vulnerable.

AccuWeather senior meteorlogist Alex Sosnowski warns that anyone on the roads through the heart of the snow area risk becoming stranded for many hours with temperatures plummeting to life-threatening low levels.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Arctic blasts threaten weekend blizzards, heavy snow and paralyzing ice storms
Chicago's O'Hare airport is preparing for an expansion, and this week the city revealed the five shortlisted designs competing for the job -- now up for a public vote.

Among the top architecture firms in the running are London's Foster + Partners, Chicago's Studio Gang Architects, Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, all proposing designs to replace the airport's 1960s-built Terminal 2 with a modern, international terminal.



This week, the city shared videos outlining each of the five projects, while opening up a public survey that will be going on through January 23. Projects are viewable online or, for Chicago residents, at the Chicago Architecture Center and O'Hare's Terminal 2; participants will then be asked to complete a survey about the designs, with results to be given consideration in the final conceptualization.



Here are the five projects in the running.



Fentress Architects of Colorado lead Team 1, which envisions a new terminal topped by a curving, hill-like roof letting in light from above. The team describes the proposal as "elegant, spacious, and sustainable."

"Soaring spaces sparkle with sunlight and lift the human spirit. Daylight and spatial composition guide passengers intuitively and purposefully. The latest technological advances shape a smart, seamless, comfortable, and unencumbered experience."





Foster + Partners, who designed an Apple Store in Chicago, have envisioned a cloud-like structure framed by three arches that merge into a grand, single arch offering a view of the "spectacle of the airfield."



Their architectural concept, they say, is "open, transparent, inclusive, welcoming and functional."

Chicago-based Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects heads a team whose "elegant and efficient" proposal focuses on "convergence" -- three terminals united around a central Oculus -- and is notable for the use of wood for the terminal's ceiling.

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Skidmore, Owings & Merrill propose an undulating terminal promising "optimal functional planning, great design, and keen practicality." Natural landscaping surrounds the roof and glass walls, while inside, trees can be found in a glass-walled waiting area.

"We infuse the muscular heritage of Chicago architecture and engineering with many lessons from the natural environment, to increase human comfort, save energy and define a distinctive sense of place."



Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava has thrown his hat in the ring with a dramatic proposal for a soaring terminal with a shell-like roof and glass facade, intended to create a new centerpiece for the airport's terminal complex.

Inside, spaces are vaulted and light-filled, offering "Chicago-focused concessions in an airy, park-like setting."

The airport's expansion is slated to open in 2028. Voting on the proposals is open to all now through January 23 at www.voteord21.com.
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Two Maryland women furloughed by the government shutdown have found a sweet and ingenious way to get by, channeling their frustrations into delectable desserts.

Nikki Howard and her sister, Jaqi Wright, became known as the Furlough Cheesecake Sisters after they decided earlier this month to start selling homemade cheesecakes to help pay their bills during the shutdown, which began Dec. 22.

Neither Howard, who works for the Food and Drug Administration, nor Wright, employed by the Justice Department, have been to work since the partial shutdown began, so their side hustle was inspired by desperation.

Appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Friday, the women opened up about the origins of their culinary endeavor.

It happened on New Years Day, Wright said. My sister had sent cheesecake home with me and I ate a slice ... and I forgot about the furlough. I forgot about bills. I forgot about everything  I got lost in how good it is.

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Their mother, she added, echoed that enthusiasm.

My mom said, This is so good, you could sell it, Wright recalled. And I sat up straight, Im like, Ding, ding, ding! We can sell it, sister!

Howard and Wright began selling cheesecakes in original and sweet potato flavors online for $29.98 each. Their business quickly boomed  likely thanks to media coverage  and since then, the pair have been struggling to keep up with the demand.

DeGeneres, too, was so moved by the sisters story that she placed an order for a cheesecake, along with a check for $20,000, courtesy of Cheerios.

While delighted by the surprise, both Howard and Wright say navigating the shutdown has been anything but, well, a piece of cake.

Its been horrible. Bills are due ... my daughter, shes going back to school soon, Howard said. Ive got to get tuition, make tuition. Right now both of our husbands are unable to work, so its been really, really rough.

HuffPost readers: Are you affected by the government shutdown? Email us about it. If youre willing to be interviewed, please provide a phone number.

Story continues

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
American Express (AXP) came out with quarterly earnings of $1.74 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.80 per share. This compares to earnings of $1.58 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of -3.33%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this credit card issuer and global payments company would post earnings of $1.78 per share when it actually produced earnings of $1.88, delivering a surprise of 5.62%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times.

American Express, which belongs to the Zacks Financial - Miscellaneous Services industry, posted revenues of $10.47 billion for the quarter ended December 2018, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.04%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $8.84 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

American Express shares have added about 4.3% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 4.4%.

What's Next for American Express?

While American Express has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

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Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for American Express was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $2.02 on $10.47 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $8.17 on $43.45 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Financial - Miscellaneous Services is currently in the bottom 15% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.



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Aeromexico is literally rising above the debate over a wall on the border  with a creative airline ad and promotion that encourages travel from the U.S. to Mexico.

The two-minute commercial, which features visuals of beautiful Mexican locations, could be seen as a trolling trifecta, tweaking anti-Mexican sentiment in the U.S. and, without mentioning him, President Donald Trump and his anti-illegal immigration comments aimed at countries south of the U.S. border.

The slogan for the "DNA Discounts" campaign, "There are no borders within us," can be read as a swipe at Trump, whose disagreement with Congressional Democrats over money for a wall has led to a protracted partial-government shutdown.

ORG XMIT: Aeromexic This undated handout image provide by the Boeing Company on July 25, 2012 shows a Boeing jetliner with the Aeromexico livery. Aeromexico, Mexico's largest airline, plans to buy 100 airplanes from US aerospace giant Boeing in an almost $11 billion deal, the companies said Wednesday. Grupo Aeromexico has committed to buy a mix of 90 single-aisle 737 MAX 8s and 9s, as well as 10 twin-aisle 787 Dreamliners. "This order represents the largest investment program for a domestic airline in Mexican commercial aviation history and a major step forward in consolidating Grupo Aeromexico's international leadership position," said Grupo Aeromexico's chief executive, Andres Conesa, in a statement. AFP PHOTO/HANDOUT/BOEING = GETTY OUT = = RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT " AFP PHOTO / BOEING " - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS =HO/AFP/GettyImages ORIG FILE ID: 512555600

And, it may even complete a nifty bipartisan bank shot, with a DNA test offer that could be seen as a reference to the blowback Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren received when she tested her DNA for Native American blood.

The commercial for the Mexican airline opens by saying, "Mexico's first destination is America," showing a fleet of jetliners flying north, before adding, "But America's first destination is not Mexico," as one lone plane flies in the opposite direction.

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To try to boost tourism from the U.S., the company goes to what it terms a "typical American town," Wharton, Texas, to ask people their thoughts on traveling to Mexico. It's not positive, at least from the selection of people featured on camera.

One woman says, "No way," while a man responds, "Let me stay here in peace and let those folks stay on their side of the border." A conversation with one man points to the quandary: "Do you like tequila?" he is asked. "Yes." "Do you like burritos?" "Yeah." "Do you like Mexico?" "No."

After that negative sampling of public opinion, the ad points out that Americans who have Mexican heritage are on the rise, even if many don't know it.

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That leads to an airline campaign, offering DNA tests to Americans and accompanying flight discounts based on their percentage of Mexican descent: "The more Mexican they are, the more discount they get."

The ad says the tests were offered in a few southwestern states and 54 percent of the people tested had some Mexican heritage.

Responses vary. One man is told he is 18 percent Mexican and he says, "Wow!" Another responds with a profanity when told he is 22 percent Mexican.

And a third person may just be thinking of taking a trip after she's told she can get 15 percent off a flight that travels south of the border. "Yes," she says, pumping her fist. "I love discounts!"

The video has received tens of thousands of likes after being posted on various Twitter handles.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Aeromexico ad campaign trolls anti-Mexican sentiment in US with DNA discounts
When it comes to vacation dreams, few hold the enduring appeal of staying in a Tuscan villa. Think classic stone architecture, intricate tile work, pergola views over sun-dappled vineyards. And the fantasy might be more approachable than you think, especially for a large family or extended group of friends.

USA TODAY Travel asked Italian lodging specialist Homebase Abroad to share some of its most alluring rentals in Tuscany. From Villa delle Vigne on a working wine and olive estate in Chianti, to Ca di Pesa which has its own pizza oven and bocce court, browse their picks in the slideshow above.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 7 dreamy Tuscan villas for rent
The picture to have emanated from Q4 releases so far is an impressive one. The top and the bottom lines of S&P 500 companies that have reported so far have expanded 8.5% and 18.3%, respectively on a year-over-year basis, according to the latest Earnings Outlook.

While 58.3% companies beat expectations on the revenue front, 77.8% companies outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate with respect to earnings. Generally, an earnings beat by a company leads to an uptick in its stock price. Investors like to add outperformers to their respective portfolios for healthy returns.

However, the task is far from easy with a plethora of companies present in the market. Moreover, the complexities associated with the stock market make it even more difficult for individual investors to select outperformers in their portfolios in the absence of proper guidance.

Broker Advice to the Rescue

The requisite guidance to design a winning portfolio comes from brokers. Brokers, not only scrutinize the publicly available financial documents but also attend company conference calls and other presentations.

The estimate revisions serve as an important pointer regarding the price of a stock. In fact, a rating upgrade generally leads to stock price appreciation. Similarly, the price of a stock may plummet following a rating downgrade.

Estimates can move north for a number of reasons  favorable earnings performance, a bullish guidance, product launch or any favorable macro scenario. To take care of the earnings performance, we have designed a screen based on improving analyst recommendation and upward estimate revisions over the last four weeks.

Winning Strategy

The above write-up clearly suggests that by following broker actions, one can arrive at a winning portfolio of stocks. Keeping this in mind, we have designed a screen to shortlist stocks based on improving analyst recommendation and upward revisions to earnings estimates over the last four weeks.

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Also, since the price/sales ratio is a strong complementary valuation metric in the presence of analyst information, it has been included. The price/sales ratio takes care of the companys top line, making the strategy foolproof.

Screening Criteria

# (Up- Down Rating)/ Total (4 weeks) =Top #75 (This gives the list of top 75 companies that have witnessed net upgrades over the last 4 weeks).

% change in Q (1) est. (4 weeks) = Top #10 (This gives the top 10 stocks that have witnessed earnings estimate revisions over the past 4 weeks for the upcoming quarter).

We have also added the following screening parameters to ensure that the strategy is a winning one:

Price-to-Sales = Bot%10 (The lower the ratio the better, companies meeting this criteria are in bottom 10% of our universe of over 7,700 stocks with respect to this ratio).

Price greater than 5 (as a stock trading below $5 will not likely create significant interest for most of the investors).

Average Daily Volume greater than 100,000 shares over the last 20 trading days (Volume has to be significant to ensure that these are easily traded).

Market value ($ mil) = Top #3000 (This gives us stocks that are the top 3000 in terms of market capitalization).

Com/ADR/Canadian= Com (This takes out the ADR and Canadian stocks).

Here are five of the 10 stocks that made it through the screen:

American Airlines Group AAL operates more than 6,700 daily flights to over 330 destinations in more than 50 nations across the globe from its hubs. American Airlines is headquartered in Fort Worth, TX and carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings has increased 7.9% in the past 60 days. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

ArcBest Corporation ARCB, based in Fort Smith, AR, provides freight transportation services and solutions. This Zacks Rank #2 stock has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings being revised upward to the tune of 2.9% over the past 60 days.

AmerisourceBergen ABC is based in Chesterbrook, PA. The Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) pharmaceutical services company focuses on providing drug distribution and related services to reduce health care costs and improve patient outcomes. The company has an impressive history with respect to earnings surprises, having outshined the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters. The average positive surprise is 6.9%.

Cardinal Health CAH is a nation-wide drug distributor and provider of services to pharmacies, healthcare providers and manufacturers. It is based in Dublin, OH. The company, carrying a Zacks Rank #3, has an expected earnings per share growth rate (next 3 to 5 years) of 6.2%. Moreover, it has an impressive earnings track record, having surpassed expectations in three of the trailing four quarters with the average positive surprise being 9.3%.

CVS Health Corporation CVS is based in in Woonsocket, RI. The pharmacy innovation company carries a Zacks Rank #2. It has a three-five year EPS growth rate of 10.9%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings has increased 1.2% in the past 60 days.

You can get the rest of the stocks on this list by signing up now for your 2-week free trial to the Research Wizard and start using this screen in your own trading. Further, you can also create your own strategies and test them first before taking the investment plunge.

The Research Wizard is a great place to begin. It's easy to use. Everything is in plain language. And it's very intuitive. Start your Research Wizard trial today. And the next time you read an economic report, open up the Research Wizard, plug your finds in, and see what gems come out.

Click here to sign up for a free trial to the Research Wizard today.

Disclosure:Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.

Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks portfolios and strategies are available at: https://www.zacks.com/performance.



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Major energy players are gearing up to report Q4 results, with Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) having released the numbers on Jan 16. The sector is expected to report year-over-year earnings growth of 68.3% on 14.6% revenue growth.

Before delving into details on stocks that are poised to trump estimates, lets quickly discuss the crude and natural gas pricing scenario of Q4.

How Oil & Gas Fared in Q4

Oil

In fourth-quarter 2018, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude plunged from a multi-year high of $76.40 a barrel in early October to below $45 in late December, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Soft demand outlook on fears of global economic slowdown kept energy stocks under pressure. Notably, the enforcement of sanctions against Iran  one of the leading oil producers in the world  by the United States last November could not keep oil price from plunging. This was because Washington issued sanction waivers to several countries to continue importing oil from Iran, till mid-2019.

Despite the free fall, the average WTI oil prices for October and November of 2018 were recorded at $70.75 and $56.96 per barrel, higher than $51.58 and $56.64 for the respective months of 2017, EIA added. However, the average crude price for December 2018 declined year over year.

Natural Gas

Per EIA, the average natural prices for the months of October, November and December of 2018 were reported at $3.28 per Million Btu, $4.09 per Million Btu and $4.04 per Million Btu, higher than $2.88, $3.01 and $2.82 for the respective months of 2017.

What Awaits the Energy Players?

Although plummeting crude prices during the October-to-December quarter of 2018 should have hurt upstream businesses, a year-over-year uptick in prices in the initial two months may have helped explorers and producers.

It is to be noted that the largest oilfield service firm Schlumberger Limited SLB expects demand and pricing for North American oilfield services to have been weak in the October-to-December quarter, as the pipeline bottleneck problem in the prolific Permian Basin and declining well productivity are likely to have hurt crude production volumes.

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The free fall in oil price, however, was a boon for refiners as it brought down input prices for them.

It is to be noted that the commodity pricing environment was favorable for the explorers and producers of natural gas.

Potential Winners in the Energy Space

Given the commodity price backdrop of Q4, it is not easy to pick stocks with the potential to trump Q4 earnings estimates. Here, the Zacks methodology comes in handy as it helps identify stocks that not only boast solid fundamentals but are also poised to beat estimates this earnings season.

Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) and a positive Earnings ESP have a higher chance  as high as 70%  of beating estimates. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Headquartered in Denver, CO, Antero Resources Corporation AR is a leading explorer and producer of oil and natural gas.

With a Zacks Rank #3 and an Earnings ESP of +4.19%, Antero Resources looks set for a positive earnings surprise. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Antero Resources is set to announce fourth-quarter results on Feb 13.

Antero Resources Corporation Price and EPS Surprise

Antero Resources Corporation Price and EPS Surprise | Antero Resources Corporation Quote

BP plc BP, headquartered in London, is a leading integrated energy company.

With a Zacks Rank #3 and an Earnings ESP of +8.15%, BP looks positioned for a positive earnings surprise.

BP is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results on Feb 5.

BP p.l.c. Price and EPS Surprise

BP p.l.c. Price and EPS Surprise | BP p.l.c. Quote

Based in Frisco, TX, Comstock Resources, Inc. CRK is a major upstream energy firm.

The company carries a Zacks Rank #3 and has an Earnings ESP of +17.86%, that suggests a beat in the to-be-reported quarter. The company is slated to release fourth-quarter results on Feb 21.

Comstock Resources, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Comstock Resources, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise | Comstock Resources, Inc. Quote

QEP Resources, Inc. QEP, headquartered in Denver, CO, is also a leading upstream energy player.

With a Zacks Rank #3 and an Earnings ESP of +27.96%, QEP Resources is on course to report a positive earnings surprise.

The company is expected to release fourth-quarter results on Feb 27.

QEP Resources, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

QEP Resources, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise | QEP Resources, Inc. Quote

Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside?

Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana.

Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.

See the pot trades we're targeting>>



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Building a portfolio comprising stocks with favorable liquidity is the way to go for investors seeking healthy returns. Liquidity indicates a companys capability to meet its short-term debt obligations by converting assets into liquid cash and equivalents. Thus, companies boasting impressive liquidity positions may be considered the ones with solid financial health.

However, high liquidity may also signify a companys inefficiency to utilize its assets effectively. It is therefore important to also focus on efficiency alongside liquidity to identify potential winners.

Measures to Identify Liquid Stocks

Current Ratio: It measures current assets relative to current liabilities. This ratio is used for measuring a companys potential to meet both short- and long-term debt obligations. Thus, a current ratio  also known as working capital ratio  below 1 indicates that the company has more liabilities than assets. However, a high current ratio does not always indicate that the company is in good financial shape. It may also mean that the company has failed to utilize its assets significantly. Hence, a range of 1 to 3 is considered ideal.

Quick Ratio: Unlike current ratio, quick ratio  also called acid-test ratio" or "quick assets ratio"  indicates a companys ability to pay short-term obligations. It considers inventory excluding current assets relative to current liabilities. Like the current ratio, a quick ratio of greater than 1 is desirable.

Cash Ratio: This is the most conservative ratio among the three, as it takes into account only cash and cash equivalents, and invested funds relative to current liabilities. It measures a companys ability to meet its current debt obligations using the most liquid of assets. Though a cash ratio of more than 1 may point to sound financials, a higher number may indicate inefficiency in cash utilization.

So, a ratio greater than 1 is desirable at all times but may not always appropriately represent a companys financial condition.

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Screening Parameters

In order to pick the best of the lot, we have added asset utilization, which is a widely used measure of a companys efficiency, as one of the screening criteria. Asset utilization is the ratio of total sales over the past 12 months to the last four-quarter average of total assets. Though this ratio varies across industries, companies with a ratio higher than their respective industries can be considered efficient.

In order to ensure that these liquid and efficient stocks have solid growth potential, we have added our proprietary Growth Style Score to the screen.

Current Ratio, Quick Ratio and Cash Ratio between 1 and 3 (While liquidity ratios of greater than 1 are desirable, significantly high ratios may indicate inefficiency.)

Asset utilization greater than industry average (Higher asset utilization than the industry average indicates a companys efficiency.)

Zacks Rank equal to #1 (Only Strong Buy-rated stocks can get through). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Growth Score less than or equal to B (Back-tested results show that stocks with a Growth Score of A or B when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 or 2 handily beat other stocks.)

These criteria have narrowed down the universe of more than 7,700 stocks to only six.

Here are four of the six stocks that qualified the screen:

Niwot, CO-based Crocs, Inc. CROX is a provider of innovative casual footwear for men, women and children.The company has a Growth Score of A and delivered average four-quarter positive surprise of 126.3%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2018 earnings has increased by a penny to 46 cents over the past 30 days.

Headquartered in Bedford, MA, Novanta Inc. NOVT provides photonics, vision and precision motion components and sub-systems to original equipment manufacturers in the medical and industrial markets worldwide.The company has a Growth Score of A and pulled off average four-quarter earnings surprise of 11.6%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2018 earnings of $2.11 has been stable over the past 30 days.

Abercrombie & Fitch Company ANF, domiciled in New Albany, OH, is one of the worlds elite specialty retailers for apparel. The company has a Growth Score of B and came up with average four-quarter beat of 88.6%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2019 earnings of 95 cents inched 3.3% up over the past 30 days.

Reston, VA-based Maximus, Inc. MMS is a leading provider of government health and human services programs in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and Saudi Arabia. The company has a Growth Score of B and delivered average four-quarter positive surprise of 2.82%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2019 earnings of $3.66 has remained flat over the past 30 days.

Get the rest of the stocks on the list and start putting this and other ideas to the test. It can all be done with the Research Wizard stock picking and back testing software.

The Research Wizard is a great place to begin. It's easy to use. Everything is in plain language. And it's very intuitive. Start your Research Wizard trial today. And the next time you read an economic report, open up the Research Wizard, plug your finds in, and see what gems come out.

Click here to sign up for a free trial to the Research Wizard today.

Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.

Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks portfolios and strategies are available at: https://www.zacks.com/performance.



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Jihadist News Articles Analysis Multimedia Social Network Jihad Western Jihadist Digest Free Articles Financial Jihad

Full Translation

Groups Afghan Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement Al-Nusra Front Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) Ansar al-Islam Ansar al-Sunnah in Jerusalem Ansar Beit al-Maqdis Ansar Dine Ansar Jerusalem Hezbollah Islamic Jihad Union Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Islamic State Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) Jabha East Africa Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Jaish al-Fath Lashkar-e Toiba Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e Taliban) Shabaab al-Mujahideen (The Young Mujahideen Movement) Taifetul Mansura The Levantine Front Turkestan Islamic Party

Leaders Abu Musab Abd al-Wadud Abu Yahya al-Libi Adam Gadahn Anwar al-Awlaki Ayman al-Zawahiri Hakimullah Mehsud Mullah Omar Mustafa Abu al-Yazid Usama bin Laden Abu Baseer al-Wuhayshi

Countries Afghanistan Algeria Australia Austria Bangladesh Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Burma Burundi Canada Chechnya China Denmark Egypt Eritrea Ethiopia Europe Finland France Germany India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Italy Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Lebanon Libya Mali Mauritania Morocco Niger Nigeria Norway Pakistan Palestinian Territories Russia Saudi Arabia Somalia Spain Sweden Syria Tunisia Turkey Uganda United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uzbekistan Yemen Burkina Faso Philippines Ireland
The United States has dismissed claims that it had prior intel of the DusitD2 hotel attack that left 21 people dead, including one American.

US Ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec Thursday issued a statement responding to reports that circulated on social media that a US delegation that had been booked at the hotel had changed the venue just a day before the attack.

Mr Godec further denied that they advised American citizens to avoid the DusitD2 prior to the incident.

Contrary to some false reports on social media, the United States had no advance notice of the attack, nor did we ever advise American citizens or our staff to avoid the DusitD2 prior to the incident, Mr Godec said.

The US ambassador noted that the U.S is working closely with the Kenyan authorities to provide assistance in the aftermath of the Dusit attack.

Godec also condemned the spread of misleading information in the wake of the tragedy.

We deplore the spread of false information in the wake of this tragedy, which only serves to hamper ongoing efforts to defeat terrorism.

He added, We reiterate our deepest condolences to the families and friends of all those who were killed in this craven attack and wish a quick recovery to those who were injured. We stand shoulder to shoulder with Kenya.
YEREVAN.  Armenia's Foreign Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Friday received UAE Ambassador Jassim Mohammad Al Qasimi, on the occasion of the completion of the latters diplomatic mission in Armenia, the press service of the government reported.

Nikol Pashinyan thanked the Ambassador the close cooperation and wished him success in future activities. The PM highlighted the development of political and economic relations between Armenia and the UAE, and hoped that in the future the partnership between the two states will continue expand and strengthen.

We expect that in the near future we will witness new investors from the UAE and rise in the number of tourists, Nikol Pashinyan said.

Jassim Mohamed Al Qasemi congratulated Nikol Pashinyan on being appointed Prime Minister of Armenia on behalf of the Government of the UAE, and expressed confidence that in the upcoming years new achievements will be recorded in the partnership between the two states, including in the spheres of trade turnover and tourism. The Ambassador noted that there are different investors in the UAE interested in investment projects in Armenia in the spheres of energy and agriculture and are ready to closely cooperate with the Government in that direction.

The sides highlighted the activities of the inter-state commission for giving new impetus to the cooperation and exchanged views on a number of issues on bilateral agenda.
Artsakh Republic Human Rights Defender Artak Beglaryan issued a statement on the 29th anniversary of the massacres of Armenians in Baku, organized by Azerbaijan in January 1990.

The text of the statement is given below.

1. In January 1990, the Azerbaijani city of Baku again became a tramp for continuously executing massacres against Armenians (third time after 1905 and 1918 massive massacres of Armenians), where, unlike other Azerbaijani settlements, a considerable number of Armenians were still living. After a crowded rally in Baku on January 13, according to a predefined plan, a crowd of about 50,000 was devided into groups and invaded the homes of Armenians in order to "clean" the city from Armenians.

2. During the period from 13 to 20 January, the Armenians of Baku were subjected to violence, massacres, looting and forcible expulsion for their nationality, massively violating their rights to life, not to be tortured and discriminated, liberty and security, property, fair trial and many other rights. The exact number of the killed people is not known yet, but according to our latest research, over 450 people were killed.

3. On the occasion of the massacres of Armenians in Baku and attacks on Getashen and other Armenian villages of Shahumyan region, on January 18 the European Parliament adopted a resolution titled On the Situation in Armenia, which called upon the authorities of the USSR to guarantee real protection for the Armenian people living in Azerbaijan by sending forces to intervene.

4. Only on the night of January 20, the Soviet Army subdivisions were brought to the capital of the Azerbaijani SSR. Overcoming the fierce resistance of the Azerbaijani National Front troops, The Soviet army stopped the 7-days massacre of Armenians.

5. On the July 27th, 1990, an open letter addressed to the international community was published in the New York Times. The letter was signed by 133 prominent scholars and human rights advocates from Europe, Canada and the USA, who voiced their complaint against the killings and pogroms of Armenians in Baku. It stated, particularly, that The crimes committed against Armenian minority have become a consistent practice in Soviet Azerbaijan, if not an official policy.

6. That crime against humanity, organized by Azerbaijan in Baku, has accelerated and almost finished the full ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population in Azerbaijan. Within the framework of that ethnic cleansing, during 1988-1990 thousands of Armenians were killed and about 500,000 Armenians were deported from Azerbaijani Sumgait, Kirovabad and other cities as well as Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast with knowledge and permission of the USSR authorities.

7. In subsequent years (including during the 1991-1994 Azerbaijan-Karabakh war), Azerbaijan continued the policy of ethnic cleansing of Armenians, which, according to our analysis, is in full compliance with the legal formulation of the genocide perpetrated under theUN 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Moreover, apart from the depatriation of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani Armenians, our research shows that their property, free movement and some other rights are continuously being violated, and many of them still have the physical, psychological, and material consequences of that policy.

8. Those committed crimes have not received relevant legal assessment and have remained unpunished, which resulted also the realization of the official anti-Armenian hatred policy pursued by the Republic of Azerbaijan. The victims of that policy are not only Azerbaijani Armenians and the population of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), but also all Armenians worldwide, as well as, foreigners visiting Artsakh. As a reminder, the Artsakh Republic Human Rights Ombudsman published a special report in 2018 on the Azerbaijani anti-Armenian hatred policy, presenting concrete examples of its manifestation and relevant international law analysis.

9. An active stage of manifestation of Armenophobia in the Azerbaijani society was also recorded in April 2016- during the large-scale attack on Artsakh by Azerbaijan. The Human Rights Ombudsman, within the framework of his fact-finding mission, in 2016, presented a report on killings, beheadings, tortures and other cases of war crimes and human rights violations against civilians and military servicemen of Artsakh. It is noteworthy that the Azerbaijani servicemen, who have committed such crimes, were later rewarded and encouraged by the Azerbaijani authorities.

10. The Ombudsman urges the international community to give a proper legal assessment to the 1990 January violences in Baku, in accordance with the fundamental principles and norms of international law, as well as taking action to end the ongoing anti-Armenian hatred policy. This path of racial hatred is not only contrary to the well-known principles of international law, but it also takes the two peoples away from conflict resolution and lasting peace. The staff of the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Artsakh
Outgoing U.S ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec on Thursday bid farewell to Raila and Ida Odinga and Chief Justice David Maraga.

Godec started his visits at AU special envoy Raila Odingas Karen residence in the morning, where the Opposition leader and wife Ida hosted him to a farewell breakfast.

Raila said Godec promised continued support for the Building Bridges Initiative and war on corruption.

Later on Thursday, the outgoing diplomat paid a courtesy call to Chief Justice David Maraga at his Judiciary office.

The Supreme Court President wished Godec well, noting that he had enjoyed working with him.

I enjoyed working with him, and on my behalf, and that of the Judiciary, I wish him well in his future endeavours, said Maraga.

On Monday, Robert Godec visited Interior CS Fred Matiangi, who acknowledged the envoys positive contribution towards expanding Kenyas democratic space during his tenure.

I also thank him for the positive engagement weve had on various security matters and wish him well in his future endeavors. Said Matiangi.

Godecs tenure ends at the end of the month after six years as US envoy to Kenya.

Former Senator Kyle McCarter, who was nominated by President Trump in March last year, has since been confirmed as the new US Ambassador to Kenya.
Russias Foreign Ministry issued a statement in connection with the ban for Russian citizens of Armenian origin to enter Azerbaijan.

We take note of the tone of comments that goes beyond diplomatic decency. No less perplexing is its content, which results to not inflating the topic of discrimination of Russian citizens coming to Azerbaijan which allegedly has little significance amid the dynamic development of bilateral relations, says the statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Russias foreign office calls such an approach unacceptable, as protection of the rights and interests of the Russian citizens is priority of Moscows foreign policy. The statement says the Russian side would like to hear meaningful explanations on each incident involving Russian nationals.

The ministry pointed out an alarming case when a 80-year-old woman, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, was banned from entering the country as well as the incident with a mother of 4-year-old son who was forced to wait for hours in a special cell.

We also expect official clarifications through diplomatic channels regarding the hints of the Azerbaijani side on the need for Russian citizens to coordinate trips to Azerbaijan with the republics embassy in Moscow, which would violate the July 3, 1997 agreement on visa-free trips of citizens of the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan Republic.

Depending on the substantive reaction of the Azerbaijani side, we will determine our further steps, the statement says.
An old picture of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama that was taken in Nairobi is all the fuss on social media.

The former U.S President Thursday shared the picture in a Twitter/Instagram post as he wished wife Michelle Obama a happy birthday.

Obama, who is often known to be a man of many words, kept his loving message short and sweet to the former U.S First Lady who turned 55.

I knew it way back then and Im absolutely convinced of it today  youre one of a kind, @ MichelleObama. Happy Birthday! Barack captioned the adorable old photo of him and Michelle.

Kenyans on Twitter quickly noticed that the background picture search looked somewhat familiar, with some rightly pointing out that Obama was holding a local newspaper.

Other Kenyan Twitter users were taken aback by the fact that Michelle Obama has been to Kenya. This, of course, is because a section of Kenyans believe that the former FLOTUS is somewhat snobbish towards Kenya as she does not accompany Uncle Barry on his visits to the motherland.

Last July, when Obama was in Kenya for a two-day visit, Michelle Obama was conspicuously missing. A lot of Kenyans had hoped that this would finally be the visit they get to see and meet Michelle seeing as Barack Obama was out of office.

As if her absence wasnt disappointing enough, it became apparent that prior to the Kenyan trip, the Obamas had spent more than a week at the Serengeti National Park in neighbouring Tanzania.

While we continue to wait for Michelle Obama to grace us with her presence(not that were that desperate), we can take comfort in the photo of her first visit to Kenya back in 1992. It was taken at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, formerly the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, located in the City Square of Nairobi.

This is when Barack Obama brought Michelle to meet his grandmother Mama Sarah and his Kenyan family just before their wedding. They had dated for three years.

Michelles experience during the visit, as told in her memoir- Becoming, could explain why she skips Kenya.

In her book, Michelle says it was not an experience to behold for her as she got frustrated and ended up being angry at Barack Obama. Her frustrations started right from the airport in Nairobi as Obamas sister, Auma Obama, came to pick them in a dilapidated Volkswagen beetle.

Aumas sky-blue VW was so old that it often needed to be pushed in order to get the engine into gear. Id ill-advisedly bought new white sneakers to wear on the trip, and within a day, after all the pushing we did, theyd turned reddish brown, stained with the cinnamon-hued dust of Nairobi, she writes.

Interestingly, this was also the first time they had their first big fight as a couple.

However, it was not all terrible for the young Michelle who says she enjoyed the company of her would-be in-laws when they later travelled to Siaya to meet Mama Sarah Obama.
Armenia Parliament Speaker thanks people for supporting the authorities during difficult times

China's new embassy building in Armenia (an exclusive report)

Armenia's ArmEconomBank employees forced to attend ruling party's rally at Republic Square after work

"Armenia" bloc member: Whole state apparatus is trying to create impression that Pashinyan has supporters

"I Have the Honor" bloc's candidate for Armenia PM: To vote for current govt means to face loss of statehood

Razm.info: Azeri serviceman drowns in Al lakes of Karvachar

Armenia MFA's commentary on the declaration signed by the Presidents of Turkey and Azerbaijan

Turkey estimates total military resources of Azerbaijani and Turkish troops

Artsakh ex-PM: I call on worthy citizens of Armenia to vote for the "Armenia" bloc

Robert Kocharyan: Outgoing government speaks of the past

Azerbaijan trades Armenian POWs for mine maps, Putin and Biden meets in Geneva, Jun 17 digest

"Armenia" bloc holding campaign meeting in Sevan (LIVE)

Armenia National Democratic Axis party: We will not cooperate with former and current authorities in any format

Armed man attacks office of pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party in Turkey, 1 killed

Russian MFA: Armenian POWs' issue remains current

Zakharova: Russia sees need to demarcate and delineate Armenia-Azerbaijan borders as soon as possible

Karabakh: Remains of 3 more Armenian servicemen found in territories of Artsakh seized by Azerbaijan

Russia MFA Spokesperson on Erdogan's visit to Shushi

EU to provide support to electoral processes in Armenia

Dollar still losing value in Armenia

Eduard Sharmazanov: "I Have the Honor" bloc is not adversary of ex-PM Karen Karapetyan

Russia FM, OSCE Secretary General to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Armenia President to OSCE PA election observation delegation: There is tension in political atmosphere

Erdogan: Russia positive toward creation of Zangezur corridor

"Armenia" bloc: Police apprehended our members without proper ground in Yeghvard

Armenia ombudsman addresses letter to acting PM, raises matter of submitting urgent complaint to ECHR

Armenia 2nd President and ex-PM Karen Karapetyan tour Gyumri

Why is Republican Party of Armenia member Eduard Sharmazanov not on electoral list for snap elections?

Armenia has new Commercial Attache to Iran

Armenia MOD, Military Police officers are instructed to attend acting PM's rally today in civilian clothes

Armenia 2nd President on linking him to withdrawal of Karabakh from negotiations process

Armenia former President Kocharyan: I am confident that investments will make $1bn in second year

Erdogan not ruling out establishment of Turkish military base in Azerbaijan

Teenager hurt in accident in Armenian village, supposedly hit by Armenia minister's car

"I Have the Honor" bloc of Armenia: National opposition will get 50% + 1 vote in snap parliamentary election 1st round

Armenias Pashinyan sends congratulatory message to Iceland PM

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Settlement of refugees from Azerbaijan-occupied regions can be solved by certificates

Armenia acting premier meets at government with ruling party board members

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan on acting PMs behavior: Probably $5bn promised by Aliyev not fully transferred

Armenia statistical service head on First Presidents statement: I have no information about 70,000 emigrants

Quake hits Armenia

Bright Armenia Party leader: Country is going according to March 1, 2008 scenario

Japan plans to start issuing vaccination passports soon

Two new cases of coronavirus reported in Artsakh

Missing soldiers relatives meeting with Armenia acting PM

3rd candidate dropped out of presidential race in Iran

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: We will do our best to meet people's expectations

MOD: Armenia, Russia defense chiefs discuss Armenian-Azerbaijani border situation

Netherlands FM: All Armenian POWs must be repatriated from Azerbaijan

96 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Azerbaijan is blackmailing Armenia: Zangezur corridor in exchange for Lachin corridor?

Donald Trump speaks on Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin's meeting in Geneva

Court session on demand to declare Armenia ruling party electoral list registration invalid to be held today

Trump announces holding large rally for first time since leaving office

Armenia dissolved legislature session not convened for 3rd time

Newspaper: Artsakh President taking steps to insure self after possible change of power in Armenia

Newspaper: Armenia authorities engaged in attempts to discredit real opposition

Spain man kills his mother, eats her remains

Armenia acting PM talks about demarcation and delimitation during campaign meeting in province

Biden snaps at CNN reporter who grilled him about Geneva summit with Putin

Armenian police barge into "Armenia" bloc's headquarters, demand to not tape acting PM's meeting

Armenia Investigative Committee: Number of missing servicemen, civilians is 275

Armenia 3rd President: Servicemen's Insurance Fund told Government in April that there were 1,064 missing servicemen

Armenia ombudsman: Azerbaijan soldiers stole cow, newborn calf from Gegharkunik Province village pasture shepherd

Armenia 2nd President meets with ex-PM Karen Karapetyan at end of visit to Gyumri (PHOTO)

2 Azerbaijani servicemen die in car accident in Lachin

US Embassy in Yerevan calls on its citizens to be alert

What did Putin gift Biden?

Biden calls meeting with Putin 'positive'

Biden says he doesn't think Putin wants a new Cold War

Putin: There's no problem that Russia and the US can't solve together

Biden gifts Putin pair of Aviator sunglasses

China citizens get vaccinated in Armenia

Armenia opposition party leader: Citizens attack office in Kapan, police brutally beat young people in Yeghegnadzor

Putin says Russia and US have agreed to reciprocally resend ambassadors

Armenia Ombudsman: Azerbaijan is illegally keeping Armenian POWs to receive certain mine maps in exchange

Opposition Prosperous Armenia Party leader says border security is primary issue for Armenians

"I Have the Honor" bloc's candidate for Armenia PM and Serzh Sargsyan hold campaign meetings in Kotayk Province

Russia and US Presidents end talks in Geneva, Biden leaves Villa La Grange

Demonstrators demand condemnation of Azeri aggression against Armenia, Karabakh on heels of Putin-Biden meeting

"Armenia" bloc holding campaign meeting in Gyumri

Azerbaijan resumes trial against Armenian POWs, Erdogan visits Karabakhs Shushi, June 16 digest

"Armenia" bloc member: Law-enforcement bodies not taking action in response to acting PM's call for violence

Armenia deputy police chief says hammer that Pashinyan uses during campaign meetings is not a cold weapon

Putin-Biden narrow-format talks end in Geneva

One dollar falls below AMD 515 in Armenia

European Union agrees on additional sanctions against Belarus

Armenia village murder solved 6 months later

Government employees in Armenia's Vayk attending acting PM's campaign meeting during working hours

Resident of Armenia's Khoznavar village moves to Jermuk after not being able to raise cattle in grazing field

Police summon opposition Prosperous Armenia Party's MP candidate, launch criminal case

Armenia 2nd President: Government must take care of basic needs of all citizens

Bright Armenia Party leader says they are 3rd in big cities

Armenia prosecutor's office looking into acting PM statement on $1,000 reward for vote-buying videos

Armenia 2nd President: There is a need to increase funding for education

Armenia Police record 172 cases of electoral violations

Armenia Police on acting PM being accompanied by many officers during campaign: Assessment is made in each case

Artsakh MFA: Shahumyan region is integral part of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic

Did Russias Putin offer proposal to end Artsakh war on October 10?

Putin-Biden meeting kicks off in Geneva
Irans Foreign Ministry dismissed the concerns raised by the US and France about Tehrans move to launch a satellite into space, saying the worrying fact is the atrocities that the allies of certain Western countries are committing in the Middle East every day, Tasnim News Agency reported.

In comments on Wednesday evening, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi rejected the statements released by the US and France which have voiced concern about the launch of an Iranian satellite into space.

Faced with decades of cruel sanctions, the Islamic Republic of Iran has relied on its young space scientists and has gained reliable know-how in this field, the spokesman noted, stressing that such technology and capability is used for scientific purposes and for meeting the countrys demands in the space sphere.

Such (space) capabilities have civilian nature and are by no means in violation of any of the international regulations in this area, Qassemi noted, underscoring that such Iranian technology does not breach the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 or any other resolution.

Every nation is entitled to use and enjoy such knowledge and technology, and the other countries have no right at all to deprive the other nations of enjoying the scientific technologies under any justification, reason, one-sided and incorrect motives, and by resorting to wrong interpretations, he underlined.

Qassemi then described the Middle East as a crisis-hit region that has practically turned into a depot of arms due to the flow of billions of dollars in Western-made arms to the regional countries, denouncing the shameful humanitarian catastrophes caused by that the allies of the US and France in the region.

He concluded that such humanitarian crises are definitely more worrying than Irans local scientific activities.

It is a great pity that in the contemporary world, the criteria of certain countries for worry and expression of concern are not humanitarian issues, but economic interests and the amount of revenue earned in the trade caused by the outbreak of wars in different parts of the world, he deplored.

Denouncing the groundless concerns about Irans launch of satellite voiced by the foreign ministries of France and the US, Qassem said Iran sticks to a path that serves its strategic long-term interests and will never sacrifice its scientific growth for the bogus and fabricated concerns of the outsiders.
China's new embassy building in Armenia (an exclusive report)

Armenia's ArmEconomBank employees forced to attend ruling party's rally at Republic Square after work

"Armenia" bloc member: Whole state apparatus is trying to create impression that Pashinyan has supporters

"I Have the Honor" bloc's candidate for Armenia PM: To vote for current govt means to face loss of statehood

Razm.info: Azeri serviceman drowns in Al lakes of Karvachar

Armenia MFA's commentary on the declaration signed by the Presidents of Turkey and Azerbaijan

Turkey estimates total military resources of Azerbaijani and Turkish troops

Artsakh ex-PM: I call on worthy citizens of Armenia to vote for the "Armenia" bloc

Robert Kocharyan: Outgoing government speaks of the past

Azerbaijan trades Armenian POWs for mine maps, Putin and Biden meets in Geneva, Jun 17 digest

"Armenia" bloc holding campaign meeting in Sevan (LIVE)

Armenia National Democratic Axis party: We will not cooperate with former and current authorities in any format

Armed man attacks office of pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party in Turkey, 1 killed

Russian MFA: Armenian POWs' issue remains current

Zakharova: Russia sees need to demarcate and delineate Armenia-Azerbaijan borders as soon as possible

Karabakh: Remains of 3 more Armenian servicemen found in territories of Artsakh seized by Azerbaijan

Russia MFA Spokesperson on Erdogan's visit to Shushi

EU to provide support to electoral processes in Armenia

Dollar still losing value in Armenia

Eduard Sharmazanov: "I Have the Honor" bloc is not adversary of ex-PM Karen Karapetyan

Russia FM, OSCE Secretary General to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Armenia President to OSCE PA election observation delegation: There is tension in political atmosphere

Erdogan: Russia positive toward creation of Zangezur corridor

"Armenia" bloc: Police apprehended our members without proper ground in Yeghvard

Armenia ombudsman addresses letter to acting PM, raises matter of submitting urgent complaint to ECHR

Armenia 2nd President and ex-PM Karen Karapetyan tour Gyumri

Why is Republican Party of Armenia member Eduard Sharmazanov not on electoral list for snap elections?

Armenia has new Commercial Attache to Iran

Armenia MOD, Military Police officers are instructed to attend acting PM's rally today in civilian clothes

Armenia 2nd President on linking him to withdrawal of Karabakh from negotiations process

Armenia former President Kocharyan: I am confident that investments will make $1bn in second year

Erdogan not ruling out establishment of Turkish military base in Azerbaijan

Teenager hurt in accident in Armenian village, supposedly hit by Armenia minister's car

"I Have the Honor" bloc of Armenia: National opposition will get 50% + 1 vote in snap parliamentary election 1st round

Armenias Pashinyan sends congratulatory message to Iceland PM

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Settlement of refugees from Azerbaijan-occupied regions can be solved by certificates

Armenia acting premier meets at government with ruling party board members

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan on acting PMs behavior: Probably $5bn promised by Aliyev not fully transferred

Armenia statistical service head on First Presidents statement: I have no information about 70,000 emigrants

Quake hits Armenia

Bright Armenia Party leader: Country is going according to March 1, 2008 scenario

Japan plans to start issuing vaccination passports soon

Two new cases of coronavirus reported in Artsakh

Missing soldiers relatives meeting with Armenia acting PM

3rd candidate dropped out of presidential race in Iran

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: We will do our best to meet people's expectations

MOD: Armenia, Russia defense chiefs discuss Armenian-Azerbaijani border situation

Netherlands FM: All Armenian POWs must be repatriated from Azerbaijan

96 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Azerbaijan is blackmailing Armenia: Zangezur corridor in exchange for Lachin corridor?

Donald Trump speaks on Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin's meeting in Geneva

Court session on demand to declare Armenia ruling party electoral list registration invalid to be held today

Trump announces holding large rally for first time since leaving office

Armenia dissolved legislature session not convened for 3rd time

Newspaper: Artsakh President taking steps to insure self after possible change of power in Armenia

Newspaper: Armenia authorities engaged in attempts to discredit real opposition

Spain man kills his mother, eats her remains

Armenia acting PM talks about demarcation and delimitation during campaign meeting in province

Biden snaps at CNN reporter who grilled him about Geneva summit with Putin

Armenian police barge into "Armenia" bloc's headquarters, demand to not tape acting PM's meeting

Armenia Investigative Committee: Number of missing servicemen, civilians is 275

Armenia 3rd President: Servicemen's Insurance Fund told Government in April that there were 1,064 missing servicemen

Armenia ombudsman: Azerbaijan soldiers stole cow, newborn calf from Gegharkunik Province village pasture shepherd

Armenia 2nd President meets with ex-PM Karen Karapetyan at end of visit to Gyumri (PHOTO)

2 Azerbaijani servicemen die in car accident in Lachin

US Embassy in Yerevan calls on its citizens to be alert

What did Putin gift Biden?

Biden calls meeting with Putin 'positive'

Biden says he doesn't think Putin wants a new Cold War

Putin: There's no problem that Russia and the US can't solve together

Biden gifts Putin pair of Aviator sunglasses

China citizens get vaccinated in Armenia

Armenia opposition party leader: Citizens attack office in Kapan, police brutally beat young people in Yeghegnadzor

Putin says Russia and US have agreed to reciprocally resend ambassadors

Armenia Ombudsman: Azerbaijan is illegally keeping Armenian POWs to receive certain mine maps in exchange

Opposition Prosperous Armenia Party leader says border security is primary issue for Armenians

"I Have the Honor" bloc's candidate for Armenia PM and Serzh Sargsyan hold campaign meetings in Kotayk Province

Russia and US Presidents end talks in Geneva, Biden leaves Villa La Grange

Demonstrators demand condemnation of Azeri aggression against Armenia, Karabakh on heels of Putin-Biden meeting

"Armenia" bloc holding campaign meeting in Gyumri
Lillian Mulis online-in-laws are demanding answers.

This after the Citizen TV news presenter did the unthinkable on Instagram by posting a picture of her estranged baby daddy, whom Lillian Muli labelled a community husband barely a month ago.

The mother of two was believed to be embroiled in yet another bitter split following her strongly-worded rant on Christmas Eve when she announced the end of her relationship with wealthy businessman Jared Nevaton.

In a long post on Instagram, Ms Muli said she made the decision to split with Jared Ombongi after finding out that he is a womanizer.

Im officially single and will now focus on raising my boys. As public figures, we meet all sorts of people and most just want trophies whether you are well known or not. Be very careful who you allow into your life, dont go giving your heart to everyone.

When you actually believe someone is true to you only to find out they are community husbands you are safer stepping aside. Nobody should ever tag me in posts about Jared Ombongi who has previously been associated with me I disassociate myself from such links from today. As politicians say I would rather die than be linked to a polygamist! Narcissism is real, declared a fiery Muli.

I speak out because no one will ever embarrass me again. People ask why put your stuff out there? Well, its because next time you see Mr Community husband dont go saying thats Lillians man. I am actually very blessed I have two wonderful men in my life Joshua munene and Liam Francis and thats all I need, she went on.

That was a little over three weeks ago and the post has since been pulled down.

On Thursday, it emerged that Lillian Muli may have warmed up to Jared in recent times for the sake of their son.

She captioned a photo of Jared with their son Liam: Just Boys Hanging out .

The photo, however, cropped out the boys faces.

Naturally, Mulis Instagram-in-laws had a lot to say about the unexpected development in her public relationship drama. Some praised Muli for exhibiting maturity under the circumstances while others observed that matters of the heart are indeed difficult.

PR guru and TV personality Cynthia Nyamai commended Muli, writing: I admire your maturity. ?

Another user, @Mariean50, noted that: Mapenzi nayo si inakuanga ngumu aki?

A third IG user, @iamyamame, made a sound observation and told Muli: Its your life Lilian!!! You know whats best for you!!!!

Another commenter, @leanfuture, wondered: Now what Will I tell people ???
Public agencies must respond to resident input in their environmental review of projects. No other state law guarantees a seat at the table for disadvantaged communities in land use decisions that impact their health and their future.

The unfair concentration of polluting land uses in low-income communities contributes to a toxic soup of air, water and soil contamination that manifests in disproportionately shorter life spans for residents.

Elevated pollution exposure, drying domestic wells, rumbling diesel trucks, noxious odors, and a myriad other project impacts can make housing unlivable, displacing residents, destabilizing communities, and further depleting available housing.

CEQA alone offers communities a meaningful way to fight back by requiring agencies to identify specific measures to reduce impacts where feasible. Legislation limiting those rights would undermine public health and safety and exacerbate our housing crisis.

The environmental law is one of our most potent tools for fighting environmental racism. We must seek to build upon its core principle to protect the environment consistent with the provision of a decent home and suitable living environment for every Californian, not undermine it.
Some future sections of the Vine Trail are to be closer to vineyards. That has raised questions about how well the trail and agriculture will mix, with skeptics airing concerns at a 2015 Board of Supervisors meeting. Some farmers worried about such things as being able to spray vines and operate heavy equipment near a trail.

The planned St. Helena-to-Calistoga segment is bringing these issues to the fore. In some cases, the Highway 29 right-of-way is too narrow to squeeze in the Vine Trail and easements are needed from the adjacent property owners to allow part of the 10-foot-wide asphalt path on their land.

Sales said the Vine Trail Coalition doesnt want to see vineyards removed to make room for trail pavement. Rather, vineyard owners could cross into the easement to turn around tractors at the end of vine rows.

Ten of 11 property owners have agreed to grant the needed easements, Sales said. That hinges on the liability issue being resolved.

Napa County government is to be the easement holder because recreation trails are not allowed on private land in the agricultural preserve, Sales said. The county is not subject to its zoning ordinance and can make an exception for the easements.
Still, after some residents called on the Goodman houses owners to consider returning the structure to apartments, commissioners quickly shot the idea down.

While the Goodman House hosted multiple tenants for more than 80 years, its condition already was declining before it was damaged in the 2014 earthquake, said commission member Gordon Huether. Even in the late 1980s, he recalled, it looked like it was melting; I always looked at it and thought: who will be nuts enough to buy it?

Considering the money already pumped into the project  at least $1.5 million by Kiki Theodorides estimate  the family should be allowed to pursue a use that can make back their investment, Huether told audience members.

Its not criminal or sinful to have a profit motive, he said. What I see is someone willing to take on the financial risk to restore one of the most beautiful homes in Napa.

Wed probably be forced into a position to flip it, to sell it, said Kiki Theodorides when asked how the family would react to a rejection of their bed-and-breakfast conversion. The family paid $1.3 million to acquire the landmark from Charles Knill in April 2016.
Steve Vartan embarked on another Strange Trip when he passed away suddenly on January 2, 2019 after suffering pul-monary embolisms and heart failure. Born in San Francisco to Sam and Mary Vartan, Steve was looking forward to his 75th birthday in February and hosting yet another of his gourmet dinner parties. He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Ellen, daughter Kristen (SO Sean Donaghue) and son Paul, his wife Debbie, their two adorable daughters, Aria and Aila, his sister Sue Mann and two nieces.

Steve graduated from Lincoln High School in San Francisco and the University of Oregon School of Architecture in 1968 where he was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He served in the Coast Guard Reserves following his college years and proudly said that the Alameda Island Coast Guard Base was never attacked under his watch. His long career in the development and city planning business took him and his family to Iowa, Hawaii, down the SF peninsula to Burlingame and Belmont, Arizona, Florida and Palm Desert in southern California before the family retired to Napa in 1994. As president of the Napa Yacht Club Homeowners Association he obtained permits for maintenance dredging of the lagoons from seven state and federal agencies. He worked closely with local governments and the Corps of Engineers to facilitate the dredging of the Napa River in 2016. He served several terms on the City of Belmont Planning Commission.
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CONGREGATION BETH SHALOM

COVENANT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

With a new year sometimes comes internal pressure to do better, be better. At Covenant, we get that. Were here to remind you that when were mired in the muck of life, theres One who comes to us, a God who rains blessings upon us in all times and circumstances. Even when we believe weve not been good enough. Take a break from the toil of life and join us for worship at 10:30 a.m. at 1226 Salvador Avenue in north Napa. The Rev. Jesse Larson will take a look at the Gospel of John 2:1-11 and Liturgist Chuck Youngson, will lead the call to worship. Ted Lassagne on organ will guide us in hymns, including one of our favorites, God of the Sparrow. Its Birthday Sunday so there will probably be cake after church. Stick around.
Independent telecoms tower infrastructure company Helios Towers has signed an agreement to acquire a controlling interest in SA Towers.

This marks Helios Towers first investment in South Africa following its partnership with Vulatel.

SA Towers was founded in 2016 and has a strong relationship with all mobile network operators in South Africa.

The company has built a pipeline of potential tower sites on more than 500 urban locations across the country.

This investment will accelerate Helios Towers entry into South Africa, Helios Towers said.

As part of the agreement, the group will invest into the platform and provide management expertise to accelerate the conversion of the pipeline.

The company said that SA Towers will be integrated into the Helios Towers organisation and manage South African tower operations, which Helios Towers plans to rapidly expand.

We are thrilled to announce this acquisition of SA Towers business, which will be made via our new partnership with Vulatel, said Helios Towers CEO Kash Pandya.

Were delighted to be partnering with an experienced and well-funded tower operator such as Helios Towers, SA Towers director Rico Marx stated.

Together with the MNOs, whose relationships with SA Towers we value highly, we have ambitious expansion plans in order to meet the burgeoning demand for high quality tower infrastructure.

Now read: Helios Towers enters South African market with Vulatel partnership
YouTube has established itself as the premier video sharing platform on the Internet.

This has encouraged people to publish videos regularly, gathering a following in their niche. Some of these YouTubers have millions of subscribers and make a good living from their channels.

South Africa is not left out of this trend, and boasts popular YouTube stars with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

These YouTubers have made it online despite not being from Europe or the United States  showing that you can garner a global following from anywhere in the world thanks to the Internet.

To learn more about what it takes to make it big online, MyBroadband spoke to vlogger Caspar Lee, and Rob Vamplew of the Rob The Ranger channel about being popular South African YouTubers.

Hard work and hustle

Vamplew said that one of the key elements to his success was that he had consistently been uploading videos to his channel for over 10 years, building up a slow and steady subscriber base.

He added that due to the timeless content he produces, focusing on wildlife, his videos continue to gain views years after they were uploaded.

Caspar also highlighted how he developed his following over 7 years of content creation.

Key to his success, he said, was that he started at the right time and found the right audience for his videos.

Vamplew said it is possible to make a living as a South African YouTube star, but not without some major hustle.

While YouTube offers you money from the ads it runs on your channel, Vamplew said that only channels with incredibly high views can make a living from this income.

Fortunately, there are other ways to make money from YouTube.

One very common way is having sponsored videos where a company pays to have a product advertised by you in your video, said Vamplew.

Another means of monetisation is through crowdfunding platforms such as Patreon, which allow viewers to donate to you in return for various rewards.

Dont do it for the money

Vamplew said that if you go into YouTube content creation for the money, however, youre doing it wrong.

My advice to others is this: Do what makes you happy, make what you enjoy making, expect nothing in return, put the You back in YouTube and with time and consistency your channel will grow, he said.

He added that a good idea is to seek out other YouTube creators so that you can grow together.

Caspar echoed this suggestion, and said that one of the keys to him achieving his success was his collaborations with other YouTubers.

He added that his biggest piece of advice to aspiring YouTube stars is to collaborate with other creators.

Obstacles in South Africa

Caspar believes that the most difficult part of being a YouTuber from South Africa is finding a South African audience.

Data costs are very high compared to other markets, making it more difficult for locals to stream YouTube on mass, he said.

Vamplew agreed, and said that those producing content for a largely local audience are restricted by reach and those that are trying to compete internationally are restricted by speed.

Vamplew added that the rise of Indian YouTubers, for example, is down to their cheap, accessible high-speed Internet access  something we seemingly wont have for another couple of years.

South Africas most popular YouTubers

Caspar Lee is the most popular South African YouTuber, while Vamplew is the 9th most popular, according to SocialBlade.

Other famous YouTubers from South Africa include rap duo Die Antwoord, fitness buff Peter Carvell, and foodie Liezl Strydom.
Although the LCCB does own parts of the former railroad corridors, other parts are privately owned and Leinbach acknowledged those sections could pose a problem.

We may have to go out and around, she said, but pointed to the scenic beauty of the prospective trail as the potential magnet for drawing users.

She said that happened with the Tri-County Cheese Trail, the Wisconsin trail she said, the Louisa County Rider Club wanted to copy.

Its beautiful. Its scenic. It attracts tourism, just people visiting there and mostly on weekends, Leinbach said.

Mayor Shawn Maine said he felt the idea was good, but said he was concerned the conservation board members might not be willing to include ATV and snowmobile use on the trail.

Leinbach, however, said when club members met with the LCCB several members had seemed supportive of the idea.

Council member Charles Wagg questioned if any private property owners had been contacted.

Leinbach said none had, but anticipated a big question from them would be potential liability. She said Iowa law protects private property owners who allow recreational use of their land, so she was hopeful that would persuade some owners to allow the trail.
During the investigation, DeWitt spoke on two occasions with an individual whom he believed was an associate of a contract killer. The person was, in fact, an undercover Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement special agent.

The conversations occurred over the Muscatine County Jail's video visitation system. During the recorded conversations DeWitt identified the three people he wanted to be killed, identified the residence of two of the individuals and the motor vehicle of the third, and discussed the financial arrangements for the killings.

DeWitt later made a phone call to an unwitting party seeking to have a down payment made for the killings. There was no evidence that the person DeWitt contacted was aware of the actual purpose for the payment of money which DeWitt sought. DeWitt also mailed the undercover agent a diagram of the residence of two of the individual he sought to have killed.

In his opening statement at the December trial, Muscatine County Attorney Alan Ostergren called the murder plan terrifying and direct.

On Friday, he said justice was attained.

"The sentence imposed by the Court today truly was justice," Ostergren said in the blog post/release. "Not only did the defendant want to kill three individuals, he did so to interfere with the functioning of the criminal justice system. We go to court to settle our disputes peacefully. The fact that the offender sought to kill witnesses against him made this case particularly serious."

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Is Kenya safe to travel? The answer is a resounding yes according to the Council of Governors Tourism and Wildlife Chairman Mr.Samuel ole Tunai.

Mr Tunai has assured foreign visitors that it is safe to tour Kenya and that no one should cancel their scheduled trips in the wake of Tuesdays terrorist attack on an upmarket hotel complex in Nairobi.

Mr Tunai, who is also the Narok County governor, further called on foreign embassies not to issue travel advisories to their citizens.

I assure our partners in the tourism sector in the West and Asia that Kenya is safe and the (Dusit) terror attack should not lead to any cancellation of their planned visits, said Mr Tunai.

The Maasai Mara Game Reserve is safe. The coastal tourism circuit, Lake Nakuru and all parts of the Rift Valley are also safe, added Tunai.

The governor also noted that terrorist attacks are hurting Kenyas tourism sector.

He commended security forces for the quick response and efficient handling of the rescue operation.

Mr Tunai was speaking during the handing over of a sewerage site for Narok town to the Rift Valley Water Company.
The alternative is to do nothing and to allow things to continue as they have been, Dudik told the House State Administration Committee on Thursday. I think that the citizens we represent, nobody has ever told me they want more untruthfulness in the city, state and community campaigns. I think all of your constituents probably feel the same way.

James Brown, a Helena attorney who has represented American Tradition Partnership in cases challenging Montana's campaign finance laws, spoke in opposition to the bill Thursday. He said the bill, if passed, would be challenged like previous laws.

I would advise you that campaign finance laws are the exception to the First Amendment, the First Amendment is not the exception to campaign finance laws, and thats how this bill reads, said Brown. He told the committee he worked in litigation of the 2012 case of Lair v. Murry, in which part of the language Dudiks bill seeks to replace was ruled unconstitutionally vague in U.S. District Court.

What youre requiring is people who want to engage in the political process, which is one of the most fundamental protections that we afford our citizens in this country, Brown said, youre requiring them to engage in certain speech before they can participate in the campaign process.
There is another side to this whole story that has yet to be told, or is being told by doctors and patients who have been marginalized, and that includes myself. The Board Of Medicine took me out, in coordination with DEA. It worked.

But the DEA, regulators and legislators are practicing medicine without a license, always mindful of: We cannot tell you what to do, we are not doctors."

It is well known that the board of medicine deprived me of my due process rights, had experts that were found to be lying (not credible) and ignored the findings of their own hearing officer, David Scrimm. The intimidation of doctors in this state has worked. It worked on me.

The consequences, intended or not, are that Montana has been turned into a wasteland for pain management. We have become a Third World state, with people in such misery that they kill themselves.

Lets have an open debate about the terror that doctors have been feeling.

Lets look at the tribalism and shaming happening around pain and addiction.

Lets interview patients who were taken from their familiar primary care MD, and forced to see a mid level NP or PA, who took them off their stable regimen.

Its nasty.
Finally, there's the issue of the Chinese economy itself.

Depending on whom you ask, China may have been overdue for a sharp slowdown, or even a recession, long before the trade war began, given its structural problems. But the trade war could tip the balance. It might lead investors to suddenly re-evaluate China's long-term growth prospects, Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad told me.

The global fallout from a Chinese recession would be devastating. It would harm many of our closest allies in East Asia  including South Korea and Japan  which count China as one of their most important export markets.

And, of course, there is the fallout for U.S. firms that do business in China. Last week, Apple slashed its revenue forecast, noting that falling sales in China were responsible for more than 100 percent of its global revenue decline. Not because Apple had been directly hit by tariffs but because the Chinese economy was slowing.

"It's not going to be just Apple," White House Council of Economic Advisers chairman Kevin Hassett said the following day. "I think that there are a heck of a lot of U.S. companies that have a lot of sales in China that are basically going to be watching their earnings be downgraded next year until we get a deal with China."
Brandishing a knife

Police say they responded around 6:30 p.m. Thursday to Eddy's Motel on Montana Street in response to a call from a hotel employee who alleged that KilseimerLambert, a guest at the hotel, had pulled out a small pocket knife during an argument about paperwork. The employee locked himself in an office and phoned law enforcement, police said.
A man who pointed a toy gun affixed with a real magazine at people outside a Town Pump in Butte pleaded guilty to a reduced charge Thursday and will do no more jail time for the incident if he follows probation restrictions.

In another case before District Judge Kurt Krueger on Thursday, a woman accused of abusing her children and kicking one son in the back as he climbed a bunk bed pleaded not guilty to felony assault on a minor.

Police said they got calls around 1 p.m. on March 6 last year saying a man in a green raincoat was on the corner of Montana and Iron streets yelling and waving a pistol wrapped in cloth at them.

When an officer caught up with Brandon James Burt, 25, in the parking lot of the Town Pump, 531 S. Montana St., he had a toy gun meant for use with a Nintendo that had a modified handle and a Glock magazine with 10mm rounds in it.

Police say it could not be fired like a real gun, but because it caused people to fear for their safety, prosecutors charged Burt with felony assault with a weapon. Under the law, a weapon can be real or what reasonably appears to be a weapon, and the crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Montana Highway Patrol assisted Anaconda police in arresting two men after they allegedly stole various items and led law enforcement on a high-speed chase in a reportedly stolen vehicle.

According to Anaconda police, officers were driving past Big Sky Storage of Anaconda on Sleepy Hollow Lane around 4 a.m. when they noticed a storage unit door open and a truck parked outside. Police drove closer to see what was going on when two men, later identified as Phillip Baker, 25, and Calob Fairburn, 31, jumped in the truck and took off.

Police said they pursued Baker and Fairburn at high speeds, first toward Butte, then toward Mill Creek, and finally out to Divide.

While eluding officers, the men drove through one gated fence, causing damage to a patrol vehicle, police said.

As the chase continued, Montana Highway Patrol assisted police. Troopers deployed spike strips, which deflated a tire but did not end the pursuit.

The men eventually became hung up on a second fence they tried to drive through, then took off on foot.

MHP officers were ultimately able to catch Baker and Fairburn at the post office in Divide. Officers located several stolen items from the storage unit, including checkbooks and fishing poles.
As far as I can see, theyre already protected, he said of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, or transgender.

Missoula, Bozeman, Whitefish, and Helena all passed the ordinance in recent years. Butte-Silver Bow County passed it in 2014.

Mayor Mike Klakken, who has followed the debate but did not vote during Wednesdays meeting, also said he does not believe the city has the authority to pass the ordinance.

That power is in the hands of the state or the federal government.  I do feel for both sides. I do understand the side that doesnt want it and the side that does, he said.

Valerie Coulter, a Dillon-based activist who helped craft the ordinance, said she was really disappointed the council voted down the non-discrimination ordinance and said the discussion at Wednesdays council meeting was, at times, offensive and really painful. But, she said, the fight is not over.

Were not giving up, she said.

Four of the six council members who voted against the ordinance are up for reelection this year. Coulter said a community group called the Beaverhead Equality Campaign is looking to encourage Dillon citizens to run against those elected officials.
Join Five Valleys Land Trust and the Missoula County Weed District for an evening landowner seminar featuring discussions on the identification and biology of invasive annual grasses and the unique management challenges they present. Learn about on-going restoration efforts with experimental treatments to control invasive annual grasses and improve degraded rangeland. Become familiar with management options for controlling the soil seed bank that can potentially help to re-establish perennial grasses, forbs and shrubs.
Mother doesnt like the Mexican border wall idea. She points out that U.S. policy has created terrible poverty and resentment in Latin America.

Mom accompanied 17 Americans to Nicaragua in 1990 to attend the elections, when, out of 22 political parties, Violetta Chimorro defeated Marxist Sandinista Daniel Ortega.

America deposed Salvador Alende and propped up genocidal General Pinochet, whose Nazi goon squads murdered 2 million Chileans. We supported self-enriching pig Samoza in Nicaragua and mafia-backed Batista in Cuba, as well as corrupt Manuel Noriega in Panama, and all this to make banana republics safe for such entities as United Fruit Company.

Like Dr. Frankenstein, weve crated our own monster, millions of impecunious Latin Americans who hate us as Los Gringos del Norte. The monster has become very dangerous and demented and he must be shackled.

A border patrol agent told me that most contraband comes into our country through tunnels, which have both ends concealed inside of buildings, on both sides of the border. The border wall is to extend 100 feet below ground level to discourage this. The monster must be starved so that folks on both sides can once again live in peace and happiness.

Lee Onishuk,

Missoula

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I read in the Jan. 14 Missoulian a quote from U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte that most of his constituents tell him that Democrats are responsible for the government shutdown.

A few days ago I tried to leave an email for him on his website, urging him to vote for the gun license law that was being voted on that day in the House. I filled in all requested preliminary address information, but couldn't make the email. After multiple attempts and at different computers/internet sites, I finally called his Helena phone number and gave my input.

I think that Donald Trump is responsible, mostly, for the shutdown, and that he keeps moving the "goalposts," and his advocates cannot be trusted to make deals only Trump himself can make them and he keeps changing/clouding up" the deal. The Republican Senate should just pass bills which open up government, with the original $1.6 billion chunk agreed on before for the wall, then debate for more in February, to avoid being partly responsible for shutdown.

Open up government!

And Gianforte, fix your website so your constituents can communicate to you that we don't think Democrats caused this shutdown mess.
To observe the deep-seated wiring of a mouses brain, Scherrer partnered with Schnitzer, who had developed a miniscope  a microscope about the length of a small paper clip, which could be affixed to a mouses head to record activity in its brain. They positioned the device strategically to visualize the amygdala. The mouse, alive and well, could stroll as it pleased, while the miniscope recorded calcium flux in the neurons, a proxy for cell activity.

The scientists monitored the mouse brains with the microscope, watched the mice detect something uncomfortable, observed the aversive reactions and then checked which neurons were active. With this setup, we identified a set of neurons in the amygdala that selectively encodes signals related to the emotional aspects of a painful experience, Schnitzer said.

When the mice touched a drop of uncomfortably hot or cold water (neither of which were severe enough to injure the mice), they withdrew, signaling to the scientists that the rodents were not pleased. Upon this withdrawal, the microscopes recording showed a bundle of neurons firing in the amygdala  specifically in the basolateral region  suggesting that these neurons were specifically responsible for the emotion of pain.

It was, however, still possible that this basolateral ensemble was simply firing to relay general emotion, rather than the unpleasantness of pain specifically. So, the researchers fed the mice sugar water  a sweet treat known to bring joy to any mouse  and kept an eye on the collection of neurons suspected to relay displeasure. As expected, those neurons stayed silent.

Theres also a difference between experiencing pain and experiencing something annoying, so we further wanted to test if the amygdala neurons active during pain were also associated with overall negative emotion, rather than pain particularly, Scherrer said.

What miffs a mouse? The same things that might bother a sibling: tiny puffs of air to the face, an unappetizingly bitter taste or a very bad smell. While bothering the mice, the researchers again monitored the basolateral amygdala pain ensemble, and here, too, the neurons remained subdued.

Tracking the perception of pain

After all of that, we concluded that this ensemble of neurons selectively responds during pain, Scherrer said. But it still didnt fully demonstrate that they underpinned the emotional response.

To investigate that question more deeply, the researchers set up a walking track with three invisible lanes: On the far left was a cold strip; on the right, a hot one; and in between the two was a temperate middle ground. (For context, walking in the two outer lanes was comparable to walking barefoot on pavement during winter or summer, respectively  uncomfortable, but not permanently damaging.)

Patients who take opioids for pain report that they can still feel the sensation of pain but say its less bothersome  the emotions of pain are different.

Normal mice that walked on the track gradually learned that the middle lane was tolerable, while the outer two were unpleasant. But in a select group of mice, the researchers temporarily disabled the bundle of amygdala pain neurons thought to relay feelings of physical discomfort. These mice  free of pain-incited unpleasantness  skittered around the outer regions, undeterred by the extreme temperatures.

Whats intriguing about this, Scherrer said, was that these mice werent bereft of physical feeling. Pain was just no longer unpleasant for them, he said. The rodents could still feel and respond to physical sensations, but the stimuli they once perceived as unpleasant (hot or cold drops of water) were no longer bothersome. When exposed to a drop of hot water, for example, the mice with a muted basolateral neural ensemble would move their paw away from the dropper, signaling that they felt the stimulus  but they would move their paw back to its original position, something that normal mice did not do. This is a crucial part of harnessing the ensemble as a tool in pain therapy, Scherrer said, as an animal, or human, without the ability to physically feel anything at all leaves them vulnerable to injury.

Long term, Scherrer aims to confirm that the function of the basolateral ensemble in mice is the same as it is in people, and then down the line, find a safe and effective way to silence the ensembles function without interfering with other neurons.

Theres really no good treatment for chronic pain in humans, and thats a major driver of the opioid epidemic, Scherrer said. But youll notice, patients who take opioids for pain report that they can still feel the sensation of pain but say its less bothersome  the emotions of pain are different. Our big future hope is that the cells in the basolateral ensemble could be a tactic to curb the ailment of pain without causing addiction and thus, ideally, act as a possible substitute for opioid treatment.

Other Stanford co-authors of the study are former Stanford postdoctoral scholar Benjamin Grewe, PhD, and research scientist Dong Wang, PhD.

Scherrer and Schnitzer are members of Stanford Bio-X and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grants R00DA031777, R01NS106301, K99DA043609, F32DA041029 and T32DA35165), the New York Stem Cell Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation, the American Pain Society, the National Science Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Stanfords departments of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, of Neurosurgery, of Biology and of Applied Physics also supported the work.
And in a Thursday interview with The Montana Standard, he attempted to explain what occurred during that incident. According to Rhineheart, the night he was caught, he had been working the second of a double shift and was on perimeter patrol duty, meaning he was driving a truck around the outside of the prison to ensure no one could get in or out.

On the particular night in question, I had my cell phone with me, which I was not supposed to have, Rhineheart said. And Im not going to lie, I was watching pornography on it.

Rhineheart said that nights shift captain caught him, pulled him into his office, then sent him back to work. He said he then received a call from the prisons assistant warden at the time, informing him he would be suspended for three days pending investigation into his misconduct.

After Rhineheart served his suspension, he said he received a letter about scheduling a union hearing. At the hearing, Rhineheart said he admitted to what he was being accused of. He said he knew what he did was an embarrassment to the prison and that he apologized up front.
Northwest Montana woke up Friday morning to a few inches of snow and hazardous conditions on roads and mountainsides.

The National Weather Services Missoula office reported that 2.9 inches of snow fell Thursday in Missoula. The Montana Department of Transportation reported snow, ice and slush on area roads. Around 11:05 p.m. Thursday night, a semi spun out of control on I-90 West about two miles west of Taft, causing a prolonged blockage.

Over the weekend in Missoula, the forecast calls for temperatures to range between the upper 20s and upper 30s with periodic rain and snow. Expected accumulations for the next few days range from zero to 6 inches, depending on specific location and elevation.

The conditions will likely increase the risk of avalanches for backcountry travelers. On Friday morning the West Central Montana Avalanche Center issued an advisory, effective through midnight, listing the regional avalanche danger as high on wind-loaded slopes and considerable on all other slopes.
PHILIPSBURG  Granite County has granted residents of remote lower Rock Creek their release from the county hospital district.

Commissioners voted 3-0 last week to approve the request of petitioners from the valley, who argued they dont use hospital services in Philipsburg or a connected medical clinic in Drummond.

Carolyn Persico of Rock Creek, who helped spearhead a petition drive of permanent Granite County residents in the lower 21 miles of the creek, said the unanimous vote on Jan. 8 by Chairman Bill Slaughter, Scott Adler and Chuck Hinkle came as a pleasant surprise.

They were actually very reasonable, Persico said. I didnt expect them to OK it. Im very happy with them that they followed the rule of the law.

Adler, whose district encompasses lower Rock Creek and Drummond, said the commission had no choice but to say yes.

It (the district) doesnt benefit them, and theres a whole big statute that says if they can prove it doesnt benefit them, you have to break them out, he said.
Frenchtown School District officials plan to resume classes as normal Tuesday, as they and police continue to investigate a threat of violence.

According to the Missoula County Sheriffs Office, that agency's detectives have been working with the Missoula County Attorney's Office and Frenchtown school administrators about an incident in which a student reportedly raised the possibility of a school shooting.

Speaking with the Missoulian Friday morning, Superintendent Randy Cline said that it was just basically a verbal threat that was made in front of other students. Those students informed their parents, and those parents were concerned enough to give us a call.

Classes at Frenchtown High School were cancelled Friday. In a news release, the district explained that school officials determined it would be best to cancel school on Friday and give the District and law enforcement time to fully investigate the threat before bringing students back to school.
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Ingrid Vila-Gimenez is first author of the research paper. Credit: UPF

Gesture is an inherent part of human communication, and speakers of all ages tend to gesticulate when they speak. In children, gesture acquires special importance, since it is an important precursor and predictor of language and cognitive development.

Other studies led by Pilar Prieto, coordinator of the Prosodic Studies Group (GrEP) and ICREA researcher at the Department of Translation and Language Sciences (DTCL) at Pompeu Fabra University, had shown that even at early ages, rhythmic gestures (rhythmic movements of the hands/arms made together with prominent prosody) help children not only to remember the information of speech, but also to understand it.

A recent study has delved even further into this aspect of learning and investigated the relevance of gestures, specifically rhythmic ones, in the development of children's narrative discourse. The study has been published in the advanced online edition of the journal Developmental Psychology, by authors Ingrid Vila-Gimenez, Alfonso Igualada and Pilar Prieto.

The results show for the first time that a brief training session with rhythmic gestures has immediate positive effects for improving children's narrative abilities. The study shows that children especially improve the structure of their stories when they are told stories accompanied by rhythmic gestures.

The participants in this study were forty-four children aged five and six from the Catalan geographic area of Girona: Escola Casa Nostra (Banyoles), Escola Publica Joan Bruguera (Girona), Escola Bora Gran (Serinya) and Escola Can Puig (Banyoles).

In the training session, six stories were shown to each participant, each lasting a minute and told by two primary school teachers under two different experimental conditions. Under the first condition, no rhythmic gestures were used with the keywords; however, under the second condition, rhythmic gestures visually marked the keywords. Before and after the training phase, the children's improved narrative structure was assessed.

The experiment consisted of three parts: a preliminary phase, a training session, and a later stage. The study materials consisted of four different cartoons (41-50 seconds long) about the story of a mouse and its friends, who were not known by the children. These cartoons had no dialogue and no narrative, in order to motivate the child to produce a narrative about the story they had seen.

The training session involved the use of 24 audiovisual narratives in which two primary school teacher told different stories. In twelve of these recordings, the narrators used rhythmic gestures to stress the keywords of the story, while in the other twelve, no such gestures were made. Each training story dealt with an animal that lived on a farm and followed a similar narrative structure to that of cartoons.

The results of the experiment showed that the children who participated in the training with rhythmic gestures produced better stories with a better narrative structure in the phase after training. This study demonstrates for the first time that a brief training session with rhythmic gestures has immediate benefits for improving the production of narrative discourse in children aged five and six, especially regarding narrative structure.

Explore further The art of storytelling: researchers explore why we relate to characters

More information: Ingrid Vila-Gimenez et al, Observing storytellers who use rhythmic beat gestures improves children's narrative discourse performance., Developmental Psychology (2018). Journal information: Developmental Psychology Ingrid Vila-Gimenez et al, Observing storytellers who use rhythmic beat gestures improves children's narrative discourse performance.,(2018). DOI: 10.1037/dev0000604

Provided by Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Fifty-year-olds who walk around with a secret seem to be more satisfied with their lives than seniors who share their secrets with others. Yet not everyone is happily old with a secretinvaders and worriers suffer from it. This is shown by researchers (Joyce Maas, Andreas Wismeijer and Marcus van Assen) from the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (TSB).

Their study examined the effects of secrecy on quality of life in a sample consisting of older adults (>50 years; N=301). Three key components of secrecy were examined: possession of a secret, self-concealment, and cognitive preoccupation. The scientists distinguish between the tendency to conceal personal information (self-concealment) and the tendency to worry or ruminate about the secret (cognitive preoccupation), thereby enabling investigation of the effects of secrecy on quality of life in detail.

Confirming previous findings in younger samples, they found a positive effect of possession of a secret on quality of life, after controlling for both self-concealment and cognitive preoccupation. This suggests that keeping secrets may have a positive association with quality of life in older adults as well, as long as they do not have the tendency to self-conceal and are not cognitively preoccupied with their secret.

The burden of a secret

Most people hold secrets. Secrets range from the most trivial events (such as not washing one's hands after visiting the toilet or one's caloric intake) to major secrets that have an enormous impact on the secret-keeper (such as having sexually abused your child). It is important to realize, however, that the way secrets affect us is idiosyncratic; an individual may be deeply affected by a secret that most of us would regard as irrelevant. That is, the burden of the secret is more important than its content.

Secrecy is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Maas, Wismeijer and Van Assen define secrecy as the conscious and active process of social selective information exchange that uses cognitive resources and can be experienced as an emotional burden with possible physical consequences.

Components of secrecy

Secrecy consists of several components that should be distinguished. First, it is essential to distinguish between the act of keeping a secret, or possession of a secret (secrecy as a state), and being a secretive person, or a self-concealer (secrecy as a trait).

The researchers show that next to the two already defined components of secrecypossession of a secret and self-concealmenta third component has to be considered: cognitive preoccupation. The degree of cognitive preoccupation refers to the amount of time and energy the individual spends thinking and worrying about the secret. Cognitive preoccupation therefore affects the influence the secret may have in terms of behavioral and emotional outcomes. Each secret may pose a different cognitive burden for different people, which stresses the strong idiosyncratic nature of secrets.

The data were collected through an online questionnaire, called the Senioren Barometer (www.seniorenbarometer.nl), which is used to explore opinions about varying aspects of life in a population consisting of Dutch citizens aged 50 years and older. The large majority of participants (84.5 percent) indicated that they have had their secret for more than 10 years. A total of 680 people started this study's survey, of which 301 participants (44.26 percent) completed the full majority of the questionnaire.

More research is needed to understand how important the (emotional) content of secrets is in relation to quality of life. In this study, the scientists did not ask people about the content, its emotional valence, or the emotional distress surrounding their secret and they also did not assess whether the secret regards oneself or regards secret information of others. This is a limitation. However, the relevance of a secret for the secret-keeper is not as much determined by its exact content or whether it is someone's own secret or a secret from others. The toxicity of a secret lies primarily in the accompanying cognitive preoccupation it causes.

Content of a secret

Respondents would probably quit their participation when asked about the content of their secret. Furthermore, there is an almost infinite number of variations of secrets possible. For example, one can be unfaithful in very different ways and degrees. Hence, likely little is to be gained by exploring the correlations between topics of secrecy and the level of emotional distress or cognitive preoccupation. Notwithstanding, Maas, Wismeijer and Van Assen encourage future studies to assess the degree of emotional distress surrounding the secret as an emotional indicator of the secret.

The results suggest that disclosing secrets might not always be beneficial for quality of life, which is in line with previous studies that investigated younger samples. The findings also indicate that it is important to distinguish between self-concealment and cognitive preoccupation. Self-concealment and cognitive preoccupation seem to affect self-reported quality of life negatively, whereas sole possession of a secret has a positive effect on self-reported quality of life.

More information: Joyce Maas et al. Associations Between Secret-Keeping and Quality of Life in Older Adults, The International Journal of Aging and Human Development (2018). Joyce Maas et al. Associations Between Secret-Keeping and Quality of Life in Older Adults,(2018). DOI: 10.1177/0091415018758447
Image of the extra neurons (in red) artificially generated in the olfactory bulb, the brain area responsible for interpreting odors. Credit: CRTD

Most neurons in the human brain are generated from neural stem cells during embryonic development. After birth, a small reservoir of stem cells remain in the brain that keeps on producing new neurons throughout life. However, the question arises as to whether these new neurons really support brain function? And if so, can we improve brain capacity by increasing the number of neurons? The research group of Prof. Federico Calegari at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) of TU Dresden has answered these questions, now published in the renowned EMBO Journal.

In their latest study, the scientists analysed healthy adult mice in which the small reservoir of stem cells was manipulated in order to increase in number. As a result, the number of neurons, generated from these stem cells, also increased. In mice, these neurons mainly populate the brain area responsible for interpreting odours. In fact, olfaction is one to the most powerful senses in mice, fundamental for finding food and escape from predators. As powerful as the sense of smell naturally is in mice, in the following behavioural experiments the scientists found that mice with more neurons were able to distinguish extremely similar odours that normal mice failed to. Hence, this study is fundamental in proving that stem cells can be used to improve brain function.

"Evolution gave mice an extremely sensitive olfactory system. It is amazing that by adding few neurons we could improve something that seemed already close to perfection", states Prof. Federico Calegari. "This study sets the basis for our research, which now is focused on finding out whether we could apply our strategy as a therapeutic approach in neurodegenerative models."

The CRTD at TU Dresden is the academic home for scientists from more than 30 nations. Their mission is to discover the principles of cell and tissue regeneration and leveraging this for recognition, treatment and reversal of diseases. The CRTD links the bench to the clinic, scientists to clinicians to bring expertise in stem cells, gene-editing and regeneration towards innovative therapies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, haematological diseases such as leukaemia, metabolic diseases such as diabetes, retina and bone diseases. The group of Prof. Federico Calegari focusses on mammalian neural stem cells in the context of development, evolution and cognitive functions.

Explore further New insight into the generation of new neurons in the adult brain

More information: Sara Bragado Alonso et al. An increase in neural stem cells and olfactory bulb adult neurogenesis improves discrimination of highly similar odorants, The EMBO Journal (2019). Journal information: EMBO Journal Sara Bragado Alonso et al. An increase in neural stem cells and olfactory bulb adult neurogenesis improves discrimination of highly similar odorants,(2019). DOI: 10.15252/embj.201798791
A commonly held belief among the general public is orthodontic treatment will prevent future tooth decay. Research undertaken at the University of Adelaide has found that this is not the case.

Published in the journal Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, the study, conducted by Dr. Esma J Dogramaci and co-author Professor David Brennan from the University's Adelaide Dental School, assessed the long-term dental health of 448 people from South Australia.

"The study found that people who had orthodontic treatment did not have better dental health later in life," says Dr. Dogramaci.

"Patients often complain about their crooked teeth and want braces to make their teeth straight so they can avoid problems, like decay, in the future."

The study, which followed people from the age of 13 until they were 30, recorded patients' dental health behaviours and the number of decayed, missing or filled teeth.

"By the age of 30 over a third of participants had received orthodontic treatment," says Dr. Dogramaci.

"There is a misconception amongst patients that orthodontic treatment prevents tooth decay, but this is not the case."

The cost of orthodontic treatment, in which crooked teeth are realigned using braces worn over several years, varies from approximately AUS$3000 to $13,000 according to the severity of the problems. Braces are becoming increasingly popular, with one in five patients being adults. The global orthodontics market is predicted to be worth more than US$6 billion by 2023.

Credit: University of Adelaide

"Evidence from the research clearly shows that people cannot avoid regularly brushing their teeth, good oral hygiene and regular dental check-ups to prevent decay in later life," says Dr. Dogramaci.

"Having your teeth straightened does not prevent tooth decay in later life."

Explore further New dental adhesive prevents tooth decay around orthodontic brackets

More information: Esma J. Dogramac et al. The influence of orthodontic treatment on dental caries: An Australian cohort study, Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology (2019). Esma J. Dogramac et al. The influence of orthodontic treatment on dental caries: An Australian cohort study,(2019). DOI: 10.1111/cdoe.12446
Parents often worry that violent movies can trigger violence in their kids, but a new study suggests PG-13-rated movies won't turn your kids into criminals.

Researchers found that as PG-13 movies became more violent between 1985 and 2015, overall rates of murder and violence actually fell.

"It doesn't appear that PG-13-rated movies are having any impact on viewers," said lead researcher Christopher Ferguson. He's a professor of psychology at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla.

Kids may re-enact things they see in films during play, Ferguson said, but their playful re-enactments don't turn into real-life violence, like bullying or assaults.

But the report came under fire from Dan Romer, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Adolescent Communication Institute. He said the data studied can't be used to draw conclusions about movies' effects on violence.

"The authors have a very simplistic model of how the mass media work, and they have an agenda that attempts to show that violent media are salutary rather than harmful," Romer said. "What is needed is dispassionate analysis rather than cherry-picking of convenient data."

Previous studies have suggested parents may become desensitized to violence in PG-13 movies, making it more likely they will let children see themespecially when gun violence is portrayed as justified.

But researcher Ferguson said media are simply an easy target for people who want to claim the moral high ground. Blaming media gives people a false sense of control.

"It's nice to say, 'Let's get rid of this thing and then that would make all these problems go away,'" he said. "It's kind of a simplistic answer."

Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children's Hospital, reviewed the findings. He said the new study attempts to simplify a complex issue.

"While violence has declined, it doesn't warrant the conclusion that we are not affected by violence in our media," Rich said. "As a pediatrician, I am more concerned about the violence that children experience every day, which is not reflected in crime stats."

What people experience most is micro-aggressions, like bullying, Rich said. While he considers movies a reflection of society, he added that the causes of violence and aggression are numerous. "It's a complex issue," he said.

But it's clear that violence in media has a numbing effect, making viewers less bothered by it, he said. "That is, in part, why violent media always needs to up the ante," Rich explained.

Media violence teaches kids that the world is more violent than it really is, and most react by becoming more fearful, not more violent or aggressive, he said.

"Violence is much rarer than fear and anxiety," Rich said. "We find that most kids who carry a weapon into school do it for protection."

For the study, Ferguson and Villanova University psychology professor Patrick Markey reviewed other researchers' data on PG-13 movies, along with U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation data on violent crime and the National Crime Victimization Survey.

But Romer said that data can't be used to draw conclusions about movies' effects on violence.

Despite a sharp drop in youth violence since the mid-1990s, the homicide rate has been far more stable, Romer said.

"And the homicide data do not even focus on youth gun homicides, which is what one would want to look at if one were really interested in the effects of gun violence in popular movies," he added.

Gun violence in young people rose dramatically as it became more common in PG-13 movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Romer noted.

Rich said parents can use media to teach their children. He suggested parents watch these movies with their kids and help them respond to their feelings and fears about what they see.

"Parents can help guide their children to what is acceptable and what is not," Rich said. "Kids are always learning, but that learning can be shaped and modified."

The report was published Jan. 17 in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly.

Explore further Parents say intense gun violence in PG-13 movies appropriate for teens 15 and older

More information: Christopher Ferguson, Ph.D., professor of psychology, Stetson University, DeLand, Fla.; Michael Rich, M.D., M.P.H., director, Center on Media and Child Health and associate professor of pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital; Dan Romer, Ph.D., director, Adolescent Communication Institute, and research director, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Jan. 17, 2019, Psychiatric Quarterly Christopher Ferguson, Ph.D., professor of psychology, Stetson University, DeLand, Fla.; Michael Rich, M.D., M.P.H., director, Center on Media and Child Health and associate professor of pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital; Dan Romer, Ph.D., director, Adolescent Communication Institute, and research director, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Jan. 17, 2019, For more about violence in media, visit the Center for Media Literacy.

Copyright  2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
A new paper published in the British Dental Journal highlights how dental hygiene therapists can be successfully trained alongside dentists, thanks to a pioneering model of teaching at the University of Plymouth.

Developed by a team of academics from Peninsula Dental School, Plymouth's Dental Hygiene Therapy (BDHT) programme, which commenced in 2014, is the first of its kind to be integrated with the Dental Surgery (BDS) programme. BDHT and BDS students are taught together (inter-professional education) throughout the course structure.

Led by Clare McIlwaine, Lecturer in Oral Health Sciences in Peninsula Dental School, the paper highlights the BDHT curriculum and the novelty of the programme.

The full paper is titled "A novel, integrated curriculum for dental hygiene therapists and dentists."

Since its inception, the integrated programme has received an award of General Dental Council sufficiency, 100 percent BDHT graduate employment and 100 percent final-year pass rate.

The paper also highlights the need for better understanding of dental hygiene-therapist roles and their importance in shared care.

McIlwaine said:

"To meet the challenges of an ageing population with increasingly complex treatment needs, clinicians are expected to provide patient-centred care in a collaborative, interdisciplinary team environment, and that has seen dental hygiene-therapists take on a broader range of treatments.

"However, there may be still misconceptions within both professions about what the other does. In order to tackle these issues in practice, they must be tackled at the earliest stage of their careers  undergraduate  and that's one of the reasons we developed the programmes as we have.

"This paper offers preliminary evidence that an integrated BDS-BDHT programme can be successful. This course is in its infancy; we now aspire to move forward with further studies to provide qualitative and quantitative data to assess and validate the success of our integrated education model, as well as career pathways beyond the first year after graduation. It describes our vision and its relevance for the future of inter-professional dental education."

The University's primary care teaching model is also pioneering in the UK  and designed for students to obtain hands-on experience with the patient groups they are most likely to encounter once qualified.

Explore further People affected by mental health at higher risk of poor dental outcomes

More information: E. Dobson et al. Perceptions of e-professionalism among dental students: a UK dental school study, BDJ (2019). E. Dobson et al. Perceptions of e-professionalism among dental students: a UK dental school study,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/sj.bdj.2019.11
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Endocrine disruptors (EDs) are a class of chemicals used to produce everyday materials, such as some plastics, tin cans, electrical and household appliances, cosmetics, pesticides, etc. EDs are, however, not without danger. These molecules interfere with the endocrine system, disrupting the physiological production and target effects of hormones. In particular, EDs have proven effects on the reproductive system and an incidence on the occurrence of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases during aging.

There is also growing evidence that EDs strongly interfere with the functioning of the thyroid. EDs cause changes in thyroid hormone concentrations, the peripheral metabolism of these hormones and the signalling of their receptors. The mechanism by which they act on the thyroid axis is, however, still far from being elucidated: the tests currently available are strongly limited by the availability of adequate quantities of human thyroid tissue and by the inability to predict the effects of EDs after low dose exposure.

The new European collaborative project SCREENED aims to develop new 3-D in vitro tests to overcome these limitations. Based on 3-D constructions of rodent and human thyroid cells, these tests will for the first time mimic the structure and function of the native thyroid gland and, thus, its vascular and morphogenetic anatomical characteristics. Professor Lorenzo Moroni, the Coordinator of the SCREENED project, explains: "These new 3-D in vitro thyromorphic models will make it possible to predict with more sensitivity and specificity the effects of EDs on thyroid function, compared to conventional molecular and 2-D in vitro assays. These tests will also allow selective identification of female and male responses to the exposure to EDs and to test simultaneous action of different EDs on thyroid function."

The SCREENED project is part of a bigger cluster of eight research projects, all funded by the European Commission, and each focusing on a different aspect of new testing and screening methods to identify EDs. SCREENED brings together nine European universities and companies, including Sabine Costagliola's Lab from Universite libre de Bruxelles. Sabine Costagliola has been conducting researches on the morphogenesis and functions of the thyroid gland for many years. The objective of Sabine Costagliola and her team will be to produce in vitro human thyroid organoids derivated from stem cells and evaluate their resemblance with the native organ. These samples will then be used by the consortium to conduct researches about EDs' effects on the thyroid.

The ambition of the SCREENED project is that these new 3-D in vitro tests, as well as the increased knowledge about adverse reactions after exposure to EDs, will be used for regulatory purposes, ultimately to improve human health.
Credit: designer491, Shutterstock

The number of people living with type 1 diabetes is increasing worldwide, particularly among young children. According to the International Diabetes Federation, there were more than one million children with type 1 diabetes in 2017. In this disease, which cannot be prevented or cured, the immune system destroys the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, making it impossible for the body to regulate blood sugar levels on its own. Poor management of blood sugar levels can lead to loss of eyesight, heart and kidney disease, and even loss of life if glucose levels drop too much.

Effective blood sugar control is therefore vital throughout the affected person's lifetime. This usually involves monitoring one's glucose levels and using insulin pumps or injecting insulin, sometimes several times a day. However, the EU-funded KidsAP project is working to transform the management of type 1 diabetes. Coordinated by the University of Cambridge, the KidsAP team is testing an artificial pancreas that could improve blood sugar control in children with type 1 diabetes aged 1-7 years.

"This type of system has not been tried before in such a young population. It could really change the landscape of treatment of young children with type 1 diabetes," says lead researcher Prof. Roman Hovorka of the University of Cambridge in a news item posted on the 'News Medical' website.

How does the artificial pancreas work?

The artificial pancreas is a portable medical system that has been designed to provide automated insulin delivery using digital technology. Taking over the particular function of a natural pancreas, it regulates the supply of insulin based on the glucose levels in the child's body. The system consists of three components: an insulin pump, continuous glucose monitor and an Android phone to calculate the insulin dose.

Results both promising and surprising

The artificial pancreas has initially been tested in a pilot study in Germany, Luxembourg, Austria and the United Kingdom. Twenty-four children with type 1 diabetes were recruited to compare the system's insulin delivery using standard-strength and diluted insulin. Aged 18 months to 7 years, the children were divided into 2 groups, receiving diluted insulin for 3 weeks, followed by standard-strength insulin for another 3 weeks, or vice versa. Very few glucose highs or lows were observed in the course of the pilot study. Furthermore, corrective insulin injections and finger-prick blood tests were completely eliminated, showing that the system is more effective in regulating children's blood sugar levels than treatments currently in use.

The study also yielded some unexpected results for the researchers. On the project website, they had initially hypothesised that diluted insulin would "lead to more stable glucose levels by reducing inaccuracies accentuated by delivery of minute amounts of insulin." Instead, results showed that diluted insulin wasn't needed at all for children using the artificial pancreas  an advantage given that standard-strength insulin is safer and more easily monitored.

Next, KidsAP (The artificial pancreas in children aged 1 to 7 years with type 1 diabetes) will be conducting a larger study with up to 94 children of the same age range. Half of the children will be using the artificial pancreas and the other half a state-of-the-art insulin pump, in treatments lasting 12 months, to further test the device's safety and effectiveness.

Explore further Artificial pancreas helps hospitalized type 2 diabetics

More information: For more information, please see The KidsAP project website: For more information, please see The KidsAP project website: kidsap.mrl.ims.cam.ac.uk/
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Bilingual children do not have more advantages than monolingual children when it comes to executive function, which includes remembering instructions, controlling responses, and shifting swiftly between tasks, according to a new study published in PLOS One.

The study, "No evidence for effects of Turkish immigrant children's bilingualism on executive functions," was coauthored by two UT faculty members: Nils Jaekel, clinical assistant professor of theory and practice in teacher education, and Julia Jaekel, associate professor of child and family studies, together with Jessica Willard and Birgit Leyendecker, researchers from the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany.

"The research of executive functions is important because they have direct application to success in both real-life and academic situations," said Julia Jaekel.

For their research, the scientists used a computer test to compare the executive function of two groups of children between the ages of five and 15 living in the German Ruhr region. The first group consisted of 242 children who spoke both Turkish and German, and the other group consisted of 95 children who spoke only German.

The test measured the time bilingual and monolingual children took to correctly respond to computer-based problems and stimuli. The results showed no difference in the executive functions of the two groups.

The researchers also considered children's German and Turkish vocabulary size and exposure to both languages, factors for which previous studies on the topic had been criticized for lacking.

Does this mean there's no value in speaking more than one language? Not exactly, said Nils Jaekel: "Although bilingual children are not necessarily more focused than monolingual children, speaking another language can provide other social opportunities along the way. However, it is important to continue the research on this topic so parents, educators, and policymakers do not overpromise on the benefits of speaking a second language."

Explore further Bilingual children are better at recognizing voices

More information: Nils Jaekel et al, No evidence for effects of Turkish immigrant children's bilingualism on executive functions, PLOS ONE (2019). Journal information: PLoS ONE Nils Jaekel et al, No evidence for effects of Turkish immigrant children's bilingualism on executive functions,(2019). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209981
Nobody will say he or she is against achieving peace in Mindanao. Its a statement that is difficult, even impossible, to disagree with.

Previous administrations have tried to do their part to this end. In 1996, under President Fidel Ramos, the government signed a peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front, even as his successor, President Joseph Estrada, declared an all-out war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a breakaway unit of the MNLF. Under President Gloria Arroyo, there was almost a formal signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domainalmost, because the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order against it and eventually declared it unconstitutional. President Benigno Aquino III had been banking on passing the Bangsamoro Basic Law under his watch. The proposal had in fact started gaining support from lawmakersthat is, until the January 2015 Mamasapano massacre where 44 members of the Special Action Force died at the hands of a mix of MILF and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. The incident prompted a wave of renewed distrust of the insurgents, and the initiative eventually lost steam. This time around, it is President Rodrigo Dutertes turn to try his hand at the tricky exercise. The President, being a child of Mindanao, is expected to show extraordinary zeal in achieving peace there. In July 2018, two years after he assumed office, he signed the Bangsamoro Organic Law which Congress had earlier passed. On Monday, Jan. 21, a plebiscite will be held in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao as well as the cities of Isabela and Cotabato to determine whether residents approve of the BOL, which would lead to the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.On Feb. 6, Lanao del Norte, Aleosan, Carmen, Kabacan, Midsayap, Pikit and Pigkawan towns in North Cotabato and other areas seeking inclusion in the proposed BARMM. There are petitions challenging the constitutionality of the measure, and it appears impossible that the Supreme Court could act on these before the voting. Thousands of military personnel have been deployed to Mindanao to ensure the safety of the people and the security of the plebiscite. Many legal experts concede, too, that the law is far from perfect, with loopholes that may be exploited or abused. Then again, what law is perfect? And what law is not vulnerable to exploitation or abuse? Specifics of the law lay out the principles that will govern the BARMM and spell out its structures and mechanisms. While it has benefited from Mr. Dutertes characteristic obstinacy and single-mindedness, its eventual success will be determined by whether the people, assuming the yes votes win, are vigilant enough to ensure that it is implemented according to the ideals that shaped it in the first place. Transitions are always difficult, even painfulbut progress has never come to those who stayed in the confines of the familiar. Many challenges face the people of Mindanao. Some of them are known; others may not even be contemplated or imagined at this point. The BOL would only be good on paper if the people who would implement it are not up to the task, or have other agenda. We should brace for disappointments, frustrations and even moments when we might wonder whether the changes are worth all the trouble. However, if we stay focused on the long-term goals of economic improvement, social justice, and long-lasting peace, then turning back will no longer be an option.
The millions of curies of radionuclides, including long-lived radionuclides, contained in the highly soluble HLW calcine pose a serious risk to the Snake River Plain aquifer. While corrosion of the metal bin sets that the calcine is stored in is not the limiting factor, the degrading concrete surrounding the bin sets above and below ground and vulnerability to seismic events and flooding remain serious safety issues despite decades of DOEs downplaying the risks. The LINE Commission chair was told last May that nuclear waste can be sent to Yucca Mountain for disposal within 7 years of the restart of licensing. But with regard to DOEs high-level waste, the DOE is making excuses about how the HLW calcine cant be shipped to Yucca Mountain because there is no repository. Through the Energy Communities Alliance, which are communities excluding Idaho, it is claimed that reclassification by the DOE of its High-Level Waste would allow DOE to dispose of waste in accordance with its radiological characteristics and ability to meet appropriate disposal facility requirements rather than the wastes origin. Furthermore under the current interpretation based on artificial standards, [HLW] can only go to a HLW repository If DOE moves to more appropriately align disposal decisions based on actual risk, some of this waste may be safely managed as transuranic or low-level waste and can be moved out of our communities sooner while saving significant taxpayer dollars.
The President said his withdrawal would bring home the 2,000 troops working with the Kurds, implying it was a big favor to the troops. While I cant speak for those troops, I imagine the decision has caused many of them a great deal of heartache. They were working with dedicated Kurdish warriors who were knocking the daylights out of the Islamic State cutthroats. What greater job could American patriots have? Their work has been cut short and Im betting they are sick at heart about it.

The Syrian Kurds have been faithful allies of the U.S. in the fight against ISIS for the last four years. They have suffered thousands of casualties in our joint fight against the terrorists. At the same time, they have set up a large enclave in northeast Syria, which is governed under the most enlightened principles in the region.

We promised the Syrian Kurds we would support them against their many regional enemies when the work was done. The increasingly autocratic Erdogan wrongly brands them as terrorists for his own political ends. Every despot has to invent an enemy to rally the population againstusually foreigners, ethnic groups or the like. Erdogan has pledged to exterminate our Syrian friends. I doubt that our service personnel who have formed bonds with the Kurdish forces are too keen about that prospect, or about abandoning them in the first place.
Too often, education is linked with four-year degrees or higher. But many of those good-paying STEM jobs can be filled with various trade skills and certifications. For instance, last summer, the Joint Finance & Appropriations Committee visited Idaho State University in Pocatello. During the tour, ISUs Dean of the College of Technology told legislators that ISU could not produce enough skilled welders to meet demand. He also said that businesses were calling him on a regular basis and telling him to send them as many machinists as he could.

Idaho should value carpenters the same way it values architects; value electricians the same way it values engineers, and value skilled workers the same way it values entrepreneurs. Indeed, it would benefit all of us if Idaho fostered a culture where skilled workers and entrepreneurs were one and the same.

This week at the State Capitol we are recognizing the Idahoans who prosper from career-technical programs, apprenticeships and job-training initiatives. All of these people are members of Idahos educated workforce and key to our collective future. They represent the best and the brightest Idaho has to offer in a variety of fields. Its time we adopted policies which grow their numbers rather than inhibit them.
The dream world for Idahos ascendant far right is one where state lawmakers run a sovereign nation-state free of federal oversight. It would be a place where they can outlaw all abortions, dictate what is taught in schools, have complete say over public health rules and gun laws, and take control of federal public lands, which make up more than 60% of the state.
BOISE  Its easy to look at some of the states more eccentric laws and wonder why they still exist  but changing the law is no easy task.

Any change to Idaho statute starts out as draft legislation in the statehouse, where it must be sponsored by a lawmaker. The draft legislation is presented to the relevant committee in the House of Representatives or the Senate  for example, the House Judiciary, Rules & Administration Committee  and committee members vote on whether to hold a hearing for the legislation.

If the committee votes to give the legislation a hearing, it officially becomes a bill and is assigned a bill number. A hearing is then held, where lobbyists, elected officials, and citizens have the chance to testify for or against the potential new law. At the end of the hearing, the committee votes on whether to advance the bill into the committees respective legislative body  in this example, the House.

A hearing for the bill in the House doesnt include outside testimony, but lawmakers may debate the pros and cons of the bill on the floor. Legislators in the House then vote on whether to pass the legislation; if it passes, its sent to the relevant committee in the Senate (i.e. the Senate Judiciary & Rules Committee).
Its been nearly four decades since government has taken a look at many of these licenses, and with advancements in technology its time for us to ask: Is it needed? Little said in a statement when the executive order was first issued. Can we modernize? How can the state provide better customer service? Can government get out of the way and still protect the common good?

Legislation brought by the Division of Building Safety on Thursday would alter electrical apprentice registration requirements that have been difficult ... to enforce and for many in the trade to achieve, thus creating barriers to entering and remaining in the trade, according to the bills statements of purpose.

One piece of legislation would create an electrical installer category of licensure for apprentices who want to stay in the trade without becoming journeymen. The other bill would change the length of apprentice registrations from five years to one year, make requirements similar for in-state and out-of-state applicants, and let the administrator revive expired apprentice and limited electrical installer trainee registrations.
To throw this away or criticize this at this point before we have all discussions that have got to take place, I think is unfair and shortsighted, Bedke said.

Bedke also appeared to outline his preferred strategy for moving forward. The Legislature would pass the new funding formula this year, but it would not take effect until the 2020-21 school year. That would give school districts the chance to run simulations through the formula, brace for changes and then come back to the 2020 Legislature to make fine-tuning changes before the launch. Bedke and interim committee members have also proposed setting aside additional state funding to temporarily hold school districts harmless, so they would not receive less funding than they do now. This protection would fall away after three years.
BOISE  Idahos collaborative efforts with federal agencies, conservation groups, industries and residents have put Idaho out front in tackling tough environmental problems involving forests, rangelands, water uses and other issues, Gov. Brad Little said Wednesday.

The 64-year-old Republican sworn into office earlier this month shocked some at the Idaho Environmental Forum by declaring that climate change is real and will have to be dealt with.

Speaking on the 17th floor of the Zions Bank in Boise with the snowcapped Boise foothills as a backdrop, Little responded to a question from the audience about climate change by recalling the deep snow he had to work in during the winters while growing up on a ranch. He said those types of winters are less frequent.

Climate is changing, theres no question about it, he said. Sometimes what you do from a regulatory standpoint might be counter to what the right thing to do is, but youve got to recognize it. Its here. Weve just got to figure out how were going to cope with it. And weve got to slow it down. Now, reversing it is going to be a big darn job.

Little said the state has made good progress in working with agencies in the U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Originally posted on IdahoEdNews.org on Jan. 17.BOISE  Idahos high school graduation rate made solid gains in 2018  clearing the 80 percent mark.

The latest graduation rate comes in at 80.6 percent, up from 79.7 percent a year ago.

State superintendent Sherri Ybarra hailed the news Thursday  and promised more improvements in the future.

I am confident the pace will continue to pick up, thanks to hard work by our schools and districts and the intensive help my department now offers to lower-performing schools, Ybarra said in a news release Thursday afternoon.

For the state, the new graduation numbers represent a high-water mark. In 2013-14, Idaho changed its accounting method  tracking students in a four-year cohort from ninth grade through 12th grade, an approach most states have used for years. The 80.6 percent rate is the highest number Idaho has posted using the cohort model.
Nearly three years after he stabbed nine people and killed 3-year-old Ruya Kadir, Timmy Kinner Jr. was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, as a judge handed down two consecutive life sentences for murder and aggravated battery.
"You can afford to be selective. It is time to choose yourself."

Marie Kondo has gained popularity because of her approach to decluttering. One of her famous phrases is keep only what sparks joy in you. I have seen a few episodes of her show on Netflix and I must say that her method of putting order in ones messy home is simple to grasp. One thing I like about her approach is she leaves the decision on what to keep and what to let go to you. This is so unlike other decluttering shows where viewers see how the hosts almost bully homeowners into giving up items important to them. Kondos way is to encourage one to decide on what happens to ones belongings. When one seems unsure, or one is having difficulty, it is when Kondo usually coaxes her clients to choose to keep only items that spark joy in them. This keep-what-sparks-joy-in-you can actually be applied beyond material possessions. It can be also be ones guiding principle in decluttering ones life especially when one has reached her or his senior years. It is time to discard unimportant, meaningless, and useless things. Baggages should be thrown away. By this time, kids have finished school and many may already have families of their own. By this time, you can afford to be selective. It is time to choose yourself. Kondos principle can apply to relationships. Why keep one that makes you unhappy, unfree, or unloved? Why keep people who affect you negatively? In the first place, why allow negative people into your life? Life is short. Less stress, less tension, less heartache is good. You will have more time to focus on family, friends, and colleagues you love, and who truly love, and care for you. To me, they are the most important. Kondos keep-what-sparks-joy principle can also apply to the things one does. For years, I would usually have three or four things going on simultaneously. I wanted, and still want to make a difference. For several decades, in my desire to pay it forward (for the good things I have received in life despite the humblest of beginnings), I have been involved in many social development programs. My group has helped, and continues to help in advancing womens rights and welfare. Needless to say, there were many times when I would accept responsibilities because no one would do them. I would stay up all night at times to meet deadlines or make sure that problems were addressed. When I turned 60 last year, I made a promise to myself: I will be choosy, and I will now choose myself. I will start unloading responsibilities and only focus on those that spark joy in me. () Moreover, I will do more things that I WANT to do and less of those that people say I should do. Yes, I am decluttering, in more ways than one.I have started with clothing items. Despite the fact that I unload clothes yearly, theres a lot still. And I mean a lot. Here, i do not follow Kondos process of getting all clothes in one heap before the selection process. I do not have the time to do so I go through my cabinets one by one. So far, I have collected a fairly big number of clothing items to give away, and it will continue to grow. With the start of the new year, I went back to my daily morning walks. Walking was my regular exercise for years but stopped in the last two or three years. I am rediscovering the joys of walking as I regain my pace and redevelop my stamina. I only walk around the village where I live. Going around is very interesting because I like seeing old and Filipino-themed houses. I also like looking at plants and trees that are beginning to be forgotten by people. I get excited when I see trees start to bear fruit. In my neighborhood there are still fruit treesguavas, jackfruit, mangoes, duhat, tiesa, macopa, and at times, I see unknown fruits. Google is a good thing because i get to meet unfamiliar fruit and trees. Early morning walks enable me to meet people in the village. I have gained a few neighbor-friends and I like it. I recently met a couple, both significantly older than me. That day, I began my walk thinking about how the day was going to run. It was going to be a busy, full day so I was making a mental note of how I was to spend my hours. Then I saw this couple with whom I have exchanged good mornings in the past days. This particular day, however, the pleasant man struck a conversation with me. The conversation went from how old we all are, where I live, the other neighbors and their barkadas, their prayer meetings that turn into what he termed as green jokes afterwards, their nine-in-the-morning-till-six-in-the-evening mahjong sessions, to the homeowners association, to how much they bought their lot and how much they spent for building their home in the 70s (they were after all among the first residents of the village) to many more mundane things. This conversation started near their homes gate but they invited us to look, see their plants, their guava trees, and eventually their home. The conversation was punctuated by burst of laughter. I was to have a full day but this conversation took a good two hours of my morning. Ordinarily, I would be worried and stressed because I was off my plan. But this time, I asked myself, Did meeting the couple spark joy in you? The answer was, Absolutely! So those hours were not wasted. They were precious as they made me feel good and happy. I reminded myself that work can wait and whats more important is what sparks joy in me. Beyond getting rid of baggages as we declutter our life, look closely, listen intently, and open yourselves up to possibilities, and you will find things that and people who will spark joy in you. Let the fun begin!
This year, Martin Luther King Day falls on the same date, Jan. 21, on which the U.S. Supreme Court issued its notorious Citizens United decision nine years ago.

Kings writings leave little doubt where he would have stood on this ruling, which gave corporations and other groups the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being, King wrote. It is not man.

But in the Citizens United decision and other related ones, the Supreme Court has insisted that corporations are people and have the free speech rights of people. Political speech of corporations or other associations, the court said in Citizens United, cannot be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not natural persons. 

The consequences of this decision have been dire for our democracy. Citizens United gave birth to SuperPACs  electioneering groups that can raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations and rich individuals, so long as the SuperPAC doesnt coordinate with the candidates.
A 13-year-old girl spotted at a bus stop. Her home invaded by a shotgun-carrying predator who kills her father, then mother. Months at a rural Wisconsin home, hidden under a bed. The allegations following Jayme Closs disappearance tell a story beyond nightmares.

Her astonishing abduction and its exhilarating end  Jayme alive, running free and quickly reunited with family after 88 days missing  has understandably captivated the nations attention. So far, authorities have successfully balanced the public interest in justice with concern for the victims privacy.

Jake Patterson, 21, has been charged with kidnapping Jayme and killing her parents. The latter charges alone could carry a life sentence, and Barron County prosecutors have so far avoided spelling out details of Jaymes captivity. There is much we dont yet know  and maybe a few things we dont need to.

Survivors advise giving Jayme space to process and heal. Elizabeth Smart, whose nine-month abduction at age 14 in 2002 similarly held the nation in thrall, says questions about why she didnt run or scream wounded her.

My brain heard that question as, You should have tried harder. You should have run, you should have yelled, this is somehow your fault,  she told the Associated Press.
That is not what Associate Judge Domenica Stephenson set out to find or disprove on the bench. Her mission was to hear the evidence on specific charges against the defendants, not render judgment on the culture of policing in Chicago. In her decision, Stephenson shredded the prosecutors case, saying they failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any of the three were guilty of official misconduct, obstructing justice or conspiracy. To draw any broader conclusions from her verdict about McDonalds killing or police behavior would be speculation.

Thursdays acquittals do not absolve CPD of responsibility for its failings. The McDonald case represents a pivotal moment in the departments modern era. In late 2015, Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired Superintendent Garry McCarthy. Emanuel acknowledged the code of silence: It is the tendency to ignore, deny or in some cases cover up the bad actions of a colleague, he told the Chicago City Council, apologizing for McDonalds death. The mayor also set about on another round of police reforms. This time they are more likely to stick because Chicago is negotiating a consent decree that will give a federal judge oversight of those reforms.
Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn, the potential recipient of billions in tax incentives from the state, fell short of its job creation quota in 2018 and failed to qualify for any tax incentives.

In a letter to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., which helped broker the tax incentive deal in 2017, Foxconn spokesman Louis Woo wrote the company created 178 direct, full-time jobs.

That figure is short of the minimum 260 full-time jobs required under the states contract with the company, meaning it will not receive any tax incentives it could have qualified for this year.

The contract Foxconn signed with the state set a goal of 1,040 jobs for 2018 to be eligible for a maximum $9.5 million in job creation credits. The company would be able to claim those credits in future years if it exceeds the jobs target for any given verification period.

In his letter, Woo wrote the company remains committed to creating 13,000 jobs at the southeastern Wisconsin facility. However, he admitted it has adjusted its hiring and recruitment timeline.

As a company with operations around the world, we need to have the agility to adapt to a range of factors including global economic conditions, Woo wrote.
Outside agencies will investigate several anonymous misconduct allegations against a part-time Green County sheriffs deputy and New Glarus police lieutenant.

Lt. Jeff Sturdevant, who is also a part-time Green County sheriff's deputy, will only complete "restrictive administrative duties" while a different department investigates allegations of misconduct dating back to 2010, New Glarus Police Chief Burt Boldebuck said Friday morning.

The Green County Sheriff's Office has also has placed Sturdevant on leave and wont schedule him for any deputy shifts while authorities investigate the allegations, Green County Sheriff Jeff Skatrud said Thursday afternoon.

The allegations were emailed anonymously to several law enforcement representatives and media outlets Wednesday night, including the Wisconsin State Journal.

Sturdevant hasn't responded to an email asking about the allegations.

The claims include alleged misconduct during a river tubing trip and after-party at Sturdevants home in 2013, as well as alleged incidents at a bar in 2010 and 2018.

The allegations were sent out through a gmail account by someone identified only as a concerned taxpayer and citizen.
As expected, the city of Madison sued the village of McFarland and a group of landowners over McFarlands planned annexation of land north of Siggelkow Road from the town of Blooming Grove.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Dane County Circuit Court, contends that the annexation by McFarland is barred by a 2006 agreement between Madison and Blooming Grove to set the eventual absorption of the town into the city of Madison.

The area in question is 148 acres directly east of the Secret Places neighborhood on Madisons Southeast Side. The property owners live on Storck Road, which runs north from Siggelkow Road. Along with McFarland, the owners of the property are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

A cooperative plan, agreed to by the city and the town in June 2006 and approved by the state Department of Administration four months later, sets the terms for the towns eventual dissolution on Oct. 31, 2027, when all of its remaining territory would become part of the city of Madison.
At that point, OKroley was suspended with pay. In an email from a loss prevention investigator to a manager, the manager was told that OKroley was accused several weeks earlier of sexual assault by a female co-worker and that there was talk of him having a relationship with a clerk who was 16.

The lawsuit states that because of the sexual assault allegations OKroley was taken from the store in handcuffs, and that state law allows employers to suspend employees pending the outcome of criminal charges, but Metro Market did not immediately do that.

Interviewed by the loss prevention investigator about OKroleys text messages, Nosal said that although she was friends with OKroley, the messages made her feel so unsafe that she began carrying pepper spray. The investigator also interviewed OKroley, who said he believed Nosal was spreading rumors about him at work.

OKroley was fired over the phone on Feb. 1, 2016. Metro Market didnt tell Nosal that he was being fired.

OKroley bought a gun that day and texted co-workers, trying to find out when Nosal would be leaving work, purportedly so he could collect his belongings without running into her. After missing her on Feb. 1, he got the same information on Feb. 2, then shot her when she got to her car in the store parking lot after work.

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"What is this feast's role in our culture?"

The barefoot procession of an almost 4.3-mile (7 kilometer) journey starts from the Quirino Grandstand at Luneta and snakes its way towards the narrow streets. Passing through the citys winding roads after 19 hours of spiritual euphoria, the procession eventually reaches Quiapo at the Basilica Minore de Nazareno. The devotees flood by to touch the image and throw cloths to touch the image, before receiving the cloths back. This is how Msgr. Jose Clemente Ignacio, Rector of the Minor Basilica of the Nazarene, described the Traslacion procession of the Black Nazareneheld last week, Jan. 9in an interview on QuiapoChurch.com, Understanding the Fierce Devotion Behind the Black Nazarene. A church official estimated that 2.5-million devotees participated in the feasts Traslacion (transfer) procession this year, up from last years 1.5 million. Around 18-million worshippers were believed to have visited Quiapo Church from Jan. 5 to 9. Msgr. Ignacio explained other interesting facets of the religious festival. On its historical background: A first group of Augustinian Recollect missionaries landed in Manila in 1606 from Mexico. They brought with them a dark image of Jesus Christ kneeling on one knee and carrying a large wooden cross. The image was first enshrined in St. John the Baptist Church at Luneta in 1606 and after two years was moved to a bigger church nearby. Over a century and a half later, in 1767, the image was transferred to Quiapo Church whose patron is also St. John the Baptist. Pope Innocent X is said to have also specially recognized the Philippines strong devotion to the Black Nazarene of Manila in 1650. On the Traslacion procession: Traslacion means the transfer of the Image of Black Nazarene. In a way it is imitating the Calvary experience: The sacrifice and suffering that our Lord endured for our salvation like when Jesus was walking barefoot, carrying the cross to Mount Calvary. The devotees also want to give back to God by participating in the suffering of our Lord and entering into the Paschal mystery of Christ.It is also commemorating the transfer of the image from Luneta to Quiapo, when we first received the statue in 1868. Since then, because of the many answered prayers, people have been celebrating the feast on January 9. Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada declared Jan. 9 a public holiday in Manila, with classes and government work suspended to give way to the celebration and ease the expected traffic. Some 1,000 policemen were deployed in different areas around downtown Quiapo church, in addition to the 7,000 members of the Philippine National Police from the National Capital Region Police Office to maintain peace and order during the celebration. What is the Traslacion and what is its role in our culture and that of urban Manila? First, it is a popular devotion that is not part of the regular Catholic church liturgy. Michael Carroll (1989) defined popular devotion as a pious practice that centers on the veneration of some sacred object or thing but which is not considered by the Church to be part of its official liturgy. A cult is a group of people who all engage, individually or collectively, in some particular pious practice. Obviously, the word cult here is not used in its negative sense but in an anthropological one. The Black Nazarene and its rites are not part of the formal liturgy. Traslacion, then, is a Catholic popular devotion whose worshippers are part of the cult of the Black Nazarene. Cults have been associated with ritualistic behavior that borders on the obsessive. Rituals abound in the Traslacionthe rubbing of kerchiefs and hand towels on the image, the kissing or pahalik. These are rituals have been prescribed over four centuries by the traditions of the religious community that has formed around this image and Quiapo Church. It has become an important religious tradition of the area. The Traslacion is performative, a cultural performance of basic values that is a social drama, a phenomenon that allows social stresses to be worked out  symbolically in a ritual catharsis (Victor Turner, 1974). This can be seen in the way the Traslacion brings together in a sweaty, grinding melee people from different socioeconomic classes who would not otherwise similarly engage with each other. The feast serves to help blow off steam from the past year, relieving social tensions that would not otherwise have an outlet. Wish-fulfillment is also a factor. Traslacion is an opportunity for devotees to ask for favors, with their effort and labor of participation representing a sacrifice, therefore an exchange of energy. It is a chance to request blessings for the coming year. It is a way to fulfill religious vows (, promises made in return for answered prayers. As for the tremendous physicality of the Traslacion, Msgr. Ignacio explained: Our culture is a culture of touch and, significantly, in a way we want to touch heaven.
Patterson took her to a cabin that he said was his. He told police he ordered a weeping Jayme to strip and dress in his sister's pajamas, saying he had to get rid of the evidence. He then threw her clothes into a fireplace in the cabin's basement.

He said Jayme tried to get out twice. The first time he screamed and banged the wall and made her so scared that he thought she would never try it again.

Whenever he had friends over, he made clear that no one could know she was there or bad things could happen to her, so she had to hide under the bed. He sealed her under the bed with tote boxes and weights so she could not crawl out, according to the complaint. She had to stay under the bed whenever he left the house, sometimes going for hours without food, water or bathroom breaks.

When his father visited, Patterson told investigators, he turned up the radio in the bedroom to cover any noise she might make.
A La Crosse man charged with a fatal stabbing on the citys South Side on Jan. 2 had been the victim of a recent assault, police say.

Three days before he was accused of stabbing and killing Virgil Stewart, Anquin St. Junious, 39, told police that nearly 20 people had ambushed him on the night of Dec. 21.

In connection with that incident, Terrance R. Thompson, 38, was charged with substantial battery and disorderly conduct on Wednesday in La Crosse County Circuit Court.

Odell Thompson, 34, is awaiting charges.

According to police:

About 9 p.m. on Dec. 21, St. Junious was outside his brothers house on the 1400 block of Fifth Ave. South, smoking a cigarette. He was approached by nearly 20 people, including Terrance and Odell, who he knew from previous encounters.

St. Junious told police he tried to shake hands with Terrance and Odell, but that they immediately attacked him. Terrance struck St. Junious with a metal pipe, while Odell punched St. Junious in the face, according to the complaint.
A man carrying more than six ounces of methamphetamine when wrestled to the ground by a La Crosse police officer was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to five years in prison.

The officer mistook Eddy A. Arca, 30, of La Crosse for another suspect but the scrutiny caused Arca to run. He was tackled by the officer with an assist from a citizen, District Judge William Conley said.

Arca has a long history of substance abuse that began with marijuana at age 13 and escalated to ecstasy, cocaine and OxyContin by age 20. Heroins affordability caused him to switch drugs again and was using heroin by age 23, Conley said.

He was on probation for a 2015 marijuana conviction in La Crosse County at the time of his arrest, and was likely selling methamphetamine to support his drug addiction, Conley added.

Arca was initially charged in La Crosse County with possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute. The case was transferred to federal court where Arca also was indicted for felon in possession of ammunition.

The felon in possession charge was dismissed in exchange for his guilty plea in October to the methamphetamine offense.

Arca faced a statutory minimum penalty of five years in prison due to the amount of methamphetamine he possessed, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy OShea said.

A longer prison term was reasonable due to Arcas prior drug convictions, but five years was sufficient, OShea said.

Im more concerned about how he spends his time (in prison) instead of the amount he serves, OShea told Conley.

Arcas attorney, Peter Moyers, also recommended a five-year term.

Arca said he wants to get drug treatment in prison and after his release, work as a barber to support his three children.

Conley said he was encouraged that Arca was motivated to try drug counseling in prison after unsuccessful attempts on the outside. Staying sober in prison will be easier than avoiding drugs afterward, but hopefully he will learn strategies in counseling that will enable him to succeed, Conley said.

Arcas probation will likely be revoked in his 2015 case, Conley said

His federal sentence is to be followed by four years on supervised release.
Linzenmeyer said after arriving at the bedroom, he saw a rifle case on the floor and saw Henke crouching or kneeling against the wall in the bedroom and pointing a rifle at him. According to the complaint, when Henke raised the rifle while pointing at the police officer, Linzenmeyer fired his handgun at Henke.

The complaint says Linzenmeyer was in the hallway when he fired all shots and that he stripped his magazine while he was in the hallway as he was moving away from Henke.

Linzenmeyer performed a tactical reload in another bedroom and called for assistance over the radio. While in the other bedroom, Linzenmeyer heard Henke say he had been shot and called for an ambulance.

Henke was injured in the leg and transported to UW Hospital in Madison. He identified a second rifle that was in the home that was examined and found to be inoperable.

Linzenmeyer is a 17-year veteran on the Beaver Dam Police Department. He has been on paid administrative leave since the Oct. 26 incident.

Follow Terri Pederson on Twitter @tlp53916 or contact her at 920-356-6760.
That sole "no" vote was from Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush, one of the most senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Rush was active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the civil rights struggles in the 1960s, and co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers in 1968. "This resolution just restates the obvious. It does not address Steve King's violent, vitriolic and rabid racism," Rush said. "This Democratic resolution is an insult to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. as we recognize his birthday," Rush continued. "We must proceed with a vote to censure him ... to punish him for his bigotry and racism."

As Steve King's political career is collapsing under the weight of his racism, President Donald Trump's silence about the Iowa congressman is deafening. When asked about Congressman King on the White House lawn this weekend, Trump, who is a notoriously voracious consumer of cable news, claimed: "I haven't been following it. I really haven't been following it." Trump's answer was reminiscent of his presidential campaign, when he disavowed knowledge of one of his endorsers, David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. "Just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, OK?" Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper. "I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists."
Brian Hagedorn, the Appeals Court judge who is the conservatives' choice for Wisconsin Supreme Court justice this spring, posts a blog on Right Wisconsin entitled "Remembering and Protecting Religious Freedom." He cites a story about a conscientious objector who went on to win the Medal of Honor and thanks God that religious freedom is protected by the U.S. and Wisconsin constitutions.

The Racine Journal Times stands with those who want to make penalties for first-time drunk drivers more severe. The paper's not sure the offense should be a felony, but it should in the very least be a misdemeanor, not the equivalent of a traffic ticket as it is now.

Now that Scott Walker and his subservience to business and financial interests are gone, there already appear to be good things happening to tackle the problems with the state's groundwater being contaminated by large CAFO farms, says Political Environment blogger James Rowen.
Catanduanes Gov. Joseph Cua goes on a well-deserved vacation whether he likes it or not, the latest sampling of the governments consistent and persistent fight against graft and corruption, and against those suspected of having links to drugs. The Department of the Interior and Local Government acted swiftly to execute the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for Luzons suspension order against Cua. DILG Secretary Eduardo Ano did not waste time to sack Cua. He directed the DILG regional office to install Vice Governor Sherley Abundo, as acting governor. Its disgusting that notoriousfacing graft and other criminal cases are still allowed to run for reelection, as in the case of Cua. Cuas suspension arose from a complaint of private citizen Rey Mendez over the governors abuse of authority, dishonesty, grave misconduct, and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of service. Mendez vowed to strongly oppose any attempt by Cua to secure a court injunction against the DILG implementation of the suspension order handed down by the Deputy Ombudsman. The governor supposedly allowed ER Construction, a private company, to use a vacant provincial government lot for storage and workers barracks without the consent of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan. In his resolution of the complaint, the Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon said that the testimony of the complainant and the documents presented, which are indicative of strong evidence of guilt, at this stage, compel this office to grant the preventive suspension prayed for.Prior to the case, Cua had been implicated in illegal drugs trafficking, as well as other cases of allegations of graft and corruption. Cua and several officials of the First Catanduanes Electric Cooperative Inc. (FICELCO) were investigated by the Congressional committee on dangerous drugs following the expose on the operations of a mega-shabu laboratory in Virac. Other pending cases against Cua include the complaint of the family of journalist and publisher Larry Que, who was slain by gunmen last Dec. 10 in Virac. Cua was tagged as the mastermind in Que murder by PO1 Vincent Tacorda, one of the suspects who surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation. Tacorda confessed that Que was ordered liquidated for his serialized expose on the mega-shabu lab operations, involving Cua and a former local NBI official. Cua, who is running for reelection in May, has vehemently denied all the allegations against him. Unfortunately for him, higher authorities decided he has to take some time off as head of the province. It is in these instances where the government regains the trust and confidence of the people, unlike the past years when the big fish often escape unscathed
Conley wrote that the case presented a novel question of law for this court: is the interactive portion of a government officials Twitter account a designated public forum?

Ultimately, Conley determined that it is and said that the lawmakers actions violated One Wisconsin Nows First Amendment rights.

While there is no settled law on whether a government actors social media account is a designated public forum, two federal district courts have now held that government officials social media accounts can constitute public forums, Conley wrote, adding that the lawmakers presented no reason for blocking One Wisconsin Now, except by vague innuendo or by claiming that they must have had a valid reason but can no longer remember why they did so.

Conley stopped short of requiring Vos, Kremer and Nygren to reinstate One Wisconsin Now as a follower of their Twitter feeds, but directed the parties to submit briefs about how to deal with the issue by Feb. 8.

Conleys ruling follows a decision from a federal judge in New York, who in May said President Donald Trump is not permitted under the U.S. Constitution to block people from his Twitter feed. In that case, U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald determined that Trumps Twitter account is considered a public forum under the Constitution because it is an interactive space where Twitter users can dialogue directly with him and other users. She also found that by blocking people from it, Trump was discriminating against them based on their viewpoint. 
Nearly all current candidates for the Madison School Board have started to make their case to voters and potential endorsers as the primary election heats up. That included answering questions from Madison Teachers Inc., the city's teachers' union.

Nine candidates are running for three seats on the seven-person School Board. MTI executive director Doug Keillor said candidates had to send in answers to the questionnaire by Jan. 11. On Wednesday, School Board candidates interviewed with the political action arm of MTI, which is comprised of 13 people who guide the union's endorsement process during each election cycle.

Candidate Amos Roe, who is running for Seat 5, was the only current candidate who did not submit a questionnaire. Keillor said they reached out to Roe multiple times but did not receive a response. Skylar Croy, who withdrew from the race but whose name will still appear on the Feb. 19 ballot, also did not submit a questionnaire or interview with MTI.

Keillor said the committee will meet to decide whether to recommend an endorsement to MTI's members. The union's bylaws require two-thirds of the committee to agree on a recommended endorsement in order for the recommendation to go to MTI's members for approval via an emailed ballot, which takes about a week.
The man who claims to be the Boston Strangler has been jailed for life after being found guilty of assault and armed robbery against four women in Connecticut.

Albert DeSalvo says he murdered 13 single women in the Boston area between June 1962 and January 1964, creating a climate of fear in the city.

The women, aged between 19 and 85, were sexually assaulted and then strangled to death in their homes.

Some were found with trademark ribbons around their necks.

But the 35-year-old has not been charged with any of the murders because of a lack of evidence.

During the seven-day trial, DeSalvos lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, attempted to prove that his client was guilty of the murders, and should be found insane and sent to a psychiatric hospital for life.

Mr Bailey described DeSalvo as uncontrollable and sending him to prison would be a cruel punishment.

He said: There were 13 acts of homicide by a completely homicidal vegetable walking in the form of a human being.

But the jury found DeSalvo legally sane and not guilty of the murders.

The judge said: This defendant must be incarcerated for as long as he shall live or until psychiatric science can cure him.

The former military police officer has been held on charges of rape in the Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts since 1964.

He will be kept there pending an appeal against his conviction.

Mr Bailey has said that shortly after DeSalvo arrived at the hospital, which has a designated section for patients with criminal records, he told other inmates that he murdered the women.

DeSalvo has said: I would go home and watch what I had done on TV. Then I would cry like a baby.

Because DeSalvos police record was filed under breaking and entering, he never came under suspicion during the murder hunt.

Detectives, pathologists and psychologists were investigating known sex offenders.

Some women in Boston were so terrified by the murders that they carried pepper, ammonia and tear-gas bombs to protect themselves.

Courtesy BBC News

In context

Shortly after he was sentenced, DeSalvo caused panic when he briefly escaped from the hospital in Massachusetts where he was being held.

He was then moved to the maximum security Walpole State Prison where he was stabbed to death in November 1973.

Prosecutors claimed DeSalvo died because he was trying to enter the prisons drug trade.

Three inmates were tried for the killing but none was convicted.

Casey Sherman, the nephew of the Boston Stranglers last victim, 19-year-old Mary Sullivan, believes DeSalvo confessed to the murders because it would lead to a lucrative book and film deal.

He says DeSalvo was killed after he told his psychiatrist he was going to tell the truth.

Mr Sherman and DeSalvos family say there is no physical evidence to link him to the crimes and he did not match any witness descriptions of possible suspects.

Also, when the murders happened the police did not believe one individual was responsible.

But Julian Soshnick, a prosecutor who worked on the investigation, has said that during interviews DeSalvo described in detail facts about the killings that were not known to the public.

These include what ligatures were used and how they were tied around the victims necks.

In December 2001, DeSalvos body was exhumed and tests showed his DNA did not match evidence found on the body of Miss Sullivan.

Mr Soshnick says this does not prove DeSalvo is innocent of the 19-year-olds murder or any of the other killings.
One by one, European Union nations are spending millions, hiring thousands of workers and issuing emergency decrees to cope with the increasingly likely possibility that Britain will leave the bloc on March 29 without a plan.

A no-deal Brexit would shake up the rest of the continent in ways that many Europeans havent even fathomed.

France is spending 50 million euros (USD57 million) to beef up security at airports and the Eurotunnel and hiring hundreds of extra customs officers.

Portugal is opening special airport lanes for British travelers, the nations main source of tourists. Germany is fast-tracking a debate on solving bureaucratic problems if there is no Brexit deal.

Governments from the Netherlands to Romania and the Czech Republic are preparing rules for British citizens to live and work in their countries once they no longer enjoy EU residency rights  and expecting that Britain is doing the same for their citizens.
Taiwan held live-fire exercises along its east coast yesterday amid renewed threats from China to bring the island under its control by force if deemed necessary.

Artillery and assault helicopters fired at targets off the west coast city of Taichung, while French- made Mirage fighter jets took off amid rainy conditions from the air base at Hsinchu to the north.

The drills are Taiwans first since Chinese President Xi Jinping on Jan. 2 reasserted Beijings willingness to use military force to bring self-ruling Taiwan under Chinese control.

The drills also follow a new Pentagon report laying out U.S. concerns about Chinas growing military might, underscoring worries about a possible attack against Taiwan.

Taiwans independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen has made national defense a priority while refusing Chinas demand that she recognize Taiwan as a part of China. Thats led to Beijing ratcheting up economic, military and diplomatic pressure on the island of 23 million.

In a meeting with U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinas Chief of Staff Li Zuocheng issued a warning against foreign forces coming to Taiwans assistance. The U.S. is Taiwans chief source of military hardware and is legally bound to respond to threats against its security.

Chinas military will pay any price to ensure Chinas sovereignty, Li told Richardson at their Tuesday meeting. China considers Taiwan, which split from the mainland amid civil war in 1949, as an integral part of Chinese territory.

U.S.-China relations have become increasingly frayed on the military and economic fronts over the past year. President Donald Trump imposed tariff increases of up to 25 percent on USD250 billion of Chinese imports over complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology. Xi responded by imposing penalties on $110 billion of American goods.

And last year the Pentagon disinvited China to a major, multinational Pacific exercise, citing Beijings militarization of man-made islands in the South China Sea. Johnson Lai, Hsinchu, AP
Real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) is expecting local properties to face pressure this year due to slower economic growth and various regulatory measures in the regions property market.

JLL predicts that capital values of high-end residential properties will drop 5 to 10 percent, while rental values will remain stable.

Capital values of mass-to-medium residential and retail properties could also drop by 5 percent.

In JLLs Macau Year-end Property Review 2018 which took place on Wednesday, the firm expressed the belief that the government should further relax the mortgage lending ratios for residents.

Currently, only properties valued below MOP8 million are eligible to apply for a higher ratio of mortgage lending.

If they can move the bar to MOP12 million, it can facilitate residents to change their homes, said managing director of JLL Macau, Gregory Ku, explaining that a two to three- bedroom apartment in Taipa already costs up to MOP12 million.

Residents who wish to upgrade to a bigger home are subject to a higher initial payment requirement, as they can only apply for mortgage lending of up to 40 percent and are required to pay an additional stamp duty of 5 percent.

This has created difficulties for end-users to upgrade, and at the same time has significantly reduced residential supply in the secondary market. In fact, the existing mortgage guideline has been in use since 2012 when the price levels were much lower than now, Ku explained.

We hope the government will review the guideline and adjust the set property value so as to alleviate the problem of supply shortage in the secondary market, he added.

Meanwhile, due to the launch of a series of corrective measures in 2018 including the imposition of a new stamp duty on buyers acquiring more than one residential property, the firm saw a significant decrease in speculative activities in the residential market due to the increased investment costs.

Jeff Wong, senior director of Capital Markets at JLL Macau said that with the current volatility in the external economic environment, end-users and investors have generally adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

Coupled with the governments announcement that 4,000 public housing units will be made available in 2019, Wong said that residential transaction volume may stay at the low level in the near term while transaction value may fall slightly.

Meanwhile for office properties, Gregory Ku called for more spaces that could accommodate offices.

According to Ku, Grade A offices in the city are scarce and the government should also increase plans for such premises.

During the first 11 months of 2018, a total of 5,569 new incorporations were registered in Macau, up 15.4 percent year-

on-year, thus office rentals prices increased as Grade A office leasing supply reduced.

I think for Macau to become international city, Grade A new offices are a must and should be planned rather than [just] talking all about residential [properties]. Co-working should be something in their minds. This is our future, Ku told the press.

According to the firm, it has recently been receiving enquiries on co-working spaces from overseas and China-based operators.

We dont have supply for offices. [] People will need to go to Hengqin, because it has a lot of these and Macau has none, Ku added.

In the sales market, the number of retail units transacted in the first 11 months of 2018 totaled 595, up 12.7 percent year-

on-year.

Notable sales transactions recorded in 2018 were mostly in the tourist areas, including two shop units in Praca de D. Afonso Henriques and Avenida do Infante D. Henrique which were sold for approximately HKD300 million and HKD200 million respectively.

Further, JLL also called on the government to carefully plan on building more residential properties, citing the citys integration in the Greater Bay Area.

Its important for the next Chief Executive to think about it because this whole big agenda [GBA] needs to be rethought, because in the old times, we were isolated, but now we are integrated with other cities, which means we think much bigger in terms of planning and housing demand and supply, said Wong.
Yvonne Leung, a student leader in Hong Kongs 2014 Umbrella Movement and former president of the Hong Kong University Students Union (HKUSU), was barred from entering Macau on Wednesday.

The Macau Public Security Police Force, which is responsible for immigration services in the city, justified the decision with the fact that there were strong signs showing that Leung would practice activities that could harm Macaus public order.

In addition to serving as HKUSU president in 2014, the 25-year-old Leung was one of the student leaders during the Occupy Central movement. The HKUSU Campus TV issued a statement on its Facebook page announcing the incident.

Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Claudio Mo told Agence France-Presse that Macaus refusal to admit Leung was sending a chilling message that you have to pay your price for being disobedient, being a government critic.

On the one hand, we respect that Macau has all the right to deny anybody from entering the territory, Alvin Yeung, the leader of Hong Kongs Civic Party told public broadcaster TDM. But on the other hand, we expect something more concrete and more reasonable than merely a one-line reason saying that the person being denied entry will harm the security of Macau. Its totally groundless.

I wonder how on earth the Macau government obtained a list [of pro-democracy activists], he said, alluding to assistance from the HKSAR. She was an activist and an iconic person during the movement back in 2014. Since the end of the movement, Yvonne returned to the university as a student and after that she simply joined society like any other person. Its ridiculous and we just dont understand why. Even assuming that she is still an activist in civil society, does that mean she could bring harm or threat to Macau? he added. You cannot punish someone for voicing out her views.

It is not the first case of Macau immigration officers barring Hong Kong-based journalists and pro-democracy activists from entering the SAR.

Last year, several writers dropped out of the Macau Literary Festival after authorities allegedly instructed event organizers that they would likely not be permitted to enter.

In the aftermath of Typhoon Hato and during the 2017 Legislative Assembly election, Macau authorities prevented 15 journalists from entering the SAR, as well as a number of lawmakers and activists. According to immigration authorities, these individuals constituted a threat to the citys stability and security.

Macaus Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak has on previous occasions said that the decision to deny the of certain Hong Kong residents bears no relation to their profession. He has also denied the existence of a black list and said that such decisions are normal practice for every country worldwide.

Authorities in Macau did not reply to AFP requests for comment.
The new Bachelor of Medicine program at the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) is aiming to produce competent local doctors after six years.

Given the green light to operate the degree on Monday, dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences Dr Manson Fok stated that the university is keen to train these medical students to an international standard.

He added that MUST has the international recognition of over 20 universities willing to assist them.

In an interview with TDM, Fok mentioned that the professors  who are mainly doctors from Hong Kong  would run the curriculum.

In doing our curriculum, we [will be] able to send our students overseas for part of the training. I think its a very exciting curriculum, which I dont think is available anywhere else, he said.

I want to add also [that] were all starting fresh. We learn from mistakes from the past how not to train doctors, said the dean.

For Fok, training doctors to an international standard is the universitys priority. He noted that the new curriculum is more fulfilling than what is available.

Right now if you look at the statistics, the majority of the graduating doctors are from mainland China. They are trained in that standard and we hope to do something different, said Fok.

Im not saying that [their] standards are not up to par, but I wish that we would train our doctors in an international standard and we would be able to learn a much broader sense of what well-community medicine is doing, he added.

MUST has signed agreements with universities in Australia, the U.K., Portugal and the United States.

During the six-year course, the medical students have two to four opportunities to go abroad on exchange that lasts from six weeks to two months.

The dean also called on exceptional students to join the medical program, hinting that the university is willing to provide full scholarships to its top students.

With subsidies applied, the estimated cost of the bachelors degree is MOP55,000 per year for local residents, while the estimated cost for overseas students is MOP160,000.

The course will start small, recruiting between 35 and 50 students at its inception, most of them from local high schools. It will not initially focus on the recruitment of overseas students.

Tomorrow, the university will hold its Open Day, hoping to attract students to this field of study. LV
JOSE Pereira Coutinho is concerned about the quality, safety and information on food products consumed in Macau. The lawmaker wrote an enquiry calling on the government to assume a stronger position to require suppliers to provide more accurate information on products regarding their production, ingredients and what chemicals are added, among other aspects, to ensure food safety.

Coutinho also wants to be informed of the frequency of health inspections conducted along all points of the supply chain, including the cool rooms, transport vehicles and point of sale displays.

According to the lawmaker ,an agreement was signed by the local Consumer Council and the Portuguese food safety inspection counterparties in 2014 to cooperate and exchange information but there has been no report or any additional information made available as to what partnership has been promoted to date.

He claims that currently food product labeling requirements are not strict and do not allow for tracing of the origin of the products or to determine who the producer was, which lot it belongs to as well as under what conditions it was produced or stored.

Pereira Coutinho calls for a better system of inspection from by food safety specialists, which should include an immediate alert system for the removal from the market of products found to compromise health and safety, and to proceed with the imposition of penalties to all involved in the supply chain that fail to comply with safety rules and regulations.
The latest article of the ammendement to taxi regulations has settled on the installation of in-facing cameras inside taxis, according to the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosario.

On Wednesday, Rosario and the Transport Bureaus (DSAT) director Lam Hin San met with the Third Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL) to discuss the regime.

After the meeting, Rosario said that the decision of adding the aforementioned article into the law reached a consensus after thorough consideration and in-depth investigation. He believes that there will be no problem in the implementation of the law.

As explained by the committee chairman Vong Hin Fai, the lawmakers and the government focused on discussing the location where the cameras can be installed in taxis.

The government representatives prefer to mount the lens above the inverted mirror facing the driver and passengers.

Some lawmakers questioned whether it is appropriate to record the faces of the driver and passengers.

They proposed that the camera should be installed at the back of the taxi in order to protect the privacy of both the driver and the passengers.

The government maintains its stance that the camera should film the people from the front.

According to Vong, the recordings will not be uploaded to public organizations. Instead, they will be stored in appropriate storage equipment protected with a password, which shall be set by an authorized bureau or authorized person. The taxi driver will not know the password.

If an investigation is required, the video records can only be obtained after the investigation procedure is filed, and the recordings would only be obtained by investigators authorized by the DSAT director.

The video data will be automatically deleted from the taxis black box after 30 days.

Vong believes that the committee can complete the review of the regulation within 10 days.
"In the meantime, it is important to stop the cycle of injustice."

The Bangsamoro Organic Law has good provisions on human rights and the justice system. It also has better-than-expected provisions on indigenous peoples rights. Its provision on how to address historical injustice also has potential. These are all good reasons for voting yes in the plebiscite on Monday, Jan. 21, and on Feb. 6. These progressive provisions are found in Article IXBasic Right and Article XBangsamoro Justice System. Thus, Article IX lays down the fundamental rights that will be enjoyed by the Bangsamoro, including indigenous peoples. It also specifies certain rights of various sectors of society including women, labor, children, among others. The rights of indigenous peoples are protected to cover native titles, customs and traditions, justice system, indigenous political structures, and equitable share in the revenues from the utilization of resources, among others. The customary rights of indigenous peoples are also protected and guaranteed. The Parliament shall enact laws to this effect and such laws shall not derogate the rights recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act. As I wrote in a MindaNews article last year, it took a lot of effort and lobbying, one that I proudly participated in, to get Congress to assure indigenous peoples that their rights would be respected in the Bangsamoro. It is to the credit of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that it accepted the amendments proposed by the coalition of indigenous peoples during the legislative process. For sure, the MILF has travelled a long way on this issue. I remember how in 2010, when I was a member of the government panel negotiating with them, how difficult it was to even mention indigenous peoples rights and particularly IPRA in our agreements. Just as important as indigenous peoples rights, the BOL contains an ironclad guarantee of religious freedom. People of faiths other than Islam should be assured that they can worship as they please without any hindrance. There will be no religious discrimination in the Bangsamoro. To ensure the protection of the human rights, the BOL creates the Bangsamoro Human Rights Commission. Among others, this commission will cooperate and closely coordinate with the national Commission on Human Rights. The BOL also goes beyond the traditional civil and political rights and also include social justice provisions. Thus, the BOL commands the Bangsamoro to ensure the access and delivery of basic services and responsive health programs, quality education, appropriate services, livelihood programs among others. Housing and human settlements shall also be addressed. The rights of labor to self-organization and participation in decision-making processes, among others, shall also be ensured. Womens participation in the Bangsamoro government is guaranteed by giving them a reserved seat in the Parliament and at least one appointment to the Cabinet. The Bangsamoro government shall also protect and uphold the fundamental rights of women. Aside from those already mentioned, the rights of children and youth will also be protected, recognizing their vulnerabilities and their role in nation-building. Their total well-being will be protected.Quality education will be a top priority. The Parliament will create a Tribal University System to address the higher education needs of non-Moro indigenous peoples. Other vital concerns such as arts and culture, health and science and technology will not be left out as these will also be given priority under the Bangsamoro government. Article X presents the design of the Bangsamoro justice system based on the unique cultural and historical heritage of the Bangsamoro. Thus, the BOL provides that the dispensation of justice is in accordance with the Constitution, Shariah, traditional or tribal laws, and other relevant laws. It also establishes Shariah courts that form part of the Philippine judicial system subject, like all other courts, to the supervision of the Supreme Court. Section 3 of Article X enumerates the sources of Shariah divided into primary and secondary sources. The Parliament shall have the power to enact law relating to Shariah including personal, property and family relations. It is also given the power to enact laws relating to commercial and civil action not covered by Presidential Decree No. 1083 or the Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines and criminal jurisdiction over minors under certain conditions. The Sharia Circuit Courts shall have original exclusive jurisdiction over certain cases involving Muslim parties provided that non-Moro parties will be under its jurisdiction only if he or she voluntarily submits to its jurisdiction. However, the Sharia District Courts shall exercise original jurisdiction in certain cases where either or both are Muslim. There shall also be a Shariah High Court which forms part of the Philippine justice system that will exercise jurisdiction over certain cases where either or both parties are Muslim. The decision of the Shariah High Court will be final and executory except on questions of law where the case may be elevated to the Supreme Court. The Shariah High Court is to be composed of five justices including the presiding justice. The Parliament is authorized to enact laws that promote and support the traditional or tribal justice system. This notwithstanding, the regular courts will continue to function in accordance to national laws. Finally, the BOL explicitly provides for a transitional justice mechanism to address the historical grievances of the Bangsamoro and the indigenous peoples that arise from discrimination, human rights violations and marginalization. In instances of unjust dispossession, the Parliament is vested with authority to laws providing for the reparation of the Bangsamoro people. As long as the basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the BOL are respected, the transitional justice system should work out fine and could even serve as a model for our national transitional justice issues (dealing with the Marcos legacy is not yet done while we have to deal with new challenges like the one posed by the massacre of the poor in the war against drugs). In the meantime, it is important to stop the cycle of injustice. In my view, if we implement the BOL provisions on human rights properly, that will be the case and we will see a better Bangsamoro and Mindanao.
The Second Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL) signed an opinion- based report on the regions regime of tax benefits for the reconstruction of old buildings, with the government including an extra stamp tax rebate in the regime.

Chairman of the Committee Chan Chak Mo reported the discussion to the media.

In total, there are six tax types: stamp tax for property transfer; extra stamp tax; special stamp tax; stamp tax for obtaining the second or subsequent properties; the stamp tax; and, fees for notary endorsements and registration.

The tax rebate can be requested for the reconstruction of buildings which aim to strengthen Macaus social development and preservation of cultural heritage. It can also be applied for the reconstruction of buildings according to their original plan or to a plan approved by the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT), for the reconstruction of buildings that pose a risk to the public, and for the reconstruction of buildings which DSSOPT has approved for demolition.

Originally, the government only proposed rebates on five tax types, with the tax rebate on the extra stamp tax not included.

According to the regime, a real estate development company that has obtained an immovable property which is to be demolished can see the stamp tax waived.

In order to protect the benefits to the eventual property owners, the bill proposed that the developer should first pay the common stamp tax, the stamp tax for transferring properties, and the registration and notary fees.

These taxes can be refunded to the developer after the reconstruction project is completed. However, if the developer fails to complete the project, the tax for these three categories will not be refunded.

The regime further proposed a three-year ban on property sales. If the owner of a reconstructed building, or a building under reconstruction, sells the property within three years after the tax rebates were approved or after the reconstruction license was issued, the tax benefits will be deemed invalid.

During the meeting between the government and the lawmakers, one lawmaker declared that the citys cultural heritage committee should play an important role in the demolition or reconstruction of cultural heritage. The lawmaker believes that the committees opinions should be binding regarding the reconstruction of buildings, as they worry that the cultural heritage committees functions are being impacted.

The government replied to the lawmakers by explaining that the reconstruction projects of the Municipal Affairs Bureau and the Marine and Water Bureau will be referred to as cultural heritage reconstruction.

The government did not take the lawmakers suggestion of listing the cultural heritage committee as one of the departments for consultation.
Choi Wai Hou has been appointed as the new deputy director of the Public Security Forces Affairs Bureau (DSFSM) in a ceremony held on January 16, which was chaired by the Director of DSFSM, Kok Fong Mei. Choi worked at the Fire Services Bureau (CB) from 1992 to 1997, where he attended the Officer Training Course. He holds a degree in Fire Protection and Safety Engineering and has the certificate of the 3rd Command and Direction Course by the Macau Security Forces Training College. He has served in several departments of the CB namely as the Head of the Division of Services, Head of Operations and Ambulance Division of the Islands, Head of Airport Division, Head of Macau Operations Department, Head of the Fire Services, and Head of the DSFSM Technical Support Department before his new post as Deputy Director of DSFSM.

66 property management licenses approved

As of January 16, the Housing Bureau received a total of 66 applications for licenses to operate property management services, the bureau announced yesterday. These licenses are specifically for the common areas of condominiums. All license applications were approved. In addition, there were another 190 temporary license applications, 184 of which were approved, four were rejected, and two are currently under review. Since the citys condominium property management law came into effect in August 2018, all property management companies require a valid license to operate.

Work suspended at site where fatal accident occurred

The Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) and the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) have issued orders to suspend construction work at a site where a fatal accident was reported on Wednesday. The construction site is located in the Areia Preta area, across the Centro de Actividades Juvenis do Bairro do Hipodromo. Immediately after the accident, staff from the DSAL went to the site to investigate. Preliminary analysis revealed that a local male employee was carrying formwork to prepare a wall. While he was working, 20 templates near him slipped, resulting in the victims accidental fall.
The body of a 62-year-old German tourist was found beneath a tree in the searing heat of the central Australia Outback yesterday, eight days after she was reported missing, police said.

Desert Palms Resort staff in Alice Springs reported guest Monika Billen missing on Jan. 9, but her last reported sighting was on Jan. 1, a police statement said.

Her body was spotted by searchers in a helicopter under a tree far from hiking tracks and 3 kilometers west of Emily Gap in the East MacDonnell Ranges, police said.

The location had already been searched twice in a 16-square kilometer targeted area but was densely covered with trees and foliage, Police Superintendent Pauline Vicary said.

Police worked with Billens German mobile phone provider to narrow the search to the targeted area over the past two days, Vicary said.

When asked why it took eight days to find her, Vicary said the search involved a lot of technology and information and extensive work, interpreting data and using outside experts.

Billens extended family in Cologne has been told the news, police said.

Police do not believe the death was suspicious and a coroner will investigate the cause of her death.

The last reported sighting of the keen hiker was on Jan. 1 at Emily Gap, 15 kilometers east of Alice Springs. Security video showed her leaving the Desert Palms Resort that morning.

There was confusion last week when a woman told police she had given a dehydrated and disoriented-looking Billen a lift in the area on Jan. 2. But the woman later told police she was mistaken and that she had encountered Billen two days earlier, on Dec. 31.

That would suggest Billen had headed out on a walk again in 44 degree Celsius heat a day after she had appeared dehydrated.

It was 44 degrees that day and other factors such as the heat radiating off the road makes it even hotter, Vicary told reporters.

Deaths and injuries occur around Alice Springs during the southern hemisphere summer, with walkers heading out in extreme heat.

Police rescued a 60-year- old hiker last weekend on the 223-kilometer Larapinta Trail which heads west from Alice Springs. The woman was found injured and dehydrated on the same day rescuers called off a search for Billen. The search was restarted on Tuesday based on the new phone data.

This time last year, a 33-year-old Californian man died after talking a wrong turn while hiking the Larapinta Trail. AP
A package of Texas Observer articles demonstrates the sham of Donald Trump's border wall stance.

Gus Bova's main article reports that construction will begin in February on 33 miles of wall slicing through two Texas counties along the Rio Grande River. Land for the 30-foot-high structure already has been seized through expedited eminent domain, Bova reports Local residents say they have no problems with illegal immigrants crossing the border.

The seizure covers land a Hispanic family has owned since before Texas became a state. Other property includes a state park, a federal wildlife refuge and the national buttterfly center, all of which will be bisected by the wall. Parts of the land will be cut off, and access restricted. Bova reports that 95 percent of the property is privately owned.

The wall will harm rare wildlife species and ruin the river's scenic beauty. While the Rio Grande is reduced to a trickle in some areas, the portion along the new wall has expansive water vistas.

Approved by Congress last March with a $545 million appropriation, the new section of wall adds to the 110 miles already built under the Bush and Obama administrations.

Another Observer article notes that border security is already a multi-billion operation, including an increase in the number of border and ICE agents, observation towers, and Texas enforcement operations. A third article details the civil rights abuses carried out by border agents, who have strayed behind their 100-mile limit in surveillance and apprehension operations.

The Observer's articles show the idiocy of Trump's $5 billion wall request. Despite Trump's delusions, there's no "open border," and the United States is already paying an exorbitant price for "border security," in terms of money, corruption and civil rights abuses.

Relentlessly reporting on Texas politics and culture since the 1950s heyday of Ronnie Dugger and Willie Morris, the Observer keeps producing essential work as local newspapers decline. The New York Times or Washington Post should reprint the Observer's articles or do similar in-depth stories from the border.

Along with the Observer, which keeps producing a monthly print magazine, Texans also receive the benefit of strong reporting from the online Texas Tribune. While the Observer receives some ad support and contributions from nonprofits and readers, the Tribune is funded by a civic-minded wealthy investor.

Another online news site, the Bayou Brief, shines a needed light on Louisiana and Mississippi politics. While the Bayou Brief is welcome, Baton Rouge and New Orleans readers have fairly vital local newspapers, with the Baton Rouge and New Orleans Advocate competing strongly with the New Orleans Times-Picayune and its NOLA web site.

The newspaper industry's decline is troubling for America's endangered democracy, but an increasing number of local news web sites strive to fill the need.
Guest Commentary

Kerry Cavanaugh: How long can Congress keep pretending marijuana legalization isn't becoming the norm?
CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.
Parents and guardians pick up children at Lompoc Valley Middle School on Thursday morning after a reported threat on social media caused concern.
BrasiliaBrazilian and US officials met Venezuelan opposition leaders in Brasilia Thursday to discuss the political crisis in the oil-rich country ruled by President Nicolas Maduro, Brazils foreign ministry said. The ministry said in a statement the meetings were to analyze the situation in Venezuela stemming from the illegitimacy of President Nicolas Maduros rule and to show support for the leader of Venezuelas opposition-controlled parliament, Juan Guaido. There was also the aim of discussing ideas for concrete action to restore democracy in Venezuela, it added. The foreign ministry branded Maduros regime a mechanism of organized crime, which it said was based on generalized corruption, drug trafficking, trafficking in people, money laundering, and terrorism. The gathering was chaired by Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo and took place without figuring on official agendas and with no access for journalists. Araujo followed up with a separate meeting with former members of Venezuelas supreme court, one of whom, Miguel Angel Martin, also went on to hold a private meeting with President Jair Bolsonaro. Among the Venezuelan opposition leaders participating were Julio Borges, the former head of parliament who lives in exile in Colombia, and Antonio Ledezma, a former Caracas mayor now based in Spain. US embassy officials were present, although the mission was unable to confirm which because of a US government shutdown affecting some services, including media relations. The foreign ministry said representatives from the Lima Group, a grouping of 14 countries in the Americas that views Maduros rule as anti-democratic, were also there. So too were representatives of the Organization of American States. The declared intention to ratchet up pressure on Caracas comes as Maduro and members of his government are already under US and EU sanctions.Bolsonaro has said his government will vigorously challenge Venezuelas regime. He has also said he wants much closer ties with the United States, which has been pushing for a more forceful regional campaign against Maduro. Thursdays meeting came a day after Bolsonaro hosted Argentine President Mauricio Macri and both leaders condemned Maduros dictatorship. The Lima Group, the European Union and the United States view Maduros presidency as illegitimate after he took up a new mandate last week, following May 2018 elections branded fraudulent by the opposition. Maduro and his government frequently accuse the United States of wanting to foment an uprising. Venezuela demands respect for its democracy, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza tweeted on Wednesday, denouncing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other extremist voices looking to destabilize the country and incite violence. Maduro is widely blamed for Venezuelas economic meltdown that sees the oil-reliant country wallowing in a fourth year of recession. Crude production is at a 30-year low, while poverty is widespread and millions have fled the country.
The Palace on Tuesday considered Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas expression of concern for President Rodrigo Dutertes well-being as an invitation to a healthy, mature and constructive discourse between the Church and the State. Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo made the remark after the Catholic bishop stated that Dutertes recent tirades against the Church will impact him more than the religious institution he is attacking. We consider such expressions of concern as an invitation to a healthy, mature and constructive discourse between the Church and the State, Panelo said in a statement. The concern of Archbishop Villegas is, in fact, shared by the majority of Filipinos who understand that the success of this President equates to the success of the nation, he added. According to Panelo, the Presidents stance on the activities of some Church leaders should not, in any way, worry them considering the Churchs long existence. There is no need for some of its leaders to act distressed and manifest their unpleasant comments against the President, especially with respect to how the President runs the government, he said. The Palace official emphasized that disagreements in religious beliefs should not deter the government and the church from helping each other for the good of the country. Let us, therefore, focus on our respective duties and maintain the inviolability of the separation between the Church and the State to avoid religion and governance from mixing and impeding upon each other, Panelo added. Asked what it would take to end the verbal tussle between the Chief Executive and members of the clergy, Panelo said Nothing. Over the past few weeks, the President has stepped up his criticism of the Church, attacking its teachings and beliefs as his usual topic in his speeches. On Tuesday, Novaliches Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani, Jr. dared the President to walk around the streets without security aides, but the Palace dismissed his outright silly, childish, absurd challenge. Meanwhile, Senate President Vicente Tito Sotto III said he that he will proceed with his plan to act as a mediator between the Catholic Church and President Rodrigo Duterte despite Senator Antonio Trillanes describing the move as futile. Thank you for wishing me luck. Better to try than never. I dont give up that easily, Sotto said in reaction to Trillanes statement.Trillanes rejected Sottos plan even calling Duterte a Satanist who is beyond salvation. They tried several times already. Duterte is really a Satanist. Theres nothing you can do about it. He even insulted Jesus, he said. gThat would no longer work. Thats beyond redemption, beyond salvation. Its as if his soul is now burning, Trillanes said in a statement during last Thursdays regular Kapihan sa Senado. Trillanes, however, wished Sotto good luck after the Senate leader offered to mediate between the President and the Catholic Church. Good luck to Senator Sotto, but I dont think it will prosper, you can see where Duterte is coming from, he said. The opposition senator also assailed Duterte for his attacks on the Catholic Church and the clergy to the extent of even mocking Jesus and questioning the Christian doctrine on the Holy Trinity. You even saw that even Jesus, he insulted, said Trillanes, a fierce critic of the President. The senator also said that he was not buying the oft-repeated story of Duterte that he was molested by a priest when he was young. Trillanes said that he doubts the veracity of the story, saying that no one would dare hurt the son of a governor then. And even if the story was true, Trillanes said he was baffled why Duterte would attack the Church. gIf you were molested by a priest, why would you swear at Jesus Christ? he asked. Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said that Duterte remains open to a dialogue with the Church following Sottos proposal, but at the same time, told the Catholic bishops to stop meddling in the affairs of the state., Panelo said that some prelates have been criticizing the governments policies, including the Duterte administrations war on drugs.
For example it is estimated that 83 percent of human trafficking victims in North Platte are transient, while 17 percent is static. In a town like Lexington, the transient number is statistically going to be higher. Often the victims will not be recognizable as they are not native to the area, this does not mean that trafficking cannot affect the people one sees every day and knows well.

When it comes to the race of victims, there is a racial imbalance. African Americans make up 50 percent of victims, while only making up five percent of the total Nebraska population. The Womans Fund data shows that refuge and asylum seeking individuals are less likely to be advertised online, word of mouth is more prevalent in this community.

The CHT encourages people to shed the preconception that human trafficking victims are always kidnapped and held in captivity. "They are held captive in plain view of ordinary people, disguised as relatives of friends of their victimizers," said the CHT.
What if medical students could study virtually every blood vessel and vein in the human body  many never captured on screen before  using extremely high-resolution novel CT images?

What if those same students could wave a hand over an infrared beam and learn which muscles and nerves were used when they moved a finger or thumb?

What if an EMT assisting a teenager whose vehicle crashed through a guardrail and over a steep embankment could use an ultrasound finger-probe attached to a video screen the size of a smartphone to help determine whether the patient should be transported via ambulance or by helicopter based on severity of injuries?

Those scenarios are not works of science fiction. They're being studied  and put into use, in fact  at Western Universitys COMP-Northwest in Lebanon.

This past week, students from the physician assistants program at Pacific University, pre-med students from the University of Oregon and high school students from Sisters have learned about state-of-the-art medicine and technological breakthroughs at seminars with COMP-Northwest staff and students.

They were guests of anatomy professor Dr. Brion Benninger, who jokingly calls the seminars Tomorrowland Medical Technologies.


Vietnam is on a path this year to approve its biggest trade expansion since the country joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The countrys National Assembly in Hanoi approved the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership in December. The trade deal became effective on January 14.

The Pacific trade deal would open the markets of Japan and Canada to Vietnams products. In addition, the deal will permit Vietnamese to enter 10 countries easily for work-related business.

Vietnam also is seeking to reach a trade agreement with the European Union soon. The two trade agreements together would sharply reduce trade barriers with countries that account for 45 percent of the worlds economy.

Lawmakers of other countries in the Pacific partnership are in the process of approving the deal. Six countries have already approved it meaning that it is likely to legally go into effect.

Vietnam hopes that the EU approves this year the free trade deal which the two sides negotiated in 2015.

Experts say that the two major trade deals will speed growth of the countrys growing middle class. They also help Vietnam compete with China as a place where international companies want to build factories.

Frederick Burke is with the international law group Baker McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City. He said, Vietnam will enjoy a comparatively lower duty rate in some export markets where it competes.

Burke added that foreign direct investment already has increased as much as it did when Vietnam joined the WTO. When foreign companies build factories and gain interest in a countrys companies, it is called foreign direct investment.

Vietnam hopes for trade gains

Vietnam may be one of the nations that gain the most from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership. That is because exports are such an important part of the countrys growth. Exports are estimated to have reached $200 billion in 2017. Other countries in the Pacific deal are expected to have trade deficits with Vietnam.

Since 1986, Vietnam has sought foreign direct investment in factories that make clothing and electronic devices. It entered the WTO in 2007.

Adam McCarty is chief economist with Mekong Economics in Hanoi. He said, with the new agreement, low-cost manufactured goods like shoes will be less costly to export to countries like Australia.

European and Pacific countries hope trade deals with Vietnam will let them sell products to that countrys growing middle class. The Boston Consulting Group predicts that will mean more than 30 million people by next year.

However, as a member of the trade partnership, Vietnam must permit independent labor unions. Vietnam also must have rules so that companies from partnership countries can make bids for business. And Vietnam will have to protect partners intellectual property rights.

McCarty said if Vietnam closely observes the Pacific trade agreement it will further show that it is different from China. Vietnam already stands out for its lower labor costs.

Trung Nguyen heads international relations at Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities. He said Vietnam wants to follow the deals rules. They want (to) get some new momentum for Vietnams economy, and TPP is one of the solutions, he said.

Im Mario Ritter Jr.

Ralph Jennings reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

class n. a group of people in a society who are at the same economic and social level

bid v. to make an offer to pay a certain amount or to do work for a certain amount of money

intellectual property n. something such as an idea, invention or process that comes from a persons mind

momentum n. the force that something has when it is moving
Thursday, January 17, 2019

The Indiana Lawyer has the story behind a recent suspension order of the Indiana Supreme Court

An Indianapolis attorney charged with intimidation against a Marion County court and other offenses has been suspended from the practice of law after the Indiana Supreme Court granted a petition for his emergency suspension.

The high court granted the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commissions emergency petition in a Friday order that requested the suspension of Kraig A. Kenworthy pending further order of the court or final resolution of any resulting disciplinary action. The Commission said Kenworthy engaged in alleged misconduct that may cause Respondents continued practice of law during the pendency of a disciplinary investigation or proceeding to pose a substantial threat of harm to the public, clients, potential clients, or the administration of justice.

Kenworthy did not respond to the petition for emergency suspension and failed to undergo two competency examinations of which he was previously ordered by the court. Instead, he filed a Verified Notice of Insufficient Service of Process and an accompanying affidavit.

The attorney, of Kraig A. Kenworthy Attorney At Law, was suspended effective Jan. 11. According to the commissions petition for emergency suspension, Kenworthy was arrested and charged in June 2016 and charged with Class A misdemeanor criminal trespass and two counts of Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement. Police initially responded to a welfare check initiated by Kenworthy himself, informing officers that he had knowledge of a group running an extortion ring and using a military device to commit homicide. Officers believed him to be a danger to himself and others and took him to Eskenazi Hospital.

Then in October 2017, Kenworthy was charged with Class A misdemeanor intimidation after making several intimidating phone calls to the Marion Superior Court, where he told a member of the courts staff that someone is going to die today and that [t]here is going to be a murder.

Former Marion Superior Judge Michael Keele, Civil Division 7, signed an Oct. 27, 2017 order restricting Kenworthys access to Keeles courtroom without being accompanied by a uniformed law enforcement officer. Also, Marion Superior Court Judge David J. Certo ordered that Kenworthy have no contact with Keele or members of his staff.

This is Kenworthys first disciplinary action, according to the Indiana Roll of Attorneys. He was admitted to practice in 1988.

(Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2019/01/the-indiana-lawyer-has-the-story-behind-a-recent-suspension-order-of-the-indiana-supreme-court-an-indianapolis-attorney-char.html
Friday, January 18, 2019

From CNN:

A bill that would ban the most common abortion method used in the second trimester of pregnancy was signed into law Friday by Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Senate Bill 145 prohibits the dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedure, in which the cervix is dilated and the contents of the uterus extracted. Though there is no exception in the law in cases of rape or incest, there is one if the mother's life is at risk.

Any abortion provider who defies this law could face fourth-degree felony charges, including prison time and fines.

The Republican governor's decision to sign off on this legislation sparked immediate backlash from abortion rights advocates.

Read more here.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/family_law/2019/01/ohio-bans-common-abortion-procedure.html
On Tuesday, BigLaw firm Skadden Arps settled with the Department of Justice. Details were released Thursday. Here is coverage by The Wall Street Journal.

Essentially the agreement involved turning over the $4.6 million it earned from its work for the Ukraine in 2012. In the loop was Paul Manafort.

In addition, it has agreed to register as a lobbyist for a foreign government. Another player in the loop former partner Gregory Craig remains under investigation.

The question hovering over these development is this: Is the Skadden Arps brand strong enough to weather this crisis? Can the firm position and package what has led up to all this as the doings of some rogue lawyers and not representative of the values of the law firm?

From its beginnings, Skadden Arps was willing to take on unpopular assignments. Those who have done business with it understand that. Therefore, that history may get Skadden Arps off the hook for this scandal.

On the other hand, both the world and the U.S. are highly sensitive to the highly charged political and economic relationships among nations. Some current clients and potential new ones could decide to steer clear of Skadden Arps for the time being. Or perhaps forever more.

This possible scenario also hovers over BigLaw firm Jones Day, which is known as the Trump Administration's go-to legal counsel. Its former partner Don McGahn had been the top White House lawyer and many other former Jones Day lawyers also went to work in the Trump White House.

If the Trump Administration implodes, as did the Nixon one, will current clients cut ties, like rats fleeing a sinking ship? And will Jones Day be able to develop lucrative new business in a post-Trump era?

Currently, Jones Day represents Sherwin-Williams in the lead paint public nuisance class action litigation. That could explode into the next tobacco or asbestos. In the high-profile California bench trial, its client Sherwin-Williams was convicted.

Despite the fact that annually Jones Day hires many former U.S. Supreme Court clerks, the high court refused to review the conviction. Here is my recent article on public nuisance published in Odwyerpr.com. Recently, that legal strategy has been leveraged against opioid manufacturers and/or marketers and the Roman Catholic Church.

Reflection: What does it take to blow up the brand of a powerful law firm?
In 2009, one of most colorful characters from Charlie Manson's gang and the woman who attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford was granted parole.

That was Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme.

Her life since then has been to have a low-profile existence in upstate New York with her boyfriend Robert Valdner. Here are many more details from the New York Post.

Meanwhile others from that era such as Leslie Van Houten keep being denied parole. That is no surprise, given the high-profile murders done by the Manson family. The surprise is that Fromme got off the hook, especially since at one stage of her unstable life she had been given a life sentence.

Well, so far, the bet the parole board made on her has turned out okay. She has not been associated with any more crime. At least not so far.

My hunch is that her goofy persona makes her seem not a sociopath. The others associated with Manson and with the violence of radical politics come across as having definite dark sides.

And it could be just that: Fromme was, is, and will always be goofy. Not "criminal" in the traditional sense.
Zimbabwe Forges Ahead with Five Nation Tour Despite Mounting Protests at Home

Theres a time for everything and this appears to be the worst time for a deal-making tour across five nations led by President Emmerson Mnangagwe, whose country Zimbabwe is roiling with angry citizens furious over a massive 150 percent increase in the price of fuel.

The price hike was announced just as President Mnangagwa flew out of the country to spend two weeks seeking investments with stops from Russia to Azerbaijan, ending at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The price increase is intended to reduce crippling fuel shortages that caused historic lines at the fuel pumps, the President said.

But the explanation failed to appease working people in the capital Harare and Bulawayo for whom this was the last straw in a sinking economy when expectations had been raised by promises made by the President during his first year.

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As a strike began on Monday, protesters who barricaded roads and burned tires were met with police who fired teargas as seen in video footage from the Centre for Innovation & Technology, a local news service.

The house is burning, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries said in a dramatic letter to the Industry Ministry. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) accused the government of lacking empathy for the already-overburdened poor.

The government has officially declared its anti-worker, anti-poor and anti-people ideological position, they said. Workers salaries have been reduced to nothing and our suffering elevated to another level.

Nelson Chamisa, who heads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the situation was descending into a humanitarian crisis.

Evan Mawarire, a cleric and activist who led the 2016 anti-government protests that shut down major cities, added: You have cornered us and you leave us no choice. Its time to mobilize every person who truly loves Zimbabwe.

The roots of the crisis, according to the Bloomberg news wire, lie in a 2009 decision to abolish the Zimbabwe dollar in favor of the use of other currencies, primarily the US dollar.

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Now, Zimbabwe doesnt have enough foreign exchange to fund imports and pay workers, many of whom are refusing to accept salaries in electronic money or so-called bond notes because they trade at a discount to hard currency on the black market.

Meanwhile, a blizzard of posts on the social media #shutdownZimbabwe pleads for peace but also defiance. The only problem with violence and looting anywhere is they play into the hands of a violent States security, wrote Lenin T. Chisaira. Violence of any sort is unacceptable, added Fadzayi Mahere.. But neither is apathy. We owe this to generations to come. We are one.
Women to March for Gender Equality From Auckland to Zambia

Building on the vision and mission of the 2017 National Womens March in the U.S., women around the world will mark January 19 with marches and other actions supporting the advocacy and resistance movements that reflect our multiple and intersecting identities.

In Zambia, defenders of human rights and gender equality will be invited to join us and not rest until women have parity and equity at all levels of leadership in society.

The main march in 2019 will be in Washington D.C., but there are dozens of other marches that are scheduled for the same day. So far, there is least one in every state.

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Some states will hold multiple marches: California will have 20; Michigan and Florida will each have eight; and Pennsylvania, New York and Texas will each have seven.

Outside of the U.S., marches have been announced in Zimbabwe, in Lusaka (Zambia), in Kampala, Uganda, in Johannesburg, South Africa, Tel Aviv, Little Rock, Arkansas and Potsdam, NY to name a few.

Under the hashtag LookBack, MarchForward, the Lagos, Nigeria, group wrote: Nigeria women rise, millions strong, around the world to answer the call against injustice and hatred. We march together with Global Women  because injustice knows no boundaries.

People are tired and people are outraged, and what we want to do is demonstrate to folks that we have a strategy and a platform and that we are more organized than ever despite the fact that it has been a rough two years, said Rachel OLeary Carmona, chief operating officer of the Womens March.

I think that folks need to come together to remember the power and the influence that women built coming out into the streets in 2017 and 2018, Carmona said.

This years event was marred by the defections of several groups and individuals criticizing march co-founder and current co-president Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez over perceived antisemitism.

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Ms. Carmona cast the controversy as the growing pains of a new organization that is struggling to build a diverse coalition. She said steps were being taken to ensure that Jewish women felt welcome, including giving Womens March leaders education about anti-Semitism and adding Jewish women to the organizations unity principles, which highlight groups that are considered especially vulnerable.

Both Ms. Mallory and Ms. Perez say they categorically condemn anti-Semitism

Friction with some supporters was highlighted in The New York Times and The Atlantic Magazine with stories headlined When Progressives Hate and The Womens March has a Farrakhan Problem. Among those who have withdrawn from the global event are EMILYs List, the National Council of Jewish Women, The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue.

Among those continuing to support the embattled organizers is teachers union president Randi Weingarten who posted on Twitter: While we dont agree on everything, (organizers) Linda Sarsour and TamikaDMallory are warriors for justice and I am honored to know them and work with them & call them friends glad to have this meeting today w/ them & Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum debunking myths.

Other sponsors of the march include Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice. A full list can be found at the website womensmarch.com
The Content of Our Character

There isnt much that hasnt already been said (and written) about civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. The great orator could articulate his perspective on the plight of Black people with a style, grace and passion that inspired millions of people, Blacks as well as those of other races, to willfully follow him. In the presence of adversity, and often mistreatment of a physical fashion, he urged his supporters to not fight back.

In an attempt to go against the grain, these are some lesser known aspects of Dr. Kings illustrious life, from the mundane and downright trivial to the bewildering pieces of his story.

To begin with, one of the lesser known facts about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is that his given name at birth was actually Michael King, Jr. It wasnt until his father took a fateful trip to Germany, that the course of young Michaels life changed forever. After his in-depth study on the life and work of the great German protestant reformer Martin Luther, Michael King, Sr., decided to henceforth go by the name Martin Luther King, Sr. and, and his son became Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Being named after one of the most prominent religious visionaries in history certainly came with its aspirations. Much like his famous namesake, King quickly developed an interest in questioning the status quo. By some accounts he was arrested more than 30 times throughout his life for fighting in what he believed in.

One of the biggest question marks surrounding the tragedy of Dr. Kings life, was why he was killed in the first place? One could argue it was because he was a civil rights activist from the south, preaching freedoms and civil liberties for people of color in an environment least conducive to do so.

However, one could also argue it wasnt because he was a civil rights leader, but because he shifted his focus from civil rights onto the problems with capitalism in America as a whole. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been a figurehead and in the public sphere for years up to that point. It remains disconcertingly suspicious that Dr. King talked about civil rights for nearly a decade, which was obviously not without its own dangers; but why was it only a year or two after pivoting focus onto trying to help poor people break the shackles of the capitalist undertones of their lives that he was killed?

In his speech at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on August 16, 1967, he called out the United States for its poor management of poverty within its borders.

And one day we must ask the question, Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And Im simply saying that more and more, weve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society

The Fight Still Carries On

To many alive today, what Dr. King was fighting for and what he represented seems like ancient history. For many, his I have a Dream speech did mark the turning point for a new era in U.S. history: a post-modern, colorblind nation where people are truly judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character over all else. His dream began to find ground in reality, and the nation made great strides to even the playing fields of opportunity.

But now, 51 years after his tragic death on the balcony of that Memphis, Tennessee motel, has the execution of his dream of economic equality gone stale, or at the very least stagnated? What do current data and statistics tell us about the status of Black people in America today? Would Dr. King be satisfied with the progress, or frustrated by the lack thereof?

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The legend and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. was not isolated, in fact his martyrdom was known worldwide, with the oppression of Black Americans shocking populations overseas.

In the years during his most poignant efforts, as well as the first years following his assassination, life did improve for Black people in our country.

However, since the 1980s we have seen troublesome declines in Black upward mobility, while increases in Black homelessness, and incarcerations have remained percentage-wise much higher for persons of color, particularly Blacks; now were seeing an increase of Black women going to prison.

Images are certainly not better. The hip-hop industry, while providing wealth to a handful of talented artists, has in too many cases promoted lifestyles and images of Black life in America that steer young people in directions of negative, destructive destinations. Ironically, the artform has exploded into the mainstream where it is becoming normalized as a legitimate lifestyle.

Some troubling statistics from the LA Times:

The average income for African Americans fell almost $2000/year between the year 2000 and 2016. All other major ethnic groups experienced an increase in annual income during that same period. $39,000 avg. for African Americans; $47,000 avg. for Latinos; $65,000 avg. for White Americans; $81,000 avg. for Asian Americans.

Black Americans have struggled perpetually to move up the economic ladder. African Americans are less likely than Whites to own homes or invest in the stock market simply because they have less disposable income to do so.

The Economic Policy Institute found that Black-White wage gaps are larger today than they were in 1979. Their study showed that even when African Americans attend college and work hard to establish themselves in their respective fields, they still earn much less than their White counterparts even with a comparable educational background. In fact, the largest wage gap in the United States isnt between men and women, it is the most prominent between college-educated Blacks and Whites.

This data also suggests Blacks are still suffering from judgement based on skin color, not necessarily the content of character. And that leads to an obvious conclusion. The work and legacy of Dr. King, along with well-intended laws and policies to promote social, economic and racial justice and equality have limited impact if we, as a people, dont have our house in order. The accomplishments of a few talented, diligent individuals have not, and will not change how Black people on the whole are seen in America. We have much work to do as a race to also look inward, accept responsibility for ourselves, establish cultural positive cultural and behavioral norms, and hold ourselves and our Black brothers and sisters accountable to improve the content of our collective character.
A lawyer who served as a former executive of the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp. has been disbarred after the Supreme Court found him guilty of gross immoral conduct and violation of Code of Professional Responsibility. In a 15-page decision, the SC disbarred Antonio N. de los Reyes, a former vice president of the Legal and Administrative Group of the NHMFC, for abusing his authority to get sexual favors from his secretary The SC en banc found De los Reyes guilty of gross immoral conduct and violation of Rule 1.01, Canon 1 and Rule 7.03, Canon 7 of the Code of Professional Responsibility. It also ordered his name stricken from the Roll of Attorneys. Rule 1.01 provides that [a] lawyer shall not engage in unlawful, dishonest, immoral or deceitful conduct, while Rule 7.03 mandates that [a] lawyer shall not engage in conduct that adversely reflects on his fitness to practice law, nor shall he, whether in public or private life, behave in scandalous manner to the discredit of the legal profession. Respondent Atty. de Los Reyes is guilty of sextortion, which is the abuse of his position or authority to obtain sexual favors from his subordinate, the complainant, his unwilling victim who was not in a position to resist respondents demands for fear of losing her means of livelihood, the SC ruled. The sexual exploitation of his subordinate done over a period of time amounts to gross misbehavior on the part of respondent Atty. de Los Reyes that affects his standing and character as a member of the Bar and as an officer of the Court. All these deplorable acts of respondent Atty. de Los Reyes puts the legal profession in disrepute and places the integrity of the administration of justice in peril, thus warranting disciplinary action from the Court, the Court said.The high court also held that respondents actions show that he lacks the degree of morality required of him as a member of the legal profession, thus warranting the penalty of disbarment. It added: Respondent Atty. De Los Reyes is disbarred for his gross misbehavior, even if it pertains to his private activities, as long as it shows him to be wanting in moral character, honesty, probity or good demeanor. Possession of good moral character is not only a prerequisite to admission to the bar but also a continuing requirement to the practice of law. The tribunal adopted the findings and conclusions of the Investigating Commissioner, as sustained by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines Board of Governors. However, the 15-member bench ruled that IBPs recommended penalty of indefinite suspension from the practice of law was not commensurate with the gravity of the acts committed by respondent. The SC noted that a perusal of transcript of stenographic notes taken during the hearing of the instant case shows the victims straightforward testimony of ordeal at the hands of respondent Atty. de Los Reyes.
REDEMPTION SONG: Man Exonerated after 45 Years Sells his Prison Art to Get By

Richard Phillips Wire Photo

FERNDALE, Mich. (AP)  Richard Phillips said he didnt mope much during the 45 years he wrongfully spent in prison. He painted watercolors in his cell: warm landscapes, portraits of famous people like Mother Teresa, vases of flowers, a bassist playing jazz.

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I didnt actually think Id ever be free again. This art is what I did to stay sane, the 73-year-old said.

Phillips could be eligible for more than $2 million under a Michigan law that compensates the wrongly convicted , but the state so far is resisting and the matter is unsettled. So hes displaying roughly 50 of his more than 400 watercolors at a Detroit-area gallery and is willing to sell them.

His paintings are precious to him, but he said he has no choice: He needs money.

Phillips was released from custody in 2017 and, in 2018, became the longest-serving U.S. inmate to win exoneration. He was cleared of a 1971 homicide after an investigation by University of Michigan law students and the Wayne County prosecutors office.

Phillips is showing his work at an art gallery inside Level One Bank in Ferndale, a Detroit suburb. A reception was planned for Friday night.

Are you the artist? God bless you. Beautiful, a bank customer said while admiring a painting of five musicians Thursday.

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Phillips said he bought painting supplies by selling handmade greeting cards to other inmates. He followed a strict routine of painting each morning while his cellmate was elsewhere. He was sometimes inspired by photos in newspapers and liked to use bright colors that didnt spill into each other.

But a cramped cell isnt an art studio. Phillips said prison rules prevented him from keeping his paintings so he regularly shipped them to a pen pal.

After he was exonerated, Phillips rode a bus to New York state last fall to visit the woman. He was pleased to find she still had the paintings.

These are like my children, Phillips, a former auto worker, said during a tour with The Associated Press.

But I dont have any money. I dont have a choice. Without this, Id have a cup on the corner begging for nickels and dimes. Im too old to get a job, he said.

Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy supports Phillips effort to be compensated for his years in prison. Michigans new attorney general, Dana Nessel, is reviewing the case. Its complicated because he has a separate disputed conviction in Oakland County thats still on the books, spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney said.

Phillips attorney, Gabi Silver, who has helped him adjust to a life of freedom, said the paintings are inspirational.

To suffer what he has suffered, to still be able to find good in people and to still be able to see the beauty in life  its remarkable, she said.
Mother Pleads to Murdering Infant Son

A 24-year-old woman pleaded no contest today to killing her baby son who died from multiple injuries three years ago, the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office announced.

Calixta Landa (dob 12/8/94) of Los Angeles entered her plea to one count of second-degree murder. She is expected to be sentenced to 15 years to life in state prison on March 12 in Department S of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, Norwalk Branch.

Deputy District Attorney Colby Cano of the Family Violence Division, Complex Child Abuse Section, prosecuted the case.

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On July 14, 2016, family members saw Sebastian L., who was 19 days old, limp and pale in his bassinette. The baby, who had brain and neck injuries, was taken to a nearby hospital where he died two days later.

The boy died from injuries inflicted by his mother, the prosecutor said.

Case VA142404 was investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.
Famed for Immortal Cells, Henrietta Lacks is Immortalized in Portraiture at National Museum of African American History of Culture and the National Portrait Gallery

Kadir Nelsons portrait captures the grace and kindness of Henrietta Lacks while nodding to her enduring biomedical legacy. (NPG and NMAAHC, Gift from Kadir Nelson and the JKBN Group LLC)

In life, Virginia-born Henrietta Lacks did not aspire to international renownshe didnt have the luxury. The great-great-granddaughter of a slave, Lacks was left motherless at a young age and deposited at her grandpas log cabin by a father who felt unfit to raise her. Never a woman of great means, Lacks wound up marrying a cousin she had grown up with and tending to their childrenone of whom was developmentally impairedwhile he served the 1940s war effort as a Bethlehem steelworker.

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After the Axis fell and her husbands work died down, Lacks delivered three additional children, for a total of five. Sadly, fate denied her the chance to watch them grow. Visiting a hospital with complaints of a knot inside her, Lacks received news of a cancerous tumor in her cervix, which had escaped doctors notice during the birth of her fifth child. Treating Lackss cancer with crude radium implantsstandard operating procedure in 1951doctors were unable to save her life. At the age of 31, the person known as Henrietta Lacks ceased to exist.

And yet, curiously, a small biological part of Lacks lived on. Tissue samples collected as a part of her radiation treatment proved surprisingly robust in the lab. Doctors were accustomed to tissue samples dying off quickly once removed from their hosts, and were shocked at the unflagging replication rate of the cells from Lackss cervix.

Physicians recognized the value of Lackss tissue samples, but did not feel any ethical obligation to inform her surviving family of their work. As days, weeks, months and years passed, the initial samples continued cell reproduction with no signs of faltering, opening the door to all sorts of previously impossible disease testing. As copies of Lackss cellsdubbed HeLa cells as a nod to their sourcecirculated among the global scientific community, paving the way for such breakthroughs as Jonas Salks famous polio vaccine, Lackss family was never notified. Not only did they not affirmatively consent to the use of Henriettas tissue samples for continued research, they didnt even know about the remarkable properties of HeLa tissue until 1975, when the brother-in-law of a family friend asked offhand about the Lacks cells his National Cancer Institute coworkers had been studying. For more than two decades, the Lacks family had been kept in the dark.

Lackss descendants never received compensation and were never asked for input, despite the ongoing worldwide use of Lackss cells for biomedical research into diseases running the gamut from HIV to Ebola to Parkinsons. Her children welcomed the addition of a donated grave marker to her unmarked plot in 2010Here lies Henrietta Lacks. Her immortal cells will continue to help mankind forever.but the public debate over her exploitation by the scientific community rages on. Her story has been the subject of a widely acclaimed 2010 book and a 2017 HBO feature film produced by and starring Oprah Winfrey.

In the lead-up to the 2017 film, African-American portraitist Kadir Nelson, commissioned by HBO, set out to capture Lacks in a richly colored, larger-than-life oil painting. That visual rendering of the woman whose cells have saved millions was just jointly acquired by the National Museum of African American History of Culture and the National Portrait Gallery, and will be on view on the first floor of the latter through November 4, 2018.

Nelson wanted to create a portrait that told the story of her life, says painting and sculpture curator Dorothy Moss. He was hoping to honor Henrietta Lacks with this portrait, because there was no painted portrait that existed of her.
Calls For Recount Reveal Doubts About Congo Polls

Calls for a vote recount, first from defeated opposition candidate Martin Fayulu, are now being heard widely, sparking concerns that outgoing President Joseph Kabila played a behind the scenes role in swinging the election for Felix Tshisekedi, an opposition leader.

Despite video footage of Congolese voters cheering the presumed victor, credible sources say Mr. Tshisekedi was outpolled by Fayulu by a wide margin.

Monitoring groups noted widespread irregularities including faulty voting machines and poorly run polling stations, overshadowing talk of democratic progress in the vast country of 80 million people.

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The International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, a 12-member body including Kinshasa allies Angola and Republic of Congo, expressed great concern.

We suggest that the competent structures consider counting the votes in order to guarantee the transparency of the results, they added in a statement.

Congos influential Catholic Church said tallies by its 40,000-strong monitoring team show a different winner to that announced by the electoral commission.

We recommend that (electoral commission) CENI recount votes to reassure all stakeholders, said Donatien Nshole, secretary general of Congos Catholic Bishops Conference.

President Kabila had backed his former interior minister, Emmanuel Shadary, for the top job. But Shadary was unpopular and finished third in the voting.

Now analysts believe Kabila is jockeying to play a dominant role behind the scenes when  or if  Tshisekedi takes office.

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Tshisekedi has made no public appearances since the announcements that the figures giving him victory are not accurate.

His press officer, Lydie Omenga, said confidently that since Mr. Tsishekedi spoke the day the results were announced, there is nothing to add. He has already started work and now waits for the results to be confirmed. We are serene and we let the process follow its course. He will speak at his inauguration.

But when a spokesman for Tshisekedi confirmed that his camp had been negotiating with Kabila long ahead of the handover, it sparked further suspicions that the result was manipulated by the electoral commission.

Analyst Claude Kabemba, who leads the Johannesburg-based Southern Africa Resource Watch, says the real power is, and always has been, behind the scenes.

Joseph Kabila directly or indirectly is going to stay in power, he told Voice of America. And I think we might have a prisoner in the presidency If Tshisekedi cannot rise to the occasion, we will be captured for a very long time.
3 Years Later, No One is in Jail Over Flint Tainted Water

DETROIT (AP)  Michigans attorney general in 2016 promised to investigate without fear or favor the scandal over Flints lead-tainted drinking water and pledged that state regulators would be locked up for fudging data and misleading the public.

Yet three years later, no one is behind bars. Instead, seven of 15 defendants have pleaded no contest to misdemeanors, some as minor as disrupting a public meeting. Their records eventually will be scrubbed clean.

That has angered some people in Flint who believe key players who could have prevented the lead disaster are getting off easy. Four of five people at the state Department of Environmental Quality who were on the front line of the crisis have struck deals. The remaining cases mostly center on a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires disease and early disastrous decisions to use water from the Flint River.

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Im furious  absolutely furious, said LeeAnne Walters, a mother of four who is credited with exposing the lead contamination. Its a slap in the face to every victim in the city of Flint.

Walters, 40, said she was repeatedly brushed off by the Department of Environmental Quality, known as DEQ, even as she confronted officials with bottles of brown water. She testified in Congress after then-Gov. Rick Snyder in 2015 finally acknowledged the lead mess, and she later was honored with an international prize for grassroots environmental activism.

Instead of people being held accountable, theyre getting a free pass, Walters said. The fact remains there wouldnt have been a problem with the lead and the legionella if the water had been treated properly, if MDEQ would have done their job.

Flint was one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in U.S. history. While waiting for a new pipeline to bring water from Lake Huron, the majority-black city of 100,000 pulled water from a river in 2014-15 without treating it to reduce corrosive effects on old pipes. Lead infected the distribution system in Flint, where 41 percent of residents are classified by the government as living in poverty.

Due to poor finances, Flint was being run by financial managers appointed by the governor. The uproar over water quality reached a peak by fall 2015 when a doctor reported high levels of lead in children, which can cause brain damage. The water no longer comes from the river and has significantly improved, but some residents are so distrusful that they continue to use bottled water.

Liane Shekter Smith, who was fired as head of Michigans drinking water office, was charged with misconduct in office and neglect of duty. Special prosecutor Todd Flood later put her on notice that he would pursue an involuntary manslaughter charge, arguing that she could have shut down the Flint water plant and reduced the threat of legionella bacteria, which causes Legionnaires.

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But charges were dropped on Jan. 7 in exchange for a no-contest plea to an obscure misdemeanor that will not result in any jail time: disturbance of a lawful meeting. She had declined to accept a report about water quality from Walters and others. Two other key agency employees, Michael Prysby and Stephen Busch, made deals on Dec. 26. All three will have their records erased if they cooperate with Flood.

Shekter Smith wanted to put some closure on this matter, attorney Brian Morley said of her plea agreement. Criminal charges werent warranted.

State Sen. Jim Ananich of Flint, who runs his water through a filter, said hes listened to frustrated residents.

At the beginning there was a feeling of good, someone is going to be held accountable. Now people dont believe anyone is going to be held accountable, he said.

The outcome so far is different than the dramatic scene in 2016 when Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican who was poised to run for governor, traveled to Flint to announce felony charges against Prysby, a DEQ engineer, and Busch, a DEQ regional supervisor.

Mr. Busch and Mr. Prysby misled federal and local authorities, regulatory officials, and failed to provide safe and clean water to families of Flint, Schuette declared at that time. When we prove these allegations  and we will  Mr. Busch and Mr. Prysby will be facing five years in prison for this count alone.

Andy Arena, a Flint water investigator and former head of the FBI in Detroit, believes the plea deals are appropriate.

There are culpable folks out there that we need to get to, he said. This is how it works: You cut deals with certain people to move the case up the line. I believe these people have some information that could significantly assist in our ongoing investigation.

Schuette, who lost the governors race and is out of public office, said: I stand with Andy, referring to Arena. Flood declined to comment on his strategy.

The new attorney general, Dana Nessel, has asked a Detroit-area prosecutor to review the remaining cases , including involuntary manslaughter charges against Nick Lyon, the former head of the Michigan health department who has been ordered to trial.

Lyon is accused of failing to alert the public in a timely manner about the Legionnaires outbreak, which has been linked to foul water and at least 12 deaths. Dr. Eden Wells, who was Michigans chief medical executive, also is facing an involuntary manslaughter trial, although both cases are tied up in appeals by aggressive defense teams.

Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley, who were state-appointed emergency managers when Flint was using river water, are also charged. Theyre accused of being obsessed with saving money instead of protecting residents. All have pleaded not guilty.
Posted Thursday, January 17, 2019 2:12 pm

On Feb. 11, 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came to MSU to deliver a speech on education. It sounds routine, but there was no such thing as a routine speech by Martin Luther King.

The enriching root of education and its potent fruit, voter registration, were life and death matters in the segregated South. King was determined to recruit help. Although his responsibilities were multiplying by the day, he wedged MSU into a grueling schedule of meetings, speeches and sermons.

When I picked him up at the airport, he wasnt feeling too well, MSU Professor Robert Green recalled. He was tired and had a sore throat. It was the only time I ever saw him ill.

Over 50 years later, Kings sore throat was news to former Lansing Mayor David Hollister, then a teacher at Eastern High School.

Spellbound by Kings oratory that day, Hollister and dozens of others volunteered to teach underserved students in the South and register people to vote. They ended up facing down KKK thugs in Mississippi that summer.

That day changed my life, Hollister said.

Giant Steps

The speech at MSU was the last of at least three visits King made to the Lansing area. In 1954 and 1957, King came to Lansing at the request of his uncle, the Rev. Joel King, pastor of Lansings Union Baptist Church. The 1957 speech drew thousands of people to the Lansing Center.

By 1965, King was a national force with his finger on the hour hand of history, but he still sweated the details. He came to MSU to kick off the first all student-run educational outreach program in the country  the Student Education Program, or STEP. He made the fund-raising pitch to 4,500 students, faculty and community members at the MSU Auditorium.

Green, a professor emeritus at MSU, where he was the dean of urban development, and keynote speaker at MSUs King commemoration at the Erickson Kiva Monday, remembers the day vividly.

Green drove King from the Lansing airport to his office at MSU, on the second floor of Erickson Hall, and made him hot tea with lemon.

Green had a lot of questions, but King didnt talk about himself.

He was always turning it on you, Green said. He wanted to know about me, about my job, about MSU, how were they treating me. He asked about my kids.

To his amazement, Green noticed King quicken his step, lose the cough and grow more animated on the walk from Erickson to the auditorium.

He became invigorated, alive, and gave a great speech, Green said. He didnt have time to get sick.

King didnt confine his remarks at MSU to the STEP program. Never one to shy from big themes, he urged the assembled students and faculty to adopt a world brotherhood perspective, denounced the notion of superior and inferior races and called for worldwide action to end segregation.

King called for new civil rights legislation and name checked MSU President John A. Hannah, who was appointed chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 1957 by President Dwight Eisenhower.

In the wake of assaults and harassment, King urged action on the Civil Rights Commissions recommendation that federal staffers handle voter registration in the South.

Green couldnt have refused Kings call even if he had wanted to. He got the OK from Hannah to take a leave to work for King from 1965 to 1967 as educational outreach director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Working for King wasnt a cubicle job. In tense times, Green helped King organize the 1966 March against Fear in Mississippi.

His time with King was an eye-opener. He was so adamant about not being afraid to die, Green said.

In Greens book, At the Crossroads of Fear and Freedom, he recalled driving in the South with King, his confidant Andrew Young and three other associates. When they stopped at a red light, a white gas station attendant recognized King in the front seat.

The man walked up to the car, pulled out a gun and held it to Kings head.

I love you, King replied calmly. The would-be assailant walked away. It took years for Green to wrap his head around Kings surreal serenity.

Listen to his old sermons, Green said. There are a lot of them on line. King always talked about death. It was his way of purging himself of fear.

When traveling, Green and Kings other associates begged him to sit in the back of the car, flanked by aides, but King resisted.

He said, You guys cant protect me. John Kennedy had the Army, the Air Force and the Secret Service, and they got him. I dont have all that. When theyre ready for me theyre going to get me, and Im prepared to die. King teased his friends and associates about their solicitude.

He would say, You guys are so worried about me getting shot. One day, someone will shoot at me and miss and hit one of you, Green recalled. And he started giving a mock eulogy for his good friends.

Im signing up

On the day King came to MSU, an unknown MSU student changed David Hollisters life by handing him a flier.

The former Lansing mayor, then a teacher at Eastern High School in Lansing, made his way to the MSU campus to hear King.

I was mesmerized, Hollister said. I could tell he was speaking extemporaneously.

Hollister was so moved by the speech that he rushed to get near the rear exit to meet King when it was over.

I shook his hand, looked in his eye and said, Im signing up, Hollister said. I didnt realize what that would mean, but it was a brief encounter, less than a minute.

Hollister spent the summers of 1966 and 1968 teaching math, history and government at underserved schools in Mississippi, for no pay.

Oh my God, it was life-changing, Hollister said. You can read all you want to about segregation, but we were harassed by the Klan and supporters trying to terrify both the volunteers and the students. That experience fundamentally impacted everything I did in 50 years of public service.

Burning message

Martin Luther King Jr. was a young Ph.D. student in theology at Boston University when his uncle first invited him to speak at Lansings Union Baptist Church on Jan. 3, 1954.

Joel King, the younger brother of Martin Luther King Sr., was pastor of Union Baptist  now Union Missionary Baptist Church  in southwest Lansing for eight years in the 1950s. The old church building, at the corner of Logan (now Martin Luther King Jr.

Boulevard) and St. Joseph streets, is no longer standing. Joel King also ran, unsuccessfully, for the Lansing City Council.

Starting with this comparatively lowkey appearance, Kings three Lansing visits would climb sharply in urgency and scale.

Nothing so eventful on that day  other than the climax of a rally for beautifying the interior of the church, Joel King wrote in his invitation to Martin Luther and Coretta King.

The 1954 visit was put off until the first Sunday in March, when Joel King made a more urgent request in a second letter. I am asking that you would accept the engagement, as it would mean much to you and me, he wrote. Remember that this is a cross section of Negro and White. Usually the message is from one half hour to one hour long.

Would like for you to bring them a burning message, centering around some of our present-day problems.

King spoke March 7 at the morning service. That day, King was also scheduled to address the Lansing branch of the NAACP. The church has no record of the text of Kings speech, but church member LaVerne Wilson is compiling a history of Kings ties to Union Baptist, Joel King and Lansing.

I found it amazing that King has all these ties to Lansing, and yet its hardly known or talked about, Wilson said. The Martin Luther King luncheon is in its 34th year, but I dont know how many people realize theres more history of Martin Luther King in Lansing.

By 1957, Kings stature in the moral, spiritual and political life of the nation had grown considerably. In May of that year, King would deliver his first national address, Give Us The Ballot, at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C.

This time, Joel King had a bigger forum in mind for his nephew. I feel its time for you to come to us, he wrote Martin and Coretta King from Lansing. People of all races are continually asking about your coming. I would like to make this one of the finest programs that they have had at this huge new Civic Center Auditorium.

Atomic cannon

On Feb. 17, 1957, King spoke to over 3,000 people at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium of the 2-year-old Lansing Civic Center, urging a vigorous but peaceful fight against segregation. His national profile was in the ascendant. The next day, his face would appear on the cover of Time Magazine. Three days earlier, King became head of the Southern Leaders Conference, later the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Donations at the Lansing speech went to the victims of racially motivated bombings of homes and churches that had recently wracked the South, including the bombing of the home of the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth in Birmingham, Alabama, the previous December.

King gave the Lansing audience a vivid description of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott that made national news two months earlier.

They decided it was more honorable to walk in pride than ride in humiliation, he told the group. They substituted tired feet for tired souls.

Headlines from Hungary were dominating the news at the time. The previous November, Soviet troops crushed a student-led revolution in Hungary, killing thousands and sending hundreds of thousands into exile.

King knew that Americans were riveted by events in the Eastern bloc and watched with horror as the tanks rolled into Budapest. He admonished the crowd to remember the plight of their own African-American brothers and sisters at home.

If the United States is to be a first-class nation, it can no longer have second-class citizens, King declared. It is a puzzle to us why the government of this nation cries out against Communist oppression and not against oppression of people here at home.

Michigan Gov. G. Mennen Williams, a strong advocate for civil rights and racial equality, attended the speech with his wife. King said Americans would make a great move if they elected Williams president.

When King was finished, Joel King invited Williams to speak. The bow-tied governor pleaded that his oratory, compared to Kings, would come off like a pop gun compared to an atomic cannon.

Evergreen words

Every year, when the King holiday comes around, people find the question irresistible: What would King be saying today?

The question is tragically easy to answer.

Chances are, anything King said 50, 60, or 70 years ago is doubly or triply relevant now. Consider this snippet from an editorial King wrote in the Morehouse College student newspaper  in 1947.

At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose, King wrote. Education must enable one to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

Robert Green heard King say such things first hand.

Theres a lot of unreal stuff being said today, Green said. King would have been in the forefront now of challenging the many untruths that are being spread around the country, especially about poor people, about immigrants.

King also hammered at the need for early childhood education.

Thats a big deal today, Green said, but he talked about it 50 years ago  making sure kids can read and process information.

While in Lansing, King talked to Green about lynchings and beatings of black men who were organizing voter registration in the South. In 1965, King was preparing to lobby President Lyndon Johnson to sign voting rights legislation.

Green said King would have been very upset with recent attempts to erode voting rights in several states, and would have denounced 11th-hour legislation in Wisconsin and Michigan aimed at restricting the powers of incoming Democratic officeholders.

If he were alive today, he would call together black, white, Hispanic, Native American leaders, like he did for the poor peoples march, and say, This is wrong, Green said.

In Greens view, recent protests by student and professional athletes like Colin Kaepernick would also have gotten King's attention.

Dr. King admired Muhammad Ali because he spoke out on human rights issues and denounced the Vietnam War, Green said. He admired Ali because he was fearless inside and outside the ring. He would have been 1000 percent behind Colin Kaepernick. He would have respected him, met with him, encouraged him and supported him.

The list goes on and on. Its so hard to keep up with Marin Luther King, even today, that it would almost be dispiriting, were not King so good at lifting them back up.

I constantly think about him, Green said. I feel that hes there. He used to quote William Cullen Bryant a lot: Truth crushed to Earth will rise again.
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker was among a small group of rank-and-file members of Congress this week to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss the protracted partial government shutdown.

And while Smucker and others referred to the meeting as productive, theres still, at least publicly, no end in sight.

Meanwhile, Smucker  the Republican who represents all of Lancaster County in Congress  re-introduced a bill to prevent shutdowns in the first place, one that has been repeatedly introduced but come up short for decades.

In a local elections update, the front-runners for Lancaster GOP endorsements are mostly maintaining their leads in the committees straw polls, but some of the races are narrower.

Here are those updates and more from the political scene in Lancaster County and beyond.

A meeting with the president

Smucker met with the president Wednesday through his membership in the Problem Solvers Caucus, a group split equally between Republicans and Democrats that has looked for bipartisan solutions to major issues such as immigration and health care.

About a dozen members of the caucus reportedly joined the president in the Situation Room as talks with Democratic House leadership stalled.

Neither side has detailed the specifics of what was discussed.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement it was a constructive meeting.

U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, the Democratic co-chair of the caucus, said it was productive.

Smucker, in a tweet, said, We had the opportunity to listen & better understand each other. It went well. Looking forward to continued productive discussions. Thank you for having us Mr. President!

Preventing shutdowns?

Smucker also used this week for a timely re-introduction of a bill to prevent government shutdowns from happening in the first place.

The Government Shutdown Prevention Act would enact automatic government funding through a continuing resolution if funding lapses.

Smucker introduced the bill in 2017 during his first term in Congress, picking up the language from years of other lawmakers doing the same. Variations of the bill have been introduced, and never acted on, in the House and Senate in many sessions going back to at least 1996, according to Congress.gov.

The congressman from Lancaster County has repeatedly discussed his concerns with the federal budget process since taking office.

Straw polls

With nearly all of the 17 Republican Committee of Lancaster County area straw polls completed, Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman is still the leading contender for the committees influential endorsement for judge next month.

Assistant District Attorney Mark Fetterman is still in the strongest position to secure the partys endorsement to replace Stedman, and county Commissioner Josh Parsons will almost certainly be endorsed for a second term in his role.

The straw polls are informal indicators from the roughly 330 committee members about who theyll endorse  at their convention Feb. 19  for the primaries this spring. Those endorsements unlock significant fundraising and organizational support from the committees expansive network.

With only two straw polls remaining (in the Manheim Township and Warwick area committees next week), here are the results for the contested races. Candidates must receive two-thirds of the entire committees support to get the endorsement.

 Court of Common Pleas: Craig Stedman with 208 votes; Todd Brown with 33 votes.

 County commissioner (two endorsements available): Josh Parsons with 188 votes; Ray DAgostino with 113 votes; Scott Wiglesworth with 112 votes; Doug Brubaker with 36 votes; Rob Morgan with 17 votes. Greg Sahd and Kyle Thomas withdrew.

 District attorney: Mark Fetterman with 98 votes; Karen Mansfield with 69 votes; Heather Adams with 68 votes.

 Prothonotary: Alex Egner with 122 votes; Andrew Spade with 115 votes.
Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Friday pushed for the revival and expansion of the Roll-On-Roll-Off transport system, a project she spearheaded when she was President. Arroyo made the statement during her visit here to attend the 11th anniversary of the Bacolod Silay airport, which was built and inaugurated during her administration in 2007. She narrated that she was sad a few years ago when she heard that many of the RORO projects were canceled or discontinued. We built many RORO ports all over the country but mostly in the Visayas and I was so sad to hear a few years ago that the administration after mine discontinued the rest of the RORO port projects, Arroyo said. Noting the RORO systems proven importance in travel and trade and tourism, Arroyo said she will convene an Oversight Committee in the House of Representatives on the RORO to determine the status of the countrys ports and how to improve them. When I go back to Manila, I am going to convene the oversight committee for the RORO because with the help of the PPA [Philippine Ports Authority]and the DOTR [Department o Transportation] to compare the old ADB [Asian Development Bank] study with what are the the projects that had been canceled and see what should be revived, Arroyo said. In 2003, Arroyo who was then President ordered the establishment of the nautical highway that is envisioned to link all major islands through ports with roll-on roll-off capability. The Road RoRo Transport System is a project designed to carry rolling stock cargo that does not require cranes for loading. The system was part of the 919-kilometer Strong Republic Nautical Highway that connected the major islands of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao through an integrated network of highway and vehicular ferry routes. It was one of her administrations priority programs to ensure fast and economical movement of goods and people, and to boost domestic tourism and trade. The Asian Development Bank which had proposed the project had said the RORO system cut the cost of the transport system and travel time in the Philippines. Arroyo noted that the RORO system has helped lower the poverty level in the country. When I assumed the Presidency, the survey said 39 percent of all Filipinos were very poor. I believe that the RRTS has helped a lot to lift up some of the very poor from extreme poverty, as they were able to find jobs and now have some money to buy food and other necessities, she said.Her administration was able to construct vital RORO routes from Luzon to Mindanao. However, the Aquino administration canceled most of the RORO projects approved during her time. The administration of President Rodrigo Duterte had decided to revitalize the RORO system citing it importance to trade and tourism. Arroyo said she was happy that the RORO system is being revitalized because of the positive impact it has given on the lives of the people. After the event in Silay, Speaker Arroyo took a RORO ferry to Dumangas, Iloilo to experience once again the RRTS and see what can be done to improve the system. Arriving in Dumangas, Speaker Arroyo attended a briefing by the Civil Aearonatics Authority of the Philippines, Maritime Industry Authority, Philippine Port Authority, Philippine Coast Guard and Departmenr of Public Works and Highway on the status of the RORO ports in the city. Arroyo also conducted an ocular inspection of the road networks connecting the RORO system to determine their condition and what still needs to be done to improve the system. Arroyo said in the remaining months of her term in the Lower House, she will take on a sentimental journey to her favorite projects, which include the airports and RORO ports she built during her administration. You know Im going to leave public office on June 30 and I was telling my staff that I want to make a sentimental journey to my favorite projects and among them in the Bacolod- Silay airport and so I decided to come, she said. She added, (f)rom Silay airport I will take a sentimental journey to the RORO because to me the Visayas the important infrastructure are the roads, airport and RORO. The RORO system has three routes: the Strong Republic Nautical Highway, Eastern Nautical Highway and Central Nautical Highway. These cover the provinces and cities of Tagaytay and Batangas City of Region 4-A, Marinduque, Romblon and Oriental Mindoro in Luzon. Also covered are Aklan, Capiz, Guimaras, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Siquijor, Cebu, and Bohol in the Visayas. There is also a route from Luzon going to Palawan. Misamis Occidental, Misamis Oriental, Lanao del Norte and Zamboanga del Norte in Mindanao are also part of the route.
The Lancaster Parking Authority issues thousands of tickets each year for street cleaning violations  to the frequent dismay of those Lancastrians whose vehicles are parked in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But at least in Lancaster, tickets are issued for documented violations: Street sweepers always pass each vehicle before enforcement personnel issue the ticket.

Compare that with Philadelphia, where, according to WHYY, thousands of tickets are issued in areas where sweepers never show up.

The public broadcast station says Philadelphia has a morning street-sweeping schedule with eight routes. But when WHYY reporters monitored the routes for two weeks, they found the sweepers failed to show up within the assigned period three times out of four.

Meanwhile, thousands of parking tickets were issued, not only on the routes but in other parts of the city that the sweepers don't reach.

A Philadelphia Parking Authority spokesman "declined to explain why agents were ticketing these areas," WHYY said.

Between 2007 and 2017, according to WHYY, the Philadelphia authority issued more than 148,000 street-sweeping violations totaling $8.1 million in fees and penalties. Of that, $5.5 million has been paid.

Despite its name, the Philadelphia Parking Authority is controlled at the state level, the result of a 2001 takeover. Only about 25 percent of its revenue goes to Philadelphia or its school district, and the city's controller has termed it a state government "patronage mill."

The Lancaster Parking Authority is an independent entity overseen by a local board.

In 2017, the authority issued 114,849 tickets, of which 40,768, or 35 percent, were for street cleaning violations.

Lancaster has a car problem In articles published by LNP (Parking study starts with public input, Oct. 9, Consultant:

City and authority officials have said repeatedly they would like to see fewer violations, so the street sweepers can effectively do their job of scouring the road surface and keeping debris and chemical pollutants from entering Lancaster's sewer system.

Fines are set by City Council. The base fine for street sweeping violations is $25, versus $20 for a meter violation. Total revenue for all tickets in 2017 was $2.38 million.
A man assaulted a 16-year-old student Thursday morning at J.P. McCaskey High School, according to the school district and the student's mother.

"A parent of another student assaulted one of our students today," Superintendent Damaris Rau said in a statement.

"We believe a separate incident yesterday that involved the two students led to today's altercation," she said.

"Our staff acted appropriately and immediately, at their own risk, to separate the parent and student. We will continue to work closely with Lancaster police to investigate this situation."

Elyse Maisonet, the mother of the student who was allegedly assaulted, said she was notified about the incident and went to the school. She learned what happened from her daughter and from listening to school personnel giving statements to police and school officials.

Maisonet told LNP her child, an 11th-grader, and the man's 14-year-old child got into an altercation during their ride home Wednesday on the school bus.

During the bus confrontation, the 16-year-old spat at the 14-year-old, and both went their separate ways, according to Lancaster Bureau of Police Lt. Bill Hickey.

Maisonet said the other student saw her child in the McCaskey lobby Thursday morning and went to get her parents, who were outside.

She said the father was angry and made a derogatory statement directed at her child.

The situation escalated into a melee, she said, and the father punched Maisonet's child.

School personnel intervened, broke up the fight and got the father out of the building, according to police.

Maisonet said her daughter was treated for injuries at UPMC Pinnacle and released, and is recuperating at home.

The Lancaster Bureau of Police is withholding releasing the mans name, adding the man was not arrested, nor have any charges been approved or filed, Hickey stated in an email Friday morning.

A school resource officer who responded to the incident at the school is investigating in consultation with the district attorneys office, Hickey added.
In an attempt to make Millersville University a more pedestrian-friendly campus, university and borough officials have agreed to temporarily convert a portion of East Frederick Street into a walking pathway for students.

Starting today, East Frederick Street, from High School Avenue to Creek Drive, will be open for pedestrians and bicyclists only. Motor vehicles will have to travel an alternate route.

Itll be that way for five to eight months, during which time the university will conduct traffic studies to see whether the roadway could permanently become a pedestrian pathway.

The whole philosophy is to make it a safer campus  and to try to minimize traffic at specific locations, particularly where theres academic courses, project manager Ron Frisbie said.

Frisbie said the addition of new student housing, the net-zero energy Lombardo Welcome Center and renovations to Gordinier Hall have increased foot traffic in that area.

The affected portion of East Frederick Street is typically used for parking and students walking to one of the several academic buildings lining the street, Frisbie said.

Prior to today, students had 34 parking spaces from which to choose. And because Millersville Borough owns the street, parking in those spaces didnt require a university parking pass, Frisbie said.

Millersville has enlisted Pennoni, a Philadelphia-based engineering firm, to conduct traffic studies through the spring and summer. Frisbie estimated costs at a couple thousand dollars.

Itll likely take a year for the universitys council of trustees to decide whether to permanently make that corridor a pedestrian pathway, Frisbie said. Any such idea would be included in the universitys 10-year master plan.

In the meantime, university officials are communicating with students and community members about the change. Signage will also be placed around the affected areas.
A three-story townhouse on North Plum Street was condemned following a fire Thursday afternoon, according to Lancaster city fire officials.

The fire at 614 N. Plum St. caused an estimated $70,000 to $100,000 in damage and left a total of 11 people displaced, Battalion Chief Jason Greer told LNP Thursday night.

Smoke and fire were visible from a second floor rear room, including a second-floor balcony, according to dispatches shortly after 2:20 p.m. over Lancaster County-Wide Communications.

The fire was reported under control just before 3:10 p.m. Fire personnel remained on scene until after 7 p.m., Greer said.

Avoid the area of N. Plum St. between E. New St. and New Holland Ave. Bureau of Fire is working on a residential fire on the 600 blk. N. Plum St. pic.twitter.com/QmvqDiyJqW  Lancaster Police (@LancasterPolice) January 17, 2019

Lancaster police Lt. Bill Hickey said around half a dozen people were at home at the time of the fire and were safely evacuated. There were no injuries.

The cause remains under investigation, Greer said.
Three Lancaster County school districts have each been awarded a $35,000 grant as part of a statewide initiative to expand computer science and STEM programming.

Announced Thursday by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, Columbia Borough, Manheim Central and Penn Manor are three of 221 school districts  plus two career technical centers, 18 charter and cyber charter schools, and eight intermediate units  to receive funding through the states new PAsmart initiative.

The three local districts will distribute the money among 16 schools  three in Columbia, four in Manheim Central and nine in Penn Manor.

In total, $8.7 million is headed to 765 schools across the state.

PASMART GRANT RECIPIENTS Columbia Borough School District: Park Elementary School.

Columbia Middle School.

Columbia High School. Manheim Central School District: H.C. Burguard Elementary School.

Doe Run Elementary School.

Manheim Central Middle School.

Manheim Central High School. Penn Manor School District: Letort Elementary School.

Central Manor Elementary School.

Conestoga Elementary School.

Eshleman Elementary School.

Hambright Elementary School.

Martic Elementary School.

Pequea Elementary School.

Marticville Middle School.

Manor Middle School.

Over the next decade, seven in 10 new jobs in Pennsylvania will require workers to use computers and new technologies in a constantly changing economy, Wolf said in a statement. With these grants, more students will get the skills they need for emerging high-demand jobs.

Through PAsmart, the state will invest $20 million in STEM education, apprenticeships and job training. Target grant recipients will use the money to expose more students to computer science and bolster professional development for teachers.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is not just a day off of work or school; it's a day for the nation to reflect and celebrate the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Celebrate with these Lancaster County events this Monday:

2019 MLK Day of Service with United Way: Spend the day engaging in acts of community service around Lancaster County. Learn more.

YWCA Lancaster is hosting an event for kids aged 3-12 in memory of Dr. King. Kids will make crafts relating to peace and diversity. Learn more and RSVP.

Crispus Attucks Community Center is hosting its 31st Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast from 7-9 a.m. on Monday. The theme of the event is "Why We Can't Wait: Achieving Economic Equity," and will be hosted by keynote speaker John Hope Bryant, the founder of Operation Hope. Learn more.
Once upon a time, the Taino people inhabited much of the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, present-day Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Jamaica and other islands.

Then Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, with waves of Spanish settlers in his wake. Taino culture was decimated as warfare and epidemics, such as smallpox, took a devastating toll Within a century, the estimated 2 million indigenous Taino in the Caribbean had been completely wiped out.

Or so the official history says.

But a long-growing movement insists thats not the case  that, despite assimilation and adaptation, the Taino culture has persistently survived and, in some instances, still is thriving. And the DNA markers, mixed with Spanish, African and other lines, still hold true.

In Lancaster, the Manicato Taino Cultural Center recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. On the outside, nothing identifies its headquarters, a three-story Beaver Street house, as anything special. But behind the salmon-colored brick facade, big plans are in the works for expanded education, cultural programming and community outreach.

Monthly full-moon ceremonies mark the cycle of time in the Taino way. Free workshops, such as a current series of pottery classes, aim to share cultural and craft traditions.

And an ever-growing collection of artifacts  some reproductions, but many originals  bears witness to the artistry and vibrant culture of Taino people.

Now this is 500 years (after) Puerto Rico was invaded, and 500 years later we have not forgotten, says Mark Ortiz, who is both cacique (leader) and behike (spiritual leader) of the cultural centers tribal council. We do not accept the status quo because, now, its switched. Now we are educating ourselves, empowering ourselves, becoming self-sufficient, becoming self-reliant.

Once you are self-sufficient as a community, as a tribe, then you are empowered to move forward. You have a good, solid foundation that allows you (to do so). And the cultural center, he says, represents that strong foundation we have built.

Unfortunately, the way the (history) is related to us is by the conquerors, Rafael Torres, of Myerstown, says. The winners write the history books.

TAINO INFLUENCES Canoe, hurricane, barbecue, hammock, tobacco, iguana, potato  and others  are words that originated in the Taino language and have been adopted in English.

Some traditional Caribbean foods, such as cassava bread, have their roots in Taino culture. Sources: topuertorico.org; Smithsonian.com

We assimilated to survive, but (Taino culture) is still there. Its there in Puerto Rico, all over  in the language, in the food, in the way we offer hospitality.

Torres, whos worked as a Spanish-language radio DJ in Lancaster, is the guamoel, or voice of the people, for the Manicato Taino center. It is Torres, in his role as council tekina, or messenger, who handles much of the public contacts for the cultural center, and who promotes upcoming events.

Every family is different, but the Taino influence, Ortiz says, wasnt openly acknowledged when he was growing up.

I remember sitting down with my abuela (grandmother)  she was about 98  (and asking), Abuela, talk to me about the Tainos. And my grandmother says, Shhh. We dont talk about that. Why? Because the Spaniards,  Ortiz recalls.

You were not allowed to practice your beliefs. You were not allowed to speak your language because, if you did, the Spanish would kill you, Ortiz says of the practices of centuries ago that transferred into modern behaviors.

Taino heritage, he says, became something to hide, not to celebrate.

Because of so many years of Shhh,  he says, it became hard to learn anything.

Still, Torres says, there were hints of his Taino heritage when he visited his Puerto Rican family growing up, even if the significance wasnt discussed.

Both of my grandmothers would eat out of bowls similar to this, he says, holding up a shallow bowl carved out of a gourd. They had the option of eating off a regular plate, and forks, but for the most part, this. This dita was their chosen dish.

Those memories are what helped propel Ortizs purchase of the Beaver Street property, another step in his 30-year quest to learn more about Taino culture and to share that knowledge with others.

The first time he visited Puerto Rico, Ortiz says, he still had no definitive proof of Taino ancestry. But my curiosity was still piqued, he says, I wasnt interested in (seeing) anything but Taino stuff. (I said), Show me that. Show me the ceremonial grounds. 

Later, when he had his DNA tested, he says, that catapulted me into my hunger, that passion and desire (to revive) what had been, what they had tried to take away from us.

Sharing the knowledge

Lancasters cultural center, officially named Yukayeke Manicato, doesnt have memberships, Torres says, because that would make us like organized religion, which were not. Were family.

It was founded by Ortiz, his sister, Erlinda Ortiz, and Torres and his brother, Mark.

Much of the centers collection of objects, both everyday tools and ceremonial, have been purchased and curated by Mark Ortiz.

There are figures of Atabey, or Mother Earth, and her son, Yocahu, the supreme Taino deities, as well as other cemis, or spirits. There are the triangular cemis often found at archeological sites which were planted with crops to ensure success. The center also features contemporary artwork as well as everyday tools that would have been used in household or work life.

On the second floor a research library is in the works and, on the third floor, a small space welcomes monthly full-moon ceremonial gatherings.

The goal of the center, Ortiz says, is simultaneously daunting and

simple.

It is, he says, to bring people back to what they have lost.

They have immersed themselves into this material world, Ortiz says, and I work for a big company; I understand that corporate world, and what it is to get sucked up into amassing goods.

Ortiz added: But people have lost that spirituality, that internal thing that needs to be nurtured. By coming back to our roots, to our ancestors, we nurture ourselves.
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31 (2) Dec 30 (2) Dec 29 (2) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (2) Dec 11 (6) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (6) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (4) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (2) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (4) Nov 15 (6) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (2) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (2) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (2) Oct 24 (2) Oct 23 (2) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (2) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (4) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (7) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (7) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (2) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (5) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (7) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (3) Jul 12 (2) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (6) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (6) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (8) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (2) May 29 (2) May 28 (2) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (3) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (2) May 18 (3) May 17 (3) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (5) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (3) May 10 (4) May 09 (4) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (2) May 05 (3) May 04 (4) May 03 (2) May 02 (3) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (7) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (7) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (5) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (6) Mar 18 (6) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (5) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (9) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (3) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (2) Jan 22 (2) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (4) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (2) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (2) Jan 07 (2) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (2) Jan 04 (2) Jan 03 (2) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (2) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (2) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (2) Dec 21 (2) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (2) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (2) Dec 16 (2) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (2) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (2) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (2) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (2) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (2) Nov 22 (2) Nov 21 (2) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (2) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (2) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (2) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (2) Nov 08 (2) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (2) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (2) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (5) Sep 30 (2) Sep 29 (2) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (2) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (2) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (2) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (5) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (2) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (2) Aug 25 (2) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (2) Aug 12 (2) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (2) Aug 09 (2) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (2) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (2) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (2) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (2) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (2) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (2) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (2) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (2) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (2) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (2) Jul 03 (2) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (2) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (2) Jun 19 (2) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (2) Jun 16 (2) Jun 15 (2) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (2) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (2) May 19 (2) May 18 (4) May 17 (7) May 16 (2) May 15 (3) May 14 (4) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (3) May 08 (2) May 07 (2) May 06 (2) May 05 (1) May 04 (2) May 03 (4) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (1) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (2) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (2) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (1) Apr 02 (1) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (2) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (2) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (2) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (1) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (2) Mar 15 (1) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (2) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (1) Mar 07 (1) Mar 04 (2) Mar 02 (2) Feb 28 (1) Feb 24 (1) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (3) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (2) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (3) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (4) Oct 30 (3) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (4) Oct 16 (3) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (4) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (3) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (5) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (3) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (5) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (3) Jul 01 (6) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (5) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (3) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (5) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (4) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (5) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (4) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (4) May 19 (3) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (1) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (4) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (5) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (4) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (3) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (3) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (3) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (3) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (3) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (3) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (3) Mar 07 (3) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (3) Mar 01 (3) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (3) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (3) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (3) Jan 21 (4) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (5) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (3) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (2) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (5) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (5) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (2) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (2) Oct 07 (2) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (2) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (4) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (2) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (2) Sep 24 (1) Sep 23 (1) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (1) Sep 19 (1) Sep 18 (1) Sep 17 (2) Sep 16 (1) Sep 15 (2) Sep 14 (2) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (1) Sep 11 (2) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (1) Sep 08 (1) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (1) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (2) Sep 03 (1) Sep 02 (1) Sep 01 (1) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (1) Aug 28 (1) Aug 27 (1) Aug 26 (1) Aug 25 (1) Aug 24 (1) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (2) Aug 19 (1) Aug 18 (1) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (1) Aug 14 (1) Aug 12 (1) Aug 09 (1) Aug 08 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 05 (1) Aug 04 (1) Jul 31 (1) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (5) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (4) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (6) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (6) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (5) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (4) May 30 (4) May 29 (4) May 28 (5) May 27 (5) May 26 (5) May 25 (4) May 24 (5) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (3) May 20 (6) May 19 (4) May 18 (4) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (3) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (3) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (3) May 06 (3) May 05 (3) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (6) Apr 12 (4) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (5) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (4) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (4) Apr 04 (6) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (5) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (4) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (5) Mar 16 (5) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (7) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (4) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (4) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (5) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (7) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (8) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (3) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (6) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 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(4) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (5) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (5) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (2) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (6) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (2) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (4) Sep 17 (4) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (3) Sep 09 (3) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (6) Sep 04 (5) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (2) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (2) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (4) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (6) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 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By Monica Bushman & John Horn

If you've heard anything about the much-hyped 2017 Fyre Festival, you'll know that it was a massive failure. Luxury accommodations turned out to instead be disaster-relief tents, the gourmet cuisine was anything but, and the all-star musical lineup (including acts like Major Lazer and Migos) never took the stage.

Now two documentaries are trying to explain how everything went so horribly wrong -- the Netflix documentary Fyre, in limited theaters and on Netflix today, and the Hulu documentary Fyre Fraud, which dropped as a surprise release on Monday.

WHAT WAS FYRE FESTIVAL?

Creators Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule sold Fyre as the most luxurious music festival of all time. The glitzy, supermodel-packed promotional video promised first-class travel to a private island once owned by Pablo Escobar.

"The actual experience exceeds all expectations," the disembodied voice in the video intoned. "All these things that may seem big and impossible are not."

They were.

The reality, as hundreds of festival-goers would find out when they arrived in the Bahamas, couldn't have been further from their expectations. While the failure sparked a wave of memes and late-night jokes, there was serious fallout.

Billy McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for defrauding investors and starting a separate ticket-selling scam while he was out on bail. Ja Rule was named as a co-defendant in separate lawsuits filed by festival-goers, some of which are still pending.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH BOTH DOCUMENTARIES

Both documentaries come with caveats. The Hulu documentary, co-written and co-directed by Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason, includes an interview with Billy McFarland, which he was reportedly paid for. The Netflix documentary, written and directed by Chris Smith, was produced in partnership with two companies -- Matte Projects and Jerry Media -- that marketed the Fyre Festival and promoted it on social media.

Still, we recommend you watch both to get the fullest picture of what went down. They both arrive at largely the same conclusions about McFarland, include a few of the same interviewees -- and even end on an eerily similar final scene. But here's what you need to know about what sets them apart:

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (Netflix)

Fyre includes amazing behind-the-scenes footage (provided by Matte Projects and Jerry Media) of the planning stages of the festival, from the promo video shoot to the disastrous day-of. It also includes some incredible video footage of McFarland (recorded at his request) as he set up a separate ticket-selling scam while out on bail.

includes amazing behind-the-scenes footage (provided by Matte Projects and Jerry Media) of the planning stages of the festival, from the promo video shoot to the disastrous day-of. It also includes some incredible video footage of McFarland (recorded at his request) as he set up a separate ticket-selling scam while out on bail. Fyre gives you a better sense of the impact of the festival's failure on the local Bahamian community. In one particularly harrowing interview, a woman named Maryann Rolle, who provided food for the laborers who were working on the festival site, explains that she was never paid back for $50,000 of her own money that she used to pay her employees.

gives you a better sense of the impact of the festival's failure on the local Bahamian community. In one particularly harrowing interview, a woman named Maryann Rolle, who provided food for the laborers who were working on the festival site, explains that she was never paid back for $50,000 of her own money that she used to pay her employees. There's no interview with Billy McFarland in Fyre. Writer/director Chris Smith told KPCC's The Frame that he was in talks with McFarland about an interview and was supposed to film with him on two different occasions. "But in the end," Smith said, "it came down to the fact that Billy wanted to get paid. And we didn't feel comfortable with him benefitting after so many people were hurt based on his actions."

Fyre Fraud (Hulu)
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Up until Jan. 1, California was known for being one of the most secretive states in the nation when it came to access to police records. That was supposed to change with a new law that paved the way for access to records long out of public view.

But as SB 1421 went into effect, a law firm representing police unions quietly mounted a coordinated challenge. Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver has been arguing in various courts across the state that the law does not apply retroactively.

"The law is not clear," Tom Dominguez, the president of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs told KPCC/LAist. His group is among those in court to prevent the release of records that predate Jan. 1 of this year. "We are making sure our members rights are protected."

Attorneys for Orange County had signaled they intended to release records regardless of when the records were created.

Now California newsrooms are banning together to fight for public access.

In Orange County, KPCC/LAist, Los Angeles Times and Voice of OC are seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed by the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.

In Los Angeles, the Times has taken similar steps in a case brought by the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

And in case brought by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Employee Benefits Association, KQED, Bay Area public media, joined the California News Publishers Association, the First Amendment Coalition and the Times to make their voices heard.

In each case, the positions remain the same. The unions contend the law does not apply retroactively. The publishers and their advocates argue it does.

"SB 1421 was enacted not just provide some right to future generations to access police records," said Kelly Aviles, an attorney representing KPCC/LAist and other newsrooms. "It was intended to remedy the lack of access to police records now."

So far, the law has rolled out unevenly. Some law enforcement agencies have begun to hand over records. Others have indicated their intention to do so.

And then there are the jurisdictions where law enforcement unions are actively trying to block requests. So far, unions for LAPD, San Bernardino County Sheriffs and Orange County Sheriff's officers have succeeded in getting temporary restraining orders preventing the release records until the matter can be more fully considered by the court.

Other challenges appear to be underway with unions representing deputies in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.

Richard Levine is a partner with Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver, the firm representing all of the police unions challenging the law. He said his firm would have preferred if the California Supreme Court had taken up the dispute right away, but so far it has not done so.

No one wanted to litigate the matter in multiple counties, a "costly" endeavor, he said. But "it became clear what the legal route had to become" to restrict access to cases from before Jan. 1 until the courts can resolve the issue, added Levine.

The result could mean delays in access to records for months or longer.

When asked about the coordinated effort, Dominguez insisted the shared interest across unions is nothing unusual.

"We talk all the time," Dominguez said.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Police unions have historically enjoyed influence both in Sacramento and with local governments. Over recent decades, that influence led to restricted access to disciplinary and other records for sworn officers.

But as the police shootings of unarmed black men spurred protests and sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, lawmakers were called to reevaluate protections California law granted police.

When they passed SB 1421, legislators unlocked vast amounts of previously withheld information. Files covered under the law give access to investigations of officer shootings and uses of force causing great bodily injury. The law also covers findings of officer dishonesty and sexual assault.

The press's interest is clear: Access to those investigations enables reporters to dive deep into the details of police shootings, identify which officers remain on the job despite findings of dishonesty and hold police leaders accountable for failing to address wrongdoing by staff.

"California has more law enforcement employees than any other state in the country," said KPCC's Chief Content Officer Kristen Muller. "Yet when it comes to holding officers accountable, decisions are too often made behind closed doors. Public access to these records is absolutely critical if residents want to understand how their communities are being kept safe."

An investigation by KPCC last year found California law shielded officers who had multiple shootings in their records -- and their employers -- from public scrutiny. Our findings, detailed in the podcast Repeat, include the fact that more than 30 Los Angeles County sheriff's officers opened fire at least three times during their careers and some were returned to the field time and again.

This story was updated at 6:00 p.m. on Jan. 18 to include Richard Levine's comments.

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Manila International Airport Authority general manager Eddie Monreal on Friday commended another airport worker for honesty after he returned money to a Korean national. Reports from the MIAA-Media Affairs Division office said that Kangho Yoon, a departing passenger of Jeju Air flight 7C 2306 bound for Incheon, accidentally dropped his wallet at the roadway of the West Departure Curbside at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1 last Thursday. NC Lanting security guard Reno Erenea who was on duty around 10:25 p.m. in the area found the wallet containing assorted IDs and money worth P24,950 and 181,000 Korean won. Erenea immediately reported the incident to the Terminal Police Office and exerted effort to locate the owner of the wallet by asking the Paging Section personnel to page the owner who later appeared to claim his personal property. "I was delightful and I appreciate your efforts to return my wallet, Yoon told Erenea.Monreal, for his part, also thanked Erenea for his honest gesture. He urged all airport workers to continue proving that the culture of honesty is still present in NAIA. "This is a good message for the countrys premier airport,said Monreal. Last Wednesday, 30-year-old building attendant Jeffrey Almoguerra was praised for his good deed when he returned an envelope containing a huge amount of money he found also at the NAIA Terminal 1. Almoguerra found the envelope while doing his job at the vicinity of a foreign exchange counter. He reported the matter to a security guard who accompanied him to the airports Lost and Found Section where he turned over the envelope.
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The head of the union representing L.A. Unified School District principals has urged the district's leadership to close schools for the duration of the ongoing teachers strike.

If LAUSD leadership cannot close schools, Associated Administrators of Los Angeles union president Juan Flecha is calling for more resources and assurances for the principals who've shouldered much of the burden of keeping schools running for thousands of students during the teachers strike.

Flecha sent these demands in an email to district officials on Wednesday afternoon. He said he's received hundreds of emails and calls from his members -- the principals -- who are concerned about campus conditions and personal safety.

"It is the members, who have more than once repeatedly said, 'This is untenable, this is dire, I'm afraid for my health and safety, I'm afraid I'm not going to go home to my family, and the schools need to shut down,'" Flecha said in an interview.

LAUSD officials answered Flecha late Thursday, saying shuttering the schools was not an option.

"Students and families are counting on our schools to stay open," wrote Superintendent Austin Beutner. "Our schools and employees provide students with a shelter from the rain, a safe space and a warm meal. For many of our foster and homeless students, our schools provide students with the only constant in their lives."

Of the more-than 484,000 kids in LAUSD, four out of five rely on free and reduced price meals the district serves. At least 16,200 district students are homeless.

MORE STRIKE COVERAGE

Flecha acknowledged the closure of schools would add to the district-wide child care conundrum and create new hardships for some students and families.

"Under normal circumstances, the safest place for a student is in their school," Flecha said. But, he added, "this is an exigent circumstance, an extraordinary circumstance."

Flecha said his members' most frequently voiced concern is their safety while entering and leaving campuses. His letter mentions one instance in which an administrator's car was "swarmed with picketers yelling obscenities and blocking the entrance to the parking lot."

It's the only such interaction mentioned in the letter and Flecha said he's unaware of principals receiving more direct threats. Still, "a significant number" of the communications he's received mention "the issue of entry and egress and what picketers are doing and not doing."

In his email, Flecha demanded district leadership take steps to "ensure the safe entry and egress of every one of our members. Perhaps schools need to be closed if the district cannot guarantee the health and safety of every ... front-line manager."

Beutner responded that school police are working alongside the Los Angeles Police Department and L.A. County Sheriff's Department to keep campuses safe.

"While there are significant challenges, there has not been an incident that would require us to close all schools," he wrote.

Flecha has urged district leadership to reassess how they've distributed administrators who've been told to leave their central office positions to help staff campuses. Flecha has heard some schools with low attendance have received more extra staff than other schools where attendance has remained relatively high during the strike.

His email also demands that administrators be guaranteed "extra duty pay" -- supplemental wages for work during extraordinary circumstances -- for their work leading up to the strike. Flecha says the district is normally "conservative" about handing out this money.

UPDATES:

7:22 p.m. This article was updated with LAUSD's response to Flecha's demands.

This article was originally published at 4:10 p.m.

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THIS STORY IS PART OF HOW TO L.A., OUR ONGOING SERIES OF PRACTICAL GUIDES FOR DAY-TO-DAY LIVING IN LOS ANGELES.

UPDATED Jan. 17 --

The bail bond industry has found a way to put a hold on a California law that would have put bondsmen out of business. The law, Senate Bill 10, passed last year and was scheduled to go into effect in October 2019, and would have ended cash bail in the state.

But on January 16, a bail-bond-industry-backed ballot initiative qualified for the November 2020 ballot that would roll back SB10. And under state law, that means SB10 is on hold until voters get a chance to weigh in on the future of bail in California.

Bail has been around a long time. In fact, the concept predates the creation of the United States of America.

So why do some people say it's time it went away?

The movement to eliminate commercial bail (that's when you get a bond agent to put up the money the court requires to get out of jail) has been growing. California is at the center of a lot of that debate. Here in Los Angeles, any changes to the bail system would have a huge impact.

Consider this: Nearly 111,000 people were booked into L.A. County jails last year. Charges ranged from trespassing to murder. Some of those jailed are serving a sentence. But a lot (about 42 percent of inmates on any given night) are awaiting trial.

That's where bail can come in. Here's how it currently works in Los Angeles -- and what could come next.

THE BAIL SCENARIO

Sometimes a judge will determine that a defendant must stay in jail while the case plays out in court. In other cases the law requires a defendant to stay in jail while the case plays out.

Then there are the cases where people are released on their "own recognizance" to go back to their jobs, families and homes while dealing with their charges.

Then there's the bail scenario.

In these cases, a defendant can leave jail while the court case proceeds, if he or she puts down a chunk of cash -- a financial guarantee that the person will show up in court when called.

The defendant can either put up the cash, or, for a fraction of the full bail amount, hire a bail bond agent to do so.

Here's the catch: a lot of people simply can't afford to make bail.

On any given day last year, about 7,000 people were sitting in L.A. County jails because they couldn't afford bail.

DETERMINING THE AMOUNT

Generally, the overall bail amount is set by a judge, who follows a "bail schedule" that outlines what bail should be for people accused of various crimes.

In L.A. County, bail amounts vary widely. Here are some examples.

A defendant, relative or friend can put up the full bail amount themselves. However, they risk losing the money if the defendant doesn't show up for court.

Other times, a bail agent is hired.

Bail agents generally charge 10 percent of the bail amount as a fee, and will likely require collateral for the balance (think: house, car or bank accounts). The bail agent is then responsible for paying out the full bail amount if the client doesn't show up in court.

GETTING THE MONEY BACK

If a defendant (or that friend or relative) puts up the money, he or she can get it back after the court case ends.

If the person hires a bail agent, that 10 percent fee is nonrefundable. So, guilty or not, the price of freedom while awaiting trial can be hundreds or thousands of dollars.

BY THE NUMBERS

The average bail amount for a defendant in a felony case, nationwide: $55,000 (according to a study published earlier this year in the American Economic Review)

Defendants earned on average $7,000 the year before their arrest.

Over half of defendants nationwide could not afford bail, even when bail was set at $5,000 or less.

Between 2012-2016, bail set for people arrested in L.A. County totaled $19.4 billion (according to a UCLA study published last year).

WHY IT WORKS

Privatizing the process for getting people to show up in court potentially saves law enforcement and courts a lot of time and money, as bail bond agents and industry groups tend to point out.

Bail bond agents have a financial incentive to make sure their clients show up to their hearings. Ideally, this means fewer warrants are issued for no-shows, fewer rescheduled court dates, fewer instances where police have to expend resources to hunt down someone who's skipped out.

So commercial bail costs taxpayers nothing and provides a system for releasing people from custody while they're awaiting trial.

WHY THERE ARE PROBLEMS

A number of experts argue that bail is fundamentally unfair and doesn't do much for public safety.

The main reason: An objectively more dangerous person could be walking the streets because he has money, while a less dangerous person sits in jail because he can't afford bail.

For example, a defendant who can afford bail who's been accused of domestic violence or sexual assault can get out of jail while the case progresses through the legal system -- which could take years. Meanwhile, someone accused of burglary or indecent exposure could sit there because they don't have bail money.

To make matters worse, that UCLA study on bail in L.A. County found "the greatest sums of money bail were levied in the City Council districts with the highest rates of unemployment." On top of that, it said, "nearly four billion dollars in money bail was levied on houseless persons."

The Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA

There are other issues: a jailed defendant's children have to be either left with relatives or friends or enter the child welfare system; people who are held in jail can lose their jobs, and it can be difficult to reenter the workforce, which can set a family back financially for some time. Even a few days of incarceration can dramatically affect a person's life.

The Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA

Then, there are questions of justice.

PLEADING GUILTY

There are also indications that people who get stuck in jail because they can't afford bail might be more likely to plead guilty.

A study published in the American Economic Review earlier this year by researchers from Stanford, Princeton and Harvard found that sitting in jail while legal proceedings play out makes a person 14 percent more likely to be convicted or plead guilty, while being released while fighting a case makes a person 11 percent less likely to plead guilty.

When it comes to plea deals, being at home as opposed to jail benefits defendants "primarily through a strengthening of defendants' bargaining positions before trial," the study said.

The psychology behind that is clear, particularly for lower level cases: plead guilty and we'll ask for a sentence of "time served" so you get out now, or fight your case and sit in jail while it plays out.

SO WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

Senate Bill 10, written by Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) passed last year and was signed into law by then-Governor Jerry Brown in August. The bill required counties to use risk assessment tools to determine whether a person charged with a crime needed to be held in jail while their case played out in court. It also gave judges broad authority to hold people in jail pending trial if they were charged with violent or serious crimes. The law has its critics:

-Bail bond companies say it's dangerous, because it potentially lets violent people out of jail and costly because it takes something that private bail bondsmen were doing and makes it the government's problem.

-Criminal justice reform advocates come at the law from the opposite side, saying it doesn't go far enough. It leaves too much power with local judges to detain people. "That means we're going to see more people detained in places like Fresno and Riverside than we do in places like San Francisco and Alameda County and that's just not fair," said Natasha Minsker of the ACLU. That said, criminal justice reformers are not expected to fight on behalf of the new ballot initiative. "The ACLU is never going to support the bail industry's efforts to keep themselves in business," she said.

The political fight promises to be heated. Voters will weigh in come November 2020.

In the meantime, however, there could be side effects to this delay in deciding on who and how people should be detained while they're awaiting trial, particularly in L.A. County.

That's because L.A. is currently soul-searching when it comes to updating and upgrading its county jail system, which happens to be the largest in the country. There are two major proposals for new jail construction--a women's jail in Mira Loma and a downtown correctional facility for inmates with mental illness. To a certain extent, what happens with bail in California has a bearing on how big those jails should be.

According to L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, about half of the women in jail in L.A. are pre-trial, meaning many would not be in jail if they could afford bail. At least 7,000 people in the county are sitting in jail on any given night because they can't afford bail.

Kuehl said more assessments are needed to determine how bail reform, as written in SB 10, would impact that population--and particularly a proposed new jail for women.

"They're low level offenders and about half of them haven't been tried yet, so I assume bail reform would make a difference in those numbers," Kuehl said. "I think the women's jail will probably end up being smaller than what we imagined."

Nothing stops L.A. County from pursuing its own bail reform agenda--that is, nothing besides politics and philosophical disagreements over what's good for public safety. Having a statewide bill firmly in place would make the process quicker and easier.

Kuehl, along L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis, who co-authored a motion in 2017 to pursue bail reform in L.A., pledged to continue the fight locally, regardless of what happens statewide.

"We are continuing to work towards developing a model for bail reform that meets the unique needs of our County, and reduces incarceration of people simply because they are poor," Solis told KPCC after the ballot initiative qualified. "The status quo is untenable."

UPDATES:

Aug. 28, 2018: This article was updated with news that Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill making California first state to eliminate cash bail.

Jan. 17, 2019: This article was updated with news that a ballot initiative challenging SB 10 qualified for the 2020 ballot, as well as information about the status of L.A. County's proposed jail construction projects.

This article was originally published July 17, 2018

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The case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which has not ruled. Peterson said he retains jurisdiction to enforce his orders while the appeal is pending.

In his order, Peterson wrote that arguments by the state about the dissimilarity between the newly passed law and the limits on in-person absentee voting that Peterson barred were not persuasive.

If the court accepted defendants argument, it would mean that a legislative body could evade an injunction simply by reenacting an identical law and giving it a new number, he wrote.

On the student ID issue, Peterson wrote that the states lawyers argued that the amendments approved by the Legislature had nothing to do with the provisions that Peterson barred in 2016. Again, Peterson disagreed.

Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Institute executive director, applauded the ruling in a statement.

(Assembly Speaker) Robin Vos and the Republicans have been told by the federal court in no uncertain terms that they are not above the law, Ross said. The Republican attacks on voting rights were unconstitutional when they were passed, they were unconstitutional when the judge struck them down and they are unconstitutional now.
The government is very limited in its ability to regulate speech, and Conley was clear that in almost no instance can it regulate speech on the basis of its content. If it does, it must meet a high level of scrutiny that Vos, Nygren and Kremer were not able to meet.

Conley wrote the Republicans directly or indirectly indicated they did not approve of OWNs liberal viewpoint and that it contributed to blocking OWNs account.

For example, court documents show Kremer, who views his Twitter account as a forum for constituents, said it is not for Dane County liberals to carry on conversations with me, adding, Dane County is obviously a very liberal, socialist area, progressive area.

Vos has two Twitter accounts: one for his role as speaker and one as representative of the 63rd Assembly District, which is the account that blocked OWN on Twitter. Vos has maintained he cannot recall why he blocked OWN.

Nygren in the court filing said he blocked the OWN account for its crude comments on Wisconsin politics, although he was unable to identify any such comments.
CROOKED CREEK TOWNSHIP, Minn.  A 15-year-old New Albin, Iowa, teen was killed Thursday and two were injured in a single-vehicle crash in Houston County.

Caleb Ryan Colsch was a passenger in a car driven by a 16-year-old boy, whose name has yet to be released. The driver lost control of the 2002 Mazda Protege about 4 p.m. on Highway 26 in Crooked Creek Township, entered a ditch and hit a tree, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

The driver and another passenger, Tyler Jeffrey Wild, 16, also of New Albin, were taken to Gundersen Health System in La Crosse with non-life-threatening injuries. Both were wearing seat belts.

Colsch was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, according to the state patrol.

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La Crosse County voters will get a chance on the April 2 ballot to ask the Wisconsin Legislature to take politics out of the way legislative and congressional district boundaries.

The vote on it at Thursday evenings La Crosse County Board meeting was a slam dunk. The board put the advisory referendum on the ballot unanimously with no discussion.

The aim of the referendum, requested by the county chapter of the League of Women Voters, is to gauge support among La Crosse County voters for creating a nonpartisan method of redistricting. The referendum asks for a yes or no answer to this question: Should the Wisconsin Legislature create a nonpartisan procedure for the preparation of legislative and congressional district plans and maps?

Vernon County voters also will have a redistricting referendum on the spring ballot.

The county board previously approved a resolution opposing the partisan redrawing of political district boundaries and calling for the creation of a nonpartisan procedure for the preparation of legislative and congressional redistricting plans. Well over half the states 72 counties have passed similar resolutions.
Scratching the surface of the opioid crisis reveals that its actually a pain crisis, but a La Crosse County group has established a solid foundation to confront and control the emergency on both fronts, according to three experts who are helping the group organize its attack.

The will of the folks to make a difference is most important, said Dave Williams of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a Boston-based organization that is guiding the local group, Alliance to HEAL (Halting the Effects of Addiction Locally).

I get a sense of roll-up-sleeves and wanting to work, Williams said in an interview after he and two other IHI representatives led a daylong workshop for the alliance.

The urgency stems from statistics showing that drug-related hospital admissions to Gundersen Health System and Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Healthcare combined have risen from 1,250 in 2013 to 4,000 in 2017  the most recent date for which data are available.

About 1,000 of those cases resulted from opioids, and, although overdoses have occurred throughout the county, there are pockets where they have been more prevalent, notably the North Side and downtown.
A Washington man is facing felony charges Thursday after he was accused of defrauding a La Crosse restaurateur of just under $12,000.

Eugene Olson, 46, of Nine Mile Falls, Wash., was charged with theft by false representation and unauthorized use of an entitys identifying information in La Crosse County Circuit Court.

According to the complaint, the owner of New Taste of India in Jackson Plaza last March gave Olson $10,000 to lease a Merchant Industries point of service system for processing credit and debit cards. The restaurateur told police he had dealt with Olson for months prior to that point and, against his better judgment, acquiesced when Olson asked him to write the check directly to him, rather than Merchant Industries.

After receiving the lease for the equipment, the man found out the $10,000 was not applied to the agreement. His signature was at the bottom of the agreement; however, the man told police Olson asked him to sign the blank lease and Olson would fill it in later.

He said it was common for Gene to work this way, as he was always in a hurry, according to the complaint.
Some pastors even take the time to read the newspaper and react to my musings, usually when Im writing a column that isnt built around puns about Uranus.

Even if they didnt work outside the pulpit, pastors still would make quite a contribution. Take it from a lifelong Methodist who over the years has been blessed with thought-provoking pastors. The Rev. Blake Overlien asks parishioners to open their Bibles and turn to the page featuring that weeks verse. As the group falls silent and hundreds of pages turn at once, I like to think Im hearing the sound of the flapping of angels wings.

The Rev. Marianne Cotter has a gift for preaching with the Good Book in one hand and the newspaper in the other, showing how ancient scripture is relevant in modern times. The Sunday after Baraboo got unwanted international attention for a picture showing local students delivering an apparent Nazi salute, her thoughtful sermon asked congregants to suspend rash judgment, and to support those hurt by the photos troubling imagery as well as those who appear in it. She asked the community to take a long look in the mirror, addressing its blemishes without losing sight of its overall beauty. It was the kind of on-point message you could feel resonating in your chest. A columnist can only dream of having such impact.
The House of Representatives unanimously approved on third and final reading House Bill 8733 or the proposed Comprehensive Nuclear Regulation Act which provides for a comprehensive nuclear regulatory framework and, to this end, establishing the Philippine Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is one of the principal authors of this bill, which received 206 affirmative votes and no abstention. HB 8733 seeks to establish a legal framework that will adequately protect public health and safety, as well as the environment against the negative effects of ionizing radiation. It shall further work for the safety and security of radiation resources. A regulatory system shall be created for the formulation and adoption of regulations and guidelines on the use of ionizing radiation. It shall specify the principles, requirements, and associated criteria for safety and security, which shall be the bases of all regulations, judgments, decisions, and actions. The bill recognizes that the State shall (a) harness the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, (b) recognize the potential harmful effects of ionizing radiation; (c) protect the society and the environment, (d) establish a legal and regulatory framework for the regulation and control of the peaceful uses of nuclear resources, (e) manage radioactive waste, and (f) establish a legal and regulatory framework to prevent, detect, and respond to unauthorized activities involving nuclear materials. Any individual who will violate the provisions of this proposed Act shall be penalized with imprisonment of at most five years, and/or shall be meted a fine ranging from P1 million to P5 million. The bill also aims to establish the Philippine Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a single and independent nuclear regulatory body that shall exercise authority over all aspects of safety, security, and safeguards involving nuclear materials and other radioactive materials, facilities, and radiation generating equipment. For this purpose, the PNRC shall undertake the following functions, among others: (a) formulate and issue policies, regulations, necessary for implementing the Act; (b) issue regulations on financial capability of operators to cover liability for nuclear damage; (c) inspect, monitor, and assess activities to ensure compliance; (d) coordinate with other bodies competent in areas such as health and safety, environmental protection, security, and transportation of nuclear and related dangerous goods; and (e) act as the national authority on nuclear safety, security, and regulatory matters relative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.With this, the measure shall transfer all powers, duties, records, files, and assets pertaining to nuclear and radioactive materials as well as facilities from the existing Philippine Nuclear Research Institute to the PNRC. The regulatory powers of the PNRIs Nuclear Regulatory Division, as well as the Radiation Regulatory Divisions of the Center for Device Regulation, Radiation, Health and Research, and the Department of Health shall likewise be reassigned to the PNRC. The incumbent President shall appoint a Commissioner to head the PNRC, who shall be assisted by four Deputy Commissioners. The Commissioner shall recommend an executive director to ensure proper management and effective implementation of the PNRCs functions. He/she shall assist in carrying out executive and administrative functions, coordinate and direct the activities of the staff, as well as recommend and develop plans to achieve the Commissions objectives. The bill mandates the PNRC to charge and collect reasonable fees in the performance of its regulatory functions. These shall be deposited with the Bureau of Treasury as income of the general fund. In addition, there shall be a Nuclear Waste Management Fund to come from a portion of the payment of the electricity generated from the nuclear energy use. The Fund shall exclusively be used for the safe disposal of nuclear waste, which shall include site research, transport, and final geological disposal. An Advisory Board to be formed shall be comprised of the Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology as Chairperson, the Secretary of the Department of Health as Vice Chairperson, and the Secretaries of the Department of Energy, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of National Defense, Department of Trade and Industry, and Department of Agriculture as Members, as well as a maximum of five members from the academe or non-government organizations.
The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration will feature speaker Sheyann Webb-Christburg and honor Tony Yang at 7 p.m. today at the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center.

King hailed Webb-Christburg as the smallest freedom fighter when she participated in the Selma march at the age of 8. She joined the movement with her friends parents, despite her own parents reluctance to get involved.

Yang is the 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Community Leader Award recipient. A cultural liaison for the La Crosse School District, Yang came to La Crosse as a 14-year-old refugee.

The celebration also will feature a collaboration between musical artist Mario Street of Impact Records and the Viterbo University Concert Choir. The League of Women Voters will register people to vote.

The event is expected to bring more than 1,200 people to the center. There will be audio and video to those too far away to see the stage.

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IF YOU GO

WHAT: Debut of Viterbo Universitys New Works Festival

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 25-26 and Feb. 1-2

WHERE: Weber Center for the Performing Arts Lyche Theatre

FIRST WEEKEND: Six new 10-minute plays plus performance by improv group Square Wheels

SECOND WEEKEND: Premiere of Cora, a play by Katherine Varga, on Friday; premiere of The Lost Girl, by Arianna Rose and Ben Bonnema, on Saturday.

COST: General admission tickets are $10 or $30 for a four-day pass. Tickets can be purchased by calling 608-796-3100 or at www.viterbo.edu/tickets.
In addition to providing local access to quality health care, the 42 rural hospitals that are the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative are major drivers of Wisconsins rural economy.

If rural Wisconsin didnt have these 42 local healthcare systems, what would be the impact on our rural economy? Using a formula developed by the University of Wisconsin-Extension and the Wisconsin Hospital Association, we estimate a loss of nearly 26,000 jobs  16,000 hospital jobs and another 10,000 community jobs. The lost income would be over $3.6 billion, and that is before considering the negative economic impact on the overall vitality of our rural communities.

According to the 2012 landmark study Economic Impact of Rural Health Care by the National Center for Rural Health Works, quality rural health services in rural communities are needed to attract business and industry as well as attracting and retaining retirees. The hospital is one of the largest employers in a rural economy, typically one of the top two employers. Community members particularly appreciate the role that the hospital plays in providing a first line of defense in a medical emergency and working to assure access to care at the local level.
After 40 years of being a renowned local deli and meat locker, Ledebuhr Meats is no more.

Just a few days after Christmas, the two locations turned off their lights and closed their doors to customers, ending a legacy that was famous for its brats, beef jerky and meat. The local company, founded by Dave Ledebuhr and his father, had been sold to Chicago-based IBR Group in 2017.

Things werent going well for them, Dave Ledebuhr said on Wednesday. They were losing money, and it got to the point where they couldnt pay their bills so they closed.

In late May, a U.S. Department of Agriculture agency suspended inspections at the processing plant in Goodview for nearly a month after an inspector determined the staff violated two federal regulations when it failed to humanely slaughter a cow.

Contact information for IBR Group agent Isaac Balcazar and a company website were unavailable. Former employees were either unable to be reached or declined to comment.

Goodview meat processing plant inhumanely slaughtered a cow, federal inspectors say A U.S. Department of Agriculture agency suspended inspections at Ledebuhr Meat Processing for nearly a month after an inspector determined the Goodview meatpacker violated two federal regulations when it failed to humanely slaughter a cow.

Ledebuhr said the closure left him and his wife, Karen, with mixed feelings. The two sold the business as a way to retire and enjoy some years with each other and their grandchildren.
- Senior citizens in the Philippines want the government to increase their social pension

- Sen. Bam Aquino filed a bill to increase social pension to P1,000

- This proposed law also extends the social pension to all the senior citizens

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Some senior citizens in the Philippines do not have enough monthly pension to supply their medical needs and some do not even get pension at all. KAMI learned that senior citizens and the Coalition of Services of the Elderly Inc. want the Senate Bill 2142 to be signed into law.

According to Senate Bull 2142 filed by Sen. Bam Aquino, there will be a P1,000 increase in the monthly social pension which is currently at P500 as reported by ABS-CBN News.

Photo from Rappler

Source: Facebook

Our senior citizens have broadly contributed to the development of our nation. It is time for us to return their sacrifices by ensuring that they are cared for in their old age, Sen. Aquino said as reported by Manila Bulletin.

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As of now, around 3 million senior citizens are benefiting from the social pension. But with the proposed law, the social pension will be extended to all the senior citizens without social pension and those who receive pension not higher than P3,500.

For the senior citizens who do not need financial assistance will have a choice not to redeem it and it will be returned to the National Treasury.

In another proposed bill, Senate Bill 2138, it said that senior citizens must be 65-years-old and higher must be entitled for social pension and 60 to 64 years-old for indigenous senior citizens.

Source: Kami.com.ph
- Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV shares his plans after ending his two-year term in the Senate

- He said that he is planning to teach right after

- Trillanes also shared he is planning to teach governance and public policy

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Senator Antonio Trillanes IV shares that he is planning to teach after his two-term, 12 years serving in the Senate. KAMI learned that Sen. Trillanes believes he has many things to share to the youth.

"Plano kong magturo, said the Senator.

I'd like to believe na marami naman tayong mashi-share sa mga kabataan, maituturo sa kanila," he added.

Trillanes also shared the subject he is planning to teach as reported by ABS-CBN News.

Well, Im looking at governance and public policy, Trillanes said.

However, the senator refused to name the school where he plans to teach.

Trillanes has a degree in naval system from the Philippine Military Academy and graduated with latin honor. He took his masters degree in the University of the Philippines and studied public administration.

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As reported by GMA News, Trillanes expressed his stay in the Senate. He called it as worthwhile experience and that he learned more about internal dynamics of lawmaking.

Merong frustrating moments, meron ding rewarding moments kapag nakapasa ka ng batas na ramdam ng taumbayan but most of the time parang di sensational ang institutional reforms, Trillanes said.

Yung realization, marami pang pwedeng gawin, dito as a senator, peculiar vantage point of seeing the inner part of the government and you have access to a pool of resources to come up with solution. [Its a] very worthwhile experience, he added.

The opposition senator said that he does not see himself going back to the Senate yet, but he is leaving it up to fate.

POPULAR: Read more news about Sen. Antonio Trillanes!

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This video will measure the willingness of some Filipinos to help. Are they really basing their will to lend hand based on how people look? Find out in this experiment video! Check out our videos  on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

Source: Kami.com.ph
The House of Representatives has recommended for Senate action a bill requiring parents to plant two trees for every child born to them. House Bill 8727 or the Family Tree Planting Act of Baguio City Rep. Mark Go aims to protect and preserve the environment and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature. With a vote of 208-0 with no abstention, Go noted that the policy of the state to promote and pursue reforestation programs and encourage tree planting as part of the familys responsibility and legacy to protect the environment and conserve the natural resources of the country for the future generation. All parents, whether legally married or not, are therefore mandated to plant two trees for every child born to them. Planting of the trees shall be done within 30 days after the childs birth. The trees shall be planted within the premises of their own home or in an area to be designated by the Barangay Council where they reside, with the approval of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). Also, the planted species should be appropriate to the location, climate, and topography of the area, with preference for the planting of indigenous species and high-value crops.To ensure compliance, the city or municipal local civil registry where the birth of the child shall be registered must only release the birth certificate of the child upon the presentation of the parents sworn statement of compliance. The affidavit must be sworn to before the Punong Barangay if the trees were planted within the premises of their barangay. If the trees were planted in a government-designated area outside the barangay where the family resides, the affidavit must be sworn to before the DENR officer concerned. The provision of seedlings shall be under the care of the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) of the DENR and the Department of Agriculture (DA), in partnership with local government units throughout the country. The agencies shall maintain a seedling and will serve as a ready source of seedlings to be provided to parent or parents planting the tree. The DENR Secretary shall include in the agencys program the implementation of the measure, the funding of which shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Act. Lastly, the promulgation of the implementing rules and regulations of the measure shall be undertaken by the DENR, in consultation with the DA, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
After the break, a few counselors reported that some students were talking about the challenge, but Tapp said she didnt know if those students had received a message inviting them to do the challenge or if they had just heard about it.

Tapp said the audio message to parents was an effort to be proactive and raise awareness about the challenge.

This is such a sensitive and serious topic that we didnt want to sit on our hands, Tapp said.

The district did not share information about the challenge with students, only with parents and guardians.

If your child has a social media account, please consider age-appropriateness and possible exposure from siblings or older friends, the message said. Talk to them about the content they access, the importance of not accepting any communication or invitations from people they dont know and not sharing personal information.

The district encouraged parents to have regular conversations with their children about internet safety and to monitor whats happening on their accounts.

Try not to interrogate, but ask open-ended questions that will help you to understand what your student is thinking and feeling, the recording said.
When Andrea Beaugrand-Jorgensen was diagnosed with colon cancer in February at the age of 39, there were things she did not have, like health insurance.

Working part-time, she did not have $800/month to buy into her employers benefits package.

However, as is typical of people who are genuine and kind, she was rich in people who loved her.

Beaugrand-Jorgensens friends and family did not want to just talk about supporting her, they wanted to do something really meaningful to ease her situation.

The first effort, a GoFundMe page, was launched in late February by Malacara and has raised about $23,000 to date, helping cover medical costs and also a trip for Beaugrand-Jorgensen to take to Disney World with her daughter.

And that was just the start of it.
Corey Prince, a friend of the Shannon family and the vice president of the NAACPs local chapter, implored those who would listen to channel their anger and use it for productive purposes.

Donte died. Why?  To the young people here, we have to be about a little bit more. We have to want a little bit more, Prince said. I would like people to be motivated into action  There are a lot of ways to create change besides marching and protesting.

At one point during his speech, Prince asked for listeners  regardless of their race  to raise their fists in a showing of solidarity. Protesters took the same pose during a demonstration last January outside of the Racine County Law Enforcement Center, two days after Shannons death.

I think you all forgot about the power of this, of togetherness, Prince said, fist raised.

After the march ended at about 5 p.m., chants of Long live Donte! mixed with yells of (expletive) the police! were heard coming from vigil attendees who had returned to the Shannon home.

Throughout the march and speeches, police officers quietly stood on the sidelines. They had been called upon to control and block traffic along the five-block route so that the vigil-goers could walk and speak undisturbed. As soon as the march ended, the officers departed in their squads, with few words exchanged between members of the two groups.

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MOUNT PLEASANT  Foxconn Technology Group has created 1,032 jobs in support of its project in Mount Pleasant but will not be filing for tax credits for 2018, the company announced Friday.

Foxconn has created 1,032 jobs in support of the project and 178 of those jobs met the requirement for the 2018 round of investment tax credits/co-investment from the state, the company wrote to Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. For that reason, we will not seek the first round of co-investment from the state.

The company had to create at least 260 eligible jobs in order to file for the jobs tax credit for 2018. Because the incentives contract with the state did not contain any capital investment tax credit incentives for last year, Foxconn is ineligible for tax credits this year.

To protect state taxpayers, WEDCs contract with Foxconn clearly states tax credits will only be awarded when Foxconn meets its annual job creation and capital investment requirements, WEDC Secretary Mark Hogan said in a statement. Since that did not occur in 2018, the company will not receive any credits this year.

The Taiwanese company this week issued a letter to WEDC summarizing highlights of the companys accomplishments in Wisconsin during 2018. Foxconn released the following statement:
Just as the road leading up to Carey Dean Moores death by lethal injection was obscured by a lack of transparency, so too were the moments before a coroner pronounced him dead.

Nebraskas first execution in more than two decades appears to have gone off without a hitch. The problem is how much Nebraskans have had to rely on the states version of events because openness was in too short of supply.

To guarantee transparency in the future, Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks has introduced a bill that would require two members of the Legislature to witness executions from the moment a condemned prisoner enters the execution chamber until the inmate is pronounced dead  and that nothing would block the view of the senators, media representatives and other witnesses.

Anything to increase transparency and accountability in how the state administers its most severe punishment would be greatly welcomed, given the cloud that still hangs over its most recent use.
We also know that since he was elected, Trump has done little or nothing to stop Putin from continuing to try to undermine our democracy. To the contrary, Trump has obstructed inquiries into Russian meddling.

The overall pattern is clear to anyone who cares to see it. Trump's entire presidency to date has sacrificed the means of democracy to the end of his personal power.

He has lied about the results of votes and established a commission to investigate bogus claims of fraudulent voting. He has attacked judges who have ruled against him with the goal of stirring up the public against them.

He has encouraged followers to believe that his opponent in the 2016 election should be imprisoned. He has condemned as "enemies of the people" journalists who report unfavorably about him, in an effort to fuel public resentment -- perhaps even violence -- against them.

To argue, as some Trump apologists do, that whatever Trump does is justified because voters put Trump in power is to claim that voters can decide to elect a dictator.

They cannot. Even if a majority of Americans attempted such thing (and remember, Trump received 3 million fewer votes than his opponent in 2016), the Constitution prohibits it.
He was sentenced to 100 to 140 years in prison.

While the case was on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court last summer decided Carpenter v. U.S., finding that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the record of physical movements captured by cellphone towers.

The state conceded that getting the information without a warrant supported by probable cause had violated Brown's right to be free from illegal search and seizure, given the ruling.

But, the Nebraska Supreme Court determined that Brown's conviction should stand because police had been reasonable in relying on a statute, later found to be unconstitutional, to obtain the information.

Papik said: "By obtaining the CSLI (cell site location information) in this case under the Stored Communications Act and without the benefit of the U.S. Supreme Courts not-yet-issued decision in Carpenter, officers were merely following the statute as written. That is not the type of police activity the exclusionary rule seeks to deter."

The officers, in other words, were acting in good faith, as the state had argued.

It was one of a number of issues Brown's attorney raised and the state Supreme Court rejected on appeal.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSpilger.

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WASHINGTON  The Democratic chairmen of two House committees pledged Friday to investigate a report that President Donald Trump directed his personal attorney to lie to Congress about negotiations over a real estate project in Moscow during the 2016 election.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said "we will do what's necessary to find out if it's true." He said the allegation that Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie in his 2017 testimony to Congress "in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date."

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, said directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime.

"The @HouseJudiciary Committee's job is to get to the bottom of it, and we will do that work," Nadler tweeted.

The report by BuzzFeed News, citing two unnamed law enforcement officials, says that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress and that Cohen regularly briefed Trump and his family on the Moscow project  even as Trump said he had no business dealings with Russia.

The Associated Press has not independently confirmed the BuzzFeed report.
The Department of Energy and Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday jointly allowed Panay Electric Co. to continue serving the electricity requirements of Iloilo City after its franchise expired. Given the crucial role of regional economies in the overall economic progress of the country, uninterrupted energy services in Iloilo is of utmost importance. We are reassuring our kababayans in Iloilo City, La Paz, Jaro, and Arevalo that there will be no power disruptions. In the interim, Peco will remain the power service provider in the area, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said. We are in close coordination with all concerned stakeholders to ensure that Iloilo will not be left in the dark. The entire energy family remains committed to seeking innovative solutions that would make energy services more reliable and sustainable throughout the country, the energy chief said. Energy Assistant Secretary Redentor Delola said the DoE met with Peco, its suppliers, National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines and the ERC to discuss the power situation in Iloilo City. DoE would like to assure kababayans in Iloilo that there would be no power disruption and Peco remains to be the power service providers. Their (operations) will continue even after the expiration of their franchise, Delola said. Pecos franchise expired Friday. Both houses of Congress granted the franchise to More Electric Power Corp., owned by businessman Enrique Razon Jr. Delola said Peco agreed to continue its service and affirmed its commitment to honor its obligations to suppliers, NGCP and the Iloilo consumers.Were awaiting the approval of the franchise for the service area of Peco. The DOoE would like to call on the cooperation of all the concerned power players, he said. Delola said the certificate of public convenience and necessity of Peco was valid until May 25, which served as the legal basis of ERC and DOE in allowing the distributor to continue operating in Iloilo. We consider this as an extraordinary situation, so the ERC must ensure the continuous provision of electricity within Pecos franchise area ERC chairperson Agnes Devanadera said. The ERB issued the franchise to PECO on May 31, 1996, or effective until May 25, 2019. Pecos certificate of public convenience and necessity was anchored on the franchise granted by the National Electrification Administrations National Electrification Commission to Peco which expired Friday. Since there is no entity yet granted a franchise by the Congress, the extraordinary situation calls for the ERC to honor the CPCN issued to Peco with an expiration date of May 25, 2019. ERC cannot allow the consumers to suffer the consequences of a power outage, so we are directing Peco to continue with its electric distribution service for the protection of the electricity consumers in Iloilo City, ERC chair Devanadera said.
Students will enter off the bike path on the west side of the building. It will have four classrooms and three 1,100-square-foot science labs.

That's bigger than those in the high schools and nearly as big as the 1,400 square-foot portables, Wieskamp said.

Some of the space in the building will be shared by the zoo  and the zoo is sharing the cost of those areas. They include a large multi-purpose room, a lobby area with a kitchenette or vending area and bathrooms.

The bathrooms in the shared area have a door to separate them into two areas during the day: one for use by students, the other for zoo patrons. Once school is over that door can be unlocked and the whole space used by zoo patrons.

The larger building will accommodate 50 to 75 more students, and theres space for some four-legged folks. The zoos red pandas will share an inside enclosure with students, which will lead to a new space for them outside. A reception area for the zoo will also take up a portion of the building on the first floor.

Like other LPS schools, the new building will have a secured entrance and a geothermal heat pump system.
This is a story of simple math  multiplication, so to speak.

A Lincoln family took in two cats  a male and a female  and about two years later, its feline brood had ballooned to 84.

"It happened quickly," said Matt Madcharo, the director of fundraising for the Capital Humane Society, which took possession of the entire lot last weekend. "They just kept multiplying."

Several kitty carloads were made on Saturday and a few more on Sunday. The bounty has created a community buzz that's been enhanced by a Twitter hashtag  #Project84.

Through social media platforms, more than one-third of the cats had been adopted by Thursday afternoon, and donations to the Capital Humane Society for supplies, food and medical costs had soared, Madcharo said.

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"The people of this community really showed that they care," said Mary Ann Gabel, who made a visit to the Pieloch Pet Adoption Center at 70th Street and Nebraska 2 on Thursday.

The traffic was brisk on the the first day of the #Project84 promotion  the adoption fee for any of the cats from this lot is $35  which runs through Sunday.

Gabel took advantage of the promotion on Thursday by adopting a year-old orange tabby.
A 58-year-old Lincoln man sentenced to 38 years in federal prison Monday for making child pornography worked for Lincoln Public Schools years before he was arrested in 2017.

Randall A. Hughes worked as a bus driver and transportation para-educator from 2000 to 2007, and as a transportation para-educator during the 2009-10 school year, according to LPS officials.

He had little-to-no criminal history before his arrest in 2017, according to a federal court classification.

LPS officials said Hughes resigned in 2007, and again in 2010 after returning to work with the district, and there is no record of any complaints or issues regarding interactions with students.

Hughes was arrested after investigators with the Department of Homeland Security and the Lancaster County Sheriffs Office went to his Arnold Heights home Dec. 13, 2017, to serve a search warrant. Hughes barricaded himself inside with a gun for four hours before surrendering.

An investigation tied his computers to online videos discovered by investigators in New Zealand. Prosecutors said investigators found three videos with sexually explicit conduct between Hughes and his underage victims.

He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to two counts of production of child pornography.

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A 35-year-old man who committed a string of crimes while on parole  including shooting at his cousin in Lincoln after taking her car  got more prison time Wednesday.

Brian Gouge pleaded no contest to unlawful discharge of a firearm for what happened overnight April 22.

Just before 10:30 that night, Gouge fired three shots in the area of 23rd and Dudley streets after getting into an argument over money, then three more shots shortly after midnight near 52nd and Randolph.

At about 12:20 a.m., just west of the Capitol, Gouge fired three more shots, this time in the direction of his cousin and her mother after they tried to get back the car he'd stolen from her.

The U.S. Marshals Service and the fugitive task force for northern Iowa arrested him in Sioux City, Iowa, on several warrants, including the shootings.

On Wednesday, Lancaster County District Judge Darla Ideus sentenced Gouge to 23 years and three months to 36 years and nine months on three felonies and five misdemeanors, among them theft, assault, unauthorized use of a vehicle and possession of methamphetamine.

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The diocese did confirm sexual-abuse allegations against retired priest James Benton by two men who say he tried to molest them decades ago, when they were minors. It restricted Benton from exercising public ministry and prohibited him from being alone with minors.

It also acknowledged allegations of sexual behavior with seminarians by the late Monsignor Leonard Kalin during his time at the Newman Center on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus.

In late August, the state attorney generals office asked Nebraskas three bishops to provide internal investigative records of abuse allegations since 1978, and the Archdiocese of Omaha in late November named nearly 40 clergy members with substantiated claims leveled against them.

At the time, Conley said the Lincoln Diocese was cooperating with investigators but wasnt yet ready to identify any priests or personnel accused of sexual abuse and misconduct with minors. The bishop was also waiting for an independent task force to finish its own review of past abuse and misconduct allegations and how the diocese handled them, he said.

It would be premature to publish any information regarding clergy and diocesan personnel while the independent task force is in the midst of its review, he said then.

The Lincoln Police Department is still working with the diocese to investigate past and present criminal behavior by diocese staff, Sands said in the statement, and urged anyone with information to call investigators at 402-441-6000.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7254 or psalter@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSPeterSalter.

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The committee forwarded a proposal for six hours of debate for the first round, three hours for second and 90 minutes for final. That's the practice Speaker Jim Scheer has been following for two years, to initially allow about three hours of debate on controversial bills and then allow three more if a senator can show he or she has the support to force a vote.

Lincoln Sen. Matt Hansen said his concern was that a debate on that rule could prompt discussion on whether to lessen the 33 votes now needed to force a vote.

Committee member Sen. Steve Erdman voted against forwarding the proposal, saying it was a nonissue, up to the speaker, and didn't need to be written into the rules.

Other changes that got votes to advance: One to provide the Planning Committee with one committee priority designation, proposed by Sen. Tony Vargas, and one to require that any unanimous consent motion to kill a bill, for example, could only be made by the bill's introducer.

One of the proposals, by Sen. Tom Briese of Albion, that wasn't moved forward was to require any motion, amendments or move to suspend the rules during debate be demanded by five or more members  not just one senator as is now the case.

He said he is considering bringing up the proposal on Tuesday.
If nothing else, Table Manners: Art and Food is, during and after it is seen at the Sheldon Museum of Art, likely to make you hungry. Its also almost certain to raise thoughts about food and its use in art, and, more importantly, how art looks at food and its place in culture.

Theres a lot of food represented in Sheldons collection, said Carrie Morgan, curator of academic programs. Were exploring that, particularly through a social and cultural lens.

To do so, the six gallery spaces on the south side of the museums second floor have been divided by theme or subject matter.

The show, appropriately, opens with Still Life, the classic appearance of food in art, with works dating back to 1872 and gems like Walt Kuhns 1938 painting Apples in Wooden Boat. But the gallery also contains Hans Hofmanns angular, modernist 1950 painting Fruit Bowl and a tiny 1982 Andy Warhol polacolor photo of Lobsters.
Two years ago, Jan. 13, 2017, Eric Church walked onto a stage at Pinnacle Bank Arena and kicked off his Holdin My Own tour with a nearly three-hour show that fully connected with the crowd of 14,700.

Ive dreamed my whole life about a tour where we could come out and play for however long were going to play and everyone knew every song, the country star said then. For that, I thank you, Lincoln.

Friday night, Church, who loves playing in Nebraska, will be 60 miles up Interstate 80 to repeat the same process, kicking off his Double Down tour at CHI Health Center Omaha.

The biggest difference between the two shows wont be the setlist or the production, which is never repeated from tour to tour and will be brand spanking new Friday.

Its the fact that Church is doing two shows at each of his stops, hence the tours name.

So hell will be playing another unique show at the Omaha arena on Saturday.

Exactly what that either show will contain is impossible to say -- theres no previous setlist for any kind of guidance.
DETROIT  General Motors volume brands, Buick and Chevrolet, will offer U.S. consumers more all-electric vehicles in the future even as GM declares its luxury brand, Cadillac, as its EV leader.

We were the first to bring a long-range EV to market with the Chevy Bolt EV, said Steve Majoros, Chevrolets marketing director for cars and crossovers. Cadillac will be the first brand to use GMs new EV platform, but they wont be the only one to use it.

GM believes that within the next decade, electrification will play a larger role in transportation, said Cadillac President Steve Carlisle.

Majoros said Chevrolet will continue to be a part of GMs electrification strategy, even as GM plans to kill the Volt, an electric car thats backed up by a gasoline generator, later this year.

Likewise, Buick plans to leverage a series of upcoming vehicle launches in China over the next few years to add EVs to its U.S. lineup, said Phil Brook, Buick and GMCs vice president of marketing.

Majoros, Brook and Carlisle spoke to the Free Press on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show.

Competitive innovation
China Energy Engineering Corp. on Friday said it plans to spend $4.4 billion to build 50,000 common cellular towers nationwide. We have no problem in building these 50,000 towers, we will deploy it based on the demand of the telcos, Huang Fei, vice president of CEEC, said. In China, we have experience in construction and maintaining 100,000 towers, he added. The Department of Information and Communications Technology earlier signed separate memorandum of understandings with SOC Infrastructures Inc. and Singapores ISON ECP Tower Pte. Ltd., Nigerias IHS Towers and Malaysias Edotco Group for the construction of cellular towers nationwide. The DICT will support the five companies in facilitating permits, right of way, and provide other government support for infrastructure once they secure a contract with any of the telco operators.The development came at the heels of the DICT opting for a market-driven approach in accelerating the build-up of more cell sites. Acting DICT Secretary Eliseo Rio said the Philippines, with less than 20,000 towers, has the smallest number of towers considering its land area and population compared with other countries in the neighboring region. The agency said the maximum rollout of one tower company is 25,000 for a seven-year period. Each tower company is projected to invest $2 billion. The DICT said the Philippines needs at least around 50,000 cellular towers to be able to have the proper coverage and provide adequate service to the Filipino consumers.
MATTOON -- Pvt. Orville Harrison Jr., 19, of Mattoon was killed in action during World War II's Battle of the Bulge just months after marrying his sweetheart back home.

A new display at the Mattoon Public Library features artifacts that help tell this young soldier's story, as well as many items from other wars, ranging from the Civil War to Vietnam.

Local historian Carolyn Cloyd said the idea for the display originated with siblings Candy Woodyard and Chris White going through the possessions of their mother, Norma Lucille (McFarland) White of Mattoon, after she died on Sept. 16, 2017, at age 91.

Cloyd said they found several items that their mother had kept regarding her first husband, Orville Harrison Jr. She said Norma's children decided to give these artifacts to the Mattoon Veterans of Foreign Wars for safekeeping.

"They felt like it was very important for people in Mattoon to have the opportunity to see this young man's possessions," Cloyd said. The VFW, in turn, wanted the artifacts to be publicly displayed, a goal that led the post to Cloyd and the library. Cloyd and fellow volunteers Gail Bahney and Gail Casey assembled the display.

Orville and Norma had not been dating for long when he was was drafted in September 1944, Cloyd said. The young couple got married soon afterward. The purchase booklet for their engagement ring is on display at the library.

"(Norma) had to make those final payments on her own engagement ring after he was killed," Cloyd said.

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Cloyd said Norma was saving money to go see Orville in New York before he shipped out with his U.S. Army unit to Western Europe. Cloyd said the young woman's money was stolen and she was unable to make the trip.

"She never saw him again," Cloyd said.

Orville was killed on Jan. 3, 1945, in the Battle of the Bulge while serving with the 325 Infantry Glider Regiment, 82nd Airborne. The display at the library includes the U.S. flag that Norma received in memory of Orville, a flag that is still held by its original wrappings.

Cloyd noted that Orvilles family had him returned to Coles County and that he is buried alongside his parents at Mound Cemetery in Charleston. She said Orville's parents placed a memorial ad in the newspaper every year on the anniversary of his death until they died in the 1960s.

Orville's family also placed a Nov. 20, 1945, advertisement on what would have been his 20th birthday, saying, "Some folks think we are happy and gay; But you wanted us to be that way. What they don't know, is while they sleep, We like awake and silently weep."

The display at the library also includes letters that were written to Norma by two soldiers who had served with her husband -- Pvt. Virgil Blank and Sgt. Andrew Ott.

"I cant tell you how sorry I am, and how it hurt me to hear of Orville's death. We were more than just friends, we were buddies," Blank wrote. He added, "I am leaving the hospital (in England) in a few days, Ill do my best to even the score for him. I owe them some for putting me out of action this long. I was hit will up in Belgium, but I suppose I was just one of the lucky ones."

Ott wrote that, "You have my sympathy, Mrs. Harrison, for we both know Harry was a great guy and a very good soldier, Im sure he carried on the best he knew how. My only regret is that I wasnt in there pitching beside him. Things like this (are) tough to take I know, but it's for a just cause."

Cloyd said the display at the library also has been filled out with items regarding local service members who served in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam; as well as with artifacts such as bullets from the Civil War.

Contact Rob Stroud at (217) 238-6861. Follow him on Twitter: @RobStroud

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MATTOON -- A man is jailed after police say he abducted a woman in Mattoon, beat her and sexually assaulted her at knifepoint.

Charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated restraint were filed Friday against Richard L. Coffey, 34, of Mattoon, for whom court records show an address of an apartment at 1405 Lafayette Ave., Mattoon. These charges followed Coffey being arrested Thursday night by Mattoon police officers.

A press release from the Mattoon Police Department reported that Coffey is suspected of picking up the woman in his car Wednesday evening in Mattoon and holding her against her will. He then allegedly bound her with duct tape, beat her and sexually assaulted her while holding her at knifepoint, the release said.

The release also said the woman, who is in her 20s, was taken to Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center and kept overnight before being discharged. She's expected to recover, the release said.

Mattoon police Chief Jason Taylor said investigators found that Coffey, who moved to Mattoon about three months ago from Chicago, had met the victim about a couple days beforehand when he provided her with what was purported to be methamphetamine.

Taylor said the woman was reportedly unsatisfied with the quality of the drug and called Coffey to complain. Taylor said Coffey reportedly used his vehicle to pick up the woman to take her to the meth dealer Wednesday evening.

Coffey allegedly drove the woman to a different location in Mattoon, hit her in the face several times, held her by her hair, bound her hands and covered her mouth with duct tape, held a knife to her, and sexually assaulted her in the vehicle.

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Taylor said the woman was then dropped off "on the street like a piece of trash" near the 2300 block of Charleston Avenue. According the arrest affidavit, the woman sought help from a residence in this neighborhood and police were called to the scene.

According to the affidavit, the victim "was observed to have bruising and lacerations on her face. Duct tape was located around her wrists and neck area." A detective found the victim's "eyes almost swollen shut and a large amount of blood coming from her face." Police found found Coffey late Thursday morning driving a vehicle that matched what the victim described.

"He admitted to the beating, binding and the physical relations, but tried to claim it was consent. One look at the photo of that poor girl showed everything anyone would need to know," Taylor said, adding that Coffey has served prison time on four previous occasions. "I don't understand why he was walking free in society."

Coffey is jailed with his bond set at a level requiring $20,000 to be posted for release. The bond was set during a hearing Friday, when Coles County Associate Judge Brian Bower reviewed a police affidavit and ruled that Coffey should remain in custody. The judge also appointed county Public Defender Anthony Ortega to represent Coffey and set his next hearing for Thursday.

The sexual assault charge against Coffey accuses him of "displaying a dangerous weapon," a knife, during the attack on the woman. A conviction would require a prison sentence of 16 to 40 years; 10 years is added to the usual sentencing range for the offense because of the allegation of a weapon used.

The unlawful restraint charge accused Coffey of preventing the woman from leaving the vehicle and can bring a one- to six-year prison sentence with a conviction.

Photos: 2019 mug shots from the JG-TC

Contact Dave Fopay at (217) 238-6858. Follow him on Twitter: @FopayDave

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During his trip across the Middle East, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the conference would focus on stability, peace, security, and freedom in the Middle East, and it would include an important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence. While the State Department said that the meeting would address a range of critical issues including terrorism and extremism, missile development and proliferation and threats posed by proxy groups across the region.

Iran was furious, seeing this as an anti-Iranian circus and a hostile American measure against Iran that would be held just two days after the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The Iranian foreign ministry responded on Sunday by summoning the Polish charge daffaires in Tehran for an official rebuke, which only highlights the tense and fragile relationship between Iran and Europe.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned that this conference would only cause Iran to become stronger than ever, while many Iranian officials condemned Poland what Iran sees as treason.

Of course, Irans state-run media piled on, claiming that Poland and the rest of Europe were harbouring our enemies, by giving refuge to the democratic Iranian opposition.

They also complained that Europe was clearly turning its back on Iran because it was not working fast enough to produce the Special Purposes Vehicle (SPV) to evade US sanctions on Irans oil or because Europe has issued sanctions against Iran and expelled diplomats for plotting terrorist activity there.

It is interesting to note that the Iranian Regime portrays itself as strong and powerful, unable to be shaken by anyone, yet they are so terrified of a peace summit. It would be like France being petrified of talks about peace in Europe or the US lashing out over a peace conference in North America. How can Iran be so secure in their rule and terrified of a conference?

Simply, they cant. The real truth is that Iran knows its Regime is hanging by a thread and that any increased pressure  foreign or domestic  could bring the whole dictatorship crashing down. That is why every country on earth should support the Iranian people and their organised resistance in their efforts to bring down the Regime which stands between us and peace in the Middle East.
The manuscript states, On the basis of conclusions gleaned from the countrys defeat in the Iran-Iraq war, the regime began digging tunnels and building underground facilities for sensitive security and military initiatives.

It was decided that all the regimes sensitive military sites, nuclear-related facilities, and missile-related facilities should be relocated to underground sites or to sites built inside mountains, it continues, and adds, Some of the most senior IRGC commanders have pursued this project since the Iran-Iraq ceasefire in 1988.

NCRI provided the exact names and details of the main companies involved in building tunnels and secret military facilities, including Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters  who is described by as the primary oversight body for all IRGC and other military engineering units. The revelation adds that Pars Banay-e Sabz Construction and Industrial Company and Parsian Technology Company are also involved in the building of the tunnels, missile launch pads, ammunition bunkers, and military structures.

National Council of Resistance of Iran Foreign Affairs Committee member Hossein Abedini, warned, When we are dealing with this terrorist fanatic regime in Iran, there is a package of concerns. And unfortunately in the so-called nuclear agreement, they only dealt with nuclear. They coupled it with human rights and terrorism and the other threats of the regime.

He was referring to the The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal, signed by P5+1, a group of UN Security Council nations comprised of the UK, China, France, Russia, the United States, and Iran.

Under the nuclear deal, Tehran promised to significantly scale back its nuclear enrichment and halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Irans nuclear program, claims that Irans nuclear program is only meant to create fuel.

On Sunday, however, he said that Iranian scientists are on the threshold of producing 20 percent uranium fuel. This is distinct from the previous 20 percent fuel produced, and we can provide fuel to any reactor similar to the Tehran reactor.

Regarding the nuclear deal, and the appeasement policy used to negotiate and implement it, Mr. Abedini said, The policy has only emboldened the regime and its aggressive foreign policy of using terrorism, hostage-taking and kidnapping as a main tool for its diplomacy.

Mr. Abedini was himself a victim of terrorism. In mid-afternoon on March 14, 1990, on his way to the Istanbul airport,, a car suddenly blocked our path. A few seconds later another car pinned him and his driver in from behind. Two strange men jumped out with automatic weapons. I made a decision in a split second. I opened the car door and rushed at them carrying only a small briefcase. One of the men fired nine bullets; the other mans gun jammed. I was gravely wounded. The assailants fled. My four-month struggle for survival had just started.

Because he is pro-regime-change, Mr. Abedini believes he was targeted for his political opposition.
While the US and many of its allies regard this as a broad proscription, Iranian officials have carried out numerous ballistic missile launches since the resolution was adopted, arguing that its language does not obligate Iran to comply, and that the weapons are not extremely designed for the purpose of delivering a nuclear payload. This dispute provided a substantial part of President Trumps justification for withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal last May, and it has contributed to an escalating war of words between the two countries.

That escalation continued up until the scheduled launch, with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatening additional sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Tehran refused to back down, although when the launch of Simorgh rocket was carried out, it failed to achieve its stated purpose of putting a domestically-made communications satellite into orbit. The launch involved three stages, the first two of which were successful before problems emerged as the Payam satellite was being pushed beyond the Earths atmosphere.

Iranian state media nevertheless portrayed the launch as a success  a decision that could arguably reinforce the Trump administrations position that the rockets are considered more important than the satellites and are actually being tested in the interest of further development of the Iranian regimes long-range ballistic missile program. In theory, a rocket that is capable of placing an object in orbit is also capable of striking targets almost anywhere in the world, including in the United States.

Perhaps equally alarming as the fact that Iran carried out the launch is the revelation that Western intelligence had not discerned all of the relevant details ahead of time. According to the Associated Press, the failure of the rockets third stage came as a surprise to all parties involved, because experts outside of the Islamic Republic did not even know that the Simorgh had been equipped with a third stage. While its failure will no doubt underscore the persistent limitations in Irans missile development, it still appears as if some advancements in that development have taken place under the noses of foreign adversaries who are trying to monitor the issue closely.

Continuing the effort to forestall more of the same, Pompeo issued a statement soon after the launch was conducted, reiterating the administrations position that this was done in defiance of the international community and UNSCR 2231. He then added that the launch yet again shows that Iran is pursuing enhanced missile capabilities that threaten Europe and the Middle East.

The day before the launch, NPR ran a story detailing the controversy and examining the Trump administrations concerns. And while that story raised some doubts about the practicality of the known space-launch components as serious long-range weapons, it also acknowledged two essential facts: that the space program and the Simorgh rocket engine do indeed have links to the Iranian military, and that the relevant rockets were originally designed as missiles.

Additionally, the NPR piece said that it is not necessarily the case that satellite launches could provide stepping stones in the direction of more advanced missile development. But it did not discount the possibility of a link between the two programs. Rather, the report pointed out that other nations that have developed intercontinental ballistic missiles, like North Korea, have done so using newer rockets than those used for their space program. Iran need not follow the same pattern, but even if it did, the re-purposing of the older Simorgh rocket for a satellite launch may suggest underlying upgrades in the rockets used for military testing.

These observations help to highlight concerns that are shared among numerous countries in the West and in the Middle East. Accordingly, the government of France joined Pompeo in condemning the launch on Tuesday. The Iranian ballistic program is a source of concern for the international community and France, said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Agnes von der Muhll in what Reuters described as the latest in a string of French comments expressing irritation at Irans ongoing ballistic missile program.

Von der Muhll specifically called upon the Iranians to forego the second of its planned satellite launches, but on Wednesday, President Hassan Rouhani once again reiterated his regimes disregard for warnings from both the US and Europe. According to Rouhani, the next launch will be ready in a few months time, although this represents an apparent delay in the regimes original plans. That fact, along with the failure of the Simorghs third stage, may help to assuage some portion of Western observers concerns.

Yet those same observers are certain to continue pressuring the Islamic Republic over the issue, and the nature of that pressure may be explored in more detail next month. The US State Department announced last week that it would be hosting an international summit in Warsaw on February 13th and 14th, focusing on Middle Eastern affairs and more specifically on Iran. Pompeo expressed confidence that the summit would be attended by a long list of nations, representing, Europe, the Middle East, and much of the rest of the world. Their participation, he added, would contribute to the development of a broader coalition with the collective goal of containing Irans malign behaviors.

While missile testing is certainly counted among these activities by the regimes adversaries, it is unlikely to be the highest priority topic of discussion. International cooperation on that subject may require advance agreement on other matters related to the 2015 nuclear deal, which the European Union and its member states have been actively defending even after the US withdrawal.

Fortunately for American efforts to develop a more tight-knit coalition, European commitment to that defense has seemingly been challenged by the proliferation of Iranian rhetoric and threatening actions against the West. These include recently-revealed terror plots and instances of spying, arrests of Western nationals inside the Islamic Republic, and open defiance of the international community. Ballistic missile tests are a prime example of the latter phenomenon, but Iranian officials have also warned of their willingness to take defiant steps in other areas, even by cancelling the nuclear deal in response to perceived slights from the West.

In one of the latest examples of this, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said on Sunday that the country had already begun to take steps toward designing a nuclear enrichment program that would produce uranium of 20 percent purity, up from the only 3.67 percent that has been permitted since the implementation of the nuclear deal.

If Iranian officials continue to pursue these plans, it may effectively bring an end to European efforts to preserve the agreement, thereby removing a key incentive for European policymakers to oppose US sanctions and avoid adopting the White Houses assertive strategy for dealing with other matters, including Iranian missile tests.
Over the past few months, the Iranian regime has been struggling to deal with the renewed sanctions and isolation led by the US under Donald Trump, which is part of a maximum pressure campaign to cajole Iran into acting like a normal country.

Even Iran admits that the US sanctions are hitting them hard, although it still refuses to come back to the table for a new deal.

This new policy on Iran, which was laid out in the 2017 National Security Strategy, has made the mullahs in Iran miserable. Its tanked their economy, exposed their cheating on the 2015 nuclear deal, and set a clear objective of dealing with the Iranian Regimes malign behaviour on all fronts.

And every single move from Washington only ramps up the pressure on Tehran, especially over things like human rights abuses and regional meddling.

The Regime has responded with anger and resentment, with Iranian Foreign Mohammad Javad Zarif even going after Poland for agreeing to host a conference on peace in the Middle East in February. The Regime continues to arm known terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq, plot terrorist attacks in Europe and the US, and hold Western citizens hostage. Irans nuclear chief has even announced plans to increase uranium enrichment to 20%, something banned under the nuclear deal that it is still a party to.

James Jay Carafano, vice president of foreign and defence policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, wrote: Meanwhile, we can expect Iran to keep probing for weakness and advantage  without provoking the kind of escalation confrontation with the West that would put Iran in a real bind. And so the Iranians will press the Europeans, make trouble in their region, name-call  and wait and see. Yet while pursuing these foreign initiatives, the Iranian government must also somehow weather domestic opposition, a weak economy and an inevitable change in leadership after Iranian Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei, 79, goes to the great beyond.

At the same time as the increased international pressure, anti-regime protests are growing by the day inside Iran, led by the organised, democratic Iranian Resistance. These are the people who have in their hands the power to change Iran for the better, so the US and the rest of the world should support the Iranian people and their Resistance, who must ultimately be the ones deciding the fate of the nation.
The Karnataka Congress on Monday, 21 January, suspended its legislator JN Ganesh, who has been accused of assaulting fellow MLA Anand Singh.

Ganesh was also slapped with a case of attempt to murder for allegedly hitting Singh during an alleged brawl at the Eagleton Resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru on Saturday, 19 January. The resort is where Congress lawmakers are cooped up amid allegations of poaching by the BJP.

The case was registered on a complaint by Singh, who has been hospitalised for an injury he suffered in the alleged brawl.

However, the party maintained that Anand Singh was injured after he suffered a fall and there was no fighting between its lawmakers as alleged by the BJP.

FIR filed against Congress MLA JN Ganesh for attacking a fellow Congressman



Accused MLA Ganesh denied reports of brawl with colleague lawmaker Anand Singh, who was hospitalised after he was allegedly injured in his head



The Congress on 20 January, also issued notices to its four legislators who skipped a crucial legislature party meeting amid the BJPs alleged poaching attempt



Two Independent MLAs  R Shankar and H Nagesh  had withdrawn their support to the JD(S)-Congress coalition



(Photo: The Quint)

MLA Injured After He Suffered a Fall, No Fighting: Congress

The Congress on Monday said its Karnataka MLA Anand Singh was injured after he suffered a fall and there was no fighting between its lawmakers "as alleged by the BJP.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi played down the alleged incident involving Anand Singh and Ganesh and accused the BJP of spreading such news about fighting between MLAs of the ruling party.

The party appeared to be in a damage control mode after the row involving Ganesh who was slapped with a case of attempt to murder for allegedly hitting Anand Singh during a brawl.

"There is no fighting. I think the BJP stands exposed. The official version which we have heard it, somebody suffered a fall [sic]," Singhvi told reporters.

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Asked about the alleged violence that took place, he said, "This is your version, I don't know about it."

(PTI)

JN Ganesh Suspended From Party Pending Investigation

Congress MLA JN Ganesh has been suspended from the party by VY Ghorpade, General Secretary KPCC, on the directions of Dinesh Gundu Rao, the President of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee. A Special Committee has been constituted by Congress party under Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka G Parameshwara with State Ministers Krishna Byre Gowda and KJ George as members to investigate the clash issue between party members, reported ANI.

FIR Filed Against Congress MLA for Attacking Fellow Congressman

An FIR has been filed against Congress MLA JN Ganesh by Congress MLA Anand Singh on Monday. The FIR was lodged with the Ramanagara police under section 323 (Assault), 324 (Voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons), 307 (Attempt to murder) and 506 (Criminal intimidation). Anand Singh was allegedly attacked by Ganesh during a brawl at Eagleton Resort.

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Cong MLA Anand Singh Being Treated After Alleged Brawl

Congress MLA Anand Singh is being treated at Apollo Hospital after reports of alleged brawl with Congress MLAs JN Ganesh and Bheema Naik, reported ANI.

All MLAs Will Leave Resort Soon: Senior Cong Leaders

Former Karnataka Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy on Monday, 21 January, said that Congress MLAs, who have been holed up at the Eagleton resort to thwart alleged poaching attempts by the BJP, will leave soon.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Dinesh Gundu Rao also said, All the MLAs are going back to their constituencies. We had come here to fight the attempt by BJP to destabilize this government. We are very confident that our government is safe, secure and strong.

'It is All a Lie': Cong MLA On Reports of Brawl

Reacting to reports of an alleged brawl with MLA Anand Singh, Congress legislator JN Ganesh said, "I did not hurt him. It is all a lie. If he's hurt, I along with my family will go and apologise to him.

Siddaramaiah Calls Another CLP Meeting at 11 am Today

Former CM and Congress leader Siddaramaiah has called another CLP meeting at 11 am in Bengaluru on Monday, 21 January. All MLAs have been directed to attend the meeting.

Anand Singh's Wife Threatens Legal Action Against MLA JN Ganesh

The wife of Karnataka Congress MLA Anand Singh on Sunday, 20 January threatened to take legal action against the errant MLA.

Ganesh is among the disgruntled Congress MLAs who was reportedly in touch with other dissidents in the party and on the BJP's radar in its alleged toppling game.

"If it is true that Ganesh beat up my husband, my children and I will not keep quiet and will take legal action against him," Laxmi Singh told a section of media from Mumbai.

She is currently in Mumbai to attend a relative's wedding and is expected to return to Bengaluru soon.

Asked if there was a scuffle between Ganesh and Singh in the recent past, she said:

"No, they are good friends. Yes, my husband told me that in the last Congress Legislature Party meeting, there was a heated exchange with (legislator) Bheema Naik. Other than that, he did not tell me anything." - Laxmi Singh

Replying to another query, Laxmi said she does not know when Singh would be discharged from the hospital. "My relatives, including my brothers, who are at the hospital, said my husband is in pain," she said.

"I have made several calls, but I was told he was sleeping. Nobody is telling me the exact account of my husband's condition," she said, adding that her son had spoken to Minister DK Shivakumar, who said Singh was fine.

(PTI)

'Brawl Has Made All 224 Legislators Hang Their Heads in Shame': Yeddyurappa

State BJP president BS Yeddyurappa urged Governor Vajubhai Vala and Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to seek a report on the incident involving the two MLAs.

Yeddyurappa said Siddaramaiah was answerable for the incident and demanded that police record Singh's statement.

"The brawl between Congress MLAs in a resort and resultant hospitalisation of Anand Singh, has made all 224 legislators hang their heads in shame. Both the Governor and Speaker must intervene and seek a report on the incident for taking suitable action." - BS Yeddyurappa

(PTI)

Congress Issues Notices to Four MLAs for Skipping CLP Meet

The Congress on Sunday, 20 January, issued notices to its four legislators who skipped a crucial legislature party meeting amid the BJPs alleged poaching attempt.

In its notices to the four MLAs, the Congress party sought to know why action should not be taken against them under the anti-defection law for not attending the Friday's Congress Legislature Party Meeting that was a show of strength against BJP's alleged bid to dislodge the ruling coalition.

(PTI)

'Scuffle Was Related to Some Business Issue': Congress Spokesperson

Congress spokesperson and former Nizamabad MP Madhu Goud Yakshi said the scuffle between the two Congress MLAs was related to some business issue and had nothing to do with politics.

"It was personal district related. They are all together in business. The scuffle has nothing to do with politics. They come from the same district and have business relations. It (the fight) is something related to that. It has nothing to do with politics. " - Congress spokesperson Madhu Goud Yakshi

The two MLAs had the dinner together in his presence and everything was cordial but after he left, the fight broke out, Yakshi told PTI.

(PTI)

It was a Minor Fight Between Friends: Zameer Ahmed

Following the reports of scuffle between two Congress MLAs, Karnataka Minister Zameer Ahmed said, All three are friends. They were having a discussion, it happens between friends. It was a minor fight between friends. Nobody has got any stitches; there hasn't been any blood loss.

Police Should File a Suo-Motu Case: BJP MLA

Hitting out at the Congress, BJP MLA R Ashok said, DK Shivakumar and DK Suresh are confusing people by telling lies. Doctors of Apollo Hospital should come out and give clarification about whether Anand Singh is admitted for chest pain treatment or for something else. Police should file a suo-motu case and investigate.

Anand Singh in Hospital Following a Chest Pain

Congress leaders have rubbished the reports of a brawl at the resort, reported NDTV. Speaking to reporters, DK Suresh, who was at the hospital, said that Anand Singh was hospitalised after he felt a chest pain.

Have Seen it Through Media, Don't Know What Happened: Deputy CM

Following the reports of scuffle between two Congress MLAs, the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, G Parameshwara said, I have seen that only through media. I was there till 8:00. I don't know what has happened but I will let you know. Once I come out, I'll definitely let you know.

Congress MLA Hospitalised After Scuffle With Another MLA in Resort: Reports

Congress MLA Anand Singh has been hospitalised after he was hit on his head with a bottle by another Congress MLA JN Ganesh on Saturday night, the local media has reported. However, senior Congress leader DK Shivakumar has denied the reports.

Meanwhile, the BJP took a dig at the Congress and in a series of tweets said that the Karnataka Congress President was unable to stop that fight of his own MLAs.

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Karnataka BJP MLAs Return From Gurgaon

Karnataka BJP MLAs have returned to the state from Gurgaon where they were lodged in a private resort for the past a few days.

State BJP president BS Yeddyurappa had asked all 104 party MLAs to return and they flew back to the state late Saturday night, BJP MLC Lehar Singh told PTI.

"Some of them have directly flown back to their constituencies and others including former deputy chief ministers R Ashoka and K S Eshwarappa returned to Bengaluru," he said.

AICC President To Meet MLAs Individually on 20 Jan: Dinesh Gundu Rao

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President Dinesh Gundu Rao said, the current political scenario, drought situation and other issues plaguing the state were discussed at the CLP meeting.

AICC Keneral Secretary KC Venugopal will meet the legislators individually on Sunday, 20 January and the decision on the future course of action will be taken, he added.

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Congress Legislature Party Meeting Begins in Bengaluru

Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting

The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting at Eagleton resort in Bengaluru is currently underway.

Ready to Sacrifice My Berth: DK Shivakumar

DK Shivakumar, while addressing a press conference at Vidhan Soudha, said, All senior ministers are willing to give up cabinet berths to accommodate others. If high command asks us we shall do it. I'm ready to sacrifice my berth too.

Gradually 20-25 MLAs Will Leave Congress: KS Eshwarappa, BJP

Senior BJP leader KS Eshwarappa, BJP said, All BJP MLAs are united, they will return today. Congress has no plans for development of Karnataka, gradually 20-25 MLAs will leave Congress. Siddaramaiah lost the CM post. Since then, he has become like a 'pagal' that is why he is targeting BS Yeddyurappa.

(ANI)

Volcano Waiting to Erupt in Cong-JD(S) Alliance: BSY

Karnataka BJP President B S Yeddyurappa said some Congress MLAs skipping the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting and the deep differences between the ruling coalition partners are an indication that a volcano may erupt in the coming days, reported PTI.

"The absence of Congress MLAs from the CLP meeting and deep differences between the coalition partners are an indication that this is likely to erupt as a volcano in the next coming days." - BS Yeddyurappa

Not Destabilising Govt, Cong-JD(S) Need Not Worry: BS Yeddyurapa

Addressing a press conference, BJP State President BS Yeddyurpappa said the party lawmakers were returning to Karnataka, after which they will embark on a tour to survey the drought-hit regions.

"Our MLAs are returning to Bengaluru from Delhi. We will tour the state and analyse the situation of drought. We will not destabilise this govt at any cost. Congress and JDS need not worry."

BJP Attempting to Destabilise Govt: KPCC President

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committees President Dinesh Gundu Rao tweeted alleging that the BJP was doing their best to destabilise the coalition government in Karnataka and install a BJP regime through unconstitutional means.

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BS Yeddyurappa Calls Back BJP MLAs

BJP State President BS Yeddyurappa calls back BJP MLAs who were lodged in a Gurugram resort to avoid alleged poaching, reports ANI.

Modi, Shah Indulging in Destabilising the Coalition Govt: Siddaramaiah

Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday, 19 January, accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah of indulging in destabilising the coalition government as they fear getting just three or four seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

"All our MLAs will stay together, we will discuss there about drought situation. All our MLAs, MPs and ministers will stay together at one place... We will stay as long it is necessary. " - Siddaramaiah

"We will discuss about party issues... to escape from the onslaught by the BJP. We will discuss about drought, parliament election also," he added.

(PTI)

4 Congress MLAs Skip CLP Meet, Exposes Chinks in Ruling Coalition

Exposing chinks in the ruling coalition in Karnataka, four dissidents on Friday, 18 January, skipped the Congress Legislature Party meeting in Bengaluru that was called as a show of strength against an alleged bid by the BJP to dislodge the HD Kumaraswamy government.

The absence of four lawmakers posed no imminent threat to the seven-month old Congress-JDS government in the numbers game but suggested that all was not well within the Congress which is still wrestling with dissidence.

The Congress would issue notices to absentee MLAs Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was dropped as minister in the recent Cabinet rejig and is said to be extremely unhappy over it, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli, Siddaramaiah told reporters after the meet.

He said 76 MLAs were present at the meeting, also attended by Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, AICC general secretary KC Venugopal and deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, besides other state leaders.

(PTI)

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Tokyo, Jan 18 (AFP) A rocket carrying a satellite on a mission to deliver the world's first artificial meteor shower blasted into space on Friday, Japanese scientists said.

A start-up based in Tokyo developed the micro-satellite for the celestial show over Hiroshima early next year as the initial experiment for what it calls a "shooting stars on demand" service.

The satellite is to release tiny balls that glow brightly as they hurtle through the atmosphere, simulating a meteor shower.

It hitched a ride on the small-size Epsilon-4 rocket that was launched from the Uchinoura space centre by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on Friday morning.

The rocket is carrying a total of seven ultra-small satellites that will demonstrate various "innovative" technologies, JAXA spokesman Nobuyoshi Fujimoto told AFP.

By around noon on Friday, the first of the seven satellites had been successfully sent into orbit, he added, with JAXA officials waiting for signals to confirm the fate of the other six.

The company behind the artificial meteor shower plan, ALE Co. Ltd, plans to deliver its first out-of-this-world show over Hiroshima in the spring of 2020.

The satellite launched Friday carries 400 tiny balls whose chemical formula is a closely-guarded secret.

That should be enough for 20-30 events, as one shower will involve up to 20 stars, according to the company.

ALE's satellite, released 500 kilometres (310 miles) above the Earth, will gradually descend to 400 kilometres over the coming year as it orbits the Earth.

The company plans to launch a second satellite on a private-sector rocket in mid-2019.

ALE says it is targeting "the whole world" with its products and plans to build a stockpile of shooting stars in space that can be delivered across the world.

When its two satellites are in orbit, they can be used separately or in tandem, and will be programmed to eject the balls at the right location, speed and direction to put on a show for viewers on the ground.

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Tinkering with the ingredients in the balls should mean that it is possible to change the colours they glow, offering the possibility of a multi-coloured flotilla of shooting stars.

Each star is expected to shine for several seconds before being completely burned up - well before they fall low enough to pose any danger to anything on Earth.

They would glow brightly enough to be seen even over the light-polluted metropolis of Tokyo, ALE says.

If all goes well, and the skies are clear, the 2020 event could be visible to millions of people, it says.

ALE chief executive Lena Okajima has said her company chose Hiroshima for its first display because of its good weather, landscape and cultural assets.

The western Japan city rose from the ashes after the 1945 US atomic bombing and faces the Seto Inland sea where the floating gate of Itsukushima Shrine is.

ALE is working in collaboration with scientists and engineers at Japanese universities as well as local government officials and corporate sponsors.

It has not disclosed the price for an artificial meteor shower. (AFP) MRJMRJ01181129NNNN.

. Read more on World by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand DeathsChahal-Dhoni-Jadhav Lead India to 2-1 ODI Series Win in Australia . Read more on World by The Quint.
The American Embryo Transfer Association (AETA) held its 2018 annual convention in beautiful Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with veterinarians and embryo transfer practitioners from around the globe in attendance. AETA and CETA (Canadian Embryo Transfer Association) host a joint conference, which has been a huge success for many years and attracts the elite and certified members who work with embryo transfer and in vitro fertilization.

Education is our first priority.

AETA continues to improve the quality of all embryo transfer practices by providing direct links among science, the laboratory, and the field. We support diverse learning opportunities so members can experience best practices and high levels of industry standards. Our certification process develops and maintains a gold standard of excellence for embryo transfer throughout North America and the world.

The following veterinarians were elected for the 2019 Executive Committee and Board of Directors: Matt Iager (Boonsboro, Md.), president; Matt Dorshorst (Marshfield, Wis.), vice president; and Bill Croushore (Berlin, Pa.), secretary-treasurer. Other board members include Kory Bigalk (Rochester, Minn.), Clay Breiner (Westmoreland, Kan.), Pat Comyn (Madison, Va.), Dave Dixon (Rensselaer, Ind.), and Jeremy VanBoening (Alma, Neb.). We thank our outgoing president, John Prososki (Wausau, Wis.), and board members, Kirk Gray (Westmoreland, Kan.) and Mark James (Wolcottville, Ind.), for their outstanding leadership in 2018.

Honoring the best

AETA presented veterinarian Richard Whitaker (Turner, Maine) with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Whit has dedicated his lifetime and career to the embryo transfer industry and has greatly contributed to the success of AETA, distinguishing himself among his peers.

AETA also presented 10 student scholarship awards to future practitioners, who attend colleges and universities around the U.S. and Canada. We congratulate all of the outstanding applicants on their achievements.

To learn more

The American Embryo Transfer Association stands for Experience, Quality, Professional. Let our members work for you to enhance your genetic success! Visit aeta.org for information and to search for a practitioner in your area.

While you are there, be sure to check out the video Global Genetic Improvement Through Embryo Technology. AETA works closely with USDA-APHIS to qualify and meet specific protocols for export of USA bovine embryos to foreign markets.

The 2019 AETA-CETA annual convention will be held in October in Colorado Springs, Colo. Please contact us for more information. From the members and leaders of AETA, we wish all of you the best of success in 2019.

The author is president of the American Embryo Transfer Association and lives in Boonsboro, Md.
CHICAGO  Mourners gathering at the visitation for Illinois State Trooper Christopher Lambert on Thursday afternoon were greeted by American flags lining the drive into the church and held by members of the Illinois Patriot Guard riders.

Members of the motorcycle group, which has provided processions at military homecomings and funerals, knew Lambert from when Illinois State Police provided officers at Patriot Guard events, said David Gier, senior ride captain of the Northeast Illinois chapter.

"That's why we're here today," Gier said. "ISP suffered a loss. We suffered a loss."

He called Lambert "extremely professional."

Lambert, a 34-year-old Army veteran who served in Iraq and Haiti, was finishing his shift and on his way home to Highland Park when he stopped to help at a scene of a crash during Saturday's snowstorm.

The trooper was fatally struck by another car at the scene on Interstate 294 near Northbrook.

His family released a statement Wednesday saying Lambert "left this world in the way in which he lived: putting the well-being and happiness of those around him before his own."

"The family of Trooper Christopher Lambert mourns the loss of our son, husband, father and friend. We would like to thank the law enforcement community and the thousands of others who have expressed their love and concern," the statement said. "We will always remember his devotion to his wife and daughter, his dedication to his career and community, and the love and laughter that he shared with us."

At Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington on Thursday, three state police officers greeted mourners at the entrance and led them inside the church, where the visitation was to continue until 8 p.m., with a funeral service set for 10 a.m. Friday, also at Willow Creek.

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Among the mourners were law enforcement officials from several jurisdictions. Early arrivals included Lambert's colleagues from Illinois State Police, along with Cook County sheriff's deputies and officials from downstate Normal. One state police car was covered in black and purple bunting.

Tony Rapacz, commander of Cook County Forest Preserves police, entered the church with a group of other law enforcement officials, including an officer from West Virginia who carried an American flag folded in a triangle.

Rapacz, who was previously with Illinois State Police, said they came to pay their respects.

"While we didn't know him, he's family," Rapacz said. "We stand together."

One group in attendance was from the LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs. Before entering the church, the group stood in a circle with their heads bent and their dogs by their sides.

Newly sworn-in Gov. J.B. Pritzker was also scheduled to attend.

Lambert, a native of Dayton, Ohio, is survived by his wife, Halley, year-old daughter Delaney, and parents James and Martha Lambert. He had been with Illinois State Police since 2013 and worked in the criminal patrol division. He was also a member of the Lake County Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a task force of officers from different departments who focus on illicit drugs, gangs and weapons. The work includes conducting house raids and drug seizures.

Libertyville police Officer Brandon Bernabei, a fellow enforcement group member, became a close friend of Lambert while they worked on the task force together.

"From the second Chris entered Lake County MEG, he clicked with everyone. He was instantly a friend to all of us," Bernabei said. "He laughed all the time, was extremely energetic and beyond passionate about the job. He was our brother and we miss him dearly. He will be in our thoughts forever."

Lambert and Bernabei rode together daily on the job, and Bernabei recalled how Lambert would occasionally make FaceTime calls to talk baby talk with his infant daughter. On the job, Bernabei said, Lambert "wanted to get after it and hunt bad guys," but never wanted his job to interfere with his family life.

No charges or citations have been announced against the driver whose car hit Lambert.

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Visit herald-review.com on Friday for updates on the weather system that's expected to produce more snow and frigid temperatures across the region.

The National Weather Service says snow is expected to start at 7 p.m., with 1 to 2 inches possible. Freezing rain is forecast beginning at 1 a.m.

Up to 4 inches of snow is possible Saturday, with a low of just 10 degrees in the evening. New snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches is projected.

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A Winter Storm Watch is in effect from tonight through Saturday afternoon, a week after a weather system blanketed Central Illinois in snow.

The new blast of arctic air extends across the state. Up to 10 inches of snow are being projected in the Chicago area.

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What does it look like where you are? Send your snow photos to decnews@lee.net. Use #CentralILweather on social media to join the conversation.

Download the Herald & Review app for iPhone or Android and get up-to-the-minute updates to your Central Illinois forecast.

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CHICAGO  Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Thursday signed legislation to give the state more oversight over Illinois firearms dealers, saying he'll push for further gun control measures.

Pritzker's signature on the legislation to require gun stores to get state certifications is another clear break with former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in the opening days of the Democratic governor's administration, and the move immediately puts him at odds with opponents of stricter gun laws. Minutes before Pritzker put pen to paper amid anti-violence advocates at Young Elementary School, the Illinois State Rifle Association threatened to challenge the new law in court.

"Just because we're signing this today doesn't mean there isn't more to do," Pritzker said. "But this particular bill is very important."

Pritzker said he wants Illinois to outlaw bump stocks and trigger cranks this year, as well as put more money toward social services. But he said "I don't know that" lawmakers would push for a ban on assault weapons this year.

Under the new law Pritzker signed Thursday, it would be illegal for retailers to sell guns without being certified by the state. To qualify, stores first must be licensed by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Then, they would have to submit a copy of that license to the Illinois State Police, along with an affidavit declaring it remains valid. Shop owners would have to install surveillance equipment, maintain an electronic inventory, establish anti-theft measures and require employees to undergo annual training.

A certification would cost retailers a maximum of $1,500, and the regulations would apply to small businesses as well as big-box retailers. Sellers without a retail location would be charged $300 for certification. Supporters contend the new rules could reduce gun violence because federal regulators are stretched too thin to adequately handle all the shops operating in Illinois.

A large group of Democratic officials joined Pritzker at Thursday's event, crediting the new governor for signing the bill so early in his administration.

"In four days, you figured out something that some people couldn't figure out in four years," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. "And I want to compliment you for that wisdom."

But the path to Thursday's ceremonial bill signing was a winding one that was set up by lawmakers months before Pritzker was elected.

Rauner vetoed a similar gun store proposal in the spring, calling it "duplicative" because the federal government already licenses firearms retailers. He said adding another layer of oversight would be costly for businesses and "do little to improve public safety."

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Lawmakers approved a new version in May while Rauner was governor, but Democratic Senate President John Cullerton held on to the paperwork to keep it off the Republican's desk so that he couldn't veto it again. Democrats finally sent the bill to Pritzker on Wednesday, and he signed it into law Thursday.

Illinois State Rifle Association Executive Director Richard Pearson declined to say whether that unusual process is at the root of the group's threat of a legal challenge. But he said in a statement that "nothing in this bill is going to enhance public safety in Illinois."

"The only thing that is being accomplished here is the creation of a bureaucratic nightmare for gun dealers," he said. "Rest assured, we will be challenging this new law in court."

Backers of the new law, though, said it could help prevent illegal gun purchases in Illinois, as well as straw purchases, transactions in which someone buys a gun on behalf of a person who is barred from doing so.

While Illinois is the largest single source for guns later used in crimes in Chicago, weapons also make their way here by way of states such as Indiana, Mississippi and Wisconsin, according to a city of Chicago trace data report from 2017. Wisconsin ranked fourth on the list, with about 4 percent of Chicago's crime guns sold at dealers in that state.

Despite Pritzker's call for further legislation targeting what he calls "weapons of war," the governor declining on Thursday to embrace a ban on assault weapons could be a reflection of the complicated politics surrounding gun laws in Illinois, where lawmakers often split over geography, in addition to party. For example, Senate Republican leader Bill Brady of Bloomington voted against the gun dealer licensing bill that became law Thursday. House Republican leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs voted for it.

Democratic state Sen. Don Harmon of Oak Park said he first worked on the issue in 2003. Democrats have controlled the Illinois House, Senate and governor's office for 12 of the 16 years since then, but it took unique circumstances for the bill to land on Pritzker's desk four days into his term.

Lawmakers voted for the law last year in the wake of a Chicago police officer's killing and the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. In thanking anti-violence advocates, Harmon also credited groups that formed or strengthened in the aftermath of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"When Parkland happened, those groups had reached a level of political sophistication and maturity, that we were able to capitalize," he added.

From the Archives: Past inaugurations of Illinois governors

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DECATUR  Police on Thursday said the number of violent and property crimes in Decatur last year showed declines from 2017, but community leaders say there's still plenty of work to be done.

Police Chief Jim Getz released data showing drops in the following areas in 2018 compared to 12 months prior:

Homicides (10 percent)

Sexual assault (42.31 percent)

Robberies (20.75 percent)

Aggravated assault and batteries (14.91 percent)

Additionally, for property crimes, burglaries were down 15.46 percent in 2018, thefts were down 15.66 percent and arson was down 23.33 percent. Motor vehicle thefts increased 16.30 percent in 2018.

Getz said the department compiled data based on reports completed throughout the year. He declined to provide complete statistics on the crime trends, saying they will be made available for the public to see in the coming days.

"The officers should be commended for their hard work in bringing these crimes down," Getz said in a statement. "The citizens should also be commended for taking steps to help the city become a safer and more secure place."

The data was released as separate efforts are being developed to address a series of violent incidents.

The NAACP Decatur Branch is spearheading an effort called the "Blue Ribbon Committee on Safety and Re-Connection to the Community," which will be announced during a news conference Monday morning at the Decatur Civic Center.

NAACP President Jeanelle Norman said the group has been in the works for months and will aim to develop and share action plans to combat violence in the city.

"We don't just want these to sit on someone's desk and collect dust," Norman said. "We want them to go out and be executed."

Norman said that community involvement will also be key in bolstering the blue-ribbon committee's actions once it goes to work.

She could not immediately provide more information on who will be a part of the committee, as the complete list will be revealed on Monday, but she said it will focus on exploring outreach opportunities in three main areas of focus: the home, education and community.

It is Norman's wish that anyone who hears of the committee's efforts will be inspired enough by its future work to step up and lend a hand to make Decatur safer. That includes encouraging some people to shed the notions that they'll be labeled a "snitch" if they report a crime or cooperate with the police, she said.

"We want the entire community to be above losing lives due to violence," Norman said.

The need for a community conversation about violence also motivated Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe and the Rev. Courtney Carson to plan and co-host "Manning Up: Restoring Hope for Our Future." The free event will be 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 31, in the Decatur Civic Center.

Guest speakers include Mark Vargas, Washington Examiner contributor; Julius Bailey, a professor of philosophy and author of Racial Realities and Post-Racial Dreams and Aliyah Houston, a student at Dennis School and statewide award-winning orator. Music will be provided by Tebe Zalango.

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Moore Wolfe said recent violence in Decatur, including a shooting at Long John Silver's on Jan. 4 that killed one man, injured another and led to three arrests, prompted community leaders to take action.

"There's no magic way to end (violence), but we want to see what we can do to get people talking, she said. The big deal is just to get people to come.

Carson, a Decatur school board member, is director of essential skills and community relations at Richland Community College, which has several skilled trade programs which he will provide information on at the event. He'll also introduce a new community mentor program.

People who attend who are qualified in the areas of welding and metal fabrication will be able to connect with employers in those fields, Carson said, and possibly leave with a job, and those interested in those fields but not yet trained can sign up for the training and get paid while they learn. Several community pastors and education leaders will also be at the event, and parents who want their children to have a mentor will be able to get one there.

"We've done so much good work as a community, but I believe we've kind of dropped the ball somewhere," Carson said. "There's a huge disconnect between leadership and the people and we must bridge that gap."

With the celebration of the birthday anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan. 21, Carson said, people need to be reminded to not just admire King's legacy, but put his words into action, much as churches should remember to honor Jesus every day, and not just on Sunday.

"These great men of God are willing to do the work, and they have been doing the work," Carson said of the clergy who will be at the event. "It's a sad deal when there's more integration in the nightclub on Saturday night than there is in church on Sunday."

The information released Thursday by police is different than what the agency submits to the city council each month. That report says 10 homicides were recorded at the end of the year in both December 2017 and December 2018  remaining flat, as opposed to a decrease.

Detective Sgt. Steven Carroll said that there's a distinct difference between a homicide and a murder. He said the police are limited in the way violent deaths can be classified: accidental, unknown, suicide, homicide and natural.

"Homicide is a medical term," Carroll said, "not a charge. It's a term that's used on the death certificate."

Eleven violent deaths were reported in 2018, but several are not being prosecuted as murders in Macon County Circuit Court.

Flesch pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter, being a felon in possession of a weapon and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon on Dec. 19.

Carroll said the wounding by stabbing and subsequent death of Decatur man Robert Randall on May 24 was listed as a homicide but was not a prosecutable homicide. He said Randall was involved in a violent struggle with another man, and it appears the other man killed him in self-defense.

This death was marked as homicide, in that it was not natural, suicide or accidental, but there was no murder case to prosecute here, he said.

The police statement on Thursday said the department will continue to "work very hard and remain proactive in reducing crime in 2019." Getz said Thursday afternoon that he will speak at the announcement conference for the committee on Norman's invitation.

"I think it's a great idea; getting the community involved and making it a safer city," he said. "That's only the hope is that people will get involved."

Tony Reid of the Herald & Review contributed to this story.

Contact Jaylyn Cook at (217) 421-7980. Follow him on Twitter: @jaylyn_HR

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If you're considering a job change in this year, here's an employee perk that could be a game-changer: A payroll deduction program and matching contributions for 529 college savings plans.

A small but growing number of employers have upgraded their benefits packages in recent years to offer employees incentives to sock money away for college in the state-sponsored, tax-advantaged 529s.

Payroll deduction makes it convenient and painless because the money is withdrawn from your paycheck before you have a chance to spend it. And matching funds from the company? Well, that's free money that should not be left on the table.

"This is a benefit that has a huge payoff for both employees and employers," said Julio Martinez, the investment board executive director of California's ScholarShare 529 program.

The 529 perk is part of a growing push by employers to help workers save for their children's college and to deal with mounting student-loan debt and other college affordability issues. These benefits include tuition reimbursement plans, student-loan repayment contribution programs and reduced-cost degree programs.

Employers that offer these benefits can gain a leg up on employee recruitment and retention. About six states also provide tax benefits to businesses for contributing to employee 529 accounts.

Contributions to 529s are not tax deductible, but earnings are tax-free when used to pay for a wide range of qualified educational expenses, such as laptops, software, tuition and books.

Despite the allure of 529s, the number of families participating in these programs is not what it could be. According to a study from Savingforcollege.com, less than half of eligible families participate, and less than one-third of parents of children 18 and under have even heard about 529 college savings plans.

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While employer participation is growing, only about 11 percent of U.S. employers offer payroll deduction for 529 plans, according to a 2018 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. About the same percentage of employers offer health care insurance for pets.

About 1 percent go a step further, offering an employer matching contribution, the survey said.

California's ScholarShare 529 -- the state's official college savings plan -- has had success encouraging employers to adopt 529 benefits. "It's become an easier sell," especially when employers see there's very little in the way of expense or paperwork, Martinez said.

ScholarShare also supports the program with educational seminars, webinars and other educational materials.

About 1,000 California employers, including 32 of the state's largest, now offer ScholarShare 529 benefits to employees. That amounts to 314,000 accounts, with an average amount of about $28,000 as of September 2018. Average monthly contributions range from $150 to $200.

Those employers range from state government departments to hospitals and technology companies. One high-tech company offers a $1,000 match to those who contribute to the 529 plan at the workplace.

Small companies also are offering 529 benefits. Dawn Food Products Inc., a Michigan-based family-owned bakery and baking ingredients company, encourages its 4,500 employees to contribute to the Michigan Education Savings Program through payroll deduction.

Participation has climbed to about 200 employees since the program was launched in January 2018, said Brian Coleman, a Dawn human resources vice president. "When we rolled this out to our team members, they saw that we're invested in them and their families," Coleman said. "Sending a child to school can be an emotional time ... so easing the burden is pretty unforgettable."

Here's a final statistic to keep in mind: According to SavingforCollege.com, children who have money saved for college are 64 percent more likely to graduate from college or trade school than those who have not saved.

Questions, comments, column ideas? Send an email to sbrosen1030@gmail.com.

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By saying "We're unaware of any research concerning this essential question" regarding Medicaid expansion, Burnett and Nachman imply in a recent opinion that they have done their homework -- but have they?

Do a Google search of the terms "study Medicaid expansion effectiveness." Not only are there numerous positive impacts of expansion in Oregon, including that it "nearly eliminated catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenditures," you will also discover that researchers have found many positive outcomes following expansion in other states.

With respect to discrepancies in applications, the authors seem unaware that the enrollment process for Medicaid can be somewhat opaque. The authors don't mention that in the last budget cycle the Republican majority legislature cut over $95 million funding for DPHHS, which includes Medicaid support.

The Republicans continue to starve critical public programs in the hopes of convincing you that government can't do a good job. Throwing more mandates on participants and state support staff without commensurate resources is a calculated and cynical ploy.
For example, few realize that when it comes to public land management, western States outperform federal land managers by an average of 10:1 or better. In fact, the federal government consistently loses money on their version of land management while States who govern their own lands consistently generate positive cash flows.

Millions of acres of State-owned lands currently host a variety of activities including farming, ranching, logging, mining, parks, wilderness, hunting, fishing, historic preservation, wildlife preserves, and recreation. Active, balanced management of State lands keeps fire hazard at a minimum and generates funds for management of the land.

In spite of these facts, certain left-wing political and environmental groups are trying to convince us that Montana is not capable of responsibly governing our own lands and resources. The notion that we cant afford it, or that we would sell off all our majestic mountains and hang no trespassing signs on all our favorite fishing holes are their favorite preposterous talking points.

They also like to say the State would drive ranchers off the land. Keep in mind, the federal government and #KeepItFederal radical environmentalists are the ones who have been trying to do that for decades.
In December Prime Therapeutics reached a $375,000 settlement with state Insurance Commissioner Matt Rosendale that will pay for a review of the company's pricing data. Prime admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement. Rosendale's office has two more pending legal challenges against PBMs seeking drug pricing information.

Insurance companies also oppose the proposed new regulation some state lawmakers are calling for.

"I view this as bad public policy," says John Doran of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana. "This bill reads like a pharmacy wish list. It's like they looked up everything they don't like in their contracts and they've written a bill to nullify them. This bill will no doubt increase premiums for our members."

Multiple opponents to the bill said some of the new regulations called for could work, but overall the bill needs to change to win their support.

Another bill (SB 71) in the works aims to reform how PBMs interact with insurance companies and, in turn, reduce the cost of drugs. Republican Sen. Albert Olszewski is carrying that bill at the request of Insurance Commissioner Rosendale. It's considered a companion to the one heard Wednesday.

Both the Rosendale's office and pharmacy benefit managers are planning lobbying efforts in the coming days through what they're billing as educational meetings, so lawmakers learn more about their takes on the prescription drug industry.

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Mergenthaler is working on reaching out to other communities to recruit workers to the Helena area, MacLaughlin said.

MacLaughlin also hopes to grow the Helena Workforce Innovation Networks initiative, a partnership with Helena College that aims to serve current and emerging workforce needs.

I am really excited for John to take over, Davis said. He described MacLaughlin as thoughtful and meticulous when considering others in his decisions. Davis said that during his time as chair, MacLaughlin always considered how the boards decisions would impact every single chamber member.

MacLaughlins push to get people to shop locally, growing the workforce innovation program and recruiting more people to Helena is something Davis said he can easily get behind. Its amazing here, Davis said. Why wouldnt people want to move to Helena?

Burwell said she looks forward to working with MacLaughlin because he has always been a supporter of the chamber. She also cited his financial knowledge as a benefit to the organization.

John will take us to new heights, Burwell said. We are already riding a high tide right now. Its a great time to be in the chamber and a great time for John to take the lead.
The scholarship winners include:

Heidi Hohmann, a junior from Spokane, Washington, studying health science/public health at Carroll College. Hohmann has volunteered the past three years as a health educator for the annual Special Olympics Montana Health Clinic and for five years with the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service. She also volunteers weekly at Bryant Elementary in the Sixth Ward in Helena, helping build resiliency in children who have experienced the toxicity of stress through adverse childhood experiences.

Hannah Catherine Johnson, a sophomore from Clancy pursuing an associate of science with a double major in public health and biochemistry at Helena College. Johnsons many volunteer activities include working on initiatives through Montana Associated Students and serving on its diversity committee as an Associated Students of Helena College student representative, as an orientation leader, vice president of the TRiO Club, secretary of the chemistry club and volunteer teacher for the Creative Arts Center.
Grand Old Partisan honors Seth Low, born this day of 1850. After graduating from Columbia College, he prospered as a tea and silk importer. His wife was daughter of a Republican U.S. Supreme Court Justice. This 'do gooder' set up the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities to improve services for poor residents.

Low was president of the city's Young Republican Club. In 1881, he defeated the corrupt Democrat incumbent for mayor. Highlights of his four-year administration included ending racial segregation of public schools and constructing new school buildings. His refusal to support the GOP's 1884 presidential nominee contributed decisively to Grover Cleveland's victory.

After leaving office, Low was hired to merge his alma mater with other colleges into Columbia University and move the new institution from midtown Manhattan to Morningside Heights. President William McKinley appointed him to an international peace conference.

In 1901, Republicans and a civic association, Citizens Union, nominated Low for mayor of New York City. At a campaign rally with Mark Twain, he said:

"If elected Mayor, I shall interpret the city ordinances in a liberal spirit and in a just one. All will have to obey the laws, but none will be oppressed by them, nor will anyone be allowed to use them in the way of procuring for himself an unfair advantage over a competitor. I will give the city a business administration, such a one as will aid the merchants of this city to compete successfully with the fierce competition of other large business communities."

He won, and cut taxes and decreased police corruption and improved public schools. Defeated for re-election by George McClellan's son, he became chairman of Tuskegee University.

Here is a Video Version of this article on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5Uw1GHXgxDk

Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement.

Each day, his grandoldpartisan YouTube channel and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than sixteen decades of Republican heritage. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states so far.

He also wrote the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar.

Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision.

Buy the book at Amazon

See www.youtube.com/q?v=IzxKCiXc5Qc for a brief video of a Texas Republican praising Back to Basics for the Republican Party.

"This is the most amazing book about politics that I have ever read. The Overview should be required reading for anyone with even a minor interest in government. The remainder is an enthralling history lesson that I will never forget. For years, we have all been misled about the true nature of the GOP. This is the real deal! Read it and be proud!"

"Michael Zak wrote the definitive history of the GOP."

"Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan."

"Back to Basics for the Republican Party is more important to our party now than ever before."

and

"one of the best books I ever read"
The UTSA men's and women's track & field teams will travel to Houston to compete in the FasTrak Invitational on Saturday at Bill Yeoman Fieldhouse on the University of Houston campus.The Roadrunners will line up against athletes from Abilene Christian, McMurry, North Texas, Rice, SMU, Stephen F. Austin, TCU, Texas A&M-Kingsville, UIW, UTRGV and UT Tyler in the non-scored meet. Saturday's action will get underway at 10 a.m. with the high jump, long jump and shot put. Track events are scheduled to begin with the mile run at noon. Live results will be available at http://flashresults.com This weekend's meet will mark the second of the indoor season for UTSA, which opened the campaign at the Ted Nelson Invitational last Saturday in College Station.On the men's side,won the mile with a personal-best time of 4:10.82 andleaped to a 50-8 measurement to grab gold in the triple jump to help lead the Roadrunners to fourth place in the team standings.clocked a 47.41 for second place in the 400 meters and that time currently ranks second in Conference USA and fifth nationally.Chatham also led off for the distance medley relay team that earned runner-up honors with a 10:12.61, a time that stands 11th in the country.The women were led by a bronze-medal performance from the DMR squad ofand, as that quartet passed the baton in 12:33.56, a time that leads C-USA and ranks 29th nationally.clocked an 8.64 to take fourth place in the 60m hurdles and the sophomore currently ranks fourth in C-USA in the event.Meanwhile,crossed fourth in the 60m with a 7.59 andplaced fourth in the 400m with a 57.61, times that each stand sixth in the conference.
ALACHUA, Fla., Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CTD Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB: CTDH), a clinical stage biotechnology company that develops cyclodextrin-based products for the treatment of disease with unmet medical need, today announced its newest partner in support of its US clinical program, United BioSource LLC (UBC). UBC provides pharmaceutical and home nursing services in support of clinical trials and other patient-centered initiatives. UBC will support CTDs Extension Protocol, An Open-Label Extension Study of the Long-Term Safety and Efficacy of Intravenous Trappsol Cyclo (HPBCD) in Patients with Niemann-Pick Disease Type C (NPC-1), in the United States.

UBC has a long and distinguished record of providing management of home nursing services in the US and internationally, said N. Scott Fine, CTDs Chairman and CEO. As we work to provide NPC patients in this Extension Protocol with as much support as possible while we continue to work toward market registration of Trappsol Cyclo, we believe that it is vital to include an option for infusions at home and under the care of a qualified health care professional. Our partnership with UBC allows us to offer patients this choice.

CTDs Extension Protocol for the Phase I trial was approved by FDA in April 2018. The Protocol allows eligible subjects who have completed the Phase I trial in the US to continue to receive intravenous administration of CTDs Trappsol Cyclo, the companys proprietary formulation of hydroxypropyl beta cyclodextrin, until market registration. The two clinical sites now participating the Phase I trial are also expected to participate in the Extension protocol: UCSF Childrens Hospital Oakland, led by Caroline Hastings, MD, and Morristown Medical Center of the Atlantic Health System, led by Darius Adams, MD.

Having the option for home infusions is a game changer for many NPC patients, said Dr. Hastings, who is also the first physician in the United States to administer hydroxypropyl beta cylodextrins to NPC patients. Those first administrations were in 2009 with CTDs hydroxypropyl beta cyclodextrin product using an intravenous route of administration. Since intravenous is a relatively low-risk route of administration compared to other routes of administration, it is entirely feasible to administer the drug in a home setting by a qualified healthcare provider.

More information on CTDs Phase I trial is available in a video recording of a webinar held October 16, 2018, go the company website: www.ctd-holdings.com . On October 3, 2018 CTD published a press release, HERE , outlining top-line data from both of its intravenous Trappsol Cyclo clinical trials now underway in the U.S., United Kingdom, Sweden and Israel.

Physicians seeking more information on CTDs clinical programs should contact:

Sharon H. Hrynkow, PhD, CTD Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs at sharon.hrynkow@cyclodex.com .

Families interested in CTDs phase I trial in the United States should contact:

Shannon Reedy, CTD Family Liaison at Shannon.Reedy@hotmail.com ,

Dr. Caroline Hastings at chastings@mail.cho.org or,

Allen Hodgson, Oakland Study Coordinator at ahodgson@mail.cho.org or,

Dr. Darius Adams at darius.adams@atlantichealth.org or,

Christina Flora, Morristown Study Coordinator at christina.flora@atlantichealth.org .

About CTD Holdings:

CTD Holdings, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that develops cyclodextrin-based products for the treatment of disease. The companys Trappsol Cyclo, an orphan drug designated product in the United States and Europe, is used to treat Niemann-Pick Disease Type C, a rare and fatal genetic disease, on a compassionate use basis as well as in two ongoing formal clinical trials (Clinical Trials.gov NCT02939547 and NCT02912793 ). Additional indications for the active ingredient in Trappsol Cyclo are in development. For additional information, visit the companys website: www.ctd-holdings.com .

About UBC:

United BioSource (UBC) is a leader in the market for integrated, comprehensive clinical, safety, and commercialization services. UBC brings together renowned scientific research and operations experts with leading-edge technologies, allowing for the best patient and healthcare provider experience. Comprehensive, end-to-end services cover product and patient population characterization during development and market entry, as well as a focus on the patient experience, safety, and adherence. For additional information, visit the companys website: www.ubc.com .

Safe Harbor Statement:

This press release contains forward-looking statements about the companys current expectations about future results, performance, prospects and opportunities. Statements that are not historical facts, such as anticipates, believes and expects or similar expressions, are forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results in future periods to differ materially from what is expressed in, or implied by, these statements. The factors which may influence the companys future performance include the companys ability to obtain additional capital to expand operations as planned, success in achieving regulatory approval for clinical protocols, enrollment of adequate numbers of patients in clinical trials, unforeseen difficulties in showing efficacy of the companys biopharmaceutical products, success in attracting additional customers and profitable contracts, and regulatory risks associated with producing pharmaceutical grade and food products. These and other risk factors are described from time to time in the companys filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, the companys reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q. Unless required by law, the company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events.

Investor/Media Contact:

For CTD

Sitrick and Company



Wendy Tanaka

(415) 369-8447

wtanaka@sitrick.com

For UBC
I don't know Steve King, so I have no idea if he is a racist. Despite odd comments like the ones that have stirred recent controversy, I'm sure those who know him best would say it's a misunderstanding. Far be it for me to argue with them.

However, one need not be a racist in order to say dumb, racist things. And when that person is a Congressman, his or her comments should be strongly condemned by anyone in a position of leadership in our country. In the wake of King's most recent foot-in-mouth episode, in fact, nearly everyone has done just that, including his first choice for president in 2016, Ted Cruz.

The one person who didn't condemn King's words but, instead, attempted to play dumb but implying he hadn't heard them? You guessed it, Donald Trump.

I think it is possible in our politically correct world for people to say dumb, insensitive things that come out sounding like something that was not intended. However, our President is supposed to be smarter than that. He is supposed to be able to recognize self-evident right from wrong. Heck, most of us would expect our kids to recognize such basic things.
I am one of the 29 individuals who were disenfranchised after voting by absentee ballot in Iowa House District 55 last November. My envelope received a USPS barcode, but did not receive a postmark stamp. On Dec. 3, Iowa District Court Judge Scott Beattie ordered the bar codes be read and mine was confirmed to have been timely. I plead now that to ignore my valid vote is an unconstitutional act.

Inconsistencies exist in the absentee voting process in counties across Iowa. Unfortunately, Iowa law does not mandate acceptable methods for counties to determine timeliness of absentee ballots. Iowa law does not define the term intelligent mail bar code that is posted on absentee ballot envelopes, nor does it require the Intelligent Mail bar code, or IMb, be used to trace a ballots entry into the federal mail system. According to procedures followed by the Auditors Office in Winneshiek County, only a valid USPS postmark stamp is used to determine timely mailing of absentee ballots.

I believe any USPS postal marking, stamp, IMb or other bar code should be accepted as evidence of timely mailing by a constituent. Without mandating how the USPS processes absentee ballots, the Legislature can mandate that any marking issued by the USPS be deemed acceptable in verifying the receipt date of the envelope into the mail system.
MASON CITY | Bitterly cold temperatures, wind and fresh snow will continue to make for tricky travel conditions in North Iowa on Saturday.

Winds of 10-16 mph, with gusts up to 24 mph are expected to whip up the several inches of freshly fallen snow.

No more accumulations are expected Saturday with sunny skies in the forecast.

Snow began falling in Mason City around 9 a.m. Friday. Most area schools and many area businesses canceled before the storm materialized.

Snowfall intensity increased throughout the afternoon creating problems with visibility and slippery roads and numerous accident calls.

But Cerro Gordo County Sheriff Kevin Pals said his office hadnt encountered any personal-injury or property accidents before 2 p.m. Friday, despite the worsening visibility and road conditions.

Weve been blessed to have everybody slow down, he said.

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Pals said many of the calls were being handled by the Iowa State Patrol for incidents on Interstate 35 in Cerro Gordo and Worth counties.

He encouraged motorists to slow down and use caution.

Dont travel if you dont have to, Pals added.
After leaving slick roads and runways in the Midwest, a winter storm inched its way toward New England, where it was forecast to dump up to 2 
But Senate Republicans said that rule was excluded only because it was superfluous. They said other Senate rules make clear that all subcommittee meetings must be made public.

Subcommittee meetings were not always public; the rules being ditched by Senate Republicans in some committees were put on the books in the mid-2000s. But with the requirement that they be open to the public, subcommittee hearings have become the stage of the legislative process that features the most public participation.

When a bill is working its way through the Legislature, the subcommittee hearings are when any interest group, lobbyist or individual from the public can attend and express their feelings to legislators.

By the time a bill reaches the next step, the full committee hearing, the public cannot weigh in. The bill is debated only among legislators.

Eliminating that public subcommittee hearing would remove a crucial step in the legislative process. It would remove the ability for the public to offer support for or express concern over a bill, and it would hamper the ability of reporters to provide a complete picture of the debate around a piece of legislation.
The U.S. government shutdown continued this week, deepening concerns about the long-term economic impacts of the impasse in Washington. In addition to the lost economic activity from the 800,000 federal employees and up to 4 million government contractors who are furloughed or working without pay, numerous government functions have ceased, with wide-ranging impacts across the U.S. economy.

Airport security lines are getting longer, government-backed mortgages are slowed down, and aid to farmers has been delayed.

The economic losses have economists concerned that economic growth could stagnate or even slip into a recession if a swift resolution isnt found. Despite these fears, U.S. stock markets have been climbing steadily for weeks, a vote of confidence that a deal will be struck soon.

Meanwhile, across the pond, political stalemate is leading to even worse forecasts in Great Britain. The British Parliament resoundingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit proposal, but then voted to keep her in power, a sign that they dont like her plan but dont have better alternatives.
Ken Lucas, a Centennial City Council member and mayor pro tem, has fiber sticking out of the ground in his front yard. Its a visual reminder of how far the south Denver metro city of 110,000 has come in the five years since voters opted out of Senate Bill 152, which limits cities from offering their own broadband-internet services.

More than 100 local communities across the state have opted out of the state law, but very few have completed as much work as Centennial has.

Voters in those cities decided that theyd get better internet service with their local governments involved than relying on the private marketplace.

The wave in favor of community broadband has been especially pronounced in areas outside the states big cities where residents sometimes feel theyre not getting the best internet service from big commercial providers. In rural areas, it often doesnt pencil out for the private sector to build or expand high-speed networks.

But such measures have passed in larger cities, too, including Colorado Springs in 2017.

Centennial recently unveiled its fiber backbone, which Lucas said will have a daily impact on businesses and residents of the city.

SB 152 became law in 2005 after former Gov. Bill Owens signed the act. The measure dictated that municipalities couldnt run their own broadband or television services.

But they could opt out through a citizen vote, which has become increasingly common across the state.

This year Aurora, Canon City, Florence, Fountain and Eerie voters decided to opt out of SB 152  many doing so with the belief that it will help their communitys economy.

Lucas, who acts as Centennials Fiber Commission chair, has a background in startups and venture capital, so when he was sitting in a Colorado Municipal League conference about opting out of the state law several years ago, he said he knew it could be a good thing for his city.

This is something I had funded when I was in the investment banking business. I knew about fiber and what it could do.

Centennials journey began in 2013 when voters approved opting out of SB152, which let the municipality build its fiber system and make nonexclusive partnerships.

It did take a lot of planning. We werent in any hurry, we wanted to do it right, Lucas said. We started out and said it wont cost us anything to put it on the ballot, and a lot of very important discussions happened at the council level. We were worried about competing with the private sector, so we wrote the question saying that wed be an open access model. A lot of people havent done open access, which means well provide the fiber network and let the private sector to see if they want to access it.

And it has.

With the construction of the fiber backbone complete, Centennial announced it executed four lease agreements  the big one being a 20-year agreement with a service calledTing, a unit of U.S.-Canadian company Tucows Inc.

Unlike other municipalities that have waded into offering their own broadband service, like Longmont has, Centennial decided it would be best to build the system, then lease the fiber out to private companies.

Lucas said city lawmakers and staff had conversations with big telecom companies  like Comcast, the biggest employer in Centennial  to offer up their fiber, but Lucas said they declined.

Its an interesting mix of competition, he added. That was one of our main goals was to add competition.

The major shift in city infrastructure is slated to be a good for the local economy, too. The south Denver metro region employees more than 17,000 people in the telecom and broadcasting industries, according to a Denver South Economic Development Partnership report. That could expand with more leases and partnerships in Centennial.

But the impact could be beyond that sector of jobs, Lucas said, highlighting the more than 4,000 people who work from home businesses in Centennial. With more competition and better service, Lucas believes that will be an attractive feature to a lot of people who are looking to live around the Denver metroplex.

Jake Rishavy, who works with the Denver South Economic Development Partnership and helps steer the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance, agreed. He said metro areas around the country are becoming competitive with each other and having a fiber structure like Centennial doess can help an area stand out.

If you have 21st century infrastructure, all things are possible, he said. In the economic development world we are experiencing a macro-level shift. People used to move for work, and now theyre moving to communities that have high qualities of life and companies are chasing them. ... Communities like Centennial that are making investments in tech infrastructure so that they can better deliver community services, those are creating a competitive advantage.

Centennial has other high hopes for its fiber backboneas it relates to quality of life, including education  Cherry Creek School District signed an intergovernmental agreement for a fiber lease  and safety.

The city said the new infrastructure will become an integral part in the rollout of the citys new Intelligent Traffic Signaling system.

Centennial set out on building its 50 miles of fiber backbone in 2016. It was finished on time and on budget for $5.7 million, but theres more room to grow and more developments coming for the city.

We jumped in front of the 5G process with the major carriers in the mobile space, and were seeing a lot of applications now, Lucas said. 5G has to be put on city attachments like streetlights. We anticipate over the next couple of years, well be able to take advantage of that.
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Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday issued an executive order aimed at putting more electric and zero-emission vehicles on the states roads.

Citing his pledge to fight climate change by moving the state toward all-renewable electric power by 2040, Polis said the order will make it easier for residents to adopt electric vehicles while saving consumers money and providing widespread public health benefits.

The time to act is now, Polis said after arriving at a press conference in Denvers Lower Downtown neighborhood in an electric car and plugging it into a charging station.

Im proud to say that in the absence of national leadership, states like Colorado, along with local governments and private and public companies, are leading the way on climate.

The sweeping order signed by Polis  the first in the Democrats 10-day-old administration  directs state public health officials to send proposed zero-emission vehicle standards to the states Air Quality Control Commission. The rule, modeled on one adopted by California and nine other states, would require automakers to sell more qualifying vehicles each year.

The move to make Colorado a zero-emission vehicle or ZEV state is expected to encourage automakers to make more electric vehicle models available in Colorado, where dealers currently only carry around half the models available in states like California.

There are electric vehicles sold in other parts of the country that arent sold in Colorado, Polis said. Its about increasing availability for consumers, having better prices for consumers, helping consumers tap into the savings from lower fuel costs. Its really making sure we make electric vehicles, zero-emission vehicles more drivable and more affordable all over our state.

In addition, the order creates a working group involving state agencies to support electric vehicles and directs the Colorado Department of Transportation to come up with a program promoting the vehicles.

It also steers the remaining proceeds from the states $70 million emissions-fraud settlement with Volkswagen toward electrification of transportation, including helping pay for public transit vehicles, school buses and trucks.

Tim Jackson, president and CEO of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, threw a flag on the proposal.

Noting that three-quarters of Colorados passenger vehicles are pickups and sport utility vehicles, he said in a statement that Colorados challenging driving conditions arent as suited to electric vehicles as other states.

There is a reason you dont see electric vehicles pulling horse trailers or hauling six kids to their events, Jackson said.

He added: Colorados consumers are also free to choose to purchase electric vehicles that are readily available on the market. Colorados consumers do not need the government telling them what vehicles they should buy. Lets keep car-buying decisions in the hands of our citizens, not unelected California bureaucrats.

Leading Senate Republicans blasted the executive order and suggested Polis, who has a background as a tech entrepreneur, let the free market do its job.

This action does not encourage our automotive industry to innovate, it forces them to do so, and the result will undeniably be increased costs for Coloradans and lackluster, rushed products, said Senate Assistant Minority Leader John Cooke, R-Greeley, and Senate Minority Whip Ray Scott, R-Grand Junction, in a statement.

While the governor is correct in showing growth in the purchase of electric vehicles, what he forgets is that those in the lower and middle class of Colorado are undeniably sticking with gas-powered automobiles due to their overwhelmingly lower costs and reliability, they said. As the market brings down the costs of new technologies, demand will follow. Until that time, overreaching mandates will only impair the markets ability to effectively respond.

But one of their Republican colleagues, state Sen. Kevin Priola of Henderson, disagrees  and stood alongside Polis when the governor unveiled his orders.

I look at it as a conservative, dollars-and-cents, good for the public, good for the consumer issue, Priola told Colorado Politics. Theres really no reason to stick with internal combustion vehicles.

Priola said it was an easy decision to purchase an electric vehicle when he replaced a car last year.

I did the math, and it was a no-brainer, he said, adding that hes paying about 2 cents per mile in fuel costs now, compared with 14 or 15 cents per mile before he went electric.

Priola said critics who claim that what Polis is doing amounts to market interference are off base.

When internal combustion engine cars became ubiquitous 80 or 100 years ago, he said, there was a lot of (public) investment in infrastructure. Horses didnt need asphalt. Its a natural progression.

Priola is a lead sponsor of bipartisan legislation to put set rules so utilities can build charging stations around the state, encouraging electric vehicle drivers to conquer what he called the last remaining obstacle  range anxiety.

Itll encourage tourism, so people can drive their EV anywhere in the state, spend money in the mountains, spend money in the plains, spend money in the metro area. he said. If you do the math, consumers benefit, not just from the environmental benefits but dollars and cents.

The state already does plenty to encourage electric and other low-emission vehicles  from a $5,000 tax credit to a program that builds fast-charging stations along highways  but Polis said it isnt enough if the state wants to have nearly 1 million electric vehicles in operation by 2030, a goal set by Polis predecessor, former Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, a year ago.

In order to achieve the goals set by the state, achieve our climate targets, and reap the billions of dollars in economic benefits, we will need to accelerate transportation electrification, Polis said in the order.

Itll be a steep climb from the estimated 12,000 electric vehicles that were registered in the state in late 2017, but Polis noted that Colorado has already seen annual growth rates topping 50 percent.

As we continue to move towards a cleaner electric grid, the public-health and environmental benefits of widespread transportation electrification will only increase, Polis said in a statement.

Colorado is a national leader in electric vehicle sales, with the vehicles making up 1.57 percent of total light vehicle sales in 2017  nearly double the 0.82 percent national average for the year, according to market data compiled by the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers.

In August 2018, the share in Colorado rose to 2.46 percent, putting the states percentage of electric vehicles sold for the month behind only California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and the District of Columbia.

According to a 2017 study cited in the executive order, a large-scale transition to electric vehicles by 2050 will yield $43 billion in net savings to Colorado consumers, including $4.1 billion in electric bill savings for all customers and $29.1 billion in savings by the vehicles owners. The reduced greenhouse gas emissions are projected to save an additional $9.7 billion in health costs, the study found.

This is a really big deal, said Kelly Nordini, executive director of Conservation Colorado. Its exciting for consumers. What the governor is saying to the auto industry is, Bring all your different models of electric vehicles to Colorado so that we can have more choices. Thats really good for consumers and really good for clean air.

She called the executive order a good first step for Polis as he makes good on his pledge to make Colorado a leader in combating climate change.

He knows, Colorado is on the front line on this  wildfires, extreme weather, air quality impacts  and weve really benefited from the renewable energy economy, so we can keep growing that. Its good for the economy, good for our air and good for climate change, she said.
WASHINGTON  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday canceled her plans to travel by commercial plane to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan, saying President Donald Trump had caused a security risk by talking about the trip.

It was the latest twist in what has become a Washington game of brinkmanship between Pelosi and Trump, playing out against the stalled negotiations over how to end the partial government shutdown.

Earlier in the week, Pelosi had asked Trump to reschedule his Jan. 29 State of the Union address, citing security issues at a time when the Homeland Security Department and other agencies remain unfunded.

Trump responded by canceling the military plane that was to have carried Pelosi and a congressional delegation to Afghanistan on the previously undisclosed troop visit. Trump suggested she travel by commercial plane instead.

Trump had belittled the trip as a "public relations event"  even though he had just made a similar warzone stop  and said it would be best if Pelosi remained in Washington to negotiate to reopen the government.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," wrote Trump, who had been smarting since Pelosi, the day before, called on him to postpone State of the Union address.

On Friday, Pelosi announced that her plan to travel by commercial plane had been "leaked" by the White House.

Spokesman Drew Hammill said Pelosi and accompanying lawmakers were prepared to take a commercial flight but canceled after the State Department warned that publicity over the visit had "significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security, and other officials supporting the trip."

The White House said it had leaked nothing that would cause a security risk.

The political tit-for-tat between Trump and Pelosi laid bare how the government-wide crisis has devolved into an intensely pointed clash between two leaders determined to prevail. It took place as hundreds of thousands of federal workers go without pay and Washington's routine protocols  a president's speech to Congress, a lawmaker's official trip  become collateral damage.

Denying military aircraft to a senior lawmaker  let alone the speaker, who is second in line to the presidency after the vice president, traveling to a combat region  is very rare.

Hammill said the speaker planned to travel to Afghanistan and Brussels to thank service members and obtain briefings on national security and intelligence "from those on the front lines." He noted Trump had traveled to Iraq during the shutdown, which began Dec. 22, and said a Republican-led congressional trip also had taken place.

Trump's trip to Iraq after Christmas was not disclosed in advance for security reasons.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California slammed Trump for revealing the closely held travel plans.

"I think the president's decision to disclose a trip the speaker's making to a war zone was completely and utterly irresponsible in every way," Schiff said.

Some Republicans expressed frustration. Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted, "One sophomoric response does not deserve another." He called Pelosi's State of the Union move "very irresponsible and blatantly political" but said Trump's reaction was "also inappropriate."

There have been few signs of progress in shutdown negotiations. On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence and senior adviser Jared Kushner dashed to the Capitol late in the day for a meeting with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And the State Department instructed all U.S. diplomats in Washington and elsewhere to return to work next week with pay, saying it had found money for their salaries at least temporarily.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump wanted Pelosi to stay in Washington before Tuesday, a deadline to prepare the next round of paychecks for federal workers.

The White House also canceled plans for a presidential delegation to travel to an economic forum in Switzerland next week, citing the shutdown. And they said future congressional trips would be postponed until the shutdown is resolved, though it was not immediately clear if any such travel  which often is not disclosed in advance  was coming up.

Trump has still not said how he will handle Pelosi's attempt to have him postpone his State of the Union address until the government is reopened so workers can be paid for providing security for the grand Washington tradition.

Pelosi told reporters earlier Thursday: "Let's get a date when government is open. Let's pay the employees. Maybe he thinks it's OK not to pay people who do work. I don't."

Pelosi reiterated she is willing to negotiate money for border security once the government is reopened, but she said Democrats remain opposed to Trump's long-promised wall.

The shutdown, the longest ever, entered its 28th day on Friday. The previous longest was 21 days in 1995-96, under President Bill Clinton.

In a notice to staff, the State Department said it can pay most of its employees beginning Sunday or Monday for their next pay period. They will not be paid for time worked since the shutdown began until the situation is resolved, said the notice.

The new White House travel ban did not extend to the first family.

About two hours after Trump grounded Pelosi and her delegation, an Air Force-modified Boeing 757 took off from Joint Base Andrews outside Washington with the call sign "Executive One Foxtrot," reserved for the first family when the president is not traveling with them. It landed just before 7 p.m. at Palm Beach International Airport, less than 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the president's private club.

The White House did not answer questions about the flight.
El Paso County could face an annual water shortage of nearly 18 billion gallons in 2060 if it doesnt increase its supply of water by more than a third.

The staggering statistic is one takeaway from the countys recently-approved 237-page water master plan, a tool meant for public officials, county staff and planning commissioners to reference as they review development plans for approval.

The document says the countys current water supply is about 146,000 acre-feet per year, but demand is expected to increase to about 160,000 acre-feet per year by 2040 and 206,000 acre-feet per year by 2060. An acre-foot, or enough water to cover an acre at the depth of one foot, amounts to about 326,000 gallons.

The plan, prepared by Englewood-based engineering firm Forsgren Associates Inc., makes a variety of recommendations for closing the gap, including monitoring groundwater well levels, exploring ways to reuse water, finding new water sources and considering changes to the countys land use approval process.

The county is home to more than 21,300 permitted groundwater wells and roughly 70 water providers, from small districts to municipal departments, according to the plan.

Water providers in once rural parts of the county, such as Monument, face mounting concerns about how to ensure that residents have enough water as the population continues to rise.

The primary water source for areas that are not served by Colorado Springs Utilities is the Denver Basin. Experts say its hard to pinpoint the rate at which water levels are falling in the system of aquifers, which were filled by precipitation over many years.

By 2060, the countys current annual supply would be enough to serve a little more than half of the projected population, according to the plan. More residents could potentially be served by Denver Basin groundwater, but only if its still economical to pump, the plan states.

Per state law, county commissioners generally decide if theres sufficient water to serve a new development during final platting, the stage of the land use approval process in which lots are created, said Mark Gebhart, deputy director of the county Planning and Community Development Department.

But the plan suggests that the county consider changing its rules so that determination can be made earlier, such as when a preliminary plan or zoning change is approved, to help ensure that new developments are planned with water supply in mind.

The plan also recommends that the county re-evaluate a subdivision regulation that requires developers to prove that they have a 300 years supply of water. The requirement, three times as stringent as a state standard that requires proof of 100 years supply, could be waived if developers agree to conservation-minded practices, such as reuse of captured wastewater to offset demands, the plan suggests.

If the county moves forward with changing such land-use rules, the amendments would need to be approved by county commissioners, said Gebhart.

The plan also advises that the county encourage water providers to find more reliable water sources that are replenished regularly by precipitation, rather than deep groundwater sources that are slow to recharge. One possibility might be importing water from the Arkansas River, the plan states.

Using low-flow shower heads and xeriscaping, or reducing irrigation needs by planting low-water succulents and shrubs as an alternative to grass, are other simple practices that can help conserve water to meet future demands, according to the plan.

The county spent more than $312,000 on the plan, which the Planning Commission voted unanimously to adopt on December 18. It will become a part of the countys overall master plan, which includes more than a dozen different documents that focus on different topics and areas within the county.

The county has hired a contractor to help update its overall master plan, and that process is expected to be completed in about two years, Gebhart said.

Several minor changes must be made to the water master plan to correct typos and textual errors before the document is republished and certified, Gebhart said.

The plan can be downloaded at epcdevplanreview.com by clicking the applications being reviewed tab.
A storm that crossed up forecasters with heavier snow than expected swept through the Pikes Peak region Friday, causing havoc for drivers north of Colorado Springs.

About 24 vehicles were involved in a pileup around 10:30 a.m. in the southbound lanes of Interstate 25 near Monument, Colorado State Patrol Trooper Gary Cutler said. No serious injuries were reported.

Its just been a mess ever since, Cutler said.

What had been predicted as a minor dusting turned into a full-blown snowstorm beginning Friday morning.

Areas around Monument got more than 8 inches of snow, National Weather Service meteorologist Klint Skelly said.

It was not well forecast, Skelly said. Typical Rocky Mountain Colorado weather.

And just as typically for Colorado, snow totals varied widely.

About 7 inches fell northwest of Black Forest, while 1 inches fell northwest of Peterson Air Force Base, Skelly said.

The unexpected dumping in northern El Paso County made travel nearly impossible most of the day, with vehicles trying to avoid or get around the pileup continuing to crash, Cutler said.

Weve got so much traffic coming down the roadway at this point that they cant get the tow trucks in to move some of these vehicles out and its backing everything up, Cutler said Friday evening. Weve actually been requesting that everybody avoid the area and were asking people if they could exchange info just so we can get the roadway clear.

Just before 6 p.m., the Colorado State Patrol tweeted that vehicles were moving 5 mph between Castle Rock and Monument.

A jackknifed semi on Colorado 105 was blocking the parallel road west of the interstate, Cutler said.

Colorado 83, running parallel to the east of the interstate, was blocked in both directions just north of the El Paso County line, the Colorado State Patrol tweeted around 4 p.m.

Another head-on crash, southwest of Black Forest at Old Ranch and Milam roads, sent one person to a hospital as a precaution, Cutler said.

Eastbound traffic was blocked on Old Ranch Road and vehicles were alternating use of the roadway, Cutler said.

The roads pretty icy in that area, he said.

Skelly said snowfall was expected to end Friday evening ahead of Saturdays rebound to 46 degrees under sunny skies.
Investigators apparently believe a landfill south of Colorado Springs could contain evidence or the body of a missing Woodland Park mother who authorities say was killed by her fiance, according to ABC News.

A spokeswoman for Midway Landfill in Fountain said investigators contacted the operator about a possible search related to the disappearance and presumed murder of Kelsey Berreth.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation contacted Waste Management of Colorado regarding a potential search at Midway Landfill and we are cooperating fully, Waste Management spokeswoman Anne Spitza told ABC News on Wednesday.

Colorado Bureau of Investigation communications director Susan Medina on Thursday declined to comment on the warrant or confirm whether it was related to the Berreth case. Lee Richards, spokeswoman for the 4th Judicial District Attorneys Office, also declined to comment.

Berreth, 29, was last seen in public Thanksgiving Day shopping at the Woodland Park Safeway with her 15-month-old daughter. Although her body has not been found, authorities believe she was killed at her Woodland Park townhome.

The man she planned to marry and the father of her child, Patrick Frazee, 32, of Florissant, has been charged with first-degree murder and solicitation to commit murder in Berreths death.

The preliminary hearing for Frazee is scheduled for Feb. 19.

Twitter: @lizmforster Phone: 636-0193
Colorado Springs, CO (80903)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High around 95F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. Low 66F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.
A physical exam or waiver and visual evaluation or waiver are required six months prior to entering school.

Due to changes in state legislation, children who will be five years old on or before July 31, 2019, will be eligible to enroll and attend kindergarten at Fremont Public Schools next year.

Children who are born between July 31 and Oct. 15 may be eligible to participate in kindergarten under certain circumstances  for more information, call the Office of Student Services at (402) 727-3084.

If you have a child who is eligible to attend kindergarten in the fall of 2019, and have not heard from your area school, or if your family has recently moved to Fremont, contact the FPS District Elementary Office at (402) 727-3020

Archbishop Bergan Catholic School is also beginning its registration for kindergarten, pre-kindergarten and preschool programs. Students may enter Kindergarten at Bergan if they turn five on or before July 31, 2019.

The school is hosting several enrollment days to highlight what a day is like for a student and cover important information for parents sending their children to Bergan, a press release notes.
In the end, Jehoshaphat prays: For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

Isnt that a great example of how we must focus on God in the tough times?

And look how God responds.

After Jehoshaphats prayer, the spirit of the Lord comes upon one man, who in part, proclaims: This is what the Lord says to you: Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours but Gods.

The man then tells the people where they should go to meet this army, but again says they wont have to fight.

Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, he says.

King Jehoshaphat bows with his face to the ground after he hears the news.

How many leaders can you picture doing that?

Anyway, Jehoshaphat is up early the next morning.

He encourages his people by saying, Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld.

Then he appoints men to go out ahead of the army and sing.

Sing?
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I plan on using several of the guiding principles to help raise the vision and performance of our chamber.

Lea also knows the value of being able to gather with other leaders.

Having the opportunity to form relationships with other chamber executives across the nation will provide an amazing network of knowledge to use as I strive to be the best chamber executive possible, she said.

Since its start in 1921, the institute program has worked to educate thousands of association, chamber and other nonprofit leaders on how to build stronger organizations, better serve their members and become strong business advocates.

The institutes curriculum consists of four wee-long sessions at five different university locations throughout the country, the foundation states.

Through a combination of required courses and electives in areas such as leadership, advocacy, marketing, finance and membership, institute participants are able to enhance their own organizational management skills. They also can add new fuel to their organizations, helping them to run more efficiently and effectively.
A day after the Dodge County Board of Supervisors voted to deny a permit for a 10-barn poultry operation in Nickerson, Gov. Pete Ricketts expressed support for the project, which would have produced chicken for Lincoln Premium Poultry and the Costco plant in Fremont.

Gov. Ricketts voiced his support for the project during a stop at the Fremont Municipal Airport, which was part of his six-stop State of the State fly-around tour to talk about his budget proposals for the states new biennium as well as his grow Nebraska initiative.

The vision for my administration is to grow Nebraska, he began his address to a crowded airport terminal. That means to create more better paying jobs to keep our kids and grandkids here and to attract people from around the country to come here and make Nebraska their home.

He then pointed out that two members of the crowd were Case and Joscelyn Camenzindthe young couple who had hoped to operate the 10 poultry barns on a 15-acre parcel of land west of Nickerson, boxed off by County Road O to the north and County Road 22 to the east.
* Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart plans to introduce the College Savings Matching Grant Program that would provide families living between 200 and 300 percent of the federal poverty guidelines a dollar-for-dollar match to their 529 account.

Children from families living below 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines would receive a 2-to-1 match for every dollar contributed to their 529 college savings account.

Wishart said the plans have bipartisan backing in the Legislature.

Murante said Wishart's bill also applies to adults who open a 529 account for the purpose of earning a college degree in order to address the state's shortage of highly trained workers.

"What Senator Wishart's bill proposes to do is increase awareness and to increase the ability of folks of any age to get re-educated in the trades and to do the jobs that need to be filled in the state of Nebraska," he said.

* Sen. Andrew La Grone of Gretna will propose a bill extending the income tax deduction for contributing parents to "anyone who contributes to a 529 account."

La Grone's bill would also remove the $10,000 cap on contributions to the state-run college savings program.
Morfeld said he looked forward to finding a time for Peterson to meet with him and the people he described.

"I will clear my schedule," he said.

On the talk show, Peterson said the issue is far more complicated than the notion that 33 states have legalized medical marijuana and 11 states have legalized the recreational form of the drug, so it can't be stopped.

"I'm thinking, as public policymakers we have to be far more responsible than that type of simplistic analysis," he said.

A hearing for a bill (LB110) introduced by Wishart of Lincoln to legalize medical cannabis is scheduled for the afternoon of Jan. 25 in front of the Judiciary Committee.

Peterson said he agreed with Voorhees that legalization of medical cannabis was one step closer to getting what people really want  legalization of recreational marijuana.

"The marijuana industry, I call them the impairment industry because the whole purpose of the product is to impair," he said. "It's an industry that tries to maximize impairment.  There's big money to be made here."

Peterson asked what's driving these senators to push the bills and the initiative petitions.
For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL January 18, 2019  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Cheniere Energy, Inc. LNG, Sempra Energy SRE, Kinder Morgan, Inc. KMI and NextDecade Corporation NEXT.

Here are highlights from Thursdays Analyst Blog:

Can U.S. Threaten Russias Dominance in Europes Gas Market?

With Europe using up more natural gas than it produces, the continent has long been eyed by liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters. According to Forbes, demand for natural gas in the continent touched the highest mark in 2017 since 2010. Demand is going to rise further as natural gas contribution to Europes energy needs is expected to increase from the current 24% to 30% in the coming years, said the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Meanwhile, Europe has been excessively relying on Russias gas supplies. However, the continent has been trying to reduce dependence on the politically-unstable Moscow and has decided to import more LNG from the United States in the coming years. Washington is keen to bump up its LNG supplies to Europe and has been accordingly building a number of LNG export terminals, especially in the Gulf Coast area.

US LNG Export to Europe Very High Last October

Washington dispatched 24% of its exported LNG volumes to Europe last October, per CNBC. The source added that the volume of LNG exported was 0.6 billion cubic meters and America has never before exported such high monthly volumes. Against this, just 10% of the LNG exported volumes of America had gone to Europe in 2017.

Exports of LNG from Washington to the continent are estimated to double by 2022, per the European Commission, a politically independent executive unit of European Union.

However, U.S. gas supplies to Europe will only increase if the price is competitive, added the European Union. In recent years, the Henry Hub natural gas spot price had come down following new discoveries and plentiful supply in the domestic market. The price of natural gas is below $4 per Million Btu now as compared to more than $6 mostly from 2005 through 2008.

Story continues

Russias Clear Dominance in Europe

Per recent data from the European Commission, the continent continues to have the strongest reliance on Russian gas. In fact, owing to proximity with Europe, Russia accounted for more than 75% of the natural gas imported volumes of each of the 11 member states of the European Union  Estonia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Latvia, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Finland, Romania, and Slovenia.

Through the extensive pipeline network of leading energy company Gazprom, Russia transports a bulk of its natural gas to Europe. Transportation expenses have come down due to the favorable geographic position of the country and the continent. Established midstream assets and several pipeline networks  under construction  have also lent Russia an advantageous position.

Can US Gain Lead in Europes Gas Market?

For U.S. to outmanoeuvre Russia and get a foothold in Europe, it could exploit the strained ties between Europe and Russia, apart from the quite obvious option of ramping up supplies. The relationship started deteriorating since early 2014 following the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine by Russia. Moscow also assisted the insurgence of pro-Russian in east Ukraine.

Overall, the rising export of U.S. LNG to the European market is expected to brighten prospects for domestic players like Cheniere Energy, Inc., Sempra Energy, Kinder Morgan, Inc. and NextDecade Corporation. These Zacks #3 Ranked companies are contemplating the construction of export facilities or expansion of terminals. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

However, the growing acceptance of U.S. LNG doesnt necessarily mean that Washington poses a threat to Moscow, believes RBC Capital Markets. The established midstream infrastructures and proximity to Europe have made Russia a dominant natural gas supplier to the continent, added the investment bank. Hence, it will take time for Washington to overtake Moscow and establish its presence as a prominent supplier of the commodity to Europe.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



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Jan 18 (Reuters) - New York energy company Consolidated Edison Inc told state regulators this week it will impose a temporary moratorium on new natural gas service in parts of Westchester County due to limited space on existing pipelines.

"Until our efforts align demand with available supply, we will no longer be accepting applications for new natural gas connections in most of our Westchester service area," Con Edison said on its website.

Many consumers using oil want to switch to gas for heat because it is cheaper and cleaner to burn. The average U.S. Northeast household was expected to spend $723 to heat with gas and $1,646 with oil this winter, according to federal estimates.

While Con Edison did not criticize the state for the moratorium, groups seeking more gas infrastructure blamed New York for the shortage.

Con Edison's "action is a direct result of the state's continued blockade on gas infrastructure, which will make it harder ... and more expensive for New Yorkers to heat their homes," said Peter Kauffmann, spokesman for New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, which supports increased access to gas.

State energy regulators, however, disagreed.

"Con Edison's moratorium is the result of a significant recent spike in demand for gas," James Denn, a spokesman for the Department of Public Service, said, noting the company did not propose a pipeline to meet growing demand.

Other energy firms have tried for years to build gas pipes from the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania to New York, but regulators in Albany have denied some of those projects, like the long-delayed Constitution pipeline, for environmental reasons.

Instead of investing in new gas pipelines, New York has encouraged companies to put more money into energy efficiency and renewable projects.

Although many in the energy industry expect New York's gas demand to rise as homes and power plants burn more of the fuel, the data is not clear.

New York's gas demand peaked around 3.7 billion cubic feet per day on average in 2015 due to a cold winter before declining in 2016 and 2017 during more moderate weather, according to federal energy data going back to 1997. Data for 2018 is not yet available.

Story continues

The power sector is expected to burn more gas in New York in coming years as the state's remaining coal plants shut and the Indian Point nuclear plant retires.

Some of that power, however, will be replaced by renewables rather than gas-fired power plants.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
(Bloomberg) -- Salesforce.com Inc. is planning to add as many as 1,500 jobs in Ireland over five years, in one of the largest such expansions in the history of the state.

The San Francisco-based software maker, which now employs more than 1,000 people in Ireland, laid out its Irish expansion plans Friday in Dublin. Bloomberg News first reported the figure on Thursday. The company, in a joint announcement with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, unveiled a plan to build a Salesforce Tower in the city.

The software makers planned hiring spree in Ireland comes amid a broader push to ensure that the companys strong growth continues. International expansion has been paramount to Salesforce, which generates most of its revenue in the U.S. The attempt to diversify from its home market comes as the companys signature cloud software for sales teams is seeing slowing growth because of its saturation in the market.

Salesforce also pledged in June to spend $2.5 billion to spur sales in the U.K., its largest European market, over the next five years. The funds will go to hire new employees, build another U.K. data center and expand office space. The leader in customer-relations management software said in April that it would invest $2.2 billion in its French business over the next five years.

For Ireland, the news will ease concern that recent high-profile tax cases could hurt investment. Perrigo Co Plc told investors last month that it faced an Irish tax demand for 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion), the second-largest in the countrys history. Moreover, the European Commission has ordered Ireland to recover 13 billion euros in tax arrears from Apple Inc.

The new Salesforce development will be based in Dublins Silicon Docks, close to the operations of Alphabet Inc.s Google and Facebook Inc., the company said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nico Grant in San Francisco at ngrant20@bloomberg.net;Dara Doyle in Dublin at ddoyle1@bloomberg.net

Story continues

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Vidya Root at vroot@bloomberg.net, ;Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Molly Schuetz

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
The Promise of 5G Is the Problem With Huawei in Eyes of Critics

(Bloomberg) -- The new wireless technology known as 5G will do more than make mobile phones faster -- it will link billions of devices, revolutionizing transportation, manufacturing and even medicine. It will also create a multitude of potential openings for bad actors to exploit.

The vulnerability helps explain the rising tension between the U.S. and Huawei Technologies Co., Chinas largest technology company. Huawei is pushing for a global leadership role in 5G, but American officials suspect that could help Beijing spy on Western governments and companies.

Huaweis significant presence in 5G creates a new vector for possible cyber-espionage and malware, Michael Wessel, a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that advises Congress, said in an interview. By connecting whole new classes of products, 5G creates new vulnerabilities.

The technology holds great promise. Forests of gadgets will communicate instantly via millions of antennas. Cars will talk to each other to avert lethal crashes, factory foremen will monitor parts supplies and doctors can perform remote surgery as video, sound and data flow without delay. Connections will be 10 to 100 times faster than current standards -- quick enough to download an entire movie in seconds.

Yet U.S. national security officials see billions of opportunities for spies, hackers and cyber-thieves to steal trade secrets, sabotage machinery and even order cars to crash. Citing security threats, the U.S. has been pushing allies to block Huawei from telecommunications networks. The U.S. Congress has banned government agencies from buying the companys gear.

The company denies that it is a threat. The fear about Huawei and 5G is misplaced, Andy Purdy, chief security officer for Huawei in the U.S., said in an interview. This is a strengthened network, a more secure network.

The new technology will require an overhaul of telecommunications infrastructure. The term 5G stands for a fifth generation, to succeed the current fourth generation of mobile connectivity that has made video sharing and movie streaming commonplace.

Story continues

Standards for 5G are being written, and large-scale commercial deployment isnt expected until 2020, according to the U.S.-China review commission. Major U.S. carriers AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are rolling out small-scale versions of the service.

In the meantime, the number of internet-connected devices is growing by nearly one-third each year, and will reach 25.1 billion by 2021, according to an estimate by consulting firm Gartner Inc.

As those changes unfold, Huawei is under intense scrutiny by the U.S. and its allies. Canada is conducting a security review of 5G technology, Germany is weighing whether to restrict Huaweis role, and British authorities are said to have concluded Huawei gear puts U.K. national security at risk as they debate whether to impose a ban.

Its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Canada at the behest of the U.S. in December on fraud charges linked to alleged Iran sanction violations. A sales executive was arrested last week in Poland on suspicion of espionage and fired over the weekend.

His alleged actions have no relation to the company, Huawei said in an emailed statement, noting: The incident in question has brought Huawei into disrepute.

A federal criminal investigation of possible parts theft from T-Mobile US Inc. was revealed this week. Chinas foreign ministry said Thursday the legal dispute between Huawei and T-Mobile had already been resolved, and expressed concern about the motives behind the reinvestigation.

The company, founded by Ren in 1987, has emerged as a premier overseas presence for China, with a projected $108 billion in annual sales and operations extending to Africa, Asia and Europe.

Ren, in a rare discussion with foreign reporters on Tuesday, denied suggestions that Huawei aids the Chinese government in espionage, saying it has no regular contact with Beijing.

Some countries have decided not to buy equipment from Huawei, he said. Therefore, we can shift our focus to better serve countries that welcome Huawei. We can build high-quality networks in those countries to prove that we are trustworthy.

Ren also called Donald Trump a great president and said hell take a wait-and-see approach as to whether the U.S. leader will intervene on behalf of his daughter. Trump in December said he would intervene if it helped win a trade deal with China.

Huawei holds an ever-growing share of the worlds smartphone market and it and Chinas government have both made it a priority to develop 5G capabilities. Already Huawei is the worlds largest telecommunications equipment maker, with 28 percent of a $37.2 billion market in 2017, according to the U.S.-China review commission.

Huawei has said that blacklisting its equipment without proof will hurt the industry and disrupt the development of new high-speed technology.

In its latest annual report, Huawei said it had conducted 5G tests with more than 30 leading carriers in more than 10 cities around the world. We have been investing heavily in 5G research since 2009, the company said.

Huawei has always maintained that its independent and doesnt give the Chinese government access to its equipment.

Misgivings, however, continue to flourish in the West.

Retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding, a former member of the National Security Council under the Trump administration, has privately circulated a memo painting a future of communications dominated by China. Eventually, alternatives to its network technology wont exist, because other suppliers wont be able to compete with government-subsidized offerings from Huawei and fellow Chinese gear maker ZTE Corp., Spalding said in the memo.

Once China controls the market for internet-connected devices, it will be able to weaponize cities, Spalding said in the memo: Think of self-driving cars that suddenly mow down unsuspecting pedestrians. Think of drones that fly into the intakes of airliners.

Spalding left the National Security Council last year after he called for an enlarged U.S. government role in communications, creating an uproar because networks in the U.S. are privately owned and managed.

Chinese laws obligate the nations telecommunications operators to provide its intelligence services unfettered access to their networks, James Mulvenon, a China expert at the SOS International intelligence consultancy, told the U.S.-China review commission at a March hearing.

Mulvenon called Huawei a legitimate globally competitive $90 billion plus company and said it is not a front company or a platform for Chinese intelligence.

But, he said, Given the nature of the political and legal environment in China, they would not be able to refuse a request, a subsequent request, from the Chinese government for access to a network that Huawei runs.

In the U.S., telecommunications companies have also played a role in surveillance. For instance, in 2013 members of Congress confirmed they knew of a secret court order compelling Verizon Communications Inc. to turn over data about its customers calls. In 2015, Congress voted to stop the National Security Agency from collecting bulk records on Americans phone calls and instead get a court order for specific records.

As 5G is introduced, theres an increasing push to bar risky equipment from crucial networks, said Wessel, of the U.S.-China commission.

The internet is the backbone of our economy, the backbone of our security apparatus and the workings of our government, Wessel said. And we need to take substantial steps to make sure we have confidence in the security of those networks.

(Adds developments in Germany, Britain, Canada in 10th paragraph.)

--With assistance from Gao Yuan.

To contact the reporter on this story: Todd Shields in Washington at tshields3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
The Kennebunk-based New England Radio Discussion Society facilitated a talk between Sea Road School students and an International Space Station in January.

South Portland Sentry

Construction has started on the state-funded school, which is expected to be completed in 2023.
(Bloomberg) -- Netflix Inc. fell in early trading on Friday after it reported quarterly sales that came in below expectations. Despite that disappointment, analysts largely cheered the results, with more than 10 firms raising their price targets as they pointed to strength in global subscriber additions, which they said would help contribute to long-term outperformance.

According to Bloomberg data, the average price target for Netflix currently stands at $396, up from $384 on Thursday.

The stock slipped as much as 4.1 percent, though it had dropped more than 5 percent post-market Thursday, when the results were first released. Despite the dip, shares are up nearly 50 percent from a recent bottom in December, though they remain down about 18 percent from their record closing level.

Heres what analysts are saying:

Citi (Mark May)

International subscriber additions were meaningfully above expectations, while the weaker-than-expected revenue in the quarter appears to largely be FX driven.

May lifted his target on the company to $420 and affirmed his buy rating. In October, when May upgraded the stock to buy, he had a $375 target on Netflix.

Nomura Instinet (Mark Kelley)

The quarter was fairly clean; managements language on cash burn was consistent with prior commentary, indicating that investment in content is still top of mind.

There was broad-based geographic strength in net subscriber additions, along with a solid 4Q18 content slate.

Lifts price target to $320 from $300, and boosts Ebitda forecasts for both 2019 and 2020. Keeps neutral rating.

Goldman Sachs (Heath Terry)

Netflix has outperformed the best-fit-line in each of the last four quarters suggesting that the company is getting incremental leverage on its content investments.

Because subscriber additions continue to exceed expectations and the company is approaching an inflection point in cash profitability, we believe shares of NFLX will continue to significantly outperform.

Story continues

Raises price target to $450 from $420 to reflect faster subscriber growth, particularly in international markets. The firm maintained its buy rating and kept Netflix on its conviction list.

RBC Capital Markets (Mark Mahaney)

Global paid subscriber growth continues to accelerate, and the pulling of pricing lever should be successful, which means accelerating revenue growth & operating margin expansion.

Raises price target to $480 from $450, not far below the Street-high target of $500. Also raises 2019 and 2020 revenue expectations.

UBS (Eric Sheridan)

The success in Netflixs content demonstrates how investing in content drives a "flywheel" of engagement, sub growth & new content creators looking to partner.

There is potential for scale of revenue (driven by pricing & subs growth) against content investments to cause a positive inflection in FCF trendline in 2020 and beyond.

Price target raised by $10 to $420; buy rating maintained.

BofAML (Nat Schindler)

The international subscriber additions show that Netflix is far from peak intl net additions. This should be the focus of the results.

Keeps buy rating, boosts price target to $450 from $440.

Pivotal Research Group (Jeffrey Wlodarczak)

NFLX clearly continues to voluntarily ramp their content spend amidst continued strong subscriber results (particularly internationally) believing (rightly in our view) that increased programming spend: 1) reduces churn, 2) increases the target market for NFLX service, 3) strengthens pricing power, and 4) creates an ever larger moat around NFLXs business model.

Raises price target from $480 to a new Street-high of $500.

Raymond James (Justin Patterson)

Raises price target to $470 from $450, reiterates strong buy rating.

With revenue growth poised to accelerate, margin expansion in 2H19E, and FCF burn moderating in 2020E and beyond, we struggle to see the bear thesis.

Canaccord Genuity (Michael Graham)

We are strongly encouraged regarding our investment thesis, which revolves around a rapidly expanding catalog of original content driving continued strong subscriber growth.

Lifts price target to $415 from $400.

Stifel (Scott Devitt)

This was Netflixs strongest quarter of subscriber growth to date as international sub growth momentum continued.

Sees revenue growth accelerating above 30 percent in 2019. Price target lifted to $400 from $380.

(Updates stock to market open, adds comments from Stifel, Canaccord.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Vlastelica in New York at rvlastelica1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Steven Fromm

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Natural gas prices have been spiking lately on projections for cooler-than-expected temperatures in the second half of January.



Per CNBC, updated reports showed that weather conditions will cool down significantly with below-average temperatures over the next two weeks and the cold snap drifting eastward from the Midwest toward the East Coast. According to Bespoke Weather Service, weather model changes over the weekend were "incredibly bullish" as intense cold is expected this weekend.



A prolonged cold weather will continue to spur heating demand in homes and business, and put pressure on inventories, bolstering natural gas prices. Investors should note that November-March is generally the peak demand period for gas consumption in the United States (read: Best & Worst Zones of 2018 and Their ETFs).



With natural gas inventories still 15% below the five-year average, investment bank Barclays sees room for higher prices even if weather normalizes during the rest of winter. Given the bullish fundamentals, natural gas price is rising and is poised to spike even further. Investors should tap this trend with lower risk using the ETFs. These ETFs might be easier plays for investors seeking to deal directly in the futures market:



United States Natural Gas Fund UNG



The fund provides direct exposure to the price of natural gas on a daily basis through futures contracts. If the near month contract is within two weeks of expiration, the benchmark will be the next month contract to expire. It has AUM of $324.5 million and trades in volume of around 4.2 million shares per day. The fund has 1.30% in expense ratio and surged 13.4% in a week.



United States 12 Month Natural Gas Fund UNL



This product seeks to offer spread-out exposure across the futures curve in order to mitigate contango, a huge problem in the natural gas ETF market. The investment objective of UNL is to reflect the daily changes in the price of natural gas delivered at the Henry Hub Louisiana. Its benchmark is the near month futures contract to expire and the contracts for the following 11 months, for a total of 12 consecutive months. If the near month futures contract is within two weeks of expiration, the benchmark will be the next month contract to expire and the contracts for the following 11 consecutive months. UNL has accumulated $4.9 million in its asset base and charges 90 bps in annual fees. The product trades in paltry average daily volume of 9,000 shares and has gained 5.3% in a week (read: Best Commodity ETFs of 2018 to Watch Again in 2019).



iPath Bloomberg Natural Gas Subindex Total Return ETN GAZ



The note delivers returns through an unleveraged investment in the natural gas futures contract plus the rate of interest on specified T-Bills. It follows the Bloomberg Natural Gas Subindex Total Return Index. The product is unpopular and illiquid with AUM of $4.4 million and average daily volume of 1,000 shares. Expense ratio comes in at 0.45%. GAZ is up 10.6% in a week.



Leveraged Plays



For investors seeking to play on the natural gas spike for outsized profits in a short span, a leveraged bet might be a way to go. ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Natural Gas BOIL and VelocityShares 3x Long Natural Gas ETN UGAZ soared 43.2% and 25.3%, respectively, in a week. BOIL offers two times (2x) the daily performance of the Bloomberg Natural Gas Subindex while UGAZ provides three times long exposure to the performance of the S&P GSCI Natural Gas Index. BOIL costs less in annual fees, charging 95 bps compared to 1.65% for UGAZ (read: Inverse Leveraged ETFs Swell With Assets: Alarm Bells Ringing?).



Bottom Line



If the cold weather continues, demand for fuel for heating purposes will likely grow and could lower the huge stockpiles of natural gas, pushing the price upward. As a result, investors could definitely tap the surge in natural gas price with the above-mentioned ETFs provided the weather is cooler in the weeks ahead.



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(Bloomberg) -- Line Corp. is betting that tie-ups with Japans biggest financial institutions will help convince its 78 million users to entrust the free texting app with their money.

The operator of Japans most popular messaging platform plans to introduce Line Securities equities trading service jointly with the countrys biggest brokerage Nomura Holdings Inc. this year, provided it receives the necessary government permits, Tetsuhiko Saito, who heads Lines financial arm, said in an interview in Tokyo. A banking offering in partnership with megabank Mizuho Financial Group Inc. could become available as early as fall 2020, Saito said.

Line dominates messaging in Japan, where about half of the people use the app daily, but user growth has stagnated. Now Chief Executive Officer Takeshi Idezawa is looking to fintech to help monetize the companys massive subscriber base and reduce reliance on advertising. The problem is most Japanese already have a bank account, as well as credit cards. Line is betting that the backing of Mizuho, Nomura and other partners will provide the security people have come to expect from traditional financial institutions, while the added convenience and intuitive user experience of a smartphone app will help attract customers.

There is no point in making the same service thats already offered by banks and brokerages, said Saito, who became CEO of Line Financial Corp. in December, after more than three decades as a banker at Mizuho. We are creating the kind of financial service that only a communications company like Line could make.

Line Securities is likely to offer equities and foreign exchange trading, while Line Bank will start with deposit, withdrawal and money transfers, Saito said. He declined to give further details, saying the specifics will be decided in the next couple of months. The offerings will eventually expand to make use of Lines messaging and social-networking capabilities.

Story continues

Line already offers a smart investment service jointly with Folio Co. which lets users choose pre-selected baskets of equities based on keywords such as "drones" or "Japan biotech." It also sells travel, automotive and other kinds of insurance through a partnership with Sompo Holdings Inc. Still on the drawing board: a loan service with Orient Corp., a unit of Mizuho.

There is no precedent for this many major companies coming together, said Kazunori Ito, an analyst at Morningstar Investment Services in Tokyo. Lines user base is unrivaled in Japan, and all these companies recognize the value.

Japanese households held a record 1,859 trillion yen ($17 trillion) worth of assets as of September, according to data from the Bank of Japan. Cash and deposits accounted for about half of that last fiscal year, with only 16 percent in investment trusts, equities and bonds. By contrast, U.S. families invest about 54 percent of their wealth. That hoard of cash presents an opportunity for both the incumbents and new entrants like Line.

The financial industry has for a long time struggled to get people to shift from savings to investments, Ito said. What you need is both a customer base and a user interface and experience that can make it easy for people to get started.

An ecosystem of financial services could also help shore up the companys mobile payments business  Line Pay  against increasing competition. Its rivals include e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc., which runs its own bank, has a credit card with more than 15 million customers and is building a mobile-phone network. PayPay, backed by SoftBank Group Corp., Yahoo Japan Corp. and Indias largest digital-payments company Paytm, sparked a shopping frenzy last month by promising to give users 10 billion yen in rebates from their purchases. Mercari Inc., whose marketplace app has 10 million users in the country, plans to join the fray this year.

Line is spending 100 billion yen by the end of 2021 to develop Line Pay and other mobile services. The loss in the companys new businesses segment, which also includes artificial intelligence-powered hardware products and a cryptocurrency exchange, widened to 8.8 billion yen in the three months to Sept. 30.

The next few years is investments phase, Saito said. Line is looking to make finance a pillar business in the mid-term.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Reed Stevenson, Edwin Chan

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
(Recasts throughout with mining plans)

MEXICO CITY, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Mexico's mining companies, including copper giant Grupo Mexico, should prepare for new labor rules and new regulations over their operations, including the prospect of higher taxes, a veteran labor leader now in the Senate told Reuters on Tuesday.

Senator Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, who heads the labor committee and sits on the mining committee, unleashed epic union battles a decade ago before he left Mexico to fight corruption charges he says were politically motivated.

Asked whether Grupo Mexico and other miners run by Mexican billionaires should be more tightly controlled, Gomez Urrutia said years of loose regulation by such companies had led to inequality and a severe concentration of wealth in Mexico.

"They are going to have to review the policies and practices they have had," said senator, who as a union boss led multiple strikes over pay and conditions including at the nation's largest copper mine, owned by tycoon German Larrea's Grupo Mexico.

"We want them to do it in a voluntary and flexible manner, without conflicts. That's the goal, but they have brutally resisted," he said.

"They have not wanted to change their practices. They have not adapted to the new era."

Grupo Mexico declined to comment on the senator's remarks.

He said Mexico's mining tax should be reviewed and that there was room for companies to pay more.

"I know this hurts and creates uncertainty; nobody wants to pay more taxes," he said, adding that any such changes should be made gradually and ideally negotiated with the companies.

A 2017 study by PWC concluded that overall taxes for miners were high in Mexico compared to peers.

Other policies he said should change included rules that allowed companies to easily get mining concessions but made it hard to cancel them. He also mentioned indigenous consultations and labor and environmental rules.

Story continues

The comments by Gomez Urrutia, who returned to Mexico late last year to take up his seat in Senate for the left-wing party of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, follow declarations by others in the party seeking to tighten business regulation, roiling markets late last year.

Lopez Obrador has been more cautious in his remarks and has promised no new taxes in the first three years of his six-year term.

Following the senator's comments on Tuesday, Grupo Mexico shares weakened 2.35 percent. Shares in fellow Mexican miner Penoles fell 3.3 percent.

NORTH AMERICAN RULES

Labor provisions in a new North American trade deal should be enforceable in Mexico, he said, adding that lawmakers could pass new national labor rules within the next two months.

Gomez Urrutia said he would push for the stronger labor protections in the United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement that replaces the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to be made "obligatory."

The deal, known as USMCA, must be approved by the U.S. Congress and Canadian and Mexican legislators before becoming law. U.S. Democrat lawmakers may also push for making the deal's labor rules, which include minimum wages for some auto production, enforceable.

Gomez Urrutia said the current language of the text, which was signed by the presidents of the three countries on Nov. 30, made the labor chapter virtually voluntary. In the existing NAFTA, labor rules are not enforceable.

"I have insisted in hearings with the negotiators of this free trade agreement that they make the chapter on labor right obligatory; that it is not a recommendation, because otherwise, there will not be a major change," he said.

The senator also said the country's new labor law, aimed at increasing union democracy and possibly making it harder for companies to "outsource" workers to third parties, could be passed in late February or March.

Previously the new government of Lopez Obrador, which took office on Dec. 1, had aimed to pass the law by January. (Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; editing by Michael O'Boyle, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)





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(Bloomberg) -- When Apple Inc. executive Jeff Williams told a courtroom that Qualcomm Inc. cut off chip supply for iPhones, it was compelling testimony in the Federal Trade Commissions antitrust case against the semiconductor company.

The FTC argues that Qualcomm wont sell chips if customers dont also pay hefty licensing fees. But a 2017 email exchange between Williams and Qualcomm Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf shows the relationship may have broken down for other reasons.

Billions of dollars in chip supply deals involving Apple and Qualcomm may have actually collapsed over a squabble about software access, rather than the patent fees that sparked a bitter legal battle between the two technology giants, according to the emails seen by Bloomberg.

In a bid to keep Qualcomm supplying modems for a portion of Apples 2018 iPhones, Williams dismissed the licensing dispute to focus on the potential benefits of the two companies continuing to work together.

Williams said Apple would not leak key Qualcomm computer code needed to customize modem chips -- something the chipmaker had accused the iPhone maker of doing. The chief operating officer offered to "firewall" engineers using the software.

"In my wildest imagination of some evil intention of Apple, I have trouble coming up with a real scenario where anything of significant value could be leaked based on this code," Williams wrote in September 2017.

"I just hope the licensing dispute doesnt cloud good judgment in the team on a massive business opportunity," he added, noting that Apple planned to order about $2 billion worth of chips from Qualcomm for 2018. "I was hoping to keep some decent quantity of business flowing with hopes that the licensing stuff will get solved."

Mollenkopf replied that his main concern was about protecting Qualcomms proprietary information and that he hadnt seen much action by Apple in response to earlier complaints from Qualcomm on that issue. "This is independent of our license dispute," the CEO wrote.

Story continues

Nonetheless, Mollenkopf offered to provide the software access Apple needed. In return, he asked for a commitment from Apple to use Qualcomm modem chips in at least 50 percent of iPhones over two years, according to the emails.

The exchange suggests that Qualcomm and Apple were arguing over software, rather than the licenses at the center of their bruising legal battle. Still, the emails only offer a small window into the negotiations. Its common for dueling litigants to carefully select slices of evidence that support their arguments. Although this email exchange hasnt been submitted in the FTC trial so far. And Williams said in court this week that he spoke with Mollenkopf about the chip supply issue over the phone. The details of that conversation arent known.

On Friday in court, the FTC confronted Qualcomm Chief Technology Officer James Thompson with a 2014 email exchange between him and Mollenkopf in which the CTO suggests "striking back at Apple while were strong" amid licensing negotiations. Thompson viewed Apple as vulnerable to losing big business in North America and China, at the time, if it continued pushing back against Qualcomms no-license-no-chips policy, according to the email cited by the FTC. An Apple spokesman didnt respond to a request for comment. Qualcomm declined to comment.

During testimony in the FTC case earlier this week, Williams said Qualcomm refused to supply Apple with modems after it sued the semiconductor company. He said he contacted Mollenkopf by email and phone to try to persuade Qualcomm to supply chips for 2018 iPhone models.

We tried to get them to sell us chips, and they would not, he told Judge Lucy Koh whos presiding over the bench trial in San Jose. The case continues on Friday.

In the end, Intel Corp. became the sole provider of iPhone modems, crucial chips that help phones convert radio signals into data and voice. Qualcomm then sued Apple, accusing it of using its software to help improve the performance of Intel chips.

--With assistance from Kartikay Mehrotra.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.net;Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Molly Schuetz

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
TEMECULA, CA / ACCESSWIRE / January 16, 2019 / International Endeavors Corporation (OTC PINK: IDVV) today announced plans to build a production facility to manufacture the Off Grid Grow Laboratory (OGGL) in Mexico. Recent legalization efforts of marijuana in Mexico gives International Endeavors Corporation the opportunity to expand its global presence.

According to Marketing Director, Barry Smith, "We see the Mexico market as having enormous potential. The laws are beginning to improve in Mexico now, especially for medical marijuana. We noticed an increased demand for OGGLs in Mexico, and that encouraged International Endeavors Corporation to rapidly advance its plans for a production facility in the Baja region of Mecico. We are evaluating sites in the Baja region that can accommodate the manufacturing of up to 50 OGGLs per month."

The advantages include economies of scale that come from building multiple OGGLs in an assembly-line process and lower transportation and labor costs when compared to manufacturing and shipping the OGGLs from California.

Smith further stated, "Baja Mexico makes an excellent location for a production facility to manufacture the OGGLs. Because of its climate and number of clear sunny days there is a lot of demand for off grid products featuring Solar. We are excited about the potential there."

About the OGGL: The OGGL is the first purpose-built, self-contained, off-grid growing laboratory. Built in a low-cost shipping container, the OGGL has integrated solar modules and lithium-phosphate batteries coupled with a generator backup to supply uninterrupted power to the grow room. The OGGL is configurable for the three stages of the growing process, which are: vegetative, flowering, and cloning.

OGGL Unit

https://youtu.be/WRvXqpbA634

About International Endeavors Corporation (OTC stock symbol: IDVV)

International Endeavors Corporation focuses on building intellectual property and making equipment sales in the medical marijuana and legal cannabis industry through the creation of off-grid grow labs, biomedical devices, clean-energy solutions, and patented devices. The company is also engaged in locating and acquiring established companies, brands, and technologies. The company's real estate portfolio includes commercial property, agricultural land, and buildings.

Story continues

Forward-Looking Statements are included within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements regarding our expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategy, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, including words such as "anticipate," "if," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "could," "should," "will," and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements and involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. International Endeavors Corporation (IDVV) is under no obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Contact:

Nate Engel, CEO

Phone: 1-951-296-1024

Email: nate@internationalendeavorscorp.com

SOURCE: International Endeavors Corporation
Welcome back to Higher Law, our weekly briefing on all things cannabis. I'm Cheryl Miller, reporting for Law.com from Sacramento, where a nearby marijuana-hawking billboard featuring a goat and a scantily clad woman has caused a bit of a stir. News site CALmatters asks if the giant ad violates California's regs banning pot marketing to minors. I ask, is it a smart advertising ploy since we're all talking about it?



This week, we consider U.S. Attorney General nominee William Barr's support for the Cole memo (yes, the one Jeff Sessions rescinded) and whether the marijuana industry is feeling reassured by his remarks to the U.S. Senate. Plus, IP lawyers go to court over "Happy Apple." And California has its final marijuana regs in the books.



Thanks as always for reading. Your story ideas, tips, feedback and marijuana goat lore are always appreciated. Drop me a lineat cmiller@alm.com or you can call me at 916-448-2935. Follow me on Twitter at @capitalaccounts.















Barr Backs the 'Cole Memo'





William Barr is no Jeff Sessions, at least when it comes to marijuana. President Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Justice made that clear this week when he sat in the klieg lights of the Senate Judiciary Committee.



To the extent people are complying with the state lawsdistribution and production and so forthwere not going to go after that, Barr, of counsel at Kirkland & Ellis, told senators.



Barr said he would not "upset settled expectations" by pursuing state-legal marijuana companies that had relied on the Cole memo, which the pot-hating Jeff Sessions rescinded last year before his ouster.



But Barr also said states acting unilaterally to regulate marijuana are "breeding disrespect for the federal law," and he wants congressional action.



"We either should have a federal law that prohibits marijuana everywhere, which I would support myself because I think its a mistake to back off marijuana," Barr said. "However, if we want a federal approachif we want states to have their own lawsthen lets get there and get there in the right way."



So what does that mean for state-licensed businesses?



His pledge not to use Department of Justice resources to undermine state laws provides assurance to over one hundred thousand cannabis industry employees, thousands of legal businesses, and the many state and local governments reliant upon marijuana tax revenue," said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.



>>> That's a key argument legalization advocates have been making. The industry, particularly in states such as Colorado, has set down roots. If the feds crack down on state-regulated marijuana now, a whole lot of jobs and tax revenue will disappear.



Saphira Galoob, CEO of the Washington, D.C., cannabis lobbying firm The Liaison Grouptold Reuters that Barr's remarks were "a positive sign" that he "recognizes and acknowledges the countrys will for a regulated cannabis marketplaceand that a majority of Americans clearly support respecting states and protecting patients."





Story continues











Lawyers Fight Over 'Happy Apple' Mark





Owners of The Happy Apple Co. probably aren't smiling after a federal judge in Washington refused to issue a preliminary injunction blocking another company from selling Happy Apple cannabis-infused drinks.



U.S. District Judge Richard Jones of Washington's Western District said plaintiffs Lochirco Fruit and Produce Co. (a distributor of apples and apple treats) and the Happy Apple Co. (a West Coast seller) failed to show that Tarukino Holdings Inc.'s use of the Happy Apple name on its marijuana beverages is likely to confuse consumers.



The marijuana drink can only be sold in stores licensed by Washington state to carry marijuana and marijuana-related products, Jones noted in his Jan. 9 ruling.



"Defendants' products and Plaintiffs' products are not likely to be sold in close proximity to each other, and it is unlikely that a purchaser would mistakenly enter a retail store selling marijuana or marijuana-related products and confuse a cannabis-containing apple beverages with the fresh apples, apple cider, or caramel apples sold by Plaintiffs," Jones wrote.



Lochirco Fruit of Missouri and California-based The Happy Apple Co. sued Turikino Holdings last year, alleging trademark dilution and infringement, cybersquatting and unfair or deceptive acts. Lochirco and The Happy Apple Co. are represented by Tucker Ellis of St. Louis, Mo. and Newman Du Wors of Seattle. Tarukino is represented by Cascadia Intellectual Property and the Mann Law Group, both of Seattle.









California Finalizes Cannabis Regs





California's cannabis regulations are now final. The state Office of Administrative Law green-lighted the expansive rules late Wednesday, and they took effect immediately.



A lot of attention has been paid to provisions that allow licensed companies to deliver marijuana to customers in communities where grows and retail outlets are banned. But there's a lot for lawyers to chew on related to labeling restrictions, new regulations on delivery platforms and ownership definitions.



Juli Crockett, director of compliance for cannabis compliance firm MMLG, has a good rundown here.















Who Got the Work







The Cannabis Trade Federation announced that it will work with 15 principal lobbyists and more than a dozen associates from five law and lobbying firms to advocate for the STATES Act , which would provide federal protections for state-legal marijuana operations. The firms are Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck ; Jochum Shore & Trossevin ; The Raben Group ; Navigators Global , and theGROUP . The Cannabis Trade Federation is a 501(c)(4) advocacy group whose founding members include CannaCraft, TILT Holdings and iAnthus Capital Holdings.

Keith Stein , counsel at Dentons Canada has been appointed to the board of directors of Vancouver, Canada-based cannabis cultivator Invictus MD Strategies Corp.

Greenspoon Marder has announced a partnership with Green Table Global, a producer of cannabis events designed to bring together "high net-worth individuals, public and private investors and high quality emerging cannabis businesses." The partnership "will combine networks and strategies to further develop one of the leading cannabis consortiums in the nation," Gerald Greenspoon , Greenspoon Marder's co-managing director, said in a press release.

McMillan LLPassisted Aurora Cannabis Inc in its planned acquisition of Whistler Medical Marijuana Corp., a deal valued at up to $175 million. Norton Rose Fulbright Canada served as legal counsel for Whistler.











In the Weeds...





>> Forget the border wall debate and look south, cannabis lawyers. My colleague Dylan Jackson says business interest in Columbia, where 80 medical marijuana licenses have been issued, and Mexico, where legalization is on the horizon, is heating up. Luis Armendariz, a partner at Corral, Arzola, Armendariz & Maynez in Chihuahua, Mexico, says his firm has already been contacted by a slate of U.S.lawyers looking for opportunities for their clients.Daily Business Review



>> Gov. Andrew Cuomo's marijuana legalization proposal is finally here. It includes a 20 percent state tax, a 2 percent tax on sales from wholesalers to retailers and a per-gram tax on growers. It would allow counties and small cities to ban local sales. Vertical integration, growers operating retail shops, would be outlawed, too. Sales wouldn't start until April 1, 2020 at the earliest. Democrat & Chronicle



>> Add Rhode Island to the list of northeastern states preparing to legalize recreational marijuana. Gov. Gina Raimondo"with reluctance"included a proposal in her budget plan that forecasts the first adult-use sales starting in January 2020. Raimondo told the Providence Journal that she's resisted the idea for years but now thinks Rhode Island would suffer as an island of prohibition surrounded by legalized states. Providence Journal



>> Massachusetts regulators want more authority to to alter "host" agreements between marijuana businesses and local communities. Some would-be business operators say the fees or nonprofit donations local agencies require spike start-up costs beyond what they can afford. The Cannabis Control Commission will ask the Legislature for the power to review local agreements. Mass Live



>> What's in a name? For marijuana entrepreneurs, quite a bit. There's location, legitimacy and uniqueness. Plus, you really don't want to seem dull. I think its a mortal sin to have a bad name in such a cool and hyper-competitive space, Benjamin Weis, director of strategy for naming company A Hundred Monkeys, told The Boston Globe. The Boston Globe















What's Next: Calendar Call





Jan 22 - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Feinberg v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, an appeal of a tax court ruling upholding the IRS' authority to deny a Colorado-licensed dispensary certain business-expense deductions. The Greenwood, Colorado, firm Thorburn Walker represents the dispensary owners.



Jan. 22 - The National Cannabis Industry Association hosts a webinar on Michigan's new adult-use marijuana law. The scheduled speakers are members of NCIA's state regulations committee: Maureen McNamara, Michael Cooper and Barton Morris.



Jan. 24 - The National Cannabis Bar Association hosts a webinar on federal hemp legalization. Courtney Moran, the founding principal of EARTH Law, will lead the presentation.
By Michael Nienaber

BEIJING, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Germany welcomes progress in cooperation with China, especially in the financial sector, and aims to spur further development, its finance minister, Olaf Scholz, said in Beijing on Friday.

Trade between the two nations has softened amid uncertainty caused by the U.S. tariff dispute with China, but both have shown willingness to demonstrate that the world remains multilateral.

Germany is expected to sign pacts with Chinese financial regulators during Scholz's visit, and its Bundesbank may also conclude an agreement with China on trading yuan-denominated financial products in Europe.

"It is important that, contrary to recent trends that we can observe elsewhere, we are seeing progress in our cooperation," Scholz said.

Market access for banks and insurance companies on a level playing field and in the context of reciprocity is important, added Scholz, who is set to hold talks with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He.

"As the world economy slows, market volatility rises, creating greater risks," Liu told reporters before the talks at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in the Chinese capital, welcoming the results of the two nations' cooperation.

Berlin stresses its "close and advantageous" trade ties with China, whose rise has displaced Germany from its ranking as the world's third-biggest economy to the fourth.

At the same time, it increasingly seeks to better protect and strengthen sensitive German and European business sectors from China's state-backed acquisitions overseas in strategic industries.

"If you work closely together, you learn to appreciate similarities, but also to know differences," Scholz said.

"And we have a lot of common interests in financial matters, and then we need to bring different perspectives together. I believe that is the very important task of this financial dialogue." (Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
French prime minister Edouard Philippe said his government has activated plans for handling the effects of a no-deal Brexit. Photo: Jacques Demarthon/Getty Images

France launched its contingency plans on Thursday to deal with a potential no-deal Brexit, prime minister Edouard Philippe said during a press conference.

The plan includes 50m (44m, $57m) of investments to help ports and airports cope with new tariffs and trading terms in the event that the UK leaves the European Union on 29 March without an agreed deal and transition period.

Whats certain is that the scenario of a no-deal Brexit is less and less unlikely. Thats why I have decided to trigger the plan for a no-deal Brexit, said Philippe.

The plans are ready. Each port, each airport had been tasked with defining the nature of the work needed to adapt their measures to these new challenges, he said.

French minister Nathalie Loiseau warned in September that flights and Eurostar trains from the UK would be turned away from the EU in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

France provides a market for about 6% of all British exports in goods and services, while nearly 7% of UK imports come from the country. Total trade between the two sides is in excess of 70bn each year.

But these close trade ties risk being ruptured when the UK leaves the EU without an agreed divorce deal. The move could push the UK into trading on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, which would involve a range of new border checks and tariffs. Trade between the UK and France is currently frictionless because the countries are part of the EU customs union and single market.

The French government will also unveil plans in February to help fishermen and the fishing sector, said Philippe.

We want to defend the interests of French fishermen, defend the interests of fishing areas, and companies that take part in this significant economic sector, he said.





Prime minister Theresa Mays two-year attempt to forge an amicable divorce with the EU was crushed by parliament on Tuesday in the biggest defeat for a British leader in modern history.

May is expected to come back to parliament on Monday with a Plan B option and has been speaking with opposition parties about potential paths forward.
By Eric M. Johnson and Joey Roulette

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Jan 16 (Reuters) - Firefly Aerospace Inc, a resurgent rocket company founded by a former SpaceX engineer, plans to build a factory and launch site at Florida's Cape Canaveral Spaceport in a $52 million deal, people familiar with the project said on Wednesday.

The Firefly project is strategically important for the Cedar Park, Texas-based startup as it competes with several other new entrants vying to cash in on a big jump in the number of small satellites expected in the coming years.

Companies like Firefly, billionaire British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit, and the U.S.-New Zealand company Rocket Lab, are among the most promising companies designing miniaturized launch systems to link a broader swath of the economy to space at lower cost.

Firefly and Space Florida, the state's spaceport authority, declined to comment, citing confidentiality agreements.

Beginning around 2020, around 800 small satellites are expected to launch annually, more than double the annual average over the past decade, according to Teal Group analyst Marco Caceres.

The boom is fueled in part by new venture cash and technology leaps that have reduced the size of satellites used for everything from communications to national security.

A Florida project code-named "Maricopa" was publicly disclosed in November by Space Florida, but officials have been tight-lipped on specifics. Two people familiar with the project said Firefly is the company involved, though one of the people said the deal had not been finalized.

Firefly aims for a first flight in December of its Alpha rocket, which is capable of carrying around 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) into low-Earth orbit at a cost of about $15 million per flight.

By comparison, it can cost around $62 million for a ride on SpaceX's Falcon 9 with a payload topping 50,000 pounds (22,700 kg).

Firefly, founded around 2014 by former SpaceX and NASA engineer Tom Markusic, says its main competitors are government-subsidized foreign ones like the Indian Space Research Organization.

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Asset management firm Noosphere Ventures bought Firefly's assets in 2017 after it nearly shut down when a key European investor backed out. That resulted in the cancellation of a $5.5 million NASA contract for small satellite launches.

Firefly has a launchpad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and has generally talked about expanding operations for Alpha and a higher-capacity Beta rocket around 2021. It was not clear when the Florida expansion would be completed.

In November, NASA named Firefly as one of nine U.S. companies competing for funding under a program to develop technology to explore the moon's surface. (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson and Joey Roulette in Cape Canaveral, Florida; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
By Rod Nickel WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - The Canadian province of Alberta's OPEC-style decision to force production cuts is benefiting oil companies with higher prices, but it is also pushing capital elsewhere and threatens to undermine booming crude-by-rail shipments. After Alberta cut 325,000 barrels per day (bpd) starting this month, the discount on Canadian heavy oil compared to benchmark U.S. crude oil shrank to less than $7 per barrel from more than $40 in October, providing relief for producers. But drilling activity has dropped sharply in the last year, hurting service providers, and the shrinking discount reduces incentive for shippers to move crude by rail, which is costlier than pipelines. Some producers have already decided to spend more in other provinces. "As soon as we heard this curtailment was taking place, we shifted our capital to Saskatchewan from Alberta," said Grant Fagerheim, chief executive of light-oil producer Whitecap Resources Inc . Whitecap intends to spend about 80 percent of its C$450 million ($340 million) capex in Saskatchewan, up from its usual spending there of around 60 percent, Fagerheim said. Canada is the world's fourth-largest crude producer, but larger producers like the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia do not face Canada's obstacles in getting oil to market. Full pipelines and aggressive opposition to expanding the industry meant that even as Canada's production hit record levels last year, benefits of that boom were elusive. Alberta, which produces most of Canada's oil, last month ordered curtailments to drain bloated storage tanks and boost prices. Government intervention has provided a lifeline to producers that were selling barrels at a loss late last year and avoided an economic catastrophe for Canada. Bonterra Energy Corp produces less than 9,000 bpd, making it exempt from requirements to curb output, but it still benefits from higher prices, Chief Executive George Fink said. DRILLERS HIT Cenovus Energy Inc , which announced plans last year to increase shipments by rail, is seeing a "very positive impact" on cash flow due to small price discounts, senior vice president of downstream Keith Chiasson told Reuters. But with growth capital leaving Alberta and transportation problems unresolved, producers are feeling their way along in the early days of reckoning with almost unprecedented challenges. Across Canada, 184 rigs were working as of Jan. 11, down 92 rigs from a year earlier, according to Baker Hughes data. Companies that provide contract services for producers, such as drilling, are looking to the United States and Mexico, said Gary Mar, chief executive of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada. Government-ordered production cuts worsened an already grim situation for service companies, Mar said. Asked about the curtailment program's unintended consequences, an Alberta government spokesman noted that its strategy was focused on getting top dollar for its oil. "There's too much at stake and we shouldn't be selling our products on the cheap," said Mike McKinnon, spokesman for Alberta's energy minister. But prices have improved so dramatically that shipping by rail - the backup plan for moving crude until new pipelines are built - makes less economic sense. The cost of shipping crude by rail to U.S. buyers is estimated around $15 to $20 per barrel, well above the current differential. Cenovus would not comment on whether the company is losing money on near-term rail shipments, but said they are scheduled to ramp up in the second quarter once new cars arrive. Devon Energy Corp was planning to move 20 percent of its Canadian heavy oil this year by rail, but the narrow differentials now make that an unlikely target, said Rob Dutton, Devon's senior vice president of Canadian operations. Devon currently moves less than 10 percent by train. "It's more difficult now" to reach that level, Dutton said in an interview. "Forty-five days ago, I would have said, 'absolutely, for sure.'" ($1 = 1.3240 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Denny Thomas and Tom Brown)
xi jinping us-china trade war

China has extended the olive branch back to the United States by offering a path to eliminate Washingtons burgeoning trade deficit with the country, Bloomberg reported Friday. The news comes less than a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration was considering lifting tariffs amid the ongoing trade war.

China Proposes Six-Year Buying Spree

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported Friday that China has offered to significantly boost its purchase of U.S. goods over a six-year period in an effort to re-balance trade between the two superpowers. By increasing its annual imports from the United States, Beijing would reduce its trade surplus to zero by 2024. That would require a spending boost of more than $1 trillion.

Last year, Beijings surplus with the U.S. stood at $323 billion.

Trade War Truce?

Trade talks between the U.S. and China are progressing at breakneck speed, a strong sign that both sides are looking to end the tariff dispute before March. Thats when the 90-day truce agreed to by President Donald Trump and Chinas Xi Jinping is set to expire.

U.S. officials are reportedly considering lifting tariffs on Chinese imports to give Beijing a bigger incentive to negotiate a fairer trade deal. Last year, the Trump administration announced duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and threatened additional tariffs if Beijing responded. Tensions have simmered down since December when the leaders of both countries met face-to-face on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Last week marked the first face-to-face meetings between Chinese and American trade delegates since the G20 summit. The meetings, which went a day longer than planned, resulted in China agreeing to purchase more U.S. farm and agricultural commodities. Chinese officials have also agreed to grant wider access to mainland markets to U.S. firms.

Several risks stand in the way of a comprehensive end to the trade war. Chief among them is the ongoing drama involving Huawei Technologies Corp. U.S. federal prosecutors are following up on civil lawsuits against the tech giant by launching a wider investigation into the company. According to The Wall Street Journal, the investigation has reached an advanced stage and could lead to an indictment shortly.

Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.



The post Bye Bye Trade War? China Plans $1 Trillion Buying Spree to Reduce US Trade Deficit appeared first on CCN.


Kazakhstan imposed on January 14 a temporary ban on the imports of animals, meat, milk, and raw materials obtained from the slaughter of animals, due to foot-and-mouth disease, the press service of the Kazakh Ministry of Agriculture.





In accordance with the official notification from the World Organization for Animal Health, the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan informs that starting 14th January 2019, temporary restrictions have been imposed on the imports of FMD-susceptible animals, as well as beef, pork, mutton, milk and dairy products, including finished and heat treated products, non-food raw materials and products obtained from the slaughter of FMD susceptible animals, equipment used for husbandry, slaughter and processing, livestock feeds and feed additives, into the Republic of Kazakhstan from Primorsky Krai of the Russian Federation," the statement said.









This information may not be reproduced without reference to Kazakhstan Today. Copyright of materials of News Agency Kazakhstan Today.



When citing our content a hyperlink to this Kazakhstan Today website is obligatory.
(Adds ABPA comment in paragraph 11)

By Jake Spring and Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Brazil is moving toward a self-monitoring system for food processors, Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias said on Friday, including meatpackers still recovering from an inspection scandal that hurt trade with key markets.

Dias said in an interview that the South American nation's new business-friendly government plans to send draft legislation on self-monitoring to Congress in the first half of this year.

Self-monitoring, widely used in the United States and other developed countries in Europe, would be introduced gradually across various agricultural products and eventually be used for oversight of meatpackers.

"Why can't Brazil do self-monitoring when Europe and the United States use it?" Dias told Reuters.

Commercial partners banned certain Brazilian meat producers after a federal probe revealed alleged bribery and falsified inspection results in the country's meat exporting industry, the world's largest.

The scandal briefly threatened about $15 billion in exports from Brazil's powerhouse protein industry as markets from China to Europe curtailed shipments of meat pending a review of the South American nation's inspection protocols.

But Dias, a farm lobby congresswoman who was picked to head the agriculture ministry by new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, adamantly defended the food industry's ability to monitor itself.

"Our agriculture sector can provide guarantees. Just because of one episode we shouldn't demonize Brazil's food industry," she said.

Dias argued that Brazilian multinational companies already use self-monitoring at subsidiaries abroad. Brazil is home to meatpacking giants JBS SA and BRF SA, both of which were implicated in the ongoing food probes.

The federal investigation, which started in 2017 and was expanded last year, is examining relations between food processors, Agriculture Ministry officials and laboratories with a mandate to certify the safety of meat sold domestically and in foreign markets such as China, Japan, the Middle East and Europe.

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JBS and BRF declined to comment on the introduction of a self-monitoring system. Meat industry lobby group ABPA said it supports initiatives to strengthen quality controls, without elaborating.

Dias said she could not give specifics on what oversight would remain in the hands of the government since the matter was still under discussion with companies.

HALAL EXPORTS

Dias said she has not begun talks with the European Union over lifting its ban on Brazilian chicken imports as the Bolsonaro government, which took office on Jan. 1, was still formulating its policies.

The agriculture minister said she may travel to China in February or March, but no date for the trip has been set. Beijing has imposed anti-dumping measures on Brazilian chicken products, which Brasilia is trying to get lifted.

Brazil's farm sector is also concerned that Bolsonaro's plan to move the country's Israeli embassy to Jerusalem could hurt halal meat sales to Muslim countries, Dias said. Exports of Halal food, including beef, chicken, honey and cheese, rose to an estimated $5 billion last year.

"Of course, the agricultural sector that I represent is worried," she said, when asked about possible repercussions for trade with Arab countries angered by the foreign policy shift by Brazil, which has traditionally backed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

She said the policy is still being ironed out within Brazil's government and talks are being held with trading partners.

"We have to find a middle ground going forward because Brazil cannot lose markets. What we need is to open new markets," Dias said. (Reporting by Jake Spring and Anthony Boadle; Additional reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Paul Simao)
BEIRUT (AP)  An Arab economic development summit that Lebanon is hosting this weekend has been marred by controversy days before delegates arrive.

Should regional outcast Syria be invited, as demanded by Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah militant group, an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad? Should Libya get a seat at the table, despite the unresolved mystery surrounding the disappearance of a Lebanese cleric in Libya four decades ago?

And should Lebanon, which has been without a government for more than eight months, even be allowed to host as it stands at the brink of economic collapse?

Yes, according to President Michel Aoun, who is hoping to use the platform to boost Lebanon's sinking economic credentials. Lebanon's powerful parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, disagrees, saying a country paralyzed by its own divisions cannot successfully host a meeting of Arab nations.

The turmoil and chaos is nothing new to Lebanon, a tiny country fragmented along political and sectarian fault lines. Even in the best of times, it seems to be permanently on the edge of an impending crisis. Now, as a government vacuum stretches into its ninth month, there are real concerns that the ongoing political impasse will scuttle pledges worth $11 billion by international donors and lead to economic disaster.

On Monday, organizers of the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit, or AESD, held a press conference, announcing summit preparations were in place.

"All practical and logistic preparations for this summit have been completed," said Rafik Shalala, the summit's spokesman. Antoine Choucair, a member of the organizing committee, said the event's cost is estimated at $10 million, paid for by the host country.

The AESD was formed in 2009 as an exclusively economic and development conference that tends to involve the private sector, including banks, chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture. The agenda does not include the reconstruction of Syria, much of it ruined in nearly eight years of civil war.

Story continues

Choucair said up to six heads of state are expected to attend, although that number will likely be lower.

At the heart of Lebanon's political deadlock are divisions between its two opposing pro and anti-Syrian camps. The country held parliament elections in May and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah scored significant gains, but politicians have been unable to form government since. And as President Bashar Assad and his ally Iran are largely seen as having won the war in neighboring Syria, there are concerns that Assad's government is once again trying to reassert its influence in Lebanon.

The question of whether to invite Syria, whose membership in the Arab League was suspended in 2011, quickly became an issue.

Pro-Syrian groups led by Hezbollah have insisted that the Syrian government should be invited.

"In the absence of a government, and because Lebanon should have a uniting, not divisive (Arab) role, and because we don't want the summit to be a failure, I think it should be postponed," Parliament Speaker Berri said, according to his Shiite Amal party, adding that he believed that if the summit is held, Syria should be invited.

"It is not Lebanon who issues the invitations, Lebanon abides by the decisions of the Arab League," Lebanon's Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil responded in a tweet.

Then last week, a new debate erupted over whether Libya should be invited in a dispute that stems from the 1978 disappearance of Shiite cleric Imam Moussa al-Sadr, founder of the Amal party now headed by Berri. The cleric vanished on an official visit to the country when it was ruled by Moammar Gadhafi. The issue remains a longstanding sore point between the two countries, even though Gadhafi was overthrown and killed in 2011.

Al-Sadr's family believes he may still be alive in a Libyan prison, although it is widely believed that the cleric, who would be 90 years old today, is dead.

Berri's Amal group says Libyan authorities have been uncooperative in the case. The party said that Libya's U.N.-recognized government in Tripoli should not be invited, and its supporters threatened to cut off Beirut's airport road to prevent the Libyan delegation from reaching the summit venue should they arrive in the country.

On Sunday night, a group of Amal supporters tore down a Libyan flag decked on a Beirut street along with those of other participant nations, and replaced it with the green flag of the Amal party. The Libyan foreign minister reportedly said in an interview with a local channel Sunday night that Libya will cancel its participation in the summit over the insult to the Libyan flag. Shalala, the summit spokesman, said they have not been officially notified of the Libyan decision.

The fracas over a 40-year-old issue has led to accusations that pro-Syrian groups were trying to derail the summit, because of the absence of Syria. Nadim Koteich, a Lebanese political satirist, lamented the political scene whereby a political group's unilateral decisions are met with silence by the state.

"All Arab countries concerned about Lebanon as a state ... should boycott the economic summit and tell their delegations to cancel their travel to the Lebanese jungle, until the restoration of (Lebanese) sovereignty," he wrote in a Twitter post.
Mr. Ciruli is the Director of the Crossley Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Denvers Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He is an adjunct professor teaching public opinion and foreign policy. The Crossley Center conducts research and presents live and virtual programs on foreign policy, politics, public policy and public opinion.





Mr. Ciruli holds a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and a bachelors degree cum laude in political science from UCLA. He is a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), and is the past-president of the Pacific Chapter of AAPOR (PAPOR). Mr. Ciruli is a board member of the Social Science Foundation of the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies and past-president of the Georgetown Law Alumni Board and the Denver Athletic Club.




The image from the South Korean Navy shows a Japanese patrol plane, inside the yellow circle, making a low-altitude flight. / Yonhap



By Park Ji-won



The South Korean defense ministry plans to release videos in eight languages to counter Tokyo's claims in a deepening radar row between the countries, ministry officials said Sunday.



The Ministry of National Defense is making videos in Japanese, Chinese, French, Germany, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic to counter Tokyo's claims that a South Korean naval ship used its fire-control radar on a Japanese P-1 patrol plane. The ministry claims Japan's low-altitude flight threatened Seoul's humanitarian rescue mission.



A ministry source said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was reviewing the videos due to the sensitivity of the issue and that the videos would be released on YouTube soon.



The move is in response to Japan's unilateral release of video footage in Japanese and English on Dec. 28, claiming the Korean vessel used fire control radar on Japan's surveillance plane.



Foreign ministers from both countries agreed to hold working-level meetings soon to discuss the dispute.



"Seoul's release of its own videos is expected to put pressure on Tokyo ahead of the bilateral working-level meetings," said Dankook University professor Cha Dong-gil.



Seoul has been stepping up efforts to publicize the issue by reiterating its position using various channels, saying that Seoul was merely trying to help a North Korean ship and was not targeting Japan's plane.



On Friday, the ministry uploaded two video clips in Korean and English on YouTube that include the audio recording received by the South's Gwanggaeto warship and video recorded by the Korea Coast Guard to dispute Tokyo's claim.

In the clip, the ministry stressed that its Gwanggaeto the Great destroyer did not target Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force's P-1 plane, and that the vessel was trying to rescue a North Korean boat in distress in international waters of the East Sea.



Korea again urged Japan to apologize for the great danger caused by the threatening flight and to work toward resolving the issue.



On the same day, ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said Tokyo's claim was "groundless" and that the defense ministry was waiting for an apology from Japan.



Amid strained relations between Japan and South Korea over compensation issues related to Japan's wartime sexual slavery and Korean forced laborers during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula, the radar issue has created another source of contention.


Hanoi: Vietnam is willing to host second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea's top generals Kim Yong Chol is expected to meet with Trump at the White House on Friday to hash out details of a second meeting with Kim, including a potential venue. The second round of talks follow a historic summit in Singapore last year and are aimed at denuclearisation and ending decades of enmity between the two countries.

Southeast Asian country has cropped up in the swirl of rumours and conjecture over a possible site for the meeting, with the capital Hanoi or the coastal city of Danang seemingly the most likely bases for the summit.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said he would be open to hosting it. In an interview with Bloomberg TV , We don't know the final decision. However, if it happens here we will do our best to facilitate the meeting."

According to source logistical preparations were under way for a Trump-Kim summit although no official decision. The source added that There is lots of work to be done, not only for Danang but some other locations for the event. The Vietnamese side is ready to host... but it is not up to us to decide.
DUBAI: on Friday, An American journalist working for Iran`s state television channel Press has been detained in Washington will appear in a US court. Iran has called for the immediate release of TV anchor and documentary filmmaker Marziyeh Hashemian, whose employer, the English-language channel Press TV, said that it was arrested on Sunday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

Due to appear in a Washington, DC, court on Friday, The FBI has not commented on the case "Marzieh Hashemi. The broadcaster on Wednesday quoted Hashemi`s son as stating that the 59-year-old journalist, who had been living in Iran for more than a decade, was detained as a "material witness" to a criminal case and no formal charges had been made against her.

According to source report, Hashemi was born Melanie Franklin in the United States and changed her name after converting to Islam. She had travelled to the United States to visit her family. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned the arrest a "violation of freedom of speech and unacceptable".

US Federal law allows the government to arrest and detain a witness that if it can prove that their testimony is material to a criminal proceeding and that it cannot guarantee their presence through a subpoena. While Zarif told Iran`s Arabic-language state broadcaster Al-Alam news channel that "She is the wife of an Iranian citizen and we see it as our duty to defend the rights of our citizens". In a statement on Friday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the Justice Department to disclose the reason for Hashemi`s arrest.

Several Iranian dual nationals from the United States, Britain, Austria, Canada and France have been held over in the past years in Iran and are being kept behind bars on charges including espionage and collaborating with hostile governments.

also read : Trump chasing NATO allies to enhance their military spending

India and US discussion over "potential missile defense cooperation"
Paris: Grace Meng, wife of missing former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei, applied for asylum in France fearing for her life, her lawyer said on Friday.

The boss of Lyon-based Interpol went missing in September after travelling back to his native China. France opened an inquiry and China said he was under investigation for bribery.

No word has been heard from Meng since a WhatsApp message to his wife on September 25 saying "wait for my call".

The website of France Info's radio station quoted her on Friday as saying that in recent weeks in Lyon she has been followed by strangers, received suspicious phone calls, and had her car licence plates photographed by mysterious people.

"I need the French government to protect, to assist and help me and my children," she told France Info.

"I am afraid I may be kidnapped."

Her lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny told Reuters she had recently applied for asylum after being under police protection since soon after her husband's disappearance.

Meng, a deputy minister of public security in China, became president of Interpol in late 2016 amid a broader effort by China to secure leadership posts in international organizations.

Presidents of the international police organisation are seconded from their national administrations.

Interpol, which groups 192 countries and is usually focused on finding missing or wanted people, is run on a day-to-day basis by its secretary general Juergen Stock.

Interpol said Meng had resigned and elected Kim Jong-yang of South Korea as president in November.

French authorities declined to comment on the asylum request. It is unclear where Meng is being held and it has not been possible for Reuters to reach him for comment.

China has said it protects the legitimate rights of all citizens, no matter what situation they find themselves in, and has offered to facilitate a call between Meng and his wife.

Reuters could not reach his wife for further comment.
London: Queen Elizabeth's 97-year-old husband Prince Philip escaped uninjured from a car crash while driving on Thursday near the Sandringham estate in eastern England.

Police said two people in a car that collided with that of the prince, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, were both taken to hospital for minor injuries but later discharged.

Pictures from the scene showed a Land Rover overturned on the side of the road. The accident occurred when Philip was pulling out of a driveway onto a main road, the BBC reported, quoting a witness saying he was very shaken.

Philip drove former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle to lunch during their state visit to Britain in 2016.

Buckingham Palace confirmed Thursday's accident.

"The Duke was not injured," it added in a statement.

A palace spokeswoman later confirmed Philip was at the wheel and was checked by a doctor afterwards. He did not go to hospital and was now back at Sandringham, the private country residence owned by Queen Elizabeth in the county of Norfolk.

Famous for verbal gaffes but generally regarded with wry affection by Britons, Philip married Elizabeth in 1947 and has been by his wife's side throughout her long reign.

Since retiring from official solo duties in 2017, he has appeared in public alongside the Queen and other members of the royal family at events and church services.

He had successful hip replacement surgery last year.

The former naval officer did not accompany the Queen to a church service on Christmas Day last month though a royal source said he was in good health.

Kate Williams, a royal historian, said it would be a blow to Philip if the incident ended his driving days. "He really loves driving and takes a great pleasure in it and were he not allowed to drive he would find that quite painful," she said.

There is no legal age in Britain to stop driving, but after 70 people must renew their licence every three years.

Outspoken yet intensely private, Philip developed a reputation for brusque comments and often headline-grabbing remarks during ceremonial events.

A stray comment about 'slitty eyes' during a visit to China in the 1980s became symbolic of his gruff and often unguarded manner. Even into his 90s, his off-the-cuff comments could still get him into trouble, such as when he exasperatedly swore at a photographer during an event in 2015.

Read more: Latest world news
Bengaluru: Buoyed by the return of its 'prodigal' MLAs and failure of 'Operation Lotus' against the JD(S)-Congress coalition, Karnataka's ruling Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting here on Friday is expected to be a show of strength, capping the political drama of the last few days.

The meeting of Congress MLAs takes place after some half-a-dozen party MLAs, sulking over not being inducted into the government, returned expressing allegiance to the Congress even as nearly 100 BJP MLAs sequestered in a Gurugram hotel, near Delhi, are set to leave their camp on Friday.

"The legislators who will not attend the CLP meeting on Friday may be disqualified by the party. The meet will be a show of strength," Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) vice president B K Chandrashekar told IANS here.

The meeting has been convened by CLP leader Siddaramaiah at the Vidhana Soudha at 3:30pm. "The meeting will take stock of all the political happenings over the last week. Legislators might also be asked to refrain from speaking against each other in the public," Chandrashekar said.

The budget that will be presented by the coalition government in February will also be part of the discussions at the CLP meet.

Earlier this week, Congress leader D K Shivakumar's remarks that the opposition BJP was indulging in horse trading by offering money to about four Congress legislators in Mumbai, set off high-octane political activity in the southern state.

While the BJP denied the poaching allegations, it lodged its legislators, who were in Delhi over the past week for a party meet with national leadership, at a private resort in Gurugram, Haryana. The party in turn claimed that the JD(S) and Congress coalition was attempting to poach its legislators.

Amid the exchange of horse trading charges by the three major parties in the state, two legislators withdrew their support to the coalition government on Tuesday. They were R Shankar of Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party from Ranebennur Assembly segment in Haveri district and H Nagesh, an Independent from Mulbagal constituency in Kolar district.

The coalition partners, however, continued to maintain that the government was stable and that they had the support of all their legislators.

"No attempt to destabilise the coalition government will be effective as we have the support of all our legislators," Congress leader and Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara said.

In the 225-member Legislative Assembly, including one nominated member, the Congress has 80 legislators, JD(S) 37, and the BJP 104, while one Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA continues to support the coalition after one Independent Nagesh and the KPJP legislator Shankar withdrew their support.

The coalition government thereby has 118 legislators on its side, while BJP has 104.

The BJP was "taking advantage" of the legislators who were not offered a place in the ministry, Parameshwara said.

"Whenever there is a cabinet reshuffle, there will naturally be disappointment among those legislators who were not offered a ministry. BJP was trying to take advantage of that but failed," he asserted.

Among the two legislators who withdrew their support to the government, Shankar, who was a former forests minister in Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's cabinet, was dropped from the ministry during a reshuffle and expansion on December 22 last year.

"There is a possibility that the legislators who were not given cabinet posts, be offered ministries, with 4-5 current ministers ready to give up their positions," Chandrashekar told IANS.

Through the CLP meet, the party aims to renew confidence among its legislators to keep the coalition intact, he said.

"The party might also shift the focus to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections (in April-May) by entrusting the leaders with campaigning responsibilities," the state unit Congress vice president added.

Meanwhile, Karnataka Congress working president Dinesh Gundu Rao said many Congress MLAs out of Bengaluru on holiday or for Sankaranti and they were threatened by the BJP with the use of agencies and blackmailing tactics but it did not succeed.

BJP leader and former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa countered the Congress allegations and his suggestion to the Congress would be that it was their responsibility to keep the flock together.

"Keeping your MLAs together is not my responsibility. If they were not happy and were in Bengaluru or Mumbai or any other place, we are not responsible for that," he said.

He said his party of 104 MLAs is in tact and charged the Congress with trying to poach BJP MLAs.
Bengaluru: In a new twist to the political drama in the wake of "Operation Lotus", the Congress in Karnataka on Friday shifted 76 of its MLAs to a private resort outside the city accusing the BJP of trying to poach them to destabilise the state's JD(S)-Congress coalition government.

The Congress devised the new strategy after a meeting of the legislature party where four MLAs, said to be dissidents, had absented despite threats of disqualification.

"The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is indulging openly in horse-trading and is trying to bring down the (JD-S-Congress) coalition government by hook or crook," Congress state unit president Dinesh Gundu Rao told the media here.

Rao was speaking to reporters after the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meet at the Vidhana Soudha in the city centre.

"We need to have all our MLAs in one place and deliberate with them on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. So we are all going to the resort," Rao said.

The meeting saw the attendance of 76 of the party's 80 MLAs, CLP leader Siddaramaiah told the media.

The four absent legislators were Umesh Jadhav of Chincholi Assembly segment in Kalaburagi district, Ramesh Jarkiholi from Gokak constituency in Belagavi district, B. Nagendra from Ballari segment and Mahesh Kumathalli from Athani constituency in Belagavi district.

"Those who were absent will be issued notices seeking their explanation," Siddaramaiah asserted.

Two of them  Umesh and Nagendra  could not be present for the meet due to personal reasons, the party said.

"Umesh had sent a letter that he is unwell and could not travel, while Nagendra could not be present due to some court-related work," Siddaramaiah added.

While exuding confidence over the party lawmakers' support, Siddaramaiah alleged that the BJP's national leaders, including national president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were behind the attempt to "destabilise" the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S)-Congress coalition government.

"BJP has been trying to come to power through undemocratic means and has kept its own legislators locked up in Gurugram, Haryana. Their central leaders Shah and Modi were also involved in the attempt to gain power in Karnataka," the Congress leader claimed.

The party was not afraid of any "Operation Lotus" to topple the government, he added.

"Our legislators were offered crores of rupees by the BJP to join the party in exchange for cabinet posts," Siddaramaiah alleged.

The Congress decision to pack its MLAs to a resort near here comes in the midst of a similar sequestering of its MLAs by the BJP in a five-star hotel in Gurugram near the national capital for the last four days.

The BJP, however, has rejected Congress allegations of attempts to destabilise the Kumaraswamy government.
Kochi: The synod of the Syro Malabar Church has proposed a code of conduct for priests as part of efforts to 'ensure discipline.'

Any efforts to create 'rift' in the church on the pretext of 'ideas or individuals' will be deemed a serious offence and action will be taken if anyone is found erring, the synod says.

The new directives have been stated in a circular for Sunday mass reading prepared by Major Archbishop Cardinal Mar George Alancherry.

Priests will need prior permission from the church head or the major superior to take part in channel or media discussions. Only designated spokespersons should talk to the media on behalf of the church, it says.

Explanation will be sought from those involved in anti-church activities. If the explanations are found unviable, church superiors may take action against them, the synod says.

Priests and those in the 'way of the church' who gets involved in campaigns and strikes are duty-bound to follow canon laws. Any deviation will be deemed a violation of rules, the synod says.

It observed that some of the recent protests involving priests and their statements had violated all bounds of propriety.

The tendency to oppose disciplinary action in connivance with anti-church groups and a section of the media will not be allowed, it adds.

The 27th synod concluded at the St Thomas Mount on Friday.
New Delhi: The Kerala government has informed the Supreme Court that 51 young women had entered the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala since the apex court allowed women of all age groups to enter the hill shrine.

The government has listed the names of 51 women, along with other details including Aadhaar card and addresses. Most of the women are from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Goa. None of the names are from Kerala.

However, the names of Kanakadurga and Bindu who recently walked into sanctum sanctorum of the Sabarimala temple, despite huge protests from right-wing outfits, are missing from the list. This is because the list included the names of only those who booked darshan via online booking.



The Kerala government submitted the list in SC during the hearing on a plea seeking security for Kanakadurga and Bindu. The SC has directed the Kerala Police to provide adequate security to two women.

However, Travancore Devaswom Board members KP Sankar Das and N Vijayakumar said that they have no data to back the state government's claim in the SC.

"There is no need to doubt the government's stand. Real devotees come and have darshan and return. They would not publicise their visits and so the outside world will not know. However, there is no way the Devaswom board can ascertain the number of visits," the officials said.

However, Pandalam royal family said that they do not trust the list submitted by the government in court.

A five-judge Constitution bench, headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, September 28, 2018, paved the way for entry of women of all age groups into the Sabarimala temple, saying the ban amounted to gender discrimination.

Kanakadurga, 44, and Bindu, 42, stepped into the hill shrine guarded by police on January 2, three months after the apex court's historic judgment.

The SC has directed the Kerala Police to provide adequate security to Kanakadurga and Bindu

Following the entry of the women into the shrine, the chief priest had decided to close the sanctum sanctorum of the temple to perform the 'purification' ceremony.

The right-wing outfits, including the BJP, have been protesting the LDF government's decision to implement the SC order. The state had witnessed protests and violence after the two women entered the shrine.
Kerala government's claim in the Supreme Court that 51 women of child-bearing age had entered Sabarimala during the ongoing season now looks suspect.

Onmanorama called up the numbers of 10 people given in the government affidavit. All the calls were taken by men. Except for three, the rest said no women from their families, or even their lady friends, had gone to Sabarimala. Even the three, who said women did accompany them to Sabarimala, said their age was over 50. In short, at least 10 of the 51 women the state government had claimed had entered Sabarimala had either not done so or were above 50. The government affidavit has shown the age of all the 51 women as below 50.

Thirumali of Chennai said his wife Seetha had gone with him to Sabarimala late October. When her age was sought, he said 53. If a lesser age has been printed, it is a mistake, Thirumalai said. Saravanan, who is also from Chennai, had gone to Sabarimala in November with his mother. But she is 65. Vasanthiah from Andhra Pradesh was confused when he got the call from us. I am not married and my mother had not gone to Sabarimala, he said. When we told him that his number was in the affidavit, he suddenly remembered. My aunty had gone. She booked through my number. But she is 59, he said.

Paraljyothi from Chennai, Ramesh from Andhra Pradesh and Anand from Veloor in Tamil Nadu said they had gone to Sabarimala but with a male team. We were a men-only team, and we do this pilgrimage every year, Paraljyothi. Ramesh and Anand, too, were with friends.

Three others  Sankar (Pondicherry), Sudarshan (Telangana) and Sambasiva Rao (Andhra Pradesh)  had no idea how their number appeared in the affidavit. I am not married, and had never once gone to Sabarimala, Sankar said. Sudarshan and Rao echoed Sankar.

A top government source, when contacted, said these people were only trying to protect their close ones. It is just survival instinct. They know the violence that had been unleashed in Kerala. They might fear something bad might happen to their women, the source said.

The Kerala government has informed the Supreme Court that 51 young women had entered the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala since the apex court allowed women of all age groups to enter the hill shrine.

The government has listed the names of 51 women, along with other details including Aadhaar card and addresses. Most of the women are from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Goa. None of the names are from Kerala. However, the names of Kanakadurga and Bindu who recently walked into sanctum sanctorum of the Sabarimala temple, despite huge protests from right-wing outts, are missing from the list. This is because the list included the names of only those who booked darshan via online booking.

The Kerala government submitted the list in SC during the hearing on a plea seeking security for Kanakadurga and Bindu. The SC has directed the Kerala Police to provide adequate security to two women. However, Travancore Devaswom Board members KP Sankar Das and N Vijayakumar said that they have no data to back the state government's claim in the SC.

Fake affidavit to influence verdict: BJP

P S Sreedharan Pillai

BJP state president P S Sreedharan Pillai on Friday lambasted the government saying it submitted a fake affidavit in the Supreme Court to cover up the embarrassment it suffered in front of the believers in Kerala. "The government submitted a list of the young women whose names were registered for virtual queue by CPI(M) activists. Such an affidavit was submitted to the apex court to influence the verdict of the review petitions challenging the earlier SC order (in favour of women entry)," he said in a statement.


Palakkad: Days after the daring daylight highway heist of nearly Rs one crore worth jewellery in Tamil Nadu, a woman and her son have been arrested in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh and a major portion of the loot recovered from them, police said Friday.

Crime wing police in Tirupati arrested Shama, 46, and her son Mohammed Salim, hailing from Tiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu, Thursday after they were found moving in a suspicious manner with a huge bag at a pilgrim accommodation centre there, police in the temple town said.

Police said they recovered about Rs 60 lakh worth gold and silver jewels from the two.

On January 7, a 10-member gang had driven away a car with Rs 98.05 lakh worth jewellery belonging to Kerala-based Kalyan Jewellers after waylaying the vehicle and dragging out two employees of the firm at K G Chavadi between Walayar and Coimbatore.

The gold and silver jewels were being transported from Thrissur in Kerala to Coimbatore when the robbery occurred at around 11.30am.

Shama's another son Firoz along with his friends had allegedly committed the heist and after sharing a quantity of the booty among his friends, he had handed over the rest to her and his brother in Tiruvallur, police in Tirupati said quoting preliminary investigation.

Since then, the two had been trying to sell the jewels and arrived in Tirupati two days ago.

Police said their counterparts in Coimbatore had been informed about the arrest and the two would be taken there after obtaining transit remand from a court here.

Coimbatore police said the recovered jewellery was part of the stolen gold and silver ornaments and they were already interrogating six people in connection with the crime.

In a related development, two other suspects who surrendered in a court in Chennai a week ago were brought to Coimbatore and produced before 7th Judicial Magistrate R Pandy who remanded them to six days police custody Friday.
The shooting case at actor Leena Maria Pauls Kochi beauty parlour is being handed over to the Crime Branch.

A special investigation team will be formed to handle the case and the Crime Branch team will be assisted by the local police.

The decision comes amid reports that there were moves to indefinitely delay the parlour shooting case inquiry by handing it over to Crime Branch.

The shooting at the beauty parlour owned by actor Leena Maria Paul in Panampilly Nagar, Kochi had taken place on December 15.

Her 'Nail Artistry' salon at Kadavanthara was attacked on Saturday

Two unidentified persons who came in bikes with their faces covered had opened fire before making a hasty retreat.

Initial reports suggested that this was evidently an act of warning.

A note containing the name of Mumbai don Ravi Pujari was also found from the site.

Leena later informed the police that a caller identifying himself as Ravi Pujari had made phone calls on the previous day demanding Rs 25 crores from her.

The investigation then turned in that direction.

Leena was summoned by the police to record her statement.

But the actress refused to divulge any information on the probable reasons which could have prompted the underworld don to demand money from her.

Then the police decided to summon Leena again.

However, the actor who kept changing her expected time of arrival for recording the statement, has not yet kept her word.

The police had, meanwhile, received unconfirmed information that both parties were trying to work out a solution to the issues which had led to the firing incident.

It was also reported that the conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar, Leenas spouse currently serving a term at Tihar Jail, New Delhi, in a cheating case, was pulling the strings of the operation from the prison.

Sources close to Chandrasekhar had revealed that he was trying to work out a compromise deal in the firing case with the help of some influential persons in the state.

The police could not easily wind up the investigation in the case, which had hogged headlines.

Inspector General of Police (Kochi Range), Vijay Sakare, had convened a meeting of the investigating officers in this case last week.
Thrissur: The St Mary's Church at Mannamangalam near here was on Friday evening put under lock and key by the District Collector following clashes between the Orthodox and Jacobite factions of the Malankara Church.

At least 20 people were injured in the incident, prompting the district administration to ask both sides to pull out of the place of worship.

The accused were booked for attempt to instigate riot and murder. Apart from 30 protestors owing allegiance to the Orthodox faction, several Jacobite faction members who were attending a prayer meeting inside the church have also been detained.

The police have registered a case against around 120 people from both factions and the first accused is Orthodox Thrissur Diocese Metropolitan, Yuhanon Mar Milethious, who is currently convalescing in a hospital following the clashes on Thursday night.

On Friday morning, District Collector T V Anupama intervened and had one to one talks with the rival factions. By evening, it was decided that both factions would leave the church premises, after which the church was locked.

"We have asked both the groups to leave the church. They have agreed to our proposal. Jacobites have sought more time to discuss the matter with the superior authorities of their church," Anupama told PTI.

"We have also told them that in case of any more law and order issue, the district administration will take strong action against those involved," she said.

Around twenty people, including the members of the Orthodox faction who were observing a sit-in outside the church gate and the parishioners owing allegiance to Jacobite faction who were camping inside the church sustained injuries in stone pelting. There was also an alleged attempt to intentionally steer a car into the crowd during the clash.

The police quickly swung into action and removed the Orthodox faction who were protesting in front of the church before detaining them briefly. The police also dismantled the makeshift shed where Orthodox faction members were staging the sit-in protest.

Eight of the injured, Bishop Yuhanon Mar Meletios, Fr Thomas Paul Ramban, Fr. Mathayi Panamkuttiyil, Fr Pradeep, Fr Reji Mankuzha, Raju Palliserry, John Vazhani and Eldho were admitted to the Malankara Medical Mission Hospital in Adupputty.

The others who suffered injuries, P T Varghese, 67, Basil Sajjan, 20, Babu Perumaryil, 47, and Sajan, 48, who belong to the Orthodox faction, and Panthapillil Babu, 52, Chollakuzhiyil Biju, 48, Chollakuzhiyil Shaju, 43, Meenkuzhikkal James, 53, and Panthapallil Albin, 25, who owe allegiance to the Jacobite faction, are undergoing treatment at the Government General Hospital in Thrissur.

Several glass panes of the Churchs windows were damaged in the incident. A large posse of policemen led by ACP V K Raju has been posted at the site.

Fr P K Kuriakose, Orthodox Church clergy association secretary, demanded stringent action against the persons who indulged in violence.

Believers of the Orthodox faction had been observing a sit-in outside the church gate since Wednesday morning after the High Court dismissed a petition filed by the Jacobite faction against a lower court order granting police protection to the appointed vicar of the Orthodox faction.

Read more: Latest Kerala news


Thodupuzha: After four days of hunt for the killer of an estate owner and his aide at Chinnakanal in Kerala's Idukki district, cops on Thursday night nabbed 36-year-old cardamom plantation supervisor from Madurai in Tamil Nadu

Bobin was arrested from neighbouring Tamil Nadu when he was plotting to leave for Pazhani via Theni, a small town along Kerala-Tamil Nadu border.

Cardamom estate owner Jacob Varghese, 40, and his aide Muthaiah, 50, were brutally killed on Sunday inside the estate bungalow and the adjoining cardamom drier room.

The police were on a hot pursuit of Bobin after they got clues about his involvement in the murders. The sleuths had conducted searches in Wayanad and the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border suspecting that the killer must be hiding somewhere there. He was finally arrested around 9pm by a special team headed by Idukki district police chief KB Venugopal.

The police had earlier arrested a couple for helping the culprit escape from the estate. Israbel, 30, and his wife, Kapila, 23, natives of Cheriyar, were remanded in custody after their role in providing help to Bobin came to light.

The police said Bobin stayed at Kapila's Santhanpara residence after committing the crime.

The couple had admitted to the police that Bobin had killed Jacob and his aide. Jacob was shot twice and Muthaiah was hit on the head by a sharp-edged weapon. The police recovered 143kg of cardamom from a trader in Moolathura. The cardamom was stolen by Bobin from the estate. The trader told the police that he had paid Rs 1.70 lakh to Bobin.

According to police, Bobin had joined the estate as a supervisor a few days ago. Police also claimed that he was an accused in a few more case. Apparently, Jacob had not done a background check before employing him. Cops claimed that Bobin had changed his look to evade public attention after the police launched a hunt for him.

Two blood-stained gunnybags which Bobin had abandoned in Cheriyar river had been recovered.

The police said one of the two guns found at the estate residence was licensed in the name of Jacob Varghese's father, K K Varghese. One did not have a licence. Jacob owned 40 acres of cardamom estate near Chinnakanal. He was working in a foreign country and a few years ago came back to settle down in Kottayam district. He used to stay at his estate during the harvesting season.

Jacob was also running a resort in his property in which he had built several huts for tourists to stay.
The luxury house owned by Kothamangalam native Denny Thomas stands out for its chic and classy style. The familys dream dwelling, built on a moderate budget, has all the modern facilities. The house which stands elegantly on a 14.5 cents plot truly reflects the charm of the beautiful nature around.

The family wanted their home to be in perfect harmony with the surrounding nature and also have a unique and eye-catching look. The exteriors of the house emanate a regal charm of the colonial architectural style. The spaces are arranged in the pentagonal pattern, which, in fact, helps enhance the elegance of the house. The outer walls and pillars in the sit-out are decorated with Bangalore stone claddings.

There is an elaborate sit-out, living space, dining area, four bedrooms, kitchen and a home theatre in this house which has an area of 2277 sq ft. One of prominent features is the roof which is built at a significant height. This ensures good ventilation and always maintains a pleasant atmosphere in the interiors.

The interiors, designed in the open style, seem more vast and spacious. Experiments in the texture and design in the flooring is an interesting feature. Vitrified and digital tiles add to the spectacular look of the house. There are enough spaces which let lots of natural light and fresh air into the house. The sunshine which comes in through the sliding glass door illuminates the entire house.

The unique design of the dining table is something which intrigues the guests who visit the house. The dining table, which is in the suspended style, is made by supporting a block of nano white using two bars of stainless steel. The design of the chairs too is unique and attractive. The benches are made using pinewood and GI pipes.

All the four bedrooms are bath attached with inbuilt wardrobe facilities. The kitchen is furnished in plywood  acrylic finish. Nano white is paved on the counter top. The construction of the house, including the tastefully done furnishings, was completed in a reasonable budget of Rs 30 lakh.

Factors which helped lower the expenses:

 The use of wood is limited

 Windows and cupboards are done in aluminium fabrication

 Pillars and the hand rails are built of stainless steel and GI square tubes

 The cots in the bedrooms are inbuilt

Project facts

Location: Kothamangalam, Ernakulam

Plot:14.5 cents

Area: 2277 SFT

Owner: Denny Thomas

Designer: Shajan Varghese, Shajan and Associates, Kothamangalam

Mob: 9388800037
Munnar: In memory of the slain Maharaja's College student Abhimanyu, panchayat authorities, in coordination with the CPM local unit, has set up a library at Vattavada, his native village, in Idukki district.

Lying 43 kilometres away from Munnar on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border, Vattavada is one of the most backward grama panchayats in the state with a low literacy rate. The first public lending library in the area, established with public participation, has also fulfilled Abimanyus long-cherished dream.

Thanks to an outpouring of donations from individuals and organisations in India and abroad, the library has so far received close to 42,000 books. The response to the book donation drive has been overwhelming. We still receive bundles of books every day, said Vattavada grama panchayat president P Ramraj.

Currently, the library has books on various subjects, including collections of Malayalam, Tamil and English literature apart from a good number of reference books. Situated in the second floor of the Vattavada panchayat office building, the facility includes a hall and an office room. The library will be open from 10 am to 5 pm.

Abhimanyu was killed allegedly by the activists of Campus Front of India in July 2018.

We have plans to digitise the printed collection so that the content would be accessible to all, Ramraj added.

Abhimanyu, 20, a second-year undergraduate student and leader of the Students Federation of India (SFI), was stabbed to death on the campus on July 2 after an altercation between SFI and Campus Front activists.

Read more Idukki News
Mumbai: Budget carrier GoAir will begin operations to Muscat, its third international destination, from the recently commissioned Kannur International Airport, from February 28.

The Wadia group-run airline, which commenced international operations last October, will fly non-stop to the Omanese capital thrice a week from Kannur, the airline said in a statement on Friday.

Muscat is GoAir's the third international destination from Kannur.

GoAir will operate three direct flight services per week between Kannur  Muscat  Kannur

The airline is the second domestic carrier after Air India Express to have international flights from the newly  launched airport, which is the fourth in the tiny state.

On the domestic front, GoAir currently connects Kannur to Bengaluru with 13 weekly flights, Chennai with four weekly flights and Hyderabad with three weekly flights.

The airline also recently introduced direct daily connectivity to Phuket from Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

It also operates four direct weekly flights on the Mumbai-Male route, three weekly flights on Delhi-Male route and two weekly flights on Bengaluru-Male route.
Bengaluru/Mumbai: Jet Airways Ltd's lenders are considering a plan to resolve its debt issues, top creditor State Bank of India (SBI) said on Thursday, amid media reports two main shareholders have yet to resolve their differences.

"Lenders are considering a restructuring plan under the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) framework for the resolution of stressed assets that would ensure long-term viability of the company," SBI said.

Jet on Wednesday said a plan involving a cash injection by stakeholders and board changes was under discussion.

Jet Chairman Naresh Goyal said in a letter to SBI's chairman that he is willing to invest 7 billion rupees ($98.48 million) in the airline and pledge all his shares but wants to retain a 25 percent stake in the carrier he founded, TV channels reported on Thursday.

However, Etihad Airways, which holds a 24 percent stake, wants Goyal to step down from the board and cut his stake to 22 percent from 51 percent, according to reports.

Etihad told the SBI in a separate letter it was willing to buy more shares in Jet and immediately pump $35 million into the troubled carrier if Goyal does so.

Jet said in a statement on Thursday that Goyal had communicated his position to SBI and that it was under consideration. The airline did not elaborate further.

Goyal did not respond to a Reuters request for immediate comment.

Jet controls more than a sixth of a India's booming aviation market. Yet high fuel taxes, a weak rupee and price competition have squeezed profitability, leaving Jet with $1.13 billion in net debt as at the end of September and defaulting on payments.

The airline owes money to banks, employees, vendors and lessors - some of which are exploring taking back aircraft, sources have told Reuters.

SBI's executive committee was scheduled to meet on Thursday to discuss the plan, news channel BTVI reported, citing unidentified sources. It said the restructuring of loans extended by SBI would be subject to Jet finding a strategic partner.

Any resolution plan would require clearance by the central bank, market regulator and the civil aviation ministry, as well as approval from the airline's board and all of its lenders, SBI said.

Ownership and control of Jet must remain in domestic hands, India's civil aviation secretary, R N Choubey, told reporters on Wednesday.

Jet's shares gained 5.8 percent on Thursday after falling 8 percent a day earlier.

Read more Business News
A top North Korean nuclear envoy met President Donald Trump at the White House after holding talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday in a diplomatic flurry aimed at laying the groundwork for a second U.S.-North Korea summit, Trend reported citing Reuters.

The visit of Kim Yong Chol, Pyongyangs lead negotiator with the United States and a hardline former spy chief, marked a rare sign of potential movement in a denuclearization effort that has stalled since a landmark meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last year.

Kim Yong Chol and Pompeo, with tight smiles, posed together for photographs at a Washington hotel before holding about 45 minutes of talks that could help determine whether the two sides can make headway.

After that meeting, the White House said Trump hosted Kim Yong Chol in the Oval Office to discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Koreas final, fully verified denuclearization.

There has been no indication of any narrowing of differences over U.S. demands that North Korea abandon a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States or over Pyongyangs demand for a lifting of punishing sanctions.

Hours before Kim Yong Chols arrival on Thursday, Trump - who declared after the Singapore summit in June that the nuclear threat posed by North Korea was over - unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy that singled out the country as an ongoing and extraordinary threat.

The State Department said after Fridays meeting that Pompeo had a good discussion with Kim Yong Chol on efforts to make progress on commitments President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un made at their summit in Singapore. But it provided no specifics.

The high-level visit could yield an announcement of plans for a second summit. Both Trump and Kim have expressed an interest in arranging but some U.S.-based analysts say it would be premature due to the lack of obvious progress so far.

Their first meeting produced a vague commitment by Kim to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, but he has yet to take what Washington sees as concrete steps in that direction.

In New York, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres told reporters it was high time to make sure that U.S.-North Korea negotiations start again seriously and that a road map is clearly defined for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet here Friday with Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) ruling Korean Workers' Party Central Committee, the U.S. State Department said on Friday, Trend reported citing Xinhua.

Pompeo and Kim are scheduled to meet in Washington at 11 a.m. (1600GMT) Friday, the State Department said on its official website.

Traveling on a commercial plane, Kim arrived at Washington's Dulles International Airport on Thursday night and was greeted there by Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for the DPRK, according to the Republic of Korea's Yonhap news agency.

Pompeo and Kim are expected to discuss matters including the date and venue for a possible second meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un after their first summit in Singapore last year. Both sides have said they look forward to such a meeting.

Kim Jong Un said during his recent trip to China that his country will "make efforts for the second summit between DPRK and U.S. leaders to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community."

Trump said on Jan. 2 that the two countries will set up a leaders' summit. "We'll probably now have another meeting. He'd like to meet, I'd like to meet. We'll set that up, we'll be setting that up in the not-too-distant future," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Kim Yong Chol was once scheduled to meet with Pompeo in New York last November, but the meeting was canceled at the last minute.

Pompeo said in early November that he was willing to see some "real progress" in talks with his DPRK interlocutor, including "an effort to make sure that the (second) summit between the two leaders can take place."

According to U.S. media reports, Kim Yong Chol is expected to deliver a letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump.

In another development, the Foreign Ministry of Sweden confirmed on Friday that DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has arrived in Stockholm for meetings with international experts, without providing further details.

Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, citing anonymous sources, reported earlier that a meeting between the DPRK and the United States has been arranged.

Kim Jong Un and Trump met for the first time in Singapore in June last year. According to a joint statement issued after the summit that was signed by both leaders, Washington will provide security guarantee to Pyongyang in return for the latter's commitment to denuclearization.

Follow-up discussions between Washington and Pyongyang at lower levels failed to yield substantive results due to the two sides' differences over the scale of denuclearization, the lifting of U.S. sanctions on the DPRK, and the issuance of a war-ending declaration.

The United States requested a "complete, verifiable and irreversible" denuclearization of the DPRK, while Pyongyang insisted that denuclearization should cover all of the Korean Peninsula and be achieved through a phased approach that would also involve the withdrawal of U.S. troops and weapons stationed on the peninsula.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) will cut funding to all its projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on January 31, Dave Harden, former USAID mission director and managing director of the Georgetown Strategy Group, said Thursday, Trend reported citing Sputnik.

Harden lamented the White House's decision, adding that the administration "demonstrates again a lack of nuance, sophistication and appreciation for the complexity of the situation," according to the Jerusalem Post.

"Who suffers when USAID leaves schools and water systems unfinished? Palestinians, of course, but also Israelis and Americans. The administration just gave Hamas more running room," Harden said.

He later tweeted that the decision to close the office is "another example of the end of the two-state solution" to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The decision to cut US foreign aid to Palestinians was announced by US President Donald Trump's administration in August 2018.

"At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with US national interests and provide value to the US taxpayer," the State Department said at the time. "As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza."

The Jerusalem Post reports it has learned that several foreign workers who were tasked with various USAID projects in both Palestinian territories left the country, together with their families, in recent weeks and months, further confirming the expectation that the agency will shutter its Palestinian branch.
President Donald Trumps conflict with Democrats over a partial U.S. government shutdown escalated on Thursday with Trump denying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi use of military aircraft for an overseas trip in apparent retaliation for her suggestion that he delay the annual State of the Union address, Trend reported citing Reuters.

The rising tension suggested that the shutdown, now in its 27th day, remains far from being resolved.

In the meantime, the Trump administration continued to try to mitigate the shutdowns impact. The State Department said it would call its furloughed employees back to work next week for national security reasons.

Pelosi had been scheduled to travel on a military aircraft as part of a congressional delegation to Belgium, where NATO is based, and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there.

In a letter to Pelosi denying her delegation the use of a plane, the Republican president called the trip an excursion but the Democrats spokesman said the trip to the Afghanistan war zone was for security and intelligence briefings.

In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate, Trump wrote.

He told Pelosi she could make the trip by flying commercial.

Trumps intervention stopped the trip just as Pelosi and other lawmakers were about to travel.

The president later canceled his own administrations plans to attend the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had planned to attend after Trump canceled his own participation at Davos.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said that in forcing Pelosi not to travel on a U.S. government jet, Trump had acted within his authority as commander in chief.

He postponed her ability to use military air, which must be approved by the Department of Defense, Sanders said.

A spokesman for Pelosi, Drew Hammill, said the trip to Brussels was intended to affirm the United States ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance.

The Afghanistan leg of the trip would have obtained critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines, Hammill said.

A House Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that details of the trip were not supposed to be revealed for security reasons, as is customary. The White House, however, made the letter to Pelosi detailing the itinerary public.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pelosi had requested and been granted Defense Department support for overseas travel, although the president has the authority to cancel Pelosis travel.

At the Capitol, members of the delegation had already boarded a bus bound for Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington, from which the plane was set to depart, when news of Trumps decision broke.

It appeared to be a response to a letter Pelosi sent to Trump on Tuesday, suggesting he delay the annual State of the Union address to Congress, scheduled for Jan. 29, to some point after the government reopens.

Pelosi cited concerns over the capacity of the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service to safeguard the Capitol during the event. The agency later said it was capable of securing the venue.

Trumps action drew criticism from one of his Republican allies in the Senate. One sophomoric response does not deserve another, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham wrote on Twitter.

He criticized Pelosis move on the State of the Union as blatantly political but said, President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate.

Democratic Representative Elaine Luria, a first-year lawmaker and a 20-year Navy veteran, had harsh words for Trump.

The presidents comment that lawmakers visiting Afghanistan is a public relations event is an insult to the brave men and women serving in harms way, Luria said.

Also on Thursday, the State Department said it would recall its employees and take steps to pay them salaries - a departure from other agencies.

As a national security agency, it is imperative that the Department of State carries out its mission, Deputy Under Secretary of State Bill Todd said in a statement. We are best positioned to do so with fully staffed embassies, consulates and domestic offices.

Todd said the departments employees would be paid on Feb. 14 for work performed beginning on or after this coming Sunday. The department would review its available funds and legal authorities beyond the upcoming pay period to try to cover future payments, he said.

About one quarter of federal agencies have been shuttered since Dec. 22, with Democratic lawmakers refusing to accede to Trumps demands to pay for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Trump is holding out for $5.7 billion for a border wall. Democrats, who took over the U.S. House of Representatives this month, have rejected his demands, saying there are cheaper, more effective ways of enhancing border security.

Before leaving for the weekend, the House passed another bill that would fund the government through Feb. 28, but the vote was later vacated and held over until next week after a procedural objection from Republicans.

The Senate, however, has refused to bring any funding bill to the floor for a vote that Trump does not support.
The Turkish troops, deployed in Syrias Afrin, opened fire on Friday at the YPG in response to the latters fire from the city of Tall Rifat, the Turkish Defense Ministry said in a statement, Trend reported citing Sputnik.

"Units of the Turkish Armed Forces, deployed in Afrin, gave a relevant response to the attack by YPG terrorists from Tall Rifat," the statement said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Turkey will not turn a blind eye on terrorist groups near its borders, Fahrettin Altun, communications director at the Turkish presidential administration, said, Trend reports referring to the Turkish media.

"Since 2015, over 2,000 Turkish civilians have been killed as a result of terrorist attacks committed by terrorists operating in northern Syria," Altun added.

He said Turkey, as before, will conduct an active fight against terrorism.

On Dec. 12, 2018, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Turkish Armed Forces will launch a new military operation in Syria against PYD/YPG.

Erdogan claimed there were US soldiers in the detachments of the terrorists in Syria.

Despite that the US promised it would not support PYD/YPG, Washington did not keep its word, said Erdogan.

On Jun. 4, 2018, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed a roadmap on Syria's Manbij during talks in Washington.

Earlier, Cavusoglu and Pompeo had a meeting in Brussels and discussed the Operation Olive Branch, as well as other issues.

On Jan. 20, 2018, Turkish Armed Forces, together with the Free Syrian Army, launched the Operation Olive Branch in Afrin, Syria.

On Aug. 24, 2016, the Turkish Armed Forces launched the Operation Euphrates Shield against the "Islamic State", and with the support of the Syrian opposition liberated the border town of Jarablus, as well as Al-Bab in northern Syria.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Russia and Belgium will set up a transport center for air freight traffic in Liege Airport this year, a source in the Belgian Foreign Ministry told on Friday, Trend reports referring to TASS.

The project may be essential for Western Europe given Great Britains looming withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) that will bring about changes to the transport flows and spark unemployment in Europe.

"Russia and Belgium are working on a project to create a center for air freight traffic in Liege Airport, which will add hundreds of jobs amid Brexit," the source said, adding, "the project would be launched by this year."

Meanwhile, on Thursday, acting Foreign Minister of Belgium Didier Reynders posted on Twitter that he had "a good discussion with head of (Russian freight carrier - TASS) Volga-Dnepr Alexey Isaikin about the prospects for developing Liege Airport and creating new jobs there."

In October 2018, Liege Airport and AirBridgeCargo Airlines part of Russias Volga-Dnepr Airlines signed a ten-year agreement to lease warehouse premises that cover a total area of 25,000 square meters. The deals that were struck are expected to bring the cooperation between the two companies to a brand-new level, thereby boosting export-import volumes of the Liege region, in addition to turning Liege Airport into one of top five cargo airports in Europe by 2020. Total investments are estimated at 25 mln euro.

The agreement stems from the memorandum of understanding signed by Liege Airport and the Volga-Dnepr Group during the Farnborough International Airshow in July 2018, and is aimed at bolstering economic growth in the region overall. Moreover, the plan is to add jobs in the air cargo sector. That all is expected to boost cargo infrastructure and freight flows to and from the airport, Volga-Dnepr's press service said earlier.
The next meeting of the Russian-German Working Group on Strategic Economic and Financial Cooperation will be held in a couple of months, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday at a meeting with his German counterpart Heiko Maas, Trend reports referring to TASS.

"The next meeting of the Working Group on Strategic Economic and Financial Cooperation is due to be held in a couple of months," Lavrov said.

The previous, 38th meeting of the Russian-German High-Level Working Group on Strategic Economic and Financial cooperation was held in Berlin in December.
Two Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bombers have collided in mid-air over the Strait of Tatary (or the Tatar Strait) in Russias Far Eastern Khabarovsk Region, a source in the regional law enforcement agencies told TASS on Friday, Trend reports referring to TASS.

"According to preliminary data, the accident occurred over the Tatar Strait. Two Su-34 jets vanished from radar screens close to the inhabited community of Nelma in the Sovetsko-Gavansky District. They presumably collided in mid-air," the source said.

That said, a search operation is underway.

Earlier, a TASS source said that both planes had been flying from the sea when they collided in mid-air. The crew of one aircraft managed to eject, while the second plane will probably be able to return to the base. However, the fate of both crews still remains unknown.
Brazilian Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias said on Friday the farm sector is worried that President Jair Bolsonaros plan to move Brazils embassy in Israel to Jerusalem could hurt halal meat exports to Muslim countries, Trend reports referring to Reuters.

Of course the agricultural sector that I represent is worried, Dias told Reuters, when asked about possible repercussions for trade with Arab countries if the embassy were to be moved. Brazil cannot lose markets, we need to open new markets, she said.
Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ali Alizada said that sacrifices of Shuhuda (Martyrs) of Pakistan and Azerbaijan shall never be forgotten by the two nations, Trend reports referring to Pakistan's Dispatch News Desk (DND) news agency.

While addressing a Seminar on From Martyrdom to Independence jointly organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Pakistan and IQRA University in Islamabad on Thursday, Ali Alizada said that both Pakistan and Azerbaijan sacrificed too much for their independence and pay rich tributes to all martyrs.

The ambassador said that the two countries always stood by each other in their testing times, and they still remain upbeat to foil all heinous designs.

Ali Alizada said that Pakistan rendered thousands of lives in its war against terrorism and Azerbaijan is also facing the same situation due to Armenian hostility. He said that Armenia is still making the Azerbaijani people victims and atrocities are continuing.

The Azerbaijani envoy said that since last three years, the Azerbaijan Embassy in Islamabad has been observing January 20 to pay tributes to martyrs. He said that January 20 would never be forgotten in the history of Azerbaijan as brave children of the nation gave their lives for independence. He said that they were victims of injustice.

The ambassador gave historical details of events and circumstances of the Soviet era that at last ended in the independence of Azerbaijan but freedom was not free and it cost sacrifices of thousands of Azerbaijanis.

Alizada also highlighted the role of the father of free Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev in freedom fighting which eventually helped them gain independence from the former Soviet Union but he added that we are still facing terrorism of Armenia till today.

Ambassadors of various Countries including Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan among others also participated in the Seminar.

In his address, Convener of Pakistan-Azerbaijan Friendship Group in Senate Senator Talha Mahmood said that struggle for freedom resurrected nations to rise.

Senator Talha Mahmood said that Pakistan and Azerbaijan share common viewpoints at the global level because both believe in peaceful existence without comprising their sovereignty. He said that Azerbaijan can help Pakistan in oil and gas exploration.

Vice President IQRA University Mohammad Islam said that martyrdom is part of the history of brave and honourable nations.

Former Special Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ex-Ambassador of Pakistan to Afghanistan, Kuwait and Nepal Syed Abrar Hussain said that 29 anniversary of Baku invasion is being honored all over the world today.

Syed Abrar Hussain said that Azerbaijan Republic as an independent state is one of the mouthpieces of Human rights and Muslim Ummah, and it always stands with the Muslim World.

A documentary was also shown in the Seminar about the Soviet Invasion of Baku that explained how Soviet tanks killed the people in the middle of the City.

The ambassadors of various countries, including Russian Ambassador to Pakistan Alexey Dedov, Uzbekistan Ambassador to Pakistan Furqat Sidikov, Kazakhstan Ambassador to Pakistan Barlybay Sadykov, and Turkmenistan Ambassador to Pakistan Movlamov Atajan among others, also participated in the event.
Lebanons Caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil called on Friday for reinstating Syria into the Arab League, Trend reports referring to Reuters.

Syria should return to us...Syria should be in our embrace instead of throwing it into the embrace of terrorism, he told Arab foreign and economy ministers at a summit that Beirut is hosting.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

Trend:

Starting from February 20, Azerbaijani mobile operator Azercell will suspend the service of connecting to the student tariff plan Tlb birliyi (Student Association) for both the invoice and non-invoice line subscribers, Trend reports via the company's statement.

The subscribers numbers connected to this tariff plan will be able to continue using it.

This tariff plan is designed for students of higher and secondary educational institutions of the country.

The cost of a minute call within this tariff plan is 0.01 manat, calls to other operators' networks is 0.05 manat and sending an SMS is 0.02 manat.

($1-1.7 manat on January 18)
Tehran, Iran, Jan. 18

Trend:

Hassan Montazer Torbati, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company, has expressed Irans hope to export gas to the European countries.

Iran holds 34 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves. In addition to preserving current customers in the region and in neighbor countries, exporting gas to Europe will be a part of the plan to increase share in global gas trades, he added, Trend reports citing ILNA.

We hope the European companies will welcome Irans gas exports, he said.

Previously, the Iranian officials announced exporting gas to Europe will lack economic profits and they prefer to export to neighbor countries as their main export targets.

Montazer Torbati noted: There are 12 countries that can export gas to Europe, and Iran is one of them. It has the capacity to export 30 billion cubic meters of gas via eight pipelines to Europe.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.18

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

The overall conformity level of OPEC since the beginning of the Declaration of Cooperation in January 2017 is well above 100 percent, coming in at 116 percent, Trend reports citing a message from the cartel.

The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) has expressed its utmost satisfaction with the steady and robust achievements of the two-year old Declaration of Cooperation between OPEC and participating non-OPEC oil producing countries.

The JMMC noted that countries participating in the Declaration of Cooperation achieved an overall conformity level in November 2018 of slightly below 100 percent, hitting 98 percent for the month.



"It is evident that significant progress has been made towards the goal set at the 4th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting of 23 June 2018, whereby countries agreed to strive to adhere to the overall conformity level, voluntarily adjusted to 100 percent, as of 1 July 2018 for the remaining duration of 2018," said JMMC.



The Committee confirmed the new voluntary production adjustments effective as of 1st of January 2019 for an initial period of six months, based on the unanimous decisions taken at the 175th Meeting of the OPEC Conference and the 5th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting on 7 December 2018.

Table: Adjustment based on the 175th Meeting of the OPEC Conference and the 5th OPEC and nonOPEC Ministerial Meeting, effective as of January 2019, tb/d

Reference Voluntary Voluntary Production* Adjustment Production Level Algeria 1,057 32 1,025 Angola 1,528 47 1,481 Congo 325 10 315 Ecuador 524 16 508 Eq.l Guinea 127 4 123 Gabon 187 6 181 Iraq 4,653 141 4,512 Kuwait 2,809 85 2,724 Nigeria 1,738 53 1,685 Saudi Arabia 10,633 322 10,311 UAE 3,168 96 3,072 Azerbaijan 796 20 776 Bahrain 227 5 222 Brunei 131 3 128 Kazakhstan 1,900 40 1,860 Malaysia 627 15 612 Mexico 2,017 40 1,977 Oman 995 25 970 Russia 11,421 230 11,191 Sudan 74 2 72 South Sudan 132 3 129 Total OPEC 26,749 812 25,937 NonOPEC 10 18,320 383 17,937 Total OPEC +NonOPEC 10 45,069 1,195 43,874

* Reference production is October 2018 except for Kuwait, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan

Notes:

Libya, Iran, I.R., and Venezuela exempted.

Kuwait based on September 2018 production level.

Azerbaijan based on September 2018 production level.

Kazakhstan based on November 2018 production level.

These voluntary production adjustments will continue to be monitored by the JMMC on a monthly basis, ably supported by the Joint Technical Committee and the OPEC Secretariat, in an open and transparent manner.



The JMMC calls on all participating countries of the Declaration of Cooperation to redouble their efforts in the full and timely implementation of the supply adjustments to ensure that the oil market remains in balance in 2019.



The thirteenth Meeting of the JMMC will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan on 18 March 2019.

The Declaration of Cooperation constitutes an unprecedented milestone in the history of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). For the first time ever, the Member Countries of OPEC coordinated with 11 non-OPEC oil producing countries in a concerted effort to accelerate the stabilization of the global oil market through voluntary production adjustments, which amounted to approximately 1.8 million barrels per day.



The Declaration was an outcome of the Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Producing Countries Ministerial Meeting held on 10 December 2016 and was effective for an initial period of six months. The Second Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Producing Countries Ministerial Meeting, held on 25 May 2017, decided to extend the voluntary production adjustments for another nine months commencing 1 July 2017. The sustainable oil market stability sought by the Declaration is in the interests of producers, consumers, investors and the global economy at large. At the third joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Producing Countries Ministerial Meeting, held on 30 November 2017, it was agreed to amend the Declaration of Cooperation so that it will take effect for the entirety of 2018.



The core principles of transparency, equity and fairness which have underpinned the Declaration of Cooperation infuse all aspects of OPECs interactions with its non-OPEC oil producing partners, including cooperation at a research and technical level.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

By Sara Israfilbayova  Trend:

The Azerbaijan state oil company SOCAR has refused to invest in Turkish assets of the German energy company EWE, SOCAR told Trend on Jan. 18.

"We decided not to invest in these assets, but we may consider the possibility of acquiring assets in Turkey and in other countries," the company said.

SOCAR may complete the purchase of EWEs Turkish assets in the first quarter of 2019. The matter rested in a stake in four companies, namely, Bursagaz, Kayserigaz, EWE Enerji and Enervis, which belong to EWE Turkey Holding, the Turkish media reported earlier.

The decision on the possible sale of its assets in Turkey is connected with the optimization of the company's activity, EWE told Trend earlier.

SOCAR is represented in Turkey by its subsidiary - SOCAR Turkey Energy. So far, SOCAR Turkey Energy has invested over $14 billion in the Turkish economy. Meanwhile, 5,000 people work in the company, while the annual export potential reaches $3 billion. Among SOCARs current assets in Turkey are the Petkim petrochemical complex, STAR refinery and Petlim port.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

By Sara Israfilbayova  Trend:

SOCAR Georgia Gas company (the Georgian subsidiary of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR), as part of the gas distribution projects implementation in Georgia, acquired the Telavgas LLC engaged in gas distribution in Georgias Telavi district in late 2018, SOCAR told Trend.

The new acquisition is continuation of the measures being implemented by SOCAR Georgia Gas over the past years as part of a large-scale project for managing a gas distribution network in Georgia, SOCAR said.

"From the point of view of corporate strategy, these assets are components of a single gas distribution project in the country," SOCAR noted. "Addition of assets in the Telavi district expanded the scale of gas distribution operations throughout the entire Kakheti region and most of Georgia, with the exception of Tbilisi."

SOCAR exports gas being extracted at Azerbaijani fields through its own funds to Georgia without participation of foreign companies. Moreover, Georgia receives Azerbaijani gas extracted at Shah Deniz offshore field with participation of SOCAR and foreign companies.

Presently, SOCAR is the major supplier of natural gas, oil and oil products to Georgia. SOCARs subsidiaries are engaged in expansion and modernization of the countrys gas distribution systems, development of filling stations under SOCARs brand and have an oil terminal in Georgias Kulevi Black Sea Port, which supplies Azerbaijani oil and oil products to the world markets.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

Trend:

Uzbekistan and India signed an agreement on long-term uranium supplies, Trend reports via Podrobno.uz.

The agreement was reached after a meeting between Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, which was held in the framework of the Dynamic Gujarat International Summit on Friday.

A technopark of advanced information technologies in Tashkent and a pharmaceutical zone in the Andijan region are being created jointly with Indian partners. An agreement was reached with the Exim Bank of India on the allocation of a preferential credit line in the amount of $200 million to finance socially significant projects in Uzbekistan," Presidents press service noted.

Moreover, two leading universities in India Amity and Sharda will open branches in the new academic year in Uzbekistan.

The heads of state emphasized that the importance of accelerating the practical implementation of priority projects and cooperation programs, primarily in the field of information and communication technologies, health care, the pharmaceutical industry, the jewelry industry, agriculture, modernization of tourism infrastructure and other areas.

Particular attention was paid to the further expansion of cultural and humanitarian exchange.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Narendra Modi confirmed determination to actively develop the full-scale cooperation between two countries in aspects of international and regional politics.

Recall that in August 2014, the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Plant and the Indian UCIL signed a contract for the purchase of up to 500 tons of Uzbek uranium per year in 2014-2018.

Uzbekistan is one of the world leaders in uranium reserves and ranks 7th in its mining.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

By Rashid Shirinov  Trend:

Over the past two years, the number of recipients of export certificates in the Kyzylorda region of Kazakhstan has increased by 40 percent, Trend reports referring to the Kazakh media.

Director of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs of the region Galymbek Zhaksylykov said that in 2009, CT-KZ certificates, showing that goods are produced in Kazakhstan, were introduced in the country to support domestic producers.

"Since 2014, the regional chambers have undertaken the issuing of certificates of goods origin. In our region, such certificates are issued for the export of rice, fish, salt, fuel oil, oil and vanadium ore," he said.

Zhaksylykov noted that the fact that the number of export certificates has increased by 40 percent over the past two years, means that the volume of exports in the Kyzylorda region is increasing.

Last year alone, 1,065 export certificates and 104 ST-KZ certificates were issued in the region. Today Kyzylorda products are exported not only to the CIS countries, but also to China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Latvia and Switzerland.

The head of the chamber also noted that CT-KZ certificates were issued for rice, purified water, reinforced concrete products, building materials, polymer pipe, salt, technical products, milk, construction lime, oil equipment, and chemical products.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @ShirinovRashid
Tehran, Iran, Jan.18

Trend:

Iran plans to transfer water from Caspian Sea to Semnan Province as a solution for its drought and water shortage, however the plan has not reached a convincing state for the Iranian MP's.

Referring to the current situation with the plan, a member of agricultural committee Ali Akbari told Trend that any action in this regard should be based on comprehensive studies and the future effects of this plan on environment should be reviewed.

"Transferring water should be implemented beyond just one province in the region," he said.

"It's unlikely that any studies have been conducted over this plan, or if there are any, perhaps the outcome was negative, so this issue should not be dealt with in a hurry," said Akbari.

He warned that interregional implications could have contradictory consequences.

Akbari says the issue should be assessed on various stages.

"The plan is in the study phase, and hasn't even reached the feasibility study stage, and is not ready for launch," he said.

Meanwhile, previously, the head of Department of Environment Isa Kalantari recently stated that water transfer operation from the Caspian Sea would not cause any environmental problem.

Akbari said that the representatives of Iran's northern provinces do not agree with the plan in general.

"I don't think we should jump to conclusions, and all the stages of this plan should be based on expert studies," he noted.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.19

By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:

The European Union (EU) is committed to supporting the process of preparing the Azerbaijani and Armenian populations for peace, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar wrote on Twitter.

He was commenting on the recent statement issued following the meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers with participation of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in Paris Jan.16, Trend reports.

Encouraged by the recent meeting in Paris of Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Preparing the populations for peace is crucial and the EU is committed to supporting this process, he wrote.

The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America) hosted consultations between Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov and Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on 16 January in Paris.

The ministers discussed a wide range of issues related to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and agreed upon the necessity of taking concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace.

The Co-Chairs plan to meet the leaders of the two countries in the near future.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

Trend:

The article published by the Foreign Policy is undoubtedly an integral part of a regular black PR of the anti-Azerbaijan forces that have taken root in the US Department of State.

Some foreign NGOs stand by their dedication in this sphere, and their reports have been in support for anti-Azerbaijan forces. This is not coincidental, because thanks to these NGOs, these forces were able to say about Azerbaijan what they could not say before, as well as to express all their hatred, which they always wanted to demonstrate, and use all the expressions used by these NGOs.

The provisions in the article dont reflect reality and are completely slanderous.

Firstly, Mehman Huseynov is not a journalist, and he wasnt arrested for his activities in the press. The reasons for his arrest, as well as the initiation of a new criminal case against him, are related to the corresponding articles of the Criminal Code.

The relevant state structures of Azerbaijan, the Penitentiary Service, the Office of the Ombudsman, as well as human rights activists, have expressed their position on Mehman Huseynovs condition, and he has appealed to the press in connection with his condition. The authors of the article could also refer to this position.

At the same time, representatives of diplomatic corps accredited in Azerbaijan last week visited Mehman Huseynov and became familiar with the situation. They didnt express any concern in this regard. How did the authors of the article miss this moment?

Mehmans brother Emin Huseynov, having fallen under the influence of certain forces, gave preference to his financial interests. Instead of thinking about the health of his brother, his psychological state, he sought to find other details in the issue of re-initiation of criminal proceedings against Mehman Huseynov.

He even didnt refrain from using offensive language against representatives of the diplomatic corps who had visited his brother.

The head of the Azerbaijani state is elected by the people, the will of the Azerbaijani people determines the level of democracy in Azerbaijan, and no outer force has the moral right to discuss Azerbaijani democracy. It would be more acceptable if these forces first of all objectively discussed the situation in their countries.

The Azerbaijani government has taken important steps to completely eliminate corruption, carried out reforms and created its own brand, the ASAN Service. This activity of Azerbaijan was highly appreciated by the international community and was presented to other countries, even Europe, as an example.

For some reason, the authors of the article dont even want to see this success of Azerbaijan. The text of the article isnt a surprise for us, since their intention is known in advance.

No profession exempts a citizen from criminal liability. There are no political prisoners in Azerbaijan and these persons were arrested in accordance with the relevant articles of the Criminal Code for their criminal activities.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:

Azerbaijan and Russia are equally sovereign states and speaking with an ultimatum voice with Azerbaijan is unacceptable and completely contrary to the ethical standards of diplomacy, the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on the comments of the press service of the Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with the non-admission of individual Russian citizens to Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

"The tone of the comment of the press service of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs on this matter was absolutely adequate to the communication style of the Russian Foreign Ministry's press service in this regard. Once again, we would like to remind that in 2018 only over 880,000 citizens of the Russian Federation visited Azerbaijan, the absolute majority of whom were satisfied and expressed gratitude for hospitality," the MFA said.

"The inexplicable persistence of the press service of the Russian Foreign Ministry in this matter is difficult to understand; it contradicts the basis of strategic relations between Azerbaijan and Russia. At the same time, such an approach does not in any way coincide with the will shown by the presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia and the work done by them for development of relations between the two states," the ministry said.

The non-admission of Russian citizens of Armenian origin to the territory of Azerbaijan was first announced by the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, at a briefing on Jan. 11.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation is well aware that for many years Armenia has been pursuing a policy of aggression against Azerbaijan, as a result of which the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and seven adjacent administrative districts were occupied, more than one million people were subjected to ethnic cleansing and became refugees and IDPs. As a result of the Khojaly genocide committed by the Armenian armed forces on February 26, 1992, 613 civilians, including young children, women and the elderly, were brutally killed. The four resolutions of the UN Security Council adopted in 1993 (822, 853, 874 and 884) demand the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian occupying forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and the return of those forcibly expelled from these territories to their native lands. The Russian Federation, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, voted for the adoption of these resolutions. However, for over 25 years, the requirements of these resolutions have not been fulfilled and the Azerbaijani lands are still under occupation," Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys spokeswoman Leyla Abdullayeva had earlier said commenting on the remarks made by Maria Zakharova

Azerbaijan is known in the world as a center of multiculturalism, she said, adding that Azerbaijan, unlike Armenia, is a multinational state.

Representatives of many nations, including Armenians, live together in peace and harmony in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Currently, more than 30,000 Azerbaijani citizens of Armenian origin live in our country. This is while Armenia is a mono-ethnic state. The efforts and activities of Azerbaijan in this sphere have always been highly appreciated by Russia in numerous bilateral meetings at the level of heads of state. While children of Armenian origin face restrictions in receiving education in Russian-language schools in Armenia, there are more than 340 Russian-language educational institutions in Azerbaijan. Such schools can be counted on the fingers in Armenia. Azerbaijan is always open to Russian citizens, said Leyla Abdullayeva.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

Trend:

The resolution of the European Parliament regarding the case of Mehman Huseynov in Azerbaijan is another example of hostility towards Azerbaijan as a whole.

The resolution is presented in the tone of demarche, and it is unacceptable, Chairman of Azerbaijans Press Council, Azerbaijani MP Aflatun Amashov told Trend Jan. 18.

He said that in general, when expressing opinion on some document, it is necessary to approach it in a complex way.

The resolution of the European Parliament is a complex expression of attitude towards Azerbaijan, he noted. The attitude is negative. Lets pay attention to the fact that the resolution expresses concern in connection with the LGBT community in Azerbaijan, and urges the government not to create obstacles for human rights activists working with the LGBT community, and not to frighten them. It is not clear how the European Parliament has identified the presence of concern in this area. I wonder which human rights activists wanted to cooperate with LGBT community, but faced restrictions?

It is clear that the resolution doesnt use a serious approach and is pretty vague, which is not coincidental.

The resolution says that the authorities in Azerbaijan allegedly got their hands on some members of the Council of Europe in order to soften criticism for violations in the country, Amashov said.

This kind of statement is another confirmation that some circles in Europe are able to resort to any means for the sake of their interests, he noted. This statement isnt only frivolous, but also goes beyond all ethical principles, and is generally an insult to European values, said the MP.

He noted that bringing journalists to legal responsibility, as well as depriving them of their freedom, in one way or another, harm the principles of freedom of speech and expression.

Thats because journalism is a profession of public weight and members of society, ordinary citizens take their cue from journalists, he said. However, the reality is that the unlawful actions of journalists also lead to even more unpleasant tendencies.

He added that the accusations made against the persons mentioned in the resolution are specific, it is wrong to associate these accusations with freedom of speech and expression.

Amashov also said that authoritative structures such as the European Parliament shouldnt take a controversial position, they should approach issues in a broader context and shouldnt become an instrument for certain political goals.

It is also known what political games are being conducted in relation to Azerbaijan and what means of pressure are used, he noted. I believe that it is necessary to stop applying this approach, build an equal level of relations based on mutual understanding.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

By Samir Ali  Trend:

Everybody knows that the urgency resolution on Azerbaijani blogger Mehman Huseynovs case, which was adopted by the European Parliament, is a part of another biased campaign of pressure on Azerbaijan, editor-in-chief of the Ses newspaper, Azerbaijani political analyst Bahruz Guliyev told Trend on Jan. 18.

No one is surprised when the name of George Soros is mentioned, he added. "The matter rests in the fact that one of the co-authors of the resolution is the associate of George Soros - Rebecca Harms and she does not refute relationship with Soros."

"If we take into account that Soros has always led the anti-Azerbaijan activity, it is quite clear that he ordered the resolution," he said. "The resolution of the European Parliament is full of lies and slander. Moreover, it has been prepared as a result of duplicity."

"Harms' lie that she allegedly appealed to the Azerbaijani corresponding structures, while the Azerbaijani state and legislative bodies did not receive any appeals and requests, can be cited as an example," Guliyev said.

"Such biased actions have never led to the desired results, because they are lies."

"Duplicity, hypocrisy of such a structure as the European Parliament is obvious again," he said. "No one in Azerbaijan is subjected to political persecution. All fundamental freedoms are protected in the country, starting from freedom of speech and expression. Therefore, the anti-Azerbaijan stance of the European Parliament is a dead end."

Guliyev stressed that Azerbaijan successfully cooperates with international organizations.

"Azerbaijan cooperates with many UN commissions, OIC, Non-Aligned Movement, he said. The country operates in other international organizations and initiates global projects. The biased opinions expressed in the Council of Europe or the European Parliament at the instigation of Soros' accomplices and the unreasonable resolutions adopted against Azerbaijan cannot be taken as truth.

"I would say that such hypocrisy is a means of pressure directed against the will of the Azerbaijanis, Guliyev said. However, these attempts and their executors will fail. Unfounded resolutions adopted against Azerbaijan will never be regarded as truthful."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

Trend:

Indonesia always supports Azerbaijans sovereignty and territorial integrity within the internationally recognized borders and considers it important to resolve the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on this basis, Siswo Pramono, director general of the Policy Analysis and Development Agency of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, said.

Pramono made the remarks at a meeting with Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Ramiz Hasanov, Trend reports referring to the press-service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

Hasanov expressed gratification with the current state of political relations between Azerbaijan and Indonesia.

He appreciated SOCARs activity in Indonesia and stressed the importance of further development of cooperation in the economic sphere.

Hasanov stressed the importance of expanding the legal framework.

In turn, the Indonesian diplomat expressed gratification with the relations existing in the political sphere between the two countries. He stressed that there are ample opportunities for the development of bilateral relations in all spheres.

During the meeting, the issues on the development of relations in the fields of culture, education, trade, economy and tourism between Azerbaijan and Indonesia were discussed.

The Azerbaijani-Indonesian political dialogue was held during the visit to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. The priorities of the foreign policy of Azerbaijan and Indonesia, the relations between the two countries, including the exchange of views on the development of relations in the political, economic and humanitarian spheres and others were discussed during the dialogue.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Azerbaijan has greatly supported Turkey in holding negotiations in a multilateral format, Turkish ambassador to Azerbaijan Erkan Ozoral said in an interview with Trend.

The ambassador stressed that the meetings being held in the Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia, Turkey-Azerbaijan-Iran, Turkey-Azerbaijan-Pakistan trilateral formats and in the Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia-Iran quadrilateral format, serve the well-being, development and security of not only these countries but also the entire region.

"Turkey initiated meetings in a multilateral format and Azerbaijan greatly supported this proposal," the ambassador said.

This format can be developed and expanded in the future, Ozoral added. "The possibility of holding meetings in a multilateral format with other countries with which we have common priorities and approach is being considered."

These meetings must yield results, must be effective and contribute to the development of cooperation, he said. "We are ready to work together with all regional countries on this issue."

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.19

By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:

The European Union (EU) sees positive signal for progress in peaceful settlement of Karabakh conflict, Trend reports citing a Statement by the European External Action Service (EEAS) Spokesperson on recent developments toward the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Exchanges in recent months between the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, and the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, as well as meetings of the Foreign Ministers under the auspices of the Co-Chairs of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, most recently in Paris on 16 January 2019, send a positive signal for progress in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict,

reads the statement.

The European Union is looking forward to the full implementation of their outcomes, including the recent Foreign Ministers agreement on the need to take concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace, as well as the consideration of steps aimed at reinvigorating the negotiations, said the document.

The European Union continues to fully support the mediation efforts and proposals of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, including through the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, as well as through civil society confidence-building measures across the conflict divide. All would stand to benefit from lasting peace, which would help to enable the South Caucasus region to fulfil its potential, reads the statement.

The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America) hosted consultations between Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov and Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on 16 January in Paris.

The ministers discussed a wide range of issues related to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and agreed upon the necessity of taking concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace.

The Co-Chairs plan to meet the leaders of the two countries in the near future.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.18

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

The preparation of populations to embrace any compromise solution has long been the missing ingredient in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, Former US Minsk Group Co-Chair Carey Cavanaugh wrote on Twitter, Trend reports.

He was commenting on the recent statement issued following the meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers with participation of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in Paris on January 16.

Thomas de Waal, a UK political analyst, senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region has assessed the statement very positive.

Suddenly the mood has changed on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. Very positive statement. Now time to get down to work, involve more stakeholders, start debate on difficult issues in society, he wrote on Twitter.

The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America) hosted consultations between Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov and Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on 16 January in Paris.

The ministers discussed a wide range of issues related to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and agreed upon the necessity of taking concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace.

The Co-Chairs plan to meet the leaders of the two countries in the near future.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

Coordinator of the Coordination Council of the Azerbaijanis in Finland and Head of the Azerbaijani-Turkish Youth Organization of Finland Ulviya Jabbarova and member of this organization Leyli Huseynova prevented Armenias provocation at a tourism exhibition in Finland, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani State Committee for Diaspora Affairs on Jan. 18.

Thus, another international tourism exhibition, which is underway in various countries, kicked off on Jan. 16 and will complete on Jan. 20 in Matkamessut, Finland. On this exhibition the Armenian company hanged a map at which Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region has been depicted as "Artsakh".

Jabbarova and Huseynova told the organizers of the exhibition that the Nagorno-Karabakh region is Azerbaijans territory, and attracting tourists to the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which was described by Armenian participants of the exhibition as "Artsakh", is a provocation.

The international documents testifying that the Nagorno-Karabakh region is Azerbaijans territory were given to an organizer of the exhibition who approached to Armenias stand.

Afterwards, at the insistence of Jabbarova and Huseynova, as well as the administrator of the exhibition, the map, at which Nagorno-Karabakh region has been depicted as Armenias territory, and the corresponding brochures were removed from the exhibition.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.18

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has welcomed the agreement reached between Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers on the need to take concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace, Trend reports citing the statement issued by spokesman for UN Secretary General.

The Secretary-General welcomes the meeting between the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mammadyarov, and the Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, held on 16 January in Paris under the auspices of the Co-Chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, reads the statement.

The Secretary-General appreciates the continued commitment of the sides to finding a negotiated and peaceful solution to the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and particularly welcomed the ministers agreement on the need to take concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace.

The Secretary-General reiterates the full support of the United Nations for the important mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group.

The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America) hosted consultations between Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov and Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on 16 January in Paris.

The ministers discussed a wide range of issues related to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and agreed upon the necessity of taking concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace.

The Co-Chairs plan to meet the leaders of the two countries in the near future.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

Trend:

The low-cost airline Buta Airways will launch direct flights from Baku to two more cities of Ukraine - Odessa and Kharkiv.

Flights to Odessa will be operated starting from May 16 this year on Thursdays and Sundays, while to Kharkiv  starting from May 3 on Tuesdays and Fridays. Opening of new destinations in Ukraine will further increase the tourist flow between the two countries. It should be noted that Buta Airways already operates regular flights between Baku and Kiev.

The minimum fare for Odessa and Kharkiv flights like for other destinations of the Airline, will cost 29 euros (one way).

Air tickets can be purchased on the official website of the Airline (on "Budget" and "Standard" fares), as well as at sales offices (on "Super" fare).

Being a low-cost airline, minimum fare Budget of Buta Airways offers additional services such as carriage of baggage, hand luggage, hot onboard meals, check-in at the airport, as well as seat selection in the airplane on a paid basis.

One can buy air tickets on "Super" fare, which includes a hand luggage (up to 10 kg), a baggage (up to 23 kg) and free check-in at the airport, from all sales offices.

Online check-in on the website opens 24 hours before departure and closes 2 hours before departure. It is free in all fares.

You can follow all updates and news on the social networks pages of Buta Airways:

Buta Airways is the first low-cost airline in Azerbaijan, a structural subdivision of the CJSC Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL). It was founded in December 2016. The first flight was carried out on September 1, 2017. The Airlines fleet consists of modern Embraer aircrafts. The Airline is based in Baku, at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18

Trend:

A new print edition of the AZERNEWS online newspaper was released on January 18.

The new edition includes articles: Locally-produced solar panels to be supplied to Germany, Lithuania hails closer economic relations with Azerbaijan, Countrys exports hit $18.9 bln, Ancient monuments discovered in Absheron etc.

AZERNEWS is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The online newspaper is available at www.azernews.az.
Irans foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who is on an extended tour of Iraq responded to his American counterpart, saying the United States has no right to interfere in bilateral relations between Tehran and Baghdad.

U.S. Secretary of State who was recently touring the Mideast visited Iraq January 9 and told Iraqi leaders Irans influence must be reduced in the country.

Iraq is the second biggest export market for Iran, which is facing an economic crisis after Washington imposed tough sanctions in 2018, making a number of demands from the Islamic Republic. There are signs that Iran is losing economic ground in Iraq and Zarifs trip is to a large extend meant to prevent further deterioration.

Zarif told reporters in Najaf, Iraq on Thursday that Irans relations with Iraq are much older than the United States, according to IRNA.

Irans foreign minister also expressed optimism about the future of political and economic relations with Iraq, saying relations will be brilliant.

Iraq also purchases a large quantity of Iranian fuel to generate electricity and the U.S. has extended a waiver from sanctions allowing Baghdad to continue imports from Iran.

It is a delicate balancing act for Washington to maintain good relations with Iraq but gradually put pressure on Baghdad for reduction of relations with Iran.

Iran also has extensive relations with a multitude of Iraqi political and militia groups and wields influence among the countrys elite.
1. Yes. Its important to address the problem before it gets worse. A bond is needed.

2. Yes. Its fine, as long as the bond isnt too large. The city doesnt need more debt.

3. No. A bond issue would just put the problem back on the taxpayers. Not acceptable.

4. No. Certificates of obligation, targeting the worst roads, would be a better choice.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say without knowing the details of what a bond would entail.

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President Hassan Rouhani says Iran is going to send two satellites into orbit in the coming days; despite Western warnings.

Speaking during a visit to Gonbad-e Kavous in Iran's northeastern Golestan Province on Monday January 14, Rouhani said that the satellites and the missiles that carry them into space are made in Iran.

Tehran's space adventure is taking place regardless of explicit and clear warnings by the United States and France.

Boasting about Iran's scientific progress and its leaders' defiance in the face of serious international warnings could be a way of portraying the Islamic Republic as a powerful state on its 40th anniversary in February.

Tehran may also be over-estimating Russia's support at international forums, if for example the launch becomes an issue at the UN Security Council. On the other hand, Iran's threats against Poland for holding an international conference on regional issues will not make EU's current position any more favorable towards Tehran.

Rouhani said: "We are not scared by the enemies' plots and will overcome the existing problems, " adding that "The U.S. and its allies cannot bring the Iranian nation to its knees."

Rouhani explained that Satellite Payam, which is an operational satellite, will monitor the climate and the situation of agriculture, water and forests from 600 kilometers above the Earth.

Previously, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had warned Iran to stop the plan to launch ballistic missiles into the space. A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry also called on Iran to abort the plan to launch "nuclear-capable missiles." Subsequently Robert Paladino, a spokesperson for the State Department praised the French for their "powerful statement."

Iranian foreign Ministry's spokesman Bahram Qassemi ruled out the French statement as "a repetition of false claims by those who oppose the nuclear deal with Iran."

Pompeo had said in December that launching the ballistic missiles that carry the satellites into the space would be in contravention of several UN Security Council resolutions including resolution number 2231.

Pompeo reminded Iran of the catastrophic consequences of violating resolution 2231 in December, after Iran tested a medium range missile, which the U.S. believed undermined the resolution.

UN Security Councils resolution 2231 calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.

Iran insists that its missiles do not violate UN resolution 2231.

Based on the resolution, if Iran violates it, all sanctions previously imposed on Iran that were lifted following the 2015 nuclear agreement will be re-imposed on Tehran immediately.

The two satellites Iran is going to launch, are Payam, a remote-sensing satellite, and Nahid 1, which is a communication satellite developed by the students of Amir Kabir University in Tehran. Iran's other satellite, Mesbah, was so outdated after a 14 year delay in its launch that Tehran finally made it obsolete.

In 2016, the IRGC accused the government of storing a ready-to-launch satellite in a warehouse fearing the U.S. reaction, calling the government's inaction "humiliating."

It seems Iranian officials are insisting on provoking the international community by ignoring warnings about its missile program and uranium enrichment.

A day before Rouhani's comment about the imminent launch of satellites, Tehran's Atomic Energy Organization Chief Ali Akbar Salehi said that Iran has access to new equipment that are ready for 20 enrichment.

In another development, while Iran has angrily reacted to the news of an international conference in Warsaw to discuss Middle East and Iran, Warsaw has declared that "The international community is entitled to discuss various regional and global issues."

The Iranian Foreign Ministry had summoned Poland's ambassador in Tehran on Saturday and announced that "The Islamic Republic's reaction will be very serious and uncompromising," further threatening that "Warsaw should be held responsible for the consequences of hosting this conference."

Although Russia has let Iran down at the United Nations on several occasions during the past years, Iranian leaders seem to be calculating that Moscow will defend them against the international community by vetoing anti-Tehran resolutions.

During the nuclear negotiations and the international sanctions originally imposed on Iran, Moscow supported the Western position and even the UN anti-missile resolution.

Launching satellites now might be seen as a clear violation of the UN limitation on Irans missile technology; putting Russia in a difficult situation to defend Iran.

It is even much more likely that Europe will not tolerate Tehran's provocation as the French Foreign Ministry statement against Iran's missile program indicates. Iran's treatment of Poland, an EU member, will not make the situation any better.
Amid the controversy over the fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, an influential ayatollah says, "Ultimately, the deal should be burned."

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, 91, who chairs the influential Assembly of experts, is an ultraconservative cleric and longtime opponent of JCPOA. He often echoes the views of Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

"Europe is not helping preserve JCPOA by demanding additional negotiations on issues like missiles", IRNA reported Jannati as saying on Tuesday, September 4, 2018.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, January 17, the official news agency IRNA had quoted an "EU spokesperson" as having said "on the condition of anonymity" that the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for trade with Iran "is about to become operational."

Nevertheless, hours later, a European Union official in Brussels denied the report. RFE/RL's correspondent in Brussels said that a senior EU official told reporters the SPV is not ready yet and added that the trade issue is part of a larger bundle of issues related to Iran.

The official spoke at a briefing on the condition of anonymity. He added that the SPV "is not ready" yet.

Since the withdrawal of Washington from JCPOA last May, EU has been trying to keep Tehran committed to the deal through SPV. Nonetheless, EU members have been reluctant to host the SPV so far.

Tehran has been putting pressure on Europe arguing that without economic benefits there is no point in staying committed to the nuclear agreement. In return Europe has been promising to establish a trading mechanism to facilitate trade with Iran, using more of a barter system, rather than a regular banking payment system that can violate U.S. sanctions.

In his latest anti-JCPOA remarks, Jannati has reflected the position of the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the deal.

Ayatollah Jannati and other Iranian hardliners have repeatedly accused EU of implying delaying tactics in its negotiations with Iran.

Immediately after President Donald Trump declared that Washington would drop JCPOA, Khamenei fired back, by saying, "If Americans tear up the JCPOA, we will burn it."

Referring to the comment, Jannati has blamed President Hassan Rouhani's Administration for not burning the deal as Khamenei wished.

"Ultimately, you (the government) will burn JCPOA," Jannati insisted, adding, "Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Europe, if not worse, is not better than the US. EU is also wasting time. To depend on Europe is outright stupidity."
Kyiv is for creation of int'l mission in Kerch Strait if Russia doesn't manipulate it - Klimkin

Ukraine would welcome an international mission in the Kerch Strait but is concerned that Russia may manipulate it, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said.

"If an international presence helps us here and they [the Russian authorities] don't manipulate it, we undoubtedly welcome it, and it should be established," Klimkin said at a press conference on the work of the Foreign Ministry held in Kyiv on Friday, commenting on reports that Germany and France may guarantee navigation in the Kerch Strait with Russia's approval.

Klimkin said he hopes that Ukraine's German partners had productive talks with Russian officials.

"Although, honestly speaking, I am confident that Russia will continue manipulating it. Russia's purpose is to destabilize Ukrainian Donbas, and it is best to do so from the south. That's clear politically, geopolitically, and economically," Klimkin said.

The issue of international control in the Kerch Strait has already been discussed with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, among others, he said.

"The idea is to have international control. Not Russian control, but international control in the Kerch Strait," Klimkin said.

"This is a possibility of specialists who would see what Russia is doing independently and understand perfectly well that one must follow the principles of international law, that there is no Russian idea of any borders there, and that the principles that need to be implemented as regards the strait and the Sea of Azov are freedom of navigation in accordance with international law and the Convention on the Law of the Sea," Klimkin said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference following talks with the German foreign minister earlier on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had accepted German Chancellor Angela Merkel's proposal that German and French specialists be given access to the Kerch Strait.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel's request for sending German and French specialists to the Kerch Strait, according to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"Over a month ago, Chancellor Merkel asked President Putin to allow German specialists to visit the Kerch Strait and see how the passage through those waters was being conducted with due account of security regulations. [...] President Putin granted the request right away," Lavrov said at a press conference after talks with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.

Merkel asked some time later for French specialists accompanying German ones, and Putin also agreed to do that, he said.

According to Lavrov, he had received a proposal from Maas "which 'wraps' this simple trip into a certain document that requires coordination with Ukraine."

"We said honestly that if our colleagues were interested in doing what President Putin had promised to Chancellor Merkel, they could do so today, tomorrow, any time. But if the idea is to create some political procedure, in which the Ukrainian side is entitled to making certain decisions, we are running the risk of repeating the situation, which the Normandy format found itself in with the Steinmeier formula," Lavrov said.
One Ukrainian military wounded amid 13 attacks in Donbas in past 24 hours  JFO HQ

Russia's hybrid military forces have mounted 13 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past day, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as wounded in action, the press centre of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has reported.

"On January 17, the Russian occupation forces violated the cease-fire 13 times ... As a result of the criminal shelling by the Russian occupation forces, one soldier of the JFO was injured," the JFO staff said on Facabook on Friday morning.

The enemy employed anti-tank missile systems, automatic grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and small arms near the village of Pivdenne, as well as 82mm mortars and small arms  near the village of Krymske.

Russian occupation forces opened fire from automatic grenade launchers, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms, attacking the defenders of Slavne, Krasnohorivka and Opytne.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, on January 17, three militants were killed.

"Since Friday midnight, Russian-led forces haven't attacked the Ukrainian positions yet," the report said.
OSCE records significant decrease in number of civilian casualties by more than half compared with 2017

A significant decrease has been recorded in the number of civilian casualties by more than half compared with 2017, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Ambassador Martin Sajdik has reported.

"Looking at our achievements last year, I would like to highlight a significant decrease in the number of civilian casualties, by more than half compared with 2017," Sajdik told reporters following the TCG meeting on Thursday.

He said that "this is an important outcome," adding that "every human victim is one too many."

He also reported that the number of ceasefire violations during the New Year truce in Donbas has almost halved.

"As its result, the number of ceasefire violations from 29 December to the day before yesterday decreased more than by half compared with the previous two-week period," Sajdik said.

However, he noted that in recent times there has been a tendency of increase in the number of violations.

He said that compliance with the ceasefire was thus the major topic for the Security Working Group.

He also reported that the sides had agreed to conduct an audit of the "Voda Donbasa" company, with ICRC assistance.

"The Humanitarian Working Group further discussed the issues related to the exchange of detainees," he said.
The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine is considering the transfer of the Kyiv central railway station to concession.

"We are considering the possibility of transferring the station to concession. This could be a municipal concession if the city has money, maybe a private investor," Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said on Facebook.

The minister noted that the station accepts about 100,000 passengers every day, but its general condition, as well as the state of the station square "do not correspond to the honorary title of the Kyiv architectural landmark."

"We've agreed to turn this object into a modern, tidy, comfortable and safe public space. In two weeks we will gather, analyze proposals from the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ukrzaliznytsia, the National Police and the Kyiv mayor's office. Trading platforms, waiting rooms, parking lots - all this should be put in order, in a single aesthetic style," Omelyan said.
Naftogaz Ukrainy CEO Andriy Kobolev is convinced that transparent talks with Russia on the extension of the gas transit contract with the participation of European partners should be held, as the practice of political agreements behind the scenes results in negative consequences.

"One of the biggest mistakes of the negotiations of 2008-2009 was that Ukraine conducted negotiations behind the scenes. This error led to many [negative] consequences of this contract," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.

"What to do in this situation? I think the answer for Ukraine is obvious. Firstly, to firmly defend own position, and secondly, to negotiate in a transparent way that our European partners will understand," Kobolev said.

Naftogaz CEO has once again admitted that the Russian side has delayed negotiations on the transit contract as they are waiting for the outcome of the 2019 elections in Ukraine.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas believes that even the U.S. sanctions would not prevent the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Russia could complete the construction of the gas pipeline on its own, the DW has reported.

"U.S. sanctions could lead to Western companies, including German concerns, withdrawing from it. However, this should not lead to Russia curtailing the project, Maas said," it said on Thursday.

He says that currently, negotiations are underway, with the participation of the EU, on preserving the Ukraine transit route, but he thinks, however, that these negotiations will lose their meaning if the United States imposes sanctions, and the Russians independently complete the gas pipeline.

"No one is able to disrupt the project anymore. U.S. sanctions could lead to Western companies, including German concerns, withdrawing from it. However, this should not lead to Russia curtailing the project. In this case, Russia will implement it by itself, and then no one will have any influence on the preservation of gas transit via Ukraine," the politician said.

Also, Maas noted that there are concerns about gas supplies through the territory of Ukraine after the launch of the gas pipeline.
Gas contracts between Naftogaz Ukrainy and Russia's Gazprom signed in January 2009 were extremely unprofitable for Ukraine and caused irrevocable loss of $32 billion, Naftogaz Ukrainy CEO Andriy Kobolev has said.

"We have lost $32 billion with no hope of a return  upcharges, fines and other elements. This is UAH 61,000 per family," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.

Kobolev said that the damage could have been even greater, but thanks to the victory in the Stockholm arbitration, "it was possible to save $94.7 billion or UAH 177,000 per family."

The Naftogaz chief also said that the overestimated base contract price of $450 per 1,000 cubic meters with the market price at that time in Germany being $360 made Ukraine hostage to a political discount from Russia. He added that in this way Russia used gas for political pressure in relations with Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova.

According to Kobolev, this led to the Kharkiv agreements of 2010 on the extension of the lease of the base of the Black Sea Fleet and the discount of December 2013 in exchange for the refusal of European integration.

"These discounts have become a precondition for further occupation," Naftogaz CEO said.
Then, sometime between one and two years before Liams death, the couple began homeschooling Liam and his 7-year-old brother, who was also starved and was admitted to an ICU on the same day his father brought his brothers body to the hospital, Woelfel said.

The last actual meal Liam had was about one year prior to his death, when Michael and Georgena got married, Woelfel said. We talked to neighbors, friends, coworkers, family members, and they all said they were never allowed to see the children. Some of the neighbors said they didnt even know (the youngest children) existed.

The Robertses told police they ate steak the night before Liam died. Three of their children ate chicken patties. Liam and his older brother went hungry.

Woelfel said the adults blamed each other. He said Michael Roberts told him he tried to sometimes sneak snacks to his starving children, only to be met with wrath from his wife if she found out. Georgena Roberts told police she felt overwhelmed, trapped and dominated by her husband.

Michael Roberts attorney, Jessica Koester, described a man who lost himself and his children paid the price. He wept as she spoke.
ELKO  Another crash on U.S. Highway 93 has resulted in injuries.

The Nevada Highway Patrol reported a crash at about 3:15 p.m. south of Wells. Motorists in the area were advised of possible travel delays.

Details were unavailable but scanner reports indicated two semis were involved.

National Weather Service radar indicated thunderstorm activity in the area at the time of the crash.

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Another injury accident was reported on Interstate 80 at about 4 p.m.

Delays were possible at the crash site in the eastbound lane about 10 miles west of Elko, according to the NHP.

Thursdays crash on U.S. 93 was the third major accident on the highway in Elko County in less than a week.

A Canadian woman was killed on the highway Saturday morning when the vehicle she was riding in struck a pickup hauling a horse trailer while attempting to pass in heavy fog.

Five vehicles crashed last Friday morning south of Wells. A pickup hauling a camper trailer overturned on the icy roadway and was struck by a semi transporting onions. Three other vehicles crashed when they came upon the scene in the fog. No one was injured.

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Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners ('Quinbrook'), a specialist investor in low carbon energy infrastructure, today (1/17) announced that its portfolio company, Scout Clean Energy LLC ('Scout') has closed construction financing and tax equity commitments on the 300MW Ranchero Wind Farm located in Crockett County, Texas ('Ranchero').

The Ranchero project is expected to be operational by year-end 2019 and has been developed from inception by the Scout team. Ranchero will utilize 120 of the latest generation GE 2.5MW wind turbines with 127m rotors and has secured a 10-year Proxy Revenue Swap with Allianz Global & Specialty, Inc.'s Alternative Risk Transfer unit ('Allianz'), in partnership with Nephila Climate. REsurety provided the risk analytics supporting the PRS transaction and will serve as the calculation agent on an ongoing basis. Construction financing, including letters of credit, is being provided by KeyBank. GE Energy Financial Services ('GE EFS') underwrote and committed a portion of the tax equity.

Scout has entered into a fixed price balance of plant construction agreement with RES Americas, with construction management to be undertaken by Harvest Energy Services, a Scout affiliate.

David Scaysbrook, co-founder and Managing Partner of Quinbrook, said: "It is especially pleasing to have closed a major new financing and commenced construction of the first project to be developed from scratch by the Scout team. Ranchero has the potential to be a significant new wind project for the Texas power market and enjoys a strong wind resource. Securing Allianz as Ranchero's offtake partner supports our view of the quality of the project and its compelling wind resource fundamentals. Including the 200MW Persimmon Creek wind farm recently completed and already operational, Scout's operating portfolio is targeted to exceed 1GW within the next 18 months and is well on the way to exceeding our 2GW growth target by 2021."

"Quinbrook and the Scout team are pleased to have closed and launched construction of another utility scale wind project with distinguished partners and the opportunity to employ new financing and off-take structures in the Ranchero transaction. We believe Ranchero is an exceptional wind project and the transaction has attracted several high-quality partners in GE Renewable Energy, GE EFS and KeyBank," said Jeff Hunter, Senior Managing Director of Quinbrook. "This year we expect to close and commence construction on several additional wind projects in the Scout portfolio which are located across a diverse spectrum of US power markets."

Together, Quinbrook and Scout have rapidly expanded their utility scale US wind project portfolio to over 2.3GW of potential renewable power capacity, spanning 13 projects in 10 states.

Quinbrook and Scout were advised by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and Paragon Energy Advisors.

About Scout Clean Energy

Scout Clean Energy (www.scoutcleanenergy.com) is a North American wind energy developer and owner-operator. Scout is developing over 2.3 GW of PTC qualified wind projects across 10 US states covering most of the continent's power markets. Scout's operations affiliate Harvest Energy Services, Inc. provides independent O&M and construction management services to the wind industry. Scout and Harvest together have over 125 employees and are based in Boulder, Colorado.

About Quinbrook

Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners (www.quinbrook.com) is a specialist investment manager focused exclusively on lower carbon and renewable energy infrastructure investment and operational asset management in the US, UK and Australia. Quinbrook is led and managed by a senior team of power industry professionals who have collectively invested over US$ 17 billion in energy infrastructure assets since the early 1990's, representing over 30GW of power supply capacity. Quinbrook's investment and asset management team has offices in Houston, London, Jersey, and the Gold Coast of Australia. Quinbrook has completed multiple investments in both utility and distributed scale wind power, gas fired power reserve and 'smart grid' projects in the US, UK and Australia and currently manages Cape Byron Power (www.capebyronpower.com), one of Australia's largest base-load 100% renewable power generators.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today (1/17) announced the Green New Deal, a nation-leading clean energy and jobs agenda that will aggressively put New York State on a path to economy-wide carbon neutrality, is included in the 2019 Executive Budget. The landmark plan provides for a just transition to clean energy that spurs growth of the green economy and prioritizes the needs of low- to moderate-income New Yorkers. Video of the Governor making this announcement is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here. "Climate change is a reality, and the consequences of delay are a matter of life and death. We know what we must do. Now we have to have the vision, the courage, and the competence to get it done," Governor Cuomo said. "While the federal government shamefully ignores the reality of climate change and fails to take meaningful action, we are launching the first-in-the-nation Green New Deal to seize the potential of the clean energy economy, set nation's most ambitious goal for carbon-free power, and ultimately eliminate our entire carbon footprint." During Governor Cuomo's first two terms, New York banned fracking of natural gas, committed to phasing out coal power by 2020, mandated 50 percent renewable power by 2030, and established the U.S. Climate Alliance to uphold the Paris Agreement. Under the Reforming the Energy Vision agenda, New York has held the largest renewable energy procurements in U.S. history, solar has increased nearly 1,500 percent, and offshore wind is poised to transform the State's electricity supply to be cleaner and more sustainable. Through Governor Cuomo's Green New Deal, New York will take the bold next steps to secure a clean energy future that protects the environment for generations to come while growing the clean energy economy. 100 Percent Clean Power by 2040 Coupled with New Nation-leading Renewable Energy Mandates The Green New Deal will statutorily mandate New York's power be 100 percent carbon-free by 2040, the most aggressive goal in the United States and five years ahead of a target recently adopted by California. The cornerstone of this new mandate is a significant increase of New York's successful Clean Energy Standard mandate from 50 percent to 70 percent renewable electricity by 2030. This globally unprecedented ramp-up of renewable energy will include:

Quadrupling New York's offshore wind target to 9,000 megawatts by 2035, up from 2,400 megawatts by 2030

Doubling distributed solar deployment to 6,000 megawatts by 2025, up from 3,000 megawatts by 2023

More than doubling new large-scale land-based wind and solar resources through the Clean Energy Standard

Maximizing the contributions and potential of New York's existing renewable resources

Deploying 3,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2030, up from 1,500 megawatts by 2025

Develop an Implementation Plan to Make New York Carbon Neutral The Green New Deal will create the State's first statutory Climate Action Council, comprised of the heads of relevant State agencies and other workforce, environmental justice, and clean energy experts to develop a comprehensive plan to make New York carbon neutral by significantly and cost-effectively reducing emissions from all major sources, including electricity, transportation, buildings, industry, commercial activity, and agriculture. The Climate Action Council will consider a range of possible options, including the feasibility of working with the U.S. Climate Alliance to create a new multistate emissions reduction program that covers all sectors of the economy, including transportation and industry, and exploring ways to leverage the successful Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to drive transformational investment in the clean energy economy and support a just transition. The Green New Deal will also include an ambitious strategy to move New York's statewide building stock to carbon neutrality. The agenda includes:

Advancing legislative changes to strengthen building energy codes and establish appliance efficiency standards

Directing State agencies to ensure that their facilities uphold the strongest energy efficiency and sustainability standards

Developing a Net Zero Roadmap to chart a course to statewide carbon neutrality in buildings

A Multibillion Dollar Green New Deal Investment in the Clean Tech Economy that will Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions Demonstrating New York's immediate commitment to implementing the nation's most ambitious clean energy agenda and creating high-quality clean energy jobs, Governor Cuomo is announcing $1.5 billion in competitive awards to support 20 large-scale solar, wind and energy storage projects across upstate New York. These investments will add over 1,650 megawatts of capacity and generate over 3,800,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy annually - enough to power nearly 550,000 homes and create over 2,600 short and long-term jobs. Combined with the renewable energy projects previously announced under the Clean Energy Standard, New York has now awarded more than $2.9 billion to 46 projects statewide, enough to power over one million households. The Green New Deal also includes new investments to jumpstart New York's offshore wind energy industry and support the State's world-leading target of 9,000 megawatts by 2035. New York will invest up to $200 million in port infrastructure to match private sector investment in regional development of offshore wind. This multi-location investment represents the nation's largest infrastructure commitment to offshore wind and solidifies New York's position as the hub of the burgeoning U.S. offshore wind industry. These new investments build upon a $250 million commitment to electric vehicle infrastructure by the New York Power Authority's EVolve program, $3.5 billion in private investment in distributed solar driven by NYSERDA's NY-Sun program, and NY Green Bank transactions mobilizing nearly $1.75 billion in private capital for clean energy projects. A Just Transition to a Clean Energy Economy Deliver Climate Justice for Underserved Communities: The Green New Deal will help historically underserved communities prepare for a clean energy future and adapt to climate change by:

Giving communities a seat at the table by codifying the Environmental Justice and Just Transition Working Group into law and incorporating it into the planning process for the Green New Deal's implementation.

Directing the State's low-income energy task force to identify reforms to achieve greater impact of the public energy funds expended each year in order to increase the effect of funds and initiatives that target energy affordability to underserved communities.

Directing each of the State's ten Regional Economic Development Councils to develop an environmental justice strategy for their region.
Multifamily property owners across Connecticut are always looking for ways to reduce expenses, and that includes energy costs. In recognition of their efforts to help these customers better manage their energy, Eversource was recognized today (1/16) by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) with an Exemplary Energy Efficiency Program award for its Residential Multifamily Initiative. The national award recognizes the best utility programs across the country.

"It is an honor to be recognized by ACEEE for our program, which has been very successful," said Eversource Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer Penni Conner. "We strive to help all of our customers save energy and keep costs down wherever possible, and we will continue working with multifamily property owners on customized energy efficiency solutions that will make their living spaces more comfortable."

ACEEE's national review evaluates and recognizes exemplary programs in areas such as: direct customer energy savings, cost-effectiveness, customer service, innovation, and expansion potential.

Over the last three years, Eversource has increased its number of comprehensive multifamily energy efficiency projects in Connecticut by over 40 percent, connecting approximately 25,000 multifamily customers across the state with solutions for savings that help reduce their energy costs.

Mary Gordon, Property Manager of Hockanum Crossing in Vernon, is one multifamily program participant. "We have 700 apartments, and every single energy-efficiency improvement was knocked out of the park," said Gordon. "From lower utility costs to a brighter, better overall living experience, it gives our residents a reason to stay."

The Eversource Multifamily Initiative, in partnership with Energize Connecticut, offers multifamily property owners:

Building assessments to identify energy-saving opportunities for owners and residents, as well as the building as a whole

Assistance with energy-efficiency upgrade projects

Resources to support additional energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements, along with health and safety measures

Incentives and financing for energy-efficiency upgrades

For more information on Eversource's Residential Multifamily Initiative and additional energy efficiency solutions, please visit EnergizeCT.com.

For more information on ACEEE's Exemplary Energy Efficiency Program awards, please visit ACEEE.org.

Eversource (NYSE: ES) transmits and delivers electricity to 1.2 million customers in 149 cities and towns, provides natural gas to 232,000 customers in 73 communities, and supplies water to approximately 197,000 customers in 51 communities across Connecticut. Recognized as the top U.S. utility for its energy efficiency programs by the sustainability advocacy organization Ceres, Eversource harnesses the commitment of about 8,000 employees across three states to build a single, united company around the mission of safely delivering reliable energy and water with superior customer service. For more information, please visit our website (www.eversource.com) and follow us on Twitter (@EversourceCT) and Facebook (facebook.com/EversourceCT). For more information on our water services, visit www.aquarionwater.com.

About Energize Connecticut

Energize Connecticut helps you save money and use clean energy. It is an initiative of the State of Connecticut, the Connecticut Green Bank, Eversource, UI, SCG and CNG, with funding from a charge on customer energy bills. Information can be found at EnergizeCT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Mitch Gross

860-665-5221

mitch.gross@eversource.com
Homeowners, renters and business owners across Massachusetts are always looking for ways to reduce expenses, and that includes energy costs. In recognition of their efforts to help these customers better manage their energy, Eversource was recognized today (1/16) by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) with Exemplary Energy Efficiency Program awards for both its Home Energy Services (HES) program and Franchise Customer Initiative in Massachusetts. The national award recognizes the best utility programs across the country.



"It is an honor to be recognized by ACEEE for our programs, which have been very successful," said Eversource Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer Penni Conner. "We strive to help all of our customers save energy and keep costs down wherever possible. We will continue working with homeowners and business owners across the commonwealth on customized energy efficiency solutions that will make their living spaces more comfortable and their businesses more competitive."



ACEEE's national review evaluates and recognizes exemplary programs in areas such as: direct customer energy savings, cost-effectiveness, customer service, innovation, and expansion potential.



Eversource's HES program takes a fuel-blind approach and provides in-home energy assessments, turnkey facilitation of weatherization measures, and zero-percent financing to help homeowners or renters retrofit their homes with cost-effective energy-efficient measures. Since 2016, the energy saved through Eversource's HES program in Massachusetts is enough to power approximately 6,000 homes for a year, and the greenhouse gas emission reductions are equivalent to taking 1,062 cars off the road for a year.



"We felt like we were getting solid advice on how we could improve our energy use, and we were so surprised by the support we received to make those changes," said Westhampton homeowners and HES program participants, Elizabeth Preston and Cindy White. "To find out that the cost of the work would be offset so significantly with all the program incentives was really exciting."



To learn more about Liz and Cindy's HES story, visit Eversource's YouTube page.



Eversource's Franchise Customer Initiative was recognized as an innovative model for delivering energy efficiency services to individual franchise owners by taking advantage of the similarities associated with a brand network. Eversource launched the tailored initiative with franchise owners within the Dunkin' Brands Group, Inc. (Dunkin'). The program enables energy-efficient upgrades to lighting, HVAC and refrigeration equipment.



Eversource is a proud sponsor of Mass Save. For more information on Eversource's Home Energy Services program, Franchise Customer Initiative and additional energy efficiency solutions, please visit MassSave.com.



For more information on ACEEE's Exemplary Energy Efficiency Program awards, please visit ACEEE.org.

Eversource (NYSE: ES) transmits and delivers electricity, natural gas and water to 1.7 million customers throughout Massachusetts. This includes approximately 1.4 million electric customers in 140 communities, 300,000 gas customers in 51 communities, and 19,500 water customers in five communities. Recognized as the top U.S. utility for its energy efficiency programs by the sustainability advocacy organization Ceres, Eversource harnesses the commitment of about 8,000 employees across three states to build a single, united company around the mission of safely delivering reliable energy and water with superior customer service. For more information, please visit our website (www.eversource.com) and follow us on Twitter (@eversourceMA) and Facebook (facebook.com/EversourceMA). For more information on our water services, visit www.aquarionwater.com.

CONTACT:

Reid Lamberty

617-424-2108

reid.lamberty@eversource.com
What really happened

Mathbar Singhs manuscript explains Shahs entry into Bhaktapur where he grew up
Ukraine-Belgium trade grows by 25% in nine months, to almost US$993 mln

Both countries' businesses are interested in strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation.

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Ukraine ranks among top ten dairy exporters in 2018

Milk and dairy exports from Ukraine were estimated at US$250 million last year.

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Naftogaz responds to Swiss court ruling to lift interim measures off Gazprom's shares

The company will continue the search for Gazprom assets in Switzerland, Vitrenko said.

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European Parliament may stop construction of Nord Stream 2, second line of Turkish Stream  Kobolyev

There is a clear understanding that Nord Stream 2 is exclusively in the interest of Germany and unlikely in the interest of other EU countries, Kobolyev said.

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Swiss court lifts interim measures off Gazprom's shares in Nord Stream AG, Nord Stream 2 AG

In late May 2018, Naftogaz of Ukraine launched in foreign courts the process of forcing the $2.6 billion debt from Gazprom.

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Nord Stream 2 can't be stopped, Germany's foreign minister suggests

U.S. sanctions could force European companies to withdraw from the pipeline project but this would not stop Russia from completing the pipe independently, Heiko Maas claims.

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The EU-funded project PanCareFollowUp looks at how to best deliver survivorship care to survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer in Europe.

Survival rates have improved over the last few decades but there is still a long way to go in long-term follow-up care for survivors of childhood cancer.

This new focus in care and evaluation of care for survivors of childhood cancer is coordinated by Prof Leontine Kremer from the Princess Maxima Center for Pediatric Oncolology in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Fourteen partners from 10 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom) will participate.

There are currently over 300,000 survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer across Europe, and this figure is expected to reach 500,000 by the year 2020.

Thanks to better cancer treatments, more than 80% of children and adolescents in Europe who get cancer will now survive more than 5 years.

However, cancer treatments are harsh and long-term effects mean that survivors require closer health monitoring compared to the average population.

Despite increasing knowledge about health problems after childhood cancer, only a minority of adult childhood cancer survivors receive appropriate care.

PanCareFollowUp is therefore aiming at delivering care according to recently developed guidelines using an innovative model for person centred care that empowers survivors and supports self-management.

The objectives of PanCareFollowUp are to:

Develop the PanCareFollowUp Care intervention, based on state-of-the-art knowledge, summarised in guidelines, about what regular surveillance individual survivors need and how it can be best delivered using person-centred care approaches

Test the PanCareFollowUp Care intervention in four countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Italy and Sweden) in partnership with 800 survivors, measuring effectiveness, value and cost-effectiveness

Test the feasibility of using the European Survivorship Passport in delivering the PanCareFollowUp Care intervention in Italy and explore the development of an App

Develop the PanCareFollowUp Lifestyle intervention, a person-centred eHealth lifestyle intervention tailored to meet the individual needs of survivors

Test the PanCareFollowUp Lifestyle intervention in the Netherlands in partnership with 60 survivors, looking at effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility

Develop materials to support replication of the PanCareFollowUp Care and Lifestyle interventions in new countries across Europe in the future

Widely disseminate and communicate the available research to survivors and their families, researchers, healthcare professionals, healthcare decision-makers and policymakers

The aim to deliver better, person-centred survivorship care to European survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer should empower survivors and support self-management. Regular longterm follow-up aiming for prevention, early detection and intervention of late effects can indeed preserve or improve health.

It is important that every survivor of childhood cancer in Europe will be able to receive optimal survivorship care grounded on evidence-based guidelines and their own preferences, said Professor Leontine Kremer (PanCare Project Coordinator).

Dr Helena van der Pal (President of PanCare and late effect specialist) added PanCareFollowUp will make a significant difference for survivors of childhood cancer across Europe. We will develop and implement a care intervention including new tools such as the survivorship care plan. This will enable health care providers and survivors to design the care that is needed.

The kick-off meeting of 15 January 2019 in Amsterdam brought together PanCareFollowUp partners from across Europe to develop clear visions of their roles, start the activities to develop the interventions, and plan the studies.

All partners reiterated their commitment to delivering the best survivorship care to survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer in Europe.

Source: SIOP Europe
In an attempt to pressure Congress, US President Donald Trump has refused to authorize funding for swaths of the government, leaving some 800,000 federal employees and many more government contractors without pay for nearly a month. Photo by AFP/Mandel Ngan

President Donald Trump forced the cancellation of a trip to Afghanistan by his Democratic opponent Nancy Pelosi, and scrapped administration officials' travel to the Davos forum.

The move came as the biting government shutdown plunged Washington deeper into deadlock.

The mess in the US capital already verged on the surreal as Congress feuds with the White House over how to end an impasse now in its fourth week, with thousands of federal workers left unpaid.

But now it's also getting increasingly personal between the two main antagonists.

In a letter laced with sarcasm, Trump told House Speaker Pelosi: "I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over."

"I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is appropriate," he wrote.

And in a move that appeared aimed at heading off Democratic criticism about non-essential administration travel during the shutdown, the White House announced the cancellation of a trip to the World Economic Forum by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and others "out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay."

Pelosi and her delegation had planned a non-publicized trip to Afghanistan -- an active war zone -- and were due to travel aboard a U.S. Air Force plane. Her office said Egypt was not on the itinerary.

According to a congressional aide, several lawmakers were already loaded onto buses preparing to leave the U.S. Capitol Thursday when Trump pulled the plug.

Rubbing it in, Trump said that Pelosi could still book her own non-government flights.

"Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," he wrote.

The cancellation followed Pelosi's suggestion that Trump postpone his January 29 State of the Union address to Congress, or do it from the White House instead.

Although she cited the shutdown's effect on security, she appeared to want to deny the president one of his chief annual moments in the limelight.

The White House denied that the travel blockage was payback, but few bought the argument.

'Sophomoric'

House Democrats who had been slated for the trip were left fuming, including freshman congresswoman Elaine Luria, a 20-year Navy veteran who said the purpose was to express appreciation to Americans in uniform and gain critical intelligence on the ground.

"Oversight is the responsibility of Congress, and it is inappropriate for the President to interfere with our constitutional duties," Luria said in a statement.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who for weeks has served as a referee of sorts between Trump and Pelosi, accused the latter of "playing politics with the State of the Union."

But he also hit out at Trump, saying "denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO is also inappropriate."

"One sophomoric response does not deserve another," Graham said.

The government shutdown is due to Trump's refusal to sign off on funding for a host of departments, in retaliation for the Democratic-led House's refusal to approve his U.S.-Mexico border wall project.

The shutdown is leaving an increasingly deep impact across the country, where for almost a month FBI agents, museum workers, U.S. Coast Guard personnel and other officials have been either ordered to stay home or forced to work without pay.

Regular employees will get back pay eventually, while contractors will not.

The Democrats and the White House blame each other for the impasse, with neither side showing signs of backing down.

Trump critics quickly pointed out that he himself visited troops in Iraq during the shutdown.

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said he believed cancelling a speaker of the House's fact-finding mission to a war zone was a first for a U.S. president.

"That work must go on and I think it's vitally important now, in particular that the president has announced withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, that we understand the situation on the ground," he told reporters.
We are the change

Good governance and civic sense a must for building a better society
For the many H'Mong female victims of human trafficking, local textile cooperatives become the only places where they find solace from social stigma.

A textile cooperative in northern Vietnam's Quan Ba district provides hope, income, and purpose to women of the Vietnamese H'Mong hill tribes many of whose lives have been blighted by people trafficking. Photo by AFP/Nhac Nguyen

Thao Thi Van was just two when her mother disappeared during a trip to the market, likely taken by traffickers preying on women from the H'Mong hill tribes of northern Vietnam to sell as brides or into brothels in China.

Now aged 13 she is still haunted by the fate of her missing mother but has found some solace at a textile cooperative for marginalized women in the region.

"I have almost no friends at school because they tease me for having no mother. I envy those kids with a mum," the slight teenager told AFP in tears.

"I have fun working here because I can earn some money and no-one teases me," Van said.

She's been taken in by the older women she works with at the co-op, where she has earned a reputation as a skilled embroiderer.

The collective makes hemp handbags and table runners, coasters and stuffed animals, and the women can earn up to $170 per month, a decent wage in impoverished Ha Giang Province.

Thousands of Vietnamese women are trafficked or tricked across the border every year and in this remote northern mountainous region of Vietnam, spitting distance from the Chinese border, women and girls frequently vanish from their communities.

China's buy-a-bride industry is booming, fuelled by a surplus of 30 million males. Some women go willingly, others are kidnapped or find themselves forced into marriage.

The lucky few who escape marriages or sexual slavery in China often face stigma on their return to Vietnam and are shunned by neighbors.

Driven to offer such victims a purpose -- and an income -- Vang Thi Mai set up the Lung Tam Linen Cooperative in 2001.

"Society may not like them but here they are confident," said Mai, dressed in a traditional pleated indigo hemp skirt and embroidered coat.

A woman dunks fabric into a pot of dye at the Lung Tam Linen cooperative in Ha Giang. Photo by AFP/Nhac Nguyen

Sexism runs deep

The co-op quickly grew and today is a hive of activity that employs more than 130 women, not just trafficking victims but also orphans, single mothers and seniors, who weave, dye and stitch indigo blue and yam orange fabrics from dawn to dusk.

With the jobs she is providing, Mai hopes to empower Hmong woman in a culture where sexism runs deep and where most women earn just a few dollars a month as farmers.

That poverty is in part what drives the cross-border trade in women and boosting incomes protects potential victims -- and increases their social status.

"If women, especially trafficked women, are working in a group together they make themselves stronger by gaining negotiating power, accelerating knowledge and integrating into society," said Nguyen Tien Phong, head of inclusive growth at United Nations Development Program in Vietnam.

This is just the kind of support Mai envisioned when she established the center, today a popular spot for tourists winding through the mountain-specked province on motorbikes.

But Mai has another goal too: to preserve the centuries-old custom of H'Mong weaving, a tradition that has faded in many H'Mong homes as modernity has crept in.

The centuries-old weaving custom of the H'Mong hill tribes in Vietnam is in danger of fading away. Photo by AFP/Nhac Nguyen

Girls who once learned the time-consuming craft from their mothers and grandmothers are busy these days with school work, or Facebook, or hanging out with friends.

Most women in the area have swapped their colorfully embroidered hemp jackets and indigo blue hemp skirts for made-in-China polyester outfits.

"The traditional dignity and the cultural essence of the H'Mong in Vietnam has eroded, I need to restore that with old women teaching to skills to younger ones," Mai said.

"Here we do things manually to preserve our traditional identity, the pearl of Vietnamese culture."
One Vietnamese crewman died and another was injured after a boat caught fire off the South Korean coast Thursday.

The Yonhap newspaper reported the same day that the 85-ton vessel had 12 crew members on board when the accident happened.

The fire broke out at approximately 10:25 a.m. off Oenaro Island, 6.4 kilometers northeast of South Koreas South Jeolla Province.

One Vietnamese man was found dead in a toilet at the boats tail. The injured Vietnamese, suffering burns, was taken to a local hospital. A Chinese crew member, still missing, is believed to have jumped off the boat when the fire broke out.

South Korean authorities are investigating the accident and looking for the missing Chinese crewman.

The two Vietnamese victims are from the central province of Quang Binh. The dead one came to South Korea as a guest worker in November 2016 and the other in January last year, the Vietnam News Agency reported.
Vietnamese satellite MicroDragon was successfully launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture in southern Japan Friday morning.

Vietnams coast observation satellite goes into orbit from Japan Vietnams coast observation satellite goes into orbit from Japan

[Video by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)]

The satellite, built by a team of Vietnamese engineers with help from Japanese experts and launched aboard Japans Epsilon 4 launcher, will be used to observe Vietnams coast line.

MicroDragon measures 50x50x50 centimeters (19.6 inches) and weighs around 50 kilograms (110 pounds).

It will help evaluate water quality, locate fisheries resources and monitor changes to serve aquaculture.

It will also detect cloud coverage and aerosols, collect ground-based sensor signals and transmit them to stations on Earth.

In 2013 the Vietnam National Space Center (VNSC) sent 36 engineers to five top universities in Japan for masters programs in satellite technology as part of a joint Vietnam-Japan project to prevent natural disasters and climate change using satellites.

Using official development assistance from Japan and counter capital from the Vietnamese government, the engineers worked with Japanese experts to build MicroDragon in Japan.

The satellite marks a milestone for Vietnam in building satellites. The VNSC told the media earlier that the satellite is expected to provide imagery of a specific area within six to 12 hours compared with at least two days when is it obtained from a commercial satellite imagery provider.

Vietnam sent its first indigenous satellite into space in 2013. The one-kilogram PicoDragon was in space for three months. The country had launched four satellites before that, but all made by foreign companies.

Plans are underway to build LOTUSat-2 (500 kg) by 2022, which would place Vietnam among the leading countries in the region in terms of space technology, alongside Indonesia and Malaysia, Pham Anh Tuan, general director of the VNSC, said.
Over 200 pagolins have been found in captivity in Ha Tinh Province in north central Vietnam. Photo by Ha Tinh Police

Police in north-central Vietnam have arrested nine people for allegedly trapping 215 pangolins to traffic them.

The animals, weighing a total 600 kilograms, were found at three locations in Ha Tinh Provinces Huong Son District by officers from the Ministry of Public Security and the local police department.

They also found an item weighing a kilogram that they suspect is ivory.

The five women and four men in custody are all locals and the police are investigating further.

Pangolin trafficking is not rare in Vietnam, where it is legally protected and categorized as endangered.

The shy, tiny creature, which resembles a scaly anteater, is the world's most heavily trafficked mammal despite bans. Pangolins are hunted in Vietnam and its neighborhood for their meat and the alleged medicinal properties of their scales.

Of the 10 countries and territories with the largest number of trafficking incidents, seven were in Asia -- China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos, and Indonesia  a study by wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic and Australias University of Adelaide in December 2017 had found.
A Brit man was found dead in Vietnam Thursday after having gone missing last week. Photo by Shutterstock/aradaphotography

A British man reported missing last week was found in a local mortuary in southern Vietnam, the Nottinghamshire Live reported Thursday.

Steve Bush, from Nottinghamshire County, England, was reported missing by his family after disappearing from a local hotel last Sunday.

He has lived in Vietnam for at least 10 years, reportedly residing in a hotel in the southern beach town of Vung Tau.

His sister, Amanda Bush, told BBC the family was alerted of the situation Sunday via social media by his girlfriend, who had not seen him for three days. The girlfriend was not identified.

He was last seen put into a taxi from his hotel Monday, Amanda told Nottinghamshire Live. On Tuesday, the hotel had called Steves girlfriend and said he owed six months rent, and that she needed to pick him up because he was sick and the hotel wasnt prepared to pay hospital bills, she added.

The Englishmans nephew, Freddie Booth, told BBC that the hotel said they had put Steve in a taxi to go to a local hospital since he was sick.

"Yet the taxi company do not acknowledge picking him up and the hospital says they have not treated an English person," Booth said.

A family friend in the area went to investigate and found Steves passport, phone and laptop still in his hotel room. Steves visa had also expired.

On Thursday, one of Steves friends was informed about a body in a local mortuary and had gone to identify it. It was Steve Bushs body, his sister said.

Lincolnshire police said the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office was looking into the incident.
Hanoi to relocate households next to huge dump following protests

A truck is seen at Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex in Hanoi. Photo by VnExpress/Gia Chinh

1,100 Hanoi households will be moved away from a landfill theyve been living next to for two decades.

The capital city will spend VND3.4 trillion ($147 million) relocating households that live within a radius of 500 meters around the Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex, the biggest landfill in the city.

The complex, which opened in 1999, stretches over 157 hectares (390 acres) in three Soc Son District communes of Nam Son, Bac Son and Hong Ky.

The decision was taken following residents protests in Nam Son Commune.

The protest began last Thursday with a group of 40 residents gathering to block trucks from entering the waste treatment complex, saying Hanoi and Soc Son authorities had been slow to compensate and resettle those suffering harmful environmental impacts from the complex.

Protestors set up barriers and tents around the waste complex, preventing garbage trucks from entering the place, causing rubbish to remain uncollected and pile up in many districts.

As of Sunday night piles of garbage could be seen along many streets in Thanh Xuan, Nam Tu Liem, Ba Dinh, and Long Bien districts.

Garbage is uncollected and piles up on a street in downtown Hanoi Sunday night. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh

It was only after authorities pledged a specific timeline for resettlement and compensation plan that locals removed the barriers on Monday.

Hanoi has ordered Soc Son to finish measuring land for relocation before January 20 and complete a compensation plan before March 30, so that it can start paying locals in the second quarter.

Since Wednesday, local residents have been preparing paperwork for the relocation.

"I have never seen villagers that excited in years, I really hope that the city can resolve the issue completely soon," said Vu Tien Luc, chief of Xuan Thinh Village in Nam Son Commune.

Villager Nguyen Thi Thu commented that garbage piled up for four days in downtown areas had already made things unbearable for residents, but she and her neighbors have had to suffer this for 20 years.

"No one wants to leave a place they have spent most of their lives, but for a better future for our children and grandchildren, we want to leave this place as soon as possible," said Tran Ngoc Tuat, another villager.

At a meeting with locals in May, 2016, Hanoi authorities had pledged that they would complete the plan to compensate and relocate residents out of the dump by the end of last year.

But as of early this year, nothing had changed, prompting the residents to step up their protests.

"The city authorities made guidelines, but did not issue any formal decision, and it was not until July last year that the district authorities had counted households that need to be relocated and drafted a financial plan for compensation," said Nguyen Huu Hung, deputy director of the center to develop a land fund for Soc Son.

"The process of counting took a lot of time, which is why the entire process has fallen behind schedule," he said.

A representative of Soc Son District administration said three resettlement areas will be earmarked in Soc Son.

"The district began implementing the three relocation projects more than a year ago, but a lack of funding has delayed the process," he said.
Tourists sit on sacks of sand placed to protect Cua Dai beach in Hoi An from erosion. Photo by VnExpress/Nguyen Dong

Quang Nam Province in central Vietnam has proposed a $30.2 million project to safeguard Cua Dai from coastal erosion.

Dinh Van Thu, chairman of Quang Nam Province, has submitted a VND700 billion ($30.2 million) request to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc for implementing a project to fight severe erosion at Cua Dai beach, considered as a valuable tourism resource for the ancient town Hoi An.

Since 2014, strong waves and tropical storms have caused severe erosion on Cua Dai beach, forcing its closure for three years.

The beach opened again in 2017.

Waves have washed over a concrete barrier, which is five meters high and 70 meters long, and encroached an additional 160 meters inland. The waves have washed away many seaside resorts, and severely damaged the three kilometer plus long beach.

Earlier, local authorities spent around VND70 billion ($3.08 million) building a new embankment, installing iron pilings and pumping sand into the area to revive Cua Dai.

However, several tropical storms last year worsened the situation and authorities are scrambling to save the beach from being wiped out.

The erosion has scared many tourists and hurt the local economy.

At a recent meeting with provincial leaders, experts from the Netherlands suggested building some artificial islands off the Cua Dai coast to shield it from strong waves and winds. The project should use private funding, the experts advised.

However, local authorities said the project needs to be considered carefully because of security concerns. The construction of artificial islands will affect the UNESCO-recognized Cu Lao Cham Marine Park.

A joint report by the United Nations Environment Program, UNESCO and the Union of Concerned Scientists recently warned that Hoi An is among the worlds heritage sites at risk from climate changes.

Much of Hoi An is at or less than two meters above sea level, making it vulnerable to rising sea levels and storm surges, the report said.

Video below shows tourists coming back to Cua Dai in 2017, after efforts to conserve its coastline.
The debate between cheap, polluting energy from coal and expensive, environment-friendly renewable energy was on the agenda at an economic forum.

Opening a seminar at the 2019 Vietnam Economic Forum in Hanoi Thursday, Nguyen Van Binh, chairman of the Communist Party's Central Economic Commission, stressed the need for Vietnam to address the challenges brought about by climate change.

"If we don't effectively respond to climate change, the achievements of our socio-economic development will be damaged and the process of sustainable development will encounter many difficulties."

As a country with a long coastline and many large river basins, Vietnam is considered among the five countries most affected by climate change.

The impacts of climate change would accelerate resource depletion and environmental degradation and slow down the country's socio-economic development, Binh said.

While renewable energy is environmentally friendly, its sources are still unstable, potentially endangering energy security, while traditional energy sources such as coal help ensure energy security but contribute to the greenhouse effect, a major factor in causing climate change.

John Kerry, former U.S. Secretary of State and a visiting distinguished statesman at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed that with its energy requirements growing rapidly Vietnam needs to consider and implement solutions to remain proactive with its energy supply.

But he warned that Vietnam's use of traditional energy sources, especially coal, is a contributor to climate change.

Vietnam's 75 percent increase in coal use in the past five years is something that needs to be changed, and the country must look to cleaner, renewable energy sources, he said.

The coal era will not end because of coal being used up, but will end because of the discovery of better, cleaner solution, he noted.

But a complete replacement of coal energy or a complete switch to renewable energy has proven to be a tough challenge for Vietnam.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, energy demand increased by 10.35 percent last year, putting great pressure on authorities to find additional energy sources.

The major solar and wind power projects are concentrated in a few areas in the south-central region. While these projects are quickly increasing in size, their high concentration has put pressure on the local power grids, reducing their efficiency.

Furthermore, European Union representative Bruno Angelet, said: " Coal might seem cheaper than gas, but if we include external costs and subsidies, it is no longer the case. What Vietnam should urgently consider is to increase carbon taxes, not only on fuel but also on coal. It should move away direct and indirect subsidies on coal and move them to gas and renewables."

Binh said taking this into consideration Vietnam needs to research and develop appropriate energy security strategies.

"We need to recognize and correctly evaluate the effects of these two aspects to develop appropriate policies to proactively respond to climate change and strengthen national energy security."

Vietnam currently relies largely on hydropower and thermal power for its electricity needs. But its hydropower potential is almost fully exploited and its oil and gas reserves are running low, raising concerns about possible power shortages in the coming years.

However, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc allayed these concerns saying the government would not let the ministry or Vietnam Electricity cut power supply, warning that "whoever cuts power will be fired immediately."

The electricity industry has pledged to meet electricity requirements by making full use of hydropower and domestic coal and gas sources besides importing coal and building new power plants on schedule.

Phuc said Vietnam's surge by 37 places in the World Bank's 2018 electricity access index was impressive and called the power sector to continue rising up this index.

World Bank country director for Vietnam Ousmane Dione said at a recent forum that Vietnam would need to raise $150 billion by 2030 to develop its energy sector with electricity demand growing by around 8 percent a year over the next decade.
The estranged wife of Vietnams Coffee King has proposed a division of Trung Nguyen Groups assets between the couple.

Le Hoang Diep Thao, wife of Trung Nguyen coffee brand founder Dang Le Nguyen Vu, said in a statement Thursday that she has proposed that the assets of the Trung Nguyen Group be divided into two parts, with Vu choosing to take one and she taking the other.

Le Hoang Diep Thao has proposed that the assets of the Trung Nguyen Group be divided into two parts. Photo from Thao's Fanbook page

The first part would be the Trung Nguyen coffee brand, the Trung Nguyen Legend Stores and its factories. The second would comprise the G7 instant coffee brand and its factories.

Thao said she would allow Vu to make the decision first, with a months time to change his mind.

"Both brands are the children that my husband and I have borne and raised in the last 20 years. Even now, I still hope that he and I will continue to keep and develop the two brands together," Thao said.

Thao added that a hearing is scheduled for January 30 in the divorce case between her and Vu.

A representative of Vu told VnExpress that both Vu and the court have not accepted any of Thaos proposals, but declined to comment further.

Thaos proposal comes after her accusation last month that her husbands company forged signatures to remove her from the Trung Nguyen Instant Coffee Corporations (Trung Nguyen IC) and replace her with Vu.

In May 2006, Thao was appointed Trung Nguyen's deputy general director, allowing her to manage the company under Vu's authorization.

She claims that under her management, Trung Nguyen's charter capital increased from VND150 billion ($6.5 million) to VND2.5 trillion ($108.7 million) and both the company's annual revenue and profit grew significantly.

However, in July 2014, Vu signed a decision to dismiss Thao as deputy general director without the board of directors' approval. He also instructed his employees to demolish her office and block her from entering the company's headquarters, Thao has alleged.

Furthermore, he prevented Thao from performing her rights and responsibilities as Trung Nguyen's shareholder and a board member, prompting her to file the lawsuit.

The court of Ho Chi Minh City on September 20, 2018 reinstated Thao as the deputy general director, co-owner and co-founder of Trung Nguyen Group, but on the very next day, Vu dismissed her for the second time, accusing Thao of threatening Vu's partners during the couple's struggles over property and rights to manage and run the company.

Trung Nguyen Group is a top coffee firm in Vietnam. It earned revenues of VND3.95 trillion ($170.5 million) and profit before tax of VND681 billion ($29.4 million) in 2017.
Mahato denies taking wealth to foreign countries

Businessmen Upendra Mahato has denied having invested in offshore companies and bringing investment into Nepal from tax havens as a foreigner.
The heavens are about to deliver another historic celestial event this weekend, but here's one downside of living in Oregon's mid-valley: Chances are good that we won't be able to see it.

A total lunar eclipse is scheduled to begin Sunday at about 7:30 p.m. Pacific time, although the moon will appear to be dimming for about an hour beforehand. It's the first lunar eclipse that will be visible in North, Central and South America since 2000 and the last one to be visible on such a wide range until 2058.

This eclipse has generated an unusual amount of excitement among sky watchers for a number of reasons: First, it will last an unusual length of time for one of these events (totality will last about an hour). Also, it's occurring during a "supermoon" phase, when the full moon is slightly closer to Earth, and so will appear larger than usual.

That is to say, it will appear larger than usual if cloud cover doesn't obscure it from view.
Sweet Home resident Lena Tucker has been named deputy state forester within the Oregon Department of Forestry.

Tucker follows Nancy Hirsch, who retired in December.

The deputy state forester serves as the deputy director for operations, overseeing the agencys operating programs in fire protection, private forests, and state forests.

"I am very excited to work with Lena in her new role. She has a proven record of leadership within the department and at the local and national levels, said State Forester Peter Daugherty.

Tucker joined the department in 1994. She brings a range of experience from geographic areas throughout Oregon and has worked in all of the departments program areas, including fire protection.

Most recently she served as the agencys private forests division chief, where she focused on implementation of the Oregon Forest Practices Act, forest health, technical assistance programs to help private forest landowners, and the Urban and Community Forestry Program. She earned her bachelors degree in forest management from Northern Arizona University.
ALBANY POLICE

Vehicles keyed  Jan. 15-16 (overnight), 800 block Waverly Drive. A caller reported two keyed vehicles with deep scratches.

Hit and run  7 p.m. Tuesday, Highway 20. A caller reported that a Ford Explorer had extensively damaged his silver Toyota Tacoma pickup. He said the Explorer came up behind his vehicle, struck it and caused damage to both. The Explorer's driver, described as a white female in her 50s, reportedly backed up and took a side road away from the incident.

Dutch Bros. burglary  Between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 4:44 a.m. Wednesday, Santiam Highway. Someone broke into the Dutch Bros. location and stole a safe that contained several thousand dollars. Entry was through a broken door window.

Reckless driving  Douglas Paul Creamer, 44, was arrested and lodged at the Linn County Jail shortly after midnight Thursday after attempting to elude police officers for a traffic stop. Creamer reportedly took the Jefferson-Scio exit off Interstate 5 and drove into a farm field, where his vehicle became stuck.
Nancy followed music through life like the tempting smell of baking bread. A lifelong flute and recorder player, she taught lessons and performed classical and early music into her 90s. She also taught herself to play the musical saw as a teenager after she saw a neighbors out of town guest play this unique instrument. She played saw in an all-womens band she organized in college, and for decades thereafter as a novelty at local events and schools.

That changed in 1974, when she was invited as a guest artist to play the saw at Expo '74, the Worlds Fair in Spokane, Washington. There, she discovered the joys of playing Folk Music with the likes of Utah Phillips, who invited her to share the stage to add the saws sounds to his rousing songs and stories of union organizing, hobo life, and life in the Old West. They remained friends and fellow performers until his death in 2008, and he was instrumental in introducing her to a myriad of other folk performers.

She began opening the family home to traveling folk musicians, founded the Corvallis Folklore Society and began her work as a folk concert producer, playing a vibrant role in the lively Corvallis folk music scene. When on stage, her classical music training, her skill on the saw, her abiding love of people and their ways, her humble nature and her quirky sense of humor all combined to delight her audiences.
Kade Allen McClanahans blood alcohol content was nearly five times the legal limit in November, when his Jeep Wrangler crashed head-on into a pickup east of Lebanon, authorities allege.

On Wednesday, the Lebanon man was charged in Linn County Circuit Court with second-degree assault, driving under the influence of intoxicants and reckless driving.

Judge David Delsman set McClanahans bail at $50,000, the minimum for such a serious offense, but McClanahan posted 10 percent of that as security and has been released from the Linn County Jail.

The next hearing in the case is on Feb. 25.

The crash occurred at about 6:30 p.m. Nov. 18 on Highway 20 near Pineway Road. According to the Linn County Sheriffs Office, McClanahan was attempting to turn onto the highway and head east. He reportedly crossed four lanes of traffic before colliding with a pickup driven by Dylan Richards of Lebanon.

McClanahan, then 46, was treated and released at an area hospital, while Richards suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries.

Kyle Odegard

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Iran Human Rights (IHR); January 17, 2018: A prisoner was hanged for murder charges in Northern Iranian province of Mazandaran on Wednesday.





According to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), on the morning of January 16, 2019, a 29 years old prisoner was hanged for murder charges.





He had reportedly murdered a person during a robbery in Moziraj District of Babol city, northern Iran, on September 21, 2012.





His execution was scheduled two weeks ago. However, he got another two weeks in order try to win the consent of the plaintiffs, head of Babol judiciary courthouse, Fazlollah Vakili Rad, said.





According to the Iranian Islamic Penal Code (IPC) murder is punishable by qisas which means retribution in kind or retaliation.



In this way, the State effectively puts the responsibility of the death sentence for murder on the shoulders of the victims family. In qisas cases, the plaintiff has the possibility to forgive or demand diya (blood money).



In many cases, the victim's family are encouraged to put the rope is around the prisoner's neck and even carry out the actual execution by pulling off the chair the prisoner is standing on.





IRNA has not mentioned the exact place of the execution. However, it seems the execution was carried out at Babol Prison.





According to Iran Human Rights annual report on the death penalty, 240 of the 517 execution sentences in 2017 were implemented due to murder charges.



There is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and intent.

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
KOTA KINABALU: The government will not hold a public vote on the proposal to abolish the death penalty.





Minister in the Prime Ministers Department Datuk Liew Vui Keong said the matter was an ongoing process and not finalised.





It is not completed yet because the papers have to go through various ministries.





We are not going to have a referendum on that matter. Thats for sure, he told reporters after the opening of the Sabah and Sarawak Legal Year at the Kota Kinabalu Court Complex, here, today.





Liew was responding to a Facebook poll by Berita Harian, where 85 per cent of Netizens agreed for the government to hold a referendum before deciding on abolishing the death penalty.





In October last year, the cabinet gave the green light for the death penalty to be abolished.





Liew had said the necessary paperwork to abolish the death penalty already received the go ahead from the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) to be tabled in Parliament.





In Malaysia, the death penalty carried out by hanging is mandatory for crimes such as murder with intent to kill, for trafficking excessive amounts of drugs and possession of firearms.





The proposal to repeal the death sentence has seen opposition from various quarters, including former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Noor and lawyers.





Abdul Rahim had said the government should seek public opinion first as the death penalty was an important issue.





Lawyer and DAP MP Ramkarpal Singh also said the peoples view must be taken into account and that the necessary stakeholders must come to an agreement on the best way to hold the referendum.

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Iran Human Rights (IHR); January 15, 2019: A prisoner was hanged in Public at a square in Falavarjan City, Isfahan Province, in Iran.





He was sentenced to death for murder and rape charges.





According to the Iranian website Mashregh News, Mohammad Javad Shams was executed on Tuesday, January 15, for murdering a five years old girl.





Mohammad Javad Shams was arrested last October for kidnapping and murdering Melika, 5, during an ill-fated drug dealing.





He had reportedly kidnapped Melika along with her brother and sister, killed Melika and raped her elder sister, Maryam.





His death sentence has been carried out just four months after his arrest, and it is unknown that he had a fair trial or not.





Pictures published by the Iranian media show several children among the crowd watching the execution.





According to the head of Isfahan Province Judiciary Courthouse, the defendant was convicted to qisas (retribution in kind) for murdering Melika, sentenced to death for raping (Melikas elder sister), 20 years of imprisonment for kidnapping, 7 years for intentional injuring, 4 years for illegal deprivation of Melika and her siblings' freedom, 9 months for child abuse, and paying compensation (Diya) to the plaintiffs.





Iranian media reported that the qisas verdict was carried out. According to the Iranian Islamic Penal Code (IPC) murder is punishable by qisas which means retribution in kind or retaliation.





In this way, the State effectively puts the responsibility of the death sentence for murder on the shoulders of the victims family.





In qisas cases, the plaintiff has the possibility to forgive or demand diya (blood money). In many cases, the victim's family are encouraged to put the rope is around the prisoner's neck and even carry out the actual execution by pulling off the chair the prisoner is standing on.





This is the fifth case of public executions so far in 2019.





UN human rights experts, including the former Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, had previously drawn particular attention to continued reports of public executions.





A dehumanising effect on both the victim and those who witness the execution and ultimately reinforced the already cruel, inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty, UN experts said.





Photos of the execution (source: Iran Human Rights):













































 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Protest to make Dhankuta permanent capital of State 1

Locals staged demonstration in Dhankuta on Thursday, demanding the government to make Dhankuta the permanent capital of Province 1.
World News: Five takeaways from the World Small-Scale Fisheries Congress

by Alexis Rife

January 18,2019 | Source: EDF

The hustle and bustle of a local fish market  usually seen in the pre-dawn dark, with bare-bulb lights illuminating whats for sale and the shouts from sellers (usually in a language I dont understand but with meaning clear enough to get out of the way of carts brimming with ice and fish)  is my favorite place to learn about small-scale fisheries. This is where it all comes together, with fishermen landing their catch, buyers (usually women) negotiating prices and customers buying products for that days meal or business. Here is where I am a learner and observer  hearing details about challenges these individuals face in maintaining their livelihoods, seeing the pride people have in their work and chatting about what we all can do to sustain the jobs, food, communities and ecosystems that are part of this system.



Supporting small-scale fishing communities is the most rewarding part of my job. After all, three billion people depend on fishing for their livelihoods and rely on fish for protein and essential micronutrientswith over 90% of them operating in small-scale fisheries, many of whom live in developing countries. Including the voices of these fishermen, women and communities is instrumental to their efforts to build sustainable, science-based fishing approaches that protect their access to seafood and livelihoods.



My colleagues and I are driven personally and professionally to help spur local action. Weve found that the key to sustainable, lasting solutions is to deeply engage with the people who understand their fisheries best, empower them with tools to design local solutions and facilitate discussions and collaboration at scale, including throughout the supply chain, and thus elevate their collective voices. Over the past several years we have formed relationships with small-scale fishers around the globeincluding in Belize, the Philippines, Myanmar, Mexico, Spain, Cuba, Portugal and Chile.



Thats why I was thrilled to attend the World Small-Scale Fisheries Congress, convened by Too Big to Ignore in Thailand. This important event is a convening of fishers, fishers organizations, researchers, policymakers and environmental groups to share information about the global landscape of, and challenges facing, small-scale fisheries. The Congress emphasized the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines) and the role of small-scale fisheries in meeting UN Sustainable Development Goals. The SSF Guidelines are the first international instrument to recognize the importance of small-scale fisheries and lay out principles to address poverty, eradicate hunger and promote sustainable development in small-scale fishing communities.



Here are five observations from this past years Congress:



1. Action Oriented: This years theme  Transdisciplinarity and Transformation for the Future of Small-Scale Fisheriesfocused on convening people to take action. Small-scale fishing groups and organizations are working closely with the FAO to develop strategic global platforms for SSF Guideline implementation. They have formed advisory groups and bodies, and advocate for knowledge sharing platforms and capacity building which will support local governments and ensure implementation.



2. Local engagement: Understanding what successful community-level implementation looks like was a core theme addressed by participants. Fishing communities are the closest to changes on the water and know their needs intimately. Its clear that in order for the SSF Guidelines to become a reality, fishers and local communities have a core role to play in helping their governments implement them. The Congress had representation from fishers from around the world and a strong emphasis on cultivating fisher to fisher conversations.



3. Role of women: The role of women in global fisheries, often unseen in work like processing harvest for market and prepping or repairing gear, is dramatically underestimated. Women play a crucial role throughout fishery supply chainsnot only as direct harvesters, processors, buyers or supportersbut also as leaders in the community. The SSF Guidelines recognize these varied and important roles and the need for their voices and interests to be represented in management decisions. Many Congress participants shared research on womens roles, bringing needed perspectives to the table.



4. NGO collaboration: Many NGOs at the Congress shared information on how they support small-scale fisheries, with a noticeable move towards working together to support local governments and communities. This is encouraging because together our efforts can be more impactful for fishing communities. Collaboration across NGOs increases our ability to provide comprehensive and user-friendly tools and resources. It can also raise the profile of disparate efforts into a global movement by sharing experiences from small-scale fishing communities from all corners of the world.



5. Climate impacts: A number of participants discussed climate change and how its impacts are already being felt by fishing communities. This focus on climate was accentuated by the recent IPCC report confirming that governments will need to curb emissions dramatically to hold warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Ensuring that fishing communities have adaptive strategies in place, are empowered to work together to plan for managing shifting stocks and have the resources to carry them out is crucial to their success.



Since the last convening, clear progress has been made in advancing sustainable small-scale fisheries around the globe, even if many challenges remain.



At EDF, were seeing our active work to advance SDG 14 (Life Under Water) targets pay off around the world as communities make progress to improve access of small-scale fishers to marine resources, manage and protect ecosystems and design and implement science-based management plans.



Attending this convening dedicated to finding collaborative solutions was empowering and encouraging. Small-scale fishing communities are already taking hold of their own futures, and its clear that a wide community of stakeholders is committed to paving the way for their continued success.
Nepal: Hydropower boom needs strategic assessment and public oversight

by Eugene Simonov

January 18,2019 | Source: The Third Pole

In 2017, I visited 1,200 MW Budhi Gandaki hydropower project, 70 kilometers from Kathmandu, and found many similarities with the Egiin Gol hydropower project in Mongolia, long monitored by our RwB Coalition.



Both projects were designed in the 1970s Soviet-school mega-hydropower planning style, both have not progressed in 40 years. In both cases, the international consultancy Tractebel Engineering proposed to increase dam height and reservoir volume beyond limits considered economically feasible by local experts. In both cases the same main contractor China Gezhouba, was assigned to build the dam without a proper international tender, but the projects were soon stopped due to major changes in decision-making.



Egiin Gol Hydro remains part of the Mongolian governments plans, but a soft loan from China EximBank approved for the project was later redistributed to seven more sustainable and much needed projects, from a wastewater treatment plant in Ulaan Baatar to higher education programmes.



The Budhi Gandaki contract, cancelled by outgoing government in late 2017, was then reinstalled by new Maoist-led government. However Nepalese experts I spoke to did not believe this dam would be completed in the foreseeable future. Many factors are similar with our experience in Mongolia: prohibitively high costs for a small country, coupled with an uneconomical design; little capability to ensure proper compensation to affected communities; and huge potential impacts on downstream World Heritage sites that will require costly mitigation.



However there is one drastic difference: while the Egiin Gol hydropower project is one of three equally risky options for large hydro in water-scarce Mongolia, the dam on the Budhi Gandaki River is just one of 400 planned hydropower plants for which licenses have been issued to various entities by Nepal. A third of the dams are planned in the Gandaki-Narayani transboundary river basin where there has been no assessment of the cumulative impacts on the ecosystem and local communities, as well as huge implications for management of the transboundary river shared with India.



More dams, more grief?



While abundant water is Nepals blessing, haphazard hydropower planning is likely its major curse.



Nepal derives most of its electricity from hydropower and was part of a global study by Benjamin Sovacool and Gotz Walter published at the end of last year, looking at the economic, environmental and social impacts of hydropower. Their statistical analysis supports the hydroelectric resource curse hypothesis  arguing that hydropower states have shown significantly worse performance than other nations in dealing with poverty, economic growth, public debt and corruption.



Nepals century of painstaking hydropower development, which has resulted in less than 1 GW of installed capacity and significant power deficit, is a lively illustration for this abstract statistical analysis.



There are many signs in Nepal that uncoordinated development of hydropower projects inevitably leads to:



- the construction of inferior projects, rather than more efficient designs on the same river;

- extreme fragmentation of river basins, decline in fish diversity, encroachment into protected areas and destruction of important wetlands;

- encroachment on areas traditionally used by indigenous peoples and marginalised groups, for example, see the report on the Upper Trishuli-1 dam by the Lawyers Association for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Peoples.

- haphazard mass resettlement (the Budhi Gandaki dam alone will affect 45,000 people);

- increased exposure to potential landslides, earthquakes and natural disasters combined with low resilience to climate change impacts;

- conflict with other sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, water supply, municipal wastewater, navigation, mining, etc.

- financial irregularities, increased corruption and investment schemes with high probability of failure.



So how should Nepal manage its water-blessing to avoid future grief?



Riding the tide of dams



Dam proponents within Nepal have recognised some problems in the hydropower sector and are taking belated measures to address them. For example, the Ministry of Forests and Environment issued a new Hydropower EIA Manual in 2018 with support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC). But this only addresses risks of individual hydropower projects. It does not provide any tools for strategic planning and assessing multiple-dam development.



The lack of basin-wide strategic assessments of impacts and opportunities prevents government and businesses from making optimal decisions. This means the power sector has become a major source of environmental problems and social tensions.



(The Nepal government aims to build 10 MW of hydropower for domestic use and 5 MW for export within the next 10 years. Data Source: Department for Energy Development)



Vested interests in Nepal as well as among international donors have thwarted previous attempts to carry out strategic planning. The best attempt  the Japanese International Cooperation Agencys (JICA) 2014 Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the Nationwide Master Plan on Storage type Hydroelectric Power Development in Nepal  was well-meaning, but incomplete and inconsequential.



The most obvious reason for the poor quality SEA was the lack of genuine involvement of civil society and failure to develop an adequate basin-wide strategic assessment framework for energy development. To start with the analysis of alternatives, which refuted any other energy source but hydropower, only took up one page of the study.



The SEA failed to assess the cumulative impacts in key basins. Public consultations mainly involved personnel of government agencies and excluded environmental advocacy groups and affected communities. No surprise that the assessment report itself documents how during the SEA process the JICA consultants slowly yielded to pressure from energy officials and hydropower experts to downplay social and environmental safeguards.



The failure to assess the countrys optimal energy mix leads to exaggerated expectations of hydropower with little genuine effort to develop solar and wind. The country still has only one 0.68 MW solar farm. Meanwhile hydropower in Nepal is hardly cheap energy with typical construction costs in state-supported projects above USD 2000/KW, while the cost of grid-scale solar installation is likely below USD 1000/KW, according to data from the Nepal Energy Development Council.



Problematic consultants in World Bank strategic planning



The World Bank will implement a new Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment (SESA) of water resources management and hydropower masterplans under the framework of the Nepal Power Sector Reform and Sustainable Hydropower Development (PSRSHD). Details of this assessment, which has been delayed for three years due to low priority for the national government, make us anticipate very poor results.



The same contractor has been assigned to do a master plan and then assess its strategic validity  which is a risky business. In the summer of 2018 the contract to prepare both master plans for water resources and hydropower development in each basin of Nepal as well as to conduct SESA of those plans was awarded to a consortium of German Company Lahmeyer (a subsidiary of Tractebel Engineering), Chinas Changjiang Institute (CISPDR) and local consultancy TML. CISPDR is the largest institute in China involved in master planning of water resources primarily for hydropower, known internationally as the author of the EIA for the controversial and currently suspended Myitsone hydropower project and associated cascade in Ayeyarawady basin in Myanmar.



Without public oversight, the World Bank and Nepalese government, supported by such consultants, are likely to compromise both integrated river basin planning and the strategic assessment process, reducing it to information selectively compiled in support of accelerated hydropower development with little regard to other uses and natural values of Nepals rivers.



And in October 2018 the World Bank, without waiting for the outcomes of this SESA, launched another USD 100 million project  Nepal Energy Sector Development Policy Credit  to improve the financial viability and governance of the electricity sector. However, this again encourages the concentration of energy development efforts solely on hydropower and contains no social and environmental safeguards at strategic level whatsoever. According to the document, the World Bank will not even subject the resulting Power Sector Strategy and Action Plan for Nepal to a SEA.



As a result, Nepal agencies will not develop necessary safeguard mechanisms for basin-wide hydropower planning, while Nepal society at large will be deprived of an objective assessment of hydropower development scenarios. Various international financial institutions will continue to invest haphazardly in unsustainable basin schemes and claim their decisions are based on the scientifically-valid SESA approved by government. Investors from China and India will have no safe guidance for their economic and geopolitical competition in the Himalayan river basins.



So far all signs show that this is a disaster in the making.



What could be done to avoid this Catch 22?



Even objective strategic environmental and social assessments (SESAs) cannot prevent future conflicts, but it provides all participants with essential knowledge of the tradeoff, potential risks and benefits from a multitude of economic initiatives at the basin level. Therefore it increases the value of carefully designed hydropower and decreases the risks of investment in unsustainable projects that are likely to be stalled.



Despite this, there are still real opportunities for the World Bank projects in Nepal to meaningfully engage the civil society of Nepal, India, China and international NGOs.



This year we saw encouraging examples from elsewhere. The IFC-sponsored SEA of hydropower in Myanmar (2016-2018) included an elaborate stakeholder involvement process, though it has still caused major discontent and protest among ethnic minority groups.



In Mongolia, between 2012-2018 Rivers without Boundaries (RwB) and allies convinced the World Bank to reformat two hydropower feasibility studies in Lake Baikal Basin into a single strategic regional environmental assessment. Previous experience shows that the World Bank Group is responsive to legitimate demands from key constituencies. So it needs CSO advocacy pressure and expertise to ensure it properly implements its own safeguard policies.



The failure of the new World Bank projects in Nepal to carry out necessary strategic environmental planning, gives Nepalese CSOs an additional reason to request extending the SESA into this new strategic process of improving governance of the electricity sector where it belongs. The strategic assessment should incorporate analysis of transboundary impacts of projects and provide for consultations with interested agencies and CSO groups from neighbouring countries.



Other important objectives that should be addressed in SESA consultations include:



- Mapping biodiversity and ecosystem services in each basin to safeguard priority areas for conservation;



- Risk ranking of all basin-wide scenarios and specific projects to determine which carry the most social and environmental risks and which will bring the most benefits for local communities;



- Strategic measures to mitigate basin-wide impacts on indigenous peoples and other marginalised communities;



- Adoption and implementation of basin-wide environmental flow planning and developing national regulatory base for managing e-flows;



- Impose limits on resettlement in a given basin/jurisdiction according to capacity to handle this process with quality outcomes;



Genuine analysis of alternatives to assess different energy mix scenarios in terms of true costs, impacts and speed of delivery.



Most of those questions need to be raised, explored and resolved in Nepal anyway, but an official strategic assessment is the most appropriate venue to raise them. The obvious lack of focus on environmental safeguards in World Bank projects should trigger CSO efforts to address those challenges.
Bihar: Bihar government relaxes fish ban in Patna, allows trade of live fish

by Ruchir Kumar

January 18,2019 | Source: Hindustan Times

The health department Thursday evening lifted the ban on trade of live fish within municipal areas of Patna following massive protests. The fortnight long ban on sale, transport and storage of all varieties of dead fish would, however, continue.



The food safety wing of the health department had imposed aban on trade and transport of all varieties of fish in Patna for 15 days on Monday. The ban followed laboratory reports indicating presence of high content of cancer-inducing formalin and heavy metals, like lead and cadmium, in fish samples collected last October from 10 different locations within the municipal area of Patna. Principal secretary (health) Sanjay Kumar, who is also the commissioner of food safety, Thursday said, The ban has been lifted for live fishes. He did not elaborate.



The Bihar Rajya Machhli Vyavsayi Sangh, a state body of fish businessmen, however, was not satisfied with the governments decision. Anuj Kumar, secretary of the association, called for lifting of ban on trade of dead fish as well. We always suspected that a small yet powerful lobby of fish breeders, led by a state minister, was behind the ban. The government decision to lift the ban selectively has strengthened our belief, he said.



The fish breeders in Bihar will reap a rich harvest, pocketing four-five times their normal profit as they will jack up prices of live fish, he said. Kumar said that against Patnas average daily sale of 90-100 tonnes of fish, live fish accounted for only 5-6 tonnes, thus leaving a huge gap between demand and supply.



The association would take out a protest march from Bazar Samiti to Gardanibagh via Kankerbagh on Friday. Those dealing in fish from across the state are converging here tomorrow to participate in the protest march. We expect around 50,000 to 1 lakh people to join our protest tomorrow, Kumar said.



Criticising the governments decision, the Cooperative Fisheries Federation had also demanded from the government an unemployment allowance of at least Rs 500 per fisherman per day during the fish ban period. The federation said that many fishermen suffered heavy losses because consignment of fish was in transit when the government announced a ban on them all of a sudden on January 14. The federation claimed that fish sellers had to dispose them off at throw away prices because of the ban. Anyone violating the ban is liable to imprisonment of up to 7 years and fine of Rs 10 lakh, under Section 59 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, which deals with punishment for unsafe food.
We moved here to be close to my oldest and dearest friend, whose kids are now grown, and to my sister, who hardly talks to us or sees us. My husband's sister and her husband's family love us and treat us well. They have suggested we should move by them. They have kids our daughter's age. The only issue is possibly not finding a good home or school. Private school could be an option.

Would another move be bad? Should we make a final move before our daughter gets vested in school and friends? It would put us within walking distance to several families we spend a lot of time with and who love us very much. We are afraid of judgment from everyone. Please help us sort it out. -- HOPEFUL NOMADS IN ILLINOIS

DEAR NOMADS: Forget about the judgments. You will survive them. The older your daughter becomes, the more difficult moving away from the people she knows will be for her. If you are going to move to an environment more compatible for you, your husband and your daughter, the time to do it is now, so her education and social relationships will not be as disrupted as they would be when she is older.

DEAR ABBY: I'm a widowed senior who has been dating a very kind man, "Ben," for three years. He's retired; I am not. He does things for and with me, and we enjoy traveling together.
I recently was part of a two-person panel that discussed the PBS film, Black America since MLK: And Still I RisePart 1. We sought to assess the current state of American race relations and what is still to be achieved. It is perhaps now more important to examine and consider the circumstances in our country that pushed Dr. King to become the leader of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Following the early December 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks for failure to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, Dr. King led the Montgomery Improvement Association boycott of the citys bus line. Near the end of the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott (Dec. 5, 1955 to Dec. 20, 1956) Dr. King delivered the sermon Pauls Letter to American Christians as a reflection and indictment of the state of American society and its culture.

[America,] You have made tremendous strides in the area of scientific and technological development. But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about improved means to an unimproved end. How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.
Nobody has yet figured out the opportunity costs associated with keeping failing companies afloat. There are plenty of politicians who shortsightedly call for an infusion of cash from Uncle Sam anytime an industry is threatened. Surprisingly enough, President Donald Trump is among them.

Unlike his recent predecessors, Trump lacks a clearly articulated economic policy. One could say hes for what works, but thats not exactly correct. Its more nuanced than that. Hes for an activist role in economic matters, which explains his support for tariffs against goods coming in from other countries he says harm the U.S. He believes, therefore, the only way to establish a balance of free trade is to strike at the tariffs imposed on imported U.S. goods with as big a hammer as can be found.

Likewise, theres the matter of corporate bailouts. While campaigning for president, Trump promised to help bring the coal industry back from the oblivion Obamas environmental policies had consigned it. Nothing wrong with that, per se. America was once a coal nation. The industry provided good jobs at good wages and was part of the nations critical industrial base.

What Trump didnt mention was the estimated $34 billion price tag that went along with his plans, all of which would be borne by taxpayers.
HANOVER  Police say they have identified three suspects in a pair of arsons at a Walmart store in central Pennsylvania that injured three people.

West Manheim Township police say two fires were set inside the South Hanover store during store hours Tuesday night.

Three Walmart employees reported smoke inhalation and one was treated at UPMC Pinnacle Hanover and released. Police said the store was closed for 12 hours and Walmart personnel reported "substantial" damage.

Police said three male suspects were identified as having been involved in setting the fires. There was no immediate word on any arrests.

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MEDIA, Pa.  Pennsylvania State Police have arrested 41 people accused of stealing nearly $1 million from a Delaware County nonprofit through an overtime rigging and kickback scheme.

Police said Wednesday four supervisors with the Elwyn Organization are facing felony theft charges. The supervisors have been identified as Tyloneous Wilson, 40, Karriemah Williams, 34, Lakiea Gay, 36, and Terrance Chatman, 28.

Police say the supervisors would edit employees time sheets to show overtime but not require them to work. The employees would then split the extra pay with supervisors in return.

An investigation was launched in 2017 after accountants noticed irregularities in payroll data.

Elwyn President and CEO Charles McLister says all of the involved employees have been terminated.

It is unclear whether the supervisors have attorneys.

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PHILADELPHIA  A man was convicted of murder and sentenced to life without possibility of parole Thursday in the slaying of a 22-year-old Temple University student.

Jurors convicted Joshua Hupperterz of first-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime in the death of Jenna Burleigh. He earlier pleaded guilty to evidence-tampering and abuse of a corpse.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Hupperterz, 30, showed no reaction at the reading of the verdict, which came after the panel deliberated for less than 1 hours.

Common Pleas Judge Glenn Bronson, who called the murder outrageous and depraved and terrible, later sentenced him to the mandatory term of life without possibility of parole on the murder and an additional 4 to nine years on the other three counts.

Prosecutors said Hupperterz killed Burleigh in his Philadelphia apartment in August 2017, moved her body to his mothers suburban home in a plastic storage container, and later took the remains to his grandmothers home in the Poconos, where they were found.

Defense attorney David Nenner suggested another man was responsible. But prosecutors said DNA evidence and the defendants actions following the slaying pointed to him as the killer.
Jurors in Luzerne County deliberated for just under four hours before convicting Phillip Finn Jr., 49, of misdemeanor simple assault. Finn was arrested in January 2017 after his girlfriend said he struck her, shoved her to the floor and threw her out the back door, where she cleared the steps and landed on the ground.
PM lays foundation stone for Chobhar dry port as locals protest

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Thursday laid the foundation stone for a dry port at Chobhar in the southwestern part of Kathmandu Valley amid protests from locals who have been objecting to the plan to build the infrastructure in the area.
Who knows?

That phrase pops up more than once in conversation with leaders of local nonprofits as they consider the potential effects of the partial government shutdown should it linger.

Scott Shewell, executive director of Safe Harbour, said the agency isnt seeing a direct effect now because funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development is already in the pipeline.

It doesnt mean that we wont see something if it goes on for some period of time. Its uncharted territory, he said.

Likewise, Project SHARE does not expect to be directly affected by the shutdown as it receives little of its funding from the federal government, and has the capacity to work with local vendors and the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank to continue to purchase food, Executive Director Bob Weed said.

Two aspects of the shutdown concern Weed. The first is the furloughed federal employees who have now missed their first paychecks and are starting to feel the pinch.

The second is the early disbursement of SNAP benefits. The U.S. Department of Agriculture released the benefits about two weeks earlier than normal, which could lead to confusion and a shortfall in late February should recipients use the funds early, Weed said.
Richard wants his children to split the proceeds from the sale of his home, but internet research warned them that Richard gifting them anything more than $500 would cause serious penalties. All that is true, but it is also true that, in the facts of this case, there would be a way for Richards children to set aside at least $125,000 as their future inheritance, not have to be personally out-of-pocket to pay for Richards nursing care, and avoid the expense and hassle of future probate of Richards estate.

Maybe saving money is not what concerns you. Perhaps you want to provide for a disabled sibling who has special needs. Or, you believe that someone who has been caring for Richard or John should be permitted to keep his house. Maybe you just want access to guidance to get the best care for your loved one.

There are specific answers to each of these teasers. Concepts will be explained in a two, free one-hour seminars that will be held at 3 p.m. at our office at 555 Gettysburg Pike, Suite B-200, Mechanicsburg. Part I will be on Thursday, Jan. 24 and Part II will be on Thursday, Jan. 31. Walk-ins are welcome, but space is limited, so we encourage you to call us at 717-697-3223 for a reservation.

Learn more about the articles author, and other community education opportunities, at www.keystoneelderlaw.com. Check out the book, Long Term Care Guide: Essential Tools for Solving the Elder Care Puzzle, at the Whistlestop Bookshop or Amazon, and see Keystones free directory of services for older adults at www.mypeaceguide.com. Keystone Elder Law has offices in Mechanicsburg and Carlisle. Call 717-697-3223 for a free telephone consultation.

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We cant work it out by moving the same bills that dont do anything and are never going to move through the Senate and that arent going to be signed by the president, Perry said.

Perry and some other Republicans have signaled that, despite Trumps bellicose campaign rhetoric about a border wall, a wall per se is not a requirement.

I support the wall, the barrier, the fence or something where it is needed per the Border Patrol and per Homeland Security, Perry said on C-SPAN this week.

Perry said Trumps insistence on a $5 billion appropriation for border security had a rationale in covering the most commonly used and dangerous illegal crossing points along the border.

What I think the president is talking about and what many Americans are talking about is that weve got this couple thousand mile long border and were looking at some places, according to Border Patrol, the top 10 worst places for entry where we want to put some kind of barrier, Perry said.

This would channel immigrants to better crossing points, where the US Border Patrol could better use its manpower to bring them before asylum judges faster, Perry said.

Sen. Pat Toomey
Carlisle Theatre hosted a special premiere screening of the Laurel and Hardy biopic Stan and Ollie Thursday night.

The event was to benefit Community CARES.

Community CARES said Sony Pictures Classic donated the film to raise money for the nonprofit emergency homeless shelter.

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It was the second consecutive year Sony had donated a film for the organization.

This is a special opportunity for CARES and for the Cumberland County region, said Jim Sniscak, a board member for Community CARES, who helped obtain the film.

The movie stars Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly as the comedic duo, and recently earned Reilly a Golden Globe nomination for his role.

Canine Rescue of Central PA Inc. also attended the event with two dogs, named Laurel and Hardy, that were available for adoption. The organization is an all-breed, all-volunteer, no-kill shelter.

More photos on Page A4.

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Nairobi, January 18, 2019South Sudans state media regulator should immediately lift an order barring a privately-owned newspaper from covering protests in neighboring Sudan and issue a statement guaranteeing the medias right to press freedom and editorial independence, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On January 7, South Sudans Media Authority summoned the editor-in-chief of the local Arabic-language newspaper Al-Watan, Michael Christopher, to a hearing and issued a letter warning the publication to stop with immediate effect writing anything on topics relating to the ongoing protests in Sudan, which is an internal political issues (sic) of a friendly neighboring country, according to Christopher and two letters seen by CPJ.

The absurd order gagging Al-Watan from covering events of public interest in a neighboring country exposes South Sudans hostility towards its citizens right to information, said Muthoki Mumo, CPJs sub-Saharan Africa representative. The South Sudanese Media Authority ought to immediately lift the ban on Al-Watans reporting and guarantee that all of the press can cover the crisis in Sudan independently.

While the gag order was directed only at Al-Watan, the summons letter, written by acting Media Authority Managing Director Sapana Abuyi, said, The media in South Sudan should not write or broadcast instigative statements and comments about [the protests in Sudan]. Local and regional media groups have interpreted this letter as warning all South Sudanese media not to cover the protests.

Christopher told CPJ that the Media Authority gave the newspaper 72 hours to apologize to the Sudanese government and its embassy in Juba. He told CPJ he will not issue an apology.

The letter warning Al-Watan to stop covering the Sudanese crisis and apologize did not specify what actions the Media Authority may take over his refusal to comply.

Christopher also told CPJ that he had received several threatening phone calls from anonymous numbers, including some that threatened the shutdown of the newspaper.

In the gag order, the Media Authority cited three opinion pieces authored by Christopher on the Sudan protests published in Al-Watan on January 3, 4, and 7. Christopher told CPJ that the articles were meant to explain the Sudanese crisis and the impact of the events on South Sudan and the rest of the region. The articles were critical of the Sudanese government, and included support for the ouster of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, according to media reports and a South Sudanese journalist who reviewed the articles for CPJ.

On January 4, Al-Watan published a response to its Sudan coverage authored by Isam Idriss Ibrahim, the charge daffaires at the Sudanese embassy in Juba, according to Christopher and Ibrahim, who also spoke to CPJ. Ibrahim told CPJ that Christophers opinion pieces amounted to hate speech but claimed that the embassy had not complained to the South Sudanese government or asked for Al-Watan to be prohibited from reporting. He also said he did not know about any threatening phone calls made to Christopher.

CPJ could not reach South Sudans minister of information, Michael Makuei Lueth, on his mobile phone, and text messages went unanswered. The acting director general of the Media Authority, Sapana Abuyi, was also unreachable on his mobile phone and did not respond to an email from CPJ.

An employee of the Media Authority also declined to speak to CPJ, saying he was a junior officer and was not authorized to speak on behalf of the organization. He did not respond to a text message requesting that CPJs questions be referred to the appropriate official.

Numerous journalists working in Sudan have told CPJ that they are facing government pressure while covering protests that have so far led to the deaths of more than 40 people.
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Beirut, January 17, 2019The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the imprisonment of Nidal Salameh, a journalist for the website Gerasa News, who was convicted of violating Jordans Press and Publications Law and the Cybercrime Law.

The Court of Appeals in Amman on January 2 upheld a ruling of the Court of First Instance sentencing Salameh and Jihad Abu Baidar, the editor-in-chief of Gerasa News, to three months in jail and ordered the arrest and imprisonment of Salameh for publishing material on the Gerasa News website about a private hospital, according to his employer, other news reports, and the local press freedom group Center for Defending the Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ).

CPJ could not determine why the court did not also order the arrest of Abu Baidar.

The web of restrictive laws and vaguely worded regulations governing Jordans media makes it impossible for journalists to stand on safe ground, said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour in Washington, D.C. We call on authorities to release Nidal Salameh and reform the statutes that wrongly landed him in jail for doing his job.

According to CFDJ, Salameh and Abu Baidar were convicted of violating Article 5, which says publications shall respect the truth and refrain from publishing anything that conflicts with the principles of freedom, national responsibility, human rights, and values of the Arab and Islamic nation, and Article 38, which says that reproduced or quoted material will be treated as original, of the Press and Publications Law; and Article 11 of the Cybercrime Law, which penalizes online defamation with a prison sentence of at least three months.

Salameh is being held at Swaqa Prison, 70 kilometers (43.4 miles) south of Amman, according to the journalists employer.

CFDJ told CPJ that as of today, Abu Baidar had not been arrested. Abu Baidar did not immediately reply to CPJs request for comment sent via Facebook.

CFDJ said that Salamehs lawyer, Marwam Salem, had filed a request with the Court of Appeals urging the court to take into consideration the fact that Salameh has diabetes and to replace his prison sentence with a fine. The request was turned down by the Court of Appeals on January 2 on the grounds that the parties have failed to reach a settlement, according to the same news reports.

Salem told CPJ that he had appealed Salamehs jail sentence with the Court of Cassation, the highest court in Jordan, and that the case is currently being studied by the Justice Ministry.

Although CFDJ and news articles said that Salameh had been sentenced because of an article about a private hospital that was published on the website of Gerasa News in 2015 and CPJ found some 2015 articles mentioning private hospitals on the Gerasa News site, CPJ could not determine which article is related to the case or independently confirm the topic with either the journalists employer or lawyer.

On January 4, a group of 79 Jordanian journalists issued a statement calling on the judiciary to replace the three-month jail sentences against Salameh and Abu Baidar with fines and to amend the Cybercrime Law, the Press and Publications Law, and the Penal Code, news reports said.

Jordans Justice Ministry did not immediately reply to CPJs emailed request for comment.

In mid-December, Mohammad al-Wakeel, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the news website Al-Wakeel News, and intern editor Ghadir al-Rabihat were jailed for two days on charges of inciting sectarian strife after a complaint was filed over an altered image of Leonardo da Vincis The Last Supper on the sites Facebook account, CPJ reported at the time.
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The Torch is a weekly newsletter from the Committee to Protect Journalists that brings you the latest press freedom and journalist safety news from around the world. Subscribe here.

A Myanmar court upholds the conviction of Reuters news agency reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo. Investigative journalist Ahmed Divela shot dead in Ghana. In Romania, the EU GDPR privacy law is being used to try to muzzle investigative outlet, Rise Project.

Global press freedom updates:

CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour gave remarks last week at a bipartisan event at the Capitol marking 100 days since Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggis murder

CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour gave remarks last week at a bipartisan event at the Capitol marking 100 days since Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggis murder Montenegro hands a jail sentence to investigative journalist Jovo Martinovic.

CPJ published a Safety Advisory on an increase in sophisticated phishing attacks that mimic two-step verification

In a letter to Governor Satya Pal Malik, CPJ called for the release of journalist Aasif Sultan, who is being held by Jammu and Kashmir state police

Journalist in Iran given six-year sentence in connection to his critical reporting

CPJ joined rights organizations and the #KeepItOn Coalition to call for Zimbabwe to restore internet and social media services

Russian blogger handed a 10-day sentence after sharing a video on YouTube

Hamas forces detained and allegedly assaulted director of Palestinian Journalists Syndicate

Read the latest Turkey Crackdown Chronicle, CPJs weekly round-up of press freedom violations in the country

Spotlight

A campaign poster for Nigerias incumbent president and candidate Muhammadu Buhari and his Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, pictured in Lagos, on January 4. At least three journalists were injured by stray bullets after a fight broke out at a campaign rally for the ruling APC party. (AFP/Pius Utomi Ekpei)

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Do you have an Amazon Alexa-enabled device? Enable CPJ's flash briefing skill to stay up to date with the latest press freedom news from around the world.
Some subjects are difficult to discuss. Grief is one of those. Whether youre struggling with loss or if you know someone who is, the Columbus Public Library has several resources to help.

While we might grieve the same loss with others, grief is personal and different people will experience and express it in different ways. Kenneth J. Doka discusses this in his book, Grief Is a Journey: Finding Your Path through Loss. Dokas readers will find a new way of looking at grief as an ongoing journey rather than an illness from which one recovers.

In addition to grief related to death and dying, Doka looks at other types of loss like divorce, infertility, and job loss. Grief Is a Journey also offers strategies and support for all types of loss, including death by suicide or alcoholism.

Understanding and coping with death that is stigmatized is the focus of Bruised & Wounded: Struggling to Understand Suicide by Ronald Rolheiser. This book offers a compassionate perspective that aims to help the grieving as well as those who seek to understand this sensitive topic. Rolheiser writes that following a death by suicide, the goodness of that life and heart should not be judged by the circumstances of that death. Death caught that person on a down bounce.
The victim in a Wednesday evening car crash just outside of Duncan was identified as 58-year-old Arizona man Charles Matthies, Platte County Sheriff Ed Wemhoff said on Thursday.

The sheriff announced more details about the wreck that occurred about 5 p.m. Wednesday, as previously reported by The Columbus Telegram.

Investigation revealed that a 2003 Ford pickup (driven by Matthies, of Green Valley, Arizona) had been traveling eastbound on U.S. Highway 30 (about 1-mile east of Duncan), when the vehicle crossed the centerline into the path of an oncoming westbound 2004 Peterbilt semi-tractor, pulling a loaded cattle pot trailer.

The crash was a head-on collision between the two vehicles, the sheriff noted.

The driver of the semi-tractor, 32-year-old Nathan Fischer, of Menno, South Dakota, was not injured in the crash, he said.

Both drivers were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash and front airbags were deployed in the Ford pickup.

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Both vehicles were totaled because of this crash, the sheriff said, adding the trailer was not damaged and all the livestock were safely removed from the trailer and transported to a local yard until arrangements could be made with the owner of the cattle.
There have been 15 cases involving vandalism via BB gun in Columbus during the past two days.

Columbus Police Capt. Todd Thalken said officers responded to eight calls Tuesday and seven more on Wednesday. Primarily, the damage has been focused on vehicle windows, although some structural damage has been reported, he said.

The incidents have been concentrated in the downtown Columbus area, Thalken said. Mainly, the vandals have struck in the central part of downtown. One string of the shooting instances occurred in a short span of time along 15th Street.

Although no injuries have been reported as a result of the BB gun attacks, the damage done has been significant.

Replacing a car window can cost over $200, Thalken said. Altogether, this vandalism could amount to $3,000.

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Individually, the crimes count as Class III Misdemeanors, punishable by three months in jail and a $500 fine. But, a case could be made to take a string of attacks and classify them as a single incident, Thalken said. This could result in an increased charge and much more severe punishment.
Parties brace for face off over Med Education Bill

Lawmakers from the ruling Nepal Communist Party and the opposition Nepali Congress brace for a fresh face off over the Medical Education Bill in the next Parliament session that is set to discuss the contested report with new provisions on the bill.
A Silver Creek man on Thursday was found guilty by a Butler County District Court jury of sexually assaulting a juvenile child, according to Butler County Attorney Julie L. Reiter.

Shane Thornburg, 35, was found guilty by the jury (comprised of four women and eight men) on the lone charge of third-degree sexual assault of a child, a Class IIIA felony. Under Nebraska law, the defendant could face a maximum sentence of three years in prison, 18-months post-release supervision and a $10,000 fine.

Closing arguments were presented to the jury late Thursday morning and the case was submitted to the jury for deliberation at 11:02 a.m., according to information provided by Reiter. The jury reached its verdict at 12:40 p.m. that afternoon.

Under state statute, a person commits sexual assault of a child in the second or third degree if he or she subjects another person 14 years of age or younger to sexual contact and the (guilty party) is at least 19 year of age or older. Third-degree sexual assault of a child is constituted if the (guilty party) does not cause serious personal injury to the victim.
The red roof has been painted over, the oven has been removed and any other reminders of David Citys Pizza Hut are now gone.

When it closed in 2016, rumors spread throughout the community regarding what would become of the property at 1931 N. 4th St. Now, people living in the area have a definitive answer. Mama Bears Childcare Center has moved in and is set to open its doors within the next few weeks.

Lindsey Palensky, of David City, said it has been her dream to put her degree in early childhood education from Central Community College to good use. Since 2009, shes been running Lindseys Lil Lovebugs Daycare out of her own home. With space there being limited, the new facility will allow for better activities and instruction. Staff will lead the kids in games and activities, as well as teach lessons about colors, numbers and shapes.

Its something Ive been wanting to do for a really long time because I wanted to be able to incorporate my degree into what Im doing with the kids, and when Im at home by myself, thats really hard, Palensky said.
In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!
However, Peterson rejected the request to dismiss, and he found probable cause of first-degree reckless homicide. Peterson noted that the Legislature set a certain age in state law for when someone can be charged with homicide.

This change in the law occurred 20-some years ago, Peterson said. Science and studies have changes since that time. You have put a lot of work into these arguments, but these are arguments better made to the appellate court or to the Legislature.

Ultimately, Peterson said, he has to look at what a reasonable person would do.

Its hard to believe that any 10-year-old would not understand how dangerous of a thing this is to do, Peterson said.

Richard Dufour, prosecuting attorney from the states attorney generals office, echoed Petersons comments, saying the merits of the charge are in place.

What the defense is trying to do is turn the statute on its head, Dufour said.

Jaxon had awakened and was crying. The girl picked him up but dropped him; she then stomped on his head because he was crying, the criminal complaint states.
It is possible the global attention that a high-profile trial would bring to Barron, or somewhere else in Wisconsin, may wind up becoming a bargaining chip for the defense, said Deborah Ellis, a private defense attorney based in St. Paul.

It will be probably a three-ring circus and its going to be hard on a lot of people. Its going to be hard on a lot of families from the community. So, sometimes its in the interest of both sides to come up with a resolution, she said.

Ellis said that doesnt mean Patterson will plead guilty to the maximum charges.

Patterson faces two counts of first-degree intentional homicide as well as kidnapping and armed burglary. Both homicide charges are punishable with life in prison. Ellis said Pattersons lawyers may try to negotiate a deal that will allow him to one day get parole.

Ellis said Pattersons mental health and state of mind will likely be a prominent part of his defense or plea negotiations.

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However, that doesnt necessarily mean Patterson will plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his revamped cabinet met in Sherbrooke, Que., on Wednesday, the start of a three-day retreat to deal with pressing economic, environmental and international issues while setting the Liberals on course for this year's federal election.

Economic uncertainty, a contentious carbon tax, stalled pipelines and a need to diversify trade partners are some of the top domestic priorities, while U.S. relations and rising tensions with China are also on the table.

The choice of venue is politically strategic; the Liberals face softening support in some parts of Atlantic and Western Canada, as well as Ontario. To offset potential losses, they're targeting seats now held by the NDP in vote-rich Quebec.

Daniel Beland, a political scientist at Montreal's McGill University, said the Liberals are making a splash in Quebec because they see a big electoral opportunity in the 78-seat province. Winning the upcoming byelection in the Montreal-area riding of Outremont would be a significant initial win.

"They know that Jagmeet Singh is not doing very well as the leader of the NDP and there are quite a few seats that the Liberals would like to take in the next election," he said.

"It would be a symbol to send a strong message that the Liberals are very strong in Quebec and the NDP is facing a decline."

Outremont had been a long-time Liberal stronghold, but Tom Mulcair claimed it for the NDP in a 2007 byelection, and it has remained in the party's hands since. The byelection to fill the former NDP leader's seat is set for Feb. 25.

Along with the physical presence in Quebec, Liberals are also targeting the region with financial support.

Millions in funding announcements

Since Jan. 7, ministers have fanned out for more than a dozen announcements worth more than $12 million for projects  some proposed, some confirmed  in the province, ranging from snowmobile trails to business development to infrastructure projects.

Story continues

A number of ministers arrived in the region early to meet with stakeholders, and on Wednesday night Trudeau greeted supporters at a cocktail fundraiser at a downtown hotel, calling for calm and unity at a time of polarized political discourse.

"Our capacity to show [voters] we hear them, we're respecting them and we're working together for the right path forward is always going to pull this country together," he said.

Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press

Anti-pipeline and Indigenous protesters, alongside postal workers upset by back-to-work legislation, demonstrated outside. Among the crowd was Pierre-Luc Dusseault, the NDP MP for the riding.

Behind the scenes on Thursday, Beland said the ministers will likely wrestle with a number of issues where the government is vulnerable, including pipeline politics and a carbon tax that's facing fierce opposition from some premiers.

The political landscape has changed dramatically on the provincial front, with Trudeau now facing strong Conservative premiers with Ontario's Doug Ford, Saskatchewan's Scott Moe and, potentially Jason Kenney, in Alberta.

"That could have a real direct impact on the next federal election depending how that plays out," Beland said.

Interprovincial, international tensions

Ford and Moe have already joined forces to challenge the federal carbon tax in court.

Beland said the biggest challenge for Trudeau in the months running up to the Oct. 21 election is finding a way to be a unifying force in the divisive debate over developing natural resources while protecting the environment.

"It's a difficult situation to navigate, because if you deal with pipeline building, the country is divided over this and it's not just that you have regional divisions. Even people in B.C. are divided. So it's not a simple issue to tackle, and there are a lot of hurdles, and you have Indigenous issues on top of that."

Liberal strategist Greg MacEachern said this cabinet retreat is significant given it's the first of an election year, and because there are new ministers and others with new roles at the table. Monday's shuffle saw three ministers moved to new portfolios and two new appointments to the inner circle.

With the countdown on to October's vote, MacEachern said the critical objective now is to stay the course: Don't take risks in policy initiatives and emphasize the accomplishments.

"You really want to make sure this cabinet is focused on the coming budget, the coming legislative session and then into the campaign," he said. "If there is an internal official motto, it is probably 'Do no harm.'"

Cabinet will also face global uncertainties including U.S. President Donald Trump, and rising diplomatic tensions with both Saudi Arabia and China.

The meeting kicked off with a special panel with six ambassadors who spoke about the pressing issues for Canada on the international stage. Canada's Ambassador to China, former minister John McCallum, was among them.

He said his highest priority was securing the release of the two Canadians currently being held in China  in apparent retaliation for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng  and to stop the death sentence that was recently handed to a third, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg.

"I am detrmined to do what I can, and there are various things that we are doing, to secure their release and his life, so our work is consumed every day by these priorities," he said.

Kathleen Harris/CBC

Liberal policies 'harmful' to Quebec

A release from the Prime Minsiter's Office said the retreat is being held in Sherbrooke "as part of the government's commitment to take actions that give Canadians what they need to thrive in the economy of today and tomorrow, and that fuels strong economic growth in all regions of Canada."

"Quebec is at the heart of Canada's history and our future success, and we will continue to support the workers and industries of Quebec  and those across the country  to build a stronger economy that benefits all Canadians," Trudeau said in a statement.

But NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice, the party's Quebec lieutenant, said the Trudeau government has made decisions that are harmful to Quebec.

"In recent years, the Liberals have demonstrated that they are unable to fight climate change and tax havens, and are unable to ensure that web giants guarantee local content and pay their fair share," he said.

"The NDP Quebec caucus will continue to fight the big battles with and for Quebecers in the coming months and during the next election."

Quebec Conservative MP Luc Berthold accused Trudeau of trying to court voters in Quebec while dairy producers, steel and aluminum producers and forestry workers across the province have been hurt under his watch.

"Justin Trudeau has brought his team to Quebec in a desperate attempt to shore up support before the next election but Quebecers won't be fooled. They are tired of Justin Trudeau's failures and are ready for a government that puts people first," he said.
The Zika virus should remain a concern for some Canadians planning winter vacations in sunny climes, doctors say.

Public health officials are reminding travellers to protect themselves because even a single mosquito bite can transmit a host of illnesses, including Zika.

"This boils down to the likelihood of getting infected and the consequence  and this is one of those situations where the likelihood may be quite low  but the consequence may be quite high," said Dr. Kamran Khan, an infectious disease physician and scientist at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.

Since the risk of birth defects for those infected with Zika when pregnant is quite high, Khan says he advises pregnant women and couples planning on conceiving to weigh the risks and importance of travel.

Leila Bast of Toronto was planning a family trip to Guyana to celebrate her mother-in-law's 80th birthday.

"We said, 'OK, we found some tickets that we were ready to book and then I found out that I was expecting the next day so that changed those plans," Bast said.

Craig Chivers/CBC

"It's far easier to not go and not have to worry about it then go and worry about it and then should something happen then feel guilty for the rest of my life."

Bast recalled that the last time she travelled to Guyana, she ended up with more than 70 mosquito bites in one night, despite sleeping under a bed net.

She was aware that although Zika receded from the headlines, the threat hasn't fallen to zero.

"Even to bring it up to my doctor, he was quite shocked when I asked him to look into it for me," she said.

The doctor checked into Zika risks during a break, called Bast back and advised against booking a flight. "It was just reassuring to have him say, 'Yeah, no, that's the right decision.' "

This was the second time the Basts postponed a trip south. In 2016, at the height of the World Health Organization's declaration of Zika as a global emergency, Bast was pregnant with her son and cancelled her flight.

Story continues

Pregnant women bitten by Zika-infected mosquitoes were giving birth to babies with microcephaly  a condition marked by having an unusually small head, which is associated with incomplete brain development.

A total of 45 pregnant women in Canada were infected since 2015 during travel or sexual transmission from an infected partner. As many as five gave birth to infants with congenital Zika syndrome, which includes brain abnormalities, vision problems, hearing loss and problems moving limbs.

The Public Health Agency of Canada now recommends men wait three months before trying for a pregnancy and for male travellers with a pregnant partner to refrain from unprotected sex for the duration of the pregnancy.

India, Mexico and the Caribbean, for example, are places frequently visited by Canadians where pregnant women need to be aware that Zika is active, said Khan. He's also the founder and CEO of BlueDot, a company that tracks how germs spread amid global travel.

Mexico was the second most-visited country by Canadian residents in 2016, after the United States.

Further south, the Caribbean, Central America and South America are also on the WHO's list.

"When you've got a population that has a lot of immunity it really starts to halt the transmission," Khan said.

"We just have low-level, sporadic transmission that's occurring throughout much of Latin America."

Mosquitoes spread other infections

Statistics Canada said Florida remained the most popular U.S. destination for overnight travel in 2017. While the state reported cases of Zika virus infection transmitted locally by mosquitoes in 2016 and 2017, the continental U.S. is now considered low risk for Zika transmission.

Other mosquito-borne illnesses travellers should keep in mind include malaria, yellow fever and dengue.

"There are many infections that can be transmitted by mosquitoes through other mechanisms," said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease physician at Toronto General Hospital.

"I think these are very good conversations to have with a health-care provider because there's really no one-size-fits-all solution to everybody's travel plans."

If people choose to travel, doctors and public health officials recommend packing mosquito repellent.
Dmitry Kiselyov has a unique distinction among Russian broadcasters.

He's the only Russian media personality among the 93 individuals named on Canada's economic sanctions list, which targets Russians the Canadian government believes are engaging in "activities related to the violation of the sovereignty of Ukraine."

Kiselyov is hardly the only broadcaster spinning the Kremlin's political line, but he is seen as one of its most effective messengers. A recent poll by the independent Levada Center ranked him and his prime-time Sunday night program, Vesti Nedeli (News of the Week), as one of the most influential sources of news in the country.

And last Sunday, Kiselyov turned his sights on Canada.

He began his program by asking, "Why do descendents of Ukrainian nationalists love [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko so much?" A Canada-based Russian reporter then proceeded to make the case that the answer can be found by looking at the history of Canadian-Ukrainians who supported Nazi Germany in the Second World War and fought against the Soviets.

Canada's 1.5-million-strong Ukrainian community  the largest Ukrainian diaspora outside Europe  has been a frequent target of Kremlin trolling since Canada joined the European Union and the United States in sanctioning Russia after its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Russia's embassy in Ottawa has waged an aggressive campaign on Twitter, suggesting Canada is harbouring Ukrainian fascists who are directing anti-Russian policies by the Canadian government.

But a full, prime-time treatment by one of Russia's most recognizable figures seems to represent an escalation in the country's propaganda efforts directed against Canada.

Provocative report

The program took Russian viewers to what appeared to be St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery in Oakville, Ont. The cemetery contains the graves of soldiers of, and monuments to, Ukraine's Galician Division. Its soldiers fought alongside the German Waffen-SS and against the Soviets during the Second World War.

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"[The Galician Division] was declared a criminal group," intoned the show's voiceover, yet the Canadian government did nothing and refused to prosecute any of its members. The report went on to imply that it is the descendents of the Galician Division  Ukrainian nationalists  who dominate politics in Canada today.

According to one Russian-speaking woman interviewed in the story, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the diaspora's most prominent lobby group, "have the power" to "dictate Canadian foreign policy."

The program went on to show Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj dressed in their traditional Ukrainian vyshyvankas, singing together with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outside the House of Commons in Ottawa.

Rossiya Segodnya

Freeland, in particular, has been the subject of repeated stories in the Russian media about her maternal grandfather's wartime role as the editor of a Nazi newspaper. The suggestion is that Freeland's family background is part of what motivates her and Canada's government to oppose Russia.

The role of anti-Stalin militias that fought alongside the Germans during the Second World War remains a contentious issue in Ukraine.

During the 2014 Euromaidan demonstrations, which culminated in the removal of Ukraine's pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych, protest leaders often invoked the names of the militia leaders as inspiration.

The presence of far-right militias, which have been engaged in the fight against Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine, has also posed a problem for Ukraine's supporters in the west. Many of the groups are openly anti-immigrant and wear fascist symbols.

'It's just ludicrous'

The Russian TV program didn't explicitly state that all Ukrainian Canadians alive in Canada today are Nazi sympathizers  but it doesn't need to in order to create the desired effect. To a Russian audience, the juxtaposition of the cemetery monuments with the Ukrainian vyshyvankas is enough to make the association.

"It's just ludicrous," Wrzesnewskyj told CBC News. "There is nothing sinister in respecting one's ancestry and culture.

"For any Russian watching the program, it's not about any kind of in-depth analysis or understanding  it's about trying to create fear and hatred."

A new report by Canada's Macdonald-Laurier Institute, to be released today, examines Russian propaganda efforts aimed at Canada and underscores the Kremlin's reliance on Second World War imagery.

"The fascist label is an extremely useful tool," says the report. "Russians see it as synonymous with 'enemy.'

"The Putin regime is so desperate to find fascist enemies that it is willing to create them if necessary," said the report.

Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press

In 1985, under pressure from Jewish groups who believed Canada had become a safe haven for Nazi war criminals, the government of Brian Mulroney established a Royal Commission. As part of its mandate, it looked into the status of ex-members of the Ukrainian Galician Division.

Its final report concluded members of the division should not be indicted as a group for their association with the Waffen-SS, and that no war crime charges against any individual members could be substantiated.

The Russian report noted that Ukrainian-Canadians have held senior positions in the Canadian cabinets of Liberal and Conservative governments, and a number of Canadian premiers have also come from a Ukrainian background - all of which is true.

But Wrzesnewskyj said the Russian propaganda makes it appear as something insidious, that Ukrainians are "taking over the government."

The prominence of Canadian politicians of Ukrainian descent just reflects " the nature of our multicultural society," said Wrzesnewskyj.

Russia-Ukraine tensions continue

There's been a ramping up of anti-Ukrainian propaganda on Russian state TV since November, when Russia's navy fired on and captured three Ukrainian warships as they were trying to transit under Russia's new bridge across the Kerch Strait.

As part of its annexation of Crimea, Russia claims the waters under the bridge that lead from the Black Sea into the Azov Sea as part of its territory  something Ukraine rejects.

The ships' crew of 24 Ukrainian sailors have been held in Russian jails since the end of November and could face prison sentences of up to six years. The Ukrainian government refers to the men as "hostages."

Russian propaganda has been portraying the Ukrainians as instigators and has been warning of a potential military threat to the separatist areas of Eastern Ukraine, where Russia has been supporting an insurgency since 2014.

Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press

Ukraine's information ministry says it is bombarded by a constant stream of online propaganda and fake news originating in Russia that's aimed at denigrating the pro-Western government of Poroshenko. Much of it claims Ukraine is a failed state and dominated by neo-Nazi groups.

James Bezan, a Conservative MP who was also singled out in the Russian TV program for his Ukrainian roots, said such propaganda efforts are part of a larger Russian strategy to weaken and destabilize Ukraine and its relationship with allies.

"It is through their own misinformation campaigns that they will continue to nibble away at the sovereign territory of Ukraine until it's too late to do anything," Bezan told CBC News.

He said Ukraine has a deep economic relationship with Russia that he hopes can continue.

"But we have to make sure the relationship is healthy and based upon mutual respect."
Monaco's Royal Twins Take New York City! See Princess Charlene's Pics of Her Kids' American Adventure Monaco's Royal Twins Take New York City

Guess who just took a bite of the Big Apple!

Monacos Princess Charlene and her children, 4-year-old twins Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella, traveled to the United States  and the royal mom is sharing a compilation of photos featuring her little ones to Instagram.

Snaps show the brother and sister duo bundled up on the streets of New York City, taking in the sights through binoculars from a skyscraper and visiting the American Museum of Natural History. Charlene also shared a photo of the twins at the World Trade Center Memorial.

Both children were dressed the part  Jacques rocked a stars and stripes beanie, while Gabriellas furry hat also featured the USAs red, white and blue.

First trip to NY ??, Prince Alberts wife captioned the video, which was set to The Jackson 5s ABC. Great adventure and a wonderful experience! Thank You ]]>
Number of outbound Nepali workers decline sharply

Nepali workers going abroad in search of greener pastures have declined sharply in the last five months.
A car drives downs a snow-covered street in St. Johns on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Holly McKenzie-Sutter

Many in Ontario and Quebec have seen reports of a storm with significant snowfall on the way for the weekend, but those predictions may not be telling the whole story.

The provinces are still being closely monitored for their storm pattern, with small changes expected to cause significant shifts in snowfall across the region with over 60 cm of snow expected on the American side of the border, just south of Lake Ontario.

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According to Doug Gillham, meteorologist with The Weather Network, the best model in the world had very little snow projected in Toronto for the weekend, just a couple of centimeters, while all the other models had a high-impact storm for the whole 401 corridor with 20 to 30 cm expected.

The latest updates to the models have now put the predictions closer together but its still a tricky forecast for weather experts to nail down, with large ranges in snowfall across short distances.

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Ontario

According to Gillham, the latest update has increased the snow amounts for the 401 corridor, with a threat for impact on travel. Generally, 5 to 15 cm is expected to fall across much of the 401.

Windsor is expected to see 10 to 20 cm, 10 to 15 cm for the Oakville, Burlington area, and 15 to 30 cm is expected in Niagara. The highest impact of the storm will be seen around the west-end of Lake Ontario and Niagara, Oakville to Fort Erie.

Moving into the city of Toronto, more snow is expected to fall near Lake Ontario, with lesser amounts expected to move north towards Highway 407. The Weather Network predicts about 5 to 10 cm of snow near the lake and 10 to 15 cm for the west GTA. The Kingston area could see near 20 cm of snow, while the Ottawa region will likely only see 5 to 10 cm.

We are on the northern edge of the storm where there is a sharp boundary, Gillham said. With the northern edge (of the storm) being so close to the 401, any subtle shift north versus south for those areas has a big impact.

For Toronto, Saturday afternoon through the evening will be the height of the storm, diminishing in the overnight, but the Niagara storm will continue to go through the night.

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On Sunday, a band of lake effect snow off Lake Huron and Georgian Bay will be present, with difficult travel between London and Sarnia, and London and Windsor, with a squall coming in off Lake Huron.

Gillham said another key point for people in the region to be aware of is the blowing and drifting snow. He identifies that it will be light and fluffy, not particularly difficult to lift and move.

Not much liquid can produce a decent amount of snow and thats why you can get large ranges too, Gillham said. You dont have to get that much more liquid and youve added five more centimeters of snow.

In addition to the questions around snowfall, the weather expert says the big story across the region is the frigid temperatures.

Its going to be unusually cold with this storm and that makes road treatments not nearly as effective, Gillham said. Well also have strong and gusty northeast winds, adding a bitter windchill causing extensive blowing and drifting snow where the snow occurs.

North of Toronto, highs on Sunday will not reach -15 C and moving into cottage country, highs will be around -15 C to 20 C, dipping into the -30s with windchills.

Quebec

Gillham expects Montreal will see more snow than Toronto, but just like Ontario, a subtle shift in the storm pattern from the U.S. can significantly impact the amount of snowfall in the province.

North of the city, snow amounts are expected to be around 10 to 15 cm, quickly increasing to 15 to 25 cm southeast of the city, with 30 cm projected in the eastern townships.

The storm peaks Saturday night into Sunday with a sharp range in accumulations north of the city, up towards Mount Tremblant, versus the eastern townships, Gillham said.

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Maritimes

The biggest weather story in the country might end up being Atlantic Canada, particularly around New Brunswick.

Uncertain on (calling) it an ice storm, where that heaviest freezing rain will be, but high confidence on a high-impact storm for them, Gillham said.

As we head into Sunday, snow still develops across the Maritimes, changing to rain across the south. Nova Scotia is expected to see heavy rain while New Brunswick will see large amounts of snow. The Weather Network is forecasting 30 to 60 cm of snow, with over 60 cm expected in some areas.

Highest impacts will the Fredericton, the Miramichi area, really all of central and northern New Brunswick highly impacted, Gillham said. Were going to have to watch to see if we reach blizzard criteria in some places.

Gillham identities that one of the biggest areas of concern is freezing rain across St. John, Moncton and P.E.I, including Charlottetown.

This is an exceptionally moisture-laden system thats running into Arctic airthe models are putting out staggering amounts of freezing rain, Gillham said.

There is also a risks that people in the area could be without power for an extended period of time, as a result of the storm, with temperatures dipping below freezing on Monday.

Sundays the day thats highly impacted, Saturdays the calm before the storm for them, Gillham said. This is the day when it probably is a good call to go out and get groceries, and just plan on not travelling Sunday.

Gillham is confident that schools will be closed on Monday across New Brunswick.

In an opposing weather story, Gander, Nfld. could see record high temperatures on Monday at a high of 9 C, with the current record sitting at 8.9 C.

For Newfoundland, many areas will start off with some snow and ice but warm air really quickly takes over and most of Newfoundland is going to see a change over to rain, Gillham said.

The exception of this warm-up is the far northern areas of the province, the Northern Peninsula. This area will continue to see snow and ice, with the possibility of significant amounts of freezing rain.

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British Columbia and Prairies

The weekend starts off with above-seasonal temperatures in much of B.C. and southern Alberta on Saturday. Rain and mountain snow, especially across the B.C. coast, is expected, with snow expected in Edmonton as well.

A significant swath of snow stretches from northern B.C.southeast across most of northern Alberta, especially north of Yellowhead, Gillham said. And then that extends southeast into Saskatchewan over to Regina, not a crippling storm but there a swath of significant snow that will be running along the boundary between milder Pacific air thats trying to push east and the Arctic air that will be sitting over most of the Prairies.
Friends and colleagues remember Canadian mining executive Kirk Woodman as an outgoing, positive and ethical man who was dedicated to his job and often integrated himself into the communities where he worked.

"Everybody has favourite people in their lives and he was one of my favourite people. And I think he was probably the favourite person of a lot of people," said Ron Mills, a geologist in Halifax and longtime friend, who worked for Vancouver-based Progress Minerals Inc.

"He really helped to look after people."

Woodman was doing mineral exploration work in Burkina Faso, according to Mills.

He was abducted Tuesday night by a dozen gunmen at a mining site owned by Progress Minerals in Tiabongou, near the Niger border. The Canadian government said it's an area under growing threat from armed jihadists.

The Burkina Faso Security Ministry said Woodman was found dead a day after he was kidnapped.

CBC

Mills recalled a conversation about 18 months ago in which Woodman told him he had no concerns about dangers in the area  and that he was looking forward to retiring.

But Mills said his friend was the kind of person who would embrace the local community.

"By doing that, you place yourself in a position of trust and vulnerability," he said.

"And every time you do that, it puts you at risk."

Robert Harris, a Nova Scotia engineer in the mining industry, worked with Woodman over the last 20 years.

Harris developed the Youga Mine in Burkina Faso, where he said Woodman did the exploration work.

Woodman, Harris said, was jovial, a team player who got along with everybody and "a very good geologist."

"All the projects that I worked on with him, he got it done and he got it done well. And many of those projects led to mines, actually building a mine."

'Shocked and surprised'

He remembers many evenings with Woodman, after working all day on projects throughout West Africa.

"You know, sharing a beer and talking about the day's activities. I can still recall that. Those are good memories for me," he said.

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"Back in those days, this is back in 2010, 2011, it was always pretty benign ... but obviously things have changed."

Harris said that in his experience, the locals were always very kind and helpful.

"We were of benefit there. And we were always seen as a benefit," he said. "So I mean I was very shocked and surprised to see what had happened to Kirk."

LinkedIn

Mills said he hopes Canadian mining companies and geologists will start to be more critical about where they start projects abroad.

"I don't think it's worth the cost, at all. It's unfortunate, but it means I think we're going to have to withdraw from some of these places."

Harris said that in West Africa, he believes it will be difficult to get authorities and the government in Burkina Faso to get to the bottom of what happened.

"But I hope that progress is made because I think that the family and everyone deserves an answer on who's responsible for this," he said.

"All of my colleagues and people that knew Kirk, we're just sort of taking a moment now and just thinking about him."
A Canadian kidnapped in Burkina Faso has been found dead, says his family, two days after he was abducted.

Kirk Woodman, originally from Halifax, was abducted Tuesday night by a dozen gunmen at a mining site owned by Vancouver-based Progress Minerals in Tiabongou, near the border with Niger, in an area the government says is under growing threat from armed jihadists.

Woodman's son Matt, a CTV reporter based in Edmonton, told CBC News the family found out Thursday morning.

"Kirk was a loving and hard-working husband, father, son and brother. Not a day will go by that he won't be missed," he said in a statement.

"Our family would like to thank everyone for the love and support we've received, but we ask for privacy while we grieve during this difficult time."

A spokesperson for the Burkina Faso Security Ministry told Radio-Canada that Woodman had been shot and his body was found Wednesday night, 100 kilometres from the site where he worked.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters in Sherbrooke, Que., today that Canada is in touch with Woodman's family and would work to ensure that Woodman's killers were brought to justice.

"I spoke to his family today," Freeland said. "It is a very, very sad situation and as I said to his family; his family has the sympathy of our whole country and our government is working with, will continue to work on the ground in Burkina Faso and with the authorities in Burkina Faso, to be sure that the people responsible for this terrible killing face justice."

Alpha Barry, Burkina Faso's minister of foreign affairs and co-operation, referred to Woodman's death as an "assassination."

"The government of Burkina condemns with the utmost energy this cowardly assassination and reassures that an investigation is opened and all the measures will be taken to find and punish the guilty," he said in a statement in French posted to Facebook on Thursday.

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"The government shares the grief of family, loved ones and the Canadian government and offers them the deepest condolences."

The killing of Woodman was also condemned by Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.

"Those responsible for these heinous acts must be brought to justice," he tweeted.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh tweeted that his heart goes out to Woodman's family and friends.

"Let us ensure his loved ones are given space to grieve during this difficult time."

Woodman 'passionate' about his work

According to his LinkedIn profile, Woodman had worked in the mining industry for more than 30 years and joined Progress Minerals 18 months ago. The mining company has operations in Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, and Woodman had previous experience working in West Africa.

Adam Spencer, CEO of Progress Minerals, said the company "is heartbroken by the tragic loss."

"Kirk was an incredibly accomplished and highly respected geologist with a career spanning over 30 years, with 20 years spent in West Africa," he said.

"More importantly, Kirk was a kind person, a dedicated father and husband, and considered a friend by all who knew him."

Acadia University Prof. Sandra Barr said in an email to The Canadian Press on Wednesday that Woodman was well known among geologists in Nova Scotia, where he was based, and had worked in Africa for decades.

"He was very passionate about the work that he was doing there," she said.

LinkedIn

David Duncan, a veteran exploration geologist based in Windsor, N.S., said he worked with Woodman on projects in the province and overseas for more than four decades.

In an interview Wednesday, he described Woodman as a talented geologist  part of a wider community of Nova Scotia-trained geologists who helped find mines around the globe. He had the ability to tell whether a good prospect could become a producing mine, said Duncan.

Duncan and Woodman worked for Etruscan Resources of Halifax on some of the first gold mines in Niger and then in Burkina Faso  as part of a close-knit group of Canadian geologists pioneering the development of mines in western Africa.

He said working as an exploration geologist in western Africa always had its dangers, ranging from the risk of traffic accidents to contracting diseases such as malaria, but Duncan said in recent years that the risk increased with the rise of Islamic militancy.

Hamany Daniex/Reuters

"It's a terrible thing, a terrible thing. We understood since the Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler was kidnapped in Niger that part of the world had changed ... with the introduction of Islamic fundamentalists into that part of the world," he said.

"It's gotten to be a much harder place... We were never worried about being kidnapped. Today, it's a different world."

He's the second Canadian to go missing in the country in recent weeks, Burkina Faso Security Minister Clement Sawadogo said.

Quebec resident Edith Blais, 34, and her Italian travel companion, Luca Tacchetto, 30, were last heard from in the western city of Bobo-Dioulasso on Dec. 15.

Freeland and International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau will meet with Blais's family on Friday. Her mother and sister live in Sherbrooke, Que., where the Liberals have been holding a cabinet retreat.

"We understand that they are going through a very, very difficult situation," Bibeau told reporters. "We want to reassure them that the Canadian government is doing everything that can be done to find Edith and Luca as quickly as possible."

Attacks by Islamist militants have surged in the country in recent months, and Burkina Faso has declared a state of emergency in several northern provinces since Dec. 31.

Security has deteriorated in the country as jihadists with links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, including many based in neighbouring Mali, seek to increase their influence across the poorly policed scrublands of the Sahel region just south of the Sahara Desert in West Africa.

Conservative MP Erin O'Toole, the party's foreign affairs critic, said Canadian companies might have to rethink their presence in the area.

"There's already a pretty strict advisory about Burkina Faso, but I think this should show non-essential travel should cease to that country when there's this sense of lawlessness," he told reporters in Ottawa on Thursday.
The Canadian Press

NEW YORK (AP)  Rudy Giuliani and his lawyers will get to designate which materials seized from him will be reviewed by a court-appointed expert reviewer to determine what should never be seen by federal prosecutors. Barbara Jones, who will serve as the special master in the review, said in her first report to a federal judge that she will not be looking at everything seized in the late-April raids on ex-President Donald Trumps former personal attorney. Instead, she'll look at potentially pr
A Richmond tour operator says he's experiencing a downturn in business due to rising political tensions between China and Canada.

"It's really slow now  really slow," said Richard Zhang of CCVIP Travel.

Zhang says with the Lunar New Year just around the corner, his staff should be fully occupied but, this year, he's only booked about half the number of tour groups compared to last year.

"Last year, so many people come to visit Canada," said Zhang who has been in business since 2009. "This year, not many."

He blames the decline on the diplomatic battle that's brewing between Canada and China  the primary source of his customers.

Ever since Chinese tech executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested while in Vancouver in December of 2018, he says tourists from that country have seemed less keen on visiting.

He says he's even had to reassure potential customers who were worried they could be arrested while in Canada, after seeing images of Zhou in court.

"We just say, 'no. No way of that,'" says Zhang with a shake of his head.

'I just feel unsafe'

According to the Crown corporation, Destination Canada, in 2016 and 2017, China was the country's third largest market for tourism. Almost half of Chinese tourists who arrive here, end up in B.C.

The concerns being relayed now are a stark change from last year, when the organization dubbed 2018 the Canada-China year of tourism.

It's not just Chinese tourists who are having second thoughts, Canadians are also rethinking whether they should spend time in China.

"I just feel unsafe," said Vancouver's Jonathan Wong about visiting China after stepping off a flight from Hong Kong on Tuesday.

Fellow passenger Lorna Hernandez, says she feels "a little bit scared" after seeing several Canadians being detained while another was sentenced to death for drug smuggling.

On Tuesday, Canada issued an updated travel advisory for China, warning citizens about the risk of arbitrary enforcement of laws in that country.

Hours later, China criticized the move and issued its own travel warning for Chinese citizens travelling to Canada.
You Should Know This

A few years ago, China realized that it would need to look beyond its borders to keep fueling its relentless pace of growth. The monumentally ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an example of the countrys growing interest in the rest of the world.

Nowhere is this focus more apparent than in Africa. According to McKinsey, China has become Africas biggest trade partner in less than two decades. Taking into account trade, investment, infrastructure financing, and aid, Chinas influence in the region is unparalleled.

The Asian giant is deploying capital to build infrastructure, sending government-backed companies to start factories in the region, and helping Chinese workers and entrepreneurs migrate to the continent in astounding numbers. This creates jobs and a return on capital for both.

Chinas efforts are concentrated in the eight countries that contribute more than 80% of Africas gross domestic product (GDP): Angola, Cote dIvoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. This concentrated, infrastructure-focused approach has been co-opted by one of Canadas most successful investors.

Prem Watsa, often called the Warren Buffett of Canada, created a special holding company in 2016 to invest directly in Africas growing economy. Fairfax Africa Holdings Corporation (TSX:FAH) is one of only a handful of Canadian listed stocks that provide a pure-play exposure to this underappreciated phenomenon.

One of Fairfax Africas biggest holdings include London-listed financial services group, Atlas Mara . The company generates over $420 million in annual revenue from its network of banks and financial services providers spread across nine African countries.

According to McKinsey, Africas retail banking sector grew 11% over the past five years and is likely to grow at a rate of 8.5% over the next five years. Banking the under-banked in this region is a key growth play.

Fairfax Africa originally bought bonds of Atlas Mara that were later converted to stock; it also purchased additional stock. The holding represents nearly one-third of shareholders equity. Atlas is a great example of Fairfaxs focus in the region  growing income, financial services, and infrastructure funding.

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Other investments, like Consolidated Infrastructure Group and various corporate bonds, follow this basic thesis. Some, like AFGRI Holdings, targets a growing trend of consolidation, automation, and professionalization of the agricultural sector.

Most of Fairfax Africas investments are exposed to growth opportunities in South Africa and Nigeria, which represent more than half the regions GDP at the moment.

This concentrated investment approach is similar to what Watsa has done with his holding companies in Canada and India. If his Canadian track record (book value has compounded by nearly 20% since 1985) is anything to go by, Fairfaxs African ventures should yield incredible results for long-term shareholders.

At the moment, the stock is down, which means its easier to become one of these long-term shareholders. Fairfax Africas book value was reported at $661 million, or $14.35 per share in the most recent quarter. That means the stock (currently priced at $8.69) is trading at 60.5% of book value per share.

The stock is already up 14.5% since I wrote about it last month . Dont miss this train.

More reading

Fool contributor Vishesh Raisinghani has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.
Opinion / Columnist

Laws and statutes play a pivotal role in the way disputes among people are settled. It is therefore incumbent upon every country to lay down its own justice delivery system to fulfil the mandate of upholding positive practices among its citizens. This is done through the process of prosecuting those that are found on the wrong side of the law. In Zimbabwe, such people may have to pay fines, perform community service, be incarcerated or given the capital punishment if found guilty of heinous crimes. However, the voice that cries out for the abolishment of capital punishment has been growing louder throughout the world. Below are some illustrations that are meant to make us rethink the imposition of the death penalty.The first instance is, say a person for one reason or another, is accused of a horrendous crime. The convicted individual then goes through rigorous trial at various levels of the judiciary system. However, despite the alleged criminal's vehement persistence of innocence, the prosecutors reach a verdict of guilt for that particular offence. The purported criminal is subsequently sentenced to death. The "criminal" is sent to the gallows for execution. Burial of such an individual would seem like closure to the whole sordid affair. However as fate would have it, some evidence, twists and angles that had not been examined before come to light, signaling existence of anomalies in the whole trial. This might seem outlandish but such things have happened before if the adage "To err is human" is anything to go by. Errors of this magnitude and the gravity of the irreversibility of the death sentence are well documented in a paper entitled, 8 People Who Were Executed And Later Found Innocent (Eric, May 2010). Such scenarios definitely result in the efficiency of the legal as well as judiciary system being questioned. The whole system that runs the country would be put into disrepute for it would have turned against its own. Moreover, the prospect of having killed (for it is at this point that an execution turns out to be a murder) an innocent person is disconcerting, to say the least.Most Zimbabweans, due to their orientation in the religion of Christianity would easily relate to the historical case of a justice system that passed a verdict that is still talked about over two thousand years down the line; the Crucifixion. On realizing the gravity of what was about to happen, Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor who had been presiding over the case is said to have literary washed his hands of the whole affair. However, this did not stop those who were bent on achieving their goal.Another case of adverse achievement of goals can be illustrated in the case of individuals who violate the law so much so that they are certain it will earn them death sentences once caught. These sadistic individuals amongst us would be displaying suicidal tendencies. They contravene the law and look forward to the punishment. The phenomenon is similar to what is regarded as "suicide by police". This term is used when "a suicidal individual deliberately behaves in a threatening manner with intent to provoke lethal response fromlaw enforcement officer" (Wikipedia, 2018) In this case, the individual provokes the whole justice system by infringing onto fellow citizens' legal rights. For such a criminals, incarceration pending execution would be like waiting for the train to take them home and oftentimes this does not come soon enough. In such circumstances, passing the death sentence would have the judiciary system of the land playing into the criminals' hands. This scenario can be likened to giving a frog that harbours wishes of being yonder a kick that lands it on the other side. The condemned criminal would have the last laugh since he/she would have achieved the ultimate goal.Since the goal of the maintenance of law and order would still be of paramount importance despite the abolition of the death penalty, an alternative course has to be taken otherwise the whole issue would still hang. The only other route to take would be the issuance of life sentences. This would be the maximum that anyone could ever be sentenced to. However this solution, like any other has its cons, chief among them the matter of provision of livelihood to people who are seemingly least deserving. The taxpayer would bear the brunt of extra burdens while the other party has a whole life ahead to grapple with the tenacity of the conscience.Mrs Joyce Chigiya is a member of RAIMSOSA Writers Club. You can also be a member by writing to raimsosa02@gmail.com whatsapp +264817871070
Opinion / Columnist

Like many African countries, Zimbabwe's economy needs sustainable resuscitation. On his mid-January official working visit to Moscow, President Emmerson Mnangagwa told Sputnik News Agency (SNA) in an interview: "We have always had cooperation in the field of defence and security with Russia. This we are not abandoning. At the moment, we don't have much economic muscle to buy such things which we would want to buy from the Russian Federation.""But down the line, as Zimbabwe becomes stronger in terms of its economic muscle, we should be able to buy the type of military hardware, which we know the Russian Federation has and is the state-of-the-art type of equipment that they have, we are not in a hurry," Mnangagwa added.By his words, President Emmerson Mnangagwa set the tone and precedence by adhering to the principle "African solutions to African problems" formulated by African themselves which Russia supports.With many African elite, at least, during the past decade, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has held in-depth discussions on the current situation in Africa and always point to the possibility of continuing to promote effective bilateral cooperation in many spheres and to work together towards fully using existing potentials. He always reminds that Moscow firmly supports the principle formulated by the African countries, "African solutions to African problems."According to any experts, most often talked about economic diplomacy. What is abundantly clear is how to stimulate African governments into exploring investment opportunities in Russia and Russian investors into Africa within some framework of mutual-cooperation.Professor Vladimir Shubin, the Deputy Director of the Institute for African Studies, told me several years ago that "African leaders have to pay high attention to and take significant steps in promoting their achievements and highlighting their most development needs."In an acknowledgement, he said Africa has a great potential for bilateral relationships with Russia. But the relations in many spheres, especially in economic cooperation, are lagging behind.Shubin, however, pointed to the truth that "Africans have to acknowledge the fact that the world has progressively changed and they must be seen changing with the similar positive pace. It's about time Africans have to take development issues seriously and work progressively towards establishing good governance and drastically seek improvement in the welfare for its large impoverished population."President Vladimir Putin pledges to help Zimbabwean counterpart President Emmerson Mnangagwa "to stabilize the political situation" by investing in the country. Zimbabwe has been looking for foreign investment in installing its energy, building infrastructure, modernizing agriculture and industry  foreign investors who could offer the necessary boost to employment creating sectors.Quite recently, Vyacheslav Volodin, the Chairman of the State Duma, told an instant meeting held with the Ambassadors of African countries in the Russian Federation, that Russia would take adequate steps to deliver on pledges and promises with Africa countries. "We propose to move from intentions to concrete steps," he said.Zimbabwe's Ambassador to Russia, Major General (rtd) Nicholas Mike Sango, told me in an interview discussion that, "For a long time, Russia's foreign policy on Africa has failed to pronounce itself in practical terms as evidenced by the countable forays into Africa by Russian officials. The Russian Federation has the capacity and ability to assist Africa overcome these challenges leveraging on Africa's vast resources."Mike Sango further expressed his views as follows: "Africa's expectation is that Russia, while largely in the extractive industry, will steadily transfer technologies for local processing of raw materials as a catalyst for Africa's development."He said that the country was open to investment in energy and transport, including the construction of railways and highways, and was looking to attract and secure foreign investment and cooperation to transform the country's economy.Zimbabwe's key priorities summarized as follows (in order of priority):Energy: For industry and commerce to thrive there has to be sufficient power. Presently, Zimbabwe has a power deficit of 750 MW. The most reliable source is the 750 MW Hydro power plant which has been affected by low water levels due to two years of drought. The country is relying on power imports.Agriculture Support: Agriculture is the economic mainstay and provides 15% of GDP. Water harnessing through dam construction, irrigation mechanization, and agricultural machinery are key areas.Infrastructure Development: Although the country has a fairly well developed infrastructure, the road and rail infrastructure needs refurbishment and expansion to take trade volumes for the country as well as its neighbours to the north.Mining: Zimbabwe is endowed with abundant unexploited resources.Manufacturing: Zimbabwe's manufacturing sector has been hit hard by illegal economic sanctions. Most industries have outdated and expensive to run machinery. They are in dire need of retooling, refurbishment and funding.Tourism: Zimbabwe hosts one of the wonders of the world, the Victoria Falls. Investment in infrastructure development in the hotels would complement the opening by larger airports to accommodate larger body aircrafts.Zimbabwe, a landlocked country in southern Africa, shares a 200-kilometre border on the south with South Africa, bounded on the southwest and west by Botswana, on the north by Zambia and on the northeast and east by Mozambique. Zimbabwe is a member of Southern African Development Community (SADC). *Kester Kenn Klomegah frequently writes about Russia, Africa and BRICS.
Nepal trims projects under BRI from 35 to 9 at Chinese call

After Nepal signed up to Chinas Belt and Road Initiative in May 2017, the government had formed two committeesled by foreign and finance secretariesto identify projects for negotiations with the Chinese side. When the finance secretary-led committee listed 35 projects to develop under the initiative, it had brought interest in Chinas funding in Nepal to a pitch fever.
Opinion / Columnist

Israel Dube

MLO Secretary for Information and public Affairs

For the staunch supporters of shona supremacism, Mnangagwa, who's hands are dripping with more than 40 000 Matabele blood, was the best candidate. In their tribalistic minds, Mnangagwa's genocide history was going to help in the intimidation of Matabeles, stop Matabeleland restoration cause and keep them under oppression. But the plan has backfired very badly, the butcherer has now turned against his own.The want to keep shona supremacism afloat and see the continuation of Matabele oppression led majority shonas to vote dangerous genocidists into power. It led them into voting thieves who have been competing to loot state resources for 38 years.See how the thieves exposed each other late last year in a fierce bull fight for control of state resources.Powerful and greedy politicians who own parasitic businesses, control business cartels and tenderprenuers were all exposed.What would a thief with 38 years of looting experience do when he/she is voted into power? They will do what they know best. Stealing, stealing and stealing from government coffers until the economy is on its knees. That is what Mnangagwa and his team are doing right now. That is why masses are in the streets protesting.What would a genocidist who's hands are dripping with blood of over 40 000 Matabeles do when he is elected to be the President of the country?People of that country must not express their feelings through street protests let alone criticise him. If they do, he would do what he knows best: impose an illegal internet close down.Under the darkness of internet shutdown and away from the scrutiny of the world, he would send the national army and the police to unleash terror on defenceless citizens.The current political events show clearly how deep and dangerous tribalism has turned out to be in Zimbabwe. Tribalism has driven majority shona people to elect dangerous genocidists in the name of protecting the Shona supremacist system and ended up paying with their own lives.Matabeleland restoration as advocated by MLO will not free Matabeles only but shona people as well and save them from putting their own lives on the line by voting dangerous genocidists and thieves who would end up killing and oppressing them.As MLO we are watching the acts of brutality by the government of Zimbabwe against the people of Matabeleland and our hearts are sore with anger.As long as Matabeleland is still under Zimbabwe oppression, as long is the government of Zimbabwe keeps on terrorising the people of Matabeleland, political drama is on the way.What you saw during the Zimbabwe coup in 2017 is nothing. What you are seeing now is nothing compared to what is coming. Lukhulu luyeza luyenyelela!Izenzo kungemazwi!
Opinion / Columnist

We are still struggling, in Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole, when it comes to understanding and executing economic programmes that give sustainable growth. Most analysts tend to paint this poor understanding as driven by greed. I differ with this school of thought, and the reasons for this divergence are explored in this article. In a nutshell, this article proposes the view that in most countries in Africa, particularly in Zimbabwe, the leadership simply has poor understanding of the role of government, thus the government is found meddling in matters it is not supposed to. This article proposes a view that there MUST be clear separation of government and private enterprise. Generally, the line is that government must be concerned with the creation of a conducive environment for private enterprise to engage in its business. In a reciprocal gesture, the private enterprise pays taxes as a token of appreciation for the environment. In business areas, where critical resources are of concern, the government may have a hand in running some enterprise for the management of such a resource, however, this must be maintained as minimal as possible. This view explains why in Zimbabwe, we have seen a number of protests and in general, economic discontent.It is of critical importance for Zimbabwe to understand that the world has firmly established economic models that provide growth. It is a grave lie, we have been led to believe, that Zimbabwe is an exception to economic rules. The truth is simply that Zimbabwe, like Venezuela and many other struggling countries, prefers to pursue policies that maintain political control in the ruling elite, and the economy is secondary. The irony is that the harder the ruling elite attempts to maintain power, the easier that power slips away. In fact, by creating a successful economy, the ruling elite would maintain its power longer. What an irony! It, therefore, clearly explains why Zimbabweans, no matter how misguided their actions have proven to be, went on to conduct a week long demonstration. It is without question in my view that the week long protests were a grave error on both sides of the isle, that is, the protesting participants and the government. I outlined in my previous article how detrimental the protests were, and how they caused lawlessness to an extent where protestors infringed on the rights of other citizens. It is not, however, the thrust of this article to prove that indeed the demonstrators overstepped their constitutional rights, nor is it the thrust of the article to prove that the government failed to avoid the protests because of its policies. Rather, the thrust of the article is to prescribe what I think are solutions to the challenges facing Zimbabwe, giving examples where possible.Consider the problem of forex appropriation by government to companies based on perceived importance. The government of Zimbabwe, when it was faced by forex shortages resorted to allocating the limited foreign currency, particularly the US dollar, to various companies and government departments based on how "important" the need is. This is a fatal error on the part of government. Why should the government be in the business of distributing foreign currency to private enterprises? The explanation given is that the government is attempting to distribute limited resources to areas of need and importance. But why, in the first place, are we having foreign currency shortages? In stead of the government focusing on addressing the fundamental problem causing foreign currency shortages, erroneously the government got stuck with firefighting the symptoms of the problem. The solution here should have been for the government to focus on enabling companies to earn their foreign currency by being competitive on global markets. If Zimbabwean products are competitive on global markets, then Zimbabwe will have sufficient supply of forex, and thus there would not be any need for allocating forex.On the other hand, the people at large have misguided notions that the government must solve their problems. You hear people saying, we do not have water in our locality, the government must come to drill a borehole for us. This is wrong. While drinking water is a human right in Zimbabwe, the responsibility to achieve that human right lies with the individual(s). If there is no readily accessible water in our locality, we must be responsible enough to sink our own borehole. Yes, it is very difficult, and yes some members of society do not have the ability to sustain themselves, however, society in its generality must learn to do it for themselves. There are many ways to carry out these objectives and some examples are through cooperatives, trusts, public companies, private companies et cetera. We can not be cry-babies and have the government attend to us each time we face some little difficulty. Conversely, the government must reduce all taxes and levies charged on people when they utilise such natural resources as water. Such reduction on taxes and levies is a huge contribution towards the attainment of the right to water. This approach reduces the government's burden of public spending. Consequently, the government would have surplus revenue for conducting other matters of necessity. By closely analysing this point, one can quickly notice that the people have significant public entitlement notions. The people expect free or at least subsidised medical attention, education, farm input programmes, fuel, et cetera. All these "free" or subsidised programmes fall on the shoulders of government as public spending bills. This is because in reality, nothing is truly free. To some extent, the fact that the week long protests were sparked by fuel prices suggests that the Zimbabwean population expects the government to subsidise the public's expenses. In a way, Zimbabweans are saying they don't care what the cost of procurement is, all they want is cheap fuel.Apparently, noticing this weakness in Zimbabweans, political parties have developed a culture of dishing out groceries and other freebies at political rallies, and people vote based on how often they receive these freebies from political parties. It is a chicken and egg problem, trying to figure-out what came first, whether the public expected the freebies first, or political parties offered the freebies first in an effort to buy votes. In any case, these practices are what create a huge public spending bill on our government, and in turn the government charges very high taxes trying to raise funds. It is clear that the very high taxes and levies in Zimbabwe suppress competitiveness of Zimbabwean businesses on global markets, thus foreign currency becomes scarce. This is a vicious circle and the public may not be able to see it. However, if the leadership of government were to prioritise economic sense, then the public could be nudged in the right direction, step by step.Research conducted by Strauss-Kahn et al (2009) reveals that destabilisation of peace in Subsaharan Africa and the Maghreb is due to a number of complex factors, with economic discontent being the major factor. Political violence in Subsaharan Africa and the Maghreb has been linked largely to economic discontent. Wars of cessation, tribal wars, and civil wars in Subsaharan Africa and the Maghreb have all been linked to economic discontent. So, it is very clear that economic calamity precedes destabilisation of peace in Subsaharan Africa and the Maghreb. Strauss-Kahn et al (2009) treat Somalia somewhat differently because they cite poor stability of the central government after its independence, thus it is an exception in Subsaharan Africa and the Maghreb. On the other hand, Santhirasegaram et al (2008) reveal that peaceability of a country precedes economic growth. That is to say, the extent to which a country is peaceful provides a background upon which business and investment flourish. In this school of though, Ghana is used as an example of how peace in that country led to greater trade and investment. With this knowledge, it is clear therefore that, the political instabilities in Zimbabwe, the protests, the contested elections and the lack of dialogue between government and opposition parties, all lead to uncertainties, thus hinder sustainable economic development in Zimbabwe.The belief that one group can go it alone, or one group is better than the other, creates an unstable environment for business. Investors want to put their money where the calculus of predicting the future is simple. Investors want to recover their profits after an investment, and they tend to minimise risk when making their investments. In this regard, the responsibility upon every Zimbabwean, and on the government of Zimbabwe, is to work together as equals in order to create a peaceful and stable environment that is capable of attracting investment. Even during the war of liberation, ZANLA did not win the war alone, it needed ZIPRA on the western theater to successfully prosecute the war. However, the teachings today, sound as if ZANLA did it alone. This is the sort of "me-ist" complex that is leading Zimbabwe into economic oblivion, and into a pariah State. In the years 2009 - 2013, there was recordable economic growth, not because ZANU did it alone, nor because MDC did it alone. No! It was because everyone was working together in the GNU, and there was unity of economic purpose (despite the disrespect the parties showed each other). So, the lesson here is, for these political disturbances to end, the government needs to work with all other social groups and opposition parties in some framework that allows for dialogue, and mutual reciprocity. Further, the government needs to respect private enterprise and reduce the burden of licences, taxes, levies and meddling in general.Another example of how the government is not able to dialogue with other players can be seen on the junior doctors' case. The junior doctors were making requests to have their remuneration and conditions of service reviewed. However, the government went on to rubbish even their position that they are an important part of the medical fraternity in Zimbabwe. If one goes into government hospitals today, the junior doctors are handling almost 90 percent of cases. The fully qualified doctors attend to cases with complexities. It is against this background that the junior doctors were presenting their case. In stead of the government recognising the critical role that these doctors play in service delivery, the government decided to bully them by saying they are "students". Once again, the "me-ist" complex finds expression. Now, we hear that junior doctors are beginning to say they can not attend to some cases citing that they are just but students. Yet, the fully qualified doctors are not always available because most of them are in private practice. In the long run, the solution imposed by government will begin to show its limitations and once again stability will be called to question. One can only hope that our government will, some day, realise that force and intimidation are archaic tools and are not the best tools to run the Zimbabwean economy.Kernan Mzelikahle is an apolitical analyst, and may be contacted by cellphone on 0775195334, or by email on k.mzelikahle@gmail.com, twitter handle is @Mzelikahle. This article and others like it may be found on Mthwakazi Forum website: sites.google.com/view/mthwakaziforum
Opinion / Columnist

(1) We begin by disowning a recent statement issued in our name during the recent stayaway that started on 14 January 2019. We, the Catholic Bishops of Zimbabwe, never issued any statement during that period. We are dismayed that our name was abused in the manner it was. On another note, we have also followed with surprise a concerted vilification of the Catholic Church in The Patriot following the publication of the post-elections report of the 30 July 2018 harmonised elections by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP). In our view, the CCJP report and critical analysis of the elections was objective and factual. Fairness demands that analysis of the report, positive or negative, be challenged based on facts to the contrary and not on an imagined patriotism.Our Observations(2) We, the Bishops of the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe, have observed with increasing concern and alarm the state of our Zimbabwean nation from the time of the military - assisted political change that took place in November 2017 to the total shutdown of Zimbabwe's major cities and rural trading centres that began on Monday, 14 January 2019.(3) We witnessed with sadness and concern the dissipation of hope for a united nation and a promising future when our politicians failed to harness the palpable oneness and goodwill prevailing among Zimbabweans across the political divide during and immediately after the political events of November 2017.(4) We also witnessed with sadness and concern the resurgence of political and social polarisation before, during and after yet another disputed national election held on 30 July 2018, culminating in the violent unrest on August 1, 2018, during which property was destroyed, many people were injured and at least 6 civilians were shot dead.(5) We have also witnessed with sadness and concern Government's piecemeal and knee-jerk reaction to the worsening economic situation, exemplified by the unilateral imposition of 2% tax on the country's major money - transfer and payment system and by the hefty increase in fuel prices on 12 January 2019, the immediate cause of the violent demonstrations and riots that brought Zimbabwe's major cities and rural trading centres into complete lockdown. We are saddened and concerned by: (5.1) Government's failure to arrest the deteriorating economic situation that has seen many companies close, many breadwinners losing their jobs, the cost of living soaring beyond the reach of the majority of people; these have been the cause of industrial unrest in the country's key service sectors, particularly Health and Education; 2 (5.2) Violent demonstrations and riots that have resulted in the destruction of property and disruption of essential services; (5.3) Government's heavy-handed and intolerant handling of dissent andexpression of rights by Zimbabwe's dissatisfied population resulting in injury and death to innocent ordinary people.(6) We are writing at a time when our country is going through one of the most trying periods in its history. Once more the resilience and resolve of Zimbabweans is being put to test. We thank the many Zimbabweans who continue to pray ceaselessly for our Country. We, your Shepherds, write to you at this time to help rebuild hope, trust, confidence and stability in Zimbabwe.(7) The dramatic pre-election events seemed to many Zimbabweans to promise a new chapter of our history and were greeted by most with immediate and spontaneous rejoicing. We had many reasons for hope. At the same time, however, other voices raised concerns about the unconstitutional mode of these changes, and in particular the initial and continuing role of the military with attendant risks to the freedom of our political processes that this might carry for the future. The post-election period has justified some of those concerns. Zimbabwe is burning; its economy is hurting; its people are suffering. Many ordinary Zimbabweans express disappointment that hoped-for changes are yet to be felt, in access to employment, cash and broad stakeholder consultations. Our quasi currency, operating with multiple exchange rates, is fueling a national crisis. If we are to restore hope and trust in our nation we always need to speak the truth, no matter how painful. Only the truth will make us free (Jn. 8:32). We need to go back to the pre-election vision where Government and its President seemed to create new space for political activity, allowing for the activation of Constitutional Commissions and reform of State institutions. To get our economy working again, Zimbabwe needs strong institutions for without the necessary reforms we become irrelevant and spectators in the life of the modern world. Elections are never, in themselves, the answers to problems, but as part of a wider programme of transformation, they can be moments of national recommitment. Beyond the Elections: Towards The Zimbabwe We Want.(8) It is in the nature of free and fair elections that no individual or group should be able to determine the results. It is certain, therefore, that some will be disappointed. The issues that face us are not simple, and we are divided in our opinions about the way forward. If it is true that, as we wrote in March 2013, "most Zimbabweans have lost trust in the leadership", it is also true that an exaggerated trust in individual leaders or parties has not in the end served us well. We do not need a strong man or woman but strong institutions. We need to develop a new and challenging kind of politics, a new cooperation and harmony based on reasoned argument, generous compromise and respectful toleration. Zimbabwe is faced with a crisis that is not just political and economic but moral and spiritual. A new Zimbabwean politics needs to be more collaborative, inclusive and based not on one or two leaders, however effective and charismatic, but rather on strong democratic institutions that embody and secure the values of our democracy, regulate our politics, build trust and administer peace, truth and justice to all. We now need to set our main focus on the type of society that we desire in Zimbabwe for ourselves and for our children. As Zimbabweans, we need to contribute as equal and respected members to solutions to difficulties of elections and the reform of the electoral process; national healing and reconciliation; criteria for addressing long term issues of governance; transparency and accountability; poverty, unemployment, economic inequality, development, rural to urban migration, conflict resolution.(9) Recommendations(9.1) We call upon Government and the Opposition to put their differences aside and work together to free Zimbabwe from economic shackles and international ostracisation. His Holiness, Pope Francis, in his Message for World Peace Day 2019 says: "Politics is an essential means of building human community and institutions, but when political life is not seen as a form of service to society as a whole, it can become a means of oppression, marginalization and even destruction." We hasten to say a precedent for working together between Government and Opposition was set when the Government of National Unity (GNU) was formed under similarly difficult circumstances in 2009 and Zimbabwe's economy and prospects were positively revived and only began to regress yet again from the time the GNU expired in 2013;(9.2) We call upon Government to consult broadly and desist from unilateral imposition of policies that exacerbate the people's suffering and to have policy consistency in order to instill confidence in investors, especially foreign investors;(9.3) We call upon Government to desist from heavy-handed handling of dissent and expression of rights and grievances by the people and to desist from denying people their rights, including the barring of access to social media communication imposed on 15 January 2019;(9.4) We call upon all people to exercise tolerance towards each other and to express their constitutional rights in a peaceful and nonviolent manner. Peaceful protest is provided for in the Constitution. Regrettably, citizens' protests and acts of civil disobedience degenerated into violence, destruction of property, injury and loss of life. We urge you to always shun violence and be mindful to respect everyone's rights, especially those who do not agree with you. Conclusion (10) While for many hope for a better Zimbabwe might appear lost, we re-affirm St. Paul's message that when all else fails, there are three pillars that remain for us to hold onto: Faith, Hope and Love (1Corinthians 13:13). We believe in a God of second chances, who is always offering us new opportunities. Even in the midst of current tensions and disturbances there are new opportunities to rebuild hope, trust, confidence and stability in our country. The task at hand requires our collective responsibility in upholding everything that is good and right, to promote unity, reconciliation, and national cohesion. We wish to state our firm belief that Zimbabwe would easily become one of the best countries to live in on earth if only all of us, it's people, committed to living and working with each other in harmony, tolerance and peace, putting the interests of the country before selfish and political party interests. "Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity" (Ps133). Let us seize all opportunities to rebuild hope, trust, confidence and stability, accompanied by ongoing prayers for our country.God bless you all.Robert C. Ndlovu, Archbishop of Harare (ZCBC President)Alex Thomas, Archbishop of Bulawayo (ZCBC Vice President)Paul Horan, Bishop of Mutare (ZCBC Secretary/Treasurer)Michael D. Bhasera, Bishop of Masvingo & Pontifical Administrator of GweruAlbert Serrano, Bishop of HwangeRudolf Nyandoro, Bishop of GokweRaymond Mupandasekwa, Bishop of Chinhoyi
News / National

by Staff reporter

MONEY transfer company, WorldRemit has announced it is failing to pay out cash today due to the internet ShutDown announced in Zimbabwe, a Technology website Zim Techreview reported.The company, however, said it will continue to monitor progress.The message read as follows: "Due to a shut down of the internet in Zimbabwe transactions will not be available for collection today. We will keep you updated as the situation progresses - Worldremit"Econet sent a message to its customers announcing the second internet shutdown in 36 hours claiming the directive came from the government around 10pm.Econet said: "At 2205hrs 17/01/19, we were served with another directive for total shutdown of the internet until further notice. Our lawyers advised we are required to comply with the directive pending the court decision on its legality. The earlier directives are already the subject of a pending High Court application. We sincerely apologise for all inconvenience caused by the acts of government which are beyond our reasonable control."Following the restoration of internet services, many Zimbabweans had circumvented the social media restrictions by routing through Virtual Private Networks to maintain contact with the rest of the world.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Harare regional magistrate Mr Francis Mapfumo has dismissed a bail application by 59 suspected hooligans who were arrested in Epworth on allegations of public violence.Two of the accused persons are minors and one has been released into the custody of his parents while the second one was released into the custody of the Department of Social Welfare.Another regional magistrate Lucy Mungaru dismissed another application for refusal of further remand by Pastor Evan Mawarire.Four other suspects were freed by Harare magistrate Obedience Matare following allegations of over detention by the police.Stakeholders in the justice delivery have shown commitment to bring justice to the suspected hooligans that destroyed property in the acts of public violence that rocked the nation a few days ago.All cases of violence are presided over by regional magistrates, a development which shows seriousness of the crimes committed.The investigations and prosecuting authorities are ready for trial another indication that thorough investigations were conducted to ensure the cases are dealt with expeditiously.More than five courts are presiding over the violence cases while other cases are being postponed to accommodate trial of the suspected perpetrators of hooliganism that destroyed property in and around Harare.The social media, while it played a role in the incitement of violence, it also helped in the identification of some of the perpetrators.The arrest of the man who was captured with a looted ox-drawn plough in Chitungwiza is testimony to that effect.The arrest of Pastor Mawarire was as a result of the video he posted on social platforms inciting people to continue with the illegal actions.The recordings and gadgets used are being used as evidence.The largest group of the accused who are on trial at the Rotten Row Magistrates' Court remain the 61 accused persons who were arrested in Epworth, 13 were arrested in Hatcliffe, 10 in Mabvuku while 8 were arrested for crimes committed at White House shopping centre that resulted in the burning of a Zupco bus, a vehicle and looting of groceries.
News / National

by BBC

Prominent Zimbabwean pastor, Evan Mawarire, has now been officially charged with subverting an elected government.He told reporters outside the court of the "heartbreak":"I cannot tell you how heartbreaking it is. We thought we had a new country and a new way of doing things. None of what I have been accused of doing is what I have done, at all."He was arrested earlier this week for inciting public violence following deadly protests over fuel price increases.The additional charge carries a maximum 20 year sentence.Prosecutors say his social media posts encouraging a stay-at-home protest led to violence.Similar charges made against him in 2016 were thrown out.State TV says over 600 others have been arrested over this week's protests.Unions plan to call for another strike, to force government to act against price increases.
News / National

by ZimLive

Acting President Constantino Chiwenga ordered police to release and apologise to Godwin Gomwe, the Zanu-PF Youth League chairman for Harare, after he was arrested over the shooting deaths of two people, police sources have told ZimLive.Gomwe was arrested on Wednesday "with a lot of guns" but was set free after Chiwenga intervened, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.Driving in a Ford Everest and 16 brand new Ford Ranger vehicles with no registration marks, Gomwe patrolled Harare neighbourhoods with death squads, some of them in army uniform.They rounded up and beat up young men suspected to have participated in Monday's widespread street protests against a 150 percent increase in the price of fuel announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.Police also believe the same Ford Ranger vehicles  some of which had been seized by investigators before they were forced to release them  took part in the bombing of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) headquarters in central Harare on Monday night."Gomwe was arrested by Budiriro police and later taken to the Law and Order section at Harare Central. He was charged for shooting two people, but we were later made to understand Chiwenga had secured his release. The final ignominy for the police was having to first apologise, and then escort him to his home as per orders," a police source said."A day after his release, on Thursday, they were terrorising residents of Highfield. He drives around in a Ford Everest, while the rest of the gang has Ford Rangers. We want to believe he commands this terror group."Police chiefs had taken Gomwe's docket, and he is unlikely to face charges. We were not able to establish the names of the victims, who are believed to be from Budiriro.Police sources say a third murder case is being linked to the Ford Ranger squad, although there was no evidence linking Gomwe to that particular killing.Trymore Nachiwe, according to a police docket seen by ZimLive, was driving in a blue Toyota Voxy in Glenview 8 with a friend when they were intercepted by five Ford Ranger vehicles with no registration plates."The vehicle's way was blocked by the unregistered Ford Rangers. The unknown accused disembarked the vehicles, some wearing civilian attire and others wearing ZNA (Zimbabwe National Army) camouflage. They were armed with stones, iron bars, machetes and tear smoke canisters," the police document says."The accused broke the Toyota Voxy windows ordering the duo to come out and the two complied. The accused assaulted the two with clenched fists and booted feet all over their bodies and they left them lying on the ground."Nachiwe died at 7PM on Tuesday after being hospitalised from injuries sustained during the beating. The police crime report number for the open murder investigation is CR 269/01/19.On Thursday, MDC leader Nelson Chamisa said they were convinced that Chiwenga and President Emmerson Mnangagwa  currently on a five-country tour in Eastern Europe  had "carefully coordinated an attack on Zimbabwe over the last three days.""There was a group for looting and public violence meant to discredit the demonstrations; one for extreme and countrywide repression using degrading treatment such as beatings, rape, and grave bodily harm and one for killing Zimbabweans  essentially shooting civilians to show that the government is prepared to kill," Chamisa's spokesman Nkululeko Sibanda said.Citing information from NGOs, churches and the courts, Sibanda said they had evidence that Zanu-PF had infiltrated the anti-government protests."Credible reports show that the state carefully organised Zanu-PF youths, who would infiltrate the mass stayaways and loot a few shops for their personal benefit. These were not paid, and were told that the loot would be for their personal benefit," Sibanda said.Chamisa called on the Southern African Development Community (SADC)  which was holding a double Troika Summit in Ethiopia on Thursday  to "intervene and investigate these serious circumstances in which grave crimes against humanity were committed."Government spokesman Nick Mangwana had yet to respond to written questions sent to him. This story will be amended to include the government response once it is received.
News / National

by newzimhbabwe

THE European Union (EU) condemned disproportionate use of force by the Zimbabwe government Thursday while Britain summoned Harare's ambassador to London as pressure against President Emmerson Mnangagwa's administration increased.In London, the Minister of State for Africa Harriett Baldwin revealed that she had "summoned the Zimbabwean Ambassador to the United Kingdom to attend the Foreign Office on 17 January to discuss the situation".Brussels and London reacted as the opposition and rights groups accused Mnangagwa's government of a brutal crackdown against nationwide anti-government protests which started on Monday.The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) called the stay-away in response to government's decision do more than double fuel prices last weekend.The first day of the protest was characterised by widespread violence and rampant looting with the state unleashing the police and the army in response.More than 600 people have since been arrested while opposition groups say several were killed with dozens injured, many treated for gunshot wounds.In a statement Thursday, European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic expressed concern over the disproportionate use of force by security personnel."We expect the Government of Zimbabwe to uphold human rights and the rule of law, as enshrined in the Constitution, and ensure due legal process for those detained," she said."Access to medical services should be granted to those in need. It is essential that demonstrations be carried out peacefully; the destruction of private or public property is unacceptable."We also expect the Government to conduct a thorough investigation into the deaths and abuses over the last days."In this context, the recommendations made recently by the Commission of Inquiry on post-election violence are particularly relevant and require urgent implementation."Meanwhile, in London Africa minister Harriett Baldwin summoned Zimbabwe's ambassador Christian Katsande to express the UK's concern over the deteriorating situation in its former colony."While we condemn the violent behaviour of some protestors, and unlawful acts such as arson and looting, we are deeply concerned that Zimbabwe's security forces have acted disproportionately in response. In particular, there are disturbing reports of use of live ammunition, intimidation and excessive force," said Baldwin in a statement."We call on the Government of Zimbabwe to ensure its security forces act professionally, proportionately and at all times with respect for human life and constitutional rights."We further call on the Government of Zimbabwe to investigate all allegations of human rights abuses."Business tentatively resumed in Harare Thursday after the three-day shutdown protest with a few shops opening and a trickle of vendors returning to the capital's streets.However, public transport operators largely kept off the streets with reports indicating that most people chose to stay at home around the country.Police and army units maintained a heavy presence on the streets.President Mnangagwa, meanwhile, continued with his foreign trip, leaving Russia for the east European republic of Belarus.He is also expected to attend the World Economic Forum gathering in Swiss resort of Davos.
News / National

by Staff reporter

President Mnangagwa and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko yesterday sealed eight agreements, and also advanced a grand infrastructure scheme that could make Zimbabwe a regional transport and logistics hub.The eight agreements cover various aspects of education and training, science and technology, agriculture and legal issues such as extradition. Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Minister Perrance Shiri  who is the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade  signed for Zimbabwe while representatives from Belarus put pen to paper on their country's behalf.Presidents Mnangagwa and Lukashenko oversaw the signing ceremony at the Presidential Palace here. Beyond those agreements, which further enhance the burgeoning ties between Harare and Minsk, the two Presidents made significant headway in major infrastructure, industrial manufacturing, and agricultural projects that will change the face of Zimbabwe.The grandest of the plans is a road and rail network  being formulated under a tripartite arrangement involving Zimbabwe, Belarus and China  to link the Indian and Atlantic oceans, across Southern Africa and through Zimbabwe.The scheme, according to the Chief of Presidential Affairs of Belarus Mr Victor Sheiman, involves several Southern African countries and indications are that a number of regional leaders have already expressed support for it.A joint venture company will in the coming weeks be registered to advance the ambitious project; as will about five other firms that will enter the agriculture, logistics and heavy machinery markets in a big way.In addition, Belarus will also invest in irrigation systems, residential housing, roads (possibly with China), and a 100MW solar power plant, a control system and distribution network in Zimbabwe.After meeting President Lukashenko, President Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe would walk the talk on the agreements, adding he had invited the Belarussian leader to visit Harare at his earliest convenience to further consolidate the relationship."This is how it should be between friendly countries," President Mnangagwa said."Zimbabwe shall benefit immensely from the experience that Belarus has had. They have gone through similar challenges as we are presently going through."It is the desire of my administration to widen and deepen our economic cooperation. There is no doubt in my mind that we shall walk the talk on the thing we are talking about here."President Lukashenko said Belarus considered Zimbabwe an important and strategic partner in Africa, and he was ready, willing and able to support the country's economic development agenda.He added: "We are loyal and sincere friends and partners of Zimbabwe."After Zimbabwe's Head of State and Government addressed Belarussian business leaders in a meeting that followed the Presidential Palace Summit, Mr Sheiman said President Mnangagwa had managed to strengthen Harare-Minsk relationships. He lauded the ease of doing business reforms in Zimbabwe, and rallied his countrymen to invest in the country.Mr Sheiman said, "We have unique opportunities to establish a very wide-ranging economic cooperation with Zimbabwe. Our economies are complementary. Zimbabwe is interested in Belarusian vehicles, such as trucks, tractors, utility vehicles, etc."Zimbabwe is actively updating legislation to attract investment, to give a green light to joint ventures."He said Zimbabwe under President Mnangagwa had strictly honoured agreements reached with Belarus, and he was confident the major infrastructure, agriculture, industrial, transport and logistics projects that were being rolled out on a commercial basis would succeed.Mr Sheiman said more machinery would soon make its way to the Hwange coal and Marange diamond fields, while service and training centres to get the best out of the equipment would be established.A Belarussian firm, he added, was conducting geo-survey work on 270 000 square kilometres and had already made preliminary findings of prime gold, chrome and lithium deposits in Zimbabwe.Further, in February a transport company with an initial 1 000 trucks would be registered so as to facilitate commerce via ports; while a logistics firm would establish a hub that would service the region at a scale allowing companies and countries to plan for orders and movements even years in advance.Mr Sheiman indicated that over the coming days, Zimbabwe and Belarus would conclude major agreements on joint production and processing of beef, poultry, pork, dairy, horticulture, fruits, wheat and maize.President Mnangagwa concludes his State visit to Belarus today, heading for Kazakhstan where he and President Nursultan Nazarbayev will discuss areas of co-operation. Thereafter, he makes his way to Azerbaijan for talks with President President Ilham Aliyev, before rounding off the trip with a second appearance at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
News / National

by Mandla Ndlovu

President Emmerson will soon be assuming the position of the Chairperson of the SADC organ on Politics,Defence and Security Cooperation it has been revealed.In a SADC communique after Double Troika Summit (Summit) of the Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) held in Addis Ababa, in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia on Thursday cited Zimbabwe as the Incoming Chairperson."H.E. Mr. Raphael Faranisi, Ambassador of the Republic of Zimbabwe to the Democratic Republic of Congo is representing the In-coming Chairperson of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation."The current Chairperson is President Edgar Chagwa Lungu of the Republic of Zambia. Tanzanian John Joseph Magufuli who is the incoming SADC Chairperson was represent by H.E. Dr. Augustin P. Mahiga who is the Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Co-operation.Analysts have lamented the decision by SADC double Troika to discuss DRC elections and not even mention anything about Zimbabwe even though two Presidents President Cyril Ramaphosa and President Edgar Lungu are neighbours with the country.Political analysts Fortune Mlalazi said, "It actually is baffling that SADC double Troika sat down and discussed DRC elections but did not talk Zimbabwe even as a footnote to say that we note the developments in the country."As we speak now everyone from European Union to individual countries like America and Britain, they have issued statements concerning Zimbabwe but our neighbours in SADC and the African union have turned a blind eye on us."Mlalazi further said it is of concern to see that Mnangagwa in his capacity as President of Zimbabwe might soon be assuming the position of Chairperson of SADC Troika."We have a country in turmoil that has serious security issues. A country that has a security force that butchers its citizen and yet SADDC in its wisdom agrees that that country must assume chairmanship. SO the message we are getting is that forget Zimbabwe will be on SADC Troika agenda. Imagine Mnangagwa chairing a meeting to discuss himself?" He concluded.
More than Rs50b mopped out of financial system

At a time when the banking industry of the country is reeling under acute shortage of loanable fund, more than Rs50 billion has been mopped out from the total deposits of the banks and financial system as advance payment of the income tax owed by the businesses to the government. By the end of this fiscal years second quarter, businesses have to make an advance payment of tax to the government.
Yoni Appelbaum's longread in The Atlantic on the case for impeaching Trump draws on heterodox interpretations of the Clinton and Johnson impeachments, as well as the Nixon impeachment, to argue that despite (or even because of) the Senate's near-certain inaction on impeachment, there are real benefits to impeaching Trump, which is looking very likely if accusations of suborning perjury before Congress are true.

Appelbaum argues that history's verdict on the Clinton and Johnson impeachments  that they were divisive, partisan exercises that did more harm than good  is misguided. Rather than viewing impeachment as a denergous constitution-undermining exercise that weakens the institution of the presidency, Appelbaum says that the framers wouldn't have put impeachment into the Constitution if it wasn't part of the normal functioning of a Constitutional democracy, a check on an otherwise imperial presidency (and incidentally, he argues that the presidency has grown increasingly imperial and is overdue for a good trimming).





In addition to making a case that impeachment is itself a reasonable action under some circumstances, Appelbaum makes the fairly easy case that we are living through those circumstances right now, reciting a greatest hits of Trump's many qualifying sins.

Then he gets to the interesting part: we know that the Senate isn't going to do anything about a successful impeachment of Trump by the Democrats in Congress, so what's the point?

According to Appelbaum, history teaches us that impeaching a president has five major benefits even if they are not removed from office: it changes the way that the press covers the issue, switching from letting the president set a fearmongering agenda to piecing together a coherent narrative of the president's unfitness; it sidelines the president's agenda and forces them to focus on the impeachment; it moves away from the piecemeal Congressional committee investigations of individual scandals and puts the focus on the big picture of how they all fit together; it channels public and governmental anger with the government into a peaceful and lawful system of redressing grievances, forestalling potential political violence; and it permanently damages the impeached president's political prospects, putting them under a cloud for the rest of their political lives.



And what if the Senate does not convict Trump? The fifth benefit of impeachment is that, even when it fails to remove a president, it severely damages his political prospects. Johnson, abandoned by Republicans and rejected by Democrats, did not run for a second term. Nixon resigned, and Gerald Ford, his successor, lost his bid for reelection. Clinton weathered the process and finished out his second term, but despite his personal popularity, he left an electorate hungering for change. "Many, including Al Gore, think that the impeachment cost Gore the election," Paul Rosenzweig, a former senior member of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's team, told me. "So it has consequences and resonates outside the narrow four corners of impeachment." If Congress were to impeach Trump, whatever short-term surge he might enjoy as supporters rallied to his defense, his long-term political fate would likely be sealed. In these five waysshifting the public's attention to the president's debilities, tipping the balance of power away from him, skimming off the froth of conspiratorial thinking, moving the fight to a rule-bound forum, and dealing lasting damage to his political prospectsthe impeachment process has succeeded in the past. In fact, it's the very efficacy of these past efforts that should give Congress pause; it's a process that should be triggered only when a president's betrayal of his basic duties requires it. But Trump's conduct clearly meets that threshold. The only question is whether Congress will act.

Impeach Donald Trump [Yoni Appelbaum/The Atlantic]

(via Kottke)





(Image: impeachthemotherfuckeralready.com)


The Drone, currently in post-production, is a real movie about a killer drone. From the trailer description:



A serial killer transfers his consciousness into a consumer drone right before he is killed, then flies off to terrorize newlyweds Rachel (ALEX ESSOE) and Chris (JOHN BROTHERTON). The couple must fight to stop the insidious device before it destroys them both.



Director Jordan Rubin is a comedian, his prior film was Zombeavers, and The Drone is obviously a tongue-in-cheek tale. But I kinda wish it was straight-up splatterpunk sci-fi.




Criminals are using stolen credit cards to buy Fortnite V-bucks, then selling the in-game currency for bitcoin at a discount on the dark web as a way to launder money.

From The Independent:

Discounted V-bucks are being sold in bulk on the dark web  a hidden section of the internet only accessible using specialist software  as well as in smaller quantities on the open web by advertising them on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter.

By posing as potential customers, Sixgill agents uncovered operations being conducted around the globe in Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic and English.

"Criminals are executing carding fraud and getting money in and out of the Fortnite system with relative impunity," Benjamin Preminger, a senior intelligence analyst at Sixgill, told The Independent.


Chinese TV is blurring out the ears of men wearing earrings. From CNN:



It's unclear if Chinese regulators have issued a specific directive barring men from being shown wearing earrings, or whether TV stations are reacting to a shift in what is considered culturally appropriate.

Last year, China's media regulator banned TV stations from featuring actors with tattoos. Depictions of "hip hop culture, sub-culture and immoral culture," were also banned according to Chinese state media







When it comes to television, the country's regulations previously barred programs from airing content that expresses "overt admiration for Western lifestyles," jokes about Chinese traditions or defiles "classic materials"



The country's censors have also been quick to black out content on LGBT issues. Guidelines released in China in 2016 characterized homosexuality as an "abnormal sexual behavior" unfit for Chinese television, alongside incest, sexual abuse and "perversion."
Scammers are so petty.

In a bizarre statement today, Donald Trump "grounds" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from flying on government aircraft for a planned but not publicly disclosed to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan and conduct America's foreign business abroad.

Disclosing this is a violation of national security, and stupid. Some 800,000 federal workers are without pay, and with each passing day, the shutdown  we're on day 27 threatens America's economy and the safety of every American.

On this same day, Melania Trump flew on government aircraft to Florida, to their privately owned Mar a Lago resort. She's there alone with their child.

The cost of this Air Force flight to taxpayers was over $35,0000, reports Quartz.

Why'd Melania do that today? No reason, huh.

EXEC1F  #MelaniaForceOne climbing out from Joint Base Andrews ?? US Air Force

C-32A 98-0001 https://t.co/BlmOXELhxJ pic.twitter.com/kgGWuEiiGV  CivMilAir  (@CivMilAir) January 17, 2019

.@SpeakerPelosi cannot use military plane to war zone and NATO that speakers are entitled to (for security since 9/11 because she is in line of succession) but Melania Trump flew tonight to Maralago on same type of military 757 from JBA.

Alone.  Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) January 18, 2019

ABC News reported at 642pm Eastern that the first lady had arrived in Florida, and headed to the president's Mar a Lago club with their son Barron Trump:

The first lady's office did not respond to ABC's request for further comment.

Nothing more need be said.

Just reported on @MSNBC: Melania Trump flew to Florida today on a government plane, a law enforcement source confirms to NBC News, just after Trump prevented Nancy Pelosi from using a government plane to visit troops in Afghanistan. @TheLastWord  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 18, 2019

From Quartz:
Four words in a tiny font at the top of a page in Mueller's recent court filing reveal that Manafort kept at it with Kilimnik even *after* Manafort was charged with multiple felonies.

It pays to read the fine print.

Excerpt from Rosalind S. Helderman at the Washington Post:

In a tiny font at the top of the 82nd page of a lengthy document filed in court this week by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is a key clue to his ongoing interest in Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman. The four words of unredacted text suggest that in February 2018  four months after Manafort was first charged with crimes related to his work as a political consultant in Ukraine  he still appears to have been working on a peace initiative for Ukraine, a topic of intense interest to Russia. And it suggests he was doing so in concert with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian employee of his consulting firm who is alleged to have ties to Russian intelligence. The revelation, potentially inadvertent, comes as Manafort and Mueller's legal team have been battling in court over whether Manafort lied to prosecutors after he pleaded guilty in September to conspiring against the United States with his Ukraine work and agreed to cooperate with the probe.

Here's that "In a tiny font at the top of the 82nd page" section:

On Tuesday, Robert Mueller's team filed a 32-page declaration supporting their claim that Manafort lied to the court. This declaration included many additional pages of exhibits.

Nearly half of the filing is devoted to Manafort's interactions with Kilimnik, who is reported to have been actively linked to Russia's military intelligence agency as recently as 2016. Kilimnik denies this.

Remember, 'peace initiative for Ukraine' is a euphemism for a dirty campaign carried out in the interests Russian oligarchy.

Read the rest.

Impressive investigative work: Special Counsel Robert Mueller's filing suggests Manafort kept working on "a topic of intense interest to Russia" after his indictment on charges including failing to register as a foreign lobbyist while working in Ukraine https://t.co/uXWtWoMaPt pic.twitter.com/ULAbrDEu2c  Anna Massoglia (@annalecta) January 17, 2019

RELATED, at RFE/RL: "Manafort Worked With Russian-Ukrainian On Peace Plan Before  And Long After  Criminal Charges."
Two GOP congressmen met with noted white supremacist Chuck Johnson about "genetic testing and DNA," then deny knowing he's a white supremacist.

Holocaust denier and white supremacy troll Chuck Johnson, famous for lawsuit-worthy rumors he shit on the floor in public, met with Republican congressmen Andy Harris and Phil Roe on Wednesday in Capitol hill to discuss "DNA" and "genetics." Johnson is a eugenics proponent.

In the photo above tweeted by Matt Fuller at HuffPost, Reps. Phil Roe of Tennessee, center, and Andy Harris of Maryland, right, walk with Chuck Johnson in the nation's capital.

Reps. Roe and Harris are both medical doctors.

Chuck once wrote that Muslims are "genetically different in their propensity for violence or rape," and writes that black people have a gene that makes them violent.

He won't share details on his new "DNA" and "genetics" operation, including its name.

Why are Republican members of congress meeting with this man, not even a week after publicly denouncing white supremacist remarks by congressman Steve King (R-IA)?

Ben Collins of NBC News writes, "Chuck Johnson wouldn't comment on a FB post he shared that said African-Americans 'possessed a violence gene' or that 'Muslims are genetically different in their propensity for rape.'"

"Asking me to defend my views on Facebook is a little absurd," he told NBC.

Excerpt from Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny's report:

Chuck Johnson met with Reps. Andy Harris of Maryland and Phil Roe of Tennessee on Thursday. After a Huffington Post reporter tweeted a photo of Johnson with the two congressmen, and the photo attracted media attention because of Johnson's far-right views, Roe released a statement saying he and Harris had met with Johnson because he was representing a company advocating for "increasing the number of sequenced genomes for research." Spokespersons for Harris and Roe both confirmed to NBC News that they had met with Johnson Thursday, and a spokesperson for Roe said they had discussed "DNA" and "genetics." Johnson and Harris would not identify the company when asked. Roe's office said it did not know the identity of the company. Johnson is best known for his conspiracy-filled right-wing news websites, connections to white supremacists, and downplaying the severity of the Holocaust in an online forum. He declined to comment on his new endeavor or the meeting, telling NBC News in a series of text messages, "I don't discuss my work with people who don't understand it." Both waited for him to get through security. Rep. Harris was "unaware" of Johnson's previous associations, according to a statement provided to NBC News by a spokesperson. "Of course I disavow and condemn white supremacy and anti-semitism," said Harris. Genetics in the context of race was not discussed in the meeting, according to Harris's statement.

Oh, sure. I'll bet it wasn't.

Read the rest: Activist who met with congressmen about 'DNA' posted about black 'violence gene' [NBC News]

Reps. Phil Roe and Andy Harris say they met with white nationalist troll Chuck Johnson yesterday "to discuss genetic testing and DNA" (?!?!?!?!) https://t.co/6EydeqcP3s  Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) January 17, 2019

.@RepAndyHarrisMD says he was unaware of the "previous associations" of Chuck Johnson before meeting recently with the right-wing figure. https://t.co/RceQvwaKF3  The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) January 17, 2019
The planned delegation included Pompeo and Mnuchin.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says the Trump administration has canceled a planned trip to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. The announcement was made today, Thursday, the 27th day of Trump's partial government shutdown.

.@PressSec: "Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his Delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland."  Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) January 17, 2019

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his Delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," Sanders said in a statement.

Trump had already canceled his participation in Davos. The delegation would have been led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and deputy chief of staff for policy coordination Chris Liddell.

Earlier in the day, Trump's spokesmonster issued this statement, as an apparent petulant swipe at the Speaker of the House telling him to State of the Union somewhere else while he holds 800,000 Americans and their families hostage.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, @SecPompeo was scheduled to participate in a panel discussion with @jensstoltenberg and others: "The Future of the Transatlantic Alliance."  David Gura (@davidgura) January 18, 2019

Trump has now canceled this trip as well. https://t.co/ilrlebIbj0  Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) January 18, 2019

Worried Russia would boycott its annual meeting, the World Economic Forum reversed "its decision to ban three Russian businessmen," including Oleg Deripaska. Now, for a completely unrelated reason, there will be no official U.S. delegation. https://t.co/24Eo9PuXow  David Gura (@davidgura) January 18, 2019

[CNN, Washington Post]
CONFIRMED: Trump Doesnt Need Nancys Permission to Convene Congress for the State of the Union

Its right there in the Constitution.

".....But, just as Pelosi had no authority to use a military jet for her overseas vacation with a Congressional delegation Thursday after Trump cancelled her plane, she appears to have no power to stop him from convening the Congress for the State of the Union, especially given the emergency at the southern border.

The legal precedent lies in an opinion from the Deputy Solicitor General for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man by the name of George T. Washington, who, from his post at the Department of Justice, told Congress that the president has the Constitutional authority to convene them even when they are adjourned, as they are now due to the partial government shutdown. ...."

"....If that is the road Pelosi and company want to take, Trump appears to have the legal authority squash them yet again  and he should."

https://bigleaguepolitics.com/confirmed-trump-doesnt-need-nancys-permission-to-convene-congress-for-the-state-of-the-union/
Liang is a doctoral student at Sichuan University, China. His research is focused on Chinas relations with Nepal.
Muc suy giam cua kieu hoi toan cau trong nam 2020 thap hon so voi nam khung hoang tai chinh toan cau 2009 (4,8%).
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My wife and I felt enormous pride in our son the day he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard.

It was not the career choice we expected him to make, although as a freshman in college his career path was far from certain. And it wasnt a career path that we were familiar with, having never known a friend or family member in the USCG.

But Logan, our son, had thoroughly researched it and was certain this was the life, and the career, he wanted. He especially liked that fact that this branch of the military was focused on life saving, security and safety.

Now, 16 years into his career, he is a chief petty officer and officer in charge at a station in upstate New York. Hes had a career filled with many honors and awards for doing what he loves, saving lives and property, rescuing boat crews, confiscating drugs, picking up desperate people who would enter our country illegally, escorting and defending nuclear submarines as they enter or exit their home port, securing vulnerable sites during key events, and so many other more ordinary duties.

I would say its a job he loves so much he would do it even without pay, but then, that would be stating the obvious.
It doesnt matter how much you hate it. It doesnt matter if you decry the consequences to the community if its going to happen, its going to happen, Becker said. But if we get ahead of it, we can minimize the effect if its going to happen.

To say, Oh no, we cant do this is really putting your head in the sand intentionally. Reality is what it is. ... The question is do we actually start addressing it or do we just wait for the train to hit us right in the face.

Preparing for change

Becker said the resolution came about because he believes it is technically unconstitutional for the Legislature to be appropriating money to Bismarck State College, Williston State College and Lake Region State College because the schools are not listed under the constitution.

If someone wanted to take that matter to the North Dakota Supreme Court, it is possible the court would rule the appropriations unconstitutional, Becker said.

Thats a potential emergency just looming out there, Becker said. Maybe itll never come up, maybe itll come up next year. It all depends if someone wants to challenge it.
WASHINGTON -- North Dakotas all-Republican congressional delegation is split on measures to oppose easing sanctions on three Russian companies.

Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer voted Wednesday against a Senate resolution to maintain the sanctions, while Rep. Kelly Armstrong was among 136 Republicans who voted Thursday in favor of a similar Democratic-backed effort in House.

International sanctions of a public company are complex matters, Armstrong said. This vote was an irresponsible last-minute political stunt brought to the floor by Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi to try and use the Russia narrative to score political points. That being said, these sanctions are serious matters. Without having time to talk to experts about the background of the sanctions, I voted today to keep things the way they are.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury first announced sanctions against the companies Rusal, EN+ and ESE in April 2018, mostly because of the Russian oligarch who controlled them, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Jan. 10, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that though sanctions will remain against Deripaska, the U.S. is willing to lift sanctions on the companies, as long as Deripaska divests his holdings in them.
A Bismarck police officer urged North Dakota lawmakers to crack down on minors riding in the back of pickups Thursday, a practice he described as dangerous but one that's embedded in the state's rural culture.

Senate Bill 2129, introduced by a group of Republican lawmakers, would impose a $20 fine on motorists who allow people under the age of 18 to ride in an open truck bed while driving on highways, streets, alleys and parking lots. It includes exceptions for farming and ranching activities, parades, military exercises and medical emergencies.

Breaking that law would also add one point to the 12-point traffic violation system used to suspend driver's licenses.

Sgt. Tim Bleth of the Bismarck Police Department said he's been frustrated by his inability to ticket drivers for carrying people in the back of their pickups, which he described as a "tragedy waiting to happen." He called the bill, which claims Bismarck Republican Sen. Diane Larson as its primary sponsor, a "no-brainer" since minors are already required to be properly restrained throughout a vehicle.
A proposal in the North Dakota Senate could resolve a long-running dispute over how oil tax revenue is split with the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation.

Senate Bill 2312 changes how revenue is shared from new wells on the Fort Berthold Reservation, a compromise that has the support of legislative and tribal leaders and the governor.

The bill is estimated to shift an additional $33 million in oil tax revenue to the tribe for 2019-21, but supporters say the state will benefit from increased industry investment.

Theres going to be more money in the long run for the state and the tribes, said Sen. Jordan Kannianen, R-Stanley, the primary sponsor of the bill.

Oil tax revenue is currently split equally between the state and the tribe for production on the Fort Berthold Reservation, in the heart of the Bakken. But tribal leaders objected in 2015 when state lawmakers reduced the overall tax on oil production from 11.5 percent to 10 percent.

Mark Fox, chairman of the MHA Nation, has long advocated for a greater share of oil tax revenue to offset the impacts of oil development, such as fixing roads and dealing with increased crime.
The North Dakota Department of Health has printed and issued more that 70 medical marijuana identification cards to qualifying patients and designated caregivers this week, according to a news release.

The health department began accepting applications for medical marijuana registry ID cards on Oct. 29. Jason Wahl, director of the health department's Division of Medical Marijuana, said the issuance of the cards brings the program closer to "being fully implemented."

While some patients and caregivers have received ID cards, medical marijuana dispensaries have yet to open in the state. But the health department is expecting a dispensary in Grand Forks or Fargo to open next month.

"Until a dispensary is operational and has made sales to qualifying patients, we want to remind individuals their cards alone do not allow them to possess marijuana under the laws for the medical marijuana program," Wahl said.

Patients and caregivers are required to carry their cards with them while purchasing, transporting and consuming medical marijuana products. The health department said that North Dakota law enforcement agencies have been provided the ability to verify the ID card status.

(Reach Blair Emerson at 701-250-8251 or Blair.Emerson@bismarcktribune.com)

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The Missouri action has already spurred a lawsuit and is tied up in the courts.

The North Dakota proposal primarily sponsored by Rep. Jim Schmidt, R-Huff, sticks to cultured beef, saying it may not be packaged in the same, "or deceptively similar, packaging, it must be labeled a cultured food product and may not contain the word "beef" on the label.

Schmidt said he's not opposed to those who want to produce lab grown meats.

"I'm not criticizing it. I just don't want it to be labeled something it's not," he said. "That's the bottom line."

He said he also wanted to keep the legislation simple by only tackling its impact on the beef industry to start with and by not getting into vegetable-based meat alternatives. Ultimately, it will be up to the committee to decide if it wants to add other meats, such as pork.

Julie Ellingson, NDSA's executive director, said her organization has been fighting the label battle at the federal level but taking it on at the state level could also help.
Tika R Pradhan is a senior political correspondent for the Post, covering politics, parliament, judiciary and social affairs. Pradhan joined the Post in 2016 after working at The Himalayan Times for more than a decade.
He said the feeling of relief from Gate City's federal worker customers' who have sought help has been visible.

As of Wednesday, 270 eligible federal employees have filed for unemployment benefits with the state, said Darren Brostrom, director of unemployment insurance for North Dakota Job Service.

"We started seeing it in early January; it was very, very limited," he said. "They're starting to pick up now."

At first, there were only two or three filings a day. Now there are 20 to 30 daily, Brostrom said.

Of the 9,400 federal workers in the state, 1,966 are impacted by the shutdown and eligible for unemployment payments. In Bismarck-Mandan, there are about 1,200 total federal employees.

Weekly unemployment benefits range from $43 to $595, according to Job Service, and can be drawn for 12 to 26 weeks depending on the person's past earnings. Brostrom said most will be eligible for the full 26 weeks.

Only furloughed employees, not those deemed "essential" and working without pay, are currently eligible for unemployment benefits. Employees will have to pay back all of the unemployment benefits they receive after they get back pay following the shut down.
Health insurance companies enable this racket being perpetuated on their customers by passing the blame onto PBMs even though they are the ones selling plans to consumers. Insurers continue to use PBMs that engage in bad practices instead of contracting with better ones, and weve discovered that sometimes they dont even know whats in their own contracts. Health insurers should be fighting to lower drug costs for their customers, but theyre not.

Hence our legislation. Senate Bill 71 will be heard in the Montana Legislature on Feb. 1. Its a unique, made-in-Montana approach written by the State Auditors office after extensive investigation. SB 71 will hold insurance companies accountable to their customers by prohibiting price gouging, ensuring all manufacturer rebates are used to lower consumers costs, and requiring other changes to the way the industry operates in Montana. We know our strategy can work because similar changes at Montanas health plan for state employees saved $7.4 million in the first year.

Federal law creates problems for states directly regulating PBMs and for making these reforms apply outside of our limited jurisdiction. For that reason, SB 71 only applies to health insurance plans sold on the individual market, but it will also provide a roadmap to establishing best practices and be a great starting point to enacting reform more broadly.

To reduce health insurance rates, we must address the costs of health care itself. Senate Bill 71 does just that, and we urge the Legislature and Gov. Steve Bullock to support it.

Matt Rosendale is Montanas state auditor. State Sen. Dr. Al Olszewski is an orthopedic surgeon in Kalispell and the sponsor of SB 71. Kristin Hansen is the state auditors chief legal counsel and a former state senator from Havre.

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In December 2017, he was arrested for felony aggravated assault and misdemeanor counts of obstructing a peace officer and reckless driving after he hit a man hard enough to knock him out following a confrontation at a Florence bar.

Those charges were reduced to misdemeanors and later dismissed.

Stepanski was arrested again in September after he fought with his mother after she refused to give him money. The charging affidavit said he kicked down her bedroom door and yelled at her until she relented and gave him her keys and ATM card.

He returned a few minutes later with a hunting rifle and pointed it under his chin while threatening to kill himself. His mother told an officer I thought he was going to kill me.

Those charges were also reduced misdemeanors. He was fined $285 and ordered to complete an anger management course. Court records said he paid the fine, but did not complete the course.

Ravalli County Deputy Attorney Angela Wetzsteon said the charges were reduced after Stepanskis mother recanted.

She didnt want anything done, Wetzsteon said. The other case was a bar fight. It would have difficult to prove serious bodily injury had occurred.
The former undersheriff in a Montana Hi-Line town is denying his second felony sex crime charge.

Luke Strommen, of Glasgow, has pleaded not guilty to two felonies: sexual intercourse without consent and sexual abuse of children.

During his recent arraignment in Valley County District Court on the rape charge, District Court Judge John Larson, of Missoula County, allowed Strommen to remain released on his own recognizance and remain free of a GPS monitor.

Strommen has been allowed similar conditions since his original felony was charged in October, but prosecutors argued new restrictions were necessary after charging him with rape in December.

Assistant Attorney General David Buchler had asked the court to impose a bond and require GPS monitoring.

It is the states position that the additional charge represents a change in circumstances in that instead of an isolated incident, (Strommen) is alleged to have engaged in a course of criminal sexual activity with underaged females, and that he utilized electronic devices in communicating with the alleged victims, Buchler wrote in a filing before the hearing.
In a December interview with the Star-Tribune, Mike Dalpiaz, vice president of UMWA District 22, which represents Kemmerer, said Westmoreland failed because it was bad at business, not because of the coal industrys larger troubles.

The union has some experience in fighting for miner rights and would continue that tradition for the Kemmerer workers, former workers and their dependents, he said at the time.

We are not a bashful bunch of people, Dalpiaz said. Weve dealt with more of these coal bankruptcies in the last 15 years than we want to think about. We will fight this every single step of the way.

***

Michael Duff, a labor law and bankruptcy expert at the University of Wyoming, said the Kemmerer case falls between two legal policies. There is the federal statute that governs employee benefits on the one hand. And then, sometimes in conflict with the first, there is bankruptcy law, which is structured to allow companies an avenue to emerge and continue as a viable entity.
An Associated Press investigation has found that at least 1,900 U.S. military firearms were lost or stolen during the 2010s. Civilians later u
Buncombe County's financial troubles will not end with the January 16th plea hearing of former county manager Wanda Greene in federal court or payment of her $750,000 settlement with the county.Every political promise has an expiration date. When Buncombe County officials promised in 2011 that a quarter-cent-sales-tax increase would pay for capital repairs, renovations, and new construction at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, voters could not have expected the promise to expire in just 18 months or how much money would be diverted to the county's general fund.In November 2011, Buncombe County voters had a single item on their ballots: approval of a new quarter-cent sales tax. Supporters of the tax increase, including all but one county commissioner, the Asheville Chamber of Commerce, A-B Tech leadership, and the pro-tax advocacy group Join Our Buncombe Solutions, promised taxpayers that the tax revenue would be used to pay for a $130 million capital plan to construct, repair, or renovate facilities at A-B Tech. College President Hank Dunn said, "The truth is the quarter-penny will go to A-B Tech, and anyone who says differently is just wrong."Skeptics of the tax hike, including Michael Sanera of the John Locke Foundation and the group Sales Tax Opposition Partnership, warned the referendum did not, and could not, ensure the money would be dedicated to A-B Tech or that the county would eventually stop collecting the tax. There simply is no legal way for county commissioners to bind the actions of future commissioners. Sanera and others also raised questions about how much debt the county already had taken on, the taxpayer money routed to companies who promised to create jobs in the county, and A-B Tech's actual needs.Less than 20 percent of voters cast a ballot in the election and the difference in favor of the tax was 500 votes. When turnout is so low, a tiny fraction of voters can tip the balance of an election and even change the direction of government.In the 2013-14 budget passed in June 2013, county commissioners diverted $285,000 in new sales taxes from A-B Tech to the county's general fund operating budget. Commissioners kept funds to the school around $6 million the next three years as transfers climbed to $2.3 million. In 2017-18, the transfer jumped to $5.8 million, and A-B Tech received $7.8 million. For the current year, the school and the county's general fund each received $6.5 million. Since July 2013, Buncombe County commissioners transferred $15 million to the general fund, money that elected officials and A-B Tech boosters promised would benefit the community college.A-B Tech opened a $38 million Allied Health building in 2016 and demolished an existing classroom building in 2017. An engineering consultant estimated the school has a $25 million backlog in needed repairs and renovations to campus facilities. County commissioners have not approved a planned $27 million classroom building.None of this would have come to light if former county manager Wanda Greene had not been forced out over her criminal actions. Interim county manager George Wood, who took over in June 2018, warned commissioners in September that they had been using the sales tax revenue to balance the county's budget and that they would need to make significant changes to avoid a deficit next fiscal year, which starts July 2019.Rep. Brian Turner wants commissioners to fulfill the promise made to voters that the tax would address A-B Tech's facilities needs. He also suggested that the county work out a payment plan to offset the $15 million diverted to the county's general fund, create more transparent budgets, and transfer oversight of facilities from the county commission to community college trustees.Commissioner Mike Fryar wants a new vote on the tax to determine if citizens want it to continue. In 2013 and 2014, legislators limited sales tax referenda to even-number years, so the next opportunity for a referendum would be in 2020. To maximize voter turnout, lawmakers should take an additional step of limiting such votes to November elections.
The N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission is scheduled to meet 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 16, to consider and adopt rules for spirits sold and consumed in North Carolina.The N.C. ABC is seeing record profits, at the same time state some lawmakers are looking at moves to reform the arcane and monopolistic system. North Carolina is one of 17 control states in the country.Even more open states, such as Texas, are feeling pressure to modernize their systems to promote competition and economic growth."Even though more than 80 years have passed since the end of Prohibition, Texas in many ways still regulates the beverage alcohol industry as if we are still living in the 1930s,''Dale Szyndrowski, vice president of the Distilled Spirits Council, said in a news release. "While the Sunset Commission took some steps to bring Texas into the 21st century, we still have far to go."The Distilled Spirits Council, its website says, is the national trade association representing the leading producers and marketers of distilled spirits in the United States.Szyndrowski said.The Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, the release says, has approved recommendations to the 86th Texas Legislature on changes to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code.The Sunset commission was created by the Legislature in 1977 under the Texas Sunset Act to make state government more efficient, effective and accountable. The Sunset commission, composed of legislators and public members, periodically evaluates a state agency's mission and performance to determine if the agency is still needed and to explore ways to ensure the state funds are well spent, the release says.In North Carolina, state rules are either sunset - repealed - or are reviewed every 10 years.The Distilled Spirits Council recommends, for example, that Texas remove unconstitutional ownership restrictions for package stores, repeal antiquated "blue laws" that ban the retail sale of distilled spirits on Sundays, and update trade practices for distilled spirits to treat all industry players fairly.Some North Carolina lawmakers and most N.C. distillers have similar concerns.The N.C. ABC meeting is in ABC Commission Office Complex Hearing Room 101, 400 East Tryon Road in Raleigh.
There is a disabling disease going around; epidemiologists believe it hit sometime in the fall of 2016.No, I'm not talking about the Swine Flu, or the H1N1 or H3N2 virus strains, all three of which can be deadly if not caught and treated early enough. I'm talking about the derangement syndrome that causes once-ordinary, rational-thinking people to start speaking irrationally, to speak as if they haven't a single brain cell in their cranium, to spew obscenities, to engage in hate speech, to throw a tantrum when offended in any way, shape, or form, to shout robotically (like paid protesters) when a conservative speaks, to throw the word "racist" around like it was just another common adjective, to manage to turn every story and every bit of news into an occasion to bash Trump, to express their political views cloaked as "humor" (no one is fooled by that), to hate their country, to side with those who would do harm to the country, to think foreigners who have no entitlement to the jurisdiction or benefits of the United States have more rights than legal and other naturalized citizens, to make idle threats (such as, "I'm moving to Canada"), to demand that everything be free except speech, to wish harm on others (usually involving rape or something shoved in some orifice), to be willing to sacrifice traditionally-held human rights like the right to speech, conscience, religion, and firearms for the un-natural right not to be offended, to be willing to minimize or sacrifice most of the expressly-listed human rights in the Bill of Rights for one not listed (the unfettered right to an abortion), to demonize the historically-American right to the free exercise of one's religion (including the right to have it influence one's conscience) in order that persons living an alternative lifestyle (gays, lesbians, transgenders, cross-dressers, etc) not have to be confronted by the rationality of religious doctrine and natural law, and often, to wish death on others or to make death threats.I'm talking about Trump Derangement Syndrome. From what I can deduce so far, it is brought on by extreme hatred combined with a general inability to tolerate opposing viewpoints and especially an inability to deal with people in power who don't talk and think like them. TDS has hit all ranks of the Democratic Party, has hit nearly all liberals and progressives, is prevalent among the Deep State, and has infected some high-ranking and other Democratic members of Congress, such as crying Chuck Schumer (the crying over illegals while never crying over any American an illegal has killed gave his sickness away), Maxine Waters (a rock has more intelligence and inherent worth than Maxine; consistently voted the most corrupt member of Congress; she is a modern-day reverse KKK leader, and thinks Congress serves only one purpose - to impeach Donald Trump), Nancy Pelosi (another one whose intelligence and common sense is eclipsed by a rock), Bernie Sanders (an avowed socialist), Kamala Harris (a race baiter), Cory Booker (a race baiter and moron), Shiela Jackson (a race baiter), Elizabeth Warren (a liar, a misappropriator of an entitlement for a class of persons actually aggrieved by past US social policies, socialist), Keith Ellison (a Muslim race-baiter and hate-mongerer), willingly associated with the anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam), Diane Feinstein (so blinded by hatred that she helped hatch a scheme to subvert Judge Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings by springing unfounded accusations of sexual misconduct by Christine Blasey Ford), Richard Blumenthal (a liar and hypocrite), and others. Obama-era officials, especially with the DOJ and FBI, and other Deep State officials, such as James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, James Mueller, Andrew McCabe, Loretta Lynch, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and others (including Hillary Clinton), were so stricken that they funded opposition research on Trump by a known partisan ex-M16 intelligence agent, they fabricated information, created unfounded dossiers, tricked FISA court judges, obtained illegal FISA warrants, rigged the investigation against repeat criminal Hillary Clinton, initiated an investigation by Special Counsel (even though there was no underlying crime; essentially an investigation hoping to find a crime), unconscionably coerced members of Trump's campaign and indicted them on crimes that Clinton herself and other ranking Democrats themselves had committed, leaked classified government information, and in general, doing anything and everything possible to make good on their "insurance policy" which is to come up with grounds to impeach our duly-elected president.Every day, ordinary Americans, simply wanting to turn on the news (the mainstream news) to find out what good President Trump and Congress are doing on behalf of the country, its people, its business climate, and its world status, are confronted with nothing more than unfair accusations against Trump, personal political attacks against him, and an unrelenting stream of criticism of every single thing he says and every single thing he does. President Trump has done wonderful, historic things to improve the status of our country, the lives of its people, and the safety and security of our communities, and the results are often staggering, yet the mainstream media shows no decency to deliver such important news to the American people. This is yet another symptom of the Trump Derangement Syndrome.There is not a day goes by when ordinary people of sound mind and common sense are confronted with a case of TDS - whether it be on social media, in conversation with a diseased friend of family member, on the news, on any of the late night talk shows, in a google search, in print, in a rap song, a music video, on Saturday Night Live, on Comedy Central or other Celebrity Roast show, on an awards show, in an acceptance speech at a correspondence or awards show, on a college campus, in a liberal college or law school classroom, or at a Women's March or other liberal protest.Personally, I try to stay away from almost all those venues. But on social media, a conservative post will almost always attract an individual suffering from TSD. Most times, the individual will post an insult or explicative, reinforcing the horrible ravages of the disease, but sometimes - yes sometimes, they will try to address the post and offer their particular viewpoint. Most times, that viewpoint will reflect far-left ideology and an outright hostility to our country, our system of government, our Constitution, and our traditional values.I'd like to share with you one such example.Right before Christmas, my friend (and columnist) Stan Deatherage wrote a post on social media addressing the looming government shut-down, and the fact that President Trump is more than willing to allow it over funding for the wall.Here is what Stan wrote:I can't believe I am watching the Democrats shutting down the government a second time, since the election of Donald J. Trump, with their arguing point that they must politically "Resist" this President, regardless of the tangible damage committed to this nation.We see that at every turn: Democrats, who have voted for a wall and border security in the recent past, now continually advocate for "Open Borders" and an open abdication for the rule of law at every possible political point.Like it or not, this President knows his base of patriotic voters, and will follow their lead to secure our borders, and protect our people at home and abroad, just as passionately as the Democrat base advocates that their Liberal politicians create Open Borders to allow more supposed future voters beginning as illegal immigrants; abdication of national defense whenever possible in hopes of acceptance within the political trappings of the New World Order; and their complete defense and anxious acceptance of the accelerated growth of Socialism.Never in the history of this Constitutional Republican have two groups of base voters been more different. Democrats can blame President Donald J. Trump all they wish, but, if it was not this President, it would be another one who would stand up for the patriots that still inhabit this nation.It is my prayer that President Trump will not back down and stand for those patriots that know that securing our borders in a necessity for the continued sovereignty of this nation.I personally agree with Stan. Several of my previous articles outline my support for border control, including the most persuasive argument of all, which is that national security is probably the #1 responsibility of the federal government. Allowing people to pour into our country illegally and unaccounted for runs completely counter to our Constitution and our Rule of Law. There aren't a lot of things I feel I pay federal income taxes for (because the federal government doesn't actually provide me and my family with much) but I do feel that national security and safety together are the one true consolation I get - I SHOULD get - for the exorbitant amount of taxes I pay every April 15th. In fact, if the government ignores that one primary responsibility, I have a hard time believing I should have to pay taxes.Anyway, a Ms. Angela (full name withheld out of decency) responded to Stan's post with this with a typical liberal, Democrat, socialist comment:Frist of all, she makes the outrageous claim that walls don't work - that "history has proven this time and again." I don't know what history she is referring to, but I think most of us who can read books and who have paid attention to the news recognize that statement as "fake news."Let's look at some of the walls that work - that keep people out: First, we have the Israel-West Bank Wall (which is actually more a security fence). Almost immediately after it was constructed, in 2001-2002, the number of successful terror attacks in the Jewish state dropped by 90%). Second, we have the Berlin Wall, which effectively prevented any movement between East and West Berlin (mostly to keep East Berliners from leaving). Third, we have the Cyprus Wall, which, built in 1974 after Turkey invaded the island, divides Cyprus between the northern Turkish portion and the remaining Greek section. Fourth, we have the India-Pakistan Wall (actually a border fence and wall system), built by India to keep Pakistanis out. Thank God for that wall because nowhere else in the world could a simple border incident so quickly escalate into nuclear war. (That's a testament to how effective the wall is !!) Fifth, we have the Turkey-Syria Wall, which was built by Turkey during the 1990's to prevent an Kurdish militant insurgency. It worked very well, for over 15 years. It was only when Turkey's leader, Erdogan, removed many of the defenses and turned a blind eye to border security that the terrorism problem in Syria, with repercussions in Turkey as well, grew so great. Sixth, we have the Morocco-Algeria Wall, which was a 1,700-mile system of sand berms, fences, mine fields, and ditches built by Morocco to defend against Algerian terrorists. Like the others, it was an effective wall.There are other walls as well: Saudi Arabia just built a wall along its disputed border with Yemen to keep Yemeni-based terrorists out. India has a long-standing border fence with Bangladesh to prevent illegal immigration. Hungary is building a fence to protect its borders. Greece maintains a heavily protected border with Turkey. Spain fortifies its enclaves in Africa. [See Michael Rubin's article "The Places Where Walls Work" and the article by Simon Tomlinson, "World of Walls")And, of course, let's not forget Hadrian's Wall (73 miles of heavily fortified wall, in the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian), the wall around the Vatican, the wall erected at the Academy Awards (to keep the ordinary folk out so that Hollywood elite could lump praise on one another and party in privacy), the gated homes of celebrities (like the one Ryan Seacrest is buying from Ellen DeGeneres), and the gated communities that too many US Congressmen live in. Why do they have walls?? To keep those that don't belong out !As the organization, Legal Immigrants for America (LIFA), has long stated: "A nation without walls is not a nation, and a nation without borders is not a nation."Second of all, when she suggests that we use the $5 billion President Trump wants to fund the wall instead "to insure every American," she is really saying this: Those that can afford their own healthcare will still be forced to do so, and in fact, we'll ask them to pay more so that everyone else who can't afford healthcare insurance will be provided it for free. And because she wants the government to neglect the border and allow uncontrolled immigration, she suggests that hard-working, law-abiding, LEGAL Americans provide free healthcare for illegals as well.So, what she is suggesting is that we not only continue to allow anyone who wants to come here to do so, and by any means they can, but we should also provide more and more magnets to attract them here.In California, 73% of its illegal aliens are on welfare, other means-tested programs (such as Food Stamps, Housing Assistance, Federal Tax Credits), and on social programs. Nationally, 63% - 70% of all illegal aliens (non-citizens) are on welfare, other means-tested programs, and social programs. Of course, there is no way for the government to know exactly how many illegals are in our country (that's what "undocumented" means), and so their numbers admittedly are always on the low side. The number we are given, however, is 4.6 million illegal households that are on welfare. For those illegals in this country 10 years or more, the average is over 70%, which goes to show that once illegals go on welfare and get other "free stuff" (programs that citizens have to pay for), they tend to stay on them. [See Paul Bedard's article "Census Confirms 63 Percent of Non-Citizens on Welfare, 4.6 Million Households"]Put compassion aside, because laws are about right and wrong, and not about feelings or compassion or heartstrings. That is what volunteer organizations are for. Government and laws are designed to work for the benefit of legal members of society. Every country not only has limited resources (including tax dollars, because every government of a free people has the obligation to tax its people as little as possible) but has the sovereign right to control who enters the country and the right to know exactly who is entering the country. The rightful expectation of an American citizen is that government MUST enforce the laws that carry out the core functions delegated to it under the Constitution. If the government doesn't obey laws, why should its citizens?
It was Hilgers who led a debate on changing the legislative rules that used up many days of the 105th Legislature in 2017. Hilgers was one of three freshmen senators who  in an unprecedented move  were elected committee chairs (he got Rules Committee) in that Gang of 27 incident. He was also one of the Republicans who spoke long and loud about changing the committee elections to an open ballot. Opponents argued that they feared repercussions from the Governor and their own party if they crossed party lines to vote.

Given that Democrat Bolz had 23 votes with only 18 Democrats in the Legislature, that means that as many as five Republicans voted for her, or at least four if Independent Ernie Chambers voted for her. The same holds true for Democrat Vargas who had 26 votes. That means either eight Republicans or seven Republicans and Ernie voted for him.

There are two fewer Republicans in the Legislature this year and three more Democrats. Chambers is the lone Independent.
Government will investigate the money kept in foreign banks: PM Oli

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has said that the government will investigate into the money Nepalis have invested in offshore companies
Do you want to manage your remote workers effectively? If yes, you are in the right place. In this article,...
The federal government closed, as our President insists Congress provide $5.7 billion dollars to build a wall costing over $10 billion. People missing services or paychecks or expecting aid when retiring may find the Trump past enlightening.

In the spring of 1990 the Donald Trump empire was in dire financial trouble and stopped paying bills! 70 banks began foreclosure proceedings. Trump had claimed a net worth of $3 billion. The Kenneth Levanthal accounting firm investigated and reported the Trump net worth was a minus $295 million.

The New Jersey Casino Control Act required all owners to pay all bills in full when due. Consequently The Division of Gaming Enforcement of New Jersey also investigated and prepared an 111-page report  finding it was 10 times worse  the Trump business was $3.2 billion in the red!

If just one creditor moved against just one Trump property  all the others would follow  creating chaos.

The government stepped in and forced the banks to accept a deal which allowed Trump to pay the banks back less than he owned them. Then he borrowed another $60 million.
Free from brand Livias, formerly known as Livias Kitchen, has unveiled a range of vegan dipping cookies called Dunx.

Available in three variants  Caramel Almond Swirl, Peanut Butter & Jelly and Choco Hazel Crunch  Dunx is rolling into 600 Tesco Express stores nationwide from 18 February.

Each pack (rsp 1.79) contains three oat cookies and a pot of dipping sauce. Like other items in the brands portfolio, Dunx are vegan-friendly and gluten-, egg- and dairy-free.

Dunx is a really exciting launch for us as there really is nothing else like it on the market, said founder Olivia Wollenberg.

We know there is increasing demand for better-for-you indulgent treats that deliver on taste and that is what we always guarantee.

The launch follows a period of rapid growth for Livias, which also makes Raw Millionaire Bites and Biccy Bombs. Distribution has increased over the past year from 30 stores to more than 2,000.

To build on this the brand has also undergone a makeover with strong visuals and bright colours to create greater stand-out on shelf.

The new look marks a step change in our journey as we look to take the business to the next stage and appeal to a broader consumer base. Its not just the free-fromers that enjoy better-for-you alternatives and we are confident our new branding will help put a spotlight on our products and better communicate our range to anyone looking for an indulgent sweet treat, added Wollenberg.
Badaliyya is a movement based on the concept of BADAL (an Arabic word for "Substitution" or "Ransom". The inspiration comes from the "understanding" that interreligious relation, is primarily a movement of LOVE - a PASSIONATE LOVE that moves one to offer his/her life that others may have life and life to the full. It is a movement of self-expenditure... The model is Jesus Christ in the cross who paid the price by being a RANSOM for us! Bapa Eliseo "Jun" Mercado, OMI
The Tower

Israel, Egypt and five other governments have announced the formation of a regional organization devoted to the development of natural gas resources in Cairo, Reuters reported on Monday.

A statement from Egypts petroleum minister stated the governments would create a regional gas market that serves the interests of its members by ensuring supply and demand, optimizing resource development, rationalizing the cost of infrastructure, offering competitive prices and improving trade relations.

Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority are also involved in the new organization.

The goal of the multinational effort, according to Reuters, is to transform the Eastern Mediterranean into a major energy hub.

The Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum will use existing infrastructure and build new facilities to handle current and future gas discoveries. The overall goal, according to the statement, would be the establishment of a sustainable partnership between the actors at all stages of the gas industry.

Israels Minister of National Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources Dr. Yuval Steinitz made the first visit of an Israeli minister to Egypt since 2011 for the announcement of the forum.

I thank the Egyptian Minister of Petroleum for the invitation to visit Cairo, Steinitz said, referring to Tarek El-Molla. This is further proof that developing our offshore gas fields not only has economic and environmental results but also has major diplomatic and geopolitical significance. We are talking about the most significant ever economic cooperation between Egypt and Israel since the peace agreement was signed.

In February of last year, Egypt signed a $15 billion deal to buy natural gas from an Israeli company. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi said that his country scored a goal in making the deal.

Subsequently, the Israeli energy company, Delek, and several partners bought a stake in an Israeli-Egyptian gas pipeline for $518 million.

Separately, Israels natural gas discoveries have led to improving ties between the Jewish State and Greece and Cyprus.
We have different messages and try to make it fun and inviting so they can go home and tell their parents, Bassett said.

She explained that parents should be helping children up to age 7 brush twice and floss once each day, as well as encourage them to eat healthier foods to prevent sugar bugs  cavities  in their teeth.

These activities are so fun that children actually look forward to seeing the team and receiving treatments.

[The students] were kind of afraid at the beginning, but because [Smart Smiles has] been coming every year, three times a year, they know what theyre doing and they know what to expect. The girls are really friendly with the kids. They make them feel comfortable at all times, said Alejandra Flores, health aide and attendance clerk at Grand Canyon School.

Each year, the program uses its funding and in-kind donations such as toothbrushes, toothpaste and dental services from local businesses and larger companies like ADHS, Colgate and Crest to provide for as many students as possible. Williams and Bassett said they hope to do even more, for adults and children alike, in the coming years. Although $11,000 is just a portion of the overall need for dental care in Coconino County, it can go a long way to helping thousands of children receive the quality oral care they need.

Kaitlin Olson can be reached at the office at kolson@azdailysun.com or by phone at (928) 556-2253.

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Rapper Kanye West has donated $10 million to the ongoing construction of a major land art project at Roden Crater, 38 miles northwest of Flagstaff.

Artist James Turrell acquired the 3-mile-wide former volcano in 1977 in order to transform its inner cone into an observatory for experiencing solar and celestial phenomena.

The site is managed by Arizona State University, which is working with the artist to raise $200 million with the goal to have the project completed in the next five years. A visitor's center, restaurant and rental cabins are also planned for the site.

West toured Turrell's project in December 2018, and wrote that he was impressed on social media.

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Stone Canyon paid $925,000 for country station KOLT 107.5, The Wolf, The Big Talker and Rewind 92.5, which plays 80s hits out of Prescott.

Schwartz said had been hoping to buy the stations since 2005 when he was beat out by Grenax.

Despite going from owning 65 stations to four, Schwartz said owning the northern Arizona stations with such a wide range of listeners across such a large area is a major challenge in its own right.

One market is enough. Ive owned too many, for too long, Schwartz said.

Stone Canyon decided to revamp KOLT, the most popular of the four stations, when their data team came back with the statistic that contemporary country music is the most popular of the country genre in northern Arizona.

Besides switching from older country to more contemporary, KOLT will now play 1,000 songs in a row without ads and be more involved in the community, said Schwartz.

The other big change is that the station now has a morning show, which launched Thursday.

The show will be hosted by Pierce and Jenny Woodcock from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Pierce and Woodcock have known each other for over ten years as fellow broadcasters and already have a rapport.

The plan for the fun and light show is for it to be as listener-driven as possible, said Woodcock. Listeners will call in to spill on everything from the best cheeseburger in town to the worst gift theyve ever received, she said.

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Augustine invented the device in 1987, but he turned against it in the early 2000s and began selling a new device that warms patients without using forced-air. Augustine says the Bair Huggers forced-air blower creates warm air under an operating room table that rises, potentially carrying contaminated particles up from the floor to the region above a surgical wound.

The ruling says Augustine hired a law firm to promote non-forced-air warming systems like his newer device, and soon after the same law firm began representing clients suing 3M over the Bair Hugger. It also says Augustine was warned by a court in Germany to stop making false claims the Bair Hugger increased bacterial contamination in operating rooms, and that Augustine funded the most critical study of the Bair Hugger to date, which is generally known as the McGovern study.

The ruling also sided with 3M in dismissing a request for punitive damages. The plaintiffs had asked the ability to sue for punitive damages against 3M, saying the company had disregarded patient safety by ignoring peer-reviewed articles that raised questions about the Bair Huggers safety. The appeals court agreed that the plaintiffs had not offered enough evidence to support that claim.
Have you ever had a girlfriend that liked to dress up as a sexy French maid and be at your submissive beck and call? Or perhaps had a real life horny French maid pleasure you in ways you can barely imagine? Well with DDFNetwork VR, users can have the close to real life immersive "French Maid Fantasy" experience with Ukrainian teen porn star Lena Reif as their own personal nympho French maid who wants nothing more than to please them and to show gratitude by way of pleasure.

Users can watch in 5K 3D virtual reality ultra-clear quality, as the barely legal babe serves you in the sexiest of cosplay attire, tiny lingerie top and micro mini skirt so short that she doesn't need to bend over for you to see very clearly she has no panties on underneath, courtesy of Le Frivole. It won't be long before she performs the real XXX duties you hired her for. With the added binaural sound, users will hear the ecstatic mews and moans of the sex kitten above as she rides in cowgirl or below in missionary as well.

Lena Reif was one of the youngest newcomers when she joined the adult industry last year at eighteen years of age and she has been busy rocking the porn world since, shooting everything from soft to hardcore, from photo shoots to virtual reality porn videos. In fact, she made her DDF Network debut as blood-thirsty and sex-starved Dracula's daughter on DDFNetwork VR, DDF's premium porn site dedicated to VR Porn. Many know her as a Vixen and Blacked glamour model, but the brunette beauty is also a self-proclaimed "simple girl" who likes to stay fit by dancing and going to the gym. She is also social media savvy, video blogging and keeping her Twitter and Instagram fans up to date regularly. She now also has a private Snapchat account where fans are treated to special erotic shows.

Although it may seem cliche, the French maid costume has proven time and time again to be a cosplay favoriteand what could be hotter and cause more of a stirring than Lena Reif as a French maid to play with to your heart's desire? So be her boss and take charge of the action in POV 3D VR porn, or enjoy watching her serve another in 2D voyeur format on Hands on Hardcore instead. It's all courtesy of DDF Network.
Dr KC admitted in ICU at Maharajgunj teaching hospital

Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital senior orthopedic surgeon Dr Govinda KC, who has been staging a hunger strike in Ilam, has been brought to Kathmandu on Thursday night.
MONTREALManyVids loves their MV Boys and had a blast hosting the first MV Boys edition of the MV Loft with MV Boys pierrefitch, Pierce Paris, Ian Greene & ManuelSkyeXXX.

ManyVids is excited to continue supporting this community as the presenting sponsor of this years GayVN Awards held Monday, January 21 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. MV Boy ManuelSkyeXXX will be on hand at the red carpet to get candid interviews with the biggest names in the gay adult industry.

What have you always wanted to know about the MV Boys? MV dared them to answer some bold questions for the MV Boys Talk vid available here.

The MV Boys exclusive edition of the MV Mag is coming soon.
SAN FRANCISCOFalcon Studios Group's first big Falcon feature of 2019, Beach Rats of Lauderdale, may also be its most controversial, since it's the studio's first bareback feature in 30 years. Award-winning director Tony Dimarco takes eight hung and horny hunks, including Falcon Exclusive Devin Franco, on this sun-soaked bareback blockbuster adventure. The new release is now available on DVD and VOD and download at the Falcon Studios Group Store.

T Beach Rats of Lauderdale stars all-new Falcon Exclusive Devin Franco, with fan favs Manuel Skye, Roman Todd, Michael Delray, JJ Knight, Vadim Black, Myles Landon, and Scott Demarco.

Whether theyre looking to score some weed or hook up on the DL, the Beach Rats of Lauderdale will do whatever it takes to get some. When Lauderdale is dry with no weed in sight, one of the Beach Rats hatches a plan to score big. Its risky for the group but the venture pays off. Viewers will follow this group of studs on a raw, wild, sexually-charged ride around the seedy side of South Florida. The Beach Rats of Lauderdale delivers intrigue and intensity, along with plenty of big bare cocks, eager asses and hungry mouths to keep you coming back for more. Hard on himself up for being a part of the criminal plan, Devin Franco seeks refuge in an intense fuck with an aggressive hot daddy, Myles Landon, to forget his troubles. Weed dealer Manuel Skye makes it clear that Roman Todd wont get any weed unless he puts out. Beach Rat Michael Delray runs into his buddy, Vadim Black, while skateboarding. Vadim sees what Michael is holding, and he wants some bud. Vadim makes a move while they toke, and Michael spills the info. With his newfound knowledge, Vadim concocts a plan to steal the weed from Devin Franco. Vadim gets his pal Scott Demarco to cruise Devin on the beach and lead him to a park, where Devin happily gets on his knees. Scott makes off with Devins backpack of weed, while Devin is finishing off Vadim. Devin ends up in a highway rest stop where hung stud JJ Knight fills Devin's ass. When the restroom door opens one final time, Devin finds his fate hanging in the balance. What will happen to the Beach Rats of Lauderdale?

Heading down to Ft. Lauderdale with my cast and team to film Beach Rats of Lauderdale was a major highlight in my directing career, stated director Tony Dimarco. For this amazing feature, we assembled an exceptional cast to bring all of this beachside sexiness to life. All these guys are not only handsome and talented sexually, but they are great actors who delivered outstanding performances.

This is a polished film filled with suspense, thrills, beach hunks and weed, said Falcon Studios Group President Tim Valenti. I grew up on the beach and I knew guys like this: The hustlers, the guys just looking for a fun time, the beach rats with good intentions and bad judgment, and the shady characters who took advantage of every opportunity. Of course, there's the amazing sex and that's part of a healthy beach life too.

For DVD wholesale purchasing, contact John Gunderson ([email protected]). Contact Toby J Morris ([email protected]) for additional image assets, information and access to the Falcon Studios Group Media FTP.
The Owasco Lake Watershed Inspection Program submits monthly inspection reports to The Citizen in an effort to provide the public with information on surveillance and violations. For additional details or information on the inspection programs projects, inspections and the watersheds rules and regulations, visit owascoinspection.org or call (315) 427-5188.

December 2018

 Village of Groton, Route 38 (West South Street): While conducting routine inspections of the Owasco Inlet, staff discovered a suspicious substance with and appearance of solidified grease, on the bank of a stream flowing into the Owasco Inlet. Further investigation about the site determined the historical land use was a municipal landfill. Documentation was submitted to DEC Division of Materials Management for further site assessment. Additional information about the substance will be forthcoming.

 Town of Fleming (West Lake Road): A report of a late season algae bloom along the west side of Owasco was investigated. A stretch of shoreline near Stone School Road was inspected. It was determined the green-colored water was isolated to approximately 400 feet of shoreline. After further analysis, staff identified the coloration was from decomposing aquatic plant fragments washing ashore from wave action. No violations issued.
Beginning Saturday evening, Centro will suspend bus service in the city of Auburn due to a winter storm that will impact upstate New York this weekend.

Centro announced that at 6 p.m. Saturday, all bus service in Auburn will be suspended. The last commuter trip operating to and from Syracuse will operate, according to a news release.

The agency will resume its regular bus service on Sunday, weather permitting.

Bus service in other cities will be affected. In Syracuse, Centro will begin operating on a snow route at 6 p.m. Saturday. Buses will run on the snow route until further notice.

Centro will also suspend bus service in Oswego and Utica beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday. For Oswego, the last commuter trip to and from Syracuse will operate.

Regular service will resume Sunday in Oswego and Monday in Utica, weather permitting.

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A: I know that one of your previous interviewees told you the story of President Lincoln and his love for cats. But there is another president who had an enormous love of cats, and that was President Calvin Coolidge. At any given time he had at least four cats in the White House. When one of his favorites, Tiger, escaped through an open door, the president enlisted every resource at his disposal to search for Tiger, even the military. The wayward cat was found at the Navy Yard, just a short distance from the White House. So, being the cat lover that he was, I would have liked to have made President Coolidge's acquaintance.

Q: If you could visit any place in the world, where would that be?

A: I am certainly up for a road trip to just about anywhere. However, my mode of transportation will not include riding in the wheel well of a van. I would prefer a nice, cozy carrier lined with a fleece blanket in the backseat of a warm car. Thank you very much for asking!

Q: Do you have an interesting fact to share?
New York officials are preparing for a major winter storm which is expected to impact much of the state, including Cayuga County, this weekend.

A winter storm warning has been issued for nearly all of New York from midday Saturday until Sunday afternoon. Snowfall totals could reach up to two feet in some areas. In Cayuga County and central New York, as much as 14 inches of snow is expected.

Wind gusts of 35 mph will cause blowing snow and could create hazardous travel conditions. The New York State Police has urged motorists to avoid any unnecessary travel.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo held a storm briefing Friday to provide an update on the state's preparations for the storm. He called the storm "dangerous" because there are high snowfall totals expected over a large geographic area of the state. Usually when storms impact New York, the severe weather is limited to one or a few regions and the state transfers resources from unaffected areas.

"We will be stretched in terms of resources and materials, and we won't have the ability to do the regional isolation," Cuomo said.

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A woman is being accused of trying to sexually assault a caregiver after pretending to be a twin sister with autism.

Rachel Childs, 29, of Texas allegedly lied to a caregiver telling the woman she would be looking after Ms Childs twin sister, KHOU 11 reports.

She told her she had a twin sister with autism, instructing the carer before to pick up the twin and take her home for the night.

Ms Childs added she wouldnt be home when the caregiver came to pick her sister up, Pearland.com reported.

Rachel Childs, 29, is accused of pretending to have autism to try and sexually assault a caregiver. Source: Pearland Police Department

The caregiver alleges the twin engaged in sexually orientated conduct. She added Ms Childss actions didnt seem like those of an autistic person.

She also looked into Ms Childs background and found shes an only child, police said.

Police said Ms Childs lied about having a twin and about autism so she could commit sexual acts with the caregiver.

Shes been charged with burglary of a habitation with intent to commit assault and indecent exposure.

The department added others could have been victims who may have been deceived by Ms Childs doing something similar and has encouraged them to come forward.

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Dang rape convict arrested after 10 years

A man convicted of gang-raping a girl at Bijouri in Dang district has been arrested after 10 years.
South Africa's Daryl Impey surged into contention to defend his Tour Down Under title with a thrilling win ahead of race leader Patrick Bevin in Adelaide on Friday. The Mitchelton-Scott rider claimed the fourth stage to move to second overall just seven seconds behind New Zealand's Bevin (CCC Team) with two stages left in the UCI season-opening world tour event in South Australia. Impey gave his hopes of becoming the first rider to go back-to-back in the race's 21-year history a massive boost with his stage victory. Astana's Leon Luis Sanchez went early but was caught by Impey and Bevin in the last 20 metres to finish third on the 129.2-kilometre (80-mile) stage through the Adelaide Hills from Unley to Campbelltown. "I'm so stoked to have done something like this, it's so special," Impey said. "I knew if I lined up Paddy Bevin, I'd have a good shot at winning, so I'm super-happy to win today." The stage featured the challenging Corkscrew Road ascent as a final test some six kilometres from the finish. Wout Poels (Team Sky), George Bennett (Team Jumbo-Visma), Richie Porte(Trek-Segafredo) and Michael Woods (EF-Education First) attacked on the final climb. But they were caught by the chasing bunch, led by Impey and Bevin, on the descent resulting in an exciting 20-rider finish. Poels, Bennett, Porte and Woods announced themselves as the top climbers ahead of Sunday's challenging final stage at Willunga, where the Tour winner will be anointed. "It's (points lead) still not a huge buffer," Bevin said. "Those four (Porte, Bennett, Woods and Poels) showed themselves as the best pure climbers in this race, but this race fortunately is about being an all-rounder. "Basically you've got to sprint better than the climbers and climb better than the sprinters." Australia's Jason Lea (UniSA-Australia) retained the King of the Mountain jersey after stage four from Bennett and Italy's Manuele Boaro (Astana Pro Team). Former triple world champion Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe) fell back in race contention following Thursday's stage win and finished 29th in Friday's leg to be 20th overall. Bevin took over the sprint leader's jersey by 12 points from Sagan and Sanchez. Saturday's Stage 5 over 149.5 kilometres begins in Glenelg and finishes in Strathalbyn. South Africa's Daryl Impey gave his hopes of becoming the first rider to go back-to-back in the race's 21-year history a massive boost with his fourth stage victory The peloton arrives in Stirling on the 129.2-kilometre (80-mile) stage four through the Adelaide Hills from Unley to Campbelltown
A former stalwart of Singapore's long-ruling government and ex-presidential candidate said Friday he is seeking to form a new party ahead of elections expected as early as this year. Analysts said the move by Tan Cheng Bock, who almost beat the ruling party's de facto candidate in the 2011 presidential race, could represent a challenge to the government's dominance of the political system. The People's Action Party (PAP) has ruled the affluent city-state since 1959 and has a tight grip on power. The forthcoming election, which they are widely expected to win, must be held by 2021 -- but speculation is mounting it will be this year. The move by former PAP lawmaker Tan will heap extra pressure on the government, however, with the poll coming at a sensitive time as the country's founding Lee family prepares to hand over the premiership to a new generation of leaders. Announcing he had applied Wednesday to register the new group, called the "Progress Singapore Party", Tan said the move was out of a "sense of duty" to address concerns of ordinary Singaporeans. He said 12 people had filed the application, including other former ruling party members. "Over the years a group of us have been walking the ground, meeting many Singaporeans from all walks of life," said the medical doctor, 78, in a statement. "We held group discussions and conversations with many, listening to their concerns, hearing their fears and feeling their pain." Lee Morgenbesser, a Southeast Asia expert from Griffith University in Australia, said the move was "significant, mainly because Tan Cheng Bock has been such an influential PAP figure". "It could provide a legitimate alternative to the PAP," he said, but cautioned this was unlikely to happen immediately. If approved, the party will join a handful of other opposition groups who have made little headway against the PAP. The Workers' Party is the only to hold any seats in parliament -- they have won six, compared to the ruling party's 82. Under the PAP, Singapore has become one of the world's wealthiest societies and the party still enjoys solid support. But critics accuse them of tactics such as gerrymandering and seeking to bankrupt opponents through civil lawsuits to maintain their hold on power. Singaporean presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bock (2nd-L) greeting his supporters in 2011 when he stood as candidate of the presidential elections in Singapore
A Belarusian model who claimed she had proof of Russian collusion with the Trump election campaign was in custody Friday after police "dragged" her from a transit zone in Moscow's airport, her lawyer told AFP. Anastasia Vashukevich, known as Nastya Rybka, was in jail in southern Moscow after being detained with several others at the airport. They flew in after being deported from Thailand where they had spent a year in prison for participating in a "sex training course". A Russian lawyer representing Vashukevich branded the arrest an "international scandal," saying his client had "committed no crimes" and was planning to travel on to Belarus. Instead she was "moved from the transit zone onto the Russian territory by unidentified law enforcement employees," said Dmitry Zatsarinsky. He said employees in civilian clothes "dragged her out of the transit zone" and added that he was planning to lodge an official complaint. Zatsarinsky posted a video on his Instagram that shows five or six men trying to force a young woman resembling Vashukevich into a wheelchair as she tries to break free. They then abandon their efforts and simply carry her through what appear to be one-way double doors typically used in airports. Vashukevich was convicted in Thailand earlier this week after nearly a year in jail following her arrest in a seaside resort of Pattaya. She pleaded guilty to multiple charges including soliciting and illegal assembly. Vashukevich was a part of a group participating in a seminar led by Russian self-styled seduction guru Alex Kirillov. The court convicted her and seven co-defendants. She had travelled to Thailand after sparking a political scandal when she posted a video allegedly showing tycoon Oleg Deripaska and an influential Russian deputy prime minister relaxing on a yacht. Deripaska later sued her for invasion of privacy. While in Thai custody, she claimed she had information about alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections and pleaded for US help, fearing prosecution in Russia. Zatsarinsky said that some people in the group had been deported to Belarus via Ukraine, rather than Russia, and faced no problems at the airport in Kiev. Russian police late Thursday confirmed Russian and Belarusian citizens were detained in Sheremetyevo airport on arrival from Thailand as part of an ongoing probe into "coercing into prostitution." On Friday morning, two men and two women remained in police custody, the interior ministry said, Russian agencies reported. Vashukevich was a part of a group participating in a seminar led by Russian self-styled seduction guru Alex Kirillov
A rocket carrying a satellite on a mission to deliver the world's first artificial meteor shower blasted into space on Friday, Japanese scientists said. A start-up based in Tokyo developed the micro-satellite for the celestial show over Hiroshima early next year as the initial experiment for what it calls a "shooting stars on demand" service. The satellite is to release tiny balls that glow brightly as they hurtle through the atmosphere, simulating a meteor shower. It hitched a ride on the small-size Epsilon-4 rocket that was launched from the Uchinoura space centre by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on Friday morning. The rocket carried a total of seven ultra-small satellites that will demonstrate various "innovative" technologies, JAXA spokesman Nobuyoshi Fujimoto told AFP. By early afternoon, JAXA confirmed all seven satellites had successfully been launched into orbit. "I was too moved for words," Lena Okajima, president of the company behind the artificial meteor showers, told the Jiji Press agency. "I feel like now the hard work is ahead." The company ALE Co. Ltd plans to deliver its first out-of-this-world show over Hiroshima in the spring of 2020. The satellite launched Friday carries 400 tiny balls whose chemical formula is a closely-guarded secret. That should be enough for 20-30 events, as one shower will involve up to 20 stars, according to the company. ALE's satellite, released 500 kilometres (310 miles) above the Earth, will gradually descend to 400 kilometres over the coming year as it orbits the Earth. - Worldwide meteor shower shows - The company plans to launch a second satellite on a private-sector rocket in mid-2019. ALE says it is targeting "the whole world" with its products and plans to build a stockpile of shooting stars in space that can be delivered across the world. When its two satellites are in orbit, they can be used separately or in tandem, and will be programmed to eject the balls at the right location, speed and direction to put on a show for viewers on the ground. Tinkering with the ingredients in the balls should mean that it is possible to change the colours they glow, offering the possibility of a multi-coloured flotilla of shooting stars. Each star is expected to shine for several seconds before being completely burned up -- well before they fall low enough to pose any danger to anything on Earth. They would glow brightly enough to be seen even over the light-polluted metropolis of Tokyo, ALE says. If all goes well, and the skies are clear, the 2020 event could be visible to millions of people, it says. Okajima has said her company chose Hiroshima for its first display because of its good weather, landscape and cultural assets. The western Japan city rose from the ashes after the 1945 US atomic bombing and faces the Seto Inland sea where the floating gate of Itsukushima Shrine is. ALE is working in collaboration with scientists and engineers at Japanese universities as well as local government officials and corporate sponsors. It has not disclosed the price for an artificial meteor shower. The milky way and meteors of the April Lyrids annual meteor shower in the night sky over the Baltic Sea Lena Okajima, CEO of a space technology venture ALE is hoping to deliver shooting stars on demand and choreograph the cosmos The annual Perseid meteor shower -- seen here over eastern France -- is a highlight for sky-watchers A multiple exposure picture of the Perseids meteor shower, seen over Spain
Drivers in NSW are being urged to take care as a record-breaking heatwave reaches such extremes that roads in some parts of the state are starting to melt.

Towns in the states upper west, including White Cliffs, Borrona Downs and Tibooburra Airport, saw temperatures again exceed 45 degrees on Friday, as more records threaten to break.

Ivanhoe and Menindee in the far west are forecast to reach as high on 48 on Friday. Meanwhile it was reported bitumen on the Oxley Highway near Wauchope started to melt about midday on Thursday.

The extreme temperatures are reflected in the latest heatmap where dark shades of black are now visible, showing areas that are above 46 degrees.

The temperatures in some parts of the country are so high, the heat maps are turning shades of black. Image: Windy TV

Parts of the Oxley Highway near Wauchope have started to melt. Image: Facebook/Rene Snyman

Sydneys CBD is expected to reach a more bearable 34, but in the citys west, suburbs including Penrith are tipped to climb past 40 degrees.

Broken Hill and Canberra are slated for their fourth day in a row of days above 45 and 40 respectively  neither of which has happened since records began in those regions.

Spare a thought for those at the Tamworth Music Festival, which starts on Friday, when fans will swelter through temperatures in the low 40s.

If youre camping, it could be quite unpleasant in the tent, the Bureau of Meteorologys Anita Pyne said.

Health authorities are urging people to take extra care and keep hydrated during the heat, especially the elderly and children.

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Adelaide beachgoers launch themselves from a jetty to escape the heat. Image: AAP

Temperatures have reached an 80-year high in some areas. Source: AAP

Those with heart conditions are also being warned about the dangers during the heatwave, as dehydration can reduce the amount of blood around the body.

For people with heart disease and those who are at high risk of a heart attack, these changes can overwhelm the heart and could even result in a heart attack, Heart Foundation NSW chief executive Kerry Doyle said in a statement.

But some relief is on the cards for southern and central NSW, as a cooler change pushes through on Friday night and into Saturday morning.

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The air thats coming through will still be above average temperatures but considering how hot its been lately, it will be a cool relief, Ms Pyne said.

Story continues

Total fire bans are in place across much of central NSW, stretching from the Victorian border to Queensland.

The NSW Rural Fire Service is already battling nearly 70 fires across the state.

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Twenty years ago Jean-Marc Michaud was a paratrooper who proudly marched with the army down the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris on France's national holiday. But these days, the 41-year-old former French soldier, who lost an eye to a rubber bullet during a "yellow vest" protest in Bordeaux last weekend, is "no longer proud of France at all," he told AFP. Michaud is one of dozens of protesters who have been seriously injured in clashes with police, whose sometimes heavy-handed tactics, particularly their use of 40-mm (1.6-inch) rubber projectiles and stun grenades, have drawn mounting criticism. The "yellow vest" protests that erupted last year over fuel taxes have broadened into weekly demonstrations across France against President Emmanuel Macron, sometimes spiralling into violent clashes with police. The "Disarm" collective, a local group that campaigns against police violence, has documented 98 cases of serious injuries since the first nationwide protests on November 17, including 15 cases of people losing an eye. The leftwing Liberation daily counted 77 people with serious head injuries, 71 caused by rubber bullets and others by stun grenades. In one incident that caused widespread outrage, a volunteer fireman and father of three suffered a stroke on January 10 after being hit in the head in Bordeaux, apparently by a rubber bullet. Video footage of the incident, which was widely shared on social media, showed an officer firing at a group of retreating protesters, his rifle aimed at head level. The footage then showed Olivier Beziade lying face down on the ground a few metres away, his back to the police. A rubber bullet was found at his feet. "He was less than 10 metres away and they shot him in the head, there is no way that can be a mistake," his wife Cindy told AFP. Last week, a 15-year-old was hit in the face in the eastern city of Strasbourg, also apparently by a rubber bullet. A video showed the shocked teen pressing a cloth to his bloodied cheek. - 'Weapon of war'- France's official police oversight body has received over 200 reports of police violence, though it has not given a breakdown of the cases. The mounting list of injured has led to heightened scrutiny of police crowd-control techniques, long seen by some experts as aggravating tensions between the state and citizens in a country with a culture of violent protests. On Thursday, France's human rights ombudsman Jacques Toubon called for a suspension on the use of the so-called defence ball launchers (LBDs) that shoot the rubber rounds -- a call echoed by Olivier Fillieule, a researcher on security at Lausanne University in Switzerland. "France is about the only country, apart from two German states and Spain's Guardia Civil, that uses LBDs in policing, with the terrible consequences we see which are unacceptable in a democracy," Fillieule told AFP, calling it "a weapon of war if used at point-blank range". The police and government have defended the use of rubber bullets. "We're being attacked with glass bottles, cinder blocks, acid and bolts. An LBD is the weapon that scares people. If they took them away from us, no officer will want to work during the protests," a police source told AFP. - Anti-police vitriol - Several incidents of officers being attacked by protesters have led to a hardening of the battle lines. In one of most serious incidents, three officers on motorcycles had to make a hasty getaway after being pelted with electric scooters, paving stones and other objects on the Champs-Elysees on December 22. One officer was knocked over with his bike, prompting another officer to briefly draw and point his gun at their attackers before retreating. Under their rules of engagement, officers are allowed use rubber bullets "only in cases of absolute necessity", where they are "strictly proportional" to the situation, are fired at least 10 metres from their target and aimed below the neck. But the large number of head injuries among protesters suggests the rules are not always followed, fuelling the vitriol of the yellow vests who are frequently heard shouting "CRS collabos" (riot police are collaborators). Interior Minister Christophe Castaner this week brushed aside criticism of the force. "I have never seen a policeman or gendarme attacking a protester," he declared, despite a police captain being caught on camera on January 4 chasing and beating protesters in the southern city of Toulon. But national police chief Eric Morvan, in a note to the troops this week, reminded them that the use of rubber bullets had to be proportional and could "only target the torso and lower limbs". burs-cb/js/pma The mounting list of injured has led to heightened scrutiny of the police's crowd-control techniques The "yellow vest" protests that erupted over fuel taxes have broadened into weekly rallies against President Emmanuel Macron in towns across France, sometimes ending in violent clashes with police The police and government have defended the use of rubber bullets, saying officers are attacked with glass bottles, cinder blocks, acid and bolts Several incidents of officers being attacked by protesters have led to ahardening of the battle lines
DR Congo rebuked the African Union on Friday over its calls to suspend the announcement of final results from presidential elections, insisting that the Constitutional Court assessing the vote's legality was impartial. The court is urgently hearing an appeal over the outcome of the December 30 vote to choose a successor to long-serving President Joseph Kabila, with runner-up Martin Fayulu claiming he was cheated of victory. "The court is independent, both of us and the African Union," government spokesman Lambert Mende said. "I don't think it is the business of the government or even of the African Union to tell the court what it should do." At a summit in Addis Ababa, AU leaders announced late Thursday that they would dispatch envoys to Kinshasa in a bid to end the crisis. AU commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, currently the AU chairman, are expected to fly in on Monday. The African leaders said there were "serious doubts" about the vote's provisional results. They called for the announcement of the final results to be suspended -- a matter currently in the hands of the Constitutional Court, which must issue a ruling ahead of the scheduled swearing-in of the next president on Tuesday. Mende said bluntly: "I don't know if there are countries where people can interfere like that in a legal procedure. "The court will do what is right for showing the truth. We should all trust it," he said. In a statement the European Union said it joined the AU in inviting "all the Congolese players to work constructively with this (AU) delegation to find a post-electoral solution which respects the Congolese people's vote". - Appeal - On January 10, the electoral commission declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi provisional winner with 38.57 percent of the vote against Fayulu's 34.8 percent. But Fayulu, who has hailed the AU's stance, denounced the figures as an "electoral coup" forged by Tshisekedi and Kabila, and filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court a day later. He claims he won with 61 percent of the vote. The Financial Times and other foreign media have reported seeing documents that confirm Fayulu as the winner. "If the court declares Tshisekedi victor, the risk of isolation would be enormous and untenable for a country positioned right in the middle of the continent," wrote Adeline Van Houtte of the Economist Intelligence Unit on Twitter. Fayulu's camp hailed the AU appeal for the final result to be put on hold, but Tshisekedi's entourage lashed it as "scandalous." And his lawyer and deputy chief of staff Peter Kazadi denounced the AU's appeal as having "no legal basis." It was, he said, the result of manoeuvering by "a small number of countries," which he did not name, and "shamed the institution" of the AU. - Fears of violence - The dispute has raised fears that the political crisis that began when Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional term in office two years ago, could turn into a bloodbath. The vast and chronically unstable country lived through two regional wars in 1996-97 and 1998-2003, and the previous two elections, in 2006 and 2011, were marred by bloody clashes. The AU has taken the firmest line of all major international bodies with regard to the post-election crisis. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a bloc that includes Angola and South Africa, initially called for a recount and a unity government. But in a later communique, it made no mention of those demands, instead calling on Congolese politicians to "address any electoral grievances in line with the Democratic Republic of Congo's Constitution and relevant electoral laws". Kagame's visit as part of the AU delegation could complicate matters, analysts say. Rwanda backed the 1997 ouster of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko by Kabila's father, Laurent-Desire Kabila, but then changed allies. Sporadic clashes occurred last year on the border between the two neighbours. "I doubt Kagame's credibility, given his qualities as a democrat," Kazadi said. The crisis has stoked fears of a bloodbath in a notoriously unstable country DR Congo's electoral commission declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi provisional winner of the presidential election The Constitutional Court is deliberating on an appeal by Martin Fayulu, who says he was clear victor in the December 30 vote Rwandan President Paul Kagame will fly to Kinshasa on Monday with the head of the AU commission Combative: Fayulu has appealed to the Constitutional Court on the elections's provisional result -- an "electoral coup," he says, that was plotted by Tshisekedi and Kabila
Organisers of next week's annual Davos conclave put on a brave face Friday after US President Donald Trump withdrew his entire delegation, insisting the forum still had plenty of political and corporate firepower in its debating armoury. Trump himself had already pulled out of attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) for a second year, having shut down the US government over his demands for Congress to fund a wall on the Mexican border. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US trade chiefs had been slated to attend the WEF instead, alongside other heavy hitters such as Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, as Beijing and Washington try to negotiate a truce to their trade war. But the White House announced the cancellation of the delegation's trip to the Swiss Alps "out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay". In Trump's absence, Brazil's new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, will grab the Davos limelight when he outlines his economic agenda in a keynote address during his first trip abroad since taking office earlier this month. - 'Globalisation 4.0' - The week of networking and socialising kicks off Monday and will feature an eclectic lineup of discussions devoted to issues such as mindful parenting in the digital age, chronic loneliness, and harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) without destroying jobs. It is expected to draw some 3,000 political and business figures, including 65 government leaders from Germany, Israel, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. It begins with a report card on the world economy from the International Monetary Fund. In a statement, the WEF said it understood the White House reasoning and stressed that other governments together representing one-quarter of global GDP would still be represented. "With more than 800 participants from the US, including the leaders of top global companies across all sectors based in the US, we feel that the meeting is well placed to be a platform for relevant discussions on Globalisation 4.0," it said. That refers to WEF founder Klaus Schwab's belief that despite the upsurge of angry populism in many countries, a new era of globalisation driven by AI and other technological advances is upon us. But Schwab, the forum's 80-year-old executive chairman, also said the elite gathering needs to reflect on the "losers" of globalisation and find ways to look after "those who have been left behind". The "left behinds" figured heavily in the anti-establishment wave that in 2016 powered Britain's referendum decision to quit the European Union. Brexit is meant to take effect on March 29. There will be a chill in Davos about the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal in place, after Prime Minister Theresa May's preferred divorce terms were roundly defeated in parliament. May will be another Davos no-show as she tries to unpick the deadlock in London, but International Trade Secretary Liam Fox will make the trip to try to sell a post-Brexit future for Britain. Another absentee is President Emmanuel Macron, who has been grappling with French-style populism in the form of the "yellow vest" movement. "With Brexit, trade wars and populism -- politics is totally driving the (Davos) discussion this year when usually it's economics that drives the politics. Amazing times," a senior European diplomat told AFP. - War on corruption - In advance of the meetings, a WEF survey this week found the Davos community worried most about climate change among sources of political and economic anxiety. The survey highlighted fears of extreme weather patterns and the risk of disruption in an array of sectors including transport and logistics. On cue, heavy snowfall and deadly avalanches have hit the Alps this week, cutting off the train line to Davos at one point. But like Trump, Bolsonaro is a climate change sceptic. His pro-business agenda and appointment of a like-minded rightwinger as environment minister have done nothing to ease concerns about deforestation in the Amazon. The new leader of Latin America's largest economy will speak in Davos on Tuesday. He has vowed to showcase "a different Brazil, free of ideological ties and widespread corruption". Bolsonaro has also echoed Trump in bashing China, even as the world's second-biggest economy boosts Brazilian farm imports -- sourced in part from cleared Amazon lands -- as an alternative to US commodities in the midst of Trump's trade war. "Bolsonaro's history doesn't suggest he's going to be a fervent adopter of the World Economic Forum's mantra of cross-border, stakeholder cooperation," Douglas Rediker, chairman of International Capital Strategies in Washington, said in a phone interview. However, Bolsonaro will be accompanied by his US-educated economy minister, Paulo Guedes, who speaks the kind of investment-friendly language that is music to Davos ears. A WEF survey this week found the Davos community worried most about climate change among sources of political and economic anxiety Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will be making his first trip abroad since taking office this month
China roped in for oil and gas drilling

The government has decided to allow China to carry out exploration of natural gas and petroleum in different parts of the country,
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Pacific charm offensive went off course on Friday when he was forced to defend Fiji's accusations of inaction over climate change. As Morrison pushed Canberra's message of a new Pacific focus with increased security and enhanced trade opportunities, he was called out by Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, who turned the spotlight onto climate change. Bainimarama said if Australia shifted away from its coal and mining industries it would help the survival of Pacific island countries threatened by rising sea levels. "From where we are sitting, we cannot imagine how the interests of any single industry can be placed above the welfare of Pacific peoples and vulnerable people in the world over," Bainimarama said in a speech late Thursday. "Rising seas threaten whole communities, forcing them to endure the trauma of relocating from land they've endured for generations. "Fijian farmers are watching their crops perish in soil that has been spoiled by the heightened salinity that is associated with sea level rise." Morrison, wrapping up a three-day visit to Fiji and Vanuatu, told reporters on Friday that Australia had commitments on emissions reductions in a "comprehensive response" to climate change, but he gave no specifics on clean energy plans. "Well, we are already pursuing those policies in a way that I believe is consistent with what (Bainimarama) is expecting of Australia," the prime minister said. "They were discussions we had yesterday, and we have been having very positive discussions about our future investments in this area." Morrison stressed the importance of the Pacific to Australia at a time China is increasing its presence in the region. He avoided any mention of China, but in a keynote speech in Suva he spoke of strengthening "defence and security co-operation" in the region. He also reaffirmed Canberra's commitment to extending trade opportunities in the Pacific, where Australia is often viewed as an unwelcome big brother. Australia has in the past been accused of paying little regard to the region, while China maintains it is promoting "peace, security and prosperity" and fostering "wide-ranging friendly and co-operative ties". On the first visit by an Australian leader to Vanuatu and Fiji, Morrison said he was turning his nation's attention to the Pacific where it "should always have been". He reiterated plans to establish five new diplomatic missions in the region and said Australia was also establishing an Office of the Pacific within the department of foreign affairs and trade "to give a loud and authoritative voice... following my commitments to step up our Pacific engagement." Fiji's relationship with China blossomed after Bainimarama seized power in a 2006 coup. While Beijing did not comment on Fiji's political upheaval, Australia was highly critical. However, relations between Canberra and Suva appeared to have normalised last August when Australia beat China for the right to redevelop Fiji's Blackrock Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Camp, which trains police and troops for missions. Fiji military chief of staff for co-ordination, Captain Eronia Duaibe, said Australia's bid was successful because they took a "holistic" approach to construction, rather than the "bits and pieces" tabled by China. Morrison said that once the facility is completed it "will provide an unprecedented level of assistance and safety to Fiji and the Pacific region". Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has warned that Pacific island nations are increasingly threatened by rising sea levels
An Austrian privacy campaign group lodged complaints against eight online streaming services Friday, accusing them of "structural violations" of EU data regulations that came into effect last year. NOYB, a non-profit organisation whose name means None Of Your Business, said it had filed a complaint with Austria's Data Protection Authority against services including Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime and Spotify. NOYB says the services have violated the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by not granting users access to data that companies hold on them or information about how the data is used. Privacy campaigner Max Schrems, one of the founders of NOYB, said the issue of access to such data was one of the most common reasons people got in touch with the NGO. On Netflix, for example, "you can figure out a lot about someone's personal behaviour and even political leanings from the data they have -- what you're watching, the times of day you're watching, who you're watching it with," Schrems told AFP. NOYB tested the provisions of the GDPR by asking eight major streaming services for access to data. It said two failed to respond and the rest did not provide the data in an intelligible format nor gave additional background information that users are also entitled to. "The 'front ends' of these websites look nice, welcoming and compliant but really the data is stored in the 'back ends' -- we want to bring more transparency to these data 'black boxes'," Schrems said. In theory, the EU's data regulations provide for heavy financial penalties for companies who break them. Schrems has previously brought cases against Facebook and other tech firms in several European countries. In 2015 he brought down the EU's former "Safe Harbour" data sharing arrangement after he sued Facebook in Ireland over the transfer of personal information by Facebook from Europe to the United States. Privacy campaigner Max Schrems, seen here in 2015, said many people were concerned about the lack of access to user data held by streaming services
They were the picture of happiness when they toured Australia in October, holding hands and gazing lovingly into each others eyes.

Fast-forward three months and there seems to have been a frosty moment between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

The 34-year-old prince and his 37-year-old former Suits actress wife, attended a performance of Cirque de Soleil in London on Wednesday night, where some rather awkward scenes were caught on camera.

The 34-year-old prince and his 37-year-old former Suits actress wife, attended a performance of Cirque de Soleil in London on Wednesday night, where numerous awkward moments between the pair were caught on camera. photo: Getty Images

Pregnant Meghan looked stunning in a $6,100 gown by Roland Mouret and matched it with a red lipstick.

However, while they were all smiles when they arrived at the venue, when they later went to sit down, they were caught in what appeared to be a moment of tension.

Prince Harry can be seen in the video above holding out his hand for his wife to hold, which she does and says thank you while beaming at her husband.

The prince looks stony-faced as he stares ahead, before sighing and throwing his eyes up, looking thoroughly exasperated.

Take a look at the video below:

Just moments before that, the prince could be seen waving and clapping as the performance came to an end.

His wife, Meghan, can then be seen looking towards her husband in a nod to help her take her seat.

He obliges, holding out his hand for her, before sitting down and pursing his lips.

In the video, Meghan looks confused at her husbands behaviour.

Playing with the ring is not good, one person said on Instagram.

Harry does not look happy anymore, another person said.

In the video, Meghan looks confused at her husbands behaviour. Photo: Getty Images

The awkward moment between the pair comes after the palace has been plagued by rumours of Meghans difficult attitude towards her staff.

Those rumours only intensified when a number of her staff quit their jobs at Kensington Palace, reportedly due to her diva demands.

Meghan has reportedly ripped up the rule book when it comes to traditions in the royal family.

This includes bombarding aides with texts after her daily routine of waking up at 5am, according to the Mail on Sunday.

Story continues

An alleged royal insider claims she messages aides up to seven times a day with ideas about her role, and is so enthusiastic that shes been organising a number of undercover missions to meet members of the British public who are associated with good causes.

Meghan has reportedly ripped up the rule book when it comes to traditions in the royal family and is even said to be feuding with Kate Middleton. Photo: Getty Images

Its even been reported that the royal feud between Meghan and Kate Middleton all started because the Duchess of Cambridge didnt like the way Meghan spoke to members of her staff in the lead up to her and Harrys May wedding.

Thats unacceptable, theyre my staff and I speak to them, mum-of-three Kate is supposed to have said, according to an insider who spoke to The Sun.

That same person also added: Its a tricky situation but it was a one-off and they [Kate and Meghan] are determined to maintain a positive relationship even though they are obviously very different in their approach.

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The government has been the focus of sustained protests, including student boycotts and acts of civil disobedience, over allegations of corruption. Reports of mob violence, especially against individuals accused of sorcery, continue to be reported.

The government has not taken sufficient steps to address gender inequality, violence, corruption, or excessive use of force by police. Rates of family and sexual violence are among the highest in the world, and perpetrators are rarely prosecuted.

NEW YORK - Despite an economic boom led by extractive industries such as mining, an estimated 40% of people in Papua New Guinea live in poverty.

Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad Al Hussein, visited PNG in February 2018 and called on the government to tackle a long list of abuses, including corruption, land rights abuses, gender-based violence, and attacks on activists and journalists.

In June, authorities confirmed that the country was facing its first polio outbreak in 18 years, prompting an emergency vaccination campaign.

Chronic problems continued to plague the criminal justice system in PNG, including abuses by police. Overcrowding and dire prison conditions led to prison breakouts.

PNG continues to see high levels of violence and political unrest since the 2017 election, which was marred by widespread electoral irregularities and violence. In June, in the Southern Highlands, a mob set alight a passenger plane in an election-related protest.

Womens and girls rights

Sorcery-related violence continued unabated, with women and girls the primary targets. In May, in the Southern Highlands, one woman was killed and another two seriously injured after a mob attacked the women following accusations they had used sorcery to kill a man. The governments 2013 Sorcery National Action Plan is inadequately funded and has yet to be implemented.

In December 2017, the PNG government announced A$4 million (US$2.9 million) of funding for sorcery awareness and education programs. In July, the National Court sentenced eight men to death for their involvement in a sorcery-related killing of seven people. PNG continued to impose the death penalty, although authorities have not carried out any executions since 1954.

In 2013, the Family Protection Act was passed, which criminalizes domestic violence and allows victims to obtain protection orders. In 2017, the government passed regulations to implement the law, but enforcement remains weak and inconsistent.

Police and prosecutors rarely pursued investigations or criminal charges against people who commit family violenceeven in cases of attempted murder, serious injury, or repeated rapeand instead prefer to resolve such cases through mediation and/or payment of compensation.

There is also a severe lack of services for people requiring assistance after having suffered family violence, such as safe houses, qualified counselors, case management, financial support, or legal aid.

PNG continues to have one of the highest rates of maternal death in the Asia-Pacific, and the number of women and girls who give birth in a health facility or with the help of a skilled birth attendant has reduced in the last five years.

Although the PNG government supports universal access to contraception, two out of three women and girls still are unable to access and use it due to geographic, cultural, and economic barriers. Abortion remains illegal in PNG, except in cases where the mother's life is at risk.

Police abuse

The PNG government failed to address abuses by security forces. Few police are ever held to account for beating or torturing criminal suspects, a common occurrence. In September, the government indicated it would introduce new measures to give immunity to police and defense force soldiers on special operations supposedly to curb lawlessness.

Despite the ombudsman and police announcing investigations into the 2016 police shooting of eight student protesters in Port Moresby, at time of writing no police had been charged or disciplined and neither body had issued a report.

In July, prison officers shot and killed four men who escaped from Buimo prison in Lae. This followed a similar escape in 2017, in which 17 prisoners were killed. Corrective Services ordered an inquiry in 2017, but at time of writing no investigation had begun, allegedly due to lack of funding.

Childrens rights

Police often beat children in lock-ups and house them with adults, despite a child justice law that states children should be kept separate from adults during all stages of the criminal justice process.

In August, a video showing two PNG police officers brutally assaulting a teenage boy in West New Britain was widely circulated on social media. Minister for Police Jelta Wong ordered an immediate investigation and promised to hold those responsible to account. The two officers have reportedly been suspended and charged under the Criminal Code Act, but neither had been prosecuted at time of writing.

Children's access to education improved from 2012 to 2016 following the introduction of the Tuition Fee Free Policy in 2012 but was still low, with only 76 percent of children enrolled in primary school and 33 percent in secondary.

Land rights

More than 5 million hectares of land has been awarded to PNG-based subsidiaries of foreign companies on Special Agricultural Business Leases, resulting in loss of ancestral land and forest for rural Papua New Guineans. The leases represent over 10% of the countrys total landmass and potentially impact more than 700,000 people.

Government corruption

Corruption in PNG is widespread. In December 2017, the Supreme Court quashed a long-standing arrest warrant for corruption against Prime Minister Peter O'Neill, finding that the warrant failed to meet a number of requirements and was issued without jurisdiction.

That same month, anti-corruption police arrested and charged the country's deputy chief electoral commissioner with corruption for allegedly manipulating votes, for perjury and making a false declaration.

In April, media reported that anti-corruption police are investigating the Governor of Port Moresby Powes Parkop, after a former official revealed the city council was paying K2.8 million a year to a yoga and health company run by his alleged partner.

Asylum seekers and refugees

About 570 male asylum seekers and refugees live in PNG, most on Manus Island. Nearly all were forcibly transferred to PNG by Australia in 2013. Following a 2016 PNG Supreme Court decision that detaining asylum seekers is unconstitutional, in November 2017, the Australian and PNG government closed the main centre on Manus and relocated refugees and asylum seekers to other accommodation facilities on the island.

Many asylum seekers and refugees suffer complex health problems including mental health conditions that have been exacerbated by long periods in detention and uncertainty about their futures. In May, a Rohingya refugee died by apparent suicide having jumped from a moving bus, the seventh asylum seeker or refugee to die on Manus Island since 2013.

The Australian Department of Home Affairs has acknowledged that medical services have been reduced since the men were forcibly removed from the main center in 2017. There have been urgent calls, including by Australian doctors, to improve healthcare standards on Manus Island.

Australia pays for refugees living expenses but refuses to resettle them in Australia, insisting they must settle in PNG or third countries, such as the United States. US resettlement from Manus remains slow, with 163 resettled as of October.

Refugees and asylum seekers do not feel safe on Manus due to a spate of violent attacks by locals in the town of Lorengau and ongoing disputes with the local community. In January, neighbouring residents blocked access to living compounds in a protest about leaking sewage. In May, a fire in Hillside Haus forced the relocation of 120 residents.

Since June, a 12-hour curfew has been imposed on the refugees and asylum seekers in violation of their freedom of movement, following a car accident in which a woman died; an allegedly drunk refugee was driving the car. In October, a local man violently assaulted an Iranian refugee who was hospitalized with serious injuries to his head and eyes.

In June, following a class action settlement, the Australian government paid K164 million in compensation to asylum seekers and refugees for their illegal detention on Manus Island.

In July, the Queensland Coroner ruled that the death of Manus detainee and Iranian asylum seeker Hamid Khazaei in September 2014 was preventable and the result of "compounding errors" in health care provided under Australia's offshore immigration detention system.

Disability rights

Despite the existence of a national disability policy, people with disabilities are often unable to participate in community life, go to school, or work because of lack of accessibility, stigma, and other barriers. Access to mental health care is limited, and many people with psychosocial disabilities and their families often consider traditional healers to be the only option.

Sexual orientation and gender identity

The PNG criminal code outlaws sex against the order of nature, which has been interpreted to apply to consensual same-sex acts, and is punishable by up to 14 years imprisonment.

Key international actors

In March, then-Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop visited Port Moresby and met with PNG foreign minister Rimbink Pato to discuss health and immigration. In November, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and PNG prime minister Peter ONeill signed a joint defence agreement to deepen relations and security cooperation, partly to curb Chinas growing influence in the Pacific.

China is set to overtake Australia as the largest donor to PNG, though most assistance is in the form of infrastructure loans rather than aid. China is committing approximately K13 billion to developing a national road network. Australian government aid to PNG for the year 2018-19 is K1.3 billion.

In November, PNG hosted the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum which was overshadowed by growing tensions between China and Australia for regional dominance in the Pacific. China provided significant infrastructure supportincluding the K82 million convention centreand President Xi Jinping invited Pacific Island leaders to a special summit ahead of APEC.

Australia spent K305 million on security costs for APEC, and provided 1,500 Australian Defence Force personnel.

The PNG government drew criticism for its purchase of 40 new Maserati cars for visiting APEC dignitaries, when the impoverished country struggles to pay teachers and faces a health crisis. The summit ended in disarray when Chinese officials physically forced their way into the office of the PNG foreign minister and refused to sign the final joint statement.
Fair to say, that night was tough, and I felt like death warmed up when I woke the next day for my flight home. Fast forward a few days, and I was in an intensive care bed back in Australia.

Jesus, that last hill was tough, I said to my mate Simon just after we walked through the archway that marked the end of the 120km, eight-day trek.

SYDNEY - It didnt exactly end the way I expected. I finished walked every bloody step of the aptly nicknamed bloody track, but the last hill was really hard.

It was in June of 2018 that Simon and I decided to do the trek. I was reading Peter FitzSimons book The Great Aussie Bloke Slimdown, because, well, I needed to slim down, and he mentioned the time he trekked Kokoda.

I cant remember if I called or texted him, but it went something like Hey mate lets do Kokoda. His immediate reply was Lets do it and it was on. All that was required was clearing it with our wives and choosing a date all of which happened frighteningly quickly. Then the deposit was paid and we were committed.

Bloody hell what had I done?

The good news was that the triple motivation of the self-evident need to drop some beef, the book, and the looming spectre of the trek worked their wonders, and I lost 25kg in the following four or so months. I got fit -- fitter than Id been in years -- and felt like I was ready for the trek.

We spent a small fortune on gear (worth every cent) including everything from cups and spoons through to sleeping bags, packs and a first aid kit. Plus hiking poles, gaiters, water purification tablets and about 37 other things. Thankfully, the kit list provided by the tour operator, Adventure Kokoda, was thorough, because it was the first time Id done a trek like that.

And my young bloke works in a hiking shop, so he was invaluable when it came to getting the right gear. (As an aside, apparently the month we bought our gear was the best sales month his store had ever had. I like to think its a coincidence, but Im pretty sure our spending made the difference!)

Then it was time for the immunisations. Im left handed I told the doctor, so he could use my right arm for the jabs, and it wouldnt impact my dominant hand. Youre getting four injections he told me, matter-of-factly, so itll be two in each arm. Perhaps it should have been a warning for what was to come.

Before I go any further, I should also tell you that while Simon and I arent irresponsible, were generally game for most things, and tend to be optimistic. Our wives might choose the irresponsible side of that particular description. On a whim, he sent me a t-shirt with What could possibly go wrong printed on the front. We would go on to find out....

So there we were, all packed, kitted out, and up at 4am as we set out for the airport. Apparently, the blokes at the hiking shop have a phrase for people in our position, whove bought everything, but havent been on a hike before: all gear, no idea. It was apt.

Arriving in Papua New Guinea is an experience. Not only do you get hit with the obligatory heat and humidity upon disembarking the plane, but the drive from the airport is an eye-opener. Make no mistake, PNG is an incredibly poor country.

Seeing it, so soon after hearing about the Masteratis that had been purchased by the local government to ferry APEC leaders around, really highlighted just how right people were to be disgusted with that administration.

The poverty is obvious, particularly in the city, and both unemployment and infant mortality are disgracefully high. I dont know the answer, but PNG is in desperate need of improvement, for the sake of its people.

The risk -- real or perceived -- of crime is so high that each property is its own compound, with high fences and gates topped with barbed wire, and it was into such a compound that we drove, and which was to be the base from which we departed for the trek.

One of the highlights was to follow the next day. You can walk the Kokoda Trail (trail, not track might sound like an Americanised name, but its the preferred name of the locals, and how our Diggers referred to it during the Second World War) in either direction.

Our Diggers trekked from Owers Corner (just out of Port Moresby) to Kokoda, then withdrew back almost all the way, before pushing back to -- and past -- Kokoda as they defeated the Japanese.

We trekked from Kokoda to Owers, meaning we started with a flight into the heart of PNG on a 20-odd seater plane. It was both beautiful and daunting -- theres nothing quite like flying over the seemingly endless mountains that you know youll have to then cross on your return to the starting point!

We landed at the Kokoda airstrip, then watched the plane taxi back and take off on its return flight to Port Moresby. I guess its too late to change our mind I ventured, and laughed, just a little nervously.

Our party was seven trekkers, our trek leader, and about 16 PNG locals who were our porters, cooks and local experts. I say about 16 because the number fluctuated as we walked, with some joining and leaving the trek at the different villages along the trail.

Day one was gentle enough. We visited the war museum at Kokoda, and saw the battle site there; largely unchanged since the war, but for some regrown vegetation. The walk to our first campsite was only a couple of hours, and the ground was flat.

This isnt too bad, I thought. Only later did we realise it was a soft day to let us acclimatise, so the trek leader could assess us, and to iron out any problems with gear.

From Day 2, for almost all of the rest of the 8-day trek, wed be walking 8 - 12 hours a day. The pattern became pretty similar. Each day started with a hill climb, usually between 45 minutes and an hour, but sometimes longer. The same pattern would repeat after lunch.

Well start with a climb was the common refrain from our trek leader, Bernie Rowell, a very good man who has done 50-odd treks up and down the trail, and who clearly loves it. As time went on, wed expect it, and all smile ruefully as he said it. Then, up wed go.

Experienced trekkers would know this, but we came to, if not actually enjoy going uphill, at least preferring it to going down. Heading downhill is hard on the body and the mind as your legs absorb the impact of holding your body weight as you descend, and you concentrate hard to make sure youre not going to slip, trip and/or fall as you go. Going up hill, by contrast, hurt the lungs and the legs, but was far preferable. Call that another thing I learned on the trek.

We visited battle site after battle site, recalling some of the toughest fighting Australian soldiers have ever been engaged in. Always outnumbered, but never daunted, they continued to engage and be engaged by the Japanese. Endless acts of bravery, often leading to death, were recounted at places that would become immortalised in Australian history.

Isurava. Brigade Hill. Kokoda. Myola. Efogi. These are villages along the Trail and names that all Australians should know. It was deeply moving to be at those places, and to reflect on the courage, bravery and sacrifice of the men who fought in our name. And the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels who selflessly carried food, supplies and, too often, injured and dying Australian soldiers. Without them, the death toll would have been far, far higher.

It winds its way through villages of largely subsistence people. Kind, shy villagers, on the whole, who, save for a little (very little) aid money and small amounts of new infrastructure, have lived a similar way of life for centuries. It was a privilege to be able to walk the trail and meet some of these people, as well as staying in and near their villages.

And the Trail itself is essentially the same as its been for centuries -- its what the locals have always used, and still use, to move between villages, and all the way to Port Moresby. In some parts six feet wide, and at others almost invisible, depending on the location and vegetation, it traverses swamp, rainforest, bush and (very rarely) clearings.

And multiple times each day I would be reminded that, no matter how tough it felt for us, we were quite literally walking in the footsteps of Australian soldiers who traversed exactly the same path some 75 years earlier.

Except our boys did it with heavy packs and rifles. With terrible maladies that included dysentery, malaria and scrub typhus. On starvation rations. Oh, and being harassed, shot at and fired upon with mountain artillery by a determined, highly trained and fanatically disciplined enemy.

It was, as youd likely expect, the experience of a lifetime. There was something almost meditative about repeating the same process every day: up before dawn, dress, pack, eat and walk. And walk. And walk. Then to bed, and the cycle repeats.

There is little to no mobile coverage, meaning little contact from, and with, the outside world. I missed my family, and couldnt wait to speak to them on my return to the city, but the forced isolation was good for the mind and soul.

And the body? Well, usually Id say yes. But on the evening of our fourth day (of eight) I felt a sudden chill. I asked if anyone else was cold. They werent, of course. PNG is hot during the day and warm at night. I realised, to my chagrin, that I was probably getting a cold.

I woke up on Day 5 feeling pretty ordinary. I had a couple of Panadol and started walking. Then, as soon as the directions on the packet would allow, I had some more. And repeated the process again, throughout that day. I had a terrible nights sleep, punctuated by sweating and coughing.

Day 6 was pretty tough. The longest, hardest climb of the trek and I was completely spent. Not really tired or really sore. But totally, completely spent. I did it tough. When we got to the village, it was all I could do to lay prostrate on the grass and try to recover. It was hard for the other boys too, but not that hard. I knew I was crook.

Eventually, a lot of fluid, a (very) cold shower and some cold & flu tablets had me upright and walking. Our trek leader, Bernie, distributed some of my gear to others to carry, to lighten my load. I felt guilty as hell, but knew I needed the help.

That was to start a cycle of cold & flu tablets, Panadol and Nurofen, interspersed so I wasnt overdoing any one of them, but making sure I was regularly medicated, just to make it through the trip.

Sleep was short and usually punctuated by coughing. The poor bastards on the trek with me were close by -- meaning my coughing was costing them sleep, too.

I didnt know what was wrong. We carried first aid supplies, thank goodness, and I was well looked after. Bernie checked in on me at each break, and the boys were great. True, I felt like I was the slacker of the group, that somehow I should have been able to just tough it out -- to stay staunch.

Not finishing the trek was never on the agenda, though. I was going to do it. I drew inspiration from the stories of the Diggers, who had it far worse than I did. From thinking about my family. From wanting to do it for myself.

And, I did. I never really contemplated being medically evacuated (by helicopter), but it would have been an option, had I been worse. And I have to say, based on the way I felt the day after the trek, Im not sure I could have done a ninth day, if wed still been on the trail.

I got home on a Saturday afternoon. So, probably unwisely, I decided to wait until Monday to see my GP. He listened to my chest. Youve probably got a chest infection, or pneumonia, he said. Ill send you for an x-ray and blood tests.

When we got the results the next day, he said something I dont know Ill ever forget: Thats a pretty bad pneumonia Im impressed you made it back alive.

He gave me some oral antibiotics, and I went home. But I kept getting worse. During the night, I could feel -- between incessant coughs -- that my breathing was getting worse. I didnt know how much worse I could afford to get, before I became a resuscitation case. Im not generally a worrier, and tend to be closer to the shell be right approach to healthcare, but I knew I had to do something.

On Wednesday, I took myself to the local district hospital. Just relax and take deep breaths the nurse said. I couldnt. The walk from the waiting room to the treatment room, and trying to explain what was wrong meant I was hopelessly out of breath. And I couldnt get enough air in.

Once I was admitted, the doctor and nursing staff on duty were amazing. Kind, thorough and fantastically professional, within a couple of hours I had two canulas, an arterial line and a catheter in. They pumped me full of fluids and antibiotics, and did x-rays.

And organised for me to be transferred to a larger hospital. By ambulance. With lights and sirens. Straight to intensive care.

The intensive care doctor was wonderful. He could see I was concerned and reassured me that theyd look after me. Just relax. Well do what we need to do to get you better. The reassurance was welcome.

When the respiratory specialist came to see me, he was friendly and professional, but blunt. You probably wont die, he said. Bloody hell, I thought, not for the first time. I hadnt contemplated dying, but it turns out it was a real, if unlikely, possibility.

He gave me a 70% chance of recovering without incident, a 20% chance that theyd need to take serious interventionist action, and well, a 10% chance that I wouldnt be writing this today. Apparently mine was one of the worst cases hed seen, and my x-rays showed splotchy white clouds on all parts of my lungs.

On the scale of things that confront many people in life, its not in the most serious category, of course. There are, unfortunately, many worse things to suffer from, with higher mortality rates. So Im very aware how lucky I was. But it was a real wake-up call.

The medical staff were top notch: unfailingly professional and deeply caring. I was wonderfully looked after. I spent 5 days in a combination of intensive care and high dependency which is one step down, then a couple of days on a regular ward.

After that, I was home, though recovery from pneumonia, especially a bad one, takes a couple of months. My last scan showed some lingering evidence of the pneumonia. Hopefully the next one, in a couple of weeks, finally gives me the all clear.

Despite all of that, Id do Kokoda again. The Adventure Kokoda team are wonderful. And I was just plain unlucky to get crook.

It is truly a wonderful experience. Trekking the trail is one part physical challenge and one part meditative retreat. But more than that, its a pilgrimage -- a chance to see and hear what Australian soldiers did in PNG during the Second World War, and to remember and pay my respects.

The dawn service at Isurava was one of the more emotional experiences of my life. Walking the trail and visiting the battlefield sites where so many young Australians died was almost surreal. And we visited Bomana War Cemetery, and read the ages of those who did not return, as well as the heartbreaking inscriptions on their headstones, chosen by their families who lost a son, brother, husband, or father.

It would be trite to try to wrap this up with some investing lessons or to force some parallels with finance. It would be disrespectful to our servicemen.

Instead, Ill just leave you with some reflections.

I am grateful for the experience of challenging myself on the Kokoda Trail. I didnt intend to get sick (and for the record, the doctor never could find the bug that caused it all), but Id do it all again.

I am grateful that I got to trek Kokoda with a great mate, and to have formed a bond of camaraderie with the rest of the group and our leader. Eight different people from different walks of life, who bonded over a shared experience. I cant help but feel theres a lesson there.

I am grateful for the wonderful public health system that took care of me -- without having to pay a cent -- when I was so crook, and to the wonderful doctors and nurses whose calling is taking care of the sick and dying. We take it for granted, until we need it, but we are immensely fortunate.

I am grateful for the luck of being born in Australia, for a loving family, and for all of the opportunities that entails. I could have been born in a PNG village, or on the streets or Port Moresby, or anywhere else. Being born here truly is like winning what Warren Buffett calls the ovarian lottery.

And I am grateful for the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, both past and present. They willingly put themselves in harms way in our name, and many of them either didnt return, or came back, but always carried the mental, emotional and physical scars of their service. We will remember them.

Lest We Forget.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Romanias national flag carrier Tarom will conduct direct Bucharest-Yerevan flights starting from April 3. This will be an affordable option for Armenians to visit other European countries by transit.

ARMENPRESS reports the flights will start from April 3, for now twice a week. We hope to increase the number of flights by June, making it 3-4 times a week. Of course, there is the demand. This is a cheaper option compared with other airlines flying to Europe. It takes 1-1.5 hours less to reach Europe through Bucharest than through Kiev or Moscow, the representative of the airline in Armenia Ararat Muradyan said.

He noted that at the beginning there will not be so many visitors to Romania, instead, transit flights will be more. Waiting 1-4 hours in Bucharest people will be able to fly to 15-16 cities, Muradyan said.

Deputy Minister of Transport, Communication and IT of Armenia Armen Arzumanyan said that the policy of open skies gives various airlines an opportunity to enter the Armenian market and conduct flights.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia NIkol Pashinyan received Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Armenia Jassim Mohamed Al Qasemi who finishes diplomatic mission in Armenia.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the official website of the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan thanked the Ambassador the close cooperation and wished him success in future activities. The PM highlighted the development of political and economic relations between Armenia and the UAE, and hoped that in the future the partnership between the two states will continue expand and strengthen.

We expect that in the near future we will witness new investors from the UAE and rise in the number of tourists, Nikol Pashinyan said.

Jassim Mohamed Al Qasemi congratulated Nikol Pashinyan on being appointed Prime Minister of Armenia on behalf of the Government of the UAE, and expressed confidence that in the upcoming years new achievements will be recorded in the partnership between the two states, including in the spheres of trade turnover and tourism. The Ambassador noted that there are different investors in the UAE interested in investment projects in Armenia in the spheres of energy and agriculture and are ready to closely cooperate with the Government in that direction.

The sides highlighted the activities of the inter-state commission for giving new impetus to the cooperation and exchanged views on a number of issues on bilateral agenda.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
Armed gang shoots at policeman

An armed Tarai outfit shot at a police officer on duty at Khadag Municipality of Saptari on Wednesday.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan will pay a working visit to Switzerland on January 20 to participate in Davos World Economic Forum.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the official website of the Prime Minister of Armenia, in the sidelines of the forum the PM is scheduled to have a number of bilateral and multilateral meetings with heads of other states, international organizations and companies. Pashinyan will also attend the Informal Gathering of World Economic Leaders (IGWEL) and World Civil Society Forum in Davos.

Nikol Pashinyan is also scheduled to meet with the members of Switzerland-Armenia Commerce Chamber and Swiss businessmen in Zurich.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Georgia is not planning to renounce its role as a transit country for Russian gas supplies to Armenia, ARMENPRESS reports Georgian PM Mamuka Bakhtadze told reporters on January 18 in Tbilisi, answering the question if Georgia plans to revise the agreement with Gazprom on gas supplies to Armenia. The agreement expired on December 31, 2018.

Georgia significantly benefits from its role of a transit country and we will continue to preserve it. It is in line with the interests of our country. As refers to the agreement, the negotiations with Gazprom will start when a date is scheduled, he said, noting that so far there is no negotiation plan. And if something new appears in the contract, the public will be informed by the Ministry of Economy of Georgia, Bakhtadze said.

Until January 2017 Georgia received 10% of the transited. In the beginning of 2017 Gazprom and Georgia signed another agreement, according to which the Russian side paid for the transit mainly in cash, while starting from 2018 only in cash.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenia launched a dialogue with the EU member states on visa liberalization within the framework of the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed in November 2017 and ratified by Armenia in April 2018, the Police of Armenia told Armenpress.

The Armenian delegation led by Deputy Police Chief, Police Colonel Hovhannes Kocharyan, has departed for Germany on January 15-17. The delegation also included advisor to the foreign minister Davit Sargsyan, head of the Department of Europe at the MFA Tigran Samvelyan and Head of the Migration Service Armen Ghazaryan.

During the visit the delegation members had a number of meetings with the German officials.

At the meetings the German side praised the productive cooperation based on the international legal documents on readmission, highlighting the high level of mutual trust and the willingness to meet Armenias legitimate expectations.

The sides attached importance to the necessity to clarify the timeframes for implementing the provisions of the future action plan on visa liberalization, the framework of mutual commitments, as well as discussed other issues of mutual interest.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. The crime against Armenians in Baku in January 1990 has been genocide, Larisa Alaverdyan  Against the Violation of Law NGO Chairwoman, told reporters today, adding that during that time people were tortured only for their ethnic identity.

Nearly 500 people have been killed, let us not tell about what others have suffered. There is a UN Convention adopted on December 9, 1948 which is called the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It has five points relating to the types of crimes for which persons can be held accountable, she said.

She noted that Armenia should initiate, take actions and adopt a document to acknowledge these events as genocide, that is what they really were.

We do not have a document in Armenia that will call the 1988 Armenian massacres in Sumgait as a genocide, Alaverdyan said.

She informed that her organization will apply to the Parliament with the request to adopt a resolution which will name the things accordingly.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenian President Armen Sarkissian together with spouse Nune Sarkissian today visited the Armenian Embassy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

The President planted a tree in the Embassy yard.

The Armenian Presidents official visit to the UAE has been completed by the visit to the UAE Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

The President left a note in the Honorary Guest Book and handed over the Catalogue of the Quran Manuscripts of the Matenadaran as a gift.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Acting minister of energy infrastructures and natural resources of Armenia Garegin Baghramyan on January 18 held a meeting with Giovanni Rubini, Chief Executive Officer at Italys Renco S.p.A., the ministry told Armenpress.

At the meeting Giovanni Rubini provided information about the works carried out for the construction of new power station in Yerevan, praising the cooperation with the Armenian government. He said the works are being carried out in accordance with the timetable and without any obstacles. He assured that the financial summary of the program will be completed soon, and the construction works will launch.

Acting minister Baghramyan attached importance to the proper implementation of the construction works and the maintenance of the timetable.

250 million USD will be invested for the implementation of the program.

The construction will last 26 months and will involve 1000-1200 people.

230 jobs with high salaries will be created during the operation of the plant.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Ambassador Armen Papikyan, Head of Armenias Mission to the OSCE, on January 17 had a meeting with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger, the Armenian foreign ministry told Armenpress.

Thomas Greminger congratulated Armen Papikyan on appointment and expressed confidence that his experience will contribute to the progressive development of the already existing cooperation. He highly appreciated the recent domestic political developments in Armenia and expressed readiness to continue providing support to Armenia in the process of future reforms.

In his turn Ambassador Papikyan thanked the OSCE Secretary General for the warm reception and wishes and assured that Armenia will continue its constructive engagement the OSCEs all agencies.

During the meeting the officials exchanged views on broad range of issues relating to the OSCE agenda.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Ambassador to the Netherlands Tigran Balayan on January 17 met with Catherine de Bolle, Executive Director of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation  Europol, the Armenian foreign ministry told Armenpress.

Ambassador Balayan highly valued the effective activity of the pan-European structure and introduced the activities of law enforcement agencies in fighting corruption and organized crime in Armenia. In this context an importance was attached to deepening the partnership with the Europol and the EU member states.

During the meeting the opportunities to establish cooperation between the Armenian Police and Europol were discussed.

Ambassador Balayan also introduced Armenias approaches to the regional issues and the efforts of the international community aimed at solving them.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenian President Armen Sarkissian together with spouse Nune Sarkissian visited the Holy Martyrs' Armenian Church of Abu Dhabi on the sidelines of his official visit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

The President and his wife laid flowers at the cross-stone dedicated to memory of the Armenian Genocide victims erected in the yard of the Church.

After a prayer at the Church President Sarkissian met with the Armenian community representatives in the Ara Khanoyan Sunday school.

Everything is gathered in one place  the Armenian statehood with its flag and emblem, the Armenian Apostolic Church and of course, our future  the school, Armen Sarkissian said and thanked the community for the unity, dedication, patriotism and preservation of the national values. I would like to live with you the day when we will forget the word Diaspora and will all be residents of Armenia. Eventually, Fatherland is the focus of all us, but I would also like to share another mind with you.

The fact that we live in different countries of the world, perhaps is not a disadvantage, but an advantage because we are one of the few peoples in the world who can clearly state that we are a small state or even have two small states, but a global nation closely connected with each other. We have created the small model of the 21st century because in the 21st century the whole world, the population of the entire world, no matter where we live, starting from Australia up to Russia, from Europe to the United States, will live as a one single family, a family of humanity. The world gradually becomes small as the population grows. It becomes small because we all are connected with each other.

It becomes small because 20 years ago if one said that changes, developments will take place in Armenia and you even can be the participant of that from far, perhaps most of you would say that its impossible, But now, just 20 years later, this is possible.

This opportunity enables all of us to think that our participation to Armenia is much deeper today and the opportunities are much greater. We are with the Fatherland not only with soul, heart and faith, each of you is also linked with the Homeland physically. The physical connection perhaps is an internet, virtual connection, but is very important. The participants of the recent great changes in Armenia, those of the velvet revolution or those of the revolution in an Armenian way, were not only the citizens of Armenia or those who were in the streets of Yerevan: many people were taking part in the revolution events. In some sense all our people from Los Angeles to Europe and Middle East, are living with the situation, events taking place in the Homeland, and with the Homeland in general.

I believe that our nation is a nation of the 21st century because many values will change in the 21st century: in the 21st century that nation or state will be powerful which will be able to unite the small forces in a small territory and bring its intellectual abilities to serve to the homeland, rather than the one that will have a very great natural wealth. I think we have all of these, moreover, I believe that we are Gods chosen nation. We are a nation who passed through the most impossible experiments by the choice of God, saw the worlds worst hell  the Genocide. But we not only exist today, but also we are strong and powerful. We are a victorious people. The next victories are ahead, and these victories are going to take place not only in the battle field, but also in all spheres of our national interests and statehood.

During these three-four days at each of my meetings in the United Arab Emirates I have heard one assessment about Armenians  honest, hardworking, dedicated, kind, patriotic people who can bring their knowledge, capacities, ties, desire and work to the Homeland from different parts of the world.

We are Gods chosen people and have no other way but to win and succeed.

You, your parents and grandparents were born in Armenia. Therefore, you all are residents of Armenia who temporarily live abroad, but one day all will return to the great, free, independent and democratic Homeland.

I am confident that you will not only return, but we will become one of the leading countries in the world because human knowledge, the ability to work, which we have, are going to be the greatest value in the 21st century. Therefore, I think that the 21st century is really going to be ours, but we will take the first steps on this path today, the President stated.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan




YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, issued a statement on behalf of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, welcoming the meeting between the Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov held on 16 January in Paris under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, Armenpress reports citing the UN website.

The Secretary-General appreciates the continued commitment of the sides to finding a negotiated and peaceful solution to the long-standing Nagorno Karabakh conflict and particularly welcomed the Ministers agreement on the need to take concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace. The Secretary-General reiterates the full support of the United Nations for the important mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group, the statement says.

On January 16, with the mediation and participation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov, Stephane Visconti and Andrew Schofer the meeting between Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, acting Foreign Minister of Armenia, and Elmar Mammadyarov, Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, took place in Paris. Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, also participated in the meeting.

The officials had useful and constructive exchanges, which is also aimed at establishing more mutual understanding and mutual trust.

At the meeting, which lasted more than four hours, the sides touched upon a wide range of issues related to the peace process, including preparing populations for peace, security and sustainable economic development.

The new dates for the next meeting are not yet confirmed, however, the Foreign Ministers agreed to continue consistent, result-oriented talks in upcoming months.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
Archaelogists start excavation works at Tilaurakot, Kapilvastu

A team of archaeologists has initiated an excavation at Tilaurakot, Kapilvastu, with an objective to include Tilaurakot in the list of World Heritage Sites. Tilaurakot is an ancient Shakyan city of Kapilvastu where Siddhartha Gautam spent 29 years of his lifetime.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. The closed voting on electing chairs of the parliamentary standing committees has kicked off, reports Armenpress.

The voting started at 11:30 and will end at 13:30.

There are a total of 11 standing committees: 8 will be chaired by the ruling My Step faction, 2 by Prosperous Armenia and 1 by Bright Armenia factions.

The candidates for the chairs of the standing committees are the followings:

My Step faction

Narek Zeynalyan  committee on healthcare and social affairs

Ruben Rubinyan  committee on foreign affairs

Mkhitar Hayrapetyan  committee on science, education, culture, Diaspora, youth and sport affairs

Arman Yeghoyan  committee on European integration affairs

Andranik Kocharyan  committee on defense and security affairs

Vladimir Vardanyan  committee on state-legal affairs

Varazdat Karapetyan  committee on territorial administration, local self-government, agriculture and nature protection affairs

Babken Tunyan  committee on economic affairs

Prosperous Armenia faction

Naira Zohrabyan  committee on human rights protection and public affairs

Mikayel Melkumyan  committee on regional and Eurasian integration affairs

Bright Armenia faction

Mane Tandilyan  committee on fiscal and budgetary affairs

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Acting foreign minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on January 17 met with Secretary General of the International Organization of La Francophonie Louise Mushikiwabo in Paris, the Armenian foreign ministry told Armenpress.

Acting FM Mnatsakanyan congratulated Louise Mushikiwabo on assuming office and reaffirmed Armenias full support to the implementation of her mission and concrete priorities set by her aimed at further developing the Organization as a key platform based on the common values.

The sides highly valued the holding of the La Francophonie summit in Yerevan recently both in content, organizational and representational terms. They agreed that the decisions and agreements reached during the summit have created good preconditions for further deepening the cooperation in different sectors in the La Francophonie region.

During the meeting the acting FM introduced the Secretary General on Armenias chairmanship priorities and future programs in the La Francophonie, expecting a close cooperation with the IOF Secretariat for their implementation. Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said Armenia will continue taking active steps to solve the problems facing the Organization, raise its position and reputation in the international arena, also through development of close cooperation with international and regional organizations such as the UN, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. In this context both sides highlighted the promotion of dialogue with the African Union as a key direction.
13:26 | Cusco (Cusco region), Jan. 17.















"Thank you very much, it's been a great trip for my son and I. I've always wanted to come here, it was better than I expected. Machu Picchu was amazing, Cusco is amazing (...) the people are wonderful. You've been very nice and sweet. Thank you very much for your hospitality," the two-time Academy Award winner said in his speech.





The 75-year-old celebrity received other presents from local authorities when he left.





De Niro arrived in the area as part of his first tourist visit to the Andean nation.





Last Thursday, he dined at the exclusive Peruvian eatery Central in Lima and did not hesitate to pose for a picture with the restaurant's chef and owner Virgilio Martinez.





The following day, he visited Pedro de Osma Museum located in the capital city's traditional Barranco district.

















The two-time Academy Award winner reached Machu Picchu station in the afternoon on board The Private an exclusive train service.





Upon arrival and regardless of the rain, the artist visited one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, Machu Picchu , joined by his son and a local guide.









On Tuesday, the renowned Hollywood actor climbed Huayna Picchu Summit and visited the Inca citadel for the second time , although this visit was much more pleasant as the bright sunny day highlighted the beauty of the ancient ruins.



Afamado actor Robert De Niro escalo esta manana el Huayna Picchu y luego recorrio la ciudadela Inca de Machu Picchu https://t.co/5klss9iHwo (Video: Percy Hurtado) pic.twitter.com/tavh754GD9  Agencia Andina (@Agencia_Andina) 15 de enero de 2019













Within this framework, Mayor Darwin Baca presented De Niro with a Chacana (Inca Cross) a symbol of Andean worldview and culture.









Likewise, De Niro was asked to sign the Golden Book, in which he wrote a message addressed to the people of Machu Picchu.





Career





De Niro is best known for his Oscar-winning roles in The Godfather II and Raging Bull, to name a few.





Other celebrated films include "Taxi Driver," "Once Upon a time in America," "The Untouchables," and "Casino."





He is well-known for his gangster roles and has played conflicting, turbulent characters as well.





(END) PHS/MAO/RMB/MVB

Hollywood icon Robert De Niro on Thursday was awarded the Medal and Key to the City of Cusco as part of his visit to the Inca Empire's capital.Cusco Province Mayor Victor Boluarte bestowed the honor during a special ceremony in the Imperial City.Published: 1/17/2019
The two homes are located in Lima districts of San Isidro and Cieneguilla.

Travel restrictions

On the other hand, a Peruvian judge barred the former leader from leaving the country, following a request from the Prosecutor's Office.

The order prohibits Kuczynski from leaving the Inca nation for 18 months while the investigation is ongoing.

President's resignation

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski offered his resignation on March 21 following the release of secret recordings that entangled him in a scandal on the eve of an impeachment vote.





Back then, a group of legislators from opposition parties had filed a presidential impeachment motion on the grounds of moral incapacity after he survived a previous impeachment vote back in December.





This new motion was intended to oust Kuczynski for alleged links with Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
4 arrested for gang rape of 16-year-old girl in Syangja

Police have arrested four persons for their alleged involvement in gang raping a 16-year-old girl in Syangja on Friday.
Can the word EU trade mark (EUTM) 'BIG MAC' owned by McDonald's be revoked for non-use? The answer is 'yes'.



provided it further to an application for revocation filed by Irish company Supermac (Cancellation No 14 788 C). The EUIPO Cancellation Divisionit further to an application for revocation filed by Irish company Supermac (Cancellation No 14 788 C).





What happened?





McDonald's is (or, rather, was) the owner of the word mark 'BIG MAC' for the following goods and services in Classes 29, 30 and 42 of the Nice Classification:









Supermac filed an application under Article 58(1)(a) of the EU Trade Mark Regulation , requesting the revocation - in its entirety - of 'BIG MAC', on grounds that the mark would have not been put to genuine use for a continuous period of 5 years.





In response to the application, McDonald's submitted evidence that 'BIC MAC' would be in use in a number of Member States, including in advertising and on the packaging of relevant products.





The applicant noted that the evidence submitted by McDonald's would prove genuine use for sandwiches, but not also in relation to the other goods and services for which the registration was obtained. A such, the application was to be upheld.





McDonald's replied noting that the mark was genuinely used in Germany, France, and the UK, and that this would prove genuine use in the EU. Furthermore, use of 'BIG MAC' in relation to sandwiches would also mean use of the trade mark in relation to its ingredients.





The decision





When it comes to revocation proceedings on grounds of non-use, the burden of proof does lie with the trade mark owner, not the applicant. The latter cannot be in fact requested to prove a negative fact, that is non-use of the former's registered sign.





McDonald's submitted the following evidence that the Cancellation Division:

3 affidavits signed by McDonald's representatives detailing sales figures for the period 2011-2016;

Brochures and printouts of advertising posters, dated between 2011 and 2016;

Printouts from a number of McDonald's websites, dated between 7/1/2014 and 3/10/2016;

A printout from a Wikipedia entry (in English) providing information on McDonald's Big Mac.

Proof of BIG MAC's genuine use

within The IPKat team

The Cancellation Division deemed this evidence insufficient to prove genuine use during the relevant period of time (11/4/2012 - 10/4/2017). Although all evidence submitted must be appreciated as a whole and entails a degree of interdependence between the relevant factors (time, place, extent and nature of use), in this case the trade mark proprietor had failed to provide evidence that would prove genuine use throughout that period of time.





Among other things, McDonald's had failed to provide third-party evidence and the brochures did not provide any details regarding how they were circulated and whether they led to any actual or potential purchases. As regards the Wikipedia entry, the Cancellation Division was not impressed by that piece of evidence either, noting that anyone can amend Wikipedia entries. As such, it would have been necessary to have this piece of evidence supported by "other pieces of independent concrete evidence".





The EUIPO concluded that:

Even if the goods were offered for sale, there is no data about how long the products were offered on the given web page or in other ways, and there is no information of any actual sales taking place or any potential and relevant consumers being engaged, either through an offer, or through a sale. Finally, as far as the relevant services are considered, there is no single piece of evidence that refers to any of the registered services being offered under the EUTM.

It follows, that an overall assessment of the evidence does not allow the conclusion, without resorting to probabilities and presumptions, that the mark was genuinely used during the relevant period for the relevant goods or services

Comment





The outcome of these proceedings might appear - prima facie - surprising, also considering the notoriety of McDonald's Big Mac. However, it is a useful reminder that, even if one owns a well-known trade mark that might have been clearly in use during the relevant period, one should not overlook the importance of the evidence - and its quality - that needs to be provided to prove such genuine use in the event of an application for revocation.




Cathy Wrotny is ready to produce this years Winton Club Caabret at the Town Hall later this month. It should be a Heavenly show.
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Auspicious Cranes: The Crane in Asian Art and Myth

PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
Pavlo Klimkin stated that holding of a few closed sessions is planned, despite the open meetings

Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin intends to discuss Russian aggression in Kerch Strait, Donbas issue and release of the Ukrainian prisoners during the World Economic Forum in Davos as 112 Ukraine reported.

My priorities will be Azov and Kerch Strait, Donbas and release of our political prisoners and hostages. I want to show those, who will be present there that today Russia violates everything that was possible and will only raise the stakes, Klimkin said.

He also added that the closed sessions with frank discussions will take place, despite a few open meetings during the forum in Davos.

As we the 48th World Economic Forum opened in Davos with the topic Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World took place in 2018. Davos was to accept 2,500 guests from more than 100 countries of the world: representatives from business, political leaders, heads of the international organization, journalists and representatives of the civil society.

In 2019, the forum will take place on January 22-25. The main topic of the upcoming meeting is the globalization and interaction during the fourth industrial revolution.
However, Klimkin is against the dual citizenship for people, who have the Russian passports

Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin stands for implementation of the dual citizenship in Ukraine; however, with the restriction for the Russian citizens, particularly, during the aggression as 112 Ukraine reported.

I will continue to boost this discussion. I think it is necessary as well as the dual citizenship, Klimkin said.

Foreign Minister noted that the department has already provided its vision of this issue.

No dual citizenship for those, who have the Russian passports can be when there is the aggression. There is an issue, how the criteria of the dual citizenship can be set. It will allow us to solve a few very important issues but we need the frank discussion, Pavlo Klimkin concluded.

Earlier, Ukrinfrom published a video where a few Ukrainians receive Hungarian passports and owe allegiance to Hungry in the Consulate in Berehove, Zakarpattia region. The Hungarian diplomat recommended not to inform the Ukrainian authorities about receiving the new documents.

Yuriy Lutsenko, Prosecutor General, claimed that Ukraine's Security Service investigates this case; however, the service denied this.

Tamas Menczer, Hungarys Foreign Minister Spokesperson, later reported that Hungary did not intend to withdraw its consul from Berehove due to the scandalous video about the issuance of Hungarian passports to the Ukrainians.

In its turn, Ukraine claimed that in case, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary does not withdraw their consul from Berehove, and then Ukraine will offer him to abandon the territory.
Sergey Lavrov also criticized the closing of the Ukrainian polling station in Russia during the upcoming elections

Open source

Russia has gotten the proposal of the OSCE to send its observers to the presidential elections in Ukraine appointed for March 31, 2019 as TASS reported citing Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

We got the invitation of the OSCE to send our observers to the mission, which will control the elections. We have the invitation, Lavrov said.

He also commented the refusal of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine to open the polling stations on the presidential elections in Russia. Earlier the Central Election Commission closed all polling stations in the Russian Federation.

We see the aspiration to artificially influence the results of the elections in the favor of the current authority behind the decision not to open the polling stations in the diplomatic missions of Ukraine in Russia.

Earlier Foreign Minister of Ukraine warned that Ukraine will not review applications from Russia.
Manuel Ochsenreiter provided instructions for the February 4, 2018, attack on the headquarters of the Hungarian Cultural Association in Uzhhorod, the capital of the Zakarpattya region in western Ukraine

Manuel Ochsenreiter Open source

A parliamentary worker for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been accused of ordering a false flag arson attack in Uzhhorod, Western Ukraine, back in February 2018 in an attempt to discredit Ukraine's government. Deutsche Welle reported that on January 15.

Three Poles are on trial in Poland following last February's firebombing of a Hungarian culture center in Uzhhorod, western Ukraine. According to Polish authorities, the attack was to be attributed to Ukrainian neo-Nazis in order to sour relations between Ukraine and Hungary.

One of the accused, named only as Michal P., told the court that the attack, in which Molotov cocktails were used, was ordered by Manuel Ochsenreiter, who works in the office of AfD Bundestag member Markus Frohnmaier, DW reports.

Michal, who is also charged with funding a terrorist organization, told the Krakow court that Ochsenreiter gave him 1,500, plus money for a plane ticket, to find people to carry out the attack.

Michal told the court that he had received 500 in advance, hidden in a book sent by post, and 1,000 handed over in person by Ochsenreiter at Berlin-Tegel Airport. He testified that he and Ochsenreiter had communicated in English via the messaging app Telegram and that he later sent the AfD worker videos of the attack on the app.

According to Michal's testimony, Ochsenreiter had been particularly insistent that smoke traces be visible on the outside of the building.

Michal Prokopowicz appears in a Krakow court on January 14. http://www.rferl.org/

Michal is a member of Poland's National Radical Camp, an ultranationalist organization that supports the pro-Russia separatists in their war in eastern Ukraine.

Polish prosecutors have not yet said whether an investigation has been opened into Ochsenreiter. The journalist and author Anton Shekhovtsov tweeted a photo showing Michal sitting together with the AfD worker against the flag of the so-called Donetsk People Republic, a self-proclaimed state in the Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine.

An important update on the anti-Ukrainian false-flag operation involving three Poles and a German (the source in Polish language): https://t.co/kchQJUZp4p What happened: in February 2018, unknown thugs attacked a Hungarian cultural centre in the Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod. /1  Anton Shekhovtsov (@A_SHEKH0VTS0V) January 6, 2019

Ochsenreiter's lawyer state that his client denied all the accusations.

"My co-worker denies the allegations as fictitious," he told t-online.de on January 14, RFER/RL reported on January 14.

According to DW, Ochsenreiter is the editor of the far-right publication Zuerst! (First!), which did not respond to a DW's request for comment. Nor did Frohnmaier's office respond to DW, but the lawmaker posted a statement on his Facebook page on Monday, which read: "My employee expressly denied the accusations to me as freely invented. As an employer one has the responsibility for one's employees. The presumption of innocence applies, of course, to the employees of parliamentarians too."

Should prosecutors open an investigation into Ochsenreiter and press charges, Frohnmaier wrote, "then, but only then," would he suspend his employee. Frohnmaier also accused the media of "enjoying writing people out of their job."

Speaking to the magazine Kontraste, Frohnmaier speculated that Michal had implicated Ochsenreiter "to improve his own position" in the trial.

Related: New Hungarian commissioner for Zakarpattia has wider powers, - official

The case could include another awkward connection for the AfD, the No. 3 party in the Bundestag, DW writes. In the picture posted by Shekhovtsov, dated 2015, Ochsenreiter is seated next to Mateusz Piskorski, an activist whom Polish authorities imprisoned on suspicion of spying for the Russian secret services (both the domestic FSB and the foreign SWR) from 2009 through 2016.

In 2017, the Suddeutsche Zeitung quoted a classified document from the German intelligence agencies that described Piskorski as a "paid pro-Russia agitator." Media reported at the time that Piskorski had maintained close contacts with several AfD functionaries  including Ochsenreiter, who took part in election observation missions organized by Piskorski in eastern Ukrainian regions.

Piskorski, a former representative in the Polish parliament and publicist who co-founded the think tank European Center of Geopolitical Analysis, has been in a Polish prison since May 2016, but is yet to be charged by authorities.

In response to an official information request submitted last year by the Free Democrats (FDP), the German government refused to comment further on intelligence agencies' assessments, citing security.

As we reported in Uzhhorod, a bottle with an incendiary mixture was thrown into the building of the Transcarpathian Union of Hungarians.

The arson at the office happened in small hours of February 26, 2018. Units of the State Emergency Service put out the fire after it destroyed furniture and part of the property on an area of 25 square meters.

Later, the Ukrainian ambassador in Budapest was summoned to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs because of an attack on the office of Hungarian Culture Association.
The Russian side is stalling until the end of the political process in Ukraine

Open source

Russian Gazprom can stop the transit of gas through Ukraine in 2020 as 112 Ukraine reported citing Andry Kobolev, the CEO of Naftogaz Ukraine.

Kobolev stated that Gazprom has already disrupted the trilateral technical negotiations. He supposed that Russia delays the process of the negotiations of the contracts until the end of the political process.

If the contract is not signed, Gazprom will stop the transit of gas through Ukraine. According to Kobolev, such incidents happened in January 2006 and January 2009.

Can it stop the transit? It can, such things have already happened. Twice. It was in 2006 in 2009, in January, in both cases; it put pressure on both, Europe and Ukraine, Kobolev stated.

He also claimed that Gazprom can refuse from the contracts and try to enter 2020 without them.

Is there some possibility that Gazprom will refuse and try to enter 2020 without a contract? Yes, such things have already happened, Kobolev noted.

Naftogaz Ukraine CEO stated that the Ukrainian side will defend its position and insist on the transparent negotiations, which will be clear for the European partners. Besides, Naftogaz plans to save up enough amount of gas in the underground depositories.

Earlier Polish President Andrzej Duda urged the German government to give up on Nord Stream 2 construction. He insisted that the new pipeline would breach the current energy balance, posing danger to the energy safety of some countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Putin claimed that the Russian Federation was ready to save the gas transit through Ukraine after the launch of the Nord Stream 2.

Gazprom and its partners intended to begin the realization of the Nord Stream 2 project, which costs ten billion dollars. It is expected that the 1200 km gas pipeline will be laid through the Baltic Sea, and will connect Russia and Germany passing Ukraine, Poland, and Baltic countries. The capacity of the gas pipeline will be twice increased than the first Nord Stream. The construction is estimated to be completed by the end of 2019.

Ukraine is adamantly opposed to the construction by calling it politically motivated and suggesting the EU to create a consortium with the involvement of European companies to manage the existing more efficient transportation route through Ukraine. A number of EU countries have expressed their disagreement with the Nord Stream 2 project in particular Poland and Lithuania.
Court refused the prosecutors office in the restriction of the term for the familiarizing with the materials of the criminal proceeding for the defense of Vyshynsky

Social media

Kherson City Court has extended the arrest of Ria News CEO Kyrylo Vyshynsky until February 16 as Interfax-Ukraine reported citing his lawyer Andry Domansky.

It is noted that the proper appeal of the prosecutors office was granted by the court at the session on January 17.

However, the court refused the prosecutors office in the restriction of the term for the familiarizing with the materials of the criminal proceeding, which were opened by the lawyers on January 10, for the defense of Vyshynsky.

On May 15, the SBU considered the detention of the head of RIA News Ukraine agencys office.

Kremlin has already responded to the incident and called the actions of the SBU outrageous. Besides, Russia promised to assume reciprocal measures. Then, the state sent a protest note over searches at the mass media office.

Later it was reported that the actions of Vyshynsky were preliminarily qualified as the state treason. The same day the SBU reported that Kyrylo Vyshynsky is now officially suspected of state treason.

Recently, there are statements about his exchange for the convicted Ukrainians held in Russia.

On September 6, the arrest of Vyshynsky was extended until November 30.
The bodies of one more Ukrainian sailor and the Azerbaijani captain of the same crew have not been found

Ukrainian sailors, rescue operation in Turkey Ukrinform

The bodies of three seamen who deceased in the shipwreck off the coast of Turkey in the Black Sea on January 7 were handed over to their relatives in Ukraine. Ukrinform news agency reported that on Friday morning.

According to Ukraine's consul in Turkey Borys Yasynsky, the remains of the Ukrainian sailors who died in the tragedy were delivered to their families in Odesa, Kharkiv and Cherkasy.

The bodies of one more Ukrainian sailor and the Azerbaijani captain of the same crew have not been found.

According to the unofficial data provided by the Turkish emergency services, the search and rescue operation has been stopped. The decision was made because the Turkish side said it made no sense anymore in keeping it running.

However, the Ukrainian side insisted that the person whose body was not found would be officially credited as missing, and the relatives will file all the necessary documents.

The surviving sailors had returned to Odesa.
Satellite images show Iskander-M compound placed in Krasnodar, 250 miles away from the Ukrainian territory

Open source

Russia's defense ministry went for another act of intimidation, placing a medium-range missile launcher not far from the state border with Ukraine.

'The intelligence report by Imagesat International showed the new deployment in Krasnodar, 270 miles from the border with Ukraine. The images show an Iskander compound, with a few bunkers and another compound of hangars', reads the message as posted on the Fox News's website.

Iskander-M is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads; its effective range makes 310 miles.

The U.S. outlet mentions leader of Russia's security council Nikolai Patrushev who earlier said Ukraine could 'lose its statehood' amidst the ongoing political and military tensions. He accused Ukrainian authorities, including president Petro Poroshenko, of being controlled by the US amid simmering tensions between Kiev and Moscow. "The continuation of such policy by the Kiev authorities can contribute to the loss of Ukraines statehood," Mr Patrushev told Rossiyskaya Gazeta, according to Russian news agency TASS.

The Kiev authorities are doing everything to split Ukraine, implementing the Wests scenario to break Ukraine away from Russia, while ignoring the interests of its own people. As a result, the country has been de facto split, he concluded.
The inmate returned to the regular cell, as the pre-holiday enhanced security mode is over

Open source

Ukrainian political prisoner Oleksandr Kolchenko who stays at penal colony No.6 in Kopeysk, Russia, is now out of the isolation cell; previously, he spent 10 days there, as the guard imposed an enhanced security mode before the New Year holidays. Tatyana Shchur, the Russian human rights defender reported that as quoted by Ukrinform news agency.

'I know Sasha Kolchenko was released from the isolation cell. I hope the lawyer will visit him soon, and we'll get more information', she said.

In September, the inmate also spent three days in the isolation cell; the reason was his 'failure to observe the dress code'. Back then, His mother also stated that shortly before the detention in the cell he wrote an appeal on the meeting with the Ukrainian Consul and Ombudsman.

Kolchenko and Oleg Sentsov were detained by Russian intelligence services in Crimea in May 2014. They were accused of the organization of a terrorist act on the peninsula. Kolchenko was sentenced to 10 years of the colony, Sentsov to 20 years. Both are denying their guilt.
Open source

The Ukrainian side is waiting for the sale of Gazprom property and the transfer of money. This was announced by the head of the Naftogaz Ukraine board, Andriy Kobolev, reports 112 Ukraine.

The sale of the property of Gazprom and the transfer of money to the accounts of Naftogaz Ukraine are connected with the obligation of the Russian side to pay the entire amount of the debt. According to Kobolev, the amount of interest can already exceed $ 100 million.



He also claims that the shares of the first Nord Stream are in Switzerland, so the Swiss court could decide to remove the arrest from Gazprom assets. However, according to him, the shares were issued in documentary form and can be used to conceal the real owner or for non-transparent transactions.
Ukraine's mission in the UN insists that Russia remains under pressure in the view of the illegal detention of Ukrainian sailors. This is mentioned in the letter of Volodymyr Yelchenko, the Ukrainian ambassador in the UN. His press office quoted him on Twitter.

'Ukraine demands that the Russian Federation respect the rights of 24 Ukrainian servicemen captured in the Black Sea on November 25, 2018, given their POW status in line with the international humanitarian law', reads the message.

The Ukrainian diplomat passed the UN Secretary-General a copy of the Foreign Ministry's statement, in which the authority urged the international community to consolidate pressure on Russia so as to release the captives.

On November 25, the coast guard ships of the Russian Navy attacked the ships of the Ukrainian Navy, which have been carrying out a scheduled transition from Odesa port to Mariupol port in the Sea of Azov.

21 Ukrainian sailors have been delivered to Lefortovo remand center in Moscow, three others are in the hospital of Matrosskaya Tishina prison, also in the Russian capital. On December 3, the Russian prosecutors officially accused Ukrainian sailors with the 'illegal crossing of the state border' during the attack in the Kerch Strait.
Open source

Foreign Ministers of Ukraine and the Federal Republic of Germany Pavlo Klimkin and Heiko Maas agreed on expert-level negotiations on the establishment of a monitoring mission in the Kerch Strait. This was stated by Klimkin at a joint press conference with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Friday in Kyiv, Interfax-Ukraine reported.



"We agreed that we will have a meeting of experts in the nearest future. There are political, legal and technical issues. If we have a joint vision, we can continue to work with the Russian side," he said.



Maas expressed confidence that a monitoring agreement would be reached. The main task will be the de-escalation in the Azov region, the minister said.

On November 25, the coast guard ships of the Russian Navy attacked the ships of the Ukrainian Navy, which have been carrying out a scheduled transition from Odesa port to Mariupol port in the Sea of Azov.

21 Ukrainian sailors have been delivered to Lefortovo remand center in Moscow, three others are in the hospital of Matrosskaya Tishina prison, also in the Russian capital. On December 3, the Russian prosecutors officially accused Ukrainian sailors with the 'illegal crossing of the state border' during the attack in the Kerch Strait.

On December 26, Crimean Supreme Court left all Ukrainian sailors under arrest.

On January 16, Lefortovo court has extended the arrest period for all Ukrainian sailors who suffered the attack of the Russian Navy in the Kerch Strait in November.

Earlier Poltorak stated that Ukraine will continue carrying out passages through the Kerch Strait and sending vessels to Azov Sea ports despite the existing danger.
Sergey Lavrov reported that Heiko Mass passed him an offer, which packs up this simple visit in some document, which should be agreed with Ukraine

Open source

President of Russia Vladimir Putin agreed on the offer of German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the provision of the access of the German and French specialists to Kerch Strait as Interfax reported citing Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

More than a month ago Chancellor Merkel asked President Putin to allow German specialists to come to the region of Kerch Strait and see, how the passage through these waters takes place, considering the necessity to observe the safety rulesand President Putin agreed, Lavrov said.

He added that some time ago, Merkel asked for coming not only of the German specialists but also of the French workers and supposedly Putin agreed on it too.

Besides, Lavrov reported that German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas passed him an offer, which packs up this simple visit in some document, which should be agreed with Ukraine.

We told honestly if our colleagues are interested in the things promised by President Putin to Chancellor Merkel, that it can be done today, tomorrow, any time. If the issue is in the necessity to enshrine it in some political procedure in which the Ukrainian side will make some decisions but we risk appearing in the same situation as Normandy Format did with Steinmeier formula, Russias Foreign Minister said.

On November 25, the coast guard ships of the Russian Navy attacked the ships of the Ukrainian Navy, which have been carrying out a scheduled transition from Odesa port to Mariupol port in the Sea of Azov.

21 Ukrainian sailors have been delivered to Lefortovo remand center in Moscow, three others are in the hospital of Matrosskaya Tishina prison, also in the Russian capital. On December 3, the Russian prosecutors officially accused Ukrainian sailors with the 'illegal crossing of the state border' during the attack in the Kerch Strait.

On December 26, Crimean Supreme Court left all Ukrainian sailors under arrest.

On January 16, Lefortovo court has extended the arrest period for all Ukrainian sailors who suffered the attack of the Russian Navy in the Kerch Strait in November.

Earlier Poltorak stated that Ukraine will continue carrying out passages through the Kerch Strait and sending vessels to Azov Sea ports despite the existing danger.
Open source

People have a desire to get decent real incomes and have decent living conditions. The existence of a powerful middle class is fundamental to ensuring normal domestic demand in Ukraine. But in order to understand whether we can achieve this in the medium term, we must assess the possible risks of the next 2-3 years, as well as study the negative inertia, gained over the last 10-15 years. We should ask ourselves: how all this oligarchic rile might take?

Of course, it will not disappear soon, because our society is humble and downtrodden, and the Antimonopoly Committee is weak and obedient. Therefore, we do not have the strength to destroy the economic model built by the oligarchs, where virtually all profitable assets of the state are concentrated on the one side, while the large holdings and export-oriented enterprises that are part of the same financial-industrial groups are on the other side.

It is also clear that we will not be able to become a consumer society with a large middle class. And the politicians cherished by oligarchs would continue to impede the people from critical thinking, persuading the people to be guilty of its worthless life. And now, the Ukrainian elite is on the Forbes list, and its total wealth many times exceeds all the tranches of the International Monetary Fund. January 1, 2019, the minimum salary of the workers is 149 USD per month (previously this amount was 132 USD). The living wage has grown by 2,7 USD, so now its 66 USD.

Joseph Stiglitz, who was awarded Nobel Prize in Economics, has introduced the concept of information asymmetry. What does it mean? When drafting a public policy agreement, voters are better aware of the peculiarities of the current situation: any politician can deceive you, while you cannot deceive a politician. What should we do in this situation? I am convinced, there are only two scenarios for deoligarchization. The first is the forceful destruction of the monopoly-oligarchic structure. The second is destruction through transnational corporations. Most likely, the Americans and the Chinese would form a new elite, and the old will simply be marginalized. At the same time, Europe has its own problems, especially France and the UK.

Therefore, de-offshorisation of our economy presupposes the unity of interests of a significant part of Ukrainian society. Huge resources are hidden here. And the greatest danger is that the profit centers are located outside of Ukraine, on the offshore accounts. Instead of lending to production companies, our commercial banks are actively involved in the purchase of the government bonds at 20% per annum (!), National Bank (NBU) deposit certificates, and carry out various speculative foreign exchange transactions.

In this regard, the decision of January 14, 2019, the supervisory board of Vostok Bank (controlled by Kostelman and Morokhovsky, co-owners of the Fozzy Group) is very revealing. They have decided not to credit their own enterprises, but to buy NBU deposit certificates worth 40 million USD! It is very important to note that the value of the assets of Vostok bank at the beginning of 2019 was 300 million USD.

But now, in accordance with the repayment schedule of previously placed government bonds, the Ministry of Finance paid 2,5 billion UAH (89 million USD) and 423 million USD in January 2019. In 2018, the Ministry of Finance has already financed the state budget by 2,3 billion USD, 3,47 billion US dollars and 503 million EUR due to the placement of domestic government bonds only. When will the money in the real sector of the economy of Ukraine come at 7-8% per annum? When will the mortgage become available? At the same time has, it is high time to think about the inheritance of unfair privatization of the 1990sThe then privatization was carried out not within the framework of the legislation in force, however, the current realities force us to return to the question of compensation.

But are local oligarchs and owners of financial-industrial groups ready to pay extra for assets in order to remove claims from the Ukrainian society? Let us remember the example of the UK. By introducing an interest income tax on the privatization of large coal mines under the government of Margaret Thatcher, the British treasury received up to 10 billion US dollars! Do you remember Ukraines situation in the 90s, when everything was extremely cheap during the mass privatization, and the rule was to buy everything because you would not get the second chance? Here is one illustrative example. At one time, experts from a well-known business publication calculated that in 1999 - 2004, Privat Group (controls thousands of companies of virtually every industry in Ukraine, the European Union, Georgia, Ghana, Russia, the United States, and other countries. Steel, oil & gas, chemical, and energy are sectors of the group's prime influence and expertise. None of the group's capital is publicly traded on any stock exchange  ed.) acquired mining and metallurgical assets of 5 joint-stock companies for $ 35.7 million, then contributed additional $ 331.85 million to increase the authorized funds of these enterprises, and in 2007 sold shares of these enterprises to Evraz Group for approximately $ 3.5 billion.

Of course, now no one has quick recipes for effective socio-economic reforms and the abandonment of the monopolistic-oligarchic structure. But this does not mean that these problems should not be solved. They are very acute for our country. It is important to capture trends that would lead to progress and sustainable economic growth.

Read the original text at 112.ua.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or 112.International and its owners.
Even U.S. sanctions are not enough for that to happen, German Foreign Minister admits

There's nothing that could cease the construction of Nord Stream II pipeline at this stage - even the U.S. sanctions. Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister said this as quoted by Deutsche Welle.

'No one will sabotage this project now. The U.S. sanctions may lead to the Western companies, including the German concerns, withdrawing from it. But that, still, would not have it brought to an end. In this case, Russia will have it implemented on its own, and then nothing will affect the gas transit through Ukraine', Maas said, according to DW.

He added that the EU is now negotiating on keeping the Ukrainian gas transit, but these talks could make no sense if the U.S. imposes sanctions, and the Russians will be able to finish the construction works on their own.

The Nord Stream-2 is the project on building a second transit gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in the Baltic Sea. Barack Obamas administration was against the project. The construction works are to begin in 2018. The project foresees further broadening and modernization of the Nord Stream pipeline. By promoting the Nord Stream-2, Russia aims to refuse from the transit of its gas supplies through the Ukrainian territory.

Nord Stream 2 will have the capacity to transport 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Russia to Germany along the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

300 km of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline were built in November of 2018. Laying of both lines of the pipeline in the coastal zone of Germany has been completed, and work is being done in the territorial waters and exclusive economic zone of Germany, as well as the exclusive economic zone of Finland.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has postponed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan in an apparent response to her suggestion that he reschedule his annual State of Union address.

The president cited the government shutdown, the longest-ever in US history, for postponing Pelosi's foreign trip.

Trump's move came Thursday a day after the House Speaker urged him to reschedule his annual State of the Union address slated for January 29, citing security concerns triggered by the shutdown that has entered its 27th day.

"Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over," Trump said in a letter to Pelosi, a copy of which was released to the press.

The president also said postponing this "public relations event" was totally appropriate.

The shutdown has rendered over 800,000 federal employees without work, crippling the functioning of several key wings of the government including Security and State department.

?In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that,? Trump said.

The shutdown is a result of the bitter political divided over border security issue as the Democrats who now enjoy majority in the House have refused to approve a legislation approving USD 5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border.

"I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the strong border security movement to end the shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative,? Trump said.

He said, ?I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!?

Trump's letter to Pelosi came soon after the House Speaker told reporters at the US Capitol that the president has been mum on for more than 24 hours on the issue of rescheduling his annual State of the Union address.

"We haven't heard. It was a very silent more than 24 hours, to your question that you ask me every time I step out of the office, have you heard? No, we haven't heard yet.? Pelosi said taking a dig at the president.

In her letter, Pelosi had also told Trump Wednesday that the US Secret Service was designated as the lead federal agency responsible for coordinating, planning, exercising and implementing security for National Special Security Events by Public Law 106-544, December 19, 2000.

"However, both the US Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have not been funded for 26 days now - with critical departments hamstrung by furloughs," she said.

"Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th," Pelosi said.

In a tweet Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, however, said the Department of Homeland Security and the secret services were "fully prepared to "support and secure" the State of the Union.

"The Department of Homeland Security and the US Secret Service are fully prepared to support and secure the State of the Union. We thank the Service for their mission focus and dedication and for all they do each day to secure our homeland," Nielsen had said on Twitter.

President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling. The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table.


TOKYO: The US Navy has not ruled out sending an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait, despite military technology advances by China that pose a greater threat to US warships than ever before, the chief of US naval operations said on Friday.

Washington sent ships through the strategic waterway three times last year as it makes more frequent transits of the strait that separates Taiwan from the Chinese mainland, but it has not dispatched a carrier in more than 10 years.

During that time, China has modernized its forces with missiles designed to strike enemy ships. "We don`t really see any kind of limitation on whatever type of ship could pass through those waters," Admiral John Richardson told reporters in the Japanese capital, when asked if more advanced Chinese weapons posed too big a risk.

"We see the Taiwan Strait as another (stretch of) international waters, so that`s why we do the transits." Aircraft carriers, typically equipped with about 80 aircraft and crews of about 5,000, are key to the US military`s ability to project power globally.

On Tuesday, a US official told Reuters the United States was closely watching Chinese intentions toward Taiwan as advances in military technology give Beijing`s forces greater capability to occupy an island it considers a breakaway province. In a report, the US Defense Intelligence Agency called Taiwan the "primary driver" for China`s military modernization.

Richardson, who visited China before travelling to Japan, said he told his Chinese counterparts the United States was opposed to any unilateral action by Beijing or Taipei. He also urged China to stick to international rules during unplanned naval encounters at sea.

That request came after a Chinese destroyer approached the USS Decatur in October and forced it to change course as it challenged Chinese territorial claims in the contested South China Sea with a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP).

"We have made this very clear that this was an excursion, a departure from the normal adherence to those rules and we would hope that behaviour in the future would be much more consistent," Richardson said.

"We should not see each other as a threatening presence in these waters." The US Navy continues to pass through waters in the South China Sea that Beijing considers its territory. On Jan 7, a US guided-missile destroyer sailed within 12 miles of a Chinese-occupied island, prompting Beijing`s rebuke that it had "gravely infringed upon China`s sovereignty".

China, which claims almost all of the strategic waterway, says its intentions are peaceful. Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have competing claims.
WASHINGTON: Pakistan may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong and unified one, according to a Congressional report which also highlights India's lack of desire to pursue a deeper defence cooperation with Kabul.

The report "Afghanistan: Background and US Policy in Brief" prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) comes amidst intensification of efforts by the Trump administration to hold peace talks with the Taliban by seeking help of Pakistan.

US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad Thursday held talks with Pakistan's Foreign Secretary in Islamabad after extensive discussions in Kabul as part of his efforts to arrange the first-ever direct talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

Khalilzad arrived in Pakistan to seek Islamabad's help to convince the Taliban to return to the negotiating table to end the 17-year-long Afghan war.

"Pakistan may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong, unified Afghan state (particularly one led by a Pashtun-dominated government in Kabul; Pakistan has a large Pashtun minority)," the CRS said in its report for lawmakers on Thursday.

However, it said that at least some Pakistani leaders had stated that instability in Afghanistan could rebound to Pakistan's detriment; Pakistan has struggled with indigenous Islamist militants of its own.

"Afghanistan-Pakistan relations are further complicated by the large Afghan refugee population in Pakistan and a long-standing border dispute over which violence has broken out on several occasions," said the report.

"Pakistan sees Afghanistan as potentially providing strategic depth against India, but may also anticipate that improved relations with Afghanistan's leadership could limit India's influence in Afghanistan," said the report, a copy of which was made available to PTI.

India's interest in Afghanistan stems largely from India's broader regional rivalry with Pakistan, which impedes Indian efforts to establish stronger and more direct commercial and political relations with Central Asia, it said.

The report said that India has been the largest regional contributor to Afghan reconstruction, but New Delhi has not shown an inclination to pursue a deeper defece relationship with Kabul.

The Afghans themselves appear divided on the wisdom of cultivating stronger ties with India, it observed.

The report concludes Congress could also seek to help shape the US approach to potential negotiations around amending the Constitution or otherwise altering the highly centralised Afghan political system, through legislation and public statements.

The core issues for Congress include its role in authorising, appropriating funds for, and overseeing US military activities, aid and regional policy implementation, it said.

Members of Congress may also examine how the US can leverage its assets, influence and experience in Afghanistan, as well as those of Afghanistan's neighbours and international organisations to encourage more equal, inclusive and effective governance, the report said.

The CRS is an independent and bipartisan research wing of the US Congress. It prepares reports on various issues of relevance for the US lawmakers to make informative decision. These are not official views of the US Congress.
NAYPYITAW: Myanmars army has killed 13 rebel fighters in the western Rakhine State, a military spokesman said on Friday, as government troops battle to contain a new insurgency in the troubled region. Fighting between security forces and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group seeking greater autonomy for Rakhine, has forced some 5,000 civilians to flee their homes since early December, according to the United Nations.

The violence has brought fresh turmoil to the region, the site of a massive crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017, and represents another setback for the Buddhist-majority countrys embattled peace process.

"Between Jan. 5 and 16, 2019, there were eight clashes and five landmine explosions," said Major General Tun Tun Nyi, speaking at a rare press conference in the capital, Naypyitaw. "Thirteen enemy bodies and three weapons were seized, and some soldiers died and were injured on our side," he said.

He declined to elaborate on the number of government troops killed, saying it was "not necessary" to give the figures. The Arakan Army could not be immediately reached for comment, but a spokesman outside Myanmar previously told Reuters five bodies seized by the military did not belong to their fighters.

The recent surge of violence began after insurgents killed 13 police and wounded nine in attacks on four police posts on Jan. 4, as Myanmar celebrated Independence Day, state media reported. Myanmars civilian administration last week called on the military to "crush" the rebels, according to a government spokesman.

On Friday, the military said Aung San Suu Kyi, who runs the country as state counsellor, personally ordered the crackdown, stating that the Arakan Army, which recruits from among the mainly Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, should face the same treatment as Rohingya insurgents. The military onslaught against the Rohingya in 2017, which the UN and Western nations have called ethnic cleansing, was preceded by attacks on security forces by fighters calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. The government denies the charge of ethnic cleansing.

"During negotiations at the presidents house on January 9, state counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said AA were terrorists and instructed to crack down effectively," Tun Tun Nyi said. "If not, others would point out that ARSA was cracked down on because its from a different religion and AA was not because it is an ethnic group," he said. A government spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment.

The conflict is the latest crisis facing Nobel laureate Suu Kyis administration, which swept to power in 2015 promising to bring an end to the countrys myriad civil wars. Myanmar governments have battled various autonomy-seeking ethnic minority insurgent groups since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948, though some have struck ceasefire agreements.

The United Nations has called for "rapid and unimpeded" aid access to the conflict zone, after the state government last week banned non-governmental organisations and the UN from five townships affected by the fighting.
DUBAI: An American journalist working for Iran`s state television channel Press TV who Iran says has been detained in Washington will appear in a US court on Friday, the channel reported on Friday.

Iran has called for the immediate release of TV anchor and documentary film maker Marziyeh Hashemian, whose employer, the English-language channel Press TV, said was arrested on Sunday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

The FBI has not commented on the case. "Marzieh Hashemi, detained by the FBI on unspecified charges, is due to appear in a Washington, DC, court on Friday," the state-run Press TV reported, without elaborating.

The broadcaster on Wednesday quoted Hashemi`s son as saying that the 59-year-old journalist, who had been living in Iran for more than a decade, was detained as a "material witness" to a criminal case and no formal charges had been made against her.

US Federal law allows the government to arrest and detain a witness if it can prove that their testimony is material to a criminal proceeding and that it cannot guarantee their presence through a subpoena.

According to Press TV, Hashemi was born Melanie Franklin in the United States and changed her name after converting to Islam. She had traveled to the United States to visit her family, the channel said.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned the arrest a "violation of freedom of speech and unacceptable".

"She is the wife of an Iranian citizen and we see it as our duty to defend the rights of our citizens" Zarif told Iran`s Arabic-language state broadcaster Al-Alam news channel. In a statement on Friday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the Justice Department to disclose the reason for Hashemi`s arrest.

CPJ said in the statement that "Iran routinely jails journalists, with at least eight behind bars in relation to their work when CPJ conducted its annual global prison census in December." Tensions have been high between Iran and the United States since US President Donald Trumps decision to pull out of an international nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

Several Iranian dual nationals from the United States, Britain, Austria, Canada and France have been detained in the past years in Iran and are being kept behind bars on charges including espionage and collaborating with hostile governments.
Singapore: A 34-year-old Indian-origin man was on Friday charged with the murder of a woman, who was found dead in a rented apartment here, according to a media report. Singaporean M Krishnan allegedly killed 40-year-old Mallika Begum Rahamansa Abdul Rahman in the apartment in northern housing estate of Woodlands late Wednesday night, revealed a court document.

Police said that the two knew each other and were understood to be in a relationship. Both had frequent quarrels, Today, an online portal, reported. When the police arrived at the murder scene shortly after receiving a call at 1.34 am on Thursday, Mallika was lying motionless inside a room. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene, the report said.

Though Krishnan fled the scene by then, the police managed to apprehend him hours later as his identity was quickly established, the police said. Krishnan, who faces death penalty if convicted of murder, was not represented by a lawyer on Friday.

Bail was granted and he was remanded at the Central Police Division. The next hearing for Krishnan's case has been set on January 25.
BERLIN: Germany`s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said there needed to be a discussion about reopening the draft deal for Britain`s planned exit from the European Union, but only if all EU countries supported the move.

"In the end, it will be about the question whether to reopen the deal which needs the approval of all 27 member states, which means that everyone has to join in. This is what needs to be discussed now," he told public broadcaster ZDF late on Thursday.

Maas earlier on Thursday had said it was "hardly imaginable" that the Brexit withdrawal agreement would be reconsidered. On Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel told lawmakers that for her, "it is clear that there cannot be any renegotiations", according to two participants.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the USA, calling it the most unqualified country to criticise China. Addressing a press meet on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said that US cannot wag a finger on China with regard to international norms.

According to a report in Global Times, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson accused the US of having double standard, picking and choosing norms when it suits American interests.

The attack by the China government on US came just a day after American Vice President Mike Pence hit out at China, claiming that the Indian neighbour was using debt diplomacy and unfair trade practices to expand its influence.

Speaking at the global summit of American envoys on Wednesday, Pence had said, China has been put on notice.

The US Vice President added, As I made clear on that visit to the region just a few short weeks ago, the United States will always stand for a free and open Indo-Pacific where all countries can enjoy freedom of navigation and open trade.

He said that with US President Donald Trump's direction we've placed tariffs on USD250 billion of Chinese goods, with the highest tariff specifically targeting the advanced industries that Beijing is attempting to capture and control, the high parts of the modern economy.

Pence said as the US President has made it clear, the US is prepared to levy even more tariffs until China makes much needed structural changes and signs a trade deal that works, not only for their nation but for the US too.

We remain hopeful that China will come to the table. Even as negotiations take place as we speak, that China will come to the table and finally enter into a fair and reciprocal trade relationship, he said.
MELBOURNE: A 20-year-old man was arrested over the killing of an Israeli university student who was walking home after a night out with friends in Melbourne, Australia`s second-largest city, police said on Friday.

Homicide detectives took the man into custody as part of an investigation into the killing of Aiia Maasarwe, 21, whose body was found by passers-by near La Trobe University early on Wednesday, Victoria state police said in a statement.

No other details about the man were released.

The arrest came hours before a vigil for Maasarwe, which thousands of people were expected to attend.

Maasarwe was attacked as she returned to the university`s campus in Melbourne`s northeast, where she had been on a study abroad programme, after watching a comedy show. Police described her as an Israeli national.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison offered Maasarwe`s family his heartfelt condolences.

"We must remain vigilant ... I`m so sickened by the attack and frankly disturbed by it, as I`m sure Australians are all around the country," Morrison told reporters in Fiji, where he was winding up a Pacific tour.

He said his centre-right coalition government would announce another "action plan" to stem violence against women ahead of an election expected by May, on top of A$350 million ($252 million) that has already been committed.

Maasarwe`s father is in Melbourne but it was not clear if he would attend the vigil. People have already begun laying flowers at an impromptu shrine that sprang up in parkland near a shopping centre where her body was found.

She grew up in Baqa al-Gharbiyye, a mostly Arab city in the Haifa district of Israel, before moving to China to study at Shanghai University. Her father had a business in China, Australian media reported.

A family member told Australian media this week Maasarwe had been talking on the phone to her sister in Israel as she walked home, a habit she formed so that she felt safer.

She was the second woman killed in similar circumstances in Melbourne in seven months.

Her death has recharged outrage over violence against women after 22-year-old Eurydice Dixon was killed while walking home after performing at a comedy show in June.

The deaths have fuelled a growing sense of frustration, particularly from women who say they are already vigilant and that men have to take responsibility for their own behaviour as well as challenging the views and actions of other men.

"Nothing will change until we change, too. Until we stop blaming `bad men` - while ignoring the sexist attitudes in our society that created them," Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said.
Washington: Nearly 400 migrants burrowed under a fence on the US-Mexico border earlier this week and crossed into the US, informed sources told CNN. US Border Patrol officers stationed in Yuma, Arizona, took about 375 migrants into custody on Monday after they had made it into the US, the officials said on Thursday, calling it an unusually large apprehension.

It was not immediately clear if the migrants voluntarily surrendered to Border Patrol officials or if they were caught after attempting to evade authorities. The "vast majority" of the group were family members arriving from Guatemala, said National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd.

"It`s the largest I`ve ever heard of," said Judd when asked if this was a significant number for a single group. There are often groups of 20 to 30 people, sometimes as large as 100, apprehended in the Yuma area, according to a Customs and Border Protection official.

The incident comes as President Donald Trump continues to demand funding for new barrier construction on the US-Mexico border as the government shutdown entered its 27th day on Thursday, saying there was a "crisis" at the border that can only be solved with the construction of new border walls or fencing.

In November, a group of around 80 migrants from Guatemala -- primarily families -- were apprehended by Border Patrol after climbing over the legacy landing mat border wall east of the San Luis Port of Entry.

Hours later, another group of around 80 people entered the US by digging a shallow hole underneath the same portion of the wall, according to CBP. There has been a recent spike in total Border Patrol apprehensions in Yuma, up from 2,117 in fiscal year 2017 to 26,244 last year.
VARANASI: Suheldev Bahujan Samaj Party (SBSP) chief and Minister OP Rajbhar on Friday warned that his party will contest on all the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections if the ruling BJP fails to keep its promise on the issue of reservation for backward classes.

Rajbhar, whose party shares power with BJP in UP, has been pressing for divisions under the 27 percent reservation for backward classes.

The SPSP chief also announced that his party will release the list of its candidates on February 25.

"BJP had promised to implement divisions under 27 percent reservation for backward classes. 80 days are left till the elections, when will you do it? If you don`t keep your promise we will contest on all 80 seats, we will release candidates list on February 25," OP Rajbhar told ANI.

OP Rajbhar, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, has always been critical of the BJP government.

The SBSP chief had earlier warned that his party would part ways with the NDA if BJP was not interested in continuing with the alliance.

This comes at a time when political rivals Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) joined hands to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led front in the 2019 general elections.

The minister said that if the BJP does not respond within 100 days on whether it wants to fight the upcoming polls with the SBSP, his party would contest all the 80 seats on its own.

"We are with the BJP if the BJP wants to keep us then we will stay with them, if they don`t want us, then we have given them 100 days, 12 days have already passed. We will fight all 80 seats after 100 days," he said.

In the recent past, the SP and BSP announced the seat-sharing agreement ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The SP and the BSP will contest on 38 seats each while the other two seats will be left for other parties.

Both the parties have also decided not to field any candidates from the Gandhi family stronghold - Amethi and Rae Bareli.

(With ANI Inputs)
New Delhi: Streaming giants Netflix, Hotstar and a clutch of other platforms have signed a 'self-regulatory code' for not showing in India any content considered disrespectful to national symbols and religions, in a bid to avoid a potential censorship crackdown in the booming market.

The platforms, including SonyLiv and Viacom's Voot, have agreed to follow a voluntary industry code of conduct that provides for not showing content that disrespects the national emblem or flag, promotes terrorism or outrages religious sentiments of any community.

Amazon Prime, however, has not signed up for the pact that also covers sexual topics, among others, and sets a mechanism for consumer complaints.

The move is being seen as a bid to thwart any action by the government in the form of potential censorship or regulations.

The self-regulatory Code of Best Practices -- whose other signatories include Zee5, Arre, ALT Balaji, Jio Digital Life and Eros Now -- has been signed under the aegis of industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

"We provide customers with compelling content they love and creators a forum to create unique and passionate stories. While we are assessing the situation, we believe that the current laws are adequate to fulfill this mission," an Amazon India spokesperson said.

IAMAI said the code has been in the works for over a year.

"The Code... Establishes guiding principles for Online Curated Content (OCC) Providers to conduct themselves in a responsible and transparent manner and at the same time ensures that consumer interests are protected," IAMAI said in a statement.

Under the code, the players will ensure that they do not deliberately and maliciously make available any content which disrespects the national emblem or national flag; or shows a child engaged in real or simulated sexual activities.

Also prohibited is content which outrages religious sentiments of any class, section or community; which promotes or encourages terrorism; and content that has been banned for distribution by online video service under law or by any court.

"This effort brings together the key pillars of protecting interests of consumers in viewing content of their choice and defending creative freedom. This shall ensure that all signatories to the code agree to adhere to uniform principles and guidelines contained in this code, in letter and spirit," said the code.

The signatories, it said, will adopt the best practices to ensure a clear and transparent disclosure system informing viewers about the nature of content and advise viewer discretion so consumers are informed about the content that they are accessing.

This would be done by classifying content into distinct categories like general/universal viewing, content requiring parental guidance and content which is solely meant for age-appropriate audiences.

The nine players have also pledged to display a content descriptor or guidance message informing viewers about nature of the content, particularly around age-inappropriate content for minors.

The code also involves a complaint redressal mechanism.

"All signatories ... Agree to internally appoint/institute, as part of their operational systems, a dedicated person, team or department to receive and address any consumer related concerns and complaints in relation to content of the respective providers," reads the code.

Such a department will "act as the single point of contact for receiving all complaints from users; and examine the complaints in accordance with the principles in this code and accordingly advise other departments/internal stakeholders within the relevant OCC Provider," it said, adding that complaints will have to be acknowledged within three working days of receipt.

In case of violation of the code, the department concerned after holding discussions will have to communicate to the aggrieved person within 30 days the precautionary measures taken to address the complaint.

"Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India may forward any complaint to the Department of respective OCC providers," it added.

Some industry watchers have, however, flagged concerns over the self-regulation code. Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights activist, said the code is restrictive and will "hamper creative freedom".

"Web streaming has been at the forefront of pushing boundaries. By voluntarily choosing to put restrictions on creative speech, these platforms are confirming to demands of nanny or prude environment which is not in line with younger generation, who do not find it offensive," Pahwa said.
Bengaluru: Tech giant Microsoft Thursday batted for cross-border data flows but asserted that the same needs to be protected through suitable international measures and standards both legal and technical.

Microsoft India Group Head and Assistant General Counsel Corporate, External and Legal Affairs Keshav Dhakad said India's IT sector companies, tech startups and developers may need access to data not just within the country but also beyond geopolitical borders to build robust solutions and algorithms - predicating the need for a regime that supports cross-border data flows.

"At the same time, it is important to protect these flows through appropriate international measures and standards ? both legal and technical," he pointed out.

Dhakad added that local laws will also need to be interoperable with global standards or contracts that protect personal data regardless of its location.

Data processing companies, he said, would have to ensure that the personal data they process is managed according to a high level of data protection, regardless of the location to which the data is transferred and provide citizens recourse to the law in case of a breach of trust.

"Responding proactively or reactively to cybersecurity issues calls for protocols based on globalised and not localised data. And restricting cross-border data flows can only impede effective and timely response," Dhakad noted.

He further said: "A mature, balanced and progressive legal framework for data protection that will be agreed upon and adopted by all is the need of the hour".

Dhakad pointed out that the definition of what may constitute 'sensitive personal data' (like financial and information, religious or political beliefs etc) should be aligned to international norms.

He suggested that instead of blanket restrictions, restrictions on the processing of personal data should correspond to the context in which the data is processed.

Citing an example, he said that an employee's name in an organisation's internal directory would typically not be considered sensitive and would require less privacy protection than when it appears on a list related to credit ratings.
Washington: The rings of Saturn may may have formed much later than the planet itself, according to a new analysis of gravity science data from NASA`s Cassini spacecraft. The findings, led by scientists from Rome`s Sapienza University, indicate that Saturn`s rings formed between 10 million and 100 million years ago. From our planet`s perspective, that means Saturn`s rings may have formed during the age of dinosaurs.

Saturn formed 4.5 billion years ago, in the early years of our solar system. There have been clues that its ring system is a young upstart that attached to Saturn years afterward. But how long afterward? To figure out the age of the rings, scientists needed to measure the mass of the rings, or how much material they hold.

Researchers had the remote-sensing measurements from Cassini and both of NASA`s Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s. Then came Cassini`s unprecedented, up-close data from its final orbits in 2017. As the spacecraft was running out of fuel, it performed 22 dives between the planet and the rings.

The dives allowed the spacecraft to act as a probe, falling into Saturn`s gravity field, where it could feel the tug of the planet and the rings. Radio signals sent to Cassini from the antennas of NASA`s Deep Space Network and the European Space Agency relayed the spacecraft`s velocity and acceleration.

Once scientists knew how much gravity was pulling on Cassini, causing it to accelerate -- down to a fraction of a millimeter per second -- they could determine how massive the planet is and how massive the rings are.

"Only by getting so close to Saturn in Cassini`s final orbits were we able to gather the measurements to make the new discoveries," said Cassini radio science team member and lead author Luciano Iess, of Sapienza University of Rome.

"And with this work, Cassini fulfills a fundamental goal of its mission: not only to determine the mass of the rings, but to use the information to refine models and determine the age of the rings." The findings were published in the journal Science.

The new evidence of young rings lends credence to theories that they formed from a comet that wandered too close and was torn apart by Saturn`s gravity -- or by an event that broke up an earlier generation of icy moons.
Rana Daggubati already has Mahanayakudu, 1945, Aranya, Marthanda Varma: The King of Travancore, Hiranya Kashyap and Kodi Rammurthy biopic in his pipeline. Apart from 1945 and Aranya, the actor completed shooting for the rest of the films. He recently finished shooting for Housefull 4, where he replaced Nana Patekar.

Well, he is currently busy shooting for Aranya in the jungles of Kerala and the actor took to his Instagram profile where he shared a picture of the jungle. Well, Rana is closely supervising one of the above-mentioned films. Hiranya Kashyap, which is being directed by Gunasekhar of Rudramadevi fame, will be produced by Suresh Productions, by Suresh Babu Daggubati.

This is one of the reasons why Rana is pretty closely associated with the film. The director has penned a script with a mythological plot for Rana and it is titled Hiranya, and is going to be released in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam languages. It is also said that the film and the story are based on Hiranyakashipu.

According to the sources, Rana will begin shooting for the film either in the month of February or March. The team is planning to begin and finish shooting as soon as possible, as a lot of time for the Computer Graphics work would be needed. The producer is keen on releasing the film later this year and so, he wants everything to be finished as soon as possible.

Rana, before making his acting debut, was an ad filmmaker and has an award for his work in visual effects and graphics. So he is taking utmost care to make the film one his best ones. His father Suresh Babu said, The team is working in five different offices in five different places. They are spread over the world. Hollywood technicians are also part of this film. It is going to be a grandeur.
Actor Rahul Ramakrishna won accolades for his performance in his latest release Husharu. The young actor who is popular for his comedian roles is a Mass Communication student from Hyderabad Central University and had worked as a journalist too. But as his passion was for acting, he made his debut with Jayammu Nischayammu Ra, but became popular for his role in Arjun Reddy.

Well, the actor is gearing up for his next film Mithai, which is releasing on February 22. This film has Rahul and Priyadarshi in the lead roles and is something that all of their fans are excited about.

When contacted, Rahul said, Mithai is a dark comedy film where we have tried something similar like the Coen Brothers. I havent watched the whole film yet and I will be doing it in the theatres itself, on the first day. I have just dubbed for my role and I am leaving the judgment to the audience.

He also said that being part of the film was quite a fun and says he is pretty sure that the film has shaped up really well. Asked about his Tamil debut film which is releasing in Telugu as Ninu Veedani Needanu Nene, Rahul said that he will be playing a negative role in the film. I wasnt sure whether I could do the role or not. I was apprehensive about it. But I tried and managed doing it good enough and now I want to do more of such roles, said the youngster.

The actor also said that he is keen on doing negative roles more than the comedy ones.
JAIPUR: Days after coming to power, the new Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in Rajasthan on Thursday removed the compulsory education qualification criteria for a candidate to contest in local body polls.

In 2015, the previous Vasundhara Raje-led Rajasthan government has introduced education criteria for those contesting in local polls. Candidates must have at least Class X degree for contesting municipal, zila parishad or panchayat samiti elections.

The Rajasthan cabinet approved two amendments bills - Rajasthan Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2019, and the Rajasthan Municipalities (Amendment) Bill, 2019 - to end the minimum educational qualification condition

On Thursday, the Rajasthan cabinet approved two amendments bills - Rajasthan Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2019, and the Rajasthan Municipalities (Amendment) Bill, 2019 - to end the minimum educational qualification condition.

Both the bills will be introduced in the state assembly during the present session, read a statement.

In wake of agitation by the Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) aspirants over extention of the examination date, the cabinet has also decided to ask the state public service commission to extend the date of the main examination.
New Delhi: Actor Shah Rukh Khan has shared pictures on Instagram that show the bond shared by his sons Aryan and AbRam. In the photos, AbRam is seen with Shah Rukh in one photo and with Aryan in another.

"'Winning is only half of it..having fun the other half...Playing is All of it!' The Playboys mantra," he captioned the photos.

Winning is only half of it....Having fun is the other half!! Playing is All of it.... The Playboys mantra. pic.twitter.com/8SA7DYdsOg  Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) January 18, 2019

The first picture shows AbRam showing a certificate to his father Shah Rukh Khan while the other one shows him with his elder brother Aryan.

While Aryan is 21-year-old, AbRam is only 5. Shah Rukh and Gauri Khan also have an 18-year-old daughter Suhana Khan, who is currently finishing her studies.

In a recent interview to HT, Shah Rukh said that Aryan will learning filmmaking for a few years before he makes his debut. "If Aryan decides to be an actor, it will only be an honour for him to work with directors of that calibre. But I think he wants to be a filmmaker. Aryan is studying to be a filmmaker and a writer, while Suhana wants to be an actor.

But even if he wants to be a filmmaker, he needs to study for another five to six years and not just the literal form of studying, but probably be an assistant to Karan after he finishes his film-making course. Aisa nahi hai ki tumhara baap actor hai toh set pe aake assistant director ban jaao. Similarly, Suhana should learn acting for another three to four years if she wants to be an actor. I know many of my industry friends feel my kids should start acting tomorrow. But it's my belief that they shouldn't start acting yet," he said.

On the work front, Shah Rukh is rumoured to be doing a biopic on Rakesh Sharma and the third installment of 'Don'.
Bhubaneswar: Odisha Congress legislator Jogesh Singh resigned from the party on Friday, a day after he for anti-party activities.

The Sundergarh legislator tendered his resignation from the party on moral grounds. He also resigned from the post of the member of Odisha Legislative Assembly.

"Sundergarh MLA Jogesh Singh has been suspended for repeatedly giving statements against the party to the media and tarnishing image of Congress," Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) disciplinary committee convenor Ananta Sethi said.

The development came a day after its working president Naba Kishore Das resigned from the party.

Sethi added Singh was served a show-cause notice on Wednesday to reply within 24 hours, but he failed to respond.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi's scheduled visit to Odisha on January 25.

Speaking on his resignation announcment of not to attend Congress president Rahul Gandhi's meeting in Bhubaneswar, Singh said, "I have already fixed certain programmes in my constituency. This apart the marriage of my brother is also fixed on that day. Therefore, it is not possible to attend Gandhi's programme in the state capital."

He further claimed that Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is the best CM in the country.
BHOPAL: A day after local BJP leader Prahlad Bandhwar was shot dead at point-blank range in Mandsaur, state police claimed to identify the murderer and the reason behind the crime.

During preliminary investigations, cops alleged that Bandhwar had a dispute with a man named Manish Bairagi over land allotment.

Found evidence that Manish Bairagi shot at him following which he died on spot. Bairagi wanted a piece of land to be allotted to him, said police.

The accused shot him from point-blank range and fled from the spot, said Shukla City Superintendent of Police (CSP) R M Shukla. The assailant's motorcycle has been recovered, he added.

A large manhunt to nab the accused in currently underway.

Bandhwar, a popular BJP leader in the region and the Mandsaur Municipal Corporation president, was killed near the District Cooperative Bank at Nai Abadi area at around 7 pm on Thursday evening. He was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead.

A large number of BJP supporters gathered outside the hospital after the incident. Shops in the area downed their shutters.

"Prahlad Bandhwar was a well known politician. He played a huge role in promoting the BJP in Mandsaur. Not just he used to work for the poor, he even fought for the rights of common people and was always concerned about the development of Mandsaur. I never thought that he had a personal problem with anyone. He was loved by all," said Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Chouhan also wrote to Chief Minister Kamal Nath, requesting a top-level investigation in the matter.
Jammu: Pakistan Rangers on Friday violated ceasefire by resorting to firing along the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district.

According to officials, the Pakistan Rangers resorted to small arms fire on border outposts (BoPs) in Hiranagar sector at around 11 AM.

BSF troops, guarding the borderline, retaliated strongly, the officials said.

On Thursday, a civilian was injured when Pakistani troops violated ceasefire and resorted to firing and mortar shelling along the Line of Control in Rajouri district.

Northern Command chief Lt Gen Ranbir Singh had on Thursday said the Army was replying befittingly to the Pakistani aggression.

Pakistani troops resorted to firing and shelling along the LoC in the Jammu region of the state for 13 days of this month, the officials said.

The year 2018 had witnessed the highest number -- 2936 -- of ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops in the last 15 years along the Indo-Pak border.

The continuous Pakistani shelling and firing targeting villages has set in fear psychosis among the border dwellers.

On Monday, Border Security Force (BSF) Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was killed in sniper firing by Pakistan Rangers along the IB in Hiranagar-Samba sector of Kathua district.

On the same day in another incident, Pakistani troops resorted to firing and shelling along the LoC in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district.

On Sunday, an Army jawan was injured in ceasefire violation along the LoC in Keri sector of Rajouri.



On Friday last, an Army porter was killed when Pakistani troops resorted to firing in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district.

On the same day, an Army Major and a soldier were killed in an IED blast on the LoC in Laam sub-sector of Rajouri.

On Thursday last, Pakistani troops resorted to firing and shelling in two sectors of Rajouri and Poonch resulting in injuries to an Army Major and a BSF jawan in the Tarkundi forward area of Balakote sector.
SRINAGAR: A day after three policemen were injured in a grenade explosion in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir Police held an individual carrying a grenade in Kupwara district on Friday.

The Kupwara Police intercepted Mohd Aslam Beig at a naka checkpoint. One grenade and other incriminating materials were recovered from him, said the police.

A case has been registered.

Three policemen were injured in a grenade explosion near Zero Bridge in Srinagar's Rajbagh here on Thursday. According to authorities militants hurled the grenade at a police party passing by the area.

The injured comprised an Assistant Sub-Inspector and two constables.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan has said when it comes to India vs China debate in the space sector, India is at par with China. "Regarding the tech part, we are at par with them," said Sivan.

The statement comes days after China landed Chang'e-4 lunar probe on the dark side of the moon and ahead of India's Chandrayaan 2 mission which will be launched this year.

Explaining the difference between India's Chandrayaan 2 mission and China's rover, Sivan said, "Chinese have landed on the dark side of the moon. We are going to land on the light side of the moon. Only thing is we landing where nobody else has gone. Going closer to the south pole, which nobody has gone."

Speaking on India's Gaganyaan mission, the first manned space mission that ISRO is gearing up to launch in 2022, Sivan said that many countries including France and Russia and even NASA has extended its help to India. "We will make use of everybody's expertise and help for maximum benefit," said Sivan.

"We want to make sure that the children and students are more aware of ISRO's programmes. We want to bring student for young scientists programme. Student's satellite, Kalamsat, is being launched. Along with this outreach programme, we have incubation centres. These are for spreading the wings of ISRO. We have 32 missions to be completed this year," added Sivan on the main focus of ISRO this year.
The Nainital High Court on Thursday granted interim relief from arrest to Uttarakhand's former BJP secretary Sanjay Kumar in a rape case against him.

On November 4, 2018, Kumar, accused of sexual harassment by a woman, was removed from his post by the BJP.

According to ANI, the action against Kumar was taken as the central leadership of the party is highly concerned about the image of the party after the allegations surfaced.

The charges of sexual harassment against Kumar were discussed during a meeting during which it was suggested that he should be immediately removed from his post.

The decision taken by the BJP top brass was conveyed to the state unit leaders in Uttrakhand.

After Kumar was accused of sexual harassment, severe protests had erupted in Uttarakhand.

The BJP high command had summoned Kumar to New Delhi over the issue. When he reached Delhi, Kumar was apprised of the decision taken by the BJP top brass.
NEW DELHI: A day after the Centre curtailed his tenure in the Centra; Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as Special Director, Rakesh Asthana, who had a bitter fight with ousted agency chief Alok Verma, was on Friday appointed as the new Director General of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS).

''The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Rakesh Asthana as Director General, BCAS by temporarily upgrading the post of Director General, BCAS to that of DG level, on a personal basis, for a period of two years with effect from the date of assumption of charge of the post or until further orders, whichever is earlier,'' an official notification said.

The development comes a day after the Centre curtailed corruption-accused Asthana's tenure as CBI Special Director with immediate effect.

Besides Asthana, the government also curtailed three other officials from the CBI, who were considered close to him during the fight with Verma.

The Narendra Modi government had on October 23 sent Asthana on forced leave divesting him of his powers along with Verma after their clash levelling mutual allegations of corruption against each other.

Verma, who approached the Supreme Court against the order, was ousted as CBI Director on January 10 by a three-member selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and two of its members including the leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Chief Justice of India-nominated Justice AK Sikri of the apex court.
REWARI: Rohit, son of Tej Bahadur Yadav, the Border Security Force (BSF) Constable who had triggered outrage across the nation in 2017 after posting videos on quality of food given to soldiers, was found dead on Wednesday night.

Rohit's body was found at his residence in Rewari, Haryana.

"We received a call that Rohit has committed suicide. At the crime spot, we discovered that the room was locked from inside. The body was lying on the bed. There was a pistol in his hands. His father has gone to attend Kumbh Mela. We have informed him," a police official told ANI.

Tej Bahadur Yadav had sparked a row in 2017 after posting four videos on the social media. In the videos, Yadav can be seen complaining about the sub-standard food given to jawans at his camp along the Indo-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir. The BSF had dismissed his allegations and Yadav was dismissed from the service after a thorough inquiry by the BSF.

For his part, Yadav had claimed that he was "mentally tortured" and he had posted the video only to expose the alleged prevailing corruption in the BSF.

"The Prime Minister had said so (eradication of corruption)...I was doing the same. Is this (inquiry) what I should be getting in return?," he said in one of the videos.
Union Minister Smriti Irani on Friday launched a scathing attack on the Kerala government questioning its stand on women empowerment, in the backdrop of the Sabarimala Temple row and Kerala nuns transfer issue.

Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Irani took a jibe at the Pinarayi Vijayan-ruled government saying those who speak about women empowerment but keep quiet when women empowerment is not convenient for them politically, should be questioned.

She added that the Kerala government should be asked about the steps they have taken up for their security of the four Kerala nuns.

"People who speak about women empowerment but keep quiet when women empowerment is not convenient for them politically should be questioned. Kerala government should be asked about the steps they have taken up for their security of four nuns," said Irani.

The LDF government's decision to implement the September 28 apex court verdict permitting women of all age groups into the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple had triggered widespread protest among devotees and right-wing groups who had staged state-wide namajapa (chanting of Ayyappa hymns) protests against it.

On the other hand, four of the five nuns who had led an agitation against rape-accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal in Kerala have been directed to leave their convent in Kottayam district in compliance with a transfer order issued in 2018. Their congregation --Missionaries of Jesus under Jalandhar diocese of the Roman Catholic Church-- has directed the nuns to join the convents they were assigned previously as per the transfer orders issued between March and May in 2018.

Irani also launched a verbal attack on Congress saying that whereas the BJP is committed to make India a strong and resurgent nation while the Congress is standing with those who raise anti-India slogans. She further attacked the Congress, saying one of its senior leaders had advocated repealing the law that defined sedition.

Slogans against India were allegedly raised during a procession in JNU in February 2016. Delhi police earlier this week filed a chargesheet in the case.
JAMMU: Indian Army's aggressive response to repeated ceasefire violations from across the border has forced Pakistan to deploy more troops at its border outposts along the Line of Control (LoC).

According to an intelligence report, the Pakistani establishment has also sounded an alert asking its troops posted along the LoC and in PoK to remain extremely vigilant and increase patrolling.

Pakistan's 3 PoK Brigade, situated in the Kotli area near Poonch sector in Jammu and Kashmir, has been alerted and the strength of troops deployed at this ordinary outpost, which normally ranges between 2-3 jawans, has been reinforced to ten.

The report quoted a top official as suggesting that the befitting response being given by the armed forces towards Pakistani attacks from across the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir has forced Pakistan to reinforce its troop deployment at the international borders to deter a possible offensive by the Indian Army.

It may be recalled that Pakistan's Border Action Team (BAT) was allegedly involved in several attacks on the Indian armed forces and ceasefire violations along the LoC recently, which was strongly opposed by the Indian Army.

With Pakistan failing to pay heed to India's repeated concerns regarding cross-border shelling and infiltrations, the Indian Army has now adopted a tough posture towards the hostile neighbouring country and has been giving a strong response to its troops.

Citing an alert issued on January 16, the intelligence report said that all Pakistani outposts in PoK have been asked to remain on high alert mode.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-chief, Northern Command, said that in the past 48 hours, five Pakistani soldiers have been killed in retaliatory fire from the Indian Army.

The Indian Army is retaliating with equal measures to alleged sniper attack, ceasefire violations and cross-border shelling from the Pakistani side, he added.

The Indian armed forces have avenged the recent killing of an assistant commandant and a major by the Pakistani troops, he said.

Meanwhile, amid heightened tension on the LoC, the Northern Army Commander visited forward positions in Poonch district on Thursday.

Defence spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Devender Anand said, "Lt General Ranbir Singh, Army Commander, Northern Command, accompanied by the White Knight Corps Commander, Lt General Paramjit Singh visited forward posts of Poonch Sector to review the operational preparedness and the prevailing security situation.''

"During the visit to the sector, the Army Commander was briefed by the commanders on the ground about the current operational situation, prevailing security dynamics and the preparedness of the formations in dealing with the same,' Anand said.'

"The Army Commander was also briefed on the actions being taken to ensure a robust counter-infiltration and counter-terrorist grid to enable continued peace and stability in the region. The Army Commander interacted with the soldiers and complimented them for their unwavering dedication to duty,'' he added.

Tension has been prevailing along the LoC in Poonch and Rajouri districts due to frequent ceasefire violations by Pakistan.
The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Kerala government to provide adequate security to the two women, under the age of 50, who entered and offered prayers at the Sabarimala temple on January 2. The women  Kanaka Durga and Bindu Ammini  had sought round-the-clock police protection, citing threats they received after entering the temple.

Both the women, residents of Kannur district in Kerala, had entered the temple at January 2. Their ascent to the hill was initially stopped midway by a group of protesters at Neelimala. The protesters had stopped the women as they spotted them carrying 'Irumudikettu' (offerings to Lord Ayyappa).

Following this, they reportedly sat on a hunger strike, demanding that they be allowed to enter the temple and offer prayers.

One of the women, Kanaka Durga, was later allegedly assaulted by her mother-in-law. She filed a police complaint stating that her mother-in-law thrashed her with a stick after she came back home from the temple visit.

Following their entry, the head priest decided to close the sanctum sanctorum of the temple in order to perform the "purification" ritual, which used to be carried out during the time of the violation of temple customs.

Traditionally, girls and women in the menstruating age group of 10-50 years were barred from offering prayers at the shrine, the presiding deity of which is "Naishtika Brahamachari" (perennial celebate). In 2018, the Supreme Court removed the age barrier, allowing women of all ages to enter the temple.
PRAYAGRAJ: Miffed over the delay in the construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodha, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) has now launched a direct attack at the BJP-led government at the Centre.

The RSS believes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government at the Centre would not take any steps towards the construction of the Ram Mandir even after winning the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Referring to the issue, RSS number 2 and its general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi on Thursday took a jibe at the Modi government saying that the Ram Mandir will be built in 2015. The senior RSS leader made the statement while addressing a programme at Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj. Joshi expressed confidence that the growth of country will speed up after the construction of Ram Mandir, just like it happened in 1952 after the beginning of construction of Somnath Temple in Gujarat.

Bhaiyyaji Joshi, RSS: 1952 mein Somnath mandir ki sthapna ke sath desh gati se aage badha, 2025 mein Ram janmbhumi ke upar mandir ban'ne ke baad fir is disha ko aur gati prapt hone wali hai...Ayodhya ke mandir nirmaan ke baad desh agle 150 saalon ke liye punji praapt karega(17-1) pic.twitter.com/r5uIYT0R00  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 18, 2019

The RSS leader minced no words and said that there are several challenges in the way of construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodha and it is important to address these issues. Joshi said that Ram Mandir is not just a temple, rather its construction is connected to the faith of crores of Hindus in India.

Joshi also targeted the Modi government over its claim that India will embark on its path to become world leader again under Modi's leadership, saying that India will become the world leader after 150 years. Joshi has always maintained that Ram Mandir will surely be built in Ayodhya and things must move as per Supreme Court's order.
Critically-acclaimed actor Prakash Raj, who has decided to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election, on Friday took a veiled dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying that politics of Ram Mandir is being played in air-conditioned room of Delhi and Lucknow.

Prakash Raj, however, did not name the BJP while making the remark. Speaking to mediapersons, he further suggested that journalists must visit Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh and see how people in the holy town are living on streets.

Politics of Ram Mandir is being played in AC rooms of Delhi and Lucknow. I challenge media to visit Ayodhya and see how people there are living on streets. Is this the Ram Rajya they want to bring? said the actor-turned-politician.

The scathing attack by the actor, who is popular in the southern film industry as well as Bollywood, comes just days after he announced his political debut. Prakash Raj has decided to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Bengaluru Central constituency.

A critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prakash Raj had announced that he would enter politics on January 1, 2019. While announcing his political debut, the actor had given a slogan  abki baar Janata ki Sarkar (This time, it will be the government of people).

2019 PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS. Thank you for the warm and encouraging response to my new journey.. I will be contesting from BENGALURU CENTRAL constituency KARNATAKA as an INDEPENDENT..will share the Details with the media in few days (sic), he had posted on microblogging site Twitter.

The actor-cum-politician is likely to contest against BJP's PC Mohan, who has held the Bengaluru Central seat since 2009. Prakash Raj is the third prominent actor after Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan to enter politics in the last one year.

He is known for his anti-BJP stance and has been vocal in seeking justice for his friend and journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot outside her residence in September 2017.
New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi extended his support to Mamata Banerjee on Friday for her "show of unity" in Kolkata on January 19 and hoped that it would send a powerful message of a united India.

Gandhi is likely to skip Mamata's rally and the Congress has deputed its leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, to represent the Grand Old Party at the event.

In a letter to Banerjee, the Congress chief commended the "great people" of Bengal, who had "historically been at the forefront of defending our ideals".

"I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together," Gandhi wrote in the letter.

In a Facebook post, he said, "The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Mr Modi are intent on destroying."

In his letter to Banerjee as well as in the post on the social media platform, Gandhi said there were powerful forces that were fanned by the anger and disappointment of millions of Indians, who had seen through the "false promises and lies peddled by the Modi government".

"These forces are moved by the hope of a new tomorrow; a tomorrow filled with the idea of an India in which the voice of every man, woman and child will be heard and respected no matter what their religion, economic status or region is," he said.

A host of Opposition leaders are likely to attend the Trinamool Congress supremo's rally in Kolkata on Saturday, which is being projected as her "show of opposition strength" ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Days after Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Suresh Arora's service was extended, the police chief on Friday requested Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to relieve him as the DGP.

Arora will remain in the post until the government appoints a new DGP. On January 16, Arora's term as DGP was extended to September 2019 by the Union Home Ministry.

The Punjab police chief was given a nine-month extension in service by the Centre in public interest, according to a Personnel Ministry order.

The announcement came on a day when the Supreme Court rejected pleas made by five states, including Punjab, seeking modification of its earlier order on the appointment of heads of the state police.

Arora, a 1982 batch IPS officer, was given three-month extension in 2018.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet had approved the extension in service of Arora as the DGP for an overall period of 12 months beyond the date of his superannuation, which is September 30, 2018, in public interest, according to the Personnel Ministry order.

Arora was in 2015 appointed the DGP by the then SAD-BJP government.

The apex court had in July 2018 outlined the procedures for the appointment of regular DGPs in states.

According to the Supreme Court verdict, states were required to send a list of senior officers to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) at least three months prior to the retirement of an incumbent.

The commission would then prepare a panel and send it to the states for the appointment.

The apex court on Wednesday had rejected pleas by Punjab, Haryana, Kerala, West Bengal and Bihar seeking modifications of the July 2018 order.
Jammu: Almost all the political parties in Jammu and Kashmir were in favour of holding the assembly elections along with the general elections in 2019, the state's CEO was informed on Friday.

The representatives of the state's recognised political parties had met Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shailendra Kumar during the day and suggested several ways to improve the electoral process and ensure smooth and transparent polling.

The group included Raman Bhalla and Usman Majeed from Congress, Harshdev Singh from JKNPP, Nizam-ud-Din Bhat from JKPDP, Yudhveer Sethi and Rajinder Sharma from BJP and Sheikh Bashir Ahmed from National Conference.

The CEO held wide-ranging discussions with the political leaders and briefed them on the preparedness of the authorities for the smooth conduct of parliamentary as well as assembly elections.

Seeking their cooperation to ensure complete transparency in the electoral process, the CEO urged the leaders to make optimal use of online facilities of various services being offered by the Election Commission of India through online portal NVSP.

He urged them to educate the people through their workers and Booth Level Agents (BLAs) to enroll new voters, delete the names of dead voters and rectification of wrong entries and particulars.

The CEO said that he will regularly interact with the representatives of the political parties in his office to take their valuable suggestions on further improving the electoral process.
GANDHINAGAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday met his Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat in Gandhi Nagar to hold talks overs trade, economic ties and healthcare issues.

The Prime Minister met Muscat ahead of the " 9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit". During the meeting, the two leaders agreed to take steps aimed at strengthening mutual cooperation in sectors such as renewable energy, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, air connectivity and tourism.

Apart from Muscat, Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Lkke Rasmussen are also in Gujarat to attend the three-day event.

It is expected that over 30,000 national and international delegates, including CEOs of major firms from India and abroad, would attend the Summit. The Vibrant Gujarat Global Trade Show is being held on a two lakh square metres plot of land in Gandhinagar and it serves as a platform for more than 20 industrial and business sectors will showcase their products.

Indian business tycoons including Mukesh Ambani, Uday Kotak, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Gautam Adani, Adi Godrej and Pankaj Patel are likely to attend the summit.

CEOs and top executives of global companies like BASF, DP World, Suzuki, Vanguard and Maersk are also scheduled to attend the event.

The showpiece event will conclude on January 22. It will be open for general public on the last two days (January 21 and 22).

(With agency inputs)
NEW DELHI: India lodged a strong protest on a recent order by Pakistan Supreme Court on the Gilgit-Baltistan region and summoned the Deputy High Commissioner of Pakistan, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Friday.

The Pakistan apex court had on Thursday ordered the federal government to promulgate a new law within a fortnight to grant more rights, including fundamental human rights, to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in PoK. A detailed order was issued in this regard, saying that the jurisdiction and power of the Supreme Court extend to Gilgit-Baltistan.

MEA: It was reiterated that entire J&K, which also includes so-called 'Gilgit-Baltistan' has been, is and shall remain an integral part of India. Pakistan Government or judiciary have no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it. https://t.co/wehogVzhGZ  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

According to the MEA, a protest was lodged alleging that Pakistan was ''interfering in Indias internal affairs''. "It was reiterated that entire Jammu and Kashmir, which also includes Gilgit-Baltistan has been, is and shall remain an integral part of India. Pakistan Government or judiciary have no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it."

India rejected the "continued attempts by Pakistan to bring material change in these occupied territories and to camouflage grave human rights violations, exploitation and sufferings of the people living there." It called on Pakistan to immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation.

The Pakistan court further said that the region's courts did not have the constitutional power to deal with issues within Pakistan but the people from the region will be able to challenge their top court's decisions in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

It also ordered that the people of the region should be given fundamental human rights as provided in the proposed constitutional order, which was made part of the detailed order.

Noting the international status of Kashmir, of which Gilgit-Baltistan is a part, the order said that "as and when the promised plebiscite is organised by the parties to the dispute, it will be up to the people of all of Jammu and Kashmir, and of Gilgit-Baltistan, to make their choice.

It also said until the plebiscite, "it is surely incumbent upon both India as well as Pakistan to ensure that the people of this region enjoy maximum rights for areas within each country's control".

However, it noted that until the plebiscite is held, a proper arrangement must be provided for by Pakistan for the people of Gilgit-Baltistan for purposes of governance within a framework of a constitutional nature, including most importantly the enjoyment of fundamental rights.

Pakistan has bifurcated occupied Kashmir into two administrative parts - Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Gilgit-Baltistan was treated as a separate geographical entity by Pakistan till now. Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh are the four provinces of Pakistan.

India has termed as "entirely unacceptable" any possible attempt by Pakistan to declare the Gilgit-Baltistan region as the fifth province.

with PTI inputs
NEW DELHI: Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Gopal Rai on Friday dispelled all rumours floating around an alliance with Congress.

(There's) No alliance with Congress, AAP will contest all Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi, said Rai while addressing a press conference in the national capital.

He clarified that the party will contest alone in the upcoming Lok Sabha Election 2019 on all seats in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.

For Congress, their arrogance is bigger than national interest, it is visible from recent statements of Punjab CM and Sheila Dikshit, he said, adding, AAP has long disagreed with Congress' ideology and ended it's 15-year-long misrule in Delhi with zero seats.

Rai, who heads AAP's Delhi unit, said his party has speeded up preparations on all the seven Lok Sabha seats and announced the formation of four frontal organisations for other backward castes (OBCs), resident welfare associations (RWAs), doctors and rural areas.

Accusing the Grand Old Party of being "arrogant", he said the decision came in the wake of the recent statements of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit, opposing an alliance with the AAP.

"In the interest of the country, we were ready to drink the poison of the Congress, but the statements show that the Congress is still seeped in its arrogance. The AAP will contest all the Lok Sabha seats in the three states on its own," Rai said.

He added that the names of the candidates for the Lok Sabha polls will soon be announced by the party.
MUMBAI: As many as 7,000 persons, mostly graduates, had applied for 13 vacant posts of canteen waiters in Mantralaya, the Maharashtra secretariat, an official said on Friday.

The government official said a 100-mark written exam was recently conducted for the posts, for which educational qualification required was having passed Class IV.

"The exam formalities got completed on December 31 and currently the joining process is on. Out of the 13 selected applicants, eight are men and the rest women. Two-three people are yet to submit their documents and officially join," he said.

He further said of the selected persons, 12 are graduates and one has passed Class 12, adding that the maximum applicants for the 13 posts were graduates and those who had cleared Class 12.

He informed that the age group of selected applicants was between 25-27 years.

Slamming the state government over the induction of graduates as waiters in the Mantralaya canteen, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde said ministers and secretaries should be ashamed of taking the services of educated individuals.

"Seven thousand applicants for merely 13 posts is a blatant example of the employment conditions in the country and Maharashtra. It is unfortunate graduates were selected for the posts when the eligibility criteria was Class 4 pass," the NCP leader said.

He sought to know how would ministers and secretaries feel taking food, tea and snacks from double graduates.

Instead of being shameful about this, the government will term it a part of the state's progress, Munde claimed.

Questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi on providing employment to over two crore people in his tenure, Munde said, "Recently in Maharashtra, 10.5 lakh people had applied for 852 vacant police posts. Similarly, one crore unemployed youth applied for 10,000 posts in the railways."

He said in 2018, one crore people lost their jobs, out of which 65 lakh were women, adding that programmes like Make in India, Make in Maharashtra, Skill India were failures.

Munde said decisions like demonetisation and GST had finished small and medium industries which, in turn, had led to an increase in unemployment.
New Delhi: The dates for the Lok Sabha elections are likely to be announced in the first week of March, sources indicated on Friday. The term of the present Lok Sabha ends on June 3.

The Election Commission is in the process of deciding the number of phases and the months in which polling would be held, they said.

The charting of the phases would also depend on the availability of security forces and other requirements, the sources said, adding the announcement of the mega exercise is likely to be made in the first week of March.

There is a possibility that the EC may go by the precedent and hold assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh along with the Lok Sabha polls.

Since the Jammu and Kashmir assembly has been dissolved, the EC is bound to hold fresh polls there within six months.

It was dissolved in November, 2018 and the upper limit ends in May. The poll panel may hold elections in Jammu and Kashmir along with the Lok Sabha polls as well. But it can be held before that also as much depends on the complex security situation there, they said.

In normal circumstances, the J&K assembly's six-year term was to end on March 16, 2021. The other state assemblies and the Lok Sabha have a five-year term.

While the term of the Sikkim Assembly ends on May 27, 2019, the terms of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Arunachal Pradesh assemblies end on June 18, June 11 and June 1 respectively.

In 2004, the Election Commission had announced four-phase Lok Sabha polls on February 29. While the first date of poll was April 20, the last date was May 10.

In 2009, the EC had announced Lok Sabha poll scheduled on March 2. The five-phase polls began on April 16 and ended on May 13.

In 2014, the EC had announced the election schedule on March 5 and the nine-phase electoral exercise was spread across April and May. While the first phase polling was on April 7, the last phase was on May 12.
NEW DELHI: Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) e-ticketing website is set to become inaccessible to the Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 users as Indian Railways has decided to migrate its official website  www.irctc.co.in  to TLS 1.2. The decision has been taken with an aim to boost the security features of the website.

Windows XP/Server 2003 users will be able to access the website only after upgrading their operating systems.

Meanwhile, the IRCTC on Wednesday released a statement saying that those who will use the platform to book air tickers would now get free-of-cost travel insurance of Rs 50 lakh.

The statement added that the new facility will be available for both domestic and international flight passengers. The IRCTC has launched this insurance scheme in order to provide financial protection to air travelers against accidental death and total or permanent disability. IRCTC has joined hands with Bharti AXA General Insurance to launch this new scheme under which the IRCTC will bear the premium for insurance to secure its passengers from any untoward incident during the journey. The IRCTC statement said that the insurance cover will be for both one-way and round trip.

The IRCTC on Wednesday also launched its first automatic pizza vending machine at the Mumbai Central railway station. The move is seen as an attempt by the IRCTC to modernise the Indian Railways.

As a part of catering modernisation step, IRCTC has installed an automatic Pizza Vending Machine at Mumbai Central Railway Station. This machine will dish out hot pizzas in mechanised way for commuters visiting the station, tweeted IRCTC.
NEW DELHI: Hitting out at the Congress, Union Minister Smriti Irani on Friday alleged that the main opposition party supported the 'Tukde-Tukde' gang and publicly expressed solidarity with the anti-nationals in an apparent reference to those named in the 2016 JNU sedition case.

The firebrand BJP leader also dared Congress president Rahul Gandhi to repeat the slogan `Bharat Tere Tukde Honge" in public if he had guts.

"The Congress president publicly stood with such forces (anti-India) and publicly supported the statement of `Bharat Tere Tukde Honge`. Would they have the guts to stand out in public and repeat that slogan against India and interests of India?" Irani dared while addressing a press conference in the national capital.

The Union Textiles Minister said that, on one hand, the BJP led government at the Centre has resolved to ensure a strong and resurgent India, on the other, the Congress continued to support those who shouted, on the streets of the national capital, `Bharat Tere Tukde Honge`.

She further alleged that the grand old part was running a "malicious campaign" against the Narendra Modi government on the Rafale fighter jets deal with France.

Irani stated that the Congress party has "abandoned" national interest for its false propaganda.

Rejecting the Congress' charges against the government, BJP leader and Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani told reporters that the Opposition party's "malicious campaign has been exposed" in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict on the matter.

Irani also cited Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's over 90-minute reply in Parliament on the allegations made by the Congress-led Opposition over the Rafale jet deal.

Irani made these remarks while responding to a question about the allegations of corruption levelled by the Congress against the Narendra Modi government.

In an apparent dig at Congress leaders, including its president Rahul Gandhi and senior leader P Chidambaram - who targeted the government on Friday, Irani said those who are on bail are running a false propaganda.

"The Congress game of running a malicious campaign on this issue and abandoning national interest for their own politics has been exposed," the Textiles Minister said.

The Congress has been alleging corruption in the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft with Rahul Gandhi repeatedly targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue.

Earlier on Friday, P Chidambaram had alleged that the NDA government has wronged the country by reducing the number of aircraft bought under the Rafale deal as it "denied" the IAF the fighter jets it "desperately" needed and gave a "windfall" to Dassault Aviation by paying more per aircraft.

The BJP government has categorically rejected all the charges, insisting that the deal signed by the NDA government was honest and cost less than what was decided during the UPA dispensation.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The BJP and it`s allies on Thursday came down heavily on Congress after its General Secretary B.K. Hariprasad mocked Amit Shah, who has been admitted to AIIMS due to swine flu infections, demanding his ouster from the party and his post.

The BJP hit out at Congress and dared Rahul Gandhi to oust Hariprasad as General Secretary of the party while it`s ally and LJP leader Chirag Paswan went one step ahead demanding his ouster from the party.

BJP spokesperson G.V.L. Narsimha Rao said if the Congress leader, who is General Secretary at AICC, is not sacked or he did not tender public apology, it would be evident that his comments had full support of Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

"The Congress always has two faces. On one side is Rahul Gandhi and on the other, you have people like Hariprasad with toxic comments. Their behaviour is widely known to the people," he said.

He said silence of the Congress leadership clearly establishes that all such comments have the sanction of the Congress leadership.

"If they really want to disapprove of his remarks, Rahul Gandhi must sack him or ask him to publicly apologize.

Hariprasad has said that Amit Shah has got a fever due to panic as some MLAs (of the Congress from Karnataka) have returned, alluding to the political crisis in the state.

"If he topples the Congress-JD(S) government, then he will have vomiting and loose motions. That is why he got swine fever," Hariprasad said, referring to the ongoing drama in Karnataka politics.

Rao said the comment showed the moral degeneration of the Congress, complete bankruptcy of thoughts and the lack of moral values in the party.

Shah (54) was admitted to AIIMS on Wednesday owing to swine flu infection.

Chirag Paswan, who is chairman of LJP parliamentary borad, described Hariprasad`s statement as shameful which shows his mentality.

"I expect that Rahul Gandhi will take it seriously and oust him from the party," he tweeted.

Meanwhile, the party has postponed Amit Shah`s various programmes.

He was to address a rally in Odisha, which has been postponed. He was to address some rallies in West Bengal too, which has been postponed. "The new dates will be fixed after he is discharged from AIIMS," said BJP general secretary Arun Singh.

However, sources said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath may lead the BJP`s yatra in West Bengal if party president Amit Shah fails to reach Malda on January 20.

Shah was to kickstart BJP`s campaign in West Bengal with a series of rallies beginning January 20.
Jammu & Kashmir: At least 10 people got trapped under snow after an avalanche occurred in Khardung La, Ladakh. ANI reported that rescuers have recovered four bodies and search is on to rescue others.

Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council said that 4 bodies have been recovered and efforts are on to find six others. The Council has also spoken to Union Ministers Rajnath Singh & Dr Jitendra Singh about the rescue operation.

Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council on an avalanche in Khardung La, #Ladakh: 4 bodies recovered, 6 people are still missing. The rescue operation is still underway. We have spoken to Union Ministers Rajnath Singh&Dr Jitendra Singh about the rescue operation being conducted pic.twitter.com/lPpD3hso0M  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

ANI reported that Two tippers and a Scorpio car, which were carrying a total of 12 people, left for Khardung La this morning to load snow. The avalanche struck when one of the tipper had been loaded with snow while the other one was being filled with the same.

The vehicle was hit by the avalanche at 7 am, a Border Roads Organisation (BRO) official told PTI. The official added that the BRO has sent its men and machinery to rescue the trapped persons. It was unclear whether the persons in the truck were civilians or security force personnel.

On Thursday, a fresh avalanche warning was issued for nine districts of the Kashmir division. The warning has been issued for the avalanche-prone areas of Anantnag, Kulgam, Budgam, Baramulla, Kupwara, Bandipora, Ganderbal, Kargil and Leh districts.

The deputy commissioners of all these districts were ordered by Kashmir divisional commissioner Baseer Khan to advise the people to stay away from avalanche-prone areas.

According to MeT officials, several parts of Kashmir valley witnessed heavy snowfall on Thursday with Srinagar receiving 5.4 mm of snow, Gulmarg in north Kashmir witnessing 15.2 mm snowfall. Pahalgam in south Kashmir recorded 9.0 mm snow and Kupwara received 16.2 mm of snow.

Meanwhile, the MeT department has predicted that Kashmir valley is excepted to witness heavy snowfall between January 19 to January 23. MeT department director Sonum Lotus said that western disturbance is set to become active over Jammu and Kashmir from January 19 and the condition is going to remain the same till January 23.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday reached out to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying he was ready to align with the grand old party provided if agreed to one condition of the Hyderabad Member of Parliament.

Owaisi has said that he is willing to compromise with the Congress party if Rahul Gandhi gave respectable number of seats to Prakash Ambedkars Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh in the Mahagathbandhan  joint opposition alliance. He made the remark while addressing a rally in Maharashtras Nanded.

Speaking at the rally, Owaisi addressed Rahul Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar and former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, saying that if they had problem with AIMIM, they should speak to his elder brother Prakash Ambedkar.

I am speaking with full conviction, responsibility and with full seriousness to Rahul Gandhi and Sharad Pawar that if you have problem with AIMIM, then you should speak to my elder brother Balasaheb (Prakash) Ambedkar, said the AIMIM chief.

He further said, Give him the seats which he deserves to get. I do not want a single seat. Whatever seats you will give him, Asaduddin Owaisi will praise you in a separate meeting. I will not even come on your dais.

Targeting Ashok Chavan, the Hyderabad MP added, Tell me Ashok Chavan, are you ready? You speak big things. Today I am giving you offer - we do not need a single seat. You just give that much seats to my elder brother Balasaheb Ambedkar that suits his stature and position.

This comes days after Owaisi targeted Rahul Gandhi after declaration of results of Telangana Assembly elections. The AIMIM chief had said that the results had proved that Congress party had been outrightly rejected.

The Hyderabad MP had further said, It is time for Rahul Gandhi to introspect because people of Telangana have outrightly rejected Congress.
NEW DELHI: In a surprising revelation, Kerala government on Friday submitted a note in Supreme Court (SC) stating that 51 women between the age groups of 10 and 50 years have entered Sabarimala Temple following SC's landmark verdict on September 28, 2018.

#Correction: In a note, submitted in SC by the Kerala government, it stated that 51 women between the age groups of 10 and 50 years entered #SabarimalaTemple following SC verdict. (Earlier tweet will be deleted) https://t.co/DoX2l0HCiT  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

Traditionally, girls and women in the menstruating age group of 10-50 years were barred from offering prayers at the shrine, the presiding deity of which is "Naishtika Brahamachari" (perennial celebate). But the apex court in its judgment said that women of all ages should be allowed to enter the temple.

The SC's verdict sparked a furor across the state with devotees claiming that the entry of menstruating women inside the temple is against the tradition. Massive protests were launched in different parts of the state and several women were stopped from entering the temple. But history was created on January 2, when two women - Kanaka Durga and Bindu Ammini - managed to enter the temple by dodging the protesters.

The two women - who are under the age of 50 - have been receiving death threats since then for entering the temple and they filed a plea in Supreme Court seeking round-the-clock protection. The apex court heard the plea on Friday and ordered the Kerala government to provide adequate security to the two women.

Both the women were stopped from ascending the hill by a group of protesters at Neelimala. The protesters had stopped the women as they spotted them carrying 'Irumudikettu' (offerings to Lord Ayyappa). Durga and Bindu then sat on a hunger strike, demanding that they be allowed to enter the temple and offer prayers.

Durga was later allegedly assaulted by her mother-in-law for entering the temple. She filed a police complaint, accusing her mother of thrashing her with a stick.
AHMEDABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, currently on a three-day visit to Gujarat, 'could not resist from shopping'. Literally.

Showing a different side of his personality, the Prime Minister Thursday purchased a Khadi jacket at the Amdavad Shopping Festival, being organised on sidelines of the ninth edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit. He then used a RuPay card to pay for it.

At the Ahmedabad Shopping Festival I too could not resist from shopping! Purchased some Khadi products using the RuPay card. Purchased some Khadi products using the RuPay card, tweeted the Prime Minister.

I urge you all- keep buying Khadi and contribute to the empowerment of lakhs of weavers associated with the industry. It is also a great tribute to Bapu! he added.

At the Ahmedabad Shopping Festival I too could not resist from shopping! Purchased some Khadi products using the RuPay card. I urge you all- keep buying Khadi and contribute to the empowerment of lakhs of weavers associated with the industry. It is also a great tribute to Bapu! pic.twitter.com/DVTAIwFJz2  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 17, 2019

The PM, along with Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, later visited some pavilions and stalls at the shopping festival.

At the inauguration of the Ahmedabad Shopping Festival, I talked at length about the numerous steps taken by the Central Government for the MSME sector. Our small entrepreneurs are exceptionally talented and we are committed to ensuring the right platform for them to prosper, said the PM.

Today is a big day for Ahmedabad! The city is hosting a first of its kind shopping festival. This festival is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and consumers. It has a wide range of products, a good mix of the traditional and the modern. pic.twitter.com/b8TAkoFMHJ  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 17, 2019

The event, being held on the lines of many international shopping festivals, is witnessing participation from over 15,000 sellers who are offering huge discounts to customers over the next 12 days.

PM Modi urged the Gujarat government and organisers to make the festival an annual edition since such events will help small businesses find big markets.

"We generally see organisation of such events along with big business summits in foreign countries only. Organisation of Ahmedabad Shopping Festival along with Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit is a commendable effort.

"Businessmen, from street-vendors to shopping malls, handicrafts to electronics and hotel-restaurant businesses have come here to promote their business.

"I would like to urge Gujarat government, Ahmedabad and friends like Shailesh Patwari (former Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry president) to see if this can be made an annual event and organised during the same time very year," Modi said.
PANAJI: In a veiled reference to former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Goa Governor Mridula Sinha on Friday said there are some leaders who are "accidental" and "foisted" into top positions by others.

Though Sinha did not name Manmohan Singh or any other political leader, her comments were seen in the context of a controversial film on former Prime Minister - 'The Accidental Prime Minister'  which hit cinema theatres recently.

The film is based on a book of the same name written by journalist Sanjaya Baru, who was Dr Singh's media adviser.

"There are many types of leaders, some of them are even accidental, and are foisted into the top position by others," the Goa Governor said while addressing the women's leadership forum here.

Goa Governor, Mridula Sinha at a womens leadership forum: First of all, let us think how many types of leaders are there. I feel some leaders are accidental. There are such compulsions that all of a sudden, they are made leaders, without giving much thought. pic.twitter.com/pgd9PgIPKc  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

The event was organised by a Business school.

"They are made (as leaders) and asked to do some chores. How much work he can do, whether he has quality or not, or has studied issues, these things do not matter," Sinha said.

Sinha further said, "The accidental leaders do wake up to the responsibilities after given the position. It is not that the accidental leader will not work after he is appointed. When his responsibilities increase, he tries to inculcate leadership qualities."

Goa Governor, Mridula Sinha at a womens leadership forum: Even an accidental leader eventually does wake up to his responsibilities after put in a position of leadership. https://t.co/j8L08cOWSk  ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2019

''A successful political leader is one who is sensitive and understands the pain of others,'' the Goa Governor maintained.

"In politics, a leader needs to be sensitive. If the person does not have the ability to understand the pain of others, he cannot be a successful leader," she added.
New Delhi: Global airlines grouping IATA is "monitoring" the situation of the crisis-ridden Jet Airways but feels that the specific problems of an airline need to be solved by specific measures, its chief Alexandre de Juniac has said.

De Juniac during a media interaction on the sidelines of the just-concluded Global Aviation Summit, also said the airlines in Asia, particularly in India have balance sheet with heavy debt, which is a "problem".

"We are following the situation with them (Jet Airways) very closely. We will try to see their problems because they participate in our billing and settlement plan system. So we are monitoring them as we do (of other airlines) everywhere," de Juniac, who is the DG and chief executive of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said.

Jet Airways, which has posted three consecutive quarterly losses of over Rs 1,000 crore each since March, has been grappling with financial woes amid liquidity crunch, which has resulted in default on loan repayment to banks besides delay in payments to aircraft lessors and other vendors as well as salary to staff.

Stating that IATA is following the situation of its members, especially of those who are apparently or publicly facing some financial difficulty, he said,"we are doing that everywhere. We are doing that for Jet Airways (as well)."

The airlines balance sheet has always been a concern for IATA the world over and recently only American and European carriers have significantly recovered balance sheet which is decently financed and has lower debt, he said.

"But in Asia, and particularly in India the balance sheet has heavy debt, which is a problem," de Juniac said.

IATA has permanent exchange of information with its members participating in its BSP, he said adding,"So we keep an eye on those who could be in trouble."

IATA also feels that the Indian ecosystem needs to support the sustainability of airlines in the country.

De Juniac, however, added that IATA does not interfere in the policy issues of an individual airline.

While Indian carriers are expected to post losses to the tune of over Rs 7,348 crore this fisal, according to IATA's latest forecast, the global airlines' industry is projected to report a net profit of USD 35.5 billion in 2019.
New Delhi: The Government is contemplating fresh bidding for India's longest road tunnel in J&K after state-owned NHIDCL terminated the contract awarded to troubled Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) group.

This is the second time NHIDCL has cancelled the contract for the 14.15-km tunnel project which would cut down the 3.5-hour long drive through the mountainous Zojila Pass to 15 minutes.

IL&FS was awarded the contract for building the strategic14.2 km-long Zojila tunnel to provide all-weather connectivity between Srinagar, Kargil and Leh.

Government has also set up a 5-member panel headed by NITI Ayog CEO to resolve the stalled and stressed highway projects of IL&FS. Over two dozen highway projects of the company have been struck owing to its debt crisis.

The development comes barely eight months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the work on the Rs 6,800 crore project, billed as the Asia's longest bi-directional tunnel, in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Zojila Pass is situated at an altitude of 11,578 feet on the Srinagar-Kargil-Leh National highway and remains closed during winters due to heavy snowfall, cutting off Ladakh region from Kashmir.

The Cabinet on January 3, 2018, had approved the Zojila tunnel project with Parallel Escape (Egress) tunnel between Baltal and Minamarg on the Srinagar-Leh section of NH-1A at a total cost of Rs 6,800 crore. The construction of the project was expected to complete in seven years.

IL&FS and some its group entities in the past few months have defaulted debt repayments, triggering concerns over liquidity in the financial system.

Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services in November 2018 had also defaulted on principal and interest payments of deposits, The group's total debt stood at over Rs 94,000 crore as of October 8,2018.

With PTI Inputs
New Delhi: Bollywood's talented actor Vicky Kaushal, who is currently basking in the success of his recent release 'Uri: The Surgical Strike', took time to celebrate the occasion with his rumoured girlfriend Harleen Sethi.

Vicky had admitted on Karan Johar's chat show 'Koffee With Karan' about being in a relationship, he didn't mention his girl's name. But rumours are rife that he is in a serious relationship with television actor and dancer Harleen Sethi.

Taking to her Instagram, Harleen uploaded a photo from the success party of the film. In the photo, the couple is all smiles as they pose for the camera, twinning in black sweatshirts with film's viral dialogue 'How's The Josh?' imprinted on it. "High Sir! #URI," read the caption.

Harleen had also attended the special screening of the film with Vicky, adding more fuel to the fire. Interestingly, on Neha Dhupia's chat show a couple of months ago, Vicky had dedicated Diljit Dosanjh's song 'Do You Know Main Tenu Kinna Pyar Karda' to Harleen.

It appears that like other B-Town lovebirds, this couple too doesn't mind hiding their relationship.

Also spotted at 'Uri' success bash were Yami Gautam, Mohit Raina, director Aditya Dhar, producer Ronnie Screwvala, Paresh Rawal. Radhika Apte, Radhika Madan, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Shashank Khaitan were others who were invited to the bash.

Talking about Vicky's latest film, 'Uri' has turned out to be the first Bollywood hit of 2019. The film has so far minted Rs 63 crore.
New Delhi: The famous fringe group - Karni Sena, which caused some severe damages to Deepika Padukone's 'Padmaavat', is back in action. And this time, Kangana Ranaut's 'Manikarnika' has come under their attack.

According to reports, the Maharashtra wing of the Karni Sena protested against the film on Thursday alleging that the period drama "alludes to Rani Laxmibai`s relationship with a British officer".

The outfit -- which led a long protest against "Padmaavat" in 2017 -- also claimed that the film shows the queen dancing to a special number, saying that it is against tradition. They asked the makers of the film to show them the movie before its release.

However, Kangana is determined to fight against the Shri Rajput Karni Sena. She said that if they don't stop harassing her, she will destroy them. "If they don't stop then they should know I am also a Rajput and I will destroy each one of them," added the actress, who has directed the film along with Krish.

Mid-Day contacted Karni Sena national head on the issue and he revealed the reason behind their objection, saying that they won't tolerate any changes made to the history of our country. "Time and again, we have seen that filmmakers try to take liberties by showing certain scenes [with the purpose of] adding titillation. We won't tolerate such nonsense."

"We had raised concerns in February last year. Despite the Supreme Court judgement, we didn't allow Padmaavat to release in many states. Manikarnika will face the same consequence. We have requested the producers to show us the film before its release. If they release it without showing to us, we will damage property and won't be liable for it," he added.

National Award-winning lyricist and Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chairman Prasoon Joshi has penned the songs for `Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi" which captures the life story of Rani Laxmibai.

The film, also featuring Ankita Lokhande, Atul Kulkarni, Vaibhav Tatwawaadi, Danny Denzongpa, Suresh Oberoi and Jisshu Sengupta, will be screened for President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi on Friday.

Produced by Zee Studios in association with Kamal Jain and Nishant Pitti, the movie will release on January 25, 2019.
(Note: This column is the second of a two-part series on the relationship between the Central and state governments and courts on the one hand, and Hindu temples and their traditions on the other. The two-part series is written in the context of the ongoing controversy surrounding the entry of women into the Ayyappa Temple at Sabarimala.)

Part I: Hindu temples are targets of systematic oppression by government, courts

Part II - Sabarimala and interference in Hindu temple traditions

In the second part of this series, we will look at the specific issues relative to Sabarimala in light of the Supreme Court decision that women of all ages must be allowed in the temple, and the Kerala government determination to use intimidation and force to bring this about, with Hindu devotees resisting such interference in their ancient temple traditions. Here we will look at the spiritual, religious, legal and political issues involved and whether such interference in Hindu temple traditions is warranted or justified.

Sabarimala is one of the most famous and popular temples in India and has been so for generations. Some call it the most frequented sacred site in the world on a yearly basis with many millions attending. Ayyappa is a unique joint form of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu.

Like other Hindu temples Sabarimala has special traditions and its own specific audience. Sabarimala aims mainly at a male audience following detailed ascetic practices, emulating the deity Ayyappa. Though one does not have to be a monk to enter, one does have to follow austere practices during the pilgrimage. For this ascetic tradition, women are not allowed, except for children and women over fifty.

This is not a denial of women from entering Ayyappa temples, but reflects the particular traditions of Sabarimala. There are thousands of Ayyappa shrines and temples where women can go and women are allowed into the great majority of Hindu temples, many of which are to female deities or goddesses. Such special rules of temple entrance are not uncommon. There are women's temples where men cannot go. The controversy is that some claim it is be a violation of women's freedom and rights to worship to prevent them from entering the temple.

Yet, the women trying to enter Sabarimala recently and break these temple traditions have not been devotees, or even Hindus, and have included Muslims, Christians and Communists. It is not a religious right to worship they are seeking but a political right to enter the temple as if it were a public place, not a special place of worship for a particular community.

Such non-devotees try to enter the temple without following the vows and rituals required for devotees to do so. We cannot imagine Hindus being similarly allowed to enter into churches or mosques and interfere with their practices. In fact, the same Kerala government that is trying to force entrance into Sabarimala is protecting mosques and not requiring them to allow women to enter.

The issue of Sabarimala is whether there can be temples for men only, which means whether there can be also temples for women only, or for any other special groups, suggesting that all Hindu temples must be open to the public.

We should note that in all major religious traditions in the world there are practices, sacred sites and religious orders that keep men and women apart. This is simply to keep the energy away from sexuality and to promote spiritual or ascetic practices. The separation of the sexes at Sabarimala has many counterparts from throughout the world from Japanese Shinto shrines to the Mt Athos monastic site in Greece. Religion and spirituality aim to take people beyond the physical world, which result in a variety of ascetic practices or forms of self-discipline, regulation or isolation, including vows of celibacy.

Such a diversity of religious practices is more pronounced in Hindu temples that have a greater diversity of deities and gurus than in other religions that are more uniform in their beliefs. For example, the Kamakhya Hindu temple in Assam uniquely honors the menstruating form of the Goddess, which you would not find in Christianity or Islam. In fact, Christianity and Islam do not accept the Goddess or have any Goddess temples like the Hindus.

The question therefore arises: why should the Communist government of Kerala, which claims to be atheist, quickly resort to police force and intimidation to try to get long-standing Sabarimala traditions to change according to recent unexpected government or court decisions? Such violence against Hindu temples has not occurred since colonial rule and is out of place in dealing with religious causes and devotees.

Note there has been no seeking the views of Hindu gurus and acharyas on this issue either, which has been decided by non-religious authorities, who have no special expertise in the subject. Nor has time been taken to hear understandable and predictable Hindu objections before bringing in the police. There was no law and order problem at Sabarimala to begin with but only what was created by government interference in the temple and its sacred practices.

The real issue is government and court interference in Hindu religious sites and practices that are arguably outside their jurisdiction to begin with. In this regard, protecting Sabarimala from interference may be the most crucial consideration, since if it is not countered many other temples in India can be also interfered with, resulting in temple traditions forcefully altered or eliminated.

Hindu temples form a central part of India's vast spiritual heritage and should be kept free of government interference, just as the government does not interfere with churches or mosques or take their revenues.

Such interference in Hindu temples and practices is clearly a form of religious discrimination that must come to an end. The unique spiritual practices of Hindu temples should be left alone. Hindu temples, unique among the major religions of the world, honor the Divine in male and female forms, animal and plant forms, as formations and forces of nature from mountains and rivers to the Sun, the Moon and the Earth itself - ultimately as ones very Self or Atman. This Hindu temple tradition is a unique and vast cultural and spiritual heritage to be honored, protected and preserved.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)
Licheni Letharia vulpina (vezi mai jos articolul despre licheni) 1. Numarul asteroizilor care au lovit Terra si Luna a crescut pe parcursul ultimilor 290 de milioane de ani [Folosind date termale si imagini colectate de NASA, mai multi cercetatori de la Universitatea Southampton, Universitatea Toronto si Southwest Research Institute au determinat varsta craterelor lunare si au stabilit in urma unor calcule ca rata de impact a crescut de 2,6 ori in ultimii 290 milioane de ani.]2. Au fost identificate celulele cerebrale responsabile pentru senzatia de durere [A research team from Stanford University
Bucuresti: Un copil a cazut de la etajul 6 al unui bloc

Un copil a supravietuit miraculos, dupa ce a cazut de la etajul 6 al unui bloc din Sectorul 2 al Capitalei. Echipajul medical ajuns la fata locului l-a transportat rapid la spital. Astazi, prin apel 112, Sectia 7 Politie a fost sesizata cu privire la faptul ca un minor s-a precipitat [citeste mai departe]
Posted Thursday, January 17, 2019 4:19 am

After state voters soundly rejected a carbon fee initiative, climate advocates in the Legislature are trying to curb climate change with a bevy of smaller reforms.

Four environmental reform bills introduced Thursday aim to reduce food waste, tighten emission limits, set stricter fuel standards and encourage the use of commercial car washes.

This is a change from the precedent-setting climate policy strategy of the past. Carbon tax and carbon fee initiatives were soundly rejected by Washington state voters in 2016 and 2018 respectively. But House Environmental Committee Chair Joe Fitzgibbon, D-Burien, says that the states commitment to the environment still makes Washington a national leader in the area.

Carbon tax was never the silver bullet in climate change, its one tool in the toolbox, he said. Its time to take a step back and try it sector by sector.

This approach is similar to Gov. Jay Inslees climate package, which proposed a wide range of environmental policies like orca conservation and an emphasis on creating jobs in the clean energy industry. This is a sharp contrast to large policy proposals of the past legislative sessions, like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system.

What used to be a graph on a chart is now ash on the hood of your car from forest fires Inslee said on Thursday. Were at a tipping-point moment.

Some of the environmental issues like salmon recovery and reducing carbon emission have bipartisan support, but state Democrats and Republicans disagree on where the funding will come from. Senate Minority Leader Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville anticipates that policies to lower carbon standards will raise taxes.

We can get better if we got off the perpetual tax bandwagon, Sen. Schoesler said on Thursday. He wants lawmakers to find solutions that dont tax hardworking taxpayers.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-19 06:21:06|Editor: Chengcheng

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BUCHAREST, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Romanian car brand Dacia achieved its best commercial performance in its history in 2018, with sales growth of 7 percent to 700,798 units in domestic and international markets, the carmaker said Friday in a statement.

Dacia has practically doubled its sales in just seven years. Thus, the threshold of 350,000 units was exceeded in 2012, that of 400,000 in 2013, that of 500,000 in 2014 and that of 600,000 in 2017, according to the Automobile Dacia SA, a subsidiary of the French Renault.

The brand consolidated its leadership in the local market with nearly 54,600 vehicles sold in 2018, an increase of 26.2 percent compared to the previous year.

Dacia also managed to increase its market share of new vehicle sales to over 30 percent, with each Dacia model becoming the leader in its respective market segment in 2018 as well.

On foreign markets, Dacia sales rose 5.5 percent to over 646,000 units in the past year.

The most outstanding performances was recorded in Europe, where Dacia sold more than 511,000 vehicles in 2018 and became the 14th best-selling brand on the continent, with a market share of 2.9 percent, or 0.27 percent more compared to the year of 2017.

Taken over by Renault in 1999, Dacia was relaunched in 2004 with the Logan model. Currently, the company's product line includes, in addition to Logan, Duster, Sandero, Dokker, Lodgy and their variants.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-19 05:40:58|Editor: Chengcheng

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People look at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on Jan. 18, 2019. The White House said Friday that the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), "will take place near the end of February." (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The White House said Friday that the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), "will take place near the end of February."

The announcement was made after Trump wrapped up a meeting in the Oval Office with Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the DPRK's ruling Korean Workers' Party Central Committee.

"President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

"The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date," she said.

The meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un, if held as scheduled, will be the two leaders' second face-to-face encounter following their landmark summit in Singapore last June. Both sides have said they look forward to such a meeting.

Kim Jong Un said during his recent trip to China that his country will "make efforts for the second summit between DPRK and U.S. leaders to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community."

Trump said on Jan. 2 that the two countries will set up a leaders' summit. "We'll probably now have another meeting. He'd like to meet, I'd like to meet. We'll set that up, we'll be setting that up in the not-too-distant future," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Traveling on a commercial plane, Kim Yong Chol arrived at Washington's Dulles International Airport on Thursday night and was greeted there by Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for the DPRK, according to the Republic of Korea's Yonhap news agency.

Earlier Friday, Kim Yong Chol held talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Biegun at a hotel in Washington.

"Secretary Pompeo and Special Representative Steve Biegun had a good discussion this morning with DPRK Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol on efforts to make progress on the commitments President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un made at their summit in Singapore," U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said in a statement.
File Photo: Wreaths are laid at graves during Wreaths Across America Day at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, the United States, on Dec. 15, 2018. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of Defense on Friday confirmed the identities of three Americans who were killed in a bomb attack on Wednesday in Syria's northern city of Manbij.

The Pentagon identified the victims as one soldier, one sailor and one Defense Department civilian who were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military intervention by the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS).

It was reported earlier that four Americans were killed and three others wounded in the suicide attack, which killed about 20 people.

The IS militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred weeks after Washington's decision to withdraw troops from the war-torn country.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-19 00:19:50|Editor: Chengcheng

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KIEV, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's state-run energy company Naftogaz estimates its economic damage from the 2009 gas contracts with Russia at 32 billion U.S. dollars, the company's chairman Andriy Kobolev said on Friday.

"We have irretrievably lost 32 billion dollars. This includes overpayments, fines, and other components," Kobolev told a press conference in Kiev.

In 2009, Ukraine and Russia signed agreements on the supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine and on its transit to Europe via the Ukrainian territory. Both deals expire this year.

In particular, the gas supplies contract included the "take-or-pay" clause, which obliged Ukraine to pay for the agreed amount of gas whether it uses it or not, while the transit contract obliged Russia to supply the contracted volume of gas for transit via Ukraine.

Since 2014, Ukraine and Russia have been embroiled in two separate legal disputes regarding the transit of gas and gas purchases.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 23:59:47|Editor: yan

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ROME, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The first book on the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) written in Italian was launched Thursday at an event attended by officials from the Chinese Embassy in Italy and the Italian Communist Party (ICP).

Crowning a year of work by some Italian experts in Chinese politics, the book "La Cina della Nuova Era," or New Era China, tries to analyze China's New Era through the lens of the report delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017.

This is the first book in Italian on the 19th CPC National Congress, which is an interesting reflection for the Italian people in order to know the CPC, said Zheng Xuan, minister-counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Italy during a keynote speech.

With Xi's report as a backbone, the book features nine thematic chapters. Every author took on a different aspect of China's New Era, which includes the country's domestic policy, diplomacy, high-quality development transition, ecological civilization and rural vitalization, among others.

The book also includes a preface signed by Chinese Ambassador to Italy Li Ruiyu.

According to China expert Francesco Maringio, the leading author of the book and head of the ICP foreign affairs department, what makes the book unique is its analysis of China on the basis of its particular political system, in order to analyze it in the most objective way possible.

"Western media and scholars usually lack the ability to put themselves in Chinese decision-makers' shoes, so they try to describe China while ignoring its particular political system, giving us a distorted image of the country. We think that in order to really understand China, it is mandatory to understand its political system, so we choose to take it as the starting point of our analysis," said Maringio.

During the event, experts and ICP officials also lauded China's social and economic achievements, and appreciated the crucial role that the CPC played in China's development.

"History cannot be measured in years or centuries, but it can be measured in transformations, and the Chinese transformation is the most important social transformation process in the history of the world," said Andrea Catone, editor-in-chief of the Italian political-cultural association Marx21.

"This has been possible also because of the quality of Chinese political leaders, who always overcame contradictions in a proper way," Catone added.

Bruno Steri, a member of the ICP National Secretariat, said the book is useful to counter those voices that speak about China with prejudice.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 23:59:46|Editor: Chengcheng

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CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) needs to make use of technological advances from the fourth industrial revolution and build immunity from disruptive technologies, said Thailand's Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai here on Friday.

Don was speaking at a press briefing at the end of the ASEAN Foreign Minister's Retreat in northern Thailand's Chiang Mai, which is the first gathering of ASEAN foreign ministers under Thailand's chairmanship this year.

The meeting recognized that sustainable development cooperation was a strategic priority of ASEAN and key to promoting sustainability in the region.

ASEAN should be future-oriented and better prepared for the fourth industrial revolution, said the Thai foreign minister in a statement.

He mentioned that the foreign ministers welcomed the initiative in issuing a report regarding the effect of the fourth industrial revolution on ASEAN which is being studied by the grouping's economic counterparts.

The foreign ministers also looked forward to the ASEAN Secretariat's assessment on the preparedness and implications of the fourth industrial revolution from a holistic perspective considering political-security and socio-cultural aspects, according to the statement.

The meeting also recognized the importance of enhancing cybersecurity cooperation and capacity of ASEAN experts in cyber incidence response and analysis, so as to build a safe, secure and resilient cyberspace supporting the digital economy of the region.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (R) shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their joint press conference in Belgrade, Serbia, on Jan. 17, 2019. Strategic cooperation between Serbia and Russia will strengthen with the signing of over 20 agreements, the presidents of the two countries agreed here on Thursday after their meeting. (Xinhua/Predrag Milosavljevic)

BELGRADE, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Russia has resources and is ready to extend the TurkStream gas pipeline to Europe across Bulgaria and Serbia, if governments of European Union (EU) member countries along the route persuade Brussels to give them the green light, Russian President Vladimir Putin said here on Thursday.

Putin arrived in Belgrade Thursday for an official visit to Serbia.

At a joint press conference with his counterpart Aleksandar Vucic, Putin said that Russia, which has enough resources and means, is ready to invest around 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in the extension of the recently-constructed pipeline that already connects Russia and Turkey across the Black Sea, in order to enable another gas transport route to Europe.

For his part, Russia is already conducting preparation for such work as there are high interests among European consumers, but repeated that EU states, such as Bulgaria and Hungary, should seek guarantees from Brussels.

And whether the gas infrastructure will pass through Serbia also depends on other countries along the route, most of which are EU members, Putin added.

"It comes down to the ability of these countries to defend their national interests in a dialogue with European structures," Putin stressed.

The TurkStream natural gas pipeline is expected to carry a total of 31.5 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas per year to Turkey and Europe, bypassing Ukraine. Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom is planning to start the construction of the overland section of TurkStream in 2019.

Putin said that besides the Nord Stream and the TurkStream, there is a possibility that the old gas transit route across Ukraine will continue to exist in order to meet the rising demand of European countries for gas, which last year imported 200 billion cubic meters from Russia.

Vucic said that Serbia has high expectations from the TurkStream, and is resilient to all pressures coming from the EU or elsewhere because "Serbia needs to get the gas for its companies".

He reminded that the country so far obtained the Russian gas across Hungary and Ukraine, but would now prefer to get it from the TurkStream, across Bulgaria.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 23:44:43|Editor: Yang Yi

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SINGAPORE, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Singapore has been designated the Official Culinary Destination Partner for the World Restaurant Awards, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) announced on Friday.

The designation comes as part of the partnership that the Singapore Tourism Board and the World Restaurant Awards have entered into, and will effectively place the island nation under global spotlight next month -- at the inaugural World Restaurant Awards which will be held in Paris, France, Singapore will be represented by some of the island's top talents that will aim to showcase the unique flavors and best of Singapore culinary experiences.

The World Restaurant Awards is a new, progressive annual awards platform created by global events and talent management behemoth, IMG.

"STB is delighted to partner The World Restaurant Awards with Singapore as the Official Culinary Destination Partner in its inaugural year," Melissa Ow, Deputy Chief Executive of STB said in her statement, adding that "we hope to shape the global audience's perception that Singapore is a leading culinary destination with an increasingly vibrant dining and cocktail landscape."

The partnership will also bring about learning and development opportunities for Singapore's culinary talents through "The World Restaurant Awards Talent Exchange Programme" initiative that will be launched jointly by STB and IMG.

The initiative is a first-of-its-kind enterprise which will attach emerging chefs from Singapore to The World Restaurant Awards-winning or nominated establishments in a bid to raise standards both ways.

"The World Restaurant Awards is proud to be working with Singapore as its Official Culinary Destination Partner for its inaugural edition," Justin Clarke, SVP and Managing Director of Culinary, IMG said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 23:39:42|Editor: yan

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DAR ES SALAAM, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency said on Friday it will reinforce its pre-screening procedures before any clothing is distributed to refugees.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement that the decision to reinforce the pre-screening of clothing distributed to refugees was aimed at preventing a repetition of last year's scenario where it allowed the distribution of clothing items to refugees that were deemed inappropriate.

In the last quarter of last year, the UNHCR distributed some 1.5 million pieces of clothing received from a private donor to refugees in Nduta and Mtendeli camps in western Tanzania and to members of the host community living nearby in Kibondo and Kakonko districts in Kigoma region.

During the first mass distribution, which took place in the presence of local authorities, the UNHCR and its partners identified a number of donated clothing items that were deemed inappropriate, including some 1,900 pieces of camouflage-styled clothing for men and boys.

Since this type of clothing were not permitted for civilian use under Tanzanian law, the statement said, the UNHCR immediately removed all the unsuitable pieces and stored them securely.

"On Dec. 31, 2018, these unsuitable clothes were handed over to local authorities upon their request," the statement said.

In January, Tanzanian authorities launched an investigation, following media reports that these items were seized in Nduta and Mtendeli camps prior to their distribution to refugees.

"While waiting for the findings of the investigation, the UNHCR stands ready to support the government in its efforts to clarify the way these clothing items have been handled," the statement said.

The UNHCR "continues to work closely with the Tanzanian government and other partner organizations in providing international protection and humanitarian assistance to refugees and asylum-seekers in the country," the statement added.

Tanzania hosts more than 300,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, mostly from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 23:39:42|Editor: yan

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ROME, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The first book on the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) written in Italian was launched Thursday at an event attended by officials from the Chinese Embassy in Italy and the Italian Communist Party (ICP).

Crowning a year of work by some Italian experts in Chinese politics, the book "La Cina della Nuova Era," or New Era China, tries to analyze China's New Era through the lens of the report delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017.

This is the first book in Italian on the 19th CPC National Congress, which is an interesting reflection for the Italian people in order to know the CPC, said Zheng Xuan, minister-counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Italy during a keynote speech.

With Xi's report as a backbone, the book features nine thematic chapters. Every author took on a different aspect of China's New Era, which includes the country's domestic policy, diplomacy, high-quality development transition, ecological civilization and rural vitalization, among others.

The book also includes a preface signed by Chinese Ambassador to Italy Li Ruiyu.

According to China expert Francesco Maringio, the leading author of the book and head of the ICP foreign affairs department, what makes the book unique is its analysis of China on the basis of its particular political system, in order to analyze it in the most objective way possible.

"Western media and scholars usually lack the ability to put themselves in Chinese decision-makers' shoes, so they try to describe China while ignoring its particular political system, giving us a distorted image of the country. We think that in order to really understand China, it is mandatory to understand its political system, so we choose to take it as the starting point of our analysis," said Maringio.

During the event, experts and ICP officials also lauded China's social and economic achievements, and appreciated the crucial role that the CPC played in China's development.

"History cannot be measured in years or centuries, but it can be measured in transformations, and the Chinese transformation is the most important social transformation process in the history of the world," said c, editor-in-chief of the Italian political-cultural association Marx21.

"This has been possible also because of the quality of Chinese political leaders, who always overcame contradictions in a proper way," Catone added.

Bruno Steri, a member of the ICP National Secretariat, said the book is useful to counter those voices that speak about China with prejudice.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 23:34:40|Editor: yan

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CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai announced on Friday that his ASEAN counterparts have reaffirmed cooperation between the ASEAN member states to combat transnational crimes.

In a press statement released on Friday, the Thai foreign minister, who chaired an ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat in Chiang Mai, said his ASEAN counterparts have recognized the need to have a comprehensive approach to address transnational crimes which have accompanied enhanced regional connectivity.

"In that regard, we would work toward strengthening our cooperation on border management to safeguard our region while facilitating cross-border trade and movement of people," the Thai foreign minister said.

Besides, the ASEAN foreign ministers reaffirmed the commitment to promoting complementarity between the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to build a sustainable ASEAN Community which is to be discussed during the third High-Level Brainstorming Dialogue in Bangkok on March 29, 2019, Don said.

"We underscored the importance of implementing effectively the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and its various Blueprints as well as ASEAN agreements in force in order to maintain strong momentum in building a people-centered ASEAN community that leaves no one behind and looks to the future.

"We believed that ASEAN needs to not only maintain its unity and centrality but also enhance ASEAN's strategic value added in order to remain a driving force for key developments in our region," Don said in the statement.

He said he has briefed the ASEAN foreign ministers on Thailand's priorities and initiatives under the Chairmanship's theme of "Advancing Partnership for Sustainability" which they have discussed and expressed support.

The ASEAN foreign ministers have emphasized on the importance of enhancing regional connectivity and reaffirmed the value of building on connectivity strategies at sub-regional level and enhancing connectivity between ASEAN and other regions, according to the Thai foreign minister.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 23:29:40|Editor: yan

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, presides over a symposium on the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and makes an important speech on it. Xi made an inspection tour in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region from Jan. 16 to Jan. 18. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged more efforts to achieve new, greater progress in the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour of the region from Wednesday to Friday.

During the tour, Xi chaired a symposium on the region's coordinated development and made an important speech.

Vice Premier Han Zheng, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, accompanied Xi on the tour of the Xiongan New Area in Hebei Province and Beijing and attended the symposium.

THREE-DAY TOUR

On Wednesday morning, Xi visited the exhibition center for the planning of the Xiongan New Area and stressed that the creation of Xiongan is "a strategy that will have lasting importance for the millennium to come."

China should remain committed to the new development concept and stick to the high-quality growth when building the new area, Xi said.

While visiting a government service center, Xi stressed that development of the Xiongan New Area requires concerted efforts from a large number of enterprises.

"We welcome all companies, whether they are state-owned enterprises or private companies, local firms or companies from Beijing, Chinese enterprises or overseas-funded companies, as long as they conform to the industrial development plan of the new area," he said.

A good ecological environment represents the important value of the Xiongan New Area, he said while visiting a forestry zone in the region Wednesday afternoon.

Visiting the campus of Nankai University in Tianjin Thursday morning, Xi said it is a priority to nurture patriotism among students for them to become a new generation of capable young people well-prepared to join the socialist cause.

In a square on campus, enthusiastic students welcomed Xi, shouting greetings such as "Welcome, General Secretary" and singing a patriotic song. Xi shook hands with students and waved to others in the crowd.

At a community in Heping District in Tianjin, Xi pointed out that community work should be people-centered with an accurate grasp of people's needs and provide targeted and elaborate services for the residents in a timely manner.

He then visited a service and administration station for veterans in the community and stressed that setting up institutions for veteran affairs is to enhance the management of veterans and better protect their welfare in order to make military service a publicly respected occupation.

Talking about the large number of unique buildings and streets of historical and cultural significance in Tianjin, Xi asked for more care for the historical and cultural heritage in cities and better coordination of development and protection.

During his visit to the Tianjin port Thursday afternoon, Xi called for efforts to develop it into a world-class smart and green port, which can better serve the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei as well as joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi then visited the Binhai-Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park, where he highlighted the pressing task to rely on self-dependent innovation for advancing high-quality development and replacing old growth drivers with new ones.

On Friday morning, while visiting the sub-center of Beijing, Xi stressed that planning should take precedence over the construction of the sub-center while quality should be the top priority.

He said the sub-center should be made another "shining name card" of Beijing.

SIX DEMANDS

Xi made six demands to promote the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Efforts should be made to relocate the non-capital functions of Beijing in an active, proper and orderly manner, he said.

He stressed high-quality and high-standard planning and development of the Xiongan New Area and called for building a number of major infrastructure projects in transportation, water conservancy and public services in the new area.

The relocation of Beijing's municipal organs should be taken as an opportunity to pursue high-quality planning and construction of the sub-center, Xi said, adding that the spatial layout and economic structure of Beijing should be optimized.

He stressed the need to take reform and innovation as impetus to inspire high-quality development and establish independent innovation bases.

Joint efforts must be made in the improvement and protection of ecology and environment, while more clean energy should be supplied, Xi said.

He called for a people-centered approach and joint work in developing the basic public services with shared benefits, adding that all poverty-stricken counties in the region should be lifted out of poverty by 2020.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 23:29:40|Editor: yan

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of Defense on Friday confirmed the identities of three Americans who were killed in a bomb attack on Wednesday in Syria's northern city of Manbij.

The Pentagon identified the victims as one soldier, one sailor and one Defense Department civilian who were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military intervention by the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS).

It was reported earlier that four Americans were killed and three others wounded in the suicide attack, which killed about 20 people.

The IS militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred weeks after Washington's decision to withdraw troops from the war-torn country.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 23:19:38|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- China has issued a circular requiring intensified investigation and punishment on unregistered school buses and illegal school bus behavior, according to the Ministry of Education Friday.

Students of primary and middle schools and preschoolers are forbidden to ride school buses that are not registered by authorities, the circular said.

School bus drivers will face severe punishment if found speeding, overloading or driving off designated routes. Unregistered school buses will be seized, it said.

The circular orders relevant departments to conduct a thorough investigation of students' means of commuting and keep an account of the models and plate numbers of school buses on a long-term basis.

Monitoring on private or unqualified kindergartens should be strengthened, and parents should be well informed of the issue, according to the circular.

More personnel should be dispatched to patrol the roads near schools and kindergartens at rush hours to ensure students' safety, it said.

The circular also called on local governments to fully implement the Regulation on School Bus Safety Management, which was released by the State Council in 2012 to reduce students' traffic risks.
Photo taken on April 14, 2018 shows relics of the Scientific Research Center in the Barzeh neigborhood of northeast of Damascus, after the United States, Britain and France carry out a wave of joint airstrikes on Syrian military facilities. (Xinhua File photo)

DAMASCUS, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 civilians were killed on Friday by U.S.-led airstrikes on an Islamic State (IS)-held area in Syria's eastern province of Deir al-Zour, state news agency SANA reported.

Women and children were among those killed by the airstrikes, which targeted the town of Baghus, one of the last two towns still controlled by the IS in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour.

The attack is the latest in a series of air bombardment targeting the last IS-held pocket on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in eastern Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition has been backing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in its push to dislodge IS militants from their last redoubt in the eastern Euphrates region.

Earlier in the day, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the SDF is still fighting to push the remaining IS fighters to surrender in the eastern Euphrates.

The London-based watchdog said the U.S.-led warplanes were spotted flying over the last IS-held pocket in the eastern Euphrates on Friday.

The IS residuals are trying to escape their besieged pocket after the SDF, with the help of the U.S.-led coalition, cornered them in a 15-square-km strip in the eastern Euphrates region, it added.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 22:59:34|Editor: Chengcheng

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Foreign ministers attend a preparatory meeting of the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit in Beirut, Lebanon, on Jan. 18, 2019. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich)

BEIRUT, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Arab Ministerial Committee for the preparation of the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit opened its session on Friday.

During the session, Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil called on restoring Syria's membership in the Arab League (AL).

"We should not create gaps in the relations among Arab countries. The biggest gap today is Syria. We can greatly feel the burden of its absence among us today," Bassil said.

Arab countries should not wait for the permission of other countries to allow the return of Syria to the AL, he added.

"We call upon you to always support Lebanon because Lebanon has never stopped working in the interest of Arab countries," Bassil told the session.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki called on Arab countries to boycott all companies that deal with Israel.

He said Arab countries have tremendous economic capacity as the rest of the world hoping to benefit from their natural resources.

"We should appreciate our capacity and play an effective role in impacting the decisions taken by the international community that go in parallel with our economic power," he said.

"Israel is adopting policies that aim at stealing our resources such as water, gas and agriculture wealth ... Israel is stealing the money of Palestinians through taxes," he added.

Al-Maliki urged Arab countries to invest in Palestine which is characterized by enormous opportunities of investing in different fields.

"This will create an economic independence for Palestine," he said.

For his part, AL Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said the challenges facing the Arab region in development require a new vision that goes hand in hand with the technological advancements in the world.

Aboul-Gheit emphasized the need for an Arab integration which will enable countries to coordinate their strategies in food security, poverty elimination and the protection of women's rights.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Hakim reiterated Aboul-Gheit's remarks by saying the Arab strategy should focus on food security in the Arab world in addition to eradication of poverty.

Al-Hakim also called for the creation of development projects in countries hosting Syrian refugees such as Lebanon and Jordan.

"This will lessen the burden of the presence of a big number of refugees in these countries," he noted.

The Arab Economic and Social Development Summit aims to discuss primarily the development issues in the Arab world.

The summit, organized by the AL, is scheduled on Jan. 20 in Lebanon's capital Beirut.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 22:29:27|Editor: mmm

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MOSCOW, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Preserving the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between Russia and the United States may prevent a new arms race, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said here Friday.

"I cannot imagine that anyone in Europe would be interested in starting a new spiral of build-up of weapons, medium-range nuclear missiles," Maas said at a press conference following talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

"The only way to prevent this is to preserve the INF Treaty," he said, adding that both Russia and the United States should refrain from deploying medium-range missiles banned by the arms control treaty.

Moscow and Washington have been accusing each other of violating the historic INF Treaty signed between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987.

The United States accuses Russia of refusing to destroy the 9M729 missile system, which it claims violates the pact. Russia insists that the missile has a range lower than the 500-5,500 km stipulated by the deal.

According to Maas, loyalty to the INF Treaty can only be restored through the verified elimination of the 9M729 missiles.

Maas welcomed the news that both Russia and the United States will be ready to continue the dialogue on the INF Treaty.

However, Lavrov was rather skeptical about the fate of the deal.

"When President Trump announced that they will abandon the treaty, our U.S. colleagues told us during official contacts on different issues of disarmament and arms control that this is the final decision," he said at the briefing.

The announcement that the United States is leaving the INF Treaty is not an invitation to dialogue, Lavrov told reporters.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 22:29:25|Editor: zh

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CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) welcomed the continued improving cooperation with China on the South China Sea issue, Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said Friday.

The ministers made the remarks during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat, the first ASEAN foreign ministers' gathering this year, which was held in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai on Jan. 17-18.

Don, also chairman of the retreat, said in a statement that the foreign ministers were encouraged by the progress of the substantive negotiations toward the early conclusion of an effective Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC) on a mutually agreed timeline.

Underscoring the importance of the full and effective implementation of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in its entirety, the foreign ministers emphasized the need to maintain an environment conducive to the COC negotiations, according to Don.

He also said the foreign ministers noted that ASEAN member states and China have agreed on a Single Draft COC Negotiating Text and have been looking forward to the completion of the first reading of the text by 2019, as announced at the 21st ASEAN-China Summit in Singapore in November 2018.

In a press conference held after the retreat, Don added that the ASEAN foreign ministers "welcomed practical measures that could reduce tension, the risk of accidents, misunderstanding and miscalculation. We stressed the significance of undertaking confidence building and preventive measures to enhance trust amongst parties."

The retreat was also the first gathering of the ASEAN foreign ministers under Thailand's chairmanship this year. The foreign ministers had discussions on ASEAN's priorities for 2019, as well as deep exchanges on regional and international development.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 22:24:22|Editor: mmm

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DAMASCUS, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 civilians were killed on Friday by U.S.-led airstrikes on Islamic State (IS)-held area in the country's eastern province of Deir al-Zour, state news agency SANA reported.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 22:24:22|Editor: mmm

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NAIROBI, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- A Kenyan court on Friday allowed police to continue holding five suspects arrested over Tuesday's hotel attack for a month to allow for complete investigation.

Prosecutors had applied to have Joel Ng'ang'a Wainaina, Oliver Kanyango Muthee, Gladys Kaari Justus, Guleid Abdihakim and Osman Ibrahim detained for 30 days to enable the police to conclude investigations into the attack on a luxury hotel and office complex in Nairobi on Tuesday.

Ng'ang'a, a taxi driver, is alleged to have ferried attackers to several locations while coordinating their attacks. Muthee also transported one of the attackers to DusitD2 Hotel, while Kaari, who is an M-Pesa money transfer service agent, sent money.

The police said Abdihakim communicated with the attackers while Ibrahim was captured by a CCTV talking to one of the attackers.

Noordin Haji, director of Public Prosecution, said investigators have covered considerable ground in their investigations, adding that he was satisfied that there is probable cause to continue with investigations against all the suspects.

"The investigations into the matter are complex and transitional and would therefore require sufficient time and resources to uncover the entire criminal syndicate," Haji said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

He said he has appointed a team of prosecutors to offer technical guidance to the investigators on a continuous basis so as to ensure that investigations are meticulous and fast-tracked.

At least 21 people were killed and several others injured in the attack Tuesday at Dusit hotel, which is located within a leafy business complex in Nairobi.

Al-Shabab terror group claimed responsibility, saying its fighters killed 47 people inside the hotel. The group cited U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as the reason for the attack.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 21:54:10|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet here Friday with Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) ruling Korean Workers' Party Central Committee, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.

Pompeo and Kim are expected to discuss matters including the date and venue for a possible second meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un after their first summit in Singapore last year. Both sides have said they look forward to such a meeting.

Kim Yong Chol was once scheduled to meet with Pompeo in New York last November, but the meeting was canceled at the last minute.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 21:54:10|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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MADRID, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Excess speed, driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs and using mobile phone are the main causes of fatal accidents on Spanish roads, the director of the General Direction of Traffic (DGT in Spanish) told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

Alvaro Gomez explained the DGT had "identified" the factors of risk, and that "distraction is behind 33 percent of all fatal accidents, many of which are caused by the use of mobile phones."

"High speed is also a factor in 29 percent of deaths, while the next factor is drinking alcohol and taking drugs, which cause 26 percent of road deaths," said Gomez.

According to the DGT, 1,180 people died on Spanish roads in 2018, which is 1.5 percent down on 2017.

Gomez, nevertheless, is not content with the results.

"It is negative, but if we look at between September and December, we reduced deaths by 9.5 percent in this period in respect to 2017. So the challenge is to maintain the trend of recent months," he commented, before explaining that recent measures aimed to continue the trend of reduced mortality.

"We have just reduced the speed limit on roads with one lane in each direction from 100 km/h to 90 km/h and we are going to introduce tougher punishments in terms of taking points off drivers who break the rules," said Gomez.

"The evidence shows that when you lower the speed limit, you reduce the number of fatal accidents," he explained.

Meanwhile, the DGT is looking to clamp down on mobile phone use behind the wheel, by increasing the punishment from the loss of 3 points to 6 points (when a driver loses 12 points, they lose their license).

Gomez said the number of deaths caused by drinking and driving was "very high" and said it was important to carry out campaigns to educate and raise awareness among drivers and to accompany this with more police controls on highways.

"It is an enormous problem, although we have improved," Gomez told Xinhua. "A few years ago, around 5 percent of all drivers stopped at controls tested positive for alcohol and now this has dropped to around 1 percent."

"There are problems with young people drinking and driving, but that is not just a problem in Spain," he commented.

Spain currently has 40 deaths per million inhabitants in road accidents, the fifth best figure in the EU, behind Sweden (25), the UK (27), the Netherlands (31) and Denmark (32).

"We have gone from having one of the worst death rates on roads 15 years ago to having one of the best," said Gomez.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 21:44:08|Editor: zh

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BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged more efforts to achieve new, greater progress in the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour of the region from Wednesday to Friday.

During the tour, Xi chaired a symposium on the region's coordinated development and made an important speech.

Vice Premier Han Zheng, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, accompanied Xi on the tour of the Xiongan New Area in Hebei Province and Beijing and attended the symposium.

On Wednesday morning, Xi visited the exhibition center for the planning of the Xiongan New Area and stressed that the creation of Xiongan is "a strategy that will have lasting importance for the millennium to come."

China should remain committed to the new development concept and stick to the high-quality growth when building the new area, Xi said.

While visiting a government service center, Xi stressed that development of the Xiongan New Area requires concerted efforts from a large number of enterprises.

"We welcome all companies, whether they are state-owned enterprises or private companies, local firms or companies from Beijing, Chinese enterprises or overseas-funded companies, as long as they conform to the industrial development plan of the new area," he said.

A good ecological environment represents the important value of the Xiongan New Area, he said while visiting a forestry zone in the region Wednesday afternoon.

Visiting the campus of Nankai University in Tianjin Thursday morning, Xi said it is a priority to nurture patriotism among students for them to become a new generation of capable young people well-prepared to join the socialist cause.

In a square on campus, enthusiastic students welcomed Xi, shouting greetings such as "Welcome, General Secretary" and singing a patriotic song. Xi shook hands with students and waved to others in the crowd.

At a community in Heping District in Tianjin, Xi pointed out that community work should be people-centered with an accurate grasp of people's needs and provide targeted and elaborate services for the residents in a timely manner.

He then visited a service and administration station for veterans in the community and stressed that setting up institutions for veteran affairs is to enhance the management of veterans and better protect their welfare in order to make military service a publicly respected occupation.

Talking about the large number of unique buildings and streets of historical and cultural significance in Tianjin, Xi asked for more care for the historical and cultural heritage in cities and better coordination of development and protection.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 21:39:07|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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by Dana Halawi

BEIRUT, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Libya's absence from the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit in Beirut reduces the importance attached by Arab countries to the big event, said analysts.

"The three political powers in Lebanon showed different views with regard to Libya's participation in the summit and there are threats to prevent the Libyan delegation from entering the country," Samir Atallah, a Lebanese political analyst, told Xinhua.

All these sent negative signals to the Arab community, Atallah said.

Despite having confirmed their attendance at the summit in Beirut, many heads of state are now set to stay away.

The emirs of Qatar and Kuwait will not attend and Egypt is planning to send the prime minister rather than the president to the summit. The Palestinian president said he will be in New York during the summit.

The Tunisian economy minister confirmed that the foreign minister, not the president, will represent his country to attend the summit.

The United Arab Emirates Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed al-Mansoori arrived in Beirut as the head of his country's delegation.

Mauritania and Somalia are the only countries sending heads of state to the summit.

Lebanon witnessed in the past few days fierce debates over Libya's participation in the summit which will take place over the weekend in Lebanon's capital Beirut.

Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri expressed his regret over Libya's absence from the event.

However, Lebanon's Amal Movement, headed by House Speaker Nabih Berri, warned that the Libyan delegation will not be able to enter Lebanon because of its lack of cooperation with regard to the disappearance of the Shiite leader Musa al-Sadr during his visit to Libya in 1978.

Amal's supporters took down the Libyan flags from outside Biel Center, the venue of the upcoming summit, to protest against Libya's participation in the summit.

"Recent events against the participation of Libya in the summit reduced the level of representation of Arab countries to the event," Hilal Khashan, chair of the Political Studies Department at the American University of Beirut, told Xinhua.

The fact that most heads of states are not coming means they do not take the routine summit seriously, Khashan added.

Meanwhile, analysts also expressed their pessimism about the outcome of the summit.

Khashan believed issues expected to be tackled during the summit, such as stopping abuse against women, eliminating poverty and child abuse, are beyond the capacity of Arab states.

"It is way beyond their (Arab officials) ability ... To eliminate poverty, you have to invest in cultural transformation and empower people. This is the last thing Arab countries may do for the time being," he said.

Arabs have never implemented any decisions made at Arab summits, Atallah noted.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 21:39:07|Editor: Yang Yi

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Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (5th R,front) and German Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (7th L, front) pose for a group photo before the second China-Germany High Level Financial Dialogue in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 18, 2019. China and Germany on Friday held their second High Level Financial Dialogue on topics including the global macroeconomic situation, economic governance, China-Germany strategic cooperation, financial cooperation and financial supervision. (Xinhua/Liu Bin)

BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- China and Germany on Friday held their second High Level Financial Dialogue in Beijing on topics including the global macroeconomic situation, economic governance, China-Germany strategic cooperation, financial cooperation and financial supervision.

The dialogue, co-chaired by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and German Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, has achieved 34 mutually beneficial results, according to a press release after the dialogue.

Both sides agreed that in the context of increasing world economic uncertainties, it is of great significance to the economic development of both China and Germany as well as Europe and the world for the two countries, as two major economies, to strengthen macroeconomic policy communication and coordination.

The two sides pledged to jointly uphold multilateralism and free trade rules, and firmly support the rule-based and multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the core, said the press release.

The two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation under multilateral frameworks such as the Group of 20 (G20) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and support the alignment of China's Belt and Road Initiative with the Eurasian connectivity strategy and European infrastructure planning.

"The financial cooperation between China and Germany is of great importance. The two sides should strengthen policy exchanges, expand the two-way opening of the financial sector, promote the connectivity of capital markets, and implement their consensus," said Liu.

Scholz said the two countries share good foundations of dialogue and cooperation, adding that Germany is willing to expand pragmatic cooperations with China to enhance bilateral ties.

During the dialogue, the two sides signed three documents on the cooperation of central banks, bank supervision and stock and futures market supervision.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 20:58:54|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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by Pankaj Yadav

NEW DELHI, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Around 1,000 participants from as many as 50 countries and regions as well as across India participated in the three-day expo "South Asia Travel and Tourism Exchange" (SATTE) held in Greater Noida, a city in northern state of Uttar Pradesh adjoining the Indian capital, that ended on Friday.

This was the 26th edition of the annual event and was said to be the biggest event of its kind in South Asia.

A number of Chinese firms from the travel and tourism sector also participated in the expo, such as "Go IndoChina Tours", "Hola China (Shanghai) International Travel Services Company Limited".

"SATTE 2019" enabled professionals from the industry to congregate and conduct business, to make solution-driven innovations to counteract economic uncertainties, and promote inbound, outbound and domestic tourism in India.

The chief organiser of the gala was "UBM India", a leading B2B events organiser. UBM India's Managing Director Yogesh Mudras said that the tourism industry was growing at an unprecedented pace with the travel sector expected to grow to a 56-billion-U.S. dollar market by 2020.

According to him, keeping in mind its tourism potential, India has been chosen by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNTWO) as the host country to celebrate the "World Tourism Day 2019" on the theme of "Tourism and Jobs: A better future for all".

India's Junior Minister of Culture and Tourism Mahesh Sharma said that the potential of tourism in India was high, though it accounted for only 6.8 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), yet it showed a growth of 9 to 13 percent in the number of tourists visiting India over the years.

Speaking to Xinhua, Shashank Pandey, the Managing Director of "Aspen Adventures Private Limited", which is an upcoming player in developing tourist destinations in India, said that over the years "SATTE" had emerged as a tremendous platform as far as the travel and tourism industry was concerned, by connecting Indian and international exhibitors and enabling them to start new partnerships.

The annual event had strengthened businesses by offering unique opportunities like newer, off-beat destinations and hotel properties, quality contacts from across the globe, profitable deals, value additions, new-age tourism, technology, knowledge sharing forums that discuss trends, challenges and solutions.

Pandey further said that his firm had developed some of the off-beat tourist destinations in India, like "Fort Oonchagaon" which is a heritage property dating back to the 18th century situated in western Uttar Pradesh.

"It gives the taste of how life was in India in the 18th century, the pre-Independence era i.e. prior to 1947," he said. "We have tried to offer it to tourists as an off-beat destination, and it has been an excellent experience so far," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 20:53:50|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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ULAN BATOR, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Mongolian parliament on Friday passed an amendment to the law on dismissing the parliament speaker, paving the way to remove current parliament speaker Miyegombo Enkhbold from his post due to the allegation of abusing power.

The draft bill initiated by Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga was approved by a vote of 89.8 percent in the 76-seat parliament, according to the parliament's press office.

According to the amendment, which will come into force on Jan. 25, the parliament speaker must step down if more than half of the 76 lawmakers submit a proposal to ask him to leave.

It will be the sixth legal ground to dismiss the parliament speaker. The other five, namely, are death, severe disease, appointment to another position, guilty of a crime, and decision of dismissal from the constitutional court.

Audio recordings were made public last year that some officials of the ruling Mongolian People's Party, including Enkhbold, allegedly used their government positions as a tool to run in the parliamentary elections in 2016.

In mid-December, more than half of the lawmakers sent an official letter to Enkhbold, urging him to voluntarily step down. They also have boycotted plenary sessions and meetings of standing committees of the parliament over the past six weeks.

However, Enkhbold said he will not resign and insisted he has done nothing wrong. "The demand is contrary to the law on dismissing a speaker of the parliament," he told protesters last week.
In a blow to New York "supertall" developers, the citys Department of Buildings is threatening to revoke the permit for a 775-foot condominium tower on the Upper West Side, citing both a controversial design feature as well as safety concerns.

Developed by Extell, the proposed building at 50 West 66th Street was to have included a 160-foot mechanical void, or empty spaces between several floors that would allow penthouses to sit higher, thereby adding to their value. The building, which is slated to hold 127 condominium units, would be the tallest on the Upper West Side and boast commanding views of Central Park.

On Thursday night, the DOB explained the issue in a statement to Gothamist:

"DOB determined that the 160-foot void proposed for this building is not customarily found in residential buildings, and so is contrary to the Zoning Resolution. In addition, we have raised objections, which the developer has not addressed, that occupants of the building may not be able to get from one emergency stairway to the other, as is required, within the proposed void."

Extell, which is both credited and maligned for starting the supertall boom with its Midtown luxury building known as One57, now has 15 days from January 14th in which to respond to the DOBs letter.

According to information provided by the DOB, the builder faces two choices: it can revise the design of the mechanical space or it can proceed to build a 25-story tower which had been the original plan the developer had filed with the DOB in 2017. At the time, the proposed tower's relatively modest height, which could have been taller as of right, drew suspicions. Later that year, residents' worst fears were realized when the new design was revealed. In a New York Times story, Gary Barnett, the company's founder, brushed off the concerns, joking that by today's standards, A 700-footer doesnt even rank anymore as a super-tall tower.

The latest decision represents an about face for the DOB. Last year two neighborhood groups filed a challenge against the project, saying that it violated the citys zoning codes. The measure had the backing of elected officials, including City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal and Borough President Gale Brewer. But in November, the DOB rejected the groups argument as invalid.

Back in 2017, when the new design was unveiled, Rosenthal promised her constituents that she would "fight Extells current plans with every tool at my disposal."

On Wednesday, Rosenthal celebrated the DOBs latest decision.

"The Department of Buildings notice of intent to revoke the permits for 50 W. 66th Street is a critical first step in the process to overhaul the Citys approach to mechanical voids and super-talls,'" Rosenthal said in a statement. "We are very pleased that the administration is taking this issue so seriously in terms of W. 66th Street, and we await a final decision. Extell now has a limited window of time to respond to the DOB.

Extell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It's unclear what ramifications this will have on other buildings with mechanical voids. Early last year, the DOB greenlighted starchitect Rafael Vinoly's Upper East Side apartment building at 249 East 62nd Street which featured a 150-foot mechanical void. In May, Crain's reported that the Department of Planning was considering whether to such designs should be permitted.

"The notion that there are empty spaces for the sole purpose of making the building taller for the views at the top is not what was intended [by the zoning code]," Marisa Lago, director of the Department of City Planning said at a meeting.


Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 20:43:48|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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KABUL, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 36 combatants from warring sides have been killed in the conflict-torn Afghanistan over the past 24 hours as both the government forces and the Taliban militants have intensified offensives against each other, officials said Friday.

The government forces launched cleanup operations in Baladuri, Chashma-e-Shir and Khawja Alwan areas outside Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of northern Baghlan province Thursday evening, and so far six insurgents have been killed and five others injured, army spokesman in the northern region Mohammad Hanif Rezai said.

According to Rezai, several villages have been recaptured and the operations would continue to wipe out the insurgents.

Taliban militants, who are in control of parts of the restive Baghlan province and occasionally target security forces convoys on the highway linking Baghlan to the northern Kunduz and Mazar provinces, have not commented on the report.

In another crackdown operation, the government forces have also killed 15 Taliban fighters in Lalpur district of the eastern Nangarhar province since Thursday and recaptured several villages, a statement of the Afghan army said.

However, the Taliban fighters in a tit-for-tat response stormed a police security checkpoint in Zakhil area outside Kunduz city, the capital of the northern Kunduz province on Friday, killing seven police and injuring three others, local police officer Abdul Qayum has said.

A statement released by the Afghan army also reported killing of eight Taliban fighters in an infighting between Taliban commanders Mullah Najibullah and Mullah Nangialai in Shindand district of the western Herat province on Thursday.

The Afghan forces, according to security officials, would continue to mount pressure on the Taliban militants to reduce the armed outfit's military ability in the freezing winter.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 20:28:44|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia said on Friday it has arrested 60 individuals for their suspected roles in ethnic violence in the western part of the country.

The 60 suspects are accused of masterminding and executing violent acts against civilians in the border areas of Benishangul Gumuz and Oromia regional states.

In a press statement, Ethiopia's Oromia regional state communication bureau said the arrests were made in the last few days in coordination with regional and federal law enforcement bodies.

A total of 27 Kalashnikov rifles, 140 traditional rifles, four grenades, five handguns and 261 arrows were seized along with the suspects, the statement said.

In December, Ethiopia established a command post to deal with a security crisis along the Benishangul Gumuz and Oromia regional states.

The border areas of the two regional states have in recent years witnessed deadly unrest involving various ethnic groups residing in the border areas. The dispute is reportedly over access to land and state resources.

The unrest has led to the death of scores of people and displacement of around 255,000 others, according to a recent report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 20:23:43|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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WELLINGTON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Researchers from New Zealand-based GNS Science have investigated whether the various ways to measure carbon emissions from cities give consistent and accurate readings.

"Knowing exactly how much fossil fuel emissions are generated by urban areas can help us track the progress of emissions mitigation plans," radiocarbon scientist Jocelyn Turnbull of GNS Science who led the study said on Friday.

In a paper published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal this month, Turnbull and her co-authors found the three methods are largely consistent.

"This gives a level of confidence that we didn't have before, because it means each method can potentially be used as a stand-alone way for obtaining meaningful results," Turnbull said, adding using two or more of the methods would reduce uncertainties even further.

Turnbull is involved in collaborative projects to assess emissions in Indianapolis, Paris, Boston, Melbourne, Washington DC and Auckland.

In Auckland, GNS Science is leading a pilot Auckland Carbon Emissions study to develop a full carbon budget for Auckland City.

"This will be one of the few studies in the world using very precise radiocarbon measurements to quantify an urban carbon budget," Turnbull said.

This initial study will be expanded in 2019 as part of the CarbonWatch-NZ project which will use atmospheric measurements to determine the carbon budget for all of New Zealand, according to the scientist.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 20:08:41|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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Andry Rajoelina (1st, L) and Hery Rajaonarimampianina (2nd, L) attend the power transfer ceremony in the presence of acting president Rivo Rakotovao (1st, R) in Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar on Jan. 18, 2019. The handover of power between Madagascar's incumbent President Hery Rajaonarimampianina and incoming President Andry Rajoelina was held Friday in the capital, Antananarivo, in the presence of acting president Rivo Rakotovao. (Xinhua/Sitraka Rajaonarison)

ANTANANARIVO, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The handover of power between Madagascar's incumbent President Hery Rajaonarimampianina and incoming President Andry Rajoelina was held Friday in the capital, Antananarivo, in the presence of acting president Rivo Rakotovao.

Before the power transfer, the three held a closed-door meeting for 47 minutes, and then the acting president left the room and let the other two to continue their meeting for 28 minutes.

The two signed the official documents and shook hands.

Before leaving the presidency, incumbent president Rajaonarimampianina said: "President Andry Rajoelina was elected democratically. This leads to an alternation of power in a democratic way and reflects the republican value."

"We know that democracy in Madagascar is a bit weak and needs to be strengthened. But it is a duty of all, especially the leaders," he said. "All that has been achieved should be continued for the development of Madagascar."

Elected in 2013, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, former finance minister under Rajoelina from 2009 to 2013 when Rajoelina was president of transition, took power from Rajoelina on Jan. 25, 2014. He was dismissed in September 2018 and the power was transferred to the senate chairman Rivo Rakotovao, who led the country temporarily until Madagascar had an elected president.

Rivo Rakotovao will resume his former position as senate president.

Rajoelina was declared winner of the election by the High Constitutional Court with 55.66 percent of votes and will be sworn in as president of the Republic of Madagascar on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 20:03:40|Editor: mmm

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TOKYO, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday approved a draft budget for fiscal 2019 that was amended to incorporate missing costs resulting from the release of faulty jobs data from the labor ministry.

The general-account budget, already approved by the cabinet in December, had to be revised to incorporate an additional 650 million yen (6 million U.S. dollars) to the already record-high 101.46 trillion yen (926 billion U.S. dollars) allocation.

The additional costs added to the general-account budget were a result of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare over the past 15 years not collecting the requisite amount of labor-related data.

The release of faulty jobs and wage data spanning a period of a decade or more, has resulted in more than 20 million people not receiving their full benefits.

The scandal has implicated top bureaucrats and officials in the ministry who knowingly and systematically covered up the improper method for collecting the data, which serves as a recognized barometer of the nation's employment situation.

Specifically, the ministry was revealed to have published key data collected from only a third of the 1,400 companies required to be surveyed in Tokyo since 2004.

The ministry is supposed to survey all businesses with employees totaling at least 500 people to compile its official Monthly Labor Survey.

The improper method used for data collection has led to the government being forced to revise the state budget for fiscal 2019 and address the fact that unemployment insurance and workers' compensation in some fields, applicable to 20.15 million people with up to 56 billion yen (511 million U.S. dollars), has gone unpaid.

"Government statistics are the basis for economic and fiscal policy and should be accurate. It's truly regrettable that the labor survey had to be corrected," Finance Minister Taro Aso, whose ministry had to rework the budget following the scandal, told a press briefing following a cabinet meeting Friday.

The 20.15 million affected people as a result of the scandal will be reimbursed from a special-account budget, the government has said.

To make up the shortfall, the government has upped its issuance of new bonds by some 700 million yen to 32.66 trillion yen (298 billion U.S. dollars).

A day earlier, the labor ministry convened a meeting comprised of lawyers and statisticians to confirm that top bureaucrats at the ministry knowingly and systematically covered up the improper method for collecting the data.

Government sources have said that some top bureaucrats and other ministry-linked officials will be reprimanded over what has been referred to as the systematic practice of referring to a manual mandating a "diluted method" of gathering data available inside the ministry.

Such a practice has almost certainly led to the years of faulty data being collected and released, sources with knowledge of the matter have said.

Vice Labor Minister Toshihiko Suzuki and others involved in the wrongdoing will be reprimanded as early as Friday, sources close to the matter also said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 20:03:40|Editor: mmm

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NAIROBI, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Kenya vowed on Friday to strengthen its counter-terrorism efforts and enhance cooperation with international community to tackle extremism, three days after the attack on an upmarket hotel and office complex in Nairobi.

Monica Juma, cabinet secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed Kenya's commitment to tackling all forms of terrorism, saying security officers will track and bring to justice all those who may have played a role in the execution of the attack in which 21 people were killed and several others injured.

"Kenya remains unbowed and will play her part in support of stronger international cooperation and efforts to detect, deter, disrupt and defeat all forms of terrorism," she told foreign envoys during a briefing in Nairobi.

Juma who lauded the international community for supporting Kenya in the wake of the attack said the reprehensible act will not change Kenyans way of life, saying the East African nation remains united and resilient.

"The business community has not been shaken. Instead, we are receiving very encouraging responses and news from the bourse that the Nairobi Stock Exchange gained 19 billion shillings (188 million U.S. dollars) in a day," said Juma.

She said the government will continue to strengthen institutions and promote regional security and global peace, reiterating President Uhuru Kenyatta's assurance that Kenya was ready and open for business.

"As stated by H.E. President Kenyatta, normalcy has resumed, people are back to their businesses even as operations continue. Around the area of attack, consultations and deep reflections will continue aware of the pain endured by the many families caught up in the tragedy," said Juma.

She said while this attack on the Dusit complex was on the Kenyan territory, it was targeted at the world since the complex hosts a range of international establishments and interests.

"The attack is a clear reminder that the terrorist objective to change the way of life of other societies is alive. It is a reminder that no country is immune to international terrorism," Juma said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 19:58:37|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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JERUSALEM, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Israel demolished the home of a 17-year-old Palestinian who stabbed to death an Israeli civilian last September, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday.

The apartment of the Palestinian killer, identified as Khalil Jabarin, was located in the village of Yatta in the southern West Bank, according to an IDF statement.

During the demolition, dozens of Palestinians hurled rocks at IDF soldiers who responded with riot dispersal means.

The Israeli citizen, Ari Fuld, 40, a father of four, was murdered by Jabarin on Sept. 16, 2018 at a mall entrance near Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank.

Jabarin's family filed a petition to Israel's High Court of Justice against the Military Advocate General's decision to demolish his house, claiming that his mother had told the security forces about her son's disappearance and intention to "do something" minutes before the attack.

The High Court, however, rejected the appeal and approved the demolition.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 19:53:34|Editor: mmm

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BRUSSELS, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission proposed on Friday the elimination of tariffs for industrial goods with the United States in future trade talks. The proposal will need approval from European Union member states.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 19:28:28|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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LUSAKA, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Zambia and Turkey have established an inter-parliamentary group as part of efforts to enhance the relationship between the two countries, a government official said on Thursday.

Joseph Chilengi, Zambia's ambassador to Turkey, said the establishment of the Turkey-Zambia Inter-parliamentary Friendship Group was a step in the right direction to cement bilateral relations.

"It is Zambia's desire to lift the relations between our two countries to a higher level through initiatives such as the parliamentary friendship group," he said in a statement released by the Zambian Embassy in Turkey.

He said some of the agreements signed when the leaders of both countries met last year require the ratification by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, adding that Zambia will need the support of the group to get approval for the agreements so that they could be implemented.

He said the National Assembly of Zambia was in the process of reciprocating by constituting a similar group once parliament resumes sittings next month.

Atilla Odunc, chairperson of the Turkey-Zambia Inter-parliamentary Friendship Group, said Turkey was ready to share its vast experience in various economic sectors with Zambia through cooperation between the two national assemblies.

"We strongly believe that this inter-parliamentary friendship group, which has started well, will continue working hard to strengthen the friendly relations between our two countries in years to come," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 19:28:28|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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MOSCOW, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Two pilots have been found and rescued at sea following a collision between two Su-34 fighter jets over the Sea of Japan, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday.

The pilots were brought up on board rescue choppers and their conditions are satisfactory, the ministry said in a statement.

Earlier, the ministry said the two planes of the Russian Air Force collided while maneuvering during a training flight over the Sea of Japan at 8:07 a.m. Moscow time (0507 GMT). It said the planes performed the flights without ammunition and the crews managed to eject safely.

The Su-34 is Russia's all-weather supersonic medium-range fighter-bomber. It first flew in 1990 and has been in service with the Russian Air Force since 2014.
On a bustling stretch of Delancey Street Friday morning, NYC Health Department officials detailed how they are moving forward with assigning letter grades to all food carts and trucks. At the press conference, Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot confirmed that the department would be issuing the grades to 5,000 food carts and trucks over the next two years.

A handful of food carts now have their lettersincluding Mos Coffee Cart on the Lower East Side. The longtime breakfast haunt, one of the first food carts to receive high marks in the letter-grading system, served as the location for the press conference this morning. Owner Mahmoud Abdel Wahed told Gothamist that he passed his health inspection on December 15th, and received his A letter grade two weeks later.

We dont grade on a curvean A is an A is an A, said Dr. Barbot. The lowest grade that a vendor can have in order to continue operating is a C. Much like restaurants, the inspections happen randomly. Dr. Barbot said that the inspections would happen at least annually, depending on the rating that an individual food cart or truck received.

According to a handout from the Health Department, 20 of the 24 mobile food vending units graded so far have received A's. Two were closed for being unlicensed vendors, and the other two have pending re-inspections after both having racked up 14+ sanitary violation points. As of right now, new inspectors will not be hired to accommodate the growing number of inspections, said Dr. Barbot.

Of course, this proves to be a bit more challenging for carts and trucks, which dont stay in one location. In order to track every single mobile food cart and truck for the random inspections, the city plans to install GPS geo-locators on them. This part of the letter grade plan was initially met with alarm by vending community and advocacy groups, such as the Street Vendor Project.

The vending community and we were not supportive of the GPS tracking part of the letter grading program.given that street vendors mostly are made up of very vulnerable populations, says Matt Shapiro, the Legal Director of the Street Vendor Project. And certainly given the current climate of immigration in this city, we were worried about any additional incursions into vendors privacy, especially their locations in a public space.

Shapiro says that after vendors and the SVP voiced their concerns to the Health Department, they instilled protections to ensure that no ones privacy could be compromised in that process. Today, Dr. Barbot confirmed that any location data culled through the random inspection process would be deleted after 24 hours.

The Street Vendors Project and the New York Food Truck Association [NYFTA] support the letter grading initiative, in spite of those initial privacy concerns.

Moving forward, the Health Department will be providing a self-inspection worksheet for vendors so that they can be better-prepared for the inspections. The Health Department is also holding free workshops (in Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, and American Sign Language, in addition to English) to help people better understand what theyre looking for during this open-book test, as Dr. Barbot put it.

Itll give the consumer some confidence in purchasing food if they know that the food truck is sanitary, says Moe Ahmed, the owner of Phils Steaks, a Philly cheesesteak food truck. Cause I think a big chunk of New Yorkers are still iffy about buying from mobile food carts. I think itll be good for the business owners too. Smiley, a frequent customer of Mos, agreed. Seeing an A as opposed to a B or C, theres no question: You know theyre on point, he says. "A, B, or a C, you might still give them a chance, but you might think about it like what is it that they did wrong that allowed them to get that B or C.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 19:23:23|Editor: mmm

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BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged more efforts to achieve new, greater progress in the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour of the region from Wednesday to Friday.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 18:28:08|Editor: zh

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BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities on Friday pledged an array of measures to boost consumption as part of the efforts to support the economy.

"Optimizing market supply and increasing consumption are playing a greater role in effectively coping with downward pressure on the economy and maintaining stable growth," said a statement released after a teleconference held by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, and the State Administration for Market Regulation.

"The Chinese economy is operating steadily in general, but there are changes and worrisome developments, with a complicated and severe external environment and increased uncertainties," said the statement.

The meeting vowed to encourage the consumption of automobiles and electrical home appliances according to local situations, providing greater policy support where conditions permit, to meet people's demand for green, smart automobiles and home appliances.

Rural consumption will see its quality improved and capacity expanded, with measures to support the sale of high-quality industrial products in the countryside, according to the statement.

The supply of high-quality products and services will be increased, and residents' spending power will be strengthened with measures such as special individual income tax deductions.

The environment for consumption will be improved, with better infrastructure and stronger protection of consumer rights, and innovations in the retail sector will be encouraged.

The meeting also demanded moves to ensure market and price stability during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, when a spending spree is expected.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 18:13:04|Editor: zh

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The following are news highlights in Ethiopia's major media outlets on Friday.

-- An international bid for the construction of six mega solar projects costing about 800 million U.S. dollars is going to be issued soon, according to the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance. (Ethiopian News Agency/ENA)

-- Ethiopia's President Sahle-Work Zewde and Danish Ambassador to Ethiopia, Karin Poulsen, have discussed bilateral and multilateral issues where Ethiopia and Denmark have been working together to promote mutual interest. (Fana Broadcasting Corporate/FBC)

-- The House of People's Representatives (HPR) on Thursday approved a draft bill on refugees with the objective to fill the legal gaps that were not incorporated in the previous proclamation of Ethiopia which hosts more than 900,000 refugees. (ENA)

-- Representatives of governmental and non-governmental organizations on Thursday were discussing ways to enhance the contribution of the public to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 18:08:03|Editor: zh

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BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Supreme People's Court (SPC) Friday signed a document with the Department of Justice of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government on judicial assistance over civil and commercial matters.

The document titled "the Arrangement on Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Judgements in Civil and Commercial Matters between the Courts of the Mainland and of Hong Kong SAR" is the sixth judicial assistance arrangement between the two sides since 1997, said an SPC statement, adding that it covered the broadest range of matters and was the most significant.

With this document and a previous arrangement on marital and domestic matters, about 90 percent of civil and commercial judgments may be reciprocally recognized and enforced between courts of the two sides, the statement said.

The document included 31 articles, covering issues such as application for reciprocal recognition and enforcement, and grounds for refusal and procedural matters.

The two sides have worked together to extend the scope of judicial assistance so re-litigation can be reduced and people can benefit from simpler judicial procedures, the SPC said.

The arrangement also included regulations on intellectual property rights cases, which aimed to serve the development of innovative industries in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, it added.

A few civil and commercial judgments were excluded from the arrangement, such as arbitration cases, bankruptcy, and certain patent cases.

The arrangement will take effect in Hong Kong in the form of local laws and in the mainland in the form of judicial explanations.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 18:08:03|Editor: zh

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KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Seven police lost their lives and three others sustained injuries as Taliban militants attacked a security checkpoint in Zakhil area outside Kunduz city, capital of Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province on Friday, local police officer Abdul Qayum said.

However, the official asserted that the militants fled after facing resistance and suffering casualties.

Meanwhile, provincial police spokesman Inamudin Rahmani has confirmed the clash, but could not provide details.

Taliban militants haven't commented.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 17:47:59|Editor: zh

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CAPE TOWN, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The following are news highlights in South African major media outlets on Friday.

-- The African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA) could square off in the Electoral Court following the unveiling of the opposition party's election billboard which labelled the governing party "murderers" of mineworkers and mental health patients in Gauteng Province. (Independent Online)

-- Former state-run Transnet CEO Brian Molefe has rejected claims that he crippled the parastatal when he was in charge.

A new board was appointed in May last year headed by current Transnet chair Popo Molefe to recoup millions of rand that were allegedly looted by companies linked with the Indian Gupta family in executive management positions.(Eyewitness News)

-- The African National Congress (ANC) in Gauteng said on Thursday it's not aware that the e-toll contract has been extended, saying this is an issue dealt with by national government.

This is in response to Democratic Alliance's (DA's) accusation that the ANC is misleading the public.(South African Broadcasting Corporation)
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 17:42:58|Editor: zh

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LUSAKA, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The following are news highlights in Zambia's major media outlets on Friday.

-- About 50 percent of prostitutes in Zambia are HIV positive, results of a survey released by the National AIDS Council, a government agency coordinating HIV programs.

According to the results, Zambia had about 18,000 sex workers, with 56.8 percent of them living with the HIV virus. (Time of Zambia)

-- Some political parties have said they will not attend the launch of national dialogue meant to deal with contentious issues in Zambia's politics.

About 31 political parties will not take part in the launch of he dialogue being spearheaded by the church until a proper roadmap and agenda is agreed upon, the Zambia Center for Interpart Dialogue, a coalition of political parties said. (Zambia Daily Mail)

-- Mining firms in Zambia have reaffirmed their commitment to dialogue with the government over newly introduced taxes.

Goodwell Mateyo, president of the Zambia Chamber of Mines said the firms were still waiting or the government to communicate a date for the talks.(Daily Nation)
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 17:12:52|Editor: zh

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KUNMING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Police in southwest China's Yunnan Province busted two drug trafficking cases and seized 50.066 kg of methamphetamine, local authorities said Friday.

Local police detained a woman at 9:20 a.m. Tuesday in a village in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and seized 13.975 kg of methamphetamine from the handbag she carried.

The police later also seized 36.091 kg of methamphetamine from a bag left by another man who escaped on a motorbike.

Further investigation is underway.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 16:12:37|Editor: zh

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NANNING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Police in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region arrested four people involved in a cross-border drug trafficking ring and seized over 10 kg of heroin and methamphetamine, local authorities said Friday.

At the end of last year, police in the city of Fangchenggang received information that a gang was cooperating with drug dealers in Myanmar to transport drugs to China.

The police intercepted three suspects in the city on Jan. 2, and found 30 blocks of heroin and one bag of methamphetamine, weighing about 11.5 kg in total in their vehicle.

Another suspect was caught on Jan. 15. Four cars used for transporting drugs and 700,000 yuan (about 103,280 U.S. dollars) of drug money were seized.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 16:07:36|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Friday that two Su-34 fighter jets accidentally collided in midair in Russia's Far East and both crew have ejected.
The tangled case of two former Brooklyn cops accused of raping a handcuffed teenage girl in their custody in 2017 took another sharp turn on Thursday, when the Brooklyn District Attorneys office, which is prosecuting the officers, asked to be taken off the case and replaced with a special prosecutor.

The rape allegations, made by an unnamed woman who goes by the name Anna Chambers on social media, were shocking: On September 15th, 2017, Detectives Richard Hall and Edward Martins, assigned to Brooklyn South Narcotics, stopped an Infinity Coupe at Calbert Vaux Park, near Coney Island. Chambers was at the wheel, with two other friends in the car. After allegedly finding marijuana and Klonopin in the vehicle, the officers handcuffed Chambers, put her in their van, and drove off, calling her friends from a blocked number to warn them not to follow them.

They then allegedly took turns orally and vaginally raping Chambers, before forcing her to swallow one of the Klonopins, and dropping her off near Coney Island and warning her to keep her mouth shut. Prosecutors say they have clear DNA evidence that both Martins and Hall raped Chambers.

Landing as they did just as the #MeToo movement was gathering steam, the accusations made national headlines, both because of their sensational nature and because they called attention to a glaring loophole in New York law: The fact of an officer having sex with someone hes arrested was not in itself illegal, and Martins and Hall could argueall appearances of coercion to the contrarythe sex they had with Chambers was consensual. After the headlines surrounding the case, New York changed the law, codifying the obvious: Sex between a police officer and someone under arrest can never be consensual.

NYPD cops Eddie Martins & Richard Hall appeared in court today in Brooklyn for the rape of young woman named Anna Chambers. Next court date is April 5. Here they are leaving the court room earlier: pic.twitter.com/T2Sl3QGB87  Ash J (@AshAgony) January 18, 2018

Lawyers for Martins and Hall have mounted an aggressive defense, alleging that Chambers's account of events, including her sworn testimony to a grand jury, is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. Among them: They say Chambers told the grand jury that the officers forced her to expose her breasts after she had scratched herself because she was itchy, but more recently had conceded that she was hiding cocaine in her bra. Evidence and testimony show Chambers was wearing track pants the night of the incident, but she told investigators five times she was wearing a skirt.

Chambers also gave a specific account of where the officers drove her in their van during the assault, charting a course away from Calbert Vaux Park, near Coney Island, where she was picked up, past the Verrazano Bridge, and through Bay Ridge. But investigators have been unable to turn up any evidence of the van traveling that route, and cell tower records introduced in court last September show the officers phones were never near Bay Ridge. They never left Coney Island, said Mark Bederow, Martins's lawyer.

Added to these complications is the revelation that an Assistant District Attorney in the Brooklyn DAs office, identified by the New York Post as Nicole Manini, was involved in a romantic relationship with Hall (who is married with children), and communicated with him by telephone after his arrest. The DAs office says Manini had no connection to its prosecution of Hall and Martins and was walled off from information about the case, but in an already contentious case, the optics are lousy.

Chambers, the lawyer in her civil suit, Michael David, and the attorney appointed to represent her in the criminal case, Michael Cibella, did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.

The defense team has repeatedly moved to dismiss the case, and most recently had sought to replace the Brooklyn District Attorney with a special prosecutor.

The Brooklyn DAs office has resisted calls to dismiss the charges. But in recent days, tensions between Chambers and prosecutors have escalated. For one thing, because Chambers has taken the unusual course of pursuing a civil suit before the criminal case has resolved, there is an enormous amount of sworn testimony from the civil suit for which shes answerable in the criminal case.

This mounting list of other evident falsehoods and perjury, including her contention, after a long series of other explanations, that photos of her handcuff injuries had mysteriously been deleted from the Google Photos cloud, led prosecutors to seriously reevaluate whether they could put her on the stand.

At the same time, Chambers was publicly souring on the DAs office, tweeting on Tuesday that DA team is trying to flip things on me and accuse me of perjuring due to inconsistencies i made while traumatized. My state representative DAs are corrupted and are trying to defend the thin blue line. Prosecutors began to worry that they couldnt drop the charges they needed Chamberss testimony to prove without looking like they were punishing her for bad-mouthing them.

Yesterday, Nancy Hoppock, Brooklyns Chief Assistant District Attorney, wrote a letter to Judge Danny Chun, who has been assigned to the case, asking him to replace the DA with a special prosecutor. The DAs office hasnt done anything wrong, Hoppock wrote, but we are gravely concerned that there is now a substantial risk of the appearance of impropriety, and that this case may, in fact, be one of the rare cases where an appearance of impropriety, by itself, warrants the appointment of a special prosecutor.

Hoppock cites Manini's and Hall's affair, all of Chambers's inconsistencies, and the rules of professional conduct that would prevent them from calling Chambers as a witness given what they know about her reliability, as reasons why they cannot go forward with the case. Without her testimony, theyd have to drop many of the charges, Hoppack writes, which would surely be perceived by [Chambers], and we now fear by the public, as evidence that we are, in fact, unfairly disfavoring [Chambers] and favoring the defendants.

If there remained any razor-thin chance after Hoppocks letter that the DAs office might still patch things up with its central witness, it was dashed shortly after the letter went public, when Chambers published a tweet seeming to implicate prosecutors in any perjured testimony:

Just to make it clear to the public all articles claiming I lied under oath, no. I only said what my DA had told me to say.  Anna Chambers (@annaaachambers) January 18, 2019

Bederow says the DAs office is finally walking away from a case it should have dropped a long time ago, and expects that if a special prosecutor is assigned, they will most likely assess the evidence and decide not to carry the prosecution forward.

If someone new comes in, there isnt any prosecutor who could proceed with the case, Bederow said. This is what happens when you compromise a thorough examination for the quick filing of charges to satisfy an angry public. That may not be politically correct to say, but its what happened here.

But as Hoppocks letter makes clear, prosecutors still believe Hall and Martins raped Chambers. Martins and Hall arrested [Chambers], Hoppock wrote. When they let her go less than half an hour later, defendant Martinss semen was in [her] vagina and defendant Halls semen was in her mouth.

While a special prosecutor will have to contend with evident contradictions of Chamberss sworn testimony, they might still find avenues forward, trying the case on physical evidence alone, or starting fresh with a new indictment.

Bederow concedes that prosecutors say they have DNA evidence tying the defendantswho have since resigned from the NYPDto sexual activity with Chambers, but declined to offer his own version of events from the night in question. "We don't need to create potential evidence by talking out of turn," he said.

Chuns ruling on the request for a special prosecutor is expected early next week.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 15:22:23|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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HERAT, Afghanistan, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Infighting between two Taliban commanders in Shindand district of the western Herat province had left eight fighters dead, the Afghan army said in a statement on Friday.

The clash, according to the statement, erupted on Thursday afternoon between Mullah Najibullah and Mullah Nangialai, and lasted for several hours. As a result, eight fighters from both sides were killed and several others injured.

The armed outfit has yet to make comment on the report.

Taliban factions occasionally fight each other over leadership in parts of the militancy-plagued country.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 15:22:22|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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YANGON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Big Bad Wolf Sale, an international book fair, has debuted in Myanmar's Yangon with over one million English books from international distributors put on display, the official Global New Light of Myanmar reported Friday.

The Big Bad Wolf Sale, which kicked off on Thursday, aims to create a milestone for Myanmars reading community, to encourage young readers to read English books as well as to promote social interaction skills, knowledge and quality of life through books, an organizer of the fair was quoted as saying.

The book fair, the first 24-hour-book sale in the country, features over 20,000 genres of books, ranging from classics, science fiction, romance and aesthetic novels, comic books to books concerned with business, agriculture, health, cooking and colouring books for children.

Founded in Malaysia in 2009, the Big Bad Wolf Sale has been held in many countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Thailand.

The Big Bad Wolf Sale is well-known as Asias biggest seller of Augmented Reality (AR) books and the exclusive seller of Little Hippo AR books, books designed to encourage children to read, with the use of AR technology.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 14:52:16|Editor: ZD

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JOAQUIN V. GONZALEZ, Argentina, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Argentina's Belgrano Cargas cargo rail lines, a strategic network for the country's agricultural exports, underwent major upgrading thanks to an Argentina-China cooperation project.

With joint efforts from the China Machinery Engineering Corporation and Argentina's state-run Trenes Argentinos, the rails, about some 580 km long, were renovated in about two years with new Chinese-built locomotives and cars incorporated into the system.

The ambitious project aims to revamp a total of 1,700 km of rail lines in the country.

The rest of the lines, which cross the northern provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Tucuman, Santiago del Estero, Chaco and Santa Fe, will be gradually renovated till April 2020.

"We are motivated by a good future outlook," said Matias Duran, the project's chief engineer, who was excited about the fact that project has also energized communities situated along the lines.

China is actively helping to improve not just the infrastructure of the tracks but also the rolling stock. The effort has significantly increased the country's cargo capacity.

Argentina's cargo rail system is composed of the Belgrano, San Martin and General Urquiza lines. The Belgrano lines alone transported 2 million tons of cargo last year, a 66-percent increase year-on-year, according to figures from the Ministry of Transport of Argentina.

The trains move agricultural goods, including soy, cotton, corn and flour, from the northern breadbasket to the export hub of Rosario, in Santa Fe Province.

In addition to increasing cargo capacity, the renovation work has helped cut down on transport times, with trains designed to reach the speed of up to 90 kilometers per hour.

In 2015, it took the trains 18 days to travel from Salta to Rosario. Today, the time has been cut to eight days.

Project inspector Nicolas Guaymas underscored the importance of the project for Argentina's economic development.

"It's very important because the type of project, once completed, can improve the whole regional economy, the whole northwest of Argentina," said Guaymas.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 14:42:14|Editor: ZD

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BOGOTA, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from a car bomb blast outside a police academy here on Thursday morning has climbed to 21, Colombian police said late Thursday.

The blast at the General Santander Police Academy in southern Bogota left 68 people wounded, 58 of whom had been discharged from the hospital, reported Agence France-Presse, citing a statement from the Colombian police.

Officials quickly identified the perpetrator as Jose Aldemar Rojas, saying that in the attack, he drove into the academy aboard his 1993 gray Nissan Patrol car that was loaded with 80 kg of pentolite, a composite high explosive.

Rojas died in the bombing, said the statement.

"Colombia is saddened but will not bow down to violence," said Colombian President Ivan Duque, who canceled a security council meeting he was scheduled to attend in Quibdo, Choco, in order to return to Bogota.

"This demented terrorist act will not go unpunished," Duque added.

Prosecutor General Nestor Humberto Martinez said officials are investigating who ordered the bombing.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 14:12:07|Editor: ZD

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KATHMANDU, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The construction of an international dry port has begun in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley.

Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Thursday laid a foundation stone of the dry port in Chovar, Kirtipur municipality, several km away from the Ring Road.

The construction of the dry port has been handled by the Nepal Intermodal Transport Development Board under the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies with the loan assistance from the World Bank.

The dry port is expected to ease the congestion of cargo in existing dry ports and in expansion of Nepal's trade with neighbor countries.

"The dry port will take our trade from central level to the international level. It will have a positive impact especially on Nepal-India and Nepal-China trade relations," the prime minister said after laying the foundation as per the Hindu rituals.

Mentioning that the dry port has multi-dimensional benefits, the prime minister said that it will highly contribute to the country's goal of development and prosperity.

"The dry port will explore economic and commercial activities and will support the local livelihood by creating job opportunities," he added.

The dry port is being constructed in a piece of 11.77 hectare land allocated by Himal Cement Factory at an estimated cost of 1.48 billion Nepali Rupees (13.3 million U.S. dollars).

It will contain warehouses, parking lot, litigation shed, administrative buildings for customs, quarantine, bank and other required facilities for customs clearance. The dry port will have the capacity to accommodate over 600 containers and parking facility for at least 350 trucks.

The dry port in Kathmandu has been expected to become a business hub in future as it is connected with the Fast-Track Road Project, an expressway which joins Kathmandu with Terai region, and to-be-soon constructed outer Ring Road.

Addressing the event, Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada said that the dry port in Kathmandu will be very useful as it will save both time and money.

Currently, Nepal has been holding over 55 percent of the country's total import-export through Birgunj dry port, which is located five-hour drive from the capital.

According to Nepal Intermodal Transport Development Board, two contractors will work simultaneously to complete the construction process of the dry port within 18 months.

Following the construction of the dry port, the government plans to construct an international exhibition center in the capital.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 14:07:05|Editor: ZD

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NICOSIA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a "great vision" with strong prospects for cooperation, Demetris Syllouris, president of the Cyprus House of Representatives said Thursday.

Syllouris made the remarks at a day-long symposium at University of Nicosia where politicians, academics and diplomats discussed the BRI, the bilateral relations between China and Cyprus and China's role in the Middle East.

Located at the crossroads between Europe, Asia and Africa, Cyprus is a vital link in the BRI, said Syllouris.

"My working visit to China in November 2017 was an excellent opportunity to have an insider's view of the Belt and Road Initiative through my meetings with Chinese high officials," Syllouris said.

Cyprus supports China's future strategies and hopes, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative, and is "eager to maximize its cooperation with China and ultimately become a viable partner with mutual benefit," he said.

Speaking at the event, Chinese Ambassador Huang Xingyuan, described Cyprus and the Middle East as an indispensable link in the BRI, which connect China with the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean.

"Cyprus may be small in terms of size and population, but it is a crucial dot that connects Asia, Europe and Africa, an anchor for the BRI and a stabilizing force in promoting peace and stability in the region," the ambassador noted.

He said the initiative has seen tangible results with a host of ongoing flagship projects and the signing of cooperation agreements under the BRI framework between China and over 150 countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 13:37:00|Editor: WX

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SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) would hold a meeting between respective chiefs of the inter-Korean liaison offices in the DPRK's border town of Kaesong Friday, South Korean unification ministry said.

Lee Eugene, the unification ministry's deputy spokesperson, told a press briefing that Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung, the South Korean liaison office head, was scheduled to have a meeting with Hwang Chung Song, deputy chief of the liaison office on the DPRK side.

The liaison office opened in September last year for the round-the-clock communications between the two Koreas. Since the opening, the South Korean chief of the office have held a meeting with chief or deputy chief of the office on the DPRK side.

Friday's meeting came a day after South Korea and the United States started discussing DPRK issues at a video conference.

Asked about whether the two Koreas will discuss South Korea's delivery of antiviral drugs to the DPRK during the liaison office meeting, the deputy spokesperson said overall inter-Korean issues had been discussed during the past liaison office meetings.

Seoul decided earlier this month to provide 200,000 doses of antiviral medication, Tamiflu, and 50,000 early medical detection kits, which were donated by a private entity, to Pyongyang.

If delivered, it would mark the first such delivery since 2009 when South Korea provided 400,000 doses of Tamiflu and 100,000 doses of Relenza antiviral drugs for the DPRK via a land route across the western inter-Korean border.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 13:31:57|Editor: WX

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SYDNEY, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- An international team of scientists will travel to Antarctica this month to carry out the most comprehensive study ever into blue whales and the krill they feed on.

The 28 person team will embark from the Australian city of Hobart on Saturday aboard the marine research vessel, Investigator.

"We have a world-class combination of people, research ship, and cutting-edge technologies. It's going to be an incredible seven-week voyage," chief scientist Dr Mike Double said.

A crucial focus of the study will be on the whale's excrement as a potential "fertiliser" of the ocean.

"We want to find out if the shape of krill swarms affect the distribution and behaviour of blue whales, and if the blue whales themselves fertilise the ocean with their poo which grows more algae for krill to eat," Double said.

The team will use drones to monitor the whales and collect samples from the surface of the water, as they test the hypothesis that it is the iron in the whales poo which feeds the microscopic phytoplankton, which in turn make up the base of the Antarctic food web.

"We'll sample water in areas with whales and krill, whales only, krill only, and neither species," deputy chief scientist Dr Elanor Bell said.

"The sampling will reveal where the iron goes, how fast it sinks, and whether primary production increases over time."

Blue whales can grow up to 30 metres in length and are the largest animal in the world, consuming up to three tonnes of krill a day.

However, with their habit of diving to immense depths and avoiding land, relatively little is known about these giants of the deep.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 13:26:57|Editor: ZD

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by Xinhua writer Gui Tao

LONDON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The British government has recently been sending out contradictory and confusing signals regarding its China policy.

Reiterating its official commitment to a "golden era relationship" with China, 10 Downing Street has been, nevertheless, engaging in provocative actions in the South China Sea.

This week, Britain and the United States wrapped up their six days of coordinated drills in Asian waters. The military exercises came months after the British warship, HMS Albion, sailed into territorial waters off China's Xisha Islands.

These British naval incursions infringed upon China's sovereignty and undermined China's security interests. They also created new uncertainties thousands of miles away from their country.

The latest military manoeuvres were probably intended to be a power projection attempt and a demonstration of the so-called "Global Britain" agenda. By doing so, London seems to be showing it is still fully capable of sustaining its influence in the Asian region, while it is domestically mired in Brexit chaos.

However, such a military muscle flexing is detrimental to China-Britain relations, and would in no way help foster tranquility in the regional waters. So it is certainly not the right and welcomed role that Britain should play in the region.

Only three months ago, British Prime Minister Theresa May told Chinese leaders that she was very pleased to talk about how the two countries could build further on the golden era of Britain-China relations, which is part of her "Global Britain" agenda aiming to achieve closer trade links with the fast-growing economies in Asia following Brexit.

If sending navy ships into the South China Sea is how London seeks to strengthen bilateral bonds with Beijing, it has unfortunately chosen a wrong way.

The British government's assertion that the country has the right to "be vocal" in the Asian Pacific does not warrant a thrust to make waves in the South China Sea.

And the so-called "freedom of navigation" by no means entails a liberty to threaten another country's territorial sovereignty.

For the benefit of the ever-closer ties between Britain and China, the two countries need to respect and accommodate each other's core interests, while London, at the moment, has to clarify its China policy.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 13:21:56|Editor: Liu

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MOSCOW, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Russian Ambassador to Pyongyang Alexander Matsegora on Friday dismissed as unfounded the U.S. allegation that Pyongyang acquired Russian missile defense technology, Sputnik reported.

"I would like to state with all my responsibility that the allegations against Russia about its sale of missile and air defense technology to North Koreans are contrived and absolutely unfounded," Matsegora said.

Calling the allegation "another hoax" against Russia, the ambassador said the United States is also "trying to justify its destabilizing policies in the area of international security."

U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled Thursday at Pentagon this year's Missile Defense Review which contains the country's intention to expand its missile defense capabilities.

The review claims that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) had obtained Russian missile defense technology and had begun developing its own mobile missile defense capabilities that resembled those of Russia.
When it comes to discussing the partial government shutdowns impact on airports, most of the attention has focused on TSA workers, who have been working without pay since December 22nd. But there is another group of federal airport safety workers that have been equally affected by the shutdown, and they predict it will have a cascading impact on airline safety far beyond when (if?!) the budget fight in Washington ends.

On Thursday morning, about a dozen federal workers gathered together in LaGuardia Airports Terminal A parking lot, bearing picket signs that read, Dont Gamble With Aviation Safety. They were speaking on behalf of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), which represents nearly 11,000 Federal Aviation Administration employees who have either been furloughed or are working without payworkers who are responsible for things like navigational and communication equipment that airports use every day to maintain air safety.

The next time youre in an airplane, look out the window at all of the systems that are around you, said Luke Drake, Region 1 Vice President for PASS. Look at those little orange and white buildings on the runway. All of those allow for aircrafts to land and take off safely and get passengers where they need to go. Any diminishment of the maintenance of those affects everybody. And as the partial government shutdown is set to enter its fifth week, those buildings are slowly going dark.

Many airline safety jobs entail 24-hour operations, which is usually bearable thanks to the overtime pay. But theres no overtime pay during a shutdown, requiring fewer workers to put in longer hours for nothing. Under those conditions, its easy to see why some workers might quit and look for another job. But when it comes to airline safety, losing a single employee could have lasting consequences.

Mark Dunlap, a PASS Region 1 assistant, said new airway transportation systems specialists must first go to Oklahoma City, where they spend years getting trained on complex systems and machinery. This is then followed by an apprentice program with someone guiding them onsite until they pass their certification exam.

It takes three, four, five years before theyre fully certified and can hold a watch by themselves, Dunlap said. So if, after all that training, an employee decides to quit their job, its impossible to fill their position right away. If someone of seniority and experience leaves us, added Ben Struck, the chapter vice president, its going to take at least three years if not longer to fill that position with the same amount of expertise.

Alexis Trotter is an airway transportation systems specialist who said she was scheduled to return to Oklahoma City this coming Tuesday to attend a class on how to switch from general power to backup power when the need arises. Its an important class for Trotter to take, and this morning it was cancelled.

Theres no information when it will open again, but itll probably be months down the line, Trotter said. And with the class postponed, Trotter will have to take other classes later, which will impact when she can take her certification exam, which means it will take longer for her to get a promotion, which, in turn, will affect her pay rate. All of this can make coming into work feel like a losing battle.

I dont want to leave, I know its a good job with good benefits, said Trotter. But I cant stick through it much longer. Bills come. Just because the government is shut down doesnt mean the bills are, too.

Friday marked day 28 of the shutdown, the longest in American history, with no end in sight. Democrats are refusing to approve funding for President Trumps $5.7 billion wall along the Southern border, and though a budget has passed the House and previously the Senate by a veto-proof majority, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to bring the budget up for a vote unless Trump is willing to sign it.

A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the main NYC airports, declined to comment, stating that their only involvement was to provide a space for picketers.

Is everyone still safe flying? Probably yes, Dunlap said later. But as you keep going on, cracks start to form. And we cover so many aspects in aviation safety you cant afford to have any cracks at all if you want everybody to be safe. The longer this goes on the more chances that somethings going to break. Thats what has us concerned.


Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 13:16:54|Editor: Liu

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NEW YORK, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- New York City is entering a "full-blown" crisis as the longest-ever federal government shutdown has no end in sight, which has caused "massive effects" on people's lives, mayor Bill de Blasio said here on Thursday.

The city will have no money to address the crisis if it lasts for months, said de Blasio in a press conference. "This is not a crisis that just hits and then levels off. In fact it starts to cascade."

Starting from March 1 -- if the shutdown still exists by then -- the city will lose 500 million U.S. dollars in federal support every months, which will directly affect 2 million New Yorkers, the mayor warned.

A series of programs of the city, including the food stamps, school breakfast and lunch, and affordable housing system, will be threatened by the shutdown, he said.

"We're literally watching as the federal government starts to starve its people," lamented the mayor, as funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which some 1.6 million low-income citizens rely on will be cut if the shutdown continues.

During his term in the past five years, the mayor said, the city has faced terror attacks, natural disasters and other challenges, and he had always told New Yorkers that "things are going to be OK."

But a government shutdown of such length and uncertainty is something the city has never experienced before. "Unfortunately, today I have to tell you that things are not OK," he said.

The mayor also said his government will try its best to address the "man-made" crisis, but resources will quickly be exhausted even for a city as rich as New York due to the severity of the issue.

The partial government shutdown, which was caused by a stalemate in Washington over the budget of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, has entered the 27th day, making some 800,000 federal workers furloughed or working without pay.

There are 18,000 federal employees working in affected agencies in the New York City, according to the mayor.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 13:16:53|Editor: Liu

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LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-initiated tariff war against China could have been avoided and bilateral trade disputes should be resolved through talks, a U.S. state lawmaker from Utah said Thursday.

John Curtis, Republican representative for Utah's 3rd congressional district, made the remarks in an interview with KPCW radio, a leading public radio station in the western U.S. state.

"I have heard for months, almost daily, if not daily, weekly, from businesses it's hurting and unfortunately it's having a disproportionate impact on small businesses," he said.

"And, 99 percent of the businesses in my district are small businesses. We need to quickly resolve this because they're the ones who are least able to sustain it," Curtis noted.

Curtis said he would "just highly encourage President (Donald) Trump to continue talks with China" to find a solution after some positive media reports last week of the U.S.-China negotiations at the vice-ministerial level on economic and trade issues in Beijing.

According to a statement from Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Jan. 10, both sides had actively implemented the significant consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries and conducted extensive, in-depth and detailed exchanges on trade and structural issues of common concern.

Curtis expressed optimism for the prospect of the trade talks, while warning of the consequences of a spiralling trade war, in which he said nobody wins.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 12:56:48|Editor: ZD

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The National Museum of Brazil will host its first exhibition on Thursday after it was devastated by fire in September 2018.

"We are already looking for partners to get the exhibition to travel, the National Museum is still alive," the director of the museum and paleontologist Alexander Kellner told local media.

The exhibition, entitled "When everything was not ice - New discoveries in the Antarctic continent" will be held at the Museum of the Brazilian Mint, whose building was the original site of the National Museum during the 19th century.

It will present the work of the "Paleoantar" project, which has been collecting and studying Antarctic rocks and fossils. Among the artifacts are eight pieces rescued from the rubble of the National Museum itself, as well as bones and replicas of prehistoric animals, according to Kellner.

Kellner is seeking support from the government for the National Museum. "The National Museum is not adrift, and the greatest proof is this exhibition," he said.

The National Museum is Brazil's oldest scientific institution, which commemorated its bicentennial in 2018. Home to more than 20 million objects including aboriginal artifacts, fossils, meteorites and Egyptian mummies dating back 3,000 years, it was the biggest natural history museum in Latin America.

After the devastating fire in September 2018 that destroyed many archive items, the museum has been endeavoring to restore the buildings and exhibits.

The Brazilian government announced the formation of a steering committee and a fund to rebuild the museum, and collective efforts have been made to get help from the international community to assemble a new collection for the museum.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 11:46:35|Editor: ZD

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HOUSTON, Jan. 17 (Xinhua)-- A woman was shot to death and another critically injured on Thursday in the parking lot of a church in Houston, local press reported.

The shooting took place at 7p.m. local time (0100 GMT Friday) in the parking lot outside Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church, about 30 km northwest of downtown Houston, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

The suspect was still at large and the police has not yet released a description of the shooter.

The woman was related to the assailant, a law enforcement official said.

The "scene at the church is under control," the sheriff's office said in its posting.

The church also addressed the shooting in a brief statement to Facebook.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 10:51:26|Editor: WX

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Brazil on Thursday strongly condemned a car bomb attack earlier in the day in Bogota, Colombia, which has left 10 killed and dozens wounded.

In a statement released by the Foreign Ministry, Brazil stressed its disapproval of all acts of terrorism and expressed condolences to and solidarity with the victims' families.

The attack took place at General Santander Police Academy in southern Bogota. The attacker, identified as Jose Aldemar Rojas, drove a car loaded with 80 kg of explosives into the academy.

He detonated the bomb after he rammed his car into the academy at full speed and ignored the calls of the guards to stop, according to local police.

Local media reported that more than 50 cadets were wounded and Rojas, 57, is believed to have died in the bombing.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Investigation is under way.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 10:46:25|Editor: ZD

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MOSCOW, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Russia detected 23 foreign aircraft flying close to its border for surveillance purposes over the past week, the Russian Defense Military's newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda reported Friday.

Russian aircraft were sent to prevent the foreign planes from entering the country's airspace, said the report, adding that there were no trespasses.

Foreign spy planes have often been reported flying near the Russian border as Russia frequently accuses the United States and the NATO of conducting such surveillance activities.

Last November, a U.S. Navy EP-3E Aries plane was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 fighter jet over the Black Sea.

The U.S. Navy said its plane was flying in international airspace and called the interception unsafe, while Russian Defense Ministry said that the U.S. plane was flying near Russian airspace and that the Su-27 fighter jet identified the U.S. plane "at a safe distance."

Previously, Russia also blamed NATO for increasing surveillance activities in the Baltics and the Black Sea, according to Russian news agency TASS.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 10:31:21|Editor: ZD

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CANBERRA, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- A "once-in-a-lifetime" inquiry into abuse in Australia's aged care sector has begun.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care and Quality held its first hearing in Adelaide, capital of South Australia (SA) on Friday, with commissioners due to deliver a final report on the industry by April 2020.

The commission was established by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in September 2018 after reports emerged of systematic abuse of the elderly in the nation's nursing homes.

Oakden nursing home in Adelaide's northeast was closed by the state government in 2017 after it was revealed that residents were regularly neglected, over-medicated, abused and restrained by staff at the facility.

Lynda Salterelli, a member of advocacy group Aged Care Crisis, on Friday urged victims and their families to front the royal commission and tell their stories.

"It's important the commission hears from as many family members as possible," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

"This is pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a contribution.

"Family members and staff are fearful of making a complaint about care.

"Staff are concerned about losing their jobs and have done so, and family members fear for the safety of their loved ones because they are left in aged care."

Clive Spriggs, son of former Oakden resident Bob Spriggs, said that Australia has "the perfect chance now" to expose wrongdoing in the industry.

Australian Minister for Aged Care Ken Wyatt on Thursday night announced that the government would introduce new rules regulating the use of mental and physical restraints in nursing homes.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 10:16:12|Editor: Yang Yi

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BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Prosecutors in China nationwide will attach great importance to investigating corrupt officials who provide so-called protective umbrellas to mafia-like gangs and others, Friday's China Daily reported.

"The biggest obstacle for clearing up the gangs and evil forces is to break their protectors," the newspaper quoted Zhang Jun, procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, as saying. "We must consciously investigate them and never relax our efforts."

If governmental or judicial officials fail to discover clues during inspections, they will be held accountable for dereliction of duty. If they obtain the clues and don't transfer them to the prosecuting departments, they will be accused of malfeasance, Zhang said.

Prosecuting departments will enhance cooperation with discipline inspection commissions, supervisory commissions and public security departments and will propose effective coordinating mechanisms to collect evidence, exchange information and quickly transfer suspects, according to the newspaper.

"In the coming months, we will tease out some major clues and send them to the National Supervisory Commission for investigation. If prosecutors are involved, we will never tolerate it and will strictly punish them," Zhang was quoted as saying.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 09:51:01|Editor: ZD

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BOGOTA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from a car bomb blast outside a police academy in Colombia on Thursday morning has climbed to 10, officials said.

More than 50 cadets were reported injured as the impact of the explosion destroyed walls and shattered windows at the General Santander Police Academy in southern Bogota, mayor Enrique Penalosa said.

Windows of more than 200 nearby homes also sustained damage, Colombia's RCN Radio reported.

Officials quickly identified the perpetrator as Jose Aldemar Rojas, saying that in the attack, he drove into the academy aboard his 1993 grey Nissan Patrol car that was loaded with 80 kg of pentolite, a composite high explosive.

Guards at the entrance to the academy detected something was wrong when registering the car and tried to stop it, but the driver sped through.

"The vehicle entered at full speed ... and crashed in front of the main auditorium," the Caracol News network reported online.

Rojas, 57, is believed to have died in the bombing.

"Colombia is saddened but will not bow down to violence," said Colombian President Ivan Duque, who canceled a security council meeting he was to attend in Quibdo, Choco, in order to return to Bogota.

"This demented terrorist act will not go unpunished," Duque added.

Colombia's FARC, a leftist guerrilla group-turned-political party, also condemned the car bombing, saying it was intended to undermine a negotiated solution to the country's armed conflicts.

FARC spokesman Pastor Alape Lascarro said via Twitter that "the attack on the General Santander school is a provocation against a political solution to the conflict. It seeks to put an end to the possibility of an agreement with the ELN (National Liberation Army), delegitimize social movements and benefit the hawkish sectors."

Duque's government took over from ex-president Juan Manuel Santos, who oversaw the disarmament of the FARC and had begun peace talks with the guerrilla group of the ELN.

The academy involved in the attack has some foreign students from Latin American countries. Ecuadorian cadet Erika Chico was among the dead while Panamanian Kevin Madrid was among the injured, Caracol reported.

According to Prosecutor General Nestor Humberto Martinez, officials are investigating who ordered the bombing.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 09:10:51|Editor: WX

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The White House said on Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump has canceled his delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, due to the partial government shutdown.

"Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his Delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," said the White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders in a statement.

Trump called off his own planned trip to the Swiss ski resort last week due to the ongoing partial government shutdown and asked a U.S. delegation, which was led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to attend the annual forum instead.

The shutdown started on Dec. 22 due to a budget standoff in which Trump requested 5.7 billion U.S. dollars for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but congressional Democrats rejected his demand.

The White House and Democratic congressional leaders appeared to get no closer to solving the budget impasse after several rounds of negotiations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called on Trump to delay his State of the Union address, saying the president should wait to deliver his message to the nation until the partial government shutdown ends.

Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday postponed Pelosi's upcoming trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, asking her to stay in Washington to negotiate with him.

The president didn't mention Pelosi's request to move the date of his speech scheduled for Jan. 29.

To resume work as "a national security agency," the U.S. State Department said on Thursday that it was recalling the furloughed employees back to work next week with pay.

"The Department expects to be able to resume most personnel operations and fund most salaries," said Bill Todd, the department's deputy under secretary for management, in a statement posted on its website.

According to the statement, most employees of the State Department will resume work on Tuesday.
NEW YORK, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Aphria Inc. (Aphria or the Company) (NYSE: APHA) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and indexed under 18-cv-11427, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities, other than Defendants and their affiliates, who purchased or otherwise, acquired Aphria securities between October 18, 2018, and December 3, 2018, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act) and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials.



If you are a shareholder who purchased Aphria securities between October 18, 2018, and December 3, 2018, both dates inclusive, you have until February 4, 2019, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Aphria is headquartered in Leamington, Canada. The Company produces and sells medical cannabis in Canada and internationally. The Company offers sativa, indica, and hybrid medical marijuana products, as well as cannabis oils. It serves patients and health professionals. The Company also sells its products online.

On January 29, 2018, the Company announced its acquisition of Nuuvera Inc. (Nuuvera) for approximately C$826 million, which was completed on March 23, 2018 (at a reduced price valued at approximately C$425 million). Announcing the acquisition, the Company touted Nuuvera as a leading, global cannabis company with a strong presence in Europe, Africa and the Middle East[.]

Then, on July 17, 2018, the Company issued a press release announcing its planned expansion into Latin America and the Caribbean, through a massive transaction whereby Aphria acquired Scythian Biosciences Inc. (Scythian) for approximately C$280 million, in cash and Company stock.

According to various public statements by the Company and media reports, Andy DeFrancesco (DeFrancesco), controller of the Delavaco Group (Delavaco), a purported private equity fund, participated in the founding investment of Aphria. DeFrancesco and the Delavaco Group have purportedly invested or advised on every Aphria equity financing.

Throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Companys business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Aphria engaged in numerous fraudulent acquisitions and transactions in order to provide undisclosed benefits to its insiders; (ii) Aphria substantially overpaid for the assets it acquired in 2018, which in reality had questionable value or were worthless; (iii) Aphria acquired these assets from undisclosed related parties, including Andy DeFrancesco; and (iv) as a result, the Companys public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On December 3, 2018, Hindenburg Research (Hindenburg) published an article entitled Aphria: A Shell Game with a Cannabis Business on the Side, alleging that Aphria is part of a scheme orchestrated by a network of insiders to divert funds away from shareholders into their own pockets. The article cited a thorough, on-the-ground investigation into Aphrias latest investments and described in detail the poor quality and questionable value of those investments.

Following publication of the Hindenburg article, Aphrias stock price fell $1.85 per share, or roughly 23.4%, to close at $6.05 per share on December 3, 2018.

Then, on December 4, 2018, the Financial Post published an interview with DeFrancesco to address the allegations described above. DeFrancesco seemingly confirmed his participation in the transactions, stating that the use of shell companies was not unusual in private equity transactions and defending the quality of the assets.

On this news, Aphrias stock price fell an additional $1.54 per share, or 25.45%, to close at $4.51 per share on December 4, 2018.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

888-476-6529 ext. 9980
Feed tests reveal lower digestibility

New seasonal feed quality test results showing the stark differences between wet and dry seasons have underlined the need for end users to measure and know what they are feeding.
Hong Kong: CE to visit Switzerland

Chief Executive Carrie Lam will attend the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland from January 22 to 24.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan and Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Edward Yau will join part of the visit.

Mrs Lam will stop over in Zurich on January 21 to update local government officials and the business community on Hong Kongs latest developments, before heading to Davos.

At the forum's annual meeting, she will address a session on the emerging markets outlook.

She will also meet business and world leaders, and give a speech at the Belt & Road Seminar and the Hong Kong Night in Davos.

The two events are organised by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government with Tsinghua University and Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing.

Mrs Lam will return to Hong Kong on January 26.

Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung will be Acting Chief Executive in her absence.

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 07:40:38|Editor: Liangyu

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NEW YORK, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Following exponential growth in the e-commerce industry and a surge in technological innovations, Chinese companies have been leading the way in the changing retail landscape.

At an annual conference organized by the U.S. National Retail Federation this week, Chinese online shopping platforms and mobile payment solution providers were among the most popular exhibitors as their foreign counterparts and potential business partners wanted to learn about how they met the needs of ever more demanding consumers.

"Many of today's technologies in the U.S. and Europe are already yesterday's technologies in China," said Rod Sides, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP, who leads the U.S. Retail and Distribution practice.

GROCERIES IS NEXT FRONTIER

Chinese internet giants are changing how consumers shop for groceries.

It started in March 2015 when Alibaba launched its Freshippo concept. The store offers freshly cooked food from produce it sells and integrates the online and offline experience through a mobile app that accepts payment and introduces products. Freshness also doubles as a warehouse, providing 30-minute grocery deliveries for those living within 3 kilometers of a store.

At its exhibiting booth during the conference, Freshippo showcased its conveyor belt system that saves the manual efforts needed to transport goods within stores, and its Robot.He restaurants that offer fast, accurate and fresh deliveries. The seamlessly integrated online and offline grocery shopping experience put the consumer experience at the center.

Freshippo now has more than 100 stores in 19 cities of China. It offers fresh products from more than 100 countries and regions. More than 40 percent of its products are from overseas. Online orders account for more than 60 percent of total store sales for stores in operation for 18 months or longer.

Analysts saw Freshippo as the best example of Chinese companies' efforts to push forward smart retail initiatives, which are making Chinese consumers more demanding and sophisticated.

Many Chinese companies followed suit. The technology developed for Freshippo has already been adopted by more than 30 retailers in China. RT-Mart, China's leading hypermarket chain, is implementing the technology across all its stores.

JD.com, another large e-commerce platform in China, has announced plans to open 1 million franchised convenience stores within five years. It has also introduced drone delivery project to solve the last-mile delivery problem.

BIG DATA IS KEY TO SMART RETAIL

Although the concept is not new anymore, the use of big data to analyze trends, customer behavior and manage retailers' operation is a big part of the overall blueprint for smart retail, analysts have said.

China's biggest internet companies are building the infrastructure to support big data, particularly through the proliferation of mobile payments and growing cloud-computing operations, Bloomberg Intelligence (BI)'s latest report on China's retail industry.

The report showed with a combined 1,400 million users of WeChat Pay and Alipay, mobile-payment transactions are expected to surge to about 1,270 trillion yuan (187.4 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2027 from 120 trillion yuan in 2017.

Foreign retailers have adopted Chinese electronic-payment systems in order to attract more customers.

Citcon, a cross-border payment solution provider, has partnered with over 5,000 top merchants such as DFS Group, LVMH Group, Kering Group, Mall of America, and Nordstrom, among others, to offer Chinese consumers the choices of paying through methods they are most comfortable with, namely Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay QR code payment.

Zhang Lu, a marketing manager at Citcon, said two years ago the company had to introduce these payment methods to retailers in the United States. Now at the conference, they were approached by many retailers based in U.S. tourist destinations.

"The presence of China's internet innovators in this space will likely spur industry consolidation over the next 10 years," said the report.

According to the estimates put forward by BI analysts, rising wealth could result in more than half of China's 1.4 billion people having passports in 10 years, making the nation's tourists even more important for global retailers.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 07:30:37|Editor: ZD

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The White House said on Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump has canceled his delegation's trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, due to the partial government shutdown.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 05:04:55|Editor: yan

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PARIS, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- France would carry out its military offensive against the Islamic State (IS) fighters in Syria this year, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday, warning that "any rush to withdraw (troops) would be a mistake."

"France will remain militarily committed in the Levant within the international coalition in the coming year," Macron told army chiefs and soldiers gathered at an army base near southwestern city of Toulouse.

"The retreat from Syria announced by our American friends cannot make us deviate from our strategic objective - eradicating Daesh (Arabic acronym for IS) by depriving this terrorist organization of any territorial footprint and preventing its resurgence," he said.

Expressing condolences for U.S. soldiers who were killed in a bomb assault in Syria's Manbij, Macron said the "fight is not over because Islamist terrorists are still there and targeted them (American servicemen)."

On Wednesday, a suicide bombing targeted a U.S. patrol force in Syria's Kurdish-controlled city of Manbij in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo Province, killing 20 people, including four Americans.

The attack, claimed by the IS militant group, came as Washington is preparing to pull out about 2,000 troops from Syria, saying that the cell's insurgents have been defeated.

"We will have to conduct other operations. Next weeks, months will be decisive," Macron said.

France, a leading member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting militants, would adapt its military presence to the operations on the ground and political situation in the zone, Macron told the gathering.

"We are staying invested to participate in the stabilisation of the region," he pledged in his New Year speech to the army.

France was one of the first European countries to join the international coalition against the IS. Its fighter jets bombed the group in Iraq in 2014 and then IS targets in Syria a year later.

Around 1,000 French troops including special forces have been based in the north of the country, deployed alongside local Kurdish and Arab forces.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 04:34:46|Editor: yan

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BEIRUT, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdel Karim Ali said Thursday that he rejected the invitation to Lebanon's Arab Economic and Social Development Summit due to the "inappropriate approach" of the Arab League towards Syria, local media reported.

"I will not be attending the summit because the Arab League is the organizer of the event and its approach towards Syria is inappropriate," Ali was quoted as saying by Elnashra, an online independent newspaper.

Lebanon's foreign ministry, as part of "protocol rules," has sent invitations to the accredited ambassadors including Syria to attend the opening of the summit this weekend.

However, Syria was not invited to the summit on a country level because the Arab League passed a decree on Nov. 12, 2011 that suspends its membership.

The Arab League said it froze Syria's membership because its government failed to stop violence against civilian protesters back in 2011.

Ali said that it is natural for him to apologize from attending the event because the Arab League "did not turn away from the sin it committed against Damascus," stressing that "Syria is keen on its sovereignty and interests and also keen on its brotherly relations with Arabs when they review their positions."

Meanwhile, Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Thursday during his meeting at Baabda Palace with President Michel Aoun that there is no Arab consensus yet for the return of Syria to the Arab League.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 04:34:45|Editor: yan

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NICOSIA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus is preparing for an unregulated Brexit following the resounding rejection by parliament of British Prime Minister Teresa May's deal with the European Union, Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides said on Thursday.

Christodoulides said that an unregulated Brexit would mean that an agreement reached between Cyprus and the United Kingdom as part of the Brexit deal would leave the status of EU citizens in the British bases on Cyprus in limbo.

"We are preparing for all eventualities, including a Brexit without an agreement," Christodoulides told state television after briefing the Council of Minister on latest developments and on all alternative scenarios.

"Any one of these scenarios is likely," he added.

He said that in the event of a no-deal Brexit, an interim solution would apply to the two sovereign bases Britain retained on Cyprus after granting independence to the eastern Mediterranean island in 1960.

Under the Brexit deal, about 11,000 Cypriots living and working within the bases would enjoy the same rights as all other EU citizens.

However, he said that in the case of an irregular Brexit a temporary solution would be applied for a period he did not specify.

Christodoulides added that the issue of an interim solution was considered and chosen by the European Union in case of a hard Brexit.

Cyprus is one of three EU members to be affected in the same way by a hard Brexit, the others being Ireland and Spain, which also have borders with British soil.

The 585-page Withdrawal Agreement, which was voted down by the British parliament, covered the future rights of EU citizens living in Britain and British nationals in the EU. Protocols on Gibraltar and Britain's sovereign base areas in Cyprus were attached to it.

"The issue of the Sovereign Base Areas was within the terms of reference of the deal with Britain...In case there is no withdrawal agreement this text will not have any effect," Christodoulides said.

He said the aim of discussions taking place remains securing the rights of all Cypriots who reside and work in the British bases, so they won't be affected.

"We consider this achievable," he added.

Asked if there should be a bilateral dialogue between Cyprus and Britain, Christodoulides said that "if there is no withdrawal agreement, the EU and Britain would adopt a temporary arrangement which would not be a final settlement... until there is an agreement".
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 04:19:37|Editor: WX

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MOSCOW, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Russia and Serbia signed a package of agreements on bilateral cooperation during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to the Serbian capital of Belgrade, the Kremlin said Thursday.

"We signed a large number of agreements in various spheres of public life. Our trade is increasing from year to year, and our economic relations are getting better and better," Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said at a joint press conference with Putin following their talks, according to a Kremlin transcript.

In particular, the two sides reached agreements on the construction of a gas pipeline with more gas storage facilities and on the construction of a power station aimed at realizing full gasification of Serbia.

Putin and Vucic also talked about infrastructure cooperation, especially in the field of railways, and major agreements and memorandums have been signed on the current maintenance of railways.

The signed contracts on railways have amounted to 230 million euros (262 million U.S. dollars) and are expected to reach 660 million euros in the future, according to Vucic.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 03:54:30|Editor: WX

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Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (R) shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their joint press conference in Belgrade, Serbia, on Jan. 17, 2019. Strategic cooperation between Serbia and Russia will strengthen with the signing of over 20 agreements, the presidents of the two countries agreed here on Thursday after their meeting. (Xinhua/Predrag Milosavljevic)

BELGRADE, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Strategic cooperation between Serbia and Russia will strengthen with the signing of over 20 agreements, the presidents of the two countries agreed here on Thursday after their meeting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in the Serbian capital around noon and visited the Cemetery of Belgrade Liberators (in World War II) and the Red Army Soldier memorial, where he laid wreaths together with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic before heading to Palace of Serbia for the official welcoming ceremony.

During the visit, the two sides signed more than 20 agreements which aim to initiate new projects in energy, infrastructure, innovations, digitalization and other areas. The two presidents expressed satisfaction with the development of the strategic cooperation between the two countries.

The signed agreements range from cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy in Serbia and construction of a regional center for nuclear technologies, as well as the research and use of cosmic space, to the expansion of Serbia's gas transport and storage capacities, maintenance and construction of Serbia's railway infrastructure and energy facilities.

Vucic said at the press conference that the two sides agreed on future gas transport, as well as expansion of the existing gas storage at Banatski Dvor in Serbia to the capacity of 750 million cubic meters from the currently 450 million, adding that this will bring additional industrialization and economic development to Serbia.

The newly signed agreements in the area of railway transport are worth 230 million euros (about 262 million U.S. dollars) Vucic noted that their value could increase to some 660 million euros in the future when all planned projects are accomplished.

With seven of the agreements signed on Thursday involve digitalization and new technologies, Vucic expressed the hope that they will enable Serbia to catch up with Russia's level of technical development.

Putin said the positive trend in trade exchange continued in 2018 with its value reaching 2 billion U.S. dollars. He announced that additional possibilities will emerge with the signing of Free-Trade Agreement between Serbia and the Eurasian Economic Union, planned for the end of this year.

Putin said Serbia imported around 2.3 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia last year, and Russia's Gazprom intends to deliver 3.5 billion cubic meters in 2019. Moreover, there are ongoing projects to expand Serbia's gas transport network, which will bring additional energy security to the region.

Putin announced that the two countries will continue to maintain military-technical cooperation, and that Russia will continue to support Serbia's defensive capabilities.

The Russian president awarded Vucic with the Order of Alexander Nevsky for the merit in the development of multilateral cooperation with Russia. His visit to Serbia ends with the tour of the Church of St Sava in downtown Belgrade, where tens of thousands of people gathered to greet him.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 03:44:25|Editor: mym

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A Saudi student attends an interview in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Jan. 17, 2019. Huawei, Chinese technology giant, has co-launched an ICT (Information and Communications Technology) talent job fair with Saudi Arabian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in Riyadh on Thursday. The event, providing more than 100 job vacancies to Saudi youth, aims to promote promising students who took part in previous Huawei training programs, and offer them an opportunity to develop their careers. (Xinhua/Tu Yifan)

RIYADH, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Huawei, Chinese technology giant, has co-launched an ICT (Information and Communications Technology) talent job fair with Saudi Arabian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology on Thursday in Saudi capital Riyadh.

The event, providing more than 100 job vacancies to Saudi youth, aims to promote promising students who took part in previous Huawei training programs, and offer them an opportunity to develop their careers.

Hundreds of students participated in the event, applying for the ICT jobs offered by Huawei and its 16 partner enterprises.

Chinese Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Li Huaxin said, the job fair is yet another example of China's strong partnership with Saudi Arabia, and a springboard for the young generation to enter the digital era.

"I proudly recognize the contribution that Huawei has made through its social responsibility programs as it plays a major role in developing skills of the youth of the kingdom (Saudi Arabia)," Li added.

Huawei also launched on the fair the Saudi Talent Enabling Program (STEP), an educational program that not only trains young Saudi ICT talents, but also develops the ecosystem for them and helps them find satisfying jobs.

Hazem Bazan, vice president of Channels and Commercial Sales of Huawei Middle East, said that Huawei, through its programs, supports the Saudi Vision 2030, which aims at building "an innovative and globally-competitive economy through digital transformation."

"We are grateful to Huawei for its great contribution to accelerating our kingdom's digital transformation by equipping our students with the skills they need to drive forward the ICT industry. We look forward to continuing our collaboration and partnership in the upcoming years," said Saad Almaleki, general manager of Digital Capabilities at Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 03:29:22|Editor: Yang Yi

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A dubbing actor of the Vibration Studios works on Arabic dubbing of a Chinese TV drama inside a studio in Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 9, 2019. "I believe that I started to know more about the Chinese culture, people, history and traditions through working on the Arabic dubbing of Chinese drama," said an Egyptian media production manager, "so, I love what I am doing." Ashraf Hamed is chief of Vibration Studios, a partner with China Radio International (CRI) for producing China-related Arabic radio shows and dubbing Chinese drama in Egypt. (Xinhua/Meng Tao)

by Mahmoud Fouly

CAIRO, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- "I believe that I started to know more about the Chinese culture, people, history and traditions through working on the Arabic dubbing of Chinese drama," said an Egyptian media production manager, "so, I love what I am doing."

Ashraf Hamed is chief of Vibration Studios, a partner with China Radio International (CRI) for producing China-related Arabic radio shows and dubbing Chinese drama in Egypt.

"Our work surely promotes the Chinese culture in the Arab world. The broadcast of 'Jin Tailang's Happy Life' had the highest viewership rate on Channel 2 of Egypt's state TV, according to official data and statistics," Hamed told Xinhua at one of his studios.

In the two-storey Vibration Studios, dubbing artists, editors, sound engineers and technicians have been busy working on the Arabic dubbing of a Chinese TV drama as part of an Egyptian-Chinese cooperation.

"We started our cooperation with CRI in mid-2012 through its regional office in Cairo. Over the past six years, we dubbed several Chinese TV series and we expanded our partnership with CRI until we have now daily radio shows broadcasted on the Egyptian radio," Hamed pointed out.

In late 2013, CRI and Egypt's state TV signed a protocol for on airing award-winning Chinese soap opera "Jin Tailang's Happy Life" for the first time in the Egyptian TV history. Later on, other dubbed Chinese dramas have been broadcasted on Egypt's TV through a similar agreement signed in September 2015, including "Romance of Our Parents," "Never Give Up Dodo" and most recently "Ode to Joy."

"Through these years of cooperation with our friends and partners in Vibration Studios, I believe everyone in the studios now knows more about China, especially the modern life of Chinese people," Wang Xin, an executive producer at CRI regional bureau in Cairo, told Xinhua.

"We don't choose to dub only the TV series reflecting China's traditional culture but also those depicting the modernization and development of today's China," Wang continued. "We want the audience in Egypt and even the Middle East to be more familiar with modern Chinese people."

In one of the recording studios, which is soundproofed with sound-absorbing foam, a microphone was standing where dubbing artists record their dialogues as a main part of the dubbing process.

Doaa Riyad, an Egyptian dubbing actress who has been working in the field for years, said that dubbing Chinese drama is one of the most difficult tasks because the Chinese way of uttering words is different from that of Arabs.

"A Chinese sentence might be too long for its Arabic translation or vice versa, which is another problem we face in dubbing Chinese drama, which makes the lip sync during voice over very difficult," the dubbing artist told Xinhua in the recording studio.

"But we overcome all this in the script preparation and do our best to make it look good in the end," she added.

The lady, who played Fan, one of the main characters of "Ode to Joy," said that dubbing Chinese TV series gave her a general idea about the Chinese social life.

"I believe the Chinese are more like us, unlike Westerners, even in the husband-wife relationship and the traditions related to girls, their manners and their marriages, etc," the dubbing actress told Xinhua.

Engineers and technicians in a nearby dim well-equipped studio, with advanced hardware equipment such as mixers, preamps and speakers, are responsible for creating the Foley, arranging the video and audio tracks, and delivering the final dubbed work.

Mohamed Ghanem, a sound engineer and designer at Vibration Studios, explained that his team realized the lip sync issue after their first experience of dubbing Chinese TV series, so they started to prepare for it from the very early stages like the phase of translation from Chinese to Arabic.

"We record the dialogues of actors on a track, while the music has a separate track and the ambient, effects and Foley have a different track and we have a final track gathering them all," Ghanem said.

"I enjoy watching the Chinese drama while working on dubbing them to the point that sometimes I work on an episode and wait for the next to see what happened," the sound engineer told Xinhua.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 02:04:03|Editor: yan

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SANAA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthi rebels denied attacking the convoy of the United Nations' head of cease-fire monitor team in the war-torn Red Sea port city of Hodeidah on Thursday, but accused their foe, the internationally recognized government forces, of shooting at the UN convoy.

"The mercenaries (government forces) opened fire at the security escorts of the UN team," the rebels said in a statement released by the group-controlled Saba news agency.

"The attack happened when the UN's security escorts opened the road of the 50th Street towards 22 May Hospital in order to secure the road for the UN team to reach the other side," they said, quoting unnamed Houthi representative in the UN cease-fire monitor team led by retired general Patrick Cammaert.

"Some of the UN security escorts were wounded in the attack," the rebels said, demanding the United Nations to investigate into the attack and name the perpetrators.

The UN spokesperson tweeted, "Patrick Cammaert and team are safe in Hodeidah following reported shooting incident. More information to come later."

Saudi-run Al Arabiya TV, which backs the Yemeni government, said "the Houthi militias fired at the convoy of the UN's head of cease-fire monitor group, Patrick Cammaert, in Hodeidah."

There was no comment yet by the Yemeni government side, but pro-government Hodeidah Net website reported that "the rebel attack took place when Cammaert's team was driving back to the city after meeting the government representatives."

The Houthi rebels control the center of the port city and parts of the roads surrounding it, while the government forces have been stationing near the southern and eastern outskirts and roads of the city.

On Monday, the UN said its delegate Cammaert "shuttled" between opposing members of the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) in Hodeidah "due to the inability of the parties to have a joint meeting."

Discussions have been stalled because of different interpretations of the Stockholm accord, reached last month, over who would control key points of Hodeidah during a partial cease-fire.
NEW YORK, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against, Teladoc Health, Inc. (Teladoc or the Company) (NYSE: TDOC) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and indexed under 18-cv-11603, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities, other than Defendants and their affiliates, who purchased or otherwise, acquired Teladoc securities between March 3, 2016, and December 5, 2018, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act) and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials.



If you are a shareholder who purchased Teladoc securities between March 3, 2016 and December 5, 2018, both dates inclusive, you have until February 11, 2019, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Teladoc was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Purchase, New York. The Company provides telehealth services worldwide. The Company offers a portfolio of services and solutions covering 450 medical subspecialties, such as flu and upper respiratory infections, cancer, and congestive heart failure. The Company provides its services through mobile devices, the Internet, video, and phone. The Company serves health plans, health systems, and other entities.

Mark Hirschhorn (Hirschhorn) is Executive Vice President (EVP), Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Teladoc. In those capacities, Hirschhorn is responsible for advancing the Companys financial infrastructure and strategic direction and developing Teladocs industry-leading operations.

At all relevant times, the Company purported to be committed to the highest standards of integrity and ethics in the way it conducts business, and, to that end, adopted a Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, which applies to all of its employees, officers and directors, including its chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and all other executive and senior officers.

The complaint alleges that, throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Companys business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Hirschhorn was engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a subordinate; (ii) Hirschhorn and this subordinate engaged in insider trading to provide themselves with undue benefits; (iii) Hirschhorn caused the subordinate to receive promotions for which she was unqualified, thereby negatively impacting the Companys operations; (iv) the Companys enforcement of its own purported employment and trading policies were inadequate to prevent the foregoing conduct; and (v) as a result, the Companys public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On December 5, 2018, the Southern Investigative Research Foundation (SIRF) published an article reporting that Teladocs CFO, Hirschhorn, had engaged in an affair with . . . an employee many levels below him on the companys organizational chart. The SIRF article stated that during their relationship, [the employee] received a series of promotions over colleagues with either more industry experience or better credentials that stunned her former colleagues. In addition, the SIRF article reported that the employee and Hirschhorn liked to trade Teladoc Healths stock together, with Hirschhorn tell[ing] her when he thought there were good opportunities to sell some shares.

Following publication of the SIRF article, Teladocs stock price fell $4.00 per share, or 6.69%, to close at $55.81 per share on December 6, 2018.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

888-476-6529 ext. 9980
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 00:58:52|Editor: yan

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DAR ES SALAAM, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) said on Thursday it has fixed a telecommunication traffic monitoring system (TTMS) aimed at tracing fraudulent traffic.

James Kilaba, TCRA Director General, said the TTMS will officially be handed over to President John Magufuli on Friday at TCRA's headquarters in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Kilaba said the system has been useful in identifying fraudulent traffic as well as mobile money transactions, data that would have been difficult to access accurately without such a system.

The state-of-the-art technology has also enabled TCRA to ascertain the quality of services given by mobile phone operators to their customers, he added.

"Economic activities related to information and communication technology (ICT) have grown and continue to grow tremendously in our country hence the need for robust monitoring system," he said.

Kilaba added that ICT should continue to contribute in economic development.

In April 2016, President Magufuli sacked the then TCRA Director General Ally Simba and disbanded the entire TCRA Board of Directors for failing to oversee the monitoring of the industry.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 00:53:51|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- China on Thursday expressed firm opposition to the abuse of export control measures of the United States and urged U.S. lawmakers to stop the proposed bill targeting Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese telecommunications equipment companies.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the comments at a press briefing in response to some U.S. lawmakers' introduction of a bill that would ban exports of U.S. chips and components to Chinese telecom companies, such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, ZTE Corp or other Chinese firms.

"Such a move shows the extreme arrogance of certain U.S. lawmakers as well as their extreme lack of confidence," said Hua.

"It is obvious to all that the true intention of the U.S. side is to use all kinds of state apparatus to suppress and block Chinese hi-tech companies," Hua said.

China opposes U.S. abuse of the so-called export control measures and U.S. interference in normal trade activities of enterprises, Hua said. "We urge relevant U.S. lawmakers to stop suppressing Chinese enterprises, stop the relevant bill and do more to build mutual trust and cooperation between China and the United States."
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 00:48:47|Editor: yan

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MOGADISHU, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo said Thursday his administration is ready to partner with regional countries in the fight against global terrorism.

Farmajo said he spoke on phone with his Kenyan counterpart President Uhuru Kenyatta whose country was attacked by al-Shabab on Tuesday resulting in the death of 21 people and several injuries, and expressed solidarity with Kenya in this difficult time.

The Somali leader whose country is facing terror attacks from terrorist group al-Shabab also condemned the attack which seemed to target expatriates working for multinational companies located in Kenya.

"The government of Somalia is always ready to cooperate with our neighbors in all efforts to stop, eliminate and defeat the evil of terrorism," Farmajo said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Government and the People of Kenya at this tragic time. Kenya is an important ally and a brotherly neighbor. Such heinous acts only serve to embolden our joint quest to vanquish terror," he said in his Twitter account.

Somali terrorist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the Tuesday attack.

The militant group claimed the Nairobi attack was a response to the "witless remarks" of U.S. President Donald Trump and his declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and to the "systematic prosecution of Muslims in Palestine."
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 00:43:46|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- A high-level consultation meeting of African leaders is deliberating Thursday on ways of resolution to the post-election issue in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the AU headquarters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

Chaired by the Rwandan President and current chair of AU, Paul Kagame, the meeting dubbed is being attended among others by Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

Preceded by the meeting of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) at the same venue Thursday, the high-level consultation meeting was convened for deliberation on the post-election situation in the DRC.

In his opening remarks, Kagame commended SADC leaders for their efforts in dealing with the post-election disputes in the DRC, and reiterated the need that Africans meet together to seek solutions for their own problems.

Speaking on his part, Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the AU Commission, reiterated concern over the situation on the ground, and noted that the meeting is a gesture of solidarity with DRC.

The Chairperson reiterated that the pan-African bloc was actively involved in the election, and that it made statement urging all concerned stakeholders in the DRC to act in a manner that consolidates democracy and to preserve peace following the release of interim results of the presidential election.
VALDOSTA, Ga. (WTXL) - Valdosta State University is getting nationally recognized for its online education programs.

According to the U.S. News and World Report's 2019 Best Online Programs, the rankings show VSU at number 137 for 2019 Best Online Bachelor's Programs, and at number 139 for 2019 Best Online Graduate Education Programs.

The college offers more than 60 online programs that include bachelor's, master's, specialist, doctoral degrees and more.

This is the eighth year VSU has been recognized for its online achievments.

To make the list, U.S. News and World Report looked at student excellence, engagement, and faculty credentials just to name a few.

Dr. Bernard Oliver, dean of the James L. and Dorothy H. Dewar College of Education and Human Services commented, saying in part, "It is an honor to be acknowledged as one of the top colleges in the United States providing online degrees and courses. This is a true testimony of the dedication and commitment of the faculty to develop educational programs that address the educational needs of a diverse population."
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Tallahassee mayor John Dailey is vowing not to shut off the utilities of federal workers who are unable to pay their bills during the shutdown.

Community leaders have organized what they are calling the "Love Thy Neighbor Movement."

A press conference was held at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church about the shutdown impacting federal workers in Tallahassee. Workers and their families were in attendance as well as several faith leaders, Tallahassee Chamber president Sue Dick and local attorney Anabelle Dias.

Tallahassee mayor John Dailey was also at the press conference and met with more than a dozen federal workers living in the Tallahassee area. He pledged to provide support wherever needed.

As part of that support, Dailey has vowed not to shut off federal workers' utilities if they are unable to pay their bills.
THOMASVILLE, Ga. (WTXL) - It's been four weeks since the government was shutdown and the lack of pay from the government is starting to add up.

It's no secret that the government shutdown has created many problems for agencies and individuals all across the country.

Now, those problems are being felt at Second Harvest of South Georgia.

Although stores and companies are able to donate goods, the USDA partners with Second Harvest of South Georgia by donating pallets of goods for the local food bank, the Kids Cafe and Senior Pantry Box programs.

Eliza McCall, Chief Marketing Officer for Second Harvest of South Georgia said that there is enough funding for the Kids Cafe program, and enough food to continue preparing the Senior Pantry Boxes through the end of February, but it's unclear how the programs will continue after that.

Second Harvest of South Georgia is also seeing an increasing number of federal employees calling asking if they qualify for food assistance.

"I've gotten about ten different inquiries since Wednesday, people calling from all over south Georgia. We stand ready to help them just like we do the community on a regular basis," said McCall.

For those who are able, help of any kind is appreciated.

Donations are always welcome, but it's the monetary donations that mean the most. McCall said that $1 can provide over eight meals for those in South Georgia.

Second Harvest of South Georgia serves 30 counties and has a number of locations that have food.

To find the closest partner agencies to you, click here.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (WTXL) - Florida's newest Senator has co-sponsored a bill that would halt the pay of Congress during a government shutdown.

Rick Scott, a Republican senator from Florida who formerly served as the state's governor, has co-sponsored Senate Bill 39, aka the No Budget, No Pay Act.

Senator Mike Braun (R-IN) introduced the bill.

The bill, according to it's text, aims to keep Congress members from getting paid "after October 1 of any fiscal year in which Congress has not approved a concurrent resolution on the budget and passed the regular appropriations bills."

If passed, it'd become a law to stop Congressional pay until the government reopens. Scott is among 11 other Senators who have co-sponsored the legislation. If it is signed into law, it would go into effect on Feb. 1, 2021.

Scott's communication director told WPLG that he is donating his salary for the entirety of his freshman term.

Rick Scott says Congress should not be paid during shutdown

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Fox 4) -- Florida's newest Senator is already speaking out about the government shutdown.

Republican Senator Rick Scott released a statement Friday calling for Congress members' pay to be furloughed until the government shutdown ends.

Ive been a member of the United States Senate for three days, and its as dysfunctional as you think it is  probably even more dysfunctional. The vast majority in Congress say they want border security. The vast majority also say they want to open the government. So, of course, they wont do either," he writes.

He says he is working with colleagues to make this happen as soon as possible. The people of Florida deserve a government that functions. Period. And until that happens, Congress shouldnt get paid," he says.

Scott was sworn in as Senator this month after two terms as Florida's governor, replacing Democrat Bill Nelson.

Scott is donating his salary for his entire term, as he did for his entire run as governor.

Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A 24-year-old woman who was reported missing in Tallahassee has been found and booked into the Leon County Detention Center.

According to records from the Leon County Detention Center, Tamarah Fisher was arrested Thursday for violation of probation on a DUI charge.

The Tallahassee Police Departments Special Victims Unit began looking for Fisher on Thursday.

Police haven't explained how Fisher was found.

TPD searching for missing 24-year-old woman

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Tallahassee Police Departments Special Victims Unit is seeking information on the location of Tamarah Fisher.

Fisher was last seen on Wednesday in the area of 2200 block of Meridian Street.

Police describe her as a 24-year-old woman around 6-feet tall, weighing about 190 pounds. She was last seen wearing black scrubs.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Tallahassee Police Department at (850) 891-4200.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - A state appeals court will hear arguments in March about the constitutionality of a 2015 law that would require women to wait 24 hours before having abortions.

The 1st District Court of Appeal last week scheduled arguments March 26 in the case, according to an online docket.

The state appealed last year after Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis blocked the law.

Lewis ruled that the state failed to show there was a "compelling state interest" for the 24-hour waiting period and didnt show that it was enacted in the "least restrictive" manner.

Lewis ruling made permanent a temporary injunction granted by the Florida Supreme Court in 2017 after a Gainesville abortion clinic challenged the law as a violation of privacy rights under the state Constitution.

Supporters of the law have contended a waiting period would give women more time to make informed decisions before having abortions.
English French

TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This afternoon hundreds of students from across the province rallied at Queens Park committing to take action against plans proposed by the Ford Government that will cause irreparable harm to students unions, universities and colleges across the province. Students were joined by parents, coalition partners, union members and academic staff and faculty in a show of support against the government.

Nour Alideeb, Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario.

The Ford Government is on notice that students will fight against these proposed changes because we believe in affordable, high-quality post-secondary education. We know the proposed changes to democratically collected student fees is a thinly veiled attack on students unions who provide essential services and programs to students and for decades have championed affordable education in this province. We will resist these changes with everything we have.

Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President of OPSEU

The Ford governments tuition cuts are taking our post-secondary education system in the wrong direction, Thomas said. Students will be ultimately the big losers. OPSEU is going to devote whatever resources it takes to stop Doug Ford from jeopardizing our childrens future success in the job market with this back door scheme to make cuts.



Fred Hahn, President of CUPE Ontario

Workers and students are united against Doug Fords proposed cuts because we know the damaging impact they will have on students, workers and families across this province for years to come. We will also take action to defend the autonomy of students unions because we understand that students unions, like labour unions, are democratically controlled by their members and should be free from government interference.



The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario is the largest student organization in the province, representing over 350,000 college and university students, and advocates for affordable, high-quality post-secondary education.

For more information contact:

Ian McRae, Government Relations and Policy Coordinator: 416-925-3825 or 306-852-0128 (cell)

Nour Alideeb, Chairperson: 416-925-3825 or chairperson@cfsontario.ca
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - State officials are warning parents after a Florida man was arrested for allegedly luring a child porn victim through the popular online game Fortnite.

According to the Florida Attorney Generals Office, Anthony Gene Thomas, 41, of Broward County, allegedly engaged in sexual activity with a minor and solicited pornographic photos and videos of the victim.

Investigators say an unnamed co-conspirator made contact with the victim through Fortnite. After developing a relationship with the victim, the co-conspirator then used Fortnite to introduce the victim to Thomas.

While communicating through the online platform, authorities say the victim expressed hardships at home. In response, Thomas manipulated the victim with gifts, including credit cards and a cellphone to be in direct communication with each other.

Eventually, Thomas and the co-conspirator took the 17-year-old victim to Thomas Broward County residence. After arriving, Thomas allegedly engaged in sexual activity with the victim.

Not long after, the victim's parents declared reported the teen as missing. In late August, authorities say they recovered the victim and brought the victim back home. They say Thomas and the victim stayed in contact through that time.

In October, law enforcement served a search warrant and seized Thomas' phone, which contained pornographic images and videos of the victim.

This case is disturbing not only because it involves child pornography, but also because a popular online game was used to communicate with the victim," said Attorney General Ashley Moody. "We have reason to believe there could be additional victims, and I am asking anyone with information about the recruiting of minors for child pornography, or any other type of sexual exploitation, to call law enforcement immediately."

Authorities believe there could be as many as 20 additional victims.

As a result of the lengthy investigation, Thomas faces charges of soliciting a child for unlawful sexual conduct using computers, traveling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual activity, possession with intention to promote sexual performance of a child, 22 counts of child pornography and unlawful sexual activity with a minor.

Additionally, parents need to know that predators will use any means possible to target and exploit a child," said Moody. "I am asking parents and guardians to please make sure you know who your children meet online, and talk to them about sexual predators.

Anyone with information about this case should call Broward County Detective Michael Joo at (954) 888-5241.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - There are Amid concerns that leaky septic systems are polluting waterways and legislation has been filed at the state capitol.

It would require the Florida Department of Health to identify all septic systems in the state by January 1st, 2021, and provide a map of the systems.

The bill also would require the agency to inspect septic systems at least once every five years.

Republican State Senator Joe Gruters is sponsoring the measure.

He hopes to include required state and local funding in the legislation, to help homeowners pay for the testing.

"It's not meant to be cost prohibitive. I know that I feel for people who are on a fixed budget. We have to do something to make sure that we can make this process affordable," said Senator Gruters.

It is estimated that there are between two and three million septic tanks in Florida, and roughly ten percent of them are likely leaking waste and nutrients into the environment.
Local councillor calls for clarity on future provider at Forge Road surgery

This article is old - Published: Friday, Jan 18th, 2019

A local councillor has called for clarification over the future management plans for a GP surgery under control of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.

Cllr Beverley Parry-Jones, who represents the Bryn Cefn Ward, asked health representatives for assurances that a new provider will be found soon for Forge Road surgery in Southsea.

The surgery has been managed by Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board since January last year after GPs at the practice announced they would be terminating their contract with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board with effect from December 31st 2017.

It has over 6,500 patients on its books and serves residents from Brymbo, Southsea, Brynteg and the surrounding areas.





Yesterday Wrexham.com reported negotiations to hand back three practices in Wrexham which are currently managed by the health board  Borras, Hill Crest and Forge Road  to a preferred provider.

At the meeting earlier this week members of Wrexham Councils safeguarding, communities and wellbeing scrutiny committee were told that provision at the three sites would be delivered via a non for profit community interest company (CIC).

A meeting had also taken place earlier this week and it was hoped a paper and approval would be sorted in March.

However Cllr Parry-Jones, said: I can remember sitting here well over 12 months ago and being told that Forge Road was going to be up and running very shortly.

How confident are you that the paper you referred to earlier in todays discussion is actually going to get signed off in March? Ive heard this before and I dont have that confidence that it is going to happen.

Dr Gareth Bowdler, eastern area medical director for Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, said: We met with the company and the GP yesterday (Tuesday) to make sure that the paper we put to the board has the highest possible chance of success.

I went to the meeting very skeptical, but I am quite reassured and confident now that theyre offering a good package the board is likely to approve.

Cllr Parry-Jones also called for clarity over potential providers in the past 12 months who have been able to fulfil that contract at the surgery, but have not been awarded the contract by the health board.

She added: I find that unacceptable to people primarily in that ward in that village and overall to Wrexham. In the bigger picture even to the whole of North Wales.

What is the criteria that all of a sudden you can award that contract this year, but you had a provider last year but couldnt award it?

Rob Smith, area director at Betsi Cadwaladwr University Health Board, said it would not be appropriate to go into the procurement process and the decision making here.

He added: To give an assurance, as soon as the submission proposal meets the standards required by the health board to get the right quality of service, then it will be approved.

I can can give our assurance that whatever can be done for the contract to be signed off as soon as possible, we will do that.

You can read our full report on primary care provision in the Wrexham area here.
Li Maoqin draws a gouache while in hospital.

Painting may be a heartwarming hobby for many, but for 27-year-old Li Maoqin, it is a life-changing one.

Having suffered from chronicle rheumatoid arthritis since infancy, Maoqin, a native of Southwest China's Guizhou province, has been given hope of standing for the first time in her life, thanks to a number of surgeries in early January. She was able to pay for these surgeries by selling her paintings online.

Born into a rural family in the province's Kaiyang county, Maoqin showed an unusual unwillingness to walk at the age of two, and she was diagnosed with the disease one year later, according to her father, Li Fangzhong, a 50-year-old farmer.

Despite relentless efforts visiting hospitals and doctors, both Western and traditional Chinese, as well as spending all his family's savings, Fangzhong's eldest daughter remained bedridden and dependent on others' support. The family gave up when she was aged 12.

She then began painting, mostly cartoon characters she saw on television. Through immersing herself in the world of animated figures from Chinese folk legends and water colors, the girl, who weighs only 28 kilograms, manages to stay positive and find meaning in life.

The family were given renewed hope last year when Maoqin's mother went to a local hospital for a checkup and heard about a similar case to her daughter, along with a new way of treating her condition.

According to Li Guishan, an orthopedic doctor at Huaxia Hospital who performed on the girl, her surgery went well, although it may take one year for her to be able to stand independently and move around. The surgery replaced the girl's stiff joints, and now a variety of physical therapies are required for follow-up treatment.

With the help of the hospital, which offered to perform the surgery before payment, an online fundraising campaign kicked off the first day post-surgery to cover medical expenses.

That's where the paintings come in.

Three paintings have been sold in less than a week, in exchange for 800 yuan. Some strangers have been wiring money before Li even finishes the paintings.

"It's really encouraging to be overwhelmed with such kindness, which is sure to help her stand up sooner," said Li, the father.

Ancient Chinese cartoon characters by Li Maoqin

(Source: chinadaily.com.cn)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivers a speech at the central conference on political and legal work in Beijing, capital of China. The conference was held in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday. [Xinhua/Yao Dawei]

President Xi Jinping has ordered efforts to promote modern social governance, push forward reforms and develop a better force in political and legal work.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the statement in a speech to the central conference on political and legal work held in Beijing Tuesday and Wednesday.

He instructed law enforcement and judicial agencies to enhance their revolutionary spirit, standardize their practices and improve competence.

Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and Vice Premier Han Zheng, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, attended the meeting.

Xi demanded more efforts to enhance law enforcement in key areas that matter to the immediate interests of the public so that they can be provided with cleaner air and water, safer food and faster traffic in a more harmonious society.

Xi underlined the need to improve the law-based social governance model under which Party committees exercise leadership, the government assumes responsibility, non-governmental actors provide assistance and the public gets involved. Thus, a social governance system based on collaboration, participation and common interests can be established, he said.

Xi stressed the principle of rule of law so that "law-abiding members of society can feel proud and elated, while lawbreakers shall find it difficult to move one step."

Xi also spoke of the need to make more efforts on the development of crime prevention and control system, which is multifaceted and features IT application.

Describing mafia-like gangs as "the cancer of society", Xi vowed to maintain high-handed pressure and continue to crack down on such crimes to achieve a three-year term target.

Xi urged law enforcement and judicial agencies to push for breakthrough development at a higher level and build a functional system that is optimized, coordinated and efficient.

On plans to improve the system of power checks and supervision, Xi said efforts should be focused on prominent problems that prompt the strongest public reaction and resolutely guard against slack law enforcement, miscarriage of justice, breaking the law while in charge of law enforcement and judicial corruption.

Xi called on law enforcement and judicial agencies to provide convenient, efficient, smart and targeted public services that are equitable and beneficial for all.

Efforts should be made to accelerate the establishment of legal service networks that can offer full services accessible at all times and for people from different regions, Xi noted.

Xi also stressed stepping up the building of a safety protection system to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the country's overseas institutions and working staff.

Greater emphasis should be placed on strengthening competence of law enforcement and judicial officials, Xi said, urging Party organizations and leading officials at all levels to support judicial organs in exercising power in a law-based, independent and impartial way.

In his concluding remarks, Guo Shengkun, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Commission for the Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, said it is a primary political task to study and implement the spirit of Xi's speech.

(Source: Xinhua)
NEW YORK, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of investors United States District Court for the District of Colorado that purchased or otherwise acquired Maxar Technologies Ltd. (Maxar or the Company) (NYSE: MAXR; TSX: MAXR) securities between March 29, 2018 and January 7, 2019, inclusive (the Class Period).



Shareholders who purchased shares of Maxar Technologies Ltd. and suffered losses on United States and/or Canadian exchanges are urged to contact the firm immediately at classmember@whafh.com or (800) 575-0735 or (212) 545-4774. You may obtain additional information concerning the action on our website, www.whafh.com.

If you have incurred losses in the shares of Maxar Technologies Ltd., you may, no later than March 15, 2019, request that the Court appoint you lead plaintiff of the proposed class. Please contact Wolf Haldenstein to learn more about your rights as an investor in March 15, 2019.

## Follow the firm and learn about newly filed cases on Twitter and Facebook. ##

The filed complaint in this class action alleges that the defendants failed to disclose that:

Maxar improperly inflated the value of its intangible assets, among other accounting improprieties;



Maxars highly-valued WorldView-4 was equipped with CMGs that were faulty and/or ill-suited for their designed and intended purpose; and



as a result, Maxars public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On August 7, 2018, Spruce Point Capital published a report claiming that Maxar has pulled one of the most aggressive accounting schemes Spruce Point has ever seen to inflate Non-IFRS earnings by 79%, and that the Companys $3.7 billion of rising debt with almost no cash and free cash flow necessitates that Maxar eliminate its dividend immediately, or risk wiping out equity holders.

On this news, Maxars share price fell more than 13% on August 7, 2018, thereby injuring investors.

Then, on January 7, 2019, Maxar disclosed that WorldView-4 had experienced a failure in its CMGs, preventing the satellite from collecting imagery due to the loss of an axis of stability.

On this news, the Companys stock price fell $5.69 per share, or 48.5%, over the following two trading sessions, to close at $6.03 on January 8, 2019.

Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP has extensive experience in the prosecution of securities class actions and derivative litigation in state and federal trial and appellate courts across the country. The firm has attorneys in various practice areas; and offices in New York, Chicago and San Diego. The reputation and expertise of this firm in shareholder and other class litigation has been repeatedly recognized by the courts, which have appointed it to major positions in complex securities multi-district and consolidated litigation.

If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions regarding your rights and interests in this case, please immediately contact Wolf Haldenstein by telephone at (800) 575-0735, via e-mail at classmember@whafh.com , or visit our website at www.whafh.com.

Contact:

Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP

Kevin Cooper, Esq.

Gregory Stone, Director of Case and Financial Analysis

Email: gstone@whafh.com , kcooper@whafh.com or classmember@whafh.com

Tel: (800) 575-0735 or (212) 545-4774

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome.
BENSALEM, Pa., Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Law Offices of Howard G. Smith reminds investors of the February 11, 2019 deadline to file a lead plaintiff motion in the class action filed on behalf of investors that purchased Tenaris S.A. (Tenaris or the Company) (NYSE: TS ) securities between May 1, 2014 and November 27, 2018, inclusive (the Class Period). Tenaris investors have until February 11, 2019 to file a lead plaintiff motion.

Investors suffering losses on their Tenaris investments are encouraged to contact the Law Offices of Howard G. Smith to discuss their legal rights in this class action at 888-638-4847 or by email to howardsmith@howardsmithlaw.com .

On November 27, 2018, Bloomberg published an article alleging that Tenariss Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paolo Rocca, was indicted for his role in a graft scheme. Specifically the article alleges that, the judge charged Rocca after the Argentine billionaire testified that one of his companys executives paid an undisclosed amount of cash to government officials in monthly installments from 2009 to 2012. On this news, Tenaris share price fell $2.64, or nearly 10% to close at $24.36 per share on November 27, 2018, thereby injuring investors.

The complaint filed in this class action alleges that, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Tenariss CEO and Chairman, Paolo Rocca, knew that one of his companys executives paid cash to government officials from 2009 to 2012 to expedite compensation payments for the sale of Sidor; (2) this conduct would lead to Rocca being charged in a graft scheme, and subject Tenaris, its affiliates, and/or executives to heightened governmental scrutiny; and (3) as a result, Tenariss public statements were materially false and/or misleading at all relevant times.

If you purchased shares of Tenaris during the Class Period you may move the Court no later than February 11, 2019 to ask the Court to appoint you as lead plaintiff if you meet certain legal requirements. To be a member of the Class you need not take any action at this time; you may retain counsel of your choice or take no action and remain an absent member of the Class. If you wish to learn more about this action, or if you have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Howard G. Smith, Esquire, of Law Offices of Howard G. Smith, 3070 Bristol Pike, Suite 112, Bensalem, Pennsylvania 19020 by telephone at (215) 638-4847, toll-free at (888) 638-4847, or by email to howardsmith@howardsmithlaw.com , or visit our website at http://www.howardsmithlaw.com .

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.
Marshall Co. High School to Hold Remembrance Event

By West Kentucky Star Staff

DRAFFENVILLE - Administrators and staff at Marshall County High School have scheduled a remembrance ceremony on Wednesday for students and their families, marking the 1-year anniversary of the tragic shooting that claimed two lives and injured over a dozen others.On January 23, 2018, sixteen-year-old Gabriel Parker opened fire at the school, killing two classmates, Bailey Holt and Preston Cope. He's facing two counts of murder and 14 counts of 1st degree assault in connection with the shooting.Superintendent Trent Lovett told West Kentucky Star the students wanted the day to be, "as close to a normal day as possible," so it will begin as close to 8 am as possible, which is when classes typically start. He said the larger crowd and security checks may push the start time back by 15-20 minutes.After that, Lovett said students will attend classes through lunch time, and then there are several other activities planned. He said the students can choose which ones to attend."We'll have some somber activities and then we'll have some uplifting activities, because different people are at different stages of their healing, so we tried to meet as many needs as possible and then the students can choose which activity they choose to attend," Lovett said.Only students and parents will be allowed to attend the event at the school. No media will be allowed on the campus starting Monday. A community event will be held at Mike Miller Park on Wednesday evening.
Local Utilities Won't Disconnect Federal Workers

By West Kentucky Star Staff

WESTERN KENTUCKY - Two local electric and telecommunications providers are allowing furloughed federal workers to postpone paying their bills.West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative and WK&T Telecommunications Cooperative released a statement Friday, saying they will keep federal employees connected through the government shutdown by allowing them to postpone their bill payments. Any federal employee who cant pay their bill for power, TV, phone, security or broadband due to the shutdown will not be disconnected from service. After presenting their federal employee ID at a West Kentucky RECC and a WK&T office, the impacted customers will be allowed to postpone their bill until federal backpay arrives.We know that members who are furloughed government workers are concerned about managing their bills, and we are ready to provide assistance tailored to their specific situation, said Heather Foley, vice president of finance and administration for West Kentucky RECC.The program, announced Thursday, will run through the end of the shutdown. Company officials said bills will still need to be paid, but there will be no late penalties.These members of our community are missing paychecks through no fault of their own, says WK&T CEO Trevor Bonnstetter. As cooperatives, we are committed to our members, so were taking these steps to be flexible through this trying situation for their families.To be eligible, members must contact West Kentucky RECC and WK&T when they receive their disconnection notice. Members will be asked to provide proof of your government employment and furlough impact via fax, email or in-person visit. The customer service representative will work with affected members to develop an individual plan to help address billing concerns.For more information, West Kentucky RECC members can call 877-495-7322. WK&T members can call 877-954-8748.
Watkins: Kresge Building Site Ideal for Parking

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - Paducah City Commissioner Gerald Watkins has said that the site of the Kresge Building, downtown Paducah, which is to be demolished, is an ideal location for an additional, much needed, parking lot.Watkins told West Kentucky Star that because of more residents now living downtown, as well as new business interests, parking is extremely important. He also said that there is ample space for new businesses to rent in that area, at very attractive prices, which makes the parking even more important.He said this location, in the 300 block of Broadway, desperately needs additional parking, and this would be a very cost effective way of providing it.Watkins also said that some have suggested a park, or possibly a green space for this site, but he feels since it is between two buildings that are over 30 feet tall, it would not be as desirable for that. The Kresge Building is between the Regions Bank Building, (the old Paducah Dry Building), and a building used by other businesses, of which one was the former Italian Grill.He feels that downtown is at a point that it can experience growth, and adequate parking is a must for this to happen.
Traffic Stop Leads to Arrest of Benton Man

By West Kentucky Star Staff

MCCRACKEN COUNTY - A Friday morning traffic stop led to drug charges for a Benton man.According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Department, at approximately 12:40 am, deputies conducted a traffic stop on Clark's River Road near the intersection of Wayne Sullivan Drive.During the course of the stop, contact was made with the passenger, 49-year-old Jack Boros, of Benton. Deputies searched the vehicle and reportedly found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia inside a bag belonging to Boros.Boros was placed under arrest and lodged in the McCracken County Regional Jail. He's charged with possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Police Seek Help to Solve Tractor-Trailer Break-In

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - Paducah Police are seeking the public's help in solving the break-in of a tractor-trailer earlier this month.Charles V. Parker of Sawyerville, AL, told police someone entered his unlocked truck on North 10th Street between January 2nd and January 4th.He said items were taken and some damage was done to the inside of the truck.Anyone with information is asked to call the Paducah Police Department at 270/444-8550. Information also may be provided anonymously through West Kentucky Crime Stoppers by texting WKY and your tip to 847411 (tip 411) or by downloading the app WKY Crime Stoppers from the Apple Store or Google Play. Tipsters also may access the online tip form through the City of Paducah website at http://paducahky.gov/west-ky-crime-stoppers. Information leading to an arrest or indictment may result in a reward of up to $1,000.
Paducah Woman Accused in Theft of School PTO Funds

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - A Paducah woman has been arrested after allegedly taking funds from a local school PTO bank account.According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Department, Paducah Bank contacted Reidland Elementary School on Wednesday about unusual activity associated with the Reidland Elementary PTO Committee bank account. School officials immediately asked for a detective to participate in a meeting with Paducah Bank to review the account activity.Detectives learned that since August of 2017, approximately $38,000 in funds had been removed from the account in the form of cash, Paypal transfers, or internet purchases.Further inspection showed only one person had primarily been using the account. The person was identified as 37-year-old PTO Committee president, Rachel Morgan Hall.Detectives spoke with Hall on Thursday, and she admitted to having removed the money from the PTO bank account. They report that she said she had used the money to pay bills and purchase items for herself, indicating that at first it was only a small amount to help make ends meet, but things spiraled out of control.The investigation is continuing as detectives review each transaction to determine which were for the PTO, and which were for personal gain. Detectives believe the initial suspected amount of $38,000 may decrease some.Rachel Morgan Hall was arrested and charged with theft by failure to make required disposition of property $10,000 or more.
Mercy-Lourdes Hospital Hosts MLK Celebration Today

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - Mercy Health  Lourdes Hospital is hosting its 28th annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Celebration this afternoon.The program is called, Move Your Mountains and Ascend to the Mountaintop, and will begin at 3:30 pm at the Borders Community Room, inside the Marshall Nemer Medical Office Building.The keynote speaker is Dr. Anton Reece, President of West Kentucky Community and Technical College. Samuel Snacks Hawkins will provide spoken word.Refreshments will be served. The program is free and open to the public.Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929 but the holiday is observed this year on Monday, January 21.
VANCOUVER, Wa, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Alliance Party urges the leadership of the U.S. House and Senate to work together to develop a two-thirds majority under the powers granted to them by Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution and pass a veto-proof spending bill to end the partial government shutdown that has hurt millions of Americans and now threatens the health of the U.S. economy.



President Trump has vowed to veto any bill that does not meet with his approval to fund his border wall. The Alliance Party believes that pre-emptive, bipartisan action under Section 7 would signal that the Congress intends to exercise its Constitutional powers over the executive branch for the good of the nation.



Throughout history, when the collective welfare of the people of the United States was hanging in the balance, Congress has acted to override hundreds of presidential vetoes, said Brian Mistrot, National Chair of the Alliance Party. In their wisdom, the framers of the U.S. Constitution anticipated stalemates between the executive and legislative branches and provided Congress with a remedy the body has exercised regularly. We find our nation in an economic emergency today in which invoking the powers of Section 7 is not only warranted, but necessary.

A pre-emptive vote by a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate that sends the message of its intention to override Trumps veto will be historic, said Mistrot. The Alliance Party believes now is the time for Congress to rise above partisanship, make history and come together to pass a veto-proof spending bill to get the country moving again.

About: The Alliance Party is the culmination of a decades-long movement of former independents, democrats and republicans who are fiscally conservative, socially moderate who believe in reasoned problem solving and who are driving election reform. https://www.theallianceparty.com
Local Business Helps Furloughed Federal Workers

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - A Paducah business is helping Federal workers that are not being paid, due to the Government shutdown.Vertical Jump Park, located in Kentucky Oaks Mall in Paducah, is asking that people bring non-perishable food items, as well as personal care items such as shampoo, soap, toothpaste, etc. to their location.Vertical Jump Park Manager, Kris Waller, told West Kentucky Star, that for those that bring the items to the business, they will receive a discount on their sessions, $1.00 for each item up to $4.00.Waller also asked that if anyone knows persons affected by the shutdown, please let them know by either calling them at (270)-366-0331, or by e-mail at reservations@verticaljumppark.com. They can also be contacted via their Facebook page, which is Vertical Jump Park Paducah.
WEST HARTFORD  Conards Gavin Sherry and Chloe Scrimgeour took home individual titles at the CCC Division A championships while the Simsbury girls team completed its revenge tour and the Hall boys battled to a team title Wednesday.
At the invitation of the Turkmenistan Authorities, WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya visited Ashgabat, the countrys capital, on 16 and 17 January 2019. He met with the President, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Chairman of the State Customs Service for discussions on how to further develop the existing cooperation between Turkmenistan and the WCO.

During a bilateral meeting, H.E. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, President of Turkmenistan, shared his vision of an open door policy focused on building the transport infrastructure, namely airports, seaports, railways and roads, to link his country with its neighbours. He therefore sought the WCOs support through the provision of expertise, in order to improve Turkmenistans logistics system, and through the organization of seminars.

Secretary General Mikuriya highlighted many of the WCO instruments and tools incorporating best practices from around the world. He also explained how the WCOs capacity building policy, based on political support and an ownership approach, was helping Customs administrations identify their needs and priorities. He went on to underscore the fact that the WCO could support Members with their Customs reforms and improve regional connectivity as a result. In response, the President agreed to send more Customs staff to WCO-related meetings and to host WCO experts and Members with a view to boosting regional cooperation.

Ways of enhancing several transit routes between Turkmenistan and its neighbours were explored during a bilateral meeting between Mr. Rashid Meredov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Secretary General. They agreed to send a Turkmenistan Delegation to the WCO to facilitate the countrys accession to WCO Conventions and to develop an action plan in support of the Presidents vision.

Dr. Mikuriya also had a meeting with the Customs management team headed by Mr. Atadurdy Osmanov, Chairman of the State Customs Service, during which they concurred on the way forward. In addition, he visited regional Customs terminals and airport facilities to observe how Customs operates.

During his stay in Ashgabat, Dr. Mikuriya gave a special lecture to students and Professors at the Institute of International Relations, which is part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International University of Humanities and Development.
PROVO, Utah, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CircusTrix, the largest owner, operator, and franchisor of trampoline parks in the world, today announced the acquisition of Planet 3 extreme trampoline parks. This announcement comes on the heels of a period of rapid growth for CircusTrix, including the acquisitions of Rockin Jump and Sky Zone. The addition of Planet 3 reaffirms CircusTrixs place as the leader in the trampoline park industry.

This acquisition makes perfect sense for us, said Case Lawrence, CEO of CircusTrix. Not only do the Planet 3 parks complement our current locations, but also the companys brand and park strategy are in perfect sync with our principles. We expect a very smooth integration."

CircusTrix will acquire all ten open Planet 3 locations and two locations scheduled to launch in the next 45 days. Though Planet 3 closely resembles the CircusTrix culture, each park will be looked at critically to ensure it meets the level of attractions, energy, and safety standards of the CircusTrix brand. The addition of Planet 3s parks will bring the total CircusTrix portfolio to 320 parks worldwide, with the majority in the United States.

CircusTrix is the undisputed leader and innovator in our space, said Mo Haretuku, President of Planet 3. "Throughout our history, we have modeled our park strategy after CircusTrix, and we are now honored to join their team and be part of their momentum.

With the trampoline park industry expected to grow from $1.4 billion to $3.23 billion in the next four years, the acquisition of Planet 3 further solidifies CircusTrix as the worldwide leader of trampoline parks and the familys destination for indoor recreation.

The acquisition of Planet 3 comes on the heels of two other major acquisitions in the past 22 months. Most recently, CircusTrix acquired Sky Zone in December 2017 and Rockin Jump in March 2017. This momentum is driven by the knowledge, experience, and tenacity of the leadership team at CircusTrix. The investment in CircusTrix in December 2016 by an affiliate of Palladium Equity Partners, LLC is spurring on this rapid growth through acquisition and newly opened parks.

Planet 3, which was founded in 2015, opened its first park in Savannah, GA, and has since grown to 12 parks in the U.S. focused mainly on the East Coast and Midwest.

The Planet 3 locations include Savannah, Georgia; Duluth, Minnesota; Moscow, Idaho; Florence, South Carolina; Palm Bay, Florida; Vestal, New York; Muskegon, Michigan; Flint, Michigan; Clarksville, Tennessee; Gainesville, Florida; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Iowa City, Iowa.

About CircusTrix

Founded by award-winning entrepreneur Case Lawrence in 2011, CircusTrix is a leading company in the increasingly relevant Experiential Consumer Economy. In 2016, an affiliate of Palladium Equity Partners, LLC (along with its affiliates, Palladium), a middle market private equity firm with approximately $3.0 billion in assets under management, invested in CircusTrix. Following that transaction, in 2017, CircusTrix acquired Sky Zone and Rockin Jump, two of its largest competitors. It now has a network of 320 facilities worldwide, making it the largest developer, operator, and franchisor of trampoline parks in the world. CircusTrix is the parent company of the DEFY, Sky Zone, and Ryze brands and is known as the leading innovator in adrenaline. CircusTrix is continually creating new facilities and attractions that provide active physical activity, facilitate shareable social media posts, and bring thrill and delight to its worldwide fan base.

Website | YouTube | Facebook

Media Contact:

Codeword for CircusTrix

circustrix@codewordagency.com

435.632.5524
CONGRATULATIONS TO ABHS CLASS OF 2021: With a class of 447 graduates, Anchor Bay High had three graduation ceremonies, with two on June 5 and one on June 12. The top 10 in the class are Meghan Elizabeth Kunkle, Giana Marie Maniaci, Alaina Kiehl, Jonathan Taylor, Emily Appleton, Lauren Zidzik
New York, NY, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- For the sixth consecutive year, U.S. News and World Report, in its 2019 rankings of Best Colleges for Online Bachelor Degree programs, selected Berkeley College among the best in two categories: Best Online Bachelor Programs and Best Online Bachelor Programs for Veterans.

Berkeley College offers support for military and veteran students and their families, not only at the seven on-site locations, but also through its online program, including a Virtual Veterans Resource Center, said Edward Dennis, Assistant Vice President, Berkeley College Office of Military and Veterans Affairs. Mr. Dennis, a retired Army Major, also serves as the New York City Veterans Club advisor. These Resource Centers, along with the welcoming staff and faculty, contribute to the well-being and success of our military and veteran students as they transition into meaningful careers in the civilian world.

The services at Berkeley College stood out when Gabrielle Peralta was deciding where to use the educational benefits due her under the G.I. Bill. Other schools didnt have veterans reps and if they did, they were usually out of the office, she remembered. Not so with Berkeleys Office of Military and Veterans Affairs (OMVA) and its Senior Director Tami Pichardo, said Mrs. Peralta, who currently serves as president of the Berkeley College New Jersey Veterans Club. Tamis always there for you. She knew what needed to be done.

Skyla  Berkeley Colleges emotional support dog in training  helped seal the deal for the 25-year-old Marine Corps veteran who grapples with post-traumatic stress disorder. Now Mrs. Peralta, who lives in Newark, NJ, works part-time in the OMVA while pursuing a degree in Business Administration  Management at Berkeley College in Woodland Park, NJ.

Online Courses Offer Expectant Mom Continuous Enrollment

Josephine Cornacchia enlisted in the Air Force and served five years, mostly in Georgia, in satellite communications for a combat communications squadron, after graduating high school in Bohemia, NY. Her father had been disabled by a stroke when she was 12, and at age 15, after her mother lost her battle with cancer, Ms. Cornacchia and her sister went to live with her aunt and uncle, while her brother also relocated to live with other relatives.

Ms. Cornacchia overcame challenges to earn a Certificate in Culinary Arts at Evas Kitchen in Paterson, NJ. One of her instructors there, who also was a veteran, recommended Berkeley College. Within two months, she enrolled at Berkeley College in Woodland Park, NJ, and began earning her Bachelors degree in Business Administration  Management during the winter 2017 semester. She also serves as vice president of the New Jersey Veterans Club.

The ability to earn college credit online toward her degree program at Berkeley College was a perfect match for Ms. Cornacchia, who gave birth to her second child, a daughter, in May of 2018. It worked for what I needed because I was having a baby, Ms. Cornacchia said. It gave me the convenience of staying at home.

While Ms. Cornacchia enjoys taking a combination of on-site and online courses, having access to earning her degree online allowed her to stay continuously enrolled full-time throughout the year. She has earned Presidents or Deans List honors every semester and expects to graduate in fall 2019.

I have had great professors every semester, added Ms. Cornacchia.They teach well and I like to learn. I also have experience that I can relate to what I am learning; maybe thats what makes it seem easy.

Military and Veteran Students Appreciate Supportive Environment at Berkeley College

The OMVA stays connected with the nearly 450 veterans and active-duty military enrolled at Berkeley Colleges campuses in New Jersey and New York, and online. Berkeley College has been ranked among the best colleges for military and veterans by several publications, including U.S. News & World Report, Military Times, U.S. Veterans Magazine, and Military Advanced Education & Transition.

The College has strong support services for those students at its Veterans Resource Centers that offer a place to get information, study and socialize. Flexible academic schedules, credits for prior learning, free tutoring, and advisors with military experience help with the transition.

The veterans are like a family here, said Donier McIntyre, 26, of Brooklyn, NY, who served in the Marines, is speaker of the Berkeley College New York City Veterans Club, and is studying Business Administration  Management at the Midtown Manhattan campus. Coming from the military I felt like I shouldnt ask for help, but professors here actually worked with me and helped me, he said. It felt so welcoming; I didnt feel like I was a number here.

Berkeley participates in the Yellow Ribbon Program that supplements tuition and school expenses for veterans and military. The College is home to one of 230 chapters of SALUTE  a veterans honor society. In addition, there are a host of military and veterans-related events and activities throughout the year, like marching in the New York City Veterans Day Parade.

Mauro Ricky Zambrano, 27, of Lyndhurst, NJ, found critical support at the student-veterans club at the Midtown Manhattan campus. Its a place for us all to be ourselves, said Mr. Zambrano, who is studying Justice Studies  Criminal Justice, and serves as president of the New York City Veterans Club. He served with the Marines in Afghanistan. Its good for camaraderie, he added. It can be tough to adjust to civilian life. We go through everything together. Mr. Zambrano is interning this academic year at Bergen County (NJ) Veterans Services. He hopes to become a probation officer after graduation in May.

The school is a good fit for veterans like herself, Mrs. Peralta said, who offered this advice to service members. Use your G.I. Bill. You earned it. Go get an education  there is always someone at Berkeley College who can help you if you need it.

Photo Caption: Top: Berkeley College veteran student Gabrielle Peralta (left) of Newark, NJ, and Josephine Cornacchia of Woodland Park, NJ, both are earning their Bachelors degrees in Business Administration  Management. Respectively, they also serve as president and vice president of the New Jersey Veterans Club. Middle (left to right): Berkeley College student veterans Ricky Zambrano of Lyndhurst, NJ, and Donier McIntyre of Brooklyn, NY, are two of nearly 450 veterans and active-duty military enrolled at Berkeley College campuses in New Jersey and New York, and online. Respectively, they serve as president and speaker of the New York City Veterans Club. Below: The Berkeley College Office of Military and Veterans Affairs supports many military and veteran-related causes, including marching in the New York City Veterans Day Parade in November. Berkeley College has been ranked among the best colleges for military and veterans by several publications including, for the sixth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report, as well as Military Times, U.S. Veterans Magazine, and Military Advanced Education & Transition.

A leader in providing career-focused education since 1931, Berkeley College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and enrolls more than 7,000 students  including more than 350 international students  in its Masters, Bachelors, and Associates degree and Certificate programs. Students can study in more than 20 career fields. Berkeley College is comprised of the Larry L. Luing School of Business, the School of Professional Studies, the School of Health Studies and the School of Liberal Arts. The School of Graduate Studies offers an MBA in Management online and in Woodland Park, NJ.

Berkeley College has three New York campuses  Midtown Manhattan, Brooklyn and White Plains. In New Jersey there are four campuses  Newark, Paramus, Woodbridge and Woodland Park. Berkeley College Online serves a global population. For six consecutive years, U.S. News & World Report has named Berkeley College among the Best Colleges for Online Bachelors Programs and among the Best Online Bachelors Programs for Veterans. The website address is www.BerkeleyCollege.edu.

End -

To view this release in the News Room go to:

https://newsroom.berkeleycollege.edu/news/berkeley-college-ranked-for-sixth-consecutive-year-on-u-s-news-world-report-list-of-best-online-bachelor-programs-for-veterans

To view the photos as high-resolution images go to:

Top, left: https://berkeleycollege.edu/press_release_images/GabbyPeralta1SM.jpg

Top, right: https://berkeleycollege.edu/press_release_images/Josephine_CornacchiaHS.jpg

Middle, left: https://berkeleycollege.edu/press_release_images/RickyZambranoCR.jpg

Middle, right: https://berkeleycollege.edu/press_release_images/Donier_McIntyre.jpg

Bottom: https://berkeleycollege.edu/press_release_images/Parade_Time.jpg

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Hamilton opens at the Centro de Bellas Artes in San Juan for a three-week run with Lin-Manuel Miranda reprising his role as Alexander Hamilton, who grew up on St. Croix.
ANDREW DOUGHERTY is News Editor for The Vidette. Contact him at vidette_addough@ilstu.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @addough

IF YOU SUPPORT THE VIDETTE MISSION of providing a training laboratory for Illinois State University student journalists to learn and sharpen viable, valuable and marketable skills in all phases of print and digital media, please consider contributing to this most important cause. Thank you.
ELIZABETH SEILS is a News Reporter for The Vidette. She can be contacted at elseils@ilstu.edu Follow her on Twitter at @SeilsElizabeth

IF YOU SUPPORT THE VIDETTE MISSION of providing a training laboratory for Illinois State University student journalists to learn and sharpen viable, valuable and marketable skills in all phases of print and digital media, please consider contributing to this most important cause. Thank you.
Starting in the 19th century, women demonstrated for the right to vote  the same as men  before winning that right in 1920. Women moved forward for total equal rights and the ERA was introduced to the U.S. Congress in 1923. But it would take a national movement for Congress to stop ignoring the amendment and they finally passed it in 1973  50 years later.
We as a school, we have always done what we can to support kids who are hungry, and if the worst happens, we have resources from the PTA and other groups, the support of our teachers and staff, we will do what we have to make sure no student goes hungry here, he said.
If enacted as law, the bill would establish the Potomac Aquifer Recharge Oversight Committee, a 10-person advisory board intended to monitor the project. The board would consist of the state health commissioner, department of environmental quality director, the executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, the two co-directors of the laboratory, the director of the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory, two state citizens appointed by the governor and two non-voting members.
English Dutch

Regulated Information  Inside Information

Nyrstar announces Management Change

18 January 2019 at 19.00 CET

As previously announced, Nyrstar is continuing to focus on its ongoing capital structure review. In connection with that process, Nyrstar announces today that Mr. Martyn Konig will take up the role of Executive Chairman. In addition, Mr. Roman Matej has been appointed to serve as Interim Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Michel Abaza, the former Chief Financial Officer, will leave the Nyrstar Group with immediate effect.

Mr. Roman Matej is an experienced senior finance executive who has been with Nyrstar for approximately 8 years. Mr. Matejs previous role at Nyrstar was as Group Controller, prior to which he worked at Ernst & Young in Switzerland, Australia and the Czech Republic. Mr. Matej has been and will continue to work closely with the team from Alvarez & Marsal who have been assisting Nyrstar with its capital structure review.

About Nyrstar

Nyrstar is a global multi-metals business, with a market leading position in zinc and lead, and growing positions in other base and precious metals, which are essential resources that are fuelling the rapid urbanisation and industrialisation of our changing world. Nyrstar has mining, smelting and other operations located in Europe, the Americas and Australia and employs approximately 4,100 people. Nyrstar is incorporated in Belgium and has its corporate office in Switzerland. Nyrstar is listed on Euronext Brussels under the symbol NYR. For further information please visit the Nyrstar website: www.nyrstar.com .

For further information contact:

Anthony Simms - Head of Investor Relations T: +41 44 745 8157 M: +41 79 722 2152 anthony.simms@nyrstar.com

Franziska Morroni - Head of Communications T: +41 44 745 8295 M: +41 79 719 2342 franziska.morroni@nyrstar.com

Attachment
Unfortunately, frequently used fixes such as widening the road or installing a traffic circle wont work in the area, Larson said in the release. We need to meet with our citizens, explain why those approaches wont work and come up with a solution to the numerous accidents at these intersections.
Families having access to food and children going to school without being hungry is a basic and critical need that transcends politics, said Virginia Department of Social Services Commissioner Duke Storen in the release. The SNAP program ensures food security for many of our nations most vulnerable citizens and we are pleased to be able to provide benefits to our clients for the month of February.
Officers found Durussel at his home and charged him with peeping into an occupied dwelling, according to Williams. Durussel was released with a summons to appear in Williamsburg-James City County General District Court at 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 22, according to online court records.
The company with the highest average step count across all of its employees for the month of October was given the opportunity to donate its prize money to a charity or non-profit. With more than 100 employees participating in the challenge, Snow Companies logged 354,133 steps on average per participant.
(Jan. 18, 2019) -- UTSA Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) detachment 842 is gaining national attention. It has been named the United States Air Force (USAF) 2018 High Flight award winner, signifying the best large ROTC detachment in the region, an area spanning from Louisiana to Hawaii. UTSAs program is recognized for its relentless focus on cadet development through deliberate training, engaging experiences and a genuine desire to invest in future leaders.

Several UTSA ROTC members also received individual honors from the USAF. Agustin Llano, the UTSA Air Force ROTC program manager, was selected as the nations University Employee of the Year Air Force ROTC. Two staff members were also selected for regional awards. Captain Jesse Beinhower was named Education Officer of the Year and Captain Anthony Guajardo 11 was selected as Recruiting Officer of the Year.

I am so proud of this detachment, our staff and our cadets, said Lieutenant Colonel Brian Rendell, commander of the UTSA ROTC detachment. Our team works incredibly hard to train the next generation of Air Force officers, and these accolades speak to the greatness of this detachment and this university. We fully believe in UTSAs focus on student success, and do everything we can to invest in our students through engagement, educational support and experiential programs.

The UTSA Air Force ROTC program includes about 200 cadets, making it the second largest detachment in Texas, and one of the 20 largest in the nation. Demographically, the detachment is more diverse than the Air Force and is comprised of cadets from UTSA and six other San Antonio area colleges and universities.

The detachment mission is to recruit great people, develop them into scholar-warrior leaders who take ownership and engage in partnership, then commission them as exceptional officers in the United States Air Force.

Its far too simple to say that we commission officers because the Air Force needs them, said Rendell. The truth is deeper than thatwe build exceptional officers because our world needs people who stand out by how they live their lives, how they lead and the impact they make on the world.

The cadets go through more than 1,000 hours of career-focused training conducted through academic classes, leadership training, physical training, field training and numerous other professional development opportunities. The cadets have conducted field activities at Camp Bullis, flown in jets at Randolph Air Force Base, participated in physical training with Air Force Special Forces, and even traveled to China for specialized language training.

The reasons people join the Air Force ROTC program at UTSA and the reasons they stay in the program varies, said Captain Glen Peoples, a detachment recruiting officer. Our program is for people interested in everything from community, relationships, tradition, service, career, life skills or an adventure.

Qualified cadets are also eligible for financial support through scholarships and stipends.

"Cadets connect with one another here and form bonds that last a lifetime, said Peoples. Theyre joining a family. In fact, two of our cadre members, Captain Celeste Florell 08 and Captain Guajardo, graduated from UTSA and earned their commission from this very detachment. They believed so much in this cause, that they volunteered to come back to UTSA to reinvest in the program as experienced officers.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Detachment 842, which has also been named the top ROTC detachment in the nation twice over the past 10 years. Later this year, it will host a homecoming celebration to commemorate this historical milestone, and the many awards the detachment has won over the past three decades.
Columns and letters of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon's editorial staff.
Experience survival horror like never before in the 8th major installment in the Resident Evil franchise - Resident Evil Village. With detailed graphics, intense first-person action, and masterful storytelling, the terror has never felt more realistic.
TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Ontario Health Coalition is holding rallies outside of Pre-Budget Hearings that will be attended by Members of Provincial Parliament on the Standing Committees on Finance and Economic Affairs. At the same time as promising to end "hallway medicine" and adequately fund health care in Ontario Doug Ford's government has pledged to cut $22 billion in provincial revenues through axing cap-and-trade and through tax giveaways that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and corporations. Thats $22 billion less for funding health care, education, transportation, social services, justice and so on. Cuts to health care, education, and social programs have already started. At the same time, Ford is holding backroom meetings and negotiating contracts to privatize hospitals and expand private clinics in violation of the Canada Health Act. We are organizing rallies outside of the Pre-Budget Hearings so residents of Ontario can stand up in resistance and solidarity to safeguard public health care. Lets send them a strong message.



Monday, January 21

Dryden Pre-Budget Hearing Rally at 12 noon, Best Western Plus 349 Government St

Tuesday, January 22

Timmins Pre-Budget Hearing Rally at 12 noon, Senator Hotel, 14 Mountjoy St. S.

Wednesday, January 23

Ottawa Pre-Budget Hearing Rally at 12 noon, Courtyard Marriot, 350 Dalhousie St.

Thursday, January 24

Sarnia Pre-Budget Hearing Rally at 12 noon, Holiday Inn Point Edward, 1498 Venetian Blvd.

Friday, January 25

Kitchener-Waterloo Pre-Budget Hearing Rally at 12 noon, Delta Hotel, 110 Erb St. W.

Monday, January 28

Peterborough Pre-Budget Hearing Rally at 12 noon, Holiday Inn, George St N

Cosponsored by: CUPE Ontario/OCHU, OFL, OPSEU, UNIFOR
GLO.ACT partnership receives a new impetus in Belarus

Minsk, Belarus, 18 January 2019 - The Global Action against Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants ( GLO.ACT) is a response to modern challenges posed by trafficking in persons (TIP) and smuggling of migrants (SOM). To be successful in addressing these crimes, we need to ensure that coordination and partnership is at the core of project implementation in Belarus. This was the key message of Mr. Zeynal Hajiyev, United Nations Migration Agency (IOM) Chief of Mission in Belarus, that echoed through an inaugural two-day partners' meeting on 14-15 January in Minsk, Belarus.

Hosted by IOM Belarus, the meeting brought together GLO.ACT focal points from IOM, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), European Union Delegation to Belarus and the representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the project's principal national counterpart.

The first day of the meeting was dedicated to creating a consolidated work plan for GLO.ACT Belarus to present to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. All GLO.ACT implementing partners worked together to review the 2019 work plans and identify potential areas for cooperation, while avoiding duplicating activities of other agencies.

The international round table on national referral mechanisms (NRM), protection and reintegration of victims of trafficking and irregular migrants in the Republic of Belarus scheduled for March 2019, is the first in a series of events that will benefit from contributions and expertise by GLO.ACT implementing agencies and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The roundtable will serve as a platform for mapping the existing cooperation mechanisms in Belarus, identifying the gaps and developing recommendations to meet the international NRM standards. The involvement GLO.ACT partners and stakeholders will guarantee a comprehensive approach to NRM development in Belarus.

UNICEF's work contributes to GLO.ACT's response in Belarus with a systematic approach that has a strong prevention focus. The work foresees three interlinked directions, namely building coordinated responses to combatting violence against children with a special focus on sexual exploitation and abuse; enhancing a child-friendly justice system; and generating statistical evidence on migration and overall child rights. Their work in 2019 will address both capacity building and strengthening of the national hotline service for children victims of violence, promotion of a safe and enabling environment in schools and responses to ensure Internet and Cyber safety, building up a national dialogue with government and civil society partners to expand restorative justice responses for children that create more opportunities for protection, and the provision of statistical evidence for informed policy development.

Meanwhile, in coordination with UNODC, representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will benefit from five training workshops, covering identification and documentation of TIP and SOM cases, trafficking for labour exploitation and combatting online sexual exploitation and abuse of children. The particular relevance and timeliness of the latter topic was highlighted by Ms. Olga Stankevich, Head of Unit of Interaction with International Organizations, International Cooperation Department, Ministry of Internal Affairs who underlined that the sexual exploitation of children online is a new issue for Belarus and capacity building interventions on this topic are very welcomed by the Ministry. She also reiterated the commitment of the Ministry to continue cooperation under the umbrella of GLO.ACT.

To conclude the meeting, Ms. Outa Hermalahti from the European Union Delegation to Belarus noted that while the project is not new, the partners' meeting gave it a new impetus in Belarus. 'We do not want to miss opportunities in Belarus not only because the needs are high, but also because we have all key ingredients for effective implementation, including the commitment from the national stakeholder and established mechanisms of project coordination' she said.

The Global Action to Prevent and Address Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants (GLO.ACT) is a four-year (2015-2019), 11 million joint initiative by the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The project is being implemented in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). GLO.ACT aims to provide assistance to governmental authorities and civil society organizations across 13 strategically selected countries: Belarus, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Mali, Morocco, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, South Africa, Ukraine. GLO.ACT works with the 13 countries to plan and implement strategic national counter-trafficking and counter smuggling efforts through a prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnerships approach. It supports the development of more effective responses to trafficking and smuggling, including providing assistance to victims of trafficking and vulnerable migrants through the strengthening of identification, referral, and direct support mechanisms.

For more information, please contact:

IOM Belarus: Tatiana Verigo tverigo@iom.int

UNICEF Belarus: Marina Ananenko mananenko@unicef.org

UNODC Vienna: Elena Nyanenkova nyanenkova-lowry@un.org

European Union Delegation to Belarus: Outa Hermalahti outa.hermalahti@eeas.europa.eu

https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/glo-act/

Email: glo.act@un.org

Twitter: @glo_act
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Oregon, WI (53575)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Strong thunderstorms likely. Storms may produce large hail and strong winds. Low 69F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR OVER UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES



TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Montero Mining and Exploration Ltd. (TSX-V: MON) (Montero or the Corporation) is pleased to announce it has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI) with Gravity Worx Mining Solutions (Pty) Ltd (Gravity Worx) to provide Technical Services including but not limited to metallurgical and engineering consulting services for the potential development of the Uis Lithium Tin tailings project (the Project") in Namibia. These Technical Services will be provided at no cost to Montero and will allow Gravity Worx to develop a non-binding proposal to Montero to supply a metallurgical process plant to process tailings material containing lithium and tin and operational services on a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis. Gravity Worx is currently finalizing a non-compliant Scoping Study on the project.

Dr. Tony Harwood, President and Chief Executive Officer of Montero commented, Montero is pleased to announce this non-binding Letter of Intent with Gravity Worx to assist in the potential development of the Uis Lithium Tin Tailings project. Gravity Worx is a specialist engineering company that provides fit for purpose engineering and operational solutions to the minerals sector. Gravity Worx will provide consulting services at no cost to Montero in order to be granted the opportunity to present a non-binding proposal for a Build Own Operate and Transfer solution. The Uis Lithium Tin Tailings project has a NI43-101 Inferred Mineral Resource of 14.4 million tonnes at 0.37% lithium (Li 2 O) and 17.1 million tonnes at 0.05% tin (SnO 2 ) in coarse and fine tailings material. Montero and Gravity Worx are currently evaluating the metallurgy characteristics of the tailings in order to cost and design a lithium and tin process plant.

The Uis Lithium Tin Tailings Project is located in central Namibia near the town of Uis 220 km north of Walvis Bay, Namibias largest commercial deep-water port. The project is in the Erongo Region connected by dirt and asphalt road to the port of Walvis Bay.

The Lithium-Cesium-Tantalum (LCT) pegmatite field that hosts the Uis Tin mine is hosted in metasedimentary units of the Damara Mobile Belt, the northeast-trending branch of the Neo-Proterozoic, Pan African Damara Orogen in Namibia. The unzoned albite rich pegmatites at the Uis Tin mine belong to a group of highly fractionated, cassiterite and lithium-rich rare metal pegmatites.

The Uis Lithium Tin Tailings project comprises un-weathered surface mine tailings of coarse sand tailings and slimes derived from the Uis Tin mining operation between 1924 and 1990 (Diehl, 1992). The pegmatites were mined by open cut and hauled to a process plant for crushing and milling for cassiterite extraction. The mine historically produced 35,400 tonnes of cassiterite concentrate which delivered coarse and fine tailings material on surface (Diehl, 1992). The tonnage and grade of the tailing material has been substantiated by a mineral resource estimate announced on the 14th January 2019. The pegmatites at Uis have not previously been mined or systematically sample assayed for lithium.



Qualified Person's Statement



This press release was reviewed and approved by Mr. Mike Evans, M.Sc. Pr.Sci.Nat., who is a qualified person for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 and a Consulting Geologist to Montero. A review was also undertaken by Nico Scholtz, Pr.Sci.Nat., who is a qualified person for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 and is a Namibian based geologist with more than 10 years experience. He has extensive experience in rare metal pegmatite exploration in Namibia having worked on many Lithium-Cesium-Tantalum (LCT) pegmatite intrusions.

About Montero

Montero is a mineral exploration and development company engaged in the identification, acquisition, evaluation and exploration of mineral properties in Africa. Currently these include lithium and tin in Namibia, lithium in Chile, while looking for partners to advance its phosphates in South Africa and rare earth elements in Tanzania. Montero trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MON.

For more information, contact:

Montero Mining and Exploration Ltd.

Dr. Tony Harwood, President and Chief Executive Officer

E-mail: ir@monteromining.com

Tel: +1 416 840 9197 | Fax: +1 866 688 4671

www.monteromining.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements, projections and estimates. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates or does not anticipate, or believes, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Such information is based on information currently available to Montero and Montero provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Forward-looking information by its very nature involves inherent risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements of Montero to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Actual results relating to, among other things, completion of the HOA, results of exploration, project development, reclamation and capital costs of Monteros mineral properties, and financial condition and prospects, could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements for many reasons such as: an inability to complete the HOA on the terms as announced or at all; changes in general economic conditions and conditions in the financial markets; changes in demand and prices for minerals; litigation, legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; technological and operational difficulties encountered in connection with Monteros activities; and other matters discussed in this news release and in filings made with securities regulators. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of Monteros forward-looking statements. These and other factors should be considered carefully and accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Montero does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.




Mark Wilson/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will hold a second summit near the end of February, the White House announced Friday.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders put out a statement confirming the summit after Trump met with North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Jong Chol Friday in the Oval Office.

It wasn't immediately known whether he carried a message from the North Korean leader as he did when he visited the White House in June before the first Trump-Kim summit in Singapore.

President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization," Sanders said in the statement. Sanders said they discussed "a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date.

Prior to meeting with the president, Kim Jong Chol met Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the administration pushed ahead with plans for a second summit between Trump and Kim.

The two men did not make any statements or answer reporters' questions.

The meeting comes amid a stalemate in nuclear talks, with North Korea demanding the U.S. first ease sanctions and the U.S. saying there will be no relief until North Korea takes steps to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

Kim Yong Chol, the regime's former spy chief, arrived in Washington late Thursday night, staying at a hotel just blocks north of the White House.

Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol have met several times before, including in New York last May just before Trump and Kim Jong Un met in Singapore. In that meeting, Pompeo and his counterpart hashed out plans for a summit.

Friday's meeting in Washington was key to taking the North Koreans' temperature ahead of a second summit and see if such a meeting would be productive, a U.S. official told ABC News.

Copyright  2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Welcome Guest! You are here: Home  Life & Style

Indian women, 11 other reverts share their journey to Islam

The 12 converts included expatriate women from India, Britain, the Philippines and Sri Lanka

Jeddah: Twelve women who have embraced Islam recounted their first step toward Islam on a platform provided by Moulana Hifzur Rahman Seoharvi Academy in Jeddah. The 12 included expatriate women from India, Britain, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

After a successful event organized last month for male reverts, the academy honored the women who found peace in Islam. They recounted stories of their quest for peace and serenity, and the many obstacles they encountered in the pursuit of truth, Saudi Gazette reported.

Seoharvi Academy is dedicated to preaching and spreading Islam in the Kingdom and to assist hundreds and thousands of pilgrims coming to perform Haj and Umrah.

The women narrated the trials and tribulations on their way to coming into the fold of Islam.

Iman, a dentist by profession, explained how she came out of darkness and saw the light of Islam and how she faced the obstacles on her path.

Batool said she was a devout Christian before accepting Islam. In her pre-Islamic days, she helped build a church in her hometown. "However, something was missing in my life. There was no satisfaction and no inner peace," she said.

Her endeavor to attain peace of mind brought her into the fold of Islam and now she is a proud and practicing Muslim.

For Ayesha, recitation of the Holy Qur'an is an experience that she cannot describe in words. "My heart beats increased when I recited Surah Fatiha for the first time," she said.

Ayesha said she experienced the difference between her two lives, before and after Islam.

"Earlier I was confused in many things but now I am satisfied. Although some problems crop up in my day-to-day life, I know this is only a transitory phase. The real importance of life will be in the Hereafter", she said.

Alina was a Catholic before embracing Islam in 2001. Her colleagues guided her and gave her books on Islam. After reading several books including the English translation of the Qur'an, she realized that Islam was a pure and real religion.

"The best thing was that I recognized Allah, learned many values that I was unaware of. Now I regret that I waited to accept Islam for so long," she said.

Fatima Joy, formerly Linda Joy, said she faced a lot of problems after coming into the fold of Islam. "But I was steadfast and faced all my trials with a brave heart. Of course, it could not have been possible without Almighty Allah's mercy and help," she said.

Her journey toward Islam, the problems she faced initially and the way she met all the challenges will definitely guide those who want to revert to Islam but are still confused. The way she overcame all challenges is an eye opener even for born Muslims but who have forgotten their responsibilities.

Joy was just four years old when she came to Saudi Arabia. Initially she has had some bitter moments with her Muslim schoolmates. The pain and anguish she suffered steeled her resolve to find the truth.

"I was born and brought up in a Christian family. Because of my lack of religious knowledge I became an atheist. At that time I met a teacher of Umm Sulaim School, who explained to me the true meaning and purpose of life in Islam. I was amazed by the simplicity of the religion and its teachings," said Joy.

She developed an interest to know more about Islam and then accepted it as a way of life. "Now I am feeling blessed and have a clear vision about my life," Joy added.

Joy, who was the chief guest of the evening, expressed her immense gratitude to that teacher who guided her to the right path and became her mother-in-law. She was also grateful to her husband and all those who stood by her in the toughest situations.

She talked about the misconceptions about Islam, saying: "Today's media portrays a distorted picture of Islam."

Umm Hudhaifah, formerly Scarlett Jane Condon, presided over the function. She was born in a Christian family and raised as an atheist.

"I had many doubts as science could not explain many things. I read about Hinduism and Buddhism but was not satisfied. But when I read Islamic literature, everything I found was logical", she said.

She visited many Muslim countries and observed people leading their life following Islamic teachings. Her experience in Yemen was amazing. She took the oath of Shahadah embracing Islam in Yemen. She learned Islamic teachings and memorized the Qur'an in Yemen before moving to Saudi Arabia three years ago.

"I look back to my parents and my relatives now; they have everything in life and live luxuriously but they are not happy, not satisfied with their lives. They are always disturbed. True happiness lies only in Islam. Islam is the only faith that guarantees satisfaction and a true happiness," said Umm Hudhaifah.

For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App .

Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic.
Research: Not Another Brexit Bill for Brokers!

Its difficult to believe that its been a year since the implementation of MiFID II. As if adjusting to this new regulatory landscape wasnt enough, banks and brokers now face fresh challenges around Brexit and a no deal scenario could introduce a plethora of new operational headaches. Firms are just finalising their research payment contracts and are now faced with the possibility of a hard-Brexit, which risks throwing them back to square one.

Despite ongoing Brexit turmoil, for the moment the UK is due to leave the EU with a deal on March 29th 2019. In light of this, European based brokers should consider reviewing all of those research contracts and agreements they have just aligned with MiFID II requirements in line with the new requirements for Britains deal on financial services. Fee structures, tax implications, budgets and invoicing activities will all need a rethink. This will lead to a mountain of contractual paperwork and requires the implementation of new processes and procedures. However, getting to grips with post-Brexit bureaucracy is only part of a much wider problem for European and UK research houses.

With the UK outside the European Economic Area (EEA), how will the relationship between British based research brokers and their EU clients change? The problem is, since MiFID II, the number of formal counterparty research agreements have jumped tenfold for houses. If the UK is not aligned 100% to the same research rules and tax rates come March 29th 2019, its going to be much harder to work out and process accurate research invoicing and spend. Major industry players such as Londons LCH have expressed concerns that regulatory equivalence, which is the PMs current plan for financial services, will not be enough to prevent an operational nightmare.

And if Brexit wasnt enough to think about, the knock-on effects of the MiFID II research unbundling rules are still reverberating across the industry. The buy-side has been forced to review their research sources and, in many cases, scale back on the costs. This has created a price-war among brokerage houses, who are having to compete fiercely for business. These effects arent quite as severe for the bigger research and specialist houses, but for the midrange firms, this is hugely detrimental. Recent research from Greenwich Associates, however, has highlighted that specialist houses have not quite been feeling the benefits of these changes and, as a result, the main beneficiaries of the changes has been the larger investment banks.

Evidently, navigating Brexits bureaucracy will only be part of a much wider problem for research houses still getting to grips with the post-MIFID II market structure. Just as Research brokers have got their MiFID II operations in line, along comes Brexits uncertainty. As outlined by the LCH, regardless of whether the deal is signed off or not, research brokers need to prepare for all possible eventualities. At this stage, its hard to say exactly how big the invoicing headache will be on every research contract. But, if transparency really means transparency under MiFID II and Brexit really does mean Brexit, perhaps they should consider arming themselves with the capabilities to manage all research contractual processes with ease.

By Daniel Carpenter, Head of Regulation at Meritsoft

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:
Roe: 'Literally the shutdown to me makes no sense at all'
Denton is on trial for the triple murder of his mother, stepfather and grandmother at their home near Bristol on August 29, 2015.
BUHLENI  Its jobs galore for unemployed emaSwati as close to 1050 employment opportunities have been availed at Buhleni.



This was revealed during the handover of a factory shell to investors from Kingsgate Clothing Group (KCG) and Euro-Swazi Investments.

The handover was facilitated by Eswatini Investment Promotion Authority (EIPA) which identified the two companies to inject money into the kingdom.

KCG is the largest clothing manufacturing and wholesale company in Southern Africa.



Manqoba Khumalo, the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade revealed that at least 1 045 people would eventually benefit from job opportunities that would be made available by the two investors.



Khumalo said Euro-Swazi Investments capital injection was E8 million for phase one of their project which was already at implementation stage.

As per the companys projection, according to the minister, it will hire 45 people for phase one of the project.



Investment



Khumalo said for the second part, KCG would be handed a bigger factory where an investment of E5 million would be made.

He said this phase would create 1 000 jobs.



KCG is already contributing massively to the economy of Eswatini in that it is supporting about 10 companies, as it is the main buyer of garments made in Eswatini under the Cut, Make and Trim (CMT) arrangement.



The clothing made in Eswatini is then distributed to some reputable department stores available locally and outside the kingdom.

The companies are expected to start operating next month.

Khumalo revealed that the total investment for the two companies was E13 million.



During the handover, the minister said this was a milestone for the ministry as it contributed in the drive towards job creation.

Khumalo also said the ministry supported decentralised economic activities in the country.



As a ministry, we are constantly taking stock to identify and support measures and interventions that are within our reach to contribute to meaningful economic recovery, said Khumalo.



He noted that the essence of yesterdays meeting was for the purpose of handing over the factories to the two companies.

Khumalo also said the companies had been operating in other countries.



He further noted that in the past, the location of the factories was not favoured by new industries.

However, the minister said this was changing since major development was taking place everywhere. The minister said it was obvious that Buhleni would soon become a hub for the surrounding areas.
SITEKI  Head teachers have spoken. All schools nationwide will open next Tuesday when the 2019 academic year commences.



This is despite the plethora of challenges currently plaguing the education sector, which include; shortage of stationery, food, unpaid support staff and the planned strike by teachers.



Speaking on the sidelines of a leadership workshop for Lubombo Head teachers, Eswatini Principals Association (EPA) President, Welcome Mhlanga said the multiple challenges faced by the education sector should not deprive pupils of their right to learn.

We have admitted pupils and some have already paid school fees, hence we cannot shut down schools because of the challenges we are faced with, he said.



Protest



He further said head teachers would open schools even on Monday, January 28 - a date when teachers and civil servants have planned a protest march.

Unless we are told otherwise by the ministry (of Education and Training), we will open schools for learners to learn on that day, he added.



He clarified though that their decision to open schools despite all the challenges should not be interpreted to mean that they were fine with the challenges.

He stated categorically that they were also fully behind civil servants demand for a cost of living adjustment (CoLA).



We are also public servants so we want the money. We are fully behind the demand for CoLA, he stated.

He further touched on the issue of top-up fees.

He said parents who wished to pay top-up fees voluntarily or those who wished to donate to schools should not be prevented from doing so.



He stated that schools were not exclusively owned by government but also belonged to the community.

If a chief decides to donate food to starving pupils of a school in his community, he should not be prevented. And so are parents who wish to assist schools overcome the massive challenges, said Mhlanga.



He acknowledged that schools nationwide were in serious financial crisis and in dire need of financial injection in order to stay afloat this academic year.

Hence, he suggested that government needed to make the process of applying for permission to charge top up fees less strigent.



Through the current set up, no school will charge top-up fees because the applications take long to reach the approving authority, Mhlanga added.

Meanwhile, the teachers union said it supported the ban on schools charging top-up fees only on condition that government increases Free Primary Education (FPE) grants.



Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Secretary General, Sikelela Dlamini said it was pointless to freeze top up fees while FPE grants are not increased.



He said this was the reason schools had plunged into serious financial crisis.

A week ago, this publication reported that there would be no more top up fees in primary schools.



Conflict



Meanwhile, some head teachers from Lubombo were yesterday trained on leadership, conflict management, decision making and effective communication.

The workshop, which was held at the Regional Education Offices (REO) conference room, was attended by members of Eswatini Principals Association (EPA).



Dr Njabu Nsibandze, who is a lecturer at the University of Eswatini, facilitated the workshop and she took the head teachers on a three-hour session where she unpacked leadership, communication and decision-making.
MBABANE  Will cutting the 10 per cent from ministries help while government is still bloated with duplication of departments?



Social commentators have in recent years articulated the duplication of responsibilities within government, citing that it consumed large amounts that could be redirected to priority areas.



An economist, who gave this interview under anonymity, said it was prudent that government merged a number of departments under certain ministries to minimise the expenditure incurred by the State.



He said it was redundant to minimise the budget of each ministry by 10 per cent while the resources available were not adequately used. This, the economist said, would be counter the intended economic recovery.



Discipline



In exercising fiscal discipline, the scholar proposed that the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economic Planning and Development and that of Commerce, Industry and Trade should combine some of their departments.



Efficiencies are bridged and this results in the same number of offices in different ministries. The major problem this creates is that it increases government expenditure against investment in the economy, he said.



The scholar further said these duplicated ministries needed to be looked at seriously and be revamped. The economist further said the main people to function must be the technocrats because the political heads change.



The economist opined that government should copy what the private sector was doing in terms of addressing high productivity and by so doing, it would minimise the high wage bill. He further cited that the duplication of responsibilities meant that a lot of human resource was remunerated for executing the same duties. They use large volume of stationery, need resources like fuel and transport to do the same thing while it could be combined into one department that shall be accountable to a single supervisor.
MBABANE  A pound of flesh for acts of generosity. This is the observation of a businessman whose kind gesture to rescue pupils faced with dropping out of school for lack of money is being impeded by the tax legislation.



The businessman has been approached by several pupils whose parents are either deceased, unemployed or just poverty stricken to afford the soaring education costs. He has opened his heart and is willing to lend a helping hand, if only such a gesture would be regarded as an expense and not be taxed.



Currently, school fees in government owned high schools is approximately E7 000, excluding uniforms and transportation costs. The Income Tax Order of 1975, as amended, allows for taxation of donations made from profit making companies, something that is considered an impediment by potential businesspeople who want to make donations.



Eswatini Revenue Authority (SRA) Director of Communications Vusi Dlamini said the law stipulates certain conditions for donations made from private companies.

The first condition for the donation to be considered as an allowable deduction is that it must be made to certain institutions i.e. to an amateur sporting association, charity or educational institution of a public character within the definition of exempt organisation (Section 14 (u)Incoming Tax Order.



The second is that the donation may not exceed five per cent of the taxable income of the donor company. For example, if the taxable income of that company is E1 000 000, they can donate up to E50 000, which can be considered as an allowable deduction (expense) to the donor company, he said.



The Mbabane businessman, who asked not to be named for fear of attracting an influx of requests for sponsorships for school fees is, however, not convinced.

I do not have a lot of money, but I am willing to help the needy with the little I have. If only I could be allowed to make a donation to the needy without paying tax for this, I would be pleased, he said.



The donor said though government had, in the past announced that there would be no top-up fees, such was just an illusion on the part of the State.

I have used my personal salary to pay for the school fees of children in the past, because head teachers disregard the ministrys directive and no punitive measures are taken. I also have never seen government paying for other school expenses such as uniform, school shoes and the like.
English French

Paris, January 18, 2019

Strategic alliance between Iliad and Jaguar Network

The Iliad Group has entered into a strategic alliance with Jaguar Network by acquiring a majority stake in the company. Facilitated by Jaguar Network's long-standing shareholders, the deal includes Iliad buying out the interest held in the company by the private equity firm Naxicap.

Jaguar Network is a sovereign service provider that supplies high availability services to private businesses and the public sector and is one of France's leading developers of cutting-edge technologies for the Cloud, Telecommunications and Smart Cities markets.

This acquisition marks a major step forward in Iliad's development strategy for addressing the corporate market, by forging an alliance with a well-known entrepreneur and combining the strong, complementary skills of both groups.

Kevin Polizzi, Jaguar Network's Founder, remains the company's Chief Executive Officer and has retained a 25% stake, clearly demonstrating his confidence in the company's future and his desire to participate in achieving its new goals.

Iliad purchased its 75% stake in Jaguar Network based on a multiple of 10.6x EBITDA, representing an investment of just under 100 million.

About Jaguar Network

Jaguar Network is a sovereign service provider that offers companies trusted support for their digital transformation processes. Drawing on its widely-recognized expertise in telecommunications, the cloud, IoT and managed services, Jaguar Network uses its proprietary fiber network that is inter-connected with its own datacenters located in France. These datacenters meet the highest standards in terms of eco-design, operation and security (including HADS approval and ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS certification).

Innovation is in Jaguar Network's DNA and it has in-house R&D teams dedicated to network- and cloud-based value-added services, integrating technologies such as Edge Computing, IA, Big Data and IoT.

Operating through a network of regional agencies, the company continually invests in very high availability infrastructure and provides its new-generation services to over 1,200 clients in the private and public sector.

www.jaguar-network.com

About Iliad

Iliad is the parent company of Free, the inventor of the Freebox, the first multiservice box on ADSL. Free is behind numerous innovations in the Broadband and Ultra-Fast Broadband access segment. Since January 2012, Free has brought mobile phone usage within everyone's reach with straightforward offerings at very attractive prices. Free has 20 million subscribers (6.5 million Broadband and Ultra-Fast Broadband subscribers and 13.5 million mobile subscribers at September 30, 2018). On May 29, 2018, the Iliad Group launched its mobile business in Italy under the Iliad brand, becoming the country's fourth mobile network operator, and had over 2.23 million subscribers at September 30, 2018.

www.iliad.fr

Exchange Euronext Paris Market place: Eurolist A of Euronext Paris (SRD)

Ticker symbol: ILD ISIN: FR0004035913

FTSE Classification: 974 Internet Member of Euro Stoxx, SBF 120, CAC Mid 100
MBABANE  The National Agricultural Marketing Board (NAMBoard) has affirmed that the country has recorded high levels of mango produce that is ripe and ready for market.



This pronouncement follows a national surveillance conducted by the Board to determine how much production of the fruit, currently in season, had local farmers acquired.



Namboard Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Siphephiso Dlamini highlighted that through a national survey that was conducted, there were approximately over 2 000 tonnes of mango produced by local fruit growers this season with roughly 70 per cent ready for the market.



This was in comparison to an average 122 tonnes per year that the nation would record in the previous years. He mentioned that five varieties were produced, which were, the Tommy Atkins, Heidi, Kent, Sabre and Sensation.



Volumes



The rise in volumes was attributed to both the favourable weather conditions this year as well as the growth in number of farmers growing mangoes in the past year.

It was disclosed that more than 30 000 seedlings were bought and sold to farmers in the past three years through the 10 000-fruit tree per year sourcing project pursued by NAMBoard.



It was stated that most of these had reached their first year of harvest this year.

A good section of local retailers and markets are evidently sourcing their fruit from local farmers, under the continuing local sourcing initiative promoting buying of local famers produce, explained Dlamini.



The CEO explained that Namboard had increased its focus on this product line for now until it moves to the market.

Buyers were urged to find the famers with the ripe produce and anyone who may need such information will be requested to contact Encabeni Fresh Produce Market offices.



Recorded



The amount of mango produce recorded this season has created an opportunity to explore the export market. A few of the commercial farmers are already exporting and this continues to be under development.



NAMBoard is also assisting with some export of the high-quality produce to a few SADC markets including the South African markets in Johannesburg Tshwane, Durban as well as Botswana, said Dlamini.


Things to do in the Attleboro area and beyond


remaining of

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THE SHORTHORN

Is seeking work study student assistants for our reception desk for summer and fall.Prompt, cheerful, students with professional attitudes are encouraged to apply to answer office phones and greet guests from behind a plexiglass COVID barrier.Preference is given to students available to work some mornings. This in-office job offers flexible hours and plenty of time to study.Apply through Handshake for job #4723423 or call 817-272-3188 for more information.
Posted Thursday, January 17, 2019 6:37 am

In a routine thats become as predictable as the Mariners missing the playoffs or Starbucks hiking the price of a cup of coffee, Governor Jay Inslee has released a budget proposal that would raise taxes on Washingtonians by billions of dollars  $10 billion over the next four years to be exact.

Along with a new capital gains income tax would come an increase in the service B&O tax rate. The governor has also proposed an increase to the real estate excise tax for tens of thousands of property owners across Washington state.

Some may be eager to dismiss these tax hikes as mere wish list items for a governor that wants to shore up his progressive credentials as he prepares to run for president. However, a bill to implement a capital gains tax has already been introduced this session by one of his allies in the House.

Time and time again, Washingtonians have said no to tax increases. On five separate occasions, voters have approved ballot measures to require a supermajority in both chambers to raise taxes. In 2010, all but one county voted against an initiative to impose a state income tax, and in both 2016 and 2018, the vast majority of voters rejected measures to implement a new carbon tax.

Despite these votes, some politicians continue to make it their mission to raise taxes. Its almost as if theyre more interested in advancing their own agenda than listening to the people.

Along with an eagerness to raise taxes is an eagerness to spend more of your hard-earned dollars. In the 2011-13 biennium, the states operating budget totaled $30.9 billion. The governors 2019-21 budget would spend $54.4 billion. Thats a 76-percent increase in less than a decade.

While we are currently living in the best economic times in recent memory, most economists will tell you that we are overdue for a slowdown. As much as we wish otherwise, the good times wont always last. As someone who navigated a business through the 2008 financial crisis, I know that as well as anyone.

What state lawmakers and the governor need to understand is the value of fiscal discipline. It may not be as exciting of an approach as spending every dime we have and hoping for the best, but it is the only approach that will ensure we are prepared for an economic downturn. This session, the Legislature must commit to building up the states rainy day fund instead of raiding it for short-term needs.

This debate over tax hikes and the growth of spending is nothing new. Whats different this year is that Democrats have larger majorities in the House and Senate. That means they are fully in the drivers seat and can choose to ignore those of us in the minority calling for fiscal restraint.

It is my hope, however, that they will not only heed our warnings but that they will respect what Washingtonians have repeatedly stated they want: no new taxes and a government that lives within its means.

Anything short of that will rightly be seen as failure.

{{tncms-inline content="<p class="p1">Rep. Larry Hoff, R-Vancouver, is serving his first term in the Washington State House of Representatives. He is the assistant ranking Republican of the House Consumer Protection and Business Committee. He also serves on the House Appropriations and House Labor and Workplace Standards committees.</p>" id="e8d09b18-6cdb-4f21-ba30-9df417d36344" style-type="bio" title="About the author " type="relcontent"}}
Posted Thursday, January 17, 2019 6:47 am

The Clark County measles outbreak continues to worsen.

Today Public Health announced two more confirmed cases, for a total of 16 since Jan. 1. All the cases are among children, and five more are suspected.

In addition to the list released yesterday, today's announcement also came with more locations and times of when and where one could have been exposed, including three Battle Ground locations:

Health care facilities

 Rose Urgent Care and Family Practice, 18 NW 20th Ave., Battle Ground

3:45 to 8 pm Monday, Jan. 14.

 Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center Emergency Department, 2211 NE 139th St., Vancouver

11:40 pm Monday, Jan. 14 to 5:10 am Tuesday, Jan. 15.

Schools

 Tukes Valley Primary School, 20601 NE 167th Ave., Battle Ground

Tuesday, Jan. 8.

 Tukes Valley Middle School, 20601 NE 167th Ave., Battle Ground

Tuesday, Jan. 8

Below are the newest details provided by Public Health regarding the confirmed cases:

Age

 1 to 10 years: 13 cases

 11 to 18 years: three cases

Immunization status

 Unverified: two cases

 Unimmunized: 14 cases

 Hospitalization: one case (one suspected case has also been hospitalized)

Those who may be exposed and believe they have measles symptoms are asked to contact their healthcare provider prior to visiting their offices to avoid more exposure.

Public Health is requiring the exclusion of students and staff without documented immunity to measles from schools identified as possible exposure sites. Students and staff at schools where measles exposure did not occur are not impacted by exclusions, today's news release states.

Those with the disease are contagious for four days before the rash appears and up to four days after the rash appears, according to Public Health. The department noted that children younger than 5 and adults older than 20 were most likely to suffer complications including lung and ear infections, diarrhea and in rare cases swelling of the brain.

Public health did note some likely immune groups, such as those born before 1957, those who are certain they have already had the disease and those up-to-date on vaccines  one dose for children up to four years old and two doses for those four and older.

Public Health has established a call center for questions about the investigation: 360-397-8021. Hours are 9 am to 5 pm daily, including weekends. There is also a website: clark.wa.gov/public-health/measles-investigation.

Anyone with questions about measles infection or the measles vaccine should call their primary care provider or their local county health department:

Clark County Public Health, 360-397-8021

Multnomah County Public Health, 503-988-3406

Washington County Public Health, 503-846-3594

Clackamas County Public Health, 503-655-8411
Toronto, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Following the Ford Governments announcement on post-secondary education yesterday further details have emerged that confirm any benefit students may experience from a reduction in tuition fees will be offset by other reckless changes being proposed. These severe changes will be felt across the province by students and their families, faculty, staff and administrations.





The Ford Government may want to celebrate yesterdays announcement but the truth is any benefit of a tuition fee reduction is being offset by other reckless changes being proposed, said Nour Alideeb, Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario. The real impact of this announcement was revealed in the details and in almost every way it is a bad deal for students and their families.





After yesterdays press conference and a meeting with staff at the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities the following negative proposals can be confirmed:

International students, who pay the highest tuition fees, are ineligible for a 10% reduction in tuition fees. Universities and colleges will face funding cuts of up to $440 million which impact the quality of education in the province. These deep cuts are expected to be downloaded onto students and workers through larger class sizes, fewer course options and cuts to wages and benefits. Students pursuing second-entry programs will be forced to take out a loan no matter their financial situation. This will impact graduate students and professional students in programs such as law and medicine and will likely mean students from middle and lower income families will have to take on greater debt to access these programs. The 6-month grace period on repaying student loans is being eliminated and interest will begin accumulating on student loans immediately after graduation. Mature students will face new barriers to accessing student loans and grants and the definition of dependent is being changed requiring students to be out of high school for 6 years (up from 4). These mature students will have their parents income factored into the OSAP needs assessment, regardless of whether or not they are economically independent, affecting access to grants. The expected parental contribution amount, which determines how much financial assistance students will receive, is set to increase. This change negatively impacts families that have multiple children pursuing post-secondary education, as well as students whose parents do not contribute the expected amount. Students from families with annual earnings below $50,000 will be forced to take a loan as part of their financial assistance, rather than a non-repayable grant covering the average cost of tuition. Students from families with annual earnings between $50,000 and $140,000 will receive a higher proportion of repayable loans to non-repayable grants in their financial assistance. Students from families with annual earnings between $140,000 and $170,000 will no longer eligible for the Ontario Student Grant, only repayable loans. Students unions are under attack. Students democratically decide to participate in and fund the activities of their students union through the collection of dues. The Ford government is encouraging students to opt out of their students union dues. This will reduce the ability of students unions to represent and service their members. Students unions serve their members in a number of significant ways, all of which are now under threat:

Coordinating non-profit health and dental insurance plan Negotiating discounted transit passes for students Providing academic support and advocate services (such as challenging academic misconduct decisions and representing students on tribunals) Representing students on academic councils and academic departments Running essential support services such as peer support, equity centres (e.g Pride centres, gender resource centres, disability advocacy centre, racialized, indigenous student centres), sexual violence support centres, food banks Creating volunteer and good job opportunities for students; Collecting fees for independent campus press, such as newspaper and radio Operating non-profit commercial services, such as book stores, restaurants, cafes and food services. Resource causes and programs that students have democratically decided to fund, such as the Student Refugee Program (WUSC) Coordinating orientation weeks Providing first contact for international students Offering funding for student clubs





Students unions are the independent, democratic voice for students ensuring they may have a say in their own education. Students, through their students unions, have long fought for government action on accessible, affordable high quality public post-secondary education, so its no wonder they are the next target of the Ford Government said Sami Pritchard, National Executive Representative of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario.





The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario is the largest student organization in the province, representing over 350,000 college and university students, and advocates for affordable, high-quality post-secondary education.





-30-





For more information contact:

Ian McRae, Government Relations and Policy Coordinator: 416-925-3825 or 306-852-0128 (cell)

Nour Alideeb, Chairperson: 416-925-3825
Posted Thursday, January 17, 2019 6:53 am

Three seniors at Woodland High School  Evan Ailinger, Michael Gabalis, and Orion Hollar  recently received their results from their Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) and discovered they each earned a perfect score of 800 on the math section of the test.

Many students planning to attend college take the SAT, an admission requirement for many colleges and universities. The College Board, the organization which oversees the SAT as well as Advanced Placement (AP) class requirements, designed the SAT to measure students knowledge in a variety of content areas including language arts, analytical skill, and mathematics.

Rare achievement

The College Board doesnt release the exact number of students who receive 800 in each section of the SAT each year, however, the organization does say that the number who receive a perfect score in any section is less than 1 percent.

Using 1 percent as a baseline, the possibility of three students taking the SAT at the same high school receiving perfect math scores is less than 0.0001 percent, a news release from the district reads. In other words, the chance of three Woodland High School students receiving perfect math scores the same year is quite literally less than one-in-a-million.

Having three students do it in a single school year is almost unheard of and the staff is incredibly proud of the students accomplishment and the hard work they put in to make it happen, said Woodland High School Principal John Shoup.

Ailinger attributes his success on the SAT to his passion for math.

I love the feeling I get when I get the right answer for a math problem, he said.

In a similar way, Hollar likes the definitive nature of solutions to math problems.

When you get the right answer, you know youve gotten the right answer, he said.

Gabalis sticks by the rule that your first answer is likely your best answer.

Definitely trust your first instinct with an answer, he said. The College Board has statistics that show students who change their answer more likely change a right answer to a wrong one rather than the other way around.

How they prepared

Gabalis, also a Running Start student enrolled at Clark College, currently takes Calculus 4 and prepared for the SAT by taking practice tests.

When it comes to math, students shouldnt study the questions they think might be on the test, they should study the concepts, he said. The SATs problems involve quick math so its more important to work on timing and how to use your resources wisely.

Hollar agrees with Gabalis strategy of knowing the concepts.

If you know all of the basics and all the little things related to them, youll have a much better chance of doing well.

Ailinger shared advice for students having trouble learning math concepts.

Students who struggle need to know that its okay to ask for help, he said. It can often feel challenging to ask for help, but all of our teachers give great guidance and have the answers we need, even when it comes to specific knowledge on what may be covered on the SATs.

Plans for the Future

Ailinger is considering joining the military and working in their Nuclear Study division.

One position that really appeals to me is operating the control board for nuclear reactors, he said. The responsibility and accountability of that position really appeals to me.

Gabalis hopes to attend the University of Washington and plans to major in Aerospace Engineering,

I also really enjoy English and History so I might minor in something in those areas, too, he said.

Hollar hopes to attend Oregon State University and major in Electrical Engineering.

OSUs location near the ocean results in a really excellent electrical engineering where theyre currently studying whether the oceans currents can be harnessed to generate electricity, he said.
Lawrence Fox Lawrence "Larry" Joseph Fox was born in 42 to parents, Frances J. Court and Alphonse P. Fox, of Vancouver, Wash. He lived in Clark County all his life. He passed away 

Cecil Felix Kopman Cecil Felix Kopman was born in Brookings, S.D. on May 6, 2019 to Chance and Natasha (Reddig) Kopman. He was baptized into the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of Lake Norden, S.D.; He spent most of his 

Roy Elmer Roy Elmer, 97, died at his Battle Ground, Wash., May 25, 2020. He was born at Red Cross Outpost, Bengough, Saskatchewan. His family had a farm near the Village of Viceroy.The family moved to 

Margaret (Ferguson) Beck: 1941-2021 On May 24, 2021, Margaret (Ferguson) Beck passed away peacefully at home next to her husband of 59 years, James, and surrounded by her children, Jennifer, Jonathan, and David. She leaves two loving 
History

Former U.S. Rep. John Dingell pens book detailing his days of having the best seat in the House
Saoirse Ronan

Lady Gaga

Stacey Dooley

Image Credit: Classic Film on Flickr

The '50s, '60s, and '80s are decades that constantly influence the clothing we see on the catwalks and across the great British high street, so who better to look to for inspiration than the fashion greats of those decades? Here's our pick of the five ladies you should be paying homage to this year:

Image Credit: John Irving on Flickr

Marc Jacobs

and

Nobody embodies the '80s quite as much as Dame Joan Collins. The stand-out star of the iconic Dynasty, Alexis Colby had a wardrobe full of sequins, shoulder pads and pure fabulousness that we could only dream of. She's even got an Instagram account dedicated to her best looks - '' is a must follow for any fashion fiend. At 85 years old, Joan Collins is still heavily influencing the fashion of today. Celine all showcased Alexis inspired looks in their SS19 shows. So channel your inner Joan and look out for heavy embellishments, (faux) fur, jewel-toned luxurious fabrics and of course... exaggerated shoulders.

Image Credit: Classic Film on Flickr

When we think of Audrey Hepburn, we often go back to her most iconic character - Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). This season, however, channel Audrey in later life by taking inspiration from her key colour palette of all-white-everything.

favoured

All white is a huge trend for SS19 with, and Boss all exhibiting looks in the pale hue. Audreythe cropped cigarette trousers and matching jumper combo - a total classic, but this season you can really experiment with tonal dressing. Match your dress to your boots, or your jeans to your t-shirt and blazer.

Image Credit: Classic Film on Flickr

inspo

colours

The '60s never go out of style, and this season take outfitfrom Valley of the Dolls (1967) actress, Sharon Tate. With the pending release ofwhere Margot Robbie will take on the role of Tate, her influence is clear to see over the fashion world.and are two brands which are very loyal to the '60s style, and this season they have babydoll silhouettes, brightand experimental patterns - a true homage to Sharon Tate.

Image Credit: Sacheverelle on Flickr

colour

Mrs

colour

Mrs

Pantone has announced that theof the year is 'Living Coral', a shade that is set to take over the fashion world. However,Kennedy was rocking the underwaterback in 1962 - proof that her style was a good half a century ahead of its time. Jackie's style is arguably more memorable than her husband's politics, with skirt suits, tweed jackets and large rounded black sunglasses still being fashion staples decades after she made them a trend.and of course,all sent Jackie-inspired looks down their pre-fall 2019 catwalks, which of course proves thatO's style is firmly cemented in fashion history.

Image Credit: Classic Film on Flickr

particular the iconic ' diamonds are a girl's best friend' Marilyn Monroe is a true enigma, who influences everything from art to film to fashion. This SS19, take note of her wardrobe from the cult classic Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), inthe iconic 'scene. Millennial pink is long gone, so this year say a nostalgic welcome back to fuchsia.

Emilia Wickstead Rodarte utilised the strong pink hue in their SS19 collections, and we expect to see the colour across the red carpet during this year's awards season. andallthe strong pink hue in their SS19 collections, and we expect to see theacross the red carpet during this year's awards season.

Lead Image -
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Schall Law Firm , a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces the filing of a class action lawsuit against The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (Goldman Sachs or the Company) (NYSE: GS ) for violations of 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.



Investors who purchased the Company's shares between February 28, 2014 and December 17, 2018, inclusive (the ''Class Period''), are encouraged to contact the firm before February 19, 2019.

If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate .

We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall, or Sherin Mahdavian, of the Schall Law Firm, 1880 Century Park East, Suite 404, Los Angeles, CA 90067, at 424-303-1964, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website at www.schallfirm.com , or by email at brian@schallfirm.com .

The class, in this case, has not yet been certified, and until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member.

According to the Complaint, the Company made false and misleading statements to the market. Goldman Sachs conspired with 1Malaysia Development Bhd., an investment fund owned by the government of Malaysia, to commit money laundering and fraud. These schemes would expose Goldman Sachs to legal and regulatory scrutiny, a fact the company could have reasonably foreseen. Based on these facts, the Companys public statements were false and materially misleading throughout the class period. When the market learned the truth about Goldman Sachs, investors suffered damages.

Join the case to recover your losses.

The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics.

CONTACT:

The Schall Law Firm

Brian Schall, Esq.,

Sherin Mahdavian, Esq.,

www.schallfirm.com

Office: 310-301-3335

Cell: 424-303-1964

info@schallfirm.com

SOURCE:

The Schall Law Firm
Salida, CO (81201)

Today

Sunny skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High 91F. NNW winds shifting to WSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. Low 58F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
This is a promotional post from one of our LES Partners, The Lower East Side Partnership.

Last Week the Essex Market Celebrated 79 Years in Operation on the Lower East Side.

In the winter of 1940, Mayor LaGuardia formally opened the Essex Market, the fourth of ten public markets in New York City designed to move pushcarts off the street and vendors into stall spaces within modern indoor markets. In the 20 years that followed, Essex Market became a center for food education, hosting weekly cooking classes during a time of food shortage. Today the market is home to a culturally diverse collection of small business owners, amongst them are grocers, butchers, and cheesemongers.

As construction wraps up across Delancey at the new Essex Market facility in Essex Crossing, the celebration reminds Lower East Side neighbors that the current market is open for business and staying true its mission of providing fresh and accessible food.

Market staff handed out cupcakes to shoppers from future vendor, Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery, who will join the new market at 88 Delancey this spring.

Follow Essex Market on Instagram for shopping updates and learn more at essexmarket.com.

*This is a promotional post from one of our LES Partners, The Lower East Side Partnership.
Catching up with a friend over Zoom, I wondered what might have happened if China had come clean about the presence and origins of COVID-19 before it spread beyond Wuhan. But, my friend asked, wouldn't the United States have done the same and tried to hide it, too?
TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VitalHub Corp. (the Company) (TSXV: VHI) is pleased to announce that it has completed a non-brokered private placement (the Offering) of units (Units) with the former founders and management team of Aastra Technologies Limited (the Investors). The Offering was completed at a price $0.16 per Unit for gross proceeds of $3.3 million and a total of 20,625,000 Units issued.



The Investors are comprised of Aastra Technologies Limited (Aastra) founder, former Chairman and co-CEO Francis Shen; Aastra former President, co-CEO and COO Tony Shen; former Aastra CFO and current CFO of The Descartes Systems Group Inc., Allan Brett; and former Aastra General Counsel and current VP  M&A and General Counsel of Sangoma Technologies Corp., John Tobia. Francis Shen and Tony Shen invested by way of holding companies, Connection 25 Inc. and TMWE Inc., respectively (together, the Principal Investors).

Aastra was established in 1983 by Francis Shen and a partner, and was joined by Franciss brother Tony Shen in the late 1980s. Aastra initially serviced the aerospace and defense market, and quickly transitioned in the early 1990s to the rapidly growing telecom industry. Together, the Shen brothers quickly expanded Aastra through new product innovation, and later successfully employed an aggressive M&A consolidation strategy and global market expansion. They quickly grew the company to over 2,000 employees and more than $700 million in annual revenue. Aastra was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker "AAH" from 2000 until 2014, when it was acquired by Mitel Networks Corporation (listed under "MNW") in a transaction that returned over $500 million to its shareholders. In addition, in prior years, Aastra returned over $200 million in dividends and stock buybacks.

Francis Shen will be joining the Companys Board of Directors (Board), and Tony Shen will serve as a Board Observer. The Company will also constitute a new committee of the Board to consider M&A strategy and initiatives, which Francis Shen will be chairing (the M&A Committee). The M&A committee will work with a non-Board advisory group that will include the Investors, VitalHub CEO Dan Matlow, and VitalHub CFO Brian Goffenberg. The Company has also agreed to an additional board nominee for Francis Shen should all of the Two-Year Warrants be exercised in full.

Use of proceeds from the Offering will be for acquisition purposes only, to advance the Companys M&A strategy.

M&A is an integral part of our growth and business plan, said Dan Matlow, CEO of VitalHub. It is very exciting to have a group of experienced technology executives invest in and endorse our vision and team. We are looking forward to working closely with them as we continue to execute on our strategy.

We have had the opportunity to examine and review VitalHubs business, and we strongly believe in their approach and the opportunity that exists to bring the Company to scale, said Francis Shen, founder, and former Chairman and co-CEO of Aastra Technologies Limited. We believe we can assist and add value in growing the Company to become something special for all shareholders.

Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company (the Common Shares), one half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a Two-Year Warrant) with each such Two-Year Warrant being exercisable for one Common Share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.29 (the Two-Year Exercise Price), for a period of 24 months from the date of issuance, and one half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a Three-Year Warrant) with each such Three-Year Warrant being exercisable for one Common Share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.39 (the Three-Year Exercise Price), for a period of 36 months from the date of issuance (the Two-Year Warrants and Three-Year Warrants together, the Warrants).

Pursuant to the Offering, the Company issued a total of 20,625,000 Common Shares, 10,312,500 Two-Year Warrants and 10,312,500 Three-Year Warrants. Connection 25 Inc. and TMWE Inc. purchased, 12,812,500 and 6,250,000 Units respectively. Connection 25 Inc. now holds 8.27% of the total Common Shares of the Company (undiluted), and 15.28% of the Company (fully-diluted). TMWE Inc. now holds 4.03% of the total Common Shares of the Company (undiluted), and 7.76% of the Company (fully-diluted). Because of this, the Principal Investors and the Company have agreed to treat the Principal Investors as acting jointly and have added terms to the subscription agreements and Warrants held thereby which prevent the Principal Investors from exercising that number of Warrants such that their aggregate total Common Shares held would be equal to or greater than 20% of the total issued and outstanding Common Shares of the Company. In addition, the Company has agreed that 367,907 Warrants, being that number of Warrants which, if exercised, would result in the Principal Shareholders holding greater than 19.99% of the total issued and outstanding Common Shares of the Company, shall be subject to cashless exercise provisions in the event that the Principal Investors wish to exercise such Warrants but are otherwise unable, the Company will exchange the Warrants for cash payment equal to the difference of the closing price of the Companys Common Shares on the date prior to the notice of exercise delivered to the Company by the Principal Investor and the exercise price of the subject Warrant.

All securities issued in connection with the Offering are subject to a four month hold period expiring May 20, 2019.

About VitalHub:

VitalHub develops and supports mission-critical information systems in the Social Service, Mental Health (Child, Youth and Adult), Long Term Care, Community Health Service, Home Health and Hospital sectors. VitalHub technologies include Blockchain, Mobile, and Web-Based Assessment, Client Management and Electronic Health Record solutions.

The Company has a robust two-pronged growth strategy, targeting organic growth opportunities within its product suite, and pursuing an aggressive M&A plan. Currently, VitalHub serves 200+ clients across North America. VitalHub is based in Toronto, Canada, with an offshore innovation hub in Sri Lanka. The Company is publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "VHI".

Cautionary Statement:

The TSX Venture Exchange has in no way passed upon the merits of the transactions and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

This press release includes forward-looking statements regarding the Company and its business, which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the appointment of a new directors. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "is expected", "expects", "scheduled", "intends", "contemplates", "anticipates", "believes", "proposes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Such statements are based on the current expectations of the management of each entity, and are based on assumptions and subject to risks and uncertainties. Although the management of each entity believes that the assumptions underlying these statements are reasonable, they may prove to be incorrect. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release, including the Companys M&A strategy and proposed board appointment(s), may not occur by certain specified dates or at all and could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting the companies, including risks regarding failure to obtain approvals, market conditions, economic factors, trends in the technologies industry, the equity markets generally and risks associated with growth and competition. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Except as required by applicable securities laws, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Contact Information:

Dan Matlow

Chief Executive Officer, Director

(416) 727-9061

dan.matlow@vitalhub.com
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Dublin, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Telcos' MSS Market Opportunity in APAC" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



"Telcos' MSS Market Opportunity in APAC", provides an executive-level overview of the managed security services (MSS) market opportunity for telecoms companies in Asia Pacific (APAC). It delivers qualitative insights into the MSS market, analyzing key trends and growth drivers in the region.



The MSS market size in the APAC region is expected to grow by a CAGR of 9.4% between 2017-2022, rising from US$19.7 billion in 2017 to US$30.8 billion by 2022. From a global perspective, the APAC region was the third largest MSS revenue generator in 2017, with 25% of the global total and will remain the third largest with a 25% share over the forecast period.



APAC telcos are in varying states of development with their MSS services. Some larger telcos in developed markets with an enterprise focus have become quite advanced, offering application, infrastructure, and cybersecurity services, even investing in their own SOCs. However many just fairly recently launched their MSS services with application security often a prominently featured type of service usually alongside a portfolio of infrastructure security services. Infrastructure security services tend to be closer to a telco's traditional enterprise offerings. A key strategic advantage APAC telcos have, particularly in emerging markets, is their in-country presence and experience which can be important for some verticals that might regulatory restrictions to keep data domestically or in some markets not well covered by global vendors.



There is a large disparity in the MSS capability between APAC's leading telcos and those that have only recently launched forays into security services. APAC telcos with a strong legacy in providing enterprise solutions around networking, cloud, and data centers are better positioned in the MSS space than telcos who have focused on mass market communication or only simple enterprise connectivity.



The report provides in-depth analysis of the following



Managed Security Services: Taxonomy and Market Context: This section provides an overview of the core portfolio of telecom operators' managed security services.

Telco's MSS market opportunity: This section looks at the recent development and the current state of managed security services in APAC, while also providing a closer look at the drivers and inhibitors for telcos in various categories of security services.

Key findings and recommendations: it consists of a summary of key findings and growth opportunities for telcos in the APAC managed security services market.

Scope

There is a large disparity in the MSS capability between APAC's leading telcos and those that have only recently launched forays into security services. APAC telcos with a strong legacy in providing enterprise solutions around networking, cloud, and data centers are better positioned in the MSS space than telcos who have focused on mass market communication or only simple enterprise connectivity.

APAC is the world's third largest region in terms of MSS revenue in 2017 with $19.7 billion, accounting for about 25% of the global total. APAC will keep pace with the rest of the world in terms of MSS revenue growth, with a CAGR of 9.4% for both APAC and total global revenue over 2017 to 2022, retaining a 25% share in global MSS revenue in 2022 with $30.8 billion.

APAC telco that offer MSS often prominently feature application security along side a portfolio of infrastructure security services. Telcos may build on in-country sales channels and staff, customer relationships, and knowledge of local market dynamics providing them with a competitive edge in the application security services segment.

Key Topics Covered:



Key takeaways



Section 1: Taxonomy and Market Context

Managed security services definition

Managed security services value chain



Section 2: Telcos' MSS Market Opportunity

APAC MSS Market Size in a Global Context

APAC MSS Market Size by Vertical and Business Size

APAC MSS Opportunity in Applications Security

APAC MSS Opportunity in Infrastructure Security

APAC MSS Opportunity in Cyber Security



Section 3: Key Findings and Recommendations



Companies Mentioned



AVG

Checkpoint

Cisco

DKAV

Fortinet

IBM

Infosys

Microsoft

NTT

Optus

PCCW

SingTel

Symantec

Telstra

Trustwave

Unisys

VMWare

VNPT

Vodafone

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8c6wz4/telcos_mss?w=12

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.
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SMITHFIELD, Va., Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Smithfield Foods, Inc. is pleased to announce an enhanced organizational structure, which includes new leadership appointments and the addition of a chief operating officer.



The new structure and leadership appointments signify the ultimate realization of One Smithfield, an initiative to unify all of Smithfields operations, brands, and more than 54,000 employees globally under one corporate umbrella. In addition, it will optimize and simplify Smithfields organizational alignment, infuse innovative ideas in all aspects of the company, and heighten its strategic focus on its $8 billion value-added business, which holds top market share in numerous product categories.

Guided by our principles of responsibility, operational excellence, and innovation, our new optimized structure and leadership team will further ignite our potential as One Smithfield by allowing us to better identify and seek out opportunities to improve our business, including ways to work smarter, serve customers better, and make Smithfield the best of the best, said Kenneth M. Sullivan, president and chief executive officer of Smithfield Foods.

Effective January 1, Dennis Organ has been promoted to chief operating officer, U.S. operations, a new position. This new role oversees and unifies all domestic business operations management, including the companys hog production, fresh pork, and packaged meats businesses. He is responsible for strategic development, day-to-day operations, and continued improvement of the companys U.S. businesses, ensuring Smithfields operations are optimized, efficient, and best-in-class. Mr. Organ has been with Smithfield for eight years and has exhibited the unique qualities necessary to execute these new responsibilities.

Under the new structure, the following members of Smithfields leadership team will report to Mr. Organ:

Gregg Schmidt, president, U.S. hog production

Jason Richter, executive vice president, U.S. fresh pork

Russ Dokken, executive vice president, U.S. packaged meats

Scott Saunders, executive vice president, U.S. supply chain

Joe Weber, executive vice president, U.S. growth and emerging businesses

Gregg Schmidt will remain president, U.S. hog production, until his retirement at the end of 2019. Brady Stewart, formerly vice president and general manager of Kansas City Sausage Company and Pine Ridge Farms, which Smithfield acquired in 2017, will work with Mr. Schmidt for the next year and succeed him upon his retirement. Mr. Stewart has been promoted to executive vice president, U.S. hog production.

Smithfield has also created a chief commercial officer, packaged meats, position that has been filled by John Pauley, who has been with the company for 18 years and was previously executive vice president of retail sales, packaged meats. Mr. Pauley is responsible for commercial strategy and development, including responsibility for all domestic packaged meats sales channels and business development, as well as all domestic marketing activities, innovation, and product development. Mr. Pauley is regarded for his market knowledge and comprehensive grasp of the companys commercial opportunities, making him the ideal leader to fill this new role.

Smithfield is also pleased to announce the promotion of Keira Lombardo to executive vice president of corporate affairs and compliance. Ms. Lombardo leads the companys communications, government affairs, sustainability, and investor relations efforts, and oversees all of Smithfields compliance functions, including legal. Ms. Lombardo has been with Smithfield for more than 16 years and has a unique and multifaceted understanding of the business, industry, and the companys broad array of stakeholders.

The enhanced structure and new leadership appointments reinforce a clear vision for the future of Smithfield focused on fulfilling its mission to produce good food in a responsible way.

About Smithfield Foods

Smithfield Foods is a $15 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathans Famous, Farmland, Armour, Farmer John, Kretschmar, John Morrell, Cooks, Gwaltney, Carando, Margherita, Curlys, Healthy Ones, Morliny, Krakus, and Berlinki. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com , and connect with us on Facebook , Twitter and LinkedIn .
TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dividend 15 Split Corp. (the Company) is pleased to announce it has completed the overnight marketing of up to 1,930,000 Preferred Shares and up to 1,930,000 Class A Shares of the Company. Total proceeds of the offering are expected to be approximately $36.0 million.

The offering is being co-led by National Bank Financial Inc., CIBC World Markets Inc., Scotia Capital Inc. and RBC Capital Markets, and also includes TD Securities Inc., BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., Canaccord Genuity Corp., Industrial Alliance Securities Inc., Echelon Wealth Partners, GMP Securities L.P., Raymond James Ltd., Desjardins Securities Inc., Mackie Research Capital Corporation, and Manulife Securities Incorporated.

The sales period of the overnight offering has now ended.

The offering is expected to close on or about January 25, 2019 and is subject to certain closing conditions including approval by the TSX.

The Preferred Shares were offered at a price of $9.90 per Preferred Share to yield 5.3% and the Class A Shares were offered at a price of $8.75 per Class A Share to yield 13.7%.

The closing price on the TSX of each of the Preferred Shares and the Class A Shares on January 17, 2019 was $10.05 and $8.76, respectively.

The net proceeds of the offering will be used by the Company to invest in an actively managed, high quality portfolio consisting of 15 dividend yielding Canadian companies as follows:

Bank of Montreal Enbridge Inc. TELUS Corporation The Bank of Nova Scotia Manulife Financial Corp. Thomson-Reuters Corporation BCE Inc. National Bank of Canada The Toronto-Dominion Bank Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Royal Bank of Canada TransAlta Corporation CI Financial Corp. Sun Life Financial Inc. TransCanada Corporation

The Companys investment objectives are:

Preferred Shares:

to provide holders of the Preferred Shares with fixed, cumulative preferential monthly cash dividends in the amount of 5.25% annually; and on or about the termination date, currently December 1, 2019 (subject to further 5 year extensions thereafter and it has been extended in the past), to pay the holders of the Preferred Shares $10.00 per Preferred Share.

Class A Shares:

to provide holders of the Class A Shares with regular monthly cash dividends currently targeted to be $0.10 per share; and on or about the termination date, currently December 1, 2019 (subject to further 5 year extensions thereafter and it has been extended in the past) to pay holders of Class A Shares at least the original issue price of those shares.

A prospectus supplement to the Companys short form base shelf prospectus dated June 1, 2018 containing important detailed information about the Preferred Shares and the Class A Shares being offered will be filed with securities commissions or similar authorities in all provinces of Canada. Copies of the prospectus supplement and the short form base shelf prospectus may be obtained from your registered financial advisor using the contact information for such advisor, or from representatives of the agents listed above. There will not be any sale or any acceptance of an offer to buy the securities being offered until the prospectus supplement has been filed with the Securities Commissions or similar authorities in each of the provinces of Canada.



For further information, please contact Dividend 15 Split Corp. Investor Relations at

416-304-4443 Toll free at 1-877-4-Quadra (1-877-478-2372) or visit www.dividend15.com
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Teekay teams up with Trinity House

A collaborative project involving Teekay Shipping and the UKs Trinity House has been set up to search for the next generation of UK seafarers.

Teekay, which has a training facility in Glasgow, is working with Trinity House to recruit cadets from across the UK to undertake a three or four year training programme, which on successful completion could lead to a permanent role with Teekay, either on board or ashore. This project will be administrated by Chiltern Maritime, a cadet management company specialising in marine cadetships. Chiltern Maritime will oversee all aspects of the training through Trinity House whilst cadets will also gain hands on experience with Teekay on board an LNGC. Cadets will also have access to Teekays Glasgow simulation centre covering shiphandling; navigation; bridge teamwork; ship-to-ship interactions; cargo operations; heavy traffic situations, and harsh weather conditions. Chris McDade, Teekay Shippings Marine HR Director, said: Our new UK cadet programme is a fantastic opportunity for those looking to pursue a rewarding career within the maritime industry. With over 40 vessels in our fleet, now is the perfect time for us to be recruiting the next generation of seafarers to help support the great work that our team is currently doing across the world. We are thrilled to be working in collaboration with Trinity House who have an excellent reputation of attracting the highest calibre of talent through their various education programmes. We hope that the programme will not only appeal to those who are studying nearby to us in Glasgow but also that it will appeal to those across the UK who have an interest in pursuing a career in an exciting yet competitive global industry, he said. Nigel Hope, Trinity House director of maritime training, added We are delighted to be working in collaboration with highly regarded shipping companies. This will give our cadets the opportunity is gaining the necessary on board training to qualify for the OOW certification and go on to rewarding careers at sea or in the wider maritime industries ashore.




All eyes on Chinas crude oil imports

The news from China has been mostly negative in recent weeks.

One report after another seemed to indicate that economic growth and oil demand are on the way down, Poten & Partners said in an industry note. In a publication entitled Darkening Skies, the World Bank forecast that Chinas GDP growth for 2019 will be 6.2%, down from an estimated 6.5% in 2018 and 6.9% in 2017. It is important to remember that, while this is down from the very high levels seen in the early 2000s, it is still a robust growth rate, Poten said. A gradual slowdown in the growth of Chinas economy was always expected, as it expanded and the country became more prosperous. However, the rapid growth of Chinas economy in the first decade of the 21st century has made it into the second largest oil consumer in the world (after the US) and the largest crude oil importer. A relatively small change in Chinas GDP can therefore have a significant impact on the oil and tanker market, in particular on VLCC demand. On top of Chinas underlying oil demand, the impact of Chinas Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) programme should be considered. Some analysts expect a material decline in SPR purchases in 2019. Chinas crude oil imports have grown rapidly over the last 10 years. In December, 2007 the country imported 3.3 mill barrels per day. This had increased to 8.4 mill barrels per day by the end of 2017, a compound annual growth rate of close to 10%. The growth in crude oil imports accelerated towards the end of last year. In November 2018, Chinas crude oil imports averaged 10.43 mill barrels per day, an increase of 15.7% relative to November, 2017. This was the first time that Chinas monthly crude oil imports averaged more than 10 mill barrels per day. The previous record high was 9.64 mill barrels in April, 2018, according to data from Chinas General Administration of Customs (GAC). Around 90% of Chinas crude oil imports are seaborne. There were multiple reasons for the sharp rise in imports towards the end of last year. Smaller independent refiners were rushing to fulfil their 2018 import quotas before they expired, while the rapid fall in crude oil prices during October and November also had an impact, Poten said. Brent was hovering around $85 per barrel at the start of October. By the end of November, it had dipped below $60 per barrel, which may have spurred more purchases for Chinas SPR program, which has been a significant driver of global oil demand growth in recent years. Analysts estimate that Chinas SPR purchases averaged about 429,000 barrels per day in 2016-2018, accounting for more than a third of global oil demand growth. The re-imposing of the US sanctions against Iran on 4th November may also have had an impact, as China ramped up purchases from alternative sources, like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Angola, Brazil, Russia and Libya. The tanker market reacted favourably to the rise in long-haul crude shipments. VLCC rates on the benchmark TD3 (Arabian Gulf Far East) route went from an average of $16,000 per day in September to more than $50,000 per day in November. Rates have cooled since then and are now around $30,000 per day. What can we expect for the first half of 2019? There are some headwinds as well as some long term positive trends. The impact of the trade dispute between the US and China could go either way, depending on the outcome of the negotiations. Slower economic growth will likely translate into lower oil demand growth, Poten said. Chinas first batch of crude oil import quotas for this year is set 30% lower year-on- year and this will likely have an impact on the physical markets in the next few months. Another important driver will be the extent to which China will continue to build up its SPR. It appears that the construction of new facilities has slowed, and some analysts believe that China is getting close to achieving its long-term policy target of 90 days of import cover. On the positive side, Chinas domestic oil production is stagnant, so every additional barrel of oil demand needs to be imported. The IEA expects Chinas demand in 2019 to grow by 450,000 barrels per day. Even with much reduced SPR demand, total imports into the Middle Kingdom could still expand by 600,000 barrels per day or more, especially if the Chinese government decides to unleash a stimulus programme to boost domestic demand, Poten concluded.




TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- InspireMD, Inc. (NYSE AMER:NSPR), a leader in embolic prevention systems (EPS) / thrombus management technologies and neurovascular devices, today announced that its CGuard Carotid Embolic Prevention System (EPS) will be featured in two live case transmissions at the Leipzig Interventional Course (LINC) 2019 to be held from January 22nd to the 25th at the Trade Fair Leipzig, Hall 2 in Leipzig, Germany. CGuard EPS will also be featured in two panel discussions at the conference.



The two live cases:

Tuesday, 10:57  11:22 Live from Bergamo Technical Forum  Room 3

Case 21  BG 02: male, 64 years (D-V)

Symptomatic left carotid artery disease in a patient with coronary artery disease

Operators: F. Castriota, A. Micari

Tuesday, 16:30  18:00 Live from Leipzig Technical Forum  Room 3

Case 27  LEI 09: female, 56 years (L-K)

Restenosis of the left common carotid artery after TEA

Operators: A. Schmidt, S. Brunlich

Additional presentations featuring CGuard EPS will include:

What: Initial clinical study of the new CGuard MicroNet covered carotid-stent: One size fits all  experimental data and clinical results C. Wissgott, MD, Germany When: January 22, 10:27  10:33 AM Central European Time Where: Room 3  Technical Forum What: PARADIGM-EXTEND prospective academic trial of CGuard MicroNet covered self-expandable stent system: Cumulative 3-year clinical and duplex ultrasound evidence for safety, efficacy and durability of stroke prevention Professor P. Musialek, Poland When: January 22, 15:05  15:10 PM Central European Time Where: Room 7  Speakers Room What: Intermediate results of a prospective randomized study in carotid artery revascularisation: the Acculink stent vs. the mesh covered stent (CGuard) P. Ignatenko, MD, Russia When: January 22, 15:15  15:20 PM Central European Time Where: Room 7  Speakers Room What: Ad interim results from a prospective real-world multicentre clinical practice of CAS using the CGuard embolic prevention system: the IRONGUARD 2 study W. Mansour, MD, Italy When: January 22, 15:20  15:25 PM Central European Time Where: Room 7  Speakers Room What: Comparative analysis of carotid artery stenting and carotid endarterectomy in clinical practice Professor Andrey Karpenko, Russia When: January 22, 15:30  15:35 PM Central European Time Where: Room 7  Speakers Room

The CGuard Carotid Embolic Prevention System will also be featured at the Companys booth (18c2). InspireMD will be represented by its management, sales and clinical staff and welcomes all enquiries from clinicians and other interested parties.

LINC is a leading global forum for new methods in the field of vascular medicine. LINC brings together medical professionals from different specialties around the world who perform endovascular interventions.

About InspireMD, Inc.

InspireMD seeks to utilize its proprietary MicroNet technology to make its products the industry standard for embolic protection and to provide a superior solution to the key clinical issues of current stenting in patients with a high risk of distal embolization, no reflow and major adverse cardiac events.



InspireMD intends to pursue applications of this MicroNet technology in coronary, carotid (CGuard), neurovascular, and peripheral artery procedures. InspireMDs common stock is quoted on the NYSE American under the ticker symbol NSPR and certain warrants are quoted on the NYSE American under the ticker symbol NSPR.WS.
Aegean gets restructuring approval

The US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved Aegean Marine Petroleum Networks revised final motion related to $535 mill in aggregate Debtor-in-Possession financing (DIP) from Mercuria Energy Group.

The Court also approved the companys restructuring support agreement (RSA) with Mercuria, the official committee of unsecured creditors of Aegean, American Express Travel Related Services Co and certain holders of the companys unsecured convertible notes. In addition, the company filed a plan of re-organisation and disclosure statement, critical steps toward exiting bankruptcy, Aegean claimed. The Courts actions represent key milestones in Aegeans restructuring process and position the company to quickly emerge from Chapter 11 much stronger than before. Both the DIP and the RSA result from a deliberate, arms-length process involving world-class institutions, undertaken to ensure continued high-quality service across our global network, maximise creditor recoveries and avoid months of contentious, value-destroying litigation, said Tyler Baron, Aegean Board Director. Upon completion of this process, currently anticipated around the end of the first quarter, the new company  with ample access to liquidity, streamlined operations, a refreshed management team, and the ability to leverage Mercurias core competencies  will be better positioned for long-term growth than ever, he added. Under the terms of the Court-approved RSA, Mercuria will receive 100% of the common equity of the re-organised Company. Mercuria will also fund $40 mill in cash on account of general unsecured creditor recoveries at the company and backstop a $15 mill loan to a trust to fund litigation. General unsecured creditors at the parent will receive 100% of the initial proceeds from litigation claims (after repayment of the litigation trust loan plus $3 mill), until they receive payment in full on account of their allowed claims. General unsecured creditors at the subsidiaries will receive full recoveries in the normal course, under the agreement. Holders of Aegeans pre-prepetition common equity will receive 100% of the residual interests in the litigation claims once general unsecured creditors at the parent have received payment in full. The company said that it will implement its restructuring plan, and expects to emerge from Chapter 11 around the end of the first quarter of this year. In connection with the companys restructuring efforts, Kirkland & Ellis is acting as legal counsel to Aegean, Moelis & Co is acting as investment banker to Aegean, and EY Turnaround Management Services is acting as restructuring advisor to Aegean.




Letter to the Editor

The efforts been renewed to bond for a new school. . Let me state the problem Everybody, including me, wants a new school, nobody wants to ...
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There is one glaring similarity between the governments of Spain and the UK at the moment, in that both are having a hard time getting anything done. Theresa May's defeat in the so-called Meaningful Vote on Tuesday was the most emphatic in British parliamentary history (432 voted against it, including 118 ministers from her own party), and will probably result in a no-deal Brexit. Over in Madrid, meanwhile, Pedro Sanchez's 2019 budget is unlikely to garner cross-party support when presented to congress next week. The reason for these prime ministers' difficulties is, at root, the same: both lead parties that have a minority status in their respective parliaments.

Sanchez's 2019 spending plan, already four months late, is unlikely to receive the drubbing that May's Brexit deal suffered on Tuesday evening. But it's far from certain that he'll be able to get the budget through congress, as his Socialist party sits on just 84 of the 350 seats in the lower house. With that in mind, Sanchez has included measures that he hopes will win the support of pro-Catalan independence groups and radical left Unidos Podemos (UP). These parties' votes are crucial, as without them the PSOE leader's ambitious spending plan won't see the light of day.

In a move likely to anger other parts of Spain, Sanchez proposes to increase Catalonia's public funds to 16.8% of total regional spending in 2019, up from 13.1% last year. This would make the north-easterly region - now led by vehemently pro-independence president Quim Torra - recipient of the largest amount of funds from Madrid in 2019, a fact which Ciudadanos' general secretary has rightly called a "gift for [Catalan] separatists". Yet even that hike isn't guaranteed to secure the necessary votes, with some pro-independence parties saying their support is contingent upon jailed Catalan separatists being released.

More dependable, although still not a sure thing, is the backing of UP, with which the PSOE drafted large parts of the budget last autumn. UP will be pleased with a planned increase of 40% in spending on housing, social care and investments and bigger taxes for corporations and high earners. But its lawmakers have already identified eleven features of the 2019 budget which they say break agreements made with the PSOE last October.

The fact that Sanchez's budget negotiations are beginning several months later than they should have done also means that they will run parallel to final preparations for the UK's withdrawal from the EU. Both processes will involve embattled prime ministers trying to secure cross-party support, in their respective parliaments, for the biggest deals of their careers. Not easy to do when you lead a government with such a weak grip on power - as has been demonstrated, over and over, by both Sanchez's and May's minority leaderships.
Juanma Moreno was sworn in as the sixth president of the Junta de Andalucia regional government at a ceremony in Seville on Friday, attended by several senior PP figures including former prime minister Mariano Rajoy, current party leader Pablo Casado, as well as outgoing president, Susana Diaz (PSOE).

In his speech, Moreno promised to be a "loyal servant" of the government, putting "party-political battles to one side".

Former PM Mariano Rajoy (left) was one of several leading PP figures present. / Agencies

The 48-year-old regional leader of the conservative Partido Popular received the votes of the MPs from his own party in the regional parliament in Seville on Wednesday, as well as those of centre-right Ciudadanos (Cs) and hard-right Vox. The total of 59 votes was enough to give Moreno a majority in the chamber and usher in a new coalition in regional government made up of the PP and Cs.

Voting against Moreno, with their total of 50 votes, was the Socialist PSOE and left-wingers Adelante Andalucia, made up of Izquierda Unida and Podemos.

The change to a PP president is the first time since Andalucia was granted devolved status from Madrid in 1982 that the PSOE will not be in charge of the Junta de Andalucia, following a drop in its support at December's regional election.

Andalucia is Spain's most populus region, with 8.4 million residents, and the Junta controls big-spending services such as the public health service, education and social care.

Moreno, who is from Malaga, faced accusations from outgoing president, Susana Diaz, during the investiture debate that he was, "going to be president because of the heirs to Franco", referring to the PP needing the 12 votes from the right-wing Vox, political newcomers that surprised everyone with their surge in last month's election.

Moreno with national party leader Pablo Casado. / Agencies

A moderate approach

However, Moreno was keen during the debate to stress the moderate nature of his future government.

"I am not going to label anyone. Vox is a new party that will define itself by the decisions it takes. My government will defend the variety of interests inside this parliament chamber. I will defend every group that is attacked."

"I am going to give everything so that the people of Andalucia can live better than they are at the moment," he said, referring to the historically higher-than-average unemployment figures in the region.

Moreno's vice-president in the PP and Cs coalition will be the regional leader of Cs, Juan Marin. Marin will also take on the Tourism portfolio, a key part of Andalucia's economy.

However, full details of the regional cabinet are not expected to be announced until Monday. What is known is that of the 11 planned regional ministries, six will go to the PP and five to Cs.

It has also been announced that the first cabinet meeting will be held in the Malaga town of Antequera on Friday, 25 January.

Antequera, roughly in the geographical centre of Andalucia, is a symbolic place in the region's politics after an all-party agreement signed there 40 years ago to seek devolved status from Madrid.
Rescue efforts are continuing night and day in Totalan, near Malaga city, as the nation crosses its fingers in the quickly extinguishing hope that two-year-old Julen, who fell down a 107-metre prospecting shaft on Sunday, can still be rescued alive.

Workers and experts are at the site 24 hours a day and are working on digging a parallel shaft that they hope to connect to the borehole. However, instability of the land, as well as impending rain, mean that it could still be days until they reach the boy.

Julen fell into the hole, which is just 25 centimetres wide, while playing with a friend as his parents prepared lunch in the rural area near the Cerro de la Corona dolmen. A relative witnessed the fall and heard Yulen's cries.

Two hikers heard the desperate screams of the family and went to investigate.

The emergency services were alerted twice almost simultaneously. The first call came from the parents of the boy and the second from the hikers.

The provincial fire brigade, the fire department of Malaga and the police, as well as the mountain rescue team (EREIM) were immediately deployed.

A complicated operation

With a diameter of just 25 centimetres, evidently it is impossible for a person to be lowered into the same hole. The first course of action was for firemen to lower a mobile phone with a camera to check if anything was visible. They reached about 50 metres from the surface with no trace of the boy.

A robot donated by the drain-cleaning firm Pepe Nunez was then lowered into the hole to attempt to get a better idea of the situation. However, despite reaching a greater depth, 78 metres, it was unable to get past earth that had apparently been dislodged as the boy fell. It did, however, locate a bag of sweets and a cup that had been in Julen's possession at 75 metres. DNA samples later confirmed to belong to Julen were also recovered.

Having called in experts from the Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, it was then decided that specialist equipment would be used to remove some of the loose ground that fell in. However, after working through the night until Monday morning, only a small quantity had been cleared, of between 30 and 40 centimetres. "It was like trying to clear a mountain with a spoon," said one of the workers on the scene.

Suction equipment was brought in, provided by a company from Cadiz, but when the system broke down, rescuers lost 24 hours as they tried to remove the 90-metre-long machinery. These impeded efforts to shore up the inside of the hole by inserting tubes.

"I sealed the well shut" The hole into which little Julen fell on Sunday had been dug just a month previously by the company Triben Perforaciones. The company's boss, Antonio Sanchez, was involved in the work himself and went to the site in Totalan on Tuesday. "I sealed the well shut with a large stone," he said. "I did it, like I have done so many times before, to make sure that no one could fall in." He insisted that around five tonnes of shale was then placed around it, meaning that it could only have been exposed if someone else had subsequently carried out ground- movement work. Sanchez, who was summoned to the site by the Guardia Civil with a view to helping in the rescue operation, wanted to make it clear that the excavation had been carried out with all the necessary permits and permissions, despite sources from the Junta de Andalucia being unable to confirm if this was true.

Chilean miners

By Tuesday, the amount of workers and specialists at the site had swelled considerably. The most high profile additions to the team were the Stockholm Precision Tools (SPT), known for famously helping in the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners in August 2010.

"They've joined us here voluntarily and they have explained to us how they work," said Julen's father Jose.

Between the more than 100 experts on site, they all agree: "This is one of the most complicated operations we have come across."

From three options to one

Since the start of the operation, three possible approaches have been under consideration: clear the earth which has trapped Julen, build a parallel shaft (wide enough for a human) then connect the two, or build a connecting perpendicular tunnel. However, the first and last options have since been discarded with the former increasing the risk of further earth falling in and the latter expected to take much too long, given the instability of the terrain.

By Thursday, all efforts concentrated on digging the parallel hole which "in normal circumstances would take a month", according to Juan Lopez Escobar, spokesman for the Colegio de Minas in Malaga.

"To put a timescale on it now would be reckless," he added. "We are working to do it as quickly as possible but we're talking days rather than hours."

The looseness of the ground and the required depth are the principal issues at present. Machinery can only excavate to a depth of 50 metres, so a preliminary excavation must first take place beforehand so that the new shaft will reach the required depth. But after hitting a particularly hard area of slate, rain forecast over the weekend and time passing rapidly, any remaining hope of finding Julen alive is slowly fading.
While Westminster tries to pull a 'Plan B' out of its hat by Monday, the Spanish government says it is continuing to work on its contingency plan for a no-deal Brexit.

On Wednesday the deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo, confirmed the government's intention to pass the plan, which will include provision for maintaining the rights of British citizens resident in Spain, via special decree in February.

On Monday the government launched its own "Preparing for Brexit" web resource on the official Moncloa website.

Published in English and Spanish, the information states: "In the case of withdrawal without an agreement, the contingency measures the Government of Spain is working on seek to safeguard the interests of British citizens who, prior to the date on which the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union takes place, exercised their right to free movement and reside in Spain."

British Ambassador Simon Manley said this week: "Whatever happens in the days and weeks to come, both British and Spanish governments have committed themselves to protect the rights of citizens, be they British nationals in Spain, or Spaniards in the UK, because we want people to continue living, studying and working broadly as they have done up to now. The Spanish Government's launch of its new Brexit web resource earlier this week underlines that shared commitment, together with their assurances that UK nationals who have chosen to make their home here will have their rights respected."

The Moncloa site also states that Spain and the UK are currently working on a reciprocal agreement that will allow British citizens to vote in the May local elections even in the case of a no-deal Brexit, and vice-versa. The aim of the agreement, due to be signed shortly, is to maintain the "status quo" regarding the right to vote and stand for election. Residents must, however, have registered to vote by 30 January.
Torremolinos is hosting the Semana de la Prevencion de Incendios, a fire prevention programme designed to help people to identify the risks of a fire in the home, schools and workplaces.

The initiative, which is being held in the Torremolinos bullring, is organised by the MAPFRE Foundation and the APTB, an association that specialises in citizen protection and emergency rescue.

The awareness programme, now in its thirteenth edition, will visit 35 towns all over Spain this year and will include a special emphasis on smoke detectors and evacuation procedures.

There will also be a focus on children: the organisers have invited pupils from several schools in Torremolinos to attend workshops and educational programmes about fire prevention. The workshops will offer guidelines concerning the awareness of fire hazards and how to avoid them. They will highlight the importance of exercising caution with bad electrical installations and overloaded sockets, which are among the leading causes of fire in the home.

The programme will emphasise the advantages of installing smoke detectors in the home, one of the most effective and economic systems for surviving a fire which occurs during sleeping hours.

The three-day programme began on Thursday (yesterday) and continues until Saturday, when it will be open to the general public between 9am and 3pm.
Irving, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Continuing education is for everyone  from the lifelong learner to the ambitious success seeker.ESA has just added 18 NEW CEU courses to our lineup of CEU offerings. These courses are available now and will help students maintain certifications and licenses.



ESAs National Training Schools courses and CEU programs are designed to help electronic security and life safety professionals advance in easily accessible and robust ways. With a focus on real world training, skills learned can be immediately put to use in the workplace.



Topics include: networking, basic mathematics, science, project management, customer service and more.





NETWORKING

Residential Networking Basics: Designed to provide basic level knowledge of working with IPs, understanding routers, network types, and general troubleshooting.

Networking 101  Basics: Provides students with various ways a network can be constructed and, in general terms, how data is sent from one point to another.

Networking 102  Protocols: This course provides students with various protocols you are likely to encounter when installing and maintaining security and life safety systems on a network.

Networking 103  Data Transmission: This CEU course provides students with various mediums thats a network may use to transmit data.

Networking 104  Hardware: Provides students with the most commonly used networking hardware found in a business environment while also demonstrating how hardware interacts with and communicates through other devices like hubs, routers and switches is important.

Networking 105  Administration of Networks: This course equips students with information on the important role administrators play in maintaining a network, as well as security concerns, sources of threats to a network and security measures employed to protect the network.

Networking 106  Basic Network Troubleshooting: This online course provides students with the basic tools that should be available when troubleshooting, as well as, general techniques that can be used to effectively troubleshoot a system.





PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Managing Projects Effectively: This three-hour online course provides students with techniques related to the security industry professional. This course covers project management approaches, auditing and responsibilities.





MATHEMATICS

Basic Math for Security Professionals: This course provides students with skills to solve mathematical problems requiring simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and raising numbers to exponential powers; rounding to the correct number of significant figures; calculating percents; reading graphs; and using simple geometric definitions and formulas.

Math Refresher: This course provides an overview of how to use the mathematical formulas associated with the electronic security industry.





CUSTOMER SERVICE

Basics of Customer Service: This three-hour online course provides students with communication skills, customer service skills and tips to deal with handling difficult customers. While demonstrating the key skills necessary to dealing with difficult situations while providing the highest possible level of customer service in a professional manner.





SECURITY

Incident Reports for Security Professionals: Provides students with information on the considerations that may be needed when preparing and writing an incident report, by presenting facts and details as accurately as possible, while maintaining the integrity of the report is a major consideration.

Physical Science and the Security Professional: Provides students with information on how to differentiate between matter, mass, volume and density, and how to distinguish the physical properties and changes of each.





ELECTRICAL

Electronic Theory Refresher: Provides a review of the electrical basics required for the installation and maintenance of alarm systems.





WIRELESS SYSTEMS

Wireless Systems 101  Standards: Provides students with an interpretation of codes and standards which apply to the installation of wireless fire alarm systems.

Wireless Systems 102  Components: Providesstudents with information on how alarm systems operate using wireless signals and how the components work together.

Wireless Systems 103  Troubleshooting: Provides students with information on performing troubleshooting tasks for wireless intrusion and fire protection systems.

These CEU courses have already been approved in Louisiana, Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, with other states currently pending. Please visit the specific course page for state approval information.

ESA members have access to exclusive rates on all National Training School courses. To discover if ESA membership is a fit for your company, schedule a call with Sophia Dominguez.



ABOUT ESA'S NATIONAL TRAINING SCHOOL

The ESA National Training School (NTS) is the leading provider of classroom training, online courses, and certifications for the evolving electronic security and life safety industry. Because NTS courses are developed by industry professionals with in-depth experience in security integration, courses focus on practical skills and knowledge relevant to the required jobs and tasks in a subject area. As the security integration channel and code specifics evolve, so do NTS courses, reflecting the latest trends and updates. More than 6,300 students completed ESA NTS courses in 2016. www.ESAweb.org/Training
Town halls along the Costa del Sol, as in the rest of Spain, are currently touting support for the forthcoming municipal elections in May. One of the communities that many of them are targeting is the foreign residents, which, in some towns in the province of Malaga, make up over 20 per cent of the population. However, British residents are currently unsure whether they will be able to continue to exercise their right to vote if the UK exits the EU at the end of March. As with everything concerning Brexit, no one seems to be able to clarify whether the British will lose this right, although many town halls expect that the governments of Spain and the UK will sign a bilateral agreement shortly.

REGISTRATION Deadline. Residents must register their right to vote online or at the town hall before Wednesday 30 January. Who can vote? Foreigners over the age of 18, both nationals of the countries of the EU and countries that have bilateral agreements. Requirements. Voters must possess an NIE or green registration card and be registered on the electoral roll and municipal census.

SUR in English spoke with Aida Blanes, councillor for the Foreign Residents Department of Torremolinos town hall. Although she agrees that there is still no official confirmation, she stressed the importance of exercising the right to vote before January 30, the deadline for registration.

Who can vote in the municipal elections?

Foreigners over the age of 18 residing in Spain can vote on May 26, both nationals of countries of the European Union and countries that have agreements for the municipal elections, which are Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Korea, Ecuador, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago. Citizens wishing to vote must have legally resided in Spain for three years (Norway 5 years). Those who registered in the municipal elections in 2015 must re-register for the elections this year.

What documents do voters need to possess in order to register?

To vote you must be registered on the electoral roll, and for this it is necessary to first be registered on the municipal census. You must also possess a current identity number (NIE). You should submit the formal declaration (DFA form) to express your right to vote in Spain, which can be done by mail, internet or personally at the town hall. The form is available at the town hall and in the foreign resident's office in Plaza de Andalucia. When registering, you must present documentation that certifies your identity (passport with green card or NIE) and documentation that confirms your address (photocopy of the IBI or rental contract).

Do you feel confident that British residents will have the right to vote in the municipal elections in May if the UK leaves the EU?

Yes, we believe that British residents can vote in the local elections in May 2019, but there is still no official confirmation. According to the National Statistics Institute, although the United Kingdom has expressed its intention to leave the European Union in March 2019, the agreement of the Central Electoral Board (3 October 2018) states that the citizens of the UK resident in Spain should not be excluded from the formation of the electoral roll for the municipal elections and the European Parliament. This is a forecast injunction which will cease to have effect if the UK leaves the EU in March. However, according to the latest news, the governments of Spain and UK are negotiating an agreement that will allow British residents in Spain to vote in the municipal elections in 2019. In any case, we encourage British residents to register; if they do not, they will not be able to vote regardless of the outcome of Brexit.

Can registration be made on the internet?

Yes. Information about how foreign residents can register their right to vote can be found on the website of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) https://sede.ine.gob.es,

What is the last day that British residents can register their right to vote?

European residents wishing to vote must register before Wednesday 30 January.

Why is it important for foreign residents to exercise their right to vote?

For all citizens, regardless of their nationality, the right to vote should be assumed as a fundamental tool of political decision-making, as they have the possibility to choose their representatives. It is important that we go to vote in order to be heard.

What are the benefits for foreign residents who vote in the municipal elections?

The right to vote is a fundamental right of citizens, which allows them to participate in political decisions made by the local council. Since the PSOE government came to power in Torremolinos, we have always encouraged expatriate resident participation, as this a tool to provide greater democratic policies.

-What other services does the Foreign Residents Office offer to foreign residents?

The Foreigners Office offers information about the services and procedures of Torremolinos town hall and other public administrations, although the demand for information and assistance is very varied.

Spain already has a bilateral arrangement with a number of other non-EU countries: Do you believe that the Spanish and UK government can arrange something similar before the end of March?

It seems likely as both governments have stressed their desire to negotiate such an agreement, but we will have to wait and see what happens.

Many British residents in Torremolinos, especially the elderly, are worried that their statutory rights will change after Brexit. Some fear that they will not be able to continue to have the same benefits that they currently enjoy. Can you offer a message of reassurance to those residents?

It is difficult for us to know what will happen, but I can assure residents that we are in permanent contact with the British Consulate and so we are being kept up to date with all the current information. In addition, the Foreign Residents Office can offer assistance with any doubts that may arise, and we will do everything in our power to find a solution for such concerns.
This week's vote against the Withdrawal Agreement in the House of Commons has not affected the ongoing campaign by Brexpats and the British consulate to encourage people to make their residency in Spain official in preparation for Brexit.

NEXT PUBLIC MEETINGS Benalmadena. 24 January. Edificio Innova, Avenida Federico Garcia Lorca, Arroyo de la Miel, Benalmadena. 12pm Mijas. 24 January. Tenencia de Alcaldia de Mijas, Bulevar La Cala 45, Mijas Costa. 5pm.

The advice was made clear at a meeting led by the British consul Charmaine Arbouin in Marbella last week, and at others held this week in Almeria, which were attended by several hundred UK nationals.

Joining the padron, the municipal population register, at their local town hall is the first step towards applying for official residency in Spain, explained Hernandez.

One of the aims of the meetings is to make sure that residents understand the difference between joining the padron and registering as resident at the Extranjeria department, or designated National Police station, which is also an essential step.

The difference between being an official resident and a tax resident is also among the issues discussed at the meetings as well as healthcare, driving licences, nationality and the electoral roll.

The meetings are essential as not all British citizens who live in Spain register to be officially resident, especially those who spend six months in here and six months in the UK.

"The problem is that when Brexit is a reality any British citizen who spends more than three months in Spain in the space of six months will be here illegally," said Arbouin after the Marbella meeting.

The British Ambassador to Spain, Simon Manley, stated after the Withdrawal Agreement was voted down that the same message was going out to British citizens in Spain.

"The most important thing British nationals in Spain can do, and this is a message from both the UK and Spanish governments, is to ensure they are registered as resident at either a Naional Police station or Extranjeria," said Manley.
A new project initiated by Cartama town hall and a local secondary school has been launched to rename the streets in the Dona Ana district of the town after pioneering women.

The scheme, under the banner of 'Deserve a Street', was approved after a survey found that the number of streets named after men was disproportionate to those named after women.

The scheme was the idea of Rosa Liarte, history teacher at IES Cartima. The results of the research were shown to the mayor of Cartama, Jorge Gallardo, who asked students to propose a list of potential names.

Among the plaques unveiled last week were Maria Teresa Leon, a writer from the Generation of 27; Maria Luz Morales, the first female director of a Spanish national newspaper; and Emilia Pardo Bazan, a 19th-century women's rights campaigner.

The school was presented with replicas of the plaques in appreciation and recognition of the work done to highlight equality.
After six months of construction, preparation and meetings, hypermarket chain Carrefour has touched down in the Guadalhorce valley.

The new store, at the heart of the La Trocha shopping centre in Coin, opened on Wednesday. Around 400 people, including politicians, staff and representatives of the institutions involved in the project, attended the inauguration event the previous day when it was opened by director of operations for Carrefour Espana, Luis Cerro.

Cerro spoke of the special link that the company has with the area as the first Andalusian province in which it opened a store more than 40 years ago. He also expressed his "excitement" at opening a hypermarket in the Guadalhorce valley where previously there was only a Carrefour Market in Estacion de Cartama.

The hypermarket covers more than 5,000 squares metres over two floors

Vicepresident of the Malaga Confederation of Business, Natalia Sanchez, also took part in the event and highlighted the significance of the union with Costasol de Hipermercados, a Malaga company with which Carrefour will work on this project to bring in local products from local suppliers. The company's president, Aurelio Martin Simon, said: "This is the result of a joint effort of a lot of people and businesses." He especially thanked Coin town hall (though mayor Fernando Fernandez couldn't attend) and the promoters of La Trocha who "adapted to all of our needs".

Martin Simon explained that the new store, which spreads over more than 5,000 square metres across two floors, has created jobs for more than a hundred people who have received "more than 2,500 hours of training".

During the presentation it was placed on record that Carrefour has a commercial relationship with 1,350 businesses in Andalucia worth around 640 million euros.

Carrefour Valle del Guadalhorce has all of the traditional sections, plus the addition of sections and stands for freshly-made sushi, pre-made meals and bio products, the majority of which come from the surrounding area. There is also a health foods and healthcare section, as well as a home section stocked with the latest technology and appliances.
The latest events in what some are branding the "Brexit pantomime" have done nothing to ease the concerns of the 40,000-plus Brits living on the Costa del Sol.

Tuesday's historic vote in the UK's House of Commons, which saw Theresa May's Brexit deal rejected by a majority of 230 votes, was followed the next day by a narrow victory for her government in a vote of no confidence tabled by Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

The 19-vote difference means that Theresa May's Conservative party was given a mandate by Parliament to continue to negotiate some sort of withdrawal deal.

There has been mixed reaction from groups representing Brits in Malaga province and throughout the Spain.

Speaking to SUR on Wednesday, Anne Hernandez, spokesperson for Mijas-based Brexpats in Spain, said this week's events have been, "more senselessness." She added that from the beginning the aim of her group, which represents both 'Remainers' and 'Leavers', has been to ensure that "the UK doesn't leave without any kind of deal" meaning that the rights of Britons living in the EU are protected. The rejection of May's deal means that the "anguish" felt by Britons is being extended and that people she talks to are "more worried than ever".

For Sue Wilson, chair of anti-Brexit group, Bremain in Spain, the collapse of the Withdrawal Deal was as welcome as it was expected. She told SUR in English, "I have found myself in the strange position this week of wanting Theresa May to lose one vote on Tuesday and win another on Wednesday, both of which duly happened."

Her group, along with other pan-European, anti-Brexit organisations, have been campaigning for a People's Vote on the final deal, and Wilson added, "The failure of Jeremy Corbyn to secure a vote of no confidence was a significant step forward in our goal of stopping Brexit. Now we can concentrate our efforts on the next steps which are to remove a 'no-deal' scenario [...], to secure an extension to Article 50 and to campaign for a People's Vote referendum, hopefully with the support of the Labour party."

With municipal elections due to take place across Spain in May, Roy Perez, Foreigners' Councillor at Mijas Town Hall told SUR yesterday that one of the many concerns of the town's British residents is the ability to vote. "Many of our residents were not able to vote in the referendum and now they are worried about being left in legal limbo. They are concerned about what's going to happen to them from issues such as healthcare to their right to participate in the local elections."

Allaying at least these concerns, the new 'Prepared for Brexit' website launched by the Spanish government on Monday, said that an upcoming agreement between Spain and the UK will allow both UK citizens who are on the electoral register in Spain and Spanish citizens registered in the UK to vote in local elections regardless of the outcome of Brexit.

Theresa May now has until Monday to come up with a new plan for EU withdrawal, which has been dubbed 'Brexit Plan B', with a debate in the House of Commons likely on Tuesday 29 January. She called for "constructive" cross-party talks after her narrow win in the vote of no confidence on Wednesday. Jeremy Corbyn said on Thursday that if the country is "facing the potential disaster of no deal, our duty will then be to look at other options[...]including the option of a public vote."
Animal rights demonstrators took to the streets last Saturday to protest against the decision by Marbella council to reintroduce bullfighting in the central bullring, on the edge of the old town, after a three-year absence.

Around 300 protesters from three different animal protection organisations marched down the streets of Marbella, from the bullring to Plaza del Mar, demanding that the council reverses the decision to invest one million euros in the restoration of the bullring, for it then to start hosting bullfighting again.

"We want the bullring to be used for cultural events, but not to torture animals," said spokesperson for Guerreros de la Paz, Agustin Gonzalez, one of the organisers of the protest alongside Resistencia Animal and the Malaga Society for the Protection of Animals and Plants.

Bullfighting was banned in Marbella in 2016 under the left-wing coalition council, headed by the socialist PSOE. Now the two-party coalition headed by PP (Partido Popular) wants to reverse that decision.

Miguel Diaz and Victoria Morales from Izquierda Unida and Victoria Mendiola from Podemos participated in the demonstration, alongside representatives from animal rights organisations.

However, the protest did face some opposition. Representatives of the Vox party, who have made it clear that they defend bullfighting and hunting, were also present.

Carmen Manzano, president of the Malaga Society for the Protection of Animals and Plants, stressed that a party with just 400,000 votes in the recent Andalusian election cannot be allowed to impose its values on all Andalusians. "We will not back down," she said.

Manzano also stressed that Spain shouldn't continue to associate itself with bullfighting, when most of the country does not support it.

The demonstration ended with a theatrical performance in which some of the protesters, wearing just underwear, pretended to have been stabbed with banderillas (lances used in bullfighting) while others called for bullfighting to be made a criminal offence.
TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alexandria Minerals Corporation (TSX-V: AZX ) (OTCQB:ALXDF) (Frankfurt: A9D ) (AZX or the Company) announced today that it has entered into agreements with a third-party contractors to settle an aggregate of $507,113.78 of debt in consideration for the issuance of 9,220,251 common shares of the Company at a deemed price of $0.055 per common share. The directors of the Company have approved the debt settlements. The debt settlements are subject to receipt of all required regulatory approvals including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. Closing of the debt settlements will occur immediately following approval from the TSX Venture Exchange.



All securities issued pursuant to the above-referenced debt settlements will be subject to a statutory hold period which will expire four months and one day from the date of closing of the debt settlements.

Further information about the Company is also available on the Companys website, www.azx.ca, or our social media sites listed below:



About Alexandria Minerals Corporation

Alexandria Minerals Corporation is a Toronto-based junior gold exploration and development company with its strategic property located in the world-class mining district of Val dOr, Quebec. Alexandrias focus is on its flagship property, the large Cadillac Break Property package in Val dOr, which hosts important, near-surface, gold resources along the prolific, gold-producing Cadillac Break, all of which have significant growth potential.

WARNING: This News Release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of up-coming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Alexandria Minerals Corporation relies upon litigation protection for forward-looking statements. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Changes to the SunCommercial's back end processing means the e-edition is getting a facelift. The biggest change is the e-edition, by default, is now presented in Text view.
Melissa McKinlay, member, Palm Beach County Commission

Last week: Palm Beach County recently approved a foster care group home project for HomeSafe. It will house no more than a dozen of our county's foster children. These are kids who, through no fault of their own, have been removed from abusive or neglectful homes. When that happens, the State of Florida becomes the parent for these children. More importantly, it means the taxpayers of Florida become parents and, as such, we should all be concerned about the welfare & best interest for all of our children. The lawsuit filed by neighbors opposed to this project for no real reason other than NIMBY-ism (Not In My Back Yard) disappoints me. So many people love to say they support the homeless, the abused, the needy - but when it comes time to actually do it and it's in their backyard, they hide behind weak legal arguments. I pray the court system upholds the County's decision to provide these children with a home in a safe neighborhood. They've been failed once. Let's not fail them again.

Looking ahead: No doubt our community will begin to feel the effects of the prolonged government shutdown. Domestic violence shelters struggling to remain open, environmental restoration projects put on hold, airport terminals closing because they are without TSA agents...so many programs affected that most don't realize. Pressure to continue providing these services in the absence of federal funding will be put on state and local governments. There are better ways to resolve disagreements than standoffs. The economic well-being of furloughed federal works and constituents dependent on services funded by federal dollars should not be sacrificed over a battle on immigration. An overwhelming number of Americans and immigrants support comprehensive immigration reform and border protection. But let's reopen the government, get our federal employees back to work so they can take care of their families, and let's demand that our Congressional leaders & the White House put forward a negotiated package of reforms. It's time to act like adults.
Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski's op-ed lamenting the number of abortions is interesting. He decries a woman's choice to have an abortion, yet he says nothing about the responsibilities that having a child entails. Where is the archbishop's church when the child is born and needs to be provided with housing, clothing, food and an education? I am not pro-abortion, but I am pro-quality of life. Perhaps the church should consider selling some assets and starting a sponsorship program whereby the church assumes the financial responsibilities associated with raising an unwanted child. Having taken a vow of celibacy, the archbishop has no experience in having and raising a family. He has no first-hand understanding of the family dynamics that are involved in deciding whether or not to abort. I respect the archbishop's right to his opinion, but I would also expect him to respect the right of others who would decide differently.
Meanwhile, the Broward Office of Inspector General cited Mayor Cooper and Commissioners Bill Julian and Anthony Sanders of rampant Sunshine Law violations. Plus, Julian was recorded mumbling something over the phone that seemed to indicate he was benefiting from a nefarious agreement to vote in favor of a controversial project. In return, the developer would supposedly supply free workers for his re-election campaign. After a 14-month investigation, the State Attorneys Office found absolutely no evidence that Commissioner Julian ever received any improper payment or benefit of any kind. Too late for Julian. He had already lost his seat to Lima-Taub.
Whether they have to smoke it or not  who am I to judge that? asked DeSantis, his arms outstretched. Look, we have a lot a lot of fish to fry in Florida. The last thing I want to be doing is cleaning up for something that should have happened two years ago. This thing should have been implemented. We should have moved on, and I don't want to continue to fight some of these old battles.
The governor believes that the will of the people is important and understands that smoke was in the articles of intent. It appears he will end the wasteful spending of taxpayers dollars in this lawsuit and let patients receive all forms of mj (marijuana), Morgan said in an email.
The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines, Hammill said in a statement. The President traveled to Iraq during the Trump Shutdown as did a Republican CODEL led by Rep. Zeldin.
English Lithuanian

AB Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius, code 304151376, registered office address Aguonu g. 24, Vilnius. The total number of ordinary registered shares issued by AB Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius - 894 630 333 pcs.; ISIN code  LT0000130023.

The Supervisory Board of AB Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius (ESO) owned by the energy group Lietuvos Energija approved the ESOs strategy, which was updated in light of the long-term goals and strategic directions of Lietuvos Energija Group presented in May 2018.

The approved ESO strategy covers the period till 2030. Till that time, ESO plans to significantly increase network resistance to atmospheric factors, to implement technological, intelligent solutions that include remote, automated network control and maintenance, and to develop a customer experience management model across the ESO value chain. All this will ensure a stable return and maintain the optimal value-to-price ratio for customers.

The main focus in the implementation of the new ESO strategy will be placed on increasing the reliability of the network, the deployment of intelligent solutions for real-time operations, the empowerment of the development of the electricity market through open and neutral platform solutions, and the promotion of the creation of a service market, which provides the same operating conditions for all market participants. The totality of actions provided for in the ESO strategy will ensure the best value to customers both in terms of reliability and intelligence of infrastructure as well as of variety and price of services. Accordingly, the empowering infrastructure will allow market participants / energy suppliers to develop and provide services that meet individual needs of each customer.

Strategic directions of ESO 2030 correspond to the goals laid down in the ESOs 10-year investment plan and the National Energy Independence Strategy.

The adoption and implementation of specific decisions in pursuit of these goals (including the scope, timing, method of financing and other aspects) will depend on specific external and internal economic, legal and other factors that may influence such decision-making and effective implementation of the decisions made. Investments will be approved with regulatory authorities in accordance with the procedure established by legal acts, therefore the ESOs operating directions provided for in the strategy may not be considered final decisions to invest or to conduct other actions.

Information on specific decisions, if they must be disclosed in public, will be disclosed in compliance with the requirements of legal acts governing the disclosure of such information, ensuring the provision of the necessary, sufficient and detailed information to stakeholders as well as the implementation of the principles of transparency.





Additional information: public relations representative - Tomas Kavaliauskas, tel. +370 617 51616





Attachment
In dramatic fashion, Trump issued a letter to Pelosi on Thursday, just before she and other lawmakers were set to depart on the previously undisclosed trip to Afghanistan and Brussels. Trump belittled the trip as a "public relations event"  even though he had just made a similar warzone stop  and said it would be best if Pelosi remained in Washington to negotiate to reopen the government.
Thats when county officials unleashed a stampede of lawyers, health officials, police and rehab specialists to tackle the scourge. Owners of rogue sober homes were arrested. Narcan, the nasal spray that halts an overdose, became widely used on patients by rescuers, and now can be purchased over the counter. And cities began hiring staff to work with people hooked on drugs, including Delray Beach, where the police department has its own social worker dedicated to the homeless and the addicted.
Woodard  who was busted for crack possession in Fort Lauderdale in 1998 while pregnant with Cruz  gave him and his brother Zachary up for adoption when they were babies and has not spoken to them since, the London-based news site reports. She has been arrested at least 28 times and has been in and out of jail since 1988. Her rap sheet includes battery, burglary, resisting arrest, theft, trespassing and panhandling.
Almost a year ago Mr. Payton wanted to resign because he would not like to be here, she said. Here we are a year later and there are a number of false narratives. I feel like we need a fresh, open and accurate perspective going into the strategic planning and visioning process.
Ricky Ditzel, who was relocated from the camp, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel he received more help when he lived in his tent. He and his wife are living rent-free in a Hollywood apartment, he said, but he has had trouble getting food, bus passes and medical care. Ditzel said he cant afford toilet paper.
After years of planning and obtaining funding, plans for the Wave streetcar system, which would have operated on embedded tracks in downtown Fort Lauderdale along Andrews and Third avenues, were scuttled last year.
A board dominated by new members is in place now, and it voted in October to fire Barrett, whom many blamed for much of the instability. And they voted last month to hire a new chief executive officer, Gino Santorio, who has received high marks both inside and outside the organization, leading many to hope that the systems era of instability may soon be in the past.
The three were reprimanded and suspended for two days without pay in a chase that topped 100 mph after an attempted traffic stop. Lewis had tried to pull over the driver for an expired tag and then told a supervisor that he had backed off the chase even though he still was in pursuit at 95 mph, according to records.
LONGUEUIL, Quebec, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Highland Copper Company Inc. (TSXV: HI, OTCQB: HDRSF) (the Company) is pleased to announce the receipt of the mining, air and dam safety permits from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) for its Copperwood project located in the Upper Peninsula, Michigan, USA.



Mining Permit

The MDEQ has approved the Companys request to amend the Mining Permit originally granted in 2012 to Copperwood Resources Inc., the Companys 100%-owned subsidiary, under the provisions of Part 632, Nonferrous Metallic Mineral Mining, of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act. The amendment was required to allow the Company to begin construction at Copperwood in accordance with the changes to the mine plan and facilities described in the updated feasibility study released on June 15, 2018.

Upon review and consideration of comments received during a public hearing held on October 24, 2018 and a subsequent written comment period regarding the proposed amendments, the MDEQ issued a final decision to approve the amendments requested by the Company. The amendments were approved under certain conditions that the Company will have to meet, namely:

Provide a revised subsidence monitoring plan for the life of mine and post closure period;

Provide a plan to conduct confirmation baseline environmental sampling and review prior to the start of mining operations;

Reclaim the ore stockpile area and dispose of the geomembrane liner according to regulations; and

Reclaim or remove water intake and power supply infrastructure according to approved plans unless beneficial use agreements are established with another party.

Other key permits received  Air, Dam Safety and Wetlands

Based on the 2018 updated feasibility study on Copperwood, the Company had filed applications with the MDEQ to either amend, renew or obtain all other permits required to begin mine construction at Copperwood.

In addition to the Mining Permit, the Company has received three additional key permits from the MDEQ: the Part 55 Air Discharge Permit, the Part 315 Dam Safety Permit-Tailing Dam and, as previously announced, the Part 301/303/325 Wetland Permit. The application to obtain a Lake Superior water intake permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers (COE) is outstanding and a final decision is expected in the next few weeks.

Denis Miville-Deschenes, President & CEO of Highland Copper commented: "We have achieved another important milestone with all major permits required to build and operate the Copperwood mine now in place. This is the culmination of significant work completed in the past year by our Michigan team and I believe we have, most importantly, achieved the social license to operate in the community."

The Michigan team continues to work internally on various aspects to improve the economics of the project including items such mine design, process plant and mobile equipment selection and financing options, concentrate transport options study, and power and communication infrastructure planning.

Corporate Update

The state of the capital markets for a company such as Highland and current commodity prices make it challenging to raise additional funds. Management is looking at various options including issuance of new equity or debt, sale of assets and other potential strategic transactions. Managements primary objective is to raise sufficient funds to meet its existing commitments, to fund management and administration expenses and to settle its working capital deficiency. However, there can be no assurance that additional funds will be available or available on terms acceptable to the Company or that a strategic transaction can be completed.

About Highland

Highland Copper Company Inc. is a Canadian-based company focused on exploring and developing copper projects in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, U.S.A. The Company owns the Copperwood Project through long-term mineral leases. The Company also owns surface rights securing access to the deposit and providing space for infrastructure as required. The Company has 472,933,689 common shares issued and outstanding which are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol HI and trade on the OTCQB Venture Market under the symbol HDRSF.

More information about the Company is available on the Companys website at www.highlandcopper.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Cautionary Statement

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the Companys ability to raise the required funds to continue its activities and to meet all its commitments. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the Company will be able to secure a debt and/or equity financing package or to complete a strategic transaction. Risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors which could cause events or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include, among others, the effects of general economic conditions, commodity prices, risks associated with exploration and project development, the calculation of mineral resources and reserves; operational risks associated with mining and mineral processing; fluctuations in metal prices; title matters; government regulation; obtaining and renewing necessary licenses and permits; environmental liability and insurance; reliance on key personnel; dilution; the volatility of our common share price and volume; future sales of shares by existing shareholders; and other risks and uncertainties, including those risks described in our most recently filed annual financial statements and managements discussion and analysis relating to the Company's business and plans for development of the Copperwood project, available at www.sedar.com. All forward looking statements in this press release are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information, please contact:
There are those that are afraid of the truth. Those that will do everything to hide it, but the truth is rooted deeply in the ground, said Edelstein. Just like the trees we planted today, it has deep roots. Nisman was a brilliant attorney, dedicated to his family, and more than anything he was a man of truth.
The nostalgia-soaked get-down, born last year as the Soul Train Experience, is designed for enthusiasts of disco and funk, soul and hip-hop, and their evolution into modern dance. It also celebrates punking, a lesser-known 70s dance founded in disco clubs that involves posing and sharp, striking arm movements. (It has nothing to do with hard-rocking punk bands.)
What happened next seemed like frightened disorder as students rushed into the hallway in confusion, Snyder writes in her first-person essay in the new book Parkland Speaks (Crown Books). A harrowing collection of personal essays, poems and drawings from students and teachers of Stoneman Douglas, the book is edited by the schools yearbook teacher, Sarah Lerner, and will be published Jan. 22. Parkland Speaks is the latest of several books, published within the last six months by students, alumni and teachers, to feature stories of rescue, courage and resilience from the tragedy.
We are changing things to be more locally influenced. We do our best to embrace the South Florida palate and lifestyle by featuring locally wild-caught product as well as locally brewed beers, says Eric Smith, a founder with his brother, Alex. Everything you can get on the menu is a Florida feature other than the classic Maryland crab dishes. We also have live music seven nights a week from local artists.
I love coffee and I didnt want it to become a Starbucks, Afriat says. The Hollywood native says he loves the funky nature of the Broadwalk and didnt want to see it overrun by chain stores. So Afriat, who graduated from the University of Central Florida with a marketing degree and had been in the fashion and sneaker business, opened a coffee shop of his own. The name is a play on the French term cafe clope, low-key places in France where people get coffee and cigarettes in the morning.
Stratford Musical Theatre Company's production of Les Mis, RSC's Christmas Carol and Bear Pit's Blackadder Goes Forth are among the Herald's arts highlights from 2018

Gill Sutherland, Herald arts editor, shares some of her favourite arts highlights from 2018.

Ive seen and been immersed in so many amazing projects and events in 2018, but a few standouts follow.

I loved 2017s A Christmas Carol at the RSC  a great heart-warming tale given political punch and lots of heart  but the 2018 revisit, this time starring Aden Gillett as a very believable Scrooge, was even better: more bells, whistles and magic.

Other RSC highs in 2018 include Erica Whymans beautiful and youthful Romeo and Juliet; a romping Merry Wives of Windsor; perfectly quirky musical Miss Littlewood; the gloriously gauche Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich; Timon of Athens, with Kathryn Hunters stellar take on the titular role; and the thought-provoking Spring Mischief Festival, which retold two important global political stories: the arrest of Turkish journalist Can Dundar in #WeAreArrested and the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico in Day of the Living. Oh, and I rather liked the Marmitey Macbeth too.

Theres been some great theatre going on around smaller venues in the area too. The Bear Pit continues to put on amateur drama of high quality, and this years riotous The 39 Steps, and incredibly moving wartime tales Lilies on the Land and Blackadder Goes Forth, saw the theatre company once again punching above its weight.

Another war tale that was a real treat to behold was Antic Dispositions Henry V, transported to the trenches of the First World War. Performed on the Armistice 100th anniversary at Holy Trinity, it was full of significance.

Celebrating three decades of offering young people the chance to create amazing drama, Playbox Theatre put on some truly wondrous shows. A Midsummer Nights Dream, the Britpop-inspired Canterbury Tales and chilling festive offering of The Snow Queen were particular favourites.

Stratford Musical Theatre Company also continued to engage local youngsters in some inspiring shows. Their mega production of Les Miserables, with a cast of 80, was an absolute stonker.

During the long hot summer there was no better place to be than picnicking and listening to glorious music at Longborough Festival Opera. I loved the contemporary take on Strausss Ariadne auf Naxos.

Stratford Literary Festival always delivers a glut of must-see events. After a visit this year I was inspired to read local author Susan Fletchers latest book, House of Glass, a beautifully told, haunting tale  and my book of the year.
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SEATTLE, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- CFN Media Group (CFN Media), the leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the North American cannabis industry, announces publication of an article discussing The Yield Growth Corp. (CSE:BOSS), and its innovative take on wellness products.



Oregons cannabis industry has experienced tremendous growth since adult-use legalization went into effect. According to New Frontier Data, the state will become the fifth largest market in the country with just over $1 billion in sales by 2020. With the growth in U.S. markets like these, many Canadian companies have leveraged their expertise gained in the countrys federally-legal market to expand into state-legal markets.

The Yield Growth Corp. (CSE: BOSS) manufactures and distributes cannabis-infused wellness products under its Urban Juve brand, inspired by the ancient healing powers of Ayurvedic medicine. Over the past several quarters, the company has expanded beyond Canada and into the United States and Europe. Investors may want to keep a close eye on the stock given the companys impressive portfolio, unique approach to skincare, new distribution agreements around the world, and passage of the new Farm Bill.

Click here to receive an investor presentation and updates

Innovative Wellness Products

Yield Growths wholly-owned Urban Juve subsidiary has developed a catalog of more than 50 wellness formulas, including anti-aging serums, bath salts, pain patches, antihistamines, and more. Setting itself apart from the rest of the burgeoning market, Urban Juve utilizes hemp root oil, as well as hemp seed oil, which the rest of market relies upon. The root oil has proven anti-inflammatory benefits for the skin, potentially greater than that of the hemp seed oil, and is a key differentiator in the companys formulations, where applicable. Urban Juve has 11 patents pending on the extraction process for hemp root oil.

In addition to several products currently available via its website that have been gaining momentum, the company plans on launching an entire suite of products, including moisturizers, daily ritual oils, face mists, anti-aging serums, deodorants, lip balms, bath salts, face masks, lip gloss, facial cleansers, natural health products, and even food products. The companys R&D team also continues to actively develop additional products. Recently, Urban Juves proprietary sunscreen formula passed the United States Federal Drug Agency (FDA) broad spectrum test confirming a Sun Protection Factor (SPF) of 30, which is an essential component to the marketing of the product in 2019.

These wellness products are being developed and marketed by an all-star management team consisting of industry leaders from PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Skechers USA, Aritzia LP, M.A.C Cosmetics, and other multinational companies. In fact, the President and CEO Penny Green co-founded Merus Labs, which was sold in July 2017 for $342 million, and was the co-founder of Glance Technologies, which reached a $480 million market cap. Tom Bond, previously CFO and COO of M.A.C Cosmetics, has recently been added to the roster as the Chairman of Urban Juve and Director of Yield Growth. With an impressive set of achievements, including unprecedented growth for M.A.C Cosmetics during his tenure, Tom stands to help lead the company in a similar trajectory.

Click here to receive an investor presentation and updates

Expanding Oregon Distribution

Oregon is a target rich environment for the Urban Juve product line. The company recently announced that its subsidiary, UJ Topicals Inc., entered into an agreement with Nova Paths LLC, a licensed distributor of cannabis products in Oregon, consisting of a distribution network of 400 stores and counting, to manufacture and distribute its THC and CBD infused line of topical products in the state. With Nova Paths distribution to a large network of retailers, UJ Topicals looks to benefit from the streamlined business model. Management continues to pursue these types of distribution deals as a means to significantly increase its revenue potential without the high cost of expanding geographically with in-house manufacturing and distribution operations.

With its growing patent portfolio, the company is instead positioning itself as a high-margin licensor of cannabis-infused wellness productsa compelling value proposition for shareholders and potential investors. Under the terms of the agreement, Nova Paths will retain 25 percent of the wholesale revenue from the sale of UJ Topicals products and pay the balance, less certain expenses to UJT.

Looking Ahead

The Yield Growth Corp. (CSE: BOSS) represents a compelling opportunity to invest in one of the industrys most extensive wellness brands. With a growing number of distribution agreements, formulated products, patent applications, and unique approach to holistic wellness, the company is well positioned to maintain its leadership position in the space and could potentially generate significant high-margin revenue through licensing agreements.

For more information, visit the companys website at www.yieldgrowth.com or their brand website at www.urbanjuve.com.

Click here to receive an investor presentation and updates

Please follow this link to read the full article:

https://www.cannabisfn.com/yield-growth-expline-into-oregon/

About CFN Media

CFN Media (CannabisFN) is the leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the global cannabis industry, helps companies operating in the space attract investors, capital, and publicity. Since 2013, private and public cannabis companies in the US and Canada have relied on CFN Media to grow and succeed.

Learn how to become a CFN Media client company, brand or entrepreneur:

http://www.cannabisfn.com/featuredcompany

Download the CFN Media iOS mobile app to access the world of cannabis from the palm of your hand: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cannabisfn/id988009247?ls=1&mt=8

Or visit our homepage and enter your mobile number under the Apple App Store logo to receive a download link text on your iPhone: http://www.cannabisfn.com

Disclaimer

CannabisFN.com is not an independent financial investment advisor or broker-dealer. You should always consult with your own independent legal, tax, and/or investment professionals before making any investment decisions. The information provided on http://www.cannabisfn.com (the Site) is either original financial news or paid advertisements drafted by our in-house team or provided by an affiliate. CannabisFN.com, a financial news media and marketing firm enters into media buys or service agreements with the companies that are the subject of the articles posted on the Site or other editorials for advertising such companies. We are not an independent news media provider. We make no warranty or representation about the information including its completeness, accuracy, truthfulness or reliability and we disclaim, expressly and implicitly, all warranties of any kind, including whether the Information is complete, accurate, truthful, or reliable. As such, your use of the information is at your own risk. Nor do we undertake any obligation to update the items posted. CannabisFN.com received compensation for producing and presenting high quality and sophisticated content on CannabisFN.com along with financial and corporate news.

The above article is sponsored content. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CannabisFN.com and CFN Media, has been hired to create awareness. Please follow the link below to view our full disclosure outlining our compensation: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/

Frank Lane

206-369-7050

flane@cannabisfn.com
A new health facility is up and running to provide services to residents of Covenant Place as well as to older adults in the surrounding neighborhood.

Things are going really well, said Joan Denison, executive director of the senior housing complex on the Millstone Campus. There are patients who live at Covenant Place and in the greater community who are taking advantage of this wonderful practice and this convenient location.

Staffed by Washington University Physicians, the Geriatric Primary Care Medical Clinic opened in late November and is designed to provide on-site assistance to seniors through two doctors and a nurse practitioner who work out of a space in the Chai Building.

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The idea is part of a more ambitious effort related to Covenants ongoing building program, which aims to replace all three of its residential structures over the next few years. When the second tower, the Cahn Family Building, is completed by midyear, the clinic will become part of the Mirowitz Center, a first-floor suite of services for older adults including everything from legal assistance to dining options to health and educational opportunities. Audiologists, podiatrists and dentists as well as physical, occupational and speech therapists will rotate through the newly developed center.

[The center] is a very integrated program looking at all the sides of what we need to remain healthy and independent as we age, Denison said. Then we are also in this center providing space for other service providers. For instance, during open enrollment for Medicare, well have Medicare navigators there so people can make appointments and see which insurance policy best meets their needs.

Covenants neighbors will also benefit. The areas heavy concentration of seniors led to its designation as a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community, or NORC. An estimated 16,000 people over age 65 live within three miles of the Millstone Campus.

The patient appointments are typically longer than you get with a primary care practice, Denison said. I think were also seeing that people really appreciate the convenience of having it near where they live.

Dr. David Carr, medical director of the clinic, said the area has the second-most-elderly demographic profile in the St. Louis region.

Eventually, if this model works well in providing high-quality care for older adults, maybe it is something that can be replicated, he said.

Carr believes that the new facility will prevent emergency room visits by giving attention to residents where they live, allowing problems to be discovered before they become crises.

The hope is, with a primary care clinic embedded on the premises, we can get people in and see them or, if they are not feeling good, maybe we go to their apartment and see them there and hopefully provide care that heads things off at the pass, he said.

Covenant has logged 240 emergency medical service calls over the past several years.

Weve seen from our own surveys that many people, as they age, instead of being proactive and maintaining good health, because of the difficulty of getting to the doctor with transportation and huge medical facilities that are difficult to navigate, they just stop going to the doctor and wait until they are very ill, Denison said.

Dr. Tim Holden, who is also on staff at the clinic, said he feels the integrative approach being taken by Covenant is the right way to move forward.

Were learning as a field in medicine that health is a lot more [than just] about disease, Holden said. It is about looking at the holistic picture of how people live, what their access is to food, nutrition, exercise, the neighborhood they live in, the people they interact with every day.

The new clinic, which is bolstered by a $1.8 million grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health, will also provide training and research opportunities for Washington University. Students from the schools of medicine, pharmacy, nursing and social work may benefit from hands-on experience at Covenant. Meanwhile, the complexs stable population of 400 residents represents a chance to collect useful data on medical outcomes over time.

Denison continues to look forward to the day when the clinic will move to its permanent home in the soon-to-be-erected Cahn Family Building. She said the facility has already added a weight management specialist and a nurse practitioner specializing in cardiac issues and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). After relocation to the Cahn Building, plans are in place to expand the staff to include a wellness coordinator to help make appointments for other services and a community health nurse to provide education and one-on-one support.

It really is bringing together different services and resources offered throughout our community into a single hub, Denison said. We like to think that it is a place where you can come and find the services and resources you need and find your peer group to remain active and engaged throughout your life.
Im not a genius, playwright and director Aaron Posner insists. But I get to work with geniuses all the time.

Theres probably something wrong with both parts of that remark.

In the first place, plenty of people would gladly bestow a genius label on the prolific, award-laden theater artist.

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In the second place, can he really work with them? What if those geniuses  William Shakespeare, say, or Anton Chekhov  are long dead?

Life Sucks!, Posners updated adaptation of Chekhovs Uncle Vanya, closed the New Jewish Theatres previous season. Now his riff on The Merchant of Venice, District Merchants, is set to open there Jan. 24. The drama is directed by Jacqueline Thompson, who received the St. Louis Theater Circles 2018 award for outstanding actress in a drama for her performance in the NJTs production of Intimate Apparel.

Disrupting traditional conventions of time and place, Life Sucks! is set in contemporary America, while District Merchants takes place in Washington just after the Civil War. It centers on conflicts among businessmen who belong to two different, marginalized groups: Some are Jewish, some African American.

Obviously, both plays were written without any contribution from the original authors. It was a different story when Posner, one of todays most prominent adaptors of literary works for the theater, turned Chaim Potoks novels of the Orthodox Jewish life, The Chosen and I Am Asher Lev, into stage vehicles. Posner and Potok, who died in 2002, collaborated on both adaptations, now popular in their own rights. (In St. Louis, theyve been performed by troupes including the NJT and Mustard Seed Theatre.)

What a pleasure that (collaboration) was, Posner recalled.

But if collaboration isnt possible, that can be OK, too.

I am a great believer in imagination  and in reimagination. Thats essential to being human, said Posner, 54, who lives in suburban Washington, D.C., with his wife, actress Erin Weaver, and their daughter Maisie, 7. We see ourselves in stories, and we want to engage with them, to learn more about ourselves and other people.

But, he suspects, thats easier if the characters arent draped in veils of old-fashioned dignity.

Posners most-performed play underscores the point: Its his riff on Chekhovs The Seagull, Stupid Fing Bird. The name, he has explained, started as a joke, then stuck.

Chekhov has influenced more than a century of playwrights and performers and, in his own day, was considered breathtakingly modern. But staid productions have allowed his work to molder under a guise of propriety and bustles, Posner says. He would like audiences to enjoy those plays just as their ancestors did, cooled and delighted by a gust of fresh theatrical air.

The same thing holds true for Shakespeare, Posner believes. After he graduated from Northwestern University, Posner moved from the home of his youth in Eugene, Ore., to Philadelphia, where he and friends cofounded the Arden Theatre. It seemed to them like a great town for theater, he recalled, and they werent wrong: The Arden, named for Shakespeares fictional forest, continues to flourish.

Over time, Posner built his own reputation.

I split my time between writing and directing, he said, with a specialty in directing the plays of Shakespeare. But he refused, more than once, to direct The Merchant of Venice.

As a Jew, he said, he couldnt figure out how to approach a play so problematic that no less a Shakespeare authority than Yale Universitys Harold Bloom contends it would have been better for the last four centuries of the Jewish people had Shakespeare never written this play.

Nevertheless, Bloom loves the complex, richly theatrical character at the heart of Merchant, the Jewish moneylender Shylock.

Shylocks most famous speech is probably the one asserting his, and his peoples, humanity:

Hath not a Jew eyes? If you prick us do we not bleed?  If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Its a great speech. Posner, however, found his way in through a different Shylock speech, the one about slavery.

Venice, a great and sophisticated state during the Renaissance, built its economy on slaves, a point that Shylock zeroes in on.

You have among you many a purchased slave, Shylock charges, acidly urging his judges to give their slaves delicious food, soft beds and, perhaps, the hands of their aristocratic daughters. No? Well, whos merciful now?

There it was, Posner realized, a fresh, and distinctly American, window on Merchant. Of course African Americans lived in Washington during Reconstruction, among them a middle class. Posner did research and learned that there was also a small, influential Jewish community of several hundred families in the capital at that time who were businessmen.

With that in mind, he wrote District Merchants, a play that NJT artistic director Edward Coffield describes as an uneasy comedy. (Shakespeares Merchant counts among his comedies, a designation that may be accurate but nevertheless troubles many students today.)

In Posners play, the prosperous Jewish businessman Shylock (portrayed here by Gary Wayne Barker) makes a brutal deal with a successful black businessman, Antoine (J. Samuel Davis). In Shakespeare, that character is Antonio, the merchant of the title. Antoine ultimately is saved from disaster by a brilliant white woman, Portia (Courtney Bailey Parker), whos romantically involved with Antoines dear friend Benjamin Bassanio (Rob White). Benjamin is African American but he passes and chooses to do so.

There is no privileged class in District Merchants,  Posner points out.

Noting that none of the characters are white, Protestant men, the vested class in 19th century America, he said he was particularly interested in the perspective of those not at the center of power, and their complicated relationships.

This is almost certainly not Shakespeares concern in The Merchant of Venice, a point Posner concedes with a laugh. Hes not Chekhov or Shakespeare, and he doesnt fool anyone about that. He does want todays audiences and theater artists to continue to interact with memorable classic characters, intellectually and emotionally, and participate in their stories.

Besides, Posner adds cheerfully, hes not the first one to work this way.

Shakespeare, he observes, stole everything.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Fulcrum IT Services, LLC, an information technology and government consulting company headquartered in Centreville, Va. The planned acquisition is expected to close in February.



Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Fulcrum expands HIIs capabilities in enhanced situational awareness and predictive threat analytics through Fulcrums advanced engineering, cyber security, software development, big data engineering, and intelligence and special operations experience. Fulcrum will join HIIs Technical Solutions division.

Fulcrums capabilities in software development, data analytics, cyber security and advanced engineering are strongly aligned with national security priorities and complement our priority practice areas, said Andy Green, executive vice president of HII and president of Technical Solutions. The companys unique experience and capabilities across the C5ISR domain grow our reach and support in the intelligence and special operations communities.

Huntington Ingalls Industries is Americas largest military shipbuilding company and a provider of professional services to partners in government and industry. For more than a century, HIIs Newport News and Ingalls shipbuilding divisions in Virginia and Mississippi have built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder. HIIs Technical Solutions division provides a wide range of professional services through its Fleet Support, Mission Driven Innovative Solutions, Nuclear & Environmental, and Oil & Gas groups. Headquartered in Newport News, Virginia, HII employs more than 40,000 people operating both domestically and internationally. For more information, visit:

HII on the web: www.huntingtoningalls.com

HII on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HuntingtonIngallsIndustries

HII on Twitter: twitter.com/hiindustries

Statements in this release, as well as other statements we may make from time to time, other than statements of historical fact, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements. Factors that may cause such differences include: changes in government and customer priorities and requirements (including government budgetary constraints, shifts in defense spending, and changes in customer short-range and long-range plans); our ability to estimate our future contract costs and perform our contracts effectively; changes in procurement processes and government regulations and our ability to comply with such requirements; our ability to deliver our products and services at an affordable life cycle cost and compete within our markets; natural and environmental disasters and political instability; our ability to execute our strategic plan, including with respect to share repurchases, dividends, capital expenditures, and strategic acquisitions; adverse economic conditions in the United States and globally; changes in key estimates and assumptions regarding our pension and retiree health care costs; security threats, including cyber security threats, and related disruptions; and other risk factors discussed in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. There may be other risks and uncertainties that we are unable to predict at this time or that we currently do not expect to have a material adverse effect on our business, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements that we may make.

Contact:

Beci Brenton

Beci.Brenton@hii-co.com

(202) 264-7143
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English17/01/2019

DODIK SATISFIED WITH MEETING WITH PUTIN

BELGRADE, January 17 /SRNA/ - The Serbian member of the BiH Presidency, Milorad Dodik, has told SRNA in Belgrade that it is his pleasure to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin with whom he will discuss cooperation between Republika Srpska and Russia.



The most important issue is certainly the continuation of our cooperation and agreement on certain projects in connection with natural gas and other energy sectors, primarily oil industry, and power production from other sources, Dodik told SRNA at the palace of Serbia.



Dodik says that he and Republika Srpska President Zeljka Cvijanovic, who will also attend todays meeting with Putin, want to reinforce cooperation between Russia and Srpska in education, that they will try to secure a greater level of cultural cooperation, but also to maintain a high level of opinion exchange.



Stressing that it is important that he is today in Belgrade as the Serbian member of the BiH Presidency, Dodik has said that the interest of Republika Srpska is the most important for him and that which was started and done while he was Republika Srpska president.



I certainly consider my obligation and duty, as the Serbian member of the BiH Presidency, to affirm interests of Republika Srpska, and this I will do. It is a great pleasure that we will meet today with Putin, Dodik has said.



Dodik thanked Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic for enabling him and Republika Srpska president to meet with President Putin during his visit to Serbia. /end/sg
Kavan Ratnayaka has been appointed the new Chairman of Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA). Mr.Ratnayaka assumed duties as the Chairman of Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) today, 17.01.2019 with blessings of the Triple Gem at the Chairmans office of SLPA.





Kavan Ratnayaka

Speaking at the event, Minister of Port, Shipping and Southern Development Sagala Ratnayaka remarked of the commendable path taken by Sri Lanka Ports Authority as a pioneer public sector institution that contributed tremendously to the national treasury since the period of late Minister of Port Development Lalith Athulathmudali. Hon.Minister Lalith Athulathmudali of the Government of His Excellency the President J.R.Jayawardhane created a revolutionary change in the port and maritime sector of Sri Lanka. As a result, more public-private partnerships emerged with collaborative competition in the countrys port sector.





The Minister also stated that the port of Colombo that has almost reached to its capacity with collaborative teamwork of the Jaya Container Terminal of Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), the South Asia Gateway Terminals and the Colombo International Container Terminals should be further developed into one of the leading ports of the world. The Minister expressed his confidence that Mr.Kavan Ratnayaka as the new Chairman of Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), with experience in both public and private sector will steer Sri Lanka port Authority and the Port of Colombo to this position.





Before his appointment as the Chairman of SLPA, Mr.Kavan Ratnayaka served the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA). He is also a former Chairman of Associated Newspapers of Ceylon (Lake House). An old boy of Royal College, Mr.Kavan Ratnayaka holds a Bachelor of Science degree in (Physics) of the University of California. He has also served as the Country General Manager of IBM Sri Lanka, Chief Executive Officer of Dialog Broadband and the Chief Corporate Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC.





Gampaha District Member of Parliament  Kavinda Jayawardhane, the Managing Director of Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA)  Capt.Athula Hewavitharana, Additional Managing Director of Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA)  Mr.Upali D. Zoysa, Directors and a number of higher officials of the management and staffs of Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), President of the Jathika Sewaka Sangamaya (JSS) of Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA)  Mr.Udeni Kaluthanthri also attended the event.
Britain's Brexit Dithering It's Time to Let the UK Go

With this week's vote in parliament, it's clear that the British aren't close to clarifying their future relationship with Europe, or even knowing what they want. It might be best if we let them figure that out on their own, outside the European Union.
Global Expansion Underway with 10% Equity Investment in Licensed Cannabis Cultivator

CannaPacific among Australias only Federally Licensed Cultivators with projected 108,000 sq. ft. Greenhouse

TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aleafia Health Inc. (TSXV: ALEF: OTCQX: ALEAF, FRA: ARAH) (Aleafia Health) or the (Company) is announcing its global expansion with the closing of its previously announced investment in CannaPacific Pty Limited (CannaPacific), a federally licensed Australian medical cannabis company located in New South Wales, Australia.

CannaPacific is licensed by the Office of Drug Control (ODC) of Australia to cultivate medical cannabis (License MC020/18) and to research medical cannabis (License RL 012/18). CannaPacific has also applied for a manufacturers license which has been reviewed by the ODC.

The transaction was completed pursuant to the terms of an Investment Agreement (the Investment Agreement) dated January 17, 2019 between CannaPacific, Aleafia Health and CannaPacifics founder shareholder, Dennis Partners Pty Limited as trustee for Dennis Partners Trust (the Investment Agreement). Under the Investment Agreement, Aleafia acquired 10% of the ordinary shares of CannaPacific from the Founder for AUS $100 and Aleafia agreed to contribute to CannaPacific USD $150,000 in working capital in two tranches of USD $75,000 over a six (6) month period. Aleafia also acceded to CannaPacifics Shareholders Agreement. The TSX Venture Exchange consented to the investment on January 16, 2019.

EARLY MOVER ADVANTAGE WITH 108,000 SQ. FT. GREENHOUSE

CannaPacific recently won the bid to acquire a horticultural property with extensive greenhouses and infrastructure. The property is situated in the iconic Byron Bay region of New South Wales. Upon closing of the property acquisition, CannaPacific will begin retrofitting of the facility, which boasts 108,000 sq. ft. (10,000 sq. m.) of greenhouse cultivation area. The acquisition significantly accelerates CannaPacifics early mover advantage in Australias budding medical cannabis sector. The property also has local government approval for a subsequent 110,000 sq. ft. expansion of the facility. CannaPacific is currently preparing an amendment to their existing licences to conduct cultivation and research at this property.

CannaPacific aims to supply the Australian medical cannabis patients with pharmaceutical grade medical cannabis products. The market size is expected to grow from USD $52 million in 2018 to USD $1.2 billion in 2027, according to BDS Analytics. CannaPacific also intends to export medical cannabis, which was recently authorized by the Australian federal government.

CannaPacifics management is composed of veterans of medicine, pharmaceutical manufacturing and sales, oncology, hospital management, plant science and cannabis cultivation.

ALEAFIA HEALTH MEDICAL CANNABIS LEADERSHIP

Aleafia will assist CannaPacific in the establishment of dedicated medical cannabis clinics, with shared expertise across patient treatment and education, physician recruitment and training, treatment best practices and clinic operations.

Upon the closing of the Companys previously announced acquisition of Emblem Corp. (TSXV: EMC, OTCQX: EMMBF) (Emblem), expected in Q1 2019 following satisfaction of previously announced transaction conditions, CannaPacific will leverage Emblems product innovation expertise, with a portfolio of high-margin derivate products including oils, capsules and sprays.

This strategic investment in an emerging medical cannabis market marks Aleafias first step towards a broader global expansion, said Aleafia Chairman Julian Fantino. Much like Canadas medical cannabis industry a decade ago, early movers like CannaPacific featuring strong management, financial backing and technical expertise will capture significant market share.

This transaction will place Aleafia at the epicentre of what we expect will be a major growth centre in the global medical cannabis market, said Aleafia CEO Geoffrey Benic. Aleafia will soon boast global distribution networks in Germany (upon completion of the Emblem acquisition) and Australia, complementing our cannabis cultivation, clinics and adult-use retail in Canada.

We are delighted to have Aleafia as a strategic investor, said CannaPacific CEO Joshua Dennis. With a major cannabis cultivation facility and strategic relationship with medical cannabis leader, we expect to accelerate our first to market strategy in Australia along with our objective of becoming a major exporter of medical cannabis products.

About Aleafia:

Aleafia is a vertically integrated, national cannabis health and wellness company with major medical clinic, cannabis cultivation and R&D operations. The company is a federally licensed producer and vendor of cannabis and will reach an annual production capacity of 98,000 kg of dried cannabis in 2019.

Aleafia operates medical cannabis clinics staffed by physicians and nurse practitioners, with over 50,000 patients. The company is highly differentiated, maintaining the largest medical cannabis dataset in the world.

About CannaPacific:

CannaPacific is a licensed Medical Cannabis Company based in Newcastle and the Macleay Valley on the mid-north coast of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. CannaPacific has been granted licenses to cultivate and research medical cannabis in Australia and is in the process of constructing a 53,000 sq. ft. greenhouse cultivation and research facility. This project will position CannaPacific as a high-quality low-cost Australian producer. The CannaPacific Team comprises experts in the medical, clinical trials, plant Science, technology and pharmaceutical industries with vast experience and world class capability.

For more information visit www.cannapacific.com.au .

For Investor & Media Relations, please contact:

Nicholas Bergamini, VP Public Affairs

416-860-5665

IR@AleafiaInc.com

Neither Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.



FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This press release contains forward-looking statements and information that are based on the beliefs of management and reflect the Company's current expectations. When used in this press release, the words "estimate", "project", "belief", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "plan", "predict", "may" or "should" and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. The forward-looking statements and information in this press release includes information relating to the implementation of Aleafia Health's and/or CannaPacifics business plan. Such statements and information reflect the current view of the Company with respect to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements and information.



By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: risks associated with the implementation of Aleafia Health's and/or CannaPacifics business plan and matters relating thereto, risks associated with the cannabis industry, competition, regulatory change, the need for additional financing, reliance on key personnel, the potential for conflicts of interest among certain officers or directors, obtaining of regulatory approvals, and the volatility of the Company's common share price and volume. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0e41d792-f253-453f-8e49-ac5687232e88

The photo is also available at Newscom, www.newscom.com, and via AP PhotoExpress.
Irreconcilable Differences A Divided Britain Faces a No-Deal Brexit

Can Britain still regain control? After weeks of power struggles and an historic parliamentary defeat for the prime minister, it is unclear if the UK can still agree on a Brexit deal. Or whether a no-deal departure has become inevitable.
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UN chief calls for US-N.Korea roadmap to scrap nuclear weapons



United Nations, United States, Jan 18 (AFP) Jan 18, 2019



UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday urged the United States and North Korea to agree on a roadmap for serious negotiations on scrapping Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic weapons.

"We believe it's high time to make sure that the negotiations between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea start again seriously and that a roadmap is clearly defined for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," Guterres told a news conference.

His remarks came as top North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol was in Washington for talks with President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to prepare a second summit, probably in Vietnam.

Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a historic summit in June in Singapore -- the first ever between the two countries -- where they signed a vaguely worded denuclearization deal.

But there has been no progress made since then, with both sides disagreeing over what was signed in Singapore.

Asked about a possible easing of sanctions, Guterres said he would not "advocate for any anticipation of other measures before a clear negotiation is put in place" but added that "the two things will be inevitably interlinked."

The United States has insisted that "maximum pressure" from a raft of tough sanctions imposed on North Korea by the Security Council must remain in place until Pyongyang has fully scrapped its nuclear and ballistic missiles program.

But North Korea insists that easing sanctions would build trust along the way to denuclearization - a stance that has won support from China and Russia.

Guterres also said humanitarian aid to North Korea should not be held hostage to political considerations.

The United States this month agreed to begin lifting a hold on several requests to the UN sanctions committee from aid agencies for exemptions that would allow them to ship goods needed for relief work in North Korea.

"We should never refuse humanitarian aid to any country in any circumstance, for the people of that country," said Guterres.

The UN chief said the United Nations would not seek to play a bigger role in efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, leaving the diplomacy firmly in the hands of Washington and Pyongyang.
Top N.Korean plans summit with Trump on White House visit



Washington, Jan 18 (AFP) Jan 18, 2019



A top North Korean general on Friday met President Donald Trump at the White House to prepare a fresh summit, a sign of progress in reaching a denuclearization deal that could end decades of hostility.

Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to leader Kim Jong Un, opened talks with Trump little more than a year after the US leader was threatening to wipe North Korea off the map.

Kim made the widely expected but previously unannounced trip to the White House -- which Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said would discuss "continued progress on North Korea's final, fully verified denuclearization" -- after a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the State Department characterized as positive.

Kim Yong Chol is the first North Korean dignitary in nearly two decades to spend the night in Washington, staying at a fashionable hotel a short drive from the White House where Pompeo welcomed him near a framed portrait of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.

Kim Jong Un and Trump held a landmark first meeting in Singapore in June where they signed a vaguely worded document, with Kim pledging to work towards the "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

But progress has since stalled as Pyongyang and Washington -- which stations 28,500 troops in South Korea -- disagree over what that means.

Trump has repeatedly voiced eagerness to see Kim Jong Un again -- even opining that the two are "in love" after their Singapore summit, the first meeting ever between sitting leaders from the two countries that never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tensions began to abate a year ago with the encouragement of South Korea's dovish president, Moon Jae-in. Trump has repeatedly hailed his own diplomacy as a triumph, recently saying there would have been "a nice big fat war in Asia" if it were not for him.



- Vietnam ready to host -



Trump has said to expect an announcement soon about the second summit.

In Vietnam, a government source told AFP that "logistical preparations" were under way to host the summit, most likely in the capital Hanoi or coastal city of Danang, but that no decision had been made.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that Vietnam was ready to welcome the two leaders, noting that Hanoi has a growing relationship with the United States despite war memories.

"We don't know the final decision. However, if it happens here we will do our best to facilitate the meeting," he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

For Trump, the made-for-television summitry with the young and elusive North Korean leader also offers a welcome respite from a steady barrage of negative headlines at home.

An explosive report late Thursday in BuzzFeed said that Trump ordered his lawyer to lie to Congress about a project in Russia, and Trump's insistence that Congress fund a wall on the Mexican border has shuttered the US government for nearly a month.

For Kim, the stakes are more existential as he seeks guarantees of the survival of his regime.

Kim, backed by ally China as well as South Korea, is also hoping for an easing of international sanctions, but the United States insists on maintaining maximum pressure until Pyongyang moves forward on giving up its nuclear weapons.



- Leader-driven diplomacy -



Although in Singapore Kim promised his "unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," the United States expects North Korea to give up nuclear weapons assembled over decades of work while Pyongyang more broadly seeks an end to what it sees as US threats.

"I think there is somewhat of a general consensus of what denuclearization means. I think there is obviously still disagreement on how to get there -- whether denuclearization is the end of the process or the process itself," said Jenny Town, managing editor of the 38 North web journal on North Korea policy at the Stimson Center.

She noted that Americans have traditionally preferred to hash out the details of agreements before big summits, while the type of leader-driven diplomacy favored by Trump is more common in Asia.

"People have been very skeptical of this top-down approach, but we won't know unless we try it," Town said.
TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LSC Lithium Corporation (LSC or together with its subsidiaries, the Company) (TSXV:LSC) is pleased to announce that it has filed the technical report for the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for its Pozuelos-Pastos Grandes (PPG) Project titled Preliminary Economic Assessment  Pozuelos-Pastos Grandes Project NI 43-101 Technical Report, Salta, Argentina which can be found on Sedar ( www.sedar.com ) and the Companys website ( www.lsclithium.com ).



PEA HIGHLIGHTS

US$2,994/t Li2CO3 US$338m US$1,036m 34 % Avg Operating Costs

(incl. 5% contingency) Initial Capital

(incl. $59m contingency) NPV8% (Pre-tax) IRR (Pre-tax) US$125m 20,000 tpa US$762m 30 % After Tax Annual Free

Cash Flow Production of

Battery Grade Li 2 CO 3 NPV8% (Post tax) IRR (Post tax)

US$762 million after-tax NPV at 8% discount rate and IRR of 30%

CAPEX estimate of US$338m, with 34% of estimate at PFS level accuracy

OPEX of US$2,994/t of lithium carbonate over life of mine

Mine life of at least 20 years with initial production in 2021 and steady state in 2024

Designed for production of 20,000tpa of battery grade lithium carbonate

Combined PPG Project Resource of 2,617,000 tonnes LCE in Measured and Indicated category and 938,500 tonnes LCE in the Inferred category 1

Process development supported by benchscale test work. Pozuelos brine chemistry, in particular is amenable to excellent process performance

LSCs President and CEO, Ian Stalker, noted, The filing of this technical report is another important milestone. These results support our view that PPG is one of the most advanced and economically viable lithium projects in Argentina. Operating costs are in the lowest quartile globally, the capital requirements are manageable, and we are excited by the large resource, which leaves room for future upsizing.

The PEA is based upon brine grades across LSCs Measured, Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources only. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that the PPG Project envisioned by the PEA will be realized. The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves.

Unique Project Advantages

The PPG Project enjoys certain unique advantages, which support a rapid development schedule, and low capital and operating costs:

LSC controls over 90% of the area of the Pozuelos salar and its surroundings. This advantageous position makes siting of infrastructure, extraction of fresh water and preparation of brine-extraction models extremely simple. In this way, sustainable pumping of brine can be ensured.

Geotechnical conditions in the mature portion of the Pozuelos salar are such that construction of evaporation ponds can occur on the salar surface at low cost.

For the two reasons above, it was decided to locate all infrastructure at Pozuelos, with only extraction wells and a pipeline located at Pastos Grandes.

Pozuelos proximity to the existing Fenix gas pipeline ensures that only a 26km connection needs to be constructed. LSC has been allocated gas capacity on this pipeline by the gas supply company.

At least three separate sources of fresh water have been identified and road access is readily available.

The brine chemistry of the Pozuelos and Pastos Grandes salars complement each other. Test work has shown that an efficient evaporation path can be pursued to produce a high grade and high purity concentrate for feeding into the lithium plant ensuring high recovery rates.

The Argentine fiscal regime is very supportive of mining projects. A reduced corporate tax rate of 25% will be effective for the industry from 2020. A royalty of 3% is applied to all exported products. Salta Province in particular, is actively encouraging mining investment and therefore requires no additional royalties or government participation in the project.

Pozuelos hosts no communities in the immediate vicinity or environmentally sensitive flora or fauna. This increases the likelihood of a fast and efficient project approval and implementation.

LSC has developed a processing method that is based on conventional and proven unit operations for lithium brines.

Qualified Person

The information contained in this news release relating to the PEA has been reviewed and is approved by Lawrence D. Henchel, P.Geo., of Stantec Consulting International LLC. Mr. Henchel is a qualified person as the term is defined in NI 43-101 and is independent of LSC. GHD of Santiago, Chile, has also reviewed and approved the presentation of the PEA information in this news release.

ABOUT GHD:

GHD is one of the worlds leading professional services companies operating in the global markets of energy and resources, water, environment, property and buildings, and transportation. Established over ninety years ago and privately owned by its employees, GHD delivers engineering, architecture, environmental and construction services to public and private sector clients across five continents and the Pacific region. Committed to creating lasting community benefit, GHD connects the knowledge, skill and experience of nearly 10,000 diverse people with innovative practices, technical capabilities and robust systems. www.ghd.com

ABOUT LSC LITHIUM CORPORATION:

LSC Lithium has amassed a large portfolio of prospective lithium rich salars and is focused on developing its tenements located in five salars: Pozuelos, Pastos Grandes, Rio Grande, Salinas Grandes, and Jama. All LSC tenements are located in the Lithium Triangle, an area at the intersection of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile where the worlds most abundant lithium brine deposits are found. LSC Lithium has a land package portfolio totaling approximately 300,000 hectares, which represents extensive lithium prospective salar holdings in Argentina.

For further information please contact:

LSC Lithium Corporation

Ian Stalker

President & Chief Executive Officer

40 University Avenue, Suite 605, Toronto

ON Canada M5J 1T1

+416 306 8382

Email: info@lsclithium.com

Web: lsclithium.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance, including statements as results and use of data from the pump test work on Pozuelos, ability, timing and successful completion of the drill program and seismic survey at the PPG Project, timing and likelihood of relocating accommodation to Pozuelos, timing of completing engineering work on the PPG Project, LSCs overall contained lithium inventory, and ability to produce more results on the Companys properties. The use of any of the words could, anticipate, intend, expect, believe, will, projected, estimated and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on LSC's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Whether actual results and developments will conform with LSC's expectations is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including factors underlying management's assumptions, such as risks related to: title, permitting and regulatory risks; exploration and the establishment of any resources or reserves on the LSC properties; volatility in lithium prices and the market for lithium; exchange rate fluctuations; volatility in LSCs share price; the requirement for significant additional funds for development that may not be available; changes in national and local government legislation, including permitting and licensing regimes and taxation policies and the enforcement thereof; regulatory, political or economic developments in Argentina or elsewhere; litigation; title, permit or license disputes related to interests on any of the properties in which the Company holds an interest; excessive cost escalation as well as development, permitting, infrastructure, operating or technical difficulties on any of the Company's properties; risks and hazards associated with the business of development and mining on any of the Company's properties. Actual future results may differ materially. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and LSC is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein. For more information, see the Company's filing statement on SEDAR at www.sedar.com .

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.





1 See Technical Report titled Mineral Resource Estimate and Technical Report on the Salar de Pastos Grandes Project, Salta Province, Argentina with an effective date of October 28, 2018 filed on the Companys SEDAR profile. Also Technical Report titled Mineral Resource Estimate and Technical Report on the Salar de Pozuelos Project, Salta Province, Argentina with an effective date of November 22, 2018
Trump to meet N.Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol: White House



Washington, Jan 18 (AFP) Jan 18, 2019



US President Donald Trump is meeting Friday with North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol to discuss negotiations on the country's pledge to denuclearize, the White House said.

The meeting in the Oval Office at the White House was due at 12:15 pm (1715 GMT), Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

"They will discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Korea's final, fully verified denuclearization," she said.

Earlier the envoy, a general close to North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, held talks at a hotel with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The rare visit to Washington raises expectations of a second summit between Trump and Kim to follow up on a meeting last year in which they signed a vaguely worded document pledging "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula".

Progress has since stalled as Pyongyang and Washington -- which stations 28,500 troops in allied South Korea -- disagree over what that means.

State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said that the Pompeo meeting was "a good discussion."
Top N.Korean holds rare Washington talks to prepare summit



Washington, Jan 18 (AFP) Jan 18, 2019



A top North Korean general opened talks with the US leadership Friday on a rare visit to Washington, in a sign of progress towards arranging a new summit with President Donald Trump aimed at denuclearization and easing decades of hostility.

Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to leader Kim Jong Un, stood formally next to a smiling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the US representative on North Korea policy, Stephen Biegun, before a meeting inside a popular hotel in the US capital.

The trio posed briefly for pictures near a shelf holding a framed photograph of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr, little more than a year after Trump was threatening to wipe the totalitarian state off the map.

After tensions eased, the two leaders held their landmark first meeting in Singapore in June, where Kim Jong Un and Trump signed a vaguely worded document with Kim pledging to work towards the "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula". But progress has since stalled as Pyongyang and Washington -- which stations 28,500 troops in South Korea -- disagree over what that means.

Kim Yong Chol is the first North Korean dignitary in nearly two decades known to have spent the night in the US capital. The State Department did not announce the meeting until shortly beforehand, cautious after the general abruptly canceled his last trip to the United States planned in early November.

Presuming the talks go smoothly, Kim will then head to the White House to meet Trump, a US source said on condition of anonymity.

Trump has repeatedly voiced eagerness to see Kim Jong Un again -- even opining that the two are "in love" after their Singapore summit, the first meeting ever between sitting leaders from the two countries that never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tensions began to abate a year ago with the encouragement of South Korea's dovish president, Moon Jae-in. Trump has repeatedly hailed his own diplomacy as a triumph, recently saying there would have been "a nice big fat war in Asia" if it were not for him.

- Vietnam ready to host -



Trump has said to expect an announcement soon about the second summit.

In Vietnam, a government source told AFP that "logistical preparations" were under way to host the summit, most likely in the capital Hanoi or coastal city of Danang, but that no decision had been made.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that Vietnam was ready to welcome the two leaders, noting that Hanoi has a growing relationship with the United States despite war memories.

"We don't know the final decision. However, if it happens here we will do our best to facilitate the meeting," he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

For Trump, the made-for-television summitry with the young and elusive North Korean leader also offers a welcome respite from a steady barrage of negative headlines at home.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is probing whether Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia, and his insistence that Congress fund a wall on the Mexican border has shuttered the US government for nearly a month.

For Kim, the stakes are more existential as he seeks guarantees of the survival of his regime.

Kim, backed by ally China as well as South Korea, is also hoping for an easing of international sanctions, but the United States insists on maintaining maximum pressure until Pyongyang moves forward on giving up its nuclear weapons.



- Leader-driven dipolomacy -



Although in Singapore Kim promised his "unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," the United States expects North Korea to give up nuclear weapons assembled over decades of work while Pyongyang more broadly seeks an end to what it sees as US threats.

"I think there is somewhat of a general consensus of what denuclearization means. I think there is obviously still disagreement on how to get there -- whether denuclearization is the end of the process or the process itself," said Jenny Town, managing editor of the 38 North web journal on North Korea policy at the Stimson Center.

She noted that Americans have traditionally preferred to hash out the details of agreements before big summits, while the type of leader-driven diplomacy favored by Trump is more common in Asia.

"People have been very skeptical of this top-down approach, but we won't know unless we try it," Town said.
Top N.Korean in Washington to prepare new Trump summit



Washington, Jan 18 (AFP) Jan 18, 2019



A top North Korean general will meet the US leadership Friday on a rare visit to Washington, in a sign of progress in arranging a new summit with President Donald Trump aimed at denuclearization and easing decades of hostility.

Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to leader Kim Jong Un, is the first North Korean dignitary in nearly two decades known to have spent the night in the US capital, little more than a year after Trump was threatening to wipe the totalitarian state off the map.

The State Department, which declined to confirm the visit until the last minute after Kim Yong Chol abruptly canceled his last planned US trip in November, said that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would meet him in Washington at 11.00 am (1600 GMT).

Presuming the lunch talks go smoothly, Kim will then head to the White House to meet Trump, a US source said on condition of anonymity.

Kim and his entourage flew in Thursday from Beijing and, under light snow, made no comment as they exited a motorcade to check in at a fashionable hotel in the lively Dupont Circle neighborhood.

Trump has repeatedly voiced eagerness to see Kim Jong Un again -- even opining that the two are "in love" -- after their landmark June summit in Singapore, the first meeting ever between sitting leaders from the two countries that never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tensions began to abate a year ago with the encouragement of South Korea's dovish president, Moon Jae-in. Trump has repeatedly hailed his diplomacy as a triumph, recently saying there would have been "a nice big fat war in Asia" if it were not for him.

- Vietnam ready to host -



Trump has said to expect an announcement soon about the second summit. In Vietnam, a government source told AFP that "logistical preparations" were under way to host the summit, most likely in the capital Hanoi or coastal city of Danang, but that no decision had been made.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that Vietnam was ready to welcome the two leaders, noting that Hanoi has a growing relationship with the United States despite war memories.

"We don't know the final decision. However, if it happens here we will do our best to facilitate the meeting," he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

For Trump, the made-for-television summitry with the young and elusive North Korean leader also offers a welcome respite from a steady barrage of negative headlines at home.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is probing whether Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia, and his insistence that Congress fund a wall on the Mexican border has shuttered the US government for nearly a month.

For Kim, the stakes are more existential as he seeks guarantees of the survival of his regime.

Kim, backed by ally China as well as South Korea, is also hoping for an easing of international sanctions, but the United States insists on maintaining maximum pressure until Pyongyang moves forward on giving up its nuclear weapons.



- What is 'denuclearization'? -



In Singapore, Kim promised his "unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

But the two sides appear to have different ideas on how to define that, with the United States expecting North Korea to give up nuclear weapons assembled over decades of work and Pyongyang more broadly seeking an end to what it sees as US threats.

"I think there is somewhat of a general consensus of what denuclearization means. I think there is obviously still disagreement on how to get there -- whether denuclearization is the end of the process or the process itself," said Jenny Town, managing editor of the 38 North web journal on North Korea policy at the Stimson Center.

"Realistically, they can talk about it all they want to, they can define the end goal, but if you don't have a common understanding of how to get there, you're not going to reach that common goal," she said.

She noted that Americans have traditionally preferred to hash out the details of agreements before big summits, while the type of leader-driven diplomacy favored by Trump is more common in Asia.

"People have been very skeptical of this top-down approach, but we won't know unless we try it," she said.
Climate change clouds Australia's Pacific charm offensive



Wellington, Jan 18 (AFP) Jan 18, 2019



Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Pacific charm offensive went off course on Friday when he was forced to defend Fiji's accusations of inaction over climate change.

As Morrison pushed Canberra's message of a new Pacific focus with increased security and enhanced trade opportunities, he was called out by Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, who turned the spotlight onto climate change.

Bainimarama said if Australia shifted away from its coal and mining industries it would help the survival of Pacific island countries threatened by rising sea levels.

"From where we are sitting, we cannot imagine how the interests of any single industry can be placed above the welfare of Pacific peoples and vulnerable people in the world over," Bainimarama said in a speech late Thursday.

"Rising seas threaten whole communities, forcing them to endure the trauma of relocating from land they've endured for generations.

"Fijian farmers are watching their crops perish in soil that has been spoiled by the heightened salinity that is associated with sea level rise."

Morrison, wrapping up a three-day visit to Fiji and Vanuatu, told reporters on Friday that Australia had commitments on emissions reductions in a "comprehensive response" to climate change, but he gave no specifics on clean energy plans.

"Well, we are already pursuing those policies in a way that I believe is consistent with what (Bainimarama) is expecting of Australia," the prime minister said.

"They were discussions we had yesterday, and we have been having very positive discussions about our future investments in this area."

Morrison stressed the importance of the Pacific to Australia at a time China is increasing its presence in the region.

He avoided any mention of China, but in a keynote speech in Suva he spoke of strengthening "defence and security co-operation" in the region.

He also reaffirmed Canberra's commitment to extending trade opportunities in the Pacific, where Australia is often viewed as an unwelcome big brother.

Australia has in the past been accused of paying little regard to the region, while China maintains it is promoting "peace, security and prosperity" and fostering "wide-ranging friendly and co-operative ties".

On the first visit by an Australian leader to Vanuatu and Fiji, Morrison said he was turning his nation's attention to the Pacific where it "should always have been".

He reiterated plans to establish five new diplomatic missions in the region and said Australia was also establishing an Office of the Pacific within the department of foreign affairs and trade "to give a loud and authoritative voice... following my commitments to step up our Pacific engagement."

Fiji's relationship with China blossomed after Bainimarama seized power in a 2006 coup. While Beijing did not comment on Fiji's political upheaval, Australia was highly critical.

However, relations between Canberra and Suva appeared to have normalised last August when Australia beat China for the right to redevelop Fiji's Blackrock Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Camp, which trains police and troops for missions.

Fiji military chief of staff for co-ordination, Captain Eronia Duaibe, said Australia's bid was successful because they took a "holistic" approach to construction, rather than the "bits and pieces" tabled by China.

Morrison said that once the facility is completed it "will provide an unprecedented level of assistance and safety to Fiji and the Pacific region".
Top N.Korean in Washington to prepare new Trump summit



Washington, Jan 18 (AFP) Jan 18, 2019



A top North Korean general was paying a rare visit Friday to Washington, where he is expected to meet President Donald Trump to finalize a new summit aimed at denuclearization and easing decades of hostility.

Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to leader Kim Jong Un, is the first North Korean dignitary in nearly two decades known to have spent the night in the US capital, little more than a year after Trump was threatening to wipe the totalitarian state off the map.

Under light snow, Kim and his entourage were seen exiting a motorcade and without comment entering a fashionable hotel in the lively Dupont Circle neighborhood, where he is expected to meet Friday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

An American source, who could not be identified as the schedule has not been announced, said Pompeo would invite Kim to an early lunch before the two likely head together to the White House, a short drive away.

Neither side has publicly announced the visit, with the United States treading cautiously after Kim Yong Chol abruptly canceled his last planned talks with Pompeo which were set for early November in New York.

But Trump has voiced optimism after receiving what he called a warm New Year's letter from Kim Jong Un and has opined that the two leaders are "in love."

Trump has repeatedly voiced eagerness to see Kim Jong Un again after their landmark June summit in Singapore, the first meeting ever between sitting leaders from the two countries that never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tensions began to abate a year ago with the encouragement of South Korea's dovish government. Trump has repeatedly hailed his diplomacy as a triumph, recently saying there would have been "a nice big fat war in Asia" if it were not for him.

He has said to expect an announcement soon about the second summit, with diplomats seeing Vietnam and Thailand as possible venues.

For Trump, the made-for-television summitry with the young and elusive North Korean leader also offers a welcome respite from the steady negative headlines at home.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is probing whether Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia, and his insistence that Congress fund a wall on the Mexican border has shuttered the US government for nearly a month.



- What does 'denuclearization' mean? -



For Kim, the stakes are more existential as he seeks guarantees of the survival of his regime.

Kim, backed by ally China as well as South Korea, is also hoping for an easing of international sanctions, but the United States insists on maintaining maximum pressure until Pyongyang moves forward on giving up its nuclear weapons.

In Singapore, Kim promised his "unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

But the two sides appear to have different ideas on how to define that, with the United States expecting North Korea to give up nuclear weapons assembled over decades of work and Pyongyang more broadly seeking an end to what it sees as US threats.

"I think there is somewhat of a general consensus of what denuclearization means. I think there is obviously still disagreement on how to get there -- whether denuclearization is the end of the process or the process itself," said Jenny Town, managing editor of the 38 North web journal on North Korea policy at the Stimson Center.

"Realistically, they can talk about it all they want to, they can define the end goal, but if you don't have a common understanding of how to get there, you're not going to reach that common goal," she said.

She noted that Americans have traditionally preferred to hash out the details of agreements before big summits, while the type of leader-driven diplomacy favored by Trump is more common in Asia.

"People have been very skeptical of this top-down approach, but we won't know unless we try it," she said.

Pompeo in a recent interview voiced hope at reaching a deal with North Korea that would "create a much better, safer America" but cautioned that it was unlikely to be finished during the next summit.
TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Victoria Gold Corp. (TSX.V-VIT) (Victoria or the Company) is pleased to report the analytical results from the 2018 Nugget surface trench campaign. The highest grade trench results were returned from the Raven Target, which is centered within an ~1km2 coincident gold+arsenic+bismuth-in-soils geochemical anomaly within the previously un-tested southeastern contact margin of the Nugget Intrusive Stock, the second largest Cretaceous Intrusive body on the Dublin Gulch Property after the Dublin Gulch Stock that hosts the Eagle Gold Mine currently under construction.



"With only three drillholes into a new target, it is early days at Nugget. stated John McConnell, President & CEO. Dublin Gulch is well endowed with gold mineralization exposed at surface as evidenced by these impressive first ever trench results.

These trench results from a never before tested area on Dublin Gulch Property are underscored by long, continuously mineralized drill intercepts like the 101.5 metres of 0.57 g/t Au from surface in NG18-006C (See Company News Releases dated December 4, 2018 and January 17, 2019).

A Summary table of highlighted Nugget Trench results is presented below:

Trench ID From (m) To (m) Length* (m) Gold (g/t) Silver (g/t) NOTES TR18-24 10.0 26.0 16.0 0.22 > Silver Overlimits pending TR18-33 28.0 152.0 124.0 3.51 > Silver Overlimits pending Including 54.0 56.0 2.0 76.10 > Silver Overlimits pending and including 82.0 140.0 58.0 4.68 10.16 or 100.0 108.0 8.0 11.40 11.78 TR18-37 0.0 4.0 4.0 1.07 1.7 and 20.0 70.0 50.0 4.15 7.21 Including 20.0 38.0 18.0 7.15 5.56 and including 52.0 70.0 18.0 4.31 13.22 TR18-38 0.0 4.0 4.0 7.25 25.55 and 16.0 36.0 20.0 0.95 8.62

*True widths are unknown at this time

In total, 13 trenches totaling over 1,363 metres were constructed, mapped and sampled at Nugget in 2018 with over 500 metres of these surface trenches focused on the Raven Target where an area of over 200m2 was tested by trenches. Exposures opened during the trench programs returned strongly anomalous scorodite, bismuth and siderite related sulphide veins within predominantly altered granodiorite lithologies.

Detailed review and analyses of the newly discovered mineralization at Nugget is ongoing by Victorias geological team with overlimit assays, metallic screen testing and petrographic analysis of core and trench samples currently underway and pending. Results of this work will assist with guidance of all future work programs in these areas. Final geophysical results from the 2018 Nugget program are also expected shortly.

A Summary table of Additional Nugget Trench results is presented below:

Trench ID From (m) To (m) Length* (m) Gold (g/t) Silver (g/t) NOTES TR18-15 4 12 8 1.40 - and 60 62 2 3.16 - and 126 128 2 0.50 - TR18-25 - - - - - NSV TR18-26 2 6 4 - 8.20 TR18-27 38 44 6 0.08 34.50 Including 38 40 2.00 0.23 96.20 TR18-28 - - NSV TR18-29 12 14 2.00 0.11 > Silver Overlimits pending TR18-30 0 2 2.00 - 44.80 and 2 4 2.00 0.15 > Silver Overlimits pending and 4 6 2.00 0.12 > Silver Overlimits pending and 10 12 2.00 - 65.60 TR18-31 - - - - - NSV TR18-32 - - - - - NSV

*True widths are unknown at this time

A full set of plan maps and drill hole sections to accompany this news release will be made available on the Company Website.

About the Dublin Gulch Property

Victoria Gold's 100%-owned Dublin Gulch gold property is situated in the central Yukon Territory, Canada, approximately 375 kilometres north of the capital city of Whitehorse, and approximately 85 kilometres from the town of Mayo. The Property is accessible by road year-round, and is located within Yukon Energy's electrical grid.

The Property covers an area of approximately 555 square kilometres, and is the site of the Company's Eagle Gold Deposit. The Eagle Gold Mine is under construction and is expected to be Yukon's next operating gold mine. The Eagle and Olive deposits include Proven and Probable Reserves of 2.7 million ounces of gold from 123 million tonnes of ore with a grade of 0.67 grams of gold per tonne, as outlined in a National Instrument 43-101 feasibility study entitled Report for the Eagle Gold Project and dated October 26, 2016. The NI 43-101 Mineral Resource for the Eagle and Olive deposits has been estimated, as at December 5, 2018, to host 208 million tonnes averaging 0.66 grams of gold per tonne, containing 4.4 million ounces of gold in the "Measured and Indicated" category, inclusive of Proven and Probable Reserves, and a further 20 million tonnes averaging 0.64 grams of gold per tonne, containing 0.4 million ounces of gold in the "Inferred" category.

Analytical Method



All exploration trench samples from the 2018 program were collected in situ by Victoria Geologists from constructed trenches and prepared for shipment at Victoria Golds Bluto Exploration Camp where samples were subsequently delivered to the Whitehorse, Yukon, sample preparation facility of Bureau Veritas Minerals. There, samples were crushed with prepared samples sent to Bureau Veritas Minerals, Vancouver, B.C. laboratory facilities. Bureau Veritas Minerals of Vancouver, B.C. subsequently pulverized all samples and utilized the aqua regia digestion ICP-MS 36-element AQ200 analytical package with FA450 50-gram Fire Assay with AAS finish for gold on all samples. A comprehensive system of standards, blanks and field duplicates was implemented for the 2018 Dublin Gulch programs and were monitored as chemical assay data became available.

Qualified Person

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Paul D. Gray, P.Geo., as the Qualified Person. For additional information relating to the Property, refer to the technical report entitled NI 43-101 Feasibility Study Technical Report for the Eagle Gold Project, Yukon Territory, Canada, with an effective date of September 12, 2016, which is available on the Companys profile at www.sedar.com.

Cautionary Language and Forward-Looking Statements

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange, nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this discussion, other than statements of historical facts, that address future exploration drilling, exploration activities, anticipated metal production, internal rate of return, estimated ore grades, commencement of production estimates and projected exploration and capital expenditures (including costs and other estimates upon which such projections are based) and events or developments that the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include metal prices, exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

For Further Information Contact:

John McConnell

President & CEO

Victoria Gold Corp

Tel: 416-866-8800

Fax: 416-866-8801
Doctor: Climate policy will help 'keep my patients out of the hospital'
Sen. John Jasinski, R-Faribault, is the state senator for District 24, which includes most of Steele County, as well as portions of Dodge, Rice and Waseca counties. Reach him at sen.john.jasinski@senate.mn or 651-296-0284.
Denver, CO, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Ubiquitech Software Corp. (OTC: UBQU), through its subsidiary HempLife Today, is informing shareholders that it will activate and go live with its Online Ambassador Sales Portal the week of the 21st. With the Online Ambassador Sales Portal HempLife Today Wholesale/Ambassadors will have the option of pushing online sales of CannazALL hemp derived CBD products directly to their own Webpage, supplied by HempLife Today, and have HempLife Today package and ship the orders for them.



This allows Wholesale/Ambassadors the option of not tying up funds in unsold inventory, not having to build their own Website, and not having to have their own merchant processing. Opening the program to thousands of potential new Wholesale/Ambassadors.

With the Online Ambassador Sales Portal, Wholesale/Ambassadors will also have their own account and dashboard, where they can track sales and commissions earned giving them full control as they build their business and customer base.

CEO James Ballas states, With this next phase of the ambassador program we will have something in place that no one else is doing, and basically be giving our ambassadors access to their own business, without any of the start-up costs, etc. Imagine, just handing out brochures and sales cards, talking to people about CannazALL CBD and its benefits, and then getting paid when those people order, and reorder, and order again.

The Company has determined that there are three types of Wholesale/Ambassadors currently registering. They are:

Direct Sales Ambassadors: Ambassadors who take delivery of product and then distribute it themselves, or own stores or health shops. Online Sales Ambassadors: Ambassadors who wish to facilitate sales online via their own sales portal provided by HempLife Today, and have HempLife Today handle all of the fulfillment and shipping. Personal Use Ambassadors: Ambassadors who registered in order to get wholesale pricing on their CannazALL CBD products for personal use, and casual sales to close friends and family.

In addition, a Wholesale/Ambassador can be one of the above, or all three, as the choice is completely up to the individual Ambassador. The Company believes that giving Ambassadors these tools, and the freedom to use them the best way possible for each individual, will only help to create more sales of CannazALL CBD products for each Wholesale/Ambassador.

COO Luke Dreyer said, No matter what type of wholesale ambassador a person is, or if they are all three, they are talking to others and sharing their CBD experience, and that gets people asking if they can get a great deal too. It works, and we are building out many sales tools and adding training and support in order to help every ambassador sell more product.

The Company currently has a target of 10,000 active Wholesale/Ambassadors by 2022 and is well ahead of its projections at this time. The Company will be re-evaluating this target in the months ahead.

CEO James Ballas added, Once we get a certain number of active ambassadors we believe this program will explode and grow exponentially through 2019, and beyond. With just 5,000 ambassadors pushing just 10 orders per week this can really grow, and we are prepared to deal with that growth, and will be able to handle our 10,000 ambassadors target, or more.

The Company will go live with the new Ambassador Online Sales Portal the week of the 21st once BETA testing is complete. and continue to update Shareholders on the progress of the Wholesale/Ambassador program.

The Company looks forward to keeping shareholders aware of its progress in all other areas, including name and symbol change, and will keep shareholders apprised through regular press releases and its investor relations.

About Ubiquitech Software Corp

Ubiquitech Software Corp, through its subsidiaries, is a dynamic multi-media, multi-faceted corporation utilizing state-of-the-art global internet marketing, DirectResponse (DRTV) Television, Radio, Internet Content, and traditional marketing to drive traffic to the new and emerging multi-billion dollar industries like its subsidiary HempLifeToday

About HempLife Today
Angie Craig high-fives supporters after winning the 2nd Congressional District race Tuesday,Nov. 6, 2018, at an election party in Eagan, Minn. (Renee Jones Schneider/Star Tribune via AP)
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Enterprise, AL (36331)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. High around 90F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 68F. Winds light and variable.
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Mexus Pays off $105,000 loan commitment



Mexus Gold plans to reach out to Itronics and explore its breakthrough technology

CABORCA, Mexico, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mexus Gold US (OTCQB: MXSG) (Mexus or the Company) today announced that the 1st phase of drilling is now complete at its Santa Elena mine. The company is awaiting assay results which will be plotted and produce a 3D Model used for interpretation. The final results are expected in February 2019. The company has received results for holes 6 thru 9 which aimed to intercept the Julio vein at depths between 60 to 100 meters. The Julio structure is consistent at depth with mineralized widths of 2 to 5 meters. All quartz vein intercepts had gold and silver noticeable with .1 to .3 g/t Au as the tracing values and 2 to 10 g/t Au as the high values. Hole 7 is the best evidence of high-grade gold at 9.89 g/t Au with an attractive width of 5.3 meters and an overall average of 3.12 g/t Au.

Hole Intercept (M) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) 1 1 .19 .75 2 1 6.28 21.3 3 1 .27 .38 4 3 .7 .5 5 2 .79 5 6 1 .31 .5 7 5.3 3.12 9 8 1.5 .22 .5 9 .5 .1 .5 Average 1.8 1.3 4.3

The resulting Julio quartz vein section drilled contained a slope distance of 180 meters with an average width of 1.8 meters and a strike distance of 275 meters accumulating approximately 180,000 tons with average grades of 1.3 g/t Au and 4.3 g/t Ag. This includes all quartz material without being selective. Approximately 7500 oz. of gold are contained in this section of the Julio quartz vein and about 25,000 oz of silver. Another 200 meters of this quartz vein is minable to the north and about 800 meters to the south of the studied area. Selective mining can be directed based on sampling production drilling used for blasting. The apparent shear zone associated with the Julio vein seems to be a post-mineral event and is parallel to the quartz vein using the structure as a brittle thrust plane. The Julio offset structure was intercepted on hole 1 near the surface with .2 g/t Au and traces of silver making it a viable target for further exploration. All surface sampling data will be processed together with drilling data to identify the best production areas of the structures and understand structural geology of low angle shear zones. Exploration will now continue to accumulate tonnage from new shear zones and quartz vein systems to the south and will include production drilling and surface sampling.

The first stage drilling results gives Mexus the tonnage and values needed to proceed with a mining plan that includes stage 2 drilling. The company plans to build upon its resources from stage 1 by commencing a 12,000 ton per month quartz vein production. Mexus expects the 12,000 ton per month production to produce 500 plus ounces of gold and 1,600 ounces of silver. This small but significant production will fund stage 2 drilling along with advancing Mexus other goals.

Mexus will begin preparing the heap leach in the near term. The plan is to remove material from the front of the pad and replace it with fresh ore. This new ore will be carefully controlled to keep the highest grades possible on the pad. Mexus CEO Paul Thompson added The goal is to start with a small production and build out as additional drilling results become available. Mexus now has a group of financial experts who will assist the company in achieving its goals.

About Mexus Gold US

Mexus Gold US is an American based mining company with holdings in Mexico. The fully owned Santa Elena mine is located 54km NW of Caborca, Mexico. Mexus also owns rights to the Ures property located 80km N of Hermosillo, Mexico. This property contains 6900 acres and has both gold and copper on the property. Founded in 2009, Mexus Gold US is committed to protecting the environment, mine safety and employing members of the communities in which it operates.

For more information on Mexus Gold US, visit www.mexusgoldus.com . 775-722-6171

Cautionary Statement

Forward looking Statement: Statements in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including the failure to complete successfully the development of new or enhanced products, the Company's future capital needs, the lack of market demand for any new or enhanced products the Company may develop, any actions by the Company's partners that may be adverse to the Company, the success of competitive products, other economic factors affecting the Company and its markets, seasonal changes, and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The actual results may differ materially from those contained in this press release. The Company disclaims any obligation to update any statements in this press release.
India, Jan. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fresenius Medical Care, the worlds largest provider of dialysis products and services, today announced the launch of its 4008A dialysis machine, which was especially designed to meet the needs of emerging markets. With the launch of the 4008A, the company is aiming to improve accessibility to life-sustaining dialysis treatment for patients in these countries who are living with from end-stage renal disease (ESRD).

The 4008A dialysis machine incorporates Fresenius Medical Cares high therapy standards while minimizing costs for health care systems. It has primarily been deployed in India, with other countries across the Asia-Pacific region to follow.

Worldwide, there is an urgent and growing need for patients with ESRD to access dialysis. ESRD is the stage of kidney disease where a person's kidneys have stopped working permanently and they need long-term dialysis or a kidney transplant to stay alive.

A systematic review of worldwide access to treatment in 2015 estimated that almost two million people in Asia with ESRD who needed dialysis were not receiving it  a treatment gap that is double the number of patients actively being treated. In response to this need, Fresenius Medical Care has developed the 4008A dialysis machine, which aims to make dialysis more affordable and therefore more accessible for people who have traditionally been unable to access dialysis care, especially in rural areas.

One of the first physicians to use the 4008A dialysis machine is Dr Vijay Kher, Chairman at the Kidney and Urology Institute of Medanta in Gurugram. He said: In India, the true burden of ESRD is not known, but it is estimated that 90 percent of people who need dialysis die because they cannot afford the life-saving treatment. Of those who do begin dialysis, 60 percent stop for financial reasons. I strongly believe that for countries like India, preventive strategies and early detection of diseases should be a large goal. However, for patients who develop ESRD, affordable care should be available. I am delighted that India has been chosen as the first country in AsiaPacific to utilize this machine, allowing dialysis to be offered to a larger number of people at an affordable price, helping to close this treatment gap.

For 21-year-old Kshitija from New Delhi, being able to access dialysis with the 4008A has been transforming. Initially, she was devastated to be diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (CKD) at such a young age, and was then in denial about her need for dialysis. Now, after 6 months of dialysis with the 4008A and improving health, she is eager to go back to study and is encouraging others to talk to their doctor about accessing treatment for kidney disease, sooner rather than later.

Dr. Olaf Schermeier, Chief Executive Officer for Global Research and Development at Fresenius Medical Care, emphasized the importance of the 4008A launch: Our global Research and Development team is in constant dialogue with physicians, nursing staff and patients. We put the benefit for our patients at the center of any new development. That is why we have developed this new high-quality dialysis platform that may allow for better cost effectiveness, and brought it to the market in record time.

Harry de Wit, CEO of Fresenius Medical Care AsiaPacific, said: At Fresenius Medical Care, we are proud of the work we do every day to improve the lives of people who are living with CKD. Bringing the 4008A to India and then to the rest of Asia and the Pacific demonstrates our continuing commitment to help ensure that life-changing dialysis is within reach of the increasing number of people  people just like Kshitija  who, with the right treatment, have the opportunity of better health and pursuing their life dreams.

ENDS

References

Liyanage T et al. Worldwide access to treatment for end-stage kidney disease: a systematic review.

www.thelancet.com Published online March 13, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61601-9. Varughese S, Abraham G. Chronic Kidney Disease in India: A Clarion Call for Change. Clin J Am Soc Nephrol 13: 802804, 2018. doi: https://doi.org/10.2215/CJN.09180817

ABOUT FRESENIUS MEDICAL CARE

Fresenius Medical Care is the world's largest provider of products and services for individuals with renal diseases of which around 3.2 million patients worldwide regularly undergo dialysis treatment. Through its network of 3,872 dialysis clinics, Fresenius Medical Care provides dialysis treatments for 329,085 patients around the globe. Fresenius Medical Care is also the leading provider of dialysis products such as dialysis machines or dialyzers. Along with its core business, the company provides related medical services in the field of Care Coordination. Fresenius Medical Care is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FME) and on the New York Stock Exchange (FMS).

For more information visit the Companys website at www.freseniusmedicalcare.com.

Disclaimer

This release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements due to certain factors, including changes in business, economic and competitive conditions, regulatory reforms, foreign exchange rate fluctuations, uncertainties in litigation or investigative proceedings, and the availability of financing. These and other risks and uncertainties are detailed in Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA's reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA does not undertake any responsibility to update the forward-looking statements in this release.

Attachments
ABC/Paula LoboThis spring, The Wu-Tang Clan is coming at 'cha -- on the small screen, with their new docuseries Of Mics and Men

Under the direction of Sacha Jenkins, the four-part film will explore the impact of the group's debut album Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) -- which recently marked its 25th anniversary -- as well as their legendary career.

The series includes intimate and reflective interviews with each of the group's nine living members: RZA, GZA, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, U-God, Ghostface, Method Man, Masta Killa and Cappadonna.

Also included: never-before-seen archival footage and performances, some of which will feature the group's late 10th member, Ol Dirty Bastard, who died in 2004.

The first two episodes of the series will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 28, and the full four episodes will air on Showtime later this spring.

The Wu-Tang Clan is a seminal group that deserves a seminal documentary, Vinnie Malhotra, Showtime executive, said in a statement.

He adds, Sacha Jenkins delivers just that, not only reminding us of their powerful history through vintage footage, but also placing their impact in modern-day perspective that will be meaningful both to their die-hard fans and music fans in general."

In other Wu-related news, the hip-hop titans are heading to the UK for the Gods of Rap tour alongside Public Enemy and De La Soul. The trek will find the iconic rap groups performing in London and Manchester, England and Glasgow, Scotland. Tickets are available for purchase via Ticketmaster on January 25.

Copyright  2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
New Delhi: The Defence Ministry on Friday dismissed as "factually inaccurate" a media report that talked of a 41 per cent increase in the price per aircraft of the 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault saying it had got "better price, delivery period and terms" compared to the of the UPA era proposal for purchase of 126 bare-bones aircraft.

It also asserted that the Supreme Court has not found anything adverse in the deal and the CAG has been given access to all files.

The reaction came in response to an article published in the daily "The Hindu" which said that the Modi government's decision to buy 36 Rafale jets shot up the price of each aircraft up by 41 per cent, mainly because of the deal "bypassing" mandated procedures and attributed to "Design and Development" of 13 "India Specific Enhancement" spread over 36 instead of 126 aircraft.

A response from the Defence Ministry spokesperson said that the pricing details, which are of confidential nature and covered by the Indo-French security agreement of 2008, were shared with the Supreme Court in a sealed cover which has gone through the details of pricing and commercial advantage and asserted that the apex court has not found anything "adverse" in the deal and has refused to order an investigation as sought by the petitioners.

The ministry said that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has been given access to all the files related to the deal advising to "await the report".

Referring to the media report and political parties comparing the cost of the basic aircraft of 2007 with the cost of fully-loaded aircraft in 2015, it said the cost of the basic aircraft in the 2016 deal was better than the offer of 2007.

"The India Specific Enhancements were part of the requirements of the Indian Air Force to achieve tactical superiority over our adversaries. These were part of the 2007 bid and continued to be part of the 2016 deal. The cost of the India Specific Enhancements was on a fixed basis in the 2007 bid which was negotiated down in the 2016 deal.

"However, to compare the cost for the MMRCA contract, which never materialized with the cost of the 36 aircrafts procured in 2016 is fallacious. The author while indicating the price of ISE as 1.4 billion Euro in 2007 has failed to include the in-built escalation factor that would have worked between 2007 and 2015," said the ministry.

Surprisingly, the ministry contended that in the headline of the article, the author has compared the un-escalated price of 2007 with the price of 2016 without considering the escalation factors inherent in the price bid.

"Later, hidden deep in the article itself it is stated that the price is 14.2 per cent higher compared to the escalated price as probably this figure does not attract as much attention as a 41.4 per cent higher price. The author has also missed the main advantage in terms of price obtained by the Government in 2016 deal which was mentioned by the Raksha Mantri in Parliament.

"This change from a firm and fixed price to a flexible rate was possible only because the deal was structured under an IGA. This factor is expected to lead to a substantial commercial advantage over the delivery period of 36 Rafale aircrafts," the ministry said.

It further said a negotiation, especially, between two countries is a comprehensive deal and by selectively picking certain aspects while ignoring others, creates doubts by vested interests on a matter of vital national security. "This has been repeatedly pointed out by the Government and accepted by the Supreme Court."

"The issue of dissent within the Indian Negotiated Team has also been answered by the Raksha Mantri in the Parliament, it said, adding in the highest traditions of the Civil Service, all views are aired and recorded and a collegiate decision taken after considering such opinions.

The spokesperson said the decisions on the deal were taken after due process of inter-ministerial consultation and the issue of benchmarking and the offer of "EADS to give a 20 per cent discount are related".

He said even the UPA government had rightly rejected the EADS offer of 20 per cent discount in 2012 after opening of bids as violative of procedure.

"Consideration of this offer by the government would have again made the Government subject to charge of violating basic procedure. It is best to avoid the pitfalls of a corporate battle which has been going on since 2012 which has adversely affected the capabilities of the Indian Air Force. The controversy should be put to rest in the interest of national security," the ministry added.
SHEPHERDSTOWN  Every winter, Shepherdstown Music and Dance and the Upper Potomac Music Weekend organization host a music weekend dedicated to fiddle music.

Held this year from Jan. 4-6, the weekend drew attendees from around the Eastern Panhandle and country, according to Director Joanie Blanton.

People driving across the country have seen it online, and attended, Blanton said. Weve had people come from England and Germany and Scotland and Japan to attend the weekends, as well as all over the United States. But most of the students who come live in a 200-mile radius of Shepherdstown.

The Upper Potomac Fiddle Retreat features many important names in the traditional music world, and this years retreat was no different. Workshops were taught by Irish fiddler Joe DeZarn, Old Time fiddler Rachel Eddy, Quebecois fiddler Pascal Gemme, Scottish and Irish fiddler Sean Heely, New England and English fiddler Jaige Trudel, guitarist Adam Broome, banjo player Brad Kolodner and hammered dulcimer player Ken Kolodner. The variety of styles of music and musical instruments taught throughout the weekend is similar to previous years  one of many reasons why attendees return to the event, year after year.

The average number of weekends that students have returned to attend is nine, while others have attended as much as 25 weekends, Blanton said, mentioning the weekends studentswhose were of all ages and experience levelsseemed pleased with the weekends teachers and events.

Almost every year, I hear lots and lots of positive comments, but this year everyone was very enthusiastic about the teachers and performers, Blanton said. At least five students said, I have been to everyone of these fiddke retreats, but this is the beest in my mind.'

Over the years, Blanton said she has seen the weekends popularity rise and fall with the changes in the publics interest in traditional music and dance. While at one time the weekend was so popular, Blanton had to rent out every available classroom space in town to accommodate the weekends large number of attendees, the event is currently at a smaller, more manageable size.

Between students, teachers and people who came to the evening jams, it was all told about 100 fiddlers involved throughout the weekend, Blanton said. There were some people who only came to the Friday night jam, there were people who did the whole weekend and some who did one or two classes.

The music and techniques learned throughout Upper Potomac Fiddle Retreat were displayed, during the Jan. 5 Fiddle Summit concert at the Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church. Three jam sessions continued after the concert until around midnight  one at Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church, one at Blue Moon Cafe and one at the Shepherd Student Center. But the music wasnt completely over. On the morning of Jan. 6, a contra dance music workshop was held, where fiddlers learned some contra dance tunes to play in the evening, when members of the community joined them to dance along with the lilting tunes in the War Memorial Building.

The dance was the biggest one weve had in several years. We had lots of new dancers, and am enormous open band, Blanton said, mentioning students and teachers from the fiddle retreat were part of the band. We had three different sets of music during the contra dance. We had an old time set, with the biggest band and simple, old-time tunes; we had French Canadian tunes, led by Pascal from Quebec; and then we had the New England contra set, which was performed by the class that had met all day. So each set had a distinctive flavor.

The main thing  there are two things that I see being predominant goals for the weekend. One, for the musicians to build better skills. And the second is to build more community, because all of these things are being done together, Blanton said. Its not just a group exercise, but a social activity, where people get to know one another. Its a wonderful, tight-knit community from all over the country.
SHEPHERDSTOWN  The Shepherdstown Community Club has mounted a food and personal items drive to assist government workers affected by the shutdown. A large box outside the War Memorial Building, located at German and King Streets, is collecting donations of non-perishable foods and items such as toothpaste, shampoo and soap. The donations are being taken to the Jefferson County Community Ministries in Charles Town for distribution.

Donors who wish to donate money may write a check to SCC, with Govt. Shutdown in the subject line, mailed to P.O. Box 463, Shepherdstown, WV 25443. These monies will be given to the Jefferson County Ministries for conversion to cash cards for payment of utilities and other bills.

These efforts will be active until the shutdown is ended.

Questions may be directed to 304-876-3323.
SHEPHERDSTOWN The Shepherdstown Town Council met for its regular monthly meeting on Jan. 8 in Town Hall, to discuss allowing transient lodging within the historic district of Shepherdstown.

Mayor Jim Auxer and the rest of the council members sat down to discuss the issue with community business owners, residents and the Transient Lodging committee. The Transient Lodging committee, established at the end of 2017, presented their plan to regulate homes for transient lodging, if approved. The motion to approve transient housing in the historic district was dismissed by the council.

Short-term transient lodging is housing needed by travelers or visitors for 30 days or less. Services like Airbnb bridge the gap between property owners and a specific market, allowing these owners to transform their properties to convenient rooms with hotel or motel-like services. Transient lodging is currently permitted in the residential-commercial zone of the town, located just outside the historic district.

Per the task force, short-term transient lodging for the historic district would be permitted in primary residences, requiring a business license, mandatory inspections and the ability to give guest passes for parking or offer off-street parking. The Transient Lodging Task Forced argued that enabling the historic district for services regarding transient lodging will increase tourism, bring a diversity of people into the town [and] provide a means of financial support for preservation of homeowners historic homes, according to a written recommendation from the task force.

Some business owners at the meeting did not feel as if there are a significant amount of tourists in Shepherdstown, because there are no lodging options conveniently available on historic streets.

Kendra Goldsborough, owner of Four Seasons bookstore, was in favor of the approval, saying, if we want to attract younger people, Airbnbs are a wonderful choice . . . [the decision to approve] would add to the vitality of culture to downtown life.

In a letter to the mayor and the council, Karene Motivans, president of the Historic Landmarks Commission in Shepherdstown, wrote, The temptation to make money using my house is understandable  however, in this town we are tied together by our district and zoning. We have a balance to consider and need to study the potential effects to the town we all appreciate.

Members of the council and Auxer also expressed some concerns and reasons why transient lodging for the historic district has not yet been approved, including loss of long-term rentals in the district, noise concerns and an exacerbation of the parking situation in town.

Our priority is protecting the integrity of our towns historic district, Auxer said.
The worlds largest cryptocurrency exchange says it has frozen some funds from hacked Christchurch digital assets exchange Cryptopia.

New Zealand police were called into Cryptopia late on Monday night to investigate the theft of several million dollars-worth of cryptocurrencies and have done a scene examination and a forensic digital investigation.

Its not clear exactly what happened, but the cryptocurrency exchange went into maintenance on Monday night, followed by an automated alert that showed a digital wallet receiving more than NZ$3 million from Cryptopia.

Since then its been possible to see some transactions involving that wallet, including money going to the giant international cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said on Twitter yesterday that the hackers appeared to have sent his company some of the stolen funds from Cryptopia, and Binance had frozen them.

I dont understand why the hackers keep sending to Binance, Zhao, known as CZ, said. Social media will be pretty fast to report it and we will freeze it. Its a high-risk manoeuvre for them.

Bell Gully senior associate Campbell Pentney is a tax specialist with expertise in cryptocurrencies. He says he was not personally affected by the theft, but like many around the world has been watching the digital wallet money is thought to be in.

You can follow transactions involving that wallet because the transaction chains for some of the types of affected currencies are public, Pentney says.

Its not perfect; you cant generally link a wallet to a name. But you can see where some of it is goingand you can comment on the address of that wallet.

Social media feeds show people who have lost money in the Cryptopia theft begging for their money back and wanting to know which currencies are affected, said Pentney.

He says Cryptopia wasnt large enough for the hack to have a substantial effect on the broader market for cryptocurrencies, but the exchange provided support for a number of niche cryptocurrencies, which could struggle to trade, particularly if Cryptopia held a large portion of those assets.

Other implications of the hack would depend on whether the funds were permanently lost or whether Cryptopia bounced back and was in a position to refund customers, Pentney says.

However, even reimbursement could be tricky, as cryptocurrency prices may have fluctuated since the time of the hack.

In some ways this is a more complicated situation than previous high-profile exchange hacks, as there are indications dozens of different cryptocurrencies may be involved. This makes the tracking and reimbursement process more difficult.

New Zealanders who lost money permanently through the theft might be able to apply for tax relief, Pentney says.

Meanwhile, the Cryptopia hack could jeopardise plans the company had to relaunch a New Zealand dollar-backed tether currency this year. The Christchurch company said in November it had backing from an unnamed bank to bring back the New Zealand Dollar Token, or NZDT, the country's first cryptocurrency tethered to the NZ dollar.

The NZDT was launched under the radar in May 2017, after several speakers at the annual blockchain conference raised problems they were having without one.

However it was pulled last year after Cryptopias bank, ASB, raised concerns about regulatory issues and difficulties identifying customers and their activities.

Pentney said the hack could raise reputational or liability concerns for a potential banking partner.

Police said on Wednesday the Cryptopia theft is a complex situation. They couldnt say how long the investigation will take.

We are aware of speculation in the online community about what might have occurred. It is too early for us to draw any conclusions and police will keep an open mind on all possibilities while we gather the information we need.

A priority for police is to identify and, if possible, recover missing funds for Cryptopia customers. However, there are likely to be many challenges to achieving this."

(BusinessDesk)

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THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION

LICENCE UPDATE

AVALON

APPROVAL OF CONVERSION TO FRONTIER EXPLORATION LICENCE 2/19

Dublin and London  January 18, 2019 - Providence Resources P.l.c. (PVR LN, PRP ID), the Irish based Oil and Gas Exploration Company (the Company), today provides an update on Licensing Option (LO) 16/27, operated by TOTAL E&P Ireland B.V. (TOTAL) (50.0%) on behalf of its partners, Providence Resources P.l.c. (40.0%) and Sosina Exploration Limited (10.0%), collectively referred to as the JV Partners. LO 16/27 is located in the southern Porcupine Basin offshore Ireland and contains the undrilled Paleocene Avalon exploration prospect.

The JV Partners recently applied to convert LO 16/27 to a Frontier Exploration Licence (FEL) and are pleased to confirm that the Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment has now confirmed approval for the JV partners to convert LO 16/27 to FEL 2/19, with effect from February 1, 2019.

Pursuant to the terms of a Farm-out Agreement agreed between the JV partners in June 2017, in the event that a decision is taken to drill an exploration well on Avalon, TOTAL will pay 60% of the drilling costs, subject to a gross well cap of

US$ 42 million.

Dr John OSullivan, Technical Director at Providence, said:

We are very pleased to confirm approval from the Minister to progress the Avalon Licensing Option to Frontier Exploration Licence status. Avalon is a very large and exciting prospect, which lies adjacent to Dunquin North, and the JV Partners look forward to progressing it further under the Operatorship of TOTAL.

INVESTOR ENQUIRIES

Providence Resources P.l.c. Tel: +353 1 219 4074 Tony OReilly, Chief Executive Officer John OSullivan, Technical Director Cenkos Securities plc Tel: +44 131 220 9771 Neil McDonald/Derrick Lee J&E Davy Tel: +353 1 679 6363 Anthony Farrell Mirabaud Securities Limited Tel: + 44 20 3167 7221 Peter Krens MEDIA ENQUIRIES

Powerscourt Tel: +44 207 250 1446 Peter Ogden Murray Consultants Tel: +353 1 498 0300 Pauline McAlester

ABOUT PROVIDENCE RESOURCES

Providence Resources is an Irish based Oil & Gas Exploration Company with a portfolio of appraisal and exploration assets located offshore Ireland. Providences shares are quoted on the AIM in London and the ESM in Dublin.
Ministry of Housing and Urban Development chief executive Andrew Crisp has given the strongest indication yet that departed KiwiBuild unit head Stephen Barclay was the subject rather than the initiator of an employment dispute that appears to have caused his resignation.

Mystery already surrounded Barclay's nearly three month absence from his position as inaugural head of the government's flagship KiwiBuild programme, before the one-time head of the San Francisco America's Cup village tendered his resignation earlier today.

Barclay announced his departure in a one line press statement released to some media, followed some hours later by a similarly brief statement from Crisp confirming he had received Barclay's letter offering to resign with immediate effect.

"I am considering how this affects the employment process currently underway," said Crisp. He did not explain what employment process he was referring to, but the clear implication is that whatever employment relationship breakdown occurred at MHUD, it was at the ministry's rather than Barclay's initiative. An MHUD spokeswoman declined to clarify the statement beyond saying that "the employment process is in reference to an existing employment matter between the Ministry and Stephen Barclay".

Barclay was appointed in May to lead KiwiBuild, Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford's ambitious policy to add some 100,000 additional 'affordable' homes to the New Zealand housing stock over a decade.

The initiative has attracted heavy fire from the National Party's housing spokeswoman, Judith Collins, as its details have been slow to emerge, KiwiBuild home starts have appeared to stall, and questions have arisen over whether the scheme will morph to become more an underwriter of private residential developments than building homes in its own right.

Twyford has offered no explanation for Barclay's absence from work since early November, shortly after Crisp took up the reins at MHUD, a new government agency established in October.

He repeated today that the issue was an operational staffing matter and that ministerial comment on the issue would be "inappropriate".

Collins, however, said "Mr Twyford needs to come clean."

Its taken three months for Mr Barclay to exit from a role he held for only four months," she said. "This is extraordinary and needs a full explanation from Mr Twyford, and whether it was due to a relationship breakdown."

A New Zealander, Barclay was chief executive of the 2013 America's Cup defence in San Francisco, where he worked closely with former New Zealand America's Cup winner Russell Coutts, who by then was ceo for the Oracle challenge led by billionaire Larry Ellison.

Barclay copped bitter criticism from both city politicians and media amid accusations the event had not delivered sufficiently for San Francisco, leading him to launch a parting broadside after the event had ended.

(BusinessDesk)

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Press Release

January 18, 2019 De Lima: Send minors used as alleged drug couriers to 'Bahay Pag-Asa' To ensure proper rehabilitation and prevention from engaging in another crime, Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has urged the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to help send recently-apprehended minors allegedly involved in the illegal drug trade in a reform center for children in conflict with the law (CICLs). De Lima, a former justice secretary, said the authorities should recommend the sending of the CICLs in "Bahay Pag-Asa" instead of parading them before the media to brag about their presumed accomplishments and earn "brownie points." "No individual, much less minors, should be subjected to degrading treatment by the authorities. Children in conflict with the law must still be treated in a way that is consistent with the promotion of their sense of dignity and worth," she said. "Sending these minors in 'Bahay Pag-Asa' would allow them to rebuild their lives and teach them the value of following the law, so when they return in the community, they can be useful and law-abiding members of the society," she added. During a drug operation by PDEA agents in Navotas City last Jan. 16, about 28 suspected drug offenders, which included 12 minors aged four to 15 years old, were arrested and paraded to the media for photo-ops. The Juvenile Justice Welfare Act of 2006 requires the need for a comprehensive restorative juvenile justice and welfare system in the country, including intervention program and support youth centers or "Bahay Pag-Asa." A child-caring reform center, "Bahay Pag-Asa" was established, funded and managed by local government units and licensed and/or accredited non-government organizations to provide short-term residential care for CICLs. De Lima, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development, pointed out that parents and mass media also play a significant role in ensuring that children stay out of crimes and not exposed to inappropriate publicity. "Responsible parents are expected to watch out for their children's actions to ensure full protection of these kids' rights to survival, protection, development," she said. "Media practitioners, on their part, should be critical about the content that they publish, especially involving children, to avoid subjecting individuals to inappropriate and sensationalized publicity," she added. In an effort to protect CICLs from violence or abuse, De Lima earlier filed Senate Resolution No. 171 inquiring into the implementation of the Juvenile Justice Welfare Act of 2006 which establishes a mechanism for policy development, coordination, program implementation, and monitoring of children through an inter-agency body. The lady Senator from Bicol also filed Senate Bill (SB) No. 1348, which seeks to prohibit corporal punishment and all other forms of "humiliating and degrading" acts imposed on children and SB No. 195, which seeks to impose stiffer penalties on those who involve children in their criminal activities.
EDMONTON, Alberta, Jan. 17, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atlas Growers Ltd. (Atlas), a wholly owned subsidiary of Atlas Biotechnologies Inc., is pleased to provide the following highlights as an update on recent operational and other developments:



Cultivation and genetics programs

As previously announced, Atlas received its initial Cultivation License from Health Canada on October 12, 2018, at which point we were then able to commence to source and possess materials (seeds and plant cuttings) to allow us to initiate the planting of our first crop.

In October, we commenced the process of applying for the importation from Europe of multiple separate lines of unique genetics from long-standing sources. Several exclusive arrangements are being negotiated at this time.

Our initial shipment of 85,000 cannabis seeds has now cleared the extensive importation regulations and is in process of being shipped from Europe to our Phase 1 Facility in Canada. Atlas plans to immediately commence planting a selection of these genetics lines, which total over 500, with the aim of developing a wide range of cultivars, a portion of which will serve as initial mothering plants to provide new clone plants used in Atlas ongoing cultivations. This extensive database will serve as the initial foundation for our R&D programs which are being designed to create high yields and custom cultivars targeted to meet unique medical market demands.

Atlas has collaboration arrangements with certain Alberta licensed producers, which have supplied seeds and cannabis cuttings serving as feedstock for Atlas initial planting. Our first seeds were planted on December 24, we currently have approximately 2,700 plants under cultivation, and expect full cultivation capacity to be reached by mid-February of this year.

Atlas has been in contact with numerous licensed cannabis producers (LPs) in Canada, a number of which have expressed interest in purchasing genetics from Atlas, with the aim of significantly broadening the diversity of their own cultivar / product offerings which will eventually become available to retail consumers. The sale of the genetics lines is expected to become a promising new revenue stream for Atlas, and one contract with a prominent Alberta LP is planned to be fulfilled next week.

Status of Sales License Issued by Health Canada

Our existing Business-to-Business license issued by Health Canada in November under the new Cannabis Act regulations currently allows Atlas to sell cannabis flower, oils, and starting materials products (such as seed genetics and live plants) to other licensed producers, as well as to the provincial cannabis distribution Boards. These entities, such as the AGLC (Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission), serve as the wholesale distribution channel to the licensed end-use retail purchasers in Canadas provinces and territories.

Health Canadas standard process of issuing to Atlas the eventual license to allow full sales for all cannabis products, including flowers and oils, will involve an on-site inspection of our production and packaging processes, as well as independent testing of our end-use cannabis products, which we expect to occur in conjunction with our first two crops harvesting in March.

Sales Contracts and Expansion Opportunities

In December Atlas installed its industry leading extraction equipment, which will allow for the processing of cannabis flower into concentrated cannabis oils and other extracts (such as terpenes and flavonoids). This internal processing capacity, which is not available to many of Canadas LPs, will be used to process Atlas own product, as well as flower and hemp, which can be purchased by Atlas from other LPs for processing and ultimate resale to the consumer market.

Atlas has been in ongoing discussions with multiple parties in Canada and Europe regarding establishing long-term supply contracts, with the aim of establishing firm demand for the majority of our current and planned future expansion capacity.

Based on the strong outlook for medical cannabis demand in Europe, Atlas has been evaluating several opportunities which will permit expansion of our existing capacity, to diversify our production outside of Canada. This includes options to serve the expanding European market from both Denmark and the United Kingdom (which both recently legalized cannabis for medical uses).

Atlas operating procedures have been designed to meet or exceed Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and Good Production Practice (GPP) requirements, which we need to secure export sales to certain European countries. GMP certification is underway, with eventual full certification, which requires product shelf-life stability testing, expected in fall 2019.

On initial design of our purpose-built production Facility, Atlas expected to have capacity for approximately 5,000 kg per year of cannabis flower and related oil extracts. Based upon current revisions to optimize our production processes, and discussion of yield expectations and site reviews by other industry parties, Atlas expects that this capacity will be significantly expanded, to over 10,000 kg per year, at virtually no additional cost.

Financing Activities

Atlas built its initial Canadian production facility based on conservative financing goals, and in late 2018 commenced to utilize a portion of its existing $6.25 million bank term debt facility which was secured with ATB Financial in early 2018. Amounts drawn under this facility will bear interest at bank prime plus 1%.

Atlas is currently evaluating a sizeable new common share equity raise, the proceeds of which will be applied to enhance working capital used in our initial cultivation and business development activities, and to secure strategic opportunities for expansion of cultivation and extraction operations / production, with the goal of bolstering demand for Atlas medical cannabis products in Europe.

Sheldon Croome, Atlas President & CEO summarized; The last months of 2018 were very exciting, as we focused on bringing our production Facility online, maximizing operational efficiencies, securing long-term purchase contracts for our production volumes, and enhancing our potential revenue streams, including the sale of genetics and third party processing of extracted oil. We will be offering to sell a broad spectrum of unique genetics to producers at attractive prices, and without royalties or resale restrictions.

About Atlas Biotechnologies Inc. (Atlas) and Atlas Growers Ltd.

Atlas is based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and its wholly owned subsidiary, Atlas Growers Ltd., is federally licensed for Cultivation and Production of cannabis products, with a focus on medical markets. Atlas currently has a purpose-built, 38,000 square foot Facility and laboratory where it expects to produce well over 10,000 kg of dried cannabis annually as well as capacity to refine cannabis into pure, isolated concentrates in large volumes. Further, Atlas owns a 160-acre site that could accommodate future expansion of cultivation capacity in Alberta, with a development permit in place to allow for up to 1,000,000 square feet of additional construction.

Atlas is well financed, and has raised $25 million in equity to date, including $7.6 million of equity issued related to acquisition of land and strategic investments, and also has available a $6.25 million bank term loan which is being used to partially finance Facility construction and equipping costs.

Forward-Looking Information

This news release may contain forward looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All information contained herein that is not historical in nature may constitute forward-looking information. When used in this document, words such as intends, plans, anticipates, expects and scheduled, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a wide range of business, market and economic risks and uncertainties, and although Atlas believes that the expectations represented by such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will be realized. Any number of factors can cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, Atlas disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

For further information, please contact:

Jeffrey R. Gossain, P. Eng.

Vice President of Operations

Atlas Growers Ltd.

Phone: 780-784-5920

Email: invest@atlasgrowers.com

Website: www.atlasgrowers.com

Investor Relations

Graeme Dick

Colwell Capital Corp.

403-561-8989

graeme@colwellcapital.com

Dean Stuart

403-617-7609

dean@boardmarker.net
Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for dissemination in the United States

TORONTO, Jan. 17, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PIMCO Canada Corp. (PIMCO Canada) today announced the January 2019 cash distributions for the ETF series (ETF Series) of the PIMCO Canada mutual funds that distribute monthly (Funds). Unitholders of record of the ETF Series, at the close of business on January 24, 2019, will receive per-unit cash distribution payable on January 31, 2019.

Details of the per-unit cash distribution amount are as follows:

Fund Name Ticker Cash Distribution

per Unit PIMCO Monthly Income Fund (Canada) PMIF $ 0.02300 PIMCO Investment Grade Credit Fund (Canada) IGCF $ 0.02878 PIMCO Monthly Income Fund (Canada) US$ PMIF.U US$ 0.02719

The Manager, PIMCO Canada administers and manages the PIMCO Canada ETFs, and retains Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC, (PIMCO), to provide sub-advisory services to the Funds.

About PIMCO

PIMCO is one of the worlds premier fixed income investment managers. With our launch in 1971 in Newport Beach, California, PIMCO introduced investors to a total return approach to fixed income investing. In the 45+ years since, we have continued to bring innovation and expertise to our partnership with clients seeking the best investment solutions. Today we have offices across the globe and 2,150+ professionals united by a single purpose: creating opportunities for investors in every environment. PIMCO is owned by Allianz S.E., a leading global diversified financial services provider.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements included in this news release constitute forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, those identified by the expressions expect, intend, will and similar expressions to the extent they relate to the Funds. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts but reflect the Funds, PIMCO Canadas and/or PIMCOs current expectations regarding future results or events. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations, including, but not limited to, market factors. Although the Funds, PIMCO Canada and/or PIMCO believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and, accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. The Funds, PIMCO Canada and/or PIMCO undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statement or information whether as a result of new information, future events or other factors which affect this information, except as required by law.

Commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with an investment in the ETF Series Units. Please read the prospectus and ETF Facts carefully before investing. The ETF Series Units are not guaranteed, their value may change frequently and past performance may not be repeated.

For a summary of the risks of an investment in the fund, please see the specific risks of mutual funds section of the prospectus. Units of ETF Series trade like stocks, fluctuate in market value and may trade at a discount to their net asset value, which may increase risk of loss. Distributions are not guaranteed and are subject to change and/or elimination.

The products and services provided by PIMCO Canada may only be available in certain provinces or territories of Canada and only through dealers authorized for that purpose. PIMCO Canada has retained PIMCO LLC as sub-adviser. PIMCO Canada will remain responsible for any loss that arises out of the failure of its sub-adviser.

Contact:

Agnes Crane

PIMCO  Media Relations Phone: +212 597.1054

Email: agnes.crane@pimco.com
In the final phase of NASAs Cassini mission, the spacecraft dived between Saturn and its innermost ring, at altitudes 1,616-2,423 miles (2,600-3,900 km) above the cloud tops. During six of these crossings, a radio link with Earth was monitored to make the first accurate estimate of the amount of material in the planets rings. The estimate  about 40% of the mass of Saturns moon Mimas, which itself is 2,000 times smaller than Earths Moon  tells the Cassini team that the gas giants rings are relatively recent, having originated less than 100 million years ago and perhaps as recently as 10 million years ago. The results appear in the journal Science.

Saturn formed 4.5 billion years ago, in the early years of our Solar System.

Some planetary researchers thought that its ring system formed along with the planet from icy debris remaining in orbit after the formation of the Solar System. Others thought the rings were very young and that Saturn had, at some point, captured an object from the Kuiper Belt or a comet and gradually reduced it to orbiting rubble.

To figure out the age of the rings, scientists needed to measure something else: the mass of the rings, or how much material they hold.

They had the remote-sensing measurements from NASAs Cassini and both of Voyager spacecraft.

Then came Cassinis unprecedented, up-close data from its Grand Finale phase. As the spacecraft was running out of fuel, it performed 22 dives between the planet and the rings.

The dives allowed the orbiter to act as a probe, falling into Saturns gravity field, where it could feel the tug of the planet and the rings.

Radio signals sent to Cassini from the antennas of NASAs Deep Space Network and the European Space Agency relayed the spacecrafts velocity and acceleration.

Once the researchers knew how much gravity was pulling on the spacecraft causing it to accelerate  down to a fraction of a millimeter per second  they could determine how massive the planet is and how massive the rings are.

Only by getting so close to Saturn in Cassinis final orbits were we able to gather the measurements to make the new discoveries, said Cassini radio science team member Dr. Luciano Iess, a scientist at Sapienza University of Rome.

And with this work, Cassini fulfills a fundamental goal of its mission: not only to determine the mass of the rings, but to use the information to refine models and determine the age of the rings.

From Cassinis super-close vantage point, immersed in Saturns gravity field, the spacecraft relayed measurements that led the team to another surprising discovery.

The first time I looked at the data I didnt believe it, because I trusted our models and it took a while to sink in that there was some effect that changed the gravity field that we had not considered, said University of California, Berkeleys Professor Burkhard Militzer.

That turned out to be massive flows in the atmosphere at least 6,000 miles (9,000 km) deep around the equatorial region.

We thought preliminarily that these clouds were like clouds on Earth, which are confined to a thin layer and contain almost no mass. But on Saturn they are really massive.

The team calculated that the surface clouds at Saturns equator rotate 4% faster than the layer 6,000 miles deep.

That deeper layer takes 9 minutes longer to rotate than do the cloud tops at the equator, which go around the planet once every 10 hours and 33 minutes.

The discovery of deeply rotating layers is a surprising revelation about the internal structure of the planet, said Cassini project scientist Dr. Linda Spilker, a researcher at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The question is what causes the more rapidly rotating part of the atmosphere to go so deep and what does that tell us about Saturns interior.

The scientists also were able to calculate that the rocky core of the planet must be between 15 and 18 times the mass of Earth, which is similar to earlier estimates.

_____

L. Iess et al. Measurement and implications of Saturns gravity field and ring mass. Science, published online January 17, 2019; doi: 10.1126/science.aat2965
Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/18/2019 -- Introduction:



Plastic products are supposed to degrade our environment at a rapid rate. Manufacturers are looking forward to sustainable alternatives to plastic. Straws are widely used among people for drinking beverage, juice or other drinks. Consumers all over the world use plastic straws. Nowadays, manufacturers are inclined towards the introduction of sustainable products which reduces the usage of plastic. One such product is bamboo straw, thus preventing plastics from entering and polluting the environment. These bamboo straws are anti-bacterial and reusable.



Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on earth, which makes it a sustainable material. Bamboo contains a binding agent, named as 'bamboo kun,' it is found within its fibers. The purpose of bamboo kun is to fight against any parasite or fungus that tries to grow on it, certainly making bamboo a hygienic material to use. Bamboo straws are perfect to use as drinking straws for hot drinks and cold drinks, such as smoothies or hot coffees. Bamboo straws are an environmental-friendly alternative to plastic products. These are expected to fuels the growth of the global bamboo straws market during the forecast period.



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Demand for alternative solutions to Plastic:



It is found that about 1 billion plastic straws are used every day worldwide. The government in various nations impose restrictions on plastic straws. Bars and restaurants around the world are finding new ways to replace plastic straws that have become a necessary part of dining, whether a fast food outlet or a restaurant. Bamboo straws provide a sustainable alternative to the plastic straws. Recently, some regions in the United States such as Seattle and California have prohibited restaurants from handing out plastic straws unless requested by a customer. Countries such as Costa Rica, South Africa, and Thailand have also been shifting to straws made of sustainable products such as bamboo, paper or wood instead of plastic. These factors are expected to drive the growth of global bamboo straws market during the next decade. The growing inclination of people towards the use of environment-friendly products is expected to drive the growth of bamboo straws. Bamboo straws are washable and reusable, and these straws can last for years as bamboo straws come with a cleaning brush to wash to wash them out.



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Companies operating in global bamboo straws market: Straw Free,Buluh Straws,Anji Wuyuan Bamboo Products Factory,Bamboo Straws Worldwide,Zone Bamboo Straws,Simply Straws,Kimberley-Clarke Corporation,Bambu



The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.



Report Highlights : Detailed overview of parent market,Changing market dynamics in the industry,In-depth market segmentation,Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value,Recent industry trends and developments,Competitive landscape,Strategies of key players and products offered,Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth,A neutral perspective on market performance,Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprint.



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Northbrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/18/2019 -- According to a new market research report "Managed Detection and Response Market by Security Type (Endpoint, Network, Application, Cloud), Deployment (On-Premises, Hosted), Organization Size (SMEs, and Large Enterprises), Industry Vertical, and Region - Global Forecast to 2022", published by MarketsandMarkets, the MDR market size is expected to grow from USD 419.7 Million in 2017 to USD 1,658.0 Million by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 31.6% during the forecast period.



Managed Detection and Response (MDR) is a modern approach to proactively detect threats and cyber-attacks and respond to them accordingly, thereby helping enterprises protect their cyberinfrastructure from attacks. MDR services detect threats, intrusions, and malicious activities on organizations' cyberinfrastructure and assist in responding proactively to eradicate and mitigate such attacks.



Browse and in-depth TOC on "Managed Detection and Response Market"

44 - Tables

31 - Figures

120 - Pages



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The endpoint security type segment is expected to hold the largest market share in the MDR market during the forecast period.



Endpoints are usually network devices, such as servers, desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, and Point of Sale (POS) connected remotely to an enterprise server making them vulnerable and creating an entry point for potential cyber threats. Endpoint security type MDR services provide real-time control, visibility, and analytics of endpoints deployed across an organization. Vendors are offering advanced endpoint MDR services that leverage technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, to proactively detect attacks, malicious activities, and respond to them before they undesirably affect the enterprises' business operations. The cloud security type segment is expected to gain traction and grow at the highest CAGR owing to the rising adoption of cloud computing across enterprises of different sizes and the increasing security vulnerabilities arising out of it.



The Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) segment is expected to be the fastest-growing organization size in the MDR market during the forecast period.



MDR services assist both large enterprises and SMEs in protecting their business-critical applications and networks. MDR empowers SMEs to secure their valuable assets and ensure robust security across the entire business environment. SMEs are small in terms of their employee base, but they cater to a large and global clientele. Absence of a robust cybersecurity strategy and budgetary constraints make SMEs more susceptible to Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) and cyber-attacks such as malware, botnets, and ransomware attacks. The MDR market for the SMEs segment is expected to grow at a higher CAGR, owing to the increasing instances of cyber-attacks and the deployment of advanced cybersecurity technologies after elimination of the traditional ones.



North America is expected to have the largest market share in the MDR market during the forecast period.



North America is expected to hold the largest market share and dominate the global MDR market during the forecast period. Moreover, factors such as presence of large number of cybersecurity vendors and stringent cybersecurity regulation in the region is expected to further proliferate the demand in the region. The presence of sustainable and well-established economies in the region that invest significantly in Research and Development (R&D) activities is contributing to the development of new advanced security technologies. Growing adoption of enterprise mobility and IoT, and an increase in the internal and external threats, enterprises in countries such as the US and Canada are increasingly adopting MDR solutions to protect their business environment from an ever-evolving threat landscape.



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There are several established players in the MDR market, such as Arctic Wolf Networks (US), BAE Systems (UK), CrowdStrike (US), eSentire (Canada), FireEye (US), F-Secure (Finland), IBM (US), Kudelski Security (Switzerland), mnemonic (Norway), NetWorks Group (US), Optiv Security (US), Paladion (India), Rapid7 (US), Raytheon (US), Redscan Cyber Security (UK), and WatchGuard (US).



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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/18/2019 -- According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research titled "Global Market Study on Hearing Protection Devices: Stringent Safety Regulations and Increasing Demand for Reusable Earplugs to Drive the Market", the hearing protection devices market is estimated to be valued at US$ 951.3 Mn by the end of 2015, and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 12.4% during the forecast period (20152021) to account for US$ 1,943.8 Mn by 2021.



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Global demand for hearing protection devices is increasing mainly driven by rapid growth of the construction, manufacturing and military weapons industries. An increasing number of regulations to reduce noise-induced hearing loss across various industries along with a rise in employment in manufacturing and construction sectors is expected to further drive overall growth of the hearing protection devices market over the forecast period. Moreover, some other factors that help to drive the growth of the market are increasing demand for next-generation HPD in military sectors, increasing urbanization and development activities, low-cost earplugs to boost demand in developing regions. However, lack of awareness and improper hearing attenuation are some of the major factors that restrict the growth of the market.



Rising emphasis on custom-tailored hearing protection devices, mergers, and acquisitions, technology shift towards ear plugs with acoustic filters, increasing demand for uniform attenuation earplugs, growing market share of regional players and increasing investment in North America HPD market are some of the trends observed in the global HPD market.



By region, North America is estimated to dominate the hearing protection devices market with over 34.4% share by 2015 end and is expected to remain dominant throughout the forecast period. Earplug is the largest segment in global hearing protection devices market. The global earplug segment is expected to increase at a CAGR of 13.6% in terms of value during the forecast period. Earmuffs is the second-largest segment in the global hearing protection devices market and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.2% in terms of value during the forecast period.



Asia-Pacific represents the most lucrative market, followed by Europe for hearing protection devices. This is primarily due to rise demand for hearing protection devices in India, China, Bangladesh, Philippines and Indonesia. Asia-Pacific is expected to account for 20.4% market share in the global hearing protection devices market by 2015 end, which is expected to increase to 20.9% market share by 2021.



Browse the full Hearing Protection Devices Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast to 2015 - 2021 report at https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/hearing-protection-devices-market.asp



Key market players covered in this report are 3M, Honeywell International Inc., Amplifon, Hellberg Safety AB, Dynamic Ear Company, Centurion Safety Products Ltd, Sonomax Technologies Inc, Siemens Healthcare GmbH, ADCO Hearing Products Inc., Elvex Corporation and Moldex-Metric Inc. These players have been profiled on the basis of various attributes such as company overview, recent developments, growth strategies, SWOT analysis and sustainability.



The hearing protection devices market is segmented as follows:



By Product Type:



Earplugs

Disposable Foam Earplugs

Reusable Earplugs

Silicon/TPE Earplugs

Custom Earplugs

Earmuffs

Uniform Attenuation Earplugs

Custom Attenuation Earplugs

Conventional Attenuation Earplugs

Hearing Bands



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By Protector Type:



Aural Inserts

Enclosures

Circumoral

Superaural Protectors
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/18/2019 -- Based on the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines industrial chain, this report mainly elaborate the definition, types, applications and major players of Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market in details. Deep analysis about market status (2018-2026), enterprise competition pattern, advantages and disadvantages of enterprise Products, industry development trends (2018-2026), regional industrial layout characteristics and macroeconomic policies, industrial policy has also be included. From raw materials to downstream buyers of this industry will be analyzed scientifically, the feature of product circulation and sales channel will be presented as well. In a word, this report will help you to establish a panorama of industrial development and characteristics of the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market.



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Major Players in Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market are:



- REITEL Feinwerktechnik

- Lukadent

- Ultraflex

- TECNO-GAZ

- Dentalfarm Srl

- Sirio Dental



Scope of the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market

The latest market evaluation report on the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market explores how the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market will continue to expand for the forecast period 2018 - 2026. The study further serves as a unique research for stakeholders, product owners, and field marketing executives looking for actionable data and unique resource on market size, share, and growth. The market intelligence report gives business evangelists an authority to review the major trends, opportunities, and challenges expected to shape the future of the industry during the estimated period. Importantly, the study not only helps spot the major vendors but also their winning strategies. The real-time data accumulated through qualitative and quantitative research technique further help business owners determine where they stand in comparison to their region, country, and product category.



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A quick look at the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines industry trends and opportunities

The study is a professional probe into the revenue generated and capacity estimates for the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market for the forecast period 2018 - 2026 empower the business owners to maintain a competitive edge over their rivals. The research further examines and provides data on the market by type, application and geography interspersed with illustrations and other graphical representations. The market analysis not only determines the attractiveness of the industry but also the evolving challenges and opportunities and their association with the weaknesses and strengths of prominent market leaders. Other factors taken into consideration when studying the industry include profitability, manufacturing capability, distribution channels and industry cost structure and major success factors.



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Dental Laboratory Casting Machines Market segment by Region/Country including:



- North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

- Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.)

- Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.)

- South America Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile etc.)

- Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia etc.)



Knowing the trends influencing the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines industry performance

Next, on the basis of different segments that manufacturers specialize in, the study scans and evaluates the price of different products, sales, value, customer preference and spending capacity for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. Profiles of the top performers from across the world are also included in the study with the aim to bring to light the winning strategies that has helped them occupy a strong foothold in the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market. All of these information and more are explained through resources such as charts, tables and info graphics.



Understanding the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market size

The study segments the complete Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market on the basis of different application, end-use, end-user, and production capability. From a business standpoint, the industry has been thoroughly examined across various countries located in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and others. The size of the industry for the forecast period 2018 - 2026 is evaluated on the basis of current sales figures and past financial report can be used to forecast the future sales.



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The research provides answers to the following key questions:



- What will be the size and the growth rate of the Dental Laboratory Casting Machines market for the forecast period 2018 - 2026?

- What are key drivers believed to shape the future of the market during the estimated period?

- What are the prominent industries players dominating the Precipitated Barium Sulphate market during the forecast period?

- What are the major trends influencing the development of the industry?

- What are the key challenges likely to hinder the progress of the market?

- What are major opportunities and threats encountered by the business owners operating in the business vertical?



Key elements from table of content:



1 Dental Laboratory Casting Machines Introduction and Market Overview

2 Industry Chain Analysis

3 Global Dental Laboratory Casting Machines Market, by Type

4 Dental Laboratory Casting Machines Market, by Application

8 Competitive Landscape

8.1 Competitive Profile

8.2 REITEL Feinwerktechnik

8.2.1 Company Profiles

8.2.2 Dental Laboratory Casting Machines Product Introduction

8.3 Lukadent

8.3.1 Company Profiles

8.4 Ultraflex

8.4.1 Company Profiles

8.5 TECNO-GAZ

8.5.1 Company Profiles

8.6 Dentalfarm Srl

8.6.1 Company Profiles

Continue...



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Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/17/2019 -- Chebula Extract, commonly known as Harda Extract, is obtained from Chebula or Terminalia Chebula, a native plant of Southern Asia to South-western China, widely grown in India, Pakistan, China, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia and various African and Asian countries. Chebula is a folk medicine extensively cultivated in Taiwan. Chebula Extract is also referred to as Haritaki Extract. It is used in traditional medicine to cure diabetes and uncontrollable tumours in South-western China and India. The Chebula plant has immunomodulatory and antibacterial properties.



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Chebula extract also performs a variety of biological functions including antibacterial, antidiabetic and anticancer activities. The demand for Chebula Extract has been increasing due to its various applications in health care products and cosmetics as people nowadays are opting for natural cosmetic and herbal products. Chebula Extract is a well-known Ayurvedic medicine used for the treatment of heart diseases. It helps cure diseases such as hemorrhoids, sore throat, heartburn and constipation. It also increases libido and provides relief for cough and cold, piles and Anemia. Attributing to the increase in the demand for this product, investors who have invested in the Chebula Extract market can expect high returns in the coming period.



Increasing Demand for Herbal Medicines with Fewer Side-Effects



Herbal medicines have been gaining traction around the globe, especially Asia Pacific, and thus, the demand for Chebula Extract has also been rising. Globally, people are more inclined towards safer treatment options and Chebula Extract is a natural product extract that does not have any side-effects. In addition, Chebula Extract also possesses anti-inflammation and antioxidant properties and thus, is used in cosmetic products as well. Chebula Extract is used as a dying agent in the textile industry and witnesses huge demand from the industry as the chemicals used in dying are carcinogenic.



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Global Chebula Extract Market: Market Participants



Some of the key manufacturers and suppliers operating in the Chebula Extract market are Thangam Extracts, S.A Herbal Bioactives LLP, Nucleus Biotech, Tulsi Amrit Pvt. Ltd., Jairamdass Khushiram Impex Pvt. Ltd., Shree Botanicals, Sciyu Biotech Co., Ltd., Shanghai Yaokuo Herbal Biological Technology Co., Ltd. Navchetana Kendra Health Care Private Limited, Hiya India Biotech (p) Ltd., National Organics Pvt, Ltd. and Shanghai Touchhealthy Biotechnology Co., Ltd. A large number of players in the healthcare industry are keen on introducing Chebula Extract in their product portfolios, which is also expected to increase the demand for Chebula Extract in the future.
Imagine what the spring wildflowers are going to be like.

Three slow, modest storms crept across San Diego County this week, further soaking a corner of Southern California that has gotten bountiful rains since just after Thanksgiving.

Remnants of the latest system will blow off to the east today, giving way to high pressure that will lift San Diegos temperatures into the low 70s on Saturday, and possibly Sunday, says the National Weather Service.

Some inland areas could reach the upper 70s and maybe 80 on Saturday. The entire region will return to the low-to-mid 60s on Monday, which is Martin Luther King Day.

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Skies will be mostly clear on Sunday evening, when a total lunar eclipse will be visible locally. The moon will begin to enter Earths shadow at 6:36 p.m. Look toward the east.

Forecasters also say a swell out of the west-northwest (280) will produce 7 to 10 foot waves, with sets to 14 feet, on Friday. The swell will ease on Saturday. But good surfing is expected all weekend.

Sea surface temperatures: 59-61.

4-day rain fall through 8:30 p.m. Thursday

Palomar Mountain: 4.58; Julian: 3.54; Fallbrook, 2.66; San Onofre, 2.34; Oceanside, 1.88; Valley Center, 1.68; Alpine, 1.55; Ramona, 1.43; Miramar Lake, 1.38; Rancho Bernardo, 1.33; Encinitas, 1.32; San Marco, 1.31; Kearny Mesa, 1.20; Montgomery Field, 1.09; Solana Beach, 0.97; San Diego International Airport, 0.76.

Seasonal rainfall

Since Oct. 1, San Diego International Airport has recorded 6.43 inches of rain, which is 2.21 inches above average.

Ramona has received 7:45 inches of rain, which is 1.22 inches above average.
Utility has proven again it cant be trusted

Re PG&E bankruptcy: A failure of regulation (Jan. 15): Now that PG&E is declaring bankruptcy again, the State of California should give up trying to regulate the company and simply take it over.

The companys repeated failure to operate safely and in the public interest is not just a series of unforeseeable accidents. It is an inherent failure of investor-owned utilities. From price-fixing (e.g. Enron) to skimping on safety and then shifting the cost of the resulting catastrophes onto customers and victims, investor-owned utilities continually demonstrate that providing public services as basic as gas and electricity should not be left to the whims and profit demands of markets.

Moreover, California has long-term goals regarding the reduction of carbon emissions. Investors only incentive is to maximize next quarters profit despite regulations.

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We used to have publicly owned utilities and they worked well. They can again.

Paul Ward

Clairemont

Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.

Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook.
City could fix housing crisis if it wanted to

Re State of the City Address by San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer proposes action on housing, homelessness (Jan. 15): The average new family cannot afford, nor do they need, a McMansion. A small two bedroom one bath home would suffice. A quick look at Zillow finds housing under $200k in San Diego, a not unrealistic price for a starter home, consists mostly of manufactured homes.

The least expensive condo in San Diego is $270,000 and the least expensive home is $375,000. Now the mayor wants to build high-rises with no parking in a city with marginal public transportation.

I understand the city receives more tax revenue and the developer makes more profit from larger home value, but that doesnt help the housing crisis. For years the city has allowed developers to avoid building real affordable housing by donating to Father Joes or a similar option, and then build whatever they want. A better plan would be to eliminate this option and require them to build housing at a realistic price for starter homes. Unfortunately, affordable seems to be in the eye of the developer, so even that probably will not help.

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John E. Gahan

San Diego

Public transit use faces enough challenges

Re MTS eyes Transit Center overhaul amid aggressive push to develop property near bus and trolley stops (Jan. 13): The headlong rush to create additional government-sponsored housing on Metropolitan Transit System parking lots will engender the unintended consequence of discouraging commuter use of public transit.

The creation of mixed use apartment buildings on trolley parking lots will result in the double whammy of fewer commuter parking spaces and a newly created demand for resident and guest parking for the newly built residential units. Existing trolley parking lots were created specifically to handle maximum utilization and to encourage commuters to abandon their vehicles in favor of public transit. It is disingenuous to include night time occupancy in utilization calculations.

Jim Stieringer

La Mesa

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That land belongs to us, not the government

The story says Nearly two dozen parking lots and other underused properties could eventually be used by MTS for mixed-use apartment building.

This is public land. And for mixed use may deny optimal public use.

The only crisis in housing is about the affordable units the building industry chooses not to build. It tends to build only Cadillacs.

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To make a market for low- and middle-earners, residual public land should be prioritized for all-affordable, not 10 percent or mixed-use - all open to singles, seniors, divorced, disabled vets, minorities and starter-home buyers.

City, MTS, city schools, state or military base parcels opened up for reuse are public land - property that can be first slated for all-affordable units, or negotiated for those, and needed parks and rec nearby.

The land banking model for environmental mitigation can apply to any nonaffordable unit construction on public land.

We the People can invite architects to enter design competitions for affordable projects on our land.

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Scott Andrews

San Diego

Housing density efforts are hurting communities

I moved into my Clairemont neighborhood almost 40 years ago because it was a quiet R-1 neighborhood.

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Now, my next-door neighbor is building a two-story, three-bedroom, three-bath house with additional guest quarters in his backyard a few feet from my fence (hardly a Granny Flat). No off-street parking spaces are required so the cars can fill the street in front of my house.

Certain interests in San Diego want to pack in as many people as possible and say there is a need for affordable housing.

May I point out there are plenty of places in this country with affordable housing and jobs. Why does San Diego want to be like Los Angeles?

Id like to live in Santa Barbara, but its out of my price range. Maybe I should just go there and expect them to build me some affordable housing.

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Edward Wasil

Clairemont

Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.

Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook.
Re Trumps wall would be monument to ignorance (Feb. 22): Don Winslows opinion piece is as indicative of his profound ignorance of Chinese history (he claims that the Great Wall of China never kept anyone out) as it is indicative of his effort to deflect the debate over the importance of protecting citizenship as a bulwark to democracy to the issue of whether or not we as a nation should be engaged in a war on drugs.

Having majored in Asian history at Harvard, my training tells me that for some 2,000 years the Great Wall generally functioned as designed. Any weakness of the wall was a consequence of an enemy within China during periods of extreme corruption and as a consequence of domestic terrorism that saw traitors literally open gates of the wall to assist foreign invaders.

If you want to protect your family or your nation, walls work.

Bruce Henderson

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Pacific Beach

The U-T is a monument to ignorance. By posting an article espousing one political view of national importance without posting an article of opposite political view on the same topic, you are limiting information to the public about the importance of border walls (fences, blockades, etc., etc., etc.).

John Fiscella

Carmel Valley

I do agree that we have a national emergency right now  in fact we have two, but neither has anything to do with a wall or our southern borders. I am referring to climate change and gun violence in this country.

We are experiencing extremes in both areas that are threatening and taking many lives in this country. Regarding climate change  think about the recent hurricanes and other weather extremes that have caused death and heartbreak. Regarding gun violence, it appears that there is a new mass shooting almost every day. These are real problems that are getting worse, not better.

Sure, we can divert money from our military and drug diversion to build a wall for a problem that hardly compares to the real emergencies we are having. Please open your eyes and stop this madness. We have real problems that need to be solved.

Alice Fichandler

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San Diego

Before building a wall to prevent immigration, shouldnt the United States dismantle the Statue of Liberty, whose tablet says, Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Doesnt this describe exactly the people begging for entry into this country? I just cannot reconcile the two. Hypocrisy of the greatest magnitude. Especially considering how many of us are descendants of those following that beacon.

Dan Whitworth

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San Carlos

Re Border barrier debate: Breaking down the facts (Jan. 13): California has had walls for almost three decades. Perhaps for that and other reasons, illegal crossings are at the lowest level in decades.

While the majority in the House refuses to spend $5.7 billion on a new stretch of wall, Democrats have offered $1.3 billion to upgrade border security. Unfortunately, one man in the White House finds no room for compromise.

With a combined population of five million, San Diego/Tijuana is the fourth largest international metropolitan zone in the world. Twenty-five million vehicles cross the border each year including 800,000 trucks. Each day 28,000 pedestrians cross into the U.S.

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Considering such activity, the illegal entry of people and drugs are coming through the front door. We cant keep drugs out of our prisons. How can President Trumps wall keep drugs out of the U.S.?

Eugene Mullaly

San Carlos



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So, walls dont work? Ask any East German who tried to escape to the west if the Berlin Wall was a deterrent to them and worked? Then there is another wall that was built for the same thing, to keep invaders out  that was called the Great Wall of China.

Walls are built around prisons to keep people from escaping. Rich people build walls around their homes to keep unwanted guests from entering.

I think everyone in the Border Patrol from the top on down to the boots on the ground says that walls are effective. But, the Democrats hate Trump so much they will forgo logic, facts and our nations security to obstruct.

I hope the rest of the American people can see how ignorant the Democrats point of view really is and support the wall and the rest of his border security measures.

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Kevin Konczal

San Diego



Before the Democrats even think about agreeing to the presidents demands to fund construction of a wall, I hope they give serious thought to at least one thing. And thats the fact that his even demanding this is unconstitutional.

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That document clearly states that it is the responsibility of the House of Representatives  not the executive branch  to approve funding of government projects, and his holding operation of the U.S. government hostage to get his way is almost unbelievable (for anyone but him).

One more thing. Why did he not demand funding for construction of a wall in the two years during which the GOP controlled both houses of Congress?

Robert Gilleskie

Del Mar

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One major error in Sundays border barrier story, which read: The scene on the border changed dramatically by the 1980s as Mexican migration spiked, largely single men crossing for economic opportunity. There were women and children, many who were robbed, raped and beaten then. Joseph Wambaughs Lines and Shadows documented that escalating crime that then-San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender was slow to react to as Border Patrol agents sought a border task force.

In 1985 Border Patrols Operation Ambush netted more than 3,000 arrests on one night while admitting that on a daily basis they only apprehended 10 percent of those crossing illegally.

By 1985 Border Patrol teamed with the Sheriffs department and SDPD running canyon night patrols, including one where Border Patrol Agent Fred Stevens and other law enforcement personnel were wounded protecting potential victims. Last, but not least, theres no mention of Newman, California, police officer Ronil Singh, a legal immigrant, allegedly gunned down by an illegal immigrant with a criminal record.

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John Stryker Meyer

Oceanside



For two years of his presidency, the GOP controlled the House and the Senate but Trump did not seek money for a border wall. Why only now is he asking for money when the house is controlled by the Democrats? Trumps action are fraudulent and extortion.

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Its better to spend money for unmanned vehicle and drones, security cameras and infrared sensors for border security to keep border agents away from harms way.

Eduardo Dizon

San Diego



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I still think the Democrats should offer to give Trump his wall in exchange for a tax increase to pay for it (and other government boondoggles). Republicans hate taxes, so this would be a true test of how badly they really want a questionable wall.

Id also remind folks that, once upon a time, the issue was supposed to be stagnant middle class income, which Trump blamed on illegal immigrants who (along with unfair trade) were stealing jobs and depressing wages. The wall was a dubious fix for this, but, what the heck, voters like simple solutions to complex problems, and Mexico would pay for it anyway.

The argument has shifted to terrorism, human trafficking and opioids with us footing the bill. If one false premise fails, substitute another, nobody will notice. Weve all forgotten how we got here in the first place.

Walter Schmidt

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La Jolla



Re A real security crisis (Jan. 13): Columnist Trudy Rubin lectures to us that the Southern Border is not a security crisis and then goes on to tell us about several issues that are.

The issues she is so deeply concerned about are the issues that President Obama ignored for eight years, but didnt draw a peep out of her. With a new caravan brewing, that may include numerous rock and bottle hurlers, individuals carrying diseases, criminals, rapists and gang members, again not a peep from her.

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I believe that President Trump is aggressively dealing with all of the issues that Rubin is concerned about, which were thrown on his lap, while at the same time fixing the enormous border problem that got him elected.

Dave Dowler

Valley Center



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In a fight, the bigger person makes peace. Its time for the Democrats to be the hero to 800,000 government workers who need a paycheck. Give the president his wall. In return he will make Dreamers U.S. citizens. Its called compromise.

Yale Kadesky

Escondido



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President Trump has created a real national emergency by shutting down vital services of the federal government. Meanwhile he tries to sell a phony national emergency to have his way: what most experts agree is a very expensive and ineffective wall.

Ron Carrico

Mission Hills



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Now is the time for a compromise. Here is the deal: Democrats agree to spend 5.7 billion on the border and Republicans agree to spend it on the best and most effective way to solve border problems. A bipartisan group knowledgeable about the border and what the American people want could determine how and when to spend the money.

Some wall would likely be part of the solution, but only where it is needed and where it will be effective. There might be room in such a compromise to predesignate a portion specifically for wall repair and wall expansion.

People are hurting on both sides of the border now and most Americans are ready for some serious cooperation. The U.S./Mexican border has been a problem for generations.

When I was a kid growing up in Lakeside in the 1930s, I remember my parents complaining about Mexican nationals walking across our property. Lets not miss this opportunity to do something constructive about out border.

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Bud Held

Del Mar

President Trump wants 5.7 billion dollars to build a wall across the southern border is a statement I hear constantly on the news. This statement is so misleading, because 5.7 billion dollars of our tax money only pays for about 200 miles of wall. No wonder congress doesnt want to give it to him! This fact gives a whole new meaning to the government shutdown.

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Wendy Dallas

Sorrento Valley

The hypocrisy on the left seems to know no bounds. Deportations increased under Barack Obama and children were put in chain link cages (documented). Tear gas was used (documented). Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, both Clintons and Chuck Schumer have all given speeches in recent years in favor of increased border security. But rather than doing what they have said is best for our country their blind hate for Trump drives them to hypocrisy.

Every country has the right to secure and regulate its sovereign borders as it sees fit. If we dont our citizens will pay the price such as the recent murder of police officer Ronil Singh by an illegal immigrant criminal. Legal immigration and asylum are fine but laws and procedures must be followed.

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George Henry

San Diego

Im not an ultra right-wing supporter of our current president but I do support strong border security, including a border fence and immigration law reforms. Remember 1992 when illegal immigrants were running through our San Diego border crossings? The double fence help to solve that very dangerous situation.

Politicians who now call building a wall immoral are the same folks who multiple times voted for border security. Whats immoral is my son working without pay while these same politicians took the weekend off with pay.

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Many politicians demand free health care for illegal immigrants while my sons family, including a disabled child, may not be able to access his health care due to this unnecessary shutdown.

Politics is the art of compromise. Its time for our representatives and the president to find a compromise solution to this shutdown, which is adversely affecting 800,000 hard-working, under-appreciated Border Patrolmen, ICE agents and many others.

Augie Troncale

Scripps Ranch

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We march in San Diego this Saturday in solidarity with women across the globe. Millions of us came together in 2016 to defend the rights of women of all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, faiths, immigration statuses, sexual orientations, gender identities, disabilities, occupations and socioeconomic statuses.

As part of Womens March San Diego, we will gather again to unite our voices and harness the political power of our diverse community. The inequities we see and experience every day have not changed. In fact, some have expanded in their level of occurrences in our daily lives. We continue to have our rights, bodies and children at risk due to the current administrations policies.

Our principles do not tolerate hate in any form, and therefore, it is disheartening to see the national conflicts play out before our marches. Concerns over anti-Semitism have arisen around the Womens March leadership. Womens March San Diego and Womens March are separate organizations. We condemn anti-Semitism and any form of race or religion-based hate.

We are an all-volunteer team, whose work is linked by our shared experience of womanhood. We embrace a philosophy of support for others, even if our approaches to social justice take different paths.

Our Unity Principles embodies social, economic and environmental justice, and when we found them lacking, we revised them. As such, they have been updated to express an explicit rejection of anti-Semitism. We recognize our diversity makes us stronger.

Our San Diego chapter, like many California chapters, is focused on our grassroots efforts. On a national level, we have seen Womens March. grow out of its grassroots origins and attempt to capture the support of millions under its leadership. We do not believe its leaders own this movement. The millions who have participated in the movement collectively own the name, brand and battle cry of the Womens March. This is why we are not marching under the banner of a national organization.

In San Diego, we march on local issues to bring injustices to the forefront, including inhumane treatment of immigrants at our borders, violence against women and people of color, gun violence and threats against our reproductive rights.

We also work in unison with women and allies around the world on issues that directly affect us, such as the anti-sexual harassment movement exemplified by #MeToo and the too often blatant disregard for women like Christine Blasey Ford who bring forth credible claims of harassment and abuse.

They were not movements led by Womens March but movements that were catapulted into the spotlight because women en masse found their voices. We are stronger together.

While Womens March San Diego leaders are diverse, we acknowledge there are essential voices missing from our leadership table. Our team includes women who are Asian Pacific Islanders, biracial, indigenous, Latina and Indian; we are members of the Jewish community, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, and we are parents of children with these identities.

We commit to doing better to ensure full representation of our community, and we invite you to join us in this effort. We believe diversity makes us stronger, and we are stronger together.

We march for the opportunity to build bridges with all women in our many communities. And just as importantly, we march to support and celebrate all the women who have stepped up and been elected to office to support these same values. That despondency so many of us felt in November 2016 is being erased by the wave of women who have come together.

Individually, we join this march for different reasons, but it is because women are woven into everything in the fabric of life that we knew this unifying force would be core to our movement. As women, we must stand up, step up, lift up, and we must continue to march for each other. Silence is not an option. We are stronger together.
If we want our civic life to be more positive, we might need to vote in the negative.

Thats the compelling case that Sam Chang, a retired banker who lives in Taipei, was making as I rode BART with him between meetings with California election experts. Chang is the improbable leader of a global effort to establish what is called the negative vote. He has started with concurrent ballot initiative campaigns to add the negative vote in Taiwan and the city of Berkeley.

The right to vote no, says Chang, is a fundamental human right.

In this transnational campaign, Chang, a mild-mannered 67-year-old who holds both Taiwanese and U.S. citizenship, is in the vanguard. California and its communities, who are famously open to new ideas advanced by initiative, are likely to become proving grounds for coordinated initiative campaigns that advance democratic reforms internationally. Over recent decades, direct democracy  the initiative, referendum and other tools that allow voters to make laws directly  has spread to 113 nations.

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His concept of the negative vote is straightforward. Today we can vote for one candidate in each race. Chang proposes to give voters the ability to use that one vote to cast a ballot against the candidate instead. In such a system, each candidates tally of votes would be a net  between her number of positive and negative votes.

Chang argues that the negative vote would boost voter participation. One reason people give for not voting is that they dont like any of the candidates; the negative vote would let naysayers vote against the candidate they dislike most. Chang commissioned a RAND Corp. survey suggesting that, in a U.S. presidential election, offering the negative vote would draw 16 million more people to the polls.

More broadly, Chang argues that the negative vote would create an incentive for politicians to collaborate and to behave more responsively, for fear of drawing negative votes against them.

Chang admits he is an unlikely champion for a California democratic reform. Raised in Taipei, he was sent to Massachusetts for high school and went on to Harvard for college and Wharton for his MBA. But while his siblings and their kids would settle here, Chang moved back to Taiwan because his parents were there and he wanted his own children to have a Chinese education.

As he traveled the world as a banker, he saw many democracies weakening. By 2012, Chang had begun working on the negative vote project. The idea was not new: the Venetian Republic had negative voting and the U.N. permits nations to vote against candidates for secretary general.

Chang has slowly built support across the political spectrum in Taiwan; his prominent endorsements include three former premiers, Taipeis current mayor, and Shih Ming-teh, known as Taiwans Nelson Mandela. In the U.S., Chang has seized on Berkeley because its the closest thing he has to an American hometown; his son lived there for many years. Berkeley is a charter city, so it can enact new election ideas that dont conform with state laws. Qualifying an initiative for the ballot there is also relatively cheap  about $50,000. But the city is also famous globally.

Chang has been making regular visits to the city from Taipei, attending parties thrown by activists and chatting up city officials. I met up with him at Berkeleys City Hall, where he was talking with former City Councilman Kriss Worthington, now an adviser to the mayor, about the best process to draft an initiative.

In the Bay Area, Chang hasnt gotten much traction with his argument that the negative vote would promote compromise and collaboration; most people are partisans and not so fond of compromise, he says.

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But in conversations and meetings I witnessed, people were intrigued by the idea that it would boost voter turnout. And Bay Area folks love it when Chang explains how, if the 2016 presidential election had been run with negative votes, Donald Trump would have lost because of all the votes against him.

Berkeley offers one distinct challenge. It no longer has the American system of voting for just one candidate; voters actually rank candidates in order of preference  1, 2, 3. Chang says that he proposes to keep those rankings, but allow Berkeley voters to negatively rank candidates  as well (-1, -2, -3, etc.)

That would offer voters a choice  who do you dislike most?  that fits our time.

There are efforts to adopt negative voting in Afghanistan, Argentina, Denmark and Poland, and Chang is also beginning to organize in Honolulu, where another of his children lives. In 2020, Chang hopes, Berkeley and Taiwan will vote for the negative vote.

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Then, he hopes the whole world will become more positive, by going negative.

Mathews writes for Zocalo Public Square, www.zocalopublicsquare.org. Twitter, @joemmathews
Donald Trump is giving an unintentional gift to the burgeoning field of Democratic presidential candidates: He is teaching them how they can win.

Trumps failure as president is that he hasnt forged a governing party that can unite the country, pass legislation and address Americas problems. He has succeeded in creating an insurgency that has toppled the traditional Republican establishment and intimidated GOP members of Congress into stunned, appalled silence. But with the exception of the 2017 tax cut plan in which wealthier people reap the biggest payouts, he has failed utterly to enact significant domestic policies.

The border-wall tantrum and government shutdown show how Trump has squandered the opportunity that his populist campaign offered. If he had broadened his coalition  using the art of the deal he touts but doesnt seem to understand  he would have presented a more formidable and lasting challenge to the Democratic Party.

But Trumps insecure, all-or-nothing politics has prevented the compromises and horse-trading that might resolve festering problems and, forgive the phrase, make America great again. Instead, we have a paralyzed, dysfunctional government that even Trump enthusiasts must know is bad for our national health. Every additional day Trump sulks in the White House, his failure is more obvious.

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The challenge for the Democrats is to avoid Trumps blunder of creating a headline-grabbing insurgency and instead forge a broad governing coalition. That wont be easy; governing is dull, whereas insurgent movements are sexy. They animate the base of true believers and tap the inchoate public anger at the status quo. But insurgencies are self-limiting; they focus inward rather than outward; they are about protesting rather than fixing.

The temptation for Democrats in the age of Trump is to create a mirror image of his dysfunctional party of rage. Democrats can be as entranced as the GOP by the latest bright, shiny object darting across the political sky. They, too, can mistake social-media energy for real political power.

The news media always finds new personalities or inflammatory comments irresistible. Thats why Trump has been so successful in manipulating the media. He conducts a daily circus of anti-elitist agitation. He drives wedges into every fissure of racial, gender or cultural division. He plays identity politics while pretending to oppose them.

This months bright, shiny Democrats, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Rep. Beto ORourke, among others, are undeniably fun to watch. But do they have the skills (or the desire) to help build the spacious tent in which a governing party must operate? Do they have the self-discipline to avoid quick-hit headlines and forge real alliances?

The midterm elections showed how tired most voters have become of Trumps brand of divisive politics, in which antics to animate the base  the relatively small segment of the electorate that is driven by ideological, racial or cultural convictions  crowd out the process of building coalitions that can pass legislation.

Nancy Pelosi isnt an ideal leader for a party that wants to reclaim working-class voters, but the value of having her as House speaker now is that shes a disciplined, old-fashioned pol who knows how to keep the Democratic caucus focused and aligned. Newcomers such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (impeach the mother------) will disrupt Pelosis agenda at their peril.

The Democrat who emerges atop the field will be the person who can convincingly demonstrate how he or she would make the instruments of government work again for the people. That starts with a message and a personality that a healthy majority of Americans can embrace. The ideal Democratic ticket would reach out to the broadest electorate; it would blend youth and experience, male and female, Anglo and Latino, black and white.

But the most important attribute for the Democratic presidential nominee will be an ability to beat Trump. The greatest weakness would be a candidate (backed by an insurgency) that skews the party so far left that it has trouble convincing independent voters in the center that the Democrats can put the country back together. Conservative voters are just as convinced that they face a politics of exclusion as are progressives. The escape is to rebuild a broad, tolerant, diverse middle.

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The winning candidate will, almost by definition, create a new political alignment that begins to dissolve the cleavages that are tearing the country apart. What the country needs is a president who can convince most Americans to pull on the oars together again. Otherwise, this boat will remain dead in the water or, worse, keep rocking unsteadily until it eventually capsizes.

Ignatius is on Twitter, @IgnatiusPost. For a different view on the 2020 election, read Hugh Hewitts column in Saturdays opinion section.
In a public display of defiance, Gov. Gavin Newsom encouraged Transportation Security Administration employees to apply for unemployment insurance through the state after the Trump administration warned California that the workers are ineligible for the benefits during the federal shutdown.

The good news is, were going to do it and shame on them, Newsom said to TSA workers gathered at a hastily planned event at Sacramento International Airport on Thursday. They are, in essence, threatening us for doing what were doing.

The latest dust-up between California and the Trump administration happened after the Department of Labor sent an email this week warning the state that federal employees who continue to work during the government shutdown cannot apply for benefits, according to the governors office.

A standoff between President Trump and new Democratic leadership in the House has led to the longest shutdown in U.S. history. Trump refuses to sign spending bills unless he receives $5 billion for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Since 1954, federal workers have been able to apply for unemployment insurance benefits through the state if they become unemployed or their hours are reduced through no fault of their own, according to the California Employment Development Department.

Newsom first advised furloughed federal workers to apply to the program during a news conference last week to unveil his 2019-20 budget.

The state has said 779 federal workers applied for unemployment insurance benefits in the first week of the shutdown, marking a 200% increase from the same period the previous year. Under the system, states bill the federal government for the unemployment benefits provided to eligible federal workers. Weekly payments max out at about $450 a week, which workers must repay after the shutdown ends.

The email from the Labor Department, sent to California, Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, Washington and Arizona on Wednesday, cited an October 2013 memo that said excepted employees who continue to work full-time during a shutdown may not be eligible for unemployment benefits if states determine they are still fully employed. It included two additional memos that provided guidance on the mechanics of the benefits in regard to the 2013 federal shutdown, which lasted 16 days.

Some 53,000 TSA agents are considered essential federal employees who must continue to work unpaid through the shutdown. At least 40,000 federal workers in California have been furloughed since Dec. 22.

Emotional TSA workers explained to the governor the hardships of working without a paycheck: unpaid rent, no ability to cover childcare expenses and late mortgage payments.

Miguel Pagarigan, 48, said he worked more than 60 hours during the first week of the shutdown. The Vacaville resident had been struggling to make mortgage payments before he lost his paycheck and the shutdown forced him to put his house on the market, he said. Pagarigan said hes moving his wife and four children into a home with his father.

The hole got deeper and deeper over the summer, Pagarigan said. When your paycheck is ripped away from you, theres not a lot you can do.

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taryn.luna@latimes.com

Follow @TarynLuna on Twitter and sign up for our daily Essential Politics newsletter.
Newly empowered Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are preparing to reopen the panels investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, seeking new interviews and financial records even as Republicans appear ready to boycott the inquiry.

Republicans who previously led the committee ended the investigation last March by concluding they had found no evidence of conspiracy between President Trumps campaign and operatives in Moscow.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) said Republicans had no interest in participating in the revived inquiry, which will be led by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the new chairman.

Now they just want to do something theyve already investigated before? McCarthy said. I dont think thats what the American public would think is the right thing to do with the majority.

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The partisan rift, a mirror image of last years bitter fight over the Russia probe, emerged before the committee holds its first meeting of the new congressional session or Republicans name their members to it.

Schiff said he had not spoken to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the former chairman and now ranking member, since the Nov. 6 midterm election. Their once collegial relationship ruptured during the Russia investigation that Democrats are now reviving.

Schiff plans to provide special counsel Robert S. Mueller III with unredacted transcripts of the committees closed-door interviews with witnesses, which could be fodder for criminal charges.

Michael Cohen, President Trumps former personal lawyer, recently pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about pursuing a Moscow hotel and condominium proposal on Trumps behalf during the 2016 campaign. Cohen is scheduled to testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 7 and he could meet again with the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors.

Democrats have beefed up resources on the intelligence committee, adding more people with investigative experience to supplement their roster of analysts.

Schiff said hes ready to request documents, sometimes with subpoenas, that Republicans did not seek when they led the committee.

There are any number of records that would have made sense, frankly, to have had before, he said.

Follow the latest news of the Trump administration on Essential Washington 

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Phone records for Donald Trump Jr. are a probable target since he made three calls to a blocked number around the time he met with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June 2016. Trump Jr. has said he doesnt recall whom he called and the president has denied knowing about the meeting when it occurred.

The committee also may seek records from Deutsche Bank, which has paid hundreds of millions in fines for assisting Russian money laundering. The bank was willing to loan to Trump when U.S. banks wouldnt because of his multiple bankruptcies.

We know Russia uses financial distress as a way to compromise individuals, said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), a committee member. If the president is compromised financially by the Russians, thats something that comes under our committees jurisdiction.

Jack Langer, a spokesman for committee Republicans, said Democrats are chasing conspiracy theories.

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The Democrats are obviously excited to pursue their myriad Russia conspiracy theories because, after two years of investigations by numerous Congressional committees, the FBI, the special counsel, and every media outlet in America, the lack of evidence of a nefarious collusion plot seems to upset them, he said in a statement.

Democrats described last years Republican inquiry as a whitewash. In particular, the Republican report said Russias interference in the 2016 campaign was not aimed at helping Trump beat Hillary Clinton, a conclusion that contradicted that of the nations intelligence agencies.

Democrats have four new members of the committee  Reps. Val Demings of Florida, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York and Peter Welch of Vermont  who all have a legal or law enforcement background.

To the extent we have to investigate the president, we have to, Krishnamoorthi said. But to me, the purpose is to prevent future wrongdoing.
He was naked and afraid when he jumped down a hatch under his pop-up bathtub and disappeared into the sewer.

The Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo had no time to even throw on a pair of his favorite tighty whities when authorities staged a pre-dawn raid at one of his seven safe houses in Culiacan in February 2014, his former lover testified Thursday.

With Chapos wife sitting and listening intently in the galley, his mistress Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez gave her vivid account of the daring escape during what turned out to be the most telenovela-worthy day of Chapos now nine-week drug trafficking trial in Brooklyn.

Sanchez, 29, broke down crying so uncontrollably at one point, the judge had to give her several minutes to compose herself.

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Emma Coronel, also 29, gave a little smirk when Sanchez wept but otherwise maintained her haughty demeanor, especially when Sanchez described sharing Chapos bed.

In her scintillating testimony, Sanchez said she was lying beside the womanizing narco around 3 a.m. on Feb. 16, 2014, when loud noises startled her awake.

I heard, like, a lot of thumps and helicopters. I heard yelling, she recalled.

Right outside the gated two-story property, complete with a swimming pool, the elite team of U.S. and Mexican forces was trying to break down the fortified door with a battering ram.

Theyre on us! Theyre on us! Chapos associate Carlos Manuel (Condor) Hoo Ramirez yelled as Chapo, whose real name is Joaquin Guzman Loera, started running around in a panic, Sanchez said.

She said Chapo, completely nude, called her to the bathroom where Condor and a maid were standing around the tub.

Prior trial testimony revealed Chapo had a secret button behind a mirror that raised the tub to reveal a hidden entrance to a labyrinth of underground passages.

There was like a lid on the bathtub that came up, Sanchez testified. I was like, Do I have to go in there?The entire tub was hollow underneathIt had a kind of a hydraulic (lift)  they call it a piston.

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Sanchez said she followed Chapos directions and climbed into the void.

The first thing I saw was wooden steps, she said. I heard (Chapo) say to Condor, Close up the tub.

Sanchez said complete darkness swallowed them once the hatch was closed.

For me, it was horrible because I had never been in a place like that. It was a humid place with mud, she told the jury.

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She said Chapo and Condor used a steel wheel to open another hatch that led to the sewers.

Chapo ran ahead alone, she said, with the others following close behind.

Sanchez said they spent about an hour slogging through the sewer system, sometimes wading through putrid water reaching up to their thighs.

(It was) enough to traumatize me, she said.

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They emerged somewhere near a river in Culiacan, she said, and Chapo would spend another six days on the run before the same group of law enforcement tracked him down and arrested him at a hotel in Mazatlan.

By that point, Chapo had reunited with Coronel, an ex-beauty queen, and their twin daughters.

Sanchez, now 29, told the dramatic story from the witness stand Thursday in large part to save her own skin.

A former legislator in Mexico, she was arrested in San Diego, Calif., in 2017 after U.S. authorities pieced together evidence she trafficked drugs and helped launder money for the Sinaloa Cartel.

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She took a plea deal in October and now is cooperating with prosecutors to get a break on her sentence, she conceded Thursday.

Sanchez told jurors she was just 21 when a 50-something Chapo first started pursuing her in 2010. She became his mistress a year later, she testified.

Asked about the evolution of the relationship, Sanchez told the court she believed they were a genuine couple but that she also feared the cartel boss.

Until today, Im still confused, because I thought in our relationship we were romantically involved as partners, she said.

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I was trying always to keep him happy. I was confused over my feelings for him. Sometimes I loved him, and sometimes I didnt.

Sanchez said she started moving marijuana for Chapo in October 2011. Eventually, the shipments topped 400 kilos, she testified.

She said Chapo personally sent her to their home state of Sinaloa and neighboring Durango  two points of the Golden Triangle  because she knew the communities and could find the right farmers to help the cartel.

Sanchez claimed she wasnt paid for the work.

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She said in the beginning, she saw Chapo once or twice a month, visiting him in various places including the Los Cabos residence where he narrowly escaped capture during a similar raid in 2012.

Sanchez wasnt allowed her personal cell phone during the trysts, and guards would cover her eyes during some of the travel, she said.

She said the kingpin, now 61, later told her about his close call at the Los Cabos love nest and showed her the injuries he suffered hiding in some thorny bushes.

His body had wounds on it. He was hurt, she testified.

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Sanchez echoed prior testimony about Chapos obsessive style, confirming he gave her a cellphone loaded with spyware and demanded daily communication.

I had to climb up on a tall hill every afternoon to get (a) signal, she said.

Chapo is now on trial for allegedly smuggling mass quantities of cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the U.S. for distribution in New York City and elsewhere.

He has pleaded not guilty to more than a dozen charges involving drug trafficking, money laundering, conspiracy and illegal firearms.

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If convicted of the top count, leading the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, he faces life behind bars.

In further testimony Thursday, Sanchez said she only heard Chapo speak about violence once  but it terrified her.

She said it was when Condor told Chapo that a cartel member named Virgo was dead.

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He looked at me with a serious demeanor, and then he said some words I did not like, she recalled. What he said was, from that point on, whoever betrayed him, they were going to die  whether they were family or women.

She said the statement convinced her Chapo had ordered Virgos death.

Sanchez ran for a legislative office in her hometown of Cosala in Sinaloa in 2014.

She won by a large margin, she said, but was booted out near the end of her three-year term due to her ties to Chapo.
A 59-year-old man was hospitalized in grave condition Thursday after a fight with another tenant at a southeastern San Diego independent living facility, a police homicide lieutenant said.

Police received a disturbance call around 8:45 a.m. at the independent living facility in the Alta Vista neighborhood near Paradise Hills, according to San Diego police Lt. Anthony Dupree.

When officers arrived at the facility on Mariposa Place a few minutes later, they found the man lying unresponsive on a rear patio of the residence, Dupree said. Officers began administering emergency medical aid until firefighters and medics arrived to take over first aid and transport the man to a hospital.

Police believe the two tenants began fighting after the 59-year-old assaulted a facility employee, Dupree said.

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The victim did not have any obvious signs of major trauma to his body, Dupree said in a statement. Out of an abundance of caution, the San Diego Police Departments homicide unit was called to the scene.

As of Thursday evening, no one had been arrested, Dupree said in an email.

Twitter: @Alex_Riggins

(619) 293-1710

alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com
Monster waves shredded several feet of railing along the Ocean Beach Pier, which had been closed ahead of time in anticipation of high surf.

The damage seen Friday morning stretched perhaps 10 to 15 feet along the pier, which will remain closed until it is repaired.

San Diego Fire-Rescue spokesman Jose Ysea said the pier had been close since Thursday because of the expected high tides.

But waves, coming in at 10 to 12 feet, were higher than expected, he said.

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The king tide is what lifted it higher, he said.

The waves, which caused a mess in Ocean Beach, also led to flooding at Mission Beach and Pacific Beach, he said.

Powerful #surf has caused significant damage to the Ocean Beach Pier, which remains closed today. Storm surge also resulted in road closures at Newport and Abbott in Ocean Beach. With high tides and large waves, @SDLifeguards are on patrol in our #beach areas. pic.twitter.com/tTFldIaARw  City of San Diego (@CityofSanDiego) January 18, 2019

City officials noted that storm surge led to road closures at Newport Avenue and Abbott Street in Ocean Beach.

There will be cleaning needed up and down the coast. In North County, state parks officials tweeted out photos of beach-area flooding.

Rain and high tide have our Cardiff State Beach parking lots washed out.

Cardiff Seaside: partial closure

Cardiff Reef: full closure



Maintenance staff actively working on cleaning the lots. Closures will continue until further notice. pic.twitter.com/TPDns0IGQm  CAStateParksSanDiego (@CaStateParksSD) January 18, 2019

Imperial Beach also saw flooding, prompting Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina and Union-Tribune reporter Joshua Emerson Smith to post videos on Twitter.

Some of the flooding we saw this morning in the @CityofIB. #KingTides pic.twitter.com/hpCYr3s9iD  Serge Dedina (@Serge4IBMayor) January 18, 2019

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Imperial Beach flooded pretty hard today along Sea Coast Drive. The city was ready thanks to @Scripps_Ocean's experimental warning system, which proved very accurate. Story to come ... pic.twitter.com/KNJcpAgLoN  Joshua Emerson Smith (@jemersmith) January 18, 2019

As for the damaged pier, once the surf calms, structural engineers will go out and take a closer look, Ysea said.

But that wont happen today, he said, noting that forecasters are calling for continued high surf tomorrow.

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teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
The third annual Womens March arrives in San Diego Saturday with local organizers distancing themselves from national leaders, who are embroiled in controversies over anti-Semitic remarks and other issues.

Womens March San Diego and Womens March Inc. are separate organizations, the local groups executive board said in a home-page statement on its website. We do not benefit financially from, and are not governed by Womens March Inc.

Similarly, the North County Womens March, which is hosting an event in Oceanside Saturday, calls itself a grassroots organization inspired by, but independent from the national group.

The statements come after months of turmoil surrounding what started as a massive show of unity. On Jan. 21, 2017, millions of women took to the streets in response to the previous days inauguration of President Donald Trump.

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People carried signs, wore pink hats and chanted, and the energy at some 600 different marches around the country helped fuel subsequent protests, the #MeToo movement, voter-registration drives, and a record number of women elected to Congress.

But questions of inclusivity have dogged the Womens March from its outset, and theyre getting louder after a year of controversy about the treatment of Jews, financial transparency, and an effort by national leaders to trademark the events name.

In Washington D.C., where the national group is again staging its main event Saturday, a competing march is planned by a splinter group. Multiple marches are taking place in New York and Philadelphia, too. In some places, the agitation over diversity has contributed to cancellations of marches.

High-profile supporters have backed away from the national event, including the Democratic National Committee and the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to The Daily Beast, less than half of the nearly 550 partners who supported the 2018 march signed up this year.

March backers attribute some of the trouble to inevitable growing pains. But much of it stems from ties between the national groups leadership and Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, whose criticism of Jews has included calling them termites.

Tamika Mallory, one of the groups four co-chairs, posted a photo of herself with Farrakhan at a Nation of Islam event. Shes credited the group with helping her after a relative was killed. Under the photo, she called Farrakhan the GOAT (greatest of all time).

She has since denounced anti-Semitism in writing and apologized for any harm she caused: Every member of our movement matters to us. But she has declined to condemn Farrakhan, which in some places has only fanned the flames of controversy.

Jewish supporters of the Womens March who are willing to overlook these egregious issues need to grow a moral backbone and confront evil whenever they see it rising, Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista wrote in a commentary published last week in San Diego Jewish World.

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On its website, Womens March San Diegos five-member executive board said, We condemn anti-Semitism and any form of race or religion-based hate and will continue to work toward a more positive and just future.

They added, Since our inception, Womens March San Diego has oriented our mission of harnessing the political power of diverse women and their communities toward creating transformative social change. We believe our diversity makes us stronger, and that working together is the best way to effect change.

There has been some criticism of the local boards makeup  We dont need another event that centers (on) white people, one women wrote on Facebook  and the directors note on their website that While diverse, we acknowledge there are essential voices missing from our table.

San Diego leaders also oppose the attempt by the national organization to trademark the name Womens March, which would give it control over how the brand is used.

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National directors said they want to ensure a unified message for the dozens of like-named offshoots around the country, but many of the branches fear having to adopt national rules, being barred from using the name, or having to pay a fee for it.

Saturdays rally and march here are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. at Waterfront Park in San Diego. Speakers include elected officials of various races, Native American leaders, a transgender advocate, and a rabbi. North County San Diego Women in Solidarity are hosting a rally at the Oceanside Civic Center starting at 9:30 a.m. Participants are scheduled to march to the North County Transit Center before departing on the Coaster or a chartered bus at 10:30 a.m. to join the march in San Diego at noon.

And considering the turmoil surrounding the national organization, this years theme may carry added meaning: Truth to Power.

The Washington Post contributed to this report.

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john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com
Two San Diegans brought together by violence were honored Friday with an award named after a famous advocate of non-violence.

Azim Khamisa and Ples Felix received the 2019 Martin Luther King Jr. Human Dignity Award.

It came during the 34th annual Jackie Robinson Family YMCA breakfast honoring the slain civil rights leaders life and legacy, an event that drew about 1,500 people to the Town and Country resort in Mission Valley.

The two men were united by tragedy in 1995 when Khamisas 20-year-old son, Tariq, was shot and killed by Felixs 14-year-old grandson, Tony Hicks, during a robbery in North Park.

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They created a foundation named after Khamisas son that uses a character-building program  accountability, compassion, forgiveness and peacemaking  to foster safer schools and communities.

Late last year, when Hicks became eligible for parole, the Khamisa family supported his release.

In brief remarks Friday that brought tears to the eyes of many listeners, Khamisa said he reached out to Feliz after the shooting because of a question echoing in his head: How did we create a society where children kill children?

Looking for answers helped him move beyond anger and blame to focus on some of the same principles that King believed in, Khamisa said.

You have to teach non-violence, he said. Were not going to wake up one day and find that the world is at peace.

Felix had a similar message. Our foundation is dedicated to the proposition that every child needs love and caring, he said. If they dont get it, they become angry people.

Their call to action was echoed by Steven Jones, a San Diego diversity and organizational consultant, who gave the keynote speech.

He said it is misleading to assume the fight for civil rights is easier now just because what we call prejudice has changed. What used to be racism, sexism or homophobia is now bullying.

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Different names, same problem, he said.

He pointed out that more than 60 years after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus, African-Americans still get the police called on them for doing daily stuff like sitting in a Starbucks, talking on a phone in a hotel lobby, or setting up a sidewalk lemonade stand.

Our history extends if we dont change, Jones said.

He urged the crowd to honor Kings legacy by remembering his lessons about maintaining human dignity and leveraging political, social and economic power to fight for equality and justice.

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Martin Luther King Jr. would want us to to stand up, Jones said. And he would want us to stand together.

Fridays breakfast was attended by dozens of elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Scott Peters, California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, and San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer.

The MLK Community Choir performed and members of the San Diego chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers carried the colors.

Awards were given to the winners of an art, poetry, essay and spoken-word contest that asked K-12 students to address Kings impact on their communities.

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Amarie Huerta, a fourth-grader at Urban Discovery Academy, won first place in her age division for an essay that called King the reason you can use the same water fountain and climb the same mountains.

The breakfast kicked off a weekend of events in San Diego coinciding with the federal holiday honoring King.

On Saturday, the 9th annual MLK Community Celebration and Sportsfest is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at MLK Memorial Park, 6401 Skyline Dr.

Monday, the 31st annual All Peoples Celebration is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Balboa Park Activity Center, followed by the 39th annual MLK Parade on Harbor Drive, beginning at 2 p.m.

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There is also an MLK Day of Service on Monday, including a community and beach cleanup in Mission Beach. It begins at 9:30 a.m. at 3202 Ocean Front Walk.

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john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com
President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to broker a deal to coax the North to give up its nuclear program, the White House announced Friday.

News of a second meeting with the reclusive North Korean leader came after Trump met at the White House for 90 minutes with a North Korean envoy, Kim Yong Chol, who had traveled to Washington to discuss denuclearization talks. Trump and Kim Jong Un are to meet near the end of February at a place to be announced at a later day, said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

She called the Oval Office meeting productive and said the U.S. and North Korea would continue to have conversations with hopes that North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons capabilities.

The United States is going to continue to keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea until we see fully and verified denuclearization, Sanders said. Weve had very good steps and good faith from the North Koreans in releasing the hostages and other moves. And so were going to continue those conversations and the president looks forward to the next meeting.

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In May, North Korea released three American detainees and sent them home with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after his 90-minute meeting with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang. Weeks later, Trump had his first, historic meeting with Kim Jong Un in June in Singapore, but little tangible progress has been made on a vague denuclearization agreement crafted at that summit. No details have been released about how denuclearization could occur.

The North Korean emissary met earlier with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Washington hotel and they were reconvening after the White House meeting.

Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with Kim.

Since the first one, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology. A planned meeting between Pompeo and the envoy, who is North Koreas former spy chief, in New York last November was called off abruptly. U.S. officials said at the time that North Korea had canceled the session.

The talks have stalled over North Koreas refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them.

The North has demanded that the U.S. end harsh economic penalties and provide security guarantees before the North takes any steps beyond its initial suspension of nuclear and missile tests.

Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that the U.S. is still awaiting concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.

Trump has offered assurances that a second summit could allow the two leaders to seal a deal resolving the nuclear standoff and improving a relationship marked by decades of animosity and mistrust since the Korean War.

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Kim Jong Un expressed frustration in an annual New Years address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community, according to Chinas official Xinhua News Agency.

Kims latest trip to China, his fourth since last year, came as the Norths strongest ally has encouraged negotiations with the U.S. while at the same time arguing in favor of immediate easing of sanctions.

The U.S. and North Korea seemed close to war at points during 2017. The North staged a series of weapons tests that brought it closer to its nuclear goal of one day being able to target anywhere on the U.S. mainland. The two sides then turned to insulting each other: Trump called Kim Little Rocket Man and North Korea said Trump was a dotard.

Kim abruptly turned to diplomacy with Seoul and Washington last year, possibly fearing economic harm from the penalties imposed over the weapons tests.

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Still, even after the Singapore summit, the first between U.S. and North Korean leaders, there has been little real progress in nuclear disarmament.

Independent analysts are highly skeptical that North Korea will easily abandon a nuclear arsenal constructed in the face of deep poverty and probably seen by Kim as his only guarantee of his governments survival.
The Defense Department on Friday identified three of the four Americans who were killed Wednesday in a suicide bombing in Syria that was claimed by the Islamic State.

In a statement, the Pentagon named the three as Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, of Upstate New York; and Defense Department civilian Scott A. Wirtz of St. Louis.

The fourth American, a civilian contractor, was not immediately identified.

The four were killed, and three other Americans were wounded, when a suicide bomber on foot detonated an explosive vest in front of a restaurant in the northern Syrian city of Manbij as they were meeting with local military officials.

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It was the largest loss of life in the Pentagons war against Islamic State militants in Syria and a sign of the potent threat that the group still poses as the Trump administration begins to withdraw U.S. forces from the country.

The Pentagon said the Americans were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

It said Farmer was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Kent was assigned to Cryptologic Warfare Activity 66, based at Fort Meade, Maryland. And Wirtz was an operations support specialist with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Kent enlisted in the Navy in 2003 and served in assignments at Fort Gordon, Georgia, Norfolk, Virginia, and Washington, in addition to Fort Meade, the Navy said.

She was a rockstar, an outstanding Chief Petty Officer, and leader to many in the Navy Information Warfare Community, Cmdr. Joseph Harrison, the head of her unit at Fort Meade, said in a statement.

Farmer, a married father of four, joined the Army in March 2005, officials said. He served on four overseas combat tours: Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2007 and 2009, Operation New Dawn in 2010, Operation Enduring Freedom in 2012 and Operation Inherent Resolve - his final mission - in 2018 and 2019.

He was trained in Fort Benning and attended the Special Forces Qualification Course. Farmer graduated in 2007 as a Special Forces engineer sergeant and was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, where he spent the rest of his career.

During his years of service, Farmer received numerous awards and decorations, including a Bronze Star Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters.

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Wirtz served as a Navy SEAL for 10 years before joining the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2017, a DIA spokeswoman said. The DIA said he completed three deployments for the agency in the Middle East.

The Pentagon said the suicide bombing in Manbij is under investigation.

President Donald Trumps surprise Dec. 19 announcement that the Islamic State had been defeated and U.S. troops would be coming home drew widespread criticism, including from Republican allies who warned that a premature American departure could allow militants to return.

After announcing his intention to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, Trump also directed the Pentagon to pull out nearly half of the more than 14,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan. The move overrode warnings from senior advisers and military officials that such a withdrawal would plunge Afghanistan further into chaos.

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In a separate announcement Friday, the Armys Special Operations Command said an Army Ranger, Sgt. Cameron A. Meddock, 26, of Spearman, Texas, died, Thursday of wounds he received during combat operations on Jan. 12 in Afghanistans Badghis province.

Meddock served with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, and was on his second deployment with the U.S.-led coalition. The announcement said he died in Landstuhl, Germany, as a result of wounds sustained from small arms fire. It did not provide any details of the clash that led to his death.
Mountain High in Wrightwood and Mt. Baldy ski resorts reopened Friday after earlier storms brought both rain and high winds.

Sierra resorts and national parks also dealt with the impact of the large storm. Mammoth had 4 feet of new snow, but at Yosemite National Park, the storm led to the closure of some roads , the parks website said. Some areas of the park are closed because of the partial government shutdown.

Yosemite is expecting milder and calmer weather Friday and Saturday, but rain is expected on Sunday as temperatures reach the upper 40s and low 50s.

In Southern California, Mountain High and Mt. Baldy cited extreme weather for the temporary closure Thursday.

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Running Springs opened at 9 a.m. Thursday but put its upper mountain lift operations on hold because of the wind, a post on its Facebook page said.

Snow Valley in Running Springs is open. Highs are expected in the 40s today and in the 50s on Saturday and Sunday.

Bear Mountains web page boasted Friday that it was 100% open with the best conditions in Southern California. Snow Summit also was open Friday with highs expected in the upper 30s on Friday.

The forecast calls for warmer temperatures with highs in the mid-40s and even into the 50s at local ski resorts.

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
U.S. regulators have met to discuss imposing a record-setting fine against Facebook Inc. for violating a legally binding agreement with the government to protect the privacy of its users personal data, according to three people who are familiar with the deliberations but not authorized to speak on the record.

The fine under consideration at the Federal Trade Commission, which began investigating Facebook last year, would be the first major punishment levied against the social media giant in the United States since before reports emerged last March that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had improperly accessed the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users.

In 2011, Facebook agreed to get user consent for certain changes to privacy settings as part of a settlement of federal charges that the company deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information with third-party apps than they intended. That complaint arose after Facebook changed some user settings without notifying users, the FTC said at the time.

Last years Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed that in 2014  three years after Facebook reached the settlement with the FTC  a psychology professor who developed a third-party quiz app was able to collect data from the nearly 300,000 people who downloaded his app, as well as from their Facebook friends, totaling some 87 million Facebook users. He then broke Facebook rules by sharing that information with Cambridge Analytica.

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Facebook was lambasted for not doing more to prevent the data leak or alerting the affected users immediately after it was discovered.

The FTCs exact findings in its Facebook investigation and the total amount of the fine, which the agencys five commissioners have discussed at a private meeting in recent weeks, have not been finalized, two of the people said. Staffers have briefed the commissioners about their investigation, the third person said, and plan to issue a formal recommendation for a fine soon  a move that would then trigger a vote by the commissioners.

Facebook also has talked with FTC staffers about the investigation, one of the people familiar with the probe said, but it is unclear whether the company would settle with the FTC by accepting a significant financial penalty.

The penalty is expected to be much larger than the $22.5-million fine the FTC imposed on Google in 2012. That fine set a record for the largest penalty for violating an agreement with the FTC to improve privacy practices.

The FTC has been closed amid the partial shutdown of the federal government and could not be reached for comment. FTC Chairman Joseph Simons did not respond to a request for comment. Facebook declined to comment.

On Friday, privacy advocates strongly urged the FTC to take aggressive action against Facebook. The agency now has the legal authority, the evidence, and the public support to act. There can be no excuse for further delay, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which helped to bring about the FTCs 2011 charges against Facebook.

The key question for the FTC is whether Facebooks business practices  and the protections and privacy controls it afforded consumers  violated requirements spelled out in the 2011 consent decree.

The agreement requires Facebook to notify users, and get their permission, before data are shared with third parties in a way that differs from existing privacy settings. The legally binding order also mandates that Facebook obtain users affirmative permission before sharing their data with third parties, and it requires the tech giant to tell the FTC when others misuse that information. It also prohibits Facebook from making deceptive statements about its privacy practices.

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Privacy advocates have alleged that Facebook violated the terms of that agreement repeatedly, as evidenced by its entanglement with Cambridge Analytica. The data firm, which had ties to the Trump presidential campaign, harnessed personal information about the social networking sites users in order to better target voters with political messages.

That incident, brought to light by a former Cambridge Analytica employee, sparked an international backlash. Regulators around the world threatened to punish Facebook and rein in the data-collection practices of its Silicon Valley peers. U.S. lawmakers summoned Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to testify on Capitol Hill, where he apologized for the privacy violations.

Since the Cambridge Analytica investigation came to light, other privacy issues with Facebook have emerged  including details about its data-sharing agreements with smartphone and TV device makers, banks and other major businesses and a full roster of third-party apps. More federal fines could still follow as the FTC investigates those matters, two of the people familiar with the probe said.

The penalty would mark the toughest punishment to date levied on Facebook for mishandling its users data. Regulators in the United Kingdom assessed a roughly $640,000 fine that Facebook is appealing. The attorney general of the District of Columbia has mounted a lawsuit against the tech giant for its missteps.

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The FTC has issued some large fines in recent years against companies that deceive consumers. In 2016, it required Volkswagen to spend more than $14 billion to settle charges related to its mishandling of emissions tests, for example. It also forced identity protection company LifeLock to pay $100 million for failing to secure its data; some of that money was returned to consumers.

Recommendations for fines made by FTC staffers, however, are not always adopted by the five-member commission. In a 2012 investigation against Google, agency staff concluded that the search giant had abused its monopoly power and issued a formal recommendation to the commissioners challenging Googles practices. The commissioners voted unanimously to end the investigation after Google agreed to voluntarily change some of its practices  a move that led to widespread frustration among agency staff, one of the people said.

Romm and Dwoskin write for the Washington Post. Times staff writer Johana Bhuiyan and Bloomberg contributed to this report.
A homeless man who fatally stabbed a Poway resident during an early morning fight outside at a 7-Eleven store was sentenced Friday to 12 years in state prison.

Kevin Miles Talbott, 31, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to voluntary manslaughter in the Jan. 14, 2018, death of Zubayr Phahez.

The victims wife, Guadalupe Cedillo, testified during a preliminary hearing in August that she and her 29-year-old husband had been to a party in Oceanside and were returning home to Poway when he pulled into the convenience store at Poway and Pomerado roads about 1:30 a.m. to get cigarettes.

Talbott  who was sitting on a wall separating the 7-Eleven from a parking lot  told Phahez to turn his lights off because they were bothering him, Cedillo testified.

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Phahez obliged, but the defendant decided to say something else and the victim walked toward him, the witness said.

(Phahez) asked him, Whats going on, brother? Cedillo testified.

She said Talbott grabbed her husband by the neck and shoulders, and when Phahez pushed him off, Talbott fell to the ground.

Cedillo said her husband walked back to their car and told her he had been stabbed. She said her husband tried to drive himself to the hospital, but he pulled over a short distance away on Pomerado Road. He died later at a hospital.

(Phahez) did nothing wrong, Cedillo said at the sentencing. We were in the wrong place. He asked a person what was wrong with him. Thats how he lost his life.

The victims cousin, Fatima Shakeri, told San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert ONeill that she is traumatized by the fact that Phahez died alone.

We are not only grieving the loss of a person, she said. Were grieving the loss of the past, present and future.

Defense attorney Bart Sheela told the judge that the victims actions contributed to him being stabbed by Talbott.

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But Deputy District Attorney Laura Evans said Phahez  a father of two young children  was stabbed by somebody who simply approached him.

Phahez was stabbed once in the head and once in the neck in just nine seconds, the prosecutor said.

This crime was vicious, its violent, Evans told the judge.

In a letter to the court, Talbott said he killed the victim in self-defense. He said he was just three days from moving to Texas and marrying his girlfriend from high school when he killed Phahez.

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A sheriffs homicide detective testified at the preliminary hearing that a folding knife was found in Talbotts backpack, which was located in his girlfriends car across the street from the crime scene. Talbotts mother was working across the street at a Chevron gas station and told her son to go into a back room and wash off blood that was on his face, shoulders and neck, the mother testified.

He (Talbott) said he got jumped, Laura Talbott testified.

Kevin Talbotts girlfriend, Lori Graf-Edgett, who was also near the wall, testified that Phahez came at them in a rage.

I yelled, dont go over there, Graf-Edgett testified.

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She said she tried to stop Talbott from engaging Phahez. I said, Dont fight! Dont go there! Stop! Stop!.
Rep. Scott Peters decision to run for re-election opens up some room to move in the San Diego mayors race.

Councilwoman Barbara Bry and Assemblyman Todd Gloria are now competing for Peters supporters. The big question is whether others, particularly a candidate favored by Republicans, will enter the race to give Peters business supporters another option.

Peters announcement Wednesday that he would not run for mayor took much of San Diegos political world by surprise, given he not only said he was contemplating launching a campaign but appeared to be gearing up to do so.

That potential three-way heat among prominent Democrats wouldnt have left much oxygen for other candidates from either party. Peters has strong business backing both among San Diegos tech sector centered in his 52nd District, but also within the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, which has endorsed his congressional bids.

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Peters was clearly torn but decided stay in Congress, where his influence is growing. For the first time, he is a member of the House majority and hes gaining seniority on influential committees. While once considered out of favor with the leadership, his relationship with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has improved.

With the long-term challenges of the Trump era in addition to the immediate government shutdown, Peters said theres too much at stake in Washington to leave. He has won easy re-election to his last two terms and theres nothing on the horizon to suggest it would be different next year.

His move would seem to give daylight to a candidate backed by the local GOP-business establishment, a portion of which is in Peters corner. But even with that opening, the emergence of a such candidate is anything but certain. For one thing, no one so far has made the obvious organizing moves.

Also, the bench is pretty thin. City Councilman Mark Kersey, a Republican, has been encouraged to run as has former Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman, a registered nonpartisan who nevertheless has been privately talked up by some local GOP powers.

Still, Gloria and Bry will quickly try to fill the void, but they may have company from moderate Democrats and Republicans, regardless of whether Kersey or Zimmerman were to get in. Both Bry and Gloria have reputations as business-friendly Democrats to varying degrees, though Bry has the better credentials on that score.

She was a successful entrepreneur before being first elected to the council just over two years ago. Gloria has spent much of his life in government as a county and then congressional staffer, San Diego City Council member and assemblyman.

Some of his votes and actions on the council that were favored by business got him in hot water with labor unions, though he has mended some fences. Bry, by most accounts, has good labor relations.

In any case, organized labor has shown it is not necessarily monolithic, as different unions backed different Democratic city and county candidates in last years election.

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Meanwhile, Gloria is a favorite of progressive Democrats. But Bry isnt likely to cede that territory, nor Gloria the business community.

Its hard to see any other top Democratic elected official getting into the race at this point, unless some of the prominent politicians who have flatly said they werent running change their minds in the wake of Peters decision.

A wild card may emerge in the battle over fhe recent proposals by Mayor Kevin Faulconer to dramatically increase housing density in many of the citys communities, in theory to create more affordable units. A candidate opposing some of those proposals  especially one to remove height limits  to protect the quality of life in neighborhoods may surface. If one doesnt, attorney Cory Briggs said he will be that candidate.

With Bry and Gloria competing for much of the same support  and attacking each other  a candidate backed by the Republican power structure possibly could grab one of the top two spots in the 2020 primary and advance to November.

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Still, the likes of Kersey and Zimmerman may see the hill as too steep to climb. Gloria and Bry are well-known candidates  though Gloria has been in the public eye much longer  who have built campaign organizations and are working to expand their base of support. Republican-leaning business leaders may conclude that one of the two Democrats will be the next mayor, and get on board with who they think will win.

Further, next years primary may present a problem for Republicans in general. Assuming President Donald Trump is on the ballot, he isnt likely to have much of a challenge from within the GOP, a dynamic that could tamp down turnout among Republican voters.

Meanwhile, with the primary in March 2020, the Democratic side seems guaranteed to be highly competitive, generating considerable voter enthusiasm. Thats not to say Kersey and particularly Zimmerman wouldnt appeal to Republican-leaning independents. City elections, after all, are officially nonpartisan, though party politics play a big role in campaigns.

Should one of them make it through, Republican turnout in November 2020 would likely be more advantageous for the party than it was last November. But with Trump running for re-election, Democratic turnout will be big.

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For those and other reasons, many are betting the next mayor will be a Democrat. The election could be another milepost marking San Diegos transition from a town once ruled by a Republican-business power structure:

Voter registration flipped long ago and Democrats now have a nearly 20-point advantage in the city.

The City Council that in the past was dominated by Republicans has a Democratic supermajority.

The congressional and legislative delegations are overwhelmingly Democratic.

If Republicans are not even able to field a legitimate contender for mayor, that might top the list.


Louis Taylor was 16 when police arrested him in 1972 on suspicion of deliberately setting a fire that killed 28 people at a Tucson hotel.

Though he adamantly insisted on his innocence, Taylor, who is African American, was sentenced to 28 life terms for what was deemed a mass murder at the Pioneer Hotel. He was near the scene when the fire started.

He was convicted on the basis of little more than that proximity and trial evidence that black boys like to set fires, U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Mary M. Schroeder wrote Thursday.

Taylor won release in 2013 after 42 years in prison when an innocence project presented evidence that the fire was not deliberately set.

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On Thursday, the 9th Circuit decided 2 to 1 that Taylor may not be compensated for the years behind bars because he had accepted a deal to get out of prison.

Prosecutors said they disputed the exonerating evidence, but offered him immediate release if he agreed to plead no contest to the charges.

Rather than waiting years longer for his challenge to wind its way through the courts, Taylor accepted the deal. In exchange, he received a sentence of time served.

That deal, according to the 9th Circuit, means he cannot be awarded damages for the years he spent in prison.

Taylors 2013 conviction, following his plea of no contest, remains valid, 9th Circuit Judge Susan P. Graber, a Clinton appointee, wrote for the majority.

Schroeder, a Carter appointee, said Taylor should be compensated for wrongful conviction.

This decision magnifies an already tragic injustice, she wrote.

Taylor did not fare well after leaving prison. Most of his family had died when he was behind bars.

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At the age of 63, four years after his release, Taylor was arrested on suspicion of an armed robbery at a hotel. He is once again behind bars.

The Arizona Republic reported that Taylor had been homeless prior to the robbery arrest and had earlier been charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

He had been released at a time when experts were reevaluating fire science.

It had changed dramatically from previous decades, and experts believed shoddy forensics were to blame for many wrongful convictions.

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They included that of George Souliotes, a Californian who was released from prison in 2013 at the age of 72, and Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004 before evidence emerged that the fatal fire he was charged with starting was accidental.

The fire at the Pioneer Hotel ignited while employees of an aircraft company were inside celebrating at a Christmas party.

Many guests were trapped in their rooms, and fire truck ladders were too short to reach the upper floors. Some people jumped to their deaths. Others burned in their rooms or died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Taylor had been helping victims escape before his arrest. Prosecutors portrayed him as an incorrigible grade school dropout. He had matches in his pocket when police took him into custody.

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Over the years, hes been offered his freedom if he would admit that he did it, attorney Michael Piccarreta told The Times in 2013, when Taylor was released. If he did that, people would make recommendations for clemency, for the government to commute his sentence. But he was adamant.

Piccarreta said that Taylor almost didnt take the deal that would secure his release.

He didnt want any inference that he was guilty, but we explained to him that you can plead no contest and still maintain your innocence, the attorney said.

Graber said the Thursdays majority ruling was in line with decisions by other circuit courts.

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Released inmates may not recover incarceration-related damages for any period of incarceration supported by a valid, unchallenged conviction and sentence, she wrote, referring to the no-contest conviction.

We take no pleasure in reaching this unfortunate result, given Taylors serious allegations of unconstitutional actions, she added.

Schroeder, in her dissent, noted that prosecutors never responded to Taylors allegations that evidence had been withheld and that the case had been infected by racial bias. An all-white jury convicted Taylor.

Instead, prosecutors offered him immediate freedom in exchange for pleading no contest, she wrote.

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Thursdays decision misinterpreted the law, she said.

In my view, our law is not that unjust, she wrote.

She described the arson conviction as so deeply tainted that we now know the disastrous fire may not have been set by anyone, and the prosecution was without adequate foundation from the beginning.

Taylor won virtual exoneration, she wrote.

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She called his decision to plead no contest the product of his desperate circumstances. He was about to turn 60, and a habeas corpus challenge could have taken years to resolve.

We should not tolerate such coercive tactics to deprive persons of a remedy for violations of their constitutional rights, Schroeder said. To say such a plea justifies the loss of 42 years, as the majority asserts, is to deny the reality of this situation and perpetuate an abuse of power.

John P. Leader, a former federal prosecutor who represents Taylor in the 9th Circuit case, said he is considering asking a larger panel to review the ruling.

He called Taylors history very sad and his prosecution for arson deeply troubling.

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Taylor was released to the community after 42 years in prison without any services or even temporary housing to help with the transition, Leader said.

I question whether anybody could have expected him to succeed going straight from an institutionalized setting to being a free man, Leader said. That is a difficult situation for anybody, and he was only 16 when he was incarcerated.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

Twitter: @mauradolan
Harvey Weinstein and attorney Benjamin Brafman announced Thursday that the criminal defense attorney will no longer represent the beleaguered producer in his rape case and that a new team of lawyers will be announced next week.

The formal announcement that Weinstein will allow Brafman to inform Judge James Burke that he wants to withdraw as legal counsel comes after sources told The Times the pair differed on strategy for the case, in which the producer is charged with raping two women.

In a joint statement, Weinstein and Brafman said they have agreed to part ways amicably and Mr. Brafman has agreed to cooperate fully with new counsel for Mr. Weinstein so as to ensure an orderly transition.

Mr. Weinstein praised Mr. Brafman for his legal work to date and Mr. Brafman reiterated his belief that Mr. Weinstein would be exonerated of the charges that have been filed against him and Brafman personally wished Mr. Weinstein the best of luck as he defends the case and the accusations that Mr. Weinstein has vehemently denied.

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Weinstein intends to introduce his new legal team by early next week, the statement added.

The move will almost certainly delay Weinsteins trial, which is slated for May. It would likely take a new attorney considerable time to get up to speed on a highly complex case with potentially dozens of witnesses.

Since December, Weinstein has pushed for a more aggressive approach that seeks to undermine not only the two women accusing him of rape but also the dozens of women accusing him of sexually inappropriate conduct over four decades in Hollywood, according to sources familiar with the case.

For Brafman to exit the high-profile proceedings, he will need Burkes approval.

Last month, the judge rejected a motion by Brafman to dismiss charges of sexual assault against Weinstein.

richard.winton@latimes.com

Twitter: @lacrimes
A Los Angeles County Sheriffs deputy has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges arising from an audacious heist at a marijuana warehouse.

In a plea agreement he signed this month, Deputy Marc Antrim admitted to the elaborate ruse in which he and a team of accomplices posed as narcotics deputies on a legitimate raid in order to steal more than half a ton of marijuana and safes filled with cash.

Antrim, a patrol deputy in the sheriffs Temple City station, and two other men were arrested in November, not long after they carried out the robbery in the early-morning hours of Oct. 29. One of the other men, Kevin McBride, 43, also signed a plea deal; an attorney for the third man, Eric Rodriguez, said he is in talks with prosecutors to do the same.

Sentencing laws require U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips to send Antrim to prison for a minimum of 12 years for two of the five crimes to which he has confessed, according to the plea agreement. No court hearings have been set yet for the men to enter pleas and be sentenced.

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The agreement also requires Antrim to forfeit a Mercedes sedan and other property or cash hes found to have acquired as part of his illegal activity.

Attorneys for Antrim and McBride, who have been in custody since their arrests, did not return calls for comment. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Nicola Hanna declined to answer questions about the plea agreement, in which Antrim acknowledged he had used his job to carry out illegal searches and seizures of cash and narcotics on at least four other occasions.

A spokeswoman for Sheriff Alex Villanueva also declined to comment on the plea deal or the earlier episodes.

The scam kicked off when Antrim, 41, of South El Monte, took a department SUV from his station and picked up McBride and another man, whom authorities have not identified, court records show. Antrim was off-duty at the time.

Dressed in sheriffs jackets and brandishing weapons, the men drove to a warehouse near downtown Los Angeles that housed a legal marijuana distribution company. At the security gate, Antrim showed a guard a bogus search warrant he had concocted and then locked the guard and two other employees in back of the SUV, the plea agreement said.

A rental truck driven by another unnamed suspect arrived shortly after and the men began loading boxes and bags filled with marijuana that had been packaged for shipment, prosecutors wrote in the plea agreement.

Someone, however, had called the Los Angeles Police Department, which patrols the warehouse location. Around 3:45 a.m., several LAPD officers arrived, court records show. As the other men fled out the back of the warehouse, shedding their gear and jackets, Antrim remained. He told the officers he was serving a warrant and put one of the officers on the phone with a man who he claimed was his supervisor. The LAPD officers soon left, according to court records.

McBride soon returned and Rodriguez arrived with another unnamed man in a pickup truck. They went to work loading the trucks with over 1,200 pounds of marijuana and two large safes with more than $600,000 in cash and $30,000 worth of money orders inside, the plea agreement said.

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Antrim and the others did not cover their tracks well.

A few days after the robbery, an attorney for the marijuana business contacted the Sheriffs Department and handed over footage from several security cameras, court documents show.

A GPS device on the rented moving truck led authorities to McBrides house in Glendora, where they found two pounds of marijuana, a loaded Beretta handgun registered to Antrim, ammunition that is issued to law enforcement officers and a flashlight with Antrims name on it, court records show. They also recovered $150,000 to $200,000 in cash.

A search of the house Antrim rents turned up a similar amount of cash and a cache of four firearms, which included a double-barrel shotgun and a submachine gun-style firearm, court records said.

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Antrim has been relieved of duty without pay since being arrested.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

Follow @joelrubin on Twitter
An appellate court panel on Thursday affirmed a judges decision to throw out a freelance cartoonists defamation and wrongful termination lawsuit against the Los Angeles Times.

Ted Rall, who drew cartoons and wrote blog posts for The Times for several years, filed suit in 2016. The newspaper, he alleged, had defamed him by publicly questioning the accuracy of a post he wrote for The Times OpinionLA blog.

The suit stemmed from a May 2015 piece accompanying one his cartoons, in which Rall criticized the Los Angeles Police Departments crackdown on jaywalking and recalled his experience of getting ticketed for the offense more than a decade earlier.

The police department disputed Ralls account and in a note to readers two months later, Nicholas Goldberg, editor of The Times editorial pages, said LAPD records, including an officers audiotape of the encounter, raised serious questions about the posts accuracy.

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Ralls future work, Goldberg wrote, will not appear in The Times.

The cartoonist sued the The Times in 2016 alleging that the paper had defamed him and that he was wrongfully terminated. A year later, an L.A. County Superior Court judge threw out key parts of the case against individual defendants, and eventually dismissed the remainder of the suit. Rall appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal and on Thursday a three-justice panel affirmed the trial courts ruling.

The panel found that Rall failed to demonstrate a probability of prevailing on his claims.

A newspapers decision to publish or not to publish a contributors work, they wrote, is protected by the 1st Amendment.

Ralls attorney Roger Lowenstein expressed frustration with the ruling.

Im extremely disappointed, he said, that the set of laws designed to protect the 1st Amendment ends up crushing the most vulnerable journalists.

Lowenstein said he plans to seek review from the California Supreme Court.

marisa.gerber@latimes.com

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For more news from the Los Angeles County courts, follow me on Twitter: @marisagerber
Seven passengers were injured Friday after an Amtrak bus rolled into a ditch off the 101 Freeway south of Los Alamos and flipped on its side, authorities said.

The bus was traveling from Oakland to Santa Barbara when it crashed shortly before 6 a.m., California Highway Patrol Officer Karina Lua said.

The bus was traveling in fog and was moving slightly downhill before the crash, said Mike Eliason, a spokesman for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. The vehicle went off the highway shoulder and into muddy ground on the side of the freeway, where it may have lost traction and rolled over into a culvert about 40 feet from the highway, he said.

There were 25 passengers on board, and seven were taken to a hospital with minor injuries, Eliason said. The remaining passengers were transferred to another bus, Amtrak said.

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alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Twitter: @r_valejandra
A landmark attempt to open up records of police use of force and misconduct in California has turned into a broad legal battle as law enforcement unions across the state have gone to court to stop the release of some of the documents.

An Orange County judge on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order to block the Sheriffs Department from disclosing records from incidents that took place before Jan. 1, when the transparency law went into effect.

Like other unions, the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs argued that applying Senate Bill 1421 retroactively would violate longstanding legal protections for officer personnel files.

To have the rug pulled out from under them isnt fair, Jacob Kalinski, an attorney for the AOCDS, said after a hearing on the request. He noted his request is meant to pause any release of records so the legal issues involved can be examined more closely.

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Laura Knapp, an attorney for Orange County, opposed the unions move, arguing that the new law applies to documents currently in the countys possession, which includes records of incidents before Jan. 1.

We are committed to transparency, she told Superior Court Judge Nathan Scott at the hearing.

The Times, along with Voice of OC and Southern California Public Radio, applied to intervene in the case in favor of disclosure.

In Los Angeles County, open-government advocates and media organizations, including The Times, filed court papers Thursday asking for permission to challenge a temporary order blocking the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department from releasing the same kind of records. The order was requested by the union that represents LAPD officers.

The unions representing deputy sheriffs in Los Angeles County and Ventura County have each filed their own requests to block disclosure of records of incidents prior to Jan. 1. A judge in San Bernardino County granted a similar request from a local law enforcement union.

Until last year, the states powerful law enforcement unions repeatedly blocked attempts to make any disciplinary records public. But lawmakers approved SB 1421 amid a heightened debate over how officers use force and interact with communities of color.

The law covers records of shootings by officers, severe uses of force and confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying by officers. Proponents of the measure say restricting its reach to records of incidents after Jan. 1 severely limits the laws impact and shields misconduct by some officers who remain on the job.

Officers have been escaping responsibility for their past acts, said Melanie Ochoa, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which supports disclosure and filed to intervene in the lawsuit brought by the union representing LAPD officers.

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Ochoa said there have been records released under the new law that show a pattern of misconduct that could otherwise have remained hidden. In San Mateo County, the district attorney said he would consider reopening a criminal investigation into an officer accused of an attempted sexual assault after records surfaced showing the officer had a history of similar allegations.

There is a pressing, current need to make sure officers are not engaged in very egregious acts of misconduct and to understand how police departments are evaluating use of deadly force, Ochoa said.

Scott Tiedemann, an attorney who represents police managers across California, says many of the law enforcement unions appear to be concerned that records created with an expectation that they would be kept private will now be subject to disclosure.

Tiedemann said police agencies do not have the funding to respond to voluminous requests for records that date back decades. He said a more reasonable solution would be for the law to be interpreted to apply to records as far back as five years.

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There are many good things that can happen as a result of the increased transparency, said Tiedemann, a managing partner of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore. But right now, public resources are being spent on disclosing old records for incidents where the people dont necessarily work at those departments anymore and the incidents ... dont necessarily reflect the practices of the agencies now.

Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), who wrote the law, said her intent was for it to apply to any records in a departments possession. But she said if a court decided otherwise, she believes the rules would still provide a needed boost to transparency surrounding police activities.
An Orange County sheriffs deputy was taken to a hospital Thursday after opening a suspicious package at a Santa Ana courthouse, authorities said.

Three other people were injured in the incident, which occurred about 2:30 p.m. in a third-floor courtroom of the Central Justice Center, the Sheriffs Department said. Details of their injuries were not clear, though authorities said the injuries were not life-threatening.

Authorities did not order evacuations and said there was no explosion.

Its unclear how the package arrived at the courthouse or what was inside. Hazmat crews with the Orange County Fire Authority and the sheriffs bomb squad were investigating the incident.

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This post will be updated as more information becomes available.

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AleneTchek
Hundreds of Central American migrants filed peacefully from Tecun Uman, Guatemala into this small southern Mexican border city on Thursday, the first large group from a caravan that launched from northern Honduras on Tuesday.

This third large caravan to cross to Mexico in less than a year is receiving a far warmer reception from Mexican authorities.

Above the Suchiate River, the scene at Rodolfo Robles Bridge was peaceful on Thursday afternoon as groups of migrants arrived at the port of entry to register their presence.

Are you going to deport us? asked Jayson Padilla, 19, from the northern Honduras city of San Pedro Sula as he approached an agent with Mexicos migrant protection unit, Grupo Beta.

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Quite to the contrary.

By the instructions of the president, we offer the most cordial of welcomes, the agent responded, and proceeded to explain the process going forward.

Mexico is offering the Central American migrants humanitarian visas, which will allow them to live and work anywhere in Mexico for up to a year, and travel freely without fear of deportation, threats from smugglers or shakedowns by corrupt authorities.

They can also, if they choose, apply for refugee status in Mexico. The process to complete the initial registration is expected to take about five days, and the migrants are being told they can wait on either side of the border while their petitions are processed.

This card gives them the option to enter the country legally, said Ana Laura Martinez, an official with Mexicos National Migration Institute. They can decide if they want to remain and work.

As the migrants patiently lined up, received identification bracelets, and followed instructions of Mexican immigration officers, the scene was a stark contrast from last October, when Mexican Federal Police blocked a group of Central American members from crossing the bridge.

The migrants responded by breaking down a barrier, throwing rocks and pushing their way through or wading across the river.

But this time the Federal Police were nowhere to be seen. Instead, groups of students in white t-shirts received the migrants as they stepped across the bridge, directing them to immigration authorities.

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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office on December 1, has vowed to protect the human rights of migrants who enter Mexico, even promising them jobs in future government development projects.

The arrival of this latest caravan will put these policies to the test as the migrants continue to enter Mexico and cross the country, many with hopes of entering the United States.

An estimated 2,000 people are expected to cross to Mexico as part of this caravan, less than a third of the number in a caravan left Honduras last fall, with the great majority of migrants ending up in Tijuana.

At a park in Tecun Uman on Thursday morning, hundreds of migrants applauded as Mexican immigration authorities told them they would be permitted to enter Mexico, but would be required to do so legally.

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By nightfall, close to 969 caravan members had walked across the bridge into Mexico, Martinez said.

That sum included 739 adult males, 230 adult females and 145 minors. The largest number, 766, came from Honduras. Another large group was forming in Tecun Uman and expected to cross early Friday.

Among those waiting in line was a group of nine friends from the Honduran municipality of Villanueva Cortes. The friends said they had left San Pedro Sula on Monday night, riding buses, walking, and getting rides as they crossed Guatemala.

Only one planned to remain in Mexico and apply for refugee status; the remainder said they were eager to find work in the United States.

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Josue Castaneda, 24, said he had been unable to find work for the past two years, despite being certified as a refrigeration technician and beginning university classes.

We know people who crossed to the United States, and are now much better off, he said. We dont know anyone who crossed to Mexico and found better conditions.
President Trump called Thursday for dramatically broadening U.S. defenses against missile attacks, outlining a costly and scientifically unproven plan for developing lasers and space sensors to defend all of U.S. territory from ballistic missile threats.

Our strategy is grounded in one overriding objective: to detect and destroy every type of missile attack against any American target, whether before or after launch, Trump said at the Pentagon as the administration released its long-awaited missile defense strategy.

Trumps expansive vision of an impenetrable U.S missile shield  one first envisaged by President Reagan 35 years ago  goes well beyond the Pentagons technical and scientific capacity, the reality that grounded most of Reagans Star Wars initiative.

The plan also does not reflect the Trump administrations near-term goals, which remain focused on developing the capability to knock out limited missile strikes by Iran or North Korea and, at least theoretically, new short- and medium-range weapons being developed by China and Russia that could threaten Europe and Asia.

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But Trump used the speech to press his America First agenda, fitting his call for expanded missile defense in with familiar broadsides on Democrats in Congress for blocking his proposed border wall and on U.S. allies for failing to pay enough for their own defense.

When Trump attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) for opposing the border wall and said Democrats had been hijacked by the fringe and radical left, the audience of uniformed military officers and Defense Department officials sat silent.

Democrats in Congress, even some who have backed the development of the current limited U.S. missile defense system, questioned Trumps vision of a vast shield over the nation.

An effective missile defense system can serve as a deterrent to conflict, protect our forward-deployed forces and the homeland, and create an opening for diplomacy, said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Armed Services Committee. But its not a magic bulletproof shield, and it comes with a considerable price tag.

Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear weapons expert at Ploughshares Fund, a Washington-based anti-nuclear-proliferation organization, called the Trump plan a grab bag of contractor proposals to build space weapons we dont need, dont work and cant afford.

The 81-page Missile Defense Review, released by the Pentagon as Trump began speaking, cites Russian and Chinese medium-range missiles as possible targets of anti-missile defenses.

Thats a departure from previous administrations, which insisted the U.S. system was aimed at so-called rogue states and at intercepting accidental launches but was too small to be of concern to major powers with intercontinental missiles and large nuclear arsenals.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the U.S. was considering measures for the first time to guard against Russian and Chinese medium-range missiles, including hypersonic weapons that travel far faster than sound and could threaten U.S. forces abroad and allies in Europe and Asia.

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China and Russia are expanding their missile arsenals  and [integrating] these more effectively into war planning, Shanahan said in remarks before Trump spoke, adding that Iran and North Koreas missiles remain a significant concern.

The Pentagon has built a growing capability to target medium-range weapons with advanced radars and interceptors from Aegis-class warships in the western Pacific and eastern Mediterranean. A U.S. medium-range interceptor site is also operational in Romania while another is under construction in Poland.

U.S. officials say those defenses are aimed at Iran and North Korea.

Russia has complained for years that the U.S. system could in theory target its missiles and have vowed to respond if the U.S. goes ahead with the two sites in Eastern Europe. That stance is likely to harden with the U.S. now explicitly vowing to develop a system capable of targeting Moscows missiles.

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Shanahan acknowledged that the expanding U.S. defenses were a major factor driving Russia and China to build faster and more survivable missiles.

Russia, in particular, has developed a new SSC-8 ground-fired cruise missile that U.S. officials say violates the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and could give Moscow the ability to launch a nuclear strike in Europe with little or no notice. The Trump administration has threatened to pull out of the INF treaty as a result.

Frustrated by our mid-course defenses, they are aggressively pursuing new technologies to circumvent todays systems, Shanahan said.

For his part, Trump failed to mention Russia or North Korea. He has frequently praised Russian President Vladimir Putin since taking office and is seeking a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

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North Korea tested a suspected hydrogen bomb and a long-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States after Trump took office, but after meeting with Kim at a summit last June in Singapore, Trump declared that Pyongyang no longer represented a nuclear threat to America.

Experts say, however, theyve seen no sign that Kims regime has taken any steps to give up its nuclear weapons arsenal or production. Several North Korean officials were due in Washington on Friday to discuss a second summit and, apparently, to try to revive the stalled talks.

The missile defense review calls for researching the feasibility of developing and launching sensors in space that could detect missile launches around the globe. It also calls for further research into lasers and other so-called directed-energy weapons that could, in theory, knock out ballistic missiles early in flight.

The Pentagon is supposed to deliver a report within six months on placing non-nuclear missile defense interceptors on satellites.

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The administration plans to add more interceptors to the existing missile defense sites at Ft. Greely in Alaska and at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc. The report calls for studying the option of adding a third interceptor site on the East Coast, an idea aimed at bolstering defenses against a possible limited missile attack from Iran.

Even an expanded missile shield would not be capable of stopping a major attack by Russia or China, U.S. officials said.

Both countries have large arsenals of intercontinental ballistic missiles topped with nuclear warheads that U.S. officials say could overwhelm an expanded U.S. system in a large-scale nuclear exchange.

U.S. strategy relies on deterrence and the threat that it would respond to any nuclear attack with a devastating nuclear counterattack. Expanding defenses could prompt Russia and China to invest in new weapons systems, spurring a new arms race, critics warned.

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The new strategy is likely to exacerbate Russian and Chinese concerns about the threat to their strategic nuclear deterrents, undermine strategic stability, and further complicate the prospects for additional nuclear arms reductions, the Arms Control Assn., a nonpartisan Washington policy organization, said in a statement.

david.cloud@latimes.com

Twitter: @davidcloudLAT
San Diegos ocean shoreline, coastal lagoons and estuaries can be particularly productive birding areas during the winter months, thanks to our mild winters that attract lots of migratory visitors.

Some of these birds may be hard to locate or even absent in warmer summer months, so this is a good time to be out looking for new additions to your life list.

One of the more numerous species you are likely to find now is also one of the easier to identify because of a distinctively long, curved bill.

The marbled godwit is also one of the more common shorebirds in our region this time of the year because several thousand travel here to enjoy our hospitality. While several hundred do remain here during summer months, the reduced numbers make them far more difficult to locate then.

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While many species of shorebirds look similar from a distance, the crow-sized godwit is the only one with a long, slender bill that turns slightly upward. The most similar species is the whimbrel, with similar body coloration and size, but its legs are gray instead of black and, most notably, the long bill curves downward.

Godwits (center) and willets along a shoreline. (Ernie Cowan)

Both species, however, use their long bills to probe deeply into sand or mud in search of food, consisting of plant tubers, earthworms, small insects, fish and marine invertebrates. Long legs and bills allow godwits to pluck food from the surface or feed in water up to about 5 inches in depth.

The godwit is about 18 inches in length, with a wingspan of 30 inches. The upwardly curved bill is about 5 inches in length and black at the tip with orange or pink near the head.

Generally, the godwits seen here are not breeding, so they will have the characteristic non-breeding plumage of barred brown and white above, with buffy cinnamon belly and no barring below.

The godwit is a social bird and will often be found foraging in groups that include willets, whimbrels and long-billed curlews. Local mudflats, beaches, lagoons and wetlands are their primary habitats.

While this is a coastal bird, a few have also been seen during migration at Lake Hodges and Sweetwater Reservoir. There are also good winter populations along the southern shore of Salton Sea.

San Diego Bay and Mission Bay are excellent hot spots to see a marbled godwit, along with the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve and the tidal mudflats where the San Diego River enters the ocean at Ocean Beach.

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Other likely locations include the sandy beach at La Jolla Shores, Los Penasquitos, San Dieguito, San Eligo, Batiquitos and Buena Vista lagoons, and the San Luis Rey River mouth just south of Oceanside Harbor.

While these winter visitors are here, they are not breeding. That happens at their summer home in the northern prairies of Canada and north-central United States, where they can be found near ponds and marshes.

While winter days can be chilly at local beaches, its a great time for birders to be outdoors and looking for new species. Learning to distinguish between bill length, shape and thickness is a valuable tool to identify different species of shorebirds.

Bird festival

San Diego Audubon Society is hosting its 18th annual San Diego Bird Festival Feb. 27 to March 3 at the Marina Village Conference Center in Mission Bay. This is a premiere birding event that attracts birders from all over the country.

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The event includes displays, workshops and seminars, along with field trips to some of the most productive birding locations in the region.

Exhibits of optics, birding gear and artwork will be open and free to the public throughout the festival.

There is a fee for seminars and field trips, and they require advanced registration. Most fill up early, so register as soon as possible. A complete festival schedule and list of activities can be found at sandiegoaudubon.org.

Cowan is a freelance writer based in Escondido. Email him at BirdandErnie@gmail.com or follow him at erniesoutdoors.blogspot.com.
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Friday, Jan. 18, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

In political terms, the L.A. teachers strike appears to be creating winners and losers. Mayor Eric Garcetti is up; L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner is down. But anything could change in this high-stakes event. So as the L.A. teachers strike enters its fifth day, optics and politics are working against Beutner, who has been trying at every opportunity to make the case that the union refused to negotiate seriously during the first L.A. teachers strike in 30 years. The teachers in the rain have been passionate, articulate and persuasive. Theyve told personal stories to make cases that many find hard to argue with: that too many students shouldnt be crowded into classes, that schools should have nurses on hand every day. Inside campuses, meanwhile, skeleton crews of supervisors, subs and remaining workers have herded students into large spaces, showed movies and plugged students into online coursework. Los Angeles Times

 Elysian Heights Elementary in Echo Park has always been civic-minded. For its parents, supporting the LAUSD teachers strike is a moral responsibility. So the school community got together to figure out how to help all parents keep their kids home, even for those who couldnt afford to pay for daycare or babysitters. Los Angeles Times

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 A lesson in passion and compassion from teachers on a Venice picket line. Los Angeles Times

 Negotiations resumed Thursday for the first time in a week to settle the teachers strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Los Angeles Times

 How are LAUSD strike negotiations going? Were in the dark. Collective bargaining needs some sunshine. Los Angeles Times

 Heres the story of one school. L.A. Taco

 Opinion: The L.A. teachers strike may be cutting edge of a revolution against whats rotten in America. Philadelphia Inquirer

Back in Washington

The Trump playbook on dealing with foes is well-documented: If attacked, strike back 10 times harder; zero in on your enemys weakest spots; go personal. Now the often-pugnacious president has a new opponent, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House. As the two most powerful elected officials in the country have battled, the spectacle has riveted Washington. How the two deal with each other has implications beyond just their personal relationship. With power in Washington divided between the two parties for the first time since Trumps election, the ability of the president and the speaker to work together will largely determine if the U.S. government falls into complete dysfunction for the next two years. Los Angeles Times

An amazing story

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Katelyn Ohashis smile filled her face as she danced across the blue floor; her bob cut bounced with each movement in her now-famous floor routine. UCLAs gymnasts gravitated toward their 21-year-old senior captain, moving closer as the music blared. They began cheering and dancing behind her. Eyes were glued to her from all directions. Ohashi playfully stuck out her tongue, moving into position for a line of gravity-defying flips. Los Angeles Times

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L.A. STORIES

History lesson: Oil put L.A. on the map. It may have exaggerated the citys quake risk too. Los Angeles Times

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Cracks are seen in a Long Beach roadway after a massive earthquake struck March 10, 1933. An oil field is visible in the background at right. (M. Cortelyou / U.S. Geological Survey)

Another rainy day: The latest in a series of winter storms that have hammered Southern California for days sent soil sliding from beneath a house in the Hollywood Hills, forcing evacuations, and a boulder tumbling down a hillside in Malibu, leaving a hiker critically injured. Los Angeles Times

Trouble in Paradise: The partial government shutdown threatens to stall recovery in the wildfire-ravaged city. NPR

IMMIGRATION AND THE BORDER

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Eesh: The Trump administration probably separated thousands more children from their families at the border than has been previously acknowledged, a federal watchdog said Thursday. Los Angeles Times

Plus: Migrant border crossings are down, but in Texas the bodies keep showing up. Los Angeles Times

In Mexico: Theres a new migrant caravan. Los Angeles Times

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

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Never mind? A landmark law to abolish Californias money bail system has been put on hold until voters decide its fate in November 2020 after elections officials certified a statewide referendum backed by a coalition of bail industry associations. Los Angeles Times

This would be big: L.A. Metro CEO Phil Washington told members of the transit agencys congestion, highway and roads committee that staffers would recommend pursuing some form of congestion pricing at a meeting of the Board of Directors next week. Curbed LA

In the Bay Area: People are upset about an unexpected missing feature on new Muni trains. SFGate

CRIME AND COURTS

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DNA match: A young woman whose body was found 31 years ago is identified in a cold case as an Anaheim resident. Los Angeles Times

Scary stuff: A Temecula woman was among six people charged this week with operating a sprawling prostitution ring that forced women, many of them from China, to work in brothels across the globe. Los Angeles Times

That mug shot: A Hesperia man was charged this week after prosecutors said he arranged a meeting with a minor for lewd purposes, the San Bernardino County district attorneys office said. Los Angeles Times

THE ENVIRONMENT

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Snow report: Earlier storms had brought snow to Southern Californias ski resorts, but on Thursday a wet storm moved in, bringing rain and high winds. Mountain High in Wrightwood and Mt. Baldy ski resorts temporarily closed Thursday, citing the wet weather and winds. Both plan to reopen to skiers and snowboarders Friday, just in time for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. Los Angeles Times

A sputtering green economy? California has set its sights on having millions more electric cars on the road over the next decade, but the planned bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the states largest investor-owned utility, could complicate efforts to achieve that goal. San Francisco Chronicle

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Protest, groans and a punch: Louis C.K. has brought his divisive stand-up comedy act to the West Coast, and its already causing quite a reaction. Los Angeles Times

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Changing times: Is San Diego County done building single-family homes? San Diego Union-Tribune

It has a very sexual energy: Los Angeles megamansion developer Nile Niami is listing his bachelor pad-style West Hollywood home, complete with a cold-therapy cryogenic chamber that is intended to help with weight loss and a sensory deprivation tank, for $55 million. Wall Street Journal

Paramount problems: After decades of nearly slapstick mismanagement  spinning off TV and missing the internet  the studio behind The Godfather is fighting for its life. New York Times

Eat, drink, be merry: Mixing drinks, books and music, North Light, a bar with a new twist, opens in Oakland. DateBook

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Tales from the dark side: Inside a Making a Murderer lawsuit and the hidden dangers of TVs true-crime craze. The Hollywood Reporter

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles area: partly cloudy, 65, Friday; partly cloudy, 75, Saturday. San Diego: partly cloudy, 63, Friday; partly cloudy, 73, Saturday. San Francisco area: mostly cloudy, 59, Friday; cloudy, 60, Saturday. San Jose: partly cloudy, 64, Friday; cloudy, 67, Saturday. Sacramento: cloudy, 58, Friday; cloudy, 64, Saturday. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

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Todays California memory comes from Margaret Solari:

I recall one foggy evening when we were coming home from Hesperia to Alhambra. Thick as pea soup describes the fog. My mother aimed the spotlight on our 1948 Plymouth at the centerline, and we slowly made our way home down Cajon Pass. There were cars lined up behind us as far as we could see trying to get home safely. They were all depending on our light to get to San Bernardino. I was about 8 but remember that scary trip. No one wanted to die on that foggy night.

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.
The Grossmont Healthcare District is looking for nursing students and people pursuing careers as medical health technicians to apply for the districts scholarship programs.

Two nursing scholarships of up to $3,000 apiece are available to local students studying to be a registered nurse. The district is also offering five health tech scholarships at $2,000 apiece for students pursuing careers as health technicians.

Interested applicants must write a 500-word essay on The Future of Nursing in My Community and a letter of recommendation from a nursing instructor.

Health technicians include studies in anesthesiology, the cardiovascular system, orthopedics, pharmacy, respiratory therapy, speech therapy, speech pathology and electrocardiogram. Other scholarship-eligible studies include disability services management, laboratory technician, licensed vocational nurse and occupational therapy assistant.

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Interested applicants must include a 400-word essay on My Career: Where I will be five years from now, show proof of enrollment in current courses and share faculty adviser contact information.

Applicants for both scholarship programs must reside within the boundaries of the Grossmont Healthcare District for a minimum of one year or have graduated from a high school located within the districts boundaries. Previous recipients of either of the scholarships are not eligible to reapply.

Deadline to receive applications for both scholarship programs is Friday, Feb. 8. To apply online, visit grossmonthealthcare.org/operations/scholarship-programs

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More than 200 Grossmont and Cuyamaca College students received scholarships earlier this month at a special ceremony held at Cuyamaca College.

The students were awarded nearly $118,000 in scholarships at the event, which highlighted struggles many have overcome and the bright futures ahead of them because of their education at local community colleges.

Scholarships were culled from a variety of sources: private donors who want to honor a deceased family member or colleague; businesses looking to assist college students with their education; and college departments seeking more ways to serve their students.

More than 80 students received Osher scholarships, a statewide community college scholarship fund established by the Bernard Osher Foundation in 2011.

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Osher committed $50 million to the fund and the Bay Area philanthropist challenged colleges to raise money to establish the scholarships. The scholarships will be awarded in perpetuity to Grossmont and Cuyamaca students.

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karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com
On-again, off-again plans for a bayfront expansion of San Diegos convention center face still more delays and uncertainty now that a public vote on a hotel tax hike to finance the project will be deferred until sometime next year.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who had hoped to win political support for a special election this year to finally advance the long debated civic project, has decided to now wait until 2020.

At stake are billions of dollars in tax revenues that would be generated over four decades to not only pay for an enlarged center, but also finance homeless services and road repairs.

A 2020 election, though, now begs the question of whether momentum behind the initiative effort will fade, making it that much harder to secure two-thirds majority support from voters, the normal threshold for a special tax hike. While backers of the measure are hoping that in the interim they will get legal clarity on a California Supreme Court ruling suggesting that citizens initiatives only need a simple majority to pass, the issue will likely be litigated for years.

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On the upside, voter turnout will be higher in 2020 than in a special election, but the initiative will likely be on a crowded ballot, competing for attention with other spending measures.

Also a huge question mark is whether a development team, which currently has control of the 5-acre leased site where the convention center expansion would be built, will defer much longer its plans to build a $300 million hotel complex there.

Developers of the Fifth Avenue Landing project, as it is known, recently said in an interview they have no interest in holding off until 2020 to see if the initiative passes.

Aimee Faucett, the mayors chief of staff, acknowledges the high hurdles ahead. Faulconer, who has made the expansion project a civic priority since he took office five years ago, wont commit yet to a March or November date for the hotel tax measure. He will leave that decision to the coalition of business leaders, organized labor and homeless advocates who are leading the initiative campaign, according to Faucett.

But he believes the sooner the better, she said.

Yes, of course, theres a concern about loss of momentum, Faucett said. Theres always a concern when the time to move forward on something is longer than what youd like. But were partnering with the coalition to ensure that the time is used wisely to make sure the coalition grows in support and that we educate the public on the importance of this subject.

The coalition, which launched its petition drive a year ago, had expected to be on last Novembers ballot, but failed to qualify the measure in time. The mayor then began testing the waters for a public vote this year, but the plan ultimately had little political traction, especially as three new council members, all Democrats, recently took office.

Tourism and business leaders have long argued that San Diego is losing out on millions of dollars in convention and hotel business because many lucrative meetings and shows cannot fit in the center or, like Comic-Con, have outgrown the center and could leave.

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We would have preferred this on the ballot this last election cycle, said Keith Maddox, executive secretary treasurer of the San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council. Its always a challenge to sustain your momentum but things will level off for awhile and well have to fire back up again.

When you think about the economic engine that this (center expansion) is and the jobs it will create and also the money for the homeless, that is really important. You see everyday the struggles of the homeless on the streets. Our polling shows these things poll really well.

Some analysts, though, suggest that trumpeting the promise of more funding for the homeless to boost the prospects for a convention center expansion could backfire, especially given the vast unmet needs for housing the unsheltered and poor.

Homelessness will be the big issue. It will be hard to sell a new convention center when you havent solved the homeless problem first, said Mesa College political science professor Carl Luna. You link up a convention center that will be for affluent conventioneers and big events and it seems like youre appeasing the business leaders rather than taking care of the homeless directly.

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Given all the puzzle pieces that have to come together to ensure a successful outcome for an enlarged convention center, Luna calls it a Rube Goldberg contraption of a project.

One of those puzzle pieces is the convention center site itself. Fifth Avenue Landing, led by longtime port tenants Ray Carpenter and Art Engel, have already received $5 million from the Port of San Diego under a settlement deal that would enable the city to regain control of the expansion site. In all, Fifth Avenue Landing would receive about $33 million, but only if the initiative succeeds at the ballot. If it fails, they would continue processing their project.

That deal, though, was tied to an anticipated November 2018 vote. The timeline of the subsequent payments hasnt been renegotiated, and the deadline for the next payment due  $9.4 million  is April 1.

When San Diego Port Commissioners last November cleared the way for the $5 million payment, then Port Chairman Rafael Castellanos made it clear that waiting for a 2020 election was not an option.

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We own this land, and the port is in the business of building things, so I urge the council if they schedule the election they should do so as soon as possible, he said at the time.

Faucett, of the mayors office, acknowledged that the three parties still need to meet to hammer out some kind of updated agreement. Faulconer, she said, met with Carpenter and Engel this week just to keep an open line of communication.

Carpenter and hotel development partner Robert Green both say theyre ready to go before the port commissioners with their project and completed environmental impact report, although port officials said Thursday theyre waiting for the parties to reach out to them about the next steps.

Said Carpenter, I dont think we can wait until 2020 because the financial marketplace requires we move it forward. People need to make a decision one way or another and then get on with it.

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Green agrees, saying that the continued delays have already hurt the economics of the hotel project.

Weve already lost valuable time, and construction costs continue to climb, said Green, whose company developed the tony Pendry hotel downtown. Weve already felt the economic effects of entertaining the mayors desire.

Complicating matters, though, is an increasingly hostile relationship between Green and his partners. The partnership has so deteriorated that Carpenter and Engel filed suit last month against Green, claiming breach of contract, contending that Green went behind their back in dealings with various parties on issues related to the project. Green made similar complaints in an interview this week.

Meanwhile, the initiative coalition, recognizing that it needs a still wider group of backers to succeed, is trying to court more housing advocates. It also plans to come up with a more clear-cut spending plan for the homeless funds. The initiative does not address specifically how much money, if at all, would be spent on housing for the homeless vs. services.

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The San Diego Housing Federation, led by Stephen Russell, is among those the coalition is courting.

Russell, who is pushing for a $900 million housing bond to go on the 2020 ballot, said he has been talking to backers of the initiative about possibly supporting it, but he says he needs to see more of a commitment on how the homeless funding would be spent.

The mayor has expressed interest in seeing us on board, said Russell. If we can begin to envision what a plan looks like, it becomes easier to bring people around. There have been a lot of questions about what this will do, and if it has more meat on the bones, we could bring people along.

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lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-2251

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Twitter: @loriweisberg
Tech investors are making a big bet on San Diego startup PetDesk, investing $12 million in the software company so it can beef up its online tools for managing pet care. The money will fuel a big expansion plan into a new line of business for the startup.

The company, founded in 2013, raised the cash from a single venture capital firm  a somewhat unusual arrangement. Most companies raise money from a collection of VCs, which allows the investors to share the weight of risk. Not the case with PetDesks round: PeakSpan Capital, a VC firm based in New York and Silicon Valley, has backed PetDesks entire Series B.

Its not the first time PeakSpan has invested big in San Diego tech startups. The VC firm said the regions tech scene has been a gold mine for their fund. The VC companys current portfolio includes four other San Diego startups  Cloudbeds, Mindtouch, Zingle, and Cordial.

San Diego entrepreneurs are gritty and low-ego, which we love, said Phil Dur, managing partner at PeakSpan in an interview earlier this month. There are other regions where you just dont find that self-awareness and humility. We find those are critical elements of long-term success as opposed to being a flash in the pan.

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PetDesk, led by CEO Taylor Cavanah, is using the infusion of money to expand their tool set for a new kind of customer. Right now, all 1,500 of their clients are veterinary offices that use the companys software to stay in touch with customers. Currently, PetDesk has a suite of online tools that help vets manage their appointments, send reminders to customers about upcoming appointments or routine check-ups, among other features. They also have a mobile app for pet owners to keep track of their pets health information.

PetDesks director of marketing Carolina Jaramillo said the company raised this new round of funding to enter a new realm of pet care, targeting animal groomers in addition to vets. She said pet groomers are the oft-overlooked stewards of animal health.

Groomers inspect a pets body regularly  once a month or every two months  and theyre often the ones who discover lumps under the skin or other conditions that could become a problem for the pets health, Jaramillo said.

Grooming is also a booming industry to enter. While much of retail has suffered in the Internet era, a new report by Axios showed the pet grooming industry has blossomed over the past decade, with storefronts growing 162 percent from 1990 to 2017. While PetDesk has lots of competition for veterinary customers, Jaramillo said there arent many software tools serving groomers.

Further down the road, PetDesk also plans to eventually serve boarders and trainers, among other niche service providers in the pet industry.

Our big picture idea is to be an all-in-one hub for pet care, Jaramillo said.

PetDesk currently employs 52 people at their office in Little Italy. The company plans to add new jobs in engineering, marketing, sales, and customer service, among other areas.

This is the second round of funding the startup has raised. In 2017, PetDesk raised $2 million in a Series A led by Canal Partners.

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PetDesk is a dog-friendly office where pups Zoe and Trippie are welcome daily. (Courtesy/ PetDesk Instagram)

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brittany.meiling@sduniontribune.com 619-293-1286 Twitter: @BrittanyMeiling
California regulators are reviewing the proposed $26 billion merger of wireless operators T-Mobile and Sprint -- with consumer groups and the Communications Workers of America union raising concerns about potential job losses.

The state Public Utilities Commission scheduled a public forum on Thursday in San Diego to hear from customers of the two companies regarding the proposed merger.

The commission must sign off on the transfer of control of Sprints subsidiaries to T-Mobile. Earlier this week, the agency hosted public forums in Fresno and Los Angeles.

The San Diego meeting is slated for 6 p.m. at the County Operations Center hearing room, 5520 Overland Ave.

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Possible job losses -- along with the specter of higher prices and harm to low income, minority and rural consumers -- are key concerns of opponents of the deal. The Build Better San Diego Coalition; Interfaith Worker Justice of San Diego County; the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council and other groups said they would attend the San Diego event.

In April, T-Mobile announced it had agreed to acquire Sprint in all-stock deal  combining the third and fourth largest wireless operators in the U.S.

With 127 million customers, the merger firms would be better able to compete against Verizon and AT&T on the cusp of the big investments required to roll out new 5G networks, according to the companies.

The mega-deal is facing scrutiny from both federal and state regulators. T-Mobile is majority-owned by Deutsche Telekom, while Japans SoftBank Group Corp controls Sprint.

An analysis by the Communications Workers of America estimates the merger would result in the closure of 902 retail stores in California and eliminate 3,342 jobs statewide.

Nationwide, the CWA projects the merger would result in the loss of 30,000 jobs.

Citing economists, the union contends the deal would boost consumer prices up to 15 percent for month-to-month subscribers and 9 percent for multi-year contract subscribers.

The union is urging regulators to reject the deal unless T-Mobile commits that no workers will lose their jobs as a result of the merger, that overseas call center jobs will be returned to the U.S. and that worker rights to unionize will be honored.

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A T-Mobile spokesman decline to comment but pointed to previous statements and regulatory filings where T-Mobile says the merger will produce 3,625 more full-time jobs than Sprint and T-Mobile would have had this year as stand-alone companies.

In five years, T-Mobile forecasts the companies will have 11,000 more workers than they would have had absent the merger.

Some of those jobs would come from the expected $40 billion investment over the next three years to build out a 5G network.

T-Mobile contends it has a track record of creating jobs following mergers. When it bought MetroPCS in 2013, T-Mobile expanded into new markets and more than tripled the number of employees and contractors working on MetroPCS brand.

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For those unable to attend Thursdays meeting, the CPUC will take written comments via email at public.advisor@cpuc.ca.gov, or by mail at CPUC Public Advisor, 505 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, CA 94102.

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mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

760-529-4973
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump met with a North Korean envoy Friday as the two sides worked to resume stalled efforts to end the North's nuclear weapons program by arranging a second summit with leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump and former spy chief Kim Yong Chol were to discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on what White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said was "North Korea's final, fully verified denuclearization."

Kim Yong Chol earlier held talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Washington hotel. A State Department spokesman, Robert Palladino, said they had a "good" discussion toward progress on commitments Trump and Kim Jong Un made at their June summit in Singapore.

Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with Kim Jong Un despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearization agreement reached at their historic first meeting.

Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology. A planned meeting between Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. U.S. officials said at the time that North Korea had canceled the session.

If Friday's talks go well, Steve Biegun, special U.S. envoy for North Korea, is likely to travel to Sweden for talks with a senior North Korean diplomat, said a U.S. official who was not authorized to disclose details and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The North has so far rebuffed U.S. calls to appoint a counterpart to Biegun to hold working-level discussions and Biegun has yet to meet North Korean officials except with Pompeo.

North Korea's deputy foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, was in Stockholm on Friday to attend a conference of international experts, according to the Swedish foreign ministry.

Sweden has had diplomatic relations with Pyongyang since 1973 and is one of only a few Western countries with an embassy there. In the absence of formal U.S.-North Korean diplomatic relations, Sweden serves as the United States' "protecting power" in Pyongyang, a status that means it provides consular services there for Americans.

The talks have stalled over North Korea's refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them.

The North has demanded that the U.S. end harsh economic penalties and provide security guarantees before the North takes any steps beyond its initial suspension of nuclear and missile tests.

Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday the Trump-Kim Jong Un dialogue was "promising" but "we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region."

Trump has offered assurances that a second summit would allow the two leaders to seal a deal resolving the nuclear standoff and improving a relationship marked by decades of animosity and mistrust since the Korean War.

Kim Jong Un expressed frustration in an annual New Year's address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit "to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community," according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.

Kim's latest trip to China, his fourth since last year, came as the North's strongest ally has encouraged negotiations with the U.S. while at the same time arguing in favor of immediate easing of sanctions.

The U.S. and North Korea seemed close to war at points during 2017. The North staged a series of weapons tests that brought it closer to its nuclear goal of one day being able to target anywhere on the U.S. mainland. The two sides then turned to insulting each other: Trump called Kim "Little Rocket Man" and North Korea said Trump was a "dotard."

Kim abruptly turned to diplomacy with Seoul and Washington last year, possibly fearing economic harm from the penalties imposed over the weapons tests.

Still, even after the Singapore summit, the first between U.S. and North Korean leaders, there has been little real progress in nuclear disarmament.

Independent analysts are highly skeptical that North Korea will easily abandon a nuclear arsenal constructed in the face of deep poverty and probably seen by Kim as his only guarantee of his government's survival.
WASHINGTON (AP)  High-level talks aimed at finalizing a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are planned for this week in Washington, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to meet former North Korean spy chief Kim Yong Chol at a Washington hotel on Friday. The meeting will likely be followed by a Kim visit to the White House, where he could meet with Trump, according to two officials, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Neither the U.S. nor North Korea has announced any meetings, although Kim Yong Chol arrived earlier Thursday in Beijing, where he was booked on a flight to the U.S., South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported. A motorcade that included the North Korean ambassador's car and a Chinese car with a sign reading "state guest" could be seen departing from a VIP area at the airport.

Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit with Kim early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with the North Korean despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearization agreement reached at their first meeting in Singapore last June. Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology.

At a conference of U.S. diplomats at the State Department on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged the lack of progress. He called the Trump-Kim dialogue "promising" but stressed that "we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region."

A planned meeting between Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. U.S. officials said at the time that North Korea had canceled the session.

A White House official, while not confirming plans for Friday's meeting, said "a lot of positive things" are happening related to North Korea's denuclearization. The official said Trump and Kim Jong Un had established a "good relationship" and that U.S.-North Korea conversations were continuing.

The official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the two sides were "working to make progress" on the denuclearization goal and that Trump "looks forward to meeting Chairman Kim again at their second summit at a place and time yet to be determined."

The talks had stalled over North Korea's refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them. The North has been demanding that the U.S. lift harsh sanctions and provide it with security guarantees before it takes any steps beyond its initial suspension of nuclear and missile tests.

Kim Jong Un expressed frustration in an annual New Year's address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit "to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community," according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.
Republic Records/UMGAriana Grande's all about treating herself to the finer things in life in her new single, "7 Rings," which she released just after midnight last night.

Set in large part to the melody of "My Favorite Things" from the classic musical The Sound of Music, Ariana makes it perfectly clear that she doesn't need to be in a relationship to enjoy herself, or her hard-earned money.

"Wearing a ring, but ain't gonna be no Mrs.," she sings. "Buy matching diamonds for six of my b******/I'd rather spoil all my friends with my riches/Think retail therapy my new addiction/Whoever said money can't solve your problems?"

The video shows Ariana and dozens of her closest female friends partying in high style in a luxury mansion, draped in jewels and drinking champagne.

Speaking of those matching diamonds, word is "7 Rings" was inspired by a shopping spree Ariana enjoyed to take her mind off of her breakup with Pete Davidson, during which she's said to have bought herself and six friends diamond rings.

"7 Rings" is the third single off of Ariana's forthcoming Thank U, Next album, following "Imagine" and the title track.

Copyright  2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Moving to protect the U.S. from advanced missile threats from China and Russia, President Donald Trump on Thursday laid out plans for a new array of space-based sensors and other high-tech systems designed to more quickly detect and defeat attacks.

Trump, in a speech at the Pentagon, declared that space is the new warfighting domain. And he vowed that the U.S. will develop an unrivaled missile defense system to protect against advanced hypersonic and cruise missile threats from competitors and adversaries.

"Our goal is simple: to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States  anywhere, anytime, anyplace," Trump said. "In a time of rapidly evolving threats, we must be certain that our defensive capabilities are unrivaled and unmatched anywhere in the world."

Trump did not mention Russia, China or North Korea in his roughly 20-minute speech. But the Pentagon's new strategy makes clear that its plan for a more aggressive space-based missile defense system is aimed at protecting against existing threats from North Korea and Iran and countering advanced weapon systems being developed by Russia and China.

The new review is the first since 2010, and it concludes that to adequately protect America, the Pentagon must expand defense technologies in space and use those systems to more quickly detect, track and ultimately defeat incoming missiles.

Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan, who also spoke, said the new hypersonic missiles being developed by nations such as Russia and China are harder to see, harder to track and harder to defeat.

To address that, the U.S. is looking at putting a layer of sensors in space to more quickly detect enemy missiles when they are launched. The U.S. sees space as a critical area for advanced, next-generation capabilities to stay ahead of the threats.

The administration also plans to study the idea of basing interceptors in space, so the U.S. can strike incoming enemy missiles during the first minutes of flight when the booster engines are still burning.

Russia and China have made clear their efforts to develop the high-tech programs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new strategic weapons he claims can't be intercepted. One is a hypersonic glide vehicle, which could fly 20 times faster than the speed of sound and make sharp maneuvers to avoid being detected by missile defense systems.

Missile defense officials on Thursday declined to provide any budget estimates or timelines for the programs.

Michael Griffin, the defense undersecretary for research and engineering, told Pentagon reporters that developing a new layered network of sensors in space is key to being able to detect a fast-moving hypersonic missile in its early, more vulnerable stages. The Pentagon, he said, will study the issue to determine how many would be needed, and at what orbit they would fly. He said the program is affordable and some funding for that would be in the budget that will be proposed for 2020. The system could be operational in the late 2020s.

Officials said the study on space-based interceptors could begin in the coming months. But, recognizing the potential concerns surrounding any perceived weaponization of space, officials emphasized that no testing is mandated, and no final decisions have been made.

Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, immediately raised concerns, calling the plan a bad Star Wars sequel.

"While it is true that the missile threat environment America now faces is different, the answer is not to build a wall in space," Markey said. Adding that Trump's "misguided rush to weaponize space would be as ineffective, costly, and dangerous as it was more than three decades ago when it was soundly rejected."

During his Pentagon appearance, Trump also pressed his case to build a wall on the southern border and expressed his condolences on the deaths of four Americans in Syria on Wednesday.

Any expansion of the scope and cost of missile defenses would compete with other defense priorities, including the billions of extra dollars the Trump administration has committed to spending on a new generation of nuclear weapons. An expansion also would have important implications for American diplomacy, given long-standing Russian hostility to even the most rudimentary U.S. missile defenses and China's worry that longer-range U.S. missile defenses in Asia could undermine Chinese national security.

While the U.S. continues to pursue peace with North Korea, Pyongyang has made threats of nuclear missile attacks against the U.S. and its allies in the past and has worked to improve its ballistic missile technology. It is still considered a serious threat to America. Iran, meanwhile, has continued to develop more sophisticated ballistic missiles, increasing their numbers and their capabilities.
Members of the private sector agree that the minimum wage needs to increase, with all due care.

But capacity building, and the wider business context need to be considered too, they say.

Next week consultations begin with the Samoa National Tripartite Forum (SNTF) on a review of the Labour and Employment Relations Act. Among others, one consideration will be on raising the minimum wage.

Tagaloa Eddie Wilson, president of the Samoa Association of Manufacturers and Exporters said increasing the minimum wage is important but comes with other responsibilities.

We have got to look at increasing productivity, and building capacity for a competitive workforce, he said.

The key thing is definitely to afford it. If we increase productivity well be able to pay staff more.

In the manufacturing and exporting sector, workers are only paid minimum wage of T$2.30 while they are new, unskilled trainees, Tagaloa said.

As soon as they have a skill their pay increases to T$3 or $4, and with qualifications can be between $6 and $14.

And thats not including management level, he said.

Tagaloa believes in training, first and foremost, to improve the sector and bring more money to the economy. That training has to be affordable too, he said.

But definitely what we need to do is support more training, make sure there is more upskilling, and that workers can afford the training costs.

School fees are expensive. There is no use in providing training programmes if they are unaffordable.

Also taking a broader perspective is Asiata Alex Brunt, general manager of Ah Liki Investments.

Speaking in that role and not in his capacity as a Chamber of Commerce member, Asiata said if minimum wages are increased, government should take a close look at policing the change.

The other thing that must be looked at is the policing of not only paying the minimum rate, but also paying the N.P.F, A.C.C and taxes for their employees, Asiata said.

Thats something that ministries should really police. If someone is deliberately not doing it they should be penalised.

He said if government does eventually move to raise the minimum wage, it should consider adjusting import duties and other taxes on businesses to help them cope with the adjustment.

If costs go up, prices naturally go up.

If we raise minimum wages and the government can help by lowering some of the duties, then hopefully it will lessen the impact and therefore not require an immediate sharp increase in prices, he said.

Asiata said he already pays his employees from a starting rate of T$3, and that his company would support a wage increase. He said while he knows its the right thing to do, he cant expect other companies to follow suit until a change is legislated.

You cant expect some companies from the goodness of their own hearts to do it because then they will not be competitive in the market.

We are not only looking at the cost of business, we are also looking at how competitive we are against imported products, how competitive we are for our products that are being exported, he said.
Palolomua held it's second reunion yesterday at the Human Rights Protection Party headquarters at Sogi.

The reunion included members of the Palolomua online group who were also invited to participate.

The reunion was led by Australian-based Nese Uelese and included members from around the world.

They promoted and exchanged Samoan culture, traditions, Samoan history and life experiences.

Palolomua is about our past and about how our parents and ancestors used to do all these hard work for our children, Mr. Uelese said.

Mr. Uelese is the founder of the Palolomua Facebook page and he said the page is a home for the hopeless as he had saved a lot of young people who had lost faith in themselves.

Niniva Tikeri, a 20-year-old from Neiafu and Vaitele does not go to work or school and she shared her story with the Samoa Observer.

I learned about Palolomua from a friend and I never thought that being a member would help me showcase a difference.

I had always been disobedient and wasted my youth on non-vital things, but when I started spending my time on reading about life experiences in this group, I realized there is more to it than just being a useless youth, she said.

Other than that, Mr. Uelese said that Palolomua is also about learning about the basics of Samoan heritage.

Where do all the Muagagana and Alagaupu come from?

Thats where we come in. We provide non-fiction stories about Samoa, he said.

Palolomua is an online group comprising different writers contributing stories about culture and life experiences in Samoa.

Fiailoa Filipo, a team leader for Samoa and American Samoa members from Faleasiu, said it is a wonderful experience and she feels great knowing that she does something good to preserve the culture and her people.

Its from my own will that I want to help my friend Nese to gather our people to see that there is so much to do about life and not about giving up and even our culture.

We write stories about our culture and language to promote the value of it all, she added.

Mr. Uelese confirmed that they will also be developing their stories through documentaries and films as a new strategy.

The reunion was for three days and Mr. Uelese said the reunion will be held every year and he encouraged the Samoans to be part of Palolomua to learn more about life and culture.
President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February, the White House announced on Friday.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders indicated the location of the second meeting between the two leaders would be announced at a later date.

The timing of the second summit was announced after Trump held a more than 90-minute meeting with Kim Yong Chol, North Korea's top negotiator in nuclear talks.

Sanders said the meeting between Trump and the North Korean envoy included discussions about a second summit as well as the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Trump had an historic first meeting with Kim in Singapore last June, which the president has repeatedly touted as a success.

In a post on Twitter following the summit, Trump claimed North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat and declared the reclusive communist country is "no longer" the nation's "biggest and most dangerous problem."

A joint statement issued following the meeting said Kim reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Despite Trump's claims, critics noted that the pledge from Kim was short on details regarding the process of North Korean denuclearization.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Crude oil prices moved up sharply on Friday, driven by a report from OPEC members that showed the biggest monthly drop in crude production in nearly two years in December and on optimism about the U.S. and China moving closer to a trade deal.

Crude oil futures for February ended up $1.73, or 3.3%, at $53.80 a barrel, a near two-month high.

On Thursday, oil futures ended down $0.24, or 0.5%, at $52.07 a barrel, well off the day's low of $50.98. Oil futures gained 4.3% this week.

The OPEC report said collective output from OPEC members fell by 751,000 barrels a day last month, to 31.58 million as part of the agreement reached at the meeting on December 7 in Vienna.

Meanwhile, OPEC expects 2019 global oil demand to slow to 1.29 barrels per day from 1.5 million in 2018 due to economic slowdown. OPEC said, "The likelihood of a moderation in monetary tightening is expected to slow the decelerating economic growth trend in 2019.

Baker Hughes reported today that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil dropped by 21 to 852 this week. The total active U.S. rig count also declined by 25 to 1,050, according to Baker Hughes.

A report from Bloomberg News said China has offered to go on a six-year buying spree to ramp up imports from the U.S. It said further that China would seek to reduce its trade surplus with the U.S. by increasing annual goods imports by a combined value of more than $1 trillion.

Earlier this week, there was a report from Wall Street Journal that U.S. officials were debating lifting tariffs on Chinese imports to give Beijing a reason to make deeper concessions in ongoing trade talks.

It is expected that the global would see a revival of sorts in the event of the two nations striking a trade deal.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
Eli Lilly and Company (LLY) said that a late-stage trial of a treatment for sarcoma did not meet the primary endpoints. It is suspending promotion of lartruvo. It expects to incur a charge of $70 million - $90 million pre-tax or $0.10 per share in the first quarter. In addition, the company expects the trial result will have an impact of about $0.17 per share on full-year 2019 earnings per share guidance. but it does not change its 2020 minimum financial goals.

In the Friday pre-market trade, LLY is trading at $116.04, down $3.12 or 2.62 percent.

"Lilly was surprised and disappointed that lartruvo did not improve survival for patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma in this study," said Anne White, president, Lilly Oncology.

The company reported that the results of ANNOUNCE, the Phase 3 study of lartruvo (olaratumab), in combination with doxorubicin in patients with advanced or metastatic soft tissue sarcoma or STS, did not confirm the clinical benefit of LARTRUVO in combination with doxorubicin as compared to doxorubicin, a standard of care treatment.

Specifically, the study did not meet the primary endpoints of overall survival (OS) in the full study population or in the leiomyosarcoma (LMS) sub-population; there was no difference in survival between the study arms for either population. LARTRUVO was well tolerated; there were no new safety signals identified and the safety profile was comparable between treatment arms.

The company noted that lartruvo in combination with doxorubicin previously showed an OS benefit in STS in a 133-patient, U.S.-only, randomized Phase 2 trial, which led to accelerated approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and conditional marketing authorization by the European Medicines Agency. Continued approval is contingent upon verification of clinical benefit in a confirmatory trial.



Lilly said it is working with global regulators to determine the appropriate next steps for lartruvo. While these discussions are ongoing, patients who are currently receiving lartruvo may, in consultation with their physician, continue their course of therapy if they are receiving clinical benefit. For patients who have not previously received lartruvo, the results of the Phase 3 trial do not support initiating treatment with lartruvoin patients with STS, outside of participation in a clinical trial. At this time, Lilly is suspending promotion of lartruvo.

lartruvo is also being studied in an ongoing global, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial in advanced STS in combination with gemcitabine and docetaxel.

Lilly expects to incur a charge in the first quarter of 2019 related to lartruvo. The exact amount of the charge has not yet been determined, but is estimated to be in the range of $70 million to $90 million (pre-tax), or approximately $0.10 per share (after tax).

In addition, the company expects this to have an impact of approximately $0.17 per share on Lilly's full-year 2019 earnings per share guidance. Lilly will provide a full update to its 2019 financial guidance, including the impact of the potential Loxo Oncology acquisition, when it announces the fourth-quarter 2018 earnings. This announcement does not change Lilly's 2020 minimum financial goals.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
German stocks rose sharply on Friday as reports of progress in U.S.-China trade talks as well as stronger than expected economic data from the U.S. helped ease global growth worries.

Trade tensions eased somewhat after the Wall Street Journal said the U.S. is considering lifting tariffs on Chinese goods in an effort to calm and give Beijing an incentive to make deeper concessions.

The benchmark DAX was up 105 points or 0.96 percent at 11,023 in opening deals after declining 0.1 percent in the previous session.

Automakers BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen were up more than 1 percent each amid easing concerns around tariffs.

Fresenius Medical Care also rose over 1 percent. The company announced the launch of its 4008A dialysis machine, which was especially designed to meet the needs of emerging markets.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
Sophos Group plc reported that its nine-months year-to-date adjusted operating profit increased by 157% to $83.0 million, driven by strong growth in revenue. Reported operating profit was $51 million, compared to a prior-period loss of $25 million. Revenue increased by 14% to $527.5 million on both a reported and constant currency basis, principally driven by continued growth in subscription revenue.

Constant currency Billings grew 2% for the third-quarter and 2% for the nine-months year-to-date. The Group now expects the trends in the third quarter to generally continue into the fourth quarter, which would result in a modest decline in full-year constant currency billings.

The Group recorded over 25,000 net new customers added year-to-date, including more than 9,000 in the third-quarter, with total customers of 327,000.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Global Blockchain Technologies Corp. or BLOC (BLKCF), which recently acquired creative game studio X2 Games, announced Friday its strategic plan.

The company acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of X2 Games on December 17, 2018. With the acquisition, BLOC acquired all intellectual property rights to X2 Games' current game projects, including the digital interactive games for Amazon Alexa. One of these games, titled St. Noire, has a pre-release date set for early 2019, with three other Amazon Alexa games set to be launched in 2019.

BLOC and X2 Games have initiated a comprehensive strategy to optimize BLOC's assets towards gaming, eSports and AI. BLOC's assets will be leveraged to support X2's pursuit of disruptive gaming interfaces.

As a result of this new strategy, X2 Games will become the main focus of BLOC, supported by its synergistic assets portfolio.

X2 Games Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO Nolan Bushnell said, "This transition will help X2's goal to revolutionize gaming and merge it with cinema and AI in exciting ways. At X2 Games we are always looking to find avenues for gaming in existing and emerging platforms. A primary component of our strategy is to tailor our products to the Smart-speaker, AI, mobile, AR and Interactive TV and gamify this space."

The transaction has introduced Bushnell, co-founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's, and Hollywood creative director and visual effects visionary Zai Ortiz to BLOC's operations, as BLOC pivots to focus on gaming-related projects.

Following the release of St. Noire, the Company will release further games stemming from Bushnell's back catalogue of unreleased games and intellectual property.

The company noted that Amazon has sold more than 100 million devices with Alexa integrated smart assistance. By 2020, it is estimated that up to 75% of US households will have a smart-speaker. X2 Games will pursue this sector in the long term as it observes a large market opportunity to satisfy consumer demand in smart-speaker technologies.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Espanola, NM (87532)

Today

Sunshine to start, then a few afternoon clouds. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High near 95F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. Low 63F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.
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Tamarac, FL -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/18/2019 --For business owners, keeping their offices clean is very important. That is the first rule of doing successful business. No one wants to work in a dirty and unclean environment. Nor do clients get impressed when they first visit the office premises. Filthy floors not only give the office a bad look, but it also attracts germs that can be harmful to one's safety. Even if the floors can be kept clean with a quick mop, it is the carpets that are hard to clean. Office owners have to consider a company that offers commercial carpet Cleaning in Sunrise and Coral Springs Florida. Tri-County Cleaning Services is one such company. They promise professionalism from the beginning to finish. They have an excellent cleaning staff at their disposal who can handle the carpet cleaning job with ease. They demonstrate extreme professionalism while on job, and they will ensure the best results. Whichever the area is, the office, common space, cafeteria, or the auditorium, they can help keep it clean ensuring minimum disruption.



Carpeted areas no doubt look beautiful, but it cannot be denied that in a commercial set up where the regular footfall is quite high, keeping the carpets clean is a challenge. Carpets attract and store a lot of dirt and filth which stays clung to any plush carpet. Just vacuuming the carpets is often not enough and it asks for a thorough cleaning so that the carpets can see a long life.



Putting up carpets in an office is not a bad decision as it is one of the primary elements of decoration. To ensure that no one regrets the decision, it is necessary to keep the carpets neat and clean, and there is no way better than to go for professional cleaning services. They not only clean the carpet but also ensure that the carpet stays looking new for a very long time.



Floor cleaning services from Tri-County Cleaning Services include many things such as wood floor cleaning, stone cleaning, stain removal, vinyl flooring, green cleaning, scrub and re-coats, floor buffing and polishing, along with carpet cleaning and so on. They are also a reliable name for providing janitorial services in Boca Raton and Delray Beach Florida.



Call their Broward office at 954-532-1931, Miami office at 305-570-3023 and Palm Beach office at 561-810-8521 for more information.



About Tri-County Cleaning Services

Tri-County Cleaning Services is one of the reliable sources for commercial carpet Cleaning in Sunrise and Coral Springs Florida as well as janitorial services.
Lewisville, TX -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/18/2019 --Whether the car was damaged from hail or a storm or any accident, removing dent is necessary to keep the look of the vehicle intact. At times, such onslaught on the vehicle leaves marks that the car owners might be completely unaware of. Paintless dent repair is necessary to fix those unsightly dents that the car owners wish to get rid of.



It is a method of removing minor dings and dents from a vehicle body to bring it back to its factory-like condition. Metro Dent Hail Repair Center is a reputable name when it comes to seeking paintless dent repair in Denton and Frisco, Texas. The dent repair experts use advanced tool and technology to remove any dings and dents.



Using this method takes away any stress and concerns about maintaining the vehicle' s original strength and value - especially when it comes to vintage and luxury cars.



While traditional repairs use filler and paint to fix damaged areas, paintless dent removal uses specialized tools that do not alter the original finish. At Metro Dent Hail Repair Center, the technicians bring their experience and expertise to determine if the damages can be covered. They also offer free online estimates for those at the beginning of the process.



The entire process of dent removal is carried out with precision and care. Unlike traditional dent removal, paintless dent removal does not need any solvent like paint and body filler containing toxic chemicals.



As a family-owned and operated business, the company has earned an excellent reputation for their sheer commitment and excellence in handling the task. Irrespective of the model, they can successfully use the paintless dent removal technique on any vehicle.



For more information on hail repair in Fort Worth and Carrollton, Texas, visit http://www.hailfreecar.com/auto-hail-damage-repair.



About Metro Dent

Metro Dent is a reputed full service body shop who has over 25 years of valuable experience in the field of auto repairs. They are a family owned shop, who are an expert in hail damage repair, collision restoration and paintless repair services. For the convenience of their clients, they also provide pick-up and delivery services in the local area.
Lewisville, TX -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/18/2019 --The mercurial twist in climate resulting in storm or hail is pretty difficult to guess in the first place. At times, it hits so unexpectedly that does not bring one enough time for taking some preventing measures. Due to this, the damages are inevitable. If not treated on time, these problems may lead to severe complication.



Metro Dent Hail Repair Center is one of the reputable service provider offering hail repair in Fort Worth and Carrollton, Texas. For those looking for safe repair services for the hail damages, Metro Dent Hail Repair Center is the right choice.



The technicians at Metro Dent have better training and skills in advanced repairing methods. Apart from that, they are also having sufficient experience in this field. The precise knowledge helps people to use the best kind of technologies and tools to perform the repair work properly.



By hiring the professional technicians, one will be able to get high-quality and efficient hail repair services. The objective of the service is to bring the vehicle back to the pre-damaged conditions. The technicians can access the complete extent of the vehicle damage. After that, they bring one the professional estimation of required work and also related costs.



They use innovative techniques and tools to restore the vehicle to the original condition. As a full-service company, they are dedicated to providing complete satisfaction. The technicians are available to offer the best service.



Low cost, quality service, and other aspects are essentials that keep them on a high pedestal. They closely work with the insurance company to make sure all work is covered before the car dent repair process begins.



A team of experienced paintless dent removal professionals will immediately begin working on the vehicle upon insurance approval.



For more information on paintless dent repair in Denton and Frisco, Texas, visit http://www.hailfreecar.com/paintless-dent-repair.



About Metro Dent

Metro Dent is a reputed full service body shop who has over 25 years of valuable experience in the field of auto repairs. They are a family owned shop, who are an expert in hail damage repair, collision restoration and paintless repair services. For the convenience of their clients, they also provide pick-up and delivery services in the local area.
Bangkok, Thailand -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/17/2019 --To celebrate this important event for the company, the company has added free eyeliner to the 500 mascara boxes. that means 1 in every 10 purchases, mea customer will get mea's calilliner for free. The Duo Kit. The kit is available for purchase at their brand website and on amazon with prime delivery. Additionally, the company's running another special promotion: first-time customers will get a 20% discount for their first purchase of Mea's 3d Mascara Fiber Lashes (details below).



Mea's Latest Addition took 10 months to hit the market. According to Mea's officials, the most recent entry in their catalog is a quality product, which took approximately 10 months to be ready: 6 months were needed to create and perfect the formula behind the final version of the Mascara and an extra 4 months were required to actually make the product line.



Mea's 3D Mascara Duo Fiber lashes  the most important feature is that they are designed to provide length and volume to eyelashes and Mea's new line of products stays true to this concept. Mea's 3D Mascara comes in a personalized box, together with Magnifying Gel and All Natural fiber. These are standard additions for a line of products that has the purpose to replace extension gels.



In the features' department, the 3D Mascara Duo Fiber lashes is all natural and easy to clean product, which is also smudge-proof, has high Resistance to run & sweat and stays on all day without running down. The solution is made with non-toxic ingredients that are safe for most sensitive types of skin.



Useful Tips on 3D Mascara from Mea:



-use Mascara wand to ensure there is no clumping (the wand is included in the box)



-use proper eye makeup remover and be sure to take off Mascara before going to bed in order to keep your lashes healthy, strong and to prevent them from breaking



*The above-mentioned details can be found under the products' description on Mea's official website (link to the product page).



How does the new 3D Mascara Duo work  Mea explains



The 3D Mascara fiber lashes line is designed to enrich the eyelashes in a very easy and straightforward way. It requires a simple 3-step application. During the first step, users are advised to apply an even coat of Transplanting gel to lashes, followed by the 3D fibers while the gel is still wet. The third step consists of sealing the 3D Fibers with the Gel used at step 1. The process must be repeated until the preferred fullness of the lashes is achieved.



For best results, Mea recommends doing step one and step two on the same eye, then moving to the second eye for the same procedure. Step three should be done after the first two steps are completed for both eyes.



About Mea's brand

Mea's Collection was founded in Bangkok. The term "Mea" is derived from the word ?? [Thai me-ah], which describes a strong and bold woman, who is married or engaged. As a small family business run by a dedicated and passionate couple, Mea was designed to become a durable, high-quality and affordable solution to customers all over the world.



The company started in late 2017 and launched its first product, a waterproof eyeliner, during the first months of 2018. The eyeliner turned out to be such a big hit that its first lot was already sold in under a month. Following this success, Mea decided it was time to work on a follow-up product: the 3D Mascara Duo Fiber lashes. Mea's offering delivery in 14 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, United Kingdom and more. Including Free shipping within the United States. They offer 7 days customer service and has a satisfaction or money-back guaranteed policy.



The 3D Mascara' s Duo Launch promotions reminder, the company's running another special promotion: First-time customers can get a 20% discount for their first purchase of Mea's 3d Mascara Fiber Lashes (link to the signup page https://www.mea-collection.com/news-special-offer)
Investigators reveal more assets of jailed Moscow Region district ex-head worth $33 mln

 RAPSI

15:56 18/01/2019

MOSCOW, January 18 (RAPSI)  Investigators have received evidence that ex-head of the Moscow Regions Serpukhov District Alexander Shestun charged with abuse of power owns land plots worth 2.2 billion rubles ($33 million) aside from other assets found earlier, the Investigative Committees press service reports Friday.

On Thursday, prosecutors filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Regional Court seeking to forfeit property allegedly purchased by Shestun for illegal income. These assets are preliminary estimated at 10 billion rubles ($150 million), and this property status does not correspond to his income, according to the Prosecutor Generals Office.

The former official is the owner of 676 real estate items in the Moscow Regions Serpukhov district, 2 recreation facilities and 22 cars, prosecutors claim.

Shestun has registered his property in the name of his relatives or trustees to evade declaration and suppression of his actual material position. Some property items have been sold, and the funds received have been converted to his own use or the use of his cronies, according to the prosecution.

Case papers read that between 2008 and 2014 the Serpukhov District administration headed by Shestun illegally transferred four land plots in a local village to the company Center. Damage caused by these actions was estimated at 62 million rubles (about $925,000), investigators claim. Shestun was put in detention.

Ex-official pleads not guilty. He could face up 10 years in prison if convicted.




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US Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas): I understand from whats been testified to the Forest Service and the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], you want very much to work on the issue of climate change. We know theres been significant solar flare activity, and so  is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moons orbit, or the Earths orbit around the sun? Obviously that would have profound effects on our climate.

Jennifer Eberlein, associate deputy chief for the National Forest System, responded that she would have to follow up with you on that one, after a brief pause.

Gohmert: Well, if you figure out a way that you in the Forest Service can make that change, Id like to know.
Sterling Heights, MI (48312)

Today

Mostly sunny. High around 85F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Thunder possible. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
LONDON  Nearly 1,500 people are at the risk of losing their jobs if both Philips and Marks & Spenser finally close down some of their outlets.

Philips is closing its factory in the United Kingdom (UK) and transferring operations to the Netherlands. This movement is putting 430 jobs in balance. Philips, headquartered in Amsterdam, is one of the largest electronics companies in the world.

According to media reports in the UK, the Dutch multinational said the decision was part of a plan to reduce its number of manufacturing sites around the world, not directly related to the UKs departure from the European Union (EU) as some sceptics had started to claim.

However, in July last year, Philips warned that it would cut up to 500 jobs at the facility if the UK does not secure a favourable trade deal with the EU. And in October, Frans van Houten, the boss at Phillips, underlined the point, saying Brexit threatened Philips presence in the UK and the countrys position as a manufacturing hub.

As time passes and there is no solution I get increasingly worried that hereafter frictionless trade between the United Kingdom and European mainland could be at risk, Mr van Houten told journalists after the company reported disappointing quarterly earnings in 2018.

The factory will close in 2020, Philips said.

I recognise that our proposed plan will have a profound impact on our colleagues working at the Glemsford site, and our manufacturing presence in the UK, said Neil Mesher, chief executive of Philips UK & Ireland.

Mesher continued: We have announced the proposal after careful consideration, and over the next period, we will work closely with the impacted colleagues on next steps.

However, Brexiteer broadcaster Liz Kershaw has branded the loss of Philips as great news for Brexit on breakfast television, January 18.

Situation at Marks & Spencer

In a separate development, UKs Express reports that Marks & Spencer has unveiled plans to shut 100 branches affecting 1,045 employees. The retailer has been struggling to improve sales over recent years.

The companys wider plan is to close 100 branches by 2022 so as to battle the tough business environment.

In the January 15 announcement, Sacha Berendji, retail, operations and property director at Marks & Spencer, said: Proposing to close stores is never easy, for our colleagues, customers or the local community, but it is vital for the future of M&S. So far, the company has closed 30 stores, affecting 1,891 colleagues

Founded in 1884, Marks & Spencer is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in London. It specialises in selling clothing, home products and luxury food products. Marks & Spencer is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Comments
During the December tests, Auto-Gopher-2 drilled a 7.5-meter borehole, which engineers also used to perform operational readiness tests for WATSON. WATSON can use its gripping shoes to "inch-worm" on the sides of the borehole, which is important in order to precisely position the spectrometer for fine-scale borehole scanning. This is more precise than relying solely on the drill tether, which rotates and stretches, says Kris Zacny, the director of Honeybee's exploration technologies group. He said another advantage of inch-worming is to save time by taking multiple "bites" when drilling until the auger fills up with sampled cuttings, which greatly saves time when working in a hole that is hundreds of meters deep.

"We spent a lot of time doing drill automation," Zacny said. "It can work on its own in the hole. This approach is ideal for a hole on Mars." Scientists recently discovered a possible subsurface lake near Mars' south pole, estimated to be 1.5 kilometers beneath the surface.

Zacny and Bhartia said the California trials were a success, and pave the way for an upcoming trip to Greenland. In June 2019, the team plans to take WATSON to the highest point on the Greenland ice sheet: a collection of research stations known as the Summit. There, engineers will lower WATSON into an existing 80-meter-deep borehole, and command it to drill up to an additional 20 meters while scanning the ice for biosignatures and living organisms.

Auto-Gopher-2 was funded by the NASA Maturation of Instruments for Solar System Exploration (MatISSE) Program, and WATSON was funded by the NASA Planetary Science and Technology Through Analog Research Solicitation (PSTAR) program.

Here are some specifics on each drill:

Auto-Gopher-2

Drill length: 3.3 meters

Tether length: 120 meters

Mass: 70 kilograms

Power consumption: less than 500 Watts

Percussive system: JPL-designed piezoelectric hammer

WATSON
Update 2019-01-26: A temporary funding bill has been signed into law, re-opening NASA for three weeks.



Note: The Planetary Society has made it easy to contact the White House and your members of Congress to end the shutdown and put NASA back to work.

Fifty years ago, NASA was triumphant after sending the first humans around the Moon. John F. Kennedy's challenge to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the decade was within reach. Launches were scheduled every few months. Apollo 9 in March. Apollo 10 in May. Apollo 11 in July. The future seemed limitless.

Today NASA sits idle, the vast majority of its workforce sent home, the victim of the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history.

The partial government shutdown that shuttered NASA has lurched into its 28th day with no end in sight. The new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has passed multiple bills to reopen the government, all lacking funding for the President's border wall. The Republican majority controlling the Senate has refused to consider a single bill unless it has the backing of the President. Negotiations are stalled.

While there have been 20 government shutdowns since the 1970s, an unsettling realization has dawned on hundreds of thousands of public employees and contractors: this time is different.
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SUNDAY

Black Thought Presents ... Delirious

Catch this pop-culture-driven comedy showcase  created, curated, and hosted by Germantown native Tariq Black Thought Trotter of the Roots  at Punch Line Philly.

8 p.m., Punch Line Philly, 33 E. Laurel St., $22 to $27, 215-606-6555, punchlinephilly.com

MONDAY

Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute Concert

The Philadelphia Orchestra performs its annual free concert at Girard College, the stage for the Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. This year, the orchestra includes selections from Mendelssohn and Brahms, works by African American composers, and choir-accompanied spirituals.

1:30 p.m., Girard College, 2101 S. College Ave., free (tickets required; first-come, first-served after doors open at 1 p.m.; limit of four tickets per household), 215-893-1900, philorch.org

TUESDAY

The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical

In this fast-paced musical based on Rick Riordans best-selling novel, Percy discovers that not only are Greek gods real, but that his father is Poseidon, god of the sea. He embarks on a quest to find Zeus lightning bolt to prevent a war from breaking out among the gods.

7:30 p.m., with additional performances through Sunday, Merriam Theater, 300 S. Broad St., $29 to $69, 215-790-5800, kimmelcenter.org

WEDNESDAY

1999 Quizzo

If Quizzo is your fire, your one desire, check out this 1999-theme night at World Cafe Live. Costumes are highly encouraged, so you might want to check your closet for bucket hats and wedge sandals. Pro tip: If you dress like Prince, you get in free.

7 p.m., World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., $5, 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com

THURSDAY

The Womens Mobile Museum

The Womens Mobile Museum, a collection centered on the faces and stories of women of color, has been visiting various parts of Philadelphia since September. Starting Thursday, it will be at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center in Kensington. The opening event includes a conversation with Renee Mussai, the London curator of the exhibit.

Through March 30. Opening reception 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24, then 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, 1400 N. American St., free, 215-232-5678, philaphotoarts.org

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

Wu-Tang Clan

This is the hip-hop groups first show of the year  and their first in Philly since 2011, when the group played the Troc. Expect members RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, Masta Killa, U-God, and Cappadonna to put on a high-energy performance with sick beats.

8:30 p.m. Friday, Franklin Music Hall, 421 N. Seventh St., verified resale tickets are on sale for $153, 215-627-1332, bowerypresents.com

Dancing with the Stars  Live!

See the bedazzled costumes and crackling energy in person as the TV spin-offs tour hits the stage at the Met.

8 p.m. Saturday, the Met Philadelphia, 858 N. Broad St., verified resale tickets are on sale for $89 and up, 800-845-3000, themetphilly.com
INDIANAPOLIS  Keith Pompey dissects the 76ers 120-96 victory over the Indiana Pacers Thursday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in his latest Locked on Sixers podcast. He says this was arguably Jimmy Butlers best performance as a Sixer. He also salutes Joel Embiid for coming two assists away from recording a triple-double while playing with back tightness. And Pompey talks about the solid bench play before turning his attention to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Brianna Robbins had no idea she hadnt voted.

As far as she was concerned, she had done her civic duty. She had requested an absentee ballot before the deadline, since she lives in Philadelphia but works in Delaware. She had considered the candidates, filled out the ballot, and dropped it in a mailbox outside a nearby school.

It was a week before Election Day. All done, she figured. She had voted, and with time to spare.

Or so she thought.

But as was the case with thousands of other would-be voters last election, Robbins ballot arrived too late. It showed up in City Hall that Saturday, three days before the election. She had just missed Pennsylvanias deadline: Absentee ballots must be received by county election officials by 5 p.m. the Friday before the election.

That really sucks, she said. And while the election generally turned out the way Robbins, a Democrat, wanted, she said, thats still a really big shame that I tried  I followed the rules  and it still didnt work.

Robbins had followed the law  but by law her vote couldnt be counted. And she had no idea.

Nor do thousands of other Pennsylvanians who attempted to vote by mail in November.

As turnout surged to record levels in the November 2018 election, data show, so too did the number of requests for absentee ballots. But with Pennsylvanias tight deadlines, the number of rejected ballots also increased, far surpassing recent midterm elections.

Statewide, there were 2,162 rejected late ballots in 2010. There were 2,030 in 2014.

Last election?

More than 4,600 ballots were rejected because they came in late to Philadelphia and Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties. (Statewide figures arent yet available.)

Isnt that a shame? said Susan Carty, president of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. And thats a weakness of that system, where ideally, the concept of absentee ballots should be to help support and encourage voters who are not able to be there on Election Day.

Pennsylvanias absentee ballot deadlines are set by the state Election Code: Ballots can be requested until the Tuesday before Election Day, and they must be in the hands of election officials by 5 p.m. that Friday.

Its a ridiculous deadline, said Kevin A. Kelly, the acting supervisor of elections in Philadelphia who has overseen elections for a decade.

For voters who do not request ballots until the deadline, that leaves almost no room for delays. And the problem has only grown in recent years after changes to mail delivery times.

 READ MORE: Pa.s absentee-ballot problem: Votes come in late because of tight deadlines

As a result, Pennsylvania has one of the highest rates of voters missing the deadlines

In Bucks County, 777 domestic civilian absentee ballots arrived after the deadline and were not counted. There were 935 in Chester County; 636 in Delaware County' 1,327 in Montgomery County; and more than 1,000 in the city, where officials stopped counting after a while.

Its a problem thats receiving increased attention.

After losing her bid for state Senate by 74 votes in November, State Rep. Tina Davis, a Democrat from Bucks County, sued to have counted at least 216 late absentee ballots that arrived between the deadline and Election Day. A judge dismissed the challenge without providing an explanation.

While Davis said she believed she had a decent chance of winning if those votes were counted, she doesnt attribute her loss to the uncounted ballots. But the encounter with the deadlines was eye-opening, she said.

To be honest with you, I didnt realize," she said. "I knew we were tough on these laws, I always knew that, but after doing homework I found out we were the strictest in the whole country.

Davis is preparing legislation that would change the absentee-ballot deadlines to give voters more time to submit their ballots. She expects to introduce it in a few weeks, she said, and hopes it will find bipartisan support.

Obviously, being in the minority, we dont get as many bills through, so I have to look through my bills and decide what are the most important for this year and decide what to prioritize. And thats one of them, she said. I feel like its an issue we can get through this year.

Meanwhile, litigation is ongoing.

In November, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and nine voters, with lawyers from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, sued over the deadlines, saying they disenfranchise voters in violation of the state and federal constitutions. They request the court overturn the current deadlines and set new ones.

 READ MORE: ACLU sues over Pa.s tight absentee ballot deadlines

The defendants responded last week with their preliminary objections.

State Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) and House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny), in separate filings, argued the court cannot impose new deadlines without violating separation of powers and legislating from the bench. They also seek to remove the ACLU as plaintiffs because the organization does not itself vote and cannot be disenfranchised.

Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, and other defendants from the executive branch raised multiple objections, including that the lawsuit fails to include county officials, who actually run elections, that overturning the deadlines would not fix the voters inability to cast ballots in November 2018, and that the voters cant prove the deadlines will disenfranchise them in the future.

Wolf and the two other executive defendants, former acting Secretary of State Robert Torres and Elections Commissioner Jonathan Marks, seek to have the lawsuit dismissed.

Here, there is no allegation that [the state] prevented or delayed Petitioners from applying for absentee ballots. Indeed, the Petition makes clear that there are many Pennsylvanians who vote by absentee ballot, they wrote in their filing last week. Put another way, it was Petitioners conduct  not seeking an absentee ballot until very late in the process  that contributed to their disenfranchisement. 

This original version of this article contained an incorrect reference to the law regarding the submission deadline. The deadline is stipulated in the Election Code.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump met with a senior North Korean official at the White House on Friday amid speculation that the two sides could soon announce a second summit between him and Kim Jong Un.

Trump welcomed Kim Yong Chol, a former spy chief, who was reported to be delivering a personal letter from North Korea's authoritarian leader. Chol, who has served as Pyongyang's lead negotiator on nuclear talks, also visited Trump in the Oval Office in June to seal plans for the first summit later that month in Singapore.

"They will discuss relations between the two countries and progress on North Korean denuclearization," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

Their meeting Friday came shortly after Kim Yong Chol wrapped up talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Washingotn hotel aimed at jump-starting the high-stakes nuclear negotiations that have been stalled for months over a U.S. demand that North Korea provide a detailed inventory of its nuclear and missile programs.

Pyongyang has insisted that the United States lift economic sanctions on North Korea and offer a security guarantee to the isolated regime before any further concessions.

With little progress on the technical end of the negotiations among lower-ranking diplomats, the fate of the talks may rely on Trump changing the current trajectory of the talks in interactions with senior North Korean officials.

U.S. officials want the North to start treating the American envoy for the talks, Steve Biegun, seriously. The North has repeatedly turned down meetings between him and his counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Choi Sun Hee. If the talks go well on Friday, Biegun is expected meet his counterpart for follow on negotiations in Stockholm over the weekend.

Trump has been upbeat about a second round of face-to-face negotiations with Kim, touting personal letters from the North Korean leader as progress, despite a lack of measurable steps toward disarmament.

"With North Korea, we have a very good dialogue," Trump said Jan. 6. "I'm going to not go any further than that. I'm just going to say it's very special. And anybody else but me, you'd be in war right now."

The summit would probably take place in March or April, with Danang, Vietnam, seeming to be the most likely venue, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

In Seoul, there is a strong feeling that the U.S. side will come to the table offering a more flexible approach than before and that Washington is coming around to the idea that both sides need to offer concessions in a phased process, otherwise this simply isn't going to work.

South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told a news conference Wednesday that her government's approach is to secure a "comprehensive deal toward complete denuclearization" of the North and a "phased implementation." She said Washington "also shares considerably" this approach.

Kim Jong Un said in a New Year's Day speech that the North Korea might be forced to follow a new path if the United States maintains sanctions and demands unilateral action from Pyongyang. But Kim also said the improvement in relations could accelerate if the United States takes "corresponding actions."

Kim also told South Korean President Moon Jae-in last year he was prepared to permanently close the Yongbyon nuclear processing site if the United States takes "corresponding steps."

The question is what the United States is prepared to offer.

"Between South Korea and the United States, we are closely consulting what kinds of denuclearization measures should be followed and what the United States and the international community can do as corresponding measures," Kang said.

Corresponding measures could include a declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War, humanitarian aid or a "permanent North-U. S. dialogue channel," said Kang. (One suggestion is that the two countries open liaison offices in each other's capitals.)

"There have been various discussions on corresponding measures, but ultimately, it is something that the United States has to provide, and North Korea has to accept this," she added.

Obviously Kim has demanded sanctions relief. One approach could be to suspend or partially roll back some of the sanctions that were imposed by the UNSC in 2017 in return for North Korea steps to denuclearize. Another would be to grant exemptions for specific projects: Moon's government is hoping to build road and rail links between the two Koreas, and also wants work to resume at a shuttered joint economic zone at Kaesong and a joint tourism project at Mount Kumgang in the North.

In terms of what North Korea is prepared to offer: Kim has made it clear he doesn't want to provide a list of nuclear and missile sites, because he thinks that is tantamount to providing a list of targets. Some people think this is unacceptable, and that the U.S./ROK should maintain this demand. Others are trying to find ways around it.

First, most people say, it is important to get North Korea to commit to a definition of what the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" means, and agree to a detailed road map of how to get there.

A road map might, for example, mean starting by dismantling facilities that allow North Korea to expand its stock of fissile material and nuclear weapons in the future (such as Yongbyon as well as testing sites), before later steps whereby existing stocks of fissile material and ultimately weapons are dismantled at later dates, in return for phased concessions.

South Korean ruling party lawmaker Lee soo-hyuck, who led South Korea's negotiations with the North a decade and a half ago, said he met Stephen Biegun last December, and proposed such a road map. He says Biegun told him the U.S. proposed road map is "almost the same."

But there is real concern also that Moon and Trump have not asked Kim to spell out exactly what he means by denuclearization and whether he is ultimately demanding the United States withdraw its forces from South Korea and nuclear-armed submarines and bombers from the region. If so, they are dodging a key question that gets to the heart of whether a deal is even possible, experts say.

- - -

Denyer reported from Tokyo.
In a rare move, a spokesman from special counsel Robert Muellers office is disputing an explosive BuzzFeed report that President Trump ordered his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about details surrounding the building of a Trump Tower in Moscow

BuzzFeeds description of specific statements to the Special Counsels Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office regarding Michael Cohens Congressional testimony are not accurate," Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, said in the statement.

In response, Ben Smith, BuzzFeeds editor-in-chief, said the news organization stood by the reporting of Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier.

Trump weighed in on the rare rebuke from the special counsels office Friday night on Twitter, where the president wrote, A very sad day for journalism, but a great day for our country!

The explosive report cites two unnamed federal law enforcement sources, and alleges Trump directed Cohen to testify to Congress that negotiations over the Moscow projected ended months earlier then they actually did, in an attempt to obscure Trumps involvement.

I am rock solid. My sourcing on this goes beyond the two on the record. Its 100 percent, Cormier, a BuzzFeed investigative reporter, told CNN Friday morning. Cormier said his law enforcement sources were investigating Trumps Moscow tower deal prior to Robert Mueller being named as special counsel. "We were able to gather information from individuals who know this happened.

Cohen, who refused to comment to BuzzFeed, pleaded guilty in November to lying under oath to Congress about the details of Trumps project in Moscow, admitting he and Trump had spoken more extensively about the project during the 2016 election than he had admitted to lawmakers. Cohen said he lied out of a sense of loyalty and obligation to Trump.

Rudy Giuliani, the presidents attorney, issued a categorical denial in response to BuzzFeeds report.

Any suggestion  from any source  that the president counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false, Giuliani said in a statement.

Heres what you need to know:

New York Times, Washington Post report on BuzzFeeds story

From the Washington Post:

"Inside the Justice Department, the statement was viewed as a huge step, and one that would have been taken only if the special counsels office viewed the story as almost entirely incorrect. The special counsels office seemed to be disputing every aspect of the story that addressed comments or evidence given to its investigators.

From the New York Times:

The New York Times has not independently confirmed the BuzzFeed report. One person familiar with Mr. Cohens testimony to the special counsels prosecutors said that Mr. Cohen did not state that the president had pressured him to lie to Congress.

Ronan Farrow says he declined to run with parts' of BuzzFeeds story

After the special counsels office called out the accuracy of BuzzFeeds report Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow shared on Twitter that he has a source that repeatedly disputed the idea that Trump issued direct orders to Cohen.

White House spokesman refuses to deny BuzzFeed report

During an appearance on Fox News, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley refused to explicitly deny BuzzFeeds report that Trump ordered Cohen to lie to Congress about details surrounding a proposed Moscow tower.

This is absolutely ludicrous that we are giving any type of prudence or credibility to a news outlet like BuzzFeed, Gidley said, making air quotes as he referred to BuzzFeed as a news outlet. There is nothing in that piece that can be corroborated.

Youre saying the president did not tell Michael Cohen to do that? Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer asked.

Im telling you right now, this is why the president refuses to give any credence or credibility to news outlets because they have no ability to corroborate anything theyre putting out there, Gidley responded. Instead, theyre just using innuendo, shady sources.

Well, that was not a denial of my question, Hemmer noted.

No, but the premise is ridiculous, Hogan shot back, repeating comments made by the president and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, that Cohen is a liar, despite the fact that BuzzFeed said Cohen wasnt a source for their story.

Trump once again goes after Cohens father-in-law

In the same tweet Trump called Cohen a liar, the president also mentioned Cohens father-in-law, despite the fact that there is no public indication he is or was the subject of any criminal inquiry. ABC News reported that Cohen was reconsidering plans to give testimony before Congress next month because of Trumps repeated attacks on his family.

Its an absolutely shocking violation of norms for the chief executive to suggest a retaliatory investigation against the relative of a witness against him, Kenneth White, a former federal prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, told ABC News after Trump brought up Cohens father-in-law during a Fox News interview last week. This is Nixonian enemy list stuff, but instead of the public finding out about it through secret tapes and insiders, the president is saying it openly on TV."

Smerconish: If report is accurate, Trump committed a serious crime

CNN host and Inquirer columnist Michael Smerconish said if BuzzFeeds report is accurate, Trump committed a serious crime by ordering Cohen to lie to Congress.

Theres no other interpretation here, except that the president would have committed a crime, and a serious crime, if this report is accurate, Smerconish said on CNNs New Day Friday morning.

Lawmakers plan to open investigation into BuzzFeed allegations

Leaders of both the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee say they plan to investigate whether Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress.

We know that the President has engaged in a long pattern of obstruction. Directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime, wrote Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date," wrote Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. We will do whats necessary to find out if its true.

How Democrats responded to BuzzFeeds report

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D., Texas):

Congress should immediately investigate Michael Cohens claim, based on this reporting, that the President directed him to lie to Congress during its Russia investigation. Such an instruction would amount to obstruction of justice.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee:

The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date. We will do whats necessary to find out if its true."

Eric Holder, former attorney general:

If true  and proof must be examined  Congress must begin impeachment proceedings and Barr must refer, at a minimum, the relevant portions of material discovered by Mueller. This is a potential inflection point.
WASHINGTON - At federal law enforcement agencies from the FBI to the DEA to Customs and Border Protection and others, the frustration about having missed a paycheck last week because of the partial government shutdown is growing into fear and anger amid signs that the lack of funds is affecting investigations.

The government shutdown, the longest in American history, has dragged down morale across federal agencies as tens of thousands of workers are required to show up with no idea when their paycheck deliveries will resume.

Among agents and prosecutors, the concerns are twofold: anger about the lack of pay and alarm that the shutdown is hindering more and more investigative work.

Most travel and training among the law enforcement agencies has been canceled. Many law enforcement officials said some undercover cases, including corruption probes, have been stymied in recent weeks because supervisors feel they cannot approve travel or cash for those operations. Investigators have been told there is no money to pay informants in some cases, or to covertly buy drugs, or to obtain cash for other criminal investigations, according to law enforcement officials.

"The lack of funding is impacting agents' ability to travel to forward their cases," said Thomas O'Connor, president of the FBI Agents Association. "As we go forward, those funds are not going to be available and in some cases are not available now."

Senior law enforcement officials are increasingly concerned that the anger among the rank and file is growing exponentially and could skyrocket next week if a second straight paycheck is skipped. Those who are charged with protecting the nation from criminals and terrorists could be facing enormous external financial stressors as they try to stay focused on their work.

"This isn't PlayStation, this is people's lives we're talking about," said one law enforcement official, who spoke like others on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the shutdown. "It's awful."

A veteran prosecutor in a U.S. attorney's office said she has stomach pains from the anxiety of not getting paid. The prosecutor said she is her household's sole source of income.

I was due for a mammogram, the prosecutor said. Im not at risk, theres no reason to think anythings wrong, but I put it off because I dont want to pay the co-payment. . . . Its incredibly frustrating and enraging, and Im trying not to think about it.

But it is difficult to ignore, she said. The stress keeps her up at night. One of her children "came to me in tears," the prosecutor said, unsure if the family could afford to pay for an upcoming school function.

"That's one of those real consequences that people don't think about," the prosecutor said. "I've got a kid who's stressing out about money. That's obviously upsetting. We are OK for a while, but we shouldn't have to live like that."

The prosecutor said she is contemplating leaving government work for something more stable in the private sector. "And I hate that," she said.

The spouse of one federal law enforcement official said their family has been eating mostly rice and pasta since the shutdown began, but a relative sent them a grocery store gift card so they could buy protein. The family expects to miss at least one more paycheck, and if they miss two more, they plan to borrow money from relatives.

"People do these jobs to protect the community, because they believe in the mission," the spouse said. "The public views this as a consumer issue, how it directly affects them. Does anyone care out there that we are not being paid? The answer seems to be 'no.' "

At FBI field offices, some employees are discussing setting up food banks for employees if the shutdown lasts much longer.

Adding to the frustration are agency rules making it difficult - and in some cases impossible - for federal agents to get second jobs. Historically, FBI supervisors usually reject requests from agents or employees for outside employment, fearing such work could raise ethical concerns. In recent days, FBI headquarters has changed course, urging field offices to approve such requests as quickly as possible, according to an official familiar with the matter. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.

At the Secret Service, agents working to protect President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are among those not being paid for their work. But other than Trump's recent trip to McAllen, Texas, they are largely staying put in Washington, dramatically reducing the travel demands on the agents.

For some, the uncertainty about the shutdown is the most difficult part. Without knowing when pay might resume, people are having to make difficult decisions about what things to cut and how long their savings might last.

We started talking about short-term plans, medium-term plans, long-term plans, said Cher Muzyk, 44, of Nokesville, Va. Her husband is an attorney doing national security work for the federal government. Do we use credit cards? Do we take loans? What do we cut back on? We need to hoard cash right now. Our estimate is . . . we can pay our bills for about two months.

Nathan Catura, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents more than 26,000 officers in dozens of agencies, said he worries about the strain these financial concerns are putting on agents in the field.

"My biggest concern is there's going to be an agent who is not going to be focused on his job," Catura said. "He's going to be out on the street doing some enforcement of something, and he's going to get hurt. Heaven forbid there's an agent who gets killed because his mind isn't on the job."

Catura added: "Other law enforcement people I continue to speak to, they share the same concerns. The longer this drags out, the more I'm concerned that something's going to happen."

Law enforcement officials throughout the federal government have been deemed essential during the partial shutdown, which means they have to continue working without paychecks, prosecuting federal crimes, conducting criminal investigations, and more.

They will receive pay for that work when the government reopens, but there is little indication of when that might happen amid a political standoff between Democrats in Congress and Trump's demand that Congress include money to build a border wall in its budget.

"The level of frustration, I don't know how to articulate it," Catura said. "It's so high right now. . . . People don't want to come into work. They're not being paid, and they don't want to come in, and I can't blame them."

The longer the shutdown continues, the more these people feel like pawns, Catura said. He also worries that the shutdown could hinder recruitment of good agents down the line, because some might have second thoughts about leaving the stability of state or local law enforcement jobs.

"Here we are, these guys are the men and women of federal law enforcement, on the job protecting our country, doing what they're supposed to do, risking their lives every day, and they're not getting paid," he said. "That's a tough pill to swallow, especially when your mortgage payment is coming . . . your rent is due, you have child support, you have to put food on the table."

According to the Justice Department, most of its employees were deemed essential during the shutdown because "a significant portion of the department's mission relates to the safety of human life and the protection of property." In a breakdown of employees deemed essential and exempted from being furloughed, the department described about three-quarters of them as "necessary to protect life and property."

The department said employees remaining on the job include those involved in everything from counterterrorism issues and patrolling federal prisons to conducting gun background checks and narcotics investigations. The National Security Division will continue investigations and prosecutions as part of its broad range of duties encompassing terrorism and espionage issues, the Justice Department said in a plan dated Jan. 10.

The FBI has to be able to continue ongoing investigations and open new ones, so it remains open for business, and "all FBI agents and support personnel in the field" have been deemed essential, according to the DOJ document. That includes "nearly all federal employees supporting the National Instant Criminal Background Check System," which conducts background checks for gun purchases.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents in the field and some personnel at headquarters are staying at work, as are agents scattered among Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives field divisions. U.S. marshals, tasked with a range of duties, from protecting judges to apprehending fugitives, are still on the job.

The Department of Homeland Security said in its shutdown procedures that among those it deemed essential are law enforcement officers protecting lives and property, a list that includes the U.S. Secret Service and authorities involved in inspecting cargo at ports of entry and "maintaining law enforcement operations, including drug and illegal alien interdiction."

The Washington Posts Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this article.
WASHINGTON  Democratic leaders reacted with fury and demanded an investigation late Thursday following a new report that President Donald Trump personally directed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about the president's push for a lucrative condo project in Moscow in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

The Thursday night report from BuzzFeed News cites two unnamed federal law enforcement officials who say Cohen acknowledged in interviews with the office of special counsel Robert Mueller that the president directed him to deceive Congress about key facts linking Trump to the proposed deal in Russia. Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying under oath about those details.

Democrats said that if the report is accurate, Trump must quickly be held to account for his role in the perjury, with some raising the specter of impeachment.

"The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date," wrote Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "We will do what's necessary to find out if it's true."

"If the @Buzzfeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached," tweeted Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on BuzzFeed's report. Lanny Davis, Cohen's adviser, issued a statement to MSNBC's Katy Tur saying that "Out of respect for Mr. Mueller's and the Office of Special Counsel's investigation, Mr. Cohen declined to respond to the questions asked by the reporters and so do I."

Rudy Giuliani, Trump's attorney, responded to the report by saying, "If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge."

But BuzzFeed says that Mueller's office has more evidence than just Cohen's testimony that Trump directed him to lie to Congress. Per the report, Cohen's testimony is backed up by "interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents."

In November, Cohen admitted he'd falsely told Congress that Trump's efforts to build a condo tower in Moscow ended in January 2016, when, in reality, those efforts continued through that June. As Mueller noted, Cohen's testimony was an attempt to "minimize links between the Moscow Project and Individual 1," which is how Trump is referred to in the report. Trump had repeatedly insisted on the campaign trail that he had no ongoing business interests in Russia, even as the deal continued to unfold.

In court documents, Cohen admitted that he'd briefed Trump on his ongoing negotiations with Russian officials about the proposed deal and said that he'd consulted with Trump's team before his false testimony before Congress. But he never said in those documents that Trump himself played any role in encouraging his false testimony.

According to BuzzFeed, Mueller's team now has evidence that Trump did just that. Democratic leaders promised a quick probe into whether Trump, in fact, did direct Cohen to lie.

"I mean everything feels like a bombshell and we are all numb but I'm pretty sure if this story is true it's  I'm going to be careful with my words here  something that congress must investigate thoroughly," tweeted Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., tweeted, "Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP. Mueller shouldn't end his inquiry, but it's about time for him to show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act."

Added Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.: "This stunning Trump Tower Moscow story establishes a clear case of Obstruction of Justice, a felony. I've lost count now how many times @realDonaldTrump has engaged in Obstruction of Justice. Oh, fyi the first Article of Impeachment for Richard Nixon was Obstruction of Justice."

Lieu later added in another tweet that Based on the BuzzFeed report and numerous other articles showing @realDonaldTrump committed Obstruction of Justice and other possible felonies, it is time for the House Judiciary Committee to start holding hearings to establish a record of whether @POTUS committed high crimes.
Former State Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown is gone. But you didnt think that filling her 190th District seat in West Philadelphia would happen without some serious (alleged) shenanigans, did you?

Democratic leaders of the seven wards that make up the district on Saturday will interview potential nominees and then select one for a March 12 special election to finish Browns two-year term. She resigned in December after being convicted on bribery charges.

One contender, lawyer Sonte Reavis, has emerged as a rumored front-runner among about a dozen people who expressed interest. But is he eligible?

Reavis, a one-time staffer for former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, is registered to vote in the 60th Ward, at the same two-story rowhouse where his mother, the wards former chairwoman, is also registered. Its also the address Reavis is using to appeal a one-year suspension of his drivers license.

Maybe thats why a stack of city Water Revenue Bureau bills landed on Clouts desk this week, showing zero water usage at the Reavis household from December 2016 to December 2018.

We knocked on the door Thursday and a neighbor, who declined to give his name, said nobody lived in the house, though someone does stop by from time to time.

Candidates for the state House must live in their districts for one year to be eligible for office. A Commonwealth Court judge in 2017 removed a Democratic nominee from a special election ballot in Philadelphias 197th District, concluding he didnt live in the district because he used very little water at his alleged address.

Greg Spearman, Democratic leader of the 60th Ward, said he hadnt heard any concerns about residency for Reavis, who did not respond to several requests for comment.

Im going to personally look into this, Spearman said. I dont want us to get caught with our pants down."

Further complicating the nomination process, someone sent an anonymous letter to Democratic committee people claiming some of the seven ward leaders engaged in pure extortion by asking potential candidates to pay up to $10,000 for support.

Pete Wilson, Democratic leader of the 6th Ward, called that letter nonsense" and said ward leaders are trying to do something new and transparent with the nomination.

You can tell whoever wrote it is disgruntled and is trying to cause a lot of chaos and confusion among the ward leaders, Wilson said.

The Democratic nominee stands an excellent chance at winning the $88,610 per-year gig because 87 percent of the districts registered voters are Democrats.

Casey is not exactly off and running for 2020

About that U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. run for president  it has progressed about as far as you thought it would. Nowhere.

Casey, fresh off another election win, made headlines back in November with a series of conspicuous non-denials about his interest in a 2020 bid for president.

Two months later, Caseys Senate colleagues are leaping into the pool  making announcements, hiring staff, visiting key states. The Pennsylvanian? He hasnt even bought a swimsuit.

I think before anyone decides to do that, theres probably a couple stages of analysis, and Im still on step one, Casey said Tuesday at the Capitol.

Three major Pennsylvania donors who are keeping a close eye on 2020 told Clout they havent heard a thing from their home-state senator.

I certainly like our own senator, Bob Casey, although Bob has not indicated that he is going to make a serious run for anything, said Stephen Cozen, chairman of Cozen OConnor and a top Democratic fund-raiser.

Privately, Democratic insiders are dismissive, casting Caseys dance as an attention grab.

Others say theres a case for him as a potential vice president. He has, after all, won statewide office six times in a critical swing state, and shows appeal with the white working-class voters other Democrats have struggled with.

But other options also check those boxes (Ohios Sherrod Brown? Minnesotas Amy Klobuchar?). Unlike Casey, they have actually made some 2020 moves.

Update: And just like that, a few hours after this column posted, Casey announced that he would not run for president.

It wasnt me  it was my Twitter account

When 2019 rolled in, State Sen. Daylin Leach took to one of his favorite social media platforms with this New Years resolution: work less on self-improvement, more on improving others.

The Montgomery County Democrats tweet was widely viewed as a not-so-subtle reference to the #MeToo allegations that continue to hound him more than a year after the Inquirer and Daily News first reported them.

The Twitterverse rolled its collective eye. But this week, it pounced on a remark posted from Leachs Twitter account in which he appeared to speak of newly elected Sen. Maria Collett (D., Montgomery) serving him.

It started when Collett tweeted last week that she was proud to have been named the ranking Democrat on the Senates Aging and Youth Committee. Leachs response: Well, Im very old. But I look very young. So youll be serving me in everything you do.

Sleazy and unprofessional, one person responded. Beyond disrespectful, said another.

Leach says it wasnt him. He believes he may have been hacked. Or left his computer open. His office is looking into it.

Youd have to be really stupid to say something like that, said Leach, who has taken down the tweet. He contacted Collett to explain, and has taken his Twitter account private  an eyebrow-raising move for an elected official who routinely uses social media to weigh in on current events and issues.

For her part, Collett called the tweet inappropriate and an unfortunate distraction.

She didnt appear entirely convinced by Leachs explanation either: His serving response had been up for a week before people began noticing.

Said Collett: If this had been an issue in terms of a breach in the senators communications program or plan, Im surprised that its taken this long to discover it.
One of the biggest headline-grabbing statistics to come out of the Federal Reserve in 2018 was the disturbing fact that four out of 10 Americans said they could not cover a $400 emergency expense. They just didnt have that kind of extra money on-hand after paying monthly expenses, such as rent, student loans, car payments, and food.

January is Economic Mobility Action Month in Philadelphia, which makes this a good time to discuss the challenges faced by many area residents. It is well known that Philadelphia has the highest poverty rate among the largest U.S. cities. But those included in that number are not the only ones struggling. The $400 statistic is one example of economic insecurity  the precarious knowledge that one flat tire, one trip to urgent care will put you far behind on your bills, creating a cascade effect of unpaid bills, debt collector phone calls, and many, many stressful nights.

Take an unexpected plumbing problem or drafty windows. Although most homeowners use savings for home projects, sometimes it is not enough. This is where economic insecurity can seep in. A recent study by two researchers in the Philadelphia Feds Community Development and Regional Outreach Department found that low- and moderate-income (LMI) homeowners face the biggest hurdles financing repairs.

About three out of four home improvement loan applications from LMI homeowners were denied in Philadelphia and Delaware County. Without access to bank loans, LMI homeowners may resort to higher-cost financial products such as credit cards for home projects, thus exacerbating the financial squeeze.

What can be done? It is critically important to remember that the poor and struggling are not monoliths that exist far beyond our front door. Like many of you reading this, each household has its singular tale of falling financially behind. Our prosperity as a region is linked to our ability to include all talents, businesses, and neighborhoods in our growth. Thats why we should not expect that one organization, one program will solve all ills. Instead, it will take all of us, working together, to create an economy that allows all residents the opportunity to become more economically secure.

Thats why the upcoming Prosperity Symposium is so important. The Symposium, to be held Jan. 18 at the Convention Center, will be a collaboration of uncommon partners, including the Philadelphia Fed, Resolve Philadelphia, and the University of Pennsylvanias School of Social Policy & Practice, coming together to explore not one solution for struggling households but many potential answers.

As will be discussed at the symposium, we need to consider unlikely partnerships to help Philadelphias most economically insecure individuals. Referring back to the home-repair problem, what if prepurchase counseling services joined with a home improvement store to teach potential homeowners how to perform relatively minor repairs, thus reducing their reliance on more costly contractor services and preventing problems from worsening over time?

At the Philadelphia Fed, we understand the economic imperative of expanding opportunity and are bringing our two main strengths to the conversation: our depth of research and our convening authority.

As an example of our research, members of our Economic Growth & Mobility Project recently created a data dashboard that tracks poverty rates, labor data, and other economic statistics across the Federal Reserve Third District, comprised of Delaware, southern New Jersey, and central and eastern Pennsylvania. This dashboard enables users to identify pockets of poverty and areas of strengths across the three states and is available on our website at www.philadelphiafed.org.

On the second front, we have learned the importance of bringing disparate voices together around one table to discuss solutions and form partnerships that can move the needle on economic challenges. Over the past two years, we brought together representatives from the nonprofit, business, and government sectors to discuss the limited access to transportation in northeastern Pennsylvania. While each entity struggled with changing the situation, they are now partnering to find solutions that enable people who do not have cars to get to their jobs, school, and medical appointments.

The benefits of more equitable growth trickle through the economy. Research from the International Monetary Fund shows that when the income share of the bottom 20 percent of income earners increases by 1 percentage point, gross domestic product growth is higher in the following five years. (When the top 20 percent see a 1-point increase in income share, GDP growth actually declines a bit.) In other words, we are all better off when the lowest income earners get a boost.

The future of Philadelphia lies in our ability to not only address persistent economic insecurity but also leverage our local talents, local businesses and local resources to build a better city.

Patrick Harker is president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
President Donald Trumps sudden decision via tweet to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria opened the door for a massacre of our Kurdish allies by the Turks.

Stung by angry GOP critics, he and administration officials have been scrambling to show they wont leave Syrian Kurds in the lurch. In a series of tweets and phone calls with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump has called for a safe zone to protect the bulk of Syrian Kurds who live near the Turkish border. The president seems blind to the fact that Erdogan interprets the safe zone to mean Turks can cleanse our Kurdish allies from it.

Indeed, Trumps Syria tweets have only increased the chances of bloodshed on the border. The presidents hasty pullout decision (opposed by his entire security team) has the administration scurrying for a strategy to prevent Iran, Russia, and ISIS from profiting from the U.S. exit.

Meantime, the unplanned U.S. pullout has already emboldened a latent insurgency by remaining ISIS fighters; four Americans deployed to Syria were killed by a suicide bomber last week.

The tale of Trumps proposed safe zone illustrates the chaos caused when an ill-informed president makes policy by tweet.

Last Sunday Trump tweeted his call to create a 20 mile safe zone for Kurds, with no further explanation. Trump emissaries traveling the region were blindsided by the proposal. And it has become clear that the Turkish definition of safe zone is entirely different from Trumps.

The Kurdish region of Syria, which has functioned as a virtually autonomous area since the start of Syrias civil war, runs along the border with Turkey. The main Kurdish political party, the Democratic Political Union, or PYD, fields a militia, known as the YPG which was the main ground force that defeated the ISIS caliphate in Syria. It works closely with the 2,000 U.S. forces in the country.

However, the Turks call the YPG fighters terrorists and view them as allies of Kurdish rebels inside Turkey. The United States disagrees, distinguishing Syrian Kurdish fighters from their Turkish cousins. And, indeed, Syrian Kurdish fighters have never attacked Turkey across the Syrian border.

Bottom line: Erdogan views the safe zone as an invitation for Turks to invade Syria and smash Americas Syrian allies. Erdogan told Trump last week that a 20-mile security zone along the Syrian border will be set up by us.

To get the Syrian Kurdish view on the safe zone, I phoned to the Kurdish capital of Qamishli and spoke with Salih Muslim, former co-president of the PYD party. Muslim quickly replied: Turkey talks about a zone that means there would be a Turkish occupation. If Turkey came across the border, its main aim would be to kill Kurds, throw all of them out, and replace them with Arab refugees living in Turkey, including jihadi families.

Muslim pointed out that the main Syrian Kurdish cities of Qamishli and Kobani would fall within that 20-mile zone.

As a warning, Muslim pointed to the experience of Afrin, a once predominantly Kurdish town and district west of the main Kurdish region. No U.S. troops were stationed there. So Turkish soldiers crossed the border and drove out much of the Kurdish population, replacing them with Syrian Arab refugees.

Muslim says Syrian Kurds would welcome a safe zone if it were monitored by the United Nations, by the United States, or anyone. But not occupied by Turks.

U.S. officials have been visiting Turkey trying to get Erdogans agreement to protect the Syrian Kurds. But he refused to meet Trumps national security adviser, John Bolton, after Bolton publicly insisted that our Kurdish allies must be protected. He continues to label the YPG as terrorists.

Trump tweeted that Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo interpreted to mean sanctions. But neither Trump nor Pompeo has clarified that our Kurdish fighting allies will be protected. Nor would sanctions help if Turkey had already invaded the Kurdish region.

And given Trumps habit of changing his mind, this vague warning is unlikely to impact Erdogans determination to crush the Kurds.

Sadly, Trumps policy-making via tweet squandered any chance of getting a quid pro quo for a U.S. withdrawal. This administration failed markedly to condition withdrawal on something, says Aaron Stein, who heads the Middle East program at Philadelphias Foreign Policy Research Institute. Now we are negotiating if or how Turkey should enter Syria. This should have happened before the withdrawal.

Rather than use a planned withdrawal strategically to pressure Russia or the Syrian regime, or Turkey, Trump gave away Americas leverage for nothing.

Tell the American people, said Muslim, that for four years we worked together. This mutual trust, you cant find it elsewhere in the region. We dont want to lose that trust between both sides just because of Turkish tricks.
Tuesday marks the 46th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide. Today, Roe is under continued attack. If the law were overturned, millions of women would lose abortion access, putting their lives at risk.

Two Philadelphia women share how they made the choice to end their pregnancies, with support from our loved ones and our doctors, and free from government intrusion.

Jennifer Brank, 42, South Philadelphia

Twenty-two years ago, I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania. My boyfriend and I were 20 years old and we were both working multiple jobs putting ourselves through college. We knew it was the right choice for us. Its Roe v. Wade that allowed us to make that choice. It is scary that with the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and over 400 abortion restrictions enacted in states across the country since 2011, abortion access is under extreme threat.

My story is not unique. Nearly one in four women in America will have an abortion by age 45. Abortion is basic health care and should remain safe, legal, and funded. Yet, we see antiabortion politicians continue to push unconstitutional, anti-womens health policies.

Now, 22 years after my abortion, my boyfriend and I are still together and he is my husband. We have multiple advanced degrees. We live a good, secure life. My background is working class and I used Planned Parenthood for my health services before and after my abortion, when I had no insurance and no money.

From a scared teenager to a nervous young adult, to now a successful woman, access to the full range of reproductive health services, including abortion, has been an important part of my story and should remain an option for all women.

Signe Espinoza, 25, North Philadelphia

I count myself extraordinarily fortunate. I am graduating soon with a masters degree in public health. My husband graduated from law school last year, and I am planning on running for public office in the future. None of these things would have been possible had I not had access to Planned Parenthood.

I am a proud Latina. I grew up on fried pork, ketchup, and arroz con gandules. Unfortunately, I also grew up with the understanding that discussing reproductive health is taboo. I had to educate myself about reproductive health and justice as an adult. While in college, I met and began dating the man who is now my husband. During sophomore year we got pregnant, and I was afraid and ashamed. All I could think about were the sacrifices my parents made for me to be in college.

I made the decision to have an abortion because I value life. I was able to decide due to Roe v. Wade. On this anniversary of Roe, I am looking to the past and the future. I am reflecting on the people who got abortions in unsafe conditions prior to Roe. I am thinking about my future daughter who may need to get a safe, legal abortion in her lifetime. I am concerned about the people who may need abortion services now and are not able to access abortion care due to the many antiabortion restrictions in Pennsylvania and across the country, thanks to politicians trying to play doctor.

Roe is under attack, now more than ever, and all I can think about is how cruel it is to restrict access to basic health care from people who need it. These attacks are going to disproportionately affect women of color, like me. And they are out of touch with most Americans. The truth is, we probably all know someone who has had an abortion, and the majority of Americans do not want Roe overturned. Yet, lawmakers boldly attempt to reverse Roe. If anti-reproductive health legislators continue to deny our right to health care, including abortion services, we must vote them out.

Signe Espinoza is in her last quarter at Drexel University, completing a masters degree in public health, focusing on health policy. She serves on the Womens Medical Fund board and during her free time you can find her cozying it up at a local cafe reading with her husband. Jennifer Brank is an information management and data privacy professional who has volunteered and advocated for health-care rights and information literacy programs with organizations such as PhiladelphiaFIGHT, Planned Parenthood, and the Free Library of Philadelphia for over 20 years.
Richard G. Desmond, 64, of Laurel Springs, a retired Camden County police sergeant and leader of a bagpipe band whose powerful bulk, handlebar mustache, and tall feathered hat cut a memorable figure at the head of parades throughout South Jersey, died Thursday, Jan. 3, of heart disease at Jefferson Stratford Hospital.

Sgt. Desmond began his career at age 20 in 1974 as a patrolman with the Camden City Police Department, which later became the Camden County Police Department. He was promoted to detective in 1986 and sergeant in 1998. During 27 years on the force, he was honored by his superiors 21 times for bravery, heroism, and meritorious service, said a statement issued by Sgt. Desmonds colleagues.

He was known for helping younger officers with report writing when he served in the Detective and Patrol Divisions of the Camden Police Department, said friend Lou Hannon. He was an all-around good guy.

Sgt. Desmond was born in New York City and grew up there, attending many St. Patricks Day parades. He took great interest in the Emerald Society pipe bands that typically led such parades. After moving to South Jersey, he started the Camden County Emerald Society Pipes and Drums in 1995 and served as drum major in local St. Patricks Day parades and at public gatherings as far away as Ireland.

The Emerald Society and the Pipes and Drums were established to honor fallen police, firefighters, medics and military personnel killed in the line of duty. Sgt. Desmond created a scholarship fund, which helps send the children and grandchildren of society members to college.

Sgt. Desmonds proudest moment came in 1998 when he performed in Washington with five specially chosen bagpipers as two members of the U.S. Capitol Police who had been shot and killed by an intruder, lay in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. The men, Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson, had been assigned to protect U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay.

Sgt. Desmonds public service went beyond the Emerald Society. Whenever he was asked to help raise funds for charity, he would volunteer, said Hannon.

He joined us 30 years ago at the Special Olympics, leading the bands onto the field for opening ceremonies, Hannon said by email. He did not hesitate to join the committee when we created the Law Enforcement Polar Bear Plunge in Wildwood 13 years ago, raising thousands of dollars.

Sgt. Desmond helped organize the Glendora VFW Post 8714 Mens Auxiliary, and at Christmastime, he visited the Veterans Home in Vineland, N.J., other area VFW posts, and Camden Countys Christmas party for foster children. The party was dear to Richs heart, his colleagues said.

He did it for the love of his community and his country, and his need to help and serve anyone he could, at any time, said his wife, Deborah Carlesco Desmond.

After retiring from the police force in 2001, Sgt. Desmond worked on a plainclothes detail for the Eagles, although he personally rooted for the New York Giants. He also worked for the Camden County Sheriffs Office and the U.S. Marshals Service.

He could be seen as intimidating. Richs voice was booming, to say the least, and could sometimes come across as scary because of it, together with his grand size, but I believe he came across as a true listener to everyone, his wife said.

In addition to his wife of 41 years, he is survived by daughters Michele Desmond Taggart, Colleen Desmond, and Kathleen Desmond; two grandchildren; three sisters; and two brothers.

Funeral services were Wednesday, Jan. 9.

Memorial donations may be made to the Camden County Emerald Society Scholarship Fund, Box 1783, Bellmawr, N.J. 08099.
In Philadelphia, homeless Latinos are an underserved and undercounted group that advocates say arent reaching city services designed to help them. The city has pledged to amp up outreach efforts in the coming year. Another area in which Philadelphia is looking to improve in 2019: curbing gun violence. Yesterday, Mayor Jim Kenney introduced sprawling initiatives aimed at reducing what he called the ongoing crisis of gun violence in the city. And, if youre waking up to a blanket of snow, heres what you should know about transportation and school closings this morning.

Reading this online? Sign up here to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning.

 Oona Goodin-Smith (@oonagoodinsmith, morningnewsletter@philly.com)

Latinos make up nearly 15 percent of Philadelphias population, and the citys poorest minority group, with 39 percent living in poverty, according to census data. But step inside a Philly homeless shelter, and those statistics arent represented.

Labeled the Latino Homeless Paradox, advocates say many Latinos  confronted with language barriers and available beds outside their neighborhoods  feel the system is not for them, and are more likely to live on the streets or couch-surf with friends and family.

Nationally, and in Philadelphia, Latinos represent a small fraction of people in shelters, causing them to miss out on homeless and public housing help from the government.

After a record year of gun violence in Philadelphia in 2018, with an average of nearly four people shot per day, Mayor Jim Kenney has introduced sprawling initiatives aimed at reducing the citys level of gun violence.

The mayor vowed to dedicate more than $4 million over the next six months to address the crisis, hoping to blend policing tactics, public health programs, and efforts to address issues like school truancy, poverty, and blight to stem the tide.

The longest-ever federal government shutdown is now in its 28th day, and its consequences continue to mount. For the first time in 36 years, the King Day National Bell Ceremony will not occur at the Liberty Bell after corporate and nonprofit donors couldnt raise the money to open the National Park.

Meanwhile, more than 4,100 federal workers have applied for Pennsylvania and New Jersey unemployment benefits since the start of the shutdown, the FBI and other federal agencies are also feeling its effects, and some Philly restaurants and SEPTA are offering deals to aid the unpaid government workers.

And although they won in swing districts, newly-elected Pennsylvania and New Jersey Democrats are holding firm against negotiations over President Donald Trumps border wall until the government reopens.

What you need to know today

Through Your Eyes | #OurPhilly

Looking good in every season, Ben. Thanks for the photo, @stylephilly!

Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and well pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out!

Thats Interesting

Opinions

As I think about Jack today, what I know for certain is that Philadelphia and the world have lost a giant  a financial visionary whose bedrock integrity, competitive grit, compassion, and contributions to millions of investors  will endure. - Bill Marimow, The Inquirers vice president of strategic development, reflects on the loss of his friend and Vanguard founder John Bogle.

The school teachers' strike in Los Angeles feels more like the cutting edge of a wider social revolution, writes columnist Will Bunch.

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Philadelphia black activists and advocates share how Dr. Kings legacy inspires their work today.

What were reading

This summer, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court restored a general assistance program that affords low-income residents around $200 per month for groceries and rent. But new legislation is threatening to dismantle it once again, Generocity reports.

After her son and author Joseph Beam died from AIDS-related complications in 1988, Philadelphia school teacher Dorothy Beam dedicated her life to amplifying the voices of black gay men across America. Philadelphia Gay News tells her story.

Have you noticed the Boyd Theaters glass facelift? Its the latest work of Delco native and Drexel grad Christina Sioutis, who, as Philly Mag explains, never planned on becoming a glass artist.

Can the FBI link you to a crime based on the shirt or jeans youre wearing? Not according to scientists, who are beginning to question the Quantico teams methods. ProPublica explains.

Your Daily Dose of | LOVE

Fourteen months after a trademark battle stonewalled the sale of the citys LOVE Park mementos, the pieces of painted park granite are back on sale, with additional (slightly different) keepsakes to come.
Are you planning on joining in the annual Womens March on Philadelphia?

Thousands are expected to flock to the city to take part in the event that joins hundreds of others around the nation. The womens marches began in 2017, following President Donald Trumps inauguration, and morphed into a larger protest advocating for womens rights and other social issues.

This year, things are a little more complicated. You may have found out there are dueling marches, and nasty weather and a number of street closures could cause a few more minutes of travel time.

Heres what you should know before attending the third Womens March on Philadelphia or the Womens March Pennsylvania event.

Where and when

Both events start at 10 a.m. Saturday. The Womens March on Philadelphia, organized by Philly Women Rally, is set to start at Logan Square and end at Eakins Oval, where there will be speakers. This years theme is We Shall Be Heard!

The event from Womens March Pennsylvania will be at LOVE Park, and is more of a rally.

Street closures

Driving in? Youll likely want to avoid the area around the Philadelphia Museum of Art  which itself will be open. The following streets will be closed to vehicle traffic from 5 a.m. until 5 p.m. Saturday, according to the Mayors Office:

Arch Street from 15th to 16th Streets

16th from JFK Boulevard to Cherry Street

Benjamin Franklin Parkway between 16th and 17th Street

Parkway from 22nd Street to Eakins Oval

23rd Street from Pennsylvania Avenue to the Parkway

Spring Garden Street from Pennsylvania Avenue to the Parkway

Kelly Drive outbound from the Parkway to Fairmount Avenue

Kelly Drive inbound between 25th Street and Fairmount

Martin Luther King Drive between Eakins Oval and Montgomery Drive

Spring Garden Street Bridge at 31st Street

More traffic information can be found on the citys website.

SEPTA

Bus Routes 2, 7, 27, 32, 38, 43, and 48 will be detoured from 5 a.m. until about 5 p.m. Saturday. If youre taking the train, know that weekend fare inspection is in effect at Jefferson Station from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Shuttle bus service will be in effect if youre taking the Route 101 or 102 trolleys, too.

Separately, SEPTA is also offering a free ride from NRG Station at the stadium complex Saturday, aimed at those traveling on the Broad Street Line after Saturdays Sixers game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Regular fares apply at other stations.

Check SEPTAs website or Twitter for up-to-the-minute transit information.

Parking

Information on garage and on-street parking can be found on the Philadelphia Parking Authoritys website. Though, if youre taking the car, be wary of many no parking areas in effect from 5 a.m. until 5 p.m. Saturday, including:

Benjamin Franklin Parkway from 16th Street to Eakins Oval

20th Street between Race Street and the Parkway, along the east side of the street

22nd Street between Pennsylvania Avenue and Winter Street

2100 and 2200 blocks of Spring Garden Street, along the north side of the street

1400 and 1500 blocks of JFK Boulevard

Arch Street, between 15th and 16th Streets

16th between JFK and Cherry Street

15th between Arch and JFK

Weather

Pack layers and keep your umbrella handy. While the mornings forecast remains mostly clear for the march, the region is expected to see some snow Saturday evening before turning into possibly heavy rain later at night that will continue into Sunday. Temperatures will linger in the 30s throughout the day, according to the National Weather Service.

Dueling protests

The Womens March on Philadelphia, organized by an independent group called Philly Women Rally, which is not associated with the national Womens March, has held the event in Philly for the last two years. There is also an additional Womens March led by Womens March Pennsylvania, a group that is affiliated with the national organization.

Theres a good chance that the two events will merge.

If they choose to do a secondary event, thats on them. Do it, Deja Alvarez, a local activist with Philly Women Rally, told the Inquirer and Daily News earlier this week. We dont have to work together. But we also dont need to compete with each other. Its not about our egos or who created what. Its about women who go to whatever event they want.

Phillys not the only city dealing with confusion  there will also be two marches in Manhattan on Saturday following questions concerning inclusivity.

 READ MORE: How to talk to your son about consent, boundaries, and #MeToo
There were tears, songs, and salutes for Army veteran Peter Turnpu, 77, who died alone at his South Jersey home but was honored Friday by more than 1,000 people  strangers who came to pay their respects.

In death, Turnpu drew veterans of all ages and the public to a poignant service steeped in military tradition, to say farewell to a man who had no known family. For veterans, he was family, bonded by their service to their country.

This is my brother, said retired Army Sgt. Jose Burgos, 52, of Flemington, N.J., who was wounded in combat in Iraq. Its a brotherhood.

On a chilly, overcast afternoon with a light coating of fresh snow dusting the ground at the Brig. Gen. William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Wrightstown, a procession of about 200 vehicles snaked its way from a nearby church to the burial ground.

As an honor guard from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst stood at attention, pallbearers removed Turnpus flag-draped casket from a black hearse. Veterans, some leaning on canes and many decorated with medals and holding flags, saluted as the casket passed.

Turnpu was found dead of natural causes Dec. 9 at his Waterford home by a neighbor. He lived alone and had few acquaintances. He was married and divorced in 1980; the couple had no children.

A police officer had asked LeRoy P. Wooster, owner of LeRoy Wooster Funeral Home in Atco, to help. He donated his services, a casket, and transportation of the remains to the cemetery.

It took a month of planning, but Wooster was determined to give Turnpu a proper funeral. He put a notice in a local newspaper hoping to locate any family members, and launched a social media campaign to recruit the public to attend. They answered the call and came in droves, including two buglers.

Its good that the good in people came out. This is how it should be, said Ryan Berger, 40, of Jackson, N.J., whose father is buried at the cemetery. Its the least I could do.

A group of mourners from the Vietnam Veterans of America New Jersey Chapter 899 in Wrightstown was at the cemetery for a funeral earlier Friday when they learned about the service for Turnpu. They stayed for the second service that day. On any given day, there are 15 services at the cemetery.

Were all brothers. Nobody should go out alone, said Ordway VanHee, the groups third vice president.

Turnpu was described by a neighbor as a loner. But Wooster was able to gain information after finding a letter from the Veterans Administration from a visit to a Philadelphia VA hospital in Turnpus belongings. Turnpu served in Vietnam from 1964 to 1966 and received an honorable discharge, which made him eligible for a military burial, he said. The state provides a free burial plot to veterans and their spouses.

It was the right thing to do, said Wooster. I didnt want him to be buried alone.

The funeral announcement went viral, and hundreds of condolence messages were posted on social media and on the funeral homes website. One person wrote:

I do not know this man but I am here to say, Thank you for your service Sir. May God and all that went before you, meet you on the other side. Your service to our great nation will never be forgotten. Rest in Peace.

The Rev. Rochelle Coles of Cherry Hill, a retired Air Force chaplain, said she attended the funeral because of a motto: We have a saying in the military that we dont leave a troop behind.

Born in Estonia on July 3, 1941, Turnpu came to the United States with his mother, Laine, after his father died, according to his immigration papers, Wooster said. He became a naturalized citizen in 1955.

Turnpu worked as a truck driver for a South Jersey firm. He didnt belong to any veterans groups, Wooster said.

Camden County Freeholder William Moen was among the officials on hand Friday. Moen, the boards veterans affairs liaison, said Turnpus death was a reminder that more must be done to provide services to veterans.

Our job is to make sure that this never happens, Moen said.

After the service, a steady stream of mourners lined up to file past Turnpus brown wooden casket. Some wept openly, touched it respectfully, or saluted. The casket was later taken to a field for its final resting place, and lowered into the dark soil.

In November, another Vietnam veteran, Stanley Stoltz, died in Nebraska with no known relatives. After a funeral notice appeared in the Omaha World-Herald, more than 1,500 people showed up at the funeral.

A chaplain from the Pine Hill American Legion post officiated at Turnpus service, citing Psalm 23 and bursting into song. Aidan Peterson, 13, of Philadelphia, sounded Taps." Peterson believes he saw Turnpu at the VA hospital when he played the cello for veterans there on Thanksgiving.

If its the same man, its somehow fitting that he would play for him for a last time, said his mother, Amy Shumoski.

Rogers Ramirez, 39, of New Egypt, a former Army captain, belted out The caissons go rolling along, with many in the standing-room crowd singing along. Asked why he felt compelled to attend the service, he replied: There but for the grace of God go I, pointing at Turnpus casket.

Wooster had to figure out a final detail Friday  who would be presented with the American flag that draped the casket. He decided to give it to Tom Engkilterra of Toms River, N.J., regional coordinator of the National League of POW/MIA Families.

After folding the flag with precision, the honor guard presented the flag, saying, On behalf of the president of the United States, the United States Army and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved ones honorable and faithful service.

Engkilterra said he plans to display the flag in a case in his home and share Turnpus story.

Hes part of my family now," he said. "Its a mind-blowing honor to receive it.
Edgardo Aponte sleeps most nights in the parking lot of a Kensington Save-A-Lot. When he has money, hell share a room with as many as five other men in a nearby rowhouse. Hes been homeless for several years and like most of the people who share the supermarket lot, hes Latino, originally from Puerto Rico.

Linda Morales Bryant has moved with her husband and three children three times in the last year. Shes gone from her mothers house to a friends house to a friend of a friends. When things got really dire this fall, the family considered pitching a tent somewhere to avoid getting split up in the citys shelter system.

They represent two faces of Latino homelessness in the city, an underserved, undercounted group that advocates say isnt reaching city services designed to help them.

Latinos make up nearly 15 percent of Philadelphias population and form its poorest minority group  38 percent live in poverty, according to census data. But step inside a city homeless shelter and there are few Latinos. Nationally, and in Philadelphia, they represent a small fraction of people in shelters.

Its been dubbed the Latino Homeless Paradox. Wary of shelters, Latinos are more likely to live on the streets or couch-surf among friends and family.

Advocates say many Latinos dont go to shelters because of language barriers and because the available beds are not near their neighborhoods. Culturally, there is also a tendency for families to cram together before letting members go to shelters. But since most city housing programs are accessed through shelters, profound need goes untended.

I dont want to pit one poor community against another or one sad story against another," said Will Gonzalez, who heads Ceiba, a coalition of Latino community-based organizations, but the fact is the community that has the highest rate of poverty in the city of Philadelphia is, proportionally speaking, being inherently discriminated against."

Undercounted?

The citys January 2018 homeless survey found 4,705 people living in shelters, only 411 of whom were Latinos. (Latino generally refers to anyone of Latin American origin, whereas Hispanic refers only to persons of Spanish-speaking ancestry.)

Sister Mary Scullion of Project HOME said the Latino population is definitely underrepresented" in established shelters, although some do reach out to Latinos. "Are there enough? No. Do Latinos come to the bigger shelters where most people access services? No.

Of 980 people counted living on the streets last year in Philadelphia, 103 were Latinos. On the whole, despite Philadelphias high poverty rate, it has fewer people sleeping on the streets than most other big cities.

The most simplistic way of saying it is that Hispanics dont go to shelters," Gonzalez said. In our culture and Ill talk about Puerto Rican culture, its this idea of hijos de crianza, the children that are ours based on raising them. We dont let people sleep out. You stay in my basement. You stay in my couch. I may get pissed off at you in six weeks, but youll go to another couch, youll go to another basement."

Here, the Latino population is 58 percent Puerto Rican and in general, those are the Spanish-speakers receiving housing services, advocates say, including hundreds who escaped devastation in Hurricane Maria. Latinos who arent from Puerto Rico seek out shelter or public assistance even less often, in some cases because they are undocumented. Dinorah Diaz, manager of housing services at Asociacion Puertorriquenos en Marcha (APM), said that in the 20 years shes worked in homeless services in North Philadelphia, shes helped only two Latinos who werent Puerto Rican.

Latinos in Philadelphia are missing out on help from the city: Of the 16,549 people assisted last year by the Office of Homeless Services, just 1,362 were Latinos.

The disparity is apparent in public housing, too. The Philadelphia Housing Authoritys housing choice voucher program, formerly known as Section 8, is just 7 percent Latino families.

The Latino community historically has not applied for PHA housing at a rate matching its percentage of the citys population, spokesperson Kirk Dorn said. "This is despite PHAs marketing efforts to the Spanish-speaking community. Since 2014, PHA has launched four housing projects in Latino communities.

The city says it continues to look into opening a shelter in a heavily Latino community and has pledged to amp up outreach efforts, but with limited beds, resources have to be distributed through a centralized intake process that favors people with the most need.

Its the saddest, most painful part of running a system where you cant help everybody, said Liz Hersh, the citys director of homeless services. But it really is a life-and-death kind of thing. [We help] people who are very seriously ill, who are much more vulnerable. Thats really what were looking at. Its horrible to have to make these choices.

Barriers to shelter

To get into the citys homeless housing system, a person must be interviewed at one of six central intake centers. Most are in Center City. None are in North Philadelphias predominantly Latino neighborhoods. Travel alone can be a deterrent.

Aponte, who is living on the streets of Kensington and struggling with mental illness, said hes mostly avoided shelters because the few times he went he paid for transportation only to find out they were full.

There is a perception among some Latinos that the citys shelters arent for them. They see that I do not speak English, they do not accept me, said a man named Angel, sitting on the sidewalk at Second and Allegheny, who declined to give his full name.

Carlos Goytia has been homeless since he came to Pennsylvania from Puerto Rico in 2009. He moved among churches, rooming homes, and some shelters, struggling with addiction. Now 40 and one year sober, he said the rooming homes he once shared with addicts and drug dealers arent an option if he wants to stay clean. Hes working with Diaz at APM to find more permanent housing. A counselor there has encouraged him to go to the citys shelters and stay put. Typically a person cant get on a wait list for housing unless they have been in shelter for at least a week, Diaz said.

You go there and no one there speaks Spanish," he said. Youre sort of isolated, on your own. You complain about unfair treatment and youre insulated. 

Out of 181 staffers, the citys Office of Homeless Services has 12 people who speak Spanish, Hersh said. If a Spanish-speaker comes into a shelter and no one on staff speaks the language, the employee is expected to call a telephone translation service. The office also has a hotline available to anyone who feels theyve been mistreated.

Catherine Robles, 28, stayed in a family shelter with her three toddlers, ages 4, 3, and 2 years old, for a year and a half, waiting for a housing voucher to come through. She said she was one of the only Latinas there. The whole time there were maybe three of us," she said. "I think a lot of time, people give up trying [to access help] because they think they know the outcome.

Since few Latinos are visiting the intake centers, they often miss out on programs meant to help them in their own communities.

Hildaliz Escalante runs the housing counseling program at Congreso de Latinos Unidos, which gets city funding to run the Rapid Rehousing program, which offers a years rental assistance to people. The city sends her the referrals. In the last five years Congreso has served 427 people through the program. Only 42 were Latino.

We know there are people in our backyard who could use this help," she said. But theyre just not reaching us.

Prioritizing one person over another for public assistance based on race or ethnicity would violate equal-rights laws, but Escalante said she thinks the city can do more to pull Latinos into the intake centers, and by extension, programs.

Hersh said the city is going to pour more resources into outreach in the Latino community and noted Congreso offers city-funded on-site homeless prevention services already. She said in the coming year the office will nearly double funding that flows to Latino organizations from 8 percent to 15 percent. In a meeting with Gonzalez and other city leaders Thursday, both parties agreed to do a six-month study looking at gaps in service.

Hersh said the city is going to pour more resources into outreach in the Latino community and in the coming year will nearly double funding that flows to Latino organizations from 8 percent to 15 percent. In a meeting with Gonzalez and other city leaders Thursday, both parties agreed to do a six-month study looking at gaps in service.

I think the bottom line for me, is yes, I think we can do better, " Hersh said. "We should do better. We dont ever want to create a situation where people have to become homeless to access housing, but at the same time we need to be responsive to the unique needs of different communities.

She said the city is also looking into opening a shelter in Kensington, which has become the heart of the citys opioid crisis.

While Hersh said shes looked at two dozen sites, none have advanced.

Weve faced tremendous community and political opposition to most shelter sites, she said.

Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, who represents the district, said she wont support a shelter if it houses people who are addicted, because she fears it will entrench the drug problem in Kensington.

People will [accept] shelters if its to help families and theres a process, but what we dont want to do is warehouse people," Quinones-Sanchez said. "The residents, as empathetic as they are because everyone has people in addiction, know that the 700 people in Kensington who are addicted are not from Kensington. We put people in shelter beds, were facilitating that.

Hersh cautioned that more shelters dont guarantee a transition into affordable housing. More effective, she said, are prevention services, for which her office has tripled its budget in the last three years.

I think sometimes people think if they were able to get into the homeless system that it would unlock this treasure trove of housing opportunities, and thats just not true, Hersh said. Less than a quarter of people who enter shelters move into permanent housing, she said. But for those who do, the success rate is 93 percent.

A strict definition of homeless

Advocates like Gonzalez, Diaz, and Escalante say they work with dozens of people who are living from place to place, sometimes in dangerous, overcrowded living situations but who dont qualify for certain programs provided through the Office of Homeless Services, like Rapid Rehousing.

That program, funded by the federal government, serves only people who meet a strict, federal definition of homelessness: those living in a place not meant for human habitation, in an emergency shelter, in transitional housing, or exiting an institution.

To be sleeping in a crowded situation, five in a bed, on a couch, is not considered homeless, said Diaz of APM.

By that definition, the two men, Goytia and Aponte, are homeless. But Bryant, the mother of three, moving from house to house is not.

Quinones-Sanchez said that if the definition is whats keeping the city from reaching Latinos, its up to the city to advocate for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to change it.

We need a redefinition of homeless, and we need additional resources. Acknowledge the data, Quinones-Sanchez said. "The data tells a story.

Latino organizations also need to help the city come up with solutions, she said: This has been a problem for years, and this is really the first time these groups have stood up and said something. So I dont want the system to be blamed if we really havent made requests."

Bryants family was making due until she got sick and had to stop working. Her husband, who didnt finish high school, is the familys sole income earner. He walks a mile and a half to AutoZone every day. She takes care of the kids and attends night classes to get a degree in social work. Keeping a roof over their heads has been a constant struggle.

They lived with her mother until things grew too tense in the cramped home. They considered shelters, but Bryant didnt know where she would take the kids during the day, and worried that if the city saw her children didnt have a stable home, they might take them from her.

Bryant eventually told a teacher at Esperanza College about her familys situation. Through a web of connections she found a landlord willing to rent her a three-bedroom for $700 a month in a part of North Philadelphia where the shootings unnerve her. She doesnt know how long they will be allowed to stay. Her backup plan is moving closer to her brother in Florida, where the wait for public housing is shorter.

Thats the thing about being unstable," she said. You have no choice where you live. We havent really set up any of the bedrooms, just in case. Its hard. I feel that were overlooked a lot."

Philadelphias homeless services can be reached via a hotline at 215-232-1984 or at http://philadelphiaofficeofhomelessservices.org.

Emma Restrepo is a freelance writer.

Philadelphia Media Network is one of 21 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the citys push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org.
Judge John Waltman didnt hesitate when a man approached him in Lower Southampton in 2015, seeking his help to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars described as proceeds from the illegal sale of drugs.

The judge already had involved himself in a slew of other corrupt dealings, including extorting a landowner in his small Bucks County township. Before embarking on this new misdeed, he had only one concern.

I dont care who the f  you are, he told his new partner in crime. All I care about is .

The man interrupted: That you get paid?

Yeah, the judge said. Thats all.

That conversation  recorded by the FBI  and dozens of equally incriminating recordings hung over Waltmans decision Friday to plead guilty to a litany of federal crimes, including multiple counts of extortion and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

His admissions effectively ended his public career in Lower Southampton, a working-class township of 19,000 people that, as prosecutors portrayed it, he lorded over like an old-school Mafia don.

Waltman, 61, was a district judge  a relatively minor role in the state judicial system. Yet he was able to exert the level of control over Lower Southamptons government needed to carry out his many criminal schemes, which included repeated pledges to sway votes by the township council in exchange for kickbacks.

And excerpts of his conversations  outlined for the first time in court filings this week  show that he frequently boasted of his influence and wielded it with alacrity.

He attained his position on the bench in 2010, replacing his sister, who was drummed out of office after a corruption scandal of her own. In his six years on the bench, he oversaw minor criminal proceedings and preliminary hearings for defendants facing trial  including early stages of the case against Lee Kaplan, a Bucks County man convicted in 2017 of sexually abusing six sisters who had been gifted to him by an Amish couple.

But Waltman, a longtime constable and former chair of the Lower Southampton Republican Party, cultivated deep ties in local politics and township government that extended far beyond his small court.

This is Lower South, he bragged in a 2015 conversation with co-conspirators, as described in court filings. I know everything there is to know.

A year later, while shaking down a business owner seeking township contracts, he dismissed the Lower Southampton Board of Supervisors as a rubber stamp on decisions he made.

He surrounded himself with a network of other government employees to aid in his corrupt plans, including a deputy constable; the township solicitor; and the public safety director, Robert Hoopes.

Court documents suggest that Waltman delighted in the councils hiring in 2016 of Hoopes to the newly created position overseeing the fire and police forces, because both men believed the position would create new opportunities for graft.

Its trickle-down economics, Waltman explained to his cohorts during a 2016 attempt to shake down a vendor seeking township business. Everybody will be happy.

The indictments filed against Waltman, Hoopes, and four others in 2017 charged them with involvement in five criminal schemes, from fixing a traffic ticket to extorting bribes from vendors seeking everything from the townships towing contract to a lease on a billboard slated to go up in a park.

Additionally, Waltman admitted Friday that he and Hoopes, starting in 2014, sought to bully a Florida investment firm to sell land it owned in the township to a buyer with whom both men had a financial relationship.

Hoopes, who was working as a lawyer at the time, admitted during a hearing in September that he impersonated the township solicitor during a call with the investment firms representative and threatened to bury the company under zoning and regulatory obstacles unless it agreed to sell.

But it was the money-laundering scheme starting in 2015 that ultimately brought Waltman and Hoopes down.

Waltman did not know that the two New York businessmen who approached him claiming to have ripped off insurance companies and made hundreds of thousands selling drugs were undercover FBI agents, recording his every word. He eagerly agreed to help them.

I dont care about insurance companies, he said. Theyre whores. They make millions and millions, and sometimes there has to be a little taking. So what?

Over the next year, he and Hoopes washed $400,000 for the men  handed over in duffel bags stuffed with cash  through a consulting company set up by a coconspirator, Lower Southampton Deputy Constable Bernard Rafferty.

Although prosecutors say Waltman took a cut of about 5 percent of the proceeds  or $20,000  he insists that he never made a dime off his involvement.

That dispute, however, was the only point on which Waltman appeared to have any will left to fight during his court appearance Friday. He sat slump-shouldered next to his lawyer, Louis Busico, answering questions from U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter and admitting to all the other misdeeds that prosecutors laid at his feet.

I want to plead guilty. I am guilty, your honor, he said in court. He declined to comment after the proceedings.

Waltman will face a maximum of 20 years on each of the six counts to which he pleaded at a sentencing hearing scheduled for May. Hoopes, Rafferty, and three others also have pleaded guilty and face similar hearings in March.

This was a very difficult day for John and his family, Busico said. But at the end of the day, he showed what his character was about. He came in here and took it on the chin like a man. He knows he has a debt to pay going forward.
A Doylestown man charged with raping, killing, and dismembering 14-year-old Grace Packer in 2016 is finally headed to trial. On Friday, a Bucks County judge vowed there would be no further delays in the case against Jacob Sullivan, and denied a defense request to postpone the proceedings as they await a higher courts ruling on the death penalty in Pennsylvania.

I see this issue as very clear and easy, Common Pleas Court Judge Diane E. Gibbons said. The request for a delay here is for a delay that is indefinite.... We could be waiting here for another year or two.

With that ruling, Fridays pretrial conference in Doylestown was set to be one of the final court sessions before Sullivans trial, which is to begin in March. At the hearing, Gibbons not only denied the defense motion to postpone the trial, but also reviewed grisly crime scene photos to determine which could be shown to a jury.

For months, Sullivan, 46, and his girlfriend Sara Packer, 44, planned to kill Packers adopted daughter Grace as part of a twisted sexual fantasy, authorities said. In announcing the couples arrest in January 2017, Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub called their actions heinous" and unspeakable."

Authorities said Sullivan and Packer attacked Grace at a home they rented near Quakertown in July 2016. They said Sullivan raped Grace as Packer watched, then the couple drugged, bound and gagged the girl, and left her to die in an hot attic.

When they returned to find Grace still conscious, Sullivan suffocated her, then he and Packer put her body in kitty litter. Three months later, after police came to follow up on the investigation of her reported disappearance, Packer and Sullivan cut up Graces remains and dumped them in Luzerne County woods, authorities said.

Father-and-son hunters found the remains, originally thinking they were those of animals, Weintraub said.

If convicted, Sullivan could face the death penalty.

On Friday, his public defenders, Christina King and Jack Fagan, argued that Sullivans trial should be delayed until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules on whether to block the death penalty in the state unless changes are made in how it is carried out. Just three people have been executed in Pennsylvania in the last 56 years, while hundreds of death warrants have been signed.

In Sullivans case, Weintraub contended that the court had no obligation to wait for the high courts ruling. Gibbons agreed.

Gibbons also viewed several crime scene photos that prosecutors want to show at trial. Those photos included images of Graces severed body parts, as they were found in the woods and as they were examined during an autopsy.

The judge agreed to allow some of the photos to be shown at trial, but denied the admission of others, noting the trauma they could inflict on jurors.

These photographs are disturbing, she said.

Sullivan, stone-faced with his dark hair slicked back, looked at the images with his attorneys as they were shown on computer screens pointed away from the gallery. He clasped his shackled hands on his lap, occasionally looking down, clenching his jaw, and closing his eyes.

His girlfriend, Packer, is set to be tried separately, also in March. She pleaded not guilty in 2017.

Packer reported her adopted daughter missing in July 2016. After Graces remains were found and police asked the public for help in the case, the couple overdosed, but survived. They were charged a week later after Sullivan allegedly told an intensive-care nurse that he had killed Grace.

That nurse testified at a hearing last year: He said he didnt know why they [authorities] were coming down so hard on Sara when he was the one who killed Grace.... He always felt like he was in a dark place and wanted to kill.

Sullivan and Packer are being held at the Bucks County Correctional Facility. Jury selection is set to begin next month in Sullivans case.
Marshal Granor got the phone call a week ago, from a person expressing what so many have since a battle over a border wall thrust hundreds of thousands of federal workers into the middle of a political standoff and their own personal financial frenzy.

 My heart is breaking,  were the words the real estate lawyer heard from the caller, who said he wanted to do something to help all these poor workers furloughed or forced to work without pay during the ongoing government shutdown.

What Granor heard next was unexpected: The caller wanted to make a $500,000 donation to the Hebrew Free Loan Society of Greater Philadelphia for short-term, no-interest loans for federal employees in the nine-county Philadelphia region. Granor, a real estate lawyer from Elkins Park, is the immediate past president of HFL.

'I almost fell out of my chair," he said Friday from the National Constitution Center, where loan checks for $1,250 each will be handed out to eligible recipients until 4 p.m. Friday, from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday.

We hope by then the money is gone, unless some wonderful readers want to extend the program by adding their own money, Granor said. Readers interested in making donations can contact HFL administrators via the website at www.hflphilly.org.

Founded in 1984, HFL has issued more than 1,500 loans totaling nearly $3 million to help Jews in need with such things as mortgage or rent payments, doctor visits, and tuition bills. It also offers small-business loans.

The new Federal Worker Emergency Relief Loan is nonsectarian. Recipients need not be Jewish to qualify. They must live in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania, or Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, or Mercer Counties in New Jersey, and their government salary cannot exceed $50,000 a year.

Those who want a loan must first fill out an application at http://hflphillyorg/shutdownloans.htm, after which those found eligible will be given an appointment to pick up a check at the Constitution Center at 525 Arch St. There they will be required to show a photo ID along with proof of address and that they are a federal employee who is not being paid due to the government shutdown. They must also show an old pay stub to verify their salary.

The loans cost nothing and require no cosigners. They must be repaid 90 days after the government reopens.

Shortly after noon Friday, Ira Coleman, 30, a customer service representative for the Internal Revenue Service and single dad, became just the second loan recipient. He was handed a check for $1,250 that he said he planned to use toward his rent in South Philadelphia, and for food, diapers, and wipes for his 9-month-old son. The childs mother just started a job, said Coleman.

Its very stressful, he said of the financial limbo hes been in. Furloughed since the start of the shutdown, Coleman was just called back to work Thursday, albeit with no chance of receiving a paycheck until the shutdown ends and back pay is granted. Im not sure how much longer we can hold up like this.

He heard about the HFL loans from a coworker and went online Thursday night to apply, getting an appointment to pick up his check at 12:30 p.m. Friday.

Its a true blessing, said Coleman, who makes $45,000 a year in an IRS call center. I dont know how else to describe it. Its good to see people actually care.

He said the shutdown has been somewhat isolating for federal employees,

In the midst of it, you get a sense that nobody cares about us, Coleman said. Thankfully somebody was able to step up and actually make a difference.

Granor said the donor who put up $500,000 wants to remain anonymous.
Before Google, smartphones, and the Best of Philly cheesesteak award put Chicks Deli on the map, owner Joe Danfield told callers needing directions that "were in The Alley behind the Divorce Center on Route 70.

His neighbor Karen Giorgio would usually describe her lively shop, My Dance Bag, as on the corner of a tiny little road and just a few steps from the Chicks.

Said Mark Walsh, the genial proprietor of a nearby comic-book store called the Plunder Palace: I still tell people Im right near Chicks.

Thats the way things roll along The Alley, aka Township Lane, a block-long, one-way, privately owned road just north of Route 70 between Virginia and Georgia Avenues in Cherry Hills Erlton section.

I bought the business in 1976 when I was 23, Danfield said as the lunch rush began one day last week.

Chicks rocked, conversation buzzed, and steaks sizzled on the grill under the command of his business partner, Ken Landis.

I wasnt worried about the location, because Chick himself [the late Frank DiGregorio] had opened here in 1957, and flourished," said Danfield.

Chicks and the other mom-and-pop businesses in the low-slung, midcentury modern-ish structure on the north side of The Alley share a familial, neighborly vibe.

So Im not surprised they empathize with owners of businesses across the alley and facing Route 70, where a proposed safety improvement project threatens to eliminate all of the parking in front of those establishments.

I was on the other side of 70 and I moved over here because of the convenience of the parking, said Framers' Workroom owner Kevin King.

His store is one of eight businesses, including a granite/marble showroom, a pretzel bakery, a restaurant, and the Divorce Center legal services office, that share about 20 angled parking spaces. King is concerned about customers having to carry paintings and other fragile artwork greater distances to reach his front door.

"The state has no idea of the lives and businesses theyre affecting, Danfield said.

The project would involve installing curbs and sidewalks and making other modifications along scattered sections of the often-clogged state highway bisecting the township. About 130 properties at various locations would be affected, said lawyer Drew Kapur. He represents some of the property owners, including Rick Kramer, who bought the Divorce Center building in 1983.

The issue is that the DOT is either revoking or modifying access permits, Kapur said. "Rick is an extreme case. The state must provide alternative access to his property, but they havent told him what it will be. They said they were going back to the drawing board."

Information about the project was not available from the DOT late last week. But township officials had a lot to say.

Obviously, there are safety concerns. But taking all of their parking without some kind of alternative plan is not going to work, said Erin Patterson Gill, chief of staff to Cherry Hill Mayor Chuck Cahn. Weve made that clear to the DOT and to the governors office.

One option might be to use the parking lot, accessible from Virginia Avenue, on the former PNC bank branch property, she said, noting that the township has long sought to strengthen commercial areas on either side of 70 near the Cherry Hill Fire Department station.

The surrounding neighborhoods are densely populated, and facade improvements, streetscaping, and pedestrian-friendly amenities could help create a town-center feel ... even if the area is never the walkable downtown found in other communities, said Gill.

Lorissa Luciani, the townships director of community development, said aesthetic and other enhancements envisioned in Cherry Hills new master plan, including street trees, could help make that stretch of Route 70 more appealing to pedestrians.

The irony, of course, is that sidewalks like those proposed along the front of the eight businesses would help in that effort, too.

But these businesses, many of them locally owned, have had free parking and easy access to Route 70 for generations. And theyre part of the community, too.

Perhaps the makings of at least a partial solution already exist -- in The Alley, where Danfield owns about 25 angled parking spaces along the rear of the eight businesses.

Ive always had agreements with them that anyones customer can park here but that employees and owners cant. I dont park here, he said.

Its a courtesy thing, said Danfield. I would never chase anyones customer away. Thats the way its always been."

And with cooperation and a bit of creativity, this distinctive corner of Cherry Hill should be able to stay that way.
A former Philadelphia-based procurement officer for Amtrak was sentenced on Friday to one year and a day in federal prison for funneling $7.8 million in contracts to a Delaware seat-cushion company in exchange for a financial cushion of his own.

Timothy Miller, 37, had pleaded guilty to one count of bribery last year and admitted he accepted $20,000 and trips to Rehoboth Beach, Del., from Milford, Del.-based First State Manufacturing, a company that under his guidance became Amtraks sole vendor for upholstery on its hundreds of passenger trains.

His scheme was discovered only after First State delivered seat cushions so below standards that they ultimately had to be discarded.

Some cushions didnt fit in the seats for which they were made. Others were missing stitching and glue. In all, Amtrak officials have estimated, the faulty cushions cost the company more than $213,000.

Millers bribery scheme was a betrayal of Amtraks trust, and his crimes were serious and far-reaching, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric L. Gibson said in court filings. Resources were wasted fixing substandard products supplied by [First State] when it never should have had the Amtrak business in the first place.

Miller is set to report to prison March 4. But his hearing Friday before U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick in Philadelphia could have gone far worse.

Federal sentencing guidelines called for at least three years incarceration, but the judge cited Millers cooperation with investigators in deciding to grant a much shorter punishment.

Millers assistance led to charges filed this month against Scott Crothers, First States former vice president of marketing and contract administration. According to court filings, it was Crothers who initially sought Millers aid to help the firm  which also lists among its clients the Washington Metro and the armed services of the United States, Israel, and Japan  land on Amtraks list of qualified vendors.

He also allegedly instructed Miller on how to set up a consulting company through which First State would pay his bribes. The business sent Miller thousands of dollars disguised as payments for consulting services in 2015 and 2016, prosecutors say.

Critical [that First State] maintain the Amtrak contracts, Crothers wrote in a July 2016 email to Miller that was cited in court papers. This is our cash cow. Whatever I need to do  I will do it.

Crothers is expected to plead guilty to one count of bribery Feb. 1. And he is unlikely to be the last First State executive to face charges.

Court filings accuse the companys former chief financial officer and executive vice president, John Gonzales, of aiding Crothers efforts to bribe Miller.

In addition to his prison term, Miller also agreed Friday to forfeit $18,000 in bribery proceeds and to submit to three years probation upon his release.

Mr. Miller expressed his sincere remorse for his actions today at the hearing, his lawyer, Leo M. Mulvihill Jr., said. And hes happy to put this stage of his life behind him."
The recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas unveiled a whole host of products for pregnant women and infants. Among them, the promise of new breast pumps that quietly and discretely fit into a womans bra to pump uninterrupted as they go about their day.

For breastfeeding mothers, pumps can become an essential part of their routine. Mothers looking to provide milk for their babies are especially reliant on a good electronic pump for their workplace. But how do you pick the right one?

If you know that youll be pumping, start thinking about your pump early. Many are covered by insurance and can be obtained while you are pregnant. There are technical considerationsdo you want a closed system pump? That means that there is a barrier between the milk and the mechanics of the pump. Open system pumps can never be fully cleaned, so it may be advantageous to have a closed system where there are less concerns about milk contamination and mold. Also, check the pumps warranty as it might give you an idea of the pumps reliability.

Aside from product specifications, there are practical tips for picking a pump that you may use frequently in public or at work. The options for convenience are rising as the technology for pumps grows.

Do you want a pump thats portable?

Surprisingly, many arent! A lot of pumps require an outlet for power, limiting your ability to travel with them. See if your pump can run on a rechargeable battery before buying it. If you are a pumping woman on the go, also consider a light weight pump. Some pumps that fit in your bra weigh less than a pound, others can be as heavy as seven pounds and need to be carried in their own bag. This doesnt include the milk you will pump and any paraphernalia you need for pumping. So be thoughtful about the amount of space the pump takes up.

Additionally, finding a pump with fewer parts means less to clean and less to lose. When you choose popular pump brands it affords you the ability to replace parts easily. This can be helpful when you are pumping on vacation and stressing about a broken part impeding your pumping.

How efficient and fast is the pump at removing milk?

Some pumps are more powerful than others. You will want to set the suction on your pump to the lowest vacuum level that will help let down milk. Sometimes though that suction needs to be high, and some pumps might not have that ability. There are also pumps that focus on more than just suction power and will vary how fast or slow they move the nipple in and out of the flange or plastic nipple cover. This can help mimic the suck of an infant and some find it useful to have that variation in movement. Again if you crave efficiency, focusing on fewer parts to disassemble and wash may be the way to go.

Is the pump discrete?

Some pumps are LOUD. You might think that you can take a phone call while you are pumping away, but the sound of the motor will give you away. Newer pumps now have prioritized quiet. Additionally, pumps that are hands free and can fit under your shirt or in your bra, which offers pumping mothers the ability to pump unnoticed. It can also mean that women dont have to take their breasts out of their shirts to place them on the pump. For some, not having to show skin might make pumping more comfortable in public or around co-workers.

The last thing to remember about pumping is to advocate for yourself. Even if your pump is loud and heavy with parts a plenty, getting milk for your baby is never something to feel ashamed about. Often when you let others know that pumping is a priority, they will help to accommodate you. So be open and free about providing for your baby!

Joanna Parga-Belinkie, M.D., is a neonatologist at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, and a medical podcaster and co-creator of Baby Doctor Mamas.
All her life, Lorri Devlin had been told that the troubling feelings she frequently experienced had a simple cause: She was just anxious.

At age 5, Devlin remembers being jolted awake in the middle of the night by the sound of her teeth chattering. Feeling disoriented and that something was very wrong, she entered her parents bedroom. But when she spoke, the result was gibberish.

One morning at her elementary school in Stoughton, Mass., Devlin said she felt as though her body were buzzing, as a feeling of inexplicable terror rolled up her torso.

Her parents told her it was yet another attack of nerves.

My mother was an anxious person and took it in stride, recalled Devlin, now 60 years old and living on Cape Cod. We went to church and prayed a lot. I felt I had to be strong  were stoic Yankees  but I was really ashamed.

Once while playing softball, Devlin, then 12, felt the buzzing again, accompanied by a momentary inability to see or lift her arm. You were shaking, a cousin later told her.

At 17, she remembers waking up terrified, then summoning her courage and telling her mother, I think I need to see somebody.

She said she vividly remembers her mothers response. She was sewing and she looked up and said, You think you need to see a psychiatrist? Go back to bed. Theres nothing wrong with you,  Devlin recalled.

The dismissive response was crushing, but in the 1970s mental illness was often regarded as a shameful character flaw.

Devlin said she learned to live with her feelings, gutting it out through nursing school and two difficult pregnancies.

Her dentist remarked on the six teeth she cracked over several years and a ridge of scar tissue along the inside of her cheek and lip, which she bit during sleep. He, too, blamed a familiar culprit: anxiety.

In her 30s, Devlin decided she was probably suffering from panic attacks and began therapy, which lasted for years. After describing her feelings of detachment, disorientation and terror, the therapist concurred with her self-diagnosis.

The event that would change Devlins life occurred in April 2017, as she and her second husband were flying home from a vacation on Captiva Island, Fla.

Midway through the flight, Devlin had been napping when she awoke suddenly, feeling that something was horribly wrong. The walls of the plane seemed paper thin, she said, and she felt a rolling terror. The last thing she remembers before losing consciousness was asking her husband for help.

Devlin awoke soon afterward feeling confused and agitated. She lay across the middle and aisle seats, her head in her husbands lap. Flight attendants crowded around her. Devlin realized that her jeans were wet: She had urinated involuntarily. I was mortified, she said.

An hour later, after landing in Providence, paramedics trundled her off to a small community hospital.

In the emergency room, my husband told the doctor that I had said, Somethings wrong, Im going to faint, before falling back in my seat. After a few seconds my eyes opened and my mouth hung open. I began rocking back and forth violently, staring straight ahead.

The doctor asked whether she had a fear of flying. He seemed to disregard her answer  she didnt  and patted her arm, telling her he had once fainted during a flight.

Back home, Devlin decided that she hadnt fainted. Her discharge papers had listed seizure vs syncope, which meant that doctors werent sure whether her brief loss of consciousness was due to syncope, also known as fainting.

She thought of all the times in her life shed experienced something similar: the buzzing, the rolling feeling of terror, the detachment. Devlin compiled a log, then wondered how she  and especially her doctors  could have missed what seemed so glaringly obvious.

Solution

A few days later, Devlin saw her internist. That wasnt a faint, she remembers her doctor saying. You had a seizure.

Devlin turned to Bostons Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard teaching hospital, where she had previously been a patient. Scrolling through the list of specialists, she settled on Bernard S. Chang, chief of the division of epilepsy and clinical neurophysiology.

Chang told Devlin that her history and medical records seemed consistent with temporal lobe epilepsy. More than three million Americans are believed to have epilepsy, a chronic neurological disorder. The in-flight event was probably a grand mal seizure  the dramatic convulsions that are popularly associated with epilepsy. Devlins inability to speak or move at other times signified partial or focal seizures.

Seizures are the result of abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Epilepsy can be caused by a head injury, illness or abnormal development; in many cases, Devlins included, the cause is unknown. It is common for people with epilepsy to experience strange emotions or sensations. Those with temporal lobe epilepsy may experience auras, which can cause a feeling of foreboding, an odd smell or taste, or a rolling sensation similar to being on a roller coaster.

Anxiety or depression can occur as a result of seizures or as a side effect of drugs to control them.

There is no cure for epilepsy, but in most cases drugs can control seizures.

The brain disorder has long been the subject of myth and stigma, arising in part from its centuries-old association with being possessed or demonic. Stigma, Chang said, has contributed to delayed diagnosis. Epilepsy is sometimes misdiagnosed as a psychiatric illness, including schizophrenia.

We see kids who are diagnosed with [attention-deficit disorder] because they have staring episodes  a behavior commonly seen in absence seizures.

Delayed diagnosis is not uncommon, Chang said, but a delay of 50 years is.

Its easy now in retrospect to make the diagnosis in Devlins case, he added, but other disorders must be ruled out.

We were convinced enough to start her on medication immediately, Chang said. Devlin then underwent an MRI to rule out a brain tumor and an EEG, which records electrical activity in the brain. Both tests were normal; a normal EEG in someone with epilepsy is not unusual, neurologists say.

Devlins rapid and dramatic reaction to the epilepsy drug clinched the diagnosis.

I was awed, said Devlin, who felt transformed within days of starting it.

She no longer bit her lip or the inside of her cheek while she slept. She didnt wake up with aching muscles. The sense of detachment vanished, along with the buzzing. She felt calm. The only side effect was sleepiness, to which she has adjusted.

I literally wept with relief at finally having a diagnosis, an intelligent physician, and a drug to manage my symptoms, she said.

In addition to stigma and denial, Devlin believes that her diagnosis might have been delayed by the time at which her seizures often occurred: during sleep.

The failure to consider epilepsy was particularly striking, given Devlins family history.

One of her sisters was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy at age 20. And an aunt experienced staring spells, although she was never given a diagnosis. (Genetics is believed to play a role in the development of some forms of the disorder.)

Devlin said that the diagnosis triggered a wholesale reevaluation of her life.

Its overwhelming, she said, adding I wonder how my life would have been different had she not spent decades convinced that she was just anxious  and seriously flawed.
A month after four of their ex-bosses were sentenced to federal prison, two former business lenders at what was the largest bank based in the Philadelphia area learned their own prison terms Thursday.

Brian Bailey, head of commercial lending for the banks flagship Delaware market, was sentenced to two and a half years and fined $15,000 by federal Judge Richard G. Andrews in Wilmington, WHYY reports. And former lender Peter Hayes was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

Bailey was sentenced five years after he pleaded guilty for his role in obscuring bad loans for failed development projects near the Delaware Shore, and helping his bosses fool shareholders and the federal government into refinancing the bank during the 2008-09 financial crisis, without letting them know how broke the bank really was.

Hayes was sentenced for accepting a bribe from homebuilder Steve Anderson to purchase a couple of homes, in a bid to shore up sales and prices as buyers fled the market.

A series of federal trials in Wilmington and Philadelphia exposed a loose credit and management culture at Wilmington Trust before its financial collapse 10 years ago. The bank, founded to manage assets and transactions for the dominant Pierre S. du Pont faction of the states gunpowder and chemical family in 1902, later expanded its tax-shelter business with offices from London to Las Vegas, while beefing up its branch, mortgage, and business lending operations in the Philadelphia area and the Delmarva peninsula.

After the bank acknowledged massive loan losses in 2009 and 2010, regulators forced its sale to M&T Bank Corp., at a big loss to shareholders and retirees dependent on Wilmington Trust stock. The new owner cut 700 staff. M&T and its insurers later paid $40 million to the government and $210 million to shareholders to settle civil claims against Wilmington Trust.

Commercial banks much larger than Wilmington Trust -- including the former First Union Corp., Washington Mutual Corp., and National City Corp., plus investment banks including Bear Stearns & Co. and Lehman Bros. -- were forced out of business in the late 2000s by piles of bad home loans and loan-backed securities. But prosecutors and federal bank regulators say the Delaware-based bank was one of only a few where executives committed felony crimes by lying to investors and regulators about the banks true condition.

One more former senior commercial lender at the bank, Joseph Terranova, who pleaded guilty to fraud in 2013, will be sentenced next week, according to WHYY. He had previously helped the government as an informant against his colleagues: Terranova wore a wire to record conversations with Bailey at canasta games, the Wilmington News Journal reported during his bosses' trial.

Bailey and another Delaware banker, James Ladio, had also pleaded guilty to making unauthorized personal loans to one another when Ladio was president of Mid-Coast Community Bank,. Ladio in 2013 was sentenced to two years in prison. Disclosure of his role was followed by the cancellation of his banks planned sale to Bryn Mawr Trust Corp.

In 2013, a Main Line-based Wilmington Trust lender, Kevin McAllister, pleaded guilty in federal court in Philadelphia to accepting bribes in exchange for taking kickbacks from a mortgage broker. Two developers were also indicted for their role in frauds against the bank; one pleaded guilty, the other died before his case got to court.

Last month, those bank bosses, former Wilmington Trust president Robert V.A. Harra Jr. and ex-chief financial officer David Gibson, were each sentenced to six years and fined $300,000. Also, chief credit officer William North was sentenced to four and a half years, and controller Kevyn Rakowski was sentenced to three years. Harras lawyers immediately announced plans to appeal.

In the late 2000s, bank regulators demanded banks mark to market their bad loans, admitting when they had lost value, even if they suspected the loss would be temporary.

Fearing exposure of all the bad loans would force the bank out of business, and hoping the market would recover, Wilmington Trust leaders gambled on hiding hundreds of millions in bad loans. Real estate values in southern Delaware have since recovered, but prosecutors and regulators say that doesnt mitigate the bankers' crimes.

While a string of former Wilmington Trust leaders are headed to prison, the government hasnt charged their top boss, former Wilmington Trust Corp. chairman and chief executive Ted T. Cecala. U.S. Attorney David Weiss told reporters last year that sometimes prosecutors end up leaving a suspected kingpin uncharged in order to make cases against underlings they believe they are more likely to win.

Cecalas former lawyer, Colm Connolly, best known in Delaware for winning the murder conviction of Saul Ewing law firm branch chief Thomas Capano for killing then-Gov. Tom Carpers scheduling secretary, Anne Marie Fahey, has been named a federal judge by President Donald Trump.
An obscure committee that advises the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which now has a strong Democratic majority, is considering a proposal that medical professionals fear could lead to a surge in malpractice lawsuits in Philadelphia, where juries have a history of awarding hefty verdicts.

The proposal would undo an early 2000s rule that required medical malpractice lawsuits to be filed in the county where the alleged injury occurred.

The existing rule was part of a package of changes in 2002 and 2003  including a requirement that plaintiffs obtain a certificate of merit for their injury  credited with a steep decline in the number of medical malpractice lawsuits and large jury verdicts statewide, but particularly in Philadelphia. The changes also helped stabilize the states medical malpractice insurance market.

If you go back to the way it was, you will see more cases brought in Philadelphia and you will probably see more cases brought in total and the value of those cases will go up," Samuel R. Marshall, chief executive of the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, said Thursday. "That will make malpractice insurance more expensive, not just for the OB/GYN in Montgomery County. Its going to raise rates across the board.

From 2000 through 2003, an average of 1,204 medical malpractice claims were filed in Philadelphia against hospitals, doctors, and nursing homes. Lawyers filed an annual average of 416 claims in the city in the ten years ended in 2017, state data show. The number of jury verdicts in the city worth at least $1 million fell to 13 from 2015 to 2017, compared to 73 from 2000 through July 2003.

The average Pennsylvania based OB/GYN paid upwards of $130,000 for malpractice coverage in 2003, a time when physicians were in a state of crisis over affordability and availability of medical malpractice insurance, whereas today the average is closer to $50,000, said Nick Gaudiosi, an independent consultant to the health-care industry and former medical professional liability executive.

The proposed rule change would allow victims to file lawsuits in any county where the defendant does business. That means, for example, that the University of Pennsylvania Health System could be sued in Philadelphia for an incident at Lancaster General Hospital, which Penn acquired in 2015.

But a Philadelphia plaintiffs attorney said health-care providers, insurers, and defense attorneys are overstating the likely impact. The rule change would simply return the state to the norm that exists for other types of personal injury and as it always was in the common law of early England and the early law of this country, said Martin S. Kardon, of Kanter, Bernstein & Kardon P.C.

With the certificate of merit requirements still in place, health-care providers neednt fear baseless or frivolous cases and should focus their attentions on providing care consistent with the standards set by their profession and specialties. That will protect them from facing litigation for causing avoidable harm to their patients, Kardon said.

Court officials did not say Thursday who proposed the rule change or what specific factors the 15-member Civil Procedural Rules Committee would use to evaluate the rule, which was published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on Dec. 22, but only started getting attention last week.

Such proposals can come from members of the rules committee, justices, or the public, including attorneys. The amount of analysis depends on the nature of the proposed rule and the issues it raises," court spokesperson Stacey Witalec said.

Committee chairman David L. Kwass, of Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesky P.C. in Philadelphia, said he could not comment. The law firm describes itself as one of the leading Philadelphia-based medical malpractice law firms that has successfully handled hundreds of malpractice cases on its website.

The public comment period runs through Feb. 22. It is not clear when the committee would make a decision or if the Supreme Court justices would accept the proposal.

Gaudiosi, the consultant and former medical malpractice insurance executive, said similar efforts are happening in other states where sweeping medical liability reforms were passed. Generally, the plaintiffs bar never lets up on trying to overturn the reforms, but their success or failure depends on the political landscape, he said.
Under Trump appointee Mick Mulvaney, the nations federal consumer protection agency has backed off its regulatory role. In its place have stepped some state attorneys general, including Pennsylvanias Josh Shapiro.

His lawsuit against Navient is one of about a half dozen around the country against the student-loan servicer. So why is he picking up the mantle of the defanged Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

Because the state is ground zero for student-loan debt,

First, some context: In December, Shapiro notched what his office called a big win in the AGs lawsuit against Navient, one of the nations biggest loan servicers, with offices in Wilkes-Barre and Delaware. U.S. District Judge Robert Mariani dismissed Navients motion to dismiss the case, in particular one argument that states cant bring claims when there is already a pending lawsuit by a federal agency. Notably, Navient also faces similar suits from Illinois, Washington, California, Mississippi, and the CFPB itself, filed in the last days before President Donald Trump took office.

Shapiros lawsuit alleges that Navient offered predatory loans to college students with poor credit. These students attended colleges with a low graduation rate. Ultimately, many borrowers were not able to repay their loans, or were steered away from better repayment plans, the suit says. Navient allegedly pushed borrowers into short-term repayments instead of helping them enroll in plans that cap payments relative to income, as Congress has mandated to help prevent graduates from defaulting.

The judge ruled in December that Pennsylvanias case against Navient could move forward. In his 70-page opinion, Mariani called Navients arguments creative, [but] they do not convince the Court that state enforcement actions cant be filed alongside a federal suit.

So why focus on the suit and what happens now?

We have the second-highest debt burden in Pennsylvania in the nation, at about $36,000 per student, Shapiro said in an interview.

That limits students and their families, and the choices they make," he said. "Young people come up to me and say, I want to be doing x, but I have these loans, so I have to do y. That limits our economy as a commonwealth. It holds us back from someone innovating and taking risk.

Second, layer on top of that lenders who are unscrupulous, scamming loan-holders, and the federal government under Trump and [Department of Education secretary Betsy] DeVos rolling back protections for students and their families  youve created an environment thats anticompetitive and tilted against students and their families.

Navient Corp., one of the biggest servicers of U.S. student loans, is sharing student-loan information, known as discovery, with Shapiros office. Navient is the nations third-largest loan servicer, serving about 22 percent of federal and private loans. PHEAA and Nelnet-Great Lakes are the two largest.

What are the AG lawsuits main claims against Navient?

They were doing two things: One, as relates to for-profit colleges, they were entering into these loans that were basically payday loans designed to curry favor with for-profit institutions," Shapiro said. They charged students more than needed. They wanted to become the preferred lender for the for-profit colleges.

Second, when students fell behind, if they fell ill, or they lost a job, and called up Navient to say, Under federal guidelines, Im entitled to some relief. I can make a payment based on my income. Instead they were being steered into forbearance, and essentially told, dont make a payment right now. Come back when youre ready.' "

The effect of that? It added a total of $4 billion worth of additional debt statewide on these students who otherwise would have qualified for lower repayments. They were never told about that or were steered elsewhere, Shapiro contends.

Because Navient has a major facility in Wilkes-Barre, Shapiro says hes arguing the case on behalf of Pennsylvania students as well as anyone whose loan is serviced there, including anyone across the country.

Navient calls the AGs filing false and a copycat suit of the CFPB case filed in late 2016, and laid out a point-by-point rebuttal at Navient.com, and in other statements and legal filings.

Navients own discovery efforts have been largely focused on finding out what evidence the CFPB has to support the allegations that have been made against Navient, which have caused significant reputational and economic damage to the company, its shareholders, and its employees," Navient said in a statement.

Navient says it is a leader in enrolling eligible borrowers into income-driven repayment (IDR) programs, and also has no incentive to put borrowers into forbearance  time off from paying  because it gets paid less for that than for standard repayment plans.

The current rules are stacked against income-driven repayment, according to Navient, since many borrowers are required to pay in full before entering into such an arrangement; others make too much money. Graduates who miss payments must pay the total past-due balance. Second, borrowers may need forbearance to enroll in IDR to get payment relief during the time it takes to complete the government-mandated application without becoming further past due, Navient said last June.

As recently as Jan. 17, Navient filed a motion in the CFPB case, arguing that claims of Navient improperly steering students fail because the calls with the identified borrowers demonstrate that Navients practice was to inform borrowers  over the phone. In fact, it is undisputed that all but one of the deposed borrowers discussed IDR with Navient representatives. Yet some still chose not to apply.

Navient also pointed to testimony from Jason Delisle of the American Enterprise Institute, who said in 2018 that "the way the program is set up, the best option for borrowers is forbearance because it doesnt require any paperwork and it immediately cures the loan, and doesnt require the borrower to do anything.  Here we have all the advocacy groups and the press out there saying, These terrible servicers!' But meanwhile, theres no criticism of the design of these policies and the policymakers making them.

Critics contend that Shapiro embraced the student-loan crisis as a political issue on which to run for higher office. Charlie Gerow, a Harrisburg-based Republican strategist, said Shapiro is taking a playbook handed to him by the national Democrats.

Shapiro said he first became interested in college affordability when he was representing Montgomery County as commissioner years ago.

When I was county commissioner, I passed a dedicated [property] tax for our Montgomery County Community College to bring down tuition costs," he said. "Community colleges are critically important, because usually 90 percent of graduates stay in the state and 70 percent stay in the county. They have a massive economic impact.

Before state cuts, the college received roughly one-third of its funds from the county, state, and tuition. By the time Shapiro became commissioner, that ratio was 20 percent county, 20 percent state, and 60 percent tuition, he said.

It was upsetting. The state was ratcheting back. We needed to get the Montco share back up, so the entire tax went to the college.

In addition, once he became AG, Shapiro created his own consumer financial protection unit, hiring a top executive from the CFPB, Nicholas Smyth, to run the unit. Its focus is for-profit colleges such as Brightwood, which shuttered suddenly and without warning in late 2018.

Weve opened up an investigation, and weve received complaints from Brightwood students in Pennsylvania, where roughly 1,500 students attended, Shapiro said. Roughly 35 students have filed complaints.

Student borrowers who believe they have been subject to unfair or deceptive practices can file a complaint with the Office of Attorney General at www.attorneygeneral.gov. They can also call 800-441-2555 or email scams@attorneygeneral.gov.

Also, students should contact the Pennsylvania Department of Education if they have a federal loan for a school thats closed, said Joe Grace, Shapiros spokesperson. The website is: www.education.pa.gov.

Meanwhile, Navient is facing similar lawsuits brought by the attorneys general of Illinois, Washington, California, and Mississippi.

What might a settlement look like? In 2016, Navient was prepared to pay $1 billion to settle a three-year investigation by the CFPB over claims that the company misled borrowers and made other mistakes servicing federal loans, according to the New York Times. But the settlement broke down after Trump was elected president in late 2016 and the agency signaled it would loosen the industrys regulations, the New York Times reported.

Shapiro wouldnt be drawn in on any potential settlement details.

In a typical consumer case, we might enter into an agreement with a financial penalty," he said. We agree the company owes money and takes steps to change corporate behavior. The company might also say, OK, were prepared to settle, we want all the other states to be a part of it too. Thats how this could happen. It could also happen through the courts. A judge metes out a ruling saying, You owe X and stop doing A, B, and C,'  Shapiro said.

Another model might be the nationwide settlement just agreed to with the for-profit Career Education Corp. CEC wiped out $493.7 million in debts owed by 179,529 students nationally in a settlement with 49 attorneys general in January. Shapiros office said the settlement meant 12,600 Pennsylvania students who attended schools affiliated with CEC will have $38.6 million in student-loan debts relieved.

CEC operated three now-closed schools in Pennsylvania  one each in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Wilkins, just outside Pittsburgh. The schools operated under the name Sanford-Brown College.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania student debt continues to grow: According to data compiled by LendEDU, average debt per student rose from $35,185 in 2017 to $36,193 in 2018. And roughly two-thirds of Pennsylvania graduates leave school with college debt.
John C. Bogle, who died at 89 on Wednesday, was a great man. After 30 years as a newsman, I dont say great much. A master salesman, a smart persuader, a family man, Jack built an organization that became dominant in a tough industry, and a big Pennsylvania employer. He persuaded millions of successful Americans and their bosses to trust his Vanguard Group with their old-age savings. His low fees saved customers piles of cash.

His frank, disarming, cheerful style made people who saw him, at live events and on financial TV, and who read his 12 books, articles, and testimony, believe that they could understand money and time. Jacks message worked at both levels, with finance students such as his admirer Warren Buffett and with the literate public, ever anxious about the future.

His long marriage and large family and the way he worked at mending filial relationships were all admirable. So were the scholarships he gave young applicants to the elite schools that had aided him -- Blair Academy and Princeton University. His eagerness to listen to critics and to research their criticism -- so he could refute it, or concede a point -- would please his old teachers.

Financial products are sold, not bought, as another marketeer who built another dominant Delaware Valley company, the late Charles M. Cawley of MBNA, liked to repeat. Jack had endless energy for talking, to individual investors and retirement-plan honchos, and to journalists. He charmed and praised in part because he was frank and blunt. He also had an eye for sharp, memorable phrases, and answered queries fast, making useful friends.

He liked retelling the boardroom-rebel story of his creation of Vanguard in the wreckage of the 1970s bear market, and naming Wall Street villains he said enriched themselves at client expense. All this won Vanguard decades of glowing media coverage that persisted long after his retirement when Vanguard was no longer the upstart underdog.

That is among the many remarkable parts of his career: Jack was Vanguard in the flesh -- the avuncular face of the firm that grew as its rivals shrank after the last financial crash -- long after he was medically discharged from boss duty, longer than he ran the place, and for years after he had to take mandatory retirement from the board, as I noted in my review of his final book last month.

Im not sure what they will do without him. Maybe generate his hologram?

I have written about Vanguard about as long as anyone. I worked there as a teenaged temp when it was a few years old and mostly employed recent college-grad women, answering phones. It wasnt always a happy place -- Jack batted down a union organizing effort, and threatened legal action against Dan Wiener and his Independent Adviser newsletter when Dan calculated Jacks pay from report fragments (no longer possible with Vanguards limited public reports). But the old Vanguard Crew" tend to remember him as an inspiring, loyal boss, and recall the camaraderie of those years as the good old days.

Jack resurrected Temple University founder Rev. Russell Conwells old Acres of Diamonds speech, a favorite of insurance salesmen a century ago: He saw opportunity everywhere, especially in America, the greatest country in the world, for a person willing to watch, work, plan, and persist. Sounds simple. Of course he was born with a strong, smart, loving mother, and prep-social-class connections, as were the fellow Ivy Leaguers he recruited for top jobs, who now run the company, way off Wall Street in the leafy Great Valley.

If he was bullish on America, Jacks message to savers is, in its cheerful wrapping, pessimistic: You cant beat the market. Those pros cant, either. The best you can do is capture broad market gains, while minimizing your fees. As rivals cut their fees to match, Jack said Vanguard should cut its fees more than it did, and never raise them, as it sometimes does, a bit.

When I asked about Vanguards chief, Mortimer Tim Buckley, who cites his long-ago stint as the founders assistant, Jack was a bit dismissive of the question: He had built the company. Todays gang inherited his thriving operation. Jacks successors are less accessible, more self-protective, and even more on-message. Maybe its a function of scale or a sign of the times: Vanguard staff now writes loads of direct publicity. But Jack felt it was useful to personally test yourself, against sharp and blunt challenges, answer critics, and explain patiently.

His praise of Vanguards fund-ownership structure has been so generally absorbed that I still hear from financial writers (and savers), who are surprised to learn it is, after all, a private, for-profit, insider-controlled company that does not disclose boss pay, marketing costs, or other basic information.

When I wrote stories that Vanguard might not see as favorable, I would call him to review where the facts were taking me and ask what I was missing. He would call back, sometimes from routine heart-doctor visits, sometimes from the Bogle summer compound in the Adirondack High Peaks, and talk off the record, because hed agreed not to second-guess his successors publicly. We went round about Vanguards ex-tax expert, David Danon, who accused the company of using its unique structure to underpay U.S. and state taxes. Jack at last said Danon might or might not be right on the law, but he was disappointed that anyone who had worked at his company, which he felt had done good for customers, would not loyally defend its interests.

Once, when a Vanguard principal denied something that Jack felt my column made clear was true, he called, laughing, to congratulate me. It was the best thing to happen to that person, and a good thing for Vanguard, he said, to know that outsiders were paying attention.

I had hoped Jack would last at least as long as his old boss, Walter Morgan, who in his late 90s still went into the office a couple of times a week and told priceless cautionary tales from the 1920s. It may be a medical miracle that Jack with his weak heart was with us as long he was or less miraculous, given his relentless cheerful spirit. It was a full life, a good and generous one. Bless Jack and all the Bogles.
It is not often a gallerys walls are painted a specific color to flatter the art. Its certainly not common to paint a gallerys white walls black.

But thats what UArts Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery has done for Mark Thomas Gibson, a recent transplant to Philadelphia from New Haven, Conn., for the exhibition The Dangerous One." And its precisely what Gibsons sprawling, frenetic, black ink drawings called for.

His drawings have such visual intensity that the images dont just pop" against their unusual backdrop. They explode.

Gibsons dystopian reenactments of American history seem to have been created in a feverish bout of energy. A deranged George Washington crosses the Delaware surrounded by a drunken, vomiting crew of lowlifes. Hungry Pilgrims boil and devour Native Americans. A Trump rally of smiling, wide-eyed supporters has a mysterious black hole at the front of the auditorium.

Several contemporary satirical artists are freely quoted in Gibsons works, most obviously Raymond Pettibon, Robert Colescott, and Kara Walker. It struck me later that hes also referencing William Hogarths A Rakes Progress and Francisco Goyas The Disasters of War.

Gibsons pastiches are thoroughly his own, though, powered by dark humor and high-octane drawing.

Through March 8 at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts, 333 S. Broad St., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. 215-717-6480 or uarts.edu/about/rosenwald-wolf-gallery.

Diane Burko on North Broad Street

Since 2006, Diane Burko has been documenting climate change in her paintings and photographs, traveling to such far-flung destinations as Antarctica, Greenland, Norway, and American Samoa. In the process, shes met with scientists and become an eco-activist as well as an artist.

A selection of her recent paintings, photographs, and prints are now on display in Repairing Our Earth (Tikkun Olam) at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, located within North Broad Streets historic Rodeph Shalom.

The shows largest and earliest paintings, from 2009, are based on aerial photographs at Glacier National Park that show the shocking diminishment of the Grinnell Glacier over time. The paintings are beautifully rendered in postcard colors  part of Burkos strategy to get people focused on what theyre losing.

Burkos paintings of Pacific coral reefs, made in the last year, reveal a similar degradation. They also mark a new, looser way of painting for her. Minus their titles, theyd pass for abstractions.

Her photographs are telling and direct. On the Way to Eqi shows a group of seagulls atop a melting iceberg off the coast of Greenland. Its a haunting image that makes you think, That could be us.

Through April 30 at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, Congregation Rodeph Shalom, 615 N. Broad St., 267-930-7292 or rodephshalom.org. By appointment only.

Philly neighborhoods, infused with light

Larry Francis studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1970s and is an instructor there. But his unpretentious paintings of everyday street scenes in Philadelphia suggest he has the soul of a self-taught artist.

The City in a New Light, at Gross McCleaf Gallery, showcases recent paintings from sites in Center City, Old City, Roxborough, and other locales  collectively infused with an optimistic light.

Through Jan. 26 at Gross McCleaf Gallery, 127 S. 16th St., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. 215-665-8138 or grossmccleaf.com.
Boss stepping down from Pirate football Perryville football will have a new boss on the sideline this fall.Thats because the current one is moving on.Blane Boss, the Pirate football coach for the previous four seasons, 

Piranha boys win opening meet of the year, girls finish third The Perryville Piranhas kicked their first meet off with a bang Saturday.The boys earned first overall with 254 team points finishing ahead of the Ste. Genevieve Stingrays who finished with 214 
FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2018 file photo, Michael Cohen, former lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves his apartment building in New York. A report by BuzzFeed News, citing two unnamed law enforcement officials, says that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress and that Cohen regularly briefed Trump on the project. The Associated Press has not independently confirmed the report. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
Zach Poitras is shown in this undated handout photo from Facebook. An aspiring Montreal comedian has been told he cannot take part in shows at a university bar because his dreadlocks are a form of cultural appropriation. The Coop les Recoltes, a bar and solidarity co-operative at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, confirmed on Facebook its decision to exclude Zach Poitras, who is white, because of his hairstyle. Poitras, denied a spot at the Snowflake Comedy Club and another evening of "engaged humour," declined comment on the situation. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Facebook, Zach Poitras
Iowa businessman Anthony Marlowe, CEO of Marlowe Companies Inc., the parent company of the Sydney Call Centre Inc. speaks during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the call centre in Sydney, N.S. on Friday, January 18, 2019 in this handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Sydney Call Centre Inc. *MANDATORY CREDIT*
Dancehall artiste Shatta Wales baby mama, Michy is still hiding with the important documents and Range Rover she allegedly took away with her son, Majesty.



Ghanapage recently published that Shatta Michy has allegedly looted some documents and a Range Rover from Shatta Wales and has run away with them including their son, Majesty.



The story was disclosed by a Ghanaian popular celebrity Instagram page, @thosecalledcelebs which has even lead the page to receive some band and lashes from some Ghanaians.



Well, Shatta Wale just yesterday 16th Jan. 2017 sent a message to Michy to come back claiming that he stills loves her because of their son, Majesty.



He added that hell be available to provide all of their needs.



However, Michy on today has shared a video on her Instagram with a message from their hide-out.



She wrote: Silence is golden unless you have kids then silence is suspicious







Source: ghpage.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) says Assin Central MP Kennedy Agyapong, should not be used as a 'scapegoat' in the murder of Ahmed Hussein-Suale, an undercover journalist working with Anas Aremeyaw Anas because the real culprit might be out there.



In a statement, they has called for the speedy apprehension and prosecution of the perpetrators and urged Ghanaians to stop pointing fingers at Kennedy Agyapong as the prime suspect.



Read full statement below



NDC CONDEMNS BRUTAL MURDER OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, AHMED HUSSEIN-SUALE AND CALLS FOR SPEEDY INVESTIGATIONS INTO INCIDENT.



The National Democratic Congress (NDC) condemns, the brutal murder of Ahmed Hussein-Suale, a member of the Tiger Eye PI, an investigative outfit headed by Ace investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas. The NDC wishes to commiserate with the family and loved ones of Ahmed and all his associates at Tiger Eye PI.



We pray that Allah comforts you in this difficult time and grant his soul eternal rest. This heinous crime has shaken the media fraternity in Ghana to the core and has the potential to reverse the gains we have made in the promotion of press freedom.



This incident also portends great danger for the already-wobbly fight against corruption and reduces Ghana's standing in the comity of nations as a shining light of democracy and free speech.



The NDC adds its voice to the many calls by well-meaning Ghanaians on our security agencies to ensure the speedy apprehension and prosecution of the perpetrators of this cowardly act. We decry the recent spate of violent crimes resulting in the brutal murder of five innocent Ghanaians within the last one month.



The current situation evokes a sort of lawlessness that demonstrates failure on the part of the Akufo-Addo government to live up to its most fundamental responsibility - guaranteeing the safety and security of Ghanaians.



There is no doubt, in the wake of the recent gruesome killings that we are in an era of contract killings reminiscent of the final years of the previous NPP Administration.



The impunity and nonchalance with which these murders have been carried out point to an emboldening of the criminals behind them, which stems directly from the unacceptably weak response from government and security agencies.



We have also noted public outcry and demand for the arrest of Kennedy Agyapong, MP for Assin Central.



While taking a serious view of his outrageous call for the assault of the late journalist and agreeing in principle with his questioning for possible involvement in this crime, we caution against the mere scapegoating of Mr Agyapong as a ruse to cover up a potentially more sinister plot behind this killing.



Given the huge embarrassment the Number 12 video brought to persons at the highest levels of government, especially the exposure of a bribe collection syndicate at the Presidency helmed by President Akufo-Addo himself, we expect that any investigation into the killing of Ahmed Suale would be all-encompassing.



We expect that no one, irrespective of their exalted position, would be deemed untouchable in the investigations. The rapid descent of our country into lawlessness and insecurity, characterised by these assassinations and gangster-style executions, speaks to the weak leadership of President Akufo-Addo. Beyond flowery rhetoric, he is clearly unable to get a handle on the key issues affecting the people, not least among them security.



The current fragile and tenuous security situation prevailing in the country is a further demonstration of the cluelessness that has defined his Presidency.



It is sad and disappointing that a government which has in our recent history appointed the highest number of ministers in the area of security, will superintend over the alarming and growing levels of insecurity we are witnessing in the country today.



We call on President Akufo-Addo to put an end to his passive and aloof style of governance and adopt a more hands-on, problem-solving approach especially in the face of the upsurge in violent crimes and unexplained killings.



We demand an immediate plan from the Akufo-Addo government which sets out a clear and comprehensive strategy aimed at protecting Ghanaians and halting these violent killings. The lives of innocent Ghanaians are at stake and the President must act now.



SGD.



JOHNSON ASIEDU NKETIA (GENERAL SECRETARY)



NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS - NDC

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been cowed into choosing a new date for its intended internal elections to choose a flagbearer for the party ahead of the 2020 presidential election.



The decision forms part of an out of court settlement agreed upon by the party and two members who secured an injunction against the exercise.



The party had initially set January 26, 2019, for the primaries to elect a potential presidential candidate to compete in the next elections as the party aims at wresting power from the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).



But an injunction secured by two members of the party, who challenged the guidelines for the elections as well as other decisions they deem unconstitutional, means the partys initial plans had to be altered.



Kabu Nartey and Abdallah Issah filed the application challenging the rules and guidelines set for the presidential election scheduled for January 26, 2019.



The duo, in the suit, explained that the guidelines set by the party violate the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.



They also challenged the introduction of certain eligibility criteria as conditions precedent for presidential candidates.



The party and the two aggrieved members have agreed to settle the matter out of court and the court which granted the injunction subsequently struck out the suit.



Per the settlement, both the party and the plaintiffs have agreed that a new date for the primaries shall be fixed in accordance with the partys constitution.



The settlement addressed issues with the guidelines as challenged by the plaintiffs. The parties agreed that the requirement that a member of the NDC aspiring to be a presidential candidate of the party must be a paid up member for 10 years shall no longer apply.



Killer Fees



The settlement between the party and the members also includes pegging the filing fee for the aspirants at GH300,000.



According to the settlement, the filing constitutes a contribution towards the cost of conducting the presidential primaries.



The partys initial exorbitant filing fee was a bone of contention.



National Executives of the NDC, in December last year, set GH400,000 and GH20,000 as filing and nomination fees respectively for the presidential aspirants.



Eight out of the initial 13 aspirants, who were unhappy with the exorbitant fees, petitioned the partys Council of Elders for a downward review of the fees.



The amount was subsequently slashed to GH300,000 after the intervention of former President Jerry John Rawlings, who is the Chairman of the Council of Elders and founder of the NDC.



Notwithstanding the injunction, seven aspirants filed their nomination before the deadline.



They included Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumani Bagbin; former Vice Chancellor of University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Joshua Alabi; ex-President John Mahama; ex-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Sylvester Mensah; businessman Nurideen Iddrisu; former Minister of Trade and Industry, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah and a cadre, Goosie Tanoh.



John Mahama, Alban Bagbin, Joshua Alabi, Sly Mensah, all filed their nomination on Monday, December 17, 2018, while Messrs Iddrisu, Spio-Garbrah and Tanoh submitted their nomination forms on Tuesday, December 18, to generate GH2.24 million for a party which claims to be broke after just two years of losing power to the NPP.

Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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An estimated 100,000 metric tonnes of fish with a landed value of US$34 to 65 million were traded illegally through saiko in 2017, a recent study by EJF and Hen Mpoano has revealed.



It said industrial trawlers reported just 67,000 metric tonnes of official catches to the Fisheries Commission in 2017, an indication that illegal activities by foreign vessels was still rife on Ghanas marine waters.



According to another report published by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) and Hen Mpoano under the European Union (EU) funded Far Dwuma Nk?do project on Thursday, said vessels continue to engage in the damaging practice of saiko which has a particularly destructive impact on the nations small pelagic fisheries.



The sector in Ghana is facing unprecedented challenges, as fish stocks plunge to its lowest recorded levels due to lack of transparency and accountability to clamp down on illegal fishing vessels.



The report, titled Securing Equitable and Sustainable Fisheries discussed the main gaps in transparency in the fisheries sector and proposed recommendations to address the shortfalls in the context of the ongoing revision of Ghanas fisheries law framework.



It said the lack of transparency allowed illegal operators to disguise the identity, ownership and history of fishing vessels, avoid detection and sanctions which ultimately made illegal fishing and vast over-capacity in the fishing fleet rife and continued to decimate fish stocks.



It said fines for illegal fishing were often negotiated through opaque out-of-court settlements to a fraction of the US$1 million minimum set out in the law whereas fishing licence fees in Ghana were substantially lower than in other West African countries.



As a result, lack of transparency allowed illegal operators to disguise the identity, ownership and history of fishing vessels, avoid detection and sanctions which ultimately made illegal fishing and vast over-capacity in the fishing fleet rife and continues to decimate fish stocks.



Transparency in Ghanas fishing industry is vital to thousands of peoples livelihoods, and the food security of the entire nation. It is a low-cost, highly effective means to tackle illegal fishing, improve accountability and support meaningful participation in decision-making the report said.



Access to credible information is essential for informed participation in fisheries management. Together, transparency and participation increase accountability of government institutions and support the fight against corruption, it said.



The report said incomes of small-scale fishers have dropped by as much as 40 per cent in the last 10 to15 years, and Ghana was forced to import more than half of fish consumed.



It said transparency is the most effective means to tackle these issues and that the on-going revision of the 2002 Fisheries Act provided a unique opportunity to provide much-needed accountability in the fisheries sector.



To bring about meaningful change, it recommended that the government allowed for external scrutiny of progress towards achieving targets for sustainable fisheries management and invest the revenue from licence fees and fines in the sustainable development of the sector and publish the details.



It said there is the need for government to identify the true beneficiaries and perpetrators of large-scale and organised illegal fishing, hold them publicly accountable for their actions and make vessel monitoring data publicly available.



The report concluded that revenue reporting and audits has greatly increased revenue from the oil, gas and mining sectors and recommended that the fisheries sector follow suit.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the deadly terrorist attack on a hotel and office complex in Nairobi.



In a condolence message issued in Abuja, Nigeria's capital on Wednesday, the Nigerian leader commiserated with the government and people of Kenya, describing the attack as wicked, cruel and dastardly by evil people.



Buhari assured Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta that the thoughts of the people of Nigeria are with Kenyans at this moment of their national grief.



He called on well-meaning members of the international community to rally round Kenyans to overcome the scourge of terrorism "because any terrorist attack on one country is an attack on all countries."



The number of people killed when terrorists struck an upscale hotel and business complex in Nairobi on Tuesday has risen to 21, the police said on Wednesday night.



The Somalia-based terrorist group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the attack.



The group has been targeting Kenya-Somalia border areas and killing innocent citizens since Kenyan soldiers entered Somalia in 2011 to secure the two countries' shared border.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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.             ,             ,  ..     .    .    ,     ,        ,        ...
ABC/Randy HolmesDeath Cab for Cutie has announced a summer North American tour in support of the band's new album, Thank You for Today.

The trek begins June 7 in Pittsburgh, and will wrap up August 11 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Tickets go on sale to the general public next Friday, January 25 at 10 a.m. local time. Visit DeathCabforCutie.com for all ticket info.

Prior to the summer dates, Death Cab will launch a spring U.S. tour on March 29 in Las Vegas.

Here are Death Cab for Cutie's summer tour dates:

6/7 -- Pittsburgh, PA, Stage AE

6/8 -- Nelsonville, OH, Nelsonville Music Festival

6/11 -- Portland, ME, Thompson's Point

6/12 -- South Burlington, VT, The Green at Shelburne

6/14 -- New Haven, CT, College Street Music Hall

6/15 -- Queens, NY, Forest Hills Stadium

6/18 -- Detroit, MI, Masonic Temple Theatre

6/20 -- Toronto, ON, TD Echo Beach

6/21 -- Cooperstown, NY, Brewery Ommegang

6/22 -- Dover, DE, Firefly Music Festival

6/25 -- Morrison, CO, Red Rocks Amphitheatre

7/7 -- Louisville, KY, Iroquois Amphitheater

7/8 -- St. Louis, MO, Stifel Theatre

7/9 -- Mankato, MN, Vetter Stone Amphitheater

7/13 -- Edmonton, AB, Edmonton EXPO Centre

8/11 -- Los Angeles, CA, Hollywood Bowl

Copyright  2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Zimbabwe has shut down the internet indefinitely amid an intensifying crackdown on protests against a hike in fuel prices.



The country's largest mobile operator - Econet - says it has been ordered to cut services until further notice.



Access to Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter has been intermittently blocked since protests broke out on Monday.



At least three people have been killed and 600 people have been arrested.



The UN has called on the government to halt the "excessive use of force" by security forces including firing live ammunition, and allegations of night-time door-to-door searches and beatings.



"Doctors' associations say more than 60 people were treated in hospital for gunshot wounds, this is not way to react to the expression of economic grievances by the population," Reuters news agency quotes UN human rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani as saying.



The government has blamed the opposition and political rights groups for the protests.



Why has the fuel price increased?



President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the rise was aimed at tackling shortages caused by an increase in fuel use and "rampant" illegal trading.



But move has angered many who feel the president, who is on a tour of Russia and Asian countries this week, is failing to live up to his promises following his election last year in disputed polls.



Riot police have been clashing with protesters in the capital, Harare, and the southern city of Bulawayo after they lit fires and blocked roads using rocks. Some businesses and schools in the two cities have been closed during the protests.





Source: BBC









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Ahmed Hussein-Suale, the investigative journalist with Anas Aremeyaw Anas Tiger Eye PI, who was shot and killed on Wednesday, January 16, 2019, feared he would be assasinated following the publication of his image by the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong.



This, is according to the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ), an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide.



According to CPJ, Ahmed, in September 2018 expressed the fear that powerful figures in Ghana sought to harm him.



The CPJ, in a report on its website released following Hussein-Suales death, said Ahmed told the organisation via WhatsApp that Since my image was published and [the] public was incited against me [...] many people have attempted [to attack me]. These criminals after us are people who are [...] associated with powers that be in Ghana and can do anything and get away with it."



"Indeed, it [has] been hinted in some quarters that the very man who published [my image] said he was doing everything possible to quell [my] existence," the report said.



The CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal who expressed disappointment in the incident called on government to prove itself willing to hold accountable those who attack the press.



"This shooting is a grave signal that journalists cannot work safely to keep the public informed or hold power to account in Ghana," she added.

Source: Graphic.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The founding president of think tank IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, says the gruesome murder of Ahmed Hussein-Suale, a Tiger Eye PI undercover journalist has made him 'afraid'.



Ahmed Hussein, who worked closely with ace investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, was shot by gunmen on a motorbike Wednesday night while in his car driving home.



He was shot three times, twice in the chest and another in the neck. The body has since been conveyed to the Police Hospital Mortuary in Accra.



In reaction to this on his facebook page, Mr Cudjoe wrote: Gravely worried about the brutal murder of one of Anas' investigators. There can be only one cause  the dastardly effusions and contorted logic of those who vow to deal with their fellow human beings for doing their work. Gradually, the reckless commentary by some people in high office has emboldened just any character happy to threaten and even kill independent thinking persons all in an apparent democracy. Be very afraid. I am afraid

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Three suspected robbers, including a policeman, were arrested last Saturday at Okpoi Gonno, near the Spintex Road in Accra while fleeing after robbing their victim who had withdrawn money from the bank.



The suspects  Lance Corporal Nathaniel Akomea, Francis Amoako and Richard Boateng  had robbed their victim of GH5,640 and were getting away in a car.



However, the Director-General of Special Duties of the Ghana Police Service, Commissioner of Police (COP) Rev. David Nenyi Ampah-Bennin, who was in the company of his driver and body guard, pursued and arrested the robbers when he got to the scene of the robbery.



A yet-to-be identified fourth member of the gang is still at large.



Amoako and Boateng claimed to be National Security operatives.



Briefing



Briefing newsmen on the incident, a police source said the Hollywood-style robbery started around the Palace Mall on the Spintex Road and ended near the Coca Cola Roundabout about 1 p.m.



According to the source, three suspects out of the four-member gang were apprehended and handed over to the Okpoi Gonno Police for further investigations.



It said the police commissioner was on his way from the direction of the Palace Mall and going towards Nungua when some occupants of a taxi persistently signalled him to stop.



The source said when the COP stopped, the victim of the robbery, Mr Emmanuel David, told him that the people on board a red Toyota Corolla, with registration number GE 340-18, had robbed him of GH5,640.



The victim indicated that he had withdrawn the money at the Ring Road Central branch of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB).



Chase



Rev. Ampah-Bennin and his assistants on board his official vehicle gave the robbers a hot chase and cornered them at a spot close to the Coca Cola Roundabout, the source said.



It said the robbers were over-powered, handcuffed and taken to the Okpoi Gonno Police Station for further investigations.



It said Rev. Ampah-Bennin and his assistants retrieved one Suer pistol and the stolen amount in full from the robbers.



Their Toyota Corolla is also in the custody of the Okpoi Gonno Police.

Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Zarif Says Pompeo Has No Right To Interfere In Iran-Iraq Ties

01/18/19

Source: Radio Farda

Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who is on an extended tour of Iraq responded to his American counterpart, saying the United States has no right to interfere in bilateral relations between Tehran and Baghdad.

U.S. Secretary of State who was recently touring the Mideast visited Iraq January 9 and told Iraqi leaders Iran's influence must be reduced in the country.



Iraq is the second biggest export market for Iran, which is facing an economic crisis after Washington imposed tough sanctions in 2018, making a number of demands from the Islamic Republic. There are signs that Iran is losing economic ground in Iraq and Zarif's trip is to a large extend meant to prevent further deterioration.



Zarif told reporters in Najaf, Iraq on Thursday that Iran's relations with Iraq are much older than the United States, according to IRNA.

Iran's foreign minister also expressed optimism about the future of political and economic relations with Iraq, saying relations will be "brilliant".



Iraq also purchases a large quantity of Iranian fuel to generate electricity and the U.S. has extended a waiver from sanctions allowing Baghdad to continue imports from Iran.

It is a delicate balancing act for Washington to maintain good relations with Iraq but gradually put pressure on Baghdad for reduction of relations with Iran.



Iran also has extensive relations with a multitude of Iraqi political and militia groups and wields influence among the country's elite.
Iran's Top Exporter Says Impossible To Do Business

01/18/19

Source: Radio Farda

The Chairman of Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce Asadollah Asgaroladi, who is one of the country's top businessmen has stopped exporting from Iran in the past two months due to payment problems.



Iranian businessman Asadollah Asgaroladi.

(File photo)

"After 64 years of export activities, for first time I had to suspend exports," Tasnim quoted Asgaroladi as saying during a meeting with Tehran Chamber of Commerce members on January 15.



He said that foreigners don't recognize a new payment system called the Integrated System for Hard Currency Transactions (NIMA) to pay for merchandise they buy from Iranian companies.



Central Bank of Iran has recently established NIMA, forcing exporters to wire their hard currency earnings through a special network, not much different from the Havala (Hawala) system. It is basically a non-banking system of transferring largely untraceable money through corresponding money-handling outfits.



Once the government collects the proceeds from exports, it makes the hard currency available to importers to purchase foreign goods.



Asgaroladi who is a big player in exporting Iranian non-oil products, mostly to China says NIMA is not a bank, but a currency exchange and foreigners avoid paying through this system.



The latest Iranians customs figures show that Iran's non-oil exports to China plunged in the ninth month of the current fiscal year (November 20-December 21) to a third of monthly export average to $286 million.



Iran had exported $6.462 billion to its second top export target, China during first eight months of the Iranian fiscal year, (March 21-November 20). China is also Iran's biggest supplier, exporting $8.172 billion worth of goods to Iran in nine months of current fiscal year.



Although, China's exports to Iran do not show a significant decline in ninth month, but its overall exports to Islamic Republic declined 12% year-on-year compared to same period in 2017, while Iran's total imports have decreased by 16% to $32.62 billion.



Iran's overall non-oil exports also halved to $1.8 billion in the ninth month, compared to eight-month averages.



Asgaroladi said that the country's exports will soon stop and the spring (beginning of next Iranian fiscal year on March 21) would be a "very difficult" season.



The United States has imposed financial and oil-related sanctions on Iran in August and November 2018, respectively.



The country's oil exports also plunged from 2.5 mb/d before May 2018 to about 1 mb/d by the end of the year.



During last months, many reports and official statements were published on Iranian media, criticizing exporters who have avoided to hand over their hard currencies to NIMA to be used for imports.



Exporters can always make deals to get cash money from buyers and smuggle banknotes into Iran. While this would work in cases of relatively small transactions, it becomes almost impossible when amounts reach millions of dollars.
These days, it's always a toss-up who's more likely to step out in the latest trends: a downtown club kid or your Prius-driving English teacher dad. From track pants and oversized windbreakers, to high-waisted chinos and orthopedic sneaks, to glasses straps, crocs and fedoras, over the course of 2018, the menswear gods became increasingly interested in styling men like they're a few years out from retirement, headed out to mow the lawn. As the New York Times points out, these basic, anonymous pieces have become designers' choice of rebellion against the routine sex appeal, hyper-exposure and brand-centric nature of our Instagram-first fashion culture.

This obsession doesn't show any signs of slowing down in 2019. Last night at their fall 2019 runway show in Paris, Valentino debuted a new collaboration with Birkenstock, offering two versions of the classic Arizona chunky sandals in their signature Valentino red and a logo-splashed black.

Creative Director Pierpaolo Piccioli, who spearheaded the collaboration between the Italian fashion house and legendary German footwear brand, sent men down the runway looking comfy as hell in socks and sandals paired with tailored slacks, graphic-emblazoned pea coats, and trenches.

"I chose to make this collaboration with Birkenstock for the same reason people choose Birkenstock every day. No matter what you wear, who you are, no matter your gender or social background, no matter your age, your style, no matter if you care about fashion or if you do not, Birkenstock has its own universal language" says Piccioli in a press release. "I loved the idea of approaching the DNA of our Maison, represented by the individual and intimate world of Couture with something that it is so free and adaptable. To me, this is the definition of inclusivity."

Given our Dad-fashion and minimalist-chunky shoe manias, it makes sense that Valentino is just the latest giant to jump on a collab with Birkenstock. Rick Owens and Opening Ceremony debuted Birkenstock collabs last year. Opening Ceremony offered glittery clogs and slides while Owens' initial collab included calf-hair covered sandals, which he followed up with a "brutalist" black and white sandal and a Rotterdamn boot. His interest in the brand, he told Hypebae, comes the appeals of comfort, and "living a healthy, natural life. "When I think of Birkenstock, I think of that kind of innocence" he explained.

Opening Ceremony x Birkenstock

Rick Owens x Birkenstock

Before Owens, French retailer Colette dropped a Birkenstock line in the summer of 2017, black sandals splashed with Colette-blue dots. And before Colette, according to The Cut, which recently took a deep dive into the making and recent revival of Birkenstocks, Phoebe Philo of Celine put a mink-lined Arizona "Furkenstock" on the runway in Paris in the Fall of 2012. In the 90's Marc Jacob's recently revived grunge collection for Perry Ellis also featured the Birkenstock.

Colette x Birkenstock

Birkenstock is actually so hot right now, that they can be extremely picky about who they let use their iconic model. We recently learned via The Cut's report, that Birkenstock turned down projects with both Vetements and Supreme because these brands insisted on putting their logos on the sandals. This is an almost comedic power play by the brand, given that Birkenstock x Supreme, like the streetwear giant's work with Vans, Nike, Levi's and North Face, almost certainly would've become a rabid millennial obsession. "There's no benefit for us except prostitution," CEO Oliver Reichert. "Because this is just prostitution."

They must have deemed Valentino's "VLTN" logo acceptable, however, because that it's slapped across the side of the black edition of their new collab. Check out the latest step on Birkenstock's high fashion journey:

Photos via Valentino
Timothee and Frank. Hanging out together with Virgil in Paris, at Louis Vuitton's Menswear Fall/Winter 2019-2020 show. Oui oui.

This perfect front row seating arrangement occurred last night, and made for a perfect photo op. Even better, we might be looking at an emerging friendship. Timothee met Ocean for the first time over the phone in February, when interviewing him for V Man. They talked about movies, their favorite Manhattan haunts, and Raf Simons. Both confessed to being fans of each other  perhaps they continued the conversation and compliments while watching a suited up Sheck Wes strut down the runway.

Related | Virgil Abloh's 'Aggressively Creative' Agenda
Following the release of Ariana Grande's "7 Rings" video this morning, Princess Nokia, aka Destiny Nicole Frasqueri shared a video on her Twitter suggesting that song sounds similar to her 2017 track "Mine." The track was released on Princess Nokia's debut album 1992 Deluxe, and addresses the politics surrounding black and brown women's hair.

"Did that sound familiar to you? 'Cause that sounds really familiar to me" the rapper said in the clip, after playing "7 Rings" and "Mine" side by side. "Oh my god Ain't that the lil' song I made about brown women and their hair? Hm, sounds about white" she continued.



Some online are echoing Princess Nokia's claim, both posting independently and in response her video.



In her video, Frasqueri seems to refer to the song's beat, although some have pointed out that the lyrics and delivery bear similarities as well.

Grande sings on the chorus of "7 Rings": "I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it/ You like my hair? Gee, thanks, just bought it." Meanwhile, the lyrics of Princess Nokia's "Mine" include a repeated bridge line, which refers to her hair: "It's mine, I bought it/ It's mine, I bought it."

Not everyone feels the similarities are an issue, however. Some have pointed out that "7 Rings" has generic elements often recycled in pop and hip-hop.

Others are claiming that the song borrows from Soulja Boy's 2010 "Pretty Boy Swag."

In addition to Soulja Boy and Princess Nokia, Mike WiLL Made-It's "23" featuring Miley Cyrus, Wiz Khalifa and Juicy J, is being brought up in comparison.

While a number of comparisons have been made, many are ambivalent about whether this controversy is a matter of plagiarism or inspiration -- a long-standing debate in pop and hip-hop, especially given the increasing ubiquity of sampling across genre. "7 Rings" itself explicitly samples the Sound of Music soundtrack and Notorious B.I.G.'s "Gimme the Loot."

Grande recently told Billboard, that she's long been interested in pivoting to a hip-hop-style creative process. "My dream has always been to beobviously not a rapper, but, like, to put out music in the way that a rapper does," she said. "I feel like there are certain standards that pop women are held to that men aren't." Check out all the songs in question, below:
Hollyweird, in collaboration with @velvetcoke, takes stock of once-known but obscure or forgotten stories about popular celebrities and cult figures.

Ara Gallant, a famous hairdresser, threw a party at her West End Avenue apartment in the early '70s. She had blacked-out windows and black-patent walls. Among the invited guests were Anjelica Huston, Jack Nicholson, Joni Mitchell and Apollonia van Ravenstein  a popular Dutch model whom Nicholson called "Apples only."

Huston and Nicholson were an item at the time, and Huston was good friends with van Ravenstein, having "often modeled together in London and New York."

At some point during the party, a propos of nothing, van Ravenstein broke out in tears. "[Apollonia] had been crying that night  laughing and crying, it was hard to figure out which or why," Huston wrote in her 2014 memoir Watch Me. "She had balanced a lampshade on her head; tears were pouring down her cheeks." Huston couldn't figure it out, until the reason the model was so hysterical was crudely revealed to her days later in London, when van Ravenstein came to visit Huston.

"During dinner, she let slip that she'd slept with Jack at Ara's the night I'd left. She told me they had been in a relationship before he met me," Huston wrote. "Now I understood the reason behind the lampshade hat and the tears. I hadn't understood that she loved him. When I confronted Jack on the telephone, distraught, sad, mad, he said, 'Oh, Toots, it was just a mercy fuck.' ...somehow he thought it was an acceptable answer."

Though Nicholson never apologized, the whole debacle was put down on vinyl. Joni Mitchell, a longtime friend of Nicholson's, played witness to the fit of tears. The incident inspired the lyrics of "People's Parties" on her 1974 album Court and Spark. In verse two, she refers to Apollonia's meltdown, singing, "Photo beauty gets attention/ Then her eye paint's running down/ She's got a rose in her teeth/ And a lampshade crown/ One minute she's so happy/ Then she's crying on someone's knee/ Saying laughing and crying / You know it's the same release."

People's Parties
When that ill-fated basement-dwelling republican sent the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing video out into the Internet in an attempt to humiliate her, he had no idea that he was just making her into more of a legend. But he probably also had no idea that he was giving a late-career boost to French three-hit wonder indie-pop group, Phoenix.

It appears that people have been getting all up in their feelings after watching the video: a Boston University promo video in which a radiant early 20's Ocasio-Cortez and a wholesome cohort of gov majors perform Breakfast Club-inspired choreography on a rooftop to Phoenix's biggest hit circa 2009 and your 10th grade fave, "Lisztomania."

According to Billboard, "Lisztomania" has seen a 192% increase in on-demand streams (audio and video) and a 320% sales spike. It has also entered YouTube's Top Songs chart for the first time ever, currently just trailing Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's "Shallow," Nicki Minaj's "Good Form" and Future's "Crushed Up" at #54.

I 100% get it. The indie flick wet dream-turned-college ad is a nauseating/intoxicating time capsule back to the teen euphoria that "Lisztomania" was a drug for. No one had idea what the song was about ("like a riot, like a riot oh!"), but it made us feel as romantic and whimsical! Maybe we should be feeling a pang of late capitalist ennui at our precious youth anthem being used to sell The College Experience, but man, Ocasio-Cortez really sells it.

Phoenix knew who to thank:
New Music Friday always promises a plethora of that good-good new-new from some of your favorite artists, maybe some long-awaited, maybe some tired, through, and delayed, and maybe some songs by a treasure trove of #whos you've never heard of before. We know. It's overwhelming! Thank the heavens PAPER is here help sift through the goodness, the garbage, and the noise, and bring you the best every Friday. We gotchu, sis. Let's bop to it!

The most talked-about song today is most likely Ariana Grande's diamond-encrusted new single, "7 rings," from her forthcoming album, rumored to be titled thank u, next. We have our own thoughts about the video (and its striking similarities to career moves of Gwen Stefani) but isolating the song on its own, it's still a bop, which also feels very Gwen. I mean, Gwen sort of did forever immortalize The Sound of Music for a new generation with her wildly fun 2006 song "Wind It Up." Ari takes a page from that book, repurposing the melody of "My Favorite Things" and adding bubbly trap overtones for 2019. Much will be made about Ari's hip-hop flexing (and maybe stealing  oof?), singing about how rich she is and all, but whatever you have to say about the song's context, just for posterity, something about it still rings true to her hit-making prowess.

James Blake's new album Assume Form hits today and, as a whole, it's like an sonic orgasm had while in the throes of depression mixed with hip-hop, so obviously we love that. His collaboration with Moses Sumney, the moody-catchy-sexy "Tell Them," is one of many standouts, not least because two of our favorite modern vocalists join forces to show the magic that can happen when male divas share center stage. But in all seriousness, from the beat to the abundant melodies on down, tell all your friends about this A-game banger.

The Lordt hath blessed us with a great day for new releases, we see! Here is "PLAY," a team-up between J-E-T-S and rap's queer superhero goddess Mykki Blanco, and it's every bit as fun as its title promises. Mykki teases out the differences between hustling and love on top of a buzzy, industrial beat with speaker-rattling hip-hop kickdrums. It snaps and fizzles the way that Mykki at his best often does. "PLAY" is also, such a nice tease of what's to come. Our bodies are so ready for Stay Close to Music, Stay Close to God we can hardly stand it.

Burning

Sultry-voiced siren Maggie Rogers releases her long-awaited debut today, Heard It In a Past Life, and while we take some time let the power of her voice and impressive songwriting wash over us, "Burning" is a delicious palate-cleanser should you need one in this sick, sad world. It finds our heroine singing about the joys of being alive, especially if you've sleepwalked through relationships or life, and come out on the other side, newly on fire. "I'm in love, I'm alive, oh, I'm burning," Rogers sings as the beat marches to a steady pace designed to fill stadiums. And on this gray and wintry Friday, Rogers' "Burning" is definitely keeping us nice and toasty.

Pop polymath Lafawndah drops "Daddy" today, from her forthcoming debut Ancestor Boy, and it's a mysteriously sensual slow jam that somehow manages to feel like it's about family dynamics, and how it shapes us, dysfunction and all, while also feeling like an exploration of coming-of-age sexuality. The music stalks the dark corners of a house full of secrets and roils like bodies rolling in the club. "Now is the time for you to know," Lafawndah croons in the chorus. Now is the time for us to hear Lafawndah like we've never heard her before.

Judging by how prolific he is, it's clear that Future lives in the studio. His latest album, as part of his Hendrxx alter-ego project, The Wizrd, feels more aligned with his impulsive rockstar tendencies than ever. The Travis Scott-assisted "First Off" cops inspiration from Dr. Dre (definitely a rockstar in his own right) and his West Coast classic, "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang," and gives it a murky, Atlanta-trap update. And as Southern-bred icons, Future and Scott sound right at home blending their melodic styles together  a treat for their new generation of fans and lovers of old-school hip-hop alliances alike.

Toro y Moi's newest album Outer Peace is out today, and speaking of Future's enduring influence on modern trap, here is "Monte Carlo," an atmospheric trappy tune with distorted vocals and croons that lend an element of lovelorn nostalgia to a hip-hop genre increasingly defined by trends.

Australia's newest indie alt-pop group on the rise, Cub Sport drops their self-titled album today. "Video," featuring Mallrat is a steamier bop about... recording lovemaking and thinking about it later, but when have you ever heard it sound this pleasant and consensual, and dare we say, romantic?

John the Blind, a hitmaking machine for acts like Maroon 5 (no big deal), steps out of the shadows as an artist with a slightly anonymous identity. But that's all strategy, you see: as Sia once proved when she emerged wearing wigs and not showing her face in live performance, when an audience isn't distracted by an image, the music can speak for itself. And we all remember how successful that was. So, case in point: "Two Months," John the Blind's debut single definitely lives and breathes in a world of its very own  with incredible singing and quirky production, accented by funky breakbeats, catchy rhythms, and just a dusting of vocoder as a cherry on top. I can't quite make out what the song is about, but mystery is sexy, so enjoy "Two Months" for the excellence it is.

If you're not attuned to Norwegian pop upstart Sigrid's music yet, get into her raspy howl, smart lyrics, and yes, plentiful melodies on early tracks like "Don't Kill My Vibe" and confessional, newer offerings like "Raw." Once the magic of those pop gems have sunken, cleanse the palate with "Don't Feel Like Crying," which, while similarly vulnerable is also a work of science, truly. Whoever said a pop formula that works is inauthentic should really be crying, because Sigrid is the master of making her truth something we can all sing along to. Also it's worth noting that this track to me is like "No Tears Left to Cry," but make it fashion.

What was your favorite track this week? See you next week, lovers!

Photo via Instagram


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The DMV outside the city of Oswego is set to undergo a major construction project this spring
Oswego, NY (13126)

Today

Lots of sunshine. High 71F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low 57F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
The rapid increase of e-cigarette use among youth is alarming. Data released from the Monitoring the Future survey on Dec. 17  an annual report measuring adolescent drug substance use in the U.S.  shows that youth e-cigarette use continues to reach epidemic levels. The survey reported an increase in adolescent vaping that is the largest recorded in the past 43 years for any adolescent substance use outcome in the U.S. In just one year, youth e-cigarette use skyrocketed across the country and we are seeing those trends mirrored in Florida. According to the Florida Youth Tobacco Survey (FYTS), nearly one in four Florida high school students reported current e-cigarette use in 2018  an alarming 58 percent increase compared to 2017.
But abortion laws typically criminalize doctors rather than patients. Even if legislation permits the use of abortion in rape, life-threatening situations, or fetal anomalies, physicians will be at the whim of the law in a field already thick with litigation. A grey legal area combined with a strong history of violence towards abortion providers is likely to deter many.
Then-Gov. Rick Scott  no friend of the environment, despite what he says  cheerfully went along with this naked betrayal of the voters will. According to a lawsuit filed by several environmental groups, the 2015 Legislature had $550 million available that year to buy land but spent only $50 million for that purpose.
Shaving companies, some said, shouldnt have stances. Except, that selling views is why the entire advertising and marketing industry exists. Starbucks isnt just selling you $6 coffee, it's selling culture. In the dark ages, cigarette companies used to sell people on the idea that smoking was healthy and dishwasher soap companies sold the idea that only women belonged in the kitchen fighting greasy pots and pans. That is, until an 11-year-old Meghan Markle, the future Duchess of Sussex, lobbied for sexist commercials like that to end. As a result, Proctor and Gamble changed the word women to people.
Yes, the White House has been hostile to TPS [but] the crisis in Venezuela is active, and the reasons for this is ongoing right now as we speak. As opposed to those other countries, weve seen the president act on Venezuela, Soto said.
Im not saying the problems were Brenda Snipes level, he said. But its been pretty bad. And I think if we had someone in charge who had a better grasp on the job, we could at least be among the other 65 counties who ran their election operations smoothly. We cant continue to be the laughing stock of the whole state and the nation.
Kruppenbacher goes on to contend that when he was locked out of his office last August, he sent an email to Robert Gidel, the schools board chairman, stating his belief that FLVSs actions were in retaliation to reports that Kruppenbacher had filed with the board. The contents of those reports were not explained in the documents filed this week by Kruppenbacher.
Tavistock has graciously worked with us to help identify a new location for the museum, Director Glen Gentele said. An exhaustive search entailed reviewing more than 20 sites within the City of Orlando. Unfortunately, no viable sites resulted, and the project had come to a standstill.
We like to look at those photographs of separate water fountains as if that was the worst of what it could be, rude and inconvenient, King said. Rude and inconvenient are not the words I would use to describe what I was finding in all the files of FBI reports. Brutality and terrorism are the words I would use, and it was legally sanctioned in most cases.
Farmer, 37, joined the Army in 2005 and graduated from special forces training two years later, according to a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense. He served in six overseas combat tours and, in 2016, earned his commission from the Special Forces Warrant Officer Candidate School.
The Defense Department on Friday identified three of the four Americans who were killed Wednesday in a suicide bombing in Syria that was claimed by the Islamic State.

In a statement, the Pentagon named the three as Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, of Upstate New York; and Defense Department civilian Scott A. Wirtz of St. Louis.

The fourth American, a civilian contractor, was not immediately identified.

The four were killed, and three other Americans were wounded, when a suicide bomber on foot detonated an explosive vest in front of a restaurant in the northern Syrian city of Manbij as they were meeting with local military officials.

It was the largest loss of life in the Pentagon's war against Islamic State militants in Syria and a sign of the potent threat that the group still poses as the Trump administration begins to withdraw U.S. forces from the country.

The Pentagon said the Americans were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

It said Farmer was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Kent was assigned to Cryptologic Warfare Activity 66, based at Fort Meade, Maryland. And Wirtz was an operations support specialist with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Kent enlisted in the Navy in 2003 and served in assignments at Fort Gordon, Georgia, Norfolk, Virginia, and Washington, in addition to Fort Meade, the Navy said.

"She was a rockstar, an outstanding Chief Petty Officer, and leader to many in the Navy Information Warfare Community," Cmdr. Joseph Harrison, the head of her unit at Fort Meade, said in a statement.

Farmer, a married father of four, joined the Army in March 2005, officials said. He served on four overseas combat tours: Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2007 and 2009, Operation New Dawn in 2010, Operation Enduring Freedom in 2012 and Operation Inherent Resolve - his final mission - in 2018 and 2019.

He was trained in Fort Benning and attended the Special Forces Qualification Course. Farmer graduated in 2007 as a Special Forces engineer sergeant and was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, where he spent the rest of his career.

During his years of service, Farmer received numerous awards and decorations, including a Bronze Star Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters.

Wirtz served as a Navy SEAL for 10 years before joining the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2017, a DIA spokeswoman said. The DIA said he completed three deployments for the agency in the Middle East.

The Pentagon said the suicide bombing in Manbij "is under investigation."

President Donald Trump's surprise Dec. 19 announcement that the Islamic State had been defeated and U.S. troops would be coming home drew widespread criticism, including from Republican allies who warned that a premature American departure could allow militants to return.

After announcing his intention to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, Trump also directed the Pentagon to pull out nearly half of the more than 14,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan. The move overrode warnings from senior advisers and military officials that such a withdrawal would plunge Afghanistan further into chaos.

In a separate announcement Friday, the Army's Special Operations Command said an Army Ranger, Sgt. Cameron A. Meddock, 26, of Spearman, Texas, died, Thursday of wounds he received during combat operations on Jan. 12 in Afghanistan's Badghis province.

Meddock served with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, and was on his second deployment with the U.S.-led coalition. The announcement said he died in Landstuhl, Germany, "as a result of wounds sustained from small arms fire." It did not provide any details of the clash that led to his death.
She said she also trafficked marijuana for him, with instructions to ready 882 pounds for each plane used to transport it from the countryside. He sought to purchase the marijuana on credit, but she refused because she was worried the growers would never get paid.
Joseph Holland, 45, was pulled over just after 1 a.m. near County Road 42 and Georgia Street for improper use of off-road LED lights on his Jeep, Lt. John Herrell said. In a search of the Jeep the deputy found pills, a large amount of meth packaged in clear baggies, a scale and a handgun, he said.
Its not something thats going to be convenient or comfortable but I feel like its my duty in a position of leadership to not avoid those difficult or uncomfortable conversations but rather use them to help inform us on our future, he said.
Stop acting like it doesnt matter that this state ranks 44th in per-pupil spending across the nation. It does. Florida spends $9,560, and the national average is $13,000. What a joke. This, in a state where tourists drop $67 billion a year. If districts had the extra $3,440 per student, they could do what parents want, and charters would be irrelevant.
For me this is a first and on such a high level its been devastating, he said in the letter. This collection was my nest egg, and I had worked so hard and done without for so long to put this together that it being taken away from me this way has left me in a very bad way.
[In an operation] we check on what is already being done and what needs to be done, he said. Once the team develops a plan, they send a drone into the air to take pictures of the search area.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports the letter didn't specify the number of layoffs or the extent of salary cuts. The letter said furloughs would take place over spring break, although employees have the option of using paid vacation.
She also told the Germans that they were married, although she was in a loveless marriage to another. The book charts how Sansom and Churchill survived the war. She was condemned to death and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. They married in 1947, divorced in 1956 and yet remained friends.
Without a comprehensive plan for its hydropower sector, Nepal suffers the fate of a resource-rich country that cannot use its abundance well, argues Eugene Simonov

Prologue: A tale of two dams

In 2017, I visited 1,200 MW Budhi Gandaki hydropower project, 70 kilometres from Kathmandu, and found many similarities with the Egiin Gol hydropower project in Mongolia, long monitored by our RwB Coalition.

Both projects were designed in the 1970s Soviet-school mega-hydropower planning style, both have not progressed in 40 years. In both cases, the international consultancy Tractebel Engineering proposed to increase dam height and reservoir volume beyond limits considered economically feasible by local experts. In both cases, the same main contractor China Gezhouba was assigned to build the dam without a proper international tender, but the projects were soon stopped due to major changes in decision-making.

Egiin Gol Hydro remains part of the Mongolian governments plans, but a soft loan from China Eximbank approved for the project was later redistributed to seven more sustainable and much-needed projects, from a wastewater treatment plant in Ulaan Baatar to higher education programmes.

The Budhi Gandaki contract, cancelled by outgoing government in late 2017, was then reinstalled by new Maoist-led government. However Nepalese experts I spoke to did not believe this dam would be completed in the foreseeable future. Many factors are similar with our experience in Mongolia: prohibitively high costs for a small country, coupled with an uneconomical design; little capability to ensure proper compensation to affected communities; and huge potential impacts on downstream World Heritage sites that will require costly mitigation.

However there is one drastic difference: while the Egiin Gol hydropower project is one of three equally risky options for large hydro in water-scarce Mongolia, the dam on the Budhi Gandaki River is just one of 400 planned hydropower plants for which licenses have been issued to various entities by Nepal. A third of the dams are planned in the Gandaki-Narayani transboundary river basin where there has been no assessment of the cumulative impacts on the ecosystem and local communities, as well as huge implications for management of the transboundary river shared with India.

More dams, more grief?

While abundant water is Nepals blessing, haphazard hydropower planning is likely its major curse.

Nepal derives most of its electricity from hydropower and was part of a global study by Benjamin Sovacool and Gotz Walter published at the end of last year, looking at the economic, environmental and social impacts of hydropower. Their statistical analysis supports the hydroelectric resource curse hypothesis  arguing that hydropower states have shown significantly worse performance than other nations in dealing with poverty, economic growth, public debt and corruption.

Nepals century of painstaking hydropower development, which has resulted in less than 1 GW of installed capacity and significant power deficit, is a lively illustration for this abstract statistical analysis.

There are many signs in Nepal that uncoordinated development of hydropower projects inevitably leads to:

the construction of inferior projects, rather than more efficient designs on the same river;

extreme fragmentation of river basins, a decline in fish diversity, encroachment into protected areas and destruction of important wetlands;

encroachment on areas traditionally used by indigenous peoples and marginalised groups, for example, see the report on the Upper Trishuli-1 dam by the Lawyers Association for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Peoples.

haphazard mass resettlement (the Budhi Gandaki dam alone will affect 45,000 people);

increased exposure to potential landslides, earthquakes and natural disasters combined with low resilience to climate change impacts;

conflict with other sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, water supply, municipal wastewater, navigation, mining, etc.

financial irregularities increased corruption and investment schemes with high probability of failure.

So how should Nepal manage its water-blessing to avoid future grief?

Riding the tide of dams

Dam proponents within Nepal have recognised some problems in the hydropower sector and are taking belated measures to address them. For example, the Ministry of Forests and Environment issued a new Hydropower EIA Manual in 2018 with support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC). But this only addresses the risks of individual hydropower projects. It does not provide any tools for strategic planning and assessing multiple-dam development.

The lack of basin-wide strategic assessments of impacts and opportunities prevents government and businesses from making optimal decisions. This means the power sector has become a major source of environmental problems and social tensions.

(The Nepal government aims to build 10 MW of hydropower for domestic use and 5 MW for export within the next 10 years. Data Source: Department for Energy Development)

Vested interests in Nepal as well as among international donors have thwarted previous attempts to carry out strategic planning. The best attempt  the Japanese International Cooperation Agencys (JICA) 2014 Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the Nationwide Master Plan on Storage type Hydroelectric Power Development in Nepal  was well-meaning, but incomplete and inconsequential.

The most obvious reason for the poor quality SEA was the lack of genuine involvement of civil society and failure to develop an adequate basin-wide strategic assessment framework for energy development. To start with the analysis of alternatives, which refuted any other energy source but hydropower, only took up one page of the study.

The SEA failed to assess the cumulative impacts in key basins. Public consultations mainly involved personnel of government agencies and excluded environmental advocacy groups and affected communities. No surprise that the assessment report itself documents how during the SEA process the JICA consultants slowly yielded to pressure from energy officials and hydropower experts to downplay social and environmental safeguards.

The failure to assess the countrys optimal energy mix leads to exaggerated expectations of hydropower with little genuine effort to develop solar and wind. The country still has only one 0.68 MW solar farm. Meanwhile, hydropower in Nepal is hardly cheap energy with typical construction costs in state-supported projects above USD 2000/KW, while the cost of grid-scale solar installation is likely below USD 1000/KW, according to data from the Nepal Energy Development Council.

Problematic consultants in World Bank strategic planning

The World Bank will implement a new Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment (SESA) of water resources management and hydropower masterplans under the framework of the Nepal Power Sector Reform and Sustainable Hydropower Development (PSRSHD). Details of this assessment, which has been delayed for three years due to low priority for the national government, make us anticipate very poor results.

The same contractor has been assigned to do a master plan and then assess its strategic validity  which is a risky business. In the summer of 2018 the contract to prepare both master plans for water resources and hydropower development in each basin of Nepal as well as to conduct SESA of those plans was awarded to a consortium of German Company Lahmeyer (a subsidiary of Tractebel Engineering), Chinas Changjiang Institute (CISPDR) and local consultancy TML. CISPDR is the largest institute in China involved in master planning of water resources primarily for hydropower, known internationally as the author of the EIA for the controversial and currently suspended Myitsone hydropower project and associated cascade in Ayeyarawady basin in Myanmar.

Without public oversight, the World Bank and Nepalese government, supported by such consultants, are likely to compromise both integrated river basin planning and the strategic assessment process, reducing it to information selectively compiled in support of accelerated hydropower development with little regard to other uses and natural values of Nepals rivers.

And in October 2018 the World Bank, without waiting for the outcomes of this SESA, launched another USD 100 million project  Nepal Energy Sector Development Policy Credit  to improve the financial viability and governance of the electricity sector. However, this again encourages the concentration of energy development efforts solely on hydropower and contains no social and environmental safeguards at a strategic level whatsoever. According to the document, the World Bank will not even subject the resulting Power Sector Strategy and Action Plan for Nepal to a SEA.

As a result, Nepal agencies will not develop necessary safeguard mechanisms for basin-wide hydropower planning, while Nepal society at large will be deprived of an objective assessment of hydropower development scenarios. Various international financial institutions will continue to invest haphazardly in unsustainable basin schemes and claim their decisions are based on the scientifically-valid SESA approved by the government. Investors from China and India will have no safe guidance for their economic and geopolitical competition in the Himalayan river basins.

So far all signs show that this is a disaster in the making.

What could be done to avoid this Catch 22?

Even objective strategic environmental and social assessments (SESAs) cannot prevent future conflicts, but it provides all participants with essential knowledge of the tradeoff, potential risks and benefits from a multitude of economic initiatives at the basin level. Therefore it increases the value of carefully designed hydropower and decreases the risks of investment in unsustainable projects that are likely to be stalled.

Despite this, there are still real opportunities for the World Bank projects in Nepal to meaningfully engage the civil society of Nepal, India, China and international NGOs.

This year we saw encouraging examples from elsewhere. The IFC-sponsored SEA of hydropower in Myanmar (2016-2018) included an elaborate stakeholder involvement process, though it has still caused major discontent and protest among ethnic minority groups.

In Mongolia, between 2012-2018 Rivers without Boundaries (RwB) and allies convinced the World Bank to reformat two hydropower feasibility studies in Lake Baikal Basin into a single strategic regional environmental assessment. Previous experience shows that the World Bank Group is responsive to legitimate demands from key constituencies. So it needs CSO advocacy pressure and expertise to ensure it properly implements its own safeguard policies.

The failure of the new World Bank projects in Nepal to carry out necessary strategic environmental planning, gives Nepalese CSOs an additional reason to request extending the SESA into this new strategic process of improving governance of the electricity sector where it belongs. The strategic assessment should incorporate analysis of transboundary impacts of projects and provide for consultations with interested agencies and CSO groups from neighbouring countries.

Other important objectives that should be addressed in SESA consultations include:

Mapping biodiversity and ecosystem services in each basin to safeguard priority areas for conservation;

Risk ranking of all basin-wide scenarios and specific projects to determine which carry the most social and environmental risks and which will bring the most benefits for local communities;

Strategic measures to mitigate basin-wide impacts on indigenous peoples and other marginalised communities;

Adoption and implementation of basin-wide environmental flow planning and developing national regulatory base for managing e-flows;

Impose limits on resettlement in a given basin/jurisdiction according to capacity to handle this process with quality outcomes;

Genuine analysis of alternatives to assess different energy mix scenarios in terms of true costs, impacts and speed of delivery.

Most of those questions need to be raised, explored and resolved in Nepal anyway, but an official strategic assessment is the most appropriate venue to raise them. The obvious lack of focus on environmental safeguards in World Bank projects should trigger CSO efforts to address those challenges.

Eugene Simonov is an international coordinator of Rivers without Boundaries Coalition.

This story was published on the third pole.
The scorecard grades countries from A to F across 28 indicators like entrepreneurial activity, research and development investment, and tax friendliness. It was published in time with this year's CES in Las Vegas on Jan. 8-11.

The top 16 countries -- including Canada, Estonia, Germany, Israel, Singapore, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. -- were crowned Innovation Champions for their effective policies in innovation support and deregulation.

On the International Innovation Scorecard released recently by the U.S. Consumer Technology Association, the organizer of the Consumer Electronics Show, Korea ranked a poor 24th among 61 countries.

Korea earned a middling score for innovation in rankings by the organizers of the world's biggest consumer electronics show, despite its reputation as an IT powerhouse.

Korea got a clean fail in the ride-sharing category amid massive protests from taxi drivers against Kakao's new ride-sharing app and a ban on Uber.

Eight other countries including Hungary and Greece scored an F in the category as their governments struggle to keep up with new developments.

In the short-term rentals category, which covers regulations restricting Airbnb and similar online accommodation-sharing businesses, Korea scored a D since people can register homes in urban areas as B&Bs or guest houses if they run them for less than half the year. Only Rwanda with a clean F ranked lower than Korea.

The report urged Korea to rethink its approach to the sharing economy. The country scored a C in the category of "unicorns," or domestic companies founded within the past decade "that have achieved an actual or implied market valuation of at least US $1 billion."

Korea has only three such companies -- Coupang, Yello Mobile and L&P Cosmetics -- in stark contrast to the U.S.' 133 and China's 120. The U.K. managed to nurture 12, India nine and Germany seven.

But Korea scored a clean A, alongside Israel, by spending a world-beating 4.2 percent of GDP on research and development. Next came Switzerland with 3.4 percent, Sweden with 3.3 percent and Austria with 3.1 percent. In entrepreneurial activity, Korea scored a B on the strength of a government fund of W8.7 trillion for start-ups.

Japan and China also ranked surprisingly low at 31st and 33rd because the scorecard is heavily biased against regulations of any kind.
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Lee Sang-hee of the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, another co-host, said South Korea, the U.S. and North Korea "have different views in pursuit of their own interests when it comes to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." And Shin Beom-chul at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said, "Looking at the dialogue between the two Koreas last year, North Korea's position is to hold on to its nuclear weapons."

Experts predicted that Washington and Pyongyang will agree on a nuclear freeze rather than complete denuclearization at their second summit.

Jonathan Pollack of the Brookings Institution, which co-hosted the event, said diplomats from both sides are worried that North Korea will consolidate its status as a nuclear-armed state in talks with the U.S. backed by the South Korean government's dovish approach to the North.

The U.S. will probably accept that North Korea is a nuclear-armed state in the not-too-distant future, experts said at a two-day forum co-hosted by the Chosun Ilbo this week.

Evans Revere of the Brookings Institution said, "Washington's 'Plan A' -- engaging directly with the North Korean leader to convince him to denuclearize -- has failed. It is now time to think about 'Plan B' ...what several U.S. administrations have vowed never to allow: a permanently nuclear-armed North Korea." Revere instead called for "massive" sanctions and pressure on the North.

Participants forecast that Trump will make another unexpected concession at his next summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that could strain the South Korea-U.S. alliance, much as he did during the first summit last year, when he unilaterally pledged to halt joint military drills with South Korea.

Park Won-gon at Handong Global University said, "I think it would be the worst-case scenario, but we cannot rule out the possibility of a unilateral removal of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery here."

Easing sanctions, which is among North Korea's key demands, will not be easy due to UN resolutions and U.S. laws, but redeployment of American strategic assets is in Trump's gift. "Trump's capricious decisions are well known, so close consultation between Seoul and Washington is necessary to prevent that," Park said.

And Shin added, "North Korea will focus on the subtle differences in opinion between [South] Korea, the U.S. and China on denuclearization, cross-border economic projects and the Seoul-Washington alliance, and attempt to drive a wedge into the alliance."

Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation said policy differences between South Korea and the U.S. "were so great that it became impossible for them to remain out of the public eye." President Moon Jae-in seems to have tossed over the denuclearization task to the U.S. while he is focusing only on improving inter-Korean relations, he added.

Participants said inter-Korean agreements such as disarming soldiers in the border truce village of Panmunjom and dismantling guard posts along the border were of no help in denuclearization efforts.
For others, the symbolic wall activates opposite emotions. It is experienced as the deepest violation of who we are, as a people, and of those who seek a better future in the U.S. It obstructs our ability to embrace immigrants who bring vitality, energy, and renewal to our multicultural society. It violates our values of freedom, difference and goodwill for humanity. For those of us who oppose the wall, it is a symbol of tyranny, oppression and monolithic vanity, evoking shame and outrage about what we are becoming. These conflicting meanings and emotions can be triggered simply by the mention of the single four-letter word: wall.
But Whitakers ability to control the course of events is severely limited. First and foremost, he has to act within the law if he himself does not want to get caught up in the obstruction of justice. Beyond that, the clock is ticking loudly on his term in office. Trump has nominated William Barr as attorney general, and in all likelihood he will be confirmed by the Senate within days or weeks.
Competition between priorities of racial and gender equality continued into the 20th century. Although NAWSA did not exclude black women from being members, many of the state and local organizations under its umbrella did. The NAWSA conventions in Atlanta in 1895 and New Orleans in 1903 were segregated. Black women were made to march separately from white women in DC in 1913. The organization made a concerted effort in the early part of the century to recruit wealthy, educated, politically well-connected white women to participate, whom movement leaders thought had the time and resources needed to push their efforts for a federal amendment over the finish line. And in 1920 they finally did.
Fourth, even if Trump told Cohen to testify as to certain facts that turned out to be untrue, did Trump believe them to be true at the time he spoke to Cohen? Did Cohen know they were false when he testified? Perjury not only requires that testimony be untrue, but that the person testifying  or in this case, the person allegedly telling him what to say  believes them to be untrue. Perjury requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of an intention to lie, and suborning perjury or obstruction of justice requires that the defendant know that the testimony would be false.
If she went low, he went far lower. Sensitive war-zone trips are typically not disclosed until officials are either in-country or well out of harms way; Trump told the world where Pelosi was headed just before her scheduled departure.
Another domestic airline will be allowed to operate flights to Mongolia, ending Korean Air's three-decade monopoly on the route.

Korean and Mongolian aviation officials agreed after a series of meetings on Wednesday and Thursday to allow multiple carriers to fly between Incheon and Ulaanbaatar.

The existing bilateral agreement signed in 1991 allows only one airline from each country -- Korean Air and MIAT Mongolian Airlines -- to operate six flights a week on the route.

With the new agreement, flights to Ulaanbaatar will be increased to nine times a week, starting from late March.
We don't know exactly what we're going to be dealing with here, but we do know it's a real storm, we do know it's going to have very cold temperatures, real potential for icing, Mayor de Blasio said Friday.
The shutdown, which is the longest in American history and dragged into its 28th day Friday, remains at a standstill as Trump continues to refuse any spending bills that do not earmark at least $5.7 billion in taxpayer cash for the border barrier he used to promise Mexico would pay for.
When the ppeaker of the House and about 20 others from Capitol Hill decide to book their own commercial flights to Afghanistan, the world is going to find out, the official told the Daily News. The idea we would leak anything that would put the safety and security of any American at risk is a flat-out lie.
She is looking forward to being in Iowa and will not turn her back on the thousands of Iowa women who are joining this locally organized march to advocate for the issues that deeply impact them and their families, said Meredith Kelly, the communications director for Gillibrands 2020 team.
We don't know exactly what we're going to be dealing with here, but we do know it's a real storm, we do know it's going to have very cold temperatures, real potential for icing, de Blasio said Friday.
At the kind of level we're talking about here, even the resources of a city as big as New York City will be quickly exhausted, de Blasio said, noting that paying for the program would wipe out the citys reserves. Literally in the course of a few months we would run out of any money that we have to address this crisis.
I have said it in the past and Ill say it again, operating a utility is not a God given right, the governor said. Youre not born with it and you can lose it. You can lose it if you do not serve the public.
Trump supported a plan set up by Cohen to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow during the campaign to get the tower negotiations off the ground.
Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed, he wrote. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over. In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate, Trump wrote
Any assertion that the National Park Service has encouraged any organizer to cancel their First Amendment demonstration is patently false, an NPS spokesman told WUSA9. For generations, Americans have come to the National Mall to exercise their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights to assemble and be heard. The National Park Service has been clear that our process would protect those fundamental rights by processing applications for First Amendment events that had been submitted prior to lapse of appropriations.
Japan has launched a campaign to win U.S. support in a spat with Korea over a Navy destroyer turning its radar on a Japanese surveillance plane last month.

Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya, who is currently visiting the U.S., met with acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Wednesday and explained the conflict to him. Japan is apparently seeking U.S. mediation in the dispute.

Korea and Japan have each summoned the other's military attaches to lodge formal protests. "We summoned the Japanese military attache and lodged a formal protest against Japan summoning our own military attache on Wednesday," a Defense Ministry spokesman here said Thursday.

Japan summoned the Korean military attache and protested against a ministry press briefing here, which it said was different from what had been in discussed in talks between the two sides.

After the meeting with Shanahan, Iwaya said it was "regrettable" that differences existed between Korea and Japan. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday that Tokyo is "sharing information" about the matter with the U.S.

A diplomatic source said, "Japanese government officials are on a full-court press to get the U.S. on their side." The Korean Defense Ministry also said it is communicating with the U.S. and that Washington has a "clear understanding" of the basic points of the dispute. But it added the matter should be settled between Seoul and Tokyo based on international law.

Japan claims that the South Korean destroyer, which was on a mission to rescue a North Korean fishing boat, deliberately turned its fire radar on a Japanese spy plane that was flying overhead. Seoul says the Japanese plane was flying too close and too low overhead and that the destroyer had no intention of shooting at it.

The incident happened near Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo, to which Japan maintains a flimsy colonial-era claim.
Flags across New York State were flown at half-staff in honor of Kent, who enlisted in the Navy in 2003. Her dad was the third highest-ranking officer in the state police, and her mom was an elementary school teacher until retiring last year.
Before Hania was abducted, state crime lab workers discovered that DNA from a 2016 sexual assault matched McLellan. That information was sent to the DA's office and the sheriff's office, according to Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt, and should have prompted investigators to obtain a new DNA sample from McLellan, who had been paroled the same year.
We gather here today because we know we still have much work to do, Pence told the crowd. So we urge you to stand strong, stand with that love and compassion. You are for life. And know that we will stand with you until that great day comes where we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a comatose Arizona woman who gave birth in December 2018. Police said the 29-year-old was sexually assaulted and they are trying to track down the assailant. The CEO of the facility where she was living resigned as the company announced new safety measures in place.
Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke was sentenced to 6  years in prison Friday for the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, closing one of the most racially fraught and socially significant chapters in recent Chicago history.

After a daylong hearing, Judge Vincent Gaughan sentenced Van Dyke only on the second-degree murder conviction, finding that it was the more serious crime and the 16 aggravated battery convictions should "merge" into it for sentencing purposes.

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That decision means Van Dyke will serve only half of the sentence  less than 3 1/2 years in prison  if he earns credit for good behavior.

In his remarks, Gaughan said it was easy to see the impact that Van Dykes crime had on both his family and McDonalds.

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Thats the shame -- the families are suffering a tremendous amount, he said. Its just so senseless that these acts occur because you can see the pain on both sides. This is a tragedy for both sides."

In fashioning his sentence, Gaughan said the law required him to consider the most serious charge Van Dyke was convicted of  which common sense dictates is second-degree murder, not aggravated battery.

Is it more serious for Laquan McDonald to be shot by a firearm or is it more serious for Laquan McDonald to be murdered by a firearm? said Gaughan, explaining his reasoning.

It was a key decision not only because the aggravated battery counts came with mandatory minimum 6-year prison terms but also because second-degree murder allows for good-time credit, meaning Van Dyke will only have to serve half of the sentence of 6 years and 6 months.

If Van Dyke had been sentenced for the aggravated battery convictions, he also would have had to serve 85 percent of that sentence, not half as with the second-degree murder.

The highly anticipated sentencing came with added tension one day after Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson acquitted three Chicago police officers of all charges alleging they conspired to shield Van Dyke from scrutiny in McDonalds killing.

Rev. Marvin Hunter, great uncle of McDonald, expressed disappointment over the sentence but said the fact that a Chicago police officer was going to prison for shooting a black teen represented progress.

If they sentenced him to one minute, its a victory, he said. It sends a strong message.

He and many activists who spoke to reporters after the sentence was announced described it as lenient. Hunter said the video showed the true facts of what happened to his great-grandson.

Clearly this was a murder, he said. The whole world knows it and saw it.

He urged peace.

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This is a historic moment for us. I know a lot of people are angry but this is a victory," he said. "We have a million miles to go, but it must start with a first step. And we took that first step today.

Special prosecutor Joseph McMahon did not receive close to the punishment he sought for Van Dyke, but he told reporters that he still felt that justice had been served.

I understand the sentence is not exactly what the McDonald and Hunter families wanted, he said. But the sentence, like the verdict, does hold the defendant accountable.

McMahon said McDonalds mother, Tina Hunter, was in the courthouse watching the proceedings but did not want to be in the courtroom. She left the building before the sentence was announced, and McMahon said he called her with the judges decision.

It was extremely difficult, McMahon said of the conversation. She has had to re-live her sons murder again and again.

Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke reads a statement at his sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building Jan. 18, 2019 in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

5:21 p.m.: 'I will live with this the rest of my life,' Van Dyke says

When it came time for him to make his remarks to the court, Jason Van Dyke stood at the defense table and read from a sheet of paper, calling the day he shot McDonald the worst day in my life.

Dressed in yellow jail garb and keeping his head down, Van Dyke said it was the first time hed ever had to use his weapon in the line of duty.

And Im very proud of that fact, he said.

He said he prayed for the soul of Laquan McDonald.

The last thing I wanted to do was to shoot Laquan McDonald, he said. I will live with this for the rest of my life.

Van Dyke said he tried to make the right decision in a rapidly escalating, dangerous situation.

It is a choice that I will live with forever, he said.

Van Dyke did not ask for leniency.

5:16 p.m.: Case 'screamed out' for probation, Van Dyke's lawyer says

Van Dyke's attorney, Darren OBrien, argued the case screamed out for probation.

OBrien noted Van Dyke is eligible for the minimum punishment for many reasons, including his clean past, family support and his unlikeness to re-offend.

OBrien cited Van Dykes 50 police commendations and 200 letters seeking leniency.

He also argued Van Dyke acted under a strong provocation and in response to McDonald.

He didnt start the confrontation, OBrien said. He reacted to what Mr. McDonald did.  Everything that happened was set in motion by Mr. McDonald.

OBrien said Van Dyke opened fire out of fear of his life, though the jury found that fear was unreasonable.

This whole case has been devastating. Its a tragedy for all, said OBrien, noting how difficult and dangerous prison can be for former police officers.

This was the only time he ever fired his weapon in the life of duty. What does that mean? Thats huge," he said. "It means whatever was going on in that street that night scared him more than anything else he ever saw.

5:08 p.m.: Prosecutors ask for a prison term of 18 to 20 years for Van Dyke

In his closing argument, special prosecutor Joseph McMahon asked Gaughan to sentence Van Dyke to 18 to 20 years for Laquan McDonalds murder.

In his remarks, McMahon said Van Dykes actions have been devastating not only for McDonalds family and the city of Chicago but also for a nation that watched a uniformed police officer murder a teenager on video.

He has betrayed the public trust that we as a community give to law enforcement, he said. Jason Van Dyke committed violent, serious crimes in his capacity as a police officer for the city of Chicago.

McMahon said Van Dyke also let down the Police Department.

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He betrayed his fellow police officers, he said. His conduct was so egregious, so different from every other police officer at that scene. That is why we are here today.

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McMahon said the witnesses called by prosecutors earlier Friday showed a sinister pattern in Van Dykes police career. What should have been routine traffic stops that started with really minor violations ended instead in physical attack by the officer and young men being taken to jail," he said.

McMahon also said that while the pain Van Dykes wife and children and other relatives is difficult to hear, its all due to his own actions.

5:00 p.m.: 'I need my dad in my life,' Van Dyke's daughter writes

After calling its eighth and final witness, a defense team member read a letter from Van Dykes 12-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, who like her older sister begged for leniency.

My parents do not go over all of the details of what happened, she wrote of the shooting, but I do know my dad had to shoot someone and that person lost his life.

The childs letter went on to describe how she has been bullied at school and how she feels when someone calls her father a murderer.

That hurts so much when people say that to me, she said in her letter. My dad is not that.

I love my dad more than words can say," she continued. "I do not want my dad to go away for doing his job. We have already been affected so much.

The child said she needs her father in her life. She called him my everything.

My dad and my family are really hurting and I think we have hurt enough.  I need my dad in my life.

Tiffany Van Dyke, wife of former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke, cries as she testifies at his sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building Jan. 18, 2019 in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

4:45 p.m.: 'They have lost a great officer' Van Dyke's wife gives emotional, forceful remarks

The defenses final witness was Van Dykes wife of 17 years, Tiffany, who testified through tears that her husband is her everything.

He is my better half, she said. He is my heart.

Tiffany described her husband as a kind, gentle man who would give you the shirt off his back.

He loves with all of his heart, she said. There is no malice, no hatred, there is no racism to my husband. He was a great police officer dedicated to the city of Chicago. They have lost a great officer.

Tiffany Van Dyke talked about how their happy life turned into a nightmare after her husband was charged with murder. When he lost his salary, they fell into debt and struggled to make ends meet, she said. Their daughters, now 17 and 12, were bullied and threatened at school. Her husband refused to leave the house, and she lost job opportunities because of the uproar, she said.

The last name Van Dyke is not a name that goes (over) well in the city of Chicago, she said.

She also spoke about her constant fear that someone was going to try to kill her husband. When his case was up in court, Van Dyke entered and exited the courthouse wearing a bulletproof vest, she said.

Bulletproof vests to come and go from a public courthouse -- it was very shocking to me, she said. It broke my heart. I was afraid every day coming in and out of this courthouse that somebody was going to shoot and kill my husband.

Toward the end of her half-hour testimony, Tiffany Van Dyke was asked what she feared most about a long prison sentence for her husband. She began to sob loudly, her anguished cries echoing in Gaughans courtroom.

My biggest fear is that somebody would kill my husband for something he did as a police officer, something he was trained to do, she cried. There was no malice, no hatred on that night. He was simply doing his job.

She then asked Gaughan for leniency  though she never requested probation.

I would like to ask the court to please take into consideration that my husband is a man, hes a human being, Tiffany Van Dyke said. Please, please, he has paid the price already. My heart and soul are broken. They will not be mended until he comes home.

4:14 p.m.: Van Dyke bothered 'that a life was taken': FOP president

Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham testified that Van Dykes prosecution has impacted other police officers and caused them to question their response when confronting violence on the citys streets.

Ive told them the law has not changed, Graham said of his response to officers who ask about the case. We need to make sure we stay safe as police officers and that we go home to our families.

Graham sought leniency for Van Dyke and said if prison is to hold someone responsible for wrongdoing, then Chicago Police Department higher-ups should be facing sentencing as well.

Theyre leaving it on him and thats wrong, Graham said.

Graham said he and Van Dyke have gotten to know each other over the last three years.

He is a quality individual who cares about society, the people he serves and the people he works with, Graham said.

The union president said he has personally witnessed Van Dyke praying.

He insisted that Van Dyke is remorseful.

I know that it bothers him that a life was taken 

Jason Van Dyke's father, Owen, takes the stand at Jason Van Dyke's sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building Jan. 18, 2019. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

4:01 p.m.: 'I stand behind my son'

Van Dykes father, Owen, took the witness stand to read a letter he wrote to the court. The retired tradesman has accompanied his son to every court date since he was charged in November 2015.

Van Dyke described his son as an intelligent and driven person, a good student who played jazz and flag football in school and was in the marching band. He has a solid Catholic faith and is a loving father to his own daughters, he said.

I stand behind my son as my father stood behind me, the elder Van Dyke said.

3:58 p.m.: Sister asks judge to consider all that Van Dyke has lost

His younger sister, Heidi Kauffunger, described the impact the case has had on their family.

Kauffunger pleaded for probation. She asked Gaughan to consider all that Van Dyke already has lost.

Jason will never be a police officer again or will never be able to carry a gun, she said. Hes a convicted felon.  His reputation, name, his kids names as well as Tiffanys - all of it is ruined.

Kauffunger, Van Dyke's only sibling, said she also worries about their elderly parents health.

Similar to other defense witnesses, Kauffunger said her brother is a good, decent man who loves his family and worked three jobs at times to support his wife and kids. She described him as a rule follower who never got into trouble, a kid who played football and in the band in high school.

He was always there whenever I needed anything, she said.

She said they were close while growing up in the western suburbs. Her brother was four years older, she said, and often drove her to and from school.

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Kauffunger said she was pregnant when her brother was charged and that he kept the news from her as long as he could.

Jason just really wanted to protect myself and my baby at the time, she said.

Her brother has always handled everything calmly and rationally and hes a great example for his girls, his sister said.

Keith Thompson, Jason Van Dyke's brother-in-law, testifies at Van Dyke's sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building Friday, Jan. 18, 2019 in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

3:40 p.m.: Brother-in-law says Van Dyke not a racist

Keith Thompson, Van Dykes brother-in-law, testified that Van Dyke is a stand up man who provides for and protects his family.

Thompson, who is African-American, said its been devastating for Van Dyke to be portrayed as a racist monster and killer.

Asked if he felt Van Dyke was racist, Thompson replied, Absolutely not.

Thompson pleaded with Gaughan to consider what (Van Dykes) family is going through when fashioning a sentence, particularly the difficulties of having him locked up for an extended period of time.

They will lose everything, Thompson said. Give him time served or probation so he can get home to his family where he deserves to be.

Former FOP president Dean Angelo Sr., a retired 37-year Chicago police officer, testifies at Jason Van Dyke's sentencing hearing on Jan. 18, 2019. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

3:35 p.m.: 'Not the monster people have made him out to be'

Former FOP president Dean Angelo Sr., a retired 37-year Chicago police officer, defended Van Dykes use of lethal force that night in 2014 and argued he would not have been indicted if he fired once or twice, rather than 16 times.

It was a perfect storm that night, and I know this wasnt something he set out to do, Angelo said. This was a situation that arose, for lack of any other description, (because of McDonalds) lack of compliance. If a knife is dropped, then were not here.  If a Taser is close and utilized  were not here.

He and Van Dyke met for the first time the day the embattled officer bonded out of jail in late 2015 on the murder charges. Angelo and his wife since have become friends with Van Dyke and his wife, Tiffany.

Angelo said he tried to help Van Dyke get a job after the charges. Other potential employers were fearful of hiring the high-profile defendant, so Angelo, while union president, gave him a janitorial job at the police union hall.

Van Dyke worked there for a few years until he was taken into custody late last fall after the jurys guilty verdict.

Angelo described him as dependable, arriving for work before him each morning before 6 a.m. The union also has funded Van Dykes defense.

Hes not the monster people have made him out to be in the media and in political circles, Angelo said. He is a big gentle kid. Hes a hard worker. Hes dedicated. Hes a good dad. Hes religious. Hes quite loyal.

3:27 p.m.: 'God help the city of Chicago'

The fourth witness called by the defense was retired Chicago police Officer Kenneth Watt, who said he first met Van Dyke in traffic court in the early 2000s. He also became reacquainted with Van Dyke in recent years, he said.

Watt said Van Dyke has changed for the worse since he met him as a young patrolman.

Hes beaten down, Watt said.

He described Van Dyke as a hard-working, diligent and courteous.

Jason was a good police officer. He gave a lot of years to the city of Chicago, never had too many beefs or nothing, Watt said. He just went out there and did his job. He did what he was trained to do and thats what got him in this mess.

After a pause, Watts added, People get the police that they seek, and God help the city of Chicago.

On cross-examination, assistant special prosecutor Joseph Cullen jumped on Watts statement.

Was he trained to shoot young men who were laying on the ground just twitching? Cullen asked.

He was trained to shoot until the threat is over, Watt replied.

Until the life is over? Or until the threat is over? Cullen shot back.

Till the threat is over, Watt said.

3:24 p.m.: Van Dyke 'young, eager officer': retired cop

Retired Chicago police Capt. Leo Crotty, who supervised Van Dyke for three years in the early to mid-2000s during his first assignment in the Deering District, described him as a young, eager officer when they worked the midnight shift together covering a dangerous part of the city infested with gangs.

He was very eager, of course, like most officers are, he said of Van Dyke.

Crotty, who retired in 2012, said Van Dyke received various commendations during their time together.

Though he said they hadnt kept in touch, Crotty said he respected Van Dyke when they worked together and thought him to be a pretty good cop.

Of course, he was brand new, Crotty said. I found it a pleasure and a privilege to work with him.

3:17 p.m.: Daughter pleads to judge 'to bring my dad home'

Van Dyke's daughter ended her time on the stand with an emotional plea to the judge.

"My father has not caused this pain on my family ... the media, news sources and politicians have caused this pain for my family and I," she said. "My dad is the strongest, most selfless person with the biggest heart."

She described feeling "helpless and guilty," overwhelmed by the thought that her father might miss the major milestones in her life.

"Please, deep down in your heart, find hope for me and bring my dad home," she told Judge Gaughan.

She turned her gaze to her father, who sat silent at the defense table.

"I love you, Dad," she said.

3:12 p.m.: Van Dyke's daughter reads from civics class paper

Van Dyke's daughter, Kaylee, a junior in high school, also read from a paper she wrote for her civics class, saying police officers do a difficult job that the news media does not accurately capture.

"Many get police brutality confused with assertiveness or having to deal with people who are out of control," she said.

"The answer is not to have better training for police officers because going through the police academy they already have vigorous strict training," she said. "The answer is how does society change to realize officers are normal people who have families and put their life on the line to protect us?"

3:10 p.m.: Van Dyke wipes tear away as daughter testifies

Van Dyke's oldest daughter, Kaylee, 17, sat ramrod-straight on the witness stand and read an emotional statement to the judge in clear, quick tones.

"I can't begin to tell you what an amazing, remarkable, outstanding man my father is ... I know who he really is," she said. "... Now that he is gone, I feel as I am left with nothing."

As she began to describe her only contact with her father -- one phone call a day and occasional visits at the faraway Quad Cities-area jail -- she started to cry.

"I touch his hand through a piece of dirty glass and speak on a phone that the connection breaks in and out of," she said.

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Watching from the defense table, Van Dyke wiped away a tear.

Her testimony took place without any live audio or video feed from the courtroom.

2:47 p.m.: Witnesses begin to testify on Van Dyke's behalf

The first witness called by the defense, Chicago police Officer Robert Warzocha, worked with Van Dyke in the Targeted Response Unit and took part in the March 2011 arrest of Jeremy Mayers.

Warzocha said he never saw Van Dyke physically abuse Mayers, who testified earlier in the day that Van Dyke had choked him while they were alone in a squad car. He said Mayers never complained to him about his treatment.

On cross-examination, Warzocha acknowledged he was not always with Van Dyke during the arrest.

1:58 p.m.: McDonald's great uncle reads letter written in Laquan's voice

Laquan McDonalds great-uncle, the Rev. Marvin Hunter, prepared a letter for the judge that he wrote in his great-nephews voice.

The letter said that Hunter used McDonalds last paycheck from his construction job to buy the teen's suit for his funeral. His killing came just weeks before McDonald was to begin living under the same roof again with his sister and mother, who had overcome drug addiction

I was so happy for the possibility of that day, the letter said. However, Jason Van Dykerobbed us of this.

Hunters letter made a slight nod to McDonalds juvenile criminal record, which mostly included drug arrests. He was high on PCP the night he was shot.

The story of my lifeis that I have worked hard to correct the mistakes that I made, the letter said.

Van Dyke, sporting a patchy beard and looking thinner since his trial more than three months ago, listened to Hunters statement but did not show an outward reaction.

The letter ended with a request to punish Van Dyke for McDonalds killing, arguing the former officer has shown no remorse for his actions that night.

What happened to me can never be changed, but other young black men and women will not have to face Jason Van Dyke and his evil and selfish ways, the letter said. Im a real victim of murder and that can never be changed. Please think about me and my life when you sentence this person to prison.

The defense did not ask Hunter any questions.

The court recessed for lunch until about 2:30 p.m.

Deaf motorist Alberto Luces testifies in sign language at former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke's sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building Friday, Jan. 18, 2019 in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

1:43 p.m.: Deaf witness unable to identify Van Dyke without his glasses

A deaf motorist, Alberto Luces, testified briefly that a police officer twisted his arm during a March 2013 traffic stop when he tried to explain he was deaf and could not hear them.

But Luces testimony was cut short when he couldnt identify Van Dyke in court due to poor vision. Judge Gaughan even allowed Luces to leave the witness stand and walk closer toward Van Dyke to get a better look around the courtroom. Still, Luces testified, he could not identify him. He forgot to bring his eyeglasses.

I tried to look and I tried to see, but its been a really long time, Luces said.

Luces, whose testimony was recited aloud in court by sign-language experts, had testified two officers  one black, one white  pulled him over just moments after he left a relatives home.

I tried explaining to them that I was deaf. I was motioning, he said. They twisted my arm and it hurt a lot.  I was hurt. I was upset. I was just trying to communicate with them that I was deaf.

He said someone tried to videotape the incident, but police made the person stop filming.

Luces later filed a citizens complaint. It included in Van Dykes police file.

But since Luces could not identify Van Dyke in court, it likely will have no bearing on whatever sentence Gaughan reaches.

1:28 p.m.: 'You've got to be kidding me'

On cross-examination, attorney Dan Herbert approached and asked his usual opening question of witnesses: How are you doing today, Mr. Nance?

Nance, who had been weeping on the stand for nearly an hour, continued to cry.

Herbert pointed out discrepancies in Nances testimony Friday compared with the report he filed with a police oversight agency shortly after the incident.

The report accuses other officers of actions that Nance attributed to Van Dyke.

Nance read a copy of the report on the stand -- and began laughing in an abrupt departure from his previous demeanor on the stand.

The report is simply incorrect, he said.

Youve got to be kidding me, he said, saying the investigator that took his statement was overworked and uninterested in finding out the truth.

1:25 p.m.: Downward spiral

The incident led to a downward spiral for prosecutors fourth witness, Edward Nance, both physically and emotionally. At the time a high school basketball and football referee, he had multiple surgeries to repair torn rotator cuffs in both shoulders. He missed work and eventually had to quit refereeing altogether, Nance said.

As for his emotional pain, Nance testified he cant sleep at night, suffers from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Hes on a number of medications and regularly sees psychiatrists and psychologists.

I cant lift 10 pounds with my left arm, said Nance, crying through most of his testimony. I cant referee no more. Im in constant pain every day.

Nance filed a complaint against Van Dyke with IPRA that went nowhere, he said.

He went to work the next damn day, like nothing happened, a sobbing Nance said of Van Dyke.

He also filed a federal lawsuit against the city and Van Dyke. A jury found in his favor and awarded him $350,000 in damages.

Edward Nance, who alleged he was roughed up by Officer Jason Van Dyke during a traffic stop on the South Side in 2007, testifies at Van Dyke's sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Jan. 18, 2019 in Chicago. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

1:21 p.m.: Emotional testimony from witness who testifies Van Dyke brutalized him

Prosecutors fourth witness was Edward Nance, another black motorist who alleged he was roughed up by Van Dyke during a traffic stop on the South Side in 2007.

Nances run-in with Van Dyke was featured in a front-page story in the Chicago Tribune in April 2015 that first identified Van Dyke as the officer who shot Laquan McDonald. Nance told the Tribune at the time that learning Van Dyke was under investigation for killing someone brought back everything that had happened to him.

"It makes me feel like it could have been me," he said then.

Nance sobbed in court Friday and testified haltingly that he was driving his mothers car with his cousin in the passenger seat when Van Dyke and his partner pulled them over.

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Open this mother------ door right now! Nance said Van Dyke yelled at him.

Thats how he greeted you? special prosecutor Joseph McMahon asked.

Yes, Nance said through tears.

Nance said Van Dyke opened the door and pulled him violently out of the car by the arm, then put handcuffs on him and slammed him face-first on the car. When he tried to ask Van Dyke why hed pulled him over, Nance said the officer yelled, What the f--- is wrong with you, mother------? I told you to get out of the car!

Van Dyke dragged Nance backward by the handcuffs to his police squad car, then threw him face down onto the floor of the back seat, according to Nances testimony. He said he felt pain in his arms and tried to tell Van Dyke he couldnt move, but the officer told him to shut up and lay down.

Did you fight back? McMahon asked. Nance replied in a choked-up voice,

No, I couldnt.

After about 20 minutes, Van Dyke opened the door to the squad car and yanked Nance out by his arms.

He said, Shut the f--- up or youre going to go to jail, Nance said. He took the handcuffs off of my arms, pushed me in the back and told me to get out of here, go home.

Nance was ticketed for not having a front license plate  a citation that was later dismissed. Police also claimed they found marijuana on his cousin and had his mothers car towed. Nance said the family never saw the car again.

12:16 p.m.: Defense focuses on witness' chuckling at Van Dyke in jail garb

On cross-examination, Van Dyke's attorney, Daniel Herbert, questioned Breathett about his comment that it was fitting for Van Dyke to be wearing jail garb.

You think he belongs in prison? Herbert asked.

Yes, definitely, Breathett said.

Breathett testified he has never viewed the infamous police dashboard camera video of Laquan McDonald's shooting and based his opinion solely on Van Dykes treatment of him during the traffic stop.

He described Van Dyke as being unprofessional and pure chaos.

Herbert noted Breathett has filed more than one citizen complaint against police, suggesting he had an ax to grind against law enforcement.

The witness disputed the allegation. He agreed, though, when Herbert asked him if he thinks police mistreat minorities.

Its fair to say that, in certain neighborhoods and certain areas, Breathett said.

Eric Breathett testifies about being pulled over by Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2009, at Van Dyke's sentencing hearing on Jan. 18, 2019. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

12:05 p.m.: 'A young black man in America'

The prosecutions next witness, Eric Breathett, 28, testified about being pulled over by Van Dyke as he was driving to Rainbow Beach on July 4, 2009. Breathett testified he sensed he was in trouble as soon as the squad car pulled up behind him.

Im just a young black man in America, he said. I always get in fear for my life when CPD gets behind me.

Breathett, who was 19 at the time, assumed he was pulled over for rolling through a stop sign. He testified Van Dyke handcuffed him and accused him of disturbing the peace, even though the subwoofers in his trunk were not connected, he said.

When Breathett refused to admit he was playing music, Van Dyke took him to the station, he said. Van Dyke also made references to unsolved shootings in the area before telling him he could be released if he signed a paper admitting to playing music.

Breathett signed the paper.

After prosecutors asked Breathett to identify Van Dyke in court, Breathett chuckled and referred to the ex-officers jail uniform as the right clothes.

Jeremy Mayers testifies about how former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke handled him in 2011 during Van Dyke's sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Jan. 18, 2019. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

11:55 a.m.: Second prosecution witness testifies Van Dyke choked him

Another black motorist, Jeremy Mayers, testified Van Dyke choked him during a traffic stop on March 19, 2011, after he refused to spit out a cough drop.

Mayers, 42, alleged Van Dyke also twisted his arm while removing handcuffs.

Mayers admitted he drank alcohol earlier that evening but said he was not intoxicated after police stopped while driving near Cottage Grove and 64th Street.

Outside the police station, as he sat alone in a squad car with Van Dyke, Mayers said the officer used one hand to choke him after he refused an order to spit out the cough drop.

He turned around and started choking me, trying to get it out, Mayers testified. He stopped my breath a little bit.

Mayers said the incident lasted 5 to 10 seconds.

Inside the police station, Mayers said he was forced to take multiple Breathalyzer tests. After the fourth attempt, he said, he registered the legal-limit of .08.

They was in the station like proud they got me and they booked me, he said of police.

Mayers requested to speak to a supervisor and said he filed a complaint as soon as I got released.

He later was interviewed with the Independent Police Review Authority , but Van Dyke was cleared of wrongdoing.

Mayers said he was convicted of DUI.

Grabbing the front of the wooden witness box, Mayers stopped a couple times while testifying.

Im a little nervous, he said repeatedly.

I cant even look at the man right now, he said when asked how the incident impacted him. I just think of the night he choked me. He didnt have no remorse or nothing.

In a contentious cross-examination, Mayers acknowledged he was convicted of DUI but denied he was impaired. He said hed been drinking at a friends house  he recalled having only one shot of vodka -- and was driving an old-school Cadillac when Van Dyke stopped him.

He also admitted he had marijuana on him at the time and that it wasnt his first DUI.

As their first witness, prosecutors called Vidale Joy, who said in August 2005 he had a run-in with police and former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke, during Van Dyke's sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Jan. 18, 2019. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

11:30 a.m.: Citizen complaint against Van Dyke 'abruptly dismissed'

On cross-examination, Joy said he filed a complaint against Van Dyke, but it was abruptly dismissed by the Office of Professional Standards, which investigated police misconduct at the time.

He testified he told investigators Van Dyke called him a black-ass n-----," but the report did not include that specific term or racial slurs," only a reference to obscenities.

Joy said police cited him that for having improper tags, but the ticket was dismissed after he proved it was properly registered in another state.

I was never given a chance to explain that because Officer Van Dyke bum-rushed me, Joy said.

Van Dyke's attorney, Daniel Herbert, pointed out that Joy was in a high-crime area when he was pulled over.

Thats Chicago, he said, drawing snickers from some spectators in the courtroom.

Joy testified that he did not volunteer to testify at the sentencing hearing. Prosecutors approached him about six weeks ago, he said.

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11:23 a.m.: First prosecution witness says Van Dyke screamed obscenities and racial slurs at him with gun to his temple

As their first witness, prosecutors called Vidale Joy, who said he had a run-in with police in August 2005 when Jason Van Dyke put a gun to his temple and screamed obscenities and racial slurs at him.

Joy, who said he is an author and poet, was pulled over after leaving a gas station at Cermak Road and Ogden Avenue on Chicagos West Side, he said. Joy said he put his hands on the steering wheel and saw Van Dyke approaching his car with his gun drawn.

He was, um, shouting obscenities, racist slurs or what have you, Joy said.

On cross-examination, he said Van Dyke called him a black-ass n-----

I was quite nervous because he had his gun drawn on me, Joy said. He put the gun to my temple. It was as if he was just infuriated, just out of his mind, in my opinion.

Joy said he complied with Van Dykes commands to get out of the car. Van Dyke refused to tell him why he was pulled over and ignored his requests to call his lawyer, Joy testified.

He never answered. He kept just verbally abusing me, Joy said. He never answered any of my questions, and he never gave me any reasons for detaining me.

Joy said he was detained for 20 minutes or more but was never charged. He later filed a complaint with the police Office of Professional Standards.

Joy said the incident continues to affect him to this day.

Honestly speaking, um, I do suffer from depression, he said. I have anxiety to a degree where every time an officer gets behind me I get nervous so that I shut down. I become momentarily catatonic.

10:57 a.m.: Defense wants Van Dyke sentenced only for second-degree murder, not the more serious aggravated battery convictions

Darren OBrien, one of Van Dyke's lawyers, argued the former officer must be sentenced only on the second-degree murder conviction, a less serious charge than the aggravated battery counts under Illinois law.

OBrien said the case law is clear that the aggravated battery counts merge into the murder charge.

Interestingly, to support his argument, he adopted the prosecutions position at trial that each of the 16 bullet wounds caused McDonalds death.

If Judge Gaughan disagrees, OBrien argued Van Dyke should be sentenced on only one of the 16 counts of aggravated battery for which he was convicted.

Death is the injury in this case, not the individual aggravated batteries, he said.

O'Brien also noted the wide sentencing range facing Van Dyke.

It would be extremely unfair to punish Mr. Van Dyke for shooting and wounding somebody, and having those same wounds be the cause of death, and punishing him for the death, too, he said.

OBrien also argued that the jury, in its verdict, found that the prosecution had proven the elements of first-degree murder. To sentence Van Dyke for aggravated battery would diminish their work, he said.

If you do that, their deliberations are out the window, he said.

While OBrien didnt discuss a possible specific sentence for Van Dyke, the defense filed paperwork earlier this week seeking probation.

10:45 a.m.: Prosecutors lay out path for judge to sentence Van Dyke to up to 18 years in prison

After a closed-door session that lasted about half an hour, attorneys argued legal issues involving over what punishment should be imposed.

Prosecutors want him sentenced on his 16 counts of conviction for aggravated battery, a Class X offense that carries a stiffer penalty than second-degree murder. The defense wants Van Dyke punished only for the second-degree murder count, leaving open the possibility of a sentence of probation.

Special prosecutor Joseph McMahon acknowledged the concept may be confusing to the general public -- that murder would be considered less serious that aggravated battery under sentencing laws.

When you hear the term second-degree murder, it sounds like a more serious offense, McMahon said. But when you look atIllinois state law, aggravated battery is the more serious offense."

Under the states labyrinthine sentencing guidelines, some experts believe Van Dyke could be eligible for a minimum 96 years in prison at his sentencing. A jury convicted him last fall of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery  one count for each bullet that riddled 17-year-old McDonalds body after refusing police orders to drop a knife.

McMahon, however, made clear that he does not believe Van Dyke should be given a sentence of nearly a century in prison for the aggravated battery charges.

Thats more than two times the minimum sentence for first-degree murder, declared McMahon, saying that would raise constitutional issues.

McMahon outlined a way for Van Dyke to instead be sentenced to 18 years in prison, but he did not make a specific recommendation as to how many years the ex-officer should be incarcerated.

Prosecutors believe a grand jury correctly indicted Van Dyke on 16 separates count of aggravated battery and that each count of conviction must be served separately, one after the other.

There were 16 separate gunshots wound, each one causing harm to Laquan McDonald, McMahon said. He continued to assess and shoot that gun throughout the entire process.

But McMahon told Judge Vincent Gaughan that the ex-patrolman does not necessarily have to serve all 16 counts consecutively. Instead, prosecutors contend the judge can determine which shots caused severe bodily injury and order Van Dyke to serve only those counts consecutively.

At trial, the defense repeatedly argued that only two bullets  one to McDonalds chest and another to his neck  were fatal. If the judge agreed with that position, prosecutors argue Van Dyke would face a maximum 18 years in prison  six for the neck wound, six for the chest shot plus six years for the remaining, non-fatal shots.

Under that scenario, Van Dyke would be eligible for parole after 15 years. He would be 55.

9:47 a.m.: Closed-door meeting in judge's chambers delays start

Before the televised proceedings began in earnest, Judge Vincent Gaughan called the attorneys behind closed doors to discuss certain witnesses objection to being shown on camera.

Both the prosecution and defense are expected to call witnesses to the stand to discuss the effects of the shooting on McDonalds family or to vouch for Van Dykes character.

The proceedings will be shown on video and audio unless Gaughan grants the witnesses requests to be exempted.

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9:12 a.m.: Sentencing hearing has begun

Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan has taken the bench before a packed courtroom as attorneys and spectators prepare for what could be a lengthy sentencing hearing for Jason Van Dyke.

Van Dykes family and well-wishers crowded into benches on one side of the room. Among those in attendance are Van Dykes wife, father and two school-age daughters.

On the other side of the gallery sat Laquan McDonalds family and supporters, including the teens great-uncle, the Rev. Marvin Hunter.

Background: What you need to know

In October, a jury convicted Van Dyke of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery  one for each bullet that riddled McDonalds body  after a four-week trial. The verdict marked the first time in more than 50 years that a Chicago police officer had been convicted of murder for an on-duty incident.

Van Dyke shot McDonald as the teen, high on PCP, walked down Pulaski Road ignoring commands to drop a knife he was holding. The court-ordered release of a police dashboard camera video of the shooting roiled the city, leading to a political reckoning and police reforms.

Some experts believe Van Dyke, 40, could face as much as 96 years in prison, though debate in the legal community continues over the precise sentencing range.

The ex-patrol officers defense team has asked for probation, while the prosecution has given its blessing for a sentence that could result in Van Dykes freedom while hes still young enough to rebuild his life. Special prosecutor Joseph McMahon has not made a specific recommendation on how many years Van Dyke should be incarcerated, but a memorandum he filed this week outlined a way for the officer to be sentenced to 18 years in prison.

The final decision rests with Judge Vincent Gaughan, a veteran jurist who has given no public indication of how he will structure Van Dykes punishment.

Gaughans decision comes a day after his colleague, Stephenson, issued a surprisingly brutal takedown of the prosecution case in acquitting retired Detective David March, ex-patrolman Joseph Walsh and Officer Thomas Gaffney on all charges.

Stephenson made much of the fact that the infamous police dashboard camera video did not show the shooting from the vantage of Van Dyke or his partner, Walsh  a note that Van Dykes attorneys also emphasized at his trial, though without success.

Stephenson also suggested that Van Dyke and Walsh could have had a reasonable fear for their safety and should not be second-guessed as to what they should have believed.

Van Dykes jury disagreed with her assessment, finding that Van Dykes belief that he was justified in shooting McDonald was unwarranted.

In the Van Dyke case, both the defense and prosecution positions on sentencing reflect the unique nature of the case given that Van Dyke, a longtime public servant, has no previous criminal record. The defense argued that police officers face difficult circumstances in prison, a point McMahon also has acknowledged in the three months since Van Dykes conviction.

Police officers often are segregated from the prison population for their safety, though studies have shown long-term isolation to be detrimental to inmates. Since his conviction, Van Dyke has been in solitary confinement in the Rock Island County Jail  rather than in Cook County  since October in order to better protect him.

To bolster its probation request, the defense legal team filed dozens of letters written by Van Dykes friends and relatives, including his wife, daughters and parents. His daughters, ages 17 and 12, both asked Gaughan for leniency, saying their family has suffered tremendously since the verdict.

Van Dykes younger daughter described how she has nightmares and cannot concentrate at school. His older daughter wrote that she has struggled with depression since the trial and cries herself to sleep each night wondering if her father has enough blankets and food in prison.

Van Dyke lost his law-enforcement certification following his conviction.

cmgutowski@chicagotribune.com
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BMG/Black Box RecordingsThe Glorious Sons have released the video for their single "S.O.S. (Sawed Off Shotgun)." Filmed live last fall in Toronto, the clip, streaming now via Billboard.com, finds the Canadian rockers delivering an impassioned performance in front of some 10,000 fans.

"S.O.S" is featured on The Glorious Sons' 2017 album Young Beauties and Fools. It currently sits at number one on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songs chart, and in the top 30 on Alternative Songs.

"I think the reason this song is connecting and resonating with people is because it's about real issues that we all face, it's a sign of the times," vocalist Brett Emmons tells Billboard. "It's time for the genre to get back to its roots, and I'm not talking about the sonics. Rock n Roll should be dangerous, it should be rebellious, and has to start making people think again."

The Glorious Sons will launch a U.S. headlining tour February 12 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Copyright  2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Wald, who worked in Howards small chain of coffee joints under his sisters supervision, had gone to the gym with the unsuspecting husband that night. When they got back to the office, Roslyn was lying in wait, the ADA said on the first day of the Manhattan Supreme Court proceeding, which is expected to last about two months.
Defense lawyer Alice Fontier contends that Gonzalez, who has an extensive criminal history, is medically unfit to stand trial. She noted he has a long history of drug abuse and mental illness. He was allegedly high when he jumped on Arroyo's rear bumper in Soundview.
The emotional hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court featured an apology by Davenport, 33, who began his remarks by recalling details of his rocky, drug-fueled relationship with Hines. Her favorite color was blue, her favorite flowers were peonies and her favorite author was Toni Morrison, he said. They had two cats named Hootie and the Blowfish, though they didnt like the band.
We hope that the court is recognizing that this tax has nothing to do with reducing congestion and is only serving to harm an already vulnerable industry, said medallion owners lawyer Brett Berman said.
Barbosa also admitted he lied about the money he earned from his previous employer, New York University. By saying NYU paid him $30,000 more than he really earned, he convinced the MTA to pay him a bigger starting salary.
Eight Amtrak trips have been canceled for this weekend, including on Saturday two Capitol Limited trips between Chicago and Washington, D.C., four trains on the Lake Shore Limited from Chicago to Boston, and a trip on the Cardinal line from Chicago to New York. (iStock)
"It's a great shop of the sort we can't have enough of, despite the fact that they're disappearing so rapidly," wrote Brooklyn resident Jeff Lewonczyk, who said he stops by whenever he's on the Upper West Side.
My doctors were all white, Jewish. They didnt look like me, she said. As much as I love them, I can imagine how much of a difference it wouldve made just to have a doctor there who looked like me.
I went to the other car, which was on its side, and there was an elder gentleman in there otherwise known as the Duke of Edinburgh, Warne said.
The people running the accounts represented themselves as independent news sources and posted on topics like anti-NATO sentiment and protest movements. "We didn't find any links between these operations, but they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing," Gleicher said.

Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said in a blog post that one network operated in countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The other focused on Ukraine.

The social media company said it took action after finding two networks "that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior" on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.

Facebook said Thursday it removed hundreds of Russia-linked pages, groups and accounts that it says were part of two big disinformation operations, in its latest effort to fight fake news.

Gleicher said one network of 364 pages and accounts was linked to employees of Sputnik, a Russian state-run English-language news site. About 790,000 accounts followed one or more of the network's pages. The operation spent about $135,000 over six years for Facebook advertisements, which it paid for in euros, rubles and dollars. The most recent ad ran in January.

Sputnik criticized Facebook's takedown. "The decision is clearly political. This is tantamount to censorship," it said in a statement to the AP, adding that Facebook blocked the accounts of seven of its bureaus in former Soviet republics. "Sputnik editorial offices deal with news and they do it well. If this blocking is Facebook's only reaction to the quality of the media's work, then we have no questions, everything is clear here. But there is still hope that common sense will prevail."

Acting on a tip from U.S. law enforcement, Facebook shut another 148 pages, groups and accounts, including 41 on Instagram, that were part of a second network that spent $25,000 on ads in 2018, paid for in rubles. Gleicher said Facebook "identified some technical overlap with Russia-based activity we saw prior to the U.S. midterm elections, including behavior that shared characteristics with previous Internet Research Agency activity."

The Internet Research Agency is a Russian troll farm indicted by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller for its actions aimed at influencing the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The disclosure is the latest in a series of fake account purges in recent months. Facebook has been stepping up its scrutiny after being criticized for its slow response to foreign attempts to influence the 2016 vote.

In another measure aimed at increasing transparency, Facebook last year started requiring all political ads taken out in the U.S., Britain and Brazil to disclose who paid for them.
The 2019 China Military Power report, released Tuesday by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) affiliated to the US Department of Defense, provided an overall description of the status quo and development of China's military power.

"Beijing's long-standing interest to eventually compel Taiwan's reunification with the mainland and deter any attempt by Taiwan to declare independence has served as the primary driver for China's military modernization," said the report, adding China is "on the verge of fielding some of the most modern weapon systems in the world."

DIA believes that the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)'s confidence in using force to unify with Taiwan is increasing, that China-US interactions in the South China Sea are conducted in a professional manner where China has no intention of making any compulsive actions. The PLA still has a long way to go to reach the US military's standard on the world stage, says the report, but the Chinese military's all-round capability is expanding. The US army has been paying close attention to the possibility of the PLA resolving the Taiwan question by force. The latest report has to some extent showed such a capability.

Compared with previous US reports on the Chinese military, this one is relatively moderate with the clearest focus. A positive sign is the report does not exaggerate China's enthusiasm for seeking regional hegemony. But it sounds the alarm to Washington that the PLA may resort to force on Taiwan. Hence the island might be a relatively sensitive area in future China-US military competition.

The mind-set of defense has always been running through China's military construction. Nonetheless, the DIA does not focus on that and instead pays greater attention to the PLA's ability to attack Taiwan. It sheds no light on the Democratic Progressive Party's continuous provocation including denying the one-China principle, which is the fundamental reason for cross-Straits tensions.

With growing economic and technological strength, China keeps improving and will continue to improve its military. This is China's fundamental right to safeguard its national security.

But China won't initiate an arms race with the US. Nor does China have the ambition to start a global military competition with Washington. China develops armaments to safeguard its national security, not for hegemony. The US has a global system of alliances, but China would not try to follow suit.

The Taiwan question concerns China's core interests. Peaceful reunification is China's basic State policy. US interference in the Taiwan question is the biggest impetus for the Chinese mainland to improve its military buildup. China is concerned that Washington will encourage Taiwan authorities to make extreme choices. Yet the PLA's full preparation may prevent Taiwan from making reckless moves and consolidate peace across the Taiwan Straits.

China's military buildup is not aimed at war. Among all the major worldwide countries, China is the most prudent one when it comes to resorting to force. But we must remain dignified and make sure external forces always respect China.

The US on the other hand uses military force willfully. If Washington judges Beijing by the experiences of the US itself, the conclusion is highly likely to be wrong.
In an interview with VOA Hausa Service in Washington DC, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar said stories that he was banned from the United States wa...

In an interview with VOA Hausa Service in Washington DC, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar said stories that he was banned from the United States was disinformation.





He spoke on Thursday, after his arrival to the US capital, where he lodged at Trump International Hotel.





Here is the transcript of the interview conducted by VOAs Aliyu Mustapha Sokoto





VOA: What has been in the news for many years has come to past right now Im together with the former Vice President of Nigeria and the Presidential flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after he had just returned from some interactive session with some high ranking Congress Men and Women. Your excellency, now that you have visited Washington D.C, does it have to do with those who said you cannot come to the United State of America or the visit is for what purpose?

Atiku: Aliyu I told you before that my coming to the United States is in the hands of Americans, if they decided to issue a Visa to me I will definitely come and if they refused to give me I cannot come. And now they have issued it to me and I am here. Im having some positive discussions with some of the officials. I was in the Congress and I had discussions with some high ranking Congress men and Women about Nigeria and how Nigeria intends to improve her relationship with the United States of America.





VOA: After visiting the Congress, do you intend to meet with some other people?





Atiku: Yes, by tomorrow (Friday) I will go to the State Department in order to have vital discussions with some of their officials.





VOA: Will you also meet with the members of the United States Chamber of Commerce?





Atiku: Yes, I will meet them tomorrow (Friday) by the Grace of God.





VOA: Who invited you to the United State?





Atiku: I was invited by many organizations in the United States.





VOA: Before some people are saying that you cannot come to the United States of America but now you are here people will stop doubting.





Atiku: The whole thing is about misinformation





VOA: What do you mean by misinformation?





Atiku: Because for a very long time they have been lying to them (Nigerians) and they agreed; I tried to explain to them but they refused to listen. And I hope now people are going to understand.





VOA: Your coming to America has shown that you are going to have some interactions with some top officials of the United States are they in support of your candidacy?





Atiku: Yes.





VOA: Are you convinced that the United States Government is in support of your candidacy?





Atiku: There is no doubt because the United States is ready to support any country that is practicing democracy.





VOA: People know you as a businessman; do you think that your business background and experience will influence the United States Government to support you?





Atiku: One good thing is that Nigeria is a country that is practicing democracy and everyone knows that we have played a significant role and have done a lot to sustain democratic governance in Nigeria and it is very important.








President Muhammadu Buhari has appealed for accommodation and tolerance among cattle herders and farmers throughout the country. A...





President Muhammadu Buhari has appealed for accommodation and tolerance among cattle herders and farmers throughout the country.





According to a statement made available by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicty, Garba Shehu, Buhari spoke at the State House when he received the leaders of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN.





He also urged the herders to support him in the task of bringing lasting peace to the country.





The President appealed for calm among all citizens, saying that his government will give equal respect to all citizens irrespective of their ethnic, religious and geopolitical backgrounds.

President Buhari said, I appeal to all farmers and herders for restraint, mutual respect and tolerance for one another as people destined to live together in this great country. I appeal for patience and understanding as the administration works towards lasting solutions to these conflicts.





The President called on state governors to work with the Minister of Agriculture, who he said, had been mandated to work out a solution with the states by which herders will have access to water for their livestock, and farmers will have security against destruction of their farmlands.





President Buhari attributed part of the conflict between the two groups to the climate change phenomenon and population explosion, but regretted that its politicization by selfish individuals who did not mean well for the country did not also help matters.





He emphasized that this conflict was neither religious nor ethnic, but one that his administration has foreseen and warned about.





The President added, Before the Benue and Taraba crises, I called the Minister of Agriculture and the Governor of Central Bank and asked them to work with the state governors on rediscovering the gazetted cattle routes, clear of farmlands that had made for peace during the First Republic.





President Buhari expressed strong confidence that a way around the problem will be found, working with the states which have an important role to play in finding a lasting solution.





Whatever it will take, I am determined to bring peace between farmers and herders. I urge you all to be patient and exercise restraint while we are working for an enduring solution, he stressed.





MACBAN, led by Alhaji Mohammed Kiruwa, informed the President that the 20-million strong body had sent the delegation to endorse his bid for a second term in office on account of the administrations achievements in office which included, the successful clampdown on kidnapping and cattle rustling; and the fight against terrorism and corrupt elements in the society.




The federal government has accused Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of contributing to the c...





The federal government has accused Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of contributing to the collapse of former Bank PHB, vowing to grill him when he returns from the US.





Speaking with state house correspondents on Friday, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, said there is evidence that Atiku benefitted from slush funds that led to the collapse of Bank PHB.





Mohammed said the government has in its possession paper trail which linked the presidential candidate to one Claremont Management Services account through which N156 million was credited to him in 2009, a development that culminated in the grounding of the bank.





It started from an internal memo dated 13 January 2009 asking that a draft in favour of Atiku Abubakar of N156 million should be raised, he said.





We want him to stay in the US for as long as he wants but he has to explain to Nigerians when he returns, he said.





Taunting Atiku, Mohammed said even if the PDP presidential candidate obtained a US green card, that would not stop his loss in next months election.





We are not perturbed one bit. He can go ahead and get a US green card. That will not save him from imminent defeat in the forthcoming election, he said.





Electionz will be held here in Nigeria, not in the US.




Chris Smith, a member of the United States house of representatives says the reports of the harassment of opposition leaders are extre...





Chris Smith, a member of the United States house of representatives says the reports of the harassment of opposition leaders are extremely concerning,





In a resolution to encourage peaceful elections, Smith appealed to stakeholders to be committed to peace.





He said the elections are critical to the future of the country and should therefor be free and fair.





Reports of President Muhamadu Buharis apparent crackdown on non-violent protests and harassment of opposition leaders are extremely concerning, as well as the ongoing violence that has been perpetrated by extremists, particularly in the Middle Belt region, he said.





The violence must be stopped, along with any subversion of the electoral process. The Nigerian government must see to free and fair elections, which this resolution calls for.





Karen Bassm, Steve Chabot who co-chairs the Nigeria caucus, Elliot Engel, chairman of the house committee on foreign affairs, are among those serving on the subcommittee on Africa.





It is in the best interest of the United States to maintain a strong bilateral relationship with a politically stable, democratic, and economically sound Nigeria that can play a leadership role in the region and the continent more broadly, Bass said in a statement.





A credible, transparent and peaceful election this coming February would further consolidate democratic gains achieved over the last two decades. Nigerians are deeply committed to democracy and ensuring transparency in electoral preparations, which would build public confidence in the electoral process.





This resolution sends the message that the people of the United States will continue to stand with the people of Nigeria in support of peace and democracy.





For Engel, this legislation reaffirms US long- standing commitment to strengthening democracy in Nigeria.





In 2015, Nigeria became another democratic role model for countries on the continent, showing that a credible electoral process could result in the peaceful transition of power from an incumbent to the opposition, he said.





Regardless of the outcome, my hope for the upcoming presidential, gubernatorial, and National Assembly elections is that Nigerian politicians, citizens, and the electoral commission will build on the successes of 2015 to further consolidate democracy in Nigeria.





On his part, Chabot said there is still work to be done to ensure the elections are transparent, peaceful, and credible.





He said the resolution lays out the necessary steps to achieve these goals, and urged Nigeria to conduct elections free of violence.





On Thursday, the US had raised concern over the handling of security in the elections.




The United States Chamber of Commerce has confirmed a private meeting with Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples D...





The United States Chamber of Commerce has confirmed a private meeting with Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).





In a mailed response to inquiries on attending the meeting, Katharine Cooksey, senior manager, media and external communications, US Chamber of Commerce, said no reporters will be able to attend the meeting.





Thank you for reaching out to us. The event you mention is private, closed press, and off the record, Cooksey said.





Only U.S.-Africa Business Center members are invited. No reporters will be able to attend.





TheCable had initially tried to confirm the details of the event from the chamber and the US Africa Business Centre websites, but there was no record of the meeting.





Atiku, who arrived the US this afternoon, however, said he will be meeting with US government officials, without giving details of who and who he will be meeting.





Just arrived Washington D.C for meeting with US government officials, Nigerians living in D.C metropolis and the business community, Atiku tweeted with his signature AA.





The chamber is the largest lobbying group in the US, spending more money than any other lobbying organization on a yearly basis.





It has specific economic and political leanings, which plays major roles in elections in the United States and the creation of jobs in the worlds largest economy.





Atiku has built his campaign around job creation, running with the tagline: Atiku means jobs. It is, however, unclear how Atikus meetings will further facilitate his quest to create jobs in Nigeria.




An Apapa Chief Magistrates Court on Friday granted bail of N50, 000 to a s3x worker, Favour Eze, accused of stealing her colleagues N...





An Apapa Chief Magistrates Court on Friday granted bail of N50, 000 to a s3x worker, Favour Eze, accused of stealing her colleagues N80, 000.









The accused, 28, resides at Apapa area of Lagos.









The Chief Magistrate, Mr Michael Olubi, granted her the bail with two sureties in like sum.









Olubi adjourned the case until Jan. 30 for hearing.

Earlier, the Prosecutor, Insp. Ferdinand Asu, told the court that the accused committed the offence on Jan.6 at Roland Hotel, Apapa, Lagos.









The prosecutor said that the complainant, Ogechi Eze, accused Eze of entering her hotel room to steal the said amount kept in a drawer.









The complainant said that the accused and two others were sitting with her at the hotel bar when she suddenly discovered that the key to her room was missing.









Unknown to the complainant, Eze had secretly gone behind her back to steal the money she kept in the room.









On getting there, the complainant discovered that the money she kept in the drawer was missing.









The complainant said unfortunately for the accused, she left her phone on the bed after stealing the money, Asu said.









The prosecutor told the court that the complainant then reported the matter to the police and the accused was arrested.









He said the offence contravened Section 287 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015, which prescribes a three-year jail term for any offender if found guilty.
Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), Dolapo Badmus, has sent a message to the LGBT community in Nigeria, stating that the country is no...

Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), Dolapo Badmus, has sent a message to the LGBT community in Nigeria, stating that the country is not a place for homosexuals. She reveled this in a post shared on her Instagram page on January 14.





Dolapo revealed that if the perpetrators of such criminal act wanted to practice at will then they should consider leaving the country as anyone found wanting will face the full extent of the law.





Badmus also mentioned that there is a same sex prohibition act that criminalises homosexuality with penalties of up to 14 years imprisonment. She thus warned that if anyone feels that they are homosexually inclined, they should exit the country or face prosecution.





Her statement sparked up a heated debate online with most accusing the police of neglecting their duties as many Nigerian men now show they are homosexuals in their style.





Many mentioned self-acclaimed, female Barbie, Bobrisky as he is very well known for being a cross dresser. There are times he has also claimed to be in relationships with men.





In response, Badmus clarified that no one will be arrested based on assumptions and dared that if anyone has damning evidence against any 'risky' man, they should step forward. Read her post below:








The Police Command in Rivers has confirmed the kidnap of Dr. Anugbom Anuoha, the Special Adviser to Gov. Nyesom Wike on Lands and Survey...

The Police Command in Rivers has confirmed the kidnap of Dr. Anugbom Anuoha, the Special Adviser to Gov. Nyesom Wike on Lands and Survey by unknown gunmen in military uniform.









The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Nnamdi Omoni, made the confirmation in a statement in Port Harcourt on Friday.









Omoni said that the incident took place on Thursday at about 8:30 pm at an unnamed hotel in Port Harcourt, the state capital.









This is unfortunate and as a command, we are touched by this development and will go all out to ensure his speedy and timely release.









The Commissioner of Police (CP) has given a marching order to all the Tactical Units, including the IGP Monitoring Unit, to work round the clock and ensure that the victim is released in record time.









Contacts have been made with sister security agencies and other stakeholders in this direction, the commands spokesman said.









The police public relations officer appealed to the general public, to avail the command of useful information that could lead to the unconditional release of the governors aide.








Men can go about their daily activities with as little as their wallets. Ladies, on the other hand, have their lives inside of the...





Men can go about their daily activities with as little as their wallets.





Ladies, on the other hand, have their lives inside of their handbags; making the handbag more than a fashion statement.





But sometimes, some of the items in a ladys handbag might have utterly no use at all. To curb having a handbag full of useless items, here are essentials every lady should carry around:





Pocket perfume or vapouriser

Due to daily activities like commuting, our fragrances can wear off. Keeping a pocket perfume or vaporiser around will make sure we have a go-to when refreshing our fragrance.





Hand sanitizer





Hand sanitizers are very important as they help combat germs that cause viral diseases. Using a hand sanitizer can erase up to 90 percent of germs on the skin. Having a pocket sanitizer can help erase germs from crowded streets, buses and even the open air.





Wet wipes





Wet wipes because the use of wipes are limitless. From cleaning off stains on the skin and clothing items to even cleaning off a sweaty face, you can never go wrong with having wet wipes.





Stores like MIniso have pocket-sized wet wipes ideal for keeping in a handbag.





Water





Because youll be involved in rigorous activities, having a small bottle of water in your handbag is a real blessing as this helps with dehydration.





Sanitary towels or products





Some ladies might be opposed to carrying sanitary products in their handbags but the pro of doing this is to ensure you are safe when your period begins without warning.





Also, you never can tell if another lady around you might need that extra sanitary product you have tucked away in your handbag.





Lip gloss or lip balm





Depending on your preference, its always a big YES to have your preferred lip balm or lip gloss product in your handbag to keep your lips moisturised throughout the day.





Notebook and pen





Whether youre a student, entrepreneur, stay-at-home-mum, or employee, youll agree that almost on a daily basis, theres always at least one need for taking down an important thing down in your notebook or notepad.





Mints, allergy drugs or painkillers





Sometimes and also depending on the nature of your job, breath mints could be a lifesaver. Having your allergy drugs and painkillers is important in the case of an emergency.





Hand lotion





This item is important most especially for ladies with dry, combination or oily skin.





Sometimes the temperature can get too cold and your palms may dry up, needing the soothing feel of a hand lotion. Also, whats the best thing to do after washing your palms, and using a hand sanitizer, other than also applying hand lotion.




The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has arrived the capital of the United States of America, Was...

Just arrived Washington D.C for meeting with US government officials, Nigerians living in D.C metropolis and the business community. -AA pic.twitter.com/EafM47B83A January 17, 2019

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has arrived the capital of the United States of America, Washington, D.C.Atiku tweeted this on Thursday evening at 8.27pm West African Time via his verified Twitter handle, @atiku.The ex-Vice President is in company with Senate President Bukola Saraki, as revealed by the photograph that accompanied the tweet.Signed in Atikus initials AA, the presidential hopeful said he is in Washington, D.C. for meeting with US government officials, Nigerians living in D.C metropolis and the business community.Just arrived Washington D.C for meeting with US government officials, Nigerians living in D.C metropolis and the business community. -AA pic.twitter.com/EafM47B83A
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state has confirmed that the state was divided and needed to be united and also blasted South-South go...

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state has confirmed that the state was divided and needed to be united and also blasted South-South governors on their position on the case against Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Walter Onnoghen.









He also said that regardless of who he chooses as his deputy, the Christians in Southern Kaduna will still not vote him as governor in the coming polls.









El-Rufai who appeared on Channels Televisions Sunrise Daily on Thursday said that his choice of a Muslim as his running mate in Kaduna was political.









What if I tell you that no matter who I choose as my running mate, even if I choose the Pope, 67 per cent of the Christians in Southern Kaduna have made up their minds that they will never vote for me.









I am a politician, so everything I do is politically motivated.









He reported that his choice of running mate was not based on ethnic or religion and urged Nigerians to go beyond these prejudices in the best interest of the nation.









Kaduna state is divided and needs to be united and the only way to this is to take religion and ethnicity off the table.









El-Rufai also reacted to the case of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen at the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).









El-Rufai said it is time Nigerian leaders and people are reflective in decisions, rather than operate on ethnic or religious biases.









In the case of Onnoghen, the Kaduna state governor said the position taken by governors of the South-south is disheartening.









One of the most painful things I have experienced in the last two weeks, was the statement by the governors of the South-south, justifying that non-declaration of assets is nothing, is a non-issue because the Chief Justice of Nigeria is from the South-South.









Wrong is wrong and right should be right, he said.









Five out of the six governors of the South-South Governors Forum met and asked Onnoghen not to honour the summons from the Code of Conduct Bureau.









The Bureau had asked the CJN to appear before the Code of Conduct tribunal for alleged non-declaration of assets.









The governors made the call after an emergency meeting in Abuja.





We call on the CJN to ignore this so-called Court summon from the CCB and the provocative call for his resignation in some quarters, the governors said in a communique issued after the meeting.









While we are not opposed to a genuine fight against corruption, such and action must always be anchored on the rule of law.









The meeting was attended by the governors of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta and Rivers with Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State who is a member of the All Progressives Congress absent.









Bayelsa State Governor, Mr Seriake Dickson, who is the Chairman of the forum had summoned the emergency meeting on Saturday after the CCT announced that the CCB had filed six charges against the CJN with the trial scheduled to start on Monday.









Dickson read the communique after the meeting and said the move by the CCB was unacceptable.









They argued that the legal procedures for investigating allegations of misconduct against judicial officials were not followed in that matter and accused the executive of targetting other arms of government.









We note that the attempt to drag the CJN to the CCT is also a grave and dangerous escalation of the assault on institutions of state on institutions of state including the National Assembly and judiciary, they said.









To them, the move is reflective of the South-South story of endless marginalization and intimidation.









The unceremonious removal of former Acting Director General of the Department of State Service, Mathew Seiyefa and his replacement is still very fresh, they added.








Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, says there is nothing worth celebrating about the visit of Atiku Abubakar, presidential cand...





Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, says there is nothing worth celebrating about the visit of Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to the US.





El-Rufai said this at the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential rally in the state on Friday.





Atiku visited the US for the first time in 13 years on Thursday. The APC has repeatedly said he was running away from investigations by the US authorities.





Commenting on the visit which has got many people mocking the APC, el-Rufai said members of the PDP should be crying for Atiku instead of celebrating him.

Atiku is in America after begging for 12 years to get visa and people in the PDP are celebrating instead of crying. So all of a sudden, going to America is an achievement? el-Rufai asked.





Mr. President, I first went to America when I was 23 years old, it is not an achievement, but in the minds of the PDP, getting a visa after begging for 12 years is an achievement.





Do you want to vote those who will go to Trump before they come back to Nigeria? Do you want those who will take all your money to America? Atiku Abubakar should be explaining to Nigerians why he did not go to America for 12 years.





On the February 16 presidential election, the governor promised President Muhammadu Buhari that he will receive over 80 percent of the total voted from the state.





By the grace of God, in the next election, these three states will give you more than 30 percent of your total votes, he said.





Kaduna state gave you 70 per cent of its votes in 2015  1.1 million votes. This was when our voters register was just 3. 3 million.





Now our voters register is about 4 million and with the efforts of all the stakeholders here, including many decampees from PDP, we are confident that this time around, based on the work you have done in Kaduna state and Nigeria, the voters in Kaduna state will give you more than 80 per cent of the total votes.





By the grace of God and so long as we have the enabling environment- security and credible electoral officers, Kaduna state is yours, there is nothing to worry about.





Our track record as a party and your track record and the work done by APC governors, is enough for people to vote APC again.




Tragedy struck on the Benin-Auchi Expressway in Edo State on Wednesday after a 17-year-old pregnant rape victim, her uncle, an advocacy...





Tragedy struck on the Benin-Auchi Expressway in Edo State on Wednesday after a 17-year-old pregnant rape victim, her uncle, an advocacy officer identified as Promise Ezekiel, and their driver, Paul Opashe, were killed in a road crash.









The victims were travelling in a car to the Evbuoraria Magistrates Court, Benin, where judgment was to be delivered in a case involving the teenagers father when a truck rammed into their vehicle.









The fifth occupant of the car was said to be in a critical condition in the hospital.









Our correspondent gathered that there was confusion on the court premises when the Investigating Police Officer broke the news of the tragedy.









The magistrate and those who had gathered to witness the ruling, reportedly broke down in tears, as all matters slated for hearing that day were postponed.









It was learnt that the deceased advocacy officer, Ezekiel, and the survivor worked with a non-governmental organisation, the Brave Heart Initiative.









In a reaction to the tragedy, the NGO had shut down indefinitely.









Our correspondent learnt that the teenager was allegedly defiled by her father, identified as Jacob Alonge, aka Ariver, many times in their house in the Akoko Edo area of Edo State.









Alonge, 54, who was reputed to possess diabolical powers, was alleged to have aborted the first pregnancy that resulted from the incest.









The Brave Heart Initiative, in a statement it issued after agreeing to take up the case in December 2018, had said the bubble burst after the girl was impregnated the second time.









The Brave Heart Initiatives current case involves a 17-year-old girl, who had been serially abused by her biological father. The father is known to possess diabolical powers and engages in fetish practices.









The mother has been largely absent in her life, and the victim has a lot of social issues with a complicated mental health history.









Her father shaved her hair as a threat of death if she disclosed the sexual abuse, and made her to swear to keep the secret. She, therefore, endured all the abuse in secrecy.









He impregnated her last year (2017) and aborted the pregnancy via local concoctions. She is pregnant again and was finally able to confide in a relative. The community has risen in her defence. The suspect (her father) was apprehended by the communitys vigilance group and the police arrested him. The case is being prepared for further investigation and prosecution.









The scan conducted revealed that the girl is 21 weeks pregnant. The Brave Heart Initiative will be registering her for antenatal and hopes to secure a better household for her until childbirth.









The founder of the NGO, Priscilla Usiobaifo, in a series of posts on the case on Facebook, had lamented the mental condition of the 17-year-old, praying for her full recovery.









On January 11, 2019, she announced that the case had been adjourned till January 16 for judgment.









She called on her friends and other NGOs to join in witnessing the judgement.









Around 6am on the D-day, she said she had a foreboding, which she could not explain.









Usiobaifo had stated, No matter the outcome of this court judgment today, it will have an everlasting effect on this teenage girl.









It is traumatic to see your biological father in the dock and witness him being sentenced for a criminal act!









I feel very deeply about the pathetic case of this teenage girl and engage in heartfelt prayers for her full recovery.









I have supported over 100 sexual abuse survivors, but I feel very different about this particular case.









The victim, her uncle, the NGO worker, and the man who drove them did not reach the court.









Usiobaifo told our correspondent on the telephone on Thursday that they all died in the crash.









She said, The court was waiting for them to arrive when the IPO broke the news of the accident. The magistrate and everybody were devastated and they postponed everything. The survivor is still unstable in the hospital.









They were all in a car when a truck rammed them. The accident happened between 7.30am and 8am at Ewu on the Auchi-Benin Road. There were four casualties in all: the victim, her uncle, my advocacy officer and the driver.









The founder of Project Alert on Violence against Women and Girls, another NGO, Mrs Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, lamented the hazards that organisations rendering humanitarian services were exposed to without commensurate benefits.









She said Usiobaifo, who is in her early 30s, had been plunged into emotional and financial crises while attempting to help a victim of abuse.









The state Police Public Relations Officer, Nwabuifor Chidi, said he could not respond to the incident because of the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to the state.









The Public Education Officer, Federal Road Safety Corps, Bisi Kazeem, promised to call back our correspondent.








Ayodele Fayose, former Ekiti State Governor, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) to ensu...





Ayodele Fayose, former Ekiti State Governor, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) to ensure he attends the presidential debate slated for tomorrow.





Fayose, factional head of the South West campaign organisation of Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), made the call on Friday.





Messrs Buhari and Abubakar are major contestants in the presidential election scheduled for February 16. They are expected to participate in the debate.





Also, there are insinuations in some quarters that the president who seeks a second term in office will dodge the debate. The media have not been able to confirm if President Buhari would debate his challengers personally or through proxy.

Weighing-in on the matter, Fayose wrote on Twitter: They challenged @atiku to travel to US, he is there now. We are challenging President Buhari to come and debate tomorrow, no excuse!





Recall that Atiku yesterday travelled to the United States for business and political engagements.





Since he left office, Atiku has been unable to visit the country, this the All Progressive Congress (APC) maintained was because of corruption allegations involving him at the U.S.





Atikus visit has rattled the APC-led adminstration, forcing it to dug out a fresh corruption allegation against the former number two citizen.




Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Muslim Community yesterday endorsed Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State for the Mar...





Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Muslim Community yesterday endorsed Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State for the March 2, 2019 governorship election in the state.





CAN predicated its decision on the governors giant strides in the areas of industrialization, infrastructural development and human capacity development.

The associations also made a cash donation of N1.2 million to the governor to assist his campaign.





The endorsement came during an interface between the governor and the Christian body held at the main bowl of the Cultural Centre, Calabar.

A voice vote put to CAN members at the event venue by the immediate past state chairman of CAN, Archbishop Archibong Archibong for the endorsement of the governor was returned with an overwhelming yes.





At the same event, the Muslim community led by the Chief Imam of the Calabar Central Mosque, Imam Abdul Kabir Olowolayemo, also endorsed the governor for the forth coming gubernatorial election.





Earlier in his address, the State Chairman of CAN and Archbishop emeritus of Calabar Archdiocese, Most Rev. Joseph Ukpo, commended the governor for the achievements recorded by his

administration.





He described the governors achievements as monumental, adding, You have made landmark progress especially in the industrializing the state; construction of the garment factory, the first rice seeds and seedlings in Africa, construction of Calapharm for our pharmaceutical needs, the ongoing construction of chicken processing factory, the rice mill in Ogoja and the cocoa processing plant in Ikom.





In his response, Governor Ben Ayade expressed his gratitude to the Christian body for finding him worthy of their endorsement.





If there is any endorsement that is important to me, it is the CAN endorsement. I am moved by this endorsement and appreciate all the prayers and insistence that I should continue and complete all the industrialization agenda of the state. he said.




Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says the United States is in support of his presidential...





Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says the United States is in support of his presidential bid.





Atiku, who visited the country for the first time in 13 years, said this in an interview with VOA.





The interviewer had asked: Are you convinced that the United States government is in support of your candidacy? and he responded: yes.





Asked to explain further, Atiku said: There is no doubt because the United States is ready to support any country that is practicing democracy.





He dismissed the reports that the US refused to grant him visa for over 10 years because he was linked to a corruption case.





The whole thing is about misinformation for a very long time they, have been lying to them (Nigerians); I tried to explain to them but they refused to listen. And I hope now people are going to understand.





He said he visited the US because they decided to issue him a visa, adding that he would not have made it if they had declined his visa request.





And now they have issued it to me and I am here. Im having some positive discussions with some of the officials, he said.





I was in the Congress and I had discussions with some high ranking Congress men and Women about Nigeria and how Nigeria intends to improve her relationship with the United States of America.




Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the People Democratic Party (PDP), paid a visit to members of the US Congress, who are...





(PDP), paid a visit to members of the US Congress, who are favourably disposed to President Donald Trump. Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the People Democratic Party(PDP), paid a visit to members of the US Congress, who are favourably disposed to President Donald Trump.





The former vice-president, who has not visited the US in 13 years, made a surprise visit to the US on Thursday, with plans to speak at the US Chamber of Commerce on Friday.





Before his off the record meeting at the chamber, Atiku paid a visit to Chris Smith (pictured above), a member of the Republican Party, and representative for New Jersey, who is serving his 2oth term in office.





According to Osita Chidoka, Atiku also met Micheal McCaul, the Homeland Security committee chairman at the US Congress.

Both congressmen are known allies of the current US president, who often back his policies in the US Congress.





Congressman Smith has supported President Trump on 80 percent of his choices since he became president, according to a project tracking congressmen in the United States.





McCaul, on the other hand, hails from Texas and supported the president fiercely on his decision to pull out the US-Iran nuclear deal.





The Presidents decision today to withdraw from the nuclear agreement is based on these facts. We need a tougher approach and I commend President Trump for leading this effort, McCaul had said about Trumps decision to cancel the deal.





He has supported 98.1 percent of Trumps decisions since the latter became president in January 2017.




Alex Badeh, former chief of defence staff (CDS), will be buried on January 23 at the national military cemetery in Abuja. Accordin...





Alex Badeh, former chief of defence staff (CDS), will be buried on January 23 at the national military cemetery in Abuja.





According to a statement by John Agim, acting director of defence information, the remains of late CDS will be committed to mother earth at 12:30pm after a Church Service.





Agim said the service will take place at the Nigerian air force base, Protestant Church, Bill Clinton drive airport road at 10 am.





He added that there would also be a service of song on Sunday by 5pm at the air force Base, Protestant Church, Bill Clinton drive.





Badeh, who served as CDS under ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, was shot dead on December 18, 2018, by unknown gunmen, on Keffi-Abuja highway, while returning from his farm.




The Police Command in Niger had deployed 1, 711 security officers to provide adequate security before, during and after President Muhamm...

The Police Command in Niger had deployed 1, 711 security officers to provide adequate security before, during and after President Muhammadu Buharis one day official visit to the state.









The Presidents official visit to Niger is billed for Saturday Jan. 19.









The Commissioner of Police in the state, Dibal Yakadi, disclosed this in Minna on Friday.









Yakadi said that an effective operational order on how to provide security at each of the places that the President was expected to visit had since been issued to the officers deployed for that purpose.









He said that President Buhari was expected to inaugurate the Baro River Port, Presidential Lodge at Baro in Agaie Local Government Area , as well as launch the All Progressives Congress ( APC), Presidential Campaign rally at the Trade Fair Complex in the metropolis.









He said that the command had taken concrete security measures to ensure a peaceful visit.









 We have mobilised sufficient armed personnel with modern working facilities to provide security cover for our president during and after the visit.









 We have since embarked on Operation Show Force with other security agencies to show our preparedness for the August visitor.









The Commissioner warned politicians and party supporters against thuggery before during and after the visit.









According to him, the police will arrest and charge to court, any politician or youth caught perpetrating violence.









He said that the police would not fold their hands and watch any politician or group of youths carry arms before, during and after the visit.









Yakadi added that the command had been proactive in responding to emergency calls across the state at all times.









 I wish to also solicit the cooperation of the public through the provision of timely and useful information to all divisions of the command across the state with a view to helping us respond to distress calls on time, he said.

















(NAN)
Overseas dependents of foreigners working in Japan would no longer be covered by medical insurance come 2020 under a legislative proposal that seeks to restrain ballooning health care costs.

The proposal presented on Thursday at a policy council under the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare would also apply to Japanese nationals' overseas family. Exceptions would include children of Japanese nationals studying abroad.

Japan's universal health insurance system requires all citizens and non-Japanese residing in the country for more than three months to enroll in either national or employer-sponsored plans. Coverage extends to family members who meet certain criteria.

This means that foreigners' dependents can be eligible for benefits even if they do not live in Japan. Under the proposed legislation, coverage would in principle be limited to family members residing in the country.

With an increase in foreign labor looming ahead of an April 1 loosening of work permit rules, lawmakers in the ruling coalition have expressed concern that this could further drive up national health care spending, which is already rising in the aging country.
British Prime Minister Theresa May was expected to win a confidence vote despite a crushing defeat over her Brexit deal with the EU that triggered warnings of a chaotic nodeal divorce. MPs on Tuesday rejected Mays deal on leaving the European Union, leaving the Brexit process in total disarray with just 73 days to go before the official departure date. She suffered the biggest government defeat in modern British history when the House of Commons rejected by 432 votes to 202 her agreement in a devastating blow to her entire Brexit strategy.

The result left Europe reeling, with various countries saying they would intensify preparations in case Britain crashes out of the EU on March 29 with no agreement. At a heated session in parliament on Wednesday, May faced calls from MPs to give up the red lines she has imposed on Brexit negotiations and come up with a different plan. She has said she will hold cross-party talks and announce the way forward on Monday. But she insisted she was sticking to two key principles -- to limit migration from the EU and ensure Britain had its own trade policy.

These would seem to rule out membership of a customs union or the EUs single market, which the main opposition Labour party wants. May appeared to hint at the possibility of delaying Brexit, saying the EU would allow this if it was clear that there was a plan towards moving towards an agreed deal. EU officials have said this could be possible but only until the newly-elected European Parliament meets in June. However, her Downing Street office insisted the government intends to leave the EU on March 29.

Fundamental change

Ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum, most lawmakers, including May, were against leaving the EU after almost half a century of membership. Nearly three years later, the country is deeply divided and politicians are still struggling to form consensus around any plan, with MPs criticising Mays deal both for keeping Britain too closely tied to the EU, and for not keeping it closer. Former foreign minister and leading Brexit supporter Boris Johnson said Tuesdays vote gave May a massive mandate to renegotiate the deal.

High-stakes

The defeat blows the starting whistle on a no-holds-barred struggle to direct the course of Brexit. Increasing numbers of pro-European MPs are calling for a second referendum with an option to cancel Brexit. On Wednesday, 71 Labour MPs signed up to a letter calling for a public vote. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it was the only credible option. We dont have any more time to waste, she said.

On Wednesday, the pound mostly held its ground as investors considered the next likely developments in the saga. Bank of England chief Mark Carney said he believed sterlings relative strength reflected some expectation that the process of resolution would be extended and that the prospect of no deal may have been diminished.

British businesses urged politicians to unite. Financial stability must not be jeopardised in a game of high-stakes political poker, warned Catherine McGuinness, policy chair at the City of London Corporation, the body governing the British capitals massive financial district.
British lawmakers have outlawed the practice of upskirting -- secretly taking pictures up womens skirts -- following an 18-month campaign by a victim. Those found guilty face up to two years in jail, leading campaigner Gina Martin to praise the bill as politics and society at its best. Members of the upper House of Lords on Tuesday gave the bill the final seal of approval, and it now only requires the formality of Royal Assent.

Prime Minister Theresa May personally backed the legislation, saying the practice left victims feeling degraded and distressed. The bill was briefly held up last year when a single MP blocked it by shouting Object! during a parliamentary vote. Christopher Chope, a member of Mays Conservative Party, claimed he was objecting to the manner in which the bill was introduced, but was met with cries of shame from MPs.

Martin tweeted that she was over the moon about the vote, adding I AM EXHAUSTED AND SO HAPPY!. From Liverpool in northwest England, Martin was attending a music festival in Londons Hyde Park when a man rubbed against her while his friend lurked nearby. Five minutes later, I saw that his friend... was watching a picture taken very close to a womans c*****, she said earlier.

I knew it was me immediately. Martin grabbed the phone and showed the image to police officers, but they said we cant really help you. She then decided to campaign to make it illegal, collecting more than 100,000 signatures of support in an online petition.
A bomb attack claimed by Daesh killed US troops in northern Syria yesterday, weeks after President Donald Trump said the group was defeated there and he would pull out all American forces.

A US official who declined to be named said four US troops had been killed and three wounded in the blast, which a Daesh-affiliated site said was the work of a suicide bomber. Others said only two had been killed.

The US-led coalition fighting Daesh said that US service members were killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol, and that it was still gathering details.

Unusually, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave his own death toll for the attack, saying it had killed 20 people, including five US troops. Erdogan said he did not believe the attack would impact Trumps decision to withdraw from Syria.

The attack, which took place in the town of Manbij, controlled by rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, appears to be the deadliest on US forces in Syria since they deployed there in 2015.
Hundreds of US Coast Guards deployed here are officially working without paychecks due to a US government shutdown, Stars and Stripes report. Fortunately for Coast Guard members in Bahrain, they live in government-leased housing off base, meaning they wont have to worry about impatient landlords. Despite attempts in Washington to push the money through, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz confirmed Tuesday in a statement that the mid-January paychecks were not coming, saying it marked the first time he was aware of when servicemembers in one of the armed forces branches havent been paid during a shutdown.

Four weeks into the showdown, there are still no signs of a breakthrough in the faceoff between President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress, which led to the partial shutdown of the government on December 22. More than 800,000 federal workers didnt get paid last week, pain shared by several million more contractors who also have been idled by the shutdown -- many of them low-paid service workers who live paycheck to paycheck. The Coast Guards Patrol Forces Southwest Asia is permanently posted in the Gulf at the request of US Naval Forces Central Command.

The US Coast Guard has been proactively communicating the impacts of the lapse in appropriations across the service, the report quoted Gregg as saying. The report also points out that the coast guard, while operating tactically under the Navy, still falls under the Department of Homeland Security. Coast guard members here are among the 42,000 of the services officers and enlisted personnel. Across the Coast Guard, support resources available to service-members include financial counselling, loans, information and aid from other military support organisations.

This week, the services commandant announced that the USAA insurance and financial services company had donated $15 million, which officials said would be used to fund interest-free loans for about two weeks worth of bills. There are many resources available to their dependents back home, said Senior Chief Ryan Doss, a spokesperson for Coast Guard Atlantic Area, the Bahrain teams parent command. By engaging with our deployed members here ... we hope to minimise the personal impacts [of the shutdown] on our crews and their families.
A dust storm hit many parts of the Kingdom yesterday, disrupting normal life, with wind speeds reaching over 32 knots at the Bahrain International Airport. However, no loss of life or major damage to property was reported. Reports said many areas in the Kingdom experienced strong gusts reaching around 38 knots at times with authorities warning that the adverse conditions are expected to continue throughout the weekend.

The wind is expected to continue blowing over the Kingdom throughout the weekend, Khalid Yaseen, Head Weather Forecasting, A/Chief, Meteorological Operations and Observations told Bahrain News Agency (BNA). According to Yaseen, the dust storm was caused by a very strong North Westerly winds as predicated by Bahrain Meteorological Directorate. This will lead the temperature to decrease to around 12 degrees Celsius, he said.

He added: Wind speed will decrease temporarily by early next week, but it will strengthen again by mid of next week. Yesterday afternoon, Yaseen said, a wide area of thick dust generated over the northern parts of Arabian Peninsula due to high wind speed has moved towards Kingdom along with the North Westerly winds causing the visibility to deteriorate to less than 500 metres. The dust is expected to thin out today and the visibility will improve gradually, he said.

Earlier yesterday, Bahrains Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications tweeted that very strong North Westerly winds are expected to affect the Kingdom, with dust haze. The ministry also urged citizens to exert extreme caution as visibility is expected to reduce to less than 1000 meters.

Satellite images, according to the Ministrys twitter account, showed intense dust movement with high-speed. The report further said that the dust intensity is expected to come down as the winds continue. The meteorological directorate has asked all citizens especially sailors to be cautious during the period as the sea is expected to get rough.
His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa yesterday vowed to continue Bahrains modernisation march and development drive to help citizens progress and thrive. HM the King was receiving Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) President Gabriela Cuevas Barron at Al-Safriya Palace.

Outlining Bahrains pioneering democratic and parliamentary strides ever since the reform project was launched in the Kingdom, HM the King lauded strong cooperation between the Council of Representatives and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, stressing the importance of such visits in bolstering joint cooperation and exchanging parliamentary and democratic expertise and practices.

His Majesty further hailed the election of a Bahraini woman as the Speaker of the Council of Representatives and commended Bahraini women for succeeding in attaining a high status. In Bahrain, we live as a closely-knit family that welcomes people from all over the world with utmost hospitality that stems from long-standing traditions, said HM the King, wishing the IPU president success during her visit to take stock of Bahrains home-grown democracy.

The IPU president expressed delight at meeting HM the King and visiting the Kingdom of Bahrain. She commended Bahrains development and progress, hailing parliamentary strides and womens political participation.
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Jim Hollandsworth says the day before he encountered a polar bear in Arctic Village, he found it had done damage to his camp, including this snowmachine.
(Newser)  President Trump will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month, Reuters reports. The White House tweeted news of the planned second summit Friday after Trump reportedly met with North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol for an hour and a half and talked about denuclearization and another Trump-Kim meeting. The tweet said the location of the meet-up is TBD, but Vietnam and Thailand may be contenders, according to reports. The fact that the envoy ventured to Washington DC (North Korean officials typically have to stay near the UN in New York) and Trumps willingness to meet with him are signs that the president is eager to jump-start stalled nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang, Politico says. Trump and Kim first met face-to-face last June in Singapore. (Read more North Korea stories.)
(Newser)  Two shark researchers who came face to face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recorded are using their encounter as an opportunity to push for legislation that would protect sharks in Hawaii. Ocean Ramsey, a shark researcher and conservationist, told the AP that she encountered the 20-foot shark Tuesday near a dead sperm whale off Oahu. The event was documented and shared on social media by her fiance and business partner Juan Oliphant. (See video.) The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources said it was aware of photos of the great white and that tiger sharks also have been feeding on the whale. Oliphant, who photographed the now-viral images, said it's unclear if the shark is the famed Deep Blue, believed to be the largest great white ever recorded.

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"She looks the part right now," Oliphant said about the shark spotted Tuesday. "Maybe even more exciting that there is another massive, you know, super-size great white shark out there. Because their populations are so dwindling." Ramsey, who operates Oahu-based One Ocean Diving and Research with Oliphant, said she has been pushing for several years for a bill that would ban the killing of sharks and rays in Hawaii, and hopes this year the measure will become law. She said the images of her swimming next to a huge great white shark prove the predators should be protected, not feared. Still, the veteran shark diver doesn't think the general public should recklessly get into the water with the giants, especially around a food source like a rotting whale carcass. (And here's a shark-related earworm.)
(Newser)  BuzzFeed came out on Thursday night with a scoop about the Robert Mueller investigation that has most pundits in agreement on thing: It's very bad news for President Trump, if it's true. The latter point is a crucial one, given that the report is based on two anonymous law enforcement sources. The story's allegation is that Trump instructed former attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress in 2017 about efforts to build a condo tower in Moscow. Democrats are demanding an investigation, and some have begun using the "impeach" word, reports the Washington Post. But conservative critics are going after not only the credibility of Cohen but of BuzzFeed. Details and developments:

Trump's reaction: The president didn't directly respond to the report, but a morning tweet took aim at Cohen's credibility. In it, he quoted Fox News' Kevin Corke as saying, "Don't forget, Michael Cohen has already been convicted of perjury and fraud, and as recently as this week, the Wall Street Journal has suggested that he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars." The president added: "Lying to reduce his jail time!"

The president didn't directly respond to the report, but a morning tweet took aim at Cohen's credibility. In it, he quoted Fox News' Kevin Corke as saying, "Don't forget, Michael Cohen has already been convicted of perjury and fraud, and as recently as this week, the Wall Street Journal has suggested that he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars." The president added: "Lying to reduce his jail time!" Not just Cohen: The BuzzFeed report says Mueller isn't relying solely on Cohen's assertion that Trump asked him to lie. Mueller reportedly has emails and texts from the Trump Organization and interviews with multiple witnesses to corroborate.

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If true: Aaron Blake of the Washington Post emphasizes two big caveats: the use of anonymous sources and the fact that Cohen's team hasn't confirmed. But if the report is true, "it could present something that's been missing thus far from the public domain: an event so cut-and-dried that even Republicans would be hard-pressed not to consider impeachment."

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post emphasizes two big caveats: the use of anonymous sources and the fact that Cohen's team hasn't confirmed. But if the report is true, "it could present something that's been missing thus far from the public domain: an event so cut-and-dried that even Republicans would be hard-pressed not to consider impeachment." Ditto: "It's hard to overstate what a big deal that is," writes Chris Cillizza at CNN. "No other major outlets have confirmed the BuzzFeed report. But if the BuzzFeed report is right, then the President of the United States directed an underling to lie under oathwhich is, in and of itself, a crime." Trump's own attorney general nominee, William Barr, has said as much, notes Axios, referring to a 2018 memo in which he wrote, "[I]f a a President knowingly ... suborns perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony ... then he, like anyone else, commits the crime of obstruction."

"It's hard to overstate what a big deal that is," writes Chris Cillizza at CNN. "No other major outlets have confirmed the BuzzFeed report. But if the BuzzFeed report is right, then the President of the United States directed an underling to lie under oathwhich is, in and of itself, a crime." Trump's own attorney general nominee, William Barr, has said as much, notes Axios, referring to a 2018 memo in which he wrote, "[I]f a a President knowingly ... suborns perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony ... then he, like anyone else, commits the crime of obstruction." The reporters: One of the BuzzFeed reporters, Anthony Cormier, appeared on CNN and acknowledged that he hadn't personally seen the evidence behind the allegation, reports Mediaite. But "the folks we have talked totwo officials we have spoken to are fully, 100% read into that aspect of the special counsel's investigation," he said, the "we" referring to himself and fellow reporter Jason Leopold.

One of the BuzzFeed reporters, Anthony Cormier, appeared on CNN and acknowledged that he hadn't personally seen the evidence behind the allegation, reports Mediaite. But "the folks we have talked totwo officials we have spoken to are fully, 100% read into that aspect of the special counsel's investigation," he said, the "we" referring to himself and fellow reporter Jason Leopold. But wait: Leopold went on MSNBC and said this: "I'll just say that we've seen documents, we've been briefed on documents. We're very confident in our reporting." Right-wing site Twitchy was rounding up tweets calling out this apparent discrepancy about whether they had seen evidence firsthand.

Leopold went on MSNBC and said this: "I'll just say that we've seen documents, we've been briefed on documents. We're very confident in our reporting." Right-wing site Twitchy was rounding up tweets calling out this apparent discrepancy about whether they had seen evidence firsthand. Previous fail: CNN's Alisyn Camerota asked Cormier about a 2006 story Leopold wrote that had to be retracted. It falsely stated that Karl Rove had been indicted. "His stories didn't wash," said Camerota. But Cormier responded that the new story is "rock solid" and that he personally "confirmed and verified" it with sources beyond the two mentioned in the story.

CNN's Alisyn Camerota asked Cormier about a 2006 story Leopold wrote that had to be retracted. It falsely stated that Karl Rove had been indicted. "His stories didn't wash," said Camerota. But Cormier responded that the new story is "rock solid" and that he personally "confirmed and verified" it with sources beyond the two mentioned in the story. Full of holes? The Conservative Review rounds up all of the criticisms of the story thusly: "The BuzzFeed story bases its main claims on hearsay and conjecture. The reporters who wrote the piece admitted that they did not see any of the evidence, and there are no on-the-record sources to verify these claims. It also relies on the hearsay of a convicted criminal liar. The piece would not meet the editorial standards for publication at Conservative Review."

The Conservative Review rounds up all of the criticisms of the story thusly: "The BuzzFeed story bases its main claims on hearsay and conjecture. The reporters who wrote the piece admitted that they did not see any of the evidence, and there are no on-the-record sources to verify these claims. It also relies on the hearsay of a convicted criminal liar. The piece would not meet the editorial standards for publication at Conservative Review." But no denial: Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley also went after BuzzFeed on Fox News. "This is absolutely ludicrous that we are giving any type of prudence or credibility to a news outlet like BuzzFeed," he said. "They are irresponsible, responsible totally and completely for the publishing of [a] totally and completely false dossier." But as Politico notes, Gidley didn't appear to deny the actual allegation in the story.

Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley also went after BuzzFeed on Fox News. "This is absolutely ludicrous that we are giving any type of prudence or credibility to a news outlet like BuzzFeed," he said. "They are irresponsible, responsible totally and completely for the publishing of [a] totally and completely false dossier." But as Politico notes, Gidley didn't appear to deny the actual allegation in the story. Conspicuous absence? The New York Times has been notably silent on the story, not following up with any of its own so far, writes Kyle Smith at the National Review. "To me that says the New York Times is skeptical about either this story in particular, or BuzzFeed in general, or both."

(Read more President Trump stories.)
(Newser)  In the wake of the Bezos divorce announcement, two colliding truths should be on the radar of Silicon Valley investors, writes James Stewart in the New York Times. First, the divorce rate in California is about 60%, meaning that the Bezos' split surely won't be the last among the tech world's elite. "To put it more explicitly: What would happen if Mark Zuckerberg and his wife filed for divorce?" asks Stewart. He's not casting aspersions on their marriage, just raising a hypothetical question that dovetails with the second big truth. These days, the founders of many big tech companiesthink Google, Facebook, Groupon, and Snaphave special classes of shares that give them supreme control over their direction of their firms. So what happens to that control if they divorce?

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Stewart raises the prospect that it's time for CEOs to disclose their pre-nup agreements. "There's no question it's in the best interests of shareholders," an expert on the subject at Columbia University tells him. Take the Bezos case, for instance. All signs so far point to an amicable split. But MacKenzie Bezos jointly owns 16% of Amazon with Jeff Bezos and theoretically could cause havoc if she were to sell her shares or push for strategic changes in the company. As a matrimonial lawyer says: "When they start out amicably, you hold out some hope that theyll stay that way, but in my experience it only gets worse. Click for the full piece. (Read more about MacKenzie Bezos, who happens to be a novelist.)
(Newser)  It's going to be a brutal winter weekend for a good chunk of the nation, with heavy snow forecast from Illinois to New England. The eye-popping figure is for northern New England, which could get 40 inches of snow Saturday and Sunday, reports AccuWeather.com. Parts of central and northern New York and Pennsylvania could see 30 inches. The forecast is less severe in more populated areas, but travel is likely to be nasty in cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, Boston, and New York.

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The storm "will be a blockbuster in terms of impact and dangerous conditions," says AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski. It's all part of a powerful system that has 40 million Americans under winter storm watches, reports the Washington Post. However, the system is a complicated one that makes precise forecasts tricky. Still, when the storm finally heads offshore on Sunday, an estimated 200 million Americans will be experiencing sub-freezing temperatures, reports USA Today. (Read more winter storm stories.)
(Newser)  Michael Cohen has admitted that he lied to Congress about Donald Trump's ambition to build a tower in Russia. But a new report from BuzzFeed adds a wrinkle that has bombshell implications if true. The report, based on two anonymous law enforcement sources, alleges that Trump, as president, ordered Cohen to lie in his testimony. The sources say that Cohen told Robert Mueller of his former boss' order to deceive Congress, and that Mueller corroborated the allegation through interviews with witnesses and through emails and texts from the Trump Organization. This, writes Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier, is "the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia." The president's Democratic critics in Congress suggest this is one of the worst allegations yet against Trump, reports the Washington Post.

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That Trump "may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date," tweeted Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee. And from Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii: "I mean everything feels like a bombshell and we are all numb but I'm pretty sure if this story is true it'sI'm going to be careful with my words heresomething that congress must investigate thoroughly." Rudy Giuliani responded by saying Cohen can't be trusted. When he testified in 2017, Cohen told Congress the tower negotiations ended in January 2016, but they actually continued into June, per BuzzFeed. The story alleges Trump ordered Cohen to lie about when the talks ended. It also says Trump and his oldest children received updates on the talks through the 2016 campaign. (Read more Michael Cohen stories.)
(Newser)  A car bomb exploded at a heavily guarded police academy in Colombia's capital on Thursday, killing 10 people and injuring dozens in an attack that recalled the bloodiest chapters of the country's drug-fueled guerrilla conflict. Videos circulating on social media show panicked officers hauling injured colleagues on stretchers with debris and body parts strewn in front of red tile-roofed cadet barracks, the AP reports. Among those killed was a top-of-class female cadet from Ecuador, while two visiting students from Panama were among those injured. With the help of security cameras, authorities were quick to identify the suspected bomber as a 56-year-old man with no criminal record named Jose Aldemar Rojas. He died in the attack.

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Authorities say Rojas drove a 1993 Nissan pick-up loaded with 175 pounds of explosive past a security checkpoint and onto the General Santander school's leafy campus, one of the most protected installations in Bogota. Little is known about Rojas. Records show he had the truck inspected six months ago in the eastern city of Arauca, near the border with Venezuela. The same volatile area is a stronghold of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, the country's last remaining rebel group following a 2016 accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Investigators are reportedly looking into Rojas' possible ties with the rebel group after reports that he was a longtime explosives expert for an ELN cell who went by the alias Mocho Kiko.

(Read more Colombia stories.)
(Newser)  The restaurant rocked by the suicide bomb attack that killed four Americans in Syria on Wednesday was a favorite lunch spot for troops, who'd stop for French fries and a shawarma sandwich, often several times a week. Military leaders and Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jeanne Shaheen even dined without body armor at the Palace of the Princes in July. "This is what stability looks like. This is what winning looks like," Lt. Gen. Paul E. Funk II then said, per the New York Times. Officials now say troops made themselves vulnerable with regular visits to the restaurant in Manbijviewed as a safe haven since US and Kurdish forces drove ISIS out of the city in 2016where armed vehicles were sometimes parked out front.

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After a patrol stopped for a late lunch Wednesday, an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest near the entrance, killing at least 14, per CNN. Two US service members, a Green Beret and a female Navy sailor, died along with a Defense Intelligence Agency employee and an interpreter. "We will never forget their noble and immortal sacrifice," President Trump said Thursday, less than a month after he declared victory over ISIS in Syria and vowed to withdraw all 2,000 US troops, per the Washington Post. Some officials fear more attacks could come: One tells the Post that as we "destroy the last remnants of the caliphate ... ISIS has moved toward an insurgency. As that insurgency develops, we'll be a prime target for that as we withdraw. Everyone's aware of that, and it's part of our planning." (More details here.)
(Newser)  Police in a Phoenix suburb say a burglary suspect shot to death by an officer was a 14-year-old boy carrying a replica gun, the AP reports. Authorities say officers in the city of Tempe reported a suspect burglarizing a car Tuesday and that he ran away holding what appeared to be a handgun. During the chase, police say he turned toward the officers. One officer perceived that as a threat and shot the boy, who died at a hospital. Police said Wednesday that the teen had a replica 1911 airsoft gun in his possession, which they determined he had taken from the vehicle along with some other items. They say the shooting was captured on the officer's body camera. The name of the teen and the officer who opened fire haven't been released.

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But the ABC15 Arizona station interviewed a man and a woman identified as the boy's brother and mother, who said they wanted police to explain what happened. The boy's brother Jason Gonzalez said, "A police officer has a Taser gun right? Why not shoot a Taser at him? He sees a young boy, my brother wouldn't shoot. I know he wouldn't shoot." Speaking through a Spanish-English interpreter, the teen's mother Sandra Gonzalez said: "If they want to tarnish my son, they are wrong." "Apart from the fact that they killed him, they want to destroy him," she said. "No. I won't allow it, I want justice." The department said it will conduct its investigation in conjunction with the Maricopa County Attorney's office, as is customary in officer-involved shootings.

(Read more police shooting stories.)
(Newser)  The trial of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman veered into Jerry Springer Show territory Thursday with testimony from Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, one of the drug lord's former mistresses. When asked what kind of relationship she had with Guzman, she said: "Well, until today, I thought we were a couple. I'm confused," before breaking down in tears. The line brought laughter from Emma Coronel, Guzman's normally impassive wife, Fox reports. USA Today reports that when Coronel, who has attended most days of Guzman's drug trafficking trial in federal court in New York, was asked about the testimony, she said, in English, "I don't speak English."

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Sanchez Lopeza former Sinaloa state lawmaker who is jailed awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to federal drug chargestestified in a blue prison uniform. The 29-year-old said that after becoming Guzman's lover in 2011, he put her in charge of collecting and shipping marijuana, sometimes in packages of 400 kilograms. She said that in 2014, when she was spending the night with the cartel kingpin in a safe house, they ended up fleeing through a sewage tunnel after Mexican marines stormed the building. She said Guzman was naked as they fled and took off running, leaving her and others behind, CBS reports. When asked how long she was in the tunnel, she said: " Long enough to be traumatized." (Earlier this week, the trial heard a shocking bribery allegation.)
(Newser)  President Trump, it appears, is working on a new travel banand this one is aimed at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On Thursday, the President sent Pelosi a letter saying that he was cancelling a congressional delegations trip abroad so Pelosi can stay in Washington DC and continue to talk border security with him, ABC reports, noting that Trumps letter seems to be payback for Pelosis letter to him earlier this week in which she floated the idea of postponing the State of the Union address until after the shutdown ends. Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed, Trump writes in the letter, which was tweeted by Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.

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He calls the trip a public relations event and says, I also feel that  it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the shutdown. It appears, per the Hill, that Trump is declining to provide military transportation for the congressional delegation. But Trump does leave another option open: If you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative. Sanders tells the Hill that the cancellation is aimed at reaching an agreement and ending the shutdown so government workers dont miss another paycheck. Many Democrats, predictably, have blasted the presidents move. But Republicans are lobbing criticism, too. In a series of tweets, Sen. Lindsey Graham said One sophomoric response does not deserve another." (Read more government shutdown stories.)
This Home Listed for $590K

'Is Not for the Faint of Heart'
We call on the Government ensure that security forces handle protests and exercise their power  especially the use of firearms and live ammunition  strictly in accordance with the countrys international human rights obligations and the relevant principles, including legality, necessity, proportionality, precaution and accountability.* State authorities have a duty to ensure peoples rights to freedom of expression, and to facilitate and protect the right to peaceful assembly. It is essential that all sides, including the protestors, refrain from the use of violence and seek to resolve the situation peacefully.




Hundreds of panicking shoppers yesterday thronged supermarkets and engaged in panic buying after some of the countrys leading retailers opened their doors to the public following three days of closure due to a crippling national strike.







The retailers blamed the panic buying on the three-day stayaway which was due to end yesterday but continued as commuter omnibuses and several companies and banks failed to open for business.





The three-day shutdown affected the public in terms of food stocks. There were some shops which opened but some are not yet open. The panic buying causes shops to deplete in a very short period of timeyet we do not have enough manufacturers.





There were huge loses, many shops were looted. Choppies Group lost about nine shops and four were actually burnt. The government must come hard on the perpetrators of violence, fumed Denford Mutashu, the president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers.





Thousands of people who rely on supermarkets for daily shopping were stranded in Harare, Bulawayo and several towns following the mayhem which ensued after security forces clashed with protesters.





Big supermarkets and small traders were forced to temporarily suspend operations as some of the protesters embarked on a looting spree and destruction of properties.





In the capital citys central business district (CBD) yesterday hundreds of shoppers besieged the few supermarkets that opened their doors to the public and laid their hands on food and water  ostensibly to avoid being caught unawares  in the event that there were further disturbances.





Long queues stretched for nearly half-a-kilometre at some of the supermarkets which were guarded by armed soldiers.





However, it was not all hunky-dory as most shoppers endured frustrations with the erratic network systems which delayed payments at the tills. In some cases, swipe machines were not registering transactions.





This followed the much-criticised government decision to order mobile networks to suspend Internet services and all social media platforms in response to the riots which occurred during the strike.





Government restored Internet services on Wednesday evening but Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter remained suspended.





On Monday, thousands of workers gave thumps-up to the three-day national strike sanctioned by the Zimbabwe Congress Trade Unions (ZCTU) in protest of steep fuel prices hikes announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa last Saturday.





The price hikes came as long-suffering ordinary Zimbabweans were still reeling from the effects of the unpopular two cents tax per every dollar transaction which was unveiled by government in October as part of its plans to raise revenue.





Besides the two cents per dollar translation tax, the disaffected Zimbabweans were further annoyed by governments decision to charge motor vehicle duty in United States dollars despite its insistence that the bond note was at par with the greenback.





As a result Mnangagwa and his government had been under pressure to repair the haemorrhaging economy which has seen the country experiencing shortages of foreign currency, fuel, critical medicines and basic consumer goods among other essential items.




The government has confirmed the presence of a third hand in the well-choreographed violent disturbances and acts of sabotage by the motley host of opposition outfits led by the MDC Alliance, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC).



MDC leaders visit the injured at Belvedere Clinic

The government also said the provocative actions by these illegal regime change outfits were funded by a foreign power to the tune of $2 million. The actions which were marked by arson, attempted murder, murder, looting, robbery, violence, barricading of roads and premeditated attacks on the police and protected areas such as police stations, were intended to invite a backlash from the state.





The millions of dollars are being distributed among the criminals and their handling organisations. The idea was to ensure that the state security services would respond, using disproportionate force, which would result in the death of at least 200 people and in the process, place the country on the international human rights radar. However, the state responded in a measured and lawful manner, a fact that derailed the operation by the super power behind the violent protests.





The super power in question is unhappy with the deepening ties between Harare and Moscow hence part of the timing that coincided with the Presidents visit to Russia. Part of the operation was calculated to push the President to abandon his current international engagement and re-engagement efforts. This effort was in futile.





As a way to re-ignite the foiled operation, the Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights was roped in to concoct false inflated statistics of alleged shootings of protestors. Ironically, the doctors in question had no qualms treating alleged shooting victims without alerting the police as per the law. The attacks against police establishment which are areas protected by armed personnel is instructive.





The coincidence of the well-calculated ploy by the super power in question, in concert with its local adjuncts, is not lost on the government of Zimbabwe. The well-choreographed violent demonstrations coincide with; the review of the European Union (EU) sanctions on Zimbabwe, which takes place at this time of the year.





It also coincided by manoeuvres by some outfits to lobby for the inclusion of Zimbabwe on the security council agenda and to petition His Excellency, President Emmerson Mnangagwa to be barred from attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. The violent demonstrations coincided with plans to send a petition to the AU by CZC which same outfit led and convened the foreign funded meetings of the 3rd to the 7th of November 2018 and that of the 11th of this month. The efforts by this super power are not limited to provocative actions in Zimbabwe, but at the Zimbabwean Embassy in South Africa.





On the 16th of this year, another front for that super power, the concerned citizens of Zimbabwe, staged a demonstration at the embassy, where four petrol bombs were discovered after the protestors failed to throw them due to a heavy presence of South African police. It is not surprising that at the same hordes of MDC Alliance activists violently invaded the Zimbabwean Embassy in London and vandalised President Mnangagwas portrait and replaced it with that of MDC Alliance leader Advocate Nelson Chamisa. The government further says Zimbabwe will not be distracted by the meddling and foreign interference by the concerned super power as it rigorously pursues its Zimbabwe is open for business mantra, as well as its re-engagement efforts. zbc
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By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will host the next round of talks between the US and Afghan Taliban in Islamabad, it was decided on Friday during a meeting between Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, according to a media report.

Good meeting with FM @SMQureshiPTI this morning. We discussed the important role regional countries like #Pakistan have in helping deliver #peace and #reconciliation in #Afghanistan, and he assured me of #Pakistan's support. I look forward to concrete progress. pic.twitter.com/WRqIdPsSlV  U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) 18 January 2019

Quoting diplomatic sources, GEO News reported that Pakistan decided to extend an invitation to the Afghan Taliban representatives to come to Islamabad and hold talks. "It is expected that Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar would also be part of the peace talks," it said.

The decision to hold the next round of talks between the US and Afghan Taliban in Islamabad was taken on Friday during a meeting between Qureshi and Khalilzad, the report said without giving a date for the negotiations.

US President Donald Trump has been pressing Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to facilitate Afghan peace talks, with Washington reportedly making it a condition for a future summit between the two leaders in Washington. "During the meeting between Qureshi and Khalilzad, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, the Foreign Minister said that the Taliban were not willing to sit with the Afghan administration nor were they willing for a ceasefire. Khalilzad requested that Pakistan should play its role to make the dialogue successful," the report said.

Khalilzad, who arrived in Pakistan on Thursday from Kabul, as part of his four-nation tour, told Qureshi that the US leadership values Pakistan's efforts for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan. Khalilzad has held three round of talks with the Afghan Taliban to reach a settlement that would allow the US to withdraw its army and end a 17-year-old war - America's longest.

Qureshi assured Khalilzad that Pakistan will continue its efforts to facilitate the Afghan-reconciliation process to bring peace and stability to the region. "We have a shared responsibility to work towards bringing peace in Afghanistan," the minister said.

A US-delegation comprising the representatives of the State Department and Defence and National Security Council also attended the meeting. Khalilzad is on his fifth visit to the region for Afghan reconciliation since he assumed office.

On Thursday, the US envoy met with Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and discussed progress on the Afghan peace process. Khalilzad has already visited India and met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on January 10.

India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and has committed aid worth USD 3 billion to the war-ravaged country. New Delhi has also been pressing for an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace initiative to bring peace and stability in the war-ravaged country.

The Afghan peace initiative has been moving at a snail's pace due to the refusal of the Taliban to sit for talks with the Afghan government officials. Pakistan last year released senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar from imprisonment in an attempt to woo the militant group to engage in talks. Baradar was deputy to the late Taliban supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar.

The report of Pakistan may host the next round of Afghan peace talks came hours after a US Congressional report said that Islamabad may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong and unified one. "Pakistan may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong, unified Afghan state (particularly one led by a Pashtun-dominated government in Kabul; Pakistan has a large Pashtun minority)," the report prepared by the Congressional Research Service said.

"Pakistan sees Afghanistan as potentially providing strategic depth against India, but may also anticipate that improved relations with Afghanistan's leadership could limit India's influence in Afghanistan," said the report titled, "Afghanistan: Background and US Policy in Brief".
By Associated Press

HARARE: Zimbabwe on Friday faced a "total internet shutdown," a media group said, after a days-long violent crackdown on people protesting a dramatic fuel price increase. Badly injured people streamed into a hospital in the capital after alleged assaults by security forces.

"Our country is going through one of the most trying periods in its history," the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference said in a sweeping statement lamenting the government's "intolerant handling of dissent" and its failure to halt economic collapse.

Media group MISA-Zimbabwe shared a text message from the country's largest telecom company, Econet, calling the government's internet order "beyond our reasonable control." The High Court will hear a challenge to the shutdown on Monday, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said.

A prominent pastor and activist who faces a possible 20 years in prison on a subversion charge arrived at court, one of more than 600 people arrested this week. Evan Mawarire has called it "heartbreaking" to see the new government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa acting like that of former leader Robert Mugabe.

Pastor and activist Evan Mawarire, right, arrives handcuffed at the magistrates courts in Harare, Zimbabwe, Friday, Jan. 18, 2019. (Photo | AP)

Mawarire is accused of inciting civil disobedience online. "It's a shame what's happening," the handcuffed pastor said.

International calls for restraint by Zimbabwe's security forces are growing, while Mnangagwa prepares to plead for more investment at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He announced the fuel price increase on the eve of his overseas trip, leaving hardline former military commander and Vice President Constantino Chiwenga as acting president.

Gasoline in the economically shattered country is now the world's most expensive. Zimbabweans heeded a nationwide stay-at-home call earlier this week in protest. Rights groups and others have accused security forces of targeting activists and labor leaders in response, with the United States expressing alarm.

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights has said it had treated 68 cases of gunshot wounds and 100-plus other cases of "assaults with sharp objects, booted feet, baton sticks" and more. Hungry residents of the capital, Harare, who ventured out seeking food reported being tear-gassed by police.

Soldiers were still controlling long fuel lines in Harare on Friday, and many wary residents stayed at home. Some said they can no longer afford fares for public transport.

Injured people streamed into a private hospital in the capital. Some had broken legs. A nurse attended to a man with a broken spine.

Albert Taurai told The Associated Press he had ventured out to look for bread when plainclothes officers wearing masks beat him up, accusing him of barricading roads.

Keith Frymore, a 21-year-old security guard, had a torn lip. He told the AP a group of uniformed soldiers attacked him at work.

"I need $70 to get help here. I don't have that kind of money," he said.

Death tolls this week have varied. Eight people were killed when police and military fired on crowds, Amnesty International said. Zimbabwe's government said three people were killed, including a policeman stoned to death by an angry crowd.

The demonstrations amount to "terrorism," Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said, blaming the opposition. State Security Minister Owen Ncube thanked security forces for "standing firm."

But among those arrested are several ruling ZANU-PF party community leaders as well as a soldier and a police officer.

Zimbabweans had briefly rejoiced when Mnangagwa succeeded Mugabe, who was forced out in late 2017, thinking the new president would deliver on his refrain that the country "is open for business." But frustration has risen over the lack of improvement in the collapsed economy, which doesn't even have a currency of its own.

The UK's minister for Africa, Harriett Baldwin, has summoned Zimbabwe's ambassador to discuss "disturbing reports of use of live ammunition, intimidation and excessive force" against protesters.

The European Union in a statement late Thursday noted the "disproportionate use of force by security personnel" and urged that internet service be restored.
By AFP

QUAN BA: Thao Thi Van was just two when her mother disappeared during a trip to the market, likely taken by traffickers preying on women from the Hmong hill tribes of northern Vietnam to sell as brides or into brothels in China.

Now aged 13 she is still haunted by the fate of her missing mother but has found some solace at a textile cooperative for marginalised women in the region.

"I have almost no friends at school because they tease me for having no mother. I envy those kids with a mum," the slight teenager told AFP in tears.

"I have fun working here because I can earn some money and no-one teases me," Van said.

She's been taken in by the older women she works with at the co-op, where she has earned a reputation as a skilled embroiderer.

An ethnic Hmong girl weaving traditional textile at the Lung Tam Linen cooperative in northern Vietnam's Quan Ba district. (Photo | AFP)

The collective makes hemp handbags and table runners, coasters and stuffed animals, and the women can earn up to $170 per month, a decent wage in impoverished Ha Giang province.

Thousands of Vietnamese women are trafficked or tricked across the border every year and in this remote northern mountainous region of Vietnam, spitting distance from the Chinese border, women and girls frequently vanish from their communities.

China's buy-a-bride industry is booming, fuelled by a surplus of 30 million males. Some women go willingly, others are kidnapped or find themselves forced into marriage.

This picture taken on October 29, 2018 shows ethnic Hmong women weaving traditional textiles at the Lung Tam Linen cooperative in northern Vietnam's Quan Ba district.

(Photo | AFP)

The lucky few who escape marriages or sexual slavery in China often face stigma on their return to Vietnam and are shunned by neighbours.

Driven to offer such victims a purpose -- and an income -- Vang Thi Mai set up the Lung Tam Linen Cooperative in 2001.

"Society may not like them but here they are confident," said Mai, dressed in a traditional pleated indigo hemp skirt and embroidered coat.

Sexism runs deep

The co-op quickly grew and today is a hive of activity that employs more than 130 women, not just trafficking victims but also orphans, single mothers and seniors, who weave, dye and stitch indigo blue and yam orange fabrics from dawn to dusk.

With the jobs she is providing, Mai hopes to empower Hmong woman in a culture where sexism runs deep and where most women earn just a few dollars a month as farmers.

That poverty is in part what drives the cross-border trade in women and boosting incomes protects potential victims -- and increases their social status.

This picture taken on October 29, 2018 shows ethnic Hmong woman Vang Thi Mai arranging traditional table runners at the Lung Tam Linen cooperative in northern Vietnam's Quan Ba district. (Photo | AFP)

"If women, especially trafficked women, are working in a group together they make themselves stronger by gaining negotiating power, accelerating knowledge and integrating into society," said Nguyen Tien Phong, head of inclusive growth at United Nations Development Programme in Vietnam.

This is just the kind of support Mai envisioned when she established the centre, today a popular spot for tourists winding through the mountain-specked province on motorbikes.

But Mai has another goal too: to preserve the centuries-old custom of Hmong weaving, a tradition that has faded in many Hmong homes as modernity has crept in.

Girls who once learned the time-consuming craft from their mothers and grandmothers are busy these days with school work, or Facebook, or hanging out with friends.

Most women in the area have swapped their colourfully embroidered hemp jackets and indigo blue hemp skirts for Made-in-China polyester outfits.

"The traditional dignity and the cultural essence of the Hmong in Vietnam has eroded, I need to restore that with old women teaching to skills to younger ones," Mai said.

"Here we do things manually to preserve our traditional identity, the pearl of Vietnamese culture."
By PTI

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's police seized a haul of high explosives stashed near a wildlife sanctuary following the arrest of four men from a newly formed radical Muslim group, officials said Friday.

Elite police commandos and detectives stumbled on the explosives which included some 100 detonators from a make-shift warehouse near the Wilpattu national park, police said.

"Following information received by the CID (Criminal Investigations Department), they found 100 kilos (220 pounds) of high explosives and 100 detonators," police said in a statement.

Official sources said the discovery was made during investigations into recent hate attacks against Buddha statues elsewhere in the country in an apparent attempt to spark tensions between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims.

"The information we have at the moment is that a radicalised local group of Muslims are behind the explosives seized on Thursday," an official said asking not to be named.

"We are trying to see if they had any links with extremists abroad."

There have been no attacks in Sri Lanka linked to foreign Islamist groups despite local media reports that a 37-year-old Sri Lankan had been killed in Syria in 2015 while fighting for Islamic State (IS) group.

The latest discovery of explosives in the north-west of the island on Thursday is one of the biggest finds since the country ended its decades-long war against Tamil separatists in 2009.

There has been sporadic violence against minority Muslims, and several Buddhist monks and their followers have been arrested for instigating inter-communal violence.

In Sri Lanka Muslims are considered an ethnic group.

Almost all Buddhists in Sri Lanka are from the majority Sinhalese community.

Sri Lanka declared a 12-day nation-wide state of emergency in May last year following inter-communal riots led by Sinhalese mobs in the central district of Kandy where three people were killed and hundreds of shops and homes were destroyed.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, known for adding lyrical flair in his judgments, Friday took oath as the 26th Chief Justice of Pakistan in a simple ceremony held here at the President's House which was also attended by foreign legal luminaries, including from India.

Justice Khosa, 64, who was administered oath by President Arif Alvi, will serve as top judge for nearly 337 days and is scheduled to retire on December 21, 2019.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, judges of higher courts, ministers, diplomats, civil and military officials, lawyers and foreign guests including from India were present at the oath taking ceremony, the Dawn reported.

Former judge of the Supreme Court of India and President Governing Committee of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur and Sandra E Oxner, former judge and founding president Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Canada took part in the ceremony, the report said.

They arrived through the Wagah border in Lahore on Thursday to attend the ceremony, it said.

Five senior judges from Turkey, South Africa and Nigeria also attended the oath taking ceremony.

Born in 1954 in Dera Ghazi Khan area of the Punjab province of Pakistan, justice Khosa studied at the University of the Punjab and Cambridge University.

Known as the "poetic justice" for his knack for invoking works of literature in his observations and judgements, he is considered as Pakistan's top expert in criminal law.

Justice Khosa in the landmark Panama papers verdict that disqualified Nawaz Sharif as the prime minister in 2017 cited the Honore de Balzac epigraph from Mario Puzo's 1969 novel "The Godfather", which reads: "Behind every great fortune there is a crime."

"It is ironical and a sheer coincidence that the present case revolves around that very sentence attributed to Balzac," he had said.

He started his practice as a lawyer in 1977 and was elevated as high court judge in 1998.

He was made judge of the Supreme Court in 2010.

Justice Khosa has decided around 50,000 cases in his long career.

He was also part of the benches which disqualified former premier Yusuf Raza Gilani.

He was also part of the three-member bench which acquitted Christian woman Asia Bibi in blasphemy case.

The judgment triggered countrywide protest and violence by extremist groups.

Addressing the retiring ceremony of his predecessor Justice Saqib Nisar on Thursday, Justice Khosa said that he would like to decide the more than 1.9 million cases currently piled up in different courts by reforming the judicial system.

He also said that he would try to eliminate the practice of frivolous cases.

Supreme Court lawyer Ali Zafar said Justice Khosa was expected to focus on judicial issues unlike his predecessor who often interfered in issues of governance.

"The practice of suo motu will be rarely used by Justice Khosa as he believes that it should be only used when all other options have been exhausted to address an issues," Zafar said.

Justice Khosa also called for open and free discussion on various issues and points of contention in order to "resolve such issues through a mutually agreed course of action" in his address.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: Pakistan may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong and unified one, according to a Congressional report which also highlights India's lack of desire to pursue a deeper defence cooperation with Kabul.

The report "Afghanistan: Background and US Policy in Brief" prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) comes amidst intensification of efforts by the Trump administration to hold peace talks with the Taliban by seeking help of Pakistan.

US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad Thursday held talks with Pakistan's Foreign Secretary in Islamabad after extensive discussions in Kabul as part of his efforts to arrange the first-ever direct talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

Khalilzad arrived in Pakistan to seek Islamabad's help to convince the Taliban to return to the negotiating table to end the 17-year-long Afghan war.

"Pakistan may view a weak and destabilised Afghanistan as preferable to a strong, unified Afghan state (particularly one led by a Pashtun-dominated government in Kabul; Pakistan has a large Pashtun minority)," the CRS said in its report for lawmakers on Thursday.

However, it said that at least some Pakistani leaders had stated that instability in Afghanistan could rebound to Pakistan's detriment; Pakistan has struggled with indigenous Islamist militants of its own.

"Afghanistan-Pakistan relations are further complicated by the large Afghan refugee population in Pakistan and a long-standing border dispute over which violence has broken out on several occasions," said the report.

"Pakistan sees Afghanistan as potentially providing strategic depth against India, but may also anticipate that improved relations with Afghanistan's leadership could limit India's influence in Afghanistan," said the report, a copy of which was made available to PTI.

India's interest in Afghanistan stems largely from India's broader regional rivalry with Pakistan, which impedes Indian efforts to establish stronger and more direct commercial and political relations with Central Asia, it said.

The report said that India has been the largest regional contributor to Afghan reconstruction, but New Delhi has not shown an inclination to pursue a deeper defece relationship with Kabul.

The Afghans themselves appear divided on the wisdom of cultivating stronger ties with India, it observed.

The report concludes Congress could also seek to help shape the US approach to potential negotiations around amending the Constitution or otherwise altering the highly centralised Afghan political system, through legislation and public statements.

The core issues for Congress include its role in authorising, appropriating funds for, and overseeing US military activities, aid and regional policy implementation, it said.

Members of Congress may also examine how the US can leverage its assets, influence and experience in Afghanistan, as well as those of Afghanistan's neighbours and international organisations to encourage more equal, inclusive and effective governance, the report said.

The CRS is an independent and bipartisan research wing of the US Congress.

It prepares reports on various issues of relevance for the US lawmakers to make an informative decision.

These are not official views of the US Congress.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Justice Asif Saeed Khosa Friday took oath as the 26th Chief Justice of Pakistan in a simple ceremony held here at the President's House which was also attended by foreign dignitaries, including from India.

President Arif Alvi administered oath to the new Chief Justice who took office after the retirement of Chief Justice Saqib Nisar.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, judges of higher courts, ministers, diplomats, civil and military officials, lawyers and foreign guests including from India were present at the oath-taking ceremony, the Dawn reported.

Former judge of the Supreme Court of India and President Governing Committee of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur and Sandra E Oxner, former judge and founding president Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Canada took part in the ceremony, the report said.

They arrived through the Wagah border in Lahore on Thursday to attend the ceremony, it said.

Five senior judges of Turkey, South Africa and Nigeria also attended the oath taking ceremony.

Born in 1954 in Dera Ghazi Khan area of the Punjab province of Pakistan, Justice Khosa studied at the University of the Punjab and Cambridge University.

He started his practice as a lawyer in 1977 and was elevated as high court judge in 1998.

He was made judge of the Supreme Court in 2010.

Justice Khosa has decided around 50,000 cases in his long career.

He was also part of the benches which disqualified former premiers Yusuf Raza Gilani and Nawaz Sharif.

He was also part of the three-member bench which acquitted Christian woman Asia Bibi in blasphemy case.

The judgment triggered countrywide protest and violence by extremists.

Justice Khosa is very well read, having a vast study in different disciplines and often quotes foreign writers in his judgments.

Addressing the retiring ceremony of his predecessor Justice Nisar on Thursday, Justice Khosa said that he would like to decide the more than 1.9 million cases currently piled up in different courts by reforming the judicial system.

He also said that he would try to eliminate the practice of frivolous cases.

Supreme Court lawyer Ali Zafar said Justice Khosa was expected to focus on judicial issues unlike his predecessor who often interfered in issues of governance.

"The practice of suo motu will be rarely used by Justice Khosa as he believes that it should be only used when all other options have been exhausted to address an issues," Zafar said.
By Associated Press

TEHRAN: Iran's foreign minister has mocked the US National Security Adviser's calls for a strike on Iran, in a play on the viral 10-year challenge meme on social media.

In a tweet on Friday, Mohammad Javad Zarif posted the titles of two separate articles by John Bolton from 2009 and 2019, both calling for strikes on Iran.

Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Bolton asked the Pentagon in September to prepare military options for attacking Iran after attacks on US diplomatic sites in Iraq. Social media users taking the 10-year challenge are comparing their profile photos from 2009 and 2019.

Tensions between Iran and the US have been heightened after President Donald Trump withdrew America from the nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Friday raised the Kashmir issue during his meeting with the visiting UN General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espionosa.

Espionosa arrived in Islamabad on her first official trip to the Asia-Pacific region since assuming office in September last year.

She met Qureshi in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where the two sides also held talks on different issues.

Qureshi said that he discussed the regional and international issues.

including Kashmir with the UNGA chief and "apprised her of Pakistan's grave concern over the gross human rights violations" in Kashmir.

He called for implementing the UN Security Council's resolutions on Kashmir in letter and spirit to resolve this longstanding issue.

ALSO READ | India has 'no role' in arranging US-Taliban talks: Pakistan Foreign Office

Qureshi alleged that India was continuously violating the ceasefire agreement on the Line of Control (LoC) and urged the international community to help resolve the issue.

He said Pakistan agreed with the UNGA president that a strong and vibrant UN was vital for lasting peace and stability in the world.

The Foreign Office said in a statement that the two sides had useful discussions on the on-going process of UN Security Council reform and "the need for this process to be led by Member States and consensus-based way forward".

Qureshi also briefed her about Pakistan hosting more than three million Afghan refugees for the last four decades.

He said Pakistan is actively engaged with Afghanistan for a long and durable solution to the Afghan conflict as it believes peace in the neighbouring country is also in its own best interest.

Espinosa appreciated Pakistan for hosting the Afghan refugees.

Espionosa will be in Islamabad till January 22 and will call on President Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Imran Khan.

She will also be adressing members of academia, think tanks and students.

This is the second visit by the president of the UN General Assembly since 2010.
By AFP

MOSCOW: A Belarusian model who claimed she had proof of Russian collusion with the Trump election campaign was in custody Friday after police "dragged" her from a transit zone in Moscow's airport, her lawyer told AFP.

Anastasia Vashukevich, known as Nastya Rybka, was in jail in southern Moscow after being detained with several others at the airport.

Nastya Rybka. (Photo | Instagram)

They flew in after being deported from Thailand where they had spent a year in prison for participating in a "sex training course".

A Russian lawyer representing Vashukevich branded the arrest an "international scandal," saying his client had "committed no crimes" and was planning to travel on to Belarus.

Instead she was "moved from the transit zone onto the Russian territory by unidentified law enforcement employees," said Dmitry Zatsarinsky.

He said employees in civilian clothes "dragged her out of the transit zone" and added that he was planning to lodge an official complaint.

Zatsarinsky posted a video on his Instagram that shows five or six men trying to force a young woman resembling Vashukevich into a wheelchair as she tries to break free.

They then abandon their efforts and simply carry her through what appear to be one-way double doors typically used in airports.

ALSO READ | Belarusian model claiming to know Trump secrets deported from Thailand

Vashukevich was convicted in Thailand earlier this week after nearly a year in jail following her arrest in a seaside resort of Pattaya.

She pleaded guilty to multiple charges including soliciting and illegal assembly.

Vashukevich was a part of a group participating in a seminar led by Russian self-styled seduction guru Alex Kirillov. The court convicted her and seven co-defendants.

She had travelled to Thailand after sparking a political scandal when she posted a video allegedly showing tycoon Oleg Deripaska and an influential Russian deputy prime minister relaxing on a yacht.

Deripaska later sued her for invasion of privacy.

While in Thai custody, she claimed she had information about alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections and pleaded for US help, fearing prosecution in Russia.

Zatsarinsky said that some people in the group had been deported to Belarus via Ukraine, rather than Russia, and faced no problems at the airport in Kiev.

Russian police late Thursday confirmed Russian and Belarusian citizens were detained in Sheremetyevo airport on arrival from Thailand as part of an ongoing probe into "coercing into prostitution."

On Friday morning, two men and two women remained in police custody, the interior ministry said, Russian agencies reported.
By AFP

BOGOTA: Colombia' s government declared three days of mourning after at least 21 people died in a car bomb at a Bogota police cadet training academy, and 68 were wounded -- the worst such incident in the city in 16 years.

Authorities said they identified the bomber and that he had no known links to armed guerrilla groups.

The defense ministry said the "terrorist act" was carried out using a vehicle packed with 80 kilograms (around 175 pounds) of explosives.

"Unfortunately, the preliminary toll is 21 people dead, including the person responsible for the incident, and 68 wounded," Colombian police said in a statement, adding 58 of those injured had been discharged from hospital.

CaptionIn this image provided by military personnel, flames rise from a deadly car bombing at a police academy on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, in Bogota, Colombia. (Photo | AP)

"All Colombians reject terrorism and we're united in fighting it," President Ivan Duque tweeted in the aftermath.

Later in a statement to the nation, he said he had ordered reinforcements to Colombia's borders and routes in and out of cities.

The bomber -- who authorities confirmed was killed in the attack -- struck at the General Francisco de Paula Santander Officer's School in the south of Bogota during a promotion ceremony for cadets.

No group has claimed responsibility, but public prosecutor Nestor Humberto Martinez named suspect Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez as the "material author of this abominable crime."

Martinez said Rojas Rodriguez entered the school compound at 9:30 am (1430 GMT) driving a grey 1993 Nissan Patrol truck, but gave no details about the explosion.

He said the truck underwent an inspection in July in the Arauco department on the border with Venezuela -- a traditional stronghold of ELN Marxist guerrillas.

Brutal act of terrorism

Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno said one of the dead was an Ecuadoran cadet, while a second suffered light injuries.

"The brutal act of terrorism in Bogota took the life of a compatriot," Moreno said on Twitter.

"My sincerest thoughts go to the family, friends and companions of Erika Chico."

Meanwhile, Panama's President Juan Carlos Varela said that 45 Panamanian cadets were present during the attack, with two injured.

Family members of victims of a bombing embrace outside the entrance to the General Santander police academy where the bombing took place in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019. (Photo | AP)

Fanny Contreras, the Colombian armed forces' health inspector, told local radio that the truck "entered (the school compound) suddenly, almost hitting the police, and then there was the explosion."

Carol Oviedo said her brother Jonathan, a cadet, told her on the phone he had been injured, before the connection was cut.

"In two years since he joined the police, he's never had to face a situation like this," she said.

Like other families, she was lingering in the vicinity of the academy hoping to hear some news.

United States assistant secretary of state in charge of Latin America, Kimberly Breier condemned the attack and said: "Our condolences and sympathies go to the victims and family members of those killed."

The US embassy in Bogota offered its "help in investigating this reprehensible attack."

Horrible, horrible

Rosalba Jimenez, 62, was opening her confectionary store near the school when the bomb went off.

"When we turned to look at the school the sky was grey with smoke. People were running, sirens... horrible, horrible, it seemed like the end of the world," Jimenez told AFP.

Authorities sealed off the area to the press and increased security service patrols in the south of the city, AFP reporters said.

Right-wing Duque, who assumed power in August, has peddled a tough line against Marxist rebels and drug traffickers in the largest cocaine producer in the world.

Family members of victims of a bombing gather outside the entrance to the General Santander police academy where the bombing took place in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019. (Photo | AP)

Peace talks with ELN guerrillas -- who in the past have claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on police -- stalled before Duque replaced Juan Manuel Santos as president, and have not been restarted.

Duque has made several demands, including the release of all hostages, as prerequisites to kick-starting the peace process, but the ELN has dismissed those as unacceptable.

After the 2016 peace accord signed by Santos and FARC guerrillas, turning the former rebels into a political party, the ELN is considered the last active rebel group in a country that has suffered more than half a century of conflict.

That cycle of violence has also involved paramilitaries, drug traffickers and other Marxist rebels, including FARC dissidents.

A year ago, six police died and 40 were injured in an attack on a police station in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla that was claimed by the ELN.

In February 2017, the ELN claimed responsibility for an attack on a police patrol in the Macarena neighborhood of Bogota that left one officer dead and several seriously wounded.

In June, three people -- including a Frenchwoman -- were killed and nine others wounded in an attack on a Bogota shopping mall that authorities blamed on a fringe left-wing group called the Revolutionary People's Movement (MRP).
In a few days, Egypt will take up the presidency of the African Union (AU) for 2019, signalling the trust of the African countries in the credibility and transparency of Egyptian leadership.

The AU Assembly of heads of state and government has already elected Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi for a one-year term succeeding Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

The AU is one of the most effective continental organisations consisting of 55 African countries and launched in 2002 to replace the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), established in 1963.

The AU aims at accelerating the process of integration on the continent to make it a complete actor in the global economy while preserving the peace and stability of the African countries.

Accordingly, Egypt seeks to promote the AUs 2063 Vision and to accomplish its objectives through addressing the political, economic and social challenges that may hinder the integration of the continent.

Egypt is now reaping the fruit of the soft power it has accumulated over the previous four years through which it retained its leading positions in the international order.

Egypt plays a pivotal role as an effective actor on the African continent through boosting preventive diplomacy, promoting strategies of peace-keeping and peace-building in collaboration with the United Nations, countering international terrorism, preserving the sustainability of economic development emphasising the prosperity of the African peoples and placing the continent as a top priority on Egypts agenda.

During Egypts presidency of the AUs Peace and Security Council in January 2018, and its membership of the African Council from April 2016 to April 2019, it focused on preventing conflicts, maintaining peace and security on the African continent and promoting coordination between the efforts of the UN and AU in preventive diplomacy.

Building on these remarkable efforts, Egypts chairmanship of the Group of 77 plus China (G-77/China) organisation also contributed to supporting the economic development of developing countries and boosting South-South cooperation.

Egypts presidency of the AU this year will contribute effectively to consolidating ties with the African countries that will result in mutual economic gains, widening Egyptian and foreign investments in infrastructure projects, human resources, renewable energies projects and facilitating trade exchange, domestic industries, increased employment rates, the improved quality of education and better skills in manpower.

Economic cooperation can be a catalyst for reforming the economies of the African countries to create more competitive ones capable of achieving economic regional integration and being part of the international economic order.

One of the main objectives of the AU since its establishment has been to achieve regional economic integration that encompasses seven main stages across the continent, among them preferential trade agreements, free-trade areas, a customs union, a common market, economic and monetary union and finally complete integration.

In this context, Egypt initiated the establishment of the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) in 2015 with the three biggest economic blocs on the continent, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

Building on such achievements, Egypt supported the AUs accession to the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) through ensuring the enforcement of the African Free Trade Agreement that set out main steps towards achieving regional integration.

Egypt seeks to promote new investments in Africa, establishing joint infrastructure projects to support investment and trade, enhancing the role of the African private sector to increase investment rates, executing programmes to encourage entrepreneurship and advancing the economic empowerment of youth and women.

Egypt seeks to launch a presidential leadership programme for African youth and encourage Egyptian businessmen to establish services and facilities in the African countries.

Furthermore, Egypts presidency of the AU will assist in the development of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, as Egypt was one of the earliest countries that supported the Initiative from its launch in 2013.

The Initiative aims to promote economic growth and development regionally and internationally as it builds a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes of the Silk Road.

Egypt participated in the Third Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) intended to consolidate ties between China and the African continent. It hosted the Africa Economic Forum in December 2018 for the second time and the Intra-African Trade Fair with the participation of private-sector leaders in order to identify potential opportunities for investments in the African countries and provide recommendations for promoting economic development.

Egyptian soft and hard power can also assist effectively in countering terrorism on the continent through eradicating its main sources, boosting the capabilities of African armed forces and peace-keeping forces, and mediating in the conflicts in Sudan.

It can help to solve the Nile Basin crisis by emphasising the rights of the Nile Basin countries to fair development without harming the rights of others and preserving adequate shares of Nile water.

The international order encourages dynamic international policies as well as the multi-polarity that can push forward and boost the unity of developing countries through deepening South-South cooperation.

It is by strengthening cooperation at all levels that comprehensive peace and sustainable economic development across the African continent can be achieved. *The writer is an economist at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University. *A version of this article appears in print in the 17 January, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Egypts presidency of the African Union

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By Online Desk

Can you imagine buying a house with just a paper clip? Here's the story of a Canadian who bartered a red paper clip all the way up to a house in 14 trades. Kyle MacDonald from Montreal took only one year to own a two-storey farmhouse in Kipling, Canada.

The idea of bartering a paper clip dawned on MacDonald when he was jobless but wanted a house to live in. Instead of uploading his resume online to find a job, MacDonald decided to put up a picture of a red paper clip on a website.

A screenshot from Kayle McDonald's blog post

He immediately got a response from two young women in Vancouver who were willing to trade a pen that was looking like a fish.

The pen that looks like a fish (Photo | Kayle McDonald's blog post)

He traded the pen for a handmade doorknob with a Seattle potter the same day.

The handmade doorknob (Photo | Kayle McDonald's blog post)

MacDonald later went to Massachusetts with a friend to barter the doorknob for a portable cooking stove.

The camp stove (Photo | Kayle McDonald's blog post)

Two months later he flew to California and bartered the stove with a US marine sergeant for a 100-watt generator.

The 100-watt generator (Photo | Kayle McDonald's blog post)

A few months later, MacDonald was in New York to exchange the generator for an 'instant party kit' (empty keg in which one can fill beer bottles of his/her choice), with illuminated Budweiser beer sign.

The instant party kit (Photo | Kayle McDonald's blog post)

He went on trading thing after thing and also managed to barter with some celebrities. Quebec comedian and radio personality Michel Barrette decided to barter his Ski-Doo snowmobile for the "instant party kit" that MacDonald had.

On one afternoon, he went all the way up for trading with rockstar Alice Cooper the motorised snow globe. This time, in exchange, he got a paid role in a Corbin Bernsen movie titled 'Donna on Demand'.

But why would Bernsen trade a role for a small snowglobe? well, Bernsen is said to be one of the biggest snowglobe collectors in the world.

The KISS motorised snow globe (Photo | Kayle McDonald's blog post)

Getting an opportunity to act in Bernsen's movie was not enough for MacDonald. He chose to trade that too. This time, it was not trading with just one person but with one whole town.

A town named Kipling in Canada offered to barter a farmhouse with him for the paid movie role that he had.

"We are going to show them the house, give them the keys to the house and give them the key to the town and just have some fun," mayor of Kipling Pat Jackson was quoted as saying by a news website. The town then held a competition for the role.

The farmhouse in Kipling, Canada (Photo | Kayle McDonald's blog post)

A few years after living in the farmhouse in Kipling he posted the house up for 'trade'. Soon the offers started rolling in. "Most people wanted to fence off the yard and live in the house. There was a feeling around town that the house should be some sort of living museum. This all seemed like a lot of organizing and responsibility, so at one point I woke up one morning and offered the house to town. Totally free," McDonald wrote in his blog.

McDonald puts up the house for "trade" (Photo | Kayle McDonald's blog post)

The town has now turned the house into a cafe and tourist attraction. Drive into Kipling and you will find some official Saskatchewan tourism signs that announce the Red Paperclip House, one of Kipling's largest tourist attractions. "I'm very proud to have helped contribute to the existence of a large paper clip and tourist attraction in a remote Canadian town," he wrote.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: A day after a video highlighting the plight of fifteen workers from Nizamabad, who have been stranded in Erbil of Iraq on promise of jobs surfaced, the chief secretary of State, SK Joshi, wrote a letter to the Union Minister of External Affairs and the Consulate General of India in Iraq urging them to repatriate the emigrants at the earliest.

In the letter, Joshi listed out the names of the fifteen persons who were stranded in Iraq. He was reportedly given this information by one of the stranded workers, K Mahender Reddy, whose name was also listed in the letter. Mahender Reddy, on Wednesday, alleged that they had been cheated by an illegal agent under the pretext of providing jobs in Iraq. After reaching the country, the agent deserted them. 

On arrival, they realised that they were being duped by the agent. They were faced with many difficulties  no food, no accommodation, Joshi said. The family members of the workers are worried about their safety and security in Iraq and are unable to bear any of their expenses. They have requested for assistance from the government and their repatriation from Erbil to India as early as possible, the letter read.

Scores of youth from Nizamabad have migrated to Gulf countries in search of jobs. However, what is surprising is that there are only four recruitment agents in the district, according to the latest figures of registered agents put out by the Ministry of External Affairs. This is worrisome because several illegal agents thrive in the district on account of lack of authorised agents. People are not aware of registered agents and as a result illegal consultants are thriving, said Basanth Reddy, Gulf Workers Welfare Association.

Only four recruitment agents

Scores of youth from Nizamabad have migrated to Gulf countries in search of jobs. However, what is surprising is that there are only four recruitment agents in the district, according to the latest figures put out by the Ministry of External Affairs.
By Express News Service

Thoothukudi student leader K Santhosh Raj, the student who asked "Who are you?" to actor Rajinikanth when he visited him in the hospital was arrested by the police on Thursday. The 22-year-old student is the President of the All College Students' Federation, hailing from Pandarampatti village. The police said that Santhosh was arrested after allegations of his distributing pamphlets instigating protests against Sterlite Copper. He has been remanded under section153(A)(B), 505(1)(b), the police said.

Santhosh was pursuing his BCom in a college in Thoothukudi and dropped out in his second year but was actively involved in the anti-Sterlite protests. He was severely injured in the Thoothukudi firing that had taken place on May 22, 2018 and was admitted to the hospital along with several other injured people. Actor Rajinikanth had visited the hospital to offer his condolences and when he approached Santhosh, he asked the legendary star who he was. This sent shockwaves in the state and while many applauded what he had done, some others criticised him for it. So much so that he even put out a video apologising to the Superstar for what he had said. But Santhosh had asked similar questions to several other VIPs who had come visiting.

Santhosh's mother told the media that her son left the house around 11.30 am on Thursday after he got an "emergency" phone call. He was subsequently picked up by the police at Pudhurpandiyapuram toll gate. The villagers at Pandarampatti have staged a sit-in protest and Santhosh's mother has said that the protests will continue until her son is released. "When Sterlite has been shut permanently, why are they arresting my son? Even if the Chief Minister orchestrates to shut Sterlite, would the police arrest him?" she questioned.

In connection to the case, Srivaikuntam police had already arrested three persons who distributed pamphlets near a private college in Srivaikuntam on December 19, 2018.

(The story originally appeared in edexLive.)
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu stands sixth in the country in detection of new tuberculosis cases with 1.03 lakh new cases being reported in 2018, shows NIKSHAY, an online database of tuberculosis cases by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Data from January 1 to December 31 also shows that in India 21.32 lakh new cases were reported in 2018. Among them, public health care institutions notified 16,02,971 cases while private heath care institutions notified 5,29,310 cases. Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number with 4.10 lakh new cases.

Tamil Nadu is the only South Indian State to report high number of new cases. Next is Andhra Pradesh with 91,157 cases, Karnataka with 83,732 cases and Telangana 52,395 cases. Kerala reported the lowest number of cases, 24,535.

Data in all States in the country show that more number of cases were notified by public sector health care institutions than those in private sector. In Tamil Nadu Public health care institutions notified 76,664 cases while private health care institutions notified 26,696 cases in the State, which is one of the major concerns of the State Health Department.

Speaking to Express, J A Jayalal, vice-president of Indian Medical Association said, In coming days, private practitioners might report more number of cases as recently the government addressed many concerns raised by private doctors. The government is now providing monthly `500 as incentive to private doctors and also for TB patients who take treatment at private hospitals. This will encourage the doctors. The government is also providing free medicines for TB patients taking treatment in government hospitals, he said.

The government aims to eliminate TB by 2025. We will provide our support to the government in their initiatives, he said.
By Express News Service

MADURAI: A spectator died of heart attack while more than 40 bull tamers across the State suffered injuries playing jallikattu on Thursday as part of Pongal celebrations. The star of attraction was the event in Alanganallur.

A 45-year-old man in the gallery at Alanganallur died of cardiac arrest caused probably due to suffocation, said police. For the first time, a Indo-Tibetan Border Police team was deployed at the venue.

Minister RP Udhayakumar inaugurated the event by flagging off the release of a bull from its pen. Udhayakumar unveiled a memorial slab for Jallikattu at Alanganallur, and said that a memorial would soon be built to honour the pro-Jallikattu protests.

Lakhs of rupees worth prizes were given out to tamers and bull owners. A 22-year-old youth K Ranjith Kumar from Alanganallur won the best tamer award, along with a car sponsored by the Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami. Ranjith successfully tamed 15 bulls.

Meanwhile, the award for the best bull was bagged by Selliyamman temple bull from Parampatti. A car sponsored by Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam would be given to the bull trainers B Saravanan and V Dinesh.

The prizes would be presented to the winners by the chief minister in a couple of days in Chennai, said the district administration.

In Dindigul, as many as 15 people  nine bull tamers, two spectators and four bull owners  were injured at the annual jallikattu event at the Nathamadipatti village near Sanarpatti on Thursday.

ITBP team gives first aid

A 26-member team of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) were present at the jallikattu venue to provide first aid to the injured. The team split into two to tend to injured bulls as well as injured spectators/bull tamers

Safety comes first

To screen bulls and ensure their safety, 12 veterinary teams, comprising 10 members each, including veterinary doctors, livestock inspector and animal husbandry assistant were deputed by the Department of Animal Husbandry. Also, two Animal Medical Mobile Ambulances (AMMA), 10 108 ambulances and four two-wheeler ambulances were stationed at the venues to treat the injured bulls.

Besides, a six-member medical team deployed by GRH and four mobile medical teams, comprising ten doctors each, were deputed by the district Health department. A 11-member specially-trained rescue team of the Indian Red Cross Society was also present at the venue
By Online Desk

More than 500 students gathered outside the Anna University (AU) campus in Chennai on Friday to protest and condemn its new regulation. Many of them were seen holding a placard that said BanR2017. It was also the most widely used hashtag on Twitter by students from AU or ones studying in colleges affiliated to AU. Furthermore, hundreds of students participated in the protests in various parts of the state, with the slogan 'BanR2017".

What does BanR2017 mean?

R2017 refers to the resolution passed by AU in 2017 which brought in some significant changes to the arrear system, the number of credits one can score in a semester etc. Though students have been very much against the regulation and have been vocal about wanting it removed, the semester exam results announced earlier this week added more fuel to the fire.

What is Regulation 2017?

Until the regulation came into play, if one fails in a subject this semester, he/she can appear for the same in the next semester. But this regulation prohibits one from doing that, and a student has to wait for one full year before appearing again for the failed subject.

In other words, a subject you failed in during the even semester can only be cleared during the next even semester only. This means students who are in their final year will have to wait one full year before they can clear their arrears and start looking for jobs. This move has added burden to engineering students for whom the job market is very weak, and has led to an increase in the unemployment rate.

Hundreds of #AnnaUniversity students across #TamilNadu are protesting against the university to ban the new arrear system, which allows them to retake exam only a year after. #banR2017 #Regulation2017 https://t.co/TLKZm7BZ3k  The New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) January 18, 2019

Besides, students also believe that waiting one full year before appearing for an exam also decreases their chances of clearing the paper, as they move on to other subjects in the new academic year.

The resolution has also brought in some changes to the number of credits one can avail during a particular semester. One subject usually carries 3-4 credits. Earlier, there were no restrictions on the number of credits one can acquire during the year. The new resolution allows a student only up to 36 credits per semester including both the current year and arrear papers.

For instance, if a student has six arrears, he or she may not be able to apply for more than three arrears in the semester, making it even more problematic for someone to finish their degree and graduate.

It is important to note that after the re-evaluation scam, AU has brought in stringent measures to prevent malpractices during the exam. Many students protesting also complained that strict evaluation practices adopted by the AU after the scam have contributed to the poor results.
By Express News Service

BERHAMPUR: The plight of 80-year-old Apana Sahu and his wife Sakuntala, aged 73, has clearly escaped the eyes of the Government which claims to have successfully implemented several schemes for welfare of senior citizens.

The elderly couple resides on a roadside at Narendrapur village. Their makeshift hut and the unhygienic surroundings narrate the tale of the failure of the Government machinery to ensure a dignified life for the elderly. Apana eked out a living by pulling rickshaw but with passage of time, his body could no longer take the strain. He has been given a pension card but it is too meagre to make ends meet. The frail couple suffers from various ailments but cannot afford medicines.

Apana, who once worked hard to make a living, now depends on the mercy of locals for food and bare necessities. Social organisations had appealed to the district administration to extend a helping hand to the couple. It worked as Ganjam Collector Vijay Amrit Kulange sanctioned `10,000 for the couple and assured to provide other benefits, including free health care.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Kerala government informed the Supreme Court on Friday that 51 women below the age of 50 had entered the Sabarimala temple after the court verdict allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers there.

The government disclosed this while the court was hearing a plea by two women who entered the temple -- Bindu and Kanaka Durga -- seeking security.

The court directed the Kerala Police to provide round-the-clock security to the two women.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices L N Rao and Dinesh Maheshwari said it was only going into the aspect of security of the two women and would not like to entertain any other prayer made in the petition.

ALSO READ: Who are Bindu and Kanaka Durga, who entered Sabarimala?

The bench also refused to tag the matter along with the pending petitions in the Sabarimala case.

It was hearing the petitions of 42-year-old Bindu, a college lecturer and CPI(ML) activist from Kozhikode district's Koyilandy, and Kanakadurga, 44, a civil supplies department employee from Angadipuram in Malappuram, who had entered the Sabarimala shrine on January 2.

"We deem it appropriate to entertain this writ petition by directing the Kerala Police to provide adequate security round the clock to petitioner number 1 (Bindu) and petitioner 2 (Kanakdurga).

ALSO READ: Activists plan mass entry to Sabarimala as Karma Samithi gears up to resist

Beyond that we don't want to go into any of the issues mentioned in the petition," the bench said.

Senior advocate Vijay Hansaria, appearing for the Kerala government, said it was already providing adequate security to these women and other devotees who have entered the Sabarimala temple.

ALSO READ: We don't know if CM had any role in our Sabarimala visit, say Bindu and Kanakadurga

Advocate Mathews J Nedumpara appearing for some petitioners, who have filed a review plea challenging the decision of the top court to allow women of all ages to enter the temple, said that none of the female devotees has entered the Sabarimala shrine.

The bench, however, refused to go into all these issues and said that if the Kerala government was already providing security to the female devotees without the court's order then there is no harm if the government continues providing adequate security even after the court's order.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for the women petitioners, said the court should direct tagging of the petitions with the pending matters on the Sabarimala temple issue.

ALSO READ: Bindu and Kanaka Durga trekked to Sabarimala with police protection, Kerala HC told

To this, the bench said the prayer for tagging is rejected.

Earlier this month, the two women had stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by the police, more than three months after the apex court's historic judgment lifting the ban on the entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity.

Following the entry of the women into the shrine, the chief priest had decided to close the sanctum sanctorum of the temple to perform the 'purification' ceremony.

The plea had sought round-the-clock security to both the women due to threat to their life for entering into the hilltop shrine as one of the women was assaulted by her mother in-law.

The plea had sought directions declaring all authorities not to conduct the rite of purification or to shut the temple on account of any woman of the age of 10-50 having entered the temple.

ALO READ: Two women attempting to trek Sabarimala forced to retreat

It had said that the purification ritual is representative of a cleansing ceremony, signifying the petitioners were impure, which is violative of their dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The petition also sought directions declaring that any form of prevention of women aged between 10 and 50 years from visiting the hilltop shrine is contrary to the September 28, 2018 judgment of the apex court.

On September 28 last year, a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in a 4:1 verdict paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple, saying the ban amounted to gender discrimination.

The top court has said it may not start hearing pleas seeking a review of the Sabarimala verdict from January 22 as one of the judges was on medical leave.

Earlier, the apex court had decided to hear in open court the review petitions against the verdict.

Besides Justice Indu Malhotra and the CJI, justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud are part of the five-judge constitution bench.

Justice Malhotra had delivered the dissenting judgment in the case.

There are around 48 petitions seeking review of the judgment and they were filed following violent protests in favour and against the verdict.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: A cheating case allegedly amounting to a whopping Rs 20,000 crore in the UAE, involving more than 150 Malayalees, has surfaced, with the Gulf bank officers landing in the city to produce statements before the police on Thursday.

Express

The Ernakulam Central Police recorded the statements of National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah (RAKBANK) representatives. Two other Gulf banks  National Bank of Fujairah and Arab Bank  have also filed petitions against Malayalees for duping.

The modus operandi, as per the petitioner, involves taking loans from the Gulf banks and transferring the amount through illegal channels after selling their properties and fleeing the country. The police said a total of 46 cases were pending against expats for cheating the three UAE banks. The petitioner alleged the defaulters are from different parts of Kerala.

RAKBANK willing to settle case amicably

Power of attorney Prince Subrahmanian said: RAKBANK is willing to settle the case amicably and ready to give a pre-litigation opportunity to the defaulters. Hence the Kerala State Legal Services Authority will conduct an adalat at Kaloor on Friday. The defaulters could settle the liabilities directly with banks via the adalat.

RAKBANK Senior Manager (remedial department) Prasanth Jain and Senior Relationship Manager Sajan Abdul Majeed handed over the fake documents produced by the fraudsters to obtain the loan to the investigation officer CI A Ananthalal. Crime Branch and Ernakulam Central Police are probing 17 and 12 cases respectively based on the complaints filed by the power of attorney. Ernakulam Central SI Joseph Sajan said investigation is underway in the cases registered as per the complaint.

46cases pending against expats for cheating three UAE banks

RAKBANK willing to settle the case amicably and ready to give a pre-litigation opportunity to the defaulters
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Though the Congress is upbeat over the return of its missing MLAs and the failure of alleged poaching attempts by BJP, Fridays Legislature Party meeting, capping the political drama of the last few days, is expected to be the true test of party leaders and their ability to bring their house in order.

The CLP meeting, called by Siddaramaiah, takes place after some party MLAs, sulking over not being inducted into the cabinet, returned expressing allegiance to the party on Wednesday.

The answer to whether the party has managed the crisis from within will emerge only when all the disgruntled MLAs turn up at the CLP meet. Even as senior party leaders asserted that neither campaign committee chief H K Patils oath-taking ceremony nor the CLP meeting is a show of strength, all eyes will be on who will turn up at the meeting and who gives it a miss. In the face of a strict warning by Siddaramaiah of initiating action under the anti-defection law against those legislators who skip the meeting, many rebel MLAs resurfaced on Thursday pledging support to the party.

There is no dissent from my end. I am not joining the BJP, said B Nagendra, MLA from Ballari, insisting that he was in Mumbai on personal work. Umesh Jadhav, MLA from Chincholi, is also said to have left Mumbai to return to Bengaluru in time for the CLP meeting. It is true that I am a little disappointed with the party but that doesnt mean I will leave Congress, said Yellapur MLA Shivaram Hebbar.

The fact that rebel MLAs have returned to Bengaluru is the sign of the first victory for the Congress state leadership. But whether those like Ramesh Jarkiholi will submit to Siddaramaiahs warning is key to quelling the dissent in the party, say political observers. Meanwhile, after days of political drama, BJP MLAs currently holed up in a resort in Gurugram too are set to return by Saturday.

With the drama ending and no threat to the JD(S)-Congress coalition, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, as well as KPCC Chief Dinesh Gundu Rao, took turns to mock the BJP for its failed attempt of toppling the government. This even as BJP State chief B S Yeddyurappa said there was no intention of Operation Kamala in the first place.

We have been holding meetings with our MLAs over the last two days to discuss preparations for Lok Sabha polls. We discussed probable candidates too, said Yeddyurappa. He added that his MLAs will begin returning to Karnataka from Friday. Rubbishing reports of Operation Kamala, he said, We didnt plan any operation. It was the Congress and JD(S) that claimed to be in touch with our MLAs.

The Chief Minister himself claimed that he paid our legislators. It is not the BJP that is poaching MLAs but JD(S) and Congress.
On New Years Eve, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi launched the Decent Life Initiative on his official social media accounts, whereby under his auspices ministries, community associations and non-governmental organisations alike are to focus on providing a decent life for the underprivileged groups in society.

Here is his tweet in its entirety. As I looked at last year in search of the real hero of our nation, I found that the Egyptian citizen deserves the title.

Egyptians bravely confronted the battle of survival and construction, in addition to bearing the cost of economic reforms so as to achieve a better future for the coming generations.

And so I invite state institutions and civil society to come together to galvanise the efforts of the nation to provide a decent life for needy communities in 2019.

I must hail this Initiative as a much-needed and urgent enterprise, for according to the UN childrens fund UNICEF poverty in Egypt stood at 28.7 per cent in 2015 and increased to over 30 per cent in 2016 and has fluctuated around that figure since.

Egypts constitution also calls for raising standards of living, eliminating poverty and unemployment, [and] increasing opportunities for all.

According to the United Nations, the notion of a decent life means eradicating extreme poverty and providing sustainable development, but what exactly does this mean and how can it be applied?

The basis for a decent life is shelter and sustenance, and since the initiative is aimed at the most underprivileged, it is an appropriate starting point.

Psychologist Abraham Maslows hierarchy of needs affirms that only after an individual fulfills his or her needs for the basics such as food and shelter can he or she attend to growth needs such as self-esteem and self-actualisation and hence productivity.

A decent life entails more than shelter and sustenance, and it is an umbrella of sorts. It translates into the ability to first find and then work at a steady, rewarding job in order to provide sustenance and shelter for ones family.

It comprises living a healthy, productive life in a safe environment with a developed infrastructure such as access to clean running water, electricity, a proper sewage system and a sturdy roof over ones head.

It means that ones children should receive a proper education and suitable medical treatment.

Just as important, it should generate an awareness of how to improve ones life culturally and socially, to take better care of ones children, to realise not only ones rights, but also ones responsibilities, and to be better off with only two children. A decent life clearly encompasses much.

It will take time to pan out the methods of implementation for such an immense project.

However, many Egyptian officials, especially Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali, immediately reacted to the presidents call and conducted a flurry of interviews on several media outlets to explain the initiatives methods of implementation and the role of the various players.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli then directed the government to take the necessary steps to implement the initiative and improve services to those in need in Egypts villages.

The same thing went for civil-society organisations and NGOs, which showed their swift reaction by expressing their support for the initiative, especially with regard to multi-dimensional poverty and the various interventions that lead to improving peoples lives, Wali told a press conference at the cabinet headquarters in Cairo.

She confirmed the availability of a database of the most impoverished villages in Egypt, saying that the focus of the initiative would be on 100 villages in 12 governorates where those in need form up to 70 per cent of the population.

These villages are concentrated in Giza, Minya, Assiut, Sohag, Qena, Luxor, Aswan, Al-Wadi Al-Gadid, Qalyubia, Beheira, Marsa Matrouh and North Sinai, all of them having a poverty rate of 70 per cent or more.

The data is based on studies conducted on 32 million low-income citizens in various regions around Egypt and covers financial, health, education, income and employment aspects to produce multi-dimensional poverty maps providing detailed pictures of the conditions of the poorest villages.

This information will allow those involved in the initiative to hit the ground running.

Meetings have already been held between stakeholders including municipalities and non-governmental organisations to pool suggestions, discuss intervention strategies and begin the ground work.

Our plan is for the initiative to act as an umbrella for a number of already existing civil-society initiatives on employment, healthcare, services and infrastructure, Wali said.

The initiative will also focus on cultural conditions as well as supporting marginalised groups such as orphans and the physically challenged, she said.

According to the Arabic daily Al-Ahram, the cost of the initiative, estimated at LE2 billion, will be partially funded by the Ministry of Finance and the rest will come through NGOs that take part in it.

The Ministry of Religious Endowments plans on supporting the initiative with LE100 million, and other institutions, organisations and the general public will surely add to it as time goes by.

The Decent Living Initiative will spearhead society towards the achievement of Egypts ambitious Vision 2030, which aspires to improve the quality of life for all Egyptians by investing in them so as to achieve sustainable development.

If performed with the anticipated energy and resilience, the initiative will be a very worthwhile enterprise, and as has been seen before with similar presidential initiatives, such as the Tahya Masr Fund and the 100 Million Healthy Lives, it should also ignite the enthusiasm of all Egyptians and galvanise all agencies and institutions, the media, academia and parliament included, to collaborate in its implementation. *The writer is a political analyst. *A version of this article appears in print in the 17 January, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: The Decent Life Initiative

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KMBC-TV(KANSAS CITY) -- It's been six weeks since Teresa Meitl was shot 21 times within close range and, although she's still recovering in the hospital, she feels grateful to be alive.

"It's like a miracle," Meitl, of Kansas City, Missouri, told ABC local station KMBC-TV in a recent interview. "Really, I shouldnt even be here, being shot as many times as I [was]."

The shooting happened on the night of Dec. 4. Meitl, a 53-year-old driver for ride-hailing company zTrip, drove a passenger to his destination in Kansas City and was waiting for someone to bring out the cab fare, according to court documents obtained by ABC News.

Video from cameras inside the vehicle and on the front dashboard show an individual approach the van and open the rear driver's side door to speak to the passenger. The passenger then holds a rifle up to Meitl's head and demands she give him everything, according to an affidavit from an FBI special agent.

"He goes, 'This is a real gun, and I want everything you got,'" Meitl told KMBC-TV.

Meitl tells the passenger that he's being recorded on camera, but he says he doesn't care. Meitl then turns around and grabs hold of the rifle. A struggle ensues, and the passenger tells the individual standing outside the car to beat Meitl up. The individual hits her in the face, in the back and in the back of the head. Meitl releases her grip from the rifle and that's when the passenger opens fire approximately 21 times. Both suspects then flee the scene, according to the affidavit.

Meitl said she couldn't feel the bullets as they hit her but the pain was unbearable.

"The bullet that hit my jaw, broke, shattered my jaw," she told KMBC. "The pain was so severe."

Meitl said she remembers someone coming into the vehicle to ask if she was all right, and she told them she had been shot. Investigators later learned that it was one of the suspects who returned for his cellphone which he left in the backseat.

Police responded to the shooting and Meitl was transported to an area hospital in critical condition. Her condition continues to be critical with "substantial and serious bodily injuries," according to the affidavit.

Meitl said she knows there's a long road ahead for her recovery and she will need physical therapy, but she's trying to to remain positive. She's thankful to her family and friends as well as everyone who has taken care of her, she said.

"I didn't know actually how many friends I do have until now," Meitl told KMBC from her hospital room. "I'm grateful, I'm very grateful."

Police have identified 18-year-old Derron Nevels as the passenger in Meitl's car. Nevels was arrested on Dec. 10 and charged in federal court for the armed robbery and assault. If convicted, he could spend more than 30 years behind bars.

The federal public defenders who were assigned to represent Nevels did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment Friday morning.

Investigators are still searching for the second suspect.

Copyright  2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
By PTI

BENGALURU: Exposing chinks in the ruling coalition in Karnataka, four dissidents Friday skipped the Congress Legislature Party meeting here that was called as a show of strength against an alleged bid by the BJP to dislodge the H D Kumaraswamy government.

The absence of four lawmakers posed no imminent threat to the seven-month-old Congress-JDS government in the numbers game but suggested that all was not well within the Congress which is still wrestling with dissidence.

The Congress would issue notices to absentee MLAs Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was dropped as a minister in the recent cabinet rejig and is said to be extremely unhappy over it, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli, CLP leader Siddaramaiah told reporters after the meet.

ALSO READ: After mocking Amit Shah over illness, Congress MP BK Hariprasad now says BJP chief not suffering from swine flu

He said 76 MLAs were present at the meeting, also attended by Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, besides other state leaders.

Siddaramaiah said Jadhav had written to him saying he would not be able to attend as he was unwell, while Nagendra had spoken to Venugopal conveying his inability to be present because of a court case.

The other two MLAs had not communicated anything, he said.

Siddaramaiah said after receiving the replies, the issue would be discussed with the party high command and state leaders before deciding on the next step.

Ahead of the CLP meet, Siddaramaiah had issue notices to all the party MLAs warning that their absence would be viewed "seriously" and action initiated according to the Anti-Defection law.

Soon after the CLP meet, the Congress MLAs were herded together in two buses from the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat where the CLP was held, and taken to a resort near the city.

A state senior Congress leader said since it was suspected that eight party MLAs had "committed" to BJP and might jump ship, the legislators were being shifted to a resort.

ALSO READ: Congress shifting Karnataka MLAs to resort to escape BJP's onslaught: Siddaramaiah

"All the MLAs, MPs, and ministers will stay together. They will stay together as long as required to escape from the onslaught of the BJP," Siddaramaiah said, adding that they would also discuss Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, BJP MLAs continued to stay put at a luxury hotel in Gurugram, a move the party has defended saying it was to prevent the Congress from poaching them.

It is still not known when the MLAs, hunkered down since Monday when the turmoil erupted, would return home.

In the first blow to the coalition government on Tuesday, two Independents had withdrawn their support to it.

BJP state chief B S Yeddyurappa Friday claimed that they were supporting the party whose strength was 106 now.

ALSO READ: PM Modi should answer where his party getting money to poach Congress MLAs: Kumaraswamy

"Our MLAs are united. Our team is intact. Our party is intact and united," Siddaramaiah said, as he unleashed a barrage of attacks on the BJP, targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah.

"Look at the BJP's temptations, so much of money. Rs 50 crore, Rs 100 crore and Rs 25 crore (being offered to Congress MLAs to quit)," Siddaramaiah alleged.

"See how the Chowkidar's party is functioning. How Narendra Modi Chowkidar is getting so much of money?" he said, claiming that he would give proof of how much money was offered to several of his party lawmakers.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president Amit Shah and central ministers are involved in destabilising the government in Karnataka. Not only the state leaders of BJP, but even the central leaders were also involved," he said.

As the turmoil brought out cracks in the Congress, the party's leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge accused Modi of attempting to "take control" of his party MLAs by using CBI, ED and Income Tax to "terrorise" them in the BJP's alleged bid to topple the state government.

"They are trying multiple things such as threatening our MLAs by carrying out CBI, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax raids," he alleged at a party meeting here.

Ahead of the CLP meeting, senior Congress leaders in Karnataka asserted there was no threat to the coalition government while hitting out at the BJP for making "futile attempts" to destabilise it, saying the saffron party's conspiracy had been "exposed".

KPCC president Dinesh Gundurao said, "Let whatever happen, there is no threat to this government. It will complete five years. The BJP is making futile attempts to destabilise the government."

KPCC working president Eshwar Khandre said he had spoken to Umesh Jadhav (the Chincholi MLA), who had allegedly planned to switch to the BJP.

"He (Jadhav) has told me that he will remain in the Congress. I have trust in him," he added.

Earlier, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy met Venugopal here and held discussions on the ongoing developments.

"They (BJP leaders) will keep continuing with their 'Operation Kamal' (lotus). I am not bothered about it. It is (state BJP chief) Yeddyurappa's duty," Kumaraswamy told reporters.

He said since he would not be available for two days and had a packed schedule, including a visit to Kolkata, he called on Venugopal as he would not be able to meet him during the period.

As the CLP was underway, Yeddyurappa said several legislators appeared to be attending the meet out of compulsion.

"Let them indulge in squabbles. We have nothing to do with it."

He said the ruling coalition was claiming the support of some BJP MLAs and it was because of this that the party had decided they should stay together in a hotel in Gurugram.

In the 224-member Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JDS 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker.

BSP is supporting the government.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Minister of State for Communications (Independent Charge) and Railways Manoj Sinha, who represents Ghazipur parliamentary seat in Lok Sabha, on Friday made it clear that he would not contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls if he was not fielded from Ghazipur itself.

"The party leadership has to decide on candidates and their constituencies. But it is but it is sure that I will contest the election only from Ghazipur", said Sinha while talking to reporters in Varanasi on Friday.

He assured the people of eastern UP that the development which picked up in Poorvanchal after PM Narendra Modi's elelction, would continue in future also.

The central minister trained guns at the SP-BSP alliance and other opposition parties forging alliances in other parts of the country by saying that neither West Bengal's didi (Mamta Banerjee), nor the prince (Rahul Gandhi) of Congress nor even UP's own Behanji (BSP chief Mayawati) would be anywhere in contention with BJP in upcoming general elections.

"The opposition parties are coming together to fulfil their political ambitions. After polls they all will be at daggers drawn," he said.Reacting to BJP's defeat in recently concluded assembly elections in three states, Sinha said there was a difference in the state and nation election.

"However, in three states of Hindi heartland, BJP was not defeated rather Congress has won," he added.
Anuraag Singh By

Express News Service

BHOPAL: In the coming Lok Sabha polls, the battle in Madhya Pradesh could be Mission 29 Vs Mission 20.

On one hand, unfazed by the loss of power in the state the BJP will work for winning all 29 seats, the Congress, enthused by a return to power in the central Indian state after 15 years is eyeing to win at least 20 seats.

In the 2014 polls (a year after it won a thumping majority in assembly polls winning 165 seats) the BJP riding the Modi wave won 27 out of the 29 Lok Sabha seats, while the Congress was decimated to just two seats, Jyotiraditya Scindia in Guna and present CM Kamal Nath in his pocket-borough Chhindwara.

One of the 27 seats, the Ratlam-Jhabua seat which was won by the BJP in 2014, however, was later wrested by the Congress in 2015 by-election.

Both, the Congress and the BJP have begun the necessary spadework for the general elections. While the Congress national general secretary in-charge for the state Deepak Babaria met with senior leaders, including state party president and CM Kamal Nath in Bhopal on Thursday, the newly appointed BJP Lok Sabha in-charge for MP state, the UP transport minister Swatantra Dev Singh and co- in charge Satish Upadhyaya held meeting with state party top brass in Bhopal on Friday to chalk out the organizational programmes in the run-up to the general elections over the next two months.

While key sources within the state Congress unit confided to the New Indian Express that the party is eyeing to win at least 20 seats in the state, BJP's co in charge for Lok Sabha polls in MP and ex-Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyaya said on Friday the party will field winnable candidates who can fetch for the party all 29 seats.

The Congress national general secretary Deepak Babaria also made it clear there was no possibility of cabinet reshuffle/expansion in MP, appointment to state corporations or changes in the party organization before the LS polls. He confirmed that there was a strong possibility that senior leaders who lost the recent assembly polls in the state could be fielded in the Lok Sabha polls by the party.

Senior Congress leaders, who lost the assembly polls in the state, include outgoing Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh, Ramniwas Rawat, outgoing assembly's deputy speaker Rajendra Singh, ex-minister Mukesh Naik, state Congress working president Surendra Chowdhary and ex-MP Sunderlal Tiwari.

Key sources in state Congress confided that none of the newly elected MLAs or ministers will be fielded in the LS polls, owing to the party not having a simple majority in the Vidhan Sabha on its own.

While the newly appointed BJP in-charge and co- in charge for LS polls in MP state made it clear that nothing about prospective candidates for the 29 seats were discussed in the meeting in Bhopal on Friday, but informed sources within the party maintained that it won't be surprising if sitting MP's on around 13-15 seats were replaced with new faces. Seats of some big names, like Gwalior MP and union minister Narendra Singh Tomar could be changed.

The seats where there is a strong possibility of sitting BJP MP's being denied tickets, include Betul, Rewa, Sagar, Rajgarh, Satna, Mandsaur, Sidhi, Dewas, Hoshangabad, Ratlam, Khajuraho, Vidisha, Bhind, Morena, Gwalior and Shahdol.

Out of these candidates on three seats are bound to be changed, as sitting MP's from Khajuraho and Dewas have already vacated their seats after being elected to the Vidhan Sabha recently, while the Vidisha seat too will see a new candidate as the present incumbent, the external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has already made it clear she won't contest next LS polls due to health reasons.

If the results of the recent assembly polls are to be taken into account, the BJP seems to be on a sticky wicket in all four seats of Gwalior-Chambal region, including Guna, Gwalior, Morena and Bhind seats, besides other seats, among them Burhanpur-Khandwa, Mandla, Balaghat, Khargone, Ratlam, Betul and Chhindwara seats.
Anuraag Singh By

Express News Service

BHOPAL: The 50-year-old Mandsaur Nagar Palika chairman and BJP leader Prahlad Bandhwar wasn't shot dead by any professional killer in Mandsaur town on Thursday evening, but was instead sprayed with bullets by a close aide and possibly a party worker identified as Manish Bairagi, ongoing police investigations into the case have revealed.

Primary investigations into the Thursday evening killing in Mandsaur town have revealed that it was the BJP leader's close aide Manish Bairagi (also a resident of Mandsaur only), who had shot Bandhwar thrice from close range from the country made pistol, which led to the Mandsaur municipality chairman's instant death.

A scanning of the accused's Facebook account showed his pictures with all top BJP leaders of Mandsaur, including his picture with the sitting MLA from Mandsaur seat Yashpal Singh Sisodiya and district BJP president Chandar Singh Sisodiya.

Bandhwar was standing outside the district cooperative bank building in the busy BPL Crossing area in Mandsaur town (around 400 km from Bhopal) at around 7.10 pm on Thursday, when the assassin riding a motorbike stopped near the BJP leader. After touching Bandhwar's feet and greeting him 'Jai Sri Ram,' the assassin later identified as Manish Bairagi shot the BJP leader thrice from point-blank range, resulting in Bandhwar's death.

"Based on the statements of eyewitnesses and subsequent investigations, the killer has been identified as Manish Bairagi, who is already accused in seven cases, including murder, attempt to murder, Arms Act and NDPS Act cases. Raids are being conducted at all possible places to nab him," IG-Ujjain Range Rakesh Gupta said.

Sources in Mandsaur police confided that primary probe has brought two possible reasons behind the killing. Bairagi had spent large sums on mother's treatment owing to which he was short of funds and was seeking money from Bandhwar, who was reluctant to give him money.

Secondly, Bairagi was peeved with Bandhwar as the latter had had not helped his cause of allotting him a piece of around 2000 sq ft land in Mandsaur town.

Meanwhile, senior BJP leaders, including ex-CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and state BJP president Rakesh Singh attended the last rites of the murdered BJP leader in Mandsaur on Friday.

The BJP leader's killing meanwhile, triggered the shutdown of large part of Mandsaur district, including Garoth, Mandsaur and Suwasra towns.

Present CM and ex-CM trade barbs over two killings in 24 hours

In the wake of killings of the BJP leader Prahlad Bandhwar in Mandsaur and builder Sandeep Agrawal in Indore in 24 hours, ex-CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan wrote a letter to CM Kamal Nath in which he mentioned that two incidents (Indore and Mandsaur) suggest that the criminals have become bold and are getting political patronage since the Congress came to power in MP.

CM Kamal Nath responded to his predecessor with the reply in which he stated that it seems that your letter is inspired more by politics and less by concern over the two incidents.

"I can assure you that the culprits in both cases will be nabbed soon," wrote Kamal Nath.

Nath told journalists in Bhopal on Friday that "Son of the victim named the accused in the FIR (First Information Report).

There is no need for a big investigation. There are two eyewitnesses. Death should not be politicized especially when it is the internal matter of a party."
Abhijit Mulye By

Express News Service

MUMBAI: Rail minister Piyush Goyal said that the decision to grant 10 per cent reservation to the economically poor in the general category was not taken keeping in mind general elections as it was under consideration for long a time.

The BJP government has tirelessly worked in the past five years for fulfilling basic needs such as electricity, toilets and gas connections. This has helped crores and hence the party doesnt need to engage in any election gimmicks, the minister said on Friday while addressing a press conference at the BJP office.

BJP had a grand gathering of key workers in Delhi last week. The workers are charged up and have resolved for a decisive victory, Goyal said.

The issue now is regarding the Majboor Sarkar and the Majboot Sarkar. The country has seen several helpless coalition governments in the 90s. Hence, the party is appealing to the people to vote for a strong government for robust growth, the minister said.

Our goal is to register a decisive victory by polling more than 51 per cent votes in the partys favour, which is why we are least bothered about the other coalitions, he said while replying to queries on alliances in Uttar Pradesh and other places. He even termed the alliances as unethical.
By UNI

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh government has imposed a special fee on Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and Beer for funding the stray cow shelter homes in the state while has changed the name of the Mugalsarai tehsil in Chandauli district to Deen Dayal Upadhaya tehsil.

The decisions were taken in the state cabinet meeting here on Friday, which was chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Briefing media persons here, state government spokesperson and power minister Srikant Sharma said that government will collect an additional revenue of Rs 165 crore annually by imposing a special fee on excise. "While an additional fee of Re 0.50 to Rs 2 will be imposed on per bottle of beer and IMFL, the special fee would be Rs 10 per bottle consumed in the bars to fund the stray cow shelters in the state," he said.

Earlier it was reported that the government was imposing 2 per cent cess on liquor but now they have changed the policy. The government has also approved to change the name of Mugalsarai tehsil in Chandauli district to Deen Dayal Upadhaya tehsil.

Earlier, the government had changed the name of Mugalsarai railway station to Deen Dayal Upadhaya station.

In order to promote the artisans under the One District, One Product (ODOP) project, the state government has announced a distribution and promotion policy to fund them for participating in the national and international fairs.

As per the policy, an artisan will get Rs 50,000 or 75 per cent of the stall booking amount which every is less for participating in the fair in the state. For participation outside the state, they will get the same amount for booking plus Rs 7500 or 75 per cent of the transportation cost, whichever is less and 3rd AC train or AC bus fare.

For participating in the international trade fairs, the artisans will get Rs 2 lakh or 75 per cent of the amount to book their stalls, whichever is less besides 75 per cent of the transportation cost and Rs 75,000 or 75 per cent of the airfare, whichever is less. The government has also approved Rs 575 crores excluding GST for setting up 2000 new tubewell under Ram Manohar Lohia scheme of the capacity of one cusec each.

Besides Rs 283 crores has been approved for repairing and modernisation of 1101 failed tube wells in the state. The government has hiked the allowances of the contractual and ad-hoc state pilots of the aviation department.

Now a pilot will get Rs 5000 additional special allowances for flying per hour per trip while they will be entitled to type 4 or 5 government accommodations for their residence.

The pilots would also be eligible for free transportation from residence to the airport and return while the government will pay the premium of insurance of Rs 60 lakhs for aviation personal accident or loss of the licence. The government has also amended the rule for approval of funds for the government schemes as now a minister can approve funds for the scheme up to Rs 1 crore. Earlier a minister had to take the approval from the state cabinet on funds above Rs 25 lakhs.

In other decisions, the government approved to provide 7th pay commission wages to the employees of state Bridge Corporation while about 1.0163 hectares of irrigation land in Maharajganj district would be handed over to the SSB.

The government has declared the Ramayan Mela in Chitrakoot as a government fair while the assets and the employees of the district and referral hospitals in Ayodhya, Basti, Bahriach, Ferozabad and Shahjahanpur districts have been transferred to the medical education department as new medical colleges are coming up there.
Aishik Chanda By

Online Desk

KOLKATA: West Bengal CM & TMC Chief Mamata Banerjee arrives at 'United India' opposition rally. National politicians from across the political spectra converged on Friday to attend the mega rally.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi shot off a letter to the West Bengal Chief Minister praising her efforts to build an anti-BJP Federal Front.

"The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Mr. Modi are intent on destroying," he wrote.

ALSO READ: Mamata Banerjee's mega opposition rally: New UP political alignment to reflect on Bengal stage

"We commend the great people of Bengal who have historically been at the forefront of defending our ideals. I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together," he added.

Though the Congress president would not be present, the grand old party will be represented by Opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge.

On the other hand, former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Yadav heaped praises on Mamata Banerjee for making this Federal Front rally a reality.

Reacting to the rally, actor-turned-rebel BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha said that Mamata Banerjee was the perfect Prime Ministerial candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

ALSO READ: Lok Sabha polls 2019 battle for India's soul and future: Shashi Tharoor

Other BJP rebels and former union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie will also share the stage on Saturday.

The streets of Kolkata from Airport towards the rally grounds have been adorned with posters of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M K Stalin.

Bahujan Samaj Party senior leader Satish Chandra Mishra, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Ministers Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh and Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Tejashwi Yadav are also expected to reach the city by late Friday evening.

While inspecting the security arrangements in the venue, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee predicted that BJP will win only 125 seats in the forthcoming elections, a drop of 25 seats from the 150 seats she had predicted for BJP during the July 21 TMC Martyrs' Day rally.

Meanwhile, TMC workers from across the state started arriving in the city to attend the rally. Food and stay for the TMC workers have been arranged at multiple venues including stadiums and government buildings.

"Eyes of 130 crore people would be on Brigade tomorrow. What started with Karnataka the final nail in the coffin would be hit tomorrow," TMC apparent heir and Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee said.

While the TMC supremo invited Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of CPM but did not receive any confirmation, no one from the state Congress have been invited for the mega rally.

"We were not invited how can we attend the rall Anyways it's a rallying of support for Mamata's PM dreams," state Congress president Somen Mitra said.

Reacting to his statement, junior Banerjee said: "What can be more laughable than the Bengal Congress giving contradictory statements than the High Command."

(With inuts from ENS)
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Congress president Rahul Gandhi will skip the mega opposition rally being hosted by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Saturday, but extended his support for the cause and deputed veterans Mallikarjun Kharge and Abhishek Manu Singhvi to represent the party.

I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together, Rahul said. The Opposition would defeat the BJP together in the coming national elections, he added.

The entire opposition is united in our belief that true nationalism and development can only be defended on the tested pillars of democracy, social justice and secularism, ideas that the BJP and Modi are intent on destroying, the Congress leader said.

Sources said Rahul is not attending the event as the grand old party plans to go alone in West Bengal on the lines of Uttar Pradesh, where regional giants BSP-SP joined hands to fight the BJP in the LS polls but left the Congress out.

The Congress and Trinamool Congress are rivals in West Bengal and the state Congress unit is against having any alliance with the TMC.

Rahul slammed the Modi government saying powerful forces fanned by anger and disappointment of hundreds of millions of Indians who had seen through false promises and lies peddled by the government. These forces, the Congress chief said, were moved by an idea of India in which the voice of every man, woman and child would be heard, no matter what their religion, economic status or region is.

The oppoasition leaders expected to attend the TMC rally are former PM H D Devegowda, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy; Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah, former J&K CM Omar Abdullah, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and RJDs Tejashwi Yadav.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Navy divers have found some skeletons in the flooded rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district, weeks after a multi-agency search operation was launched to rescue 15 trapped miners, officials and sources said Thursday.

On Wednesday, Navy Spokesperson Capt D K Sharma said in New Delhi that the divers detected a body of a miner using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) at a depth of approximately 160 feet and 210 feet inside the rat hole mine.

The body, which is yet to be identified, has been pulled upto the 'mouth' of the mine and is being retrieved under the supervision of a team of doctors, he said.

The 15 miners were trapped in an illegal rat-hole coal mine in Lumthari village of East Jaintia Hills district since December 13 after water from a nearby river gushed in.

Sources said the Navy divers on Thursday also spotted through the ROV a number of skeletons inside one of the rat-hole mines and are waiting for the state administration's directive on the future course of action.

They said it was not clear if the skeletons seen through high-resolution cameras on board the ROV were of the missing miners. The Navy Spokesperson said the body will be taken out of the mine under the supervision of doctors.

"Our divers are trying by hit and trial in uncharted mines. We've established that the miners were in the area. It has been a very complicated operation. We will continue our operation," said Capt Sharma said.

On skeletons being seen by the Navy team, the sources said the water inside the mines has high Sulphur content which can decompose the bodies very fast.

"Skeletons were seen by the ROV. We do not know whether the skeletons are of the trapped miners. Forensics experts are expected to tell the rescuers about the next step," said a source.

The 15 miners had gone for mining on December 13. They were trapped after water from a nearby river flooded the rat-hole mine.

Days later, several agencies including the Navy, NDRF, Air Force, National Disaster Response Force, Odisha fire service were deployed to rescue the miners.

The Navy divers had joined the search operation on December 30. The rescuers were struggling to pump out water from the mines.

The Supreme Court on January 3 expressed strong dissatisfaction over the rescue efforts to trace the trapped miners and told the state government to bring them out dead or alive.

In the Khloo-Ryngksan area, where the ill-fated mine is located on the western side of a small hillock, the Lytein river crisscrosses the valley for over 2 km.

Deputy Commissioner of East Jaintia Hills F M Dopth said the area has at least 80-100 flooded and abandoned mines.
By IANS

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of compromising national security in the Rafale deal by "denying" to the IAF 90 aircraft it desperately needed and "gifted" Dassault Rs 186 crore more per aircraft at the cost of the public exchequer in the deal it signed with France.

Citing a media report that India ended up paying 41 per cent more per aircraft for the 36 fighter jets ordered in 2015, Congress leader P. Chidambaram also expressed alarm over how objections by three senior Defence Ministry officials "to all aspects of the deal announced by Modi" were overruled by the other members in the negotiating team.

"Since Modi announced the new deal in April, 2015 and scrapped the UPA era deal, one question that has loomed large is why the Modi government rejected the need and demand of 126 aircraft made by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and decided to buy only 36 Rafale fighters.

ALSO READ: Government 'wronged' country on Rafale, Congress reiterates demand for JPC probe: Chidambaram

"This question has never been answered either by the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, the Finance Minister or the Law Minister, who all at one point or the other have come out in defence of the deal," Chidambaram told the media at the AICC.

Citing the 13 India-specific enhancements (ISEs) asked by the IAF, Chidambaram said the negotiated price was euro 1.3 billion which was to be paid under both the UPA and the Modi deal.

"If 126 aircraft had been purchased, Dassault would have recovered the Euro 1.4 billion in over 10 years and 6 months. But with only 36 aircraft being purchased under the new deal, this will be recovered in just 36 months.

ALSO READ: CAG refuses to share Rafale audit details

"Dassault gains in two ways. Firstly the increase of price per aircraft, secondly if the government orders for another 90 aircraft, Dassault will again charge for India-specific enhancements," he said.

"Dassault is laughing all the way to the bank. The government has wronged the country in two ways - compromised national security by denying to the IAF 90 aircraft they desperately need and cost the public money 25 million euro more per aircraft that is equal to 186 crore more per aircraft," he said.

While the Modi government and the BJP have been citing the Supreme Court verdict to have established the deal to be clean and defeated the Congress' attempts to malign the Modi government, Chidambaram said the issue was a matter not to be judicially scrutinised as the court does not have the jurisdiction and reiterated the demand for a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).

"Besides the price factor, the media report revealed how every aspect of the deal has been objected by three members of the negotiating team and how their objections were overruled by 4:3 by the team. We have heard this happening only in judiciary not in the government decision-making process. We reiterate the demand for a JPC."

ALSO READ: Rahul castigates PM Modi for not being in House during debate on Rafale deal

"Only a parliamentary panel has the right to call people, examine documents and ask questions. That is why we are pressing for a JPC. But we know this government will never agree for that," added Chidambaram.

To a suggestion that the coming session will be a "lame duck" sitting and a JPC cannot be formed, he said "if in the first week of January the Parliament is not a lame duck, why should it be so from the First of February."

The former finance minister said if the government thought that it had succeeded in giving a "quiet burial" to the Rafale controversy it was wrong. "The controversy is very much alive and this morning it acquired a new dimension," he said.

He said this also raised serious questions about the process of decision making in the NDA government. "The man who got away was Manohar Parrikar (the then Defence Minister) who passed the buck to the Cabinet Committee on Security! Clever man!."

Should the government place an order for another 90 aircraft on Dassault it will certainly charge ISE-loaded price at which it sold 36 aircraft although the ISI cost would have been recovered on the sale of 36 aircraft. "Perhaps for this reason the government deleted 'follow on' clause to buy more aircraft," he said.

The UPA government had negotiated a deal to purchase 126 Rafale fighter jets of which 18 were to be bought in fly-away condition and the remaining 108 to be manufactured in India under licence. However, the NDA government entered into an inter-government agreement with France to buy 36 jets in fly-away condition.
The invention of the printing press by German inventor Johannes Gutenberg in 1440 marked the end of a dark historical period and paved the way for the European Renaissance in which books became a commodity that could be acquired by the masses.

There is no doubt that the printed word is the foundation of modern civilisation.

Just 60 years after Gutenbergs invention, the massive spread of the printing press had meant that some 20 million books had been printed in Europe by 1500.

That number had multiplied tenfold to nearly 200 million by 1600, by which time the written word had become the symbol of civilisation.

This fact had already been realised by the ancient Egyptians over 5,000 years ago when they invented writing to document their daily lives on papyrus and the walls of ancient temples and monuments.

Without these writings no one could have discovered the true greatness of ancient Egyptian civilisation even if they stood in awe of their colossal monuments such as the Pyramids and beautifully proportioned temples.

Over recent years, the international media has been ceasing to print newspapers, books and periodicals while shifting towards e-books and online news instead, often to save costs.

While seemingly sound from different perspectives, especially with the spread of computers, mobile phones and other Internet-connected devices, this could nevertheless prove to be a historical mistake of gigantic proportions.

Internet access requires the availability of a source of power, a connected device, and an Internet service subscription to read the news, while a printed newspaper requires only a pair of eyes.

Aside from its material value, a printed newspaper remains a permanent source of information, with readers able to keep it weeks after purchase and enabling them to revisit it and read more articles they may have missed.

The same thing cannot be said of Internet-based media, from which most readers select a few headlines to read and ignore the rest, even if this is made up of useful articles, stories and reports that took weeks if not months of preparation to write.

In the case of a war or cataclysmic disaster, Internet access may be gone, meaning that people will lose all sources of information in a matter of seconds.

Regardless of how secure Internet servers across the world may be, there is no 100 per cent guarantee that they will remain intact during a war of some sort or an international crisis.

People often save their favourite films, songs, games, photographs and e-books on their hard drives, which are also vulnerable to damage, theft or loss. Should this happen, a person could lose years of material in a matter of seconds with a very small chance of retrieving any of it.

However, that same person will never lose his physical books, DVDs, and magazines collected over the years, and they will likely remain intact throughout his lifetime if kept in proper conditions.

That same person could easily give away these belongings to his or her children, so they could be passed from one generation to another.

Preserving printed newspapers is also a matter of national security. The spread of Internet outlets and satellite TV cannot warrant the closure of printed newspapers now or in the future.

A significant segment of the population remains without access to Internet services and relies on regular news outlets delivered through printed materials or TV.

There is always a security risk when totally relying on online or satellite networks for news.

The Internet networks in Egypt, like all such networks worldwide, are prone to denial of service cyber-attacks that can disrupt them through the agency of hostile forces or even skilled hackers who may perform such activities to brag about them.

In recent years, the countrys Internet services have been disrupted as a result of cut underwater cables because of sabotage or through the actions of marine vessels.

Natural disasters such as earthquakes and storms can mean electricity outages and phone and Internet disconnections that can occur for days if not weeks.

During such periods the government must possess traditional methods of delivering news to citizens in order to communicate with them and keep them abreast of developing situations.

The most reliable and secure method remains traditional printed newspapers.

Saving costs by switching to online journalism may initially sound like a good idea, but it will cause problems. Instead, financial and marketing departments should think about finding more creative ideas to bring readers back to their old habits while attracting newer generations to them.

These ideas could include weekly or monthly competitions sponsored by advertisers for prizes by collecting coupons over a period, for example.

Free gifts are not uncommon in the West among newspaper outlets sponsored by advertisers.

Other ideas include savings coupons that can be cut out and used to purchase goods from local stores at a discount, a method widely and successfully used in the United States.

Several publications can be bound together as one magazine or weekly paper, which can save a lot of money while keeping them operational.

In February 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May described the closure of hundreds of newspaper and magazines titles in the UK as a danger to our democracy.

A warning such as that from the prime minister of a country with long-standing democratic traditions should not be ignored but must be taken seriously in a developing democracy such as Egypt.

The importance of Egyptian citizens receiving news from proper outlets is huge for the stability of society. They cant be left the victims of misleading news networks, bloggers, or social-media outlets that can be easily manipulated or hacked at any time to deliver false news about the state of the country.

This is of paramount importance during the current period when the state is at war with multiple terrorist organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots such as the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.

The mistake of international news outlets moving to online-only publishing should not be allowed to lure Egyptian decision-makers into making the same mistake for the sake of eliminating costs.

The printed newspaper has been part of the lifestyle of modern nations for centuries, and it should be preserved as its presence far outweighs its costs. *The writer is a political analyst and author of Egypts Arab Spring and the Winding Road to Democracy. *A version of this article appears in print in the 10 January 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Saving print journalism

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By PTI

NEW DELHI: As the firestorm over Rafale deal raged further, the Defence Ministry Friday said it has given the CAG access to all the files relating to the contract and it would be best to await the report of the national auditor on the issue.

The ministry also dubbed as "factually inaccurate" a newspaper report which claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 Rafale jets, instead of 126 as negotiated by the previous UPA government, while bypassing mandated procedures pushed the price of each aircraft up by 41 per cent.

"The article is factually inaccurate. It does not adduce any new argument. All the issues have been answered in detail by the Government at various fora and most recently by the Raksha Mantri in an open debate in Parliament," a defence ministry spokesperson said.

ALSO READ: CAG refuses to share Rafale audit details; cites breach of Parliament

The official also said that the Supreme Court has gone through the details of "pricing and commercial advantage" but has not found anything adverse in the deal and refused to order an investigation into it.

"The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has been given access to all the files related to Rafale deal. It is best to await the report of an authoritative agency like the CAG," the spokesperson said.

The ministry also stuck to its earlier position that the pricing details of the deal cannot be revealed as the contract is covered under an Indo-French agreement of 2008.

The report in The Hindu said that the Euro 1.3 billion cost claimed for the 'design and development' of 13 India Specific Enhancements (ISE), and its distribution over 36 jets instead of 126 bare-bone aircraft, pushed the price up in a significant way.

ALSO READ: Narendra Modi deal gifted Dassault Rs 186 crore more per Rafale: Congress

The official said the report compared the "un-escalated price of 2007 with the price of 2016 without considering the escalation factors inherent in the price bid".

The UPA government had started the process of procuring the jets in 2007.

The ministry spokesperson said the India Specific Enhancements were part of the requirements of the Indian Air Force to achieve tactical superiority over our adversaries.

"These were part of the 2007 bid and continued to be part of the 2016 deal. The cost of the India Specific Enhancements was on a fixed basis in the 2007 bid which was negotiated down in the 2016 deal," he said.

The official, at the same time, added that to compare the cost for the previous contract which never materialized with the cost of the 36 aircraft procured in 2016 is "fallacious".

"A negotiation, especially between two countries, is a comprehensive deal and by selectively picking certain aspects while ignoring others, creates doubts by vested interests on a matter of vital national security," said the spokesperson.

The Congress has been ramping up attack on the government, alleging a massive scam in the Rs 58,000-crore deal.

The party has accused the PM of increasing the 'benchmark price' of the deal from 5.2 billion Euros to 8.2 billion Euros and alleged that the NDA government paid over Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft against UPA's negotiated price of Rs 527 crore.

It was learnt that at least two members of the Indian negotiating team had objected to the price finalised for the deal.

The defence ministry spokesperson said all views were aired and recorded and a collegiate decision taken after considering such opinions.

"Decisions on the deal were taken after due process of inter-ministerial consultation," he said.

Asked about an offer of 20 per cent discount per aircraft by European aerospace corporation EADS, the official said its acceptance after the declaration of the L1 (lowest bidder) would have been a violation of the laid down norms.

"The issue of benchmarking and the offer of EADS to give a 20 per cent discount are related. Even the UPA government had rightly rejected the EADS offer of 20 per cent discount in 2012 after opening of bids as violative of procedure," the official said.

He said consideration of the offer would have again made the government subject to charge of violating basic procedure.

"It is best to avoid the pitfalls of a corporate battle which has been going on since 2012 which has adversely affected the capabilities of the Indian Air Force."

"The controversy should be put to rest in the interest of national security," the spokesperson added.
Harpreet Singh Bajwa By

Express News Service

REWARI: The 22-year old son of Border Security Force (BSF) jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav who was dismissed from service two years ago after he complained about the poor quality of food served to security forces personnel, was found dead under mysterious circumstances at his residence at Rewari in Haryana.

It is learnt that Rohit Yadav allegedly shot himself in his room at their residence in Madhu Vihar locality of Rewari. The local police got a phone call that Rohit had committed suicide. The incident came to light when Rohits mother Sharmila got suspicious as he did not open the door of his room after she returned from work. As the police team reached they found the door of the room locked from inside and when broken open the door they found the body of Rohit on his bed with the licensed pistol of his father in his hands, said sources.

The body that bore a bullet injury was sent to the civil hospital for post-mortem. Sources said that Tej Bahadur had gone to attend Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh.

In 2017, Tej Bahadur who was then a constable of 29 Battalion of BSF at Mandi Mandir headquarters and posted at the administration base in Khet near Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir had shared some video clips on social media about the quality of food being served to security forces personnel posted in the frontier areas adjoining Pakistan.

He was then dismissed from service by the Summary Security Force Court at Samba after he was found guilty of disobeying general orders of the force in which he carried two mobile phones while on operational duty against the standard operating procedure and also posted his photographs in uniform on social media in contravention of instruction.


By PTI

NEW DELHI: Amid strong protests over the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill, the Centre is expected to soon call a meeting of the chief ministers of all northeastern states to address concerns, sources said.

A decision in this regard was taken after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh discussed the matter in detail with Mizoram and Meghalaya chief ministers in a meeting here.

The controversial bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8.

However, large scale protests were witnessed in the northeastern states including Assam and Mizoram over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government's attempt to pass the bill in the Upper House of Parliament.

ALSO READ: Meghalaya CM-led delegation to meet PM Modi to express unhappiness over Citizenship Bill

"There was a serious discussion on the bill in the meeting. The centre has assured that it will look into the concerns of northeastern states before moving ahead," a highly placed government source said.

"Most likely, a meeting of chief ministers of all northeastern states will be called soon to resolve their concerns," the source added.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said: "Northeastern states will be forced to take a call if it does not get a positive response on the scrapping of the bill."

In the meeting, Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga said the centre was informed that all northeastern states were opposing the bill and the law should not be diluted.

"It (amendments) should not be there. Let it be as it is. Let it not be amended as it is proposed. That's what we want," he said.

ALSO READ: Manipur to oppose Citizenship Bill if clause to protect natives not included: CM Biren Singh

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, provides for Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India instead of the current requirement of 12 years, even if they do not possess any document.
By IANS

KOLKATA: From hosting public reception for Soviet leaders Nikita Krushchev and Nikolai Bulganin to holding mammoth political rallies -- many of them on anti-central government planks, the sprawling Brigade Parade Ground in the heart of the metropolis is steeped in history.

A day before it welcomes stalwarts from a wide spectrum of political parties, the 18th century colonial era venue looks majestic as labourers and volunteers work at a frantic pace to give the final shape to the giant stages and other makeshift facilities.

The mega rally, convened by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for showcasing a united stand against the centre's ruling BJP in the coming general elections, is being billed as the biggest in the venue both in terms of the prospective huge crowd and large gathering of parties and leaders from across the country.

ALSO READ: Lakhs of TMC supporters throng Kolkata ahead of Mamata Banerjee's 'United India Rally'

However, a time travel to the past brings out the rich history of the ground, located in the backdrop of the iconic Victoria Memorial and the Indian Museum, and under the control of the Indian Army whose Eastern Command headquarters Fort William lie in the vicinity.

Developed as a parade ground of the forces at the Fort William in the second half of the 18th century by the British after their victory in the battle of Plassey, the wide grassy stretch is part of the Maidan (or open field), considered the lungs of the metropolis.

The ground perhaps hosted one of its first political meetings in 1919, when Chittaranjan Das and other nationalist leaders railed against the Rowlatt Act before the Ochterlony Monument (now called Shaheed Minar).

ALSO READ: Rahul sends 'letter of unity' after snubbing Mamata's invite to Opposition's rally in Kolkata

After the country gained independence, the vast space has been used by government agencies, various political parties and other organisations to hold events involving huge turnouts.

A landmark meeting was the one on November 29, 1955, when Soviet premier Nikolay Aleksandrovich Bulganin and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Krushchev received a tumultuous adulation from a sea of humanity as they were felicitated by then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the presence of West Bengal Chief Minister Bidhan Chandra Roy and leader of the undivided Communist Party Ajay Ghosh.

On February 6, 1972, a million people cheered wildly as the Prime Minister of newly liberated Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Indian counterpart Indira Gandhi held a joint meeting on this parade ground. Those were the days when passions ran high in West Bengal where people had felt one with the freedom struggle in erstwhile East Pakistan.

In an emotion-choked speech, "Bongobondhu" Mujibur Rehman had raised the slogan "Jai Bharat, Jai Bangla" and expressed his gratitude for the blood, toil and sweat given by the Indian soldiers to make his country free.

ALSO READ: TMC to organise tea party meet for opposition leaders

Then came the 1970s, the emergency in the country, followed by the defeat of the Congress in 1977 both at the Centre and in West Bengal where the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front took over the reins of power.

Even as the Congress came back to power at the Centre in 1980, the Left Front went from strength to strength in the eastern state and their rule continued uninterrupted till 2011.

Two vital ingredients in the Left Front's political line then were anti-Congressism, and a vigorous campaign against "stepmotherly attitude of the Centre".

As part of its anti-Centre and anti-Congress planks, it played a prominent role in organising opposition conclaves and conference of non-Congress(I) parties and chief ministers.

One such conclave was held in Kolkata in January, 1984, that culminated in a rally at the Brigade Parade ground. The Speakers included stalwarts like Jyoti Basu, N.T. Rama Rao, Ramakrishna Hegde, Farookh Abdullah, Chandra Shekhar and E.M.S. Namboodiripad.

Four and a half years later, the Shaheed Minar was witness to another gathering of opposition leaders after V.P. Singh resigned from Rajiv Gandhi's Congress government on the issue of corruption, alleging kickbacks in the Bofors gun deal, and won a famous bye-election from Allahabad as a Jan Morcha candidate.

ALSO READ: In battleground Bengal, BJP chief Amit Shah rallies to counter Mamata Banerjee's mega opposition show

The meeting at Shaheed Minar, convened by the state unit of the Jan Morcha to celebrate the Allahabad bypoll win, brought together opposition leaders of all shades -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee, George Fernandes, Madhu Dandavate, V.P. Singh, Jyoti Basu, and other Left leaders.

The abiding image of the rally was of Basu and BJP stalwart Vajpayee along with other leaders holding each others' raised hands in a spirit of camaraderie.

However, the image has been referred to again and again by the CPI-M's opponents through the decades to mock at the communists' anti-BJP stance.

Mamata Banerjee, who rose fast in the state's political arena through the mid 1980s and the 1990s during her days in the Congress, was the chief organiser' of a youth Congress rally on November 25, 1992.

She had then rung a huge symbolic bell called CPI-M-er Mrityu ghanta (CPI-M's death knell), in a bid to give some message to the people "to inspire them to fight against the CPI-M".

Now, 26 years after, Banerjee has created for herself a political space where anti-BJP opposition leaders of practically all hues were likely to gather for her Brigade meeting on Saturday.

How far the meeting succeeds in realising her dream of emerging as the face of the Opposition after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, only time can tell.
By PTI

BALLIA: Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party leader Om Prakash Rajbhar, a BJP ally and Uttar Pradesh minister, has threatened to go it alone in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections if the party's demand for earmarking a part of the 27-per cent OBC quota for most backward castes is not met.

Speaking to reporters here Friday, Rajbhar said, "As of now we are in the NDA (National Democratic Alliance), but the BJP has to decide whether we will remain with them or not."

"If the BJP does not give shape to our demand by February 24, we will take a decision on the tie-up during a party programme in Varanasi and announce the decision on contesting on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh the next day," he said.

The SBSP, which enjoys considerable support among the Rajbhar community, is part of the BJP-led coalition government in Uttar Pradesh.

The party has been demanding that a part of the Other Backward Castes (OBC) quota in government jobs and higher education institutions be earmarked for most backward castes and mahadalits so that they can avail its benefits more.

According to the party, benefits under the reservation policy are at present largely cornered by the relatively upper castes.

"The BJP promised there would be a split in the 27-per cent quota for OBC and that it would be implemented six months before the polls.

"Now barely 100 days are left for the polls, we have given an ultimatum (to the BJP) that if the announcement is not made in the next 100 days through a cabinet decision, we will part ways and contest Lok Sabha elections on our own," he said.
By Associated Press

NEW YORK: Not long before Election Day, 2016, Samira Ahmed completed the first draft of her novel, "Internment," a dystopian narrative about the rounding up of Muslim-Americans.

As the news came in that Donald Trump had been elected, Ahmed received a text from a friend who had read the manuscript and feared Ahmed had written a work of prophecy.

"She said, 'I hope you're not Cassandra,'" Ahmed told The Associated Press during a recent telephone interview.

Novels about immigrants, like immigration itself, are a long and central part of American culture. In 2019, books conceived before Trump's rise arrive with a special timeliness as the president, who has called Mexican immigrants "rapists" and advocated for a Muslim travel ban, shut down the federal government over his insistence on funding for a wall along the country's southern border. He has often pushed back on accusations that he is xenophobic and anti-immigrant, and defended his actions by saying that controlling immigration was important for national security.

In an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted shortly before the shutdown, 49 percent mentioned immigration as one of the top five problems they hoped the government addresses in 2019. Only 27 percent mentioned immigration in December 2017.

"While current headlines give readers timely coverage of immigration, fiction offers deeper and more complex explorations of the issue," says Laila Lalami, whose novel "The Other Americans" comes out March 26.

New fiction is set everywhere from Virginia to California and confronts the American Dream narrative of assimilation and upward mobility. Other works include Valeria Luiselli's "Lost Children Archive," which tells of young immigrants separated from their families, and Nicole Dennis-Benn's "Patsy," about a Jamaican woman's discovery that the U.S. is nothing like what she had imagined.

"I think there's been a real blossoming in novels about immigration," says Barnes & Noble fiction buyer Sessalee Hensley, who cites such works as Jean Kwok's "Searching for Sylvie Lee," about a family of Chinese immigrants. "Publishers have really been making an effort to bring in a wider range of voices."

Devi S. Laskar's first novel, "The Atlas of Reds and Blues," follows the disheartening experience of an American-born daughter of Bengali immigrants when she moves her family to an Atlanta suburb. She began the book before Trump was elected, but found its narrative fit all too well with the current time.

"We are all experiencing the current administration together," Laskar says. "This story ends in 2010, but I feel like the seeds of what is happening started way back when."

Angie Kim began her first novel, "Miracle Creek," several years ago. But as she finished the final draft of her story about a Korean immigrant family at the center of a Virginia murder case, Trump had been elected. Kim began adding, not consciously at the time, material on immigration.

"At first I was writing about language and the frustrations for people who think of themselves as smart and knowledgeable but find themselves in a place where they don't speak the language and they feel like a child again," she says. "But when I write some new scenes, in January and February of 2017, they were all centered around racism."

Lalami has written four works of fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist "The Moor's Account," drawing upon her native Morocco. In "The Other Americans," she writes of a Moroccan immigrant's suspicious death on a California road. She started in 2014, in response to a health scare involving her father and to a recent wave of hate crimes against Muslims.

"A lot of people are interested in immigration because of Trump; he has brought a sense of urgency," said Lalami, a professor of creative writing at University of California at Riverside. "But as far as I'm concerned, the story would have been the same, although readers might find it more timely."

As several authors point out, their stories seem contemporary because the issues raised by the Trump presidency have been around for much of the country's past, whether the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II or the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 or the racist Immigration Act of 1924.

"All of American history leads up to what's happening now," Ahmed said.

Luiselli, a native of Mexico City, has written fiction and nonfiction and spoke with children facing deportation for the 2017 publication "Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions." She began her novel in 2014, "long before Trump was part of this panorama."

"Thousands of children had arrived alone and undocumented at the border, fleeing gang violence and other circumstances of unspeakable violence and abuse. The Obama administration was not particularly humane in their treatment of undocumented minors," Luiselli wrote in an email, adding that she didn't need to make any major revisions once Trump took office.

"The thing is, the crisis was already there by then."


Shillpi A Singh By

Express News Service

Sanjeev Jha is on cloud nine. His first credited work as a writer, Pyar Tune Kya Kiya which was aired on television years ago, has made its way to Netflix, and his first feature film, Jabariya Jodi with Siddharth Malhotra and Parineeti Chopra in the lead is all set to hit the theatres on May 17, 2019.

For this Bihar-born boy, writing happened quite naturally.

My maternal grandfather Ramesh Chandra Jha was a freedom fighter, novelist and poet, and his influence loomed large during my growing up years. What started with reciting his poems has culminated into writing for a living today, he says.

Jha landed in Delhi in 2005 and joined Jamia Millia Islamia to study Hindi literature. I graduated with a gold medal from Jamia, and started working as a freelance journalist. I wanted to join FTII, but did not qualify. So I started writing and reading as much as possible and watching cinema from all around the world, he recalls. A movie buff, he used to take a DTC bus from New Friends Colony to get DVDs on rent from a shop in Munirka. My Delhi days were tough, but I learned everything from Delhi and in Delhi, he quips.

Then Mumbai happened and he started looking for work as AD but wasnt lucky. Later, Vikas Gupta offered him work and he went on to script many episodes of Pyar Tune Kya Kiya and Code Red.

Soon after I met Prashant, who has directed Jabariya Jodi, and Shailesh R Singh. With Ekta Kapoor, Sidharth and Parineeti coming onboard things fell into place. Writing a story that you want to tell is the biggest challenge, but writing it without pleasing anyone is tough, he quips.

Jabariya Jodi is based on the issue of forced marriages that are quite prevalent in Bihar wherein a boy is kidnapped and then married off forcibly by the girls family. Marriages are forcibly held at gunpoint, even today. In fact, you will be shocked to know that according to data, more kidnappings occurred in Bihar for forced marriages than ransom, he says.

Appreciating the films actors he says, Both Siddharth and Parineeti are brilliant. I was overwhelmed to see them essay the characters that I have written, Abhay Singh and Babli. Even the supporting cast is strong.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Streaming giants Netflix, Hotstar and a clutch of other platforms have signed a 'self-regulatory code' for not showing in India any content considered disrespectful to national symbols and religions, in a bid to avoid a potential censorship crackdown in the booming market.

The platforms, including SonyLiv and Viacom's Voot, have agreed to follow a voluntary industry code of conduct that provides for not showing content that disrespects the national emblem or flag, promotes terrorism or outrages religious sentiments of any community.

Amazon Prime, however, has not signed up for the pact that also covers sexual topics, among others, and sets a mechanism for consumer complaints. The move is being seen as a bid to thwart any action by the government in the form of potential censorship or regulations.

The self-regulatory Code of Best Practices -- whose other signatories include Zee5, Arre, ALT Balaji, Jio Digital Life and Eros Now -- has been signed under the aegis of industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). "We provide customers with compelling content they love and creators a forum to create unique and passionate stories. While we are assessing the situation, we believe that the current laws are adequate to fulfill this mission," an Amazon India spokesperson said.

IAMAI said the code has been in the works for over a year. "The Code establishes guiding principles for Online Curated Content (OCC) Providers to conduct themselves in a responsible and transparent manner and at the same time ensures that consumer interests are protected," IAMAI said in a statement.

Under the code, the players will ensure that they do not deliberately and maliciously make available any content which disrespects the national emblem or national flag; or shows a child engaged in real or simulated sexual activities.

Also prohibited is content which outrages religious sentiments of any class, section or community; which promotes or encourages terrorism; and content that has been banned for distribution by online video service under law or by any court. "This effort brings together the key pillars of protecting interests of consumers in viewing content of their choice and defending creative freedom. This shall ensure that all signatories to the code agree to adhere to uniform principles and guidelines contained in this code, in letter and spirit," said the code.

The signatories, it said, will adopt the best practices to ensure a clear and transparent disclosure system informing viewers about the nature of the content and advise viewer discretion so consumers are informed about the content that they are accessing.

This would be done by classifying content into distinct categories like general/universal viewing, content requiring parental guidance and content which is solely meant for age-appropriate audiences. The nine players have also pledged to display a content descriptor or guidance message informing viewers about the nature of the content, particularly around age-inappropriate content for minors.

The code also involves a complaint redressal mechanism. "All signatories agree to internally appoint/institute, as part of their operational systems, a dedicated person, team or department to receive and address any consumer related concerns and complaints in relation to the content of the respective providers," reads the code.

Such a department will "act as the single point of contact for receiving all complaints from users and examine the complaints in accordance with the principles in this code and accordingly advise other departments/internal stakeholders within the relevant OCC Provider," it said, adding that complaints will have to be acknowledged within three working days of receipt.

In case of violation of the code, the department concerned after holding discussions will have to communicate to the aggrieved person within 30 days the precautionary measures taken to address the complaint. "Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India may forward any complaint to the Department of respective OCC providers," it added.

Some industry watchers have, however, flagged concerns over the self-regulation code.

Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights activist, said the code is restrictive and will "hamper creative freedom". "Web streaming has been at the forefront of pushing boundaries. By voluntarily choosing to put restrictions on creative speech, these platforms are confirming to demands of nanny or prude environment which is not in line with younger generation, who do not find it offensive," Pahwa said.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Three years after the institutional murder of her son Rohith Vemula on the University of Hyderabad campus, Radhika, who has been travelling across the country with her sons message of a caste-less society, on Thursday said the need of the hour was not just the removal of the varsitys Vice-

Chancellor Podile Appa Rao but the removal of the BJP-led government at the Centre in the upcoming general elections.

On occasion of the third death anniversary of the Rohith, students of the varsity organised a commemoration meeting amid strong police presence where Radhika Vemula addressed the gathering at North Shopcom. The Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) along with different students groups, barring the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), called it the Rohith Vemula Shahadat Din.

Addressing the students, Radhika said her sons sacrifice had set a goal for all - to destroy the caste-based society. We have been fighting for an equal society here on the campus and outside too. But upper castes continue to inflict atrocities on marginalised sections, she said.

Echoing Radhikas thoughts, Fatima Nafees, whose son Najeeb Ahmed has been missing from JNU campus since October 2016 after an alleged altercation with ABVP students, said mothers like them are representatives of oppressed sections. Our eyes are now dry.

They shine with the determination of bringing justice to our sons, she said. Barely days before the anniversary, tension prevailed on the campus after the administration allegedly demolished Velivada, the protest site where Rohith had spent his last days protesting his expulsion from the hostel. This resulted in a series of police complaints. The students filed one against the administration and the administration returned the favour.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Nearly three years after an MTC bus hit a minor and caused grievous injuries to the victim to the extent of her losing vision in the right eye, a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal has directed the transport corporation to pay a compensation of Rs 13.99 lakh to her.

The accident, in 2015, occurred due to the rash and negligent act of the bus driver, the victim submitted.

Counsel for MTC denied the allegations and said the two-wheeler rider drove rashly and negligently losing control and dashing the front side of the bus and sustained injuries. The injured who was aged 16 then did not have a driving licence, counsel submitted.

The tribunal headed by K Ayyappan observed that Considering the fact that the petitioner is a minor, having no driving licence met with an accident, the driver ought to have been more careful, whenever there is a minor child driving the vehicle.

After deducting a sum towards negligence on the part of the victim, the tribunal awarded a compensation of `13,99,500 to her.
Mercedes-Benz is resuming production in Egypt, the German company announced on Friday.

Last week Egypts prime minister held a meeting with Markus Schafer, member of the Divisional Board of Mercedes-Benz Cars, during the premiers visit to Berlin, where Schafer said that his company wanted to resume production in Egypt

President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi had also met with Schafer in December.

Mercedes-Benz announced it was suspending its relationship with the Egyptian-German Automotive company, which assembles vehicles inside Egypt, two years ago.

The decision came after the company foresaw no economic benefits following the cut of customs on imported cars from the European Union (EU), which reached zero by the start of 2019.

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By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Crime Branch-Criminal Investigating Department (CB-CID) sleuths arrested a woman who worked at the Anna University, allegedly for leaking the mathematics question paper recently.

The CBCID officials arrested Kanchana, who worked at the University for about 13 years as a temporary worker. Sources said that she did not do it for money but to help her nephew, Suresh who sought her help.

The CBCID officers on Wednesday arrested two college graduates, K Suresh Kumar and A Harikrishnan. Since Kanchana was working in the Office of Controller of Examinations at the University, Suresh sought her help. She took a copy of the question paper and gave it to Suresh who in turn, handed over to his friend Harikrishnan and also circulated it to his friends.

On December 3, during the exam, Anna University officials were alerted by some anonymous students that the question paper for the Mathematics II paper of the engineering stream, was already leaked.The University has decided to revamp the working system of the office of the Controller of Examinations in the next two weeks, said Dr M Venkatesan, Controller of Examinations, speaking to Express. He said steps would be taken to ensure that temporary staff do not get access to question papers.

The accused is a clerical staff who was hired temporarily. We terminated her as soon as we heard about the arrest, he said.

After an initial inquiry, the University was shocked to lern that the question paper was indeed leaked before the exam.

On the same day, M K Surappa, vice-chancellor of the university, cancelled the exam. Dr M Venkatesan lodged a complaint at the CBCID office on December 7.

The re-examination for Maths-2 was conducted on December 12.
Express News Service

BENGALURU: A large number of the 161 passengers on board an Air India flight heading to Male from New Delhi via Thiruvananthapuram ended up midway in Bengaluru after a delayed departure from Thiruvananthapuram.

The reason: pilots and co-pilots needed to wind up their duty in accordance with the specific duty hours fixed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Passengers, including many infants and foreigners, were stranded at Kempe Gowda International Airport (KIA) for over three hours and finally reached Male 10 hours behind schedule.

Passengers told 'Express' the pilot stood along with the cabin crew when they were entering the flight at Thiruvananthapuram and informed them that the flight was heading to Bengaluru not Male. They were then assured that a flight from Bengaluru will take them to Male within half-an-hour.

Explaining the chaos, an Air India spokesperson said the intense fog at New Delhi airport was the real culprit.

"Due to foggy conditions, flight No 263, left New Delhi only at 7.20 am instead of 5.50 am. Hence it reached Thiruvananthapuram late."

Due to Flight Data Time Limit rules, a pilot can only fly eight-nine hours.

"It was decided to divert the flight to Bengaluru so that the crew on board could be replaced with a new team," the spokesperson said.

However, since new crew members were not available immediately, passengers had to wait at KIA, he said.

"Air India took good care of its passengers by giving them snacks and refreshments," the spokesperson claimed.

But stranded passengers were not so happy about the delay. Subash Fernando, an exporter of vegetables and fruits to Male from Thiruvananthapuram, was agitated as he missed a scheduled meeting.

"While some passengers were informed that the flight that it would be diverted to Bengaluru, I was not even told that. In knew it only when the pilot announced through in-flight PA system," he said.

There was a lot of commotion but the cabin crew assured them that it would be just a half-an-hour delay.

"To our shock, crew did not change immediately at Bengaluru. Instead, we were all deboarded," he added.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Bollywood and Sandalwood numbers are out, so are the associated gyrations, from annual day functions in schools. The department of primary and secondary education has deemed filmi songs inappropriate for impressionable minds and decided to issue directions to schools to keep such songs off campuses. This rule will be applicable to state government and private schools affiliated to the state board, from the next academic year.

The department has cited instances where students interests were not considered, and songs which were not age-appropriate were performed by children. A senior official from the department said, Recently, I was invited to an annual day at a city school, and was shocked to see the songs chosen for students to perform to. A majority of the songs were from movies and also not age-appropriate.

I discussed this with my colleagues, who expressed similar concerns, and we decided to do something about it. So from next year, schools are not allowed to use film songs for performances, the official said.

SONGS TO BE VETTED

Department officials are planing to instruct schools to celebrate annual days in a way they should reflect the history, patriotism, culture and heritage of the nation. The dance or any other performance should encourage students talent. Select folk, patriotic songs or drama.

However, there are some private schools that have already implemented this and are not allowing film songs during celebrations. We choose a theme for each annual day celebration and songs will be chosen accordingly. For eg, themes will be on flower, music, childhood, culture, animals etc... said the principal of a city-based private school.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: India and Malta discussed the possibility of enhancing trade and commercial ties between the two countries during a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat. The Maltese prime minister is on his maiden visit to India from January 17 to 19 for attending the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2019.

He is accompanied by Malta's Minister of Economy, Investment and Small Businesses Christian Cardona, senior officials of his ministry and a large business delegation. Modi invited greater academic cooperation from Malta, including the possibility of offering training courses for Maltese professionals at the Forensics University in Gujarat, an External Affairs Ministry statement said.

Realising the importance of renewable energy for sustainable and low carbon-imprint growth, the two leaders hailed the initiative of International Solar Alliance and committed full cooperation to upscale solar technologies and harness the full potential of solar energy, it said. The Maltese PM and his delegation were received by Gujarat Governor OP Kohli.

During his bilateral meeting with Modi on the sidelines of the summit, Muscat fondly recalled the visit of the vice president of India to Malta in September last year and appreciated the growing exchange of visits and strengthening of the bilateral relationship.

ALSO READ: India exchanges long-term contract with Uzbekistan for uranium

He welcomed Indian Pharma and IT industry to make Malta a potential hub for African and European markets. He also invited India to cooperate with the country on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and financial technologies.

Malta has brought in formal legislation on blockchain technology and sees the role of Indian IT companies as system monitors, the statement said.
By AFP

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's finance minister said Friday an apology from Goldman Sachs for its role in the 1MDB scandal was not enough, and demanded the Wall Street giant pay $7.5 billion compensation.

Huge sums were purportedly looted from Malaysian government fund 1MDB and used to buy everything from yachts to real estate, in a fraud that allegedly involved former leader Najib Razak and contributed to his defeat at May elections.

Goldman's role has come under scrutiny as it helped arrange $6.5 billion in bonds for the investment vehicle, and Malaysia has accused the bank and its former employees of stealing large amounts.

Goldman's chief executive David Solomon earlier this week apologised for the role of a former partner at the bank, Tim Leissner, who has pleaded guilty in the US to bribery and money-laundering charges linked to the scandal.

But Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said "an apology is not enough".

"Apologise with $7.5 billion," he was cited as saying by official news agency Bernama, reiterating a demand he first made last month that Goldman pay the sum to make amends for its role in the controversy.

"Goldman should understand the trauma suffered by the Malaysian people resulting from the 1MDB scandal," he added.

Malaysia in December filed charges against Goldman, Leissner and another ex-employee of the bank, accusing them of misappropriating $2.7 billion, bribing officials and giving false statements in relation to the bond issues.

Asked whether Malaysia would drop the charges if the bank paid up, Lim said: "If they pay us $7.5 billion, then we will discuss it."

During an earnings call this week, Solomon also defended the bank, saying it had been misled by Leissner and senior officials in the Malaysian government about the role of a key intermediary in the scandal, Low Taek Jho.

Better known as Jho Low, the jet-setting Malaysian financier is accused of being the mastermind of the fraud.
By PTI

GANDHINAGAR: Widening the source base for the nuclear fuel, the government Friday exchanged a long- term contract with Uzbekistan for supplying uranium ore concentrates.

The contract was exchanged in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who are here for the three-day Vibrant Gujarat summit that began Friday. The two leaders held a bilateral meeting as well.

Modi also had separate bilateral meetings with his counterparts in Denmark, The Czech Republic and Malta. "The department of atomic energy (DAE) and Novoi Minerals & Metallurgical Company of Uzbekistan today exchanged contracts for long-term supply of uranium ore concentrates, "the foreign ministry said in a statement without offering more details.

The contracts were exchanged by DEA secretary KN Vyas and Uzbekistan deputy minister of economy and industry Sohib Saifzazarov, the statement added.

Meanwhile, the Exim Bank signed an agreement with Uzbekistan to extend a USD 200-million line of credit for financing housing and social infrastructure projects in the former Soviet republic, it said, adding the credit line was announced by Modi during the official visit of Mirziyoyev last October to New Delhi. Mirziyoyev said he was keen on attracting Indian capital in areas like IT, education, pharma, healthcare, agribusiness and tourism.

According to the World Nuclear Association, the body that represents the global nuclear industry, the landlocked Central Asian country is the seventh largest exporter of uranium in the world. New Delhi has been working on securing a stockpile of nuclear fuel for its strategic uranium reserve to sustain the nuclear reactors for the next five years so that the reactors would not stop functioning for want of fuel as had happened after the Pokhran II nuclear tests.

The US and other nations had imposed economic and technology sanctions on New Delhi following both the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998. Attempts are also being made to procure uranium from Australia. A nuclear cooperation pact between the two nations was signed in 2014 and came into force in 2015.

After the Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement, New Delhi's quest to have a uranium reserve got traction as importing fuel became much easier. Apart from domestic production, the country imports uranium from Kazakhstan and Canada.

This is primarily used to fuel its indigenously built pressurised heavy water reactors. Some uranium is also produced from Russia. Apart from that, it has agreements in place to import uranium from Namibia and Mongolia.

Earlier, Modi held meetings with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat apart from Czech and Danish counterparts Andrej Babis and Lars Lokke Rasmussen, respectively.

A partner in EU & Mediterranean



PM @narendramodi & Maltese PM @JosephMuscat_JM met on @VibrantGujarat margins. Discussed growing economic linkages and agreed to enhance mutual cooperation in sectors such renewable energy, pharmaceuticals & healthcare, air connectivity & tourism. pic.twitter.com/ubXctakEWY  Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) 18 January 2019
Winnisquam Echo Body recovered from Winnipesaukee River

by Donna Rhodes write the author TILTON  Tilton police, fire/rescue personnel and New Hampshire Fish and Game responded to Mill Street in Tilton last Friday, where a body was discovered in the Winnipesaukee River at Clement Dam.



Members of the Tilton-Northfield Fire Department were able to recover the body of a deceased adult male and the New Hampshire State Police Major Crimes Unit was called upon to help in the investigation. The victim's identity was withheld in the initial press release, pending the results of an autopsy on Jan. 13, and notification to next of kin. No further information was available by this publication's deadline but as of Monday afternoon, foul play was not thought to be a factor in his death. TILTON  Tilton police, fire/rescue personnel and New Hampshire Fish and Game responded to Mill Street in Tilton last Friday, where a body was discovered in the Winnipesaukee River at Clement Dam.Members of the Tilton-Northfield Fire Department were able to recover the body of a deceased adult male and the New Hampshire State Police Major Crimes Unit was called upon to help in the investigation. The victim's identity was withheld in the initial press release, pending the results of an autopsy on Jan. 13, and notification to next of kin. No further information was available by this publication's deadline but as of Monday afternoon, foul play was not thought to be a factor in his death.


Meredith News Meredith endorses, assists with LRPC wireless coverage project

by Erin Plummer MEREDITH  The town will help with a project to identify gaps in wireless coverage by endorsing a letter for a program and putting a special device in a police car.



During the Jan. 7 selectmen's meeting, Town Manager Phil Warren said the town received a letter from the Lakes Region Planning Commission regarding a project on wireless coverage. He said the LRPC's project has found some gaps and anomalies in coverage from in the area from different wireless providers.



The LRPC sent a letter (as found on the city of Laconia's webpage) to the federal delegation, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), and other interested parties dated Dec. 10, 2018 regarding the lack of adequate coverage in the Lakes Region, especially in rural areas.



"Poor quality or non-existent telecommunications services are jeopardizing the health and safety of our residents and are constraining economic development in New Hampshire's Lakes Region," the letter read.



The LRPC was taking part in the Federal Communications Commission's Mobility Find Phase II Challenge (MF-II) challenge making $4.53 billion available nationwide over a 10 year period in support to fill these gaps in 4G LTE coverage, namely in rural areas.



With help from PUC staff the LRPC was conducting a study of wireless coverage and coordinating data collection from several different municipalities to determine how much coverage was lacking. According to the letter data that had been collected showed that service availability from the major wireless carriers was overstated and major rural areas, including those around Routes 104, 25, 3, and 109, have service below the minimum of 5 Mbps required by the FCC. Additionally, 75 percent of the wireless grid is blocked with many areas difficult to access due to wetlands, terrain, and thick growth. The letter also said many residential areas display there is little to no available service.



The letter asks that the federal delegation, the PUC, and other parties provide more accurate coverage maps.



Warren said the LRPC was asking the Meredith selectmen to sign a letter endorsing the project as well as asking if the town would help by putting a device in a police car for a week. When the car drove around town, the device would log the wireless coverage in the areas it went through.



Warren asked the selectmen to vote to endorse the letter and take part in the program. This would be done with the approval of Police Chief Kevin Morrow.



"I recommend we vote to endorse that letter from (Lakes Region Planning Commission) and from an operating standpoint agree, with Chief Morrow's blessing, to put that device in a car a week to be selected," Warren said.



Selectman Nate Torr asked if this would cover everything the LRPC needs. Warren said they were just voting to endorse the letter but said he believed that was the case.



The selectmen voted unanimously in favor of endorsing the LRPC's letter. MEREDITH  The town will help with a project to identify gaps in wireless coverage by endorsing a letter for a program and putting a special device in a police car.During the Jan. 7 selectmen's meeting, Town Manager Phil Warren said the town received a letter from the Lakes Region Planning Commission regarding a project on wireless coverage. He said the LRPC's project has found some gaps and anomalies in coverage from in the area from different wireless providers.The LRPC sent a letter (as found on the city of Laconia's webpage) to the federal delegation, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), and other interested parties dated Dec. 10, 2018 regarding the lack of adequate coverage in the Lakes Region, especially in rural areas."Poor quality or non-existent telecommunications services are jeopardizing the health and safety of our residents and are constraining economic development in New Hampshire's Lakes Region," the letter read.The LRPC was taking part in the Federal Communications Commission's Mobility Find Phase II Challenge (MF-II) challenge making $4.53 billion available nationwide over a 10 year period in support to fill these gaps in 4G LTE coverage, namely in rural areas.With help from PUC staff the LRPC was conducting a study of wireless coverage and coordinating data collection from several different municipalities to determine how much coverage was lacking. According to the letter data that had been collected showed that service availability from the major wireless carriers was overstated and major rural areas, including those around Routes 104, 25, 3, and 109, have service below the minimum of 5 Mbps required by the FCC. Additionally, 75 percent of the wireless grid is blocked with many areas difficult to access due to wetlands, terrain, and thick growth. The letter also said many residential areas display there is little to no available service.The letter asks that the federal delegation, the PUC, and other parties provide more accurate coverage maps.Warren said the LRPC was asking the Meredith selectmen to sign a letter endorsing the project as well as asking if the town would help by putting a device in a police car for a week. When the car drove around town, the device would log the wireless coverage in the areas it went through.Warren asked the selectmen to vote to endorse the letter and take part in the program. This would be done with the approval of Police Chief Kevin Morrow."I recommend we vote to endorse that letter from (Lakes Region Planning Commission) and from an operating standpoint agree, with Chief Morrow's blessing, to put that device in a car a week to be selected," Warren said.Selectman Nate Torr asked if this would cover everything the LRPC needs. Warren said they were just voting to endorse the letter but said he believed that was the case.The selectmen voted unanimously in favor of endorsing the LRPC's letter.

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Littleton Courier LRH assumes new role as regional "hub" for substance abuse treatment

by Justin Roshak

Jarrett Stern, Lars Nielson, Bob Nutter, and Ed Duffyy, the key leadership team for Littleton Regional Hospital's new role as a "hub" in a statewide anti-substance program. (Photo by Justin Roshak) (click for larger version) LITTLETONLast Wednesday, Littleton Regional Hospital hosted a roll-out meeting for its new substance-abuse resource model, in which the hospital will play a central role in its region. The meeting brought together, physicians, law enforcement officers, academics, and local and state officials, and is part of a larger, statewide effort.



"We're very pleased with Governor Sununu's efforts," said Hospital President Bob Nutter. "This is a great visionary effort."



Jarrett Stern, executive in charge of the project at both Littleton Regional and Androscogin Valley Hospital, said the program was a response to acute need.



"Certain states are facing it more than others," said Stern. "New Hampshire is one of those states."



New Hampshire received a two year, $42 million federal grant to address the opioid crisis, with funds distributed locally at nine "hub" locations. Hub stations were strategically chosen around the state, with intent to minimize driving time for patients. Drives will be longest in the North Country.



Of the grant, a minority of the funds for health programs will go to hubs, with the remainder directed toward community service providers. This approach is expected to "expand capacity". Vermont is also pursuing a "hub-and-spoke" model.



Both Littleton Regional Hospital and Androscoggin Valley Hospital received hub status and grant monies. They are empowered to sub-contract with "spokes" in their coverage area to provide necessary services. Both have contracted with Weeks Medical Center, which is one of LRH's sister organizations within North Country Healthcare.



The Littleton hub region will cover a portion of Coos, and much of Grafton County. Its physical location will be off-site, on Riverglen Lane. It will be staffed with a trained substance disorder councilor, medical assistant who will help with intake, and case manager who will focus on other factors such as transportation and employment. The hubs are not equipped to deal with acute overdoses.



The program opened on Jan. 2, and to hear Stern tell it, the Hospital is still getting its feet wetexploring, discovering, and shaping programs to local needs in real time. At the same time, the governor's allies have expressed hope that the program will reduce disparities in care between the southern cities and northern townships.



Stern said that the hub-and-spoke model allows local care centers to tailor their approaches to unique local needs.



Katja Fox, Director of Public Health at NH Health and Human Services, said "What has been most impressive is the response we've received from Littleton and Berlin."



She said the hub centers would provide a central resource for patients, and streamline organization. She also said that the program was not specific to opioid-based substance disorders:



"All individuals who have a substance use disorderno one is going to be turned away," Fox said.



Littleton Regional's clinics are open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and Stern acknowledged that substance crisis isn't restricted to business hours. Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, a major partner, will assist with triage after hours.



DHMC's program coordinator, Christine Spring, said that after 5 p.m., 211 phone calls will transfer to on-call evening clinicians at her facility.



She said that in the first week, they have had on average two to three calls per night. In one case, a family member called about another family member; in others, patients called for themselves. In the latter case, the focus is on getting them through the night, and providing them with options for 8 am. In the event of a major crisis, DHMC will connect them with overnight resources, likely an emergency room.



Sugar Hill Fire Chief Alan Clark urged Littleton Regional program leadership to consider expanding their own hours, as some safe-station-type facilities have done in the south:



"In all my experience, opioid overdose never takes place in the morning," Clark said, and cautioned, "Don't think that because we live in the North Country, we don't have an opioid problem. Don't think that because you live in a rich town, you don't have an opioid problem."



Stern replied that the program was just getting started, and that while he would never rule out expanded hours, financing would be a constraint. He also said that on-call clinicians would be able to provide assistance beyond merely directing the call to emergency medical services.



"This program is not designed to just refer to an emergency room," he said.



Lars Nielson, Medical Director and Proscriber at Littleton Regional and Androscoggin Valley Hospital, said that the program would expand on resources for addressing substance abuse deaths, which he said had been very limited.



Littleton's hub will use suboxone, a two-drug treatment that reduces cravings and reduces the risk of overdosing. The medication is part of a larger, medically-assisted treatment plan. A monthly injection is also available, which reduces the risk of medication "diversion", and induces strong negative effects if narcotics are taken while on the medication. Methadone will not be used, Nielson said. LITTLETONLast Wednesday, Littleton Regional Hospital hosted a roll-out meeting for its new substance-abuse resource model, in which the hospital will play a central role in its region. The meeting brought together, physicians, law enforcement officers, academics, and local and state officials, and is part of a larger, statewide effort."We're very pleased with Governor Sununu's efforts," said Hospital President Bob Nutter. "This is a great visionary effort."Jarrett Stern, executive in charge of the project at both Littleton Regional and Androscogin Valley Hospital, said the program was a response to acute need."Certain states are facing it more than others," said Stern. "New Hampshire is one of those states."New Hampshire received a two year, $42 million federal grant to address the opioid crisis, with funds distributed locally at nine "hub" locations. Hub stations were strategically chosen around the state, with intent to minimize driving time for patients. Drives will be longest in the North Country.Of the grant, a minority of the funds for health programs will go to hubs, with the remainder directed toward community service providers. This approach is expected to "expand capacity". Vermont is also pursuing a "hub-and-spoke" model.Both Littleton Regional Hospital and Androscoggin Valley Hospital received hub status and grant monies. They are empowered to sub-contract with "spokes" in their coverage area to provide necessary services. Both have contracted with Weeks Medical Center, which is one of LRH's sister organizations within North Country Healthcare.The Littleton hub region will cover a portion of Coos, and much of Grafton County. Its physical location will be off-site, on Riverglen Lane. It will be staffed with a trained substance disorder councilor, medical assistant who will help with intake, and case manager who will focus on other factors such as transportation and employment. The hubs are not equipped to deal with acute overdoses.The program opened on Jan. 2, and to hear Stern tell it, the Hospital is still getting its feet wetexploring, discovering, and shaping programs to local needs in real time. At the same time, the governor's allies have expressed hope that the program will reduce disparities in care between the southern cities and northern townships.Stern said that the hub-and-spoke model allows local care centers to tailor their approaches to unique local needs.Katja Fox, Director of Public Health at NH Health and Human Services, said "What has been most impressive is the response we've received from Littleton and Berlin."She said the hub centers would provide a central resource for patients, and streamline organization. She also said that the program was not specific to opioid-based substance disorders:"All individuals who have a substance use disorderno one is going to be turned away," Fox said.Littleton Regional's clinics are open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and Stern acknowledged that substance crisis isn't restricted to business hours. Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, a major partner, will assist with triage after hours.DHMC's program coordinator, Christine Spring, said that after 5 p.m., 211 phone calls will transfer to on-call evening clinicians at her facility.She said that in the first week, they have had on average two to three calls per night. In one case, a family member called about another family member; in others, patients called for themselves. In the latter case, the focus is on getting them through the night, and providing them with options for 8 am. In the event of a major crisis, DHMC will connect them with overnight resources, likely an emergency room.Sugar Hill Fire Chief Alan Clark urged Littleton Regional program leadership to consider expanding their own hours, as some safe-station-type facilities have done in the south:"In all my experience, opioid overdose never takes place in the morning," Clark said, and cautioned, "Don't think that because we live in the North Country, we don't have an opioid problem. Don't think that because you live in a rich town, you don't have an opioid problem."Stern replied that the program was just getting started, and that while he would never rule out expanded hours, financing would be a constraint. He also said that on-call clinicians would be able to provide assistance beyond merely directing the call to emergency medical services."This program is not designed to just refer to an emergency room," he said.Lars Nielson, Medical Director and Proscriber at Littleton Regional and Androscoggin Valley Hospital, said that the program would expand on resources for addressing substance abuse deaths, which he said had been very limited.Littleton's hub will use suboxone, a two-drug treatment that reduces cravings and reduces the risk of overdosing. The medication is part of a larger, medically-assisted treatment plan. A monthly injection is also available, which reduces the risk of medication "diversion", and induces strong negative effects if narcotics are taken while on the medication. Methadone will not be used, Nielson said.

Littleton Courier Resilience celebrated at LHS graduation Bethlehem celebrates Patsie Bonardi Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
Gilford Steamer Budget Committee splits on recommending funding requests from service agencies

by Erin Plummer Tied votes resulted in the Budget Committee not recommending articles that would provide funding to two regional service agencies.



Article 21, which asked for $21,000 toward Lakes Region Mental Health Center and Article 22 of $2,630 for New Beginnings Without Violence & Abuse will reflect they were not recommended by the Budget Committee in a vote of five for and five against with one member abstaining during Thursday's budget hearing.



Ann Nichols, Director of Development and Public Relations for Lakes Region Mental Health Center (LRMHC) and also a Gilford resident, talked to the committee about the request from LRMHC.



The organization is asking the town for $21,000 to provide emergency mental health services for town residents. LRMHC serves 24 towns in Belknap and southern Grafton Counties and the organization is asking each of these communities for money for emergency psychiatric services.



Last year LRMHC served 232 Gilford residents, 74 of those receiving emergency services. Nichols said this is a significant increase from past years. The organization delivered $44,000 in uncompensated care to Gilford residents due to the patients not having insurance or the financial means to pay for their care and don't qualify for Medicaid and other state services.



LRMHC is contracted by the state to deliver emergency psychiatric services to patients at Lakes Region General Hospital, Speare Memorial Hospital, and the designated receiving unit at Franklin Regional Hospital; a contract that doesn't include funding to provide these services.



"I'm asking the town to consider supporting our organization so that we can continue to provide the type of mental health services that are certainly very important to all the residents," Nichols said.



Budget Committee member Skip Murphy asked about any government funding the organization receives. Nichols said they ask for money from the counties for adult outpatient programs and grants and Medicaid reimbursement from the federal government. For emergency services they are given a $94,000 allotment from the state Bureau of Behavioral Health, though the organization usually runs a deficit of $400,000 to $500,000 for emergency services. The organization asks for money from the towns it serves to help offset the costs for emergency care and depending on how voting goes they usually receive around $150,000, a small percentage of their revenue.



Murphy said it seemed like LRMHC was getting a bite of tax dollars four times over, Nichols said the request of the towns was only for emergency services.



Murphy said he considered it "immoral" for community organizations to ask for taxpayer dollars. He said he would rather see charities put in efforts to get private donations instead of asking for public funds.



"I get tired of external organizations coming here and demanding money from people who otherwise wouldn't be paying to you, but are forced to through your property taxes," Murphy said.



He said it should be the voters' individual decision if they want to donate to these organizations and taking money from taxation takes away their choice.



The committee was split on whether it should vote to recommend the articles or not to recommend. The board of selectmen already voted unanimously to not recommend the article.



Committee member Peter Karagianis said the voters can decide for themselves if they want to put that money toward these organizations, but the committee shouldn't be in a position to recommend that. Nichols said a lot of voters pay attention to the recommendation of the different boards and committees and might not be as informed about the article.



"You take that away from the residents when you adopt not to recommend," Nichols said.



Members of the committee asked for some more detailed financial information on LRMHC. Nichols said their financial information was public and was willing to provide any additional information. Karagianis said they weren't in a position to recommend because of a lack of financial information.



School Board representative Chris McDonough said the best way to get the message to the voters that the committee didn't want to express an opinion was to abstain from voting.



The Budget Committee voted five in favor and five against with McDonough abstaining on motions to recommend both articles. The motions failed and it will appear on the ballot that the Budget Committee voted to not recommend the articles by a vote of 5-5. Tied votes resulted in the Budget Committee not recommending articles that would provide funding to two regional service agencies.Article 21, which asked for $21,000 toward Lakes Region Mental Health Center and Article 22 of $2,630 for New Beginnings Without Violence & Abuse will reflect they were not recommended by the Budget Committee in a vote of five for and five against with one member abstaining during Thursday's budget hearing.Ann Nichols, Director of Development and Public Relations for Lakes Region Mental Health Center (LRMHC) and also a Gilford resident, talked to the committee about the request from LRMHC.The organization is asking the town for $21,000 to provide emergency mental health services for town residents. LRMHC serves 24 towns in Belknap and southern Grafton Counties and the organization is asking each of these communities for money for emergency psychiatric services.Last year LRMHC served 232 Gilford residents, 74 of those receiving emergency services. Nichols said this is a significant increase from past years. The organization delivered $44,000 in uncompensated care to Gilford residents due to the patients not having insurance or the financial means to pay for their care and don't qualify for Medicaid and other state services.LRMHC is contracted by the state to deliver emergency psychiatric services to patients at Lakes Region General Hospital, Speare Memorial Hospital, and the designated receiving unit at Franklin Regional Hospital; a contract that doesn't include funding to provide these services."I'm asking the town to consider supporting our organization so that we can continue to provide the type of mental health services that are certainly very important to all the residents," Nichols said.Budget Committee member Skip Murphy asked about any government funding the organization receives. Nichols said they ask for money from the counties for adult outpatient programs and grants and Medicaid reimbursement from the federal government. For emergency services they are given a $94,000 allotment from the state Bureau of Behavioral Health, though the organization usually runs a deficit of $400,000 to $500,000 for emergency services. The organization asks for money from the towns it serves to help offset the costs for emergency care and depending on how voting goes they usually receive around $150,000, a small percentage of their revenue.Murphy said it seemed like LRMHC was getting a bite of tax dollars four times over, Nichols said the request of the towns was only for emergency services.Murphy said he considered it "immoral" for community organizations to ask for taxpayer dollars. He said he would rather see charities put in efforts to get private donations instead of asking for public funds."I get tired of external organizations coming here and demanding money from people who otherwise wouldn't be paying to you, but are forced to through your property taxes," Murphy said.He said it should be the voters' individual decision if they want to donate to these organizations and taking money from taxation takes away their choice.The committee was split on whether it should vote to recommend the articles or not to recommend. The board of selectmen already voted unanimously to not recommend the article.Committee member Peter Karagianis said the voters can decide for themselves if they want to put that money toward these organizations, but the committee shouldn't be in a position to recommend that. Nichols said a lot of voters pay attention to the recommendation of the different boards and committees and might not be as informed about the article."You take that away from the residents when you adopt not to recommend," Nichols said.Members of the committee asked for some more detailed financial information on LRMHC. Nichols said their financial information was public and was willing to provide any additional information. Karagianis said they weren't in a position to recommend because of a lack of financial information.School Board representative Chris McDonough said the best way to get the message to the voters that the committee didn't want to express an opinion was to abstain from voting.The Budget Committee voted five in favor and five against with McDonough abstaining on motions to recommend both articles. The motions failed and it will appear on the ballot that the Budget Committee voted to not recommend the articles by a vote of 5-5.

Gilford Steamer Golden Eagles battle, but fall in Division III finals Graduation kicks off end of year events Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
At least five people were killed when an avalanche hit the truck they were traveling in Kashmir on Friday, and five more people were missing, officials said.

After the avalanche in the Ladakh area of the heavily militarized Himalayan region, the army began search and rescue operations, said Rajesh Kalia, a senior army officer.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan which both claim it in full and have fought two of their three wars over it since their separation in 1947.

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Coos County Democrat New legislation aims to salvage Balsams project

by Tara Giles

Sports reporter - Coos County Democrat and Berlin Reporter Sports reporter - Coos County Democrat and Berlin Reporter write the author DIXVILLE NOTCH  New legislation has been introduced to amend SB30 in regards to financing the redevelopment of the Balsams Hotel located in Dixville Notch. The prime sponsor of the bill is State Rep. Edith Tucker of Randolph. Several individuals feel that this legislation, if passed, could be the only chance left that the historic property has to salvage itself.



When asked what prompted her to introduce the legislation, Tucker said, "Les Otten, the lead developer of The Balsams, asked me to step up and file an amendment to the existing state law  known as SB 30  that was crafted in 2015 to provide a state guarantee for $28 million through the New Hampshire Finance Authority for a special assessment district in an Unincorporated Place."



Tucker went on to say, "The BFA and The Balsams' investors were unable to reach an agreement, however."



Otten relayed to Tucker that a Republican senator had recently suggested to him that the Coos County commissioners could issue 20-year bonds that would allow the county to collect taxes on new construction in a special assessment district to pay them off.



Tucker explained, "Unlike the BFA, the county would not guarantee these bonds."



Tucker said, "I think we all know that the District 1 Senate race was very complicated this fall. I have to think that Mr. Otten decided it would be a good idea to work on legislation with a House member from Coos. The bill that I have filed to permit this action is only enabling legislation. It would allow the county commissioners to vote to issue the bonds, plus set fees and terms, and then seek the approval of the county delegation of state representatives."



The well known State Rep noted that there has been a lot of interest in the bill, both in Coos County and Concord, adding "I and others listened to a lot of input. Helped by many, I took the amendment that was first drawn up by the developer and his lawyer and changed it to protect the county's financial interests while still making it possible to develop a world-class resort."



Tucker offered a final thought: "Our county has faced many challenges in recent years. I am very happy to be working on passing legislation that I believe could make a difference to the lives of many." DIXVILLE NOTCH  New legislation has been introduced to amend SB30 in regards to financing the redevelopment of the Balsams Hotel located in Dixville Notch. The prime sponsor of the bill is State Rep. Edith Tucker of Randolph. Several individuals feel that this legislation, if passed, could be the only chance left that the historic property has to salvage itself.When asked what prompted her to introduce the legislation, Tucker said, "Les Otten, the lead developer of The Balsams, asked me to step up and file an amendment to the existing state law  known as SB 30  that was crafted in 2015 to provide a state guarantee for $28 million through the New Hampshire Finance Authority for a special assessment district in an Unincorporated Place."Tucker went on to say, "The BFA and The Balsams' investors were unable to reach an agreement, however."Otten relayed to Tucker that a Republican senator had recently suggested to him that the Coos County commissioners could issue 20-year bonds that would allow the county to collect taxes on new construction in a special assessment district to pay them off.Tucker explained, "Unlike the BFA, the county would not guarantee these bonds."Tucker said, "I think we all know that the District 1 Senate race was very complicated this fall. I have to think that Mr. Otten decided it would be a good idea to work on legislation with a House member from Coos. The bill that I have filed to permit this action is only enabling legislation. It would allow the county commissioners to vote to issue the bonds, plus set fees and terms, and then seek the approval of the county delegation of state representatives."The well known State Rep noted that there has been a lot of interest in the bill, both in Coos County and Concord, adding "I and others listened to a lot of input. Helped by many, I took the amendment that was first drawn up by the developer and his lawyer and changed it to protect the county's financial interests while still making it possible to develop a world-class resort."Tucker offered a final thought: "Our county has faced many challenges in recent years. I am very happy to be working on passing legislation that I believe could make a difference to the lives of many."


Berlin Reporter Film made in Berlin now available for purchase

by Jody Houle BERLIN  A movie filmed almost entirely in Berlin touches upon the opioid crisis, and has been well received. The movie is now available for purchase.



"Must say that this movie is a must watch," said local Paul Croteau. "Chris Dubey and all involved did an awesome job of creating this movie. Sad but true. The City of Berlin, like all other small communities, are not immune to the drug problem that is sweeping the United States. The truth is in our face, but many tend to ignore and not get involved. I'm looking forward to seeing any of his future projects. My praise goes out to you and the cast."



Two locals, Dubey and Ricky Pivin, along with Sarah Mitchell of Connecticut, co-partner in Diabolical Films. Dubey and Pivin co-wrote the script and are the main actors in the movie. Dubey and Mitchell are the executive producers. Dubey and Pivin co-directed. Thomas Delcarpio, new to Berlin, is the editor and associate producer.



There are a number of local actors and actresses in Berlin, and aside from one scene shot in the Boston area, it was filmed in the City that Trees Built.



The film was released at an event in Berlin in August at the Eagles club.



"After that event, we gauged some audience reactions, and took a look at some of the moments at the movie where the story went a little slower than we expected, or, due to a few technical limitations, we felt as though the sound was not up to snuff, so we spent a few days and made a final edit, trimmed a little of the fat, and got the movie down to an hour and a half or so," said Dubey. "From there, we had to decide whether to focus on the film festival circuit, or to distribute the film ourselves. "



"As film festivals cost several hundred dollars per entry, and our budget is very limited, we decided, after taking a few shots at it, that the self distribution model was the way to go," he continued. "We found a company, Elmwood Productions that agreed to promote our film, and we are very pleased with that."



Links have been posted on the Diabolical Films Facebook page where a person can follow the links and rent or purchase a copy digitally, as well as a mail order DVD program whereby they can have a copy sent directly to their house.



"We keep a stock in town for any interested local folks to purchase a copy," Dubey noted.



Those are $10 each.



The movie is also available for free at the Berlin Public Library.



"We have had a few screenings in the Laconia area at which the film was well received,and we are participating in a screening in Connecticut in March, organized by Sarah Mitchell," Dubey added.



The synopsis for "Paper City Burnout," a full-length movie, reads: "A family facing the challenges of addiction becomes entangled in the web of a small town criminal organization. Their struggles mount as circumstances conspire against them, pushing toward a dramatic climax from which no one will emerge unbroken."



Dubey, who owns Berlin EMS, has seen the local substance abuse problem first hand.



"Families struggle with substance abuse and we really want to see people get out of that," Dubey said in a previous interview. "It's a major problem in town." BERLIN  A movie filmed almost entirely in Berlin touches upon the opioid crisis, and has been well received. The movie is now available for purchase."Must say that this movie is a must watch," said local Paul Croteau. "Chris Dubey and all involved did an awesome job of creating this movie. Sad but true. The City of Berlin, like all other small communities, are not immune to the drug problem that is sweeping the United States. The truth is in our face, but many tend to ignore and not get involved. I'm looking forward to seeing any of his future projects. My praise goes out to you and the cast."Two locals, Dubey and Ricky Pivin, along with Sarah Mitchell of Connecticut, co-partner in Diabolical Films. Dubey and Pivin co-wrote the script and are the main actors in the movie. Dubey and Mitchell are the executive producers. Dubey and Pivin co-directed. Thomas Delcarpio, new to Berlin, is the editor and associate producer.There are a number of local actors and actresses in Berlin, and aside from one scene shot in the Boston area, it was filmed in the City that Trees Built.The film was released at an event in Berlin in August at the Eagles club."After that event, we gauged some audience reactions, and took a look at some of the moments at the movie where the story went a little slower than we expected, or, due to a few technical limitations, we felt as though the sound was not up to snuff, so we spent a few days and made a final edit, trimmed a little of the fat, and got the movie down to an hour and a half or so," said Dubey. "From there, we had to decide whether to focus on the film festival circuit, or to distribute the film ourselves. ""As film festivals cost several hundred dollars per entry, and our budget is very limited, we decided, after taking a few shots at it, that the self distribution model was the way to go," he continued. "We found a company, Elmwood Productions that agreed to promote our film, and we are very pleased with that."Links have been posted on the Diabolical Films Facebook page where a person can follow the links and rent or purchase a copy digitally, as well as a mail order DVD program whereby they can have a copy sent directly to their house."We keep a stock in town for any interested local folks to purchase a copy," Dubey noted.Those are $10 each.The movie is also available for free at the Berlin Public Library."We have had a few screenings in the Laconia area at which the film was well received,and we are participating in a screening in Connecticut in March, organized by Sarah Mitchell," Dubey added.The synopsis for "Paper City Burnout," a full-length movie, reads: "A family facing the challenges of addiction becomes entangled in the web of a small town criminal organization. Their struggles mount as circumstances conspire against them, pushing toward a dramatic climax from which no one will emerge unbroken."Dubey, who owns Berlin EMS, has seen the local substance abuse problem first hand."Families struggle with substance abuse and we really want to see people get out of that," Dubey said in a previous interview. "It's a major problem in town."

Berlin Reporter City Council discusses spending request Berlin softball rallies, but Belmont gets the win Recent Jody Houle State funding cuts force closure of Brown School

2019-Jan-23 Grenier testifies in support of House Bill aimed at overturning education cuts

2019-Jan-23 School board continues to discuss reorganization of grades

2019-Jan-17 AVH hosting forum on addiction treatment services

2019-Jan-09 Police apprehend armed man following standoff

2019-Jan-09 More... Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
Snow falls on a bundled-up Robert Lyles as he gives the keynote speech at last year's Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Walk ceremony on Kennedy Square. Expected bitter cold temperatures have prompted the cancellation of this year's observance, which had been scheduled for Monday morning.
Norway-based stensj Rederi is contracted to deliver the future HMZS Resolution (also known as Edda Fonn) to the New Zealand Ministry of Defense in 2019 with an integrated ROV and dive system amongst its upgrades.

Norway-based stensj Rederi is contracted to deliver the future HMZS Resolution (also known as Edda Fonn) to the New Zealand Ministry of Defense in 2019 with an integrated ROV and dive system amongst its upgrades.

The Cougar XT ROV (Picture source: Saab )

To meet the Navys operational requirements, stensj Rederi expanded and extended the technical specification for the complete system including : the Cougar, the control room, and in particular, the Launch and Recovery System (LARS).stensj Rederi will provide a modified dipping and extending LARS with snubber, heave compensation and electric winch motors for the Cougar. Along with the LARS, the complete system includes a standard Cougar XT with minor modification to include three cameras and sonar system, together with its tether management system and three individual tool skids with manipulators, cutters and water jetting system.

Initially, the New Zealand Navy was scheduled to receive a custom new-build vessel but an NZ$148 million cost in the countrys frigate upgrade project forced the government to consider a used vessel. Defense officials identified the MV Edda Fonn, owned and operated by Norwegian company stensj Rederi, as the most suitable option from an initial list of over 150 candidate offshore and subsea support vessels.

HMZS Resolution is scheduled to be delivered to Devonport Naval Base in May 2019. Final modifications will be undertaken in New Zealand. The ship is expected to be in service with the Navy by November 2019.
About 8,000 people have fled Rann, a Borno border town, to Cameroon in the aftermath of a Boko Haram attack on the town last Tuesday.Aid organisation Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) in an update on the Rann attack released Thursday night said residents fled to Bodo, a remote community in Cameroon, some seven kilometres from Rann.Our sources in Bodo estimates that some 8,000 people arrived yesterday and we expect several thousand more may come today, Hugues Robert, MSF Programme Manager for Nigeria, Hugues Robert, said in the update.We are preparing to assist 15,000 people with food, water and medical care over the coming days. Many people were in a state of shock and were clearly distressed by what they had witnessed. Now they have lost all that they have and need absolutely everything, he added.The organisation said many of the refugees have spent the night outdoors without shelters. Many of these locals are children, breastfeeding mother and pregnant women, MSF said.It said a team consisting of medical and logistical staff have been distributing food and water, and are providing emergency medical care.Rann has suffered attacks by Boko Haram and a case of mistaken firing by the Nigerian Air Force in January 2017, leading to the death of many.
Egypts Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met with the Lebanese speaker of parliament Nabih Berriin Beirut on Friday where they discussed the latest developments in Lebanon and the region, the Egyptian foreign ministry has said.

Shoukry said that Egypt was looking forward to seeing the formation of a new Lebanese government that would include all sects and factions of the Lebanese people.

He added that Egypt fully supports Lebanons quest to reach consensus and stability.

The two officials also discussed the latest developments in the region, especially the latest developments concerning the situation in Palestine and the peace process.

Berri expressed Lebanons hope to boost its coordination with Egypt, especially in the fields of energy and gas related to Egypts latest gas exploration and the possibility that Egypt may be able to meet Lebanons current energy needs.

Earlier on Friday Shoukry met with Lebanese President Michel Aoun.

Shoukry is in Beirut to participate in the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit.

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Since she was 10 years old Theresa Barnes has dreamed about having her own restaurant. Learning family recipes working in the kitchen with her grandmother and mother in Sierra Leone in West Africa she was already planning for her restaurant. Just weeks ago, Theresas dream came true and she and her family opened the doors to Eden Spice on Dixie Drive in West Carrollton, next to Hollys Home Cooking. The menu is a blend of African and Caribbean specialties like red snapper, curry goat, oxtail and mango ginger chicken. You can pick your heat, form mild, spicy or African hot on many of the dishes.

Since Im not very familiar with African food, I asked Samyatta, Theresas 20 year old daughter who was working the counter, for her recommendations. Their 13 year old daughter Samenhah also helps out on the weekends. I ended up trying the jerk goat with jollof rice (a Nigerian staple that is flavored with Maggie) and fried red snapper with plantains and red beans and rice. You can see the entire menu here.

While I was waiting for my food to be cooked, everything is made from scratch here, nothing sitting in steam tables, Samyatta shared with me about her Moms dream to open the restaurant. She shared with me how for the last couple of years her mom had been cooking and perfecting her recipes and feeding everyone they knew, taking dishes to her job at Synchrony (where she still works part time) and even knocking on strangers doors to have them try her food.

After cooking my food Theresa joined me in the dining room sharing her joy in finally being to live her dream with the restaurant. She and her teenage sweetheart Sam married and came to America about 25 years ago.

Shes been working with her cousin, who has catering contract with schools in Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton for the last few years, always talking about her desire to have a restaurant. Finally her cousin Florence told her she had located the perfect spot for Theresas restaurant. The location was a former Subway restaurant in West Carrolton and Theresa just knew it was the perfect place. She still does catering out of the kitchen, cooking breakfast and lunch, delivering about 700 meals to 3 area schools.

Theresa told me about her decision to serve the snapper with the head on, staying true to herself, knowing that many Americans might not eat it, but that the head is the best part of the dish for her and back home they eat it all, including the eyes. I wasnt quite brave enough to eat the head, but did enjoy the snapper, using a fork to pull the meat off the bones, and then flipping it over to enjoy the other side.

Shell continue to make those meals as she grows her business, serving lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday, but never on Sunday, as thats the day she and her family dedicate to their Far Hills church family. She explained to me how the menu came about with the African recipes, which feature spicy and salty flavors, and lots of Thyme, and green onions, while the Caribbean entrees tend to be sweeter, with both cuisines including a lot of rice. Goat was the most common meat in her African home, and the meat she is serving at Eden Spice is Hallal, lawful to eat according to traditional Islamic law. While she was raised in a Christian home, some of her extended family were Muslim and she wants to make sure her restaurant is welcoming to all. Which is why she also offers baked chicken as well as wings, and steak kabobs. Serving Vimto, an African soda made from juice of grapes, raspberries and blackcurrants, flavored with herbs and spices is a nod to a treat from her childhood.

As we were talking she was pulling together her fresh produce and spices to make her jerk seasoning and emphasized how all her meals are based on family recipes and made from scratch. She has to travel to the African store in Columbus to get many of her spices. As business picks up she has plans to offer more African specials on the weekends and is also looking forward to doing catering.

Theresas parting words to me were that in her culture they didnt give physical gifts often, but instead they shared their love by cooking for others and she is looking forward to sharing that love with the Miami Valley.

Eden Spice

501 E. Dixie Drive Dayton, Ohio 45449

937-247-9116

Tuesday  Friday: 11-8pm

Saturday 11-9pm
Condo, Sales, and Business Intelligence Products; Freddie and Fannie Program Changes

For the first time in history, the six biggest banks  JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley  made $100 billion in profit in a year. Yowzah! Theres a lot going on out there, and Ben Smidt put out his Mortgage Expert Insights on Business Planning Strategies that is worth a gander. Every basis point counts, right? With the increase in short-term rates, for non-depository lenders, does your accounting team tell you how much it costs every day to have a funded but unsold on your warehouse? If they havent, they should.

Conventional Conforming Changes

For the most part Freddie and Fannie have motored on, regardless of the PUGS (partial U.S. government shutdown). Lets see what theyve been up to recently.

During the weekend of Feb. 23, Fannie Maes EarlyCheck version 5.8 will introduce new and modified edits to align with existing Loan Delivery edits and upcoming Loan Delivery edit changes. EarlyCheck updates include new edits for condo project type, credit score, and MI as well as edit severity changes.

Freddie Mac posted Bulletin 2019-2 that provides temporary guidance to help assist borrowers impacted by the federal government shutdown. This bulletin covers credit reporting requirements and eligible hardships and forbearance plans.

Freddie Mac announced new enhancements to its GreenCHOICE MortgagesSM energy-efficient offerings, including broader financing options to help families with lower-incomes reduce home utility costs through energy-saving home repairs and improvements. GreenCHOICE Mortgages will enable Freddie Mac to better assess mortgage loan performance between homes with energy-efficient enhancements and those without. Additional research by Freddie Mac will help develop and design valuation guidance and uniform data collection mechanisms, as well as underwriting guidelines to account for energy-efficient features.

The Freddie Mac Guide Bulletin 2018-22 Simplifies Requirements and Provides Flexibilities for Servicers. Click here to view the bulletin.

On January 21st, lenders will be able to submit self-reports and interact with the Data Validation Center right in the Fannie Mae Loan Quality Connect system without using a separate process or managing mailbox limitations. These are just two of the many ways Loan Quality Connect helps lenders drive loan quality and manage the post-purchase review process.

On Jan. 21 lenders can start using the Fannie Mae Loan Quality Connect, its new system that drives loan quality and manages the post-purchase review process. It was developed with lenders, for lenders to bring simplified technology, seamless collaboration, and increased certainty. Click here to learn more about Loan Quality Connect.

Fannie Mae sellers/servicers with a Dec. 31 fiscal year end must submit their annual certification and audited financial statements to us by March 31. Recent enhancements to the Lender Record Information Form 582 platform will simplify the certification process.

Freddie Mac announced enhancements to its Loan Selling Advisor including a new Purchase Statement data export capability and incorporating new messaging and search functionality for Mandatory Cash Contracts.

New Uniform Loan Delivery Dataset (ULDD) Phase 3 edits with an Informational severity are now available in Fannie Mae Loan Delivery. Additionally, the Social Security Number (SSN) display is masked in both Loan Delivery and in the MISMO XML export files. Review the Loan Delivery Enhancements and visit the Loan Delivery page for more information.



Capital Markets

The U.S. 10-year closed Thursday at the slightly higher yield of 2.75%. The entire yield curve shifted up. The largest news concerning markets over the course of the day was a report that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin proposed lifting some or all tariffs on imports from China in order to calm markets, though that same story in the WSJ noted that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is against making concessions. In good(?) news, the U.S. State Department has instructed its staff to return to work on January 22, as the longest shutdown in U.S. government history continues with no end in sight. There was the usual Brexit (British Exit) chatter across The Pond. European officials are reportedly willing to extend the withdrawal date past March 29, but the UK has yet to request such an extension.

Its a real mix of companies open and closed Monday. Ahead of the long weekend, we have a relatively light economic calendar today. Fedspeak consists of New York Fed President Williams and Philadelphias Harker. Coming up, at 9:15AM, is the Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization couplet, both expected to increase slightly. Manufacturing output should increase 0.4% after an unchanged last reading. The University of Michigan Sentiment Index will be released at 10AM ET and is expected to decline slightly. Today begins with Agency MBS down/worse a few ticks and the 10-year yielding 2.77%.



Lender Products and Services

On the heels of success with the Single Close Construction program in 2018, GSF Mortgage Corp. (GSF) is kicking off the new year strong by attending the NAHB International Builders' Show in Las Vegas, NV, through February 19-21. Highlights of our Single Close Construction program include, FHA 30 Year Fixed up to 96.5% LTV, VA 30 Year Fixed up to 100% LTV, USDA 30 Year Fixed up to 100% LTV and Conventional 30 year fixed up to 95% LTV. All loans are handled in-house the borrower does not need to requalify after the initial closing and make no interest payments during the build on most products. Eligible home types include: stick built, manufactured, modular. Originators and builders are welcome to stop by GSFs booth (#SU3048) and discuss the program and partnership opportunities with our attending Construction Division team. Please reach out to VP of Retail Lending, Frank Papaleo.

In this era of uncertainty, how can Accenture Credit Services help you achieve greater predictability and certainty? Through supporting your end-to-end or component based residential mortgage needs. As a trusted provider in retail, correspondent and wholesale channels, we help clients accelerate business outcomes and help them grow in todays unpredictable market. We help transform business operations with lean manufacturing, process automations, data management, operational analytics, and agile global workforce models. Our deep domain expertise and robust processing capabilities help lift significant internal operational challenges for our clients. Accentures offshore branch with broad state licensure helps lenders increase their ability to focus on the customer experience and improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs to originate and service loans, improve compliance and management oversight, and enhance their operational efficiencies. Click here to learn more or to let us know if youre attending the MBA IMB Conference in San Francisco later this month.

Most of you have hopefully realized the massive opportunity non-QM represents for borrowers that dont fit neatly into vanilla loan parameters. If youre craving more options, REMN Wholesale has solutions for you. REMN is hosting a webinar on January 24th that explores the unique options it offers through the Simple Access platform. If youre looking for ways to continue to grow in the non-QM space, this is a cant miss event. REMNs Simple Access program capitalizes on some of the most common scenarios for non-QM borrowers, including investor cash flow and other alternatives to full doc loans. The flexible guidelines REMN Wholesale offers through Simple Access, combined with the industry-leading support REMN is known for nationwide, makes their non-QM platform a win-win for all involved. REMNs Simple Access non-QM webinar will be hosted by NREPs Frank Garay. Space is extremely limited, so interested participants should register ASAP here.

How can you say the words Digital Mortgage if your POS requires human intelligence or often results in human error? PerfectLO is the leading POS in the Fin-tech space and has designed a Perfect Loan Application built with intelligence that "digs" in and asks all the questions that live inside and outside the 1003. We all know that a completed "1003" is quite useless even when completed. The real pain in your operation begins is caused from inaccurate 1003s and not requesting required docs. PerfectLO creates a spot on doc checklist based off the answers and offers a secure upload. A customizable milestone sms notification portal to keep your borrowers and agents updated. Sign up for a free trial and demo. PerfectLOs online questionnaire takes a non- intimidating, logical and systematic approach. Easy to adopt and easy onboard. PerfectLO works in every language and talks to all LOSs. Visit PerfectLO.com!

Looking for ways to grow your business? Freddie Mac is collaborating with clients to deliver automation and insights that provide a competitive edge. Cut back on documentation and reduce time to close with Loan Product Advisor automated income and asset assessment capabilities. Save borrowers time and money with ACE appraisal waivers, now available for certain condo unit loans. Grow your condo business with Freddie Macs unit-level condo exception tool, Condo Project AdvisorSM. Get greater efficiency with simpler collateral QC and underwriting in Loan Collateral Advisor Get The Freddie EdgeSM.

Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, LinkedIn, Uber, and Nest all use Customer and Business Intelligence to give themselves the edge they need to win in their industry. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on intelligence products and will continue to invest more every year because it works! Sales Boomerang has created the same powerhouse intelligence systems for the lending industry but you don't have to spend millions to implement it in your business. Management launched a new category in the mortgage industry called Borrower Intelligence and it is an absolute must have product. "If you have a database of more than 15,000 records you will miss out on at least $100M+ and in many cases over $1B in volume this year" says Alex Kutsishin Co-Founder and CEOof Sales Boomerang. Calculate your losses for yourself with this simple Loan Loss calculator. Sales Boomerang is booming so if you want to know how it fits into your strategy go visit its website and schedule a demo.



Jobs and Transitions

Highlands Residential Mortgage is honored to announce that National Mortgage News ranked Highlands as the Number 1 Mortgage Company on their inaugural 2019 Best Mortgage Companies to Work for List. Using extensive employee surveys and employer reports on benefits, the Awards Program identifies and recognizes the Best Employers in the Industry.

Im very proud that Highlands was awarded First Place! From the beginning, our goal was to build a company with an employee focused culture that would attract and retain the best Mortgage Professionals in the industry. Winning this award affirms we are reaching that goal. The mission of valuing people drives everything we do and has resulted in the company growing for five consecutive years said Ken Hickman CEO. Highlands currently has 31 branches in 11 states with 350 employees. If you are interested in joining the Best Workplace in the industry contact Danny Deaton EVP National Production 469-364-7078.

Caliber Home Loans, Inc. CEO Sanjiv Das was recently quoted by The Wall Street Journal in two recent articles. On January 4th, Das was quoted as saying I think that family assistance has a higher moral bearing on people when things turn tough in the housing market, in the article titled More First-Time Home Buyers are Turning to the Bank of Mom and Dad. This week he was quoted in the article How to Make Home Ownership a Reality, telling readers how to make the right choices when it comes to getting a home loan, the leading lenders CEO said Speed, certainty and rate are all importantnot just the rate. Caliber is currently the 3rd largest non-bank lender in the country (IMF). Caliber is growing and hiring new Loan Consultants. Consider a new career at Caliber this year! Visit www.joincalibernow.com or email Jeremy DeRosa.

Branch Managers, are you looking for stability for you and your team? It can take time before discipline pays off, but when it does, significant gains can result. Such is the case for PRMGs position of strength as a company and our attractiveness for those seeking a home they may rely on. Many in our industry are currently unstable. Some offered unsustainable pricing in Q4 in an effort to recruit under what some might call false pretenses, only to worsen their pricing later. At PRMG were consistent, transparent and growing. Our pricing, products, fulfillment, marketing, compensation, and technology attract and retain top talent. Our two Founders continue to reinvest into PRMG providing a safe haven for those professionals who recognize the value in stability. PRMG affords you, the LO or BM, a voice. You matter here at PRMG and we treat you like the customer that you are. PRMG is that rare find of culture and performance and those who have taken full advantage of what we have to offer have become million-dollar earners in a few short years. Email Chris Sorensen, SVP-National Director of Retail, if youre finally ready to build your legacy instead of anothers.

VantageScore Solutions announced that Dr. Emre Sahingur has joined as SVP, Predictive Analytics, Research, and Product Management. (Dr. Sahingur most recently served as the Chief Risk Officer for Model Risk Management at Fannie Mae.)
Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi discussed the countrys efforts to combat illegal migration to Europe with Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council in a telephone call on Thursday evening, El-Sisis spokesman said.

The pair also discussed the efforts Egypt is exerting to confront the illegal migration problem, stressing the importance of dealing with the main roots of the problem through reaching political solutions to the crises in some Middle Eastern countries, and helping to restore stability and security in those countries.

They also discussed efforts in the war on terrorism, and ways to boost Egyptian-EU relations.

El-Sisis spokesman said that Tusk expressed the EUs appreciation of its strong relations with Egypt, asserting the EUs wish to continue pushing cooperation with Egypt on different levels based on their shared interest in facing the challenges in the Mediterranean region.

He also praised the efforts of Egypt in fighting terrorism as well as the successful Egyptian experience in fighting illegal migration.

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Don Ogbewii Scott, a Melrose Park resident, can be reached at dscott9703@gmail.com. More information about his local history books can be found at kumbayah-universal.com.
LOWER GWYNEDD >> Head coach Pete Moore has won a lot of games in his 18 seasons at Hatboro-Horsham.
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The Kennett Area YMCA will be assisting employees impacted by the government shutdown.
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This is not an adaptation of an existing mans watch but a wholly new model. Quite simply, the Fiji Floral Seconds has been designed by a woman for a woman.

The Fiji Floral Seconds is endowed with an automatic movement, the calibre ASE 200.00, featuring a micro-rotor. Schwarz Etienne is famous for its modular movement design. The architecture of its movements facilitates the simple adaptation of an automatic movement into a hand-wound calibre and vice versa. The benefit of this modularity is that it confers greater customer choice.

Research has shown that many women are increasingly drawn to the allure of a mechanical watch. The calibre ASE 200.00 is a self-winding movement requiring minimal wearer-input. When the watch is removed from the wrist it will continue to run autonomously for up to 86 hours. The calibre ASE 200.00s bridges are adorned with a sunray decoration, while the balance bridge is embellished with a guilloche motif.

 Schwarz Etienne

The 38mm case of the Fiji Floral Seconds upholds the companys reputation for modularity. The three-part case (bezel, caseband and caseback) forms a capsule which is mounted within a separate cradle. This latter component, which incorporates the lugs, affixes to the capsule with four screws in steadfast union. By adopting this construction method, Schwarz Etienne is able to combine differently styled parts, providing the company with creative freedom.

The watch is available in two dial colours, black or pale salmon. Hour and minute hands float above the central dial area, embellished with a tone on tone floral motif. The hour track features drop-shape indexes save for 12 oclock where Arabic numerals indicate the hour. An oversized index is positioned at 6 oclock, emanating from the centre of an animated floral display. This feature consists of an openworked lattice sat atop a rotating disc, providing a depiction of life in motion.

 Schwarz Etienne

The crown is generously proportioned and features a diamond on its vertical flank. The caseback incorporates a pane of sapphire crystal, allowing the wearer to appreciate the Swiss craftsmanship beating within.

The Fiji Floral Seconds is supplied with two coordinating straps. The black dial version comes with a black strap as well as a ruby- red strap, while the pale salmon dial is paired with both light blue and brown straps. All straps incorporate a silver-grey lining and are paired with a Schwarz Etienne branded steel folding clasp. The straps can be readily exchanged without the need for tools.

The firm has chosen to present the Fiji Floral Seconds in a Noleti handbag delivered in a grey, grained leather.
[January 17, 2019] Sweden Unlimited Expands Into UK/Europe NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- New York-based Sweden Unlimited, the digital creative agency specializing in strategy, eCommerce and content for fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands has announced the opening of their first creative studio outside of the U.S., in the heart of London. Situated in Notting Hill, an area renowned for its style, charm, and vibrancy, the agency will now be serving the UK and European brands and retailers with their full-range of creative content and commerce services from the Sweden Unlimited London studio. This opening is the first step in an international expansion strategy backed by the Together Group. The global powerhouse for Digital Transformation, Incubation, eCommerce, and Growth acquired the Soho-based firm in July 2018 with the objective to grow Sweden Unlimited into a global leading creative digital agency for fashion, beauty, luxury & lifestyle brands and retailers. "Sweden Unlimited's expertise is founded on a cultural perspective that integrates art and design into every aspect of their work," describes Richard Agerbeek, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of Sweden Unlimited. "As a digital-first agency, we design brand experiences that span all channels and platforms  ranging from full-service eCommerce development to rich editorial platforms and remarkable marketing campaigns, all crafted to elevate brands and create emotional connections with customers. As such, Sweden Unlimited is the perfect digital creative partner for the fashion, beauty and lifestyle sector." In order to accelerate the expansion, Together Group has acquired two of UK's leading creative agencies in the fashion and luxury space, Skywire and Folk, and has integrated these agencies under the Sweden Unlimited London bran. They bring along their creative and customer-service teams, with years of experience in delivering world-class eCommerce and content solutions to brands within the fashion and luxury industry, including Bottega Veneta, Asprey, De Beers, Hermes, Hirsh London, Hackett, and Loewe. These highly accomplished creative and technical teams perfectly complement the Sweden Unlimited US team. "The idea of moving into Europe has always been one of the goals for us, but until now we had not truly found the right partner," says Leja Kress, CEO Sweden Unlimited. "Upon meeting the teams at Skywire and Folk we knew we had discovered the way to make that move. We are so excited about bringing our style and approach to the UK. It has been such an interesting journey and we are learning so much from one another." "As UK's leading Luxury, Fashion and Lifestyle eCommerce Agency, meeting Sweden Unlimited was an instant bonding of like minds and passion," confirms Eva Hoff, Co-Founder, and CEO, Sweden Unlimited London (formerly Skywire). "We are excited to collaborate with the team in the US and to leverage our expertise to further strengthen Sweden Unlimited's capabilities, particularly in the jewelry, watch and lifestyle sectors." "One of the most important things for me is working alongside creative teams that share a similar willingness to stretch boundaries and explore new ideas," further expands Tom Wittlin, Co-Founder & Creative Director, Sweden Unlimited London (formerly Folk). "I truly believe that combining the different perspectives from the US and Europe will be a driver of creativity and of exciting innovative ideas for the fashion, beauty and lifestyle space." More news on Sweden Unlimited's international expansion will be revealed in the first half of 2019. About Sweden Unlimited:

Sweden Unlimited is a digital creative agency based in New York City, specializing in strategy, design & technology for fashion and lifestyle brands. Founded in 1999 by Richard Agerbeek and twin sisters Alex and Leja Kress, Sweden Unlimited has distinguished itself through collaborations with clients such as Kate Spade, W Hotels, Akris, Estee Lauder, and Hauser & Wirth. For US Inquiries Leja Kress: info@swedenunlimited.com For UK Inquiries Eva Hoff: salesUK@swedenunlimited.com Related Links Website View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sweden-unlimited-expands-into-ukeurope-300780403.html SOURCE Sweden Unlimited

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Switzerland's high court has overruled an injunction blocking payments from the operators of the Nord Stream gas pipeline at the request of Ukrainian state gas firm Naftogaz, according to Russian energy giant Gazprom.

The Stockholm arbitration court had previously ruled that all payments from Gazproms subsidiaries would be transferred to Swiss bailiffs.

On January 16, a court of the canton of Zug (Switzerland) decided to completely cancel its decision of May 29, 2018, on imposing interim measures in Switzerland against shares of Gazprom in Nord Stream AG and Nord Stream 2 AG and Gazprom's rights of claim against these companies, Gazprom said.

The latest court decision is a part of an ongoing litigation between Gazprom and Naftogaz that started back in 2014, when the two energy producers lodged mutual claims over supply and transit contracts.

The news came shortly after the CEO of Ukraines Naftogaz Andrey Kobolev told journalists that Gazprom-owned assets had been arrested in three European countries.

Last year, the Stockholm court ruled that the Russian company pay for a shortfall in the delivery of gas to Ukraine, awarding Naftogaz $2.6 billion in compensation. Gazprom appealed the verdict, and notified the Ukrainian firm of terminating the gas-delivery contracts. Naftogaz in turn took legal steps to seize Gazproms assets in Europe.

The contract for the supply of natural gas from Russia to Ukraine, signed in early 2009, was set to expire by the end of 2019. Under the terms of the agreement, Ukraine was to buy 40 billion cubic meters of gas a year with the annual volume increasing to 52 billion cubic meters from 2010.

However, Ukraine's Naftogaz opted to stop buying the contracted volume in November 2015, replacing it with reverse gas supplies from European countries. The step was seen by Russia's Gazprom as a breach of contract.

Commenting on the latest ruling by the Swiss high court Naftogaz Commercial Director Yuriy Vitrenko said the court found no Gazproms assets to arrest in Switzerland. According to the top-manager, Nord Stream AG and Nord Stream 2 AG had notified the court that the previous ruling on the seizure was impossible to implement.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section
Swedens parliament gives Soc Dem leader Lofven 2nd term in office

Swedens parliament gives Soc Dem leader Lofven 2nd term in office

Swedens parliament voted on Friday to give Social Democrat leader Stefan Lofven a second term in office, ending more than four months of deadlock after an inconclusive election. Lofven agreed a deal with the Center, Liberal and Green parties last week. The agreement brought together parties from the center-right and center-left in order to prevent the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats from having a voice in policy. The deal will see Lofven cut taxes and deregulate the labor and property rental market, a sharp shift to the right that is likely to alienate many of the Social Democrats traditional supporters, Reuters said. Lofven was supported by 115 law makers while 153 voted against him and 77 abstained. According to Swedish law, the nominee becomes PM as long as a majority of parliament does not vote against him or her.Source : RT - Daily news
Russian troops are expected to receive their first Pantsir-SA this year  a variant of the medium-range anti-aircraft system, designed specifically to operate in the extremely harsh conditions of the Arctic region.

The new machine is expected to head for testing within days, Deputy Defense Minister Aleksey Krivoruchko said on Tuesday. The high-ranking official has visited a factory, where the new system is produced, personally inspecting various weaponry systems in development.

Pantsir-SA was first shown to the public back in 2017, when it was featured during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow. The system is mounted on a DT-30 twin off-road vehicle which has already been tested by the harsh arctic weather. The tracked vehicle can pass through weak and rough terrain, such as swamps and deep snow.

The arctic modification of the battle-tested system appears to be a bit different, compared to its wheeled cousin, Pantsir-S, which has seen action during anti-terrorist operations in Syria. Pantsir-SAs are equipped with 18 anti-air missiles against 12 of a Pantsir-S, yet it lacks any autocannons.

Over the past few years, Russia has been actively ramping up its defenses in the Arctic, constructing new bases, launching icebreakers, ramping up its coastal and air defenses  and even tidying up junk to keep the snowy region clean.

The Russian military has also tested a handful of weapon systems made specifically to be used in the Arctic.

Apart from that, Russia has updated its navigation rules for other nations warships attempting to sail past its northern coastline. Starting from 2019, such a voyage will require prior notification to the country's Defense Ministry.

Meanwhile, other players have shown interest in the Arctic region as well  and it has all the potential to become the arena for a new geopolitical standoff. The US has also ramped up its military activities there. Washington plans to test waters there, seeking to reopen the Adak military base on the Aleutian Islands. The facility, located close to Russian borders, was operational between 1942 to 1997  and now the Navy seeks to send several surface ships and maritime reconnaissance aircraft there.

The concept is, yes, go up there, US Navy secretary Richard Spencer said last week. We're developing them as we speak.
The highly anticipated party had a particular signifiance this year. On the one hand, WorldTempus celebrated its 18th anniversary, on the other it was the last time that GMT and WorldTempus brought together the entire watch industry on an evening in January, since the SIHH will be held in April from 2020. Event organizer Brice Lechevalier thanked all the guests for attending, as well as the sponsors of the evening: Asia Tatler, represented by Sebastien Lamuniere, Watch Your Time, represented by Eric Dumatin, Lambert Fils & Filles, represented by the entire family, as well as main sponsor JD.com, represented by Belinda Chen. During his short speech, Mr Lechevalier also thanked the work put in by the entire WorldTempus team, mentioning the rude health of the digital influencer on luxury watchmaking, concluding the year 2018 with a record audience of 3.2 million unique visitors, who consulted 14.5 million pages for an average visit duration of 3.2 minutes.

Lambert Fils & Filles  GMT/WorldTempus

Eric Dumatin, Brice Lechevalier, Paul O'Neil, Pascal Lambert  GMT/WorldTempus

Many of the representatives from watch brands, who often bring their clients and journalists along, expressed their appreciation for the friendly atmosphere at the party, which was held at the Hotel Richemond in Geneva on 16th January 2019. It is the only multi-brand after-work party during the SIHH of this size and allows an open exchange on the latest trends around a glass of wine from the neighbouring canton of Vaud, offered by the Maison du Moulin, or a glass of Infinite 8 champagne. With event management by the Live Teams agency and music by DJ Guillaume Ruchon, these few happy hours of relaxation were the perfect opportunity for the watch community to start 2019 with a smile.

The GMT/WorldTempus team  GMT/WorldTempus

> Watches & Wonders
A Russian national has been arrested by Norway police, who suspect him to be the perpetrator of a knife attack which happened in Oslo on Thursday. The crime is being investigated as terror-related by the authorities.

According to Norwegian media, the Tuesday attack happened in a store and left a woman in critical condition, after a man in his 20s stabbed her.

The suspected perpetrator was arrested later and had a knife, which the police believe to have been used in the attack.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW
The US Department of Justice is to question six staff from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London following the Guardians controversial article alleging Paul Manafort visited Julian Assange, according to WikiLeaks.

The DOJ issued formal requests on January 7 to interrogate six former diplomats & staff at Ecuador's London embassy following Guardian's fabricated story of Assange-Manafort meetings, the whistleblowing organization tweeted Thursday.

The interviews scheduled by Ecuadors Attorney Generals office are to take place on Friday in Quito, Ecuador.

The report comes after six Democrats, including Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, wrote to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on December 12, demanding Ecuador provide information about the allegations made in the Guardians report.

The outlets November article alleging Donald Trumps former campaign manager Manafort secretly visited Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2013, 2015, and 2016 has been roundly criticized by WikiLeaks, Manafort, and Ecuadors former Consul at the embassy, who all flatly deny the visits took place.

READ MORE: Guardian challenged over fake Assange & Manafort story, as Luke Harding goes AWOL

The article has also been criticized by members of the media, who question its use of anonymous sources and the Guardians handling of the story, which included almost immediate edits to lessen the initial strength of the allegations made. The Guardian has been asked to reveal further evidence to back up its report, such as video footage or visitor logs detailing Manaforts alleged visits, but editor Katharine Viner and the journalists involved have thus far ignored such requests.

WikiLeaks has raised over $55,000 in a fundraising campaign to sue the Guardian over the piece.

An intentionally planted front page false story in the Guardian has now led to statements in Congress, the activation of the U.S. Secretary of State, the DoJ, Ecuadors DoJ, and Ecuadors astonishing agreement to formally let a foreign power interrogate its diplomatic staff, WikiLeaks tweeted Thursday.

WikiLeaks said in a statement that its highly unusual to allow foreign governments to conduct interrogations of former diplomatic officials over their diplomatic work, or to provide foreign investigators information about those who have been afforded political asylum in relation to them. Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy since seeking asylum there in 2012 and was granted Ecuadorian citizenship in late 2017.

Also on rt.com US secretly charged Assange, prosecutor accidentally reveals  WikiLeaks

The Guardians claims were presented as a bombshell, backing up allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 US election by hacking the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clintons campaign chair John Podesta, and giving the documents to WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks reports that some of the people the Department of Justice are seeking to question live in the UK, which suggests London may receive a similar request for access.

to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media wont tell you.
UK councils and the military sector are profiting from the war in Yemen and the ongoing Saudi-led campaign in the impoverished state, Labour councilor Maya Evans told RT. Evans even went on hunger strike in protest.

Speaking to Afshin Rattansi on Going Underground, she said that, while the two week hunger strike may seem severe, the situation in Yemen has reached a state of dire emergency.

Due to the Saudi-led military campaign  ongoing since 2015 to reinstate ousted leader Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi  some 14 million are in a state of famine, five million at risk from cholera, and 2.2 million have malnutrition.

The councillor and anti-war activist says she felt compelled to resist as both a citizen and elected representative of the UK, which has been arming the Saudi Kingdom despite the bloody war. Within the first year of the bombardment, the UK provided 3.3 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, 30 times more than they had before the conflict broke out.

She pointed out that while the UK has historically been quick to declare war against nations it deems undemocratic, it actively supports Saudi Arabia, turning a blind eye to the countrys undeniable track-record of repressing democracy and outright violence.

While the UK government continues to impose austerity measures at home, councils have been able to find the funds to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in private weapons manufacturers profiting from the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Freedom of Information requests revealed that council pension funds have a large number of shares in major weapons manufacturers such as BAE Systems, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

Meanwhile, Evans enthusiastically supports the idea of a Corbyn-government introducing legislation to convict war-criminals reaping financial benefits from the war.

Also on rt.com UK govt blasted over RAF training of 102 Saudi pilots as Yemen war rages on

One figure who has benefited financially from the crisis, according to Evans, is Prime Minister Theresa Mays husband, whose employer Capital Group owns a large amount of shares in a weapons manufacturer that supplies the Saudi military. The companys shares in Lockheed Martin, an arms-dealer who produces laser-guided missiles such as the one that blew up a bus full of school children in Yemen last year, was worth about $6.5 billion as of last March.

Watch the full interview below
Ankara says Syrian govt forces shouldnt be allowed in Manbij as US troops withdraw

Ankara says Syrian govt forces shouldnt be allowed in Manbij as US troops withdraw

Turkey on Friday said Syrian government forces should not be allowed in Manbij as US troops withdraw, as proposed by a US-backed Kurdish militia which is viewed as a terror group by Ankara. The YPGs efforts to stick the regime in Manbij must absolutely not be allowed, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said during a press conference in Ankara. Aksoy said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu would go to Washington for a meeting of the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) on February 6, AFP reported. One day before Cavusoglus visit, a Turkish delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal will go to the US for discussions on Syria.Source : RT - Daily news
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The State Council Information Office holds a news conference in Beijing on Friday. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

About 2.99 billion trips are expected to be made during the 2019 Spring Festival travel rush between Jan 21 and March 1, China's top economic planner said on Friday.

The figure is up 0.6 percent from last year, said Lian Weiliang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, during a news conference.

Reverse Spring Festival travel, where parents travel to cities where their children are working in for a family reunion rather than have their kids come to the hometown, has become a trend. People involved in reverse Spring Festival travel grew 9 percent year-on-year on average, according to China Railway Corp.

The number of road trips is projected to reach 2.46 billion, a 0.8 percent decrease from last year, while train trips are likely to top 413 million during the period, up 8.3 percent year-on-year, according to the handouts at the news conference.

Air travel will likely see 73 million trips, surging 12 percent from last year, while boat trips are predicted to hit 43 million during the period, flat year-on-year, according to the handouts.

More than 1,000 extra flights have been approved to cross the Taiwan Straits between Jan 22 and Feb 19.

By the end of 2018, the mileage of roads in operation reached 4.86 million kilometers, with expressways at 144,000 km and inland waterways at 127,000 km, according to the transportation ministry.

The Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, falls on Feb 5 this year. The festival is the most important occasion for family reunions.
In 1965, when a senior at Muhlenberg College, I again visited the hospital to attend a diagnostic staff conference. I was impressed by one of the professional staff's clear explanation of a patients psychological problems. I didnt know who this person was at the time, but vividly remembered his distinctive voice.
As for the description of Route 29, my intention was to differentiate between the busier flow of traffic that uses Route 29 north of Emmaus versus the traffic south of it. Government agencies dont do traffic counts for spots that close together, but the numbers I do have show the daily traffic on Cedar Crest Boulevard near Devonshire Road is about double the amount of vehicles on Route 29 around Beck Road. I dont think the figures are THAT dramatically different closer to Emmaus, but my experience driving through here and the best numbers available suggest there is a difference.
Zhinin clearly knew the victim was a minor; why else would he be paranoid, why else would he have to pick her up at a park and not her house; why else would he claim he was only 19 years of age or have a profile page indicating he was 15 years old, when he was in fact 33, prosecutors said.
Yang, 23, has been in Northampton County Jail since his bail was revoked earlier this month after authorities alleged he tried to flee to his native China by orchestrating his deportation. Prosecutors allege that after posting bail over the holidays, Yang attempted to leave the country by cooperating with immigration officials who could have had him deported.
Turk worked at various positions including teller, teller supervisor, general ledger coordinator and Master Card coordinator, and also had personal accounts there. She created fraudulent credit union fees, debited the fraudulent fees from the credit union's general ledger accounts, and credited those fees to the customers' accounts. She then transferred the money to her accounts. Turk also made unauthorized withdrawals from the customers' accounts and performed several wire transfers from July 11, 2014, to Feb. 9, 2016, in amounts ranging from $7,000 to $35,000.
I can understand the confusion, Giuliani said in a phone interview when asked why hes first now saying he cant guarantee no one on the campaign colluded. But I can assure you Im not trying to take the wind out of anything thats going to come out in the future.
Mama the deliverywoman, you are the apple of my eye: Boy expresses love to his mother, calls for greater social empathy

(Li Renzhi, on the left, attends class)

I hope that people can be kinder to delivery workers, because when you open the door, you may see my mama, the apple of my fathers eye, Li Renzhi, a 13-year-old student said loudly to his classmates while standing on the roof of his middle high school in Wuxi, east Chinas Jiangsu province.

The short speech quickly went viral on Chinese social media after it was played on a TV reality show called Speak out! Teens. Audiences and netizens gave Lis heartwarming speech the thumps up, which also stirred online discussion about how to best behave toward people who work in the service industry.

I think everyone should respect those who work hard, and your grateful heart is the most precious reward to their dedication. Everyone is loved and should be loving others in return, said Li in the speech.

Lis mother was both moved and surprised after hearing his speech, and appreciated his support and understanding for her career.

(A selfie of Li's mother. Photo courtesy of Li's mother)

As Chinas online food order service flourishes, the number of delivery workers in China has increased to over 8 million until 2018, according to iiMedia Research. The gold rush era of food delivery services not only showcases the industrys prosperity, but brings to light the social stigma toward logistic employees, as some people dislike them for being low-income people and others are offended by their frequent violation of traffic rules, which has evoked public concern over road safety.
Millions of women across the country and around the world joined in protest on Jan. 21, 2017, for the Women's March on Washington. For many, it was an eye-opening experience that propelled them into activism they never knew before.

Ahead of the third annual march, controversies arose around the national Women's March organization. Organizers have tried to redirect attention by unveiling a political platform called the "Women's Agenda" while planning the Washington protest but have been dogged by questions of alleged anti-Semitism, a trademark dispute over who owns the "Women's March" name, rumors of infighting and opaque financial dealings.

Some women have been weighing whether to attend or support the Women's March. Many have opted to turn out for local organizations largely unaffiliated with the national group.

After the 2017 march, The Washington Post solicited responses to an online survey of women who participated in Women's March events across the country. The Post followed up with several women this week to see what they planned for the third iteration of the march.

These are their responses, edited for length and clarity.

Addie Sochats, 39, Pittsburgh

In 2017: Attended the Women's March on Washington.

In 2019: Plans to attend the Women's March in Pittsburgh.

Then: I believe the Women's March is making impacts in bringing awareness and slowing down the "bull in the china shop" mentality of this president. I run an "Action a Day" Facebook group, and I have also become a member of two progressive groups in the Pittsburgh area. I'm also attempting to get involved in the support of Democratic candidates in my district. I didn't know about any of this before Jan. 21. Since so many people were motivated after the Women's March, I have gotten local friends more involved in the local political scene.

Now: I still run the Facebook page, "Action a Day," and we're about 400 or so people strong. I try to push one or two actions that people can take every day to help - especially right now with the shutdown. We'll be attending the Pittsburgh Women's March on Saturday, and I'll be taking my kids with me. We've been affected by the shutdown, and so I've really been aiming my activism toward that and the people affected. I heard about the Women's March controversies at a high level, but don't know too much. We all just need to come together and support everyone in this. Mostly, I want to keep the momentum going, and as a white woman who has a lot of privilege over other people, we just need to come together and support everyone in this. I'm trying to be an ally in any way possible to people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ folks or whomever they may be.

Barbara McIlvaine Smith, 68, West Chester, Pennsylvania

In 2017: Organized a bus to take women to the Women's March on Washington.

In 2019: Plans to attend the Women's March in West Chester, Pennsylvania

Then: I think that the movement has evolved from a rolling boil to a simmering boil. Those who have engaged in specific political actions are making a difference, but not a big splash. I have not been very active. My rolling boil has dropped to a simmer, mostly because I decided I've had my turn at politics (I was a state representative for 10 years), and now it's my daughter's generation that is stepping up to the plate. That gives me hope. They have more energy and the smarts to get it done.

Now: I think it's important to show up again to really just let Donald Trump and those people who think he's wonderful know that there are still many more of us who believe he is a detriment to this country. I think it's important for us women to be involved and to make our voices heard. We need to say we're still here, and we're still angry.

I had heard there was some infighting in the Women's March between Jewish women and black women, and I'm a Native American woman and I think it's ridiculous that we're dividing ourselves like this. We're all women. Let's not get down to the pettiness of "I don't feel welcome" because we don't all agree on everything. I don't think people should feel like they need to be invited. You're a woman, just show up. We're all in it together.

Marilyn Lewis, 70, Juno Beach, Florida

In 2017: Attended the Women's March on Washington.

In 2019: Plans to rally in downtown Palm Beach, though no official march is scheduled.

Then: I absolutely think this movement has been successful. It has energized people like myself to actively engage in a dialogue with our representatives. The last time I was politically active like this was in 1972 regarding Roe v. Wade. I will not give up now! I have marched in the Tax March, the March for Science, a march for climate change and in front of Brian Mast's office to protest his supporting the AHCA. We need to approach our local politicians and hold them accountable. I have joined groups called Speaking Up for America and Speaking Up for the Environment.

Now: I have become the biggest activist since that first Women's March. It changed my life. I live just outside of West Palm Beach, and I have been in front of Mar-a-Lago many times with a sign. I'm really great at signs. It's so fun making them. I've been to Marco Rubio's office so many times they know me there. I wanted to come up to D.C. for the March for Our Lives, but I can't be flying up to Washington all the time. So, I got a bunch of my girlfriends together and we went to Parkland instead. I'm not going to D.C. this year, because honestly I haven't heard that much about it and I don't think it's been promoted very well. Also, with the shutdown, I worry that D.C. is just going to be a mess. I've seen stories about trash and garbage in the parks everywhere, and so I decided not to come. To be honest, two years ago was the real march. I was there for the real deal.

Elizabeth Bechand, 60, Wynantskill, New York

In 2017: Attended the Women's March in New York.

In 2019: Plans to attend the Women of Color March in Albany, New York

Then: I am highly motivated to take action in protest of the actions of the current administration. I have joined the League of Women Voters. I write letters and send emails or make phone calls at least once a week to share my opinions about current legislation at both the state and national level. I marched in Albany on April 15 to protest the president's refusal to release his taxes. I marched in Albany again on April 22 to show my support for scientists across the world. I wish I was retired so then I could do more. I am planning to help register new voters with the League of Women Voters next month.

Now: I signed up for the Women of Color march in Albany, because I feel that there are certain things I took very much for granted - respect for people of other ethnicities, respect for women. There are so many values I feel are being threatened and if we don't show that we're taking notice, and we won't stand for it, things in this country could slip even more.

I read somewhere that a certain Women's March was postponed because they thought it would be all white people or mostly white people, and maybe because I am a white woman, but I would hope that the march has not made anyone feel unwelcome. The march I'm attending is called the Women of Color March, and my feeling is that I'm happy to support it because they are really being as inclusive as possible. Just because you choose to support something doesn't mean you have to agree with everything the leader says. I would hope people go to these marches for the right reasons. I just want to carry my sign and show that I care about my country, which is what's really the most important.

Laura Brevitz, 55, Tamworth, New Hampshire

In 2017: Attended the Women's March on Washington.

In 2019: Plans to attend a local Women's March in New Hampshire.

Then: Hundreds of thousands of women showed up to protest, and let others know the power of their own convictions, whether spoken or not. I had done zero before. The Women's March was the first time I had literally done any kind of activism. Now I regularly contact my members of Congress and tell them the positions I hope they take and why. I've donated to various groups that provide assistance to groups under attack - the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Southern Poverty Law Center, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Anti-Defamation League and others. I've attended various marches and plan to continue. I participated in a live-stream event put on by the ACLU to set up further local resistance. I am nowhere near done.

Now: I can't get down to D.C., though I would love to. So I will probably be going to one or both of the rallies here in New Hampshire. I have a few rotating signs I can take, but I'm thinking I might make a new one. I have never been this active in my life. The election galvanized me to go to that first Women's March and once I was there, it was such a wonderful time. I had never seen so many people in one place in my life. It was massive and worldwide, and the momentum has not stopped.

Vicki Bicket, 68, Barstow, California

In 2017: Attended the Women's March in Los Angeles.

In 2019: Plans to attend the Women's March in Los Angeles or Las Vegas.

Then: I've always been kind of a moderate, really. I worked for the government in Social Security, and we weren't supposed to get into partisan politics.

I am registered as a Democrat but have never voted straight-ticket. I voted for many Republicans in my life, but can't believe that now they have put party above the country.

The county where I live is pretty red, so I follow an Indivisible group on Facebook, though I have missed some of their events. I did go to a science march in Riverside, California, and an Earth Day event in San Bernardino.

I got really depressed after Trump was elected, and I felt like we have to do something. I couldn't just stand by anymore.

Now: I've gone to a lot of marches since then, in California and Las Vegas - I protested after the travel ban, and went to the Women's March again last year to help register voters.

I want the Trump administration to know we're not going away. That they're not going to continue to get away with whatever they want. If we stop, if we just sit down, we've seen what evil comes of it.

I want to go to the Women's March in Los Angeles this year, but it sounds like they're in disarray, so I'm not sure. I read that one of the original founders had been involved in questionable groups that were anti-Israel or something, and then I was looking at what Vegas had planned and they had something on their website that said, 'We're not related.' Seemed they were trying to distance themselves from it, so maybe I'll go there and support them instead.

Karen McGady, 62, Columbia, Md.

In 2017: Attended the Women's March on Washington.

In 2019: Plans to attend the Women's March in Annapolis.

Then: I am energized, but I don't know if it is having any impact on the president or his cadre of evil cronies. I am helping candidates develop outreach materials. I am also involved in a local group, have called and written elected officials about a number of issues that are of concern, and I speak out, person to person, about what is going on. I have tried to get others involved. Our very system of government is under attack - not to mention our very basic rights and freedoms.

Now: I'm appalled at the government shutdown. I'm appalled at the way President Trump treats immigrants and people fleeing their homes for fear for their lives. I am appalled at the tariffs - I see prices at the grocery store rising because of his harebrained policy. It's a complete and unmitigated disaster.

I've heard about the controversies with the Women's March, though, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go. I heard there was a lot of anti-Semitism, which is stupid and evil. I find it very off-putting. My heritage is Jewish, and I find it offensive that there's even a question. At this point, any people who carry prejudice against other people for things they can't help like skin color, religion, country of origin, religious heritage or cultural heritage, I find that absurd and offensive. So, I'll probably skip D.C. this year and just support my local huddle, or my local Indivisible group.
A Bethlehem restaurateur surprised Transportation Security Administration employees at Lehigh Valley International Airport with a hearty meal and a word of thanks for their unpaid service during the nearly monthlong shutdown of the federal government.

On the video posted to the airports Facebook page, Chris Valianatos said TSA agents often eat at his Borderline Restaurant and he was sympathetic to their plight.

Valianatos told an agent manning the checkpoint that he and his wife were flying back from Florida, so he asked his son to meet them at the airport with trays of baked ziti, sandwich wraps and salads.

The grateful agent asked Valianatos to bring the food to the agencys office so it was available to everyone, because agents arent allowed to accept gifts at the checkpoint.

Its absolutely amazing, the agent said as he shook Valianatos hand.

My wife and I go to Florida and we felt bad for them when we came down because we know they havent gotten paid, so we thought it would be a nice gesture just to bring some food, Valianatos said in a video. A lot of the workers eat at my place, so I know them.

Posted Thursday, the video amassed hundreds of shares and comments and more than 1,000 likes.

Go Chris Valianatos you are so generous, a man with a beautiful heart. God bless you my friend, one woman wrote.

The shutdown began Dec. 22 and is the longest in history. Most of the 800,000 government workers received their last paycheck three weeks ago.

Pennsylvania has 12,643 federal workers. Some, like the TSA agents, are among the 420,000 federal workers deemed essential and therefore working without pay.

Others are part of the 380,000 federal workers nationally who are furloughed.

daniel.sheehan@mcall.com

Twitter @lvstories

610-820-6598
Sara May-Silfee, the director of elections in Monroe County, said three school district sites are used by voters. The county tried to use more years ago, but ran into parking problems at small schools. Shed like to be able to use more schools, but typically doesnt because people arent thrilled by it.
This service will make it easier for our students to connect more extensively with the Allentown community as well as the Lehigh Valley more broadly and it will be a great option for our employees to travel to and from work, he said.
Our Clergy Abuse Task Force is diligently pursuing its mission to expose the truth about past wrongs and seek justice for survivors, because no person is above the law and no institution is immune from accountability, Grewal said, according to the news release. This case illustrates that we are prepared to move swiftly to investigate allegations, and where there are viable criminal charges, to pursue those charges. We urge all survivors, witnesses of sexual abuse, and others with information to call our hotline.
Most of eastern Pennsylvania is under a winter storm watch from 1 p.m. Saturday through 4 p.m. Sunday. Meteorologists are predicting total snow accumulations of 5 to 8 inches, with heavier snow in the Poconos, and ice accumulations of around one tenth of an inch possible.
Freezing rain and sleet before 8am, then snow and sleet likely between 8am and 9am, then snow likely after 9am. High near 29. North wind 15 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Little or no ice accumulation expected. New snow and sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible.
Photo via Pixabay.com

With Chinas first cyber threat intelligence platform up and running, the nations cyber defense capability that has been ever growing in the past decade sees new strength.

The platform, known as CNTIC, or China National cyber Threat Intelligence Collaboration, was established in 2017 by Chinese government bodies and eight leading domestic cyber security companies, such as 360 Enterprise Security Group and NSFocus Information Technology (NSFOCUS). Top national institutes including the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team, better known as CNCERT, also pooled their resources.

The platform can solve problems like data isolation and fragmentation. Through data collection and analysis, high-value intelligence can be formed and shared among the nation for better cyber defense, Liu Baoxu, director of CNTIC at the Institute of Information Engineering under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Peoples Daily Overseas Social Media on the sideline of Threat Intelligence Ecology Conference in Beijing on Thursday.

According to Liu, CNTIC currently has access to 200 threat intelligence (TI) sources, with nearly 100 billion pieces of information available. While welcoming more data inputs, the platform has already started its services.

TI, according to Techopedia, is the in-depth analysis of potential computer and network security threats to an organization. The more information gathered, the easier for a company to take proper action against a threat. It goes beyond any particular company, since it can cast a wider net with more cooperation.

Under the guidance of CNCERT, the Threat Intelligence Ecology Conference was the first high-level conference on TI to be held in China, after years of seminar-level discussions on the topic.

The concept of TI came to China in 2015 amid the nations rising awareness of reacting proactively to cyber threats, instead of reacting passively to threats from ransomware and Trojan horses for instance.

The call to strengthen intelligence sharing was proposed by President Xi Jinping on April 19, 2016, during a seminar on cybersecurity and informatization.

President Xi said it is important to establish a unified and efficient network security risk reporting mechanism, an intelligence sharing mechanism, and a research and judgment disposal mechanism. Specifically, the president said that intelligence sharing mechanism should be co-established by government and enterprises to make full use of the vast amount of cybersecurity information.

One year later, on June 1, 2017, Chinas first Cybersecurity Law came into effect, marking a momentous boost to the cyber industry. In October 2018, China also issued the nations first national standards on TI issues, sharing, and applications to further regulate the business and market.

However, some companies tend to withhold their data while asking for more from others. It is therefore important to build up a healthy threat intelligence ecology so that all parties concerned can enjoy their benefit, Liu noted.

In addition, Pan Guanyuan, a cybersecurity official with the Ministry of Public Security, said at the conference that AI cannot replace a high-level intelligence analyst, so it is urgent to train high-level TI analysts who are adept at data collection and analysis.

National standards and the industrys call for the construction of an ecology are to facilitate TI sharing across the industry. It is also international practice to set up a national-level TI platforms or form company alliances for TI sharing. The fact that China has attached greater significance to cyber defense from top to bottom over the years has gradually had an effect on society and the economy, with the nations cyber security awareness on the rise, Austin Zhao Weijing, a research manager with IDC Consulting China, told Peoples Daily Overseas Social Media.

Compared with other countries, Chinas TI platform construction holds some advantages, but compared to the United States, we remain relatively weaker, by which I mean we do not possess intelligence on a global basis, only domestically, Wu Yunkun, president of 360 Enterprise Security Group, told Peoples Daily Overseas Social Media.

Back in the early 2000s, cyber defense in China used to be checkup-oriented, as government bodies and companies only take actions in accordance to checkup requirements only. As the nation moves forward with information and internet technology, the complex and constant menaces facing everybody gradually turns passive defense into proactive measures, including situation awareness (SA), Wu introduced at the conference.

Currently, Chinas cyber defense construction has entered a new stage where opportunities sprout along with new technologies, from cloud services and big data to the Internet of Things (IoT), according to Wu.

This is where we are expected to outrun the others, that is, if we can make cybersecurity the priority during project design, construction, and management, he added.
RTHK: Democrats want answers over new Trump claim

Senior Democrats have vowed to look into a report that President Donald Trump ordered his personal attorney to lie to Congress about his dealings with Russia.

Adam Schiff, who heads the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives, was reacting to a report on the BuzzFeed website that Trump ordered Michael Cohen to lie to Congress in 2017. The report said Trump told Cohen to lie that lie that negotiations about a Trump Tower in Moscow had ended before the presidential campaign began.

"The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date," Schiff tweeted. "We will do what's necessary to find out if it's true."

Trump also supported a Cohen plan to visit Russia during the presidential campaign to meet President Vladimir Putin to jump-start the Moscow tower negotiations according to BuzzFeed, which cited two unnamed federal law enforcement officials as sources.

The trip never materialised, and Trump has repeatedly and emphatically denied dealings with Russia during the campaign.

Following the BuzzFeed report, Trump tweeted that Cohen is "Lying to reduce his jail time!" - even though he's already been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to tax crimes, bank fraud and campaign violations. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Packer and her former husband, David Packer, adopted Grace and her younger brother in 2006. David Packer pleaded guilty in 2011 to sexually abusing Grace and another girl  one of at least 30 foster children the couple had in their Allentown home, authorities said. He was sentenced to 18 months to five years in prison and required to register as a sex offender under Megans Law.
Allentown State Hospital, from nearly every angle, has almost as much screen time as the films stars, which include Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson and James McAvoy, all of whom were spotted around Allentown during filming in the fall of 2017. All but about 30 minutes of the just-over two-hour film is set in the hospital. Those in the Valley who grew up near the hospital or worked there until the hospital closed in 2010 have been eagerly awaiting the film to see how the hospital was used in filming.
Driveway access to the property will be at Grange Road opposite an entrance to the Air Products campus, which Anderson said is a collaborative effort between the two to better control traffic during peak travel hours.
Les membres du Cabinet ont pris note de la visite officielle du President de la Republique du Mozambinque du 30 Janvier au 2 Fevrier 2019, que la hausse du 4% sera faite sur les pensions et le Social Aid entre autres.

1. Cabinet has taken note that HE Mr Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, President of the Republic of Mozambique, would effect a State Visit to Mauritius from 30 January to 02 February 2019 and would be the Chief Guest on the occasion of the Commemoration of the 184th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery in Mauritius. During the Visit, the President would, among others, pay a courtesy call on the Acting President of the Republic of Mauritius, have a working session with the Prime Minister, and attend a Business Forum organised by the Economic Development Board.

2. Cabinet has agreed to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of Mozambique and the Government of the Republic of Mauritius in the field of tourism. The Memorandum of Understanding provides, inter alia, for cooperation in the following areas:

(a) promotion of both countries as attractive tourist destinations;

(b) technical assistance in the field of tourism marketing;

(c) facilitating the flow of investment in the area of tourism development; and

(d) encouraging greater participation of the private sector.

3. Cabinet has agreed to Mauritius signing of the ESA-UK Economic Partnership Agreement on 22 January 2019 in London. This will preserve market access and provide predictability and legal certainty to Mauritian operators exporting to the United Kingdom, independent of any UK-EU BREXIT outcomes. The Agreement contains three main chapters namely, trade in goods, fisheries and development cooperation.

4. Cabinet has taken note that the 16th Meeting of the Mauritius-Seychelles Joint Commission of the Extended Continental Shelf was held in January 2019 in the Seychelles to review progress in the elaboration of the institutional and regulatory framework for the Mauritius-Seychelles Joint Management of the Extended Continental Shelf in the Mascarene Plateau Region.

5. Cabinet has taken note of the elaboration of a National Blood Policy by the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, to enable the National Blood Transfusion Service to promote blood safety and to safeguard the health of donors and recipients alike. The Policy addresses the following issues:

(a) requirements for a quality system to maintain the highest possible standards in all aspects of blood transfusion;

(b) provision of adequate supply of safe blood; and

(c) promotion of safety and health of blood donors, recipients of blood and blood products and health personnel.

The Policy would, through the setting up of a National Blood Advisory Committee, provide guidance in the management and coordination of the National Blood Transfusion Service, ensure the mobilisation of resources, provide guidance in the management of human resources and consider and approve requests for exchange of blood and blood products in specific circumstances.

6. Cabinet has taken note of the development of the National Health Accounts (NHA) 2018 for the Republic of Mauritius, including the island of Rodrigues. The main objective of developing NHA 2018 is to support health system governance and decision-making. It would also, inter alia, support the monitoring of the health-related Sustainable Development Goal 3, the monitoring of universal health coverage and the updating WHOs Global Health Expenditure Database.

Cabinet has also taken note of the constitution of the National Health Accounts Committee 2019 with the Lead Health Analyst as Chairperson.

7. Cabinet has taken note that following the decision of Government regarding the payment of the compensation of Rs400 as from January 2019, the Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity, and Environment and Sustainable Development would adjust the rates of pensions and social aid payable under the Social Aid Act by 4%, and the new rates would be effective as from January 2019.

8. Cabinet has taken note that the Minister of Agro-Industry and Food Security would make the Mauritius Cane Industry Authority (Sale Price of Molasses) Regulations 2019 for the sale price of molasses for crop years 2017, 2018 and 2019. The sale price per ton of molasses to distiller-bottlers producing potable alcohol for the domestic market or any person using molasses to produce syrups and beverages would not exceed Rs3,500.

9. Cabinet has agreed to the hosting of the Atelier regional des Correspondants nationaux de la Francophonie in Mauritius on 27 and 28 February 2019. The Atelier regional would bring together the correspondants nationaux of the Indian Ocean region namely, from Comoros, Reunion Island/France, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Djibouti, and representatives of the operators of the Bureau Regional de lOrganisation Internationale de la Francophonie and key francophone actors/partners. Some 30 participants would attend the Atelier regional.

10. Cabinet has agreed to the organisation of an International Gita Mahotsav in Mauritius by the India-Mauritius Trade and Cultural Friendship Forum, the State Government of Kurukshetra, the Kurukshetra Development Board of Haryana, the State Government of Tripura and socio-cultural organisations in Mauritius, from 13 to 15 February 2019. A series of activities including an exhibition on Bhagavad Gita, a two-day seminar on the theme Gita as an epitome of peace, brotherhood and humanity and a Mahayajna would be organised on that occasion and some 300 delegates from overseas would attend the event.

11. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the recent mission of the Minister of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives to South Africa where he participated in the Ministerial Conference of the Partnership for Action on Green Economy on Advancing Inclusive, Green and Sustainable Economies. The aims of the Conference were to discuss on the tools and strategies for shaping greener economies to achieve the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The Conference focused on themes such as green investment, strategies and policies for a green economy, social and economic inclusion, sustainable consumption and production and the circular economy.

In the margins of the Conference, the Minister had bilateral discussions with

Mr Frank Rijsberman, Director General of the Global Green Growth Institute, Ms Astrid Schomaker, Director of the Global Sustainable Development, Environment European Commission and Mr Steven Stone, Chief of the Resources and Markets Branch, UN Environment to identify future possible assistance, towards greening of the SME sector in Mauritius.

12. Cabinet has taken note of the constitution of the Tissue Donation, Removal and Transplant Board with Dr (Mrs) M.B.M. Timol, Acting Director-General, Health Services, as Chairperson.

13. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of the following Boards/Council:

(i) the Board of Governors of the Universite des Mascareignes with Mrs B. Tahir as Chairperson;

(ii) the Fashion and Design Board with the Permanent Secretary of the Industry Division of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Consumer Protection as Chairperson;

(iii) the Council of the National Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Foundation with Mr Medavy Pillay Munien as Chairperson; and

(iv) the Sugar Investment Trust (SIT) Board with Mr Preetam Boodhun as Chairperson.

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Gold Surges on Stock Selloff

Gold investment demand reversed sharply higher in recent months, fueling a strong gold rally. The big stock-market selloff rekindled interest in prudently diversifying stock-heavy portfolios with counter-moving gold. These mounting investment-capital inflows into gold are likely to persist and intensify. Both weaker stock markets and higher gold prices will continue to drive more investment demand, growing golds upleg.

Early in Q418, gold reached a major inflection point. It languished during the first three quarters of 2018, down 8.5% year-to-date by the end of Q3. Investors wanted nothing to do with alternative investments with the stock markets powering to new record highs. The flagship S&P 500 broad-market stock index (SPX) had rallied 9.0% in the first 3/4ths of last year. That left gold deeply out of favor heading into Q4.

But a critical psychological switch was flipped as the SPX started sliding last quarter. After long years with little material downside, stock traders had been lulled into overpowering complacency. They were shocked awake as the SPX plunged 14.0% in Q4, its worst quarter since Q311. They poured back into gold as stocks burned, driving it a strong 7.6% higher in Q4! Rekindled investment demand was the driver.

Unfortunately gold investment demand is rather murky. Gold is bought and sold every day all over the world, in countless venues ranging from major exchanges to tiny third-world merchants. Tracking even the majority of this in real-time is impossible. The best-available data on global gold investment comes from the World Gold Council. But it is only published once per quarter, about a month after quarter-ends.

I cant wait to see the WGCs new Q418 Gold Demand Trends report due out in early February. These quarterly GDTs are very well done and essential reading for all investors. But while detailed and informative, their resolution is really low only being released 4 times per year. Investors need alternative data sources to understand and game whats going on with gold investment demand between the GDTs, like now.

Thankfully theres an excellent proxy of investors capital flows into and out of gold published daily, a high-resolution read. It is the physical gold bullion held in trust for the shareholders of the worlds dominant gold exchange-traded fund. That of course is the American GLD SPDR Gold Shares. GLD was created and launched by the World Gold Council way back in November 2004, and has grown into a gold juggernaut.

As part of the WGCs GDT work each quarter, it tracks the worlds top 10 physically-backed gold ETFs. At the end of Q318 when you could hardly give away gold to American investors, GLDs holdings still accounted for nearly 32% of the worlds top-10 gold-ETF total. Add in the 2nd-largest ETF which is also American, the IAU iShares Gold Trust, and these two leading ETFs control over 3/7ths of the global top-10 total.

The primary constituency for American gold ETFs is American stock investors. So what they are doing in terms of capital flows through GLD especially is exceedingly important for gold. In recent years most of the major quarterly moves in gold prices are nearly fully explainable by GLDs holdings alone! They must be watched daily, as changes in them have proven the key to golds fortunes. Its important to understand why.

The American stock markets are the biggest in the world, and American investors capital is vast beyond compare. At the end of Q318, the collective market capitalization of the 500 elite SPX stocks alone was a staggering $26,141.4b. By comparison, GLDs total physical-gold-bullion holdings of 742.2 metric tons were only worth $28.4b. Thats less than 1/9th of a single percent, which for all intents and purposes is zero.

Thus if even the tiniest fraction of US stock-market capital migrates into or out of GLD shares, gold itself moves big. This dominant gold ETF effectively acts as a conduit between stock-market capital and gold. But as these colossal pools of capital slosh into and out of GLD, it is always at risk of failing its mission of tracking the gold price. The supply and demand of GLD shares and gold are independent of each other.

So differential buying or selling of GLD shares by American stock investors must be directly equalized into the underlying global gold market. This mechanism is simple in concept. When GLD shares are being bought faster than gold itself, this ETFs price threatens to decouple from golds price to the upside. To prevent this, GLDs managers need to shunt that excess GLD-share demand directly into gold in real-time.

They issue enough new GLD shares to offset that excess demand, and then use the proceeds to buy physical gold bullion held in trust for GLDs shareholders. So when GLDs daily holdings are rising, that reveals American stock-market capital is flowing into gold. This GLD capital pipeline into gold also works similarly on the downside, when American stock investors dump GLD shares faster than gold is being sold.

GLDs share price will soon disconnect from golds price to the downside. This ETFs managers avoid that by buying back GLD shares to sop up the excess supply. They raise the capital to do this by selling some of GLDs physical-gold-bullion holdings. So when GLDs daily holdings are falling, American stock-market capital is being pulled back out of gold. These holdings closely mirror world gold-investment trends.

My chart this week compares GLDs daily gold holdings in metric tons with the gold price over the past several years or so. After falling to a major 6.1-year secular low in December 2015, gold started powering higher in a new bull market. Since gold hasnt retreated 20%+ from its bull-to-date peak in July 2016, this bull remains alive and well. It has been overwhelmingly driven by American stock-market capital flows via GLD.

Lets start in the middle of 2018, when GLDs holdings were stable above 800t which has proven major support for this bull market. In much of the first half of last year, the stock markets were largely grinding sideways after the SPX suffered a sharp-yet-shallow-and-short correction in early February. The SPX finally started climbing decisively again in early Q3, ultimately achieving 5 new all-time record highs in that quarter.

That stoked incredible euphoria, convincing investors these amazing stock markets could rally indefinitely. By late September the SPX had skyrocketed 333.2% higher over 9.5 years, making for the 2nd-largest and 1st-longest stock bull in US history! With general stocks looking invincible, there was little incentive to prudently diversify stock-heavy portfolios with gold. American stock investors were actually fleeing it.

In Q3 they sold GLD shares so aggressively that it forced a serious 76.8t or 9.4% draw in GLDs holdings! All that selling pressure pushed world gold prices 4.9% lower that quarter. And GLD alone was mostly responsible. The WGCs Q3 GDT showed total global gold demand actually grew a slight 0.6% year-over-year that quarter to 964.3t. Every major demand category grew considerably with a lone exception.

Global investment demand plunged 20.8% YoY to 194.9t. The WGC breaks it out into two major sub-categories, physical bar-and-coin demand and gold-ETF demand. The former was very strong, surging 28.0% YoY to 298.1t. But the latter plummeted from +13.2t in Q317 to -103.2t in Q318! Gold wouldve rallied nicely that quarter if not for GLD, which accounted for a commanding 2/3rds of that total world ETF drop.

When American stock investors are sustaining selling GLD shares faster than gold is being sold, it forces the world gold price lower. That serious Q318 GLD-holdings draw was the worst by far since back in Q416. That was when Trumps surprise election victory with Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress ignited a major stock-market rally on hopes for big tax cuts soon. The resulting euphoria hammered gold.

While the SPX only climbed 3.3% in Q416, 8 new all-time record highs were achieved. American stock investors jettisoned gold with reckless abandon, both to chase that stock surge and out of relief that the political uncertainty didnt trigger a stock selloff as feared. The differential GLD-share selling proved so intense that this ETF suffered a colossal 125.8t or 13.3% holdings draw, which crushed gold 12.7% lower!

Total world gold demand per the latest WGC GDT dropped 103.4t or 9.0% YoY that quarter. That huge GLD draw alone was 122% of that! Overall global gold-ETF demand fell 107.0t from -66.4t in Q415 to -173.4t in Q416. GLDs draw was 118% of that. So literally the only reason gold plunged in Trumps election quarter was American stock investors pulling big capital out of GLD forcing it to sell physical gold bullion.

Compared to that extreme dump, gold was relatively resilient in Q318. While GLDs draw ran 61% of that Q416 episode, gold only declined 39% as much. There were hints the stock markets were ready to roll over into a long-overdue new bear. On Q3s final trading day with the SPX just under its recent record peak, I published an essay explaining why Q4s first-ever full-speed Fed QT was this stock bulls death knell.

Indeed within a week of Fed QT ramping up to $50b per month of monetary destruction, the SPX started to falter. Its first serious down day erupted on October 10th when this leading stock-market benchmark plunged 3.3%. That triggered a major sentiment shift in gold. GLD enjoyed a large 1.2% holdings build that day on heavy differential GLD-share buying. Those were its first capital inflows at all since late July.

That very day American stock investors faith in perpetually-levitating stock markets started to crack, they started remembering gold. As Q4 wore on and that SPX selloff snowballed into a 4%+ pullback, a 10%+ correction, and narrowly missed new-bear-market territory at -19.8% on Christmas Eve, gold investment demand continued growing. Tending to rally when stocks fall, gold is essential for wisely diversifying portfolios.

By the time the dust settled on Q4, American stock-market capital sloshing back into gold via that GLD conduit had fueled a 45.4t or 6.1% holdings build. That was the biggest by far since way back in Q216 soon after this latest gold bull was born. All that differential GLD-share buying forced gold 7.6% higher in Q4 as the SPX plunged 14.0%. The WGCs coming Q418 GDT will likely prove GLD largely drove golds gains.

The last time American stock investors started returning to gold after stock-market corrections spooked them was in the first half of 2016. Remember gold had just slumped to a major 6.1-year secular low, so it was deeply out of favor suffering incredibly-bearish sentiment. Yet in Q116 GLDs holdings skyrocketed an epic 176.9t of 27.5% higher, which catapulted gold up 16.1%. Nothing else mattered per the WGC.

Overall world gold demand soared 188.1t or 17.1% YoY that quarter. GLDs enormous build driven by American stock investors returning to gold accounted for an amazing 94% of that! If their vast pools of capital hadnt sloshed back into gold via GLD that quarter, this bull never wouldve been born. And that utter dominance of American stock-market-capital inflows through GLD persisted in the subsequent quarter.

In Q216 gold surged another 7.4% higher on a 130.8t or 16.0% GLD-holdings build. The WGC reports that total world gold demand climbed 123.5t or 13.2% YoY that quarter. GLDs huge build alone was responsible for 106% of that. So again without American stock-market capital moving into gold through that leading GLD conduit, that initial gold-bull upleg wouldnt even exist. GLD dominates the gold world.

There have been 13 quarters since Q415 when todays gold bull was born. 8 of them have seen major gold moves higher or lower. In all but one of these cases, GLDs builds or draws accounted for the vast majority of the overall yearly change in total world gold demand. In the remaining 5 quarters where gold ground sideways or moved comparatively modestly, GLDs holdings didnt change very much either.

So theres no doubt GLDs strong build in Q418 ignited and fueled by this new SPX selloff is an important omen for gold. Once American stock investors start buying gold again via GLD shares in a big way, the resulting major gold uplegs tend to become self-feeding. Investors love chasing performance. The higher gold rallies, the more stock investors want to own GLD. And the more GLD they buy, the faster gold climbs.

And while correction-grade 10%+ stock-market selloffs are the catalysts that trigger renewed investment demand for gold, it usually persists well after the SPX bottoms and bounces. In essentially the first half of 2016, gold blasted 29.9% higher in just 6.7 months. That was totally fueled by an epic 351.1t or 55.7% build in GLDs holdings as American stock investors rushed back into gold. That upleg peaked in early July.

But the 13.3% SPX correction that spawned it actually bottomed in mid-February. Over the following 4.9 months leading into golds top, the SPX blasted 16.4% higher! Nearly 3/4ths of golds upleg duration came after the stock selloff that ignited it, and just over 3/4ths of GLDs upleg build also happened after the SPX had bottomed. Major gold uplegs take on a life of their own after being triggered by stock selloffs.

So even if todays stock selloff ended at a severe correction on Christmas Eve and this record bull still has farther to run, gold investment demand should remain strong on upside momentum. But far more likely the long-overdue young new stock bear is being born. The SPXs enormous and violent surge since that deep Christmas Eve low looks exactly like a classic bear-market rally technically, an ominous sign.

Bear-market rallies are the biggest and fastest ever witnessed in all of stock-market history. They soar out of major lows in sharp V-bounces on frantic short covering, then gradually run out of momentum over a couple to few weeks. If the stock markets are indeed rolling over into a new bear, far more weakness is guaranteed over the next couple years or so. That will fuel sustained gold-investment-demand growth.

Bear markets in stocks following major bulls are nothing to be trifled with. The last couple bears in the early and late 2000s saw the SPX fall 49.1% over 2.6 years and 56.8% over 1.4 years! 50% bears are common and expected after large bulls. And if we are early in the next bear, gold will likely be the top-performing asset class while it runs its course. American stock investors buying GLD shares will lead the way.

So far in January 2019, this huge apparent bear-market rally in the SPX has stalled investment demand for gold. Like many bear rallies, it has rekindled great greed and complacency. So GLD hasnt experienced many significant builds yet in this young new year. But those capital inflows will return with a vengeance once the SPX starts rolling over and weakening again, likely driving gold sharply higher like in early 2016.

Again that sustained investment demand in H116 catapulted the yellow metal 29.9% higher pretty much exclusively on differential GLD-share buying. A mere 20% upleg off golds recent mid-August low driven by record gold-futures short selling would catapult it back up over $1400. Anything above the bull-to-date peak of $1365 in July 2016 is going to unleash a flood of new investor excitement in gold and big demand.

So this gold bull is likely to grow a lot larger in coming quarters. The greatest beneficiaries will be the gold miners stocks, as their profits leverage golds gains. Roughly during that mostly-H116 major gold upleg, the leading GDX and GDXJ gold-stock ETFs rocketed 151.2% and 202.5% higher! The better gold stocks with good fundamentals are going to soar again during golds next upleg, which is already well underway.

The earlier you get deployed, the greater your gains will be. Thats why the trading books in our popular weekly and monthly newsletters are currently full of better gold and silver miners mostly added in recent months. The gains we won in 2016 were amazing the last time American stock investors returned to gold. Our newsletter stock trades that year averaged +111.0% and +89.7% annualized realized gains respectively!

The gold-stock gains should be similarly huge in this next major gold upleg. The gold miners are the last undervalued sector in these still-very-expensive stock markets, and rally with gold during stock-market bears unlike anything else. To multiply your wealth in the stock markets you have to do your homework and stay abreast, which our newsletters really help. They explain whats going on in the markets, why, and how to trade them with specific stocks. You can subscribe today for just $12 per issue!

The bottom line is gold investment demand began surging again in Q4, ignited by that major stock-market selloff. American stock investors started remembering gold, returning to GLD to diversify their portfolios which drove gold sharply higher. Once gold begins returning to favor after such major inflection points, its uplegs tend to grow large. Investment buying is self-feeding, with higher gold prices enticing in ever more capital.

Gold buying begets gold buying long after stock markets bounce, as investors love chasing performance. But odds are these lofty stock markets are now rolling over into a major new bear, portending much more weakness to come. Gold investment demand will thrive for years in that scenario, catapulting both gold and the stocks of its miners far higher. Theres no better place to multiply wealth during bear markets.

Adam Hamilton, CPA

So how can you profit from this information? We publish an acclaimed monthly newsletter, Zeal Intelligence , that details exactly what we are doing in terms of actual stock and options trading based on all the lessons we have learned in our market research. Please consider joining us each month for tactical trading details and more in our premium Zeal Intelligence service at  www.zealllc.com/subscribe.htm

Questions for Adam? I would be more than happy to address them through my private consulting business. Please visit www.zealllc.com/adam.htm for more information.

Thoughts, comments, or flames? Fire away at zelotes@zealllc.com . Due to my staggering and perpetually increasing e-mail load, I regret that I am not able to respond to comments personally. I will read all messages though and really appreciate your feedback!

Copyright 2000 - 2019 Zeal Research ( www.ZealLLC.com )

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Crude Oil Price Will Find Strong Resistance Between $52~55

Our Adaptive Fibonacci modeling system is suggesting Crude Oil may have already reached very strong resistance levels just above $50 ppb. It is our opinion that a failed rally above $55 ppb will result in another downward price move where prices could retest the $42 low  or lower.

You can see from this Daily Crude oil chart that price has formed a consolidated price channel between $50 and $53 ppb. This price channel aligns with a November 2018 price consolidation zone. It is our belief that any advance above $55~56 ppb, will result in a new upward price move to $64-65 ppb.

This Weekly crude oil chart highlights the Fibonacci projected price zones that represent the incredibly strong resistance level currently setup in Crude. The Weekly chart shows a zone between $50~56 as a critical resistance zone. One key element of Fibonacci price theory is that price must always attempt to seek out new highs or new lows as it rotates. Thus, if this current upside move fails to establish new highs above this resistance zone, then it must move lower to attempt to establish new lows. This means the $40 price target is a very viable immediate objective.

Global demand for oil, as well as global economic data, could be key to understand the future demand and price for oil. At this point, a new upper fractal top formation will generate new Fibonacci price targets to the downside. If our opinion proves to be correct, we will learn of these new price targets within a few weeks.

Want to learn how we called the move in Oil from $76 to $43? Visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com/FreeResearch/ to read all of our recent research posts. We help traders find and execute better trade by using our proprietary tools to keep them informed and to alert them to new trade opportunities. Visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com to learn how we can help you make 2019 a fantastic year.

Chris Vermeulen

www.TheTechnicalTraders.com

Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic



Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better.



His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility.



He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk

Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect.

Chris Vermeulen Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




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The End of Apple!

Oh man, thats almost a months rent for me

Here I am sitting in a cab in New York City.

Im headed uptown to Columbia University where were holding the first-ever American Disruption Summit.

You can register to watch for free here more on that in a minute.

The driver and I are talking about the absurd price tag of the latest Apple (AAPL) iPhone.

Hes shocked when I tell him the cheapest model is $1,149.

Who can afford that? he asks.

In todays letter Im going to show you why Apple stock is a terrible investment.

Apple has had an incredible decade.

Since the iPhone debuted in 2007 its sales have jumped 10X.

Its stock has appreciated over 700%. And up until November it was the worlds largest publicly traded company.

But two weeks ago, Apple management issued a rare warning that shocked investors.

For the first time since 2002 it slashed its earnings forecast. The stock cratered 10% for its worst day in six years.

This capped off a horrible few months that saw Apple stock crash roughly 35% since its November peak.

The plunge erased $446 billion in shareholder value the biggest wipeout of wealth in a single stock ever.

Apple has a dirty secret

From looking at its sales numbers, you wouldnt know anything is wrong.

Apples revenue has marched up since 2001, as you can see here.

By the looks of the chart, Apples business is perfectly healthy. But theres a secret hidden behind these headline numbers.

Although Apples revenue has grown it is selling less iPhones every year.

In fact, iPhone unit sales peaked way back in 2015. Last year Apple sold 14 million fewer phones than it did three years ago.

Apple has kept revenue growth alive solely by raising iPhone prices...

In 2010 you could buy a brand new iPhone 4 for 199 bucks.

In 2014 the newly released iPhone 6 cost 299 bucks.

As I mentioned, the cheapest model of the latest iPhone X costs $1,149!

Thats more expensive than many laptop computers. Its a 500% hike from what Apple charged eight years ago.

Its an iron law of disruption that technology gets cheaper over time...

Not all that long ago, a flat-screen high-definition TV was a luxury. Even a small one cost thousands of dollars.

Today you can get a 55-inch one from Best Buy for $500.

In 1984, Motorola sold the first cell phone for $4,000.

According to research firm IDC, the average price for a smartphone today is $320.

Cell phone prices have come down roughly 92%...

But Apple has hiked its smartphone prices by 500%!

Frankly, its remarkable that Apple has managed to pull this off.

But let me tell you Apple is a disruptor in decline.

It comes down to the lifecycle of disruptive businesses.

Twelve years ago only 120 million people owned a cell phone. Today over 5 billion people own a smartphone, according to IDC.

Apple was the driving force behind this explosion. As the dominant player in a rapidly growing market, it grew into the most profitable publicly traded company in history.

As I mentioned, iPhone sales growth stalled out in 2015. This wouldve been the end of the line for most businesses.

But Apple did a masterful job of extending its prime through price hikes. Its prestigious brand and army of die-hard fans allowed it to charge prices that seemed crazy just a few years ago.

But now iPhone price hikes have gone about as far as they can go.

After all whats the most you would pay for a smartphone?

$1,500?

$2,000?

You might wonder how bad, exactly, is the decline in iPhone sales?

Its so bad that Apple now keeps it a secret.

In November, Apple announced it would stop disclosing iPhone unit sales.

This is a very important piece of information. Investors deserve to know it. Yet Apple now keeps it secret

Keep in mind, the iPhone is Apples crown jewel.

It generates two-thirds of Apples overall sales.

Let that sink in

A publicly traded company that makes most of its money from selling phones is no longer telling investors how many phones it sells!

And its other business lines cant pick up the slack for falling iPhone sales.

Twenty percent of Apples revenue comes from iPads and computers. Those segments are also stagnant.

Which means 86% of Apples business is going nowhere.

Could Apple go the other way and slash iPhone prices?

I ran the numbers. If Apple cut prices back to 2016 levels, it would have to sell 41 million additional phones just to match 2018s revenue.

Weve seen the fall of a cell phone giant before

Before Apple, Nokia (NOK) was king of cell phones.

In 2007 the front-cover headline of a major business magazine read:

Nokia: One billion customerscan anyone catch the cell phone king?

The iPhone debuted in 2007. Heres Nokias stock chart since then:

Before I sign off, an important announcement

Next Wednesday Im taking part in the first-ever American Disruption Summit.

Its going to be a fun and profitable night for all attendees. Just for showing up, youll get the name and ticker of a small $5 disruptor stock that has 500%+ upside in the next two and a half years.

Were broadcasting from New York City, but you can watch online for free. Go here to reserve your seat.

As a RiskHedge reader, you already know how important disruption is to your investing results. At the American Disruption Summit, were gathering together world-class disruption experts to tell us where theyre putting their money in 2019.

Hope to see you there. You can reserve your seat right here.

And if you cant make the premiere, no worriesa replay will be available to all who register.

By Stephen McBride

http://www.riskhedge.com

 2019 Copyright Stephen McBride - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




(Photo courtesy of Shanghai Childrens Hospital)

Two robots have recently been hired to deliver medicine at the Shanghai Childrens Hospital, marking a historic leap forward in the application of artificial intelligence to hospital logistics, ThePaper.cn reported on Jan. 15.

The Childrens Hospital of Shanghai is the first hospital in the city to introduce smart logistics in the form of robots.

The two robots worked 93 days from September to December last year, completing a total of 1,600 deliveries, and covering a total mileage of 218 kilometers.

The hospital said that two more robots will arrive in 2019, and will be responsible for medicine delivery on four floors of the inpatient department.

(Photo courtesy of Shanghai Childrens Hospital)

Yu Guangjun, president of the hospital, noted that the high turnover rate is a significant characteristic of the nursing profession. Therefore, the hospital decided to bring in the robots to improve efficiency and guarantee safety.

Additionally, robots running through the wards can also comfort child patients, Yu explained.

(Photo courtesy of Shanghai Childrens Hospital)

The robots may be used in more hospital scenarios in the future, such as for medical waste disposal, food delivery, smart nursing, and guiding services.

Robot technologies are an important part of the digitization of hospitals, Yu said, adding that they are easy to replicate for hospitals that have similar demands.
No for Brexit Deal, Yes for May. And What for Gold?

71 days. Thats all that separates us from the Brexit deadline. And the UK has still no clear path forward exiting the EU. Does gold have one?

Today's analysis features possible scenarios for the UK and for gold along with their likelihood. In the current political situation, it's a must-read.

Parliament Rejects Mays Brexit Deal

On Tuesday, the UK Parliament voted on Theresa Mays Brexit deal for leaving the EU. As expected, the MPs rejected her proposition. What was really surprising was the scale of defeat. The parliament voted 432-202 against Mays divorce deal, marking the worst defeat in modern British history.

The reason for that humiliating loss was the split within the Conservative Party. Mays plan was a compromise attempting to soften the divorce with the EU. But, as it often happens with compromises, it did not satisfy anyone. Some Tories wanted a more decisive split with the EU, while others wanted to remain closer or not leave at all. Both groups joined forces, crushing the deal.

What Next?

Now, the key question is what will happen next. Its hard to say, as  we agree here with Mays post-vote statement  it is clear that the House does not support this deal, but tonights vote tells us nothing about what it does support.

Generally speaking, there are several options. The first scenario is that May will quickly deliver a new and better deal, which will be accepted by the Parliament. This plan B will pave way for a formal and an orderly exit. Given that the EU is not eager to make concessions that would please Tories, its not a likely scenario.

The second option is that there is no deal at all. It means that by March 29th, 2019, the UK will crash out of the EU without a formal plan in place. The consequences could be substantial, as the disorderly Brexit would disrupt supply chains and bring chaos, at least initially. Trade with the EU would switch then to World Trade Organization rules, hitting the economy. Given that the country will face unprecedented uncertainty in that scenario, gold should shine.

The third option is that there will be a second referendum on Brexit, as many British people call for it. We agree that it could undermine the idea of a referendum, but it would not be unprecedented course of action, actually. As the Remainers would have higher chances during the second vote, gold bulls should not like that scenario. We have suggested a long time ago that the UK will never exit the EU, so we would not be very surprised. However, as Theresa May  who is against the idea of the second referendum  won the no-confidence vote yesterday, that scenario is also unlikely, at least for now.

The last option we would like to analyze is the most probable one in my view. As May won the no-confidence vote, she will try to delay Article 50 and come up with a new deal (or a way to not deliver Brexit), perhaps similar to the Norwegian model, which is allegedly gaining momentum among the Conservatives. It would be the least damaging form of Brexit, as it would allow the UK to retain the full access to the single market. But the country would have much less say in shaping its rules than it does now as an EU member. However, its not an easy path, as the EU would agree to extend the deadline in exchange for further concessions. And May would probably have to cooperate with the Labor Party as well to gain the support for plan B.

Implications for Gold

What does it all mean for the gold market? Well, it seems that markets have already priced in the worst. Why do we think so? Just look at the chart below, which shows that USD/GBP exchange rate.

Chart 1: USD/GBP exchange rate





As one can see, sterling lost before the vote, but rallied after it, on expectations that the defeat would force the British government to buy more time and continue their negotiations. In other words, investors believe that on March 29th, the UK will still remain within the EU. As the US dollar weakened against the pound sterling, gold prices inched up yesterday, as one can see in the chart below.

Chart 2: Gold prices from January 14 to January 16, 2019.





However, gold failed to jump above $1,300. Its a rather bearish signal given the fact that the United Kingdom is now in the deepest political crisis in half a century, while the US government is partially closed for almost a month. It suggests that gold needs even more serious trigger to rally.

Thank you.

If you enjoyed the above analysis and would you like to know more about the gold ETFs and their impact on gold price, we invite you to read the April Market Overview report. If you're interested in the detailed price analysis and price projections with targets, we invite you to sign up for our Gold & Silver Trading Alerts . If you're not ready to subscribe at this time, we invite you to sign up for our gold newsletter and stay up-to-date with our latest free articles. It's free and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Arkadiusz Sieron



Sunshine Profits Market Overview Editor

Disclaimer

All essays, research and information found above represent analyses and opinions of Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA and Sunshine Profits' associates only. As such, it may prove wrong and be a subject to change without notice. Opinions and analyses were based on data available to authors of respective essays at the time of writing. Although the information provided above is based on careful research and sources that are believed to be accurate, Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA and his associates do not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the data or information reported. The opinions published above are neither an offer nor a recommendation to purchase or sell any securities. Mr. Radomski is not a Registered Securities Advisor. By reading Przemyslaw Radomski's, CFA reports you fully agree that he will not be held responsible or liable for any decisions you make regarding any information provided in these reports. Investing, trading and speculation in any financial markets may involve high risk of loss. Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA, Sunshine Profits' employees and affiliates as well as members of their families may have a short or long position in any securities, including those mentioned in any of the reports or essays, and may make additional purchases and/or sales of those securities without notice.

Arkadiusz Sieron Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Results underpin economy amid downward pressure

China's centrally administrated State-owned enterprises (SOEs) posted their best profitability performance in 2018, even as the country's GDP growth has slowed, as initial reforms yielded results and provided solid support to the world's second-largest economy.

In 2018, aggregate revenues of the country's nearly 100 centrally administered SOEs increased 10.1 percent year-on-year to 29.1 trillion yuan ($4.29 trillion), the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said on Thursday.

Profit growth was even better, reaching 1.7 trillion yuan with an increase of 16.7 percent, the best results since these figures were first collected, according to SASAC spokesperson Peng Huagang.

The figures were achieved as the economy's growth retreated during the third quarter of 2018, with a gain of 6.5 percent. That was the slowest expansion since the global financial crisis.

Peng said the reasons for the SOEs' strong profits included the continued stable growth of China's economy, the benign external environment as a result of macroeconomic adjustment policies, efforts to boost efficiency and stay lean, and intensified Party construction work that brought a breeze of righteousness and cohesion to companies.

"Such a performance is hard-won. It shows the great strength and contribution of SOEs to China's economy," Li Jin, chief researcher of the China Business Research Center, told the Global Times on Thursday.

He noted the achievements were due to SOEs' supply-side reforms, especially their innovative development of technologies, as well as their continuous gains in efficiency.

Experts said the solid performance by central SOEs underpins the economy, which now faces intensifying downward pressure.

"SOEs are like 'the pillars of a house' and 'heavy stones on a boat' to China's economy," Li noted. "Even if we have storms in the sea, the weight of the 'stones' could help us stay stable."

The SASAC said it will guarantee to meet its 2019 target by strengthening risk control and self-dependent innovation, and continuing SOE reform.

"It is obvious that external and internal uncertainties will increase in 2019. Central SOEs as the main body in the market will be affected by the macroeconomy. Hence, it is necessary for SOEs to deepen market reforms to preserve or increase the value of State capital next year," said Wang Jiang, director of the Beijing-based Central SOE Think-tank Alliance.

BRI role

Answering concerns on SOE-led investment in the Belt and Roadinitiative (BRI), Peng said in the construction of the BRI, central SOEs have played an important role.

"In the BRI, a substantial amount of infrastructure investment is done by Chinese central SOEs. During the process, they become more seasoned in their ability to operate an international business. They have learned to better follow laws and regulations in local markets and undertake social responsibility," Peng said.

"They have won the praise and support of local governments and their people."

Li said that a few SOEs accepted subsidies from the government, but it is also notable that most SOEs are heading toward the status of a fully functional participant in a market economy.

Chinese officials including central bank governor Yi Gang and Peng have urged since last year that respective parties take a neutral stance when it comes to a company's ownership structure and adopt a "competitive neutrality" stance.

However, some Western countries have doubts about SOEs in China. Daniel Araya, US technology consultant and government advisor, wrote on Forbes on Monday that the Made in China 2025 initiative seeks to help the country become a high-tech global superpower through acquisitions and investments in Chinese SOEs.

"This is their misunderstanding of China's economic policy because there is no discrimination involving policy-type subsidies between SOEs and private enterprises. For example, there is no difference in the level of subsidies for photovoltaic electricity among SOEs, private enterprises and foreign enterprises in China," said Wang.

It is a mistake for some people to consider the budget return of State capital as "government subsidies."

"Competitive neutrality is the basic principle of the market economy. Chinese SOEs and other types of enterprises should not be discriminated against because they are equal before the law," he added.
Magnolia, AR (71754)

Today

Mostly cloudy this morning. Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 91F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. Low 68F. Winds light and variable.
Bio energy powers pool heating

A biomass boiler at the Albany, Western Australia (WA), Leisure and Aquatic Centre (ALAC) is now keeping the pool heated while significantly reducing the centres reliance on gas.

The boiler burned its first wood chips in November 2018, realising a project conceived five years ago to install a heating system that uses renewable energy.

It has allowed ALAC to switch off its gas system and relegate it to being a backup, saving about $50,000 per annum on gas.

Recreation Services Manager, Sam Stevens, said they had been working closely with local firm WA Biofuels to explore the potential for a renewable energy system.

Transitioning to biofuel is both economically and environmentally beneficial.

Running on gas heating has been very expensive and we have been at the mercy of the market, with gas prices extremely high at the moment.

WA Biofuels has built and will own and operate the boiler system, there has been no up-front capital needed from the City to adopt this new technology.

Darryl Outhwaite from WA Biofuels said the boiler would consume about 400 to 500 tonnes of woodchips a year, and the project had been able to support local employment in plumbing, electrical, engineering and forestry.

It takes about two hours for the regions timber plantations to regrow the amount of fuel that we need to heat the leisure centre for a year, he said.

Its not only renewable, but the trees planted also provided great landcare benefits in the form of clean air, water and biodiversity.
A late evening traffic crash Wednesday snarled traffic on Chiquita Boulevard, and resulted in the first Cape Coral traffic fatality of 2019.

At 10:06 p.m., Cape Coral Police patrol officers responded to a two-vehicle traffic crash in the 3300 block of Chiquita Boulevard, South. Due to the severity of the crash, the roadway was shut down and a Ping4alert was issued warning drivers in the area.

According to the police report, a 2001 Toyota Corolla, driven by Charles Yves, 69, of Cape Coral, was driving north on Chiquita when the vehicle left the roadway to the left, entering the grassy median and striking multiple construction signs and a posted directional sign. The vehicle then proceeded into the southbound lanes of Chiquita where it struck a southbound 2019 Subaru Ascent SUV, driven by Michael Grisanti, 36, of Fort Myers.

Yves suffered fatal injuries in the crash, police said, while Grisanti was uninjured.

Alcohol or drugs are not a factor in the crash, police said.

CCPD major crash investigators, forensics and a victims advocate were all summoned to the scene.
The white Chicago police officer who gunned down a black teenager in 2014 was sentenced on Friday to 6 years in prison, bringing an end to a historic case that was centered on a shocking dashboard-camera video and fueled national debates about race and policing and law enforcements code of silence.

Jason Van Dyke was convicted last year of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery  one for each bullet he fired at Laquan McDonald.

Moments before learning the sentence, Van Dyke acknowledged the teens death, telling the judge that as a God-fearing man and father, I will have to live with this the rest of my life.

The sentence was less than half of the penalty that had been sought by prosecutors, who asked for 18 to 20 years. But it went far beyond the request of defense attorneys, who argued that Van Dyke, 40, could be released on probation.

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Judge Vincent Gaughan did not characterize Van Dykes decision to open fire, saying only that it changed both Laquans and Van Dykes families forever. You can see the pain ... on both families, he said.

He predicted that no one involved in the case would be pleased with his decision: I assume 100% of people will be disappointed.

Illinois judges are typically required to sentence defendants for the most serious crime of which they are convicted. The defense wanted Van Dyke sentenced primarily for the second-degree murder charge, which carries a mandatory minimum prison term of four years. Prosecutors wanted the judge to focus on the 16 aggravated battery counts because each carries a mandatory minimum prison term of six years, and sentences for each may have to be served consecutively.

Earlier in the hearing, several black motorists testified that Van Dyke had used a racial slur and excessive force during traffic stops in the years before the 2014 shooting.

One of the witnesses, Ed Nance, struggled to maintain his composure as he looked across the room to identify Van Dyke. Testifying about a 2007 traffic stop, he said the officer cursed and slammed him on the cars hood, grabbed him by the arms and pulled him to the squad car.

Hours later, Van Dykes relatives tried to defend him, saying hes a good father and husband who goes out of his way to help and is not racist.

The issue of race has loomed over the case for more than four years, although it was rarely raised at trial. One of the only instances was during opening statements, when special prosecutor Joseph McMahon told jurors that Van Dyke saw a black boy walking down the street who had the audacity to ignore the police.

Fridays sentencing came a day after a different judge acquitted three officers accused of trying to conceal what happened to protect Van Dyke, who was the first Chicago officer found guilty in an on-duty shooting in half a century and probably the first ever in the shooting of an African American.

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Laquan McDonald, 17, was shot and killed by Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014. (Tribune News Service)

At the sentencing, Laquans uncle read a moving letter written from the slain teens perspective, telling the court that Van Dyke killed him without provocation.

I am a 17-year-old boy, and I am a victim of murder, Marvin Hunter said. I am unable to speak in my own voice because an officer thought he would become judge, jury and executioner.

In asking for a long sentence, Hunter added: Why should this person who ended my life forever ... who has never asked for forgiveness ... be free when I am dead for forever?

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Van Dykes wife, Tiffany, asked the judge for leniency. His life is over. Please, please. He has paid the price already. I beg for the least amount of time.

During her testimony, Jason Van Dyke wiped his nose and eyes with a tissue while seated at the defense table in a yellow jail jumpsuit.

One of his daughters blamed the media for shaming police officers for doing their jobs. Kaylee Van Dyke, 17, said police officers dont care about peoples color  they care about your safety.

Keith Thompson described his brother-in-law as a gentle giant and not a monster. Thompson, who is black and whose wife is the sister of Van Dykes wife, said he had never seen anything to indicate that Van Dyke is racist in the 13 years theyve been acquainted.

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On Thursday, Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson cleared former Officer Joseph Walsh, former Det. David March and Officer Thomas Gaffney on charges of obstruction of justice, official misconduct and conspiracy.

Stephenson said the video that sparked protests and a federal investigation of the police force showed only one viewpoint of the confrontation between Van Dyke and the teen armed with a small knife. She rejected prosecution arguments that the video demonstrated officers were lying when they described Laquan as moving even after he was shot.

The video appeared to show the teen collapsing in a heap after the first few shots and moving in large part because bullets kept striking his body for 10 more seconds.

The city released the video to the public in November 2015  13 months after the shooting  and acted only because a judge ordered it to do so. The charges against Van Dyke were not announced until the day of the videos release.
Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo is set to meet former North Korean spy chief Kim Yong Chol on Friday for talks aimed at finalizing a second summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The State Department announced the late-morning meeting, and other administration officials indicated that it likely will be followed by Kim Yong Chols visit to the White House, where he could meet with Trump. Those officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui attended talks in Stockholm, according to Swedish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Diana Kudhaib, who declined to give further details. Swedens TT news said the talks also included U.S. special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun and Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom. Wallstrom was influential in securing the first Trump-Kim summit.

Sweden has had diplomatic relations with Pyongyang since 1973 and is one of only a few Western countries with an embassy there. It provides consular services for the United States. In March, Wallstrom held talks with her North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong Ho, in Stockholm, leading to the meeting between Trump and Kim in June in Singapore.

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Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit with Kim early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with the North Korean leader despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearization agreement reached at their first meeting. Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology.

At a conference of U.S. diplomats at the State Department on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged the lack of progress. He called the Trump-Kim dialogue promising but stressed that we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.

A planned meeting between Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. U.S. officials said at the time that North Korea had canceled the session.

A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the two sides were working to make progress on the denuclearization goal and that Trump looks forward to meeting Chairman Kim again at their second summit at a place and time yet to be determined.

The talks had stalled over North Koreas refusal to provide a detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors to verify any deal to dismantle them. The North has been demanding that the U.S. lift harsh sanctions and provide it with security guarantees before it takes any steps beyond its initial suspension of nuclear and missile tests.

Kim Jong Un expressed frustration in an annual New Years address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community, according to Chinas official Xinhua News Agency.
Hundreds of U.S.-bound migrants in the latest caravan of Central Americans have arrived in southern Mexico, where authorities were processing them in an orderly fashion for temporary immigration status.

The migrants began reaching the Guatemalan-Mexican border late Wednesday, and by midday Thursday scores were lining up on the bridge spanning the Suchiate River, which forms the international boundary between the two countries.

Late Thursday, Mexican authorities said they had processed 1,114 people from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua  including 969 adults and 145 minors  for humanitarian visas.

The calm scene stood in stark contrast to that at the same spot last October, when migrants from a previous caravan engaged in fierce clashes with Mexican police at the border. This time, no police were deployed and the migrants queued up calmly.

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Some 2,000 migrants are expected to seek entry to Mexico as part of the latest caravan. As in past caravans, most participants are Honduran nationals fleeing poverty and violence in their Central American homeland who passed through Guatemala on their way north. Many said they hoped to join loved ones already in the United States.

In our country there is no work; we are dying of hunger or of bullets, Javier Lopez, 22, told Diario del Sur, a newspaper in nearby Tapachula, Mexico.

Lopez said he was heading to the United States to seek a new life, and had no intention of ever returning to his native Honduras.

The caravan phenomenon has long drawn the ire of President Trump, who has labeled the organized journeys an invasion and a threat to U.S. security.

Earlier this week, Trump cited the latest caravan as a reason why Congress should fund a multibillion-dollar wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. A dispute about the efficacy of a wall has resulted in a partial shutdown of the U.S. government, even as the latest caravan heads north.

There was no reported violence as caravan participants waited calmly for inspection by Mexican immigration agents stationed at the entry gate leading from Guatemala. Mexican officials provided bottles of water to the migrants gathered in the open air beneath a relentless tropical sun.

In contrast to October, there were no police helicopters hovering overhead or Mexican police in riot gear on the scene.

The [Mexican] officials are being very nice, Jose Lira, a young Honduran man, told Diario del Sur. We dont want any fighting. We just want to get to the United States.

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When told that Trump didnt want the migrants to settle in the United States, Lira responded: Yes, but we only want to go to his country to work. ... We are not bad people, we just want a better life.

Many are expected to seek political asylum in the United States, even though relatively few Central Americans qualify. And while adult asylum applicants may face long waits in U.S. immigration detention lockups, minors and parents traveling with minor children may be released on bond while their asylum applications work their way through U.S. immigration courts, a process that can take months or years.

Participants say caravans provide security from Mexican gangs that often prey on migrants and avoid the need to pay smugglers thousands of dollars to aid them on the trip north. Caravan members often receive free food, transport and lodging from residents, towns and aid agencies along the route, though many sleep in the open without shelter.

The latest caravan left the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula earlier this week. .

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The influx of caravan members into Mexican territory is expected to continue for several days as individuals and groups still walking or trying to catch rides make it to the Mexican frontier.

A separate caravan of several hundred people was also en route to Mexico from El Salvador.

While many set out on foot, most caravan members appeared to have secured rides for much of the trip from Honduras.

Guatemalan immigration authorities counted 1,701 people in the latest caravan, though migrant advocacy groups said those numbers did not include some who crossed illegally from Honduras into Guatemala, and others who joined in Guatemala.

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Of the 1,701 counted, Guatemalan immigration authorities said that 1,219 (or 72%) were male and 482 (28%) were female. The caravan included 325 minors, about 19% of the total.

Like earlier caravan travelers, many say they seek to reach the United States, more than 1,000 miles to the north. But others have indicated they may be receptive to offers from Mexican authorities to remain in Mexico and find work. Some may apply for refugee status in Mexico.

The United States is not allowing us to enter easily, so Id have to go illegally. Its dangerous, said Ernesto Centeno, 28, a construction worker from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, who was among those hopeful of finding employment in Mexico.

Mexican officials made no effort to stop the flow, and the international bridge remained open in both directions. But Mexico was requiring that all register to receive documents allowing them to remain in Mexico for humanitarian reasons. Officials fitted migrants being processed with plastic bracelets to identify them and their cases.

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My mission is to cross into the United States, said Wendy Jaquelin Lobos, 25, who was traveling with two of her four children, a son, 6, and a daughter, 8  both carrying backpacks  and was waiting in line for a Mexican visa. Her other children remained at home in Honduras with her mother, she said.

Life in Honduras is difficult, especially economically, said Lobos, who is from the Honduran town of Quimistan.

Like others, she was drawn to the caravan by posts on social media and news reports.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office Dec. 1, has said that the migrants would be welcome and have the opportunity to gain legal residency and work permits in Mexico if they chose to remain in this country.

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We are putting in place a protocol  to be able to give them a dignified treatment with respect of the human rights of all the migrants, David Leon, who heads Mexicos civil protection efforts, told Reforma newspaper.

The plan was for caravan members to be transported to shelters in the border area. They would probably remain in the shelters for five days until their immigration paperwork was ready, allowing them to travel legally in Mexico.

In October, several thousand members of an earlier caravan toppled fences on the Guatemalan side and clashed with Mexican police on the bridge over the Suchiate River.

On that occasion, the heavy deployment of Mexican police  who fired tear gas to disperse the migrants  prevented the Central Americans from storming the border.

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Many who retreated later crossed illicitly into Mexico, swimming a short distance across the Suchiate or catching rides on rafts crafted of inner tubes and wooden planks. They eventually regrouped on the Mexican side and headed north, without impediments from Mexican police.

Some 6,000 migrants from that caravan and several subsequent caravans eventually made it in November to Tijuana, across from San Diego.

This time, however, there was no need for the caravan travelers to try and sneak into Mexico via the river.

Special correspondent Averbuch reported from Ciudad Hidalgo and Times staff writer McDonnell from Mexico City. Cecilia Sanchez in The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

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patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

Twitter: @PmcdonnellLAT
Israels intense electoral season, which will culminate in a vote April 9, started in earnest on Thursday, when the man most polls show to be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus top rival finally spoke.

After weeks of silence, Benny Gantz, 59, a former army chief of staff who announced months ago he would challenge Netanyahu, stood before a video camera  and uttered a total of 17 words, six of which were I think I spoke too much.

Gantz is largely unknown to Israelis, who observed from afar his bemedaled military career. He has no known policy positions and has tried to cultivate the mystique of a successful, competent and disinterested officer who led Israels army from 2011 and 2015.

He is also a political neophyte stepping into a raucous, some say merciless, political arena.

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Israels wildly proliferating and popular center parties are, as yet, distinguished only by their leaders dashing military records, blue eyes and banal self-help cliches, wrote Anshel Pfeffer, a political analyst for the daily Haaretz, as the former paratrooper stepped into the fray.

Netanyahu, who has been in power for almost a decade, faces indictments on a series of corruption charges.

On Monday, Navot Tel-Zur, Netanyahus attorney, sent Atty. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit an eight-page letter requesting a delay in all legal proceedings until after election day.

Netanyahu, who has repeatedly said he will not step down even if indicted, recently declared that any announcement about his possible indictment, which he would have the right to counter in a hearing, amounts to stealing the elections.

On Thursday, an aide to Mandelblit replied that his offices work is unaffected by the electoral schedule.

Netanyahu is not the only figure afflicted by legal problems. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who recently formed a new, hard-line right-wing political party with Education Minister Naftali Bennett, has found herself embroiled in a tawdry and still unfolding saga involving a close ally, Effi Nave.

Nave, who resigned as president of the politically powerful Israel Bar Assn. on Thursday, is accused of trading sexual relations with at least four women for judgeships for conservative jurists backed by Shaked. In one case, Nave is accused of promoting a male judge in exchange for sexual favors from the mans wife. Nave was arrested and questioned but has not been formally charged.

Israeli political analysts spent much of Thursday debating whether the convoluted scandal has helped Netanyahu, who continues to lead in the polls and says the judiciary, the police and the media have conspired to topple the right-wing government I lead.

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As details of the police investigation leak out, it remains unclear to what extent the fallout has harmed Shaked, a popular politician whose new political movement has made gains among the right-wing base that Netanyahu needs in order to hold on to power.

Israels left, meanwhile, is floundering in the polls.

A spate of resignations has emptied the Labor Partys ranks since its leader, Avi Gabbay, unceremoniously dismissed Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister who served as his parliamentary opposition chief, live on television on Jan. 1.

The Joint List, a party representing most Israeli Arabs, who make up 20% of the countrys nearly 9 million residents, is also losing marquee names, including Ahmad Tibi, a veteran legislator and one of Israels best known politicians, whose hopes to be named party leader were dashed.

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Jewish Home, the party abandoned by Bennett and Shaked, whose new movement is called the New Right, elected as its new leader Bezalel Smotrich, a provocative activist on the extreme right. Smotrich has declared that Jewish women should not have to deliver children in the same wards as Arab women and defines himself as a proud homophobe.

Yair Lapid, a former finance minister running as head of the centrist party Yesh Atid (Theres a Future), has said he will not join any coalition government led by Netanyahu and has urged others vying for power to make the same commitment.

Enter the laconic Gantz, who has yet to declare a position on the indictments that Netanyahu is facing.

On the morning he announced his new Israel Resilience Partys slogan, Israel Before Everything, it was ridiculed on social media and compared to the infamous Nazi mantra Deutschland Uber Alles (Germany above all).

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According to his spokesperson, the motto is clearly intended as a dart aimed at Netanyahus corruption scandals.

As the clatter of Israeli politics erupted around him, Netanyahu used a triad of electoral cards  his concurrent roles as Israels prime minister, foreign minister and defense minister  to underscore his dominant position as Israels long-serving head of government.

In quick succession, his office made three announcements.

Netanyahu will be skipping the Davos World Economic Forum, from which President Trump, with whom Netanyahu is closely identified, will be absent because of the U.S. government shutdown.

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No Trump meeting makes it rather meh for Bibi, Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said on Twitter, using Netanyahus nickname.

Separately, Netanyahus office revealed he will visit Chad on Sunday to celebrate the resumption of diplomatic relations with a Muslim-majority African nation that severed ties to Israel in 1972.

The trip will underscore Netanyahus contention that the deteriorating connection with the Palestinian Authority is no impediment to a growing acceptance of Israel among nations that previously shunned it.

Finally, the prime ministers office announced he had held his first working meeting with Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the Israeli armys newly installed chief of staff, who was seen in uniform, smiling at Netanyahu from across an empty desk in a photograph released without additional information.
One by one, European Union nations are spending millions, hiring thousands of workers and issuing emergency decrees to cope with the increasingly likely possibility that Britain will leave the bloc on March 29 without a game plan.

A no-deal Brexit could shake up the rest of the continent in ways that many Europeans havent yet fathomed, from snarled air traffic to paralyzed ports and millions of workers in legal limbo.

France is spending $57 million to beef up security at airports and the Eurotunnel, and hiring hundreds of extra customs officers.

Portugal is opening special airport lanes for British travelers, the nations main source of tourists. The Netherlands is scouring for qualified veterinarians to carry out new checks on live imports. Germany is fast-tracking a debate on solving bureaucratic problems if there is no Brexit deal.

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Governments from Europes Atlantic Coast to the Black Sea are preparing rules for British citizens to live and work in their countries once they no longer enjoy EU residency rights  and hoping that Britain is doing the same for their citizens.

Britain, which would face by far the biggest disruption, has devoted thousands of civil servants and several billion dollars on measures to mitigate the worst effect  although officials can only speculate about what will actually happen on March 30 if Brexit happens without a deal.

After the British Parliament overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit divorce deal this week, other governments are bracing for chaos, too.

We strongly believe Britain will leave with no exit deal, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced Thursday, unveiling a raft of emergency measures to cope with that prospect. Under these conditions, our responsibility ... is to ensure that our country is ready, that the interests of our citizens are preserved and defended.

The French government will build new infrastructure and hire new staff at airports and ports  and the tunnel beneath the English Channel. The company that operates the Eurotunnel says a quarter of all U.K.-EU trade passes through the tunnel, which could be a major choke point in a no-deal Brexit.

Frances emergency decrees will temporarily let British companies transport goods in France, and allow certain British insurance and other financial activities to continue in France despite Britains loss of access to the EU financial market. The exceptional transfer of military equipment between the two countries will also be allowed.

In Berlin, German lawmakers debated a bill Thursday that aims to solve bureaucratic issues arising from Brexit.

We want to keep the damage  and there will certainly be damage from Britains departure  as small as possible, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday. Thats why we will of course do everything to find an orderly solution, but we are also prepared if there is no orderly solution.

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Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said Thursday that 80% of British tourists arrive at airports in Faro in the southern Algarve region and Funchal in the Madeira Islands, where dedicated lines for them will help prevent delays.

Dutch authorities say they are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. The customs service is hiring some 900 new workers. The food and animal welfare authority is scouring eastern and southern Europe for qualified vets to carry out checks on live imports.

The government has set up an online Brexit counter and checklist for Dutch companies doing business with Britain  some 35,000 of which have no experience of dealing with countries outside the EU single market.

Romanian leaders have sought to reassure the estimated half a million Romanians living in Britain that they wont be left in the lurch  but havent provided specifics. Romania currently holds the EUs rotating presidency.

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The Czech Republic and Slovakia are working on legislation to deal with the short-term rights of British citizens in a no-deal Brexit, while the Dutch will let British citizens living in the country remain for 15 months and offer them the chance to apply for residency permits.

In Britain, the government announced Thursday its putting military reservists on standby for permanent service in the event the country leaves without a divorce deal. Its also recruiting hundreds of extra customs officers and border staff and has passed laws to help cross-border trade continue to flow, such as permits for long-distance truckers. Many businesses are taking things into their own hands by stockpiling goods.

Britain says EU citizens would be able to stay temporarily in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

A high-level EU official is now touring all the capitals of the 27 countries remaining in the bloc, to assess Brexit preparations and provide help where needed, European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said Thursday.

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The EU has produced 88 notices on how specific sectors should deal with possible Brexit emergencies.

Were not taking any chances, said Schinas.
Long before Americans discovered FOMO  the fear of missing out Singaporeans were fixated with its more excessive forebear, kiasu.

Taken from the Chinese dialect Hokkien, kiasu translates to a fear of losing out, but encompasses any sort of competitive, stingy or selfish behavior commonly witnessed in this highflying city-state.

If you stand in line for hours just because theres a gift at the end, then youre kiasu.

If you claim a spot at a table at a busy food court with a packet of tissues while you wander off in search of grub, youre kiasu.

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If youre a parent who volunteers hours of your free time at a school just so your offspring has a better chance of enrolling there one day, then youre most definitely kiasu.

Its a survival instinct born out of Singapores dominant Chinese culture and deep-rooted insecurity as a blip on the map, one thats only slightly bigger than the San Fernando Valley.

Letting opportunity pass is tantamount to failure, the thinking goes. And if you do, you have no one to blame but yourself.

The national narrative is that we are a small country in a very large world, said Shiao-yin Kuik, a former nominated member of Parliament, an honorary position. We have very limited resources. If we dont fight for our own future, no one else will.

Kiasu (pronounced kee-ah-sue) embodies a sort of unofficial national character, not unlike Japans harmonious wa or Britians stoic stiff upper lip. Its an inescapable aspect of life in this country of 5.6 million that drives people to try and outdo one another.

It was inculcated in me since I was young, said Rachel Yeo, 24, a senior studying journalism at the National University of Singapore. Nothing short of the best was expected of me.

Yeos neighborhood growing up boasted one of the top primary schools in Singapore, Rosyth School. To ensure a place there, Yeos mother had to compile hours of volunteer work. At least twice a week, she read to students at the school before heading to work. Doing anything less risked losing her daughters place to someone else.

Shes a tiger mom, said Yeo, who was also enrolled in rigorous after-school tutoring programs, a private industry that has grown into a $1-billion business here because of the parental arms race.

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The volunteer system in schools breeds another layer of competition. Parents complain about other parents who have exceeded their quota for hours, but continue to hog opportunities to volunteer.

People feel like others have to lose in order to win, said Donald Low, a closely-followed economist and former public official.

Foreign policy in Singapore isnt immune to kiasu either. The feeling of vulnerability it engenders helps explain Singapores outsize spending on defense, which at over $10 billion, is more than that of any other country in Southeast Asia.

The dread of having someone steal your lunch could also be driving Singapores hardening stance against Malaysia in a territorial dispute over a sliver of airspace and sea between the two countries.

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Politicians were openly calling for people to stand up and defend the nation over what seems to be technical differences, said Ja Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore.

That the state and Singaporeans were ready to treat the issue as existential suggested a deep sense of fear, he added.

For an earlier generation, that fear propelled Singapores improbable success after it broke away from Malaysia in 1965 to later become one of the richest countries in the world on a per capita basis.

But a fear of losing can also trigger paralysis when it comes to risk-taking.

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Kuik, the former member of parliament, said Singaporeans today need to be inspired and not cowered.

Theres a stronger desire to move beyond Singapores origin story, she said, and really try to explore a larger story, not driven by fear, but ambition.

There are modest signs of a kiasu backlash, including last year when a small group of parents formed Life Beyond Grades, an organization that seeks to relieve academic pressure on children to focus on their wider well-being.

Its an uphill struggle. Singaporeans are exceptionally self-aware of their reputation  even without reminding from their traditional Malaysian rivals, who are prone to calling the country Kiasuland.

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A survey released last year by the Institute of Policy Studies, a local think tank, found that Singaporeans perceived their society to be kiasu more than any other trait.

One of the countrys most famous comic strips was centered on a bespectacled character named Mr. Kiasu. The 1990s series featured titles such as Everything Also Must Grab and Everything Also Number One.

Giant, a local supermarket chain, ran a contest in 2017 to determine which neighborhood was the most kiasu. The winner, an eastern town called Tampines, impressed with a high percentages of residents admitting to excessively pressing the crosswalk button.

They also fessed up in large numbers to reserving tables at busy coffee shops with a tissue packet or umbrella rather than more considerately ordering their food first and then finding a place to sit  a widespread practice known in Singlish as chope (You can also chope a parking space by having someone stand in it).

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Giant reportedly rewarded Tampines residents with free drinks, ice cream and more tissue packets for choping.

Theres an ambivalence about being kiasu, said Chong, the political scientist. On one hand, there are Singaporeans who wear it like a mark of national character, even pride. Others laugh at it, and still others see being kiasu as being a bit of an embarrassment due to the over-the-top behavior it can encourage.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in Singapores queuing culture. The fear of losing out has created a herd mentality when it comes to lines, especially at the citys famous open-air food courts, known as hawker centers.

When you see a queue snaking, it means the food must be good, that its something you should try, said Yeo, the journalism student. I just returned from visiting Taiwan and saw long lines for food. Half the people were Singaporean.

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Some lines are still talked about today, like the time when thousands of Singaporeans thronged outside McDonalds restaurants in a kiasu-crazed bid to score free Hello Kitty toys.

The pull to line up has even inspired a business, iQueue. The service, which is similar to errand apps such as TaskRabbit, gets up to 50 requests a month to stand in line for things such as boba tea or concert tickets to see the band BTS.

Justin Zheng, a manager at the company, said he queued in line for 12 hours outside a prestigious art class last month for parents who wanted to register their elementary-school-aged child.

Zheng arrived at 7 p.m. the night before the doors opened and still found someone ahead of him in line. By midnight, there were 100 in line. By the next morning, he estimates there were twice as many people.

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The parents next to him werent even taken aback that Zheng didnt have any kids and was hired to be there. Instead, they took down his number. Anything to gain an edge, they told him.

Its in our blood, said Zheng, who was paid $110 to line up for half a day. You realize you have to work harder to be earlier than the next guy.

david.pierson@latimes.com | Twitter: @dhpierson
By Fan Lingzhi in Shenzhen and Chen Qingqing in Beijing (Global Times) 08:52, January 18, 2019

US trying to curb Chinas high-tech rise: analysts

Ren Zhengfei, founder of China's Huawei Technologies, answers questions from journalists of Chinese media outlets on Thursday in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. Photo: Courtesy of Huawei Technologies

Ren Zhengfei, founder of China's Huawei Technologies, who usually keeps a low profile, appeared before journalists Thursday and stressed that his company does not steal trade secrets. But this has not deterred aggressively hostile attitude from the West.

The Shenzhen-based company has been facing growing pressure from Western countries, particularly the US, as local politicians consider it an arm of the Chinese government.

The few US politicians who make noise do not represent US society. I believe US industries, enterprises and technology sectors firmly support us and seek greater cooperation with us, Ren noted.

Commenting on his military background and being a Party member, Ren said don't confuse business model with ideology. He expresse gratitude to the Chinese government for providing consular protection to Chinese citizens.

Meng Wanzhou, Ren's daughter, was arrested on December 1, 2018 by Canadian authorities following a US request. She is now facing an extradition through Canadian courts, and US charges may stem from alleged Huawei's violation of US sanctions against Iran.

Ren told the Global Times at an interview with multiple Chinese media outlets in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province on Thursday that he calls Meng frequently and tells her jokes to relax. "She is very strong," Ren said.

The 75-year-old Chinese entrepreneur also expressed his gratitude toward the Chinese government for providing consular protection to Chinese citizens.

"We anticipated the problems that Huawei might encounter a dozen years ago. We are not totally unprepared for the current situation," Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said.

On the alleged theft of trade secrets, Ren reiterated that the company absolutely respects intellectual property rights of others.

"Huawei now has 87,805 patents, of which 11,152 core patents were granted in the US, and our technology patents are valuable to the information society of the US," he said.

Huawei has been heavily investing in research and development (R&D) and making major breakthrough in core technologies.

Federal prosecutors are now pursuing a criminal investigation of Huawei for allegedly stealing trade secrets from US business partners, including local carrier T-Mobile, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The investigation stemmed from civil lawsuits against the Chinese company, which is also the largest telecom equipment provider worldwide.

The recent move of federal authorities is seen as part of growing pressure being exerted by the US government on Huawei, in line with its aggressive stance to curb the rise of Chinese high-end technology.

T-Mobile sued Huawei in 2014, claiming that two employees of the Chinese company in its US affiliate spied on a smartphone-testing robot that the US carrier had in its Bellevue lab, and the lawsuit had been settled in federal court in Seattle in 2017, the Seattle Times reported in May 2017.

The jury determined that T-Mobile should be awarded $4.8 million in damages because Huawei had breached a handset supply contract with T-Mobile but it did not award any damages from the trade secret claim, the media report said.

Difficult time

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday urged the US government to stop politicizing multinational litigation and business disputes, which will seriously damage its judicial reputation as neutral and independent.

"The dispute between Huawei and T-Mobile is a civil lawsuit that has been properly settled in accordance with US law," Hua Chunying, spokesperson of Foreign Ministry, told a press briefing on Thursday.

"We're concerned about US federal prosecutors who are reportedly investigating the case, and we have doubts about their real intentions," she remarked.

Politicizing civil lawsuits will not only be inconsistent with the rules of free and fair market competition, but will also violate the spirit of the rule of law, Hua noted.

In 2017, Huawei invested 89.7 billion yuan ($13.3 billion) in R&D, or 14.9 percent of its total revenue, according to the company's website.

Huawei's profits were about $9 billion in 2018 and the company invested $15-$20 billion into R&D, according to Ren.

The Chinese company also ranked fifth in the world's top 50 companies by their R&D investment in 2018, and Huawei was also the only Chinese company listed, according to 2018 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard released in December 2018.

Huawei will invest $100 billion in network restructuring in the next five years to make networks highly secure while protecting privacy by following EU General Data Protection Regulations, Ren said.

"The latest move of US federal authorities is abnormal, as Huawei had not lost its edge in the previous civil lawsuit," Long Z. Liu, an attorney licensed in California and US federal courts, told the Global Times on Thursday.

In patent disputes between technology companies, a court usually awards multimillion-dollar damages, Liu noted.

"Based on the relatively small amount T-Mobile was awarded in previous disputes, I would not say Huawei completely lost the lawsuit," he said.

Huawei also filed a lawsuit against T-Mobile for mobile patent infringement, following talks between two countries over a licensing agreement for the 4G patents in 2014, media reported in 2016.

McCarthyism in high-tech

Chinese officials and analysts also criticized the US government for politicizing normal business disputes, and some see this move as a further crackdown on China's rise in high-tech fields, especially in the 5G technologies.

"The US side is likely to be unsatisfied with the ongoing China-US trade negotiations, so it needs to seek different ways of suppressing China," Huo Jianguo, a research fellow at Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Thursday.

"Apparently, Huawei has been growing into a tech giant that could challenge other foreign players in the telecoms sector, which motivated the US government to curb its further growth," he said.
Fare: From LAX, $167 round trip, including all taxes and fees, to Salt Lake City on Southwest.

Restrictions: Subject to availability. You must buy your ticket by 11:59 p.m. Jan. 24. It is for travel from Jan. 29 through May 22.

Info: Southwest, (800) 435-9792

Source: Airfarewatchdog

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travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
A second year of teacher grants saw more money from the Glendale Educational Foundation going for projects in the Glendale Unified School District.

Twelve winning applications were selected out of 30. Overall, 27 instructors received $21,339 in grant funding, foundation executive director Elsa Chagolla announced during a school board meeting Tuesday, where teachers were recognized.

Thats our favorite part for me and for board members, Chagolla said. You get to hear from teachers youre supporting, and you get to see them and meet [them]  Theyre always really excited.

Edison Elementary and Toll Middle School led the way with two grants each. Balboa and Jefferson elementary schools, College View School, Early Bird Preschool as well as Glendale and Hoover highs and Roosevelt and Wilson middle schools each had a winning entry.

Edisons trio of Anya Bergman, Sarine Gureghian and Ashken Hagopian earned a grant to take their sixth-grade classes to a live production of Roald Dahls book, James and the Giant Peach, in Hollywood.

Our students were very excited to learn that they would be going on this field trip, and we are now reading the book in preparation for our trip, Bergman said.

Roger Sondergaard, who teaches at Edison, will utilize his grant money for pickleball upgrades.

I will be using the grant money to purchase pickleball paddles and nets for my fourth- through sixth-grade PE classes at Edison, Sondergaard said. This equipment should last us for many years, and it is a unit of instruction that I look forward to teaching.

Verjinia Mayer, Rebecca Perez and Danielle Petitti, three teachers at Toll, teamed up for a grant geared toward 3-D design and printing, while Danica Lisiewicz, Jon Wenn and Liz Weaver, who also teach at Toll, will receive funding for womens rights and equality curriculum.

Balboa teachers Iris Valdez, Carolyn Spencer and Christine Dashdemirians had their joint grant petition approved, as did Early Bird Preschools Kirsten Korte and Connie Hernandez.

Paula Nakaya, a teacher at College View School, will use her money for art supplies.

My grant was to get an outside easel that is see-through, with shaving cream and bathtub paints, Nakaya said. This will allow my class to interact with the [early education and extended learning program] preschool class on campus by looking at each other while they are painting.

Roosevelt teacher Janet Goldsbury can now fund an African drum circle.

A drum circle is literally a class sitting in a circle, each [student] with a drum, Goldsbury said. Drum circles foster both leadership and team-player roles. Its very common to see timid, insecure students become wide-eyed and visibly proud when they experience success in this creative way.

Jessica Briggs, Sandy Fink and Christy Herington, who teach at Wilson, joined together for a grant, while Hoover High teacher Martin Rhees can now replace the drum heads on the schools marching percussion instruments.

Mostly, I feel some sense of relief, Rhees said of the grant. Running and maintaining an instrumental music program is an expensive commitment on the part of a school district. Frankly, I wasnt entirely sure where we were going to get or how we were going to earn the money.

Glendale High teachers Michael Rosales, Patricia Telles and Ib Belou and Jefferson instructors Krista Bendgen, Talin Khachikian and Nina Minasyan were also awarded grants.

Last year, the foundation gave 14 grants to 21 teachers, coming in at a little less than $16,000, which brings the two-year total of 26 grants for 48 teachers to a combined $37,111 for local projects.

A significant difference this year compared to last year was an increase in collaborations, which Chagolla said the foundation was not necessarily pushing.

Eight of the 12 winning projects came from groups, perhaps because the most grant money an individual teacher could receive was $1,000. However, a group entry could fetch as much as $3,000.

I thought it was cool, Chagolla said.

andrew.campa@latimes.com

Twitter @campadresports
A Laguna Beach real estate developer wants to donate $250,000 toward expediting a backlog of proposed planning projects working their way through City Hall.

Mo Honarkar, who recently acquired Hotel Laguna, plans to present his proposal at Tuesdays City Council meeting.

His gift to the Community Development Department would fund high-level planning services  in the form of employees, contractors or consultants  at a cost of up to $180,000 a year.

The department is currently not positioned to effectively and efficiently process several large projects in addition to its existing workload, according to a city staff report.

The proposed agreement forbids the developer from having a say over hiring and in no way guarantees, assures, or otherwise represents that the city will provide special or preferential treatment of any application [Honarkar] might submit.

The agreement also states that any new hires may negotiate and process applications for major development projects in the town as they see fit.

In addition to Hotel Laguna, Honarkar is working on two other Coast Highway hotels, the Heisler Site Project and the Cleo Project.

City to consider hiring a land-use consultant

The council also will consider hiring an urban economist to advise on changes to the land-use permitting process for an update to the Downtown Specific Plan (DSP).

Most proposals from prospective businesses require a conditional use permit approved by the Planning Commission. Commissioners have suggested allowing over-the-counter permits for some applicants, according to a staff report.

The commission recommends hiring an urban economics and financial consultant to perform a market assessment of downtown Laguna Beach in preparation for changes to the DSP, a planning document aimed preserving the villages unique character.

At a cost of $38,000, Hoffmans work would be done by May  in time to be incorporated into the DSP update before it is submitted for approval to the California Coastal Commission, according to the report.

The Chamber of Commerce is offering $25,000 toward the work, while funds from the DSP update would cover the remaining $13,000.

Joint school board meeting is on the docket

Before the regularly scheduled City Council meeting at 6 p.m., the council will meet with the Laguna Beach Unified school board at 4 p.m. for a presentation by police Cpl. Cornelius Ashton, who was hired as the citys school resource officer last year.

The joint meeting will also cover whether funding is available for adult education programming.

Both meetings will take place in the City Council chamber at 505 Forest Ave.
For years, Korean has been one of the most commonly spoken languages in Orange County, which is home to the second-largest Korean population in the United States after Los Angeles.

Yet public school students havent had the opportunity to be part of a Korean dual-language immersion program  until this year. Starting in August, Anaheim Elementary School District will offer the countys first at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, giving children the chance to become fluent by the sixth grade. The program will also be open to students living outside the district.

Sandra Song, principal of Jefferson Elementary, said Korean language and culture are increasingly important, not only in the global context, but in Orange County.

Korean products are everywhere in our everyday culture, from cell phones, LG washer and dryers, cars like Hyundai and Kia, and now K-Pop and K-Dramas are popular, she said. Theres a part of Korea in our daily lives right here in Southern California.

The school district has offered Spanish dual-language immersion programs since 2006, but decided to expand to include Korean because of its prominence locally and internationally.

According to the Modern Language Assn., Korean is one of the top five non-English languages spoken in California, and its also on the National Security Agencys list of critical languages, which means the global demand exceeds supply.

In addition to the specific benefits of learning Korean, theres also a general benefit to being bilingual in any other language, said Andrew Apodaca, coordinator of English language learners and language acquisition for the school district.

The research shows that fully bilingual students outperform monolingual students, he said. Theres evidence that it boosts the cognitive development of our kids.

Anaheim resident Conrad Haro said its these academic benefits that led him to enroll his 5-year-old son in the dual-language immersion program. Haro and his wife primarily speak Spanish to their son at home, so Korean will be his third language.

While Haro said he has some concerns about how hell be able to help his son with his schoolwork, he said hes confident that the advantages will outweigh the challenges.

Im a big believer in the more languages the better, he said. Korean is a pretty big language. I have to look down the road, and the need for Korean speakers in 10 years or 20 years or 30 years is probably going to be a lot higher than it is now.

First graders play with Korean spelling patterns at Mark Kepple Elementary School in Glendale. Orange County will be getting its first Korean dual-language immersion program at Anaheims Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in August. (Photo by Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

Students will enter the program in kindergarten, giving them the opportunity to learn Korean for seven years, a timeline that Apodaca said matches the research showing that it takes between five and 10 years to become fully proficient in another language.

In kindergarten and first grade, about 80% of instruction will be in Korean and 20% will be in English, Apodaca said.

As students move up in grade levels, theyll receive a higher percentage of English instruction until fourth grade, when they reach a 50/50 model, in which half of the instruction is in Korean and half is in English.

We still offer all of the same subjects to the students in our language-immersion programs as our other student population, Apodaca said. Really what changes is the language in which the teacher and the children are speaking.

The program will start with one kindergarten class and will add a new grade each year.

After graduating from Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, students will have the opportunity to enroll in Korean elective courses at several of the districts high schools.

The aim of the program, said Apodaca, is for students to become not only bilingual  meaning theyll be able to speak English and Korean fluently  but also biliterate, meaning theyll also be able to read and write at an academic level in both languages, skills that even children who grow up speaking Korean at home may not have. (The state offers seals of biliteracy on high school diplomas, for which students of the dual-language immersion program will be eligible.)

Tammy Kim, co-founder and managing director of the Korean American Center, which offers adult Korean language classes in Irvine, said that being biliterate  not just bilingual  will give students a leg up in the new global economy.

Of course being bilingual is an advantage, she said. But the advantage of being biliterate is that you can decide to go to college in Korea. You can have a corporate job.

Kim said that its about time a public school in Orange County offered a Korean dual-language immersion program, and that she hopes the new curriculum at Jefferson Elementary becomes a model replicated at other nearby school districts.

Americans can no longer afford to be monolingual, she said. When these children who are starting kindergarten go into the workplace, being bilingual will be a requirement.

Thomas Jefferson Elementary School will hold information sessions at 10 a.m. on Jan. 30 and Feb. 2 for parents interested in the Korean dual-language immersion program.

Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil is a contributor to Times Community News.
Authorities are searching for a man suspected of stabbing another person in the neck on Tuesday at the downtown Burbank Metrolink station.

The Burbank Police Department arrived at the station off of Front Street and Olive Avenue at around 4:45 p.m. Officers found a 51-year-old man with a single stab wound to his neck.

Sgt. Derek Green, a department spokesman, said its unknown what exactly sparked the incident, but detectives believe it started as some kind of altercation. Its also unknown if the two men even knew each other prior to the stabbing.

It does sound like both the victim and suspect are possibly transient, he said. Beyond that, the suspect is still outstanding, and were trying to identify him.

Green said the suspect is described as a black man between 50 and 60 years old.

The victim was transported to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery and is expected to survive.

The incident remains under investigation.

andy.nguyen@latimes.com

Twitter: @Andy_Truc
Three current and former employees filed a lawsuit this week against the California Democratic Party and its former chairman, Eric Bauman, alleging discrimination and a culture of harassment and sexual misconduct that was well-known and apparently tolerated by top officials.

The complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges a workplace where drinking during the workday and inappropriate comments went largely unchallenged, and claims that some party leaders retaliated against those who reported allegations of harassment. The plaintiffs are seeking payment for lost wages in addition to punitive damages.

The lawsuit comes amid continued upheaval in the state party after the resignation of Bauman, who stepped down following claims of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior toward party staff members and activists, and said he planned to seek treatment for health issues and alcohol use. It details allegations against Bauman first reported by The Times in November, and includes new accusations of harassment against him and others.

Through his attorney, Neal S. Zaslavsky, Bauman declined to comment.

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Mr. Bauman has not been served with any lawsuit and has no further comment at this time, Zaslavsky said.

As of Thursday afternoon, the party also had not been served with the lawsuit, according to spokesman Roger Salazar, who declined to comment on the allegation, citing pending litigation.

The California Democratic Party is strongly supportive of our staff, Salazar said.

Theres no question we all must do more to eliminate harassment in the workplace. Everyone deserves a safe and positive work environment, acting party chair Alexandra Alex Gallardo-Rooker said in a statement. Our officers and senior staff are committed to creating a better culture for our staff. As Ive said before, we must do better and we will.

The three staff members who filed the suit were hired in the weeks leading up to the November midterm elections: Kate Earley, 21, who has worked as the partys digital director since September, and Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, 31, and Alton Wang, 24, who were hired that month to help run a voter outreach effort.

Wang was let go in December; Earley and Rodriguez-Kennedy are still employed by the party. The lawsuit claims Wang was terminated in retaliation for his complaints of harassment.

Salazar said Wang was hired on a temporary basis and that his contract with the party ended after the November election.

In the complaint, Rodriguez-Kennedy alleges Bauman asked him about his boyfriend during preliminary discussions about a job opening and speculated about their sex life.

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Bauman also engaged in unwanted touching, the lawsuit alleges, including massaging Rodriguez-Kennedys back and neck in front of others and placing his arm around Wangs waist.

In statements provided by their attorney, Esperanza Cervantes Anderson, the plaintiffs said they felt they had to speak up.

This behavior is not new. Harassment and abuse of power were tolerated in our Party for such a long time because so many were complicit, Wang said.

Rodriguez-Kennedy, who is president of the California Young Democrats, said, I do not know how I can champion these causes if I do not oppose sexual harassment directed at me and other young members in my own Party.

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Other allegations detailed in the complaint stem from a campaign bus tour that rallied support for California Democratic candidates in the days before the Nov. 6 midterm elections.

The lawsuit alleges that the state party paid for additional insurance coverage to allow alcohol consumption on the bus and that Earley observed Bauman drinking heavily as early as 9:30 on a Thursday morning.

In one incident, which was earlier described in The Times report, Bauman is alleged to have asked Earley and another female staffer, Grace Leekley, in front of other staffers whether the two were having an affair.

The lawsuit also alleges that Dan Weitzman, the partys controller, made comments about Leekleys physical appearance to Earley.

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In an interview with The Times, Weitzman said he did not recall making comments to Earley about Leekleys appearance.

If I did say that, I deeply apologize, he said.

Weitzman also said he didnt recall Baumans alleged comments to the two women during the lunch or on the bus.

During the bus ride, Weitzman said, he mostly sat up front talking on his phone and working.

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I remember getting off the bus that night and saying, Oh, that was pretty mellow,  he added.

Earley, who said she was the only woman on the bus at one point on the tour, said the atmosphere felt like a mens club. According to the lawsuit, Earley felt unsafe, so she texted her supervisor John Vigna, a former party spokesman, and Tina McKinnor, who was operations director at the time.

After Vigna reported the matter to the partys human resources department, the lawsuit says, Vigna and McKinnor appeared remorseful and McKinnor told Earley that women should not have been on that bus.

Their conduct demonstrates a disturbing pattern of senior staff being powerless or unwilling to stop inappropriate behavior, the lawsuit alleges.

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McKinnor and Vigna left the party in a clearing-out of top staff by Gallardo-Rooker last month. Party delegates are expected to elect a new chair at their May convention in San Francisco.

Vigna and McKinnor declined to comment through their attorney, Micha Liberty.

My clients have their own legal claims that theyre going to pursue and any comment at this juncture would be premature, Liberty said.

After hearing of the complaints, Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and chair of the partys womens caucus, disinvited Baumans bus tour from a San Francisco rally for Democratic candidates that featured her mother, the lawsuit says.

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The complaint says McKinnor encouraged Earley and Leekley to talk to Christine Pelosi, who then spoke with other party leaders and unnamed representatives of then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsoms campaign for governor. The lawsuit does not detail the discussions.

Newsom called for Bauman to step down as party chairman one day after The Times reported that 10 party staff members and political activists said the chairman made crude sexual comments and engaged in unwanted touching or physical intimidation.

The campaign took the allegations seriously. As soon as the campaign got the facts, Newsom became the first state official to call for Baumans resignation, said Dan Newman, a spokesman and political advisor for Newsom.

Pelosi confirmed in an interview that she communicated to party officials that the bus tour should not stop in San Francisco, and said the San Francisco Democratic Party hosted the Nov. 2 rally instead. She said she spoke to Earley and Leekley in an attempt to navigate an informal solution.

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I wanted them to be heard, Pelosi said. I wanted Eric to get help.

Coverage of California politics 

christine.maiduc@latimes.com

For more on California politics, follow @cmaiduc.
The Trump playbook on dealing with foes is well-documented: If attacked, strike back 10 times harder; zero in on your enemys weakest spots; go personal.

Now the often-pugnacious president has a new opponent, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House. As the two most powerful elected officials in the country have battled, the spectacle has riveted Washington.

How the two deal with each other has implications beyond just their personal relationship. With power in Washington divided between the two parties for the first time since Trumps election, the ability of the president and the speaker to work together will largely determine whether the U.S. government falls into complete dysfunction for the next two years.

To date, Pelosi appears to have gotten the better of the relationship. She has kept Democrats united amid a partial government shutdown, which is about to move into its fifth week.

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Trump faces declining poll ratings, warnings from his own economic advisors that the shutdown could damage the economy, and divisions within his party.

But to the surprise of many, in dealing with this powerful new opponent, he isnt using the playbook he has so consistently followed against others.

A day after Pelosi effectively postponed his Jan. 29 State of the Union address before Congress unless the shutdown ends, Trump canceled the San Francisco lawmakers planned trip with a congressional delegation to Brussels and Afghanistan  a journey that for security reasons would have used military flights that the executive branch controls.

Unusually, however, he refrained from any of the customary personal snipes or attacks he so often lobs at those who have crossed him.

The most powerful woman in American politics, in fact, has never received a demeaning Trump nickname, a rarity among his rivals. Just ask Low IQ Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), Cryin Chuck Schumer, that face Carly Fiorina, bleeding badly from a facelift Mika Brzezinski, low energy Jeb Bush, Fake News CNN, sloppy Steve Bannon, or the several people he has dubbed little, such as Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) or former Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn).

Trump has criticized Pelosi on policy  claiming she is soft on crime, wants open borders or seeks higher taxes. But his approach to the 78-year-old leader is, for him, uncommonly respectful.

Even when Pelosi publicly quipped about his manhood last year, Trump held his tongue and his thumbs.

Pelosi declined to comment for this story. Those who know both Pelosi and Trump say they can only speculate about the reasons behind the dynamic. Many attribute it to either fear, respect or a realization by Trump that Pelosi will be key to implementing his agenda over the new two years, and avoiding impeachment in the House.

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I just think he has respect for somebody whos strong, said Marc Short, who previously was Trumps top liaison to Capitol Hill. And theres reason to hold his fire: Hell need her votes if Trump has even a chance on bipartisan drug pricing or infrastructure legislation, Short said.

Pelosis Democratic allies prefer to see it as begrudging respect or a healthy fear for her political prowess.

I think that in his own way, he respects her, said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Menlo Park), who is close with Pelosi. If he underestimated her, he joins an army of people who have underestimated her.

Now that Democrats control the House, Pelosi wields significant influence. While Trumps other rivals, including Waters and Schiff, can decide whether to bring legislation requiring the release of his tax returns or pursue an investigation into his dealings with Russia, Pelosi has the power to decide whether and how those efforts proceed.

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Short doesnt think Trump is holding back over the threat of impeachment. Shes going to impeach him regardless, he said. Democratic members are going to demand it.

Barbara Res, a former executive in Trumps company, said Pelosis gender may have knocked Trump on his heels.

Hes a little bit afraid of her. Hes never come across anyone like her  male or female, Res said.

Thats very hard for him because he does not consider females to be his equal, said Res, who worked for years as one of the highest-ranking women in the Trump Organization.

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Even when Trump dealt with mayors of New York such as Ed Koch, she said, they had limited power to kill individual development projects, and he could often counter with his own influence.

This is extraordinary for him. She controls a lot of what hes able to do, Res said. Hes met up against his match and hes stymied and unhappy and thats it.

Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), who was one of the first House members to endorse Trump, speculated that the president at one point had hoped to start the year with a fresh approach toward Pelosi.

But he was clear if theres going to be war, theres war, he said, noting that rather than cooperation, Trump has run into strong Democratic opposition, and then the move to block him from addressing Congress this month. I think the gloves may be about to come off.

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Trumps decision Thursday to cancel Pelosis congressional delegation trip to a war zone  which he called a public relations event  could be the most inflammatory thing hes done to her directly. While it may have been sophomoric, as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said, Trump avoided making it overtly personal.

Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed, he wrote in a letter. I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.

Pelosis spokesman said the trip was designed to get intelligence briefings, meet with NATO leaders and thank U.S. troops  and it didnt include a stop in Egypt.

White House officials made clear that the no-trips policy would apply to all members of Congress during the shutdown, not just Pelosi. And after several hours of questions from reporters, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Thursday evening that Trump would apply the same rule to cancel an event that several members of his Cabinet were anxious to attend.

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Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed, President Trump has canceled his delegations trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, she said.

More stories from Jennifer Haberkorn 
President Trump agreed to a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February, despite the lack of significant progress so far toward the elusive goal of dismantling Pyongyangs nuclear arsenal.

Trump accepted the date Friday afternoon after meeting Kims right-hand man and top spy chief, Kim Yong Chol, in the Oval Office for an hour and a half. As he did last year to arrange the first summit, the official traveled to Washington, hand-carrying a letter from his boss, to set the details personally with Trump.

The president looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. She confirmed the meeting would take place late next month.

Among possible venues is Vietnam, according to people familiar with preparations.

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Trump had his first, historic meeting with Kim in June in Singapore, a meeting that yielded a vague denuclearization agreement but no concrete plans for dismantling North Koreas arsenal. No additional outline of how talks would proceed was provided Friday.

Seven months after the first summit, the two sides still have not agreed on basics, such as the definition of denuclearization.

North Korea has refused to supply an inventory of its nuclear and missile arsenal, a step considered essential to any disarmament plan. Only a few meaningful talks have taken place between aides at the working level from the two sides.

Fridays decision to go straight to a second summit, rather than complete any medium-range goals or preparation work, reflected what many outside analysts have seen as the flawed nature of Trumps approach to talks, which focuses on high-profile show over the non-glamorous work of hashing out substantive details and agreements.

Current and former diplomats worry that in a second meeting with Kim, Trump again will put a priority on optics and not make progress on mundane but crucial steps involving inspections, monitoring, equipment storage and the like.

Trump has exchanged what he has called love letters with Kim and has repeatedly made exaggerated claims of progress.

The North Koreans, in turn, have not conducted any new nuclear tests since talks began, but have continued to produce missiles and improve their technology.

Kim has at times snubbed U.S. envoys, including Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, evidently preferring to deal directly with Trump. A planned meeting between Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. U.S. officials said at the time that North Korea had canceled the session.

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After their Singapore meeting, Trump stunned allies and his own advisors by announcing an end to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises  a goal long sought by the North. He described the exercises as war games, using Pyongyangs parlance.

One of Kim Jong Uns goals is to obtain a formal end of the Korean War, which would in theory make a U.S. military presence on the peninsula obsolete  to the dismay of Seoul, Japan and other allies.

The North Koreans believe they can outsmart him, said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Seoul-based Kookmin University who has also lived and worked in North Korea. They can shower him with flattery and manipulate him into giving concessions that they would never get from any other American president.

Since Trumps first exchange with Kim, several analysts have published reports detailing North Koreas continued development of nuclear and missile technology. Pyongyang has demanded that the U.S. end its economic sanctions and guarantee the security of North Koreas regime before it takes any steps beyond suspending nuclear and missile tests.

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Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that the talks with North Korea were promising, but that the U.S. was still awaiting concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.

Trump has praised Pyongyangs willingness to turn over remains of American service members who died in the Korean War and the release of three U.S. citizens who were detained in North Korean prisons.

He has studiously avoided criticizing Kims human rights record, considered among the worst in the world. Trump has also quietly turned a blind eye to Chinas decision to break U.S. sanctions by allowing rice and fuel into North Korea.

Kim expressed frustration in an annual New Years address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community, according to Chinas official New China News Agency.

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Before Fridays meeting in the Oval Office, Kim Yong Chol met with Pompeo at a Washington hotel. Pompeo, Kim and their delegations also shared lunch, the State Department said.

Separately, North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui attended talks in Stockholm, according to Swedish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Diana Kudhaib, who declined to give further details.

Swedens TT News Agency said the talks included U.S. special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun and Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstroem. Wallstroem was influential in securing the first Trump-Kim summit.

Sweden has had diplomatic relations with Pyongyang since 1973 and is one of only a few Western countries with an embassy there. It provides consular services for the United States. In March, Wallstroem held talks with her North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong Ho, in Stockholm, leading to the meeting between Trump and Kim in June in Singapore.

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Times staff writer Barbara Demick in Washington contributed to this report.
Sen. Mitch McConnell was jolted with a fresh reminder of President Trumps capriciousness last month: The majority leader persuaded Republican colleagues to take a politically difficult vote to temporarily fund the government, but not a border wall, only to see Trump withdraw support  initiating the longest shutdown in history.

House Republicans learned the same lesson early in Trumps presidency when he rallied them to repeal Obamacare, then described their effort as mean.

As Trump reached the halfway mark of his term on Sunday, he has left a trail of negotiating partners from both chambers of Congress, both political parties and countries around the world feeling double-crossed and even lied to.

The result is that the president who campaigned as the worlds best deal-maker, vowing that he alone could fix Washingtons dysfunction, has been stymied as he looks for achievements before facing the voters again. Two years in, the man who built a political reputation as a guy who tells it like it is has lost the essential ingredients to closing deals: credibility and trust.

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He just undermined the trust and confidence that some Republican members did want to have in him, said Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who lost his House seat in November, in part because of Trumps unpopularity.

The presidents squandered credibility, overlaid with nonstop investigations, is likely to imperil a second-half agenda that includes basic responsibilities  raising the nations borrowing limit, most essentially  as well as more ambitious goals. Among those are measures to rebuild the nations infrastructure, win congressional approval of a revised trade deal with Mexico and Canada, overhaul immigration laws and lower the costs of prescription drugs.

Trumps trust deficit was a factor Saturday in Democrats quick dismissal of his proposed compromise to end the shutdown, an offer of temporary relief for some immigrants and refugees  relief from deportation threats that stem from his policies  in return for his wall money.

McConnell, having been burned, has largely left the shutdown fight to Trump. House Republicans, having lost their majority in large part because of voters own dismay with Trump, are now on the sidelines as he must battle House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And Democrats, following her lead, are emboldened given their experience with the presidents unreliability as a negotiating partner.

Trumps tactics were honed over decades. Throughout his business career, he moved from one project to the next  real estate development, sales, casinos and branding  often leaving scorned partners or creditors to deal with the fallout from bankruptcies or deals gone bad.

This was all to stay ahead of his reputation, said Michael DAntonio, author of The Truth About Trump. But in Washington, he said, you cant escape who you are for very long. Hes proven that he cant keep his word.

The president has broken records for false statements, according to nonpartisan fact checkers. An increasing majority of voters  by 61% to 34% in one recent poll  say he is not honest. The same poll, from Quinnipiac University, found that voters also rated his leadership skills as poor, by 58% to 39%.

Complicating the problem, Trump has churned through staff faster than his predecessors. He has surrounded himself with a collection of temporary officials, family members and inexperienced advisors with little sway on Capitol Hill.

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Theyre lacking some of the usual negotiating infrastructure, said John Lawrence, former chief of staff to Pelosi. In this White House, everything changes the next day: the personnel, the policies, the view of reality.

Republican lawmakers criticism is muted, however, because even as Trump has ranked among the least popular presidents in modern history, he has consistently commanded overwhelming support from Republican voters, according to polls.

Still, the mistrust from nearly every quarter of Congress has grown each time he has broken his word, complicating efforts to pass his initiatives, according to former lawmakers, aides and close observers.

Even things that should on paper be easy, there just always seems to be a way for him to step on his own foot, said a former aide who requested anonymity to avoid upsetting his current employer. Sometimes, this is unintentional  he just says stuff.

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The act that precipitated the month-old shutdown, and has come to define it, occurred in December. McConnell received bogus assurances from the White House that Trump would sign a Senate bill to fund and keep the government open to Feb. 8 while negotiations on border money proceeded, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

After senators approved the bill by a voice vote, Trump, egged on by conservative media personalities, rejected the legislation in favor of a fight with Democrats over the wall. Without any bill funding a quarter of the government, a partial shutdown began days later.

McConnell, Republicans foremost deal-maker, has since stayed in the background. Other Republican senators were left vulnerable to conservatives charges they were too quick to cave, even as they were stuck answering for the government services unfulfilled and hundreds of thousands of federal employees unpaid, with no sense of how the president intended to win.

It would have been great if they had told us they wanted this fight, because we would have started working on it, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio fumed as the shutdown began, three days before Christmas. We have to deal with it now.

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Lawmakers have been dealing with Trumps abrupt tactical shifts from his start, and at the White House he leaves the impression with each advisor who talks with him that he shares their point of view, until he doesnt.

Sonny Perdues right on that. Oh, no  Mick Mulvaneys right on that, said one former official, imitating Trump talking about two Cabinet members. The official added, You sort of feel like youre a little bit of a pinball.

After Trump seems to have made a decision, he remains flexible, as another former aide put it, making it nearly impossible for his staff to craft a strategy to rally Congress or the public. Often, he will hear from far-right lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus, or from like-minded commentators including Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham or Sean Hannity.

That tendency first became clear in 2017 when Trump initially celebrated, and then denigrated, House Republicans vote to repeal President Obamas Affordable Care Act.

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The mean comment and some other things really pulled the rug out from under House Republicans, said Matt Gorman, a former communications advisor to them.

Stephen K. Bannon, Trumps former chief strategist, implicitly acknowledged the presidents weakness as a legislative deal-maker, arguing that he has been able to fulfill promises where he hasnt needed Congress approval, including on challenging China over trade.

Echoing some other Trump allies, Bannon argued that Trump, lacking governing experience, put his trust in McConnell and former House Speaker Paul D. Ryan to pass his legislative agenda, only to be often disappointed. Trump and his advisors naively believed he could win healthcare, tax and infrastructure legislation in the first year, Bannon said, yet he got only the tax cuts bill, which Trump largely outsourced to Congress.

In Congress, scars from the healthcare debacle have lingered, undermining Trumps influence. Lawmakers are often skeptical when Republican leaders and White House aides lobby them for his bills, according to former aides and lawmakers, demanding to know where the president really stands.

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Often, the Trump allies cant answer unequivocally.

We know hes new at this, lawmakers would tell Trump advisors, according to Marc Short, former White House director of legislative affairs. But, theyd add, We cant go back and take tough votes if hes going to call our bill mean.

That sentiment was cemented in March last year, as Congress debated another government-funding bill. Then, too, immigration was the issue that set Trump off.

For weeks, his administration supported the $1.3-trillion spending bill, saying it wasnt perfect but would bolster the military, enhance immigration enforcement and keep the government open. Officials had a plan to sell it to the public, enlisting the Defense secretary at the time, James N. Mattis, to highlight pay raises for soldiers and money for new equipment.

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But as a bill-signing ceremony approached, Trump just got madder and madder  riled by hard-right lawmakers and conservative media figures who complained that the legislation didnt fund a border wall, a former official recounted. Trump tweeted angrily, threatening a veto.

Ultimately, Trump signed the bill, but only after calling the measure ridiculous and insisting, I will never sign another bill like this again. Even those who had given Trump a pass on earlier betrayals walked away angry.

What kind of credibility do you have when the president says he supports a bill and then says he doesnt like it anymore? one of the former officials asked.

Curbelo, who represented a heavily Latino district in South Florida, was an early Trump skeptic. Even so, in June he and a group of California Republicans were counting on the president to follow through on earlier promises and support legislation providing a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who years ago came to the country illegally as children.

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The lawmakers had devoted nights and weekends to the compromise effort, along with House Republican leaders and some hard-line immigration hawks. Many conservatives opposed the bill, despite provisions to reduce legal immigration and provide nearly $25 billion over a decade for border security, much of it for Trumps desired wall.

Curbelo and others believed that with Trumps support, the measure could pass in the House and keep negotiations alive in the Senate. They also thought passage might give moderate Republicans like him and the Californians a fighting chance to keep their House seats in districts with Latino voters.

Yet when Trump showed up for a pep talk to House Republicans, he barely mentioned the bill. Instead he ranted about Hillary Clinton, the 2016 election and the Russia investigation. He insulted a popular congressman, Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, who had just lost a Republican primary after clashing with Trump.

There were boos, confused faces and murmurs of incredulity. Curbelo said he considered asking Trump about the bill, subtly reminding him why he was there. But a bell summoned lawmakers to the House floor for a vote.

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Trump tweeted afterward, insisting he supported the bill but predicting doom in the Senate. With so little backing from the president, the immigration bill fell, 121 to 301.

Curbelo, along with one of the other negotiators, Rep. Jeff Denham of Turlock, lost their reelection bids in November. Republicans overall lost a net 40 seats and control of the House.

He would have had by far one of the biggest wins of his presidency had he been helpful, Curbelo said.

Times staff writers Eli Stokols and Jennifer Haberkorn contributed to this report.

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Follow the latest news of the Trump administration on Essential Washington 
President Trump begins his third year in office in a deep hole.

Monday marks the second anniversary of Trumps inauguration. He began that day with record levels of public disapproval for a new president. Since then, public doubts have deepened and hardened.

That doesnt mean Trump cant win reelection. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both hit low points in public approval similar to Trumps and rebounded to win second terms.

Both had advantages Trump lacks, however, making the task the current president faces that much harder. New polls from several major, nonpartisan survey organizations detail the extent of the problem he faces.

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Sustained unpopularity

What makes the public disapproval of Trump so notable is consistency. He has had small ups and downs, but unlike any of his five predecessors, he has never won majority approval.

Currently, his standing has sunk toward the bottom of its two-year range. In a new survey from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, just 37% of Americans approved of Trumps job performance; 59% disapproved. None of the past five presidents faced a deficit so large.

NEW: Trump Begins Third Year With Low Job Approval and Doubts About His Honesty https://t.co/9CDVhTdz9d  Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) January 18, 2019

Pews numbers arent alone. Polls over the last few weeks by 10 major survey organizations showed a tight range of approval figures, from 37% to 45%.

The approval number, however, isnt the most troubling for Trump. It has changed very little during his presidency: His core supporters like him, most of the rest of the country doesnt, and a very small segment shifts up or down at any given point.

The current figure is no doubt depressed somewhat by the unpopular partial shutdown of the government, which enters its fifth week on Saturday with a growing round of tit-for-tat retaliations between the president and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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What has changed are voter views of Trump on other qualities, including honesty and competence. None of the movement is favorable.

In the Pew survey, for example, almost six-in-10 Americans, 58%, say they trust what Trump says less than they trusted what previous presidents said in office. Thats steadily worsened since he took office.

That question provides a good measure of the size of Trumps core support: 26% say they have more confidence in his statements than those of previous presidents.

The Pew survey was conducted Jan. 9-14 among 1,505 American adults. The margin of error for the full sample is 3 percentage points in either direction.

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Members of Congress in both parties share that lack of trust in what Trump says. As Noah Bierman wrote, that absence of credibility now severely hampers Trumps ability to make legislative deals.

By 53% to 44%, the Pew survey found Americans lack confidence in Trumps ability to use military force wisely. By 62% to 35%, they doubt his ability to work effectively with Congress.

And fewer than three-in-10 Americans, 28%, say they have full confidence that Trump keeps his own business interests separate from the decisions he makes as president. Well over half, 57%, say they lack confidence that he does so.

Only 39% of Americans rate the ethics of Trumps appointees as good, Pew found. Thats the lowest measure by far of any administration going back to the 1980s.

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Although that and other questions show a predictable partisan divide, notably only 16% of Republicans describe the ethics of Trumps appointees as excellent.

A steep comeback trail

Voters can, of course, decide to reelect a person they disapprove of if they view the challenger as worse. In 2016, many voters who cast ballots for Trump disapproved of him.

For that reason, job approval doesnt provide a precise election forecast. The two measures have a lot in common, however.

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Trump won two years ago while losing the popular vote. Thats a difficult trick that involved lucky flukes. His position has deteriorated since then, and his current numbers put him far closer to candidates like George McGovern, who took 38% of the vote in 1972, or Walter Mondale, who lost with 41% in 1984, than to the successful presidents who defeated them.

Still, thats not the end of the story. Reagans approval at the end of Year 2 was no better than Trumps is now, yet he won reelection in a landslide. Clinton, too, rebounded after a dismal first two years.

So Trump has a path forward.

He has maintained the loyalty of his base, although signs abound of fraying around the edges, as Eli Stokols found when he spoke with farmers at Trumps speech this week to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

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He needs more than the base to win, however, and gaining those votes likely involves a much steeper climb than either Reagans or Clintons. Partisan lines have hardened considerably since the 1980s and 1990s, draining the pool of swing voters. More importantly, Reagan and Clinton benefited from steady economic improvement in the two years leading up to their reelections.

As Reagan ended his second year, the economy had barely begun to recover from a steep recession. The following two years provided the boom that allowed him to run his Morning in America reelection campaign. Clinton, too, benefited from sustained growth in Years 3 and 4.

Trumps best economic news probably lies behind him. Some economists expect a recession by the time the next election rolls around; most expect growth to have slowed substantially.

Right now, the economy buoys Trumps standing. He gets his best marks on economics, with 40% in the Pew survey saying his policies have helped, compared with 28% who say they have made matters worse and 29% who say theyve not made a difference.

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Trump will also face a steady barrage from congressional investigations, including the House Intelligence Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), this week discussed plans to hold hearings on a series of allegations involving Trump and Russia, as Chris Megerian reported.

Such hearings will keep partisan animosities stoked, making Trump all the more dependent on good economic news. If the economy slows significantly, Trumps last remaining flotation device will turn into a weight.

Shutdown Week 4: Retaliation

Before Trump can even begin to recover, he has to find a way out of the corner into which hes painted himself with the government shutdown.

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Trumps rhetoric has raised the political stakes over his proposed border wall so high that both sides now see any significant compromise as a betrayal.

Aides say Trump fears disappointing his base if he walks away with anything less than the money he has demanded for the wall. Democratic voters are, if anything, more implacable in their demands that their representatives refuse to give Trump what he wants.

As a result, Democrats in Congress have remained united behind Pelosi  surprisingly so for a party with a long history of internal divisions, as Jennifer Haberkorn wrote.

Last week, Trump seemed to be heading toward declaring a national emergency and claiming authority to build a wall without congressional approval. Some members of Congress were eyeing that as the only available exit from the current stalemate  a move that would shift the fight over the wall from Congress to the courts.

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This week, however, Trump backed away from the idea of an emergency declaration, as Stokols and Bierman wrote.

And as the week went on, the two sides escalated their conflict. On Wednesday, Pelosi effectively called off Trumps State of the Union speech, depriving the president of the microphone and attention he adores.

The next day, Trump retaliated by canceling a planned trip by Pelosi to Afghanistan that would have required military transport. Notably, however, as Haberkorn and Bierman wrote, Trump has avoided calling Pelosi names or getting into a personal fight with her, making her unique among his adversaries.

Meantime, the administration ordered tens of thousands more government workers back to their jobs, using new legal opinions to declare additional services to be essential, but with no provision to pay them until the shutdown, eventually, ends.

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Rapidly growing field of challengers

Given all Trumps troubles, its no surprise that a huge number of Democrats have begun lining up to challenge him.

This week, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand became the latest to enter the race. As Janet Hook wrote, her entry underscores the record number of women in this years field.

The candidates are diverse in many ways. Hook surveyed the hopefuls and described multitude of choices for Democrats in 2020.

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And Mark Barabak examined the factors that have made so many Democrats eye 2020 and think why not?

To help keep track of all the significant candidates and how they vary, weve prepared this field guide to the Democratic hopefuls. Bookmark it, as well be updating it throughout the year and into next years primaries.

As Evan Halper wrote, several of the candidates face a big dilemma: Run to  or away from  big donors? Democratic activists have made big-money donations a point of shame and have demanded that candidates forswear them. Doing so, however, means leaving a lot of money on the table.

Attorney general nominee praises Mueller

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Trump pushed out former Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions for allowing special counsel Robert Muellers investigation. His nominee to replace Sessions, William Barr, who previously served as attorney general a generation ago, testified at his confirmation hearing this week that hes a close friend of Muellers.

Barr said he did not believe Mueller was on a witch hunt, as Trump repeatedly has claimed. And, as Del Wilber wrote, he promised to protect Muellers inquiry although he notably did not promise that whatever report Mueller was producing would necessarily become public.

Muellers prosecutors have been writing their findings on a daily basis because of concern that Trump at any point could order their inquiry shut down, Megerian, Wilber and David Willman wrote.

At the confirmation hearing, Barr carefully distanced himself from Trump on several issues, Wilber wrote.

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EPA nominee downplays climate change

Trumps nominee to head the EPA also had his hearing this week. As Anna Phillips wrote, Andrew Wheeler said he did not view climate change as a hoax, as Trump has said, but neither does he see it as the greatest crisis.

Cutting off disaster relief?

Finally, Trump tweeted this week what appeared to be a threat to cut off disaster relief to Californians harmed by this falls huge wildfires.

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As Sarah Wire writes, the White House and the Federal Emergency Management Administration refuse to say whether any such disaster relief cutoff is really in the offing or whether the president was simply making it up.

Logistics

That wraps up this week. Until next time, keep track of all the developments in national politics and the Trump administration at our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics.

Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com.

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David.lauter@latimes.com

@davidlauter
CHICAGO, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) has forged a 5-year research collaboration with the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS).

The five-year collaboration aims to generate fresh insights into pressing energy and environmental challenges, offering Chinese policymakers new tools to tackle important priorities such as cost-effective reductions in air pollution.

Representatives of UChicago and UCAS have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on this recently.

The collaboration came on the heels of the Mandarin launch of EPIC's Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), a first-of-its-kind tool that allows policymakers to quantify the benefits of air pollution reduction measures by converting them into the most important metric that exists: improvements in life expectancy.

The AQLI is based on a pair of peer-reviewed studies co-authored by EPIC Director Michael Greenstone that quantify the causal relationship between long-term human exposure to particulate pollution and life expectancy.

Greenstone has spent more than two decades doing research on energy and environmental issues in China and other parts of the world. His research, together with research being conducted by other UChicago faculty, constitutes the roots of the new UCAS collaboration.

EPIC is an affiliate of the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI), which launched BFI-China in 2018. BFI announced a separate collaboration with Tsinghua University in November 2018 to form the Tsinghua University-University of Chicago Joint Research Center for Economics and Finance.
In the summer of 1994, I was working at my desk at the Department of Justice when my back started to burn. Moments later, my body seized up, and I fell to the floor. Suddenly, at the age of 30, I was no longer able to sit or stand. I could barely walk short distances. These limitations, related to a surgical mishap, would continue for almost 20 years.

After dozens of failed treatments, I reluctantly tried prescription opioids. The pain medication enabled me to work despite my condition. I argued cases in federal court from a foldable reclining chair, negotiated settlements by video teleconference and, working remotely, managed litigation in U.S. attorneys offices across the country.

When medical advancements led to an improvement of my health, I went off opioids without incident.

I was, as it turns out, incredibly lucky. A report released last month by Human Rights Watch paints a cautionary and at times harrowing picture of what pain patients are experiencing today.

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The CDC needs to revise its guidelines to recommend that physicians not abandon pain patients or engage in forced tapering.

Because of well-intended efforts to address the overdose crisis, many doctors are severely limiting opioid prescriptions. Patients who rely on opioid analgesics are being forcibly weaned off the medication or seeing their prescriptions significantly reduced. Other patients are unable to find doctors willing to treat them at all.

One such patient, Maria Higginbotham, has had more than a dozen surgeries to correct the collapse of her spine. She suffers from a painful condition in which the spinal cord fuses with adjacent membranes. Last year, her physician cut her pain medication by 75%, explaining that the reduction was to comply with federal guidelines.

In the past, Higginbotham could function. Now she needs assistance just to get out of bed and go to the toilet.

The federal guidelines Higginbothams doctor cited were issued in 2016 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They were intended as non-mandatory recommendations for primary care physicians.

Increasingly, the guidelines are treated not as recommendations, but as one-size-fits-all mandates. They are being misapplied by physicians, state legislatures, insurers and Medicaid programs.

Some physicians told Human Rights Watch researchers that they had taken patients off opioids, or reduced patients prescriptions, against their better clinical judgment. You set yourself up for a liability, even when you know theyre not addicted and theyre benefiting from opioids, one physician said.

Other doctors said that they had stopped treating pain patients altogether  even patients who dont use prescription opioids.

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Its true that opioids were prescribed liberally in recent decades. Doctors began doing this in the 1990s. There were some bad actors, such as pill mills and wayward pharmacies. Opioid medication too often fell into the wrong hands.

Moreover, prescription opioids are not the magic bullet we once believed them to be. The evidence about their efficacy across a broad population is limited. Even when their use is appropriate, opioids carry risks, and the risks increase at higher doses. The CDC was right to encourage judicious, responsible prescribing.

But chronic pain is a large umbrella category, encompassing a wide range of injuries and diseases, some of which are incurable. A one-size-fits-all approach to treatment does not work.

The recent clampdown has had harmful consequences. Some patients told researchers that they were forced to quit working or go on disability when their medication was denied. Others are now homebound. Many mentioned the possibility of suicide.

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Patients also said that they were turning to alcohol or illegal substances to treat their pain.

What began as an effort to protect patients may be morphing into one that is harming them. The CDCs National Center for Health Statistics estimates that 50 million Americans have pain every day and nearly 20 million have pain that limits major life activities. If the experiences that patients described to Human Rights Watch are common, the harm to patients could be widespread.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

The CDCs own data show that fatal overdoses are driven largely by illegally produced fentanyl, its analogs and heroin  not by medically prescribed opioids.

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For all these reasons, the CDC should address the misapplication of its guidelines, as the American Medical Assn. recently did. The agency needs to revise its guidelines to recommend that physicians not abandon pain patients or engage in forced tapering.

The CDC should also study and address any unintended consequences of its 2016 guidelines, as it promised to do.

Tackling the overdose crisis is a vital public policy goal. But chronic pain patients should not become casualties in that fight.

Kate M. Nicholson is a civil rights and health policy attorney. She served for 20 years in the Department of Justices civil rights division, where she drafted current regulations under the Americans With Disabilities Act. She gave a TEDx talk about chronic pain, What We Lose When We Undertreat Pain.

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On Saturday, millions of people are expected to gather for a third year of womens marches in cities across the country, including about 25 marches in California alone.

Or maybe they wont.

Turnout is hard to predict even in ideal conditions. In winter, the best of intentions can be thwarted by a bout of inclement weather. (That wont be an excuse in Los Angeles, where the post-storm forecast calls for high temperatures of up to 75 degrees.)

And then theres all the winning in the last two years: #MeToo started taking names of powerful men accused of sexual misconduct  and it is still going strong. Women stormed Washington and state capitals in historic numbers in November. And President Trump has been publicly schooled by his new feminist nemesis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). The newly revitalized womens movement seems to moving apace, marches or no.

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And then there is the pall of unpleasantness emanating from the New York City-based Womens March Inc., one of the largest march-organizing groups. For months the group has been roiled by allegations of anti-Semitism among key leaders. Its a complicated story that boils down to a dispute about whether there were anti-Semitic comments made at a board meeting early last year, as well as the attendance of board member Tamika Mallory at a speech given by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has a long history of saying vile things about Jewish people.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

Im not going to wade into that mess other to say its an unfortunate situation that has sparked a factionalism among march organizers and speculation about the future of the movement. The controversy may indeed turn off participants in some of this years marches, particularly the big one in D.C. Who wants to march under a banner of anti-Semitism? (Well, other than white nationalists, that is.)

But does this bode ill for future of the movement? It depends on which movement we are talking about. Look, the womens marches have been great for whipping up enthusiasm and displaying the scope and scale of frustration among women, but they arent the womens movement itself. The marches didnt launch #MeToo or the political campaigns for women. They werent the catalysts for change so much as the vehicles channeling the energy that was already in motion the moment that Donald Trump was elected president over Hillary Clinton.

In any case, the question of whether to march or not shouldnt keep Californians up tonight. The East Coast owns this drama. The states main march organizing body, California Womens March, is not affiliated with the New York City march organization. We are simply a separate organization, Emiliana Guereca, the president of the California organization and one of the original founders of Womens March Los Angeles, told me.

So on Saturday, march or dont as your conscience guides you, but dont give up on the womens movement. Have you noticed how many women are launching 2020 presidential campaigns?
Hell hath no fury like a fixer scorned.

As President Trump was settling in for the night at the White House Thursday, Buzzfeed News reported a blockbuster allegation by two unnamed law-enforcement sources: that Trump had instructed his onetime lawyer and hush-money bag man, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress in mid-2017 about a tower Trump had sought to build in Moscow.

A spokesman for Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III issued a statement late Friday afternoon throwing a bucket of cold water on the story  BuzzFeeds description of specific statements to the special counsels office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohens congressional testimony are not accurate.  but by that time half of the residents of the nations capital had already lost their minds over the story. So the damage had been done.

Cohen has, in fact, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the tower project. The point of the alleged cover-up was to conceal how Cohen had, on behalf of Trumps real estate empire, continued to push the project  with the knowledge of the Trump organization  even after Trump won the Republican nomination for president in 2016.

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The problem for Trump is that, once again, Cohen seems to have implicated him in a federal crime (although the statement from the special counsel casts that into doubt). And unlike the case of the payment to buy porn actress Stormy Daniels pre-election silence about a tryst she claims to have had with Trump, the law involved is much clearer than the murky waters of campaign finance rules. This time, the allegation is a straight-up conspiracy to deceive Congress and, potentially, obstruct justice.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

Even a unitary executive fetishist would have to concede that a president cannot instruct people to tell lies in their sworn testimony and affidavits to lawmakers. That cant be couched as an exercise of the regular powers of the office.

The moral of this story  OK, one of the morals of this story  is that if youre going to have a lawyer handle your, umm, more sensitive negotiations and clean up the messes you leave behind, you really need to treat that person exceptionally well. Which is not how Trump rewarded Cohen for his loyalty.

Having spent years helping to steer Trump clear of trouble, Cohen has turned into an endless, slow-motion train wreck for the president. So naturally, Trumps tweeted response to the Buzzfeed story was to attack Cohens credibility. He posted a quote from Kevin Corke, the White House correspondent for Trump-loving Fox News: Dont forget, Michael Cohen has already been convicted of perjury and fraud, and as recently as this week, the Wall Street Journal has suggested that he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars....

Added Trump, Lying to reduce his jail time!

But Cohen may not be the only one claiming Trump sought to conceal the truth about the Moscow project. Buzzfeed says Cohen wasnt the source who revealed to investigators Trumps alleged instruction that Cohen lie to Congress.

The special counsels office learned about Trumps directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents, the piece states. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.

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Yet Trump is right about one thing here  someone with a documented history of lying is not the most credible source. But that description doesnt apply to Cohen alone.

UPDATES:

5:38 p.m.: This post was updated with a new statement from the office of the special counsel.
The deaths of four Americans in a suicide bombing in Syria this week is not necessarily an argument against President Trumps plan to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from that country. Even if the attack were orchestrated by Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility, its the sort of terrorist incident that sadly will continue to be a threat even if most remnants of the group are suppressed and even if some U.S. forces remain in Syria for months or years.

Nevertheless, the attack is a reminder that Trump vastly oversimplified the situation last month when he declared that we have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there. Worse, the announcement came out of the blue, without due deliberation.

The presidents announcement of a rapid withdrawal from Syria led to the resignations of Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis and Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy to the global coalition against Islamic State. It also alarmed the Kurdish militias who have fought alongside the United States against the Islamic State. Without the protection of U.S. troops, the Kurds fear that they would be overwhelmed by Turkish forces.

Consternation gave way to confusion when Trump and his national security advisor, John Bolton, sent conflicting messages about how quickly the withdrawal would take place and under what conditions. First, Trump said the troops would be coming back now. Then Bolton said that troops wouldnt leave northeastern Syria until Islamic State was defeated and Kurdish fighters were protected. A few days later, a U.S. military official told the Associated Press that the withdrawal had begun  although that announcement may have been confined to equipment.

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Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

Trump later said that we will be leaving at a proper pace while at the same time continuing to fight ISIS and doing all else that is prudent and necessary!  whatever that means. The president also has suggested that U.S. commandos based in Iraq could launch missions into Syria.

In other words, almost a month after Trump sprang the idea of a withdrawal on the nation and his own advisors, it remains alarmingly unclear how the administration plans to achieve that objective and fulfill his pledge to eradicate the remnants of Islamic State. The timing remains mysterious as well.

Trump campaigned for the presidency as a critic of unnecessary military intervention. He is right to worry about the dangers of mission creep and of unsuccessful military endeavors that lack an exit strategy. But the impulsive announcement of the withdrawal from Syria, followed by contradictory explanations about how it would be implemented, has shown the Trump administration at its amateurish worst.

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One of President Trumps first misguided actions in office was to reinstate an antiabortion policy known colloquially as the global gag rule. Under the rule, any foreign nongovernmental organization receiving U.S. aid for healthcare must agree not to spend any of its other funds  the money it does not receive from Washington  on abortion services or referrals for abortions. Organizations are even barred from counseling clients about abortion or advocating for abortion rights laws. Hence the gag rule.

Its an absurd restriction, given that Congress has long barred federal dollars from being spent on abortion, and all foreign recipients of U.S. aid must comply. Demanding that organizations must also accede to the gag rule  now dubbed Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance  puts foreign health organizations in the terrible position of either stopping abortion-related services in countries where poor women have a difficult time finding access to safe abortions or losing U.S. funding for other much needed health services (including, ironically, contraception).

But in recent weeks, there have been signs that Congress may be ready to roll back the global gag rule through its power over the federal purse.

Earlier this month, the newly Democratic-controlled House passed a package of spending bills, including one on foreign operations that sought to rein in the policy. That bill went nowhere, caught in the crossfire between President Trump and congressional Democrats over the border wall Trump covets. Notably, however, the House bill copied the language in the foreign operations spending bill that the Senate Committee on Appropriations unanimously approved last June, including a provision explicitly allowing abortion counseling by aid recipients.

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There have been signs that Congress may be ready to roll back the global gag rule through its power over the federal purse.

Opponents of the gag rule contend that there is more bipartisan agreement than ever across the House and the Senate on repealing it. In the next few weeks, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, will reintroduce a bill she offered in 2017 to permanently repeal the policy.

Unfortunately, Trump is unlikely to sign any measure containing a repeal of the global gag rule. Still, a bipartisan effort to repeal this harmful and unnecessary policy is worth pursuing. The policy was first established by the Reagan administration and has been alternately rescinded by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republicans ever since. The Trump administration took things further, however, by extending the policy to far more health providers globally than ever before. When it was in effect under President George W. Bush, the gag rule applied only to about $575 million in foreign aid, and only to organizations doing family-planning work. Now it applies to about $8.8 billion in aid and covers organizations working on maternal and child health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS treatment, tuberculosis, malaria and other infectious diseases, among other concerns.

The State Department surveyed the effect of the new policy six months after it was adopted and found that 729 prior aid recipients had accepted the money and agreed to the new strings attached, while four had not. But even the State Department said it was too early at that point to gauge how broad the policys reach is. In fact, the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that at least 1,300 organizations could be affected by the policy  nearly twice the number the State Department found.

For example, Family Health Options Kenya, a provider of sexual and reproductive health services, is part of the International Planned Parenthood Foundation, which refused to sign on to the policy. The Kenya organization closed one of its 14 clinics, cut staff at another and stopped outreach services to poor communities  reductions that affected more than 76,000 women and young girls by May 2018, the organization estimated. The outreach services affected include cervical cancer screenings, HIV testing and family planning counseling.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Or take Marie Stopes International, which says it has cut five mobile health and outreach teams across Uganda and slashed the number of outreach sites it visits in Zimbabwe from 1,200 to 600. The Marie Stopes organization, which uses non-U.S. dollars to provide safe abortions in three dozen countries, estimates that 1.4 million women in the countries it serves could lose access to contraception and other services by 2020.

Advocates predict that the effects could be increasingly devastating as time passes and groups have to apply for new or renewed funding.

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Even the staunchest abortion opponents should be able to see that crippling these organizations efforts to deliver crucial non-abortion healthcare services to underserved and desperately poor communities is cruel and harmful. The global gag rule should be repealed once and for all.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

UPDATES:

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11 a.m.: This editorial was updated with more current numbers from Marie Stopes International.
Californias landmark law to end money bail was to take effect in October, but now is delayed for an additional 13 months because a referendum put forward by the bail bond industry to repeal the law qualified for the November 2020 ballot. Its infuriating, but its no surprise. A nationwide empire of insurance companies, bail bond agents and bounty hunters has gotten rich by preying on families desperate to get their loved ones out of jail and back to their homes and jobs. It stands to reason that these interests would expend a lot of their ill-gotten money in an attempt to snuff out Senate Bill 10, which would put them out of business in California.

The bill eliminates the unjust practice of allowing personal wealth to determine whether people will be locked up before trial or walk free.

So what to do with that extra year? The judges and county agencies that have lead roles in implementing the law and bringing into being the post-bail world have a choice. They could relax, slow down, table their work for a year or so, turn their attention to other things and allow bail bond agents to continuing squeezing nonrefundable money out of people who just want to go home.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

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Or they could  and they should  move forward with all deliberate speed, in the knowledge that Californians and their representatives have demanded an end to the abusive money-bail system. They should keep October in their sights, not because SB 10 could still take effect then  the referendum prevents that  but because they will have to at the very least update the pretrial system, whether or not voters uphold the new law.

A federal court is likely to strike down San Franciscos existing bail schedule as unconstitutional. Lawsuits in other counties are sure to follow. Even the bail industry acknowledges that changes are needed in the interests of justice.

Lawmakers should swiftly pass a bill to collect and analyze needed data  information about race, geography and gender, information that will help judges weigh the risks of keeping people locked up or sending them home, information that helps courts measure whether defendants are treated equally and fairly across the state. District attorneys should follow the lead of a growing number of their counterparts across the country and simply not seek bail in cases in which the probability is low that the defendant will be dangerous to others. Judges should exercise their discretion to release suspects without bail when appropriate.

After years of inaction  because of pressure from the bail bond industry  California last year finally became a leader in bail reform and in reducing the cost of justice. Referendum notwithstanding, this is no time to go slow. Its time to press ahead.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook.
A judge on Thursday acquitted three Chicago police officers of trying to cover up the 2014 police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald to protect another officer who pulled the trigger.

After a trial that was watched closely by law enforcement and critics of the department that had long had a reputation for condoning police brutality and misconduct, Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson acquitted former Officer Joseph Walsh, former Det. David March and Officer Thomas Gaffney on charges of conspiracy, official misconduct and obstruction of justice.

The judge said there was no evidence that officers tried to hide or bury evidence. The evidence shows just the opposite, she said. She singled out how they had preserved the police dashboard camera video at the heart of the evidence that convicted Officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot McDonald 16 times.

Van Dyke was convicted in October of second-degree murder and aggravated battery and was due to be sentenced Friday.

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Both trials hinged on the dashboard camera video, which shows Van Dyke shoot McDonald within seconds of getting out of his police SUV and then continue shooting the 17-year-old while he is lying on the street and barely moving. Police were responding to a report of a male who was breaking into trucks and stealing radios on the citys South Side.

Prosecutors allege that Gaffney, March and Walsh, who was Van Dykes partner, submitted false reports about what really happened to try to prevent or shape any criminal investigation of the shooting. Among other things, they said the officers falsely claimed that McDonald ignored verbal commands from Van Dyke, that Van Dyke shot McDonald after McDonald aggressively swung a knife at the officers, and that Van Dyke kept shooting the teen because he was trying to get up while still armed with the knife.

McDonald did have a small knife that he had used to puncture a tire on Gaffneys police vehicle, but the video showed he did not swing it at the officers before Van Dyke shot him and that he appeared to be incapacitated after falling to the ground.

In September, demonstrators protested in Chicago as jury selection began in the murder trial of Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke. (Joshua Lott / AFP/Getty Images)

The case is clear, the case is straightforward, and it is concise, special prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes told the judge during her opening statements. It boils down to what the defendants wrote on paper versus what is shown on video.

When later summarizing her case, Holmes urged Stephenson to hold the officers accountable and to provide some measure of justice to the slain teen.

Laquan McDonald was a human being. He deserved due process in the law and not to have police officers write false reports and shape a false narrative, Holmes said.

The attorneys for Gaffney, Walsh and March  the latter two of whom have since left the police force  used the same strategy that the defense used at Van Dykes trial by placing all the blame on McDonald.

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It was McDonalds refusal to drop his knife and threatening actions that caused these officers to see what they saw, Marchs attorney, James McKay, told the court. This is a case about law and order [and] about Laquan McDonald not following any laws that night.

The lawyers ridiculed the decision to charge the three officers, saying they merely wrote what they observed or, in Marchs case, what the other officers told him they saw. And they said there was no evidence that the officers conspired to get their stories straight.

The state wants you to criminalize police reports, McKay bellowed at one point.

The McDonald shooting sparked large protests and led to major changes to Chicagos policing, but only more than a year after the fact. City Hall only released the video to the public in November 2015  13 months after the shooting  because a judge ordered it to do so. The charges against Van Dyke werent announced until the day of the videos release.

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The case cost the police superintendent his job and was widely seen as the reason the countys top prosecutor was voted out of office a few months later. It was also stunning because it led to charges not only against Van Dyke, but also against the three officers accused of covering for each other as part of a code of silence that until recent years city officials adamantly denied even existed.

At the same time, the case prompted a federal investigation that resulted in a blistering report that found Chicago officers routinely used excessive force and violated the rights of residents, particularly minorities. The city implemented a new policy that required video of fatal police shootings to be released within 60 days, accelerated a program to equip all officers with body cameras, and launched a host of reforms to change the way officers are trained and investigate officer-involved shootings.
A day after President Trump canceled military flights for a planned congressional trip to Afghanistan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi abandoned her plans to travel instead on commercial flights because of security concerns.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi (D-San Francisco) blamed the Trump administration in a written statement for disclosing news of the trip, which included several other House Democrats, and thus increasing the danger to lawmakers.

After President Trump revoked the use of military aircraft to travel to Afghanistan, the delegation was prepared to fly commercially to proceed with this vital trip to meet with our commanders and troops on the front lines, Hammill said.

Overnight, he added, a new State Department threat assessment indicated that the president announcing this sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security and other officials supporting the trip. . . . This morning, we learned that the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well.

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The White House said it leaked nothing that would cause a security risk.

The travel standoff comes as the partial government shutdown, the longest in American history, entered its 28th day.

Trump on Thursday informed Pelosi in a letter that he was postponing the originally planned trip because of the shutdown and called it a public relations event. That move was in apparent retaliation after Pelosi told Trump in a letter Tuesday that she intended to reschedule his planned Jan. 29 State of the Union address because of security concerns prompted by the shutdown.

Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative, Trump wrote.

Essential Politics: Trump begins Year 3 in a deep hole 

Members of Congress routinely travel around the world as part of their congressional business; that travel is frequently done on military planes and arranged by State Department protocol officers.

Such trips are typically kept secret for security reasons until lawmakers are safely back in the United States.

Hammill said the trip to Afghanistan would be indefinitely postponed so as not to further endanger our troops and security personnel, or the other travelers on the flights. But he said that lawmakers would not be cowed in discharging their constitutional duties

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The United States Congress is a coequal branch of government in our system of checks and balances, he said. The Congress has a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight in the war zone where our men and women in uniform are risking their lives every day.

Mike DeBonis writes for the Washington Post.
The former mistress of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman testified about his naked run through a secret tunnel that started under his bathtub, having to trim the pant legs of the famously short drug kingpin, and her work for the Sinaloa cartel. The former Mexican lawmaker also spoke in court of her confused feelings about their affair.

Minutes after taking the stand in federal court on Thursday, 29-year-old Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez was asked what her relationship was like with the notorious cartel leader.

Until today, Im still confused, I thought we were romantically involved as partners, she said through an interpreter.

From the courtroom pews, Guzmans wife of 11 years, Emma Coronel, also 29, let out a short laugh.

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An hour into her testimony, during a brief break, Sanchez began to sob. The mike attached to her prison shirt was still turned on, and the sounds were amplified through the courtroom.

Sanchez, arrested 1 years ago in San Diego and charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, told jurors the riveting story of how Guzman pulled her into the Sinaloa cartel, one of the worlds most powerful drug networks, when she was 21.

The pair began seeing each other in 2011, and he soon told her he needed her to be his point person for the marijuana farmers in the mountains of Mexicos Sinaloa state, she said. Shed never worked in drug trafficking, she said, but because she was from the area, Guzman thought that would give him an edge with the farmers.

He was right. She was soon coordinating with him and his pilot on regular air shipments of 400 kilograms of marijuana at a time. Thats how much the planes could carry, she explained.

She described how shed be in the mountains, climbing onto a small hill every morning and every afternoon, so she could get a cellphone signal to communicate with Guzman about the shipments.

He taught her to pick marijuana based on the three Bs: buena, bonita, barata  good, pretty, cheap. Guzman wanted to pay the farmers on credit, she said  but she refused to make that deal.

If they were on credit, they wouldnt get the money, she said.

Sanchez said she was never paid by Guzman, whom others referred to as her husband.

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She testified she acted as a wife to him and would buy and tailor clothes for him. Referring to his famously short stature, she said she would buy him size 32/32 trousers, but would have to cut his pants because they were too long.

Text messages between the two that were read to jurors showed Guzmans involvement in the marijuana trafficking, as well as the depth of their relationship. He often mixed telling her I love you with getting details about the latest marijuana shipment, or questions about quality.

Love, dont buy anymore with seeds, one text from Guzman said.

Yes, love, she replied.

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In 2012, she helped him set up a company in Mexico City as a front to launder money from his cartel, she testified. The company was meant to look as if it were making and exporting juices, she said, and Guzman instructed her to find a low-income person who could be easily manipulated to incorporate it.

She said Guzman also set up front companies in Los Angeles and Ecuador.

By the end of 2012 when the pair were living together in one of his homes in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, their relationship was becoming strained, she said. Throughout their relationship, she felt frightened around the powerful man 30 years her senior but was afraid to leave him, she testified.

I didnt want him to mistrust me, because I thought he could hurt me, she said. She also feared he might try to get her siblings involved in the cartel, and she wanted to keep them away.

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Once, after he learned of a betrayal, Guzman told her that whoever betrayed him was going to die, even if they were relatives or women, she testified.

By 2013, the relationship had ended, she said, but continued contact from Guzman made it seem like it would never end. In 2014, she ran successfully for legislative office in her hometown in Sinaloa state  with many votes, she said. She was later removed from office.

In February 2014, Guzman messaged her again via their usual communication device, a BlackBerry, and asked her to come to one of his homes. That meeting brought one of the most traumatic nights of her life, she said  a raid that led to Guzmans eventual arrest on Feb. 22, 2014.

Earlier in the day, jurors had heard harrowing testimony from a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, giving a play-by-play of the search for Guzman with the help of a select crew of Mexican marines to avoid the Mexican police and their corruption.

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Sanchez gave gripping details of what it was like to be inside the house with marines pounding on reinforced doors and helicopters buzzing overhead.

Sanchez, Guzman, one of his secretaries and his maid ran into the bathroom, where the bathtub lifted up, revealing stairs leading to a dark tunnel.

For me, it was horrible, she said. It was dark, humid, filled with mud  and she could feel water coming up my legs.

How long were you in the tunnel? the prosecutor asked.

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Long enough to traumatize me, she said.

Eventually they made it out, maybe an hour later, near a river in Culiacan.

Guzman ran off first, and he left us behind to find their way through the dark, she said.

What was he wearing? the prosecutor asked.

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Nothing, Sanchez responded. He was naked.

Guzman, though later captured, escaped from prison in 2015  through a tunnel  before he was arrested again in 2016.

Sanchez is being held in jail on her own drug charges. Shes expected to continue her testimony when the trial resumes Tuesday.
The Defense Department on Friday identified three of the four Americans who were killed Wednesday in a suicide bombing in Syria that was claimed by Islamic State.

In a statement, the Pentagon named the three as Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Fla.; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, of upstate New York; and Defense Department civilian Scott A. Wirtz of St. Louis.

The fourth American, a civilian contractor, was not immediately identified.

The four were killed, and three other Americans were wounded, when a suicide bomber on foot detonated an explosive vest in front of a restaurant in the northern Syrian city of Manbij as they were meeting with local military officials.

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It was the largest loss of life in the Pentagons war against Islamic State militants in Syria and a sign of the potent threat that the group still poses as the Trump administration begins to withdraw U.S. forces from the country.

The Pentagon said the Americans were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

It said Farmer was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), at Ft. Campbell, Ky. Kent was assigned to Cryptologic Warfare Activity 66, based at Ft. Meade, Md. Wirtz was an operations support specialist with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Kent enlisted in the Navy in 2003 and served on assignments at Ft. Gordon, Ga.; Norfolk, Va., and Washington, in addition to Ft. Meade, the Navy said.

She was a rockstar, an outstanding Chief Petty Officer, and leader to many in the Navy Information Warfare Community, Cmdr. Joseph Harrison, the head of her unit at Ft. Meade, said in a statement.

The Pentagon said the suicide bombing is under investigation.

President Trumps surprise Dec. 19 announcement that Islamic State had been defeated and that U.S. troops would be coming home drew widespread criticism, including from Republican allies who warned that a premature American departure could allow militants to return.
When Capt. Alan Carltons B-24 bomber was shot down over Germany during World War II, he felt lucky.

Not that lucky  wounded in the right foot, he left a bloody trail in the snow that made him easy to track. The American pilot was captured at gunpoint and spent more than a year in a POW camp.

But he was alive. Three other crewmen had died in the crash.

Now, 75 years later, Carlton has been revisited by a bit of his past. It came via FedEx a few days ago from Eisenach, a city in central Germany.

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Eberhard Haelbig, a researcher there who is documenting aerial combat during the war, scours crash sites near his home. Dozens of planes went down there. Scavenged over the years by humans, consumed by the elements, whats left is mostly pieces.

But even they tell a story.

One plane in particular, a B-24 that crashed in a forest, caught his attention not long ago. Using records in Germany and the U.S., he figured out which plane it was and when it had gone down.

He learned the names of the 10 Americans who were on board and found photographs taken shortly after it crashed. With the help of Google and a military friend in the United States, he contacted the pilot, who lives in a senior community in Carmel Valley.

Which is how Carlton got two FedEx boxes with remnants of his B-24.

With this I would like to say, Thank you, Capt. Carlton, and thank you to the Greatest Generation for your fight against evil and for liberating my country from that, Haelbig told the Union-Tribune by email. Im a German by birth, but American by heart.

What he sent Carlton was a pile of junk to a laymans eye. But not to the former pilot.

This means a lot to me, Carlton said recently as he looked through the seven pieces of metal and glass. He held up a scrap he thought was the part of a wing tip called an aileron. I never thought Id see any of my plane again. Im glad to have these.

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Glad, too, because the package arrived in time for his 100th birthday, which was Jan. 13.

His 14th mission

They called it Big Week.

As 1943 turned into 1944, Allied commanders hatched a plan for a round-the-clock aerial offensive against the Nazis, one of the largest bombing campaigns of the war.

American B-17s and B-24s stationed in England and Italy would attack airplane factories, munitions centers and other targets in Germany during the day. British planes would raid at night.

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They hoped not only to strike at Germanys industrial heart, but also to draw its fighter jets into a war of attrition and clear the skies in advance of the pivotal D-Day land invasion at Normandy planned for later that year.

For six days starting on Feb. 20, 1944, hundreds of B-17s and B-24s flew missions into Germany, dropping nearly 10,000 tons of bombs.

They paid a hefty price, losing about 250 bombers and fighters. Some 2,500 crew members were killed, injured, lost or captured.

But Germany lost hundreds of planes and pilots, too. With its factories and airfields damaged by the bombs, airplanes couldnt be replaced quickly.

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The Allies had shifted air supremacy in their favor.

Carlton was shot down during Big Week, on Feb. 24, 1944. The Detroit native had enlisted two years earlier, dropping out of medical school at Indiana University to do my part in the war effort, he said. Everybody was joining.

Part of the 567th Bomb Squadron based in Hethel, England, Carlton was on his 14th mission when his B-24D Liberator, built at Consolidated in San Diego, was hit by enemy fire, first over Holland and then over central Germany.

Machine-gun bursts from Luftwaffe fighter planes killed his tail gunner and two waist gunners, and sent the B-24 rolling. Everybody else parachuted out the bomb bay doors, with Carlton exiting last.

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He came down between two trees, suspended by his parachute in the air. After cutting himself free, he hobbled away, but his right foot  wounded by shrapnel when the plane was shot  trailed blood in the snow. German civilians hunted him down about two hours later and held him at gunpoint until the military arrived.

From there, he was interrogated briefly, then put on a train and sent to Stalag Luft I, a prison camp for Allied air crews located near Barth, Germany, on the Baltic Sea. Nearly 9,000 British and American aviators were captive there.

A journal Carlton kept during his imprisonment included drawings he made of the camp, as well as a map of his ill-fated mission. It has lists of books he read and movies he saw, and recipes the prisoners used for meals made from care-package ingredients like Spam. And meals made from animals.

Whatever we could catch, we ate, Carlton said. When Russian forces liberated the camp in early May 1945, his weight had dropped to about 100 pounds.

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B-17s and B-24s arrived to pick up the prisoners. On the way out, they flew their passengers over German cities so they could view the results of the bombings theyd participated in before getting shot down.

I was happy to see it, Carlton said.

An unusual ending

Haelbig, the German researcher, works for a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the story of one particular World War II aerial battle: the Kassel Mission.

On Sept. 27, 1944, B-24s from the 445th Bomb Group, stationed at Tibenham in England, were sent to hit factories in Kassel. A group of about 35 planes, through what the American Air Museum in Britain called a gross error in leadership and navigation, peeled off from the main group and their fighter escorts to attack a different town.

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The bombers were overrun by about 150 German fighter planes, which in six minutes shot down 25 of the B-24s. Six others made emergency landings in Allied territory. Only four made it back to Tibenham.

It was, according to the Kassel Mission Historical Society, the greatest single-day loss to a group from one airfield in aviation warfare history. More than two-thirds of the crew members were killed or taken prisoner.

Although his main focus is documenting the stories of the Kassel Mission, Haelbig is also interested in other aerial warfare in the region, including Big Week. He said almost 30 U.S. planes were shot down in just one day during that campaign near Eisenach, his hometown.

Hunters and rangers in the nearby forest sometimes come across the wreckage of planes, and when they do they tell Haelbig. He visits the sites and collects what he can, often putting the remnants in display cases in an aviation museum.

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He identifies the planes and their crew members through detailed records, maps and photos kept in U.S. and German archives. Thats how he linked Carlton to that particular B-24.

The search usually ends there. Of the 16 million Americans who fought in World War II, fewer than 500,000 are alive, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

But when Haelbig Googled Carltons name recently, he found a 2016 newspaper story about the pilot that said he was living in San Diego. The researcher asked an American friend on the East Coast to find out if that was still true.

It was my greatest wish to send Capt. Carlton the pictures of his plane and some pieces, Haelbig said.

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When the phone call came, Carlton and his daughter, Jan Foreman, didnt know what to make of it. Someone found the B-24? They want to send parts of the wreckage?

We thought it was probably a scam, Foreman said.

Reminders of what happened

Carltons memory about the war isnt what it used to be.

That was a long time ago, he said.

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He came home from Germany and into the arms of his wife, Jeanne. They started a family, two daughters. They followed his parents from Chicago to Arizona and then to San Diego, where he sold real estate for many years in Rancho Bernardo. His grandsons are in the Grammy-winning Christian group Switchfoot.

He and Jeanne were married for almost 75 years, until her death in 2016. His senior-living apartment is filled with photos of the couple, including a black-and-white picture of Carlton in his military uniform, before he was shipped overseas.

To remind him of what happened during the war, he has scrapbooks and a shadow box decorated with medals  a Purple Heart, two Air Medals, the French Legion of Honor. The pieces Haelbig just sent him from the downed B-24 may play a similar role.

And he has a poem he wrote while he was a POW that includes these lines:

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John Wilkens writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Wilkens writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com
A Northern California woman who prosecutors say posed as a nurse to give patients Botox injections and other cosmetic treatments that left them with significant facial deformities was charged with multiple felonies this week.

Susan Ann Tancreto, 60, told clients at a Redding day spa that she was a nurse working for Dr. Larry Pyle before she injected Botox and other substances into their faces and lips, according to court documents. However, Shasta County prosecutors said she has never been licensed as a nurse.

Tancreto is facing eight felony counts, including mayhem, battery with serious bodily injury, unlicensed practice of medicine, selling/transporting a controlled substance and dissuading a witness. She has pleaded not guilty.

The California Department of Consumer Affairs and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began investigating Tancreto after they received a complaint. Investigators discovered that Tancreto purchased Botox  a prescription drug  online from other countries and directly from Pyle and then used the drug in the procedures.

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Dr. Pyle did not examine the individuals who were receiving Botox and/or filler treatments from Tancreto to ensure they were appropriate candidates to receive such treatment, prosecutors said in a statement.

Prosecutors charged Pyle, 70, with a felony count of aiding or abetting in the unlicensed practice of medicine. He has not yet entered a plea, according to court records.

Pyle was placed on seven years probation with the state medical board in February 2016 after who was accused of sexual misconduct with a patient and gross negligence. He is required to have a third-party chaperone present while consulting, examining or treating female patients, according to medical board records.

He was previously placed on three years probation in 2014, stemming from another sexual misconduct accusation, records show.

Prosecutors said Tancretos injections resulted in severe injury and facial deformities to victims, who now require long-term medical treatment.

One of Tancretos clients learned  after seeing a surgeon who performed a biopsy  that silicone had been injected into her lips even though silicone has not been approved by the FDA to be injected to fill wrinkles or augment tissues in the body. As a result, prosecutors said the woman now may require lifelong treatment.

Authorities also allege that Tancreto offered, sold, furnished or gave away a variety of sedatives and painkillers, including the brand medications Norco, Valium and Tramadol.

Authorities are asking anyone who has received treatment from Tancreto to contact the district attorneys consumer protection hotline at (530) 225-5391.

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hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @Hannahnfry
A leader in a Mexican drug cartel pleaded guilty Thursday to transporting cocaine and other narcotics to the U.S. and laundering drug proceeds, the U.S. attorneys office said.

Juan Jose Alvarez-Tostado Galvan, also known as El Compadre, admitted that in his role as a financial manager in the Juarez cartel, he collected at least $24 million in narcotics proceeds in Chicago, prosecutors said.

Alvarez-Tostado obtained large quantities of cocaine from Colombia and transported it to various locations in the U.S. through Mexico, according to his plea agreement. Once distributed, he admitted to collecting and laundering the drug proceeds.

He was indicted in 1998 along with more than 100 other people and three major Mexican banks. He was arrested in Mexico in 2005 and charged with operating a continuing criminal enterprise, money laundering and conspiracy. He was extradited to the U.S. in 2018.

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His capture was part of a Los Angeles-based investigation  Operation Casablanca  into drug money laundering by Mexican banks that was launched in 1995. Undercover officers from what was then the U.S. Customs Service set up shop in an L.A. warehouse and posed as freelance money launderers seeking assignments from Mexican drug dealers and bankers.

The 1998 indictment alleged Alvarez-Tostado collected more than $40 million from narcotics sales in the U.S. and transferred the money into Mexican bank accounts on behalf of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the reputed chief of the Juarez cartel until his death in 1997 during plastic surgery.

According to his plea agreement, Alvarez-Tostado supervised the collection and laundering of drug proceeds from distributors in the U.S. The money was transferred to his suppliers in Colombia, often through wire transfers to U.S. bank accounts he controlled.

A co-defendant, Victor Manuel Alcala-Navarro, directed undercover officers based in Santa Fe Springs to deliver money directly to them in Mexico and the U.S, according to the plea agreement. Alcala-Navarro and Alvarez-Tostado also directed the undercover officials to deliver proceeds to their cocaine suppliers in Colombia.

The drug proceeds were used to pay expenses of the drug trafficking enterprise and finance large shipments of drugs to the U.S.

Alvarez-Tostados sentencing is scheduled for March 28, according to the U.S. attorneys office. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 18 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine set by the court.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Twitter: @r_valejandra
The three men killed on a remote, unlit road above Palmdale late Wednesday night were all from the Los Angeles area, L.A. County coroners officials said Saturday.

The dead men were identified as Olukayode A. Owolabi, 27, of the South Bay community of Westchester; Sean B. Cowen, 24, of Van Nuys; and David Adalberto Hernandez-Licona, 24, of Boyle Heights, coroners Lt. David Smith said.

All three were pronounced dead at the scene shortly before midnight, according to coroners records.

A fourth man who was also shot survived and used his cellphone to call 911 at 11:16 p.m., Los Angeles County Sheriffs Lt. Derrick Alfred said Thursday.

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He said hed been shot in the face, but he couldnt describe where he was because he didnt know the area, Alfred said.

Paramedics had to use triangulation to track the shooting victims, who were found at Ranch Center Drive and 40th Street South, a blocked-off road just north of Ritter Canyon at the edge of an abandoned housing project that was never completed, Alfred said.

The lone survivor was taken to the hospital.

Based on their IDs, none of the men lived in the Antelope Valley, Alfred said.

The men were sitting two apiece in the front seats of a Toyota Camry sedan and an Audi SUV, authorities said. They were still in the cars when first responders arrived.

Very few people live in the area, except for employees at a horse ranch at Ranch Center Drive and Elizabeth Lake Road, about a half mile from the shooting site. One, who gave his name only as Dave, said he heard shots around 11 p.m.

It sounded like an AK  a semiautomatic, he said. I heard about 20 rounds, and then 10 minutes later, a single shot.

Another ranch employee who refused to give her name drove up to the shooting site Thursday. The woman pointed out small piles of broken bluish glass and what appeared to be a puddle of blood, mostly washed away after a day of rain.

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The area is mostly wild and beautiful, she said, a plateau popular with horse riders and runners. Such a shooting, so close to home, was jarring enough, she said, but the thought that the victims were outsiders brought there to die seemed almost as upsetting.

The ranch is the only thing within five miles of here, she said. Its pitch-black at night and totally secluded  but why here? Its not that secluded. What if someone was driving by? Why not go up into a canyon?

No guns were found at the scene, and Alfred said he couldnt go into detail about the ammunition that was found.

It looks like a semiautomatic rifle may have been used, based on the evidence on the ground, he said. But we wont know until the cars are taken apart and we find the bullets that were fired.

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Investigators dont have any suspect information or a motive for the attack, Alfred said. Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriffs Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500. Those wishing to remain anonymous should call Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477.

jeanette.marantos@latimes.com

Twitter: @jmarantos
An appointee of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti who was named in a federal search warrant filed in the FBIs ongoing City Hall corruption probe resigned from his post Friday.

Joel Jacinto, who sat on the five-member Board of Public Works, submitted a resignation letter that went into effect immediately. His attorney, Thomas M. Brown, said in an email that Jacinto stepped aside voluntarily to avoid becoming a distraction for his agency.

If contacted by any federal agency, he will fully and voluntarily cooperate as a witness against any individuals within city government, Brown said. He hopes that he will be able to return to his position as commissioner in the near future after any distraction related to his willingness to serve as a witness is completed.

Jacinto and his wife, Ave Jacinto, were among 13 people named in the warrant, which was filed in federal court in November and reviewed by The Times last week. The warrant said agents were seeking evidence related to an investigation into an array of potential crimes, including bribery, kickbacks and extortion, possibly involving those people.

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Garcetti named Jacinto to the public works board in 2015, saying he expected him to improve life for Angelenos and ensure the city was working efficiently. Board members oversee such issues as street repairs, trash pickup and the citys sewer system, earning a salary of more than $160,000 annually.

The federal search warrant named several other City Hall figures, including Councilman Jose Huizar, whose home and offices were searched by the FBI in November; Councilman Curren Price, who represents part of South Los Angeles; and Deron Williams, chief of staff to council President Herb Wesson.

Garcetti had no comment. The investigation poses some political risk for the mayor, who is weighing whether to run for president and could face questions about the probe on any campaign trail.

Agents served the warrant on Google in July, seeking information from a private email account for Ray Chan, who served as Garcettis deputy mayor for economic development in 2016 and 2017. Prior to that, Chan was Garcettis top executive at the citys Department of Building and Safety.

The warrant does not say the FBI has gathered evidence of criminal activity by any of the people named in the document, and there were no records attached to the warrant saying what evidence, if any, was discovered in Chans email account.

Jacinto, who did not attend Fridays public works meeting, referred questions from The Times to his lawyer. Last week, he said he was unaware that he had been mentioned in a search warrant. At the time, he said his wife is an independent contractor but did not provide further details.

While serving on the board, Jacinto was assigned to work with the citys Bureau of Engineering, which reviews permits that are provided to companies that seek to carve into streets and sidewalks as part of their construction projects.

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He also was in regular contact with Chan, then a city employee, and scheduled several meetings with real estate developers or about development, according to an excerpt of his appointment calendar from 2016, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.

The appointment calendar lists at least one meeting, scheduled in September 2016, about Hazens Real Estate Group. Shenzhen Hazens Real Estate Group received approval from the council the following year to demolish the nine-story Luxe City Center Hotel, located on Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles, and replace it with two skyscrapers  one for a hotel, the other for condominiums.

Investigators asked in the warrant about the Luxe Hotel and George Chiang, who is mentioned in city records as being involved with the Hazens skyscraper project. The warrant also said investigators sought information on development projects in and around Los Angeles that were related to foreign investors, including Hazens.

David Chaiken, a company attorney, told The Times earlier this week that Shenzhen Hazens was unable to share any information about its activities or the investigation.

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In 2016, Jacinto also scheduled at least one meeting with Chiang, according to his calendar. Chiang has been serving as chief executive with CCC Investment Group, while Chan, the former deputy mayor, has been working as CCCs vice president of development, according to city and state records.

Prior to his city employment, Jacinto worked as a global sales coordinator for FRHI Hotels and Resorts, according to paperwork he submitted when he joined the public works board.

A significant figure in the citys Filipino community, he also worked previously as executive director of the Search to Involve Pilipino Americans, a nonprofit group based in Historic Filipinotown that focuses on economic and community development. He has been involved in other organizations and events that support Asian Americans, as well.

Leo Pandac, a former board president for the nonprofit group, said the naming of Jacinto in the warrant  and the resignation on Friday  were shocking to everybody in the community. Jacinto did a good job running the nonprofit, helping it grow over the course of his tenure, and frequently came with Garcetti to neighborhood cleanups in Historic Filipinotown, Pandac said.

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Hes a good man. Hes a nice man, he added. Thats why probably Eric hired him.

Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

Twitter: @DavidZahniser
Prosecutors Thursday charged a 30-year-old man with threatening to carry out a shooting at Citrus College in Glendora, resulting in a six-hour lockdown of the campus.

Terrell Lee Bennett pleaded not guilty to one felony count each of making criminal threats and unlawful possession of ammunition, the Los Angeles County district attorneys office said. If convicted, he faces more than 10 years in state prison.

The incident began about 11:15 a.m. Tuesday, when Bennett called 911 saying he was on his way to the college, according to the Glendora Police Department. The campus and surrounding streets were locked down as several law enforcement agencies, including a regional SWAT team, were called to the scene.

Authorities found the mans car in a campus parking lot and began a room-to-room search of the college. The Los Angeles County sheriffs bomb squad did not find explosive devices on campus, the Police Department said.

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Bennett surrendered and was taken into custody about 3:40 p.m. Police identified him as an online student who was scheduled Tuesday for an in-person class.

Prosecutors are requesting that he be held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AleneTchek
University of California regents voted Thursday to weaken the rules for allowing chancellors and other senior managers to engage in outside professional activities, two years after cracking down on former UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi for moonlighting.

UC rules had required pre-approval for all paid and unpaid activities. But before wrapping up a two-day meeting in San Francisco, regents agreed to drop requirements for pre-approval for any outside activity  such as a position on a corporate board  that pays less than $2,500 from a single source in a year, unless required by a higher-up.

But senior managers, a group that includes about 290 people, still will be required to report all outside professional activities, both paid and unpaid.

After Katehi was ousted in 2016 over revelations that she had accepted paid positions with a for-profit education company and a textbook publisher, regents voted to decrease from three to two the number of paid for-profit board seats senior managers can accept. They also created an extra layer of approval for outside activities, as well as an independent review committee to assess any real or perceived conflicts of interest and potential damage to the reputation of a campus or UC.

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But chancellors soon complained that the approval process had turned into a bureaucratic nightmare.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said it often took two months to get pre-approvals for her unpaid speeches to the Rotary Club, for instance, or royalties for work editing an anthology of British literature. Another chancellor who wrote an acclaimed book on free speech was told he should have received pre-approval for the project, Christ said.

Im sure the policy wasnt intended to create these incredibly burdensome and bureaucratic reporting requirements, she said in interview. Nobody has any problem whatsoever with there being strict scrutiny of service on for-profit boards or for-profit activities.

Scholarly work will no longer be subject to the UC policy.

Christ called the changes that were approved Thursday common-sense reforms.

Other rules, including the limit of holding two paid positions on for-profit boards, remain in place. Exceptions must be approved by regents.

In 2017, four of 10 chancellors reported payments for outside professional activities: Pradeep Khosla at UC San Diego was paid $52,500, Christ at Berkeley received $1,500 and Samuel Hawgood at UC San Francisco got $1,000. UC Davis Chancellor Gary May reported $255,420 in cash and stocks from one corporation and one nonprofit, but much of it was earned in a previous job before joining UC in August 2017.

Board of Regents Chairman George Kieffer said UCs moonlighting rules remain among the strictest in the nation.

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The policy encourages its senior managers to serve on scientific boards, foundations and corporations as a way to share their expertise and learn about other administrative and educational operations.

But regents passed the stricter rules in 2016, after disclosures by the Sacramento Bee that Katehi had taken paid board positions with the DeVry Education Group, which was under federal investigation at the time for fraud, and John Wiley & Sons, a college textbook publisher. The revelations prompted both a state legislative hearing on UC moonlighting and a directive in the state budget to review and adjust policies on outside activities at UC.

Also Thursday, regents voted to phase out the board position of student advisor and instead add other opportunities for students to get involved with decision-making at UC. The position was established two years ago on a pilot basis and had been set to expire in July.

Student advisor Edward Huang pushed to keep the position, saying it would ensure more diversity and amplify student engagement with the Board of Regents. But Student Regent Devon Graves and Caroline Siegel Singh, president of the UC Student Assn., said the advisor position had not worked out as hoped and backed alternative approaches.

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In other action, regents discussed a multiyear plan to boost enrollment, improve graduation rates and eliminate achievement gaps among students who are low-income, underrepresented minorities or the first in their families to attend college.

UC campuses are aiming to hit a 90% graduation rate within six years for freshmen and within four years for transfer students by 2030. However, some regents pushed UC officials to try to achieve that rate among all freshmen within four years.

Regents also discussed Gov. Gavin Newsoms proposed budget, saying they hoped to secure more funding to enroll an additional 2,500 Californians in 2019-20.

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

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Twitter: @TeresaWatanabe
A week ago, Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner went to Sacramento to nail down support for the school district if teachers decided to go on strike.

He came back sounding very optimistic that lawmakers understood the districts finances were so perilous that it could not afford what the teachers were demanding.

But the images of teachers marching in the rain, often cheered by parents and students, have amounted to powerful politics in this blue state, and have weakened the districts hand.

The teachers have told personal stories that many find hard to argue with: that too many students shouldnt be crowded into classes, that schools should have nurses on hand every day. And that has up to now trumped Beutners grim financial diagnosis, even though it was largely endorsed by a county oversight agency.

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Now, some lawmakers Beutner met with less than a week ago have scheduled a news conference Friday in support of teachers and families to demand that LAUSD negotiate fairly.

As the L.A. teachers strike enters its fifth day and a new round of negotiations begin, two realities are emerging: The tremendous enthusiasm over the walkout and the toll its taking on the school system.

Inside campuses, skeleton crews of supervisors, subs and remaining workers have herded students into large spaces, showing movies and plugging students into online coursework. About two-thirds did not show up, even though many working parents depend on schools to provide childcare and even meals.

The district estimates that each day of the strike is costing $10 million to $15 million, and Thursdays student attendance was the lowest during the strike.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, whose possible entry into the 2020 presidential field has been challenged by the strike, is now trying to take a leadership role in ending it.

This was evident Thursday when he hosted negotiating teams from the school district and union at City Hall. They were the first talks in a week.

1 / 75 Teachers and their supporters fill Grand Park during a rally after a tentative agreement wath LAUSD on smaller classes, new community schools, nurses and a raise. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 75 Erin Payne holds her daughter Olivia Johnson during a rally at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles. LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner and United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl announced a tentative deal today that could send teachers back to the classroom tomorrow, ending the first Los Angeles teachers strike in 30 years. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 75 Maida Salido, Aurora Mireles and Stephanie Flores, left to right, celebrate during a rally at Grand Park in Los Angeles. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 75 LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner and United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl announced a tentative deal today that could send teachers back to the classroom tomorrow, ending the first Los Angeles teachers strike in 30 years. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 75 Mallorie Evans, center, celebrates after an agreement between the teachers union and the LAUSD was reached Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 75 Teachers celebrate after an agreement between the teachers union and the LAUSD was reached Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 75 LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner, right, and United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl, left, with Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a tentative deal that could send teachers back to the classroom, ending the first Los Angeles teachers strike in 30 years. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 75 Thousands of teachers attend a UTLA rally in Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles on Friday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 75 Tom Morello, center, with guitar, is joined on stage by Perry Farrell, of Janes Addiction, and Wayne Kramer, with MC5, with tan jacket, as members of the UTLA Marching Band perform, This Land is Your Land, in Grand Park. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 75 From left, Lisa Ynfante, Iris Marin, Janis Nuno and Mireya Gutierrez, all LAUSD teachers join thousands at a rally in Grand Park. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 75 Ignacio Gordillo, Dean at Gage Middle School, shouts to the lawmakers at Los Angeles City Hall as thousands of educators rally in Grand Park. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 75 Xavi Moreno, center, gets ready for a rally in Grand Park. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 75 Jackie Goldberg, teacher, former school board member, who also served on the L.A. City Council and in the state Legislature visits with teachers attend rally in Grand Park. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 75 UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl, left, introduce himself to 5th grader Aryana Fields from Playa Del Rey Elementary School at the rally in Grand Park. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 75 Austin Beutner, LAUSD Superintendent, right, and Monica Garcia, LAUSD President, provide an update on the UTLA strike in Los Angeles on Friday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 75 Thousands of educators with the United Teachers Los Angeles attend a rally on the fifth day of the teachers strike in Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 75 From left, teachers Rosa Martinez, Maricela Chaidez and Lillian Garcia chant and cheer with fellow teachers preparing for a rally in Grand Park in front of Los Angeles City Hall Friday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 75 Kimberly Barrera, a 6th grade teacher, joins fellow teachers preparing for a rally in Grand Park in front of Los Angeles City Hall Friday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 75 Thousands of educators with the United Teachers Los Angeles attend a rally on the fifth day of the teachers strike at Grand Park in front of City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 75 Anavelia Valencia, left, and Courtney Moore, right, teachers at 99th Street Elementary school, perform a rain dance on the picket line in South Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 75 Teachers picket in the middle of Sunset Blvd., at Gordon Street in Hollywood. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 75 Antonio Solis, right, a teacher with Hollywood Primary Center, and Kevin Savage, center, a teacher at Vine Street Elementary, join fellow educators on the picket line along Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 75 Louisa Stiles, 4, eats a slice of donated pizza on the picket line at Elysian Heights elementary school in Los Angeles. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 75 School attendance fell again in the fourth day of the LAUSD teachers strike. Oscar Garcia, left, and Yacob Eyob work on their iPads at Burroughs Middle School. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 75 The hallways of Elysian Heights Elementary were uncrowded on Thursday; outside, teachers and parents picketed. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 75 Westminster Elementary kindergarten teacher Jessica Dunn makes her case to passing motorists on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice on the third day of the LAUSD teachers strike. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 75 LAUSD teachers, parents and others protest in front of school board President Monica Garcias home in El Sereno. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 75 A police officer clears the road to allow a car to pass during a protest Wednesday night outside L.A. school board President Monica Garcias home. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 75 Kindergarten teacher Beth Clark is among picketers on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice during Day 3 of the teachers strike Wednesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 75 Student counselor Sandra Santacruz-Cervantes, center, pickets in a crosswalk outside Hollywood High School on Tuesday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 75 Educators and supporters pack San Pedro Street in downtown Los Angeles at a rally outside the headquarters of the California Charter Schools Association. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 75 Janette Duran, from left, Lauren Maucere and Stephanie Johnson, all specialists at Marlton School for the deaf, cheer at a rally at the California Charter Schools Assn. in downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 75 Student counselor Edwin Deleon, on a bicycle, joins parents, teachers and students in a crosswalk to picket outside Hollywood High School during the second day of the United Teachers Los Angeles strike. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 75 Students from Main Street School hold signs as teachers and supporters make their way through downtown Los Angeles to attend a rally at the California Charter Schools Assn. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 75 Parents, teachers and students picket outside Hollywood High School during the second day of the United Teachers Los Angeles strike. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 75 On the second day of teachers strike, the United Teachers Los Angeles rally outside California Charter Schools Assn. offices in Los Angeles. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 75 On the second day of teachers strike, the United Teachers Los Angeles rally outside California Charter Schools Assn. offices in Los Angeles. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 75 On the second day of teachers strike, the United Teachers Los Angeles rally outside California Charter Schools Assn. offices in Los Angeles. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 75 Elisabeth Mitchell, right, a kindergarten teacher at the Accelerated Schools, a community of public charter schools in South Los Angeles, joins fellow teachers as they picket outside the school on the second day of the teachers strike. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 75 Los Angeles Unified Supt. Austin Beutner addresses the media at LAUSD headquarters on the second day of the United Teachers Los Angeles strike. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 75 Stephanie Grace, center, and Lilly Diaz, right, teachers at The Accelerated Schools, a community of public charter schools in South Los Angeles cheer to passing vehicles as they join fellow teachers as they picket outside the school on second day of the teachers strike. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 75 UTLA President Alex Caputo Pearl, center, joins teachers on the picket line at The Accelerated Schools in South Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 75 Teachers at The Accelerated Schools, a community of public charter schools in South Los Angeles picket outside the school on second day of the teachers strike. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 75 UTLA teachers gather at city hall in downtown Los Angeles for a march and rally Monday, as they walked off the job in their first strike in 30 years. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 75 Corianne Cook, a teacher from Webster Middle School with her children, Ryn, 9, left, and Liam, 12, march to LAUSD district headquarters during the first day of the UTLA strike in Los Angeles. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 75 Mallorie Evans, center, an educational audiologist at Marlton School for the deaf, signs along with the speaker while Los Angeles Unified School District teachers and supporters gather at LAUSD headquarters in Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 75 UTLA teachers marched from downtown Los Angeles to LAUSD headquarters Monday, January 14, 2019, as they walked off the job in their first strike in 30 years. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 75 A supporter for the UTLA strike sports a Superman cape in Los Angeles. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 49 / 75 Mari Enyart, 42, helps her son Was Enyart, 7, with school work while they spend their morning at a Starbucks Cafe in South Los Angeles on the first day of the strike. (Silvia Razgova / For The Times) 50 / 75 Reseda High students Roosevelt Jimenez, 17, left, and friend Kimberly Aquino, 17, right, sit in the school auditorium as UTLA teachers are out on strike in Reseda. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 75 Dr. Frances Gibson, Chief Academic Officer at the L.A. Unified School District, serves as a substitute teacher leading a language arts class at El Sereno Middle School. (Silvia Razgova / For The Times) 52 / 75 Teachers in a sea of umbrellas block 3rd and 4th streets over the 110 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles as they marched to LAUSD Headquarters from City Hall on first day of the UTLA teachers strike. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 53 / 75 Aleida Aguilar, a first grader at Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles, is guided by her mother through the picket line formed by teachers on first day of the Los Angeles school teachers strike. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 54 / 75 Counselor Leah Zeller leads teachers as they chant in the rain on the picket line at Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 55 / 75 Teachers in a sea of umbrellas march up 3rd street over the 110 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles as they marched to LAUSD Headquarters. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 56 / 75 UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl organizes Los Angeles Unified School District teachers before marching from City Hall to LAUSD headquarters in Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 57 / 75 Los Angeles School Superintendent Austin Beutner, right, with School Board President Monica Garcia, met with Geri Guzman, left, and family members of students before holding a press conference at LAUSD Headquarters. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 58 / 75 UTLA teachers arrive at Los Angeles to LAUSD headquarters near the 110 Freeway Monday, as they walked off the job in their first strike in 30 years. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 59 / 75 Reseda High School vice principal Phyllis Castaneda clicks through a slide presentation in the campus auditorium as students at the school are in the school auditorium and gym as UTLA teachers are out on strike in Reseda. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 60 / 75 Students picket at the entry of Carson Senior High School in Los Angeles. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times) 61 / 75 Students at Reseda High are in the school gym as UTLA teachers are out on strike in Reseda. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 62 / 75 Students join the picket line with striking teachers in Los Angeles. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 63 / 75 Teachers march towards LAUSD district headquarters during the first day of the strike in Los Angeles. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 64 / 75 Olivia Cali Gomez, 5, spends Monday morning learning what it means to go on strike, outside of Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 65 / 75 Los Angeles Unified School District teachers and supporters march from City Hall to LAUSD headquarters in Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 66 / 75 Irma Torres, center, teacher from Heliotrope Ave. Elementary School, attends a UTLA rally at Los Angeles City Hall. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 67 / 75 Teacher Shari Sakamoto, left, joins teachers marching on a picket line Monday morning at Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles on first day of the strike. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 68 / 75 Los Angeles Unified School District teachers and supporters gather at City Hall before marching to LAUSD headquarters in Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 69 / 75 99th Street Elementary School Principal Marissa Borden, 43, fist bumps 5-year-old Samantha Carlos, while she and her two brother arrive at school in South Los Angeles on the first day of the strike. (Silvia Razgova / For The Times) 70 / 75 UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, left, kicks off the LAUSD teachers strike at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. <strong>More: <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-los-angeles-teachers-strike-utla-president-20190114-story.html">UTLA president calls for more money for teachers in a city rife with millionaires.'</a></strong> (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 71 / 75 Members of UTLA picket in heavy rain outside 99th Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles. (Silvia Razgova / For The Times) 72 / 75 Students join the picket line in support of the UTLA strike in Los Angeles. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 73 / 75 Mars Khan, 5, a transitional kindergarten student, carries a sign to support his mother, teacher Stefany Khan during a march in downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 74 / 75 Teachers wave at passing vehicles on the 110 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles as they marched to LAUSD district headquarters. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 75 / 75 Reseda High School students Jania Garcia, 16, left, and classmate Dennis Miguel, 16, work on a college prep app on laptops in the school gym in Reseda, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Assisted by senior aide Matt Szabo, Garcetti also has been on the phone with both parties trying to work out what a final deal might look like.

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The mayor asked and received commitment for both parties to stay at the table until they reach an agreement, said spokeswoman Andrea Garcia on Thursday. Mayor Garcetti has cleared his schedule and is in regular contact with both parties and state leaders, including the governor.

Given his possible presidential ambitions, the strikes outcome needs to be a win, and preferably a quick win. Garcetti had paid limited attention to the nations second-largest school district until the labor unrest.

Gov. Gavin Newsom seemingly has much less at risk than Garcetti, but he, too has been pulled into the fray.

Thanks to higher tax revenues, his new budget proposal for the state delivers added funds that could contribute to a settlement. He also faces pressure from a key ally  teachers unions  to do something to control charter schools  either by increasing oversight over them or limiting their growth, or both.

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Politics around charters are tricky though; both unions and charter supporters are powerful special interests.

United Teachers Los Angeles, whose power in L.A. schools had been diminished by the rise of charter schools, seems to be on roll this week. But that might not last.

The organizing momentum has energized members. Thats especially important because a Supreme Court ruling last year made all union dues and fees optional. And, at this point, members can look forward to a deal that meets or exceeds reasonable expectations.

Union President Alex Caputo-Pearl has raised the expectations of his members  and their animus toward Beutner  to a fever pitch. And yet a final deal may look a lot like the districts most recent offer in the key particulars.

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Peripheral elements could prove crucial  like a pilot program using union-backed reforms. Tougher accountability for charter schools at the state level also would be something the union could sell as a win.

The length of the strike also matters, as does the unknown depth of public support. For Caputo-Pearl to win policy concessions on charters at the state level, timing could be everything.

The superintendent came into office last May on a divided vote, and the mixed loyalty is showing, too. Board President Monica Garcia has often been by Beutners side at news conferences this week. Others on the board have been less visible.

Board member George McKenna, who voted against hiring Beutner, called this week for an immediate settlement  and he seemed to be talking to Beutner more than to the union.

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Scott Schmerelson, who also voted against Beutner, issued a statement openly siding with teachers, saying he could no longer accept that board members should present a united front.

howard.blume@latimes.com

Twitter: @howardblume
Gloria Perez-Stewart was adamant: Her son would not attend school while his teachers at Eagle Rock Jr./Sr. High School were on strike. But for Perez-Stewart and her son, Aidan Villasenor Walker, skipping school involves much more than filling an extra six hours of free time.

Aidan, 19, has autism. At school, he has special education teachers, speech and occupational therapists, and a rigid schedule to help him navigate a world he often struggles to understand.

Losing that network of teachers to picket lines  even briefly  is particularly unsettling for him.

The Los Angeles Unified School District serves more than 60,000 special-needs students, more than 12% of its overall enrollment. The districtwide strike has raised safety concerns for some parents, particularly those whose children have severe intellectual or developmental disabilities. Many have kept their children at home.

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Some parents of students with disabilities and some advocates for them say they received no specific information from the district or their schools about how these students would be accommodated. It would have been helpful, they say, in deciding whether to send them to school.

Beth Kauffman, associate superintendent of L.A. Unifieds Division of Special Education, said all pre-strike communication to students and families came from their schools.

We let parents know if they called us or if they reached out to us, but we didnt send out any kind of blanket call, she said. We didnt know what staff would be attending and coming to work.

Loreni Delgado, whose 9-year-old son Miles has Down syndrome, said district-run Carpenter Community Charter School in Studio City never told her whether the aide who shadows her son would be working during the strike.

Parents are saying theyll hold on a few days, until they cant. Gloria Perez-Stewart, mother of a 19-year-old with autism.

But even if present, she worried the aide might be pulled to help other students on a day with tighter staffing. Delgado also assumed that the special education teachers allowed to help Miles use the bathroom would be on strike, making a decision to keep him home a no-brainer.

When things dont go the way he expects at school, its very difficult for him to have a good day, Delgado said. Whats the point of sending him to school when hes potentially throwing himself on the floor and having people there not knowing what to do with him?

For other parents, the availability of their childs aide was irrelevant. Sarah Bloom decided to send her son, who has autism, to a day camp on the strikes first day.

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If he has negative experiences there or problems arise there for him, he will have much less success going to school in the future there, she said.

Before the strike, attorneys for L.A. Unified sought a court order to compel employees who work with students with disabilities and special needs to come to work. The district has operated under a consent decree since 1996, after a student was denied services required under federal law.

Attorneys for the district argued that if teachers, nurses, counselors and psychiatric social workers went on strike, special-needs students would again be denied such services, jeopardizing compliance with the consent decree. U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew disagreed, denying the districts request but leaving open a possibility for the district to seek a court order later.

Union leaders hailed Lews decision.

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Perez-Stewart said she was disgusted that the district tried to forbid special education teachers from striking by using the consent decree after decades of doing little to comply with it.

Theyre using our kids as pawns, she said.

On the eve of the strike, Perez-Stewart and about 30 parents of LAUSD students with special needs gathered in a Montebello law office to talk about what to expect. Some were bewildered, she said.

A father of a 5-year-old boy with autism had no idea how to structure his day without school, said John Stewart, Perez-Stewarts husband. We had to help them build a timeline, broken down into every 15 minutes.

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Few parents were willing to send their kids to sparsely-staffed schools, he recalled. Some planned to stagger their workdays so one parent would always be home with the child. Others arranged for relatives to move in and help provide care.

Educators, parents, students and supporters picket in support of UTLA outside Eagle Rock Jr./Sr. High School, on Tuesday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

But some parents who did send their children to school were pleasantly surprised.

After staying home on the first day of the strike with her 13-year-old son, Joshua, Perla Esparza decided she didnt want to continue breaking his routine.

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Joshua has PURA syndrome, a rare neurodevelopmental disorder that has left him non-verbal and unable to walk on his own. The situation posed a dilemma for Esparza: While she supported his teachers cause, she also depended on the services offered at Los Angeles Academy Middle School.

As a mother, I was worried that maybe the district was going to think that I didnt want services, she said. If he doesnt receive services in school, where will he get them?

She planned on taking him to the South Park school herself if his regular aide wasnt on the school bus, and staying with him throughout the day to take care of his basic needs. But on Tuesday morning, the bus pulled up with Joshuas aide.

I was really happy, Esparza said.

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Kauffman, the district official, didnt have specific data on how many students who receive special education services attended classes, but said that anecdotally, were finding that our students with disabilities are coming to school at greater rate than most general ed students.

She said that privately contracted aides were instructed to come to work to support to students who showed up, and that the district deployed over 200 employees who report to the departments special education division to help.

However, Valerie Vanaman, an attorney who represents students with disabilities in the district, said that mass deployment had consequences. Some district staff who normally handle complaints about special education services were reassigned to schools instead, bringing those mediation cases to a halt.

The district now has, even after two days of this strike, a major state and federal compliance issue on its hands because it has all of these disputes with nobody to talk to to resolve them, she said.

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If the strike lasts only about a week, Kauffman said the district should still be able to keep the timelines in these cases.

If its a protracted work stoppage then we would have to rethink how were going to approach those issues, she said.
Luminaire has finally made it to L.A.

Cutting-edge interior design retailer Luminaire has unveiled a gleaming 15,500-square-foot showroom among other major design brand names on Beverly Boulevard. But unlike the other bricks-and-mortar flagships on this West Hollywood-adjacent stretch that largely trade in single manufacturers, I curate and edit everything thats shown here, founder Nasir Kassamali says. He and his wife, Nargis, have made Luminaire a premier resource by championing and culling from a range of internationally-known companies, designers and artists that encompasses both the iconic and lesser known.

This ambitious project is part of Luminaires planned expansion outside of Miami and Chicago. Features specific to the Beverly Boulevard outpost include the new line of contemporary kitchens Luminaire designed for Italian maker Minimal, and select pieces from Brazilian designer Jader Almeidas Sollos furniture collection.

Los Angeles firm Make Architecture designed the two-story buildings overhaul, which was previously the Antiquarius Center fine jewelry mart, placing a dramatic sculptural steel staircase in the center of the interior. (Italian furniture company Poltrona Fraus new showroom is located next door.)

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Luminaire, L.A.'s latest interior design retailer, showcases items from internationally-known companies, designers and artists. (Sam Frost)

Here, Luminaire has room to create full-scale residential environments, from the aforementioned kitchens as well as bathrooms, to the luxurious, meticulously planned closet storage systems, a collaboration between Kassamali and legendary designer Piero Lissoni. Even the mannequins were custom made to be posed in various vignettes throughout the showroom.

Kassamali, originally from Kenya, is passionate about his vision, which he explains came to him in a dream when he was a teenager. His design and retail work began in earnest in 1974, when the couple opened the first modestly-sized Luminaire in Miami.

We are not a furniture store. We create environments that affect and improve peoples lives, Kassamali says. He has continually prioritized introducing new brands and creative talent to audiences in the U.S., while putting together a team of design professionals and architects whose single mission is to increase awareness of how design affects the way their clients live.

Luminaire co-founders Nasir and Nargis Kassamali. (Kris Tamburello)

As for why Kassamali chose to set Luminaires next chapter in Los Angeles, its not pretentious, and its true to itself, he observes about the city. I care more about people who are curious. You can find many things happening in L.A. that normally dont happen in other American cities. The single reason is theyre willing to try.

Luminaire

Where: 8840 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles

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When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Info: luminaire.com

home@latimes.com
China's centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) made greater contributions to society last year, an official with the state assets authority said Thursday.

In 2018, central SOEs handed in 2.2 trillion yuan (325.5 billion U.S. dollars) of taxes and fees, up 5.7 percent from a year earlier, Peng Huagang, spokesman for the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, told reporters.

The country's three telecom operators completed their tasks of fee cuts in advance last year, saving more than 120 billion yuan for their clients during the year, Peng said.

An industrial investment fund for central SOEs to support poor areas decided upon 63 projects involving 12.89 billion yuan, which will bolster infrastructure construction, promote distinctive industries, improve education and medical care, and raise people's incomes.

Peng also said the combined profits of those companies reached a new high of 1.7 trillion yuan in 2018, up 16.7 percent from 2017, while their revenues rose 10.1 percent to 29.1 trillion yuan.
There are a few things fans might not expect to learn about Sharon Van Etten, who this Friday released her fourth full-length, Remind Me Tomorrow.

Given the occasionally folk-leaning sound of her past work, the first may be her deep love for the dark, foreboding sounds of Portishead and minimalist no-wave punks Suicide, both of which were touchstones for a surprising, eclectic album that swaps the familiar organic framework behind her swerving vocal melodies for growling synth textures and hard-hitting percussion.

The second is she might be as committed a fan of comedy as music. Referencing a few of her favorites in Margaret Cho, Todd Barry, Nate Bargatze and Amy Sedaris twisted Comedy Central series Strangers With Candy, she notes she was a regular visitor to the Comedy Cellar, which was around the corner from her apartment in Manhattan. Perhaps as a result, shortly after sitting for a recent lunch at a greenhouse-like restaurant atop her hotel in Koreatown, Van Etten quickly changes the subject to the waiter.

I feel like he could be Bob Sagets kid, she says, leaning across the table with a mischievous whisper just after he left the table. Should I ask him?

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After some discussion of whether its weirder to pose the question or search Google for details on the Full House star, a grinning Van Etten asks him a short time later, taking care not to somehow imply any offense. Otherwise it would be on my mind every time he came over, she says. (There was no relation, but the waiter said he gets the comparison a lot.)

The genial exchange points to a few more truths about Van Etten, whose disarming, open manner fueled a conversation that easily veered into shared anxieties over home ownership as well as inevitable (if probably unnecessary) tips for navigating Northeast L.A., where she will be moving with her partner and 2-year-old son from New York City later this year.

But that now-or-never approach also speaks to Van Ettens creative life. In 2016 she portrayed an angelic-voiced captive on Netflixs sci-fi drama The OA, and the following year turned up in David Lynchs rebooted Twin Peaks, where she performed at the shows noirish roadhouse to close the sixth episode. Somewhere in the midst of making her most dynamic album yet in Remind Me Tomorrow, she is also pursuing a psychology degree and, yes, tried out comedy.

Im not about to turn into a comedian or anything, Van Etten clarifies, adding that the effort was at the encouragement of her sons babysitter, who is rooted in the L.A. comedy scene and took an improv class with her at the Groundlings. I dont know if its because Im stepping outside of comfort level, but for some reason in L.A. I felt more wide open. My friends in New York know that Im into comedy, but never were like You should try that, Van Etten says.

Discovering a sense of community inspired her move to L.A., which is where she recorded Remind Me Tomorrow with the help of producer John Congleton.

While working on the score of Katherine Dieckmanns 2017 film Strange Weather, Van Etten found herself growing sick of playing guitar, and started experimenting with odd drum patterns and electronic drones in her off time. I didnt even know what I was doing, but it let me clear my head and make crazy sounds, she says.

The results became the building blocks for Remind Me Tomorrow, but after her self-produced 2014 album Are We There, she was hoping to avoid retracing her steps. I wanted to give it to somebody else that understood my influences and heard where I was coming from, but also trusting another artist to take it to a different place, she says. I wanted to expose the darkness of the songs, and I didnt really know how to do that on my own.

Sharon Van Etten performs live during the Austin City Limits Festival in October 2018 in Austin, Texas. (Jim Bennett / FilmMagic)

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After trying a few producers, who briefly included L.A. pop alchemist Jon Brion, she met with Congleton after a referral from Van Ettens manager Zeke Hutchins, who is also her romantic partner and father to their son.

Congleton has worked with a wide range of indie artists such as St. Vincent and Explosions in the Sky, and he and Van Etten talked about Suicide, Silver Apples and Nick Caves brooding Skeleton Tree as reference points for where she wanted to take her music. Surprising choices, maybe, given Van Ettens previous output, but not for Congleton.

If I was surprised it was more eclipsed by excitement because those are bold, weird artists and weird records, he said. I felt like that was the best thing she could do for her career is to do something completely expressive and out of the norm.

On the first day, the two worked on Memorial Day, a slow-burning track built around a haunted vocal chirp from Van Ettens original demo, and Jupiter 4, a yearning ballad that, for all the heartache and hints of trauma in her previous work, strikes a romantic note with echoed refrains of Ive been waiting my whole life for someone like you. Their second run through that song is what landed on the album.

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After that one day I just looked at him and went you understand me, Van Etten remembers.

Part of Van Ettens shift comes from recognizing that the unsettled, even harrowing subject matter of her earlier work no longer squares with this more stable, content time in her life. After her tour for Are We There ended in 2015, she took a break from music. I was feeling the songs too deeply for a time that I have gotten over, she says. I felt like I kind of had been writing the same song in a lot of ways.

Those more adult concerns that come with parenthood and stability were a frequent topic of conversation, like navigating restaurants that dont allow strollers and learning from new friends like the couple who co-created the Netflix series Big Mouth on how to balance creativity with family. Its led her to consider what life might look like once piling into a van to the next gig seems less appealing, which is part of what led her to study psychology.

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Also citing the impact therapy made in her life, she felt drawn toward the field after seeing the effect of her songs in conversations with fans over the merch table. Hearing their stories about how they connect to my music and how sometimes intensely the stories are told ... I started feeling a sense of responsibility, she says. Even though I know music is healing for anyone on your own terms, it just made me realize I had an interest in figuring out why that stirred something in me, those exchanges. She hopes to have her license by age 50.

When told those intimate, fearlessly raw details in her music helped foster that connection with fans, she cites that as motivation to change her approach. Im trying to separate the personal story out of [my work] where people can relate to it in a more universal way, she says. Its a desire you can hear in new singles like Comeback Kid and Seventeen, which remain drawn from her personal experience but carry an immediate, anthemic charge that sounds determined to reach for greater distances.

I dont want people to listen to my music and think about me, Van Etten explains. I want people to listen to my music and think about themselves.

chris.barton@latimes.com

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Theres not much story to tell in The Untold Story, a bland, rather old-hat take on male reinvention and redemption. That its as watchable as it is proves a testimony to star Barry Van Dykes committed turn as Edward Forester, a once busy and famous actor whose career flatlined after some bad public behavior.

Instead of sending Edward on a more unique, freewheeling journey of self-discovery, director Shane Stanley, who co-wrote with dad Lee Stanley, rehashes too many tired, often implausible tropes in an attempt to box in his protagonist and wring out viewer sympathy. Even 2017s similarly themed Burt Reynolds dramedy The Last Movie Star, shaky as it was, had more pep.

Thankfully, the Stanleys have infused Edward with some credible integrity and fortitude, which keeps him chugging forward despite being treated with egregious disdain by too many in his orbit. These folks include his sleazy agent (Jason Connery), prickly money manager (Joel Brooks), younger actress friend (Jordan Ladd) and, especially, Catarina (Nia Peeples), his mouthy, beleaguered neighbor in the cut-rate apartment complex where the strapped Edward is (improbably) forced to live.

Despite forays into Edwards contrived flirtation with Catarina, his do-gooder activities with her young child (Jayden Mound) and too many examples of how the poor guy cant catch a break (does his car really need to be broken into?), the films most meaningful through line involves a newbie writer-director (Miko Hughes) who hands Edward the movie role of a lifetime  only to have the evil machinations of Hollywood snatch it away.

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Thats where Edwards said resilience will factor in, though it should be said that the films sketchy, cliched portrayal of how the movie business works  or doesnt  feels way past its sell date.

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The Untold Story

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

Playing: Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica

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If you grew up in a black neighborhood, to view Barry Jenkins film adaptation of James Baldwins If Beale Street Could Talk feels more real than life.

My neighborhood was the world to me. But I had this sense that there was something more out there  that maybe my life was deficient. Only later did I realize the abundance that was there in front of me.

I was born in New Orleans, but home was where I grew up  in Los Angeles Jefferson Park, a largely middle-class black neighborhood where the man next door owned a Jaguar repair business and the neighbor next to him was a expert carpenter, as was Mr. Baggett behind us.

These were my fathers friends, all black men who had served in World War II. Like the fathers of Fonny and Tish, the young, almost preternaturally beautiful couple at the heart of If Beale Street Could Talk, they were good men looking out for their families. Contrary to the storyline of so many other Hollywood movies, black men in my neighborhood werent ghosts who deserted their families en masse. Black life was as varied as life is.

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I bought comics from the Five and Dime pharmacy on Jefferson run by a Japanese American man and a black woman named Beulah Mae. I remember the amazing Holiday Bowl on Crenshaw where you could get grits and hot links and sashimi under one roof.

I didnt notice that the only white people I knew were teachers and one red-headed girl who went to Dorsey High School with me and was friends with my girlfriend. She didnt last long, and soon there were no white students.

I didnt know white people my age until I went to college at UC Santa Barbara. UCSB was very white, but soon I had black roommates, dated black women and eventually married a black woman who had been the president of Alpha Phi Alpha sorority.

The mid-70s, before I left for college, was a great time to be a black teenager. I had close friends who were athletes and broad-minded readers who were easy to hang with. But one of my friends, a big-hearted, overweight loser with a wicked sense of humor, was always on the verge of disaster. The way he lived, recklessly getting into trouble with a massive sense of joie de vivre, was a cautionary tale for me. Still, I envied him. And I never forgot him  I even wrote a novel about him  but I didnt want to be him. I didnt want to go to jail. He went to jail frequently.

When I came back from college to teach high school, rock cocaine had exploded and the corruption it generated reached us all. Thats when I felt myself turning inward, away from my neighborhood and even my family, because I had started my own family and had a baby girl to protect. Later, when Rodney Kings near lynching set Los Angeles on fire, many black folk moved back to where their families originally came from  New Orleans, Atlanta, Houston. I moved across town to the edge of Los Angeles County, to Altadena.

I was so terrified about police and prison that I became very risk-adverse  probably more than I needed to be  and even more so after visiting my brother in prison. My brother wasnt a gangster or wife beater. He was like many black, brown and white people  sprung on cocaine.

The dinner scene in If Beale Street Could Talk, from left, Stephan James as Fonny, KiKi Layne as Tish and Brian Tyree Henry as Daniel Carty. (Tatum Mangus / Annapurna Pictures)

If Beale Street Could Talk: Barry Jenkins on staying faithful to James Baldwin and #MeToo 

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In Beale Street, not long before Fonny (Stephan James) is falsely accused of rape, Brian Tyree Henry enters the film as Daniel Carty, newly out of prison, and has dinner with the couple. He and Fonny have an intimate conversation about life while Tish is out the apartment. Its a scene of two black male friends talking in a way that is not often depicted in the movies. (Jenkins film actually shows this kind of male friendship a second time, when Fonny and Tishs fathers get together to discuss the fate of their children.)

Cartys powerfully restrained depiction of prison life evokes overwhelming grief. Words slowly break free from him as though they have a will of their own and he cant stop from saying them. He reveals how prison broke him, as it is designed to do. Watching the film, I thought back to my own teenage years. I am sure that prison would have broken me if I had gotten caught with the 5 ounces of weed I brought to high school as a favor to a friend.

Through Cartys brief soliloquy, everything is revealed about the industrial prison system, where a different kind of slavery shackles men and women of color. Jenkins knows this; indeed he seems to know everything about the tragedy of robbing a people of the possibility to live and love and work without fear.

Jenkins possesses a profound understanding of the complexity of black life, and its impossible not to trust him as he unfurls a powerful demonstration of white institutional hostility to black people. But the film is much more than that.

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To watch the film is to be suspended in time as tragedy and the reaction to tragedy slowly unfurl and are beaten back by the unbreakable devotion between Fonny and Tish. It is a film as much about hope and transcendent love as it is a political one in that it accurately depicts that even grinding white oppression cant prevent what is beautiful and specific to black life from being realized.

As beautiful as the film is visually and emotionally, it is still an agony to see Fonny, the handsome self-possessed artist, as he is devoured by Americas Kafkaesque penal system, and as Tish, his fiancee, and their families struggle in their attempts to rescue him from prison. The film creates such a fully realized depiction of Fonny and Tishs travails that knowledge of Baldwins novel doesnt suspend the fear that Fonny might hang himself in prison or provoke the guards to beat him to death.

James Baldwin in New York, June 19, 1963. (Dave Pickoff / AP)

Barry Jenkins says its about time Hollywood pays attention to black novels. Beale Street is just a start 

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The intensity of If Beale Street Could Talk jars me back to my own life and choices I made  reasonable decisions, rational choices to give myself the opportunities to live a good life and be as good a parent as my parents had been for me. Of course, what is represented in the film is forced isolation, the state imposing separation from family and friends, not the voluntary separations that sometimes separate black folks from the black life they grew up in.

For the longest time I havent had a single close black male friend. Partly, this was because of my own retreat from my childhood neighborhood. And many of my college friends had moved back East or to the South. The men Im most comfortable with are involved in the arts  usually from the middle or working class  who had a calling more than an ambition to live a life in the arts. My girls have decided to find community elsewhere. My oldest daughter, Giselle, lives and works in D.C. because she wanted to immerse herself in black life, and my second-oldest daughter is following in her footsteps by choosing to attend a historically black college or university.

Lately, though, some members of my family from New Orleans have relocated to Los Angeles, and Ive found that Im no longer cut off from my past. Its a relief as I hear new stories about times long ago as I sit with Josh and his sons, two handsome young black men, and my cousin Greg, a successful actor I never knew until recently, all involved in film. Finally, that grinding sense of isolation is easing. What Fonny and Daniel Carty share, the pleasure of long friendship through brutal separation, I have again.

The baby cries and cries  like it means to wake the dead, James Baldwin wrote to end his novel. Jenkins shows us that baby as a young boy visiting his father in prison. Fonny and Tish and their child do survive, but under the weight of institutional incarceration, and we leave the film watching the young family share their vending-machine meal in a prison visiting room. Stunned by the harsh beauty of Jenkins transcendent filmmaking, the film stays with me and I am forced to reflect on the choices Ive made for myself.
Titians knockout painting Portrait of a Lady in White might be misnamed. The three-quarter-length, roughly lifesize figure of a winsome but chaste young woman dressed in luxurious satin and dripping pearls is more accurately described as Portrait of a Lady in Every Shade of White You Can Imagine  Plus, for Good Measure, a Bunch of Shimmering Golds.

See for yourself at Pasadenas Norton Simon Museum, where the splendid painting is on loan from Dresdens State Art Collection, the Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister. Its among Titians greatest portraits.

Color is always the Venetian painters calling card, and no Venetian was better at it than he. When that color is essentially limited to one  in this case, lead white  Titian fans the pigment out into a wide spread of tonalities, warm to cool.

Mostly the range of tones comes from the subtle addition of shades of gray, but sometimes faint hints of blue, yellow and earth-red can also be detected humming within the hues. Light-reflective white satin, semi-transparent white voile, pure white highlights on bracelets, the lustrous gleam of white pearls  even her gently rouged face, eyes shifted to the side to glance at a viewer, is best described as alabaster. The robust display lends monumentality to an otherwise delicate, even fragile image.

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Gold helps.

Gold encircles the ladys wrists, and it dots the white silk cord that encircles both her waist and the puffy sleeves at her shoulders. It decorates the handle and trim of the rectangular fan, called a ventuolo and distinctive to Venice, that she holds between the graceful fingers of her right hand. Gold threads edge the bodice and lacy trim on those sleeves.

Her hair is gold too, pulled back into a knot. The anonymous ladys head might even be the light source that casts a burnished golden sheen behind her.

Titian, Portrait of a Lady in White, circa 1561, oil on canvas (Norton Simon Museum)

REVIEW: Sally Mann at the Getty 

The seemingly simple but truly elaborate composition is so stunning it was copied by more than one artist. Titian himself had painted an earlier version  now lost  for Philip II of Spain. Peter Paul Rubens copied that one, altering the ladys face in ways suspiciously similar to the features of his beloved second wife, Helena Fourment. Now in Viennas Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Rubens is fine if more flamboyant, less magnetic.

The Titian underwent extensive conservation just over a decade ago. A deeply yellowed varnish that had long since obscured the stunning array of whites was stripped away. Just as dramatic, though, was the discovery that, at some point in its nearly 450-year lifespan, an earlier restoration had filled in the background with a nearly uniform plane of brown paint.

Conservators in Dresden, according to an essay produced at the time and newly translated into English, surmise that the over-painting was done to conceal damaged spots. A slight network of cracks had also formed over the years.

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But Titians original ground was less a brown slab and more like toast  a modulated golden brown. Restored to the artists original modulated palette, the background is now characterized by subtle gradations of dark to light.

REVIEW: Jeweled Isle at LACMA 

The change had undercut an enchanting effect, causing what conservator Gunther Ohlhoff described as a figure that looked like a cut-out against an undifferentiated dark background. Now, mostly dark at the left, the direction in which the torso is turned, the contrast with the sumptuous white dress creates a vivid profile; and mostly light to the right, her body seems to be trailing radiance.

Filler it is not. (Never underestimate the critical role of a background.) The refined visual effect is remarkable, essential to the paintings magic. This resplendent late portrait  painted around 1561, when the artist was in his 70s  demonstrates why Titian is credited among a handful of painters who created the foundations of a European pictorial tradition.

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White does stand for purity, a social assignment of moral dimension, so the extravagant satin costume is assumed to be a magnificent wedding dress. However, more than a formal address to the symbolic life, which is certainly as significant as all those pearls that represent the abundance of the sea that gave Venice life and power, the demand the painting makes goes deeper.

Color floods the eye before the mind knows what hit it. Through color most of all, Titians art makes a direct appeal to the senses.

The lady in the portrait might be unknown today, the identity of the woman starring in such a stellar artistic achievement strangely lost to the shifting currents of time. (When Titian sent the canvas to Alfonso II dEste, Duke of Ferrara, the elderly artist described her as the most precious being in his life  but he gave no name.) Once seen, however, the painting is unforgettable. That turns out to be enough.

         

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Portrait of a Lady in White

Where: Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena

When: Through March 25; closed Tuesdays

Admission: $12-$15; 18 and younger free

Info: (626) 449-6840, nortonsimon.org
The consequences of imperfect communication  say, a conversation among strangers at a roadside bar or the strained discussions between a husband and wife at a crossroads in their marriage  loosely connect this weeks selections from L.A.s small-theater scene: Taylor Macs Hir at the Odyssey, It Is Done at Theatre 40, Death House at the Road on Lankershim and The Empty Nesters at the Zephyr.

Hir at the Odyssey Theatre

The essentials: Just back from three years of cleaning up body parts from roadside bombs, a traumatized Marine returns to startling changes on the home front. His newly liberated mother seems bent on humiliating her once abusive but now helplessly senile spouse, while the veterans teenage sister has transitioned into a young man who abets his mother in her hilariously bizarre power games. Its a trip down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass and over the rainbow  a plunge into a radically reconfigured domestic order that the Marine finds difficult to understand or accept.

Why this? Pulitzer-nominated Taylor Mac, a MacArthur fellow in 2017, is a transgressive artist who specializes in tweaking the established social order, both as a playwright and performer. Mac fuses rage and satire in this Los Angeles premiere, which updates classic absurdist constructs for a new era. Director Bart DeLorenzo, a longtime champion of experimental theater, said, I love how trans this play is  transgender, of course, but also transcultural, exploring how our American culture will have to adjust for tomorrow. And I love how Taylor Mac has housed these anarchic, revolutionary questions in the most classic form of American drama, the family play. Audiences may be surprised by how many laughs Mac has packed within the politics.

Details: Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; ends March 17. Additional performances at 5 p.m. Sunday (but no 2 p.m. show that day) and 8 p.m. Jan. 31, Feb. 20 and March 6 (check for other exceptions). $32-$37. (310) 477-2055, Ext. 2. www.OdysseyTheatre.com

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The cast of Hir, from left, Zack Gearing, Cynthia Kania, the performer who goes by the name Puppett and Ron Bottitta. (Ron Sossi)

It Is Done at Theatre 40

The essentials: Two strangers, buffeted by a windstorm that has made travel impossible, take refuge in a rural bar presided over by a lecherous barkeep. As the three engage in seemingly innocuous chat, the male visitor is persuaded to discuss the disturbing dreams that have disrupted his life  a confidence that ultimately leads to the revelation of his dark and secret past. The womans true identity, once revealed, gives this slice-of-life bar play an unexpectedly terrifying twist.

Why this? Director Jeff G. Rack, who has led several productions in the spookily immersive Wicked Lit series staged around Halloween in a local cemetery, is also an inspired designer whose recent set for Theatre 40s Bus Stop was Broadway-caliber. Hes a likely bet to have something spine-chilling up his sleeve for this play by Alex Goldberg.

Details: Theatre 40 in the Reuben Cordova Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills. Plays in repertory with Rod Serlings Stories From the Zone. Call for schedule. $35. (310) 364-0535, www.theatre40.org

Kurtis Bedford, left, George Villas and Kate Whitney in It Is Done at Theatre 40. (Ed Krieger)

Death House at the Road on Lankershim

The essentials: A chaplain who has spent decades ministering to condemned prisoners passes the mantle of his ministry to a gung-ho replacement as they convene for a death watch with an inscrutable female murderer. As they while away the time awaiting the execution, secrets come to light.

Why this: Under artistic directors Taylor Gilbert and Sam Anderson, the Road has a reputation for scouting out worthy new works, and Jason Karasevs thoughtful play is certainly no exception. Anderson plays the veteran minister whose enthusiastic support of the death penalty has dwindled into something akin to disgust  an attitude at odds with his strangely eager new replacement. Their intense interaction eventually exposes the shattering social inequity that has made the womans fate an almost inevitable conclusion.

Details: The Road on Lankershim, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends March 10. $34. (818) 761-8838, www.RoadTheatre.org

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Chase Cargill is the replacement, left, and Sam Anderson is the veteran minister in Death House at the Road on Lankershim. (Brian M. Cole)

ALSO PLAYING: Driving Miss Daisy in Laguna, Smart Love in Santa Monica and more 

The Empty Nesters at Zephyr

The essentials: After dropping off their youngest child at college, Greg and Frances take a road trip to the Grand Canyons vertiginous Skywalk, a metaphor for the couples troubled marriage. The vacation takes an unforeseen turn when Frances announces that she is considering leaving Greg  a shocker for him. Can they cross their emotional divide or is the chasm between them too broad to broach?

Why this? Garret Jon Groenvelds character-driven comedy, starring real-life married couple John Walker and Pamela Gaye Walker, is essentially a prolonged conversation between man and wife at a make-or-break juncture. The comically circular dialogue, which captures the gender differences in male-female communication, would do a linguistics scholar proud. Director Richard Seyds impressive roster of theater credits also bodes well.

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Details: Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Feb. 17. $35-$45. (866) 811-4111, www.EmptyNestersPlay.com

Pamela Gaye Walker and John Walker in The Empty Nesters. (David M. Allen)

The 99-Seat Beat appears every Friday. Our reviewers shortlist offerings with an emphasis on smaller venues. Some recommendations are shows weve seen; others are based on the track record of the company, playwright, director or cast.

See all of our latest arts news and reviews at latimes.com/arts.
Tribune Publishing, after months of turmoil, has shaken up its leadership in a dramatic overhaul that further distances the companys management from its former chairman, Michael Ferro.

The Chicago-based company announced late Thursday that Chief Executive Justin Dearborn was stepping down after nearly three years in the job. Dearborn was a longtime business associate of Ferro, who quit the board nearly a year ago amid allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denied. Ferro remains the largest shareholder of the newspaper company.

Tribune Publishings board appointed longtime publishing executive Timothy P. Knight as Dearborns replacement.

In addition, former Congressman David Dreier was elected chairman of the board, replacing Dearborn, who also had filled that role. Dreier, who has served on Tribune Publishings board since 2016, represented part of Southern Californias Inland Empire in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 until 2013.

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Tribune Publishing was the parent company of the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune until June, when biotech entrepreneur Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the two Southern California papers for $500 million. Soon-Shiong, who remains Tribune Publishings second-largest shareholder, began investing resources in the California papers after years of staff cutbacks.

The newspaper industry has been under siege amid a defection of advertisers to digital platforms. Tribune Publishing has encountered other problems too, including an ill-fated decision to rebrand itself as Tronc, a move that prompted ridicule.

The company failed to quell an uprising in Los Angeles, and The Times newsroom voted overwhelmingly in early 2018 to form a union  the first time in the papers more than 135-year history. Tragedy struck at Tribune Publishings newspaper in Annapolis, Md., when a gunman entered the newsroom and killed five members of the Capital Gazette staff.

Then, late last month, Tribunes computer networks were infected by a malware attack, which delayed the distribution of newspapers in Los Angeles, San Diego and regions where Tribune operates. The California newspapers share computer systems with their former parent.

In addition to the Chicago Tribune and the Annapolis Capital Gazette, the company owns the New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., and the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va.

The shake-up comes as Tribune Publishing has been actively seeking buyers, and it reached out to USA Today owner Gannett Co. in hopes of striking a deal. In December, the company broke off negotiations to sell the newspaper chain to the California-based McClatchy Co. The Chicago Tribune, citing sources familiar with the process, reported that the New York-based investment firm Donerail and Dallas-based newspaper group Aim Media have also been working on a joint bid to buy Tribune Publishing.

In addition to Dearborn, two executives who briefly led The Times  Ross Levinsohn and his deputy, Mickie Rosen  were let go Thursday, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly. Levinsohn, a former Fox television executive, served as The Times publisher for about five months during much of the upheaval.

Since being removed from The Times, Levinsohn and Rosen served as chief executive and president, respectively, of the companys digital arm, Tribune Interactive.

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The changes suggest that Tribune Publishings board wanted to entrust the company once again to executives who have had careers in publishing.

Dearborn, 49, joined the firm as its CEO in February 2016, three weeks after Ferro became the companys largest shareholder and non-executive chairman. It was his first job in a senior newspaper role. Before joining Tribune Publishing, Dearborn had been chief executive of Merge Healthcare, a Ferro-controlled medical technology company that was acquired by IBM in 2015.

Knight, 53, also worked for Ferro, previously serving as chief executive of Wrapports, the Ferro-controlled former ownership group of the Chicago Sun-Times. He joined Tribune Publishing nearly two years ago and most recently was in charge of the companys local markets.

Before that, Knight served as president of Advance Ohio and was a top executive of Newsday in New York. Knight, an attorney, began his media career with the Chicago Tribunes legal department in 1996.

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Tims deep knowledge of our company and his commitment to expand our paid digital business will be critically important, Dreier said in a statement. Journalism is under attack across the globe and we have an unwavering commitment to delivering a first-rate news product.

Robert Channick of the Chicago Tribune contributed to this report.
When Apple Inc. executive Jeff Williams told a courtroom that Qualcomm Inc. cut off chip supply for iPhones, it was compelling testimony in the Federal Trade Commissions antitrust case against the semiconductor company.

The FTC argues that Qualcomm wont sell chips if customers dont also pay hefty licensing fees. But a 2017 email exchange between Williams and Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf shows the relationship may have broken down for other reasons.

Billions of dollars in chip supply deals involving Apple and Qualcomm may have actually collapsed over a squabble about software access, rather than the patent fees that sparked a bitter legal battle between the two technology giants, according to the emails seen by Bloomberg.

In a bid to keep San Diego-based Qualcomm supplying modems for a portion of Apples 2018 iPhones, Williams set aside the licensing dispute to focus on the potential benefits of the two companies continuing to work together. (The modems are crucial chips that help phones convert radio signals into data and voice.)

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Williams said Apple would not leak key Qualcomm computer code needed to customize modem chips  something the chipmaker had accused the iPhone maker of doing. The chief operating officer offered to firewall engineers using the software.

In my wildest imagination of some evil intention of Apple, I have trouble coming up with a real scenario where anything of significant value could be leaked based on this code, Williams wrote in September 2017.

I just hope the licensing dispute doesnt cloud good judgment in the team on a massive business opportunity, he added, noting that Apple planned to order about $2 billion worth of chips from Qualcomm for 2018. I was hoping to keep some decent quantity of business flowing with hopes that the licensing stuff will get solved.

Mollenkopf replied that his main concern was about protecting Qualcomms proprietary information and that he hadnt seen much action by Apple in response to earlier complaints from Qualcomm on that issue. This is independent of our license dispute, the CEO wrote.

Nonetheless, Mollenkopf offered to provide the software access Apple needed. In return, he asked for a commitment from Apple to use Qualcomm modem chips in at least 50% of iPhones over two years, according to the emails.

The exchange suggests that Qualcomm and Apple were arguing over software, rather than the licenses at the center of their bruising legal battle. Still, the emails offer only a small window into the negotiations. Its common for dueling litigants to carefully select slices of evidence that support their arguments. However, this email exchange hasnt been submitted in the FTC trial so far. And Williams said in court this week that he spoke with Mollenkopf about the chip supply issue over the phone. The details of that conversation arent known.

On Friday in court, the FTC confronted Qualcomm Chief Technology Officer James Thompson with a 2014 email exchange between him and Mollenkopf in which Thompson suggests striking back at Apple while were strong amid licensing negotiations. Thompson viewed Apple as vulnerable to losing big business in North America and China at the time if it continued pushing back against Qualcomms no-license-no-chips policy, according to the email cited by the FTC.

An Apple spokesman didnt respond to a request for comment. Qualcomm declined to comment.

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During testimony in the FTC case this week, Williams said Qualcomm refused to supply Apple with modems after Apple sued the semiconductor company. He said he contacted Mollenkopf by email and phone to try to persuade Qualcomm to supply chips for 2018 iPhone models.

We tried to get them to sell us chips, and they would not, he told Judge Lucy Koh, who is presiding over the bench trial in San Jose.

In the end, Intel Corp. became the sole provider of iPhone modems. Qualcomm then sued Apple, accusing it of using its software to help improve the performance of Intel chips.

King and Gurman write for Bloomberg.
Meng Wanzhou steps out of her $4.2-million mansion, a GPS monitor strapped to her ankle, and slips into a chauffeured black SUV. Then shes off, largely free to roam the shops and restaurants within 100 square miles of Vancouver, Canada, until her 11 p.m. curfew.

So goes another day of house arrest for Meng, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co. and daughter of the billionaire founder of Chinas biggest telecom provider. It is, by all appearances, a comfortable life for someone at the center of a complex power game.

Mengs arrest at the behest of the U.S.  which wants to extradite her on grounds she tricked banks into potentially violating Iran sanctions  has sparked an unprecedented diplomatic row. Nine days after her Dec. 1 arrest during a stopover in Vancouver, China detained two Canadians on national security grounds. And this week, a China court imposed a death sentence, after a one-day trial, on a Canadian found guilty of drug smuggling.

How Mengs case will be resolved remains unclear, though shes become an object of fascination in a city where her family owns two homes and where she spent downtime when she wasnt running Huaweis finances. Tourists stop by to take selfies outside her home near a 2,000-acre park overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where she is ensconced with her husband and daughter.

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Mengs bail terms include the GPS monitor, an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, and 24-hour surveillance by a private security firm, Lions Gate Risk Management Group. Their job is to ensure she doesnt violate the conditions of her release. She pays the hefty bill for that monitoring, which includes two guards at a time and a driver.

If I were on The Price is Right, Id say thats about $7,000 a day, or more than $2.5 million a year, said Nicholas Casale, a former police detective. Casale structured Bernie Madoffs bail agreement and acted as monitor for the disgraced money manager for about three months.

Mengs long leash following her $7.5-million bail is unusual, he said; normally, the defendants movements and communications would be restricted.

You cant just go to dinner or go shopping, Casale said.

The conditions of Mengs house arrest are in stark contrast to another corporate titan  former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn  who is confined at a Tokyo detention center. He arrived in handcuffs, plastic slippers and a rope around his waist in court last week. Meng is also faring better than the two Canadians detained in China, who have had scant consular access.

That hasnt stopped Chinas envoy to Canada from protesting Mengs treatment. In a fiery op-ed published in an Ottawa newspaper last week, Ambassador Lu Shaye railed against Western egotism and white supremacy of those who have criticized China for detaining the Canadians, in what was widely seen as retaliation.

Have they shown any concern or sympathy for Meng after she was illegally detained and deprived of freedom? Lu wrote in the Hill Times.

Lu told reporters in Ottawa Thursday that Meng is innocent, adding the case is politically motivated. He also defended the detentions of Canadians, saying they werent retaliatory.

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The extradition process for Meng Wanzhou could drag on for months or years. (Jonathan Hayward / Associated Press)

Meng, 46, sported a purple Hermes scarf and Bottega Veneta handbag when she first reported to her bail supervisor in Vancouver on Dec. 12. Renovations, meanwhile, are underway at her other $12.3-million mansion in one of Vancouvers toniest neighborhoods, where a truck from a high-end closet designer was parked outside recently. Her defense indicated shed like to move there when its ready. If she does, shell be two doors down from the U.S. consul generals residence, where the star-spangled banner flaps on the front lawn.

Getting glimpses of her daily life is difficult  her guards appear to have taken on the responsibility of shielding her from the public eye. When Bloomberg News journalists parked on the street next to her home last week and identified themselves as press, one guard took photos of the license plate as another sped over in his white SUV to block their vehicle. As Meng slipped out of her house in her Lululemon jacket, the guard began accusing the journalists of damaging his car before later acknowledging hed obstructed them.

Still, the outings and postcard views mask a darker reality for Meng: This extradition process could drag on for months and possibly years, if history is any guide. And the odds are high that she will be extradited in the end.

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The tilt of the Crown in these cases is extradite, extradite, extradite, said Robert Currie, a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia who specializes in international law. Canadas extradition law is unbalanced to the point where a number of critics, including me, have said its unfair.

The U.S. must turn over its formal extradition request by the end of January. It hasnt made the request yet, a justice department spokesman said in an email Thursday. Canadas Justice Minister David Lametti can reject the request or order extradition hearings to begin. Its not clear if that will happen before Mengs next court date in February.

Lametti cant arbitrarily refuse. His ministry would have to determine that fraud doesnt constitute a crime in Canada  an implausible finding. Furthermore, in Canada, the extradition judge has to accept whatever evidence the U.S. presents at face value  the proceedings dont consider the strength of the evidence or the likelihood of conviction.

Canadian judges end up approving about 90% of extradition requests because the system makes it nearly impossible to mount a defense, says Gary Botting, a Vancouver-based lawyer whos been involved in hundreds of extradition cases.

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They say Jump, and Canada says How high?, he said.

For her part, Meng has hinted at how shed like to spend her time during what could be a years-long ordeal.

Shed like to apply for a PhD in business administration at the University of British Columbia, whose campus sits near her home. In an awkward twist, the school is receiving $2.3 million from Huawei to fund research on 5G, the next-generation mobile network technology that the U.S. wants to block the company from developing.

Ive been working hard for 25 years, she said through her lawyer during her bail hearings last month. If released, my only simple goal would be to spend time with my husband and daughter. I havent read a novel in years.
Gov. Gavin Newsom set down a marker for his administrations approach to healthcare policy on its very first day, when he unveiled a strikingly comprehensive package of reform proposals aimed at improving access to care and lowering its costs.

The governors proposals include expanding Medicaid coverage (known in California as Medi-Cal) to undocumented youths to age 26, up from the current limit of 19; extending premium subsidies to households earning up to 600% of the federal poverty line ($154,500 for a family of four), up from the Affordable Care Acts 400% ($103,000 for four); and creating a bulk purchasing system aimed at reducing the cost of prescription drugs by leveraging the states huge aggregate market.

Newsoms proposals thrilled healthcare advocates inside and outside the state, as they should. Thats because they placed California in the forefront of the movement for universal healthcare and the drive toward a national single-payer system.

Big systemic reform clearly requires the federal government. Larry Levitt, Kaiser Family Foundation

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Hes outlined big, bold, first-in-the-nation steps, Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, told me.

These are not just symbolic gestures, Newsom told me. Were hoping to ignite a new conversation. Its a moral imperative, not just economic.

Yet Newsoms proposals also underscore how difficult it will be for even a huge state like California to make real progress on access and affordability without the cooperation of the federal government  which plainly wont be forthcoming under the Trump administration.

Federal law governs some of the initiatives Newsom has proposed, and federal funding is crucial for those and others. Its not coincidental that as part of his Day One package, Newsom asked Congress by letter to enact a new type of waiver from federal rules so states could use federal funds under the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid to move toward universal coverage.

Big systemic reform clearly requires the federal government, says Larry Levitt, a health reform expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Gov. Newsom made that crystal clear in his letter to federal officials  that was the governors way of signaling support for single-payer, but also lowering expectations about what could be done without the federal governments help.

Newsoms proposals for near-term reforms would be funded entirely with state funds, assuming the Legislature assents. The expansion of Medi-Cal coverage for undocumented young adults would be financed with $260 million from the state general fund, according to his budget message. The expanded subsidies would be paid for from penalties assessed from residents violating a state individual mandate requiring all Californians to carry health coverage, replacing the federal individual mandate penalty that the Republican Congress and Trump administration reduced to zero as of Jan. 1. (State individual mandates are in place in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey and the District of Columbia.)

UC Berkeley/UCLA

State funding of these proposals can be a mixed bag. Budget constraints during a recession could prompt the Legislature to reconsider spending priorities. Paying for premium subsidies from penalties assessed on health coverage refuseniks makes theoretical sense, since the refusal of younger and healthier individuals to join the insurance pool drives up premiums in the pool. But it places the state in a policy bind, because if the mandate is successful, there will be less penalty money for subsidies.

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Newsom says hes confident that the expenditures hes calling for will be sustainable even in an economic downturn. The funds for more early childhood services and developmental screening under Medi-Cal, as he proposed, would come from the tobacco tax increase enacted as Proposition 56 in 2016.

More than $60 million of the cost of expanding Medi-Cal to undocumented young adults would be covered by savings to county health centers that now have to absorb their treatment costs without reimbursement, Newsom says. And although its hoped that the individual mandate penalty will be a declining revenue source, he estimates that at least at first it will bring in $500 million a year.

Its proper that California carry the flag for healthcare reform, because the state has been a national leader in implementing the Affordable Care Act. The state took advantage of ACA provisions to expand Medi-Cal, adding 3.47 million Californians to the rolls, and brought all low-income children into the system regardless of their immigration status.

Covered California, the states ACA exchange for individual coverage, is a national model, setting benefit and premium standards allowing customers to compare plans entirely on price and customer service. More than 2.3 million residents are now insured by the program.

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Those gains have been placed at risk by the hostility to the ACA practiced by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, who last year eliminated the individual mandate that aimed to bring all Americans into the insurance pool.

The potential rise to 4.4 million uninsured Californians in 2023 would encompass workers, low-income households and undocumented residents. (UC Berkeley/UCLA)

A joint study by UC Berkeley and UCLA healthcare experts forecast that the end of the individual mandate could reverse the states success in bringing its uninsured rate down to 10.4% in 2016 from 17.6% in 2012. The researchers projected that the rate could rise back to 12.9% by 2023  representing 4.4 million more uninsureds  if the state took no action.

Californians should be proud that their new governor is charting a divergent path from that of many red-state political leaders. States such as Texas, Arkansas and Kentucky are seeking permission from the federal government to roll back consumer protections under the Affordable Care Act and other federal laws.

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The Trump administration has smiled on efforts to narrow access to decent coverage. Existing waivers allowing states to tinker with the ACA and Medicaid are used to take something away, to not provide more care, Newsom says. We felt there needed to be a new category.

One reason California faces limitations on going it alone is the sheer weight of federal spending on healthcare in California. Healthcare is substantially a federal responsibility and funded with federal dollars, says Peter V. Lee, executive director of Covered California. The only way any state, even a big state like California, can do a major overhaul is to work with what has been up to now federal dollars.

Hes correct. According to a 2016 study by UCLAs Center for Health Policy Research, the federal government provided more than half of the $367.5 billion spent on healthcare in the state. Medicare led the parade, accounting for 20%, followed by the federal share of Medicaid (17.1%), federal tax breaks for employer-sponsored coverage (9%) and ACA subsidies (2.4%). A federal contribution that was $185 billion in 2016 presumably is higher now.

The most far-reaching element of Newsoms package is an executive order calling for statewide bulk purchasing of prescription drugs, with the possibility that individual patients or health plans could join. Its also the most nebulous, though Newsom ordered state agencies to report on its feasibility within a few months. (They know I want aggressive implementation of that executive order, he told me.)

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The idea here is to enhance the states ability to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices. But the potential gains from such a program arent clear.

The gold standard in hardcore government negotiating is set by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA pays an estimated 40% less for drugs than Medicare. But theres a catch  the VA can exact big discounts from drug companies because it doesnt have to cover all drugs. Indeed, economist Austin Frakt calculated in 2011 that the agency covers only about 59% of the 200 most popular drugs, while Medicare insurers covered an average of 85% and some private insurers as much as 93%.

Any attempt to get a better price means the paying party needs to have a quasi-credible threat to say no and walk away, health insurance expert David Anderson of Duke Universitys Margolis Center for Health Policy told me in 2017. Thats difficult for Medicare, which is required by law to cover all or substantially all drugs in six protected classes: immunosuppressant, anti-cancer, anti-retroviral, antidepressant, antipsychotic and anticonvulsant drugs and at least two drugs in several other categories.

Gov. Newsoms buying consortium probably could obtain significant discounts if it exercised the same threat to walk away as the VA, given the size of the statewide market for prescription drugs. But taking a drug off the state formulary is complicated and politically fraught, in part because the change would mean that patients who have genuine need for the excluded drugs might have to pay for them out of pocket. In 2014, when Medicare proposed to take antidepressants, antipsychotics and immunosuppressants (which are used in organ transplants) off the protected list, a public uproar forced it to back down.

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Notwithstanding those cavils, Newsoms initiatives are smart from the standpoint of public health and politics. Its no coincidence that some proposals address shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act that would probably have been fixed by a Democratic administration in Washington. These include the stinginess of the ACAs financial assistance, the exclusion of undocumented residents and the weakness of the individual mandate, which never carried penalties stringent enough to force more people into the insurance pool.

What may be most encouraging about Newsoms approach is a long-overdue focus on the cost of coverage, not merely access.

In the midterms, the public showed just how much healthcare costs matter to people as a percentage of their budgets, says Sandra Hernandez, a veteran public health official who is CEO of the California Health Care Foundation. The governor is making a good bet on prevention and early intervention and controlling costs. These are investments that if you dont make, you pay the price down the line.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

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Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, who made headlines last November after becoming the first Somali American ever elected to the U.S. Congress, will tell her life story in an upcoming memoir, Forbes reports.

Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, is writing This Is What America Looks Like for publisher Dey Street Books. The memoir will cover Omars childhood in Somalia, which she left as a child with her family after the outbreak of the Somali civil war, and the years she spent as a refugee in Kenya before moving to the United States in 1995.

In addition to being the first Somali American to serve in Congress, Omar is also the first woman of color to represent Minnesota in the U.S. House, as well as one of the two first Muslim women to serve in Congress. (The other, elected at the same time as Omar, is Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat.)

Dey Street executive editor Alessandra Bastagli told Forbes that she was thrilled to publish Omars memoir, scheduled for publication in April 2020.

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Her voice on the page is very much as it is in real life  fresh and positive even when she is tackling serious issues, with real empathy and deep knowledge, Bastagli said. Her story counters everything we keep hearing from the current administration and the right-wing media about refugees, immigrants, Muslims and women. This memoir presents an urgent and important counter-narrative.

Omar worked as an educator before getting into politics. She was elected to the Minnesota state legislature in 2016 and ran for U.S. Congress two years later, defeating Republican Jennifer Zielinski by a 56-point margin. She is the first U.S. congresswoman in history to wear a hijab, a head covering that some Muslim women choose to wear.

Steve Ross, the literary agent representing Omar, called the congresswoman smart and strong and thoughtful and empathetic all to a surprising degree.

She inspires me in how seemingly effortlessly she excels in juggling so many crucial responsibilities, as a parent and as a leading voice in the new Congress during a time of great upheaval, Ross told Forbes.
LISBON, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- European Union (EU) Chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said here on Thursday that the EU will immediately change the exit agreement if the UK's red lines change, Portuguese Lusa News Agency reported.

"The red lines are from the UK, they are not ours, and they d doors" in negotiating the exit agreement, Barnier said in Portugal's parliament while defending the agreement already negotiated as "the best possible".

"If the United Kingdom fiddles with the red lines, we move immediately. If they want more, we're ready," he said, cited by Lusa.

The EU official said that all models are available but he stressed that "everyone has rights and obligations."

"We respect the British will and respect the red lines, as we respect the principle of the single market and the indivisibility of the four freedoms," he said.

At a joint press conference with Barnier on Thursday, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said that Portugal is fully politically aligned with European Union institutions on the UK's departure from the EU.

"The attitude of the (European) Council and Commission has been exemplary and what we want is for the United Kingdom to be able to respond to the professional, responsible and clear way in which negotiations on the European side have been conducted by Michel Barnier," Costa said.

The British parliament rejected on Tuesday the UK's exit agreement negotiated by the government of Prime Minister Theresa May with Brussels by a 432-202 vote.
Writer Brian Moore once said that despite its criticisms, Los Angeles is never provincial: People in Southern California never look anywhere else in the world for instructions about what to think or how to behave. And if there was ever a writer who reflected this regionally unashamed appreciation of her native countys bountifully iconoclastic splendor it would have to be Eve Babitz, author of many funny stories and essays about living life fast and loose along Sunset Boulevard, including the now-classic Slow Days, Fast Company  an efflorescent, electric-blue memoir of her youthful days doing drugs, bedding men and perusing Hollywood high society in the late 1960s and early 70s. As she recalls, I was too stupid to know I was in the wrong place. Joan [Didion] knew, but I didnt.  I never had to find out because I was too drunk and stoned. The joke may have been on Didion, since while Didions characters are often growing enervated pool-side by the blank, dull, amoral meretriciousness of L.A. life, Babitz was out there night after night having an amoral good time of it. It was almost as if she couldnt live her life any other way.

With the possible exception of Daniel Fuchs, few writers admit to productively enjoying themselves in Hollywood, the traditional  and stereotypical  scene of literary sell-outs, cop-outs, commercialized sex, stolen hearts, cheap thrills and bad company. But according to Lili Anoliks new biographical-reflection, Hollywoods Eve, Babitz was born and bred for the degenerate (in air-quotes) SoCal life that most writers disparage. In fact, her pedigree sounds quintessentially Los Angeleno, her progenitors rolling into town during the post-Depression-era with all the other unanchored broken bits of flotsam washing in from aimlessly westward-yearning America. Her mother was the product of a French Cajun teenager and a rapist, and began life selling chili and hot dogs out of a tent; she endured a series of bad husbands, hitched a ride west with a gambler and eventually met Babitzs father, a not-quite-divorced classical violinist under contract to RKO, to whom she devoted the rest of a seemingly happy life and went on to make memorial sketches of L.A. landmarks before they were torn down, such as the Hollywood Hotel and the original Angels Flight Railway.

It was a time when many talented people were landing in Los Angeles where talented people werent supposed to go, and the Babitz home, at the foot of the Hollywood Hills, boiled over with magical intelligences. Regular parties and picnics were attended by the likes of Eves godfather, Igor Stravinsky (who was regularly slipping Eve glasses of scotch under the table after she turned 13), or Arnold Schoenberg, Bertrand Russell, Fats Waller, Charlie Chaplin, Kenneth Patchen, Marilyn Horne and even the Huxleys. For Eve, daily life was filled with all the same beauty and cultural splendor she enjoyed at the movies with her matinee idols, such as Marilyn Monroe and Valentino, or with the fiercely lovely girls of Hollywood High, whom she immortalized in one of her best and earliest stories, The Sheik:

In most high schools, you learn social things along with the rest of it. In mine, I learned irrevocably that beauty is power and the usual bastions of power are powerlessness when confronted by beauty. Most of us, even though we were ignored by these girls, were on the girls side and wanted them to succeed. To have one of them in a class made life much more interesting, since they never became quite tame, and a teacher trying to explain that success depended on practice, diligence, sincerity, and going to bed early was flagrantly and silently contradicted by the girl sitting in the third row, second seat, who would be staring out the window or at the clock.

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For Babitz, there was nothing superficial about beauty; it was simply a way to live your life in a world where every moment should be, or be made, beautiful. And the last thing you should do in such a world was go to bed early.

When youre as voluptuous and un-hair-sprayed as I am, you have to cover yourself in unironed muumuus to walk to the corner and mail a letter. Eve Babitz

Young Eve Babitz (Mae Babitz)

Except for a brief lapse into Manhattan in her early 20s, Babitz rarely strayed far from L.A. And like her parents, she instinctively recognized great talent and beauty everywhere she went. In 1963, she posed nude for a photo with a chess-playing Marcel Duchamp at one of Southern Californias first important art exhibitions at the Pasadena Art Museum. (I am a stacked eighteen-year-old blonde on Sunset Boulevard. I am also a writer, she once wrote Joseph Heller, enclosing that same photo. At which point Heller promptly introduced her to his editor.) And wherever she partied or traveled, notable people were happening all around her in a life that now seems overburdened with anecdotes.

She introduced Zappa to Dali, got busted by G. Gordon Liddy, and testified to a Senate committee that included one of the Kennedys (its hard to keep track of all the notable people worth name-dropping  even for Babitz). She designed iconic LP covers for Linda Ronstadt, the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, stopped by Janis Joplins hotel for an interview, and introduced Steve Martin to the idea of a totally white suit and Michael Franks to the title of his signature song, Popsicle Toes. She appeared briefly in The Godfather, Part 2 (only the best of the trilogy for Babitz, naturally), consorted with the likes of Jim Morrison and Annie Leibovitz and Harrison Ford (while he was still a carpenter), and impetuously gathered lovers according to a few simple criteria  that they were either beautiful or beautifully talented. In every young mans life there is an Eve Babitz, one of these lovers recalled. Its usually Eve Babitz.

[Eve] impetuously gathered lovers according to a few simple criteria  that they were either beautiful or beautifully talented.

Lili Anolik, author of Hollywoods Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. (Michael Benabib)

At times, Babitz lived free of everything but the drugs that helped keep her moving  especially speed, marijuana and her eventual downfall, cocaine  much like her role model, Marilyn Monroe. But at the same time, she was continually happening close to where significant other people were happening, more like Forrest Gump (in a miniskirt).

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Look at me, she tells one of her lovers in Slow Days, any fool can want to sleep with me. I mean, look at me, the only thing one can think about is sex. Which leads her on one of the many funny, ecstatic, self-ironic passages that punctuate her best books:

The truth is that when youre as voluptuous and un-hair-sprayed as I am, you have to cover yourself in unironed muumuus to walk to the corner and mail a letter. Men take one look and start calculating how they can get rid of the obstacles and where the closest bed would be. This all happens in spite of my many serious flaws and imperfections, in spite of my being much too fat and everyone else being just right. The reason for this is because my skin is so healthy it radiates its own kind of moral laws; people simply cant resist being attracted to what looks like pure health.

For at the end of the day, Babitz always sees herself in a way familiar to most Angelenos: understanding that the power of looking good is often simply knowing when you look good to others. She was, as Anolik writes, the real thing: a genuine phony.

Eventually the fast living caught up with Babitz. She spent too much money. She took too many drugs. And she made it through rehab only to set the bottom half of her body on fire while driving home from brunch with her family. She survived six weeks in ICU and disappeared for the next few decades into her condo, where she allowed herself to grow old (as she had lived young) unashamedly. Im a mermaid now, she writes, with characteristic clarity and dark humor. Testifying that even while she may have stopped writing and publishing books, it isnt because she cant still write lovely sentences.

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The books jacket (Scribner)

Hollywoods Eve is only partially a biography of a fascinating and unusual subject; it is a reflection on why the author finds Babitz so interesting that she wanted to spend several years writing a book about her  sort of like a self-conscious New Journalistic exploration into the era of self-conscious New Journalism. But at the heart of this book beats the hard, strong pulse of Babitzs life and prose, one funny, erratic and unabashed sentence after another. It still rewards a good listen. So do it. Go listen.

Bradfield is a writer whose novels include The History of Luminous Motion and Dazzle Resplendent: Adventures of a Misanthropic Dog.

::

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Hollywoods Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A.

Lili Anolik

Scribner, 288 pp., $26
While I have always read the meeting minutes of the commission, preparing for and attending the meetings has given me a greater understanding of the challenges faced by the organization and the opportunities that it provides. Three significant challenges include:

Aging infrastructure. Assets inherited by the commission in the 1980s were in poor shape. The commission has made slow but steady progress over the years to rebuild critical infrastructure, including bridges and culverts. An ongoing capital project involves replacing old jointed railroad track with heavier track that is actually welded together. The continuous welded rail requires less maintenance, and permits heavier trains to travel over them at higher speeds.

Access to Chicago. The Wisconsin and Southern Railroad is a short-line railroad, meaning that products leaving our state often need to be delivered to one of the seven national Class 1 railroads. Chicago is an important rail hub, but unfortunately our commission only owns track to Fox Lake, Illinois. Our operator must obtain permission from the Chicago metropolitan commuter railroad, METRA, to use its track for runs in and out of the city during overnight hours. Those trips had been limited to 14 per week until earlier this year when the Wisconsin and Southern Railroad invested in a new 8,000-foot siding in Belden, Illinois. At a cost of $2 million, the siding permits the railroad to queue trains closer to the METRA tracks and make five additional trips into Chicago each week.
There is a saying that I understand is most often attributed to former Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas Tip ONeil. He claimed that All politics is local, apparently in reference to the assumption that state and national political leaders have always gained the skills they needed to win elections at the local level.

Life in a democracy means that citizens get to choose our leaders by ballot at every step up the governmental ladder, including town councils, county government, our state legislature, and so on. In order to do our duty as citizens, we have a fair and unbiased way of evaluating those who run for office at any level, including those who run for office in Wisconsins state legislature.

Like most imports from other states, I was not very interested in checking out what was going on at the local level in Illinois while we lived in the state. I think we all had a sense that the politicians that governed us were fairly honest individuals. If a candidate for office was involved in some unethical activity, he or she was simply not going to get voted into office. Of course, those years were prior to the age of online social media.
Lake Genevas ice castle was set to begin hosting visitors on Jan. 23.

Officials at Ice Castles LLC posted the long-awaited grand opening day, with operating hours six days a week.

A spokesman said the frozen interactive funhouse will be open 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 4 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Fridays, noon to 10:30 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 8 p.m. Sundays.

The attraction is closed Tuesdays.

General-admission tickets went on sale Jan. 21 for the new outdoor winter attraction on the Lake Geneva lakefront.

Tickets can be purchased and tours can be scheduled at www.icecastles.com.

General admission tickets are $15.95 on the weekdays and $18.95 on the weekends. The cost for children is $10.95 on the weekdays and $15.95 on the weekends.

Ice Castles president Ryan Davis said patrons buying tickets will schedule a date and time for their visit within a 30-minute interval, which means they must arrive in that 30-minute time frame.

That way we dont have too many people coming at once, and we dont end up getting overbooked, Davis said.
Details of an FBI Investigation into numerous city hall figures, including District 14 Councilman Jose Huizar and District Nine Councilman Curren Price, were revealed in a recently obtained federal search warrant.
Terry Allen, organizer of the march, marches in front of the old Lexington courthouse during the Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative march on Monday, January 15, 2018. In October 2017, two confederate statues were removed from the old courthouse grounds after Lexington's long debate about their location. Photo by Rick Childress | Staff
Daewoong Pharmaceutical's botulinum toxin product, called Nabota, waits for FDA approval. / Courtesy of Daewoong Pharmaceutical



By Jun Ji-hye



The ongoing U.S. government shutdown has left Korean drug companies hanging, including Daewoong Pharmaceutical and SK Biopharmaceuticals, as the closed Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been unable to review and approve medicines.



Officials at Korean companies, waiting for approval or applying for new drug candidates, said Friday the U.S. government shutdown was an unexpected factor at a time when they were speeding up efforts to make inroads into global markets.



Though no delays in the approval process have been announced, the companies are keenly monitoring developments of the situation to brace for every possibility, they said.



Daewoong Pharmaceutical has been waiting for FDA approval for its botulinum toxin product, called Nabota. The firm said Aug. 30 that it received an acceptance letter from the FDA about the resubmission of the Biologic License Application.



Nabota is administered via injections to improve frown lines and arm paralysis, according to the firm.



The firm expected the approval to be issued on Feb. 2, and its product to be able to go on sale in major markets including the United States and Europe within the first half of the year.



If the U.S. government shutdown extends over a longer period of time, it could deal a blow to the firm's plan.



Industry officials believe companies can gain a foothold in enhancing their global competitiveness by entering the U.S. market as it accounts for about 40 percent of the global market.



"The government shutdown was an unexpected thing," an official from Daewoong Pharmaceutical said. "We have yet to be informed of any delays. We are not considering changing our business plans as of now as nobody knows what will happen next."



SK Biopharmaceuticals has also been waiting for FDA approval since November when it submitted the New Drug Application for Cenobamate, aimed at treating epilepsy.



At the time, the firm said it was set to challenge the U.S. market, the world's largest bio-pharma battlefield, with the new drug developed with its own technology.



It said its new drug would be available for sale in the first half of 2020 once it receives FDA approval.



Industry watchers said there does not seem to be a problem as the firm submitted the application before the government shutdown began, but the possibility for delay cannot be ruled out.



"There are many predictions as the FDA's work speed has slowed down, but we have yet to receive any official information about delay," an official from SK Biopharmaceuticals said.



California-based Aimmune Therapeutics has been directly affected by the U.S. government shutdown as the FDA notified the company it cannot begin to review the firm's Biologics License Application for AR101, a peanut allergy drug, until the lapse in appropriations end.



Aimmune filed for FDA approval of its product on Dec. 21, a day before the shutdown began.


The University of Oxford has stopped accepting funding from Huawei after scrutiny over the company's relationship with China's government. gettyimagesbank



Oxford University has decided to forgo further funding from Chinese tech giant Huawei as scrutiny grows in Europe over the telecom company's relationship with the Beijing government.

Huawei has been under fire in recent months with the arrests of a top executive in Canada and an employee in Poland, along with a worldwide campaign by Washington to blacklist its equipment.

And in the latest blow for Huawei, Oxford University said it had decided it would "not pursue new funding opportunities" for both research contracts or philanthropic donations from Huawei and related group companies -- though existing projects would continue.

"We currently have two such ongoing projects, with a combined funding from Huawei of $692,000 ($898,000)," a university spokesman said Thursday, adding that Huawei had been informed of the decision to turn away future funding.

Oxford said it had made the decision in "light of public concerns raised in recent months surrounding UK partnerships with Huawei."












Logo of Huawei is seen in front of the local offices of Huawei in Warsaw, Poland, Jan. 11. China's envoy to Canada on Thursday warned Ottawa there would be repercussions if it banned Huawei from supplying equipment to Canadian 5G networks. Reuters



China's envoy to Canada on Thursday warned Ottawa there would be repercussions if it banned technology firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from supplying equipment to Canadian 5G networks, the latest blast in a deepening bilateral dispute.

Ambassador Lu Shaye, speaking at a news conference, did not give details. Canada is currently studying the security implications of 5G networks, but unlike some allies has not announced Huawei equipment will be excluded.

"If the Canadian government does ban Huawei from participating in the 5G network, then as for what kind of repercussion there will be, I'm not sure, but I believe there will be repercussions," Lu said through an interpreter, urging Ottawa to "make a wise decision on this issue".

Relations between China and Canada turned frosty last month after Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, on a U.S. extradition request.

China subsequently detained two Canadian citizens, and this month a court retried a Canadian man who previously had been found guilty of drug smuggling, and sentenced him to death.












Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) Executive Vice Chairman Kim Jun-dong, right, holds a catalogue of recommended agricultural foods with Lee Jae-wook, head of Food Grain Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, during an event at KCCI in Jung-gu, Seoul, Friday. The chamber and the ministry launched a campaign to promote consumption of home-grown agricultural foods amid the Lunar New Year holiday. This year's holiday is from Feb. 4 to 6. Courtesy of KCCI
 More farmers are getting rich by selling agricultural produce through livestreaming and short video apps

 Rural Party leaders see video apps and e-commerce as important tools in poverty alleviation

 E-commerce and short video companies expect to help lift more villages out of poverty in 2019

Wearing a Soviet-style hat typical among Chinese farmers in winter, 40-year-old Jiang Jinchun, from a mountain village in Hengfeng county in East China's Jiangxi Province, scoops up some snow outside his home with a pair of chopsticks and swallows it with a contented expression, as if he were eating something really delicious.

The short video, less than 15 seconds in length, is one of several the farmer has recently uploaded to Kuaishou, a short video and livestreaming app. "Thank heaven for bringing snow! There will definitely be a harvest next year," he commented under the video, which soon amassed 7,921 likes and 1,799 comments.

China's livestreaming and short video platforms may be best known for bringing wealth and fame to young, pretty female presenters, who get rich by livestreaming themselves singing and chatting with fans, or just showing their daily lives. But the apps are also bringing prosperity to an unlikely group: farmers.

Three years ago, Jiang was a farmer with little hope for his own future. Today he has managed to attract over 2 million followers on three major short video and livestreaming platforms. His fans and followers are also loyal customers. Through the apps, Jiang has sold 1,050 kilograms of tea, 600 kilograms of kudzu root powder (a plant known in China to have health benefits) and over 200 kilograms of camellia oil produced by over 200 households in 14 villages in his county in 2018, making him a local business star. Last year, he was even given an award by his county chief and a prize of 18,888 yuan ($2,792) for helping the county sell agricultural products.

Most of Jiang's videos depict life in his village, including him cooking meals using local produce with his family or digging for bamboo shoots in the forest, with his dramatic facial expressions adding a personal touch to the videos. "Most of my followers are people from rural areas who are now working in the city, and my videos remind them of rural life," Jiang told the Global Times.

Jiang is among a growing number of farmers who are now benefitting from e-commerce through livestreaming and short video apps. In 2018, over 16 million people received income through Kuaishou, including 3.4 million from China's impoverished counties, according to a spokesman from Kuaishou. Over 100,000 farmer livestreamers have registered on Alibaba in the past three years, according to Nongmin Daily.

Li Xiaoyun, professor at the College of Humanities and Development Studies at China Agricultural University, told 21st Century Business Herald that livestreaming is an innovative method for poverty reduction, as it not only simplifies the buying experience by cutting out intermediaries, but also makes supply and demand information more transparent.

Success story

Jiang's success story may sound tempting, but like most young males in rural areas, he used to be a migrant worker trying to carve out a living in the city.

In 1998, 19-year-old Jiang, like most of his fellow villagers his age, left his hometown for the city for better prospects. For nearly 11 years, he was a delivery man in Yiwu in East China's Zhejiang Province, home to the world's biggest wholesale market, where huge amounts of goods need to be delivered every day.

While he managed to get by, after he got married and had a daughter, he faced a conundrum that troubles many migrant workers: what to do with the child. Since he and his wife were too busy to look after her, they had no choice but to send her back home and ask his parents to take care of her.

"My wife cried all the time. We were left-behind children ourselves when we were growing up, so we know what it's like to grow up without parents by our side," he told the Global Times.

In 2010, despite bleaker economic prospects in his village, Jiang and his wife finally decided to return home to look after their child. To make a living, they opened a shop on Taobao, selling clothing he bought wholesale from Yiwu. But business was mediocre, with only a handful of orders each month.

Change occurred in 2015. That October, a friend encouraged Jiang to register on Kuaishou, and Jiang started to post videos of his rural life. One day, a video of him digging up bamboo shoots with his father suddenly became popular, attracting dozens of new fans every day. Some asked him if he could sell them.

Jiang now earns 170,000 yuan a year, four times the amount he earned as a migrant worker, and he enjoys the benefits of having his family by his side. The local county head was impressed by the power of short video sites, and asked Jiang to teach his skills to other farmers. The county, formerly on the list of impoverished counties, officially rose above poverty last August.

"If you only have a shop on Taobao, no one knows who you are, and they can only judge a product by photos and descriptions. Livestreaming brings more humanity and trust to e-commerce," Jiang said.

Homecoming

The promise of livestreaming has attracted many farmers with business acumen to return to their hometowns.

Shang Yukang, aged 23, is the only young person in Baimasi village in Longnan, Gansu Province. Born in 1996, he left home and became a migrant worker when he was 16. He has worked as a dishwasher in Beijing, a worker at an electronics factory in Suzhou and a laborer at a construction site in Guangdong, before he became tired of migrant life and returned home to a village mostly inhabited by old people and children.

He now owns a chicken farm in the village. By posting creative videos of his chicken on Kuaishou, including videos featuring the birds in different formations, such as a heart or a Chinese character, he has managed to attract 370,000 followers, who contribute greatly to his annual earnings of 100,000 yuan. "Without short video platforms, my chicken wouldn't sell as much," he told the Global Times. He is now applying for a loan to establish a cooperative to help more of his fellow villagers sell chickens through e-commerce platforms.

Apart from farmers, many village Party officials are using video apps to promote their villages and help fight poverty. Wu Yusheng, a poverty alleviation official in Gaibao village, Liping County, Guizhou Province, for example, picked seven young women in his village to livestream the culture, food and life in the village on Kuaishou, amassing 110,000 fans in three months collectively. Some village officials livestream themselves, including Zhu Mingchun, vice county chief of Dangshan county in Anhui Province, who sold 5,000 boxes of pears in half an hour during a livestreaming event on Taobao, 21th Century Business Herald reported.

Corporate social responsibility

Seeing the potential of livestreaming and short videos, many e-commerce and video websites are planning to continue cultivating the potential of videos for poverty reduction in 2019.

Alibaba, for example, announced that it will help 1,000 farmers in 100 Chinese counties earn more than 10,000 yuan each month through a village livestreaming campaign. In total, Alibaba aims to sell 3 billion yuan worth of agricultural products this year. Taobao's livestreaming section will also launch a program to train farmer livestreamers how to use the platform to hone their farming skills and better sell their products.

In November 2018, Sina launched a poverty reduction project, aiming to work with 60 counties on China's list of impoverished counties and help them boost sales of agricultural produce and build brands. Kuaishou also said it will give more exposure to the agricultural products of 500 impoverished counties. Jinri Toutiao launched a campaign in November, showcasing local produce in several impoverished counties and achieving a sales volume of 150,000 yuan in two days.
NPS may exercise voting right against Hanjin chairman



The National Pension Service (NPS) will decide next month whether to exercise its shareholder rights over the country's largest air carrier Korean Air and its holding company Hanjin KAL Corp. If the state pension operator decides positively, this will mark a milestone in institutional investors' role not only in protecting shareholders' interests, but also improving corporate governance.



The move came after the NPS introduced a stewardship code last July, a set of guidelines allowing the fund operator to intervene in the management of companies it invests in. The code is to enable institutional investors to actively engage in corporate governance to promote the interests of shareholders.



By wielding their voting rights more actively, the NPS and other institutional investors can avoid long-held criticism that they have only played the role of rubber-stamping any corporate decisions at the cost of shareholder values. Particularly, the nation's top pension fund can make a stable profit to bring more benefits to subscribers.



So the NPS' move regarding the airline and its holding firm is a step in the right direction. The pension fund will not have to hesitate to say no to the two companies in their shareholders' meeting scheduled for March. The reason is that Hanjin Chairman Cho Yang-ho and his family pose a serious threat to the management of the transportation group due to allegations about their abuse of power, embezzlement and breach of trust.



Chairman Cho's daughter Heather Cho, a former Korean Air executive vice president, earned her ill reputation due to the "nut rage" incident in 2014. Last year Cho's wife and his other daughter were summoned for question over alleged physical and verbal violence against company employees and others.



Regrettably, the NPS and other institutional investors have so far failed to exercise their shareholders' rights to check the owner families of conglomerates. The NPS even voted for a controversial 2015 merger between two Samsung Group affiliates  Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, yielding to pressure from then President Park Geun-hye.



The wrong NPS action reportedly caused the losses of 300 billion won ($267 million) to Samsung Group. It only facilitated the transfer of management rights from Chairman Lee Kun-hee to his son, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong. The ousted President Park was found guilty of forcing the group to hand over huge funds to her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil in return for the NPS' vote in favor of the merger.



If the NPS had adopted a stewardship code earlier and voted against the merger, shareholders could have saved their losses. As such the disgraced president could have avoided bribery charges as far as Samsung is concerned. This explains why the NPs should play a more active role as the shareholder of many large companies affiliated with family-run conglomerates, or chaebol.



The NPS is the world's third-largest pension fund with 630 trillion won ($561 billion). It is the second-largest shareholder of Korean Air with an 11.5 percent stake and the third-largest shareholder of Hanjin KAL with 7.3 percent. If it collaborates with other institutional investors, the NPS may oust the corrupt, incompetent and unruly Cho family from management. It remains to be seen if the pension fund operator will do so.






By John J. Metzler





NEW YORK  While the world is looking elsewhere and transfixed on the whirling Washington merry-go-round, a perfect political storm is brewing in East Asia. Unpredictable winds are gathering over the Chinese mainland and the epicenter is the Zhongnanhai compound near Beijing's once Forbidden City, as leader Xi Jinping renews his call for an independent Taiwan to "rejoin" the People's Republic of China  or else.







In his New Year's clarion call for peaceful reunification, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1979 "message to compatriots in Taiwan," the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) stressed that "achieving the country's greatness, national rejuvenation and Cross-Strait reunification is a trend of history."







Having lost the civil war to the communists in 1949, China's Nationalists retreated to the offshore island of Taiwan, where they subsequently established a separate government that exists to this day as a democratic counterbalance to authoritarian China.







Nonetheless, Beijing is offering Taiwan a sugar-coated poison pill to annex the island state.







Significantly, the Beijing communists have never renounced the use of military force to bring Taiwan back to the motherland; Xi reiterated that threat yet again.







As the state-run China Daily editorialized, "Xi offers practical means to inevitable reunification."







The Chinese love numerology. Indeed, 2019 holds a slew of anniversaries, both proud and ominous, that could possibly presage actions toward what the Chinese communists view as the unresolved case of Taiwan.







It is the 40th anniversary of Washington opening diplomatic relations with Beijing in January 1979. President Jimmy Carter's surprise actions, which not only switched political ties from the Republic of China on Taiwan to the People's Republic, also crucially severed the U.S./ROC Military Treaty.







Also in 1979, Deng Xiaoping's China called for wayward Taiwan to accept a "one country, two systems" plan, by which the island would join mainland China in a presumably coercion-free arrangement. This system was applied to British Hong Kong when it reverted to China's control in 1997.







Precisely in reaction to the swirl of events, U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) in April 1979, legislating a formula to facilitate future political and economic ties with Taiwan. The TRA is not a formal military treaty but establishes mechanisms that could allow for the defense of the island state.







Taiwan's security has recently been enhanced through the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA) of 2018 that recommits Washington to promote key geopolitical interests in East Asia. The Trump administration has firmly backed this legislation.







While we are reviewing notable dates, 1919 recalls a significant if humiliating year for the newly independent Republic of China, which suffered from an overlooked slight of the Versailles peace treaty ending the First World War. Some small German enclaves on the China coast were awarded to Japan. Though Japan was a WWI ally, so too was China!







The subsequent May 4 movement that represented the smoldering embers of Chinese nationalism will be commemorated this spring.







The Beijing rulers may well use the theme of "being the victim" yet again to call for the overdue "reunification" of Taiwan.







Of course the seminal year of 1949; that being when the Chinese communists under Mao took over the mainland and the routed Chinese Nationalists moved into exile on Taiwan. The 70th anniversary of "liberation," as the People's Republic will celebrate it, puts additional political pressure on Taiwan.







Modern Taiwan is a thriving East Asian democracy. Despite a fractious political scene, most people overwhelmingly prefer to keep the status quo in links to mainland China  trade and tourism, but not formal political ties to Beijing. Equally, the argument has always been phrased as "one Chinese nation" that has two separate de facto governments, much like South and North Korea or former West and East Germany.







Any move by Taiwan's political figures to alter this fragile but working arrangement, through advocating formal independence or separatism, would likely trigger a military attack by Beijing.







Xi's demand that Taiwan accept a dubious "one country, two systems" has ironically united most of Taiwan's disparate political spectrum against Beijing's dictate.







The Taipei Times stated editorially: "The rosy picture that Xi paints might appear harmless and come across as sincere, but Taiwanese are not as easily fooled as he might think."







Xi's renewed Taiwan overtures may actually be more about politics in Beijing than Taipei. Given China's economic slowdown and social ills, the CCP knows that shifting the political focus from the mainland to "errant" Taiwan offers Beijing a nationalistic rallying point.







It could equally ignite a dormant flashpoint for China-U.S. strategic interests.









John J. Metzler (

) is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues.




By Andrew Hammond





U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May suffered a devastating defeat Tuesday on her Brexit withdrawal deal losing by a massive 202 to 432. Westminster is in potential turmoil, following the biggest defeat by any government in over a century, but the ballot should also be a wake-up call for Brussels and the EU 27 too.







U.K. governments have only been defeated in the House of Commons by a margin of more than 100 votes 3 times in the last century, and Tuesday's vote easily exceeded those defeats. All of those previous votes were in 1924 underlining what a historic reversal Tuesday's vote represented, and why May's remaining authority has been shredded.







With May's Brexit withdrawal deal potentially now dead, and a change of government ever more likely, pressure will also intensify on Brussels to show more political imagination to reach a resolution to the current impasse. This includes potentially extending the two-year Article 50 process, which would require the unanimous support of the EU 27, with current end of March deadlines fast approaching.







More imagination and flexibility is especially important given that all sides want to avoid a no-deal scenario. This is because forecasts indicate such an outcome could be very damaging not just to the United Kingdom, but also Ireland and continental Europe alike.







As a Remainer in 2016, who wishes Brussels well and wants to see the United Kingdom to continue to be in a close, cooperative relationship with the EU-27 going forward, it has been painful to watch May's hapless administration make mistake after mistake with the Brexit process. A different tone in negotiations could have made a real difference alongside a coherent negotiating strategy that didn't artificially draw so many supposed "red lines" so early.







Yet, the backstory here is that the EU itself has not played a faultless game either. This is despite the plaudits it rightfully receives for proving a far more disciplined, effective negotiator than many in London anticipated two years ago.







While the U.K.'s negotiation strategy and vision has been "missing in action," Brussels has also struggled to define what Brexit should mean, partly because this forms part of wider, difficult questions around where the EU is headed in coming years. To be clear, Brussels has offered up numerous opportunities over the last two years to Britain, and explained repeatedly what these are, but there could potentially have been greater willingness to think beyond off-the-shelf, standard options.







Of course, many across the continent have been concerned about the threat to the EU of a potentially successful  or at least the appearance of a successful  Brexit in coming years, and understandably do not want to be seen to shift positions fundamentally solely because of pressures from London. Yet, especially if a U.K. withdrawal agreement is ultimately agreed, there will be growing requirement for the EU-27 to think more "out of the box" as the next wave of negotiations get underway during the transition period.







Moreover, in what has been an inherently political negotiation over the withdrawal deal the last two years, the EU has sometimes been legalistic with the process in a way that would have made it hard for any U.K. government, let alone this very incompetent one, to deliver.







For instance, the withdrawal deal, and the separate one to set up a new relationship, are exceptionally hard to undertake entirely in isolation, as the Northern Irish border issue underlines. Yet there has sometimes been a doctrinaire view on this issue which underlines what a monumental mistake it was for May to trigger Article 50 before she had a proper negotiating strategy.







Lack of imagination by Brussels in Brexit talks potentially stems from initial complacency in some quarters of the EU over the concerns U.K. voters expressed in the referendum which may have been dismissed too easily in 2016 as British exceptionalism. However, even Emmanuel Macron admitted last year that France might vote for Frexit if a similar referendum were held in his country.







Moreover, some EU-27 decision-makers, although initially concerned that Brexit could lead to a domino effect across the continent, have perhaps even come to see the U.K.'s departure as a "problem" that may even be positive for the EU, especially in a context where polls in 2016 and 2017 have shown popular support for the EU at record levels across much of the continent. In part, this stems from a long-held perception in parts of the EU that further integration tends to only happen through crises.







Yet, this has potentially risked underplaying the full scale of the challenges facing the EU, of which Brexit is just one, which will collectively determine its future place in the world and help frame its future relationship with the United Kingdom. These range from Schengen and eurozone reform through to external challenges like an emboldened Russia, the future of NATO, and the relationship with the United States under Donald Trump with his calls for the EU to be broken up.







Taken overall, now is the time for Brussels, not just London, to redouble Brexit diplomacy to help ensure that a hard, disorderly exit doesn't come to pass. Delivering a smoother departure needs clear strategy and thinking on all sides to deliver on a new phase of constructive partnership that can hopefully bring benefits for both at a time of significant geopolitical turbulence.









Andrew Hammond (

) is an associate at the London School of Economics.






By Richard Pennington





Having lived in Texas (mostly Dallas and Austin) for half a century, I still have some affinity for the place. And as a serious amateur historian, I recognize the centrality of the Korean War in my adopted land; you will find me at Seoul National Cemetery every Memorial Day.



Please allow me to recognize three Texans who took part in that bloody conflict that raged from June 25, 1950, until an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. Nearly 290,000 men from the Lone Star State served, about 1,770 died and hundreds more were missing in action.



The so-called forgotten war is not forgotten in Texas, where the Korean War Veterans Memorial Highway goes from the Red River south to the Gulf of Mexico and where a granite marker on the grounds of the State Capitol honors Texans who fought in the war. A similar marker can be found at the sprawling U.S. Army base known as Fort Hood.



Perhaps you are familiar with "Texas Street" in Busan. The most notorious red-light district in Korea, it was originally named during the war because so many Texas-based soldiers were being brought in to contest the invading North Koreans and their Chinese allies. I visited there in 2008 and can attest to its being a rough and chaotic area.



Here I focus on three Texans who put themselves in harm's way. First is Lt. Gen. Walton Walker, a native of Belton. A graduate of West Point, he had a long military career. Walker won two Silver Stars in World War I and had an even bigger role in World War II as one of Gen. George Patton's top assistants.





From the left: Lt. Gen. Walton Walker, Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Smith, Jack Mounts
By Nam Hyun-woo





Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Lee Gae-ho
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about American missile defense doctrine, Friday, Jan. 18 (KST), at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. AP-Yonhap



By Kim Yoo-chul



North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is wishing for a breakthrough in advancing talks aimed at disbanding his regime's nuclear program as he hopes to avoid more confrontation, a Cheong Wa Dae official told The Korea Times, Friday.



"Kim Yong-chol, Pyongyang's lead negotiator in denuclearization with the United States, plans to deliver a handwritten letter from Kim Jong-un to U.S. President Donald Trump during his few hours in the United States," the official said by telephone asking not to be identified.



Details of the letter have yet to be known. But the soon-to-be-delivered letter included "more detailed plans" by North Korea toward dismantling its nuclear arsenal and reaffirmation by its leader to move forward with Pyongyang's roadmap on how to gradually retire its hypersonic and cruise missiles, according to the official.



The North's negotiator arrived in Washington early Friday (KST) for expected talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a possible encounter with Trump aimed at laying the groundwork for a second Trump-Kim summit.



The Cheong Wa Dae official said the North's negotiator is set to visit the White House on early Saturday, Jan. 19 (KST), probably a sign of potential strong movement in a last-minute diplomatic effort that has appeared stalled for months.



The timing of the North Korean negotiator's visit to the U.S. capital is interesting to see, according to political analysts in Seoul, as Trump unveiled Washington's readjusted missile defense strategy that mentioned North Korea as an "ongoing and extraordinary threat."



It's been said Trump may announce the place and date for his second in-person meeting with his North Korean counterpart once the North Korean envoy leaves Washington.



The Vietnamese city of Hanoi is speculated as the venue for the next Kim-Trump meeting given the North's apparent zeal to learn from Vietnam's experience in building relations with the United States. Communist-dominated Vietnam has good relations with both the United States and North Korea. The Vietnamese city of Danang is tapped as another possible location for the United States-North Korea summit.







North Korean official Kim Yong-chol prepares to depart from Beijing International Airport in China, Jan. 17 (KST). Kim arrived in Beijing on Thursday, en route to the United States for talks ahead of a possible summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. AP-Yonhap
Members of the second representative council of foreign residents in Seoul pose during their appointment ceremony at Seoul City Hall, Friday. / Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government



By Lee Suh-yoon



Seoul City launched its second representative council of foreign residents, Friday, who will act as an official channel between the local government and foreign residents here.



The new council is comprised of 45 members, including 12 from its predecessor who worked from 2016 to 2018. They will represent the 420,000 foreign residents in the capital for two years.



They are from 26 countries around the world, including Central Asia, South Asia, Europe and Oceania. The number of representatives chosen from each country or region corresponds roughly to each population's size in Seoul.



"Though one out of every 23 residents in Seoul is a foreigner, there was almost no way for foreign residents to participate directly in policy-making and implementation processes," said Moon Mi-ran, a senior city government official in charge of the project.



"Through the foreign residents council, the Seoul Metropolitan Government will continue to support their participation in the policy-making process and support them to lead comfortable lives as members of our society."



The council will collect the opinions of foreign residents through three sub-committees: Human rights and cultural diversity, living environment improvement, and capacity building.



Each committee will hold four meetings every year and pass on any policy recommendations directly to Mayor Park Won-soon at biannual townhall meetings.



Over the past three years, the foreign resident council made 80 policy recommendations regarding the unique problems foreign residents face in Korea, the city government said.



Some of them have been adopted by the city, such as providing mother tongue language classes for children of female marriage migrants and providing maps and signposts in more languages.



According to the city government, the council members are from different backgrounds, so they are expected to reflect various opinions.



"The new appointees hail from different professional backgrounds. Some are assistant professors or language instructors at Korean universities while others work as engineers or office workers at Korean firms. Two are currently working at Seoul Global Center," a city official said.



Members were chosen through an open application process.



Candidates must have resided in Korea for at least one year, including more than 90 days in Seoul, and be over 18. Applications also required at least 20 recommendations from other foreign residents or an official recommendation from a private or public foreign resident support center.



Nationality, visa type, Korean language skills and participation in local and foreign resident communities were the main factors taken into consideration by the evaluation committee.


Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae speaks to reporters in front of the Supreme Court in Seocho-dong, Seoul, Jan. 11, before heading to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office to face questioning over his alleged involvement in a judiciary power-abuse scandal. Yonhap



Prosecutors filed for a court warrant Friday to arrest former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae in the investigation into alleged abuse of judicial power by top court officials under his leadership.

They also asked the Seoul court for a second time to issue writs against Park Byong-dae and Ko Young-han, two former top court justices, for their alleged involvement in the scandal. The court turned down the previous requests for their arrests, citing disputable grounds.

Yang, who headed the top court from 2011-2017, stands accused of using or seeking to use trials as political leverage to lobby the office of then President Park Geun-hye to get her approval for the establishment of a separate court of appeals, his pet project.

He underwent a 14-hour prosecution interrogation last Friday, becoming the first former head of South Korea's Supreme Court to have faced questioning as a criminal suspect. He had two more interrogations on Monday and Tuesday.

Yang faces at least 40 counts of charges, including abuse of power and leaking of state secrets.

"It is imperative that former chief justice Yang is held accountable for what he has done, as someone who was in charge and had the final say (in every matter)," a prosecution official told reporters. "We have corroborative evidence showing that he not only was briefed about the serious crimes being committed on his watch, but that he indeed spearheaded the scheme."

The scandal involving top justices and the top court has rattled the country, placing the judiciary under unprecedented scrutiny.

The retired veteran justice is alleged to have instructed his officials at the National Court Administration (NCA), the top court's governing body, to devise ways to interfere in trials whose rulings potentially held high political significance for Park.

He is also accused of having orchestrated a delay in the deliberation of a damages suit filed by Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor, to curry favor with the former president, who was seeking amicable relations with Tokyo.

He allegedly pressured judges in charge of such trials to deliver verdicts in Park's favor and disadvantaged the judges who were opposed to establishing another appeals court.

Yang, 71, has categorically denied the allegations. Appearing for the first prosecution questioning, he defended the court system and officials, calling on the public to watch the probe "without bias or prejudice." (Yonhap)
South Korea and the U.S. counterpart held the fourth round of defense cost-sharing talks at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, Seoul, in June 2018. / Korea Times file



By Park Ji-won, Kim Yoo-chul



The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is pushing for the National Assembly to make a speedy resolution to renew defense cost-sharing talks with the United States.



DPK lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee came up with a draft resolution to urge South Korea and the U.S. to agree with the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) as soon as possible, DPK lawmakers said Friday.



The draft includes a proposal for the Assembly to advance SMA talks for a stronger South Korea-U.S. alliance and to guarantee the stable status of the United States Forces Korea (USFK) troops here at a reasonable level.



"It includes conditions such as keeping the agreement, fast adoption of the agreement at a reasonable and fair level and improvement of South Korean employees for the USFK," a DPK lawmaker said.



The SMA specifies South Korea's monetary contributions to the non-personnel costs of hosting the U.S. military and has been updated every five years since 1991 to ensure South Korea shares about half of the burden.



Last year, South Korea paid around 960 billion won or $860 million for about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed across the country.



The USFK claimed this only amounted to about 41 percent of the non-personnel costs. The White House is said to have asked for a 150 to 200 percent increase.



The last SMA agreement was made in 2013 and Washington is looking to renegotiate the agreement "every year," according to defense ministry officials in Seoul.



There have been no breakthroughs in the talks, with both sides failing to narrow their differences on the specific cost burden.



The DPK's move came ahead of Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha's planned visit to the Assembly for discussions about the draft with committee members on Jan. 21.



National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong earlier called on the Assembly to cooperate when he visited Liberty Korea Party (LKP) Floor Leader Na Kyung-won to ratify the SMA. Korea is in a difficult situation because the U.S. has proposed something that is hard to accept.



However, the draft will likely face a backlash from opposition parties and even from ruling party members because it could have a negative impact on negotiations.



Defense analysts said the most "significant cost" of the stalled talks on the issue was the erosion of trust in the U.S. as a "reliable security partner and supporter."



"The Assembly's resolution will not play as a bargaining chip," a source familiar with the matter said. "Rather, it will have a negative impact on negotiations as there are too many things that must be reviewed and considered. "This is not an issue to be settled immediately."


The capture shows South Korea's Gwanggaeto the Great ship that is shown in a video released by Japan's defense ministry last month. Korea Times file



By Kim Bo-eun



A dispute is developing over a military agreement between South Korea and Japan on sharing information, as it is proving to be useless in a radar row between the countries, where exchange of radar frequency data is necessary.



The conflict began after Japan claimed a South Korean naval destroyer targeted its patrol plane with a fire-control radar on Dec. 20.



South Korean authorities denied this, stating the ship, the Gwanggaeto the Great, was conducting a rescue operation for a North Korean ship that had been drifting into international waters of the East Sea.



However, Japan's defense ministry released footage of its P-1 patrol aircraft which contained a recording of the plane's operator's remarks at the time. However, Seoul has claimed this cannot serve as evidence, and requested radar frequency data from Japan, which the latter has been refusing stating this is confidential information.



Last week, military officials of Seoul and Tokyo met in Singapore to discuss the matter but only ended up confirming their differences. Japanese officials, while refusing to provide its radar frequency data, instead requested the entire radar frequency data of the Gwanggaeto the Great ship, prompting South Korea's defense ministry to denounce its response.



South Korea and Japan signed the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) in November 2016 to share more military information. The deal enabled the countries to directly share military secrets that are classified second degree or lower.



"GSOMIA appears useless  what information would the countries exchange if they cannot even exchange radar frequency data?" Rep. Kim Jong-dae of the National Assembly's national defense committee said on a radio show of the Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation, Thursday. "If radar frequency data is not shared, joint operations at a time of war is impossible."



Kim, who is also a seasoned defense analyst, earlier stated citing unofficial talks with high-level officials of Japan's Self-Defense Forces that Tokyo may terminate the GOSOMIA if the conflict continues. He claims South Korea did not receive much information from Japan under the deal.



Under the deal, South Korea was to receive information from Japan on North Korea's missile activities. However, as a process to denuclearize North Korea and achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula began last year, there has not been much information to share on the North's missile activities, according to the defense ministry.



The defense ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comments about whether the GSOMIA would provide grounds for Japan to provide its radar frequency data.



The governments renew the GSOMIA every year. If there are no notifications of other intentions three months before the date the agreement is renewed in November, it is automatically renewed.




The three-day symposium introduces 30 speeches covering the topics of current scientific interests, including new materials for energy and electronic applications, two-dimensional materials, nanostructure materials and devices, and magnetic materials and devices.

The event is co-organised by Vietnam Materials Research Society (V-MRS), Korean Physical Society (KPS), and Phenikaa University.

It aimed to foster exchange and cooperation among scientists and research groups between the two countries. It is also set to bring outcomes of research into life and expand training in these two fields.

Prof. Nguyen Duc Chien, Chair of Vietnam Materials Research Society, said that the symposium will create a new development step in cooperation between applied physics and materials science, thus facilitating further cooperation among the Vietnam Physics Society and its RoK partner.
Korean business people speak during a conference hosted by Seoul's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in Ahmedabad, Thursday (local time). Yonhap



South Korean companies operating in India have cited various trade barriers, including tariffs, as major hurdles of doing business there, industry sources said Friday.

During the conference hosted by Seoul's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in Ahmedabad, the economic hub of the Indian state of Gujarat, firms operating on the subcontinent claimed that there should be an improvement made to the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

South Korea and India implemented CEPA, a type of free trade agreement that emphasizes two-way economic cooperation on top of opening markets, in January 2010.

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's No. 1 carmaker, claimed that the two countries should make efforts to grant more freedom to carmakers in terms of exports, as CEPA does not include tariff benefits.

The Indian government currently imposes a 60 percent tariff on automobiles and a 12.5 percent duty on auto parts.

An official from Hyundai stressed that tariffs on auto parts need to be abolished to increase car production in India.

South Korean steelmaker POSCO echoed this view, asserting that CEPA should give benefits to steel products.

"While 85 percent of South Korean steel products receive benefits from CEPA, that portion should be expanded to a 95 percent level," an official from POSCO said.

A spokesperson from the industry ministry said the government will continue to make efforts to support South Korean firms in India and claimed it will deliver the companies' opinions to its Indian counterpart. (Yonhap)
Korea's total fertility rate is estimated at 0.96 to 0.97 for 2018, according to the Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy. / Korea Times files



By Kim Jae-heun



Korea's fertility rate is estimated to have hit an all-time low last year after falling below the level of 1 for the first time, according to a presidential committee, Friday, raising concerns that the nation is heading for a "demographic cliff" faster than expected.



According to the Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy, the country's total fertility rate is estimated at 0.96 to 0.97 for 2018.



According to Statistics Korea, the fertility rate refers to the number of children that one woman is estimated to have in her lifetime.



Statistics Korea also predicted last March that the nation's fertility rate would dip below the threshold of 1.



"If the fertility rate does not improve and stays at a critical level of 1, we can face the decrease in the country's total population sooner than 2028, the year we predicted such result," Statistics Korea Commissioner Kang Shin-wook said.



Korea needs a fertility rate of 2.1 to maintain the current population. However, the rate is not even half of what is recommended.



In 2016, the average fertility rate of 35 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was 1.68 and Korea ranked last.



Statistics Korea began collecting data on fertility rates in 1970 and it recorded an all-time high at 4.54 the following year. However, since then, the rate plummeted to 1.53 in 1987  despite a surprise rebound to 1.7 in 1990.



In 2017, it reached a record low of 1.05.



Experts warned that a decrease in population could reduce production and consumption and eventually lead to an economic crisis.



Since 2006, the government has come up with the countermeasures three times every five years to cope with the issue.



However, its plan has only focused on raising the fertility rate and ignored what people really need to secure an environment necessary to nurture a family, such as finding a stable job and a home to live in.



The government decided to change its paradigm to take action against the issue by improving the quality of life for people first.



"It is our goal to maintain the total number of babies born per year at around 300,000 and the government will do it's best to support the medical costs and child rearing expenses. We expect such benefits will encourage people to have at least two children," a presidential committee official said.



"Also, our society still shows serious gender discrimination at work and it is one of the main reasons that women avoid getting married and having children. We will compensate for the system to establish gender equality at work and home."


Two students from Daesung High School in Seoul leave Wonju Severance Christian Hospital, Friday, after fully recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning last month at a guesthouse in Gangneung, Gangwon Province. Seven students, who were left unconscious by fumes from a faulty ventilation pipe, have been released from hospital. Three others were killed. / Yonhap
In this Jan. 9 photo provided on Jan. 10 by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, center left, bids farewell to Chinese Communist Party's International Department head Song Tao, center right, at a station in the Chinese border town of Dandong. Vietnam is reportedly preparing to greet Kim. Korea News Service via AP



Vietnam is preparing to greet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Reuters reported Friday amid talk of a possible summit between him and President Donald Trump there in the coming weeks or months.

Quoting a source familiar with the matter, the news outlet said Kim will travel to Vietnam for a state visit "after the Feb. 4-8 lunar new year" holiday. Another source confirmed Kim's trip but did not give any dates.

The sources stopped short of clarifying if Kim's trip would be related to his much-anticipated summit with Trump. Vietnam's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

Recent media reports have said that both Hanoi and the central Vietnamese city of Danang could be possible summit locations. The Thai capital of Bangkok has also been mentioned as a candidate site.

Trump said on Jan. 6 that the summit location will be announced probably in the "not too distant future."

Kim Yong-chol, one of the closest aides to the North's leader, arrived in Washington on Thursday, apparently for talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to coordinate details of the summit between the two sides. (Yonhap)
North Korean official Kim Yong-chol, right, prepares to leave the Beijing International Airport in Beijing on Jan. 17. Kim reportedly arrived in Washington for talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Kyodo News via AP



A senior North Korean official arrived in Washington on Thursday apparently for negotiations with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on a second summit between the two sides.

A plane from Beijing carrying Kim Yong-chol, known as one of the closest aides to leader Kim Jong-un, and his entourage touched down at Dulles International Airport.

It's the first time that a North Korean government official has flown directly into the U.S. capital without any stopover in another U.S. city.

He left the airport through a side door, accompanied by what appeared to be U.S. and North Korean officials, including Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea.

Biegun was seen inside the airport earlier but refused to answer reporters' questions.

Kim, vice chairman of the ruling Workers' Party Central Committee, is expected to have talks with Pompeo on Friday in a bid to finalize the details of another meeting between the leaders of the Korean War foes.

He will also likely pay a courtesy call on U.S. President Donald Trump and convey to him a letter from Kim Jong-un.

There is no word from the Trump administration on the envoy's visit. The State Department has repeatedly said it has "no meetings to announce."

The last time Kim Yong-chol and Pompeo were scheduled to meet, in New York in November, the State Department abruptly announced the meeting's postponement at a day's notice, reportedly at the North's request.

A second summit between Trump and Kim would seek to break an impasse in negotiations over the North's nuclear weapons program.

Trump and Kim first met in Singapore in June and agreed to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees for the regime.

The North insists the deal calls for sanctions relief and other corresponding U.S. measures for the denuclearization steps it has taken so far, including its dismantling of a nuclear testing site.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that the North has yet to take "concrete steps" to dismantle its nuclear weapons.

Some time after he left the airport, Kim Yong-chol was filmed by broadcasters entering the Dupont Circle Hotel, some 10 blocks north of the White House.

He is expected to stay for three days and return to Pyongyang via Beijing on an Air China flight departing at 3:35 p.m.

The last senior North Korean official to stay in Washington overnight was the late Vice Marshal Jo Myong-rok, who visited the U.S. capital in October 2000 and met with then U.S. President Bill Clinton. (Yonhap)
The Jogye Order is planning to arrange a temple stay in the Singye temple. Singye temple, located in Onjong-ri in Kosong County, Gangwon Province, North Korea, is one of the four major temples of Mt. Geumgang. The building was entirely destroyed by U.S. bombings during the Korean War and rebuilt in cooperation with the South Korean Buddhist community in 2007. Korea Times file



'2019 will be a new chapter in inter-Korean Buddhist exchanges'



By Kang Aa-young





Ven. Wonhaeng, chief monk of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, makes a vow during a press conference in Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap
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This was announced by the steering committee of the project called Improve the resilience of vulnerable coastal communities to climate change related impacts in Vietnam at a meeting held in Hanoi on January 17.

The project, which was launched at the end of 2017, has been implemented by the UNDP, the Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Ministry of Construction.

The meeting was attended by representatives from the two ministries, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Vietnam Administration of Forestry, and the Vietnam Disaster Management Authority, as well as leaders and members of the projects management boards in Nam Dinh, Thanh Hoa, Quang Binh, Quang Ngai, Quang Nam, Thua Thien  Hue and Ca Mau provinces.

Speaking at the event, MARD Deputy Minister Hoang Van Thang spoke highly of the projects achievements in 2018, during which a total of 1,098 flood-proof houses were constructed and nearly 200 hectares of mangrove forests was planted and restored.

Over 15,000 communal level public servants and residents of 100 communes received training on community-based disaster risk management over the past year.

Participants at the meeting reviewed advantages and difficulties in deploying the project in 2018 and suggested solutions to realise the targets set for 2019 and upcoming years.
J-PAL and Pratham awarded philanthropic funding toward education systems change

On January 15, Co-Impact, a global philanthropic collaborative for systems change, announced a commitment of US$80 million and technical support to five initiatives with proven systems changing strategies in education, health, and economic opportunity. Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa, led jointly by MIT's Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and the Indian NGO Pratham, was selected as one of the five initiatives receiving funding under this commitment. TaRL Africa was selected after rigorous assessment from an initial pool of over 250 initiatives.

Despite progress worldwide in school enrollment, millions of children in schools across Africa are not acquiring basic reading and arithmetic skills. The Co-Impact grant will support J-PAL's policy team and Pratham in working with governments and their partners to scale up the Teaching at the Right Level approach in multiple countries across Africa. This complements a burgeoning movement of players and programs in Africa committed to addressing the learning crisis through TaRL.

Pioneered by Pratham, TaRL is based on several key elements at the classroom level:

(1) Using a simple tool, children are assessed on their ability to read and do arithmetic.

(2) Then, children are grouped for instruction by level, rather than by grade. For a few hours per day the focus is on building foundational skills through activities and materials appropriate for each group.

(3) As children progress in reading and arithmetic, they move into the next learning group and continue to grow.

Shifting from "schooling for all" to "learning for all" also requires critical systems-level support. This includes working with stakeholders to adjust the approach to local contexts, developing and supporting a cadre of mentors, and continually assessing basic skills and empowering government officials and teachers to act on this data.

Since 2001 J-PAL-affiliated researchers have tested the TaRL approach through rigorous impact evaluations. Six randomized evaluations in India over the past two decades and a growing body of research in Africa have shown that TaRL has led to some of the largest and cost-effective learning gains of any primary education program evaluated. For example, in a randomized evaluation in Haryana, India, the TaRL approach implemented by government school teachers led to significant improvements in reading, with the largest gains made by children who were furthest behind.

The five-year Co-Impact grant enables the J-PAL/Pratham team to continue to support the scale-up of TaRL and reach at least three million students--and potentially millions more in the future. J-PAL and Pratham will set up a new initiative, TaRL Africa, with full-time staff based in South Africa, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Zambia, and other countries in the region.

J-PAL, Pratham, and TaRL Africa partners hope that Co-Impact's rigorous assessment and significant pledge of support will encourage further philanthropic, international donor and government investments in TaRL.

Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham, said,

"Using Teaching at the Right Level, we have helped millions of children to read and to do basic math in India. Together with J-PAL, we are excited to have the opportunity to work in Africa with many partners. Foundational skills can transform a child's life and unlock their potential to do so much more in education and in life. We are grateful for Co-Impact's support for this partnership."

Iqbal Dhaliwal, Executive Director of J-PAL, said,

"This grant represents the critical importance of using evidence from rigorous impact evaluations to drive decision-making. Our partnership with Pratham is based on innovation, learning, and a unifying vision--shared with Co-Impact--of creating systems-level change. Through investing in rigorous research and evidence-backed approaches, we can disrupt the status quo and transform lives. We have a lot of work ahead of us and are putting together an outstanding team to lead and execute this exciting initiative."

The TaRL Africa initiative will work with governments, local schools and NGOs, donors, and supporters to develop the foundations essential for lifelong learning, opening doors for the next generation of global citizens.

###

For more information about Teaching at the Right Level and to learn how to become a partner, visit http://www. teachingattherightlevel. org . For more information about J-PAL, visit http://www. povertyactionlab. org . For more information about Pratham, visit http://www. pratham. org .

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center based at the Masachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 170 affiliated professors at universities around the world, J-PAL draws on results from randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty. We build partnerships with governments, NGOs, donors, and others to share this knowledge, scale up effective programs, and advance evidence-informed decision-making. J-PAL was launched at the MIT in 2003 and has regional centers in Africa, Europe, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Pratham is an innovative learning organization. Set up almost 25 years ago, Pratham believes that every child should be in school and learning well. Pratham means 'first' or "primary" in Sanskrit. As one of the largest non-governmental organizations in the country, Pratham facilitates India's well-known Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) exercise, which has been providing estimates of reading and arithmetic skills every year for every rural district in India since 2005. For the past two decades and more, Pratham has focused on high-quality, low-cost learning improvement interventions that help millions of children progress and thrive. Working directly with communities and schools, Pratham reaches close to a million children every year. Working in partnership with state governments, Pratham is able to contribute to the learning improvement of several million children annually.

Useful links:

Release: Co-Impact announces $80 million in grants aimed at improving the lives of 9 million people in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America: https:/ / www. co-impact. io/ 2019/ 01/ 15/ co-impact-announces-80-million-in-grants-aimed-at-improving-the-lives-of-9-million-people-in-africa-south-asia-and-latin-america/ .

J-PAL case study: Teaching at the right level to improve learning: https:/ / www. povertyactionlab. org/ case-study/ teaching-right-level-improve-learning .

Teaching at the Right Level home page: https:/ / www. teachingattherightlevel. org/ .

Teaching at the Right Level case studies from Botswana, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, and Zambia: https:/ / www. teachingattherightlevel. org/ tarl-in-action/ .

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 103F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.
The function was chaired by Deputy Defence Minister Col Gen Phan Van Giang and attended by Lao Ambassador to Vietnam Thongsavanh Phomvihane and representatives of Vietnams military units and central agencies.

At the ceremony, Col Gen Phan Van Giang delivered a speech reciting the history of the Lao Peoples Army and the special friendly relations between the two countries and armies.

He stated that the relationship between the two armies is a valuable legacy that needs to be safeguarded and developed by the two countries generations of today and tomorrow.

The Vietnamese general emphasised that the two armies should forge closer cooperation in the future to prevent regional and global risks from affecting each countrys defence.

For his part, Lao Ambassador Thongsavanh Phomvihane stated that the anniversary ceremony is a vivid indication of the intimate relationship between the two armies.

He affirmed that the Lao people will never forget the sweat and blood that Vietnamese soldiers left on his countrys soil to build up this special relationship of solidarity and faithfulness.
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Susan Kootnekoff is a lawyer with Inspire Law. Phone: 250-764-7710. Email: info@inspirelaw.ca. On the web: inspirelaw.ca. The content of this article is intended to provide general thoughts and general information, not to provide legal advice. This column appears Fridays.
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Netflix just announced that it is raising prices, which may be a sticking point for a lot of subscribers. But that isnt stopping the streaming company from looking ahead and staying competitive in a very busy market.

Today, Netflix announced its earnings report for 2018 and its a bit of a mixed bag. The company earned just over $4 billion last year, and it added almost 9 million global new accounts. And while there are a variety of different streaming platforms out there, Netflix doesnt necessarily consider any of those competition in the same way we might think. The company says it earns roughly 10 percent of TV time, and something less than 10% of mobile screen time.

Interestingly, Netflix says that when YouTube went down for a very brief point in October of last year, new account sign-ups spiked, as well as viewership. Hulu is referenced as well, but in a point where that particular streaming platform isnt available in Canada, while Netflix is. Netflix does admit Hulu is successful in the United States, though. And while Netflix admits that there are so many different streaming options out there, Netflix says its own services stability and experience is why it is doing so well for itself  and why it can continue to compete even with new services like Apples upcoming streaming option, or the incoming Disney+ platform as well.

What really stuck out in the earnings report is the fact that Netflix is aware that it isnt just about other streaming platforms, because this is a battle for attention and eyeballs. Which means other gigantic pieces of content, like Epic Games Fortnite Battle Royale, are actually prying attention away. Netflix said that We compete with (and lose to Fortnite more than HBO, which is probably pretty obvious in the grand scheme of things, but also pretty funny. Apparently people arent multitasking while they play Fortnite.

Netflix says its still going to focus on the general experience for the users out there in the world, which is a good thing. The price hikes may cause some hesitation from some customers, but it sounds like Netflix isnt too worried about it.

[via Netflix
The slowdown in iPhone sales has led many Apple suppliers to cut thousands of seasonal jobs earlier than usual. Foxconn, Apples biggest supplier, has removed 50,000 contract workers from its factory in Zhengzhou since October. Usually, Foxconn hires these workers right before the launch of a new iPhone, i.e. in mid-August and renews their monthly contract until January.

However, due to the slowdown in iPhone sales, Foxconn stopped renewing the contracts of such workers from October itself. Pegatron, another key Apple supplier, has also let go of its contract workers from November itself.

A source close to the company said its normal practice was to reduce the 200,000-strong head count by tens of thousands every month until reaching about 100,000  the minimum required for daily operation, according to one source familiar with the situation. And for [2018], it just happened sooner than in the past because of poor demand.

Another key Apple component supplier has asked 4,000 of its employees to take an extended vacation until March. It will decide whether to lay them off or not after March 1, 2019.

To better brace itself for the further decline in iPhone shipments in 2019, Foxconn has launched an aggressive cost-cutting program. It is internally restructuring its organization and has merged the MacBook and iPad division with another unit making laptops and PCs for Dell and Acer. The company is looking to curtail its expenses by $2.96 billion in 2019. For this, it will be reducing its employees in back-office support, human resources, administration, accounting, and more.

Our Take

The smartphone industry is slowing down and this is going to affect Apple as well. The days of iPhone sales setting a new sales record every holiday quarter has long gone. This means that it is not just Apple but other smartphone OEMs are also going to reduce their workforce to curtail their expenses.

[Via Nikkei
* APPF-27 wraps up, adopting Siem Reap joint declaration

* Vietnamese NA pledges to share working experience with Laos

* NA Chairwoman meets Cambodian Senate President

* NA Chairwoman meets Cambodia Prime Minister

Reporter: The APPF-27 finalised its agenda after three days of working. How do you assess about the outcome of the meeting as well as the Vietnamese delegations contributions?

Nguyen Van Giau: The APPF-27 gathered 20 delegations, including three led by the chairpersons of the parliaments and another six led by the vice chairpersons. The Vietnamese contingent, headed by NA Chairwoman Ngan, attended the APPF-27 as the Chair of the APPF-26. The presence of NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu and members of the NA Standing Committee showed that the Vietnamese NA supports Cambodia as the Chair of the APPF-27 and wishes to continue making practical, active and responsible contributions to the APPF.

NA Chairwoman Ngan delivered a keynote speech at the opening session of the APPF-27, in which she recalled the success of the APPF-26 in Hanoi, evaluated the implementation of the Hanoi Declaration and documents adopted at the APPF-26, and raised some issues for the APPF member parliaments to address in the time ahead. The most important and inclusive recommendation is to work closely together and consider all issues, regarding the economy, politics, culture, society, defence, security and development cooperation, in a comprehensive manner. Vietnam is willing to cooperate with the APPF member parliaments in building and maintaining an environment of peace, cooperation and development.

The Vietnamese NA leaders speech was warmly welcomed and highly appreciated by leaders of the participating delegations, especially concerning the spirit of facilitating the effective operation of the APPF and its practical contributions to the common development of the region and the world. In their meetings with NA Chairwoman Ngan, senior Cambodian leaders stated that her speech was of great significance, opening the success of the conference in the following days.

At the APPF-27, the Vietnamese delegation was actively, fully and responsibly engaged in all the working sessions, including the meeting of women parliamentarians and plenary sessions on political, security, economic and trade issues, and on regional cooperation in coping with climate change, mitigating disaster risks, and promoting cultural diversity and tourism in the region. This shows Vietnams sincere support for Cambodia to successfully organise the APPF-27, considering Cambodias success as a success for Vietnam and the friendship between the two countries.

During the annual meeting, participants set out pragmatic initiatives and long-term visions aiming to build the Asia-Pacific region of peace, stability, harmony and sustainable development, thus meeting the aspirations of the member countries. Through the plenary sessions and discussions, the leaders of parliaments and the Chair of the APPF-27 hailed peace as a foundation for the development of each nation, which was a topic throughout discussions of the APPF-27 and was realised by heads of delegations through resolutions and a joint statement.

Reporters: At the APPF-27, the Vietnamese NA co-sponsored two resolutions. What were the results of considering these two resolutions?

Nguyen Van Giau: The first resolution is on cooperation in developing cultural diversity and tourism, which suits both Vietnam and Cambodia as culture is an important foundation for development and the cooperation potential in terms of culture and tourism between the two sides still remains huge. Via the resolution, the two countries can jointly introduce such potential to international friends. The second resolution features the building of solid institutions to boost trade and inclusive development.

In general, the two resolutions co-sponsored by Vietnam received support from member countries without any opposition. A total of 43 draft resolutions were submitted to the APPF-27 in Siem Reap, and the conference adopted 14 of them. The two resolutions proposed by the Vietnamese side were both adopted with high consensus.

Reporter: During her APPF working trip, NA Chairman Ngan and the high-level delegation of the Vietnamese NA were involved in many important bilateral activities with the Cambodian and Lao leaders. What are the key contents of those meetings?

Nguyen Van Giau: The Vietnamese NA delegation followed up a busy schedule during their three days in Cambodia, not only participating in the sessions of the APPF-27 but also being involved in many activities on the sidelines, notably the meetings between NA Chairwoman Ngan with the Prime Minister, the President of the Senate and the President of the National Assembly of Cambodia, and the Chairwoman of the Lao National Assembly.

During the meetings, the Cambodian leaders highly appreciated the Vietnamese NA delegations presence at the APPF-27, which he said contributed to the common success of the conference. The home side also recalled that the two countries recently held a formal ceremony to celebrate 40 years since Vietnam rescued Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime.

In his opening remarks at the APPF-27, Cambodian PM Hun Sen expressed his gratitude to the Vietnamese Party, State, army and people for having rescued Cambodia from the genocidal regime and healing the war wounds. President of the Cambodian NA Heng Samrin delivered a touching statement that regardless of the worlds changes, the Vietnam-Cambodia friendship will never change. With such perspective, the two countries always attach importance to educating traditions to the younger generations, contributing to preserving friendship and solidarity between the two nations.

The meeting between the NA leaders of Vietnam and Laos also took place in a friendly and brotherly atmosphere. Lao NA Chairwoman Pany Yathotou highly appreciated the assistance Vietnam offered to the Lao side, especially through the exchange of experience, thereby helping the Lao NA to increasingly improve its working efficiency.

The APPF-27 participation is the first foreign trip of NA Chairwoman Ngan and the high-ranking delegation of the Vietnamese NA in 2019. The fine success of the overseas working tour promises a year of numerous foreign affairs success for the Vietnamese NA.

Reporter: Thank you very much!
A Chinese hacking team has managed to activate the eSIM functionality on the iPhone XS to connect to a Chinese carrier that is yet to support it officially. As per the screenshots posted, the Chinese hacking team in question has managed to get eSIM functionality to work and connect to China Unicoms network on a Hong Kong variant of iPhone XS.

Apart from China Unicoms network, the iPhone XS in question was also connected to China Mobiles network thanks to a traditional SIM card installed on it.

No mobile network carrier in China supports eSIM. While the technology was trialed by China Unicom when the Apple Watch Series 3 LTE edition was launched, it was quickly nixed due to government pressure.

A hacker team in China successfully activated eSIM on a carrier that has yet to officially support iPhone eSIM. On the photo, a HongKong version iPhone Xs running on both China Mobile (main SIM) and China Unicom (eSIM) networks. pic.twitter.com/2ZHwl4z9rc  ChargerLAB (@chargerlab) January 18, 2019

Due to the lack of official eSIM support from network carriers, Apple sells a special variant of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR in China featuring dual nanoSIM slots. In other parts of the world, the 2018 iPhones only come with one physical SIM slot and use eSIM to connect to the second mobile network.

Details are scarce on how this Chinese hacking team got eSIM to work on China Unicoms network. It is also unlikely that they will release this hack to the public as it would then be patched by China Unicom. It is possible that China Unicom had the eSIM tech ready and has simply not activated it due to the Chinese government crackdown.
First Apple was dealt a blow as certain iPhone models were banned in Germany, and now the company has to retract a statement in a press release!

Bloomberg is reporting on Friday that, due to the legal battle with Qualcomm over patent and royalty disputes, Apple must retract a specific part of a press release it issued back in December of last year. Apples statement was meant as a follow-up due to the injunction against certain iPhone models in Germany, and said that iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models were still on sale in the region through third-party retailers. Apple did confirm it would not be selling the models that were ruled to infringe upon Qualcomm patents in its official retail stores.

Qualcomm apparently earned itself another injunction earlier this week because it was determined that the statement in the press release was misleading. The injunction against Apple also demanded Apple pull the products from resellers as well:

Qualcomm Inc., which won an iPhone ban in December, on Thursday obtained a preliminary injunction stopping its rival from using a statement that Apple distributed to the press in response to the initial ruling. The court said Apples release was misleading because the December judgment also ordered Apple to recall the products from resellers, according to a copy of the decision obtained by Bloomberg News.

Some of those resellers have indeed continued to sell the infringing iPhone models, so it will be interesting to see what happens next in the region. Apple, for its part, has followed the orders handed down by the court in Germany, pulling sales of the iPhone models in its physical retail stores and online.

Of course, you can still buy the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max if you are so inclined.

Despite the ongoing legal battle between Qualcomm and Apple, it was recently reported that Apple may still tap Qualcomm for 5G modems in the iPhones planned for a 2020 launch. If that is indeed the case, the two companies are going to need to settle their issues sooner rather than later.

[via Bloomberg
Things arent going so hot between Apple and Qualcomm at the moment, with no end in sight to the issues.

However, the reason why things fell apart in the first place has been a bit murky up to this point. Apple has made it a point to lambast Qualcomm for what it perceives are ridiculously high royalty fees, while Qualcomm has made an argument that Apple has infringed on a variety of patents. That argument has gone pretty far, leading to an injunction against certain iPhone models in Germany and China.

Bloomberg got a batch of leaked emails between Apples Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Qualcomms Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf, which reveals why the relationship between Apple and Qualcomm deteriorated to its current state. The emails reveal what Apple has already made public in court, that it wanted to continue working with Qualcomm despite the legal battle. However, Qualcomm made a pointed statement that it believed Apple had leaked code relating to the customization of mobile chips.

Williams, for his part, did offer to essentially firewall the employees working with Qualcomm-related code, and went as far as to say that there couldnt be anything worthwhile gleaned from the code.

In my wildest imagination of some evil intention of Apple, I have trouble coming up with a real scenario where anything of significant value could be leaked based on this code, Williams wrote in September 2017.

For those keeping track at this point, Qualcomm has accused Apple of stealing its confidential source code and delivering it to Intel.

This legal battle between Qualcomm and Apple has been going on for a couple of years now, but it sounds like both were willing to work with one another despite all of that. However, Qualcomms belief that Apple couldnt be trusted with their proprietary information led to things dissolving.

In a bid to keep Qualcomm supplying modems for a portion of Apples 2018 iPhones, Williams dismissed the licensing dispute to focus on the potential benefits of the two companies continuing to work together. Williams said Apple would not leak key Qualcomm computer code needed to customize modem chips  something the chipmaker had accused the iPhone maker of doing. The chief operating officer offered to firewall engineers using the software.

Things between these companies arent going to get better anytime soon, more than likely, and it sure has been interesting to hear all of these revelations so far. Granted, those have come mostly from the legal battle between the FTC and Qualcomm so far, but were sure to hear even more in the months ahead.

[via Bloomberg
Rutwik Korde (right) is a sophomore in mechanical engineering. He often finds himself studying in the library alone among other students who are in study groups. Korde said international students can sometimes feel left out due to cultural differences.
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Kaduna state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has said that it would have been better for the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen to resign before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, ever filed a suit.

This was made known by the governor, while speaking on Channels Television Programme, Sunrise. The governor said that is what he would have done, if he were in Onnoghens shoes.

He also noted that All the arguments being made that the allegations against the CJN should first go to the National Judicial Council (NJC) are wrong.

I presented a paper at the Bisi Akande Colloquium on restructuring. I believe that we should look at our federation. Constitutional restructuring is one thing, restructuring our minds to be objective about what is right is another.

I am extremely sad about this Chief Justice matter; if I am the Chief Justice, I will write and say, yes I have these bank accounts but I did not declare them, I will not even allow the CCB to file charges, I will resign there and then to protect the institution.

The admission that I did not declare my assets, that infraction alone, is enough for him to step down and protect the institution. All these court orders and lawyers are not helping the judiciary or the legal practice and are not helping Nigeria.

On whether it was right for President Muhammadu Buhari to have no knowledge about the prosecution the CJN  el -Rufai defended he President saying:

Why should the President know about the prosecution of anyone? Let us please stop personalising institutions. Wont you be worried if the President is worried about prosecution? Institutions should be allowed to function.

I am the governor of Kaduna State. The constitution requires that I declare my assets before being sworn in. Also, the constitution states this specifically, in plain language. This is not law; we dont need law to tell us this.

I dont have to know if the Attorney-General of Kaduna State goes and murder or rape someone, and the police arrest him; I dont need to know. They should charge him to court. Institutions should be allowed to work, and we should stand up to protect the integrity of institutions.

Saying that the President doesnt know, I think it is a compliment to the president; it shows that he does not interfere with institutions and doesnt get involved in it.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trades Asia-Africa Market Department, Vietnamese products were shipped to 53 of 55 African countries, excluding South Sudan and Eritrea. Most of the shipments were mobile phones and spare parts, computers and spare parts, garment and textiles, footwear, rice, coffee, pepper, cashew, seafood and building materials.

South Africa was the largest importer of Vietnam in the continent in 2018, spending US$724.3 million on purchasing Vietnamese products, followed by Egypt with US$439 million and Ghana with US$278.3 million.

Last year, Vietnams imports from African nations fell 10% to some US$3.6 billion, helping reduce the trade deficit to US$0.6 billion. The country had high demand for fuel, animal food, cotton, wood, copper and materials for domestic processing and exports.

The department foresees a bright outlook for Vietnamese exports to Africa in 2019, where extreme weather and political instability have made it hard for countries to produce sufficient products for domestic consumption. African countries economic growth is forecast to continue expanding. Local residents will spend more, especially on seafood, garment and textile products and footwear products of Vietnams strengths.
Aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, Tolu Ogunlesi has clapped right back at critics, who have been trolling him for Atiku Abubakars visit to the United States.

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and former Vice president of Nigeria, arrived at the Washington Dulles International airport on Thursday, to speak with the US chambers of commerce and business communities.

This comes after several months of attack on the former VP, that he hasnt been able to travel to America for many years, because he would be immediately arrested. Atiku is however in the U.S, and the APC is getting bashed on social media for the U.S visa feat  while Atikus supporters cant curtail their excitement.

Well, Ogunlesi in his counter-attack says those same people always bashing him, for posting updates of infrastructure being carried out by the Buhari led administration are the same ones celebrating the attainment of just visa to America.

He wrote his Twitter thus:

Many of the people who have issues with me posting infrastructure updates (why are you celebrating Railway line and road?) are the same people who are now MC-ing the celebration of the attainment of a Visa from the prestigious United States of America 

https://twitter.com/toluogunlesi/status/1086248459076857857?s=19
Atiku Abubakar, presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, entered America on Thursday, breaking the internet.

Atiku, who had stepped foot in the country for more than 12 years, arrived in Washington years, to the shock and pleasure of many.

According to his spokesperson, Atiku will hold meeting with US government officials, the business community and the Nigerian community, during his stay.

The All Progressives Congress, APC, had for a longtime, taunted the former vice president with his inability to travel to America, following corruption allegations.

After reports that Atiku had arrived in America, many Nigerians and supporters of the presidential candidate took to social media to fire heave shots at the APC and their supporters.

Take a look

https://twitter.com/YemieFASH/status/1086141487019118593?s=19

https://twitter.com/HorlarJhidey/status/1086152718291472385?s=19

Whatelse will be APC's selling point against Atiku? Unlike Buhari, Atiku is not on a lifeless mission to USA. #AtikuNowThatYouAreInTheUs pic.twitter.com/8IkSWN5l2u  Humanist (@SocialReflector) January 17, 2019

Atiku please help to buy hearing aid for Buhari, because for him to understand a word now it must be repeated 4times #AtikuNowThatYouAreInTheUs  Sherishery (@Mz_sherifa) January 17, 2019

APC made this @atiku traveling to USA an issue that's going to torment them throughout this election periodlet's see what Festus Keyamo will say. #AtikuNowThatYouAreInTheUs  Mazi Emeke  (@fils101) January 17, 2019

#AtikuNowThatYouAreInTheUs, The "Atiku can't enter U.S" propaganda spread by those who came into power through propaganda & has ever since, governed with propaganda has been put to shame. Now you have the last laugh.  #AtikuInUS pic.twitter.com/IuHWQ1yJXv  Nwo-Diali PH  (@Manlike_ED) January 17, 2019

Things you will NOTICE about Atiku in Washington DC #AtikuInAmerica.

 Abubakar won't Call us LAZY & won't be termed Lifeless after.

 He will speak good English and be AWARE of everything happening in #Nigeria.#NgTheCandidates #AtikuNowThatYouAreInTheUs#AtikuInUS pic.twitter.com/7Rm7WAxkvY  JEREMY FRANKSON (@jerryfrankson) January 17, 2019

Atiku only stepped on US soil and there's so much jubilation. You can imagine the joy and celebration that'll rock Nigeria when he's announced winner in February.#AtikuInAmerica  Jamal (@JajaPhD) January 17, 2019

Apparently the US is worried about Buharis admin, I wonder what the rest of the world thinks.

Atiku is in US to discuss a way forward; consider this our first sensible representation in the US market since 2015.

The other visit was a lifeless one.#AtikuinAmerica #LGNWA  Somto Onuchukwu (@chosensomto) January 17, 2019
Former governor of Ekiti state, Ayo Fayose has said that President Muhammad Buhari must accept the challenge to debate the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar.

This comes following Atikus visit to the United States of America, which the All Progressives Congress, APC had challenged him to, to prove everyone wrong that he wasnt running away from prosecution.

According to Fayose, just as Atiku accepted the challenge to visit the United States, Buhari almost also accept the challenge to debate Atiku.

The former governor said this on Friday, via his twitter handle, saying Buhari mustnt give any excuse.

They challenged Atiku to travel to US, he is there now. We are challenging President Buhari to come and debate tomorrow, no excuse!
Vanguard

PRESIDENTIAL candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, President Muhammadu Buhari, has assured Nigerians that he will continue to promote national unity, calling on the people to vote for him and other candidates of the APC in the coming general poll.

Thisday

The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has introduced new passport with 10 years validity to replace the existing passports which lasts for five years.

The Sun

Nollywood veteran, Eddy Ugbomah, who clocked 78 recently, has appealed to the government, corporate bodies and individuals to buy his newly published memoir, Eddy Ugboma By Eddy so he can get money to treat himself.

Daily Times

Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, has reiterated the commitment of his administration to protection of lives and properties in the state. Governor Akeredolu said its also expedient to put in place necessary security architecture that would enhance all-round development of the state and protect the citizen and investors operating in the state.

Daily Trust

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Gombe State, Senator Saidu Umar Kumo, has said that he dumped the party for APC because he was made a nonentity in the leading opposition party.

The Nation

Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC) was battling yesterday to assure its members that all will be well after its candidates names were omitted from the list of those who will run in the general elections.

Tribune

Can you share your experience from the 2018 APC National Convention in which you contested for a second term as the National Woman Leader but lost out
A High Court sitting in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja has granted bail to Senator Dino Melaye, who is being held by police in their health facility.

Justice Halilu, while ruling on an application by Melaye, via his counsel. Mike Ozekhome(SAN), granted him bail to enable him seek proper treatment.

According to the presiding judge, Melaye cannot be arraigned on the stretcher or on his hospital bed, and on that note, granted him bail to get proper treatment.

The lawmaker as conditions for his bail, was asked to produce three sureties, one of who must be the Clerk of the National Assembly, and must undertake to produce him when he is to be arraigned to answer for the charges against him.

The other two sureties must be owners of properties within the Abuja metropolis, the judge said.
Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar has arrived in the United States, today according to latest report. Atiku who is the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) was seen in the US with Senate President Bukola Saraki and Osita Chidoka.

The presidential aspirant is currently in the country, where he hasnt set foot on in the last 13 years, to speak at the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC on Friday, according to reports.

Pictures:
The All Progressives Congress, APC, US chapter has said that the visit of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar to the USA changes nothing, as a thief remains a thief. 

This was made to known by the US chapter chairman, Adesegun Labinjo. According to him, the questionable character of the individual does not evaporate because he has stepped on the soil of America.

This comes after the party had taunted the former vice President for his inability to travel to America, for many years. The campaign against Atiku, heightened, soon after he was chosen as the PDP presidential candidate.

See statement below

A thief remains a thief no matter where he or she visits. Obviously, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku has every reason to have kept off the USA given the cloak of corruption he is wearing.

After a long spell of noticeable absence and factual concerns about Alhaji Abubakur Atikus antecedents in the USA arising from his dealings with former Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana, who was convicted and served a jail term on account of bribery resulting from a telecommunication transaction in Nigeria, Atiku is now here again in the US.

Congressional records point to the fact that Atiku engaged in money laundering through his wife who was then resident in the USA. We see Atiku, who is the 2019 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Nigeria, as a self-centered corrupt Vice President under President Obasanjos regime.

Certainly, Alhaji Abubakar Atikus entry and presence in the USA is a mockery of President Bush Presidential Proclamation 7750 which affirms the denial of US visa to foreign officials involved with corruption and other supporting legislations by the congress. APC-USA believes that Alhaji Abubakar Atiku should be held accountable for his involvement in money laundering.
By Finian Cunningham

January 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Its no secret that since his election in 2016, powerful elements in the US political and media establishment have been running a non-stop campaign to remove Trump from the White House. Lately, the stakes have been raised.

Spearheading the media effort to defenestrate Trump are the New York Times and Washington Post. Both have been prominent purveyors of the Russiagate narrative over the past two years, claiming that Republican candidate colluded with Russian state intelligence, or at least was a beneficiary of alleged Russian interference, to win the presidency against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Congressional investigations and a probe by a Special Counsel Robert Mueller, along with relentless media innuendo, have failed to produce any evidence to support the Russiagate narrative. Now, the anti-Trump media in alliance with the Democratic leadership, the foreign policy establishment and senior ranks of the state intelligence agencies appear to have come up with a new angle on President Trump  he is a national security risk.

Ingeniously, the latest media effort lessens the burden of proof required against Trump. No longer has it to be proven that he deliberately collaborated with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump could have done it unwittingly, the media are now claiming, because he is a buffoon and reckless. But the upshot, for them, is hes still a national security risk. The only conclusion, therefore, is that he should be removed from office. In short, a coup.

Over the past couple of weeks, the supposed media bastions have been full of it against Trump. An op-ed in the New York Times on January 5 by David Leonhardt could not have made more plain the absolute disdain. He is demonstrably unfit for office. What are we waiting for?

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Follow-up editorials and reports have piled on the pressure. The Times reported how the Federal Bureau of Investigation  the states internal security agency  opened a counterintelligence file on Trump back in 2017 out of concern that he was working for Russia against US interests.

That unprecedented move was prompted partly because of Trumps comments during the election campaign in 2016 when he jokingly called on Russia to release Hillary Clintons incriminating emails. Never mind the fact that Russian hackers were not the culprits for Clintons email breach.

Then the Washington Post reported former US officials were concerned about what they said was Trumps extraordinary lengths to keep secret his private conversations with Russias Putin when the pair met on the sidelines of conferences or during their one-on-one summit in Helsinki last July.

The Post claimed that Trump confiscated the notes of his interpreter after one meeting with Putin, allegedly admonishing the aide to not tell other officials in the administration about the notes being sequestered. The inference is Trump was allegedly in cahoots with the Kremlin.

This week, in response to the media speculation, Trump was obliged to strenuously deny such claims, saying: I have never worked for Russia its a big fat hoax.

Whats going on here is a staggering abuse of power by the US top internal state intelligence agency to fatally undermine a sitting president based on the flimsiest of pretexts. Moreover, the nations most prominent news media outlets  supposedly the Fourth Estate defenders of democracy  are complacently giving their assent, indeed encouragement, to this abuse of power.

The Times in the above report admitted, in a buried one-line disclaimer, that there was no evidence linking Trump to Russia.

Nevertheless, the media campaign doubled down to paint Trump as a national security risk.

The Times reported on January 14 about deep concerns among Pentagon officials over Trumps repeated threats to withdraw the US from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The reporting portrays Trump as incompetent, ignorant of policy details and habitually rude to American allies. His capricious temper tantrums could result in the US walking away from NATO at any time, the newspaper contends.

Such a move would collapse the transatlantic partnership between the US and Europe which has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years, claimed the Times.

The paper quotes US Admiral James Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, calling Trumps withdrawal whims a geopolitical mistake of epic proportion.

Even discussing the idea of leaving NATO  let alone actually doing so  would be the gift of the century for Putin, added Stavridis.

The Times goes on to divulge the media campaign coordination when it editorialized: Now, the presidents repeatedly stated desire to withdraw from NATO is raising new worries among national security officials amid growing concern about Mr Trumps efforts to keep his meetings with Mr Putin secret from even his own aides, and an FBI investigation into the administrations Russia ties.

Still another Times report this week reinforced the theme of Trump being a national security risk when it claimed that the presidents Middle East policy of pulling troops out of Syria was losing leverage in the region. It again quoted Pentagon officials voicing deepening fears that Trump and his hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton could precipitate a conflict with Iran.

Thats a bit hard to stomach: the Pentagon being presented as a voice of sanity and peace, keeping vigilance over a wrecking-ball president and his administration.

READ MORE: Twitter erupts after NYT reveals FBI probe into Trump-Russia links that lead nowhere

But the New York Times, Washington Post and other anti-Trump corporate media have long been extolling the military generals who were formerly in the administration as the adults in the room.

Generals H.R. McMaster, the former national security adviser, John Kelly, Trumps ex-chief of staff, and James Mattis, the former defense secretary until he was elbowed out last month by the president, were continually valorized in the US media as being a constraining force on Trumps infantile and impetuous behavior.

The absence of the adults seems to have prompted the US media to intensify their efforts to delegitimize Trumps presidency.

A new House of Representatives controlled by the Democratic Party has also invigorated calls for impeachment of Trump over a range of unsubstantiated accusations, Russian collusion being prime among them. But any impeachment process promises to be long and uncertain of success, according to several US legal and political authorities.

Such a tactic is fraught with risk of failing, no doubt due to the lack of evidence against Trumps alleged wrongdoing. A failed impeachment effort could backfire politically, increase his popularity, and return him to the White House in 2020.

Given the uncertainty of impeaching Trump, his political enemies, including large sections of the media establishment, seem to be opting for the tactic of characterizing him as a danger to national security, primarily regarding Russia. Trump doesnt have to be a proven agent of the Kremlin  a preposterous idea. Repeated portrayal of him as an incompetent unwitting president is calculated to be sufficient grounds for his ouster.

When the Washington Post editorial board urges a state of emergency to be invoked because of Russian meddling in US elections, then the national mood is being fomented to accept a coup against Trump. The medias fawning over the Pentagon and state intelligence agencies as some kind of virtuous bastion of democracy is a sinister signal for a military-police state.

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Masters graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.

This article was originally published by " RT " -

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Peace and joy
January 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - The anti-Trump so-called liberal American politicians and media suffer from a cozy big delusion. The Democrats and their supportive media, such as CNN and New York Times, as well as the foreign policy establishment, including the CIA, promote the belief that all of Americas ills and problems will be solved if only President Trump could be impeached.

The so-called liberal-left in the US  which has nothing to do with leftwing or socialist politics as most of the world would define it  is increasingly warning that Trump is taking America into a dark place of authoritarianism.

Take a recent op-ed in the New York Times by columnist Roger Cohen with the headline: Donald Trump Just Cannot Help It. Its a scathing piece which lambasts Trump in very personal terms as a malignant conman.

The key line perhaps is when Cohen writes: The Reichstag Fire was at least a fire. Here, there is smoke and mirrors. He is referring to what many historians contend was a false-flag arson attack on the German parliament in 1933, which allowed newly elected Chancellor Adolf Hitler to install his Nazi dictatorship by claiming the sabotage was a communist plot.

Many critics of Trump, including Cohen, are concerned that the president is manufacturing a crisis over his border wall proposal. They accuse him of using the US government shutdown and the political impasse with Democrats on the proposed border wall funding as a pretext to introduce a state of emergency. Cohens mention of the infamous Reichstag Fire has therefore a seemingly radical inference. He, and many others in the American liberal-left, are warning that Trump is a crypto-fascist.

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There is some merit to that argument. Certainly, Trump seems to be whipping up a crisis about immigration which is not justified in terms of numbers and conditions on the border with Mexico. The influx of migrants and refugees is widely reported to be at an all-time low going back over the past 40 years. Most of the present migrants are families, fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries. Trumps scary depiction of drug dealers and terrorists seems to be unabashed fabulation to incite fear.

His threats of invoking a state of emergency in which he will use executive powers to instruct the compulsory building of a security barriers on the southern border are therefore disproportionate and uncalled for. Trumps would-be arrogation of emergency powers has disturbing implications of overriding US constitutional law, and sidelining other branches of government. There are genuine concerns that the direction is one of authoritarianism, even fascism.

But here is where too many Americans are deluded about Trump. They think he is the singular problem, an aberrant president. Get rid of him, they say, and we can all return to normal democracy.

The reality is that the US has been sliding into authoritarianism, plutocracy and oligarchy, or dare we say fascism, for decades. The political figure of Trump  obnoxious as he is  is merely the culmination of this degenerative process in American politics.

The obscenity of American capitalism and its grotesque exploitation of millions of American citizens  creating islands of super wealth among a sea of poverty  is a repudiation of any notion of a functioning democracy. The two-party pimping for big business, Wall Street and the military-industrial racket that has been going on for decades makes a travesty of any claims about we the people and elections. This backdrop of actual functioning oligarchy is why many voters  among the half, that is, who bothered to even vote  reached out to an outsider like Trump and his conman promises of change.

However, the inherent problem isnt Trump. It is the system that produces the conditions and precursors for someone like Trump to end up getting elected.

It should be noted that people like Roger Cohen and other American liberals who are wringing their hands about Trump never seemed to express concern about the dominance of big business and banks in running Americas corporatocracy. Cohen and his ilk were also big supporters of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan  wars that were illegal, resulted in millions of innocent casualties, destroyed societies and spread the scourge of terrorism.

How is getting rid of Trump supposed to be a return to normal democracy? When that purported normal democracy is a myth, a fantasy belied by massive poverty, inequality and oppression of ordinary American workers and their families, alongside criminal imperialist wars of genocide.

Cohens reference to the Reichstag Fire false flag and Trumps propensity for authoritarianism may sound like radical criticism. But it is only radical schtick. It is worse than Trumps con artistry because it propagates the delusion that America has an underlying democracy. The reality is American democracy stopped functioning a long time ago. When exactly it stopped is debatable.

The 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 were certainly a candidate for comparison to the Reichstag Fire false flag event. They ushered in executive powers in Washington to wage criminal wars against terrorism anywhere on the planet, and for far-reaching police state surveillance of US citizens.

Or we could go back to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 when the US created a pretext for the Vietnam War.

Or the assassination of President John F Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963 by his Deep State enemies, which was a coup detat against American democracy, violating the nation forever.

Or the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 which gave private banks and plutocrats the ultimate power over the creation of money in the US and thus a veto on economic policy.

Many other instances (extermination of native Americans, African slavery) could be cited which testify to the fraud of American democracy. The seeds of authoritarianism, militarism and fascism were sown decades ago. To blame this putrefaction of democracy on Donald Trump is the delusion of American apologists for the systems long-time corruption.

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Masters graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.

This article was originally published by " Strategic Culture Foundation " -

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January 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - A new index released this week offers a sobering look at how democracy is faring in the United States.

According to the 2018 edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, the U.S. doesn't even make the list of top 20its demonstrably "flawed democracy" notching it the 25th spot.

The ranking is based on 60 indicators spanning five interrelated categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Each category gets a 0-10 score, with the final score being the average of those five.

Topping out the index are Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Denmark. They are each declared "full democracies," as their scores, all above 9.22, were easily above the 8.2 threshold. With a final score of 7.96, the United States, in contrast, earned the "flawed democracy" label. The country's highest score was 8.22, which it earned back in 2006 and again in 2008.

North America still holds the claim for the highest average score of any region, but that's thanks to Canada's 9.15, which landed it the number 6 spot overall. Twenty countries (12 percent) were designated as full democracies, 14 of which are located in Western Europe.

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Rounding out the bottom of the list, meanwhile, are Chad, the Central African Republican, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and North Korea, with scores identifying them as "authoritarian regimes."

In the United States, according to the analysis:

Most of the major policy actions in 2018including the escalation of the trade war with China; diplomatic engagement with North Korea; and extensive deregulation of the energy, mining, and automotive industrieshave not required congressional approval. Moreover, [President Donald] Trump has repeatedly called into question the independence and competence of the U.S. judicial system with regard to the ongoing federal investigation, led by Robert Mueller, into potential ties between Mr. Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, and various courts' efforts to block some of his policy orders, particularly regarding immigration. Although we expect the U.S. system of checks and balances to remain intact, this internal conflict risks further undermining public confidence in institutions. As a result, the score for political culture declined in the 2018 index.

The analysis also found that the political participation category overall is on the rise, halting the three-year trend of a decline in the Democracy Index. For that, thanks go to women. From the new report:

In fact, in the past decade, of all 60 indicators in the Democracy Index, women's political participation has improved more than any other single indicator in our model. Formal and informal barriers to women's political participation, including discriminatory laws and socioeconomic obstacles, are gradually being knocked down. [...] In perhaps the most notable advance in women's participation in 2018, quotas proved unnecessary; in the wake of the U.S. mid-term election in November 2018, participation of women in Congress reached an all-time high of 20.3 percent. This is just above the top threshold in our model, which sits at just 20 percent, reflecting the historical reality of extremely limited female legislative representation.

Still, there's not cause for breaking out the champagne just yet. While the index didn't decline overall, it didn't improve either. In addition, the analysis found that global disillusionment with the functioning of government continued as did a decline in civil liberties.

This article was originally published by " Common Dreams " -

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Democracy continues its disturbing retreat: More than half the countries in the latest update of a democratic-health index saw their scores decline

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Visitors take pictures of a steam locomotive leaving Diaobingshan Station, northeast China's Liaoning Province on Jan. 17, 2019. A 5-day steam locomotive tourism event kicked off in Diaobingshan on Thursday. Tourists can visit the steam locomotive museum, take pictures of steam locomotives and watch exhibitions during the event. (Xinhua/Pan Yulong)

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[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]
Europe on the Brink of Collapse? By Peter Koenig January 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - The Empires European castle of vassals is crumbling. Right in front of our eyes. But Nobody seems to see it. The European Union (EU), the conglomerate of vassals  Trump calls them irrelevant, and he doesnt care what they think about him, they deserve to be collapsing. They, the vassalic EU, a group of 28 countries, some 500 million people, with a combined economy of a projected 19 trillion US-dollar equivalent, about the same as the US, have submitted themselves to the dictate of Washington in just about every important aspect of life. The EU has accepted on orders by Washington to sanction Russia, Venezuela, Iran  and a myriad of countries that have never done any harm to any of the 28 EU member states. The EU has accepted the humiliation of military impositions by NATO  threating Russia and China with ever more and ever more advancing military basis towards Moscow and Beijing, to the point that Brussels foreign policy is basically led by NATO. It was clear from the very get-go that the US sanctions regime imposed on Russia and all the countries refusing to submit to the whims and rules of Washington, directly and via the EU, was hurting the EU economically far more than Russia. This is specifically true for some of the southern European countries, whose economy depended more on trading with Russia and Eurasia than it did for other EU countries. The sanctions disaster really hit the fan, when Trump unilaterally decided to abrogate the Nuclear Deal with Iran and reimpose heavy sanctions on Iran and on everybody who would do business with Iran. European hydrocarbon giants started losing business. Thats when Brussels, led by Germany started mumbling that they would not follow the US and  even  that they would back European corporations, mainly hydrocarbon giants, sticking to their contractual arrangements they had with Iran. Too late. European business had lost all confidence in Brussels EU Administrations feeble and generally untrustworthy words. Many breached their longstanding and, after the Nuclear Deal, renewed contracts with Iran, out of fear of punishment by Washington and lack of trust in Brussels protection. Case in point is the French-British petrol giant, Total, which shifted its supply source from Iran to Russia  no, not to the US, as was of course, Washingtons intent. The damage is done. The vassals are committing slow suicide. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The people have had it. More than half of the European population wants to get out of the fangs from Brussels. But nobody asks them, nor listens to them  and that in the so-called heartland of democracy (sic). Thats why people are now up in arms and protesting everywhere  in one way or another in Germany, France, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Poland  the list is almost endless. And it can be called generically the Yellow Vests, after the new French revolution. The latest in a series of the US attacking Germany and German business  and German integrity, for that matter  are the US Ambassadors, Richard Grenell, recent threats to German corporations with sanctions if they work on Nord Stream 2, the 1,200 km pipeline bringing Russian gas to Europe, to be completed by the end of 2019. It will virtually double the capacity of Russian gas supply to Europe. Instead, Washington wants Europe to buy US shale gas and oil, and especially keeping Europe economically and financially in the US orbit, avoiding in any way a detachment from Washington and preventing the obvious and logical  an alliance with Russia. This attempt will fail bitterly, as various German Ministers, including Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, have loudly and with determination protested against such US hegemonic advances. Well, friends, you have bent over backwards to please your Washington Masters for too long. Its high time to step out of this lock-step of obedience. In France, this past weekend of 12 / 13 January, the Yellow Vests went into round 9 of protests against dictator Macron, his austerity program and  not least  his abject arrogance vis-a- vis the working class. A recent public statement of Macrons is testimony of this below-the-belt arrogance: Trop de francais nont pas le sens de leffort, ce qui explique en partie les troubles que connait le pays  Translated: Too many French dont know the meaning of effort which explains at least partially the trouble this country is in. The Yellow Vests and a majority of the French population want nothing less than Macrons resignation. Protesters are consistently and largely under-reported by Christophe Castaner, the French Interior Minister. This past weekend the official figure was 50,000 demonstrators, countrywide, when in reality the figure was at least three times higher. The official French version would like the public at large, inside and outside of France, to believe that the Yellow Vests movement is diminishing. It is not. To the contrary, they are demonstrating all over France, and that despite the Macron regimes increasing violent repression. RT reports, on Macrons orders the police are becoming more violent, using military suppression to control protesting French civilians. Thousands have been arrested, and hundreds injured by police brutality. Nevertheless, the movement is gaining massive public support and the Yellow Vests idea is spreading throughout Europe. This spread is, of course, hardly reported by the mainstream media. In fact, 80% of the French back the Yellow Vests and their idea of a Citizen Initiated Referendum (RIC for Referendum dinitiative citoyenne), under which citizens could propose their own laws that would then be voted on by the general public. The RIC could effectively bypass the French Parliament, and would be enshrined in the French Constitution. A similar law exists since 1848 in Switzerland and is regularly applied by Swiss citizens. It is a way of Direct Democracy that any country calling itself a democracy should incorporate in its Constitution. The UKis in shambles. Thousands are taking to the streets of London, organized by the Peoples Assembly Against Austerity, calling for general elections to replace the failing Tory Government. They are joined by the French Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests), out of solidarity. Many of the UK protesters are also wearing high-visibility yellow vests. This is in direct correlation with the ever-growing louder debacle over BREXIT  yes, or no and how. At this point nobody knows what Britains future is going to be. Propaganda and counter-propaganda is destined to further confuse the people and confused people usually want to stick to the status quo. There is even a movement of pro remain propaganda, organized by some members of the European Parliament. Imagine!  Talking about sovereignty, if Brussels cannot even leave the Brits alone decide whether they want to continue under their dictate or not. Helas, the Brits are largely divided, but also past the stage of being swayed by foreign propaganda, especially in this delicate question of leaving the EU  which a majority of Brits clearly decided in June 2016. Prime Minister, Theresa May, has screwed-up the BREXIT process royally, to the point where many Brits feel that what she negotiated is worse than no deal. This has likely happened in close connivance with the unelected EU leadership which does not want the UK to leave and under strict orders from Washington which needs the UK in its crucial role as a US mole in the European Union. On 15 January 2019, the UK Parliament will vote on whether they accept the negotiated BREXIT conditions, or whether they prefer a no deal BREXIT, or will request an extension for further negotiations under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon (which was imposed by the heads of state of the 28 members, without any public vote, and is a false stand-in for a EU Constitution). Other options include a general election  and let the new leadership decide; or a second referendum which after two years is legally possible. The latter would likely cause severe public unrest, followed by atrocious police oppression  as already often witnessed in the UK  in which case, lets just hope civil war can be avoided. For weeks, the Yellow Vest movement has spread to Belgium and The Netherlands. For similar reasons  public discontent over austerity, EU dictatorship over Belgian and Dutch sovereignty. Last Friday, one of the Belgian Yellow Vests was overrun by a truck and killed. Authorities reported it as an accident. Greece The MS-media report all is donkey-dory, Greece is recovering, has for the first time in many years a positive growth rate and is able to refinance herself on the open capital market. Greece is no longer dependent on the irate and infamous troika (European Central Bank  ECB, European Commission and IMF). Reality is completely different, as about two thirds of the Greek population are still hovering around or below the survival level  no access to public health care, affordable medication, public schools  umpteen times reduced pensions, most public assets and services privatized for a pittance. Nothing has fundamentally changed in the last years, at least not for the better and for the majority of the people. The troika has allowed the Greek to go to the private capital markets  to boost falsely their, the Greeks, image among the international public at large, basically telling the brainwashed populace, It worked, we, the troika, did a good job. Nothing worked. People are unhappy; more than unhappy, they are indignant. They demonstrated against Angela Merkels recent visit to Athens, and their protests were violently oppressed by police forces. What do you expect  this is what has become of Europe, a highly repressive state of spineless vassals. On Wednesday, 16 January, the Greek Parliament may hold a Vote of Confidence against or for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The official and make-believe reason is supposedly the controversy over the name of Macedonia, which in fact has long been settled. The real reason is the publics discontent about the continuous and increasing blood-letting by never-ending austerity, sucking the last pennies from the poor. According to Lancet, the renowned British health journal, the Greek suicide rate is soaring. Nobody talks about it.  Will Tsipras survive a possible Vote of Confidence? -If not  early elections?  Who will follow Tsipras?  Dont be fooled by the term democracy.  The elite from within and without Greece will not allow any policy changes. Thats when people a la Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) may come in. Civil unrest. Enough is enough. In Italythe coalition of the 5-Star Movement and the small right-wing brother, Lega Norte, is pulled to the far right by Legas Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister. Mr. Salvini is clearly calling the shots  and his alliance is firing strongly against Brussels and with good reason, as Brussels is attempting to impose rules on Italys budget, while the same rules do not apply equally to all EU member states. For example, Macron, Frances Rothschild implant, has special privileges, as far as budget overrun margins are concerned. Mr. Salvinis anti-Brussels, anti-EU stance is no secret, and he has a lot of Italians behind him. An Italian Yellow Vest movement cannot be excluded. The empires vassal castle is crumbling  and not even silently. Then there are the former Soviet satellites, Hungary and Poland, turned right wing  dont appreciate Brussels meddling with Hungarys anti-immigration policy and in Poland over a controversial overhaul of the Judiciary system. Never mind whether you agree or not with individual country actions, both cases are clear interferences in these nations sovereignty. Though upon the European Court of Justices strong warning, Poland indeed blinked and reinstated the judges fired in the judiciary reform process. Polands love for NATO, and Brussels use of the NATO leverage, may have played a role in Polands reversal of decision. Nevertheless, discontent in Poland as in Hungary among the public at large remains strong. Migration and the Judiciary are just the visible pretexts. The legendary tip of the iceberg. Reality is on a deeper level, much deeper. These countries are both reminded of what they considered the Soviet Unions handcuffs. Freedom is not being dictated by Brussels. * The triad of systematic and willful destabilization and destructionof what we know as the Greater Middle East and western world is what we have to be aware of. The east, mostly Russia and China, is a challenge being tackled simultaneously, impressively for the brainwashed westerner, but rather meekly for those who are informed about Russias and Chinas military might and intelligence capacity. This drive of destabilization cum destruction comes in three phases. It started with the Middle East which for the most part has become a hopeless hell-hole, a source of indiscriminate killing by the western allies, say, the emperors puppets and mercenaries, resulting in millions killed and in an endless flood of refugees destabilizing Europe  which is the second phase of the triad. Its in full swing. It happens right in front of our eyes  but we dont see it. Its the Yellow Vests, austerity, increasing inequality, unemployment, social sectors being milked to zilch by the financial system, popular uprisings oppression by police and military forces; its reflected by the dismal powerlessness of the people  that leads to enough is enough in the streets. Thats the way its all wanted. The more chaos the better. People in chaos are easily controlled. Now comes phase three of the triad  Latin America. It has already started three or four years back. Countries that have struggled for decades to eventually break loose with some form of democracy from the fangs of empire, are gradually being subdued with fake elections and internal parliamentary coups, back into the emperors backyard. The Southern Cone  Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay  is gone, except for Bolivia. Peru, Colombia, Ecuador all the way to Guyana are governed by neoliberal, even neonazi-shaded Lords of Washington. But there is still Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and now also Mexico that have not caved in and will not cave in. In an extraordinary analysis, Thierry Meyssan describes in The Terrible Forthcoming Destruction of the Caribbean Basin  see this, how the Pentagon is still pursuing the implementation of the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski plan. This time, aiming at the destruction of the Caribbean Basin States. There is no consideration for friends or political enemies, Thierry Meyssan observes. He goes on predicting that after the period of economic destabilization and that of military preparation, the actual operation should begin in the years to come by an attack on Venezuela by Brazil (supported by Israel), Colombia (an ally of the United States) and Guyana (in other words, the United Kingdom). It will be followed by others, beginning with Cuba and Nicaragua, the troika of tyranny, as per John Bolton. Only the future will say to what extent this plan will be implemented. At the outset, its ambitions exceed the crumbling empires actual capacity. * When it comes all down to one single denominator, its the current western financial system that must go. It is private banking gone berserk. We are living in a financial system that has gone wild and running havoc, uncontrolled  a train of endless greed that is loosely speeding ahead and doesnt know when it will hit an unyielding steel-enforced brick wall  but hit it will. It is a mere question of time. People are sick and tired of being milked no end by a fraudulent pyramid system  constructed by the US and her dollar hegemony and maintained by globalized private banking. We are living in a private banking system that has nothing to do with economic development, but everything with a greed-driven domination of us, consumers, sold on debt and on money that we dont control, despite the fact that we earned it with our hard labor; despite the fact that it is our added value to what we call the economy. No  this system is totally disrespectful of the individual, it is even ready to steal our money, if it needs to survive  our banking system. It takes the liberty of administering it and basically appropriating it. Once our money is in a private bank, we have lost control over it. And mind you and get it into your brains, private banks do not work for you and me, but for their shareholders. But through hundreds of years of indoctrination, we have become so used to it, that being charged interest for borrowing our own money, through an intermediary who does nothing, absolutely nothing but wait for profit to fall into its lap  has become the normality. It isnt. This system has to be abolished, the faster the better. Private banking needs to be eradicated and replaced by local public banking that works with local currencies, based on local economic output, way removed from globalized concepts that help steel resources, empty local social safety nets  all under the guise of austerity for progress. We should know better by now. There is no austerity for progress  has never been. This fraudulent IMF-World Bank concept has never worked, anywhere. We have to de-dollarize our money, de-digitize our money and pool it through a public banking system for the purpose of peoples growth, hence a societys or nations growth. There is currently one good example, the Bank of North Dakota. The BND has helped the US State of North Dakota through the 2008 and following years crisis, with economic growth instead of economic decline, with almost full employment, versus skyrocketing unemployment in the rest of the US and the western world. We need to build our common wealth with sovereign money, backed by our sovereign economies. As the empire and its vassals are crumbling badly, they are shaking in their foundations, it is time to rethink what we have been taking for granted and for normal  a fraudulent and deceptive monetary system, backed by nothing, no economy, not even gold  we are living on sheer fiat money, made by private banking by a mouse-click  and by letting us be enslaved by debt. Enough is enough. The Yellow Vests have understood. They want to get rid of their Macron who keeps propagating the fraud. It is time to rethink and restart, as the crumbling is getting louder and louder. Empires European vassal state is falling apart and will pull Washington and its hegemonic war and money machine along into the abyss. Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion  An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed  fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! - Essays from the Resistance. Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
By Moon Of Alabama

January 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - U.S. President Trump wants U.S. troops to leave northeast Syria. His National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to sabotage that move. Trump came up with idea to hand northeast Syria to Turkey, but soon was told that Turkey would fight the Kurdish YPK/PKK who the U.S. armed and used as proxy force against the Islamic State.

Turkey has no interest in fighting the Islamic State or in occupying Raqqa and other Arabic ethnic cities along the Euphrates. Its only interest is to prevent the formation of an armed Kurdish entity that could threaten its soft southern underbelly. It thus came up with the idea of a "security zone" in Syria that it would occupy to keep the Kurds away from its borders.

But that border strip is exactly where the major Kurdish settlements are. Ayn al-Arab, in Kurdish 'Kobane', and many other cities along the border all have largely Kurdish populations. These would certainly fight against a Turkish occupation. Turkey also wants to control the Manbij area west of the Euphrates.

Russia will not allow Turkish control of more Syrian land:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday the Syrian regime must take control of the country's north, after calls from the United States to set up a Turkish-controlled "security zone" in the area. "We are convinced that the best and only solution is the transfer of these territories under the control of the Syrian government, and of Syrian security forces and administrative structures," Lavrov told reporters.

The Kurdish organizations and the Syrian government also also reject the Turkish plan:

Syria affirms that any attempt to target its unity will be considered as a clear aggression and an occupation of its territories as well as a support and protection for the international terrorism by Turkey, [an official source at Foreign and Expatriates Ministry] said.

Turkey moved enough troops to its border to launch an invasion but the risk for its economy is high. There are local elections in March and the Turkish President Erdogan does not want to upset them by jumping into a quagmire. Erdogan will soon visit Russia again and discuss the issue with President Putin. Most likely Erdogan will be convinced that Syrian government control over the Kurdish areas, and Russian guarantees for a mostly quiet border, are a better solution than a costly Turkish occupation of a hostile population.

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Earlier today a suicide bomber killed 4 U.S. soldiers and wounded at least three in an attack in Manbij city (video). A number of YPK/PKK fighters and bystanders were also killed or wounded. The incident happened in front of a restaurant where the U.S. troops presumably were meeting someone. In March 2018 an IED attack in Manbij killed two U.S. soldiers.

Kurdish sources accused sleeper cells of Turkish supported terrorist groups of the incident. Ahmad Rahhal, a Turkish sponsored leader of the 'Free Syrian Army', accused 'Syrian government agents' within the Islamic State. A Turkish news service accused the YPG of responsibility. Others suspect the CIA initiated this to keep Trump in Syria. Neither is likely right. The Islamic State took credit through its regular outlets and even named the suicide bomber.

The killed and wounded U.S. troops were evacuated in a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter.

The S-92 is not flown by U.S., French or British forces in Syria. The armed helicopter is likely owned and operated by a private military company hired by the U.S. military for MedEvac services. This again proves that official U.S. numbers of 2,000 soldiers in northeast Syria do not paint the full picture. There are surely several thousands more, including more than 1,000 French troops, 200 British SAS and several hundreds if not thousands of U.S. contractors who are also involved in combat missions.

The suicide attack in Manbij also confirms that the Islamic State, even as it lost nearly all its territory, will continue to exist as an underground terrorist organization. One reason is that many of its fighters escape by bribing the U.S. proxy forces who evacuate civilians from the last Islamic State held territory:

[T]he Syrian Observatory learned that some of those who fled the enclave of the organization, and while being transported to Al-Omar Oilfield and before being sorted out into camps, pay large sums of money in order to get out to areas such as Al-Busayrah, Theban and Gharanij, where sums of money exceed $ 10,000 are paid for fear of being arrested when they reach the camps into which they are sorted out, and the sources suggested that in most cases, ISIS members and families of ISIS members are the ones who pay such sums of money, where they pay them to the parties that are responsible for the transport to the camps from Al-Omar Oilfield, ..

The Observatory also reports that the escaping ISIS elements often carry six digit dollar amounts that can be used for future attacks. It will take years, and a lot of cooperation from the local people, to completely root these elements out.

Those U.S. politicians who want to continue the U.S. occupation in Syria will use the Manbij incident to argue for an unlimited U.S. stay. ISIS would have won. Those who, like Trump, want the U.S. out will use the incident to argue for an urgent retreat from the area.

Trump is likely to win that argument.
J anine Jackson interviewed Alexander Main about the Nicolas Maduro re-election for the January 11, 2019, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. MP3 Link

January 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Janine Jackson: When it comes to Venezuela, elite US media dont hide their feelings. And their feelings are all the same. Headlines on last years reelection of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro differed only in tone, including the disdainful: As Venezuelans Go Hungry, Their Government Holds a Farcical Election, from the Economist; the decisive: USA Todays Maduro Is Turning Venezuela Into a Dictatorship, or Foreign Affairs more somber version, Venezuelas Suicide; Lessons From a Failed State. Theres Forbes vaguely threatening Why Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela May Wish He Lost the Presidential Election, and Foreign Policys unashamed Its Time for a Coup in Venezuela.

But theyre all pretty much variations on a theme thats hard to unhear, given that media bang it out so loudly and repeatedly. Here to help us sort fact from froth is Alexander Main. Hes director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He joins us by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome to CounterSpin, Alex Main.

Alex Main: Thank you, Janine.

JJ: Writing for FAIR on Venezuelan elections last year, Alan MacLeod pinpointed US medias preferred trope, which was to say that Maduro was reelected amidamid outcry, amid widespread disillusionment, amid charges of irregularities, amid low turnout. The message, I think, to readers was that Maduros re-election was not legitimate. What should we know about last Mays elections in Venezuela?

AM: So what isnt generally mentioned by the media is that a critical factor in the outcome of the election was the approach taken by Venezuelas opposition. Much of the opposition, many of its parties, decided to boycott these elections, for a variety of reasons.

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At any rate, the media did not examine that fact. And were still not seeing it very much. I think one of the few exceptions is the Washington Post, in the article that appeared today, that did mention the divisions within the opposition, and their decision not to participate that had, obviously, a huge effect on the election result.

JJ: The media coverage would give you the impression that Venezuelas election almost happened in a vacuum, but there was in fact involvement from, for example, the Organization of American States.

AM: Well, the Organization of American States, or rather the secretary general of the organization, whose name is Luis Almagro. He represents himself. He was elected, but once secretary general, he has sort of executive power there; but he doesnt represent the countries within the organization. He has been on a campaign against the Maduro government from very early on. It stems from their initial decision not to allow him to send electoral observers to the elections.

And this is based on a decision taken by Venezuelas electoral authorities many years ago, when they decided that they had enough transparency, enough safety measures around the elections, that they no longer required any sort of outside tutelage.

A number of countries in Latin America have taken the same decision. Its a decision that has to do with the respect of their sovereignty. Certainly you dont see in the US any massive presence of international observers, even though I think a lot of people would like to see that at some point.

But anyway, this was a sovereign decision that was taken by Venezuelas electoral authority. And following that, Almagro really went on a rampage, and has been very much involved in efforts to try to delegitimize the Maduro government and to support the very hard-line opposition.

In doing this, he went sort of out of bounds in terms of his rhetoric, even for a lot of right-wing governments in Latin America, when late last year he voiced support for a military coup, much as some US officials have done, and US members of Congress have done. And as a response, you had all of the governments of Latin America that signed on to a statement that categorically rejected the possibility of any form of military intervention, whether by coup or an outside military intervention in Venezuela.

But certainly his rhetoric, and the campaign that he has ledalong with other figures, such as Sen. Marco Rubiohave certainly given the impression that there is a desire for US intervention in whats going on in Venezuela, and thats, I think, resulted in sort of a defensive reaction from the Venezuelan government.

JJ: Well, it sounds very disturbing, but also confusing. You know, when I was looking through headlines, I saw one from something called the Pacific Council on International Policy that said, Maduro Re-Elected. Can Democracy Ever Prevail in Venezuela? I mean, just at the level of the sentence, its confusing. And then when you start talking about a coup to save democracywhich is the upshot of current coverage, and I guess policyit just doesnt even seem to make sense. The call is for the US to intervene, but the US is already intervening, isnt it?

AM: Well, yeah, absolutely, and theyve really been intervening in Venezuela, various US administrations, since at least the early 2000s, when we know that the US governmentthrough institutions like the National Endowment for Democracyhas been providing funding and training to opposition groups in Venezuela, and often very hard-line groups that have taken a radical line, not recognizing the government and trying to seek its removal through extra-constitutional means, including a short-lived coup that took place in April of 2002.

The US has been very involved in trying to isolate them, Venezuela, diplomatically throughout the region, putting a lot of pressure on Latin American governments to support US measures condemning the situation in Venezuela.

More recently, the US has been applying sanctions against the government of Venezuela. And this is a very underreported thing in the US media and the international media generally.

When you see the coverage, for instance, of the Maduro inauguration, what you dont see at all are references to the impact of the economic sanctions that have been applied. In fact, there are few media outlets at this point that even acknowledge that there are economic sanctions, even though theyve been in place since August of 2017, when Trump announced them through an executive decree, having determined Venezuela to be an extraordinary threat to US national security. Those were the actual terms that were used in order to justify these sanctions.

And theyve had a dire effect in Venezuela, which has been experiencing an economic crisis for quite a while now, since 2014 at least. And the government, of course, has failed to resolve this. It has to do with some of the governments own economic policies. But at this point, the US also bears responsibility through these sanctions, where they have cut off Venezuelas access to international financial markets, by which they can borrow money and purchase the necessary imports that the country needs. And we know that there arent enough imports of food or of medicine that are taking place at the moment.

And its also had a dire effect on the countrys oil production. And, of course, oil is the source of most of Venezuelas national revenue. Along with falling oil prices, theres been a tremendous fall in oil production in Venezuela, and it accelerated, actually, after these sanctions were put into place, because the Venezuelan government isnt able to make the necessary investments to maintain the oil fields.

So thats not mentioned, really, whatsoever in the major media, even though you have economists, including opposition-aligned economists from Venezuela, like Francisco Rodriguez, who have pointed out the very negative impact that these sanctions are having on the country.

JJ: Alan MacLeod also found a piece in Bloomberg that came close to acknowledging it, but in such a strange way. It was an article in which Bloomberg said that victory in the widely derided election gives Maduro sole ownership of the nations crushing economic crisis. And then in the very next sentence, it gloats that US and regional leaders will punish Venezuela by imposing further isolation and sanctions on the crisis-stricken nations all-important oil industry.

AM: Exactly. Theres this absurd idea that the sanctions somehow only hurt the Venezuelan government and Venezuelan government officials. Its always the Venezuelan governments responsibility, when they discuss the economic situation.

From time to time, you do see some media saying, Oh, but the Venezuelan government says that the US sanctions are contributing to this dire economic situation. They fail to ask any independent expert. You know, any economists that are taking a good look at whats going on in Venezuela today will tell you, Well, yes, these sanctions quite obviously are having a very negative impact.

JJ: Finally, one of the things that coverage does is present the Venezuelan people as benighted. A piece from Time from last year includes one of my favorite creations. It first of all says that the crisis, the current crisis, can be traced to the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez to the presidency, so Chavez is the reason that things are difficult now. But I love this presentation: Chavez concocted a political system that used often high oil prices to essentially bribe the masses into supporting him.

The picture of the Venezuelan people that one gets from US media coverage is really as sort of benighted, not knowing whats good for themselves and, once again, requiring some sort of intervention to tell them how to do democracy.

AM: Yes. This is quite absurd. Really, what were seeing in Venezuela is, one, an extraordinarily well-organized population, and particularly in poor communities that are certainly confronting a very dramatic economic situation, but I think doing so in effective ways that make the situation somewhat sustainable for these communities. So were seeing a very, very high level of community organization.

Id say the vast majority of Venezuelans at this point are probably quite disgruntled with Maduro and his government. However, the Venezuelan opposition really offers no viable alternative to the Maduro government. They have never presented any sort of coherent economic proposal, with the possible exception of the opposition candidate in last years election. But, of course, most of the opposition parties boycotted those elections.

And in general, I think a lot of Venezuelans, certainly those that come from lower-income communities, are well aware of the fact that the opposition is linked to the countrys traditional economic elite, and they have a terrible reputation from their involvement in governments before Chavez was in power.

Things may be bad under Maduro, but I think theres a sense among many Venezuelans that things could actually be quite a bit worse under opposition governments, particularly if they impose the sort of neoliberal policies that hurt the poor people of Venezuela enormously during the decades prior to Hugo Chavezs election in the late 90s.

JJ: Weve been speaking with Alexander Main; hes director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. You can find their work, including Alexs piece, The United States Hand in Undermining Democracy in Venezuela, online at CEPR.net. Alexander Main, thank you very much for joining us today on CounterSpin.

AM: Thank you, it was a pleasure.

Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here

==See Also==

Russia raises alarm over U.S. support of Venezuela's opposition

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We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites.

Thank you for your support.

Peace and joy
By Sam Husseini

January 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - A president facing a major scandal, just as the highest-profile trial is about to begin, pardons the indicted or convicted officials around him to effectively stop the investigation thats closing in on his own illegal conduct.

Trump soon? Well see. But this actually describes what President George H.W. Bush did in 1992.

The Iran/Contra scandal revealed, among other things, that the Reagan/Bush White House had secretly sold missiles to Iran in exchange for hostages held in Lebanon, using the proceeds to fund right-wing forces fighting the leftist Nicaraguan government in violation of US law.

On Christmas Eve 1992, just as the indicted former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was about to face trial, Bush pardoned him and five others, including former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams and and former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane. The New York Times (12/25/92) reported this as Bush Pardons 6 in Iran Affair, Averting a Weinberger Trial; Prosecutor Assails Cover-Up.'

The attorney general for Bush who approved the pardons, William Barr, is now being nominated for the same position by Trump. Is this background relevant? Though current news columns are rife with speculation that Trump might likewise protect himself by pardoning his indicted or convicted associates, the dominant US news wire service doesnt seem to think so.

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A president facing a major scandal, just as the highest-profile trial is about to begin, pardons the indicted or convicted officials around him to effectively stop the investigation thats closing in on his own illegal conduct.

Trump soon? Well see. But this actually describes what President George H.W. Bush did in 1992.

The Iran/Contra scandal revealed, among other things, that the Reagan/Bush White House had secretly sold missiles to Iran in exchange for hostages held in Lebanon, using the proceeds to fund right-wing forces fighting the leftist Nicaraguan government in violation of US law.

On Christmas Eve 1992, just as the indicted former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was about to face trial, Bush pardoned him and five others, including former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams and and former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane. The New York Times (12/25/92) reported this as Bush Pardons 6 in Iran Affair, Averting a Weinberger Trial; Prosecutor Assails Cover-Up.'

The attorney general for Bush who approved the pardons, William Barr, is now being nominated for the same position by Trump. Is this background relevant? Though current news columns are rife with speculation that Trump might likewise protect himself by pardoning his indicted or convicted associates, the dominant US news wire service doesnt seem to think so.
Ray McGovern: Russia-gate Evidence, Please



Was former FBI Director James Comey pulling a Hoover on Trump to keep him in line? asks Ray McGovern.





By Ray McGovern

January 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - For those interested in evidence  or the lack of it regarding collusion between Russia and the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, we can thank the usual Russia-gate

promoters at The New York Times and

CNN for inadvertently filling in some gaps in recent days.

Stooping to a new low, Fridays Times headline screamed: F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia. The second paragraph noted that FBI agents sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscows influence.

Trump had been calling for better relations with Russia during his presidential campaign. As journalist Michael Tracy tweeted on Sunday, the Times report made it not a stretch to say: the FBI criminally investigating Trump on the basis of the national security threat he allegedly poses, with the threat being his perceived policy preferences re: Russia, could constitute literal criminalization of deviation from foreign policy consensus.

On Monday night CNN talking heads, like former House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers, were expressing wistful hope that the FBI had more tangible evidence than Trumps public statements to justify such an investigation. Meanwhile, they would withhold judgment regarding the Bureaus highly unusual step.

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Evidence?

NYT readers had to get down to paragraph 9 to read: No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. Four paragraphs later, the Times writers noted that, A vigorous debate has taken shape among former law enforcement officials  over whether FBI investigators overreacted.

That was what Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy was wondering when he grilled former CIA director John Brennan on May 23, 2017 on what evidence he had provided to the FBI to catalyze its investigation of Trump-Russia collusion.

Brennan replied: I dont do evidence.

The best Brennan could do was repeat the substance of a clearly well-rehearsed statement: I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign  that required further investigation by the Bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials.

That was it.

CNN joined the piling on Monday, quoting former FBI General Counsel James Baker in closed-door Congressional testimony to the effect that FBI officials were weighing whether Trump was acting at the behest of [the Russians] and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will. The problem is CNN also noted that Lisa Page, counsel to then FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe, testified that there had been indecision in the Bureau as to whether there was sufficient predication to open [the investigation]. Predication is another word for evidence.

Within hours of Comeys firing on May 9, 2017, Pages boyfriend and a top FBI counterintelligence official, Peter Strzok texted her: We need to open the case weve been waiting on now while Andy [McCabe] is acting [director]. After all, if Trump were bold enough, he could have appointed a new FBI director and who knew what might happen then. When Page appeared before Congress, she was reportedly asked what McCabe meant. She confirmed that his text was related to the Russia investigation into potential collusion.

Comey v. Trump Goes Back to Jan. 6, 2017

The Times and CNN, however unintentionally, have shed light on what ensued after Trump finally fired Comey. Apparently, it finally dawned on Trump that, on Jan. 6, 2017, Comey had treated him to thetime-honored initiation-rite-for-presidents-elect  with rubrics designed by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

It seems then-FBI Director James Comey rendered a good impersonation of Hoover that day when he briefed President-elect Trump on the scurrilous Steele dossier that the FBI had assembled on Trump. Excerpts from an interview Trump gave to the Times(below) after the firing throw light on what Trump says was at least part of his motivation to dump Comey.

To dramatize the sensitivity of the dossier, Comey asked then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper and the heads of the CIA and NSA to depart the room at the Trump Tower, leaving Comey alone with the President-elect. The Gang of Four had already briefed Trump on the evidence-impoverished Intelligence Community Assessment. That assessment alleged that Putin himself ordered his minions to help Trump win. The dossier had been leaked to the media, which withheld it but Buzzfeed published it on Jan. 10.?

This Russia Thing

Evidently, it took Trump four months to fully realize he was being played, and that he couldnt expect the loyalty he is said to have asked of Comey. So Trump fired Comey on May 9. Two days later he told NBCs Lester Holt:

When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, its an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they shouldve won.

The mainstream media and other Russia-gater aficionados immediately seized on this Russian thing as proof that Trump was trying to obstruct the investigation of alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. However, in the Holt interview Trump appeared to be reflecting on Comeys J. Edgar Hoover-style, one-on-one gambit alone in the room with Trump.

Would Comey really do a thing like that? Was the former FBI director protesting too much in his June 2017 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee when he insisted hed tried to make it clear to Trump that briefing him on the unverified but scurrilous information in the dossier wasnt intended to be threatening. It tool a few months but it seems Trump figured out what he thought Comey was up to.

Trump to NYT: Leverage (aka Blackmail)

In a long Oval Office interview with the Times on July 19, 2017, Trump said he thought Comey was trying to hold the dossier over his head.

Look what they did to me with Russia, and it was totally phony stuff.  the dossier  Now, that was totally made-up stuff, Trump said. I went there [to Moscow] for one day for the Miss Universe contest, I turned around, I went back. It was so disgraceful. It was so disgraceful.

When he [James B. Comey] brought it [the dossier] to me, I said this is really made-up junk. I didnt think about anything. I just thought about, man, this is such a phony deal.  I said, this is  honestly, it was so wrong, and they didnt know I was just there for a very short period of time. It was so wrong, and I was with groups of people. It was so wrong that I really didnt, I didnt think about motive. I didnt know what to think other than, this is really phony stuff.

The dossier, paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign and compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, relates a tale of Trump allegedly cavorting with prostitutes, who supposedly urinated on each other before the same bed the Obamas had slept in at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton hotel. [On February 6, 2018, The Washington Post reported that that part of the dossier was written Cody Shearer, a long-time Clinton operative and passed it along to Steele. Shearer ignored a request for comment from Consortium News. [Shearer had been a Consortium advisory board member who was asked to resign and left the board.]

Trump told the Times: I think [Comey] shared it so that I would  because the other three people [Clapper, Brennan, and Rogers] left, and he showed it to me.  So anyway, in my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there.  As leverage.

Yeah, I think so. In retrospect. In retrospect. You know, when he wrote me the letter, he said, You have every right to fire me, blah blah blah. Right? He said, You have every right to fire me. I said, thats a very strange  you know, over the years, Ive hired a lot of people, Ive fired a lot of people. Nobody has ever written me a letter back that you have every right to fire me.

McGovern lays out more details during a 12-minute

interview

on Jan. 10 with Tyrel Ventura of Watching the Hawks.

This article was originally published by " Consortium News " -

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Kyle Ratliff, a 2016 graduate from the Indiana University School of Dentistry (IUSD), felt firsthand the pressure of being an underrepresented minority student studying dentistry. He said he was one of seven Black students  considered an accomplishment compared to past years  in his graduating class.

A lot of stress comes with that, Ratliff said. You want to be professional and looked at in a positive light, but some people may have a negative way of perceiving you.

According to data from the American Dental Education Association (ADEA), 39 African-American students applied to IUSD in 2017, and one student enrolled, an enrollment rate of 2.5 percent. Its important to note this doesnt necessarily mean IUSD accepted just one Black applicant, since students can choose to not enroll. According to data provided by IUSD, the school has had as many as six and as few as three Black students in classes from 2017 to 2022. Each class has a little more than 100 students.

Ratliff, who is now a dentist in Fort Wayne, said he got involved with different clubs and organizations, including being co-chair of his class, because if I wasnt, the voice of a minority wasnt heard.  I felt like I had to be involved in a lot of things to give a different perspective.

Priscilla Clinton, who graduated in the same class as Ratliff, said she felt like she had to seek out help whenever needed, while other students seemed to have the help coming directly to them.

It was very lonely sometimes, Clinton said. You didnt have too many people who could relate to the same issues you were having.

Clinton, who now works at a corporate dental company in northwest Indiana, said a lack of Black students, faculty and professors led to some racially-charged incidents, including a peer posting a picture of himself in blackface to social media. Clinton said its not only important for dental programs to have more Black students, but also more Black faculty who can be allies to those students.

Ina McBean is the director of the IUSD office of diversity, equity and inclusion, and acknowledged the school needs to be better with its minority enrollment numbers, including Black students. This isnt a problem unique to IUSD, and there are worse examples out there. Twelve dental schools didnt enroll any Black students in 2017.

The best way to enroll more Black students at IUSD, according to McBean, is introducing those students to the possibility of dentistry earlier.

The earlier we can expose underrepresented minority students to the profession, the better, McBean said.

IUSD partnered with other medical programs for Breaking the Myths, a summer program for underrepresented minority students where they can learn about different medical fields, including dentistry. For older high school students who are thinking about college, they can also meet with advisors and mentors.

John Daniels, president of the National Dental Association, said thats an excellent way of doing it. The stereotype of college students is mindlessly-wandering 19-year-olds, but Daniels said too many go to college having already decided what they want to pursue.

We have plenty of excellent students pursing higher education, he said, but not many of them are exposed to the benefits of the health professions, and dentistry in particular.

One of the direct results of not having enough Black students enrolled in dental programs is it translates to a lack of Black dentists. Black representation in any medical field is important given a strenuous history of medical injustice against Black patients. According to data from the American Dental Association (ADA), 4.1 percent of Indiana dentists in 2016 were Black, compared to 86.4 percent for whites. For reference, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the states population in 2017 to be 9.3 percent Black.

McBean, who wants IUSD enrollment to reflect state demographics, said her office talks to students about patients who dont go to the dentist because theyre reluctant to trust white medical professionals, or any other reason such as cost. The office also tells students to educate patients about why its important to be mindful of their dental health without making them feel bad for not going to a dentist regularly.

Another complicating factor for Black patients is how many dentists accept public health insurance such as Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP). About 17 percent of Indianas Medicaid enrollees were Black in 2017, according to data from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. About 41 percent of Indiana dentists accept Medicaid or CHIP, according to the ADA. Thats higher than the national average of 38 percent, but it still limits where patients with financial struggles can go for care.

As a young professional, Ratliff said he sees how racial disparities and stereotypes play out in dentistry. He assessed Black patients are reluctant to go to the dentist because theres no one who looks like them to educate them. For younger patients, Ratliff said this can contribute to a lack of Black students applying to and getting into dental schools.

If people arent aware of the issue, theyre not going to pay attention to or address the issue, he said.

Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.

IUSD student Dino Dieudone participated in a recent Breaking the Myths summer camp, which tries to recruit minority students to dentistry and other health fields. (Photo provided)
A person holds an anti-Brexit placard outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, on Jan. 17, 2019. Leading economists have warned that the British economy could suffer if the country leaves the European Union (EU) without a deal, following the overwhelming defeat of the Withdrawal Agreement in the British Parliament. (Xinhua/Tim Ireland)

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Because of the observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Stand for Israel is suspending activity through January 21. Well be back on Tuesday, January 22  and rest assured, if any critically important developments related to Israel come up, well be here to let you know about them. Thank you for standing for Israel!

In honor of this great man of faith, here is Rabbi Ecksteins message this week commemorating Dr. Kings legacy:

In his 1963 address to the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., issued a clear challenge to people of faith:

We must affirm that every human life is a reflex of divinity, and every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man. The undergirding philosophy of segregation is diametrically opposed to the undergirding philosophy of our Judeo-Christian heritage, and all the dialectics of the logicians cannot make them lie down together.

Note that Dr. King was addressing Christians and Jews, who he saw as natural allies. United by the undergirding philosophy of our Judeo-Christian heritage, members of both faiths were duty-bound to join together in the fight against the evil of racial segregation
'Green Book': Because Look Out Old Macky's Back

There it was, the perfect opportunity I thought I wanted  staring me right in the face. A quadruple bypass procured the day after Thanksgiving 2018 can have that effect on a film critic.

What more reason could I conjure to call it a career, to be done with this movie reviewing stuff and finally retire to that long-fabled cabin on the lake in Vermont where I would idyllically pen those 36 essays and short stories with which I had been threatening the world of belles-lettres lo these many years?

But then the words of professor Halberstadter, my mentor back at Olde Ivy Film Criticism College, slowly interceded.

"Always remember the oath you took, Goldberger. Rain, sleet, snow, darkness of night, boring, lousy films or quadruple bypass surgery, the movies must be reviewed."

Not that I remember ever taking any such oath  thinking perhaps it might have been a fiction dear old Halberstadter machinated to strengthen the breed  semper fi and all that, you know. Oh, what conflict.

But it was yet another influencing factor altogether that superseded both my notions of a serene, post-movie reviewing life and the emphatic exhortations of the scholarly Halberstadter.

Nope, my appearance here in this comeback column is not truly altruistic, but actually rather egotistical. Whilst contemplating what breed of dog would be best to repose at my feet as I wrote those literary gems, it occurred that I perhaps had not yet earned that Green Mountain Shangri-La. Fact was, I had yet to accomplish my original goal. In short, I was not yet famous.

Where was that Pulitzer, a desk at The New York Times, the Ferrari in the company garage and the adoring public it would all entail? But more indicative of my unfinished mission, while people who want to investigate something are apt to "Google it," to the best of my knowledge, when a member of the Great Unwashed is deciding what film to spend their hard-earned shekels on, they rarely say they're going to "Goldberger it."

Having still not attained such referential eminence, I am left little choice. Hence, like Sydney Greenstreet's Kasper Gutman in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) after it turns out that the blackbird is a fake, I dust myself off and resolve to continue my quest. Without further ado or equivocation, I offer my criticism of "Green Book."

Adding a bit of schmaltzy redemption to my pomposity, boy, is it good I didn't quit before having the opportunity to tell you about "Green Book," a seriocomic variation on the buddy-buddy genre that is as heartwarming as it is important. While the story about an African-American concert pianist and his dese-and-dems-spouting, Italian-American bouncer-turned-chauffeur takes place in 1962, there is no doubt that its intended, humanitarian appeal to our better angels serves to address the rampant racism the recent political obscenity in America has inflamed.

Anyone with a heart and a half-decent upbringing will be abashed by the stark divulgences about intolerance in America so artfully unearthed as Mahershala Ali's Don Shirley, the world famous pianist, is escorted on his tour through the Deep South by Viggo Mortensen's Tony Lip. While we know all about the separate but equal hogwash that was the rule down South before the Civil Rights Act, and full well know that it is still the secretly acknowledged, unofficial policy wherever tyrants and bigots hold sway, viewed through Tony's eyes the horror is redefined.

Seen again and again in various permutations as the two wind their way through Dixie, intolerance is shown for what it is: a deeply embedded, cultural mainstay, a cowardly lifestyle wrapped in aberrant ideas of posturing identity.

While it is early on noted that Tony held his own prejudices against black folks back in Brooklyn, it isn't until he sees its traditionalized virulence south of the Mason-Dixon line that the intense unfairness of it all sticks in his craw. Bias is one thing, being a no-good, cheating bastard is yet another matter.

It's an interestingly established distinction and Mortensen is stellar in his instructive realization of the epiphany. Likewise, Ali's stoical, intellectual musician is instrumental in schooling Tony on the inherent hypocrisies of bigotry, Southern style. I.e.While the local patricians take pride in being able to host the internationally famous virtuoso at their posh country club, they won't let him eat in their dining room. The mutual adversary leads to a touching simpatico.

The reverse spin on "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989), part road movie, part salt and pepper anatomy of an evolving friendship, engagingly iterates what this world needs now, especially in light of the racism that's been all but condoned as official policy these last two years. While such muckrakes too often wind up only preaching to the choir, in my fantasy I imagine differently.

It's a young man or woman, the offspring of rabid white supremacists who, after secretly imbibing "Green Book," discovers the compassionate being within just clamoring to be free.

"Green Book," rated PG-13, is a Universal Pictures release directed by Peter Farrelly and stars Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali and Linda Cardellini. Running time: 130 minutes
State Rep. John Barrett III is entering his first full term in office with many of the same priorities he had when he first stepped into the job.

Barrett Enters First Full Term With Legislative Agenda

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Entering his first full session in the House of Representative, John Barrett III is doubling down on the priorities he held when he was first elected.

"One of the areas I'm obviously concerned about is transportation in the county. We need it, especially in the Northern Berkshire area," Barrett said.

"Obviously we have to do some things to revamp it statewide but one of my bills is that under Massachusetts General Law is that 16 percent of your sales tax goes to running the MBTA so I am including a piece in there that may not go anywhere but it will get people maybe thinking about the way we can start directing some funding to our regional transit authorities."

Barrett has been pushing the state to provide more regional transit authority funding and also prodding the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority to rethink how to transport people.

"I think they've got to start thinking outside the box in how we use it and how to change our transportation system. Why can't we use vans that are available in other areas? Why can't they be used to go pick up kids going to school? It would provide additional ridership and save communities a lot of money," he said.

Barrett said the issue is of particular importance to the North Berkshire area in providing ways to get people to jobs. He cited the 300 news jobs Wayfair is bringing to Pittsfield as an example of why more routes and times need to be made available so those in his district have a shot at those jobs.

Workforce training had also been a priority. Last term he got $25,000 in the budget to pilot a program to provide training programs through MassHire and McCann Technical School. The model is to have employers take on students, provide the training, and the state will pay the majority of the salary. He plans to again push on that front.

"I always felt the best training came from the employer. The employer takes these individuals and does actual on-the-job training and for the portion of the time that they are there, the employer would pay for health insurance and these funds would be used to pay 90 percent of the employee's salary," Barrett said.

Overall for workforce development, he is looking for a "slug" of money to create more job training programs. He said he'd like to work out a partnership with MassHire, McCann, and Berkshire Community College to create the pipeline to higher paying jobs, jobs many in the area aren't currently qualified to take.

Education is the third piece of Barrett's agenda. He said he is particularly hoping to push for the implementation of the Foundation Review Commission's recommendations. He said terms were never met on that last session and he is hoping the House and the Senate can reach some agreement to do so.

"With this additional education money it would provide property taxpayer relief," Barrett said. "The loss of that education money at the state level has hurt the poorer communities and they had to ponies up with higher taxes."

The three topics tend to be high priorities among legislators but Barrett said these changes will make a bigger difference in the towns he represents.

"My district will benefit the most of it. I have nine communities. Some are wealthy communities, some are not, and the most important thing in each one of them is education," Barrett said.

Education funding has risen to the top as a priority not just for Barrett but also for local and legislative leaders. He expects the foundation formula to become one of the key centerpieces of debate during this next session.

That will be coupled with health care financing, which got stuck at the committee level last year, and an environmental bill. Barrett is particularly pushing for a raising of the net metering cap to be included in the environmental bill.

"I think that cap has to be lifted at some point in time because it is holding back projects," Barrett said.

Last session, the North Adams Democrat wasn't in office when bills were filed -- though there is the possibility of late filing. This time he's re-filed a few.

One of those bills calls for a ban on "spoofing," which is the act of a telemarketer or scammer using somebody's else number to make solicitation calls.

"Many states have already addressed this issue. What is happening is spoofing is basically a term in which I am taking and using other people's phone numbers so you will pick up the phone. There is no law against that. They can steal your number and chances are I will answer the phone if a see 413. Right now there is no law against it and I'm saying that is really stealing my identity," Barrett said.

The Berkshires has an aging demographic so that bill has become particularly important for Barrett. He added that he will be co-sponsoring a number of bills relating to protecting senior citizens.

He's filing a bill to limit train idling times to 30 minutes. He said there are trains idling for hours in residential areas of the Berkshires and he'd like to limit that to cut down on emissions.

"Those emissions are going into the air and I've seen times when it has been so bad that it looks like fog," Barrett said.

That is one of the more local bills that Barrett said he is particularly mindful of. He highlighted bills to increase the Cheshire Board of Selectmen from three to five (recently signed by the governor), expanding the Williamstown Fire District's Prudential Committee, and removing multiple community's police departments from Civil Service as examples of the local bills he particularly likes to take on.

"I'm hoping I will get the right committee assignments that will benefit the area I represent. I'm not a Boston pol. I made that clear when I sought the office. I'm a district pol. I care about this area. I got back into the business so I could work with communities and help them with projects they have going," Barrett said.

Barrett had been on the Health Care Finance Committee but said that role didn't really relate directly to the Berkshires. He hopes his committee assignment this time will be more directly related to issues in the Berkshires, such as Arts, Culture, and Tourism.

Meanwhile, Barrett said another push for him this term will be to get Gov. Charlie Baker to release funds for the Greylock Glen. He said he received a commitment from the governor to do so but says there will likely need to be private sector buy-in before that happens. He hopes to bring the administration to the site early in the term.

"That project is moving well. I want to make sure it continues to stay on track," Barrett said.

He is also prepping to take a larger role in what could be a similarly complicated project with the Berkshire Mall. He expects that at some point the mall will fall into the hands of the Baker Hill Road District and he hopes to work with the community to develop the best reuse of the property for when that happens.

In the more rural hilltowns, Barrett said he's increasingly frustrated with the lack of broadband. He plans to keep that on the front burner as well.

"My patience has really run out as with those people who live in those communities that don't have it and there is no reason," Barrett said.

Barrett is the newest of the Berkshire delegation and had a short time to get acclimated to the role.

"I think I've established a good relationship with many of the chairmen of the various committees as well as the speaker and the leader," he said.
Cyprus PIO: Turkish Cypriot and Turkish Media Review, 19-01-18 Cyprus Press and Information Office: Turkish Cypriot Press Review Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Republic of Cyprus Press and Information Office Server at <http://www.pio.gov.cy/> Turkish Cypriot and Turkish Media Review, 18.01.19 Contents [01] Denktas said that the "government" asked for a meeting with Erdogan for next week [02] Ozersay: "Deadlock in the efforts for a federal solution ? Oil companies will compensate the Turkish Cypriots ? UNFICYP's mandate is now questioned" [03] Federal solution is impossible, alleges the UBP [04] The "court of appeals' verdict" on conscientious objector Karapasaoglu to be announced today; Discussion on the issue continues [05] Dimag Caginer is the new chairman of the Turkish Cypriot Hotelier Union [06] Besim: "Only one child was diagnosed with typhus; No reason to worry about an epidemic [B] Turkish Press [01] Turkish FM: Turkey-US discussions will reveal views on safe zone [02] Ex-CIA chief Panetta: Turkey, US should set up action base in Syria [03] Turkey deports Dutch journalist [A] Turkish Cypriot Press [01] Denktas said that the "government" asked for a meeting with Erdogan for next week Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris (18.01.19) reports that the so-called minister of finance, Serdar Denktas, stated that the "government" asked for a meeting with the Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. Denktas said that apart from himself and "prime minister" Tufan Erhurman, the "foreign minister" Kudret Ozersay may also participate in the meeting. Denktas, who made these statements speaking during a television program of Canal T, reminded that after the recent prudential elections in Turkey, Erdogan deals directly with affairs concerning Cyprus; therefore the lack of communication that occurred after the Turkish elections will be surpassed. He went on and added that the works regarding the "economic protocol" that the breakaway away regime will sign with Turkey have been completed and the procedure will come to an end next week. He also said that the "protocol" will be signed after the meetings between the Turkish and the Turkish Cypriot delegations and all the issues that were included in the previous "protocols", but were not implemented, will be included in the new one, following an agreement made between the two "countries". He also said that these issues will be implemented with the new "protocol". Denktas also referred to the issue that occurred with the "Dome" hotel and said that he supports the current situation that is the continuation of renting the hotel to its workers' trade union. He also said that no one in the "government" has a different opinion. "Even if they give us 200 million [?] we will not give Dome", he stated, adding that the "government" supports the continuation of the current management of the hotel which makes profit without the "state's" support. (CS) [02] Ozersay: "Deadlock in the efforts for a federal solution ? Oil companies will compensate the Turkish Cypriots ? UNFICYP's mandate is now questioned" Turkish Cypriot newspaper Diyalog (18.01.19)reports that Kudret Ozersay, self-styled foreign minister of the breakaway regime in the occupied area of Cyprus, has alleged that the efforts for finding a federal solution in Cyprus had come to a deadlock and added that he disagreed with Turkish Cypriot leader Akinci, who insisted on this issue. In statements yesterday to Diyalog TV, Ozersay argued that at the point we have come we should try the idea of a "partnership based on cooperation" instead of a federation", giving as an example for such a cooperation the natural gas issue. Referring to the natural gas issue, Ozersay criticized the companies which are carrying out explorations on behalf of the Republic of Cyprus and claimed that the Turkish Cypriots "have the right" to be given compensations. Referring to the companies, he alleged: "If the Turkish Cypriots are one of the partners of this wealth, how do you give only to the one partner rights such as the use, the extraction of this natural gas without the consent of the Turkish Cypriots? At a point, as companies you will also face a problem, you will enter under the responsibility of [paying] compensation. Such a right will arise for us and we will claim it. The companies should give the following message to the Greek Cypriot side: We have come to this point, but from now on we will have a problem, you should sit and agree with the Turkish Cypriots, agree on how you will share it". Referring to the issue of the UN Peace-Keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), Ozersay claimed that "I could say that the authority and responsibility of the UN Peace-Keeping Force has started to be questioned now with the initiatives we have undertaken" and argued that his initiative had annoyed the Greek Cypriot side. He futher claimed the following: "The logic that the mandate is renewed without changes once every six months has started to break and the issue is being discussed so much in the south as well. The diplomatic initiatives do not give results in one meeting. It is a process, you meet, you influence. These views are now discussed. The important thing is for the decision to be taken at the end of the six month period after today. We have started working on this issue as of today. The UN has a presence of around 800 soldiers and in parallel to this a police and civilian personnel. The reason for which the sides avoid taking some actions in the buffer zone since 1964 is not the UN's active interference in the situation. What deters the two sides from making actions against each other at the point of contact is the fact that the UN officials observe and report this. There is a stance of avoiding being the bad child. [? ] Our proposal is [for the UN] doing this as a civilian mission rather than a military one. [?] During our contacts in the US, I have obtained the impression that our interlocutors, with additional questions, tried to understand the different aspects of this issue and that they will be able to include our demands in the system during the advancing process. [?]" (I/Ts.) [03] Federal solution is impossible, alleges the UBP Turkish Cypriot newspaper Gunes (18.01.19)reports that during a congress organized yesterday in the occupied part of Nicosia by the National Unity Party (UBP) for late Turkish Cypriot leaders Dr Fazil Kucuk and Rauf Denktas, the speakers alleged that the federal solution was impossible in Cyprus. Former Turkish Cypriot leader, Dervis Eroglu reiterated the allegation that the alternative is the "TRNC", as he called the breakaway regime in the occupied area of Cyprus. Eroglu criticized Turkish Cypriot leader Akinci arguing that "it is wrong to insist on federation when the Greek Cypriot leader tells Turkey that he could discuss the two states". UBP chairman, Ersin Tatar argued that Akinci had initially stated that a federal solution could not be found, but now changed his mind. "We want a solution of two states under the roof of the EU", he reiterated. Mehmet Kucuk, late Fazil Kucuk's son, noted that he totally agreed with those saying that a federal solution with the Greek Cypriots could not be found, but the alternative should be put forward with courage. He added: "What is the alternative? Is it the TRNC or becoming a province [of Turkey]? This uncertainty should end". Finally, former Turkish Cypriot negotiator Ergun Olgun argued that their targets did not coincide with the ones of the Greek Cypriots and claimed that a federation with the Greek Cypriots would be tantamount to death. He alleged: "The alternative is the confederation or two separate states. For this, we should be strong inside and take steps outside". (I/Ts.) [04] The "court of appeals' verdict" on conscientious objector Karapasaoglu to be announced today; Discussion on the issue continues Turkish Cypriot daily newspaper Yeni Bakis (18.01.19) reports that the "supreme court of appeals of the Turkish Cypriot security forces" is expected to announce today its "appeal verdict" on the case of the Turkish Cypriot conscientious objector Halil Karapasiaoglou, 33 years old, who was arrested and taken to prison on Tuesday, after refusing to pay a fine imposed earlier in January by a military court. Karapasiaoglou was led before the military court on 3 January for refusing to report for reserve army duty for the past four years. The court ordered the payment of a fine of two thousand TL and a prison sentence of 20 days. However, Karapasaoglu's refusal to pay the fine had as a result his "detention". An appeal was later filed by Karapasiaoglou's lawyer, Oncel Polili, who claimed that the decision by the military court violates articles 5 and 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as the fair trial principle. Polili further described the penalty against Karapasaoglu as extortionate and called on the "government" to discuss the "conscientious objection bill". Polili further said that their demand is the admission that Karapasaoglu's rights were violated. He further asked the "court" to reduce his conviction. Meanwhile, the paper writes that the "military service draft bill" which includes the "ammendments on the conscientious objection issue" has been already published at the "official gazette" of the occupation regime in order for the public to be informed and submit its views. The "draft bill" will be "submitted to the assembly" on January 30. Also, commenting on the latest developments on the issue, Murat Kanatli, speaking on behalf of the "Conscientious Objection Initiative", said that the issue of human rights and freedoms in "north Cyprus is at the same level with Turkmenistan and Eritrea. Kanatli said further that the Initiative will continue its struggle towards supporting Karapasaoglu and all conscientious objectors' rights and announced the Initiative will organize a new protest on January 22. He further added that the Initiative will launch a series of visits to the Turkish Cypriot political parties in order to discuss the issue. On the same issue, Turkish Cypriot press labourers' trade union (Basin-Sen) described as unacceptable the recent statements made by so-called foreign minister Kudret Ozersay, who has claimed that "the discussion of the conscientious objection bill is not urgent". In a written statement on behalf of the trade union, Ali Kismir stated that Ozersay's statements are shameful and said that Karapasaoglu was sent to prison for a human right which in all other parts of the world is recognized. Kismir further said that such statements indicate the problem exists in the current "government". He added further that even though the "People's Party" (HP) in its election manifesto was clearly giving promises on the issue of conscientious objection, now the chairman of the party, Ozersay says that "the discussion of the bill is not among their priorities". In a separate statement, the "TMT fighters' association" alleged that it is "illogical and groundless" that this "bill" came to the agenda and especially in a country into which the ceasefire continues and the other side continues its "excessive armament policies". (AK) [05] Dimag Caginer is the new chairman of the Turkish Cypriot Hotelier Union Turkish Cypriot daily Halkin Sesi newspaper (18.01.19) reports that Dimag Caginer was elected as the new chairman of the Turkish Cypriot Hotelier Union. Speaking after his election, Caginer stated that tourism is an issue in which not only the "ministry of tourism" but all the public institutions must put efforts for its promotion. He also said that the union will continue to co-operate with the "ministry" because as he said tourism is the most important and most profitable investment of the "country". (CS) [06] Besim: "Only one child was diagnosed with typhus; No reason to worry about an epidemic Turkish Cypriot daily newspaper Vatan (18.01.19) reports that the so-called minister of health, Filiz Besim, commenting on a report published yesterday in the press, saying that several children were diagnosed with typhus disease in occupied Famagusta, claimed that there is no reason to worry about an epidemic, since, as she argued only one case was diagnosed with the disease. Issuing a written statement, Besim added that they are watching closely the situation and argued that there is no reason to worry about an epidemic. (AK) [B] Turkish Press [01] Turkish FM: Turkey-US discussions will reveal views on safe zone Turkish Hurriyet Daily News (18.01.19 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-us-discussions-will-reveal-views-on-safe-zone-turkish-fm-140589) reports that discussions between Turkey and the U.S. will unfold whether the perceptions of the two countries regarding the safe zone in Syria are overlapping, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Jan. 17. "The first talk about that was held between our Chief of Staff General Yasar Guler and [his U.S. counterpart] Joseph Dunford yesterday in Brussels," the minister, said speaking at a joint press conference with his FYROM counterpart. The proposed safe zone is important both for the country's stability and displaced Syrians' return home, he noted. "A safe zone in northern Syria is important for stability, the return home of Syrians including our Kurdish brothers, and the fight against terrorism," he stated. When asked about an attack in Manbij which killed American soldiers, Cavusoglu said Turkey knew that five U.S. service members were killed but there is no confirmed information about the others. The U.S. will share the information it gathered with Turkey, he added. "Who is behind this will be unveiled. If there will be a request for help from Turkey, we will do everything in our power. Terrorist organizations should not affect our determination and our decisions," he added. Regarding the U.S. proposal on Patriot missiles, Cavusoglu stressed that the date of delivery, price, credit facility, co-production and technology transfer are important criteria for the purchase. "Today, we have purchased the S-400s, we need them. It is a fact that we need more. Because the only ones left along our border are Italian SAMP-T and Spanish Patriot batteries," the minister said, stressing the "true alliance" Italy and Spain has been showing. In addition, Turkish Daily SABAH (18.01.19 https://www.dailysabah.com/diplomacy/2019/01/17/ankara-supports-macedonia-in-name-dispute-fm-cavusoglu-says) reports that Cavusoglu stated that "Turkey supports Macedonia in its name clash with Greece". Cavusoglu said that "Turkey recognizes Macedonia by its constitutional name, adding that Macedonia's stability in the Balkans is important". "Distinct from our political relations, we have strong ties. However, I would like to emphasize that our political relations are also at an excellent level. We are the country that has known Macedonia by its constitutional name since the beginning," Cavusoglu added. [02] Ex-CIA chief Panetta: Turkey, US should set up action base in Syria Turkey and the U.S. should establish a base of action in a planned safe zone in Syria in order to ensure that "Syria goes in the right direction," former Pentagon and CIA chief Leon Panetta has told Hurriyet Daily News (18.01.19 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-us-should-set-up-action-base-in-syria-ex-cia-chief-panetta-140594) in a telephone interview. "It has always been a complicated relationship between the U.S. and Turkey and how we deal with the Kurds going back to the Iraq War. Somehow, because we have always had a good relationship with our ally Turkey, we have been able to work through these differences. I remain confident that we can do that again," Panetta said on Jan. 16. Panetta had served as the head of Pentagon between 2011 and 2013. Prior to that, he was director of the CIA from 2009 to 2011. According to Panetta, Turkey and the U.S. can overcome problems stemming from Washington's relations with the YPG, the Syrian branch of the illegal PKK. He believes the reason behind Washington protecting the YPG is because it had promised to protect the group which has fought ISIL on the ground in Syria. The fundamental "problem" is the U.S. worked with the YPG once, "it has supported them in the effort to defeat ISIS. And we have in that process given them our word that we will protect them," he said, using another acronym for ISIL. When asked if he thinks it is possible for Washington to enjoy good relations with Ankara while it protects the YPG, he said: "I believe that if there continues to be dialogue between our countries, we won't see a breakdown of our relationship. I think that the bond between the U.S. and Turkey is strong enough we can successfully deal with this challenge diplomatically." Speaking about Turkey's plan of a safe zone in Syria, he suggested: "I think that both Turkey and the U.S. have an interest in not allowing Iran, [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad and the Russians to dominate what happens in Syria. And recognizing that common goal I think the U.S. and Turkey can work together to establish safe zones in Syria not only to confront ISIS and terrorism in those areas, but also establish a base of action in order to ensure that Syria goes in the right direction." Panetta said that he is very concerned about President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria, especially after the Jan. 16 attack in Manbij. "I am very concerned about any kind of precipitated withdrawal from Syria because of the ISIS threat. President Trump is very unpredictable in all of his decisions. I am sure that his defense advisers and his national security adviser will indicate that in light of this attack it would be a serious mistake to move forward with any kind of withdrawal." According to Panetta, there is a chaotic process in the White House especially when it comes to foreign policy decisions. "I think the fundamental problem with the way this president conducts foreign policy is that he will go ahead and tweet a position without going through a process within the administration of allowing those defense and national security advisers to give him a full picture of what the consequences of that kind of decision will be. And so what happens is he goes ahead and makes a decision. And then those around him try to delay that decision," he stressed. [03] Turkey deports Dutch journalist Turkish Hurriyet Daily News (18.01.19 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-deports-dutch-journalist-140573) reports that a Dutch journalist based in Istanbul was deported on Jan. 17 by Turkish police, Dutch financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad said in a report. Ans Boersma, the Istanbul correspondent of the daily, was taken to a repatriation center on Jan. 16 when she went to an immigration center to extend her residence permit, it reported. Turkish authorities have not given any official reason, only citing "security related reasons," according to the report. "Ans did her work sensibly and responsibly. This measure is a flagrant violation of press freedom," Jan Bonjer, chief editor of Het Financieele Dagblad, said. After spending the night at the repatriation center, she was taken to the airport for a morning flight to the Netherlands. Boersma, based in Istanbul since 2017, had received a Turkish press card for 2019 on Jan. 8. "And then suddenly you are back on the plane back to the Netherlands," she tweeted on Jan. 17. Boersma and the Dutch daily will appeal the six-year ban to enter Turkey. TURKISH AFFAIRS SECTION (CS/EH) Cyprus Press and Information Office: Turkish Cypriot Press Review Directory - Previous Article - Next Article
En esta entrevista exclusiva, la periodista puertorriquena nos cuenta que regresa a sus origenes en su nueva cadena con la que promete dar mucho mas de lo que imaginan
Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng (R), also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, meets with German Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 17, 2019. Scholz is here to attend the second China-Germany High Level Financial Dialogue. (Xinhua/Chen Jianli)

BEIJING, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng here on Thursday met with German Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz.

Han, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, expected the two sides to make good use of the bilateral high-level financial dialogue mechanism, implement the important consensus of the leaders of the two countries, and promote new achievements through cooperation in various fields.

Han also called on the two sides to jointly safeguard multilateralism and rule-based international order, and to become models and leaders for promoting mutual benefit, win-win cooperation and common development in the global arena.

Scholz said Germany is willing to strengthen pragmatic cooperation with China, implement the results reached by the consultations between the German and Chinese governments, jointly safeguard the multilateral trading system and promote the stability and prosperity of the world economy.

Scholz is here to co-chair the second China-Germany High Level Financial Dialogue with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Friday.

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]


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Canadian Ambassador to Vietnam Deborah Paul hands over 2 classrooms to AO victims and poor children. (Photo: VGP)

The two classrooms, situated at the Da Nang citys center for AO victims and disadvantaged children, were built using capital from the Boomers Legacy Foundation and the crew of the HMCS Calgary ship and the MV Asteris commercial container ship of the Royal Canadian Navy, on HMCS Calgary ships visit to Da Nang city in September 2018.

Accordingly, the delegation supported VND89 million for upgrading the childrens daily life and study facilities.

Together with VND52 million from the centers capital, diverse classrooms, rehabilitation rooms, vocational training rooms and healthcare rooms have been upgraded.

To Nam, President of the city Association of Victims of Agent Orange, said that so far the infrastructure is rather good for the children./.
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Vuori on Wednesday said the collapse of the deal is toxic for trade and complicates the operations of the over 15,000 Finnish export and import companies dealing with the UK.

THE BRITISH Parliaments decision to reject the Brexit deal of Prime Minister Theresa May will make it considerably more difficult for Finnish businesses to adapt to the UKs withdrawal from the European Union, gauges Timo Vuori, the director for international affairs at Finland Chamber of Commerce.

We know now that Britain will leave the EUs internal market for good in a couple of months, on 29 March, as was the dreaded worst-case scenario, he said. The realisation of a hard Brexit will effectively overnight take Britain trade policy-wise from the internal market outside the EU, to become a third country like Russia.

The British Parliament on Tuesday voted 432 to 202 to reject the deal that lays out terms for the countrys withdrawal from the 28-country bloc. Prime Minister May survived a no-confidence vote in the Parliament on Wednesday, with 325 MPs re-affirming their confidence in her administration.

Vuori said the British government must now weigh up its options to guarantee functional partnerships and trade relations with EU countries also after 29 March.

Ensuring that the trade of goods and services functions as well as possible without high tariffs and painstaking customs procedures is in the best interests of Britain and the EU. The mobility of employees must similarly be as easy and smooth as possible, he underscored.

He later tweeted that calling off the withdrawal altogether would not upset the markets in the UK or EU.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Source: Uusi Suomi
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Lebanese expat becomes overnight millionaire after winning Dubai Mahzooz lottery

Ive been participating in the draw for a long time, and Ive won Dhs35 many times, said the 38-year-old. When I got the email from Mahzooz, I was expecting another Dhs35. When I saw it was a million, I was shocked. I started screaming to my wife that we won, and I couldnt sleep that whole night.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc addresses the Vietnam Economic Forum 2019s plenary and high-level policy dialogue in Hanoi on January 17th (Photo: VNA)



He said that fast and sustainable are the key words and the motto for the strategy and action of the Government through the years.

Vietnam has defined economy, society and environment as three key pillars in its development policy and models, said the PM, stressing that sustainable growth is not contrary to fast growth, instead they are the necessary and sufficient conditions for high growth over the long term, especially in the context of the fourth Industrial Revolution.

The Government leader said that Vietnam is experiencing a transformation in growth model to a higher ladder in the value chain, with improved living conditions of locals and strong expansion of the private sector.

Citing statistics that showed more than 130,000 new firms were established and 34,000 enterprises resumed operation last year, he said that was a good signal.

Regarding missions and targets for 2019, the PM said that the Government will re-evaluate all aspects of its socio-economic governance from the central to local level, with focus on the mindset, the socio-economic planning process in the recent 10 years, and governance principles and model.

According to the government leader, principles and governance models that are no longer suitable will be adjusted to complete targets in digital government, growth facilitation and governments integrity.

PM Phuc stressed that the Government will also re-assess the real situation and potential of key economic sectors with a view to creating new driving forces for development. The Government sees the digital economy as a driver and the locomotive for fast and sustainable growth of Vietnam, he underscored.

The Vietnam Economic Forum 2019 was jointly organized by the Government and the Party Central Committees Economic Commission on January 16th and 17th in Hanoi.

The event aimed to review the Vietnamese economys development in 2018 and discuss its prospects in 2019, as well as analyse opportunities along with difficulties and challenges facing the Vietnamese economy, in order to propose measures to promote innovation and bolster socio-economic growth./.
Francisca Perez. Photo: Center for Workers Rights

Last May, Sacramento-area cook Francisca Perez alleges that she was fired from her restaurant job of a decade for the heinous crime of speaking Spanish. She had worked at Osteria Fasulo in Davis for a decade when the alleged incident occurred, reportedly provoking owner Leonardo Fasulo to tell her, This is America. We speak English here. This week, the Center for Workers Rights in Sacramento filed a complaint on behalf of Perez with Californias Department of Fair Employment and Housing. According to her attorney Daniela Urban, they had reached out to Fasulo about resolving the issuing without a filing but he was not interested.

The alleged incident occurred when a new waitress named Janet Ruelas-Nava asked Perez in Spanish if a dish was ready to be served. Fasulo apparently heard them, and the Sacramento Bee reports that he yelled at Ruelas, pounded the table, and asked if they wanted him to start serving burritos. He allegedly told Perez she would need to learn English, which she speaks, to keep her job. All of this occurred in front of Perezs son, who had arrived at the restaurant, and prompted Perez to tell Fasulo he was discriminating against Mexicans. This provoked the restaurateur, she tells the Bee, to say, you can get your ass out of my restaurant.

The Bee spoke with Fasulo outside his restaurant, where he denied telling Perez to speak English and said she quit on her own terms and is not owed a final paycheck. In a letter seen by Telemundo, Fasulos attorney Matthew Smith calls the allegations false and unsupportable by facts.

The now former waitress Ruelas-Nava quit the restaurant following the alleged incident. In a statement, she says that after she told her boss she would not be returning, they argued but then she received her check. He knew that the reason I was quitting because of his behavior and his English only statement, she writes.

Speaking to NBC News, Perez says she felt humiliated and not worth anything in this country. Her relationship with her boss had not always been bad. She tells NBC News that her job interview with Fasulo was in Spanish and that he was a good person. After a few years, though, she says that his behavior changed. In response to the incident, Perez tells NBC News she told her son that she wants him to study hard so you dont have to go through what I experienced. She is now working as a custodian in Sacramento, where she lives.
(TNS)  When it comes to deciding how municipalities should use social media platforms such as Facebook to inform and engage their residents, sometimes its complicated.Middletown, Md., is developing policies for how the town should use social media to interact with the public.The towns burgess and commissioners discussed a draft policy at their meeting Monday night, and Burgess John Miller said they will continue to edit and revise the policy before approving it.Little guidance is available for government use of social media, Commissioner Jennifer Falcinelli said.The town doesnt have a social media policy, Miller said.Were not reinventing the wheel here. But it is something I think we should have in place, he said.The town has a Facebook page, as well as an email account and a website, which is monitored on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. and during emergencies.According to the draft policy, social media should be used for spreading information that is time-sensitive as quickly as possible; sending and receiving feedback from town residents and businesses; and promoting information about the town to the widest audience possible.Social media posts should contain links whenever possible that direct visitors to the towns website for more information, according to the draft policy.The town reaches many more residents through its Facebook page than through email or its website, Town Administrator Drew Bowen said.The toughest thing in local government is reaching your residents, Bowen said.In the city of Frederick, all sites must say that theyre authorized by the city, and accounts can be used only to promote news or events that are of general interest to the city, spokeswoman Patti Mullins said in an email Wednesday.Accounts are monitored by an administrator who can address or remove inappropriate content, and state that there is a 24-hour phone number to call with concerns. The accounts are not monitored on a constant basis, she said.Political posts are not allowed, except for the announcement of elections, and connections to elected officials campaign pages are not allowed.Sharing or reposting content or posts from other people or organizations isnt allowed unless the content pertains to events or issues that are sponsored or endorsed by the city.Frederick County government has an overall social media policy for all its employees, and some divisions may have more specific policies depending on what type of work they do, spokeswoman Vivian Laxton said in an email Tuesday.The countys policy reminds employees that they are responsible for the appropriate use of social media, and posts should be authorized and follow the countys policies.Employees should not speak for the county unless theyre authorized to do so, the policy says.If you are not authorized, you may speak only as an individual providing a personal opinion and should so note, the policy states.Employees should not expect that any message created, sent or received on county property such as cellphones, computers, email, mobile devices, or other items has any expectation of privacy, it said.The Maryland Municipal League has received a lot of requests in the past few years for guidance on how to handle social media, said Jim Peck, director of research and information management at the organization.The league has compiled a list of web resources and suggested policies that they send to towns looking for advice, he said.Peck said he cant say whether most towns have guidelines for their social media use, but many do.I suspect there are more and more all the time, he said.But many communities may not have the resources to maintain an active social media presence.Peck pointed out that the median-sized municipality in Maryland has 1,800 people, 10 employees, and a budget of about $2.2 million.Meanwhile, Middletown will continue to consider how to use the technology, and the opportunity it offers to inform residents.In 2019, you have to be using Facebook if you want to reach people, unfortunately, Miller said.
(TNS)  A cybersecurity research team discovered millions of files unsecured and open to the public on a server belonging to the Oklahoma Department of Securities, team members reported Wednesday.The UpGuard Data Breach Research team found three terabytes and millions of files that could have been accessed by virtually anyone. The data included names of AIDS patients, details about FBI investigations and personally identifiable information for at least 100,000 finance brokers going back three decades.In a statement, the FBI said it was aware of the exposure. Spokeswoman Andrea Anderson said any archived content related to FBI investigations appears to be limited, with minimal association to any ongoing law enforcement activity.According to UpGuard's report, it appears the server had been active and open since at least November. The cybersecurity researchers found the server on Dec. 7 and notified the department the next day. Public access to the server was removed immediately, UpGuard said, and the data was only vulnerable for about a week, but it's not clear whether anyone else accessed the server.The data includes sensitive information about those involved in the exchange of financial securities. According to the report, it appears the oldest data was generated in 1986 and it was most recently modified in 2016.One database contained about 10,000 Social Security numbers of brokers. Another document contained birth information, gender and other identifying characteristics like eye color for 100,000 brokers.UpGuard also reported it found a database that contained information about people with AIDS who were selling life insurance benefits, including names and T cell counts.For the past eight years, the state has attempted to consolidate its IT infrastructure under the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. Unlike most other state agencies, the Oklahoma Department of Securities opted not to consolidate.OMES was in the process of reaching out to the Securities Department and urged department officials to contact the FBI. An OMES spokeswoman said the Oklahoma Cyber Command had no visibility of the Securities Department's computer systems and did not vet the department's IT vendors."We figured we could handle our internal computer usage directly," Securities Department Administrator Irving Faught said Wednesday. "We felt, at the time, that it was better for the agency."The department is taking the issue seriously and ordered a forensic investigation, Faught said. He declined to offer details about the breach or the aftermath, but said the department employs its own IT staff and uses outside vendors for some services."It depends on how the investigation comes out, but of course if we've exposed anybody's information, we will of course notify them," Faught said.In a separate statement, Faught said the server was exposed during installation of a firewall, which is a network system that monitors traffic and is used to create a barrier between sensitive infrastructure and the public internet.The kind of breach-and-report activity performed by UpGuard is used by white-hat hackers to expose and correct vulnerabilities that could lead to a personal data theft. UpGuard provides cybersecurity services and regularly monitors the web for public data exposures.The group's report notes that the Securities Department's website appears to be the least secure of all sites with an ok.gov address. UpGuard found the site was running on a web server that is no longer supported by its manufacturer, which could allow a malicious hacker to take control.UpGuard said it found passwords that could let hackers remotely access Securities Department workstations. A spreadsheet contained login information and passwords for several internet services, including anti-virus software.
(TNS)  The Contra Costa County Sheriffs Office will be buying new technology that slashes the time it takes to handle and test DNA to help identify criminal suspects or victims of major disasters such as fires.The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday authorized the sheriffs office to spend roughly $97,000 to purchase the RapidHIT ID System. Thats about half the price scientific product company Thermo Fisher typically charges, according to a staff report that describes the technology as revolutionary.The ability of the (forensic services division) to impact overall field and investigative operations with the advent of Rapid DNA cannot be underestimated, the report states. As the (district attorneys) office continues to push for more and more Rush requests in order to hold detainees over for charging purposes, the need for timely results is critical.The report notes that the county forensic teams role has evolved to include not just routine biological examination and DNA analysis but real-time results and investigative leads based on rush requests and dangers to the community.Rapid DNA technology has shortened the test time from weeks to about 90 minutes by inserting a swab of DNA into a cartridge and putting that into a machine for analysis.Its a technology that cant be used across all types of samples, but certain samples will work, said former county crime lab director Paul Holes, a retired District Attorney inspector known for his work on the Golden State Killer case. If those samples are entered into CODIS there can be turnaround in an hour or soIt can save countless numbers of man hours from an investigative side.In the past, law enforcement agencies had to send DNA samples to government labs and wait for them to get tested, which could take days or even weeks. A federal bill passed in 2017 allows law enforcement agencies to use the rapid DNA technology to perform real-time DNA testing at their booking stations immediately following arrests. Those samples are compared to profiles in the FBIs Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) under guidelines set by the FBI.But the technology  and the bill that allows for its expanded use  has alarmed privacy and civil liberties advocates because the expanded national database includes DNA samples of those who are arrested but never convicted of a crime.Civil liberties groups last December sued the state Department of Justice over its collection and retention of DNA profiles of people who were arrested for alleged felonies but not convicted. In California, the DNA entry for innocent people is not automatically removed.Proponents counter that the technology performs a social good by exonerating the truly innocent faster and keeping in jail crime suspects who otherwise might be released while awaiting DNA results. The Orange County District Attorneys office, for instance, has used the technology to build up a very successful database, Holes said.Former police investigators say there used to be a backlog of untested DNA evidence in Contra Costa, including for homicide cases. Last July, a report by the Bay Area New Group found that key DNA evidence sat on the shelf awaiting testing for years in three cold case homicides before a suspect was identified.The technology also has been used to identify victims of the deadly Camp Fire in Butte County and trace familial connections for refugees seeking asylum in the United States.
(TNS)  A critical emergency alert system designed to warn UC Davis students and staff failed to fully notify the campus until more than an hour after Davis police Officer Natalie Corona was shot and killed blocks from the university, officials announced, calling the breakdown unacceptable.The WarnMe-Aggie Alert sends text and email messages to UC Davis students and staff and is designed to alert 70,000 people. But the system initially notified only a fraction of those people about the events unfolding less than a mile from the campus and locked campus public safety officials out of some notification lists.The system failure we saw on January 10 was unacceptable and we will take all necessary measures to ensure 100 percent performance in the future, said UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May in a statement Tuesday.The chancellors downtown Davis residence is also just blocks away from where the 22-year-old Corona was gunned down and where others were sent fleeing when Kevin Limbaugh opened fire from his bicycle as the rookie officer responded to a traffic stop.A manhunt for Coronas killer stretched across the citys downtown and ended hours later in a standoff with law enforcement when Limbaugh killed himself inside his E Street residence. May was out of town at the time of the deadly incident, said campus officials Wednesday.UC Davis police sent out a pair of alerts 18 minutes apart in the frantic moments after the rampage. A 7:28 p.m. email and text swarm warned of a suspect at large. The second, at 7:46 p.m., told people to shelter in place. Only 20,000 people initially received the orders.UC Davis Police Chief Joseph Farrow described those early moments and the deep concerns he and other public safety officials had when they learned the Warn-Me system wasnt completing its job. Eight minutes into the call, Farrow and campus safety officials activated the warning system, put the campus on high alert and soon after moved his officers to the campus borders with Davis to find if Limbaugh was headed toward the university.Emotions are running high. We had to get the system out to people so they dont walk into chaos. We need to get into that system now, Farrow said. We went about looking for the individual, but we had deep concerns when (Warn-Me) didnt populate.Workers from Rave Mobile Safety, the Massachusetts-based mass notification firm that developed the system. were able to troubleshoot the problem, but the first messages to the entire campus population werent sent until 8:45 p.m., more than an hour after the initial 7:28 p.m. alerts, UC Davis officials said.Farrow called the time gap a significant delay, but said those who did receive the initial alert on and off campus and in local media quickly and widely shared the information, while campus officials worked with student affairs representatives to notify dining halls and other potentially vulnerable spaces.The good part is that the university (community) started notifying themselves, Farrow said. Even though there was a glitch in the system, they took it upon themselves. The community took care of the community.Rave officials, whose warning system had been in place at UC Davis since 2014 without incident, are expected to sit with campus leaders in Davis on Jan. 22 to explain what went wrong and how they intend to put it right.The larger intent of our communication is about accountability and responsibility for the issue with the end result being that it never happens again, said Clement Stokes, UC Davis emergency management director. Im looking at what we can do better to ensure that this capability is ready to be used when necessary.Rave officials said the problem centers on errors in the system that updates its database of university contacts nightly. Information for notification lists are culled from payroll and other lists then separated into lists of faculty, students, staff and others, campus officials said.In a Jan. 14 letter to university officials, Raves chief technology officer, Brett Marceau, said the work to correct that process is its engineers top priority adding Rave took full responsibility for the systems failure to notify all 70,000 people in the alerts system and regrets the position into which it put the university.Marceau continued that Rave has identified and corrected the problem and is working to put additional measures in place to prevent a recurrence.Farrow hopes so. He will be among the campus leaders meeting with Rave officials next week.As police chief, its my responsibility to ensure the safety and security of the people who study, work, teach and research here, he said. I would tell them theres an issue that you need to be aware of. Thats our lifeline.
(TNS)  The Randolph County Commission, Moberly City Council and city manager met Tuesday to continue discussing the implementation of a 911 cellphone tax for city and county funding.The tax will require voter approval and is expected to appear on an April ballot. The county and city are working on a finalized version, and the ballot language for the tax will be available shortly after Jan. 22."Our intentions are to go ahead and place this initiative up on the ballot... and see where that takes us," Presiding County Commissioner John Truesdell said.If approved by voters, the tax would essentially add a $1 monthly fee for each cellphone used in the county. A three percent sales tax will also be added on the purchase of prepaid cellphones.Money from the tax will be used to fund dispatching for emergency services in Moberly and Randolph.The tax is permitted by a bipartisan state law that passed last year and went into effect Jan. 1. The new law allows local governments to implement a tax on cellphone services to help fund 911 emergency call centers. It mimics a similar landline tax, which accrues less money as landline usage decreases.The dispatch system for Randolph County is centralized through the Moberly Police Department. When 911 is called, an emergency operator takes the information from the caller and determines which emergency service to direct the call. If law enforcement is appropriate, the call is dispatched directly to Moberly PD or the Randolph County Sheriff's Department, based on the incident's location.If Randolph County Ambulance District, the Moberly Fire Department or one of the rural fire departments are needed, the call is directed from Moberly PD to the RCAD dispatch. Dispatch will then send out the call to the necessary emergency service, due to software incompatibilities between departments. The call transfers are also, partially, due to the differences in training for law enforcement dispatchers and medical/fire dispatchers.RCAD's software accesses medical records as well as fire emergency information, unlike Moberly PD's software. Certain dispatchers are also trained for their specific call type. The EMTs at RCAD are always on rotation as trained dispatchers.City Manager Brian Crane said the city and county's arrangement fits under the shared services model in the legislation, because the county and city can draw from the tax funds.Crane said there is no real model to estimate what the tax would generate, but based on the county's population and estimated cellphone use, it could generate between $275,000-300,000."There's not been any real organization that put out on what they think this tax might generate," Crane said. "We're kind of going (in) blind. We did an educated guess, based on population counts and what we think peoples' phone habits are, and we think it's going to (bring in) $275,000 to $300,000 a year."Crane said the dispatching system's annual operating costs are approximately $600,000, but the city can only contribute $140,000 from the landline tax. The rest is pulled from general funds in the city budget.A similar situation occurs in the county. The county pays approximately $90,000 to Moberly for dispatching, but only has $70,000 of that covered by the landline tax.Local governments that opt out of the tax will not receive any of the funding to put toward emergency communication.To take advantage of the tax, it needs to be passed in 2019, otherwise the county and city will lose out on the funds."There is a time limit on this," Truesdell said. "If we don't go after this, this will go away, and that opportunity will be lost."Although the estimated tax revenue will not completely cover the cost of dispatching services, it will significantly decrease the amount of money coming from both the city and county's general funds.Crane said the new funds could allow for the dispatch services to upgrade technology, increase dispatcher pay and improve operation of the services. Both parties, along with the department heads from each emergency service in the county, first met in September to discuss possible upgrades to the system."We could do a better job if we had more resources," Crane said. "With pay for dispatchers, technology upgrades, overall operation and maintenance... these are all things we've been discussing."During the meeting, Truesdell suggested the creation of a 911 Emergency Board for dispatch and 911 services, which would be responsible for allocating funds to the various emergency communication services in the county. At the September meeting, he suggested a model with which the county commission could appoint the board leader, then open the other board positions for a county election. He said he would like to see a more centralized dispatch that is overseen by a board, similar to how RCAD operates.
New Autonomous Mobility Vision for Michigan, $2,168,219: an autonomous electric shuttle at the Battle Creek VA Medical Center operating for extended hours to veterans, along with creating an easier method for ordering and scheduling services.

Southeast Michigan Integrated Platform for Paratransit Services, $1,050,000: a one-click" online booking and trip management platform for users of AAATA, DDOT and SMART ADA Paratransit services, making scheduling and managing paratransit trips easier for seniors and people with disabilities.

Team Grand Rapids: Interurban Transit Partnership, $373,782: a ridesharing mobile app for paratransit services to to shorten trip duration and reservation lead time. Users can book trips on the same day and spend less time on the bus.

Michigan Universal Vehicle Ecosystem Pilot, $1,178,129: a ridesharing platform in the central upper peninsula that will increase accessible transportation options and decrease isolation for anyone with mobility challenges.

(TNS)  In Michigan, four mobility-focused technological initiatives in Grand Rapids, Battle Creek, Southeast Michigan and the central Upper Peninsula will share $4.7 million in grants to help address transit gaps, state officials announced Jan. 15 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.Former Gov. Rick Snyder launched the $8-million Mobility Challenge grant program at the 2018 Mackinac Policy Conference to help address needs for seniors, people with disabilities and veterans. first round of winners was announced in September 2018.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other state officials announced the second round of winners Tuesday, alongside Dr. Kimberly Kennedy of Grand Rapids, a U.S. Navy veteran who uses a wheelchair and advocates for people with disabilities.Too often, when we talk about mobility, we have a tendency to go straight to self-driving cars and autonomous vehicles, Whitmer said. We should be talking about this technology and innovation thats happening right now and impact and improve the quality of life for people ... in every part of our state.We have an opportunity and we have a responsibility to advance our states technology and automotive landscape that improves the lives of countless Michiganders."Kennedy described how difficult it can be to catch a ride when youre in a wheelchair.We dont always think about the impact that it has on the quality of our life, Kennedy said. Many times with Uber, they would ride past me when they saw me sitting outside in a wheelchair. To have an app with ... on-demand (service), is awesome.The projects are:
(TNS)  To solve its train congestion problem, Lima, Ohio, is looking to utilize technology-driven solutions brought forward by a statewide initiative.Earlier this month, city officials and Lima-Allen County Regional Planning Commission Executive Director Thom Mazur met with Ohio Department of Transportation representatives in order to discuss how DriveOhio could benefit the city. The statewide initiative was originally set into place by former Gov. John Kasich in early 2018 to set up Ohio as a center of innovation for autonomous and connected vehicles.While initially set up to push forward driverless vehicle technologies, city officials instead set one of Limas unique problems on the table  how can the city ease traffic problems caused by stopped trains?As anyone who is trying to cross Cable Road at noon knows, trains can be a real concern for the city. Outside of upsetting lunch plans, stopped trains affect the response times of emergency vehicles as well as create an economic drag during some of the busiest times of the workday.The conventional solution has been constructing overpasses or underpasses over or under railroad tracks, but that process takes major investment in both time and resources. For example, the Elm Street underpass project that began construction this past year ended up costing $20 million in grant funding that was allocated to the project after 20 years of work.DriveOhio, however, may be able to reduce congestion caused by stopped trains by better routing vehicles with navigational systems or way-finding apps, such as Waze, by embedding train data, Mayor David Berger said.Basically, by knowing when and where trains may be stopped, drivers can be informed ahead of time before they find themselves stuck between a line of cars watching a train inch to a stop.Were looking at technologies that can be put in place to give people alternatives when a train track is blocked, Berger said.To work with ODOT, Berger has drafted legislation to be considered by Lima City Council during its Jan. 28 meeting that would set in place a memorandum of understanding with the state agency. There would be no cost to the city, Berger said.Roughly 10 cities have already stated their intent to work with DriveOhio to tackle their own unique infrastructure needs. Lima is first of the 10 to work on the difficulties presented by trains.Other opportunities identified by the city that could be addressed by working with DriveOhio also include right-of-way issues and better traffic signal coordination.
(TNS) - Jeanie Pharis was introduced Thursday evening as Morgan County, Alabama's new 911 director, nine months after the previous director resigned under pressure.Pharis, 43, of Enid, Oklahoma, was one of five finalists interviewed by the Emergency Management Communication District 911 Board. More than 20 people applied, according to board members.Pharis is scheduled to start Monday at an annual salary of $81,060.Im ready to get started, she said. I will spend a few weeks getting a feel for the job, evaluating the department and observing.She said she arrived in Decatur on Wednesday. She was officially hired during a special meeting Jan. 10.Pharis has been emergency communications supervisor for ASRC Federal Communications at Vance Air Force Base in Enid since 2016. She previously spent 10 years with the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma.Virginia Alexander, chairwoman of the county 911 board, said Pharis experience as a manager in a dispatch center earned her the job.She has dealt with public officials and the military, which can be very different, Alexander said. She was the most qualified finalist that had been in a 911 directors seat.Alexander said the board was also impressed Pharis did her research about the local situation before her interview.Board member and Decatur Police Chief Nate Allen said Pharis impressed him during the interview process. She seemed to be the most knowledgeable, he said. I believe it will be a great hire for the board.Interim 911 Director Kelly Armor, who did not apply for the directors position, has been handling the directors responsibilities since Director Ryan Welty resigned April 13.Were all excited about her being on board and the department moving forward, Armor said.In August, the 911 board changed the educational requirements for the directors position, dropping a required master's degree to a required bachelors degree.At the same time, the board lowered the minimum starting salary to $72,020.90, but the post could pay more depending on experience.Welty gave no reason for his resignation. However, a month earlier, the board had suspended Welty with pay. The eight-year director was earning $83,202 when he resigned.Among other business Thursday, the board approved taking over emergency dispatch calls from the Morgan County Sheriffs Office. The move wont become official until the Morgan County Commission meets and approves the action at its regular meeting 9 a.m. Tuesday.According to the commissions agenda, the commission will pay $13,623.21 per month from February to September to the 911 board for the service. Some of the sheriffs dispatchers are expected to move into the same role with Morgan 911, but the number is unknown.Board attorney Julian Butler called the vote to combine the 911 and sheriffs dispatchers a momentous occasion in the countys history.In a 16-minute review of 2018 calls, Armor said Morgan County 911 handled 64,145 calls including four pre-hospital births. mike.wetzel@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442. Twitter @DD_Wetzel.2019 The Decatur Daily (Decatur, Ala.)Visit The Decatur Daily (Decatur, Ala.) at www.decaturdaily.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Description

GIS  18 January, 2019: The Vice-President of the Republic of Seychelles, Mr. Vincent Meriton, paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, yesterday at the New Treasury Building in Port Louis.

In a statement, the Vice-President of Seychelles said that the meeting with Prime Minister Jugnauth was fruitful and indicated that discussions mostly focused on continental shelf management and maritime security.

The Mascarene Plateau Region, Vice-President Meriton pointed out, is a shared heritage of Seychelles and Mauritius and thus there is a crucial need to join efforts to protect it. He dwelt on the Joint Management of the Extended Continental Shelf in the Mascarene Plateau Region and spoke of the need to step up maritime protection measures and training exchanges.

Speaking about the Mauritius-Seychelles Joint Management Area, Mr Meriton emphasised the need to finalise a structure between the two countries. A budget has been allocated to set up an Office in Seychelles, and a symposium as well as a Ministerial Council are on the agenda for this year, he indicated.

The Vice-President underscored the good relations that Seychelles and Mauritius share and reiterated his determination to take the bilateral relations to a higher level and further strengthen the collaboration.
Some form of marijuana is legal in more than half the states, but cannabis businesses -- medical and recreational -- are stillrunning into a cash problem.Since the drug is illegal under federal law, any bank that handles marijuana money can be charged with money laundering , which forces the industry to deal with large amounts of cash, making them targets for violent crime.To alleviate the problem, the notion of creating a state-run public bank to handle cannabis business accounts has been floated in several states, including California, Colorado, Michigan, New Jersey and Washington.But last month, an independent report commissioned by California panned the idea, concluding that a public pot bank would pose too great of a legal and financial risk to the state. "While todays announcement may not lay out the path some of us had hoped, it did reinforce the inconvenient reality that a definitive solution will remain elusive until the federal government takes action, California Treasurer John Chiang said at the reports hearing. [The feds] must either remove cannabis from its official list of banned narcotics or approve safe harbor legislation that protects banks serving cannabis businesses from prosecution.A state-run bank has some attractive qualities. For instance, rather than giving profits to shareholders, a public bank would return profits to the public. Theoretically, that means such an institution could help finance social projects like affordable housing or low-interest student loans.But there are also plenty of pitfalls to a public bank.According to the report by Level 4 Ventures , start-up costs for a public bank in California would cost the state $35 million over six years. And that money would be wasted unless federal regulators granted the necessary approvals for the bank to conduct wire transfers, which would be highly unlikely.I think what California is recognizing in the report is that all the issues come down to the movement of money, says Alex Spelman, vice president of business development for the government security company SICPA. No one option can stand alone and completely apart from the rest of the financial system.The downsides don't stop there.If, on the improbable chance a public bank did get off the ground, it would require just under $1 billion in capital. The state itself wouldnt see profits until sometime between 2050 and 2055, according to the report, because banks make a return by lending money and it would take several years to begin realizing those returns. And should the feds legalize marijuana before then, Californias public bank would likely shutter at a significant loss.The report's conclusion follows a similar one by the states attorney general, who also determined a public bank would be too risky.Legalization continues to spread. Most recently, voters in Missouri and Utah approved the drug for medical use, and Michiganders legalized it outright. That brings the total to 33 states that have legalized medical marijuana and 10 that have approved it for recreational use.Only two U.S. jurisdictions have successfully created a public bank: North Dakota did it in 1919 to make loans to farmers, and the American Samoa did it more recently in 2016 after commercial banks stopped lending to the island. Still, neither of those scenarios had to deal with something the federal government considers illegal.The report also considered and rejected the idea of creating a public credit union or developing a cannabis cryptocurrency. Neither is likely to happen without federal change.
In a staunch and unequivocal defense of how Chicago police handled Laquan McDonald's murder, a Cook County judge acquitted three officers Thursday of charges alleging they conspired to justify the shooting by falsifying reports and claiming the teen was the aggressor.At every point in her hourlong ruling, Associate Judge Domenica Stephenson endorsed the actions of the police on the night McDonald was shot by Officer Jason Van Dyke, calling the 17-year-old an erratic, armed assailant who ignored commands to drop a small knife. She also said it would be wrong to second-guess the actions of the police -- including Van Dyke, who is scheduled to be sentenced Friday for his historic conviction for second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery."It is clear from the testimony in this case that an officer could reasonably believe that an attack was imminent based upon McDonald's actions," said Stephenson, reading from a 28-page ruling in her packed courtroom. "... Only the officers involved in the incident know what their belief was at the time of the incident. We cannot now view the actions of the officers with the benefit of hindsight as to what they should have believed."In a written message to the Tribune on Thursday evening, McDonald's sister, Tariana, said the judge's finding has not changed her mind that the officers tried to cover up what happened to her older brother."I am truly hurt," the 18-year-old wrote in her first public comments. "Words couldn't explain how hurt I still am. ... Not only did I lose a brother, I lost my best friend. People don't understand how I feel not to be able to talk to my brother, let alone see him again. That's why I feel like justice should be served."In acquitting retired Detective David March, ex-patrolman Joseph Walsh and Officer Thomas Gaffney of conspiracy, official misconduct and obstruction of justice, Stephenson rejected the prosecution's case with a witness-by-witness takedown. She dismantled the crucial testimony of a Chicago police officer who alleged her statements about the shooting were falsified -- and said she faced retribution from colleagues as a result. The judge also dismissed the account of a civilian eyewitness who said he was shooed away from the shooting scene.Stephenson, who is a former Cook County prosecutor, also downplayed the importance of the now-infamous police dashboard video of the shooting, saying it did not capture the perspective of the officers.The court-ordered release of the video more than a year after the October 2014 shooting led to months of protests and political upheaval, and prompted a federal investigation of the Police Department that concluded officers routinely violated the civil rights of minorities.While Van Dyke's trial centered on his actions on the night of the shooting, the conspiracy case has been seen as a referendum on a so-called code of silence within the Chicago Police Department designed to protect fellow officers from accountability for wrongdoing. The indictment by a special grand jury was believed to be the first time any Chicago police officer has faced criminal charges stemming from an alleged cover-up of an on-duty shooting.As Stephenson concluded her remarks Thursday, scattered applause arose in the courtroom gallery from supporters of the officers. When court adjourned, the defendants smiled and shook hands with their lawyers. Walsh, who was Van Dyke's partner the night of the shooting, stretched his arm around his attorney Thomas Breen and patted him on the back.Later, in the lobby of the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Walsh stood next to his attorney in front of a wall of television news cameras. At first he declined to comment on the ruling. But when asked about the last 18 months under indictment, he said, "heart-wrenching.""Heartbreaking for my family," said Walsh, his jaw clenching as he stepped up to the microphones. "A year and a half ... I have nothing else to say."Another Walsh attorney, Todd Pugh, slammed the evidence presented by special prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes, saying the charges should never have been brought."They say a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich, and that's what happened in this case," he said.Gaffney, among the first officers on the scene that night, has been on desk duty since the indictment came down but will be reinstated to full duties given the acquittal, a police spokesman said Thursday. March and Walsh resigned after the city inspector general's office released a report recommending they be fired for their actions in the McDonald investigation.The ruling stunned members of McDonald's family and angered many community leaders who called for protests and political action. The Rev. Marvin Hunter, McDonald's great-uncle, was visibly shaken by the acquittals and called on the federal government to investigate the Cook County criminal justice system for what he called its systemic corruption."This is not justice," Hunter told reporters. "I think this judge had it made up in her mind ... to make sure that these gentlemen never see the inside of a jail cell."Before the officers left the courthouse, activist William Calloway, who fought to get the dashboard camera video released and is running for city alderman, slammed the judge's decision as a farce and suggested her background as a prosecutor made her prone to believe whatever police say."That blue code of silence isn't just with the Chicago Police Department," Calloway said. "It expands to the judicial system, and this is an example of that. ...We know that this was a cover-up. We know these officers conspired to attempt to make sure Jason Van Dyke didn't get tried for the murder."Attorney James McKay, who represented March, called those allegations "baloney.""This is criminal court, all right?" McKay said. "Where the rules of evidence and Illinois law is followed. With a burden of proof. You can say whatever you want on the street. But in a courtroom you better have evidence when you bring a case, and if you don't, shame on you."McKay also said the case should never have been brought."(The officers) never should've been here. Never," he said. "The truth happened in that courtroom. This case wasn't even close. And three innocent men had to be put through hell. These three men were innocent from day one."Holmes, meanwhile, defended the credibility of the evidence, telling reporters she hopes the case "has been a crack in the wall of the code of silence."Assistant special prosecutor Ronald Safer rejected Stephenson's assertion that the officers' reports may not have lined up with the video because the video didn't show their perspective."Everybody has seen that video," Safer said. "The police reports that the police officers submitted painted a picture that was totally different from what was in the video."Stephenson's ruling clearly pleased Kevin Graham, president of the police union that represents rank-and-file officers, who called the charges "trumped up" and slammed the news media -- particularly the Chicago Tribune -- for "relentless and baseless" coverage that he said has led to a "chilling effect" and low morale for officers."Let me be clear, there was no code of silence," Graham said.Stephenson's highly anticipated ruling, which came more than a month after closing arguments and two unexplained delays, put in stark relief the difficulties in trying to prove criminal charges alleging a code of silence, requiring evidence that the officers conspired together to hide misconduct by an officer.The decision is sure to cause backlash from critics who believe Stephenson's background as a prosecutor makes her biased toward the police -- a common complaint about judges at the county's main criminal courthouse. Indeed, it was the latest in a string of high-profile trials in which Chicago police officers accused of wrongdoing were cleared by judges at the courthouse.In 2015, Judge Diane Gordon Cannon cleared Cmdr. Glenn Evans of charges he shoved his gun down a man's throat and threatened to kill him. The judge largely discounted seemingly strong evidence showing the man's DNA on Evans' gun.That same year, Detective Dante Servin was acquitted by Judge Dennis Porter of all charges in an off-duty, late-night shooting in which he opened fire after alleging a man made a threatening motion at him with an object he took to be a gun, only to fatally shoot Rekia Boyd, an innocent young woman standing nearby. The object turned out to be a cellphone, authorities said.Lori Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor who is running for mayor, said Thursday that the verdict did not surprise her given the track record of prosecuting police officers at the courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue. Lightfoot noted that Stephenson and McKay worked closely together in the state's attorney's office earlier in their careers."You've got a judge who is a former prosecutor who was trial partners, as I understand it, with one of the defense attorneys," Lightfoot said. "So it doesn't terribly surprise me, but it absolutely disappoints me."Unlike Van Dyke's trial, which unfolded in an intense atmosphere and drew news media from across the country, the conspiracy case was decidedly more low-key, centering mostly on dry police reports and other documents produced in the investigation of McDonald's killing.During the trial, Holmes and her team repeatedly alleged that the dashcam video was all the evidence needed to show that the officers' police reports painting McDonald as the aggressor were patently false.The camera footage shows McDonald walking south on Pulaski Road holding a folding knife in his right hand. Van Dyke, with Walsh close behind, exited his squad car, stepped toward the teen and opened fire within seconds, shooting McDonald 16 times, including at least 12 shots while the teen laid prone on the street.March, who headed up the investigation, wrote reports stating McDonald had attacked officers before Van Dyke opened fire, while Gaffney and Walsh each submitted tactical response and battery reports claiming they had been assaulted by the teen."This should have been a homicide investigation," Safer said in closing arguments in December. "Instead, Detective March shaped it from the first minute as an aggravated battery investigation with the soon-to-be deceased as the perpetrator ... and the officers -- including the officer who killed him -- as the victims."Attorneys for the three officers ridiculed the case as weak and politically motivated, brought by a special prosecutor in the midst of the ongoing fallout over McDonald's killing after the court-ordered release of the dashcam video caused a political firestorm.One of the trial's key witnesses was Officer Dora Fontaine, who testified for prosecutors that March fabricated statements attributed to her saying that McDonald had tried to attack the police with the knife."I started cursing, saying what the f---," Fontaine said of her reaction when March's report was made public in December 2015. "I was upset because I had not said that. ... It was a lie."Fontaine said her denials made her an outcast in her own department. Some called her a rat, a traitor and a snitch, she said, and implied they wouldn't back her up on the street. The situation became so fraught that, she said, her supervisors pulled her from patrol and assigned her to paid desk duty."If I was at a call and I needed assistance, some officers felt strong enough to say that I didn't deserve to be helped," she testified.The officers' attorneys cast Fontaine as a liar and an opportunist who gave conflicting statements under oath over the years.In her ruling, Stephenson clearly sided with the defense's portrayal of Fontaine. The judge noted Fontaine gave statements about the events to the FBI, city inspector general and grand jury that appeared to conflict with her trial testimony -- particularly whether McDonald appeared to be threatening police with the knife before he was shot."Fontaine tried to minimize what she saw McDonald doing with the knife in her testimony at trial," Stephenson said. "Her trial testimony was not credible."The judge also derided the testimony of Jose Torres, who was driving his son to the hospital when he witnessed the shooting from a few car-lengths away on Pulaski Road. Torres testified in November that he never saw McDonald make an aggressive move toward the police and was so shocked at the amount of shots he yelled out from his car."I was upset, and I said why the f--- are they still shooting?" Torres said. Minutes later, a police officer directing traffic ordered him to leave the scene. It wasn't until days later, after seeing a police union spokesman characterize the shooting as justified in a news report, that Torres reached out to the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigated police shootings at the time, to report what he saw. He later spoke to FBI as well.Stephenson questioned the validity of Torres' account, even concluding in her ruling he was farther away from the shooting than he'd indicated.
The Department of Labor on Thursday denied a request from Washington's mayor to make more federal employees who are working without pay eligible to collect unemployment benefits, Mayor Muriel Bowser said Thursday.The Labor Department's response to Bowser's request Monday fell on the 27th day of the partial government shutdown, the longest in US history. Most furloughed and essential federal employees missed their first paychecks last Friday, and will miss their second checks if lawmakers do not come to a consensus in time for the government to make payroll at midnight Tuesday.Furloughed employees can file unemployment claims in DC. But employees deemed essential -- who must work without pay during the shutdown -- cannot currently claim unemployment benefits. A news release from Bowser said 7,548 federal workers and contractors in DC have applied for the benefits."It is unconscionable for the Trump Administration to acknowledge that these individuals are working without pay and with no end in sight, but will not make the smallest effort to help them by allowing states to offer unemployment insurance benefits," Bowser said in the news release. "DC wants to do more and we are willing to step up. These employees continue to work, they're taking on the cost of commuting to work, yet, they're not getting paid nor are they receiving any financial assistance."
The Rite Aid drugstore chain has agreed to pay $177,000 and to follow state Medicaid rules on dispensing opioids and other drugs, in an agreement with Attorney General Maura Healey that was announced Wednesday.Healey accused Rite Aid of accepting cash payments for controlled substances from Medicaid recipients in a limited number of instances, instead of billing the agency as required by regulations. In some cases, court documents state, Medicaid had denied a claim for a controlled substance on the same day as a Rite Aid pharmacist dispensed it for cash.In the settlement agreement, filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Wednesday, Rite Aid denied violating any state law or regulation. The company currently has 10 stores in Massachusetts after selling many to Walgreens.
SPEED READ:

Teachers in Oakland, Calif., are preparing to walk out on Friday.

A potential strike vote is scheduled for teachers in Denver on Saturday.

Teachers in Virginia will rally at the state Capitol for more funding.

In Indiana, teachers are lobbying the legislature for more money -- and may take action if they don't get it.

Some Chicago charter school teachers will strike on Feb. 5 if contract negotiations aren't resolved by then.

The ongoing teacher strike in Los Angeles wont be this years only uprising of educators pushing for higher pay, better working conditions and changes to education policy.With more than 30,000 members of the United Teachers Los Angeles union off the job since their strike began Monday, teachers from half a dozen public schools in Oakland, Calif., are preparing for their own walkout on Friday. Friday is also the deadline for teachers in Denver to reach a contract agreement with their district, and the union has scheduled a strike vote for Saturday if that doesnt happen.Meanwhile, teachers in Chicago, Indiana and Virginia are all weighing various actions -- formal strikes, walkouts or other demonstrations -- over what they say is the underfunding of their schools. This follows a year in which teachers across the country -- sometimes across an entire state -- went on strike or protested in Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, Oklahoma and West Virginia."Despair is no longer a strategy, says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union, who was in L.A. earlier this week supporting the strike. They want to have the conditions they need to teach kids."Weingarten argues that the common thread in all the recent teacher uprisings is a sense of scarcity -- educators increasingly having to do more with less as a result of budget cuts or lack of investment. In response to the Great Recession, states sharply cut funding for K-12 education.What we've seen across the country is teachers sick and tired of being sick and tired, says Jim Livingston, president of the Virginia Education Association union.His group is planning a rally for their annual lobby day at the state Capitol on Jan. 28, hoping to pressure Virginias Republican-controlled legislature to bring back pre-recession levels of education funding. In the short-term, theyre supporting Democratic Gov. Ralph Northams plan to hike education spending by $268 million and give teachers a 5 percent raise.Sarah Pedersen, a U.S. history teacher in Richmond and an organizer with the activist group Virginia Educators United, says her group also supports Northams plan. Virginia Educators United plans to march on the Capitol with a few thousand people on the same day as the unions rally.Teachers expect to take leave from their schools to attend both events."The legislature needs to vote yes on the governor's K-12 education budget and find the rest to fully fund public education in the state, Pedersen says. (She even has a snappy slogan: Vote yes and find the rest.")The Virginia teachers, however, arent contemplating striking or walking out -- at least for now. Theyre focused on lobbying lawmakers and supporting like-minded candidates in state legislative elections this fall.In Indiana, pressure from teachers has "made teacher pay one of the defining issues of the current legislative session. The Indiana State Teachers Association is optimistic about its current negotiations with lawmakers, but it's not ruling out taking some kind of action.Teresa Meredith, the unions president, told the Indianapolis Star that the legislatures current proposal -- a 2 percent boost of the state's K-12 education budget in 2020 and 2021 -- doesnt cut it."We are way behind where we are supposed to be already," she said. "It's been years since there has been any sort of meaningful investment for teacher pay.In Chicago, teachers are already planning for work stoppages this year. Four Chicago International Charter Schools will see strikes on Feb. 5 unless contract negotiations are resolved.
As more people get vaccinated and states begin to roll back some of the restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic  schools, agencies and workplaces are working on a plan on how to safely return to normal.
During the last decade, I have become more aware of many friends, family members and acquaintances suffering through major traumas and tragedies. My attention has slowly pivoted towards others rather than solely being consumed with my own stress and struggles. I have found this pivoting to b
Hong Kong: Delegation to visit Sichuan, Beijing

The Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Bureau will lead a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government delegation to visit Sichuan and Beijing from January 21 to 25.

Permanent Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Roy Tang will lead the delegation to visit Sichuan from January 21 to 23 and Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip will lead its Beijing visit from January 23 to 25.

In Sichuan, the delegation will meet with officials of Sichuan and Chengdu and tour developments in the province. It will then meet officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other central ministries and departments in Beijing.

The visit arrangement has been in place since 1999 to enhance communication and exchange between the two sides.

Mr Nip will return to Hong Kong in the afternoon of January 25.

In his absence, Under Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Andy Chan will be Acting Secretary.

This story has been published on: 2019-01-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
RTHK: Trump cancels Pelosi foreign visit over shutdown

US President Donald Trump has postponed an overseas visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, citing the government shutdown. Pelosi was told less than an hour before she was due to fly out for the trip to Brussels and Afghanistan.

In a letter to the speaker, Trump said in light of the 800,000 Americans not being paid, "I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is appropriate". "Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative," he wrote.

On Wednesday Pelosi had urged Trump to postpone his State of the Union address, given the political deadlock. The White House denied that the travel blockage was payback.

The shutdown began after Trump refused to authorise funding for a host of departments because of the Democratic-led House's refusal to approve his US-Mexico border wall project.

The shutdown is felt across the country, where for almost a month FBI agents, museum workers, Coast Guard personnel and other officials have been either unpaid or absent. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2019-01-17. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.